The South Was Once Solidly Blue-- And Significant Chunks Of It Are Headed In That Direction Again... And Fast

There are 10 congressional seats or parts of congressional seats in the Dallas-Ft Worth Metro, 5 in the San Antonio Metro, 6 in the Austin Metro and 9 in the Houston Metro, although some of these districts are shared between Metro areas. The Atlanta Metro has 6 congressional districts. Phoenix has 7 districts. And Orlando has 6. These are pretty much the fastest-growing metros in the country. Migration is changing the real PVIs of these Sun Belt districts-- and their partisan political orientations-- far more quickly than the glacial Cook Report can keep up with the changes. We'll come back to that in a moment. These are the districts, their current Representatives and the PVIs Cook currently assigns them (Blue colored districts are the most likely to flip in 2020):

Dallas-Ft Worth

• TX-03- Van Taylor (R)- R+11
• TX-05- Lance Gooden (R)- R+16
• TX-06- Ron Wright (R)- R+9
• TX-12- Kay Granger (R)- R+18
• TX-24- Kenny Marchant (R)- R+9
• TX-25 (shared with Austin)- Roger Williams (R)- R+11
• TX-26- Michael Burgess (R)- R+18
• TX-30- Eddie Bernice Johnson (D)- D+29
• TX-32- Colin Allred (D)- R+5
• TX-33- Marc Veasey (D)- D+23

San Antonio

• TX-20- Joaquin Castro (D)- D+10
• TX-21 (shared with Austin)- Chip Roy (R)- R+10
• TX-23- Will Hurd (R)- R+1
• TX-28- Henry Cuellar (D)- D+9
• TX-35 (shared with Austin)- Lloyd Doggett (D)- D+15

Austin

• TX-10- (shared with Houston)- Michael McCaul (R)- R+9
• TX-17- Bill Flores (R)- R+12
• TX-21- (shared with San Antonio)- Chip Roy (R)- R+10
• TX-25- (shared with Dallas-Ft Worth)- Roger Williams (R)- R+11
• TX-31- John Carter- R+10
• TX-35 (shared with San Antonio)- Lloyd Doggett (D)- D+15

Houston

• TX-02- Dan Crenshaw (R)- R+11
• TX-07- Lizzie Fletcher (D)- R+7
• TX-08- Kevin Brady (R)- R+28
• TX-09- Al Green (D)- D+29
• TX-10- (shared with Austin)- Michael McCaul (R)- R+9
• TX-18- Sheila Jackson Lee (D)- D+27
• TX-22- Pete Olson (R)- R+10
• TX-29- Sylvia Garcia (D)- D+19
• TX-36- Brian Babin (R)- R+26

Atlanta

• GA-04- Hank Johnson (D)- D+24
• GA-05- John Lewis (D)- D+34
• GA-06- Lucy McBath (D)- R+8
• GA-07- Rob Woodall (R)- R+9
• GA-11- Barry Loudermilk (R)- R+17
• GA-13- David Scott (D)- D+20

Phoenix

• AZ-01- Tom O'Halleran (D)- R+2
• AZ-03- Raul Grijalva (D)- D+13
• AZ-05- Andy Biggs (R)- R+15
• AZ-06- David Schweikert (R)- R+9
• AZ-07- Ruben Gallego (D)- D+23
• AZ-08- Debbie Lesko (R)- R+13
• AZ-09- Greg Stanton (D)- D+4

Orlando

• FL-06- Michael Waltz (R)- R+7
• FL-07- Stephanie Murphy (D)- even
• FL-09- Darren Soto (D)- D+5
• FL-10- Val Demings (D)- D+11
• FL-11- Daniel Webster (R)- R+15
• FL-15- Ross Spano (R)- R+6

Writing for The Atlantic yesterday, Derek Thompson noted that "Liberals in America have a density problem. Across the country, Democrats dominate in cities, racking up excessive margins in urban cores while narrowly losing in suburban districts and sparser states. Because of their uneven distribution of votes, the party consistently loses federal elections despite winning the popular vote... All over the world, liberal, college-educated voters pack into cities, where they dilute their own voting power through excessive concentration. So just imagine what would happen to the American political picture if more Democrats moved out of their excessively liberal enclaves to redistribute themselves more evenly across the vast expanse of Red America?"

And they are. "The New York City metro area," he continued, "is shrinking by 277 people every day. Other areas bleeding thousands of net movers each year include Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Chicago, Boston, and Baltimore-- all in states that routinely vote for Democrats by wide margins. These movers are U-Hauling to ruddier states in the South and West. The five fastest-growing metros of the past few years-- Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, and Orlando, Florida-- are in states won by Trump. The other metro areas with a population of at least 1 million that grew by at least 1.5 percent last year were Las Vegas; Austin, Texas; Orlando, Florida; Raleigh, North Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; San Antonio; Tampa, Florida; and Nashville, Tennessee. All of those metros are in red or purple states."

This drip-drip-drip of young residents trickling down into red-state suburbs is helping to turn southern metros into Democratic strongholds. (Of course, migration isn’t the only factor pushing these metros leftward, but more on that later.) In Texas, Democrats’ advantage in the five counties representing Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin (the “Texas Five” in the graph below) grew from 130,000 in the 2012 presidential election to nearly 800,000 in the 2018 Senate election.

In Arizona, from 2012 to 2016, Democrats narrowed their deficit in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, by 100,000 votes. Two years later, in the 2018 Senate election, the county swung Democratic, with Democrats gaining another 100,000 net votes.

In Georgia, from the 2012 presidential election to the 2018 gubernatorial elections, the four counties constituting most of Atlanta and its suburbs-- Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett-- increased their Democratic margin by more than 250,000.

What’s remarkable about these changes isn’t just their size, but their resemblance to Trump’s 2016 margins. Trump won Texas in 2016 by 800,000 votes. He won Arizona by 90,000 votes. He won Georgia by 170,000 votes. If these states’ biggest metros continue to move left at the same rate, there is every reason to believe that Texas, Arizona, and Georgia could be toss-ups quite soon.

As noted above, migration isn’t the only reason southern metros might be shifting to the Democratic Party: Young southerners are surely pulling their region left, while older residents could be switching parties in response to Trump. Republicans have likely hurt themselves by moving further to the right to galvanize their white exurban and rural base, even as their support has thinned in the suburbs and among working-class white women.

But domestic migration is key. Just look at Texas. CNN exit polls for the state’s 2018 Senate election showed that Beto O’Rourke was buoyed by recent movers, winning more than 60 percent of those who had moved to Texas within the past 10 years. At current migration rates, the “Texas Five” counties could easily add another 200,000 votes from 2016 to 2020, putting more pressure on Trump’s margin in the state. A September poll conducted by Univision and the University of Houston found the top-six Democratic presidential contenders all leading Trump in Texas.

Outside of national elections, the blue flood of the Sun Belt could have other political implications, such as more showdowns between blue cities and red states. As The Atlantic’s David Graham has argued, North Carolina’s GOP-led general assembly has waged war against liberal cities such as Charlotte-- for instance, by reversing a local ordinance that banned discrimination against LGBTQ people. This sort of state-city showdown could become a regular feature of southern politics. In the past six months, both the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Observer have run features bemoaning the Californication of northern Texas, with the former noting that “conservatives fear these domestic migrants will bring with them a liberal ideology that would disturb the Texas way of living.”

While such confrontations may be inevitable, over time the growth of liberal metros could force the Republican Party, which has lately been living off the fumes of retrograde xenophobia, to compete more aggressively for votes in the New South-- that is, to be a party for moderates, black voters, and immigrants. The political shift could swing the other way too: Democratic transplants to Dallas and Houston could edge right toward Republican territory, won over by their conservative neighbors’ arguments for lower levels of state and local taxation.

Overall, the southern suburbanization of Democratic votes could be a force for good, not only for Democrats but also, perhaps, for the future GOP-- and therefore for the country at large. Without changes to the Electoral College or to the distribution of Democratic votes, the U.S. may be doomed to replay the 2016 election for several more cycles. Coastal liberals will remain justifiably furious that their votes are systematically discounted, while rural conservatives will remain justifiably indignant that the heart of American business and media has flocked to cities that regard the countryside as a xenophobic backwater. The southern blue flood is not a cure-all for this schism. But if more white rural families join liberal transplants and nonwhite families in America’s diverse southern suburbs, Americans might discover, through the sheer fact of neighborly proximity, a less vitriolic and more optimistic political future.

