Toomey reading the tea leaves?
I think he’s beginning to realize that he probably can’t win reelection in PA if Trump is still President in 2022.
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[T]he “Colorado” Republican said . . .
Toomey is a Pennsylvania Republican.
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I’m not actually that irritated at the concept that senators may already know which way they would want to vote before the senate trial because, unlike criminal trials, the investigation and some prosecution has taken place in public. The evidence has already been on full display. What’s going to come out during the trial that we don’t already know?
What chaps my ass are the gleeful statements about coordinating with the defendant. McConnell really never misses a chance to sodomize Lady Justice and exhume the founders so he can kick them in the teeth.
ETA: Obviously, given the evidence, a good faith trial would result in 100 votes to convict, but senators just flat out ignoring the evidence is a different issue.
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He’s Incapable of sodomizing even a flea
Au Contraire, mon frere. I believe he’s been giving it good and hard to the whole country repeatedly for years.
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I wonder if he’s ever been on a proper Snipe hunt?
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Now you’re talkin’.
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Same here. And he did try to do something on guns with Manchin. That said, I hope the current AG Josh Shapiro or maybe John Fetterman challenges him next time.
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Okay, i know this is wishful thinking, but–what if the handful of Republican senators that want to preserve their “moderate” label vote with the Democrats for a more legitimate trial with witnesses, etc. and THEN, unexpectedly a lot of new, shocking! evidence comes out, turning the whole thing on its head and --because there’s safety in numbers, a bunch of 'em end up voting for removal.
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This is what I posted in the Hive about the UK election:
The UK election result was consequential. Boris Johnson and the Conservatives won a huge majority. Brexit will happen in a formal sense (but its implementation will likely be much more complicated with a high risk of it being a disaster). The SNP swept much of Scotland, putting itself in position to demand a new independence referendum. If Boris ‘Brexits outta here’, the Scots want the right to ‘ExBrit’. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein won 2 seats in Greater Belfast!!! The pro-Union party, DUP, lost vote share, and under Boris’ deal, Northern Ireland has one foot in the EU and only half a foot in the UK with the other half dangling somewhere over the Irish Sea. That NI might have a different approach to unification w/the Republic of Ireland is quite possible. Those stories will take time to unfold, but a big story is ‘what the heck happened to Labour and what does it mean for the US election?’ So here are some facts which provide a reality check:
Labour Lost Way More Votes than the Tories Gained
Labour lost 53 seats to the Tories in England and Wales (they lost another 7 to the SNP in Scotland. They gained 1 seat in Greater London from the Tories but that’s it on a dismal night). Coming into this election, the polls indicated about a 8-10 point lead for the Tories, but also showed that the Tories would lose seats in Scotland, be flat or lose seats in Southern England, and would need to run the table in pro-Brexit Labour held seats across the Midlands, Wales and the North of England. The Tories had 295 seats starting on election night and needed to win 31 seats to get a clear majority (326 out of 650 total). A 2%-3% uptick from Labour on e-day or tactical voting for Labour might’ve stopped the Tories from getting a majority. Some combination of that did work in 2017. Well, this time the tipping point went the other way and Labour lost many of the tight races across the ‘red wall’ or the UK’s rust belt. The Tories finished with 365 seats, Labour 203 seats, SNP 48 seats, Liberal Dems 11 seats, DUP 8 seats, third parties took 15 seats.
The thing is though that the Tory vote gain was quite modest. Tory vote gains themselves would not likely have earned them the majority. In each region of the country where Labour lost seats, the Labour drop was much higher than the Tory vote increase.
Among the 53 seats that Labour lost to the Tories, Labour lost on average 10.7% per district from their 2017 totals. The Tories gained on average 5.28% in those districts. Labour gave away 5.39% to third parties. Lower overall turnout also appears to have hurt Labour.
