Partisan Realignment-- Is The Working Class Up For Grabs?

 

Cheri Bustos-- Worst DCCC Chair since her mentor Rahm by Nancy Ohanian

Blue Dog/New Dem Cheri Bustos, DCCC chair, who represents a northwest Illinois congressional district gerrymandered by the Democratic Party-controlled state legislature to elect Democrats, finally eked out a victory on Friday morning. She beat little-known Republican Esther Joy King 153, 947 (51.9%) to 142,621 (48.1%). Bustos spent $4,573,839 to King's $1,634,304. Pelosi's House Majority SuperPAC just in $1,044,002 to save Bustos in the last days of her meaningless campaign. It's tragic for the Democratic Party that she didn't lose; it would have taught them a lesson they badly need.

George HW Bush tried hard but failed to pass Reagan's NAFTA for their wealthy Republican donors. There were just too many Democrats in Congress standing up for the working class back then. When Bill Clinton defeated Bush in 1992 one of the very first things he did was to assign one of his campaign thugs, Rahm Emanuel, to force reluctant Democrats in Congress to join the Republicans to pass the bill. Members were bribed, threatened and blackmailed and it finally passed November 17, 1993, 234–200, 102 Democrats joining 132 Republicans in the House and, 3 days later, 27 Democrats (including Biden-- though certainly not Wellstone) joining 34 Republicans in the Senate in favor of ratification. What cluster fuck-- but most of the Democrats depending on working class votes and union support voted no despite Clinton and Emanuel. (And, yes, of course Pelosi and Hoyer voted for the bill.) It would be a lot easier for the Democrats to pass something like that now, although it would be more difficult to get enough Republicans behind it.

Yeah, there's been a reversal of support since then-- starting then-- for the working class, as Clinton made a play for Wall Street and corporate donors and acceded to the strings attached-- with the cooperation of congressional Democratic leadership. Don't expect any reversal of that trend with Biden in the White House. The Democrats who lost their seats on Tuesday-- or who are struggling to hang on-- were all Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the party, none of whom could be called a friend of the working class-- anti-progressive chumps like Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY), Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM), Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK), Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL), Abby Finkenauer (IA), Susan Wild (New Dem-PA), Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA), Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Angie Craig (New Dem-MN), Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA), Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)... That's a big glaring problem-- an existential one, no less-- that neither Nancy Pelosi nor Chuck Schumer understands, let alone addresses.

Yesterday Matt Taibbi asked which party is the real working class party now? What an about-face that a question like that could even be taken seriously, which, of course, it must be. "Trump lost the election," he wrote, "because of his handling of the pandemic, the top issue for 41% of voters, who chose Biden by a nearly 3-1 margin. But among people whose top concern was the economy-- 28% of the electorate-- Trump won an incredible 80% of the vote... Democrats’ conspicuous refusal to address economic inequality and other class issues in a meaningful way created an opening."

Now, Trump is likely to leave the White House, but he created a coalition that some Republicans already understand would deliver massively in a non-pandemic situation. As Missouri Republican Josh Hawley put it the night of the election, “We are a working-class party now. That’s the future.”

What happens from here is a race to see which political party can make the obvious dumb move faster. Will the Democrats, emboldened by the false high of a Biden victory, blow off the clear need to revamp their economic messaging before 2022, when they risk losing both houses of Congress?

Or will the Republican opposition give away the Trump coalition just as fast, by choosing Mitch McConnell’s donor list over Hawley’s insight?

Election Day Open Thread II

Thirteen blackbirds waiting for election results

by Thomas Neuburger

By my count we're still several hours away from knowing anything worth hearing about, and as many have pointed out,the evening will go one of two ways — Biden will win the early states (Florida comes to mind) and we can all go home, or this evening will drag out for a week or more. 

Feel free to post your own updates and observations in the comments. 

In the meantime, I've already set my emotional clock to 2021 and the new day that's soon to dawn no matter who takes the White House. Because that new day is likely to have Biden's name on it, I want to offer this, from the same Matt Taibbi piece (paywalled) that Howie quoted earlier. This is his assessment of where we're headed:

The unknown factor is how much more of this lay ahead in a Biden White House. The obvious first concerns would be increased political surveillance, much more aggressive and coordinated propaganda, more McCarthyite manias, and harsher punishments for Assange/Snowden type figures accused of leaking “misinformation” (now re-defined as true adverse information). As a member of the press, the drift toward a Chinese-style digital media landscape, policed by armies of political truth-scorers, probably bothers me more than most, but that’s on the table. There are going to be a lot of people coming back to Washington who are going to insist that something like Trump not be allowed to happen again, even if it means snipping a passage or four out of the Constitution. 

I think Taibbi's right. Two points, and then it's over to you, dear readers.

First, note the Orwellian conflation of "misinformation" with "true adverse information" that can't be allowed to appear before the public. We're already there. From the Washington Post:

We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren’t.

Get ready for a whole lot more where that came from, and get ready for Party elites, the self-styled "Democrats," to cheer it on.

Second, what Taibbi accurately called our "imperial government-in-exile" will return to power with a vengeance (the bolded passage above addresses that). That's the correct description, right? — Trump as an interregnum, a Cromwell interruption in the march of kings.

The State, both narrowly and broadly defined, has been out of power, at least at the very top, for the last four years. Think there's a chance in hell of a new Trump getting back in, much less a Sanders (as-was) or an unreconstructed AOC? My cynical self says No, not in the least.

With that sad thought, on to the tubes to witness what unfolds. Comments? Post 'em if you got 'em.

(Note: For those who like my work, I'm launching a Substack site. You can get more information here. If you do decide to sign up — it's free — my thanks to you!)

 

Election Day Open Thread, I

 

Rather than just run pre-scheduled posts like every other day, the DWT election day coverage will include open threads between posts. This is my first. I invited Tom, Noah and Ken to do likewise.

The map up top predicts a big Trump loss, even if I'm wrong about Florida and if all 3 final toss-ups go to Trump.





I know it's getting late, but I want to remind you that if you want to vote Trump out of office today, but you haven't registered to vote yet, you can still cast ballots in 19 states + DC: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming. (H/T Ari Berman)

The final set of Change Research polls of the cycle found that voters who did not vote in 2016 are supporting Biden by a 23-point margin (59% Biden, 36% Trump).They also found that Gary Johnson voters are nearly twice as likely to support Biden over Trump or Jo Jorgensen this year (44% of Johnson voters are supporting Biden, 28% Trump, 24% Jorgensen).

 

In Senate races, they found Mark Kelly (D) leading Martha McSally (R) 51-47% in Arizona, Sara Gideon (D) leading Susan Collins (R) 46-42% in Maine, Cal Cunnimgham (D) leading Thom Tillis (R) 50-46% in North Carolina, Theresa Greenfield (D) leading Joni Ernst (R) 48-47% in Iowa, but Steve Daines (R) leading Steve Bullock 50-46% in Montana. Ironically, Bullock is the only person on the list who would probably make a decent senator.

