Is Status Quo Joe The Most Electable Against Trump? There's No Reason To Think So

Most Americans dislike-- or detest-- Donald Trump (57-39%) so it's not unreasonable to believe he will fail to be reelected next year, even though most sitting presidents are reelected. (In most of our lifetimes, only Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were denied reelection.) Last year, nearly ten million more voters went for a Democrat in the House elections than for a Republican-- the biggest margin in U.S. history. There were 60,727,598 votes for Democrats (53.4%) and 50,983,895 votes for Republicans (44.8%).

The Democratic Party establisment and a lazy media call that a blue wave, rather than what actually was-- an anti-red/anti-Trump wave. There are reasons to believe the 2020 anti-red/anti-Trump wave will be much bigger. In 2018, Democratic candidates across the country had to tackle scores of locally popular incumbents with stellar records of constituent services that went back decades. In the presidential election next year, it will just be a Democrat against, arguably, the most hated man to ever occupy the White House. The 8.6% Democratic advantage in 2018 should certainly be a double digit advantage for the Democrat in 2020.

Hillary beat Trump by 2,868,686 votes-- 65,853,514 (48.2%) to 62,984,828 (46.1%). That margin can be explained by the results in the 3 biggest states: California, where Hillary had 4,269,978 more votes than Trump; Texas, where Trump's 807,179 vote margin was a severe underperformance (Romney beat Obama in Texas by 1,261,719 votes and even McCain's margin over Obama was 950,695); and New York, where Hillary beat Trump by 1,736,590 votes. Narrow, unexpected Trump wins-- for whatever reason (Russian interference or her lameness as a candidate)-- in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan gave Trump 46 electoral votes, without which Hillary would have won in the electoral college 273 to 258.

From Sunday's Fox News poll

Polling right now shows 2 top candidates, Biden and Bernie, with two more within striking distance: Beto and Kamala. A majority of Democratic voters tell pollsters their number one criteria in the primaries will be electability. Over the weekend, writing for The Atlantic, Peter Beinart didn't disagree with that premise, only that the pundits don't know how to gage electability. Polls in 2016 uniformly predicted Hillary would do better than Bernie against Trump. Those polls-- like the polls that had her sure she would be the first woman president in history-- were wrong. In the general election against Trump, Bernie would have certainly won Wisconsin and Michigan, both of which he won in the primaries and there are no states that Hillary won that he would have lost. Would he have won Pennsylvania? Iowa? Even Ohio? We'll never know. "Electability," wrote Beinart, "is extremely hard to predict. And when pundits discuss it, they often rely on unstated and dubious assumptions-- which usually lead them to predict that the most centrist candidate with the most establishment support is the person general-election voters will like best." That's how we wound up with the 2016 loser.

Beinart has a suggestion for journalists, the same one Chris Hayes made last month: "All this glib talk about electability has a cost. It leads commentators, often implicitly, to give “electable” candidates a pass when their policy views are fuzzy or flat-out wrong. So what should journalists do? It’s simple: Spend less time discussing which candidates can win the presidency and more time discussing what they’d do if they actually won."

To grasp how questionable much of the discourse surrounding “electability” is, consider the two candidates who, according to conventional wisdom, are considered best able to defeat Trump in 2020. The first is Joe Biden. The reason: As a Washington Post headline put it last fall, “Biden Appeals to Working-Class Whites Who Defected to Trump.”

But does he really? The evidence suggests that most of the voters who supported Barack Obama and then Trump are not Democrats who “defected” to Trump. They’re Republicans or Republican-leaning independents who “defected” to Obama and in the years since have grown ever more ensconced in the GOP. So it’s not clear that any Democratic candidate could lure many of them away from Trump next year.

Nor is it obvious that Biden would be best suited to doing so. Yes, his race and gender might prove an advantage. Yes, he might be harder to tar as a socialist radical. But Biden supported NAFTA and the Iraq War, and he’s been a Washington insider for almost a half century. In 2016, Trump voters expressed their deep pessimism about the state of the country by voting for radical disruption. If some have now lost faith in Trump, and thus grown even more disillusioned with politics than they were before, wouldn’t they look for a different species of disrupter, perhaps an anti-establishment populist such as Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren? Why go for the Democratic candidate who, more than almost any other, represents the pre-Trump status quo?

And even if Biden did prove better able to win back working-class whites than his competitors, could he rouse the Democratic Party’s African American and female base? The fact that his advisers are reportedly considering asking Stacey Abrams to be his running mate suggests that they themselves have doubts. But if choosing Abrams boosts Biden among women and people of color, why wouldn’t it hurt him among white men who backed Trump? Do these questions mean Biden is less electable than other candidates? Not at all. What they mean is that we really don’t know.

It’s the same with Beto O’Rourke. His boosters say he’s like Obama: appealing to moderate whites because of his unifying, upbeat message, but also rousing to progressives, who find him idealistic and inspirational. As one Democratic bundler told Politico, “He’s Barack Obama, but white.” But the white part matters. You can’t assume O’Rourke is more electable than Kamala Harris or Cory Booker without explaining how O’Rourke could match the epic African American turnout numbers that Obama elicited in 2008 and 2012, but that Clinton did not match in 2016.

Moreover, saying that O’Rourke would appeal to “moderate” or “centrist” whites glosses over a critical distinction: It depends on which “moderates” we’re talking about. O’Rourke’s cultural liberalism, pro-business background, and unifying, optimistic rhetoric might serve him well among the upper-middle-class Democrats and independents who admire Michael Bloomberg. But is a candidate who has backed Trade Promotion Authority and praised NAFTA best suited to winning back working-class voters in the industrial midwestern states that gave Trump the presidency? In a recent interview with Thomas B. Edsall of the New York Times, Paul A. Sracic, a political scientist at Youngstown State University, suggested that “O’Rourke’s vague, ‘We all need to come together’ message will not resonate with people who see life as a battle. Working class voters believe in pugilistic politics.” Why is Sracic’s take less plausible than that breathless Democratic bundler’s?

Anyone can play this game. Maybe Sanders is the most electable because his pugilism can win over anti-establishment, anti-corporate Trump voters while eliciting a vast turnout among Millennials? Maybe Warren is the most electable because she’s as passionate as Bernie but more substantive and less radical, and she’ll inspire women as well? Maybe Harris is the most electable because she can replicate Obama’s massive African American numbers while pivoting to the center in a way white candidates can’t? Maybe Booker is the most electable because his message is as positive and unifying as O’Rourke’s, but he’ll do better among African Americans, and his unabashed religiosity will prove a secret weapon with evangelicals?

All these narratives are superficially plausible, and all of them could be nonsense. No one knows. And by embracing some while dismissing others, journalists-- sometimes unwittingly-- create a double standard for evaluating candidates. It’s fine that O’Rourke is less substantive than Warren, political handicappers imply, because he’s better able to beat Trump, which is what matters most. Let’s not credit Sanders for opposing the Iraq War, which Biden supported, because it’s better to nominate a more hawkish Democrat who can win than a dove who will lose.

The irony is that many political commentators think it’s easier to have an informed opinion about electability than about policy. It’s actually harder. If you want to know which candidate was correct about deregulation or the Iraq War, or whose health-care plan will cover the most people at the lowest cost, you can talk to experts, assemble facts, and come to a reasonable conclusion. Deciding which candidate can best beat Trump is more like looking at someone’s zodiac sign and predicting his or her future. It may be a fun hobby, but it’s a distraction from useful work.

Missing Church This Morning?

Late yesterday, Only Through US, an organization whose goal is empowering citizens to protect American principles and freedoms from fear-based politics, issued a long-titled press release, Shock and horror are insufficient responses to today’s New Zealand mosques shooting. The White House must be held accountable for elevating white supremacy. Legislators and tech companies must urgently enact policy changes.. It was anything but a religious document.

Friday’s terror attacks in New Zealand are the inevitable and direct result of overt hate speech and dehumanizing language towards Muslims and Islam both abroad and here in the U.S. We must come together as a country to hold accountable those actors--including the president--who mainstream this language. Any response to today’s events must go beyond shock, horror, and condolences. It must be clear that hate speech and fear-mongering towards Muslims, refugees, and immigrants writ-large will no longer be tolerated. In a 77-page manifesto, the shooter praised Trump as a 'symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose'. The shooter joins in a long line of white supremacists such as former KKK-leader David Duke and Richard Spencer in doing so.

