And it isn’t Joe Biden For many months former president Donald Trump’s henchmen pushed the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an agent of chaos and a boon to Trump’s latest bid for the presidency. Salon’s Amanda Marcotte presciently called out their strategy in a piece last May called “Of course Steve Bannon and Alex Jones love RFK Jr. — he’s a great weapon for their war on reality.” At that time Kennedy was running in the Democratic primary and it was easy to dismiss the right wing “support” from the likes of Bannon and Jones as well as former Trump admirer and QANON adherent Michael Flynn, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Trump henchman Roger Stone as partisan mischief. But it was more than that. They touted Kennedy as a perfect Trump running mate — a “dream ticket” ostensibly to attract low information, liberal anti-vaxxers and environmentalists to the GOP. Unfortunately for the Trumpers, their tactics appear to have backfired. Bannon worked this idea hard, suggesting that a Trump Kennedy ticket would win in a landslide.
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October of 2020: Granted, it was Rasmussen but still. By the way, the 2020 Black vote came in at 8% for Trump. Today Biden spoke at the Morehouse graduation. Everyone was worried there would be a massive protest or walkout. The Morehouse president had said that they were prepared to shut down the ceremony if such a thing happened (rather than call security or police) so everyone was on high alert. There were a couple of awkward moments but no huge protest. The valedictorian ended his address by calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and Biden applauded and then later endorsed in his speech.There was no mass protest but a handful of graduates turned their backs on him. His speech seemed to be well received. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem for Biden among young Black men. A lot of young working class men of all races and ethnicity are attracted to Trump. That’s a sad comment on our culture but it is what it is. And Gaza has animated the young beyond any other issue and many of them blame Biden for the war. But when it comes down to voting, there’s a good chance that this massive racial realignment some of the polls are suggesting is overblown.
You’ll notice at the end of that ridiculous rant he also complains that Biden says he’s a “threat to democracy” plaintively wailing “what did I do?” He says he had “no wars” which is a lie. He didn’t get out of Afghanistan as he promised and his drone war was lethal. He had American troops in war zones all over the world. But be that as it may, asking “what did I do?” to deserve being called a threat to democracy is a very stupid thing to say. He is the only president to have ever illegally tried to overturn an election so that he could stay in office and incite an insurrectionist mob to storm the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power during a joint session of congress. Maybe his cult members in the NRA don’t believe that was a threat to democracy but it most assuredly was. I confess to feeling a little bit disoriented lately by the flagrant gaslighting we are suffering through in this election. It’s worse than ever and it’s hard to force yourself to pay attention to it. I can’t say I blame the average voter for tuning it out. A few more highlights from his NRA speech.
Kevin Drum takes them downtown: The Washington Post reports today that consumer sentiment softened this month. That’s true enough. But they also say this: Come on, folks. Do we have to keep doing this? Nobody has to guess at consumer buying habits by looking at fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers or afternoon lattes. Why? Because every month the government publishes a nice, tidy summary of all consumer spending. Here it is through March: If the Washington Post thinks the government is rigging the statistics they should say so. But maybe they don’t know about government statistics. Maybe someone should tell them. Kevin concludes: And guess what? The government also publishes lots of other handy statistics! I’ll spare you the charts, but real wage growth has been up steadily; home sales are down from their 2021 boom year but have increased lately; auto sales are up and have been steady lately; and durable goods consumption is up. Inflation has been hovering around 3% for an entire year, which is not especially dire.
A few items lost in the fog The New Republic has posted a 9-article special issue, “What American Fascism Would Look Like.” It’s just popped up and I won’t have time to study it until later. Not, at least, until I’ve had another cup of coffee. Heads up. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to restart its aggressive crackdown against payday lenders and other companies that offer high-cost, short-term loans to poor borrowers, after a Supreme Court ruling this week resolved a challenge to the federal agency’s authority to act,” reports The Washington Post. Yes, that Supreme Court. The CFPB’s mom was more than pleased: “The CFPB is here to stay. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court followed the law and confirmed that the CFPB’s funding structure is constitutional. For the last decade, the consumer agency has fought the big banks and predatory lenders that try to cheat hardworking people. As of this week, the CFPB has returned more than $20 billion in ill-gotten funds to American families. This isn’t the last attack on the CFPB we’ll see from Wall Street, the banks, and their Republican allies.
Seriously? I don’t know what to say: Over the past several months, Donald Trump has told some of his advisers and friends that federal clemency for [Peter] Navarro, if Trump is back in office, is a “very good idea,” according to a person familiar with the matter and another source briefed on it. The former president, as some of his former staff say, often speaks in vague and thinly-coded terms that they refer to as “mob speak.” Like a number of former Trump advisers, Navarro received a subpoena to testify before the House Jan 6. Committee about his work attempting to delay Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, and his role in producing a series of reports with bogus allegations of mass voter fraud during the election. Unlike most of his former colleagues, however, Navarro openly defied the subpoena, leading to a criminal referral by the committee, an indictment from a federal grand jury in June 2022, and his conviction in September last year. He received a four-month prison sentence, which began in March.
Biden is a climate hero by presidential standards, the best we’ve ever seen. What, you haven’t heard? Here’s an article by Michael Thomas who writes about climate change: In the last few months, the Biden administration has quietly passed multiple federal policies that will transform the United States economy and wipe out billions of tons of future greenhouse gas emissions. The new policies have received little attention outside of wonky climate circles. And that is a problem. Earlier this year, I wrote that Biden has done more to mitigate climate change than any President before him. For decades, environmentalists tried and failed to convince lawmakers to pass even the most marginal climate policies. It wasn’t until Biden took office that the logjam broke and the climate policies flowed. And yet few American voters are hearing this story in an election year of huge consequence. It’s been two and a half months since I wrote that article.
I’m still not sure I understand how this works but it does sound like the whole Marjorie Taylor Greene outburst may have been a set-up: The following day, Ocasio-Cortez took to X (formerly Twitter) to break down how Greene’s outburst overshadowed—and aided—what Ocasio-Cortez describes as a “microcosm of what authoritarians do on a larger scale.” “AFTER the Republican Chair and GOP members broke official House protocol to allow MTG’s horrific opening silo of rhetoric, they THEN made another change to dispense with the legislative process,” Ocasio-Cortez said on X (formerly Twitter). “THAT part is not getting enough attention.” In a move Ocasio-Cortez described as “highly unusual and still unclear to me how legitimate it was,” the GOP-led committee vacated both the typical amendment process and legislative debate that follows, moving directly to vote on their own text without allowing for amendments or objections to be heard.
The INTERNET is UNdefeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D) of Texas inspired beats and tunes last week. I may add the Motown-inspired song below to one of my playlists. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.