This is the day Trump finally became President. President Nixon. Without the political skills and knowledge and experience and overall qualifications for the job, maybe, but with the same sterling ethics. Man, what an unraveling, as Trump wanders the West Wing in his bathrobe, talking to the portraits, and waiting for the indictments.
Oh well, there’s always someone who thinks it’s all good for Trump.
NY Times:
House Race in Pennsylvania May Turn on Trump Voters’ Regrets
“I thought we needed a big change, and boy, did we get it,” she said ruefully outside an I.G.A. market recently. President Trump “put his foot in his mouth one too many times,” she said.
Most of the country will have to wait until November to have another say in a federal election, but Ms. Stroud and her neighbors in southwest Pennsylvania will get their chance much sooner, in a special election March 13 to fill a vacant congressional seat. And how they feel about Mr. Trump now may make a big difference in the race…
Ms. McCoy voted for Mr. Trump — “I figured it would be a change” — but she plans to vote for Mr. Lamb, because she is worried that Republicans in Washington will cut Social Security to pay for the recent tax cut. “I’m going back to my Democrats,” she said…
Judy Dulaney, 65, a retired employee of the state Department of Welfare, voted for him too, but she said she now regrets it.
“I did not like either Clinton or Trump, but I figured the lesser of two evils was Trump,” she said. “Now I’m second-guessing myself. Because he’s nuts.”
Long time readers will know these are the Trump voters I advocate recruiting and engaging with, not the insane base. And they may just win us a Congressional seat. So, there’s that.
EU commissioner, former Finland PM.
Jonathan Chait/New York Magazine:
New Survey Shows Young People Are Staying Liberal and Conservatives Are Dying Off
For obvious reasons, the broadly liberal demographic trends in American politics have received much less attention since the 2016 election. Yet the fact remains that America is politically sorted by generations in a way it never has before. The oldest voters are the most conservative, white, and Republican, and the youngest voters the most liberal, racially diverse, and Democratic. There is absolutely no sign the dynamic is abating during the Trump years. If anything, it is accelerating.
Pew:
Generations’ party identification, midterm voting preferences, views of Trump
The gap between Millennials and other generations in the midterm congressional vote is wider thus far in the 2018 cycle than in previous midterm years.
Political neophyte weighs in:
What does that guy know about politi… oh, wait.
Matt Glassman/NY Times:
The Root of White House Chaos? A Weak President
Weak presidents routinely get rolled by the priorities and goals of competing actors. Mr. Trump has experienced this regularly. Military leaders publicly ignored his policy pronouncements. Business “allies” didn’t think twice about abandoning him after he made controversial comments. His cabinet secretaries contradict him on administration policy and may have developed secret pacts of authority.
None of this means significant policy change isn’t happening in the executive branch; indeed, there is ample evidence of a strong conservative shift in many agencies. There’s just little reason to believe Mr. Trump is anything but a bystander.
CNBC:
Dark money group America First Policies is running a pro-Trump polling operation. Here is an inside look at its secretive work
Last summer, America First Policies took an unprecedented step for a politically allied nonprofit: It started using three top polling firms from Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to produce a steady stream of Trump-focused polls, strategy memos and reports that continue to this day. The three firms initially put their own logos on the polling they did for the group, but over time the America First Policies logo gradually replaced theirs on some of the documents.
America First Policies, which actively advocates for policies favored by Trump, denied that any of the documents, many of which are labeled "confidential," were intended to benefit the White House or the president. "We have very clear lines and high walls between us and the RNC or the administration or the Trump campaign," Montgomery said.
Yet the lines between the group, the White House and Trump's campaign are often blurred.
Max Boot/WaPo:
The Trump administration is in an unethical league of its own
The Department of Veterans Affairs spent $122,334 for Secretary David Shulkin and his wife to take what looks like a pleasure trip to Europe last summer; Shulkin’s chief of staff is accused of doctoring emails and lying about what happened. The Department of Health and Human Services paid more than $400,000 for then-Secretary Tom Price to charter private aircraft — a scandal that forced his resignation.
Why would Cabinet members act any differently when they are serving in the least ethical administration in our history? The “our” is important, because there have been more crooked regimes — but only in banana republics. The corruption and malfeasance of the Trump administration is unprecedented in U.S. history. The only points of comparison are the Gilded Age scandals of the Grant administration, Teapot Dome under the Harding administration, and Watergate and the bribe-taking of Vice President Spiro Agnew during the Nixon administration. But this administration is already in an unethical league of its own. The misconduct revealed during just one day this week — Wednesday — was worse than what presidents normally experience during an entire term.
Ariel Edwards-Levy/HuffPost:
The Last 2 Weeks Have Convinced Americans Gun Reform Could Happen
Half now say it’s politically feasible to pass stricter gun laws.
Polling in the aftermath of a mass shooting in the U.S. usually follows a well-worn pattern. The first surveys, conducted with the tragedy still flashing across TV screens, show a brief uptick in concern about gun violence, and maybe a spike in the national appetite for tighter firearm restrictions. Then, as soon as the story fades from the headlines, the increase is gone.
This time looks different.
A HuffPost/YouGov survey taken immediately after the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, found the same familiar uptick. But in the days since, the numbers have continued to shift in favor of congressional action on guns. There’s also a rising belief that Congress could actually take such action.
Read this from Alan Levinovitz and gun culture:
It's fascinating to me, reading @DavidAFrench on gun culture in @TheAtlantic, just how much his description of it parallels "wellness" culture (see also @jameshamblin's recent piece on active shooter drills).
A brief analysis.
Other things that happened this week: