Lincoln Project Co-Founder Steve Schmidt Fires Back At Trump And Reduces Him To Charred Cinders

 

-by Noah

For those of you who may still not know, Steve Schmidt is a conservative who worked on several Republican campaigns including those of Arnold Schwarenegger, George Dubya Bush, and John McCain. President Donald J. Biohazard, however, was a bigly bridge too far for a conservative with the smarts of Schmidt. So, patriotic American that he is, he just had to respond when our nutcase Beavis & Butt-head President attacked him as a "Loser" and a "Failure" for forming the Lincoln Project to run advertisements against him that speak truth to such corrupted power as that of Trump and the current Republican Party. What follows is the brilliant combined text of several of Schmidt's tweets back at Trump in response to his endless whining about the ads.

You’ve never beaten me at anything. This is our first dance. Did you like, Covita? We are so much better at this than your team of crooks, wife beaters, degenerates, weirdos and losers.

You are losing. We heard you loved Evita. You saw it so many times. Where will you live out your years in disgrace? Will you buy Jeffrey Epstein’s island? One last extra special deal from him? Or will you be drooling on yourself in a suite at Walter Reed? Maybe you will be in prison?

I bet you fear that. The Manhattan District Attorney may not be around to cover for you or your crooked kids anymore. Eliza Orlins doesn’t believe in different sets of rules for the Trumps. What about the State Attorney General? You know what you’ve done.

Oh, Donald. Who do you owe almost $500 million in personally guaranteed loans to? It's all coming down. You think you and your disgusting family are going to be in deal-flow next year? Are you really that delusional?

You are lucky Chris Wallace interrupted you after Joe Biden said you weren’t smart. You started to melt down. That’s the place that hurts the most. Right? Fred Sr., knew it. You’ve spent your whole life proving it. You aren’t very smart. You couldn’t take the SAT on your own. What was the real score? 970? We both know you know.

Are the steroids wearing off? Is the euphoria fading? Do you feel foggy? Tired? Do you ache? How is the breathing? Hmmm. Are you watching TV today? We will have some nice surprises for you. Everyone is laughing at you. You are a joke. A splendid moron turned deadly clown.

Did you watch Martha McSally in her debate against American hero, fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut Capt. Mark Kelly? She is so embarrassed by you. She is ashamed and full of self-loathing for the choice she made in following you over the cliff. She is in free fall now. She will lose, like most of them, because of you.

We hear from the White House and the campaign everyday. They are betraying you. They are looking to get out alive and salvage careers and their names. It’s Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner vs. Donald Trump Jr., and Kimberly Guilfoyle on the inside. They are at war over scraps and who gets to command what will be the remnants of your rancid cult.

It’s almost over now. You are the greatest failure in American history. You are the worst president in American history. Disgrace will always precede your name. Your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will grow up ashamed of their names.

One day, I suppose there will be some small and not-much-visited library that bears your name. It will be the type of place where a drunk walks by, staring at the wall for a minute, before deciding it is beneath his dignity to piss on. That’s what is waiting for you.

Joe Biden is a better man. He’s smarter. He’s winning.

Do you remember when you didn’t want to name Donald Trump Jr., Donald because you were worried about him being a loser named Donald? You were right about that. He is.

But it is you who will be remembered as America’s greatest loser. You will be crushed in the election! Shhhhhhhh

Having read Schmidt's response to the baggy-suited, ferret-wearing nutcase who is roaming around the White House and the country spreading his disease, it is clear that Trump will never be in Schmidt's league. Schmidt's writing has an Edgar Allan Poe quality about it. It's certainly time to seal Trump behind a wall.

Trump Has Gone Postal-- What Is Required Of Patriots?

Louis & Donald Fix The Post Office by Nancy Ohanian

The House hadn't voted since it passed the Pentagon budget on July 31. Then on Saturday, there were 4 votes on the post office, including a Republican motion to prevent a vote from taking place at all. That Republican vote to recommit failed 223 to to 182. The 144 who voted, all voted to recommit. 222 Democrats voted against that but eight less-than-worthless fake Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- protected by the DCCC-- voted with the Republicans, of course; they always do. The enemies of the people:

• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)

When the bill itself hit the floor half an hour later, all 231 Democrats voted yes and 149 Republicans voted no. That doesn't add up to the 257-150 win. Well, Justin Amash, the conservative independent, was with his GOP buddies on this one. So that makes 150. But that doesn't account for 26 yes votes.

Ah-ha! 26 Republicans! Were there suddenly--out of the blue-- 26 mainstream Republicans unwilling to lend their names to Trump's and DeJoy's plans for fascist take-over? Well... that might describe Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Peter King (R-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), David McKinley (R-WV) and Will Hurd (R-TX). But the rest of them? All have something in common-- they are extremely vulnerable members petrified to be associated with Trump and his authoritarianism, even, if like Mike McCaul (R-TX), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) and Sam Graves (R-MO), they are total Trump lap-dogs who never stray from the party line. LaMalfa was the most shocking of all. But he's feeling the heat in a big way from progressive Democrat Audrey Denney and decided he's more afraid of her than of Trump at this point. Yesterday Audrey told us that she was "pleased to see Rep. LaMalfa vote the correct way on this bill-- and for once do something that favors his constituents instead of his corporate sponsors. I think it signifies the mounting pressure he is feeling from our campaign. It appears the vote may have cost Rep. LaMalfa some support within his strongest base." She pointed out some Trumpists in her district who are fuming:

And then there's multimillionaire clown Michael McCaul in Austin. You'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull the wool over Mike Siegel's eyes. He nearly beat Trumpist shill McCaul in 2018 and, despite McCaul's one vote diverging from Trump Saturday, everyone in TX-10 knows what a puppet is and that it's time to get rid of theirs. "Michael McCaul's vote for USPS funding is a clear sign it's re-election time and our rally with NALC Letter Carriers and 50 constituents on Tuesday was a success," said Siegel, a public school teacher and civil rights attorney up against eight-term Rep. Michael McCaul. "McCaul has accepted over $50,000 in corporate PAC money from FedEx and UPS, which have a direct interest in gutting the Post Office. I'm not taking a dime of corporate PAC money. Our campaign has been running for years on a message to strengthen and expand the Post Office, including Postal Banking and infrastructure for universal broadband, to create thousands of good paying jobs."

Sam Graves was another lock-step Republican who surprised everyone who knows him by starting from the party line. But, like LaMalfa, he's feeling the heat-- from his constituents and from progressive Democrat Gena Ross. "As a proponent of the House Bill meant to provide necessary funding for the USPS, I am glad that Sam Graves voted approve it. As I’ve said before, funding the postal service should not be a partisan issue. For Democrats and Republicans alike, the postal service provides a crucial service. The right thing to do, regardless of party, was to vote yes. However, we cannot settle for someone who does the right thing just some of the time. I’m running for office to guarantee the Missourians in District 6 that if elected, I will always vote with their best interest in mind, and not just when it’s convenient for me. I’m running so that the people of District 6 will finally feel like their voices have been heard, and not like their concerns have been silenced. When elected, the people of District 6 will never have to worry about whether or not I’m serving them, or my own self-interest."

Like most Americans, rural and suburban Missouri voters do not want to see the post office wrecked-- but Jason Smith diverged with Sam Graves on this one. His opponent, Kathy Ellis: "Jason Smith should be ashamed of himself. If it wasn’t clear before how out of touch and ignorant he is, it’s crystal clear now. Smith’s vote against support for USPS-- on the heels of his vote against Coronavirus relief-- demonstrates, once again, that’s he’s unfit to represent Missouri’s 8th District. Our rural area relies on USPS for voting, business matters, communication, and medicine. And we deserve a real leader, not a rubber stamp for Trump and GOP policies. It’s time for him to go."

But in some ways the most interesting vote of all was from hereditary multimillionaire Chris Jacobs in western New York (NY-27). Jacobs voted to recommit and then, following the GOP party line like he always does (100%), he voted against the bill to save the post office. No one could possibly expect anything else from him, right? Well... apparently he got some negative feedback from voters in his district-- furious rural voters, particularly. Jacobs was so frightened, that he put out a statement claiming he pressed them wrong button when he voted and actually meant to vote against Trump and with the Democrats, something he has never done before. Let's allow Jacob's progressive opponent Nate McMurray, a vocal defender of the post office, to explain what ensued: "Saturday, thousands of letter carriers and postal workers in NY-27 went to bed believing that their congressman voted against their very existence as essential workers. Today, hundreds of thousands of voters woke up to wonder whether their congressman was even able to do his job. Chris claims he was 'distracted' during the vote and was on his way to the airport before he realized he had 'pushed the wrong button.' How could he allow that to happen? Could he have been eager to get home before his big fundraiser Monday morning? The truth is that this negligence would never have happened on a vote important to his big money donors. No matter his alleged intention, Chris Jacobs' actions have shown zero support for the USPS and zero ability to stand up to the President. Chris has been silent as Trump threatened our democracy, saying that no funding meant fewer mail-in ballots for November and a better chance for his re-election. He hasn't said a word about postmaster DeJoy stealing mailboxes and dismantling mail sorting machines here in Buffalo. I'm proud to be endorsed by the National Association of Letter Carriers, because they know I can't be distracted from the fight to protect our workers, unions, and democratic institutions. There is going to be another big vote in November, on inept politicians like Jacobs and Trump-- I know there are many former Jacobs voters in NY-27 who are ready to change their vote too."

Trump roadie Alex Mooney (R-WV) was one of the Republicans who voted against Saturday's bill to provide $25 million in USPS funding, even as one of West Virginia's other Republican Congressmen, David McKinley, voted for it. The postal service employs nearly 4,000 West Virginians. "On-time mail delivery is a basic public service, and is particularly critical in a rural state like West Virginia," said Cathy Kunkel, Mooney's challenger. "We urgently need to fund the postal service to get through the November election. Beyond that, Congress must repeal the bill that required the Postal Service to pre-fund retiree medical benefits, which has put an unnecessary strain on its finances. It is deeply disappointing that Congressman Mooney voted against funding for this fundamental institution of our democracy."

Republicans without serious challengers-- and also Republicans who still can't get their heads out of Trump's ass-- just toed the party line (without making up stories like Jacobs did to evade accountability). The most foolish votes against the interests of their own constituents were by two crooks, Roger Williams (R-TX), Mike Garcia (R-CA) and Ken Calvert (R-CA). I asked Julie Oliver, Williams' opponent how Williams' vote can re explained, since people in central Texas like and depend on the postal service. Like Mike Siegel, Julie is also based in Austin and also running in a gerrymandered Republican district. And like Mike, she's looking like a winner. But in her case, her corrupt opponent, Roger Williams, refused to vote for the post office. "After taking $20,000 from UPS and Fedex, Roger Williams voted against funding the United States Post Office," said Julie. "It's about corruption, plain and simple. And it's not just a disservice to veterans, seniors, and rural Texans who rely on USPS for last-mile delivery. It's un-American."

The bill itself, likely to be buried in the Senate by Moscow Mitch, would prevent DeJoy from making any changes to postal operations that could slow delivery of mailed-in ballots for this fall’s elections and would force him to reverse the decisions he's already made to slow down the mail until the pandemic is over-- like removing mail-sorting machines, restricting overtime pay, destroying post boxes and handling election mail as anything other than first-class for prioritized delivery. In line with what was requested by the Republican postal service board of governors, the legislation also approved $25 billion in funding for the service. Trump's says if Moscow Mitch fails to stop it, he'll veto it.

DeJoy will be grilled by members of the House Oversight Committee this morning and with members like Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ro Khanna (D-CA), AOC (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Katie Porter (D-CA)-- plus neo-Nazis Gym Jordan (R-OH), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Jody Hice (R-GA), Glenn Grothman (R-WI) and Clay Higgins (R-LA)-- you can count on the hearing being a lot more exciting than Trump's hodgepodge tribute to himself that starts tonight.

Yesterday, conservative Republican #NeverTrumper Steve Schmidt wrote in a Business Insider OpEd that because of Trump's post office agenda, American democracy is in grave danger, "an attack on the right to vote... Trump's scheme to cause chaos at the US Postal Service and undermine faith in our voting system-- in the midst of a pandemic no less-- must be met with a rededication by all Americans who love this country to vote the president out of office."

