Because it was such a red-hot topic this last week, I did a little research and learned that Tom Cotton unsurprisingly had his history wrong, so I shared it at New York:

In a highly controversial (so much so that its publication produced anguished protests from Times staffers) New York Times op-ed on Wednesday, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton called on President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and send U.S. military units into an undefined number of cities to suppress the “nihilist criminals” and “left-wing radicals infiltrating protest marches.” Cotton has been egging Trump on in this direction for a while now. He may have inspired the president’s threats to “send in the troops,” which Trump did in a June 1 conference call with governors (one participant called Trump’s manner “unhinged”) and then publicly in his Rose Garden remarks that evening, just prior to his infamous stroll to St. John’s Episcopal Church.

It’s a dangerous idea generally, as such revered military veterans as Trump’s own former secretary of defense James Mattis noted yesterday in decrying the politicization of the armed forces it would represent. Given the president’s reckless and divisive character, his taste for militarism, and his desperate need for base-inspiring action, telling him he has the power to take over city streets across the country and crush his enemies while showing up Democrats is like handing a pyromaniac a flame-thrower.

Cotton knows this, but his own reputation for the harshest sort of law-and-order politics is well earned. You wouldn’t expect a man who fought criminal-justice reform tooth and nail in the Senate and said America had an “underincarceration problem” to have much sympathy for protests aimed at addressing police misconduct toward minorities. In an effort to get a grip on what makes Cotton feel so threatening to progressives alert to whiffs of authoritarianism, I once described him as having the “mien and the worldview of a grim and unforgiving lawgiver right out of the Book of Deuteronomy or Calvin’s Geneva.” Likewise Molly Ball wrote that Cotton possessed a “harsh, unyielding, judgmental political philosophy, one that makes little allowance for compassion or human weakness.” Like Trump, he has no patience for “losers,” which disposes him to the use of maximum repressive force to defend privilege and property rights.

The only modern precedents involving a president invoking the Insurrection Act against the wishes of state authorities were Eisenhower’s dispatch of troops to insure the integration of Little Rock schools in 1957, Kennedy’s similar use of U.S. military assets to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962 and stop racist violence in Alabama in 1963, and Johnson’s deployment of troops to protect the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers in 1965.

Cotton notes these cases but does not acknowledge that what justified all of them was a situation where state and local authorities were in open and explicit defiance of federal court orders aimed at vindicating constitutionally protected rights. These presidents did not “send in the troops” simply to maintain order, or because they deemed local law-and-order measures ineffectual, but because in a very real sense these places were in a state of rebellion led by governors like Orval Faubus, Ross Barnett, and George Wallace (all of whom not-so-secretly welcomed armed federal intervention so as to posture as defenders of Jim Crow).

Are any of the Democratic governors disdained by Trump and Cotton raising flags of rebellion on a pro-looter or pro-rioting platform? Are there any antifa state governments? I don’t think so. Federal military interventions without state and local consent would simply represent a political use of the U.S. Armed Forces to substitute an angry president’s notion of “law and order” for those of the officials elected to make such decisions. Trump does have the power to do so under the Insurrection Act. But the dire consequences of doing so is why sober supporters of constitutional order ranging from Mattis to conservative law professor John Yoo to Trump’s own secretary of defense, Mark Esper, oppose it. The president should listen to them rather than the avid, skull-cracking moralist from Arkansas before playing commander-in-chief in the streets of America.

At The Cook Political Report, Amy Walter ruminates on Democratic prospects for picking up a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina, and says that the “suburbs are the most competitive region in the state. Clinton narrowly carried these urban suburbs in the 2016 election 49 to 48 percent. These types of suburbs also turned decidedly more Democratic in the 2018 election…The next question is whether an improvement in these suburbs would be enough for Democrats to win the state in 2020. Trump won the state by 3.6 percent. In 2016, the cities and those inner suburbs comprised 54 percent of the total vote. The rural areas plus the exurbs represented 46 percent of the vote. So, on paper, sure, win the cities and inner suburban areas, and you win the election. But it’s not that simple. Trump dominated the exurban and rural vote carrying rural areas by 24 points and the exurbs by 30 points. Clinton, meanwhile, had a solid showing in the cities — she won them by 35 points — but just barely eked out a win in the inner suburbs…Moreover, while the inner suburbs are turning bluer, it is highly unlikely that Democrats like Joe Biden or Senate nominee Cal Cunningham will pull out the double-digit margins there like they do in the cities. Instead, the key for Democrats will be to do better in those exurbs. According to [Catawba College professor Michael] Bitzer’s analysis, the dense suburban vote and the exurban vote each make up about a quarter of total votes cast. In other words, it’s not enough for Democrats to gain a couple of points in the inner suburbs if they are still losing the exurbs by 30 points.”

At a time when Republicans are panicking out about gowing support for voting by mail and the Republican majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling designed to escalate voter suppression, Virginia’s Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has “signed a series of new measures into law aimed at expanding access to voting in the commonwealth,” Paul LeBlanc reports at CNN Politics. “The new legislation will establish Election Day as a holiday, remove the requirement that voters show a photo ID prior to casting a ballot and, expand early voting to be allowed 45 days before an election without a stated reason.”

From “GOP Justices Decree Capital Punishment for Voting” by Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect: “The only reason that the Republican National Committee doesn’t have John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh on the payroll is that they know they have them for free…Yesterday, as in Bush v. Gore and Shelby County v. Holder (which struck down much of the Voting Rights Act), the Republican majority on the United States Supreme Court did its damnedest to throw an election to their very own Republicans. The Gang of Five overturned the ruling of a federal District Court that extended the period of absentee voting in Wisconsin for one week, to April 13…The Court’s ruling came roughly at the same time that their mini-me’s—four Republican justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court—overturned Governor Tony Evers’s postponement of today’s Wisconsin primary until June. Alone among the 11 states that had primaries scheduled this month, Wisconsin—that is, the Republican majorities in the state legislature—decreed that this one would proceed despite the coronavirus shelter-in-place rule. Of course, today’s on-again-off-again-on-again-again election will be a travesty, with many, probably most, polling places closed due to a lack of poll workers. In Milwaukee, which, not coincidentally, is home to the largest concentration of the state’s Democrats, the usual 180 polling places have been consolidated to a mere five.”

