theatlantic--2020-01-25--What Chicago’s Mayor Really Thinks About the Democratic Field

Our full conversation can be heard on the latest episode of the Radio Atlantic podcast .
What follows is a condensed and lightly edited transcript .
Edward-Isaac Dovere : Being a politician is new for you .
How has the adjustment been to becoming one ?
Lori Lightfoot : I go to places and people say to me , ‘ I ’ ve never met a mayor before .
I ’ ve never seen a mayor in my neighborhood.
’ And these are not , you know , teenagers or 20-somethings .
These are our elders , people who are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dovere : You grew up in a small town in Ohio , and the injustices you and your family faced there seem to have defined you .
What left the greatest impact ?
Lightfoot : We were the factory workers .
We were the people who clean your houses .
But being one of the few black families that lived in my neighborhood forever , that definitely left an indelible mark on me .
I grew up at a time when racial discrimination was still very much on the top of the table @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question that I was denied opportunities solely on the basis of my race .
The expectations for me were so low .
But that ’ s not how I viewed my life .
And it ’ s certainly not how my parents , and particularly my mother , viewed my life .
The other thing that definitely shaped my experience as a child is watching my father struggle .
My father was deaf my entire growing-up years .
And seeing how difficult it was for him to be part of just that conversation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and knowing his experience , particularly in the workplace , being denied opportunities because of his disability , being treated differently and worse because he couldn ’ t hear—that had a profound effect on me .
Dovere : We are living through a moment when people are reconsidering what government does , what it should do , whether they can trust the government .
Should people distrust the government , based on what you ’ ve seen ?
Lightfoot : I certainly understand why people feel that way in the crosscurrents that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think are very much responsible for the election of Donald Trump .
I get it .
I get why people have lost confidence not only just in government , but in the governance of people .
It ’ s important for us to understand that loss of confidence in public servants and public service , but all the more urgent for us to regain that trust .
Our democracy depends upon participation .
And as more and more people opt out and feel like government is irrelevant to their lives , that makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the problems that we have to solve … We have way too many people in public life who feel like they ’ ve won the lottery and that their primary mission is to make sure that they have a lot of pecuniary gain at the public ’ s expense .
Dovere : President Trump has often taken shots at Chicago .
If you could show him the city on a tour , where would you take him ?

Lori Lightfoot is used to being different: She grew up in a working-class family in a small town in Ohio, where being an African American woman made her constantly underestimated. But those differences—not to mention being openly gay, which itself makes her a trailblazer as a big-city mayor—came together to propel her to a huge win for mayor of Chicago last year, despite being an outsider who had never run for office before.
Now she’s running America’s third-largest city.
“I get why people have lost confidence not only just in government, but in the governance of people,” Lightfoot told me.
The people Democrats are going to need in November are the people she’s been trying to reconnect with in Chicago, she said, and they’re like voters all around the country who have been feeling unseen.
“If we lose them, we have no shot at winning the White House,” she said.
Lightfoot was circumspect about which candidates she thinks are getting it right and which aren’t—but notably for a politician who doesn’t come from money herself and who is trying to speak for the voters she thinks get left out, she said she’s open to self-funders. She’s happy that the rich Republican businessman Bruce Rauner was booted as governor of Illinois by the even richer Democratic businessman J. B. Pritzker, and has made clear that she’s considering backing Michael Bloomberg in the presidential race.
Our full conversation can be heard on the latest episode of the Radio Atlantic podcast.
Subscribe to Radio Atlantic: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher (How to Listen)
What follows is a condensed and lightly edited transcript.
Edward-Isaac Dovere: Being a politician is new for you. How has the adjustment been to becoming one?
Lori Lightfoot: I go to places and people say to me, ‘I’ve never met a mayor before. I’ve never seen a mayor in my neighborhood.’ And these are not, you know, teenagers or 20-somethings. These are our elders, people who are 60, 70, or older.
Dovere: You grew up in a small town in Ohio, and the injustices you and your family faced there seem to have defined you. What left the greatest impact?
Lightfoot: We were the factory workers. We were the people who clean your houses. But being one of the few black families that lived in my neighborhood forever, that definitely left an indelible mark on me. I grew up at a time when racial discrimination was still very much on the top of the table, not under it. And no question that I was denied opportunities solely on the basis of my race.
The expectations for me were so low. But that’s not how I viewed my life. And it’s certainly not how my parents, and particularly my mother, viewed my life. The other thing that definitely shaped my experience as a child is watching my father struggle. My father was deaf my entire growing-up years. And seeing how difficult it was for him to be part of just that conversation, be part of a community, and knowing his experience, particularly in the workplace, being denied opportunities because of his disability, being treated differently and worse because he couldn’t hear—that had a profound effect on me.
Dovere: We are living through a moment when people are reconsidering what government does, what it should do, whether they can trust the government. Should people distrust the government, based on what you’ve seen?
Lightfoot: I certainly understand why people feel that way in the crosscurrents that have been blowing for some time—that I think are very much responsible for the election of Donald Trump. I get it. I get why people have lost confidence not only just in government, but in the governance of people. It’s important for us to understand that loss of confidence in public servants and public service, but all the more urgent for us to regain that trust. Our democracy depends upon participation. And as more and more people opt out and feel like government is irrelevant to their lives, that makes the challenges that we have to face and the problems that we have to solve … We have way too many people in public life who feel like they’ve won the lottery and that their primary mission is to make sure that they have a lot of pecuniary gain at the public’s expense.
Dovere: President Trump has often taken shots at Chicago. If you could show him the city on a tour, where would you take him?
Lightfoot: There’s a lot of great things that are happening if you really want to know who we are as Chicagoans. Then let me take you to neighborhoods outside of the glamour of downtown and show you how Chicagoans are living their lives every day, talk to you about the challenges but also the triumphs of our city. You know, I don’t think he really cares about the facts, but he’s got a very misguided notion of who we are.
Dovere: Do you think the Democratic Party nationally is getting that conversation right?
Lightfoot: I’m challenging our presidential candidates to think about who we are as a party, what our core values are. And, you know, as a lifelong midwesterner, it’s important to me that the candidates are really speaking the values of the people that made the Democratic Party, the working-class people, the folks in organized labor, and the folks who are worried that their life and the life that their parents had or their grandparents had is slowly slipping away from them and won’t be there for their kids. We have to speak to those folks, because those are the people that we need to show up in huge numbers in November to vote. And if we lose them, we have no shot at winning the White House. But also we run the risk of losing a lot of down-ticket races as well.
Dovere: The last two governors of Illinois have both been very rich self-funders—first a Republican, now a Democrat. Self-funding business leaders are now a big part of the presidential race. What, from your experience, is that going to mean on the national level?
Lightfoot: I don’t think we will, in the long term, benefit if the only people who can afford to run at the national level, or really at any level, are folks who come with a lot of individual wealth. Wealth doesn’t buy you leadership experience, great ideas, and an ability to navigate difficult policy in political terrain. So I don’t want to see us exclude a whole category of people simply because they can’t go into their own pocket and run for office … Fundamentally, it’s not the wealth that I think is the thing that we should focus on. It’s: Who is the person, what’s her ideas? What’s the track record of being able to make a difference in people’s lives? Do they understand people who don’t come from that kind of massive wealth? What have they done over the course of their lives to really invest themselves in learning about people who come from very different experiences? And what are their ideas about how we create a different kind of vision for families and communities who are struggling?
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Error and Trial

But the plight of the 2020 also-rans is in many ways more poignant : They ’ ve been reduced from addressing rousing rallies and applauding crowds to making quick stand-up hits on cable news and firing off occasional tweets , as junior members of a body where seniority still counts for so much .
Even their limited communications privileges have been severely constrained , as Booker effectively acknowledged on Tuesday night when he slid a shiny red apple into the cloakroom cubby reserved for senators ’ mobile phones , which are verboten on the floor during the trial .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rib us iPhone folks with his own real-life apple , ” Senator Angus King of Maine tweeted .
“ But does it stream CNN ?
” Booker himself may have been rendered deviceless inside the Senate chamber , but his staff has seen to it that he ’ s doing his best to keep up in the social-media race for attention .
Early Thursday afternoon , his communications director , Kristin Lynch , tweeted a link to Booker ’ s own highlighted annotations of discussions about impeachment at the 1787 Constitutional Convention .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ by CNN ’ s Dana Bash Thursday morning on the balcony of the Russell Senate Office Building and offered her capsule review of the trial , in which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has so far refused to allow the subpoena of witness testimony and documents .
“ Bring all the facts so we can determine what happened , ” Harris said .
At the very moment when Booker and Harris are most eager to write their next chapters and look ahead , they are consigned by the rules of the trial into virtual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with viewers and voters—and by extension impress the remaining active candidates who might choose them as running mates—severely impeded .
The New York Times reported late Thursday that Harris is considering endorsing Biden , but if true , the trial is hardly the time for her to say so .
Moreover , the impeachment arena is one in which Harris—whose sharp , prosecutorial questioning of Trump nominees and appointees is part of what propelled her into presidential contention in the first place—might be expected to excel , except that all senators ’ questions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ submitted in writing to the presiding officer , Chief Justice John Roberts .
So how are the would-have-been presidents feeling ?
Just before yesterday afternoon ’ s trial session , Booker was waylaid in the Senate subway by the veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz and a group of 11 international students .
When I asked the senator how it felt to be stuck in Washington and not in Iowa , he fixed me with a mock-hurt gaze and said , “ Really ?
You trying to poke my sadness ?
” Booker went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s definitely heartbreaking that things had to end , but at the same time , I can not escape my gratitude for the experience .
It ’ s been really wonderful .
”

