Folks over at Red State are unimpressed and unconvinced by Donald Trump’s insistence that Republicans have “no choice” but to vote for him because of concern about the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is at a tipping point, divided 4-4 between conservatives and liberals, it could soon have a progressive-minded majority for the first time in decades. For socially conservative Christians, this has the potential to end the rationale for their participation in politics. At the end of the first term of a Clinton presidency, it’s likely that the ideological balance of the Court will be 6-3 or even 7-2. That would put the hope of overturning Roe v. Wade so far off in the future that the mission would lose its power to inspire action.
Therefore, no group should be more receptive to Trump’s message on the necessity of voting for him than the Christian conservatives at Red State. But they’re not buying it because they have other principles that are just as important to them.
The Republican coalition as a whole has been trying to gain an edge on the Democrats through the Court by weakening the labor movement, gutting the Voting Rights Act and knocking down barriers and limits to large and unaccountable political donations. Therefore, both the party operatives and the business interests that utilize the party to further their agendas should be receptive to Trump’s argument.
But they’re not as receptive as you might expect. Most of the party establishment is feeling homeless precisely because they can’t in good conscience support Trump. Meanwhile, corporate America wants no part of Trump’s form of religious and ethnic bigotry or Mike Pence’s homophobia. They don’t want his trade protectionism or immigration policies, either, and that only adds to their indifference to the Supreme Court argument.
The Conservative Movement has lost the will to fight using the tools they’ve been using to fight.
Trump’s pleas are falling on deaf ears.
“…business interests that utilize the party to further their agendas should be receptive to Trump’s argument.”
I don’t think bidness Republicans have a big problem with the Court as it is. Does anyone think Dem justices would open a can of whup-ass on Google for anti-trust? Would it ever even occur to HC’s AG?
In fact, the biggest anti-trust gun out there is filing suit in Europe against Google, not here.
Trying to strengthen labor in the evolving gig economy might be like pushing on string while the monopsists are so powerful.
This is the main reason why I was willing to go along with Warren as veep, just to have a chance to be in Clinton’s ear.
But believe me, we’re already in her ear in a big way and now that Warren is sold, and Warren and Clinton are exchanging ideas regularly, and Podesta knows what we’re doing, the anti-trust thing could be on the march.
THANKS! I really needed to laugh today.
So, obviously it wasn’t worth your time to follow the link.
What’s funny about signs that the Democrats are re-vitalizing anti-trust protections?
Justice Department Moves To Block 2 Big Health Insurance Mergers
David Sirota’s reporting did something useful.
Garland is quite supportive of anti-trust.
Link if anybody wants to follow it up.
A mixed bag, imo. A problem with giving standing to the public and a willingness to protect monopsists from state anti-trust?
I think after Obergefell and Whole Women’s Health, it’s clear that even replacing Scalia with another… uh… Scalia isn’t enough to deliver the rulings they want. The Republican Party as a whole may have a tremendous investment in Citizens United and Shelby County. but I don’t think they have nearly the same degree of culture war valence.
The really weird thing is nobody seems to much care about Heller and MacDonald, which look like they’re going to be whittled down to virtually nothing if this goes on.
Heller, and MacDonald need to be reversed outright. They are horrid and, worse anti-historical and anti-constitutional decisions. Better examples of intellectual dishonesty I cannot imagine.
Care to expand?
“Trump’s pleas are falling on deaf ears.”
OK, I will grant this, although I do not believe it.
It is July 29. There is August, Sept, Oct to go. As time goes on, the ducks will align, and justifications for a Trump vote will arise. In Oct, revisit this question. You will see far closer to a traditional breakdown in voting preference.
Trump has a lot of stuff going for him. Nothing is written as of now.
This would be true if this was a normal republican vs democratic race.
But this is a Trump vs republican vs democratic race. He will not pivot, he will not be circumspect.
We will get August, Sept, and Oct of full blown stupid, with ‘from Russia with love’ as the sweetener.
Plus he has no infrastructure.
Sure, he will get his 45%. But that’s not enough.
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Yeah, without a campaign staff or a half-assed half-witted one, he’s not going to do well.
