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The latest example of bipartisan collaboration actually being bad for the public comes courtesy of Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley. They are pushing new antitrust legislation to break up, regulate, or restructure businesses. They are specifically targeting Big Tech platforms, including Amazon.

This week, something of an intra-GOP debate has broken out as free-market, limited government Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul have spoken out against GOP support for this Democratic, big-government policy approach. "These [antitrust] proposals to ostensibly cut the tech giants down to size would, instead, perpetuate the dominant position of these companies and deprive consumers of the technological innovation that only free-market competition can provide," Paul said. "Rather than pursue even stronger antitrust laws, Congress should allow the free market to thrive where consumers, not the government, decide how big a company should be."

Free-market Republicans like Paul are right on this one. Big-government populists like Hawley are wrong.

A great example of why these swampy, big-government policies are so misguided is Klobuchar and Hawley's "American Innovation and Choice Online Act." This bill is ostensibly meant to crack down on big companies like Amazon that are said to be using their market power to promote themselves and squash competitors. It acts by "prohibiting dominant platforms from abusing their gatekeeper power by favoring their own products or services, disadvantaging rivals, or discriminating among businesses that use their platforms in a manner that would materially harm competition on the platform."

All the populist bravado aside, what this legislation would actually do is use the federal government to ruin amazing services people enjoy, such as Amazon Basics and Amazon Prime. Amazon Basics is the line of cheap everyday products phone chargers, for example that comes up at the top of search results on Amazon. That preferential positioning is because these products are made by Amazon and sold on its platform. Because this "vertical integration" cuts out a middle man, Amazon Basics prices are often much lower than their competitors a boon to people struggling amid inflation.

This system is going to be illegal if the antitrust Karens in Congress get their way.

So, too, would Amazon Prime, where Amazon offers a wide array of other services that aren't available to non-Prime members. Free giveaways or promotions, such as when a company launches a new platform or service and wants to give existing subscribers on their current platforms a discount, would similarly be prohibited. And good luck to companies like Netflix that both create and stream TV shows and want to promote their own content on their platform.

All this dysfunction incurred while achieving what, exactly?

Hawley and Klobuchar explicitly reject the old standard of "consumer welfare," only using antitrust when consumers are directly being harmed. Now, they want to replace it and start inserting the government into things just in the abstract name of more competition, even if consumers are thriving under the status quo.

We expect Democrats to push silly, big-government policies that mess up the market. They're always down to allow federal bureaucrats not exactly known for their flexibility and competence to hamstring innovation that would otherwise be a boon for consumers. But Republicans are supposed to know better. At least, in theory. How any conservative could want to empower federal bureaucrats further is beyond me. Remember, the feds have just in the last year investigated upset parents as a "domestic terrorism threat" and tried to start a "disinformation board" targeting right-wing speech. Why does Josh Hawley want to give people who hate conservatives more power over our lives?

Republican lawmakers going down this path desperately need a course correction.

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a co-founder of Based-Politics.com, a co-host of the BasedPolitics podcast, and a Washington Examiner contributor.

Read the rest here:
Why are some Republicans teaming up with Democrats against Amazon? - Washington Examiner

Even as national Democrats set off alarms over the threats posed by far-right Republican candidates, their campaign partners are pursuing an enormously risky strategy: promoting some of those same far-right candidates in G.O.P. primaries in hopes that extremists will be easier for Democrats to beat in November.

These efforts starkest in the Central Valley of California, where a Democratic campaign ad lashed Representative David Valadao, a Republican, for voting to impeach Donald J. Trump have prompted angry finger-pointing and a debate within the party over the perils and wisdom of the strategy, especially in the middle of the Jan. 6 Committees hearings on the Capitol attack.

The concern is obvious: In a year when soaring gasoline prices and disorienting inflation have crushed President Bidens approval ratings, Republican candidates whom Democrats may deem unelectable could well win on the basis of their party affiliation alone.

