The 2020 Election

[Rad]

Renowned psychiatrist worries "˜psychopath' Trump will create "˜Reichstag incident' before election and "˜destroy Democracy'

on July 2, 2020
By Chauncey Devega, Salon

For four years Donald Trump has willfully and repeatedly violated the presidential oath of office and its promise to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States," and "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

It now appears that Trump was aware - perhaps for as much as a year - that Russian agents had placed bounties on the heads of American soldiers serving in Afghanistan. That's only the most recent example of the president's betrayal of his oath of office.

Former national security adviser John Bolton's new book "The Room Where It Happened," in conjunction with new investigative reporting from CNN shows Trump to be reckless, out of control, negligent, delusional, corrupt, incompetent and thoroughly unfit to lead the United States both domestically and internationally.

Carl Bernstein's reporting for CNN paints a particularly damning portrait:

    In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials - including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff - that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations. "¦

    The calls caused former top Trump deputies - including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials - to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders.

As many of the nation's and the world's leading mental health professionals have warned, Trump appears mentally unwell in the extreme. His evident mental pathologies, likely including malignant narcissism, an addiction to violence, a God complex and near-psychotic levels of delusional thinking, have only served to exacerbate his many defects of character and values.

In total, Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States. If he is not removed from office by the 2020 election, he will continue to pose an extreme threat to the health and safety of the American people and the world.

I recently spoke about this with Dr. Lance Dodes, whom I have interviewed on several previous occasions. Dodes is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

In our most recent conversation he explained how the information revealed in Bolton's new book helps to confirm that Donald Trump is mentally unwell and a public menace. Dr. Dodes also warned that Trump will only become more dangerous in the remaining months before Election Day and may attempt start a war, impose martial law or create some other crisis in order to stay in power indefinitely.

Dodes issued another ominous warning: From his callous response to the coronavirus pandemic to his threats of violence against journalists and leading Democrats, Donald Trump is incapable of human concern and empathy - and he will find a way to follow through on his threats of death and destruction if given the opportunity.

As usual, this interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What happens to a person like Donald Trump when they suffer a narcissistic injury, such as what happened in Tulsa with his failed rally?

Donald Trump is incapable of tolerating losing without withdrawing into delusional paranoid explanations of what happened. His fundamental need to be always right and an absolute ruler, a God above all criticism, is what has led to his inability to tolerate democracy, and his repeated efforts to destroy it with his attacks on Congress, the judiciary system and a free press.

A few days after the Tulsa rally, Trump traveled to Arizona where he spoke to thousands of hand-picked adoring supporters at a right-wing evangelical church. So on one day he is in the pits of despair and anger, but the next day he is elated and flying high. How does such an emotional rollercoaster impact his mind?

Trump is able to appear more in touch with reality when he is being worshiped. Indeed, when his primitive needs are not being challenged, he can look like a normal person - it's what has made him a successful con man.  When he is challenged, however, his cruelty, sadism, paranoia, lack of conscience, incitement to violence and active pursuit of policies that kill people become obvious. These traits are properly described as "evil." In professional terms, they mean he is a psychopath.

At his rally in Tulsa, Donald Trump admitted to ordering that testing for the coronavirus be limited and slowed down so that it would appear that fewer Americans are becoming ill in this pandemic. In Trump's mind, this helps his re-election chances. Trump is killing people. Does he know that he is doing that? Or is he so delusional that he cannot connect his actions to the many thousands of Americans who are now dead?

Trump knows what he is doing, and he does not care. Many people cannot accept that Trump doesn't care about all this human suffering because they cannot grasp the idea of the president of the United States being as deeply disturbed as he is. That denial is a pretty normal reaction; nobody wants to believe we have a president who lacks human empathy and is willing for others to die for his personal gain.

Donald Trump continues to accuse former President Barack Obama of being a "traitor" and committing "treason." This is another example of Trump threatening violence and death - treason has often been punished with execution - against his political enemies. How much of this behavior is a function of Trump's projecting his own guilt on other people?

Donald Trump is incapable of guilt. In the most obvious and primitive way, often seen in very young children, he accuses others of exactly what he has done. He knows that he has committed treason, not only because of the Russian interference in the 2016 election but because he is actively and aggressively undermining the Constitution, democracy and the rule of law. His accusing others of treason was, therefore, entirely predictable. Reversing the truth is a tactic used by psychopathic dictators forever, as in destroying democratic governments in order to "restore democracy." Unfortunately, such simple tactics often work and it's only years later that citizens wake up to the fact they've been conquered from within.

How do we make sense of the standard deflection where some people say that it is all "hyperbole," and that Trump would never actually kill anybody?

Donald Trump has already killed people. He is killing people all the time through his willful negligent handling of the coronavirus pandemic in order to improve his election chances. More than 120,000 Americans have died because of Trump's behavior. His incitements to racist violence have likewise caused deaths from racist crime. There is by now overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump cares nothing about anyone else's life.

John Bolton's new book confirms that members of Trump's staff, including cabinet officials, mock and make fun of the president behind his back. How will Trump react when he learns he is so disrespected by the people around him, people who are supposed to be loyal to him?

If Donald Trump believes that people in his inner circle are even criticizing him, much less mocking him, he will do whatever he can to harm them, starting with firing them but then slandering and blaming them for his actions.

Bolton details how Trump wants journalists to be killed and imprisoned. Bolton's also writes about Trump's support for the concentration camps in China where Uighur Muslims have been tortured, and even reportedly have their organs "harvested" without anesthesia.

How is that different from what Hitler did? How is it different from what Stalin did? Dictators always want to punish journalists. The last thing that Donald Trump wants is a free press. It is another way in which he is an existential threat to democracy.

Bolton's book also reveals that hostile foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un and others have learned that all they have to do is flatter and complement Trump in order to get what they want from him. Trump is very malleable and easily manipulated. If you were going to advise somebody about how to manipulate Donald Trump, what would you tell them to do?

It is extremely easy to manipulate Donald Trump, since he cares only about being worshiped and is indifferent to the truth or facts. From the very earliest days of his presidency, people marveled that Trump changed his views every five minutes in the direction of the last person he talked with. If you worship him, then you control Trump until the next person worships him. There is every reason to think that he has been successfully manipulated by emotionally stronger leaders of other nations.

Donald Trump has all this power, but he appears to be very lonely, sad and empty. Trump imagines himself to be a type of god, but he behaves like a small, petty, pitiable person. There is something very sad about the whole spectacle. 

Normal people have a tendency to project onto Trump their own humanity - their normal sense of empathy, care, concern for others, their sadness and loneliness. This is a mistake because Donald Trump has never shown the capacity for those feelings. There is nothing in his history or behavior to suggest he has any feelings beyond those of the predator: sadistic triumph if he can defeat or destroy others, and rage and violence if he feels attacked or is at risk of losing.

At present, Donald Trump trails presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by double digits. If the polls are correct and Donald Trump loses on Election Day, how will he react? What advice would you give to the American people about these upcoming months?

As Hitler did to consolidate his power, it is likely that Trump will create some type of Reichstag incident, such as starting a war with China or Iran, attempting to fool the American people into thinking there is a crisis that requires total obedience to him. There is a serious probability that he will try to cancel the 2020 election, given that he has already claimed the election will be invalid and is fighting to disallow or prevent votes by people who oppose him. Trump is telegraphing his plans for all to see. What we need to see is that Donald Trump is fundamentally psychologically defective, that he is a psychopath who will destroy decency and democracy if his efforts to do this are not recognized in time.

[Rad]

New report explains why Trump is facing "˜not just defeat but humiliation' in November

on July 3, 2020
By Cody Fenwick, AlterNet

A report Thursday night in the New York Times dove into the behind-the-scenes details of a terrible month for President Donald Trump's re-election campaign.

While Trump's prospects against former Vice President Joe Biden have never been bright - the president has never once taken the lead in the RealClearPolitics average of their head-to-head national polls - things have gone from bad to worse.

"June represented the political nadir of his three and a half years in the Oval Office, when a race in which he had been steadily trailing, but faring respectably, broke open and left him facing the possibility of not just defeat but humiliation this fall," the Times reported.

It found that internal campaign polls have shown Trump losing Georgia and even Kansas - which few have considered even a potential swing state.

Within the campaign, the grim external reality is reflected by tumultuous power struggles. Though there are doubts about whether Trump will fire his campaign manager after the recent disastrous Tulsa rally, the Times reported that the president's son-in-law is openly hostile with Brad Parscale:

    Mr. Kushner and Mr. Parscale appear increasingly at odds. Mr. Kushner has sent mixed signals about his view of the campaign manager: In a meeting with Republican officials this week, Mr. Kushner repeatedly shushed Mr. Parscale and told him to "shut up," according to multiple people familiar with the events, but at other times he has urged friends of the president to tell Mr. Trump they think Mr. Parscale is doing a good job.

Of course, the truth is that regardless of the quality of the president's campaign, his team can't spin the way out of the mess he has created. The economy is in tatters, the virus he has repeatedly downplayed is resurgent, and Trump is a walking disaster. It's a terrible environment for an incumbent to run in, and Trump only makes it worse for himself. The Times noted that the morning after one top GOP donor, Bernard Marcus, convinced Trump that his campaign was in trouble, the president sent his now-infamous "white power" tweet.

The report explained:

    Last month's convergence of crises, and the president's missteps in responding to them, have been well-chronicled: his inflammatory response to racial justice protesters and his ill-considered rally in Tulsa, his refusal to acknowledge the resurgent virus or seriously address detailed reports about Russian operatives' putting a cash bounty on American soldiers. It's this kind of behavior, polls indicate, that has alienated swaths of swing voters.

But everyone knows he's like this, and everyone knows he's not going to change. It's always possible that things could somehow turn around for the president, of course, but that would almost certainly be due to sheer luck.

Another report from Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman painted Trump as despondent and out of sorts about the state of his re-elect:

    Republicans that have spoken with Trump in recent days describe him as depressed and "down in the dumps." "People around him think his heart's not in it," a Republican close to the White House said. Torn between the imperative to win suburban voters and his instincts to play to his base, Trump has complained to people that he's in a political box with no obvious way out. According to the Republican, Trump called Tucker Carlson late last week and said, "what do I do? What do I do?"

Sherman also reported that Trump's hoped-for in-person Republican National Convention may turn out to be a bust:

    This week, Jacksonville, Florida-where Trump moved the Republican National Convention so he could hold a 15,000-person rally next month-mandated that people wear masks indoors to slow the explosion of COVID-19 cases. According to a Republican working on the convention, the campaign is now preparing to cancel the event so that Trump doesn't suffer another Tulsa-like humiliation. "They probably won't have it," the source said. "It's not going to be the soft landing Trump wanted."

That would really sour his mood.

[Rad]

CNBC founder claims Trump has a specific plan in hand to stay in office no matter what the voters decide

on July 3, 2020
Raw Story
By Tom Boggioni

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the founder of CNBC walked viewers through a scenario where Donald Trump would attempt to remain president even if he is rejected by the voters in November.

Speaking with hosts, Tom Rogers along with co-author former Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO) explained the central point of their piece in Newsweek that proposes: "How Trump Could Lose the Election- and Still Remain President."

According to Rogers, who began by saying his scenario was "not farfetched" he believes Trump has no chance of winning the election and will do anything to remain in office.
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"This is how it happens, Biden wins," he began. "I don't just mean the popular vote, he wins the key swing states, he wins the electoral college. President Trump says there's been Chinese interference in the election. He's been talking about Biden's soft on China - China wanted Biden to win so he says a national emergency; the Chinese have intervened in the election."