As the Senate impeachment trial droned on Thursday afternoon, Representative Jerry Nadler, one of the House managers prosecuting President Donald Trump, launched into a long, scholarly lecture on the constitutional remedy for presidential “abuse, betrayal, corruption”—what he called “the ABCs of impeachable offenses.” In the last row of the chamber’s Democratic side, Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris sat in forced silence.
This is surely not how either big-name Democrat had planned to spend the third week of January: in the political equivalent of their parents’ basement, having flunked out of the presidential race they’d approached with such high hopes last year. Their backbench neighbor, Michael Bennet, who is still running but has long struggled for traction, languished in the same psychic dunce’s row, listening listlessly.
Read: The solemn absurdity of Trump’s impeachment trial
Less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, much attention is focused on the three Democratic senators—Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota—who are compelled to be mute, hour after hour, while their top competitors, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, are free to talk up a storm in Dubuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown, Mason City, Ames, and Clear Lake, because neither is a sitting senator.
But the plight of the 2020 also-rans is in many ways more poignant: They’ve been reduced from addressing rousing rallies and applauding crowds to making quick stand-up hits on cable news and firing off occasional tweets, as junior members of a body where seniority still counts for so much. Even their limited communications privileges have been severely constrained, as Booker effectively acknowledged on Tuesday night when he slid a shiny red apple into the cloakroom cubby reserved for senators’ mobile phones, which are verboten on the floor during the trial. “Last night, Cory Booker decided to rib us iPhone folks with his own real-life apple,” Senator Angus King of Maine tweeted. “But does it stream CNN?”
Booker himself may have been rendered deviceless inside the Senate chamber, but his staff has seen to it that he’s doing his best to keep up in the social-media race for attention. Early Thursday afternoon, his communications director, Kristin Lynch, tweeted a link to Booker’s own highlighted annotations of discussions about impeachment at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
For her part, Harris was buttonholed by CNN’s Dana Bash Thursday morning on the balcony of the Russell Senate Office Building and offered her capsule review of the trial, in which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has so far refused to allow the subpoena of witness testimony and documents. “Bring all the facts so we can determine what happened,” Harris said.
Headline news, they’re not making.
At the very moment when Booker and Harris are most eager to write their next chapters and look ahead, they are consigned by the rules of the trial into virtual purdah, their ability to communicate directly with viewers and voters—and by extension impress the remaining active candidates who might choose them as running mates—severely impeded. The New York Times reported late Thursday that Harris is considering endorsing Biden, but if true, the trial is hardly the time for her to say so. Moreover, the impeachment arena is one in which Harris—whose sharp, prosecutorial questioning of Trump nominees and appointees is part of what propelled her into presidential contention in the first place—might be expected to excel, except that all senators’ questions for the presidents’ lawyers must be submitted in writing to the presiding officer, Chief Justice John Roberts.
So how are the would-have-been presidents feeling?
Just before yesterday afternoon’s trial session, Booker was waylaid in the Senate subway by the veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz and a group of 11 international students. When I asked the senator how it felt to be stuck in Washington and not in Iowa, he fixed me with a mock-hurt gaze and said, “Really? You trying to poke my sadness?” Booker went on, “Look, it’s definitely heartbreaking that things had to end, but at the same time, I cannot escape my gratitude for the experience. It’s been really wonderful.”
Moments later, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who sits between Booker and Harris, passed by. “Wish they were somewhere else?” he said with a grin, playing along with my question, before offering a serious reply. “They have been focused totally on the trial,” he said. “I can tell you that all we’ve discussed is the trial, and they’ve both taken notes and they’re both fully and completely attentive to what’s going on.”
Read: Who plays by the rules?
“I’m sure it’s mixed feelings,” Bennet told me with a rueful smile when I caught up with him in the basement of the Capitol Thursday night to ask how he thought Booker and Harris were faring. As for himself, he’s headed to New Hampshire tomorrow to continue fulfilling his promise to hold 50 town-hall meetings, even if his message of commonsense moderation has failed to catch on with fired-up primary voters. He also insisted that his forced attendance at the trial—he frequently stands up to stretch—hasn’t been disappointing.
I stood with Bennet as he wolfed down a roast-beef sandwich in a hallway during a quick dinner break. “I think the House managers have presented such a compelling case. I think our democracy is at real risk,” he added, bemoaning McConnell’s refusal to allow a hearing on Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and his restrictive rules for the impeachment trial. “If this becomes a permanent state of affairs, this is what ancient observers said would be the end of the republic. We are at risk of having a set of rules that won’t allow the American people to see what the facts are.”
Booker’s and Harris’s primary-season comedown is nothing, of course, compared with the fate suffered by sitting senators such as George McGovern, John Kerry, and John McCain, who won their parties’ nomination only to lose the biggest prize in the general election, and returned to Capitol Hill as one humble face among 100. After his losing campaigns for president, Senator Bob Dole liked to joke that he’d slept like a baby: “Every two hours I woke up and cried.”
In 1980, Ted Kennedy returned to the Senate after his failed primary challenge to Jimmy Carter. But he was a senior member and chair of the Judiciary Committee, and slipped right back into place, his former aide Bill Carrick recalls. A bigger blow was the Democrats’ loss of the Senate to the GOP in Ronald Reagan’s victory that fall. “Being in the minority for the first time, now that is a transition,” Carrick says. “Of course, he then became the de facto leader of the Reagan opposition in the ’80s.”
But dropping out before a single vote was cast still stings, and Booker’s and Harris’s body language in the chamber has seemed to reflect that this week. Booker tends to take notes on his lap, Harris on her desk. Booker rests his chin in his hand; Harris folds her arms across her chest. That’s about the extent of the allowable variations in posture.
They appear to be making the best of things. Some Democratic Senate insiders say that Harris, whose once-promising campaign collapsed before Christmas, seems to have resigned herself to the reality that the Senate will be her perch for the time being.
When the trial is over, and assuming Bennet will have to drop out of the race after Iowa and New Hampshire, all three senators will certainly be welcome back on the hustings as surrogates and supporters for other candidates, and as united messengers for the eventual nominee in an all-hands-on-deck fight against Trump in November. Booker and Harris, especially, could be essential in motivating the voters of color who are expected to cast more than 40 percent of ballots in the Democratic primaries and caucuses this year, and who will be a vital part of any winning coalition in the fall.
“Even in the days since two Mondays ago,” when he dropped out, Booker told me, “the goodness I’ve been hearing from everybody, from people in the media, to Republicans, to Democrats, about how the values we ran with this campaign—so many people have affirmed to me, from all sectors, that [they are] the values our nation needs, especially now.”
Spoken like a politician who’s a long way from throwing in the towel.


theatlantic--2020-01-25--Hillary Clinton: Mark Zuckerberg Has ‘Authoritarian’ Views on Misinformation

Listening to Clinton , I was struck by how remarkably similar her account was to something Zuckerberg had once told me .
Facts , Zuckerberg had suggested , are best derived from foraging many opinions , ideally from the billions of humans who use his publishing platform , so that each individual might cherry-pick what to believe .
( Cherry-pick is my word , not his . )
If journalism ’ s mantra is “ Seek truth and report it , ” Facebook ’ s might be “ Seek opinions and react to them.
” “ It ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ view ; here ’ s the other side , ” Zuckerberg had said when I ’ d asked him to reconcile the apparent contradiction between fact and opinion .
“ You should decide where you want to be.
” I wrote at the time that Zuckerberg ’ s interpretation was unsatisfying for one thing , and Trumpian for another .
When I asked Clinton today whether she too sees a Trumpian quality in Zuckerberg ’ s reasoning , she nodded .
“ It ’ s Trumpian , ” she said .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not immediately provide a response to my request for comment from Zuckerberg . )
Clinton ’ s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting .
“ I feel like you ’ re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes , ” she said , referencing conversations she ’ s had “ at the highest levels ” with Facebook .
“ He ’ s immensely powerful , ” she told me .
“ This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we ’ re only beginning to understand.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world ’ s first technocratic nation-state—a real-time experiment in connecting humans at massive and unprecedented scale , with a population of users that eclipses any actual nation , nearly as big as China and India combined .
It ’ s also an institution with gigantic levers at its disposal to affect the lives of its user-citizens .
Facebook knows this .
It has played with manipulating people ’ s emotions .
It has trumpeted its ability to affect the outcome of an election .
There ’ s good reason to believe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not just going to reelect Trump , but intend [ s ] to reelect Trump.
” We know for sure , at least , that Zuckerberg doesn ’ t want Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to be the president .
In leaked audio of an internal Facebook meeting that emerged last fall , he referenced Warren ’ s interest in regulating Facebook and said he would “ go to the mat and … fight ” her .
Clinton seems to find the whole thing deeply unnerving .
Zuckerberg has been “ somehow persuaded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s to his and Facebook ’ s advantage not to cross Trump .
That ’ s what I believe .
And it just gives me a pit in my stomach.
” Facebook often defends its equivocations about the truth by claiming that it must protect the “ free speech ” of its users .
“ They have , in my view , contorted themselves into making arguments about freedom of speech and censorship , ” Clinton said , “ which they are hanging on to because it ’ s in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right to free speech is about protecting citizens from government overreach—and does not concern a person ’ s use of corporate publishing platforms .
Incidentally , Trump has similarly co-opted the meaning of free speech and truth for his own political and personal gain .
If it makes Trump look good , it ’ s true ; if it does not , then it ’ s “ fake news.
” Perhaps the logical extension of all this is as follows : What ’ s good for Trump is good for Facebook , and @ @ @