Fear-mongering and white supremacy: Beginning with then-candidate Trump declaring that “Islam hates us,” to saying that neo-nazis and white supremacists carrying AK-47s on the streets of Charlottesville and mowing through protesters are “fine people,” to his insistence today-- even after these Christchurch terrorist attacks-- that white supremacy is not a widespread problem, this president has paved the way for the rise of white supremacists.

Action: Congress must pass a collective resolution condemning the president’s repeated endorsements of white supremacy and demand an unequivocal condemnation of white supremacy as terrorism. Congress must finally codify white supremacist violence as terrorism under U.S. law.

Islamophobia: When President Trump retweets anti-Muslim videos from known Islamophobes, that is elevating Islamophobia. When the president bans Muslims from traveling to the U.S., that is legislating Islamophobia.

Action: Enough is enough. Congress must vote to dismantle the Muslim Ban and associated policies. The president must explicitly demonstrate support for Muslim communities affected by these terror attacks as well an ongoing commitment towards the safety and security of those of Muslim faith.

The Role of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, 8Chan, etc: When tech companies are made aware-- by their employees, law enforcement, and outside experts-- that their platforms have become essential organizing grounds for violent white supremacists, violent misogynists, and violent racists, and fail to proportionately respond to make these online communities safe, that is enabling hate crimes and violence.

Action: Congress must give tech platforms a deadline to present a full and detailed accounting of the actions they have taken to make their platforms safe and hate-free. Should the tech companies fail to do so in a timely manner, Congress should consider mandating that the companies temporarily shut down operational functions of their platforms-- from news feeds to content-sharing functions-- until they ensure that these basic safety issues are resolved. Too much is at stake for business as usual.

We should have done more before today, but to be clear, we can do much more starting now.

No talk about thoughts and prayers and words of comfort. And indeed, elected officials in New Zealand put public safety over the profits of gun manufacturers, banning semiautomatic assault rifles less than 24 hours after the Christchurch massacre. Coincidentally, The Atlantic published an essay by Peter Beinert, Secular Democrats Are the New Normal. It was written before a Trump supporter murdered dozens of people worshipping in New Zealand and explained that the American "president" is "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose." In his essay, Beinert made the point that instead of invoking God in their speeches, most of the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders identify religion as a source of division. He wrote that "Were a Democrat from the Clinton, Bush, or Obama eras to watch the presidential-announcement video that Beto O’Rourke released on Thursday, they would likely be struck by how it ended. Or, more specifically, by how it didn’t end. O’Rourke did not close with any mention of God. Until recently, farewells that invoke God were standard fare for Democratic and Republican candidates alike. Bill Clinton ended his 1992 convention speech with the words 'God bless you, and God bless America.' At the 1996 convention, he declared, 'God bless you, and good night.' Al Gore finished his 1999 presidential-announcement speech with the words 'May God bless you. And God bless America.' John Kerry closed his presidential-announcement speech in 2003 by saying, 'Thank you, and God bless you all.' Barack Obama ended his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention with the phrase 'God bless you.' (Although Obama didn’t mention God at the end of his 2007 announcement speech, he began it with 'Giving all praise and honor to God for bringing us here today.') Hillary Clinton closed her announcement speech in 2015 with 'God bless you. And may God bless America.' O’Rourke exemplifies a new normal. None of the other major white progressive candidates-- Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or Kirsten Gillibrand-- invoked God in their presidential announcements either. (Amy Klobuchar, who is running as a comparative moderate, did.)"



Doug Pagitt, a progressive evangelical pastor, is the executive director of Vote Common Good, which has been working with progressive candidates to communicate better with evangelical voters. He told us that "There is great work going on around the country with both the religious community and politicians to make deeper connections with people of faith and Democratic candidates. There is no doubt that the progressive policies of the Democratic party match the convictions and beliefs of Christians and other people of faith. There is no reason for the perceived nor real disconnect." Beinert isn't seeing the granular level Vote Common Good works in, although he's scratching around the edges:

Today’s white liberals don’t only talk about faith less than their predecessors did. They talk about it in a strikingly different way. Earlier Democrats invoked religion as a source of national unity... Today, by contrast, progressive white candidates more often cite religion as a source of division. In his announcement video, O’Rourke boasted that during his Senate campaign in Texas, 'people allowed no difference, however great or however small, to stand between them and divide us. Whether it was religion or gender or geography or income, we put our labels and our differences aside.' The only reference to faith in Warren’s announcement speech was an acknowledgment that 'we come from different backgrounds. Different religions.' The lone reference in Sanders’s was a call for 'ending religious bigotry.' While white progressives once described religion as something that brought Americans together, they’re now more likely to describe it as something that drives them apart.

It’s not hard to understand why. For starters, the percentage of white Democrats who express no religious affiliation has skyrocketed. According to unpublished data tabulated for me last year by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), 8 percent of white Democrats expressed no religious affiliation in 1990. By 2016, the figure was 33 percent. In 1990, white self-described liberals were 39 points more likely to describe themselves as Protestant than as religiously unaffiliated. By 2016, religiously unaffiliated beat Protestant by nine points.

Secular Democrats haven’t only grown more numerous. They’ve also become some of the party’s most motivated activists. As The Atlantic’s Emma Green has noted, a PRRI poll taken last August and September found that Democrats who shun organized religion were more than twice as likely to have attended a political rally in the previous year than Democrats who identify with a religious group. Today’s Democratic candidates cannot simply assert, as Obama did in 2004, that “we worship an awesome God in the blue states,” because so many active Democrats do not.

The other reason liberal candidates more often describe religion as a source of division is the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Before Donald Trump, Republican religious discourse was more ecumenical. The 2000 Republican convention featured a Muslim prayer, and George W. Bush regularly spoke about Americans who attended a “church, synagogue, or mosque.” In such an environment, it was easier for Democrats to depict an America divided by race, class, and gender but unified by religious faith, even if different Americans expressed that faith in different ways. Today, by contrast, since more Americans don’t practice a religion, and the president demonizes some of those who do, it’s more natural to describe religion as a rift to be overcome.

But while there are legitimate reasons to talk about religion less (America has become a less religious country) and to describe it more negatively (religious bigotry has risen sharply), doing so could hurt Democrats such as O’Rourke in their efforts to defeat Trump. According to a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, while a small plurality of Democrats thinks politicians talk about religion too much, Republicans overwhelmingly think politicians talk about it too little. Among those Republicans are devout Christians who agree with Trump on abortion but consider him a detestable human being, and might be lured into voting against him by a Democrat who both spoke compellingly about a guiding faith and appeared to live by it.

Democratic candidates might be tempted to pursue an opposite strategy: employing secular rhetoric to rouse their secular base. But the Democratic base isn’t overwhelmingly secular; it’s partly secular and partly religious. Republicans, by contrast, are overwhelmingly religious. Which may explain why, according to a 2017 study in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, candidates who were perceived as secular experienced a “drop in Republican support that... was not balanced by an increase in Democratic support.”

That’s partly because of African Americans. While many white Democrats want politicians to speak about religion less, black Democrats overwhelmingly want them to speak about it more. When asked in 2016 whether political leaders were talking about “their faith and prayer” too much or too little, black Protestants said “too little” by a larger margin than even Republicans. While only 41 percent of Democrats said it was very or somewhat important that a president shared their religious views, among black Protestants, the figure was 72 percent, again even higher than among Republicans.

All of which may help Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. It’s no coincidence that Harris ended her campaign-announcement speech with the words “God bless you, and God bless the United States of America,” and that Booker ended his speech at the 2016 Democratic convention by declaring, “God bless America.” In his campaign video, a bystander calls out, “2020!” To which Booker responds, “Amen!”

