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When I was growing up in the 2000s, the Republican party was associated with a muscular foreign policywhat George W. Bush in his second inaugural address dubbed the concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy. Democrats, on the other hand, tended to put more faith in diplomacy and international organizations, believing that soft power was more effective.

For two or three generationssince Eugene McCarthys challenge in 1968, probablythese views of foreign affairs were a more or less consistent cleavage between the parties. The Taftian isolationism that had long ago been a major strain of GOP thought had never entirely disappeared, but it had shrunk considerably, and post-Reagan, post-Gulf War, post-9/11 Republicans tended to believe that the United States should use its power to preserve the liberal global order and to protect democracies. Post-9/11 Democrats, more skeptical about how American power could be used effectively and morally, tended to prefer what one Obama adviser called leading from behind.

How things have changed.

Two focus groups I recently observed with Republicans and Democrats from Texas suggested the ways in which the parties have been undergoing a realignment on foreign policy.

Here are some statements from members of the two groups. Try to guess which is the Republican group and which is the Democratic group.

Heres the first Texas group, where six of the ten participants were in favor of sending American troops to Ukraine.

Moderator: What would the situation there need to look like for everybody, personally, to feel comfortable or want to send troops over? Nobodys brought that up.

Texas Voter 1: I would have already.

Texas Voter 2: I think he should have done a preemptive thing. As soon as they started doing it, he should have done it. . . .

Texas Voter 1: Bullies are gonna bully until theyre stopped.

Texas Voter 3: Exactly. Yeah.

And heres the other Texas group, where only three of nine were in favor of sending troops to Ukraine:

Texas Voter 4: When you go into battle, you look at the enemy. Hes got 100,000 troops waiting to invade Ukraine with everything under the sun, except nuclear. What would Biden send? 2,000? 5,000? Against 100,000. Im opposed to our young men getting slaughtered. And thats what it would be if it was a war. . . .

Texas Voter 5: I do agree with that, yes. . . .

Texas Voter 6: I was just gonna say, I think we should support Ukraine with troops, temporarily. And I emphasize that word temporarily because I think we have to call Putins bluff. I think its a bluff myself.

Texas Voter 7: I do too.

At this point Im sure you can guess the trick: The hawkish first group was made up of Democrats, and the more dovish second group was the Republicans.

These trends have been developing for a while. A Pew analysis from 2019 showed a steady reversal in what had been the dominant Republican and Democratic attitudes on foreign policy:

Today, the Republican partys leader calls Vladimir Putin a genius and whitewashes his carnage in Ukraine as the strongest peace force Ive ever seen. Meanwhile, the Democratic party is led by a president who, unlike his predecessor, did not hesitate to call Putin a killer and helped assemble the free world to enact crippling sanctions on the Russian economy.

Its a strange shift.

Podcast March 15 2022

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But the strangest change from the politics of the 2000s is that prominent Republicans and conservativesmajor figures in the pro-Trump righthave turned out to be actively pro-Putin. From Tucker Carlson becoming a Kremlinpropaganda fixture to Candace Owens regurgitating Putins propaganda about Ukrainian history to Madison Cawthornsuggesting that Volodymyr Zelensky is a thug, the rhetoric of the right has clearly shifted away from support for a foreign policy explicitly promoting human dignity in the face of an authoritarian Russian regime.

But to what extent are the views of those conservative elites also held by rank-and-file Republicans? Lets turn to the data.

In anAP-NORC poll conducted in mid-Februarythat is, just prior to the invasion of Ukraine22 percent of Republican respondents thought the United States should play a major role in the Ukraine conflict. For Democrats, the number was 32 percent.

A post-invasion Navigator survey of registered voters conducted from March 3 to March 7 found that Democrats were more supportive than Republicans of sanctions on Russia and of sending Ukraine military aid including arms and air support:

The Navigator survey showed that Republicans and Democrats alike held unfavorable views of Russia and Putin and favorable views of Ukraine and Zelensky.