I realize that this type of political gamesmanship has existed forever, but our country is in a very different place now than we were in previous cycles, said Representative Kathleen Rice, Democrat of New York. For these Democratic groups to throw money at raising up a person who they know wants to tear down this democracy is outrageous.

Republican targets asked how they were supposed to buck their leadership and take difficult votes if their erstwhile allies in the Democratic Party are lying in wait.

I voted the way I voted because I thought it was important, Mr. Valadao said of his impeachment vote. But to put us in a spot where were voting for these things and then try to use it as ammo against us in the campaigns, and put people that they potentially see as a threat to democracy in a position where they can become members of Congress, it tells me that theyre not serious about governing.

The Democratic effort extends well beyond Mr. Valadaos race. Pennsylvanias Democratic Party singled out State Senator Doug Mastriano during his successful quest for the Republican nomination for governor, despite his propagation of false claims about the 2020 election and his attendance at the Jan. 6 protest behind the White House that immediately preceded the Capitol riot.

In Southern California, a Democratic candidate for the House, Asif Mahmood, flooded Orange County airwaves with advertisements that framed his run as a contest between him and an anti-abortion conservative, Greg Raths, aiding Mr. Raths by never mentioning the leading Republican in the race, Representative Young Kim, the incumbent and a much more moderate candidate. Instead, it highlighted Mr. Raths support for overturning Roe v. Wade and banning abortion and his affinity for pro-Trump Republicans stances as likely to appeal to Republican primary voters as to rile up Democrats in a general election. (The effort did not succeed: Ms. Kim held off Mr. Raths and advanced to the November election against Mr. Mahmood.)

And in Colorado, a shadowy new group called Democratic Colorado is spending nearly $1.5 million ahead of the states June 28 primary to broadcast the conservative views of State Representative Ron Hanks, who hopes to challenge Senator Michael Bennet, an incumbent Democrat. Mr. Hankss views would be widely shared by Republican primary voters. Left unmentioned for now were Mr. Hankss bragging about marching to the Capitol on Jan. 6, his false claim that those who attacked the Capitol were left-wing antifa and his baseless insistence that the 2020 election was stolen by President Biden.

Alvina Vasquez, a spokeswoman for Democratic Colorado, would not say who was funding the group and insisted there was nothing untoward about the ads.

Its important to highlight who is running on the Republican side, she said, adding, The general election is around the corner.

But Ms. Vasquez said early this week that the group had only one target: Mr. Hanks, not the more moderate Republican in the primary, the businessman Joe ODea. On Thursday afternoon, after the initial version of this story was published, the group did unveil a new advertisement aimed at Mr. ODea, but not at his conservative credentials. Instead, the ad attacked him for contributing to Colorados two Democratic senators and supporting Mr. Bidens spending plans, a signal to conservatives to oppose his candidacy.

The Bennet campaign declined to comment.

Democrats involved acknowledge the game they are playing, but insist that they have one job to preserve their partys slender majority in the House and that they are targeting only those races where extremist candidates cannot prevail in November.

House Majority PAC was founded on the mission of doing whatever it takes to secure a Democratic House Majority and in 2022, thats what we will continue to do, said Abby Curran Horrell, executive director of the committee, which is affiliated with Democratic leadership.

The Pennsylvania attorney general, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, defended his campaigns advertisement declaring a win for Mr. Mastriano in the Republican governors primary as a win for what Donald Trump stands for.

What we did was start the general election campaign and demonstrate the clear contrast, the stark differences between he and I, Mr. Shapiro said on CNN.

But it is not clear that Democrats will be able to maintain control over what they may unleash, especially in a year when their partys president is suffering through record low approval ratings and inflation has hit rates not seen in 40 years. A Suffolk University poll released on Wednesday found Mr. Shapiro running only 4 percentage points ahead of Mr. Mastriano in the states crucial governors race.

