Is Donald Trump Likely to Resign?

Thanks to Trump's mismanagement of the Covid-19 outbreak, the U.S. is on the verge of becoming the Typhoid Mary of major industrial nations

by Thomas Neuburger

Donald Trump's resignation is a topic on many lips these days. Chris Hayes, in a dramatic moment at MSNBC, called for Trump to resign over his mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic (deservedly so), and at least one newspaper editorial board has called for Trump to step down, as has Washington Governor Jay Inslee.

Michael Gerson at the Washington Post called for Trump's resignation because of "diminished moral capacity" related to his alleged callous indifference to the alleged Russian bounties offered for American lives in the Afghan theater of war.

Note that there are a lot of "if"s in these bounty reports — Gerson himself leads his argument with "If, as reported by multiple news sources" — while skeptics think it's awfully convenient timing that leaks from ... who? "American intelligence officials," who proudly admit to lying ... have reached the Times just as the Trump administration is working on Afghanistan peace agreements that could get the U.S. out of a war it's been waging for almost 20 years. (Whether the U.S. has been waging the war successfully or not depends on what you think the U.S. considers success. If military occupation counts as success, we've succeeded. By any other measure, we've failed.)

Analysts are also speculating that Trump could leave office voluntarily or be forced out. Robert Kuttner wrote at The American Prospect that Trump may leave on his own, since nothing seems to be going his way lately and the minute he's unelected he'll be subject to quite a bit of prosecution. Kuttner's speculation hinges on the possibility that Trump could pre-emptively negotiate a deal for resigning that amounts to a giant "Get out of jail free" card.

"Trump may conclude," writes Kuttner, "that he has more leverage to cut the best possible deal with all players while the bargain includes a widely wished-for resignation, rather than after he loses an election and his term merely ends. At that point, Trump’s opponents have no incentive to make deals, and a pardon only goes so far."

Sounds plausible to me, but I've been wrong before.

Others feel that increased pressure from Republicans leaders, fearful of losing both the White House and the Senate in November, will cost him critical support within his party. Most of those discussions are private at the moment, but they are many. The question is the method — how to get him to go.

Which brings us back to the Russian bounties story. Will that carry such weight with the American people that his already "crummy" approval rating (39%) and poll numbers (nearly 10 points below Joe Biden) will drop even further? If so, could a combination of public shaming and deep unpopularity force him out of office?

Sounds unlikely to me, but I've been wrong before.

The Typhoid Mary of Major Industrial Nations

Something that might force his resignation, though, is low on people's radar, but it shouldn't be — the EU travel ban on Americans entering Europe. Consider the following from CNN (emphasis added):

What EU's new border rules mean for travelers
Updated 1st July 2020

(CNN) — The European Union has formally agreed a set of recommendations that will allow travelers from outside the bloc to visit EU countries, months after it shut its external borders in response to the outbreak of Covid-19.

As had been widely expected, the list of 14 countries does not include the United States, whose current Covid infection rate does not meet the criteria set by the EU for it to be considered a "safe country."

The criteria requires that confirmed Covid cases in countries on the list are similar or below that of the EU's per 100,000 citizens over the previous 14 days (starting from June 15).

Countries must also have a "stable or decreasing trend of new cases over this period in comparison to the previous 14 days," while the EU will consider what measures countries are taking, such as contact tracing, and how reliable each nation's data is.

The US has not only the highest number of reported coronavirus infections of any nation, currently 2,590,582, but also the highest number of deaths, at, 126,141, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

US infection rates will need to dramatically drop if Americans are to be allowed entry to European countries, just as the European tourism industry enters what are traditionally its peak months.

The recommendations are expected to come into force as early as July 1, however, it remains up to member states to decide exactly how the implement any changes in border policy.

According to CNN, exemptions may be offered to "EU citizens or family members of an EU citizen; long-term EU residents or family members; those with an 'essential function or need,' such as diplomats, healthcare workers or certain agricultural workers."

Does being wealthy, powerful or connected count as an essential function? How will business travelers be affected? Would Charles Koch be allowed in? Would a high-ranking official of, say, Apple, on her way to a meeting with a German corporate counterpart, be counted as having a need to enter Europe? What if Charles Koch or the Apple CEO wanted merely to look in on their eighth farm in France, bringing the grandkids for a visit? Would they be allowed in?

If yes, how far down the wealth or corporate ladder would one need to be before the ban would apply? Would mere millionaires qualify? How about junior VPs at smaller companies? The questions, once exemptions are granted, are endless.

The Feckless Administration

Which brings us to Donald Trump and his resignation. The following two things are true:

First, U.S. Covid infection rates are never going to drop under the current regimen and under this administration. They will never come down except naturally, if the virus recedes on its own, period. Trump and his administration are structurally incapable of making this better, and yahoo U.S. governors are incapable of not making this worse.

Second, this will be true from now until January 2021 when the next president is sworn in, and perhaps beyond.

The American people can be told to suffer and bear with it, but they don't travel to Europe. Our bipartisan betters do, however, and this includes our Republican betters. If the Europeans are as strict as, frankly, they ought to be, do you think that powerful and wealthy Republicans, many of whose lives are essentially international, will tolerate a travel ban for the next six months?

When and if Republican elites decide that European governments are serious, that France, Germany, Italy and the rest won't let most of them in, I'll bet any money in the world that Donald Trump will be offered a deal, and both parties will be party to crafting it — even if it means letting Vice-President Pence run as an incumbent on the November ballot.

And, if Robert Kuttner is right about Trump's legal needs post-election, I'll also bet he takes it.
  

Does Trump Have The Coronavirus? Pence Too?

Fake Magic by Nancy Ohanian

You may only know Michael Gerson as a Washington Post columnist who leans right. But he's much worse than that. A member of the neolib warmonger Council on Foreign Relations and a top George W. Bush speechwriter from 2001 'til 2006 he can proudly take a great deal of credit for the catastrophic invasion of Iraq.