Trump Is Now Doing Damage Control With Southern Voters He Managed To Offend

The Dotard Inquisition

Señor Trumpanzee has been mocking Jeff Sessions as a dumb southerner for some time, thinking no one "outside" would pick up on his bigotry and that his "dumb" supporters in Alabama, the Florida Panhandle, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas and southern Missouri would ever figure out that a snob he is and that what he says about Mexicans publicly is what he says about them behind their backs. It would be fatal for him if they do-- which is why he's been shrieking on Twitter than Bob Bernstein is a Democratic operative and a purveyor of "fake news"-- lies like everything else Trump uses to manipulate his base, especially "dumb" southerners.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Southern Republican senators-- usually Trump's most lock-step ass-kissing enablers and rubber-stamps-- were pushing back. Several explicitly defended Jeff Sessions from the Trump attacks exposed in Fear, Woodward new book. Trump's mockery of southern accents has been an ongoing disgrace that has gone largely unnoticed. Woodward wrote that the illegitimate "president" privately called Sessions a "traitor," saying: "This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner… He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama."

Johnny Isakson (R-GA), obviously seething: "I’m a Southerner. People can judge my intellect, my IQ, by my product and what I produce rather than what somebody else says. We’re a pretty smart bunch. We lost the Civil War, but I think we’re winning the economic war since then… I’m not gonna get into name-calling because I don’t think you should be allowed to call names-- including the president."

 Richard Shelby (R-AL), a long-time friend and colleague of Sessions noted that it would be politically stupid of Trump to denigrate Southerners since they hugely helped elect the president in 2016. "Well, I’m sure I’ve got that accent, wouldn’t you think?... I guess the president-- he says what he thinks... I think the president’s probably got a lot of respect for the South. I hope so. He did well there. Without the South, he wouldn’t be the president of the United States... "I think that’s strong words. I think Sessions is a very smart man and a man of integrity. I would disagree with the president on that."

Trump has been on Twitter calling attention to Woodward's book-- likely making it a best seller-- and defending himself in ways that it will be hard to believe by anyone who isn't already brainwashed by his cult of personality.

But Republican incumbents and and open red seat candidates in the South didn't need this new bullshit from Trump. Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Andy Barr (R-KY), Mark Harris (R-NC), John Culberson (R-TX), French Hill (R-AR), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Will Hurd (R-TX), Karen Handel (R-GA), Denver Riggelman (R-VA), Carol Miller (R-WV), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Scott Taylor (R-VA), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Dave Brat (R-VA) are all in tough districts and none them can afford to lose a couple of points based on Trump being perceived as being a snob against the South. If a percentage point or two is shaved off anyone's totals because people who take offense stay home, these candidates will be even more certain to be defeated in November.

What does Joan Didion's 1970 Gulf Coast road trip have to do with Tuesday's episode of "The Real O'Neals"?

On the day of KENNY's sister SHANNON's confirmation, boyfriend BRETT (Sean Grandillo) approaches KENNY (Noah Galvin) in the hallway of St. Barklay Church, carrying a small gift-wrapped box. (Watch the clip here.)

BRETT: Hey!
KENNY: Hey! [They kiss.]

BRETT: I brought a gift. Is that weird?
KENNY [smiling awkwardly]: No, great wrapping job! [Pause, turns serious] Uh, look, I have to talk to you.
BRETT: Okay.
KENNY: Yesterday, you said, 'I love you.' Which, which was so incredible to hear. And then I said it back. Which wasn't [hesitates] entirely true.
BRETT: Okay.
KENNY: Because, while I feel so many amazing things for you, love just isn't one of them, yet.
BRETT: I knew you were freaking out. I --
KENNY: No, that's -- You're my first boyfriend, and I don't know how I'm supposed to be feeling, or how fast I'm supposed to be feeling it. I, I don't want to screw this up. Can you forgive me?
BRETT: Yeah. Sure. [Pause] Then maybe we should hit the pause button.
KENNY: What? No, Brett that is not --
BRETT [handing gift to KENNY]: Tell Shannon I said congratulations. [Turns around and walks quickly off.]

-- from "The Real Confirmation," Episode 13
of Season 2 of ABC's The Real O'Neals

"Do you ever miss those times when we used to hide all our secrets and swallow our feelings?"

-- Eileen O'Neal (Kenny's mom), in Tuesday's episode

by Ken

Funny how things connect. As I wrote Wednesday, the considerable pleasure I was taking in Tuesday night's episodes of The Middle and especially The Real O'Neals kind of slammed into the New York Review of Books review-essay by Nathaniel Rich, "Joan Didion in the Deep South" (in the March 9 issue; unfortunately only an abstract is available free to nonsubscribers), of a highly unusual new offering from one of the most important writers of our time.

I hadn't known anything about the new Didion book, South and West (scheduled for publication on March 7), which turns out to be different from anything she has published before. It is, if I've got this right, a direct look at her work process: the notes she partly wrote and partly assembled for two writing projects that never came to fruition.

The "South" part is the record of a month-long trip along the Gulf Coast that Didion took in summer 1970. By way of background, Nathaniel Rich notes:

Joan Didion explained her decision to visit the Gulf Coast in a 2006 interview in The Paris Review: “I had a theory that if I could understand the South, I would understand something about California, because a lot of the California settlers came from the Border South.”

Rich goes on to observe:

It is a counterintuitive theory, for the South and the West represent the poles of American experience—the South drowning in its past, the West looking ahead to distant frontiers in a spirit of earnest, eternal optimism. “The future always looks good in the golden land,” Didion wrote in “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” “because no one remembers the past.” In the South no one can forget it.

Understanding her native California has, of course, been a life-long preoccupation for Didion, and the notes that make up the "West" portion of the new book derive from a 1976 visit to San Francisco covering the Patty Hearst trial for Rolling Stone, when she "found that she wanted mainly to write about her own childhood and the West’s conception of history."


SO WHAT ARE THESE "NOTES" OF DIDION'S?

This requires a considerable effort of explanation, but the short answer, as Rich puts it, is that "South and West offers for the first time a glimpse inside the factory walls." Here's his more extended background:

Didion’s notes, which surpass in elegance and clarity the finished prose of most other writers, are a fascinating record of this time. But they are also something more unsettling. Readers today will recognize, with some dismay and even horror, how much is familiar in these long-lost American portraits. Didion saw her era more clearly than anyone else, which is another way of saying that she was able to see the future.

South and West is, in one regard, the most revealing of Didion’s books. This might seem a far-fetched claim to make about an author who has written about her ancestry, her marriage, her health, and, with painful candor, her grief -- Didion’s readers are, after all, on familiar terms with the personal details of her life. But the writing itself -- the cool majesty of her prose, written as if from a great, even empyreal distance, elevating personal experience into universal revelation -- has an immaculacy as intimidating as Chelsea porcelain. South and West offers for the first time a glimpse inside the factory walls.

For each piece she reported, Didion converted pages of loose-leaf notebooks into scrapbooks of material related to her theme. She inserted newspaper articles and other writers’ works, like C. Vann Woodward’s “The Search for Southern Identity,” biographical summaries, lists of suggested themes, and overheard dialogue, which often seems taken from one of her novels. (“I never been anyplace,” says a Biloxi woman, “I wanted to go.”) In her notes we learn of her “reporting tricks,” which are less tricks than an intuitive genius for locating the people in a given community who will best reveal its character: the director of the local College of Cosmetology, the white owner of the black radio station, the bridal consultant of the largest department store.

The notebooks also include transcriptions of her observations, which she typed at the end of each day. These notes represent an intermediate stage of writing, between shorthand and first draft, composed in an uncharacteristically casual, immediate style. There are sentences that are ideas for sentences, paragraphs that are ideas for scenes: “The land looks rich, and many people from Birmingham, etc. (rich people) maintain places here to hunt.” “The country way in which he gave me names.” “The resolutely ‘colorful,’ anecdotal quality of San Francisco history.” “The sense of sports being the opiate of the people.” “The sense of not being up to the landscape.” The effect can be jarring, like seeing Grace Kelly photographed with her hair in rollers or hearing the demo tapes in which Brian Wilson experiments with alternative arrangements of “Good Vibrations.”