The author at Red State ties in with the article Booman linked to yesterday by Dana Houle (and why it’s worth reading). No matter which candidate the republicans choose, their electoral path is very narrow, they have NO margin of error. They need every single voter they got in 2012, and then more. But Houle’s article and the Red State article shows how they will NOT get the same voters, even if it’s a small number in the grander scheme of things. Because they need to expand, the tiniest defections (or those not voting) is greatly important.
Clinton’s situation is the exact opposite. Get the same voters, she wins. But she will likely get MORE Hispanics. And certainly she will get more white women than Obama did in 2012. They hate Trump. Sure, some Sanders voters will sit out, right now about 10% of his 45% percent. That will certainly shrink now that the convention is over. And almost certainly some were never going to vote anyway. But she has that margin.
What Clinton did at the Convention was quite interesting. There was no hiding the progressiveness of the democrats. And POC were very prominent, which was bound to offend the crackers. But she did not care. Why? Because she has the winning margin.
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I would not be so sure. I believe that the bloom is coming off the weed. I did not see anyone in the media even attempt to justify or, worse, be amused by Trump’s latest rant. Mystification seemed the reaction.
To what extent does Red State prioritize womb control? They support it, but my impression is that it’s relatively low on their priorities. In any case, Roe is already dead, supplanted by Casey, which allows a lot more restrictions on abortion.
I think it’s pretty much the most important thing to them. At least, it was for Erickson.
This writer seems to have been mostly offended by the existence of Peter Thiel and Ivanka’s bizarre stand for equal pay. She’s not impressed by the Supreme Court argument because she thinks Liberal Trump is lying and will nominate liberal justices.
Isn’t that a good thing? If they believe that, then less likely to vote for him.
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Sure. Just don’t ask me to admire anybody who works in that shop for having “principle”.
It is hard to predict. Because Trump has the short-term memory of Dory. Trump reinvents reality every time he speaks. Whatever happened in the past is no longer true as long as he has a new reality to adhere to. As a result, he can contradict himself every time, because what he said in the past belongs to a different reality, one which is non-existent to him.
It’s like throwing out a tie. “What are you talking about, I don’t have a green tie.” To him, he never had such a tie.
Very true. Sometimes I wonder if he even recalls what he said. Reality is whatever he says at the moment. The problem is far too many like his dream world.
North Carolina just got easier to win.
Hey, that’s great news!
“…passed with racially discriminatory intent.” That’s an extremely strong finding.
Looking forward to hearing Governor McCrory’s impotent whining again. What an asshole he’s turned out to be.
Hugely strong finding. They even went after the judge that originally ruled on it (with a 400+ page decision!) that he had plenty of evidence of racial bias in front of him, ‘but failed to put the pieces together’.
Heh.
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From the article;
‘The three justices assigned to the case-all democratic appointees’
One by Clinton, two by Obama.
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Good point. Hanging onto the Presidency is necessary to continue to reshape the Federal Judiciary.
IMO,
Everything else pales compared to this one issue. At least 12 consecutive years of appointments, and at least 20 out of the last 28? That’s a once in a century opportunity.
This opportunity is quite obvious to those wanting progressive goals. It’s the big picture.
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The Executive and Legislative branches have done much good work in recent years which has been done in by the Judiciary. This governmental branch holds unique power in our political system.
In this and other recent voter ID cases involving multiple States, the Judiciary has intervened to do in bad work by Executives and Legislatures. They have the power to do that as well.
What about Garland?
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Hope that theory is correct. The GOP should pay a price. Garland seems like a nice guy but I’d like Obama to pull his nomination if the polls start looking definitive ahead of the election. It’s time to be ruthless and consolidate gains.
Check out this from the Red State article Martin links to:
“If you really like Donald Trump, that’s great, but if you don’t, you have to vote for me anyway. You know why? Supreme Court judges, Supreme Court judges,” Trump said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“Have no choice, sorry, sorry, sorry. You have no choice.”
How stupid do you have to be to address skeptical voters by saying “You have to vote for me. You have no choice.” Yeah, that’s going to work well.
