Saturday Open Thread [2.20.16]

SOUTH CAROLINA—SC House GOP–Trump 34, Cruz 19, Rubio 18, Bush 12, Kasich 8, Carson 5
SOUTH CAROLINA—Clemson–Trump 28, Cruz 19, Rubio 15, Bush 10, Kasich 9, Carson 6
SOUTH CAROLINA—Augusta Chronicle–Trump 27, Rubio 24, Cruz 19, Bush 11, Carson 8, Kasich 7
SOUTH CAROLINA—Emerson–Trump 36, Rubio 19, Cruz 18, Bush 10, Kasich 10, Carson 6
MICHIGAN—Detroit News/WDIV-TV–Trump 25, Cruz 15, Rubio 12, Kasich 11, Carson 9, Bush 5
MICHIGAN—FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell–Trump 41, Cruz 11, Kasich 11, Rubio 10, Carson 7, Bush 5
MICHIGAN—FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell–Clinton 60, Sanders 27

Trump and his supporters hate America, but they love the traitorous Confederacy.

It’s hardly breaking news that, in this era of culture war and polarization, an awful lot of self-styled patriots on the political right seem to have a very low opinion of the country they profess to adore. Many openly hate the commander-in-chief, everyone who voted for him, and anyone who represents the corrosive forces — from relativism to feminism to the welfare state — that are transforming America into an alien land. What makes Donald Trump distinctive is that he’s extended disdain for godless secular-socialist liberals to the entire national leadership of both political parties and to the chumps who let them rule their lives. If you listen to Trump often enough, you get the sense he believes we are a nation of “losers” who half-deserve the beating we are getting from the far superior societies that regularly dupe and exploit pathetic old Uncle Sam. Every time he promises to “make America great again” it becomes more obvious how far he thinks we currently are from greatness or even respectability.

It’s pretty well understood that Trump is appealing to angry and frustrated people. But the extent to which their views lie outside the mainstream of conventional American values can come as a shock. A Public Policy Polling survey of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina released earlier this week showed a lot of contempt throughout the GOP electorate for the First Amendment and any idea of tolerance and inclusion. But even in this skewed universe, Trump’s people stand out. Eighty percent of them support Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration — and 31 percent would extend the ban to gay people. Even more strikingly, two-thirds support tracking American Muslims through a national database. Only 44 percent of Trump fans in South Carolina can bring themselves to stand up for keeping Islam legal in this country. These attitudes extend to other reactionary ground: 70 percent of Trump supporters would reverse the recent bipartisan action that removed the Confederate battle flag from its historic perch at the state capitol. And a plurality — 38 percent to 24 percent — wish the traitorous Confederacy had won the Civil War. All in all, it’s pretty clear these folks are still engaged in their own civil war.

Professor Yoav Fromer writes in his Washington Post op-ed, “It’s fair for Democrats to press Sanders on how, exactly, he intends to achieve his “political revolution.” What is unfair is to dismiss his policies outright because they seem too far from the mainstream. Concepts from the left fringe have, throughout American history, served as corrective rather than destructive devices. Instead of smashing institutions, these ideas have mostly provided a moral compass for repairing them; many radical-worker, populist, progressive and even socialist ideas didn’t necessarily undermine the mainstream Democratic agenda as much as reorient it toward more urgent and just directions. Sanders’s push to fix a rigged economy and curtail campaign cash may shape the future Democratic agenda, regardless of whether he gets the nomination. (Clinton’s attempt to brandish her anti-Wall Street credentials shows that this shift has already begun.)…There is little doubt that Clinton’s pragmatic sensibility is invaluable for getting things done. But the revolutionary tradition in which Sanders stands can make sure they get done for the right reasons. In this way, the center and the fringe are symbiotic. Ideology is a terrible tool for governing but a necessary reminder of what government is for.”

Indeed, as I have said for a year, I want Bernie Sanders in this race to move the party and Hillary left. Just so long as he does not win the nomination. Bernie is a tool to move the party left. He is not a tool to move the country left.

Jeet Heer says Nixon and Reagan’s Southern Strategy is responsible for Trump:

There is another way of looking at Trump: Far from being a “cancer” on Republicanism, or some jihadi-style radicalizer, he’s the natural evolutionary product of Republican platforms and strategies that stretch back to the very origins of modern conservatism in the 1950s and 1960s.

Polling in South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on Saturday, reveals the single most salient difference between Trump’s supporters and those of his rivals: They are much more likely to endorse white ethnic nationalism and to express nostalgia for traditional Southern racism. In light of this polling, Trump’s campaign can best be understood not as an outlier but as the latest manifestation of the Southern Strategy, which the Republican Party has deployed for a half-century to shore up its support in the old Confederate states by appeals to racial resentment and white solidarity.

