MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, has taken to calling the G.O.P. “the cop-killers caucus.” Harsh, yes, but it’s fair insofar as the likely acquittal of Trump will give a free pass to the primary instigator of the vicious riot that took the lives of a capitol policeman, Brian Sicknick. Two others, Howard Liebengood and Jeffery Smith dies by suicide in the wake of the riot.

So much for the “Blue Lives mattter” mantra of Republicans who profess to be champions of the police who risk their lives to protect the public — and members of congress.

Every Republican Senator knows Trump instigated the treasonous riot at the capitol. Every Repubican knows that the riot would not have happened and the seven lives would not have been lost without Trump’s agitation. Yet, if more than 10 of 50 Republican Senators vote to hold Trump accountable, it will be a surprise.

The impeachment managers did an outstanding job of presenting the case against Trump. As E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes, summing up their work:

Nathaniel Rakich and Jasmin Mithani explain “What Absentee Voting Looked Like In All 50 States: It was historically popular — and historically Democratic” at FiveThirtyEight. As Rakich and Mithani write,

According to preliminary findings from the 2020 Survey on the Performance of American Elections, a poll of 18,200 registered voters run by MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III, 46 percent of 2020 voters voted by mail or absentee — up from 21 percent in 2016, which at the time was considered high. Only 28 percent of people reported voting on Election Day — less than half of the 60 percent who did so in 2016. In-person early voting also reached a modern high (26 percent), although the change from 2016 (when it was 19 percent) was less dramatic.

Of course, the primary reason for the surge in absentee voting was the Covid-19 pandemic. The turnout was likely boosted by Trump’s alarming denial and incompetence in addressing the pandemic as it spiked upward across the nation.

And it was a broad increase, with few exceptions, across the 50 states. As Rakich and Mithani note,

….According to the SPAE, 47 states and the District of Columbia saw their rates of mail voting rise from 2016 to 2020. The only exceptions were the three states that have held predominantly mail elections for years: Colorado, Oregon and Washington. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest spikes in mail voting occurred in places that went the furthest to encourage mail voting (i.e., those that automatically sent every registered voter a ballot), especially those with little history of mail voting prior to 2020. These include New Jersey (where only 7 percent of voters voted by mail in 2016, but 86 percent did so in 2020), the District of Columbia (12 percent in 2016 versus 70 percent in 2020) and Vermont (17 percent in 2016 versus 72 percent in 2020).

By contrast, the five states that clung to the requirement that voters provide a non-pandemic-related excuse in order to vote by mail (Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas) saw some of the smallest increases. For example, Texas’s rate of mail voting in 2020 was only 11 percent (barely changed from 7 percent in 2016), while Mississippi’s was only 10 percent (just a tad higher than the 4 percent in 2016).

Here is FiveThirtyEight’s graphic display of the absentee voting increase in the states:

Rakich and Mithani add that “If we had data for all 50 states, we would likely see Trump winning the Election Day vote in almost all of them and Biden winning the absentee vote in almost all of them….the fact that these votes were so Democratic is very likely due to Trump himself. By casting doubt on the security of mail ballots, he all but ensured that most of his voters would cast their votes using traditional methods, leaving the pool of absentee ballots strikingly — but not surprisingly — blue.”

They note further that ” Some states are thinking about making their expansions of vote-by-mail permanent, while other states have shown little interest” and they warn, “still others are even considering bills to restrict absentee voting.” Voter asuppression is what Republicans do. Yet absentee voting is far easier on state budgets and remains highly popular with voters. Democrats should be prepared in all the battleground states for an extended fight over absentee voting — if they want to keep it.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

I thought this was a fine essay by Andrew Koppelman on the Niskanen Center site. His basic point is that many, if not most, socialists are really social democrats who believe in a better capitalism and therefore are undermining their cause by insisting on the socialist label. Readers of my (now classic!) essay, “The Five Deadly Sins of the Left” will notice a family resemblance between Koppelman’s argument and sin #2 in that essay.

