2020: The Two Year Long Election

[mamallama]

Warren and Booker are my top two.  I'd love to see them with run with someone like Butigieg or O'Rourke.  It seems that people only get excited about the new and shiney.  Which is easier because the Repugs haven't had time to throw feces at them.  Call me crazy but I like experience.

[front hugs > duggs]

4 hours ago, mamallama said:

Warren and Booker are my top two.  I'd love to see them with run with someone like Butigieg or O'Rourke.  It seems that people only get excited about the new and shiney.  Which is easier because the Repugs haven't had time to throw feces at them.  Call me crazy but I like experience.

I don't disagree with you, but Obama was new and shiny too, and that worked out pretty well for him.

I think I'm at a point where I'm curious or interested in several candidates, but know I can't make my mind up yet. Booker is my senator, but I haven't found him as engaging as other candidates at this point like Warren, Buttigieg, and Harris (IMO). I'm very proud of the candidates who have refused to bash other dem candidates (at this point at least). I'm hopeful that the primary remains friendly and we can push the strongest candidate forward to regain democracy in this country. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

Anyone else in Iowa? I'm in the Des Moines area, and we get ALL the politics here. I'm torn between Kamala, Pete & Joe.  If Joe were 10 years younger I'd be on the Joe train all the way.  It is ageist however, he will be 78  in 2021 when he'd be taking office.  Ehh 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Mayor Pete Responds to Trump: ‘I Was Thinking of a Chinese Proverb that Goes “When the Wind Changes, Some People Build Walls and Some People Build Windmills.”‘"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump mocked South Bend, Indiana Mayor and 2020 presidential contender Pete Buttigieg at a rally last night in Panama City, Florida.

Trump questioned Buttigieg’s diplomatic ability, chiding:

“We have that young man, Buttigieg, boot-edge-edge, they say boot-edge-edge. He’s got a great chance, doesn’t he? He’ll be great representing us against President Xi of China. I want to be in that room, I want to watch that one.”

Mayor Pete responded to Trump’s doubts with a Chinese proverb that fit the circumstances in more ways than one.

Watch below:

Buttigieg said:

“You can’t get too worried about the name calling and the games he plays I was thinking of a Chinese proverb that goes, when the wind changes, some people build walls and some people build windmills.”

It’s a fitting analogy, considering Trump’s campaign and presidency have been built on erecting a wall to curtail undocumented immigrants at the southern border of the United States. Trump also frequently chides Democrats’ environmental policies and their support of harnessing energy through wind turbines, which he calls “windmills.” He infamously claimed that the noise made by the windmills causes cancer.

“You gotta recognize that we need something that is completely different from what is in this White House,” Buttigieg continued. “The negotiations that they are conducting, whether it’s on trade or things like North Korea, are usually a personal high-wire act with no safety net.”

The internet applauded Buttigieg’s comments.

< there are several good responses in the article >

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[milkteeth]

I have no strong feelings about Beto or Mayor Pete one way or the other, so this is more a criticism of the media/our culture...but it's really frustrating how much time is given to two white men speaking Spanish when there is an actual Latino man who is also running for president that the media has given zero attention to. Julián Castro has also probably had a conversation in Spanish while eating tacos, and managed to not get food on his shirt as well. 

I'm Mexican-American and I'm not fluent in Spanish, despite it being the first language of my Dad and my Grandmother who helped take care of me when I was little. This is because my parents were told by my white teachers (in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area) and other white folks that I'm an American, and because of that I need to learn only English. In our culture being able to speak Spanish fluently is something to be celebrated if you are white, and is sign that you are educated and cosmopolitan. But if you are Latinx, it's problematic and a sign that you haven't really assimilated in America.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s new nickname for Pete Buttigieg: ‘Alfred E. Neuman’"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump dismissed Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Friday in a single sentence.

“Alfred E. Neuman cannot become president of the United States,” the president told POLITICO in a 15-minute telephone interview, when asked what he thought of the South Bend, Ind., mayor. Neuman’s freckled, gap-toothed face and oversized ears have for decades graced the cover of the humor magazine Mad.

Buttigieg, the first openly gay major presidential candidate, has rocketed up the ranks of Democrats hoping to defeat Trump in 2020 and has basked in glowing press coverage and magazine cover stories in recent weeks.

