Some recent comments from conservatives about Trump’s impending GOP nomination, the future of the Republican Party and, in some cases their intention to vote for some other candidate:

Rep. Scott Rigell [R-VA]: “My love for our country eclipses my loyalty to our party, and to live with a clear conscience I will not support a nominee so lacking in the judgment, temperament and character needed to be our nation’s commander-in-chief. Accordingly, if left with no alternative, I will not support Trump in the general election should he become our Republican nominee.”
Former Romney staffer Garrett Jackson: “Sorry Mr. Chairman, not happening. I have to put country over party. I cannot support a dangerous phony.”
Former top Romney strategist Stuart Stevens: “I think Donald Trump has proven to be unbalanced and uniquely unqualified to be president. I won’t support him… Everyone has to make their own choice. I think Trump is despicable and will prove to be a disaster for the party. I’d urge everyone to continue to oppose him.'”
Rep. Carlos Curbelo [R-FL]: “I have already said I will not support Mr. Trump, that is not a political decision that is a moral decision.'”
Sen. Ben Sasse [R-NE]: “Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. … I can’t support Donald Trump.”
Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes: “This is what political division looks like. Trump’s claim to be a unifier is not just specious, it’s absurd. This casual dishonesty is a feature of his campaign. And it’s one of many reasons so many Republicans and conservatives oppose Trump and will never support his candidacy. I’m one of them.”
Former McCain adviser Mark Salter: “The GOP is going to nominate for President a guy who reads the National Enquirer and thinks it’s on the level. I’m with her.”
RedState editor Ben Howe: “#ImWithHer”
MA Gov. Charlie Baker: “I’m not going to vote for [Donald Trump] in November.”
Former RNC Chairman Mel Martinez: “I would not vote for Trump, clearly.”
Former VA Senate candidate, Ken Cuccinelli on Trump: “When you’ve got a guy favorably quoting Mussolini, I don’t care what party you’re in, I’m not voting for that guy.”
Former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman: “Leaders don’t need to do research to reject Klan support. #NeverTrump”
Former Bush spokesman Tony Fratto: “For the thick-headed: #NeverTrump means never ever ever ever ever under any circumstances as long as I have breath never Trump. Get it?”
Former Eric Cantor communications director, Rory Cooper: “#NeverTrump means…never. The mission of distinguishing him from Republican positions and conservative values remains critical.”
Conservative blogger Erick Erickson: “Reporters writing about the “Stop Trump” effort get it wrong. It’s ‘Never Trump’ as in come hell or high water we will never vote for Trump”
Fox News’ Steve Deace: “Apparently @secupp has a #NeverTrump list to see who keeps their word to the end. You can sign my name in blood.”
Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini: “I will never vote for @realDonaldTrump. Join me and add your name athttp://NeverTrump.com . #NeverTrump”
America Rising co-founder and former Jeb Bush communications director Tim Miller: “Never ever ever Trump. Simple as that.”
Former Rep. J.C. Watts [R-OK] said he’d write-in someone before voting for Mr. Trump in November.
Former Director Of NV and MS GOP Cory Adair: “You’ll come around,” say supporters who just got done saying their candidate doesn’t need me. Nah. I won’t. #NeverTrump
Townhall editor Guy Benson: “Much to my deep chagrin (& astonishment ~8 months ago), for the 1st time in my life, I will not support the GOP nominee for president.”
DailyWire editor Ben Shapiro: “Really? #Nevertrump. Pretty easy.”
Wisconsin conservative radio host Charles Sykes: “I suppose I should clarify: #NeverTrump means I will nevereverunderanycircusmtances vote for @realDonaldTrump”
Editor at RedState, Dan McLaughlin: “For the first time since turning 18, I will not vote for the Republican candidate for President.”
Conservative columnist George Will: “If Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power.”
Redstate contributor Leon Wolf: “I will never vote for Donald Trump. I will not vote for him in the general election against Hillary, and I would not vote for him in a race for dogcatcher. Heck, I would not even vote for him on a reality television show.”
Former Romney adviser Kevin Madden: “I’m prepared to write somebody in so that I have a clear conscience.”
Pete Wehner, former speechwriter for George W. Bush: “I will not vote for Donald Trump if he wins the Republican nomination.”
Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard: “Donald Trump should not be president of the United States. The Wall Street Journal cannot bring itself to say that. We can say it, we do say it, and we are proud to act accordingly.”
Undersecretary of State under George W. Bush, Eliot Cohen: “I will oppose Trump as nominee. Won’t support & won’t work for him for more reasons than a Tweet can bear.”
Former Jeb Bush digital director Elliott Schwartz: “In case there is confusion about #NeverTrump.”
Doug Heye, Former RNC communications director: “I cannot support Donald Trump were he to win the Republican nomination.”
Former IL GOP Chairman Pat Brady said he’d back a third-party candidate or “just stay home” if Mr. Trump is the nominee.
Washington Examiner’s Phillip Klein: “I have officially de-registered as a Republican.”
Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson: “I registered Republican when I was 18 because I thought free markets and liberty were important. Not sure what “Republican” means today.”

