Thursday Reads: “We’ll Be Lucky To Live Through It.” — Daniel Drezner
Posted: August 11, 2016 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton 66 Comments
Good Morning!!
I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for hours now without writing anything. I’m so overwhelmed by the insanity Donald Trump has been spewing since the end of the conventions, that I’m really at a loss. I honestly feel as if I’m in shock.
This morning, the media is struggling to explain away Trump’s latest–his claim in a speech last night that President Obama “founded ISIS” and “Crooked Hillary Clinton” was the co-founder.
“Isis is honoring President Obama,” Trump said of Islamic State. “He is the founder of Isis. He founded Isis. And, I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.”
Trump’s declaration echoed an attack he made against Clinton last week, also in Florida, in which he said the former secretary of state “should get an award from them as the founder of Isis”.
Republicans have long sought to blame the turmoil in the Middle East on the Obama administration’s foreign policy, often criticizing the president for underestimating the threat posed by Isis. But Trump has routinely gone a step further by stating directly that Obama is sympathetic to terrorists.
The former reality TV star employed the same tactic on Wednesday, referring to the president by his full name – Barack Hussein Obama – and repeating it several times for emphasis of his claim that Obama had founded Isis.
The origins of Isis trace back to the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The group has been deemed an offshoot of al-Qaida, which carried out the attacks on 9/11. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant terrorist viewed as the founder of Isis, was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad in 2006.
I’m afraid to think what ghastly thing Trump might say today, but I’m sure there will be something. Just imagine how Vladimir Putin feels!
The first link I opened this morning was from Time Magazine: Inside Donald Trump’s Meltdown. Next I opened Twitter and found that the article had been trending for a couple of hours. It’s an extended list of Trump’s outrageous remarks along with hand-wringing by desperate Republicans who just want him to stop saying stupid things. But Trump obviously can’t help it. The piece is a must-read. Here are just a couple of samples:
When Donald Trump mucks things up, the first person to let him know is usually Republican Party boss Reince Priebus. Almost every day, Trump picks up his cell phone to find Priebus on the line, urging him to quash some feud or clarify an incendiary remark.
The Wisconsin lawyer has been a dutiful sherpa to the Manhattan developer, guiding him through the dizzying altitude of the presidential race and lobbying the GOP to unite behind a figure who threatens its future.
But every bond has its breaking point. For this partnership, the moment nearly arrived in early August. Priebus was on vacation when he learned that Trump had declined to endorse Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House and a close friend. The chairman had a frank message for the nominee, according to two Republican officials briefed on the call. Priebus told Trump that internal GOP polling suggested he was on track to lose the election. And if Trump didn’t turn around his campaign over the coming weeks, the Republican National Committee would consider redirecting party resources and machinery to House and Senate races.
Trump denies the exchange ever took place. “Reince Priebus is a terrific guy,” Trump told TIME. “He never said that.” Priebus could not be reached for comment. But whatever the exact words spoken on the phone, there is no doubt that the possibility Republicans will all but abandon Trump now haunts his struggling campaign.
Of course. Trump also denies the Secret Service spoke to his campaign about his implied threat against Hillary.
Republicans groan that the difficult task of keeping their Senate majority gets tougher with each outré remark. Which is why the RNC is considering shifting some cash and staff away from the presidential race and toward down-ballot contests. That plan is already in motion among powerful outside groups that typically spend hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of the party nominee. “There’s going to have to be some resource reallocation,” says a senior Republican official familiar with internal party deliberations. A second senior party official routinely instructs Senate campaign managers to distance their candidates from Trump. “Don’t worry about the appearances,” the official said on a recent conference call. “Worry about winning.”
That explains why Republicans running for office this year don’t meet Trump’s plane at airports or introduce him at rallies. In some places, the avoidance strategy seems to be working. Senator Pat Toomey is in a statistical tie in his re-election bid in Pennsylvania, a state where Trump trails by about 10 points. In the key swing state of Florida, Senator Marco Rubio is running ahead in his re-election bid even as Trump narrowly trails Clinton. But in New Hampshire, Trump’s troubles may be dragging down Ayotte, who plummeted from a virtual tie to 10 points down in a recent poll.
On calls with Senate campaign donors, Trump often comes up, as moneymen probe for details on coordination with the top of the ticket. “What Trump campaign?” one swing-state Senate campaign manager snapped at a volunteer recently. “We have more offices than they do.” ….
Like the rest of the party, Trump’s staff has been flummoxed by his political naiveté. They describe a candidate who doesn’t understand the basics of modern campaigns, from why you knock on doors to how to read a poll to why he should be dialing for dollars more aggressively. His headquarters has enough palace intrigue and warring fiefs to rival the fictional badlands of Westeros. “You’re always afraid of getting fired,” says one staffer, “but it’s his fault, not ours.”
These staff members are still cashing checks but have begun to lose faith that their boss can or should win the top prize in American politics. Most highly regarded Republican operatives have stayed away from the campaign, wary of being blackballed for future gigs. “If someone applied for a job and brought in a résumé that had Trump 2016 on it,” says a GOP fundraising consultant, “I wouldn’t give them an interview.”
There’s much much more at the Time link, so be sure to check it out.
Secret Service guarding Trump’s mouth
So what’s Trump up to this morning? He’s doubling down on his “found of ISIS” and “second amendment people” remarks. Politico reports: Trump ramps up attack on Obama as founder of Islamic State.
Donald Trump on Thursday escalated his attack on President Barack Obama, doubling down on his accusation that he’s a founder of the Islamic State and claiming that both Obama and Hillary Clinton remain the terrorist group’s most valuable players….