No matter how self-assured Democratic insiders sound about their chances against extremist Republicans, the inherent danger of the playing-with-fire approach revives stomach-churning memories for some Democrats.

After all, they also thought Mr. Trumps nomination in 2016 was a surefire ticket to a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic senator from Missouri, arguably created the modern genre of meddling in the other partys nominating process, by running an ad in 2012 lifting the far-right congressman Todd Akin in the Republican Senate primary.

But Ms. McCaskill said the intervening years had raised the stakes too high in all but a few races.

No one believed including Donald Trump that he would be elected president, Ms. McCaskill said. Campaigns need to be very sober about their decision-making. They need to be confident that they can prevail if the most extreme candidate is elevated to the nomination.

Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, was especially incensed that the Democrats House Majority PAC had spent nearly $40,000 in the Bakersfield and Fresno, Calif., media markets airing an advertisement castigating Mr. Valadao for his impeachment vote, while promoting his opponent as a true conservative.

Why are these midterm races so important? This years races could tip the balance of power in Congress to Republicans, hobbling President Bidens agenda for the second half of his term. They will also test former President Donald J. Trumps role as a G.O.P. kingmaker. Heres what to know:

What are the midterm elections? Midterms take place two years after a presidential election, at the midpoint of a presidential term hence the name. This year, a lot of seats are up for grabs, including all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 of 50 governorships.

What do the midterms mean for Biden? With slim majorities in Congress, Democrats have struggled to pass Mr. Bidens agenda. Republican control of the House or Senate would make the presidents legislative goals a near-impossibility.

What are the races to watch? Only a handful of seats will determine if Democrats maintain control of the House over Republicans, and a single state could shift power in the 50-50 Senate. Here are 10 races to watch in the Houseand Senate, as well as several key governors contests.

When are the key races taking place? The primary gauntletis already underway. Closely watched racesin Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia wereheld in May, with more taking place through the summer. Primaries run until September before the general election on Nov. 8.

Go deeper. What is redistrictingand how does it affect the midterm elections? How does polling work? How do you register to vote? Weve got more answers to your pressing midterm questions here.

It is impossible to say what impact the ad had, but with the votes in Californias 22nd Congressional District still being counted, Mr. Valadao is clinging to a 1,400-vote lead over Mr. Mathys for the final spot in the runoff in November.

Pro-Trump Republican Chris Mathys: military veteran, local businessman, the Democratic ad blared. Or politician David Valadao, who voted to impeach Trump. Republicans its time to decide.

The ad was broadcast during the run-up to the Jan. 6 hearings, which have lionized the Republicans who stood up to Mr. Trump. But by using those votes against those Republicans for political gain, said Mr. Meijer another of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the Capitol riot Democratic campaigns had trivialized the issue, even as the hearings were elevating it as a mortal threat to the American experiment.

And that, Mr. Meijer said, made it easier for Republicans to dismiss the hearings as political theater.

Mr. Meijer, whose own primary against a Trump-backed opponent looms on Aug. 2, condemned the Democratic dissonance as deep moralizing in the midst of par-for-the-course hypocrisy. Already, he said, the loudest voices promoting his primary opponent, John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official who once accused Hillary Clintons campaign chief of performing satanic rituals, are those of Democrats, not Republicans.

For Democrats, the clear precedent is Ms. McCaskills almost legendary advertisement backhandedly promoting Mr. Akin to be her opponent in her 2012 re-election run. Two other Republicans in the primary that year would have been far more formidable opponents in a state trending Republican, with Barack Obama on the ballot for re-election. Mr. Akin, by comparison, was underfunded, undisciplined and, she said, a little weird.

The words in the ad might have been threatening to general election voters, but Ms. McCaskills list of particulars against Mr. Akin read in a friendly, singsong narration were music to the ears of Republican primary voters: a crusader against bigger government, with a pro-family agenda that would outlaw many forms of contraception. And Akin alone says President Obama is a complete menace to our civilization.