In his article, “SCOTUS Just Set the Stage for Republicans to Steal the Election: In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin from extending the absentee voting deadline, disenfranchising thousands and creating a terrible precedent” at The Nation, Elie Mystal puts it this way: “Three weeks ago, I wrote that the real threat to the 2020 election is not that Donald Trump will use the coronavirus to try to cancel it but that Republicans will try to steal it, state by state, county by county. In an election in which a record number of people may attempt to vote by absentee ballot, Republican state officials can choose simply to mail ballots to people in counties that traditionally vote for Republicans—and not mail enough ballots to the far more populous counties that traditionally vote for Democrats. In so doing, they can slant the general election toward Donald Trump and other Republicans running for election without Trump having to go through all the bother of declaring himself “dictator for life,” which might spook Mitt Romney…Last night, the Supreme Court gave Republicans the go-ahead to proceed with that scheme. You don’t need an army to cross the Rubicon when you have henchmen on the Supreme Court willing to do all the dirty work.”

Mystal continues: “Where normal people see a vast human tragedy, Republicans see an electoral opportunity. The entire Democratic theory of overthrowing Trump has been to inspire massive voter turnout. Turnout led from the urban centers and their close suburbs. The “blue wave.”But it is in these densely packed communities that Covid-19 is hitting the hardest. And there is already evidence that the African American community, the base of the Democratic party, is being disproportionately killed by the virus…Republicans can use all of this to their advantage. If people have to choose between risking their lives by going to vote, or staying home, most people will stay home—and who can really blame them? If Republicans can make it hard for people to vote absentee, particularly in high-population centers where there is going to be the most demand for absentee voting, Republicans can win…Wisconsin shows them how. Wisconsin shows that the Republican Supreme Court will not stop Republican local officials from disenfranchising people who stay home because of the coronavirus…The Wisconsin ordeal is to the November election as Italy’s outbreak was to our own. It’s where we can see what is coming for all of us, and what will happen to our country, if we don’t act soon enough.”

The tax deadline has been postponed till July 15th, but the soaring government expenses associated with the coronavirus crisis intensifies the debate about tax reform. At The Boston Review, Emanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman provide a guide to needed reforms in their article, “Taxing the Superrich: For the sake of justice and democracy, we need a progressive wealth tax.” As the authors write, “Taxing the superrich involves three essential and complementary ingredients: a progressive income tax, a corporate tax, and a progressive wealth tax. The corporate tax ensures that all profits are taxed, whether distributed or not: it acts as a de facto minimum tax on the affluent. The progressive income tax ensures high earners pay more. And a progressive wealth tax gets the ultrarich to contribute to the public coffers even when they, including Buffett, manage to realize little taxable income. ..The middle class already pays taxes on its wealth, in the form of property taxes. The wealthy don’t, since most of their wealth consists of financial assets, which are exempt from the property tax.”

Re Amy McGrath’s campaign to unseat Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky Senate race,  Jane Mayer observes in The New Yorker that “as covid-19 decimates the economy and kills Americans across the nation, McConnell’s alliance with Trump is looking riskier. Indeed, some critics argue that McConnell bears a singular responsibility for the country’s predicament. They say that he knew from the start that Trump was unequipped to lead in a crisis, but, because the President was beloved by the Republican base, McConnell protected him. He even went so far as to prohibit witnesses at the impeachment trial, thus guaranteeing that the President would remain in office. David Hawpe, the former editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, said of McConnell, “There are a lot of people disappointed in him. He could have mobilized the Senate. But the Republican Party changed underneath him, and he wanted to remain in power…Stuart Stevens, a longtime Republican political consultant, agrees that McConnell’s party deserves a considerable share of the blame for America’s covid-19 disaster. In a forthcoming book, “It Was All a Lie,” Stevens writes that, in accommodating Trump and his base, McConnell and other Republicans went along as Party leaders dismantled the country’s safety net and ignored experts of all kinds, including scientists. “Mitch is kidding himself if he thinks he’ll be remembered for anything other than Trump,” he said. “He will be remembered as the Trump facilitator.”

“Responding to the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic poses serious challenges for governors across the country, including the nine set to face voters in November’s 11 gubernatorial elections,” Rebecca Klar writes in her article, “Coronavirus response could be key factor in tight governor’s races” at The Hill. “How state leaders handle their COVID-19 responses could have a particular impact in competitive races, such as those in North Carolina or Montana, where Gov. Steve Bullock (D) is running for the Senate and both parties are fighting hard to replace him…The pandemic and how state governments are handling it has significantly raised the profile of multiple governors, particularly New York’s Andrew Cuomo, who has seen his highest favorability ratings in seven years and had to repeatedly deny that he is considering a presidential run…But Cuomo and many others in the coronavirus spotlight, such as Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) or Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), aren’t facing voters in November. Others managing hot spots, such as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), have seen boosts in public polling over their COVID-19 responses, though that may not weigh heavily on the result of their races…Governors across the country have generally received high marks for their handling of the crisis, compared to the response out of Washington, D.C…A poll conducted late last month by the National Opinion Research Center for the Associated Press found 57 percent of Americans said they approved of their state’s response to the crisis, while just 38 percent said they approve of the federal government’s.”

