Many articles have been written about President Donald Trump’s influence on the modern-day Republican Party and the reluctance of Republicans to openly criticize him. But journalist Michael Tomasky, in an April 15 opinion piece for the Daily Beast, asserts that Trumpism is merely a symptom of the GOP’s overall ugliness — not the sole cause.
Tomasky recalls that when President Bill Clinton lied under oath about his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the late 1990s, he incurred the wrath of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. The author then compares Clinton’s activities to the Trump-era GOP, concluding that the latter is much worse.
“Clinton lied to his people for one reason: he knew that if he told the truth, they would abandon him,” Tomasky explains. “His support within his party would collapse, he knew, if he acknowledged having sullied the presidency in that way.”
There were no big surprises from Michael Cohen’s recent testimony. Speaking under oath to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, the former fixer to President Donald J. Trump called his longtime boss a “racist,” a “con man” and a “cheat.” But we already knew that, didn’t we?
Indeed, Cohen revealed little that had not been previously reported or even observed. The president’s long-standing practice of stiffing contractors who built his casinos and apartment buildings was the stuff of extensive news media reports before he was elected. And the last year has seen groundbreaking (and disturbing) reports of Trump’s attempts to get projects underway in Russia, which may explain his distressing habit of cozying up to strongman Vladimir Putin. Cohen revealed that Trump may also have committed insurance fraud, but given the president’s extensive record of lying and cheating, that’s hardly a surprise. News reports have already examined his family’s history of cheating on their taxes.
If anything surprised me, it was the depths to which so many Republicans were willing to sink in their efforts to defend a man who is obviously a liar, a cheat and a con man. In his opening statement, Cohen said, “I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty — of the things I did for Mr. Trump in an effort to protect and promote him.” How many Republicans will say the same thing in the coming years?
The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., in April 2016. Credit: Carolyn Kaster, AP
An impressive list of 58 former national security officials — who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents — have released a declaration attacking the fiction that there is an “emergency” along the southern border, justifying President Trump’s power grab. Coming on the eve of Tuesday’s House vote on a resolution to short-circuit the declaration, it makes clear the degree to which Republican lawmakers will endanger national security to stay on Trump’s good side.
At the outset, there is no evidence of a sudden or emergency increase in the number of people seeking to cross the southern border. According to the administration’s own data, the numbers of apprehensions and undetected illegal border crossings at the southern border are near forty-year lows. Although there was a modest increase in apprehensions in 2018, that figure is in keeping with the number of apprehensions only two years earlier, and the overall trend indicates a dramatic decline over the last fifteen years in particular.
They also make clear, “There is no reason to believe that there is a terrorist or national security emergency at the southern border that could justify the President’s proclamation.”
In her new film, director and producer Alexis Bloom examines the life of the late Republican Party kingmaker and controversial Fox News leader who, before his death, was forced out amid multiple sexual harassment allegations. “He was a heat over light kind of guy,” Bloom tells Political Theater of Roger Ailes. “He dealt in psychological tropes very deftly. He was ruthless.” Even conservative political commentator Glenn Beck, once a Fox host, is astonished by Ailes’ confidence in his own political influence.
Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), in a concession speech after losing her reelection, gave a scathing rebuke to the GOP, saying “Republicans never take minority communities into their home and citizens into their homes and into their hearts.” Credit: Evan Cobb/Daily Herald, AP
JACKSON, Miss. — Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith won a racially polarizing election here Tuesday night after never fully apologizing for comments in which she suggested she would be willing to sit in the front row at a public hanging.
Then on Wednesday, Senate Republicans moved to confirm a judicial nominee who, as an attorney, defended a North Carolina voter identification law deemed unconstitutional by a federal appeals court because it sought to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
The back-to-back developments this week offer a stark illustration of the state of the Republican Party and racial politics.
According to new FBI statistics released this week, documented hate crimes rose by 17 percent in 2017, with particularly notable increases in anti-Hispanic and anti-Semitic crimes. During the same time period, white supremacist murders doubled, making 2017 the fifth deadliest year on record for extremist violence.
Clearly, there’s a need to do something to address the surge in hate crimes.
