Shot: The NYTimes, “In Presidential Campaign, It’s Now Terrorism, Not Taxes“…
… The assault on Paris has thrust national security to the heart of the presidential race, forcing candidates to scramble and possibly prompting voters to reconsider their flirtations with unconventional candidates and to take a more sober measure of who is prepared to serve as commander in chief.
Until now, the campaign, when it did not descend into insult comedy on Twitter or become mired in biographical disputes, was focused on a subtler sort of threat to the country’s way of life: economic and racial inequality, for Democrats, and a less-defined fury about a loss of America’s identity, for Republicans. But the bloodshed in the heart of Paris posed concrete questions about how the contenders would respond to an urgent and seemingly metastasizing threat…
Less than three months before the Iowa caucuses, the attack may prompt some Democrats who have had misgivings about Hillary Rodham Clinton to come to terms with her given the potential for a general election overshadowed by terrorism. Republicans, whose primary is far more volatile, may now ask whether candidates like Mr. Carson, who claimed at one point that China was becoming involved in Syria, and Donald J. Trump, who suggested the battle against the Islamic State could be left to Russia, are wise choices in a world where Western capitals can be made into killing fields.
“Voters are very dubious about our ability to remake the world, but they’re very serious about us defending ourselves,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. “They have a very low tolerance for being frightened.”…
Chaser: Joe Trippi, in the LATimes:
There is plenty of anger swirling around the 2016 presidential campaign. Anger at Washington, disdain for Wall Street, disgust with career politicians. Anger is all the rage, and both parties clearly have candidates that are successfully riding the wave. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump would be where he is without the substantial number of fed-up voters in their parties. Everyone can see that. It’s obvious.
But loathing doesn’t account for the differences we are witnessing between the GOP and Democratic Party nomination fights. Fear does. Or the absence of fear. Although both sides are angry, Republicans are more angry at the Republican Party leadership than they are afraid of Democrats, while Democrats are more afraid of Republicans than they are angry at the Democratic Party leadership. That’s why Trump and Ben Carson, extreme outsiders, are dominating on the right while Hillary Rodham Clinton, the consummate insider, is dominating on the left…
This year, fear within the Democratic Party of a GOP win is off the charts. The GOP has majorities in the House of Representative and the U.S. Senate. For Democrats, losing the presidency in 2016 would be catastrophic. With control of both the executive and legislative branches of government, the GOP would be able to roll back all of the accomplishments of the Obama administration and fill any number of Supreme Court vacancies, guaranteeing a rightward shift in the makeup of the court for a generation.
Bernie Sanders can tap into the very real anger at Wall Street and Washington all he wants, but he’s not going anywhere; the party rank and file isn’t going to risk the 2016 election by nominating an untested democratic socialist. Fear has a way of making voters put ideological purity aside and rally around the most tested, most viable general election candidate: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The fact that many Republicans are probably snickering at those last few sentences helps explain the starkly different race for the GOP nomination. There is a complete absence of fear within the GOP rank and file right now. Having won the House and the Senate, having taken over most state legislatures, the party feels as if the wind is at its back. Are they sick of Barack Obama? Absolutely. Are they sick of Clinton? Certainly. But they don’t fear either one of them. They’re convinced that the country could not possibly want another four years with a Democrat in the White House.
It’s the absence of fear that is driving Jeb Bush into the ground and holding Marco Rubio, John Kasich and others from gaining any real traction. Why compromise for someone who calls illegal immigration “an act of love,” or someone who once supported a path to citizenship, if there is no way you can lose? Why not go with the guy who wants to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants, then let the “good ones” back in?
Of course, there’s still time for the GOP to get scared straight. As Clinton’s strengths become more obvious, and they will, fear within the GOP will rise. Republican primary voters could abandon Trump and Carson for Rubio, Kasich, Christie or even Bush — just as Democratic primary voters abandoned Dean for Kerry in 2004.
The establishment candidates just have to hope that fear will overcome loathing sooner rather than later.
Elizabelle
NYTimes reporter is Jonathan Martin. He’s a Republican whisperer, hired away from Politico, I believe.
cokane
Trippi nails it, for sure
Elizabelle
Jonathan Martin’s bio. Pure Villager.
Bobby Thomson
Trippi’s piece is a transparent attempt to justify blowing the lead in the 2004 primaries. It can’t be that people just preferred what the other guy was selling. It has to be irrational fear.
MattF
@Elizabelle: James Hohmann at the WaPo has a similar background. Wrote a clickbait article yesterday about Clinton ‘losing’ the debate.
Brachiator
GOP voters are angry at the GOP political mainstream because they have failed to deliver what the core voter wants. They want an anti-abortion Christian nation with low taxes, illegal immigrants rounded up and sent home, the gold standard and whatever other fantasies of that Reaganesque shining castle on the hill their hearts can imagine. They are angry at the GOP political mainstream for not impeaching or otherwise preventing Obama from governing.
The Tea Party shock troops in Congress were supposed to get it done, but failed. Now, the voters are willing to (for now) give Trump or even Ben Carson a try.
Even if the voters fall back on a more mainstream choice, they will expect to see their deepest desires fulfilled.
Stella B
The righties may never develop that fear of losing as long as their media “unskews the polls” and tells them that they’re winning.
MattF
@Brachiator: It’s getting hard on the grifters– they have to keep pushing rightward, they have to placate the evangelicals, they have to endorse ever-loopier economic doctrines. And now, with terrism comin’ back, they have get ever more belligerent. Not that I’m particularly sympathetic, but it all makes things increasingly antsy in the real world
Jeffro
Shorter GOP: we got nothin’ to offer you voters, so we’re gonna ramp up the Fear Factor to 11 and see how it all shakes out.
Every wingnut friend and family member I know is going berserk about Syrian refugee terrorists, ISIS on the march thanks to Obama, and Hillary’s yoooouuuuge gaffe at the debate showing her true colors.
Democrats ignore this kind of stuff at their peril. It’s not like we’re going to ever satisfy the loons, but it’s important to push back hard & loud so that the old “Dems are weak on security” narrative doesn’t take hold again.
