Saturday Open Thread [11.21.15]

LOUISIANA–GOVERNOR–Market Research Insight: John Bel Edwards (D) 52, Sen. David Vitter (R) 40.
WISCONSIN–SENATOR–Marquette University: Russ Feingold (D) 49, Sen. Ron Johnson (R) 38.

First Read on whether anyone is calling out Trump for his proposed Nazi policies: “Jeb Bush was the first to do so: And no one is testing the bounds of political decency right now more than Donald Trump. His rhetoric on the campaign trail this week has bordered on being outrageous, shameful, and scary — whether it was his Muslim-database-tracking line, not ruling out that Muslims might have to carry a form of special identification, or saying that the United States should close down some American mosques. This is a big gut check time for the Republican Party: Do we see any major GOP figures or presidential candidates criticize him? How the party responds to its current presidential frontrunner will be telling.”

“In the past, we’ve seen Trump benefit, not get punished, for over-the-top rhetoric. It’s not surprising that Bush is the first to hit Trump, but will he be alone among the first or second tier candidates? Can’t help but wonder if some campaigns are hesitant to attack Trump now for fear that it strengthens him.”

“Can you tell me which of these rattlers won’t bite you? Sure some of them won’t, but tell me which ones so we can bring them into the house.” — Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (R), quoted by the Texas Tribune, comparing refugees to rattlesnakes.

Washington Post: “On Tuesday, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released a poll showing that a full 72 percent of Americans believe that the economy is in a state of recession… And Wednesday, Bloomberg News released a poll showing that a full 34 percent of Americans mistakenly believe the unemployment rate is now worse than it was when Obama took office, right after the economic collapse had already sucked up millions of jobs. For Republicans, that figure is 53 percent — a majority.”

Neither is true. The economy has been growing between 0.1 and 5% since 2010. The unemployment has fallen to 5%, the lowest since 2007, and lower than it was during the Reagan era.

Washington Post: “After three straight elections left them in the House minority, Democrats are building a sweeping database to cull past and present polling, voter files, media advertising history and population trends for every competitive House district in the country. Democrats will then convert the data into one comprehensive archive housed in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s headquarters on Capitol Hill.”

“The ultimate goal is to capture as many House seats as possible and also to gain control of state legislatures to assure Democrats have a stronger hand in the decennial redistricting before the 2022 midterms.”

Good, because the Green Latern Theory of Politics that Progressives like to believe in has been proven wrong under Obama. See below.

Suzy Khimm at the New Republic:

Sanders may have succeeded in dragging Democrats to the left on issues like tax reform, expanding Social Security, and getting money out of politics, but how would he actually turn his dream agenda into law? CBS’s John Dickerson pressed him on the question during the second debate, pointing out the scale of Democratic losses across the country. Sanders replied that his candidacy will spark “a political revolution, which brings working people, young people, senior citizens, minorities together.”

In other words, Sanders’s basic argument is: Elect me, and it will happen. There was a moment where that same dream of a post-partisan progressive coalition looked like it might work. That was 2008, when Obama’s victory also helped his party sweep Congress. But in retrospect, those majorities were hugely inflated by President George W. Bush’s collapse and disappeared as soon as the GOP cut his anchor. Since 2008, the party has lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, and 12 governorships. It now controls only 30 out of 99 state legislative chambers. The depth of the losses mean that even a winning Democratic presidential candidate with long coattails can’t count on flipping Congress back to Democratic control. Democrats’ down-ballot losses also undermine the party’s future prospects, as the statehouses have long served as a pipeline for national political talent.

Electing a new Democrat to the White House in 2017 won’t likely mean big policy changes, but rather holding the line against Republican attacks and pushing far more incremental reforms through execution action. That is essential, of course, and the threat of unified Republican governance is reason enough for progressives to invest deeply in electing a Democrat to the White House. But the only way to achieve anything approximating the kind of change that the rising left wants to see—or Hillary, for that matter—is by wresting back control of Congress and the states. To believe otherwise essentially relies on the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency. This, as political scientist Brendan Nyhan defined it to Vox, is the idea “that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.”

What we know about Paris terrorists -Not Syrian -Not refugees -No encryption What the US is focusing on -Syrians -Refugees -Encryption

— Daniel Lin (@DLin71) November 20, 2015

David Atkins:

A bunch of Democrats who foolishly listened to Steve Israel seem to have wildly underestimated how pissed off the progressive base is over the Syrian refugees vote. There will be opportunities to make amends, though. This fight isn’t over by a long shot.

Indeed, I am sure John Carney is a little taken aback by the outrage pointed in his direction. David speaks of opportunities to make amends. On the Refugee Bill, to even begin to heal this rift, the first, but not last, step is for all of them to sustain the veto. And of course, Senators Coons and Carper will be well advised to not repeat Carney’s mistake. They must filibuster.

Andrew Rosenthal:

To say that it is hard to figure out what Donald Trump is talking about is to state the obvious. But sometimes I have to try because he is in fact running for president and he’s addressing important issues, or at least sort of talking about them.

The latest example is the issue of whether the United States should continue taking in Syrian refugees. A bill now in Congress would kill the program under which the United States has agreed to accept a paltry 10,000 refugees from the millions displaced by the violence in the Middle East. Only 2 percent are single men of fighting age; all have been screened already by the United Nations; and all will be screened again, repeatedly, by American security agencies.

That’s not good enough for politicians like Speaker Paul Ryan who are cynically exploiting fear, ignorance and panic to score cheap political points to push this bill through. Some are calling it a “pause,” which is misleading. It would create an indefinite halt to allowing refugees into our country based solely on their national origin. President Obama has threatened to veto the bill, as he should.

So what does Donald Trump think? Nothing sensible.

Not only would he prevent these 10,000 people, largely old people and women with children, from entering the country, but he would also require Muslims to register in a national database. “They have to be,” he said, adding for eloquent emphasis: “They have to be.”

He hasn’t got the foggiest idea how this would happen, except that it would be in “different places.” Like railroad yards at night in the rain, with guard dogs keeping them under control? Then what? Would they all wear little yellow crescent moons on their jackets so everyone would know they were a) Muslim and b) registered?