Category Archives: Random Blogging

Will Endorsements Matter?

In traditional election cycles, endorsements–generally issued by newspapers–rarely moved votes. The endorsements this year are very different, but whether they will change any votes is unclear. Trump’s MAGA base is firmly insulated from reality–they seem to occupy a different country, where up is down and wet is dry. It isn’t just accusations about immigrants eating dogs and cats–they believe Trump’s claims that crime is up and the economy is tanking, despite the fact that data shows crime plummeting and the American economy flourishing. They might just as well be on another planet.

Because Trump voters occupy an alternate reality, the avalanche of endorsements of Harris/Walz probably won’t pry MAGA votes away. But we can hope that the unprecedented nature of those endorsements will generate registrations and turnout by rational folks who might not otherwise go to the polls. (That certainly is the hoped-for result of celebrity endorsements from super-stars like Taylor Swift.)

What has set this year’s endorsements apart isn’t just the unprecedented number of them, but the political identities and bona fides of the endorsers. (Example: Evangelicals for Harris–really!) Recently, four hundred economists endorsed Harris, warning that the election “is a choice between inequity, economic injustice, and uncertainty with Donald Trump or prosperity, opportunity, and stability with Kamala Harris, a choice between the past and the future.” The other day, seven hundred national security figures announced their endorsement of the Democratic ticket. They were later joined by General Stanley McChrystal.

The sheer number of Republican endorsers–not just the “Never Trumpers”– is staggering.

It isn’t simply high visibility people like Liz and Dick Cheney. Every day we encounter headlines like “State Republican party chairs endorse Kamala Harris for president.” In addition to the Republicans who spoke at the Democratic convention, a group of more than 200 who worked for former Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Sen. Mitt Romney and the late Sen. John McCain signed onto a letter supporting the Democratic nominee.

A recently launched “Republicans for Harris” is steadily growing.

Perhaps the most striking of all was a New York Times recent compilation of opinions of Donald J. Trump from “those who know him best”–members of Trump’s own administration, and “friends” who’ve known him for many years. As the introduction to those quotations put it,

Dozens of people who know him well, including the 91 listed here, have raised alarms about his character and fitness for office — his family and friends, world leaders and business associates, his fellow conservatives and his political appointees — even though they had nothing to gain from doing so. Some have even spoken out at the expense of their own careers or political interests.

The New York Times editorial board has made its case that Mr. Trump is unfit to lead. But the strongest case against him may come from his own people. For those Americans who are still tempted to return him to the presidency or to not vote in November, it is worth considering the assessment of Mr. Trump by those who have seen him up close.

Those opinions followed, and they are scathing. I encourage you to click through and read them.

The sheer number of economic, military and governmental experts–both Republicans and Democrats–who are warning against another Trump administration ought to be dispositive, but it clearly isn’t making inroads into MAGA fidelity, and I think there are two main reasons.

The first–and most frequently noted–is the similarity of MAGA Republicanism to a cult. In large part, MAGA folks have drunk the Kool-Aid. For whatever reason, some people are susceptible to the Jim Jones and Donald Trumps of the world, and fact-based arguments are irrelevant to them. Their devotion to the cult leader fills some sort of psychic need that the rest of us don’t share and can’t understand.

The second reason is less well understood, but I think it’s important.

Much has been made of the growing division between educated and uneducated voters. Education is absolutely not the same thing as intelligence, but folks who never learned how government works, or what the Constitution requires, are much more likely to believe, for example, that the government can simply round up and deport millions of immigrants (not to mention failing to understand the effect that would have on America’s economy if it were possible). They believe Trump when he says other countries will pay for his proposed tariffs–despite the fact that anyone who took Econ 101 knows tariffs are a tax on Americans. Etc.

The first group will simply ignore facts. The second rejects expertise as offensive elitism.

The reality-based community needs to turn out in force.

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Lev’s Regrets

The other day, a judge whom I greatly admire recommended that I watch a new documentary.