He really has no clue.
Uh, that’s what the Clinton campaign is doing too. “Vote for me because Supreme Court” “Vote for me because Trump”
While on the other side: “Vote for me because Supreme Court” “Vote for me because Clinton”.
You are certainly correct up to a point. The point is that there are actually people who want to know where a candidate stands on particular issues, and why. Hillary Clinton can talk about that stuff forever; Trump has nothing to say but, “I’m a winner, and Ayrabs are coming to rape your wife and children.”
Mexican Ayrabs are coming to rape your wife and children. Although some of them are very nice, I’m sure.
No, Hillary has never said “You have to vote for me” or “you have no choice.”
I’ve never, ever heard a candidate say that before Trump.
Probably true but some supporters of Hillary say that.
Yeah. and EVERYONE knows that what the supporters say is force fed from the candidate? Get real.
The 5 Stages of Grief model.
The flirtation with anyone but Rmoney in 2012, and his loss, was the Republican Base becoming self-aware that they were just useful idiots for the Republican donor class/establishment. It was the end of an era of Denial. By 2014 Eric Cantor was getting tossed out, and by 2015, John Boehner was resigning as Speaker.
For the 2016 election, Strongman Trump has acted as an amplifier for the Anger of the Republican Base, who were Bargaining that if Trump couldn’t Make America Great (white) Again, he’d at least burn the fucker to the ground.
If Clinton can win without Trump and Friends being able to steal it, while taking the Senate so that the Supreme Court can be staffed with 5 or more liberals, the Republican Base may move onto the Depression stage. Perhaps they’ll stay home in 2018 and 2020, instead choosing to binge watch Duck Dynasty. And maybe 2010’s gerrymandering can be undone.
Acceptance would be sane conservatives appropriating the right wing of the Democratic party, leaving the progressives the left wing of the Democratic party.
A top Democratic pollster says Hillary Clinton needs to show she feels our pain
I found Clinton’s speech last night to be pretty good. She mostly stuck to Democratic issues and didn’t stray too much into the “Let’s make war” territory. Instead, she pretty much related to common Democratic complaints.
That doesn’t make the money relationship between her and the wealthiest of the wealthy disappear, but I’m more willing to overlook it.
Look at this unbelievable decision by the Trump campaign on the week of the DNC Convention:
http://wjtv.com/2016/07/26/donald-trump-jr-campaigns-for-father-at-neshoba-county-fair/
Forget the dogwhistle and bullhorn; they’re stacking up racks of speakers like they’re going to stage a Led Zeppelin concert.
It’s not 1980 anymore. Nor is it 1964.
Last week, Trump polled at 0% with African-Americans in Ohio and Pennsylvania. I wonder why.
I can’t wait to rout this dangerous clown on Election Day.
Trump gets crowd of supporters in Denver to boo retired 4-star General John Allen: “He’s a failed general.”
Jared Diamond
https://twitter.com/jdiamond1/status/759200443666923520
“I like my generals like my restaurants. Five star.” -Trump
A poster at DailyKos was part of the North Carolina Voter ID case.
Here’s the diary about it:
Congratulations, DocDawg! You Made A Difference.
By ExpatGirl
Friday Jul 29, 2016 · 2:35 PM CDT
Today, the news that a federal court has declared North Carolina’s voter suppression laws discriminatory will spread across the internet and mainstream media. One aspect of the story that you probably won’t hear is that one of our own, DocDawg, helped bring today about. But it is a story you should know because it shows that each of us, in our own way, has the power to make a profound difference.
DocDawg is a private citizen who, like many of us, has been dismayed by what has happened since Tea Party Republicans won top to bottom control of the North Carolina legislature in 2012. Getting more and more involved in the progressive movement here in the South, in early 2015, he attended a DKos meetup a few hours away from his home in the central part of the state. I wasn’t there but my understanding is that the meeting featured Dr. William F. “Fergie” Reid of 90For90 as a speaker and talked a lot about the most restrictive voting laws to appear in the South since Jim Crow.
