Trump Will Be Best Remembered As The Albatross Who Wrecked The GOP

Last week the malefactors who prop up the Koch network met in Manhattan for two days. They've gotten wind of the gigantic anti-Trump/anti-Ryan tsunami forming up in the hinterland and heading towards DC. And they are shitting a collective brick. Friday the Washington Post reported they "spoke in cataclysmic terms about the price they expect to pay in the midterm elections if their tax reform effort does not win passage. They voiced concerns a demoralized Republican base would stay home, financiers would stop writing campaign donation checks to incumbents and the congressional majorities the party has built in the House and Senate could evaporate overnight." Neo-fascist Texas Senator Ted Cruz was there warning about a 2018 "Watergate-level blowout." Some realized that the Republican Party civil war that has now blown completely out of control is adding gasoline to the fire of GOP inability to get anything done in Washington.

A good example was the Wall Street Journal reporting that Señor Trumpanzee urging "voters to oust lawmakers who don’t support his tax overhaul plan this year; he phoned his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to offer encouragement after Mr. Bannon appeared on Fox News on Monday vowing to unseat sitting Republicans who don’t actively support the president’s agenda." Even an imbecile like Kushner-in-law phoned Bannon to encourage him after an appearance with Hannity that could have easily have beens scripted by Chuck Schumer. One of Bannon's lines was "There's a coalition coming together that is going to challenge every Republican incumbent except for Ted Cruz."

Mainstream conservatives are increasingly worried and now wondering not if a wave is coming, but how high it will be and how deep and long-lasting the damage the Trump Circus will cause. Friday the Nevada Independent, for example, reported how popular Republican Governor Brian Sandoval reacted to Trump's latest stumble with healthcare. Sandoval: "It’s going to hurt people. It’s going to hurt kids. It’s going to hurt families. It’s going to hurt individuals. It’s going to hurt people with mental health issues. It’s going to hurt veterans. It’s going to hurt everybody... [T]this is going to make it much more difficult for those people out in the rural counties and in the urban areas to be able to obtain affordable insurance. So this is something I don’t support, I think that this has been very good for Nevada, and I think the administration should keep providing those subsidies."

Last week New Yorker reporter Susan Glasser interviewed long-time swamp resident and GOP establishment figure, lobbyist Ed Rogers. "There’s fires all around" was how he greeted her before her first question, before she had even taken a seat. "It’s surreal... Why does it have to be this way?" She observed, aloud, that Republicans seem to be finding life under Trump a lot harder than Democrats; he agreed. "You want to be loyal," he said. "You want to be a good member of the team."

Rogers cited his partner Barbour’s dictum for surviving Washington under this volatile new President-- sometimes Trump’s gonna help, sometimes he’s gonna hurt-- before asking, “When is he going to help? Life is all about the net, not the gross. Where’s the help?” The confirmation of the Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, last spring, often cited as one of Trump’s major accomplishments, “seems like a long time ago,” Rogers said. “And is the totality of Trump still a net plus? Is it going to be a net plus?”

The weekend war of words between Corker and Trump had left Rogers, like many lobbyists in town, thinking not so much of the actual world war that Corker warned about (though he’s worried about that, too) but about the fate of Trump’s proposed tax-reform plan. Given Corker’s public skepticism about the proposal, Rogers and others now suspect that it may run into the same problems that blocked the repeal of Obamacare. “Is this what legislative momentum looks like?” he asked, before joking that perhaps “the flames and all are just a façade” and that, “behind it, Gary Cohn”-- the President’s chief economic adviser-- “is really doing magic and something big is coming together that is going to have fifty votes.”

...When I cited Corker’s comments that most Republicans at least privately shared the belief that the White House had been turned into an “adult day care” center for its capricious seventy-one-year-old chief resident, Rogers offered his own criticism of the White House.

A sampling:

“They’re grasping at straws.”

“There is a permanent hunkered-down quality.”

“It’s shocking, it’s embarrassing.”

“They’re just making it up every day as they go along.”

