GNR Annex---The Tired of the pessimistic bean counter pundits edition.
All over the country, from television bean counters up to and including Nancy Pelosi, there is this ongoing and irrational fear that, somehow, Trump will find a magic formula late in next year’s race and use it to overcome the Dem candidate, whomever THAT might be. This fear is apparently holding Pelosi back from permitting an impeachment inquiry, as yet. It leads to supposedly wise and knowing comments that current national pole data can easily be reversed by Trump’s clever conspirers and liars, and that the Presidential raise is still close, because, after all, Trump is at around 41-43% favorable. It’s all horseshit, for a variety of important and virtually irrefutable reasons:
--The massive turnout advantage Dems are going to have, including the growing “Trump as Hitler “ meme;
--Massive evidence of our advantage with independent voters;
--The lack of a Republican set of platform/policy issues for them to run on;
--Trump’s inevitable feedback loop, under which his behavior gets worse, he gets more criticism, and hos behavior gets even worse,
--The large proportion of voters who have turned “never Trump;”
--Trump’s massive disadvantages with a variety of cohorts, from women, to minorities, to young voters, to suburbanites, to fiscal conservatives who see the amazing lack or emperor’s clothes;
--Trump’s demonstrable incompetence which has led to near-war with Iran;
--All of the promises which worked in 2016 but turned out to be lies;
--The massively growing importance of climate change to a growing number of voters;
--The high likelihood that the economy will weaken at least somewhat between now and the election
--The continuing importance of healthcare;
--The increasing evidence of Trump’s reliance on swamp things; From the Times’ David Leonhardt:
When Americans are asked what the country’s biggest problem is, the answers vary a lot by political party. Democratic voters say they are more concerned about income inequality, climate change and Donald Trump. Republicans mention illegal immigration, terrorism and the deficit.
But there is at least one subject that members of both parties — and independents, too — consistently cite as a serious problem: corruption.
--Growing evidence that a large portion of the electorate is actually pretty progressive, from the esteemed Robert Reich
www.alternet.org/…
“Surprise! The ‘center’ in US politics is very progressive;”
--On a related note, growing support for actions to improve wealth and income equality;
--Strong support for infrastructure expenditures, which excludes the Rethugs;
--The utter lack of any new or fresh campaign themes for Trump or the Rethugs to run on; and, of course...
--The massive evidence that will come out of House hearings, with strong cooperation from judges to make this evidence available (see: Hope Hicks). This includes Russia, conspiracy, obstruction, counterintelligence, and all sorts of crimes yet to be put on display which will relate to his taxes and bank records;
--Growing warnings on SCOTUS and women’s health issues, up to and including the awful stunt going on in Michigan;
www.huffpost.com/...
The State Where Even A Democratic Governor Can’t Stop Abortion Bans
Facing the veto pen of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, anti-abortion rights groups in Michigan have an unusual back-up plan.
--And on, and on, and on.
With all of this, we are supposed to tremble, and watch out about the risk of a major Trump comeback. Imo, it’s horseshit, and I continue to believe that poll results for Dems remain a significant undercount. Imo as well, it’s going to be great fun watching some of Trump’s buddies in the Senate and in state races try to justify their support for his behaviors. That’s the best news from all of this: LET them believe this nonsense, and position themselves accordingly.
And BTW, even some of the Civiqs data suggests a Dem undercount when it comes to Trump: Dems at -11% favorability and Rethugs at -31% favorability.
Oh yeah, and this:
The idea that starting an impeachment INQUIRY would help get Trump re-elected makes absolutely no sense.
--An inquiry would help focus the electorate on Trump’s behavior.
--An inquiry would help get more rapid and more stringent rulings from the courts on testimony.
--People like Mueller would have less of a case for resisting testifying if the testimony was part of an impeachment inquiry.
--There is absolutely no reason why an inquiry would have to be followed by handing over the outcome to the Senate.
--There is so much material that Mueller never covered, that would likely lead to post election indictments of Trump and some of his family and cronies. Counterintelligence, bank records, tax records, emoluments. Trump himself has suggested that the New York material won’t read well.
--Use the existence of the inquiry as a way to force Trump’s cronies to testify. That includes Barr, McGahn. Few people are going to be able to stand up to the threat of a contempt charge.
This is Lawrence Tribe’s suggested strategy: hold an inquiry, use it to generate information and political publicity and get help from the courts, but never give the results over to the Senate. I suspect that Pelosi does this eventually. Waiting is frustrating, to be sure.
Btw, I add four last uncounted advantages:
1) The Rethugs are going to look awful, desperate and incompetent in the Mueller hearings;
www.alternet.org/...
Republicans are spooked about Mueller’s testimony — and they’re preparing to trash him.
With Mueller set to testify to Congress on July 17, Politico reports that Trump’s leading Republicans defenders in the House are putting together a new battle plan that will finally expose the Mueller investigation once and for all as the fraud it has always been.
I think this is a simple recognition that when Mueller goes in front of the cameras and answers the Democrats’ questions, his honest and straightforward answers are not going to jibe with the narrative that has been offered by the White House and attorney general William Barr. In other words, they know that narrative will immediately become obsolete.
The cast of characters that will be leading the charge against Mueller is comprised of world-class idiots—come up to the stage, Louie Gohmert!
and
2) The Trumpian feedback loop will get much, much worse after the hearings. He has no one on his staff who can keep him from going batbleep.
3) In this state, he and the Rethugs will be completely incapable of putting together a rational budget or keep from shutting down the government.
www.vox.com/...
Congress’s high-stakes budget fight to avert an economic crisis, explained
Trump needs Democrats to strike a deal on budget caps and a debt limit. He’s escalating tensions.
The deadlines are building; unless Congress acts, the United States is on a path to economic crisis. But Democrats still don’t see a willing negotiator in President Donald Trump.
Come October 1, the government will not only run out of funding and shut down, but the current government budget caps will expire, automatically triggering roughly $120 billion in across-the-board cuts to domestic and military programs. Meanwhile, after breaching the debt limit in March, the Treasury Department is already taking extraordinary measures to ensure the United States doesn’t default on its loans.
There’s some good news: Both the White House and leaders in Congress appear interested in averting such a crisis. Republican leaders met with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin this week to discuss an opening offer for Democrats, and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly been advocating for a middle ground deal on budget caps and debt ceiling. Pelosi said she hadn’t seen what Republicans agreed to.
“When we have been engaged in conversation ... we were making some progress,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday. “But then they kind of backed away from it.”
4. We will end up with a presidential candidate who can kick Trump’s ass at any debate. I don’t think that’s Biden, btw—more likely Harris or Warren, or perhaps Mayor Pete. Any of these (and several others) can stand up with Trump and feed his lies back into his mouth, in ways Hillary could not.
So, this gets back to my methodology from last year: the real Dem advantage equals what the polls show us, plus a massive turnout advantage fueled by rage and great grass roots work; plus everything that is yet to come that isn’t in the numbers, yet. Plus, in this case, fear of SCOTUS.