After first leveling the terror-related accusation against Obama and Clinton at a Wednesday night rally, Trump made the claim three more times on Thursday — all before noon.
“Our government isn’t giving us good protection. Our government has unleashed ISIS,” he said as he addressed the National Association of Home Builders in Miami. “I call President Obama and Hillary Clinton the founders of ISIS. They’re the founders. In fact, I think we’ll give Hillary Clinton the — you know, if you’re on a sports team, most valuable player, MVP, you get the MVP award — ISIS will hand her the most valuable player award. Her only competition is Barack Obama.”
His remarks echoed his sentiments earlier Thursday during a phone interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” during which he also named Obama the MVP of ISIS.
“He gets the most valuable player award. Him and Hillary, she gets it too. I gave her co-founder if you really looked at this speech,” Trump said. “But he and Hillary get the most valuable player award having to do with Iraq, and having to do with the ISIS situation, or as he would call it, ISIL. He calls it ISIL because nobody else does and he probably wants to bother people by using another term, whether it’s more accurate or not.”
And Trump sees no problem with calling the President of the United States a terrorist.
The Manhattan billionaire bristled at the notion that referring to the president and his former secretary of state as the co-founders of a terrorist group intent on killing Americans was somehow inappropriate. He said that he has been successful thus far as a political outsider throughout the election cycle by speaking his mind, and if that ends up costing him the general election, so be it.
“Is there something wrong with saying that? Are people complaining that I said he was the founder of ISIS?” Trump said. “Look, all I do is tell the truth. I’m a truth teller. All I do is tell the truth.”
Unbelievably, there is even more at the link.
Here’s Daniel Drezner at The Washington Post in response to Trump’s implication that Hillary should be assassinated: The 2016 campaign is getting out of control. We’ll be lucky to live through it.
The Trump campaign is trying to spin this every which way they can. Claims that his remark about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was just a “joke” don’t really hold water in the sense that jokes still mean something, particularly in presidential campaigns. Furthermore, the statement was serious enough for the Secret Service to have a conversation with the campaign about this kind of rhetoric. The fact that Trump won’t apologize for a joke gone bad is indicative of the many other dangerous statements that he never walks back.
And there are consequences for this kind of violent rhetoric. Read some examples at the link.
This is the kind of thing that Trump supporters think is funny. From the Buffalo News last month: Festival apologizes for ‘Hillary Clinton in a coffin’ car show entry.
It seems there’s no escaping the politics of bad taste when a presidential campaign is in full swing. Just ask Leslee Chilcott.
The Village of Hamburg resident has attended BurgerFest for 20 years. But this year, she cut her visit short after visiting the car show with her four children. Hitched to a 1920s Model-T Ford was an open coffin on a trailer hitch with a full-sized doll inside representing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. An image of Donald Trump’s face, attached to the rear car window, making it appear as if Trump is looking down on Clinton’s smiling-but-dead mannequin body. The coffin also featured beer taps on the side.
“That was enough for me,” said Chilcott, who abruptly took her disappointed children home early Saturday afternoon.
When her 6-year-old son asked her why there was a coffin with a dead woman in it named Hillary, Chilcott said, “I had to explain to him that some people are mean. For me, it wasn’t a political stance for this person to have the dummy. It was a living person.”
What’s next? I shudder to think. Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in the comment thread. I’ll add a few more stories there too.
Tuesday Reads: Donald Trump, Loser
Posted: August 9, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, polls 68 Comments
Woman in blue reading a letter, Johannes Vermeer
Good Morning!!
Donald Trump is fast becoming that thing he fears most: a loser. At this point it’s difficult to imagine a scenario by which he recovers. Of course that doesn’t mean Democrats should be complacent; and I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that Hillary will let up one bit. Still, it’s fun to watch Trump’s personal nightmare coming true. Losing publicly–and to a woman! Sad.
Last night The Washington Post published an op-ed by Maine Sen. Susan Collins explaining “Why I cannot support Trump.” Here’s the gist:
With the passage of time, I have become increasingly dismayed by his constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or apologize. But it was his attacks directed at people who could not respond on an equal footing — either because they do not share his power or stature or because professional responsibility precluded them from engaging at such a level — that revealed Mr. Trump as unworthy of being our president.
My conclusion about Mr. Trump’s unsuitability for office is based on his disregard for the precept of treating others with respect, an idea that should transcend politics. Instead, he opts to mock the vulnerable and inflame prejudices by attacking ethnic and religious minorities. Three incidents in particular have led me to the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Trump lacks the temperament, self-discipline and judgment required to be president.
The first was his mocking of a reporter with disabilities, a shocking display that did not receive the scrutiny it deserved. I kept expecting Mr. Trump to apologize, at least privately, but he did not, instead denying that he had done what seemed undeniable to anyone who watched the video. At the time, I hoped that this was a terrible lapse, not a pattern of abuse.
The second was Mr. Trump’s repeated insistence that Gonzalo Curiel, a federal judge born and raised in Indiana, could not rule fairly in a case involving Trump University because of his Mexican heritage. For Mr. Trump to insist that Judge Curiel would be biased because of his ethnicity demonstrated a profound lack of respect not only for the judge but also for our constitutional separation of powers, the very foundation of our form of government. Again, I waited in vain for Mr. Trump to retract his words.
Third was Donald Trump’s criticism of the grieving parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq. It is inconceivable that anyone, much less a presidential candidate, would attack two Gold Star parents. Rather than honoring their sacrifice and recognizing their pain, Mr. Trump disparaged the religion of the family of an American hero. And once again, he proved incapable of apologizing, of saying he was wrong.
