We know that in at least one state and possibly all of the key states, Republican voter suppression laws turned the 2016 Presidential election.
How much funding did the NRA put into these efforts? And how much of that came from Russia?
Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Trump's Treason Summit
One has to wonder: what could move Republicans to oppose Trump if not his Treasonous attacks on America from a summit with Putin? What is backing the word of a foreign dictator whose interests oppose our own over the word of our whole US intelligence community if not "giving [enemies] aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere"?
Sure, he's since read a statement -- or should we say script -- to walk back one small word of what he said. Not that his reading seemed sincere, but even if it had, consider how the original "would" fits much more with everything else he said before and after than the "wouldn't" that he claimed when reading his script.
Friday, September 15, 2017
The Latest WSJ Revelations on Flynn and Russian Involvement While On the NSC
"According to the [Wall Street] Journal, the ethics advisors on the National Security Council actually told him to remove himself from this project but quote the activity continued." - Rachel Maddow
See the rest in "New revelations deepen Flynn legal jeopardy".
See the rest in "New revelations deepen Flynn legal jeopardy".
Monday, February 20, 2017
What Drove the 2016 Election Results
Already, this is too easy to forget.
We've covered that Republican turnout was actually low. Not by much, but slightly below trend. Meanwhile Democratic turnout -- although not high enough to win the crucial red states -- was fairly good nationwide, if down somewhat from the previous peak. It just wasn't quite good enough in a few keys states. Why? Was there some winning over of voters on a policy issue? No, most folks who voted stuck to their usual party. So how did it happen? Largely, the voter data shows it hinged upon that just barely enough-to-swing-it previously Democratic-leaning voters didn't vote in 2016. While voter data alone can't tell us exactly what drove that swing, it shows that the question of the election was what kept just the critical number of voters in the key states from showing up.
Aside from rather successful Republican voter suppression efforts with voter ID laws, Matthew Yglesias performed a solid analysis of how the story rolled. In short, it was the emails. As Yglesias puts it, "Indeed, research from Gallup indicates that emails dominated what voters heard about Clinton all throughout the campaign."
That's it. That's ultimately the issue on which the 45th Presidency turned. The choice of which email server to use. Not jobs. Not healthcare. Not taxes. Not immigration. It's the emails.
Yes, arguably, the Democrat's candidate might have been able to win despite the email issue had she been more charismatic, better able to inspire even more people to look at her carefully developed set of sensible policy approaches. That it was the emails does not defend the performance of the candidate who merely won the popular vote. While the campaign platform may have been solid and the campaign pitched those policies enough to earn a sizeable majority of the popular vote nationwide, the 2016 Clinton campaign failed to make it about all those thoroughly thought-out policies in enough states. Crucially, she failed to make it not be about the emails in key swing states.
But any "might have" doesn't change what it was about. Where the votes counted, it was about the emails. If there was anything the 2016 election can be said to be about: the overriding mandate from the electorate was, "do not use a private email server as a public servant".
Let's not forget that. No matter how tempting it might be to forget.
Meanwhile, if there's a lesson for future campaigns, it would seem to be this: pick a candidate far too charismatic to have their message drowned out by some flap about what server they used for their email.
We've covered that Republican turnout was actually low. Not by much, but slightly below trend. Meanwhile Democratic turnout -- although not high enough to win the crucial red states -- was fairly good nationwide, if down somewhat from the previous peak. It just wasn't quite good enough in a few keys states. Why? Was there some winning over of voters on a policy issue? No, most folks who voted stuck to their usual party. So how did it happen? Largely, the voter data shows it hinged upon that just barely enough-to-swing-it previously Democratic-leaning voters didn't vote in 2016. While voter data alone can't tell us exactly what drove that swing, it shows that the question of the election was what kept just the critical number of voters in the key states from showing up.
Aside from rather successful Republican voter suppression efforts with voter ID laws, Matthew Yglesias performed a solid analysis of how the story rolled. In short, it was the emails. As Yglesias puts it, "Indeed, research from Gallup indicates that emails dominated what voters heard about Clinton all throughout the campaign."
That's it. That's ultimately the issue on which the 45th Presidency turned. The choice of which email server to use. Not jobs. Not healthcare. Not taxes. Not immigration. It's the emails.
Yes, arguably, the Democrat's candidate might have been able to win despite the email issue had she been more charismatic, better able to inspire even more people to look at her carefully developed set of sensible policy approaches. That it was the emails does not defend the performance of the candidate who merely won the popular vote. While the campaign platform may have been solid and the campaign pitched those policies enough to earn a sizeable majority of the popular vote nationwide, the 2016 Clinton campaign failed to make it about all those thoroughly thought-out policies in enough states. Crucially, she failed to make it not be about the emails in key swing states.
But any "might have" doesn't change what it was about. Where the votes counted, it was about the emails. If there was anything the 2016 election can be said to be about: the overriding mandate from the electorate was, "do not use a private email server as a public servant".
Let's not forget that. No matter how tempting it might be to forget.