Trump is causing chaos in America. He has attacked and weakened our most vital institutions for the past four years, and now, he has decided that he will stay in power by any means necessary, even going as far as to muse about running for an unconstitutional third-term in 2024.

Trump is trying to steal the election using a voter suppression scheme that confuses Americans and undermines the very basics of voting.

The US Postal Service has been selected by Trump to be the unwitting bludgeon as he assaults our free and fair elections process. He has installed a crony at the head of the USPS to make changes that will sow confusion and slow mail service, threatening the ability of the USPS to deliver mail-in ballots on time.

And it's not only the election. Imagine our fellow citizens, seniors, and veterans, who need their medications right now. The inescapable reality is that more Americans will die needlessly as the result of yet another cold, calculating, and calloused decision by Trump.

The USPS is as old as the nation and shares with it a storied history. The first US Postmaster General was Dr. Benjamin Franklin. He understood that mail delivery is amongst the very highest priorities and requirements of a functioning national government.

From the daring days of the Pony Express, to the pioneering Air Mail pilots at the dawn of aviation, to the men and women who walk a route today and know our kids' names and always have a treat for the dog, the USPS has been a vital part of our country. We cannot let Trump and his appointees threaten it.

As has been the case for the past four years, Trump's assault on our country's institutions is made possible by the silence of his collaborators in this plot against America.

What are we supposed to call it when one of America's two political parties succumbs fully to the siren of power at the expense of the American experiment? Freedom is on the line.

...We must defend freedom. We must vote. We must organize. We must participate. We must never ever let any person or any nation threaten our right to vote. It is an inheritance paid for in blood. We will never surrender it.

Donald Trump is a name that will live in ignominy for all time. His depravities, incompetence, and malice will be repudiated by the American people in a decisive vote that Trump will be unable to stop.

In the end, we are Americans. We decide who leads. We will vote.

Any and every Republican elected office who doesn't stand up to Trump on this, is complicit and should be voted out of office. The folks at the Lincoln Project know the stuff in this ad is true-- most of them were the ones who created or applied these right-wing strategies in American political campaigns to begin with:

The Lincoln Project Goes After Another GOP Scalp-- In Alaska

As you may know, I love the work the Lincoln Project does, especially their attacks on Trump, which are very harsh and very effective and, by all reports, driving Trump insane. The Lincoln Project, I should mention, is made up of conservative Republicans (and in some cases, conservative ex-Republicans) who, generally speaking, would like to overturn women's Choice, slash government regulation of predatory businesses, Make War Not Love and gut Social Security and Medicare. Other than that... I love these guys. They're doing a better job than the DNC eviscerating Señor Trumpanzee.

And they've been going after Republican senators too. Those ads seem, generally, more half-hearted and less... bloodthirsty. There was an exception with their Arizona ads against weak, appointed incumbent Martha McSally. Those were the kind of killer, vicious ads we expect from these GOP operatives-turned-anti-GOP. But most of the Senate ads were more like this Steve Bullock ad-- decent but not awesome-- nor even memorable. They don't even mention his opponent, Steve Daines, just flash a photo of him. The overall, anti-Republican senators ad was good and up to their high standards, but the specific ones... not so much. And they released another one like that today. This ad-- up top-- against for Independent Al Gross looks like it will be very effective in a soft, friendly way, but... no mention of Sullivan, Gross' Trump-loving GOP opponent. (I just saw the ad they released attacking Susan Collins this morning. This is what I call kickass)

I understand that they bought almost 2,000 points of prime airtime that will saturate Alaska all week, sure to knock the already unpopular Sullivan on his ass, especially with Gross running his own very powerful ad right now as well (below). An average voter has to see an ad at least 10 times for it to have an impact; the Lincoln Project's 2,000 points will amount to an average of 17 points. That has some meaning, especially with a candidate like Gross who hasn't run for office before and has relatively low name recognition.

I'm just spitballing here but I was wondering why the Lincoln Project did such good ads against McSally and and a pretty strong one for Gross, while just going through the motions on many of the other Republican senators. Then one of the principals' name popped in my head, Steve Schmidt. He's probably the one overseeing the ads; that's his specialty. And he was de-facto McCain campaign manager. He probably loathes the fact that McSally is sullying McCain's old seat with her supine, spineless obeisance to Trump... but what about Sullivan? That's more interesting and nuanced.

Schmidt's worst moment was the "credit" he gets for persuading McCain to make the absolutely catastrophic Sarah Palin running mate choice. That became the blackest mark against Schmidt in his entire political career. And, on one level, it was Dan Sullivan's fault. I'm guessing that this ad was the payback, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Schmidt asked his cool pal Karl Rove for his suggestion for a running mate. Rove, who is close to Sullivan's wealthy parents in Ohio, suggested Schmidt talk to their son, who was serving under like known Alaska Governor Palin as her Attorney General. Schmidt called Sullivan who persuaded him Palin would be a solid candidate... and that was the end of the McCain campaign and, for some time, Schmidt's reputation.

How lucky is Al Gross! I can't wait for the follow up to the soft one. I suspect the next Lincoln Project ad in Alaska is going to be more...cutting edge (and throat cutting for Dan Sullivan). I notice they put down another $580,000 in TV ad buys and I bet it isn't for this soft, getting-to-know-you ad. (So that's a cool million bucks Steve Schmidt is throwing against the guy who foisted Sarah Palin on him! And a million bucks on Alaska media is a lot of money.)

Your Criminal President

38,386 new cases today-- you running from that, Pig Man?

Yesterday saw a horrifying new high in cases in states across the country thanks to Trump and, in most cases, the foolish governors (and idiot citizens) who echo-ed his ignorant pronouncements about COVID-19. From the beginning, Trump refused to take the pandemic seriously, which s why the U.S. has been hit so much harder than any country in the world. Today's new cases by governor:

• Gavin Newsom (D-CA) +4,966
• Greg Abbott (R-TX) +6,177
• Doug Ducey (R-AZ) +1,795
• Ron DeSantis (R-FL) +5,511
• Brian Kemp (R-GA) +1,703

On top of those, other knee-jerk Trumpified governors who fucked up their states and are part of the second spike of Wave I include Henry McMaster (R-SC), Bill Lee (R-TN), Kay Ivey (R-AL), Tate Reeves (R-MS), Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), Mike Parson (R-MO) and Kevin Stitt (R-OK).