The way things are going, don’t be surprised if this list doubles every couple of days. More on the great conservative Exodus, right here.

This is a good start, from the DSCC:

This week, the DSCC launched the “Party of Trump” campaign, a sustained campaign that will feature spending across platforms including television, radio, online, Twitter and Facebook, as well as up to the minute “Party of Trump” news alerts, highlighting Republicans’ continued support of Donald Trump as the nominee. With another big round of victories on Tuesday, Trump is even closer to becoming the Republicans’ nominee. Republican Senate incumbents and candidates are to blame for the rise of this toxic, divisive element that has overtaken their party, and they’ve all pledged to support Trump as the nominee. The DSCC’s “Party of Trump” campaign will remind voters that Republican Senate candidates are running in lockstep with Trump and his toxic rhetoric.

And here’s an opening ad to help the kick-off:

Not bad for openers. It appears that the DSCC is putting more brain-power and video muscle and into the effort to take back the Senate, which is long-overdue. There is enough material to make many such ads anchoring GOP senators and senate candidates to Trump and policies that are even worse than some of his positions.
With respect to Trump, there are gobs of clever amateur videos already up on Youtube, and the DSCC should be mining them on a daily basis. Now that Facebook has become the town square for ever-increasing numbers of Americans, the party that masters its potential will likely be well-rewarded in November.

A few months ago James Vega posted a strategy memo at TDS addressing the GOP’s “standarized strategy for manufacturing bogus Democratic ‘scandals'” most recently used to gin up outrage about former Secretary of State Clinton’s alleged email improprieties. The memo held the New York Times and other MSM outlets to account for allowing themselves to be manipulated by a “profound fear of reporting anything that contradicts the notion that both political parties are basically equivalent” and suggested strategies for Democrats to respond effectively. As Vega put it,

…Once the GOP grasped the fact that the mainstream media would not honestly report the fact that they were engaging in an asymmetric extremist warfare against the Democrats, Republicans realized that they could use the traditional journalistic standards for reporting information given “off the record” or “on deep background” to easily manipulate the press without fear of exposure or censure.

Vega cites proposals by Norm Ornstein, which gems can use to help prevent media from being so easily-manipulated in the future, including:

• Sources that provide information that turns out to be false and defamatory should lose any “off the record” protection whatsoever and have their identities exposed.
• Reporters should not be allowed to publish information provided by a source that refuses to allow the writer to honestly describe relevant information about the sources’ partisan ties and affiliations.
• Reporters or editors who fail at this fundamental public responsibility should face dismissal, suspension or other consequences from their publishers severe enough to dissuade them from continuing to abuse the public trust.

Vega concludes that “If editors and reporters in the mainstream media aspire to be objective, they can start by refusing to allow themselves to be manipulated by the GOP.” In effect argues Vega, “Failing to do this is represents the endorsement and support of pro-Republican partisan dishonesty in their reporting that is different from the partisan propaganda of Fox News and talk radio commentators only in degree and not essential character.”
Since Vega’s memo and mounting criticism against biased reporting that elevates bogus “scandals,” it appears that some major media outlets are doing some constructive soul-searching. In her Public Editor’s Journal article, “Tightening the Screws on Anonymous Sources” in The New York Times, Margaret Sullivan explains that “Times editors are cracking down on the use of anonymous sources…Although the policy does not ban anonymity, it is intended to significantly reduce…an overreliance on unnamed sources.” Further, adds Sullivan,

It requires one of three top editors to review and sign off on articles that depend primarily on information from unnamed sources – particularly those that “hinge on a central fact” from such a source…
The policy also requires any other use of anonymous sources to be approved by a desk head – for example, the ranking culture, metro or international editor – or that person’s immediate deputy. It also “underscores what has been our policy”: that an editor must know the identity of an unnamed source.
The new policy also aims to significantly “ratchet down the use of anonymous quotation,” Mr. Purdy said. It would make such quotation relatively rare. Too often, he said, such direct quotations allow sources to express “their impression, their spin, their agenda” without accountability. And, he said, they don’t allow readers to evaluate motive because they don’t know where the information is coming from.