If the Biden campaign needed another challenge, Alex Thompson has it at Politico: “The 2020 presidential campaign’s transition to a mostly digital experience, with the nation on lockdown, has spotlighted a long-term progressive deficit on YouTube that some concerned Democrats compare to the right’s command of talk radio. The country’s leading video platform is also one of its largest search engines (after Google) and a key battlefield in campaigns’ fight to reach new voters and earn free media attention…While Democratic campaigns and groups spend heavily on advertising on YouTube, they lag in organic content, with dozens of conservative and right-wing figures like Ben Shapiro, Mark Dice and Paul Joseph Watson and more official-sounding channels like Prager University cultivating enormous followings not yet matched by equivalents on the left…“‘LeftTube’ has two problems: One is volume and the other is content, neither of which it seems close to solving on its own,” said Stefan Smith, the former online engagement director for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. If the party doesn’t ensure that organic YouTube content is getting attention “in addition to paid digital [advertising], then we are in trouble.”…Tommy Vietor, a former Obama White House aide and co-host of the popular Pod Save America podcast, agreed that “Democrats need to step up their game when it comes to YouTube.” For young people, Vietor continued, “YouTube is primarily a search engine. And more often than not when you search for political news or topics, you end up getting force-fed right-wing garbage instead of objective news and information…While Facebook has earned more scrutiny for its impact on U.S. politics, American adults report using YouTube more than any other online platform, with 73 percent saying they use it, according to Pew Research Center’s 2018 and 2019 surveys on social media use. It is even more popular with 18 to 29 year olds, with over 90 percent of that cohort saying they use the site — even higher rates than Instagram and Snapchat.”

Amy Walter observes at The Cook Political Report, that “the hand-wringing from some in Democratic circles that Biden needs to ramp up his public presence, lest he be ‘forgotten’ or overshadowed by Democratic Governors like Andrew Cuomo or Gretchen Whitmer, is unnecessary and misses the point…in a national crisis, the attention is trained on the person in charge and not the person who wants to replace him or her. This scenario works to Biden’s benefit. Even before this horrible virus hit the United States, Biden’s best opportunity to win in November was dependent on making the contest a referendum on Trump…Biden doesn’t need to spend as much time attacking and defining the president when he’s getting a lot of help from outside groups like Priorities USA and other SuperPACs…More important, Biden’s goal isn’t to be a more ‘exciting’ alternative to Trump but to be the opposite of Trump. Biden isn’t going to be a ratings superhero. He’s not going to pack stadiums to the rafters with supporters. His message is basically this: I’m pretty boring but steady and competent. That may not work every year, but it is well-suited for a time of chaos and confusion…”

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. has a warning for Democrats: “One of the frustrations of being Biden these days, said the Washington Democrat close to him, is being asked during a media appearance what he is doing to be more visible on the media. Biden made light of such irritation when he told MSNBC’s Yasmin Vossoughian on Monday: “Well, thanks for giving me the time. So they don’t wonder where I am.”…But that question’s plaintiveness also suggests that if Democratic panic is premature, complacency is more dangerous. In 2016, both Trump’s opponents and (ironically, perhaps) the media underestimated the enormous value of his ability to command wall-to-wall coverage. Even when he peddles outright falsehoods, Trump’s version of events often penetrates widely before it’s even fact-checked. Trump can change his story so fast that it’s hard to keep up with him…Democrats, including Biden, would be foolish to let Trump dominate the discussion of what needs to be done to lift the country up after the coronavirus threat ebbs…Trump’s foes, in other words, need to chill out and buck up at the same time. Overestimating Trump feeds his power. But underestimating him leads to political ruin.”

Charlie Cook writes, also at The Cook Political Report: “Of course, the presidential race will be determined not by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College. If only we had more high-quality polls from the half-dozen most hotly contested states—Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—we could make a better judgment. Until then, we have to look at the national polls. Since Democratic votes are less efficiently allocated than Republican ones, is the Democrat far enough ahead nationally to translate his support into 270 electoral votes? To be sure, he may need a cushion of 4 percentage points…We obviously can’t know how deep this recession will be or how long it will last, much less its impact on Trump. Many assume it will give him a strong headwind. I prefer to say it will deprive him of the tailwind that he has enjoyed until now…There is no question in my mind that there are plausible paths for Trump to win 270 electoral votes. It isn’t an easy or wide path, but it is there. Working in his favor, his campaign will be a million times more competent than it was four years ago. He will also have far more money than he did last time, although money in politics is not determinative (just ask Michael Bloomberg).”

Columnist/radio host Dean Obeidallah writes in “Trump’s infrastructure tweet makes Democrats look bad. The party of FDR needs to step up: With the coronavirus crisis pushing our economy toward a cliff, it will likely take a Democratic president, or at least Democratic policies, to save America (again.)” that “Democrats, generally speaking, subscribe to the philosophy that the federal government should be expanded and used as a tool to help Americans in times of need. In contrast, one of the policy pillars of the modern-day GOP is shrinking the role of the federal government. Now is not the time for Democrats to be cautious — Democratic leaders need to lean hard on their ideological roots. They need to channel the spirit of FDR and champion sweeping, large-scale federal programs that can help Americans by creating jobs and investing in our nation…Yet, stunningly, it’s President Donald Trump who is now taking the lead by proposing an FDR-style massive infrastructure program. This week Trump tweeted in support of his infrastructure proposal: “It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country!” Of course, the challenge for Democrats is to make sure such an investment actually creates jobs at a living wage, instead of a  multi-billion dollar gift to corporations, and that it is financed as much as possible by taxes on large companies and the wealthy, instead of the middle class.

“While it’s not yet mathematically impossible for him to win, Sanders would need to amass more than 60 percent of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination — a mark he’s only hit in two states this year, Nevada and his home state of Vermont,” Holly Otterbein writes at Politico. “His path is so narrow that some of Sanders’ senior aides have even advised him to consider dropping out, though not everyone in his inner circle feels the same way, according to people familiar with the situation…Another possible reason for not explaining his long-shot course to victory: it depends on something his staff and allies have for the most part only whispered about — an epic Biden collapse.” Articulating such an unseemly hope would be an extremely bad look for the Sanders campaign. They are fast reaching the point where staying in could damage Sanders’s’ influence as the leading advocate of Medicare for All, which is gaining traction in the coronavirus crisis, according to a recent Morning Consult poll.