To give an example of some pretty surprising trends in Labour held seats given the results from just two years ago, here are a constituencies that flipped to the Tories despite very modest vote gains:
- Blyth Valley (NE/Newcastle): the first bellwether of a very bad night for Labour: Cons +894 votes, Labour -2952 votes
- Bury North (Greater Manchester): Conservatives +383 votes. Labour -1773 votes.
- Delyn (Wales): Conservatives: +361. Labour -1924.
- Wrexham (Wales): Cons +254. Labour -1208.
- Derby North (Yorkshire/NE Corridor): Cons +169. Labour -1784.
- Peterborough (Cambridgeshire/East Anglia - NE Corridor): Cons +221. Labour -1419.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Labour sucked more than the Tories were good. In addition, in all but a few districts Labour was the ONLY party to lose votes. The Lib Dems, Greens, Brexit Party, Tories, and other assorted third parties all gained votes from the last election in these previously Labour held seats.
Labour lost 6 seats in Wales, 8 seats in the Greater Manchester/Liverpool corridor, 7 seats in Northeast England (Durham County, Newcastle, Sunderland), 10 seats in the West Midlands (Gtr Birmingham), 5 seats in the East Midlands, 8 seats in Yorkshire, 4 seats in East Anglia and 3 seats in the upper Northwest. They netted only 1 loss in Southern England.
Labour’s Loss is a Wholesale Rejection of Labour’s Entire Agenda & Leadership BY LABOUR VOTERS!!!
Keep in mind, the Boris Johnson strategy was all about holding the Tory base together. It was a high baseline but not a majority. The only way for the Tories to have won like this is if Labour fell apart, and that’s what happened. Labour voters rejected Labour’s leadership, Labour’s policies, Labour’s campaign, Labour’s theory of the case, everything. I’ve seen so much commentary that it was only Brexit, or only socialism, or only Corbyn. No. It was all of it, and it speaks volumes as to how a far left world view leads to bad analysis and bad political judgments. A few points and conclusions to draw from the data.
1. Labour Voters Rejected the Labour Approach to Brexit.
Corbyn made a calculated decision to not take a ‘yes/no’ position on Leave/Remain because his party held a lot of seats in areas that voted to leave the EU. This is the British white working class that Labour lionizes in its theology, none more so than Corbyn. Labour thought that they could sacrifice votes in the cities/suburbs in order to win them in the Red Wall by appealing to issues of economic anxiety by soft pedaling Brexit and attempting to find a compromise (which they settled on but had a hard time selling). Labour voters rejected this, especially white working class voters in the North/Midlands/Wales. They lost some voters to the Brexit Party, but they lost more to pro-Remain third parties even in Leave districts. It’s quite clear from the data that a Labour strategy that had focused on Remain could’ve saved a number of these constituencies in the Red Wall, while also preserving and expanding Labour’s totals in Scotland and winning seats away from both the Lib Dems and Tories in the South. In other words, Labour could’ve forced a hung parliament and be in power if they took a strong Pro-Remain position and defended it like a national party. [Btw, regarding the Brexit Party, in some cases they hurt the Tories. In others, they hurt Labour. They were a mixed bag]. Ultimately, the failure of Labour to see the Liberal Democratic Party voter as their target cost them majority status. They’re a rump party at the moment because they ignored the center left.
Labour’s non-aligned Brexit position partially worked in 2017 because the focus was on Theresa May’s Brexit plans, which sucked, and which also divided the Tories. In 2019, the EU gave a lifeline to Boris by offering him a deal (which required him to effectively impose a hard border on Northern Ireland), but Boris accepted it out of desperation. That gave him the ability to use ‘Get Brexit Done’ as his campaign theme and have some credibility behind it. Brexit will now get done. Labour was always vulnerable to the Tories clarifying their position and getting some help from the EU. There just wasn’t any excuse for Labour to not take a strong position against Brexit. They paid the price for taking a muddled position.
