| | | | Republicans are totally ignoring the 2018 election |  | | After Republicans lost the 2012 presidential election, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus commissioned an election autopsy report -- known as the "Growth and Opportunity Project" -- to grapple with the demographic (and other) problems presented by the defeat.
Six years later, Republicans suffered another near-total loss: 39 seats and counting in the House, seven governor's mansions and hundreds of seats in state legislatures across the country.
How did they handle this latest defeat? By changing absolutely nothing.
This, from Jonathan Martin in the Sunday New York Times, is eye-opening stuff: "Yet nearly a month after the election, there has been little self-examination among Republicans about why a midterm that had seemed at least competitive became a rout. "President Trump has brushed aside questions about the loss of the chamber entirely, ridiculing losing incumbents by name, while continuing to demand Congress fund a border wall despite his party losing many of their most diverse districts. Unlike their Democratic counterparts, Republicans swiftly elevated their existing slate of leaders with little debate, signaling a continuation of their existing political strategy." This is, definitionally, whistling past the political graveyard. I'll give you two reasons why:
1) In 2014, Republican House candidates carried suburban voters by 12 points over Democrats. In 2018? The suburban vote split evenly between the two parties: 49% each.
2) In 2014, Republicans lost among women 51% to 47%. In 2018? Republicans lost women by 19 points.
Those are not problems that will fix themselves. Nor are they problems that will simply go away when the 2020 presidential race starts. (Oh, who am I kidding?! It's already started.)
So why aren't Republicans doing anything about all of this? Fear, mostly. To acknowledge that the 2018 election was a bad one and that major course corrections are needed is to go against President Donald Trump and his preferred narrative about the last election, which goes basically like this: Everything is great!
I'm not, really, exaggerating. Here's Trump's analysis of the election results in his day-after press conference on November 7: "To be honest -- I'll be honest, I thought it was a -- I thought it was a very close to complete victory."
It wasn't. Not close. And by pretending as though everything is totally fine and THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE HERE, Republicans are flirting with forgetting this most fundamental rule of politics and life from philosopher George Santayana: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
The Point: Elections have consequences. Or at least they should.
-- Chris | | "That s--- doesn't work all the time."
-- Former FLOTUS Michelle Obama on "leaning in" and having it all at a recent book event. Obama immediately apologized for swearing: "I forgot where I was for a moment!" | | | SAYING GOODBYE TO BUSH 41 | | CNN's Jeff Zeleny provides a little bit of color from the arrival of former President George H.W. Bush's casket at Joint Base Andrews this afternoon.
"A visibly emotional George W. Bush walked a few feet from us, his eyes red, after watching the ceremony. Complete silence on the tarmac here as motorcade procession begins.
"43 waved to his staff -- that familiar wave with his fingers that he always did -- and several old members of his advance team waved back."
There was also a CIA team to welcome Bush back to Washington. As CNN's Jamie Gangel reports, "Bush was CIA Director January 1976 to January 1977. ... Bush had said it was his favorite job, loved intelligence reports and kept his briefings for years after being President."
Beginning today, Bush will lie in state at the US Capitol until the state funeral at the National Cathedral on Wednesday. He'll be taken back to Texas where a second funeral will be held on Thursday. Thursday night, he'll be interred at the George Bush Presidential Library & Museum. | | | Chris has two thoughts on The Kinks: 1) They are criminally underrated 2) They have a Christmas song called "Father Christmas!" | |  | | Today's topic: Why Bruce Springsteen thinks Trump is going to win in 2020. | | 🇺🇸 WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN AMERICAN? 🇺🇸 | | It's not all stars and stripes and apple pie, that's for sure.
A new poll answers that question: The trait most important to being a "real American, according to a Grinnell College poll released on Monday, is to believe in treating people equally, writes CNN's Grace Sparks.
Among the top traits respondents said are very important: - treating people equally -- 90%
- taking personal responsibility for one's actions -- 88%
- accepting people of different racial backgrounds -- 81%
- supporting the US Constitution -- 80%
| |  | Man's best friend 'till the end.
Sully H.W. Bush, the yellow lab service dog working with former President George H. W. Bush, traveled with Bush's casket to Washington, DC, today.
"Mission complete," wrote Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman who posted a photo of Sully sleeping next to Bush's casket on Sunday. | | Bruce Springsteen has a lot to say about the Trump era.
Like this, which he recently told GQ: "I think that a lot of what's going on has been a large group of people frightened by the changing face of the nation. There seems to be an awful lot of fear. The founding fathers were pretty good at confronting their fears and the fears of the country. And it's the old cliché where geniuses built the system so an idiot could run it. We are completely testing that theory at this very moment.
"I do believe we'll survive Trump. But I don't know if I see a unifying figure on the horizon. That worries me. Because the partisanship and the country being split down the middle is something that's gravely dangerous. ... Let people view themselves as Americans first, that the basic founding principles of the country could be adhered to, whether it's equality or social justice. Let people give each other a chance."
Chris writes more on why Springsteen says Trump will win again on 2020. | | | | | | |
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