Putin’s Sham Vote

Kiev From June 25 to July 1 , Russia held a week of balloting on a package of amendments to the Russian constitution , the headliner of which was a provision that , as it is often described in the press , “ resets the presidential term-limit clock to zero.
” Its approval means that Russian President Vladimir Putin can run for two additional six-year terms when his current stint ends in 2024 .
This would have Putin occupying the president ’ s chair ( the possibility of him losing a presidential election is not even acknowledged ) until 2036 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of age .
The former KGB lieutenant colonel has been in power since 2000 and has been the president for this entire period—except 2008-2012 when he served as prime minister and Dmitri Medvedev was president for one four-year term .
A presidency continuing until 2036 would make him the longest-reigning Russian ruler in modern history , surpassing even the three decades of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin .
Before the vote , the greatest fear of the ruling order in the Kremlin , a Moscow-based political analyst explained to me , was that “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constitutional amendments would fall far short of a majority of the electorate .
Many people are so cynical about this entire process because the always knew Putin was going to find some mechanism to stay in power—it was just a question of how .
Not voting at all was the option that many of them decided would be their way of protesting.
” It is also clear that the administration in the Kremlin understood this reality , which was why all possible steps were taken to boost the voter turnout .
These measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full week to cast their ballots instead of a standard , one-day election .
Among other innovations was permitting voting in the cities of Moscow and Nizhni-Novgorod—as an “ experimental ” procedure—by mobile device .
What is notable is that a relentless public program of advertisements encouraging voters to come out and cast their ballots highlighted all the other items in the list of changes to the Russian constitution .
But the ads made almost no mention of the provision that would effectively make Putin a president-for-life—telegraphing that a “ Putin forever ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Kremlin would like to think .
The other items being voted upon included an increase in pension payments and the minimum wage , a minor reorganization of the government structure , a change in the constitutional language mentioning “ faith in God , ” a ban on gay marriage , requirements of the state institutions to take steps to preserve Russian history , and a ban on top officials holding dual citizenship—the latter of which is likely to be widely violated with little or no consequence for those guilty of doing so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all of those eligible to vote by emphasizing that casting a ballot would make one eligible to win one of “ millions of prizes , ” and not voting means no chance of taking home a new washing machine or hair dryer .
“ It looks like a game show but I ’ m telling everybody I know to take this seriously , it ’ s enough to make you lose your mind , ” said Oleg Kharlamov , a laboratory technician from Moscow , who told Ukraine ’ s UNIAN news service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proposed amendments .
The vote would help determine “ who ’ s in charge for the next generation , and if we complain , they will say .
.
.
‘ you voted for it , ’ ” he said .
Not taking the balloting seriously was also fairly easy to do , as this vote entailed almost no safeguards against the stuffing of ballot boxes .
Using the COVID-19 pandemic as the excuse , election officials decided that from a public health standpoint it would be “ safer ” to collect ballots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on tree stumps , in the trunks of automobiles , on public buses—even on plastic patio furniture .
Speaking with the Russian media just before the week of voting began , Grigory Melkonyants , the co-chair of Russia ’ s independent election-monitoring organization Golos , declared the vote to be the “ most manipulative ” and “ least transparent ” election in the history of modern Russia .
“ We ’ ve never had this many complaints from people telling us they are being pressured to vote , ” he told the Moscow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the pandemic “ to their advantage , ” Melkonyants said .
“ Mask-wearing and social-distancing guidelines mean observers won ’ t be able to verify a voter ’ s identity.
” Election observers , who are normally given full access to all polling stations , were not allowed to visit any of them without first securing approval from the local election commission .
No video monitoring of polling stations was made possible and the ballot boxes themselves were kept overnight in the polling stations and not in central lockup of the local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this arrangement Plenty of reasons for doubting the integrity of the results soon emerged .
Despite numerous assurances from public officials that those voting by electronic device online would not be permitted to cast a paper ballot or vice versa , a reporter from Moscow ’ s Dozhd TV was able to do just that .
His double-vote was caught and corrected only because he embarrassed the city election commission by reporting the incident online .
Putin ’ s victory was preordained .
Local and regional officials were literally given quotas of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yes ” votes—that they were required to meet , in a move that harks back to the orders in the old Soviet “ five-year plans ” to fulfill production quotas .
Other reports have emerged of voters being assigned QR codes and then being told that voting entered them in a raffle to win a car or an apartment , with the QR codes being generated in the first place by local companies uploading a list of their employees to a website designed to get out the vote .
Public figures with wide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offered millions of Russian rubles in under-the-table payments if they encouraged all their followers to cast ballots .
But perhaps the clearest sign that the fix was in was the fact that , weeks before the vote even took place , publishing houses were already stocking bookstores in Moscow and elsewhere with copies of the new , amended constitution—even though no changes had been approved yet .
Prior to the election , the Kremlin ’ s orders about voter turnout were for the measures to pass by a margin of at least 70 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the final tally was roughly just that—79 percent in favor of the changes to the constitution and 21 percent against , with a 68 percent voter turnout .
Equally unsurprising are the charges of massive electoral fraud leveled in Moscow over the weekend .
An independent analysis by Russian researcher Sergei Shpilkin estimates that at least 22 million votes—one out of every four tallied—were cast fraudulently .
The falsification of the vote “ exceeded anything seen before ” in recent Russian elections , he wrote in an article after the balloting , describing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That famous joke of bygone generations about “ in Chicago we vote early and often ” would look like a clean election by comparison Putin now has the result he wanted , but that does not mean the road ahead is free of potential disruptions .
The Levada Center , which is virtually the only reliable and independent polling entity left in Russia , puts Putin ’ s popularity at its lowest point since he came to power in 2000 .
According to VTsIOM , the state polling agency , for the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have said they actually trust Putin .
Furthermore , the stamp of legitimacy Putin had wanted as a result of this vote is nonexistent .
Factoring in the likely number of fraudulent votes reveals that no more than 29 percent of all eligible voters cast a ballot in favor of the constitutional changes .
There are also huge divisions among ethnic Russians , with 40 percent approving and 30 percent opposing giving Putin two more terms in office .
Russia faces immense problems of social and economic disintegration .
Infrastructure , one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ performed reasonably well , is becoming more and more an abject failure under Putin ’ s rule .
A recent oil spill in the Arctic region of Norilsk has only added to the list of ecological disasters in post-Communist Russia .
“ Putin now has the constitutional authority to keep running for president until he is the same age as [ presumptive U.S. Democratic nominee ] Joe Biden is today , ” a leading Russian political analyst here in Kiev told me .
“ But given the problems of Russia today and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an ironclad guarantee that Putin can remain in power this long—or that the system of government he has created is sustainable .
”

