Mediaboss Marketing

Joe Biden is inching his way toward a win, but Congress is on track to be more divided than ever. POLITICO's Dan Diamond explains how the coronavirus pandemic split the nation and how polarized views of President Trump's response shaped results up and down the ballot.

Here is an uncomfortable reality for Obama and anyone who agreed with his words. Trump is on track to grow his popular vote total by millions of people, not one of whom could have been under any illusions about what they were voting for. Unlike 2016, there is no way to dismiss this as a flukish accident of democracy, or an illegitimate manipulation of democracy. His support was a robust expression of democracy.

More discomfort: This was a bravura political achievement. Strip itjust for a moment onlyfrom moral context, from the fact that crowded, maskless rallies during a pandemic are flagrantly irresponsible, that many of his words were remorselessly demagogic. In the midst of the coronavirus catastrophe, just weeks after that virus left him in the hospital needing supplemental oxygen, in the face of bad polls and mostly hostile news coverage, Trump raced across the country and came close to winning. He is a movement politician who, with his back to the wall, often demonstrates remarkable moves.

It is not possible, of course, to separate Trumps political performance from moral context. The argument of the past four years hasnt been about, say, marginal tax rates in which people may accuse their opponents of greed but in the end can easily split the difference. Its not even like arguments about abortion rights, in which the differences arent easily split and the different sides often view each other with mutual incomprehension. But even in that case, adversaries are in violent opposition to each others views, not in violent opposition to the body of institutions, rules and prevailing ethical customs that cumulatively create a democratic culture.

Trump is in opposition to that. There are hundreds of examples but no need to dig through the archives. His overnight appearance at the White House early Wednesday was a fine example. He alleged fraud without evidence and asserted, with millions of votes in key states still not counted, Frankly, we did win this election.

The origins of Trumps appeal stretch back decades, in the long-term decline of trust in most American institutions, from government, to Big Business, to the media. In recent years, in part through purposeful political marketing in which politicians and media figures on both ends of the ideological spectrum reap lavish rewards of publicity and money for extreme politics, mistrust has been refined into pure contempt. It was this environment that made Trump possible, and in which he prospered.

But a narrow victory for either side does not fundamentally alter the countrys political balance. This means that the environment that produced Trump-style politics will continue even if Trump is not president. It also means that the opposition party to any president will in many circumstances perceive implacable opposition as being in their interest. In such a dynamic it is better to keep policy disputes as weapons and shields in the ongoing ideological and partisan war than it is to resolve them.

For four years, Democrats have been caught in what might be thought of as the contempt conundrum. The only principled response to Trumps shredding of norms and defiance of accountability is steadfast opposition. This, at times, can goad them into the same politics of insult and indignation in which Trump thrives. It was no accident that the opportunity to register a verdict on the Trump years inspired surges of new voting on both sides of the question.

The conditions that created Trump will end only when one party or the other achieves a decisive advantage with voters that carries them to unchallenged majority status across Washington and deep into the states. Democrats thought this might be the year that happened. Some 67 million Trump votersseveral million less than Biden won but several million more than Trump got four years agosaid not so fast.

When Democrats ask Trump voters What is your problem? it is another way of asking themselves, What is our problem?

Excerpt from:
Democrats Look at Trump Voters and Wonder, What the Hell Is Your Problem? - POLITICO

I dont see Democrats putting anything forward as a plan other than orange-man bad, said Vinny Papa, 54, who works as a parts manager at a car dealership in Suffolk County.

Mr. Papa, an independent voter who said he has voted for both Democrats and Republicans, said he is not a big Trump supporter, but voted for Mr. Trump because Republicans are bad, and the Democrats are a hundred times worse.

Dana Gencarelli, 35, a mother of two young children, said that she was happy with Ms. Malliotakiss lead because her top concern was public safety, a priority she said Mr. Rose did not share.

Do I always feel Republicans are doing the right thing? No, she said, as she had pizza with family outside of Leos in Bay Ridge. But right now the Democrats arent doing the right thing.

