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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Abortion Wins for Democrats, Vulnerabilities for Republicans

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the partiesThe state of the GOP is not good. Abortion was a big issue in the 2022 midtermIt will be a big issue in 2024.

Colby Itkowitz at WP:

Democrat Marilyn Lands on Tuesday decisively won an Alabama state House seat in a long-held Republican district, notching a special-election victory after centering her campaign on promoting access to abortion and in vitro fertilization.

Lands’s win was the latest in a string of Democratic victories around reproductive rights after abortion rights advocates experienced a huge blow nearly two years ago. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — which had established a constitutional right to abortion — in 2022, Democrats have found success in battleground elections and ballot referendums by focusing heavily on protecting abortion rights and running against GOP opposition to them.
Andrew Solender at Axios:
House Democrats are seizing on an anti-IVF push by a group of right-wing House Republicans to accuse the GOP of trying to "have it both ways," Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Republicans have painstakingly tried to distance from an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that restricted access to fertility services.

The backdrop: Four right-wing House Freedom Caucus members wrote to Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough last week voicing "strong objections" to a policy expanding IVF access to veterans.

Bidenomics

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the politics of economic policy.

The president has had an off-and-on relationship with "Bidenomics" during the past year, however.Biden initially was reluctant to use the term, but last June he decided to embrace it. His advisers calculated that voters were going to blame — or credit — him for the country's economy regardless of what anyone called it.

The goal was to co-opt Biden's Republican critics and do for "Bidenomics" what former President Obama did with "Obamacare" — take a word that seemed a political liability and turn it into an asset.

In recent months, though, "Bidenomics" mentions by Biden, Democrats in Congress and others in the party have fallen off a table.It's a shift that amounted to an acknowledgement that the White House's messaging effort was falling flat with many voters.

By the numbers: Congressional Democrats initially followed Biden's plunge into touting "Bidenomics." They used the word 483 times last July in tweets, Facebook posts, press releases and floor statements, according to data from Quorum.But it wasn't long before those Democrats were grumbling to Biden's team that the White House was tone deaf in its branding as voters were struggling with inflation.
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), a close ally of the White House, was publicly critical.

The Cost of Money is Part of the Cost of Living: New Evidence on the Consumer Sentiment Anomaly
Marijn A. Bolhuis, Judd N. L. Cramer, Karl Oskar Schulz & Lawrence H. Summers
XLinkedInEmail
WORKING PAPER 32163
DOI 10.3386/w32163
ISSUE DATE February 2024
Unemployment is low and inflation is falling, but consumer sentiment remains depressed. This has confounded economists, who historically rely on these two variables to gauge how consumers feel about the economy. We propose that borrowing costs, which have grown at rates they had not reached in decades, do much to explain this gap. The cost of money is not currently included in traditional price indexes, indicating a disconnect between the measures favored by economists and the effective costs borne by consumers. We show that the lows in US consumer sentiment that cannot be explained by unemployment and official inflation are strongly correlated with borrowing costs and consumer credit supply. Concerns over borrowing costs, which have historically tracked the cost of money, are at their highest levels since the Volcker-era. We then develop alternative measures of inflation that include borrowing costs and can account for almost three quarters of the gap in US consumer sentiment in 2023. Global evidence shows that consumer sentiment gaps across countries are also strongly correlated with changes in interest rates. Proposed U.S.-specific factors do not find much supportive evidence abroad.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Trump Legal: W and L


 Our next book will look at the 2024 campaign and the impact of Trump's legal problems.

Maggie Haberman, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum at NYT:

At 11 a.m. Monday, a New York appeals court made Donald J. Trump’s day, rescuing him from financial devastation in a civil fraud case.

By noon, the New York judge overseeing his criminal case had nearly ruined it, setting Mr. Trump’s trial for next month and all but ensuring he will hold the dubious distinction of becoming the first former American president to be criminally prosecuted.

...

 Rather than mount a traditional cross-country campaign in the lead-up to the Republican National Convention in July, Mr. Trump, the presumptive nominee, is preparing to work around the criminal trial that will begin April 15 and last for at least six weeks.

His schedule will be built around the four days each week that the trial is expected to take place in court, with Wednesdays expected to be an off day. One person familiar with his preliminary plans described weekend events held in strategically important states near New York, like Pennsylvania, or in hospitable areas outside Manhattan.

...

Mr. Trump was on the clock to secure a half-billion dollar bond to block the attorney general, Letitia James, from collecting the judgment while he appeals. When Mr. Trump failed, Ms. James was free to freeze his bank accounts and even to begin the long process of trying to seize his properties.

Yet the appeals court handed him a lifeline, allowing him to post a much smaller bond: $175 million. The ruling staved off a looming financial crisis and gave Mr. Trump’s team hope that he will succeed in reducing the overall judgment on appeal.

...