Kiev
From June 25 to July 1, Russia held a week of balloting on a package of amendments to the Russian constitution, the headliner of which was a provision that, as it is often described in the press, “resets the presidential term-limit clock to zero.” Its approval means that Russian President Vladimir Putin can run for two additional six-year terms when his current stint ends in 2024.
This would have Putin occupying the president’s chair (the possibility of him losing a presidential election is not even acknowledged) until 2036, when he would be 83 years of age. The former KGB lieutenant colonel has been in power since 2000 and has been the president for this entire period—except 2008-2012 when he served as prime minister and Dmitri Medvedev was president for one four-year term. A presidency continuing until 2036 would make him the longest-reigning Russian ruler in modern history, surpassing even the three decades of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Before the vote, the greatest fear of the ruling order in the Kremlin, a Moscow-based political analyst explained to me, was that “the turnout in voter participation for these constitutional amendments would fall far short of a majority of the electorate. Many people are so cynical about this entire process because the always knew Putin was going to find some mechanism to stay in power—it was just a question of how. Not voting at all was the option that many of them decided would be their way of protesting.”
It is also clear that the administration in the Kremlin understood this reality, which was why all possible steps were taken to boost the voter turnout. These measures went well beyond just allowing voters a full week to cast their ballots instead of a standard, one-day election. Among other innovations was permitting voting in the cities of Moscow and Nizhni-Novgorod—as an “experimental” procedure—by mobile device.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
What is notable is that a relentless public program of advertisements encouraging voters to come out and cast their ballots highlighted all the other items in the list of changes to the Russian constitution. But the ads made almost no mention of the provision that would effectively make Putin a president-for-life—telegraphing that a “Putin forever” scenario is not nearly as popular as the Kremlin would like to think.
The other items being voted upon included an increase in pension payments and the minimum wage, a minor reorganization of the government structure, a change in the constitutional language mentioning “faith in God,” a ban on gay marriage, requirements of the state institutions to take steps to preserve Russian history, and a ban on top officials holding dual citizenship—the latter of which is likely to be widely violated with little or no consequence for those guilty of doing so.
The same ads attempted to entice all of those eligible to vote by emphasizing that casting a ballot would make one eligible to win one of “millions of prizes,” and not voting means no chance of taking home a new washing machine or hair dryer.
“It looks like a game show but I’m telling everybody I know to take this seriously, it’s enough to make you lose your mind,” said Oleg Kharlamov, a laboratory technician from Moscow, who told Ukraine’s UNIAN news service that he intended to vote against the proposed amendments. The vote would help determine “who’s in charge for the next generation, and if we complain, they will say . . . ‘you voted for it,’” he said.
Not taking the balloting seriously was also fairly easy to do, as this vote entailed almost no safeguards against the stuffing of ballot boxes. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as the excuse, election officials decided that from a public health standpoint it would be “safer” to collect ballots outdoors. So ballot boxes were placed on tree stumps, in the trunks of automobiles, on public buses—even on plastic patio furniture.
(It is worth noting that, although the international press often referred to the vote as a “referendum,” it technically was not. Under Russian law, a formal referendum entails a number of requirements—including election monitors with free access to polling stations, no electronic voting, voting limited to one day—that Putin’s government was able to circumvent by calling this a “general vote,” a term with no legal meaning.)
Speaking with the Russian media just before the week of voting began, Grigory Melkonyants, the co-chair of Russia’s independent election-monitoring organization Golos, declared the vote to be the “most manipulative” and “least transparent” election in the history of modern Russia. “We’ve never had this many complaints from people telling us they are being pressured to vote,” he told the Moscow Times.
The authorities are making use of the pandemic “to their advantage,” Melkonyants said. “Mask-wearing and social-distancing guidelines mean observers won’t be able to verify a voter’s identity.”
Election observers, who are normally given full access to all polling stations, were not allowed to visit any of them without first securing approval from the local election commission. No video monitoring of polling stations was made possible and the ballot boxes themselves were kept overnight in the polling stations and not in central lockup of the local election board. As Melkonyants described it, this arrangement
leaves a dark zone in which we won’t know what is happening. . . . It opens up the possibility for mass tampering. . . . The motivation in my mind is to make the voting maximally non-transparent. . . . This very seriously influences our trust in the results.
Plenty of reasons for doubting the integrity of the results soon emerged. Despite numerous assurances from public officials that those voting by electronic device online would not be permitted to cast a paper ballot or vice versa, a reporter from Moscow’s Dozhd TV was able to do just that. His double-vote was caught and corrected only because he embarrassed the city election commission by reporting the incident online.
Putin’s victory was preordained. Local and regional officials were literally given quotas of voter participation—as well as numbers of “yes” votes—that they were required to meet, in a move that harks back to the orders in the old Soviet “five-year plans” to fulfill production quotas.
Other reports have emerged of voters being assigned QR codes and then being told that voting entered them in a raffle to win a car or an apartment, with the QR codes being generated in the first place by local companies uploading a list of their employees to a website designed to get out the vote. Public figures with wide followings on Instagram and TikTok were even offered millions of Russian rubles in under-the-table payments if they encouraged all their followers to cast ballots.
But perhaps the clearest sign that the fix was in was the fact that, weeks before the vote even took place, publishing houses were already stocking bookstores in Moscow and elsewhere with copies of the new, amended constitution—even though no changes had been approved yet.
Prior to the election, the Kremlin’s orders about voter turnout were for the measures to pass by a margin of at least 70 to 30 percent. Not surprisingly, the final tally was roughly just that—79 percent in favor of the changes to the constitution and 21 percent against, with a 68 percent voter turnout.
Equally unsurprising are the charges of massive electoral fraud leveled in Moscow over the weekend. An independent analysis by Russian researcher Sergei Shpilkin estimates that at least 22 million votes—one out of every four tallied—were cast fraudulently. The falsification of the vote “exceeded anything seen before” in recent Russian elections, he wrote in an article after the balloting, describing it as an “unprecedented situation.”
That famous joke of bygone generations about “in Chicago we vote early and often” would look like a clean election by comparison
Putin now has the result he wanted, but that does not mean the road ahead is free of potential disruptions. The Levada Center, which is virtually the only reliable and independent polling entity left in Russia, puts Putin’s popularity at its lowest point since he came to power in 2000. According to VTsIOM, the state polling agency, for the last several months under 30 percent of Russians have said they actually trust Putin.
Furthermore, the stamp of legitimacy Putin had wanted as a result of this vote is nonexistent. Factoring in the likely number of fraudulent votes reveals that no more than 29 percent of all eligible voters cast a ballot in favor of the constitutional changes. There are also huge divisions among ethnic Russians, with 40 percent approving and 30 percent opposing giving Putin two more terms in office.
Russia faces immense problems of social and economic disintegration. Infrastructure, one of the few areas in which Soviet planners performed reasonably well, is becoming more and more an abject failure under Putin’s rule. A recent oil spill in the Arctic region of Norilsk has only added to the list of ecological disasters in post-Communist Russia.
“Putin now has the constitutional authority to keep running for president until he is the same age as [presumptive U.S. Democratic nominee] Joe Biden is today,” a leading Russian political analyst here in Kiev told me. “But given the problems of Russia today and the troubles ahead it is by no means an ironclad guarantee that Putin can remain in power this long—or that the system of government he has created is sustainable.”


thebulwark--2020-07-09--What Statues Really Mean

What Statues Really Mean

In all the brouhaha surrounding the removal of statues and flags , it is curious to note that much of the news coverage focuses on the effect these symbols have on people .
Some people are proud of them , other people are offended by them , but there doesn ’ t seem to be anyone asking what the point of these historical relics was in the first place .
So let ’ s pause for a second and do that .
I know this might sound rhetorical but consider the most basic question first : What is a monument @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say anything about the subject being a terrific person who , if alive and available , would make a great babysitter for your kids .
That ’ s because monuments are built to commemorate people who achieve great things , and beholding them is a way to recall and celebrate that thing not so much as their personhood and definitely not their personality .
Einstein came up with the theory of relativity and monuments to him celebrate this incredible achievement .
Sure , we could put up a statue that says “ E=mc2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weird .
So instead , we sculpt Einstein ’ s face and silly hairdo .
But in so doing we ’ re not celebrating Albert the man .
We ’ re celebrating E=mc2 .
It doesn ’ t matter what Einstein ’ s personal failings were anymore than it would matter if he was also a reasonably good piano player .
Because we ’ re not honoring him .
We ’ re honoring the theory of relativity which he discovered .
There is currently a petition to remove a statue of Walt Whitman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Jersey .
I ’ m not making this up !
Why ?
Because Whitman espoused racist views .
That ’ s truly unfortunate .
But it also doesn ’ t diminish the quality of Whitman ’ s poetry and the monument isn ’ t about Whitman ’ s person , it ’ s to commemorate his poetry because you can ’ t build a monument that looks like “ verse.
” People are—you may have noticed this during your lived experience—imperfect .
Frequently fantastically so .
Some of these wildly imperfect people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ achieve things that are deeply important for our culture .
And it is not a crime to celebrate these accomplishments , even if the messengers are flawed .
Which brings us to the statues of the Confederate generals .
Here , again , it ’ s important to ask : What did these men achieve ?
Well .
They started an uprising against America mostly to preserve their right to keep human beings as chattel .
That was their achievement !
And in erecting statues to them , that ’ s the event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no idea how good or bad these people were .
Maybe Robert E. Lee was the kindest , most generous man in his town and perhaps he even roasted the tastiest chicken in all of Virginia .
But that ’ s not why people erected statues of him .
In truth , it ’ s actually kind of astonishing that statues of Confederates were ever allowed to be put up !
Normally the losing army doesn ’ t get to celebrate its heroes .
Normally the losing army gets occupied for decades and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look at Germany .
See any monuments to the Nazis ?
No .
There aren ’ t any .
But the Germans do have monuments to Richard Wagner , even though he was by all accounts a raging anti-Semite .
But Wagner also wrote some astonishingly good music and that is what monuments to him commemorate , not his hatred of the Jews .
So yes , we should absolutely remove the statues that celebrate the “ achievement ” of starting a traitorous , violent uprising and then losing only after over 750,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are commemorating that insurrection and nothing else .
George Washington owned slaves—this is a sad fact but that ’ s not the fact we celebrate when we put up monuments to him !
What we ’ re celebrating is the founding of this nation and the tenets enshrined in the Declaration of Independence .
We can question Washington ’ s ethics and personal life choices all day long .
But they aren ’ t the reason we honor him and if we ’ re going to stop honoring him because he owned slaves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ common , we should all just agree that the very notion of honoring people for their achievements is a bad idea because even if anyone is able to pass a full proctological examination of their personal failings now , we can be pretty sure than within a generation or two , they will also have turned out to believe things which are then considered beyond the pale .
The guiding principle when deciding to erect or remove monuments should be “ was this person ’ s achievement something worthy of celebration and commemoration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time to put up ( or take down ) statues of Wagner or Michael Jackson you will get lost in the weeds of whether or not they were good people ( spoiler alert : they weren ’ t ) and forget that who they were as people is no longer especially relevant ; what they achieved is what we ’ re memorializing and what they achieved was magnificent .
Ditto the Founding Fathers and very much not the dumbasses who started , fought , and lost the Civil War .