I am also deeply concerned that Mr. Trump’s lack of self-restraint and his barrage of ill-informed comments would make an already perilous world even more so. It is reckless for a presidential candidate to publicly raise doubts about honoring treaty commitments with our allies. Mr. Trump’s tendency to lash out when challenged further escalates the possibility of disputes spinning dangerously out of control.
I had hoped that we would see a “new” Donald Trump as a general-election candidate — one who would focus on jobs and the economy, tone down his rhetoric, develop more thoughtful policies and, yes, apologize for ill-tempered rants. But the unpleasant reality that I have had to accept is that there will be no “new” Donald Trump, just the same candidate who will slash and burn and trample anything and anyone he perceives as being in his way or an easy scapegoat. Regrettably, his essential character appears to be fixed, and he seems incapable of change or growth.
by Gerrit Alberus Beneker
Also at the WaPo, Stuart Rothenberg writes: Donald Trump needs a miracle to win.
Three months from now, with the 2016 presidential election in the rear-view mirror, we will look back and agree that the presidential election was over on Aug. 9th.
Of course, it is politically incorrect to say that the die is cast.
Journalistic neutrality allegedly forces us to say that the race isn’t over until November, and most media organizations prefer to hype the presidential contest to generate viewers and readers rather than explain why a photo finish is unlikely.
But a dispassionate examination of the data, combined with a cold-blooded look at the candidates, the campaigns and presidential elections, produces only one possible conclusion: Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald Trump in November, and the margin isn’t likely to be as close as Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney.
Rothenberg on the polls:
Pre-convention polls showed the race competitive but with Clinton ahead by at least a few points in most cases. Post-convention polls show Clinton leading the race much more comfortably. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll puts Clinton’s margin at 9 points, while Fox News shows it at 10 and the Washington Post/ABC News survey finds the margin at 8 points.
These numbers could close a few points or jump around depending on the individual survey, but the race is already well-defined.
In four-way ballots, Clinton maintains her solid lead over Trump, while Libertarian Gary Johnson draws in the high single-digits or low double-digits. Green Party nominee Jill Stein generally draws in the low to middle single-digits. Relatively few voters are undecided. (See RealClearPolitics’ poll numbers here.)
State polls confirm the national surveys, with some normally Republican-leaning states up for grabs or leaning toward Clinton.
There’s much more at the link, and it’s all good for Clinton and very bad for Trump.
Girl reading, George Cochran Lambdin
Trump supporters are already doing what Romney supporters didn’t do until close to the election–claiming the polls are “skewed” against their candidate. Ed Kilgore at NY Magazine:
You may recall that, late in the campaign season in 2012, as polls began to show the presidential election slipping away from Mitt Romney, his supporters went into denial. First there was a noisy effort to claim the polls were “skewed” in Obama’s favor (most famously by Dean Chambers, who offered “unskewed polls” showing the Mittster cruising to victory). Then, at the very end, Republicans indulged in public-opinion mysticism, ignoring adverse polls and focusing on crowd sizes, yard-sign visibility, vague “mood of the country” assessments, and their own deeply perceptive guts.
It was easy to make fun of all this wishful thinking, but it was understandable given the timing. That Donald Trump’s supporters are already manifesting the same fingers-in-the-ears la-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you self-deception three months before Election Day is harder to accept.
But it’s happening. Trump himself has a habit of criticizing individual polls he doesn’t like. Some of his fans are getting more systematic about it. Radio-talk-show host Bill Mitchell offered this Zen-like observation on Twitter: “Imagine polls don’t exist. Show me evidence Hillary is winning?”
How can Trump be getting those huge crowds if he’s losing, huh? All Hillary is doing is going around the country talking to voters about issues. She can’t possibly be beating Donald Trump. But she is.
Harry Enten at FiveThirty Eight: The Polls Aren’t Skewed: Trump Really Is Losing Badly.
…the unskewers are back, again insisting that pollsters are “using” more Democrats than they should, and that the percentage of Democrats and Republicans should be equal, or that there should be more Republicans. They point to surveys like the recent one from ABC News and The Washington Post, in which 33 percent of registered voters identified as Democrats compared to 27 percent as Republicans. That poll found Hillary Clinton ahead by 8 percentage points.
But let’s say this plainly: The polls are not “skewed.” They weren’t in 2012, and they aren’t now.
The basic premise of the unskewers is wrong. Most pollsters don’t weight their results by party self-identification, which polls get by asking a question like “generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a….” Party identification is an attitude, not a demographic. There isn’t some national number from the government that tells us how many Democrats and Republicans there are in the country. Some states collect party registration data, but many states do not. Moreover, party registration is not the same thing as party identification. In a state like Kentucky, for example, there are a lot more registered Democrats than registered Republicans, but more voters identified as Republican in the 2014 election exit polls.
A person’s party identification can shift, and therefore the overall balance between parties does too. Democrats have typically had an advantage in self-identification — a 4 percentage point edge in 2000, a 7-point advantage in 2008 and a 6-point edge in 2012, according to exit polls — but they had no advantage in the 2004 election. Since 1952, however, almost every presidential election has featured a Democratic advantage in party identification.
Woman reading with mother-in-law’s tongue
Enten explains much more at the link, but here’s the point:
People…should stick to reality. Right now, Clinton is leading in almost every single national poll. She leads in both our polls-plus and polls-only forecasts. That doesn’t mean she will win. The polls have been off before, but no one knows by how much beforehand, or in which direction they’ll miss. For all their imperfection, the polls are a far better indicator than the conspiracy theories made up to convince people that Trump is ahead.
