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hearthandgnome · 5 years ago

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Warning, long post. TL/DR at bottom.

Okay so I've got a real hot take about the primaries.

And I'm just gonna stress this now. This is by no means fact checkable and is closer to a conspiracy theory than like, an actual reality we need to worry about. So please don't come at me for spreading false news. This isn't news. Its just a theory.

But I high key think our elections have been rigged again.

In short: my theory is that the obscene number of people that were running for the primaries who have since dropped out, never ACTUALLY wanted to run. They were just there to collect and hand over votes to Biden.

And I know that sounds nuts but let me walk you through my thought process here.

1- Not a single person I've spoken to or heard of, either in person or online, has said they wanted to vote for Biden. He was literally no ones first choice. Even the more conservative centrist end of people were saying Bloomberg before Biden.

2- a common joke amongst late night hosts has been just how ridiculous it was that sooooooo many people were running and how no one was willing to back down or quit, even when they had no chance.

3- Beyond just your pride, which will hurt either way, dropping out after voting has already started makes no sense. Spending all the time, money, and resources, on a presidential campaign for months if not years, just to drop out in the first week of the primaries makes no sense. At that point it's not like you can get your money back. So why drop out at that point?

Dropping out just before, when you see your polling low, makes sense. Cause it means not splitting the vote. But after? That means people that already voted for you don't really get the chance to vote their second choice. Their votes are basically just given to whoever you endorse.

Which brings me to

4- Pretty much every candidate who has dropped out after voting began has given their delegates to Biden. Like, even the ones who had basically nothing in common with his campaign. Even the ones who said they hated him the whole time they were "against" each other. And even the ones who claimed to be more progressive and aligned with Bernie when discussing their views and plans.

And I know I'm not the only one who has noticed this cause I've seen the memes, as well as the serious posts, all talking about how ridiculous it is for the media to claim Warrens delegates should go to Biden "cause he was the 2nd choice for most of her voters". Like no. He wasn't. She was Bernie's direct competition. They had incredibly similar campaigns. Warren and Biden had NOTHING in common policy wise.

5- The web domain for Bernie sanders currently redirects you to a donation page for Biden. Like You click the link thinking its for Bernie, and the only way to figure out your actually donating to Biden instead is to scroll up first or see it after you've already donated.

These above factors, mixed with a variety of other little things that just don't add up, have me pretty convinced there's something shady going on.

And the most probable cause in my opinion is a rigged election.

I know that seems like it would be hard to do. But honestly its pretty simple.

Copious choice splits the vote. Which makes it easier for them. So that was step one.

Then step two. Misleading voters into thinking these planted candidates are more progressive, which seeds false security by making them think they will endorse Bernie or another progressive candidate if they do drop out.

Step three is collect votes and delegates early on then drop out and give them to Biden. All of a sudden Biden has all the delegates and is somehow winning despite a huge portion of that being votes he didn't actually earn himself.

Step four will be people giving up and letting him win the primaries. They are literally already trying to end the primaries early and hand the win to Biden as I type this up.

And honestly.

I don't think step 5 will even be giving Biden the presidency. I don't think he's involved at all actually. I wholeheartedly think it'll be giving it to trump.

I think rigging the primaries in favor of Biden is jist phase one in a two part plan to get Trump re elected. And here's why:

1- Our last elections were hacked by the russians in trumps favor and there was literally 0 backlash for that for either of them.

2- Trump and his team just learned that they literally can get away with anything including trying to rig elections. He literally was impeached for this and got away with it. Soooo why shouldn't he do it if he knows its allowed for him?

3- There's no real know incentives for anyone with the ability to rig elections to rig them in the dems favor. The agenda of rigging elections is gaining power and money and it can only be done if you have some of that already. And who do the rich powerful people want to be in charge? Not Biden. And for SURE not Bernie.

4- Speaking of the impeachment trial.

Remember way back when the whole impeachment case story broke? Remember people making jokes about the fact that trump chose Biden of all people to get dirt on? Remember people thinking it was ridiculous cause there was no way he was gonna win the primaries?

Well. This is adding an extra layer of conspiracy to this conspiracy theory. But what if the plan to rig the election was already being formed back then?

What if Trump knew that Biden would eventually be the one running against him because he knew it would be rigged as such?

And I know your wondering why they would want Biden to be the one against trump as opposed to any of the other guys.

Well. Have y'all read the responses to the primaries so far? Everyone hates Biden. Like yeah we hate trump more. But I've already seen posts of people saying voting for Biden would be "just as bad".

I'm seeing people lose hope in Bernie winning or their voices being heard. And I'm seeing in fighting amongst people who are mad their first choice didn't win. All of this means potentially low voter turn out.

Especially amount younger more progressive voters who have taken a "Bernie or Bust" mentality.

And we know what happened when we take that stance. Cause its the same one that happened last time.

I know Hillary wasn't a perfect person or candidate either. And I too would have preferred Bernie in the last election.

But all that: "she's just as bad" "my votes don't count anyway" "id rather vote 3rd party than her" "Bernie or Bust"

All that.

Is how he won last time.

So all I'm saying is. Them rigging primaries in favor of a candidate they know most of the democratic voter base actually hates, makes it a lot easier to secure trump gets re-elected.

And the people potentially being pissed that Bernie lost primaries twice in a row wont help.

Even if my whole crazy theory is wrong. Even if their is no real evil plot being done here. That last point still stands.

If by some bizarre twist of fate. Biden wins the primaries. Be it honestly or by stealing delegates from the drop outs. He's still better than Trump.

Be prepared for that other shoe to drop.

Be prepared for the memes and social discourse trying to convince you not to vote or to throw away your vote on a 3rd party.

Be prepared for what ever dirt trump was trying to get on him to be released.

And know that he will STILL no matter what. Be better than Trump.

And in case I am right. And we are in the middle of an attempted coup.

Then this next part becomes twice as important.

If you live in a state that hasn't voted yet. PLEASE show up for Bernie.

I hate telling people how to vote. But mathematically speaking the only possible outcomes at this stage are Biden or Bernie. So for the love of god stop wasting votes on the other guys. Its almost as bad as voting third party for the actual election.

Plus if I'm right there's a 50/50 chance of those underdog votes being party of the conspiracy and going to Biden in the end.

If Biden really is your 2nd choice then fine. This doesn't apply to you.

But if you hate Biden and you prefer the more progressive stances, and your hoping for someone similar to Bernie, then just fucking vote Bernie.

Cause we learned from Warren that we cant trust ANYONE to give their endorsement to Bernie when they drop out.

So vote Bernie.

And if y'all don't, and we end of with Biden. I don't wanna hear any complaints.

If we get Biden then we gotta vote Biden. End of story.

Cause if Trumps re elected its game over.

He's already talking about extending his term limits or straight up erasing them. He wants to be a dictator and he's WELL on his way to achieving that.

He's proven above the law. And when the system fails the only hope left is the people.

Its 100% on us to make sure trump dosnt win. Its 100% on us to stay vigilant and not fall for the BS designed to turn things in his favor. It's 100% on us to show up, speak up, and carry a big ass stick of democracy.

Sorry for the long ass post. But I've been getting more and more suspicious/nervous by the day.

TL/DR: The primaries may or may not be rigged in Biden's favor. And that might be part of an even bigger plot to get Trump reelected. Don't waste your vote on 3rd party or underdogs. Please fucking don't inadvertently hand the election to trump.

And remember that I'm not a news source. Just a concerned citizen who worries too much and is hoping to inform/ warn people about a possible threat to our democracy.

#primaries #Bernie #conspiracy #your vote matters #vote democrat #vote them out

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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The Liberation of Mitt Romney

The newly rebellious senator has become an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party, just in time for the president’s impeachment trial.

MCKAY COPPINS | Published OCT 20, 2019 | The Atlantic | Posted October 21, 2019 |

Updated: Sunday, October 20, 2019, at 9:32 p.m. ET

Mitt Romney is leaning forward in his chair, his eyes flashing, his voice sharp.

It’s a strange look for the 72-year-old senator, who typically affects a measured, somber tone when discussing Donald Trump’s various moral deficiencies. But after weeks of escalating combat with the president—over Ukraine, and China, and Syria, and impeachment—the gentleman from Utah suddenly appears ready to unload.

What set him off was my recitation of an argument I’ve heard some Republicans deploy lately to excuse Trump’s behavior. Electing a president, the argument goes, is like hiring a plumber—you don’t care about his character, you just want him to get the job done. Sitting in his Senate office, Romney is indignant. “Are you worried that your plumber overcharges you?” he asks. “Are you worried that the plumber’s going to scream at your kids? Are you worried that the plumber is going to squeal out of your driveway?” I am playing devil’s advocate; he is attempting an exorcism.

To Romney, Trump’s performance as president is inextricably tangled up in his character. “Berating another person, or calling them names, or demeaning a class of people, not telling the truth—those are not private things,” he says, adding: “If during the campaign you pay a porn star $130,000, that now comes into the public domain.”

At this, Romney glances over at two of his aides who are watching silently from the other end of the room, and grins. “They’re going, Oh gosh, shut up.”

I’ve spent the past several months in an ongoing conversation with Romney as he’s navigated a Washington that grows more hostile by the day. Before arriving in the Senate, Romney nurtured a pleasant delusion that he could somehow avoid being defined by his relationship with Trump. He had his own policy agenda to advance, his own vision for the future of the Republican Party. He would use his platform to take a stand against Trumpism, while largely ignoring Trump himself. When I would speak with his friends and allies in Utah during last year’s campaign, there was often a certain dilettantish quality in the future Senator Romney they envisioned—a venerable elder statesman dabbling in legislation the way a retiree takes up tennis.

