Mediaboss Marketing

According to a report in the New York Times, Republican officeholders in competitive districts fear Donald Trump's unpopularity particularly in light of his coronavirus failures and the subsequent collapse of the economy willswamp their chances of holding onto their seats in November.

As GOP lawmaker put it: "I'm holding on."

"It is a tricky task for lawmakers like [Rep. Fred] Upton (R-MI) in centrist districts throughout the country, who understand that their re-election prospects and any hope their party might have of taking back the House of Representatives could rise or fall based on how they address the pandemic. Already considered a politically endangered species before the novel coronavirus began ravaging the United States, these moderates are now working to counter the risk that their electoral fates could become tied to Mr. Trump's response at a time when the independent voters whose support they need areincreasingly unhappywith his performance," the report notes before adding, "The president's combative news conferences, which his own political advisers have counseled him to curtail, have made the challenge all the steeper."

"In an attempt to ensure their contests become referendums on their own responses to the virus, rather than the president's, vulnerable House Republicans are instead brandishing their own independent streaks, playing up their work with Democrats, doubling down on constituent service and hosting town-hall-style events avoiding mention of Mr. Trump whenever possible," the report continues with Rep John Katko (R-NY) admitting, "It does make it difficult at times."

According to former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) who battled with Trump and ended up losing his seat in the 2018 "blue wave" election it is not an easy task.

Advertisement:

"The president continues to be reckless in the context of the Covid-19 crisis," Curbelo explained. "You could see a similar dynamic where a lot of Republicans in competitive districts will just break with him in an effort to protect their own candidacies."

"Many of his former colleagues in competitive districts had hoped the severity of the crisis would give them a platform to highlight their own responses, Mr. Curbelo said. But as Mr. Trump's nightly briefings 'became more about the president and his personality' than about the disease, he added, 'Republicans have perceived a peril in that development, and certainly some of the recent polling validates that,'" the report continues.

"In some ways, the dilemma these centrist Republicans are facing is the same one they have had to navigate since Mr. Trump was elected, as they have repeatedly been called upon to answer for his more provocative statements and actions. But the pandemic has sharply raised the stakes as their constituents bear the brunt of its dire consequences," the Times reports. "At home in their districts, lawmakers have largely been able to avoid direct questions about the president's handling of the crisis, instead fielding anonslaught of requests from constituentsand reporters for basic information about when relief will reach them."

One Republican voter who voted for Trump in 2016 and will likely support him in 2020, said he understands the problems faced by GOP lawmakers who are trying to avoid the president.

"It's a tightrope," explained Gary Dixon, a retired salesman who supports Rep. John Katko (R-NY). "You've got to be on that wire where you're trying to stay in the middle, but I don't think his middle position will alienate the true Republicans."

You canread more here.

Read more from the original source:
Republicans in tight races are fleeing Trump in fear of a November election disaster: report - Salon

The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has four essential rules for successful punditry:

Those maxims have consistently made Krugman the most intelligent and the most useful New York Times pundit, at least since Frank Rich wrote his final must-read column 11 years ago. A new collection of Krugmans pieces, therefore, is a timely reminder that actual knowledge and ordinary common sense are two of the rarest qualities in mainstream journalism today.

Krugmans enemies are the zombie ideas of his books title, especially the belief that budget deficits are always bad and the notion that tax cuts for the rich can ever benefit anyone other than the plutocrats who never stop pleading for them.

The same tired arguments in favor of coddling the rich have been rolled out over and over again, by Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, even though there has never been a shred of serious evidence to support them.

These relentless efforts over five decades culminated in the Trump tax cut, memorably described by the political consultant Rick Wilson as a masterwork of gigantic government giveaways, unfunded spending, massive debt and deficits, and a catalogue of crony capitalist freebies.

Wilson also identified the billionaires effect on the nations capital. Washington, he wrote, has become the drug-resistant syphilis of political climates, largely impervious to treatment and highly contagious.

Krugmans columns act like a steady stream of antibiotics, aimed at restoring the importance of the economic sciences that have been so successfully displaced by brain-dead Republican ideology.

Very few political columns are worth reading 12 months after they are written the New York Times grandee James Reston accurately titled one of his collections Sketches in the Sand. But Krugmans book proves that he, a Nobel-prize winning economist, shares two rare qualities with George Orwell, the novelist who also wrote much of the best journalism of the 20th century: deep intelligence and genuine prescience.

The modern GOP doesnt want to hear from serious economists, whatever their politics. It prefers charlatans and cranks

Krugman is at his Orwellian best here: When youre confronting bad-faith arguments, the public should be informed not just these arguments are wrong, but they they are in fact being made in bad faith.

Its important to point out that the people who predicted runaway inflation from the Feds bond buying were wrong. But its also important to point out that none of them have been willing to admit that they were wrong.

