Here’s a couple of interesting results from the Newsweek poll I discussed yesterday. Only 30 percent say the US military action in Iraq has decreased the risk that large numbers of Americans will be killed or injured in a future terrorist attack. That compares to 63 percent who say either the risk has increased (36 percent) or hasn’t changed at all (27 percent).
Yet the same poll finds Bush favored over Kerry (53 percent to 38 percent) on handling the situation in Iraq.
Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
TDS Strategy Memos
Latest Research from:
Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
-
February 6: Democrats Have Wised Up and Stopped Trying to Cooperate With Trump
This has been quite the chaotic week or so, and one of the byproducts of the nihilistic conduct being displayed by Donald Trump and his allies has been a decided end of Democratic cooperation, and I welcomed that development at New York:
Following the time-honored ritual of giving a new president a “honeymoon,” a good number of prominent Democrats made friendly noises about their nemesis after Donald Trump’s November election victory. Some, like Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, seemed inclined to cross the partisan barricades whenever possible, praising Trump’s dubious Cabinet nominations, calling on Joe Biden to pardon Trump to get rid of his hush-money conviction, and even joining Truth Social. Others, notably Bernie Sanders, talked of selective cooperation on issues where MAGA Republicans at least feigned anti-corporate “populism.” Still others, including some Democratic governors, hoped to cut deals on issues like immigration to mitigate the damage of Trump’s agenda. And one congressional Democrat, the normally very progressive Ro Khanna, promoted cooperation with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative, at least with respect to Defense spending.
This made some sense at the time. After all, Democrats, having lost control of both Congress and the White House, didn’t have much power of their own, and there was always the chance that having achieved his improbable comeback, Trump would calm down and try to become a normal chief executive in his final term in the job.
Now it is extremely clear that is not the case. The past chaotic week or so has convinced most Democrats that Trump has zero interest in compromise, bipartisanship, or even adherence to the law and to the Constitution. Musk and his Geek Kiddie Corps are ravaging agency after agency without the slightest legal authorization; OMB is preparing its own unilateral assault on federal benefits that don’t fit the Project 2025 vision of a radically smaller social safety net; and congressional Republicans are kneeling in abject surrender to whatever the White House wants. Democrats are resigning themselves to the mission of becoming an opposition party, full stop, making as much noise and arousing as much public outrage as they can. They shouldn’t be credited all that much for courage, since the new regime has given them little choice but to dig in and fight like hell.
OMB’s January 27 memo freezing a vast swath of federal programs and benefits, inept and confusing as it was, kicked off the current reign of terror. It reflected (and was likely dictated by) the belief of Trump OMB director nominee Russell Vought that the president can usurp congressional spending powers whenever he deems it necessary or prudent. Yet Congressional Republicans went along without a whimper. House Appropriations Committee chairman Tom Cole, who would have gone nuts had a Democratic president threatened his role so audaciously, said he had “no problem” with the freeze. The federal courts stepped in because OMB’s order was incoherently expressed, but there’s no question the administration will come back with something similar. As a sign of belated alarm over OMB’s direction, Senate Budget Committee Democrats boycotted Vought’s confirmation vote in reaction to this challenge to the constitutional separation of powers. After Republicans gaveled him on through without a whisper of dissent, Senate Democrats held an all-night “talk-a-thon” to recapitulate past and present concerns about Vought, a self-described Christian Nationalist and one of the principal authors of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a radically diminished federal government. He will be confirmed by the full Senate anyway.
Musk’s guerrilla warfare on the federal workforce and the programs they administer made the OMB power grab unfolding at about the same time look like a walk in the park. Even as his landing teams of 20-something coders took control of multiple agency IT systems and fired anyone who got in their way, Musk himself was on X making wild charges about the programs he was short-circuiting and all but cackling like a cartoon villain over his unlimited power. When Ro Khanna upbraided him for his lawlessness, he responded as you might expect, tweeting at Khanna: “Don’t be a dick.”
Khanna’s centrist Democratic colleague from Florida, Jared Moskovitz, had actually signed up for service on the DOGE oversight panel Mike Johnson created, despite its clear purpose as an ongoing pep rally for Musk. Now he’s out, as Punchbowl News reports:
“I need to see one of my Republican colleagues in the caucus explain the point of the caucus, because it seems that Elon doesn’t need them, because it seems what Elon is doing is destroying the separation of powers. And I don’t think the DOGE caucus at this moment really has a purpose … Whether I stay in the caucus, I think is questionable. I don’t need to stay in a caucus that’s irrelevant.”
Meanwhile, as all this madness was unfolding from the executive branch and its outlaw agents, congressional Republicans have been laboring through the process of putting together budget legislation to implement whatever portion of Trump’s agenda that wasn’t rammed through by fiat. Democrats are not being consulted at all in these preparations to produce a massive bill (or bills) that is expected to pass on a party-line vote and that cannot be filibustered in the Senate. Because of the immense leverage of the House Freedom Caucus over this legislation, the plans keep shifting in the direction of deeper and deeper domestic spending cuts at levels never discussed before. Per Punchbowl News:
“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Republican committee chairs initially proposed between $500 billion to $700 billion in spending cuts as part of a massive reconciliation package. Yet conservative GOP hardliners rejected that, saying they wanted more. They’re seeking as much as $2 trillion to $5 trillion in cuts.”
Democrats can’t really do anything other than expose the extent and the effect of such cuts in the forelorn hope that a few House Republicans in particularly vulnerable districts develop their own counter-leverage over the process. But whatever emerges from the GOP discussion will have to be approved by OMB, where Russell Vought will soon be formally in charge. There’s just no path ahead for Democrats other than total war.