This religious language may reflect a genuine religious belief. But it also bespeaks a political reality: For Harris and Booker, whose path to the Democratic nomination requires winning the black vote, religious language is a necessity. And the same religious language that helps them win over African Americans in the primary may help them win over Republicans in the general election. In their appetite for public professions of faith, black Democrats and white Republicans are similar. It’s white liberals who stand out.

White progressives such as O’Rourke, Sanders, and Warren tacitly recognize that religion is no longer the force for national unity it once was. For Harris and Booker, the intriguing possibility is that it’s still unifying enough to propel them to the White House.

Would You Trust Trump Not To Foment Violence In Venezuela To Enhance His Own Collapsing Electoral Prospects?

Before retiring and joining the shady international private equity firm, the Carlyle Group, Admiral James Stavridi had been Commander of U.S. Southern Command and then Supreme Allied Commander at NATO. Yesterday he penned an OpEd for Time, I Commanded the U.S. Military in South America. Deploying Soldiers to Venezuela Would Only Make Things Worse. His attitude towards the Chavez and Maduro governments is as negative as you would expect from someone at the center of the Military Industrial Complex. But even he knows how catastrophic a Trump invasion of Venezuela would be.

It is clearly time for Maduro to go. But America should be cautious. Even though he is repressing the population and rounding up opponents, a full-blown invasion by the U.S. would foment rage in the region and internationally.

Everywhere I went as a four-star Admiral in the region while commanding U.S. Southern Command, I would be reminded of America’s history of intervention. A good example was the reaction there when we created the Navy’s Fourth Fleet in 2008. We intended for it to focus on disaster relief, humanitarian operations, medical diplomacy and counter-narcotics. But from Brasilia to Havana, the negative responses were stunning... Even the Colombian Minister of Defense (and later President of Colombia) Juan Manuel Santos-- my best friend and partner in the region-- counseled me against the initiative. Too many people there truly felt that standing up a new fleet was a return to gunboat diplomacy and a prelude to military action in Venezuela. Good intentions do not make old ghosts disappear.

...There may come a time for more dramatic military activities, perhaps an international peacekeeping force. But for the moment, our efforts are best served by supporting the brave Venezuelans fighting the Maduro regime through the overall efforts of the international community. As Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Venezuela and a revered figure there, said, “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion is a right.”

Today Pence and top Florida Republicans were in Miami at a rally to show off the Trump Regime's anti-Maduro stance. Marc Caputo wrote that the rally is "an opportunity to open a door with Hispanic voters in a state that’s critical to the president’s reelection. The Hispanic vote here is far from monolithic: About 17 percent of Florida’s active registered voters are Hispanic, about a third of whom are estimated to be of Cuban-American descent and a third of Puerto Rican descent, followed by those whose families have roots throughout Latin America: Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico."

Between ongoing strife in Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega and the unrest in Venezuela under dictator Nicolás Maduro-- which has also led to troubles in neighboring Colombia-- Republicans see a window to send a hardcore anti-socialist message-- one that, some say, helped the GOP win just enough of the overall Hispanic vote in November’s midterm elections to keep Florida’s governorship in Republican hands and take a Senate seat from the Democrats.

The Friday event-- which could feature Gov. Ron DeSantis, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott-- follows the Trump administration’s decision last week to lead a multinational coalition to formally recognize Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez as the legitimate acting president of Venezuela amid what many nations see as an unconstitutional power grab by Maduro.

In Florida, Trump’s decision was cheered by Republicans as well as Democrats. But some Florida Democrats fret that Trump could politically benefit both from the policy and from the critical reaction to it by a few national members of their party-- including Sen. Bernie Sanders, a likely presidential candidate-- who have raised the specter of a U.S.-led “coup” taking place in Venezuela.

...Diaz-Balart (R-FL) is co-sponsoring legislation with Democrat Darren Soto (New Dei-FL) to extend Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans, about 3 million of whom have fled amid food shortages and hyperinflation of more than 1 million percent under Maduro.

Amid the crisis in Venezuela, Maduro last year held what critics say was a sham election and took office Jan. 10. But since they don’t see his election as legitimate, the Venezuelan opposition, democracy activists, the Trump administration and most South American countries say there’s a vacancy in the Venezuelan presidency, thereby elevating Guaidó to acting president under the country’s constitution because he’s the leader of the National Assembly.

The day after Trump’s recognition of Guaidó, Sen. Sanders issued a three-tweet thread on Twitter that urged caution while criticizing Maduro’s “violent crackdown.”

“But,” Sanders wrote, “we must learn the lessons of the past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coups-- as we have in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. The US has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American nations; we must not go down that road again.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, also a Democratic presidential hopeful, warned on Twitter that the “United States needs to stay out of Venezuela.” Of the Democratic responses, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s tweet most outraged Venezuelan exiles by suggesting Guaidó was part of a “US backed coup” in Venezuela and saying he was part of “Trump's efforts to install a far right opposition” in the country.

Guaidó isn’t a conservative politician. He’s a member of the social-democratic Popular Will Party, which would look far left in the U.S. political system.

“I am disgusted by some of the statements Democrat lawmakers around the country have made,” said Helena Poleo, a Florida Democrat and Venezuelan exile and commentator, citing the “ignorant and damaging statements” from Omar, Gabbard and Sanders.

“When it comes to facilitating democracy in Venezuela, my party has historically dropped the ball,” she said. “This will absolutely help the Republicans in Florida if this keeps up. In Florida, Democrats are saying the right things. But nationally, some of them don’t know what they’re talking about and the damage they’re doing to our party.”

To Venezuelan exiles in Florida, the national Democrats criticizing Trump sound as if they’re echoing Maduro, who took to social media Wednesday with this message: “People from #USA, I ask for your support in order to reject the interference of Donald Trump's administration which intends to turn my Homeland into a ‘Vietnam war’ in Latin America. Don't allow it! today compared US intervention with Vietnam.”

Also on Wednesday, Trump congratulated Guaidó in a phone call, according to a White House spokeswoman.

Juan Escalante, an undocumented immigrant and activist whose family fled the Chavez regime 19 years ago, has little love for the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, but he said its actions in Venezuela and the “wall-to-wall” coverage on Spanish-language media lauding the work of Rubio, Diaz-Balart, Scott and DeSantis could have an impact in 2020.

“If you compare and contrast actions and say who showed up at the end of the day, people remember these things,” he said. “It’s going to be imprinted in a lot of people’s minds.”

Another Trump critic, former Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Miami, said he doesn’t like the president’s position on immigration but no one can ignore the positive effect that administration’s policy on Venezuela could have in 2020.

“For all those people bewildered that so many Hispanics in South Florida are Republican-leaning, now we’re seeing why,” Curbelo said.

“There’s a great camaraderie with different groups that have been victims of leftist movements: Colombians who fled FARC, and Nicaraguans who fled Ortega twice,” Curbelo said. “So yeah, there are just a few thousand Venezuelan voters. But everyone in Miami hates Nicolás Maduro. And if Trump wins by 20,000 votes, this will be why.”

Yves Smith's Naked Capitalism post on Thursday is based on the article, U.S. Push To Oust Venezuela's Maduro Marks First Shot In Plan To Reshape Latin America Wednesday inWall Street Journal by reporters Jessica Donati, Vivian Salama and Ian Talley. Rubio is eager to turn Venezuela into a fascist state like Bolsonaro's Brazil. "The Trump Administration," wrote Smith, "has apparently decided to embark on a large-scale interventionist campaign to reverse supposed undue influence of Russia, China, and Iran in Latin America. Venezuela and Cuba are the first targets, and Nicaragua is next on the list. John Bolton, in too obvious a nod to Bush’s 'axis of evil' has called them the 'troika of tyranny'. One would think the fact that our 'remake the world in our image' plans worked out so well in the Middle East might curb US adventurism. And it isn’t just that we made a mess of Iraq, failed to break Iran, and failed to install new regimes in Afghanistan and Syria. The New American Century types are deep in denial that this geopolitical tussle not only cost the US greatly in terms of treasure, but it also wound up considerably enhancing Russia’s standing."

