Category: 2020 Election

Trump’s suburban collapse and the widening ‘gender chasm’

AlterNet logoRemember when all we ever heard about were former Democrats who defected to vote for Donald Trump in 2016? Would they really stick with Trump? Could Democrats ever win them back? Political reporters spent a solid three years perseverating over nothing but disaffected Democrats who might be permanently wed to the GOP moving forward.

Well, good news—political reporters are now looking elsewhere for their dog-bites-man electoral stories. The new shiny objects of 2020 are the once reliably pro-Republican suburbs turning on Trump. As we saw in the 2018 midterms, if enough college-educated GOP voters run toward Democrats, they can neutralize and, in some critical states, more than offset non-college white Democrats who gravitated toward Trump in 2016.

But following Democrats’ historic rout in the midterms—largely due to white college-educated voters abandoning GOP candidates—analysts questioned whether what we were seeing was a momentary blip intended to send a message or a more permanent realignment of the voting bloc with Democrats. Now, just months before Election Day, all available qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests white college-educated voters are sticking with Democrats for the foreseeable future. Continue reading.

New Video Shows Jason Lewis Proclaiming He’s ‘Not Real Keen’ on Certain Minnesotans Voting

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA – As Minnesotans prepare to vote in tomorrow’s State Primary, new video footage of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis shows him admitting that he’s not “real keen on [unemployed voters] going to the polls or the caucus system.”

Minnesota DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin called Lewis’ comments “outrageous and undemocratic.”

Lewis’ newly surfaced comments come as tens of thousands of Minnesotans have lost their jobs or taken a pay cut due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and amid all of this Lewis has repeatedly expressed opposition to making it easier for Minnesotans to vote by mail.

Lewis made the comments on a public affairs show he co-hosted called Face-to-Face: Continue reading “New Video Shows Jason Lewis Proclaiming He’s ‘Not Real Keen’ on Certain Minnesotans Voting”

The Trump Campaign Tries to Change the Subject

With less than three months to go until Election Day, Donald Trump’s campaign this week tried again to hit the reset button. “We’re going to run like we’re the underdog,” Trump’s new campaign manager, Bill Stepien, told Fox News on Monday. Before Stepien spoke, the Trump team released two new television ads targeting Joe Biden, who, thus far, has proved an elusive foe. One features a montage of Biden with Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, and claims that Biden “has embraced the policies of the radical left.” The other shows a woman of color silently holding up printed cards, the last two of which say “i’m afraid to say this out loud… i won’t risk my children’s future with biden.”

These ads seem to have come from the same playbook that Trump has been relying on for months now, with little success if you believe the polls. To get a better idea of how the campaign is trying to motivate the President’s loyal supporters and reach out to less committed ones, I downloaded the campaign’s official app, which promised to supply me with “exclusive content and campaign updates.” For a couple of days, I dived into the online Trump world, which turned out to be an immersive experience. Continue reading “The Trump Campaign Tries to Change the Subject”

Mnuchin suggests taxpayers will have to pay back COVID money unless Trump is reelected

AlterNet logoTreasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin suggested on Sunday that Americans will have to pay the government back for any payroll tax reduction unless President Donald Trump is reelected.

In an interview on FOX, host Chris Wallace noted that the president’s latest executive action on COVID-19 financial relief is “not a tax cut.”

“It’s a payroll tax suspension,” Wallace explained. “Isn’t there a danger that a lot of businesses won’t pass these saving through to workers because they’re going to hold on to the money because at some point, according to this executive action by the end of the year, those payroll taxes are going to be have to be paid anyway?” Continue reading.

Kanye West’s presidential bid bolstered by Republican operatives in at least five states

Washington Post logoOne elector trying to get rapper Kanye West on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin is married to a former chairwoman of a Republican county committee and was photographed with President Trump at his inaugural.

In Arkansas, a Republican operative who signed West’s ballot petition was at one point interviewed to be Trump’s campaign manager for his 2016 bid.

And West’s ballot petition in Ohio was signed by a lawyer who has previously represented state Republican campaign committees. Continue reading.