The also polled key House races:

• NE-02- Kara Eastman beating Rep Don Bacon 48-47%
• NY-24- Dana Balter beating Rep John Katko 46-44%
• OK-05- 47-47 tie between Blue Dog Rep Kendra Horn and Stephanie Bice (R)
• AR-02- 48-48% tie between Joyce Elliott (D) and Rep French Hill (R)
• IN-05- 46-46% tie between Christina Hale (D) and Victoria Spartz (R)
• MO-02- 46-46% tie between Jill Schupp (D) and Rep Ann Wagner (R)
• OH-01- Rep Steve Chabot (R) beating Kate Schroder (D) 47-45%

Yesterday, Matt Taibbi explained why he couldn't bring himself to vote for Biden-Harris: "Trump’s incompetence and influence on the darkest part of the national character make it morally impossible to vote for him. But his opponents are lying, witch-hunting scum in their own right, a club of censorious bureaucrats whose instincts for democracy and free speech hover somewhere between the mid-seventies GDR and the Church of Scientology. I thought all year I’d be able to do it, but I wake up this week unable to talk myself into voting for these people, even against Trump. What choices they give us! Thank God at least it’s about to be over. If it’s about to be over. Please, let it be over." I didn't either. But Taibbi and I need the rest of you to save the world from Trump. So, unless you live in California, Massachusetts, New York and a few other states that allow for the luxury we've availed ourselves of... do your duty today.


UPDATE

Adam Stone, publisher of Examiner Media in Mt. Kisco, New York, leans kind of conservative in an old mainstream Republican way. Today he explained why he is urging his newspapers' readers to oppose Trump.

It’s been said that Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a weak man’s idea of a strong man and a stupid man’s idea of a smart man. But that belittles the intelligence and ability to judge character of so many intelligent and genuinely kind Trump voters. (And I’m distinguishing here between Trump voters and his most vociferous rally-going, bridge-blocking supporters).

The truth is, I don’t understand why these otherwise astute, normal people fail to see through the transparent con, or at least I don’t understand why they don’t care about the man’s deep and dangerous flaws. But, as I continue to try to understand why so many people refuse to believe what they see, why they won’t condemn behavior they’d admonish from a fellow parent on the sidelines of a youth soccer field but not in the leader of the free world, I’m reminded of the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes.

“But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child reveals of the naked emperor in the fable while adults gush at the emperor’s phantom fancy clothing.

Trump might be wearing (and selling) a silly red hat but this small-minded, morally bankrupt, weak emperor is standing in front of us, stark naked. All you need to do is look and listen. Just don’t forget to believe what you see and hear. Character should trump all other considerations.

UPDATE 2

Congressional district polls that also asked about the presidential race indicate that Trump is doing even worse than the national polling shows he is. (Remember as you scan these districts the numbers are predictive of the presidential race not necessarily the House race. (In some cases House candidates are doing better than Biden and in other cases, Biden's coattails are helping them.) The districts we're looking at though, are just districts where progressive congressional candidates are in contention.

• AR-02 (Joyce Elliott)- Trump's margin was 10.7 and now Biden is leading by 3
• MI-06 (Jon Hoadley)- Trump's margin was 8.6 and he's now ahead by just 6.7
• NE-02 (Kara Eastman)- Trump's margin was 2.2 and now Biden is leading by 7
• NY-24 (Dana Balter)- Clinton's margin was 3.6 and now Biden is leading by 13
• TX-10 (Mike Siegel)- Trump's margin was 9.1 and now Biden has evened it up exactly
• TX-25 (Julie Oliver)- Trump's margin was 14.9 and he's now leading by 4

I also want to mention that there is a lot of chatter that several Blue Dogs could go down to defeat. I disagree. I hope they all lose but that hope is not going to bear fruit. One of the Washington Post columnists is predicting garbage freshmen Blue Dogs Xochitl Torres-Small (NM), Max Rose (NY), Anthony Brindisi (NY), Kendra Horn (OK), Joe Cunningham (SC) and Ben McAdams (UT) will lose. I hate to say it, but I think he's wrong. Trump's margins are down significantly in their districts. In fact, in Cunningham's district, Trump win by 13.1% and now he and Biden are essentially even. Trump won NY-11 (Rose) by 9.8 and is now winning with just 3. Trump's margin is way down in NM-02 (Torres-Small) as well-- from10.2% to just 6%. Trump won OK-05 by 13.4 and is now up by 6. Most disappointing-- for me and for many Democrats in the House who were hoping to get rid of him-- Brindisi's NY-22 shows Biden leading by, Trump having won it in 2016 by 15.5!

Can Hunter Biden Be Both Right and Wrong, Both Innocent and Guilty? Yes He Can.

The story that started the latest round of madness

 by Thomas Neuburger

If you're confused by the welter of reports around the Hunter Biden-purloined (or forgotten) laptop story, don't be embarrassed. The reporting is not just confusing, but confusingly told. Even if we divide the story into its two major parts — what the Post printed; what Facebook and Twitter did about it — and analyze them separately, things don't become more clear. Large sections of each side's version of each side of the story overlap in confusing and unremarked-on ways. 

In brief, here's what happened as Matt Taibbi describes it:

The “blockbuster” had a controversial provenance. A computer repair shop in Delaware reportedly came to possess a laptop belonging to the younger Biden. According to the Post, it contained a treasure trove of Republican oppo, including videos of the younger Biden smoking crack and having sex, and emails from a Ukrainian businessman pleading with Hunter to use connections to help the corrupt energy firm Burisma escape a shakedown.

Later, the Burisma exec appeared to thank the younger Biden for an introduction to his father. The Post strongly suggested that these emails, in conjunction with the well-known tale of Joe Biden demanding the ouster of then-General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin, represented a misuse of influence.

Soon after the story was published, we were hit with a stunner: two major tech platforms, Twitter and Facebook, took third-world style steps to limit the distribution of the story. Facebook announced that it was slowing the article’s spread on its news feed via a tweet from Andy Stone, a Facebook employee whose previous jobs included handling communications for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and for Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer [...].

That presents the two major pieces: the story in the Post, and the censorship of the story by two social media giants. Most non-right-wing writers, worried about appearing to attack Joe Biden in the run-up to the Most Important Election Ever (and who knows, maybe it is), have focused either on the censorship side of the story, or attributed the Post-published elements — the laptop and what it purports to contain — to Russian interference. (No one in the Biden camp has declared the released emails to be false, for what that's worth.)

But even focusing alone on the censorship side of the story produces confusion. Is what Facebook and Twitter did actual censorship, a traditionally bad thing in the liberal world? Or were they instead refusing to comply with "Russian interference in our election," something called an act of war not too long ago, thus giving their silence resistance-hero status? Even liberal opinion is divided on that one.

