in July 2005, Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ken Mehlman acknowledged the party’s “Southern Strategy” and directly apologized: “I am here as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
.. Manafort’s appointment, followed by the ousting of Corey Lewandowski in June, was widely seen as a move to professionalize Trump’s disorganized campaign staff just ahead of the convention. But along with credentials earned from working with top GOP politicians (and a raft of international dictators from the Philippines to Somalia), Manafort also brought decades of experience as an overseer of the Southern Strategy.
.. And it was Manafort who arranged for Ronald Reagan to kick off his post-convention presidential campaign at the Neshoba County Fair just outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three young civil rights workers were brutally murdered in 1964.
.. Notably, all eight of the men who were convicted of involvement in these murders would have been free to attend Reagan’s speech. Seven were convicted in 1967, but the longest jail sentence any of them served was six years, and the person who orchestrated the murders—a Baptist preacher named Edgar Ray Killen—was not convicted until the case was reopened in 2005. As in much of the South, the inability of courts in Mississippi to seat juries that would carry out meaningful justice for the perpetrators of these murders is a good indication of racial attitudes that persisted even late into the 20th century.
.. He has characterized illegal immigrants rather than black Americans as a threat to white women’s safety. And he has redirected the Christian Right’s focus away from its preoccupation with a “godless Communism.” In its place, Trump has exploited the perception of Islam’s growing power abroad
This Republican mayor has an incredibly simple idea to help the homeless. And it seems to be working.
Next month will be the first anniversary of Albuquerque’s There’s a Better Way program, which hires panhandlers for day jobs beautifying the city. In partnership with a local nonprofit that serves the homeless population, a van is dispatched around the city to pick up panhandlers who are interested in working. The job pays $9 an hour, which is above minimum wage, and provides a lunch. At the end of the shift, the participants are offered overnight shelter as needed.
.. In less than a year since its start, the program has given out 932 jobs clearing 69,601 pounds of litter and weeds from 196 city blocks. And more than 100 people have been connected to permanent employment.
.. The program hasn’t weeded out all panhandling in the city, and supporters say that’s not really the point. It’s connecting people who would otherwise not seek help to needed services. And it’s showing them when they are at their lowest that they have real value, and that others are willing to show them kindness to help them have a better life.
The Right-Wing Media Bubble
But he also shows that the conservative media is much smaller and weaker than many conservatives think. What’s more, the habits and practices of conservative media serve to tell its audience what it wants to hear, which often results in a false picture of the world
.. [T]he Right’s media monoculture has created negative feedback loops whereby people with little political acumen like Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and Glenn Beck are able to fill Republican voters’ heads with nonsensical ideas like planning to shut down the government with no backup plan or electing fewer GOP officeholders in pursuit of more “pure” ones, primarily because they grossly overestimate the number of conservatives in America.
.. Conservatives and America as a whole are poorer intellectually because of this. While center-right individuals might not always fall in line for a policy battle, having large numbers of journalists who are willing to be skeptical of all sides would be a very good thing as both Left and Right need close scrutiny. Republican elites are now paying the price for refusing to subject the consultants who advise them to the skepticism they deserved.
The seeming success of Fox News and talk radio has made many conservatives think they now have a massive media empire. In truth, they have constructed an intellectual ghetto that no one else wants to visit.
.. Polls show that most Americans do not trust Hillary Clinton. But I don’t think most Americans regard her as so beyond-the-pale horrible that it justifies voting for someone as unstable and weird as Donald Trump.
We may be about to get a wave of Republicans deserting Donald Trump’s sinking ship
- Fifty prominent national security officials who held positions in previous Republican administrations released a letter proclaiming their opposition to Trump, saying, “We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless President in American history.”
- Former CIA director Michael Morell, who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, endorsed Clinton, saying “Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.”
.. No one wants to be a lonely voice going against the consensus of his or her party, but once there’s a critical mass of defectors, it becomes much less socially and politically threatening to take that stand. Instead of isolating yourself by defecting, you’d be joining a group, and one whose members don’t see themselves as having abandoned the party they love.
.. Republican officials may start asking themselves not just “How are voters going to react if I don’t stand behind our nominee?” but “How am I going to look if so many other Republicans defected but I didn’t? Are voters going to think I was cowardly and unprincipled?”
.. Up until now, elected officials making this calculation would wonder what would happen if they defected and Trump won. Would they get a primary challenge from the right? Would the Trump administration shut them out?
.. Trump loses, the party descends into recriminations, and who comes out looking good? It might well be those who refused to back him, and did so as early as possible.
.. those who would wind up looking the worst would be people like Marco Rubio or Rick Perry, who made dark warnings about what a disaster Trump would be for both for the party and the country, and then came out and gave him their hearty endorsements anyway.
.. Maybe if he comes up with a demeaning nickname for Susan Collins, that’ll do the trick.