RUTHFULLY YOURS

Trump: a coattail – or an anchor chained – President?

The November 2018 mid-term election will determine the future maneuverability of President Trump, and will shape the dominant worldview of the strongest legislature in the world, which is co-determining and co-equal to the executive branch, and Israel’s systematic and most effective ally in face of pressure by all US Presidents from Truman through Obama.

The coming mid-term election will be – once again – a referendum on the popularity of a sitting President: 49% approval rating (50% disapproval) of President Trump, according to a November 1 Rasmussen Reports; 40% (54% disapproval) according to an October 28 Gallup poll; 43.9% (53% disapproval) according to an October 31 RealClear Politics.

Will Trump be a coattail-President elevating the Republican party to mid-term election gains in the House and Senate, as has happened on rare occasions, such as the 1934 election (President Roosevelt), 1998 (President Clinton) and 2002 (President G.W. Bush)?

Or, will Trump be an anchor-chained President pulling the Republican party down to significant losses – and even to minority status in one/both Chambers – as has usually been the case: President Obama (2014 and 2010), President G.W. Bush (2006), President Clinton (1994), President G.H. Bush (1990), President Reagan (1986 and 1982), President Carter (1978), President Ford/Nixon (1974), etc.?

Since 1950, a sitting President’s party has lost an average of 24 House seats in the mid-term election, which is the minimum required for a Democratic House majority in 2019. The current balance is: 241 Republicans and 194 Democrats.

The Senate hurdle – facing the Democrats – is much higher, since the 35 Senate seats up for the coming November election consist of 9 Republicans and 26 Democrats, 10 of whom are in states won by President Trump in 2016 (only 1 Republican incumbent from a state won by Hilary Clinton in 2016), and 13 Democratic incumbents from states with a republican governor (no Republican incumbent from a state governed by a Democrat).

While sustaining the Republican majority in the House and Senate would maintain President Trump’s relative-freedom of operation, a loss of one/two Chambers would tie his hands internally and globally, commercially and militarily, due to the power of the US Legislature, which was deemed by the Founding Fathers as the “secret weapon” against a potential tyranny of the Executive.

The centrality of the US constituent and Congress

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-consequential-congress-1541114048

Americans love to hate Congress, and no wonder given the careerists and poseurs in both parties. But some Congresses matter more than others, and the 115th has accomplished more useful conservative reform than any since the first Newt Gingrich years of 1995-1996.

Democrats won’t admit it for partisan reasons, and neither will some of the perpetually angry on the right. But the GOP’s narrow Senate majority of 52 seats and then 51 has turned out to be more consequential and conservative than the 55-seat GOP majority of 2005-2006, the last time Republicans controlled both Houses and the Presidency.

The looming election is a useful moment to review the tape on the successes and disappointments, and consider the stakes of a Democratic House, Senate or both.

• Tax Reform. Republicans broke the economic logjam of the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and the new 21% rate with 100% business expensing has helped to lift the U.S. economy to a higher growth plane and again made it the most competitive.

The individual reforms were more about passing out tax cuts or credits to everyone, though millions pay no income taxes. Plenty of voters still aren’t convinced they received a cut even if they did, thanks to a mediocre sales effort from the GOP and a press corps hoping Republicans fail. But consider the 2019 options: The GOP wants to make the cuts permanent; Democrats want to repeal most of the reform to finance more spending.

• Deregulation. Congress through the Congressional Review Act scuttled 16 rules that the Obama Administration tried to impose in its final days. That included everything from regulations about online privacy that somehow didn’t apply to Facebook or Google to environmental overreaches like the stream protection rule. Before 2017 Congress had invoked the CRA only once—for a Clinton ergonomics rule.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling also succeeded in reforming the 2010 Dodd-Frank law’s assault on community banks. The Senate filibuster prevented him from doing more, but the lame duck session could push through other useful reforms, including work requirements in the farm bill. The free-market Mr. Hensarling is retiring and his successor in a Democratic House would be Rep. Maxine Waters. That is the election policy stakes in profile.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/01/what-do-the-polls

Since it’s now clear that Democrats may not only fail to take control of the U.S. Senate, they actually could lose seats, all eyes are focused on the battle for the House of Representatives.

The political fortunes for congressional Republican candidates are the reverse of those with which their Senate counterparts are blessed. In the Senate, Democrats are defending nearly two-dozen incumbent senators, many in states that Donald Trump won in 2016; if Republicans run the table, the GOP could get very close to a filibuster-proof Senate.

Conversely, 37 Republican congressmen are retiring this year, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Two popular Republican lawmakers face federal indictments, and another is under an ethics investigation. For Democrats, the court-ordered redistricting of Pennsylvania’s congressional map was manna from heaven, gifting them with at least five favorable new districts. Some pundits just one year ago were predicting the Democrats could pick off 50 seats from reeling Republicans.

But as polls trickle in just days before next week’s election, there’s no indication Democrats will come close to winning those 50 seats, let alone is there any certainty they will flip the 23 seats needed to reclaim the speaker’s gavel in January.

