“Walker Eyes Border Wall … For The Other Border”: A Nutty Idea, Even By The Standards Of GOP Presidential Candidates
When far-right politicians endorse the construction of a massive border wall, they rarely specify which border, because it’s simply assumed they’re not overly concerned about Canadians.
When it comes to border security, it’s only natural to wonder why Republicans seem vastly more energized about our neighbors to the south than those to the north. I was delighted to see NBC’s Chuck Todd ask Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) about this yesterday.
One issue he plans to fix if elected is the terrorist threat posed by the nation’s porous borders, and he said while he’s most concerned about the southern U.S. border, he’d be open to building a wall to secure the northern border as well.
“Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire. They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at,” he said.
And I’ll be eager to hear what the far-right candidate comes up with after he “looks at” building a northern border wall – because the idea is a little nutty, even by the standards of GOP presidential candidates.
For now, let’s put aside the issues – the costs, the needs, etc. – related to a building a giant wall along the U.S/Mexico border. Let’s instead consider Walker’s apparent concerns about Canada.
As the Republican governor may know – his home state is roughly along the northern border – the United States and Canada don’t simply share a lengthy land mass. There are these things known as the “Great Lakes,” which the two countries share. Even trying to build a giant wall through them would be … how do I put this gently … impractical.
The alternative, of course, is building a water-front wall along U.S. states that border the lakes. Some folks might not like the view, but we’re either going to take border security seriously or we’re not, right?
There’s also the not-so-small matter of Alaska. Even if a Walker administration takes up a plan to build a wall from Seattle to Maine, let’s not forget that the United States actually has two borders with Canada: one along Canada’s southern border, and then another along Canada’s northwestern border. Indeed, the border Alaska shares with British Columbia and Yukon Territory (about 1,500 miles) is almost as long as the border the continental United States shares with Mexico (about 1,900 miles).
Depending on how serious the Wisconsinite is about this, we’ll probably have to talk about some maritime borders, too, since we run the risks of terrorists and undocumented immigrants showing up along American shorelines in boats.
Given the Republican Party’s general hostility towards investing in American infrastructure, it’s important to note that these border walls would likely carry an enormous price tag. Nevertheless, Scott Walker considers this “a legitimate issue for us to look at,” so let the debate begin.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 1, 2015
“Fox News Created The Trump Monster”: The Billionaire Egoist Is The Creation Of The Network Now Trying To Destroy Him
Okay, so as I write these words, someone could be about to release a post-debate poll showing exactly what establishment Washington, which now apparently includes even Fox News (!), yearns to see a poll show—that Donald Trump has tumbled, and that the new leaders in the GOP field are the comparatively sober Jeb Bush and John Kasich, along with maybe Carly Fiorina, since everybody seems to be swooning over her now. Maybe it’ll happen.
But what in fact did happen is that we got this NBC News-Survey Monkey poll showing Trump still ahead and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson vaulting into second and third place, respectively. It’s an online poll, and I know we’re supposed to question its methodology (which the pollsters explain here, if you’re interested). So I’m not going to sit here and swear by it. But on Monday, two other post-debate polls came along showing that Trump is still going strong. So the results are interesting enough, and they track closely enough with other anecdotal evidence that’s made its way to my inbox, that it’s certainly worth asking: What if Trump is still clobbering the rest of the GOP field?
If he is, we’re at a very interesting politico-cultural moment: The moment when, to a sizeable portion of the GOP electorate, Fox News stopped being their warrior and instead became just another arm of the lamestream media. If that’s true, everything we’ve known and assumed about our political divide is now moot, and we’re flying totally blind. The Republican Party has unleashed furies it can no longer remotely control.
First, here are the numbers, if you haven’t seen them. Post-poll, Trump went to 23 percent, according to NBC. That’s actually a gain of one statistically insignificant point, but reflect on this: He gained that point even though poll respondents said by a huge margin that he lost the debate (29 percent called him the loser; next closest was Rand Paul at 14 percent). Ted Cruz gained seven points, going from 6 to 13 percent. Ben Carson gained three points, moving from 8 to 11 percent. Marco Rubio stayed flat at 8 percent, and Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, the other “first-tier” candidates, finished in the cellar, losing three points each.
So add it up. The Tasmanian Devil candidate who’s obviously tapping into deep right-wing anti-establishment anger and the two other most extreme candidates combine for 47 percent. The two who in my view you can reasonably call quasi- or comparatively moderate, Kasich and Bush, combine to hit 9 percent.