In all the brouhaha surrounding the removal of statues and flags, it is curious to note that much of the news coverage focuses on the effect these symbols have on people. Some people are proud of them, other people are offended by them, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone asking what the point of these historical relics was in the first place.
So let’s pause for a second and do that. I know this might sound rhetorical but consider the most basic question first: What is a monument?
Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:
A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical, political, technical or architectural importance.
Notice that this doesn’t say anything about the subject being a terrific person who, if alive and available, would make a great babysitter for your kids.
That’s because monuments are built to commemorate people who achieve great things, and beholding them is a way to recall and celebrate that thing not so much as their personhood and definitely not their personality.
Einstein came up with the theory of relativity and monuments to him celebrate this incredible achievement. Sure, we could put up a statue that says “E=mc2” but that would look kind of weird. So instead, we sculpt Einstein’s face and silly hairdo. But in so doing we’re not celebrating Albert the man. We’re celebrating E=mc2. It doesn’t matter what Einstein’s personal failings were anymore than it would matter if he was also a reasonably good piano player. Because we’re not honoring him. We’re honoring the theory of relativity which he discovered.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
There is currently a petition to remove a statue of Walt Whitman at the Rutgers campus in Camden, New Jersey. I’m not making this up! Why? Because Whitman espoused racist views. That’s truly unfortunate. But it also doesn’t diminish the quality of Whitman’s poetry and the monument isn’t about Whitman’s person, it’s to commemorate his poetry because you can’t build a monument that looks like “verse.”
People are—you may have noticed this during your lived experience—imperfect. Frequently fantastically so.
Some of these wildly imperfect people occasionally stumble across truly amazing discoveries or achieve things that are deeply important for our culture. And it is not a crime to celebrate these accomplishments, even if the messengers are flawed.
Which brings us to the statues of the Confederate generals. Here, again, it’s important to ask: What did these men achieve?
Well. They started an uprising against America mostly to preserve their right to keep human beings as chattel. That was their achievement! And in erecting statues to them, that’s the event being commemorated! Again, we have no idea how good or bad these people were. Maybe Robert E. Lee was the kindest, most generous man in his town and perhaps he even roasted the tastiest chicken in all of Virginia. But that’s not why people erected statues of him.
In truth, it’s actually kind of astonishing that statues of Confederates were ever allowed to be put up! Normally the losing army doesn’t get to celebrate its heroes. Normally the losing army gets occupied for decades and re-educated by the victors. Take a look at Germany. See any monuments to the Nazis? No. There aren’t any. But the Germans do have monuments to Richard Wagner, even though he was by all accounts a raging anti-Semite. But Wagner also wrote some astonishingly good music and that is what monuments to him commemorate, not his hatred of the Jews.
So yes, we should absolutely remove the statues that celebrate the “achievement” of starting a traitorous, violent uprising and then losing only after over 750,000 men got killed, because those statues are commemorating that insurrection and nothing else.
George Washington owned slaves—this is a sad fact but that’s not the fact we celebrate when we put up monuments to him! What we’re celebrating is the founding of this nation and the tenets enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. We can question Washington’s ethics and personal life choices all day long. But they aren’t the reason we honor him and if we’re going to stop honoring him because he owned slaves at a time when slave ownership was common, we should all just agree that the very notion of honoring people for their achievements is a bad idea because even if anyone is able to pass a full proctological examination of their personal failings now, we can be pretty sure than within a generation or two, they will also have turned out to believe things which are then considered beyond the pale.
The guiding principle when deciding to erect or remove monuments should be “was this person’s achievement something worthy of celebration and commemoration?”
Otherwise, when it comes time to put up (or take down) statues of Wagner or Michael Jackson you will get lost in the weeds of whether or not they were good people (spoiler alert: they weren’t) and forget that who they were as people is no longer especially relevant; what they achieved is what we’re memorializing and what they achieved was magnificent.
Ditto the Founding Fathers and very much not the dumbasses who started, fought, and lost the Civil War.


thebulwark--2020-07-09--Now is the Time to Stand with Dreamers

Now is the Time to Stand with Dreamers

In June , the U.S. Supreme Court surprised many with a decision that , for the moment , keeps the hopes of Dreamers — immigrants who came to America as children — alive .
While affirming the president ’ s authority to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ( DACA ) program , the 5-4 opinion found that the process by which the Trump administration had ended the program was legally insufficient .
For many Christians and others who know and love Dreamers , the Court ’ s decision was a huge relief – but temporary .
Why not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they represent ?
The administration has already indicated that it intends to try to end DACA again .
But there is an opportunity for a different course of action–a political solution exists that benefits the administration , the Dreamers and our country .
If the President were to change course on DACA and demonstrate leadership on the issue so that the Senate can pass permanent relief for Dreamers , such support would add to the strength of America .
Even though the administration has taken a tough stance on immigration and frequently uses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is in the President ’ s own interests given their important contributions to the economy and their roles as first responders and essential workers in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic .
DACA is not primarily a political issue for evangelical Christians : Dreamers are us .
There are estimated hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients that are faithful members of evangelical denominations that comprise the National Association of Evangelicals .
Dreamers are students on scores of Christian colleges , university and seminary campuses represented by the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ academic communities , and are indispensable to the educational communities they study in .
Many evangelicals stand in solidarity with Dreamers .
A recent poll finds that 76 percent of white evangelicals want Dreamers to be allowed to stay lawfully in the United States , with just 20 percent opposed ; support among non-white evangelicals is likely even higher .
Christians , whose highest authority is the Bible , are mindful of God ’ s particular concern for the vulnerable .
Throughout the Scriptures , God identifies immigrants , alongside orphans and widows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ injustice , whom he loves and whom he commands his people to protect .
Jesus paid special attention to children and to those who have care and supervision for their wellbeing .
Though many Dreamers are now adults , they have done all that this country and those in authority have asked : completing the application for DACA , including clearing criminal background checks ; paying application fees ; and contributing in a plethora of well-documented ways .
We urge the president to solve a pressing humanitarian problem by publicly calling upon Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Dreamers , allowing them to apply for permanent legal status and , eventually citizenship .
The American Dream and Promise Act , the bill already passed by the House in a bipartisan vote , would allow Dreamers to earn citizenship in the United States , which most consider their home .
We also call on voters to speak boldly and clearly to their senators and representatives , asking that they take action to protect Dreamers .
Congress has been stymied – under both Democratic and Republican control – to act over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ introduced in 2001 .
But we have seen Congress act together for the wellbeing of the nation during this pandemic to send relief , and now is the time for joint action again .
Justice Kavanaugh said that the uncertainty now hanging over the country “ is a result of Congress ’ s inability thus far to agree on legislation , which in turn has forced successive administrations to improvise , thereby triggering many rounds of relentless litigation with the prospect of more litigation to come.
” Our American ideals are about making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hope for a better future .
America would be its best self by acting for Dreamers .
There are times when the right , just action is not politically expedient .
This is not one of those instances .
The administration and Congress can do what is right and wanted by the majority of the people they represent by immediately passing legislation to resolve the long nightmare facing Dreamers once and for all .
In this time of extraordinary uncertainty , Congress can and must act .

