Apparently the only reason Trump lost in Nevada was that the entire population of California, every one of them an illegal alien, pulled up in old people buses to gamble and bingo and drink and vote for Hillary. They then took way too long picking out what to eat at the buffet before piling back on the bus back to Cathedral City. You can talk to anybody, they will tell you.
They also took all the ashtrays.
White House senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, really, just ask anybody.
I can tell you all right now that unless there is an economic disaster and medical insurance catastrophe, 2018 might not be a very good year for Democrats. We are highly unlikely to win the Senate–indeed, we are likely to wind up with fewer Democratic senators than we have now–and the House might be a wash, maybe a few more Democrats or a few more Republicans, but we will not take the House. We might well expand our governorships, and maybe regain some of the legislative seats we lost last year (I believe we lost a thousand seats across the fifty states, an absolute calamity that few Democratic voters are even aware of). Perhaps if some vast and horrible scandal overtakes Trump then things could be different. Barring that, given how Trump’s supporters are spread across lots and lots of rural and small town America while Democrats are crammed into urban and suburban districts mostly on the coasts, there will be more districts with a Trump majority than with anti-Trump majorities. Rural voters are over represented as rural districts have smaller average populations than urban districts. And of course as far as the Senate goes, small states have the same number of seats as big states. So we will at best chip away at the GOP majority in the House, but in the Senate, 2018 is the year of the rural voter. And as Millennials move to where the jobs are, in the big city megalopolises found mostly along the coasts, the average age in these rural parts keeps aging, and older voters–us baby boomers–just adore Donald Trump. Only a third of the senate is up for grabs, but alas most of the states in 2018 are in those aging rural and small town states where Trump did really well. That’s just the way it rolls. This mess is unlikely to end until 2020, provided we don’t mess that up again. It might not end until 2024, by which time a whole lot of baby boomers will have died off and Millennials will be hitting that age when people finally start to vote regularly. Some candidate who probably none of us have heard of now and is thoroughly progressive will win that year, and our long national nightmare will be over. I’ll be 67.
I think many of us–maybe most of us–have forgotten that Betsy Devos’ purpose is to essentially shut down the Dept of Education. She wasn’t brought in to run the place but to dismantle it; not to support public education but to begin its replacement by private education. And she could be very good at this sort of thing. It would be like putting a hardcore pacifist–Father Philip Berrigan, say–in charge of the Defense Department. The goal would be to reduce the department and its policies to the lowest, least intrusive level possible. You have to understand that. That’s why, to her partisans, all the objections to her lack of expertise were completely irrelevant. Because hopefully there will not be much of a department left to run anyway.
The same thing with the head of the EPA. And HHS. They don’t need to know how to maintain, all they need to do is tear down. This is revolution. It’s not reaction. It’s revolution. We are the counter-revolution. This is as deep and fundamental a struggle as there has been in this country, as profound as the change brought about by the Reagan Revolution and the New Deal. The thing was, both FDR and Reagan swept the electorate and Congress in mighty waves. Trump won with three million fewer votes than the loser, and holds a small lead in Congress. His power now is based almost completely on the terror among establishment Republicans of the hold that Trump has on his base. And that base includes most–perhaps two thirds or more–of the Republican party. That is, when Republicans face their primary voters, they will be looking at almost all hardcore Trump supporters. And if Republicans in the House turn against Trump, it is assumed that they will be swept away in the primary by rabidly pro-Trump voters who throw all their support to a pro-Trump challenger who will be backed to the hilt by a vengeful Donald Trump.
Just about every single Republican member of the House faces this problem. Only a third of the Senate does (only a third of the Senate’s six year terms are up for election every two years), though all but one of the eight GOP Senate seats coming up in 2018 are in states that Trump won strongly (Nevada being the exception.) It is this, and only this, that keeps the entirety of the House GOP and all but a few of the Senate GOP licking Trump’s boots every day, no matter what he says. And it is this, and only this, that is Trump’s source of political power right now. But as long as Trump holds the GOP in congress by the short hairs like this, just about every outrageous cabinet pick and every executive order and every crazy tweet and every idiotic foreign policy stumble will be supported by this Republican Congress. And unless Trump’s base cracks–and there’s nothing saying even blatantly treasonous revelations about he and Putin could shake their frightening devotion–Trump will still maintain this hold on his party. This is why he seems to play to his base only. His devoted followers represent maybe a third of the electorate, but they are eighty or ninety per cent of those who vote in Republican primaries. And that is all Trump needs to carry out his revolution. Successful revolutionaries are rarely popular with everybody. But they know who in power to shoot to get their way. Of course, unlike Steve Bannon’s role model Lenin, Trump can’t actually execute anyone. But he can tweet with deadly accuracy. The first Republican congressman who gets out of line will find that out.
