"I Told You So" Is Usually An Offensive Argument That Rarely Works

Look, I never thought Hillary was a good nominee and I didn't think she would make a good president-- and therefor didn't vote for her-- but the idea of voting for The Donald? Give me a break. I would have voted for Hillary a thousand times before voting for Trump. But 62,984,828 Americans did (46.1% of all voters). All they all... a problem? More or less, yes. What country! All those people voted for Donald Trump. What were they thinking?

One person who voted for Trump was Elizabeth Neumann, a vehemently anti-Choice, Ted Cruz supporter. [Bonus question: is supporting Ted Cruz better or worse than supporting Donald Trump? Or basically the same?] Neumann worked for the George W. Bush regime starting in 2003 and in 2016 she took a job as Deputy Chief of Staff for Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. She later served as Assistant Secretary for Threat Prevention and Security Policy under Kirstjen Nielsen, Kevin McAleenan, and neo-Nazi and future criminal defendant Chad Wolf. So... she's been up to a lot of no good for quite some time. But she loves herself some Joe Biden!





Yesterday, she expanded on, or updated, in an OpEd for USA Today, the powerful ad (above) that she cut last summer for Republican Voters Against Trump. "Everything we saw during the first presidential debate," she wrote, "is indicative of how President Donald Trump behaves in the White House. His business model is chaos. He has no organization, no leadership, and sees every interaction as a contest or a battle, even when it doesn’t have to be. Chris Wallace now knows how so many administration staffers feel-- and how I felt when the president got in the way of me doing my job. He is dangerous for our country."

Yep and they all let him get away with it-- they all bowed and scraped to this weak, psychologically wrecked little slob because... well... tax cuts, judges, careerism or, in Neumann's case, her toxic delusions-- which she still clings to, by the way, that God opposes women's Choice.

I served as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention, and my job was to help keep Americans safe from terrorist attacks. My time in office coincided with a dramatic rise in white nationalist violence, but my colleagues and I couldn’t get the president to help address the problem. At the debate, America saw what I saw in the administration: President Trump refuses to distance himself from white nationalists. I realized after watching the White House response to the terrorist attack in El Paso that his rhetoric was a recruitment tool for violent extremist groups. The president bears some responsibility for the deaths of Americans at the hands of these violent extremists.

As a conservative, I believe a primary purpose of the federal government is to provide for the national defense. Under the Constitution, it is a mandatory function of the federal government. After serving for three years inside the Trump administration’s national security team, I am convinced the president is failing at keeping Americans safe.

Early on in the administration, I represented the Department of Homeland Security at several meetings in which a White House staff member implied that the president had approved, and that we should begin to carry out, plans that could have led the United States into war. Thankfully, there were experienced people in the room who had enough clout to suggest that these catastrophic plans needed a second look. Many of us weren’t sure what, if anything, the president had actually approved, or that he had been properly briefed to ensure he understood the risks involved. These people helped us avoid war.

Having adults in the room matters. They protect the country from a chaotic White House structure that allows staffers to run amok. But more importantly, they ensure that the president is presented with unvarnished truth, that difficult topics like domestic terrorism are raised even when he doesn’t want to acknowledge them.

This is not necessarily an actionable comment but are you at all nervous about all these die-hard conservative elites happily voting for Biden? Let's end the evening on a funny note-- with Jimmy Kimmel and an oldie but goodie:

Another Trump Insider Exposes The Worst President In History: The Donald

 

Olivia Troye, a lifelong Republican who announced she's voting for Biden, worked for Pence for two years, a special adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism issues and in charge of his pandemic response. It may be hard to remember, but supposedly Pence is in charge of the entire government's pandemic response. She was the one who held it altogether for him. On Thursday she said Trump's biggest concern about the pandemic is how it will affect his reelection and said that he didn't care about people getting sick or dying. Trump says he never heard of her, never met her and that she's a liar and a disgruntled, fired employee.

Yesterday, after interviewing Troye, Susan Glasser took a deeper dive for New Yorker readers. Glasser wrote that Troye "had seen Trump rant in private about Fox News coverage as his public-health advisers desperately tried to get him to focus on a disease that has now killed some two hundred thousand Americans. She had decided that Trump was lying to the American public about the disease, and that 'words matter, especially when you’re the President of the United States,' and that it was time to speak out. She was nervous and scared and worried for her family and her career. But she plunged ahead anyway."

I asked about her firsthand observation of the President during the crisis. She said that Trump was “disruptive.” That he could not “focus.” That he was consumed by himself and his prospects in November. “For him, it was all about the election,” Troye told me. “He just can’t seem to care about anyone else besides himself.”

Troye joined the coronavirus task force when it was first established, in late January, before any Americans had died from covid-19. Her experience on it, Troye told me, convinced her that Trump’s handling of the situation-- the conscious spreading of disinformation, the disregard for the task force’s work-- had made the crisis far worse for Americans. She warned about the President’s push for a vaccine before the November election and said that she did not trust him to do the right thing for the country’s health and safety. “What I’m really concerned about is if they rush this vaccine and pressure people and get something out because they want to save the election,” she said.

Troye is the first White House staff member who has worked on the coronavirus response to speak out publicly against Trump, but the President and the Administration she described were drearily consistent with portraits that have emerged in countless other tell-all interviews and books: a White House riven by backstabbing and suspicion, where trouble flowed from the top and good governance was subordinate to Presidential whim and partisan calculation. She told me she believed that most other staffers on the coronavirus task force were genuinely motivated to help Americans weather the pandemic but that Trump blocked them from implementing the right policies. “Everything that you’re putting in place is derailed not just by a random person-- it’s derailed by a No. 1. It’s derailed by the person at the very top,” she said.

Troye described herself to me as a lifelong Republican, whose first job out of college was at the Republican National Committee. On 9/11, she fled her office on foot, walking home past the smoldering fire of the Pentagon, a moment that convinced her, like many others in her generation, to pursue a career in national security. She went on to serve as a George W. Bush Administration appointee in the Pentagon. For the first year and a half of the Trump Administration, she worked at the Department of Homeland Security, as a career intelligence official, before being detailed to Pence’s staff. Civil servants like herself were reviled as “deep staters” by Trump’s political appointees, she said. They were viewed with even more suspicion after Trump’s impeachment in the House, in December, was aided by testimony from mid-level White House staffers, including Jennifer Williams, Pence’s national-security aide, who worked in the office next to Troye’s. “I actually find that term very offensive,” she told me, “because not once while I was there did I do anything that I believe would lead anyone to think that I was a ‘deep stater,’ constantly undermining his agenda... At the end of the day, I’m a career officer and my job was to serve, no matter who was in office.”