Sullivan warns that “the devil, of course, is in the enforcement.” She notes that recent experiments using the new policies have been encouraging. More rigorous standards for using anonymous sources is a welcome change in America’s most prominent newspaper, and it’s likely that the better newspapers, and perhaps some electronic media outlets, will follow suit.
But no one should be deluded that such well-intentioned policy changes will automatically prove to be permanent. It will require constant vigilance and monitoring both inside — and outside — major media outlets against equal constant pressure from partisan scandal-mongers.
For now, however, give the Times credit for addressing the issue in a credible way. May their example be contagious.

At The Fix, Philip Bump’s “How the Internet has democratized democracy, to Bernie Sanders’s benefit” sheds light on the power of social media as a force for political education and change. Commenting on the insights of NYU professor Clay Shirky, author of “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,” Bump explains:

…The gist is this. The two-party system necessarily can’t encompass every viewpoint. So, to hold parties together, some things became unmentionable. As media options broadened and the press wasn’t acting as gatekeeper, candidates could talk to voters more directly. But they still largely needed the resources of the party in order to get elected, so they still hewed to the rules about what couldn’t be mentioned.
Until 2008, when Barack Obama mastered talking to, fundraising from and turning out a large population.
“Reaching & persuading even a fraction of the electorate used to be so daunting that only two national orgs could do it,” Shirky wrote. “Now dozens can. This set up the current catastrophe for the parties. They no longer control any essential resource, and can no longer censor wedge issues.” The result, he says, is the “quasi-parlimentarianism” of the moment: The Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Trump Party and the Sanders Party, all vying for power and the presidency…Trump and Sanders can ignore the established parties by talking directly to the voters.

Thanks to the internet and social media, now candidates can define their political personas without as much help from their respective political parties. The “Internet has “democratiized democracy,” as Bump puts it.
The other factor referenced by Bump is cell phones. Bump quotes from Jill LePore’s New Yorker article describing a recent rally for Hillary Clinton:

The instant Clinton began speaking, dozens of arms reached high into the air, all across the room, wielding smartphones. It was like watching a flock of ostriches awaken, the arms their necks, the phones their heads, the red recording buttons their wide, blinking eyes.

Bump adds, “That ceaseless documentation of the moment made individuals in the crowd often indistinguishable from reporters…The media has a role, as do the political parties. The role of each was once to serve as gatekeeper. Now, the role is often to serve as bullhorn.”
Trump’s TV presence surely fueled his success as a GOP presidential candidate. He began his white house run with name recognition few political leaders could hope to match. Plus, he understood how to leverage media to get free publicity worth millions of dollars.
A few weeks ago, I noted that, with respect to advertising,

Online ad share is growing fast. But broadcast television still rules, when it comes to ad budgets and is projected to account for about $8.5 billion of the $11.4 total ad spending for 2016, compared to about $1 billion for digital media, according to Issie Lapowsky, writing in Wired. But Larry Grisolano, who supervised political ads for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns, predicts that in 2016 presidential campaigns will allocate “nearly a quarter of their spending to digital media.”

Yet, it’s not as much about the ads, as peer contact and sharing in social media, particularly facebook, which is so easy to use and where anyone can share print, video and photos. You can’t do that in newspapers and TV.
A well-circulated YouTube clip likely meets more persuadable eyeballs than the most carefully-crafted letter to the New York Times. Peer to peer contact is critical for enhancing voter turnout. But it’s also important for forming and changing political attitudes.
The success of the Sanders campaign owes much to social media. Sanders does not have a flashy TV persona, as does Trump, and to a lesser extent, Clinton. His sincerity comes across well on television. But his more effective tool is social media, which helps to explain his soaring popularity with younger voters.
A candidate can get a lot of bang for the buck recycling YouTube clips on facebook and other social media to reach younger voters. Democrats seem to have more leverage with these tools at the moment. I’m seeing a vigorous debate between Clinton and Sanders followers on facebook and twitter.
Hillary Clinton can be an extremely effective communicator, frequently comes across as the most knowledgeable candidate in televised debates, and generally does well in TV, radio and print interviews. But the Clinton campaign has some catch-up to do to reach the youth demographic on social media.
One of the best things about social media is that it can’t be smothered by the Koch brothers or any other wealthy conservative financiers. A staged political ad is always going to have less cred with swing voters than a heartfelt share on fb. This may come in handy in the final weeks of the general election.