And yet, he hesitated when I asked whether Republicans agreed with Corker that Trump was dangerous. “I think the word ‘dangerous’ is still a rare word,” Rogers corrected me, saying that the words “reckless” and “destructive” were far more common. He went on, “Saying the D-word is different than believing there are now stewards of normalcy in [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions, in Tillerson, in Kelly, and others that, I think everybody acknowledges, are protecting institutions from Trump, and protecting Trump from Trump, for that matter.”

“The only thing that is reliable and dependable about Trump is that he’s unreliable and not dependable,” he added.

...Back in January, the conventional wisdom had been that Trump, a Washington novice with a clear disregard for the details, would leave the governing to Congress, making Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell perhaps the capital’s most important player. Now, Trump and McConnell are barely on speaking terms, and tensions within the Party are proliferating. “Of course it’s personal,” Eliot Cohen, a former Bush Administration official who organized his national-security colleagues to sign open letters against Trump during the primaries, said. “These are the kind of rifts that don’t heal.”

For Washington Republicans, Corker’s public chastising of Trump has only increased the pressure: Are you speaking out? And if not, why not? “I don’t think it’s responsible to hold back,” Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a veteran of both Bush Administrations, told me. “I don’t believe this is a time to hold back. A lot of people have gone along or stood there quiet when they disagreed. But not to weigh in when you actually do disagree seems to me wrong.”

It is now taken as axiomatic that the Washington wing of the G.O.P. loathes and fears Trump, but still, there are genuine differences of opinion about how to deal with him. As a Republican veteran of Capitol Hill explained to me, “The taxonomy of Washington Republicans is not a bright line of Never Trump versus pro-Trump.” There is, instead, “a continuum of people who are to varying degrees either outright supportive of the President or comfortable with the fact that getting things done requires working with the Administration to outright disgust and opposition.” As I have found, and with the exception of a small handful of officials who came to town with Trump, the private comments of even the most publicly pro-Trump Republicans often differ little from their more outspoken colleagues.

Elected Republican officials like Corker are in a somewhat different situation, given Trump’s continued popularity with the core G.O.P. electorate, and their need to face those voters back home. In terms of the ease with which Republicans in Congress can oppose Trump, “there is a hierarchy, in ascending order,” the Hill veteran said, with House “members and senators in cycle next year” at the bottom, followed by “senators who intend to run for reëlection but are not in cycle next year,” then “senators who will probably retire but have not yet announced,” and finally, at the top, “senators who have announced they will retire.” When Corker decided not to run for reëlection, last month, he likely did not change his mind about the President but simply “transitioned from category two to category five.”

...Trump, of course, ran against Washington, promising to “drain the Swamp,” so if the swamp decides to fight back, that’s not necessarily such a terrible thing for Trump. This may be why Steve Bannon is not pretending that Trump commands the respect and allegiance of Republicans inside the Beltway. “This is what they think about President Trump behind closed doors,” Bannon said on Fox News on Monday night, when asked about the Corker comments. Bannon is already turning the topic into a TV talking point, a rallying cry to the Trump base: See how horrible those swamp creatures are, how much they oppose Trump? By Wednesday, the intramural fight among Republicans was playing so well that Bannon was on television promising to mount primary challenges for every single Senate Republican incumbent (except Trump’s G.O.P. Presidential rival turned more or less faithful defender, Ted Cruz).

For lifers like Rogers, who’ve figured out how to survive and prosper no matter which party is in power, Washington means having a healthy appreciation for the fact that your team doesn’t always win. But now that it’s clearer that getting along in the traditional Washington sense is not part of Trump’s plan, Rogers said he has changed his view of what is possible in this Presidency. “Republican loyalists have gone from ‘gigantic things are going to happen; the world really is going to change; there’s going to be a fundamental shift in what the government does,’ . . . to, ‘Can we keep the lights on around here?’ ” He added, “The possibilities are getting narrower. Consequences are piling up.”

Most Beltway pundits and prognosticators aren't ready to take this to the next step yet-- a 2018 blowout. But CNBC's John Harwood is starting to get it. He wrote that while Señor Trumpanzee "takes a baseball bat to Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal, odds are rising that he could break the Republican majority in Congress, too. Midterm elections remain just more than a year away. But a leading nonpartisan analyst now sees a slightly better than even chance that Democrats win back the House in November 2018, which would halt Trump's current legislative agenda and even jeopardize his ability to complete his term."



