1. Gallup approval Republican/Conservative Republican 82%/87% (day 324, Dec 4-10). Recovered from recent decline.

2. USA today fully joins the chorus:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/

and congratulates itself on being welcomed aboard by the rest of the maistream media:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/13/readers-calm-down-trump-not-conservatives/948317001/

At one level the editorial reflects the shift in focus to Trump’s sexism (on which there is nothing to say that wasn’t said during the 2016 primaries and election). There is no mention at all of Russia or “obstruction of justice”, but this seems only a little bit ahead of others in the mainstream who are still claiming they expect some dramatic exposure of “obstruction of justice”, but rather forlornly and seem to have basically given up on their being some collusion that Trump is supposed to have been trying to prevent justice being done about.

The immediate focus is on the drama about Trump having accused a Democrat Senator of “begging” him for campaign donations and said she “would be willing to do anything for them”. Naturally the liberal media interprets this as a “slut shaming slur” (since it plainly does not hint at collusion with Russia or hatred of immigrants and muslims or efforts to rob from the poor to benefit the rich, what else could it be?)

Curiously however USAToday actually mentions:

And as is the case with all of Trump’s digital provocations, the president’s words were deliberate. He pours the gasoline of sexist language and lights the match gleefully knowing how it will burst into flame in a country reeling from the #MeToo moment.   

So it must have at least crossed their minds that a deliberate effort by Trump to invite liberals to “burst into flame” must be seen by Trump as having some benefit to Trump. Did the thought process stop there? Did it actually occur to them that the perceived benefit would be that Trump’s base would interpret the same words as being about the corruption of campaign donations and would be further entrenched in both that view and their general hostility to the media by insistence that it was a sexist slur?

No doubt such a deliberate strategy is contemptible. But why not just thoughtfully analyse it? Why burst into flames as directed?

Anyway, the two articles are well worth a look to understand that the media just are not going to be able to avoid continuing down this path that leads nowhere.

(Other recent efforts have included “Pocohontas” as a derogatory nickname for Senator Elizabeth Warren as a slur on native Americans rather than an allusion to the story that she once sought benefits by unsupported claims to have native American ancestry).

Even the Democrat leadership is not quite as carried away by total tactical ineptitude as the Editorial Board of USA Today, which concludes:

It is a shock that only six Democratic senators are calling for our unstable president to resign.

3. USA Today also continued its tradition of publishing opposing views, with this statement from the Republican National Committee. It is also worth reading to understand how reasonably Trump’s supporters are successfully able to portray themselves in contrast to his opponents.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/rnc-democrats-response-laughable-editorials-debates/108551938/

 4. Alabama results are being spun in various directions. Some key points:

4.1 40% turnout is huge for a special election (expectations given the unusual interest were for a very high 25%).

4.2 Less than 2% were for write in candidates. That was from GOP supporters unwilling to vote for either a disgusting GOP candidate or a Democrat and was enough to tip the election (49.9%/48.9%). But it was only enough because of the huge turnout, which would have reflected enormous Democrat mobilization (especially among Alabama blacks who would not usually bother voting in elections where they can have no impact). Presumably even larger Democrat mobilization than is obvious since GOP turnout would have relatively declined as the more common response to disgusting GOP candidate would have been to not vote rather than vote for a write in that could not win as both have identical effect in throwing it to the Democrat.

4.3 As Vox said:

Sometimes you get bad luck

In the Alabama race, Senate Republicans suffered fundamentally from bad timing.

If the allegations of sexual misconduct against Roy Moore had surfaced during the primary, he likely would have lost to either Luther Strange or Mo Brooks, either of whom likely would have beaten Jones. If the allegations about Moore’s misconduct had surfaced after the general election, he might have been forced from office, but Alabama’s Republican governor would have appointed his replacement. Having this information come out during the window between the primary and the general election was a fluke, and absent that fluke, it’s hard to imagine Jones winning.