Otterbein adds that “In recent weeks, Sanders has retooled much of his campaign to focus on the coronavirus and workers’ rights — both markings of a candidate running a message candidacy rather than a true race against Biden. He has raised more than $3.5 million for coronavirus aid, while ceasing to actively raise money for himself. He has also used his email list and social media accounts to drive up support for Walmart and Amazon employees fighting for protective equipment and additional benefits during the pandemic…But managing even a successful message campaign at this moment could prove difficult, given that the coronavirus death toll and response efforts are commanding nearly all of the media’s attention. Last weekend, CNN and ABC canceled tentative appearances with Sanders.” There is no reason why Sanders could not formally drop out and strongly support Biden, but continue to urge Biden to move closer toward Medicare for All. Indeed, he might even get better media coverage by shedding the ‘sour grapes’ critique.

Nathaniel Rackich notes at FiveThirtyEight that “Biden needs some Sanders primary voters to support him in November, since Sanders has won about 31 percent of the national popular vote so far. But he doesn’t need every single one…Some Sanders-or-bust voters might stay home in November; that happens to some degree in every election…Sanders voters don’t fit that description. According to a recent Morning Consult poll, 82 percent of Sanders supporters say they would vote for Biden in the general election, and just 7 percent said they would vote for Trump. And Quinnipiac University found that 86 percent of Sanders voters would vote for Biden, 3 percent would vote for Trump, 2 percent would vote for someone else, 4 percent wouldn’t vote, and 5 percent didn’t know who they’d vote for.”

In his update on Democratic prospects for winning a U.S. Senate majority, Kyle Kondik writes at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “First of all, we’re moving the special election in Arizona from Toss-up to Leans Democratic this week. Likely Democratic nominee Mark Kelly (D), a former astronaut who is the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), has consistently led appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) in polling, and not just by a little: four surveys in March showed Kelly up anywhere from five to 12 points, a better margin than Biden enjoys in the state (he has led Trump there in polling, but by smaller margins)…We are also moving Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) from Leans Republican to Toss-up. We’ve resisted this change for a while, but it’s become apparent to us that Collins is in for a very close race, even if she may retain a lead at this precise moment. Her likeliest opponent is state House Speaker Sara Gideon (D).

Kondik adds, “There is one positive rating change for Republicans. We have not been very impressed by Democratic recruitment for both Senate races in Georgia, and we’re upgrading Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) from Leans Republican to Likely Republican. We’re also tempted to move the Senate special election there to Likely Republican, but we’re going to hold off in light of the potential for appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) to be damaged by recent reporting that she benefited from a stock sell-off before the markets took a dive as the coronavirus pandemic emerged, prompting accusations of a form of insider trading…Assuming that Republicans defeat Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), which we see as likely, Democrats need to win at least four currently Republican seats to get to a 50-50 tie in the Senate, which the incoming vice president would break…We have Democrats favored in two Republican seats, Arizona and Colorado. Then there are two genuine Toss-ups, Maine and North Carolina, followed by Leans Republican states Iowa and Montana, along with the Georgia Senate special. These states are where the Senate majority will be won, in all likelihood.”

In his article, “Trump’s Biggest Vulnerability” His lies about health care at the State of the Union signal just how weak he is on the issue” at The Atlantic, Ronald Browstein writes, “he repeatedly lied about his administration’s unrelenting efforts to gut the Affordable Care Act. To Democrats, Trump’s determination to surround his health-care record with what Winston Churchill once called a “bodyguard of lies” clearly signaled that the president recognizes how vulnerable his record could prove this fall…Because people see health care as so central to both their personal well-being and their financial well-being, health care stands out as Trump’s No. 1 vulnerability,” says the longtime Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. “The simplest way for people to understand the Trump economy is that whatever wage increases they are getting are smaller than the increases in their health-care premiums and out-of-pocket health-care costs.”

Brownstein continues,  In an Associated Press/National Opinion Research Center survey last month, just 38 percent of Americans said they approved of his record on health care—a grade that has stayed relatively stable since he took office—compared with 56 percent who approved of his handling of the economy, the highest of his presidency…The latest monthly health-care poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation drilled down further into those views. In the survey, just about a third of adults gave Trump positive marks for dealing with preexisting conditions, the ACA, and prescription-drug costs. Detailed results provided to me by Kaiser showed that two key groups of swing voters shared this deep skepticism of Trump’s health-care record. A majority of college-educated white men disapproved of how Trump has handled each of the three issues. And while white women without a college degree—a group that could decide the Rust Belt states that tilted the 2016 election to Trump—broke against him more narrowly on the ACA and preexisting conditions, just 31 percent of them gave him positive marks on prescription-drug costs.”

“The Republican pollster Gene Ulm told me,” Brownstein notes, “that easing those doubts about his handling of health-care issues is crucial for Trump’s reelection prospects. “No president would be in the game without people believing the economy is getting better than it was,” Ulm said. But for “the next cluster of voters” beyond those immediately drawn to him, “it’s the cost of health care, prescription drugs, and the whole cluster of premiums, co-pays, [and] out-of-pocket expenses” that matter most…And on those fronts, the best measure of Trump’s anxiety was his mendacity in describing his record on Tuesday night…Trump, not for the first time, flatly lied about his efforts to revoke the ACA’s protections for those with preexisting conditions. Not only is his administration currently in federal court seeking to invalidate the entire ACA, but in 2017 he endorsed Republican proposals in Congress to effectively erase those protections by allowing insurance companies to charge people who have greater health needs more. “It’s notable that the president feels the need to say he’s protecting people with preexisting conditions,” Levitt says, “but the facts just don’t back that up.”

“Trump has talked about confronting prescription-drug costs since his 2016 campaign,” Brownstein adds, “when he embraced the long-standing Democratic idea of allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices with drug companies. But amid opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, and Republicans leery of an aggressive federal role in health care, he renounced that proposal…Democrats, meanwhile, have picked up the mantle, putting it at the center of the H.R. 3 legislation that the House passed in December. (That was the bill House Democrats were alluding to when a group of them rose to chant “H.R. 3” during Trump’s State of the Union address.)..The GOP-led Senate hasn’t taken up the bill, but the public’s intense focus on drug costs makes it possible that Trump will offer some proposals on the issue before Election Day. That’s why it’s so essential for Democrats to more sharply define the terms of debate right now. “It is really important for Democrats to set the bar on the drug-pricing issue at whether someone supports or opposes giving Medicare the power to negotiate,” Garin warns.”

