Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Muddying the waters

When Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn lost his North Carolina District 11 seat in Congress in the 2022 primary, he had help from Democrats. Republican voters may have found Cawthorn embarassing in the extreme, but many Democrats loathed the young extremist. Enough loathed him that they switched their registrations to unaffiliated so they could choose a Republican ballot and vote against him in the primary. Plenty of real unaffiliated voters who lean left chose to vote in the GOP primary as well.

Both could prove a problem for Democratic campaigns in 2024.

“I’m not a Republican,” wrote Theodore R. Johnson last week in the Washington Post, “but I’ll play one on Super Tuesday, March 5.” Johnson live in Virginia where an open primary allows voters registered nonpartisan to participate.

“I always cast my ballot in whichever primary is more competitive,” he explains. “In 2016, it was the Republicans’; in 2020, the Democrats’. The one constant is that deciding whose box to check is hard.”

That choice will be harder for him in 2024. The GOP presidential field is a basket of undesirables, “a master class in making a comically complex decision tragically complicated.”

Johnson elaborates:

With politics like these, it’s little surprise that most of the country avoids primary elections altogether by simply choosing not to vote. Those who do vote in general elections often stick to partisan lines that track through a tangle of cultural, ideological and social markers. Parties make the choosing easier.

But there is such a thing as too easy. The current state of our two-party system increasingly causes voters to view one of the two as tolerable and the other as a threat. It reduces complicated issues to simplistic battles of good vs. evil, us vs. them. That makes the choice quite straightforward: Vote for your side (the good guys) and against the side filled with bad people and their bad ideas. Even independents have picked a team, effectively partisans without the membership card. The simplicity of it all is a feature, not a bug. And it’s terrible for democracy. Some things, including political decisions, are supposed to be a little bit hard.

Johnson explains his thinking process without explicitly suggesting he’ll vote in the GOP primary to promote the Republican most likely to lose in November 2024.

For those unversed in how Democrats target voters for persuasion and turnout efforts, unaffiliated voters who “date around” and Democrats like those who switched to vote against Madison Cawthorn muddy the targeting waters.

In states where unaffiliated voters may vote in party primaries, choosing a Democratic ballot in a primary suggests to campaigns that an unaffiliated voter leans left and goes on the list for persuasion and turnout contacts. So left-leaning independents who vote in the GOP primary look like right-leaning independents. It lowers their Democratic support scores. That’s a problem for Democrats needing unaffiliated voters to reach a 50%+1 win margin:

Independents (UNAffiliated voters in NC) are the largest bloc of registered voters in NC: 36% (2.6 million voters). But statewide they voted against Democrats here 58% of the time in the last two elections. Democrats cannot win without them, but their traditional tactics, as [David] Pepper recognizes, focuses only on “the most frequent voters.” This tactic leaves many “removed from the political conversation” in what I’ve dubbed “No Voter’s Land.” These are voters campaigns are reluctant to contact (using the tactics of the last war, you might say) because computer scoring deems them not good bets.

In a sense, Democrats believes low-scoring UNAs are (in Seinfeld terms) not sponge-worthy. It’s not that they won’t vote with Democrats, it’s that Democrats lack the data to give them confidence that they might, so they cautiously avoid them.

Oh yes, in 2020 only roughly 17% of NC’s registered unaffiliated voters bothered to vote in the Democratic primary. In 2022, it was only 5.4%. If Democratic campaigns are relying on primary voting to steer them toward friendly independents in 2024, they’ve got a problem.

There’s not enough antacid for this

Seeing so many anti-Trump conservatives and libertarians dig in their heels in opposition to the rise of Donald Trump was at least somewhat encouraging. Yes, their efforts to secure political power had helped create the monster. But looking it in the eye was entirely different from war-gaming for a billionaire-funded think tank. The experience may not have scared them “left,” but we got to watch more than a few revaluate their trajectories in life, at least temporarily. (America loves a redemption story.) Should MAGA wither and blow away, some will backslide. Count on it.