A friend who works at the DCCC smuggled me copy of one of the PPP memos for the DCCC's associated House Majority PAC poll, this one about 3 GOP held open seats. Enjoy:

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is deeply unpopular, and Congressional seats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington are looking to be quite competitive. Despite the fact that they are not running for re-election, the current Members of Congress should be open to persuasion on the Republican tax reform plan, especially if they are listening to their constituents who are not in favor of this plan and its provisions.

PA-15

In Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District, Congress has a 9% approval and 84% disapproval rating, and Speaker Paul Ryan has a 25% approval and 61% disapproval rating. President Trump is just as popular as he is unpopular (47/47), but a majority (53%) of his supporters oppose the provision in the tax plan that would give wealthy Americans a tax cut. The hypothetical election matchup between a Democratic candidate (44%) and a Republican candidate (43%) is quite close and indicates that this will be a very competitive race. Candidates should be aware that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is very unpopular in this district. Incumbent Republican Congressman Charlie Dent should also note that his constituents strongly oppose this plan and key components in it.

MI-11

In Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, President Trump, Congress, and Speaker Paul Ryan are all quite unpopular. Trump has a 44% approval rating and 50% say they disapprove of the job he is doing, while 10% of voters say they approve of the job Congress is doing and 80% say they disapprove. 22% approve of the job Speaker Ryan is doing and 65% disapprove. The hypothetical election matchup between a Democratic candidate and a Republican candidate is currently tied (42/42). Candidates should be aware that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is very unpopular in this district. Incumbent Republican Congressman David Trott should also note that his constituents strongly oppose this plan and key components in it.

WA-08

In Washington’s 8th Congressional District, President Trump, Congress, and Speaker Paul Ryan are all unpopular. Trump has a 40% approval rating and 55% say they disapprove of the job he is doing, while 12% of voters say they approve of the job Congress is doing and 79% say they disapprove. 20% approve of the job Speaker Ryan is doing and 67% disapprove. The hypothetical election matchup between Dino Rossi (42%) and a “Democratic candidate” (43%) is very close. Candidates should be aware that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is very unpopular in this district. Incumbent Republican Congressman Dave Reichert should also note that his constituents strongly oppose this plan and key components in it.

Back to the lunatic on the fascist right for a moment. Yesterday Bannon, a master manipulator for the severely simpleminded, spoke to neo-Nazis and imbeciles gathered for their annual convention at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in DC. McConnel was a speaker at the shindig as well, but he wasn't in the room when a deranged Bannon addressed him: "Yeah, Mitch, the donors are not happy. They’ve all left you. We’ve cut your oxygen off, Mitch." He was particularly venomous towards John Barrasso (R-WY), Bob Corker (R-TN), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Deb Fischer (R-NE). Give him a listen; he's dangerous.

Lots Of Retirements By Incumbents Always Precede A Political Tsunami-- Most Recent: Charlie Dent

Leading his party to doom and destruction

Before you get a political tsunami that wipes out your party, you get ripples-- entrenched swing state incumbents in the tough seats start announcing their retirements. This year the first to throw in the towel was Ileana Ros Lehtinen-- first elected in 1989 and never seriously challenged in an increasingly blue district because her crony Debbie WassermanSchultz always protected her. The 2006 Almanac of American Politics listed her South Florida district's PVI at R+4. She had drawn the boundaries herself in the state Senate. A decade later, the 2016 Almanac of American Politics rated the same district-- no longer FL-18, but FL-27-- as a PVI R+2. McCain had beaten Obama there 51-49% in 2008 but Obama turned it around in 2012 and won the district 53-47%. Last year Hillary eviscerated Trump there-- 58.5% to 38.9%, Hillary's best performance in a Republican-Held congressional district anywhere in the country. That and Wasserman Schultz's loss of power within the Democratic Party was the writing on the wall for Ros-Lehtinen. When the new PVI for the district came out-- D+5 (an unprecedented swing)-- she announced her impending retirement. The DCCC has never fought an election there are has no idea how to win the district, so in a non-tsunami year, the GOP would have a chance to hold the district. But in 2018? Not even DCCC bumbling will save this seat for them.