Instead, Romney has emerged as an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party. In just the past few weeks, he has denounced the president’s attempts to solicit dirt on political rivals from foreign governments as “wrong and appalling”; suggested that his fellow Republicans are looking the other way out of a desire for power; and condemned Trump’s troop withdrawal in Syria as a “bloodstain on the annals of American history.”

Trump has responded with a wrathful procession of personal attacks—deriding Romney as a “pompous ass,” taunting him over his failed presidential bid in 2012, and tweeting a cartoonish video that tags the senator as a “Democrat secret asset.”

These confrontations have turned Romney into one of the most closely watched figures in the impeachment battle now consuming Washington. While his fellow Republicans rail against “partisan witch hunts” and “fake whistle-blowers,” Romney is taking the prospect of a Senate trial seriously—he’s reviewing The Federalist Papers, brushing up on parliamentary procedure, and staying open to the idea that the president may need to be evicted from the Oval Office.

In the nine years I’ve been covering Romney, I’ve never seen him quite so liberated. Unconstrained by consultants, unconcerned about reelection, he is thinking about things such as legacy, and inheritance, and the grand sweep of history. Here, in the twilight of his career, he seems to sense—in a way that eludes many of his colleagues—that he’ll be remembered for what he does in this combustible moment. “I do think people will view this as an inflection point in American history,” Romney tells me.

“I don’t look at myself as being a historical figure,” he hastens to add, “but I do think these are critical times. And I hope that what I’m doing will open the way for people to take a different path.”

With his neat coif, square jaw, and G-rated diction, Romney has always emanated a kind of old-fashioned civic starchiness. In the past, this quality has been the object of occasional ridicule. (During his 2012 presidential bid, reporters like me often snickered at his penchant for quoting lines from “America the Beautiful,” which he called his favorite of the “patriotic hymns.”) But in these decidedly more vulgar times, there is a certain appeal to the senator’s wholesomeness.

When I first caught up with Romney, in June, he was in a buoyant mood, preparing to deliver his “maiden speech” from the Senate floor later that day. I asked him how he was settling in. “This is great!” he replied. “I mean, everybody told me I was going to hate it here.”

I confessed that I was among those who thought he might not enjoy being the 97th most senior member of the Senate.

“I think people forget I worked for 10 years as a management consultant,” Romney said, referring to his time at Bain & Company. “Which meant I was able to make no decisions, I was able to get nothing done, and I had to try and convince people through a long process.” In retrospect, it seems, he was destined for the U.S. Congress.

Romney told me that he doesn’t think much anymore about his 2012 defeat to Barack Obama. “My life is not defined in my own mind by political wins and losses,” he said. “You know, I had my career in business, I’ve got my family, my faith—that’s kind of my life, and this is something I do to make a difference. So I don’t attach the kind of—I don’t know—psychic currency to it that people who made politics their entire life.”

Not everyone he’s met in the Senate shares this outlook, he said. “People are really friendly, they’re really nice—except Bernie,” he said, laughing. “He’s a curmudgeon. It’s not that he’s mean or whatever; he just kind of scowls, you know”—Romney hunched his back and summoned a Scrooge-like grunt. “For Bernie, it seems like this is kind of who he is. It’s defining. It’s his entire person. For me, it’s��part of who I am, but it’s not the whole person.”

After he was elected in November, Romney began typing out a list on his iPad of all the things he wanted to accomplish in the Senate. It was 50 items long by the time he showed it to his staff, and though they laughed, he continued undeterred. By the time we spoke, it had grown to 60, with priorities ranging from complex systemic reforms—overhauling the immigration system, reducing the deficit, addressing climate change—to narrower issues such as compensating college athletes and regulating the vaping industry.

As he searched the Senate for legislative partners, Romney told me, he was warned that his efforts were likely doomed. Even in less polarized, less chaotic times, the kind of ambitious agenda he had in mind would be unrealistic. But Romney was steadfast in his optimism. “I’m not here to say it can’t happen,” he told me.

When I broached the subject of Trump that afternoon in June, Romney’s face didn’t register the familiar mix of panic and dread that most GOP lawmakers exhibit these days when faced with questions about the president. If anything, he seemed a little bored by the topic. I had heard repeatedly from people close to Romney that his decision to run for Senate was motivated in part by his alarm at Trump’s ascent. But he still seemed to believe that he could illuminate a path forward for his party without incessantly feuding with the president. “I’m not in the White House,” he told me. “I tried for that job; I didn’t get it. So all I can do from where I am is to say, ‘All right, how do we get things done from here?’”

Anyone familiar with the fraught history between Trump and Romney might have known that a detente was unsustainable. Trump has nursed a grudge since 2016, when Romney denounced him as a “phony” and a “fraud,” and warned of the “trickle-down racism” that would accompany his election. After he won, Trump briefly considered tapping Romney as his secretary of state, but the match was not to be. And in the years that have followed, the tension between the two men has only grown more exaggerated.

They manage that tension in different ways: While the president spent a too-online Saturday earlier this month unloading on Twitter—launching #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY into the canon of viral Trump taunts—Romney enjoyed a quiet afternoon picking apples with his grandkids in Utah and refusing to take the bait. When I met him in his office a couple of weeks later, I asked if the Twitter insults bothered him.

“That’s kind of what he does,” Romney said with a shrug, and then got up to retrieve an iPad from his desk. He explained that he uses a secret Twitter account—“What do they call me, a lurker?”—to keep tabs on the political conversation. “I won’t give you the name of it,” he said, but “I’m following 668 people.” Swiping at his tablet, he recited some of the accounts he follows, including journalists, late-night comedians (“What’s his name, the big redhead from Boston?”), and athletes. Trump was not among them. “He tweets so much,” Romney said, comparing the president to one of his nieces who overshares on Instagram. “I love her, but it’s like, Ah, it’s too much.” (After this story was published, Slate identified a Twitter account using the name Pierre Delecto that seemed to match the senator’s description of his lurker account. When I spoke to Romney on the phone Sunday night, his only response was, “C'est moi.”)

He understands, of course, that many of his Republican colleagues live in fear of being subjected to a presidential Twitter tirade. In fact, some believe that Trump’s targeting of Romney is intended as a warning to other GOP lawmakers lest they step out of line. That fear is one of the reasons his caucus has attempted such elaborate rhetorical contortions to defend Trump as the House impeachment inquiry turns up damning evidence. “I think it’s very natural for people to look at circumstances and see them in the light that’s most amenable to their maintaining power,” he told me in an interview last month at The Atlantic Festival.

Romney told me that he does not have an abstract definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and that when it comes to identifying impeachable acts, he follows Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous standard for defining hard-core porn: “I’ll know it when I see it.” Asked if he’s seen it yet, Romney told me that he’ll make up his mind once he hears all the evidence at the trial: “At this stage, I am strenuously avoiding trying to make any judgment.”

In the meantime, Romney is leading the Republican revolt over the president’s recent decision to pull troops out of northern Syria, leaving America’s Kurdish allies behind. In a withering speech on the Senate floor last week, he condemned the administration’s betrayal of the Kurds, and called for hearings on the matter. He told me that he wants to see a transcript of the phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that preceded the troop withdrawal. “This is not just a disagreement on foreign policy,” he said. “This is a violation of fundamental American honor.”

Amid all the tumult, Romney has come to terms with the fact that there will be little progress on his legislative to-do list for the foreseeable future. (Between impeachment proceedings and next year’s elections, who has time to pass laws?) Nor is Romney especially well positioned to launch a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, despite endless fantasizing by pundits. (He has said he’s not planning to run again.) While his battles with the president have earned him plaudits from some in Utah—where support for Trump is uncommonly weak for a red state—he is widely viewed as a villain in MAGA world.

But Romney is looking beyond the next year, and beyond the president’s base, as he tries to lay the groundwork for a post-Trump Republican Party. While he acknowledges the failures of his own presidential campaign, he told me that he doubts Trump’s electoral coalition will be replicable in the long run. “We have to get young people and Hispanics and African Americans to vote Republican,” he said, adding that he hopes these voters will see his resistance to Trump as a sign that one day they could find a home in the GOP. If that seems naive, the senator is probably okay with it. In cynical times like these, someone has to serve as the guardian of lost causes.

After all, Romney said, “the president will not be the president forever.”

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chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted · 3 years ago

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Will Kamala be appointed on the Supreme Court?

Will Kamala be appointed on the Supreme Court? I do not see Joe Biden’s handlers allowing him to nominate Kamala Harris to the Supreme Court.

This rumor is being fanned by Joey’s and Kamala’s response when asked questions about 2024. If Kamala and Joey can’t find an articulate and convincing way to say they are going to run AGAIN TOGETHER in 2024, when the questioned is asked, you just say YES. Stumbling and bumbling through the question creates theories like this.

I personally believe nominating Harris as a Supreme Court justice to replace Stephen Breyer is political suicide. The Harris/Biden administration needs to squash this rumor to save the Democratic Party. I’m sure Joey can find some other radical, progressive, Maoist, Socialist, Stalinist, Trump hating, raciest, baby killing democrat to replace Breyer. They are a dime a dozen.

Even if Joey decides not to run in 2024 the Democratic Party should fully embrace there communist ideas and for the “common good” Kamala should take her chances in winning the presidency herself in 2024. As Steve Maviglio states in this article it’s a win-win because she checks all the racial boxes and most American’s don’t approve of her job as VP. If she is not qualified to be VP why should she be placed on the Supreme Court? Would this be another example of a democrat failing up?

Direct Quotes:

Harrison responded that the vice president wasn’t interested. And the White House — facing media questions about the possibility last week — reiterated President Joe Biden’s plan to keep her as his running mate in 2024.

They did so in admiration for Harris’ background as a prosecutor and a senator — particularly her sharp questioning of Brett Kavanaugh before his confirmation to the Supreme Court. But most of them expressed a different consideration, reflecting the intense skepticism within some parts of the party about Harris’ ability to win a presidential race if Biden does not run for reelection — and a desire to open the field to other possible successors to a 79-year-old president.

