Endorsements From Weird Places

The case for Hillary

The 3 biggest newspapers in South Carolina, The Post and Courier, The State and the Greenville News are all reliably Republican in a reliably red state. In 1964 South Carolina was one of only 6 states to vote for Barry Goldwater when he was crushed by Lyndon Johnson, 43,127,041 to 27,175,754 in the popular vote and 486-52 in the electoral college. The last time South Carolina voted for a Democrat was in 1976 when they helped elect neighboring Georgia's Jimmy Carter; that was 40 years ago and this year they will certainly give their 9 electoral votes to Trump. Romney beat Obama 55-45% in 2012. A week from tomorrow, Hillary is on track to win all 22 South Carolina counties Obama won plus Florence and possibly Georgetown and Chesterfield counties (which are toss-ups right now). The endorsement of her presidential bif by The State this weekend came as something of a shock. The editors made the case that conservatives have no logical choice but to vote for her. By dint of "character and personality" they pronounce Trump "simply unfit for the presidency, or any public office" and that Americans "must rely on Hillary Clinton for any meaningful change in Washington politics" despite her "significant flaws."

This is the first time our editorial board has endorsed a Democratic presidential nominee since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Through the years, we evaluated nominees based on our support for reducing the national debt, strengthening national security and other conservative values. Those values compel us to endorse Mrs. Clinton this year.


...In this era of voter discontent, Americans want change. But we must consider carefully what will change and who will lead it. Of the two candidates, the choice is clear. Mrs. Clinton’s experience, stability and knowledge make her more likely than Mr. Trump to effectively tackle the nation’s problems.

Ostensibly an even weirder editorial board will to look past Hillary's "weaknesses" (and partisan affiliation) came this morning from the Financial Times, which pointed out enthusiastically that "She is manifestly more competent than Trump and his braggadocio and divisiveness." They are a mothpiece for elite conservatism and Hillary fits the bill just fine for them.

Rarely in a US presidential election has the choice been so stark and the stakes so high. The contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has provided high drama, amply demonstrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s reckless, last-minute intervention in the saga of Mrs Clinton’s emails. But there must be no doubt about the gravity of the 2016 election, for America and the world.

The international order of the past 70 years is fraying, maybe even breaking down. The Brexit vote in June likely removes a pillar of the EU. The Middle East points to a shattered system; further east, in the Pacific, China is becoming more assertive, challenging America’s dominant role in the region and the postwar Bretton Woods system. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has become emboldened, threatening Nato’s borders, spreading havoc in Syria, and apparently orchestrating leaks to influence the US election itself.

This is a moment for the renewal of American leadership. One candidate has the credentials. Mrs Clinton has served as first lady, senator for New York and US secretary of state. Mr Trump deals in denigration not diplomacy. He has abused allies, threatening to remove east Asia’s nuclear umbrella, sideline Nato and unleash trade wars. Mr Trump casts himself in the role of a western strongman to stand alongside the likes of Mr Putin.

Mr Trump has demonstrated contempt towards American democracy itself. He has persistently raised the prospect of a rigged election and declined, even when pressed, to guarantee he would accept the result. He has threatened to jail Mrs Clinton. Such arrogance is unprecedented and it points to a fatal flaw in his character. The first role of the president is to be commander-in-chief, in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. Mr Trump has a thin skin and a questionable temperament. For all his many years as a reality TV host, he is simply not ready for prime time.

The 2016 election, more than any in recent memory, is a test for the legitimacy of the US political system, with profound implications for the liberal world order. Mrs Clinton carries enough baggage to fill a Boeing 747. She is not trusted by the majority of voters. But she is manifestly more competent than Mr Trump whose braggadocio, divisiveness and meanness are on daily display. Despite her faults, Mrs Clinton is eminently qualified to be the first woman elected to the White House. She has the Financial Times’ endorsement.

The Financial Times is published in London by Nikkei and it is an engine for the fake free trade agreements so hated at the grassroots level. In the past their most enthusiastic editorial support has been for Reagan and Thatcher. A different kind of endorsement:



And now for the kind of endorsement no sane candidate would ever want. No sane candidate-- so that leaves out Donald Trump, who seems delighted with this kind of support from supporters like this racist, homophobic crackpot:



The sound clip above is from William Johnson a Trump supporting neo-Nazi. It's being called in to every Republican in Utah and it typifies what Trump supporters are all about. "I am a farmer and a white nationalist. I make this call against Evan McMullin and in support of Donald Trump... Evan has two mommies. His mother is a lesbian, married to another woman. Evan is okay with that. Indeed Evan supports the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. Evan is over 40 years old and is not married and doesn’t even have a girlfriend. I believe Evan is a closet homosexual." Nice, huh? Evan tweeted it today:

Hillary Makes It Easy For Anti-Trump Republicans

Billionaire hedge fund manager Mike Fernandez tossed around those million dollar checks the way you might tip someone really exceptional with a twenty. He gave superPACs for Mitt Romney and Rick Scott million dollar pops-- and, more recently, put over three million in for Jeb Bush. And he's given hundreds of thousands more to the RNC and other Republican committees. Although he gives primarily to right-wing Republicans, this year he also maxed out to right-wing Democrat Patrick Murphy (a so-called "former" Republican. He's given thousands and thousands to every garden variety GOP nutcase who's ever asked for money but he's been especially generous to Mario Diaz-Balart. In 2007, though, he contributed to another former Republican, Hillary Clinton. Yesterday, in an OpEd for the Miami Herald, he made it clear that, almost a decade later, he's back with Hillary.

He has been a #NeverTrump guy and had paid for some ineffective anti-Trump ads earlier this year but now he's endeavored to explain why he's voting for Hillary, as so many Republicans are. "I am a firm believer," he wrote, "in the fundamental tenets of the Republican Party: individual freedom, small government, local control of issues, free speech, strong national defense and the broad vision that America is an exceptional country that gives exceptional opportunities to everyone." He asserted that Trump doesn't represent those values, but Hillary works for him just fine.

Of all the elections in which I have participated, none has become more transcendental to the definition of “We the people” and the very nature of our democracy than the one we face today.

No longer can we seek solace in wishful thinking or the illusion that this is just an election cycle and that by divine intervention all will be better after we vote. There is no basis in thinking that our democracy is so strong, our checks and balances so finely hedged, that no single person can lead us off the precipice. Trump can.

No longer can we hide behind the excuse that party loyalty is paramount, and that a bad candidate of our own is always better than any candidate of theirs. Blind loyalty in this case is the ultimate definition of disloyalty to our beliefs. Loyalty to our nation must be the ultimate arbiter of our choice.

I have watched this election unfold, from that first press conference where the population of an entire country was cast as insulting to our core. This led to a neverending spiral of vulgarity, intellectual dishonesty, invective, abuse, misogyny, racism, intolerance, bullying, ignorance and downright cruelty. The fact that the person unleashing these forces, reflecting beliefs and biases that we had long ago identified as at odds with the Founding Fathers’ principle of ordered liberty was a member of my party, was at first cause for irritation evolving into alarm and frustration and finally arriving at a sobering moment of embarrassment for my party, and beyond that, of profound concern for my beloved country.