Asked about Trump's put-down by POLITICO in San Francisco on Friday, the 37-year-old Buttigieg professed ignorance about the comic book character, whose fame peaked more than 20 years ago, while making a veiled reference to the 72-year-old Trump's seniority.

"I’ll be honest. I had to Google that," he said. "I guess it’s just a generational thing. I didn’t get the reference. It's kind of funny, I guess. But he’s also the president of the United States and I’m surprised he’s not spending more time trying to salvage this China deal." (Trade talks between the U.S. and China in Washington ended Friday without an agreement, raising the prospect of an extended tariff war.)

Trump, who made his remarks in an interview that stemmed from POLITICO’s inquiries for a separate story, has taken a few prior shots at Buttigieg as he’s risen in the polls, including at his recent rally in Florida.

"We have a young man, Buttigieg. Boot-edge-edge. They say ‘edge-edge,’” Trump said, enunciating the mayor’s name.

“He's got a great chance, doesn’t he?” Trump continued sarcastically, going on to suggest that Buttigieg might not be tough enough to square off against America’s adversaries. “He’ll be great representing us against President Xi of China. That’ll be great. I want to be in that room, I wanna watch that one."

Buttigieg, a former Rhodes scholar and Navy Reserve intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan, has received some heat among skeptical Democrats wondering whether the youthful mayor has enough experience to be president. Trump was elected without any governing experience, his supporters counter.

People who speak with Trump frequently say he believes his ability to define his political rivals with epithets can be decisive. During the 2016 presidential race, he labeled his Democratic opponent “Crooked Hillary,” at times simply referring to her as “Crooked.”

“Trump believes that if you can encapsulate someone in a phrase or a nickname, you can own them,” a person who knows Trump said in a recent interview. “Low energy Jeb, Little Marco, that kind of sh** really diminishes people and puts you in control of them and that’s what Trump is a genius for doing.”

“Everything in Trump’s world is about dominance and submission and so he’s trying to figure out how to own these candidates,” this person added.

In the interview, Trump compared the massive 2020 Democratic field to the 17 Republican rivals he faced in 2016, and said that many Democratic candidates “aren’t registering, as happened with [20]16. It seems as if many of them aren’t registering with the public.”

Trump also criticized Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whom he’s called “Crazy Bernie” in the past, and said he “seems to be going in the wrong direction.”

Asked about Trump's tactics on Wednesday, Buttigieg said: “You can’t get too worried about the name-calling and the games he plays” and quoted a Chinese proverb, “When the wind changes, some people build walls and some people build windmills.”

 

[Smash!]

On 5/3/2019 at 12:12 AM, Audrey2 said:

If you think this is bad, just wait until Trump is re-elected. He will lean on Mick turtle until a constitutional amendment is proposed and ratified negating the one that limits the president to either two four-year terms or no more than 10 years total if it is a vice president who have succeeded to the presidency. At the end of another four years, Trump will use the same strategies to both eliminate all Republican challengers as well as all Democratic challengers and run for reelection again. you can call me cynical, you can call me crazy, but it seems like for those of us whose come up with every possible worst-case scenario during the last 3 years, many of those have come true.

I am really scared for our future.

I second everything you've said. As soon as Trump announced he was running for POTUS I was sure he would win even tough everyone then said it was impossible. What we see here is the rise of a dictatorship and I think it will be hard to get Trump out because he doesn't care about the constitution or separation of powers. And the world won't care because as long as one can make business with the US why bother a dictator?

One problem I see here is that a lot of people think because it seems impossible to happen it won't happen. That's probably why many don't see the extent of the danger of Trumps behavior. Because a western country, especially the US turning into a dictatorship won't happen right? I believe that's why so many don't see the signs. And when you don't think a scenario is a possibility you won't take measures to prevent that from happening.

Just to clarify: I hope with all my heart I'm wrong. I hope The States turn blue in 2020, one of the promising democratic candidates will win, Trump is out and will accept it. But I just don't see it.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Smash!

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"In a pivotal year, Danica Roem uses her spotlight to boost other Virginia Democrats"

Quote

When Del. Danica A. Roem sought in 2017 to become the country’s first openly transgender state lawmaker, the Republican Party of Virginia funded a political flier that referred to her as a man and speculated that she would teach “transgenderism” to kindergartners.

This year, the GOP rushed to Roem’s defense after an ­anti-LGBTQ group mounted a demonstration against her presence in Richmond.

