Democratic Hopefuls by Nancy OhanianTomorrow the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on whether or not to subpoena the Mueller report. Despite the House having voted 420-0 to urge Barr to release the report-- and despite the fact that polls consistently show that something like 75% of American voters want to see the full report, I can predict the exact vote tomorrow. All 24 Democrats-- like Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Karen Bass and David Cicilline-- will vote yes and all 17 of the Republicans-- like Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Steve Chabot and Tom McClintock-- will vote no. If everyone is there voting it will be a simple 24 to 17 win for justice. The Committee had set today as a deadline for Barr to send over the report voluntarily.The new national poll of registered voters from PPP shows Trump with a 54-42% unfavorable rating and just 37% believing him to be honest. 56% don't think he's honest but just 51% will go as far as to call him a liar. When it came to healthcare, 49% of respondents said they trust Democrats on the issue and 38% said they trust Republicans. Only 20% of respondents said they support Trump's $1.8 trillion cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. 67% oppose them.The Putin-Gate issues are less important to most voters than healthcare (by an 80% to 8% margin) but 57% of respondents want Trump to release his tax returns, 68% think the full Mueller report should be released to the public (19% don't) and by 49-40%, more Americans think Trump committed obstruction of justice while by 44-43% Americans think Trump and his team "worked in association with Russia to help Trump win the election."When asked who they trust more, respondents showed how much they distrust Trump. On the media in general, 50% picked the media and only 39% picked Trump. When asked about specific sources of news, Trump lost out to every single one:
• CNN- 49%, Trump- 39%• Fox News- 32%, Trump- 27% (most people don't trust either)• NBC- 52%, Trump 38%• ABC- 51%, Trump- 38%• CBS- 52%, Trump- 38%• NY Times- 51%, Trump- 38%• Washington Post- 49%, Trump- 38%Bonus Questions "Who would you rather see as president today?"• Obama- 56%, Trump- 40%• Hillary- 48%, Trump- 42%
And yet, there are people who still think Trump could win in 2020. That poll shows ever plausible Democratic contender (+ JohnMcCain's corpse) beating him:
• Biden- 53%- 40%• Bernie- 49%- 41%• Kamala Harris- 48%- 41%• Elizabeth Warren- 48%- 42%• Cory Booker- 48%- 41%• Beto- 47%- 41%• Mayor Pete- 45%- 41%
Writing for New York Magazine on Monday morning, Jonathan Chait delved into one of the characteristics that endure Trump to about a third of the population and repulse normal people: his adolescent bullying, something I expect to add to a jaw-dropping electoral defeat in 2020. "Trump’s use of bullying tactics against his rivals for the Republican nomination in 2015–2016," wrote Chait, "played a critical role in endearing him to the Republican base. Trump’s rollouts of new terms of abuse for his rivals have become mini-events celebrated by his fans. The Trump campaign capitalized on the new insult [Adam Schiff has a pencil neck] by hawking celebratory T-shirts. His continued use of these methods, and the delight it gives his supporters reveals something important about what binds them together."
