Forget About Going Back To Normalcy-- That Does Not Exist Any Longer

Not normal: Federal Judge Sallie Kim held Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt of court for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former students of scam colleges. Kim fined Education Department $100,000 for violating the preliminary injunction. "The exceedingly rare judicial rebuke of a Cabinet secretary came after the Trump administration was forced to admit to the court earlier this year that it erroneously collected on the loans of some 16,000 borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges despite being ordered to stop doing so."

Not normal: Tulsi Gabbard pretending to be a Democrat and also still pretending to be running for president. Here's the video she sent out to her constituents last night finally telling them she's not running for Congress, though she didn't mention she has her sights set on the governors' mansion (2022)-- as a pathway to the White House (God forbid).





In her Intercept post yesterday-- Ilhan Omar Explains Why She Endorsed Bernie Sanders-- Akela Lacy explained that the once skeptical almost-Elizabeth Warren supporter was back-- firmly-- in Bernie's camp. "Sometimes," said Ilhan, "you have to be reminded about the vision you truly believe in, and where your core values lie. And for me, I know that there are people that have to switch some things around, and there are people that are just easy to believe in. And I was reminded that Bernie is one of the people."

Asked whether she meant that Warren had switched things around, Omar said, “For me.”

Most Democrats, she said, belong to the “Warren wing” of the party. “I mean it’s the one thing that everybody accuses us of. We think we’re the smartest in the room. We are very policy-oriented. We care about the details. And there is that aspect of Warren that is exciting. She has a plan for everything,” Omar said. “But there is, I think, an expansion of what universal values are, and how we should be thinking about what kind of revolutionary ideas this country needs in order for these structural changes that Warren talks about to be implemented. And that person who will carry that out is Bernie.”

Interestingly, over the past few days, the ActBlue "Bernie Congress" page-- which you can link by clicking on the thermometer on the right-- has started filling up with courageous congressional candidates who feel the same way Ilhan does. Bernie's the one... more than any of the other potential presidential nominees. He's the polar opposite of not just Trump, but also of Biden ("Status Quo Joe") who doesn't seem to understand that going "back to normalcy" will do nothing but guarantee another extreme reaction that will bring us another Trumpist kind of response from voters who are fed up with what Biden and his big money backers think is "normalcy."

UPDATE: I Was In Elizabeth Warren's Camp

Kim Williams worked as a diplomat under Obama and then worked as a university professor. Now she's running for Congress in California's Central Valley, for a seat held by a reactionary Blue Dog, Jim Costa. "Like Rep. Omar," she told us this morning, "I was in Elizabeth Warren’s camp. Anyone who’s ever heard me speak knows that I spend a great deal of time talking about policy. We simply can’t fix the many problems my district faces without bold and detailed plans. But we also need a heart, and we have to show up. And that’s what Bernie Sanders has done here. The three counties in my district are often referred to as the forgotten California. It’s the poorest district in this wealthy state, and one of the poorest districts in this nation, which probably explains why few presidential candidates make their way here. Bernie is the only candidate to have prioritized and invested in the Central Valley. Bernie has not only had the political courage to go against the media and the moneyed interests that have hurt so many working Americans long before anyone else, he has shown a genuine affection for so many forgotten people that are tired of Democrats who only care about them on election years. In his words and deeds, he has shown up, and that gives me the confidence to know he’ll show up in every way that counts as president."

Republican senators are not going to save us from Trump. We have to do that ourselves-- hopefully by replacing him with Bernie in 13 months. The House is going to impeach him and the Senate is going to find him "innocent." And then it will be up to the voters to remove Trump and his Senate (and House) enablers. National Review editor Rich Lowry dispelled the fantasy of a Trump removal for Politico yesterday. Republican senators," wrote Lowry, "will soon be receiving an invitation to tear apart the Republican Party ahead of the 2020 elections, and they are going to decline to accept it. It’s a trope of pro-impeachment commentary that it should be simple for Republican senators to swap out President Donald Trump, who puts them in an awkward position every day, for Vice President Mike Pence, an upstanding Reagan conservative who could start with a fresh slate in the runup to the 2020 election." [Feh!]