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court surprised many with a decision that, for the moment, keeps the hopes of Dreamers — immigrants who came to America as children — alive. While affirming the president’s authority to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the 5-4 opinion found that the process by which the Trump administration had ended the program was legally insufficient.
For many Christians and others who know and love Dreamers, the Court’s decision was a huge relief – but temporary. Why not permanently protect Dreamers and the American values they represent?
The administration has already indicated that it intends to try to end DACA again. But there is an opportunity for a different course of action–a political solution exists that benefits the administration, the Dreamers and our country. If the President were to change course on DACA and demonstrate leadership on the issue so that the Senate can pass permanent relief for Dreamers, such support would add to the strength of America.
Even though the administration has taken a tough stance on immigration and frequently uses charged rhetoric about security, supporting Dreamers is in the President’s own interests given their important contributions to the economy and their roles as first responders and essential workers in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
DACA is not primarily a political issue for evangelical Christians: Dreamers are us. There are estimated hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients that are faithful members of evangelical denominations that comprise the National Association of Evangelicals. Dreamers are students on scores of Christian colleges, university and seminary campuses represented by the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. They contribute richly to churches and academic communities, and are indispensable to the educational communities they study in.
Many evangelicals stand in solidarity with Dreamers. A recent poll finds that 76 percent of white evangelicals want Dreamers to be allowed to stay lawfully in the United States, with just 20 percent opposed; support among non-white evangelicals is likely even higher.
Christians, whose highest authority is the Bible, are mindful of God’s particular concern for the vulnerable. Throughout the Scriptures, God identifies immigrants, alongside orphans and widows, as among those uniquely vulnerable to injustice, whom he loves and whom he commands his people to protect. Jesus paid special attention to children and to those who have care and supervision for their wellbeing. Though many Dreamers are now adults, they have done all that this country and those in authority have asked: completing the application for DACA, including clearing criminal background checks; paying application fees; and contributing in a plethora of well-documented ways.
We urge the president to solve a pressing humanitarian problem by publicly calling upon Congress to quickly pass a clean legislative solution for Dreamers, allowing them to apply for permanent legal status and, eventually citizenship. The American Dream and Promise Act, the bill already passed by the House in a bipartisan vote, would allow Dreamers to earn citizenship in the United States, which most consider their home.
We also call on voters to speak boldly and clearly to their senators and representatives, asking that they take action to protect Dreamers. Congress has been stymied – under both Democratic and Republican control – to act over the decades since the DREAM Act was first introduced in 2001. But we have seen Congress act together for the wellbeing of the nation during this pandemic to send relief, and now is the time for joint action again.
Justice Kavanaugh said that the uncertainty now hanging over the country “is a result of Congress’s inability thus far to agree on legislation, which in turn has forced successive administrations to improvise, thereby triggering many rounds of relentless litigation with the prospect of more litigation to come.”
Our American ideals are about making life better for people and about providing hope for a better future. America would be its best self by acting for Dreamers. There are times when the right, just action is not politically expedient. This is not one of those instances. The administration and Congress can do what is right and wanted by the majority of the people they represent by immediately passing legislation to resolve the long nightmare facing Dreamers once and for all. In this time of extraordinary uncertainty, Congress can and must act.


thebulwark--2020-07-10--Iran and the Murder of a Respected Iraqi Security and Politics Analyst

On Monday , an Iraqi national security expert , Husham al-Hashimi , was shot to death in Baghdad .
A renowned expert in his field and a fellow at a Washington , D.C.-based think tank , the Center for Global Policy , he was gunned down as he parked his car outside his home , reportedly by men who rode off on motorcycles .
He had appeared on TV less than an hour before he was killed .
His murder must be understood in the context of who did it and why .
Al-Hashimi ’ s assassination was clearly an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iran-backed militias in Iraq—critics who are crucial to the success of the young and fragile Iraqi democracy in which Americans have invested so much .
He had for months been receiving threats from the militias .
His killing was most likely carried out upon the order of the Iranian regime , or at least with a nod from it .
Why has the murder of al-Hashimi received so much less press attention than that of Jamal Khashoggi two years ago ?
Like Khashoggi , al-Hashimi was known in D.C. circles and had friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an important critical voice for democracy and the rule of law .
Like Khashoggi , al-Hashimi was killed because of his criticism .
Yet while Khashoggi ’ s killing justifiably received weeks of prominent coverage , including on the front pages of the nation ’ s newspapers , al-Hashimi ’ s story has received far less .
The New York Times and Washington Post have so far each reported one story on al-Hashimi ’ s assassination ( and each has run a handful of Associated Press stories ) .
CNN ran an article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have been able to tell has not yet devoted an on-air segment to al-Hashimi ’ s assassination .
Other outlets across the country that ran news and opinion pieces about Khashoggi ’ s gruesome death have taken no notice of al-Hashimi ’ s execution .
Inside the pro-democracy Iranian-American community—of which I am a member—there has long been a grievance about the relatively soft treatment of Iran in mainstream American media .
Yes , the conservative press is critical of Iran .
But for decades , mainstream outlets have been too kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worry that tensions might escalate to war , perhaps out of appreciation for the richness of Persian heritage and culture , maybe for other reasons .
This tendency , whatever its cause , is likely not the entire explanation for why al-Hashimi ’ s death has received little coverage .
But the fact remains that U.S. news outlets have not had much to say about Iran ’ s role in the killing , aside from passing references to “ Iran-backed militias , ” which is a gross understatement of Iran ’ s activities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s violations of human rights within its own borders and its rogue behavior on the international stage—both of which seem to be understood if undercovered by mainstream U.S. media—Iran has literally gotten away with murder for many years in Iraq .
The recent story of Russian bounties on U.S. troops has rightly gotten a great deal of attention , but Iranian support has resulted in the killing of many more American troops in Iraq .
Even after President Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani , the head of Iran ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mentioned that Iran had been orchestrating attacks against U.S. installations in Iraq , including our embassy there , under Soleimani ’ s orders , just days before the U.S. retaliation .
Similarly , while Democrats and progressive commentators advocate for punitive actions against Saudi Arabia for its conduct of the war in Yemen , its violation of human rights , and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi , when it comes to Iran they bizarrely advocate an opposite approach—calling for better relations with the Iranian regime .
But Iran is as guilty as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iran is responsible for the human catastrophe in Syria .
Iranian human rights practices are even worse than the Saudis ’ ( for instance , Iran has the world ’ s highest rate of executions per capita ) .
None of this is intended in any way to excuse Saudi Arabia .
God knows that the United States needs to take a tougher line on Saudi practices at home .
The Saudis are bad actors , no question , and the matter of Saudi citizens ’ connections to the 9/11 attack deserves continued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murder of Jamal Khashoggi was horrific and gruesome .
But the Saudis are not revisionist and revanchist ; Iran is .
The Saudi regime itself has never , so far as we know , planned to conduct assassination on U.S. soil ; Iran has .
The Saudis have horrifically killed critics of their regime , like Jamal Khashoggi ; the Iranians have killed many more .
The Saudis have not bombed a Jewish center ; the Iranians have .
The Saudi regime ’ s legitimacy does not rely on undermining U.S. interests ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Saudis never tried to cost the United States a war in Iraq or anywhere else ; Iran has been attempting to undermine the U.S. effort in Iraq for most of the last two decades .
Husham al-Hashimi was a critical figure for a better and safer Iraq , which is in the interests of the United States .
Iran ordered or at least approved of his cold-blooded killing because a better and safer Iraq is against Iran ’ s interests .
American news and opinion outlets—and the American people—should accept the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not one to work with peacefully .