Talk about drawing back the curtain! That documentary, “From Russia With Lev” may be the tell-all of all time, and–assuming there are still uncommitted voters–the timing of its disclosures couldn’t be better. For those who haven’t yet seen it, don’t walk–run to your television and watch it on MSNBC.

The documentary tells the complete story behind the events that precipitated Trump’s first impeachment, and it does so from the perspective of Lev Parnas, one of the main characters in that travesty, who has clearly come to regret his participation in what can only be described as a Mafia-like enterprise.

In the process of telling the story behind Trump’s effort to blackmail the President of Ukraine, we learn a lot of things that I, for one, would rather I didn’t know.

What we learn about Trump isn’t surprising (although much of what we already did know was supplemented with data amply confirming his unfitness for any office, let alone the Presidency), but the film revealed an extent of rot in the upper echelons of the GOP that shocked me. Despite my distaste for several of the people shown to be “on the take” in one way or another, I would not have predicted the depths to which they fell, morally and legally. The documentary reinforced the mendacity of Bill Barr’s “summary” of the Special Prosecutor’s investigation of Trump’s acquiescence into widespread Russian meddling in the election; it focused, in passing, on Kevin McCarthy’s money-grubbing, and on the equally dishonorable actions of several others. And it confirmed the knowing mendacity of Fox “News.”

Most of all, the documentary displayed the pathetic, grasping, total degeneracy of Rudy Giuliani.

It would be a disservice to offer a Cliff Notes version of the film. You really, really need to see it, to understand–intellectually and viscerally–that for a period of four years, the United States was run by a gang of thuggish con men and Mafiosas who cared nothing about the security or honor of the United States and everything about personal wealth and power.

What I do want to emphasize are the reasons to believe Lev Parnas and his recitation of these events. Rachel Maddow, the executive producer, was asked that question in an interview, and her answer was convincing.

First of all, Parnas was forthcoming about his own life. He was admittedly a con man who ran around with hoodlums and wheeler-dealers, a man who knowingly and enthusiastically took part of a variety of illegal activities. It was thanks to those prior contacts that he eventually fell into a relationship that took him into the inner precincts of Trump’s White House. He forthrightly admits that being welcomed into these powerful circles went to his head. In his narratives, he doesn’t try to excuse or whitewash either his very checkered past or his role in Trump and Giuliani’s effort to withhold the weapons that Congress had authorized for Ukraine–weapons desperately needed to fight the Russian invasion– unless Zelensky announced a bogus investigation into Hunter Biden.

But even if you discount his accuracy or sincerity, Parnas provided the producer and director of the film (as well as the prosecutors who eventually sent him to prison) with extensive documentary evidence. His cellphone contained thousands of emails, texts and photographs confirming his version of events–evidence that simply could not have been manufactured, and that is not capable of being explained away. (There were also numerous photos of him with Trump, who continues to claim he never met Lev.)

Ordinarily, a film offering the bombshells that this one does would destroy a Presidential candidate. But we occupy a weird time. The MAGA cult, Christian Nationalists and racists who stubbornly support a demented criminal are not open to persuasion, and I seriously doubt that there are, at this point in the electoral cycle, any truly “uncommitted” voters. As David Sedaris has noted (his language), to be undecided between these two candidates is like having the stewardess on a plane offer you a meal choice between chicken and shit with broken glass in it–and, after a pause, to ask how the chicken was cooked.

Those of us who reside in the “reality-based community” already had ample reason to reject Donald Trump. “From Russia with Lev” makes the prospect of a Trump victory even more terrifying.

Watch it. And if you know anyone who really is trying to decide between the chicken and the shit with broken glass, make sure they see it too.

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How Gulllible Are MAGA Folks?

Periodically, it’s important to remind ourselves that an average IQ of 100 means that half the population falls below that figure. That statistical reality might help to explain the results of a recent poll reported by The Washington Post. This wasn’t a “horserace” poll; instead, it was an effort to see just how many Americans have accepted elements of Donald Trump’s constant firehose of  misinformation.