"Why do I think that's real?" he continued. "Just ten days ago he tweeted, he actually tweeted, "˜rigged 2020 election,' millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries it will be the scandal of our times. so he's laying the groundwork for this. So he does an investigation and [Attorney General Bill] Barr backs this up with all kinds of legal opinions about emergency powers that the president has."

"Then what happens is it's all geared towards December 14th. Why December 14th? Well, that's the deadline when the electors of the states have to be chosen," he elaborated. "Why is that key? Because that's what the Supreme Court used in Bush v. Gore to cut off the Florida counting. They keep this national emergency investigation going through December 14th. Biden, of course, challenges this in the courts and says, "˜hey, we won these states, I want the electors that favored me named. The Supreme Court doesn't throw the election to the republicans as it did in 2000, instead it says, "˜look, there's a deadline here.' If they can't be certified in these states because of this investigation going on, there's a constitutional process for this."

"What's the constitutional process? It goes to the House of Representatives," Roger continued. "Everybody says, "˜that's good. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats control the House. No. when a presidential election is thrown into the House of Representatives under the Constitution, it's state-by-state vote. each state gets one vote based on the number of Republicans and Democrats in that delegation. Today Republicans control the House on that kind of vote it 26-23 with on delegation, Pennsylvania split. Even if Pennsylvania was to elect a Democratic delegation, come this new election because it's the new Congress that votes here, it would be 26 to 24 Republicans and Trump retains the presidency."

He then concluded, "It is not so farfetched - he Trump is planning to do this."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9BYI9qBIP8&feature=emb_title

[Rad]

'We've got to do something': Republican rebels come together to take on Trump

A slew of organized Republican groups have sprung up to do all they can to defeat Trump in November. Will their effort work?

Daniel Straussin Washington
Guardian
Sun 5 Jul 2020 10.00 BST

Trump has enjoyed high approval ratings among his base - but a growing band of disgruntled Republicans is doing its best to force him out.

Just like in 2016, a faction of the Republican party has emerged to try to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.

But unlike the last presidential race, where the effort never truly took off, this time those rebel Republicans have formed better organized groups - and some are even openly backing Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

In 2016, as Trump steamrolled his way through the Republican primary, some Republican lawmakers and operatives tried to mount an effort to stop him. Elected officials and veterans of previous Republican administrations organized letters, endorsed Hillary Clinton, and a few set up meager outside groups to defeat Trump.

That's happening again - but there are differences. The outside groups are more numerous and better organized, and most importantly, Trump has a governing record on which Republicans can use to decide whether to support him or not.

"I think it's qualitatively different," said Republican operative Tim Miller, who co-founded one of the main anti-Trump organizations. "A lot of people who opposed [Trump] did the whole, "˜Oh, Hillary's also bad, and Trump's bad, and everybody can vote their conscience' kind of thing."

Miller said that 2016's effort was far more of a "pox on both your houses" phenomenon versus 2020's "organized effort to defeat him".

The latest prominent Republican anti-Trump organization made its debut in early July. It's a Super Pac called 43 Alumni for Biden, and aims to rally alumni of George W Bush's administration to support the Democrat.

The new Super Pac was co-founded by Kristopher Purcell, a former Bush administration official; John Farner, who worked in the commerce department during the Bush administration; and Karen Kirksey, another longtime Republican operative. Kirksey is the Super Pac's director.

"We're truly a grassroots organization. Our goal is to do whatever we can to elect Joe Biden as president," said Farner.

The Super Pac is still in its early stages and isn't setting expectations on raising something like $20m. Rather, 43 Alumni for Biden is just focused on organizing.

"After seeing three and a half years of chaos and incompetence and division, a lot of people have just been pushed to say, "˜We have got to do something else," Purcell said. "We may not be fully on board with the Democratic agenda, but this is a one-issue election. "˜Are you for Donald Trump, or are you for America.'"

    This is a one-issue election. Are you for Trump, or are you for America?
    Kristopher Purcell

43 Alumni for Biden is new compared with two other larger anti-Republican groups.

The best-knownis the Lincoln Project, a political action committee founded in 2019 by Republican strategists who have long been critical of Trump.

The Lincoln Project has made a name for itself for its creative anti-Trump ads. It has also brought on veteran Republican strategists like Stu Stevens, a top adviser for now-Utah senator Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. George Conway, the husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, is also a co-founder of the group.

Unlike other anti-Trump groups, the Lincoln Project has weighed in to Senate races and has begun endorsing Senate candidates. It has backed the Montana governor, Steve Bullock, in his Senate bid against the sitting Republican Steve Daines.

Then there's Republican Voters Against Trump, a group led by Bill Kristol, a well-known neoconservative and former chief of staff to then vice-president Dan Quayle, and Republican consultants Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller.

That group is focused on organizing anti-Trump Republicans.

"Lincoln is doing two things really well. One is narrative-setting, and just beating Trump over the head with hard-hitting attacks," Miller said. "And they're also working on Senate races, which we're not doing. I think that, frankly, they're bringing the sledgehammer and working on Senate races, and we are elevating these peer voices in a way to persuade voters."

A set of Republican national security officials has also emerged in opposition to Trump.

That group hasn't given itself a name yet, and includes the former Bush homeland security adviser Ken Wainstein, and John Bellinger III, who served in the state department. The group is looking to rally national security officials away from Trump - either by supporting Biden or writing in someone else.

Even with all the organizing by these groups, there's still the persistent fact that swaths of former Republican officials and operatives methodically endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and since then Trump has enjoyed sky-high approval ratings among the Republican party electorate.

But these groups say that was a result of Americans having not yet experienced a Trump presidency. They also say that the reason elected officials aren't coming out to support Biden is because they're worried about the blowback.

Colleen Graffey, part of the national security group of Republicans opposing Trump, said the reason some elected Republican officials aren't coming out to oppose Trump publicly is because they're scared.

"They're worried they're going to be primaried," Graffey said. "They're worried they're going to be tweeted, if that can be a weaponized verb."

Asked what his big fear is now, Farner said it's that Republicans won't come out to vote at all.

"My fear is that they will not come out and vote. And we're here to say that it's OK. We're putting ourselves out here too," Farner said. "It's OK."

***************

Biden builds lead as Trump goes from trailing to flailing

Biden's polling lead over Trump is significant, though not unprecedented.

By DAVID SIDERS
Politico
07/05/2020 07:00 AM EDT
 
As recently as one month ago, Donald Trump was merely losing. Now he is flailing, trudging into the Independence Day weekend at the nadir of his presidency, trailing by double digits in recent polls and in danger of dragging the Republican Senate down with him.

But there are still four months before the election - and any number of ways for Biden to blow it.

Even the best campaigns "can get f----- up," said Kelly Dietrich, founder of the National Democratic Training Committee, which trains candidates across the country. "There are a million ways to lose."

Dietrich, like even the most circumspect observers of the 2020 campaign, does not predict that Biden will fall apart. But Democrats carry checklists in their minds of the universe of things that could alter the course of the campaign.

Biden might say the wrong thing at a debate, or have an awkward moment in an interview or at a press conference. Trump's massive advertising campaign might begin to resonate, hurting Biden's favorability ratings. Biden's campaign might make poor decisions about spending allocations in the battleground states, or the coverage of his campaign may sour if he loses even a percentage point or two in polls. Presidential candidates with large leads have all suffered from less.

And then there are the factors outside of Biden's control. It is possible that Trump before November will announce a coronavirus vaccine, whether real or imagined. And it is possible that the economy will improve, a prospect Republicans are pinning their hopes to.

So much has changed over such a short period of time - so far, much of it to Biden's advantage - that it's impossible to rule out any kind of black swan political event.

Late this week, Les Francis, a Democratic strategist and former deputy White House chief of staff in the Carter administration, sent an email to a circle of friends, including a former congressman and former administration officials, with the subject line, "123 days until the election - and a sobering prospect."

Right now, he said, "Trump is more than vulnerable." But then he went on to outline a scenario in which Republicans hold down turnout and sufficiently harden Trump's base.

"Think it can't work?" Francis concluded. "Think again."

Biden's polling lead over Trump is significant, but not unprecedented. The RealClearPolitics polling average has Biden running ahead of Trump by just less than 9 percentage points.

Richard Nixon maintained double-digit leads over Hubert Humphrey throughout the summer of 1968, then was forced to scramble in the fall as Humphrey surged. Twenty years later, following that year's Democratic National Convention, a Gallup Poll put Michael Dukakis' lead over George H.W. Bush at 17 percentage points. As they do today, voters that summer appeared eager for change - before abandoning Dukakis and voting for Bush.

"Sometimes things can look very, very comfortable and it changes, it can change very, very quickly," said Ken Khachigian, a former aide to Nixon and chief speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. "The psyche of the American voter can be affected by events very dramatically between Labor Day and Election Day."

If he were running Biden's campaign, he said, "I'd be feeling pretty good now, but I wouldn't be buying property in Northwest Washington quite yet."

Perhaps nothing is more indicative of Biden's growing advantage than the changing frames of reference required to doubt it. Throughout the Democratic primary, Biden was so widely expected to implode that several other centrist candidates premised their entire campaigns on the expectation. Then came the comparisons to 2016 - and the polls that put Hillary Clinton ahead at a similar point in the campaign. After it became clear that Biden was on stronger footing than Clinton, the unpersuaded reached back further for examples of catastrophe.

Often, they settle on Dukakis and his race against Bush.

In one way, that election is uniquely on point for Biden. It was during the 1987 primary - his first run for president - that a plagiarism scandal engulfed Biden's campaign, with the discovery he had lifted lines from a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

"If there's one thing we learned from '88, Biden is capable of screwing up big time," said John J. Pitney Jr., who helped on Bush's campaign in 1988 and wrote a book about that election last year.

Pitney, who went on to become an acting director of research at the Republican National Committee, said that in the current race between Biden and Trump, "you'd have to rate [Biden] as a decisive favorite at this point."

However, he said, "What we found in 2016 is even a few points in a few states can make all the difference, so that's why Biden shouldn't be counting on napping through September and October."

So far, Biden appears not to be. He has raised more money than Trump for two months in a row, and his campaign recently went up with its first major advertising offensive of the general election. Biden is taking more steps out of his Delaware home, where he has remained throughout much of the coronavirus pandemic. He said this week that he "can hardly wait" to debate Trump.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who ran for president in 2008 and was initially skeptical of Biden's decision to remain cloistered at home, said that there is "no historical context for what's happening, at least in my lifetime."

"I thought it was a mistake to run a low-key race," he said. "But given Trump's erratic behavior and his miscues "¦ for now, Biden is running a perfect race, which means let Trump be Trump, let him self-destruct."

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Trump has privately acknowledged he's losing, and he is desperate to correct course. Republicans view the debates as an opportunity to gain ground, as Bush did following Dukakis' emotionless response to a question about the death penalty in the event his wife, Kitty, "were raped and murdered."

And Trump's campaign is just beginning to swamp the airwaves with negative ads about the presumptive Democratic nominee. In a campaign not unlike the Lee Atwater-orchestrated assault on Dukakis' fitness to serve, Trump is airing ads casting Biden as aged and confused, with mental capabilities that are "clearly diminished."

Phil Angelides, the former California state treasurer who was a major fundraiser for Dukakis and who has bundled money for every Democratic nominee since, said that after Trump's victory in 2016, "I don't think we can take anything for granted."