On MSNBC yesterday, Republic strategist Steve Schmidt commented on Trump's pandemic leadership:

Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don’t say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.

When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don’t use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We’ve never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.

It’s just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he’s the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he’s brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let’s be clear. This isn’t happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you’re the most likely to die from this disease. We’re the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.

Pretty powerful stuff. But we don't have to go to a Republican operative for this kind of brutal analysis of the Orange Menace. In an interview with Michael Brooks a few days ago, Noam Chomsky explained why he see's Señor T as "the worst criminal in human history." Hard to beat that!

Answering a question about former Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, Chomsky first expressed his contempt for the GOP. "Bolsonaro," he said, "fired the heads of the executive divisions, which were looking into his family. His executive statement was that 'Nobody’s going to fuck around with my family,' which is pretty similar to what just happened here. Bolsonaro sees himself as a kind of clone of Trump. Tragedy and farce. Trump is very similar. He just fired all of the inspectors general who were put into place to monitor corruption and malfeasance in executive offices. They were beginning to inquire into this fetid swamp that he’s created in Washington, so he fired them all. And like any tin-pot dictator, he went out of his way to humiliate the senior Republican senator, Charles Grassley, who had spent his career setting this system in implementation. Not a peep from the Republican Party. They’ve disappeared as a party. It’s worse than the old Communist Party. The leader gives an order; we [fall] on our knees.

Brooks then asked him to "explain why what Donald Trump is doing institutionally actually is unique and does matter on its own terms." Chomsky was ready:

This sounds strong, but it’s true: Trump is the worst criminal in history, undeniably. There has never been a figure in political history who was so passionately dedicated to destroying the projects for organized human life on earth in the near future.

That is not an exaggeration. People are focused now on the protests; the pandemic is serious enough that we will emerge from it at terrible cost. The cost is greatly amplified by the gangster in the White House, who has killed tens of thousands of Americans, making this the worst place in the world [for the coronavirus]. We will emerge [from the pandemic, but] we’re not going to emerge from another crime that Trump has committed, the heating of the globe. The worst of it is coming-- we’re not going to emerge from that.

The ice sheets are melting; they’re not going to recover. That leads to exponential increase in global warming. Arctic glaciers, for example, could flood the world. Recent studies indicate that on the present course, in about fifty years, much of the habitable part of the world will be unlivable. You won’t be able to live in parts of South Asia, parts of the Middle East, parts of the United States. We’re approaching the point of 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were about twenty-five feet higher than they are now. And it’s worse than that. The Scripps Oceanographic Institute just came out with a study that estimated that we are coming ominously close to a point [similar to] 3 million years ago, when sea levels were fifty to eighty feet higher than they are today.

All around the world, countries are trying to do something about it. But there is one country which is led by a president who wants to escalate the crisis, to race toward the abyss, to maximize the use of fossil fuels, including the most dangerous of them, and to dismantle the regulatory apparatus that limits their impact. There is no crime like this in human history. Nothing. This is a unique individual. And it’s not as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Of course he does. It’s as if he doesn’t care. If he can pour more profits into his pockets and the pockets of his rich constituency tomorrow, who cares if the world disappears in a couple of generations?

As far as the government is concerned, we’re seeing something pretty interesting. Parliamentary democracy has been around for 350 years, starting in England in 1689 with the so-called Glorious Revolution, when sovereignty was transferred from the royalty to the parliament. The beginnings of parliamentary democracy in the United States [came] about a century later. Parliamentary democracy is not just based on laws and constitutions. In fact, the British constitution is maybe a dozen words. It’s based on trust and good faith, the assumption that people will act like human beings.

Take Richard Nixon. Pretty rotten guy, but when the time came that he had to leave office, he left office quietly. Nobody is expecting that with Trump. He doesn’t act like a human being. He’s off somewhere else. He [doesn’t] even make appointments that can be confirmed by the Senate. Why bother? I don’t like somebody, I’ll throw them out. One Republican, Lisa Murkowski, dares to raise a small question about his nobility, [and he] came down on her with a ton of bricks-- I’m going to destroy you.



It’s not fascism. It’s what I said before: tin-pot dictator of some small country where they have coups every couple of years. That’s the mentality.

Congress, the Senate, happens to be in the hands of a soul mate of his, Mitch McConnell-- in many ways the real evil genius of this administration, dedicated to destroying democracy long before Trump. When [Barack] Obama was elected, McConnell said openly to the public, “My main goal is to ensure that Obama can achieve nothing.” Okay. That’s saying, “I want to destroy parliamentary democracy,” which is based, as I said, in good faith and trust in the interchange.

The Senate. the so-called world’s greatest deliberative body, is reduced to passing legislation that will enrich the very rich, empowering the corporate sector, and making judicial appointments to stack the judiciary with young, ultraright, mostly incompetent justices who can ensure for a generation that no matter what the public wants, they’ll be able to block it.

It’s a deep hatred of democracy and fear of democracy. That’s not unusual among the elites; they don’t like democracy for obvious reasons. But this is something special.

That’s on top of the pandemic, on top of the global warming crisis, the crisis of nuclear weapons, which is equally severe. Trump is dismantling the entire arms-control regime, greatly increasing the risk of destruction, virtually inviting enemies to develop weapons to destroy us that we [won’t be able to] stop.

Trump is taking the worst aspects of capitalism, particularly the neoliberal version of capitalism, and amplifying them. Let’s just take the pandemic. Why is there a pandemic? In 2003, after the SARS epidemic, which was a coronavirus, it was well understood by scientists — they were saying, “Another coronavirus, much more serious than this, is very likely. Now here are the steps we have to take to prepare for it.” Somebody has to take the steps. Well, there is a pharmaceutical industry, but extraordinarily wealthy, huge labs can’t do it. You don’t spend money on something that might be important ten years from now-- stopping a future catastrophe is not profitable. That’s a capitalist crisis.