...Sadly, the surprise here is not that Trump acted so callously in the midst of a pandemic but that so many senior government officials know that this is happening and are doing nothing to stop it. Troye’s testimony, like that of so many others, is from inside the room-- in this case, from inside the very room that is supposed to be dealing with the single biggest crisis currently afflicting the United States.

Every Presidency has its dissenters, people who leave and tell tales after they do so. But there has never been anything like the stories that have emerged from the Trump White House, from so many who worked with the President and observed him up close. People like his former national-security adviser John Bolton, who called Trump “unfit” for office. And people like the former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the former White House chief of staff John Kelly, and the former director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, all of whom have relayed grave concerns about Trump that have made their way to Bob Woodward and other journalists.

In the end, this is what struck me most during my conversation with Troye: she is young, only forty-three years old, with a long career ahead of her, and she was willing to put it all on the line publicly, whereas people like Mattis and Kelly were not. That contrast could not have been more stark as I read a Coats Op-Ed in The Times that published the same day as Troye’s video. Coats, clearly referring to Trump’s recent undermining of faith in the upcoming election, said that a national commission should be established by Congress to insure confidence in this fall’s voting. Coats never once referenced Trump by name, and he has never publicly come forward to share with Americans his misgivings about the President. Why not? He is a veteran U.S. senator and a former U.S. ambassador who closed out his career as the head of the massive U.S. intelligence bureaucracy. What does he have to risk?

Last night at New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait noted that Troye's indictment of Trump went further than most of his former aides who broke with him and denounced him. After all, she has asserted that The Donald displayed "flat-out disregard for human life," which goes beyond just being unfit. "Even by the hyperinflated standards of the Trump era," wrote Chait, "disregard for human life is an extraordinarily serious charge. The most basic trait any president must have, below even simple competence and honesty, is a desire to safeguard the well-being of the public. Almost anybody would agree that a president who simply does not care if Americans die is morally disqualified from office. But there is plenty of available evidence to support it… There’s a term for a person who views other humans purely as instruments for his own advancement, and is unable to conceive of the idea of caring about them independent of his own self-interest: 'sociopath.' The United States has had some terrible presidents before, but probably never a sociopathic one. When his own aides warn the public that he does not care if the people he is tasked with helping live or die, we should take their warnings with the utmost seriousness."

Trump quickly had a couple of his attack dogs savage her-- including Pence and a disgraced Michael Flynn crony, a retired general named Keith Kellogg. But Trump seems to take particular pleasure in personally attacking women who speak up about him. Ever notice?

Will Former GOP Officials Be Able To Persuade Republican Voters That Biden Is The Lesser Evil?

Tuesday, The Circus ran a piece on Kellyanne Conway in which she predicted that "hidden Trump voters" would be out in force on November 3rd to save the day for the Orange Menace. "As the person who coined the term, 'hidden undercover Trump voter in 2016,' there are even more of them and they’re even more committed now, and they’re going to surprise you as to who they are this time."

But are there hidden undercover Biden voters too? Republicans who have never voted for Democrats in their lives but who cannot, eyes wide open, vote for Trump again? Yesterday a couple hundred Republicans and Independents announced that they're voting for Biden. Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, noted that while Bixden is a "decent man, a steady man, Trump is trying to paint the world of Joe Biden as horrific-- but that’s Trump’s America now." According to Reuters reporter Tim Reid "She accused Trump of betraying conservative values by undermining the rule of law and national security, lying, dividing Americans along racial lines, and failing the country in his response to the coronavirus pandemic."

Michigan Democrats don't remember Governor Rick Snyder with anything but contempt, but Michigan Republicans still respect and admire the man who they elected governor in 2011 and 2015. Yesterday he kicked off this new effort with an appeal directly to Republicans in an OpEd, I am a Republican vote for Biden, for USA Today, painting Trump as a bully without a moral compass.

Forty-four years ago, I celebrated my 18th birthday at the 1976 Republican National Convention as part of Gerald Ford’s national youth group. At that convention, I had the honor to watch two great leaders in action-- Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. I have remained a lifelong Republican and proudly announced Michigan’s support for Mitt Romney in 2012 from the front row of the Republican convention in Tampa.

I will continue to support and stand up for Republican policies and values, and support Republican candidates, but I will not support Donald Trump for reelection.

Trump has not unified the nation

When elected to office, you do not represent only your supporters, you represent all of your constituents. That is your job. I was at the nation’s Capitol when Trump gave his inaugural address. I had hoped this first speech as president would be a message to unify a divided nation. Instead, I heard a speech directed at how he would help the people who supported him. And sadly, that is how President Trump continues to govern.

Furthermore, President Trump’s answer to people who oppose or disagree with them is to be verbally abusive. In other words, he is a bully.

A great leader treats people with respect even when they present different opinions. Without a variety of views and opinions, we would have no innovation or creativity in our nation. Being a bully and being strong are not the same thing. Being strong is standing up for your convictions. Being a bully is trying to intimidate those who are perceived to be weaker or a threat. As a proud nerd, I had to deal with bullies over many years; it is tragedy watching our world suffer from one.

In addition, President Trump lacks a moral compass. He ignores the truth.

Facts and science matter. Good decisions should be based on facts and supported by sound scientific theory whenever possible.

President Trump also has demonstrated that he does not fully appreciate public policy matters, including public health, the economy and foreign relations, nor does he seem to want to learn.

While we have had a strong economy during his term, it reminds me of the old expression that it is better to be lucky than smart. Some regulatory reforms have been helpful. But his tax reform was a failure. It didn’t have real long-term value, enriched large corporations and violated the basic principles of good tax reform to be simple, fair, and efficient. In the foreign policy area, there have been some good agreements, but overall, our nation is no longer respected as a leader on world affairs.

Not supporting Donald Trump for reelection is not the same thing as voting for Joe Biden.

Bringing back civility to the nation

I had the opportunity to interact with Mr. Biden when he served as vice president. My interactions were always constructive and respectful. He has shown the desire to heal a deeply divided nation; has demonstrated strong moral character and empathy; and he seems willing to listen to people who have different perspectives from his own.

For years, I mentioned in most of my speeches the need to bring back civility to our nation. We will not continue to be the greatest nation in the world if we can’t get along among ourselves. We have only become more divided over the past four years. We need a leader who believes in civility and bringing Americans closer together.

