Not Hopeful

Unfortunately, this (only presumably, given Twitter pseudonyms) guy Seth McNeil is right:

I look at Elizabeth Warren and see an engaging, brilliant woman. I guess I’m just weird https://t.co/a3bAELZH7B

— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) April 16, 2019

In a far more complex manner, Ezra Klein lays it all out in this cogent analysis with the apt section titles "Hopeful liberals, concerned conservatives;" "Democrats miss Obama;" "Pete Buttigieg's play for the 'hope and change' vote;" and "It's not 2008 anymore" (more on that one later).

Objectively, in the last seven presidential elections- 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004 (arguably), 2000, 1996, and 1992- the more charismatic and engaging presidential nominee emerged victorious.  Additionally, in each of those contests- 2016, 2008, 2000, and 1992- in which there was no incumbent, the less experienced candidate won.

Neither is likely a coincidence.

The more personally appealing and less experienced candidate may prevail because, as McNeil understands, getting elected is not about policy or ideas but about emotion and reflecting "back what we want to see."

That played a major role in the election of Barack Obama, as many Americans sought to prove (as they saw it) that neither they nor their country is racist.  His nomination, aided by opposition as a state senator to the Iraq War that Hillary Clinton voted to give a GOP president authority to conduct, also was boosted by the appeal of the hazy "hope and change."  While once it was "who would you rather have a beer with?" it is now the "it" factor, or who grabs the voter's attention, or a similar factor..

Of course, another obstacle Elizabeth Warren faces is occupation of the ideological "lane" (insofar as the lane concept isn't actually lame) by Bernie Sanders as the one candidate who ran in 2016 and amassed a deep and loyal following. However, if Klein's analysis suggests that the mayor of a mid-sized Midwestern city is inevitable, he warns that it isn't still 2008 and

Another challenge for Buttigieg is that Obama didn’t win just by impressing openness-minded liberals. He won by building a coalition between them and black voters. As of yet, there’s little evidence of Buttigieg breaking through among nonwhite voters — and, notably, nonwhite voters aren’t as sorted by the openness dimension between the parties, so the messages that work for white liberals in New Hampshire often fall flat with black churchgoers in South Carolina.

That of course opens the door for a minority woman (Harris), the loyal servant to Barack Obama (Biden), and a few others to counter the support and experience Senator Sanders picked up the last time around.  If that too is hazy, we do know that if recent history is any guide whatsoever, any combination of brilliance, experience, and thoroughly researched policy prescriptions is not the path to the presidency.

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Come Clean

A visibly excited Ezra Klein finds in Pete Buttigieg   "America’s history as a lesson in hope, cable news politics as a threat to the country, an alienated kid with a funny name whose unlikely rise proves change is possible." David Axelrod, who typically is excited only by the thought of that other "alienated kid with a funny name whose unlikely rise proves change is possible," concurs, remarking

A powerful, coherent and well-delivered announcement speech from @PeteButtigieg. Rooted himself in the middle of the country and American values AND heralded a new generation and new era.
Who knows where it goes, but this is not a thing. It’s real.

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) April 14, 2019

Additionally, Buttigieg reportedly now has surged to third in popularity among likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa, suggesting it is approaching time, or should be approaching time, for the South Bend, Indiana mayor to put up or shut up.

Admittedly, that could apply to all the Democratic hopefuls. However, it is only about the gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana about whom self-identified "queer" Bob Moser writes

It was the dishonestly named “religious freedom” law—which Pence had signed in March 2015—that helped spur Buttigieg to come out publicly three months later. And Pence’s praise of Buttigieg came after his own popularity had tanked in the wake of the roundly unpopular legislation, which was making his re-election campaign for governor in 2016 an uphill climb. Pence was scrambling to save his political skin, until Trump tapped him as his running mate and delivered him from Indiana. No gay person, by then, could consider him anything but a dangerous and determined enemy of their very humanity.

By refusing to let Pence off the hook, Buttigieg was taking square aim at the religious right’s most cherished rationale for its anti-gay bigotry—the old canard of “loving the sinner but hating the sin.” Growing up among conservative Christians myself, I heard it constantly: “I love you as a child of God, and part of my love is telling you that you’re eternally damned if you don’t suppress your desires.” Pence is the poster boy for this insidious brand of hate masquerading as love, and the smiling face he put on for Buttigieg exemplified it.

Pete Buttigieg's life story, especially his sexual voyage, is heartening to many Democrats. However, the "change" cited by Klein and "the thing" cited by Axelrod are ultimately meaningless and prone to lead to disappointment if unmoored to actual policies.

The "religious freedom" (appropriately placed in quote marks by Moser) legislation signed by then-Indiana governor Pence may have in fact have pushed Buttigieg out of the closet. The mayor now, to much criticism from the right, declares "that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand—that if you’ve got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”

So let's have at it. Neither a presidential candidate nor the mayor of an Indiana city can reverse Indiana Senate Bill 101/ Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which since has been amended.  But he (or she) can advocate the revocation of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, unhesitatingly signed by President Clinton in 1993. 

That should not be difficult for Democratic candidates, several of whom already have blasted the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1994, whose ardent support by then-Senator Joseph Biden is considered a hurdle he must overcome to nomination.

Only one Democratic hopeful is openly gay, has explicitly referred to "my creator," or has boasted “My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man. And yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God.”  He contends his own Party "has lost touch with a religious tradition that I think can help explain and relate our values.”

"Religious freedom" laws subject not only gay individuals but everyone to being denied equal opportunity by someone hiding behind a claim of religious faith. Pete Buttigieg must reveal whether he believes such measures are critical, or antithetical, to the values of a liberal, inclusive society. That applies to all presidential aspirants, but only one has proposed himself as a Christian antidote to the horrid values embodied in Donald Trump.

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How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ilhan?

These two seem to have a disagreement:

Clean up your own party, dude. https://t.co/ip1NPPXCbF

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) April 14, 2019

It does appear that David Frum has remained a registered Republican. However, he has barely been in position to influence the Republican Party since he was effectively thrown out of the American Enterprise Institute in 2010, and probably not at all since he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In the article to which Frum linked in his tweet, he addressed the most recent controversy surrounding Democrat Ilhan Omar, in which the Minnesota congresswoman at a meeting of the Council of American-Islamic Affairs in March indelicately stated  “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

Frum notes that two Democratic presidential candidates already "have offered full-throated endorsements" with other Democrats having defended her.  He reasons

Having promised not to “let him drive us apart” from Omar, Democrats are now stuck with responsibility for the reckless things the representative from Minnesota says, not only about Jews, but about other issues, too. Omar has already served notice that she does not intend to behave more circumspectly in the future. In a Friday-night interview, Stephen Colbert asked Omar whether she would heed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s advice to back-bench it for a while. Omar answered, “I think Nancy knows this very well. Women have been told to go slow and not be seen and not be heard for many years. She wouldn’t have made it to where she is if she did. And it’s certainly the case for minority women … We are not there to be quiet. We are not there to be invisible. We are there to follow the lead of people like Congressman John Lewis and make good trouble.”

Well, this is trouble, and not only because John Lewis suffered a skull fracture when clubbed by an Alabama State Trooper in de facto enforcement of de jure segregation.  Some 54 years later, Representative Omar, her family, and her staff  (thankfully) are being given increased security by Capitol Police in response to a death threat from a civilian, who already has been apprehended.

It's a problem also because, as Frum wrote

The Democrats are on notice. More remarks will be coming...

After Trump’s tweeted attack, Omar will become even more internally uncriticizable and unmanageable, without becoming any more careful or responsible. Indeed, the speech by Omar that provided Trump with the sound bite he exploited—“some people did something”—itself exemplifies her carelessness and irresponsibility.

CAIR was founded in 1994, which was seven years before 2001, a not insignificant distinction in light of the statement by the freshman Democrat. Nonetheless, her Democratic defenders rightly believe that the comment must be considered in context, in which it appears less callous than the GOP is making it out to be. However, the full context impels also the recognition that

Against Omar’s propensity to provoke, the Democratic Party seems institutionally almost defenseless. Pelosi was thwarted when she attempted to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitic expressions by House members. Instead, the House substituted more muddled language in which Jews appeared in a laundry list condemning all expressions of intolerance against “African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others.”

And then at the Republican-Jewish Coalition convention, President Trump told the assembled American Jews that Benjamin Netanyahu is "your prime minister" and a Democratic victory in 2020 "would cripple our country and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves." Thus having accused Jews of dual loyalties, Trump could have been censored by the House of Representatives for anti-Semitic remarks had House Democrats not taken a pass on justifiably accusing Omar of a similar expression of hate.