A Pew poll conducted last week appears to suggest that Republicans may be returning to their post-9/11 outlook, finding that 49 percent of Republican respondents believed the United States was not providing enough support to Ukraine, compared to Democrats who felt the same at 38 percent:

To some extent, Republican views of U.S. policy toward Ukraine must be understood through a partisan lens rather than an ideological one. The Pew poll found that 67 percent of all Republicans, including 74 percent of all conservative Republicans, disapproved of the Biden administrations response, compared to 17 percent among Democrats. Which raises the question of what, then, Republicans are in favor of doing that the Biden administration is not already doing?

Not sending troops. In a Monmouth University poll conducted from March 10 to March 14, 78 percent of Democrats say they are in favor of sending troops to support our European allies as a deterrent to keep Russia from invading those countries, compared to 65 percent of Republicans. This backs up a striking finding from the Navigator poll: Democrats had a much more favorable view of NATO than Republicans, by 50 to 24. The Pew poll, too, found more Democrats than Republicans favoring a large U.S. military presence in NATO countries neighboring Ukraine.

As far as sending troops to fight specifically in Ukraine, the Monmouth poll showed Democrats almost evenly split, with 46 percent in support and 49 percent opposed. But among Republicans, only 37 percent say they support deploying troops to Ukraine, while 62 percent are against.

Imagine going back in time to 2003 and telling Dick Cheney or Trent Lott that in about twenty years, more Democrats than Republicans would want to deploy U.S. troops abroad in response to a major foreign crisis. Theyd think you were crazy.

Some of this shift can be chalked up to the partisanship surrounding Russia that went along with the Trump era. But there are deeper forces at work, too, having to do with the aftermath of the 9/11 era, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the changing nature of our political coalitions.

Because of those forcesand because of how Donald Trump remade the GOPRepublican voters abandoned their longstanding commitments to free trade, small government, public morality, and the rule of law.

The crisis in Ukraine can be seen as a test of how entirely Republicans have abandoned muscular foreign policy as well.

Read more:
Democrats Are Now the Party of American Leadership in the World - The Bulwark

Over a dozen US House of Representatives Democrats signed a letter, dated Wednesday, requesting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) address the insider threats to election systems that they say are posed by candidates for state and local election posts who believe the 2020 election was stolen. The letter is addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The lawmakers explain in the letter that, since the 2020 presidential election, election officers have faced pressure to overturn the election results from the 2020 election from individuals who believe that the 2020 election was stolen. In addition to the pressure to overturn or cast doubt on the election results, the lawmakers asserted that the election officials have faced harassment, threats, and intimidation. Although these election officials have stood up to the pressure to overturn the election results, the lawmakers are concerned that a new cohort of election officials may abuse their power to influence the results of future elections.

In the letter, they wrote:

Unfortunately, many of the candidates seeking to fill newly vacated state and local election posts support former President Trumps false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. We are concerned that this new cohort of election officials may be inclined to abuse their authority to directly influence the results of future elections.

The lawmakers specifically provided that candidates in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona pose a threat to the election systems. Further, the lawmakers asserted that at least ten candidates running for secretary of state and eight running for state attorney general across the country back false claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate.

The group of House Democrats specifically asked the DOJ to protect the integrity of election results by addressing threats from within the electoral system. The letter urged the DOJ to work with states to investigate individuals whose illegal conduct poses a threat to the election system. The lawmakers suggested that the DOJ take additional steps as well, which could include deploying nonpartisan election monitors.

Representatives Deborah Ross of North Carolina, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Terri Sewell of Alabama are co-leaders on the letter. A DOJ spokesperson stated that the Department has received the letter and will review it.

See the original post here:
Democrats urge DOJ to address alleged threats to election systems posed by electoral candidates - JURIST

Top Democratic operatives see expanding defections by Hispanic voters to the GOP, worsening Democrats' outlook for November's midterms.

Why it matters: Democrats had hoped this might be a phenomenon specific to the Trump era. But new polling shows it accelerating, worrying party strategists about the top of the ticket in 2024.

A Wall Street Journal poll last week found that by 9 points, Hispanic voters said they'd back a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat.

What's happening: Democrats saw evidence of this shift in 2020 in House races in south Florida, Texas and southern New Mexico.