“Delegate Roem does not deserve to be subjected to Westboro Baptist’s vile protests” the state party tweeted about the Kansas-based group behind the attack. Pete Snyder, a one-time Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, added: “@pwdanica — Chin up, we all have your back.”

The change illustrated the extent to which Roem (D-Prince William) has become a force in Virginia politics: a first-term lawmaker largely focused on traffic and other bread-and-butter issues, but with a celebrity profile that opens pocketbooks and draws attention nationwide.

In a pivotal election year, when control of the General Assembly hangs in the balance and the outcome in Virginia could help set the stage for the 2020 presidential contest, Republicans are steering clear of personal attacks on Roem that could energize her vast network of supporters.

“She raises more money in small dollars than any other politician in Virginia,” said John Findlay, executive director of the Virginia GOP, referring to the 2,400 donations Roem has received of $100 or less.

He said the party will focus on Roem’s voting record this fall in supporting her Republican opponent, conservative activist Kelly McGinn, who launched her campaign in March and quickly raised $49,400, according to an April 15 campaign filing.

Roem, by comparison, has raised $280,200, nearly three times as much as the average hauls of the 15 other freshman Democrats in the House. Her campaign also has returned to the House Democratic Caucus about $107,000 in unused funds from two years ago, when Roem beat longtime Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Manassas), who described himself as Virginia’s “chief homophobe.”

That money is being steered toward incumbents in battleground areas and Republican-held districts that Democrats are targeting, a caucus spokeswoman said.

“The fundamentals are there for us to win this election and bring in a majority,” Roem said. “I want to make sure we get there.”

Roem, a 34-year-old former newspaper reporter, seems to occupy two parallel political universes. Some days, she’s talking about school boundaries, phoning colleagues to urge their support for more transportation funding in Northern Virginia or urging her 81,000 Twitter followers to “help flip Virginia.” On others, she’s at fundraisers with national Democratic leaders, buttonholing presidential candidates Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) or Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Ind.

“She’s one of those rare combinations of ‘good on all ends,’ ” said Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University. “And she happens to be transgender, which gives her more attention. That’s what makes her formidable in many ways.”

Breaking a path for others

Roem won her seat during a historic election that added 15 Democratic seats to the House of Delegates, leaving Republicans with a majority by just two seats. The GOP also controls the Senate by two seats.

Her 8-point victory helped inspire more than a dozen other transgender candidates to seek office nationwide, sometimes with Roem’s help.

She traveled to Colorado to rally supporters of Brianna Titone, who won a state House seat by 194 votes. From afar, she advised Gerri Cannon and Lisa Bunker, both of whom are now state lawmakers in New Hampshire. Last fall, Roem went to Massachusetts to help defeat a state proposition that would have nullified a 2016 law protecting transgender people from discrimination in public places.

“A lot of the ways I’m approaching this office comes from having conversations with Danica about her experience,” said Titone, a former geologist who has focused on flood control in her district.

As she traveled inside and outside Virginia, Roem tweeted constantly. There were posts about drivers who run stop signs, road closures, the town halls she was holding to discuss Route 28 congestion and the effects of a 2018 law that expanded Medicaid eligibility for an additional 400,000 low-income Virginians.

There were photos of Roem talking transportation with former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke during his visit to Virginia in April and videos of ­Buttigieg praising Roem in a speech at a Victory Fund luncheon in Washington and Harris speaking to her backstage at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in Los Angeles.

“You are meant to be where you are,” Harris said. “We need you there.”

Roem’s time in Virginia’s button-down capital started out rocky, with some conservative lawmakers looking askance at the lanky Democrat who arrived wearing her trademark rainbow headscarf and leading a trail of news cameras.

A decision by House Majority Leader Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) to do away with the traditional titles of “gentleman” and “gentlewoman” avoided some potentially awkward moments.

Roem tells the story of one Republican lawmaker, whom she would not name, asking her to step outside for some fresh air, then proceeding to “try and save my soul” by praying for her. Roem said she walked away, telling him the gesture was inappropriate.

On the House floor, Roem sometimes broke protocol, once drawing snide comments from colleagues when she sprinted across the ornate, filigreed hall to reach her seat in time to slam the “aye” button for a vote on transportation funding.

Another day, Del. Christopher P. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach) gently reprimanded Roem for firing questions directly at a witness during a meeting of the subcommittee he leads. Normally, questions are funneled through the committee chair.