Still others, including Cameron Lory Faulds, a Bay Ridge resident who has voted for both parties in the past, voted for the entire Democratic ticket, including Joseph R. Biden Jr. as did her husband, who is a registered Republican. Her social views, she said, were key in her choice of candidates.

Im not voting for Trumps enablers, she said standing by a yard sign outside her home that read: Im a Republican but not a fool! Biden 2020.

In many cases, however, voters appeared jaded by an election cycle that devolved into one of the most bruising and divisive in recent memory. With the outcome of the election still uncertain, some voters preferred not to express their political views or say who they had voted for.

Original post:
How Defund the Police Roiled Competitive Races in New York - The New York Times

Democrats are encouraging Rep. Tony Crdenas (D-Calif.) to drop out of the race for assistant Speaker and run to lead the House Democrats 2022 campaign operation following a disappointing election night for the party, multiple sources told The Hill.

I think Tony would have a lot of support for DCCC. Maybe not automatic but a very clean shot," Rep. Filemon VelaFilemon Bartolome VelaDemocrats try to draft Cardenas to run campaign arm after disappointing night Hispanic Caucus asks for Department of Labor meeting on COVID in meatpacking plants The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden builds big lead in battleground Florida MORE (D-Texas), a close friend and fellow Hispanic Caucus member, said in an interview Thursday, referring to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Current DCCC Chairwoman Cheri BustosCheryl (Cheri) Lea BustosDemocrats' post-election 'family meeting' descends into chaos Democrats try to draft Cardenas to run campaign arm after disappointing night The Hill's 12:30 Report: How to read the battleground votes trickling in MORE (D-Ill.) has not said whether shell seek a second term leading the campaign arm. Shes focused on getting every vote counted in a number of close House races across the country that havent been called yet, DCCC spokesman Cole Leiter said.

Election night proved to be a huge disappointment for Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiBiden claims a 'mandate' to govern, calls for end to 'partisan warfare' Election scrambles prospects for next COVID-19 relief bill Overnight Health Care: Election results underscore different views on coronavirus | What could a Biden administration do on health care? | Battle lines form over coronavirus fight in lame duck MORE (D-Calif.), Bustos and their fellow House Democrats. Bolstered by positive polling and record fundraising, they had hoped to pick up anywhere from five to 15 seats, winning districts deep in Trump country. Instead, they watched as at least seven vulnerable members went down to defeat and are now on track to have a net loss of seats.

Many Democrats said they dont envision Bustos, a centrist, leading the DCCC after Tuesday nights results, particularly as her own district's politics become more complicated and she is forced to focus more energy on defending her own seat in western Illinois. The Associated Press on Thursday projected Bustos, who was leading her GOP challenger 52 percent to 48 percent, would win her race.

"What got under members' skin is the fact that she had to get bailed out. Why did we spend $1 million to bail out the DCCC chair? That's the bur under their saddle,"a former Democratic leadership aide said of Democratic super PAC spending in the race. "If this was a bad cycle for her, imagine 2022."

Crdenas, 57, is currently locked in a three-way race to replace the assistant Speaker, Rep. Ben Ray Lujn, a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) who won an open Senate seat in New Mexico on Tuesday night. The California Democrat is running against Rep. Katherine ClarkKatherine Marlea ClarkDemocrats try to draft Cardenas to run campaign arm after disappointing night Pocan won't seek another term as Progressive Caucus co-chair Democratic leaders: Supreme Court fight is about ObamaCare MORE (D-Mass.), the vice chairwoman of the Democratic caucus; and Rep. David CicillineDavid Nicola CicillineCivil Rights group, watchdog formally request Twitter suspend Trump's account over disinformation Democrats try to draft Cardenas to run campaign arm after disappointing night Justice Department charges Google with illegally maintaining search monopoly MORE (D-R.I.), who heads up the partys messaging arm known as the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.

But the DCCC job could be a better fit for Crdenas, one of the Congressional Hispanic Caucuss leaders and a prolific fundraiser, some Democrats say.