(Phil Ochs has a now-famous song about "liberals" in the 1960s. Listen again, but instead of his opening line — "I cried when they shot Medgar Evers" — substitute, "I cried when they published her emails.")

The Underlying Story

But let's look at the story itself, again through Matt Taibbi's eyes. (Part of this comes from the piece linked above and part comes from a longer, subscriber-only version of the same piece.)

As Taibbi points out, of those outlets that did cover the underlying story — the supposedly stolen laptop, the supposedly copied drive, the photos and emails it supposedly contained — mostly reported only on its electoral effect and not on the truth or falsity of its allegations. 

Even those who did report on the relations between the Bidens and Burisma did so in a binary, an on-off yes-or-no, way:

• Did Burisma use Hunter to "bribe" Joe Biden, the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine? Yes or no?

• Did Joe Biden try to get the Ukrainian investigator fired to help his son escape investigation? Yes or no?

The actual tale may be much more complex and interesting. Here's how Taibbi, who, we must remember, spent many years in Russia and "knows their ways," seems to have pieced it together. 

After a long description (well worth reading) of various machinations by Burisma's founder, a corrupt, former public official named Mykola Zlochevsky and a benefactor during the regime of ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich, Taibbi writes this:

To recap: an oligarch [Zlochevsky] whose company’s wealth was tied to embezzlement and graft was booted from power via revolution in February, 2014, causing his company’s assets to come under fire, both in Ukraine and abroad. With Zlochevsky’s former protector Viktor Yanukovich having fled Ukraine back to Russia, Burisma scrambled to shore up a new power base. Within six weeks of the revolution, the firm brought big names onto its board, including former Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, Biden, and Devon Archer, pal to Hunter and the college roommate of Christopher Heinz, stepson to John Kerry. They would later add former CIA counter-terrorism chief Cofer Black. [...]

Essentially, a mob enterprise gearing up to defend itself against international lawsuits and seizure orders hired as decorative cover an ex-president of Poland, the son of a sitting U.S. Vice President, and a close family friend and business partner of the son of the American Secretary of State — not exactly subtle, and far beyond nepotism.

The truth of these events, then, is more nuanced — less binary if not less damning — than the black-and-white lens we are offered to view them through:

The Burisma board deals were a protection scheme, funded with stolen money and designed to scare off commercial rivals and would-be regulators alike. Archer and Hunter Biden, even if they never did a minute of work for Burisma, were being paid to provide a criminal enterprise with the appearance of American protection. Similarly, if Joe Biden never actually intervened on behalf of Burisma, Hunter’s presence on Burisma’s board made it possible for anyone to argue that he was.

At best, Biden and Archer were put on Burisma's board to provide Zlochevsky and Burisma protection against their enemies in the new, unfriendly-to-Zlochevsky Ukrainian government. Whether Biden and Archer knew this or not — and how could they not know? what could this free money otherwise be for? — it corrupted them both to take those jobs. 

The Corruption That Shows the Corruption

For them to benefit from these gifts and yet be widely defended for taking them, is one more instance, as anyone with eyes must know, of institutional corruption at its core. Accepting these board positions goes "beyond nepotism," in Taibbi's phrase, to complicity with all the corruption abroad we supposedly abhor — and which we use as a reason to overthrow unfriendly governments. Yet this kind of corruption can never be prosecuted here, because our own corrupt institution — the present American state — has legalized and legitimized it. 

For example, here's Matt Yglesias, a Hunter Biden critic, making the Establishment case for Biden's relationship with Burisma: "The worst you can say about any of this, however, was that Hunter’s position on the board was a standing conflict of interest that should have been avoided. There’s no evidence that Joe did anything wrong, specifically."

That's not the worst you can say. Hunter Biden can be — and likely was — both innocent and guilty simultaneously. He didn't have to be "taking a bribe for Joe" or "just benefiting when he can" to be complicit in, and a beneficiary of, everything that's wrong with the stinking Ukrainian state. That's an overlap of ideas our modern media, and our Trump-obsessed, #BackToBrunch liberal minds, can't seem to fathom. 

I can't wait to see what happens after Biden takes the White House. No one will be going back to brunch.

  

Will We Need To Build A Wall Between Red States And America To Protect Us From The Trump Plague?

Trumpists are on the march. Members of the GOP Death Cult have been holding noisy organized protests in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Kentucky, demanding businesses be opened so they get to escape their horrid spouses and get back to their dull, unfulfilling meaningless jobs. Each of those states, other than Oklahoma, has a Democratic governor. Yesterday, on a video teleconference with governors, after another 5.2 million people filed for unemployment benefits, Trump encouraged them to start ending stay-at-home orders. If the unemployment rate hits 20% this month, which is likely, it will be the worst since the Great Depression. Trump's job approval-- according to Gallup, usually a lagging indicator-- has tumbled 6 points to 43% (his sharpest one-month decline since occupying the White House).

With conservatives and Trumpists demanding the reopening of schools and businesses, public health experts are warning that discarding social distancing restrictions-- in many cases, which need to be tightened not loosened-- will steepen, not flatten, the curve and will increase the infection and death rate. The U.S. has confirmed 638,111 cases and 30,844 deaths.

Every week seems to bring another Republican governor into the moron-of-the-week spot. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has held it for a record amount of time and was then edged out by murderous Kristi Noem (R-SD). Nebraska hereditary billionaire, Pete Ricketts, wants in on the action. Yesterday, he said, "If people want to wear masks, we certainly encourage that." Yesterday he said that wearing masks was not included in his "6 rules to keep Nebraskans healthy" because he didn’t want the rules to be too numerous. A team of Politico reporters wrote that "The only hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, is full. The mayor has asked for a statewide stay-at-home order that [Ricketts] insists isn’t needed. More than one-third of those tested for coronavirus in the surrounding county are positive-- and there aren’t enough tests to go around. Grand Island is the fourth-biggest city in a state [Señor Trumpanzee] and his top health officials repeatedly name check for keeping the virus at bay without the strict lockdowns 42 other states have imposed. Except that new cases there and in Iowa, South Dakota and other parts of the heartland are starting to spike, raising concern about new hot spots that could quash Trump’s push to reopen the economy and extend the public health crisis well into the summer." Ricketts may have lost his mind entirely. "Nebraska’s case count has jumped nearly 30 percent in the last three days, according to the state health department," wrote the Politico team. "But even as cases grow in places like Grand Island and Douglas County, home to Omaha, Gov. Pete Ricketts is adamant his plan built around voluntary social distancing is working." It isn't.

Trump and red state governors for weeks have fairly bragged about how large parts of the farm belt have escaped the ravages of the virus without the enforced shelter-in-place policies common on both coasts. It’s still unclear whether the states actually “flattened the curve,” or if the virus just reached there later. But now, cases are erupting, threatening a local population that doesn’t always have easy access to the same health care as more urban areas. And the outbreaks are striking the heart of the nation’s farming and meatpacking industry, potentially disrupting the national distribution of food as meat processing plants close down and truckers who move food across the country are sidelined by illness.