But Dukakis, he said, was not as well known to voters as Biden. And the economic conditions that year were far better than they are now.

"It was a pretty good environment for the incumbent [party], unlike today," Angelides said.

If anything, the underlying environment may be historically bad for Trump - so bad he may not only get flattened in November, but he might become the proximate cause of a wholesale shift in the American electorate.

Seniors and suburban voters, two longtime pillars of the Republican coalition, are defecting to Joe Biden. Once-red states suddenly seem competitive, and children of Reagan Democrats are marching in the streets.

"The tectonic plates are shifting," said Chris Lehane, a former Clinton White House staffer who helped to manage the turmoil surrounding that president's impeachment proceedings. "On June 1, if I had told you that by July 1 the flag would be down in Mississippi, Woodrow Wilson would be off the wall at Princeton, Juneteenth would be a national holiday for companies, Black Lives Matter would reflect the great, not so silent majority, you would question my sanity. That's all happened in 30 days."

In the midterm elections, suburban voters revolted against the president. And then came the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed about 130,000 people in the United States. Trump's favorability rating cratered, and his problems were compounded by the civil unrest following the death of George Floyd. While Trump responded with a stream of "law and order" rhetoric, streets filled with protests amid a national reckoning on race.

"The pandemic's bad enough for Trump, because he BS'd his way through it," said Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean. "What George Floyd did is it served to activate this other America to say, "˜Wait a minute, who are we?'"

It is possible that the election will be close, he said. But "it wouldn't surprise me if it ends up between 8 and 10" points - a landslide for Biden.

Dietrich, at the National Democratic Training Committee, said Friday, "Can we have the election this afternoon? We'd wipe the f------ board with him right now. But polls and momentum, they're a snapshot "¦ We have absolutely no idea where we'll be in November."

Still, he said, "I would rather be us than them."

************

Republicans have gone silent about their internal polls because they show a "˜Democratic rout': Election analyst

on July 5, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Saturday, writing for CNN, elections forecaster Harry Enten argued that it's not just public polls showing President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans losing big in November - it's the GOP's private internal polls, too.

"Perhaps, it's not surprising then that when one party puts out a lot more internal polls than normal, it is good for their side," wrote Enten. "Parties tend to release good polling when they have it. Since 2004, there has been a near perfect correlation (+0.96 on a scale from -1 to +1) between the share of partisan polls released by the Democrats and the November results."

"Right now, Democrats and liberal groups are releasing a lot more surveys than Republicans, which suggests the public polling showing Democrats doing well is backed up by what the parties are seeing in their own numbers," continued Enten. "Democratic and liberal aligned groups have put out 17 House polls taken in April or later. Republican aligned groups have put out 0. That's a very bad ratio for Republicans."
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This stands in contrast to the pre-coronavirus polling landscape, argued Enten, when it was Republican-aligned groups releasing more polls - further suggesting that the pandemic has mortally wounded the president and his allies, and tacking with recent reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) may start advising GOP incumbents to distance themselves from Trump.

"This reminds me a lot of what happened just two years ago. Almost universally, Democrats were the ones publishing their House polls publicly. They went on to have a net gain of 40 seats in the House. Democrats also won the House popular vote by 9 points," wrote Enten. "Indeed, the 2018 example speaks to a larger pattern going back since 2004. Although Democrats tend to publish more internal polls publically, they do very well when that advantage is overwhelming."

"For Republicans, something needs to change or they're going to get blown out come November," concluded Enten.

[Rad]

SCOTUS says states can force Electoral College delegates to vote for the popular winner: report

on July 6, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed down a long-anticipated decision on the constitutionality of laws prohibiting so-called "faithless electors."

In a unanimous 9-0 ruling, the court found that it is constitutional for states to force delegates in the Electoral College to cast a vote in line with the result of the popular vote winner for president in that state - and can remove and replace them if they refuse to do so.

Thirty-two states currently have such laws on the books, which effectively guarantee that the winner of their states' electors will be decided by the popular vote.

Faithless electors have occurred in a number of elections throughout American history, including a handful in the 2016 election in both red and blue states who refused to vote for the winner of their state. However, electors have never broken ranks in large enough numbers to significantly shift the outcome of a presidential election.

[Rad]

"˜A Democratic tsunami': Top election forecaster changes 2020 prediction

on July 9, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

President Donald Trump and his supporters are hoping that if his hardcore MAGA base shows up in big numbers in November and Democratic turnout is weak, he will be able to pull off another Electoral College victory. In order for that to happen, Trump will need to fire up his base as much as possible in swing states.

But according to new, updated analysis from the Cook Political Report, former Vice President Joe Biden has an increasing advantage in many of the swing states that Trump needs to win.

"This election is looking more like a Democratic tsunami than simply a blue wave," Cook's Amy Walter reports. "President Trump, mired in some of the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency, is trailing Biden by significant margins in key battleground states like Pennsylvania (8 points), Michigan (9 points) and Wisconsin (9 points). He's even running behind Biden in his firewall states of Florida and North Carolina."

This month, Walter explains, Biden is looking even better in swing states than he did in June - and Cook has changed its Electoral College ratings to "reflect this reality."

Walter explains that according to Cook's analysis this week, "Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nebraska's 2nd District move from "˜toss-up' to "˜lean Democrat.' Maine, once in "˜lean Democrat,' moves to the safer "˜likely Democratic category.'"

The Cook reporter adds, "Georgia has joined Arizona, North Carolina and Florida in the "˜toss-up' column, although at this point, Biden would be slightly favored to win at least Arizona and Florida."

Florida has been a swing state for a long time. President George W. Bush won Florida twice, but so did President Barack Obama - before Trump carried the state in 2016. But only in recent years has once-red Arizona become a swing state.

The victory of Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona was one of the big political bombshells of 2018, and poll after poll has shown Republican Sen. Martha McSally trailing Democrat Mark Kelly in this year's U.S. Senate race in that state. Moreover, Biden appears to be quite competitive in Arizona, which for decades, was a deep red state synonymous with the conservatism of Sen. Barry Goldwater and later, Sen. John McCain.

Trump's poor performance in recent polls is being felt on Wall Street: according to Axios reporter Dino Rabouin, Wall Street is now betting on a Biden victory - a change from earlier this year.

Rabouin reports: "Betting markets have turned decisively toward an expected victory for Joe Biden in November - and asset managers at major investment banks are preparing for not only a Biden win, but potentially, a Democratic sweep of the Senate and House too"¦. The shift is the latest indicator of how quickly the political and business worlds have aligned in the view that Trump is unlikely to win a second term as COVID-19 infection numbers have spiked again and the economy looks to be stalling."

On May 11, Rabouin reported that Wall Street was expecting Trump to win a second term. But more recently, according to Rabouin: "A Citigroup poll of 140 fund managers released last week found that 62% expect a Biden win, compared to 70% who expected a Trump victory in the same survey in December. And according to Kace Capital Advisors Managing Director Kenny Polcari, "˜Talk of a Democratic sweep (is) now common' among investors."

Walter, on Cook's website, stresses that the "Democratic tsunami" in November could include not only Trump losing to Biden, but also, Democrats retaking the U.S. Senate and expanding their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

None of that is to say that Trump won't turn things around between now and November. There were summer polls that, in 1988's presidential race, showed Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis with a double-digit lead over Vice President George H.W. Bush. But in 1988, the U.S. wasn't coping with the world's deadliest pandemic in more than 100 years.

Walter adds the caveat that the race could still change, noting:

    One of the biggest unknowns, however, is voting itself. As we've seen this spring and early summer, most states are not prepared for an onslaught of absentee ballots. And confusion about how/where to vote could impact turnout.

She also floats the possibility of voters splitting their ticket this year - that is, voting for Biden over Trump but voting GOP in Senate and House races. However, a GOP strategist interviewed by Cook is predicting that many voters will go straight Democratic this time.

"If voters start to sense that the race for president is a blow-out, will they be more willing to split their tickets to ensure a "˜check and balance' in Washington next fall?" Walter writes. "At least one Republican I spoke with, however, was wary of a check-and-balance working this year, telling me that "˜people are looking for a restart and a reset.' That includes down-ballot candidates as well as the president."

[Rad]

How Republicans are using technology to deny your right to vote

By Erik Sherman, DC Report @ Raw Story - Commentary
on July 9, 2020

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

How do you win an election? You could gain a majority of votes. Or you can cheat-as Republicans have been doing in force since 2010-with gerrymandering and other forms of suppression across the country so the minority party can gain and hold power even as its numbers shrink.

Now those who would discourage or disable unwanted ballots have a new potential tool: voting machines. If there aren't enough working machines to enable people to cast their ballots, you blunt their will.

Manipulative conservative GOP politicians have a long history of actively attempting to interfere with voters they considered "unfriendly" or even "unworthy."
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    Republicans are investing $20 million in a plan to challenge votes, even though evidence of widespread voter fraud is non-existent.

Photo ID requirements, slashing available polling places in minority and poor areas, the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, adoption of effective poll taxes, and other tactics have resurfaced to target moderate or progressive voters.

Last December, Justin Clark, a top re-election advisor of Donald Trump was caught on a recording admitting this inconvenient truth:  "Traditionally it's always been Republicans suppressing votes in places "¦ It's going to be a much bigger program [in 2020], a much more aggressive program, a much better-funded program," as the Associated Press reported.

Later, Clark claimed he was referring to false allegations of attempted vote-rigging.

But that isn't the only evidence.

In 2016, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said: "Well I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate that the Democrats have ever put up and now we have photo ID. I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well."

Republicans this year are investing $20 million in a plan to challenge votes, even though evidence of widespread voter fraud is non-existent.

The Heritage Foundation list of voter fraud cases that argues for ID laws is a thin read. For instance, it shows only 77 cases in 2010 scattered throughout the country. That would be barely enough, if gathered, to affect the outcome of an election in a small town.

There is one well-documented example, which prosecutors allege happened on behalf of a GOP candidate in North Carolina-a case Republicans have done their best to downplay and ignore.

However, the GOP will spend tens of millions because harassment might reduce turnout for Democrats.

Machine-Aided Suppression

Now there's a new front in potential voter suppression: voting machines.

There's a virtual industry of voting machine lobbyists, as Sue Halpern of the New Yorker reported. Often the attempt is to steer business away from a requirement for paper-ballot systems and toward fully electronic ones, even though paper is less expensive, more secure, can be audited and is otherwise reliable.

Hacking or manipulating the machines to change outcomes-long a concern of security and voting experts-isn't the biggest problem. In practice, the Brennan Center for Justice has noted, that "vote flipping" is more likely a result of aging machines that act erratically from wear and tear.

The more realistic and immediate danger is the way technology can throw a wrench into the election process.

Ballot Breakdowns

Voting machines, especially the so-called ballot-market devices, or BMDs, have significant weaknesses. "If a touchscreen goes down, it's out of service until it's fixed," said Christopher Deluzio, policy director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law. "That machine is out of service for the voters to have a ballot printed."

The issue isn't theoretical. "You want to vote on paper because there have been a number of instances where machine failure meant votes were lost," Susannah Goodman, Common Cause's director of election security, told DCReport. "That's a known fact."

Then, as Deluzio-who served on a commission that audited Pennsylvania's voting system infrastructure-notes, the machines are expensive. "The BMB options were costing roughly twice as much per voter," as paper ballots, he said.