Actually, it wasn’t simply the acceptance of inaccuracies or distortions that caused my jaw to drop. It was the nature of so many of those lies–claims that are bizarre even by Trump standards.

A majority (52 percent) of Trump supporters say they believe the claim about Haitian migrants “abducting and eating pet dogs and cats.” Excluding those who are “not sure,” twice as many say it’s at least “probably true” as say it’s at least “probably false.” (There remains no real evidence for this claim. Officials have debunked it and linked it to threats, and Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Sunday called it “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.”)

43 percent of Trump supporters say they believe that “in some states it is legal to kill a baby after birth” — another claim Trump referenced at last week’s debate. In fact, slightly more said they believed this was true than disbelieved it. (It is false.)

28 percent of Trump supporters say they believe that “public schools are providing students with sex-change operations,” something Trump has recently suggested is happening but for which there is no evidence.

81 percent of Trump supporters say they believe Venezuela is “deliberately sending people from prisons and mental institutions” to the United States. (There is no evidence that Venezuela or any other country is doing this, and Trump has used bad data to support his claim.)

There are a number of other claims that don’t require a departure from reality, but instead rely on public ignorance of government, policy and credible news sources. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans evidently believe the United States has given more aid to Ukraine than all of Europe combined, while 70 percent say they believe millions of undocumented immigrants are arriving in the U.S. every month. Another 70 percent insist that inflation is at its highest rate ever.

The numbers on those counts aren’t terribly surprising in context, given the many false things Trump supporters have convinced themselves of in recent years. For example, most Republicans have told pollsters that Trump didn’t try to overturn the 2020 election, that Trump didn’t have classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and that Trump’s offices were wiretapped during the 2016 election. And of course there is the 2020 stolen-election claim that as many as two-thirds of Republicans have believed.

It is important to emphasize that these percentages are based upon responses from self-identified Republicans. When the survey turned to independents, it found that those respondents disbelieve the Haitian migrants claim by more than 2-to-1, with thirty-five percent saying it’s “definitely false” and only seven percent saying it’s “definitely true.”

The gaps are even wider on executing babies and sex changes in schools. More than 6 in 10 independents dispute both, and relatively few independents — less than one-quarter — embrace them. Many independents are actually reliable voters for one side or another, and the data suggest these are probably Republican-leaning ones.

The article concludes that Trump is largely preaching to a credulous choir, while other, potentially decisive, voters generally see his conspiracy theories for what they are. That is undoubtedly true–Trump has made no discernable effort to expand his MAGA base. Instead, the GOP strategy seems focused on mobilization, on turning out that base, presumably by playing on its fears and bigotries with allegations unlikely to be accepted by more knowledgeable–and less racist–folks.

There are two lessons here. One is a political conclusion that most of us had already reached: this will be a turnout election. Trump’s base is simply not big enough to elect him if enough sane people vote. That’s why the enthusiasm for Harris/Walz and the explosion of grass-roots GOTV organizations are such hopeful signs.

The other lesson is more of a reminder. America has always harbored people who are lightly tethered to reality, people who are ill-equipped, whether intellectually or emotionally, to understand or accept the world they inhabit, and who–as a result–are vulnerable to even the most ridiculous lies and conspiracy theories. The country has also always harbored figures willing to cater to those people–to amplify their fears and to promote their hatred of “the Other” in order to gain political or social advantage. That isn’t new.

What is surprising (at least to me) is how many of them there are…..

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The Indiana GOP’s Theocratic Ticket

My sister says we need “brains, not Braun.”

Braun’s recent, mis-named “education plan” reinforces that observation. As State Affairs has reported, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Braun wants to remove all income limits for the state’s private school voucher program. Currently, only the wealthiest Indiana families are excluded from the use of our tax dollars to attend private–overwhelmingly religious–schools, so this proposal would further enrich the wealthy Hoosiers who disproportionately constitute Braun’s donors.

But it would do far more than that–and its disregard for evidence sheds a lot of light on why Braun has been such an undistinguished Senator.