One thing to know about these laws is that they are a multi-layered attack on enfranchisement from a variety of different angles. Voter ID requirements get a lot of attention and so do gerrymandered districts. What hasn’t gotten as much attention is how North Carolina shifted and cut polling locations across the state. And that was the part that got Doc’s imagination running.
Doc is a scientist. He thinks in terms of data and facts. At some point, probably on the long drive home, he got the idea that while people were largely talking in theory about how limiting polling places would disenfranchise black voters in the state, the data was there to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. All that was needed was for someone to analyze it.
So he called some friends who are experts at this and convinced them to give their time (a lot of it) and talents. And then they set about analyzing everything they could get their hands on. They mapped polling locations before the laws were passed and after the laws were passed against the demographic information of every registered voter in North Carolina. What they found was stunning. It was also irrefutable.
way of “summing that up”.
The racial discrepancy in average increase in distance to an early voting site is plenty sufficient to demonstrate the discriminatory outcome.
The individual voter is also the level at which that discriminatory effect is expressed/experienced.
“Summing that up” by multiplying it by the respective sizes of the populations adds no useful information (in fact is at least arguably obfuscation): entire populations don’t travel en masse to early voting sites. Individuals do so individually (or in smaller groups, e.g., from churches on early voting Sundays).
Actually, it seems to me this is one time when “heighten the contradictions” isn’t snark; while you’re correct the aggregate is pragmatically inapplicable, it’s creating a viscerally powerful image to drive home the point. What’s sufficient evidence of discriminatory intent to you may be insufficient to the less clued-in without such imagery to drive the point home.
has to travel an additional distance more than FIFTY TIMES FARTHER to an early voting site than the average increase for a white voter under the new law!”
Your point has merit, “a viscerally powerful image to drive home the point” can be useful. The original framing did at least make clear (though in unnecessarily convoluted fashion, still requiring a mental calculation) that despite being fewer, black voters in the aggregate still had to travel a much greater total distance (even though that’s practically meaningless). But putting it in the aggregate just makes no sense, given that it’s critical discriminatory impact occurs at an individual, not an aggregate level.
Would you not agree that my proportional suggestion above better accomplishes the “viscerally powerful image to drive home the point” without sacrificing the importance of these impacts being felt on an individual level?
discriminatory impact…”
I just committed one of my own greatest pet peeves!
Oy!
I think both framings work on a visceral level.
A poster at DailyKos was part of the North Carolina Voter ID case.
Here’s the diary about it:
Congratulations, DocDawg! You Made A Difference.
By ExpatGirl
Friday Jul 29, 2016 · 2:35 PM CDT
Today, the news that a federal court has declared North Carolina’s voter suppression laws discriminatory will spread across the internet and mainstream media. One aspect of the story that you probably won’t hear is that one of our own, DocDawg, helped bring today about. But it is a story you should know because it shows that each of us, in our own way, has the power to make a profound difference.
DocDawg is a private citizen who, like many of us, has been dismayed by what has happened since Tea Party Republicans won top to bottom control of the North Carolina legislature in 2012. Getting more and more involved in the progressive movement here in the South, in early 2015, he attended a DKos meetup a few hours away from his home in the central part of the state. I wasn’t there but my understanding is that the meeting featured Dr. William F. “Fergie” Reid of 90For90 as a speaker and talked a lot about the most restrictive voting laws to appear in the South since Jim Crow.
One thing to know about these laws is that they are a multi-layered attack on enfranchisement from a variety of different angles. Voter ID requirements get a lot of attention and so do gerrymandered districts. What hasn’t gotten as much attention is how North Carolina shifted and cut polling locations across the state. And that was the part that got Doc’s imagination running.
Doc is a scientist. He thinks in terms of data and facts. At some point, probably on the long drive home, he got the idea that while people were largely talking in theory about how limiting polling places would disenfranchise black voters in the state, the data was there to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. All that was needed was for someone to analyze it.
So he called some friends who are experts at this and convinced them to give their time (a lot of it) and talents. And then they set about analyzing everything they could get their hands on. They mapped polling locations before the laws were passed and after the laws were passed against the demographic information of every registered voter in North Carolina. What they found was stunning. It was also irrefutable.