After All The Lies And Chaos, Is The Rust Belt Over Trump?

Does someone in the White House really think sending Trump to do more of his hate rallies in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio will reverse his Rust Belt slide? Won't his unique, divisive and super-polarizing presence further accelerate the slide? Somehow what Peter Baker at the NY Times dubbed the Four Letter Presidency isn't wearing well outside of the deepest of deep red areas. Midwest swing districts that helped him beat Hillary in 2016 seem repulsed by his filthy mouth. Unlike his predecessors, Trump seems to revel in being "the profanity presidency, full of four-letter denunciations of his enemies and earthy dismissals of allegations lodged against him. At rallies and in interviews, on Twitter and in formal speeches, he relishes the bad-boy language of a shock jock, just one more way of gleefully provoking the political establishment bothered by his norm-shattering ways. In a single speech on Friday alone, he managed to throw out a 'hell,' an 'ass' and a couple of 'bullshits' for good measure. In the course of just one rally in Panama City Beach, Fla., earlier this month, he tossed out 10 'hells,' three 'damns' and a 'crap.' The audiences did not seem to mind. They cheered and whooped and applauded." He's coarsened the national dialogue. It's what people meant about him being unfit to serve as a role model for their children.

While traditionalists may deem it unpresidential and a poor example for children, Martha Joynt Kumar, a longtime scholar of presidential communication, said gritty language was part of the show put on by Mr. Trump, the onetime reality television entertainer, for his fans.

“He knows they like him to use words that lie over the edge of the traditional boundary of presidential decorum,” she said. “His controversial word choices are an aspect of his role as the disrupter he promised his constituents he would be.”

But critics say the vulgarity comes at a cost. “No one has debased the civil discourse in this country more than President Trump, and the president really does set the tone in the country,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California. “We see it reflected in our offices by the hateful, belligerent, obscene and violent calls that we get now that we didn’t used to get.”

Mr. Schiff has experienced it personally when Mr. Trump turned his name into a profanity last fall by nicknaming him “little Adam Schitt.” Mr. Schiff said, “The last time that happened, the person who did that had their mouth washed out with soap by his mother.”

An unscientific survey seems to suggest that if anything, Mr. Trump is growing more comfortable with crudeness. He used the word “bullshit” in public just once in his first two years in office, according to the Factba.se database that tracks his speeches, but on four occasions in the last three months.

He has either coarsened the public discourse or reflected it, or perhaps both, depending on your view of him, but he is not alone. Society in recent years has embraced what used to be considered profanity. Even the New York Times, the so-called Gray Lady with all the news that’s fit to print, found it fit to print the B.S. word just 14 times in the many years before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, according to a Nexis search, but has used it 26 times since-- not all in stories covering the president.

...Never has any president pushed the boundaries of language as far as Mr. Trump. He had a foul mouth long before politics, of course, but he seemed to try, however fitfully, to clean it up for a while when he set his sights on the White House. Still, he could not resist at times. At one rally during his 2016 campaign, he quoted a supporter calling a Republican rival, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a “pussy.”

Once taking office, he tried, at least, to keep it private, but he was uninhibited when the cameras were not on. After the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was appointed, he told aides, “I’m fucked.” Speaking with lawmakers, he called African nations “shithole countries.”

Yet Mr. Trump feigned shock in January when the newly elected Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan said she and her fellow House Democrats were “going to impeach the motherfucker.” The president told reporters that “she dishonored herself” by “using language like that in front of her son and whoever else was there.”

...Any restraint Mr. Trump may have sought to exhibit early in his term seems to have eroded in recent months. In a January interview with The Times, he boasted that he had “beat the shit out of” Republican rivals in 2016. A month later, he told the Conservative Political Action Conference that his enemies were trying to take him out “with bullshit,” a word he then took up with vigor.

A few weeks later, he told a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., that Democrats were peddling it. In April, he used it to describe some statements in the special counsel report.

By the time the president took the stage before the National Association of Realtors in Washington on Friday, he was in a feisty mood.

He recalled that a consultant tried to make work for himself by identifying environmental concerns on a property Mr. Trump wanted to develop. “I fired his ass so fast,” the president recalled.

Active Shooter by Nancy Ohanian

He told the Realtors that he used to refuse to pay brokers their traditional 6 percent commission and instead gave them just 1 percent. “I was famous for that,” he said. When they booed, he quickly retreated. “Don’t worry. Nobody accepted it. But I tried like hell.”