2. Socialism Doesn’t Move the Needle.
It’s hard to find an example in modern western history of a more outwardly embracing socialist campaign than the one Jeremy Corbyn ran. The Labour manifesto was replete with social spending, redirecting gov’t spending radically to serve the needs of young people, the working classes, and there was a lot of nationalization and ‘free stuff’ (even free transport). It did not sell. It’s not that it didn’t sell to Tory voters. It did not sell to LABOUR VOTERS, and not just any Labour voters, we’re talking white working class voters over the age of 34. The Tories ran a campaign of nationalism around Brexit. Labour ran a campaign about alleviating economic anxiety with a more proactive government. Nationalism won. In addition, Labour offered socialism as an alternative to an economic future through the European Union and center left policies which focused on investments, fiscal responsibility, global trade, increased opportunity and an internationalist foreign policy. These issues were very important to under 50 voters who should’ve been Labour’s natural constituency. Those young voters rejected the Corbyn message and split their votes with the Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, other third parties, and even the Tories.
This goes to the heart of the problem with left analytical approaches. Promises of economic justice are not an effective rebuttal to nationalism or a cure for racial disharmony. It’s also not a persuasive alternative to sound economic policy. There are limits to what one can spend, and not every big promise can or should be kept. It’s not that some of the goals or the expansiveness of certain socialist programs are too scary for too many voters (some are). The point is that, politically, socialism doesn’t move the needle.
The seeds of the breakup of Britain have little to do with the austerity policies of the Tories. They have to do with a rising tide of ethnic nationalism amongst a significant portion of the English electorate who do not feel like kings in their own land anymore. When the Tories kept saying that the Brexit vote ought to be respected and no 2nd referendum should happen, that rang true to WWC English voters b/c they wanted their will to be imposed, no matter how much others told them how bad the result could be for all of them, because it’s supposed to be their country.
3. Race and Racial Inclusion Matter. England is about 15% minority, 85% white. So it’s basically like Wisconsin. If you’re a left leaning party, you need to build coalitions that provide for racial inclusion. Otherwise, you can’t build majorities as conservative, nationalist parties will get too high a share of the vote of the largest ethnic group (in England’s case, white English folks). Labour’s anti-Semitism problem and their overall nostalgic view of England’s demography (playing to WWC voters at the expense of others) hurt them. They didn’t demonstrate themselves to be any more hospitable to minorities than were the Tories. That’s a far cry from 2017 when a few studies put Labour’s share of the minority vote at over 70% and that performance was credited with enabling them to flip a lot of seats. They didn’t flip those close races and turnout was down overall so it stands to reason that Labour did not perform as well among minorities in terms of turnout and margins as they did in 2017.
4. Leadership Matters. Jeremy Corbyn was toxically unpopular in the UK. But one can’t separate that from the fact that his unpopularity was specifically tied to him being an avowed, unapologetic socialist. I’m sympathetic to Corbyn, as I’ve followed the UK Parliament a lot over the past few years and thought he did a very good job of stopping the worst of Brexit and was particularly effective at stymying Boris Johnson’s power grabs. That said, the lack of clarity on Brexit, the attempts to sell a theory of the case that didn’t match reality (economic justice), his allegiance to hardliners, and his inability to build coalitions within Labour or to build working partnerships with the SNP and Liberal Dems made him an ineffective leader for these times.
For the US, the parallels are fairly straightforward:
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Take clear positions on the issues that matter to the public (Dems taking a strong position on impeachment > Labour muddle on Brexit).
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Don’t try too hard sell the public on stuff that they don’t want or prioritize (even if you really think it’s the greatest thing in the world…pssst I’m talking about single payer, ‘billionaires’ and free stuff).
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Build coalitions, embrace diversity and do not ignore race (as I keep harping, Dems will lose a majority of the white vote and need to win the minority vote 75-25 with a big turnout). A big part of this is not trying to explain away Trumpism by ‘economic anxiety’ arguments. It’s racism, plain and simple. Yes, Trump’s white nationalism appeals to a lot of white folks. Trump’s economic theory is all about zero sum economics based on race. Deal with it. Prove that he’s wrong, that his policies suck and we offer something better that’s more tangible and aligns with their priorities.