At this point—if a “blue wave” was indeed in the offing for November 6—at least a few polls in key swing districts would show big advantages for the Democrats; that’s not the case. The RealClearPolitics average of polls tracking the generic congressional vote gives Democrats a 7.5 point edge, but many of those polls are more than a week old. A recent YouGov/Economist poll shows just a five-point preference for Democrats, and the latest Rasmussen poll has Democrats ahead only three points, a statistical tie. This must be causing some unease among party leaders and candidates.

So let’s look at the breakdown of the seats in play, and what the recent polls suggest might happen next week.

The top sites that analyze each congressional contest list between 14 and 20 Republican-held seats as “likely” or “lean” Democratic, while only a few Democrat districts could flip to the GOP. A handful of those seats—such as Illinois’ 6th Congressional District and Iowa’s 1st Congressional District—are tied; very few candidates in the “lean Democratic” category have double-digit leads.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271804/gillum-accuses-ron-desantis-anti-semitism-over-daniel-greenfield

Andrew Gillum, the Bernie candidate aspiring to run Florida, has a compelling platform. Racism.

Gillum isn’t saying he’s a racist. Everyone else is a racist. And I do mean everyone.

If you call Andrew Gillum “Andrew” instead of Mayor Gillum (Andy currently runs Tallahassee, a city with the highest crime rate in Florida), you’re a racist.

“I’m a sitting mayor and he had the nerve to address me only as Andrew,” Gillum had whined about former Rep. Ron DeSantis, his Republican opponent, at a black college.

It was a debate and Gillum had actually been standing at the time. Also Andrew had compared Ron to a dog and found two hundred different ways to accuse Ron of racism.

“I wanted to correct him, y’all, but I didn’t want to be petty,” he told students.

Good thing, Andrew chose not to be petty about it. When you’re a standing mayor of a city with a higher murder rate than Miami, you’ve gotta think big, y’all.

Just wait until you see what happens to those Floridians sent to the swamp gulags for failing to genuflect before Governor Gillum when the gubernatorial limo swings by.

Also if you pay attention to Gillum’s lies about corruption in an FBI investigation, you’re a racist.

“They’ve wanted the people of this state to believe somehow,” Gillum ranted. “I’m unethical, participated in illegal and illicit activity. I mean, you name it. The goal is obviously to use my candidacy as a way to reinforce, frankly, stereotypes about black men.”

Obviously.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-struggle-to-confront-trump-era-reality-1540937012

Come Tuesday, we’ll find out whether Democrats have learned anything from Hillary Clinton’s shocking defeat two Novembers ago. No, Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot this time, but that’s a technicality. There’s no doubt these midterm elections are about our current president.

Two years ago Mrs. Clinton focused to the max on her opponent’s character flaws and then famously extended those criticisms to his supporters, the “deplorables.” What the Clinton campaign missed is that voters in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were well aware of Mr. Trump’s shortcomings but had different priorities. While she was harping on his behavior, he was harping on the issues they cared about most. Mrs. Clinton lost because millions of people who had supported Barack Obama refused to back her and swung to Mr. Trump.

There’s no shortage of liberals who remain in denial about why Mrs. Clinton lost and who refuse to accept the outcome. Instead, they credit Mr. Trump’s triumph to James Comey or Russian interference or white nationalists. The question is whether Democratic candidates in the current cycle have accepted political reality, and the answer is that it depends. Last Friday found Mr. Obama campaigning for Democrats in Detroit and Milwaukee, two places Mrs. Clinton gave short shrift in 2016. He seems to understand that it was the Democratic nominee’s flawed campaign strategy, not the alt-right, that cost her the election.

Similarly, Democrats running for Senate seats in states Mr. Trump carried have used the final weeks of the campaign to focus on issues rather than the president’s Twitter feed. In Arizona, Florida and Missouri Democratic candidates have been talking nonstop about health care, a top concern for voters in both parties. Four years ago, ObamaCare’s unpopularity helped to defeat incumbent Democrats in red states like Arkansas and Louisiana and deliver control of the Senate to Republicans. But support for the law has risen steadily since Mr. Obama left office, and Democrats now see an opening. The upshot is that voters in some parts of the country are being treated to a substantive debate about the costs and merits of single-payer health care and how best to insure people with pre-existing conditions. This is progress.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/30/is-trumps-gop

The fundamental restructuring of both major political parties—which began more than a decade ago when Barack Obama first ran for president—is ramping up during the Trump era. The Republican Party is attracting more working-class, non-college educated whites in the Midwest and Rust Belt; Democrats are picking up more college-educated white women, particularly in the suburbs of major cities.

While the gains of both parties are probably cancelled out by this electoral shift, there is one group that Democrats simply cannot win without: black voters.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Trump continues to court blacks by citing rising economic prospects, record low unemployment among African-Americans, and the need for federal prison reform. Democrats are fearful low voter turnout among blacks on November 6 will dash their hopes of reclaiming control of Congress; Obama campaigned in Wisconsin and Michigan on Friday in an effort to rally black voters in states where must-win Senate seats are at stake.

But the Democrats also may have a more long-term problem with black voters. A small but growing number of young blacks are aligning themselves with the GOP, rejecting their parents’ and grandparents’ hand-me-down political fealty to the Democratic Party.