As you can probably imagine, he has a very different vision of the presidency than I do. I can think of no better short term solution to our current Trump-created disaster than Trump and Pence both getting coming down with severe cases of COVID-19 and dying quickly, first Trump and then, an hour later, Pence. An elite #NeverTrumper, his vision was in his column yesterday. "Every time Vice President Pence appears for a coronavirus briefing," he wrote, "it is a reminder what the votes of just 20 Republican senators for impeachment might have accomplished for the republic."

Pence is no Franklin D. Roosevelt, but neither is he an obviously outmatched leader like his boss. The vice president is a sycophant but not an incompetent. He possesses the type of qualities one might find in an effective governor facing a hurricane. President Trump possesses the qualities one might expect in a shady businessman trying to shift responsibility for bad debt and mismanagement-- which was the main leadership qualification on his pre-presidential résumé.

Never has the phrase "President Pence" had a better ring to it. Never have Republican votes against impeachment seemed more shortsighted and damaging to the country.

I’ll not deny that a presidential election is always something of a crap shoot. Before his own election as president, even FDR was no FDR. Walter Lippmann thought that the New York governor’s record showed “that he just doesn’t have a very good mind, that he never really comes to grips with a problem which has any large dimensions, and that above all the controlling element in almost every case is political advantage.”

Lippmann badly underestimated FDR. But we now have plenty of evidence to judge our current president. Trump just doesn’t have a very good mind-- or at least one capable of absorbing and repeating essential facts. He can’t come to grips with a problem that has large dimensions-- as displayed by his habitual lateness and indecision. And his controlling element is political-- particularly in his contemptible attempt to shift political blame.

The point here is not simply to condemn Trump, which has limited usefulness in the midst of a national crisis. At this point it is perhaps better to ignore him, which is precisely what governors and mayors across the country are doing to good effect. But Americans do need to recall this moment the next time they enter a voting booth.

In nominating and electing Trump, Republicans were making the claim that presidential character matters for nothing. That only his policy views and judicial appointments really count in the end.

Two months ago, every Republican senator except Sen. Mitt Romney publicly reaffirmed this argument. By voting against impeachment for Trump’s abuse of power, they were also denying that presidential temperament and judgment should be given serious weight in our public life. They were saying, in effect, that a trivial leader was sufficient for a trivial time. Who cares about integrity, wisdom and public spirit when the stock market is rising and the economy is booming?

They should have cared. We all should have cared.

It was impossible to elect Trump without mentally shrinking the presidency to fit him. A president, we were told, didn’t really need to have governing experience. He didn’t need to care about the truth. He didn’t need to be civil or unifying. He didn’t need to be a diplomat. He didn’t need to be a pastor.

But suddenly, governing skill is the antidote to panic. Trust in the truthfulness of public officials is essential to public health. Unified action is central to the safety of the vulnerable. Global cooperation is necessary for any national strategy to work. And leadership will increasingly require the ability to express empathy and to comfort those dealing with inexplicable loss.

It has recently been common in our politics to assert that the establishment has failed, that our institutions and systems are corrupt, and that we need political disrupters to shake things up or burn things down. This is now revealed as the political philosophy of spoiled children.

We no longer have the luxury of apocalyptic petulance or the language of faux revolution. We need trusted experts to carry hard truths. We need our systems and institutions to bear enormous weight. We need public officials to encourage an orderly urgency, to repair what is broken and to calm irrational fears.

Perhaps all these lessons will be quickly forgotten once the emergency is lifted. But it would be better if this period were known as the “Great Sobering,” when our country relearned the high stakes of politics, the indispensability of public character and the importance of a functioning president.

Meanwhile, since Gerson brought up FDR, let me ask you to imagine that the Democrats in Congress from 1932 on were as spineless and cowardly as the Democrats in Congress today. The Democrats whop passed the New Deal were nothing at all like the Democrats Wall Street Journal reporters Siobhan Hughes, Natalie Andrews and Kate Davidson wrote about yesterday, "The Democratic-led House scaled back a paid-leave program that the chamber had tried to enact days earlier, following pressure from businesses worried about financial burdens from the sweeping bill in response to the coronavirus crisis. In revised legislation that Democratic leaders billed as a technical correction, but represented a significant rewrite, the House modified a program aimed at providing paid leave to people affected by the coronavirus." Imagine Mitt Romney-- and even Trump-- getting to the left of Pelosi and her team of cowardly losers!

If John Oliver is going to continue doing his show during the pandemic, he absolutely needs a canned laugh track. Or maybe I'll just get used to this; he seems to have-- more or less:

Trump's Agenda-- And Personal Insecurities-- Are Hammering Rural Voters From Every Angle

Jason Butler is the newest candidate Blue America has endorsed. He's running for a North Carolina seat (NC-02) that is about half suburban and half rural. The incumbent, George Holding, is just a good-for-nothing corporate shill and Trump rubber-stamp and enabler. Butler was fuming the other day because Holding had voted against HR 265, this year's Agricultural and Rural Development Appropriations Act. The Act includes:

• Appropriates $1.3 billion to the Agricultural Research Service for salaries and expenses (Title I).
• $2.8 billion for guaranteed farm ownership loans
• $1.5 billion for farm ownership direct loans
• $1.9 billion for unsubsidized guaranteed operating loans
• $1.5 billion for direct operation loans
• $37.7 million for emergency loans

"Trump," said Butler, "doesn’t seem to understand that he’s not on a television show any more-- this is a real life reality show and he’s killing the American farmer with his reckless ego competition with the Chinese. That’s because he’s completely out of touch with the reality of hard working Americans. He’s lived in a penthouse his whole life. His local minion, George Holding, is no different. Holding recently voted against that Agriculture and Rural Development legislation which allocates desperately needed funds to agencies which directly assist our American farmers. Half of Holding’s district is rural farming communities. It seems these two won’t stop at anything until all the wealth in America belongs to the rich."