We have seen him attack our institutions and receive cheering adoration. At rallies he has implied that if his wish to lead the nation is not granted by popular vote, that the national system is rigged and deserving of attack. This is insanity and dictatorial machinations at best.

As a Republican who has contributed millions of dollars to the party’s causes, I ask: Why has our party not sought a psychological evaluation of its nominee?”

This abysmally unfit candidate has unleased racist and violent acts. There has been no need for dog whistles. The call to brand entire religions and countries as unworthy and despicable, and the call for profoundly un-American practices, including asking the honorable men and women serving our country in the military to engage in the profoundly dishonorable task of torturing human beings and killing innocent families, has been open and unequivocal. The very worst in our society, the Klan and the neo-Nazis, revel in this horrific rhetoric.

I have arrived at this difficult moment. A moment that may define leaders and followers. I harbor no illusion that Hillary Clinton is perfect; none of us is. I do not see eye to eye on some issues with the former senator from New York. However, Clinton is, without doubt, a superior choice to Donald Trump.

Balancing any of her shortcomings are intelligence, experience, as well as the humility to accept that she does not have all the answers. She has delegated effectively over the decades in public service. These attributes will serve her well as president.

The republic should outlast any party. Our democratic spirit will ensure that we do and that this shining city on the hill eventually will shine even brighter.

I am equally convinced that our republic will be placed in fundamental peril if we are foolish enough to elect a person who has made it clear that he does not share in our democratic values and that the only idol in his temple is himself. And he is willing to pull down the glorious edifice of our American democracy.

And so my fellow Republicans, swallow hard, look into your heart-- and your gut. Vote for Hillary Clinton and then every single Republican on the ticket.

Do that, and rest assured that you will have served your country well.

This paragraph seemed aimed especially towards Mario Diaz-Balart, the only South Florida congressmember of either party supporting Señor Trumpanzee. (Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have been big recipients of Fernandez's generosity and both have said they oppose Trump and will not vote for him.):

No longer can we hide behind the excuse that party loyalty is paramount, and that a bad candidate of our own is always better than any candidate of theirs. Blind loyalty in this case is the ultimate definition of disloyalty to our beliefs. Loyalty to our nation must be the ultimate arbiter of our choice.

So far this cycle, Fernandez has been writing significant checks to Curbelo but hasn't given anything to the Trump-supporting Diaz-Balart yet. Nor has he given any money to the progressive physician who's running against Diaz-Balart, Alina Valdes. He should. You can, here. Of course, unlike Hillary and Murphy, Valdes wasn't a Republican in the past and doesn't jive with the kinds of Republican values that work against the interests of ordinary working families. We asked Alina Valdes to weigh in on how it's possible for the overwhelming majority of Hispanics in South Florida to recognize the Trumpist danger but for Mario Diaz-Balart to be blind to it. This is what she told us last night:

I am in agreement with Mr. Fernandez on many of his issues, especially lifting the embargo on Cuba, which is decades overdo. This particular ideology, which transcends party lines, shows us that we have more in common as Cuban-Americans than we have differences. Like Mr. Fernandez, I was born in Cuba and came to this country in the early 1960's. Like Mr. Fernandez, I have been fortunate to prosper in this country, becoming the first doctor in my family. Like Mr. Fernandez, I long for the day when I can travel freely in Cuba, knowing that her people have all the opportunities the Cuban Americans have had in the US. It makes no sense that Cuba, which is no threat to the U.S., remains on the same list as North Korea.

Though I am a registered Democrat and am running against Diaz-Balart in the predominantly Latino CD-25, I do not understand how the current incumbent could still support and vote for Donald Trump with all the vitriol and hatred he seems to have towards Hispanics, and specifically Cubans, a large group of his constituents and a group I am a proud member of. As a physician, I have spent my entire life serving in largely Latino communities with the uninsured, the poor, and the homeless, which are all communities that have been largely under-served not only in medicine but in many other aspects of American life. It has been my privilege and my duty to have the opportunity to help other Latinos and now it is my intention to do the same in FL CD-25, where the polling has shown a trend towards lifting the Cuban embargo since the present policy has been an abysmal failure. Many Cuban Americans still have family and friends on the island and find themselves working to help their people in Cuba, who would otherwise suffer further the injustice of this embargo.

Like Mr. Fernandez, I will also be voting for Hillary Clinton not out of party loyalty but because I must do all I can to prevent "The Donald" from taking control of a country which I love and which has given many of us the opportunity to excel and succeed. Mr. Fernandez, we do indeed have quite a bit in common and our core principles and ideology do transcend party lines for we both have an allegiance to our people and want to see our beloved Cuba free again and for her people to have choice and opportunity as the rest of us have had and it is indeed way past time.

Another Day, Another High Profile Republican Dissing Mr. Trumpanzee

This was last year; it's even worse for Republicans now

Rosario Marín was appointed the 41st Treasurer of the United States by George W. Bush. Born in Mexico City, the daughter of a factory worker, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1984, joined the Republican Party and exactly a decade later was elected to the Huntington Park city council, the first Hispanic ever elected to that office and was later elected mayor by the council. She was the highest ranking Latina in the Bush Administration. She left the Bush administration to run for the U.S. Senate against Barbara Boxer in 2004. She came in second in a 10-way GOP primary, losing out to far right extremist Bill Jones.

Yesterday she wrote an OpEd for Univision on why she endorsed Hillary Clinton. She makes the point about being a Reagan-Republican and having voted for every Republican presidential candidate since becoming a citizen. "I have been," she wrote, "a delegate to the previous five Republican conventions. But since July 2015, when a certain candidate, upon entering the political arena, showed his contempt for Mexican immigrants by stating they were drug dealers, rapists and murderers, I have voiced my disgust and have warned one and all of the perilous threat he was to our party, our nation and the world." Not a Trumpanzee fan, apparently.

I had hoped against hope that my party would listen. After all I had the personal commitment of our party chair, after the catastrophic loss of Mitt Romney, that Hispanics were going to be an important voting bloc for the party and that significant efforts would be made to augment their numbers in our party.

Maybe I was naive, maybe it was just a strong desire to believe. But the party left me and my community all alone again. It has had plenty of time to stand up for my community, but it has chosen not to do so. I have come to the devastatingly painful realization that my party right now doesn't want my vote nor that of my community. Evidently it is not important, or not as important as some other voting bloc.

So, for me to consider the unthinkable-- to vote for a Democrat-- has been a profound soul searching process. Leaders are tested time and time again and so, I will stand up for my community against the menace of a tyrannical presidency that does not value the countless contributions of immigrants across its beautiful and bountiful history.

I have disagreed with and criticized Hillary Clinton’s positions, but I have come to the conclusion that she would be a far better president than the Republican candidate could ever be. She understands that words spoken from the White House have consequences, that sarcasm is not a strategy when dealing with delicate world situations, that our friends and foes listen to every word spoken by our president and react accordingly.

There is too much at stake both domestically and abroad to have a thoughtless individual at the helm of the most important economy in the world.

My party and its standard bearer leave me no choice; On November 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton.