In the first great meme war, when the foot soldiers of 4chan took to anonymous message boards in a burn-it-down effort to send Donald Trump to the White House, Hillary Clinton had no idea what was crawling out of the depths of the web and replicating across the internet.
The ordinary nastiness she’d come to expect from a lifetime in politics had warped into something much darker and more nihilistic, all fueled by misogyny, conspiracy theories, and other lies distributed to appear true. “I didn’t really know this was happening to me,” she told Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, at an event hosted by Emerson Collective at the Sundance Film Festival today. (Emerson owns a majority stake in The Atlantic.) “We did not understand what was going on below the radar screen.”
Now that Clinton gets it, she’s horrified—and she’s specifically alarmed by what she views as Mark Zuckerberg’s unwillingness to battle the spread of disinformation and propaganda on his own platform. There was the time, last spring, when a slowed-down video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi caught fire online. The distorted speed, which made Pelosi appear as though she was slurring her words, seemed designed to make her appear cognitively impaired. “Google took it off YouTube … so I contacted Facebook,” Clinton said. “I said, Why are you guys keeping this up? This is blatantly false. Your competitors have taken it down. And their response was, We think our users can make up their own minds.”
Listening to Clinton, I was struck by how remarkably similar her account was to something Zuckerberg had once told me. Facts, Zuckerberg had suggested, are best derived from foraging many opinions, ideally from the billions of humans who use his publishing platform, so that each individual might cherry-pick what to believe. (Cherry-pick is my word, not his.) If journalism’s mantra is “Seek truth and report it,” Facebook’s might be “Seek opinions and react to them.” “It’s not about saying, Here’s one view; here’s the other side,” Zuckerberg had said when I’d asked him to reconcile the apparent contradiction between fact and opinion. “You should decide where you want to be.”
Hillary Clinton: American democracy is in crisis
I wrote at the time that Zuckerberg’s interpretation was unsatisfying for one thing, and Trumpian for another. When I asked Clinton today whether she too sees a Trumpian quality in Zuckerberg’s reasoning, she nodded. “It’s Trumpian,” she said. “It’s authoritarian.” (Facebook did not immediately provide a response to my request for comment from Zuckerberg.)
Clinton’s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting. “I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said, referencing conversations she’s had “at the highest levels” with Facebook. “He’s immensely powerful,” she told me. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
Facebook is, in a sense, the world’s first technocratic nation-state—a real-time experiment in connecting humans at massive and unprecedented scale, with a population of users that eclipses any actual nation, nearly as big as China and India combined. It’s also an institution with gigantic levers at its disposal to affect the lives of its user-citizens. Facebook knows this. It has played with manipulating people’s emotions. It has trumpeted its ability to affect the outcome of an election. There’s good reason to believe, Clinton said, that Facebook is “not just going to reelect Trump, but intend[s] to reelect Trump.” We know for sure, at least, that Zuckerberg doesn’t want Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to be the president. In leaked audio of an internal Facebook meeting that emerged last fall, he referenced Warren’s interest in regulating Facebook and said he would “go to the mat and … fight” her.
Clinton seems to find the whole thing deeply unnerving. Zuckerberg has been “somehow persuaded,” she said, “that it’s to his and Facebook’s advantage not to cross Trump. That’s what I believe. And it just gives me a pit in my stomach.”
Facebook often defends its equivocations about the truth by claiming that it must protect the “free speech” of its users. “They have, in my view, contorted themselves into making arguments about freedom of speech and censorship,” Clinton said, “which they are hanging on to because it’s in their commercial interests.” Of course, the right to free speech is about protecting citizens from government overreach—and does not concern a person’s use of corporate publishing platforms. Incidentally, Trump has similarly co-opted the meaning of free speech and truth for his own political and personal gain. If it makes Trump look good, it’s true; if it does not, then it’s “fake news.” Perhaps the logical extension of all this is as follows: What’s good for Trump is good for Facebook, and vice versa.


theatlantic--2020-01-25--Obama’s 2016 Warning: Trump Is a ‘Fascist’

Read : Wherever Obama turns , there Trump is Obama has been careful in how he ’ s publicly discussed his successor .
Campaigning against Trump in 2016 , Obama said several times that “ democracy is on the ballot , ” and he often portrayed the then–Republican nominee as an easily triggered hate-monger who couldn ’ t be trusted with the presidency .
The night before the November election , at a closing rally in Philadelphia with Clinton , Obama said that the presidency reveals people for who they really are , and that Americans should be worried about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Since then , Obama has largely stayed away from offering specific criticism of Trump .
But he campaigned in 2017 and 2018 to defeat the president ’ s Republican allies , declaring , in a repeat of his 2016 message , that “ our democracy ’ s at stake.
” Obama has never gone as far as using the word fascist in public , even though that ’ s not an uncommon opinion , especially on the left .
Journalists and academics who have lived in and studied fascist regimes regularly point to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those leaders , including demanding fealty , deliberately spreading misinformation , and adopting Joseph Stalin ’ s slur that the press is the “ enemy of the people.
” And that ’ s not to mention Trump ’ s apparent admiration for living authoritarians , such as Russia ’ s Putin , Turkey ’ s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , and North Korea ’ s Kim Jong Un .
“ He speaks , and his people sit up at attention , ” Trump gushed about Kim in a 2018 interview on Fox & Friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do the same.
” In the footage from Hillary , Kaine seems to suggest that Obama wanted him to be more aggressive against Trump .
“ He knows me and knows I tend to ” hold back , Kaine says .
( This past November , Kaine referred to Trump as a “ tyrant ” in an interview on the Radio Atlantic podcast . )
In the Sundance interview , Clinton said that Obama had never used the word fascist in conversations with her about Trump .
But , she said , what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to facts , evidence , or truth ; this total rejection of so much of the progress that America has made , in order to incite a cultural reaction that would play into the fear and the anxiety and the insecurity of people—predominantly in small-town and rural areas—who felt like they were losing something .
And [ Trump ] gave them a voice for what they were losing and who was responsible.
” In the documentary footage , Clinton also notes that she is “ scared ” and suspicious of what Trump is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other people ’ s agenda , ” she says .
“ We ’ re scratching hard , trying to figure it out .
He is the vehicle , the vessel for all these other people.
” “ [ Paul ] Manafort , all these weird connections , ” Kaine replies , referring to Trump ’ s former campaign chair , who is now in prison after being convicted of financial crimes related to his international business dealings .
“ [ Michael ] Flynn , who is a paid tool for Russian television , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s onetime national security adviser and former campaign surrogate .
“ The way that Putin has taken over the political apparatus … ” she starts to say .
Then , a voice off camera interrupts her .

Barack Obama’s private assessment of Donald Trump: He’s a fascist.
That is, at least, according to Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia and a friend of the former president. In a video clip from October 2016, Kaine is seen relaying Obama’s comment to Hillary Clinton. The footage is part of the new Hulu documentary Hillary, which was obtained by The Atlantic ahead of its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival today.
“President Obama called me last night and said, ‘Tim, this is no time to be a purist,’” Kaine tells his then–running mate. “‘You’ve got to keep a fascist out of the White House.’”
Clinton replies: “I echo that sentiment.”
A representative for Obama declined to comment on the conversation. A representative for Kaine did not respond to requests for comment.
In an interview at Sundance today with Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Clinton elaborated on her exchange with Kaine. “If you look at the definition [of fascist], which I’ve had the occasion to read several times,” Clinton said, “I think we can agree on several things: One, he has authoritarian tendencies and he admires authoritarian leaders, [Vladimir] Putin being his favorite. He uses a form of really virulent nationalism. He identifies targets: immigrants, blacks, browns, gays, women, whoever the target of the day or week is … I think you see a lot of the characteristics of what we think of [as] nationalistic, fascistic kinds of tendencies and behaviors.”
Read: Wherever Obama turns, there Trump is
Obama has been careful in how he’s publicly discussed his successor. Campaigning against Trump in 2016, Obama said several times that “democracy is on the ballot,” and he often portrayed the then–Republican nominee as an easily triggered hate-monger who couldn’t be trusted with the presidency. The night before the November election, at a closing rally in Philadelphia with Clinton, Obama said that the presidency reveals people for who they really are, and that Americans should be worried about what Trump had revealed about himself. Since then, Obama has largely stayed away from offering specific criticism of Trump. But he campaigned in 2017 and 2018 to defeat the president’s Republican allies, declaring, in a repeat of his 2016 message, that “our democracy’s at stake.”
Obama has never gone as far as using the word fascist in public, even though that’s not an uncommon opinion, especially on the left. Journalists and academics who have lived in and studied fascist regimes regularly point to the traits Trump seems to share with those leaders, including demanding fealty, deliberately spreading misinformation, and adopting Joseph Stalin’s slur that the press is the “enemy of the people.” And that’s not to mention Trump’s apparent admiration for living authoritarians, such as Russia’s Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. “He speaks, and his people sit up at attention,” Trump gushed about Kim in a 2018 interview on Fox & Friends. “I want my people to do the same.”
In the footage from Hillary, Kaine seems to suggest that Obama wanted him to be more aggressive against Trump. “He knows me and knows I tend to” hold back, Kaine says. (This past November, Kaine referred to Trump as a “tyrant” in an interview on the Radio Atlantic podcast.)
In the Sundance interview, Clinton said that Obama had never used the word fascist in conversations with her about Trump. But, she said, what Obama “observed was this populism untethered to facts, evidence, or truth; this total rejection of so much of the progress that America has made, in order to incite a cultural reaction that would play into the fear and the anxiety and the insecurity of people—predominantly in small-town and rural areas—who felt like they were losing something. And [Trump] gave them a voice for what they were losing and who was responsible.”
In the documentary footage, Clinton also notes that she is “scared” and suspicious of what Trump is up to. “His agenda is other people’s agenda,” she says. “We’re scratching hard, trying to figure it out. He is the vehicle, the vessel for all these other people.”
“[Paul] Manafort, all these weird connections,” Kaine replies, referring to Trump’s former campaign chair, who is now in prison after being convicted of financial crimes related to his international business dealings.
“[Michael] Flynn, who is a paid tool for Russian television,” Clinton continues, referring to Trump’s onetime national security adviser and former campaign surrogate. “The way that Putin has taken over the political apparatus …” she starts to say. Then, a voice off camera interrupts her.