The potential for equipment failing, combined with elevated costs that keep governments from having plenty of spares (unlike stockpiling additional pencils), means the chance that citizens will find it difficult to vote.

Georgia on Their Minds

Georgia's primary election in early June was a disaster so vast that Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, called it "unacceptable" and vowed to investigate, according to NBC News.

The problems, which generally appeared in minority neighborhoods, caused multi-hour waits for people to exercise their franchise.

"I don't think voter suppression was the idea behind it," said Common Cause's Goodman. But when there aren't enough machines to let people vote efficiently, that doesn't matter.

"I do think there's a real serious problem with the number of machines deployed," Goodman added. "If you're only going to let voters use a machine, then you damned well better be sure there are enough."

"Especially in Georgia, they didn't have enough machines and when the machines broke down, they didn't fix them fast enough, replace them," she said. "And it was in the areas that are more minority."

In addition, the machines use a QR bar code that is the actual vote that will run through a scanner for the count. There is readable text as well, but, significantly, no way to know whether it represents what is in the QR code.

Kentucky's Near Nightmare

This is exactly what many worried about Kentucky. Would minority residents get a fair chance to vote?

Only one polling place and 350 ballot machines were available last month for all of  of Jefferson County, home to the state's largest city, Louisville, and many minority residents. Half of Black Kentuckians live in that county. Which at 389 square miles is the equivalent of 17 Manhattans.

There were widespread expectations of voter suppression in the primary vote on June 23.

Even though the procedure seemed largely smooth-because pandemic-driven mail-in voting and early voting took pressure off in-person-the concerns were reasonable.

Stephen Voss, professor of political science at the University of Kentucky, argued that an "alienating" process tended to disenfranchise "people with lower socioeconomic standing," many of whom could no longer walk to their local polling place.

A higher in-person turnout, which couldn't have been ruled out, would have made the situation far worse.

There are 616,523 registered voters in Jefferson County, which had a ratio of one voting machine to 1,762 voters, the highest in the state. That was 70% more than the next highest, a DCReport analysis of Kentucky state voting data found. The median figure was 379 voters per machine and the smallest was 150.

Even if voting took no more than five minutes per person, only a tenth of voters appeared and there were no breakdowns, each Jefferson County machine would have been busy for nearly 15 hours. Polls opened for only 12. Had every voter showed up, the polls would have needed to remain open for six days and until dawn on the seventh.

Areas with fewer financial resources might not be able to afford sufficient voting machines for people to cast ballots during the brief periods when the polls are open, constraining the process. That means that residents of less affluent areas can find themselves facing election disaster as their voices are subtly quashed.

Voters should push back on the lobbying and the assurances that technology solves all problems. Simple paper ballots, hand-marked with pencil or pen, should be standard issue at every polling place. Scan the ballots later when there is time.

Focus on ensuring the most fundamental right of citizenship-the ability to vote-is available to all.

Even if those people aren't financially comfortable White Republicans.

[soleil]

Excerpts from:

Trump's Loss at the Supreme Court Is a Win for His Candidacy
The president may eventually face legal liability, but he will not face a public reckoning for his actions before November.
David Frum, The Atlantic
July 9, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-candidate-won-trump-man-lost/613960/

"The Supreme Court rebuked Donald Trump, the arrogant president. The Supreme Court has prepared a world of trouble for Donald Trump, the dirty businessman. But the Supreme Court has done a tremendous favor to Donald Trump, the candidate for reelection."

"Trump's legal arguments to protect his business records from subpoena were always miserably flimsy...always bound to lose."

"But Trump's legal strategy was cannier than his legal arguments. The strategy was to play for time, to push the day of reckoning beyond November 2020. That strategy has now paid off."

"The Court turned back, for now, the subpoenas that could enlighten the public: those issued by the House of Representatives. That case will be reargued in lower courts, under new rules that suggest the House will win eventually. But it will not win soon-and that's all candidate Trump cares about.

"Trump has lived his whole life one jump ahead of the law."

"What Trump has never before faced-and what, thanks to the Supreme Court, he will not face before November-is a public reckoning for his acts. He has lived a lie, presenting himself as a great American businessman. In the eyes of much of the American electorate, that lie will continue past Election Day."

"In every way Trump cares about at this moment, he has gotten away with it...The Supreme Court saved Trump today."

***
Future presidents won't invent crazy immunities for the same reason that past presidents did not invent crazy immunities: they did not have lifelong records of financial fraud to conceal. That's only Trump. Today Trump got the OK to conceal, not forever, but just long enough.
---David Frum (@davidfrum) July 9, 2020

In 2010, Ivanka and Don Jr were nearly indicted for felony fraud. The district attorney who dropped the case -- after a hefty donation from Trump's lawyer -- was Cy Vance. SCOTUS ruled that Vance, not Congress, can access Trump's tax returns.
---Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 9, 2020

[Rad]

In "˜Buy American' Speech, Biden Challenges Trump on the Economy

Joseph R. Biden Jr. laid out a populist economic vision with the tagline "Build Back Better," part of an effort to confront President Trump on his strongest issue in polling

By Shane Goldmacher and Jim Tankersley
NY Times
July 10, 2020

Joseph R. Biden Jr. laid out a populist economic vision to revive and reinvest in American manufacturing on Thursday, calling for major new spending and stricter new rules to "Buy American" as part of an effort to more aggressively challenge President Trump on two of his signature issues: the economy and nationalism.

In a speech in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Mr. Biden lacerated Mr. Trump for a bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic that has deepened the economic crisis and a misplaced focus on the stock market, while framing his own economic agenda around a new campaign tagline, "Build Back Better."

In some ways, Mr. Biden was seizing the "Buy American" message from Mr. Trump himself, who campaigned on an "America First" agenda in 2016 and wrote on Twitter on his Inauguration Day that "Buy American" and "Hire American" were "two simple rules" that would guide his administration.

Mr. Biden said his plans would leverage trade, tax and investment policy to spur domestic innovation, reduce the reliance on foreign manufacturing and create five million additional American manufacturing and innovation jobs.

"I do not buy for one second that the vitality of American manufacturing is a thing of the past," Mr. Biden said, speaking at a metalworks factory in Dunmore not far from his childhood home of Scranton, a place where Mr. Biden often returns rhetorically to emphasize his blue-collar roots.

"When the federal government spends taxpayers' money, we should use it to buy American products and support American jobs," he added.

On the same day, Vice President Mike Pence embarked on a Trump campaign bus tour across Pennsylvania, a sign of the state's significance in the Electoral College calculations of both campaigns.

Mr. Biden's campaign is riding high in the polls but his advisers, as well as Republican strategists, still see the economy as perhaps his area of greatest vulnerability against Mr. Trump. The president's campaign - and the president himself when on message - has tried to argue that he oversaw a booming economy until the coronavirus pandemic brought about an "artificial" slowdown.

House Republican leaders recently briefed their members on polling showing Mr. Trump's enduring advantage on the economy, and a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed the economy as perhaps a lone bright spot for the president, even as he trailed by 14 percentage points over all.

"The one issue that Trump really has going for him is who's better to handle the economy," said Stephen Moore, a member of Mr. Trump's economic recovery task force, who added that Mr. Biden's agenda, which includes rolling back some of the Trump administration's corporate tax cuts, would damage the economy.

Mr. Biden has long cast himself as a champion of the American worker, particularly as vice president, when he led the Obama administration's Middle Class Task Force and oversaw implementation of the 2009 economic stimulus bill. But he has faced criticism from Mr. Trump and from progressive former rivals like Senator Bernie Sanders over his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and other trade deals that followed.

On Thursday, the Trump campaign announced a new television ad attacking Mr. Biden's record as "dangerous and foolish," highlighting Mr. Biden's vote for NAFTA in 1993 and his past support for trade relations with China and for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The Pennsylvania speech was the first of several steps Mr. Biden is taking in the coming weeks to detail an expanded economic agenda, beyond what he proposed in the primaries. On Thursday, Mr. Biden specifically proposed a $300 billion increase in government spending on research and development of technologies like electric vehicles and 5G cellular networks, as well as an additional $400 billion in federal procurement spending on products that are manufactured in the United States.

Mr. Biden described it as a level of investment "not seen since the Great Depression and World War II" and emphasized that a top priority was to expand prosperity to all corners of the country, both racial and geographic.

"This money will be used purposefully to ensure all of America is in on the deal, including communities that historically have been left out: Black, brown and Native American entrepreneurs, cities and towns everywhere," he said.

Mr. Biden's campaign is rallying top surrogates in key battleground states to amplify his economic themes on Friday: Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota will hold a round-table discussion aimed at Arizona voters, Senators Tammy Duckworth and Tammy Baldwin will do one for Wisconsin, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan will headline one for her state, and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio will hold one for his state.

The former vice president's campaign aides cheered on Twitter that the three leading cable news networks - CNN, Fox News and MSNBC - carried Mr. Biden's speech live, even as his remarks were briefly interrupted by an audible downpour at the plant.

As Mr. Trump has increasingly focused his campaign on stoking white resentment and fears, Mr. Biden and his campaign have stressed their efforts to create "an economy for every American," as Mr. Biden said on Thursday.

"Donald Trump may believe that pitting Americans against Americans may benefit him. I don't," he said. Later in his speech, he invoked Mr. Trump's recent comments defending the Confederate flag and accused the president of being "determined to drive us apart."

While Mr. Biden has said in speeches since he began his campaign more than a year ago that Wall Street is not the true economic engine of America, he sharpened his populist tone on Thursday, declaring it "way past time to put an end to shareholder capitalism."

He lashed Mr. Trump, in particular, for his focus on the stock market as a metric of success as tens of millions of Americans have been driven to file jobless claims during the pandemic. "Throughout this crisis, Donald Trump has been almost singularly focused on the stock market, the Dow, Nasdaq," Mr. Biden said. "Not you. Not your families."

Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster, called the economy a critical issue for Mr. Biden's campaign to try to neutralize, especially if voters are focused on it this fall.

"It is probably the No. 1 issue for the Trump campaign," Mr. Newhouse said. "The president's job approval ratings have consistently been higher on the economy than any other measures." In fact, he added, the president's positive ratings on the economy have helped "hold up a lot of his other measures."

Mr. Biden is planning four economic rollouts ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August, with Thursday's speech the first in the series. The next three, according to campaign aides, will be on modern infrastructure and clean energy, then building "a 21st-century caregiving and education work force" followed by a plan "to advance racial equity in America."

Thus far, Mr. Biden has proposed to offset the entirety of his spending plans with nearly $4 trillion in tax increases, largely by reversing some of Mr. Trump's signature tax cuts for high earners and otherwise raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Aides said he would do the same to pay for his procurement and research plans announced on Thursday.

But campaign aides also said that Mr. Biden would propose additional deficit spending next year to help the economy recover from the recession caused by the pandemic, building on the more than $3 trillion in new borrowing that Congress and Mr. Trump have already approved amid the crisis.

During the primaries, Mr. Biden had proposed the smallest amount of new federal spending among the major Democratic contenders, and his plan, despite its new spending, remains far less expensive and expansive than those proposed by his former rivals, like Mr. Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Mr. Biden has sought to straddle the line on economic policy and elsewhere between his moderate political instincts and a progressive wing of the party that lined up in the primaries behind candidates like Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren who promised sweeping and systemic change.

"After today," Mr. Moore, the Trump adviser, said of Mr. Biden, "I don't think anybody's going to call him a moderate."