Nancy LaTourneau:

Conservatives really are facing the prospect of a double whammy. They are likely to continue to control the House next year and have successfully halted anything much happening in the Senate via use of the filibuster. But now, not only is the presidency up for grabs again in November, but a Democratic appointment to the Supreme Court will swing that institution away from their agenda. […] Hewitt mentioned abortion, guns, marriage and immigration when talking about the activity of the Supreme Court. If you add it voting rights and affirmative action, you pretty much have a summary of the cultural changes that are a threat to the Confederate world view Doug Muder wrote about.

The essence of the Confederate worldview is that the democratic process cannot legitimately change the established social order, and so all forms of legal and illegal resistance are justified when it tries… The Confederate sees a divinely ordained way things are supposed to be, and defends it at all costs. No process, no matter how orderly or democratic, can justify fundamental change.

That “divinely ordained way things are supposed to be” includes white supremacy, control of women’s reproductive choices, marriage between one man and one woman, and the elevation of gun rights over every other constitutional right.

But America is changing. And all of those things are threatened. That is what has conservatives so terrified and angry…to the point that people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz now lead the fight for the next Republican presidential nomination.

Martin Longman:

We can debate where this whole subject falls on the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t scale, but I’m not convinced it helps the Republicans’ cause in November to simply refuse to consider any nominee by declining to give them the courtesy of a hearing and a vote. The logic of it is that the Republican base will be so dejected if partisan control of the Court is lost before the election that they won’t turn out. If, on the other hand, they think control hangs in the balance, they will turn out in droves. They won’t turn out to vote for a nominee they might hate or distrust, but they’ll turn out to keep the Court from flipping to a liberal majority.

That makes a lot of sense, and I’m sure that they would experience different turnout numbers depending on which road they take. But base mobilization is more of a midterm strategy than a general election strategy. The Republicans have only succeeded in winning the popular vote once in the last twenty-eight years (in 2004), and they barely won the Electoral College that year. They need to change the shape of the electorate in their favor, because their base just isn’t big enough.

And, consider, since 2012 they’ve definitely done damage with their prospects with Latino and Asian voters. They’ve further alienated the academic/scientific/technical/professional class with their anti-science lunacy. They’ve lot the youth vote over a variety of issues, including hostility to gay rights. They’re doing everything they can to maximize the black vote. Muslims will vote almost uniformly against them despite sharing some of their ‘family values.’ Women won’t be impressed if Cruz or Rubio are the nominees because they both oppose abortion including in cases of rape or incest. They’ll be unimpressed with Donald Trump because he’s a sexist, womanizing boor. I don’t think any of these groups will be more favorably inclined to the Republicans if they block Obama’s nominee without a hearing.

Realistically, as this point they almost have to go with Trump because his fame and lack of orthodoxy will change the shape of the electorate. It’s not likely to change it favorably, and many life-long Republicans will bolt the party, perhaps never to come back. But it will change it.

Politico says the campaigns are flying blind in Nevada: “There have been only two public surveys in Nevada this week, and pollsters warn that the caucuses — a system only recently implemented in the state and typically attended by very few Nevadans — are nearly impossible to predict. That’s frightening for those wondering whether Clinton can sustain her Nevada firewall or whether Sanders’ momentum can bring a surge of young voters to the caucuses.”

At a campaign event in South Carolina, Donald Trump praised the mass execution of Muslims in the Philippines by telling an apocryphal story about General John Pershing, MSNBC reports.

Said Trump: “He took fifty bullets, and he dipped them in pig’s blood. And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the fifty people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the fiftieth person he said ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem, okay?”

Daily Beast: “The meeting, called by Ted Cruz in an attempt to mend fences with Ben Carson ahead of the South Carolina primary, was held on Thursday night before the Conservative Review convention. The two huddled in the unusual venue for nearly 20 to 25 minutes, as Carson’s Secret Service detail stood outside, according to a Republican operative who witnessed the strange scene.”

“Carson, whose campaign has spent the weeks after Iowa blasting Cruz for lying to voters in the Hawkeye State, agreed to meet him for five minutes, according to a source close to Carson’s campaign, to try to put to bed the issue of his dirty campaign tricks in Iowa, during which Cruz’s campaign told caucus-goers that Carson had dropped out of the race.”

Bernie Sanders supporter Don Schubert tried to place an obituary for Hillary Clinton in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The man, who identified himself as Don Schubert, was asked to leave the newspaper building’s lobby after he filled out a standard obituary form identifying the deceased as Hillary Rodham Clinton, and listing her date of death as Feb. 20, 2016, the date of Saturday’s Democratic Party presidential caucuses. Previously he had called the newsroom to complain about the coin flips that determined the outcome of some Iowa caucuses last month.

The man was seen leaving the RJ parking lot in a maroon Toyota Prius bearing several Bernie Sanders campaign stickers. A security guard said he was also wearing a Sanders sticker on his shirt. The official Sanders campaign website lists “Don Schubert’s House” in Long Beach, Calif., as the site of a volunteer phone bank.