When voucher programs were first introduced, some advocates were sincere in believing that they would improve education. We now have mountains of evidence that they don’t–that test scores of voucher students not only don’t improve, but often decline. That would be reason enough to oppose them, but the documented negative consequences go well beyond their lack of efficacy. Vouchers not only haven’t improved educational outcomes, they have increased racial segregation, facilitated religious discrimination, and been a windfall for the wealthy (many of whom already had children in private schools), all while robbing the nation’s public schools of desperately needed resources.

Braun is endorsing a program that all available evidence tells us has failed miserably while diverting millions of dollars that would otherwise be available for public education and underfunded physical and social infrastructure purposes.

(Braun’s disregard for evidence joins his disregard for public opinion. Just recently, he joined other Republicans in the U.S. Senate in defeating a bill that would offer legal protection for IVF. )

 Granted, of the four candidates on Indiana’s GOP ticket, Braun has been the least militant Christian Nationalist. For that matter, he  comes across as one of those candidates running for office in order to “be someone” rather than “do something.” It is probable that–just as with his dutiful obeisance to Trump–he’s just going with the GOP’s far Right flow. If that’s the case, we certainly can’t count on him to oppose the “theocrats-R-us” positions of the rest of the ticket.

I’ve previously reported on the extremist, unconstitutional ambitions of Micah Beckwith. (Since that enumeration, Beckwith has confirmed that he opposes the exceptions for rape and incest in Indiana’s draconian abortion ban.) At least Beckwith is honest; he publicly embraces a Christian Nationalist identity.

I’ve also written numerous times about the odious Jim Banks, running for U.S. Senate. Banks is an anti-woman, virulently anti-LGBTQ, pro-gun, climate-denying culture warrior who lives in a million dollar home in Virginia. He wants a national abortion ban with no exceptions. 

And I can’t even count the number of posts I’ve devoted to Indiana’s unethical publicity-hound Attorney-General Todd Rokita. (Here’s just one of those numerous commentaries…) I’m hardly the only one who has reported on Rokita’s efforts to pander to the most extreme MAGA folks–and his persistent use of the office to pursue culture-war efforts unrelated to the duties of an Attorney General.

The Democratic ticket, on the other hand, is refreshingly competent and sane.

Jennifer McCormick is a warrior for public education. She’s pro-choice. She wants to legalize medical marijuana. She’s the only candidate with an actual property tax plan. Terry Goodin, running for Lieutenant Governor, has significant experience with farm policy–a primary task of the LG’s office. Valerie McCray, running for Senate, is a mental health professional who is pro-choice, pro-human-rights, and concerned with the needs of America’s veterans. Destiny Wells is an Army Reserve Lt. Colonel in Military Intelligence, and an attorney committed to returning the office of Attorney General to its proper functions.

If survey research is to be believed, the Democratic ticket is far more representative of the beliefs and priorities of Indiana’s citizens than the Republican ticket. That said, Hoosiers who follow politics have recently been treated to two contending polls, one of which shows the Democratic ticket within striking distance of the theocrats, and one of which shows the Hoosier electorate still comfortably wedded to them, albeit somewhat unenthusiastically.

Polls typically report the preferences of “likely” voters, not registered voters. Pollsters have what are called “likely voter screens,” and in normal election cycles, their assessments of who among the registered voters is likely to go to the polls is reasonably accurate–although, as these dueling polls show, they can differ. But this year, there is evidence that–much like the year in which Obama was elected–a lot of unlikely voters may turn out. Registrations have spiked, and enthusiasm for the Harris/Walz ticket is palpable.

In Indiana, unusual turnout might give us a respite from 20 years of increasingly theocratic Republican control.

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A Different Kind Of Homelessness

I recently had breakfast with two former faculty colleagues. The bulk of our conversation focused on the upcoming election, and thinking back on it, a couple of things struck me: despite MAGA folks’ belief that all college professors are left-wing socialists or communists, in a former, more rational time, all three of us would have been considered somewhat right of center.

But of course, the center has moved. A lot.

