Trump is going to do Trump until we vote him out in November. By the time Election Day comes, I’d be surprised if his popularity doesn’t sink below that 30% mark. Make it more like the mid-20’s. But as Adam Schiff said back in January, how much damage can Trump do until Election Day? A LOT.
So, let’s review what’s going to happen next week.
- Federal funds for testing will run out.
- PPA will run out for many small businesses
- The cases of coronavirus in at least Arizona, Texas and Florida are going to reach catastrophic levels.
- The governors of those states are going to have to lockdown.
- More people will lose their jobs, this time without any pay at all.
- The Trump administration has requested that the courts end Obamacare. (I’m not a fan but some people actually can’t live without it)
- Food banks will start to reach a crisis point.
- The number of cases will become uncontrollable. We won’t know where they are and the chances you’re going to bump into one is going to grow exponentially. Everywhere. That’s how pandemics work.
But as far as Senate Republicans are concerned, there’s nothing to worry about. They haven’t yet felt the bite of the election, it’s still five months away and they can do A LOT of harm in the meantime.
In particular, they can pack the courts with more Trump appointed judges.
They could bring the economy to its knees and essentially take it hostage in order to extract unthinkable demands like dismantling social security or ending Medicare.
Oh, they wouldn’t do that, you say. Really? What’s to stop them? Elections? Senate Republicans don’t work for us in the first place. They work for their donors. If they lose their seats, they’ll still end up in comfy positions elsewhere.
But WE will have to live with these judges for decades.
If you can’t retire, too bad for you. YOU should have planned better.
If you get sick, tough luck. They’ll be shrieking about the deficit that they allowed to balloon because they would not get rid of Trump.
In a snap of a finger, this Trump administration could be over. All Mitch has to do is give the Democrats the sign that they’ll vote for new articles of impeachment. So, you have to ask yourself why Mitch is allowing this destruction of our country to continue.
If I were a journalist, I’d be asking senators this very question day after day. Why does Mitch have his knee on our necks? People don’t do things without a reason. Either he’s a true blue Trump sycophant and he thoughtlessly takes orders from Trump, or there is some benefit to Republicans to see the country destroyed in this manner.
I’m going with the latter.
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This is interesting. Can Gov. Phil Murphy put Trump into quarantine? I’d like to see what happens.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
I’m having avocado toast and latte for breakfast. So sue me.
No content, Mitch McConnell is a strong man.
Malwarebytes says “Diana Tyre” is a phishing site. Don’t click it.
Thanks for the heads up. Diana is going to the Sewer.
Powerfully observed, RD. I think you hit it precisely with regard to Republicans answering only to their donors. This is a perversion of representative democracy. Get in office with the donors’ help, pay them off by doing everything they want, keep getting re-elected, or if you lose, take a seven figure position in one of their companies. That is why they never seem ruffled at anything, it doesn’t even touch them.
i was very upset the other night at what looks like a victory by Booker over McGrath in KY, which will guarantee McConnell’s re-election, which means he can do anything he wants. How long will a certain amount of Democrats not vote tactically, but instead vote on emotion, and their love of defeating moderate Democrats. Most of these people have no idea of how governing works, and many of them don’t even care about actual policy, they just like the thrill of the primary victories, and the continued fantasy of a revolution which will start by letting the Republicans control everything.
We have seen no bending of any Republicans, except maybe Romney and Murkowski, and not very much at that. News media keeps asking, “When will Republicans find their voice; when will they stand for ‘former’ Republican principles,” whatever they are. They will not, because they are really Trump, only less uncouth. They support Trump not because he has blackmailed them or used mind control, but because they and their donors agree with 99% of his policies. Take all the money out of the Treasury and give it to the rich. Practice social darwinism, get rid of the safety net. Pack the courts with far-Right judges who will abolish abortion, and block all climate change and gun control legislation. Live in their multiple fancy houses, and have enough money to go to Mars if the Earth becomes uninhabitable. And when the rioting and the burning and the shooting start, sequester in their mansions. The only way to possibly arrest this is to get rid of immense numbers of Republicans via what used to be optimistically called the ballot box. Republicans are not going to gain a soul, they are not going to turn into George Aiken and Jacob Javits. McConnell is their leader, Trump is their barker at the carny entrance, the Kochs and Mercers are their bankrollers.
Where did Booker come from? Why did he get in so late, when McGrath was polling neck and neck with McConnell? Who bankrolled him? All I’m saying is if he secures the nom, he’d damn well better win.