More new Biden plans could be coming. A Biden-Sanders "unity task force" published 110 pages of platform recommendations on Wednesday, with economic proposals that included a New Deal-style federal jobs program to use government money to put Americans to work on infrastructure and other projects. The task force also called for a so-called baby bonds plan that would seek to reduce wealth disparities between Black and white Americans by giving every child in the country a government-funded savings account.

Advisers said Mr. Biden would place racial disparities at the forefront of his evolving platform recommendations, amid a recession that has disproportionately hurt Black workers.

"Race is not an issue in this," Darrick Hamilton, an Ohio State University economist who served on the unity task force, said of developing a comprehensive economic agenda, "but a pillar in this."

Watch: https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007231038/live-biden-speech-scranton.html?action=click&gtype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs&region=title-area&cview=true&t=9

[Rad]

Election experts warn of November disaster

on July 11, 2020
By Stateline.org

After a presidential primary season plagued by long lines, confusion over mail-in voting and malfunctioning equipment, election experts are increasingly concerned about the resiliency of American democracy in the face of a global pandemic.

With four months until the presidential election, the litany of unresolved issues could block some voters from casting ballots and lead many citizens to distrust the outcome of one of the most pivotal races of their lifetimes.

There is widespread concern among voting activists, experts and elections officials that it will take further federal investment in local election systems, massive voter education campaigns and election administrators' ingenuity to prevent a disaster come November.

"The coronavirus has really laid bare the cracks in our system," said Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center's Voting Rights and Elections Program.

Even before the pandemic, Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, said he was worried about the state of U.S. elections. He warned in his recent book Election Meltdown about the effects that misinformation, administrative incompetence and voter suppression efforts would have on the 2020 presidential election.

Now, to add to all those problems, there is COVID-19, which further destabilizes voting. He, like many other election experts interviewed by Stateline, said he is worried about November.

"The best-case scenario for us is that key elections are not close," he said, "because we are going to have problems."

The troubles ahead of the presidential election include the inconsistent mail-in ballot system, voter safety at polling locations and lingering security gaps targeted by malicious foreign and domestic groups emboldened by the 2016 presidential election.

Mail-In Ballot Issues

Millions of voters turned to mail-in ballots as a safe alternative to voting in person during the pandemic-riddled primary. But in states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and in the District of Columbia, thousands of voters requested absentee ballots from local election officials and never received them.

Stateline StoryJune 3, 2020

Trump's Attacks on Vote-by-Mail Worry Some Election Officials

States were unprepared for the record numbers of absentee ballot requests, said Hannah Fried, national campaign director of All Voting is Local, a project of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Leadership Conference Education Fund that helps register people of color and young people.

In many of those states, officials found it difficult to go from producing and processing thousands of mail-in ballots to contending with millions of them because of COVID-19. They lacked the training, equipment, supply chain and staff to handle the increase, she said.

Local officials must set up ways to get ballots to voters, provide for their easy return and allow voters to know their ballots will be counted, she said.

"It was overwhelming for officials and voters alike in the beginning," Fried said. "But November is different, and we have time."

But training and equipment cost money, said Cris Landa, program director at the election security group Verified Voting. While Congress allocated $400 million under the CARES Act for election administration earlier this year, it is unclear whether it will allocate more funds before the presidential election. But money must come soon, Landa said, or jurisdictions won't have time to implement changes.

"Elections are woefully underfunded as is," she said. "The need is there for more election funding. It's hard not to paint such a stark, worrisome picture."

Voters in some states had to contend with other barriers to voting by mail, such as requirements for a witness signature or voter ID - difficult tasks during a pandemic when people are confined to their homes. Proponents say these measures prevent voter fraud.

In Oklahoma, Republican leaders enacted a law that requires absentee ballots be notarized, while Republican leaders in Tennessee and Texas have fought efforts to make the coronavirus pandemic a legitimate excuse for requesting an absentee ballot.

Stateline UpdateJune 10, 2020

Georgia Primary a "˜Catastrophe,' Voting Rights Advocates Say

County clerks have rejected absentee ballots at higher rates this election season in some communities of color, sometimes for reasons as simple as a mismatched or absent signature on the ballot envelope, said Kristen Clark, president and executive director of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She's trying to figure out why.

"Something is not right," she said.

Voters unable or unwilling to vote by mail turned to traditional polling places. And when they got there, many were met by more barriers.

Polling Place Problems

The lines in the Atlanta area stretched for more than four hours in some majority-Black locations on the June 9 primary day. New voting machines were not working, poll workers had not been trained to use the new equipment, polling locations opened late and precincts ran out of paper backups.

In the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, voters with disabilities, limited English proficiency and unreliable mail service rely on polling places to cast their ballots.

But polling locations were cut throughout the country, while thousands of poll workers refused to serve because of health concerns.

In Wisconsin, local election officials drastically reduced the number of polling locations across the state. The city of Milwaukee had five polling locations - down from 182 in 2016. A Brennan Center analysis shows this contributed to reduced voter turnout.

Like Georgia, many states also debuted new voting systems this year, which led to confusion when poll workers, untrained because of the pandemic, had to navigate unfamiliar voting machines. Already before the pandemic, equipment issues caused massive disruptions in this year's Iowa caucuses and California primary.

And then there's the issue of safety: How do election officials keep polling places clean during a pandemic, especially as protective equipment is often hard to come by as states and businesses reopen across the country?

Some election officials have gotten creative. Harris County, Texas, will provide each voter with a finger cover to use on voting machines and a face mask if they need one. The Houston-area county of 2.4 million registered voters also will equip poll workers with masks, face shields and disinfectant wipes.

"Putting these safeguards in place has been no simple task," said Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, "but they're necessary."

Hollins is one of several local and state election officials backing a new report by the nonprofit Voter Protection Corps on how to run safe in-person voting options ahead of November. It recommends not consolidating neighborhood polling places, recruiting and training poll workers and expanding early voting.

Safeguarding the health of voters isn't the only security issue facing elections, however.
Election Security Issues

The threat of foreign interference in U.S. elections remains, including disinformation and hacking campaigns by the Russian government and others. Local election offices remain susceptible to email phishing attempts and website hacks that could penetrate state voter registration databases and other critical systems.

And the coronavirus adds security challenges. New online state systems for requesting absentee ballots could be vulnerable without proper protections, said Benjamin Hovland, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Meanwhile, most election officials have been working remotely since the outbreak, using home networks that lack the firewalls of their offices and are more exposed to cybersecurity threats.

Stateline StoryMay 8, 2020
Postal Service's Struggles Could Hurt Mail-In Election

Federal security officials, from the National Security Agency to the National Guard, will work with state and local election officials throughout the coming months, providing on-the-ground assistance and recommending practices to avoid a potentially disastrous security breach.

Misinformation remains one of the biggest threats to U.S. elections, Hovland said. Clever editing of an online video or false information spread throughout social media could reach vast audiences.

"Any of those situations is ripe for disinformation or misinformation," he said. "Unfortunately, 2020 was never going to be an easy election year. And now with COVID, we're facing unprecedented challenges."

Another factor that could damage voter confidence is a delay in reporting election results. Because of the expected volume of absentee ballots, voters should not expect complete race results on Election Night; it will take much longer to process and count votes. Election Night might turn into Election Week.

Delays in election results are not necessarily troublesome or nefarious, said U.C. Irvine's Hasen. It shows election officials take the count seriously, he said. The question is how voters will react to those delays.

Hasen worries both domestic and foreign groups will try to undermine legitimacy and take advantage of delays. Malicious actors may spread false information about polling place locations, ways to register to vote, voting hours and the ability to vote online.

A candidate may, for example, declare victory before results are completely counted, he said, potentially delegitimizing the eventual results of the election among supporters.

Disinformation and misinformation targeted communities of color during the 2016 presidential campaign, and as much is expected again this year, said LaShawn Warren, executive vice president of government affairs at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

In anticipation of this threat, several organizations like hers have pressured social media companies to add new warnings and labels on malicious or false election-related content. It is the responsibility of these companies, she said, to oversee what is being placed on their platforms.

"You don't want to add to confusion," she said. "You want to add a level of transparency and clarity. The way they have rolled out these policies is not thoughtful and rooted in truth."

While Twitter has begun labeling false tweets, Facebook recently announced it would label all election-related content, without noting whether the content is false. Facebook says its policies protect free speech, but Warren said the company does not do enough to quell falsehoods, potentially keeping people from voting.

President Donald Trump's continued and unsubstantiated attacks on mail-in voting, claiming without evidence that it would lead to massive voter fraud, also sows doubt in the election, she said.

While election experts are sounding the alarm ahead of November, they say there is still time for federal, state and local election authorities to prevent a disastrous presidential election.

U.S. elections are fragile, said Pérez at the Brennan Center. It will take the election administrators hustling for resources, planning and looking for solutions. It will take residents offering their storefronts for polling places, volunteering to be poll workers and helping register their neighbors to vote, she said.

"We are in the middle of a real challenge," she said, "but there is a lot we can do between now and November to minimize harmful outcomes."

[Rad]

Joe Biden to air first general-election TV ads in Texas as polls show increasingly close race against President Donald Trump

on July 14, 2020
By Texas Tribune

Joe Biden is launching his first general-election TV ads in Texas as a growing number of polls show a close presidential race here.

As part of a four-state ad buy that Biden's campaign is announcing Tuesday, the presumptive Democratic nominee is going up with a 60-second spot in Texas that addresses the increasingly dire coronavirus situation here.

"I'm thinking all of you today across Texas," Biden says in the ad, which opens with a shot of Marfa. "I know the rise in case numbers is causing fear and apprehension."
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"The virus is tough, but Texas is tougher," Biden later says, telling Americans to follow guidelines to slow the spread of the virus - and that he wants them to know: "I will not abandon you. We're all in this together."

The buy, which also features digital ads, is across Texas, Arizona, Florida and North Carolina - and it marks the campaign's first TV and digital ad spending in Texas since Biden secured the nomination. A Biden campaign official described the size of the four-state buy as "mid-six figures."

There have been a series of polls in recent weeks finding a tight contest between Biden and President Donald Trump in historically red Texas. One poll released Sunday found Biden leading Trump by 5 percentage points among likely voters, while another survey that came out the same day gave Trump a 1-point lead among likely voters, well within the margin of error.

At the same time, the campaign season in Texas has been upended by the coronavirus, especially as it has surged here in recent weeks. The spike prompted Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a statewide mask requirement earlier this month, despite previously resisting calls to issue such a mandate.

In the ad, Biden encourages Texans to wear masks, wash their hands, stay home if they can and socially distance when they go out. The spot ends with an image of Biden in a mask, along with the words, "Stay Safe, Wear a Mask."

Biden has promised to contend Texas, which Trump won by 9 percentage points in 2016, the smallest margin for a GOP nominee in the state since 1996. The 2016 Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, ran TV ads in the state, though she did not do so until less than a month out from the election and made a relatively small investment.

While the Biden campaign did not detail how much it is spending specifically in Texas, the official said the four-state buy "will run in each state's top markets, on local cable, and on Sunday cable shows." In Texas and two of the other states, the campaign is running Spanish-language versions of the spots, with captions, on YouTube, Facebook and Univision.

Trump has brushed off the threat of Biden in Texas, casting doubt on the polls.

"I think Texas is going to be very strong for us - all of us - as it was in the past election, 2016," Trump said during a tele-town hall Monday evening with a congressional candidate here.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRVQ6layb5A&feature=youtu.be

[Rad]

Biden unveils ambitious climate plan in new contrast with Trump

on July 15, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

White House hopeful Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious climate change plan that would revamp the US energy sector and seek to achieve carbon pollution-free power in just 15 years.