What struck me about Trump’s insane notion that we will take Iraq’s oil–to the victors belong the spoils, he said–is that the US doesn’t need that oil. We import only 35% of our oil now, and less than 20% of our imports come from the middle east, and number that keeps falling. The other 80% comes from the western hemisphere–Canada, mostly, but also Mexico and Venezuela and I think Colombia. So this Iraqi oil would be exported to other countries–Europe, Asia–and would need massive infrastructure investment after a decade and a half of war. It would also require the permanent presence of US troops to protect it from angry Iraqis. This is sort of a throwback to the way Europe, America and Japan divided up chunks of pre-WW2 China into economic zones, administered by each country and protected by their own troops, while not actually taking possession. Any way you look at it, the idea is a net loss for the United States (not to mention Iraq) but a gain for elements of the oil industry. Exxon for instance. Meanwhile, the price of oil is dropping steadily, and Trump plans on opening up more U.S. lands for oil production, loosening regulations on fracking, and reviving the coal industry, all of which will push the price per barrel downward. Expanding alternative energies–despite Trump, who apparently doesn’t like them–are also putting increasing downward pressure on the demand for oil. And then there are higher gas mileage automobiles and the increasing popularity of electric and hybrid cars. Gas stations are closing down for a reason–people don’t need as much gas as they used to. All of which make oil from costly investments like seized Iraqi oil fields far too expensive amid the global glut of oil. Economies like Russia’s and Venezuela’s are tanking for a reason–global supply exceeds global demand. The art of the deal, I guess.
I keep thinking of Russia, of Russia….
I am thinking that at least part of the reason that senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham folded on Rex Tillerson is that without Tillerson there is no State Department presence in the White House. Foreign policy would be controlled by ultra-nationaliist Stephen Bannon, who wrote Trump’s extremist inauguration address, and National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, who is under investigation for his contacts with Russia and whom much of the intelligence community (both in the US and internationally) assume is a Russian intelligence asset. Keep in mind that both McCain and Graham, as senators, have been briefed on the investigation into Flynn and know much, much more than either the press or public. The notion that they have to approve a nominee for secretary of state who is also close to Vladimir Putin must turn their stomachs, but intelligence probably shows that, unlike Flynn, there is no evidence that Tillerson is actively colluding with the Russian government. And Tillerson, at least, judging by his answers to the senators during his hearing, might provide a moderating hand. Right now we look to a general named Mad Dog Mattis, as secretary of defense, to be the sole moderating force in the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
Funny how the classically simple American inaugural parade–honor guards, brass bands, fifes and drums–were not enough for Trump. He wanted tanks and cannons and missiles and thousands and thousands of soldiers in perfect ranks, while overhead wave after wave of fighters and bombers buzzed the crowd. He didn’t get them.
The pictures like this from the inaugural parade are nuts, as those are the bleachers that were around the Presidential viewing stand. Obviously these seats were to be distributed by the Trump transition team, and obviously nobody bothered. It is a stunning display of organizational incompetence. Who was in charge of this? And what are they doing now, that Trump is president? Are they in the West Wing? Do they have a portfolio? Are they anywhere near the nuclear codes? I heard that the Trump people refused to use any of the professionals who organize these events every four years. You can tell.
Put a bounty–say, a hundred thousand dollars, or a half million even–on verified copies of Donald Trump’s tax returns and they’ll appear soon enough. I’ve been waiting for some website to do this. TMZ would be perfect. They’re sleazy enough, have the cash, and would love the notoriety. It’s not that there is just one copy of each missing return secured in a safe under The Donald’s bed. There are multiple copies, some on paper, some digitized, perhaps some even online, that are available and worth a helluva lot of money to the right buyer. Some one has to be greedy enough, or desperate enough, to need that money. And inquiring minds want to know.
There’s been a dramatic change in tone today from the Trump White House (aside from Kellyanne). Much less combative. At the same time the background murmur around the investigation into contacts with Russian by the Trump campaign is growing louder. Intel people and journalists both hint at big things in the offing, and then change the subject. There is something happening just beyond the 48 hour press cycle. Something seemingly enormous.
I keep hearing that less than 50% of Americans voted in 2016. Untrue. 55% of the voting age population (VAP) voted, or 137 million out of 251 million. When you include only the voting eligible population (VEP), which excludes non-citizens, mostly, and felons in some states, that total drops to 231 million meaning that 60% of all the population eligible to vote did vote. That’s not a bad number.
The number you commonly see, though, is the voting age population (VAP) number, which comes to 55% this year. That is actually a higher than normal number. It’s lower than 2008, but higher than 2012. In fact, since 1972 only five elections have had more voters. The 60% turnout hasn’t been reached since 1968, the last of five times since 1932 it went above 60, though it never got hit 63% (and it hasn’t been above 70% since 1900). On the other hand, it has only dropped below 50% three times: 1920, 1924 and 1996.
The highest turnout streak was from 1952 to 1968. Only one of those five elections dropped below 60%. The New Deal-WW2 generation (dubbed The Greatest Generation) voted in very high numbers. And the kids who were born in the low birth rate 1932-45 years (labeled, sadly, The Silent Generation) voted in high numbers too. Together they made the Ike-JFK-LBJ years the high point in voter turnout. Goldwater was buried in 1964 in a turnout of nearly 62%. Indeed, it was only when the FDR voters began dying off that the Reagan Revolution’s assault on FDR’s social programs (as dreamed of by Goldwater’s followers twenty years earlier) went into high gear, as they were its most fervent supporters. Their kids, not so much.
You can see when you look at the numbers that when the vote was lowered to 18 from 21, in the 1972 election, the turn out plunged a few points (the 18-20 years olds that year voted for Nixon, too.) Not many of those enfranchised kids bothered to vote. And turn out remained low as baby boomers flooded the electorate, bringing down the average in presidential elections to 52%. It wasn’t until Gen X and Millennials came flooding in that the numbers began to rise into the mid 50 percentiles again. They vote more than Boomers did at their age. But unfortunately for them, Boomers have finally hit that 55 and up age where we vote like crazy.
Hence Trump.
Brick's Politics 