Americans took to the polls in record numbers in the 2018 midterms, shifting party control of the House of Representatives and sending a clear message of disapproval to President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. Although the president and his party gained ground in the U.S. Senate, primarily in states Trump won handily, they failed to capitalize on the low unemployment rate or overall positive sentiments about the economy. The signature GOP legislative achievement of the first two years—the $1.5 trillion tax cut that passed last year —failed to boost Republicans’ chances overall and hurt candidates in several seats. Subsequently, they lost in major suburban and urban districts across the country and also lost ground in some rural areas. The president’s gamble of nationalizing the election around his personality and his administration’s harsh immigration policies ultimately cost Republicans their House majority and failed to persuade voters outside of already conservative or rural counties and states to stick with the GOP. Likewise, health care dominated voters’ minds this year according to both pre-election and Election Day polls, with Democrats benefitting from their commitment to protect and expand Americans’ health care and House Republicans suffering for their repeated attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Democrats are on pace for around a 34-seat gain in the House (outstanding races are still to be called in a few places), with a record number of women candidates winning overall. This is slightly above historical average gains for opposition parties in midterm elections but below the massive 2010 shift of 63 seats during the Obama presidency. Democrats gained seven governors’ seats, including in important presidential battleground states such as Michigan and Wisconsin and flipped six state legislative bodies, with about 330 state legislative seats gained across the country. Ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid won in three red states, while several measures to increase the minimum wage, legalize marijuana, and expand voting rights also emerged victorious. And, although definitive turnout data will not be available for a while, preliminary estimates suggest a massive increase in voter participation, with likely more than 110 million votes cast for the House—far above 2014 levels.
Midterm elections typically unfold on fleeting political terms and local issues that cannot be applied easily to future elections. But, given the highly polarized nature of U.S. politics under President Trump and the partisan divisions in control of the House and Senate and in key states, a few trends should be noted. The first two favor Democrats going into 2020, and the second two favor Republicans.
Supporters of President Trump at a rally in Macon, GA. Credi: tGabriella Demczuk, The New York Times
The Republican Party’s post-mortem after Mitt Romney lost his presidential bid to Barack Obama in 2012 was brutally straightforward: Expand the tent or risk extinction. “We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them, too,” party leaders wrote.
Regardless of the results on Tuesday, that playbook is gone, burned and buried, and it is not going to be easy to retrieve it from the dump. The Republican Party is now the party of President Trump.
The dark politics of anger, division and fear were on display in campaigns across the country this year, as Republican candidates for Congress and governor — and fringe groups who support them — embraced the racially inflammatory brand of politics that Mr. Trump unleashed in 2016. With the presidential campaign of 2020 effectively underway on Wednesday, there is little reason to think Mr. Trump will back away from a tactic that clearly rallies his base.
The following commentary was posted on the Huffington Post website September 1, 2018:
House Speaker Ryan speaks with Senate Majority Leader McConnell, House Majority Leader McCarthy and Senate Majotiy Whip Cornyn before a meeting with Trump. Credit Nicholas Kamm, AFP, Getty Images
In 2016, the Republican Party declared internet pornography a “public health crisis” and voted to insert that phrase into the official party platform. Republican delegates ratified that document at the very convention they would nominate Donald J. Trump, a man who allegedly had an affair with an actual porn star and paid her $130,000 to be quiet about it, to be their candidate for president of the United States.
That contradiction and moral flexibility pretty much defines today’s Republican Party. Which is a big reason why, last winter, I made the decision to leave the party after more than 15 years to become a member of the Democratic Party.
Candidly, I’m still getting used to the idea of calling myself a “Democrat.” Whenever I talk or write about Republicans, my first instinct is to use the pronoun “we” instead of “them.” But the more I see from the Republican Party in this time of Trump, the more I am convinced that this is a political party I want no affiliation with in any way, shape or form.
The following article by Adam Uren was posted on the BringMetheNews.com website August 20, 2018:
He was only in Duluth a few weeks ago.
Credit: Fox News
Mike Pence must be a fan of Minnesota, because he’s coming back to the state for the second time this month.
The vice president will be in the Twin Cities on Thursday, Aug. 30, when he will attend a fundraiser in Bloomington.
The news was confirmed by Minnesota GOP chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan, who said: “We are excited to welcome Vice President Pence back to Minnesota following our primary election.