Here’s what is actually in Trump’s four executive orders

Washington Post logoThe details on payroll taxes, unemployment and evictions are not as generous as he made them sound.

President Trump took the unusual — and highly controversial — step Saturday of attempting to provide additional economic relief to millions of Americans on his own, without the approval of Congress.

At his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Trump announced he was postponing payroll taxes through the end of the year, extending the unemployment “bonus” at $400 a week (down from $600), helping people “stay in their homes” and waiving student debt payments through the end of 2020. The details, however, are not as generous as he made them sound.

He is ordering a payroll tax deferral, not a cut, meaning the taxes won’t be collected for a while but they will still be due at a later date. On housing, he instructs key officials to “consider” whether there should be a ban on evictions. He also insists that state governments pick up the tab for some of the unemployment aid. Continue reading.

Trump walks off in a huff after reporter confronts him over lie he’s told more than 150 times

AlterNet logoI don’t know why this hasn’t been happening for five years now, but thank you, thank you, thank you Paula Reid.

I’m sure you’ve heard the one about Donald Trump passing the Veterans Choice Act, which no other president could do for 50 years except, it turns out, Barack Obama, who actually signed it in 2014. And not only that, the law — which gives veterans the option of seeking care outside the VA system — was championed by Trump’s two favorite people, Crazy Bernie Sanders and Loser John McCain.

Well, a tough, intelligent woman reporter — the kind Donald Trump likes the mostest! — just called him out on this fairy tale, which, as CNN notes, Trump has told some version of more than 150 times. And, as usual, he acted like a diaper rash with a baby attached to it. Continue reading.

On The Trail: Pence’s knives come out

The Hill logoVice President Pence has spent three decades in public life selling his brand of orthodox Republicanism through calm and reserved gentility. He is conservative, he likes to say, but he is not angry about it.

But Pence, who once wrote an essay forswearing negative campaign tactics, has always harbored a sharper edge, an attack dog who only occasionally bares his fangs. And as polls show Pence’s boss trailing, the vice president has increasingly snapped at critics and even some erstwhile allies.

This past week, Pence lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), one of the harshest critics of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. In an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News, Pence blamed Cuomo for some of the 32,000 New Yorkers who have died from COVID-19. Continue reading.

Trump’s Go-It-Alone Stimulus Won’t Do Much to Lift the Recovery

New York Times logoA series of executive actions will provoke lawsuits but is unlikely to stoke faster growth in an economy that has cooled this summer.

The executive actions President Trump took on Saturday were pitched as a unilateral jolt for an ailing economy. But there is only one group of workers that seems guaranteed to benefit from them, at least right away: lawyers.

Mr. Trump’s measures include an eviction moratorium, a new benefit to supplement unemployment assistance for workers and a temporary delay in payroll tax liability for low- and middle-income workers. They could give renters a break and ease payments for some student loan borrowers. But they are likely to do little to deliver cash any time soon to Americans hit hard by the recession.

Even conservative groups have warned that suspending payroll tax collections is unlikely to translate into more money for workers. An executive action seeking to essentially create a new unemployment benefit out of thin air will almost certainly be challenged in court. And as Mr. Trump’s own aides concede, the orders will not provide any aid to small businesses, state and local governments or low- and middle-income workers. Continue reading.

Robert Reich dissects Trump’s dangerous lies about the COVID economy

AlterNet logo“The recovery has been very strong,” Donald Trump said last week. Then the Commerce Department reported the U.S. economy contracted between April and June at the fastest pace in nearly three-quarters of a century, which is as long as economists have been keeping track. The drop wiped out five years of economic growth.

But pesky facts have never stopped Trump. Having lied for five months about the coronavirus, he’s now filling social media and the airwaves with untruths about the economy so he can dupe his way to election day.

The comeback “won’t take very long,” he reassured Americans on Thursday. But every indicator shows that after a small uptick in June, the US economy is tanking again. Restaurant reservations are down, traffic at retail stores is dwindling, more small businesses are closing, the small rebound in air travel is reversing. Continue reading.