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ROCKY RIVER, Ohio -- Ive decided its time to make a confession thats way overdue: I used to be a hippie.

Actually, I didnt consider myself a hippie, but society branded me as one because I had long hair, a beard and wore bell-bottom jeans. We were called the counterculture back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The reason I bring it up now, the 50th anniversary of the protests and shootings at Kent State University, is that the world has gone topsy-turvy. If a college student wants to be a member of the counterculture today, they should join their local Republican Party club.

You think Im crazy, right? Please hear me out.

Let me take you back to 1968 at Kent State, my alma mater. I was fortunate to receive a journalism scholarship to attend there. So, as such, I was given a personal meeting with the head of the journalism department. As we talked in his office, I noticed a handful of students outside his window carrying signs protesting the Vietnam War. I asked him what that was about. He told me not to pay them any attention. They were just communist troublemakers.

Sadly, it was near that very spot two years later, on May 4, 1970, that the Ohio National Guard acted out our nations hatred of the counterculture by killing four student protesters. Many Kent city residents said, They should have killed more of them.

Back then, the people running our colleges and other institutions were mostly World War II vets like my dad. They thought that we hippies were traitors because we were against the Vietnam War, probably the worst foreign policy mistake in American history. We called them the establishment.

Which brings me to today. Today, many establishment types in academia and the media call us conservative Republicans fascists because we believe the United States is the richest, freest, greatest country on the planet. This got me thinking about how Republicans today are treated like the counterculture used to be.

For example, way back on Nov. 2, 2006, long before Donald Trump was elected president, I read a Plain Dealer story describing some students at Oberlin College who were restarting a Republican Club that had been dormant for decades. When they tried to put up flyers publicizing a visit by conservative speaker Patrick Michaels, the fliers were covered up and defaced. (The article so upset me that I went and talked to the students, but thats another story.)

When William Kristol, another conservative speaker, was invited to lecture, his posters were even torn in half. Jonathan Bruno, the Oberlin College Republicans (CRs) president, was outraged. Radical students constantly denounce CRs lecturers as fascists, but we hear none of these detractors speaking out against this shameful vandalism, which itself smacks of fascist totalitarianism, he said in their newsletter.

To be fair, both speakers visits went off uneventfully. But I dont like being called a fascist, since my father almost died in World War II fighting the real fascists in Nazi Germany.

Fast forward to 2020 and not much has changed on college campuses. You would think that, after 62 million of us fascists voted for Donald Trump in 2016, the college crowd would cut us some slack. No such luck. They seem to have forgotten their hippie roots.

So if you want to see what it was like to be a hippie in the 1960s, try walking across any college campus in America today wearing a red MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat. See how far you get without being harassed. Maybe it would help if you put on a pair of bell-bottom jeans.

Peter Jedick is the author of HIPPIES, a novel set on Kent States campus surrounding the May 4 tragedy.

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Fifty years after Kent State, conservative Republicans are the new counterculture on campus: Peter Jedick - cleveland.com

The coronavirus pandemic has raised a host of new questions about the 2020 election. What will the economy look like in November? How do voters think President Trump is handling the crisis? How will Americans physically cast their votes? And could the current moment be so extraordinary that it outweighs partisanship and causes Republican voters to abandon Trump in November?

For the last question, at least, we can look to history for some clues. The 2008 election isnt exactly parallel to our current situation, but there were some similarities. Back then, an unpopular Republican president, George W. Bush, sat in the White House amid an economic disaster, though he wasnt running for reelection. But the environment that GOP nominee Sen. John McCain was running in may be not unlike the one Trump faces in 2020. (One important caveat: When McCain ran, the GOP had already held the presidency for two terms, and historically, its rare for the same party to win three times in a row. Conversely, its very common for incumbent presidents like Trump to win a second term.)

The 2008 election resulted in a Democratic landslide, as then-Sen. Barack Obama defeated McCain by about 7 percentage points in the national popular vote. Considering how polarized our politics are, this was a large victory by modern standards, as the chart below shows.

Democrats didnt just take the White House either. They also made huge gains in the Senate and House of Representatives, adding to their majorities in both chambers.

But Democrats didnt win because Republicans were fleeing the party or voting for the Democrat en masse McCain still won support from most Republicans who turned out that year. The 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a massive survey that asks Americans about their politics and voting habits, found that McCain won 95 percent of self-identified Republicans who voted, as well as 90 percent of independents who leaned Republican. Similarly, Obama won the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (92 and 93 percent). This partisan split is in line with results from other recent presidential elections, too.

The difference in 2008 was the makeup of the electorate: 51 percent of voters identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents while 41 percent identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning, according to CCES data.