The 54 million Hispanics living in the U.S. are the fastest growing ethnic minority in the country-- and 64% of them are Mexican-Americans. Almost 9% of the eligible voters in the country are Latinos and around 20% of them identify as Republicans-- or did before the day Señor Trumpanzee came floating down the escalator with his mail order bride and declared that Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists. In 2008, 67% of Hispanics voted for Obama and 31% voted for McCain. Two years later in the primaries that went so well for Republicans, 38% of Hispanics voted for Republican candidates.

This week, Fox News Latino released a poll showing the Republican share of the Hispanic vote is collapsing this year. Romney only won 27% of Hispanics. Trump won't come close.

Trump’s opening hard-line rhetoric on immigration and Mexico-- build The Wall and round up and deport all undocumented immigrants-- had a seismic effect on the Republican presidential race, and appears to have widened the schism between the GOP and Latino voters.

Indeed, a new Fox News Latino poll shows that Latino party identification since 2012 is leaning even further toward the Democrats, with 60 percent choosing it as the party they identify with, compared with 21 percent identifying as Republican-- a 6-point increase for Democrats since 2012.

"With his emphasis on 'building a wall' on our southern border to keep out 'rapists and criminals,' Trump has apparently magnified the natural issue advantage the Democrats enjoy among Hispanic voters," said a summary that accompanied the poll, written by report co-author and  Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducted the Fox News Latino poll along with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson.

As for their view of the parties, 60 percent of Latinos reported having a favorable view of the Democratic Party, compared to only 25 percent for Republicans.

Republicans generically are lucky they have a 25% favorable opinion. Trump's is only 15%-- and a staggering 82% unfavorable. And 67% of Hispanics say they are more likely to vote this year than previously. 66% say they have already made up their minds to vote for Hillary and 20% say they are voting for Señor Trumpanzee. How badly this is going to hurt down-ballot Republicans in heavily Latino district is something we've been looking at all year. Republican incumbents in heavily Latino districts in California, Florida, Texas, and Nevada could be in for a very rough ride and in many cases, if not for the staggering incompetence of Pelosi's DCCC, the political demise of Republicans like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL 76% Hispanic), Mario Diaz-Balart, (FL-71%) Carlos Curbelo (FL-69%), Jeff Denham (CA-42%), David Valadao (CA- 74%), Cresent Hardy (NV- 29%), Will Hurd (TX), Stevan Pearce (NM-53%), Blake Farenthold (TX-52%), Devin Nunes (CA-47%) would be a foregone conclusion and Republicans like Kevin McCarthy (CA-38%), Paul Cook (CA-39%), Dan Newhouse (WA-38%), Ken Calvert (CA-37%), Ed Royce (CA-34%), John Culbertson (TX-31%), Lamar Smith (TX-30%), Mike Conaway (TX-37%) and Ted Poe (TX-31%) would be fighting for their political survival, instead of skating to reelection without the DCCC even opposing them.

It is so passed time for Pelosi, Hoyer and Wasserman Schultz to retire and stop holding the party back in the last century. Within one cycle of those two going on their way-- unless they manage to turn the congressional party over to the New Dems-- the Democrats will take back the House. That simple.

When Will The Trumpanzee Be So Radioactive That Even The Peter And Steve Kings Of The World Start Abandoning Him?

The new poll out this morning from Vox Populi of New Hampshire registered voters confirmed what pollsters are seeing nationally-- a Trumpanzee meltdown. In a 4-way race, Hillary leads Mr. Trumpanzee 41-31% with Gary Johnson at 11% and Jill Stein at 3%. What worries New Hampshire Republicans far more than the collapse of Mr. T, is that he's dragging down incumbent Senator Kelly Ayotte, who can't give a clear answer about where she stands on supporting Trump. The poll shows Democrat Maggie Hassan beating her 46 to 43%, which would be catastrophic for Republican hopes to hold onto a Senate majorty. Mr. T seems to be losing whatever grip he had on reality; he's in never-never land, seemingly in some kind of an alternative universe, perhaps even believing what he said this morning, namely that "the polls are closing up very rapidly. I have a whole other group out there that people don't even know about." Perhaps because they're not registered to vote?

Trumpist congressmen are starting to worry. According to a report in today's Hill "gloom is setting in for GOP lawmakers and strategists who increasingly think Donald Trump will lose the presidential race, and their party will be left in the political wilderness. 'I’m not feeling great about the immediate future of the conservative movement right now,' said one southern lawmaker, a Trump supporter. 'As a conservative who believes our ideas are good for America, it is pretty gloomy these days.' A handful of House GOP lawmakers say they are already bracing for what could be a lopsided Trump defeat this fall. 'It’s an uphill battle,' acknowledged retiring Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who first endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), then Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and finally Trump after he won the nomination. 'I think it will be Hillary,' predicted a northeastern House GOP lawmaker who is publicly backing Trump. 'If I had to bet, I'd definitely ‎bet that Trump loses,' said another House GOP lawmaker who is opposed to Trump. 'This is like a football game where you hate both teams. You root for a tie-- and maybe some minor injuries.'" Or maybe some major ones. On CNBC's Squawk Box this morning the chronically constipated insomniac said that "all I do is tell the truth. If at the end of 90 days, I fall short that's OK. I have a very good way of life." Yes, he does; what does it matter to him? But what about the destruction of the careers of Republicans up and down the ballot, like Ayotte? They haven't spent their lives cheating and robbing and amassing immense wealth. It looks like he doesn't care one bit that he's leaving the GOP a smouldering ruin. In his Washington Post OpEd yesterday, former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-FL)-- AKA, "Morning Joe"-- explained that his party "must dump Trump."

The Muslim ban, the David Duke denial, the “Mexican” judge flap, the draft dodger denigrating John McCain’s military service, the son of privilege attacking an immigrant Gold Star mother and the constant revisionism and lying about past political positions taken are but a few of the lowlights that have punctuated Donald Trump’s chaotic chase for the presidency.

Any one of these offenses would have disqualified any other candidate for president.

...Paul Ryan and every Republican leader should denounce in the strongest terms their GOP nominee suggesting conservatives could find the Supreme Court more favorable to their desires if his political rival was assassinated.

Paul Ryan and every Republican leader should revoke their endorsement of Donald Trump. At this point, what else could Trump do that would be worse than implying the positive impact of a political assassination?

The Republican Party needs to start examining quickly their options for removing the Republican nominee.

A bloody line has been crossed that cannot be ignored. At long last, Donald Trump has left the Republican Party few options but to act decisively and get this political train wreck off the tracks before something terrible happens.

Former New Hampshire Senator Gordon Humphrey (R) is demanding that the RNC kick Mr. Trumpanzee off the ticket and replace him with an actual garden variety Republican. Former Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) announced he's voting for Hillary Clinton, the more conventionally conservative of the two candidates. Ex-U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger (R-MN) and ex-Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-MD) announced yesterday that they're both voting for Hillary. GOP neocon war criminal John Negroponte announced that he too isn't just "not voting for Trump" but is going to vote for Hillary. And Carla Hills, Bush's Trade Rep who negotiated the original NAFTA agreement also said she's with Hillary.

