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To the casual observer, it certainly seems like the Republican Party is in an identity crisis. After years of consensus and sweeping the 2016 national elections on the promise of repeal and replace of Obamacare, Republicans in a stunning 11th-hour failure failed to pass even the so-called "skinny" repeal.

Amid this failure and the apparent chaos in Washington, many have drawn the conclusion that Republicans are in disarray and unable to govern. Others wonder if we are witnessing the end of the GOP. Many people I've met on the campaign trail have asked me why at a time like this I would choose to join the Republican party.

It's a fair question. For years, I was a big-L Libertarian, competing in a crowded field for the party's nomination for the presidency in 2016. Changing parties especially at this time might seem like a counterintuitive move.

But although turncoats like John McCain and Susan Collins have taken center stage and confused the party's image, several Republican leaders remain faithful to basic conservative principles. Leaders like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee in the Senate and the Freedom Caucus in the House have refused to budge on Obamacare and have made their dedication to individual liberty and limited government clear.

I'm running for Senate from Missouri as a Republican in order to work alongside leaders like these. At its core, the Republican Party is supposed to be a liberty party that's why it was the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. For a Republican, so long as you are not violating the lives and liberties of other human beings and that includes the lives of human beings in the womb the government should give you the freedom to do as you see fit. The party strives to put the trust and the power back in the hands of the people instead of handing it over to unelected bureaucrats.

I believe in these core conservative principles. I've spent my whole career speaking on and fighting for freedom the freedom to spend as you see fit, worship as you see fit, study as you see fit, and speak as you see fit. And I'm eager to partner with liberty-loving Republicans and President Trump in restoring federalism, freedom of faith, and fiscal responsibility in this country.

Above all, however, I found that a move to the Republican Party was the move my fellow Missourians wanted me to make. Before launching my campaign, I called hundreds of Missourians to lay out the principles of liberty that form the bedrock of my political beliefs and to ask for their support. Not only did I receive a consistently positive response, but I also was asked by many to run as a Republican instead of as a Libertarian. They want to beat Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., as badly as I do, and what better than to replace a Democrat with a liberty-loving Republican?

Missourians want and deserve the kind of Republican who will stick to his guns, both literally and figuratively. They want a Republican in the model of the Freedom Caucus, Cruz, Paul, and Lee a Republican who has the grit to withstand the pressures of political gamesmanship and special interests and the gumption to vote by principle and for the people every time.

I know I can be this kind of leader, and I'm ready to represent my fellow Missourians faithfully from within the GOP. And I know that by working together, we can bring about real reform.

That's why I'm a Republican. And it's why I'm asking my fellow Missourians to join me in restoring the GOP and returning the country to the constitutional principles of justice and liberty for all.

Austin Petersen is a candidate for the United States Senate. Learn more at austinpetersen.com.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions.

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Austin Petersen: Why I became a Republican - Washington Examiner

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans rebuked him on Wednesday after his threat to shut down the U.S. government over funding for a border wall rattled markets and cast a shadow over congressional efforts to raise the country's debt ceiling and pass spending bills.

"I don't think anyone's interested in having a shutdown," the top Republican in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, told reporters on Wednesday in Hillsboro, Oregon, where he visited an Intel factory.

Ryan said building a wall along the country's border with Mexico to deter illegal immigration was necessary, but added that the government did not have to choose between border security and shuttering operations.

Trump in a speech on Tuesday evening threatened a shutdown if Congress does not agree to fund constructing the wall, a signature promise of his presidential campaign, which added a new complication to Republicans' months-long struggle to reach a budget deal.

After Mexico rejected a chief part of Trump's promise - that it would pay for the wall - the president said the United States would fund it initially and be repaid by its southern neighbor. Lawmakers, including many Republicans, have not made that funding a top priority, as some question if a wall is necessary.

Congress will have about 12 working days when it returns on Sept. 5 from its summer break to approve spending measures to keep the government open, while also facing a looming deadline to raise the cap on the amount the government may borrow. Both are must-approve measures.

U.S. stocks and the dollar weakened and investors pivoted to the safety of U.S. Treasury securities on Wednesday after Trump's threat. The S&P 500 Index .SPX closed about 0.3 percent lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down by 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC slid 0.3 percent.