Some of this was because Democratic identification more or less peaked in 2008 while Republican identification was at a low point. Democrats also saw strong turnout from Democratic-leaning demographic groups like African Americans, who showed up in historic numbers to vote for Americas first black president. And getting those partisans to the ballot box was vital to Obamas victory, as he actually lost among pure independents, or those who didnt lean toward either party, by 11 percentage points. Fortunately, for Obama, true independents only made up about 7 percent of the total electorate.

Of course, we dont know how many votes McCain might have lost because people abandoned the GOP before the election or because some Republicans simply didnt show up to vote. Corwin Smidt, a political scientist at Michigan State University, told me that its likely that some people switched parties because of the financial crisis or the Iraq War, but he said it was probably a fairly small share of the electorate. One study estimated that Obama may have won 15 percent of voters who said they backed George W. Bush in 2004.

Smidt told me he thought we could see some people switch parties here in 2020, though, with some Republicans leaving the party because of the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus. In fact, there is some evidence that a small share of voters have already shifted parties during the Trump presidency. In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that roughly one-tenth of Democrats and Republicans (including those who leaned toward one party) defected to the other party over the course of the 2016 campaign and in the early days of Trumps presidency. But Smidt cautioned that were still likely only talking about a small slice of the electorate who might switch parties in 2020 because Trump is so polarizing and there is such a gulf between Democrats and Republicans on most political issues. If party differences are clear, people are less likely to switch, said Smidt. And right now, he says, It is hard for people to switch.

Studies have shown that partisans are more likely to stick with their party now than they were just a few years ago, and people feel more negatively than ever toward members of the other party. Surveys also suggest that the overall share of people who identify with or lean toward each party has been relatively stable. So that means Trumps intraparty support may be just as strong as McCains was in 2008. His approval rating has been remarkably steady, and hes enjoyed very strong Republican backing throughout his presidency, with as many as 91 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of Republican leaners approving of his job performance before the 2018 midterm elections, according to CCES data for registered voters.

Theres little sign that Republicans are backing away from Trump either. A late March poll from Pew found that, among registered voters, 92 percent of Republicans approved of Trump, as did 79 percent of independents who leaned Republican. While the approval among leaners may seem low compared to the 2018 CCES data, it was actually similar to previous Pew polls that found 70 to 75 percent of Republican leaners approved of Trump.

So just like McCain in 2008, Trump likely still has very strong backing from Republicans that will almost certainly hold up even if things go poorly for him in the coming months. What we cant know, of course, is just how much a bad economy might move people away from the GOP before the election, or how many partisans might simply stay home.

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Could The Coronavirus And Economic Crash Make Republicans Abandon Trump? - FiveThirtyEight

Top members on the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) say future spending measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic should be offset with spending cuts to control the deficit.

In a letter sent to the top four leaders in both chambers,Rep. Mike JohnsonJames (Mike) Michael JohnsonConservative Republicans say COVID spending must consider growing debt House GOP lawmakers urge Senate to confirm Vought Top conservatives pen letter to Trump with concerns on fourth coronavirus relief bill MORE (R-La.), who chairs the RSC, and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) argued there is an urgent need" to address the debt.

The lawmakers said that while they understand the need to help Americans weather the financial hit caused by the pandemic, they feel the fiscal health of our nation cant be ignored.

Annual deficits were already expected to surpass $1 trillion for FY 2020 and only grow in perpetuity," they wrote, referring to the current fiscal year. "Recent COVID-19 legislation will now add trillions more debt in the next several years while federal revenues will nosedive in the midst of an economic downturn.

Congress should offset future COVID-19-related deficits. Given the present fiscal crisis, the thought of any more debt-financed spending seems unimaginable," they wrote.

The group is proposing that the growth of future spending be limited to 60 percent of the growth in federal revenue, which itself would be capped as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).

It also suggested a "debt brake" that ties spending to potential GDP.

Other proposals the group supports include automatic votes to consider the deficit reductions in budget resolutions, expanding the reconciliation process to include on and off-budget items and discretionary spending and requiring a super-majority to pass emergency spending.

It also said mandatory budget cuts through sequestration could be considered.

To rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, it will take the collective strength and effort of our entire nation, the letter reads.That same resolve will be needed to overcome the threat posed by our seemingly insurmountable debt. It is not too late for us to take the actions necessary to secure the future of America and our posterity but that work must begin now.

Banks said hes spoken with a number of his Republican colleagues in the House who have also expressed a sense of unease over the spending levels in recent bills, adding he believes there will be a stronger pushback on future coronavirus stimulus measures that dont include provisions to limit its impact on the debt.

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Conservative Republicans say COVID spending must consider growing debt | TheHill - The Hill

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HARRISBURG Republicans in the state legislature have subpoenaed the Wolf administration for documents related to its controversial coronavirus waiver process for businesses, a rarely used maneuver that could spark a legal battle with the Democratic governor.