Hillary Clinton is going to be our next President–the first woman ever to hold the highest office in the land. It’s happening Sky Dancers. All we have to do is get through the next three months of media misogyny. We will overcome!
More stories to check out:
NYT: Donors for Bush, Kasich and Christie Are Turning to Clinton More Than to Trump.
NYT: 50 GOP Officials Warn Donald Trump Would Put Nation’s Security “At Risk.”
Public Policy Polling: Clinton leads in NC for first time since March.
Georgia Poll: Clinton Leads Trump by 7 Points.
WAVY (Virginia Beach): Congressman Scott Rigell resigns from local Republican party “following refusal to endorse Donald Trump.”
Brian Beutler at TNR: Donald Trump is now running Mitt Romney’s campaign plus racism.
San Jose Inside: Poll: Hillary Clinton Dominates Donald Trump in Silicon Valley.
WPTV West Palm Beach: Orlando shooter’s father attends Hillary Clinton rally in Kissimmee.
SevenDaysVt: Bernie Sanders Buys a Summer Home in North Hero
WaPo: Ivanka Trump champions working moms — except the ones who design her clothes.
NY Magazine: Report: ‘Multiple Women’ Taped Conversations With Roger Ailes.
NY Magazine: Fox News Host Andrea Tantaros Says She Was Taken Off the Air After Making Sexual-Harassment Claims Against Roger Ailes.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a terrific Tuesday!
Monday Reads
Posted: August 8, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Latest Polls 21 CommentsGood Afternoon!
I’m slogging through so much paperwork at the moment that I don’t think I will come up for air. Let me just say that in my current state of affairs I am very fond of Dodd Frank. It seems, however, that the Donald wants a moratorium on financial regulation. I wonder how well that will go over with any one who supports him that’s not a member of StormFront and in it for the Hate-a-thon.
Donald Trump will propose a temporary moratorium on new financial regulations in an economic speech Monday in Detroit in an effort to draw a stark contrast with the domestic policies of Hillary Clinton, who he says “punishes” the American economy.
The Republican presidential nominee’s speech will focus on providing regulatory relief for small businesses, according to senior campaign aides familiar with its contents. More broadly, Trump will say he will not propose any new financial regulations until the economy shows “significant growth,” the aides said. Trump has previously said he would repeal and replace the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
Trump will also propose a repeal of the estate tax, sometimes called the “death tax.” Under current law, the 40 percent tax applies only to estates larger than $5.45 million for individuals and $10.9 million for couples.
For U.S. businesses, Trump will propose a tax rate of 15 percent and suggest strengthening intellectual-property protections. He’s expected to call for three income-tax brackets, down from the current seven. He’ll call for the elimination of special tax treatment for carried-interest income at private-equity firms and other investment firms—the latter of which is a proposal his Democratic rival also supports.
Carried interest, which is a portion of investment gains paid to certain investment managers, is currently taxed like capital gains—at rates that can be as low as 23.8 percent. Trump proposes to tax them as ordinary income, but for members of partnerships, that could actually mean a rate cut to 15 percent.
This is definitely not a left or right wing populist position and is probably geared to getting to small business owners and other business interests. Donald Trump’s support continues to weaken and continues to concentrate itself in a few demographics; mostly white. Polls show that the Trump convention was a disaster. This is some analysis from Philip Bump on a new Post-ABC poll.
The Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday includes data that gives a bit more insight into just how Trump managed to make his position worse.
Before the conventions, the plurality of support each candidate received was thanks to people who wanted to vote against the alternative. In other words, most people who said they were backing Hillary Clinton were backing her because they wanted to see Trump lose, and vice versa.
After the conventions, though, that changed: A slight plurality of Clinton supporters now back her because they want her to be the president. Trump’s position improved slightly — but the percentage of support he gets from people who are doing so out of enthusiasm for his candidacy is still lower than the percent who said that about Clinton before the conventions began. Before the conventions, 57 percent of those who backed Trump did so because they opposed Clinton; after the conventions, that figure was 56 percent.
A new Monmouth University poll continues to show that Clinton retains and even widens her post convention bump. This can only be due to the disastrous few weeks the Donald has had attacking Gold Star Parents and mom of a baby. What a schmuck!!!
Hillary Clinton has taken a double digit lead over Donald Trump according to the latest Monmouth University Poll . This compares to the slim two point lead she held among likely voters just before the two major parties held their conventions. Both candidates remain unpopular, but the Democrat has a growing advantage on being seen as more temperamentally suited for the presidency. Still, Clinton’s email use remains a problem for her, while voters are divided on the impact of Trump’s attitude toward Russia. The poll also found that voters are less optimistic and enthusiastic about the 2016 election than they were one year ago.
Currently, 46% of registered voters support Clinton and 34% back Trump, with 7% supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson, and 2% backing Jill Stein of the Green Party. Support among likely voters stands at 50% Clinton, 37% Trump, 7% Johnson, and 2% Stein. In a poll taken days before the Republican convention in mid-July, Clinton held a narrow 43% to 40% lead among registered voters and a 45% to 43% lead among likely voters.
Clinton has solidified support among her partisan base since the conventions while Trump struggles to lock in his. More than 9-in-10 Democrats (92%) say they will vote for Clinton, up from 88% in July and 85% in June. Just 79% of Republicans are backing Trump, which is virtually unchanged from prior polls (81% in July and 79% in June).