Todd Akin, Missouris true conservative, the ad said, using a pregnant pause, before finishing, is just too conservative.

Mr. Akin went on to win the Republican primary with a plurality of the vote, then lose to Ms. McCaskill by nearly 16 percentage points.

Ms. McCaskill said that in some districts, such as Mr. Valadaos, where voters lean strongly Democratic, the tactic remains sound. But, she added, the stakes are far higher in 2022 than they were a decade ago.

I made up my mind internally that I was OK with the idea that I could be responsible for him becoming a United States senator, she said of Mr. Akin, adding that she could not have made the same calculation for some of the current crop of Republicans.

Beyond individual candidates, the Republican leadership has changed, Ms. McCaskill added. Her bet that Mr. Akins undisciplined propensity to mouth off paid off in spades when Mr. Akin famously said victims of sexual assault do not get pregnant because if its a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

Beyond the damage done by those words, Mr. Akins own party turned him into a pariah, shunning him and ensuring his defeat. Republican leaders cannot be counted on to cut off any candidates this campaign season, she said.

Ms. Rice made the same point, adding that every dollar spent meddling in a Republican primary is a dollar not spent directly to aid endangered Democratic incumbents.

We should be backing our own front-liners, she said, not gambling on seditionists.

See original here:
Democrats Risky Bet: Aid G.O.P. Extremists in Spring, Hoping to Beat Them in Fall - The New York Times

Welcome to The Heart of the Primaries, Republican Edition

June 16, 2022

In this issue: Takeaways from the June 14 primaries and Michigan gubernatorial candidates respond to Kelleys arrest

Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina held primaries on June 14. Alaska also held its top-four special House primary on June 11. Heres what went down in this weeks marquee races.

South Carolinas 7th: Russell Fry defeated incumbent Rep. Tom Rice and five other candidates. As of Wednesday morning, Fry had 51% of the vote to Rices 25%.

Rice is the fifth incumbent House member to lose a re-election bid this year and the third Republican. Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) lost primaries against fellow incumbents.

South Carolinas 1st: Incumbent Nancy Mace defeated Katie Arrington. Mace led Arrington 53%-45% as of Wednesday morning.

Arrington, a former state representative, won the districts Republican primary in 2018, defeating incumbent Rep. Mark Sanford (R) before losing the general election to Joe Cunningham (D). Mace defeated Cunningham in 2020.

Mace said she was best equipped to win in November and that the district wants an independent voice. Arrington said Mace was not conservative enough and that she wasnt sufficiently supportive of Trump.

Three election forecasters rate the November election Solid or Safe Republican.

U.S. Senate in Nevada: Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt defeated Sam Brown and six other candidates. As of Wednesday morning, Laxalt led Brown 56%-34%.

Laxalt had endorsements from Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The Nevada Republican Party endorsed Brown, who received 80% of delegates support compared to Laxalts 50% (a candidate needed more than 50% for the endorsement). Laxalt faces incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) in this Toss-up general election.

Alaskas U.S. House special: Saturdays special primary election for Alaskas At-Large Congressional District remains uncalled. The four candidates with the most votes will advance to the Aug. 16 special general election, which will use ranked-choice voting. As of election night, Sarah Palin (R) had 29.8% of the vote, Nicholas Begich III (R) had 19.3%, Al Gross (I) had 12.5%, Mary Peltola (D) had 7.5%, and Tara Sweeney (R) had 5.3%. The 43 other candidates each had less than 5%. The final ballot count is scheduled for June 21. The primary was conducted mainly through mail-in ballots, which had to be postmarked by June 11. Click here for the most up-to-date results.

The figures below were current as of Wednesday morning. Click here for more information on defeated incumbents.

At least 11 state legislators10 Republicans and one Democratlost in primaries on June 14. Including those results, 104 state legislative incumbents have lost primaries this year. This number will likely increase: 61 primaries featuring incumbents remain uncalled.