Amir Khalid
Why would the Democratic party fear for its chances of holding the White House in 2016? It’s the Republicans whose nomination race is being dominated by a pair of unserious candidates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Objective journalist has deep understanding of facts on the ground
Also, too, has some form of continental drift (and constitutional convention) occurred while I wasn’t looking and Paris is now part of the United States? Because I”m seeing a lot click-bait about Obama’s “failed” defense strategy.
@Elizabelle: I think he’s also married to long time MTP producer (Job description: “Senator McCain, would you like another donut before we go live?”), Betsy Fischer.
Roger Moore
@cokane:
I think he’s right, but if the Republicans aren’t afraid of Hillary Clinton, they’re in for a big surprise.
Joel
@Amir Khalid: the stakes are high, but the odds are in our favor. It’s worth reminding people how high the stakes are.
Interestingly, a major terrorist attack is the kind of event that might give Bush III a second wind. Let’s hope not.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
These candidates are unserious only until they start winning primaries.
jl
A little off topic, but the BS about refugees is BS, and I wish the big Dems (Sanders and HRC) would be more aggressive about it. What i have read and heard on reliable news is that one or two of the terrorists in the Paris attack may have been refugees, or had some ID of refugees. But at least as many of the terrorists were born in Belgium and France. We don’t know yet if the attacks were initiated by refugees or home grown terrorists.
So, the GOPers should be called out for being pants pissing panicky cowards running around like chickens with their heads cut off (or pretending to do so for cynical narrow partisan political gain). They should also be challenged to give proposals about what they would do about the refugee crisis, since that is as big a problem and as big a potential threat to security as a few terrorists with guns and bombs. Well over a million refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, I suppose Turkey equipped to handle that, but what about Jordan and Lebanon?
Western countries are either going to have to take a lot of the refugees or send a lot of money. GOPer idiots won’t go along with either approach, I am willing to bet on that.
Why doesn’t a Dem point out what running around like pants pissing panicky chickens with their heads cut off got us the last time: the disaster of the Iraq invasion. I’m disappointed with the passivity and defensiveness of the Dem response so far. I’m a Sanders mega-donor, a little over a 100 bucks. I’ll write him and tell him to get on the stick or get out of the race. Dammit, he’ll listen to me (/snark).
germy
@Elizabelle:
I like that term. “Republican Whisperer”
So many times we’ll have the TV roundtable discussions, and some villager pretending to be an objective journalist is going on very subtly about dems in disarray or HRC’s untrustworthiness, and I’ll do a quick internet search, and see they got their start writing for some RW publication, or are members of some extreme think tank.
Citizen_X
Yeah, how did that conviction work out for them in 2012? Nobody tell them that the polls aren’t really skewed, please.
MattF
@Roger Moore: A lot of them appear to be assuming that she’s going to be indicted.
dedc79
@Jeffro:
Yeah, the Iraq War apologists are waking from their 7-year slumber, dusting off their war drums, and starting to play.
A sampling from NRO’s The Corner:
Obama’s ISIS Strategy Puts Our Own Civilians at Risk
Spare us the Sanctimony on Migrants, President Obama
ISIS “Nihilist”? No, And It’s Not “Contained” Either.
Dem Refusal to Name ‘Radical Islam’ as Enemy Fails Laugh Test on MSNBC
Mike J
@Bobby Thomson:
That supposes Dean ever had a lead to blow,. I don;t believe there was ever a time that had the primary/caucus been held on that day, Dean’s voters wold have turned out in greater numbers.
Villago Delenda Est
Bullshit. GOP voters LIVE to be in fear. And
peoplefascist vermin like Gingrich know it. “Home of the Brave” my ass.What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Brachiator: If they ever got what they wanted they wouldn’t want it anymore. Scaled back Social Security and Medicare, infrastructure that’s in ever greater disrepair, not being able to take hypocritical advantage of family planning options? These are not things the Republicans really want even though they want them. They want us to stop giving stuff to poor people and they’re convinced that that’s where all their tax money goes. When they find out that they’re the people the money has been going to and that getting what they think they want means they’re going to get less of it, they are going to be royally pissed off. Maybe it actually has to get that bad to get better but lets hope not.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Saw the headline on Hohmann’s piece. Did not click.
Wankers. On steroids.
Archon
@Amir Khalid: The answer is we don’t have a rational electorate, at least with those that bother voting. If we did the current version of the Republican Party wouldn’t exist right now. Even in high turnout elections like 2008 where it was positively irrational to vote Republican, the breakdown was 53-47 rational voter. A slim majority of rational voters in a high turnout election isn’t exactly awe-inspiring.
Don’t get me wrong I like our chances because nobody has explained to me who the Obama08/Obama12/GOP16 voters are but we are an October black swan event/Hillary medical condition/nationwide bad weather on election day drastically lowering turnout, from a catastrophe.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
It’s not so much that the Democrats are worried about their chances or that the Republicans are necessarily sanguine about them. It’s that the Democrats fear the consequences of losing the White House while the Republicans see the opportunities it gives them. Thus the Democrats see a Democratic president’s main job as being blocking the Republican crazies. Anyone can wield a veto pen, so that makes electability the primary concern. In contrast, the Republicans see the president as being in position to advance their agenda, so they want the candidate with the most extreme agenda to push.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
I’ve heard similar arguments to Trippi’s about Republicans lack of fear of the electorate, but it was directed at the House of Representatives.
Basically, the argument goes, Republican Congressmen can be Grade-A Assholes, because as long as they do not lose in a primary to an even nuttier candidate (see Cantor, Eric), they are pretty much guaranteed to be re-elected. They do not fear whatever bad approval ratings they get, as a whole, because their seats are safe. EDIT: They can be as nutty as they want to be, hold purely political hearings for no good reason other than to be assholes, etc. and there are no serious negative consequences.
I think Trippi’s pushing the same logic to the Republican Presidential race. Republicans can afford to support someone like Trump or Carson, because they’ve gained so much ground everywhere else that they can let their crazy-flag fly in the Presidential race, because they are secure everywhere else.
It makes sense to me.