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, “It’s like doomsday every day… Everything is bad — let’s throw everything at the wall to maybe get the base excited.”

Of those activists’ sentiment, she said, “I think it could potentially manifest itself in Kamala, because that’s an easy out for people. But that’s not at the root of it. At the root of it is we’re doing all these good things as Democrats, and yet the voters don’t seem to be on our side.”

Harris is roughly as popular inside the Democratic Party as Biden, with a job approval rating among Democrats exceeding 80 percent, according to a recent CBS News poll.

Since becoming vice president, she has been beset by office turmoil and a portfolio of politically intransigent issues, including voting rights and immigration.

“Win-win,” said Steve Maviglio, a former New Hampshire state lawmaker and Democratic strategist from California, Harris’ home state.

“She checks a lot of the boxes: A woman of color, a liberal, being smart on a lot of issues, having experience,” he said. “The other part is that she’s not horribly popular as vice president, like it or not.”

One Democratic strategist in the Midwest joked that she could support a Harris court appointment “if it guarantees she never runs for [president] again.”Another party consultant volunteered a Harris appointment, though implausible, would deliver a “two-fer jolt — Kamala as Supreme Court justice and a new VP to bring in some excitement and change the narrative.”

To the vice president’s allies and former aides, the Harris-to-SCOTUS wish-casting was a trope engineered by her Republican opponents. Symone Sanders,Harris’ former senior adviser and chief spokesperson, said on Twitter that “the‘ VP Harris could be nominated to the Supreme Court’ chatter originated in right wing circles as a part of the narrative that the President wants to remove her from the ticket. So, we probably shouldn’t elevate the idea b/c it is rightwing gossip with no basis in facts.”

But it was also percolating privately on the left, despite hesitation among Democrats to say anything publicly disparaging to the vice president. Owen said he only considered a Harris appointment because she is highly qualified and would be a talented justice [He came to believe it was a bad idea when he realized the White House would lose a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to confirm a new vice president].

Biden’s nomination of a Black woman to the Supreme Court will fulfill a campaign promise, pleasing base Democratic voters and likely winning Senate confirmation.

“This is squarely a moment where Biden was running, he said he was going to do this, and he’s now going to deliver on this,” Renteria said. “So, getting back to that is really important, as opposed to a conversation of tearing down the vice president who is a Black woman.

Harris’ office, when contacted for this story, directed POLITICO to public comments Biden made last week when the president said he plans to consult with Harris as he considers a nominee. In advising Biden, Harris, the first woman and first Black vice president, will play a role in what Biden has pledged will be a historic appointment of the first Black woman to the Supreme Court.

#USA #TheChubbyCaucasianChristianClosetedConservative #Politico #Breyer #Harris #SCOTUS

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marcjampole · 6 years ago

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Look for a full term for Trump. He will never resign & the stability-loving political establishment won’t have the guts to either indict or convict him

In the 20th century, we would be entering the end game of Donald Trump’s ascendancy. His criminal conspiracy with Michael Cohen to ignore campaign financing laws would be enough to convince most voters that Trump is corrupt and has to go. Backroom negotiations between the two parties would determine whether Mike Pence would go, too, and if so, whether Trump would anoint—er ah, appoint—a traditional Republican like John Kasich or Mitt Romney as interim VP about to be president or have Nancy Pelosi or whoever is Speaker of the House take over as president. Political leaders would be relieved that they can change administrations without getting into the more destabilizing accusations regarding cooperation with the Russians to fix the 2016 election. Under extreme pressure from his closest supporters and the “wise men” (I would like to say “wise people” or “wise men and women,” but both would be inaccurate), of the Republican Party, Trump would announce his resignation.

Under normal—read: 20th century—circumstances, the resignation would occur in August because, as in 1974 when Nixon resigned in August, the Republican Party is facing a disaster in November, no matter what. Why have the resignation affect another election cycle, when you can get all the bad stuff out of the way all at once.

But the standard model of representational democracy of the last century is not operative at the given time, for a several reasons:

Trump’s mental illness is of the type that will make him dig in and ignore the advice of Republican elders, believing he can depend on his loyal base to impose his untruths on reality.

Trump has helped too many people accomplish goals that go against the best interest of the country and its people, but do help either the ultra-wealthy or thin but well connected slices of the economy. The tax cut for the wealthy, increases in military spending, hardened immigration policies, dismantling of environmental regulations, backing out of the Paris Accord, Iran nuclear agreement and other international agreements, easing of regulations on for-profit schools, changing Justice Department policies that helped enforce the civil rights of minorities, encouraging white supremacy—all of these are bad policies, but most represent what the Republican Party stands for in the 21st century.

A large portion of the mass media and a large number of very well-financed independent internet voices may continue to support Trump, spewing out misleading accounts, lies and false accusations to protect him.

Never before has so much political discourse and policy been based on lies that go against basic proven science. Lies and disproven theories have always poisoned our political discourse, as can be quickly seen by reviewing speeches given by Southern politicians in the 19th century or by imperialists in the 1890-1920 period. From time to time, administrations have forged policies based on untruths, especially as related to the reasons to go to war or to cut taxes on the wealthy. But the quantity of lies told by this administration raises public mendacity beyond a thresh hold of decency and sustainability.

One thing that seems to remain from the pre-21st century political consensus is the idea that stability is more important than anything else. Our ruling elite has always solved constitutional crises by avoiding them—except in the case of the war in 1861-1865 between the United States and the 13 treasonous states that tried to leave the union and attack our country so that they could maintain and spread their slave regimes. Just think of what we have avoided since World War I: The ruling elite let an ailing Wilson remain president. Nixon didn’t contest the 1960 election. Nixon resigned rather than force an indictment. The ruling elite let a senile Reagan complete his term. Gore did not contest the 2000 election. We swept Bush II torture and lies about the Iraq War under the table rather than prosecute high administration officials. The demand for stability in the system made Republicans accept Trump instead of working to deny him the nomination at the convention or launching a third party bid. The quest for stability made the Electoral College voters decide not to follow their constitutional duty to prevent the election of someone representing, in the words of James Madison, “a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

Avoidance of instability is the reason, I think, that so many constitutional scholars assert that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Nowhere in the constitution is there anything written that says that a president is above the law. The best the experts can hope to do is tease out the idea that because the constitution mentioned impeachment that implies the founding white fathers (again, an accurate, if tragic phrase) ruled out normal due process when a president is suspected of breaking the law.

If Mueller doesn’t indict, or if a rightwing court upholds the dubiously autocratic and certainly not originalist principle that a sitting president can’t face indictment, it leaves Congress to act to end this abomination of an administration. That other government officials have been both impeached and indicted undercuts this idea.

Three times the House of Representatives has considered impeachment. Nixon resigned before Congress could act on the notion. Twice, presidents were impeached, both times for political reasons more than any legal offense they committed. Don’t get me wrong—Andrew Johnson was a despicable racist who was dragging his feet on Reconstruction, but the reason he was impeached was inherently political: because he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Clinton’s impeachment was most certainly political in nature, given seven years of investigation revealed no corruption and no law-breaking except fibbing about having an affair.

Assuming the Democrats win the House, it’s a safe bet that Trump will be impeached. But it will take 66 Senate votes to convict Trump, and the Democrats may not even win the Senate in November because of the rare oddity that they have so many candidates up for reelection. The central question may thus turn out to be how many Republicans will ignore the fact that Trump has delivered so much of their agenda and vote to convict? How much bad stuff about Trump’s active collusion with Russia and his ham-handed attempts to cover up his treason will it take for Republican Senators to find or relocate their basic decency?

My fear is that like always, the political elites will decide to resolve the issue in the way that maintains the greatest stability and illusion of continuity. Thus, if Trump refuses to resign—as he no doubt will do—the United States will likely have to live out a full four years of corruption, bad policies, increasing consolidation of power in the hands of the presidency and a severe weakening of both our economy and our standing in the world.

All for the illusion of stability.

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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Did Republicans Win Back The House

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-republicans-win-back-the-house/

Did Republicans Win Back The House

Republicans Secure Half Of Total Us Senate Seats

How Republicans can win back the White House

WASHINGTON U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska won reelection Wednesday, assuring Republicans of at least 50 seats in the 100-member Senate for the next two years, while leaving control of the chamber uncertain until two runoff elections are held in Georgia in early January.

After slow vote-counting in the northwestern-most state of the U.S. after the November 3 election, news media concluded that Sullivan had an insurmountable lead over Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who ran as an independent candidate with Democratic support. The contest was called with Sullivan, a conservative, ahead by 20 percentage points.

With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.

Two conservative Republican lawmakers Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.

Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist who narrowly lost a 2017 race for a seat in the House of Representatives before trying to oust Perdue from the Senate seat he has held since 2015.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

An Incoming Class Of History

Several of the newly elected state representatives are making history.;

The Republican Madison Cawthorn, 25, who beat the Democrat Moe Davis to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, will become the youngest member of Congress in modern history.

The Democrat Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman from Missouri after winning in the state’s 1st Congressional District.

The Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres will also be the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, after winning in New York’s 17th and 15th districts respectively.

And nine out of the eleven Republicans who have so far unseated incumbent Democrats are women wins that will drastically expand the representation of women and especially of women of color in the House Republican caucus.

Currently, there are just 13 voting female Republican representatives in the House and 11 female Republican incumbents who ran for reelection in 2020.

‘the Squad’ Coasts To Reelection

Three high-profile Democratic members of “the squad” in the House of Representatives held their seats in a comfortable fashion.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will continue to represent New York’s 14th District, defeating the Republican John Cummings by a wide margin, while Rep. Ilhan Omar also ran well ahead of the Republican Lacy Johnson in the race to represent Minnesota’s 5th District.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib also defeated her Republican challenger, David Dudenhoefer, and will continue to represent Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.