All right, though, enough on the polls. Maybe enough time hasn’t elapsed for Trump’s Megyn Kelly comments to truly sink in with the Republican electorate. But here’s the anecdotal materials that suggests he’s still on the rise. First, which candidates were most heavily Googled during the debate? Huh. What a coincidence. It was Trump, Carson, and Cruz. The biggest single Google moment by a mile came during Cruz’s first remarks (“If you’re looking for someone to go to Washington, to go along to get along, to get—to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests, then I ain’t your guy.”) Carson scored well while talking terrorism and during his close, and Trump throughout.
Here’s a little more. I was on Fox on Sunday, on Howard Kurtz’s show. Every time I finish that show, I have 30 or so tweets in my feed. Usually, the tweeters are angry at me, for the obvious reasons. But Sunday, they were mostly mad at The Blaze’s Amy Holmes for her robust defenses of Megyn Kelly and attacks on Trump. This tweet, while more polite than most, is representative of the argument. Trump isn’t perfect, but lay off him already. Fox screwed up. And most of all: Don’t tell us what to think!
We’re used to this kind of rhetoric when conservatives volley it in the direction of The New York Times and CNN. But what are we to make of it when the target is Fox?
Two things. First, if I’m right about this and other polls back all this up, this process is officially beyond anyone’s ability to predict. Ignore all “surely this will finally start Trump’s downfall” stories, and all positive Jeb! stories. And is Cruz soon-to-be first tier? I admit that I sure missed that. I didn’t think he registered a heartbeat in the debate. It’s hardly remarkable that I was wrong about something, but most commentators pretty much dismissed Cruz, too.
And Carson! It’s not like he comes out of nowhere. They’ve been selling his first book by the truckful in Christian bookstores for years, and for gosh sakes, Cuba Gooding Jr. played him in a movie. But normally that would translate into a respectable sixth or seventh place. If he’s really doing better than that, something important has changed. And don’t ignore what an extremist he is: In his more recent book, which I actually read, he sincerely questioned whether citizens who pay no net income tax should have the right to vote—“Serious problems arise when a person who pays nothing has the right to vote and determine what other people are paying.”
The second thing we’re to make of this is that Fox and the Republican Party have created this new reality. When you spend years nodding and winking and yuk-yuking about the President’s birth certificate, how can you be surprised when the guy who has repeatedly demanded to see it turns out to be really popular with your base? You promote a politics that attacks women not merely for having abortions but for wanting to use contraception, and then you’re shocked when your hard-shell voting base turns out not to be overly offended by remarks like Trump’s?
Indeed Roger Ailes recognized all this when he decided to make nice with Trump on Monday. In the first instance Ailes did it because Trump has leverage, and The Donald’s threat not to go on his air meant a heavy hit in the ratings department. Ailes was also certainly feeling the blowback from his core audience–the kinds of tweets I alluded to above. And beyond all that, somewhere deeper down, Ailes knows that Fox made Trump, politically, and that the two are made for each other.
The Republican Party and Fox permitted and encouraged Trumpian vitriol for years. All that talk over the years about birth certificates and Kenya and terrorist fist-jabs (remember that one?!) and the moocher class and the scary brown people and all the rest of it…all of it created a need for a Trump, and for other Trump-like candidates, to flourish. Now it threatens to overtake them. If they’re wondering who created Trumpism, I have someplace they can look. The mirror.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, August 12, 2015
“The ‘Bad Ideas’ Category”: Cruz Gets Creative To Undermine U.S. Foreign Policy
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) isn’t exactly shy about his opposition to the international nuclear agreement with Iran, but it’s not exactly within his power to derail it. He’s just one far-right senator with limited influence on Capitol Hill.
But over the weekend, it seemed as if the Republican presidential candidate was starting to turn his attention away from federal policymakers altogether. Indeed, as Roll Call reported, Cruz is looking to states to help sabotage American foreign policy.
Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that doing everything possible to thwart the Iran deal should include states exploring imposing their own sanctions.
The Republican presidential candidate from Texas was asked at a raucous town hall-style forum here about the prospects of states taking action to impose sanctions on the money the Obama administration has agreed to release as part of the deal regarding the country’s nuclear development.
“I think that states should act and lead to do exactly that,” Cruz said during a campaign appearance in Pelham, Alabama. (Note, Alabama is a Super Tuesday primary state, which votes just a week after the Nevada caucuses early next year.)
More so than usual, the far-right Texan seemed willing to hint that this fight wouldn’t turn out well for his like-minded allies. “It’ll be a fight,” Cruz said. “It’s not an open and shut legal argument, but we ought to do everything we can to resist this … Iranian deal.”
I’m inclined to put this in the “bad ideas” category.