This past weekend, hundreds of black conservatives ages 15 to 35 gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Young Black Leadership Summit. The three-day event—sponsored by the conservative campus outreach group Turning Point USA—hosted sessions in grassroots political organizing and leadership training. Featured speakers included prominent black leaders such as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Heritage Foundation President Kay James, talk show host Larry Elder, and actress Stacey Dash.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/adriana_cohen/2018/10/time_to_flee_democratic_party

Kanye West is calling for a #Blexit, a black exit from the Democratic Party, because the Trump administration has done more to empower the black community than his liberal predecessor.

What a great idea.

What American women need here in the U.S. is a #Wexit — women exiting the Democratic Party. Why? Because the single best way to empower women is financial independence. With the female unemployment rate at 3.6 percent — the lowest in 65 years — women should be burning their pink hats not knitting new ones.

A well-paying job allows women to live life on their own terms, make their own choices and pursue their dreams — unbeholden to anyone. Isn’t that the bedrock of feminism?

Hence it’s high time women stop thinking with their ovaries and start thinking with their pocketbooks. The former may give you “free” birth control, the latter a future.

With the GDP over 4 percent, median income up more than 4 percent and wages on the upswing, Trump’s economy has given women freedom and power. That’s the power to carve their own path and for many the freedom to leave unhappy marriages or abusive relationships because a good-paying job gives women the means to survive, if not thrive, on their own.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/a_master_smackdown_for_kamala_harris_on_twitter.html

Democrats have been puffing and bloviating and making political hay off the appalling mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, but few can match the sanctimonious hypocrisy of California’s junior senator, Kamala Harris, who tweeted:

Kamala Harris‏Verified account @KamalaHarris We have to speak truth about the fact that racism exists in our country and anti-Semitism exists in our country. We need to speak truth about that and deal with it.

This earned her this impressive smackdown from Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit on Twitter (who had been last seen smacking down smarmy hipster narrative-echo chamberman Ben Rhodes), drawing nearly 6,000 retweets and 15,000 likes:
Instapundit.com @instapundit Keith Ellison is your party cochair.

Way to take out the trash. Short, snappy, and factual – a perfect rimshot exposing the Democrats’ hypocrisy.

Reynolds’s smackdown was pretty much all that needed to be said about the matter, but Harris actually got a lot of smackdowns on Twitter and a few merit honorable mentions. Enjoy the show:

John Cardillo
✔ @johncardillo Meanwhile, back in April: Kamala Harris’s “Ellen” Appearance: Jokes about Killing Trump, Pence, Sessions https://www.nationalreview.com/news/kamala-harris-jokes-about-killing-trump-pence-sessions/ …

http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/29/hillary-clinton-yes-i-might-run-for-president-again-in-2020/

During a Q&A at an event over the weekend, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton wouldn’t rule out running for president again in 2020.

When asked point-blank if she was planning to run again in 2020, Clinton quipped “No,” then quickly added that she’d “like to be president.”

“Hopefully when we have a Democrat in the office in 2021, there’s going to be so much work that needs to be done,” she said. “The work would be work that I feel very well-prepared for, having been in the Senate for eight years, having been a diplomat in the State Department. It’s just going to be a lot of heavy lifting.”When asked if she would be “doing any of the heavy lifting,” Clinton said she had “no idea,” adding that she was “not even going to think about it until we get through this November 6th election.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/todays_female_democrat_leaders_make_for_a_sorry_spectacle.html

In the Kavanaugh controversy, the acts of three women, all high-visibility national figures, and all of whom have now become the leaders of the Democratic party and the MeToo movement, were central. In July 2016, Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg injected herself into the presidential elections by the unprecedented declaration of a Supreme Court justice that she could not “imagine” what the country would be like “with Donald Trump as our president.” She then called Trump a “faker.” Trump quite correctly responded that she should resign, but no one else at the time seemed to care about the compromise of her “judicial restraint and demeanor” – and her judicial impartiality.

After President Trump’s July nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the 85-year-old Ginsburg reassured Democrats about the future of the Court by announcing her intention to serve “at least five more years.” Then, one day before Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony, she inserted herself into the proceedings of the Senate by effectively testifying for Kavanaugh-accuser Christine Blasey Ford. In declaring her support for the #MeToo movement, Ginsburg said “women nowadays are not silent about bad behavior.” She then emphasized her views by the if-looks-could-kill expression on her face at Kavanaugh’s swearing in.

Topping off all these acts and statements from Ginsburg in the last three months, perhaps, will be the release in November of the movie On the Basis of Sex, a full-length feature film about the early life and litigating career of the justice. Trailers show that the movie will be worshipful.

Hawaii Democrat senator Mazie Hirono, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who questioned Kavanaugh at his hearing, expressed her own self-restraint in her calm and rational consideration of Kavanaugh’s nomination by telling all men “in this country” to “shut up and step up.” Senate Democrats comprehensively denied due process to Kavanaugh; Hirono’s remark extended that to the rejection of the protection of political speech, which was the original purpose of the First Amendment.