Category: 2020 Election

Trump says he will move Republican convention out of North Carolina

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Tuesday night signaled he will move the Republican National Convention out of North Carolina after the state and the GOP clashed over potential restrictions due to the coronavirus.

“Had long planned to have the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place I love. Now, @NC_Governor Roy Cooper and his representatives refuse to guarantee that we can have use of the Spectrum Arena,” Trump tweeted.

“Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised,” he continued, saying the party is “now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.” Continue reading.

Trump wanted a photo op. He delivered the most ominous message of his presidency.

Washington Post logoIt isn’t easy to invent rituals. But the president of the United States struggled to do that on Monday evening, choosing a new form of spectacle over such timeworn but effective presidential gestures as offering consolation, listening to grievance and calming the country.

After unleashing the National Guard and law enforcement agents on peaceful protesters outside the White House, Donald Trump traversed Lafayette Square to the north, where he stood for a few minutes holding a Bible outside the shuttered parish house of St. John’s Church, which was damaged by a brief fire in the basement during protests on Sunday. He held the book awkwardly in both hands, looking at it briefly as if to double check that he had brought the right one, and then held it aloft, like the raised arm of a victorious boxer. Behind him, a church sign read: “All are welcome.”

The walk, the display of the Bible and the return to the White House through a phalanx of armored law enforcement personnel were quickly edited into a surreal video with a soaring soundtrack. But nothing quite worked, and though its producers clearly aspired to the inspirational bombast of Steven Spielberg or perhaps Leni Riefenstahl, they could barely muster a ­second-rate pastiche of Charlie Chaplin. Continue reading.

“An Abuse of Sacred Symbols”: Trump, a Bible, and a Sanctuary

As the hours ticked down to prime time, the White House prepared its unholy production. It was Monday afternoon, and President Trump was getting ready to deliver his first speech on the massive protests sweeping the country. After unflattering reports that he had spent Friday evening in a bunker, Trump summoned the press corps to the Rose Garden for maximum effect. Never mind that the chaos had given way to peaceful demonstrations outside the White House. Men and women, along the sunny edge of Lafayette Park, chanted and knelt. A young boy and girl, flanking their father, held protest signs. A vender touted coronavirus masks bearing the grim slogan of our time: “I Can’t Breathe.”

In the course of the day, the city had started mending the wounds of the night before. A worker power-washed graffiti from the stone wall of a steak house. Crews mounted plywood over the shattered windows of a jewelry store and a battered A.T.M. Spray-painted slogans—“George Floyd” and “Fuck the Police” and “Free the People”—offered a condensed history of yet another grievous week in America, which began on May 25th, when Floyd died, on video, with the knee of a Minneapolis police officer on his neck.

Normally, one of the most striking features of the White House is its nearness. For years, tourists who stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue have been startled to come so close to the building, which is situated with a confident, open face to the world, a contrast to the secluded warrens of power in Beijing or Moscow. In recent months, that has been less true. Last summer, the Trump Administration started building a new thirteen-foot fence, twice the height of the old one, equipped with “anti-climb and intrusion detection technology.” It closed off Pennsylvania Avenue to pedestrians and cloaked the building behind a tall, white construction wall. When protests gave way to violence over the weekend, police expanded the realm of isolation, sealing off Lafayette Park and pushing the public farther away. On Monday, protesters returned to nearby streets. By late afternoon, several hundred had gathered. Continue reading.

Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers.

Washington Post logoThis unraveling presidency began with the Crybaby-in-Chief banging his spoon on his highchair tray to protest a photograph — a photograph — showing that his inauguration crowd the day before had been smaller than the one four years previous. Since then, this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron.

Presidents, exploiting modern communications technologies and abetted today by journalists preening as the “resistance” — like members of the French Resistance 1940-1944, minus the bravery — can set the tone of American society, which is regrettably soft wax on which presidents leave their marks. The president’s provocations — his coarsening of public discourse that lowers the threshold for acting out by people as mentally crippled as he — do not excuse the violent few. They must be punished. He must be removed.

Social causation is difficult to demonstrate, particularly between one person’s words and other persons’ deeds. However: The person voters hired in 2016 to “take carethat the laws be faithfully executed” stood on July 28, 2017, in front of uniformed police and urged them “please don’t be too nice” when handling suspected offenders. His hope was fulfilled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Minneapolis pavement. Continue reading.