All of which is prelude to citing David French for the second time in a month. Strange bedfellows.

President Joe Biden’s long political experience, warts and all, have prepared him for what might be the most perilous set of foreign policy crises of the 21st century. With the Israel-Hamas war dialing up, it is unclear how Biden threads the needle between supporting America’s longtime ally presently led by a lunatic and expressing compassion for innocent Gazans presently dominated by lunatics. I’m not even sure there is a needle.

The war has driven a wedge between Biden and younger and left-leaning voters. French believes Biden has the right stuff even while a recent poll shows Biden’s support slipping 11 points with Democrats (New York Times):

Consider what he confronts: a brutal Russian assault on a liberal democracy in Europe, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and an aggressive China that is gaining military strength and threatens Taiwan. That’s two hot wars and a new cold war, each against a nation or entity that forsakes any meaningful moral norms, violates international law and commits crimes against humanity.

In each conflict abroad — hot or cold — America is indispensable to the defense of democracy and basic humanity. Ukraine cannot withstand a yearslong Russian onslaught unless the United States acts as the arsenal of democracy, keeping the Ukrainian military supplied with the weapons and munitions it needs. America is Israel’s indispensable ally and close military partner. It depends on our aid and — just as important — our good will for much of its strength and security. And Taiwan is a target of opportunity for China absent the might of the United States Pacific Fleet.

The Washington Post Editorial Board devoted its Sunday editorial to China’s stepped-up provocations in the South China Sea. The U.S. is the indispensible nation to allies Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan on that side of the globe as well. Thus, the Post writes, “it’s imperative that the administration send constant reminders to Beijing and to America’s allies in the region that the United States is a Pacific power and can deal with multiple crises at once.” So far, the Editorial Board suggests, Biden is striking the right pose in the Pacific.

French continues:

And keep in mind, Biden is managing these conflicts all while trying to make sure that the nation emerges from a pandemic with inflation in retreat and its economy intact. In spite of economic growth and low unemployment numbers that make the American economy the envy of the world, Americans are still dealing with the consequences of inflation and certainly don’t feel optimistic about our economic future.

Biden is now under fire from two sides, making these challenges even more difficult. The populist, Trumpist right threatens his ability to fund Ukraine, hoping to engineer a cutoff in aid that could well lead to the greatest victory for European autocrats since Hitler and then Stalin swallowed European democracies whole in their quest for power and control.

You thought the first Trump presidency was a disaster and deadly? A second could be the apocalypse for which his evangelical cult thirsts.

French, the former National Review writer, sees in Biden a steady hand in a political climate that insists a leader overreact to every poll and public demonstration. Biden’s policies seem “fundamentally sound.”

History will have the last word on that. For now, the domestic threat from a Congress and Supreme Court dominated by MAGA lunatics and funded by self-interested billionaires is enough to recommend investing in manufacturers of antacid.

French, himself a non-MAGA evangelical, sees Biden as an American leader in the right place at the right time:

If Biden can persevere in the face of the chaos and confusion of war abroad and polarization at home, all while preserving a level of economic growth that is astonishing in contrast with the rest of the world, he’ll have his own story to tell in Chicago, one that should trump the adversity of any given moment or the concern generated by any given poll. If Biden can do his job, then he can take the stage in Chicago with his own simple pitch for re-election: In the face of disease, war, inflation and division, the economy thrives — and democracy is alive.

May we all survive the next fifteen months. Especially Joe Biden.

Pandas!

This video of pandas just being pandas while a zookeeper desperately tries to rake leaves is the best video on the internet pic.twitter.com/6kspStJ6O5

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) October 29, 2023

My friend the high school teacher told me this reminded her of her freshman class. Lol.

I think we need some more cute panda action, don’t you? (Along with a nice tall adult beverage):

I think we know the next week is going to be awful. They all are right now. But here’s a little piece from Jill Lawrence at the Bulwark about something nice and it may make you feel good for a minute or two. It’s about the Taylor Swift phenomenon and it channels my personal experience with her. I understand you mileage may vary but I have thought throughout this year as I saw all these people get caught up in the Swift tour that it was so refreshing to just see something wholesome and positive happen for a change.

