Wednesday Open Thread [9.9.2015]

Ben Carson’s rise should be just as worrying to the GOP Establishment as Trump’s:

So in short, Ben Carson’s policies are just crazy enough to pick up the support of the same GOP base that has embraced The Donald. If for any reason Trump were to implode, Carson could step in. In fact, he’s universally more well liked at this point (a magical status that often fades under more scrutiny), and frankly, his policies are more in line with the GOP base (he supports a flat tax, despises Obamacare, and has called the global warming debate “irrelevant”). In fact, Carson was the most frequently named second-choice candidate of GOP voters in the PPP survey and only Ted Cruz scored above him as a second choice among Iowa voters.

If Trump falters, the beneficiaries will be either Ben Carson or Ted Cruz, and not an establishment candidate like Bush, Rubio, Kasich, Christie or Walker.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Economist/YouGov: Trump 36, Carson 11, Bush 8, Rubio 7, Cruz 6, Paul 4, Huckabee 4, Kasich 4.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Monmouth: Clinton 42, Biden 22, Sanders 20, O’Malley 1, Webb 1, Chafee 0

It seems important that Biden has pulled ahead of Sanders nationally. Has Sanders peaked?

SOUTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—PPP: Trump 37, Carson 21, Bush 6, Walker 3, Huckabee 3, Graham 3, Cruz 6, Rubio 4, Fiorina 4, Kasich 4, Christie 1, Paul 3, Perry 1, Jindal 1

Graham’s home state and he gets 3 percent. That smarts.

SOUTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—PPP: Clinton 54, Biden 24, Sanders 9, O’Malley 2, Webb 2, Chafee 1

The Southern Firewall theory in action. An article I cite to below explains that Clinton campaign strategy.

First Read says the Iran Deal is done, but the fighting over it isn’t. Yesterday, four Democratic Senators came out in support, bringing the total to 42 Democrats in support, which means that there are more than enough Democrats to filibuster the disapproval resolution so as to prevent it from ever getting to the President’s desk. Chris Coons might vote with the Republicans on the filibuster, since he has said that he wants up or down vote. Whatever. I could criticize him for that, but I won’t. He has already been damaged by his summer of Angst and Grandstanding, that my only reaction to the latest news that me might not filibuster is to roll my eyes.

“If you looked at all of today’s events, you’d think that we’re at some tipping point in the debate over the Iran deal. The Democratic and GOP frontrunners — Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — are making dueling arguments regarding the deal. And Congress is equally fired up today. But much like the Battle of New Orleans, all of these rhetorical guns are being fired as the war over the Iran deal is essentially a done deal. The story is over, but the talking (or fighting) isn’t.”

“We found that out yesterday after the Obama White House got 42 Senate Democrats to support the deal — one more than what’s needed to filibuster a resolution of disapproval, which would prevent the president from even having to issue a veto. (Now all of these 42 Senate Dems might not be committed to a filibuster right now, but do they want to have to take additional votes? That’s the question they’ll be facing.) So consider today a day full of sound and fury signifying nothing. As for Obama, the Iran deal represents his biggest achievement of his second term. But like with his other wins, it’s never pretty or easy. He may be getting what he wants, but it’s hardly a victory lap when bipartisan majorities in Congress and in the public aren’t celebrating with you.”

Once again Chuck Todd gives one last handjob to the ghost of Bipartisanship. Who the fuck cares about bipartisanship? I care about Partisanship. I don’t want the Republicans agreeing with me, for it makes me think I am being tricked into something or that I am wrong in some way.

Paul Krugman says Trump Is Right on Economics:

So Jeb Bush is finally going after Donald Trump. Over the past couple of weeks the man who was supposed to be the front-runner has made a series of attacks on the man who is. Strange to say, however, Mr. Bush hasn’t focused on what’s truly vicious and absurd — viciously absurd? — about Mr. Trump’s platform, his implicit racism and his insistence that he would somehow round up 11 million undocumented immigrants and remove them from our soil.