If the Democrats lose the Presidency and Republicans get a strangle hold on government, we’re going to experience a huge rightward shift, with disastrous policies that will take even longer to undo than what Bush, Jr. managed to “accomplish”, because we’re starting from a weaker position.
Democrats are really worried about keeping the Presidency, because they do not have strong prospects at other levels of government.
Botsplainer
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
So you’ve met my mother, then.
Roger Moore
@jl:
The problem is that gives an answer the Republicans don’t like. If the problem is with home-grown terrorists, then the obvious goal would be to avoid radicalizing Muslims who are already here, i.e. not oppressing them at every opportunity. That’s exactly what they don’t want. If the problem is with refugees, then it gives us an excuse to exclude them, which is exactly what the Republicans are after.
Elizabelle
@germy: The term is more appealing than the critter it describes.
Someone had a great comment (this morning? last night?) about how shabby our media is — the Paris attacks is Exhibit A — and that people are more susceptible to bad information from elsewhere because they can’t trust the mainstream media, for years now.
France 24 has been a revelation. NPR is nowhere near as good, now that’s it’s gone Republican whisperer.
These truly are the people who would tell us that Hitler would be containable and useful in organizing our society. He wears a uniform. He’s decisive. We cannot believe the other things said about him. It’s too outlandish.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: Well, GOP voters do have a very low threshold of fear. Everything and anything causes them to piss their pants.
The Guardian is reporting that Daesh’s $40 million a month in income from petroleum sales is in jeopardy due to the loss of a key transportation corridor. Hitting them in their heart just means that energy will be diverted to the peripheries.
mclaren
TRANSLATION: “Sweep it all up, things related and not.” — Don Rumsfeld, 2001
Good luck with that strategy.
gene108
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
You do not appreciate the scale at which Republican cognitive dissonance works.
They are perfectly capable of thinking the reason they are no longer getting government benefits is because those benefits are being siphoned off to illegal immigrants, foreign aid payments and/or payments to poor minorities and not because Republican policies hurt them directly.
MattF
@Elizabelle: But when you’re disregarding the things that Hitler says about Hitler, there’s a problem.
mclaren
@Elizabelle:
Actually, it’s the American electorate that’s shabby and American media is more susceptible to bad information from elsewhere because they can’t trust the infantile fear-crazed American people.
mclaren
@beltane:
There, fixed that for ya.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
I think Republicans would have a different reaction. Or at least their voters. Maybe the politicians can keep a lid on the worst of it.
They would push to “Make war against Islam” because you can’t tell a good Muslim from a bad Muslim, so better to round them all up, for everyone’s safety.
And to make sure America is never tainted by Islam again, make sure we have more public displays of Christianity than you can possibly imagine.
beltane
@mclaren: Just prior to the Paris attacks, millions of Americans were terrified of the threat to their religious freedom posed by an insufficiently festive coffee cup.
mclaren
@Amir Khalid:
I remember Democrats reciting this line back in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was running for president.
The American people are an unserious people. A trivial people. An easily duped people. An infantile people. A small-minded people. A shallow people. A narcissistic people.
Unserious infantile narcissistic presidential candidates make a perfect match for the American electorate in the aftermath of some tragedy like Paris.
JMG
I think the crisis point for our country as a democracy will come when fear-crazed civilians push our military into one unwinnable war too many.
mclaren
@beltane:
And don’t forget the dire threat to medicare from the federal government. GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY MEDICARE!
Low-information voters are a real thing.
mclaren
@JMG:
You’re 50 years too late, buckaroo. That happened back in 1965, with Vietnam.
Annoying cookies
Long time lurker taking the time to beef about the new site. Please fix as I’m really tired of deleting cookies every time I want to visit. Very about done here.
Trying to read the blog on my iPhone 5 or on an iPad. With both I have to clear my cookies or I can’t get updates.
srv
Face your fear: What’s the most drunken binging city in your state?
jl
@Roger Moore:
@Elizabelle: @beltane:
Watching the Obama presser this morning, the US corporate media (which apparently now is pretty much all of it, NPR included) are idiots. ISIS, Daesh, whatever you want to call them has lost 25 percent of it territory, lost Sinjar, and Mosul is now isolated, and they’ve lost some major revenue streams as beltane points out. But the press seems unaware of this and listens to BS sketchy security experts, hordes of which seem to descend on the networks yelling that nothing is happening. I think we need more philosophers and welders and fewer BS security experts blathering on the networks. I believe Adam Silverman when he said in comments that the producers line up whatever nincompoop and fraud is willing to say what the producer thinks the audience wants to hear rather than people with true expertise and reliable credentials.
Josh Marshall has a good post about it this morning, with some good links.
What To Do About ISIS
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-to-do-about-isis
Obama, Biden, Sanders, HRC, all of them need to provide more pushback against the BS. Really, how many times have the vile GOPers fear mongered and demagogued on national security, and then produced disastrous incompetence, fraud and malfeasance when they had a chance to do something rather than just BS for partisan political gain. I am really sick of it. Disgusting situation.
scav
The free movement of Guns must never be impeded, but the movement of people — refugees — those others must be locked down and out immediately based on nothing but tenuous knee evidence. Climate change is still unproven though. Of course.
JMG
@mclaren: I mean officially, with tanks around the White House and Congress and a military “government of national unity.” CNN would eat that up, too.
Bobby Thomson
@Jeffro: what gaffe ?
germy
@jl:
I’m thinking maybe the folks with real expertise and credentials are too busy to sit around all day in green rooms waiting for their cue to spout for the blow-dried tv talkers.
Southern Beale
“Anger is all the rage.”
I want that on a T-shirt.
Iowa Old Lady
Foreign news sources like France 24 and the BBC sound less biased because they’re less interested in the US horse race. Not totally uninterested, of course, but less so. Also we don’t hear their dog whistles.
Bobby Thomson
@jl: fake ID. The same one was found on someone else during a raid. Meant to be found and having the desired effect.
beltane
@jl: Our media discusses major foreign policy issues with all the same seriousness they discuss Blake Shelton’s and Gwen Stefani’s relationship. In the wake of 9/11, I noticed at least two instances of disreputable people being treated as respected experts (these were two nutters known personally to me), I concluded that all their “experts” are probably nothing of the sort.