“Trump’s religious supporters, most of whom preach the most conservative versions of Christianity, either don’t realize or don’t care that they are ratifying what so many young people have come to believe about religion: that it is nothing but a cover for conservative politics,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his syndicated Washington Post column, “Political idolatry is the enemy of religious faith.” Dionne adds that “it is far more about identity than faith, that it upholds a static traditionalism rather than a living tradition…Thus do 4 in 10 Americans under 40 declare that they have no religious affiliation whatsoever. They are far from devoid of profound moral commitments, and some of them still think of themselves as spiritual. But organized religion just doesn’t speak to them anymore…I acknowledge you have every right to be suspicious that I’m as inclined as anyone to see faith as blessing my own politics. Nonetheless, Romney showed us how religion is most usefully invoked in public life: when it prompts self-doubt rather than self-celebration, when it encourages us to build solidarity with those unlike us and when it promotes dissent rather than conformity.”

So, given the current political landscape, “Was Impeachment a Mistake?” Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect addresses the question: “There is no evidence that the impeachment will hurt Democrats in November, and some evidence that it helped. During the entire investigation, polls scarcely moved. To the extent that public opinion shifted at all, it moved very slightly in the direction of favoring Trump’s removal from office, especially among independents…As a sheer matter of politics, there is one strong benefit. Depending on whom you include, between seven and eleven Republican Senate incumbents are up for re-election in swing states next November…Their vote to excuse Trump’s dictatorial behavior by refusing to convict will force them to answer extremely damaging questions during the campaign. These include Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine. McConnell himself, up for re-election, has approval ratings in his home state of Kentucky of just 37 percent…Whether or not Trump is re-elected, Democratic control of the Senate is crucial for maintaining a semblance of democracy in America. So no, impeachment did not remove Trump, and may not even have damaged him. But it had to be done, and could yet produce major benefits for the Democrats and the country.”

SemDem probes “What Florida Democrats can learn from Virginia … and why they need to” at Daily Kos and offers some strategy suggestions, including, “Long-term investments in pink and red counties can make a dent in Republican dominance in those areas, and they will be critical for victory in 2020… Florida will be lost again if red counties, like Pasco County, are allowed to drive up 50,000 vote margins…Look at Virginia: Just a few years ago, as one candidate put it, the rural western region was written off as hopeless by the state Democratic Party. That started changing in 2015, thanks to the work of several groups. One such group, 90 for 90, was organized by lawmakers and the Chesterfield County Democrats to register voters, encourage voter participation, and recruit candidates outside of the Democratic strongholds. Another initiative, started by Sen. Tim Kaine in 2017, banded multiple rural candidates together to pool resources, share consultants, and create operational support for campaigns across the rural districts. One of these candidates was Daily Kos’ own Beverly Harrison. Although she lost her election, Harrison found success in her work on the successful state campaign to get Virginia to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment…The goal was to build relationships within rural areas, and identify and focus on issues those communities care about, like broadband access and farming. The renewed care that the Virginia Democrats showed these neglected areas paid dividends right away: The GOP suddenly realized that it could no longer rely on these areas it had formerly depended on to retain its majority.”

SemDem notes also that “The Haitian American population in South Florida has grown to over 300,000 strong, expanding their political clout. Scott appeared at a major Haitian American religious event, the Haitian Evangelical Crusade, in Greenacres, Florida; he ran ads in Haitian Creole. Never mind that Rick Scott strongly supports a president who called Haiti a “shithole.” All any of the Florida Democratic candidates had to do was make an effort—at least show up. They didn’t, and we lost every major race by razor-thin margins…Contrast this with the new East Asian and Indian immigrants in Virginia. The situation there was reversed: The Virginia GOP had a tremendous opportunity to get a foothold in these immigrant communities, as these voters spoke positively about the GOP’s rhetoric on taxes and on family values. Yet the Virginia Republicans made very little effort to reach out and counter Trump’s constant, vile attacks on immigrants. That got noticed…It was the Virginia Democrats who welcomed them, visited year-round, and listened to their needs. They didn’t just assume that immigrant communities would fall in line behind Democrats because of Trump’s hatred. It’s as if the Florida Republicans and the Virginia Democrats are following the same playbook, and it’s working for both. In Virginia, immigrant communities turned out in droves and helped Democrats capture the trifecta.” Democrats should also note that Florida has more eligible African-American voters than any other state. Even a modest increase in Black turnout in Florida can make the difference on November 3rd.

To close out this edition of Political Strategy Notes, Nancy LeTourneau reports some good news for Democrats at The Washington Monthly: Although the “Democrats in disarray” crowd is having a field day. As someone who tends to chafe at conventional wisdom, I thought I’d go against the grain and bring you some good news about Democrats. Almost no one is noticing that the party has successfully implemented a 50-state strategy when it comes to fundraising…Howard Dean is the one who popularized the idea of a 50-state strategy back in 2005. What most people don’t know is that in promoting that idea, he was posing a direct challenge to the Democratic “establishment” of his day. Prior to his chairmanship of the DNC, the party was the focal point for fundraising and its leadership doled money out to candidates in a top-down strategy based on who they thought would be viable. Very little of that money was spent to support state parties or candidates in red states or districts that were deemed to be unviable.” Citing “the emergence of ActBlue as the powerhouse of online grassroots fundraising,” LeTourneau writes, “What we have is a Republican Party that has become increasingly dependent on large donations from outside groups and a Democratic Party fueled by grassroots donations directly to candidates. That is how a 50-state strategy is attempting to level the playing field in the era of Citizens United.”