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/12/16766840/alabama-senate-election-results-moore-jones
Such “flukes” rarely turnout to be coincidence. Vox pretends that Roy Moore could only have been forced from office if the charges had surfaced after the election. Actually if the charges that “surfaced” decades later and after the primaries were true, the GOP Senate leadership would have been delighted to join with Democrats in removing Roy Moore from the Senate and replacing him with a GOP Senator of their choice after an ethics investigation as they explicitly announced when they failed to persuade him to stand down. So the charges HAD to “surface” PRECISELY when they did to actually have any impact on partisan politics. That does not mean they are not true. But only Democrats will pretend to believe it was a “fluke”. Others will investigate. Whoever arranged the timing clearly intended to risk Roy Moore winning in the hope that a Democrat rather than a Republican would become and remain Senator for a solid GOP State. There will be a lot more of this stuff with the total breakdown of mainstream politics.

4.4 Presumably both parties will try to insulate themselves by careful candidate vetting so the temporary success of this tactic in Alabama obscures whatever trends may otherwise be indicated by the result. But I see nothing that contradicts my expectations of large Democrat gains in 2018 elections (with strong Democrat divisions in the primaries) and large Trumpist gains in GOP primaries.

4.5 The effectiveness of party splits in swinging results is highlighted by the (genuine fluke) that 2% write-ins tipped the result. Both Bannon supporters and GOP incumbents are blaming each other for the defeat. Neither can blame Trump as he opposed Roy Moore in the primaries and did what he could to avoid a Democrat victory in the election (and has gone on to pretend that he opposed Roy Moore because he was less likely to win rather than because he was more likely to be a loose cannon after what was then assumed to be an inevitable GOP victory in a solid GOP State). This actually strengthens Trump’s position as arbiter of GOP contests.

4.6 GOP incumbents who choose to split in 2020 will know that they will be throwing it to Democrats so can only do so as part of a long term effort to build an alternative party. Same applies on Democrat side.

5. Trump not as bad as Obama in Iraq so hailed as good.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/tom_shattuck/2017/12/shattuck_trump_s_leadership_military_support_enabled_us_to

6. Here’s a reminder of the efforts to derail Trump on sexism in 2016. I accidentally followed the link while reading that Bernie Sanders has less tactical nous than I thought and is joining the current chorus in an encore.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumptape-404pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&tid=a_inl&utm_term=.e6a36d2a3f22

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-resign-us-president-sexual-harassment-allegations-accusers-women-a8110676.html

Trump’s Rare Apology

7. World Trade Organization going nowhere.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/14/trump-end-world-trade-organization-224810
8. Rolling Stone simultaneously denies and illustrates that Trump’s “resistance” has been left with no time or capacity for reflection (thus confirming to them that he has no strategy and is not even aware that this lack has mysteriously reduced his opponents to gibbering).

Though he probably doesn’t realize it, Trump benefits from doing so many bizarre and ridiculous things that they steal attention from each other. In many cases, the most egregious things he says are conveniently timed to take attention away from more serious issues – see his recent “Pocahontas” comments overshadowing debate about the tax bill in Congress or the controversy over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Trump has flummoxed academics, journalists and commentators attempting to fit him into the historical context of the presidency. Collectively, we appear unable to decide if Trump is some kind of strategic mastermind or so random and impulsive that even he doesn’t know what he will say or do next.

But if this year is any indication, there is no multidimensional chess strategy playing out in his head. Looking at the Trump presidency day by day shows no strategy or plan of any kind. It looks on paper exactly how it has felt to live through: one crisis after another, with little time for rest or reflection. It is a car that is constantly veering off the road, and we have to fight so hard to keep from going over the edge that it’s not easy to remember where we’ve been.

To illustrate that point, below are just some of the embarrassing, incomprehensible or flat-out stupid things from the first ten months of the Trump presidency that received a great deal of attention, but only for a very short time. This list may seem long, but it’s only the barest sketch of the edifice of madness we now inhabit; a comprehensive one would be the size of a phone book. (Many thanks to TrumpWatch for helping me on this journey.)