Consider another bad outcome from US war-making in the Middle East: the rise of the radical right in Europe. American nation-breaking had produced a flood of refugees trying to enter Europe. In a misguided show of humanitarianism, European countries welcomed the over one million migrants that arrived in 2015, with the upsurge due mainly to the civil war in Syria. Angela Merkel in particular backed the idea of taking in the refugees, in part because German has a lower-than-replacement birth rate, and Syrian has a high level of public education. However, the EU members had patchy and generally poor programs for helping the migrants assimilate and find jobs. The result was what one hard core left wing political scientist who has spent a considerable amount of time in Germany calls “Merkelization”: a rise of nativist right wing parties like AfD in response to large-scale, poorly-managed migrant inflows.

Consider how this tendency might play into US nation-breaking near our border. Many readers have pointed out that the “caravans” from Central America are heavily populated with people from countries like Honduras that our tender ministrations have made much worse. My colleague was warning of Merkelization of the US even before the US launched its coup attempt, that it is one thing to have an immigration process that is generous towards asylum-seekers, and quite another to have open borders when political and economic conditions in countries to the South are unlikely to get better.

Bernie Sanders was browbeaten into holding his tongue after pointing out early in his Presidential campaign that “open borders” is a Koch Brothers position, and that the top 10% professional class that has become the base of the Democratic party are now heavy employers of servants, in the form of nannies and yard men. When I was a kid, even the few times we lived in middle/upper middle class suburbs full of senior corporate managers and professionals, no one had servants. Men worked full time and wives did the housework; the most you’d see would be a housekeeper in once a week to give the wife some relief.

As Peter Beinart pointed out in The Atlantic in 2017:

In 2005, a left-leaning blogger wrote, “Illegal immigration wreaks havoc economically, socially, and culturally; makes a mockery of the rule of law; and is disgraceful just on basic fairness grounds alone.” In 2006, a liberal columnist wrote that “immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants” and that “the fiscal burden of low-wage immigrants is also pretty clear.” His conclusion: “We’ll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants.” That same year, a Democratic senator wrote, “When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment. When I’m forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration.”

The blogger was Glenn Greenwald. The columnist was Paul Krugman. The senator was Barack Obama.

Prominent liberals didn’t oppose immigration a decade ago. Most acknowledged its benefits to America’s economy and culture. They supported a path to citizenship for the undocumented. Still, they routinely asserted that low-skilled immigrants depressed the wages of low-skilled American workers and strained America’s welfare state. And they were far more likely than liberals today are to acknowledge that, as Krugman put it, “immigration is an intensely painful topic … because it places basic principles in conflict.”

A larger explanation [for the change] is political. Between 2008 and 2016, Democrats became more and more confident that the country’s growing Latino population gave the party an electoral edge...

Alongside pressure from pro-immigrant activists came pressure from corporate America, especially the Democrat-aligned tech industry, which uses the H-1B visa program to import workers...

According to a comprehensive new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “Groups comparable to … immigrants in terms of their skill may experience a wage reduction as a result of immigration-induced increases in labor supply.” But academics sometimes de-emphasize this wage reduction because, like liberal journalists and politicians, they face pressures to support immigration.

Many of the immigration scholars regularly cited in the press have worked for, or received funding from, pro-immigration businesses and associations.

...I had really hoped that Trump would tire of Bolton’s aggressiveness and need for the limelight, but that clearly isn’t happening fast enough, if at all. In the meantime, kicking small and poor countries who pose no threat is not the behavior of a confident superpower. And grabbing Venezuela’s oil because we can is theft. It’s been depressing to be an American for a very long time, and there’s no prospect for improvement.

A Delusional Trump Wants The Midterms To Be All About Him-- Democrats Can't Believe Their Luck

Yesterday, a delusional Señor Trumpanzee gave Peter Nicholas of Wall Street Journal an impromptu 20 minute interview in the Oval office and told him that he expects Republicans to do "great" in the midterms and that he’ll be a difference-maker this fall by campaigning for candidates. "As long as I can get out and campaign, I think they’re going to win, I really do. It’s a lot of work for me. I have to make 50 stops, it’s a lot. So, there aren’t a lot of people that can do that, physically. Fortunately, I have no problem with that."

When Nicholas asked him if his campaign appearances might also mobilize Democratic voters, Señor T said: "It may. But it energizes my people much more than it energizes them. I think the Democrats give up when I turn out. If you want to know the truth, I don’t think it energizes them. I think it de-energizes them. I think they give up when I turn out." Completely delusional. GOP participation has been sagging and Democratic participation is sky-high. Look at what happened in Wisconsin and Minnesota Tuesday, two states Trump visited. Both statewide and in every single contested congressional district, more Democrats and pro-Democrat independents voted than Republicans and pro-Republican independents. (Same happened in Connecticut and Vermont, where Trump didn't do an rallies recently-- but they have TV up there.) Trump wants the elections to be all about him? So do the Democrats.

Earlier this week, Alex Wagner did perceptive piece for Politico on the Church of Trumpanzee. The Trump fans-- or as he puts it, "his devotees" (as well as Trump himself) "find the relief of belonging," a relief for those with small, ugly, empty lives. "As Americans have left organized religion," wrote Peter Beinart in April 2017, "they haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between 'us' and 'them.' Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.

This tribalism has infected both the right and the left-- but in particular, Beinart cited the work of W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia who has concluded that “rates of religious attendance have fallen more than twice as much among whites without a college degree as among those who graduated college.”

Non-college-educated whites are the Trump base, now set adrift:

Establishing causation is difficult, but we know that culturally conservative white Americans who are disengaged from church experience less economic success and more family breakdown than those who remain connected, and they grow more pessimistic and resentful.

You could draw a straight line from a disenfranchised, pessimistic, resentful audience to Trump’s brand of fear-driven, divisive politics, but this would leave out an equally important part of the Trump phenomenon, and something critical to its success: the elation. Go to a Trump rally, speak to Trump supporters, and the devotion is nearly evangelical. Their party line is less a talking point than a sermon: His voters have talked to me about the “bad deal” with Iran, the “drug mules” crossing the border, the Mueller “witch hunt.” The language is uniform, as they quote chapter and verse. Here are the true believers: It is no surprise that Trump’s numbers won’t move.

In his research, Wilcox noted the particular isolation of the white working class in the institutional church:

Moderately educated Americans may feel less attracted to churches that uphold the bourgeois virtues-- delayed gratification, a focus on education, self-control, etc.-- that undergird this lifestyle. As importantly, working class whites may also feel uncomfortable socializing with the middle and upper class whites who have increasingly come to dominate the life of religious congregations in the U.S. since the 1970s, especially as they see their own economic fortunes fall.

The declining economic position of white working class Americans may have made the bourgeois moral logic embodied in many churches both less attractive and attainable.

Trumpism proposes a system of worship formed in direct opposition to bourgeois moral logic, with values that are anti-intellectual and anti–politically correct. If mainline Protestantism is a bastion of the educated, upper-middle class, the Church of Trump is a gathering place for its castoffs. Trump’s rhetoric about the “silent majority” is indeed a racial dog whistle, but it is also a call to his supporters to unmask themselves. He offers a public embrace of a worldview that has been, at least until this point, a mark of shame. There is belonging in this-- but there is also relief.

That part of the Trump phenomenon remains mostly unnoticed, except by those who have witnessed it firsthand. Reporting from a rally in South Carolina in 2015, Molly Ball observed:

Despite all the negativity and fear, the energy in this room does not feel dark and aggressive and threatening. It doesn’t feel like a powder keg about to blow, a lynch mob about to rampage. It feels joyous.

“There is so much love in every room I go to,” Trump says, near the end of nearly an hour and a half of free-associative bombast, silly and sometimes offensive impressions, and insane pronouncements. “We want our country to be great again, and we know it can be done!”

At a rally in South Bend, Indiana, that I attended earlier this year, there were offensive T-shirts (hillary sucks … but not like monica) and angry chants, but there were also goofy costumes and free sandwiches. There was name calling, but there were also group selfies.

I spoke to Wilcox about this aspect of Trumpism-- the strange joy inherent in the shouts of self-designated “deplorable” status-- and whether that might signal a substitute for the rapture of the church. “The Trump rallies have collective effervescence,” Wilcox said. “Émile Durkheim wrote about the power of collective effervescence-- of engaging in common rituals that give them meaning and power and strength. And those things can be wonderful, or they can be dangerous.”