Swift is an icon, a big sister, a mentor. She’s also an emphatic win for second-wave feminism and its legacy of smashed stereotypes, economic empowerment, and anti-discrimination laws. You have to be a woman of a certain age to think to yourself “sisterhood is powerful” as Swift and her female dancers line up onstage, arms across each other’s shoulders, a wall of solidarity; to think “our bodies, ourselves” while watching women of every shape, size and color own that stage.

Beyond all that, as meaningful as it is to second-wavers like me, Swift is a sorely needed role model for our times. Her triumph is not just her well documented business savvy, musical gifts, or the way she has worked for years with the nonpartisan voter-registration group Vote.org, urging her fans to participate in U.S. democracy. It’s even bigger than that, though it sounds so simple: Swift is a nice girl, not a mean girl. A sweet, considerate person who picks up the trash at a family gathering. “I don’t think she got the diva memo,” Ed Kelce, father of current boyfriend Travis Kelce, said this week in an interview with People magazine. She is the girlfriend who meets the parents, whether their famous son is an actor or a football player.

Swift is nothing but nice throughout Eras, from her special moment mid-concert with the late Kobe Bryant’s young daughter to the many times she thanks her fans for buying tickets to a three-hour-plus live concert (twice as long as A Hard Day’s Night!) that spans all of her musical “eras,” proving that it wasn’t a harebrained obsession. “It’s only because of you that I get to do that,” she tells them. By the end, she’s asked them for just one more song’s worth of their time, as if she’s imposing on them for yet another favor. As TMZ reported, Swift is also kind to those working for her. She gave $100,000 bonuses to the fifty or so Eras Tour truckers who drove her equipment around the country, and unspecified but “very generous” bonuses to others on the tour, including band members, dancers, lighting and sound technicians.

I remember mean girls from junior high school, and I’m sure they’re still around. Swift is the antidote we need, especially now. She shows young girls, women, and her many male fans that you can be a rich celebrity while also treating others with kindness and respect. You can give away extra money to people who work for you, instead of stiffing them for what they’re owed. You can be strong without threats and intimidation. You can show that kindness is not weakness. In the age of Donald Trump, these are all lessons that bear repeating.

Read the whole thing. It’s fantastic.

This embrace of Taylor and her resilience, talent, positivity and integrity reminds me that there’s a whole side of life that has nothing to do with all the ugliness I read about and see everyday and it gives me hope.

More Federal Prosecutors testify that the GOP is full of it

Oh:

The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles confirmed to congressional investigators that he declined to bring tax charges against Hunter Biden last year, but insisted his decision did not hamper the probe into the president’s son.

Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for central California who made those remarks in closed-door testimony, told the investigators that the Delaware prosecutors running the Hunter Biden probe have long been able to file charges in California. In fact, Estrada said, at least two Delaware prosecutors were given special authority to operate in California long before their boss, David Weiss, was appointed a special counsel earlier this year.

The question of why Weiss’ office has not charged Hunter Biden with tax crimes has been a topic of considerable Republican scrutiny. An IRS whistleblower has testified that Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware, faced roadblocks in charging the president’s son when Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys for central California and Washington, D.C., declined to formally partner with him.

The U.S. attorney for D.C. has pushed back against that claim. And on Tuesday, in a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee, Estrada pushed back as well. POLITICO obtained a copy of the interview transcript, which is not public.

Estrada acknowledged in the interview that, in the fall of 2022, he declined to “co-counsel” with Weiss on filing potential tax charges in California. Estrada cited the “practical impact of limited resources” for making that decision. But he said he didn’t stiff-arm Weiss; instead, according to Estrada, he offered to help in other ways.

“I discussed our analysis of facts and law to explain to him why we would not be co-counseling on the case, but then I told him that we were happy to provide office space, administrative support for his attorneys,” Estrada told investigators, recounting a five-minute phone call with Weiss on Oct. 19, 2022. “He thanked me for that and the call ended.”

