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The political environment is terrible for Democrats — and it may get worse – CNN

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3 years ago

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(CNN)Joe Biden’s term has become a punchline — even to the President.

Biden might have been a good sport in poking fun at himself, his dented approval ratings and his failure to fully enact his domestic agenda at the White House Correspondents’ Association annual gala dinner on Saturday night.
But his jokes were rooted in the painful reality of a presidency hostage to economic and global forces beyond his control and compounded by some of the tactical errors of his White House.
The result is that a year after his approval rating was comfortably over 50%, the President and his party are facing the most treacherous political backdrop in years in the run-up to midterm elections in November.
It’s possible that high gas prices, the worst inflation in 40 years, the war in Ukraine and a persistent pandemic could all ease by November. But the trajectory of those crises — and the impact they exert on issues that matter to and can hurt Americans, like the price of groceries — could also get worse.
China’s major new struggle with Covid-19, for instance — fueled by its low vaccination rate — and its repressive lockdowns threaten to again crunch global supply chain lines that helped push inflation higher in the first place. And if the war in Ukraine, as expected, severely impacts the harvest in the breadbasket of Europe this year, Americans could see prices soar for daily staples since the invaded country is a huge source of global grain and sunflower oil.
So it’s quite likely that the daunting conditions that are currently depressing Democrats’ hopes could actually get worse before Election Day.

Inflation is hammering Democratic midterm hopes

All of this explains a sense of inevitability settling into Washington’s conventional wisdom that Republicans are strongly favored to retake the House of Representatives while the Senate could go red too.
Some economic analysts have suggested that inflation — on its worst tear since the 1980s — has peaked. But a key index watched by the Federal Reserve — the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — was up 6.6% for the year ended in March, according to figures released last week. Energy prices spiked by the war in Ukraine were up 33.9% and food was up 9.2% over the same period. Another report last week showed a surprise decline in gross domestic product of 1.4% in the first quarter. While there were technical factors that might mean the figure is not as bad as it appears, it did spark fears of a recession, following warnings of a downturn on the horizon from several large Wall Street banks.
These numbers get to the fundamental weakness of the Democrats’ case as they approach the midterm elections. Biden cannot lock in full credit for the economy’s strong rebound from the pandemic and historically good job numbers because millions of Americans are disgruntled by high prices.
Biden’s triumph in beating then-President Donald Trump in 2020 was an example of the power of comparisons. He offered a return to calm leadership after the tumult of the previous four years of scandals, lying and chaos in the White House.
But the 2022 midterms are already turning into a referendum on the President and Democrats, who control all the levers of political power in Washington and therefore carry the can for the public’s current discontent.
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll published Sunday bears this out.
While Biden’s overall job approval rating ticked up to 42%, only 38% of those asked approved of his handling of the economy. And 68% disapproved of his record on inflation. The issue proved particularly irksome to independent voters who will be crucial in close House and Senate races in November.

White House misfires

The President’s plight on inflation has been exacerbated by his own White House’s previous assertions that the heat up in prices was “transitory” — a messaging error that threatens to detract from the trust voters have in administration pronouncements and that offers an easy target for Republicans.
And while Biden has taken several steps to tackle high prices, including programs to unblock US ports and clogged supply chain and has released millions of barrels of oil from the nation’s strategic reserves, his efforts don’t seem to have had a noticeable impact on the lives of many Americans. And it’s not clear that chalking up the high cost of living to “Putin’s price hike” is getting him out of his political jam either.
“Ultimately, the administration, when it comes on inflation, needs to stop saying they don’t have anything they can do about it, right? That’s usually one of the leads in saying, it’s not our fault,” Will Hurd, a former Republican congressman from Texas, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“Nobody wants to hear that. And they want to say, ‘Hey, how are you going to get us out of this?'”
The New York Times reported on Sunday, meanwhile, that Biden was repeatedly warned in a series of confidential polling memos that inflation and the nettlesome issue of immigration would erode his standing and the hopes of Democrats in the midterm elections. The memos, written between April 2021 and January 2022, were obtained in reporting for a new book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” by Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin.
“Voters do not feel he has a plan to address the situation on the border, and it is starting to take a toll,” John Anzalone, Biden’s lead pollster, and his team wrote in one memo, according to the Times report.