Here is perhaps the nub of his case:

“In a socialists-for-capitalism program, one of the first things that needs to go is the word “socialism” itself. George Orwell wrote in 1946 about the degradation of political discourse: “The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’ The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides.” Every use of such empty terms, he thought, “anaesthetises a portion of one’s brain.”

The sensible response by scholars who have studied the left is to distinguish (as Sheri Berman does in her wonderfully clarifying history, The Primacy of Politics) between socialism, which aims to abolish capitalism, and social democracy, which accepts a capitalist economy but demands a state strong enough to moderate its failures and excesses. Judis responds that social democracy is “a label that has no currency in American politics.” True, but there is value in a term that’s not already contaminated with misleading associations. It also helps to be able to articulate distinctions that matter….

Today’s American left has a suicidal tendency to rally around phrases with extreme, politically disastrous significations: defund the police, prison abolition, police abolition. Proponents of reform find themselves constantly explaining that those terms are not to be understood literally (giving new significance to the old slogan, “if you’re explaining, you’re losing”). But the use of this toxic language is not accidental, because in each case the most committed members of the movement aren’t fooling; they are using the phrases literally. The police abolition movement includes genuine anarchists. As [John] Judis reports, many of the most committed American socialists are old-fashioned Marxists. Orwell thought that vague political terms like socialism “are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows the hearer to think he means something quite different.”

The DSA declares: “Until we face, and beat, the stigma attached to the ‘S word,’ politics in America will continue to be stifled and our options limited.” That’s true only if the option one hopes to keep open is the Marxist one, which even most Sanders voters reject. If the word frightens away voters, then it is the word itself that stifles politics and limits options. [EJ] Dionne and [William] Galston acknowledge that “Medicare and Social Security are, in a sense, socialist, and so are our public schools and universities, our community colleges, our water supplies and sewers, and our mass transit systems.” If those can happen without the S word – and they did – then they are not what the S word is necessary for. There are, indeed, enemies on the left.”

His argument is well worth reckoning with I think especially for those who have some attachment, sentimental or otherwise, to the socialist label but also wish to be politically effective.

For what it’s worth, here is how I made a similar case in my Five Deadly Sins essay.

“The second deadly sin of the Left is retro-socialism, which demands a complete remaking of the market system to heal the problems of contemporary capitalism. In this view, the ills of the current era are traceable to neoliberalism—faith in the market as the organizing mechanism for society—which compounds underlying problems with the capitalist system itself. The retro-socialists contend that the public is so sick of stagnating living standards, inequality, and periodic crises that it will (eventually) embrace their complete socialist overhaul of the system. This mistakes the public’s genuine discontent with current outcomes for a desire to abandon capitalism entirely. Voters are indeed dissatisfied with the current model of capitalism, but what they want is a different, better capitalism, not “socialism.”

The American Left is mostly careful to put the qualifier “democratic” in front of “socialism” to distinguish it from the authoritarian, command-economy socialists of yesteryear. And for many who use the term, their idea of socialism seems closer to a traditional social-democratic mixed economy than a radically different system that would somehow do away with profits and markets. So why call it socialism, a term that has all kinds of unpleasant associations and does imply a replacement of capitalism? Why not call it “people’s capitalism” or “democratic capitalism” or “the advanced mixed economy” or whatever?
By grasping nostalgically at revolutionary rhetoric, the Left sets the bar high for public embrace of what might otherwise be quite popular policy ideas, from single-payer health insurance to free college to a job guarantee. Generally, it is not a selling point for voters that your policies are a step along the road to socialism. Moreover, belief in the viability of replacing capitalism and the market encourages unrealistic thinking about policies that might work within a market system and misestimation of how quickly they might be adopted. This tendency has not gone unnoticed by voters, who are pragmatically interested in what is feasible and workable and have no ideological commitment to a different system. The socialist label and terminology undercut efforts to persuade voters that the Left’s agenda can work.”