While I am endorsing Joe Biden for president, I am still a Republican who also will be publicly supporting Republican candidates at the local, state and federal level.

My weekly column signoff is-- “Remember, Relentless Positive Action (RPA) in your life will help you and others. So, I wish you RPA every day!” RPA is a philosophy of no credit, no blame, and solving problems in a relentless fashion. Never in our nation’s history have we needed RPA more. I hope you will join me and help others by using Relentless Positive Action to elect Joe Biden as America’s next president.

Retired Michigan Republicans congressmen Joe Schwarz and Dave Trott jumped right on board, each endorsing Biden.

John Negroponte Just Endorsed Biden! Is Henry Kissinger Next?

Kamala and Joe by Nancy Ohanian

Not enough Republicans paraded around by the nascent Biden administration for you? Tim Reid at Reuters wrote that over 70 former Republican national security officials including ex-CIA and FBI chiefs will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday while launching a scathing indictment of [Señor Trumpanzee, aka- the Orange Menace] calling him corrupt and unfit to serve." That's today and... here's the statement from a brand new group: Former Republican National Security Officials for Biden. Some of the big names I recognized on the list include some pretty bad hombres (and when I say "bad," I actually mean bad, like in lousy): Richard Armitage, John Negroponte, William Webster, Chuck Hagel, Michael Hayden, Chester Crocker, Carla Hills...

Collin Powell also endorsed Biden this week (video below) but he's not part of this group. And for some reason they threw ex-Sen. John Warner (R-VA) and ex-congressmen Jim Leach (R-IA), Chris Shays (R-CT) and Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) on the list too. Hey, why not? I guess this was the crew that Miles Taylor was teasing out when he said the other day that more Republicans would be coming out against Trump and for Biden. He's one of the signatories of the statement too. They made 10 key points, all pretty basic and nothing that anyone who hasn't been brainwashed by Fox and Hate Talk Radio would dispute:

• Trump has gravely damaged America’s role as a world leader
• Trump has shown that he is unfit to lead during a national crisis
• Trump has solicited foreign influence and undermined confidence in our presidential elections.
• Trump has aligned himself with dictators and failed to stand up for American values.
• Trump has disparaged our armed forces, intelligence agencies, and diplomats.
• Trump has undermined the rule of law.
• Trump has dishonored the office of the presidency.
• Trump has divided our nation and preached a dark and pessimistic view of America.
• Trump has attacked and vilified immigrants to our country.
• Trump has imperiled America’s security by mismanaging his national security team.

I predict a very Republican Biden administration.

Biden's Cabinet Will Suck-- But, As In All Things, Not As Badly As Trump's... And Looking Ahead To The 2022 Midterms

In 2008, John McCain's first choice for a running mate was Joe Lieberman, one of the only Democrats who could make a credible argument that he was the more conservative Joe among Dems, not Biden. They were both detestable senators and Lieberman was eventually kicked out of the party by the grassroots, even with the Democratic establishment sticking with him through his trials and tribulations. But McCain was talked out of selecting him by one of today's top #NeverTrumps, Steven Schmidt, who thought-- incorrectly, as he would tell you himself now-- that Sarah Palin would be the best choice.

The only time-- as far as I know-- that a presidential candidate chose someone from the other party as his running mate was in 1864, when Abe Lincoln dumped vice president Hannibal Hamlin (R-ME) for Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, in the name of national unity. When Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson became president, a disaster for the country and especially for the recently freed slaves, with whom he had no sympathy at all and against whose interests he worked tirelessly. He was impeached in 1868 but avoided being tossed out of office by one Senate vote. That same year, he lost the Democratic Party nomination for president and is remembered in history as one of America's worst presidents, some even say worse than Trump, although, obviously that's impossible.

It's much easier-- and more traditional-- for presidents to put members of the other party in their cabinets. Even Trump did as much-- if you want to count Michael Flynn and Peter Navarro as Democrats (they technically were). Obama appointed a ton of Republicans to his cabinet: Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense), Ray LaHood (Secretary of Transportation), Chuck Hagel (Secretary of Defense), Robert McDonald (Secretary of Veterans Affairs) and appointed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Fed and Jerome Powell as a member. George W. Bush's token Democrat was Norm Minetta (Secretary of Transportation). Bill Clinton gave Alan Greenspan the FED chair, made William Cohen secretary of defense and appointed Republicans Michael Chertoff, William Sessions, Sheila Bair, David Gergen, Lois Freeh, and John Negroponte to important sub-cabinet positions. Reagan had a fake-Dem, William Bennett, as Secretary of Education and another fake-Dem, Keane Kirkpatrick as UN ambassador. Jimmy Carter appointed Republican James Schlesinger as Secretary of Energy. Nixon had fake-Dem John Connally as Treasury Secretary. And JFK appointed Robert McNamara Secretary of Defense, Douglas Dillon Secretary of the Treasury, John McCone director of the CIA, McGeorge Bundy National Security Advisor and Christian Herter U.S. Trade Rep.

I predict that Biden's administration will be the most bipartisan in living memory. All these Republicans for Biden groups know what they're doing and many of the principals are top political players. If Jaime Harrison defeats Lindsey Graham in November-- not likely, but not impossible-- I wouldn't be surprised to see Graham get a top job, maybe even Secretary of Defense! Rahm Emanuel is so happy he's peeing in his tutu. Yesterday BuzzFeed reporter Henry Gomez looked into the motivations behind Kasich's DNC speech last night. Basically, after spending decades trying and failing to "shape and reshape" the Republican Party, Kasich would now like to help shape and reshape the Democratic Party. Most Democrats say "Screw you!" Gomez quoted a veteran Democratic operative who has experience in Ohio: "Maybe we shouldn’t have guys who tried to break unions and put gag orders on rape crisis counselors speak at our convention?"

Kasich’s welcome endorsement and the overall programming of the convention say a lot about Biden’s vision for the Democratic Party he now leads. Viewers may get a minute of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the young New York lawmaker who excites progressives, but they’ll also hear from John Kerry, an elder of the establishment. And Kasich is sharing a night with Sen. Bernie Sanders-- a democratic socialist and the runner-up for this year’s nomination-- in a scheduling move intended to demonstrate Biden’s ideology-spanning support.

“I think both parties have to have new ideas, and I think this country is moderate,” said Kasich, winding up to a gentle criticism of Ocasio-Cortez. “People on the extreme, whether they're on the left or on the right, they get outsized publicity that tends to define their party. You know, I listen to people all the time make these statements, and because AOC gets outsized publicity doesn't mean she represents the Democratic Party. She's just a part, just some member of it. And it's on both sides, whether it's the Republicans or whether it's the Democrats.”