In his NY Post column, rigfht-wing activist John Podhoretz worried that the GOP majority could get wiped out in November thanks to public revulsion over Trumpanzee. Many Republican operatives are worried about what he's saying, namely that "Three months before the election, the news is pretty much all bad for Republicans-- so bad, in fact, that the question it raises is whether November is going to see a Democratic wave that not only washes Hillary Clinton into the White House but also secures majorities for Democrats in the Senate and even in the House of Representatives... [I]f Hillary wins Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina, that would be indicative of a national 'wave'-- a win so broad and deep that it flips downballot races to the Democrats. And this is what terrifies other Republicans-- that a wholesale rejection of Trump will combine with the 'brand' problems of the GOP to threaten anyone and everyone who might be vulnerable. Democrats need to net four seats in the Senate to take control (assuming a Hillary victory). The GOP figures two are already gone (Mark Kirk in Illinois and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin). The popular former Democratic senator and governor of Indiana, Evan Bayh, seems likely to prevail in the Senate race there. Which means Democrats only need one or two more."

Podhoretz says he's worried about Kelly Ayotte (NH), Pat Toomey (PA), Richard Burr (NC) and John McCain (AZ). He's already figured out that Rubio will be safe as long as Schumer bamboozles Florida Democrats into nominating Patrick Murphy August 30. (If Grayson overcomes Schumer and Murphy, Rubio might as well look for a new job draining sitting water in Miami-Dade.) But a more interesting perspective on the unfolding GOP catastrophe was the subject of Josh Kraushaar's Wednesday post for the National Journal, Why Mainstream Republicans Fear Señor Trumpanzee-- or, more to the point, the rabid dogs who are part of his very dangerous anti-democratic (small "d") cult of personality. He wrote that to understand why elected Republicans are sticking with Trumpanzee even after he called on NRA nuts to assassinate Hillary Clinton after she's elected calls for a psychologist but, he adds, "if Trump gets angry and slams down-bal­lot Re­pub­lic­ans, his sup­port­ers are likely to fol­low his lead and pun­ish the tar­gets of his wrath. After all, they are far more loy­al to Trump than they are to the GOP." [Tuesday night, though, even with Trumpy-the-Clown cheerleaders Ann Couler, Sarah Palin and Phyllis Schafly openly campaigning for lunatic fringe anti-Ryan candidate Paul Nehlen, Nelhlen only garnered 10,852 votes (16%) against Ryan's 57,391 in the Wisconsin primary. The only Trumpist congressional candidate Mr. Trumpanzee actually campaigned for so far was Rep. Renee Ellmers, who lost her North Carolina seat with just 23.64% of the vote.]

Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers have main­tained a fra­gile détente with Trump since he locked up the nom­in­a­tion. It’s why they were so alarmed when Trump didn’t re­spond in kind when he de­nounced John Mc­Cain and Kelly Ayotte in an in­ter­view with the Wash­ing­ton Post, while with­hold­ing an en­dorse­ment of House Speak­er Paul Ry­an. His threat to with­hold en­dorse­ments of his party’s most vul­ner­able mem­bers threatened to shat­ter the peace with party reg­u­lars. Adding in­sult to in­jury, he half-heartedly re-en­dorsed them last Fri­day in Wis­con­sin, read­ing from a sheet of pa­per while do­ing so.

This is why Re­pub­lic­ans on a bal­lot in 2016 are sup­port­ing Trump, even if their back­ing is de­cidedly luke­warm. It’s why John Mc­Cain has main­tained his per­func­tory en­dorse­ment of Trump. It’s why Flor­ida Sen. Marco Ru­bio held a sol­id anti-Trump pos­ture, un­til he re­con­sidered run­ning for the Sen­ate and re­cog­nized he needed Trump’s sup­port­ers to win. It’s why even Jeb Bush’s son, Texas Land Com­mis­sion­er George P. Bush, told sup­port­ers he was re­luct­antly back­ing Trump. He has a polit­ic­al fu­ture to tend to, after all.

All these Re­pub­lic­ans have cal­cu­lated that the costs of split­ting with Trump-- even when he’s nas­tily de­noun­cing them-- are great­er than the costs of los­ing the sup­port of his core voters. This isn’t just a primary elec­tion prob­lem. It’s a re­cog­ni­tion that the Trump voters will fol­low the whims of their lead­er, no mat­ter what he says, through the gen­er­al elec­tion. And if Re­pub­lic­an of­fice­hold­ers aren’t suf­fi­ciently loy­al enough to Trump, his sup­port­ers will make them pay a price.

...[F]or Trump’s re­luct­ant sup­port­ers, here’s where the Faus­ti­an bar­gain falls apart. The pre­vail­ing wis­dom among the GOP es­tab­lish­ment is that if Trump loses, he quietly re­turns to Trump Tower and shrinks away from the polit­ic­al scene. It’s this same lo­gic that com­pelled Re­pub­lic­ans to in­sist, against all evid­ence, that Trump would be­come more “pres­id­en­tial” once he locked up the nom­in­a­tion.

It’s be­com­ing in­creas­ing hard to see that out­come, es­pe­cially as he raises the specter of a rigged elec­tion a full three months be­fore Novem­ber. One of Trump’s me­dia boost­ers, Fox News host Sean Han­nity, has already pree­mpt­ively blamed anti-Trump Re­pub­lic­ans for cost­ing the GOP nom­in­ee this elec­tion.

In real­ity, Trump has poured gas­ol­ine on a long­stand­ing di­vide with­in the Re­pub­lic­an party between the anti-es­tab­lish­ment pop­u­lists and the busi­ness-minded elites. His huge pub­lic plat­form re­vealed a fis­sure that is not likely to heal with one elec­tion. Trump has pub­li­cized anti-free trade, anti-im­mig­ra­tion, and nat­iv­ist views that GOP lead­ers have largely kept in check. The fact that Trump man­aged to pick off a healthy num­ber of Ru­bio and Jeb Bush back­ers on his way to the nom­in­a­tion con­firms that the old con­ser­vat­ive co­ali­tion no longer ex­ists.

Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers are choos­ing to pre­tend that these dif­fer­ences don’t ex­ist, pre­fer­ring to na­ively pro­claim that Trump will em­brace Paul Ry­an’s con­ser­vat­ive agenda if he’s elec­ted pres­id­ent. That’s not what his voters signed up for. It’s why Trump’s rote es­pous­al of more-tra­di­tion­al GOP po­s­i­tions, such as his eco­nom­ic speech at the De­troit Eco­nom­ic Club on Monday, will fall flat.

More likely, he will con­tin­ue to use his out­size pub­lic plat­form to settle old scores. He might even try and launch his own tele­vi­sion net­work to broad­cast the pop­u­lism that pro­pelled his can­did­acy. He’s not go­ing away, and neither are his core voters. The only ques­tion is wheth­er more tra­di­tion­al GOP lead­ers have the cha­risma and cred­ib­il­ity to bring Trump par­tis­ans in­to a new-look GOP, or wheth­er his sup­port­ers will con­tin­ue to stir up trouble with­in the party.

How excited are Democrats to have so many high profile Republicans-- like war criminal John Negroponte-- rushing to embrace Hillary? As one friend of mine put it this morning, many of the men on that Republicans for Hillary list were actually involved in authorizing killing people and promoting hatred and crashing our economy. We should welcome rank and file Republicans but the architects of disaster should be held accountable and not celebrated. As Michael Barbaro and Amy Chozick noted in the NY Times yesterday, Republican women are running from the Trumpanzee embrace as fast as they can.