Independents are divided between Trump (32%) and Clinton (30%). In the Monmouth poll taken before the two parties’ conventions Trump held a 40% to 31% lead among this group. Johnson the Libertarian has picked up independent voter support in the past month, now at 16% (up from 9%) with this group, while the Green Party’s Stein has remained stable at 4% (compared to 3% last month).
Importantly, Clinton continues to maintain a lead in the swing states – ten states that were decided by less than seven points in the 2012 election. She holds a 42% to 34% edge over Trump in these states, which is similar to her 46% to 39% swing state lead last month.
“The dust is starting to settle on the tag-team conventions, with the net advantage going to Clinton,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
These polls should give a big raspberry to the press that are trying to tear her down. But they don’t give a bit of pause as BB indicated on 
Saturday. I’m getting weary too of the constant harping on her lack of personal characteristics that appear more often in right wing rags than in polls outside die hard Republicans.
Here’s a really interesting read on the differences in the Clinton message of hope and the Trump message of fear. Is this tagline really the source of it all? “Behind the 2016 race’s weirdness is a skyrocketing violent death rate among older white Americans, even as everyone else gets safer.”
In 2015 – in stark contrast to 1990 – teen gun-related deaths totaled 57, while teen murder arrests numbered 65. Overall in California, the crime rate among teenagers has dropped by 80 percent since 1980 – at the same time immigration has fueled a growing, more racially diverse young population, now 72 percent of color. The school dropout rate has also nosedived, as have births by teen and young-adult mothers. College enrollment and graduation rates have soared. These trends, moreover, are not unique to California. They’re happening nationally.
The flip side of young Americans’ astonishing behavioral turnaround is an equivalently dramatic decline among older Whites. In California, for example, the number of arrests among people over 40 in 2015 was nearly double the number of arrests among Black and Hispanic teens. Nationally, in a shocking reversal of past patterns, a middle-aged White is at greater risk today of violent death (by suicide, accident, or murder, and especially from guns or illicit drugs) than an African American teenager or young adult.
These stunning reversals of fortune among the generations could help explain one of the central mysteries of this year’s election cycle: why two such starkly divergent views of America – Republican Donald Trump’s grim vision of an apocalyptically degenerated America and Democrat Hillary Clinton’s sunny affirmation of a diversifying country’s bright future – are finding equal resonance. The short answer is that both portraits reflect equally valid truths about Americans’ experience today – depending on who and how old you are. While Democrats’ younger, more diverse constituencies are experiencing dramatic improvements in their personal security and behavioral well-being, Trump’s older White demographic is suffering rising drug abuse, crime, incarceration, suicide, gun fatality, and disarray.
These divergent realities, however, have also led to an extraordinary level of mutual incomprehension, as even sophisticated insiders in both parties and in the media seem largely ignorant of the underlying statistical facts. Hence, progressives dismiss the rage of Trump’s supporters as artifacts of mere racial prejudice and bigotry, without seeing that the anger is rooted in the very real personal insecurity middle-aged Whites are living with. And conservatives mistakenly impute to darker-skinned young people the growing chaos they may be feeling without understanding that a huge, multi-ethnic generation of young voters has perfectly sound reasons for feeling confident and optimistic.
I’m not sure it’s an intergenerational disconnect on this particular factor but let me hear what you think. I’m still think it’s mostly an old white male thing–with a few women that benefited from that–at the center and that it’s mostly cultural and economic.
So, this is a short thread but it should be enough to get us started on a discussion!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: Trump’s Meltdown Continues as Clinton Rises
Posted: August 4, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 presidential election campaign, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton 41 Comments
Good Morning!!
I hardly know where to begin this morning. Yesterday was one of the strangest days I’ve experienced in my 56 years of following politics. The day began with multiple reports that the Trump campaign was melting down, that campaign staffers are “suicidal,” that campaign manager Paul Manafort has given up and is “mailing it in” because Trump doesn’t listen to advice from anyone. RNC Chair Reince Priebus was reported to be “apoplectic” over Trump’s attacks on the Kahn family and especially his refusal to support GOP Candidates Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Kelly Ayotte.
On the Morning Joe show, Joe Scarborough revealed that in a meeting with a potential national security adviser, Trump asked three times why the U.S. can’t use nuclear weapons. Yahoo News:
“I’ll have to be very careful here,” Scarborough said slowly. “Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on international level went to advise Donald Trump, and three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked, at one point, ‘If we have them, why can’t we use them?’ That’s one of the reasons why he just doesn’t have foreign policy experts around him.”
Scarborough, previously a Republican congressman from Florida, clearly startled his colleagues with this story. “Trump,” asked a nonplussed Mike Barnicle. “Trump asked three times?” “Three times, in an hour briefing,” confirmed Scarborough. “Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”
On the same program General Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and NSA, explained why he can’t vote for Trump. Think Progress:
Hayden also expressed concern about “how erratic” Trump is.
“I can argue about this position or that position — I do that with the current president,” Hayden said. “But he’s inconsistent. And when you’re the head of a global super power, inconsistency, unpredictability, those are dangerous things. They frighten your friends and they tempt your enemies. And so, I would be very concerned.”
Asked which people in the national security community are advising Trump, Hayden said, “No one.” And in response to a question about what steps might stand in the way of Trump using nukes if he’s elected president, Hayden said, “The system is designed for speed and decisiveness. It’s not designed to debate the decision.”