On Monday, an Iraqi national security expert, Husham al-Hashimi, was shot to death in Baghdad. A renowned expert in his field and a fellow at a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Center for Global Policy, he was gunned down as he parked his car outside his home, reportedly by men who rode off on motorcycles. He had appeared on TV less than an hour before he was killed.
His murder must be understood in the context of who did it and why.
Al-Hashimi’s assassination was clearly an attempt to silence the critics of the Iran-backed militias in Iraq—critics who are crucial to the success of the young and fragile Iraqi democracy in which Americans have invested so much. He had for months been receiving threats from the militias. His killing was most likely carried out upon the order of the Iranian regime, or at least with a nod from it.
Why has the murder of al-Hashimi received so much less press attention than that of Jamal Khashoggi two years ago? Like Khashoggi, al-Hashimi was known in D.C. circles and had friends there. Like Khashoggi, al-Hashimi had an important critical voice for democracy and the rule of law. Like Khashoggi, al-Hashimi was killed because of his criticism.
Yet while Khashoggi’s killing justifiably received weeks of prominent coverage, including on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, al-Hashimi’s story has received far less. The New York Times and Washington Post have so far each reported one story on al-Hashimi’s assassination (and each has run a handful of Associated Press stories). CNN ran an article on its website but as best as I have been able to tell has not yet devoted an on-air segment to al-Hashimi’s assassination. Other outlets across the country that ran news and opinion pieces about Khashoggi’s gruesome death have taken no notice of al-Hashimi’s execution.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Inside the pro-democracy Iranian-American community—of which I am a member—there has long been a grievance about the relatively soft treatment of Iran in mainstream American media. Yes, the conservative press is critical of Iran. But for decades, mainstream outlets have been too kind to the Iranian regime—perhaps out of a worry that tensions might escalate to war, perhaps out of appreciation for the richness of Persian heritage and culture, maybe for other reasons.
This tendency, whatever its cause, is likely not the entire explanation for why al-Hashimi’s death has received little coverage. But the fact remains that U.S. news outlets have not had much to say about Iran’s role in the killing, aside from passing references to “Iran-backed militias,” which is a gross understatement of Iran’s activities inside Iraq.
In addition Iran’s violations of human rights within its own borders and its rogue behavior on the international stage—both of which seem to be understood if undercovered by mainstream U.S. media—Iran has literally gotten away with murder for many years in Iraq. The recent story of Russian bounties on U.S. troops has rightly gotten a great deal of attention, but Iranian support has resulted in the killing of many more American troops in Iraq. Even after President Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, American pundits rarely mentioned that Iran had been orchestrating attacks against U.S. installations in Iraq, including our embassy there, under Soleimani’s orders, just days before the U.S. retaliation.
Similarly, while Democrats and progressive commentators advocate for punitive actions against Saudi Arabia for its conduct of the war in Yemen, its violation of human rights, and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, when it comes to Iran they bizarrely advocate an opposite approach—calling for better relations with the Iranian regime. But Iran is as guilty as the Saudis for the war in Yemen. Iran is responsible for the human catastrophe in Syria. Iranian human rights practices are even worse than the Saudis’ (for instance, Iran has the world’s highest rate of executions per capita).
None of this is intended in any way to excuse Saudi Arabia. God knows that the United States needs to take a tougher line on Saudi practices at home. The Saudis are bad actors, no question, and the matter of Saudi citizens’ connections to the 9/11 attack deserves continued scrutiny and transparency. And the Saudi murder of Jamal Khashoggi was horrific and gruesome.
But the Saudis are not revisionist and revanchist; Iran is. The Saudi regime itself has never, so far as we know, planned to conduct assassination on U.S. soil; Iran has. The Saudis have horrifically killed critics of their regime, like Jamal Khashoggi; the Iranians have killed many more. The Saudis have not bombed a Jewish center; the Iranians have. The Saudi regime’s legitimacy does not rely on undermining U.S. interests; Iran’s does. Most importantly, the Saudis never tried to cost the United States a war in Iraq or anywhere else; Iran has been attempting to undermine the U.S. effort in Iraq for most of the last two decades.
Husham al-Hashimi was a critical figure for a better and safer Iraq, which is in the interests of the United States. Iran ordered or at least approved of his cold-blooded killing because a better and safer Iraq is against Iran’s interests. American news and opinion outlets—and the American people—should accept the reality that the regime in Iran is not one to work with peacefully.


thebulwark--2020-07-10--Tammy Duckworth and the Trump Trap

Tammy Duckworth and the Trump Trap

In case you , like me , had better things to do over the Independence Day weekend than to watch President Trump ’ s two big speeches , the caterwauling of the commentators has by now caught you up on the gist of his remarks .
At Mount Rushmore last Friday and then at the White House on July 4 , the president struck a defensive tone .
Focusing his attention on those who would recraft American history , he described a new culture war—one based not on abortion and sexuality but on statues , military bases , and arguments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founding and the Civil War .
No doubt some of the concern on the part of President Trump , his campaign , and his supporters is sincere .
Today ’ s iconoclastic impulse is troubling ; if statutes are to come down , it should be done through public deliberation , not mob action .
Still there is a cynicism at work in Trump ’ s comments .
Many Americans fear that removing some historical reminders is a step toward the radical rejection of American history and exceptionalism , and Trump is clearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But Trump ’ s argument sets a trap for his opponents .
And it ’ s a trap that Senator Tammy Duckworth walked right into .
Duckworth is a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois , having been elected in 2016 after serving two terms in the House of Representatives .
During the Obama administration she was an assistant secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs , a job she took after having directed the Illinois state veterans department .
For more than two decades she served in the U.S. Army ; a combat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Iraq in 2004 and both her legs were amputated .
In recent weeks , speculation has mounted that Joe Biden might select her as a running mate .
In a Sunday-morning interview with CNN last weekend , Senator Duckworth was asked about the concern that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson might be canceled .
This should have been an easy question for her ; it could even have been a Sister Souljah moment .
But Duckworth ’ s response was , well , awkward : Duckworth caught , and is continuing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Provocateurs on the right have accused her of wanting to cancel George Washington and Thomas Jefferson , although a fair viewing of the interview shows no such thing .
Duckworth clearly wandered into the politically correct trap that Trump laid for his opponents when she said on the Washington question that we should “ listen to everybody ” before going on to note that Trump ’ s Mount Rushmore speech was given on land stolen from Native Americans and to criticize the president for defending Confederates that she called “ dead traitors.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the culture war question to focus on the Trump administration ’ s flaws , but failed to do so .
It was a murky interview that must be regarded as an unforced error—and one that could damage Duckworth ’ s standing in the veepstakes .
Still , Duckworth might have been able to move on—until Tucker Carlson stepped into the fray on Monday night .
In a meandering rant that was only slightly more coherent that the president ’ s Mount Rushmore speech , Carlson argued that the left actively hates America and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Duckworth , arguing that her military service is no shield from criticism and that she is a deeply unserious and silly person who actually hates America .
Duckworth responded to Carlson via Twitter—does he “ want to walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America ?
” she asked—prompting another outburst from Carlson on Tuesday night .
It ’ s hard to know where to begin with Carlson ’ s rants , but suffice to say it will be hard for anyone who agrees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of having Trump Derangement Syndrome ; this was derangement of a different order .
Carlson says Duckworth is unserious—and , granted , her call for a “ national dialogue ” in which “ we should listen to everybody ” is worthy of an eye roll .
But Carlson can not bring himself simply to correct Duckworth , and perhaps call out her better angels .
Instead , he ’ s content to hurl insults .
It is obviously true that Tammy Duckworth ’ s service to her country in both the military and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says and does .
Yet Carlson would ignore these things altogether , and describes Duckworth in grossly disrespectful terms ( “ coward , ” “ fraud , ” “ moron ” ) .
This behavior is offensive .
And it is dehumanizing : Viewers who take Carlson to heart no longer see Duckworth as a fellow American but instead as an avatar—a serious but not literal figure who represents all that the viewer himself hates about his own country : “ I can ’ t believe any American would believe that !
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ betrays a cynicism that can ’ t be masked by a sharp navy blazer or Mercer oxford shirt .
This is not serious commentary about pressing issues ; it ’ s mad uncle rambling with a well-coiffed hairdo .
Though much of the criticism of Duckworth is unfair and even intentionally misleading , the controversy highlights the need for greater restraint in our public discourse .
America is living through an intense partisan moment .
But the public discourse runs the risk of overheating .
The extent to which words like “ traitor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about is a problem .
The questioning of the patriotism of fellow citizens with whom we disagree is not only uncivil , it is dangerous .
Make no mistake : The secession of the Southern states in 1860 and 1861 was an act of treason .
Lincoln saw it as such ; Grant did , too .
Whether one views the Civil War as a tragic mistake or act of outright betrayal on the part of Southern leaders , it is impossible to ignore that the military and political leaders of the Confederacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Constitution .
While we can be grateful that the nation reconciled as it did in the latter part of the nineteenth century , we must further reckon with the cost of that reconciliation : Much of the magnanimity took place on the backs of former slaves and their descendants , to the shame of both North and South .
The Confederate statues that dot so much of the South were often commissioned and installed to mark the end of Reconstruction and the return of white rule in the old Confederacy .
They are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they were dedicated to the toxic notion of white supremacy .
A recent series of tweets by Anne Twitty , a historian at the University of Mississippi , highlights the degree to which so many monuments were dedicated to the Confederate dead on the understanding that they were not just defenders of Southern independence or the inheritors of 1776 , but also defenders of white supremacy .
Moreover , military bases and high schools throughout the South were named for Confederates as a means of salving Confederate wounds , in the former case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at integration , in the latter case , a rather nasty means of reminding both black soldiers and black students of who was in charge : the descendants of men dedicated their lives and honor to a rebellion and culture that gladly enslaved their forebears .
With that in view , America is due for a reckoning .
Something in the last few years has conjured up so many angry Southern ghosts—not of , say , Southern literature or music , but of crass rebellion and antagonism .
If these honorifics—the statues , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the legacy and reputation of the Confederacy as an idea and an institution , then all other virtues , real or imagined , take a secondary role , and the names and images must go .
Let ’ s return to the far-too-casual throwing around of such terms as “ treason ” and “ traitor ” and “ betrayal.
” As already noted , those within the Union regarded secession as betrayal , but the degree to which the South thought of itself as committing treason is a bit more murky .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s particular view of the Constitution and the terms under which the original colonies came into the Union .
But more importantly , it is the South ’ s honor culture—what Walker Percy identified as Stoic more than Christian—where today ’ s trouble lies .
There is a desire to find decency and goodness in one ’ s ancestors , and because of that , it may be wise to reframe this debate .
Critics of President Trump rightly note that he and many in the GOP are defending titles and iconography @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war that ended a century and a half ago .
By this point in time , they argue , no one should feel the need to honor John Bell Hood and Robert E. Lee , and certainly not Jefferson Davis and Braxton Bragg .
That is very much true .
Still , the critics would be more effective if their forceful and correct criticisms were delivered in a more measured way .
It does not help their cause to make inflammatory accusations that the president and his supporters , because they don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , are somehow refusing to disavow the traitors and racists who tore apart the country .
The critics would be much more effective if they instead said something like : For America to be the nation it desires to be , we should remove these vestiges of the Confederacy from places of public honor .
There is another reason to exercise caution .
Public rhetoric puts words and ideas into spaces that are potentially occupied by other , less restrained voices .
It wouldn ’ t be fair to say that all conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years were moving towards Trumpism .
But there is no denying that the easygoing jingoism of talk radio ( “ You ’ re a great American , my friend ” —Sean Hannity to every caller ) and the culture-war antagonism towards latte-swilling , Volvo-driving effete liberals hit a fever pitch during the Obama years and found its voice in the crass language of Trump , Steve Bannon , and Stephen Miller .
To take just one example , Geoffrey Kabaservice ’ s New York Times review of a new book on Newt Gingrich @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s language reshaped the nature of political debate in the country .
Careless language blurs the line between fantasy and reality , and softens the edges between motives .
Returning to Senator Duckworth , her use of one little word— “ traitor ” —caught her in the president ’ s snare .
Powerful words have a multitude of effects .
The ease with which a politician may label historical figures racists and traitors belies the ease with which all historical figures become racists and traitors without a properly nuanced perspective .
Other arguments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but they are more responsible in the long view , and they are the arguments we should embrace .
There is a crisis of citizenship and historical knowledge in our country .
Both the 1619 Project and the dubiously historical bestsellers of Bill O ’ Reilly and Brian Kilmeade present a picture of America that avoids the deep complexity of the past and therefore fails to cultivate the perspective necessary for thoughtful , engaged citizenship .
President Trump may be thoughtlessly stoking populist grievances , but many of his prominent fellow travelers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cotton and Hawley , understand the nature of these arguments .
Those in the opposition who seek to create an America more properly committed to the notions of liberty enshrined in the Declaration should avoid the temptation of cheap antagonism .
We are indeed in a clarifying moment .
The time has come for the thoughtful removal of public displays of indisputably racist iconography .
Any supposed decency in the Confederacy that might have been preserved has been squandered by those who proudly wave a flag devoid of any honorable meaning , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conspiracies .
We should not taunt these citizens or their ancestors ; we should pity them .
History , if not Providence itself , has rendered a judgment upon the Confederacy , and we should call our fellow countrymen onward , “ with malice towards none , and charity for all… ” as we “ strive to finish the work we are in , to bind up the nation ’ s wounds .
”

