What Republicans Do: Killing The American Dream

Our nation hasn't always been a beacon of liberty and acceptance. As James Fallows noted over at the Atlantic:

That is, immigration has always been disruptive, from the time of the Germans and Irish in the mid-1800s to the groups I was seeing a century-plus later, or their counterparts today. And periodically this disruption has led to political and legal responses that looked bad (and racially driven) in retrospect, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of the 1880s to the nativist restrictions that essentially shut down most immigration for almost a generation after World War I.

And as Fallows notes, we as a nation was able to adapt, able to accept because it was in our national character to do so:

But—I argued 30 years ago in The Atlantic, and have come to believe more strongly over the years—the United States differed from most other societies in its greater absorptive ability, and the resulting imperfectly open society enjoyed powerful economic, cultural, creative, diplomatic, actuarial, and simple human benefits from becoming a nation-of-nations.

So that’s my starting point. E Pluribus Unum is a real thing, and it is the fundamental American advantage...

So what do the Republicans do when they're in political power? Destroy that fundamental American advantage for the short-term gains of appeasing an angry Nativist base.

trump's call to end an Obama program DACA - which allowed for the children of illegal immigrants (nicknamed DREAMers) to remain in the US for education and employment, since many of them were mere babies when their parents came here - isn't serving any legal or national security purpose, despite what a grinning AG Sessions says. Every argument Sessions made during his announcement yesterday - that DREAMers took away jobs, that they were violent criminals, that they were living off the government dole - were provable lies, and yet he threw them out there because the Far Right anti-immigrant crowd would scoop it up like caviar.

What trump and Sessions hope to do - purify the nation by blocking the dread Other as immigrants - may appease the hater base, but it will do serious harm to our economy and to the United States' global standing. Worse, it will punish a set of Americans - yes, they are - whose only crime was that they are innocent - yes, they are - of their parents' coming here as illegals. DREAMers are those who grew up in the USA, learned English, pledged allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, worked part-time at service jobs, made friends with other Americans, moved on to college to get better educated and better work. Kicking them out of the United States would be like kicking white guys like me out of the country: because like me those kids would be strangers in lands they don't know, coping with loss of livelihood and identity.

This is sadistic. This is cruelty. What trump is doing is blatant racism.

And why is trump able to do this. Because the Republican Party he represents has no problem with him attacking Latinos (and Blacks, and Women, and Asians, and Transgenders, and...).

The Republicans have opposed sensible immigration reform for decades. When their own party leaders Bush the Lesser and Karl Rove tried to push an immigration platform in 2005 - looking at the long-term reality that the GOP needed to right themselves with Hispanics - the Congressional Republicans voted it down. When confronted with doing either 1) the humane, profitable thing by legalizing illegals and restructuring our immigration policy or 2) refusing to fix a collapsing system and making it worse by deporting genuinely effective and hard-working Americans - yes, they are - just to make sure they win their midterm primaries... Republicans consistently go with 2).

Which isn't crazy.

Just racist.

When you combine this with the overall Republican agenda of massive tax cuts for the rich, massive deregulation of worker and public safety, massive slashing of the social safety net, you get a political party that has no love or respect for the American Dream. The idea that any one person can improve his/her lot in life, pursue a meaningful career, and enjoy the benefits of friends and family.

Everything the Republicans want to do will make it harder for Americans to get educated, for Americans to get good jobs at good wages, for Americans to take pride in their accomplishments. They are pushing an agenda of the rich, for the rich, to the exclusion of everyone else.

And to accomplish that, Republicans have to lie and bully and deny, to hurt Americans simply because of the color of their skin, or the form of their gender, or the beliefs they hold. They sell racism to their voter base to keep them angry and motivated and voting even against their own best interests, because that hatred burns out any kind of compassion or empathy.

What trump is doing isn't weird or abnormal. It's just the Republican playbook on steroids, bulldozing down entire communities all so the rich can buy the ashes.

And it's racist as hell.