A lot to chew on here. For further edification I recommend reading the two fine books Koppelman discusses in his essay, John Judis’ The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now About the Left (2020) and Fred Block’s Capitalism: The Future of an Illusion (2018). And then you can all join me in a rousing chorus of “The Red Flag” for old-times sake.

In his New York Times column posted today, Thomas B. Edsall explores the psychological roots of QAnon conspiracy believers who energized the riot at the U.S. capitol, and notes:

A Dec 30 NPR/Ipsos poll found that “recent misinformation, including false claims related to Covid-19 and QAnon, are gaining a foothold among some Americans.”…According to the survey, nearly a fifth of American adults, 17 percent, believe that “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics.” Almost a third “believe that voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election.” Even more, 39 percent, agree that “there is a deep state working to undermine President Trump.”

Think about it for a moment – 17 percent, more than one out of six Americans believe this stuff. That’s not a tiny fringe of paranoid citizens. Double that, and you have the percentage of those who think Biden and the Democrats stole the election, despite the fact that Trump-appointed judges say it’s nonsense. Edall goes on to quote from interviews and academic studies. Among them this:

According to Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, professors of political science at the University of Miami and Notre Dame, conspiracy theorists do not “hold coherent, constrained policy positions.” In a forthcoming paper, “Who Supports QAnon? A Case Study in Political Extremism,” Uscinski explores what he identifies as some of the characteristics of the QAnon movement: “Support for QAnon is born more of antisocial personality traits and a predisposition toward conspiracy thinking than traditional political identities and motivations,” he writes, before going on to argue that

While QAnon supporters are “extreme,” they are not so in the ideological sense. Rather, QAnon support is best explained by conspiratorial worldviews and a predisposition toward other nonnormative behavior.

Uscinski found a substantial 0.413 correlation between those who support or sympathize with QAnon and “dark” personality traits, leading him to conclude that “the type of extremity that undergirds such support has less to do with traditional, left/right political concerns and more to do with extreme, antisocial psychological orientations and behavioral patterns.

Edsall notes that researchers have found similar pattters among some left-leaning Americans, particularly when their party is out of power. Edsall continues,

In their 2014 book “American Conspiracy Theories,” Uscinski and Parent argue that “Conspiracy Theories Are For Losers.” They write:

Conspiracy theories are essentially alarm systems and coping mechanisms to help deal with foreign threat and domestic power centers. Thus, they tend to resonate when groups are suffering from loss, weakness or disunity.

To illustrate how the out-of-power are drawn to conspiracy theories, the authors tracked patterns during periods of Republican and Democratic control of the presidency:

During Republican administrations, conspiracy theories targeting the right and capitalists averaged 34 percent of the conspiratorial allegations per year, while conspiracy theories targeting the left and communists averaged only 11 percent. During Democratic administrations, mutatis mutandis, conspiracy theories aimed at the right and capitalists dropped 25 points to 9 percent while conspiracy theories aimed at the left and communists more than doubled to 27 percent.

Edsall’s column is focused on diagnosis, not remedies. That’s a big topic for another column. For Democrats interested in building an enduring coalition, reducing the widespread sense of loss is a critical concern which they must address with credible policies and creative initiatives to promote more critical thinking in education and mass media.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Bernie Sanders and his movement had quite an impact on American politics in 2016 and 2020 but it is almost inconceivable that he will run again in 2024. At the dawn of the Biden administration, what should we make of his campaigns and the potential of his brand of politics going forward?

It is a mixed record. On the positive side, it seems entirely fair to credit him with moving the Democratic party and the entire political conversation to the left. He has been a veritable Overton window-moving machine, constantly pushing for bigger and bolder policies to attack America’s problems and railing against the influence of the rich and the staidness of the political establishment. His arguments tapped into a latent public hunger, particularly among younger voters, for a decisive break with business as usual that merely tinkered at the margins of the American political economic model. They were ready to move left and Bernie showed them the way.