Government has the resources; they have great labs. But then comes something called Ronald Reagan, at the beginning of the neoliberal assault on the population, arguing that government is the problem, not the solution-- meaning we have to take decisions away from government. Government is influenced by people. Now we have to put [decisions] in the hands of unaccountable private institutions which have no influence from the public. In the United States, that’s sometimes called libertarianism. That’s the beginning of the neoliberal assault.

George H. W. Bush established a presidential scientific advisory council board. Obama called it into office, correctly, the first day of his administration and asked them to prepare a pandemic warning reaction system. A couple of weeks later, they came back with a system that was put in place. January 2017, the wrecker comes into office. First days of his administration, [Trump] dismantles the whole system to respond to a pandemic; started defunding the Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention] (CDC) and every health-related aspect of government, year after year. Eliminated programs of American scientists in China working with Chinese scientists to identify potential coronavirus threats and throws it out. So when [the coronavirus] hit, the United States was uniquely unprepared-- thanks to the wrecker.

And then it got worse. He refused to react to it. Other countries responded to it, some of them very well and very quickly. It’s almost gone, mostly under control. Not in the United States. He didn’t care. For months, US intelligence couldn’t get the White House to say, “There’s a serious crisis.” Finally, according to reports, he noticed that the stock market was declining, and then said, “We have to do something.” What he has done is just chaos.

But a large part of the problem is pre-Trump. Why aren’t the hospitals ready? Well, they run on a business model. That’s neoliberalism. It has to be just-in-time delivery. They don’t want to lose a cent. So we don’t have an extra hospital bed; we have to make sure the CEOs of the private hospitals get millions of dollars a year in compensation. Can’t have an extra bed-- you cut into that. So everything’s parroted above. The nursing homes, which are privately owned, are reduced to minimal functioning, because we can make more money that way, if we’re a private-equity corporation that owns them. Now we can contribute to Trump’s campaign so he can have a photo-op with us, telling us how wonderful we are for destroying the nursing homes, killing all the elderly people.


It goes deep into issues well before Trump, but he is a unique phenomenon-- again, the worst criminal in human history, so his minor crimes are to destroy American democracy and to amplify a pandemic killing over a hundred thousand people. But those are minor crimes by his standards.

Trump's "Great People" Are Guaranteeing A Second Wave Far Worse Than The First Wave We're In Now

Remember the Suffolk County protestors we looked at on Saturday? These idiots aren't finished making news... and their very own lovely Trumpist poetry:

Trump was attracted to the same demonstration and rather than "idiots" who will steepen Long Island's curve, he saw them as "great people." Is he unaware that the guidelines they-- and he-- are protesting come from the White House itself-- his White House?

While they were out protesting on Saturday, there were 42,050 confirmed cases in Suffolk County (about the same number as in Pakistan, which is headed towards becoming one of the big Wave II hotspots). Now, 3 days later there are over 500 more confirmed cases in Suffolk County-- more cases than Israel, Japan and Argentina combined, 3 countries that are taking far stronger and more serious steps to contain the pandemic than Suffolk County is.

Yesterday, writing for The Guardian, Jason Wilson reported that U.S. lockdown protests are spreading the virus widely. Why aren't the disease-spreaders being thrown into prisons where they can give each other the disease without killing innocent people? "Cellphone location data," wrote Wilson of protests in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida, "suggests that demonstrators at anti-lockdown protests-- some of which have been connected with Covid-19 cases-- are often traveling hundreds of miles to events, returning to all parts of their states, and even crossing into neighboring ones. 'The behavior we’re seeing at protests carries a high risk of infection. We can see protesters are going from a highly concentrated event and then dispersing widely.'"

One visualization shows that in Lansing, Michigan, after a 30 April protest in which armed protesters stormed the capitol building and state police were forced to physically block access to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, devices which had been present at the protest site can be seen returning to all parts of the state, from Detroit to remote towns in the state’s north.

One device visible in the data traveled to and from Afton, which is over 180 miles from the capital. Others reached, and some crossed, the Indiana border.

In the 48 hours following a 19 April “Operation Gridlock” protest in Denver, devices reached the borders of neighboring states including Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Utah.

In Florida on 18 April, devices returned to all parts of the peninsula and up to the Georgia border. In Wisconsin on 24 April, devices returned to smaller towns like Green Bay and Wausau, and the borders of Minnesota and Illinois.

Following the initial wave of anti-lockdown protests in April, epidemiologists warned that they could lead to a new surge in cases.

In North Carolina in late April, one of the leaders of the state’s anti-lockdown protests tested positive for Covid-19 but said she would attend future rallies.

The U.S. has over a million and a half confirmed cases and over 91 million deaths from COVID, more cases than the 5 next worst-hit countries-- Russia, Spain, Brazil, the U.K. and Italy-- combined. New York alone has more cases than any country in the world. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that states-- egged on by Señor Trumpanzee-- are opening up willy-nilly:

"In Texas," wrote Liza Lin, "gyms and movie theaters are set to reopen on Monday, despite a rise in infections and virus-related deaths there. Idaho on Saturday allowed dine-in restaurants to resume operations under social-distancing rules. New Jersey permitted chartered-boat services and watercraft rentals to resume on Sunday. Warmer weather drew large crowds to beaches in New York City and New Jersey over the weekend, highlighting the challenges that the hardest-hit parts of the country face in enforcing social distancing this summer. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he doesn’t want the city’s beaches to open for swimming by Memorial Day weekend. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday urged New Yorkers to get tested for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Mr. Cuomo said the state is conducting about 40,000 Covid-19 tests a day at more than 700 sites. New York has more than 350,000 infections and 22,600 confirmed virus-related deaths, according to figures from the state."

Memorial Day weekend is likely to see the U.S. blow up the 100,000 death mark. I wonder how many deaths it will take for Trump's "great people" to start taking this seriously. A million? Two million? Ten million?

Will Pete Aguilar Move From The Inland Empire To The Bronx To Primary Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Starbucks Guy Will Pay For The Moving Van

One of the Republican stand up comedians MSNBC has helped transform into a trusted voice among Trump-hating Democrats, former McCain chief strategist Steve Schmidt, is running Starbucks Guy's campaign strategy now. As violently anti-progressive as he is violently anti-Trumpanzee, Schmidt is running around telling everyone who will listen that "Schultz could be the fail-safe plan in the event Democrats nominate a far-left candidate in 2020." Schmidt, predictably, is trying to insert a narrative into the political zeitgeist where "the Democratic Party nominates someone who is so far to the left that it guarantees Trump a reelection. And at that point, the only person who would theoretically be able to stop Trump from a second term is a centrist candidacy of someone like Schultz." Every poll shows Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, presumably the targets of Schmidt's ire, beating Trump, Bernie by a lot.

