And so it begins, the slow but steady distancing of Repubs from the guy who’s about to sink their party in 2020 and beyond. Right now it’s still somewhat subtle, but it’ll grow, until one day, the bottom will fall out and he’ll be left standing all alone, with maybe the likes of Gohmert, Rudy and those nerdy kids with the long guns by his side. I feel bad for his youngest son. Must get teased a lot at school for having such an asshole AND loser for a father.
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And it all goes back to soybeans. Though I think she’s one of the less endangered Rs, not in the thin ice category as Collin, Tillis, etc.
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That’s nice.
Along with Moscow Mitch and Leningrad Lindsey, Joni Ernst is one of the 16 Republiscum senators running for re-election who voted to give oligarch Oleg Deripaska a couple of hundred million dollars of sanctions relief as a “thank you” for his key role in rigging the 2016 election.
The full list of these senators of highly dubious loyalty to our own country running for re-election in 2020:
LAMAR ALEXANDER TN
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO WV
BILL CASSIDY LA
JOHN CORNYN TX
MICHAEL B. ENZI WY
JONI ERNST IA
LINDSEY GRAHAM SC
CINDY HYDE-SMITH MS
JAMES M. INHOFE OK
MITCH MCCONNELL KY
DAVID PERDUE GA
JIM RISCH ID
PAT ROBERTS KS
MIKE ROUNDS SD
DAN SULLIVAN AK
THOM TILLIS NC
All told, there are 42 Republiscum on record as rewarding Russian election interference.
Which makes the complete absence of any meaningful Democratic attack on Trump for his catastrophic agricultural tariffs so mind-boggling.
I’ve been following the twitter accounts of Biden, Warren, and Sanders back to August 1, and the last time I checked Biden and Warren a couple of weeks ago, neither one had tweeted even once about Trump’s ag policies. I checked Sanders a couple of days ago, and he’s got one tweet about fighting big agribusiness, but there was no reference to tariffs. I follow a pretty wide range of progressive journos and commentators on twitter, and if any Dem candidate was making a concerted effort to attack Trump, I think it would have shown up by now. It would also be a lousy comms effort to make an issue in personal speeches on the stump without a corresponding message on social media.
It’s been two days since Sonny Perdue’s comments basically shrugging his shoulders about family farms disappearing came out, and as of yet I haven’t come across a single prominent Democrat, or message from the party org itself, attacking him or Trump for this. All of the candidates have very active social media accounts, so it’s not a lack of care about that.
It’s not that these candidates don’t have policy positions staked out on agriculture—they do—but Dems make the mistake of thinking that policy positions are the same thing as retail politics. They aren’t, as we found out in 2016. They’re also making a mistake in thinking that the 2020 election won’t largely be a referendum on Trump—spending all their time attacking each other about Medicare plans that won’t see the light of day in the Senate while ignoring easy opportunities to attack Trump and the GOP is a lousy way to stage the battlefield for the general election, especially when Democratic voters are highly interested in candidates who can beat Trump.
What’s particularly crazy is that Wisconsin is currently hemorrhaging dairy farms, and given Wisconsin’s critically important role in 2016 you’d think that the Democrats would be jumping at every opportunity to hit the Republicans for Trump’s insane tariffs—why Biden or Warren or Sanders or Klobuchar haven’t already have made campaign commercials in Wisconsin attacking Trump is a mystery. Perdue’s comments were a golden opportunity presented on a diamond-encrusted platter, and it’s not clear yet that the Dems are going to take advantage of it in a timely fashion, in a concerted, coordinated, and cohesive manner.
I’m not so naive as to think that Democratic candidates are suddenly going to persuade long-time Republican farmers to vote Democratic, but reducing Trump’s support even by a percentage point or two can be the difference between losing and winning. Considering the huge amount of voter suppression the GOP has been doing in urban areas, Dems need to do everything they can to depress turnout for Trump, and doing that requires being on the attack 24/7.
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She’ll be the new Collins if Concerned Susie gets kicked out.
It’s too late to take advantage of it imho. Such comment only has a few hours’ life in news cycle before someone seizes on it and turns it into bigger news. There’s still time to craft a message to farmers, but I doubt the candidates have any interest to do so, especially during the primary.
Btw, your analysis is very insightful. I have the same feeling as yours when I watch those campaigns and debates, and I’ve been disappointed that depressing GOP turnout hasn’t been accepted as an important part of Dems’ campaign strategies.
Don’t bother saying that here, either.
The stock response: Until you yourself have run for office and changed the world[*], why should the Democratic Party or its Faithful Adherents take your criticism seriously?
[*] For the better, I assume.
Ukraine’s GDP was $93 billion in 2016, when Iowa’s was $179 billion. If Ukraine, the second poorest country in Europe, is a sudden vortex of global corruption, it happened by exposure to the band of grifters in the orbit of the Trump crime family. Between Flynn, Cohen and Manafort, The Rump’s imprisoned grifter buddies are 3 for 3 with running schemes through Ukraine.
Thick-as-molasses Joni didn’t come off too good in that town hall. Apparently her constituents have had it with her Republican weasel words.
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You’re still a POS, Joni - bread bags, pig’s testicles, and all.
I don’t care for either Ernst or Grassley as senators. Nevertheless , it’s easy to understand why Ernst would stand with Chuck on whistleblowers. Given that her campaign is mired down by her support of El Trumpo, she would be in favor or anything the more popular Grassley could or would stand for, including presidential pardons for unicorns.
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Really going out a limb aren’t you Breadbags? In other news, my alcoholic brother threw out all of his mixers, and wants me to praise him.
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This is very insightful analysis, most of which hadn’t occurred to me. I’ll only suggest that with a stage full of candidates jockeying for position and needing to grab a headline they might be prioritizing what they put out at this time in the campaign. The emphasis on healthcare is misbegotten, they can offer whatever what they want, but it’ll be Congress who creates legislation on that issue. As with most of the issues they’re on right now.
Overall, though, this seems to be a vulnerability that could be exploited, failing farms, federal subsidies instead of payments that don’t pay for not next year’s crops, and I’m hoping when the candidate field has been narrowed, more topics will be introduced including ag.
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If she doesn’t watch her phrasing, she might get kicked out before Collins does.
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I hope she gets kicked out but IA is kinda weird. Ttump’s approval is terrible there but Ernst’s is fine. On the Democratic side, many people seem to forget about the IA race, although Theresa Greenfield is the only unincumbent candidate of all 2020 races who has received DSCC’s endorsement (which is unusual considering there’re several candidates running in the primary).
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