"[E]ven in its most casual iteration," Rich notes, "Didion’s voice, with its sensitivity to the grotesqueries and vanities that dance beneath the skim of daily experience, is unmistakable." And he provides lots of description and example.


SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THOSE ABC SITCOMS?

Well, with The Middle, not so much. In this case it's just that, for a show that I like so much, as I've written here a number of times, I'm surprised to find myself even fonder and more impressed in Season 8, with all three of the Heck children showing fascinating signs of perhaps surprising and yet (for me) totally believable and rather inspirational growing up -- and now even the senior Hecks, Frankie (Patricia Heaton) and Mike (Neil Flynn) having to roust themselves to catch up. The process has been so smartly and humanly as well as entertainingly executed that I've found myself wondering whether the suits at Disney-ABC have even noticed what's going out over their airwaves. Hey, it is Season 8, after all. The Middle has always, in its wry way, thumbed its nose at the psychotic bullshit of America's own Family-Values Fascists, but in this late flowering it's articulating a vision of how people actually develop which would have the FVFs boycotting ABC if they weren't so savagely obtuse.

Which brings us to The Real O'Neals. You know the network suits are paying close attention here, because the subject matter is potentially so explosive for a sitcom. It's another show built around a family with a mom and dad, Eileen and Pat O'Neal (Martha Plimpton and Jay R. Ferguson), and three offspring (Matthew Shively as Jimmy, Noah Galvin as Kenny, and Bebe Wood as Shannon), all beautifully delineated and with the various interrelationships carefully characterized. But what everyone knows about it is that in last season's pilot episode Kenny O'Neal, then 16, came out to himself and his family as gay.

That by itself would have been sufficient to cause an uproar, and the Christian Right exploded on cue. Not least because the situation wasn't presented as a psychiatric emergency but as a natural development -- and almost the least of the O'Neal family's problems. In fact, as we entered the O'Neals' lives, Eileen and Pat were coming to the realization that the one thing most sorely lacking in their marriage was a divorce (a deficiency that has since been rectified). Even more subversively, in the O'Neals we met a family that -- as rigidly enforced by Eileen -- was so hilariously devoted to maintaining the image of a model Irish-American Catholic family that the family was in danger of falling apart when the image turned out to be just that.

I imagine there was more apoplexy on the Crackpot Right when, after a 13-episode first season, The Real O'Neals was rewarded with a second season. Yet here it is, maybe not the most significant but another of those things that just a few years ago would have been utterly unimaginable. Or maybe the fact that it's now possible to do such a light-hearted sitcom about such once-barely-touchable subject matter is one of the more significant markers of how much the culture has evolved, in some ways almost unrecognizably so.


AND WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH JOAN DIDION?

We have to go back to Nathaniel Rich, and his careful depiction of the play of values Didion encountered in the Deep South of 1970.

There is a long tradition of northern visitors seeing in the Gulf South an atmosphere of perpetual decline, in which “everything seems to go to seed.” Didion quotes Audubon’s line about “the dangerous nature of the ground, its oozing, spongy, and miry disposition,” though you could go back to 1720, when a visiting French official described the territory as “flooded, unhealthy, impracticable.” Didion is on narrower footing, however, when she describes her central thesis:

a sense which struck me now and then, and which I could not explain coherently, that for some years the South and particularly the Gulf Coast had been for America what people were still saying California was, and what California seemed to me not to be: the future, the secret source of malevolent and benevolent energy, the psychic center.

How could the hidebound South, in its perpetual disintegration and defiant decadence, at the same time represent the future? Didion admits the idea seems oxymoronic, but she is onto something. Part of the answer, she suspects, lies in the bluntness with which Southerners confront race, class, and heritage -- “distinctions which the frontier ethic teaches western children to deny and to leave deliberately unmentioned.” In the South such distinctions are visible, rigid, and the subject of frank conversation.

After looking a bit at the nature of that "frank conversation," Rich writes:

This kind of thinking seemed retrograde in the Seventies. From the vantage of New York, California, even New Orleans, it still seems so today. But this southern frame of mind has annexed territory in the last four decades, expanding across the Mason-Dixon Line into the rest of rural America. It has taken root among people -- or at least registered voters -- nostalgic for a more orderly past.

Do you see where Rich is heading? What in fact Joan Didion was already foreseeing in 1970? It's going to take us one more post to get there. That should happen Sunday.

#

Stop the presses! What shade(s) of orange do you suppose extraterrestrial Donald Trumps might be?

"Now we have seven Earth-sized planets to expand our understanding. Yes, we have the possibility to find water and life. But even if we don't, whatever we find will be super interesting."

-- University of Liège "exoplanet researcher" Michaël Gillon

by Ken

So here I was, wrestling with a post that would take off from a cluster of one upcoming and two just-forgotten birthdays, and last night's Real O'Neals and The Middle, so good that you have to wonder how they survived interference by the Disney-ABC network suits, and the whole consuming business of "fitting in" or not.

That combined with -- as an afterthought or maybe overthought -- a piece by Nathaniel Rich in the March 7 NYRB, "Joan Didion in the Deep South" (copyright by the author, curiously; note that the full piece is available only to subscribers or purchasers) about Joan Didion's about-to-be-published book South and West, which apparently consists of her actual notes for never-written pieces gathered during a month traveling the Gulf Coast in summer 1970 and a 1976 visit to San Francisco (in, of course, her native California) covering Patty Hearst's trial for Rolling Stone.

I'd already decided that probably it would have been split into two sure-to-be-riveting posts, when whap!, along comes this breaking news, and naturally all that other stuff has to be put on hold. I know that these seven planets aren't in our solar system, or anywhere near (note that the description of Trappist-1 as an "ultracool dwarf" isn't a value judgment but a description of the 39-light-years-distant star's temperature and size), but still, seven "Earthlike" planets? Get out of here! Just think, somewhere out there in space there could be seven officially extraterrestrial Donald Trumps! Do you suppose they would all come in the same shade(s) of orange?

Speaking of Science
Scientists discover 7 ‘Earthlike’ planets orbiting a nearby star

By Sarah Kaplan | February 22 at 1:00 PM

[SEE VIDEO CLIP ABOVE]
Three planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system resemble Earth in terms of size, mass, and the energy they receive from their star. (Reuters)

A newfound solar system just 39 light-years away contains seven warm, rocky, Earthlike planets, scientists say.

The discovery, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, represents the first time astronomers have ever detected so many terrestrial planets orbiting a single star. Researchers say the system is an ideal laboratory for studying distant worlds and could be the best place in the galaxy to search for life beyond Earth.

“Before this, if you wanted to study terrestrial planets, we had only four of them and they were all in our solar system,” said lead author Michaël Gillon, an exoplanet researcher at the University of Liège in Belgium. “Now we have seven Earth-sized planets to expand our understanding. Yes, we have the possibility to find water and life. But even if we don't, whatever we find will be super interesting.”

The newly discovered solar system resembles a scaled-down version of our own. The star at its center, an ultracool dwarf called TRAPPIST-1, is less than a tenth the size of the sun and about a quarter as warm. Its planets circle tightly around it; the closest takes just a day and a half to complete an orbit, the most distant takes about 20 days. If these planets orbited a larger, brighter star they'd be fried to a crisp. But TRAPPIST-1 is so cool that all seven of the bodies are bathed in just the right amount of warmth to hold liquid water. And three of them receive the same amount of heat as Venus, Earth and Mars, putting them in “the habitable zone,” that Goldilocks region where it's thought life can thrive.

Still, “Earthlike” is a generous term to describe these worlds. Though the planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system resemble Earth in terms of size, mass, and the energy they receive from their star, there's a lot that makes our planet livable beside being a warm rock. Further observation is required to figure out what the TRAPPIST-1 planets are made of, if they have atmospheres, and whether they hold water, methane, oxygen and carbon dioxide — the molecules that scientists consider “biosignatures,” or signs of life.

“You can bet people will be rushing to take those measurements,” said Elisabeth Adams, an exoplanet researcher at the Planetary Science Institute who was not involved in the study. “That's going to be fascinating to see.”