Instead, Mr. Bush has chosen to attack Mr. Trump as a false conservative, a proposition that is supposedly demonstrated by his deviations from current Republican economic orthodoxy: his willingness to raise taxes on the rich, his positive words about universal health care. And that tells you a lot about the dire state of the G.O.P. For the issues the Bush campaign is using to attack its unexpected nemesis are precisely the issues on which Mr. Trump happens to be right, and the Republican establishment has been proved utterly wrong. […]

I’m not saying that everything is great in the U.S. economy, because it isn’t. There’s good reason to believe that we’re still a substantial distance from full employment, and while the number of jobs has grown a lot, wages haven’t. But the economy has nonetheless done far better than should have been possible if conservative orthodoxy had any truth to it. And now Mr. Trump is being accused of heresy for not accepting that failed orthodoxy?

Joining with Bush in their attacks on Trump is the National Review:

In recent weeks, the Times reports, “Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on American companies that put their factories in other countries,” and vowed too to “increase taxes on the compensation of hedge fund managers.” Elsewhere, he has brazenly channeled Elizabeth Warren in tone — “didn’t build this country”; “fair share”; “got lucky” — and promised increases in government spending that are demonstrably unsustainable. Alas, he has suffered scant pushback for his heresy. Honesty requires us to acknowledge that had President Obama endorsed exactly the same policies and rhetoric, the reaction from the Trumpkins would have been little short of nuclear.

Trump is proof that all that his supporters care about is white nationalism and fascism. If they cared about taxes or social conservatism, they would not be supporting Trump. Krugman’s theory makes sense: “It’s really about who’s boss, and making sure that the man in charge stays boss. Trump is admired for putting women and workers in their place, and it doesn’t matter if he covets his neighbor’s wife or demands trade wars.” So they want an authoritarian strongman who will tell the “others” to fuck off. That is why the right wing went nuts for Vladimir Putin.

“You can’t be calling women bimbos, we can’t just be kicking sand in the sandbox saying, ‘You’re dumb’ and ‘You’re a loser.’ We actually need a grown-up, not a three-year-old in the White House.” — Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI), quoted by USA Today, saying Donald Trump is doing “serious damage to the GOP brand.”

Trump is just acting out what Republicans have been thinking for years. If you are ashamed or embarrassed by it, change yourself.

New York Times: “Republican strategists and donors have assembled focus groups to test negative messages about Mr. Trump. They have amassed dossiers on his previous support for universal health care and higher taxes. They have even discussed the creation of a ‘super PAC’ to convince conservatives that Mr. Trump is not one of them. But the mammoth big-money network assembled by Republicans in recent years is torn about how best to defuse the threat Mr. Trump holds for their party, and haunted by the worry that any concerted attack will backfire.”

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign “is methodically building a political firewall across the South in hopes of effectively locking up the Democratic nomination in March regardless of any early setbacks in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary,” the New York Times reports.

“Mrs. Clinton’s advisers, struck by the strength of Sen. Bernie Sanders in those two states, have been assuring worried supporters that victories and superdelegate support in Southern states will help make her the inevitable nominee faster than many Democrats expect. They point to her popularity with black and Hispanic voters, as well as her policy stances and the relationships that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have cultivated.”

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone writes—The Republicans Are Now Officially the Party of White Paranoia:

The Republicans already lost virtually the entire black vote (scoring just 4 percent and 6 percent of black voters the last two elections). Now, by pushing toward the nomination a candidate whose brilliant plan to “make America great again” is to build a giant wall to keep out Mexican rapists, they’re headed the same route with Hispanics. That’s a steep fall for a party that won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote as recently as 2004.

Trump’s supporters are people who are tired of being told they have to be part of some kind of coalition in order to have a political voice. They particularly hate being lectured about alienating minorities, especially by members of their own party.

Just a few weeks ago, for instance, establishment GOP spokesghoul George Will spent a whole column haranguing readers about how Trump was ruining his party’s chances for victory. He noted that Mitt Romney might have won in 2012 if he’d pulled even slightly more than 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.