The column above is by conservative journalist George Will.

On The Trail: Trump didn’t create these crises, but they are getting worse

The Hill logoSince he rode down an escalator at Trump Tower five years ago this month, President Trump has been at the hub of the American consciousness, driving the news with policies and actions that enrage half the country and fire up his base.

Now, five months before voters decide whether to give him a second term, it is Trump who finds himself off balance, beset by two crises that are not of his own making.

Donald Trump did not create the coronavirus. Donald Trump did not create the structural racism that has plagued the country since before its founding. Continue reading.

Biden Meets Protesters On Street While Trump Tweets From Bunker

As protests break out in cities across the country over the death on May 25 of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, knelt on his neck, the actions of Donald Trump and of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in response are a study in contrasts.

Biden has been visible. He visited the site of a protest in his home state of Delaware; met with leaders of the black community in Wilmington to listen to their concerns; and held a virtual roundtable Monday afternoon with the mayors of St. Paul, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.

Observers note that Biden is taking actions ordinarily expected of a president in such situations. Continue reading.

2020 CD3 DFL Convention Results

Thank you to everyone who has participated in this unique convention season from Caucus Night on. Here is a list of people elected at the CD3 DFL virtual convention:

Congress Congressman Dean Phillips — Visit our 2020 candidate page for links to his sites.
Presidential Elector Cheryl Poling
Presidential Elector Alternate Ben Hackett
Biden National Delegates Cheryl Flugaur-Leavitt
Kristy Ann Janigo
Lana Slavitt
Hollies Winston
Jerry Gall
Sanders National Delegates Rebekah Nelson
Johnathon McClellan

 

Biden savors Trump’s latest attacks

The Hill logoPresident Trump escalated his attacks on Joe Biden on Monday, lashing out at his rival as protests and riots spilled into the streets and turned violent for the third straight night. 

“Sleepy Joe Biden’s people are so Radical Left that they are working to get the Anarchists out of jail, and probably more,” Trump wrote in a Monday morning tweet. “Joe doesn’t know anything about it, he is clueless, but they will be the real power, not Joe. They will be calling the shots! Big tax increases for all, Plus!”

To Democrats, Trump’s tweet signaled a kind of desperation. Continue reading.

As Trump attacks voting by mail, GOP builds 2020 strategy around limiting its expansion

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s persistent attacks on mail-in voting have fueled an unprecedented effort by conservatives to limit expansion of the practice before the November election, with tens of millions of dollars planned for lawsuits and advertising aimed at restricting who receives ballots and who remains on the voter rolls.

The strategy, embraced by Trump’s reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee and an array of independent conservative groups, reflects the recognition by both parties that voting rules could decide the outcome of the 2020 White House race amid the electoral challenges posed by the coronaviruspandemic.

Helping drive the effort is William Consovoy, a veteran Supreme Court litigator who also serves as one of Trump’s personal lawyers. Consovoy’s Virginia-based law firm is handling a battery of legal actions on behalf of the RNC, several state GOPs and an independent group called the Honest Election­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­s Project, which is connected to a Trump adviser. Continue reading.

We Have No More Excuses For Trump Voters

The past several days have offered a kaleidoscope of a Trump-addled America, a telling, if depressing, pastiche: Amy Cooper’s bigoted entitlement; the homicidal tactics of Minneapolis police officers; the knowing encouragement of the president, who has mounted his second campaign on the same foundation of rank prejudices and crude stereotypes as his first. It adds up to a portrait of a nation unwilling to retreat from its racist history, unable to chart a path toward a future that pays tribute to its more egalitarian founding creed.

President Donald J. Trump is merely a symptom, not a cause, not the sickness itself. During his first campaign, I worried less about his outrageous conduct and inflammatory rhetoric — he is, after all, just one malign actor — and more about the millions who danced to his music, rejoiced in his racist diatribes, sang in his chorus.

In 2016, I would not have accused every voter who cast a ballot for Trump of racism. Some were one-percenters bent on protecting their riches; some were lifelong Republicans leery of crossing party lines; some were Bernie Bros who couldn’t curb their misogyny and vote for Hillary Clinton. Still, there were many who eagerly followed after a man who defamed Mexicans, denounced Muslims and claimed that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Continue reading.