Estrada also revealed that, prior to his appointment as U.S. attorney in September 2022, his office authorized at least two prosecutors from Weiss’ Delaware office to work as “special U.S. attorneys” in the central California district. Estrada said he believed that authorization meant that Weiss could charge Hunter Biden in California without his permission.

The Hunter Biden probe spans multiple jurisdictions because the president’s son was living in California and Washington, D.C., during years when he allegedly failed to pay federal income taxes.

Weiss and Hunter Biden’s lawyers came close to reaching a plea deal this summer that would have resolved the tax issues. But after the deal collapsed, Attorney General Merrick Garland made Weiss a special counsel, formalizing his ability to bring criminal charges anywhere in the country.

Weiss charged Biden with gun crimes last month in Delaware, and he has indicated in court documents that he may soon file tax charges in California. But so far, no tax charges have been brought.

Lawyers for the president’s son have said he belatedly paid taxes he owed, along with penalties and interest, in October 2021.

And then there’s this which should be in the first paragraph:

Without naming Hunter Biden, Estrada discussed how his office decides when to charge people with tax crimes.

“My understanding is where an individual has not paid taxes in the first instance but later paid those taxes with penalties and interest before a prosecution is initiated or an investigation is initiated, we have never brought criminal charges,” he said in the House Judiciary interview.

None of this matters unfortunately. It’s quite clear that the facts mean absolutely nothing in this case. The Republicans are lying about everything and it doesn’t make much difference to the press that they’re doing that. But the truth, to the extent anyone cares about it, is that the so-called “tax case” against Hunter Biden doesn’t exist. He paid those taxes late and paid the penalties and interest. Tens of millions of people do that every year and they don’t have federal prosecutors breathing down their necks.

Trump’s vocabulary, according to Bill Barr

Captain Obvious:

During an event at Harvard’s Institute of Politics on Thursday night, Barr spoke about his former boss in largely unfavorable terms. At one point, CBS Chief Correspondent Jan Crawford asked him if he thinks Trump is losing his mind. She cited the former president’s comments calling Hezbollah “very smart.”

“That was appalling,” Crawford said. “I mean, do you think he’s– is he losing it?”

“His verbal skills are limited,” Barr replied, prompting chuckles from the audience. “And so he, you know, if you get him away from ‘very, very, very,’ the adjectives sort of– they’re unfamiliar to him and they sort of spill out and he goes too far. You know, he’s not very disciplined when it comes to what he says.”

Speaking in Florida earlier this month, Trump said Hezbollah – the Iran-linked militant group – is “very smart,” which prompted ridicule across the spectrum. His comments echoed past praise of other notorious figures around the world, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Elsewhere during the program, Barr called Trump “a very petty man” and said he is running for president again for “retribution.”

“Things would start moving toward chaos,” the former attorney general said.

Moving toward chaos??? Was he sleeping the last three weeks? The last six years???

Barr has not said he wouldn’t vote for Trump, by the way. He’s not a fan of that hippie Joe Biden so…

They’re all like him now

CNN’s Harry Enten examines where Johnson is positioned within the GOP:

[There’s been] a bit of a debate about Johnson’s ideological record. Just how conservative is he? A look at the data reveals that Johnson is most certainly well to the right of the median American voter. But he is actually fairly close to the center of a Republican Party that has shifted further right in recent years.

Consider what most people have learned about Johnson: He is an ardent defender of former President Donald Trump and was a key figure in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Joe Biden, of course, was the legitimate winner of that election, and there is no real proof that he wasn’t. Most general election voters agree that Biden won the election legitimately. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that just 29% of registered voters feel he didn’t.

Among Republicans, however, 60% of them said Biden’s win wasn’t legitimate, according to that same poll. Only 23% disagreed.

Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of Republicans (70%) in a recent CNN/SSRS survey indicated that the criminal charges Trump faces over his failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election are not relevant to his fitness to serve another term. Even among the general electorate, just 49% said it should be disqualifying.