And now, as Frum realizes, the Democratic Party is stuck.  Representative Omar, far more intelligent than careful, got the message when her Party refused to address her statement on its own (lack of) merit.  Therefore

It cannot be pleasant for Omar’s colleagues to have to wonder and worry what that next remark will be—knowing that Donald Trump and his Twitter feed will be waiting to blame all Democrats for the provocations of one. But by not putting themselves on record about Omar when they could, Democrats now find themselves bound to her for the duration. This problem will get worse, and its political consequences will become ever more costly for Democrats who want to win national elections and govern the country.

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Immigration Diversion

First out of the gate with what was at that moment the latest Trump iteration of disturbing immigration policies was The Washington Post, which reported very late Thursday

White House officials have tried to pressure U.S. immigration authorities to release detainees onto the streets of “sanctuary cities” to retaliate against President Trump’s political adversaries, according to Department of Homeland Security officials and email messages reviewed by The Washington Post.

Trump administration officials have proposed transporting detained immigrants to sanctuary cities at least twice in the past six months — once in November, as a migrant caravan approached the U.S. southern border, and again in February, amid a standoff with Democrats over funding for Trump’s border wall.

If you instinctively recognized that President Trump intended to punish his enemies, you win a prize because

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco was among those the White House wanted to target, according to DHS officials. The administration also considered releasing detainees in other Democratic strongholds.

White House officials first broached the plan in a Nov. 16 email, asking officials at several agencies whether members of the caravan could be arrested at the border and then bused “to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities,” places where local authorities have refused to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.

At least four Democratic Representatives- Mark Pocan (Wisconsin), Earl C. Blumenauer (Oregon), and Nydia Velazques and Alexandria (Sandy) Ocasio-Cortez of New York- have called for the abolition ofImmigration and Customs Enforcement, and at least two Democratic senators have strongly implied it should be dismantled. It seems, however, that it took that most evil of agencies to shoot down the President's brainstorm, for

The White House told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the plan was intended to alleviate a shortage of detention space but also served to send a message to Democrats. The attempt at political retribution raised alarm within ICE, with a top official responding that it was rife with budgetary and liability concerns, and noting that “there are PR risks as well.”

After the White House pressed again in February, ICE’s legal department rejected the idea as inappropriate and rebuffed the administration.

As so few have, someone from within the federal government has stood up to Donald Trump, and it turns out he or she is from ICE.

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, demonstrating an impressive depth of dexterity with adjectives, called the President's idea "ludicrous," "petulant," "insulting," "un-American," "illegal," "immoral," "pathetic," and- most impressively- "the sophistry of adolescence." He did, however, omit one critical adjective: revealing.

Suppose you are an unauthorized immigrant caught at the border or in the nation's interior. You may be returned to the host country, given a court date and then released, or (if arrested for an offense), jailed and then released.

But Donald Trump reportedly wanted to deport (at government expense) some detained immigrants to sanctuary cities.  There is no legal or official definition of "sanctuary city," rather a general concept. Still, we know that if an individual were taken to what the Administration considers a "sanctuary city," he or she could simply relocate if wished.

Presumably, however, the immigrant would not want to move. He/she has been given free passage to a jurisdiction which treats illegal immigrants rather kindly. Moreover, most of these are municipalities in which already reside a large number of the foreign-born, thereby making it easier for the individual to adjust.

Were this policy to have taken effect, President Trump would have been giving the illegal immigrant a huge break and belated Christmas gift. This would not be an unforced error; it would be precisely what Donald Trump intends.

This is revealing, and even a little obvious, if unremarked upon by virtually everyone. Of course, Donald Trump's immigration policies are intended to be cruel; that's Donald Trump. And they are intended to promote "liberal tears," to sadden and/or anger liberals, minorities, and the other folks his base dislikes; that's Republican.

But they are a fraud. President Trump may be mean and heartless. However, contrary to the assumption of both supporters and opponents, his intent is not to limit the number of foreigners in this country. If it were, he probably wouldn't be expanding the H-2B visa program, nor slashing aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, thereby offering residents of those countries incentive to travel north.

ICE may understand what so many on the left, the right, and the center do not.  Trump is motivated less by ethnic animus or a desire to make America great again than he is simultaneously to welcome cheap labor and to signal to his supporters that he's standing up for "us," not "them." It's a cynical game he's playing, using race and pseudo-patriotism as a diversionary tactic. But his strategy has worked before, and he plans to make it work again.