An artist's conception of the view from the surface of the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1f. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) [Note: Click to enlarge. -- Ed.]

Whatever secrets it may harbor, the TRAPPIST-1 system will surely be a sight to behold. Though the star is small, its nearness to the planets means that, from their perspective, it appears about three times as large as our sun. The outermost planets enjoy the daily spectacle of their neighbors passing across the sky and in front of their shared sun, each world a large dark spot silhouetted against the salmon-colored star. Its dim glow, which skews toward the red and infrared end of the light spectrum, bathes the planets in warmth and paints their skies with the crimson hues of a perpetual sunset.

[There's more, ohsomuch more, which all you astronomy nerds out there can read onsite. -- Ed.]

WHEW! HOW EXCITING IS THIS?

Now, maybe Friday we can get back to the business originally plann for today.

#

Tom Petty gets it re. the Confederate battle flag: says he was "downright stupid" to use it in performance, and highlights how "we're creating so many of our own problems"

"The Confederate flag was the wallpaper of the South when I was a kid growing up in Gainesville, Florida. I always knew it had to do with the Civil War, but the South had adopted it as its logo. I was pretty ignorant of what it actually meant. It was on a flagpole in front of the courthouse and I often saw it in Western movies. I just honestly didn't give it much thought, though I should have."

-- Tom Petty, to Rolling Stone's Andy Greene

by Ken

Unlike Kid Rock, the " 'Kiss My Ass' Over the Confederate Flag" Man (who was born and raised in Michigan), true son of the South Tom Petty gets it.

Rolling Stone's Andy Greene explains (links onsite):

South Carolina's decision to lower the Confederate flag on their statehouse has caused a wide range of reactions in the rock community. While many acts are cheering the decision of the South Carolina legislature, some acts are continuing to sell Confederate flag merchandise and rockers like Kid Rock remain defiant. "Isn't Kid Rock from the Midwest?" Tom Petty asks with a chuckle. "I think they were on the other side of the Civil War."

Petty, who featured the Confederate flag prominently onstage during his Southern Accents tour in 1985, spoke to Rolling Stone hours after the flag was taken down to express remorse for his actions.

Tom explains that he used the flag for the one song, "Rebel," during the Southern Accents tour, because the song represents the point of view of "a character who talks about the traditions that have been handed down from family to family" and "still blames the North for the discomfort of his life." "So my thought was the best way to illustrate this character was to use the Confederate flag."

He "regretted it pretty quickly," he says. "I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do."

"That flag shouldn't have any part in our government," Tom says. "It shouldn't represent us in any way."

They might have it at the football game or whatever, but they also have it at Klan rallies. If that's part of it in any way, it doesn't belong, in any way, representing the United States of America.

He goes from some lovely clarity about the flag issue to some thoughts going "beyond the flag issue" which are so good, I think we need to yank the last paragraph out in toto:

Beyond the flag issue, we're living in a time that I never thought we'd see. The way we're losing black men and citizens in general is horrific. What's going on in society is unforgivable. As a country, we should be more concerned with why the police are getting away with targeting black men and killing them for no reason. That's a bigger issue than the flag. Years from now, people will look back on today and say, "You mean we privatized the prisons so there's no profit unless the prison is full?" You'd think someone in kindergarten could figure out how stupid that is. We're creating so many of our own problems.

Tom says: "It all stemmed from my trying to illustrate a
character. It was dumb and it shouldn't have happened."

"I used [the Confederate flag] onstage during that song ('Rebel')," Tom says, "and I regretted it pretty quickly."

The Confederate flag was the wallpaper of the South when I was a kid growing up in Gainesville, Florida. I always knew it had to do with the Civil War, but the South had adopted it as its logo. I was pretty ignorant of what it actually meant. It was on a flagpole in front of the courthouse and I often saw it in Western movies. I just honestly didn't give it much thought, though I should have.

In 1985, I released an album called Southern Accents. It began as a concept record about the South, but the concept part slipped away probably 70 percent or so into the album. I just let it go, but the Confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour. I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do.

It happened because I had one song on the album called "Rebels." It's spoken from the point of view of the character, who talks about the traditions that have been handed down from family to family for so long that he almost feels guilty about the war. He still blames the North for the discomfort of his life, so my thought was the best way to illustrate this character was to use the Confederate flag."

I used it onstage during that song, and I regretted it pretty quickly. When we toured two years later, I noticed people in the audience wearing Confederate flag bandanas and things like that. One night, someone threw one onstage. I stopped everything and gave a speech about it. I said, "Look, this was to illustrate a character. This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a Confederate flag to our shows again because this isn't who we are."

It got a mixed reaction. There were some boos and some cheers. But honestly, it's a little amazing to me because I never saw one again after that speech in that one town. Fortunately, that went away, but it left me feeling stupid. That's the word I can use. I felt stupid. If I had just been a little more observant about things going on around me, it wouldn't have happened. We did do a live record [Pack Up The Plantation: Live!] and there was a picture inside of us playing in front of one. I went back and had it removed from the record. It took a little time to get done, but it did get done. I still feel bad about it. I've just always regretted it. I would never do anything to hurt someone.

Lowering the flag from the statehouse grounds was the right decision. That flag shouldn't have any part in our government. It shouldn't represent us in any way. The war is over. You know, it's a bit ironic: It's the only time that I know of where we defeated a country in a war and then flew their flag. But Americans were on both sides of the issues. I'm sure some people still carry it to their graves.

That Southern pride gets transferred from generation to generation. I'm sure that a lot of people that applaud it don't mean it in a racial way. But again, I have to give them, as I do myself, a "stupid" mark. If you think a bit longer, there's bad connotations to this. They might have it at the football game or whatever, but they also have it at Klan rallies. If that's part of it in any way, it doesn't belong, in any way, representing the United States of America.

To this day, I have good feelings for the South in many ways. There's some wonderful people down there. There are people still affected by what their relatives taught them. It isn't necessarily racism. They just don't like Yankees. They don't like the North. But when they wave that flag, they aren't stopping to think how it looks to a black person. I blame myself for not doing that. I should have gone around the fence and taken a good look at it. But honestly, it all stemmed from my trying to illustrate a character. I then just let it get out of control as a marketing device for the record. It was dumb and it shouldn't have happened.

Again, people just need to think about how it looks to a black person. It's just awful. It's like how a swastika looks to a Jewish person. It just shouldn't be on flagpoles.

Then follows the concluding paragraph that we've already seen above. But that's no reason why we shouldn't see it again:

Beyond the flag issue, we're living in a time that I never thought we'd see. The way we're losing black men and citizens in general is horrific. What's going on in society is unforgivable. As a country, we should be more concerned with why the police are getting away with targeting black men and killing them for no reason. That's a bigger issue than the flag. Years from now, people will look back on today and say, "You mean we privatized the prisons so there's no profit unless the prison is full?" You'd think someone in kindergarten could figure out how stupid that is. We're creating so many of our own problems.

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Seriously, isn't it time to call BS on the claim that the Confederate battle flag deserves respect for its "heritage"?

Oops, I don't know what this picture found its way here from my July 2 post, "As black churches burn, at least Ricky-Roo Santorum seems to be keeping his trap shut." We keep hearing white Southerners insist that there's no connection whatsoever between the flag and the epidemic of violence against Southern black churches.

by Ken

Pretty much since the massacre in Charleston's Emanuel AME Church I've had a post of the above title on the drawing board. I imagined bringing in the numerous new and overlapping threads that have developed on top of the original story, including of course the surprising move in the South Carolina legislature to remove the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse.

It all became too much, however, and so I've decided just to go with the basic point: No matter how much white Southerners may try to obfuscate the point, there isn't any possible question as to what that flag stands for. It stands for slavery and a society built on it. Southerners are free to euphemize it as "Southern pride," or "pride in their heritage," but it's important that there not be any question what the heritage is that they're so proud of.

It doesn't matter all that much to me what white South Carolinians do with their flag of infamy. Is it really better off in a museum than flying over the statehouse? It matters a lot more to me that they, and we, be honest about what that flag stands for, and what they're "honoring" with it.

And since everyone loves game shows, I thought we'd intersperse a little DWT Quick Quiz.