In case you, like me, had better things to do over the Independence Day weekend than to watch President Trump’s two big speeches, the caterwauling of the commentators has by now caught you up on the gist of his remarks. At Mount Rushmore last Friday and then at the White House on July 4, the president struck a defensive tone. Focusing his attention on those who would recraft American history, he described a new culture war—one based not on abortion and sexuality but on statues, military bases, and arguments over the legacy of America’s founding and the Civil War.
No doubt some of the concern on the part of President Trump, his campaign, and his supporters is sincere. Today’s iconoclastic impulse is troubling; if statutes are to come down, it should be done through public deliberation, not mob action. Still there is a cynicism at work in Trump’s comments. Many Americans fear that removing some historical reminders is a step toward the radical rejection of American history and exceptionalism, and Trump is clearly trying to lean into those fears.
But Trump’s argument sets a trap for his opponents. And it’s a trap that Senator Tammy Duckworth walked right into.
Duckworth is a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois, having been elected in 2016 after serving two terms in the House of Representatives. During the Obama administration she was an assistant secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a job she took after having directed the Illinois state veterans department. For more than two decades she served in the U.S. Army; a combat helicopter pilot, she was badly injured in Iraq in 2004 and both her legs were amputated. In recent weeks, speculation has mounted that Joe Biden might select her as a running mate.
In a Sunday-morning interview with CNN last weekend, Senator Duckworth was asked about the concern that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson might be canceled. This should have been an easy question for her; it could even have been a Sister Souljah moment. But Duckworth’s response was, well, awkward:
Sen. Tammy Duckworth on President Trump's Mt. Rushmore speech where he defended Confederate monuments: "His priorities are wrong. What are we going to do to push Russia back? Instead, he had no time for that. He spent all his time talking about dead traitors" #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/Qs6bzdGGY3 — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 5, 2020
Duckworth caught, and is continuing to catch, criticism for the interview. Provocateurs on the right have accused her of wanting to cancel George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, although a fair viewing of the interview shows no such thing. Duckworth clearly wandered into the politically correct trap that Trump laid for his opponents when she said on the Washington question that we should “listen to everybody” before going on to note that Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech was given on land stolen from Native Americans and to criticize the president for defending Confederates that she called “dead traitors.” She clearly wanted to pivot away from the culture war question to focus on the Trump administration’s flaws, but failed to do so. It was a murky interview that must be regarded as an unforced error—and one that could damage Duckworth’s standing in the veepstakes.
Still, Duckworth might have been able to move on—until Tucker Carlson stepped into the fray on Monday night. In a meandering rant that was only slightly more coherent that the president’s Mount Rushmore speech, Carlson argued that the left actively hates America and is unfit to govern before zeroing in on Duckworth, arguing that her military service is no shield from criticism and that she is a deeply unserious and silly person who actually hates America.
Tucker: Can the left lead a country they hate?
Watch this video on YouTube
Duckworth responded to Carlson via Twitter—does he “want to walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America?” she asked—prompting another outburst from Carlson on Tuesday night.
It’s hard to know where to begin with Carlson’s rants, but suffice to say it will be hard for anyone who agrees with him to credibly accuse anyone else of having Trump Derangement Syndrome; this was derangement of a different order.
Carlson says Duckworth is unserious—and, granted, her call for a “national dialogue” in which “we should listen to everybody” is worthy of an eye roll. But Carlson cannot bring himself simply to correct Duckworth, and perhaps call out her better angels. Instead, he’s content to hurl insults. It is obviously true that Tammy Duckworth’s service to her country in both the military and the Senate do not validate all she says and does. Yet Carlson would ignore these things altogether, and describes Duckworth in grossly disrespectful terms (“coward,” “fraud,” “moron”). This behavior is offensive.
And it is dehumanizing: Viewers who take Carlson to heart no longer see Duckworth as a fellow American but instead as an avatar—a serious but not literal figure who represents all that the viewer himself hates about his own country: “I can’t believe any American would believe that!”
As for Carlson, his unhinged argument betrays a cynicism that can’t be masked by a sharp navy blazer or Mercer oxford shirt. This is not serious commentary about pressing issues; it’s mad uncle rambling with a well-coiffed hairdo.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Though much of the criticism of Duckworth is unfair and even intentionally misleading, the controversy highlights the need for greater restraint in our public discourse. America is living through an intense partisan moment. But the public discourse runs the risk of overheating. The extent to which words like “traitor” and “treason” are bandied about is a problem. The questioning of the patriotism of fellow citizens with whom we disagree is not only uncivil, it is dangerous.
Make no mistake: The secession of the Southern states in 1860 and 1861 was an act of treason. Lincoln saw it as such; Grant did, too. Whether one views the Civil War as a tragic mistake or act of outright betrayal on the part of Southern leaders, it is impossible to ignore that the military and political leaders of the Confederacy betrayed their oaths to the United States Constitution. While we can be grateful that the nation reconciled as it did in the latter part of the nineteenth century, we must further reckon with the cost of that reconciliation: Much of the magnanimity took place on the backs of former slaves and their descendants, to the shame of both North and South. The Confederate statues that dot so much of the South were often commissioned and installed to mark the end of Reconstruction and the return of white rule in the old Confederacy. They are not simple memorials to the dead, they were dedicated to the toxic notion of white supremacy.
A recent series of tweets by Anne Twitty, a historian at the University of Mississippi, highlights the degree to which so many monuments were dedicated to the Confederate dead on the understanding that they were not just defenders of Southern independence or the inheritors of 1776, but also defenders of white supremacy.
On May 10, 1906, Charles Scott, a candidate for governor who often campaigned in his Confederate uniform, gave the speech dedicating a new Confederate monument at @OleMissRebels. We’ve searched for the full text of this speech for years. On Friday night, I finally found it. — Anne Twitty (@ProfessorTwitty) June 14, 2020
Moreover, military bases and high schools throughout the South were named for Confederates as a means of salving Confederate wounds, in the former case, and thumbing one’s nose at integration, in the latter case, a rather nasty means of reminding both black soldiers and black students of who was in charge: the descendants of men dedicated their lives and honor to a rebellion and culture that gladly enslaved their forebears.
With that in view, America is due for a reckoning. Something in the last few years has conjured up so many angry Southern ghosts—not of, say, Southern literature or music, but of crass rebellion and antagonism. If these honorifics—the statues, army bases, and high schools—give life to the legacy and reputation of the Confederacy as an idea and an institution, then all other virtues, real or imagined, take a secondary role, and the names and images must go.
Let’s return to the far-too-casual throwing around of such terms as “treason” and “traitor” and “betrayal.” As already noted, those within the Union regarded secession as betrayal, but the degree to which the South thought of itself as committing treason is a bit more murky. This is partly due to the South’s particular view of the Constitution and the terms under which the original colonies came into the Union. But more importantly, it is the South’s honor culture—what Walker Percy identified as Stoic more than Christian—where today’s trouble lies. There is a desire to find decency and goodness in one’s ancestors, and because of that, it may be wise to reframe this debate.
Critics of President Trump rightly note that he and many in the GOP are defending titles and iconography that honor the losing side of a war that ended a century and a half ago. By this point in time, they argue, no one should feel the need to honor John Bell Hood and Robert E. Lee, and certainly not Jefferson Davis and Braxton Bragg. That is very much true.
Still, the critics would be more effective if their forceful and correct criticisms were delivered in a more measured way. It does not help their cause to make inflammatory accusations that the president and his supporters, because they don’t want statues torn down by mobs, are somehow refusing to disavow the traitors and racists who tore apart the country. The critics would be much more effective if they instead said something like: For America to be the nation it desires to be, we should remove these vestiges of the Confederacy from places of public honor.
There is another reason to exercise caution. Public rhetoric puts words and ideas into spaces that are potentially occupied by other, less restrained voices. It wouldn’t be fair to say that all conservative ideas and politics of the last sixty years were moving towards Trumpism. But there is no denying that the easygoing jingoism of talk radio (“You’re a great American, my friend”—Sean Hannity to every caller) and the culture-war antagonism towards latte-swilling, Volvo-driving effete liberals hit a fever pitch during the Obama years and found its voice in the crass language of Trump, Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller.
To take just one example, Geoffrey Kabaservice’s New York Times review of a new book on Newt Gingrich reveals the degree to which Gingrich’s language reshaped the nature of political debate in the country. Careless language blurs the line between fantasy and reality, and softens the edges between motives.
Returning to Senator Duckworth, her use of one little word—“traitor”—caught her in the president’s snare. Powerful words have a multitude of effects. The ease with which a politician may label historical figures racists and traitors belies the ease with which all historical figures become racists and traitors without a properly nuanced perspective. Other arguments may be less sexy at first glance, but they are more responsible in the long view, and they are the arguments we should embrace.
There is a crisis of citizenship and historical knowledge in our country. Both the 1619 Project and the dubiously historical bestsellers of Bill O’Reilly and Brian Kilmeade present a picture of America that avoids the deep complexity of the past and therefore fails to cultivate the perspective necessary for thoughtful, engaged citizenship. President Trump may be thoughtlessly stoking populist grievances, but many of his prominent fellow travelers, from Miller and Bannon to Senators Cotton and Hawley, understand the nature of these arguments. Those in the opposition who seek to create an America more properly committed to the notions of liberty enshrined in the Declaration should avoid the temptation of cheap antagonism.
We are indeed in a clarifying moment. The time has come for the thoughtful removal of public displays of indisputably racist iconography. Any supposed decency in the Confederacy that might have been preserved has been squandered by those who proudly wave a flag devoid of any honorable meaning, who traffic in hate, resentment, and conspiracies. We should not taunt these citizens or their ancestors; we should pity them. History, if not Providence itself, has rendered a judgment upon the Confederacy, and we should call our fellow countrymen onward, “with malice towards none, and charity for all…” as we “strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”