Then he went after one of his favorite targets-- journalists-- claiming that recent reports of infighting within his national security team were made up. “There is no source,” he said. “The person doesn’t exist. The person’s not alive. It’s bullshit, O.K.? It’s bullshit.”

And with that, the television networks had to hit their bleeper again.

Back to shoring up his collapsing approval numbers in the Rust Belt, Trump was in tiny Montoursville Pennsylvania yesterday (Lycoming County)-- fresh off the campaign trail with his shit-show in Wisconsin and Michigan this month. I suppose this makes his crude, course racist base happy. But that's not going to win him a reelection. The most recent Pennsylvania polling from Quinnipiac (May 15) shows any of the Democrats likely to win the nomination, beating Trump:

• Biden beats Trump- 53-42%
• Bernie beats Trump- 50-43%
• Elizabeth Warren beats Trump 47-44%
• McKensey Pete beats Trump 45-44%
• Kamala Harris ties Trump 45-45%

An Emerson poll of Iowa voters in late March showed Biden and Bernie each beating Trump. And the Emerson poll of Wisconsin voters in late March show the Dems all beating him as well:

• Biden beats Trump- 54-46%
• Bernie beats Trump- 52-48%
• Elizabeth Warren beats Trump 52-48%
• Beto beats Trump 51-49%
• Kamala Harris ties Trump 50-50%
• Amy Klobuchar ties Trump 50-50%

And results for Michigan were similar. Emerson (March 11):

• Biden beats Trump- 54-46%
• Amy Klobuchar beats Trump 53-47%
• Bernie beats Trump- 52-47%
• Elizabeth Warren beats Trump 51-49%
• Kamala Harris beats Trump 51-49%

Trump's rallies in these states are more likely to hurt his polling numbers than help them. Last night in a airplane hanger in the middle of nowhere, he did nothing but lie and brag, berate Biden, accuse unnamed people of treason and criticize Fox for not doing what he wants them to. But rallies aren't the only way the White House is trying to turn the beat around. Alex Isenstadt reported that "Behind the scenes, they've rushed to the aid of languishing state Republican Party machines and have raised concerns that a potential GOP Senate candidate in Michigan could hurt the president’s prospects there. They are also scrutinizing the map for opportunities to fire up his base in the trio of states... The Trump campaign recently completed a 17-state polling project that concluded the president trails Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, according to two people briefed on the results... People close to the president insist they’re not panicked. They think Biden’s numbers will drop once the honeymoon stage of his campaign wears off."

Yet there’s nagging concern after a midterm election in which Republicans across the Midwest got clobbered-- and as Trump’s trade war is threatening farmers and factory workers who helped put him in office.

The president won each state by less than 1 percentage point in 2016.

...Former Trump White House chief of staff and ex-state GOP chairman Reince Priebus was among those who pushed for a post-midterm study to assess what went wrong for the GOP. It resulted in a scalding, 15-page autopsy concluding that the Wisconsin Republican Party had “drifted from its roots as a grassroots organization and became a top-down bureaucracy, disconnected from local activists, recklessly reliant on outside consultants and took for granted money that was raised to keep the party functioning properly.”

To fix the financial woes, the report said, “we need to understand the missteps fully and put a flag in the ground to say ‘this ends now.’”

Released last week, the autopsy followed a brutal midterm election that saw Republicans lose the governorship, traditionally a key organizational and financial asset in presidential elections. The report detailed a series of steps the state party needs to take ahead of 2020.

Priebus, who still speaks with the president, is expected to brief major contributors on the report next month in Milwaukee. Efforts are already underway to pay off the party’s post-midterm debt: Republican mega-donor Diane Hendricks, a Trump 2016 fundraising committee vice chair, recently gave the state party $500,000, two people familiar with the donation confirmed.

“At its core, we did the autopsy because 2018 didn’t go the way we wanted it to go,” said Wisconsin GOP Chairman Andrew Hitt, an attorney for Trump’s 2016 campaign. “It really became clear that some things just fundamentally didn’t go right and so we wanted take a deep dive and look at them and correct them.”

It Didn’t Have to Be This Way

Was the 2016 Democratic Primary the pivot on which the next half-century turned?

by Gaius Publius

I won't do this too often, but I will do it from time to time, because the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party continues to this day. I want to remind us all of what might have been, and why it's not. I believe if we forget the past, we risk losing the future.

Let's start here, with Touré:

As a longtime Hillary supporter I want to apologize to Bernie folks. I was wrong. I now think his economic populist message could’ve won.