The greatest threat our country faces is posed by the rouges’ gallery of shills, crooks, and Hollywood rejects that infest our media establishment.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If you’ll forgive the language, CNN’s Jim Acosta:
-Is the ED drug not working for you?
-How long ago did your wife run off with an Olympic swimmer?
-Should you just enlist your son to fight this time?
Bobby Thomson
@Mike J: oh?
germy
Suezboo
Dear BJ Fixers,
Sorry to do this but it’s the Spelling Nazi again. Righthand column : Donate to BJ, spelled “dontate”. Please fix, causing continuous twitch in my right eye. Thanks for all your hard work.
Oh, and I am very pleased with my Packers and Rodgers.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren:
Those people were fools and I told anyone that thought that they were idiots. Reagan had been a twice elected governor of largest state(by population) in the country and had twice run for the Republican nomination and almost won in 1976.
mclaren
Disappointingly, even Paul Krugman is now time-warping back to Munich 1938. Krugman warns that the West must not ‘appease’ the Islamic jihadists in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
This illuminates a new meaning of the word ‘appease’ I was not previously aware of. `Appease’ now apparently means `stop bombing their weddings parties and killing 98% innocent civilians,’ whereas previously the word `appease’ meant “grant territory to, and concede to the political demands of, a threatening military power.”
The actual meaning of the word “appease” in the context of the Paris attacks would be more along the lines of: “Declare France to be an Islamic caliphate, agree to nuke the state of Israel, and impose sharia under penalty of death on the French population.”
I do not hear anyone, anywhere suggesting that.
That’s appeasement.
Refraining from bombing and napalming and drone-striking and sending out JSOC death squads to murder vast numbers of people in Syria and Pakistan and other Islamic countries in the middle east, 98% of whom turn out to be innocent bystanders, and only 2% of whom are verified “high-value targets,” does not fit any rational definition of “appeasement.”
I don’t see why a reasonable response to these attacks isn’t: 1) tighten up immigration from middle eastern countries into the West; 2) stop bombing and drone-striking the world’s poorest middle eastern countries; 3) work on becoming oil independent and leave social cesspools like Saudi Arabia and Syria alone to fight their duel to the death in a sewer between equally fanatical Sunnis and Shiites.
If countries in the middle east want to torture and behead their women for the crime of being raped, if they want to throw teachers out of third-storey windows for suggesting that every word of the Qur’an might not have been personally dictated by Mohammed, if they want to force famous actresses to flee the country because the actress did a photo shoot without a hijab (veil), if they want to languish in the 7th century A.D. with religious leaders issuing fatwas stating that the sun rotates around the earth, fine. Let ’em. The West can simply go on its business without having any contact with the middle east.
It’s not as if the middle east is some fabulous font of art or science or technology or fashion or anime or TV shows or movies or anything else the West really wants. The West is interested in their oil. That’s it. That’s all. The number of Nobel Prizes won by middle eastern scientists over the last 100 years is zero. Zilch. Diddly. Nada. Bupkiss.
According to the U.N. World Development Council, the countries of the middle east are among the poorest and worst-educated and most socially regressive societies in the world. Only the boys get educated, and then most of their ‘education’ consists of memorizing a 1200-year-old religious document. They stone their own women to death for the crime of getting raped, for cripes sake. This is not a recipe for a successful modern industrial economy in the 21st century.
Why is it not a perfectly reasonable grand strategy for the West to become energy-independent and tell the people in the middle east that if they want help modernizing and educating themselves and bringing their societies into the 21st, we’re glad to help… But short of that, they’re on their own to fight it out to the death about which cousin of Mohammed should have been the official successor in the 7th century A.D.? (Which is the real origin of the split between Sunni and Shiite religious sects.)
I really seriously don’t understand why America’s grand strategy to deal with Islamic fundamentalist terrorist should involve sending U.S. troops to guard the opium poppy fields of Afghan warlords.
slag
Did anyone see that Looney Tunes when Elmer Fudd suddenly decides to tear up his contract with Warner Brothers, stop chasing Buggs Bunny, and go fishing instead? Eventually, Buggs terrorizes Fudd into realizing that there is no respite from their co-dependent relationship and that they are destined to be interlocked through an eternity of crisis and conflict.
I’m pretty sure that cartoon is a documentary.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
While I am not sold and Sanders as president, to equate him to Trump and Carson like that artical did is just beyond the pale. It’s not that hard to picture someone who is a US senator dealing with the problem ISIS poses.
catclub
Meanwhile, Bernstein inserts some evidence in the mix and suggests that foreign policy has not yet
driven elections.
Maybe not so much.
Although the next article said it changes everything. We shall see.
jl
@Bobby Thomson: You have a link? That is very important if true.
I’ve always seriously doubted the Syrian refugees would be a channel for sending ISIS/Daesh terrorists to missions. But I have wondered whether ISIS/Daesh would try a false flag operation to sow confusion among its enemies.
Well, if it is true, I suppose it will be reported sooner or later, even by our worthless idiot media. And the GOPer pols will look like the fools and dupes they are, liable to be punked by anyone competent enough to operate in the real world. ISIS/Dash are vile and evil, but sadly they are at least as competent as our current crop of GOPers, wich is a very low bar.
trollhattan
@mclaren:
Wow, you used up all the lett
beltane
@Iowa Old Lady: Our media is not just biased, they are stupid. They are quite obviously ignorant people lacking even a basic grasp of history, geography, and world affairs. The BBC and France 24 may be, and probably are, biased in their own way, but they are not so aggressive in insulting the viewers’ intelligence.
glory b
Something I always like to point out in these discussions: The majority of Muslims in the United States are African American. The real face of Islam in America looks a lot like Congressman Keith Ellison.
What do they propose to do about them?
trollhattan
@jl:
I think it’s more likely they move folks about using a variety of whatever paths are available and if a giant diaspora is underway, it will be included. It’s prudent, as they’re not putting all their yeggs in one basket, as it were.