She's REALLY Not Going to be Into Trump At All, Late Election Cycle Version

So I wake up this morning, actually in the mood to rage about a moronic Congress - just blogged about it a second ago - and I immediately find myself conflicted about what to write, because Trump - being the narcissistic monster that he is - went and Tweeted a series of delightful anecdotal meanderings about the nature of the cosmos ahem a series of angry twitterbombs about the women ruining his brand name:

I didn't actually see his Tweets, as I have him blocked, but I saw the responses from those I follow so I tracked back and saw these missives. And, yes, I headdesked.

My immediate response, via Twitter as well:

You might ask, "well what is the difference between a Dick and an Asshole?" I'll share a link that kinda explains it quickly, and concur by pointing out that a Dick is someone who intentionally - sometimes violently, but always maliciously - acts in a demeaning way towards others while an Asshole is a self-centered self-serving jerk.

It's rare to find a person who can be both at the same time, so in this regard this is a moment that should be long remembered. Just not fondly, because Trump is doing this in the worst way possible.

Today was the culmination of the fallout from last Monday's debate, when Hillary pummeled Trump on a lot of points and ended up hitting him with a broadside about his flagrant misogyny when it comes to women who work for him. She brought up one of the models who worked for him Miss Universe 1996 - the year he took over that pageant - Alicia Machado and how he went out of his way to insult her physique: Trump deemed her too fat and shamed her into making public displays of exercise. Trump objected to Hillary's attack and tried to deflect it by stammering over his other public fights with women, but didn't really have a coherent argument.

What happened next was avoidable to anyone who understands politics. Hillary bringing up Trump's horrid mistreatment of Machado - this is fat? She's gorgeous - was a clear trap to make Trump angry enough to retaliate. It's a common tactic in campaigning - Trump needled his Primary opponents much the same way - well back to even before the days of LBJ's mudslinging: "Make the other sonofabitch deny it." The smart move is to ignore it, offer a correction, and move on.

Trump did worse than deny it: He doubled down. His follow-up interviews on Fox Not-News and elsewhere had him praising himself for being rude and insulting to his Miss Universe, that he did a good thing fat-shaming her like that, and besides she was still ugly and worthless to boot. And now he's gone full misogynist, attacking her for perceived sexual dalliances - the so-called Sex Tape is her rolling under bedsheets with a guy on a reality show and there's nothing explicit, I swear certain Disney movies are more kinky oh whoops I really shouldn't say THAT - as though slut-shaming her will drive from the public stage.

As David A. Graham puts it:

Then there’s the Machado tweets. Four days after Trump debate Clinton, he is still consumed by his anger at a woman who was Miss Universe in the 1990s. Or, to put that in demographic terms, Trump is still  insulting a Latina woman and calling attention to the fact that he called her fat with just a month left until an election, when he trails Clinton badly among Latinas and women. And he’s doing so at the cost of attacking his opponent, at a time when she is seeing a rebound in the polls.

Trump doesn't really get it when it comes to women. Considering how many men among his Inner Circle - Newt, Ailes, Giuliani, all of them thrice-married twice-divorced hypocrites of sexual stupidity - also don't get it, this is going to make this the nasty part of the final leg of the campaign.

Trump's outrage is fueled by a spoiled, narcissistic view of women as Objects, as pretty things that need to dangle from him to make himself more attractive as an (wannabe) Alpha Male. The second a wife no longer appeals to him, she's out the door (often in a humiliating fashion). He has a need to stand surrounded by beautiful women - his obsession with models and beauty pageants - as a means of showing off his success. His view of Machado as "fat" was his anger at "her" perceived failing to match "his" physical ideal, which drove his desire to punish her with public humiliation and consistent scorn.

His tweets to call on Republicans - many of them self-described Christian moralists - to hunt down "sex tapes" so he can embarrass his ex-model victim is both ironic and clueless.

And if Trump thinks he can set himself up now to attack Hillary - not herself, but husband Bill's sexual history - he's ignoring two things. One: Hillary's already prepared for that, she had to knowing full well - hello, Vast Right Wing Conspiracy media! - this storm would come. Two: Hillary AND Bill already weathered this same storm back in the 1990s... and they came out more popular than their attackers. A majority of Americans saw the Republicans going after Bill over the Lewinsky affair as hypocritical witch-hunters who overplayed their hand: This is key, a majority of women sympathized with Hillary and forgave her stance aside her unfaithful husband because many of them saw themselves in her place.