Ryan suggested Congress would need to approve a short-term extension, or continuing resolution, of current funding levels so that the Senate could have more time to pass a full spending bill. That would push the budget battle to later in the year and could in turn delay attempts at tax reform, another signature Trump campaign issue.

Friction between Republicans and Trump has grown in recent months, with the president publicly castigating some party leaders, notably Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and expressing infuriation that Congress has not passed any significant legislation since his January inauguration.

McConnell did not take a stand on the border wall issue on Wednesday.

He said in a statement he and Trump were in regular contact and working together on a list of goals that included preventing a government default and funding government priorities "in the short and long terms."

"We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we are committed to advancing our shared agenda together and anyone who suggests otherwise is clearly not part of the conversation," he said.

A White House statement said Trump would hold "previously scheduled meetings" with McConnell once Congress returns to Washington and that Trump and McConnell "remain united on many shared priorities, including middle class tax relief, strengthening the military, constructing a southern border wall, and other important issues."

Congress frequently has to pass funding extensions for a few weeks or months while it hammers out a full budget. Occasionally lawmakers have enter a standoff over a single issue, delaying agreement and forcing a shutdown. The most recent closure, which spanned 15 days in October 2013, was over funding for the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

In opinion polls during and after that shutdown, voters loudly disapproved of the Republican Party, which controlled the House of Representatives at the time.

Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee, said Trump's threatened move could backfire on the party.

When you control the presidency, the Senate and the House, youre shutting down the government that youre running. I dont think its smart politically and I dont think it would succeed practically, he told Reuters in an interview.

The White House stressed on Wednesday that Trump would work with Congress to get funding for the wall.

"The president ran on it, won on it and plans to build it," said White House spokeswoman Natalie Strom.

The party's conservative wing backed the president's call for wall funding, with Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, telling Reuters any government shutdown would be caused by Senate Democrats.

Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said, however, the threat was "dangerous for our role in the world as we're talking to nations like Afghanistan to say: 'Here's how you govern yourself.'"

He added it could also hurt financial markets' confidence in the United States.

"Trump saying he would be willing to shut down the government over the wall obviously doesnt really inspire much confidence in anyone," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The House passed a spending bill late last month that included funding for the wall. Republicans' slim majority in the Senate means Democrats are needed to pass most legislation and they have opposed including border wall funding in any fiscal 2018 spending bill.

Congress also must periodically raise the debt limit to keep the U.S. government borrowing and operating. Politicians sometimes take advantage of that need to push through policy or spending changes.

The Treasury Department, already using "extraordinary measures" to remain current on its obligations, has said the debt limit must be raised by Sept. 29. Trump has asked Congress to extend the limit with a "clean" bill that excludes any other provisions.

Credit ratings agency Fitch said on Wednesday it would review the U.S. sovereign debt rating, "with potentially negative implications," if the debt limit is not raised in a timely manner.

Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak in New York and David Morgan in Washington; Additional reporting by Karen Brettell, Dion Rabouin, Sinead Carew, Sam Forgione and Richard Leong in New York and Doina Chiacu, Tim Ahmann, David Morgan, Susan Cornwell, Kevin Drawbaugh, Amanda Becker and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Dan Burns, Frances Kerry and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney

See the rest here:
Fellow Republicans rebuke Trump over government shutdown threat - Reuters

Last night I was in circumstances where I could hear only a few excerpts from Donald Trumps inflammatory speech in Phoenix. The parts I heard were remarkable enough.

They included Trumps wink-wink implied promise to pardon ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was first turned out of office by the voters of Maricopa County and then found guilty by a federal judge of criminal contempt-of-court. There was also Trumps threat to close down our government if the Congress wont provide funding for his border wallthe same one Mexico was going to pay for. Plus his flatly deceitful rendering of what he had said about the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, and why the press had criticized him for it. Plus his railing against Democratic obstructionism and the filibuster, when his biggest legislative failure, the repeal of Obamacare, was on a simple-majority vote.