Victory was fleeting. Within minutes of reconvening the hearing, Justice Merchan finalized an April 15 trial date, rejecting Mr. Trump’s bid to delay the criminal case or throw it out altogether.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Christians, Troops, GOP

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad." -- Donald J. Trump, March 13, 2019

Ruth Graham at NYT:
As a core faction in the Republican coalition, conservative evangelicals have long influenced the party’s policy priorities, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. And the influence extended to conservative culture, where evangelical norms against vulgarity were rarely challenged in public.

In some ways, they remain intact. Most pastors don’t cuss from the pulpit, or at all. Mainstream conservative churches still teach their young people to save sex for marriage and avoid pornography.

Yet a raunchy, outsider, boobs-and-booze ethos has elbowed its way into the conservative power class, accelerated by the rise of Donald J. Trump, the declining influence of traditional religious institutions and a shifting media landscape increasingly dominated by the looser standards of online culture.
...

Others see the cause as partly technological. Evangelicalism is a decentralized movement, and has always embraced new technology as a way to reach more people. But the old institutions and personalities that defined the culture are fading: Church attendance has declined at the same time that several lions of the movement have died, retired or been felled by scandal. Influencers and outsiders have filled the vacuum.

Risa Brooks at Foreign Affairs:

Perhaps the most sobering example of the effort to inject partisan politics into military appointments is the right’s treatment of Charles Q. Brown, Jr., an air force general who now serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Prior to becoming chairman, Brown was confirmed as air force chief of staff in 2020 in a Senate vote of 98-0. Then, last July, leaders of 30 political groups on the right signed an open letter opposing Brown’s appointment as chairman. Despite his accomplished career as fighter pilot, 11 Republican senators voted against him when he was confirmed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. The number of “no” votes for the chairmanship was unprecedented, as were the stated reasons for them. Tuberville attributed his “no” vote to the general’s support for “equal opportunity” in the military. Senator Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican, asserted that the general, who is Black, had favored “woke policy initiatives” over effectiveness in the air force.

...

 If elected, Trump may seek to appoint a pliable general to replace Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is customary for secretaries of defense to compile a list of potential candidates from which a president chooses a chairman. A healthy rapport between the president and a candidate for chairman is usually an important criterion for selection. The candidate’s party affiliation is not. That norm might be one of the first to go.





Sunday, March 24, 2024

Democrats' Cash Advantage, Trump's Cash Crisis

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.

Zachary Basu and Erin Doherty at Axios:

President Biden and his campaign have begun openly taunting former President Trump over the massive — and growing — disparity in fundraising between the two parties' presumptive nominees.

Why it matters: Democrats hold a staggering cash advantage over Republicans at virtually every level of national politics. And the money raised by Trump's political operation is increasingly flowing into a black hole of legal expenses.

By the numbers: The Biden campaign and the DNC ended February with more than twice as much cash on hand ($97.5 million) as Trump and the RNC ($44.8 million), according to new campaign finance reports.
Zoom in: Trump's leadership PAC, Save America, spent more than $6.9 million on legal-related expenses last month — equivalent to a staggering $238,000 per day, according to The Daily Beast.

Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess at NYT:
Donald J. Trump is expected to spend his Monday morning in the courtroom of a New York judge who might soon preside over his criminal trial and, ultimately, throw him behind bars. And that’s not even the legal predicament that worries Mr. Trump most that day.

The hearing in his Manhattan criminal prosecution — in which he is accused of covering up a sex scandal to pave his way to the presidency — comes as he races to fend off a financial crisis arising from a $454 million judgment in another case. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, who brought that civil fraud suit against the former president and his family business, might begin to collect as soon as Monday.

To avoid a mortal threat to the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump must persuade another company to post a bond on his behalf, promising that it will cover the judgment if he loses a pending appeal and fails to pay. Yet Mr. Trump’s lawyers in court papers said that securing the bond would be a “practical impossibility,” because he would need to pledge some $550 million in cash and liquid investments as collateral to the bond company — an admission that laid bare the former president’s cash crunch.

Unless Mr. Trump strikes an 11th-hour deal, Ms. James could freeze his bank accounts, and begin the long and complicated process of seizing some of his properties. And barring Mr. Trump’s lawyers achieving an improbable legal triumph, the judge in his criminal case could set a trial date for as soon as next month.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

A Bad Day for the House GOP

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

The 118th Congress has been rough on the House GOP.

 Sahil Kapur at NBC:

Friday began with House conservatives holding a press conference to trash the $1.2 trillion spending bill their leaders negotiated with Democrats, sparking some fears about its prospects.

It squeaked through — requiring 67% of the House, it ended up winning 68% — but a majority of Republicans voted against it.

It was just the first headache of the day for House Republicans as they adjourned for a two-week recess, offering a distillation of the infighting and disenchantment that continues to plague the party 15 months into its narrow majority. Things were about to get worse.

Moments later, far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., shocked her colleagues by filing a motion to overthrow Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., blasting his stewardship of the chamber and threatening renewed turmoil at the helm of her party.
...