QUICK QUIZ QUESTION NO. 1

1. The Confederate battle flag has flown over South Carolina's statehouse since:

(a) 1561
(b) 1661
(c) 1761
(d) 1861
(e) 1961

ANSWER: (e) 1961.

From Wikipedia: The confederate battle flag was raised over the state house on April 11, 1961 at the request of Representative John May as a part of opening celebrations of the Confederate War Centennial according to Dr. Daniel Hollis, an appointed member of the centennial commission. Lawmakers passed a resolution in March 1962 directing the flag be flown over the state house in response to the civil rights movement[45] [46][47].
Notes:
45. SEANNA, ADCOX. "As SC honors church victims, Alabama lowers its flags". Associated Press.
46. BURSEY, BRETT. "The Day the Flag Went Up".
47. "It's Long Past Time For South Carolina to Stop Flying the Confederate Flag". Mother Jones.

Oops! Apparently it only occurred to South Carolinians in 1961 that they had a long-suppressed need to remember their precious "heritage" -- by coincidence in the thick of the tumultuous civil-rights struggle. And by tumultuous I mean violent. Even if forgetful South Carolinians were legitimately late in recognizing the urgent need to remember this great "heritage," we might ask why they didn't choose one of several other flags for their commemoration, as for example the one that was actually adopted as the official state flag after South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union -- or one of these others.

So if today's heritage rememberers were simply intent on remembering their heritage, they have an assortment of flags they could have chosen from.

QUICK QUIZ QUESTION NO. 2

2. Can you identify these flags?

(a)

(b)


(c)

ANSWERS: (a) is the "palmetto" flag adopted by South Carolina in 1861 following secession.
(b) is the First National Flag of the Confederate States of America, "the Stars and Bars," adopted in 1861.
(c is the Second National Flag of the Confederate States of America, adopted in 1863.

Aha, you say, (c) begins to look familiar, or at least the square portion at the upper left does. If the design seems otherwise to contain rather a lot of white space, it does, and for a reason. As designer William T. Thompson explained, all that white represents "the supremacy of the white race."

As a people we are fighting maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.

—William T. Thompson (April 23, 1863), Daily Morning News [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

So if South Carolinians actually wanted to honor the memory of their forebears, they have a perfectly usable flag -- the one that was in fact adopted after secession from the Union in 1861. Or these other flags, for that matter. As Wikipedia quotes "Southern political scientists" James Michael Martinez, William Donald Richardson, and Ron McNinch-Su pointing out in Confederate Symbols in the Contemporary South (2000):

The battle flag was never adopted by the Confederate Congress, never flew over any state capitols during the Confederacy, and was never officially used by Confederate veterans' groups. The flag probably would have been relegated to Civil War museums if it had not been resurrected by the resurgent KKK and used by Southern Dixiecrats during the 1948 presidential election.

However, it's not as if only the white part of Thompson's original flag referred to race. As he also explained,

As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race, and a higher civilization contending against ignorance, infidelity, and barbarism. Another merit in the new flag is, that it bears no resemblance to the now infamous banner of the Yankee vandals.

—William T. Thompson (May 4, 1863), Daily Morning News [2][3][5][6][7][8]

QUICK QUIZ QUESTION NO. 3

3. The resurrection of the rectangular Confederate battle flag (whose only official use was as a battle flag adopted by Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia) in the South in the '50s and '60s was prompted by:

(a) A sudden desire to reassert the values embodied in the Second National Flag of the Confederacy (see above), as expressed by designer W. T. Thompson
(b) Um . . .
(c) Er . . .
(d) You know, uh . . .

ANSWER: (a)

Finally, Wikipedia quotes Gordon C. Rhea, a noted attorney (a former federal prosecutor) as well as Civil War historian (specializing in the Overland Campaign), now based in Charleston, SC, in "Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought" (2011):

It is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads. They did not appropriate the Confederate battle flag simply because it was pretty. They picked it because it was the flag of a nation dedicated to their ideals: 'that the negro is not equal to the white man'. The Confederate flag, we are told, represents heritage, not hate. But why should we celebrate a heritage grounded in hate, a heritage whose self-avowed reason for existence was the exploitation and debasement of a sizeable segment of its population?"

NOW IT MAY BE THAT THERE ARE WHITE SOUTHERNERS
TOO IGNORANT TO KNOW WHAT THEIR HERITAGE IS

And truly all that they know is that they're dadgum proud of it. Well, now they know. In any case, this takes us back to the question we were just asking in a different context: Are they dopes or liars?

Either way they don't seem to be doing a really good job of respecting their heritage. Once upon a time Southerners were unequivocal and unapologetic about what they stood for.

#

Time For The Democrats To Bid Adieu To The Blue Dogs?

Wednesday afternoon, the DCCC was asking people to sign petitions against "Boehner's" Wall Street giveaway in the omnibus appropriations bill. They carefully neglected to mention that the most vile provisions are being pushed by, among others, the Finance Chair of the DCCC, Wall Street shill Jim Himes (New Dem-CT) and by most of the Blue Dogs and New Dems left in Congress-- including the ones who were defeated and are just hanging around the lame duck looking for K Street jobs. We've written about how Himes and his fellow Wall Street shills have been working on this since last year. The House passed it October 30, 2013 292-122, 70 slime bags from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party joining the GOP to vote for it back then, including not just the Blue Dogs and New Dems who always support the Republicans over working families, but House party leaders like Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Joe Crowley (D-NY) and purported "progressives" like Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Nita Lowey (D-NY), Grace Meng (D-NY), Gwen Moore (D-WI) and Charlie Rangel (D-NY).

The provision is the work of former Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln, currently considered one of the slimiest lobbyists in DC. (Before she was reinvented as Senator Blanche Lincoln she was a low-life Blue Dog congresswoman, Blanche Lambert, who managed to get into office by beating an incumbent trapped in a bank scandal.) Of course, the DCCC doesn't care where the names and contact info for their petition come from-- that stuff is commoditized and monetized and has intrinsic value-- but it is funny that the Wall Street whores who still hold so much sway at the DCCC are using a Blue Dog/New Dem initiative-- killing Wall Street derivatives regulation-- against the Republicans who partnered with the Blue Dogs and New Dems to sneak it into the omnibus.

This is the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the ruin of the great traditions and values of the party and all that ails the party. We write about it often here at DWT. In fact, last Monday we looked at Michael Tomasky's proposition that the Democratic Party should just forget about The South entirely. Tempting... but... uh, no.

The DCCC thought you wouldn't notice that Jim Himes, their own Finance Chair, is behind this plan to gut Wall Street reform

The Democratic Party should stop catering to the worst political instincts of Southern conservatives, for sure-- and rebuild the party without worrying about winning by aping Republicans. That field is ceded and that's what the Democrats should let go of. In its place-- and it may take years-- they need ti build a part from the bottom up that is dedicated to serving the interests of working families. In other words, as Ryan Cooper, wrote in The Week on Wednesday, the Democrats shouldn't give up the South; they should give up Blue Dog-ism. "Southern Democrats," he admits, "are typically awful policy-wise, and have a history of grotesque racism. But as Ed Kilgore argues, the way to thread this needle is to stop making those sellout moves, not write off a quarter of the country."

Blue Dog-ism is dead, just like most of the actual Blue Dogs in Congress. But any party that aspires to win national power must contest every national election (ideally, every election, period). At the least, it puts the party in place to pick up seats should the favorite implode in a scandal. And these days elections are highly chaotic, with nobodies becoming contenders overnight on a regular basis. Putting somebody up for every post, without exception, is a critical part of how big majorities are built.

Indeed, Tomasky is entirely too confident about Democrats' future-- as Greg Sargent explains, demographic trends and Republican gerrymandering are interacting with our antiquated, rattletrap electoral system to give Democrats an enormous negative handicap in the House. It's Republicans, not Democrats, who are actually in a strong enough position to consider writing whole regions off (they won't, of course).

And that brings me to the final problem: race and class. Tomasky notes parenthetically that, yes, Democrats will still have a smattering of majority-minority seats across the South. That's because about the most loyal Democrats in the entire country are southerners-- black ones. They're also disproportionately poor, just like southern whites, and deserve full consideration and attention. The poor, the jobless, the uninsured, and the middle class deserve good policy regardless of where they live or their race (yes, whites too). That egalitarian, universalist promise is the only political stance that has the proven historical power to challenge an energized, revanchist right.