Grand Island and surrounding Hall County have 214 confirmed cases of coronavirus, nearly a quarter of the state’s total. At least 28 workers at JBS USA beef plant, Grand Island’s largest employer, have tested positive.

“The concern is where we are going, not where we are today,” said Chuck Haase, a member of the Grand Island City Council.

There are 8 states whose governors-- all Republicans, obviously-- that are still daring the pandemic to come in and kill their residents-- these 8, in order of confirmed cases as of Thursday morning-- all up since Wednesday morning:

• Utah- 2,542
• Oklahoma- 2,263
• Iowa- 1,995
• Arkansas- 1,599
• South Dakota- 1,168
• Nebraska- 952
• North Dakota- 365
• Wyoming- 288

Face To Face by Nancy Ohanian

Extreme right-wing political ideology aside, most of these states have rapidly increasing numbers of infections. Charles Branas, the chair of the Epidemiology Department at Columbia University, who developed a model tracking hospital shortages and virus outbreaks around the country, told Politico that "Perhaps there are governors who believe they have the medical capacity to deal with this [without a lockdown order] but I don’t know if that is wise, because once it gets out it can spread unabated and overwhelm any medical system of any size. Every state is at risk and should have aggressive social distancing policies." South Dakota's infection rate has increased 260% in the last 5 days (not counting yesterday's big spike), compared to New York's 26%. Sioux Falls Council member Pat Starr, who is dealing with the biggest outbreak in South Dakota, said that "Whatever we were doing wasn’t working, and it’s taking off like crazy now... My concern is that we don’t flatten the curve and so we overwhelm our medical facilities. We are not to that point yet, but we’re approaching it very quickly. We’re gonna continue to see some really high numbers, and we’re going to see people that we can’t take care of."

Iowa on Tuesday reported its single largest daily jump in confirmed cases-- roughly half stemming from an outbreak at the Tyson Foods plant in Columbus Junction. Company officials closed the facility, one of the nation’s largest pork processing plants, earlier this month.

Meatpacking plants or the egg hatchery in Grand Island, which serves 10 percent of the U.S. egg market, are considered essential to the national food distribution network-- meaning workers would gather regardless of a stay-at-home order. And outbreaks at other big agricultural facilities have occurred even in states with lockdowns.

In his column for The Atlantic yesterday, Ron Brownstein began by reminding his readers that the pandemic "appears destined to widen the political divide between the nation’s big cities and the smaller places beyond them. And that could narrow Donald Trump’s possible pathways to reelection. In almost every state, the outbreak is spreading much more heavily in the largest metropolitan centers than in less densely populated areas, even when the figures are adjusted on a per capita basis... That pattern threatens to exacerbate one of Trump’s most conspicuous political vulnerabilities: his historical weakness in big metropolitan areas that are full of the minority and white-collar white voters most skeptical of him. From the Virginia governor’s race in 2017, to a sweep of suburban House districts in 2018, to the upset victory in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race last year, Democrats have consistently posted significant gains in these areas under Trump. The pattern continued in the unexpected Democratic victory this week in a highly contested state-supreme-court election in Wisconsin, a state that could be the tipping point in the 2020 presidential race. The question for Trump this fall will be whether he can offset that weakness by matching or building on his dominant advantage in exurban, small-town, and rural communities. In Wisconsin this week, the GOP lost ground with those voters too, but by and large, polling still shows Trump holding a strong position among them. And because most rural communities are facing fewer cases of the disease so far, they may be much more receptive than big-city leaders and voters to Trump’s calls to reopen the economy as quickly as possible.

Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, was the largest county in America that Trump won in 2016. But a new poll, released this week by the Republican firm OH Predictive Insights, found Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden there by 13 percentage points. The survey also found Biden leading by nine points statewide, even though Democrats haven’t won Arizona in a presidential race since 1996. These results track with Maricopa’s movement away from the GOP in 2018, when Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema won the ordinarily Republican-leaning county by about four points.

The results in Wisconsin this week offered an even more visceral measure of Trump’s continuing risk in major population centers. In the state’s supreme-court election-- whose timing was extremely controversial, given the pandemic-- the liberal Jill Karofsky decisively ousted the conservative incumbent Daniel Kelly.

Karofsky showed formidable strength across the state’s population centers, even though they are confronting the most serious outbreaks of the disease. Although the number of polling places in Milwaukee was limited to just five, Karofsky amassed a 70,000-vote advantage in that county. She also carried Dane County, which includes the state capital of Madison, by a crushing 62-percentage-point margin. That’s far larger than Hillary Clinton’s advantage there in 2016 (48 points) or the Democrat Tony Evers’s lead in the 2018 governor’s race (51 points).

“Dane County is the fastest-growing county in the state: massive electronic-medical-records [industry], plus biotech-- and that’s not even counting the big insurance-industry component, the University of Wisconsin, and state government,” said Charles Franklin, a law and public-policy professor at Marquette University’s law school and the director of its respected public poll. “Not only does [the county] grow, but its turnout rate goes up year after year, and it’s even more Democratic from race to race to race.”

Karofsky also posted notable gains in two sets of suburban counties that are closely watched during election season. The so-called WOW counties outside of Milwaukee-- Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington-- are perhaps the most Republican-leaning major suburban counties north of the Mason-Dixon line. But, as Franklin noted, Trump won them in 2016 by less than Mitt Romney did in 2012. More recently, former Republican Governor Scott Walker carried them by a smaller margin in his losing 2018 campaign than he did in his winning 2014 race.

This week, Karofsky significantly reduced the GOP’s margin in all three counties-- not only compared with Trump’s wins, but also compared with another state-supreme-court election last year. “In the WOW counties, I believe there is something systematically happening,” Franklin said. “Though it has not converted them from red to blue, it has converted them from deep red to less red.”

Just as strikingly, Karofsky won all three of the so-called BOW counties around Green Bay-- Brown, Outagamie, and Winnebago-- which Trump had carried comfortably in 2016, and Walker more narrowly in 2018.

...[T]hese results are consistent with one of the most powerful political through lines of the Trump era: a recoil from his vision of the Republican Party among urban and suburban voters. In 2016, Trump lost 87 of the 100 largest U.S. counties, by a combined nearly 15 million votes. That was significantly larger than Romney’s 11.6-million-vote deficit in the 100 largest counties. In 2018, Republicans were routed in suburban House districts not only in metropolitan areas that were already trending toward the Democrats-- including New Jersey and Northern Virginia and Chicago, Detroit, and Denver-- but also in places where the GOP had previously remained strong, such as Richmond, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, and Orange County, California.