The Nebraska Corn Board and the Nebraska Corn Growers Association sent out a scorching press release this week-- and it was Trump who got scorched. Trump did very well in Nebraska in 2016. He won 91 of Nebraska's 93 counties and beat Hillary 495,961 (58.75%) to 284,494 (33.70%). It was even better for Trump in the most rural counties. The massive 3rd congressional district takes up over three quarters of the state and is bigger than New York state. It is 86% rural. Trump won NE-03 with 74.9% of the vote, one of his biggest wins anywhere in the country. Those corn farmers bought into the Times Square hustler hook line and sinker. "As harvest approaches after an extremely difficult year for agriculture," wrote the Nebraska Corn Board team, "many Nebraska corn farmers are outraged by the Trump administration’s lack of support for the American farmer. The Nebraska Corn Board and the Nebraska Corn Growers Association call upon the administration to fulfill its promises and to abide by the law and uphold the integrity of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)." NE-03 isn't going to abandon Trump in 2020. He'll win that district and ridiculous closet queen Adrian Smith (R) will be reelected to Congress. But NE-01 is probably lost to Trump and NE-02 is teetering.

President Trump’s administration continues to erode the RFS by granting 31 unjustified refinery waivers, destroying demand for corn and ultimately choosing to bail out the oil industry rather than helping American farmers. Corn farmers are already suffering from ongoing trade disputes, uncertain weather and continued low prices.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” said David Bruntz, chairman of the Nebraska Corn Board and farmer from Friend. “All we’re getting is lip service. At one moment, we think President Trump is on our side, and then the refinery waivers come through. It’s truly a slap in the face. Farmers are hurting and it just keeps getting worse.”

Along with undermining the RFS, the U.S. has made little progress in trade. A new deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada still has not been reached and tensions continue to escalate between the U.S. and China.

“Many of our corn farmers have stood with Trump for a long time, but that may soon change” said Dan Nerud, president of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association and farmer from Dorchester. “Trump needs to uphold the law and his commitment to our nation’s corn farmers by making the RFS whole and bringing trade agreements to the finish line.”

Nebraska Corn urges you to stand up for our state’s corn and ethanol industries by telling the Trump administration to stop stripping the RFS. Rural America is under attack and now is the time to act.

One of the few congressional districts as Trumpified as NE-03 is the equally rural south east Missouri district occupied by-- what a coincidence-- another closet case, Jason Smith. Progressive activist Kathy Ellis is taking him on this cycle and this morning she told me that "In the past year, Missouri has seen a 96% increase in farm bankruptcies. Our local economy is suffering in the 8th District, and while Jason Smith visits farmers and takes pictures on his 'farm tour,' he isn't working towards any real, sustainable solutions for our agricultural economy. Perhaps Rep. Smith could have less photo opps and instead ask farmers what they'd like to see change in the district. They know best, and Smith has continually ignored them to instead be a rubber stamp for Trump's damaging policies."

J.D. Scholten is running in the Iowa equivalent on NE-03, Steve King's beleaguered IA-04. The district is 75% rural and gave Trump a 60.9% to 33.5% win over Hillary. Last year, though, rural communities were beginning to catch on. J.D. made a persuasive, progressive case against Trump and King and-- with no help from the DCCC whatsoever-- came close to winning, holding King down to just 50.4% of the vote. Of the 39 counties in the district, J.D, won 5 and fought King to a tie in 5 others. J.D. won the first, second, third and fifth most populated counties: Story, Woodbury, Cerro Gordo and Webster and came within a tiny handful of voters in some of the most rural farming counties in the state, like Buena Vista, Hamilton, Winnebago, Greene, Emmet and Audubon. The soy bean farmers in these counties know Trump has destroyed the soy bean market forever and that it's never coming back. They voted for Trump and he ruined their lives.

J.D. told us that "King has left behind the renewable fuel folks for years. It didn’t shock anyone when he endorsed one of the biggest anti-ethanol folks in D.C., Ted Cruz, for president in 2016. The corn growers and the renewable fuels industry are looking for solutions and leaders. If we are going to get carbon-neutral or decarbon, renewable fuels are a part of that equation. But instead, Trump’s EPA is rewarding oil giants like Exxon Mobil and Chevron with RFS waivers, saving them hundreds of millions of dollars while corn growers and folks who work in the renewable fuels industry are struggling just to get by. Trump and his cronies like King will keep lining the wallets of the oil industry at the expense of our farmers."


Audrey Denney's opponent is Trump enabler Doug LaMalfa in the northeast corner of California, one of the most rural districts in the state. Today she told us that "the Trump Administration policies are directly hurting farmers all over the country. According to the American Farm Bureau, farm bankruptcy filings for 2019 through June were up 13 percent from 2018 and loan delinquency rates are on the rise. North State farmers are asking for trade policies that expand markets and immigration reform that helps them get the labor they need. Congressman LaMalfa-- a farmer himself-- has failed to be an advocate for the industry he represents. I’ve worked in agriculture education my entire career and can’t wait to fight for North State farmers and ranchers when they send me to DC."

But rural support for Trump isn't just about soybeans and corn. In his Washington Post column yesterday, Michael Gerson wrote about why white evangelicals should panic. "Much white evangelical support for President Trump," he wrote, "is based on a bargain or transaction: political loyalty (and political cover for the president’s moral flaws) in return for protection from a hostile culture. Many evangelicals are fearful that courts and government regulators will increasingly treat their moral and religious convictions as varieties of bigotry. And that this will undermine the ability of religious institutions to maintain their identities and do their work. Such alarm is embedded within a larger anxiety about lost social standing that makes Trump’s promise of a return to greatness appealing... But this is not, by any reasonable measure, the largest problem evangelicals face. It is, instead, the massive sell-off of evangelicalism among the young. About 26 percent of Americans 65 and older identify as white evangelical Protestants. Among those ages 18 to 29, the figure is 8 percent. Why this demographic abyss does not cause greater panic-- panic concerning the existence of evangelicalism as a major force in the United States-- is a mystery and a scandal. With their focus on repeal of the Johnson Amendment and the right to say 'Merry Christmas,' some evangelical leaders are tidying up the kitchen while the house burns down around them."

Gerson further explains that there is, ironically, an allergic reaction to the religious right. One of the main rationales for the very existence of this movement was to assert the role of religion in the public square in America. And, instead, what’s happening in that very movement has actually driven an increasing share of Americans out of religion. This alienation preceded the current president, but it has intensified during the Trump era.