theatlantic--2020-01-26--Two Jews Walk Into a Presidential Primary

To those who know Bloomberg well and even spent years working for him , this is a surprising turn .
As mayor , he was more of the stop-by-synagogue-on-Rosh-Hashanah kind of observer , not the guy who ’ d make a not-so-subtle reference to Donald Trump as “ a pharaoh who knows not Joseph , ” and speak about “ standing together , rejecting demagogues who try to seduce us by playing us against each other , and uniting behind the only shield that can protect us : our common values as American citizens and our common humanity as God @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in , going directly from “ When Moses descended from Mount Sinai , he smashed the golden calf and raised high a tablet of laws , ” to noting that Monday is “ the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz ’ s liberation , ” and recalling his own visit to the death camp a few years ago .
This wasn ’ t a speech like any presidential candidate has delivered before—and that includes Sanders .
Before launching his 2020 campaign , Sanders rarely discussed his Jewish roots , publicly or privately .
Sanders superfans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ college in Israel working on a kibbutz , but he ’ s talked about that more through his socialism than through any connection to the Jewish state .
For years , Sanders referred to his father as a “ Polish immigrant , ” which some saw as a pointed erasure of his identity—when Eli Sanders arrived in America , after all , his passport from the Polish government would have listed his nationality as “ Jew.
” Jewish leaders have criticized him for decisions like speaking at the evangelical Liberty University in 2015 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Jewish New Year .
Discussing his personal life doesn ’ t come naturally to Sanders , either , and aides ’ efforts to get him to speak more about his own story last spring didn ’ t lead to much .
When Sanders does speak of his Jewishness , it tends to be in the context of larger values .
At the Hanukkah celebration at the ice rink in Des Moines , Sanders condemned the stabbing attack that had just happened at a a rabbi ’ s house in New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s family had been “ wiped out ” by the Nazis , but spoke about it as instilling in him basic humanist values .
His father fled anti-Semitism , he said , as well as violence and “ terrible , terrible poverty.
” That , he said , is what America is supposed to be about : “ What makes this country great is that we have people here from hundreds and hundreds of countries all over the world.
” That , Sanders and his supporters would argue , has much more in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s style of economic policy , which boosted the rich during his time as mayor .
“ I am what I am ” is how Sanders put it in 2015 , when Jimmy Kimmel asked whether he believed in God .
“ And what I believe in , and what my spirituality is about , is that we ’ re all in this together.
” This view has evolved .
In October , in an appearance in Washington at the national conference of J Street—a progressive organization that aims to influence American policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and said , “ I am very proud to be Jewish .
I look forward to being the first Jewish president in the history of this country .
”

MIAMI—In a country where anti-Semitic attacks have spiked and the president has sometimes hesitated to condemn neo-Nazis, two men who celebrated their bar mitzvahs in the 1950s suddenly want to talk about their Jewishness.
“I know I’m not the only Jewish candidate running for president,” Mike Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, told a packed synagogue here today, referencing his Democratic-primary rival Senator Bernie Sanders. “But I am the only one who doesn’t want to turn America into a kibbutz.” For the first time in American history, this niche joke fit neatly into a campaign for the White House. And for the first time in American history, there’s a good chance that a Jewish candidate for president will beat another Jewish candidate to become a major party’s nominee.
Before this campaign, neither Bloomberg nor Sanders spent much time publicly discussing, let alone celebrating, their Jewishness. But a few weeks ago, Sanders was ice-skating during a Hanukkah party at a Des Moines rink, lighting a giant menorah with a blowtorch and mouthing the words to a few of the Hanukkah songs. And Bloomberg was here, making a direct appeal to Jewish voters complete with deli references and Catskills-style rim shots. He quoted Leviticus (a book he identified by its Hebrew name, Vayikra) in Hebrew and said, “Lo ta-amode, do not stand by idly while your neighbor’s blood is shed,” stumbling slightly over the pronunciation, much like how he misplaced the emphasis on the word kibbutz.
To those who know Bloomberg well and even spent years working for him, this is a surprising turn. As mayor, he was more of the stop-by-synagogue-on-Rosh-Hashanah kind of observer, not the guy who’d make a not-so-subtle reference to Donald Trump as “a pharaoh who knows not Joseph,” and speak about “standing together, rejecting demagogues who try to seduce us by playing us against each other, and uniting behind the only shield that can protect us: our common values as American citizens and our common humanity as God’s children.” Bloomberg went all in, going directly from “When Moses descended from Mount Sinai, he smashed the golden calf and raised high a tablet of laws,” to noting that Monday is “the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation,” and recalling his own visit to the death camp a few years ago.
This wasn’t a speech like any presidential candidate has delivered before—and that includes Sanders. Before launching his 2020 campaign, Sanders rarely discussed his Jewish roots, publicly or privately. Sanders superfans know he spent a few months after college in Israel working on a kibbutz, but he’s talked about that more through his socialism than through any connection to the Jewish state. For years, Sanders referred to his father as a “Polish immigrant,” which some saw as a pointed erasure of his identity—when Eli Sanders arrived in America, after all, his passport from the Polish government would have listed his nationality as “Jew.” Jewish leaders have criticized him for decisions like speaking at the evangelical Liberty University in 2015 on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Discussing his personal life doesn’t come naturally to Sanders, either, and aides’ efforts to get him to speak more about his own story last spring didn’t lead to much. When Sanders does speak of his Jewishness, it tends to be in the context of larger values. At the Hanukkah celebration at the ice rink in Des Moines, Sanders condemned the stabbing attack that had just happened at a a rabbi’s house in New York. He mentioned that his father’s family had been “wiped out” by the Nazis, but spoke about it as instilling in him basic humanist values. His father fled anti-Semitism, he said, as well as violence and “terrible, terrible poverty.” That, he said, is what America is supposed to be about: “What makes this country great is that we have people here from hundreds and hundreds of countries all over the world.” That, Sanders and his supporters would argue, has much more in common with Jewish values than Bloomberg’s style of economic policy, which boosted the rich during his time as mayor.
“I am what I am” is how Sanders put it in 2015, when Jimmy Kimmel asked whether he believed in God. “And what I believe in, and what my spirituality is about, is that we’re all in this together.” This view has evolved. In October, in an appearance in Washington at the national conference of J Street—a progressive organization that aims to influence American policy toward Israel—Sanders stood up during his interview and said, “I am very proud to be Jewish. I look forward to being the first Jewish president in the history of this country.”
Sanders went on, arguing, “If there is any people on Earth who understands the dangers of racism and white nationalism, it is certainly the Jewish people. And if there is any people on Earth who should do everything humanly possible to fight against Trump’s efforts to try to divide us up … and bring people together around a common and progressive agenda, it is the Jewish people.” The Sanders campaign promoted those comments recently in a new online video. But most of the footage it uses to explain Sanders’s “intrinsically Jewish values” is of Sanders’s Jewish outreach director, not the candidate himself. And although Bloomberg kicked off his speech today with a video clip of just about every shot of him wearing a kippah during his years as mayor, Sanders’s decision to wear a kippah at the Hanukkah celebration in Des Moines was notable in part because it’s so rare to see one on him.
(Senator Michael Bennet and the investor and businessman Tom Steyer, who are still in the Democratic race, each have a Jewish parent, but neither grew up as a practicing Jew. Before Bloomberg and Sanders, the Jewish candidate who came closest to the White House was longtime Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who was Vice President Al Gore’s running mate in 2000 and ran for president himself in 2004.)
In Miami, Bloomberg laid out a Sanders-esque argument that Jewish values require Jews to stand up for others who face discrimination, but going much further to specifically call out anti-Semitism: “A world in which a president traffics in conspiracy theories is a world in which Jews are not safe,” he said, in a notable late addition to the speech. But he then turned almost immediately to an argument about Israel—one that draws a clear policy distinction with Sanders. Bloomberg would put no conditions on Israeli aid, “no matter who the prime minister is,” he promised.
That is far from Sanders, who’s spoken out forcefully against Netanyahu and his policies, and in favor of Palestinian rights. Jewish values, Sanders argued, are being betrayed every day by how the Israelis have treated Palestinians, and there’s nothing defensible, or Jewish, about standing by him. That is a common opinion among Netanyahu’s detractors. At the J Street conference, held before Bloomberg jumped into the race, Sanders said he felt that as a Jew, he could criticize Israeli policy without being called a bigot. “It’s going to be very hard for anybody to call me—whose father’s family was wiped out by Hitler—anti-Semitic,” he said.
Trump voters attended Bloomberg’s rally. Before the event started, I overheard a few talking to one another about wanting to hear what he had to say regarding his support for Israel. Winning over Trump supporters in Florida may make a difference for Bloomberg if he’s the Democratic nominee. But he’ll have to beat Sanders first.