In 1980, I ran for Congress as a Republican. I won a Republican primary. I was pro-choice, and (to the extent it even came up then) pro-gay rights. For a couple of years after I lost the general election, people came up to me and said things like “I just couldn’t vote for you because you were so conservative.”

My husband and I met as officials in a Republican city administration; when we married, a reporter who covered the city (we had those back then) told me “the press guys like both of you, but you are both kinda right-wing.”

I don’t think I was ever “right-wing” –my positions were more consistent with what was then the GOP mainstream than with the Rightwing fringe of the party–but I was a traditional Republican.

Since 1980 I’ve changed positions on a few issues, because I learned more about them, but my basic political philosophy and approach to policy has not changed–yet today, I’m considered “far Left.”

I stood philosophically still, but the Overton window moved.

Part of the problem is political vocabulary. Americans talk about Liberals and conservatives, but those terms don’t describe our contemporary politics. MAGA and Trump are anything but Conservative as that term has historically been understood. (For that matter, they lack any coherent political philosophy at all, unless grievance and animus can be considered political positions.)

That reality has left genuine conservatives politically homeless. There’s a reason so many prominent conservative Republicans have endorsed Kamala Harris. (When George Will supports Harris, you know the GOP has jumped the shark.)

To the extent Trump has any policy positions, they are anathema to real conservatives. When the GOP was a genuine center-right party, it championed free trade, not tariffs and protectionism. Conservatives wanted limited government– Barry Goldwater insisted that “Government doesn’t belong in your boardroom or your bedroom.”  As Reagan left office, he made a speech about the importance of immigration. In foreign affairs, conservatives were strong supporters of NATO and opponents of dictators–and they understood the importance of joining with liberals in a unified approach to issues beyond the “water’s edge.”

Real conservatives venerate the Constitution and its checks and balances. They celebrate freedom of speech and a free press. When the GOP was conservative, it stressed the importance of respect for democratic processes and institutions, for law and order. Trump and MAGA constantly attack the very foundations of a working democracy– the press, the Department of Justice, the FBI, even our military leadership and especially the integrity of the electoral system. The old GOP might have disagreed with Democrats and liberals about how these principles should be applied, but they endorsed the principles.

Let’s be accurate: whatever else today’s GOP may be, it is not conservative.

As an essayist in USA Today recently put it,

As someone who works in the world of words, I understand that their meaning – and use – can change over time. Yet, something I greatly resent is how the Republican Party has conflated Donald Trump with conservatism… To me, conservatism means a belief in free markets, individual liberty and limited government.

As a result of the party’s move toward neo-fascism and theocracy, authentic conservatives have found themselves homeless. Thoughtful conservatives–appalled by what the GOP has become and unwilling to call themselves Democrats–have nowhere to go. Many of them will vote Blue this year rather than holding their noses and voting for Trump (or, in Indiana, for our Hoosier Christian Nationalists). Some won’t vote at all.

The disaffection and homelessness of genuine conservatives will help Democrats this year, and in a year where our choices really are between good and evil, that’s something to celebrate. But going forward, the transformation of one of the major parties in a two-party system into an anti-democratic cult is a disaster, and not just for real conservatives.

Good policy requires negotiation and compromise among good-faith advocates of varying perspectives. Civic peace requires respect for democratic institutions. This country needs two adult parties equally committed to the democratic process.

It is increasingly doubtful that the GOP can be redeemed from its current status as the new Confederacy, but unless that happens– or a third party somehow emerges– genuine conservatives will remain homeless.

NOTICE: TOMORROW evening at 7:00 P.M. I will introduce a Zoom event featuring four candidates who have the ability to shift four seats in the Indiana House from Republican to Democrat and break the super-majority’s stranglehold:  Josh Lowry, District 24; Tiffany Stoner, District 25; Victoria Garcia Wilburn, District 32 (incumbent); and Matt McNally, District 39. I will begin the event by explaining why one-party rule keeps dragging Indiana in the wrong direction.

You can register here. There is no charge.

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