For one thing, it’s probably not legal. It’s not up to states to create their own foreign policies; it’s up to the United States at the federal level. I’m reminded of this Vox piece from January, when congressional Republicans began trying to sabotage American officials in earnest.
The Supreme Court has codified into law the idea that only the president is allowed to make foreign policy, and not Congress, because if there are two branches of government setting foreign policy then America effectively has two foreign policies.
The idea is that the US government needs to be a single unified entity on the world stage in order to conduct effective foreign policy. Letting the president and Congress independently set their own foreign policies would lead to chaos.
And letting states and the United States have competing foreign policies would lead to even greater chaos. If the White House is principally responsible for American foreign policy, in conjunction with congressional oversight, there’s definitely no role for state legislators.
What’s more, I’m not exactly sure how Cruz envisions this plan working on a practical level. States aren’t in a position to create an international coalition to impose new sanctions against Iran – other countries partner with the United States government, not governors’ offices and state legislators – and states also don’t have authority of federal banking laws or international finance.
My suspicion is Cruz already knows this, but didn’t want to disappoint a far-right group in Alabama by telling them there’s nothing Alabama can do to undermine U.S. foreign policy. That said, this isn’t exactly responsible rhetoric from a prominent presidential candidate, either.
In the larger context, thought, let’s not overlook the fact that if Cruz were confident that Congress would kill the diplomatic agreement, he probably wouldn’t bother talking about states taking the “lead.” Perhaps even he realizes the writing is on the wall?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 10, 2015
“Evoking A Powerful Sense Of Deja Vu”: When Canada Looks At Donald Trump, All We Can See Is Rob Ford
Watching the bizarre Republican nomination race for the presidential nomination leads to a strange realization: it’s even more bizarre than the last one. So far, this one is completely dominated by New York billionaire Donald Trump, who has bombasted his way to the top of the polls. The presidential wannabe has dominated clickbait-driven media with a string of wacky statements, describing Mexicans as rapists, denying John McCain is a war hero and suggesting Sarah Palin would be an effectual cabinet member.
But for many Canadians – especially those who live in its largest city, Toronto – Trump’s loopy campaign is evoking a powerful sense of deja vu. Trump looks, sounds and smells an awful lot like former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Trump has the Ford bluster down perfectly.
Both candidates draw from the very basics of that master communicator, late President Ronald Reagan. No publicity is bad publicity, so keep the media firestorms coming. And the facts, they are stupid things (Reagan said this in an erroneous effort to quote John Adams, who said the facts are stubborn things). Ford said he would solve the city’s financial problems, repeating the phrase “gravy train” ad nauseam as a means of trashing wasteful government spending. Trump has stated – in one of the looniest proposed policies ever heard – that the Mexican government would foot the bill for a huge wall along the US-Mexico border.
Ford and Trump both touted their records as successful businessmen, failing to mention that they were born into considerable inherited wealth. Ford repeatedly spoke of the incredible savings he was responsible for while defending his position as mayor. Trump continually speaks of the vast fortune he has amassed (over $8bn, by his count), though the evidence of his financial worth is open to question.
Yet despite their wealth, both Ford and Trump managed to appeal to the protest vote. As Christopher Ingraham noted in the Washington Post, Trump’s remarkable bolt to the top of the polls has to do with one word: anger. Like Trump, Ford played this card remarkably well, consistently pointing to spending waste by a downtown elite as a means of tapping into suburban voter fury. The Ford-Trump axis rests on the notion that each candidate is a take-no-prisoners, Dirty Harry-style crusader, intent on destroying the established order.
And if you’re waiting for an Edward Murrow moment – when a journalist might confront Trump on the utter nonsense he’s spewing, helping an audience to see that the emperor is naked – don’t bother. When each candidate has been called on their buffoonery, they are only made more appealing as candidates who are out of step with the ruling media elite. Witness Trump’s interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, in which Trump bluntly stated: “The people don’t trust you and the media.” They don’t, and as Ford learned, attacks by media pundits and journalists – who cite stupid things, otherwise known as facts – only make the candidate that much more appealing.
As many have noted, the attack-now-think-later approach is borne out of the campaigning techniques of the modern American right. As GOP insiders look on nervously, they also realize they have no one to blame but themselves. As Ford’s time as mayor unraveled in scandal after scandalous video – antics that left even Jon Stewart speechless – Canadian Prime Minister Harper’s connections to Toronto’s leader became points of extreme embarrassment.
Similarly, Trump represents an epic catch-22 for Republicans. If confronted by the facts, consider that the GOP has the loyalty of Fox News, which has created its own ideology-driven reality, also rooted in anger. How can you argue facts when there is no essential truth? The ‘Party of No’ has spawned the candidate of nonsense. Stand by Trumpenstein, as some are now doing, and you risk seeming to endorse his ideas, statements and ludicrous antics. Attack or criticize him and you risk alienating his crucial, populist base.