...Kasich describes his alliance with Biden and the Democrats as a “team of rivals”-- a phrase borrowed from the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and her book on Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet. Kasich acknowledged that his convention speech, which he prerecorded from Westerville, Ohio, will raise speculation that he might be in line for a post in Biden’s Cabinet.

“People say, ‘Well, he must have been promised something or he must have received something.’ I haven't been promised anything, nor have I received anything,” he said.

“I'd be more than glad to advise, but I'm not going back to Washington,” Kasich added. “Could you imagine my being Secretary of Commerce? I mean, I wouldn't survive. I'll try to keep my voice out there. And look, you know, we'll just see how it goes. Let's just see how it goes.”

When convention delegates-- the majority of whom are Biden delegates of course were asked to react to the statement, "We should support a comprehensive single-payer, government-run insurance system that eliminates all copays and deductibles, is not tied to employment, and does not require payment at the point of service," 75.3% agreed. And when asked to react to the statement "We should support expanding the current healthcare system to Medicare for All that is comprehensive in its coverage," 75.2% agreed. Remember, Biden threatened, during the primaries, that if Congress passes Medicare-for-All, he'd veto it. (But not as meanly as Trump?)

Yesterday, at Too Much Information, Andrew Perez and David Sirota wrote that Biden's team-- i.e., the Democratic Party-- is signaling a post-election cave to the GOP and the sickness industrial complex on health care.

On the eve of a Democratic National Convention taking place as millions lose health care coverage, the health care industry is launching a new ad campaign pressing Democrats to back off the party’s already compromised health care promises. That pressure seems to be having its intended effect on Capitol Hill as congressional aides say the party will not push the initiative if Biden wins. The signs of retreat come as health care industry profits are skyrocketing and the industry’s campaign cash has flooded into Democratic coffers.

The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF)-- a front group created by health insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital lobbying groups to oppose “Medicare for All”--  announced on Friday that it is launching a new national ad campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon their plans to create a public health insurance plan. The group said it will run ads during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this week. PAHCF is led by a former Hillary Clinton aide and run out of the offices of a D.C. lobbying firm led by former top Democratic congressional aides.

A substantial “public option” plan-- which polls show is wildly popular-- was the centerpiece of recent policy negotiations between supporters of former Vice President Joe Biden and progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had been pushing for a more expansive Medicare for All program. A draft of the party platform, approved by DNC members late last month, includes a pledge to pass a public option, or a government-run health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.

Within 24 hours of the launch of the industry’s new ads, however, anonymous Democratic congressional sources were telling The Hill that Democrats likely won’t bother with the public option fight next year if Biden wins the election. Instead, they said the party will instead work to tweak the party’s 2010 health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has done little to limit insurance or hospital costs and has failed to ensure universal coverage.

A DWT prediction: Biden won't be as bad a president as Trump but within a year, people will be hoping he dies and Kamala takes over. The Democratic-controlled Senate will be barely better than the Republican-controlled Senate in terms of getting anything done for working families. Pelosi's larger but impotent House majority-- where the Republican wing of the party will be dominant-- will also accomplish absolutely nothing the voters want. The result: massive Democratic losses in the 2022 midterms, massive enough to dwarf 2010.

This is a good ad and worth watching again. I'm just wondering if California GOP congressmembers Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes, Doug LaMalfa, Crooked Ken Calvert, Tom McClintock, Mike Garcia and former Reps Darrell Issa and David Valadao (nothing trying for come-backs) have had the guts to comment on Señor Trumpanzee's statement about cutting off FEMA funds to California yet. What would happen after an earthquake if that asshole wins again? Miles Taylor, the fellow in this video told ABC News that he's "not going to mention any other names yet, but the president can expect that in the coming weeks and months he is going to hear from more people that served in his administration," calling this video an "opening salvo" and making it clear there are other Republicans who will be saying similar things about Trump's corruption, dysfunction, incompetence and unsuitability for public office.

Rahm Emanuel-- Still Trying To Turn The Democratic Party Into A Vehicle For Big Finance And Neoliberalism

In an OpEd for the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Rahm Emanuel celebrated the idea of "Biden Republicans," basically conservative GOP voters who have had enough of Trump and are eager to vote him out of office by electing Joe Biden who was long bragged about being the most conservative Democrat in the Senate. "This year," he wrote, "Democrats have an opportunity to chisel off a demographic that will come to be known as 'Biden Republicans.' The question is whether Democrats will let these voters migrate back to the GOP after November, or whether our party will become their permanent safe harbor... Democrats have the chance to achieve a generational transformation. Beyond broadening the coalition to include moderate voters who oppose President Trump, we could deepen our base by turning disaffected Republicans into Democrats. Voters in places that were once beyond our reach-- suburban parts of Maricopa County, Arizona; Mecklenburg County, North Carolina; and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for example-- are open to conversion."

What's a Democrat? Is it someone who supports a set of shared progressive values or is it someone willing to support-- with votes and cash-- Team Blue, Inc? That's where normal Democrats part company with party hacks and Wall Street whores like Emanuel. His claim to fame-- aside from twisting enough Democratic congressional arms for Bill Clinton to get NAFTA passed-- was, as DCCC chair, when in 2006, the Democrats captured 30 seats. That's part of Emanuel's legend-- although few people talk about how all of the conservatives he recruited, first voted with the GOP on issue after issue and were subsequently either defeated or forced to retire once they saw polls showing they would be defeated. None remained in Congress.

I was looking for a link to use citing my assertion and found this-- which I never knew existed-- on Wikipedia: "Emanuel had 'aggressively recruited right-leaning candidates, frequently military veterans, including former Republicans.' Many of the Representatives that Rahm had recruited, such as Heath Shuler, ending up [voted] against important Obama Administration priorities, like economic stimulus, banking reform, and health care.' Howie Klein has suggested that Emanuel's congressional campaign strategy was short-sighted, as it 'contributed to the massive G.O.P. majorities we have now, the biggest since the nineteen-twenties' when the Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 mid-term elections."