E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his syndicated column that “it was only in Joe Biden’s closing comments that the gravity of our situation was truly brought home. “We can overcome four years of Donald Trump,” he said, “but eight years of Donald Trump will be an absolute disaster and fundamentally change this nation.” That’s a good message for all progressives going forward to November 3rd. Dionne, also notes of the Iowa Democratic presidential debate, “This debate likely leaves Iowa’s poor caucus-goers more uncertain than ever as they decide under the cloud of a national political crisis. But it made one thing obvious: The outcome on a cold Monday night in February will hang on whether most of them are thinking about the urgency of dispatching Trump, or are pondering instead the kind of country they want to build after he is gone.”

At The Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky flags a ‘sleeper’ issue, which may bear on the Iowa caucuses outcome: “In 2015 and 2016, when Trump and Sanders were gaining steam, support for free trade sank (though it never, to my knowledge, went below 50 percent). But that has changed. And last August, an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that support for free trade was at an all-time high: By 64-27 percent, Americans said free trade brought more benefit than harm. Majorities of Republicans and Democrats agreed with the statement that “free trade is good for America, because it opens up new markets, and the country can’t avoid the fact of a global economy.”…And that brings us to last December’s House vote on USMCA, which passed by a whopping 385 to 41. All three of Iowa’s House Democrats voted for it: Cynthia Axne, Abby Finkenauer, and David Loebsack all said yes. The AFL-CIO, which is important in the state, said yes. In addition to that, naturally, Iowa’s farmers and leading business associations are all for it. Environmental groups are strongly opposed…The Senate hasn’t voted on it yet. It will do so soon—maybe before the Feb. 3 caucuses. Sanders will vote no, but Warren (and Klobuchar) will vote yes. It’s not likely to generate a ton of media interest, but it could shift a lot more votes here than most people realize, and the exchange may have been this debate’s sleeper moment.”

From Ronald Brownstein’s analysis of the debate in The Atlantic: “Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the two senators jostling for the support of the Democrats’ most progressive voters, both delivered confident, aggressive performances in which they underlined their commitment to an array of liberal causes, from withdrawing all American forces from the Middle East to raising taxes on the rich and opposing most free-trade agreements…None of the more centrist candidates on the slimmed-down debate stage was nearly as vivid. And overall, the debate lacked the intensity that many expected for the final confrontation before the first votes are cast in Iowa, on February 3—especially since recent polls have shown the top four candidates all closely bunched together. The evening’s most anticipated moment largely fizzled, too. Sanders flatly denied that he told Warren, during a private meeting in 2018, that he believed a woman could not win the presidency, as initially reported by CNN. And when asked about Sanders’s denial, Warren chose not to challenge him—detouring instead into a forceful argument for why women can win elections. Without a genuine confrontation between the two, the real fulcrum of the debate was the division between the two of them and former Vice President Joe Biden, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.”

Brownstein continues, “But none of them delivered that case with as much conviction and energy as the two leading liberals on the stage. Biden, in particular, vanished for much of the debate; until his closing statement—which featured a strong appeal to reclaim the American character from Trump—it seemed unlikely that viewers would remember much of what he said. (While the Los Angeles debate last month dampened concerns among many Democrats about Biden’s capacity to build a case against Trump in the general election, last night’s performance seems destined to rekindle them.) Klobuchar and Buttigieg were better at making the case against the ideas from the left, particularly single-payer, though neither was as effective as they had been in earlier encounters.”

Aaron Bycoffe, Saah Frostenson and Julia Wolfe report on the findings of a poll by FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos following the debate  “we asked respondents to estimate each Democrat’s chances of defeating Trump, from 0 percent (no chance) to 100 percent (certain to win). Going into the debate, as in other general-election polls, Biden was the candidate voters thought was most likely to beat Trump, on average. He still leads on that question after Tuesday’s debate, with Sanders in second. But, as you can see below, Biden’s average stayed essentially unchanged while all the other candidates gained ground.”

At CNN Politics, Grace Sparks reports on the findings of a new CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll, conducted Jan. 2-8: “Majorities of likely Democratic caucusgoers say they’re optimistic, fired up, feminists and … exhausted by politics. A new poll from CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom finds fewer soon-to-be caucus attendees consider themselves socialists than capitalists, and almost a quarter are regular Twitter users…Three-in-five likely Iowa Democratic caucusgoers say they’re fired up, especially those who are very liberal (76%), extremely enthusiastic about their first choice candidate (76%), and have locked in who they’ll caucus for (71%). Likely caucus attendees who say they’ll “definitely attend” rather than “probably attend” the caucus are more likely to describe themselves as “fired up” (66%)…But just as caucusgoers are fired up, they’re also pretty tired. Over half (54%) say they’re “exhausted by politics.” Lynn Richards, a retired social worker in Iowa, says she can’t turn on the TV without being bombarded by political ads.”

There is no substitute for personal, press-the-flesh contact, but I doubt that the impeachment trial is going to hurt any Democratic presidential candidates who can’t campaign in Iowa because they have to stay in Washington, D.C. As Ella Nilson and Li Zhou note at Vox, “Campaign spokespeople for three of the four senators told Vox they’re planning to fill in with a range of tactics such as having high-profile surrogates and candidates’ families hit the trail in the early states this week. And with social media, senators can hold events remotely or send messages out to their supporters. For the events they do conduct in person, at least one plans to focus on evening appearances in New Hampshire, which is logistically more accessible from Washington…For about a week, voters in Iowa and New Hampshire should expect to see a lot of the candidates’ spouses and family, as well as high-profile surrogates who have endorsed them…Warren and Sanders, in particular, have a number of celebrity endorsers who could hit the trail to draw crowds. A Warren campaign spokesperson pointed Vox to a previous statement made by communications director Kristen Orthman to the Washington Post.”

In their article, “Ratings Changes: Senate, House, and Governor,” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman write that “The Kansas Senate race is getting a lot of national buzz, but we still see the GOP as clearly favored to hold the seat…The chances of Republicans springing Senate upsets in New Hampshire and Virginia appear to be growing dimmer…Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) decision not to hold a special election for CA-50 makes it likelier for Republicans to hold the seat…Vermont is a sleeper Democratic gubernatorial target.”