If evangelicals were to consult their past, they would find that their times of greatest positive influence-- in late-18th-century and early-19th-century Britain, or mid-19th-century America-- came when they were truest to their religious calling. It was not when they acted like another political interest group. The advocates of abolition, prison reform, humane treatment of the mentally disabled and women’s rights were known as malcontents in the cause of human dignity.

Today, far too many evangelicals are seen as angry and culturally defensive, and have tied their cause to a leader who is morally corrupt and dehumanizes others. Older evangelicals-- the very people who should be maintaining and modeling moral standards-- have ignored and compromised those standards for political reasons in plain view of their own children. And disillusionment is the natural result.

Trump Regime-- A Culture Of Corruption Far Beyond Swamps

The Swamp by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday, House Democrats put out the details of HR-1, their first bill in the new Congress, a sweeping anti-corruption bill aimed at showing they want to stamp out the influence of money in politics and guaranteeing that all American citizens really do have the right to vote. Most Americans-- by a huge majority and regardless of party-- want Congress to pass legislation that will get the influence of money out of politics. Trump would never sign any such anti-corruption bill even if Schumer-- probably not a fan either-- were to somehow persuade McConnell to allow it to be voted on by the Senate. But by making anti-corruption appear to be a real-- their No. 1-- priority, House Dems stick a thumb in the eye of Republicans, although it will be interesting to see how equally corrupt New Dems try to water the legislation down.

Elizabeth Warren’s Senate anti-corruption bill was introduced in the House by John Sarbanes (D-MD) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). Sarbanes and Pelosi introduced the new details of the Democratic package yesterday. The bill itself should be ready by January 3, the first day of the new session. These are the 3 main planks:

Campaign finance

• Public financing of campaigns
• Passing David Cicilline’s DISCLOSE Act, which requires Super PACs to make their donors public.
• Passing the Honest Ads Act, which forces Facebook and Twitter to disclose the source of money of political ads on their platforms.

Ethics

• Requiring presidents to disclose tax returns.
• Stopping members of Congress from using taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment cases or buy first-class plane tickets.
• Giving the Office of Government Ethics the power to do more oversight and enforcement and put in stricter lobbying registration requirements.
• Create a new ethical code for the US Supreme Court, ensuring all branches of government are impacted by the new law.

Voting rights

• Creating new national automatic voter registration that asks voters to opt out, rather than opt in. Early voting and online voting would also be promoted.
• Restoring the Voting Rights Act and ending partisan gerrymandering in federal elections.
• Beefing up elections security, including requiring the Director of National Intelligence to do regular checks on foreign threats.

Ironically, just as Pelosi and Sarbanes were introducing the details of HR-1, the Washington Post was publishing an OpEd, Trump’s inner circle has always been a cesspool, by Republican columnist Michael Gerson, a neo-con and former Bush administration official. Writing of longtime Trump crony and advisor, Roger Stone, Gerson noted that he “has raised the I’m-a-mendacious-windbag defense— essentially claiming that he is a serial liar who inflated his own contacts and influence to get attention. This has a level of credibility. He is, in fact, a mendacious windbag. But the argument ‘Believe me now, I have always been an inveterate liar’ has practical, as well as logical, limitations.”

Here is one fact beyond dispute. Look at the men whom Trump has traditionally surrounded himself with: Stone, Corsi, Paul Manafort, Cohen. These are some of the least reputable people in American politics. Trump’s inner circle has always been a cesspool.

And there is a reason for this-- a reason Trump has traditionally employed unethical people to serve his purposes. It is because he has unethical jobs for them to do, involving schemes to remove political threats and gain electoral advantage. And there is every reason to believe that Trump has fully participated in such schemes.

Hours later, a pissing match broke out between Raúl Grijalva, the next chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, and one of these corrupt Trumpists, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Zinke flipped out when he read Grijalva’s USAToday OdEd, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke must resign. His multiple scandals show he's unfit to serve. “Ryan Zinke,” he began, so no would miss the point, “needs to resign immediately as Secretary of the Interior. I take no pleasure in calling for this step, and I have resisted it even as questions have grown about Mr. Zinke’s ethical and managerial failings. Unfortunately, his conduct in office and President Donald Trump’s neglect in setting ethical standards for his own cabinet have made it unavoidable. While the secretary continues to project confidence, questions have grown since the election about his future plans, and the White House reportedly fears that he would be unable to withstand scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Those fears are justified. Mr. Zinke has never even tried to offer an explanation for the sheer scope of his well-documented scandals.

This silence is insulting to the American people, and given the Nov. 6 election results it is unsustainable. Continuing in office as though nothing has changed only shows how little Mr. Zinke has learned over the past year and a half. He holds his job as a public trust, not as a stepping stone to his further personal ambitions. He has abused that trust and damaged the Interior Department in the process. The least he can do is step down and give his successor a chance to begin reversing that damage.

Zinke is embroiled in scandals and nepotism

It’s worth recounting how far that abuse went on Republicans’ watch. As has been widely reported, an Interior Department inspector general investigation of Mr. Zinke-- one of at least 17 publicly known formal probes of either him or his department since he took office-- was recently referred to the Justice Department.The referral centers on a land development project called 95 Karrow in Mr. Zinke’s hometown of Whitefish, Mont., involving David Lesar, the chairman of oil contractor Halliburton; his son John; and a Montana property developer named Casey Malmquist. The proposal would increase the value of land controlled by Mr. Zinke’s family.

I am the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees the Interior Department, and earlier this year I asked my staff to look into this relationship. They discovered that Mr. Zinke met with all three men on Aug. 3, 2017, in his office, then led them on a private tour of the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. Zinke's public calendar does not include the attendees of the meeting or of the Lincoln tour-- we know about this only because Mr. Zinke’s scheduler mentioned it to him in a personal email.

When three of us on the committee publicized that finding in our call for an investigation of 95 Karrow, we had no idea where the facts would lead. The important thing to us was that Mr. Zinke not be allowed to treat his office as a source of personal enrichment. The fact that the Justice Department was alerted is Mr. Zinke’s fault, not the fault of the media or anyone else his office has chosen to blame.