There may be polls showing women may not fully trust or support Hillary, but the numbers are high enough to hint she's winning that bloc. There's more than enough stories online about how other women - suffering in the slights of Glass Ceilings and mansplaining and Gods help us another hundred cuts of Male Ego - recognize Hillary for what she represents: the first sledgehammer to that Glass Ceiling.

I've said it before and will say it again: The real scandal of the Republicans' fall from power this decade is how they've squandered and demeaned women voters into abandoning them. For all the talk about the ethnic votes - how the GOP lost Blacks entirely to the Democrats, and this election cycle they're about to lose Latinos and Asians for good - it's been the ebb in the gender vote that will kill the Republicans.

This is what I said last time:

Here's a nasty little secret about our electoral system... there are more women voters (76 million) than men (66 million). Pissing off the majority of voters that participate in the general election is not a sound campaign strategy. And if there's any issue that can unite women, it's being treated like dirt by a misogynist bastard.

That's Trump: Being the misogynist bastard. Going out of his way to treat women like dirt, and crowing about it.

If women vote at the same percentage they hate Trump - around 70 percent - that's 53 million votes for Hillary (or maybe Stein or Johnson, but let's face it most of that's going for Hillary) right off the bat. Getting 98 percent of the Black vote or 80 percent of the Latino vote - oh man, the Cuba story has to wait for another blog article - or 60 percent of the College-Educated White vote would be nice and pad out the numbers for Democrats. But we're talking about the kind of votes that will cut away from any Republican ballot.

And it should. The last series of election cycles since 2008 - including midterms - has shown an increasingly hostile Republican agenda towards women (not just abortion, other issues that matter to them like education, wages, and child care). Remember Todd Akin, and the Republican Party's overall inability to treat rape as the serious crime it is? Remember how Rush Limbaugh tried to slut-shame Sandra Fluke, and ended up costing his radio network billions in lost ad revenue? This has all been building up, and Trump is adding on a shit-ton of bricks (enough to build a you-know-what) to make things worse.

I hope to God that She is merciful enough to have only 79 percent of all women voters side with Hillary this November. It will probably win for the Democrats every state except Wyoming... maybe Alabama.

P.S.: Get the vote out, Democrats. This election matters. 

On Polling: What Should We Be Looking For?

Now that we're past both nominating conventions and that we're going to be getting away from the post-con bounces both Presidential nominees get, what should we be looking for among the polls - check here, check here, and follow up with Sober Nate Silver there - during the months of August and September?

1) Keep an eye on women. Where most polling focused during previous election cycles on ethnic blocs - White, Black, Hispanic, Asian and Other - the real split this 2016 is happening with the Men-Women vote.

As noted earlier, Silver and his fellow stat checkers at 538.com documented the severe hatred women have towards Trump. This is a key demographic as A) more women historically show up to vote than men and B) we're talking about ALL women including White voters who would normally be voting Republican.

White voters in 2012 voted around 60 percent for Romney (R), which had to include a high number of women among men. This HuffPo poll from 2012 results showed Romney won White Women voters 56 percent. Even with that number - considering Whites vote in greater overall numbers than all other ethnic groups combined - Romney still LOST. Trump in 2016 has to perform higher than that... but if White Women break away from White Men, Trump can't do that.

According to this 2016 Pew Research poll, Trump is only polling 35 percent to Clinton's 53 percent with Women overall. Among White Women Trump is getting 42 percent. Note the difference between 56 percent White Women in 2012 for Mitt to 42 percent White Women currently for Trump. That's a minus-14 point drop. Trump is not getting 60 percent of overall White voters this year, he just isn't...

2) Remember that the non-White voting blocs are so currently opposed to the Republican Party and so opposed to Trump that those groups are not going to flip to the GOP in significant numbers to help Republicans.

Black voters are likely to stay near 95-98 percent in favor of the Democrats. Hispanic voters are likely to be above 80 percent in favor of Dems by Election Day. Asian voters are reportedly getting close to being close to 80 percent for Dems as well.

