Category: 2020 Election

Trump attorney spirals out in unhinged CNN rant claiming Trump is winning except in ‘junk science’ polls

AlterNet logoJenna Ellis, an attorney for President Donald Trump’s campaign, on Sunday defended a lawsuit threat against CNN which seeks to suppress a poll showing the president losing to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“No pollster in the world would stand behind this as a legitimate poll, according to industry standards,” Ellis told CNN’s Brian Stelter. “So why would CNN? Why?”

“What industry standards?” Stelter asked. “This poll is in line with other network polls. Pretty much every poll shows Trump losing to Biden.” Continue reading.

‘They’re cooked’: Trump team ‘terrified’ because voters are no longer buying GOP’s racist ‘hoodoo juice’

AlterNet logoIn a column for the Daily Beast, longtime political observer Michael Tomasky wrote that Donald Trump and Republicans hoping to ride their coded language and veiled racist rhetoric to victory in November are starting to realize it is no longer working on voters and they are “terrified.”

With the public in an uproar over the murder of George Floyd — among others Black Americans  — at the hands of police, the columnist suggested that we have possibly entered into a new era where one of the Republicans major talking points come election time are falling on deaf ears as voters increasingly reject racist appeals for their votes.

Noting the Republicans and the president likely “hate” the change in attitude, Tomasky points out that their future as a governing party hangs in the balance if they don’t adapt to evolving attitudes in a country that is rapidly becoming more diverse. Continue reading.

Protests in Trump country test his hold in rural white areas

In the lake country 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, hundreds danced, prayed and demanded racial justice in Cadillac, a Michigan town that was long home to a neo-Nazi group.

It was not an isolated scene. In eastern Ohio, even more demonstrated in rural Mount Vernon, a town with its own current of racial intolerance, just as others did in Manheim, Pennsylvania, a tiny farming town in Lancaster County, with its small but active Ku Klux Klan presence.

The protest movement over racial injustice has quickly spread deep into predominantly white, small-town America, notably throughout parts of the country that delivered the presidency for Donald Trump. Across Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, more than 200 such demonstrations have taken place, many in cities with fewer than 20,000 residents, according to local media, organizers, participants and the online tracking tool CrowdCount. Continue reading.

GOP struggles to confront racial issues

The Hill logoLess than five months before the election, congressional Republicans are struggling to confront a host of thorny racial issues that have been unexpectedly thrust into the 2020 campaign spotlight.

They’re still scrambling to craft a response to nationwide protests against police brutality following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, divided over whether to rename Army bases named after Confederate leaders and resistant to banning all Confederate statues from the Capitol.

The resistance to remove the Confederate statues — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) argue states should decide which figures represent them in the hallowed building — is even creating friction in the party. Continue reading.

‘Spinning his wheels’ and ‘bewildered’: New report exposes Trump’s complete lack of leadership ability

AlterNet logoA new report from NBC News on Friday night about internal White House debates shone a revealing light on the abject leadership failures of President Donald Trump.

The piece documents his dueling camps of advisers, both in the campaign and the administration, who are split over how Trump should react to the ongoing protests over the killing of George Floyd, police abuses, and racism more broadly.

Trump, the report found, is largely dismissive of the protesters themselves, saying: “These aren’t my voters.” This reflects a trait of the president’s that has repeatedly shown its ugly head throughout his term in office: dismissiveness toward constituents who didn’t vote for him. He clearly thinks he owes more to Trump voters than he does to the American people more generally. Continue reading.

Trump’s Actions Rattle the Military World: ‘I Can’t Support the Man’

New York Times logoThe president’s threat to use troops against largely peaceful protesters, as well as other attempts to politicize the military, have unsettled a number of current and former members and their families.

Erin Fangmann grew up in a military family, has been married to a captain in the Air Force for 18 years and has voted Republican all her life, including for Donald J. Trump. But as with a number of other veterans, troops and military family members who have watched the president with alarm, her support has evaporated.