Our thought bubble: Latinos, especially Mexican Americans, still lean Democratic. But Democrats have been losing ground among these voters in recent elections because the party hasn't been paying enough attention to them.

New Mexico Democratic political consultant Sisto Abeyta said he's been ringing the alarm bells for months that Democrats in his state were losing Hispanic men: "And everyone has been ignoring me."

Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, based in D.C., told Axios his party keeps hiring political consultants for U.S. House races who know little to nothing about Latino voters:

See the original post here:
Democrats to lose more ground among Hispanic voters, operatives warn - Axios

The turnabout for Cheney one of the more unlikely twists in Republican politics in recent years, in a party thats had no shortage of them will come into sharp relief next week at a gathering at Jacksons Center for the Arts. Cheney will speak on a bipartisan panel about defending elections, addressing what should be a welcoming audience amid her running battle with former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 sacking of the Capitol.

What Cheney doesnt know until now is that a band of Trump-loving Republicans will be on hand to greet her. They snapped up roughly a quarter of the 350 tickets, at $10 apiece, to give the embattled congresswoman a piece of their minds.

I was here when the Democrats dragged her fathers effigy down a village road behind a truck at one of their rallies, and those are the people who are supporting her now, that shes embraced, an angry Rebecca Cloetta, 66, said over breakfast at a greasy spoon called the Virginian.

Can you believe it? Charging for a ticket! Its a slap in the face, said Rebecca Bextel, 41, another Trump-backing Republican planning to attend the voting event. We have one person representing us Wyoming has a single House member and she shows up in town and it costs $10 to see her. Its embarrassing.

She is not, Bextel vowed, going to get reelected.

Bextel may well be correct. Though theres been scant public polling of her primary campaign against Trump-backed Harriet Hageman, its apparent that Republicans in Wyoming which voted for Trump over Joe Biden, 70 to 27 percent, in 2020 have turned against Cheney en masse since Jan. 6, 2021.

Republican U.S. House candidate Harriet Hageman talks to a supporter at a campaign event on March 7, 2022, in Cheyenne, Wyo.|Mead Gruver/AP Photo

Just as obvious is that Cheney needs Democrats and independents to change their party registration and cast their vote for her in the Aug. 16 primary. Her campaign is loath to talk strategy publicly, but the math doesnt lie and neither do Cheneys actions on the ground here in recent months.

She has shunned town halls and other voter forums in Wyomings overwhelmingly red counties in favor of controlled events. At the March 22 event, which is being hosted by Issue One, a bipartisan organization that advocates for sweeping reforms to fix our broken political system, Cheney will answer pre-selected questions.

When Cheney was censured by the state Republican Party in February 2021, three of the eight votes against the move were by officials from Teton County, which encompasses Jackson. The dissenters included Mary Martin, now the countys GOP chair.

Since then, however, Martin has soured on Cheney. She said the congresswoman is rarely in the state, despite having been urged to explain why she voted to impeach Trump.

She was absolutely invited to come and present what her facts were, to defend why you are doing this and instead she opted to call the Republicans radicals, which has made people upset within the party, Martin said from the Jackson mansion of Nancy Donovan, a prominent Republican donor in Wyoming.

Shes not in the state, she has not been anywhere, maybe one or two places, Donovan echoed. She doesnt show up shes very entitled. Her parents have events at their house, Ive spent money to go to her house to fund her. I truly will never vote for her again. Donovan and Bextel are both members of Hagemans grassroots leadership team.

Martin went further, calling Cheneys work on the Jan. 6 committee duplicity.

Shes been MIA since Jan. 6. And what we all truly believe is that the Wyoming seat is a stepping stone to running for president in 2024 and she needs to get Trump out of the way. And to raise money, shes using the anti-Trump commentary, Martin speculated.

An empty chair labeled "Representative Cheney" sits in front of a meeting room in Rawlins, Wyo., on Feb. 6, 2021. The Wyoming Republican Party central committee voted to censure Rep. Liz Cheney for voting to impeach President Donald Trump. Republican officials said they invited Cheney, but she didn't attend.|Mead Gruver/AP Photo

Cheney declined to be interviewed for this story. But she told The New York Times last month that she will not openly court Democrats by supporting a Democrats for Cheney group or encourage an existing political action committee, dubbed Switch for Wyoming, that encourages Democrats to vote in Republican primaries.