Reflecting his efforts and those of like-minded politicians and activists, Medicare for All and a massive Green New Deal entered the political conversation, as did aggressive action on workers’ wages, taxing the rich and free provision of higher education. As they did, this shifting of the Overton window made policies that were more moderate, but considerably to the left of prior Democratic commitments, a much easier sell both within and outside of the party. One need only look at Biden’s policies on health care, climate change, wages, higher education and, more generally, on levels of taxes and spending to see the concrete results of this shifting window to which Sanders contributed so much.

But there was failure as well, most critically in the coalition-building and political power area. Sanders did much worse in 2020 than in 2016 in the Democratic primary vote (26 percent vs. 43 percent) and was soundly defeated by the considerably more moderate Biden. His supporters have various stories attempting to explain away this poor performance but the fact remains that Sanders could not successfully sell his approach even within a political party that was moving to the left and in the midst of a national crisis.

Read more…

Yes, it’s way early. But here’s some thoughts from “2022 Senate Races: Initial Ratings” by J. Miles Coleman at Sabato’s Crystal Ball:

“Republicans will be defending more Senate seats than Democrats in 2022, but both sides have some potential pickup opportunities — though a large gain for either party seems unlikely….Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) would have been an overwhelming favorite to win a third term, but even with his retirement, Ohio’s rightward lean makes it an uphill climb for Democrats….Democrats’ clearest path to gaining seats runs primarily though the Rust Belt, as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin seem to be their top offensive races, though they may finally get lucky in North Carolina….We rate four states — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and New Hampshire — as Leans Democratic, and these seem to be the most obvious GOP targets….There will likely be more retirements this cycle, but they probably won’t change the fundamental picture.”

Here’s Crystal Ball’s first 2022 Senate race ratings map:

The wild card in fleshing out strategy for Democrats has to be the applicability of the lessons of Georgia’s double Senate flip for Democratic Senate campaigns in other states? It’s a question that should be thoroughly investigated by the DSCC and every Democratic Senate campaign for 2022.

Some revealing strategic observations from Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skeeley from their article, “What All Those GOP Retirements Mean for the 2022 Senate Map” at FiveThirtyEight:

These retirements could be a helpful development for Democrats, too, as they provide the party with potential openings on what was already a decently favorable Senate map for them. Although the Senate’s rural biasstill makes the chamber advantageous to Republicans overall, the 2022 Senate map doesn’t force Democrats to compete on red turf nearly as much as the 2020 map or killer 2018 map did. In fact, no Democratic senators are running for reelection in states won by former President Donald Trump in 2020, while Republicans are defending two seats in states won by President Biden: the open seat in Pennsylvania and Sen. Ron Johnson’s seat in Wisconsin. (To make matters worse for Republicans, Johnson is considering retirement as well.)

However, the GOP may have one big advantage in 2022: a Republican-leaning national environment. As we saw in 2018 (and 2014, and 2010, and 2006, and…), midterm elections are usually bad for the president’s party. If that pattern holds true in 2022, the 2020 presidential results are probably not the best barometer of the partisanship of these states. Indeed, 2020 was actually a Democratic-leaning year, with Biden winning the national popular vote by 4.5 percentage points. So there’s a good chance that states will be at least a bit redder in 2022 than they were in 2020.

Skelley and Rakich conclude, noting that “the 2022 Senate map doesn’t force Democrats to compete on red turf nearly as much as the 2020 map or killer 2018 map did. In fact, no Democratic senators are running for reelection in states won by former President Donald Trump in 2020, while Republicans are defending two seats in states won by President Biden: the open seat in Pennsylvania and Sen. Ron Johnson’s seat in Wisconsin.”

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Biden got 51 percent of the vote in 2020, enough to win the election, but hardly a dominant majority. And Democrats’ downballot performance was distinctly inferior, leading to disappointing performance in Senate, House and state legislative races. The Biden administration now confronts a divided country racked by twin pandemic and economic crises. In the not so far distance looms the 2022 midterm elections where an incoming Presidential administration traditionally loses ground. The last time Democrats faced this situation in 2010 they suffered massive losses.