Landrieu-style conservatism is a political loser. But racially-aware economic populism might not be, in some places. There are something like 700,000 unregistered black and brown people in Georgia, for example. If they all voted, it would turn Georgia into a swing state. A muscular Democratic Party divested of these silly resentments could make it happen.

In 2014 the Democratic Party wasted millions of dollars on Blue Dogs. Most of them lost but even the few who managed to hang on by the skin of their teeth will spent 2015 and 2016 voting with the Republicans against progressive initiatives and helping Boehner claim his right-wing policies have "bipartisan support." Of the 11 Democratic incumbents who lost their reelection bids-- so not counting Blue Dogs and New Dems like Jim Matheson (UT), Mike McIntyre (NC) and Bill Owens (NY), all of whose seats went to Republicans, who were forced to retire rather than lose-- 7 were Blue Dogs or New Dems; only one, Carol Shea-Porter who represented in a red-leaning district-- was a progressive. These are the New Dem and Blue Dog incumbents the DCCC and House Majority PAC wasted their money on:

• John Barrow (GA)- $2,479,984- 45.2%
• Nick Rahall (WV)- $4,967,124- 44.7%
• Pete Gallego (TX)- $2,224,626- 47.7%
• Brad Schneider (IL)- $3,229,684- 48.4%
• Dan Maffei (NY)- $1,854,912- 40.1%
• Joe Garcia (FL)- 2,155,260- 48.5%
• Ron Barber (AZ)- $2,983,689- 50%

That's about $20,000,000 down the tubes-- to conservatives who undermine the entire Democratic Party brand and just bolster Boehner and the Republicans at every turn. Almost all the conservative DCCC recruits lost, another massive waste of money and resources. The garbage recruits who they did manage to elect were just as big a waste of money:

• Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA)- $1,419,942
• Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL)- $3,549,870
• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)- $1,490,268

Six and a half million dollars to help Boehner's right-wing agenda look "bipartisan." The money could have been much better spent-- and should have been. Certainly the DCCC could have kept Steve Horsford's D+4 Nevada seat had they chosen not to play games and spent only $478,691. At least Horsford tended to vote with the Democrats most of the time. His ProgressivePunch crucial vote score for the current session is 73.54, not fabulous but not like the ones accrued by the dreadful incumbents the DCCC did back, like Barrow (26.64), Barber (32.58), Collin Peterson (33,62), Gallego (34.07), Kyrsten Sinema (36.20), and Sean Patrick Maloney (40.17%).

UPDATE: Cromnibus Passed Last Night With Wall Street Deregulation

There was a glimmer of a progressive rebellion against Obama in the 2 party establishments but in the end, the wretched bill passed 219-206. Boehner lost 67 Republicans but picked up 57 Democrats, enough for his-- and Wall Street's-- 13 vote win. No one is taking credit for putting the Wall Street giveaway into the Cromnibus but its looking like it was a deal between House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and Wall Street's #1 Senate prostitute, Chuck Schumer. The House Democrats who voted for Wall Street will be able to lie to their constituents and say they did it to keep the government open-- rather than to keep the bribes from Wall Street flowing. Among the Democrats who crossed the aisle were Chaka Fattah (D-PA), who is headed for a criminal prosecution and is rumored to have made a deal to get a pardon and the most corrupt of the new freshmen, New Jersey boss George Norcross' younger brother Donald Norcross (who was already sworn in because of a special election). Democratic Party leaders who joined the Republicans on behalf of Wall Street included Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD), Assistant Leader Jim Clyburn (SC), DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL), DCCC Finance Chair Jim Himes (New Dem-CT), Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Joe Crowley (New Dem-NY), and New Dem Chairman Ron Kind (WI). And, of course, all the regular garbage like Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL), Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH), John Delaney (New Dem-MD), etc.

Worse yet, a senior Republican Senate aide boasted that "If liberal Dems vote for this package it shows that conservatives can use must pass legislation to repeal the regulatory state." (Actual "liberal" Democrats all voted against it, though. All the progressives we back at Blue America, like Alan Grayson, Donna Edwards, Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Judy Chu, Matt Cartwright, Beto O'Rourke, Al Lowenthal, Carol Shea-Porter, Jerry Nadler, did the right thing and voted against the travesty.

New Dem Boehner enabler Jim Himes (D-CT)

The Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party Claims It Still Doesn't Have A Silver Stake Through It's Heart

Even House progressives tell me it's Hoyer's turn to be leader next-- doom!

Adam Green of the PCCC pointed out when Landrieu was handily defeated by some hack GOP nonentity Saturday that the last of the Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who prevented the public option in the Affordable Care Act-- the others being Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln-- had all been driven from office within 4 years; I think he left out Mark Pryor-- but he also lost his Senate seat last month. Good riddance to all of them. Take a look at the ProgressivePunch lifetime crucial vote scores of the half dozen Democratic Senators who have voted the most frequently against progressive values in the current session:

• Tom Carper (DE)- 72.30
• Claire McCaskill (MO)- 72.13
• Kay Hagan (NC)- 70.67 defeated
• Mark Pryor (AR)- 66.50 defeated
• Mary Landrieu (LA)- 65.42 defeated
• Joe Manchin (WV)- 61.75

They wreck the Democratic Party brand and discourage voters with progressive values from bothering to go to the polls. And there are even more of them in the House-- Wall Street-owned New Dems and Blue Dogs, dwindling but still with enough clout within the party-- thanks to well placed corrupt conservative leaders like Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Crowley, Steve Israel-- to confuse voters about what it even means to be a Democrat. These are the dozen Democrats in the House who voted most frequently against progressive initiatives and principles in the 2013-14 session, along with their ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores for the current session:

• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)- 26.20 forced to retire
• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)- 26.64 defeated
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)- 27.68 forced to retire
• Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ)- 32.58 defeated
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 33.62
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)- 34.07 defeated
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- 36.20
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)- 39.47 forced to retire
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)- 40.17
• Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV)- 40.61 defeated
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 41.67
• Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)- 44.59 defeated

What does the Democratic Party learn from these defeats? Nothing absolutely, nothing. The corporate whores and Wall Street shills just want to double down on their failed Blue Dog/New Dem approach which is so hated by Democratic grassroots voters-- and so beloved Inside-the-Beltway. I found this clueless piece from one of the Beltway trade publications republished yesterday by the Arizona Daily Star. [Warning, they refer to reactionaries and conservatives as "moderates," a well-worn Beltway trick to mislead readers.]

The Blue Dog Coalition of moderate House Democrats is reaching a turning point in its 20-year history, after losing more than a third of its members by the end of 2014 through retirements and election defeats.

It’s now down to a dozen returning members, less than a quarter of its peak.

Veteran members including Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, the last original Blue Dog, and Jim Cooper of Tennessee hope to promote a rebound by the group.

“It’s always darkest just before the dawn,” Cooper said.

Blue Dogs have a long history of surviving adversity since they became a caucus with about 20 members in 1995, he said, and he predicted they will regain strength in a tough political environment.

Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University, said the Blue Dogs will be hard-pressed to reclaim the clout they had in 2010, when the group had more than 50 members and won enactment of a top priority: the pay-as-you-go law, which required that spending and tax bills not increase the deficit.

Southern voters have turned against Blue Dogs in part because much of the region’s electorate opposes President Obama and party leaders such as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Black said. “They are selling a product no one wants to buy.”

But despite recent losses, Cooper said Blue Dogs will have influence in the 114th Congress because of Republican divisions and the ability of Senate Democrats to block partisan bills.

“House Blue Dogs will play a quieter role. It will take a Republican split before we can be clearly decisive in a vote. But there are going to be many Republican splits... There are going to be plenty of opportunities for Blue Dogs to make a key difference on legislation,” Cooper said.

Cooper is just one of four returning Blue Dogs from the South, with Reps. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. and David Scott, both of Georgia, and Henry Cuellar of Texas.

Cuellar and other Blue Dogs predict loose coalitions with Republicans on shared priorities where Republicans hope to deter-- or override-- vetoes by Obama. For example, they envision common ground with the Republicans on tax cuts, giving trade promotion authority to the president, regulatory curbs and energy sweeteners, including approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Peterson predicted that the group will expand its ranks quickly from the freshman class. Among the new recruits are Reps.-elect Gwen Graham of Florida and Brad Ashford of Nebraska, who have already attended meetings, Peterson said.