ThresherK (GPad)
@germy: The cable onscreen listings do not reflect that in my town yet. And I only looked because I heard of the episode switch.
For all: Is there a term combining the right’s patented ejaculatory warlust and simultaneous pants-wetting?
germy
@mclaren:
Energy independence IS a perfectly reasonable strategy. But cleek’s law kicks in if any liberal anywhere suggests that maybe we should transition to renewables.
Their oil is a big ALL.
goblue72
@gene108: As Democrats should be. I’ve noted it before here – the Democratic Party right now is weak, not strong. And the obsessive focus on the White House by rank and file Democrats is not helping things. Team Blue has all its chips in one basket – the Presidency. Team Red has its chips diversified over several branches and levels of government – SCOTUS, the House, the Senate, the majority of state legislatures, and the majority of state governorships.
Maybe its a cultural thing due to liberals affinity for a strong central government, but we give far far far too little focus on taking back the states. Look at this blog – every day on average we see multiple FP posts about what some obnoxious or stupid thing that some random GOP Presidential candidate who won’t be making it past March 2016 says or did. Meanwhile, when it comes to the state of play in terms of seizing back power in Congress, its close to a nothingburger. And the crickets are even louder when it comes to the state level. There are some exceptions (Kay does a great job bringing up state level issues in Ohio). But they are exceptions.
The rank and file needs to get as obsessive (or more) about taking back the states. The 2020 Census will be here before we know it. That means redistricting will be here before we know it. Which means Democrats need to have a game plan NOW on how to take back the states. 2020 will be a Presidential election year. That means a year when our turnout tends to be higher which can help downticket. We won’t have that downticket decennial opportunity after that for another 20 years. We don’t make the most of that opportunity and we could realistically be looking at 30 years of GOP gerrymandered dominance.
Bobby Thomson
@jl: link
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Naked links will lead to moderation, have some modesty and put some clothes on them(click the link button, paste the link, add descriptive text, hit the link button to close the link). Think of the children, jl.
Patrick
@mclaren:
GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY MEDICARE!
There were actually people holding up this sign during the ACA debate. No regards whatsoever for folks under Medicare age with pre-existing conditions. Man, there are some selfish people out there. “I got mine, S***w the rest of you”.
Brachiator
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I don’t think this is true. Religious fundamentalists want to outlaw abortion, restrict contraception, outlaw gay marriage and reinstate anti-gay policies, and policies which foster anything other than their stunted view of heterosexual marriage. And if they fully got these things, they would see it as a return of real American values.
With respect to economic matters, things are more twisted. But in the end, there is a strong core of GOP voters who believe that if you stop giving stuff to blacks and Mexicans, there will magically be more for hard working white people. Because, even poor white people are never really poor, they are just temporarily derailed from the American Dream by nonwhite free-loaders.
Infrastructure? Republicans don’t give a shit. You want that road fixed? Make it a private road. If it needs repair, the free market will take care of it.
Too often, things just get worse.
Iowa Old Lady
@beltane: I hear you. I wonder if it’s our eternally operating election system that’s the culprit. In our system, an election is always in process, and maybe that does focus on the horse race more. What drives me crazy is how trivially that focus play out on personalities rather than issues. It’s like junior high. Listening to today’s press conference, I wanted to put on my mom hat and say, “We’re talking about how to deal with ISIS, not Obama. Can we get back to the issue?”
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@jl:
I can’t second this strongly enough. Why the almighty fuck are Democrats not screaming about what big, gutless, fearful, whiny cowards the Republicans are? Being “tough” and “strong” is their supposed strength, but all their tough talk is, if you listen to it, talk about how scared they are. I mean, shit, people don’t like cowards. They don’t respect them. And, yet, somehow, the Republicans have made a name for themselves with “tough talk” that all boils down to asking Americans to shiver and shake under their beds because scary people want to hurt them. Why the hell don’t we point this out, for fuck’s sake?
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: my link was not naked, unless I was doing things too quickly and forgot to put its clothes on.
@trollhattan: But, if the reported refugee ID is false and planted, that is evidence that it is much better to get assets in position using more reliable and efficient methods, and then use false flag tactics to smear the refugees in order to sow panic.
Besides the physical hazards and unpredictable timing of relying on plants among the refugees, you can’t even be sure where they will end up or when they will be in a position to do anything. And if ISIS/Daesh is moving to terrorism to throw their enemies off balance because our battle against them is having an effect, though that is going at a very frustratingly slow pace, then time is of the essence in getting terrorist attacks under way.
Matt McIrvin
@glory b: I recall looking into that a little while back: I believe African-American Muslims aren’t the majority of American Muslims any more, though they are still a large component.
Gin & Tonic
@ThresherK (GPad): Wargasm?
ThresherK (GPad)
@BillinGlendaleCA: I will look far and wide, but to our media betters (sic) isn’t every Pres election always 1980, 1988 or 2004? Nothing seems to disappear down their allegory hole like a Dem win.
germy
@Gin & Tonic: Wahgasm
Jeffro
@jl:
What I said in #9.
They appear to be doing it. Let’s see our House and Senate Dems do the same.
mclaren
@germy:
Actually, the folks with real expertise and credentials, like Andrew Bacevich, all quit the U.S. military and the State Department in disgust at America’s useless self-destructive “nuke their ass and take their gas!” military & foreign policy. The only people left in the Pentagon and State Department nowadays are people who don’t speak any Arabic, don’t know the history of the region, and can’t locate the countries they’re talking about on the map.
You know, people like John Kerry: “John Kerry’s Syria remarks: Mr. Magoo school of diplomacy,” The Los Angeles Times, 10 September 2013.
Mike J
@Bobby Thomson: Polls aren’t the same as caucuses. Had you held the caucus the day that poll was taken, Dean would have still lost. People that don’t show up aren’t voters. Voters are the only people that matter in elections.
ThresherK (GPad)
@germy: My wife is from Worcester. Five minutes conversing with any of her old friends and the R’s go out the window.