— Touré (@Toure) November 9, 2016

And move to this:

This Would Have Been The Electoral Map If Bernie Sanders Had Run Against Trump

That Sanders–Trump map? It's quite a surprise:

Projected Electoral College vote counts in a Sanders–Trump race

Note at the top the Electoral College count — 303 Sanders, 235 Trump. For comparison, here's what actually happened:

Actual Electoral College vote counts (source)

The Electoral College vote, if all state votes stand, is Trump 306, Clinton 232.

States of interest are these (west to east):

• Iowa
• Wisconsin
• Michigan
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania

Note first that these are all northern states, and either three or four (depending on how you count Wisconsin) are Rust Belt states. From the article linked above, the methodology is as follows:

[H]ow did this happen? And, perhaps even more intriguingly, what might have happened if Trump had faced Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton? ...

A closer look at the primary voting of white males — Trump’s strongest demographic base — in these states reveals that, had Sanders run, Trump likely would have lost.

In Michigan, for example, primary exit poll data shows that 56 percent of white males voted for Sanders. If we then consider how many white males vote in Michigan, we can extrapolate the data to conclude that Sanders would have won the overall vote in Michigan with about 48 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 46.9 (as opposed to the 47.9 that Trump actually gained versus the 46.9 for Clinton).

I think the Michigan vote would have been much less close in a Sanders–Trump race than stated above. Sanders beat Clinton in Michigan by nearly 1.5%, and all of Clinton's vote in Michigan, a state hit hard by job loss, would have gone to Sanders — a Democratic Party change candidate in a change election in a Democratic state.

Note also that this methodology considers swings toward Sanders among white male voters only. It's easy to imagine swings toward Sanders of other demographic groups as well, such as those millennials and independents who this time chose not to vote. For example, here are the millennial turnout figures for the last two "change" elections, 2016 and 2008:

• Millennial turnout, 2008 — 51%
• Millennial turnout, 2016 — 19%

It goes without saying what a staggering drop-off this is. Millennials alone, had they voted in 2008 numbers, could have swung this election. That addresses millennial turnout, but there could (or should) have been greater turnout in general:

Hillary’s 59,814,018 votes (which won her the popular vote, but not the Electoral College vote) is considerably less than the 69,498,516 Obama got in 2008, and the 65,915,795 he received in 2012. She was particularly hurt by low turnout in crucial swing states.

Comparing the two "change elections" only, note those numbers. Clinton-2016 underperformed Obama-2008 by almost 9 million votes. It's easy to imagine the size of the Sanders crowds translating into increased turnout among all age groups.

White Male Vote in Other Rust Belt States

Using just the projected white male vote for Sanders and keeping all other voting patterns the same, the writer notes the following about other Rust Belt states.

For example, Wisconsin:

Primary voting for Sanders among white males: 60 percent

Sanders’ hypothetical statewide performance against Trump: 49.7 percent Sanders, 47 percent Trump

And Pennsylvania:

Primary voting for Sanders among white males: 50 percent

Sanders’ hypothetical statewide performance against Trump: 50.5 percent Sanders, 46.2 percent Trump

Similar results are predicted for other states in our list. Again, this is just the adjusted white male vote. I don't imagine that Sanders would have lost any of the Clinton female vote, nor any of the black or Hispanic vote, and millennials would very likely have turned out for him in droves, making the margins projected in the article even wider.

Look again at that top map. Even without Ohio, Sanders wins.

"But, Republicans!"

That's the alternative universe in which Democrats went with their strongest candidate. In the real world we have President-Elect Trump. But it didn't have to be this way. Remember that through the next two painful years. Think of that also during the 2018 mid-term election, when we can finally make a change — to both parties.

And think about that also every time a Democratic Establishment office-holder betrays again the attempt to free the soul of the Democratic Party from the grip of corruption and money. The Democrats are now completely in the minority. They have no further to fall, except to extinction. There's nothing left to protect them from when the bought ones sing the old old blackmail songs — "Who else you going to vote for?" and "But, the Republicans are coming!"

Too late. The Republicans are here.