Hilarious. Can you imagine the rage felt if that was directed at Bernie Sanders or President Barack Obama?

Rick Klein on how Pope Francis helped Donald Trump: “Usually Trump needs creativity – and a certain amount of gall – to shamelessly change the subject at just the right moment. With one answer to a reporter aboard his plane, the pope did the hard work for Trump. Sure, having perhaps the world’s most prominent religious leader say you’re ‘not Christian,’ just days before a primary dominated by religious voters, may not seem helpful. But Trump has shown there’s no public feud he can’t win.”

“It’s hard to imagine evangelicals who might have supported Trump suddenly abandon him because the leader of the Catholic Church raises questions about his values and compassion. And – in classic Trump style – he used the episode to display indignation and anger. His hardline anti-immigration message gets some late airing, blocking out questions about, say, his positions on abortion and the war in Iraq.”

How real was Sanders’ threat to primary Obama in 2012? Real enough that the Obama campaign took it seriously.

So how real was Sanders’ threat? Real enough that it prompted the Obama campaign to consider it seriously, according to David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager in 2008 and a White House senior adviser when Sanders made his comment. “He did suggest that we get primaried, which is no small thing—like a big thing,” Plouffe told Mother Jones Thursday afternoon at a Clinton field office in Las Vegas. “We thought maybe he’d run against us.” When asked if that meant the Obama campaign made plans for that scenario, Plouffe said, “We prepared for everything. That’s a problem. He’s suggesting that progressives have been let down by Obama, that’s a problem. I think there’s no question that she’s been a more steadfast supporter.”

Plouffe had swung by the field office to rally Clinton volunteers, who were busy phone banking for Clinton ahead of Saturday’s caucuses. After Plouffe addressed the room, I asked him if it felt weird coming back to Nevada to stump for Clinton, eight years after he ran a campaign against her. “Of course it feels a little odd, given how intense that primary was,” he said.

But the former Clinton foe is now firmly on her side. He acknowledged that Sanders has run an impressive campaign, but he was generally dismissive of Sanders as a serious candidate. “Aspirational campaign not rooted in reality,” he said to sum up Sanders’ approach. Of Sanders’ planned political revolution, he added, “None of that stuff is going to happen. I hate to be a realist, but it wouldn’t get support by most Democrats in Congress, let alone Republicans. And I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Taxing the middle class right now when they’re struggling with wage stagnation and income insecurity is the wrong way to go.”

Senators McConnell and Grassley have gotten over their weak knees and disarray and solidified their call for unconstitutional obstruction of the President’s power to nominate a Supreme Court Justice, thus guaranteeing a Democratic Senate in 2017.

Alan Abromowitz: “These trends suggest that Donald Trump should be considered a solid favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination. Since 1996, no candidate leading by such a wide margin in national polls after the New Hampshire primary has failed to win a major party nomination. The only caveat here is that Trump is a very unusual Republican frontrunner. No Republican frontrunner since Barry Goldwater in 1964 has generated anything approaching the level of resistance among Republican Party leaders and elected officials that Trump has generated.”

“So far, however, their resistance has had little impact on GOP voters, partly because the party ‘establishment’ has been unable to unite behind a single alternative to Trump and partly because many of these party leaders and elected officials dislike Ted Cruz even more than they dislike Donald Trump. The results of the South Carolina primary on Saturday and the Nevada caucuses three days later should provide further evidence about whether Trump’s march to the GOP nomination will continue unimpeded or suffer a serious setback. Based on the most recent polling in both states, the former seems much more likely than the latter.”

Jeet Heer on the importance of Nevada:

Bernie Sanders has gotten farther than he probably expected when he launched his presidential campaign. No one, really, expected that he would come within a hair of matching Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses and thoroughly dominate her in the New Hampshire primary. The Sanders campaign is revved up—and his support nationally is showing a dramatic uptick. Sanders now leads in one national poll—and Team Clinton is experiencing unexpected nightmares, all too reminiscent of 2008 when her frontrunner status was overturned by another challenger who excited voters with a promise of change.

But Saturday’s Nevada caucus promises to test whether Sanders’s appeal is broad enough to win in a state where the demographics are very different from Iowa and New Hampshire. Or, to flip the equation: Nevada is an ideal opportunity for Clinton to trip up Sanders, slowing his momentum before he has a chance to carry it into next week’s South Carolina primary and the Super Tuesday contests on March 1. […]

Sanders needs to prove he can win over Latinos, Asian-Americans, and African-Americans—there’s no other way that he can seriously compete for the nomination. Clinton, conversely, needs to prove that her “firewall” of non-white support, which she’s also counting on in the upcoming Southern primaries, is going to be strong enough to block Sanders.