A good many MSM journalists and headline-writers are uncorking predictable military and sports lingo in exaggerating the tone of the Democratic debate last night (transcript here). Compared to recent GOP presidential debates, however, the Democratic candidates provided sober, civil and, gasp, informative discussion of actual issues Americans care about. As for who “won,” Isaac Chotiner of Slate says Clinton, while other pundits say Sanders. It was that close.
Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tore into Michigan Governor Rick Snyder at the end of the debate, with Sanders calling on him to resign because of his appalling negligence contributing to the lead poisoning of Flint’s drinking water. As Paul Egan describes it in the Detroit Free Press: “…As Snyder prepares to deliver his sixth State of the State address on Tuesday, his political capital has plummeted, the state is grappling with what could be a billion-dollar mistake with incalculable consequences for human lives, and his river analogy is particularly unfortunate in light of a state-appointed emergency manager’s 2014 decision to save money by temporarily drawing Flint’s drinking water from the polluted and corrosive Flint River. That move, followed by other state errors, has led to a public health crisis, allegations of a state government cover-up, and Saturday’s declaration of a federal emergency in Flint by President Barack Obama…Amid calls for his resignation, stunning vitriol directed at him through social media and protests planned outside his Ann Arbor home today and in front of the Capitol on Tuesday, Snyder will deliver one of the most closely watched State of the State addresses in Michigan history.”
In Jack Lessenberry’s “Is there a Democratic strategy for Michigan in 2016?” at Michiganradio.org, he notes that the new state Democratic Party chairman Brandon Dillon has further reason for optimism about Democratic prospects in 2016. “Dillon’s focus is on the state house of representatives, where all 110 seats are up for election…Democrats need to gain nine seats to win control, but this year, Dillon thinks his party has a real chance. Twenty-seven Republicans have to leave office because of term limits, as opposed to only eleven Democrats. Many of the open Republican seats may be vulnerable, since the departing incumbents were all first elected in the GOP landslide year of 2010…If a Democratic presidential nominee wins a landslide in Michigan this fall, Dillon hopes this will carry in a legislative majority. That’s what happened eight years ago, when President Obama badly beat John McCain.”
In “Republicans’ White, Working Class Trap: A Growing Reliance,” NPR’s Asma Khalid notes, “while white, working-class voters are now only about a third of the overall electorate, they’re about half of the Republican electorate.”
From Politico’s “The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter” by Matthew MacWilliams: “…49 percent of likely Republican primary voters I surveyed score in the top quarter of the authoritarian scale–more than twice as many as Democratic voters…In a statistical analysis of the polling results, I found that Trump has already captured 43 percent of Republican primary voters who are strong authoritarians, and 37 percent of Republican authoritarians overall. A majority of Republican authoritarians in my poll also strongly supported Trump’s proposals to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, prohibit Muslims from entering the United States, shutter mosques and establish a nationwide database that track Muslims.”
Trump will be the MLK Day speaker at Liberty University. It will be interesting to see how he navigates his big pitch to the conservative evangelical community, while paying respects to Dr. King, whose economic policies have more in common with the views Sen. Sanders than any other presidential candidate.
Dale Ho, Director, Voting Rights Project, ACLU has an update on the legal challenges to voter suppression laws.
At Smithsonian.com Heather Hansman asks “Could Pop-up Social Spaces at Polls Increase Voter Turnout?” The idea is to make polling places more of a fun spot, where people can “hang out.” What could go wrong?
George Washington University professsor Henry Farrell’s “Bill O’Reilly will flee to Ireland if Sanders is elected. He’s in for a shock” at the Washington Post provides the chuckle for the day, especially for all who have ventured to Ireland and actually paid attention. As Farrell writes, “from the perspective of American conservatism, Ireland looks like a hellhole of socialism” with “a tax system which is not all that different from the U.S. tax system for top earners, and arguably a little less favorable. The effective top Irish income tax rate is a little over half of income….Police only carry arms under special circumstances. Most Irish police officers don’t even have firearms training…Gun ownership is highly restricted in Ireland. People have to apply for a license to own a gun, and are likely to be refused under many circumstances. Furthermore, there are heavy restrictions on kinds of guns that they are allowed to own…Handguns of the kind that O’Reilly could use for “self-defense” are not [allowed], let alone automatic weapons. Gun rights are not a topic of political debate in Ireland — Ireland’s most conservative party, which is now the majority party in the government, has just introduced new restrictions, without any significant public opposition.” Further, adds Farrell, Ireland has “socialized medicine on a scale which would be politically unthinkable in America. Ireland also has welfare benefits for the unemployed which are not notably generous by European standards, but are wildly permissive in comparison to their U.S. equivalents.”