What Women Want

One of the great mysteries of 2016 was why so many women voted for Donald Trump .
Despite being caught on a hot mic talking about grabbing women “ by the pu**y , ” nearly 20 sexual assault allegations , and well known accounts of treating his multiple wives horribly , Trump still received the votes of 44 percent of white college-educated women and 61 percent of non-college-educated white women .
Many observers were doubly confused because they had expected Hillary Clinton , as the first major party female nominee , to be especially strong with women .
And she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with African-American and Hispanic women , because he did poorly with all African-Americans and Hispanics .
But he managed to actually win a narrow plurality among white women .
But that mystery has been easy to solve .
Over the last three years I conducted dozens of focus groups with both college-educated and non-college-educated female Trump voters .
And the answer given most commonly for why they voted for Donald Trump is “ I didn ’ t vote for Donald Trump .
I voted against Hillary Clinton.
” In 2016 , Democrats understood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate .
But even they didn ’ t grasp the full magnitude of it .
Right-leaning and Republican female voters had spent more than a decade hating both Clintons , and they didn ’ t stop just because Hillary ’ s opponent was an unrepentant misogynist .
In fact , Bill Clinton ’ s legacy of similarly disgusting behavior with women—and Hillary Clinton ’ s defense of her husband—had the effect of blunting Trump ’ s own execrable track record .
These women voters decided that either way , there ’ d be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sexual malfeasance living in the White House .
But after Trump ’ s victory , something started happening almost immediately .
Women—even those who voted for Trump in 2016—began shifting away from the president .
In the 2018 midterm elections that delivered Democrats 40 congressional seats and control of the House of Representatives , support for Republicans from both college-educated women and non-college-educated white women dropped by 5 points .
And the relationship has gotten worse .
A recent New York Times Upshot/Siena College Poll showed Trump trailing Joe Biden by 22 points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points bigger than the gender gap was in 2016 .
And while much has been made of college-educated women in the suburbs ditching Trump , a recent ABC/Washington Post survey shows that Trump ’ s support with white non-college-educated women has fallen by 11 points .
After nearly three years of conducting focus groups with women who held their nose and voted for Trump in 2016 , this decline hasn ’ t surprised me .
He was holding on to many of those voters with a wing and a prayer and strong economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , these female Trump leaners went running for the exits .
From the beginning of his presidency these women gave Trump low marks for his tweeting and divisiveness—but they also gave him credit for the strong economy and relative prosperity of the last few years .
His perceived business acumen was one of the top reasons many of these women were willing to take a flyer on him in the first place .
Never forget that for many Americans , their impressions of Trump were formed less by his presidential campaign than by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was , through the wonders of editing and reality TV storytelling , presented as a decisive , successful businessman .
In late 2019 and early 2020 with a roaring economy and a bunch of abstract foreign policy scandals consuming the media and the elites whom these voters generally despise and distrust , even Trump-voting-women who rated the president ’ s performance as “ very bad ” weren ’ t entirely sure what they would do in 2020 .
There was still a crowded field of Democratic candidates—many of whom were living , breathing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paint of Democrats .
But by March of 2020 , everything had changed .
First , Joe Biden blew out Bernie Sanders and the rest of the Democratic field .
In my focus groups , Biden had consistently outperformed all other Democrats among the female Trump voters who were souring on the president .
In hypothetical head-to-head matchups , almost none of the women would take Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren over Trump , but a handful would typically ( if not enthusiastically ) pick Biden over Trump .
It can not be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Joe Biden is for attracting disaffected Republican voters—especially women—than any of the other Democrats who ran this cycle .
Then on March 11 the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic .
Two days later , the United States declared a state of emergency .
No one in America will forget what happened next : Lockdowns ; PPE shortages ; 130,000 deaths ; staggering unemployment .
And every night on television voters saw a president both unwilling and incapable of providing clear and coherent leadership .
Since March , I have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s position with women weaken in real time .
Interestingly , in the early days of the pandemic the women in the focus groups were frustrated with Trump , but didn ’ t necessarily hold him responsible for everything that was happening .
He hadn ’ t done great , they said , but it was a tough situation for any president to handle .
It wasn ’ t until the killing of George Floyd and the resulting protests that the bottom started to drop out .
Two weeks after Floyd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group with seven women from swing states—all of whom voted for Trump but currently rated him as doing a “ very bad ” job .
Only one was leaning toward voting for him again .
Three were definitely going to vote for Biden .
The other three were still making up their minds .
But even these undecideds were unequivocal in their distaste for Trump ’ s posture on race and his handling of the protests .
They actively recoiled .
One of the Trump voters who had decided to vote for Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high now .
It ’ s a matter of life and death.
” That ’ s a pretty a good distillation of why Trump has been shedding support from women over the last few months .
The multiple crises laid bare the fact that Donald Trump isn ’ t the savvy businessman these women voted for .
Instead , they see him as a divisive president who ’ s in over his head .
And they see that his inability to successfully navigate this environment has real-world consequences for actual people .
Average @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation , or his quid-pro-quo with Ukraine , or his many personal scandals .
But when people are unemployed , or dying , and the streets are on fire , they want a president who isn ’ t winging it .
They want someone who knows how the world works and can make the government perform the kind of functions that only it can do .
Like managing a coordinated national response to a pandemic .
Or using the bully pulpit to bring the nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Donald Trump and his campaign think they can stop the bleeding with women by leaning into the culture wars and highlighting looters , rioters , and vandals pulling down statues .
But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of these voters .
They don ’ t see Trump as someone who can protect them from the chaos—they think he ’ s the source of it .
Which isn ’ t to say that the race couldn ’ t turn around for one reason or another .
I suppose that crazier things have happened in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t think of many off the top of my head . )
But the reality is that no modern president has done more to alienate female voters .
His whole life Trump has treated women with disdain .
And they are now poised to return the favor .