Without an aggressive campaign strategy to win over Democrats, it might seem like a tough sell: Cheney, after all, voted with Trump 93 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. But some Democratic voters in Jackson are embracing her. They appreciate Cheneys work in Congress prosecuting Trump and theyre ready to switch parties to vote for her.

Even if theyre not ready to admit it publicly.

I think her politics are crap, but I like how much hate she gets from the people of Wyoming, said a 27-year-old event planner who will register as a Republican for the first time to vote for Cheney. He asked not to be named because its a small town.

There are a lot of things about her that dont appeal to me as a gay man, he said. She was not supportive of her sister until it came out in the news, and that is a big red flag. At the same time, its Wyoming, a population of 500,000. Every vote counts. Wyomings population is just under 579,000, according to U.S. Census figures.

Pete Jenkins, 54, a contractor whos lived in Wyoming for three decades, said he identifies personally as a Democrat he did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 but is registered as a Republican just to have some influence in Wyoming politics. He said he intends to vote for Cheney and has heard from lots of other Democrats planning to do the same.

I think its a fairly popular thing, he said of the party-switchers-for-Cheney movement.

Cheney needs as many of them as she can get.

Wyoming political strategists say the only path to victory for Cheney is with the help of Democrats and independents. The states 2018 Republican primary for an open governors seat is instructive. Mark Gordon, the GOP state treasurer at the time, was facing stiff competition from the right. More than 10,000 voters switched parties or registered as Republicans for the first time between the primary and general elections.

Gordon won the primary by 9,000 votes against candidates that included Hageman. Turnout was 116,000 and Gordon received just shy of 39,000 votes.

While Cheney has yet to overtly court Democrats, her decision to aggressively investigate Trump as a leader of the select Jan. 6 House committee naturally appeals to voters who detest the former president.

Cheney allies are hopeful that crossover voters will bail her out this time. They are counting on a primary with at least two pro-Trump GOP candidates that will divide the anti-Cheney vote. With the help of even half of the 73,000 Democrats who voted for Biden in 2020, they believe Cheney could pull it off.

That theory isnt lost on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has told members that hes worried that the numbers add up for Cheney and that she might be back in Congress next session, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump, too, is worried that Democrats will help reelect Cheney. He backed a bill in the Wyoming legislature that would have barred voters from switching parties on the day of a primary election in order to vote for a candidate of another party.

But that proposal died in the Wyoming legislature last week.

At an event in Cheyenne earlier this month where nearly 200 people in cowboy hats and boots showed up to support Hageman, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) urged voters to call their legislators to back the measure.

Ill tell you this, theres only one way Liz Cheney wins, and thats if you let Democrats vote in your primary, so you need to call your state rep and let them know, he said just days before the bill died.

After the event, Hageman told reporters, Im fully confident I can win this race whether the crossover bill happens or not. Its something thats been an issue in our state for many years, its not just 2020.

A progressive organizer who helped get the Democratic vote out for Gordon in 2018 crunched the numbers based on a hypothetical three-way race between Hageman, Cheney and Republican state Sen. Anthony Bouchard. The person said Bouchard because he remains popular among the MAGA set even after Trump endorsed Hageman could play spoiler by drawing as much as 15 percent of the vote.

That could open the door just enough for Cheney to slip through, the organizer said.

It will depend on Cheneys on-the-ground voter engagement not high-priced advertising campaigns that will quickly saturate Wyomings small markets, the person said. We know at least some of these voters will vote if they think their vote will make a difference in a race that means something to them.

Read more here:
Liz Cheney turns to Democrats to save her hide - POLITICO

Jayapal desperately trying to distinguish the dems from the republicans PHOTO BY DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

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While it is unclear if this subvariant will make people extremely ill, many but not all of the health experts the Washington Post interviewed said a wave will likely come to the U.S., as our surges typically lag behind those in Europe and Asia.