I'd like to remind these Republicans that healthcare workers are dying-- and far more than official data suggests. Kaiser Health News reports that "The number of health care workers who have tested positive for the coronavirus is likely far higher than the reported tally of 9,200, and U.S. officials say they have no comprehensive way to count those who lose their lives trying to save others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the infection tally Tuesday and said 27 health worker deaths have been recorded, based on a small number of test-result reports. Officials stressed that the count was drawn from just 16% of the nation’s COVID-19 cases, so the true numbers of health care infections and deaths are certainly far higher. CDC officials said data provided by the states most closely tracking the occupations of people with the virus suggests that health care workers account for about 11% of COVID-19 infections... Some states, including Ohio, have reported rates of health care worker illness as high as 20%."

Rev John Pavlovitz reminded his blog's readers that opening America now is a slap in the face to healthcare workers. (And, for some, it will be a lot worse than a slap, including a death sentence... or maybe a death sentence for members of their families.) "Opening America, began Pavlovitz. "The President keeps teasing it in his daily propaganda, ego-stroke photo op. His sycophantic surrogates repeat the refrain on social media and in press releases. Soulless partisan television hosts pound us relentlessly with it. MAGA cult members protest mask-less and in close quarters for it. This united offensive to quickly get Americans back to work, is all happening on days when we are losing over two thousand people a day, when we’ve eclipsed 644,000 confirmed cases, when 29,000 have died in the span of eight weeks.

And every single life that is threatened by this vicious, insidious illness-- falls squarely on the shoulders of healthcare workers and first responders: doctors, nurses, EMTs, lab technicians, hospital staff, police officers, firefighters.

For weeks they have labored without sleep, without rest, without enough masks to protect themselves, without enough tests to identify the relentless flood of sick people in their midst, without enough ventilators to keep the gravely ill alive; continually stepping into harm’s way to attend to this unprecedented national emergency.

As a society, do we give a damn? Pavlovitz doesn't think so. "If we did," he wrote, "if we really grasped how overworked they are and how much trauma they’ve carried and how pushed to the brink they are, we wouldn’t be talking about re-opening America right now. People wouldn’t be pressed together at state capitol buildings and stopping traffic and parading around in middle-finger-defiance of stay-at-home orders, while giving the virus the greatest boost it could ask for. If we actually respected the people who take care of us when we are at our most vulnerable, and who stand between those we love and the brink of death-- we’d be doing all we could to stay at home, to abide restrictions, to demand more safeguards, not less-- and we certainly wouldn’t be rushing people back into frequent and large scale interactions, when millions of people can’t get tested and when a vaccine is months away."

What are we saying to the people who place their lives in peril to keep us alive, when we can’t be inconvenienced a few weeks?

When we complain about not being able to get our hair colored or go to the mall or the corner bar?

When we act as if we’re being persecuted, simply by being asked to stay home and allow the grievously ill and seriously injured to receive attention and allow this virus to abate?

Of course our leaders aren’t thinking about any of this.

This President has no working empathy, and his allegedly pro-life party has shown a steadfast commitment to the Stock Market over living, breathing human beings. They are not about humanity, but profitability. I fully expected this callous disregard for life from them.

But honestly, I expected more of America... It is a time we stopped talking about opening America, and started healing it.

Manufacturing Fear and Loathing, Maximizing Corporate Profits!-- Guest Post By John Siman

John Siman penned a review of Matt Taibbi's new book, Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another for NakedCapitalism.com and Yves gave us permission to republish it. Enjoy:


Matt Taibbi’s Hate Inc. is the most insightful and revelatory book about American politics to appear since the publication of Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal almost four full years ago, near the beginning of the last presidential  election cycle.

While Frank’s topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and Taibbi’s is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite social circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class. In fact, I would strongly recommend that the reader spend some time with Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? (2004) and Listen, Liberal! (2016) as he or she takes up Taibbi’s book. And to really do the book the justice it deserves, I would even more vehemently recommend that the reader immerse him- or herself in Taibbi’s favorite book and vade-mecum, Manufacturing Consent (which I found to be a grueling experience: a relentless cataloging of the official lies that hide the brutality of American foreign policy) and, in order to properly appreciate the brilliance of Taibbi’s chapter 7, “How the Media Stole from Pro Wrestling,” visit some locale in Flyover Country and see some pro wrestling in person (which I found to be unexpectedly uplifting-- more on this soon enough).

Taibbi tells us that he had originally intended for Hate, Inc. to be an updating of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent (1988), which he first read thirty years ago, when he was nineteen. “It blew my mind,” Taibbi writes. “[It] taught me that some level of deception was baked into almost everything I’d ever been taught about modern American life…. Once the authors in the first chapter laid out their famed propaganda model [italics mine], they cut through the deceptions of the American state like a buzz saw” (p. 10). For what seemed to be vigorous democratic debate, Taibbi realized, was instead a soul-crushing simulation of debate. The choices voters were given were distinctions without valid differences, and just as hyped, just as trivial, as the choices between a Whopper and a Big Mac, between Froot Loops and Frosted Mini-Wheats, between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, between Marlboro Lites and Camel Filters. It was all profit-making poisonous junk.





“Manufacturing Consent,” Taibbi writes, “explains that the debate you’re watching is choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear it” (p. 11). And there’s an indisputable logic at work here, because the reality of hideous American war crimes is and always has been, from the point of view of the big media corporations, a “narrative-ruining” buzz-kill. “The uglier truth [brought to light in Manufacturing Consent], that we committed genocide of a fairly massive scale across Indochina-- ultimately killing at least a million innocent civilians by air in three countries-- is pre-excluded from the history of the period” (p. 13).

So what has changed in the last thirty years? A lot! As a starting point let’s consider the very useful metaphor found in the title of another great media book of 1988: Mark Crispin Miller’s Boxed In: The Culture of TV. To say that Americans were held captive by the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic.

Taibbi summarizes the history of these three decades in terms of three “massive revolutions” in the media plus one actual massive political revolution, all of which, we should note, he discussed with his hero Chomsky (who is now ninety!-- Edward Herman passed away in 2017) even as he wrote his book. And so: the media revolutions which Taibbi describes were, first, the coming of FoxNews along with Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio; second, the coming of CNN, i.e., the Cable News Network, along with twenty-four hour infinite-loop news cycles; third, the coming of the Internet along with the mighty social media giants Facebook and Twitter. The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself-- and thus of the usefulness of anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15).

For all that, however, the most salient difference between the news media of 1989 and the news media of 2019 is the disappearance of the single type of calm and decorous and slightly boring cis-het white anchorman (who somehow successfully appealed to a nationwide audience) and his replacement by a seemingly wide variety of demographically-engineered  news personæ who all rage and scream combatively in each other’s direction. “In the old days,” Taibbi writes, “the news was a mix of this toothless trivia and cheery dispatches from the frontlines of Pax Americana... The news [was] once designed to be consumed by the whole house… But once we started to be organized into demographic silos [italics mine], the networks found another way to seduce these audiences: they sold intramural conflict” (p. 18).

