Category: 2020 Election

The Memo: Trump lags in polls as crises press

The Hill logoPresident Trump took to Twitter on Monday morning to complain about a “heavily biased Democrat Poll” — the latest sign he is feeling the pressure as his fortunes sag five months before November’s election.

The poll from ABC News and The Washington Post showed Trump losing to likely Democratic challenger Joe Biden by 10 percentage points. The poll is not a notable outlier among recent surveys, nor is there any objective evidence that it is biased.

The results point to the electoral perils Trump faces as unrest about racial injustice explodes across the nation while voters grapple with the coronavirus crisis and its economic impact. Continue reading.

President Obama: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change.

Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.

First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation — something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood. Continue reading.

President Trump made 19,127 false or misleading claims in 1,226 days

Washington Post logoIt’s no longer a question as to whether President Trump will exceed 20,000 false or misleading claims by the time his current term is completed. Instead, we have to ask: Will he top 25,000?

As of May 29, his 1,226th day in office, Trump had made 19,127 false or misleading claims, according to the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered. That’s almost 16 claims a day over the course of his presidency. So far this year, he’s averaging just over 22 claims a day, similar to the pace he set in 2019.

With 235 days to go in his current term, that would leave him just short of 25,000. But we have also found that October is a dangerous month for the truth, especially if an election is nearing. In October 2018, the president tallied 1,205 claims and in October 2019, 1,159 claims. That’s a pace of 40 claims a day. Continue reading.

Don’t Let Trump Divert You With Twitter Rampage

In his latest bids to override our Constitution, would-be dictator Donald Trump issued an executive order Thursday attacking First Amendment rights on social media. Then he called for state violence against people suspected of committing property crimes.

In doing so, Trump diverted news coverage from the significant news of the day — his incompetent handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his encouragement of violence against people of color and Muslims.

So, let’s get to the real news and then his diversionary tactics: more than 103,000 confirmed American coronavirus deaths as of noon on May 29. That’s 28 percent of global deaths even though America has only about 4 percent of the planet’s nearly 7.8 billion human beings. Continue reading.

Trump’s May days: A month of distractions and grievances as nation marks bleak coronavirus milestone

Washington Post logoAs the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic climbed toward the bleak milestone of 100,000 and nearly one-sixth of the nation’s workers were unemployed, President Trump’s mind on May 18 was elsewhere. He welcomed two of his 2016 political soldiers, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, to the White House for a nostalgia tour reminiscing about how he had vanquished Hillary Clinton.

When Trump did address public health issues that day, he alarmed officials by revealing that he had been taking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic — despite his own administration’s warning that doing so could cause severe heart problems.

A day later, when Trump journeyed to the Capitol for the first time during the pandemic, he again allowed his personal concerns to eclipse the crisis engulfing the nation. Over lunch with Republican senators, Trump complained about “criminal” Democrats who had “unmasked my children.” He accused his political opponents of “treason.” He implored his party to “stick together” and “be tough.” And he turned the floor over to his new White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, to deliver a campaign polling presentation aimed at persuading the lawmakers that the president was more popular than public surveys had indicated. Continue reading.

Trump is imploding in real time. The damage may be irreversible

AlterNet logoIf you didn’t know better, you could easily have concluded that Donald Trump spent the week campaigning for his presumptive Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.

For most Americans, it was a heart-rending week marked by two tragedies that seemed brutal, senseless, and maddening all at the same time: the cresting of 100,000 American deaths due to coronavirus and the very public murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers.

Both of these events were avoidable. One seemed previously unimaginable while the other tragically repeats itself on an endless loop with no end in sight. Honest to god, how many more times do we have to watch white police officers kill people of color in broad daylight before this systemic violence stops? But both events also cried out for leadership and compassion at the highest levels of government. Continue reading.

Trump Has Returned To His 2016 Law-And-Order Rhetoric, But It Might Not Sit So Well In 2020

When President Trump delivered his inaugural address in 2017, it was in an unfamiliar style. Gone was the jokey off-handedness of Trump-on-the-trail. In a stilted, elegiac tone the freshly-minted president spoke of “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones” and “young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge.” The content of the speech was familiar, though: Trump would bring America back from the brink. “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” President George W. Bush called it “some weird shit.”

Trump ran on law and order — “I am the law and order candidate” he helpfully explained — even if empirical evidence suggested nothing was wrong with the law and order Americans were already living under. The country’s rates of violent crime were trending downward when he ran — falling 51 percent between 1993 and 2018 — and the economy was churning along, but Trump tapped into some Americans’ dissatisfaction with the status quo. Law and order was about the restoration of a certain social configuration favorable to white Americans as much as it was a concern with crime.

As the strange election year that is 2020 marches on, Trump has returned to his 2016 rhetoric, but it may register differently. Late Thursday night, Minneapolis residents burned down a police station after the death of George Floyd, a black man in police custody. The president tweeted in response that, “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” Continue reading.

Trump Shows Signs of Panic as Coronavirus, Campaign Wear On

Donald Trump’s combativeness reached new levels this week, with escalated attacks that left his enemies – and his allies – scratching their heads.

EVEN BY MODERN political discourse standards, President Donald Trump reached a new level of frenzy and attack this week: He suggested a cable news host committed murder. He threatened to pull the Republican National Convention out of the state that has spent nearly two years planning for the event. He tweeted gleefully about media layoffs, ridiculed his likely Democratic election foe for wearing a protective mask and claimed that if more people vote by mail – as he does – the election will be a fraud.

Trump’s signature combativeness has long been an inspiration for his most devout followers and a source of outrage among his detractors. But this week, the president appears to have crossed a line – moving his favorite social media forum, Twitter, to append a fact-check suggestion to the president’s often factually challenged tweets. That led the president Wednesday to threaten, on that very forum, to shut down the site – though it’s not clear why he believes he has the power to do so.

“He’s jumped the shark – on ‘Morning Joe,’ and the ballots and people robbing mailboxes. It’s just lunacy,” says independent political analyst Stu Rothenberg, referring to the cable news show hosted by former GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough, whom Trump has suggested murdered a young staffer in 2001. Continue reading.

Breaking precedent, White House won’t release formal economic projections this summer that would forecast extent of downturn

Washington Post logoBreaking precedent, White House won’t release formal economic projections this summer that would forecast extent of downturn

White House officials have decided not to release updated economic projections this summer, opting against publishing forecasts that would almost certainly codify an administration assessment that the coronavirus pandemic has led to a severe economic downturn, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.

The White House is supposed to unveil a federal budget proposal every February and then typically provides a “mid-session review” in July or August with updated projections on economic trends such as unemployment, inflation and economic growth.

Budget experts said they were not aware of any previous White House opting against providing forecasts in this “mid-session review” document in any other year since at least the 1970s. Continue reading.

Trump sparks horror by promoting video that says ‘only good Democrat is a dead Democrat’

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump on Wednesday evening promoted a video from the Cowboys for Trump Twitter account which began with the line, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

The video in question features Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin addressing an anti-lockdown rally in which he made bloodthirsty declarations about Democratic lawmakers.

“Thank you Cowboys,” Trump wrote in response to the video. “See you in New Mexico!” Continue reading.