Lowry points out that the idea may sound fine but it's big flaw "is that is entirely removed from reality. If Senate Republicans vote to remove Trump on anything like the current facts, even the worst possible interpretation of them, it would leave the GOP a smoldering ruin. It wouldn’t matter who the Democrats nominated for 2020. They could run Bernie Sanders on a ticket balanced by Elizabeth Warren and promise to make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez secretary of the Treasury and Ilhan Omar secretary of Defense, and they’d still win." Don't we wish!

A significant portion of the Republican Party would consider a Senate conviction of Trump a dastardly betrayal. Perhaps most would get over it, as partisan feelings kicked in around a national election, but not all. And so a party that has managed to win the popular vote in a presidential election only once since 1988 would hurtle toward November 2020 divided.

How does anyone think that would turn out?

A lot of Trump supporters are going to want to blame the Republican establishment even if Trump loses in 2020 fair and square, with the backing of the united party apparatus. Imagine what they will think if a couple of dozen Republican senators decide to deny him the opportunity to run for reelection, without a single Republican voter having a say on his ultimate fate. It’s hard to come up with any scenario better designed to stoke the populist furies of Trump’s most devoted voters.

Trump himself isn’t going to get convicted by the Senate and say, “Well, I’m a little disappointed in your judgment to be honest. But it was a close call, and Mike Pence is a great guy, and I’m just grateful I had the opportunity to serve this country in the White House for more than three years.”

He won’t go away quietly to lick his wounds. He won’t delete his Twitter account. He won’t make it easy on anyone. He will vent his anger and resentment at every opportunity. It will be “human scum” every single day.

And it’s not as though the media is going to lose its interest in the most luridly telegenic politician that we’ve ever seen. The mainstream press would be delighted to see Trump destroyed, yet sad to bid him farewell. The obvious way to square the circle would be to continue to give Trump lavish coverage in his post-presidency. He’d be out of the White House but still driving screaming CNN chyrons every other hour.

In other words, Trump’s removal wouldn’t be a fresh start for Pence and the GOP in an accelerated post-Trump era; it would be more like getting stuck in the poisonous epilogue of the Trump era, awaiting the inevitable advent of the Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg era.

All of this is why the “cracks in the Republican Senate” coverage is so ridiculous and overwrought. It depends on the idea that GOP senators-- who, it is true, are continually frustrated by Trump’s controversies-- are on the verge of engineering their party’s own destruction. There was even some “cracks showing” analysis around Mitch McConnell saying the other day that he didn’t remember a conversation with Trump, as recounted by the president, praising his call with the Ukrainian president. The obvious explanation is that McConnell really didn’t recall such a conversation, not that the shrewdest, most realistic politician in Washington was getting ready to immolate himself and his party as soon as the articles of impeachment arrive from the House.

Mitt Romney has gotten a lot of coverage for his excoriating comments about the Ukraine mess and the Syria pullout. He really might vote to convict when it comes to it, but he’s not a broad indicator of the direction of the party. As goes Romney on impeachment ... so goes Romney on impeachment.

It’s possible to come up with a scenario in which Ukraine developments are much worse than it’s possible to imagine right now, and Trump’s support craters, even among Republicans. Then, you might have GOP senators voting to convict. This is just another path to the destruction of the party’s hopes in 2020, though, because there’s no way it would snap back from a Nixonian meltdown at the top in less than a year.

Nonetheless, Sean Eldridge's Stand Up America has decided to spend six figures trying to persuade House Republicans in swing districts to vote for impeachment-- you know, the Republicans that Trump called "human scum" the other day. Eldridge's list of targets:

• Fred Upton (MI)
• Will Hurd (TX, retiring)
• John Katko (NY)
• Francis Rooney (FL, retiring)
• Chip Roy (TX)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)
• Peter King (NY)
• Chris Smith (NJ)
• Elise Stefanik (NY)

Eldridge didn't include his own congressman, Lee Zeldin, even though he would be a perfect strategic target. "It's time for Republicans in Congress," said Eldridge, "to grow a spine and defend our democracy by supporting the impeachment inquiry, because no one-- including Donald Trump-- is above the law." (DCCC talking points.)