None of her bills made it to a floor vote during her first legislative session, which is typical of freshmen in the House minority. In her second year, three of 13 bills were approved.

Del. Richard C. “Rip” Sullivan Jr. (D-Fairfax), who recruited Roem to seek office in 2017, called her “a very fast study.”

“She recognized almost immediately that, to be successful in Richmond, you’ve got to find ways to work with all of your colleagues,” Sullivan said. “Now, Danica is fearless when it comes to approaching other members.”

A focus on local issues

After the session ended, in March, came the protest by the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based group known for demonstrating at funerals of slain service members to show opposition to U.S. military policies on allowing gay people to serve.

Six demonstrators showed up. They were outnumbered by more than 100 of Roem’s supporters, whose jubilant counter-demonstration included a kazoo band. Roem raised $36,000 from about 1,000 donors after she asked people on Twitter to send a message to the Westboro group.

McGinn, 49, who worked as senior counsel to Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) when he was a U.S. senator, so far has avoided direct attacks against Roem.

However, in January, when McGinn was urging lawmakers in Richmond not to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, she noted that “the amendment doesn’t even use the word ‘woman.’ It uses the word ‘sex.’ ”

“And in 2019 . . . the word ‘sex’ doesn’t have a definition anymore,” McGinn said, according to a video posted to YouTube. “Our society is very confused about what that word means.”

McGinn declined requests for an interview about her candidacy. In a statement, she referred to the “drama and dysfunction” of the Democratic Party — an allusion to controversies involving decades-old appearances in blackface by Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark R. Herring and allegations of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. She promised, if elected, to focus on traffic, schools and other local issues.

“Our Commonwealth sorely needs leaders who are in touch with the day-to-day challenges facing families and working people in our District and who can work in a collaborative way with state and local leaders on real solutions,” the statement said.

Roem said such cooperation and pragmatic focus are, precisely, her mission.

On a recent day, she rang doorbells in a conservative section of Prince William County, carrying a clipboard and brochures for state Sen. George L. Barker (D-Fairfax), a second-term lawmaker who lost this part of the district by large margins in previous elections. Some people in the neighborhood had no idea who she was. Others recognized her immediately.

“Danica Roem!” a man on a bicycle called out from half a block away, just before a couple also wanting to chat pulled up in their minivan.

Tina Brugioni, who voted Republican in last year’s congressional midterms but backed Roem in 2017 and plans to do so again in the fall, looked up from her flower garden as the delegate approached.

“We finally have someone who is representing the life issues that everyday people experience, rather than their own personal agenda,” said Brugioni, 56. “That’s the job: to represent people in the district.”

Days later, Roem sat inside a Manassas diner, calling Democratic and Republican lawmakers to build support for a proposal for more highway funding.

As she prepared to leave, Jerry Deem, chief of a local volunteer fire department, walked over to complain about — what else? — Route 28. Backed-up traffic on the roadway, he said, was blocking his engines from leaving the station in the morning.

“You work on those roads for us,” Deem demanded.

“Every day,” Roem answered, before making plans with Deem for a ride-along. “I’m all in.”

 

[Smash!]

[fraurosena]

Well this is a step in the right direction, if ever there was one!

 

Ooooh, I'm beginning to like Elizabeth Warren more and more.

 

[Cartmann99]

On 5/9/2019 at 7:23 PM, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

Anyone else in Iowa? I'm in the Des Moines area, and we get ALL the politics here. I'm torn between Kamala, Pete & Joe.  If Joe were 10 years younger I'd be on the Joe train all the way.  It is ageist however, he will be 78  in 2021 when he'd be taking office.  Ehh 

*Clears throat to get @47of74 's attention*

[47of74]

On 5/9/2019 at 7:23 PM, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

Anyone else in Iowa? I'm in the Des Moines area, and we get ALL the politics here. I'm torn between Kamala, Pete & Joe.  If Joe were 10 years younger I'd be on the Joe train all the way.  It is ageist however, he will be 78  in 2021 when he'd be taking office.  Ehh 

Thank you @Cartmann99

Yeah I'm in Iowa near Dubuque.  Abby Finkenauer's district.  Not Vichy Iowa (aka Steve King's district).