Durkheim’s theory-- that a gathering of the tribe can create a certain energy that renders particular people or objects sacred-- goes a long way toward explaining Trump’s infallibility among his supporters. But it also brings to the fore something that Trump critics have missed so far when focusing on his (not insignificant) negatives: Trumpism, like many forms of non-secular worship, makes its believers feel good.

“Among the poor and the working class,” Wilcox told me,“when it comes to both marriage and religion, there has been a real erosion. And that has hit them harder than the upper classes.”

He continued: “These two important sources of solidarity and meaning are now much less a part of working-class American’s lives-- and leaves them that much more disenchanted and disenfranchised.”

If Trumpism is endowing certain Americans with a sense of solidarity and support that were once found in institutions like the church (or marriage), the implications for the Republican Party-- to say nothing of American society writ large-- are consequential. At its core, the Church of Trump is irreconcilable with a society that values equal protection, free speech, and the separation of powers. And yet strident efforts to convince the faithful of a prophet’s fallacy may backfire, producing redoubled faith. To deconstruct the complicated and visceral relationship between Trump and his supporters, those on the outside must begin to grapple with the oddness of the proposition itself: Trump, in all his baseness, offers his believers something that is, strangely, spiritually elevated.

The latest national poll, released by CNN Wednesday, tried to get at what are the main factors that will determine people's votes in November. The top issue was, again, healthcare, which is very bad news for vulnerable Republicans-- like Bruce Poliquin-- who voted to take away healthcare from people. But the metric that caught my eye was the relative importance between Trump and Pelosi was factors. Short answer: Trump is a HUGE factor; Pelosi isn't (despite clownish and consistent GOP efforts to make her an effort). Trump is a gigantic albatross around the necks of every Republican candidate. It's why Ted Lieu has been tweeting challenges to Trump like this: "I sincerely hope Trump shows up in California to campaign for Republican congressional candidates here. The DCCC is going to spend a lot of money tying Trump to these candidates, and this would make the job that much easier. I would gladly pay the permit fee for Trump to show up in California to do one of his toxic rallies. It would be super awesome for Democrats if Californians can see Trump unleashed." and this: "I would pay the permit fees for Donald Trump to come to California and do one of his toxic rallies. Can't wait for him to explain how the GOP tax scam increases taxes on millions of Californians; the random Trump tariffs hurt Californian farmers: and the rollbacks to environmental laws hurt our air and water. Trump's presence in California would help all Democratic candidates."

Trump's A Yella-Belly Like All Bullies

One thing I learned as a young kid on the playground in Brooklyn, not far from where Old Man Trump was raising the asshole who decades later managed to make fools of the GOP's whole "deep bench," was that bullies are always cowards. And no one from Brooklyn looked at El Trumpanzee during the Republicans debates and didn't see one laughable loud-mouthed coward. But Lyin' Ted, Sweaty Little Marco, the poor Jebster, NJ Blimp-man and the rest of the pathetic deep bench aren't from Brooklyn and had no idea how to deal with a bully blowhard like Trump. Look, even he never threatened to sue any of his befuddled primary opponents.

Peter Beinart's not from Brooklyn either, but Boston is Brooklyn enough for him to easily recognize a coward when he sees one. And yesterday at The Atlantic he explained why he senses a big yellow stripe down El Trumpanzee's flabby back. He starts with a little general background: "Crusaders against 'political correctness' often portray themselves as brave. They deride others for knuckling under to left-wing orthodoxy, for being too afraid of African Americans, Latinos, feminists, and gays to speak the truth. They, on the other hand, speak their mind, come what may. No presidential candidate has used this conceit more effectively than Donald Trump. His supporters love his willingness to say things about Mexicans, Muslims, and African Americans that ordinary politicians won’t say for fear of being called a bigot. That’s part of what they mean they say he 'doesn’t talk like a politician.' But over the last couple of weeks, Trump has illustrated something important about the anti-politically correct. They’re most comfortable confronting PC orthodoxy when the people they’re confronting aren’t around. Once they actually encounter African Americans, Latinos, and other minority groups, they become a lot less brave." And there's no better example than Señor Trumpanzee himself, of course.

In an effort to soften his image, Trump has recently begun doing something he previous avoided: Talking to blacks and Latinos. Two weeks ago, he met with his Hispanic advisory council. According to media reports, he was "humble" and "conciliatory." Did he call for deporting the undocumented immigrants already in the US, as he has repeatedly promised his overwhelmingly white crowds? Nope. According to Jacob Monty, who attended the meeting, Trump said "deporting them is neither possible nor humane.”

Then, last week, Trump flew to Mexico City to meet President Enrique Peña Nieto. Did he repeat the pledge that brings white crowds to their feet: That Mexico will pay for a wall along the two countries’ border? Nope. Beforehand, the two sides agreed not to discuss the subject. When Peña Nieto brought it up anyway, and announced that Mexico would never foot the bill, did Trump set him straight? Nope. Rudy Giuliani, who was attending the meeting on Trump’s behalf, reportedly declared the topic “off the table” and The Donald moved on to less controversial subjects.

When Trump appeared publicly with Peña Nieto after their meeting, he again “avoided direct confrontation,” in the Washington Post's words. He called it a “great, great, honor” to be invited to the country he has repeatedly trashed during the campaign. And he declared that he had “tremendous feelings” for the “tremendous” Mexican American people, a group he famously derided as rapists and drug dealers in his announcement speech.

But once Trump left Mexico and addressed an overwhelmingly white, anti-immigrant crowd that evening in Arizona, the Post noted, he ditched his “subdued and cooperative tone” and “returned to the aggressive tenor that has defined much of his campaign. Repeatedly raising his voice to a yell, he said that ‘anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation.’”

The oscillation continued this weekend, when Trump addressed an African American congregation in Detroit. “Trump’s subdued rhetoric,” noted Politico, “was a jarring contrast to his typically boisterous rallies.” The Republican nominee said nothing about Black Lives Matter being responsibility for the murder of police, as he had told Bill O’Reilly. He didn’t imply, as he has to white audiences, that African Americans are prone to voter fraud. He said nothing about Barack Obama not being born in the United States. He didn’t repeat his claims that blacks should vote for him because their lives are so miserable that they have nothing “to lose.” Instead, he flattered his audience, calling black churches “the conscience of our country,” which had inspired America “toward a better moral character, a deeper concern for mankind, and spirit of charity and unity that binds us all together.” Trump’s remarks, noted the Post, constituted a “jarring shift in tone and message.”

This isn’t surprising. Even more than most politicians, Trump lives for the approval of the crowd. His ego is so overdeveloped, and his ideological convictions so underdeveloped, that it’s hard to imagine him walking into a room and saying things he knows his audience doesn’t want to hear. But Trump isn’t alone. Put Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, or most of the other conservatives who have made a career of being anti-PC in a small room with Latinos, African Americans, or Muslims and I suspect their rhetoric would dramatically soften, too. It’s harder to speak bluntly and nastily about people when they’re staring you in the face. It’s also harder because when you actually listen to them, they often defy your stereotypes. Up close, their grievances become harder to dismiss.

I’m glad Trump is now speaking to more diverse crowds. I’m glad because, in so doing, he’s proving that when it comes to “political correctness,” conservative politicians and pundits aren’t more courageous than their liberal counterparts. They’re just more isolated from the ethnic and racial minorities about whom they speak. When the distance disappears, the “bravery” does too.