Elizabeth Warren was once a Republican-- well into adulthood, as a matter of fact-- and switched parties... but not just a partisan designation at the board of elections, which would certainly be good enough for Emanuel, Warren, as you know, is pro-choice, pro-worker and comes down firmly on the side of Main Street rather than Wall Street. She isn't a bigot or a racist and when she came to the Democratic Party, she didn't bring all the baggage with her that appalls most Democrats, though not Rahmish Democrats from the growing Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the Blue Dogs and the New Dems. And most of the Democrats-- oh, I don't know... 90% of them, who have migrated over to the Democratic Party have brought their old conservative perspectives. That's the problem.

And that's why, unlike the DCCC, Blue America supports progressives not generic Democrats. We're working hard to help primary winners like Kara Eastman, Mike Siegel, Liam O'Mara and Jon Hoadley, who defeated Emanuel-oriented candidates in districts held by Republicans, flip those seats from red to blue.

An Emanuel-protégée, Cheri Bustos-- a Blue Dog/New Dem from Illinois-- has Emanuel's old job at the DCCC. Will she cut the progressives off before the election the way he did? We'll see. But right now I want to urge you to go to the Blue America 2020 congressional ActBlue page, by clicking on the thermometer on the right, and contributing what you can to these men and women-- each of whom is aware that they can only win by appealing to cross-over voters-- independents and moderate Republicans, not hard-core Trump voters who already have their candidates... real Republicans, like Donald J. Bacon, Trump appendage in Omaha, who Kara Eastman is currently leading in the polls, not by going the Republican-lite way but by talking with her neighbors about solving real problems that plague their lives. This morning, Kara told me that she believes "you show you are standing for Main Street over Wall Street by advocating for those crucial pocketbook issues every day: health care, economic fairness, and tax equity. But change won’t happen in DC if the same Washington lobbyists continue to set the agenda. This is why I came out of the gate rejecting all corporate PAC contributions. This has never been a popular position for entrenched interests; but, the more of us that stand up, the more they will back down and come around. You can’t just check off a box, you have to be vocal, visible and very hard-working."

"The way we win as Democrats," top Texas House candidate Mike Siegel told me today, "is to show every community that we will fight for them. This is how this plays in my district, which is perceived as conservative (R+9) but in reality is more dynamic, and certainly very winnable. Michael McCaul has voted to cut healthcare 46 times-- during a pandemic, while rural hospitals close-- while I am fighting for universal healthcare (Medicare for All), so you never have to think twice about seeing a doctor, getting a COVID test, picking up a prescription. McCaul calls this 'socialism' but the voters can see-- I’m fighting for their lives, while McCaul sees them as a profit center. Climate is another key issue. While the rural and Houston-side voters may not understand what we mean by a 'Green New Deal,' each element of this policy is popular. Voters like a national jobs program-- especially in this economic crisis we are in. They like environmental protection-- they want to stop the coal plant and fracking that’s poisoning the air and water. And they want to stop climate change, which has caused five '500 year' flood events in Houston in the last five years. 

"McCaul," he continued, "represents the corruption of our democracy. Taking $60K from Big Pharma while stopping the government from negotiating drug prices. Investing more of his own money in Oil and Gas than any member of Congress-- while refusing to support the most basic transitional steps to a renewable economy. By drawing these contrasts-- by showing I am unbought and unbossed, fighting for the people not corporations-- I can build a truly big tent. One that is not simply left versus right, but bottom versus top. And once we win this race-- and show not only that progressives can win primaries, that we can also flip seats red to blue-- we will give more fuel to this fire, and advance the movement to build a more equitable society."

A Gamble That Paid Off: When Bernie Was Riding High, Wall St. Saw A Distressed Asset In Biden-- And Bought Low

The Republican wing of the Democratic Party lined up behind Biden early, though it wasn't enough to animate his DOA campaign-- not until Obama stepped in and told the party establishment the enough time had been wasted and that Bernie could win and take away everything they had built for themselves if they don't unite behind Biden. So they did. Was anyone surprised? Was anyone surprised when Republican elites started flocking to Biden-- first in a trickle and now in a steady stream?

So why would anyone be surprised that Biden-- who has spent his entire career in politics fellating Wall Street-- would be embraced by the banksters and junior-banksters who were FDR's and the working class' sworn enemies but have been assiduously cultivated by the Bill Clinton breed of Democrats?

Over the weekend, the NY Times published a piece by Kate Kelly, Shane Goldmacher and Thomas Kaplan, The Wallets of Wall Street Are With Joe Biden, if Not the Hearts that will thrill many Democrats and chill many others. The story barely mentions Bernie-- just once when he and Elizabeth Warren were dismissed-- but Bernie, fear of Bernie to be precise, was the impetus for Biden's rise among the financial elites. This story though is about how Trump is pushing Wall Street into the Biden camp. After donating millions to Biden to beat Bernie, that money "helped him build a strong lead in national polls." But with the threat of Bernie off the table, what would Wall Street do next?

"Wall Street," wrote the Times trio, "has fared extraordinarily well under Mr. Trump: deep cuts to taxes, slashed regulations and, until the pandemic hit, record stock prices. But in recent months, dozens of bankers, traders and investors said in interviews, a sense of outrage and exhaustion over Mr. Trump’s chaotic style of governance-- accelerated by his poor coronavirus response-- had markedly shifted the economic and political calculus in their industry. More and more finance professionals, they say, appear to be sidelining their concerns about Mr. Biden’s age-- 77-- and his style. They are surprisingly unperturbed at the likelihood of his raising their taxes and stiffening oversight of their industry. In return, they welcome the more seasoned and methodical presidency they believe he could bring. They may not exactly be falling in love with Mr. Biden. But they are falling in line." And they know that the raising won't be too high and the stiffening won't be too painful. Biden said so himself. He's not called Status Quo Joe just because it rhymes.

Now... ready for silly?

“I’ve seen meaningful numbers of people put aside what would appear to be their short-term economic interest because they value being citizens in a democracy,” said Seth Klarman, founder of the hedge fund Baupost. A longtime independent, Mr. Klarman was at one point New England’s biggest giver to the Republican Party. But in this cycle, he has given $3 million to groups supporting Mr. Biden.

Or as James Attwood, a managing director at the Carlyle Group and a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, put it, “For people who are in the business of hiring and firing C.E.O.s, Donald Trump should have been fired a while ago.” (Mr. Attwood contributed $200,000 in June to the Biden Action Fund, a joint committee with the Democratic National Committee.)

In May and June alone, the Biden Action Fund raised more than $11.5 million. That tally-- a good measuring stick for Wall Street support because it was set up in part to draw contributions from that industry-- included $710,000 from Josh Bekenstein, a co-chair of Bain Capital, and his wife.