While the total number of each voting bloc can't equal White Voters overall, the advantage to the Democrats having minority voters entirely with their party is that it reduces the odds of Blue and battleground states from flipping to Red/Republican. Consider them a firewall.

These are no longer elections fought by issues or ideology. We are now in elections fought over demographics (which explains why Republicans are so desperate to suppress voting rights for minorities).

3) Hispanic voters are the wild card this election cycle.

It's because polling for Hispanic voters is harder to do than for the other voting blocs, over communication - few polling units use Spanish-language surveys - and overall unwillingness to answer those surveys. So there's little idea how the turnout of that group - which is close to surpassing registration numbers for Black voters - is actually going to happen.

There's solid evidence Hispanic voters are registering in larger numbers than before, and they've got a good incentive to vote this time as Trump's illegal immigration policies are a direct threat to themselves (even as legal citizens, Hispanic-Americans know exactly what can happen in a mass round-up of anyone even looking remotely Latino). The problem - as always - remains turnout. If overall turnout of Hispanic voters gets above 50 percent - and remains around 80 percent Democrat - that will be good news for Hillary's camp.

Is there anything else we should be looking for?

Oh, right.

GET THE VOTE OUT, PEOPLE. Polling may be one thing but what MATTERS is the actual DAMN TURNOUT!

If Trump Wins The Nomination, How Many Hispanics Flee The GOP?

I mentioned before about ethnicity as voting blocs in the United States.

As far as how Americans voted in 2012:

• The numbers came down to about 93 to 98 percent Blacks voting Democratic, which is as close to absolutely everyone in that bloc.  Given how the Republican Party is staging itself for 2016 - with voter suppression efforts and platform issues that would anger Blacks - there's little chance of the GOP breaking the Democratic monopoly on that bloc.
• There were about 70 percent give or take for Asians voting Democratic.  Of the ethnic groups, there's a shot Republicans could win more Asian voters their way, except for the fact Asians have a pro-immigrant stance that might be repelled by the harsh anti-immigrant stance the GOP is sticking with (again).  There are individual nationalities - Indian, Japanese, Chinese - that may as a group lean one party or another, but for now there's no singular issue that can divide this bloc.
• Hispanics/Latinos were around 70 to 71 percent voting Democratic.  Culturally, this is an ethnic group that's incredibly diverse yet sharing common enough points to be a unified bloc.  A lot of that is due to La Raza, a sense of community/family that highlights a religious-conservative bent... and yet a social-liberal one at the same time.

Hispanic voters are a key ingredient on the national level for Republicans.  Without enough of them to merge with the GOP voter base of Whites, Republicans can't see any good shot at the White House.  Dubya secured 44 percent of the Latino vote in 2004, which helped him win.  Romney secured 27 percent of the Latino vote and lost the popular vote - and a solid number of Hispanic-heavy states - by five points.

So here we are facing 2016.  Here's a Republican Party whose anti-immigration stance has already alienated a sizable portion of Hispanic voters to begin with.  And here comes Donald Trump insulting the sh-t out of Mexicans and talking about building a super-wall along the border (and forcing Mexico to pay for it).

Even with Trump boasting he'll win the Latino vote - which is so ludicrous I'm seeing conservative blogs choke on it - how can any sane, self-respecting Hispanic-American accept this guy?  There's a reason a lot of businesses are dumping Trump, and it all has to do with the fact he's insulting a growing and powerful voting (and economic) bloc.

If Trump really does secure the Republican nomination - and despite all hand-waving to the contrary by the experts, Trump is polling too well with an overly angry and fear-induced wingnut base that can dominate the primaries - just how bad is it gonna be for Republicans in dire need of Latino voters?

You can immediately take that 27 percent that voted for Mitt in 2012 and reduce it to ONE percent within a five percent range for statistical error.  There were 11.2 million Latinos who voted in 2012: give standard population growth or voter interest to go up a little, let's say to 13 million.  Let's be generous and give Trump five percent Hispanic voters (as per the statistical range).  Multiply 13,000,000 to .05 and you get 650,000 voters, less than a million.  At least Mitt got 3-plus million.

