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This will be the Trump campaign agenda throughout 2020 if Mr. Biden gets the Democratic nomination not to portray himself as ethical, but to get voters to say, Well, both of them have scandals, so whatever. And some political journalists will feel compelled to acknowledge the accusations against the Bidens. Theyll offer caveats, of course, as one news story from 2019 did, saying, Theres no evidence that Hunter or his father acted improperly or violated any laws. But the arrangement, government ethics experts say, raises concerns. The raises concerns part is the key it will be just enough to plant seeds of doubt in voters minds about the Democrats ethical commitments.

But the Trump approach is nothing if not flexible. Hed use it against any Democratic nominee. If Mr. Sanders is nominated, Mr. Trump might pull from many things in the senators long political history. For one, Mr. Sanders honeymooned in the U.S.S.R. in 1988. It wouldnt take too much effort for Mr. Trump to suggest that Mr. Sanders did something untoward or un-American during that 10-day trip, and he has friends in high places in the Russian government who could help in this regard.

If its Pete Buttigieg, hell accuse the former mayor of being racist through his leadership in South Bend, Ind., or of being corrupt through his consulting work with McKinsey. If its Elizabeth Warren, hell accuse her of racism, of fraudulently using ancestry claims to get into schools and of taking millions of dollars in shady legal consulting fees.

My argument here is not that Democrats should focus on picking a clean nominee who cant be smeared with scandal. The leading Democrats are all pretty clean. Rather, Im saying that Mr. Trump and his Republican allies will attempt to make the nominee look dirty, legitimately or not, no matter who it is. Thats his one go-to campaign tactic.

Now, its not obvious that this tactic works all that well. According to John Sides, Michael Tessler and Lynn Vavrecks study of the 2016 election, Identity Crisis, media coverage of the general election was a net negative for Mr. Trump. Even while tearing down Mrs. Clintons reputation, he was still at a disadvantage.

On the other hand, the relentless focus on the email scandal most likely pressured James Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time, to announce the agency would review new material in the investigation of Mrs. Clinton in late October of 2016, and that may well have influenced the elections outcome.

But once Mr. Trump starts going after the Democratic nominee this way, Democrats shouldnt kick themselves for not picking a cleaner champion. No matter who it is, Mr. Trump will find a scandal.

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Trump Will Slime His Democratic Opponent, No Matter Who It Is - The New York Times

And it was the inability or unwillingness of the Obama administration to seize the political mantle for change it had won in the election in 2008 that created the conditions for the emergence of Occupy Wall Street and the Black Lives Matter movement. Both of them focused on the systemic problems facing American society. The young people at the center of these movements demanded transformation, not just piecemeal reforms.

By the end of Mr. Obamas first term, 95 percent of the financial gains of his economic recovery plan had gone to the richest 1 percent of the county. In the last decade, median income has stood virtually still. The inattention to Mr. Obamas record, though, has meant that the conventional wisdoms explanation for white voters' defection from the Obama coalition is racist backlash, not economic hardship.

True, Mr. Trump manipulated white racial resentment and peddled the false notion that Mr. Obama was helping black voters at the expense of whites. Surely, however, there must be some connection between the financial stagnation of tens of millions of ordinary white people and the drop in life expectancy driven by opioid addiction, alcoholism and suicide. Economic anxiety is real even when it overlaps with racist pandering.

Of course, its not just white people who express their despair with extreme hopelessness. The suicide rate among African-Americans aged 10 to 19 is rising faster than that of any other group in the United States. Taken together, the moment seems grim, despite all of the chatter about the strength of the economy and the health of the stock market.

The reluctance to fully interrogate the Obama years also means that Mr. Obama continues to have outsize influence in the party even as his cautious governing may have contributed to the disillusionment that played a role in producing Mr. Trump. It means that he is able to continue advocating for centrist politics as the guiding strategy for the party as it seeks to oust Mr. Trump. Last year, Mr. Obama weighed in on Democratic candidates proposals by saying, The average American doesnt think that we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. But aside from his own electoral success, why is he the best judge of the political direction of the party? During his tenure, Democrats lost some 970 seats in state legislatures, 11 governorships, 13 Senate seats and 69 House seats. More Democratic state legislative seats were lost during Mr. Obamas presidency than under any other president in modern history.

