Trump support

I think 35% will vote for Trump no matter what. That is his real base.  That is the core Republican base and it always has been and always will be, I believe.


The current Trump approval rating is about 43%. That means about 8% of the people who currently support him are not really his hard-core no-matter-what base. 46% actually voted for him in 2016. That’s about 11% who actually voted for him are not his hard core base.

I think there has been a change in Donald Trump ever since the Mueller report and now especially since the Mueller testimony in Congress. The change is that Donald Trump thinks he has gotten away with it. The Mueller report and the Mueller testimony said there was no criminal conspiracy.  And although neither the report nor the testimony exonerated Trump on the question of obstruction of justice, there has not been it outcry from the country that included Republicans to prosecute impeachment.

So I think that Trump feels freshly empowered to go for his reelection with no holds barred. And since the only real issue that Donald Trump has ever cared about is white supremacy that seems to be the issue that he is going all in on.

It used to be that the Republicans used racist dog whistles and talked about things like law and order or states rights or welfare queens or the menace of drug gangs. Those issues were not exactly subtle references to minorities.  But  they were disguised just enough that people could vote for a Republican and pretend to themselves or others that race was not their issue, but rather their issue was law and order, drugs, or tax cuts, or fiscal austerity, or balancing the budget, etc. So they could think of themselves as good people caring about issues other than white supremacy and racism.  Indeed, many just put up with the racist appeals that did not appeal to them and voted on the basis of conservative economic or social issues.

However, now Trump is in full out white supremacist mode. He attacks four women of color and tells them they should go back to where they came from – which of course everyone understands they should go back to their brown countries even though they are all actually from America and are American citizens. 


And then he attacks Elijah Cummings and says that his state Maryland is a rat infested disgusting place and said "No human being would want to live there." No human being? Black and brown people are not real human beings? So there is no longer any question about who Trump thinks real human beings are - white people are real human beings in Trump's twisted mind. 

White supremacists certainly hear this toxin and are thrilled. So the 35% that will always vote for Donald Trump knows they are speaking to them. What about that 8% to 11% that voted for Trump or still approve of Trump who are not white supremacists. Who are perhaps Republican out of habit, or ideological belief but who do not think of themselves as racist or white supremacist? Who might not even be white? The cover is blown. How do they support this overtly white supremacist and racist presidential candidate now?

Oh, you say to yourself, this is just a moment in time and he won’t be saying these kind of things for very long. And he will get smarter as the election cycle continues.  Are you kidding? Trump will never stop being Trump. Trump has always been a white supremacist. Trump has always been a racist. And Trump is sure that that is why people voted for him. 


And indeed, political scientists and sociologists struggled to understand the Trump election, and they studied many options that could explain his victory - the economic dispossessed and forgotten voted for Trump? The lower classes ignored by the elite so they voted for Trump? Racists voted for Trump? The unfortunate result of a many very good scientific studies was that the biggest predictor for a trump voter was racial resentment (racism).   

Trump knows this even if Democrats think they’re supposed to be trying to come up with programs for farmers and abandoned manufacturing sectors - he knows his real draw is racism. And I think Trump will become more and more overtly white supremacist and racist as he campaigns for president. And I think that he is going to lose much of that 8 to 11% who currently support or voted for him because they do not want to be associated with that slime.

Trump will always be Trump.  He did not win the popular vote last time, he got 46.1% of the popular vote, and he lost by 2.1%. His result in 2020 could well end up being not much more than that core support of 35% as the non-racists finally peal away and turn their back on him.

Or at least so I hope.  I hope that my conservative friends who do not want to be associated with the white supremacy and racism of this president will, like me, will hold their nose and vote for a giraffe rather than for Donald J Trump in 2020.

Mueller's testimony

For those of us who actually read the Mueller report, his testimony is no surprise, just a restatement of what he wrote:

• Russia interfered with and influenced the election of 2016, and Russia and other hostile nations are doing so again right now.
• He did not charge Trump with obstruction of justice because Department of Justice rules said he couldn't
• He didn't make a determination whether Trump committed a crime of obstruction, leaving that to others (read Congress)
• He said Trump was Not Exculpated of obstruction even though Trump repeatedly says we was totally exonerated by the report
• He said that Trump could be prosecuted for crimes after he leaves office.
• He said that criminality was not the necessary standard for determining a politicians fitness in office, things like ethics are a needed standard.

There was no "gasp" moment in the hearings that would grip the nation in astonishment and horror.  I have been gasping in horror ever since Trump's disgusting ride down his elevator announcing his candidacy by attacking brown people as the basis of his candidacy.  It remains the basis of his presidency.


There is enough to impeach him in the House, of course, but I don't see the Senate convicting him.


I think it is time for Congress to focus on his current unconstitutional violations, such as his massive refusals to allow people in his administration honor subpoenas to testify.  Such as investigating financial crimes of money laundering and tax fraud and financial obligations to other countries that force him to do their bidding rather than operating in the interest of America.


We have a criminal in the White House.  And the Republicans know it and the Republicans are doing nothing about it.


Rats....

Trump and the Trump Cult is Un-American

America is a shining light on the hill. Trump's America is a cesspool of corruption, ignorance, racism, and greed.