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The Midterms Introduced Extreme Divisive Politics

As for the contract’s lasting impact? Most of its ideas and proposals did not pass Congress, or were vetoed by Clinton, and, according to Teske, the ones that did pass were not radical departures and instead relatively minor in scope. But it did put Republicans back in power in Congress, which they’ve largely held onto in the years since.

“The Gingrich approach of extreme right ideas, combined with a scorched-earth personal level of politics in attacking opponentslater seen in Clintons investigations and impeachmenthas also had a major impact on American politics” he says. “It helped bring a much more ‘win at all costs’ mentality, and a divisiveness that persists today.”

Climate Deniers In The 117th Congress

According to new analysis from the Center for American Progress, there are still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress, including 109 representatives and 30 senators, who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. All 139 of these climate-denying elected officials have made recent statements casting doubt on the clear, established scientific consensus that the world is warmingand that human activity is to blame. These same 139 climate-denying members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries.

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Caucused In Iowa

Senate Republican Leader Says Narrow Democratic Control Of House And Senate Makes Push Against President Impractical

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday, I think we have a good chance of winning that election next year.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republican calls for removing President Biden from office over the Afghanistan withdrawal were impractical, urging GOP voters to focus instead on winning back the House and Senate in next years midterm elections.

Look, there isnt going to be an impeachment, but I think we have a good chance of winning that election next year, Mr. McConnell said in remarks in his home state on Wednesday, in which he noted that Democrats could block any push to remove the president.

Why Did House Democrats Underperform Compared To Joe Biden

The results of the 2020 elections pose several puzzles, one of which is the gap between Joe Bidens handsome victory in the presidential race and the Democrats disappointing performance in the House of Representatives. Biden enjoyed an edge of 7.1 million votes over President Trump, while the Democrats suffered a loss of 13 seats in the House, reducing their margin from 36 to just 10.

Turnout in the 2018 mid-term election reached its highest level in more than a century. Democrats were fervently opposed to the Trump administration and turned out in droves. Compared to its performance in 2016, the partys total House vote fell by only 2%. Without Donald Trump at the head of the ticket, Republican voters were much less enthusiastic, and the total House vote for Republican candidates fell by nearly 20% from 2016. Democratic candidates received almost 10 million more votes than Republican candidates, a margin of 8.6%, the highest ever for a party that was previously in the minority. It was, in short, a spectacular year for House Democrats.

To understand the difference this Democratic disadvantage can make, compare the 2020 presidential and House results in five critical swing states.

Table 1: Presidential versus House results

Arizona

Also Check: How Did Republicans Do In The Primaries

Rep Emmer On Why He Thinks Republicans Will Win The House

Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee and is leading the GOPs efforts to win control of the House in November. Emmer joins Judy Woodruff from Minneapolis to discuss his reaction to the Republican National Convention so far and why he thinks his party will win a majority in the House this fall.

Republicans Are Watching Their States Back Weed And Theyre Not Sold

Trump to decide on 2024 presidential run once Republicans ‘take back the House’

Montana, South Dakota and Mississippi are among the states that have recently passed legalization referendums.

06/27/2021 07:01 AM EDT

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A growing number of Republican senators represent states that have legalized recreational or medical cannabis six approved or expanded marijuana in some form just since November. But without their support in Congress to make up for likely Democratic defectors, weed falls critically short of the 60 votes needed to advance legislation.

Montanas Steve Daines and South Dakotas Mike Rounds, both Republicans, said they dont support comprehensive federal cannabis reform, no matter what voters back home voted for.

I oppose it, said Daines, who is otherwise a lead sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act, which would make it easier for the cannabis industry to access financial services, such as bank accounts and small business loans. The people in Montana decided they want to have it legal in our state, and thats why I support the SAFE Banking Act as well its the right thing to do but I dont support federal legalization.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is vowing to push a far-reaching federal legalization bill, even if President Joe Biden isnt on board. But before he can corner the White House on the issue, Schumer must convince at least 10 Republicans possibly more, since Democrats like Sens. Jon Tester and Jeanne Shaheen are unlikely to back the measure to join his cause.

Also Check: What Do Republicans Stand For Today

The 147 Republicans Who Voted To Overturn Election Results

By Karen Yourish,;Larry Buchanan and Denise LuUpdated January 7, 2021

When a mob of President Trumps supporters stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday, they forced an emergency recess in the Congressional proceedings to officially certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The disruption came shortly after some Republican lawmakers made the first of a planned series of highly unusual objections, based on spurious allegations of widespread voter fraud, to states election results. The chambers were separately debating an objection to Arizonas results when proceedings were halted and the Capitol was locked down.

When the Senate reconvened at 8 p.m., and the House of Representatives an hour later, the proceedings including the objection debates continued, although some lawmakers who had previously planned to vote with the objectors stood down following the occupation of the Capitol. Plans to challenge a number of states after Arizona were scrapped, as well but one other objection, to Pennsylvanias results, also advanced to a vote. Here are the eight senators and 139 representatives who voted to sustain one or both objections.

Trump Lost Everything For The Republicans

In four years, Trump has led the Republican Party from unified control of Washington to the wilderness.

About the author: David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it, Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted on May 16, 2016.

The South Carolinians prediction didnt age well at first. Come January 2017, the Republican Party was in the catbird seat. With Trumps upset win over the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, it controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Trump would immediately be able to appoint a Supreme Court justice, too, giving GOP appointees an edge on the high court. Trump seemed to have cleared out the last vestiges of the Democrats New Deal coalition and built a new party that might withstand demographic changes expected to favor liberals. Graham, meanwhile, had a change of heart and became one of Trumps noisiest cheerleaders and closest allies.

Nonetheless, Trump insisted on making the Georgia Senate runoffs about him too. The effect was disastrous. Democrats, especially Black voters, turned out in astonishing numbers; suburban voters continued to reject Trump; and Republican turnout fell short, perhaps in part because the president had spent weeks telling his supporters that the states elections were rigged.

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President Clinton And Hillary Clinton Were Campaign Targets

Teske adds that Republicans had some easy “targets to attack,” from the unpopular, early years of President Bill Clinton, to the Hillary Clinton-led health care proposal to individual corruption cases in Congress.

The overarching goal of the contract involved cutting taxes, reducing the size of government and reducing government regulations, taking aim at Congress, itself, to be more transparent, less corrupt and more open with the public.

“Essentially, it claimed that it would ‘drain the swamp’though they didnt use that term, in terms of what Donald Trump would later articulate,”;Teske;says. “If successful, the contract specified 10 bills they would bring up for votes in the first 100 days, including a balanced budget amendment, term limits, social security reform and others.”

The 2024 Presidential Election Will Be Close Even If Trump Is The Gop Nominee

One very important thing we should have all taken away from both the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests is that the two major parties are in virtual equipose . The ideological sorting-out of the two parties since the 1960s has in turn led to extreme partisan polarization, a decline in ticket-splitting and and in number of genuine swing voters. Among other things, this has led to an atmosphere where Republicans have paid little or no price for the extremism theyve disproportionately exhibited, or for the bad conduct of their leaders, most notably the 45th president.

Indeed, the polarized climate encourages outlandish and immoral base mobilization efforts of the sort Trump deployed so regularly. Some Republicans partisans shook their heads sadly and voted the straight GOP ticket anyway, And to the extent there were swing voters they tended strongly to believe that both parties were equally guilty of excessive partisanship, and/or that all politicians are worthless scum, so why not vote for the worthless scum under whom the economy hummed?

The bottom line is that anyone who assumes Republicans are in irreversible decline in presidential elections really hasnt been paying attention.

Don’t Miss: Which Republicans Voted Against The Tax Bill

Republicans Won All 27 House Races Listed As ‘toss

Republicans won all 27 House races the Cook Political Report rated as toss-ups in its 2020 election analysis, in addition to picking up seven of the 36 seats the outlet rated as likely Democrat” or “lean Democrat.

The House count stands at 221D-209R, and here are my information ratings of the five outstanding races following todays developments, Cook Political Report editor Dave Wasserman said on Twitter. #CA21 – Likely R, #CA25 – Lean R, #IA02 – Lean R , #NJ07 – Likely D, #NY22 – Toss Up.

The House count stands at 221D-209R, and here are my informal ratings of the five outstanding races following todays developments:#CA21 – Likely R#CA25 – Lean R#IA02 – Lean R #NJ07 – Likely D#NY22 – Toss Up

Dave Wasserman

Before the election, the Cook Political Report listed 229 seats as either solid Democrat, likely Democrat, or lean Democrat to go along with the 26 toss-ups. As of Thursday, the partys best hope is for 226 seats, though the Cook Political Report rates 223 as the most likely outcome.

The results represent a major disappointment for Democrats, who grew increasingly confident of a blue wave leading up to Election Day that would give them an expanded House majority.

This year, Im trying to win it two years in advance by being so substantial in this election that as soon as we start into the next year, people will see our strength, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said one week before Election Day.

Effect Of Republican Retirements

Indeed, 2020 was actually a Democratic-leaning year, with Biden winning the national popular vote by 4.5 percentage points. So theres a good chance that states will be at least a bit redder in 2022 than they were in 2020.

That could make these retirements less of a blow to Republicans than they first appear. Whats more, by announcing their retirements so early, Burr, Toomey and Portman are giving the GOP as much time as possible to recruit potential candidates, shape the field of candidates in a strategic way in the invisible primary and raise more money for the open-seat campaign. And in Ohio specifically, Republicans still look like heavy favorites. Even in the Democratic-leaning environment of 2020, Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points, implying that its true partisan lean is probably even more Republican-leaning. Ohio is simply not the quintessential swing state it once was; dating back to the 2014 election cycle, Democrats have won just one out of 14 statewide contests in Ohio and that was a popular incumbent running in a blue-wave election year .

Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight

Read Also: When Did The Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

Gop Women Made Big Gains

While the majority of the Republican caucus will still be men come 2021, there will be far more Republican women in Congress than there were this year. So far, it looks like at least 26 GOP women will be in the House next year, surpassing the record of 25 from the 109th Congress. Thats thanks in part to the record number of non-incumbent Republican women 15 whove won House contests. And its also because of how well Republican women did in tight races. The table below shows the Republican women who ran in Democratic-held House districts that were at least potentially competitive,1 according to FiveThirtyEights forecast. As of this writing, seven of them have won.

GOP women have flipped several Democratic seats

Republican women running for potentially competitive Democratic-held House seats and the status of their race as of 4:30 p.m Eastern on Nov. 11

District D+22.1

Results are unofficial. Races are counted as projected only if the projection comes from ABC News. Excludes races in which the Republican candidate has either a less than 1 in 100 chance or greater than 99 in 100 chance of winning.

Gerrymandering Texas Could Help Republicans Take Back The House In 2022

Trump has ‘no plans’ for third party but will help Republicans win back House and Senate in 2022

HOUSTON Fort Bend County was a sleepy suburban outpost of Houston when KP George arrived in the late 1990s, dominated by conservative politics and represented in Congress by Republican Party star Tom DeLay.

Twenty years later, the areas population has more than doubled in size, driven by fast-growing Asian, Latino and Black communities that in 2019 helped elect George an immigrant from southern India as Fort Bends first non-white county judge.

The wave of left-leaning voters that elevated George and other Democrats to local office in recent years may also help the area land a new congressional district. Texas gained two House seats in the 2020 U.S. Census, driven by a population boom in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan regions, among other parts of the state.

But the Republican-controlled state legislature will be in charge of drawing the new districts, leaving Democrats on the sidelines, worried they may not benefit from the regions changing demographics.

You feel like youre not being counted, George said. My county is benefitting from people like me. But when it comes to the seat at the table , we dont have it.

Redistricting is a byzantine process that plays out behind closed doors, but the stakes are high. New congressional and state legislative lines will remain in place for the next decade, giving the parties that benefit most from redistricting considerable clout in policymaking and upcoming elections.

Read Also: Why Did Republicans Want To Remove President Johnson From Office

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statetalks · 3 years ago

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Did Republicans Win Back The House

Republicans Secure Half Of Total Us Senate Seats

How Republicans can win back the White House

With Republicans assured of at least half the Senate seats, attention now turns to the two January 5 runoff elections in the southern state of Georgia.

Two conservative Republican lawmakers Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler now hold the two seats, but both failed in separate contests last week to win a majority, forcing them into the runoffs.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in early 2020, is facing Raphael Warnock, a progressive Democrat who is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

An Incoming Class Of History

Several of the newly elected state representatives are making history.;

The Republican Madison Cawthorn, 25, who beat the Democrat Moe Davis to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, will become the youngest member of Congress in modern history.

The Democrat Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman from Missouri after winning in the state’s 1st Congressional District.

The Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres will also be the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, after winning in New York’s 17th and 15th districts respectively.

Currently, there are just 13 voting female Republican representatives in the House and 11 female Republican incumbents who ran for reelection in 2020.

‘the Squad’ Coasts To Reelection

Three high-profile Democratic members of “the squad” in the House of Representatives held their seats in a comfortable fashion.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib also defeated her Republican challenger, David Dudenhoefer, and will continue to represent Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.

You May Like: What Do Republicans And Democrats Believe In

The Midterms Introduced Extreme Divisive Politics

Climate Deniers In The 117th Congress

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Caucused In Iowa

Senate Republican Leader Says Narrow Democratic Control Of House And Senate Makes Push Against President Impractical

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday, I think we have a good chance of winning that election next year.

Why Did House Democrats Underperform Compared To Joe Biden

To understand the difference this Democratic disadvantage can make, compare the 2020 presidential and House results in five critical swing states.

Table 1: Presidential versus House results

Also Check: How Did Republicans Do In The Primaries

Rep Emmer On Why He Thinks Republicans Will Win The House

Republicans Are Watching Their States Back Weed And Theyre Not Sold

Trump to decide on 2024 presidential run once Republicans ‘take back the House’

Montana, South Dakota and Mississippi are among the states that have recently passed legalization referendums.

06/27/2021 07:01 AM EDT

Link Copied

Montanas Steve Daines and South Dakotas Mike Rounds, both Republicans, said they dont support comprehensive federal cannabis reform, no matter what voters back home voted for.

Also Check: What Do Republicans Stand For Today

The 147 Republicans Who Voted To Overturn Election Results

By Karen Yourish,;Larry Buchanan and Denise LuUpdated January 7, 2021

Trump Lost Everything For The Republicans

In four years, Trump has led the Republican Party from unified control of Washington to the wilderness.

About the author: David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it, Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted on May 16, 2016.

You May Like: How Many Republicans Voted For Impeachment

President Clinton And Hillary Clinton Were Campaign Targets

The 2024 Presidential Election Will Be Close Even If Trump Is The Gop Nominee

The bottom line is that anyone who assumes Republicans are in irreversible decline in presidential elections really hasnt been paying attention.

Don’t Miss: Which Republicans Voted Against The Tax Bill

Republicans Won All 27 House Races Listed As ‘toss

Dave Wasserman

The results represent a major disappointment for Democrats, who grew increasingly confident of a blue wave leading up to Election Day that would give them an expanded House majority.

Effect Of Republican Retirements

Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight

Read Also: When Did The Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

Gop Women Made Big Gains

GOP women have flipped several Democratic seats

Republican women running for potentially competitive Democratic-held House seats and the status of their race as of 4:30 p.m Eastern on Nov. 11

District D+22.1

Gerrymandering Texas Could Help Republicans Take Back The House In 2022

Trump has ‘no plans’ for third party but will help Republicans win back House and Senate in 2022

You feel like youre not being counted, George said. My county is benefitting from people like me. But when it comes to the seat at the table , we dont have it.

Read Also: Why Did Republicans Want To Remove President Johnson From Office

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-republicans-win-back-the-house/

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

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Looking to 2024, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem gets caught in GOP culture war over transgender athletes

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/looking-to-2024-south-dakota-gov-kristi-noem-gets-caught-in-gop-culture-war-over-transgender-athletes/

Looking to 2024, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem gets caught in GOP culture war over transgender athletes

After saying earlier this month she was “excited” to sign a bill preventing transgender students from competing in same-gender sports, Noem effectively killed the legislation last week that had been passed by Republican majorities in the state House and Senate — citing concerns the bill as-is would invite lawsuits.

On Monday, however, she followed up by issuing two executive orders that implemented a ban on people assigned male on their original birth certificates from participating in women’s sports in public high schools and colleges. That predictably sparked opposition from trans rights advocates who say the orders are unconstitutional and discriminatory because they reference the supposed harms of the participation of “males” in women’s athletics — an echo of the transphobic claim that transgender women are not women.

But the move also prompted criticism from conservatives, who claim the executive orders are unenforceable and toothless.

Noem’s action is the latest in a growing trend among Republican-leaning states, where GOP politicians are embracing laws and executive orders to limit the participation of transgender students in school-sponsored sports. In recent weeks, Republican governors in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee have all signed similar bills into law. There are dozens of other bills proposed by Republican lawmakers in states across the country. The subject has been discussed frequently in conservative media and featured prominently at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference.

All of that suggests Republicans have found a new way to drum up support in their base by challenging the rights of a minority group. It’s the latest front in their ongoing culture war, one that puts them in the familiar position of having to choose between social conservatives and the business community. It indicates the challenge Republicans have in balancing the cultural concerns of the party’s base with assembling a winning national coalition.

It also recalls the fight in 2016 over North Carolina’s so-called bathroom law that people at a government-run facility must use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate. In practice, the law meant that many transgender and nonbinary people were unable to use a restroom in government buildings, and felt unsafe to do so elsewhere in public. The law was enacted by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and sparked an immediate backlash in the form of economic boycotts and saw the relocation of two major sporting events — the NBA All-Star Game and part of the NCAA basketball tournament — out of the state. McCrory lost his bid for reelection later that year.

Some social conservatives say that in rejecting the original bill, Noem bowed to pressure from the business community and the fear of lawsuits – a fear Noem herself cited in her statement at the time. Business groups like the Sioux Falls Greater Chamber of Commerce, for instance, were opposed to the original bill.

“The chamber’s long-term policy is to not pass laws that are discriminatory in nature that would affect our economy,” said Debra Owen, the Sioux Falls chamber’s public policy director.

And Noem herself expressed concern the bill as worded would put college programs out of compliance with collegiate athletics governing bodies. Six colleges and universities in South Dakota belong to the NCAA, the largest such governing body.

Social conservatives were not convinced.

“What we saw play out in South Dakota is the divide within the Republican party, and the divide is between the elites … and the voters,” said Terry Schilling, the executive director of the American Principles Project. “Noem ultimately capitulated to the chambers of commerce, the NCAA, and gave them what they’re wanting.”

Noem has insisted the executive orders are temporary and has called the legislature to hold a special session to draft a new bill that addresses her concerns.

“She’s still vocally supportive of the issue, and is still excited to sign a bill” achieving the same result, said Ian Fury, a spokesman for the governor.

Bubbling up at CPAC

Noem herself appeared poised to handle the competing constituencies effectively.

As the breakout star at CPAC, she touted her strident resistance to mask mandates and shutdown orders in South Dakota, even as her state has seen one of the highest per capita death rates from Covid-19, and governors across the country did otherwise during the pandemic. Unlike many potential presidential candidates who spoke there, Noem articulated a broad definition of what the party’s principles should be.