Indeed, we can’t forget that a clear majority of House Republicans (139 of them, including Johnson) voted against certifying 2020 election results from at least one state. Their votes were outside the mainstream among all House members but not within the House Republican Conference.

The same is true for an amicus brief that Johnson led supporting an effort to get the Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election results in four Biden-won states. Most House members didn’t sign. A majority of House Republican members (126) did.

The fact is, whether you like it or not, arguing that Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election is the minority point of view among Republicans today.

Johnson has also faced criticism for his position on abortion. He co-sponsored a bill to prohibit abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks.

A May Gallup poll found that 59% of Americans were opposed to such legislation, with 37% in favor. This lines up with the pro-abortion rights side winning every abortion-related ballot measure since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, including in several red states.

But take a look at what that same poll found among Republicans: A majority (61%) wanted abortion banned after six weeks. Johnson, again, is within the mainstream of his party.

Legislatively, most Southern states have enacted bans on abortion at six weeks or even earlier.

I could go on and on about Johnson’s record on different issues that many object to, and we’ll find fairly consistently that while he may not be with the median general election voter, he is with the median Republican voter.

This is best seen through aggregate statistics compiled by the academics at Voteview. Since entering the House in 2017, Johnson has built a voting record that is more conservative than 81% of all members currently serving. He is, however, only more conservative than 63% of his GOP colleagues. In other words, 37% of House Republicans are more conservative than the new speaker. That puts Johnson right in the middle third of today’s House Republican Conference.

In fact, Johnson has voted with the Republican majority 94% of the time this Congress. That almost matches the median House Republican member (93%).

To put that in perspective, take a look at failed speaker hopeful Jim Jordan. The Ohio congressman’s voting record is more conservative than 91% of other House Republicans. Unlike Johnson, Jordan really is out of the mainstream not just within Congress overall but the House Republican Conference, as well.

This isn’t to say that Johnson isn’t more conservative than the Republicans of yesteryear. It’s just that Republicans, as a whole, have become more conservative.

For example, Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers, who was first elected in 1980 and is the longest-serving House Republican incumbent, was more conservative than 59% of GOP members during his first term. He’s more moderate than over 80% of House Republicans today.

And Republican members of Congress remain representative of their voters. According to a 1982 CBS News poll, less than 50% of adults who self-identified as Republican called themselves conservative. This past year, Gallup has found that over 70% of Republicans say they are conservative.

Of course, polls also show that Democrats have become considerably more liberal over the same stretch. As a result, independents, who are about as likely to identify as moderate as they were 40 years ago, probably feel like neither party represents them.

But there are no independents in the House. There are Democrats and Republicans. And it’s in this political universe where someone like Johnson could have attained the House speakership. He’s simply emblematic of today’s GOP.

Enten isn’t being entirely honest with that last “both sides” comment.

Here’s the comparison:

Here it is from a global perspective:

Don’t blame the Democrats for the sharp rise in polarization. The wingnuts have gone full fascist. And a whole lot of Americans think it’s just great.

It’s just a matter of when

TRUMP ON PENCE: “He should endorse me…because I had a great, successful presidency”

pic.twitter.com/7LHPS3UrsB

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 29, 2023

“Weak,” “delusional,” “wimp,” “liddle,” and “gone to the Dark Side” are all insults that Donald Trump has flung at his former vice president, Mike Pence. But now that Pence has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, Trump very much wants his endorsement.

Trump, who defended his supporters chanting “Hang Mike Pence” during the Jan. 6 insurrection, spoke about the former VP at a campaign event Saturday night shortly after Pence announced the suspension of his campaign.

“People are leaving [the race] now, and they’re all endorsing me,” Trump said at a campaign event in Las Vegas on Saturday night. “I don’t know about Mike Pence. He should endorse me. You know why? Because I had a great successful presidency, and he was the vice president, he should endorse me. I chose him, made him vice president. But… people in politics can be very disloyal. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

There is no limit to the amount of humiliation Mike Pence is willing to suffer at the hands of Donald Trump. I’m only surprised he didn’t announce his endorsement when he dropped out.