Mr. Obamas free pass is also extended to Joe Biden who has strong support among black voters. But we wont really know the sustenance of Mr. Bidens black support until the South Carolina primaries. Mrs. Clinton also had deep black support in 2008 until she didnt. If there looks like an electable alternative he might be in trouble.

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden continues to frame his own candidacy as an extension of the Obama administration. Its unclear what that means. Will it be a continuation of Mr. Obamas financial policies that benefited the richest Americans, including bank and Wall Street executives who were bailed out in the 2008 financial crisis? Or of his dreadful immigration policies that earned him the label Deporter in Chief from immigrant-rights activists? Will it be the same kind of reluctance to take on issues of racial inequality for fear of being pigeonholed as beholden to black interests? Or will it be the never-ending overtures to Republicans in the spirit of bipartisanship?

Democratic leaders are making a risky bet that the winning formula is to highlight Mr. Trumps scandals without doing anything that may make these leaders appear too liberal. In contrast, the surge of Bernie Sanders, whom I support, speaks to the deep desires for substantial change. The Sanders flank of the party is betting that a campaign fueled by big promises of transformative change will attract the tens of millions of disaffected nonvoters who may hold the key to victory.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (@KeeangaYamahtta), an assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton, is the author of, most recently, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Democrats Gave Obama a Free Pass. That Could Hurt Us on Election Day. - The New York Times

At this moment there is a bill pending in Congress called the New Way Forward Act. Its received almost no publicity, which is unfortunate as well as revealing.

The legislation is sponsored by 44 House Democrats, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. At roughly 4,400 words, its almost exactly as long as the U.S. Constitution.

Like the Constitution, this legislation is designed to create a whole new country. The bill would entirely remake our immigration system, with the explicit purpose of ensuring that criminals are able to move here, and settle here permanently, with impunity.

TUCKER CARLSON: TRUMP'S ACQUITTAL WAS AS PREDICTABLE AS 'TITANIC' - MAYBE NOW WE CAN HAVE OUR COUNTRY BACK

You may think were exaggerating for effect. Were not not even a little.

The New Way Forward act is the most radical single piece of legislation weve seen proposed in this country. It makes the Green New Deal look like the status quo.

A document produced by Democrats to promote the bill says: Convictions should not lead to deportation.

Keep in mind, were not talking about convictions for double parking. The bill targets felony convictions serious crimes that send you to prison for years. A press release from Rep., Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., is explicit about this.

Garcia brags that the bill will break the prison to deportation pipeline. How does the bill do that? Under current U.S. law, legal U.S. immigrants can be deported if they commit an aggravated felony or a crime of moral turpitude that is, a vile, depraved act, like molesting a child.Under the New Way Forward Act, crimes of moral turpitude are eliminated entirely as a justification for deportation.And the category of aggravated felony gets circumscribed too.

What does that mean?

Consider this: Under current law, immigrants who commit serious crimes such as robbery, fraud, or child sexual abuse must be deported, regardless of the sentence they receive. Other crimes less severe ones like racketeering require deportation as long as the perpetrator receives at least a one-year sentence.

But if this bill passes the House and Senate and is signed into law by the president, there will no longer be any crimes that automatically require deportation. None.

And one crime falsifying a passport will be made immune from deportation, no matter what. Because apparently 9/11 never happened, and we no longer care about fake government documents.

If you just renewed your drivers license to comply with the Real ID Act, you must feel like an idiot. Under the proposed legislation, the minimum prison sentence for crimes that still require deportation would rise from one year to five.

We checked the Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to federal data, crimes like car theft, fraud, and weapons offenses all carry average prison sentences of fewer than five years. And thats just looking at averages. There are people who commit rape, child abuse and even manslaughter and receive sentences of fewer than five years. Lots of them.

If the New Way Forward Act becomes law, immigrants who commit those crimes and receive those sentences would remain in the country. Theyll all be eligible for citizenship one day, too.

But even that is understating the laws effect. Even a five-year prison sentence wont necessarily be enough to secure deportation. The bill would grant sweeping new powers to immigration judges, allowing them to nullify a deportation order.