Hang in there (imagine the cat poster): Coming out of an episode of much gloom apologia, The Seattle Weather Blog delivered good news for the girlies who reach unabomber levels of hermit in the winter. Highs could bring bare-legs weather next week! Whoop, whoop.

Okay, okay, a little less reform please: Yesterday, Gov. Jay Inslee officially signed House Bill 2037, which rolls back some of the police reform lawmakers passed last year after many Democrats decided they took it a step too far. The bill basically allows a little more use of force to stop people from fleeing temporary investigative detentions.

In other cop news: UWs student government passed a proposal to implement a pilot program for alternative emergency response services in the U-District. The program is in the early design stages, and the students are still looking for funding, but the goal is to get people services without the potential harm of calling the cops. The supporters of the program say it is not anti-cop but rather pro-community.

Sweep in Chinatown International District: Yesterday the city swept a large encampment in the CID. According to the mutual aid group that serves this area, the city did not provide language access.

Additionally, if you dont read English or Spanish, the citys sweep notices will do little for you. Based on data of the most commonly spoken languages in Seattle, the City of Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs entities communicate city-wide services and programs in Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali, Amharic, Korean, Tagalog; if feasible Tigrinya, Oromo, Japanese, Russian, and consider including Arabic, Khmer, Thai, Laotian.

Here we go again: After Pfizer asked for approval on a booster shot for seniors, drugmaker Moderna asked the FDA yesterday to authorize a fourth shot of its COVID-19 vaccine for all adults. Many health officials saw this pattern coming; similar to the flu shot, we would need to keep boosting in order to keep the virus manageable.

ICYMI: Rep. Kirsten Harris-Talley will not return to Olympia for a second term. State Democrats are dropping like flies: Sens. Frockt, Carlyle, Sheldon, and Reps. Sullivan, Dolan, Johnson, Cody, Sells, and others.

The Nazification of Ukraine: President Vladimir Putin invoked Nazis to justify his invasion of Ukraine. Nazi scholars published open letter calling Putins rhetoric factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive. The scholars acknowledged far-right groups in Ukraine, but said that did not justify Russias invasion or the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine. The New York Times discusses.

If anyone could do it, it would be him: Arnold Schwarzenegger posted a video on social media to tell Putin to stop killing Ukrainians and sacrificing Russian soldiers. Schwarzeneggers words are not like the other stop the war #peace posts. The actor is super popular with Russia and its president. Putins twitter only follows 22 accounts, one being Schwarzenegger.

More protections for abortion: Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill that prohibits legal action against people seeking an abortion and those who aid them. Washington state has very strong pro-choice legislation in comparison to other states across the country, and this bill is a direct response to other states, including Idaho, that want you to tattle in order to enforce cruel abortion restrictions.

Speaking of Idaho: Girl, what?

Biden, help the Progressives help you. With what is certain to be a bloodbath midterm election looming, the Congressional Progressive Caucus gave President Joe Biden a list of 55 executive actions he could take that would make Democrats look like they did something with their control of the legislative and executive branches. These actions include addressing the family glitch in the Affordable Care Act, declaring a National Climate Emergency, and canceling student loan debt.

CPC Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who represents Seattle, said in a statement, "We know working people can't wait for relief from rising costsand that Democrats must use all the tools available to provide it, quickly."

My notes app apology: Yesterday, I live-tweeted my notes during one of my scariest endeavors yet: the Downtown Seattle Association State of Downtown event. I thank God for the complimentary cider that got me through it. Im kidding. It was fine.

But anyway, in one of my tweets, I paid KCRHA CEO Marc Dones a well-deserved compliment when they said homeless people are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. I added that I was the only snaps at that particular moment (the crowd loved Dones, so there were plenty of snaps/claps/giggles throughout the interview). I have since been informed that others snapped along at that comment as well. I believe all snappers, so I would like to formally apologize for my error, and once again reiterate the more important component of that tweet: Homeless people are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. With love, Hannah.

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Slog AM: Jayapal Gives Biden 55 Ways to Make Democrats Look Effective, Schwarzenegger Scolds Putin, and This Pandemic OMG - TheStranger.com