Bernie, responding to a report in Politico about Wall Street's anyone-but-Bernie attitude, wrote that "Wall Street is terrified of us running for president again-- and, frankly, they should be. Ours is one of the few campaigns that wouldn’t beg them for money and would actually rein in their reckless behavior."

Meanwhile Team Starbucks Guy is trying to turn AOC into their campaign piñata. Schultz would run as a Democrat except he can't because he doesn’t like Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to slap a 70-percent marginal tax rate on income above $10 million. "I respect the Democratic Party. I no longer feel affiliated because I don't know their views represent the majority of Americans. I don't think we want a 70 percent income tax in America." Only if that was the view of most congressional Democrats! About 60% of Americans do, albeit not billionaires like Starbucks Guy. He actually said "I believe that if I ran as a Democrat, I would have to say things that I know in my heart I do not believe, and I would have to be disingenuous." That kind of sentiment should disqualify him for anyone who wants a person of character as president.

In fact, Starbucks Guy will be delighted when he learns that the New Dems and Blue Dogs from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party are already secretly plotting to destroy Ocasio politically and drive her out of Congress. The Hill's Scott Wong refuses to identify who but reported Tuesday that some Democrats in Congress "are discussing recruiting a primary challenger to run against the social media sensation. At least one House Democrat has been privately urging members of the New York delegation to recruit a local politician from the Bronx or Queens to challenge Ocasio-Cortez."

“What I have recommended to the New York delegation is that you find her a primary opponent and make her a one-term congressperson,” the Democratic lawmaker, who requested anonymity, told The Hill. “You’ve got numerous council people and state legislators who’ve been waiting 20 years for that seat. I’m sure they can find numerous people who want that seat in that district.”

The New York delegation has eyed Ocasio-Cortez with skepticism ever since last summer when the 29-year-old self-described democratic socialist shocked the political world and defeated then-Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) in what many thought would be a sleepy primary race. Crowley, a Queens powerbroker and affable House Democratic Caucus chairman, had been considered a possible future Speaker.

Many New York and Congressional Black Caucus lawmakers were also furious with Ocasio-Cortez after a recent Politico report stated she and the grass-roots group aligned with her, Justice Democrats, were considering backing a primary challenge to fellow New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, a Black Caucus member and establishment insider who succeeded Crowley as caucus chairman.

...No potential challengers to Ocasio-Cortez have yet emerged. But one New York political insider noted that the Queens and Bronx district is home to many ambitious pols who are close to Crowley and don’t like that a political outsider took his seat.

“She’s pissing off a lot of people and has probably made a lot of enemies. … A lot of people who are furious with her are Joe’s allies, including some named Crowley,” said the insider, referring to Crowley’s cousin, Elizabeth Crowley, a former New York City councilwoman. “She is a woman. She’s been moving more to the left. She would be someone interesting.”

Elizabeth Crowley, 41, did not return a request for comment, but she has previously said she’s eyeing a bid for Queens borough president in 2021.  She lives in a neighboring Queens district.

...Of all people, Ocasio-Cortez would not complain if she gets a primary challenger, her spokesman said.

“We believe in primaries as an idea. We’re not upset by the idea of being primaried. We are not going to go out there being anti-primary-- they are good for party,” said Corbin Trent, a campaign spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez and a co-founder of Justice Democrats.

“If voters in the district feel that they can be better represented, that will be their choice on primary day,” he continued. “In the meantime, we’re going to be doing our dead-level best to make sure we are representing the needs and the will of our constituents.”

Justice Democrats spokesman Waleed Shahid predicted a lopsided defeat for whoever tries to take on Ocasio-Cortez.

“Considering she’s more popular and well-known than some of the Democratic presidential contenders, I think whoever challenges her will lose by huge margins,” Shahid said. “It’s a quick way for some D.C. and Wall Street consultants to make some easy money.”

The Hon. Rep. Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), high on coke and booze, hates AOC

But it’s not just Black Caucus members she has rubbed the wrong way. Ocasio-Cortez, whose mother was born in Puerto Rico, has also annoyed members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus by targeting one of their own: Cuellar. Earlier this month, she appeared in a Justice Democrats promotional video with her spokesman, Corbin, and her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, touting a program recruiting progressive insurgents to run for Congress.

Justice Democrats is currently searching for a progressive to launch a primary challenge against Cuellar. Hispanic Caucus members aren’t happy about those efforts but say they are taking a wait-and-see approach before intervening with Ocasio-Cortez, who joined the caucus this month.

“We’re going to protect our members and we’re going to protect our own. Full stop,” said centrist Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), a former whip for the Hispanic Caucus. “There are plenty of [swing] races and seats that we can play in, and we want to devote our resources to that.”

Aguilar, a worthless coke freak and an idiot-- see photo above; he was sooooooo high-- doesn't belong in Congress. He would also make a great primary target for progressive reformers. He's one of the most anti-progressive Democrats in Congress, representing corrupt national special interests in a bright blue district where Hillary eviscerated Trump 57.7-36.6% and where the PVI is D+8. ProgressivePunch rates him a solid "F" and he's generally considered one of the House's biggest sleaze bags. Voters in San Bernardino, Upland, Alta Loma, Colton, Loma Linda, Redlands and Rancho Cucamonga deserve a choice. Blue America has only endorsed a tiny handful of incumbents running for reelection. Obviously Pete Aguilar isn't among them. But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is. If you'd like to send her a message of support for the great work she's doing in Congress, please click on the Blue America 2020 thermometer on the right and chip in $20.20 to her reelection campaign.

Who Will Be Left In The Republican Pup Tent After November?

