Last Call For From The Mouth Of The Woman Who Lived It

Hillary Clinton's book on the 2016 campaign, What Happened, is her explanation of how Donald Trump became leader of the free world, and she did not.  The book is out tomorrow, and today in The Atlantic she gives the world a preview.

How did we get here?

Trump may be uniquely hostile to the rule of law, ethics in public service, and a free press. But the assault on our democracy didn’t start with his election. He is as much a symptom as a cause of what ails us. Think of our body politic like a human body, with our constitutional checks and balances, democratic norms and institutions, and well-informed citizenry all acting as an immune system protecting us from the disease of authoritarianism. Over many years, our defenses were worn down by a small group of right-wing billionaires—people like the Mercer family and Charles and David Koch—who spent a lot of time and money building an alternative reality where science is denied, lies masquerade as truth, and paranoia flourishes. By undermining the common factual framework that allows a free people to deliberate together and make the important decisions of self-governance, they opened the way for the infection of Russian propaganda and Trumpian lies to take hold. They've used their money and influence to capture our political system, impose a right-wing agenda, and disenfranchise millions of Americans.

I don’t agree with critics who say that capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with democracy—but unregulated, predatory capitalism certainly is. Massive economic inequality and corporate monopoly power are antidemocratic and corrode the American way of life.

Meanwhile, hyperpolarization now extends beyond politics into nearly every part of our culture. One recent study found that in 1960, just 5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they’d be displeased if their son or daughter married a member of the other political party. In 2010, 49 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats said they’d be upset by that. The strength of partisan identity—and animosity—helps explain why so many Republicans continue to back a president so manifestly unfit for office and antithetical to many of the values and policies they once held dear. When you start seeing politics as a zero-sum game and view members of the other party as traitors, criminals, or otherwise illegitimate, then the normal give-and-take of politics turns into a blood sport.

There is a tendency, when talking about these things, to wring our hands about “both sides.” But the truth is that this is not a symmetrical problem. We should be clear about this: The increasing radicalism and irresponsibility of the Republican Party, including decades of demeaning government, demonizing Democrats, and debasing norms, is what gave us Donald Trump. Whether it was abusing the filibuster and stealing a Supreme Court seat, gerrymandering congressional districts to disenfranchise African Americans, or muzzling government climate scientists, Republicans were undermining American democracy long before Trump made it to the Oval Office.

Now we must do all we can to save our democracy and heal our body politic.

First, we’ve got to mobilize massive turnout in the 2018 midterms. There are fantastic candidates running all over the country, making their compelling cases every day about how they’ll raise wages, bring down health-care costs, and fight for justice. If they win, they’ll do great things for America. And we could finally see some congressional oversight of the White House.

When the dust settles, we have to do some serious housecleaning. After Watergate, Congress passed a whole slew of reforms in response to Richard Nixon’s abuses of power. After Trump, we’re going to need a similar process. For example, Trump’s corruption should teach us that all future candidates for president and presidents themselves should be required by law to release their tax returns. They also should not be exempt from ethics requirements and conflict-of-interest rules.

A main area of reform should be improving and protecting our elections. The Senate Intelligence Committee has made a series of bipartisan recommendations for how to better secure America’s voting systems, including paper ballot backups, vote audits, and better coordination among federal, state, and local authorities on cybersecurity. That’s a good start. Congress should also repair the damage the Supreme Court did to the Voting Rights Act by restoring the full protections that voters need and deserve, as well as the voting rights of Americans who have served time in prison and paid their debt to society. We need early voting and voting by mail in every state in America, and automatic, universal voter registration so every citizen who is eligible to vote is able to vote. We need to overturn Citizens United and get secret money out of our politics. And you won’t be surprised to hear that I passionately believe it’s time to abolish the Electoral College.