Bullying is most closely associated with adolescence, because teenagers are most naturally prone to it. Children that age tend to lack empathy or well-developed moral worldviews, and they often gravitate toward peers who engage in displays of dominance and cruelty. It is also the age when people are most prone to judge themselves and others by their appearance, and when social relations tend to be the most hierarchical.Like a teenage bully, Trump fixates on a superficial characteristic in his target. He mocks male targets (Marco Rubio, Schiff, Bob Corker) as short, and a variety of women as fat or ugly. When reporter Serge Kovaleski challenged one of his lies, Trump mimicked his disability. He mocked Senator Charles Schumer for tearing up over Trump’s Muslim ban, either disgusted or unable to comprehend that somebody would empathize with the plight of immigrants.Trump’s innovation of winning the election through adolescent-style bullying has carried over to his presidency. Presidents traditionally inculcate the virtues of decency, gentleness, and generosity as part of their role as ceremonial head of state. One little-noticed feature of Trump’s presidency is how little time and attention he devotes to what used to be the banal presidential work of celebrating charitable good works and public service. Speeches and photo ops with volunteers, do-gooder business leaders, hospital visits and the like, once the barely noticed daily bread of presidential messaging, has all but disappeared.Trump does heap praise on the police and military, but in a very different fashion than his predecessors. The qualities of service he highlights are not selflessness and sacrifice but toughness. He is especially fascinated with the appearance of toughness. Trump has praised “his” generals as looking like they come out of “central casting.” He has praised his ICE director, “He looks very nasty, he looks very mean … that’s what I’m looking for.” He has famously urged police officers to treat suspects in their custody with more brutality. Of course, abusing a person who’s in handcuffs does not take courage.Actual courage is a virtue Trump regards with indifference sometimes bordering on hostility. He has spent years mocking John McCain for having been captured in the Vietnam War, completely disregarding his perseverance under torture and refusal to give his captors a propaganda victory by accepting their offer to be sent home ahead of his order of capture. This is not simply Trump’s habit of automatically flaying anybody who attacks him. “He was captured. Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Trump said in 1999, long before McCain had crossed him in any way.Trump of course avoided military service by having his father arrange to have a friendly doctor diagnose him with bone spurs. Trump has performed his own machismo by flaunting his series of trophy wives and girlfriends (both real and imagined). He has also rather oddly associated his prowess with golf. Trump is a legitimately skilled golfer, though also a massive cheater, and seems to see his talent at this game as a proxy for physical dominance. In a recent closed-door rant to Republican allies, Trump said that Pencil-Neck Schiff “would be a horrible golfer who could drive the ball only 50 yards.” Aspiring sidekicks like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul have grasped the role of golf in Trump’s mind as a symbol of prowess. Both have publicly shared sycophantic stories of the boss man defeating them on the links as a way of easing their way into his inner circle.The explanation-- or to put it more sharply-- rationalization for Trump’s effect on the national discourse is that his white working-class supporters have suffered economic and social injuries. The wounds of their closed factories, or the disdain of the coastal snobs, have driven them into the arms of a man who will strike back at the elite on their behalf.It’s telling, however, that Trump is unable to stick to the populist script that is written for him. One of his favorite riffs is to complain about the fact that his opponents are called elite, to declare that he is more elite than they are, and his supporters are elite as well. He recited it again Thursday night:“They say the elite they’re, the elite… I have a better education than them, I’m smarter than them. I went to the best schools. [I have a] much more beautiful house, much more beautiful apartment, much more beautiful everything and I’m president and they’re not right, and then they say the elite. The elite they’re, not elite, you’re the elite, we’re the elite.”The message of any bully is that he is a winner-- as are, to a pointedly lesser degree, his flunkies-- and his targets are the losers. What is so remarkable about Trump is that he has no interest or need to conceal his cruelty. Trump is a highly familiar social type: the leader of a gang, taunting his targets while his flunkies guffaw. Before he came along, it was never possible to imagine such a person occupying the Presidency of the United States.
I thought you'd enjoy playing with this graphic, which shows the number of Google searches for the 22 Democratic hopefuls. As of today this is how they ranked according to Google Trends:
• Biden (people search for him big this weekend because of his breaking #MeToo Scandals)• Mayor Pete (tons of media coverage last week; HUGE spike)• Bernie• Beto• Kamala• Elizabeth Warren• Andy Yang• Cory Booker• Tulsi• Amy Klobuchar• Kirsten Gillibrand• Frackenlooper• Marianne Williamson (despite a virtual Beltway media blackout)• Seth Moulton (big upswing after media said he may run on Monday)• Julian Castro• Jay Inslee• Eric Swalwell/Bill De Blasio (tied)• John Delaney• Tim Ryan• Terry McAuliffe• Steve Bukllock