While a referral to Justice should not be taken lightly, the case against Mr. Zinke ultimately rests on much more fundamental grounds. Beyond his personal foibles, he has overseen the degradation of his department’s senior work force in the name of enforcing “loyalty” to himself and the Trump administration; announced his intention to cut thousands of permanent positions; prompted mass resignations from a nonpartisan National Park Service advisory board by refusing to meet with members; and tied his own employees and aides in knots to make himself and his wife more financially comfortable.

These are not the hallmarks of an effective leader. We would hardly look the other way at the mayor of a small town, let alone a cabinet secretary, who faced unending ethical questions, formal investigations and substantiated claims of attempted nepotism.

His policy direction at Interior is equally unfortunate. He has overseen the dumbing down of science, often with a partisan edge. On his watch, rather than advancing their agencies’ multiple-use mission for public lands, many on staff spend their days relaxing environmental and permitting standards for fossil fuel companies. They are forced to remove mentions of humans’ climate change impacts from official reports.

They are instructed, above all, to make President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda the sole guiding principle of environmental policy, regardless of the consequences. That's even though the giveaways it entails are so extreme that a spokeswoman for the pro-industry Western Energy Alliance once said they exceeded even her funders’ wildest expectations.

Zinke scrutiny will only intensify if I'm chairman

As ranking member, I have sent dozens of unanswered letters seeking information about Interior Department policies and Mr. Zinke’s conduct. Should I chair the committee in January, as I hope to do, those questions will only intensify as part of my and my colleagues’ legitimate oversight duties. If Mr. Zinke stays, stonewalling in the belief that a cabinet secretary answers only to Trump would be a mistake.

Such scrutiny will extend to his successor, who should not be encouraged by Mr. Zinke’s example. Doing whatever you like and then leaving office a half-step ahead of a formal investigation is not public service, especially if you end up working for an industry you formerly regulated. The election results were about clean government as much as any particular policy choice, and the next Interior secretary will be watched as closely as the one before.

The American people need an Interior Department focused on addressing climate change, enhancing public recreation, protecting endangered species and upholding the sovereign rights of Native American communities. These are not matters of personal preference-- they are enshrined in law and supported by voters. The department needs someone accountable at the helm who believes in this mission.

Mr. Zinke is not that person. Federal agencies cannot function without credible leadership, and he offers none. He needs to resign.

Zinke responded like a righteously indignant pre-teen-- so, basically, like Trump-- with a nasty and personal tweet, demonizing Grijalva:

Do You Know Voters So Disillusioned By Government They're On The Fence About Voting In The Midterms? Send Them These Essays By Conservatives Max Boot, George Will And Michael Gerson

-by Skip Kaltenheuser

Despite democracy’s diminishment by gerrymandering and the playbook of suppression, your vote is still your best Hail Mary defending against the Big Money’s low art of the thinly disguised bribe. It’s your best chance to sink the oligarchy floating in on the tides of captured government. Don’t toss it away in despair like another lottery ticket that didn’t pan out.

If you need fresh perspectives, try some from the conservative end of the spectrum. Here are several from writers unable to keep their heads in the sand.

Max Boot, a former opinion page editor for the Wall Street Journal who now writes for the Washington Post, sent a shock when he excommunicated himself from the Republican Party. Here’s a few lines from a July writing, I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over.



“Should I stay or should I go now?” That question, posed by the eminent political philosophers known as the Clash, is one that confronts any Republican with a glimmer of conscience. You used to belong to a conservative party with a white-nationalist fringe. Now it’s a white-nationalist party with a conservative fringe. If you’re part of that fringe, what should you do?”

"Veteran strategist Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, is the latest Republican to say “no more.” Recently he issued an anguished Twitter post: “29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of the Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life,” he wrote. “Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.”

Last Supper of the 2nd Year by Nancy Ohanian

On Halloween, Boot did a long riff off Joe Biden’s stump phrase, “I’m sick and tired of…”. After an impressive listing of nauseating things Republicans have averted their gaze from or been complicit with, Boot throws all Republican candidates into the abyss. Vote against all Republicans. Every single one.

“...Most of all, I’m sick and tired of Republicans who feel that Trump’s blatant bigotry gives them license to do the same-- with Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) denouncing his opponent as an “Indo-American carpetbagger,” Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis warning voters not to “monkey this up” by electing his African American opponent, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) labeling his “Palestinian Mexican” opponent a “security risk” who is “working to infiltrate Congress,” and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) accusing his opponent, who is of Indian Tibetan heritage, of “selling out Americans” because he once worked at a law firm that settled terrorism-related cases against Libya."

"If you’re sick and tired, too, here is what you can do. Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren’t for Trump. Don’t believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection. If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. That’s the only message they will understand."

Republican Values by Nancy Ohanian

George Will. Who can resist an opportunity to say you agree with George Will? I readily give him plaudits for his writings on the travesty of the death penalty, but there’s also this, from an essay in early summer, Vote Against the GOP This November.

"Amid the carnage of Republican misrule in Washington, there is this glimmer of good news: The family-shredding policy along the southern border, the most telegenic recent example of misrule, clarified something. Occurring less than 140 days before elections that can reshape Congress, the policy has given independents and temperate Republicans-- these are probably expanding and contracting cohorts, respectively-- fresh if redundant evidence for the principle by which they should vote.

The principle: The congressional Republican caucuses must be substantially reduced."

"In today’s GOP, which is the president’s plaything, he (Trump) is the mainstream. So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him."

Will does go on to have things both ways, hoping that Senate and House machinery could be as gummed up under Democrats as it was under Republicans, which sort of loses his thread of logic. He’s best when avoiding tangential head-scratchers that show off his researchers' liberal arts kitchen sink approach. But he does get to a central point, “…the unimportance of Republican control.” I confess to admiring some turns of phrase, like “Consider the melancholy example of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (WI-01), who wagered his dignity on the patently false proposition that it is possible to have sustained transactions with today’s president, this Vesuvius of mendacities, without being degraded.” “Vesuvius of mendacities”, that's a keeper.

I was slower to include an August 9th essay by Michael Gerson, The only way to save the GOP is to defeat it.