But even the best rules and regulations won’t protect us if we don’t find a way to restitch our fraying social fabric and rekindle our civic spirit. There are concrete steps that would help, like greatly expanding national-service programs and bringing back civics education in our schools. We also need systemic economic reforms that reduce inequality and the unchecked power of corporations and give a strong voice to working families. And ultimately, healing our country will come down to each of us, as citizens and individuals, doing the work—trying to reach across divides of race, class, and politics and see through the eyes of people very different from ourselves. When we think about politics and judge our leaders, we can’t just ask, “Am I better off than I was four years ago?” We have to ask, “Are we better off? Are we as a country better, stronger, and fairer?” Democracy works only when we accept that we’re all in this together.

In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman on the street outside Independence Hall, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.” That response has been on my mind a lot lately. The contingency of it. How fragile our experiment in self-government is. And, when viewed against the sweep of human history, how fleeting. Democracy may be our birthright as Americans, but it’s not something we can ever take for granted. Every generation has to fight for it, has to push us closer to that more perfect union. That time has come again.

All of this should sound very, very familiar to ZVTS readers, because Hillary Clinton here says what I've been blogging about for the last several years, what I've documented daily in our descent into the Republican-controlled hell that we are in.

It was no accident.

The Bloom(berg) Already Off The Rose

Not that former NYC GOP Mayor Michael Bloomberg ever had a White House shot in 2020 running as a Republican, let alone as an Independent spoiler to split off the anti-Trump vote, but the notion that he could ever run as a Democrat in 2020 is laughable to the point of dark comedy.

“It’s impossible to conceive that I could run as a Republican — things like choice, so many of the issues, I’m just way away from where the Republican Party is today,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “That’s not to say I’m with the Democratic Party on everything, but I don’t see how you could possibly run as a Republican. So if you ran, yeah, you’d have to run as a Democrat.”

Mr. Bloomberg said he had no specific timeline for deciding on a presidential run: “I’m working on this Nov. 6 election, and after that I’ll take a look at it.” 

There is considerable skepticism among Democratic leaders, and even some of Mr. Bloomberg’s close allies, that he will actually pursue the presidency, because he has entertained the idea fruitlessly several times before, and shown little appetite for the rough-and-tumble tactics of traditional partisan politics. A campaign would require him to yield his imperial stature as a donor and philanthropist, and enter a tumultuous political and cultural climate that could make him a highly incongruous candidate for the Democratic nomination.

Though he has received a hero’s welcome from Democrats for his role in the midterms, Mr. Bloomberg is plainly an uncomfortable match for a progressive coalition passionately animated by concern for economic inequality and the civil rights of women and minorities.

In the interview Friday — his first extended comments on his thinking about a 2020 presidential run — Mr. Bloomberg expressed stubbornly contrary views on those fronts. He criticized liberal Democrats’ attitude toward big business, endorsing certain financial regulations but singling out a proposal by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to break up Wall Street banks as wrongheaded. He also defended his mayoral administration’s policy of stopping people on the street to search them for guns, a police tactic that predominantly affected black and Latino men, as a necessary expedient against crime.

And while Mr. Bloomberg expressed concern about allegations of sexual misconduct that have arisen in the last year, he also voiced doubt about some of them and said only a court could determine their veracity. He gave as an example Charlie Rose, the disgraced television anchor who for years broadcast his eponymous talk show from the offices of Mr. Bloomberg’s company. 

“The stuff I read about is disgraceful — I don’t know how true all of it is,” Mr. Bloomberg said of the #MeToo movement. Raising Mr. Rose unprompted, he said: “We never had a complaint, whatsoever, and when I read some of the stuff, I was surprised, I will say. But I never saw anything and we have no record, we’ve checked very carefully.” 

Mr. Bloomberg said the media industry was guilty of not “standing up” against sexual misconduct sooner, but declined to say whether he believed the allegations against Mr. Rose. “Let the court system decide,” he said, while acknowledging that the claims involving Mr. Rose might never be adjudicated in a legal proceeding. 

Mr. Rose, 76, has been accused by numerous women of unwanted and coercive sexual behavior, including claims that he groped female subordinates and exposed himself to them. He was fired by both CBS, where he hosted a morning show, and PBS, which broadcast the program “Charlie Rose,” which Mr. Rose recorded in the Bloomberg office. Bloomberg TV also terminated an arrangement that allowed it to rebroadcast Mr. Rose’s show. 