The only requirement is that the immigration judge finds such an exercise of discretion appropriate in pursuit of humanitarian purposes, to assure family unity, or when it is otherwise in the public interest. In other words, anti-American immigration judges and many of them are exactly that would have a blank check to open the borders. No vote required.

Sound shocking to you? Were just getting started. Current U.S. law makes drug addiction grounds for deportation, because why wouldnt it? This bill would eliminate that statute.

Current law also states that those who have committed drug crimes abroad, or any crimes involving moral turpitude, are ineligible to immigrate here. The New Way Forward Act abolishes that statute.

A Mexican drug cartel leader could be released from prison, then freely come to America immediately. And if he wants, he could come here illegally, and it wouldnt be a crime because, and you were waiting for this, the bill also decriminalizes illegal entry into America, even by those previously deported.

According to a document promoting the bill, criminalizing illegal entry into America is white supremacist.

By this point, youre beginning to wonder if were making this up. Were not. In fact, were barely halfway through the bill.

The legislation doesnt just make it harder to deport legal immigrants who commit crimes. It doesnt just make it easier for criminals to legally move here. The bill would also effectively abolish all existing enforcement against illegal immigration.

To detain illegal immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would have to prove in court that the illegal immigrants are dangerous or a flight risk. But of course, ICE wouldnt be allowed touse a detainees prior criminal behavior as proof he or she is dangerous. That's banned.

ICE would have to overcome even more hurdles if the detainee claims to be gay or transgender, under 21, or cant speak English and an interpreter isnt immediately available.

In other words, it would be much harder to arrest an illegal alien than it is to arrest you. Theyre the protected class here. Youre just some loser whos paying for it all.

But believe it or not, we saved the nuttiest part for last. What could be more destructive than changing U.S. law, specifically to allow rapists, child molesters, and drug dealers to stay in America? How about this: Using taxpayer money to bring deported criminals back into America.

Thats right. This bill would not only abolish your right to control who lives in your own country, but it invents a new right in return: the right to come home.

The bill orders the government to create a pathway for those previously deported to apply to return to their homes and families in the United States, as long as they would have been eligible to stay under the new law.

The Department of Homeland Security must spend taxpayer dollars transporting convicted criminal illegal aliens into the United States. Who will be eligible for these free flights? Tens of thousands of people kicked out of this country for all kinds of crimes. Sexual abuse. Robbery. Assault. Drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, human trafficking.

From 2002 to 2018, 480,000 people were deported for illegal entry or reentry into America. And under this bill, youd have to buy them all a plane ticket to come back. The tickets alone would cost about a billion dollars, and thats before Democrats make you start paying for these criminals free health care, too. Which they plan to.

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The New Way Forward Act fundamentally inverts every assumption you have about America. Under this legislation, the criminals are the victims. Law enforcement is illegitimate. Its racist, just like the country you live in, and the only solution is to get rid of both. America would be better off as a borderless rest area for the worlds worst predators and parasites.

This is a big deal. Its hard to believe any American would put these ideas on paper, much less pass them into law. Yet, remarkably, the press has ignored it. Scores of Democrats have backed it, but the bill hasnt been mentioned in The New York Times, or on CNN, or even in self-described conservative outlets like National Review.

If a lone Republican state legislator from Minot, N.D., had proposed a bill this extreme, that would remake America this completely, the president himself would be expected to answer for it.

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CNN would demand the president disavow, even if he knew nothing about it. But when one-fifth of the Democratic caucus backs a bill demanding that you pay to import illegal alien felons, its a non-event in American media. They dont think you should know about it. Thats dangerous.

Whether the press cares or not, these are the stakes of the 2020 election. A growing wing of the Democratic Party views America as essentially illegitimate a rogue state, in which everything must be destroyed and remade: our laws, our institutions, our freedoms, our history and our values. Thats the point of all this, of course. An entirely new country, in which resistance is crushed, and theyre in charge forever.

Adapted from Tucker Carlsons monologue on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Feb. 6, 2020.

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Tucker Carlson: Criminals would be protected from deportation under bill AOC and other House Democrats back - Fox News

Silicon Valley billionaires are looking well beyond Iowa.

Some of techs wealthiest citizens are pouring money into Democratic groups that are meant to back the eventual nominee, whoever that is. While its been obvious that Silicon Valley is ready to spend big to oust Donald Trump, the latest batch of federal disclosures this weekend revealed the clearest picture yet its financial firepower.