“We must more closely articulate to the American people that we are the only ones who respect them as human beings,” Noem said. “That we are the only ones who believe the American people have God-given rights. We are not here to tell you how to live your life, how to treat you like a child or criminal because you go to church or you defend yourself.”

But trans rights issues were already surfacing at CPAC. One panel focused on the perceived problems of allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ school athletics, and multiple speakers criticized the Equality Act, passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections against discrimination over sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.

And CPAC’s headline speaker, former President Donald Trump, asserted President Joe Biden was seeking to “destroy women’s sports.”

“We must protect the integrity of women’s sports. So important. Have to,” Trump said.

Focusing on children

Republicans have raised related topics in Congress, including at the recent confirmation hearing for Dr. Rachel Levine, Biden’s nominee for assistant health secretary and the first Senate-confirmed out transgender federal official. In a line of questioning criticized as transphobic, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky equated life-affirming medical treatments for trans kids with “genital mutilation.”

Meanwhile, a number of social conservative groups have taken up the issue of fighting against transgender rights and are focusing on issues involving children. Among them is the Family Research Council, which has lobbied on behalf of what it calls a “biblical worldview” and in opposition to what it refers to as a “gender ideology” that promotes transgender rights.

“There are a number of manifestations of this worldview and this idea which we see as harmful, many see as harmful,” said Travis Weber, the vice president for policy and government affairs at the Family Research Council. “I think many are saying, look, this needs to be addressed in our communities, in our states.”

Weber says the FRC has identified more than 90 pieces of legislation in states across the country to limit participation of transgender women in girls’ school sports or to ban gender transition procedures for minors.

The Human Rights Campaign is also tracking bills and counts 48 anti-transgender sports bills in 26 states.

But advocates for transgender people say the actions of Republicans in state legislatures are alarming, and risks bringing real harm to the lives of kids who are already at risk.

“As trans people, we still very much live in a world where our existence is an act of resistance and our visibility is an act of bravery,” said Carrie Davis, the chief community officer at The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth.

“In the face of such constant, vitriolic rhetoric and a record number of anti-trans bills, it is crucial to show up and show support for transgender and nonbinary youth year-round,” she added.

While it’s unclear if the South Dakota legislature would actually take another look at the legislation in a special session this year, Noem continues to insist she’d support a ban under the right conditions.

“Governor Noem has been engaged in this very fight for years,” said Fury. “But we have to pursue this fight in a smart way, with the same type of strategic approach” used by activists who oppose abortion rights.

Schilling, however, said it’s disappointing Noem cast her lot with what he characterized as the business wing of the GOP.

“The business elites have been so entrenched in the Republican party forever,” Schilling said. “They don’t like these cultural fights.”

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khalilhumam · 4 years ago

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Trump’s government dismantlers have lost their plurality

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/trumps-government-dismantlers-have-lost-their-plurality/

Trump’s government dismantlers have lost their plurality

By Paul C. Light Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both promised very major government reform. For his part, Trump rarely misses an opportunity to reprise his past promises to drain the swamp; eliminate the fraud, waste, and abuse hidden in the federal budget; cut spending by simply buying things for less; and destroy the “deep-state” of liberal bureaucrats who are plotting his overthrow. For his part, Biden has promised to make government work for the people again through ethics and campaign finance reform. He has also suggested that Trump’s defeat will prove to be major government reform in itself when Washington returns to bipartisanship and the regular order. “Not a joke,” Biden said in May 2019, “You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.” Political observers, however, debate whether this idea is accurate or naïve. Government reform is not the only item on the campaign agenda, of course. Both Trump and Biden have blended their government reform agendas with promises of a bigger government that delivers more services versus a smaller government that delivers fewer services. The combination produces four groups of reformers (referenced in the second piece in this series):

Rebuilders who favor very major reform and a bigger government that provides more services.

Dismantlers who favor very major reform and a smaller government that provides fewer services.

Expanders who favor only some reform and a bigger government that provides more services.

Streamliners who favor only some reform and a smaller government that provides fewer services.

Both candidates developed their reform agendas to favor their strongest supporters—the dismantlers for Trump and expanders for Biden. Both would gladly accept support from any quarter, but both may be courting the wrong groups as the election approaches. As Figure 1 shows, the dismantlers cannot give Trump a majority regardless of their party loyalty, while the expanders cannot give Biden a majority regardless of their commitment.[1] All things being equal, meaning government reform is the only issue in play on Election Day, Trump must recruit the streamliners to his cause, while Biden must win a significant share of the rebuilders. All things being equal again, both candidates must also win substantial support from the other party. Scholars know that partisanship rarely yields to a specific issue such as an economic or health crisis, but every issue matters at the margins. This is why Trump’s best chance will always reside with Republican dismantlers, while Biden’s will come from Democratic rebuilders. Figure 1 In Trump’s case, Republican dismantlers claimed a 37% share of Republican identifiers in July, followed by the streamliners at 31%, expanders at 17%, rebuilders at 14%. Assuming that party identification is nearly unbreakable, Trump must focus on the streamliners who have shown less comfort with his angry rhetoric and more confidence in government. Trump’s best option for winning the streamliners is a more temperate campaign that acknowledges the need for accommodation and principled policy—hardly an easy path given the president’s love of insult.[2] In Biden’s case, the Democratic expanders claimed a 15% share of the party faithful in 2020 with the much more reform-minded rebuilders at 54%, the Trump-leaning dismantlers at 21 percent, and the streamliners at just 10%. In theory, Biden could win the popular vote with a combination of rebuilders and expanders, but he must find a way to merge the two without alienating the Democratic progressives represented on the left of the Biden-Sanders agenda. Figure 2 An equally telling analysis involves a comparison of candidate support in 2016 and 2020. As Figure 2 suggests, the percentage of dismantlers has fallen since Trump’s election, while the number of expanders has remained steady. These changes suggest that public support for the four reform positions respond to the same factors that drive the demand for reform overall, most notably the potential impact of government failure. It is possible, for example, that drop in support for dismantling and expanding is the cumulative result of the long list of post-2001 federal breakdowns and the polarized coverage that followed each one. Figures 3 and 4 shows the challenges facing each candidate as they confront the changing distribution of support between 2016 and 2020. Trump may yet find that streamliners who he has often mocked are central to his reelection, while Biden may discover that his Build Back Better agenda would be even better if he promised to fix the bureaucracy fast. Figure 3 Biden may have the tougher challenge. Absent a firm focus on repairing the broken agencies he would inherit, the bigger programs he has touted are more likely to worry the rebuilders than entice them. Biden must start talking about fixing the bureaucracy, and not just through ethics and campaign finance reform. He must convince the rebuilders that the federal government will be able to deliver on the promises he makes and would be well-advised to channel Jimmy Carter in the effort. As I have written, Carter was a nearly perfect rebuilder, committed to a bigger government that delivers more services such as healthcare access and an advocate for civil service reform, sunshine in government, and independent Offices of Inspector General in every cabinet department. The last five minutes of his 1976 Democratic nomination acceptance speech should be at the top of Biden’s play list in showing how honoring the “majesty of the Constitution” and promising to “lead without negativism” could call the rebuilders to action today. Biden should take a listen. Figure 4 Figure 5

[1] These election preferences come from a telephone survey conducted from July 28-August 2, 2020 by SSRS. The results of the bilingual telephone survey are based on a random sample of 1,006 respondents 18 years of age and older in English (972) and Spanish (34) by landline (303) and cellphone (703, including 487 without a landline phone). The margin of error for findings based on total respondents is +/- 3.55 at the 95 percent confidence level. All data were weighted for population and party identification to assure representative and projectable estimates of the adult population. Additional data for the charts that also contain 2016 or 2019 data also came from SSRS surveys. [2] For a portrait of the typical streamliner, see Nicolas Kristof, “Desperately Seeking Principled Republicans,” New York Times, October 20, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/opinion/sunday/congress-republicans-democrats-conservatives.html

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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Why Are No Other Republicans Running For President

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-are-no-other-republicans-running-for-president/

Why Are No Other Republicans Running For President

A Very Very Long List Of Possible Republican Presidential Candidates

David French explains why he is not running for president

PBSNewsHour counts at least 17 Republicans who said or done something to show serious interest in running for president.;

After a presidential wannabe cattle call in Iowa last week, todays edition of the Morning Line,;a daily email from the political team of PBSNewsHour, says at least 17 Republicans have said or done something to indicate a fairly serious interest in running for the party of Lincolns presidential nomination in the next cycle .

Heres their list:

John Bolton, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump and Scott Walker.

I hate to say it, but they missed at least one ;South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham.

The NewsHour-ers cited four possible explanations for the huge field:

Money ; attention ; the Obama effect ; and history . Ive previously pushed back against the last explanation, but youll continue to hear it.

Ive also previously railed against the absurdity of having two of the 50 states hold a permanently outsized role in the presidential nomination process. Just to summarize: its absurd.

Why Republicans Are Begging Rubio To Run For The Senate

Influential Republicans are begging defeated presidential candidate Marco Rubio to forget about his pledge not to run for reelection and instead seek a second term as Florida senator because he could make the difference between Democratic and Republican control of the Senate.

With Donald Trump down in the polls, Republicans are wary of not only losing the White House but also that the real estate mogul could hurt GOP candidates for the House and the U.S. Senate. Republicans currently have 54 seats in the Senate, but they must defend seats in six states where President Obama won in 2012 and Hillary Clinton is the favorite this fall

Former Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo

If the 2024 election turns into a foreign policy debate, the 57-year-old Pompeo is in a strong position with his background as former secretary of state and CIA director.

During Pompeos recent speech at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, Iowa, he gave a preview of some of the lines that might end up in his presidential stump speech. He said hes spent more time with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un than any other American, including basketball star Dennis Rodman, and talked about the threat he sees from China. His mention of the U.S. moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem during his tenure was met with applause.