And in this new media environment of constant conflict, how, Taibbi wondered, could public consent, which would seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from conflict, still be manufactured?? “That wasn’t easy for me to see in my first decades in the business,” Taibbi writes. “For a long time, I thought it was a flaw in the Chomsky/Herman model” (p. 19).

But what Taibbi was at length able to understand, and what he is now able to describe for us with both wit and controlled outrage, is that our corporate media have devised-- at least for the time being-- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in order to smother real dissent (p. 21). And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.

Or pretty much so. Taibbi is more historically precise. Because of the tweaking of the Herman/Chomsky propaganda model necessitated by the disappearance of the USSR in 1991 (“The Russians escaped while we weren’t watching them, / As Russians do…,” Jackson Browne presciently prophesied on MTV way back in 1983), one might now want to speak of a Propaganda Model 2.0. For, as Taibbi notes, “…the biggest change to Chomsky’s model is the discovery of a far superior ‘common enemy’ in modern media: each other. So long as we remain a bitterly-divided two-party state, we’ll never want for TV villains” (pp. 207-208).

To rub his great insight right into our uncomprehending faces, Taibbi has almost sadistically chosen to have dark, shadowy images of a yelling Sean Hannity (in lurid FoxNews Red!) and a screaming Rachel Maddow (in glaring MSNBC Blue!) juxtaposed on the cover of his book. For Maddow, he notes, is “a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity… The two characters do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the same” (pp. 259-260).

And that effect is hate. Impotent hate. For while Rachel’s fan demographic is all wrapped up in hating Far-Right Fascists Like Sean, and while Sean’s is all wrapped up in despising Libtard Lunatics Like Rachel, the bipartisan consensus in Washington for ever-increasing military budgets, for everlasting wars, for ever-expanding surveillance, for ever-growing bailouts of and tax breaks for and and handouts to the most powerful corporations goes forever unchallenged.

Oh my. And it only gets worse and worse, because the media, in order to make sure that their various siloed demographics stay superglued to their Internet devices, must keep ratcheting up levels of hate: the Fascists Like Sean and the Libtards Like Rachel must be continually presented as more and more deranged, and ultimately as demonic. “There is us and them,” Taibbi writes, “and they are Hitler” (p. 64). A vile reductio ad absurdum has come into play: “If all Trump supporters are Hitler, and all liberals are also Hitler,” Taibbi writes, “…[t]he America vs. America show is now Hitler vs. Hitler! Think of the ratings!…” The reader begins to grasp Taibbi’s argument that our mainstream corporate media are as bad as-- are worse than-- pro wrestling. It’s an ineluctable downward spiral.

Taibbi continues: “The problem is, there’s no natural floor to this behavior. Just as cable TV will eventually become seven hundred separate twenty-four-hour porn channels, news and commentary will eventually escalate to boxing-style, expletive-laden, pre-fight tirades, and the open incitement to violence [italics mine]. If the other side is literally Hitler, … [w]hat began as America vs. America will eventually move to Traitor vs. Traitor, and the show does not work if those contestants are not eventually offended to the point of wanting to kill one another” (pp. 65-69).

As I read this book, I often wondered about how difficult it was emotionally for Taibbi to write it. I’m just really glad to see that the guy didn’t commit suicide along the way. He does describe the “self-loathing” he experienced as he realized his own complicity in the marketing processes which he exposes (p. 2). He also apologizes to the reader for his not being able to follow through on his original aim of writing a continuation of Herman and Chomsky’s classic: “[W]hen I sat down to write what I’d hoped would be something with the intellectual gravitas of Manufacturing Consent,” Taibbi confesses, “I found decades of more mundane frustrations pouring out onto the page, obliterating a clinical examination” (p. 2).

I, however, am profoundly grateful to Taibbi for all of his brilliantly observed anecdotes. The subject matter is nauseating enough even in Taibbi’s sparkling and darkly tragicomic prose. A more academic treatment of the subject would likely be too depressing to read. So let me conclude with an anecdote of my own-- and an oddly uplifting one at that-- about reading Taibbi’s chapter 7, “How the News Media Stole from Pro Wrestling.”

On the same day I read this chapter I saw that, on the bulletin board in my gym, a poster had appeared, as if by magic, promoting an upcoming Primal Conflict (!) professional wrestling event. I studied the photos of the wrestlers on the poster carefully, and, as an astute reader of Taibbi, I prided myself on being able to identify which of them seemed be playing the roles of heels, and which of them the roles of babyfaces.

For Taibbi explains that one of the fundamental dynamics of wrestling involves the invention of crowd-pleasing narratives out of the many permutations and combinations of pitting heels against faces. Donald Trump, a natural heel, brings the goofy dynamics of pro wrestling to American politics with real-life professional expertise. (Taibbi points out that in 2007 Trump actually performed before a huge cheering crowd in a Wrestlemania event billed as the “battle of the billionaires.” Watch it on YouTube!-- unbelievable!!)





The mainstream corporate media, on the other hand, their eyes fixed on ever bigger and bigger profits, have drifted into the metaphorical pro wrestling ring in ignorance, and so, when they face off against Trump, they often end up in the role of inept prudish pearl-clutching faces.

Taibbi condemns the mainstream media’s failure to understand such a massively popular form of American entertainment as “malpractice” (p. 125), so I felt more than obligated to buy a ticket and see the advertised event in person. To properly educate myself, that is.

On the poster in my gym I had paid particular attention to the photo of character named Logan Easton Laroux, who was wearing a sweater tied around his neck and was extending an index finger upwards as if he were summoning a waiter. Ha! I thought. This Laroux chap must be playing the role of an arrogant preppy face. The crowd will delight in his humiliation! I imagined the vile homophobic and even Francophobic abuse to which he would likely be subjected.

On the night of the Primal Conflict event, I intentionally showed up a little bit late, because, to be honest, I was fearing a rough crowd. Pro wrestling in West Virginia, don’t you know. But I was politely greeted and presented with the ticket I had PayPal-ed. I looked over to the ring, and, sure enough, there was Logan Easton Laroux being body-slammed to the mat. Ha! Just the ritual humiliation I anticipated! But I had most certainly not anticipated the sudden display of Primal Conflict wit that ensued. Our plucky Laroux dramatically recovered from his fall and adroitly pinned his opponent as the crowd happily cheered for him, cheered in unison, cheered an apparently rehearsed chant again and again: ONE PER CENT! ONE PER CENT!

So no homophobic obscenities??Au contraire! Here was a twist in narrative far more nuanced than anything you might read in the New York Times!

Soon enoughI realized that this was wholesome family entertainment. The most enthusiastic fans seemed to be the eight- and nine-year-old boys. (A couple of the boys were proudly wearing their Halloween costumes.) There was no smoking, no drinking, no foul language, no sexual innuendo of any sort, and, above all no racial insults-- just the opposite: For both the wrestlers and the spectators were a mix of white and black, and the most popular wrestler was a big black guy in an afro wig who “lost” his bout to a white guy who played a cheating sleazebag heel named Quinn. Also, significantly, there was zero police presence, and zero chance of any kind of actual altercation. When the night was over the promoter stood at the exit and shook the hand of and said good-bye and come-back to each of us departing spectators-- sort of like, well, a pastor after church in a small southern town as his congregation disperses.