That said, I will take wahhhgasm.
mclaren
@goblue72:
You’re 100% correct. I’m seeing far too much sanctimonious self-congratulatory smugness among the front-pagers and commentariat on this forum (and most other Democratic sites) about how the Republicans are in such “disarray” and are flailing so badly.
Republicans control 35 state legislatures, most of the governorships, and both houses of congress. As someone else remarked, the Democrats would be in great shape if they were in such bad “disarray.”
Sherparick
Kevin Drum talks about the reappearance of the 101 Chairborne Brigade. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/return-warblogs By the way, I wonder who you all think is the most vile, disgusting candidate in Republican clown car. I lean toward Ted Cruz as someone without any redemptive human qualities, but I suppose cases can be made for Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson. Those are my top five in depravity.
Shakezula
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
First we have to invade …
p.a.
@Jeffro: worked in ’04
BillinGlendaleCA
@Shakezula:
And then we can save France from the French.
Patrick
@mclaren:
Yup. The over-riding key should be to get people to vote in bigger numbers in mid-term year elections. That’s where the Dems are getting killed.
Anne Laurie
@glory b:
I don’t really want to know what the people who voted for Tom Cotton would do to “solve” that particular problem, frankly. There’s a point where “exposing the worst instincts of our fellow Americans” edges towards the Radio Rwanda solution.
Hoodie
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): This is a decent point. If I have one quibble with Obama and Clinton, it’s that they’re too reasonable, although I think Obama was close to calling Jeb Bush an unAmerican, panicky bedwetter for suggesting denial of entry to Muslim refugees. It was also interesting that he basically compared Jeb unfavorably to W.
Chris
@mclaren:
I heard a former CENTCOM head (Zinni) talk a while ago about the occupation of Iraq and where they were getting their advice (he was out by then, but still knew quite a few people in the military). Apparently, it took until 2006/2007 (the post-midterm-elections shakeup) before the military people on the ground were finally able to stop depending on the Rumsfeld-vetted politically appointed “experts” and get new advisers who actually understood the region. The interesting thing was where they had to go to find these experts; some of them were fairly obvious like counterinsurgency experts, but you also had people like an anti-Iraq-War activist, a Palestinian rights activist, etc.
Because that’s how far out of the “mainstream” you have to go nowadays to find enough people who know the culture, language, politics, etc. Which, of course, is why we had to wait until 2006/2007, when the war was not only going badly but making headlines and eventually handing the Repubs their worst electoral defeat in a generation, before it became possible to reach out to them.
There’s a real problem in terms of the echo chamber/disconnect effect in foreign policy. For the government, but as much for the public itself.
Patrick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003, there was a lot of animosity in the US towards France. I saw one sticker on some idiot’s car that said “First Iraq, then France”.
It is amazing that just 12 years later, these same neo-con, teabagger type folks have gone from hating to loving France. And I bet none of them have even visited France.
p.a.
@Patrick: Demographics a key. Dems = younger, poorer. Make election day (all national not just presidential) a paid national holiday so people can afford to vote.
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This, 1000 times this.
The U.S. media and public are now frothing at the mouth in outrage that America failed to prevent domestic internal attacks in France.
America is the world’s globocop, and if a woman gets raped by Islamic jihadis in Dafur, or if a mosque gets blown up in India, it’s now America’s fault!
Holy shit.
Do our media and our electorate not realize how completely unrealistic it is to expect the U.S. military to prevent any terrorist attacks anywhere in the world all the time, forever?
Matt McIrvin
@Patrick: Wasn’t Steven den Beste arguing that we were already, in some sense that was no doubt obvious to him, at war with France?
jl
@Patrick:
SQUIRREL!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSUXXzN26zg
Patrick
@p.a.:
It’s not going to happen (heck the GOP is making it harder to vote), so the Dems need to figure what other ways to make it work.
Burnspbesq
If this article accurately describes ISIS’ idiosyncratic brand of Wahhabism, then Western boots on the ground in Syria would actually be welcome, as a necessary prerequisite for the Apocalypse.
It’s easy to describe Baghdadi as a loon, but his lunacy is internally consistent and deeply rooted in the teachings of the Prophet.
jl
@mclaren: When ISIS/Daesh started beheading people, Chris Matthews said the US had to do something (he had no idea what) now now now! because it insulted and humiliated Joe and Josephine six pack watching the TV in middle America, and Joe felt emasculated.
That is the level of analysis on our worthless corporate reality shows we call the news and public affairs programming.
cokane
@Sherparick: Distinction without a difference.
Honestly, a completely Republican federal government, regardless of how moderate their president (remember W. Bush campaigned as a moderate) would be a disaster. Never forget how bad the Bush presidency was — and they more or less had total control for 6 out of 8 years.
mclaren
@Burnspbesq:
Baiting America into sending troops into, and bombing, impoverished third world countries has been the basic Islamic fundamentalist jihadi strategy for the last 14 years, since the fall of the twin tower in 2001:
Source: Wikiquote, Osama Bin Laden.
Iowa Old Lady
Question about the R governors saying they won’t allow Syrian refugees in their states: Can they do that? If a refugee is admitted, does that person have to stay in place? They can’t move?
ETA: Oh hey, wait! After posting this, I clicked over to GOS and found a front page article saying no they can’t. ie the govs can’t refuse to admit the refugees
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
That guy’s still a thing? I thought he hadn’t written anything in decades.
I mainly remember him for a hilariously bad article in the context of a national strike in France. He had it all figured out that the unions were plotting to cause the collapse of French society so they could institute a communist regime. But, he reflected thoughtfully, this would probably fail and a fascist regime would take power instead. Or maybe an islamist regime.
ETA: written anything in *A* decade, that is.
jl
I’m not going to try to post all the links from the news, but looks like the terrorist ID’d as a refugee was done so on the basis of fingerprints, not the passport, which apparently is suspicious. So right now looks like real refugee in involved who may have been using a fake passport.
Still from reading the news, looks like most of people involved in planning and executing the plot were home grown citizens born in Belgium and France. So, the hysterical focus on refugees is still BS IMO.
Edit: that is, very good chance the attacks would have still happened regardless of a refugee’s involvement.
