What's Next For Señor Trumpanzee Now That His Dreadful Campaign Is Dead In The Water?

Yesterday started with polls from Georgia, Alaska, Utah and Arizona-- four deep red states that Romney won, respectively, with 53%, 55%, 73% and 54% of the vote. It's unlikely, but Trump could actually lose all four-- and not because those states' Republican governors are rigging the election against him. Even mainstream Republican voters are starting to finally realize what has infected their party.

Let's look at the results in Utah in 2012 and then compare them to yesterday's polling results from the very biased Republican Party polling firm Rasmussen, which basically exists to make Republican candidates think they have a chance to win even when they don't. Utah, 2012, actual election results:

• Mitt Romney- 72.79%
• Barack Obama- 24.75%
• Gary Johnson- 1.24
• Jill Stein- 0.38%

Rasmussen's Utah survey of likely voters released yesterday:

• Donald Trump- 30%
• Evan McMullin- 29%
• Hillary Clinton- 28%
• Gary Johnson- 5%
• Jill Stein- 1%

Margin of error is 4%, which means Trump, McMullin and Clinton are tied... in Utah. So what's next for Trump after what seems to be turning into a spectacular defeat in exactly 3 weeks from today? Is there some strategy behind the apparent madness of the Donald Trump campaign? It sure isn't an exercise in GOP party building-- quite the opposite, in fact. Olbermann hinted at it in his video above and we've discussed it here before: Trump TV. He sure has an audience ready for all the unhinged hatred, paranoia, bigotry and white nationalism he's built his campaign on. I expect crackpot hedge fund billionaire, Robert Mercer, a fringy right-wing loon, will bankroll a proto-fascist network fronted by Trump and run by Roger Ailes, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Con-man. The Financial Times reported that Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, publisher of the money-losing New York Observer, is trying to make a deal-- or might be trying to make a deal, having "approached one of the media industry’s top dealmakers about the prospect of setting up a Trump television network after the presidential election in November... [He] contacted Aryeh Bourkoff, the founder and chief executive of LionTree, a boutique investment bank, within the past couple of months, according to three people with knowledge of the matter... [T]he approach suggests Mr Kushner and the Republican candidate himself are thinking about how to capitalise on the populist movement that has sprung up around their campaign in the event of an election defeat to Democrat Hillary Clinton next month."

Mr Bourkoff, who launched LionTree in 2012, has advised on transactions worth more than $300bn, including Liberty Global’s $23.3bn acquisition of Virgin Media and Verizon’s $4.4bn takeover of AOL. He is also John Malone’s favoured adviser and helped the so-called “Cable Cowboy” consolidate the US pay-TV industry — in deals that culminated in Charter Communications’ $78bn takeover of Time Warner Cable this year.

More importantly, Mr Bourkoff is a friend of Mr Kushner, who is married to Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka. The two have worked together in the past: Mr Bourkoff advised Mr Kushner, who also owns the weekly New York Observer newspaper, when he tried to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team four years ago.

Establishing a Trump television network would be difficult, even with a potentially large audience for its programming.

Cable and satellite companies are loath to take on extra channels in an era of shrinking audiences and “cord-cutting”-- the cancellation of pricey pay-TV subscriptions in favour of cheaper, online alternatives. An “over the top” digital service would be one possibility but still costly because Mr Trump and Mr Kushner would need to spend heavily on marketing, talent and technology.

Roger Ailes, the former head of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel, is a friend of Mr Trump’s but would be prohibited from working on a Trump television venture by the terms of his exit agreement with the news network. He parted company with Fox this summer following an independent investigation into claims he sexually harassed Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox News presenter.

However, Sean Hannity, Mr Trump’s biggest cheerleader on Fox News, would be free to work for a prospective Trump network. Mr Hannity was among several Fox stars, including Bill O’Reilly, with clauses in their contracts allowing them to leave if Mr Ailes did.

Talk about a Trump network has persisted, partly because of the fervent crowds that Mr Trump continues to attract on the campaign trail and his existing links to conservative media. Mr Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart, a network of rightwing news sites, was hired in August to run the Trump campaign. Breitbart is currently on a global expansion push, with the aim of adding sites in Germany and France to its existing operations in the US and Israel.