When Ford was running for mayor, his lengthy history of gaffes and bad behavior as city counselor led many to suggest his victory would never happen. The same is being said of Trump, but as he continues to lead by significant margins in all the polls, many are now acknowledging that if not president, becoming the GOP nominee is in the realm of the possible.
But as delicious as the Trump-brand Kool-Aid is, Republicans might want to think carefully before they guzzle back the empty calories. Consider the Ford factor: despite all his claims to the contrary, Ford’s time as mayor was largely ineffectual. Now that Ford is out of office, Toronto’s problems are far from solved, including deficit spending and a public transit system in dire need of an upgrade.
But boxer Mike Tyson insisted Ford was “the best mayor in Toronto history” (in what has to be one of the most surreal endorsements ever). Under a President Trump, similar fantasies will undoubtedly also be repeated, in the hopes that bluster will win out over truth.
By: Matthew Hays, The Guardian, August 4, 2015
“Kinder, Gentler, Not In Substance, But In Tone”: Maybe Jeb Bush Doesn’t Have To Pander To The Right Wing After All
When Jeb Bush said last December that the Republican nominee would have to be willing to “lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles,” it sounded like either a starkly realistic assessment of the dynamics of Republican presidential politics or an awfully naïve statement of what was actually possible for a Republican candidate. Most observers — myself included — thought that he’d have no choice but to mirror the anger of committed Republican voters. As the candidate perceived by base voters and the most moderate of the contenders, he’d have to go through the same ritual that Mitt Romney did — genuflection to the right.
But so far, it doesn’t seem to be happening. Bush is offering a kinder, gentler conservatism than the other candidates — not in substance, but in tone. And even though he’s trailing Donald Trump in the polls, at this point it looks like his strategy might just pay off.
Let’s be clear about one thing: Jeb Bush is very, very conservative. His answers to almost every policy question are firmly within today’s Republican consensus. He wants a belligerent foreign policy, tax cuts and slashing of regulations, a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, raising the eligibility age for Medicare and possibly voucherizing the program, and so on. Even on immigration, Bush favors a path to “legal status” that would allow the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country to stay, but wouldn’t allow them to become citizens.
But Bush isn’t trying to sound mad, and he doesn’t seem particularly spooked by the Trump candidacy. He was candid in condemning Trump’s remarks about Mexican immigrants, and just did an interview with Telemundo — in Spanish — where he talked about how his family speaks Spanish at home, and about bigotry his children have faced. In an interview published today, he admits that human activity contributes to climate change, though like any good Republican he doesn’t actually want to do anything about it.
What this all adds up to is a candidate who in substance is almost indistinguishable from other Republicans, but sounds very different in tone. And what are the results? One way to look at it is that Bush can’t seem to break out. He’s been surpassed in the polls by Donald Trump, but he hasn’t really fallen — the Huffpost Pollster average has him at 13.9 percent, about where he’s been since people started polling this race.
But none of the other candidates have broken out, either. Trump, Bush, and Scott Walker are the only ones who ever score in double digits. Candidates who at various times were thought to have great potential, like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz, don’t seem to be going anywhere. They’re trying desperately to find ways to get noticed — Paul takes a chainsaw to the tax code, Cruz calls Mitch McConnell a liar, Mike Huckabee compares President Obama to Hitler — but none of it seems to work.
If you’re Bush, your path to victory looks like this: Trump soaks up all the attention for a while, but eventually gets bored (and hasn’t bothered to mount an actual campaign that can deliver votes), and either fades or just packs it in. Meanwhile, the conservative vote is split. Once the voting starts, the failing candidates will begin to fall away one by one. But by the time most of them are gone and their supporters have coalesced around a single candidate like Scott Walker, it’s too late — Jeb has built his lead and is piling up delegates, has all the money in the world, and can vanquish that last opponent on his way to the convention in Cleveland.
It sounds perfectly plausible. And if it happens that way, the party’s conservatives will have the next chapter in their long narrative of betrayal already written. Once again, they’ll say, the establishment foisted a moderate on a party that didn’t want him, and the result was disaster. If only they had nominated a true conservative, then victory would have been theirs.
Unless, of course, Bush’s entire theory about winning the general by being prepared to lose the primary is correct, and he ends up gaining the White House. Either way — at least for the moment — it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea for Jeb Bush to keep sounding like a nice guy, and keep a lid on the most embarrassing pandering to the right wing.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; Contributor, The Plum Line Blog, The Washington Post, July 30, 2015
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