Of course not, but politics is a hell of a lot more complex than that.
There’s near unanimity in the Democratic party that Trump is creating a humanitarian crisis and that human rights are being abused, but the specific strategy and tactics in response have already produced one pretty nasty little intra-party fight and it’ll probably not be the last time. You had some pragmatic democrats who wanted to get funding through the House before the July 4 holiday recess, knowing that if they didn’t, the lack of funding would make already horrendous conditions even worse. On the other hand, there was this belief among the justice democrats that if they held out through the recess and forced the crisis to get even worse, it might - might being the key word here - pressure Mitch McConnell and Trump to capitulate to their long-term demands…after the recess, and probably never. The result was that you had some jilted progressives calling moderates child abusers and insinuating that the House leadership are essentially Nazi collaborators.
See, what Trump’s race-baiting does is it becomes so outrageous that it makes moderates and people who seek to build coalitions look weak. When the moderates look weak, the fringe candidates look more appealing and the moderates lose their credibility and power. On the Republican side, that’s what happened to people like John Boehner, and toward the end, even people like John McCain and Paul Ryan. That wasn’t the result of race-baiting, but party polarization, which is what I’m getting at here. I know where the progressives are going with this: they think they can play this game, too. But they can’t. They don’t have the numbers. Not unless they join forces with white moderates.
But the openly-racist tweets ARE working to keep people from talking about Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to Trump.
Trump didn’t need a distraction from the horrors at the border–he thinks those are working in his favor. And he didn’t need a distraction from Mueller—yet—because the news had broken that July 17 was a no-go before the racist tweets were made.*
But he absolutely positively needed a distraction from the sex-with-minors story. Way too close for comfort—and there are all these new witnesses coming forward. Who knows what might be revealed. Better to get the Twitterverse and the TV and print pundits talking about some new outrage…because that will keep Epstein out of sight and out of mind.
*Trump WILL need a major distraction to keep people from paying attention to Mueller, but he’ll spring in on July 23, in all likelihood. Or possibly on the date currently set for Mueller’s appearance, July 24.
Sherrerd, as much as I would welcome a breakout moment from Mueller’s upcoming testimony, I don’t expect shit. And for the sanity of Democrats, I would advise keeping low expectations from any business regarding Mueller. He has been successfully rendered unimportant, I am sad to say.
The last sentence is essentially what she said two days ago - before Trump’s latest bout of twitterreah. And yet, it’s apparently not good enough for WaPo editor Karen Attiah:
I recognize that Attiah doesn’t necessarily speak for ‘The Squad’, Justice Democrats, or all hard-left progressives, but it’s not hard to imagine that many probably perceive Pelosi in the same manner, and for grievances that really don’t have merit.
The tweets aren’t a distraction in the “Oh, look over there” sense. They’re not a distraction device; they’re a division device, and it’s important to understand the difference.
Okay, but what does Biden have to say that he hasn’t already said? Does Biden have to light up twitter every time Trump says something racist or misogynistic? Why - to make people feel better?
I wonder if AOC will publicly apologize to Pelosi for implying she is a gross racist, now that AOC and her squad have been publicly harassed by a genuine gross racist.
I don’t even understand what you are asking. You might as well be asking if the ocean will be wet tomorrow. The democrats have harped nonstop about how Racist trump is during his entire presidency. They ran a presidential campaign that basically amounted to “Oooo look how racist and sexist Trump is- JuSt ThInK oF tHe ChIlDrEn!!!”. Democratic politicians probably have stock statements of outrage set aside for the practically daily event when our Imbecile President decides to tweet some weird racist shit that sounds like it was lifted straight out of the youtube comments section of an alt-right video.
Trump doesn’t have to worry about alienating black voters. He doesn’t have enough black supporters to worry about.
So he can safely try to drive a wedge into the Democrats. He and other Republicans can say all kinds of racist things and force the Democratic candidates to make a choice.
Do they mostly ignore Trump’s racism? If they do, the right wing will put out the message that white Democrats don’t really care about black people, so why should black people vote for them?
Do they attack Trump’s racism? If they do, the right wing will put out the message that the Democrats are the party that defends black people while the Republicans are the party that defends white people.
They are keeping Epstein out of the news. That’s distraction. “Oh, look over there” is exactly what the tweets are doing, at least with respect to the more dangerous-for-Trump Epstein story. Nobody’s looking at that at the moment.
The tweets are also causing Democrats who were squabbling to unite in contempt for Trump. That’s basically the opposite of division.
Certainly every aspect of the Trump presidency is at least generally divisive–I’ll grant you that. Trump splits Americans into ‘vocally oppose him’ and ‘vocally support him’ and ‘hide their heads in the sand’ categories. And those categories haven’t played out strictly by party lines, which is where the divisiveness comes in.
People’s hunger for ‘cool cred’ can lead them astray, no doubt. And allying yourself with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez certainly is a currently-effective way to get that cred.
But an editor at the Washington Post should be a little less needy.
Guess what. I’m a white moderate. Not only that, but I’m a >65, suburban white moderate. Guess what else. My grandfather was an immigrant from rural central Europe. And it’s a damn good thing he got here before 1924, otherwise he might never have gotten past Ellis Island. He would have been honored to be elected to Congress.
But of course, he believed only “Real Americans” mattered. That was when my father, a white, suburban, moderate Republican told him, “Poppa, you’re an IMMIGRANT! Real Americans want you to go back where you came from!”
Epstein’s perversion is now a criminal matter. It will be litigated and investigated by courts, and by the media. If this is a distraction, it’s a poor one. But of course, this is not a distraction; it’s a tactic to incite division, just like the suffering of migrant children, just like proposing a citizenship question, just like advertising ICE RAIDS!!! It’s not distraction; it’s division.
It won’t be long before this turns into a purity test.
Here’s another commentary on Pelosi’s “women of color problem” by Sophia Nelson:
Notice how someone reading that could be forgiven for assuming she’s subtly slipping Biden and Pelosi into the same category as Trump.
Right, the same Nancy Pelosi who put incoming freshmen and complete political novices like the Budget, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees. FFS, Pelosi doesn’t have a problem with The Squad other than their desire to take partisan disagreements to Twitter. They’re angry because this Bernie Bro bullshit of “Let’s blow up the fucking system” and let’s duel on social media has rubbed off on them - and they’re finding out the rest of the party’s fucking annoyed with them, including the CBS, which last time I checked had lots of people of color among its membership.