“They’ll Be Waiting A Long Time”: The Illusory Conservative Campaign For The “Right” Minority Voters
I’ve been pretty harsh about the racial aspects of Team Chris McDaniel’s argument that the MS GOP SEN runoff was “stolen” from him. But let’s bend over backwards to be fair and adopt Dave Weigel’s interpretation of what hyper-conservatives mean when they complain about the “wrong kind” of appeals to African-Americans:
The Tea Party, a movement that helped elect Allen West to Congress and helped make Herman Cain—Herman Cain!—a presidential contender, and wants to elect Mia Love to Congress in Utah, believes that conservatives can win black votes while remaining conservative. When West talks about escaping “the liberal plantation,” that’s what he means. The “racist” party is the one that wins black votes by promising largesse, and the colorblind party aims to win them by talking free markets and social values.
Taking this seriously, of course, means ignoring the thousands of dog whistles blown during the endless Tea Party efforts to demonize “looters” and “food stamps” and “voter fraud”–and of course, the first African-American president. There’s no binary choice on the table either to offer minority voters “largesse” or to attack their integrity, work ethic, and even patriotism for participating in federal programs when they qualify for them. The whole “plantation” meme beloved particularly of African-American conservatives is an ongoing insult bordering on a blood libel, which is why you don’t find many African-Americans supporting Allen West or Herman Cain.
But intentions aside, if conservatives are waiting for the “right” kind of Republican appeal to attract the “right” kind of minority voters, they’ll be waiting a long time. The simple fact is that the already-meager Republican share of the minority vote has been steadily sliding since the GOP began its latest lurch to the Right. George W. Bush won 11% of the African-American vote and 44% of the Latino vote in 2004. In 2008 John McCain won 4% of the African-American vote and 31% of the Latino vote, and in 2012 Mitt Romney won 6% of the African-American vote and 27% of the Latino vote. That’s a pretty calamitous decline, and any conservative unwilling to admit that endless GOP attacks on “redistribution” and “illegal immigrants” and “welfare” has nothing to do with that is either dishonest or smoking crack.
Check out the language in this tweet over the weekend from McDaniel campaign manager (and state legislator) Melanie Sojourner, made in the course of saying she’d never endorse the “race-baiting” Thad Cochran:
Throughout my campaign and since I’ve repeatedly made comments about how I felt the Republican Party was doing itself a disservice by not reaching out to conservative African-Americans. Where I’m from, in rural Mississippi, I grew up knowing lots a [sic] God-fearing, hard-working, independent conservative minded African-American family’s [sic]. On the McDaniel campaign we had two young men from just such family’s on our staff.
Sojourner’s idea of “outreach” seems to be to wait for minority voters to develop sufficient character to vote for the GOP exactly as it finds it today. That presumably means accepting conservatives have been right all along–dating back to Jim Crow–about the evil nature of the Welfare State and a federal government large and strong enough to support civil rights laws.
Do people like this really believe in their heart of hearts they’re being “color-blind?” I cannot peer into their souls, but it’s no more or less plausible than the constant complaints from southern white conservatives I heard growing up that segregation was good for both races. Lord knows anything’s better for African-Americans than being consigned to the plantation of dependence on Washington for help in feeding one’s kids and gaining access to health care and keeping open threadbare public schools and securing the right to vote. Perhaps if the GOP becomes even more conservative the great minority voting breakthrough will finally occur.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, July 8, 2014
“Christie Struggles To Defend The Indefensible”: Since We Can’t Save Everyone, Chris Christie Is Not Inclined To Try To Save Anyone
New Jersey’s Democratic legislature approved a measure in the spring to limit the size of firearm magazines to 10 rounds of ammunition. In theory, it’s the sort of gun-safety reform that’s tough to condemn – it’s perfectly consistent with the Constitution; it doesn’t affect hunters; it wouldn’t prevent Americans from buying firearms to protect themselves; and it might save lives.