theatlantic--2020-01-27--The New Question Hanging Over the Impeachment Trial

“ We deal with transcript evidence , ” was Trump ’ s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow ’ s message to senators at the start of this afternoon ’ s session .
“ We do not deal with speculations , allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards at all.
” Never mind that Bolton ’ s account , as reported by the Times , would seem to provide the very sort of firsthand evidence of the president ’ s malign intent that his defenders contend the Democratic House managers ’ case has lacked .
Never mind that Bolton may well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of just the kind that Democrats are demanding .
Graeme Wood : John Bolton knows what he ’ s doing The defense ’ s relentless refrain ?
Nothing to see here .
Instead , the former Whitewater Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr delivered a pious hour-long lecture on the history of presidential impeachment , in which he argued that the case against Trump failed to clear the necessary bar of careful due process and broad bipartisan public and political support .
“ The Clinton impeachment , even though severely and roundly criticized , charged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the senators not to adopt impeachment as a routine political exercise “ tantamount to domestic war.
” Outside the chamber , as journalists darted after Republican senators in a frantic attempt to ascertain how the Bolton revelations might have altered the prospect of the Senate ’ s calling witnesses in the trial , the story was not much different .
Top Senate Republicans , including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the president ’ s ardent defender , Lindsey Graham of South Carolina , were said to be seething after being blindsided by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staff has had a copy of Bolton ’ s manuscript for nearly a month , and senators had a chance to air their grievances about the latest developments in a private lunch just off the Senate floor .
( Graham failed to appear at the morning GOP news conference , where he was scheduled to help deliver the party ’ s message of the day , but separately told reporters , “ I want to see what ’ s in the manuscript.
” He added , “ But I promise you this : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re going to call Hunter Biden , Joe Biden , all these other people.
” ) But at least in public , there was no immediate sign that the math for calling witnesses—Democrats would need at least four Republican votes—had changed meaningfully .
“ Many of them are keeping their powder dry , and that is the right thing to do , ” the Republican whip , John Thune of South Dakota , told reporters about his colleagues as he squeezed past journalists into his office near the floor .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , ” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told another scrum of journalists minutes later .
Johnson had confronted the president in August about rumors that the aid was being held up for political reasons , and received an emphatic denial from Trump .
“ Right now , we ’ re talking about a leaked report .
The bottom line is , we ’ re going to go through phase one ” of the trial , before a separate planned vote on subpoenaing witnesses and documents .

In the clattering corridors of the Capitol today, the hunt for the startling fact that could change the arc of the impeachment story was on in earnest, but Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, wasn’t much help. A clutch of reporters surrounded him at around noon, asking whether he believed John Bolton’s assertion in a forthcoming memoir that appears to confirm President Donald Trump’s alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine. “I wouldn’t bet the house on it,” Kennedy said with his trademark folksiness filtered through a Rhodes Scholar’s intellect. “If I were betting your house, it would probably be a maybe.”
Indeed, two questions hung over the Senate as the impeachment trial resumed this afternoon: What does John Bolton know, and when, if ever, will we know it? It turned out that the world’s worst place to seek a reply to those questions was the Senate chamber itself, and a maybe seemed as good an answer as any.
Trump’s legal team took up its second day of his defense just after 1 p.m. without so much as acknowledging what the rest of the world regarded as a Perry Mason moment: a riveting new report by The New York Times that a draft of Bolton’s forthcoming memoir recounts Trump telling the national security adviser last summer that he was withholding military assistance to Ukraine until it helped with investigations into his Democratic rivals.
“We deal with transcript evidence,” was Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow’s message to senators at the start of this afternoon’s session. “We do not deal with speculations, allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards at all.”
Never mind that Bolton’s account, as reported by the Times, would seem to provide the very sort of firsthand evidence of the president’s malign intent that his defenders contend the Democratic House managers’ case has lacked. Never mind that Bolton may well have documentary records to buttress his claims—documents of just the kind that Democrats are demanding.
Graeme Wood: John Bolton knows what he’s doing
The defense’s relentless refrain? Nothing to see here. Instead, the former Whitewater Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr delivered a pious hour-long lecture on the history of presidential impeachment, in which he argued that the case against Trump failed to clear the necessary bar of careful due process and broad bipartisan public and political support. “The Clinton impeachment, even though severely and roundly criticized, charged crimes,” Starr said, beseeching the senators not to adopt impeachment as a routine political exercise “tantamount to domestic war.”
Outside the chamber, as journalists darted after Republican senators in a frantic attempt to ascertain how the Bolton revelations might have altered the prospect of the Senate’s calling witnesses in the trial, the story was not much different.
Top Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the president’s ardent defender, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were said to be seething after being blindsided by the White House. The National Security Council staff has had a copy of Bolton’s manuscript for nearly a month, and senators had a chance to air their grievances about the latest developments in a private lunch just off the Senate floor. (Graham failed to appear at the morning GOP news conference, where he was scheduled to help deliver the party’s message of the day, but separately told reporters, “I want to see what’s in the manuscript.” He added, “But I promise you this: If we add to the record, we’re going to call Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, all these other people.”)
But at least in public, there was no immediate sign that the math for calling witnesses—Democrats would need at least four Republican votes—had changed meaningfully. “Many of them are keeping their powder dry, and that is the right thing to do,” the Republican whip, John Thune of South Dakota, told reporters about his colleagues as he squeezed past journalists into his office near the floor.
“I don’t know what it is,” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told another scrum of journalists minutes later. Johnson had confronted the president in August about rumors that the aid was being held up for political reasons, and received an emphatic denial from Trump. “Right now, we’re talking about a leaked report. The bottom line is, we’re going to go through phase one” of the trial, before a separate planned vote on subpoenaing witnesses and documents.
Read: C-SPAN is so hot right now
For now, phase one remains a muddle as the trial moved into its second week, with 22 hours and five minutes of time still available to the White House legal team when today’s proceedings started. Once again, the Senate observed antique forms of civility while exhibiting little sincerity of purpose. Before the trial began, Starr mingled on the Senate floor, smiling and greeting House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the lead House manager, with, “Mr. Chairman, good to see you,” as Schiff’s special counsel, Norm Eisen, draped an arm over Starr’s shoulder. Lawyer to lawyer, combatant to combatant, for one fleeting moment, they preserved the forms of a bygone Washington in the face of that vanished capital’s substantive collapse.
When the trial began, the niceties of pretense evaporated and the real pretending began. The rules allowed the White House lawyers to rehearse the same refrain they had sounded in their opening arguments on Saturday: that the president did nothing wrong and the Democrats’ case is unproven, without any recognition that the Bolton revelations were challenging that contention in real time.
One of the president’s lawyers, Michael Purpura, went so far as to repeat his earlier assertion that “anyone who spoke with the president said that the president made clear that there was no linkage between security assistance and investigations.” Similarly, the trial procedures allowed the Democrats no opportunity to object to such apparent falsehoods, which thus went unchallenged.
In the Capitol’s vaulted hallways and byways—the only places where senators can actually speak during the trial—well-practiced talking points also prevailed. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, racing into the caucus lunch in khakis and deck shoes, pronounced Bolton “an angry and disgruntled employee.” Susan Collins of Maine, one of the four Republicans who have seemed most open to calling witnesses, allowed in a Delphic morning tweet that “the reports about John Bolton’s book strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversations among my colleagues,” but when reporters sought to probe further as she entered the lunch, she said, “I’ve made my statement,” and hustled by.
For his part, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, began the day by accusing Republicans of “talking out of both sides of their mouth”; they complain that the Democrats’ case lacks evidence and simultaneously resist efforts to gather more. Schumer said he regarded Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who has also said that Trump conditioned the aide to Ukraine on political favors before recanting, as a perhaps even more important witness than Bolton. He called Mulvaney “the chief cook and bottle washer” of Trump’s actions on Ukraine, and dismissed Republican arguments that calling White House aides could result in lengthy court battles over executive privilege. “I believe there would not be a protracted argument” over privilege, he said.
Senate Chaplain Barry Black, who opens each session with a prayer that seems gently but pointedly keyed to the occasion, began today’s prayer by invoking Kobe Bryant and the brevity of life, and expressed the wish that the senators would be suffused with “a desire to make the most of their time on Earth.” He summoned Jesus’s injunction in the biblical Book of John to hope that that members “shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.”
That seems a mighty tall order in the Senate this week.


theatlantic--2020-01-27--The Atlantic Politics Daily: What John Bolton Says He Knows

It ’ s Monday , January 27 .
The Trump administration is working on an expanded travel ban , now eyeing African immigrants .
And today , the Supreme Court issued an order allowing the administration to impose restrictions on immigrants it considers more likely to rely on federal aid .
An outpouring followed Kobe Bryant ’ s death : Here ’ s our staff writer Jemele Hill ’ s reflection , and our deputy editor Ross Andersen ’ s .
In the rest of today ’ s newsletter : “ JOHN BOLTON SEEKS REGIME CHANGE.
” Plus : C-SPAN @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not a good thing .
John Bolton wrote that he was in the room where it happened .
For all the drama-free predictability of impeachment , one wildcard still hangs over the proceedings .
Democrats have so far been unable to convince Republican colleagues to call the former national security adviser as a witness in the Senate trial , but that calculus could be changing now for some members .
On Sunday , news reports surfaced—based on leaked text of Bolton ’ s forthcoming book , The Room Where It Happened—that Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to investigate the Bidens in exchange for releasing military aid .
Why has Bolton stayed mum so far ?
My colleague Graeme Wood , who has a very strong handle on Bolton ’ s ambitions and motivations , has a theory : Silence up to now has bought Bolton the Litigator something very valuable .
He has now listened as others present “ in the room ” —including his deputies , such as Fiona Hill—have recorded their versions of events .
He has heard Republicans , including Trump , lay out an impeachment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but also a theory of innocence .
By speaking last , he can present testimony precisely calculated to hurt those he most wants to embarrass .