Peale
@Burnspbesq: Yeah. It’s great to understand the leader, but I’m not certain what good that information does us.
catclub
@cokane:
But really just 4, 2003-2007.
By comparison, Obama had less than 2 years with similar control.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: Not any more, really, but this was back around 2003.
trollhattan
@jl:
My thought is all methods of moving folks around have inherent hazards and none is guaranteed to get specific people to a specific spot. They have “staffing” redundancy (in the US sense, not the UK sense) for their missions and can alter plans to suit who is available. Am remembering 9/11 was initially planned for ten planes, not the four eventually commandeered. How large was Paris intended to be versus the actual events? Why was there only one train gunman rather than several?
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: They had essentially total control from September 12, 2001 on, because from that point through the next few years politics was 100% about war and terrorism, and the Congressional Democrats were going to roll over on anything important. The 2002 midterm just made it official.
mclaren
@jl:
General Anthony Zinni has also stated when the jihadists start beheading enough American tourists in third-world countries, it is a “threat to America’s interests”:
Source: “Q&A: Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni on mistakes Obama should avoid in assault on Islamic State,” The Dallas Morning News, 12 September 2014.
A much more sensible response to jihadis beheading American tourists in the middle east would be to issue a strong travel advisory for U.S. tourists thinking of vacationing in the middle east, and/or actually refuse to allow travel from U.S. airports from U.S. airports to middle eastern tourist destinations deemed too dangerous for American citizens.
Far-right hawks will retort that I am advocating isolationism.
Yes, that’s exactly right. America needs to isolate itself from centers of pathology like Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and other third-world countries where the rule of law is breaking down and chaos has wrecked the nation-state and left nothing behind. Moreover, American tourists should not be taking vacations to places like this, or to countries bordering on those failed states.
John Boyd, one of America’s greatest military thinkers, proposed in his classic “Patterns of Conflict” talk at the pentagon that America’s grand strategy should be to isolate centers of decay & collapse and violence in the world, while strengthening America’s ties with our kindred democracies. This grand strategy seemed to work pretty well when Dwight Eisenhower practiced it as ‘containment’ in the 1950s. Then John Kennedy came in and foolishly tried to make the world safe for democracy by invading third-world countries and turning Vietnam into a laboratory of freedom. Since then, America has periodically tried the same thing, and it has always turned into another Vietnam quagmire.
I don’t see why Eisenhower’s containment strategy shouldn’t be used today. JFK’s strategy of foriegn intervention failed, Eisenhower’s strategy of containment succeeded. We should go with the winning strategy.
dedc79
CNN with some ridiculous Washington/ISIS clickbait on their home page.
MattF
@Sherparick: Well, ignoring the ‘minor’ candidates. But Huckabee and Jindal say things that are astonishing– and although neither of them has a chance of winning the nomination, they (and Cruz) define the ‘evangelical’ platform and the evangelical platform is a basic part of ‘Republicanism’ these days.
I apologize for the out-of-control air quotes, but it’s unavoidable.
jl
@mclaren: I don’t think Eisenhower is a good example of an isolationist. He had his preferred methods of intervention, and he did quite a few of them, which led to same kind of trouble as the supposed activist JFK. Thought I think using JFK as an example of anything must be speculative, since we only really know how he performed in the Cuban missile crisis. My understanding is the Bay of Pigs was inherited from Eisenhower and JFK decided to OK the operation that had been planned and recommended by Eisenhower’s experts, and what JFK would have done wrt to Vietnam if he had lived is speculation.
mclaren
My favorite insane quote so far has to be Jeb Bush’s assertion that “this is an organized effort to destroy Western civilization…”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but after the Paris attacks I’m certainly ready to give up fire, water, electricity, democracy, technology and the internet, and go live in a cave in bear skins under sharia law. 120 people dying in Paris is definitely the end of the world as we know it, and now there’s nothing left but a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
That fact that Jeb hasn’t been universally laughed off the stage with howls of ridicule is the saddest part of this whole sorry spectacle.
rikyrah
Been saying this for awhile. There was a ME country behind 9-11. And, it WAS NOT IRAQ.
It was the country that fully funded the schools where they teach
‘DEATH TO THE WEST’.
SAUDI ARABIA.
…………………….
To Defeat ISIS, We Must Call Both Western and Muslim Leaders to Account
And that includes the Saudi kings whose funding of Wahhabi doctrine gave rise to the scourge of Islamic extremism.
By
Laila LalamiTwitter
http://www.thenation.com/article/we-cannot-defeat-isis-without-defeating-the-wahhabi-theology-that-birthed-it/
Cervantes
@mclaren:
Eisenhower’s strategy of not intervening in Vietnam lasted from February, 1954 through roughly April the same year.
rikyrah
I consider this water is wet news.
…………………
November/December 2015
The Second Racial Wealth Gap
White Millennials can often rely on their parents for financial assistance. For many black and Hispanic Millennials it’s the other way around.
By Mel Jones
……………….
My father’s passing was unexpected. And so was the financial burden that came with it.
For many Millennials of color, these sorts of trade-offs aren’t an anomaly. During key times in their lives when they should be building assets, they’re spending money on basic necessities and often helping out family. Their financial future is a rocky one, and much of it comes down to how much—or how little—assistance they receive.
A seminal study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives on wealth accumulation estimates that as much as 20 percent of wealth can be attributed to formal and informal gifts from family members, especially parents. And it starts early. In college, black and Hispanic Millennials are more likely to have to work one or two jobs to get through, missing out on opportunities to connect with classmates who have time to tinker around in dorm rooms and go on to found multibillion-dollar companies together. Many of them take on higher levels of student debt than their white peers, often to pay for routine expenses, like textbooks, that their parents are less likely to subsidize.
“Student debt is the biggest millstone around Millennials, period, and an even larger and heavier one around the necks of black Millennials,” said Tom Shapiro, director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy. “It really hits those doing the right thing. [They’re] going through all the hoops.” He explained that, unlike in previous decades, when college tuition was drastically lower, the risks of educational costs are now passed down to the individual.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember_2015/features/the_second_racial_wealth_gap058468.php
MattF
@mclaren: I’m starting to think that Jeb! has a superpower– he can make any political position sound ridiculous.