That's not just because I see the GOP as irredeemably corrupt and in need not of saving but of slipping beneath murky waters for the third time, but because whenever I seen Gerson I think of the phrase he penned for Condoleeza Rice, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” That was a major pillar of the ruinous Iraqi WMD fraud by W and his band of neocons, and of all the hellish tragedy it continues to pour from Pandora’s Box. I can’t listen to Gerson without dubbing him “the smoking mushroom.”

     

But I digress. I don’t want to add legitimacy to Gerson’s recurring message that Democrats had best embrace so-called centrism, aka Republican Light. Or his notion that voters should vote strategically for Republican Senate candidates who are “mainstream". There are no mainstream Republican candidates. And there are certainly no Lowell Weickers, no Mark Hatfields. There are only those who will go along to get along, with Trump and Mitch McConnell. They’ll play the electorate for saps while doing the bidding of the Big Money, much of it dark in origin and purpose. And they'll pluck the strings that make the lowest common denominators sing.

But I do want to cherrypick a few of Gersen’s points, including the importance of exposing administration corruption. "Under Republican control, important committees-- such as Chairman Devin Nunes’s House Intelligence Committee-- have become scraping, sniveling, panting and pathetic tools of the executive branch. Only Democratic control can drain this particular swamp.”

Gerson gives a good account of the consequences of Republicans retaining control of the House:

Alternatively: If Republicans retain control of the House in November, Trump will (correctly) claim victory and vindication. He will have beaten the political performances of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in their first midterms. He will have proved the electoral value of racial and ethnic stereotyping. He will have demonstrated the effectiveness of circuslike distraction. He will have shown the political power of bold, constant, uncorrected lies. And he will gain many more enablers and imitators. Perhaps worst of all, a victorious Trump will complete his takeover of the Republican Party (which is already far along). Even murmured dissent will be silenced. The GOP will be fully committed to a 2020 presidential campaign conducted in the spirit of George C. Wallace-- a campaign of racial division, of rural/urban division, of religious division, of party division that metastasizes into mutual contempt.

The Emperor by Nancy Ohanian

Exactly why Gerson’s concerns don’t also apply to Republican control of the Senate escapes me. But after meandering with the conservative columnists’ obligatory genuflections to Reagan and Bush the Elder, he gets to a decent finish. "In a democracy, a vote is usually not a matter of good and evil. It is a matter of weighing competing goods and choosing lesser evils. The possible outcomes this November come down to this: Trump contained, or Trump triumphant... In this case, a Republican vote for a Democratic representative will be an act of conscience."

Because there are too many Democrats that are so-called centrists, an increasingly non-descriptive term that drips with wishy-washy, there needs to be a thumping victory by Democrats. It needs to be big enough to increase progressive heft that pulls the party back toward the traditions of FDR, and out of the clutches of the Big Money. That’s not a quick and easy, but the effort needs to get underway the day after the election, ignoring the pundits crowing about magic in the middle of the road. As Jim Hightower put it, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos."

Much has been made that of those independent voters who view both Democratic and Republican parties as turkeys, there’s a growing shift to viewing Democrats as the lesser turkey. My worry is that voting for the lesser turkey isn’t all that much of a motivator to show up at the polls. But if you know potential voters who are sitting back until they see a solid dime’s difference, send these essays along to them, particularly the one by Boot that minces no words. More years of the current clowns in charge is not a luxury our democracy has, every day brings new risk.

And maybe send along the hour long version of that Clash song to aid their mulling things over.

Trump Coninues Making The Case For The Implementation Of The 25th Amendment

Tweeter by Nancy Ohanian

We've talked about Dr. Bandy Lee's best-selling book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President before. Now there are reports that White House staffers contacted Dr. Lee about Trump's cognitive deterioration and bizarre, erratic behavior. White House staffers contacted her-- twice-- because they judged Trump to be "unravelling." As you know Trump has called himself a "very stable genius." The NY Daily News reported that political psychologist Dr. Bart Rossi told them that Trump has been exhibiting narcissistic behavior and it has been getting worse as the pressures of the office mount and the federal Russia probe stretches on. 'I see someone who has a real narcissistic problem,' Rossi told them. 'The problem is he is narcissistic to the extreme. He’s self-absorbed to the point where he’s only concerned about himself. The other problem is that he has a thought disturbance. When Donald Trump says something he expects others to believe it is reality even if it is completely fabricated. We’re in very dangerous territory.' Rossi said his analysis is based on Trump's public statements and is made in the context of political psychology."

Now, put that together with Michael Gerson's Washington Post piece this morning, "We Are A Superpower Run By A Simpleton," in which he points out that this is the essence of the Trump Era. "From a foreign policy perspective, this is far worse than being run by a skilled liar. It is an invitation to manipulation and contempt. What we are finding from books, from insider leaks and from investigative journalism is that the rational actors who are closest to the president are frightened by his chaotic leadership style. They describe a total lack of intellectual curiosity, mental discipline and impulse control... Trump pursues no deep or subtle strategies. He does not even consistently seek his own interests. He responds like a child or a narcissist-- but I repeat myself-- to positive or negative stimulation. It is the reason that Trump’s lawyers, in the end, can’t allow him to be interviewed by Robert Mueller. It would be like a 9-year-old defending a PhD dissertation. Or maybe a rabbit jumping into a buzz saw."



On Thursday, Elizabeth Warren told a CNN reporter that "If senior administration officials think the president of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment. The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the vice president and senior officials think the president can't do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the president-- take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds... Every one of these officials have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It's time for them to do their job... What kind of a crisis do we have if senior officials believe that the president can't do his job and then refuse to follow the rules that have been laid down in the Constitution? They can't have it both ways. Either they think that the president is not capable of doing his job, in which case they follow the rules in the Constitution, or they feel that the president is capable of doing his job, in which case they follow what the President tells them to do."