The subpoena authorized Thursday by a Senate committee and signed by Sen. Mike Regan (R., York) directs Gov. Tom Wolf and Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Davin to produce the documents by May 8.

The Wolf administration has said it will release information on the process, but Davin last week declined to provide a timeframe.

This allowed the public perception to conclude that decisions made as part of the waiver review process were inconsistent, with competing businesses receiving differing waiver decisions, creating inequities within a single industry, Regan said during a hearing Thursday.

The waivers, which allowed select businesses to reopen despite the statewide shutdown, have been one of the most contentious aspects of Wolfs response to the pandemic because of perceived inconsistencies and a lack of transparency about how and why they were issued.

Democrats on the committee opposed the subpoena, pointing to an announcement earlier in the day by state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale that he would audit the waiver process without releasing any records. The Democrats argued that investigation would be sufficient.

This audit is warranted, said Sen. Pam Iovino (D., Allegheny), minority chair of the Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, which voted 7-4 to approve the subpoena.

Finding deficiencies merely to find fault does not serve the people of Pennsylvania, she said during the hearing. Having the auditor general do his job and find deficiencies in the waiver program to improve it must be the goal here.

But Republicans in the General Assembly have grown increasingly frustrated by the Wolf administrations refusal to make public the waiver applications as well as a list of which were approved, which were denied, and which were approved and then revoked.

The administration has also ignored a slew of formal requests for the documents from media organizations across the state, including Spotlight PA and The Philadelphia Inquirer, saying it is too busy addressing the pandemic.

Regan and Sen. Tom Killion (R., Delaware) sent a letter to Wolf last weekrequesting a trove of recordsrelated to the waivers, which were administered in secret by the state Department of Community and Economic Development.

Sen. Lisa Baker (R., Luzerne), a member of the committee, said Wolfs administration cannot reasonably expect to set the rules for shutting down the state and for secretly handing out exceptions to those rules, and then dictating the rules for reopening, without a serious level of consultation and accountability.

DePasquale said he had intended to review the waiver process, but sped up his timing in response to a letter last week from the Senates 28 Republican and independent members requesting an investigation.

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The audit began Thursday morning, DePasquale said. His office will request documents from the Department of Community and Economic Development and look at how employers reached out to the agency, who responded to the request, and if the decisions were consistent. DePasquale also said his office will determine if the waiver process needs to reopen out of fairness

This is a bipartisan effort, he said, noting the audit would not be complicated and he expected it to conclude quickly. The administration pledged their cooperation. I think everyone can tone down the rhetoric.

Wolf on Thursday told reporters he thinks the audit is a great thing.

I think the auditor generals office is in a great position to look at this and make sure that the process is fair and open, as it should be, he said.

But according to Wolf spokesperson Lyndsay Kensinger, the administration does not support a subpoena.

Its unfortunate this Senate committee took the counterproductive step of voting to issue a subpoena. The Wolf administration will review it and determine next steps, she said. The administration has committed to disclosing information about the business closure and exemption process, and recently provided testimony to the Senate regarding that forthcoming disclosure.

Wolf told reporters last week that his administration was working to wrap up the waiver process, which closed to new applications on April 3.

I think before its finished anything that brings that out into the open would give a distorted view of what actually happened in the waiver process, he said.

As of April 29, the Department of Community and Economic Development had approved 6,171 exemptions and denied 13,197, according to a spokesperson. Another 11,624 were submitted for activities as to which no exemption was required, the spokesperson said.

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, of Allegheny County, in a statement called the subpoena a waste of taxpayer resources that takes our administrations officials away from fighting COVID-19.

Sen. Lindsey Williams (D., Allegheny) painted Thursdays hearing as grandstanding for clips that will be used in future campaign advertisements and an opportunity to score political points during the pandemic.

And I want absolutely nothing to do with it, she said. Im a no vote.

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Republicans subpoena Wolf administration for documents related to controversial business waiver process - LancasterOnline

Hes got nothing.

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With the coronavirus crisis threatening to choke state budgets and force massive, economically damaging spending cuts, Republicans have responded in their time-honored fashion, by telling New York and the rest of blue America to politely drop dead.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set the tone last week when he said that any aid to state governments would amount to a blue state bailout. He suggested that instead of handing governors money, which would supposedly allow them to paper over years of financial mismanagement, Congress should just let states declare bankruptcy. On Tuesday, meanwhile, Donald Trump signaled that he might be willing to discuss aid with Democrats in Congress, but only if states bend the knee on immigration policy.

The problem with the states is that were not looking to recover 25 years of bad management, and to give them the money that they lost. Thats unfair to other states, Trump said. Now if its COVID-related, I guess we can talk about it. But wed want certain things also, including sanctuary city adjustments, because we have so many people in sanctuary cities.