Membership “ebbs and flows,” Peterson said. He narrowly won re-election and must decide whether to run again in 2016.

Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, a longtime ally of the Blue Dogs, said he and other party leaders will give wide leeway to the coalition’s members to vote their consciences, and will try to help them promote priorities and win re-election.

“They need to bounce back, and they will bounce back,” Hoyer said. “We are going to work at it.”

UPDATE: Let The South Go

Mike Tomasky explains why the South is a lost cause for the Democrats-- and why they should embrace that.

At the congressional level, and from there on down, the Democrats should just forget about the place. They should make no effort, except under extraordinary circumstances, to field competitive candidates. The national committees shouldn’t spend a red cent down there. This means every Senate seat will be Republican, and 80 percent of the House seats will be, too. The Democrats will retain their hold on the majority-black districts, and they’ll occasionally be competitive in a small number of other districts in cities and college towns. But they’re not going win Southern seats (I include here with some sadness my native West Virginia, which was not a Southern state when I was growing up but culturally is one now). And they shouldn’t try.

...Trying to win Southern seats is not worth the ideological cost for Democrats. As Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen recently told my colleague Ben Jacobs, the Democratic Party cannot (and I’d say should not) try to calibrate its positions to placate Southern mores: “It’s come to pass, and really a lot of white Southerners vote on gays and guns and God, and we’re not going to ever be too good on gays and guns and God.”

Cohen thinks maybe some economic populism could work, and that could be true in limited circumstances. But I think even that is out the window now. In the old days, drenched in racism as the South was, it was economically populist. Glass and Steagall, those eponymous bank regulators, were both Southern members of Congress. But today, as we learned in Sunday’s Times, state attorneys general, many in the South, are colluding with energy companies to fight federal regulation of energy plants.

It’s lost. It’s gone. A different country. And maybe someday it really should be. I’ll save that for another column. Until that day comes, the Democratic Party shouldn’t bother trying. If they get no votes from the region, they will in turn owe it nothing, and in time the South, which is the biggest welfare moocher in the world in terms of the largesse it gets from the more advanced and innovative states, will be on its own, which is what Southerners always say they want anyway.

The Democratic Party Is At A Crossroads... Again

Yesterday, everyone-- or at least everyone who isn't already bored with the subject-- was buzzing about a Wall Street Journal piece by Peter Nicholas, Siobhan Hughes and Byron Tau, Democratic Rifts Surface in Wake of Midterm Election Defeat. And it went beyond the ire and tensions around the idiotic assertions of Chuck Schumer earlier in the week-- and beyond Obama threatening to veto an anti-family "compromise" tax extenders deal Harry Reid was working out with Mitch McConnell. The White House said the deal would help "well-connected corporations while neglecting working families," not a message Senate Democrats like seeing hurled their way-- but at the heart of the rampant careerism at the heart of Beltway politics, a careerism that trumps the Democratic Party's core policy agenda and even the party's brand itself.

The twin developments were among fissures within the party that, at their broadest level, show Democrats at odds over what economic message to present to voters ahead of the 2016 presidential race. Worried that they lacked a compelling position in the midterms, Democrats are split over whether to advance a centrist message or a more populist economic argument that casts everyday families as victims of overly powerful corporations and benighted government policies.

“You’re going to get a fight within the Democratic Party,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), as the progressive wing of the party splits from centrists, who fear that liberal economic policy proposals are unpalatable to most voters. “There is a substantial disagreement coming up.”

...Schumer’s comments drew angry responses from Obama loyalists. They said Mr. Obama had promised to break from a politics-as-usual attitude in Washington, while echoing the president’s argument that making health care more widely available boosted many Americans’ economic security.

David Axelrod, a top strategist in both of Mr. Obama’s presidential races, said: “If your calculus is solely how to win elections, and that is your abiding principle, it leads you to Sen. Schumer’s position. But that’s precisely why big, difficult problems often don’t get addressed in Washington, and why people have become so cynical about that town and its politics.”

Conservatives, of whichever party, are the enemy of working families, always and forever

Through a spokesman, Mr. Schumer declined to comment.

The intraparty fight has touched on other elements of policy and strategy since it erupted soon after this month’s elections, which stripped Democrats of their Senate majority. David Krone, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), publicly blamed Mr. Obama for Democratic losses. He said the president wouldn’t transfer millions of dollars in party funds to help save imperiled Democrats, and he told the Washington Post that “the president’s approval rating is barely 40%.… What else more is there to say?”

As is the case with Mr. Schumer, Mr. Krone’s comments were an unusual breach of protocol. It is rare for Democrats at senior levels to publicly criticize other Democrats—and rarer still for a legislative aide to chide a president from his own party. Mr. Reid’s office declined to make Mr. Krone available for an interview.

Addressing Mr. Krone’s comments, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said earlier this month that Messrs. Obama and Reid had “struck up a genuine friendship when the two men served together in the United States Senate, and that relationship has only been strengthened during the president’s time in the White House.”

Mr. Krone’s boss is having his own troubles with the White House. Sen. Reid is backing the tax-cut bill that drew a veto threat from Mr. Obama, because it doesn’t include a proposal backed by liberals to make enhanced tax credits for the working poor permanent, alongside tax breaks for businesses.

Adding to the deepening divide between Messrs. Reid and Obama is that the deal included a measure that would benefit Mr. Reid’s home state as the Nevada Democrat readies himself for a likely 2016 re-election bid. A presidential veto wouldn’t help his cause.

Tensions have also emerged between House and Senate Democrats. One flashpoint was immigration. Some House Democrats believe it was a mistake for Mr. Obama to wait until after the midterm elections to take executive action limiting deportations, a delay that the president agreed to at the behest of Senate Democratic leaders trying to protect vulnerable incumbents, such as Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas. The delay didn’t stop Mr. Pryor and other Senate Democrats from losing.

One senior House Democratic aide said many House Democrats believe the delay hurt Hispanic turnout, contributing to the defeat of Reps. Pete Gallegos of Texas and Joe Garcia in Florida.

“Hindsight is 20-20,” this aide said, “but there was all this effort to avoid anything Mark Pryor might be asked about. All that effort was for nothing. Clearly, that strategy failed.”

Part of the reason for Democratic feuding is Mr. Obama’s declining popularity as he enters the final quarter of his presidency. Various Democrats hope to emerge as the new center of gravity in the party.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears the logical choice, given that she is likely to run for president in 2016, and polls show her comfortably leading the field of potential Democratic rivals in the primaries. Yet for many liberals, it isn’t Mrs. Clinton who stokes the most passion, but the first-term senator from Massachusetts, populist firebrand Elizabeth Warren.

“She is someone who voters see as authentic and inspiring, as opposed to someone who is trying to play it safe and take no risks,” said Erica Sagrans, a former Obama campaign aide who is trying to entice Ms. Warren to run for president.

Mr. Schumer may also have designs on a more influential role in the party. He has long been seen as someone with an eye on the leadership spot now held by Mr. Reid. Some Democrats saw his speech as an effort to lay a course for the party that might position him for a spot higher in the party hierarchy.

In a sign of the emerging struggle over which direction to take the party, Senate Democrats met for four hours behind closed doors earlier this month to hash out what went wrong in the midterm elections and how they would operate next year, when they will be in the minority. Mr. Reid was reappointed Democratic leader, but a handful of moderate Democrats voted against him.

In a concession to the party’s liberal wing, members also created a new leadership post-- for Ms. Warren.

At the same time, Bill Barrow, writing for the AP, published a piece focusing in on Democratic Party efforts to rebuild in the blood-red South. Is me-too conservatism the only route? The most conservative Democratic incumbents in both the House and Senate, respectively John Barrow (GA) and Mark Pryor (AR), were just defeated-- and neither race was close. Barrow spent $2,789,010 to Richard Allen's $1,892,371 (and outside groups spent over $6,000,000 attacking and bolstering each side) leading to a 90,987 (54.8%) to 75,123 (45.2%) win for the Republican against the reactionary Blue Dog always called, incorrectly, "the last white Democrat in the Deep South." Pryor did even worse. He spent $13,484,442 to Tom Cotton's $10,200,248 (plus $38 million in outside spending between the 2 campaigns) and saw a 476,309 (56.5%) to 332,669 (39.5%) victory for the far right GOP extremist over the Democrat-- along with Joe Manchin and Mary Landrieu, also about to lose her seat-- who votes most consistently with the Republicans on crucial roll calls. Me-too conservatism clearly did not save John Barrow or Mark Pryor-- nor did it save right-of-center southern Democrats like Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV) or Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL), each of whom made a conscious effort to pander to a Republican agenda and vision and to values antithetical to progressive Democratic traditions and principles.