Protest votes are not. They only help the worst people.

To anyone contemplating not voting for Biden over the Israel war, it’s probably a good idea to also contemplate what will replace him if you do that:

Trump: All the resident aliens that joined in the pro jihadist protests this month.. Come 2025, we will find you and deport you. pic.twitter.com/n00sGlzSnH

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 28, 2023

Trump on murdered Israels: “They’ll be avenged even beyond what you’re thinking about” pic.twitter.com/gIFcOvxSLa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 28, 2023

Trump brags about cutting off all aid to Palestinians while he was president pic.twitter.com/bOtvT3DcKV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 28, 2023

Trump promises to cancel student visas of Hamas sympathizers pic.twitter.com/3uN6dgCuxN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 28, 2023

To all those who say that it’s simply too painful for them personally to vote for the lesser of two evils, I’ll just quote that old establishment puppet Noam Chomsky who famously said, “of course you should vote for the lesser of two evils — you get less evil.”

What a healthy church needs, a healthy political party needs too

This message from a retired minister in Knox County, Tennessee has wider application than southern churches:

God may not be dead, but his church is headed for hospice if we don’t get our heads out of our ecclesiastical backsides. 

My wife and I visited a mainline church on a Main Street in a deep red southern town last month and found … the audience from a 1972 episode of Lawrence Welk.

Every hymn sounded like a dirge from the funeral I feared we had stumbled in on.  But, no, the only thing dying was this church.  We couldn’t count five people under the age of 50.

That is a problem Democrats have as well in many places. Political life in this country is dominated by a gerontocracy. That is one reason so many younger people are rejecting political parties and opting to register to vote unaffiliated. If they register. If they vote.

Churchgoing is on a steady decline. Buzz Thomas suggests that if churches don’t evolve, they will die.

That’s why things like the Southern Baptist Convention’s recent decision to oust churches that have women on their pastoral staff makes me think Charles Darwin may have the last laugh.  A church foolish enough to discriminate against the gender that does 90% of the work doesn’t deserve to survive.

Thomas offers some suggestions. First churches should stay in their lane and out of politics. That will be a hard sell to white evangelicals threatened by the shifting demographics eroding their cultural/political dominance. Rather than roll with it, they have convinced themselves that God wants them to rule the rest of us whether or not we like it. They are making concerted efforts to make it so.

People with no memory of Lawrence Welk or 9/11 have a deep focus on climate change. Climate denial doesn’t fill pews:

If you want your church to thrive in the 21st century, you’ll also need to brush up on climate change.  The number one issue for many young people is the environment. And who can blame them? They’re the ones who must live on this hot, stormy, drought-stricken hellhole we’ve created. 

What a healthy church needs, and a healthy political party too, is to let the air in and the stuffiness out:

And perhaps the most important lesson of all. If we want to reach young people, not only must we accept them – be they rich, poor, gay, straight, black, white or anything in between.  We must help them. With their careers and their marriages. With child rearing, addiction, loneliness, depression, you name it. The church should be a place where all people can find hope, a sense of purpose and a place to serve. 

Church should also be fun.  Joyful even. 

My pastor says the church should be like an Irish pub.  The thing about a good pub is you don’t have to believe in anything or behave in a particular way to go.  The first thing is community. Acceptance. Belonging. 

A woman here organizes a monthly Dem Happy Hour Social unconnected to the local party committee. People talk politics, sure, but there is no program, no pressure, no volunteer signup sheets. For newcomers, it’s far more welcoming. If they want to get more connected, well, I offer one of my cards.

Younger people will feel more welcome in local Democratic orgainzations if they have paths available to leadership not blocked by sclerotic bureaucrats. They won’t be handed the keys on day one, but they need to see that they’re not being hoarded either.

“If [churches] don’t make some serious adjustments,” Thomas warns, “20 years from now a whole lot of church buildings are going to be restaurants.”

One my favorites here is a converted church.