Of all the tribulations facing Donald J. Trump, perhaps none is stirring as much anxiety inside his campaign as the precipitous decline of support from Republican women, an electoral cornerstone for the party’s past nominees that is starting to crumble.

In a striking series of defections, high-profile Republican women are abandoning decades of party loyalty and vowing to oppose Mr. Trump, calling him emotionally unfit for the presidency and a menace to national security.

But even more powerfully, his support from regular Republican women is falling after Mr. Trump’s provocative remarks about everything from the silence of the mother of a slain Muslim soldier to how women should respond to sexual harassment in the workplace.

“For people like me, who are Republican but reasonable and still have our brains attached, it’s hard to see Trump as a reasonable, sane Republican,” said Dina Vela, a project manager in San Antonio who said she had always voted Republican and remained wary of Hillary Clinton. But to her own surprise, she has started visiting Mrs. Clinton’s campaign website and plans to vote for her.

Since the two parties held their nominating conventions, Mr. Trump’s lead over Mrs. Clinton with Republican women voters has declined by 13 percentage points, according to polls conducted by the New York Times and CBS News.

The danger for Mr. Trump is that the erosion could accelerate as leading Republican women publicly break with him, making an argument that the national interest must supersede party loyalty... “We’re Republicans, she’s a Democrat, but the policy disagreements we have are far outweighed by the danger that Donald Trump poses to America,” said Jennifer Pierotti Lim, a lifelong Republican and an executive at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who has pledged her support to Mrs. Clinton and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

But Barbaro and Chotzick acknowledged that for the Clinton Machine, the alienation of Republican women from the Trumpanzee "creates a rare opportunity to capture a coveted demographic. But it poses a dilemma as well. Skeptical liberals are already looking for signs of betrayal from Mrs. Clinton, making it dangerous for her to make overt or ideological appeals to Republican women." Skeptical liberals don't have to look far-- who'd she pick for her running mate for example and why was she down in South Florida campaign for universally loathed corrupt and divisive Debbie Wasserman Schultz this week?  Is that an indication of what kind of garbage she'll be stocking her administration with? How could it not be? But Barbaro mimics the campaign spin to point out that "Instead, she is making her case to them by emphasizing kitchen-table issues like job creation and by raising doubts about Mr. Trump[anzee]’s temperament." I guess "I'm the lesser of two evils" will never work... since that's what Trump is using.

UPDATE: And South Carolina????

South Carolina has been reliably Republican for quote some time now, although Obama did hit 44.9% against McCain. But just-released polling from PPP shows even there Mr. Trumpanzee may be increasingly beyond the pale for suburban voters. He only has a 2 point lead over Hillary:

• Mr. Trumpanzee- 41%
• Hillary- 39%
• Gary Johnson- 5%
• Jill Stein- 2%

"The closeness," explained PPP Director Tom Jensen, "is a function of Democrats being a lot happier with their party's candidate than Republicans are with theirs. Clinton is winning 84% of the Democratic vote, compared to Trump's 77% of the Republican vote. Although neither candidate is well liked by voters in the state Trump's favorability, at 38% positive and 56% negative, comes in slightly worse than Clinton's at 38/55... Trump is only ahead because of a massive advantage among seniors in the state at 58/30. When you look at everyone in the electorate below the age of 65, Clinton leads Trump 41/36."

More Republican Establishment Creeps Hatin' On Mr. Trumpanzee

I don't like Trump either-- not anything about him; in fact I detest him and everything he stands for. That said, that list of 50 GOP officials who signed a lot warning that he;'d put the nation's national security at risk... the only ones on the list I heard of I hate too. The establishment on both sides of the aisle, sure are gaining up on Mr. Trumpanzee and these people never come from the same place I come from. It can't help but make me pause and wonder what I'm doing on the same side as people like war criminal John Negroponte, Goldman Sachs crook, World Bank president, neocon warmonger and Bush Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick, Patriot Act author Michael Chertoff, NSA and CIA Director & wiretapper Michael Hayden, deranged warmonger Eric Edelman, neocon Richard Fontaine, clownish Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and the Trade Rep. who came up with NAFTA, Carla Hills.

It's hard to imagine a Republican president who wouldn't look to some combination of the 50 people who signed the Trumpophobic letter yesterday to help run his or her foreign policy administration. That the letter asserts that Mr. Trumpanzee "lacks the character, values and experience" to be president, "would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being" and "would be the most reckless president in American history," means these people are more likely to work for Hillary than for Mr. T.

John Bellinger III, who served as Condoleeza Rice’s legal adviser at the National Security Council and the State Department, and who drafted the letter said of the signatories that "some will vote for" Mrs. Clinton, "and some will not vote, but all agree Trump is not qualified and would be dangerous."

From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief. Indeed, we are convinced that he would be a dangerous President and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.

Most fundamentally, Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be President. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary.

In addition, Mr. Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he has little understanding of America’s vital national interests, its complex diplomatic challenges, its indispensable alliances, and the democratic values on which U.S. foreign policy must be based. At the same time, he persistently compliments our adversaries and threatens our allies and friends. Unlike previous Presidents who had limited experience in foreign affairs, Mr. trump has shown no interest in educating himself. He continues to display an alarming ignorance of basic facts of contemporary international politics. Despite his lack of knowledge, Mr. Trump claims that he understands foreign affairs and “knows more about ISIS than the generals do.”

...We understand that many Americans are profoundly frustrated with the federal government and its inability to solve pressing domestic and international problems. We also know that many have doubts about Hillary Clinton, as do many of us. But Donald Trump is not the answer to America’s daunting challenges and to this crucial election. We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless President in American history.

The idea here, again, is that no matter how much you don't trust Hillary Clinton or her vision of governance, at least she isn't a sociopath. Is that enough for you? Does this list of hideous people who have made one bad-- often deadly-- decision after another for their entire professional lives make you feel any better about her?

Our Enemies Are The Elites, Not Each Other

Republican elites and Democratic elites have more in common with each other than they have with the kinds of people who support Trump (or, for that matter, who supported Bernie). Bernie has the non-racist, non-misogynistic, non-xenophobic version of the Trump supporters... and a lot smarter and considerably younger. But just as fed up and angry at a rigged system that works to keep the rich and powerful rich and powerful and keep thiose without agency or wealth without agency or wealth. So, while we have Hillary's highly professional campaign team cutting Señor Trumpanzee up into little bite sized cubes and feeding him to the sharks by the hour, Republicans, like 1987-89 Reagan White House Political Director Frank Lavin, are joining the long and growing list of conservatives endorsing the more conservative of the two presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton. "Trump," wrote Lavin in an OpEd, "falls short in terms of the character and behavior needed to perform as president. This defect is crippling and ensures he would fail in office. Trump is a bigot, a bully, and devoid of grace or magnanimity. His thin-skinned belligerence toward every challenge, rebuke, or criticism would promise the nation a series of a high-voltage quarrels. His casual dishonesty, his policy laziness, and his lack of self-awareness would mean four years of a careening pin-ball journey that would ricochet from missteps to crisis to misunderstandings to clarifications to retractions... There are many issues on which Hillary Clinton and I are not in agreement. However on the core foreign policy issues our country faces-- alliance relationships, security commitments, and international engagement-- she comes closer to Republican views than does Trump. And Donald Trump makes me cringe. I am voting for Hillary. And I vote in Ohio."