I'm actually not a fan of always being first in the country and think our system should change.  The problem with the caucus system is that people who are working or traveling can't have a voice in the process, unlike primaries where there could be an election along with early voting.  I think there has to be a better way to select candidates than the messed up shit show we have now.

Another problem is that in 2008, 12, and 16 we had every GOP idiot trying to out brown shirt each other. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘It’s entirely inappropriate’: Trump shot a political video on Air Force One"

Spoiler

Seated behind a desk on Air Force One, the presidential seal over his left shoulder, President Trump shot a short video Thursday, blasting New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s entry into the 2020 race.

“If you like high taxes and if you like crime, you can vote for him — but most people aren’t into that,” the president said to the camera.

Trump’s use of taxpayer-funded transportation to post a political message raises some legal and ethics questions. But possibly the greatest crime, some experts say, is the breakdown of norms.

“It’s entirely inappropriate, and it is against historical norms for a president to be campaigning from Air Force One,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “Most presidents have had enough respect for the office to try to separate campaigning from formal duties. Donald Trump is not such a president.”

The president and the vice president are exempt from the Hatch Act, the law forbidding executive branch officials from participating in certain political activities. They are, however, bound by campaign finance rules, but those are rarely enforced.

Trump made the video while traveling to a fundraiser in New York. According to campaign finance laws, his campaign is required to pay the American people back for that flight. If he did official business as part of that trip, then there’s a formula the government uses to determine how much the campaign still owes.

“While an incumbent president has considerable leeway in mixing official expenses for security purposes with campaign expenses, the video itself has no other purpose than serving as a campaign ad,” said Craig Holman of consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. “It is very reasonable to expect Trump’s campaign to shoulder the cost of the video.”

After Trump, or an aide, posted the video blasting de Blasio, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, tweeted: “Nice political ad filmed on Air Force One. You now legally need to reimburse the Treasury for the use of Air Force One on a political trip. Since you had no problem tweeting out the video, you should have no problem tweeting out the receipts when you reimburse the taxpayers.”

But even more than the potential campaign finance violation, Virginia Canter, CREW’s chief ethics counsel, said what bothers her most is the president’s use of the presidential seal in a political pitch.

It is actually illegal under the U.S. code to use the seal “for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States.”

Canter said the president has discretion over how the seal is used, but only in respect to his official activities.

“I think it raises the specter of whether a violation occurred,” she said. “It gives the imprimatur that it’s the statement of the United States. . . . It communicates that it’s an official action, when it wasn’t.”

Canter said she was also bothered by the backdrop of Air Force One for political purposes. She said she considers it hallowed ground — the place where Lyndon B. Johnson took the presidential oath of office just after John F. Kennedy was killed.

“This is serious to me,” she said.

Under Trump, formal Hatch Act complaints have increased 30 percent, with the most frequent offender being White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, who often mixes politics and official business.

But based on past events, these experts say, neither Trump nor his staff will be held accountable.

The penalties for breaking the Hatch Act range from a formal reprimand to job termination. For a White House employee, the Office of Special Counsel makes a recommendation of a penalty to the president and it’s up to him to act on it, Ryan said.

“Senior administration has repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, so they’ve gotten reprimands from the Office of Special Counsel, but they keep doing it over and over again,” Ryan said. “The problem is that the president doesn’t care about ethics laws.”

 

[fraurosena]

This is an oldie, but still applicable, perhaps even more so now than ever before. Good incentive to educate yourselves and to get out and vote.

For those of you not familiar with the late George Carlin, a warning that he uses rather colorful language that is definitely NSFW.

 

[smittykins]

I miss George. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an interesting analysis of Pete's town hall on Faux: "Mayor Pete just unmasked Trump’s depravity and unfitness. But there’s one problem."

Spoiler

Pete Buttigieg is getting rave reviews for another one of his performances, this time from numerous prominent non-Democrats who were surprised and impressed with his Sunday night appearance on Fox News.

During a town hall event in Claremont, N.H., the mayor of South Bend, Ind., confronted the problem of how to run against the endless taunts, insults, and all around bottomless depravity that President Trump employs to achieve scorched-earth belittlement of his rivals.

Buttigieg did give a good answer to this question, and this does have value when thinking about how Democrats might approach the general election.

But in answering it, Buttigieg was also trying to chart his own course in another, separate debate underway among voters and candidates in the Democratic primary, one that’s entangled with competing explanations of what went wrong for Democrats in 2016.