Barbara Bush Was Completely Right That The Country Doesn't Want Another Bush In The White House

Let's talk about a service the Trump campaign is doing for America. Thanks to Obama and Pelosi, Bush and Cheney were never held accountable for their 8 years of mayhem. And thanks to Trump-- or, more accurately, thanks to the Trump campaign's jihad against Jeb-- the Bush-Cheney responsibility for 9/11 and then destabilizing the Middle East by attacking Iraq under false pretenses is again being discussed by the American people. I'm sure you've noticed. We touched on it over the weekend to illustrate how a ruthless predator like Trump can force a sad patsy like Jeb to commit suicide by pressing the right buttons. Early this morning, Peter Beinart, writing for The Atlantic, made the devastating case that "Bush didn't do all he could to prevent the attack-- and it’s time Republicans confronted that fact"... and that the unsavory Trump is doing the right thing by bringing it up, even if for the wrong reasons. Beinart called it "an ugly truth," in contrast to the ugly untruths we've come to expect from the Trumpish mouth-- and noted that "politicians and journalists erupted in indignation. Jeb Bush called Trump’s comments 'pathetic.' Ben Carson dubbed them 'ridiculous.'... and that the reporter who had asked Trump the question said, 'Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that.'" But, as Beinart said, "Oh yes, you can."

There’s no way of knowing for sure if Bush could have stopped the September 11 attacks. But that’s not the right question. The right question is: Did Bush do everything he could reasonably have to stop them, given what he knew at the time? And he didn’t. It’s not even close.

When the Bush administration took office in January 2001, CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Council counterterrorism “czar” Richard Clarke both warned its incoming officials that Al Qaeda represented a grave threat. During a transition briefing early that month at Blair House, according to Bob Woodward’s Bush at War, Tenet and his deputy James Pavitt listed Osama Bin Laden as one of America’s three most serious national-security challenges. That same month, Clarke presented National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice with a plan he had been working on since Al Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole the previous October. It called for freezing the network’s assets, closing affiliated charities, funneling money to the governments of Uzbekistan, the Philippines and Yemen to fight Al Qaeda cells in their country, initiating air strikes and covert operations against Al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan, and dramatically increasing aid to the Northern Alliance, which was battling Al Qaeda and the Taliban there.

But both Clarke and Tenet grew deeply frustrated by the way top Bush officials responded. Clarke recounts that when he briefed Rice about Al Qaeda, “her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before.” On January 25, Clarke sent Rice a memo declaring that, “we urgently need…a Principals [Cabinet] level review on the al Qida [sic] network.” Instead, Clarke got a sub-cabinet, Deputies level, meeting in April, two months after the one on Iraq.

When that April meeting finally occurred, according to Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz objected that “I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.” Clarke responded that, “We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al-Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States.” To which Wolfowitz replied, “Well, there are others that do as well, at least as much. Iraqi terrorism for example.”

By early summer, Clarke was so despondent that he asked to be reassigned. “This administration,” he later testified, “didn’t either believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem. And I thought, if the administration doesn’t believe its national coordinator for counterterrorism when he says there’s an urgent problem and if it’s unprepared to act as though there’s an urgent problem, then probably I should get another job.” In July, the Deputies Committee finally agreed to schedule a Principals level meeting on Clarke’s plan. But the schedule for July was already full, and in August too many Cabinet members were on vacation, so the meeting was set for September.

During that same time period, the CIA was raising alarms too... But the same Defense Department officials who discounted Clarke’s warnings pushed back against the CIA’s. According to Eichenwald’s sources, “the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.”



...The warnings continued. On July 11, the CIA sent word to the White House that a Chechen with links to Al Qaeda had warned that something big was coming. On July 24, the Daily Brief said the expected Al Qaeda attack had been postponed but was still being planned. Finally, on August 6, the CIA titled its Daily Brief: “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US.” The briefing didn’t mention a specific date or target, but it did mention the possibility of attack in New York and mentioned that the terrorists might hijack airplanes. In Angler, Barton Gellman notes that it was the 36th time the CIA had raised Al Qaeda with President Bush since he took office... On the morning of September 11, 2001, Clarke’s anti-Al Qaeda plan was sitting on Bush’s desk, awaiting his signature. It was the ninth National Security Presidential Directive of his presidency.

...When Donald Trump hurls insults at his opponents, respectable people generally roll their eyes. But it is precisely Trump’s refusal to be respectable that helps him spark debates that elites would rather avoid. And sometimes, those debates are important to have.

Given that George W. Bush’s advisors still dominate the Republican foreign-policy establishment-- an establishment that has not broken with his ideological legacy in any fundamental way-- his record both before and after 9/11 remains relevant to the terrorism debate today. For many years now, that foreign-policy establishment has insisted that questioning Bush’s failure to stop the September 11 attacks constitutes an outrageous slur. That’s why Fleischer is now calling Trump a “truther.” He’s purposely blurring the line between accusing Bush of having orchestrated the attacks and accusing Bush of having been insufficiently vigilant in trying to stop them. But Bush was insufficiently vigilant. The evidence is overwhelming.

If Jeb’s loyalty to his brother makes it impossible for him to confront that, fine. But he has no right to demand that the rest of the public avert its eyes.

Maybe it's more than Jeb's blind loyalty in play here, though. David Sirota, writing for today's International Business Times noted the real irony about Jeb's laughable assertion that his brother "kept us safe." Jeb himself, in his role as Governor of Florida didn't keep us safe, in fact, quite the contrary. "Many of the 9/11 hijackers were able to obtain Florida driver’s licenses or identification cards-- and train freely in the state-- while Jeb Bush was governor." Jeb, of course is trying to pass the buck and blame his subordinates.

While Jeb Bush has called Trump’s criticism “pathetic,” the immigration policies of Bush’s gubernatorial administration were under the microscope in 2001 when law enforcement officials acknowledged that Florida had issued driver’s licenses or state identification cards to 12 of the hijackers, all of whom had come to the United States on visas. The St. Petersburg Times reported that at the time of the attack there was a warrant in Florida to apprehend one of the lead hijackers, Mohammed Atta, but “the warrant for Atta's arrest was ignored.” A national conservative organization pushing tougher immigration laws soon criticized Bush for his unwillingness to support what the group said was legislation necessary to stop terrorism.

...In the days after the 2001 attacks, news broke that most of the 9/11 hijackers carried driver’s licenses or identification cards issued by Florida’s department of motor vehicles-- an agency controlled by Bush and the other statewide elected officials who comprise the Florida Cabinet. Some of the licenses and ID cards were issued by the state while Bush was governor. Some of the hijackers trained for the attacks at Flight Safety International in Vero Beach, Florida. Local newspapers said the Florida licenses played a pivotal role in helping the hijackers conduct business in the United States.

“Terrorists known to have Florida licenses or identification cards made more than a dozen trips total to driver's license offices in the state,” the St. Petersburg Times reported “That's how often the terrorists willingly called themselves to the attention of the state, either to acquire a license or to update their address, both of which might have helped them rent cars or board planes without arousing suspicion.”

Mohammed Atta lived in Delray Beach and rented an airplane. He had been stopped a few months before 9/11 by Florida law enforcement officials, and was told to appear in court the next month. However, he was not arrested and, the Times wrote, “deputies never learned that Atta reportedly was on a U.S. government ‘watch list’ of people tied to terrorist activity.” The newspaper also noted that while Atta tried and failed to get a driver’s license at one Florida facility, he was able to get one later at another facility.

Another hijacker, one of several aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon, was stopped for a traffic violation in Arlington, Virginia, days before the attack and had a Florida driver’s license, according to CNN.

Others bided their time in Florida; the Palm Beach Post reported that “at least seven and possibly nine of the hijackers lived in Delray Beach in the months leading up to the attack” and “three others lived in Boynton Beach.” Several also looked into renting crop duster planes-- officials believed they may have been aiming to use them to drop chemicals, according to news station WPBF.

“Gov. Jeb Bush has ordered a ‘top-to-bottom’ review of all state security measures, including Florida's licensing laws,” the St. Petersburg Times wrote in an editorial just after the attacks. “That so many of the terrorists obtained IDs and flight instruction here was not a coincidence.” Noting that the majority of hijackers “were able to obtain state driver's licenses and identification that enabled them to nestle within the fabric of society,” the newspaper declared: “Alarm bells should have gone off but never did. We can no longer afford these kind of security lapses.”

Bush signed an executive order in October 2001 for foreigners to receive only 30-day temporary driving permits while police investigate their identification, and he called for the regulation of flight schools to be reviewed.

"The world has changed and we're going to respond to that change," Bush told the Tampa Bay Times that month, as he accepted a report on the state's readiness to prevent terrorism.