The other day, we warned about not getting sucked into the political perspectives of conservatives on MSNBC, like "non-practicing Republican" Nicolle Wallace, "ex"-Republican Steve Schmidt, #NeverTrumper Rick Wilson and right-of-center Democrat Adam Schiff, just because they are anti-Trump. Anti-Trumpism is important... but that isn't what it means to be progressive-- and none of them are. That said... their anti-Trumpism can be pretty delicious-- and inciteful.

Friday night Schmidt was on Real Time with Bill Maher reprising a point on Overtime that he has often made on MSNBC-- that a shrinking GOP is getting crazier and crazier, more extreme and more divorced from America.

He announced to sustained applause that we're going to see "college-educated Republican women in these swing districts deliver the blue wave for the Democrats."

In terms of Congress,what Schmidt and others are talking about is simple. The most electorally vulnerable House Republicans this year are Republicans in swing districts where independents decide who wins elections. Take WI-01, Paul Ryan's district. Ryan,who was savvy enough to read the writing on the wall, decided to retire. So what happens now? About a third of the voters are Republicans. They'll vote for the Ryan clone he picked to run. About a third of the voters are Democrats. They'll vote for Randy Bryce, the inspiring progressive Democrat endorsed by Bernie Sanders. And about a third are independents. They've been leaning towards the Republicans in recent years. But not this year. Bryce is way ahead among independents. And that story is very similar all across the U.S., from swing districts like Maine's second, where Jared Golden is likely to meet Republican rubber stamp Bruce Poliquin, through Pennsylvania and New Jersey where the GOP is looking at unprecedented electoral catastrophes, across the Midwest and on into Washington state, where even the 4th ranking Republican leader, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, looks like she's going down to Democrat Lisa Brown, and down through California, were the GOP is likely to lose half a dozen seats, including all 4 of their remaining Orange County seats. Even once safe GOP seats in Texas, in and around Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are on shaky ground. That's why the party is shrinking.

So where does the crazy come in? Look who's left. The districts where there really aren't enough Democrats and independents to make a difference-- the deepest red House districts that elect extremist lunatics-- primarily, though not exclusively, in the South. With mainstream conservatives disappearing you get a congressional party dominated by nut-jobs in districts where people believe the Q-Anon stuff-- members like Steve King (R-IA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Mark Meadows (R-NC), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Doug Collins (R-GA), Jodi Hice (R-GA), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), Tom Graves (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AL), Ken Buck (R-CO), Brian Babin (R-TX), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Joe Wilson (R-SC)... These are crazy people. That's what Schmidt was talking about. And their constituents are crazy too.

Incredibly, even some of these members in districts like these are suddenly finding themselves in scary primaries. J.D. Scholten could actually beat Steve King in November. Dayna Steele has Brian Babib on the run in TX-36, a district where Hillary only took 25.2% of the vote. But, generally speaking, these extremist and neo-fascists are what will make up the rump of the Party of Trump after the 2018 and 2020 elections.

Florida Republican and anti-Trump political consultant Rick Wilson has no delusions about how stupid and ignorant the Trump supporters are. Over the weekend he referred to them as suckers, aggrieved and paranoid, and "thrilled to have 'An Answer' that explains everything about the world they hate and tells them Trump is great and they’re pretty good, too." Bingo!

The claims of Q-Anon make Nostradamus look like Hemingway. Naturally, they're elliptical, variable, and impossible to cross-check. Hundreds of YouTube videos, blog posts tweets, Facebook items, and speculation follow each post, a Confederacy of Dunces that ramifies this idiocy out into dumber and dumber dead ends. QAnon asks its believers to "follow the breadcrumbs" and fill in the blanks. Those blanks get filled with epic idiocy.

The glee with which the followers of this absurdity latch on to imaginary deportations of Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and others to Gitmo is notable. Several times, Q has promised them that any moment now the rest of the Deep State will occupy the darkest holes of the American prison system. QAnon tells them that retribution is at hand, and they’re ravenous for more. Lurid and exciting for the rubes, but as of yet, Hillary Clinton walks free. If that even is Hillary Clinton, and not a shapeshifting reptilian overlord.

Those of us with the unfortunate awareness of the clownishly risible QAnon conspiracy cult have been reveling in the comedy gold, lavishly overwrought, dangerously stupid proclamations of Q for months. We've alternated between laughter and wide-eyed shock at how credulous Trump’s Army of Cletuses must be to fall for such an obvious, ludicrous con. Then again, Donald Trump put the “con” in “conspiracy” as far back as his embrace of birtherism.  If the puzzle surrounding QAnon is a fever dream wrapped in an enigma, coated with nougat, rolled in nuts and filled with a creamy center of delusional paranoia, Trump's own role in fostering it is right out of the Lil Tots' First Book of Authoritarian Strategy.

For actual authoritarians and the merely dictator-curious, building a separate, hermetic truth defined only by the Dear Leader is 101 stuff, and goes hand in hand with the relentless attacks on the free press an enemy of the people.

...Why has Q eaten the Trump-right's minds? Why does it work on them when it's so obviously, evidently a gigantic pyramid of digital horseshit?

It works because stupid people are stupid and because Donald Trump's Administration loves what QAnon does to stoke the fires of paranoia, resentment, and division. QAnon works for Trump because people who are not knowledgeable about the world, politics, government, the intelligence community and reality more broadly are desperately looking for confirmation that they're on the winning team. Q tells them that they're on the right side of history and that for once in their dreary little lives they and only they possess the secret, hermetic knowledge from inside the esoteric cult.

Q represents where the former GOP has gone in the era of Trump; possessed the desire to have a private space that makes even Fox News look mild in comparison, grasping desperately for a different reality.

When even aggressive conspiracy-pusher faux-journalist loons and alt-lite thought leaders Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec find QAnon too crazy to promote, it should make you pause. Both men were aggressive promoters of the Pizzagate theory, in which a Washington D.C. restaurant was falsely alleged to be the center of a global child sex-trafficking, cannibalism and prostitution ring. Both were all-in on the cruel and false Seth Rich story, and a raft of other pro-Trump efforts to mainline fantasy conspiracies into the American body politics.

If it's too crazy for those edge cases, it's too crazy.

No, Trump fans, the storm isn't coming. There is no Great Awakening. "Where we go one we go all" is a path to disappointment and madness, not to some brave new future where Donald Trump's genius and his army of secret soldiers purge America of a vast, secret deep state of hostile insiders and pedophiles.

