More of Trump’s chaos vs. Sanders’ radical change?
The latest in President Donald Trump’s chaos: The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump edged out his acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, because Maguire briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about Russian meddling in the 2020 election. Reminder: Maguire took over the intelligence post last summer, just as the Ukraine scandal was erupting. At the time Trump called the longtime Navy SEAL an “excellent” choice. Now he’s been replaced by Trump’s ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, who has no intelligence experience.
Also Thursday, Trump’s friend and political adviser Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison. This, after Trump complained about the length of the sentence requested by prosecutors, prompting his attorney general to undercut their recommendation. Trump said after the sentencing that he’s not quite ready to pardon Stone.
The something else might be Sanders’ radical change
In their collective effort to neutralize Mike Bloomberg and his capitalist billions, Democratic presidential candidates may be essentially handing their nomination to Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who seems primed to romp in Nevada on Saturday and beyond.
Time and voters will tell, obviously, but in the hours after Wednesday’s Democratic debate, the conventional wisdom gelled as it has not before. Here it is, briefly:
The democratic socialist senator from Vermont stands the best chance of amassing the delegates to be the Democratic nominee for President.
Nevada is Saturday, but Super Tuesday is now. Almost a million absentee ballots have already been returned in California, according to the secretary of state’s office. And hundreds of thousands more have voted in Texas. Those two states, the biggest delegate pots of all, will shape the Democratic race.
Republicans and Trump are licking their lips. The other conventional wisdom is that the GOP is giddy at the thought of running a national presidential campaign against someone who wants to tear up the US health insurance system, root and branch, and have the government pay for it all. But Sanders’ contention that his grassroots army will catch fire may come to pass.
Thought bubble: In a general election campaign, Trump would be defending his record, while Sanders would be pushing for radical change, especially on health care. (Reminder: The status quo means Obamacare, which Trump has repeatedly tried and failed to kill.)
Sanders, who backs a government-run Medicare for All program, has said that not even a public option is acceptable. Medicare for All, he said at a CNN town hall, is already compromise enough. And that, more than his support for socialism, is what sets Sanders apart. His candidacy, more than anyone else’s, would allow Trump, who has done so much to disrupt the status quo, to run as the person protecting the status quo. It’s a status quo that allows billionaires to flourish, no doubt.
Change can be scary. Maybe it’s time for the country to expand benefits it currently reserves for the old, the disabled and the poor to everyone. But boy, would it be a switch.
Climate change is also scary. But people in Pennsylvania like jobs. Another example, just from Wednesday night, is Sanders’ pledge to support a Green New Deal, ban fracking and end US reliance on natural gas. Problem is fracking, despite its troubles, is a boon to the Pennsylvania economy. Now, a fracking ban is not going to pass through Congress without serious changes. But support for one could be a devastating tool in Pennsylvania.
One key difference: We know Trump will bring his organizational chaos. We don’t know what a Sanders administration would be like, but his ability to deliver on his promise is highly in doubt. There is almost no chance Sanders can deliver Medicare for All or a wealth tax without huge Democratic gains in the Senate.
Are we looking at a contested convention?
CNN senior political analyst Ronald Brownstein wrote in The Atlantic that by piling on Bloomberg, the candidates on stage went after the wrong guy (at least from their own selfish perspectives).
“It took the moderators to remind the candidates of the big picture as Sanders establishes some separation from the field. Chuck Todd asked a question that I believe will become a frequent topic of conversation among Democrats in the weeks ahead: Do you believe the party should nominate the candidate who arrives at the July convention with the most delegates, even if no one has the 1,991 delegates required for a first-ballot victory? All the contenders effectively said no, except for Sanders—who insisted that “the will of the people should prevail.”
With those answers, the candidates chasing Sanders pointedly left themselves room to resist his nomination at the convention if he arrives with a plurality, but not a majority, of the delegates. But by and large, they did surprisingly little to reduce the odds that Sanders will, in fact, arrive in Milwaukee with more delegates than anyone else.
But first, Sanders has to get past the union wall
Nevada will pit unions vs. Medicare for All. Sanders has long been an advocate for workers, but the most immediate question is whether unions, who fought for benefits in lieu of compensation, will accept his ideas. That’s going to be a huge question in Nevada, write CNN’s Tami Luhby and Greg Krieg. Read more.
Democratic socialism is not socialism. Okay.
After the debate Wednesday, I wrote about the moment in which it was pointed out to Sanders that a recent NBC / WSJ poll showed a strong majority of US voters aren’t comfortable with a socialist candidate. That’s a finding borne out in other polling.
Sanders deflected, artfully, and glossed over that fact by pointing out that he was leading the Democratic field in that poll (it also showed him with a slim lead over Trump in a hypothetical matchup).
He ignored the underlying point in the poll that socialism has issues among the majority of American voters in these polls.
And wow, did I get an earful from Sanders supporters, who filled up my Twitter feed and Facebook with Trump-level insults, nitpicking and hate. Their gripes included:
Democratic socialism is not socialism. Fine. But the question put to Sanders was about socialism. The question in the polling was about socialism. Sanders did not correct the moderators that he’s a democratic socialist.
I mischaracterized Medicare for All. I said it would cancel the US health system and replace it with something government-run. Some tweeters said it was just a change to the way Americans bill health care. Others said that by writing what I did, I was actively trying to keep Americans from hospital care. Whatever you think, Medicare for All outlaws private health insurance. That may be a good idea in a time of skyrocketing premiums. But the way it holds premiums down is by erasing the insurance industry and putting the government in charge of payments and paying doctors. All of the trillions that states, people and their employers pay into the health system each year would be paid instead by the federal government. Of course that will affect the end-user health system.
Others called me a shill for Bloomberg, a corporate stooge, stupid, uninformed.
There’s good argument that the country needs to be more open to democratic socialism, but it’s also a fact in current polling that it is a divisive idea and it’s a sure thing Trump will use it against Sanders. Reflexive attacks are an ineffective way to change minds.
What does Obama think?
If you’ve seen Barack Obama recently, it’s in the wall-to-wall ads being aired by Michael Bloomberg. The former President has kept his powder extremely dry in this primary, perhaps so he can rally the party around the eventual nominee if things get ugly.
But Sanders told CNN’s Ryan Nobles today that he is in fairly regular contact with Obama.
They’ve spoken “a couple of times in the last month or two.” Sanders called Obama “iconic” and said he is confident that should he win the nomination that Obama will play a crucial role in helping him with the White House.
Sanders has previously voiced his policy disagreements with the former President, Nobles writes, but today Sanders spoke warmly about his relationship with Obama, saying that while they aren’t the “best of friends” that they are “friends”. Sanders went on to say that he had the “utmost confidence” that Obama will be there to support him if and when he wins the nomination.
What are we doing here?
The American system of government has been challenged to deal with a singular President and a divided country that will decide whether he should get another four years in the White House.
Stay tuned to this newsletter as we keep watch over the Trump administration, the 2020 presidential campaign and other issues of critical interest.