But now Jeb is trying to raise money by attacking Trump over the issue! "If you believe as I do," his campaign wrote in an e-mail, "that my brother kept this country safe and strong after those horrific attacks, then I need you to donate $5 and fight back against Donald Trump." Neither his nor his brother's policies did anything but throw out a welcoming mat to the 9/11 terrorists.

What a terrible time for Jeb's campaign for Truth, the SONY movie about how Dan Rather and producer Mary Maples were fired for reporting the truth about George W. Bush's shady record in the Texas Air National Guard, to get released! I hope everyone goes to see it.

So Who Really Won?

Maybe Republicans and Republican-lite media elites expected Hillary to come off like she is in their sick, twisted fantasies. So they were shocked when she came off, instead, as calm, attractive and competent. When I woke this morning it was just before 5AM and the light source I use to get out of bed is the TV. On came Morning Joe, better known as the Hate Hillary Hour. But the 3 or 4 minutes I could of that wretched show was all about how she won the debate last night. In fact, all the media elites, especially the right-wing ones, are booming how Hillary was the clear winner. One of the websites that sets the tone for Hate Talk Radio clowns like Mark Levin, Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, Laura Schlesinger, Neil Boortz... is Red State. Leon Wolf was pushing the Hillary won theme last night that all the clowns were repeating today:

Jim Webb was the only candidate on stage who made occasional substantive sense... The only two candidates on stage who mattered were Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. As between the two of them, Hillary came off (to me) as the clear winner on both style and substance. Hillary was (astonishingly) much more likeable and personable than everyone’s favorite crazy socialist uncle. She had few to no cringe inducing moments. She deftly threw red meat to the base when presented with the opportunity without saying anything that would hurt her in the general.

Sanders, on the other hand, failed to land a single substantive glove on Clinton and further came off as mostly an empty (and ill fitting) suit. For all that Sanders has been talked up as a guy who has been drawing huge crowds with lengthy speeches that are chock full of wonkish policy details, Sanders was remarkably pat and cliche in virtually all his answers, frequently looked downright confused, and made his biggest impressions when agreeing with what Hillary said.

This was the first introduction many people had to Bernie Sanders, and many people tuned in to see if he presented a viable alternative to Hillary as a candidate. What they saw instead was a guy who would unquestionably be an even worse and more unlikable general election candidate than Hillary.

Beltway conventional wisdom types like Ryan Lizza and Chris Cillizza could have written their perspectives before the debate even occurred. Cillizza in today's Washington Post:

Hillary Clinton: This was the best two hours of her candidacy to date. Clinton was confident, relaxed and good-natured. She was aggressive from the start and savaged Sanders on his past votes on guns. (He seemed taken aback by her direct hit.) She also got some help from Sanders-- most notably on the controversy surrounding her e-mail server. Sanders said he didn't care about the issue, voters didn't care about the issue and no one wanted to talk about it. Clinton couldn't have said it better herself. And when Lincoln Chafee tried to go back at Clinton on e-mails, she scored the moment of the debate when she curtly responded "no" when asked if she wanted to respond to his comments.

She also smartly turned at least three questions into broad-scale attacks on Republicans, effectively playing the uniter role for the party-- and winning a ton of applause in the process. Not everything Clinton did was pitch perfect. Her "I represented Wall Street" line will likely be used in an ad against her, and her inability to cite anything other than her gender to differentiate her presidency from that of Obama was not so good. Still, Clinton was head and shoulders above everyone else on the stage as a debater. And it wasn't close.

Bernie Sanders: If you were a Democrat who wanted to learn more about the Vermont socialist via the debate, he gave you plenty to like. Sanders is a true believer in liberal ideas, and you can feel his passion when you watch him.  His "I don't want to hear anymore about your damn e-mails" line to Clinton was, probably, the biggest applause line of the night and will be replayed roughly 1 billion times over the next 24-48 hours. In terms of pure interest-- as it relates to what people were searching for during the debate-- there's no question this was a good night for Sanders.

At the same time, Sanders showed that he is a somewhat limited candidate. He looked totally lost on foreign policy-- even when moderator Anderson Cooper teed him up a question on Russia and Vladimir Putin. Sanders is great when he is talking about economic inequality and climate change. When he is talking about anything else, he's sort of eh.

The worst coverage I saw last night-- of course-- was from MSNBC right-of-center hack Chris Matthews, who slammed any guest who defended Bernie and thought that asking Hillary's campaign chairman, John Podesta, to analyze the debate was a great idea. Matthews would make the perfect Fox Democrat; I don't understand why he's on MSNBC. Anyway, Jonathan Chait can always be counted on by the Establishment to set the tone and he didn't disappoint Team Clinton this morning. "Hillary Clinton’s campaign spent most of the last year descending inexorably into depression and even panic. But the first Democratic presidential debate may have finally turned the tide, or at least stopped her fall. Clinton demonstrated that she was, by far, the best presidential candidate on stage. Indeed, she may have been the only person on stage actually running for president... [S]he alone displayed the performative talent necessary to win a major party nomination. As a sheer communicator, she may ever-so-slightly outclass a Scott Walker, but she pales in comparison to at least a half-dozen Republicans: Figures like Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, perhaps even Jeb Bush, can put together more memorable soundbites. But whereas Walker’s performance came off as so pathetic that he had to abandon his campaign in disgrace, Clinton easily lapped the field. None of her opponents can plausibly imitate the public’s conception of a presidential nominee. Lincoln Chafee looked like he wandered into the building after his yacht had been lost at sea for weeks. Jim Webb snarled angrily about obscure obsessions. Martin O’Malley seemed to crave consideration as her vice-presidential nominee. Bernie Sanders is running for co-op president... After the debate, she again resembles what she appeared to be at the campaign’s outset: the all-but-certain Democratic nominee."

And, of course, the NY Times declared her the winner this morning, as did the Wall Street Journal: "a performance that wasn’t long on soaring rhetoric or deep passion, until Mrs. Clinton weighed in emphatically on strengthening family leave policies and funding Planned Parenthood. But it was methodically effective." The L.A. Times too, of course: "[S]he exuded a sense of command that her rivals onstage often seemed to lack. And in sharp contrast with her reticence on the subject during the 2008 campaign, she repeatedly reminded viewers that with her, they could make history: After the U.S. elected its first black president, it now had a chance to elect its first woman." Republicans, of course, loved a lot of what they heard from her. Even her old pal Donald Trump was enthusiastic about her performance.

And it was, of course, just that: a performance. Example: when she was asked to name her most dedicated enemies, she talked about "the health insurance companies, the drug companies." And, yet, and yet, and yet... the kind of "progressive she claims she is-- a joke-- who gets things done managed to inspire those enemies to give her huge amounts of money for her career. When Bernie talked about Big Pharma and Wall Street being his enemies, it's an actual fact.

"But..."

[H]ealth insurance companies and drug companies have been some of her biggest financial supporters. In 2008, Clinton was the among the three biggest recipients of campaign cash from pharmaceutical-related companies, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In all, the watchdog group reports that she raised $738,000 from employees of pharmaceutical manufacturers and companies classified as “Pharmaceuticals /Health Products.” The center reports that Clinton also raised more than $1.2 million from the insurance industry-- which includes health insurers.

On top of those campaign contributions, the Clintons and their family foundation have benefited from their ties to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

In 2011, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)-- the primary trade association representing drug companies-- paid Bill Clinton $200,000 for a speech, as the organization was lobbying the Hillary Clinton-led State Department. Last year, the Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies Association, a trade group whose members include major pharmaceutical companies, paid her a $250,000 speaking fee.

Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation has received between $1 million and $5 million worth of donations separately from drug manufacturers Pfizer and Procter & Gamble, and from health insurers Humana and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Some of those companies made donations as recently as this year, according to the foundation’s website.

That largesse was part of a friendship forged after those industries opposed her 1993 health care initiative-- and which continued after she won reelection to the Senate in 2006.

As secretary of state, Clinton repeatedly championed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which critics say includes provisions that strengthen patent protection for drug manufacturers. (Last week, she declared that she now opposes the trade deal.) As a presidential candidate in 2008, she promoted the idea of a federal mandate effectively requiring Americans to buy private health insurance.