So here I was in the very midst of-- to use Hillary Clinton’s contemptuous terminology-- the deplorables. But they weren’t the racist misogynistic homophobes Clinton had condemned. The vibe was that everyone liked all the wrestlers, even the ones they had booed, and that everyone pretty much liked each other. During intermission the promoter called out a birthday greeting to a spectator named John. A middle-aged black guy stood up to a round of applause. He was with his wife and kids.

Where was the hate?

In other words, to what extent are the hatreds so hauntingly described by Taibbi largely confined to the same affluent demographic silos in which they are manufactured? To what extent is ignorance of the corporate media-- the legacy media-- the prestige media-- a kind of relative bliss? To put it bluntly, would the United States be, on balance, a better country if tomorrow morning, by the waving of some magic wand, MSNBC and FoxNews both vanished into thin air? And then CNN? And NPR? And the New York Times and the Washington Post too? These hypothetical questions are not at all difficult for a reader of Taibbi to answer.

Who Would Benefit From A Biden Presidency? And Who Would Benefit If A Progressive Won Instead?

Sleazy lawyer and multimillionaire, Vicente González bought his South Texas congressional seat in 2016 by spending $1,850,000 of his own money against progressive primary opponent Juan Palacios, Jr. González tricked the gullible Congressional Progressive Caucus into endorsing him, went on the radio and made fun of them and their issues and immediately joined the Blue Dogs, where he quickly ran up an "F"-rated voting record. Since 2016 his record has never veered away from a low "F" rating. Vicente González is a member in good standing of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party; when you hear someone use the word "Democrap," they are describing Vicente González and others like him. It was only a matter of time for someone like González to endorse Biden. And yesterday he announced he was withdrawing his endorsement of fellow Texan, Julián Castro, and bestowing it on the more ideologically copacetic Biden. Of Biden's 13 endorsements from current House members, 10 are from conservative New Dems and Blue Dogs. Former House members who have endorsed him are not just New Dems and Blue Dogs, but are also primarily lobbyists, like Al Wynn and Richard Swett. And lobbyists love Biden-- and Biden loves lobbyists.

At the same time González was doing Biden a solid by stabbing Castro in the back, Our Revolution was sending out an e-mail to its list reminding members that "Since his campaign launched, and throughout Thursday's debate, Joe Biden has been trying to scare Americans away from supporting Medicare for All. His lowest moment was when he told seniors in Iowa that under Bernie's plan, 'all the Medicare you have is gone.' In reality, of course, Bernie's proposal does not strip Medicare from seniors; it makes Medicare available to everyone. Corporate Democrats like Joe Biden are backed by unlimited special interest money. They will do anything-- even misrepresent the truth-- to stop us from guaranteeing health care as a human right... President Obama openly said in 2018 that Medicare for All is a 'good idea,' and we could not agree more with Joe Biden's former boss. However, even Obama's endorsement of Medicare for All won't stop Joe Biden from doing everything he can to stop us from guaranteeing health care as a human right in America."

Biden should withdraw from the race and go sit in the corner with a dunce cap on. Ole Status Quo Joe was at it again, this time privately praising pharmaceutical companies, at a high dollar fundraiser in Dallas, despite publicly (and obviously falsely) "supporting" initiatives to cut drug prices. He's a real piece of crap. Bernie: "At a time when their behavior is literally killing people every day, America needs a president who isn't going to appease and compliment drug companies-- we need a president who will take on the pharmaceutical industry-- whether they like it or not. When we defeat Donald Trump, that's exactly what we are going to do."

As Eoin Higgins reported Friday for Common Dreams, Bernie's campaign is also pushing back on Biden's lies about Medicare-for-All. Faiz Shakir, Bernie's campaign manager: "Having a real debate about the healthcare crisis in America is critically important. It's disappointing Joe Biden is echoing the deceptions and falsehoods of the healthcare industry which is spending millions to protect the $100 billion in profits they made last year... Joe Biden may love the insurance industry and the outrageously high premiums, co-payments, and out-of-pocket expenses they charge us. Most Americans don't. It is time to create a healthcare system that works for all of us, and not just the insurance companies and the drug companies."

Business Insider ran an interesting experiment to determine act would happen if all the flotsam and jetsam dropped out now, leaving just Biden, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren as the contenders for the nomination. Bernie and Elizabeth would both surge while Biden has the least to gain. Yep, Status Quo Joe is the one who currently benefits the most from such a large field.

Over the past several weeks, three candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have distinguished themselves as frontrunners: Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Yet, at the close of the September primary debates, there are still a total of 18 candidates in the race, most of whom have virtually no shot at becoming president. Biden is polling at an average of roughly 30%, Warren at 19%, and Sanders at 18%, according to an aggregation from RealClearPolitics. The next-closest candidate, Kamala Harris, is stuck at 7%.

The hanger-on candidates are basically real-life statistical noise, making it harder to discern who's actually likely to win the primary race by detracting polling points from their opponents in the lead.

So: What if we just got rid of them? How would things shake out between Biden, Bernie, and Warren?

Thanks to the unique way Insider conducts its polls, we can test exactly that. Unlike most polling organizations, Insider/Surveymonkey's poll asks would-be voters which candidates they would be happy with if they were to become president, rather than naming just one candidate. Using that data, we ran a mathematical model that analyzed what it would look like if we eliminated every candidate except for the top three and re-allocated those voters to Biden, Sanders, and Warren.

If we Thanos-snapped Harris, Buttigieg, Booker, O'Rourke, Yang, Klobuchar, Castro, Bennet, Bullock, Delaney, Gabbard, Ryan, Williamson, Steyer, and De Blasio out of existence, here's what the field would look like, according to the polls we've conducted this summer:

For Biden, we'd have a situation where 30% of his fans would like him and him alone, 37.4% percent deciding between him and Sanders or him and Warren, and a third of his supporters fine with all three.

That's compared to a current situation where 16.1% of those satisfied with him are satisfied with him alone, 15% have him as one of two choices, and 18% have him as one of three candidates they're satisfied with.

For Sanders, we'd have 24% of his backers liking him alone, 42% supporting either Warren or Biden, and a third liking all three.

Right now, 15% of his supporters like him alone, 18% of them like him and just one other person, and 19% like him and two other people, with the remaining supporters deciding between four or more. Those numbers are better than Biden's.

For Warren, 15% of her fans would approve of her and her alone, which is three times her current level but still half of Biden's lockdown rate. 51% of them would be satisfied with her and one other person, and a third would approve of all three.

As of now, only 5% like her and her alone, 12% like her and one other person, and 19% like her and two others.