The clean energy proposal was fleshed out in a speech in Wilmington as the veteran Democrat aimed to draw a contrast with President Donald Trump ahead of November's election by arguing that fighting climate change would be a massive job creator under a Biden administration.

"Transforming the American electrical sector to produce power without producing carbon pollution"¦ will be the greatest spurring of job creation and economic competitiveness in the 21st century," Biden said.
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"That's why we're going to achieve a carbon pollution-free electric sector by the year 2035."

The plan includes more ambitious goals than the climate proposal he rolled out months ago when he ran as one of the more moderate Democratic candidates in the party's nomination race.

By embracing some of the ideas of his more liberal rivals at the time, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Biden appears intent on winning over progressive voters who might be wary of the former vice president and longtime Washington staple.

Biden pledged to spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his plan, according to The Washington Post, a dramatic acceleration of the $1.7 trillion he had proposed to spend over 10 years in his climate plan during the primary race.

He also said he would rejoin the Paris climate agreement that Trump pulled the US out of in 2017, fund the construction of 1.5 million new energy efficient homes, upgrade appliance standards and prioritize renewable energy.

"We're not just going to tinker around the edges," Biden said.

"I know meeting the challenge will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to jolt new life into our economy."

Biden said he would reverse some 100 steps taken by Trump to roll back environmental regulations.

He also reiterated parts of his earlier climate proposal, one with goals shared by House Democratic leaders including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that would put the nation on the road to net zero emissions economy-wide no later than 2050.

And aside from attacking Trump on his failure to contain the coronavirus pandemic, he savaged the president and his party for lacking vision and focusing on old technologies like oil.

"This is all that Donald Trump and the Republicans offer: backward-looking policies that will harm the environment, make communities less healthy, hold back economic promise while other countries race ahead," Biden said.

Biden leads Trump on most issues, according to polling, but voters still see the president as stronger on steering the US economy.

© 2020 AFP

[Rad]

"˜Attempted murder of your post office': Outrage as Trump crony now heading USPS moves to slow mail delivery

on July 15, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

"The deliberate delaying of Americans' mail delivery would be a stunning act of sabotage against our Postal Service."

Postal workers and their allies in Congress are vowing to fight back after the new head of the U.S. Postal Service-a major donor to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party-moved this week to impose sweeping changes to the popular government agency as it faces a financial crisis manufactured by lawmakers and exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that Postmaster General (PMG) Louis DeJoy, who took charge last month, issued memos announcing "major operational changes" to the USPS "that could slow down mail delivery, warning employees the agency would not survive unless it made "˜difficult' changes to cut costs."

"With our states now reliant on mail voting to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilizing of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy itself."
-Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.

"Analysts say the documents present a stark reimagining of the USPS that could chase away customers-especially if the White House gets the steep package rate increases it wants-and put the already beleaguered agency in deeper financial peril as private-sector competitors embark on hiring sprees to build out their own delivery networks," the Post noted.

According to the internal USPS memos (pdf) obtained by the Post, "DeJoy told employees to leave mail behind at distribution centers if it delayed letter carriers from their routes," a change critics said could threaten access to absentee ballots at a time when vote-by-mail is more important than ever.

"If the plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day," reads a document titled, "New PMG's expectations and plan."

"The deliberate delaying of Americans' mail delivery would be a stunning act of sabotage against our Postal Service," Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) said in a statement. "If these reports are accurate, Trump and his cronies are openly seeking to destroy the Post Office during the worst public health crisis in a century."

"With our states now reliant on mail voting to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilizing of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy itself," Pascrell added. "It has been 59 days since the House passed $25 billion to keep USPS alive. The Senate must pass it now. Democracy hangs in the balance."

    Trump's attempted murder of your post office is titanic scandal.

    The post office is a public utility Americans rely on absolutely.

    If trump and his stooges have their way you'll be paying much more to send ✉️ and ðŸ"¦ much slower. https://t.co/ENdUBijm6p

    - Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) July 14, 2020

With the USPS at risk of completely running out of cash by the end of September without an infusion of emergency funding, postal workers and members of Congress have warned that the Trump administration could attempt to exploit the agency's financial struggles to advance the longstanding right-wing goal of privatizing USPS.

"This is not something that as postal workers we should accept."
-Mark Dimondstein, American Postal Workers Union

In March, Congress approved a $10 billion emergency USPS loan, but the Treasury Department has yet to release the funds as the Trump administration attempts to use the money as leverage to force changes to the agency's finances and operations.

Mark Dimondstein, president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union, said in response to the Post"˜s reporting that his organization will vigorously oppose the new operational changes sought by DeJoy.

"I would tell our members that this is not something that as postal workers we should accept," Dimondstein said. "It's not something that the union you belong to is going to accept."

U.S. Mail Not for Sale, a worker-led coalition dedicated to protecting the Postal Service from right-wing privatization efforts, is urging Americans to take part in a June 23 call-in day of action urging the Senate to approve desperately needed financial relief for USPS.

    Using the USPS financial crisis to slow down the mail is unacceptable. We need to act now! Join the Senate call-in day of action on July 23. We must #SaveThePostOffice before it's too late! https://t.co/C2RGQerSbn pic.twitter.com/MP76gLcZPR

    - usmailnotforsale (@usmailnot4sale) July 14, 2020

"Our movement is growing. Together we can save the Post Office and convince lawmakers to do their jobs," the coalition said. "Multiple bills have been introduced that would provide $25 billion in Covid-19 related relief for the Postal Service. The Senate comes back from recess in less than two weeks' time. We need to keep up the pressure to make them vote to end this crisis.

********

Wisconsin GOP official terrified Trump's attack on mail-in voting will torpedo the party: "˜He's wrong on this one'

on July 15, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Wednesday, Rohn Bishop, the chairman of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, sounded the alarm about President Donald Trump's attacks on mail-in voting, saying that the policy has been "to the GOP's advantage" and the dropoff of Republican voters' interest in using the voting method could sink the party's overall turnout in November.

    Again- it's such a bad idea to scare our own voters away from a legit way to cast their ballot. Why surrender this to Democrats when it's been to the GOP's advantage? I know Trump doesn't like it, but I just think he's wrong on this one! https://t.co/vzpvGyyLyP

    - Rohn W. Bishop (@RohnWBishop) July 15, 2020

The president, despite he and many members of his inner circle voting by mail themselves, has attacked mail-in voting as "corrupt" and a cause of widespread fraud. Studies are clear that this kind of fraud is too rare to have any meaningful impact on elections.

But Trump's rhetoric is already turning off Republicans from applying for mail-in ballots, including in states like Arizona and Florida where Republicans have traditionally held an advantage in the practice.

[Rad]

GOP to Trump: Change tune on mail-in voting or risk ugly November

By Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb,
CNN
7/17/2020

(CNN)Republican officials throughout the country are reacting with growing alarm to President Donald Trump's attacks on mail-in ballots, saying his unsubstantiated claims of mass voting fraud are already corroding the views of GOP voters, who may ultimately choose not to vote at all if they can't make it to the polls come November.

Behind the scenes, top Republicans are urging senior Trump campaign officials to press the President to change his messaging and embrace mail-in voting, warning that the party could lose the battle for control of Congress and the White House if he doesn't change his tune, according to multiple GOP sources. Trump officials, sources said, are fully aware of the concerns.

The impact could be detrimental to the GOP up and down the ticket, according to a bevy of Republican election officials, field operatives, pollsters and lawmakers who are watching the matter closely. Every vote will count in critical battleground states, they argue, fearful that deterring GOP voters from choosing a convenient option to cast their ballots could ultimately sway the outcome of races that are decided by a couple of percentage points.

And with the coronavirus pandemic potentially bound to get worse in the fall, voting by mail is becoming an increasingly popular option since many voters may prefer not to wait in long lines at polling stations. That will leave Democrats with a major advantage if their voters send their ballots by mail while Republican voters forgo that option simply because they are listening to the concerns of the President.
In Wisconsin, a state that was central to Trump's narrow 2016 victory, Republicans were "begging our voters" to vote absentee when the pandemic first hit, said Rohn Bishop, Republican Party chairman in Fond du Lac County, where Trump will need to drive up GOP turnout in November."Then the President has some tweets and gets upset with mail-in balloting and we dropped the issue like a hot potato, and that's where I think we're making a mistake," Bishop said. "Our voters are running away from it. That kind of terrifies me."

Bishop added bluntly: "I'm getting aggravated because I think we're only hurting ourselves. ... Anything that ties an arm behind my back, I don't like that." Bishop's concerns are shared by Republican officials at the county and state level -- as well as ones who are deeply involved with the national party.Glen Bolger, a top Republican pollster, told CNN he had just surveyed a battleground state and found that three-quarters of voters who plan to vote by mail or absentee vote intend to support former Vice President Joe Biden; just 15% of mail-in voters in that survey planned to use the mail option to vote for Trump. Bolger declined to name the state, but said it exemplified the real problems for Republicans if the trend continues.

"It could have a corrosive impact if some voters who would have voted don't get to vote on Election Day -- a bunch of votes would have been left on the table," Bolger said. "If he changed his message on this, he could have a positive impact," referring to Trump. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican who was a Cabinet secretary under President George W. Bush, said discouraging mail-in voting is "very perilous for the Republican Party" and puts his party at "an incredible disadvantage."

"There's no inherent advantage to one party or the other," said Ridge, who chairs the bipartisan group VoteSafe, which advocates for expanded voting access. "The advantage goes to the party that utilizes that method -- that option of maximizing participation -- on Election Day. So if you have a Republican President undermining his own base, and suggesting they don't use absentee ballots, while the Democrats have demonstrated, particularly thus far in the primary season, they understand its value ... then he puts his own party as a decided disadvantage because it discourages Republicans from using it." And Republicans, too, are concerned that Trump's criticism of the process could cast doubt on the integrity of the election, particularly in closely contested states like Ohio.

"It is irresponsible -- whether it's a Republican or Democrat -- for people to create a sense, incorrectly, in the minds of voters that they can't trust their elections," said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, referring to both the President's claims and Biden's recent suggestion that Trump might not leave office if he loses.

In Ohio, nearly 8 million registered voters will get absentee ballot requests after Labor Day, and LaRose predicts that roughly 35%-40% of the ballots will ultimately come by mail in November, up from roughly 20%-25% in past elections, amounting to the "highest level of vote-by-mail that we've ever seen in our state's history."

"When people try to say that voting by mail or absentee mailing benefits one party -- it just doesn't bear out in Ohio. People want to vote," LaRose said. But asked if fewer Republican voters may choose to vote absentee in November because of the President's criticisms, he said: "That's absolutely a possibility."
GOP leaders in the House and Senate have publicly and privately called for more resources for mail-in voting -- and hope the President changes his tune.

"A lot of people are going to vote by mail, and we need to do what we can to both see that is done safely and encourage people to believe and ensure people that it is going to be done safely," Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said Thursday.

New York's 27th Congressional District special election last month illustrated the potential dangers for Republicans if their voters swear off mail-in voting. The state, which has several closely contested House races, expanded mail-in voting this year after Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order in April to mail all residents applications for absentee ballots.