Whats a bit odd about all of this is that GOP leaders are acting as if they have an upper hand on this issue, because only Democratic strongholds like New York and Illinois are in trouble. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Red states are also fiscally screwed thanks to the coronavirus, and in many cases may be in worse shape than supposedly irresponsible blue states.

Its unclear why, exactly, some Republicans appear convinced that only political entities that happen to be run by Democrats are about to experience a financial rout. Perhaps its because the biggest coronavirus hot spots have tended to be in places like New York, New Jersey, and Michigan. But economic activity has frozen all over the country as governors try to slow the pandemic, and even if Georgia or Texas attempt to reopen a bit early, that wont save them from the shockwaves of a deep national recession. Some Republicans, like McConnell, have seemingly suggested that states like Illinois are in financial trouble now because of their long-standing public pension problems. Insofar as that makes any sense, its because some states with pension issues (Illinois, Pennsylvania) havent been able to build large rainy day funds or other reserves that would help tide them through this crisis. But that list of offenders also includes McConnells own home state of Kentucky, which has one of the worst-managed pensions in the country.

And heres the thing: States that have put money in reserve are going to get bowled over, too. Even well-prepared states are going to be totally outmatched by the size of the downturns were about to see, Dan White, director of government consulting and fiscal policy research at Moodys Analytics, told me.

Earlier this month, White and his colleagues published a forecast showing that, due to the coronavirus crisis, the vast majority of states are likely to face serious budget shortfalls over the next year that will more than devour their entire rainy day fundsand that some of the worst emergencies are likely to be in swing states and in deep Trump country. Sure, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois are in trouble. But so are Florida, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Arizona, Mississippi, West Virginia, and plenty of others, including, yes, Kentucky.

Moodys

And worst off of all? That would be Louisiana, which as far as I can glean basically doesnt have an economy anymore. (Take away oil, restaurants, and tourism, and the Big Easy is in big trouble.) It could be facing a budget hole equal to 34 percent of its 2019 revenues. Without aid from the federal government, they could have to cut 30 or 40 percent of their budget, White said. Thats not just furloughing some people or laying people off. Thats changing the way you deliver basic services.

Moodys Analytics estimates budget shortfalls by estimates declines in tax revenues and increases in Medicaid spending, and subtracting them from state rainy day funds.

Adapted by Jordan Weissmann from Moodys Analytics data

The fact that Louisiana is currently facing a dark pit of fiscal despair (presumably one filled with oil that nobody wants to buy) might have something to do with why one of its Republican senators, Bill Cassidy, has bucked his party and endorsed a bipartisan proposal to provide $500 billion in aid to states. But other Republicans sincerely seem to have no idea whats in store for their constituents back home. Take Floridas Rick Scott. Its not fair to the taxpayers of Florida, he complained to reporters the other day. We sit here, we live within our means, and then New York, Illinois, California, and other states dont. And were supposed to go bail them out? Thats not right. Back in reality, his state is facing an almost 20 percent budget shortfall, the fifth worst in the country. California, on the other hand, is among the best prepared, becausecontra its reputation as a fiscal basket casethe state spent years fixing its budget and building up a rainy day fund. Its looking at a 3.4 percent shortfall.1

These projections could also be understating the severity of what states are now facing. Many arent actually allowed to draw down their entire rainy day funds in one year, and the recession could also be longer and more severe than the baseline scenario Moodys estimates. If joblessness peaks at 17 percent and lockdowns last past the second quarter, even states like Texas could start to run through their reserves and face shortfalls.

But dont let those details obscure the simple bottom line: Few if any states are going to be spared in this economic crisis. Everybody is going to need some aid. Its possible that Republicans like McConnell do actually understand this, and that theyve just been posturing for the past week to set themselves up for negotiations, as my colleague Jim Newell wrote last week. But if so, everyone should realize that, for all the bluster, the GOP is in a very weak bargaining position here. Unless Republicans are willing to leave their own states gasping for help, they cant credibly threaten to withhold it from Illinois or New York.

Would they do that? I doubt it. This isnt 2011, when Republicans used austerity to undercut a sitting Democratic president. Trump is fighting to keep the White House. McConnell wants to keep the Senate. If the country enters a depression, and states and cities have to lay off thousands of teachers and firefighters, voters are going to blame the party in power.

All of which means that if McConnell and Trump keep yammering about bankruptcy and sanctuary cities, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should offer their own simple response: Drop dead.

1 White told me that some states, like Florida, could be in somewhat better shape than these figures let on, if they have some extra reserves left over outside their rainy day funds, but it wouldnt fundamentally change much.

Read more:
Republicans Are Absolutely Deluded if They Think Only Blue States Need a Bailout - Slate