The imperative here is expand the Biden coalition. Concretely, that means Biden’s approval rating has to be as high as possible going into 2022. That is by far the most straightforward way of insulating the Democrats from big losses and creating at least the possibility for some gains.

So, how to do this? I offer a simple formula: convert Trump disapproval into Biden approval/Democratic votes. Consider these data comparing recent Trump disapproval, as measured by Pew, with Biden 2020 support figures from AP/VoteCast.

Black voters: Trump January disapproval – Biden 2020 support = 91-91 = 0

Hispanic voters: Trump January disapproval – Biden 2020 support = 82-63 = 19

White college voters: Trump January disapproval – Biden 2020 support = 73-52= 21

White noncollege voters: Trump January disapproval – Biden 2020 support = 52-37= 15

I smell opportunity! Besides an opening to expand white college support, there are serious possibilities here for attacking the two most serious weak spots in Biden’s 2020 coalition, Hispanic voters and white noncollege voters.

The conversion process for turning these Trump disapprovers into Biden approvers and then hopefully Democratic voters can only run through a successful attack on the pandemic and economic crises. Really for the next period of time nothing else is important. Not immigration reform. Not criminal justice reform. Not climate change. Not child poverty. Not executive orders. Not Trump’s trial. Either solve the twin crises or prepare yourself for the wrath of voters who will, not unreasonably, think you have failed them. The Biden coalition will shrink, not expand and all the great ideas progressives have for improving the country will come to naught.

Thus, the mantra here should be move fast, spend big and make it obvious. Derek Thomson in the Atlantic puts it well:

Biden…faces concentric crises, which move outward toward the future as you unpeel them: the biological threat of the pandemic, the economic recession, and, beyond that, the entrenched problem of child poverty. He also has to contend with the problem casting a shadow over the whole century, the existential crisis of climate change.

Biden’s first 100 days should address the first two crises with Rooseveltian focus. Quench the conflagration of the moment—then fight the fire of the future….

One lesson from the Obama years is that smart policy making isn’t just about doing brainy stuff; it’s about doing good and popular stuff in a way that keeps you in power so you can do more good stuff. The Democrats’ failure to properly stimulate the economy in 2010—or get credit for their very real contributions—led to catastrophic midterm losses in the House that made it impossible for them to accomplish much of anything in Obama’s last six years in office.

Let’s not let that happen again! The fate of the country and of the Democrats really does depend on it.

The following article by Stanley B. Greenberg, founding partner of Greenberg Research, board member of The American Prospect and author of ‘RIP GOP: How the New America Is Dooming the Republicans,’ is cross-posted from The American Prospect:

Just as the intelligence community may have missed the size, organization, and determination of Trump’s supporters to keep Donald Trump as president, the polls in 2016 and 2020 missed Trump’s ability to bring his base of white working class, evangelical, and rural voters into the electorate, to save white people from a changing America. Trump called Mexican immigrants “murders and rapists,” sent signals to the KKK, and instituted the Muslim ban. His political mission was defined by “good people on both sides,” closing the government to fund the border wall, and telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 by winning over the Tea Party, evangelical, and pro-life blocs, each of them determined to save America from Barack Obama, the first Black president. His enflaming racial resentment gave Trump an unassailable base in his party. But what the general elections reveal is that 40 percent of all Americans is fully part of an anti-establishment, God-first, racially resentful, anti-democratic bloc, who live in a right-wing media cocoon and adore Donald Trump. This bloc of white rural, evangelical, and working-class male voters rushed to the polls in both 2016 and 2020. And critically, they are three of every five Republicans.

Chanting “Make America Great Again,” “U-S-A.! U-S-A!” and “Stop the Steal,” Trump’s violent vanguard assaulted the Capitol to stop the counting of Electoral College votes. Rampaging white mobs and paramilitary Proud Boys abolish any nuance, waving their Confederate, American, and Trump flags. They aren’t sure anybody but Donald Trump will be as uncompromising, racist, and anti-establishment as they desire. And they don’t think anyone else on their side can win.