“Even if the Democratic nominee manages to hold all the states Hillary Clinton won,” Amy Walter writes at The Cook Political Report, “and win back Pennsylvania and Michigan, they can’t get to 270 without adding Wisconsin (or picking up Arizona, a state Clinton lost by almost four points). Trump can’t afford to lose Wisconsin either — unless he’s able to pick up neighboring Minnesota — a state where he came within 44,000 votes back in 2016…The most recent Marquette University Law School poll found a similar level of stability in opinions of President Trump that we see in national polling. His job approval in the state was 48 percent approve to 49 percent disapprove — not much different from his December showing of 47 percent approve to 50 percent disapprove. But, Charles Franklin, the Marquette pollster, notes that it “is the first time Trump’s disapproval has fallen below 50 percent in the Marquette Law School Poll since March 2017 when 47 percent disapproved.”

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has a repost-worthy op-ed, “Trump Has Turned His Back on The Working Class” at Newsweek. Reich argues, “Trump probably figures he can cover up this massive redistribution from the working class to the corporate elite by pushing the same economic nationalism, tinged with xenophobia and racism, he used in 2016. As Bannon has noted, the formula seems to have worked for Britain’s Conservative Party. But it will be difficult this time around because Trump’s economic nationalism has hurt American workers, particularly in states that were critical to Trump’s 2016 win…Manufacturing has suffered as tariffs raised prices for imported parts and materials. Hiring has slowed sharply in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states Trump won, as well as in states like Minnesota that he narrowly lost.”

Reich continues, “The trade wars have also harmed rural America, which also went for Trump, by reducing demand for American farm produce. Last year, China bought around $8.6 billion of farm goods, down from $20 billion in 2016. (A new tentative trade deal calls for substantially more Chinese purchases.)…Meanwhile, health care costs continue to soar, college is even less affordable, and average life expectancy is dropping due to a rise in deaths from suicide and opioid drugs like fentanyl. Polls show most Americans remain dissatisfied with the country’s direction…The consequences of Trump’s and the Republicans’ excessive corporate giveaways and their failure to improve the lives of ordinary working Americans are becoming clearer by the day…The only tricks left to Trump and the Republicans are stoking social and racial resentments and claiming to be foes of the establishment. But bigotry alone won’t win elections, and the detritus of the tax cut makes it difficult for Trump and the GOP to portray themselves as anti-establishment…This has created a giant political void—but also an opportunity. Democrats have an historic chance to do what they should have done years ago: create a multi-racial coalition of the working class, middle class and poor, dedicated to reclaiming the economy for the vast majority and making democracy work for all.”

CNBC online editor John Ellis makes the argument that “Pelosi’s best move might be to keep impeachment in her pocket and not send it to the Senate.” As Ellis writes, “She could say: “I’m not sending these articles of impeachment over to the Senate. There’s no point in doing so. The majority leader has made it clear that he has no interest in a ‘fair trial.’ There’s no point in wasting everyone’s time and taxpayer money to arrive at a decision that Republican senators have already made. Everyone, including each and every Republican member of the Senate, knows that President Trump did exactly what he stands accused of doing. And impeachment is a fact. So we’ll let it stand as is; a monument to the president’s dishonesty and corruption, to be contemplated and remembered by Americans for generations to come.” She could add, “we’ll send it over  when the senate leadership expresses a sincere commitment to a fair trial and to calling relevant witnesses. That could be a while.” Indeed, it could. But this approach should be carefully measured against the downsides of not making Republican senators cast votes for giving Putin’s puppet a free ride, not showcasing McConnell’s blatant autocratic mindset and having the mess concluded in time to focus on the issues favoring Democrats. Tough call.

And give due credit to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the sole Repubican elected official of stature, who has said she is “disturbed” by Mitch McConnell’s saying he was acting in “total coordination” with the White House in arranging the impeachment proceedings. Murkowski said, “To me, it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what Leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process,” report Kevin Liptak and Manu Raju at CNN Politics, who add “As a moderate, Murkowski, who opposed Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, will be closely watched during the upcoming trial, and she told KTUU she is undecided as to how she’ll vote.” Given all of her comments about impeachment of Trump thus far, I’ll be surprised if Murkowski votes for conviction. But if she does, she will be an instant front-runner for the “Profile of Courage” award — and will likely gain influence, if Trump loses the presidential election.

At CNN Politics, Harry Enten notes that former Vice President Biden has a big lead in endorsements from governors, senators and congressmen and that “candidates who lead in endorsements at this point usually do well in the primary.” Enten doesn’t verify a cause and effect relationship. Also, even people who like politicians understand that their endorsements are likely motivated as much or more by partisan calculations as the endorsee’s merits. It also depends on the demographic a candidate is trying to motivate. If, for example, a candidate wants to increase support from young voters, an endorsement from another politician may be of less consequence than one from a top pro athlete or a hot performing artist, which is more of a conversation-starter, while a political figure’s endorsement would be more of a yawn-generator. Just a theory, absent data testing the notion.

He may not have had the rank of congressman what’s-his-name, who recently switched to the GOP. But this statement by  Rep. Andy McKean, Iowa’s longest-serving Republican lawmaker, on joining the Democratic Party back in April, provides an eloquent template for Republicans of conscience who have had “enough” “With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party,” McKean told reporters at the Iowa Capitol during a news conference on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, that’s something I’m unable to do…He sets, in my opinion, a poor example for the nation and particularly for our children by personally insulting, often in a crude and juvenile fashion, those who disagree with him, being a bully at a time when we are attempting to discourage bullying, his frequent disregard for the truth and his willingness to ridicule or marginalize people for their appearance, ethnicity or disability…his actions have coarsened political discourse, have resulted in unprecedented divisiveness, and have created an atmosphere that is a breeding ground for hateful rhetoric and actions. Some would excuse this behavior as telling it like it is and the new normal. If this is the new normal, I want no part of it.” (as reported by Mahita Gajanan in Time Magazine).