This is what the Republican Party has leading them into the November midterm elections. And do they ever deserve what's coming their way! This is what you nominated, elected and still enable and support, Republicanos. This is what you have inflicted on your country... you fucking assholes:

What Would Freud Do? by Nancy Ohanian

Half-Witted Intolerance

Yesterday, in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson, described a societal problem of Trumpism in terms of social psychology. It reminded me of George Orwell's post-World War II writing. And Huxley's Brave New World pre-World World War II masterpiece. And Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (1968). There were other authors who tackled the dystopian problems that Trump is thrusting on us today, Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451), Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games), Stephen King (The Running Man). "Human beings," wrote Gerson, "are wired to favor their ingroup and to view people in outgroups as interchangeable and dispensable. We are willing to form ingroups at the drop of a hat, based even on minor characteristics. We tend to believe that bad things that happen to people in our ingroup are bum luck, while bad things that happen to people in outgroups are evidence of a just universe. Because we are inherently predisposed toward stereotyping, we are particularly vulnerable to propaganda." In a Trumpian Age that's a real problem.

In West Virginia, Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of creating jobs for "China people" and getting donations from his "China family" (McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, was born in Taiwan). In Georgia, Republican gubernatorial candidate Michael Williams drives around in a bus he promises to fill with "illegals" who will be deported to Mexico. On the rear is stamped: "Murderers, rapists, kidnappers, child molesters, and other criminals on board." In Arizona, Republican Senate candidate (and former sheriff) Joe Arpaio is a proud "birther" with a history of profiling and abusing Hispanic migrants. Vice President Mike Pence recently called Arpaio "a great friend of this president, a tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law." In Wisconsin, Republican House candidate Paul Nehlen runs as a "pro-white Christian American candidate."

Randy Bryce is the progressive Democrat in Wisconsin who will prevent Paul Nehlen-- or some Paul Ryan clone-- from following Paul Ryan as the congressman for southeast part of the state. "Our campaign," he told me today, "was launched by stating we need a bigger table. Not only does everyone deserve to be heard, but, everyone deserves to begin the race from the same starting point. I am committed to working on that and will not rest until it becomes a reality. I will not sit down while nobody else is standing up to a man in the White House referring to people as animals. Every member of Congress who is silent now needs to be silenced in their ability to represent us come November. There is only one thing that I refuse to tolerate. That thing is intolerance."

Yes, these are fringe figures. But they are fringe figures in a political atmosphere they correctly view as favorable. In the Republican Party, cranks and bigots are closer to legitimacy than at any time since William F. Buckley banished the John Birch Society.

For some of us, this was a concern from the beginning of Donald Trump's rise-- not just the policies he would adopt but the attitudes he would encourage and the passions he would provoke.

...Whatever else Trumpism may be, it is the systematic organization of resentment against outgroups. His record is rich in dehumanization. It was evident when Trump called Mexican migrants "criminals" and "rapists." When Trump claimed legal mistreatment from a judge because "he's a Mexican" (Judge Gonzalo Curiel was born in Indiana). When he proposed a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." When Trump attacked Muslim Gold Star parents. When he sidestepped opportunities to criticize former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. When he referred to "very fine people" among the white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville. When he expressed a preference for Norwegian immigrants above those from non-white "shithole countries."

This is more than a disturbing pattern; it is an organizing political principle. And it has resulted in a series of radiating consequences.

First, it has given permission for the public expression of shameful sentiments. People such as Blankenship, Williams, Arpaio and Nehlen are part of a relatively (and thankfully) small political group. But the president has set boundaries of political discourse that include them and encourage them. Even when Trump opposes their candidacies, he has enabled the bolder, more confident expression of their bigotry. The Trump era is a renaissance of half-witted intolerance. Trump's Christian supporters in particular must be so proud.

Second, Trump's attacks on outgroups have revealed the cowardice of a much broader faction within the GOP-- those who know better but say little. Some leaders (see House Speaker Paul Ryan) have been willing to criticize specific instances of Trump's prejudice. But few-- and very few with a political future-- have been willing to draw the obvious conclusion that Trump is prejudiced, or to publicly resist the trend toward prejudice among the GOP base.

Third, Trump's attitudes toward diversity have moved the center of gravity of the whole GOP toward immigration restrictionism. In Republican Senate primaries such as the one in Indiana, candidates have engaged in a competition of who can be the most exclusionary. Mainstream attitudes toward refugees and legal immigration have become more xenophobic. Trump has not only given permission to those on the fringes; he has changed the Republican mean to be more mean.

The good news about bias against outgroups is that it can be mitigated. And that, in fact, describes the high calling of a democratic leader-- to set an aspiration of unity, to speak the language of empathy, to emphasize our common goals, our common values and our common fate as a people. The GOP waits on leaders who will make these tasks their own.

Blue America isn't waiting for Republican leaders who will make these tasks their own. We're waiting for the November midterms to steer America away from the path Republicans are on. Alan Grayson was an Orlando area congressman when he turned my on to Philip K. Dick's books. I wish other members of Congress understood dystopian visions as fully as he does. Today he told me that "Trump thinking is Neanderthal thinking, and look what happened to them. The things that make us different are the things that make us special. Our differences are not something to be tolerated or overcome; our differences are to be cherished."

Trump Deserves No Loyalty-- Quite The Opposite

Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speech-write and a self-described "pro-life conservative," got it right at the Washington Post yesterday, when he described his elation at the defeat of Roy Moore and the election of Doug Jones in Alabama. "Trump and his admirers," he wrote, "are not just putting forth an agenda; they are littering the civic arena with deception and cruelty. They are discrediting even the good causes they claim to care about. They are condemning the country to durable social division. In Trump’s GOP, loyalty requires corruption. So loyalty itself must be reconceived."

What would weaken the grip of Trump on the GOP? Obviously not moral considerations. The president has crossed line after line of decency and ethics with only scattered Republican bleats of protest. Most of the party remains in complicit silence. The few elected officials who have broken with Trump have become targets of the conservative media complex-- savaged as an example to the others.

This is the sad logic of Republican politics today: The only way that elected Republicans will abandon Trump is if they see it as in their self-interest. And the only way they will believe it is in their self-interest is to watch a considerable number of their fellow Republicans lose.

It is necessary to look these facts full in the face. In the end, the restoration of the Republican Party will require Republicans to lose elections. It will require Republican voters-- as in Alabama and (to some extent) Virginia-- to sit out, write in or even vote Democratic in races involving pro-Trump Republicans. It may require Republicans to lose control of the House (now very plausible) and to lose control of the Senate (still unlikely). It will certainly require Trump to lose control of the presidency. In the near term, this is what victory for Republicans will look like: strategic defeat. Recovery will be found only on the other side of loss.