Plus his explicit (without using their names) attacks on his host states two Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, and his implicit attacks on Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican Senate and House leadership on which his future legislative and political prospects so obviously depend. Plus his self-description as a member of the intellectual meritocracy he otherwise disdains: I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite. They're elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment, and I live in the White House, too, which is really great. (Trump does indeed live in a bigger apartment than any reporter or policy person I know. He was not a better student than the vast majority of them.)

Based just on the parts Id heard, I did a multi-part Twitter-exegesis last night, trying to explain why Trumps hour-plus, nearly 9,000-word resentful rant stood alone in the history of presidential rhetoric.A Twitter user named Brent Schlottman graciously converted that into one Storify installment, which you can see here and which began:

The speech also included this surreal passage, from a president whose tally of significant bills passed stands at zero:

But I enjoy it [the job], because we've made so muchI don't believe that any presidentI don't believe that any president has accomplished as much as this president in the first six or seven months. I really don't believe it.

Just for the record: by this stage in his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt had pushed through and signed more than a dozen pieces of major New Deal legislation. By this point, Ronald Reagan had signed his big tax-cut bill. By this point, Barack Obama had signed the post-crash economic-stimulus program. By this point, Donald Trump has enacted no legislation of consequence.

* * *

But it was only when I read the full speech today that I saw the bad parts. They were Trumps extended denunciation of the legitimacy and motives of the press.

All presidents end up with grudges against reporters, editors, and commentators. It goes with the territory, and has from the time of George Washington onward. All presidents are tempted to let their private grudges spill out in public. Richard Nixon is most famous for having given in to the temptation, both on his own and via his nattering nabobs of negativism mouthpiece and vice president, Spiro Agnew.

But Trump broke new ground last night in attacking not just the missteps of reporters, or their assumptions, or their selective focus, or their process-mindedness, or any of the multiple other failings we reporters actually have. Instead he attacked theirourloyalty, patriotism, motivation, and honesty.

You have some very good reporters, he allowed in his speech last night, much as he stipulated back in 2015 that not all Mexicans were rapists. (Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. This was, again, the way he kicked off his campaign.)

Some reporters, like some Mexicans, are good. Which leads to the but:

But for the most part, honestly, these are really, really dishonest people, and they're bad people. And I really think they don't like our country. I really believe that. And I don't believe they're going to change

The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself, and the fake news.

For the most part, these are really, really dishonest people.

Theyre bad people.

They really dont like our country.

And not just that:

These are sick people.

You know the thing I don't understand? You would thinkyou would think they'd want to make our country great again, and I honestly believe they don't. I honestly believe it.

Sick people. Who dont want the best for our country. Not critics. Enemies.

* * *

Joe McCarthy said things like this, but he wasnt president. George Wallace did as well, but while he won election as governor of Alabama, of course he didnt reach the White House. The closest a previous president came to taking a similar tone in public was not even that close. The president wassurprise!Richard Nixon, who made a famously bitter crack in a press conference after the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973. First he complained about the imbalance of press coverage of the event. Then he said to the reporters, with an icy smile: Dont get the impression that you can arouse my anger. One can only be angry with those he respects.

Again, at one of his angriest moments, as one of the darkest figures in our national life, even Nixon stopped short of publicly calling reporters disloyal and dishonest.

* * *

This tone is destructive of democracy, which until now has been assumed to depend on independent scrutiny and criticism as one of many useful checks-and-balances. As part of pandering to a crowd, it can actually be dangerous. At last years Republican convention, the ugliest moments were when the audience chanted Lock her up! Lock her up! in lusty response to criticisms of Hillary Clinton from the podium. Try as he might, Donald Trump cant run against Crooked Hillary forever. But the Lock her up! passions are being transferred to the Crooked Media:

The media can attack me. But where I draw the line is when they attack you, which is what they do. When they attack the decency of our supporters.

[APPLAUSE]

You are honest, hard-working, taxpayingand by the way, you're overtaxed, but we're going to get your taxes down.

[APPLAUSE]

You're taxpaying Americans who love our nation, obey our laws, and care for our people. It's time to expose the crooked media deceptions, and to challenge the media for their role in fomenting divisions.

[APPLAUSE]

And yes, by the wayand yes, by the way, they are trying to take away our history and our heritage. You see that.