Before serving in Trumps Cabinet, Pompeo blasted then-candidate Trump as an authoritarian. Pompeo made the remarks the day of the Kansas caucus in 2016, quoting Trump saying that if he told a soldier to commit a war crime, they would go and do it. Pompeo said the U.S. had spent 7½ years with an authoritarian president who ignored the Constitution, referencing former President Barack Obama, and we dont need four more years of that.

Pompeo served three full terms representing Kansas in the U.S. House before joining the Trump administration. He and his wife, Susan, have one child. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and Harvard Law and served in the U.S. Army.

Recommended Reading: Which 12 Republicans Voted Against Trump

Whos Running For President In 2020

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge President Trump in the 2020 race.

The field of Democratic presidential candidates was historically large, but all others have dropped out. Mr. Trump had also picked up a few Republican challengers, but they have also ended their campaigns.

Running

Has run for president twice before.

Is known for his down-to-earth personality and his ability to connect with working-class voters.

His eight years as Barack Obamas vice president are a major selling point for many Democrats.

Signature issues: Restoring Americas standing on the global stage; adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act; strengthening economic protections for low-income workers in industries like manufacturing and fast food.

Main legislative accomplishment as president: a sweeping tax cut that chiefly benefited corporations and wealthy investors.

Has focused on undoing the policies of the Obama administration, including on health care, environmental regulation and immigration.

Was impeached by the House of Representatives for seeking to pressure Ukraine to smear his political rivals, but was acquitted by the Senate.

Signature issues: Restricting immigration and building a wall at the Mexican border; renegotiating or canceling international deals on trade, arms control and climate change; withdrawing American troops from overseas.

Ended her campaign in March 2020 and said she would back Mr. Biden.

Rubio ‘very Disturbed’ By Trump’s Judge Comments

There is no guarantee Rubio would win in November. But compared to the five Republicans who are currently running in a primary to replace him, Rubio has many advantages. He has high name recognition from both his 2010 Senate campaign and his presidential run, as well as an established fundraising network.

If Trump struggles in Florida, Rubio may need some voters who back Clinton to support him at the same time. And the Florida senator may be well-positioned to encourage such ticket-splitting. A Latino Republican like Rubio, who is Cuban-American, could convince Florida voters that he does not agree with Trumps controversial views on racial issues.

For the Republican Party, Rubio is a tested candidate who has already run successfully statewide. With Rubio on the ballot, party operatives could invest more money and key staff in other races. And if some or all of the five Republicans currently in the Florida GOP Senate primary drop out if Rubio as runs, as expected, the party could consolidate around the incumbent early and focus on the general election.

Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson, two congressmen, are competing for the Democratic nomination for this Senate seat.

In Florida, a large state where it is very expensive to run a statewide campaign, a candidate with a favorable image and high name recognition, like Rubio, is the only way to break from the top of the ticket, said Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist and adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Read Also: Who Is More Educated Democrats Or Republicans

For These Republicans 2024 Is Just Around The Corner

Mike Pence. Mike Pompeo. Rick Scott. They share big ambitions, but one name hovers above them all

President Biden told reporters last month that his plan is to run for re-election, despite already being the oldest person to have won a presidential election. So, for now at least, the question of who will lead the Democratic ticket in 2024 has been put to rest.

On the Republican side, however, certainty is in short supply. Its beyond early to be talking about the next presidential election but thats only if you arent planning to run. Some Republican candidates have already made trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, and others are laying plans to go, in what often represents the first step in building out a campaign operation in those early-voting states.

And on Wednesday, in a conspicuously forward-looking move, former Vice President Mike Pence announced the formation of a new political organization, Advancing American Freedom, whose advisory board is stacked high with former Trump administration officials and allies. The news came on the same day Simon & Schuster announced that it would publish Pences autobiography as part of a two-book deal.

The G.O.P. is badly fractured, trying to hold together a dominant base of those loyal to former President Donald Trump and a stubborn minority of pro-decorum, anti-Trump conservatives. Anyone looking to grab the Republican mantle will have to find some way of satisfying both camps and maybe even expanding upon them.

Former Ambassador To The United Nations Nikki Haley

Haley has changed her tone when it comes to Trump. After saying he let us down and lost any sort of political viability he was going to have following Jan. 6, Haley is, at least publicly, a fan again. During her remarks at the Iowa Republican Party dinner on June 24, Haley praised Trump and told a story about him asking if he should call Kim Jong Un little rocket man during his speech at the U.N. Haley said she cautioned him to treat the audience like church instead of a rally, but he went ahead and used the term.

Haley even sounded kind of Trumpian during her speech, telling Republicans they were too nice. We have to be tough about how we fight, she said. We keep getting steamrolled and then whine and complain about it. The days of being nice should be over.

She also didnt shy away from her gender, opening the speech by saying, America needs more strong conservative women leaders and less of Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris, and praising female Iowa Republicans like U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds. I wear heels, Haley said. Its not for a fashion statement. I use it for kicking. But I always kick with a smile.

Also Check: What Color Ties Do Republicans Wear

Sen Tim Scott Of South Carolina

Scott showed up in the February Morning Consult/Politico poll as one of a handful of other 2024 presidential candidates respondents would vote for in 2024.

When Scott, 55, spoke at last summers Republican National Convention, he mentioned fairness and equality, and listed the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor among the events that had tested the nation. It was an optimistic speech, and it sounded unlike anything we were used to hearing from the Trump-era Republican Party.

Scott was first elected to the Charleston County Council in 1995. He then served in the South Carolina House of Representatives before being elected to the U.S. House for two terms. In 2013, he became the first African American since Reconstruction to represent a southern state in the U.S. Senate. He is unmarried.

Which Republicans Will Take On Trump In 2020

2020 Election – 5 Republicans Who Might Run For President (Why Donald Trump will be the GOP Nominee)

As the 2020 election cycle begins, some centrist Republicans are already said to be considering challenging the president as the GOP works to stifle any rebellion

As more and more Democrats line up for a chance to take on Donald Trump in 2020 the president has predictably responded by doling out insults and nicknames. But while Democrats remain the object of Trumps ire for now, he may soon have to worry about Republican primary challengers as well.

Since Trumps 2016 run, centrist Republicans have watched aghast as the president transformed the party and its supporters to fit his own style and beliefs. Many of his former opponents within the Republican party fell in line, but others have not.

As the 2020 election cycle begins, some Republicans may now seek to challenge Trump in the presidential primaries.

One potential insurgent Republican candidate is former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, who was the vice-presidential nominee on Gary Johnsons Libertarian party ticket in 2016.

Last week, the Associated Press reported that Weld had changed his party registration from Libertarian back to Republican. In late January, he told the New Hampshire television station WMUR that he would not say anything regarding whether he was running or not until he gave a speech in the state home to the first primary in the nation on 15 February.

If he enters the race and does so in his old party he will be the first rebel Republican to challenge Trump.

Also Check: Are Republicans Or Democrats Better For Small Business

Republican Hopefuls Will Need To Lay The Groundwork For Potential Campaigns Of Their Own Without Alienating The President And His Supporters

WASHINGTONPresident Trumps public and private musings about running again in 2024 are scrambling the calculus for the large field of fellow Republicans considering bids.

Most hopefuls have been quick to show deference. But its unclear whether Mr. Trump, who refuses to concede his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, will follow through, and rivals either way will likely seek ways to remain viable. Prospective GOP candidates dont want to risk alienating Mr. Trumps base by appearing to push him aside, but they also dont want to be left unprepared if he decides not to run.

Votes By State For Biden And Trump

The following table shows the number of votes Joe Biden and Donald Trump received in each state.

Votes by state for Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential eleection State

There were 21 candidates on the ballot each in Vermont and Colorado. The next largest presidential ballots were Arkansas and Louisiana with 13 candidates each. Twelve states had only three candidates on the ballot.

The following map shows the number of presidential candidates on the ballot in each state.

Don’t Miss: Which Republicans Voted For The Resolution Today

Sen Marco Rubio Of Florida

Like Cruz, Rubio would enter the 2024 presidential race with heightened name ID and experience from his 2016 run. One of Rubios biggest challenges, though, could be his fellow Floridians. If DeSantis and fellow Sen. Rick Scott run, there could be just one ticket out of Florida, a Republican strategist said.

Rubio, 49, is married to Jeanette Dousdebes and they have four children. He graduated from the University of Florida and University of Miami School of Law and was speaker of the Florida House of Representatives before running for U.S. Senate in 2010.

You May Like: What Do Republicans Think About Daca

Sen Rick Scott Of Florida

Scott, 68, is a first-term senator whose biggest asset could be his fundraising. During his 2018 campaign, he raised more than $20 million, in addition to $63 million of his own money he chipped in, according to Politico, and hes also chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Scott and his wife, Ann Holland, have two children, and he was previously the governor of Florida.

Don’t Miss: Which Republicans Voted Against The Budget Resolution

Republican Leadership Thus Far Mum On 2024 Preferences

RNC officials have vowed to remain neutral in the future presidential race. They say their focus right now is on the 2022 elections a major item on the retreat agenda as the party tries to regain control of the U.S. House and Senate.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other election officials are attending the retreat. Scott, a Florida senator and potential presidential candidate, heads up the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The weekend series of meetings includes panels and speeches on such topics as improving Republican voter turnout, expanding GOP coalitions, and building a campaign case against Biden, his administration and the Democratic-led Congress.

To Democrats, this weekend’s activities in Palm Beach look a lot like sucking up to Trump. Democratic National Committee spokesman Ammar Moussa likened the would-be presidential candidates to contestants on Trump’s old television show, “The Apprentice.”

“While Republicans are hobnobbing with their special interest donors, President Biden and Democrats are delivering for everyday Americans, putting vaccines in arms, money in pockets, and bringing normalcy back,” he said.