But Wall Street money has proved to be a double-edged sword for Democrats, as Hillary Clinton discovered when she was hounded four years ago for delivering private speeches to Goldman Sachs and other firms. Progressive voters and activists-- many of whom backed Mr. Biden’s more liberal rivals in the primary-- are particularly leery of any appearance of coziness with the finance industry.

Leery... imagine that! Why would progressives be leery of the working class' historical enemies? Everything that is wrong with the world... follow the money. Our Times trio wrote that when asked about Wall Street’s role in Biden’s current bid, the campaign spits out all the Biden bullshit about how he fights for the common man, which is quite at odds with his repulsive record of fighting against the common man. Our trio hates Trump so they refrain from noting that although they reluctantly admit that "As a senator from Delaware, Mr. Biden has for decades had relationships with credit-card companies there, but less of a presence in the financial power center of New York. He has counted a small circle of finance executives as supporters. Marc Lasry, the co-founder of Avenue Capital, for example, held a fund-raiser for Mr. Biden during his first run for president in 1988, and continues to back him now. The former hedge-fund executive Eric Mindich and the short-seller James Chanos have been supporters from well before the pandemic began. It doesn’t hurt that Mr. Biden has also not crusaded against Wall Street, the way his primary rivals Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders did. Financial executives mostly seem to believe that while their taxes would rise in a Biden administration, they would not be subjected to the kind of 'fat cat' rhetoric that soured some of their relationships with former President Barack Obama." Feel better now? How about this then? "'Rich people are just as patriotic as poor people,' Mr. Biden told donors at a fund-raiser at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan last year. At a Brookings Institution gathering in 2018, he said, 'I don’t think 500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble.'" Biden is wrong; they are.

Biden’s more benign stance toward the finance industry has provoked skepticism among advocates for stricter regulation. “When the candidate doesn’t have a clear plan on something like Wall Street reform, it tilts the playing field toward what is probably the most powerful industry in the world,” said Carter Dougherty, a spokesman for Americans for Financial Reform, an advocacy group. “We need more than ‘not Trump appointees’ when it comes to financial regulation.”

While Wall Street financiers tend to be more socially liberal, they have collectively swung back and forth between parties. Data from the Center for Responsive Politics show the securities and investment community donating more to President George W. Bush in 2004, and then to Mr. Obama in 2008, and then to Mitt Romney in 2012, followed by Mrs. Clinton in 2016, than to their respective presidential rivals.

This year, it’s Mr. Biden. Financial industry cash flowing to Mr. Biden and outside groups supporting him shows him dramatically out-raising the president, with $44 million compared with Mr. Trump’s $9 million.

Last month, multiple Wall Street bundlers, including Alan Leventhal, the chief executive of Beacon Capital; Nat Simons, who runs a clean-tech investment fund; and Mr. Gray, Blackstone’s president, held virtual fund-raisers for Mr. Biden. The giving has been so robust that the Biden campaign is now asking for at least $1 million in donations before it will confirm the former vice president’s attendance at an event, say bundlers.

As the checks roll in, the Biden campaign has been carefully cultivating its relationship with the business community, with a focus on Wall Street. The outreach has included offering private briefings ahead of major policy rollouts and dangling various donor packages for the upcoming, and mostly virtual, Democratic National Convention.

In one call last month, two of Mr. Biden’s top advisers on financial policy, Ben Harris and Jake Sullivan, led a wide-ranging conversation to preview the candidate’s economic plan, which focuses on broad policy initiatives like investing in green infrastructure projects and minority-owned businesses. Two former Treasury secretaries, Robert E. Rubin and Jacob J. Lew, were part of the call.

Several major Wall Street executives and investors were also present, including Blair Effron, co-founder of the financial advisory firm Centerview Partners; Penny Pritzker, a fund-raiser and former commerce secretary; David Cohen, a top Biden bundler and Comcast executive; and Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google.

...[H]ow Mr. Biden might affect their wallets is still a major concern for industry executives who aggressively fought the implementation of new regulations after the financial crisis of 2008. Some in the business community have suggested tweaks to the former vice president’s tax and economic policies in ways that might soften the impact for companies.

At a separate July meeting with campaign staffers and a handful of Wall Street participants, Charles Phillips, chairman of the software company Infor and a onetime Morgan Stanley tech analyst, argued that Mr. Biden shouldn’t make huge expenditures on infrastructure and other new programs without also identifying spending cuts. “We can fund some of this by getting more efficient and getting rid of waste that no one will miss,” Mr. Phillips recalled saying. He said he also argued for a simpler tax code with a corporate rate lower than Mr. Biden’s proposed 28 percent.

In addition to those watching the policy details, many financiers are closely attuned to Mr. Biden’s selection of a running mate, arguing that they might reconsider their votes if he were to choose someone like Ms. Warren, whose campaign sold coffee mugs that read “Billionaire Tears” in a nod to her proposed wealth tax on the superrich.

Some in the finance industry are concerned about Ms. Warren’s emergence as an informal policy adviser, and the possibility that she could be installed as Treasury secretary.

Mr. Biden’s policy platform on the issues affecting Wall Street’s most affluent players has been relatively sparse. He has proposed a series of tax increases on businesses and on wealthy individuals, including raising the top marginal income tax rate and taxing capital gains as ordinary income for the richest Americans. But he has not embraced a wealth tax like Ms. Warren’s, nor has he rolled out any kind of detailed policy plan focused on financial regulation.

Since Mr. Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee, the campaign has appointed Rufus Gifford, a former finance director for the 2012 Obama campaign, as a deputy campaign manager overseeing the money operation nationwide. Mr. Gifford is in regular touch with Wall Street donors, coordinating a slew of virtual fund-raisers and discussing campaign issues with deep-pocketed financiers.

In recent meetings with donors, Mr. Biden has said that while the wealthy are going to have to “do more,” the details of his tax hikes are still being hammered out, according to someone who has attended multiple fund-raisers but requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. At a virtual fund-raiser held in July, the candidate spoke of the need for corporate America to “change its ways.” But the solution, he said, would not be legislative.

Back in February, Mr. Biden had taken a precious day off the trail to collect a critical $800,000 at two New York fund-raisers, including the one Mr. Gray co-hosted. “You’re putting me in a position to be able to be very competitive,” Mr. Biden said, thanking his Wall Street supporters.

A few of his finance industry donors, looking back, have privately remarked how the evening turned out to be the most quintessential of Wall Street plays: seeing a distressed asset at that time, and buying low.