Those Clinton positions were strongly supported by the same drug and insurance industries that she now calls "enemies."

Before we get into the other, more modern, way of looking at who won the debate last night, there were some old-media journalists who looked at it differently from the herd. Peter Beignet at The Atlantic, for example, pointed out Hillary's great flaw and Bernie's strength in terms of the institutionalizes vs the insurrectionists, easily the heart of the whole matter of this election cycle.

The most revealing moment of last night’s Democratic presidential debate came near the end, when CNN moderator Anderson Cooper asked the candidates to “name the one thing—the one way that your administration would not be a third term of President Obama.” Bernie Sanders replied that, unlike Obama, he would “transform America ... through a political revolution.” Hillary Clinton answered that, unlike Obama, she’s a woman.

The responses reminded me of a distinction Chris Hayes makes in his excellent book, Twilight of the Elites, between “institutionalists,” who want to make existing institutions function better and “insurrectionists,” who want to tear them down and start again.

Sanders is an insurrectionist. That’s why, asked about following the most transformational liberal president in a half-century, he didn’t say that America is moving in the right direction but has further to go. He said America needs a “political revolution.” He also said that, “America’s campaign finance system is corrupt.”

Hillary never talks that way. She acknowledges problems but she rarely indicts America’s core economic and political institutions. Consider the two candidates’ answers on financial regulation. Sanders said that, “Wall Street, where fraud is a business model, helped to destroy this economy and the lives of millions of people.” Thus, “we have got to break up” the banks. Hillary, by contrast, said that “Dodd-Frank was a good start, and I think that we have to implement it ... We have to save the Consumer Financial Protection board.” Sanders, in other words, attacked the system; Hillary explained how it could be improved.

...It was like that all night. Sanders called for replacing capitalism with democratic socialism. Clinton called for “rein[ing] in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn’t run amok.” Sanders boasted that he had opposed a bank bailout even after America’s top economic officials warned that not passing one might bring “a complete meltdown.” Hillary essentially embraced the label of “insider,” declaring that she knows “what it takes to get things done.”

Beinart is a conservative Democrat and his conclusion is, of course, a conservative one: "Bernie Sanders," he concludes, "like Donald Trump, can only win if a plurality of primary voters want to turn their country, and their party, upside down. With her performance last night, Hillary Clinton reminded Democrats-- in a way Jeb Bush has still not reminded Republicans-- why that might not be necessary after all." Less conservative Democratic voters may bot see it the same way. Like Philip Bump (during the debate) at the Washington Post who showed how "Sanders dominated Clinton on Twitter" and examined Google Analytics spikes to interpret how debate viewers were reacting in real time. "Sanders," he wrote, repeatedly saw spikes in Google interest after he spoke. After his intro. After he talked about guns. After basically everything else he said... Sanders that drew attention the whole time. What's more, Sanders actually overpowered the long-term king of Google, Donald Trump. During the debate, Sanders continually attracted more Google interest than Trump."

Perhaps the most interesting exchange of the second hour was the back-and-forth between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over her e-mails-- specifically, Sanders's argument that we should all be talking about other issues. (Sanders: "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails!") But it's not what people wanted to learn more about.

Sanders continued to get the most Google interest overall, spiking when he mentioned his efforts to push back on Wall Street.

...From start to finish, it was Sanders. Clinton got some attention, as did Webb. But nearly every time Sanders spoke, he generated Google traffic for people searching his name. And in the immediate aftermath of the debate-- a time when Ben Carson did well in the Republican debates-- Sanders got his most interest of the night... People wanted to learn more about Bernie Sanders-- not really Hillary Clinton, not really Martin O'Malley. There's no saying this will correlate to poll position. But it's probably safe to assume that it's better to be of some interest than of no interest-- like Lincoln Chafee.

From a Google Analytics perspective, Bernie won. New research shows Sanders also had the best performing website out of the Democratic candidates. Clinton's website ranked 4th amongst all candidates. And according to a Harris Poll of all Americans website performance matters in how people will support a candidate.



Another way of looking at who won is to look at the instant polls and the focus groups. Frank Luntz's focus group of Florida Democrats clearly indicated that Bernie was the winner. It's worth watching.

The first poll I saw was from Drudge-- I know, I know-- but the CNN instant poll showed an even stronger win for Bernie. Drudge has Bernie at 54.27% against Hillary's 8.82% (on the right). CNN shows Bernie beating her 76-18%! Why the disparity between the two candidates and why the disparity between the way the pundits and conservatives viewed the debate results from the way progressives (and modern methods of analysis) viewed the results? And which side is getting us closer to the answer of who actually did win last night's debate? Every political professional I spoke to today-- including progressives and Bernie partisans among them-- thought that either Hillary had won or, at best, it was a tie. No one thought Bernie beat her. And yet... the polling, the focus groups, the analysis based on social media, the message from real people seems to be indicating that she did well but that Bernie did better. Here's how he explained it to his supporters in an e-mail this afternoon:

Our supporters organized more than 4,000 debate watch parties in homes, pubs, and public venues, and more than 100,000 people came together to watch the debate at these events. In American politics, there are two primary sources of power: organized people and organized money. Last night proved that we have the people and that we’re well organized.

...When we started this campaign, a lot of folks wrote us off. Well, I think last night showed them wrong, and that we can win. We are indeed off and running. Nothing significant in this country happens in terms of change unless a strong grassroots movement takes place. That’s what we’re building together, and people should not underestimate us.

Robbie Wilson is one of the Democratic candidates who has endorsed Bernie. He's running in Arkansas' northwest corner, around Fayetteville and Fort Smith. This morning he wrote he was "inspired but not because I think Senator Sanders blew the field away in last night’s debate. Secretary Clinton reminded us all what a well-prepared debater she is, and more than held her own at the center podium. I do think the debate will result in higher national polling for Senator Sanders, and that the agenda-driven mainstream media will have to grit their teeth as they show his numbers right up there with Secretary Clinton’s. But my inspiration doesn’t’ come from that." He continued:

CNN ran a Facebook poll last night, asking who the winner of the debate was. The results showed Senator Sanders winning a landslide victory with 81%, his closest challenger being Secretary Clinton at 13%. You won’t find that poll featured on their website or their broadcast; in fact, if you can locate it anywhere besides at its meager Facebook location, I’ll give you a shiny nickel. It is not being promoted and polling parameters are not offered. But what inspires me is that this is not the ubiquitous CNN or Clinton Campaign landline poll, which right off the bat skews to a Democratic demographic already likely to vote for Secretary Clinton.

This is a country with a population of 320 million people. Only 60%, approximately 192 million of us, still have a land line phone and are more likely to be Republican; just those minority landliners who won’t vote for a Republican are likely to vote for Clinton. Facebook, on the other hand, has 156.5 million users in the United States.  These are mostly women, mostly under the age of 40, and mostly college graduates and students living in major metropolitan cities and suburbs. These are the people who stood up for Senator Sanders in that poll and substantially top-dressed his growing mandate.

We’ll probably never get the parameters of that CNN Facebook poll, because the idea that an overwhelming number of likely Democratic voters stood up for Bernie Sanders won’t fit well with the pro-Clinton agenda at the Cable News Network. But I am nonetheless inspired, because this poll is another peek at what Super Tuesday evening will look like; stunned Clinton supporters staring blankly at their television screens, not understanding how Senator Sanders was declared the winner so quickly. Polling places still overwhelmed with energetic, young voters, happily standing in long lines in their powder blue Bernie shirts, posting every tweak of their voting experience on Facebook. Secretary Clinton wistfully encouraging her supporters to put their full support behind their party’s nominee.

When we skip over the skewed polls and media bias, and look at the modes by which we really communicate and express ourselves these days, we are seeing that the Sanders campaign continues to pick up steam where it matters most, and that his nomination is becoming more likely.

You can contribute to Bernie's campaign-- and to the campaigns of the progressive Democrats who have endorsed him-- right here at this Blue America ActBlue site. This isn't going to be easy... but it's winnable. if we all act in our own best interests and the best interests of the country we love.