Woodrowfan
@Botsplainer: we should name our next fighter plane or aircraft carrier “Poor People” so we can honestly say that’s where we are sending our tax dollars.
Woodrowfan
@Cervantes: not to mention not intervening in Guatemala, Iran, Lebanon, etc, etc.
Mike J
@Brachiator:
This just isn’t true. The roads I take to work are vital for a strong economy and should be kept in tip-top condition. Roads I don’t use are a waste of money, a gift to either the fatcats or the lazy poor.
Redshift
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, that’s definitely the most laugh-out-loud quote in there.
goblue72
@jl: Ike had 900 U.S. military “advisors” in Vietnam. By 1963, JKF has increased that to 16,000. So, while Kennedy didn’t “start” it, he escalated it from primarily a situation involving foreign / military aid, to one involving a U.S. invasion force.
Redshift
@Mike J: And roads that will run near some real estate bought by a congressman that will substantially increase its value are absolutely vital.
mclaren
@jl:
My understanding is that Eisenhower approved the Bay of Pigs operation but only up until its initial failure. After that point (mid-October 1960) if Eisenhower had continued with a third term, he would probably have shut down the Bay of Pigs:
Source: Wikipedia article on “Bay of Pigs operation.”
Eisenhower flatly turned down attempts to send U.S. troops into Vietnam.
Source: The History Place, the Vietnam war.
JFK bit on both hooks, and got caught.
Chris
@jl:
IIRC, Ike pioneered the CIA/covert action/friendly dictator thing in Iran, Guatemala, Zaire.
I always thought that might’ve come from his World War Two memories – having been responsible for sending thousands of soldiers to their deaths, the promise of an alternative way to “conquer” or “secure” countries while spending a lot less blood or money or public attention would definitely have an attraction to it, I imagine.
(Problem being, these operations ultimately just kick the can down the road – it’s why Iran eventually got mad enough to throw a revolution, and why Zaire/Congo is still a complete basket case).
Chris
@goblue72:
Kennedy always seemed to me to be basically “Eisenhower, only more so.” Like Ike, he came to power by accusing the previous administration of being soft on communism (Ike might’ve helped to gut McCarthy, but that was after riding the Red Scare into office), and at least at first scaled up on his predecessor’s Cold War projects.
rikyrah
@MattF:
BWA HA HA HA AH AH A
mclaren
@Chris:
Sadly true.
Looks like Obama has moved back to the “black ops” model of dealing with foreign policy problems, while Hillary espouses the JFK foreign invasion model.
Neither seems to work well for America in the long run.
MattF
@Chris: The Congo has a history of misrule that goes back to the 19th century. Look up Mark Twain’s “King Leopold’s Soliloquy.”
Gimlet
HuffPost
More than half a dozen state governors have come out against President Obama’s plans to relocate several thousand Syrian refugees within the United States. Some have pledged to actively resist settlement of these refugees. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), for example, signed a letter to Obama that begins “as governor of Texas, I write to inform you that the State of Texas will not accept any refugees from Syria in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack in Paris.” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) issued an executive order instructing all “departments, budget units, agencies, offices, entities, and officers of the executive branch of the State of Louisiana” to “utilize all lawful means to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the State of Louisiana while this Order is in effect.”
The problem for Jindal, Abbott and the other governors opposed to admitting refugees, however, is that there is no lawful means that permits a state government to dictate immigration policy to the president in this way.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: The only reason to be optimistic about that “water is wet” story is that, now that wealth inequality, crushing debt and an uncertain future are issues for increasing numbers of young white people, maybe it will finally get the attention it deserves.
goblue72
@Chris: Oh certainly. I just think its not all that unreasonable to point to Ike as a legitimate alternative. We’ve been sending military aid in the form of money and equipment to various countries and regimes since the cows come home. How much do we sent to places like Israel and Egypt every year? How much military equipment gets sold to the Saudis every year? But we don’t classify those kind of primarily financial and advisory interventions as of the same nature as actual “boots on the ground” a la Granada, Panama, Gulf War, Yugoslavia, Iraq/Afahnistan, etc. And for good reason.
And in that context, Ike didn’t commit much in the way of “boots onna ground!” during his 8 years in office. Money – yes. Military equipment – yes. Sending James Bond’s less successful peers in the CIA – sure. But a material level of troop deployment? Nope.
In pretty sharp contrast to JFK. Or, frankly, Truman. (Not arguing whether the Korean War was necessary or not – just that American troops got sent there under Truman’s watch). Ike’s administration was focused on ending that conflict from day one. And his deployment of U.S. troops overseas was incredibly modest compared to Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush….
Peale
@Gimlet: Yeah. But apparently there also aren’t laws that prevent people from picketing refugee camps and “resorts and spas” and busloads of unaccompanied if they come from Mexico. I’m sure that the same applies to Syrian refugees. I don’t even know if it is illegal for the state of texas, say, to organize protests of refugee housing. The candidates for office certainly know how to work those crowds.
EriktheRed
@Sherparick:
Definitely Cruz.
beltane
Where did everyone go?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@jl:
So the real answer is to ban immigrants from France and Belgium?
/snark, in case it wasn’t obvious
Citizen Alan
@germy:
I’ve been thinking for the last week what an extraordinary coincidence it was that the Paris attacks should happen one week after the conclusion of a Doctor Who two-parter about an alien terrorist who wants to cause a major terrorist event so that the humans will attack her people and radicalize them into joining her extremist group. It ended with the Doctor talking her into surrendering and participating in a peace plan, and she was essentially pardoned for her role in murdering thousands of humans and nearly starting a genocidal war. If Paris had happened two weeks earlier, I don’t think it would ever have seen the light of day.
Citizen Alan
@goblue72:
Look at it this way: If the Presidency in 2016 lets Team Blue replace even one of the Fearsome Five, that’s SCOTUS in our column. An aggressive 5-4 liberal SCOTUS gets us reversal of Citizens United and possibly a legal argument against gerrrymandering, which can eventually get us the other things. How else are we going to do it?