James Hohman’s Daily 202 column at WaPo, “The Daily 202: Trumpism rejected by Obama in State of the Union and Nikki Haley in GOP response,” spotlights a host of interesting reactions to President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Here we’ll just share some responses to the GOP rebuttal by Governor Nikki Haley:

— In the latest sign that the GOP establishment fears an electoral debacle if Trump is the nominee, the official Republican response from Nikki Haley also made the case – albeit a little more gently – against going down the path Trump offers. “During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices,” the South Carolina governor said. “We must resist that temptation.”
— Haley’s speech has become a Rorschach test on the right…The far right hated it.
Breitbart headlined its story: “Republican Party Uses State Of The Union Response To Attack Trump.”
“Trump should deport Nikki Haley,” Ann Coulter wrote in one of six-anti Haley tweets.
Radio host Laura Ingraham chimed in: “The country is lit up w/ a populist fever & the GOP responds by digging in, criticizing the GOP candidates dominating polls?! NOT SMART.”
Former Ted Cruz aide Amanda Carpenter wrote: “Haley’s speech would’ve been good except for the GOP self-loathing.”
More mainstream elites in the right-leaning media loved Haley’s speech:
Charles Krauthammer, on a Fox News panel, called it the best State of the Union response he can ever recall hearing.
The Washington Examiner’s David Drucker said Haley’s response “will likely elevate her to the top of the list of potential vice presidential contenders.”
National Review editor Rich Lowry said it’s “always a tough assignment”: “Haley was a little shaky at beginning, but moving treatment of Charleston shooting and nice riff on GOP agenda.”

If one of Obama’s goals was to out the Republicans’ internal divisions, the President succeeded admirably.

Harold Meyerson’s Washington Post column, “The right’s war against the spirit of Christmas” calls out the toxic stew of xenophobia, bigotry, resentment, fear and greed that the GOP is serving up for the holiday season. Meyerson raises interesting questions:

Who’s really waging a war against Christmas in 2015? Secular multiculturalists who, stealthily and nefariously, have somehow rendered Starbucks’s coffee cups a tad less festive? Or the self-proclaimed culture warriors on behalf of traditional values, who demand we leave refugees — even small children, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has made pitilessly clear — at the mercy of the latter-day Herods? Who condemn entire religions? Who fear and loathe strangers?

Put another way, can you even imagine any of the Republican presidential candidates actually quoting Christ’s teachings about love, forgiveness, charity and peace? Meyerson continues,

It’s been a banner year for fear and loathing, xenophobia and racism. What has made the year genuinely ominous is the emergence of fictions presented (often, but hardly exclusively, by Donald Trump) as facts that legitimize a sense of both grievance and hatred: New Jersey Muslims celebrating 9/11; the quarter-million Syrians that the Obama administration is planning to bring in; a wave of black-on-white homicide. Concoctions all, but credible enough to the sizable share of Republicans who also believe the president is a Kenyan Muslim. Fed by talk radio, Fox News and paranoid websites, millions of our compatriots dwell in a parallel universe of alternative realities. My colleague Dana Milbank has noted that the fashion among conservatives is to dismiss hard facts that clash with their alternative realities as “politically correct.” That’s Republicanese for “empirically correct” — verifiable by research, but at odds with the stories they’ve created to justify their rage.
Such right-wing fictions have always hovered on the fringes of the body politic, but what has enabled them to go more mainstream is the sense of displacement — from their previous position as a majority race, a thriving class, a dominant religion — that is now widespread among the white working class Trumpites and the evangelical Christians flocking to Ted Cruz’s banner. The mission of right-wing media and pols has been to exaggerate some of that displacement (the threat to white America), play down other parts of it (the evisceration of blue-collar living standards by corporate America) and lay the blame for it all on minorities, foreigners, liberals, feminists, gays — you know the list.