In some ways, this debate is the more consequential one. And Buttigieg continues to commit a crucial misstep here.

Buttigieg was asked by Fox News’s Chris Wallace how he’d run against Trump’s “formidable and unconventional” style, which the president has already displayed by labeling Buttigieg “Alfred E. Neuman,” referring to the Mad magazine mascot. Wallace asked: “How would you handle insults and attacks and tweets?”

“The Tweets . . . I don’t care,” Buttigieg said emphatically after a pause, to loud applause. He added:

It is a very effective way to command the attention of the media. We need to make sure that we’re changing the channel from this show that he’s created. I get it. It is mesmerizing. It is hard for anybody to look away. Me, too. It is the nature of grotesque things that you can’t look away.

This is a good response to Trump, in that he’s all about dominance and humiliation. Appearing stung or responding angrily risks playing into the president’s hands by showing the very weakness Trump is trying to get you to reveal in the first place. As conservative Matt Lewis notes, Buttigieg disarms Trump’s attacks by shrugging them off, unmasking Trump as a doddering, unhinged fool who doesn’t belong in the position he holds.

I’d add that Buttigieg casts Trump as depraved and unfit without saying so outright — in a way that his voters can dismiss as patronizing towards Trump, or toward them. And that last point opens on to this other subterranean debate among Democrats.

A big debate among Democrats

Buttigieg has been pilloried for going on Fox News in the first place, something Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has done but that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) hasrefused to do. Buttigieg addressed the criticism by saying: “I get where that’s coming from,” and referencing the anti-immigrant rhetoric of some Fox News personalities. He added:

There is a reason why anybody has to think twice and swallow hard before participating in this media ecosystem. But I also believe . . . there are a lot of Americans who my party can’t blame for ignoring our message, because they will never hear it if we don’t go on.

Buttigieg insisted that this is another reason the candidates must spend more time “going into places where Democrats haven’t been seen much. We’ve got to find people where they are — not change our values, but update our vocabulary so that we’re truly connecting with Americans from coast to coast.”

Democrats haven’t been seen much in these places?

This sidesteps the fundamental debate over whether Fox News, through unchecked disinformation and conspiracy theorizing that enables Trump’s lawlessness and corruption (along with the hating on immigrants), has become such an irredeemably destructive actor in our politics that its presence must not be legitimized by Democrats in any way.

But beyond this, Buttigieg is joining the debate among Democrats over electability, as well — and not entirely in a good way.

Mayor Pete’s magic key

The rationale behind Buttigieg’s candidacy is that he holds the magic key to unlocking the conundrum of blue-collar whites who bolted to Trump, because he never gave up on the industrial Midwest. After a brief period of meritocratic climbing with the coastal and even global elites — Harvard; Rhodes scholarship; the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. — Buttigieg plunged back into the battle against the slow-rolling social emergency in the industrial heartland that Trump recognized. Too many elite Democrats neglected this emergency; Buttigieg did not; thus, he understands how to talk to those voters.

Buttigieg projects seemingly sincere modesty when talking about these matters, but this is still problematic. Buttigieg’s own record belies it, as Nathan Robinson argues. Plus, winning the mayor’s office in South Bend is not tantamount even to winning a single Trump state. And this narrative of 2016 is a highly simplistic version of why Trump won, which was because of a confluence of many factors, some beyond Democrats’ control. It’s also belied by the fact that in 2018, Democrats swept all six statewide races in the “blue wall” states Trump cracked.

One can and should argue for speaking to all voters without adding the notion that other unnamed Democrats don’t actually try to do this. And if Buttigieg is indeed better at reaching these voters, he needs to show us that this is the case — even better, show us that his policies will do this — rather than constantly telling us it is the case.

Indeed, this narrative detracts from the genuinely good aspects of what Buttigieg is trying to accomplish here.

The big message Buttigieg is sending is that the public is exhausted with Trump’s constant debasement and degrading of, well, everything in our public life, and that a restoration of decency and good-faith efforts to listen to the opposition is the baseline for getting past all that.

In such settings as a Fox News town hall, this approach has value in unmasking Trump’s temperamental unfitness to serve, though how much more value than this it has remains to be seen. But there’s simply no reason to ladle on top of this the idea that Democrats, as a rule, fail to show up.