At the campaign organization, the former Los Angeles city councilman would follow in the steps of Lujn, who engineered the 2018 Democratic sweep that gave the party the House majority. Some party insiders and members were initially miffed at Bustos for putting her imprint on the job, rather than just building on Lujn's work.

Crdenas is currently chairman of Bold PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) campaign arm, a post that Lujn had previously held.

Bold PAC was a relatively minor operation before Lujn, mostly focused on supporting CHC incumbents in tough races. Lujn overhauled the operation in the 2014 campaign cycle, Bold PAC raised nearly $1 million, twice what it raised two cycles prior.

But Crdenas changed the face of Bold PAC entirely, raising more than $6 million for 2016, $11 million for 2018 and more than $13 million for 2020, and expanding the group's reach to support vulnerable members beyond the CHC.

Democrats who are wary of the 2020 House results see Crdenas's job at Bold PAC as a supercharged version of Lujn's role there, and hope that could translate to a DCCC expected to face a huge challenge in protecting its majority in what almost certainly will be a difficult midterm election for Democrats.

Crdenas is the name that keeps coming up by members [who think] he would be the right guy because of what he's done with Bold PAC, the former Democratic aide said.

Democrats are especially concerned about lost ground with Hispanic voters in areas like the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where Hispanic support for Republicans grew aggressively in 2020.

Democrats were also caught off guard in two key Miami-Dade seats poached by Republicans, where Trump's consistent messaging on Latin American socialism essentially erased gains Democrats had made among South Florida Hispanics, particularly the powerful Cuban American voting bloc.

House campaigns throughout the country also suffered because favorite tactics door knocking and in-person get out the vote efforts were discarded by Democrats in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Many Democrats view Crdenas, an advocate of the early-and-often approach to Hispanic outreach used in 2018, as uniquely poised to bring back that strategy.

Bustos, who early in her DCCC tenure was criticized for a lack of diversity in her leadership team, has said she runs the committee with a mindset of permanent engagement with voters, responding to criticism that minority voters are approached late in each cycle.

But the shock of a disappointing 2020 House election, plus concerns about Bustos's own job security amid impending redistricting, have Democrats calling Crdenas en masse to consider the campaign job.

Whether that's enough for Crdenas to mount a challenge against Bustos remains to be seen.

Crdenas, who has made no secret of his leadership ambitions, said earlier in the summer that he did not challenge Bustos out of respect, and decided to go for the assistant speakership.

Crdenas considers Bustos a friend and is unlikely to formally announce any designs on the DCCC role unless Bustos steps aside, sources said.

The former Democratic leadership aide said there's a group of members actively trying to recruit Crdenas for DCCC chair, though this source said there's been no indication that Crdenas is ready to make a jump.

"I haven't heard that Crdenas is moving. I know that members are trying to convince him that he should get into that race," the former aide said Thursday by phone, adding that many members are waiting to hear Bustos's side before outright calling for her ouster.

While a number of outstanding races remain to be called, there's already grumbling from a number of moderate Democrats that leadership botched the party's campaign message. Some have called for a leadership shake-up from Pelosi down, though the former leadership aide said those voices represent a small, if restless, minority.

"There's the usual rumbling, but I don't know if anyone's going to be willing to say, 'Hey, we need new leadership top to bottom.' I haven't heard that part," the source said. "I have heard that Bustos is sort-of the center of their energy right now."

Updated: 10:10 p.m.

View post:
Democrats try to draft Cardenas to run campaign arm after disappointing night | TheHill - The Hill

How could the electoral circumstances for the US Democrats have been more favourable? A quarter of a million Americans have died in a pandemic bungled by the incumbent president, and at least 6 million have consequently been driven into poverty. The coronavirus crisis is the devastating climax of a presidency defined by hundreds of scandals, many of which alone, in normal circumstances, could have destroyed the political career of whoever occupied the White House.