For all the drama-free predictability of impeachment, one wildcard still hangs over the proceedings. Plus: C-SPAN is so hot right now—and that’s not a good thing.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: What John Bolton Says He Knows
It’s Monday, January 27. The Trump administration is working on an expanded travel ban, now eyeing African immigrants. And today, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing the administration to impose restrictions on immigrants it considers more likely to rely on federal aid.
An outpouring followed Kobe Bryant’s death: Here’s our staff writer Jemele Hill’s reflection, and our deputy editor Ross Andersen’s.
In the rest of today’s newsletter: “JOHN BOLTON SEEKS REGIME CHANGE.” Plus: C-SPAN is super popular right now—and that’s not a good thing.
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(PHILIP MONTGOMERY)
John Bolton wrote that he was in the room where it happened.
For all the drama-free predictability of impeachment, one wildcard still hangs over the proceedings.
Democrats have so far been unable to convince Republican colleagues to call the former national security adviser as a witness in the Senate trial, but that calculus could be changing now for some members.
On Sunday, news reports surfaced—based on leaked text of Bolton’s forthcoming book, The Room Where It Happened—that Trump allegedly told Bolton outright he wanted Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in exchange for releasing military aid.
Why has Bolton stayed mum so far? My colleague Graeme Wood, who has a very strong handle on Bolton’s ambitions and motivations, has a theory:
Silence up to now has bought Bolton the Litigator something very valuable. He has now listened as others present “in the room”—including his deputies, such as Fiona Hill—have recorded their versions of events. He has heard Republicans, including Trump, lay out an impeachment defense—not only a version of events, but also a theory of innocence. By speaking last, he can present testimony precisely calculated to hurt those he most wants to embarrass.
Read the rest.
Graeme also profiled Bolton, back when the mustachioed firebrand was still serving in Trump’s cabinet.
Bolton is Trump’s third national security adviser. His appointment was delayed for two reasons, both anatomical. First was the issue of his mustache, a droopy soup-strainer that made Trump initially pass Bolton over because he did not think, according to Steve Bannon in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, that “he looks the part.” (Trump instead chose Michael Flynn, who lasted only weeks, then H. R. McMaster, a clean-shaven three-star general, who served from February 2017 until Bolton took over last April.) The second impediment was more substantial, and had stalled Bolton’s ascent in previous administrations as well. “He is incredibly smart and capable,” a Bolton acquaintance told me. “He could have risen faster if he had just been less of a dick.”
Read the full piece.
Now vulnerable GOP senators are under more pressure than ever to subpoena Bolton. (Mitt Romney said on Monday that it was “increasingly likely” the Senate would do so.) David Frum made the case last September for why Bolton should speak up:
Bolton has been a loyal soldier for his president through all these difficulties. His reward was open disrespect and then public humiliation.
Read the full argument, as relevant as ever today.
—Saahil Desai
*
« SNAPSHOT »
(Rick Wilking / Reuters)
The 2020 Democratic candidate Andrew Yang and his wife Evelyn outside a town hall meeting in Sioux City, Iowa today, just a week out from the first votes of this presidential primary.
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(CQ-ROLL CALL / GETTY / THE ATLANTIC)
1. “Sending our military to fight should be the hardest decision we make as a country.”
The hostilities between the U.S. and Iran earlier this month are the latest evidence that foreign policy should be shaped by statecraft, not whim, the 2020 Democratic candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren writes in this statement of her foreign-policy vision.
2. “It’s a hell of a gamble, and for what? To elect to the presidency a person with a proven record of accomplishing little for the causes he espouses, despite almost 32 years in the House and Senate?”
As Bernie Sanders surges in Iowa ahead of next week’s caucuses, David Frum questions what he sees as the senator’s strategy of rallying the kinds of voters “least committed to the political process” while alienating “the Americans most committed to it.”
3. “C-SPAN is so hot right now. And that’s a symptom of something gone deeply wrong.”
Among the odder developments of the Trump era, C-SPAN’s rise to primetime viewing is another sign of the worsening state of American political discourse, Kathy Gilsinan writes: Citizens with a functioning government wouldn’t have to tear themselves away from watching hours of congressional testimony every other week.
4. “The world’s greatest deliberative body? Really?”
During the first week of the impeachment trial, Chief Justice John Roberts—who’s presiding—tried to put a stop to squabbling between Jerry Nadler and Pat Cipollone with an earnest reprimand calling attention to the gravity of the institution of the Senate.
Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic found that moment laughable. They write:
Whom exactly do these people think they’re kidding? By what possible metric can the U.S. Senate flatter itself that it remains the world’s greatest deliberative body? Certainly not by the quality of the deliberation that takes place there. Any grade-school class that meets as a group during circle time to decide what the students want for a snack does more genuine deliberation than does the Senate.
Read the rest of their fiery argument.
*
« EVENING READ »
(YAD VASHEM ARCHIVES / REUTERS)
Holocaust Remembrance Day
On the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, at a time when anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise globally, the historian Walter Reich, the former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, writes:
The recent eruptions of anti-Semitism in America have awakened us to a prejudice that has long resided, in quiet ways and in many forms, in this country. And the part of it that now disguises itself as anti-Zionism—hatred of the Jewish state that was established in the wake of the Holocaust as a refuge for Jews—has even seemed, to some, virtuous, a sentiment they believe puts them in humanity’s moral vanguard. And anti-Semitism has returned, in part, because the general public’s knowledge about the Holocaust—of what exactly it was, who exactly was murdered in it, how many were killed, and how anti-Semitism spawned it—has diminished.
Read the rest.
*


theatlantic--2020-01-27--C-SPAN Is So Hot Right Now

C-SPAN Is So Hot Right Now

Because there ’ s nothing entertaining about public servants doing their job properly—and when that ’ s what ’ s on C-SPAN , for most people it isn ’ t hot .
It ’ s just how things are supposed to work and what citizens have a right to expect .
It ’ s the breakdowns , the partisan rancor , the malfeasance , and the mismanagement that make for must-see TV .
In normal times , a qualified ambassador ’ s Latin-laced testimony about foreign-aid disbursement would be of interest mainly to nerds , professionals , and professional nerds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ explosive ” account of a Ukraine-aid quid pro quo .
And a network that insists on airing entire hearings in full , without the talking-head chatter and screaming chyrons of cable news , is at the center of the action .
When I visited C-SPAN last week , everyone I asked about the network ’ s reputation for dullness seemed used to the critique—and either resigned to or fully in on the joke .
The day before I caught up with him at the network ’ s office , Jeremy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ specialist , had tweeted a bit from the talk-show host Stephen Colbert about late-night impeachment arguments .
( The tagline : “ Indulge your impeachment fantasies with C-SPAN3 After Dark.
” ) I later spotted the political editor Steve Scully hunched over a desk , watching a Conan O ’ Brien skit from the previous night on his phone .
( In it , an argyle-sweatered control-room boss amps up the C-SPAN team : “ Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump : This is our goddamn Super Bowl , okay ?
” ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communications director , Howard Mortman , dug up another O ’ Brien clip to show me , from the 1995 White House Correspondents ’ Association dinner , as Nadler ’ s face beamed from four different screens next to him , each showing the action on the Senate floor .
It ’ s Mortman ’ s favorite C-SPAN joke : “ I have an announcement for those of you watching tonight ’ s event live on C-SPAN .
For God ’ s sake , it ’ s Saturday night !
Go outside , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The irony of this being C-SPAN ’ s moment is that its cameras aren ’ t actually in the Senate chamber right now , and neither are any other news-media cameras .
C-SPAN can and does cover every grimace and rant of House and Senate hearings—complete with speaker shots , reaction shots , witness shots , milling-about shots in committee rooms—but debates and votes on the actual floors of the House and Senate are a different matter .
With rare exceptions , such as the State of the Union address , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the chamber , with C-SPAN and other news outlets picking up the footage .
To hear C-SPANners tell it , the cinematography is lacking—and they could do it so much better .
“ We would love to be able to show the reactions of senators as they are listening to arguments , ” Ben O ’ Connell , C-SPAN ’ s managing editor , told me .
“ We would ’ ve loved to have been able to show as each senator stood up and took their oath.
” The point is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We believe that it ’ s very important that journalists are behind the camera and deciding what people see in the room and how they see it , rather than the government , ” O ’ Connell said .