“He has hurt the military,” said Ms. Fangmann, who lives in Arizona, one of several states in play this November with a high percentage of veterans and active-duty service members. “Bringing in active-duty members to the streets was a test to desensitize people to his future use of the military for his personal benefit. I think the silent majority among us is going to swing away.”

Since 2016, Mr. Trump has viewed veterans as a core slice of his base; in that year’s presidential election, about 60 percent voted for him, according to exit polls, and swing-state counties with especially high numbers of veterans helped him win. Many veterans and members of the military stuck with him even as he attacked the Vietnam War record of Senator John McCain, disparaged families of those killed in combat and denigrated generals whom he fired or drove from government service. Some conservative rank-and-file enlisted members silently agreed with Mr. Trump. Continue reading.

Trump thinks white-supremacist trolling is his path to re-election

AlterNet logoIt’s long past time to stop excusing Donald Trump’s racist trolling as the accidental bumblings of an idiot who doesn’t know better. That’s not to claim Trump is a political genius — or even a person of average intelligence. But he has managed to direct the limited IQ points at his disposal towards the practice of racist trolling, and he knows what he’s doing. Like anyone who focuses single-mindedly on a specific skill for decades, he has gotten good at this one thing.

This reality is critical to keep in mind when interpreting Trump’s response to the rising tide of national protests against racism and police brutality in the past couple of weeks. The temptation is strong to resort to “he’s too dumb to know what he’s doing” argument, which might fluff one’s own ego but has the unfortunate side effect of downplaying how sinister Trump’s fascistic impulses actually are.

Trump announced this week that his regular rallies, which were on hiatus due to the coronavirus, would return next week, despite the very real possibility threat these will become virus super-spreader events. But that concern was overshadowed by the obnoxious racist provocation of the date and location: June 19, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Trump said Abraham Lincoln’s legacy is ‘questionable’. A black reporter pointed out: ‘We are free’

AlterNet logoIn a new interview with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, President Donald Trump repeatedly shoved his foot in his mouth and stumbled as he tried and failed to cogently address the issue of racism in the United States.

At one point during the discussion, Trump returned to a claim he has made many times, that his time in office has been especially beneficial for black Americans. To justify this dubious claim, he tends to rely on the continuing economic trends that began before he was elected. And he conveniently ignores the fact that the current pandemic and recession have fallen especially hard on black Americans, a fact he takes no responsibility for.

He’ll often include the caveat in his boast that President Abraham Lincoln is the only president who has done more on this front than he. But this time, Trump added a second caveat, saying that Lincoln’s accomplishments were “questionable.” Faulkner had to remind Trump that Lincoln freed the slaves:

Trump: So I think I’ve done more for the black community than any other president. And let’s take a pass on Abraham Lincoln, ‘cause he did good, although it’s always questionable, you know, in other words, the end result —
Faulkner: Well, we are free, Mr. President —
Trump: But we are free—
Faulkner: So he did pretty well.
Trump: You understand what I mean.
Faulkner: Yeah, no, I get it.
Trump: So I’m gonna take a pass on Abe, Abe — Honest Abe as we call him.
Faulkner: But you say you’ve done more than anybody.
Trump: Well, look, criminal justice reform. Nobody else could’ve done it. I did it. I didn’t get a lot of notoriety, and the fact the people I did it for then go on television and thank everybody but me. And they needed me to get it done, and I got it done.

Continue reading.

Trump calls for a ‘new and updated’ GOP platform after party moves to keep its 2016 document

Washington Post logoPresident Trump on Friday called on the Republican National Committee to adopt a “new and updated platform” after the party’s executive committee voted this week to keep the current one in place for logistical reasons related to the late move of its high-profile convention events to Jacksonville, Fla.<

The decision to readopt the 2016 platform prompted a flurry of media reports Thursday about many instances of language critical of the “current administration” and “the president” that in 2016 was aimed at President Barack Obama — but now could be read as targeting Trump.

“The Republican Party has not yet voted on a Platform,” Trump said in a morning tweet. “No rush. I prefer a new and updated Platform, short form, if possible.” Continue reading.