Ros Lehtinen is a mainstream conservative and she was just the first of her breed to face the bitter reality. Next came Dave Reichert in WA-08, most of whose voters live in the suburbs of Seattle and Tacoma. Reichert was first elected in 2004, the same year Kerry beat Bush in the district 51-48%. 4 years earlier, Gore had beaten Bush there 49-47%. The PVI in the 2006 Almanac of American Politics listed WA-08 as D+2. Reichert proved popular and he hung on as Obama beat McCain 51-47% and then beat Romney 50-48%. Last year, Hillary beat Trump 47.7% to 44.7%, though the district had been slightly rejiggered and was sporting an R+1 PVI. The new PVI, though, is an ominous "EVEN." Reichert was considered fairly safe but in a tsunami year... the calculations for that Beltway safety are mostly moot. The Democrats will have more than half a dozen candidates vying for the nomination in the jungle primary. The district is no slam dunk for an incompetent and bumbling DCCC but if a good candidate emerges in this district that went overwhelmingly for Bernie, we should see a flip blue there.

And then Thursday, came the third mainstreamer calling it quits: Charlie Dent. His Lehigh Valley district-- including both Bethlehem and Allentown-- had a PVI of D+2 right after he was elected in 2004. Both Gore and Kerry had won the district, albeit very narrowly and by 2014 the PVI had slipped to R+2. Obama still managed to bet McCain, 52-47%, but in 2012, Romney took the district 51-48%. Hillary expected to win but she came nowhere near Obama's numbers and Trump out-performed Romney. Trump won 51.8% to 44.2%. In 2014 the Democrats didn't even bother running a candidate against Dent and in 2016 the DCCC ignored Rick Daugherty's challenge entirely. He spent $21,560 against Dent's $1,746,125. That's how the DCCC was looking at the "swingyness" of PA-15. In any but a wave election, the district would have to be seen as having swung too far into red territory for the DCCC to handle. The PVI is now R+4.

There are 5 counties that make up PA-15-- Leigh, Northampton, Lebanon, Dauphin and Berks. It wasn't Bernie country. Hillary and Trump dominated the primaries and in the general Trump was viewed as the lesser evil. Democrats can't count on this one for a flip but with Dent out of the picture they have at least a theoretical shot at it.

Far right-wing nut and Trumpist, state Rep. Justin Simmons had already thrown his MAGA hate into the primary ring earlier in the week with this anti-Dent ad:



Dent was the chairman of the centrist Tuesday Group. His formal retirement announcement will come tomorrow in Allentown.

In a district that has become more Republican-leaning during his tenure but still is viewed as a potential swing seat, Dent has drawn a reputation as someone liked by both sides of the aisle. In his general elections, he’s been bolstered by support from Democrats and independents.

His decision Thursday drew reactions of shock and expressions of praise from both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom caused his phone to continually buzz with text messages and calls as the congressman headed to a round of evening House votes.

Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez described Dent as a good congressman who works across the aisle and served the Lehigh Valley well.

“I may not have always agreed with him on every issue, but he was accessible and worked really hard,” said Donchez, a Democrat.

State Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who represents the district that Dent held during his tenure in the state Senate, said he was caught off guard by Dent's decision. He has known Dent since childhood, and described him as someone unlikely to be frightened by a primary challenger.

"I can say unequivocally, with 100 percent certainty, that's not the case," Browne said. "I know Charlie. It would not be because of a campaign by Justin Simmons."

Dent said that with his exit, he expects “serious, credible Republican candidates” to announce campaign bids for what he expects will be a competitive race.

National Democrats said they’re aiming to take advantage of the opportunity. Evan Lukaske, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said they “are confident that a strong candidate will step up to run and represent the people of the 15th Congressional District in November.”

While Dent may be leaving his post after next year’s election, the outspoken legislator doesn’t sound like he’ll be quieting down after that. He said he hasn’t given much thought yet to his exact plans for his next phase, but said he wants to remain part of discussions on where his party is headed.