“You know, is it true?” Mr. Bloomberg said of the allegations. “You look at people that say it is, but we have a system where you have — presumption of innocence is the basis of it.”

And so he's against #MeToo, he's against Black Lives Matter, and he's pro-Wall Street.  He's the living caricature of what Democratic Socialists think all Democrats are, and what actual Democrats know Republicans really are at heart.

Who the hell is Bloomberg's constituency, employees of Bloomberg, Inc?

Hard, hard pass.  A pass on this clown so hard that diamonds couldn't scratch it.

NY Times?  Let's not ever seriously mention this fool as a "Democrat" again, shall we?

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

DOnald Trump is a pathological liar, somebody so divorced from even the concept of objective truth that it simply cannot exist in his world.  He lies constantly and consistently in order to aggrandize himself and receive adoration from his cult.  But now, Trump's endless lies to his base about how easily Republicans will win due to Trump being the Glorious Leader are threatening to turn the November blue wave into a cerulean tsunami as internal GOP polling shows Republicans are in full panic mode.

By the numbers: 57% of strong Trump supporters believe it's unlikely Democrats win the House, according to the source, who wasn't authorized to share findings from the RNC poll with the media. (The survey of 800 registered voters — 480 via landline calls and 320 via cellphone calls — was conducted from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2 and has a margin of error of 3.5%.)

By contrast, election forecaster Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight website gives Democrats an 83.1% chance of winning control over the House.

Why this matters: A month ago, we reported in "Sneak Peek" that Republican strategists were detecting something interesting — and from their POV, concerning — in focus groups of Trump voters. These voters — who have been listening to the president predicting a "red wave" in November — didn't believe polls showing Democrats would win the House.

This disbelief freaked out Republican strategists who want their voters to be panicked enough to vote in November.

But, but, but: Several Republican officials who have reviewed the latest polling tell me they see an opportunity amidst the gloomy data. They think they can energize seniors, suburban women and Republicans less likely to vote by attacking the high costs and potential implications of Democrats' "Medicare for All" single payer health care plans.

For these Republican constituencies, an anti-Medicare for All message "is the best performing message of persuading and motivating these groups in this November’s election," said a source familiar with the president's political thinking. "If you're giving something to everyone, that means less for seniors," the White House's political director, Bill Stepien, told me.

Trump has been briefed on this new polling and has been hammering these messages in recent rallies.

Democrats plan to fight back against this messaging. Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson told me: "For years, Republicans have been trying to make Medicare wither on the vine, so voters aren't going to believe they're now trying to save it. Even if Lex Luthor put on a cape, people wouldn't start believing he's Superman."

Expect this message war to continue.  It's the same tactic that Republicans used in 2010 to destroy the Democratic majority in Congress, and to great effect.  Republicans believe the lie of "If Dems win, they will give your heath care money to those people and you will die alone in the streets" will save them.

2010 and 2014 suggests very strongly that Republicans will be able to significantly narrow the enthusiasm gap through motivating senior voters through Medicare fear...that is if the message isn't sunk by Trump himself.

Or by, say, Robert Mueller.

StupidiNews!

• At least 18 are dead from Hurricane Florence as flooding in the Carolinas and Virginia have left thousands trapped by impassible roads and millions without power.
• Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a sandstone sphinx that may date back 2,000 years to the pre-Roman Ptolemaic Era, after draining water from a temple near the city of Aswan.
• Southern China is bracing for more flooding as Typhoon Mangkhut rips westward from Hong Kong into Chongqing Province, millions have already been evacuated from the storm's path.
• As the Trump Regime prepares imminent 10% tariffs on over $200 billion in Chinese imports, further trade talks with Beijing are in limbo as China considers retaliation.
• Bipartisan nuclear power bills are working their way through both the House and Senate to build a "fast neutron reactor" power plant for research purposes.