Krugman also writes that even asking the right questions like what is happening to income inequality will spur quite a few conservatives to denounce you as un-American. And its worse for climate scientists, who face persecution for speaking the truth about our continued dependence on fossil fuels, or social scientists studying the causes of gun violence: From 1996 to 2017 the Centers for Disease Control were literally forbidden to fund research into firearm injuries and deaths.

The history of the last half-century is mostly about how the unbridled greed of the top 1% has perverted American democracy so successfully, it has become almost impossible to implement rational policies that benefit a majority of Americans.

To Krugman, an interlocking network of media organizations and think tanks that serves the interests of rightwing billionaires has effectively taken over the GOP and movement conservatism is what keeps zombie ideas, like belief in the magic of tax cuts, alive.

Its not just that Trump has assembled an administration of the worst and the dimmest. The truth is that the modern GOP doesnt want to hear from serious economists, whatever their politics. It prefers charlatans and cranks, who are its kind of people.

Even now, as the incompetent kleptocrats who have filled up the White House and every federal agency confront the greatest worldwide health emergency of modern times, they have maintained their laser-like focus on the interests of the rich. As the Guardian has reported, Millionaires and billionaires are set to reap more than 80% of the benefits from a change to the tax law Republicans put in the coronavirus economic relief package the change will allow some of the nations wealthiest to avoid nearly $82bn of tax liability in 2020.

And as the great labor reporter Steven Greenhouse pointed out this week, with Trumps latest executive order to keep meatpacking plants open regardless of the consequences to their employees, the president is literally marching many meatpacking workers off to slaughter.

Never before in modern American history has the plutocracy so blatantly embraced the idea that profits matter much more than people especially when the idiotic reopening of the economy weeks before health experts say its safe will clearly kill more poor people than anyone else.

When I was 15, I acted as the translator for my uncle Jerrys family on a tour of the grand chateaux of the Loire Valley. As we traipsed through one spectacular example of conspicuous consumption after another, my deeply progressive uncle kept repeating the same question: What took them so long to start the revolution?

If our present calamity is finally enough to force the climate-change-denying, poor-people-hating Republican party from the White House and the Senate, one can only hope the popular imagination will be stirred as it was in Paris in 1793.

Read more:
Arguing with Zombies review: Paul Krugman trumps the Republicans - The Guardian

The best way to promote a liberal agenda is to build trust in good government.

Unlike the Republican response to efforts aimed at mitigating the effects of the Great Recession in 2009, Democrats arent attempting to obstruct everything Trump and Republicans propose as the country struggles to deal with a pandemic. That alone should be a stark reminder that both sides dont do it when it comes to gridlock in Washington.

But as Ezra Klein notes, the differences between the two parties are even more stark than that. While Republicans sat on their hands and simply obstructed, Democrats are actually trying to govern.

Democrats are acting as the governing party even though theyre in the minority. Theyre fighting for the baseline policies that any normal administration, Republican or Democrat, would be begging for right now.

From the very beginning, this administration made the decision that there was no legitimate role for the federal government to play in responding to this crisis, says Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). It wasnt an accident they didnt request any money in the early days. They really believed, as they believe today, that this is a problem states and local governments should confront.

The risk Democrats take is that voters tend to credit a president with any major legislation, especially during an election year. Given the magnitude of Trumps failures during this crisis, that is less of a concern than it would be otherwise. But weve still seen him take credit for relief measures, when it was actually Democrats who did the heavy lifting during negotiations.

There are always those who think that Democrats should employ the same tactics Republicans have used to effectively obstruct any progress that could be credited to the opposition. But that ignores a fundamental difference between the two parties, as Senator Brian Schatz explained.

Its like the old saying that Republicans believe the government is incompetent and then get elected and prove it, says Schatz. They dont want the federal government to work and we do. Thats whats going on here, and I dont have a quick, facile solution to it. If we engage in a zero-sum game, well just accelerate the death spiral that is Grover Norquist and Mitch McConnell and the Koch brothers dream.

Schatz is exactly right. If you had any doubts about the fact that Democratic obstruction would play right into the hands of Norquist, McConnell, and the Koch brothers, I would remind you of what Mike Lofgrenformer Republican congressional stafferwrote back in 2011.

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congresss generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

That is precisely why a mantra of mine has been that the best way to promote a liberal agenda is to build public trust in good government.

Those differences are especially stark when, for the president and his supporters, the cruelty is the point. As Representative Pramila Jayapal told Klein about our current crisis, There is enormous suffering, and if we do not respond with the boldness and the scale that this crisis demands, then that suffering will continue.

There are probably times when promoting good government becomes a liability for Democrats who are attempting to negotiate with a party that is, as Lofgren suggested, programmatically against government. But ignoring the suffering of the American people, especially during a crisis like the one were facing now, is simply not an option.

Read the original here:
Why Democrats Govern and Republicans Obstruct - Washington Monthly

According to Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, every day that Donald Trump is on camera talking about the coronavirus pandemic the odds of Republicans seeing any gains in the November elections to say nothing of holding onto the seats that already have decreases.