Those donations serve as a key reminder: Democratic presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren can bash Big Tech and Silicon Valley leaders all they want in the primary, but theyll need their money in the general election.

The candidates might want the backing of billionaires like LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who gave about $2 million late last year to key Democratic groups, the records show. Hoffman donated $1 million and $250,000 to the primary super PACs supporting Senate Democrats and House Democrats, respectively. He kicked in another $250,000 to Fair Fight, a voter registration group helmed by Stacey Abrams, and an equal amount to a super PAC trying to mobilize the Asian American and Pacific Islander vote. Outside groups like these PACs file disclosures just twice a year, revealing the last six months of donation history this weekend.

Theres another essential player, the disclosures show: Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who gave at least $1.2 million in the second half of 2019 and is one of the partys most closely watched donors. A Moskovitz-led group, the Open Philanthropy Action Fund, donated $750,000 to Real Justice PAC, a group seeking to elect reform-minded prosecutors. Moskovitz personally gave $450,000 to a grassroots fundraising committee organized by the Democratic National Committee and at least $60,000 to the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which will try to flip a key battleground state in November.

Hoffman and Moskovitz appear to be the two Silicon Valley leaders putting the most money into Democratic causes, according to the latest records. Other donors who were seen injecting hundreds of thousands of dollars into outside groups in just the last six months of 2019 are Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Silicon Valley powerbroker Ron Conway, and Steve Silberstein, a former software executive. Outside groups file disclosures just twice a year, revealing the last six months of donation history this weekend.

One particularly muscular group ahead of November is Acronym, and thats thanks in part to techs largesse. That makes sense, given that Acronyms focus is on edgier, digital combat with Republican campaigns. Advised by former Uber executive and Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, Acronym raked in seven figures from some of the industrys most prominent venture capitalists, including a $1 million check from Sequoia Capitals former leader, Michael Moritz.

That gift was a sign of the times in its own right: It was, by far, Moritzs largest disclosed political contribution ever, and his first gift of any size since 2011.

None of the people mentioned so far have formally endorsed a candidate in the primary. This isnt necessarily out of the ordinary. Many of the biggest-fish donors across the country have, at least up to now, declined to weigh in on specific candidates, instead trying to funnel their dollars into equipping the eventual nominee with the best possible organizations.

Plus, the places for billionaires to spend the most money are not campaigns which are subject to $2,800 donation limits but outside groups, which have no limits at all.

Disclosures from candidates themselves primarily showed the same trend weve seen up to now: Tech leaders have largely organized around Pete Buttigieg, the young Midwestern mayor who has embraced Silicon Valley more than other candidates have. Among the ranks of Buttigieg donors at the maximum $2,800 level in the last three months of 2019 were: Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire philanthropist who sat down privately with Buttigieg in September; famed venture capitalist John Doerr; and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham.

But in yet another sign of the times, one previous Buttigieg donor stood out on the fundraising reports of some of his rivals: Justin Rosenstein. Rosenstein was an early employee at Facebook and is credited with coming up with the Like button.

The two candidates he backed to the maximum amount? Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both of whom want to break up his former employer.

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Silicon Valley billionaires like Reid Hoffman and Dustin Moskovitz are funding the Democratic Party - Vox.com

Feb 6th 2020

IT WAS A devastating contrast. As the Iowa caucus turned into a fiasco (Democrats blamed the software), President Donald Trump hailed an American comeback in the state-of-the-union message and basked in his acquittal by the Senate over impeachment. With the economy roaring and his approval ratings ticking up, Mr Trump looks likelier than ever to triumph in November. Compare that with the Democrats after Iowa, in which no candidate won the backing of much more than a quarter of caucusers.

Democrats agree that ending Mr Trumps bombastic tenure is their priority. But their champions, now trudging round New Hampshire eking out votes before next weeks primary (see article), are starkly divided over what to offer Americans in his place. The left argues that America has stopped working for most people and thus needs fundamental restructuring. Moderates recommend running repairs. A lot rests on which side prevailsthe radicals or the repairers.