During the course of the day yesterday, news outlets reported that an effort was under way to stage an “intervention” to convince Trump that he has been damaging his campaign with his attacks on a gold star family and on fellow Republicans and that he needs to focus on Hillary Clinton as well as broadening his appeal to voters outside his crazy base. The “intervention” team was supposed to consist of Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and Reince Pribus.
This morning Giuliani is denying the reports and blaming them on Gingrich. Politico:
Donald Trump is not having any sort of “intervention” with the likes of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Giuliani said Thursday, pointing to Gingrich as the source of the term.
“So first of all I find the word intervention completely out of line,” Giuliani said during a discussion on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria.”
Giuliani then singled out Gingrich specifically.
“That word, I think, honestly I love him dearly, but I think that word was used by Newt in a memo that got around,” Giuliani said. ” What a ridiculous word. An intervention is for a drug addict and it’s for someone who’s an alcoholic and I’ve had to do them with people at times. There’s nothing wrong with them, if that’s the case. Donald Trump doesn’t drink or smoke, by the way. We don’t have that problem.”
NBC News first reported Wednesday that the trio close to Trump were hoping to push the GOP nominee into a reset of his campaign after a calamitous week that led to a subsequent drop in the polls and high-profile Republicans defecting to Hillary Clinton.
All of this is happening just a little over two weeks after Trump accepted the GOP nomination! And on Tuesday, much of the public discussion was about Trump’s mental health, capped off by a discussion with clinical psychologist George Simon on MSNBC’s The Last Word, in which it was decided that Trump probably has a personality disorder. Simon calls it “character disturbance.” Whatever is wrong with Trump, many more people in the media and public office are beginning to notice and express concern.
Republican donors are “panicking,” according Buzzfeed.
Republican donors weren’t expecting a traditional campaign from Donald Trump, but they weren’t expecting the level of this week’s implosion either.
“I don’t know what he’s doing — trying to commit suicide?” said Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota-based top donor to a pro-Trump super PAC. Hubbard has been trying to get other Republican donors, including Charles and David Koch, on board with Donald Trump for months.
But he said Trump’s recent comments, in particular those about the parents of a Muslim American soldier who died in the Iraq War, were “just nonsense,” adding that he sent Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus a note pleading with him to do something. “The whole world is laughing at that. It’s just very frustrating.”
Although Trump’s campaign and the RNC announced raising $80 million in July, the candidate’s rolling implosion has been felt. He’s continued to engage in attacks on the Khan family, refused to endorse Paul Ryan and John McCain, and suggested Russia should hack Hillary Clinton’s email. A high-profile Republican — Meg Whitman — has said she will not only donate to Clinton, but encourage friends to do so as well.
Prospective donors are now having second thoughts about getting involved, while those who convinced themselves to get behind Trump, like Hubbard, are at their wits’ end over the presidential nominee’s behavior.
Reports on other concerned Republican donors at the link.
And Trump himself? He thinks he’s doing just fine! David Catanese at US News: Donald Trump, Party of 1. Furious with his top campaign command, Trump’s response is to go it alone.
Amid a pileup of self-made political disruptions, mounting Republican defections and internal staff exasperation, Donald Trump is proving himself to be a candidate running a presidential race all by his lonesome.
With little regard for the GOP’s future, he continues to antagonize its most prominent elected officials. With an uncontrollable proclivity for tumbling into a tangent on any given target – no matter the time, relevance or risk – he regularly relinquishes control of a media message. Having no capacity to absorb even the slightest political attack, he is constantly lured into petty fights that place him on the wrong side of public opinion. And with little reverence for seasoned political advice, he alienates even those who want to see him recover and succeed.
Trump is a party of one – a candidate embarking on his quixotic and increasingly improbable quest for the presidency without a compass or a map, without a front-line defense shield or significant reinforcements, and always and forever without any regrets.
Even the Lone Ranger rode a horse named Silver; Trump seems quite content to traipse ahead on his own two feet.
And check this out:
When Trump landed in Ashburn, Virginia, on Tuesday – a state in which he has yet to open a campaign office – he huddled backstage with Will Estrada, chairman of the Loudoun County Republican Committee, for advice on how to carry the crucial area.
“George, these people here in Virginia know what we need to do to win Virginia,” Trump told his advance aide, George Gigicos, according to Estrada’s recollection posted on his personal Facebook page.
But Trump also unleashed another line that reverberated with those in the setting, U.S. News has learned: “Don’t listen to New York.”
The message conveyed was that going forward, Trump wanted local leadership to make the decisions on where to hold events and how to stage them – not the suits at high command in Trump Tower.
According to Catanese the only people Trump might listen to are his children and his son-in-law Jared Kushner; but it’s not clear he’ll listen to them if they try to interfere with his own ego-driven decisions.
Meanwhile Trump’s polls are collapsing and Hillary’s are rising. Kevin Drum: Hillary Clinton Is Now Way Ahead of Donald Trump.
I showed great self-restraint yesterday by not posting the latest poll numbers, but today is Wednesday, which is officially the middle of the week. So here’s the latest from Pollster, based entirely on post-convention polls:
Hillary Clinton’s convention bounce will almost certainly fade a bit by next week, but even if it does she’ll remain 4 to 5 points ahead of Trump. This is roughly the same as her lead before the conventions, which suggests that this year’s four-day infomercials probably had no net effect at all.
From Chuck Todd and Carrie Dann this morning: First Read: The Clinton Bounce Is Real.