There’s nothing new about politicians pandering to the worst instincts and most irrational fears of voters. But in 2015 Republicans hit a new low, as Meyerson explains, “…Enmities, and most certainly not love, have become the core of the right’s appeal and message this year…They may well sweep Trump or Cruz to the Republican nomination; they have already infused the entire party with bigoted perspectives that will be hard to disclaim.”
It’s a sad turn for a political party that once tempered its conservatism with appeals to “bind up the nation’s wounds,” instead of inflaming them with expressions of contempt and exclusion. As Meyerson concludes, “They are most surely at odds with the spirit of Christmas. Walls on the border, religious tests for admission, despising the poor — good thing Joseph and Mary didn’t have to encounter our modern-day defenders of the right as they scrambled from one country to another, desperate to save their son’s life.”
It would be good if Democratic candidates and office-holders everywhere craft their holiday and New Years messages in stark contrast to the Republicans sour spirit by presenting a more healing and hopeful vision of shared prosperity, peace, brotherhood and sisterhood. These are the values that can lift up and unify all Americans of good will, and this is the brand that can inspire the best in voters and move America forward.

It looks like strategic voting by the French left has dashed Front National leader Marine Le Pen’s hopes for the presidency, report AP’s Elaine Ganley and Angelina Charlton.
Waleed Shahid, political director of Pennsylvania Working Families Party, has a perceptive post on “Donald Trump and the Disaffected, White, Working Class Voter” at Colorlines. Shahid observes, “Today the political poles are again moving farther and farther apart. An angry base of White, working and middle class voters emboldened by the Tea Party movement, Fox News and Trump are pulling Republicans in the direction of xenophobia and racism which Millennial movements for racial and economic justice and immigrant and LGBTQ rights are pushing Democrats toward a more inclusive society. Just like before the Civil War, these differences concern central, competing ideas about the heart of the United States. They explain why common sense reforms on gun violence, immigration, welfare, policing and finance have virtually no chance in passing in our broken system.”
Apparently the “back room deal” trial balloon of the GOP establishment isn’t playing so well.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball sketches “The Down-Ballot Outlook as 2016 Approaches,” noting that “The upcoming battle for the Senate depends to a large extent on the presidential race; Democrats should gain House seats but not truly threaten the GOP’s big lower chamber majority; and Republicans are positioned to add to their already-substantial majority of governorships. That’s the early line on next year’s down-ballot contests…”
At Demos Policy Shop Sean McElwee reports on a new study “by political scientists Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian Schaffner, the most comprehensive examination of voters and nonvoters that has ever been performed,” reveals serious problems regarding voter turnout and the data behind it, including: “…Very few Americans vote regularly, in fact, only 25% of Americans voted in all four elections. A whopping 37% voted in none of the elections. The other 39% of the population participated with varying frequency: 13% voted in only one election (generally Presidential), 12% in two, and 14% voted in three (most missed a single midterm)…Ansolabehere and Schaffner find that a stunning 63% of those who did not actually vote in 2010 reported that they did vote on CCES.”
“In 2008 only 8.1 percent of voters reported voting for a different party than in 2004. In 2012, it hit an all-time low, with only 5.2 percent of Americans voting for a different major-party nominee,” reports Peter Grier in his Monitor cover story, “Why swing voters are vanishing from US politics.” Grier adds, “Meanwhile, the percentage of “standpatters” – people who vote for the same party over a series of consecutive elections – has risen correspondingly and is now approaching 60 percent of Americans of voting age. (Nonvoters and periodic voters account for the rest.).”
GOP voter suppressers on a roll in Michigan.
WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains why “Trump should be no match for the moderate majority.” Dione says “We have heard the words “Trump leads in the polls” for so long, you’d think he had taken the entire country by storm. In fact, Trump is not broadly popular. He leads only in a minority subset of the population — depending on the survey, projected Republican primary voters or Republicans combined with Republican-leaning independents. Neither of these groups represents a majority of Americans…But it also matters that Republican primary voters constituted only 38 percent of those interviewed by the Times/CBS pollsters. If you take 35 percent of 38 percent, you are talking about 13 percent of Americans. This is almost exactly the same percentage that George Wallace, who ran a racist-populist third-party presidential campaign, won in 1968 against Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey….Was the Wallace campaign important? Yes. Did Wallace speak for anywhere close to a majority of Americans? No. The same is true of Trump.”
National Journal’s Jake Flanagin explains why “Ted Cruz Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump”: Flanagin notes, “The thing is, Cruz isn’t merely a toned-down ver­sion of Trump. He’s just as con­ser­vat­ive, just as volat­ile, though prob­ably a little less er­rat­ic. And this makes him all the more dan­ger­ous, from a pro­gress­ive point of view…Es­sen­tially, he matches Trump tit-for-tat on most every con­ser­vat­ive idea­lo­gic­al mark­er. But un­like Trump, Cruz is ut­terly and com­pletely de­voted to a pur­ist, con­ser­vat­ive cause. And his abil­ity to mask zealotry with polit­ic­al rhet­or­ic renders him an ex­po­nen­tially more po­tent can­did­ate.”