Q is a meta-hoax, a recursive scam in service of a scam called the Trump Presidency. The "drops" are meaningless claptrap, noise without real signal, and most certainly not the signs of the new reality its eager marks desire.

The Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party Doesn't Back Trump... But That Doesn't Mean They're Any Good For Anything But Being Against Trump

Self-described "non-practicing" Republican Nicolle Wallace sat in for Rachel Maddow Tuesday night. I kind of like her MSNBC appearances. Her guest-- at around the 1:30 point on the tape-- was ex-Republican Steve Schmidt. I like his appearances too. Just watch the clip above and you'll see why I enjoy these two so much-- especially the mouthy Schmidt, who just skewers Señor Trumpanzee like there's no tomorrow. But I have a warning for you, an important one. These are both conservatives (who not all that long ago were working to elect Sarah Palin). Think about that when they seduce you with their anti-Trumpanzee shtik. Neither is a progressive the way Chris Hayes is and the way Rachel, a garden variety Democrat, once appeared to be.

When Schmidt gets into internal Democratic politics is when we get into problems with this entertaining strategist. MSNBC made the video and they left off the last little part Wallace refers to at the end. On that Schmidt said Trump "may look out and see an 18-person Democratic field and pray that a socialist is nominated by the Democrats believing that-- in his view-- that if there's two unelectable candidates one of the two unelectable candidates is gonna win..."

Notice how slickly he slipped in the conservative establishment slur against Bernie. I guess he's for Biden. Or for whichever establishment status quo candidate is going to pay him. Schmidt worked on messaging for George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain and until very recently worked for an especially sleazy p.r. firm, Edelman (one of whose clients is the campaign to get Brett Kavanaugh confirmed. I believe he officially announced his departure from the GOP on June 19.

And on the same day, he announced he would be voting for Democrats from now on.

That was over a month ago. But yesterday Politico announced that Republicans abuzz over Schmidt's divorce from GOP. They reported that there's speculation in Republican circles that "he’ll advise a presidential bid by his longtime client, former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz, or another Democratic candidate in 2020."

Working for a Schultz campaign would complete Schmidt’s decade-long process of estrangement from the Republican Party after spending much of his career at its highest levels.

For now, he remains mum on his future plans and his conversations with Schultz.

“I don’t have any plans to be on a political campaign, and I would never jump into one too lightly,” Schmidt said in an interview. “Howard Schultz is a hell of a man, a hell of a leader. I'm proud to call him a friend, but there's no campaign, and I don’t have anything to tell you."

The speculation began in earnest in July, when Schmidt, who served as chief strategist to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, abruptly stepped down as vice chairman of public affairs at the PR firm Edelman after eight years on the job.

Schmidt’s moves coincided with Shultz's announcement of his retirement from Starbucks, effective June 26. Schultz’s retirement has fanned speculation that he will run for president as a Democrat in 2020, a prospect with which he has openly toyed as he mulls his post-Starbucks future.

Starbucks has been an Edelman client for 20 years, during which time the coffee chain has cultivated a progressive image and made itself a leader in corporate social responsibility. Schmidt worked closely with Schultz while at the firm, and the two remain friends. Schultz is also a client of Schmidt’s personal consulting practice.

"Howard has worked with Steve for several years,” said Wanda Herndon, a spokeswoman for Schultz, in response to questions about a potential 2020 collaboration. “He respects him and values his insights."

One person who recently asked Schmidt about his conversations with Schultz said that Schmidt denied the two are mulling a presidential campaign. "He says he's not advising for political purposes,” according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to relay the contents of a private conversation.

Few of Schmidt’s peers believe that... That speculation has been tinged, for some, with simmering resentments built up over a decade during which Schmidt increasingly drifted from his fellow Republican foot soldiers.

Before there were never-Trumpers there was Schmidt, who publicly expressed regret at his role in bringing Sarah Palin onto the 2008 Republican ticket, a fiasco that presaged the party’s turn toward reality-show populism.

But while Schmidt’s disavowals won him a strange new respect in elite circles, they also earned the enmity of his Republican operative peers and many of his colleagues on the McCain campaign. They felt he used media, especially the book Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s best-selling account of the 2008 campaign, to wash his hands of Palin and burnish his image at the expense of others.

...Schmidt accepted a meeting with Trump in March 2016 during which he said the future president credited him with being the first television pundit to predict he would win the Republican primary-- and offered him a job on the campaign. Schmidt declined the offer, and said his views on free trade and a strong national defense remain those of the GOP he once knew.

More recently, his complete separation from the party has drawn the ire not just of staunch Trump supporters, but also of other establishment Republicans who remain in the fold, bringing him into open conflict with former allies.

Last week, Schmidt described Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as complicit in the Russian election attack.

“I'm old enough to remember when Steve was in charge of messaging Abu Ghraib and ‘good news in Iraq’ by attacking any Republican who expressed concern,” tweeted Republican strategist Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to McConnell who remains closely aligned with the Senate majority leader, in response. Holmes was invoking Schmidt’s work in the George W. Bush administration as an aide to Dick Cheney.

All sorts of conservatives have flooded into the Democratic Party in Trump's wake. They're anti-Trump, but they're still conservatives. They are welcomed with open arms for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the Blue Dogs and New Dems as well as by the DCCC. Their instinctual commitment to the status quo is exactly what the DC Democratic establishment loves about them and helps explain why so many people who were so recently contributing money against Democratic candidates and now Democratic candidates-- at least on the congressional level-- themselves. I like the idea of allies against Trump, but these conservatives are also against virtually all the ideals that differentiate the party of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt from the party of Ronald Reagan and the George Bushes. And-- like the Democratic establishment-- they really hate progressive ideas and progressives. They do not back Elizabeth Warren or Bernie and they are horrified by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and have no idea why their cutting edge, working family-oriented ideas are so popular... nor why over 60% of Americans back Medicare-for-All and of course, why Bernie is the most popular senator in America rather than, as Schmidt so glibly put it, while Nicolle Wallace smiled benignly, Bernie is unelectable. When does the battle between Schultz and Bloomberg begin? That thermometer on the right is for contributing to Bernie's campaign, by the way.