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Another Guy Who Has Never Done Anything Wrong

Writing in The New Republic about the former Vice President, Alex Shepard notes

Although he has yet to formally announce his candidacy, in public appearances he has dismissed complaints that he is not progressive enough. Recently asked about his claim that he had “the most progressive record of anybody running,” Biden snapped back. “I’m not sure when everybody else came out and said they’re for gay marriage,” he said. “I’m not sure when everybody came out and talked about a lot of the things I’ve talked about, but my point is the definition of a progressive now seems to be changing. That is, ‘are you a socialist?’ That’s a real progressive.”

  

Most of those progressives whom Biden sarcastically derides had previously come out (pun intended) for same-sex marriage. It's Barack Obama who had not done so, who had afraid of admitting that he had no problem with it.  However, given that Barack Obama was President, the head honcho, at the time, Biden's proclamation was fairly bold.

That was thoroughly uncharacteristic of Joseph Robinette Biden, who has been known less for courage than bluntness. Shepard adds

Speaking to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on Friday, Biden made light of the stories of his uninvited touching, joking twice that he had “permission” to hug the male, electrical workers’ union president Lonnie Stephenson. Asked by reporters about the women’s allegations, Biden once again was dismissive, and emphatically so. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand more,” he said. “I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I’ve ever done. I’ve never been disrespectful, intentionally, to a man or a woman. That’s not the reputation I’ve had since high school, for God’s sake.”

I'm not sorry for anything that I've ever done.

We have heard that before. In September, 2015 Donald Trump told Jimmy Fallon “I fully think apologizing is a great thing, but you have to be wrong … I will absolutely apologize sometime in the distant future if I'm ever wrong.”

Biden says he's "not sorry for any of my intentions" because his motives are pure.  He has "never been disrespectful, intentionally, to a man or a woman" because there are few people (Trump an obvious exception) who do or say things intending to offend people.  It isn't his reputation for God's sake because Biden has been playing his Catholic card for a long time.

Yet, it is being played by someone who says not "I'm not sorry for anything that I've ever done to comfort a fellow human being," as some of his defenders claim as his motivation. Nor is he unrepentant  because "I'm sometimes overcome by emotion," a trait for which he's admire. It's I'm not sorry for anything that I've ever done.

Biden typically wears his Catholic faith on his sleeve- even when it suits his purpose to think of him as, well, Jewish. If he's "not sorry for anything that I've ever done." in the sacred realm he has a quarrel with a major apostle. In the secular realm, he sounds a little too much like the man currently occupying the top office.

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Anti-Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Too

Though Protestant, I must be anti-Protestant, for I dislike Donald Trump, a professed Presbyterian, Mike Pence (Catholic turned evangelical Protestant), and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, presumed to be the Baptist her father is.

On Monday Ilhan Omar tweeted

Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage. https://t.co/7NyMDgojd7

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 8, 2019

Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.

Slamming Omar, GOP strategist, Trump campaign adviser and Orthodox Jew Jeff Ballabon remarked

The fact is, Jews are not only minority. Jews are the most victimized minority in this country, far more than blacks, Muslims and women, which is what Ilhan Omar keeps on being characterized as though she’s being attacked.

That's an actual quote from one of Stephen Miller's defenders, another of whom is Donald Trump:

'What’s completely unacceptable is for Congesswoman [sic] Omar to target Jews, in this case Stephen Miller.' Jeff Ballabon, B2 Strategic, CEO. @Varneyco," Trump tweeted, referencing a segment on Fox Business Network.

Eager to please the boss, Representative Lee Zeldin of New York tweeted "During my time in Congress before @IlhanOmar got here, I didn't once witness another Member target Jewish people like this with the name calling & other personal attacks. In 2019 though, for @IlhanOmar, this is just called Monday."

For Lee Zeldin (and Donald Trump). this is just called dishonest.   Omar did not criticize a Jew; she criticized someone she considered a white nationalist who happens to be Jewish, whose religion would have escaped the attention of most of America if the President hadn't pointed it out.

Successfully straining to be objective, Eric Levitz explains

Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not it is worth maintaining a semantic distinction between individuals who openly identify as white nationalists and those whose words and deeds betray an ideological commitment to maintaining the United States as a majority-white nation.... But we do know that he has tried to ban Chinese students from American universities and pushed for the deportation of Vietnamese refugees who have been in the United States for decades — a policy with no national-security, economic, or assimilationist rationale. We also know that Miller reportedly told a colleague, “I would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil”; and a middle-school classmate, that they couldn’t be friends anymore because of the classmate’s “Latino heritage.” And we know that he wrote in his high-school yearbook, quoting Teddy Roosevelt, “There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.”