(READ MORE)

The following article by By Mia Costa Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College and Brian Schaffner Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies, Tufts University, is cross-posted from Data for Progress:

Last week, as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building, many journalists and observers struggled with how exactly to describe those carrying out the shocking acts. Early reporting on the events at the Capitol building used the label  “protesters,” but descriptions quickly evolved with news organizations opting to use terms like “rioters,” “mob,” “insurrectionists,” and even “terrorists.”  The following day, President-elect Biden himself made his case: “They weren’t protesters – don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.” Politicians on both sides of the aisle are using terms like “insurrectionists” and “rioters” to describe those who attacked the Capitol building.

But how do Americans themselves describe those who attacked the Capitol building? In a survey sponsored by Data for Progress and fielded online on January 12th, we asked a representative sample of 1,140 American adults what word or words they would use to describe the individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol. We provided an open box where respondents could write anything they wished to describe these individuals. You can scroll through randomly selected responses by checking out this app.

The word cloud shows the 100 most common words used in these responses sized based on how frequently they were used. The most common word people used to describe those who stormed the Capitol building was by far, “terrorists.” In fact, more than one of every ten Americans in our sample used the word “terrorists” without any prompting. The other words shown demonstrate just how upset and disgusted most Americans were by the actions of these individuals. People in our sample frequently used words like “stupid,” “criminals,” “crazy,” “disgusting,” “idiots,” “traitors,” and “horrible.”. Overall, a sentiment analysis of comments indicated that the words respondents used to describe those who stormed the Capitol building were 9 times more likely to be negative than they were to be positive. Many gave just single-word responses, but some couldn’t help but use a string of negative descriptors. For example, one individual simply responded with “Despicable, disgusting American terrorists” and another wrote “delusional, brainwashed, dangerous, extremist.” Several used the opportunity to note Trump’s role in motivating the mob, one writing that those storming the Capitol were “Trump loyalists who are being misled by lies” with another noting that “this problem was caused by Donald Trump. He should get a punishment.”

We also present the 20 most common words used in responses to our question in the graph below. Once again, it is clear that the vast majority of these words are quite negative. Some contextualization is also useful. When people used the word “domestic,” it was almost always because they were using the phrase “domestic terrorists.” Likewise, when Trump’s name was invoked, it was usually to note that the rioters were “Trump supporters,” though in some cases, Trump voters in particular used this opportunity to insist that he was not to blame for what happened. For example, one Trump voter wrote, “It was a set up to make Trump supporters look bad and to unseat the president.”

The final graph illustrates some clear differences in the language used by those who voted for Biden in the election compared to those who voted for Trump. While Biden supporters overwhelmingly settled on the word “terrorists” to describe the mob, Trump voters used a wider array of terms. The most common among these was “antifa,” indicating that some Trump voters are already repeating the lie that the rioters were not Trump supporters at all but were instead antifa, a moniker some critics use to describe a far-left anti-fascist movement. For example, one Trump voter simply wrote, “Antifa and BLM – NOT TRUMP SUPPORTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” while another said “Imposters for the Democratic Party to make Trump look bad,” referring to both antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement.

But it is worth noting that many other Trump voters had negative things to say about this group with “terrorists,” “crazy,” “wrong,” “rioters,” “idiots,” and “criminals” all among the top words used when describing the mob. In fact, Trump voters used almost seven-times as many negative words as positive ones.

It is also clear how the event has turned off non-voters and those who voted for a third party candidate in 2020 — the top 10 words among those individuals were almost uniformly negative. We found almost nobody in this group who expressed sympathy for those who stormed the Capitol.

Overall, our analysis of these open-ended responses demonstrates just how upsetting most Americans found the attack on the Capitol building and reflects how angry they are with those who perpetrated the violence. Given the outrage expressed by those in our survey, it is no surprise that there is overwhelming support for prosecuting those involved in the storming of the Capitol building and that a majority of Americans also believe that Trump should be impeached for his role in provoking the insurrection.