Despite having the active support of almost the entire US press, Joe Bidens victory looks to be far narrower than predicted. During the Democratic primaries, Bidens cheerleaders argued that his socialist challenger Bernie Sanders would repel Floridas voters, and yet Donald Trump has triumphed in the sunshine state. They argued that his unelectable rival would risk the Senate and down-ballot races, yet the Republicans may retain control of the Senate, and Democrats are losing seats in the House of Representatives.

Without coronavirus, Trump would have undoubtedly secured another term and potentially dismantled an already flawed US democracy for a generation or more. This should have been a landslide, and now the world will pay the cost for the self-inflicted wounds of the Democratic establishment. Trump may be defeated; Trumpism lives on.

While attention should now focus on resisting attempts by Trump and his allies to steal the election, the Democratic establishment must also understand why this entirely avoidable farce came to pass. As their phones lit up four years ago with notifications that he had become the 45th president of the American republic, Trump was, to self-styled Democratic moderates, a sudden hurricane that materialised under clear blue skies: an aberration; a glitch; a perverse accident to be undone so normality and civility could be restored.

Many Democrats comforted themselves with the notion they had nothing to answer for: they had simply been cheated, Russia was to blame, and Hillary Clinton whose hubristic campaign had initially wanted Trump as its preferred Republican nominee had been tragically wronged. Rather than offering an inspiring alternative, Biden would bask in the reflected glory of Barack Obama, present himself as the grownup in the room, and focus on flipping erstwhile Trump voters on the grounds of competence alone. Striking, then, that not only did Trump win more votes than 2016, but 93% of Republicans opted for him this time around, up three points from that fateful election.

Ample criticisms can be made of Bidens candidacy, which limited its political horizons in deference to the Democrats corporate client base, when even Fox News exit polls showed that most Americans favoured a government-run healthcare plan. Democrats have taken Latino and black Americans for granted, an oversight that Trump ably exploited, winning (albeit from low numbers) increased support among both groups. But the roots of this failure go back decades. The Democratic establishment has long refused to embrace even the basic tenets of social democracy not least taxing the better-off to fund programmes such as a comprehensive welfare state and universal healthcare.

The political consequences of this failure have been devastating. In the 1960s, the Democratic president Lyndon B Johnson launched a series of great society programmes to tackle poverty. Yet while the tax burden of the average American family nearly doubled between the mid-1950s and 1980, taxes on corporate America have been successively slashed. Here was a resentment to be tapped into: that hard-working Americans, rather than the boss class, were subsidising those demonised as the undeserving poor.

This fury became racialised as the struggle of black Americans which was met with harsh white backlash forced the federal government to introduce basic civil rights. When Ronald Reagan furiously denounced welfare queens, many blue-collar workers heard a dog whistle targeting often single black mothers, who their hard-earned tax dollars were supposedly subsidising. When Bill Clintons administration backed trade agreements that devastated industrial jobs in the rust belt, here was another grievance waiting to be mined. And it was, by the most unlikely figurehead, the former host of the Apprentice. Trumpism has exploited racism, and fury at economic grievances, successfully welding both forces together.

In the aftermath of the financial crash, Obamas presidential campaign appeared to offer a break with the failures of successive Republican and Democratic administrations. But while he rescued the banks and let financial executives off the hook for their role in the 2008 crash, wages for millions of Americans stagnated or declined. While the slice of national income belonging to middle Americans fell from 62% to 43% between 1970 and 2018, the number of billionaires has surged: from 66 in 1990 with a combined wealth of $240bn, to 614 today, with a total fortune of nearly $3tn. America is now a society in which one in every 11 black adult is either in prison, or on parole or probation racial injustices that Black Lives Matter has urgently underlined.

The Democratic establishment has proved itself politically bankrupt and unable to meet these challenges. The party lost against Trump in 2016, and has at best scraped a stillborn administration this time around. We will all pick up the tab for this failure. Although Biden committed to signing the worlds biggest polluter back up to the Paris climate accords, a failure to win the Senate will block a Green New Deal that is desperately needed to tackle the existential threat of the climate emergency. The world cannot afford another four years of inaction. With Bidens likely presidency held hostage by a potentially hostile Senate and supreme court, the Republicans will be able to further gerrymander an already fatally compromised democratic system and, come mid-terms, tap into peoples disillusionment with an inevitably do-nothing government.