In the afternoon, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., the rising star who recently said he’ll retire from Congress, announced he’ll be quitting early — on April 19. His move will further thin the GOP majority and risks leaving Johnson with a one-vote margin in the coming months.

Within moments of Gallagher’s move, House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger, R-Texas, made the unusual decision to step down early from her powerful post, asking Johnson to replace her as chair of the committee that doles out federal funding “as soon as possible.” In a letter, Granger said she has “accomplished more than I ever could have imagined,” and thanked Johnson for stepping up to lead “during a very tumultuous time.”

Granger already said she won’t seek re-election this fall. But her move to relinquish the coveted gavel mid-session highlights the paralysis that has defined the government funding process, which took four stopgap measures and six months into the fiscal year to resolve. The next funding deadline looms at the end of September.

Jonathan Allen and Scott Wong at NBC:

Gallagher’s decision to leave April 19 also means that there will not be a special election to fill his seat. Under Wisconsin state law, vacancies after the second Tuesday in April are filled in the general election, so Gallagher’s replacement will be decided in November and his seat will remain empty until January.


Friday, March 22, 2024

Trump Legal, Trump Bucks


 Our next book will look at the 2024 campaign and the impact of Trump's legal problems.

 Michelle L. Price at AP:

Donald Trump’s new joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee directs donations to his campaign and a political action committee that pays the former president’s legal bills before the RNC gets a cut, according to a fundraising invitation obtained by The Associated Press.

The unorthodox diversion of funds to the Save America PAC makes it more likely that Republican donors could see their money go to Trump’s lawyers, who have received at least $76 million over the last two years to defend him against four felony indictments and multiple civil cases. Some Republicans are already troubled that Trump’s takeover of the RNC could shortchange the cash-strapped party.

Trump has invited high-dollar donors to Palm Beach, Florida, for an April 6 fundraiser that comes as his fundraising is well behind President Joe Biden and national Democrats. The invitation’s fine print says donations to the Trump 47 Committee will first be used to give the maximum amount allowed under federal law to Trump’s campaign. Anything left over from the donation next goes toward a maximum contribution to Save America, and then anything left from there goes to the RNC and then to state political parties.

Roger Sollenberger and Reese Gorman at The Daily Beast:

In the month of February, Donald Trump finally neared the start of his general election campaign against Joe Biden—while burning through his political operation’s coffers for even more cash to support his legal defenses.

On Wednesday night, Trump’s “Save America” leadership PAC—the political committee that now functions primarily as his legal slush fund—reported paying lawyers $5.6 million last month, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That’s well above the $5 million total the PAC raised in the same period.

Nikki McCann Ramirez at Rolling Stone:

ONCE UPON A time, long before he set his sights on the White House, Donald Trump leveraged his massive real estate empire into a braggadocious reality TV show called The Apprentice. The show’s bombastic theme song sang “money, money, money, money,” at viewers over shots of Trump’s New York properties, private planes, and helicopters. Now, two decades after the show first premiered, the former president is begging his followers to fork over cash in order to preserve the assets on which he built his throne.

“KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” Trump’s campaign screamed in a text message sent out Wednesday morning to potential donors. “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James wants to SEIZE my properties in New York. THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!” Trump added in a memo linked in the text message.

“Before the day is over, I’m calling on ONE MILLION Pro-Trump patriots to chip in and say: STOP THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP!” the donation page read.


 

 Richard Briffault at The Copnversation:

In several advisory opinions, the FEC has repeatedly allowed campaign funds to pay legal expenses that are connected to an election campaign or officeholder action, such as litigation to get on the ballot or defense against a criminal investigation concerning whether the candidate misused his office.

Many of Trump’s legal cases, and therefore their expenses, do relate to campaign activities – such as his efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election. Others relate to his role as an officeholder or former officeholder, such as the allegedly criminal retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Even the New York state criminal case about paying hush money to former porn actress Stormy Daniels is election-related: It involves an alleged scheme to prevent potentially damaging stories about Trump’s personal life from becoming public during his 2016 presidential campaign.
However, the civil lawsuits brought by E. Jean Carroll, in which Trump was found to have sexually abused her and then to have repeatedly defamed her, are different. They do not involve either an election or Trump’s use of office. So I would expect that his legal fees for those cases would be considered personal.

Also likely personal is the civil case in New York alleging business fraud, in which he has been ordered to pay more than $350 million in penalties.

But it appears that Save America has been paying legal fees in those cases, too. Those payments may be legal under a different provision of federal campaign law. The prohibition on personal use of campaign funds applies most clearly to the funds in the candidate’s own campaign account. But federal election law also allows a candidate to set up a separate fund, known as a “leadership PAC,” which can be used for election-related activities other than support for their own campaign.

... 

It is less clear whether a leadership PAC can legally help pay the multimillion-dollar fines Trump has been assessed as a result of those trials. The logic of the FEC’s interpretation of the personal use exception would appear to permit the use of leadership PAC funds here too, but this is a truly unprecedented situation, so it is difficult to say for sure.