[BOOING]

In response, one of the founders of Politico and Axios, Jim Vandehei, noted:

***

Paul Ryan doesnt speak this way. Nor Mitch McConnell. Nor the great majority of Republican senators and representatives. They know this is dangerous. They know this is wrong. Increasing numbers of them wring their hands in concern.

But with every day that passes without their doing something about it, the stain and responsibility for Trumps ungoverned tone stick more lastingly to the Republican establishment that keeps looking the other way as he debases his office and divides his country.

The broadest conception of doing something would mean authorizing the investigations and hearings necessary to determine whether Donald Trump is fitfinancially, ethically, temperamentally, legallyto retain the powers of the presidency. Not even 20 years ago, Republicans in Congress were sure that Bill Clintons lie about extra-marital sex justified impeachment proceedings against him. Trump has given them 100 times greater grounds for action.

I understand that not even a hundred-fold difference may be sufficient to proceed against a president of ones own party. So how about this first step: a formal motion of censure, introduced by leaders of both parties, against a president who has challenged the patriotism and loyalty of fellow citizens, and failed to distinguish between neo-Nazis and the objects of their hate. It would be a start.

Read more:
The Republican Party Is Enabling an Increasingly Dangerous Demagogue - The Atlantic

BLACKSBURG, Va. Chris Hurst checks the dark clouds out the window of his Jeep Liberty as he barrels west up Route 460 to the crest of Brush Mountain. Rain starts, big drops, promising a heavy storm. Hurst hurtles down the far side, finds the gravel lot hes looking for and pulls off the road.

He scrambles out of the car, determined to get a picture before the rain gets too intense. How about that, he chuckles, centering the image on his iPhone: a giant billboard reading Giles County for Hurst. Vote Nov.7th.

Its solid red country over here, so Hurst running for the Virginia House of Delegates as a Democrat is making a bold statement with that sign. Just up the road is a huge banner depicting the Ten Commandments and the American flag, and beyond that a billboard with a bloody cross and the slogan Hang out with Jesus. He hung out for you.

This is home turf for his opponent, Del. Joseph R. Yost, a Republican who has represented the 12th District since 2011. One of the youngest members of the General Assembly, Yost is from an old pioneer family and chairs the local historical society.

In a state where all the races are serving as proxies for partisan wars in Washington, the 12th is a key battleground targeted by Democrats as one that can be flipped from Republican control, a beachhead in a region that once seemed untouchably red.

After his girlfriend was murdered on live television in 2015, Chris Hurst left behind a career as a local news anchor in hopes of becoming a delegate for Virginias 12th District in the state legislature. Democrats believe hecould flip the competitive seat. (Dalton Bennett,Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Hurst is a political novice, but a local celebrity with a tragic backstory. He was the anchor for the evening news two years ago when reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were gunned down on live TV by a disturbed former colleague. Parker and Hurst had been living together with plans to marry.

His surprise decision this year to quit TV and run for office electrified the local race. He has raised the second-highest amount of all Democratic challengers in the 100 Virginia House races $232,000 as of the June reporting period. Republicans are funneling cash to Yost to keep up, raising $210,000. Their district is as polarized as any in the state one side of Brush Mountain voted for Donald Trump last fall and the other for Hillary Clinton.

But at the center of all that attention and pressure, Hurst and Yost are doing something interesting something that suggests Washington's hyperpartisan toxicity doesnt have to play out at every level: Rather than withdraw to ideological extremes, they are converging toward the middle, staking out similar positions on many issues.

Both are opposed to the huge natural gas pipeline proposed for the county. Both want to protect manufacturing jobs, support public schools and create better mental-health services.

Yost won the endorsement of the Virginia Education Association almost unheard of for a Republican. Hurst, the gun violence survivor, touts his support for gun rights.

And neither is a big fan of President Trump.

Im an unusual Republican, Yost said.

Hursts version: If there was a party that was just the No B.S. party, Id be a charter member.

A complicated district

From the outside, it would be easy to make assumptions about the 12th District. It is part of the red backcountry, the edge of Appalachia, home to the working-class whites who helped put Trump in office.