As the conservative columnist wrote, Rarely have polls painted as consistent a portrait of President Trumps and Republicans standing: Terrible. In multiple polls, former vice president Joe Biden has a comfortablelead nationally, and a small but consistent lead in battleground states ranging from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Arizona (!) and North Carolina. Needless to say, if the numbers hold and Biden wins Arizona, this will be a blowout election.

With that in mind, Rubin noted polls that show that not only is the president floundering, but so are some key Republicans who normally shouldnt have to worry about being re-elected.

Writing, Non-college-educated voters, who previously were a key part of his base, are falling away, Rubin added, This does not mean Trump is a goner. It does not mean Biden is home free. It does mean there has been a considerable erosion in Trumps support, making him look more vulnerable than at any time this year. One can cite a host of reasons why now, of all times, the dam, if not breaking, seems less impervious to current events than have past incidents: Over 60,000 Americans have died and the economy is in shambles. Trumps constant presence and irrational, incoherent rants make him seem even less capable and sober.

Adding that Trump continues to self-immolate, the conservative columnist points out that the president is taking his party down at the same time.

Republican Senate Republicans polls are dreadful. An internal GOP poll fromGeorgia shows, Voters are evenly split on Trump, but [Gov. Brian] Kemps disapproval rating (52%) outweigh [sic] his approval rating (43%). [Republican Sen. Kelly] Loeffler is deeper underwater after grappling with an uproar over her stock transactions during the pandemic, with an approval of 20% and disapproval of 47%, she wrote before emphasizing, This isGeorgia, folks.

Trump could recover if, for example, there is no second wave ofcoronaviruscases, the deaths abate quickly, and states are getting back to work by Election Day. If you find that unlikely, you are in good company, she continued before explaining, Even more damaging for Trump,heis unlikely to stop being Trump. He cannot give up his daily press fix (despite stories he was going to cut back), and we know he is not suddenly going to become the voice of reason and science. Trump will be Trump. And thats the problem for him and Republicans.

For good measure, she added, In a stunning failure of leadership and governance, Republicans have been entirely unable to comfort the country and provide confidence they have a path forward. They mayfinallyhave exhausted the voters patience.

You can read more here.

then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has cut advertising rates in half, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnstons DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. Weve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. Weve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, weve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has cut advertising rates in half, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism and were investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnstons DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. Weve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. Weve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. You wont find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

See the rest here:
Republicans at risk of a blowout in Novembers election if they continue to let Trump be Trump: conservative - Raw Story

Yes, most Republicans and Democrats have different ideas about the pandemic and how the country should move forward. But there appear to be cracks in the GOP wall. There was a sizable minority of Republicans on the opposite side of the majority of their party on most questions. Not so among Democrats. Despite all the recent attention given to the ideological skirmishing in the Democratic Party during this years presidential primary, the Democrats in this survey were more unified than the Republicans.

These findings reflect a GOP fissureshowing up nationally as well. There is Rep. Peter King, R-New York, calling Mitch McConnell Marie Antoinette for the Senate majority leader's stance on the relief package. Some Republican governors have defied and criticizedPresident Trump, and vice versa. And then there are the stay-at-home protests, which are reportedly raising the hackles of some Republican leaders.

More on the poll:Most WA voters wary of reopening economy too soon

There were significant differences between Democrats and Republicans in response to 11 of the 14 policy questions in last weeks poll. Often, the partisan differences were more of degree than direction. For example, majorities in both parties agreed that the restrictions ordered by state government have worked to control the spread of the virus (93% of Democrats; 52% of Republicans)

They also agreed that the next congressional relief package should give high priority to individuals who lost jobs or work income (93% of Democrats; 80% of Republicans), as well as tohealth care systems and facilities (95% of Democrats; 72% of Republicans).

The partisan divide shows up in thinking about next steps. The most significant difference between partisans in this survey was over the risk to the country: 82% of Democrats said the greater risk was to public health by lifting restrictions too soon, while 64% of Republicans said the greater risk was to the economy by keeping restrictions on too long.

But while there was plenty of disagreement between Democrats and Republican in the survey, there was ample evidence of dissent among Republicans when comparing the results withthe actions of the partys leaders:

Granted, those are not big numbers. Overall, they represent a minority within a minority. Even so, it is politically significant that a quarter to a third of the Republican rank and file in this state disagreeswith party orthodoxy. There was no such dissent among Democrats. The highest level of Democrats opposing the majority in their party on these questions was 12%.

Nationally, the GOP is Trumps party. The glory days of socially and environmentally progressive, fiscally pragmatic Dan Evans Republicans are long gone. But there are still people among us who consider themselves Republicans who are not onboard with Trump. Are they an endangered species on the verge of extinction? Are they keeping the embers alive for a resurgence of a more moderate Republican party? Are they potential partners with centrist Democrats in some new political force?

Time will tell. As the coronavirus pandemic reshapes our society, it will undoubtedly reshape our politics as well.

Here is the original post:
COVID-19 exposes a rift in the Republican Party - Crosscut