Even if moral arguments do not suffice, the political ones are compelling. Trump and his allies are solidifying the support of rural, blue-collar and evangelical Christian whites at the expense of alienating minorities, women, suburbanites and the young. This is a foolish bargain, destroying the moral and political standing of the Republican Party, which seems complicit in its own decline. It falls to Republican voters to end this complicity.

...In GOP losses such as the Alabama Senate race, it is not rogue Republican voters (or non-voters) who are at fault. It is the blind ideologues who gave them an impossible choice. Similarly, if Republicans lose the House, the Senate, the presidency and (for a time) the country-- and incur some policy losses in the process-- Trump’s Republican opponents will not be to blame. It would be Trump and his supporters, who turned the Republican Party into a sleazy, derelict fun house, unsafe for children, women and minorities.

A healthy, responsible, appealing GOP can be built only on the ruins of this one.

Such political disloyalty to the president is now the substance of true loyalty to the Republican Party-- and reason enough to welcome Sen. Jones with cheerful relief.

Sounds like he's no fan of Steve Bannon, but before we get to Bannon, let's take a little detour over to Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight and the mathematics that show an anti-Trump/anti-GOP wave forming. The Alabama debacle for the GOP wasn't just because of what a terrible candidate Moore was, but "part of a larger pattern we’ve seen in special elections so far this year, one in which Democrats have greatly outperformed expectations." He wrote that the Democratic margin in the 70 special elections for state and federal legislative seats in 2017 has been 12 percentage points better, on average, than the partisan lean in each race. "Democrats are doing better in all types of districts with all types of candidates. You don’t see this type of consistent outperformance unless there’s an overriding pro-Democratic national factor.

And to be clear, although there have been more special elections on the state level, the pro-Democratic environment is quite clear if you look only at federal special elections. There have been seven special U.S. House and U.S. Senate elections so far this year. The Democrats have outperformed the partisan lean in all of them... [T]he average Democrat has outperformed the baseline by 16 percentage points. The shift in the margin is all that matters here-- in predicting a wave election-- not who wins or loses.

The average swing in special federal elections has forecast midterm results fairly well since the 1994 cycle. We can see this below by looking at the average swing in special federal elections preceding each midterm cycle versus the national House vote in that midterm.

The cycle that looks most like this one is 2006, when Democrats gained 30 seats and control of the House from the Republicans thanks to a hefty win in the popular vote across all House races. In 2018, they need 24 seats to win back control of the lower chamber. The difference between the average swing in special federal elections and the margin of the national vote for the House has averaged just 3 percentage points since 1994. It has never differed by more than 7 points. So even if Democrats do 7 points worse in the national House vote than the average swing so far suggests, they’d still win the national House vote by 9 points, which would likely mean that they reclaim a House majority next year.

Enten is overly cautious-- drastically so, to the point of silliness. That's why these DC prognosticators are always-- always-- months behind the curveball. The discussion is way beyond if the Democrats will win back the House and now way into by how many dozens of seats and whether or not that can win back the Senate as well. Of course things could change between now and election day, but the overwhelming likelihood is that they will change for the better-- for Democrats and worse for Republicans. Trump, McConnell and Ryan will continue their roles of albatrosses around the necks of Republican incumbents and candidates and... then there's Steve Bannon, the GOP's very own Mr. Destructo. The AP's Jonathan Lemire reputed that Bannon is "catching blame from fellow Republicans for coughing up a safe Senate seat in deep-red Alabama and foisting damaging political advice" on Señor Trumpanzee. Better yet-- for Democrats-- "Bannon is showing no signs of abandoning his guerrilla war against the GOP establishment."

when Moore lost on Tuesday, handing the Democrats control of their first Senate seat in Alabama in a generation, Republicans turned on Bannon. The Breitbart News head already had made scores of enemies for declaring a siege on his own party.

"This is a brutal reminder that candidate quality matters regardless of where you are running," said Steven Law, head of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC for Republicans aligned with GOP leadership. "Not only did Steve Bannon cost us a critical Senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the country, but he also dragged the president of the United States into his fiasco."

Bannon's team vowed that its revolution would continue, insisting that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should be the one to take the blame.

Bannon's allies dismissed the Alabama loss as little more than a temporary setback that would soon be forgotten. They expect that the Republicans cheering Moore's loss will simply enrage Trump's most loyal supporters nationwide, who already suspected some Republican leaders were trying to undermine the president's agenda.

"They're stomping on the very base they need to turn out for their candidates in the general election in 2018," said Andy Surabian, a senior adviser to the Bannon-backed Great America PAC. He contended that "the average Republican voter across the country is pointing their finger at Mitch McConnell and the Republican establishment."

Bannon's team blamed McConnell for abandoning Moore, though it was a somewhat incongruous argument after Bannon warned McConnell to stay out of Alabama when Moore won the GOP primary. On his Sirius XM radio show Wednesday, Bannon credited Democrats with "out-hustling" the GOP on the ground in Alabama-- praise that doubled as a swipe at the lack of Senate Republican campaign committee field staff on the ground in the state.

...Bannon's group indicated they would forge forward with plans to challenge the GOP establishment in Senate races in as many as 10 states, including Arizona, Nevada and Tennessee, though one adviser suggested that a greater effort may be made on recruiting and screening candidates.

But in the hours after the stunning defeat, many Republicans reveled in Bannon's failure.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina argued that Bannon should have called off his guns and simply backed Trump's first choice.

"When it comes to Alabama politics Steve Bannon should have followed President @realDonaldTrump lead in supporting Luther Strange," Graham tweeted. "Trump's instincts on the Alabama race proved to be correct."

And Rep. Peter King, R-NY, declared that Bannon looked "like some disheveled drunk who wandered onto the political stage."

"This is not the type of person we need in politics," said King said. "(Bannon) sort of parades himself out there with his weird alt-right views that he has, and to me it's demeaning the whole government and political process. And last night's election was a manifestation of the revulsion by the American people."

Active Shooter and all the art of this post is by Nancy Ohanian