This is supposed to sound like real talk in response to sneering elite liberal prejudices. But it just comes across as pandering to those who want to hype the presence of those prejudices in the first place.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I thought this was an interesting piece about hypocrisy: "Why aren’t Trump and Republicans pilloried for failing to ‘reach out’?"

Spoiler

The presidential campaign has begun, which means that Democrats are being asked again and again why they aren’t doing more to “reach out” to Republicans. But there’s something important missing from this discussion: any acknowledgement that we treat this subject with an absolutely ridiculous double standard.

As you may have heard, the Democratic candidates have a disagreement about whether it’s a good idea to appear on Fox News, a discussion that stands in — inaccurately, I’d argue — for a larger question of how they should address Americans whose chances of voting for a Democrat in 2020 are somewhere between slim and none. As South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg said in his recent Fox News town hall, “There are a lot of Americans who my party can’t blame if they are ignoring our message, because they will never hear it if we don’t go on and talk about it."

The only problem with that as a reason for appearing on a network that is a propaganda organ for the White House is that it implicitly assumes that there’s just no other way to talk to conservatives besides going on Fox.

But consider this: When was the last time you heard some chin-scratching pundit say that President Trump will never be able to reach liberals if he doesn’t go on MSNBC?

The fact that you’ve never heard anyone say that isn’t just because of how we think about the media choices politicians make. It’s because of something even more fundamental. Nobody asks whether going on MSNBC is the best way for Trump to talk to liberals because nobody even suggests that Trump should talk to liberals in the first place.

And while it’s true that we’ve never seen a president more contemptuous of people who didn’t vote for him and more singularly focused on pleasing his base than Donald Trump, this applies to the whole Republican Party. We may discuss the demographic challenges the GOP faces as the party of white people in an increasingly diverse America, and what effect it might have on the next election.

But what mainstream journalists and commentators almost never do is suggest that Republicans have a moral obligation to reach out to liberals, to assure them that the party understands them, cares about them and wants what’s best for them.

We talk about Democrats that way all the time. Reaching out to those “heartland” voters, those salt-of-the-earth Middle Americans, those working-class whites — in short, anyone who hasn’t voted for Democrats in a while — is framed as both strategically vital and just the right thing to do.

Which perhaps it is. You can argue that because the president has to represent all Americans, presidential candidates have an obligation to speak to all Americans. They’ll certainly make strategic decisions about where to focus their time and energy during their campaign, but they have to at least make some effort to show that they’ll be working for the good of the entire country should they win.

But if you’re going to take that perfectly reasonable position, you have to apply it to both parties. If Democrats have an obligation to “reach out” to Republicans not just because it might be advantageous in the election but because it’s the right thing to do, then surely Republicans have the same obligation.

But when was the last time you heard a sage pundit opine that Trump is making a terrible mistake by not speaking more directly to the needs and desires of African American women or people who live in large cities or college students or any other group whose members are more likely to vote for Democrats?

You’ve never heard it. Yet it’s a lecture given constantly to Democratic politicians and the voters who support them. From the moment Trump got elected, liberals were scolded about how their opposition to him made conservatives and Trump voters uncomfortable.

Democrats respond to those demands all the time, and when they do, their performance is carefully critiqued. Did it show enough “respect” for conservatives and their values? Did it display sufficient familiarity with conservative cultural markers? Was it “authentic”?

How do we explain this double standard? One explanation: Republicans don’t even bother to pretend that they care about the votes of liberal Americans, or even about their fate. Democrats try to get health insurance for people in red states and write environmental plans that include help for coal communities, but Republicans don’t ask how their policy choices might hurt people who don’t vote for them — unless it’s to figure out how they screw those voters even more. They don’t try to show “respect” for liberals, and they don’t publicly agonize about their inability to “connect” with them.

After a while, it stops even occurring to people in the media to ask whether Republicans need to do more “reaching out,” and they don’t chastise those Republicans for not doing it. Democrats, on the other hand, act like they have a responsibility to represent all Americans, so they're constantly told that they're falling short in fulfilling that responsibility.

So we ought to choose: Either it’s fine for politicians to just focus on mobilizing their own voters, or it’s important that they make an appeal to everyone, even those who won’t wind up voting for them. But either way, shouldn’t we apply the same standard to both parties?

 

[fraurosena]

Notably there were no dissents! This bodes well for those opposing gerrymandering.

 

[fraurosena]

This goes to show how important it is to win the Senate.