Biden dumps on his own approval rating

It was against this backdrop that Biden stood up in the vast ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel on Saturday night and quipped: “A special thanks to the 42% of you who actually applauded. I’m really excited to be here tonight with the only group of Americans with a lower approval rating than I have.”
That the event was taking place at all was evidence of one of the successes of Biden’s presidency — the rollout of vaccines and tests that have allowed many Americans to regain a semblance of their old lives two years after Covid-19 shut down the economy and changed the world. The President can also claim credit for a rare bipartisan triumph — an infrastructure law that eluded his predecessors. And his leadership helped build an unexpectedly unified Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which may have helped mitigate some of the political damage from the chaotic US evacuation from Afghanistan last year.
Yet either these achievements are not resonating with the public, or the White House has failed to knit them into a coherent election narrative. The difficulties Biden has faced in enacting his vast social spending and climate plan, which has been blocked by moderate Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have added to the sense of drift.
Whether Biden erred in pushing a sweeping reform agenda that some critics complained was not implied in his 2020 campaign, or the White House has failed to sell items like home health care for the elderly and free pre-kindergarten education in the vast Build Back Better bill, Biden has been deprived of the big win on a measure that was once compared to President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Whether any of Biden’s plan gets enacted still appears deeply uncertain, with time fast running out before the midterm campaign dominates the political summer. The deadlock threatens to dampen enthusiasm among Democratic base voters in November at the same time the Republican Party is running a campaign rooted in extreme positions on issues like trans rights, immigration and the teaching of race in America’s schools to juice turnout among their most committed voters. The GOP is overlaying those themes with claims designed to appeal to more moderate voters that high food and gasoline prices show that Biden has wrecked the economy.
The stalled Build Back Better plan has also stirred hints of acrimony inside the Democratic Party. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a leading progressive, warned on CNN’s “State of the Union” last week that Democrats would lose their majorities if they “don’t get up and deliver.”
Biden has been under pressure to fulfill a campaign promise to reduce student debt burdens after repeatedly extending a Trump-era pause of federal student loan repayments because of the pandemic. But forgiving $50,000 in debt per borrower — which Warren has called for — is not on the table, the President said at the White House last week after unveiling a request for millions more dollars in assistance for Ukraine. Biden hasn’t made clear whether he would use executive power to immediately provide mass debt relief.
Warren’s comments contained more than a hint of a post-election blame game seven months before voters go to the polls. Yet they don’t change the fact that the tiny Democratic majority in the 50-50 Senate means Biden doesn’t have the technical capacity to force much of his agenda into law.
While Biden made light of his political standing on Saturday night, he has privately complained the media has not focused on the comparison between his presidency and the lawlessness and scandals that defined Trump’s term, CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Kevin Liptak reported last week.
There’s a chance that Trump’s push for candidates reprising his election fraud lies in this month’s GOP primaries will allow Biden to flesh out that theme in his own midterm campaigning. But as Republican Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial victory in Virginia showed last November, Democrats can no longer count on a fierce anti-Trump campaign working when the ex-President is not on the ballot.

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Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in ‘Baywatch’ for Halloween video asking viewers to vote

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3 days ago

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November 5, 2024

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NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.

In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”

At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.

“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.

She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.

“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.

“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.

“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”

The Harris campaign has taken on Beyonce’s track “Freedom,” a cut from her landmark 2016 album “Lemonade,” as its anthem.

Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.

Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Justin Trudeau’s Announcing Cuts to Immigration Could Facilitate a Trump Win

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3 days ago

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November 5, 2024

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Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.

Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.

Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.

My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.

Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.

My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.

To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.

Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…

The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.

The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.

The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.

Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.

In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.

If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.

Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.

______________________________________________________________

 

Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s

on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan.

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RFK Jr. says Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water. ‘It’s possible,’ Trump says

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4 days ago

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November 4, 2024

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PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.

Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.

Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.

“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S​. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.

Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”

The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”

Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”

The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.

In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.

Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.

In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.

A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.

In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.

But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.

“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.

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