Except its more complicated than that. The crest of Brush Mountain is the line between Giles and Montgomery counties. Virginia Tech and Radford University are on the Montgomery side, which is economically diverse with upscale neighborhoods full of professors and business leaders. Occasional modest We love our Muslim neighbors signs can be spotted on the shady streets of Blacksburg.

In Giles, where the biggest employer is a factory that makes cellulose acetate and other materials for filtration devices, many of the little towns Pearisburg, Narrows, Rich Creek, Newport are struggling, their business districts darkened by empty storefronts.

In terms of natural beauty, though, Giles is wealthy beyond measure. The Appalachian Trail winds through the county for 50 miles, some of it along the spectacular New River Gorge. The 69-foot Cascade Falls draws nearly 150,000 visitors every year.

Those resources produce a pragmatic environmentalism among locals. There was little objection a few years ago to a natural gas pipeline for the Celanese plant, for instance, because it eliminated the factorys coal waste and supported jobs.

But the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline is just passing through on its way to Pittsylvania County and draws almost universal outrage in both Giles and Montgomery.

During last falls presidential election, the Giles side of the district went heavily for Trump while the Montgomery side went largely for Clinton. With its bigger population, Montgomery tipped the overall district into the Democratic column but only by about 500 votes out of more than 30,000 cast, according to an analysis by the Virginia Public Access Project.

That edge is why Democrats think they can pick up the district this year, with blue voters especially motivated to defy the party of Trump.

That, and the fact that Hurst looks like a rising star.

The importance of place

Hurst just turned 30 but has the bearing of a much older man. He had to develop his anchorman gravitas early, winning the big chair at WDBJ in Roanoke when he was only 22. The station touted him as the youngest anchor in the country.

It was something Hurst had been preparing for since his childhood in the Philadelphia area. He and his dad built sets at their house so he could stage talk shows, and he did newscasts on his high schools public-access TV channel.

He came to Roanoke in 2010, not long after graduating from Emerson College. Parker joined the station in 2015. As they fell in love their careers consumed them, but they took refuge in hiking and kayaking across the region.

Her death made headlines worldwide. She was interviewing a local economic development official on live TV when a former reporter at the station showed up and shot her, cameraman Ward and the official, Vicki Gardner, who survived.

The shooter posted his own video of the killing online before being hunted down by police and killing himself. Parker was 24, Ward was 27.

Hurst was on the air soon after, talking of his relationship with Parker. He went on living in the apartment they had shared and kept up daily phone calls with her father, who had become outspoken about guns and mental illness.

Somewhere in those discussions, as Hurst struggled to find meaning, the idea of running for office came up. After months of weighing it with his family, Hurst made the break in February. He said farewell after an evening newscast, announced that he was running for office as a Democrat and moved to a basement apartment in Blacksburg with his dog.

Many people assume Hurst is running on the issue of gun control. The Pride Fund to End Gun Violence hosted him at an event in Washington last month, along with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ralph Northam rare recognition for a candidate in an obscure state district race.

But Hursts position is not what advocates on either side may think. Hes a gun owner, he said; Parker liked to shoot, too. Hes leery of steps to broadly restrict access to guns. Instead, he favors measures to treat mental illness and keep guns out of the hands of children or domestic violence offenders.

Even the standard Democratic call for universal background checks is too broad, he said: Im just not as matter-of-fact, black or white with guns as I think people expect or want me to be.

Guns are a nuanced issue in the district. Hunting and shooting are part of growing up here, but so is the memory of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, in which a mentally ill student shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17.

Hurst would much rather talk about raises for teachers, or his opposition to the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The need for more mental-health services. Better special-education programs. Unsexy topics that dont make the national news but that people in the community wrestle with every day.

What he learned from the depths of his personal tragedy, he said, is the importance of place. I came through the other side believing that I wanted to stay here and give back to the people who gave me such strength and support when I needed it, he said.

Emphasis on local issues

Yost, the Republican incumbent, has faced opposition before but never someone so high-profile or well funded. If it worries him, he doesnt show it.

At 31, Yost, like Hurst, seems mature for his years. Hes quiet in the General Assembly, seldom making speeches. With his round, tortoiseshell glasses and scruffy facial hair, Yost comes across as a young history professor.