In the solidly Republican district, GOP state Sen. Chris Jacobs was leading Democrat Nate McMurray 64%-27% after election night -- but before absentee ballots were counted, according to the state's unofficial results. After the district's absentee ballots were tallied, the margin shrank to 55%-44%.
Trump tries to make a distinction over mailed ballots Republicans on Capitol Hill, worry the trend will continue if Trump keeps up his rhetoric, have tried to push the President to change his message. Sources said the issue has been raised repeatedly with Trump campaign officials, who have acknowledged the potential problems for the GOP.

After prodding from campaign officials, the President has tried to massage his messaging in recent days. Indeed, campaign officials were successful in getting him to try to make a distinction during his speech in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday evening. Trump argued that it's perfectly acceptable for voters to request absentee ballots. But he argued that states that proactively send out ballots to voters are creating a system rife with fraud.

"You'll have tremendous fraud if you do these mail-in ballots," Trump told reporters. "Now, absentee ballots are OK, because absentee ballots -- you have to get applications. You have to go through a process."

Trump has been railing about mail-in voting for months as states expand vote-by-mail options, repeating numerous false claims about voter fraud. There's no widespread fraud in US elections.
Absentee voting, of course, is conducted by mail, and experts say Trump is creating a distinction where none exists. It's true that some states require voters to request absentee ballots, and some require voters to have excuses for absentee ballots, while others do not. And some states require ballots to be sent unsolicited to all registered voters.

But in every case, the ballots are returned the same way: through the mail. Asked if most voters would understand the distinction Trump is trying to make between absentee ballots and ones sent proactively in the mail, Matt Mashburn, who serves on Georgia's State Elections Board, said: "No." He added: "I think Georgia has a wise system."

The June primary in Georgia saw an explosion of interest in absentee ballots in a state where voters must request absentee ballots after their applications are verified and their signatures are matched by county officials.

In typical Georgia elections, about 5% of ballots are returned by absentee; in the June primary, however, roughly 49% of the ballots were absentee -- which amounted to 1.15 million, according to Gabriel Sterling, who is the statewide voting implementation manager in Georgia. Democrats outpaced Republicans on absentee voting, but they had a competitive Senate primary, which the GOP did not.
"There is a weaponizing of election administration from the left and right -- and it's not helpful to how elections are supposed to run," Sterling said, referring to concerns from Democrats about voter suppression and from Republicans about claims of voter fraud.

And as Trump tries to make a distinction between ballots mailed proactively and absentee ballots, voters "probably" don't see much of a difference, Sterling said. "Most people think voting is voting," he said.
While Trump has claimed that vote-by-mail will be a disaster for Republicans, recent election results suggest that's not necessarily the case. In California's 25th District, a special election to fill former Democratic Rep. Katie Hill's seat was conducted almost entirely by mail, with Republican Mike Garcia easily winning the seat over Democrat Christ Smith, 54%-46%. Still, Republican legislators in states across the country are introducing bills to limit mail-in voting in November. And lawsuits have emerged as well.

LaRose, the Ohio secretary of state, has wanted to make it even easier to request absentee ballots by allowing voters to go online and request them -- rather than doing it by mail. But he has faced opposition in the state Legislature, and he said the President's criticism of the process is "a factor."

In Florida, Democrats held a 300,000-voter advantage last month in the number of people who had applied to vote by mail.

"It just means that we have work to do, and we're going to do the work and we'll take care of it," said Dean Black, chairman of the Republican Party in Duval County, which encompasses Jacksonville. "Historically, vote-by-mail works in Republicans' favor. And so that would tend to be a net positive for President Trump."

CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.

[Rad]

Get Ready for the 2020 Election Recount

Trump is already questioning mail-in ballots, what do you think he'll do next?

by Amanda Carpenter
Bulwark
July 18, 2020 7:15 am

If you thought the 36-day national agony over "hanging chads" in the 2000 presidential election was bad, imagine what President Trump might do if the 2020 election is too close to call on Election Night. He's already preparing the script for a remake of the 2000 election with his own authoritarian twist.

By now, it's easy to ignore Trump's angry, conspiracy-laced tweets about a rigged election. We shouldn't, though, because it very well could be a preview of what's to come. For example, here's a tweet from last Friday:

    Mail-In Ballot fraud found in many elections. People are just now seeing how bad, dishonest and slow it is. Election results could be delayed for months. No more big election night answers? 1% not even counted in 2016. Ridiculous! Just a formula for RIGGING an Election"¦.

    - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2020

He's right about one thing. Election results are likely to be delayed this year. Coronavirus concerns have prompted states to expand mail-in voting options, and millions of Americans have taken up the offer. Those ballots take much longer to count than in-person votes. When the 2000 election became "too close to call," everything came down to a trio of Florida counties where lawyers wrangled over butterfly ballots, miscounts, undervotes, overvotes, hanging chad, swinging chad, tri chad, dimpled chad, and pregnant chad, too. This time, President Trump is already questioning ballots three months before a single vote is cast.

So, go on and get your anti-anxiety meds ready because the stage is set for a democratic crisis far worse than what we lived through in 2000. This time around, Trump has every lever of the federal government at his disposal. Smear merchants and bots will drive social media discussion, not James Baker and Warren Christopher in the courtrooms. Forget the so-called "Brooks Brothers riot" by a bunch of GOP staffers on a floor of a drab bureaucratic building in Miami. This time around, the Proud Boys and Antifa will be warring in the streets. Do you feel the walls closing in yet?

The 2020 stage is a tinderbox compared to 2000. As of today, over 138,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The commander-in-chief Republican candidate is egging on his base in speeches and tweets depicting his opponents as radical left mobsters hell-bent on destroying the country. Pro-gun activists have swarmed state capitols to protest pandemic lockdowns. Mass protests and violence have broken out in cities across America in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. To top it all off, President Trump deployed soldiers to gas peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. And for what? A freaking photo op.

Even if one took Trump's thuggery out of the question, the 2020 election would look different from normal elections, given the widespread use of mail-in ballots. In 2016, nearly a quarter of America's votes were cast by mail. This year, some observers have estimated that as much as half of the electorate will vote by mail in November. Certainly the rate of voting by mail shot up during the primaries.

Despite Trump's criticisms of vote-by-mail efforts, Democrats are pushing them to great success.

In Florida, a state where Trump only beat Clinton by just 112,911 votes-49 to 48 percent-to notch 29 electoral votes, Democrats currently have a 400,000-voter advantage over Republicans when it comes to vote-by-mail enrollment ahead of the state's August primary.

Don't look now, but the president is already questioning the results from Pennsylvania, another state where the number of mail-in ballots skyrocketed and Trump won by a slim 44,292 vote margin (48 to 47 percent) in 2016.

During the Keystone State's primary, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf expanded vote-by-mail options to allow no-excuse absentee voting. As a result, 1.5 million people voted by mail last month. That's 17 times the number of voters (about 84,000) who voted absentee in 2016.

The Trump campaign, along with the Republican National Committee and four Republican members of Congress representing western Pennsylvania districts, filed a lawsuit arguing that ballots dropped off at collection sites, rather than sent through the post office or delivered by hand to county elections offices, should be disqualified. The lawsuit stated that the Pennsylvania system gives "fraudsters an easy opportunity to engage in ballot harvesting, manipulate or destroy ballots, manufacture duplicitous votes, and sow chaos."

The primary lesson of the 2000 presidential contest is that campaigns don't necessarily end on Election Night.

Say what you want about Al Gore's pathetic scattershot search for more votes after the news networks blew their calls on Election Night. Bush could have rested on his laurels as the declared winner. He secured his victory because his team didn't stop their campaign after the ballots were cast. The Bush campaign's three-pronged efforts to mount a full-fledged political, legal, and persuasion offensive is why he became president. The final Supreme Court decision was only the climax.

If put in a similar position to fight for the presidency, it's safe to predict that Trump would act far more aggressively than either Bush or Gore ever dreamed.

One of the more memorable aspects of the 2000 recount was the "Brooks Brothers riot" where the Bush campaign flew GOP staffers to protest the recount proceedings in Miami-Dade County, Florida. At issue was whether there would be a new standard for counting "undervotes," and local officials sought to take discussions to an upper floor of the building, where the protesters would not be able to observe. At that point, the Republicans erupted and followed them up. Crammed into the smaller space, unable to see what was happening, they got angry. They yelled that Democrats were stealing the election. They banged doors. They roughed up a Democratic staffer in possession of a sample ballot.

And it worked. Hours later, the officials surrendered. Canvassing board chairman Lawrence King Jr., a circuit court judge, said that when the board agreed to count votes, "It became evidently clear that we were in a different situation . . . than we were this morning when we made that decision. . . . A radically different situation."

Whether one agrees with the recount or not, it's stunning to consider that a mild protest was all it took for protesters to shut it down in Miami.

Rory Cooper, a GOP staffer who participated in the so-called "riot," said to watch out for "flashpoints" where lawyers and protesters can descend, as they did in Miami-Dade. "There are going to be performative acts on each side to show who is winning and losing," he told me. Like everything with Trump, though, it would be far more jarring. He predicted "mini earthquakes every day, rather than the ongoing rumble of a recount."

But could things actually turn violent this time?

For answers on that, I spoke to Rachel Brown, the founder and director of Over Zero, a non-profit dedicated to preventing identity-based violence and other forms of group-based harm, who studies how communication can increase or decrease the chances of violence. She said that with the type of rhetoric we see around this election, we need to be proactive about preventing violence-both pre-election and post-election. When it comes to post-election violence, she said, "there will be a results waiting period and it will be important to see how politicians handle themselves and how this period is discussed in the media."

"Do they question the results in broad, big terms or specific complaints that can be remedied?" Brown said. "There will be real grievances if there are procedural challenges, and it's important that those issues are addressed through proper legal channels quickly. For this to work, there has to be lots of communication about what has happened and how it gets resolved."

"Media needs to be educated on state-by-state procedures and have the knowledge about how to manage expectations and help people be patient through such a new process," Brown cautioned. "Be aware of any preemptive declarations the election is illegitimate, preemptive declarations of victory, and any excessive use of state force-for example, if peaceful protesters are met with force." And the propensity for violence can rise, she added, when "voters feel like the stakes are zero sum."

Uh-oh. That sounds exactly like President Trump and his supporters.

If you are feeling masochistic, imagine how Trump will act if he's in a position to question the results on Election Night, whether he be trying to close a tight gap or disqualify votes and maintain a lead. Governor George Bush would have never tweeted: "The lyin' fake news tried to steal the election from me and then Democrats invented a HOAX about uncounted ballots. I WON. SHUT DOWN THE FRAUD." But, President Trump sure would.

And just think of what else he could do.

If he was ahead would he find a way, through mass revolt and state intervention to stop counting the mailed-in ballots he told us were "rigged" all along? Might an allied Republican governor confiscate them and plunge them into "circular files" never to be seen? If Trump is down, could he convince Republican state legislators to preemptively certify him the winner, even in defiance of a Democratic governor, to notch Electoral College votes? Would President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active duty military to help them do it?

Given the possible scenarios, a contentious Supreme Court ruling may be the least of our worries.

The 2020 election is our country's last, best hope to stop President Trump. Still, there are no guarantees if he contests the outcome. Those who wish to defeat Trump need to make it a blowout. This election can't be too close to call.

Amanda Carpenter
Bulwark political columnist Amanda Carpenter is a CNN contributor, author, and former communications director to Sen. Ted Cruz and speechwriter to Sen. Jim DeMint.