Across the 21 states that have held state legislative primaries so far this year, 5.1% of incumbents running for re-election have lost, continuing an elevated rate of incumbent primary defeats compared to recent election cycles.

Of the 21 states that have held primaries so far, five had Democratic trifectas, 13 had Republican trifectas, and three had divided governments with Democrats controlling the governorship and Republicans controlling both legislative chambers. Across these 21 states, there are 2,650 seats up for election, 43% of the nationwide total.

Politico Playbook wrote that the Republican primary candidates with whom Trump is angry who have won primaries had embraced Trump in their campaigns, while Rice did not:

Republicans can survive crossing Trump, but rarely can they survive being anti-Trump

Trump went one for two in key South Carolina primaries last night.

What explains the difference? On last weeks Playbook Deep Dive podcast, we talked to South Dakota Rep. DUSTY JOHNSON about the lessons he learned winning a Republican primary after voting against Trump. (In his case, the vote was about creating an independent January 6 commission.)

There are going to be times those votes cause you political discomfort, Johnson said. Dont run away from them, but dont run away from the electorate either.

So far this year, the Trump-targeted Republicans who have survived his wrath have run campaigns that embrace Trump even as he spurns them. Whether its Idaho Gov. BRAD LITTLE, Johnson in South Dakota or Mace in South Carolina, these victors were all careful not to run against Trump.

In South Carolina, Rep. Rice actually told voters what he thought. Trump, he said in a recent interview with Ally Mutnick, was spiteful and petty and vengeful and a narcissist who craves attention. Rice lost. He ran away from the South Carolina GOP electorate.

National Reviews Alexandra DeSanctis wrote about other differences between South Carolinas 1st and 7th District primaries that may have influenced outcomes for Mace and Rice:

What are we to make of the discrepancy? One way of looking at it is the degree of separation from the former president: Both Rice and Mace had angered him enough to get him to back a primary challenger, but only Rice had voted to impeach him over the events of January 6. Mace condemned the president in a speech and voted to certify the election results, but she didnt join the ten GOP representatives who voted for impeachment.

Another possible explanation is Maces opponent. Arrington has played the role of a right-wing, Trump-supported challenger before, when she unseated former Republican representative Mark Sanford over his criticism of the former president. But Arrington went on to lose to the Democrat candidate in the general election, and perhaps voters were wary of a similar problem this November, though the climate this election year is, of course, quite different. The New York Times adds this bit of insight:

Ms. Mace raised more money than Ms. Arrington by a 2-to-1 margin and outspent her by more than $300,000 on the airwaves, according to the political spending tracker AdImpact. She courted the districts most influential political and business leaders and, in the races final days, campaigned alongside a number of high-profile figures on the right, including a former Trump White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, and former Gov. Nikki Haley.

Politico reported that Richard Irvins campaign pulled a majority of its advertising from outside the Chicago metropolitan area. In addition to its focus on Chicago, the campaign is running ads statewide on Fox News. Spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said that the campaign was reassessing its ad strategy and was not pulling ads due to a lack of money.

A recent Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ poll showed state Sen. Darren Bailey with a 32%-17% lead over Irvin. Jesse Sullivan was in third with 11%. Twenty-seven percent were undecided. The poll had a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points.

The poll showed Bailey leading in both the southern part of the state, where hes from, and in the Chicago suburbs. Irvin is the mayor of Aurora, the states second-largest city and a suburb of Chicago. In Chicago itself, Irvin and Bailey were roughly tied for second (16% and 13%, respectively) behind Sullivan.

Chicago Sun-Times Tina Sfondeles wrote that a Bailey victory would represent a brutal repudiation by Illinois Republican voters of Irvin, his array of mainstream party endorsements and, most pointedly, his $50 million benefactor, Chicago hedge fund tycoon Ken Griffin.