America is where people of the world come and manifest their dreams. Trump's America blocks the world out and tells them to "go back where they came from".

America is world on the march toward freedom and democracy.  Trump's America moves relentlessly toward dictatorial autocracy and welcomes dictatorial leaders as inspiration and friends.

America leads the world in free trade and commerce. Trump's America blocks free trade and inhibits commerce.

America created strong political and economic alliances to promote prosperity and freedom around the world.  Trump's America is destroying its alliances and weakening America diplomatically and economically around the world.

America leads the world in scientific exploration and development. Trump's  America attacks and destroys scientific research by neutering and destroying department of energy and agriculture, and by denying and destroying evidence of climate change.

America is essentially idealistic. Trump's America is greedy and avaricious. (And when I use the phrase "Trump's America" I mean the Trump Cult - those that are blindly believing and following this horrible man regardless of how horrible he is.  I do not mean the poor folks who voted for Trump because they hated Hillary, or thought he was somehow "conservative'.  I understand that they are trapped in a party that is not giving them alternatives to his depraved impulses.)

America has always had the horrors of Trump's America - from the genocide of Native Americans, to the crushing of African Americans through slavery, to the Jim Crow South, and to the relentless and enduring racism that has recently raised its nauseating head and shown itself in all its disgrace and shame.

There are times that I start to feel that the heart of America is a criminal enterprise, and the fact that enough of America elected a corrupt criminal to be its president supports that despairing feeling.

BUT...

Trump is Un-American. America is going to reject Trump, and recover it’s soul.  Trump and his cult will be embarrassing footnotes in the American history and will join the KKK, George Wallace, the Tea Pot dome scandal and other darknesses in its checkered history.  The real America will continue it’s march toward freedom, justice, caring and prosperity for all who are willing to have it.

I believe America is in a profound identity and spiritual crisis, and that the inspirational America will emerge to transform the corrupt America.

How the Democrats lose to Trump

How can the Democrats lose to Trump in 2020?  The same way they always do, by being taken over by the left wing nut case faction.  Busing?  Reparations? Medicare for All? Impeachment?  Do everything they possibly can to force never-Tumpers to vote for Trump?  to force independents to turn away in bewilderment?  to prove to America that the Loony Left is riding again?


Look, I will vote for a giraffe before I vote for Trump.  I have a bunch of very sound reasons for that, about which I am sure I will write of in the future and often. But now I am talking about the Democratic Party primary season.  And so far it is not comforting to the large swath of moderate America hoping to find someone to replaced Trump who isn't nuts.


Loren Thompson of Forbes Magazine lays out a very articulate warning.  He says he knows how this movie will turn out, he has seen it before, way too often.  And Democrats lose a race that should be impossible to lose.  Nixon crushed lefty McGovern.  HW Bush easily handled lefty Dukakis.  Reagan stomped lefty Carter and then had no trouble with lefty Mondale. 


Clinton won as a moderate liberal, centrist - big tent. Obama was almost post ideological, not a lefty firebrand.


Thompson writes:


"Even in the depths of the Great Depression, FDR knew he had to run as a centrist and populist rather than a socialist to bolster his chances of getting elected (Carter and Clinton successfully embraced the same lesson)."


Trump is a dangerous lunatic but that is not how the campaign will be run.  He will be the sane one and the Lefty Dem will be a dangerous Socialist trying to change everybody's lives, thoughts, feelings, and consciences. 


Thompson says Trump will run on five things, probably successfully:


Peace - will say he saved the world from war with North Korea and Iran (only after threatening war with both and then pulling away)


Prosperity - good stock market, low unemployment, will say that tariffs and being a tough negotiator saved the day (all wrong, of course, but that will be a constant drumbeat)


Sovereignty - The Wall, The Wall, The Wall, Fear the Brown People, Fear, Fear, Fear....


Self Sufficiency - America First, America alone, America to build in America, American jobs in America (while actually destroying jobs in America with his ignorant tarrifs)


Energy of the candidate - Trump as the energizer bunny that never ever ever ever gives up and pushes and pushes and pushes for what he wants - bad things, of course, but many see them as good things.


Trump can't win on his base alone.  So, why are the Dems playing to their base alone? 


It is very predictable, of course, that the left, including me, thinks that Trump is so god-awful that the country will turn away from him in horror and nausea.  And they will, unless the Dems are taken over by those that think that now is finally their chance to put in a radical lefty agenda.


For example - as Mark Shields, liberal commentator on the PBS Newshour pointed out after the first Dem debate - Liberals had been trying to get expanded health care for all for about a century and finally got it in the Affordable Health Care law.  They got it through Congress.  They survived a Supreme Court challenge.  It is a compromise that keeps private hospitals, private insurance, private doctors, private drug companies.  They won. And now we have Dem candidates who want to throw it away for the health care that exists only in the dreams of the extremists in the Democratic Party - Medicare for All, which would be a massive change and will be rejected fiercely not just by the Right wing but by moderates and liberals as well the more the details of what would have to change are revealed.


Never underestimate the delusions of the extremist faithful.


All the Dems have to do to beat Trump is not be crazy.  Trump is crazy. One is enough.