In his Politico post, “3 factors that could make or break Trump in 2020: The president’s big economic achievements were wrapped up in 2019. Now Trump needs momentum in the economy and markets to stretch out for more than 10 months through Election Day,” Ben White notes, “Perhaps the biggest risk to Trump — and the toughest knock on his record — is the monthslong decline in manufacturing that began as Trump’s trade wars really took hold. Manufacturing tipped into recession territory over the summer and has yet to turn around, leading to weaker economies in states that Trump needs to win in 2020. That includes places like Pennsylvania, where the unemployment rate is rising and hit 4.2 percent in October…Michigan also has an unemployment rate above the national average at 4.1 percent and saw declines in the manufacturing sector in both September and October, though some of that came from the now-ended strike at General Motors.”

Eliza Relman and Walt Hickey note at Business Insider that “Satisfaction with Biden among Latinos who say they’ll vote in their state’s Democratic primary is about 40% — 15% below his support among white voters, 14% below his support among Asian voters, and a whopping 26% short of his support among black voters…The top two candidates running to Biden’s left — Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — both perform significantly better among Latinos. While Sanders’ approval is at 57%, Warren’s approval is at 54%…Biden’s relative lack of support among Latino voters will likely hurt him in two of the most important presidential primaries next year in Texas and California. The two states have the largest numbers of eligible Latino voters in the country, and California moved up its primary to Super Tuesday, which is on March 3.” But any Democratic nominee will almost certainly win California’s electoral votes, and Texas may be too much of a stretch for any Democrat. In addition, Biden’s comparatively moderate stance on immigration may be a plus with the white working-class voters who are a majority of voters in key swing states.

From Nate Silver’s “Do You Buy That… Spending A Lot Of Money On Ads Can Help Win the Democratic Nomination?” at FiveThirtyEight:

Yes, America is polarized about Donald J. Trump. But elements of his base of support are more polarized than anyone else, as I discussed at New York.

In my piece on Rick Perry telling the president he was the “chosen one,” I noted this was pretty standard fare among Christian right opinion leaders and politicians. But at roughly the same time, we got an indication from two other prominent Trump fans that it’s not enough to endow this strange and heathenish figure of manifold wicked ways with the cloak of divine sanction; his critics must be cast in the same apocalyptic drama as instruments of demonic forces. Seriously. Veteran adviser to Republican presidents on matters moral and spiritual, Peter Wehner, scathingly writes it up for The Atlantic:

“During his November 21 interview with [Franklin] Graham, [Eric] Metaxas, a Salem Radio Network talk-show host, asked the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, ‘What do you think of what is happening now? I mean, it’s a very bizarre situation to be living in a country where some people seem to exist to undermine the president of the United States. It’s just a bizarre time for most Americans.’

“Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, responded, ‘Well, I believe it’s almost a demonic power that is trying—’

“At which point Metaxas interjected, ‘I would disagree. It’s not almost demonic. You know and I know, at the heart, it’s a spiritual battle.'”

In Evangelical-speak, “spiritual battle” or “spiritual warfare” means a test of power between God and Satan (or his demonic minions), with human souls and the fate of all Creation in the balance. Describing one’s opponents as on the wrong side of a “spiritual battle” is simultaneously an expression of the most extreme hatred available to a Christian, and a rationalization for it on grounds that the object of demonic possession is not entirely responsible for becoming the devil’s workshop (it’s a variation on the old conservative Christian dodge of “hating the sin but not the sinner” when it comes to, say, being gay). In the context of politics, Graham, who has been busily ruining his father’s good name since he took over Billy’s ministries in 2000, and Metaxas, a veteran culture warrior, are suggesting that the moral and spiritual superiority — nay, necessity — of Trump and his party are so resplendently obvious that only a turn to the darkest side imaginable can explain it, as Wehner writes:

“They didn’t make the case that Trump critics are sincere but wrong, or even that they are insincere and unpatriotic. Instead, they felt compelled to portray those with whom they disagree politically as under demonic influences, which for a Christian is about as serious an accusation as there is. It means their opponents are the embodiment of evil, the “enemy,” anti-God, a kind of anti-Christ.

“There is no biblical or theological case to support the claim that critics of Donald Trump are under the spell of Satan. It is invented out of thin air, a shallow, wild, and reckless charge meant to be a conversation stopper.”

The rationalizations these people go through to treat Trump as God’s champions requires an incredible, almost comic, amount of huffing and puffing. Here’s Metaxas being quoted after Trump’s outrageous comments on the white-nationalist rioters of Charlottesville in the infamous “spiritual biography” of the president that David Brody and Scott Lamb published in 2018:

“We’re going to stand up for Trump a hundred times more. It’s been unbelievably despicable the way he’s been treated. And I think there’s some kind of demonic deception. I mean I’ve never seen anything like it begin to compare it to in my lifetime.”

Actually, yes, he has: in the attacks Christian right leaders incessantly made on Bill Clinton when his moral failings went public — moral failings that now seem tepid compared to those of his current successor in the White House. Wehner delivers an impressive jeremiad about what Graham and Metaxas are overlooking by way of mocking the latter’s claim that Trump’s Christian critics are splitting hairs over theological differences:

“Trump’s Christian critics don’t really care whether he leans more in the direction of predestination or free will; what troubles them is that he’s a pathological liar engaged in an effort to annihilate truth as a concept; a conspiracy-monger; and a misogynist and bully who dehumanizes his critics and mocks former prisoners of war, the parents of fallen soldiers, and people with disabilities. What upsets them is Trump’s open admiration for brutal dictators, including Kim Jung Un, who ranks among the worst persecutors of Christians in the world; his easy betrayal of everyone from his wives to allies like the Kurds; and his history of engaging in predatory sexual behavior. What alarms them is that we have a president who fans the flames of ethnic and racial hate, who is willing to pressure foreign nations to dig up dirt on his political opponents, and who was the subject of a nearly 500-page report by a special counsel offering a portrait that was damning and went unrefuted.”

Presumably, Graham and Metaxas would sadly shake their heads at this indictment, and conclude that their former Republican ally has been captured by Satan just like everyone else who doesn’t understand the 45th president’s very special kind of holiness.