So, I looked it up and KY is a closed primary state. You’d have to be a registered Democrat to vote for a D senate candidate. Open primaries are usually more manipulate-able by the other party in regular years. But this is not a regular year. This year, the presidential primary is non-existent on the Republican side and what Republican was going to run against Mitch?
Three possibilities:
1.) Booker was in the right place at the right time. The protests shined a light on the lack of black senators in DC. He may have benefitted from that.
2.) McGrath played it too safe for her Democratic voters. She definitely had a few serious disagreements with her party. She might be the best overall senatorial candidate but you’ve got to know your audience in the primary. Maybe Booker did a better job at this.
3.) Republicans caused mischief when they registered as Democrats for the primary because theirs was a sleeper. They made sure they got the candidate they wanted to go against Mitch.
Mitch might lose anyway. We’ll have to see. We might end up with 2 senator bookers. That should be interesting.
William expresses similar worries to Joe Cannon’s over at Cannonfire.
However, for their fears to happen, one huge thing about American politics must remain true:
“Unwoke” white folks [or as we call them here, “crawdads” 😉 ] must still compose majorities in a sufficient number of states.
If that remains true, then Will’s and Joe’s fears might come true.
“Might” because there would still be the fact that Benedict Donald has not only screwed the pooch, he has screwed the whole kennel of pooches, in positions Dr. Ruth never heard of. [I’m dating myself with THAT reference. 😀 ]
But if it’s not? IF we finally have reached that long-awaited inflection point where the coalition of non-whites and “woke” whites compose majorities in a sufficient number of states? If the demographic K/T asteroid has finally struck?
Then neo-Confederate culture will go the way of the pterosaurs, and not a minute too soon.
Is KY an open or closed primary state? If open, we might be looking at the result of strategic aisle crossing.
A closed primary. I think that your possibility 3 occurred to some extent. And I also think that some renegade Democrats pushed Booker to enter the race at such a late date.
What happened in KY is the voters probably made a bad choice. It has happened before and will happen again. Booker will get Obama’s 33% in the state and Mitch will probably not spend much time or money dispatching him. The Neo-confederate culture in some states is hanging tough. The bad news for them is the rest of the country is leaving them behind. So they can either move into 2020 or regress into a third world status.
It’s just that Democrats cannot afford to make such bad choices, given where we are, and with a need to win five Republican seats if Jones loses in Alabama. (Yes, I know that if it is 50/50, the VP breaks the tie, but that assumes that Manchin would vote the right way; and also, the last time there was a tie, the heads of committees were split evenly between the parties). That doesn’t mean that people have to vote for everybody, I want, though it would be nice! But surely McGrath had a far better chance to win the general election. As Sue noted, she had a two-point lead over McConnell in a recent poll, and then Booker jumped in; and then Sanders and Warren endorsed him. To what purpose? The moat of lost causes? Sanders doesn’t care about the Democratic Party, and i’m beginning to think that Warren doesn’t either. Who asked them to go against the DSCC and $40 million of McGrath donations, and waste all of that money and support, just so they could feel virtuous, and then let McConnell win again? If the Republicans keep the Senate, which is certainly possible, Mitch will run it, which means that Sanders and Warren will get nothing through, and they can make speeches for the next two years, and endorse more candidates who cannot win in red states. It really is not that hard to think and support tactically, rather than indulge oneself, unless one prefers the latter. If Schumer were a strong leader, he would have stopped this, or stuck both of them on the back benches. We cannot run the country effectively without strong unity. If it were 1965, when we had 67 Senate seats, we could afford to have some indulgence.
KY is/was a long shot. Even Biden is only polling at 38% there. I look at this as an example of the Bernie Bros putting forth a bad candidate. A friend of mine in FL said the same thing when they picked Gillum due to his MFA stance. Maybe losing repeatedly over the last 4 years will finally make them get the message.
It looks like there are 5 flips. I would rate MT a likelier flip than KY or even GA since Bulloch has won statewide there twice. There may be a surprise or 2 in the wings like KS. The only candidate that has been able to flip KY was Bill and it was because they saw him as “one of them”.
1) Don’t be so quick to call Kentucky. Most of the vote was by mail, and won’t be announced until next week.
2) I don’t think Booker is a mistake. The wild-card issue this year is racial justice, but it isn’t 1968, or 1982, or even 2014. This time, the majority gets it, and if you want a working majority in the next Senate, you need to ride the wave.