*****************

The unmasking of Donald Trump

Adnan R. Khan: As Trump's poll numbers plummet, a desperate U.S. president reveals his true colours, and finds theatrics can only take him so far

By Adnan R. Khan July 17, 2020
MCCLEANS
7/18/2020

In 1997, Mark Singer, a staff writer at New Yorker magazine specializing in profiles, was tasked with what many today would chalk up as a literary suicide mission: Follow Donald Trump and find out what makes him tick.

At the time, Trump was, at least according to his own accounts, at the top of his real estate mogul game, which is likely why he agreed to the profile in the first place. A few years earlier it likely would never have happened: the Trump Organization was on the verge of collapse, mired in debt and facing bankruptcy.

By 1997, it had not only survived, but Trump was doing better (which in his mind can only mean richer) than ever. He'd re-financed his failing hotels and casinos division with a successful public offering, netting himself $7 million in 1996 in salary and bonuses (even while the value of the shares was tanking).

Singer, not known to shy away from challenges, embarked on weeks of research, shadowing Trump in what ultimately reads like an otherworldly jaunt through the crass Wonderland that is Trumpworld, complete with mobsters, Hollywood stars and shady businesspeople.

At the centre of the story, of course, is the shadiest of them all, Donald Trump who, among other pulp fiction character traits, Singer describes as "the hyperbole addict who prevaricates for fun and profit" and "the perpetual seventeen-year-old who lives in a zero-sum world of winners and "˜total losers," loyal friends and "˜complete scumbags'." Trump, Singer concludes, is "a fellow both slippery and naïve, artfully calculating and recklessly heedless of consequences."
 
Somewhere in that riot of egos, one must assume, was the real Trump, though Singer conceded in the end that he had failed in his mission to find him. He did claim, however, to have unearthed something even more astonishing and rare: "an existence unmolested by the rumblings of a soul."

In some ways, Singer's profile aligns neatly with the Trump we've all come to know as the American president. His penchant for exaggeration and outright lies, his visceral loathing for journalists who write stories he doesn't like-this is just Trump, and he hasn't changed, even after a quarter of a century.

But in other ways, something has changed. The "artfully calculating" Trump of 1997 has gone missing, replaced by a clumsy, sometimes pitiful novice who can't seem to formulate any cohesive strategy. Singer's "slippery" Trump, the man who has dodged bankruptcy and the IRS for decades, who has shifted his political position so often that his politics resembles a mosaic cobbled together by a 4-year old, is now noticeably stickier, more ranting Republican of the deep south Confederate variety than the slick Wall Street free marketer he pretends to be.

As a businessman, even as incompetent as he was, Trump had been able to maintain the illusion of invincibility. The masks never came off. Even when it seemed like he was on the verge of being outed as a shyster, he stayed in character, forever the bigwig blessed with a golden touch. But as president, the opposite has happened: he has been steadily unmasked.

Is it a function of increased scrutiny? Despite his enablers-Attorney General Bill Barr and Republican members of Congress who continue to throw up smoke screens to protect a man they see as their best chance to reverse the tide of liberalism they believe is threatening to destroy America-Trump can't completely avoid the oversight that comes with being president, particularly with a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. Or maybe it's just plain old age. Trump's lifestyle, his eating habits, lack of exercise and any meaningful intellectual stimulation is a perfect recipe for cognitive decline.

Whatever it might be, what we're seeing now is not the same fit and agile Trump who is pictured in the 1997 New Yorker profile. We're seeing past that glittery veneer at an angry man-child, the inevitable outcome of an upbringing poisoned by privilege and racism. The more he fails- against the pandemic, against America's racial reckoning, against the polls-the more desperate he appears to become, and the more transparent.

The fact is, Trump has always been a racist. We've seen glimpses of it over the years, for instance in the early 1970s when the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Trump, his father and the property management company they co-owned for allegedly discriminating against prospective Black and Latin American tenants. It was not the first time the Trumps had been called out on their racial bias and, unsurprisingly, they not only denied the charges but countersued, enlisting Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's infamous legal attack dog during the anti-Communist purges in 1954. After the presiding judge rejected the countersuit and ruled that there was enough evidence to proceed on the charges of discrimination the Trumps decided to settle.

Somehow, that history has been largely buried, though David Cay Johnston, an investigative journalist who has covered Trump and his business dealings since the 1970s, re-hashed it in his 2016 book, The Making of Donald Trump. Over the years of his presidency, major news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post have also dug deep into Trump's history and uncovered piles of past wrongdoings.

Johnston, however, with some justification, still blames the media for failing to properly report on Trump in 2016, ultimately helping him win the White House.

"Donald Trump knows that so long as he never corrects himself or acknowledges error, journalists will quote what he says," Johnston told me recently. "That's why George Lakoff, the cognitive research professor at UC Berkeley argues journalists who cover Trump should use what he calls a truth sandwich. Instead of quoting Trump and then taking it apart, you should say: "˜We're about to tell you something Donald Trump said that is' -depending on the appropriate word-'dubious' or "˜a flat out lie', etc. Then you quote him and after that, you take it apart. That way, people are psychologically set up to understand that what you're hearing is not revealed truth."

Indeed, journalists themselves now admit they dropped the ball in dealing with the deluge of misinformation that poured out of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. This time around, they seem better prepared, challenging Trump whenever he makes himself available to the media.

Typically, Trump has responded by making himself less available. His most recent appearance, a press conference on July 14 where he was supposed to announce additional sanctions against China, devolved into an hour-long incoherent rant on everything from Joe Biden's alleged lack of mental acuity to a redux of his 2016 claim that killer immigrants are crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. He answered questions for all of six minutes before abruptly walking off the stage.

Increasingly, a cornered Trump is turning to those people most like him, a segment of the American population lashing out at the prospect of losing its privileged position, of having to compete on an equal footing with immigrants and people of colour, with homosexuals, queers and the gender fluid. The dream for most of us-a world where the colour of your skin or the clothes you wear has nothing to do with your life prospects-is a nightmare for them.

What's frightening is that this is still such a large segment of American society-somewhere around one-third of voters. But despite its size, it's not going to be enough to hand Trump a victory in November, and it seems to be dwindling. The latest Gallup poll reinforces what we suspected all along: In the 2016 election, Trump relied on a sizeable cohort of voters who, after the 2009 financial crisis, had lost faith in the American political system. They were tired of politicians-Barack Obama included-who promised to revive the American Dream but then, in times of crisis, went on to dole out sweetheart deals to corporations and their CEOs.

For a wide range of regional and idiosyncratic reasons, those people, including some Obama voters, decided to give an outsider like Trump a shot. Now that Trump has been unmasked, these same people are fleeing Trump's dystopia in droves. In every demographic-gender, age, race, education or region-the percentage change in support for the U.S. president from January to July is negative. Trump has alienated nearly everyone who can be alienated.

Instead of shifting tactics, Trump has decided to double down on those core supporters, the people he himself most identifies with. As a businessman, he was able to dissemble his way out of most tight spots. But as a politician, Trump is quickly discovering that theatrics can only take him so far. With all of the hustling stripped away, what's left is a hollow ideologue grasping for approval from those who see the world the way he does.

Finally, we are seeing the real Donald Trump, and it is a sad, frightening, unhinged image indeed.

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What Americans don't know... should worry us

Bruce Anderson: Our polling suggests that Trump's leadership has made many Americans less aware of America's standing in the world, and more open to off-the-wall ideas

By Bruce Anderson June 22, 2020
Bruce Anderson Chairman of Abacus Data and Summa Communications and Partner in Spark Advocacy
MCCLEANS
7/18/2020

In 38 years polling public opinion you don't only learn what people think.  You learn a lot about what people don't know.

Our survey of Americans was fascinating but troubling.  Many Americans know remarkably little about the world beyond their borders.  Now you might say this isn't new. But here's what is new.

Knowledge of the world seems to be deteriorating in America, abetted by a president-ignorant of the world himself-whose formula for political success depends on more people becoming less informed.

Democracies turn into something else when the media is controlled so that people only hear one version of reality. In the past, that often required a physical action to shut down a free press. But today, there's an easier route-more subtle but highly effective. Let America's adversaries use social media platforms to make "friends" and spread falsehoods among American voters. And find and nurture news organizations willing to trade objectivity and integrity for eyeballs and dollars.  .

In 2016 many were shocked to learn how Russian hackers compromised the presidential election using Facebook. Many were appalled at how Fox News became a cheerleader for the least qualified of 17 Republican nominees and became his house organ once he was installed as president. If Trump lied, a daily, sometimes hourly occurrence, he knew he could do it on Fox without being challenged.

Four years later, how mixed up has this left people?  Our poll leaves some clues:

If Trump loses, most Republican voters say they will believe the election was rigged. If he tries to stay in office after losing, they wouldn't want the military to enforce the election results. In other words, their trust in or need for him is so powerful they don't stop to think what sort of precedent it would set to leave the country in a state of impasse.

As many Americans think Russia is America's best friend as think France, Italy or Germany is. This despite America having spent decades in a military alliance with France, Italy and Germany to protect against Russian military ambition, despite proven Russian use of cyberwarfare to disrupt American social peace and elections.

Under Trump's time in office, Republicans are four times more likely to say relations with Canada have improved (41 per cent), than think they have worsened (8 per cent).  This is mindless partisanship-the facts of the last few years were almost constant tension around NAFTA, dairy subsidies, steel and aluminum tariffs, the idea of Canada as a security risk, the G7 Charlevoix summit friction. But for Republican voters everything seems to be going swimmingly.  Eighty-five per cent say Trump has done a good job with Canada, and 78 per cent say Trudeau has done a good job managing the relationship with the U.S. Three out of four GOP voters want trade, co-operation and friendship with Canada-amazingly they believe Trump does too.

Less than 12 per cent of Republican voters think U.S. relations have soured with Great Britain, France or Germany. This despite almost constant friction in these relationships, on topics from trade to NATO to climate change to refugee and immigration policy.  Trump has by all accounts a terrible relationship with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. He was on bad terms with U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Teresa May and launched scathing attacks on London's Mayor. It's too soon to tell whether his rapport with Prime Minister Boris Johnson will take things in a better direction.

The lack of a common fact base makes it easy for people to imagine what they want to imagine. Right now, with racial divides widening, America feuding with most of its allies, an economy stumbling, a deficit at unprecedented levels, and a pandemic that has killed 120,000 and remains out of control in many areas"¦80 per cent of Republicans think Trump has made America greater.

A majority of Republican voters believe their country has better controls against the spread of coronavirus than Canada does. But the virus has killed 361 people for every million Americans. In Canada, the mortality rate is 225 per million people.

It's tempting to wonder what's the big problem if American pride and narcissism make people less aware of the facts of the world around them.

But if you live in Canada, once likened to being a mouse in bed beside an elephant the risks are not so easy to joke about as they once were. A similar but more apt metaphor of Trump's America is John Mullaney's horse running free in a hospital.

The mood in America has worsened. America has become richer but angrier. More limited in its understanding of the world and more divided internally. Half see a serious chance of another civil war.

What could go wrong for Canada? Half of Republican voters would go along with abandoning NORAD, roughly a third would support building a wall and putting troops along the Canadian border. Happily, most Americans are against invading Canada to get at our resources. But stop and think about the fact that only 56 per cent of Americans strongly oppose the idea.

These findings can't properly be interpreted as hostility to Canada. Instead they are a glimpse at what happens when a sizeable proportion of the population stop thinking much about the consequence of the choices their country makes.

Party over Country and Leader over Party have cast a shadow on the "shining city on a hill".  And in a little more than 100 days from now the rest of the world will find out if the next four years will see more of the same.