Political Notebook for 12 May 2019

The pace of political news never let’s up, and when combined with a lack of time, that means things pile up. Today’s collection of political stuff was built up over a few weeks, so it's a bit longer than usual. Sometimes it’s necessary.

The rogue ones

The current regime’s war on democracy and the rule of law has picked up speed since the redacted Mueller Report was released. For example, “Trump and his allies are blocking more than 20 separate Democratic probes in an all-out war with Congress”, and, of course, there’s the big fight building because “Refusal to hand over Trump's tax returns sets up legal fight”. There are lot of excuses the regime is making, most of them downright silly, but one of them is “executive privilege”, something that’s not actually in the US Constitution, but that presidents have been claiming for years, mostly to hide what they’re doing from Congressional scrutiny and oversight. Thankfully, Politifact, the project of the Poynter Institute, has provided a handy guide to “What you need to know about executive privilege”.

All of which is why “Trump’s lawlessness is an unfolding Shakespearean tragedy”, as a ThinkProgress piece puts it.

The desperate despot

The current regime is headed by a man who has openly and often expressed his love of and admiration for brutal dictators and their authoritarian regimes. He tries to emulate his heroes, often comically, like when he wanted his eventually cancelled military parade. It’s clear he never quite gave up on the idea of using legitimate patriotism to flatter and exalt himself, as the Washington Post explains in “Trump takes over Fourth of July celebration, changing its location and inserting himself into the program”. Because what all narcissists crave is adulation; dictators have the power to make everyone join in.

Obviously, at the moment the current occupant of the White House can’t force all Americans to worship him, not yet. But what happens if he loses the 2020 election and simply refuses to leave office? “Scholars echo Pelosi’s concerns: Trump will not step down in 2020 if he loses re-election”. As well they should—consider what the man himself has been joking about how me may not leave, and his strongest allies, the allegedly comprised son of a dead TV preacher, has said he should get two extra years to “make up” for being investigated for the crimes he and his campaign committed.

There are those who point out that, as per the Constitution, whoever is elected in November, 2020 will become president automatically at Noon on January 20, 2021, regardless of what the current occupant does or doesn’t do in the event he loses the election. But Speaker Pelosi’s concerns, as she pointed out in the New York Times piece the Slate piece linked to above mentioned, Democrats will need a massive victory so that its legitimacy is beyond any question. If he loses by a small amount, he will rally his supporters in his defence. There are 78 days between Election Day and Inauguration Day, which is more than enough time to get his frothing fans—especially the heavily armed ones—to Washington, DC to prevent the normal peaceful transfer of power. It doesn’t matter if they could prevent the US military re-taking Washington and ending the rebellion, what matters is that the last norm of constitutional law would be shattered, and if he prevailed it would mean the end of the USA. Anyone who says that’s “impossible” hasn’t been paying attention for the past 27 months.

His frothing fervent fans laugh at all this, arguing that, just like in 2016, we take him literally, but not seriously, while they do the opposite. If we’ve learned anything about him it’s this: Don’t ever underestimate that man again. He may be “joking” about overthrowing the Constitution, but only a fool would dismiss the possibility that he’s serious about doing so.

Second-worst case scenario

While the current occupant could reject his election defeat and seize power as a dictator, it’s also entirely possible—maybe even likely at this particular moment—that he could win the 2020 election. The election is a long way off—the better part of a year and a half—and there are far too many unknowns to permit any kind of firm opinion on that. After all, at this point in 2015, polls showed that the leading candidates for the Republican Nomination were Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and Marco Rubio (depending on the specific poll). The eventual Republican nominee was either not named or polled very, very lowly. The common wisdom was that Jeb would get the nomination.

We can take two things from this history lesson: First, current polling of Democrats may be true at the moment (since all polls are at their heart a snapshot of a moment in time), but one should never assume that the current polls predict who the Democratic nominee will be next year. So, it’s not surprising that, as Real Clear Politics has shown, polls testing theoretical matches between the Current Occupant and various Democrats are all over the place. Once there’s an actual Democratic nominee—or, at least, a clearly likely one—then we’ll start seeing polling data that will be more useful. [In the meantime, FiveThiryEight’s tracking of Democratic Primary polling is interesting, if nothing else]

Similarly, the ongoing unpopularity of the current occupant is not necessarily permanent, and, in any case, nationwide polling is irrelevant: What matters is who wins what states with how many Electoral College votes. End of story. A candidate can lose the popular vote and still become president, as the current occupant did. But this time, the current occupant might win both.

The 2020 presidential election will, as always, come down to a handful of “swing states”, and—at the moment—polls suggest that it doesn’t look good for the current occupant. His approval ratings in swing states, including ones that gave him the White House, are terrible, often far worse than his national average. But 2016 proved that we can never assume anything, and Democrats should work as if they’re underdogs—especially because they are. Fortunately, the Democratic Party is already working at building their “on the ground” staff for the General Election campaign, rather than wait until the nominee is known, as they did in 2016. That’s good—and vital.

Meanwhile, the current occupant isn’t depending on holding onto the swing states that handed him the White House in 2016, and he’s looking for new opportunities. For example, he thinks he has a very good chance of winning Virginia, and he also thinks he could flip Minnesota. It would be a fatal mistake to laugh at him and ignore the danger in the opportunities he thinks he sees.

Even though he hasn’t delivered much for his frothing fans, we must at least acknowledge that the current occupant has a very, very good chance of winning the election in 2020. First, he will take credit for a positive economy—assuming it still is and that his trade war with China doesn’t destroy it. Nit-picking over whether he deserves any credit for that economy won’t change anything in the eyes of ordinary voters who will, at the very least, give him the benefit of the doubt. In fact, even suggesting that he merely benefitted from existing trends, etc., is likely to make voters perceive Democrats as negative and mean-spirited, playing into the current occupant’s rhetoric about “angry Democrats”. To avoid a close election they could then lose, Democrats cannot afford to wilfully alienate any voters.

A better strategy, in my opinion: Acknowledge what’s going well and then pivot to how many people are being left behind, how income for most people has been stagnant—often stalled—for decades, even as it’s soared for the rich and skyrocketed for the super-rich. The inequality of the economy and the unfairness of how they’re doing are things that ordinary people can and do actually feel; it’s unreasonable to expect them to get upset or care about whether the current occupant is taking credit he doesn’t deserve. After all, they’re used to him lying and shamelessly promoting himself; what they want to know is what Democrats will do to make their lives better, to fix the inequality and unfairness that the current occupant and the Republican Party he controls seek to increase.

And, of course, we must never forget that the current occupant begins with the huge advantage of the powers of incumbency at his disposal, and that shouldn't be underestimated. He could even start a war or three if he thinks it’ll help him win the election, or take some other sort of action to stoke fear and hatred. He’s clearly not above doing that, especially if he thinks he’s losing.

Random bits

Two other things are worth pointing out. First, this week “House passes Trump-opposed disaster-relief bill with more funding for Puerto Rico”. At the Washington Post article puts it: “Thirty-four Republicans joined all of the chamber’s Democrats to pass the sweeping relief package, 257 to 150.” Republicans vow to kill it in the US Senate, so this could be a short victory, but these days you just never know.

The other thing is that caught my eye this week was "Sick Of 2020 Already? Most Voters Aren’t." in which FiveThirtyEight's weekly "Pollapalooza" looks at voter enthusiasm. It doesn't mean much, really, but, still: Political data. It's fun.

There’s always plenty to talk about, when the pace of political news never let’s up. Oh well, time to start a new page in the Notebook.