Easy as it is to write Trump off as a buffoon and a useful idiot, this could be a very dangerous enterprise between Bannon's aggressive fascism and Mercer's humongous fortune. Very dangerous, even if we get to enjoy watching the demise of Fox News in the process.

GOP Congressional Strategists Already Building A Wall Of Obstructionism Against President Hillary

I've been talking with congressional candidates in swing districts-- and some red districts-- all over the country who are telling me their internal polling numbers show Hillary absolutely crushing the Trumpanzee. Many are hopeful that Hillary's coattails are going to sweep them into office and, in fact, the DCCC and DSCC seem to think even their incredible weak menagerie of unlovable conservative candidates can win-- despite what Democratic voters want and expect from Congress-- as a result of an anti-Trumpanzee tsunami. And the DSCC may manage to drag atrocious otherwise unelectable candidates like Katie McGinty (PA), Ted Strickland (OH), and even Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ) over the finish line and win a Senate majority, but Pelosi's shockingly incompetent DCCC would need an certifiable miracle to do the same in the House. Even with a Democratic Senate (stuffed with shitty members from the far right of the party who will be eager to work out terrible deals with the GOP), President Hillary is still going to have to face a GOP-controlled House with two objectives: obstruction beyond even what they did to Obama and a concerted effort to destroy her politically in time for the 2020 election.

First thing Monday morning Politico started the day with a warning from an unnamed "powerful Hill GOP aide" who was referring to a Washington Post piece that weekend envisioning Clinton, Paul Ryan and Chuck Schumer working on a package to boost infrastructure spending, alongside some form of corporate tax reform. The "powerful Hill GOP aide" attributes that vision to Clinton and calls it absurd. "Clinton is delusional. Nothing they want can be remotely paid for without massive, economy-crushing tax increases. And no one will be politically cowed by her after this election. It won’t be difficult for Republicans to unite in opposition to virtually every single thing she has campaigned on. And if Paul [Ryan] is running for president in 2020, all of his upside is in fighting her tooth and nail."

Politico urges its readers t take note: "this is an important preview of the next year if Hillary wins. Even if the Senate turns Democratic, the House is likely to remain in Republican hands. And if Clinton wins the White House, she’ll have to navigate a House Republican Conference that is only becoming more conservative."

And not "more conservative" in the way Trumpist sociopath Steve Bannon seems to define it. The Trumpists won't be a major presence in Congress. The only Member Trump endorsed and did an ad for so far, Renee Ellmers (R-NC) got crushed in her reelection primary and the only Republican in either house of Congress to have contributed money to the Trumpanzee campaign is clueless and anti-science House Science Committee chairman, Lamar Smith. Trump may have an enthusiast in Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and a miniscule handful of House backbenchers-- nose-bleed seats, in fact-- but his influence in Congress will be next to nothing by November 9. If he has any influence it will be because the buzz about his new media empire with Bannon, Ailes, and Mercer turns out to be real. But here's how Bannon described his own vision for America, which is distinctly any but conservative, to Ronald Radosh of the Daily Beast 2 years ago:

[W]e had a long talk about his approach to politics. He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.

Shocked, I asked him what he meant.

“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.

...“National Review and the Weekly Standard,” he said, “are both left-wing magazines, and I want to destroy them also.” He added that “no one reads them or cares what they say.” His goal was to bring down the entire establishment including the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress. He went on to tell me that he was the East Coast coordinator of all the Tea Party groups. His plan was to get its candidates nominated on the Republican ticket, and then to back campaigns that they could win. Then, Bannon said, when elected they would be held accountable to fight for the agenda he and the Tea Party stood for.

If they didn’t, “we would force them out of office and oppose them when the next election for their seats came around.”

That, essentially, was the tactic employed when Eric Cantor was ousted by a far right candidate, virtually unknown college economics professor Dave Brat, in his Virginia district’s primary. It was also the path Donald Trump’s supporters took in Wisconsin, when hoping to duplicate their successful tactics in Virginia, they ran a candidate in the Wisconsin Republican primary against Speaker Paul Ryan in his own district. There are a few Republicans that Bannon does respect. One of them is Rep. Louis Gohmert, the fiery congressman from Texas, who was also at the party. Gohmert, who is part of the self-proclaimed anti-establishment wing of the Republican Party, was an ally of Cruz in the government shutdown.