Any of the front-runners could yet end up as the nominee: the radicals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren; or the repairers, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden (despite his bad day in Iowa). So at a pinch could Michael Bloomberg, another repairer, who is spending gargantuan sums before Super Tuesday next month. But on every count the repairers have the better of the argument. They are more likely to beat Mr Trump, to achieve things and, most important, to do what America needs.

It is striking that all of the plausible nominees are campaigning to the left of President Barack Obama in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 (see Briefing). They all have ambitious plans on climate change; and, with the exception of Mr Bloomberg, are sceptical of free trade. Nevertheless, Mr Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, and Ms Warren, a capitalist, are distinctly more militant in both style and substance.

This is partly a matter of degree, as health policy shows. All Democrats want the number of Americans without health insurance, which has risen from 27m to 30m under Mr Trump, to be reduced, ideally to zero. The repairers would expand Obamacares market-based system until everyone was covered. Mr Sanders and Ms Warren, by contrast, would nationalise health insurance, revolutionising health care, a $3.8trn business accounting for 18% of GDP and which employs 16.6m people.

There is also a fundamental difference about the role of government. Take labour rights, for instance. All Democrats evoke a mythical golden age when people were rewarded fairly for a days work. The reformers would increase minimum wages to, say, $15 an hour and spend more on education and retraining. The radicals would force any largish firm to put workers on its boardMs Warren would give their representatives 40% of the seats, Mr Sanders 45%. Mr Sanders would require firms to transfer 20% of their equity to workers trusts. Both would create a system of federal charters to oblige firms to operate in the interests of all stakeholders, including workers, customers and the local community as well as shareholders. Such a government-mandated shift in corporate power has never occurred in the United States.

This radicalism is based on three misconceptions. The first is that Mr Trump showed in 2016 that you win elections through the fervour of your base rather than making a coalition. That is unlikely to work for Democrats in 2020. Presidential elections tend not to be kind to candidates who pitch their camp far from the political centre. Voters perceived Hillary Clinton as more extreme than Donald Trump in 2016, and it did not end well for her. In a 50:50 country, marginal handicaps matter.

Mr Trump would have fun with Mr Sanders, who wishes to double federal spending overnight and, perhaps more important to the president, honeymooned in the Soviet Union. It was no accident that in his state-of-the-union message Mr Trump pointed to Juan Guaid, the Venezuelan opposition leader who was his guest for the evening, and reminded Congress that socialism destroys nations. Few voters are hankering to own the means of production in suburban Philadelphia or Milwaukee, where the presidential election will probably be decided.

Another misconception is that a radical who did get into the Oval Office would accomplish much. Some Democrats say that the intransigence of the Republican Party means an approach built around compromise is worthless. The pursuit of incremental change, they reckon, is an admission of defeat at the outset. They are right that the two parties in Congress have forgotten how to work together. Todays Senate is likely to accomplish less than any other in the past half-century. Their idea is to take on Mr Trumps reality-TV populism with red-blooded economic populism. That might thrill activists and terrify Wall Street, but it would be both unproductive and self-defeating. Democrats believe in the role of government. They are condemned to try to make it work, not demonstrate that it cannot.

The last misconception, and the most important, concerns the substance of what the radicals would like to achieve. Ms Warren takes her faith in government to extremes. If she had her way, the state would break up, abolish or impose fresh regulations on about half of the firms owned by shareholders or private-equity groups. Mr Sanders would go even further. Both candidates treat private capital as if it operates with sinister intent, even as they embrace the state as if it were benign, capable and efficient. That is naive. Just as thriving businesses at their best invigorate and enrich, so government at its worst can be capable of heartless cruelty and indifference.

There are moments when the United States has required something like a revolutionbefore the civil war, say, or in the years running up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. This is not one of them. Unemployment is as low as it has been since the mid-1960s. Nominal wages in the lowest quartile of the income scale are growing by 4.6%. Americans are more optimistic about their own finances than they have been since 1999.

Instead America needs repairinglowering the cost of housing and health care; moving to a low-carbon economy; finding a voting system that rewards consensus, not partisanship. For that, national politics needs to become boring again, not to be an exhausting, outrage-spewing fight between Mr Trump and the most extreme candidate the Democratic Party can muster.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "The Democratic primaries will be a contest between radicals and repairers"

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The Democratic primaries will be a contest between radicals and repairers - The Economist