“I think we need to bring a stronger voice to the sensible center, of not only our party but of the country,” Dent said. “Both political parties are in a pretty bad place right now and I want to be part of that conversation but maybe from a different seat, from the outside.”

You'll know the Republican mainstreamers see the congressional party really collapsing when we see retirement announcements from folks like Erik Paulsen (MN), Fred Upton (MI), Leonard Lance (NJ), Bruce Poliquin (ME), John Katko (NY), Jeff Denham (CA), Lee Zeldin (NY), Mike Simpson (ID), Martha McSally (AZ), Dan Newhouse (WA), David Valadao (CA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), John Faso (NY), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Ryan Costello (PA), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Tom Reed (NY), Paul Cook (CA), Dan Donovan (NY), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), David Joyce (OH), Pat Meehan (PA), Mike Turner (OH), Peter King (NY), Tim Murphy (PA)... That would signal a real realignment in Congress-- mainstream versus neo-Nazis. Could happen; but still way to early to predict any of these members are seriously considering retirement.

Josh Kraushaar wrote something smart for the National Journal yesterday about the retiring Republicans. "The decisions to step down by Reps. Dave Reichert of Washington and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania expanded an already-growing map of vulnerable GOP seats next year. Neither seat was on The Cook Political Report’s list of most competitive races, given the incumbents’ impressive track records back home. Dent’s retirement turned his seat from a near-Republican lock to one that 'will be in the thick of the battle for control of the House,' as The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman wrote. With Reichert’s departure, his district shifted from solidly Republican to pure toss-up. Such drastic shifts don’t happen often... Trump’s scattershot approach to governing-- not to mention his historically low approval ratings-- has driven these rank-and-file Republicans to depart. In a statement announcing his decision, Dent referred himself as part of the 'governing wing' in Washington and took a swipe at 'outside influences that profit from increased polarization.' One of Reichert’s last comments before retiring was decrying Trump’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals decision as 'not in the American DNA.' Since retiring, Ros-Lehtinen has loudly slammed President Trump for his record on gay rights, race relations, and treatment of immigrants."

“Trump is fracturing the party to the point where the risk of wholesale retirements and resignations will be high from mainstream lawmakers who came to Washington to do business,” said one senior GOP strategist. “The people who got into public service because they had a successful life, wanted to have rational conversations with rational people on a regular basis, and are now finding the idea of coddling activists around Trump’s daily Twitter habits not very appealing.” Already, Republicans are bracing for additional pivotal retirements. The GOP watch list includes two swing-district members from Michigan: Reps. Fred Upton, the former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Dave Trott, a junior lawmaker from suburban Detroit. Trump carried both their districts, but these R+4 seats (according to the Cook Report’s Political Voting Index) would be vulnerable in a Democratic wave.

With every Republican retirement from a competitive district, the GOP math of holding its House majority becomes increasingly difficult. Retirements both serve as a signal that the political environment is bad, while also opening up opportunities for the opposition that hadn’t existed before. Name-brand members of Congress can win under tough circumstances, but it’s exceptionally difficult for lesser-known recruits-- even the most talented among them-- to run against punishing political headwinds.

But the issue of whether Republicans can maintain power in 2018 feels secondary to the more consequential long-term development-- that the ideological disposition of elected Republicans is changing before our very eyes. Most of the Republicans who are leaving politics feel like throwbacks to a bygone era-- more serious about governing than showboating. Meanwhile, the next generation of Republican candidates are more likely to be running in the image of Trump-- substance-free, needlessly confrontational, and playing to a hardcore base. When Trump loyalists characterize House Speaker Paul Ryan as a squishy RINO, it’s clear that antiestablishment forces care more for revolutionary zeal than party affiliation.

It’s no secret why Republican leaders have been working tirelessly for years to prevent such candidates from emerging in primaries. But with a president egging on nihilistic elements, it’s becoming a thankless undertaking. If the pace of congressional retirements accelerates, it’s not just the House majority that will be at risk. It’s the future of the Republican Party.

Future MSNBC contributor and Trump critic