Trump’s decision to take on Bannon indicates that he wants to wage his campaign along the lines laid down by him-- that of destroying the Republican leadership and the Party as we know it. Trump’s behavior thus far has been compatible with Bannon’s belief in Leninist tactics. As the Bolshevik leader once said, “The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.”

Only one question remains. Knowing this, why do leaders like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and others, who regularly condemn Trump’s statements but yet still endorse him, stick with such a self-defeating approach? They will only end up helping Bannon and company cast them into oblivion and finish their hostile take-over of the GOP.

So maybe the House Republicans will have a two-front war on their hands next year-- battling President Hillary one the one hand and the Trumpanzee Media Empire on the other. I would suggest that a plan to making sure that neither brand of conservatism becomes the dominant governing principle of this country, we should do our best to elect as many progressives as possible, not garden variety DSCC and DCCC Democrats who will never stand up for anything, but real progressives like the ones on this page that pops up when you click the thermometer:

Anyone Know How Strong Roger Ailes' Non-Compete Agreement Is?

Recently a non-profit told me they would be honoring two of their donors with a ceremony and a dinner and that one was me. What an honor! The other honoree, however, presented a conundrum. The co-honoree has been ultra-generous to the charity but he had just given $13 million in support to Ted Cruz's campaign. It was far right poker fanatic Robert Mercer. I looked him up and didn't want to be in the same room with him, let alone at the same dinner table. Fortunately, someone at the charity looked us both up, put 1+1 together and fconcluded it would be a bad match and decided to have two separate dinners.

Since then the modern day robber baron and crooked hedge fund manager has shifted his efforts from Cruz to Mr. Trumpanzee and just spent $500,000 helping John Faso against campaign finance reformer Zephyr Teachout. Steve Bannon is on his payroll and he pretty much underwrites the deranged Bretibart hate site. And now the NYC/DC axis is buzzing with rumors that the Trumpanzee campaign, which Mercer is helping to finance, is not really about winning the presidency but about starting a fascist-- they call it "alt-right" these days-- media empire combining the... talents of Mr. Trumpanzee, Roger Ailes, Mercer, and Steve Bannon. Trump's declaration of war against the media (the "crooked media" as he puts it) is part of the set up.

People have been speculating all week that Trump wants to launch a cable news channel next year or some kind of media empire. Sillier things have happened-- like a successful launch of a campaign to capture the Republican presidential nomination. Eric Levitz, writing yesterday for New York Magazine, pointed out that Bannon has been urging Trump-- who needed no urging-- to ignore the hated Republican Party establishment and "to run more fully as an outsider and an unabashed nationalist."

Pundits of all political persuasions found this strategy baffling. The Post’s Greg Sargent derided it as “entirely delusional.” And, on the surface, that sounds about right. It looks like yet another example of Trump refusing to understand that the dynamics of a GOP primary differ from those of a general election.

But, in this case, Trump’s skeptics may be giving the mogul too little credit. Because if Trump isn’t trying to win the election, his new strategy might be the most rational decision of his entire campaign.

And why should Trump be trying to win, at this point? New polls from Quinnipiac-- a firm whose results tend to lean Republican-- show Trump losing by double-digits in Colorado and Virginia. Earlier this week, a Monmouth poll showed Trump down by nine in Florida. The New York Times currently gives Trump a 13 percent chance of winning November’s election.

Let’s stipulate, for the moment, that Trump launched his presidential campaign with the sincere intention of winning the White House. Put yourself in his shoes.

You can either spend the next two-and-a-half months doing everything the political professionals say that you should: Read the boring speeches off the teleprompters. Go speak to skeptical audiences in the African-American community who will almost certainly boo you. Spend your nights in hotels in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa. Recite carefully vetted talking points in interviews. And tell yourself that all these sacrifices are worth it, because they will marginally reduce your probability of losing on November 8.