It's also important to note that some things don't change. As of now, overall, Warren is known and satisfactory for 45% of Democrats, about 46% of respondents know of Sanders and would be satisfied with him, and 47% would be fine with Biden. Those numbers are the same whether you've got three contenders or 19.

Does Schumer Get To Decide For Colorado Democrats Who Their Nominee For Senate Is?

Why do you want a Democratic Senate?

I hope it isn't to further the career ambitions of Democrats. I hope it is because you want to see progressive nominees confirmed and because you want to see the progressive agenda debated and passed. That means banning the sale of assault weapons, passing Medicare-For-All, working on the Green New Deal framework that AOC introduced, lowering the cost of pharmaceuticals, passing the guaranteed jobs program, immigration reform, passing a free state college plan, passing criminal justice reform, making sure the rich pay their fair share of taxes, etc. A Democratic Senate that doesn't do anything will be doomed in 2022 and the last thing we need are more conservative shitheads walking around and calling themselves senator and blocking progressive programs the way Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, Mark Warner, Tom Carper, Jacky Rosen, Michael Bennet and Chris Coons do today. In other words, the last thing we need is someone like Sarah Riggs Amico, replacing David Perdue (R-GA), Ben Ray Luján replacing Tom Udall (D-NM), or John Frackenlooper replacing Cory Gardner (R-CO).

Wouldn't Frackenlooper be better than Gardner. Sure-- sometimes greatly better, in other ways a bit better. But he would also be doing something Gardner, as a Republican, can't do-- pulled an already timid cowardly Democratic caucus further right... and muddying the Democratic brand. Colorado already has a suck-ass conservative corporate Democrat in Michael Bennet. How about a real progressive Frackenlooper has never been and will never be?

Matt Taibbi explained it in terms of Climate for Rolling Stone readers yesterday: What Lieberman was to antiwar Democrats, Colorado’s Hickenlooper is to environmentalists. He starts by cursing out Brooklyn asshole, Little Chucky Schumcky-- without mentioning him by name-- for telling the DSCC to endorse Frackenlooper despite a lively primary with several viable candidates. Schmucky never learns his lesson. Just trying to tell Colorado Democrats who their candidate is should be enough reason to reject Frackenlooper. Taibbi, however, has many more. "If there is such a thing as an anti-climate Democrat," he wrote, "it’s John Hickenlooper, no matter what the DSCC says about voting for him to 'act on climate.' West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin may have raised eyebrows by backing Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accords, but Manchin never bragged about drinking a glass of Hallibutron fracking fluid, as Hickenlooper once did. Hickenlooper’s devotional act remains part of the reason he’s known by the nickname Frackenlooper.

As governor, he threatened to sue towns that restricted fracking enterprises, and followed through more than once. He led a fight against a ballot measure allowing communities to restrict fracking development.

Hickenlooper just dropped out of the presidential campaign, after spending about $2.3 million to play human asterisk aside more progressive opponents. Debate moderators were glad he was there to call on when they wanted to accuse other candidates of being too radical. Apart from that, Hickenlooper’s presidential campaign highlight was probably comparing Medicare for All to Stalinism.

The fork in Hickenlooper’s back began to be visible in early June, when he was barely audible through a cacophony of boos at the California Democratic Convention. The crowd howled when he said he opposed the Green New Deal because you can’t defeat climate change by “giving every American a government job.”

Hickenlooper had people booing the words “public option.” It was like watching the Unknown Comic address the Bundestag. There are Democrats who are uninspiring on the stump, but Hickenlooper is one of the party’s few outright gong acts with liberal voters.

Still, why not run for Senate, in a race Democrats desperately need if they want to regain the chamber? One reason might be that as recently as February, Hickenlooper gave a speech in which he said, “I’m not cut out to be a Senator.” Apparently, he has too much of an executive temperament for the job.

Despite this, and despite the fact that Hickenlooper’s in-state approval rating has plunged eight points since his punchline presidential run, the party is backing him against a large field of primary contenders that includes former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. Doing so sets up the Colorado Democratic primary to be a flashpoint contest similar to the Connecticut Senate primary of 2006, with Hickenlooper as the V-neck sweatered analog to Joe Lieberman.

Back then, Lieberman’s bomb-happy advocacy for the War on Terror created an open party schism. Antiwar Democrats were forced to challenge Lieberman via the candidacy of Ned Lamont, winning a primary thanks largely to grassroots and Internet advocacy.

The party and much of the national punditocracy responded with horror to Lamont’s 2006 primary win. David Brooks of the New York Times famously said it proved “Polarized primary voters shouldn’t be allowed to define the choices in American politics.”

Though Lieberman ultimately retained his seat by running as an independent, the 2006 Connecticut primary standoff showed support of the Iraq war was no longer a tenable position within the Democratic electorate. This began a change in party consensus on that issue (even if the Democrats remain divided on the issue of military intervention overall).

A similar situation is developing with regard to climate issues. While Green New Deal proposals and urgent climate action are popular with Democratic voters, neither the party itself nor much of the national press seem to have warmed up to the idea. The unspoken logic behind backing Hickenlooper is that name recognition and proven fundraising ability trump all in tossup races.

On the other hand, Colorado is now a solidly a blue state. The incumbent Senator Cory Gardner is its only statewide office-holding Republican. Polls suggest any Colorado Democrat would fare well against Gardner, among the more unpopular Senators. The state just elected a very liberal governor. If ever there were a time to observe the Prime Directive of non-interference, it would be in a Colorado Senate race.

Outright endorsements by the DSCC in primaries are not common, but when they have happened, the beneficiary tends to be the party’s idea of an “electable” moderate. In 2016, the committee backed Karen McGinty over Tom Fetterman in Pennsylvania. She lost to Republican Patrick Toomey. This year it’s backed several “moderates” already, including Nancy Pelosi acolyte Ben Ray Lujan in New Mexico, against another Green New Deal/Medicare for All candidate, Maggie Oliver.

The endorsement of Hickenlooper would have made sense under back when politicians who took gobs of industry money could believably market themselves as moderates or centrists. Today, voters see corporate donations as competition. They don’t want to share political leaders with oil and gas companies, or health insurance companies, or weapons contractors.

By deciding to publicly back Hickenlooper, who has a history of lavish support from energy companies, the Democratic Party is making a statement about what side of the corporate donation argument it backs. It seems determined to sink or swim with its Hickenloopers and Joe Manchins, continuing to push the unconvincing line that hackery is synonymous with electability.

It took Joe Lieberman taking a primary L for the party to see the light about Iraq. Perhaps Colorado will be the scene for an epiphany on climate change.

If you'd like to rub Schumer's nose in shit-- or elect progressives to the Senate instead of conservatives... well that's what the Blue America 2020 Senate thermometer above is for. Andrew Romanoff and Maggie Oliver both can use some help-- as can our country's fragile democracy, which is being threatened, not just by Trump and the GOP, but by older authoritarian Democrats like Schumer and Pelosi.