Because despite Trump's assertion, he has so openly and brazenly insulted Latinos - Mexicans in particular, but essentially every nationality from south of the border has to be offended - that there is no way he can win over that voting bloc.  Whatever promises Trump thinks he could make by the general election cycle - he seems to think he can offer a no-details "jobs" package - he's already violated the KEY rule - hi, Machiavelli! - of winning the people's favor: he's made himself hated.  Once they hate you, they will not and cannot forgive you.

The perfect example is the African-American voting bloc.  Once the Republicans openly pursued their Southern Strategy, they began losing Black voters in droves.  Going after social aid programs since the 1980s, massive voter suppression efforts geared at denying them access to the ballot since the 1990s, and then obstructing Obama since 2009: There's barely - maybe 5 percent - any Black Republicans left.  All because the GOP made themselves hated by Blacks as an entire group.

Going full anti-Immigrant - and doing so in an insulting manner - is going to drive away Latinos (and a good number of Asians who are affected on the same issue) to the same level as Black voters.  And there are not enough White voters - even though the overall population has Whites in a majority, we do not vote as solid a bloc as the other ethnics - who will cross over due to Trump's fear-mongering.  He's already got the base he's pandering to: there is no way he is winning over pro-Immigration Whites or even White voters with a lick of common sense and common decency.

This is the reason the RNC chair has reportedly called Trump this afternoon to tell him to "tone it down" (likely in not as polite a tone either).  The Republicans know they've lost the Black vote and have few illusions about breaking that bloc.  There are utterly terrified - they have to be - if the Latino bloc rejects the GOP en masse at the same percentages that Blacks have.  It would not only kill them in the Presidential election, it could well crush them in a dangerous Senate electoral cycle - there are 24 GOP-held seats up for grabs and a lot of them in Purple-Blue states - and even disrupt the gerrymandered control of the House and legislatures of certain Hispanic-heavy states.

Even if Trump loses the primaries or drops out, this is a bridge getting burned for the Republican Party: mostly because the Latinos have to be looking at the polling numbers go UP for Trump among the GOP primary likely voters, and they have to realize that this is what the Republican Party looks for in their leadership and messaging.

There are no sure things, obviously.  The history and trends, however, all point to the GOP alienating another voter bloc.  We need to see if there are updates to voter registration numbers: I'd love to see how many Hispanics are switching to No-Party or Democratic affiliation this past week alone...

Update: in Slate, Jamelle Bouie notes the Republican Party has a serious image problem with Latino voters already.

...In the past six years, GOP states have targeted Latinos for greater scrutiny, GOP officials have called for “self-deportation” of undocumented immigrants, and GOP presidential candidates have stood with nakedly anti-immigrant politicians. And although there are smart, reasoned arguments against comprehensive immigration reform and other permissive immigration policies, the rhetoric that counts—that resonates with actual Republican voters—comes from figures such as Iowa Rep. Steve King, who once warned that a path to citizenship would “destroy our republic.”

At this point, Latinos don’t just oppose particular candidates, such as Mitt Romney. They disdain the Republican label itself. According to a 2014 survey from the Pew Research Center, just 10 percent of Latinos say that the Republican Party “has concern” for their communities, compared with 50 percent who say as much about the Democratic Party. Few agree with Republicans on policy—especially immigration—and just 27 percent of Latinos identify with the Republican Party, compared with 63 percent who identify with Democrats. Not surprisingly, this has carried over to the 2016 GOP presidential field. As of October, notes Latino Decisions, just 32 percent of Latino voters would consider a vote for Jeb Bush, just 35 percent would consider a vote for Sen. Marco Rubio, and just 24 percent would consider a vote for Sen. Ted Cruz (Note: Jeb, Rubio and Cruz are the candidates who are tied to the Hispanic community by marriage or blood, and thus viewed as the more 'palatable' to appeal to that bloc).

So the Republicans are in trouble already.  Trump is clearly not helping matters by stirring up the Far Right voting base - which ought to be the real concern here more than having an egomaniacal bankrupt con artist garner a primary lead - to expose just how fearful and hateful that primary voting base can get.  Right now, 63 percent Latinos identify as Democrat.  Just think how many will identify as Democrat if Trump wins the nomination on his platform of insult and debasement.