But as Levitz would understand, facts are not at issue when the objective is to stir up animosity among religious and ethnic groups.  There was no mention or hint of Miller's religion, heritage, or ethnicity in Representative Omar's statement. Maintaining merely "Stephen Miller is a white nationalist" who should not have " influence on policy and political appointments," the congresswoman was criticizing someone impersonating a white supremacist who happens to be Jewish.

The GOP response, invoking anti-Semitism out of thin air, was taken following a particular comment by a particular member of Congress. That would qualify me as anti-Protestant, given that I believe that the entire GOP Congress, about half of which is Protestant, is a pack of cowards cowering before a president doing a bad impersonation of a President, a worse one of a human being.

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A Trump Immigration Diversion

President Donald Trump has

once again insisted the US immigration system was overburdened and illegal border crossings must be stopped on a visit to the US-Mexico border in California.

Trump traveled to Calexico, California, on Friday to view a section of the border barrier and participate in a roundtable on immigration.

“There is indeed an emergency on our southern border,” Trump said at the briefing, adding that there had been a sharp uptick in illegal crossings. “It’s a colossal surge, and it’s overwhelming our immigration system. We can’t take you any more. Our country is full.”

Maybe not quite so full. The New York Times notes

In smaller cities and rural areas, demographic decline is a fundamental fact of life. A recent study by the Economic Innovation Group found that 80 percent of American counties, with a combined population of 149 million, saw a decline in their number of prime working-age adults from 2007 to 2017.

Addressing the same topic, Ezra Klein explains that these

communities also see weaker housing markets, higher borrowing costs, and more vacant properties. And because these communities were larger in the past, they find themselves struggling to support infrastructure built for a bigger tax base than they now have.

All of this can create a cycle of exit, in which the residents most able to find jobs elsewhere flee, leaving the economy even weaker, which drives out the next tranche of residents with the best opportunities elsewhere, and so on.

America’s political system is structured to advantage sparsely populated areas over densely populated ones. To the extent that more areas are seeing populations stagnate and even decline, and more economic growth is concentrated in the fastest-growing zip codes, turbulence is to be expected. Arguably, it’s already here.

President Trump has an answer to these demographic realities, maintaining in a briefing at the Mexican border in California

There is indeed an emergency on our southern border. It’s a colossal surge, and it’s overwhelming our immigration system. We can’t take you any more. Our country is full.

Maybe not quite so full. (Continue if you read that a moment earlier.) The Washington Post reports

As President Trump threatened to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border in recent days, his Department of Homeland Security nearly doubled the number of temporary guest worker visas available this summer.

The Homeland Security and Labor departments plan to grant an additional 30,000 H-2B visas this summer on top of the 33,000 they had already planned to give out, the agencies confirmed.

The H-2B visa allows foreign workers to come to the United States legally and work for several months at companies such as landscapers, amusement parks or hotels. About 80 percent of these visas went to people from Mexico and Central America last year, government data shows....

With the additional visas, the Trump administration is on track to grant 96,000 H-2B visas this fiscal year, the most since 2007, when George W. Bush was president.

There is a big problem with people being here illegally, and it's individuals and families overstaying their visas.  Citing a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, Politifact last year found "overstayers were 42 percent, or nearly half, of the country’s undocumented population in 2014" and "with the decline in illegal border crossings, it’s fair to estimate that visa overstayers now account for an increasing share of the country’s undocumented population." That same report, another media outlet summarized

finds that from 2016-2017, people who overstayed their visas accounted for 62 percent of the newly undocumented, while 38 percent had crossed a border illegally.

"It is clear from our research that persons who overstay their visas add to the US undocumented population at a higher rate than border crossers. This is not a blip, but a trend which has become the norm," said Donald Kerwin, CMS' executive director, in a statement.

Xenophobic? Ethnocentric? Evidently not, because Kerwin adds

"As these numbers indicate, construction of hundreds of more miles of border wall would not address the challenge of irregular migration into our country, far from it."

The study also finds that the undocumented population from Mexico fell by almost 400,000 people in 2017 and that since 2010, the number of undocumented from that country fell by 1.3 million.

In Politico last week, three Homeland Security veterans observed "A wall will not stop asylum seekers from coming to the United States and being able to claim asylum. A wall will not address, let alone fix, the issues with America’s asylum system and immigration courts." Nor will it account for the millions of individuals living in the USA illegally.

Donald Trump's policies are only making these problems worse. He is right, though, about one thing: there is a severe immigration problem. It's just not the one he has been selling for nearly four years.

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