They do have their own leverage over two pieces of legislation Trump needs: an appropriations bill to keep government running after the December stopgap spending bill (which Musk nearly torpedoed in an early demonstration of his power) runs out, and a measure increasing the public debt limit. These bills can be filibustered, so Senate Democrats can kill them. There are increasing signs that congressional Democrats may refuse to go along with either one unless Trump puts a leash on Vought and Musk and perhaps even consults the Democratic Party on the budget. If there’s a government shutdown, it couldn’t be too much worse than a government being gutted by DOGE and OMB.
Republicans hope that Trump’s relatively strong popularity (for him, anyway) will keep Democrats from defying him. But they may not be accounting for the 47th president’s erratic character. On any given day, he may do something completely bonkers and deeply unpopular, like, say, suggesting the United States take over Gaza, expel its population, and build a resort development.
I’m not sure the aim of simply “eroding” Bush’s support on Iraq is a responsible position. Shouldn’t the facts be mroe important. On that question of facts, I will cop to being one of these “nitwits” who do believe in an Iraqi connection to 911. What about Salman Pak? Google that and see what you find. What about the civil verdict that held Iraq liable for 911 damages? Was that a vapor? What about the Iraqi connections to WTC1, which are hardly in dispute to Richard Clarke, to name one. Maybe when the Democrats honestly engage the debate, their stock on national securty issues will rise.
It’s all about “the devil you know.” If Kerry can move past the stigma of “the devil you don’t know,” he’s in. As you have pointed out numerous times, Bush’s support is melting like lake ice on a spring day. A little more heat and, voila’!
Right now, these polls indicate that people will still go with the devil they know over someone they don’t. John Kerry needs to aggressively define himself, before George Bush does that for him.
Did Kerry’s entire campaign decide to go skiing with him in Idaho? The lack of any discernable response to the recent Bush onslaught sure makes one think so.
Hopefully, that’s going to be a one-time anomaly.
Never underestimate the soft bigotry of low expectations coming from the nitwits for W.
A followup thought: Hillary Clinton has quietly given some excellent, constructive speeches on foreign policy in the last few months. She has come off as serious and substantive, and not a cheapshot artist.
The major speech Kerry needs to give in the next day or two should be along the same lines. If he does so in a constructive tone he’ll help establish himself as commanding and reassuring among some of the persuadables who are still preferring Bush on Iraq and national security. He’ll also entitle himself to a few tastefully worded whacks at the Administration in so doing.
Surrogates and pundits will take the harder shots in case the implications of Kerry’s speech aren’t crystal clear to everyone.
Cheney told Limbaugh yesterday that Clarke was out of the loop on anti-terrorism policy. Yet Rice ceded leadership of the response to the crisis on 9/11 to Clarke. If Cheney was being truthful wouldn’t Rice’s decision be a criminally reckless thing to do?
I don’t know if Kerry has offered much of substance about what he would do to combat terrorism or in Iraq but I agree that if he has done so he is not being heard clearly.
He needs to be heard clearly soon. There aren’t going to be lots more Richard Clarkes coming down the pike handing him the national security issue on a silver platter. Kerry I believe is very much up to offering the country the reassurance that he would be a far steadier and more trustworthy Commander in Chief. He needs to step up–now–and do it.
It’s not at all surprising that the public trusts Bush more than Kerry on Iraq. Kerry hasn’t told the American public how he would deal with Iraq. He hasn’t even begun to present himself as the “steady reassuring presence” that he needs to be on Iraq, the military, and terrorism.
When it’s a matter of life and death, the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.
To win this coming election we absolutely have to see “Trust in Bush on Terrorism, etc.) driven down in the polls. I think this is basic — how to do it is the question.
One contradiction jumps out at me after a day of reading and watching the post Clarke commentary, and that is the matter of whether Iraq is part of “war on terrorism” or is it distinct? Apparently at least 50% still hang with the belief in a strong link.
So how to break this link? Clarke offers us the story of Bush trying to bully him on 9/12 into providing intelligence that supports the belief in a link. They tried to dismiss that bullying — but there were witnesses and they had to back down a mite.
But Bully the intelligence gatherers and analyists became the principle mode of operation come Iraq time. Even to the extent of destroying operations and trying to smear Plame and Wilson, because they were in the way of the bully.
Something tells me this is the story that just might work with that 50% who still “Trust” on Nat Security and War on Terrorism matters. The image of Bush as Bully when faced with evidence that disagrees with his pre-determined world view might just knock down some of these approval points.
What’s to wonder about regarding the fact that Bush’s numbers on national security are better than Kerry’s?
The last two Democratic presidents, Carter and Clinton, were loath to use force or even talk about the use of force with respect to the Soviet Union or terrorism. Not surprisingly, the American people have tilted towards the GOP on national security because Republican presidents were not finicky about the use of force or calling for more armaments on a continuous basis.
If we are going to be engaged in a long twilight struggle against the terrorism of radical Islam, and it would appear that we are for the foreseeable future, then the democratic party and its standard bearers are going to have to use a different kind of language and style to persuade the American people that they are up to the job of keeping everyone safe.
BushI ran against Dukakis while the Cold War was still in its last stages. We know the outcome. Bill Clinton ran against BushI at the end of the Cold War and during a weak economy. We know what happened there. Now we have BushII running against Kerry during a weak economy and a nasty struggle against a shadowy terror network.
If Kerry expects to win he’s got to show first that he has the spine to tear into Bush on his national security failures and present, with the help of surrogates, a credible plan of action against terrorism. One more week like the last one and Kerry will be toast.