GP
 

LOW KEY BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF PENNSYLVANIA

I used to live in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, just north of PA-15. But I didn't live there long enough to be able to give you any in depth or worthwhile first hand accounts of the area. Noah, on the other hand, has spent a great deal of time in the district and has very strong and vivid opinions that he suggests as an addendum to the story that ran yesterday. I'd like to add that this is Noah's opinion; I have none. I was struck by how this vision of the area is the polar opposite of the way Democratic candidate Sam Bennett views it. Her whole life in Allentown has been devoted to helping like-minded residents upgrade and beautify the city. Her nonprofit company, Properties of Merit is based on the premise that "well tended neighborhoods are safer neighborhoods" and she has been working to help upgrade Allentown's beautiful and charming neighborhoods with the goal of helping shore up people's dignity, self-respect, pride and hopes for the future.

ONE MAN'S IMPRESSIONS

by Noah

I have spent a lot of time in the Allentown/Bethlehem area. Among other things, it's a land of bargain stores and really obese people who have lost all self-esteem. I've been to an IHOP in Allentown and watched 400 pounders (NO exaggeration) who haven't washed their hair in weeks
waddle in and order a big stack of pancakes. It's so depressing.

The IHOP is in the same mall as two different dollar stores, not that  I don't use them. I get things like batteries and envelopes there. I've been in Bethlehem on Saturday mornings and seen that the local Goodwill is, sadly, the busiest store in town, with people either buying or selling the furniture they haven't chopped up for firewood to heat their homes. All of those good union steelworker and rail jobs that built the middle class and provided money for education of youth and a healthy future for the area are long gone and it doesn't look like new job opportunities have arisen. I hope that is changing but it doesn't look like it. Yet, Bethlehem is the home of Lehigh University, an excellent college, especially for engineering students. The school probably keeps the town going. For those who can afford them, there are a few decent restaurants in the area, just a few. There's also quite an impressive Lehigh Medical/Hospital complex in the area which must be kept very busy, at least by those who can afford the costs of health care. As for those who can't, I suppose the Repugs would say they can just eat cake. Sharpen up the guillotine, I say!

Emmaus is strange. It appears to be a town that at least tries. There are some nice, modest looking homes and mom and pop type stores of various kinds, well kept up, but, get off the main drag and you'll see poverty. The most interesting thing is the local road between Allentown and Emmaus. It's
lined with new car dealerships, including BMW and Lexus and the like. I don't know who's buying the cars, but I don't think it's many people in the towns I have mentioned. I've eaten at the Emmaus Diner a few times. Saw a 350 pound guy at the next table buttering a bagel before he put on CREAM CHEESE AND JAM. [And your point?] At the same time, I saw a guy in the parking lot who was so fat, he literally could barely walk. I felt so bad. The check out counter sells home-baked goods, in case you didn't get enough! Oh well, it's obvious that the home baked goods make a little money for the people who make them. It augments whatever income they have.

If you go to Easton, you will see that about every fourth or fifth building is empty and has an old "For Rent" sign in the window. There is one reason to go to Easton though. It's the PEZ Museum!

What I have seen of the district is that it has been sucked dry, as has Reading, a little further west, but that was a mafia town. In spite of what I have just described, western PA is much worse. I have made the cross state drive many times. Virtually whole villages just abandoned. Crumbling buildings with only the local church being kept up. The local church is often a PALACE. Johnstown, for example, is a land of rusted out, empty factories and women with broken front teeth. There's a lot of
sadness, frustration, unhappiness, violence, drinking and crack in these places, yet, there are good people there. They try. Still, the best economic week they have each year is, no doubt, in June when a national biker "convention" comes to town. Johnstown and the surrounding area, by the way, is in Rep. Murtha's district. There are two big reasons for the poverty in the Johnstown area, factory closings/jobs shipped overseas and floods.

Between Johnstown and Pittsburgh (which has made somewhat of a comeback; nice place), you will find towns like McKeesport. That place looks like it was nuked, a town of vacant, bulldozed  lots, truly the extreme, sad rust belt. The busiest place of business in so many of these PA towns is the local bar, which may even be physically falling apart. You see lots of cars in the parking lots, before noon! Lots of human misery and despair. Young people get out as soon as they can, leaving just their elders who are now dying off. Yet, so many victims in these towns vote for candidates and a party that does nothing but harm to their interests and the interests of their children. People like Repug Rep. Dent do things like set up immigrants, legal or otherwise, as targets for their frustrations. They voted for Reagan and his deregulation. Then they voted for Daddy Bush and more of the same.
Then they split their votes for either Dole and more deregulation or Clinton and his NAFTA. Then they voted for Dubya and his tax cuts for the wealthy and his culture of death. Like I said, no self-esteem.
It's been beaten out of them. It's the worst of times without the best of times.