Team Trumpanzee sent Mike Pence to Arizona to talk to his old comrade in arms, Jeff Flake, hopeful that Pence could persuade him to support the ticket. Flake told a Face the Nation audience yesterday that Pence failed. Even the penultimate senatorial woos, Susan Collins (R-ME), is starting to prepare to abandon the SS Trumpanzee if it looks like it's going to go down in a big way. After Trumps' ugly, race-baiting foray into Portland Thursday-- designed solely to stir up paranoia and ethnic hatreds between Somalis and white Mainers-- Collins finally spoke up about the candidate she refuses to cut loose. "Mr Trump[anzee]’s statements disparaging immigrants who have come to this country legally are particularly unhelpful. Maine has benefited from people from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and, increasingly, Africa-- including our friends from Somalia."

Writing in yesterday's NY Times, Nick Confessore delved into how tough it is for Team Trumpanzee to persuade reliable Republican Party contributors and supporters to get behind Trump (and the rabble that backs him, a problem Confessore didn't address). "The goal," he wrote, "is to persuade thousands of the party’s most reliable patrons to overcome their lingering objections to the candidate most of them never wanted, and to help defeat a Democrat most of them want even less." Today Trumpy-the-Clown flew Trump Force One to Detroit "to unveil a set of detailed economic policy prescriptions... [to] remind wavering Republican donors of the stark contrast that he offers to Hillary Clinton on issues like taxes and regulation."

It is a dizzying turnaround for everyone involved, several donors said in interviews. Aides and fund-raisers for Mr. Trump, a self-described billionaire who has spent months proclaiming his independence from the party’s traditional financial interests, now concede that they need mainline Republican donors to swing behind Mr. Trump so that he will have enough financial firepower to compete with Mrs. Clinton in the air and on the ground.

...Some Trump backers argue that despite his criticisms of Washington, Mr. Trump is likely to lean heavily on conservative think tanks and Republican-leaning trade associations to stock his administration. Others are urging their fellow donors to face the hard truth that Mr. Trump thumped the donor class’s preferred candidates and earned the favor of Republican voters. Now, they say, it is time for the donors to respect the voters’ wishes.

...There are plenty of vocal and visible holdouts. Paul E. Singer, the prominent New York investor who raised more than $3 million for Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign, told Republican officials he would not donate a dollar more to the Republican National Committee as long as Mr. Trump was the party’s nominee.

Other prominent donors spoke out last week after Mr. Trump’s belittling of the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in a car bombing in Iraq in 2004 while serving in the Army.

Seth Klarman, a Boston financier who has given more than $4 million to Republican candidates and groups over the years, has decided to back Mrs. Clinton. So has Meg Whitman, the Hewlett-Packard executive who was a leading fund-raiser for Mr. Romney’s campaign, and who said last week that Mr. Trump was a “dishonest demagogue.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Klarman said that Mr. Trump’s “words and actions over the last several days are so shockingly unacceptable in our diverse and democratic society that it is simply unthinkable that Donald Trump could become our president.”

Mr. Trump has also been abandoned by Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who oversee a vast network of conservative political and philanthropic groups. Many of their allied donors traveled to a luxury lakeside resort in Colorado Springs last weekend for the summer edition of the network’s biannual “seminars.”

OK, so what about the Bernie supporters? Do they still have a beef. Yes, but the overwhelming majority are following the clothespin strategy and going along, however reluctantly, for Clinton. (Not me, though.) But just over a month ago Ben Spielberg warned that Bernie supporters had reason to loathe the way the Democratic establishment stole the primary process for Clinton and denied the nomination to Bernie. That's not supposed to be part of history.

Journalists have been cautioning Bernie Sanders against “suggesting the entire political process is unfair,” insisting that doing so could have “negative and destabilizing consequences.” They contend that he must “argue to his supporters that the outcome of the [Democratic primary] process was legitimate” so that he can convince them to vote for Hillary Clinton.  According to several recent articles, this argument should be easy to make because “The Democratic Primary Wasn’t Rigged” and “Bernie Sanders lost this thing fair and square.”

The problem, however, is that the Democratic primary was anything but “fair and square.”  It may not have been “rigged” in the narrow sense in which some of these writers have interpreted that word (to mean that there were illegal efforts to mess with vote counts), but it certainly wasn’t democratic. That’s why only 31 percent of Democrats express “a great deal of confidence” that the Democratic primary process is fair and is likely why the election conspiracy theories these journalists decry have gained traction.

Defenders of the Democratic primary results make several legitimate points. Clinton secured more votes and more pledged delegates than Sanders. When voting rules were less restrictive, she still won a greater number of open primaries than he did. Caucuses, which are very undemocratic, likely benefited Sanders. There isn’t evidence that the Clinton campaign coordinated efforts to purge voters from the rolls, inaccurately tabulate votes, or mislead Sanders’ California supporters into registering for the American Independent Party. While “the American election system is a disaster” and “should be reformed,” it’s not clear that the numerous and alarming voting rights issues that surfaced during the primary (from Arizona to New York to Puerto Rico) systematically disadvantaged Sanders. And discrepancies between exit polls and final voting results can happen for a number of reasons; they aren’t necessarily indicative of foul play.

Yet at the same time, these points skirt the very real ways in which the primary process was “rigged;” as Matt Yglesias and Jeff Stein have acknowledged, “the media, the party, and other elected officials [were] virtually uniformly… loaded against” Sanders from the get-go. The thumbs on the scale from these groups mattered a lot, more even than Yglesias and Stein surmise.

To quickly recap what those thumbs looked like, the Democratic party threw so much institutional support behind Clinton so long before she even declared her candidacy that political scientist David Karol asserted, in December of 2014, that “Hillary has basically almost been nominated.” The Democratic National Committee’s debate schedule was “obviously intended” to insulate Clinton from challengers and scrutiny. The DNC, in response to inappropriate behavior from a Sanders staffer who DNC staff had recommended and the campaign had already fired, suspended Sanders’ access to important voter data in violation of its contract with his campaign. While Clinton was dinging Sanders on his ostensible disregard for party fundraising, the “so-called joint fundraising committee comprised of Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees” was exploiting loopholes in campaign finance laws to funnel the bulk of its resources to Clinton and Clinton alone. Even into late May, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was leaning heavily into biased, anti-Sanders messaging, and leaked emails confirm that she and other DNC leaders actively sought to undermine the Sanders campaign. In addition, leaders of numerous groups traditionally affiliated with the Democratic party-- unions and organizations generally more aligned with Sanders than Clinton on campaign issues-- endorsed Clinton without polling their members (the groups that did open the endorsement process up to members typically endorsed Sanders).