The bill landed on Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) desk in May, but as we talked about last week, the Republican governor waited until the day before a holiday weekend to announce he’d vetoed the legislation. As Rachel noted on the show, Christie soon after added insult to injury.
First, note that the governor refused to meet with some parents whose children were murdered in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. It’s tempting to think basic human decency, if nothing else, would lead a politician to at least hear these parents out, but Christie’s office said he was out – even though the parents said they saw the governor when they arrived at his office.
Second, note how Christie explained himself yesterday while talking to reporters.
“I’ve heard the argument, and so, are we saying, then, that the 10 children on the clip that they advocate for, that their lives are less valuable? If you take the logical conclusion of their argument, you go to zero, because every life is valuable.
“And so why 10? Why not six? Why not two? Why not one? Why not zero? Why not just ban guns completely? I mean, you know, so the logical conclusion of their argument is that you get to zero eventually.
“So, you know, I understand their argument. I feel extraordinary sympathy for them and the other families, and all the families across America who are the victims of gun violence…. I understand their argument. I’ve heard their argument. I don’t agree with their argument.”
It’s important to understand why this slippery-slope argument is so deeply flawed.
In some of the high-profile mass shootings from recent memory, the ability of the gunman to use high-capacity clips has mattered a great deal. It’s not hard to understand why: when the shooter has to stop to reload, it gives people a chance. Maybe some can get away. Maybe the gunman can be tackled. Maybe that interval, however brief, can make the difference between life and death for a potential victim.
And so lawmakers in New Jersey decided, in the name of public safety, to lower the legal limit of the magazine from 15 rounds to 10. The governor said last week such a change “will not end” gun violence, which is true, but it also misses the point. The goal here is to reduce the number of people who might get shot.
Christie wants to know if “they” – presumably, “they” refers to parents whose children were massacred – are arguing “that the 10 children on the clip that they advocate for, that their lives are less valuable.” I obviously can’t speak for them, but the governor’s cheap reply is based on deeply flawed logic.
Christie hasn’t denied that this gun-safety reform might make a difference. Instead, he’s arguing that since we can’t save everyone, he’s not inclined to try to save anyone.
And all the while, New Jersey’s Tough Guy Governor doesn’t even have the courage to sit down with Newtown parents and make his bad argument to their faces.
Rachel concluded last night, “No one is quite sure what counts as a shameful moment in New Jersey politics anymore, but the governor calling out the parents of murdered kids, for them not understanding the value of human life? This is at least testing the bounds of what is usually called shameful, if not the very definition of the word, itself.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 8, 2014
“Ryan The Wonk Losing His Street Cred”: He’s Clearly Overdrawn At The Intellectual Credit Bank
In all the recent attention being paid to “Reform Conservatives” (some galvanized by Sam Tanenhaus’ lengthy profile in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine), a glaring absence has been noted in the sparse ranks of the reform movement’s political sponsors. Yes, one-time Super Wonk Paul Ryan, who until recently epitomized Big Brains in the GOP, is nowhere to be seen, and may actually be diverging from the reformers on key tax and budget issues.
Jonathan Chait argues that the cool pragmatism of the Reform Conservatives is at odds with the “apocalyptic” attitude towards Obama and liberalism that Ryan shares with the Tea Folk. But TNR’s Brian Beutler is more precise in noting that the reformicons’ antipathy to the tax agenda of the business community and support for “family-friendly” tax policies is at odds with where Ryan is likely to go as the next chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee:
In his most recent budget, Ryan emphasized his support for a tax reform package that would, among other things, reduce the current seven tax brackets to two, at 25 and 10 percent rates. The dual-bracket structure has long been the dream goal of conservative, supply-side tax reform. It would not just simplify the code, a goal even liberals share. It would also reduce rates on the wealthy. But such a plan could not be revenue-neutral without sharply increasing middle class taxes. It’s a mathematical certainty.
And such a plan is definitely at odds with the reformicons’ stated concern that the conservative movement’s fiscal policies are in danger of fatally alienating middle-class voters, and even the GOP’s critical white working class constituency.