In response to the poll, Irvin said, J.B. Pritzker is spending tens of millions of dollars meddling in the Republican primary to prop up a Republican that he knows he can beat. A vote for Darren Bailey is a vote for J.B. Pritzker. Period.

Irvins campaign has spent $26 million on ads so far this cycle. The Democratic Governors Association has run around $20 million in ads both supporting Bailey and attacking Irvin. People Who Play By The Rules PAC, which radio host Dan Proft created and GOP donor Richard Uihlein financially supports, has also spent $3 million on ads attacking Irvin.

Former President Trump endorsed Katie Britt in the Senate primary runoff in Alabama. Trump had endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks in the GOP primary then rescinded that endorsement in March, citing comments Brooks made in 2021 about moving past the 2020 election.

Trump said in July 2021 that Britt was unqualified and criticized her connection to retiring incumbent Sen. Richard Shelby (R), whom Trump called a RINO. Britt once served as Shelbys chief of staff. Trump said in his recent endorsement, The opposition says Katie is close to Mitch McConnell, but actually, she is not and called her a fearless America First Warrior.

In a now-deleted tweet from June 5, Brooks asked Trump to re-endorse him. After Trump endorsed Britt, Brooks said, Lets just admit it: Trump endorses the wrong people sometimes.

Brooks has served in the U.S. House since 2011. Britt is CEO of the Alabama Business Council.

The runoff is June 21. In the May 24 primary, Britt received 45% to Brooks 29%.

On June 9, federal agents arrested Ryan Kelley, one of five candidates seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Michigan, on charges related to the U.S. Capitol breach during the electoral vote count on Jan. 6, 2021. Kelley was released on a personal recognizance bond, or a promise to appear in court when required, the same day.

The New York Times Azi Paybarah said Kelley is the first person running for election in a major state or federal race to be charged in connection with the attack.

The governments complaint charged Kelley with four misdemeanors: Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority, Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds, Knowingly [Engaging] in any Act of Physical Violence Against Person or Property in any Restricted Building or Grounds, and Willfully [injuring] or [committing] any Depredation Against any Property of the United States.

On June 13, Kelley told Fox News Tucker Carlson, There was no crime committed, Tucker, no. [I] never entered the Capitol building. I think a lot of Americans see right through this They understand what the Democrats are up to, and its not a big deal to them.

The other primary candidates commented on the arrest:

A few other updates since we last wrote about the disqualification of five candidates over fraudulent signatures on nominating petitions: On June 3, the Michigan Supreme Court denied appeals in lawsuits from James Craig, Perry Johnson, and Michael Markey. Craig said he will run a write-in campaign for the Republican primary. Johnson filed a federal lawsuit seeking to get his name back on the ballot. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith denied his request.

The primary is on Aug. 2.

Virginia holds primaries on June 21. Utah and Illinois hold primaries on June 28. Weve crunched some numbers to see how competitive the primaries will be compared to recent election cycles.

Virginia

Virginia held state legislative elections in 2021. The following shows competitiveness data for this years U.S. House primaries.

Utah

Illinois

Notes on how these figures were calculated:

Excerpt from:
Heart of the Primaries 2022, Republicans-Issue 27 Ballotpedia News - Ballotpedia News

Former President Donald Trump has made the stolen 2020 election the centerpiece of his post-White House political life. Virtually every statement he sends out invokes the false theme.

The polling shows it has been effective, not just with the crowd that stormed the Capitol on his behalf on Jan. 6, 2021, but with members of the Republican Party almost a year and a half later.

The multiple recounts and audits that confirmed Joe Bidens win have changed little. With remarkable consistency, a scant one-quarter of Republican voters tell pollsters that Biden won legitimately. That was the view they shared in the spring of 2021, and the fraction remains about the same today.

Roughly 70% of Republicans dont see Biden as the legitimate winner. Surveys by different pollsters show virtually the same results, with the exception of a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll that dropped it to 61%.