To rebuild in the conservative South, Democratic leaders say their party must become more aggressive advocates for the middle class in an effort to energize African-Americans and attract whites.

After the Republicans' success in the midterm elections, many say the Democratic Party should openly embrace government as a tool for lifting people out of economic hardship. They are advocating a return to party roots by emphasizing education and public works spending, stronger voting rights laws, tighter bank regulation and labor-friendly policies such as a higher minimum wage.

"It's time to draw a line in the sand and not surrender our brand," said Rickey Cole, the party chairman in Mississippi. He believes that candidates have distanced themselves from the last half-century of Democratic principles. "We don't need a New Coke formula," Cole said. "The problem is we've been out there trying to peddle Tab and R.C. Cola."

Even so, Cole and other Southern Democrats acknowledge divisions with prominent populists such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is expected to run for president in 2016, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

A major challenge in the South is finding candidates who can win high-profile races now that Republicans dominate the leadership in state legislatures and across statewide offices.

Georgia Democrats thought legacy candidates were the answer. But Senate hopeful Michelle Nunn, former Sen. Sam Nunn's daughter, and gubernatorial challenger Jason Carter, former President Jimmy Carter's grandson, each fell short by about 8 percentage points despite well-funded campaigns and ambitious voter-registration drives.

Arkansas Democrats lost an open governor's seat and two-term Sen. Mark Pryor. Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu led an eight-candidate primary but faces steep odds in a Dec. 6 runoff. Democrats' closest statewide loss in the South was North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan's 1.7 percentage point margin of defeat.

Exit polling suggests Democrats did not get the black turnout they needed and lost badly among whites. Nunn and Carter got fewer than 1 in 4 white votes, while Pryor took 31 percent and Landrieu 18 percent.

Should Landrieu lose, Democrats will be left without a single governor, U.S. senator or legislative chamber under their control from the Carolinas westward to Texas.

J.P. Morrell, a state senator from New Orleans, faulted a muddled message that began with candidates avoiding President Barack Obama. "You have to articulate why the economic policies we advocate as Democrats actually benefit people on the ground," Morrell said.

In Georgia, Nunn supported a minimum-wage increase and gender-pay equity, but her television ads focused on ending partisan rancor. Carter mostly accused Republican Gov. Nathan Deal of shortchanging public education. Nunn and Carter supported Medicaid expansion under Obama's health overhaul, but neither emphasized that argument in television advertising.

"No real economic message got through," said Vincent Fort, a state senator from Atlanta.

...While the party's positions on gay rights, minority voting access, women's rights and immigration are not wrong, Cole said, "those people who don't see themselves in those groups say, 'What have the Democrats got for me?'"

Unapologetic populism, he said, would "explain better that the Democratic Party is for justice and opportunity-- with no qualifiers-- for everyone."

Author and professor Joseph Palermo weighed in the day before on his own blog with a post worth reading in its entirety, The Incredible Shrinking Democratic Party. Here are some relevant excerpts:

Even in the best of times the Democratic establishment in Washington treats its base like a pariah. With the historic losses of 2014 the Democratic leadership appears to be slipping back to its familiar “scared of its own shadow” stance. Right now we are facing one of the worst configurations of unchecked corporate power, militarism, market fundamentalism, and environmental crisis than at any time in our history, and the messaging coming from congressional Democrats right now appears to be that becoming Republican-Lite is the smart path forward.

Facing Republican control of both chambers of Congress, Washington Democrats (even in the lame duck session) are already vying for the coveted spot as the corporate oligarchy’s second choice. Senate Democrats like Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia couldn’t wait until the new Congress is sworn in this January to begin capitulating. The lame duck vote on the Keystone XL pipeline witnessed the spectacle of a bloc of Democratic Senators tripping over themselves to renounce environmentalism.

It might be a preview of coming attractions.

Come January, you can bet that every single “bipartisan” bill that makes it to the President’s desk well be in servitude of the interests of the giant corporations, big banks, and the wealthiest 1 percent. President Obama’s recent executive orders on immigration promise to make life a little more bearable for nearly five million people and it was a smart move politically-- except for the fact that he didn’t do it in October when it might have had an impact on the midterms.

The Republican-controlled 114th Congress will attempt to privatize everything from the U.S. Postal Service to Social Security. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his associates will try to gut every social program that benefits working people from Food Stamps to Medicaid. They’ll snuff out sustainable energy investments and plow ahead with expanding fossil fuels. They’ll figure out new ways to sell old wars. They’ll push austerity for anyone who can’t afford to attend a $30,000-a-plate fundraiser. They’ll push “free trade” deals that outsource jobs while leaving American workers holding the bag. They’ll slash unemployment insurance and other “entitlements.” And they’ll ensure that our economy continues to work for the benefit of the richest 1 percent.

The mainstream corporate media-- from MSNBC to Fox News, CNN to NPR-- will serve as enablers for the whole shitty process pretending to be journalists but asking all the wrong questions and offering all of the wrong political advice.

And don’t forget this fact: Everything-- and I mean EVERYTHING-- the Republicans do in Congress over the next two years will be done in the service of positioning the party to take the White House in 2016.

Unlike the Republicans, Democratic politicians seem to always neglect the care and feeding of their own base. They’re quick to turn against any organized movement from the Left-- be it Occupy Wall Street, the World Climate Movement, teachers’ unions, students’ organizations, environmentalists, or the protesters acting in solidarity with the African-American community in Ferguson, Missouri-- yet all the while they expect to win their votes.

In the early-1970s, “Democrats for Nixon” succeeded in splitting off a significant wing of conserva-Dems for the GOP. In the 1980s, Washington Democrats gave Ronald Reagan just about everything he wanted from sweeping reductions to social welfare spending to tax cuts for the rich. In the 1990s, the Democrats capitulated to Reaganomics when President Bill Clinton “triangulated” against the base to push through NAFTA and the WTO even when the labor unions were howling against them. Under Clinton the Democrats embraced “welfare reform” as if it were their idea, gutting New Deal programs like Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). They deregulated the world’s biggest banks and promoted neo-liberal economic policies across the board, beating up liberals and the working-class.

In the 2000s, the Democrats in Congress rolled over for George W. Bush giving him everything he wanted, voting for his disastrous war in Iraq, and going along with his domestic agenda all the way up to the brink of agreeing to partially privatizing Social Security, (which was on the table at the time Hurricane Katrina tanked Bush’s approval rating).

The Obama years saw many capitulations like cutting deals with Big Pharma in shaping the Affordable Care Act (while excluding single-payer advocates), bashing public school teachers and their unions, escalating the drone wars, jailing whistleblowers, institutionalizing the Bush era NSA abuses, pushing for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and so on.

And today, if the lame duck vote on the Keystone XL Pipeline is any indicator, Washington Democrats are poised to interpret the meaning of the 2014 midterms as a “mandate” that the American people want them to renounce everything for which their party supposedly stands.

If history can be a guide, the Democratic establishment will be tempted to do the “Democratic Leadership Council” thing all over again, and with the same disastrous results for working people as the last time around.

Unless Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders jumps into the Democratic primaries and caucuses and give the party’s base something to vote for, the Democratic constituencies will limp into 2016 just as uninspired as they were 2014. The Republicans’ cynical structural advantages they’ve institutionalized in recent years-- infinite access to dark money, gerrymandered districts, voter suppression of minorities and young people-- will stand rewarded and putting the brakes on the incessant move toward corporate oligarchy in this country will be even harder to fight back against.

Now is not the time for the Democratic Party to “move to the center,” but to fight for its heart and soul. Every time the Democratic leadership in Washington fucks its base it has moved one step closer to irrelevancy. Unfortunately, the organized Left in this country, like it or not, needs the Democratic Party.