He grew up on a farm in Giles County, went to the public schools and graduated from Radford with degrees in criminal justice. Ive never lived outside the boundaries of my district, he said.

Much of what he has done since jumping into politics in 2011 is rooted in local concerns that dont follow easy partisan patterns.

Yost worked in criminal justice for a time, in jail diversion and crisis intervention training helping the mentally ill get treatment instead of incarceration.

In the legislature this year, Yost sponsored bills to prohibit the death penalty for the severely mentally ill and to study ways that people in jail can get Medicaid services immediately upon release. The first stalled in committee; the second was signed into law.

He has also sponsored legislation to make it legal to farm hemp in Virginia which would help struggling farmers and favors increased education spending. In rural areas, he said, schools do much more than teach; theyre community centers.

But Yost is most definitely a Republican. Hes a loyal rank-and-file vote for the partys majority in the House of Delegates and thinks that government should have limits. Its his conservative outlook, and maybe his polite demeanor, that make him hesitant to even talk about Trump.

Federal issues dont have the impact here they do in other parts of the state, Yost said. Trump doesnt come up. We talk about our issues.

And more than anything, that intense local focus is Yosts secret weapon in the race against his hyper-articulate challenger. He has spent years grinding away at small-bore constituent services.

He and his aide scour the community columns in local newspapers for birthdays, anniversaries, awards, kids bagging their first buck and Yost sends that person a copy of the article with a hand-signed note of congratulations. Dozens, every month. During the school year, he writes to every student who lands on the A/B honor roll all 1,500 of them. I have great strength in my arm, he deadpanned.

In the evenings, knocking on doors for votes, Yost sees the benefit of that unglamorous work.

I had won the award and you sent me a letter, for the community service, said Pearisburg resident Connie Richardson, 66, when Yost asked for her support. And I really appreciated that.

Neighbor Scott Clark, 50, a state trooper, has known Yost most of his life and doesnt think much of Hurst coming from Roanoke to run.

He kind of is a carpetbagger, Clark said. Which I think youd probably hear echoed in most [places]. You might not in Blacksburg, but youd probably hear it over here. ... Theres a pretty fine dividing line. We dont like to be like Blacksburg, and Im sure they dont like to be like us.

Im a trigger

On the other side of Brush Mountain, Hurst stumped for votes in a Blacksburg neighborhood sweat-stained handkerchief in his back pocket, clipboard listing voter names, a tin full of Altoids.

He doesnt feel like an outsider, he said. Roanoke is only 30 minutes away; this was all part of his TV market. But hes quick to point out to people who come to the door and they all recognize him that he lives in town.

Hurst is ready for anything when he meets voters like this. Some have burst into tears, thinking back to the tragedy with Parker, perhaps conscious of Virginia Techs tragedy, as well.

Im a trigger for some people, he said.

At one house, two retired nurses told Hurst that they miss seeing him on TV.

Well, I know Im sweatier and not as made-up in person, he said. Just here more to listen than anything else. Thats what I used to do at the TV station as a reporter, and thats what I hope to do as a delegate, too listen to whats on your mind.

The two women Gayle Robertson, 71, and Lynn Juliano, 63 gave him an earful about their dislike of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. But beyond that, they said, pausing to find the words, things are just discouraging.

Just watching whats going on up in Washington, Juliano said. You know, the health care, and just ... anyway, things are not going the way I would like things to go.

Hurst nodded. You know, I was in an environment where I could let cynicism keep creeping in and feel like I was powerless to make direct change, he said. And instead I took a leap without a safety net to do something that Im passionate about.

You did, yeah, you did, Juliano said, and she and Robertson pledged their support.

With that, Hurst was off to the next house. He has knocked on thousands of doors with volunteers, more than 10,000, including over the mountain in Giles. Hurst isnt willing to write off that part of the district, thus the billboard on the highway.

But the morning after the billboard went up, a small red sign appeared in front of it: Re-elect Joseph Yost Delegate. Another was just up the road, and another, and another marching deeper into Giles County.

Rachel Chason contributed to this report.