A spate of new polling shows that the initial evidence of a significant post-convention bounce for Hillary Clinton is looking like it COULD become a sturdy lead for the Democratic nominee. A new Franklin and Marshall College poll of Pennsylvania shows Clinton with an 11 point lead over Trump, 49 percent to 38 percent. A Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll of Michigan voters finds a nine point lead for the former secretary of state, 41 percent to 32 percent. And a freshWBUR/MassINC poll this morning shows Clinton opening up a 15 point lead over the GOP nominee in New Hampshire, 47 percent to 32 percent. Add that to national polls this week from NBC News|SurveyMonkey (Clinton +8), CNN/ORC(Clinton +9) and FOX News (Clinton +10). Bottom line: Trump couldn’t have picked a worse week to have a DISASTROUS week. Clinton was already in the midst of a convention bump, and Trump exacerbated it with his series of unforced errors and unnecessary fights. The next question: How does the Trump campaign react in the next week, when even more national and state polls are likely to show a similar gap between the two candidates?
Clinton is now far ahead of Trump in Michigan, according to The Detroit News.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over Republican Donald Trump in Michigan as 3-in-5 likely voters say the New York businessman is not qualified to be president, according to a new poll conducted for The Detroit News and WDIV-TV.
Clinton led Trump 41 percent to 32 percent in the statewide survey of 600 likely voters conducted Saturday through Monday following Clinton’s formal nomination at last week’s Democratic National Convention.
The poll contains many troubling signs for Trump’s White House campaign, including a “shocking” lead for Clinton in the Republican strongholds of west and southwest Michigan, pollster Richard Czuba said.
Sixty-one percent of likely general election voters said Trump is ill-prepared to be the nation’s commander-in-chief. The figure grows to 67 percent among women, a group with whom Trump performs poorly. Clinton has a commanding 21-percentage-point lead among female voters.
In New Hampshire, where Hillary is now leading Trump by 15 points, GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte has fallen 10 points behind Democrat Maggie Hassan! That is huge. Obviously, we can’t get overconfident, but I really don’t believe Trump is capable of suddenly becoming a sane, reasonable candidate who can at least fake acting presidential.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a tremendous Thursday!
Tuesday Reads: Trump Is Imploding.
Posted: August 2, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 presidential election campaign, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pence 47 CommentsGood Morning!!
Poor Donald. He is rapidly swift-boating his own campaign and he can’t stop himself. Last night he actually said that Hillary Clinton is “the devil.”
NBC News: Trump Calls Clinton ‘The Devil,’ Boasts About Meager $35 Million July Fundraising Haul.
MECHANICSBURG, Penn. — Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric against Hillary Clinton once again on Monday, telling a rowdy crowd in battleground-state Pennsylvania that she was “the devil” — a temporary departure from the “Crooked Hillary” moniker.
Speaking about former Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, Trump said the Vermont senator “made a deal with the devil. She’s the devil. He made a deal with the devil.”
Trump also bragged about his very weak fund-raising prowess.
Trump, who constantly reminded that he was “self-funding” his campaign throughout the primaries, bragged while previewing his July fundraising totals.
“It’s gonna be announced tomorrow or the next day: we’ve raised, we think, about $35.8 million. This is unheard of for Republicans, $35.8 million,” Trump said.
While the haul certainly shows a much-needed uptick for the Trump campaign’s fundraising efforts, “unheard of” it is not: In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney raised just over $101 million in July of that year.
In his appearances yesterday, Trump appeared even more out of control than usual. Olivia Nuzzi at The Daily Beast: 15 Hours of Donald Trump’s Lies.
The lying started at 7:27 a.m. and did not stop until after dark.
Even for Donald Trump, Monday, Aug. 1, was a banner day for bullshit.
With 100 days until Election Day, the Republican presidential nominee decisively rejected suggestions that he make some attempt to appear statesmanlike in his campaign against Hillary Clinton, opting to commit fully to the erraticism and dishonesty that characterized his performance in the Republican primary.
Typed into the ether on Twitter, shouted at the people of Columbus, Ohio, at a town hall, or yodeled at a rally to the cable cameras and citizens of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the steady stream of nonsense could not be corked….
Read all the sorry details at the link.
Oh, and Trump ended his long day of lies by eating Kentucky Fried Chicken with a knife and fork.
This op-ed by Kathy Sullivan, former chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, comes from the ultra-conservative Manchester Union Leader (!): Donald Trump’s weekend of lies.
ON THE LAST DAY of the Democratic National Convention, three of us went to lunch at a local Irish pub near our hotel. After thanking us for stopping by, the owner told us he would never vote for Donald Trump. He knew three small contractors Trump stiffed on his Atlantic City project. None were paid in full. One got less than 50 cents on the dollar. Another was never paid at all. He lost his house.
That night, Khizr Khan gave his now widely covered remarks regarding the loss of his son, a young Muslim American Army officer, in Iraq. A better man than Donald Trump would have said, I appreciate the sacrifice the Khans made, and that is all I have to say. Instead, when asked what sacrifices he had made, Trump falsely equated working hard at his business career with the death of Capt. Humayun Khan in the service of his country. He also made the stupid statement that perhaps Mrs. Khan had not been “allowed” to speak.
Faced with outraged condemnation, Trump just could not shut up. The next day he said Mr. Khan had no right to stand on stage and say things about him. Then, extending his losing streak another day, he tweeted that Mr. Khan had “viciously attacked” him, and asked if he was not allowed to respond.
Yes, Donald, you may respond. Keep it up, so America can see who you are.