Trumps insistence that he won the 2020 election became the target of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. In the second of a series of hearings revealing what it has found, the committee showed video of Trump insiders describing how, from the earliest days, the conviction grew that Trump had failed to get enough votes.

Campaign manager Bill Stepientold investigatorsthat by Nov. 5, two days after the election, they saw Biden take the lead. Stepien and other top campaign staff went to Trump.

We told him, the group that went over there, (we) outlined my belief on the chances for success at this point, and we pegged it at 5%, maybe 10%, Stepien said.

The situation, Stepien said, was very, very bleak.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue was one of many officials who tried to counter Trumps claims of fraud.

I said something to the effect of, Sir, weve done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. Weve looked at Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada. We are doing our job. Much of the info you are getting is false, Donoghue told investigators.

Focus groups have shown that Trump supporters werent swayed by specific pieces of evidence that rebutted his claims.

Sarah Longwell, executive director of Republicans for the Rule of Law, has conducted regular focus groups with fans of Trump.

For many of Trumps voters, the belief that the election was stolen is not a fully formed thought, Longwell wroteApril 18for The Atlantic. They know something nefarious occurred, but cant easily explain how or why. Whats more, theyre mystified and sometimes angry that other people dont feel the same.

Trump, Longwell wrote, primed his backers to disbelieve the official results. Months before the vote, he linked mail-in ballots to fraud. On Election Night in many states, mail-in results come later than in-person tabulations. Longwell said that timing raised suspicions.

A woman from Georgia told me, When I went to bed, Trump was so in the lead and then (I got) up and hes not in the lead. I mean, thats crazy, Longwell said.

Other interviews with Trump voters found similar attitudes. Researchers at the University of Texas at AustinsCenter for Media Engagementspent time with 56 people who believed that Trump most likely won the election. Professor Talia Stroud said that contrary to popular assumptions, the people we spoke with were not conspiracists isolated in right-wing echo chambers.

These voters said they got their news from a variety of outlets, and wound up with multiple theories of how the vote was manipulated. Stroud said the multiple reasons made it harder to change their minds.

It is one thing to dismiss one misleading claim, but countering many different claims across many different people is much more challenging, Stroud said. If I have five reasons that the election could have been fraudulent, and you dismiss one of them, there are four others waiting in the wings.

Personal experience also reinforced belief. Political scientist Lilliana Mason at Johns Hopkins University told us that maps of the election results show that many Republican voters live in communities that are almost entirely red.

It seems ludicrous to them that Biden could have won, because theyve never heard of a single person who voted for him, Mason said.

Political scientist Alexander Theodoridis, associate director of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst poll, said partisan polarization makes agreement on the election results even harder to achieve.

Partisans view the other side as morally bankrupt and capable of anything, Theodoridis said. This makes it nearly impossible to correct even the most egregious pieces of misinformation.

Not only does accurate information fail to persuade, Longwell said the effort can backfire.

A woman from Arizona told me, I think what convinced me more that the election was fixed was how vehemently they have said it wasnt, Longwell said.

This article was originallypublished by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources hereand more of their fact checkshere.

Read the rest here:
Most Republicans still falsely believe Trump's stolen election claims. Here are some reasons why. - Poynter

Friday is the 50th anniversary of the Watergate burglary that would end Richard M. Nixons presidency two years later. By then, his vice president and successor, Gerald R. Ford Jr., would tell Americans, Our long national nightmare is over.

Little could Ford or his audience have imagined the nations current nightmare, one thats far from over. Were enduring the biggest presidential scandal since Watergate, or ever: Donald Trumps continued assault on democracy, following his unprecedented refusal to accept the 2020 election result and allow for the peaceful transfer of power to the winner.

When it comes to presidential disgrace, Don the Con tops even Tricky Dick. Trump, however, has had much more help achieving his ignominy.