Mainstream pundits and analysts were hardly any better than the Democratic party. From the moment Sanders entered the race, the media insisted-- when they covered him at all, which was not very often-- that he had “no chance of winning.” They continued to write off the possibility of a Sanders victory even as his popularity skyrocketed and he took an early lead in the popular vote, inappropriately including superdelegates in their reporting to make it look like Clinton was winning big. They asserted that the hundreds of policy wonks in support of Sanders’ ideas didn’t exist, subjecting Sanders’ proposals to far more scrutiny than Clinton’s, getting their analysis of some of Sanders’ plans flat-out wrong, and attempting to “boot anyone not preaching from the incrementalist gospel out of the serious club.” They began to pressure Sanders to drop out well before even half of all primaries and caucuses had been completed. They helped advance the false narrative that angry, sexist, illiberal White men fueled Sanders’ rise when his supporters were typically more power-balancing than Clinton’s and he was actually most popular among young women, young people of color, and poor Americans. They also helped the Clinton campaign propagate numerous misleading and/or untrue attacks on Sanders.

In general, as often happens when political and media establishments are threatened, they progressed from “polite condescension” towards the Sanders campaign to “innuendos” to “right-wing attacks” to “grave and hysterical warnings” to something close to a “[f]ull-scale and unrestrained meltdown.” It’s not clear exactly how much of that progression was coordinated, but it takes minimal effort to dismantle the claim that the Democratic party and mainstream media outlets were mostly neutral. Whether Clinton surrogates were praising her on TV without disclosing their ties to her campaign or technically unaffiliated newspaper outlets were blasting Sanders in headlines and post-publication edits to their articles, media sources consistently parroted misleading Clinton campaign talking points. Evidence indicates that the DNC was along for the ride.

Democratic Party goats and sheep can bleat all they want about Naderism, but, truth be told, anyone who votes for Clinton is voting for an untenable and corrupt system that needs to be smashed to bits, not coddled or preserved. It's why, no matter how much I detest a dangerous clown like Señor Trumpanzee, I will never, under any circumstance, vote for Hillary. I may even buy a Ralph Nader tee-shirt, since I did cast a ballot-- albeit with a clothespin on my nose-- for Gore/Lieberman in 2000. Yes, I was bamboozled into voting for Joe Lieberman. That's never going to happen again.

More On The Drift Towards Partisan Realignment

At one point Trump was sending out feelings to see if Mark Cuban, an actual self-made billionaire, would run with him. Cuban laughed at the prospect and this weekend endorsed Hillary in Pittsburgh, his hometown, mentioning along the way that Trump has gone batshit crazy. Cuban is friendly with Trump-- they have many similarities-- and says he "told him directly, at some point you have to learn, at some point you have to read and that that job is all about uncertainty and if you don't do the work, that is not good for this country. And he just doesn't do the work." At the event he ripped on Trump: "You know what we call a person like that-- the screamers, the yellers, the people that try to intimidate you? You know what we call a person like that in Pittsburgh? A jagoff. Is there any bigger jagoff in the world than Donald Trump?" He baited the Trumpanzee by saying his own TV show, Shark Tank "kicked The Apprentice's ass," something that is sure to get Trump tweeting any second now.

"In Hillary Clinton's America, the American Dream is alive and well," said Cuban, who isn't much of a political donor but has given 6 times more to Republicans than to Democrats. "There is no place that knows that better than Pittsburgh because we are an American Dream city." At one point he had claimed that Trump's campaign was "probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long long time." He describes himself as a libertarian who wants a social safety net, although he's flirted with joining the GOP. Well; no more flirting... he's found an ex-Republican who calls herself a Democrat but who has a similar middle-of-the-road policy perspective that he has.

Turns out, the Houston Chronicle wasn't the only newspaper to rush to endorse Hillary after watching the two conventions. Up in New Hampshire, the Concord Monitor's editors not only endorsed Clinton, they made a compelling case for why Republicans should vote for her. They began with a progressive vision, even citing how Bernie has at least appeared to have influenced her.

Clinton wants to rebuild America’s infrastructure, and in the process “pass the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II.”

She wants to work with Bernie Sanders “to make college tuition free for the middle class and debt-free for all.”

She wants to make it easier for those who dream of opening a small business to get credit, and to invest in job training so anyone who wants a good job can get one.

And on and on. Her speech was full of dreams and aspirations for the next phase of American life. But unlike her opponent, Clinton is grounded in reality.

If every voter had the chance to sit down one-on-one with Clinton and Trump to ask them how they would accomplish all they promise, they would hear Clinton speak with intelligence and authority. If Trump has that ability, he has kept it hidden. Not once during his campaign has he spoken about any issue with anything resembling deep understanding. Instead, he promises to surround himself with smart people. What he doesn’t get is that a president must possess the wisdom to know what advice is in the nation’s best interest and what advice could cost American lives and livelihoods.

Unlike most voters, we had an opportunity to sit down with Clinton to talk about policy, and her depth of knowledge on every single issue we covered was astounding.

We also sat down with Jeb Bush, and he’s the same way. He is much more comfortable rolling up his sleeves and diving into health care or tax policy than trying to convert complicated ideas into campaign-friendly soundbites and catch phrases. And Lindsey Graham, too. Our discussion with him focused almost exclusively on ISIS and the upheaval in the Middle East. When Trump says he knows more about ISIS than the generals, it’s laughable; if Graham said it, which he never would, it would be a difficult claim to disprove. And then there’s John Kasich. Ask him about Ohio’s economy, and his eyes light up. He doesn’t have much of an appetite for Republican red meat-- he prefers to discuss job creation and balanced budgets.

All three can run policy circles around Trump, but they weren’t very good at insults, tweets and slogans short enough to fit on the front of a baseball hat, so they never made it to the convention stage. For whatever reason, Republican voters wanted a simple candidate this time around and that’s what they have.

We just can’t understand how a Republican who supported Bush, or Kasich, or Graham can vote for Trump when they have a kindred spirit in Clinton. We don’t understand how a Republican who supported George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon or Dwight Eisenhower-- or George W. Bush, for that matter-- can vote for Trump.

Beyond party affiliation, Trump has little in common with any past president. All the nation’s great political leaders have been policy people-- just like Clinton. And despite what Trump would have you believe, that’s worked out pretty well for America.

Not a real Democrat

Moderate Republicans like Mark Cuban and Hillary Clinton aren't necessarily real Democrats, even if they become partisan brawlers. Most ex-Republicans who go blue, turn out to be mainstays of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who destroy the party's foundations from within-- like Florida numbskull Patrick Murphy has proven in Congress. A rare exception is Elizabeth Warren, who started out as a Republican but was too intellectually honest and rigorous to go the New Dem or Blue Dog route. But... a very rare exception. Most of the Republicans who have made the jump are pure garbage when it comes to policy and-- once they get recruited to run and elected to Congress courtesy of conservative Democrats like Steve Israel, Debbie Wassermann Schultz, Steny Hoyer and Chuck Schumer-- just vote with their old teammates most of the time anyway, the way Brad Ashford (NE), Patrick Murphy (FL) and Filemon Vela (TX) do. Currently, the DCCC is trying to pass off "ex"-Republicans Monica Vernon (IA), Charlie Crist (FL), Tom O'Halleran (AZ), Mike Derrick (NY), and Randy Perkins (FL) as Democratic candidates for House seats. Tap the thermometer and you'll find real Democrats who won't have to be cajoled into supporting progressive legislative initiatives in Congress:

Who's More A Hawk-- Trumpy-the-Clown Or Hillary?