It’s worth remembering, of course, that Ryan’s hardly the only ambitious GOP pol who’s likely to prefer praise from the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board than from the reformicon ranks. So it’s hardly a good betting proposition that the reformers’ fiscal priorities will find champions among the 2016 GOP presidential field, even if Marco Rubio regains his pre-immigration-reform standing.
But for the moment, it’s refreshing to see that Ryan looks more and more like a standard GOP business hack with an unhealthy addiction to Ayn Rand novels, and less and less like the Brains of the GOP. He’s certainly overdrawn at the intellectual credit bank.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Editor, Washington Monthly Political Animal, July 8, 2014
“Boehner’s Imaginary Allegations”: Speaker Still Struggling To Explain Anti-Obama Lawsuit
No one seems quite as happy about House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) anti-Obama lawsuit as President Obama himself. For the West Wing, the Republican litigation helps prove to the public, in a rather definitive way, that Obama’s governing while GOP lawmakers in Congress sit around and complain. Indeed, the frivolous case is effectively a bold announcement that the Republican-led House wants the federal government to be paralyzed indefinitely – which is hardly a winning message in an election year.
And so the president has ended up talking more about Boehner’s prospective lawsuit than Boehner has. “I told [the House Speaker], ‘I’d rather do things with you, pass some laws, make sure the Highway Trust Fund is funded so we don’t lay off hundreds of thousands of workers.’ It’s not that hard,” Obama said last week. “Middle-class families can’t wait for Republicans in Congress to do stuff. So sue me. As long as they’re doing nothing, I’m not going to apologize for trying to do something.”
Yesterday, Boehner responded with a CNN op-ed, defending the litigation he has not yet filed. It’s worth scrutinizing in detail.
[T]oo often over the past five years, the President has circumvented the American people and their elected representatives through executive action, changing and creating his own laws.
First, the Speaker needs to understand, in a “Schoolhouse Rock” sort of way, that the White House cannot create its own laws. That’s gibberish. Obama can create policies through executive orders and executive actions, but those aren’t literally new laws. Second, to help bolster his case about Obama abuses, Boehner referenced exactly zero specific examples.
What’s disappointing is the President’s flippant dismissal of the Constitution we are both sworn to defend.
No, holding the debt ceiling hostage, vowing to crash the global economy on purpose while ignoring the “Full Faith and Credit” of the United States is a “flippant dismissal of the Constitution.” Obama’s use of executive authority, on the other hand, is fairly routine.
I know the President is frustrated. I’m frustrated. The American people are frustrated, too. After years of slow economic growth and high unemployment under President Obama, they are still asking, ‘where are the jobs?’
Boehner may not remember this – 2008 seems like a long time ago – but Obama inherited the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. The president proceeded to turn the economy around, no thanks to Boehner, who demanded a five-year spending freeze at the height of the crisis, and has fought ever since for fewer investments, less capital, less demand, and higher unemployment through laid off public-sector workers.
As for where the jobs are, the United States is currently on track for the best year for job creation since the 1990s and June was the 52nd consecutive month in which we’ve seen private-sector job growth – the longest streak on record. Why didn’t Boehner read the jobs report?
The House has passed more than 40 jobs bills that would help.
No, not really.
Washington taxes and regulations always make it harder for private sector employers to meet payrolls, invest in new initiatives and create jobs – but how can those employers plan, invest and grow when the laws are changing on the President’s whim at any moment?
First, if presidential whims periodically change American law outside the constitutional system, then Congress would have a responsibility to impeach the president. Since this allegation is imaginary, however, there’s no need. Second, if Boehner is concerned about employers’ confidence in economic stability, the Speaker can approve resources for the Highway Trust Fund and stop playing games with the economy (again).