A passing conversation in a bar, and Trump’s reaction to Mr. Khan’s speech, may not seem to have a lot in common. But they both show Trump’s contempt for ordinary Americans. Whether it is Donald ducking bills, or disrespecting the parents of a dead soldier, he does not care for us. In 1984, Trump served on a commission to erect a Vietnam War Memorial in New York. Two commission members told the Washington Post at the time that Trump had only attended two of the more than 20 meetings. Trump’s response to the criticism? “They’re very small thinkers. They’re stockbrokers that were in Vietnam, and they don’t have it.” “It” apparently was Trump’s word for his own self-perceived magnetism. Instead of explaining his attendance record, Trump attacked his critics as veterans without “it” who worked in the financial sector. The insulting attack does not even make sense. By the way, if you are a stockbroker who served in Vietnam? Don’t vote for Trump.
There’s more at the link.
At a Mike Pence rally in Nevada, a military mother was booed by the crowd. Pence tried to counter the booing, but the fact is, it happened. CBS News:
After delivering a standard stump speech, Pence took audience questions at a room inside a Carson City, Nevada, casino.
The second question came from 52-year-old Catherine Byrne, whose son serves in the U.S. Air Force. Byrne asked Pence about Trump’s treatment of Muslim parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, a decorated Army veteran, was killed in Iraq in 2004.
“Will there ever be a point in time when you’re able to look Trump in the eye and tell him enough is enough?” she asked Pence, prompting boos from the crowd.
Pence asked the crowd to quiet down, then said of Byrne, “That’s what freedom looks like. That’s what freedom sounds like.”
“I know this has been much in the news as of late in the last few days,” Pence said, acknowledging the controversy over Trump’s reaction to the Khan family. “But as I said last night … Captain Khan is an American hero and we honor him and honor his family.”
Byrne, a CPA who lives in Carson City, welcomed part of Pence’s response. “I did like his words about Captain Khan and his family,” she told CBS News’ Alan He in a telephone interview. But she felt he didn’t fully answer the part of her question about Trump’s disrespectfulness. Byrne’s son is 27 years old and is stationed in the UAE.
Pence added that he has never spent time around someone who is “more devoted” to military and to veterans than Trump.
Pence has sold his soul to Trump, and he will never live this down. I’ll be shocked if Pence ever gets another chance at elected office.
Meanwhile, Hillary is getting a strong bounce following the Democratic Convention last week. NBC News:
Following the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton now leads Donald Trump by 8 points — 50 percent to 42 percent — up from a single-point difference last week, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll.
Clinton’s gain also comes after a series of controversial comments made by the Republican nominee this past week regarding the family of a fallen American soldier and Trump’s suggestion that Russian hackers should seek out deleted Clinton emails.
The Republican National Convention did not result in a post-convention bounce for Trump.
Clinton also saw a bounce in a four-way general election match-up against Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Clinton now leads Trump by 4 points — 42 percent to 38 percent — in the four-way race. This is a lead-reversal from last week, when Trump was beating the Democratic nominee by 2 points. Support for Johnson (9 points) and Stein (4 points) remained virtually unchanged from last week….
Perhaps a result of a series of well-received speeches from high-profile Democrats, Clinton’s gains this week were not only in the horserace numbers. Overall, the number of voters who say they have a strongly favorable impression of the Democratic nominee is up 5 points — from 15 percent to 20 percent — since the question was asked two weeks ago.
Clinton’s favorability among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters rose from 74 percent two weeks ago to 80 percent this week. Her unfavorable rating also dropped among Democrats from 24 percent to 19 percent.
More analysis of the poll results at the link, with charts.
From Politico: How big is Hillary Clinton’s convention bounce?
Five new public surveys, each conducted over the weekend following Democrats’ national party convention, give Clinton a lead ranging from 3 to 9 points. Four of the five pollsters point to a clear Clinton bump, having found Trump ahead or down by only a single point the week before.
What’s also clear is that bump exceeds the rise in support for Trump after his convention the week prior. While Trump called his bounce “the biggest bump in the history of conventions,” the best poll for him showed his support ticking up 6 points, while other polls showed no change or a nominal Trump boost….
The bounciest of the new polls, a CNN/ORC International survey conducted Friday-Sunday, shows Clinton leading Trump by 9 points, 52 percent to 43 percent. That’s a massive shift from just a week prior, when CNN/ORC gave Trump a 3-point lead, 48 percent to 45 percent. Clinton’s 7-point bounce over that time was larger than Trump’s 6-point surge from a poll conducted shortly before the GOP convention in Cleveland.
A new CBS News poll conducted over the same time frame, shows Clinton ahead by 6 points, 47 percent to 41 percent. That’s a 4-point jump for Clinton, who trailed Trump by a point in between the two conventions, 44 percent to 43 percent. (This uses CBS News results including voters leaning toward one candidate, which CBS began to measure with the between-conventions survey.)
Trump’s post-convention bounce in CBS News’ polls, on the other hand, was just 2 points.
For discussion of the rest of the recent polls, head over to Politico.
More stories to check out:
Eater.com: Why Won’t Donald Trump Touch Food With His Hands?
Buzzfeed: Trump: My Position On Keeping Terrorists Out Is What Bothered Khizr Khan.
CNN Money: Donald Trump attacks CNN in tweetstorm.
NPR: GOP Criticism Mounts As Trump Continues Attacks On Khan Family.
KUTV 2: Utah could vote Democrat for president for first time in 5 decades.
Syracuse.com: GOP Rep. Richard Hanna: I’ll vote for Clinton; first House member to cross party line.
WBUR Boston: 50 Years After Texas College Shooting, ‘Campus-Carry’ Becomes Law.
What else is happening? Please share your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a terrific Tuesday!
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