Are values-driven Democrats supposed to celebrate because Republicans are flocking to Hillary's banner? Well, sure. There aren't enough Democrats in the country to elect someone president and her appeal to independents is... shaky, at best. The problems with Republicans, of course, is that they're reading the whole lesser-of-two evils thing in such a way that makes their own party's candidate anathema, and that's a good thing, but if Hillary's building any kind of an enduring transpartisan coalition, Democrats ought to wonder what the basis of it is apart of Trumpophobia.

At heart she's always been a moderate Republican and getting her to take progressive stands has rarely been easy or natural. When Alexander Burns reported in the NYTimes yesterday that she's moved "to recast the 2016 race not as a conventional battle between left and right but as a national emergency that requires voters of all stripes to band together against a singularly menacing candidate," he was explaining her latest outreach to Republicans. Burns reported that Cato Institute executive David Boaz said Democrats' attacks on "Trump as an autocrat had the potential to resonate outside the Democratic base. 'I really don’t think that’s too over the top,' Mr. Boaz said. 'We have one candidate who’s not even pretending-- he is promising to be a one-man ruler.'"

Democrats recruited respected figures from outside the party to amplify their appeal: Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor, who is a political independent, warned sternly that non-Democrats must rally with Mrs. Clinton to stop a “dangerous demagogue.”

John Allen, a retired four-star Marine general, thundered into an arena dotted with American flags that voters faced a choice between Mrs. Clinton and “a dark place of discord and fear.”

There is no recent precedent in American politics for such unrelenting and direct attacks on a presidential nominee’s commitment to the basic institutions of democracy.

...Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for Mrs. Clinton, said the campaign would hammer the message that Mr. Trump is “not a normal Republican.”

“He has an incredibly disturbing theory that at its core rejects the American values of both self-reliance, and the value of community,” Ms. Palmieri said.

Geoff Garin, a pollster for Priorities USA Action, the main pro-Clinton super PAC, said the race had entered a new phase. A defining goal for the group now, he said, was to ensure that voters “reckon with what it would mean to have a dangerous demagogue like Trump as president.”

OK, but on foreign policy, Hillary is still an utter nightmare for anyone looking for a peace candidate. No one has any idea where Trump would be on foreign policy issues-- no doubt, including Trump, although we have good reason to fear the worst. We do know where Hillary is-- and it isn't good. She's way to the right of Obama, let alone actual doves, when it comes to foreign policy. The foreign policy "experts" she closest with are already planning the wars they want to fight other peoples' kids to fight. First comes comes Syria. One of her top prospects for Secretary of Defense, Michele Flournoy, is calling for strikes against Assad, proveing, beyond doubt, no one has learned anything about the regime-change screw-up in Libya. Why not just make it official and have Netanyahu be Secretary of State?

Rana Khalek, writing for The Intercept a couple of days ago looked at some of the better known Republicans who are backing Clinton, hardcore neocons, not anyone she would be clueless enough to trot out on the stage.

As Hillary Clinton puts together what she hopes will be a winning coalition in November, many progressives remain wary — but she has the war hawks firmly behind her.

“I would say all Republican foreign policy professionals are anti-Trump,” leading neoconservative Robert Kagan told a group gathered around him, groupie-style, at a “foreign policy professionals for Hillary” fundraiser I attended last week. “I would say that a majority of people in my circle will vote for Hillary.”

As the co-founder of the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, Kagan played a leading role in pushing for America’s unilateral invasion of Iraq and insisted for years afterward that it had turned out great.

Despite the catastrophic effects of that war, Kagan insisted at last week’s fundraiser that U.S. foreign policy over the last 25 years has been “an extraordinary success.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s know-nothing isolationism has led many neocons to flee the Republican ticket. And some, like Kagan, are actively helping Clinton, whose hawkishness in many ways resembles their own.

The event raised $25,000 for Clinton. Two rising stars in the Democratic foreign policy establishment, Amanda Sloat and Julianne Smith, also spoke.

The way they described Clinton’s foreign policy vision suggested that if elected president in November, she will escalate tensions with Russia, double down on military belligerence in the Middle East, and generally ignore the American public’s growing hostility to intervention.

Sloat, the former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, boasted that Clinton will be “more interventionist and forward-leaning than Obama’s been” in Syria. She also applauded Clinton for doing intervention the right way, through coalitions instead of the unilateral aggression that defined the Bush years.

“Nothing that [Clinton] did was more clear than the NATO coalition that she built to defend civilians in Libya,” said Sloat, referencing the Obama administration’s overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. That policy, spearheaded by Clinton, has transformed a once-stable state into a lawless haven for extremist groups from across the region, including ISIS.

Kagan has advocated for muscular American intervention in Syria; Clinton’s likely pick for Pentagon chief, Michelle Flournoy, has similarly agitated for redirecting U.S. airstrikes in Syria toward ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Smith told the audience that unlike Trump, Clinton “understands the importance of deterring Russian aggression,” which is why “I’ll sleep better with her in the chair.” She is a former deputy national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

Smith left the government to become senior vice president of Beacon Global Strategies, a high-powered bipartisan consulting group founded by former high-ranking national security officials.

When Robbie Martin, a filmmaker who recently produced a three-part documentary on the neoconservative movement, asked how Clinton plans to deal with Ukraine, Kagan responded enthusiastically.

“I know Hillary cares more about Ukraine than the current president does,” Kagan replied. “[Obama] said to me [that he wouldn’t arm Ukraine because] he doesn’t want a nuclear war with Russia,” he added, rolling his eyes dismissively. “I don’t think Obama cares about Putin anymore at all. I think he’s hopeless.”

Kagan is married to Victoria Nuland, the Obama administration’s hardline assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs. Nuland, who would likely serve in a senior position in a Clinton administration, supports shipping weapons to Ukraine despite major opposition from European countries and concerns about the neo-Nazi elements those weapons would empower.

Another thing neoconservatives and liberal hawks have in common is confidence that the foreign policy establishment is right, and the growing populist hostility to military intervention is naïve and uninformed.

Kagan complained that Americans are “so focused on the things that have gone wrong in recent years, they miss the sort of basic underlying unusual quality of the international order that we’ve been living in.

“It’s not just Donald Trump,” Kagan said. “I think you can find in both parties a very strong sense that we don’t need to be out there anymore.”

“If, as I hope, Hillary Clinton is elected, she is going to immediately be confronting a country that is not where she is,” he said. “She is a believer in this world order. But a great section of the country is not and is going to require persuasion and education.”

Sloat agreed, arguing that “it’s dangerous” for people to draw anti-interventionist lessons from Libya and Iraq.

The Clinton-neocon partnership was solidified by Trump becoming the Republican nominee. But their affinity for each other has grown steadily over time.

The neoconservative Weekly Standard celebrated Clinton’s 2008 appointment as secretary of state as a victory for the right, hailing her transformation from “First Feminist” to “Warrior Queen, more Margaret Thatcher than Gloria Steinem.”

But the fundraiser was perhaps the most outward manifestation yet of the convergence between the Democratic foreign policy establishment and the neoconservative movement.

Hannah Morris of the liberal pro-Israel lobbying group J Street celebrated this bipartisanship as a “momentous occasion.”

“We could not be more proud to have [Kagan] here today,” she said.

Leaving Trump out of the equation for a moment, which side are you on, dear reader?