If House Republicans have a legitimate complaint, shouldn’t it be easier for Boehner to make his case?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 7, 2014
“The Default Setting”: Why Your Employer Can’t Cut Off Your Contraception Coverage
On the Fourth of July, while you were stuffing your face with patriotic burgers and watching patriotic fireworks, the Supreme Court handed down an emergency injunction in a case involving Wheaton College’s objection to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception benefit, a decision that acted as an addendum to the Hobby Lobby decision. As I ranted over here, this is the decision that could really open the floodgates to thousands of claims from all kinds of organizations and companies that don’t want to let their employees get contraception. But after thinking and reading about it for a while, there’s something I think everyone seems to be missing, and it could mean that no one is actually going to lose their coverage, even temporarily.
I should say that it’s entirely possible that I’m completely wrong about this, and there’s some bureaucratic detail deep within the ACA that I’ve overlooked. But the first thing to remember is that the ACA requires that insurance plans cover a variety of kinds of preventive care, including contraception; this issue is about what exactly a company or organization has to do when they have an objection to contraception coverage. The Obama administration constructed an alternative arrangement, which until now was supposed to be used only for religiously affiliated non-profits but, after the Hobby Lobby decision, may have to be used for basically anyone, including for-profit companies. The way it works is that if your group doesn’t want to be tainted by the sin of contraception, there’s a form you file with the government stating your objection. You send a copy to your insurer or third-party administrator (TPA), and the insurer/TPA (I’m just going to say insurer from this point on) arranges for the coverage with the government, by getting reimbursed out of other funds.
The problem is that Wheaton College, along with dozens of other organizations that have filed suit, believes that just filling out this form and sending it to their insurer makes them complicit in sin, because doing so triggers the arrangement under which their employees will get coverage. Let’s leave aside the merit of this belief, but by granting the emergency injunction the Court’s majority essentially accepted that filling out the form and sending a copy to their insurer was indeed a burden on Wheaton’s religious freedom. This made Sonia Sotomayor absolutely livid, since just four days before the Court had used the existence of that very form as proof that there was a less restrictive alternative than the contraception mandate available.
So what Wheaton would prefer is that they not fill out the form and send it to the insurer. Instead, they want to send a letter to the government just stating their objection—a letter which wouldn’t have to inform the government of who their insurer is. In her dissent, Sotomayor warned that this could become a bureaucratic nightmare, because now the government has to figure out who the insurer is for every company that sends a letter, so they can get in touch with the insurer and arrange the alternate payment procedure for contraceptive coverage.
And this is where I’m puzzled. Because under the ACA, ordinary insurance coverage has to provide prescription contraception with no cost-sharing (meaning without copayment or deductable). That’s the default setting. So let’s say I’ve started a new non-profit aimed at educating America’s youth about the important cultural contributions of 1980s hair metal bands. I get health insurance for my employees, and because of the requirement in the ACA, it includes coverage for contraception. Then after spending an extended period listening to Stryper, I realize that contraception is sinful and try to deprive my employees of it.
Depending on the outcome of these cases, I may have a couple of options. I can file the original form with the government and send a copy to my insurer, in which case those two will arrange for my employees’ contraception coverage to continue. If I object to the form, as Wheaton College does, I’ll just send a letter to the government saying “I’ll have none of this!”
But since I don’t want to inform my insurer and thus trigger the alternate arrangement, my insurer has no idea that I object to contraception coverage. That means they’ll continue to provide it to my employees, as the law requires. If because of ordinary bureaucratic slowness it takes the government a while to find my insurer and inform them of my objection, my employees will still have contraception coverage in the meantime. Whether I’m active or passive the coverage continues, either because the alternate arrangement has been triggered, or because the insurer keeps doing what they’ve been doing because they don’t know of my objection.
To repeat, there may be something I’m missing here. But it seems that even if the Hobby Lobby and Wheaton cases impose more bureaucracy and make things more cumbersome for the government and insurers, as long as contraception coverage without cost-sharing is the default setting for insurance plans, people won’t actually have their coverage interrupted, no matter what the preferences of their employer.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 7, 2014
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