Or, you can accept the reality that there is (almost certainly) nothing you can do, at this point, to change the outcome on Election Day. Your path to 270 electoral votes was slim to begin with. Even if Clinton loses all of the states that are currently “too close to call” she will still win the presidency. And she’s winning in nearly all of those swing states, anyway. And she has better ground game in all of them.

If your candidacy is dead, then everything is permitted. Your favorite part of running for president has always been riling up crowds of people who love you-- and/or being able to share every damn thought that comes into your head on national television, anytime you please. Why not design a campaign “strategy” that allows you to do those things, without being frowned at by your advisers?

This seems like an easy choice. And when you consider the possibility that Trump never intended to be president, it becomes even easier.

On Tuesday, left-wing documentarian Michael Moore wrote that he “knows for a fact” that Trump never wanted to occupy the Oval Office. Instead, Trump launched his presidential bid as a means of increasing the value of his brand, thereby extracting more favorable terms in his negotiations with NBC over the next season of The Apprentice. But the ploy backfired-- while, paradoxically, working too well.

Trump’s decision to deride Mexicans as “rapists” and “drug dealers” in his launch speech rendered him toxic to the network-- but beloved by GOP primary voters. Soon, Trump had lost a show but gained an unprecedented level of attention and fame. This was tremendous. But also horrible, because it put him in the impossible position of desperately wanting to be the ultimate “winner,” while also desperately not wanting to actually be president.

Elements of Moore’s narrative are backed up by the confession of a former Trump campaign strategist, published by xoJane in March. The story also seems consistent with Vanity Fair’s report that the candidate has been mulling the creation of his own conservative cable-news empire, once the campaign is through. The magazine wrote that “the presumptive Republican nominee is examining the opportunity presented by the ‘audience’ currently supporting him,” and had “discussed the possibility of launching a “mini-media conglomerate.”

So, slip those Trump shoes back on, one last time. Imagine that you launched a presidential campaign to further your showbiz career. After 14 months as a candidate, you’ve realized that you can’t win in November but you can attract an audience of conservative-news consumers who are looking for an alternative to Fox News. How would you spend the last weeks of your campaign?

Sexual predator

Perhaps, you would prioritize keeping your prospective audience entertained, above all else. And to do that, you’d make someone with experience in far-right infotainment the chief executive of your campaign. Plus, you might want to seek out an adviser who really knows the cable-news business. Someone like, I don’t know, Roger Ailes?

Let’s dispel with this fiction that Donald Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

These people-- Bannon, Mercer, Ailes, particularly, even Mr. Trumpanzee-- know how to read polls and interpret focus groups and they are absolutely onto post-election planning now. I hope Team Hillary is strategizing about how to deal with them because there's more than a little bit of a chance that the destruction of the United States of America is the ultimate goal-- starting with her presidency.

Minutes ago Conor Friedersdorf published a piece in The Atlantic speculating that when the Trumpanzee loses his consolation prize may be a whole new right wing media juggernaut, "that challenges Fox News for supremacy on the right across all platforms." Even discounting Mercer, he wrote that "If today’s polls hold through election day, Trump and associates will be proved failures at electoral politics. But even if that proves so, I wouldn’t bet against a right-wing media behemoth that brought together Trump, Roger Ailes, Stephen Bannon, Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, and Sarah Palin" and reminds us that O'Reilly, Hannity and Greta Van Susteren could all legally follow Ailes if they want to.

A Trump campaign expecting to lose and then launch an effort of that sort would have every incentive to hoard campaign donations to pay back debt incurred by Trump himself; to be maximally inflammatory, polarizing the electorate while further cultivating a core of true believers; to aggressively blame Fox News, National Review, Glenn Beck, and all other potential competitors in order to alienate them from their audiences; even to sabotage the GOP down ballot, depending on just how cynical the folks running things are. After all, what could be better for business, if you’re a new media conglomerate to the right of Fox News, than a Hillary Clinton presidency supercharged by a Democratic House and Senate?

Nor would the nightmare for the right end on election day. Even after a huge Trump loss, a Trump News Network could help a destructive faction that might have faded in other circumstances to keep driving the Republican Party toward white identity politics, egregious misinformation, ideological incoherence, destructive infighting, and attacks on minority groups, with all of the attendant costs.