That does not mean there is no hope. The so-called Squad of progressive Congressional Democrats whose most famous member is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has doubled in number, including the election of former nurse Cori Bush in Missouri and the first queer black Congressman, Mondaire Jones, in New York. The old Democratic establishment has failed to inflict the final reckoning on Trumpism that is deserved. It falls to this new generation of progressive leaders predominantly working-class people of colour to finish the job, not just for the United States, but for all of us.

Join Guardian journalist Owen Jones, Labour MP Dawn Butler and academic Maya Goodfellow as they discuss the hostile environment and attitudes towards immigration in Britain. Tuesday 24 November, 7pm GMT Book tickets here

More:
Even if Biden wins, the world will pay the price for the Democrats' failures - The Guardian

Democrats are forecast to keep control of the U.S. House after Tuesdays elections, but with at least six incumbents losing their seats and others in jeopardy Republicans have likely chipped away at their majority.

Among the Democrats defeated were several elected in the 2018 blue wave that swept the party into the House majority, as well as with Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, who has represented his Minnesota district since 1991. There were 13 other Democrats trailing or in tight races in Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Iowa, Virginia and California.

With the losses and the failure to flip targeted GOP seats in Illinois, Ohio and Texas, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have less room to maneuver and will face questions from House Democrats about her strategy and priorities leading up the election.

Democrats also are on the verge of failing in their quest for a Senate majority meaning, they might have to shelve their most ambitious plans for health care, fighting climate change and responding to the coronavirus epidemic.

Its not over until every vote is counted, Pelosi told supporters, pointing to races in her home state of California and elsewhere in the western U.S. that havent yet been called.

WATCH: Were all there for the people and to have a strategic plan to be successful. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says shes confident Democrats will continue to hold Congress.

business: https://bloom.bg/2TR2UcP #Election2020 (Source: QuickTake)

More from Election

In addition, Pelosi will be facing more pressure from the left. New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez easily won re-election and will be joined by several more self-described progressive members, including Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres in New York, and Missouris Cori Bush, who are replacing more centrist Democrats.

Democrats took over the House after they netted 41 seats in the 2018 midterm elections, the largest single-year pick-up since the post-Watergate midterms of 1974. But some of those new Democrats were among the partys losers Tuesday.

In Florida, Democratic Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell was defeated by Republican Carlos Gimenez, the mayor of Miami-Dade County. Democrat Donna Shalala, former Health and Human Services secretary, lost to Republican Maria Elvira Salazar, a broadcast journalist. Both districts have large Latino populations.

Read More: Democrats Chances for Senate Majority Diminish After GOP Wins

Three other first-term Democrats lost on Tuesday as well. Oklahoma Democratic Representative Kendra Horn conceded in her contest against Stephanie Bice, though the race had not been officially called. And South Carolina Democrat Joe Cunningham lost to Republican challenger Nancy Mace. New Mexicos Xochitl Torres Small lost to Republican Yvette Herrell.

Democrats picked up two formerly GOP seats that had been redistricted in North Carolina.

Part of House Democrats pre-election optimism came from the number of GOP retirements and the defeat of some Republican incumbents in primaries.

But Republicans held the seat opened up by the retirement of GOP Representative Francis Rooney in Florida. The winner of that contest, Byron Donalds, will be the only Black Republican in the House. Another open race in Texas for a Waco-area seat now held by retiring Republican Bill Flores was won by former House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, who had been defeated in his old Dallas area district in 2018.

Pelosi, the only woman ever to hold the speakers gavel, has already said she plans to run for re-election as speaker in the next Congress. House Democrats return on Nov. 18 and 19 to Washington, along with their members-elect, to elect leaders for the new session in January. That includes nominating a speaker who must then be elected by the full House of Representatives.

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.

See the article here:
Election Results: Democrats Holding House Majority, But Lose Several Incumbents - Bloomberg