Read the original here:
In a polarized Virginia district, differences between the Republican and the Democrat may surprise you - Washington Post

By Jessica Mathews By Jessica Mathews August 22 at 4:16 PM

The swift exodus of chief executives that collapsed the White House business councils last week reveals a strange and disquieting fact about American society: Our politics works better in the private sector than it does in the public one.

President Trump's two major CEO councils disbanded Aug. 16 after Trump was slow to condemn white supremacy groups. (Taylor Turner/The Washington Post)

With the exception of Kenneth Frazier of Merck, who cited personal conscience for his quick decision to step down after President Trumps response to the neo-Nazi protests and violence in Charlottesville, these resignations did not follow moral conviction. The CEOs were reacting to pressure from constituents their customers.

These men and women live in a separate universe from most Americans. They fly in private planes, live in gated communities and travel the world to tend global markets. It has been years, maybe decades, since any of them has had to spare a thought for the family budget other than where to invest the annual surplus. They dont worry about the mortgage or medical care or retirement.

Yet as distant as they are from how most Americans live, the leaders of even the largest enterprises tremble in the face of public opinion. Once a trend has taken hold, they know they have to act quickly.

In stark contrast, the elected representatives whose job it is to reflect their constituents thoughts and experiences, to know the price of a carton of milk and how to get a college loan, spent days in stunning silence. With a handful of exceptions, Republican condemnations of Trumps response Charlottesville were tweeted in the distant third person or the impersonal declarative (House Speaker Paul D. Ryan: We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive.). Trumps name was not mentioned. Nor was a response offered.

By last Thursday, the congressional party was dug into a deep communal foxhole. CNN announced that it had invited all 52 Republican senators to appear on its morning show in a failed effort to find one who would do so. In this case, it is Republicans who are frozen, but if the facts were reversed, there is little doubt that Democrats would be doing the same.

The firms that raced to distance themselves from the president included Campbell Soup and Walmart, which are obviously vulnerable to brand damage or even a consumer boycott. But even hedge funds that cater to the uber-rich and companies that sell mostly to other businesses felt a greater need to respond to the public revulsion than did members of Congress. Because elected representatives face the ultimate public test of reelection, this seems paradoxical.

But election to Congress is now tantamount to a lifetime appointment. Last year, 97 percent of incumbent representatives and 93 percent of senators were reelected. These numbers (slightly above recent averages) include losses to primary challengers.

At some level, Americans seem to have absorbed this. A group of New York-based advocacy groups collected 400,000 signatures asking the heads of JPMorgan Chase and Blackstone to resign from one of Trumps councils. This political effort was presumably directed where the organizers felt it would have an impact: not to their congressman but to a corporate executive. Why?

There is some evidence that people have given up on the federal government. A poll has asked the same question every few years since 1958: Do you trust the government in Washington to do what is right, all or most of the time? Until the mid-1960s, 75 percent of Americans said yes, but the trust percentage fell below half in about 1972. So, although Americans have voted for drastic changes in leadership and ideology over the ensuing decades, anyone younger than 45 has lived their entire life in a country where the majority does not expect their government to do what they think is right.

Before you despair, note it wasnt that long ago that Washington did function. In four years of Lyndon Johnsons presidency, Congress passed nearly 200 major laws, including three revolutionary civil rights laws that transformed the nation the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act plus Medicare and Medicaid. Two Cabinet agencies,food stamps, Head Start and 35 national parks and protected areas were created. The essential Freedom of Information Act was passed and a great deal more from urban mass transit to international monetary reform.

Much has changed since then, some of which we cannot control especially globalization and job-destroying technological advances. But most of what has produced glaring inequality, an underperforming, overly costly health-care system, crumbling infrastructure and rising deficits is the result of conscious policy choices, and to practices, from gerrymandering to campaign finance rules, that have produced an immovable, unresponsive and unproductive Congress.

Threats from abroad quickly capture national attention. But for most people, such as myself, who are professionally concerned with national security, the greater anxiety these days is the long-term threat from domestic gridlock and the consequent loss of self-confidence that underlies a successful foreign policy. Quite apart from Trumpian chaos, this is a system in need of basic repair.

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Why CEOs are quicker than Republican legislators to denounce Trump - Washington Post