Actions While In Office

President Trump advocated repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act . The Republican-controlled House passed the American Health Care Act in May 2017, handing it to the Senate, which decided to write its own version of the bill rather than voting on the AHCA. The Senate bill, called the “Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017” , failed on a vote of 45â55 in the Senate during July 2017. Other variations also failed to gather the required support, facing unanimous Democratic Party opposition and some Republican opposition. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bills would increase the number of uninsured by over 20 million persons, while reducing the budget deficit marginally.

Actions to hinder implementation of ACA

President Trump continued Republican attacks on the ACA while in office, including steps such as:

Ending cost-sharing reduction payments

President Trump’s argument that the CSR payments were a “bailout” for insurance companies and therefore should be stopped, actually results in the government paying more to insurance companies due to increases in the premium tax credit subsidies. Journalist Sarah Kliff therefore described Trump’s argument as “completely incoherent.”

Read Also: How Many Republicans Voted To Impeach Trump Today

Trump Remains The Center Of Attention

So much of the Republican Party’s future revolves around Trump and whether he will run again in 2024 and whether his campaigning for conservative allies in 2022 congressional and state elections will split the party.

The former president is even hosting one of the events at this weekend’s retreat, a Saturday night dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Other retreat activities will take place at the Four Seasons resort hotel, about four miles south of Mar-a-Lago.

More:Exclusive: Defeated and impeached, Trump still commands the loyalty of the GOP’s voters

Trump, who remains popular with Republican voters despite his election loss to President Joe Biden and the chaos that surrounded it, has repeatedly said it is too early to decide whether he will run again in 2024.

But Trump plans to get involved in the the 2022 races, targeting Republicans who supported impeaching him over the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol or otherwise opposed his efforts to overturn the election.

Trump’s endorsements of favored candidates in Republican primaries threaten to split the Republican Party. His 2022 activity also means it could be years before he announces what he will do in 2024, effectively freezing the Republican presidential race.

Still, some Republicans are doing the kinds of things future presidential candidates do, regardless of whether Trump has announced.

Former President Donald Trump

Who Are Trumps Republican Challengers?

The biggest question mark for Republicans is if Trump will run for president in 2024. He hasnt exactly frozen the field, since Republicans are already positioning themselves to run, but perhaps hes refrigerated it a bit?

Trump is the 800-pound gorilla, said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. Trump has got command of the organs of the party and is going to have an enormous amount of resources and name ID and the ability to throw these rallies in the fall of 2022. I think that sets him up very well to being pole position for 2024 if he wants.

Trump, 74, is currently bettors top candidate on PredictIt, an online prediction market, and hes also led in several early polls, including a February Morning Consult/Politico poll. The poll found 54% of Republican voters would back Trump if the 2024 primary were held today. Those kinds of numbers would mean game over in a primary, but they also suggest many Republicans are eager for a new face.

During a recent podcast interview, Trump said he would make his decision on whether he will run in the 2024 presidential election sometime later, and after being asked which Republicans he thought represented the future of the party, he listed off some of the politicians youll see later on this list, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.

Also Check: How Many Registered Republicans In California

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losbella · 4 years ago

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news-lisaar · 4 years ago

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Even if you knew in advance about the “blue shift” that would occur in states like Pennsylvania — and we did know in advance about it! — it’s been hard to make enough of a mental adjustment for it this week. Numbers flashing across a TV ticker have a certain magnetic power and certitude to them. It was easy to forget that Joe Biden would gain ground once mail votes were added to the tallies because such votes were overwhelmingly Democratic this year in Pennsylvania and most other states.

But just because of that blue shift — and the red shift that occurred in states where mail votes were counted first — that doesn’t mean the presidential race was all that close in the end. Joe Biden’s win was on the tighter side of the likely range of outcomes suggested by polls, but it was a thoroughly convincing one judged on its own merits.

So put aside your anxieties of the past few days and the premature media narratives that have been circulating since Tuesday night. Suppose, instead, that you’d been on one of those weekslong rafting trips in the Grand Canyon (sounds pleasant, doesn’t it?) and woke up to this map:

It’s not a landslide, by any means, but this is a map that almost any Democrat would have been thrilled about if you’d shown it to them a year ago. Biden looks to have reclaimed the three “blue wall” states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin (ABC News has announced that Biden is the “apparent winner” in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin1) — that were central to Hillary Clinton’s loss. He may also win Arizona (he would become the first Democrat to do so since 1996) and, in the opposite corner of the country, Georgia (the first Democratic winner there since 1992). Additionally, Biden easily won Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which could be a thorn in the side of Republicans going forward. He also ran far ahead of Clinton in rural northern states such as Maine, Minnesota and New Hampshire.

Extrapolating out from current vote totals, I project Biden winning the popular vote by 4.3 percentage points and getting 81.8 million votes to President Trump’s 74.9 million, with a turnout of around 160 million. This is significant because no candidate has ever received 70 million votes in an election — former President Barack Obama came the closest in 2008, with 69.5 million votes — let alone 80 million. That may also be a slightly conservative projection, given the blue shift we’ve seen so far and the fact that late-counted votes such as provisional ballots often lean Democratic. I’d probably bet on Biden’s popular vote margin winding up at closer to 5 points than to 4, and 6 points isn’t entirely out of the question either.

The margin is also a bit more impressive in the context of our highly polarized political era, which has tended to produce close elections. If I’m right about the popular vote margin, Biden’s win would come via the second-largest popular vote margin since 2000, exceeding Obama’s 3.9-point margin against Mitt Romney in 2012 but lagging behind Obama’s 7.3-point win over John McCain in 2008.

Biden also defeated an elected incumbent, which is relatively rare. Since World War II, five elected incumbents who sought reelection have won it — Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Obama. Trump is now the third sitting president to lose his reelection bid in that time, along with Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

What about the polls? Didn’t they show a wider margin for Biden? Yes, they did — Biden led in the final national polls by around 8 points. So we’re probably going to wind up with a polling error of around 3 to 4 points, both nationally and at the state level. (Although that will reflect a combination of states like Georgia, where the polls were spot-on, and others like Wisconsin, where there were big misses.) This is, of course, a subject on which we’ll have more to say in the coming days. For now, it’s safe to say that pollsters will have some questions to answer, especially about how they missed in the same direction (underestimating Trump) in some of the same states two elections in a row.

At the same time, this election’s polling error may wind up being fairly normal by historical standards. Indeed, the final polls miss by around 3 points, on average, in presidential elections. The error this year may be somewhat wider than that, but we should wait for all the votes to be counted because margins may shift substantially in some states before results are certified.

In any case, Biden’s ability to survive a polling error of the size that sank Clinton was precisely the reason he was a fairly heavy favorite in our forecast. Biden won (or is likely to win) several states — Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona2 — by margins that will probably be between 0 and 2 percentage points, in contrast to Clinton, who lost Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida by margins of 1 percentage point or less. Biden’s 89 percent chance of winning the Electoral College included the possibility of nail-biter wins in critical states — although, again, it’s hard to know if this race would be regarded as that much of a nail-biter if not for the timing of ballot counting and the blue shift.

The bigger problems — both for Democrats and for the polls — were in races for Congress.

There weren’t necessarily any huge upsets in the Senate; it’s just that Democrats lost most of the tossup races. Among races where winners have been projected so far, Democrat Sara Gideon is the only Senate candidate favored in our forecast to have lost, and she had only a 59 percent chance of beating Sen. Susan Collins, according to our final forecast. Gideon, however, is likely to eventually be joined by Cal Cunningham in North Carolina once that race is projected, who had a 68 percent chance, although the polling in that Senate race had tightened in the closing days of the campaign following a Cunningham sexting scandal. Republican Joni Ernst held off challenger Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, although Ernst was a narrow favorite in our forecast.

Democrats do retain a chance at a Senate majority, or more likely a 50-50 split in which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the deciding vote. Democrats currently hold 48 seats,3 but there are two runoffs in Georgia on Jan. 5 that are sure to attract hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advertising. I’m a little too exhausted to prognosticate about the Georgia runoffs all that much, but Democrats are at least mathematically alive here in a state that Biden appears likely to win. They also retain some outside chances at winning a Senate seat in Alaska, where mail votes have not yet been counted.

But Democrats underperformed in the U.S. House, where they’ve lost almost every toss-up race that has been projected so far and Republicans have made a net gain of 5 seats and counting. It also appears as though Democrats will underperform in the House popular vote relative to the presidential vote and the generic ballot, where Democrats led by about 7 percentage points. That looks like a significant polling miss (although the House popular vote can take a long time to finalize). In that sense, the election could be described as more of a repudiation of Trump specifically than of Republicans writ large.

Biden did have some shortcomings, however. One major one was his apparent underperformance among key groups of Hispanic voters, especially Cuban Americans in South Florida and Mexican Americans in South Texas. As you can see in this chart from The New York Times, there were huge shifts toward Trump in these areas:

Indeed, even with the addition of Georgia and Arizona in their column, Democrats’ Electoral College coalition is somewhat fragile if it doesn’t contain Florida and/or Texas. It’s not clear yet what the tipping-point state will be in this election — but mostly likely it will be Arizona or Wisconsin, where it appears as though Biden will win by around 1 percentage point. That could mean there’s around a 4-point gap between the roughly 5-point popular vote victory that we eventually expect from Biden and his margin in the tipping-point state, a bigger Electoral College disadvantage than Clinton had in 2016 (3 points).

Still, this brings up one last point: This is the seventh election out of the past eight in which Democrats have won the popular vote for president. If American elections were contested on the basis of the popular vote, this race could probably have been called fairly early on Tuesday night, and we could all have gotten a lot more sleep the past few days. But don’t let bleary eyes obscure Biden’s accomplishment.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nate Silver

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