Republican Phil Heimlich, a former Cincinnati City Council member and Hamilton County commissioner, is a principal in the #NeverTrump group, Republicans For the Rule of Law and a founder of Operation Grant, an offshoot of the Lincoln Project for Ohio. Over the weekend, USA Today published an OpEd he wrote about how Ohio conservatives are abandoning Trump for Biden. Trump, he complains, hasn't lead as a true conservative. "In 2016, many Ohio voters put their faith in Donald Trump, us included. That was an error of judgment, not intent. For these reasons, we’re joining with other Republicans in this state to vote against President Trump this November. He has created a culture of fear within the Republican Party as well as across the country, demonizing anyone with differing opinions. He belittles, berates, and ruins the careers of all who oppose him-- including his own appointed government agency heads, respected military leaders and war heroes. He has undermined the rule of law, obstructed justice, and issued pardons and commutations to personal cronies who helped cover up his misdeeds. He has demonstrated gross incompetence during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing needless suffering and death. He has run up a $2.7 trillion budget deficit, $1 trillion of which occurred before the pandemic unfolded..." And so on. And... how much of President Biden will all these conservative Republicans own? 50%? 75% 99.9% More? Maybe I'll be proven wrong. We'll know when Biden announces his VP pick. If he choses Elizabeth Warren, I'm wrong, wrong, wrong. You know I'm not.

Yesterday Juan Cole, in his Informed Consent newsletter, asked how Americans became such wimps, quietly watching Trump kill tens of thousands, destroy Social Security, Medicare, the environment and the post office and openly plot to steal the election. "Americans," he wrote, "are masochistic sheeple who let the rich and powerful walk all over them and thank them for the privilege... The rich figured out in the 1980s that Americans are all form over substance, and if you put up for president a Hollywood actor like Ronald Reagan who used to play cowboys, they would swoon over him. In 1984 when Reagan ran against Walter Mondale, I saw a middle aged white Detroit auto worker interviewed who said he woudn’t vote for Mondale because he was a “panty-waist.” Reagan took away their right to strike and took away government services by running up the deficit and cutting taxes on the rich simultaneously, then claiming the government couldn’t provide the services the people had paid for because it is broke. Reagan raised the retirement age from 65 to 67. Why? Most young people don’t realize that their health will decline in their late 60s and they often won’t actually get any golden years."

What did Americans do in response? They just bent over and took it.

Actually, it is the French who are much more like Americans imagine themselves to be. President Emmanuel Macron last December tried to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. I can’t understand why. France has persistently high unemployment as it is.

In response, all hell broke loose. Some 30 unions went on strike, and they supported each other. Trains were interrupted. Trucking was interrupted. Life was interrupted. A million people came out into the streets. But one poll had 61% of the French approving of the strikes. They went on for months, and were very inconvenient.

Macron backed down on raising the retirement age.

The French working and middle classes know how to throw a first class fit when the servants of the rich in government come after their lifestyles. They don’t always get their way (Macron used a parliamentary maneuver to make some changes in pensions, in late February), but they make damn sure the government knows it can’t get away with encroaching on them without a fight.

I actually think that one reason Europe has done much better in tamping down the coronavirus than Trump’s America is that the governments and corporations were afraid of a public backlash if the death toll went on rising. So they did their effing jobs.

In mid-April the Financial Times reported that the CGT workers union (which it darkly observed is under Communist influences) had filed a criminal complaint against the Carrefour supermarket chain and its CEO for not protecting its workers from the coronavirus. The unions also went to court to force Amazon to step back and only ship essential items until the courts could review the company’s safety procedures.

The only thing I know of like that in the US is the UCFW’s lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture’s waivers to poultry plants allowing them to speed up the assembly lines. During a pandemic! Workers breathing harder is undesirable with a respiratory disease floating about.

But in France, it wouldn’t have been one union filing a lawsuit (which one of Mitch McConnell’s unqualified Republican judges/ideologues will likely slap down). It would have been a massive set of mutually reinforcing strikes.

By feeding us decades of propaganda against unions and “socialism,” the American rich have broken the legs of the people, and left them to twitch helplessly as more and more indignities are heaped on them. They’ve divided us by race (Trump is not alone in this tactic, only the least subtle), they’ve convinced us to give the super-rich power because they will make us rich too. (How is that working out for you?).

There is now no mainstream political party in Western Europe that is anywhere near as far right as the GOP. The closest analogues to today’s Republican Party in Europe are the far right white supremacist parties, like Marie LePen’s National Front in France or the AfD in Germany.

It appears that a plutocracy produces fascism, since appeals to racialist superiority and playing on fears of a brown and black Other are the only things that can convince people to give up their basic human rights (like a comfortable life in retirement, which they have paid for, or the right to cast a mail in ballot during a pandemic).

But despite all the military parades and brave talk of master races, fascism is just the ultimate humiliation of the sheeple. Mussolini drove enormous numbers of Italians into poverty. The Axis used them for cannon fodder at the front. If the increasingly wimpy Americans don’t watch out, they will find that it is too late to fight back, since they have surrendered all their means to do so. So as to avoid being panty-waists and all. They will be left with a borrowed greasy cheeseburger they can’t even pay for.

Does this song and video make you cry? Human solidarity has always had such an incredible power over me.

COVID Is Bringing Down Trump

A new poll from ABC News and the Washington Post shows that Trump's handling of the pandemic is viewed favorably by far fewer American voters than it was previously. In March 51% approval. As the realization of his incompetence and narcissistic perspective kicked in, by May, the number had failed to 46%. Today it's 38%, which still seems awfully high considering how horrifying the results have been. "Only 34 percent of Americans place a great deal or good amount of trust in what he says about it, while 64 percent trust him not so much or-- in the case of nearly half the public-- not at all. There’s also a disconnect in terms of priorities, with Americans by 63-33 percent-- again nearly 2-1-- saying it’s more important to control the spread of the virus than to restart the economy, a goal Trump has stressed. That 30-point preference for controlling the spread has widened from 20 points in late May."



But what I found especially interesting was how even among self-identified Republicans, trust in Trump to handle the pandemic has slipped significantly. In May, while most independents and Democrats had lost whatever faith they had in his ability to handle the emergency, 90% of Republicans still had confidence in him. By yesterday the Republican cohort was down to 79%-- an 11 point drop.

