Delaware Liberal

Monday Open Thread [6.27.16]

Delaware Dem

A Guardian reader wonders if David Cameron outsmarted the Brexiters. You see, during the campaign, Cameron had said that if Leave won, he would activate Article 50 of the EU Charter immediately, the day after the vote, to start the process. But guess what he did instead. He delayed, saying that the next Prime Minister the Conservative Party chooses should take that action. Take it away, Guardian commenter:

The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: Will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50? Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?

Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-maneuvered and check-mated. If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over – Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession … broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.

The delay by Cameron also makes all the ramifications of Brexit clear: market turmoil, recession, Scottish independence, Irish unification. So not only has David Cameron forced the leaders of the Brexit campaign to take ownership of the consequences, he also gave the UK time to consider whether they really want to do it. It’s both a Fuck You and a Here, Let Me Help You Out With That. Very British.

Politico: “With the convention less than a month away, Politico contacted more than 50 prominent governors, senators, and House members to gauge their interest in speaking. Only a few said they were open to it — and everyone else said they either weren’t planning on it, didn’t want to, weren’t going to Cleveland at all, or simply didn’t respond.”

“The widespread lack of interest, Republicans say, boils down to one thing: the growing consensus that it’s best to steer clear of Trump.”


New York Times: “The court issued liberal decisions in 56 percent of cases so far this term, according to a widely accepted standard developed by political scientists that considers signed decisions in argued cases. The share is only slightly lower than in the 2014-15 term, which had the highest share of liberal decisions since the court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s and 1960s.”

The first First Lady to march in a gay pride parade in the 90’s, and the first Presidential candidate to march in a gay pride parade in the 10’s. As a digression, what do we call the first decade of the 21st Century? The Aughts? The 2000’s? And this decade? The Tens? The Teens?

“We have a candidate who doesn’t need to figure out what’s going on in order to say what he wants to do.” — Trump adviser Paul Manafort, in an interview on Meet the Press.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Washington Post-ABC News—Clinton 51, Trump 39

“Roughly two in three Americans say they think Trump is unqualified to lead the nation; are anxious about the idea of him as president; believe his comments about women, minorities and Muslims show an unfair bias; and see his attacks on a federal judge because of his Mexican American heritage as racist.”

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–NBC News/Wall Street Journal—Clinton 46, Trump 41

Peter Beinart at the Atlantic:

The second reason to doubt that Brexit is prologue for Trump is the role of nationalism. The campaign to leave the EU successfully tapped into a fear that Britain was ceding its identity to foreigners, both the bureaucrats in Brussels and the immigrants who were flocking to British shores. Trump, with his “America First” slogan, is making a similar case. As he said last week, “Our country lost its way when we stopped putting the American people really first. We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism—focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class—to a policy of globalism.”

For Trump, however, nationalism is a harder argument to make. The U.S. may have entered unpopular trade deals (deals that Clinton now claims to oppose, too), but it hasn’t surrendered nearly as much sovereignty to international institutions as has the U.K. What’s more, the United States, more than Britain, sees itself as a nation of immigrants. So when Trump says he’ll protect Americans against Mexican and Muslims, Democrats can respond that those immigrants are Americans, too. Pro-E.U. politicians couldn’t speak the same way about the Polish plumbers and Syrian refugees that the pro-Brexit campaign demonized.

The language is telling. In Britain, the “Remain” camp’s slogan was “Britain Stronger in Europe.” Hillary Clinton’s current slogan, by contrast, is “We’re stronger together.” The struggle over Brexit was a struggle between nationalism and internationalism. The struggle between Trump and Clinton is a struggle between different kinds of nationalism. It’s less about America’s relationship with the world than about who is really an American. That’s why Trump will lose a substantial number of voters who agree with him about NAFTA and Iraq. They may agree that the United States should pull back militarily and economically but they will never agree that Gonzalo Curiel and Barack Obama aren’t real Americans.

To all the evil conservatives and the purist progressives who hate Obama, suck it.

Aaron Blake reports at the Fix that “…We have some bad news for the Trump campaign. Sanders supporters aren’t just rallying around Clinton; they’re doing it rather quickly. And it’s a big reason Clinton just extended her lead over Trump into the double digits, 51 percent to 39 percent…A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Sanders backers, who polls have shown were reluctant to jump over to Clinton and even flirted with supporting Trump, are coming home faster than we might have expected.”

At this point, they only Bernie or Busters left are those who voted for Nader… in 2008. They will never come home because they never lived here.

The Huffington Posts’s Earl Ofari Hutchinson makes a strong case for Clinton picking Elizabeth Warren for her running mate: “Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is Hillary’s best bet for VP. Why? Despite the relentless lampooning, ridiculing and name-calling of Trump, and the smug writing of his political obituary, the election will be a close run up. The big GOP donors and handlers, the hate driven passion to beat Hillary, Trump’s skilled fear mongering and pander to bigotry, the never-ending media fawn over him, and GOP dominance in the majority of the state’s legislatures and state houses will insure that…The fatal mistake is to assume that simply painting and then writing off Trump as a kook will be enough to scare millions to storm the polls to defeat him. Clinton’s campaign is a political textbook study in business like organization, precision, and professionalism. But it’s not a campaign of passion…Its passion that pushes people, especially young people, and minorities, out the door and to the polls on Election Day. These voters made the White House a wrap for Obama in 2008 and 2012. But Clinton is not Obama, and in the handful of swing states that will decide the election, the numbers and turnout will mean everything.”

Exit mobile version