People across America turn to it regularly. It’s getting lovingly roasted on late-night television. It’s going viral on YouTube with sizzling footage of Jerry Nadler talking two decades ago.
C-SPAN is so hot right now. And that’s a symptom of something gone deeply wrong.
The fact that so many people want to watch Congress’s activity points to just how disturbing and dysfunctional the current political era is. A perhaps surprising number of politicians are totally charisma-free, on-screen and off. Even though it’s their job to check the rest of the government and spend taxpayer money, no one necessarily wants to watch them do it hour after stultifying hour.
But C-SPAN has been watching for more than 40 years now—and judging by the growing share of its videos with 1 million or more views, its expanding subscription base on YouTube, and the hundreds of thousands who have tuned into its impeachment live-stream, a still-modest but ever larger number of Americans want in too. The United States under Donald Trump has seen an unusually high number of buzzy hearings, with James Comey versus Senate Intel becoming required viewing at bars in Washington, D.C; Michael Cohen versus House Intel streaming from countless cubicle laptops; and Robert Mueller versus House Judiciary getting obsessively analyzed for entertainment value—as if a congressional witness is supposed to scintillate. This is salutary civic engagement, maybe, but it’s not a sign that the government is working well.
Read: The solemn absurdity of Trump’s impeachment trial
Because there’s nothing entertaining about public servants doing their job properly—and when that’s what’s on C-SPAN, for most people it isn’t hot. It’s just how things are supposed to work and what citizens have a right to expect. It’s the breakdowns, the partisan rancor, the malfeasance, and the mismanagement that make for must-see TV. In normal times, a qualified ambassador’s Latin-laced testimony about foreign-aid disbursement would be of interest mainly to nerds, professionals, and professional nerds. Instead, Americans devoured Gordon Sondland’s “explosive” account of a Ukraine-aid quid pro quo.
And a network that insists on airing entire hearings in full, without the talking-head chatter and screaming chyrons of cable news, is at the center of the action. When I visited C-SPAN last week, everyone I asked about the network’s reputation for dullness seemed used to the critique—and either resigned to or fully in on the joke. The day before I caught up with him at the network’s office, Jeremy Art, C-SPAN’s social-media senior specialist, had tweeted a bit from the talk-show host Stephen Colbert about late-night impeachment arguments. (The tagline: “Indulge your impeachment fantasies with C-SPAN3 After Dark.”) I later spotted the political editor Steve Scully hunched over a desk, watching a Conan O’Brien skit from the previous night on his phone. (In it, an argyle-sweatered control-room boss amps up the C-SPAN team: “Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump: This is our goddamn Super Bowl, okay?”)
In his office, C-SPAN’s communications director, Howard Mortman, dug up another O’Brien clip to show me, from the 1995 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, as Nadler’s face beamed from four different screens next to him, each showing the action on the Senate floor. It’s Mortman’s favorite C-SPAN joke: “I have an announcement for those of you watching tonight’s event live on C-SPAN. For God’s sake, it’s Saturday night! Go outside, meet a woman. Come on!”
The irony of this being C-SPAN’s moment is that its cameras aren’t actually in the Senate chamber right now, and neither are any other news-media cameras. C-SPAN can and does cover every grimace and rant of House and Senate hearings—complete with speaker shots, reaction shots, witness shots, milling-about shots in committee rooms—but debates and votes on the actual floors of the House and Senate are a different matter. With rare exceptions, such as the State of the Union address, the House and Senate operate their own cameras in the chamber, with C-SPAN and other news outlets picking up the footage.
To hear C-SPANners tell it, the cinematography is lacking—and they could do it so much better. “We would love to be able to show the reactions of senators as they are listening to arguments,” Ben O’Connell, C-SPAN’s managing editor, told me. “We would’ve loved to have been able to show as each senator stood up and took their oath.” The point is not just aesthetic, but philosophical too. “We believe that it’s very important that journalists are behind the camera and deciding what people see in the room and how they see it, rather than the government,” O’Connell said.
What the millions watching can’t see is just as revealing about the process as what they can. When Representative Adam Schiff launched into the second hour of his opening arguments in Trump’s impeachment trial one day last week, you could see him taking sips of water between reflections on abuse of office, George Washington crossing the Delaware, and the wise words of Benjamin Franklin. You couldn’t see what the New York Daily News reporter Michael McAuliff spotted and tweeted about from the press gallery: 21 empty seats on the GOP side and two on the Democratic side. The Senate cameras do offer Americans the benefit of hearing the arguments on impeachment, but they give no indication about how seriously lawmakers are taking them—or by extension, their responsibility to act as jury members.
C-SPAN pushed for floor access to the impeachment proceedings, but neither Democratic leadership in the House nor Republican leadership in the Senate welcomed its cameras—even though the value of the network is a rare patch of bipartisan agreement on the Hill. (As for the impeachment hearings in the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees last year, the network had seven cameras in place—including a tiny camera on a pole in the corner for a wide shot of each room.) C-SPAN’s appeal to the Senate, in the context of other press restrictions, prompted a New York Times headline declaring that “even C-SPAN” was “piqued.”
Buckner F. Melton Jr.: No wonder the impeachment trial is such a mess
O’Connell would neither confirm nor deny any such state of pique, but he did say that C-SPAN journalists have requested floor access multiple times since turning on their cameras in 1979. Those efforts have pretty much always failed, with the exception of a recent documentary. For that, the Senate let them film partly from the floor, though the lawmakers had to pass a resolution to allow the cameras in. Brian Lamb, who founded the network and retired from it last year, recalled fighting in vain for floor access during Bill Clinton’s impeachment too. “We were running down a blind alley into a dead end,” he told me.
Politicians “really don’t understand television,” Lamb added, lamenting their need to control how they’re seen. “They understand that it can damage them.”
And it has. When he was House speaker in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich also refused to let C-SPAN cameras onto the floor, though he did let House camera operators experiment with reaction shots, according to Chad Pergram, a Fox News congressional correspondent who previously worked at C-SPAN. “That experiment lasted about a week as the House feed showed lawmakers dozing, goofing off and reading,” Pergram wrote in a column for Fox News. “Callers then lit up the Capitol switchboard as they phoned to admonish their lawmakers for not showing respect to the speaker or accusing them of sloughing off on the taxpayer's dime.” (Gingrich then backed off to let them do so in private.)
One can almost sympathize with their anxiety. Politicians work for the public, and who wants their boss watching them all the time? But if you’re the boss, you presumably want to know that the person whose salary you pay is, say, following company policy and showing up to meetings. That’s especially important right now, when those very employees keep saying that the fate of the entire country is at stake in their deliberations.
A properly functioning government is one that the average citizen has the luxury to ignore rather than think about, much less spend hours watching tear itself apart. But the government isn’t functioning properly these days—in ways that long precede Trump and impeachment—and the extent of its failures should actually make C-SPAN even hotter than it is right now. Mortman said that well before The Washington Post’s Afghanistan Papers series exposed how officials kept expressing optimism about the war in public while panning it in private, C-SPAN had aired hundreds of hearings on the matter, dating back to 2001, in which much of the series’ revelations could have been gleaned. From fiscal mismanagement to bungled wars, politicians aren’t succeeding enough anymore to give Americans the luxury of boredom. And they’ve been failing in plain sight, in front of the cameras. Americans may be tuning in too late.


theatlantic--2020-01-28--The Atlantic Politics Daily: From the Trail to the Trial

It ’ s Tuesday , January 28 .
Mitch McConnell reportedly said during a private meeting that GOP members don ’ t have the votes to block impeachment-trial witnesses .
In the rest of today ’ s newsletter : This is surely not how Kamala Harris or Cory Booker had planned to spend their January .
Plus : Fearing the moderate .
From the Trail to the Trial The president ’ s legal team concluded its defense today .
The impeachment trial now enters the questioning phase , and may involve new witnesses .
While historic and momentous , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opportunity for the senators .
But the proceedings are likely especially dispiriting for the crop of lawmakers who , after dropping out of the 2020 race , find themselves sitting silently as one among 100 .
At least one senator was spotting dozing off last week .
Another brought a fidget spinner to manage boredom .
Another was spotted filling out a crossword puzzle .
The plight of two wannabe presidents—Cory Booker and Kamala Harris—both of whom had the resume of a proper 2020 heavyweight , is especially stark , my colleague Todd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how either big-name Democrat had planned to spend the third week of January : in the political equivalent of their parents ’ basement , having flunked out of the presidential race they ’ d approached with such high hopes last year .
Their backbench neighbor , Michael Bennet , who is still running but has long struggled for traction , languished in the same psychic dunce ’ s row , listening listlessly .
Todd also caught up with Booker himself last week : Booker was waylaid in the Senate subway by the veteran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 11 international students .
When I asked the senator how it felt to be stuck in Washington and not in Iowa , he fixed me with a mock-hurt gaze and said , “ Really ?
You trying to poke my sadness ?
” Booker went on , “ Look , it ’ s definitely heartbreaking that things had to end , but at the same time , I can not escape my gratitude for the experience .
It ’ s been really wonderful.
” Read Todd ’ s full piece about the @ @ @ @ @ @