So which measures to reduce income inequality attract the most support? Suzy Khimm reports at The New Republic: “A recent study conducted by economists from Princeton, Harvard, and University of California, Berkeley professor Emmanuel Saez–one of the most prominent researchers on inequality–put the political challenges of the issue in sharper relief. Based on a survey of 10,000 Americans, the study found that those who received more information about inequality were more likely to believe that economic disparity was a problem. At the same time, “they show no more appetite for many government interventions to reduce inequality”–such as an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps–“with the notable exceptions of increasing the estate tax and the minimum wage…The study hypothesizes that Americans are more comfortable with government solutions when they’re narrowly targeted or otherwise limit government involvement. That suggests that any kind of broad government intervention will be a hard sell to the broader public, even if the public believes the scales are unfairly tipped because of government policies.”
At The Monkey Cage Kyle Dropp’s “This new tool puts 50,000 poll questions and 100 demographics at your fingertips” reports on an early Xmas present for political opinion wonks: “This year, we at Morning Consult have addressed that problem by building out a platform called Morning Consult Intelligence. This free platform allows anyone to search and analyze over 50,000 current and historical survey questions from top polling organizations.”
Bill Cotterell, correspondent for the Tallahassee Democrat has an insightful update on Democratic electoral prospects in Florida. Among Cotterell’s observations: “Democrats figure to pick up two, maybe three, seats in the Florida congressional delegation under the redistricting plan approved last month by the state Supreme Court…When a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans in registration has 17 Republican and 10 Democratic members of the U.S. House, that’s no accident. Not coincidentally, Republicans are the controlling party of both chambers of the Legislature – the same people who fought the “Fair Districts” amendments all the way…All things being equal – which they’re not – Democrats would probably deserve a 14-13 majority in the state’s congressional delegation and Florida’s two U.S. Senate seats would be equally divided – which they are – by the parties.”
As for the sleazier tactics Republicans use to suppress pro-Democratic votes in the Sunshine State, check out Spencer Woodman’s excellent post at The Intercept, “Thanks to Republicans, Nearly a Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote.” Woodman explains, “No other state has a larger number of disenfranchised citizens than Florida, where more than 1.5 million people have lost the right to cast a ballot on Election Day, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit prison reform group. Nationwide, nearly 6 million Americans are barred from voting due to felony convictions. Although most states restrict the voting rights of imprisoned felons, Iowa currently is the only one that joins Florida in imposing a lifelong disenfranchisement on ex-felons.”
Tony Monkovic reviews the pros, cons and realities of strategic voting at The Upshot, and notes “Research shows that the rate of so-called party-crasher voting in primaries is generally low. Voters in open primaries, in which you can vote in the primary of either party, are more likely to pick a candidate they like. He notes one failed example: “…Radio host Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” to help Hillary Clinton defeat Barack Obama did not prevent an Obama presidency.”
Hard to wrap your head around it now, but there was a time when the GOP hoped to benefit from the Muslim vote in the U.S. David A. Graham has the story at The Atlantic.
A new AP/GFK poll indicates Trump’s xenophobic take on immigration is shared by too many, even though the poll was conducted before his latest call for a ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S.: “…54 percent of Americans, including about three-quarters of Republicans, about half of independents and over a third of Democrats, said the United States takes in too many immigrants from the Middle East…By contrast, 46 percent of Americans, including 6 in 10 Republicans, slightly under half of independents and 3 in 10 Democrats, said the U.S. takes too many immigrants from Latin America…Just 28 percent of Americans said the same of immigrants from Europe, with little variation by party identification.”
If Trump wins the GOP nomination, what would his Republican rivals do? The New York Times editorial board offers this clue: “After his remarks on Muslims, how many of Mr. Trump’s rivals have said they would reject his candidacy if he won the nomination? As of Wednesday, none.”
You probably can guess who says “I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race.”