Opinion Columnist

Jackie Calmes

Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.

When Nixon resigned and helicoptered away from the White House, the often uttered consensus was that the system worked. All three branches of government had done their part: Congress, the courts and even the executive branch once Nixons henchmen were out of the way and prison-bound. Finally Nixon himself a believer in constitutional governance, despite his many flaws, and a patriot compared to the traitorous Trump accepted that the jig was up.

In Trumps case, the system hasnt worked. So far. He walks free as the Justice Department dallies, has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from his marks, er, supporters (The Big Lie was also a big ripoff, as San Jose Rep. Zoe Lofgren said), and says he plans to run for president again. Its far from clear whether the system will or can bring him to justice before that happens.

Yet weve gained some hard-won knowledge: Its not the system that must work to preserve our 246-year-old nation. Its the people whom we entrust to operate the machinery of government who must act.

And those people, chiefly the Republicans among them, continue to fail us. Led in Congress by Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, theyve enabled Trumps worst abuses for years by their acquiescence and by their opposition to his impeachment, first for extorting from a foreign country for political dirt and then for inciting an insurrection to remain in power.

In February 2021, the Senate voted 57 to 43 to convict Trump for incitement, but the majority all 50 Democrats and seven principled Republicans was 10 votes shy of the two-thirds margin needed under the Constitution. Had McConnell and just nine additional Republicans voted to convict, they wouldnt have to worry that Trump might well be their partys 2024 nominee. They could have barred him, post-conviction, from running for federal office.

Nixon, too, had his Republican enablers initially, including Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee. That helps explain why it was more than two years from the election-year burglary of the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate building to Nixons resignation under threat of impeachment and Senate conviction.

Yet back then, the truth had a common meaning to both parties. Baker and many other Republicans in Congress not only were swayed by the evidence that mounted against Nixon, they also helped force that evidence into the light during the House impeachment hearing and, especially, the Senates special Watergate committee hearings.

What did the president know, and when did he know it? Baker, the Senate panels vice chair, famously asked.

Other Republican leaders, including conservative icon Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, went to the White House and persuaded Nixon to resign rather than be forced from office by Congress.

That reflects another difference between then and now: Most Republicans of that era put country above party and rewarded those politicians who acted accordingly.

Following Bakers starring role against Nixon, he would become the Senate majority leader and then Ronald Reagans White House chief of staff. Contrast his fortunes with the partys treatment of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, also the vice chair of a committee investigating a Republican presidential scandal.

Just for condemning the condemnable Trump, Cheney was ousted from the House Republican leadership team (with McCarthys support), excommunicated by the Wyoming Republican Party (its chair belongs to the Oath Keepers militia group), censured by the Republican National Committee and likely faces defeat for reelection to a Trump-endorsed rival.

Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the only other Republican to similarly stand up to Trump and to serve on the House committee investigating the attempted coup, has been treated likewise. He chose not to seek reelection.

The Republican Party is Trumps party: radicalized, tribal, cultish. Most congressional Republicans wouldnt even vote to create a committee to investigate the attack on the legislative branch by the head of the executive branch, an attack that threatened their lives. Those who did are being punished by Trumpian voters in party primaries.

Yes, Republican voters are as much to blame as the partys politicians for failures of the system. In recent primaries, including in four states Tuesday, the voters have chosen scores of state and federal candidates who ascribe to Trumps Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Driving in rural Ohio on Sunday after a visit with family there, I passed a sign on a farm fence: Biden didnt defeat Trump. Election fraud did.

That sums up the Republican litmus test these days, and its a lie. State and federal politicians stoke the lie or at least tolerate it. Until they stop, the system cannot work as it once so proudly did. And our national nightmare not only persists, it threatens to get worse.

@jackiekcalmes

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Calmes: During Watergate, Republicans made 'the system' work. Today's GOP is failing the nation - Los Angeles Times