Impeachment is likely dispiriting for the crop of lawmakers who, after dropping out of the 2020 race, find themselves sitting silently as one among 100.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: From the Trail to the Trial
It’s Tuesday, January 28. Mitch McConnell reportedly said during a private meeting that GOP members don’t have the votes to block impeachment-trial witnesses.
In the rest of today’s newsletter: This is surely not how Kamala Harris or Cory Booker had planned to spend their January. Plus: Fearing the moderate.
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(SAUL LOEB / JOE RAEDLE / GETTY / THE ATLANTIC)
From the Trail to the Trial
The president’s legal team concluded its defense today. The impeachment trial now enters the questioning phase, and may involve new witnesses.
While historic and momentous, the trial is in no way a glamorous opportunity for the senators. But the proceedings are likely especially dispiriting for the crop of lawmakers who, after dropping out of the 2020 race, find themselves sitting silently as one among 100.
At least one senator was spotting dozing off last week. Another brought a fidget spinner to manage boredom. Another was spotted filling out a crossword puzzle.
The plight of two wannabe presidents—Cory Booker and Kamala Harris—both of whom had the resume of a proper 2020 heavyweight, is especially stark, my colleague Todd Purdum writes:
This is surely not how either big-name Democrat had planned to spend the third week of January: in the political equivalent of their parents’ basement, having flunked out of the presidential race they’d approached with such high hopes last year. Their backbench neighbor, Michael Bennet, who is still running but has long struggled for traction, languished in the same psychic dunce’s row, listening listlessly.
Todd also caught up with Booker himself last week:
Booker was waylaid in the Senate subway by the veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz and a group of 11 international students. When I asked the senator how it felt to be stuck in Washington and not in Iowa, he fixed me with a mock-hurt gaze and said, “Really? You trying to poke my sadness?” Booker went on, “Look, it’s definitely heartbreaking that things had to end, but at the same time, I cannot escape my gratitude for the experience. It’s been really wonderful.”
Read Todd’s full piece about the wonderfulness of the experience here.
—Saahil Desai
*
« SNAPSHOT »
(Joshua Roberts / Reuters)
President Donald Trump pats Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the back as they deliver joint remarks today on a Middle East peace plan, which, among several other proposals, expands Israeli territory.
*
« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »
(MATT ROURKE / AP)
1. “I am haunted by the fear that nominating a moderate will ensure Trump’s reelection.”
Electability seems to dominate the presidential pitches of moderate Democrats. The likes of Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg have positioned themselves as safer options for the general election.
But what Democrats need in this moment is a passionate progressive to persuade citizens not to sit out the presidential contest, Ibram X. Kendi argues.
2. “Due process protects the life, liberty, and property of private citizens. It does not create a right to occupy the White House.”
Because impeachment deals with a public office and is not a substitute for a criminal trial, the Trump defense team’s claim that the president is being deprived of due process isn’t really coherent, the political scientist Greg Weiner argues.
3. “Permeating every moment of Harvey Weinstein’s trial is the disturbing history of sexual-assault prosecution in America.”
Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes about this watershed moment.
*
« EVENING READ »
(CBS PHOTO ARCHIVE / GETTY)
The Doomed Project of the Novel American Dirt
What does it mean for a story about an immigrant woman and her son’s escape from drug cartels in Mexico to be told by a white woman? Hannah Giorgis explores the limits of such fiction.
What good, after all, does the mere acknowledgement of migrants’ essential humanity do for those whose lives have been shattered—and in some cases, ended—in large part because of punitive U.S. immigration policies? Are the tens of thousands of migrant children held in government custody, some of whom never see their families again, to feel comforted by American Dirt’s limp exhortation to the average reader—or by Oprah Winfrey’s selection of the novel for her famed Book Club? For those whose lives are not shaped fundamentally by the indifference of others, empathy can be a seductive, self-aggrandizing goal.
Catch up on the controversy, and read Hannah’s full piece, here.
*


theatlantic--2020-01-29--The Humbling of Democrats in Texas

The Humbling of Democrats in Texas

“ Democrats were convinced they could buy Texas .
But tonight they learned Texans aren ’ t buying the nonsense the Democrats are selling , ” said Austin Chambers , the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee , the national-party group dedicated to state legislative races .
“ Texans sent a message loud and clear to the liberals in Washington : ‘ We ’ re going to keep Texas Texas.
’ ” The seemingly small stakes of a local campaign in the Houston suburbs had nevertheless captured the attention of the Democratic Party ’ s top presidential candidates , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commitment to Democrats ’ broader goal of recapturing power in the states and making Texas truly competitive in 2020 .
The Democratic candidate Eliz Markowitz won endorsements from Joe Biden , Elizabeth Warren , and Michael Bloomberg .
Former Representative Beto O ’ Rourke , who nearly carried the district in his close Senate race in 2018 , campaigned aggressively for Markowitz after dropping his own White House bid in the fall .
Yet she not only failed to match O ’ Rourke ’ s performance two years ago against Senator Ted Cruz @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of the vote that Hillary Clinton earned in the district in 2016 .
In the aftermath of last night ’ s election , both parties observed the unwritten rules of analyzing special-election results .
To the party that won , the victory is a clear harbinger of bigger success .
To the party that lost , the results mean absolutely nothing at all .
“ We always knew the race would be tough , ” Jessica Post , the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee , told me this morning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an anomaly , ” noting the unpredictability of low-turnout special elections .
Post also blamed Texas Republicans for scheduling the election in the dead of winter and limiting early-voting periods .
She said Democrats had forced Republicans to spend millions and devote the full resources of their party to defend a district that as recently as 2012 went for Mitt Romney by 30 points .
“ I think that ’ s a win , ” Post argued .
“ I think it shows Republicans are scared as hell.
” Other Democratic operatives I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a stretch to call Texas a winnable state for the party ’ s eventual presidential nominee in 2020 .
( These dampened expectations are a contrast to the hype that built up after 2016 , when the nine-point gap between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in Texas was smaller than the gap in Iowa and barely larger than the one in Ohio . )
But they said last night ’ s special-election defeat did not dim their hopes for winning a majority in the state House .
There are , they noted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than the one they lost last night .
And especially in suburban districts where voters have soured on President Trump , Democrats expect the higher turnout in November to boost their chances .
“ Not having Trump on the ballot really hurt [ Markowitz ] , ” said one Democratic operative with Texas ties , who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the race candidly .

Republicans in the state were caught napping in 2016 and 2018. They came back to life last night in a key special election.
Democrats always knew it was going to be hard to turn Texas blue in 2020. This week, they received a painful reminder of just how tough it’ll be.
Republicans last night swamped Democrats in what one progressive group had hyped as “the most important special election since the midterms,” winning by 16 points a key state legislative race that both parties viewed as a test run for the much-bigger campaign this fall. The defeat, particularly by such a wide margin, was a setback for Democrats, who poured nearly $1 million into the election.
It also signaled the reinvigoration of the Texas GOP. Republicans were caught napping in 2016 and 2018, giving Democrats hope that they could put the country’s largest GOP stronghold in play this year.
But the party came back to life in this race, well exceeding Democrats’ substantial investment. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other top Republicans threw their support behind the GOP candidate Gary Gates, who spent more than $1.5 million of his own money in the campaign. The millions spent in total were a whopping sum for an election decided by just 30,000 people—a turnout of 20 percent—to fill just one of 150 seats in the Texas state House.
After cutting into the margins of the Republican majority in the chamber in 2018, Democrats need to flip just nine seats to win control this fall and loosen the GOP’s long-held grip on the state government. They had hoped to get a head start on that bid by nabbing this open GOP seat.
“Democrats were convinced they could buy Texas. But tonight they learned Texans aren’t buying the nonsense the Democrats are selling,” said Austin Chambers, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, the national-party group dedicated to state legislative races. “Texans sent a message loud and clear to the liberals in Washington: ‘We’re going to keep Texas Texas.’”
Read: Something’s happening in Texas
The seemingly small stakes of a local campaign in the Houston suburbs had nevertheless captured the attention of the Democratic Party’s top presidential candidates, who used the race to demonstrate their commitment to Democrats’ broader goal of recapturing power in the states and making Texas truly competitive in 2020. The Democratic candidate Eliz Markowitz won endorsements from Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Michael Bloomberg. Former Representative Beto O’Rourke, who nearly carried the district in his close Senate race in 2018, campaigned aggressively for Markowitz after dropping his own White House bid in the fall. Yet she not only failed to match O’Rourke’s performance two years ago against Senator Ted Cruz; she fell short of the 43 percent of the vote that Hillary Clinton earned in the district in 2016.
In the aftermath of last night’s election, both parties observed the unwritten rules of analyzing special-election results. To the party that won, the victory is a clear harbinger of bigger success. To the party that lost, the results mean absolutely nothing at all.
“We always knew the race would be tough,” Jessica Post, the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, told me this morning. She called the 16-point margin “an anomaly,” noting the unpredictability of low-turnout special elections. Post also blamed Texas Republicans for scheduling the election in the dead of winter and limiting early-voting periods.
She said Democrats had forced Republicans to spend millions and devote the full resources of their party to defend a district that as recently as 2012 went for Mitt Romney by 30 points. “I think that’s a win,” Post argued. “I think it shows Republicans are scared as hell.”
Other Democratic operatives I spoke with this morning conceded that it was a stretch to call Texas a winnable state for the party’s eventual presidential nominee in 2020. (These dampened expectations are a contrast to the hype that built up after 2016, when the nine-point gap between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in Texas was smaller than the gap in Iowa and barely larger than the one in Ohio.) But they said last night’s special-election defeat did not dim their hopes for winning a majority in the state House. There are, they noted, 15 districts more favorable to Democrats than the one they lost last night. And especially in suburban districts where voters have soured on President Trump, Democrats expect the higher turnout in November to boost their chances. “Not having Trump on the ballot really hurt [Markowitz],” said one Democratic operative with Texas ties, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the race candidly.
Because the Texas legislature meets only in odd-numbered years, Gates won’t even cast a vote before he faces Markowitz in a November rematch. The state Democratic Party chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, vowed that race would be “a toss-up” despite Tuesday’s results. The Texas legislature is high on Democrats’ target list for 2020, when victories in state races will carry added gravity heading into the next round of redistricting.
It may have taken a lot of money, but ultimately Republicans swamped Democrats with higher turnout, particularly among their stronger coalition of voters who more reliably show up at the polls. “This was a base-versus-base election, and Republicans were able to mobilize their base to turn out in huge numbers,” Post told me.
In 2018, O’Rourke’s near-upset of Cruz was a wake-up call for Texas Republicans. Yesterday, in their first 2020 test, they answered it.