For a sharply observed analysis of GOP candidate Donald Trump’s failed effort to secure endorsements from African American pastors, read Goldie Taylor’s Daily Beast post, “Black Pastors Confront Trump Over ‘Slurs.'” As Taylor observes,

As The Daily Beast reported over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the GOP frontrunner was set to meet Monday with dozens of high profile black pastors and hold a subsequent press conference to tout an unprecedented group endorsement. As the sun set Sunday night–and several prominent preachers backed out–many questioned whether the event would even happen.
Pressed by their congregations and by a not-so-holy war that broke out on social media, some of the invited ministers issued flat denials, saying they agreed only to discuss key issues with the candidate and that endorsements were never a part of the bargain. Two of the biggest names on the nightclub-esque promotional flier, Los Angeles-based Bishop Clarence McClendon and Brooklyn-based Bishop Hezekiah Walker, announced Sunday they would not attend. Both issued statements on social media.
…Early Monday, Trump blamed the controversy on young black activists, saying in an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, “Probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up and said, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be meeting with Trump because he believes all lives matter.'”
With expectations dampened, a small but resilient group of mostly black pastors stepped into a media scrum Monday afternoon to talk about the much publicized, now private meeting with Trump. There was no promised live-stream and no radio broadcast.

In other words, it was a messy little circus. Worse for Trump, it provided Taylor with an opportunity to review Trump’s record on issues of concern to African Americans:

The Republican brand is toxic in most quarters of the black community. That said, the media avail felt more like a gambit to change the optics rather than an earnest effort to bring new hope to distressed communities. Trump, who has been busy alienating black voters with his nationalistic, almost barbaric approach to the campaign trail, is clearly in need of a healing…The numbers, however, are clear. Since the late 1960s, after the passage of the civil rights acts, Republican support from black voters has wallowed in the single digits.
…Responding to an open letter from 150 faith and academic leaders published Friday by Ebony challenging the group to rethink endorsing Trump, Bishop Scott directly questioned the ethics of the magazine’s management…”By siding with a presidential candidate whose rhetoric pathologizes Black people, what message are you sending to the world about the Black lives in and outside of your congregations?” the letter read. “Which Black lives do you claim to be liberating?”
Embracing a roomful of black pastors and persuading a few to endorse him certainly aren’t enough to erase what has been–arguably–Trump’s history of racial animus and outright bigotry…Despite his claims, one could argue that Trump has been in a position to create jobs in predominantly African American communities and simply has not done so in any meaningful way. His office towers, residential units, and golf resorts are built almost exclusively in wealthy white enclaves.

“As I sat cross-legged holding a recorder in front of the bank of microphones Monday,” Taylor continues, “I wondered why Trump’s decades-long career as a real estate developer has yielded almost no investments in the black community. A review of financial records revealed that few, if any, charitable contributions have been given to programs that directly benefit African American children. Then, too, according to the company website, there is not a single black executive or key senior leader at The Trump Organization.”
As you might expect, there are accounts of Trump unleashing torrents of bigotry toward African Americans. Taylor cites one example: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” he famously told a colleague. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
“Long before he recklessly retweeted false statistics that painted black people as criminally pathological,” Taylor adds. “Trump was sued for housing discrimination. And there are reports that black employees at an Atlantic City property were kept out of view whenever Trump visited.”
Not a record that is likely to inspire significant numbers of America’s most reliably progressive constituency to suddenly embrace a Republican candidate for president. Thing is, Trump may not be the worst of his GOP colleagues, when it comes to racial injustice, just the loudest. Every other GOP candidate has provided tacit, if not aggressively overt support for suppression of African American votes, and Trump has said or done nothing to stand up against it.