One of the great mysteries of 2016 was why so many women voted for Donald Trump.
Despite being caught on a hot mic talking about grabbing women “by the pu**y,” nearly 20 sexual assault allegations, and well known accounts of treating his multiple wives horribly, Trump still received the votes of 44 percent of white college-educated women and 61 percent of non-college-educated white women.
Many observers were doubly confused because they had expected Hillary Clinton, as the first major party female nominee, to be especially strong with women. And she wasn’t. Trump did poorly with African-American and Hispanic women, because he did poorly with all African-Americans and Hispanics. But he managed to actually win a narrow plurality among white women.
But that mystery has been easy to solve. Over the last three years I conducted dozens of focus groups with both college-educated and non-college-educated female Trump voters. And the answer given most commonly for why they voted for Donald Trump is “I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I voted against Hillary Clinton.”
In 2016, Democrats understood that Hillary Clinton was a deeply polarizing candidate. But even they didn’t grasp the full magnitude of it. Right-leaning and Republican female voters had spent more than a decade hating both Clintons, and they didn’t stop just because Hillary’s opponent was an unrepentant misogynist.
In fact, Bill Clinton’s legacy of similarly disgusting behavior with women—and Hillary Clinton’s defense of her husband—had the effect of blunting Trump’s own execrable track record. These women voters decided that either way, there’d be a guy with a long history of sexual malfeasance living in the White House.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
But after Trump’s victory, something started happening almost immediately. Women—even those who voted for Trump in 2016—began shifting away from the president.
In the 2018 midterm elections that delivered Democrats 40 congressional seats and control of the House of Representatives, support for Republicans from both college-educated women and non-college-educated white women dropped by 5 points.
And the relationship has gotten worse.
A recent New York Times Upshot/Siena College Poll showed Trump trailing Joe Biden by 22 points with women. That’s 9 points bigger than the gender gap was in 2016.
And while much has been made of college-educated women in the suburbs ditching Trump, a recent ABC/Washington Post survey shows that Trump’s support with white non-college-educated women has fallen by 11 points.
After nearly three years of conducting focus groups with women who held their nose and voted for Trump in 2016, this decline hasn’t surprised me. He was holding on to many of those voters with a wing and a prayer and strong economy. When everything began to fall apart, these female Trump leaners went running for the exits.
From the beginning of his presidency these women gave Trump low marks for his tweeting and divisiveness—but they also gave him credit for the strong economy and relative prosperity of the last few years.
His perceived business acumen was one of the top reasons many of these women were willing to take a flyer on him in the first place. Never forget that for many Americans, their impressions of Trump were formed less by his presidential campaign than by his role on The Apprentice where he was, through the wonders of editing and reality TV storytelling, presented as a decisive, successful businessman.
In late 2019 and early 2020 with a roaring economy and a bunch of abstract foreign policy scandals consuming the media and the elites whom these voters generally despise and distrust, even Trump-voting-women who rated the president’s performance as “very bad” weren’t entirely sure what they would do in 2020. There was still a crowded field of Democratic candidates—many of whom were living, breathing representations of the far-left caricature that Republicans paint of Democrats.
But by March of 2020, everything had changed.
First, Joe Biden blew out Bernie Sanders and the rest of the Democratic field.
In my focus groups, Biden had consistently outperformed all other Democrats among the female Trump voters who were souring on the president. In hypothetical head-to-head matchups, almost none of the women would take Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren over Trump, but a handful would typically (if not enthusiastically) pick Biden over Trump.
It cannot be overstated how much better of a candidate Joe Biden is for attracting disaffected Republican voters—especially women—than any of the other Democrats who ran this cycle.
Then on March 11 the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic. Two days later, the United States declared a state of emergency.
No one in America will forget what happened next: Lockdowns; PPE shortages; 130,000 deaths; staggering unemployment.
And every night on television voters saw a president both unwilling and incapable of providing clear and coherent leadership.
Since March, I have conducted the focus groups virtually and watched Trump’s position with women weaken in real time.
Interestingly, in the early days of the pandemic the women in the focus groups were frustrated with Trump, but didn’t necessarily hold him responsible for everything that was happening. He hadn’t done great, they said, but it was a tough situation for any president to handle.
It wasn’t until the killing of George Floyd and the resulting protests that the bottom started to drop out.
Two weeks after Floyd’s death I ran a focus group with seven women from swing states—all of whom voted for Trump but currently rated him as doing a “very bad” job.
Only one was leaning toward voting for him again. Three were definitely going to vote for Biden. The other three were still making up their minds. But even these undecideds were unequivocal in their distaste for Trump’s posture on race and his handling of the protests. They actively recoiled.
One of the Trump voters who had decided to vote for Biden said, “The stakes are too high now. It’s a matter of life and death.”
That’s a pretty a good distillation of why Trump has been shedding support from women over the last few months. The multiple crises laid bare the fact that Donald Trump isn’t the savvy businessman these women voted for. Instead, they see him as a divisive president who’s in over his head.
And they see that his inability to successfully navigate this environment has real-world consequences for actual people.
Average voters weren’t moved by Trump’s obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation, or his quid-pro-quo with Ukraine, or his many personal scandals. But when people are unemployed, or dying, and the streets are on fire, they want a president who isn’t winging it.
They want someone who knows how the world works and can make the government perform the kind of functions that only it can do. Like managing a coordinated national response to a pandemic. Or using the bully pulpit to bring the nation together during a moment of crisis.
Donald Trump and his campaign think they can stop the bleeding with women by leaning into the culture wars and highlighting looters, rioters, and vandals pulling down statues. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of these voters. They don’t see Trump as someone who can protect them from the chaos—they think he’s the source of it.
Which isn’t to say that the race couldn’t turn around for one reason or another. I suppose that crazier things have happened in American politics. (Though I can’t think of many off the top of my head.)
But the reality is that no modern president has done more to alienate female voters. His whole life Trump has treated women with disdain. And they are now poised to return the favor.