On Wednesday the U.S. reported 72,005 new cases. On Thursday it was another +73,388 new cases and yesterday another 74,987, bringing the total a horrifying 3,770,021-- 11,390 per million Americans, the worst, by far, of any developed country. By way of comparison the worst-hit European countries show 7,610 cases per million Swedes, 6,573 cases per million Spaniards, 5,202 cases per million Russians, 4,319 cases per million Brits, 4,035 cases per million Italians and 2,676 cases per million Frenchmen. In Canada the number is just 2,901 cases per million.

What's worse is that the states that took Trump's lead after the first spike, are-- with one exception-- the ones with the most horrifying results. The exception is California, where a cowardly governor took a disastrous go-slow and spineless approach. The most one-day reports on Thursday and ---> Friday.

• Florida +13,965 ---> +11,466
• Texas +10,243 ---> 9,496
• California +9,269 ---> 9,608
• Georgia +3,441 ---> 3,908
• Arizona +3,259 ---> +3,910
• Tennessee +2,479 ---> +2,279
• Louisiana +2,278 ---> +2,179
• North Carolina +2,074 ---> +2,011
• Alabama +2,021 ---> +2,003
• South Carolina +1,838 ---> 1,977

CBS News reporter Sarah Ewall-Wice took on the impact the #NeverTrump Republicans are having in their campaign to get voters to not just avoid voting for Trump, but to vote for Biden and-- with some of these groups-- to abandon Trimp enablers in Congress. Trump enablers in Congress basically equals all Republicans in Congress. She wrote that these groups are appalled by Trump's presidency and "are spending millions on television ads and digital campaigns and weighing ground efforts in an election year that has seen a global pandemic and major economic crisis following the impeachment trial of the president earlier this year." Remember anything like this ever happening before? Ever? It's probably extremely unhealthy for the Democratic Party, which is bound to absorb untold numbers of conservatives and go even further in that direction. But it will help elect Biden and a conservative Democratic Senate and lots of conservative Democrats to the House.

"We haven't really ever seen anything like this before in a general election," said Mitchell West, of Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group. "In primaries, there's always one Republican group that supports one specific Republican candidate and will obviously bash some others, but in terms of a general election, usually you don't see anything like this."

From April through June, The Lincoln Project raised more than $16.8 million, rivaling several prominent Democratic PACs after raising less than $2 million in the first quarter of 2020. The Lincoln Project, whose founders include George Conway, a prominent Trump critic who is married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, views this president as an existential threat to the nation, a "clear and present danger to the Constitution and our Republic."

The Lincoln Project's recent financial filing shows donations flooded in from all over the country. According to the group, the average contribution was around $56.

Its first anti-Trump ad aired in March, but it was the Mourning in America ad in early May that really launched the group, attacking Mr. Trump's handling of the economy and coronavirus. The spot was a twist on President Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign ad and attracted the attention of the president when it appeared on Fox News. Mr. Trump blasted the group on Twitter, inadvertently helping the Lincoln Project raise about $2 million in 24 hours.

"He saw the ad, it did what we wanted it to do, and we have been the beneficiaries organizationally of his inability or unwillingness to not respond to things that we know are his weak points," said The Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galvin. The group has since churned out videos on the coronavirus response, Confederate flags, reported bounties on U.S troops and more. "That's the advantage of being independent of everybody… we say we think this going to move, this is going to hit, and we go do it."

According to Kantar/CMAG, The Lincoln Project has spent nearly $4 million on advertising since March. Now as the general election nears, the group plans to take the fight directly into battleground states to target "soft Republican" and conservative-leaning independent voters. While it plans to continue with targeted advertising, the group also has a rapidly growing army of volunteers including some 3,000 in Michigan.


 


"I think we will be contacting voters directly," Galvin told CBS News. "I think the effectiveness of our messaging creates a potent combination to get in front of these voters who you can convince to make sure they get and vote for Joe Biden, and if they're not going to vote for Joe Biden, then leave Donald Trump blank."

At the same time, Republican Voters against Trump is also going after similar voters, but with a slightly different approach, one that seeks to make Republican voters comfortable with the idea of not supporting their party's incumbent nominee, even if they voted for him in 2016.

"I've been a Republican for more than 30 years in western North Carolina, and I find myself for the first time in many years not able to vote for a Republican," said Steve in one video on the project's website. The project has been compiling hundreds of testimonials from GOP voters in all fifty states.

"I voted for Donald Trump four years ago because I didn't trust Hillary. That was a mistake," said Craig from Colorado in another video. While some voters focus on what's made them turn their backs on Mr. Trump, other voters talk about why they'll be voting for Biden.

"What people were most persuaded by was real stories from real people, so basically we decided to build a project around that for 2020," said Republican Voters against Trump founder Sarah Longwell. The initiative, which is a project of Defending Democracy Together-- the organization founded by conservatives including Bill Kristol-- is now using the videos in its $10 million campaign to digitally target voters in five states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona. Testimonials have also been used as TV ads.

But while a series of recent polls have shown Biden with at least a slight edge, these groups are aware that the president retains a strong base of unshakable Republican support. According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, Mr. Trump would have the support of 84% of Republicans.

Where Anti-Trump Republicans see an opening is in the three states won by the president in 2016 by the slimmest of margins over Hillary Clinton. The presumptive Democratic nominee helps . According to Longwell, early focus groups viewed far left Bernie Sanders as a "nonstarter," but Biden is "not nearly as big a lift for a lot of these right-leaning independents." He puts the crucial suburbs into play.

"A lot of the women who would consider themselves Republican or right-leaning, who voted for Mitt Romney, who voted for John McCain-- those are the people who are moving out of the party fastest, or moving away from Donald Trump the fastest," said Longwell.

That's what some former George W. Bush administration officials also believe. At the beginning of July, they launched 43 Alumni for Joe Biden PAC. The galvanizing moment for the PAC founders was the attack on protesters in Lafayette Park in June.

"Our goal is to really give those folks who either still identify themselves as Republicans or those who have left the party or view that the party has left them permission to vote for Joe Biden, given the circumstances the country is in right now and needing to move in a new direction," said John Farner.

The PAC aims to be a grassroots volunteer-based effort that uses the substantial Bush alumni network to engage Republicans and independents who have traditionally voted for Republicans. Those signing up to get involved online are asked how they would like to help-- on fundraising, field operations or online. The PAC expects to have a strong digital push as well as a get-out-the-vote effort, depending on what the coronavirus landscape looks like in the fall.

"There are a lot of people who have never voted for a Democrat for president before," said Kristopher Purcell. "We feel we can talk to those voters very well."

Yes they can-- and President Biden has more in common with many of them than he has with progressives-- and will feel far more comfortable talking with them than talking with progressives.