Meanwhile, if there's a lesson for future campaigns, it would seem to be this: pick a candidate far too charismatic to have their message drowned out by some flap about what server they used for their email.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
The Conspiracy Theorist In Chief
The Washington Post reports that the 45th President appears to be getting many of his ideas in what's happening in the world from the InfoWars conspiracy theory site. Or rather, it should perhaps be said that they've joined others in noting this state of affairs, including CNN, NPR, and The New Yorker.
That crazy uncle or grandpa who rattles off conspiracy theories and makes family gatherings uncomfortable? There appears to be one sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office.
So much has already been horribly bungled by the Conspiracy Theorist In Chief.
It is, as Theodore Roosevelt said of then-President Wilson, "even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about anyone else."
And the truth is that it's time for Congress to begin impeachment hearings regarding the 45th President.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Week One for the 45th
One of the most important duties of any head of state obviously would be serving as the nation's chief diplomat.
If one were trying to go down in history as our worst President ever, it would be very challenging to get a faster start at it than by pissing off two of our three largest export markets before even making it through the first week on the job.
As individual countries go, our 2nd and 3rd largest export markets are Mexico and China. Together, they buy almost a quarter of our total exports.
Thanks to our current President's "diplomacy", our 3rd largest export market has found it necessary to move their nuclear missiles within striking distance of us ... ya' know, just in case. And the citizens of our 2nd largest export market have begun a large-ish boycott of American companies.
So it's been a stellar week for America, right?
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
November Elections
In November of 1932, eighty-four years and two days before the 2016 American election, the majority of the German people did not do anything quite like the way hindsight and simplification might make it look. Combined, just slightly more of the German electorate voted for the next two parties than voted for the Nazis. In total, a hair over twice as many people voted for the total of all other parties than voted for the NSDAP (that is, the Nazis). However, this doesn't make it just a matter of what the mere 1/3 who voted for Hitler's party chose.
By and large, what the German people did was fail to unite against the Nazis.
But their grave error wasn't one of failing to vote for a party and its leader who we all now know would commit all the horrors of the Holocaust. Their disgrace came not from the things they didn't know then but from failing to recognize all the relatively little bad that was quite clear at the time. Back then, nobody knew it would mean the atrocity of slaughtering millions and a permanent national disgrace to fail to unite behind the most viable alternative.
They knew the Nazi leader winked at the violence of his party and maybe even encouraged it.
They knew he attacked his nation's negotiated treaties.
They knew his party embraced an ideology favoring one particular race and xenophobic of others.
They knew he used anti-Semitism in his campaign.
They knew his party opposed women being in the workplace, pushing that they stay home producing children.
They knew he'd botched his preferred line of work and essentially gone bankrupt.
They knew about his failed coup.
They saw all his various campaign attacks on people and groups.
They had a pretty good idea he was more than a bit unhinged.
And sure, it was only the worst 1/3 of them that embraced him despite all of that.
But the majority of the German people knew all of this and failed to consider it sufficiently crucial for them to unite to keep Hitler and his party out of power. They considered it more important that they not vote for a party other than their particular preference. Or that they punish a party they usually preferred but that hadn't made everything better fast enough.
They saw a lot of warning signs. And they failed to stop it. And that's more than bad enough.
It would have been more than bad enough even if the Hitler of 1932 hadn't eventually become the Hitler of the later 1930s through the mid 1940s. The Hitler of 1932 was not then the Hitler of later history. But what was known in 1932 should have been plenty to unite to stop the Nazis from ever attaining power.
By and large, what the German people did was fail to unite against the Nazis.
But their grave error wasn't one of failing to vote for a party and its leader who we all now know would commit all the horrors of the Holocaust. Their disgrace came not from the things they didn't know then but from failing to recognize all the relatively little bad that was quite clear at the time. Back then, nobody knew it would mean the atrocity of slaughtering millions and a permanent national disgrace to fail to unite behind the most viable alternative.
They knew the Nazi leader winked at the violence of his party and maybe even encouraged it.
They knew he attacked his nation's negotiated treaties.
They knew his party embraced an ideology favoring one particular race and xenophobic of others.
They knew he used anti-Semitism in his campaign.
They knew his party opposed women being in the workplace, pushing that they stay home producing children.
They knew he'd botched his preferred line of work and essentially gone bankrupt.
They knew about his failed coup.
They saw all his various campaign attacks on people and groups.
They had a pretty good idea he was more than a bit unhinged.
 |
| Trump's RCP Average Favorability as of 11/8/2016: 37.5% |
But the majority of the German people knew all of this and failed to consider it sufficiently crucial for them to unite to keep Hitler and his party out of power. They considered it more important that they not vote for a party other than their particular preference. Or that they punish a party they usually preferred but that hadn't made everything better fast enough.
They saw a lot of warning signs. And they failed to stop it. And that's more than bad enough.
It would have been more than bad enough even if the Hitler of 1932 hadn't eventually become the Hitler of the later 1930s through the mid 1940s. The Hitler of 1932 was not then the Hitler of later history. But what was known in 1932 should have been plenty to unite to stop the Nazis from ever attaining power.
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