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Choose non-toxic leaders whose agenda align to what the voters actually prioritize.
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Stop looking at issues in terms of left v center v right and instead look at it in terms of priorities to build a coalition. Are abortion rights a center left or far left issue? In 2016, most Berners I knew didn’t prioritize abortion rights, but Clinton supporters did. Ditto gun control. Yet, the Berners claimed to be the true ‘progressives’. It’s an unproductive debate. The thing is those two issues (GC/abortion) cut across party lines and build coalitions in red/purple/blue districts. Single payer and free college do not.
In the UK, was Brexit a left, center or right issue? I don’t know, but it certainly mattered as an existential and defining issue of identity and prosperity for people under 50. Labour’s failure to grasp that cost them votes. There were many ways for Labour to tactically use bad aspects of Brexit to tell people in working class districts how Brexit would hurt them economically, but they didn’t make that sales pitch.
Overall, the US Dems are in a lot better position than UK Labour was prior to the 2019 election. But the focus ought be on building a winning coalition and hewing tightly to an agenda that will do so.
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You see, Graham likes Trump’s ass, as Sondland might say. Might be more than merely figuratively true too.
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I’ve had responses from Perry and they’re just what you’d expect: Freedom Caucus stupidity. Cumberland County is turning blue — even Camp Hill now has more registered Democrats than Republicans, something I thought I’d never see! — and I hope Perry loses his seat in 2020.
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So who among them wants to carry Trump’s water all the way through the upcoming grand juries that are sure to be called the moment he leaves the confines of the White House and steps back in the world as a regular citizen?
We now know that at least one GOP Senator is looking beyond the Senate trial. How can they not knowing that Trump is withholding documents and key witnesses? Trump is obviously concealing evidence which must be given up in a criminal proceeding.
Do you risk being pulled into the criminal process yourself if you know something and didn’t bring it to the notice of the courts? That would be making yourself an accessory. I firmly believe that these Republican Senators have all been talking about Trump’s actions privately and exchanging the small bits and pieces that each knows.
We do know for a certainty that these Senators voted to change their party’s convention platform of decades to lift sanctions on Russia for no apparent reason other than Trump demanded that they do. Could there be other evidence of bribery?
It would appear that Toomey doesn’t want to get sucked into any of Trump’s other Russian Mafia operations. He would rather be a cooperating witness for criminal prosecutors not a defendant himself.
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Well, at least he’s telling the unbelievable, expected lies.
Um, yeah. And how about:
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) broke with the GOP senators…
and:
When NBC News’ “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked Toomey if it was appropriate for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to coordinate an anti-impeachment strategy with White House lawyers, the Colorado Republican said…
Well of course not. It would be inappropriate to kill it right away. It would be wrong, and I’m against it. Highly, and I want to reiterate this, highly inappropriate, and it would concern me greatly. Greatly, greatly, greatly.
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The fact is, Trump did not carry PA by a very wide margin–my recollection is that he did about as well there as he did in the rest of the Rust Belt. Toomey’s position is a profile in self-preservation, rather than courage. At this point, however, I will take what I can get.
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Remember the “Kremlinologists” who used to try to interpret every cryptic utterance from the Kremlin? We have to be that way with the GOP.
This does make me suspect if ONE – just one Romney or Murkowski- would speak out, others would join in.
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I think one reason Mitch delaying trial to Jan is to see if public sentiment changes significantly up or down toward trump and impeachment. We sure haven’t seen any backlash. If impeachment approval starts creeping to 55-60%, we mghti see some GOP senators, like the Tin Man, look for a heart – and a pair of cojones.
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Deep reflection and heartfelt consultation with my family are up next.
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