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-year-of-being-completely-overwhelmed-by-trump-w513802

1. Gallup approval Republican/Conservative Republican 78%/84% (day 317, Nov 27 to Dec 3). Starting to decline. Still comfortable for primaries. Perhaps more important is significant decline in total identified as Republicans from 42% at time of November 2016 election to 37% now, a year later:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/republican-exodus-poll-democrat/index.html

Presumably this means a higher proportion of registered Republicans entitled to vote at 2018 primaries will be Trumpists since opponents more likely to be leaving. Democrats aren’t doing much to provide a home for those leaving so likely to end up either not voting or supporting a split from GOP in 2020 – both of which tend towards a deadlocked electoral college. (That throws election to House voting by States with Trump likely to have more States than electoral college or House members since support stronger in smaller States).

2. I haven’t studied tax cuts in detail but following points noted:

2.1 Substantial deficit which is main thing he needs for economic climate in 2020. Not unusual for GOP to approve a large deficit pretending that magic will prevent it biting later while making their main theme the need to stop Democrats running deficits. What is unusual is the near unanimity. Most of tea party/koch brothers voted as Trumpists so they are thoroughly intimidated by 2018 (elections as well as primaries). Lots more deficit to come for infrastructure.

2.2 Pretence from opponents that personal cuts only favour the rich may have some impact but based on joining the Republican pretence that tax cuts will expire within the 10 year limit that enables them to go through without Democrat support by pretending to balancing the budget. For next 10 years tax cuts will benefit potential Trump voters more than traditional GOP voters and “elites”. Then it will be time to continue them and further increase the deficit. Most voters will respond based on how things are going for them at time of election, not on what media are telling them now, even if they believe it.

2.3 Main target seems to be people living in States with higher local tax rates (i.e. Democrats). Removing credit for local tax rates hits them more than potential Trump voters. Result likely to be even bigger disproportion between popular and electoral college votes in 2020 (whether or not Trump wins either). eg New York and California even more solidly Democrat than before with no effect at all on 2020 outcome.

2.4 Corporate tax cuts are part of a world-wide race to the bottom which Australia and other countries will follow. Result general world-wide shift from relying exclusively on monetary measures to running fiscal deficits again – as demanded by central banks, OECD et al. State assuming greater role as the national capitalist in each country as described by Engels. Will intensify both international tensions and eventual crisis but could well postpone it further.

3. Some Fox coverage of Trump becoming somewhat hostile:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/trumps-campaign-against-justice-fbi-is-working.html

Highlights difference from liberal meltdown – Fox’s occasional negative coverage is far more “reasonable” and likely to do real damage. Seems like Fox replacing NYT and Wapo as “mainstream” or “authoritative”. Interesting that this example shares liberal assumptions that Mueller inquiry will come up with something very damaging to Trump and is being attacked by Trumpists for that reason. More plausible is that the Hannity types at Fox frothing gives that impression to others working there, but actual situation is Trump wants to keep it going and denouncing it is a good way to ensure liberals and GOP never Trumpists will keep it going.

4. Al Jazeera has an interesting indicator of where some of the “resistance” may head when their current fantasies about impeaching Trump explode:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/sadly-frankly-donald-trump-171209093723658.html

Starts off with quite sane and sober analysis that they are indeed fantasizing and Trump isn’t going anywhere, with understanding that their fantasies are about a system they support “working” (ie the “rule of law” aka “the authorities” will rescue them from Trump via a coup led by their beloved “intelligence community”).

But then becomes clear that the author shares much of the delusionary mentality about what is actually happening now, and hearkens back to some golden era in 1974 when the system did indeed work and got rid of Nixon (who as all good Democrats remember can be blamed for the Vietnam war started by Kennedy and escalated by Johnson).

Ends up denouncing half the population of USA as fascists who worship Trump!

So that is one direction they could go. Others include just continuing to feel simultaneously smug, superior and impotent.

5. Plausible analysis that Trump doing rather well at the moment:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-trumps-good-fortune/

6. Some Fox triumphalism:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/12/09/media-goes-crazy-over-trump-announcement-on-jerusalem-cnn-s-sloppy-mistake-and-other-journalism-disasters.html

7. Fox joining in the anti-homophobia chorus:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/12/04/will-msnbc-punish-joy-reid-after-homophobic-past-was-revealed.html

8. Some CNN confusion. I cannot figure out whether it is dawning on them that there isn’t even going to be an obstruction of justice claim and morphing into general outrage about having a President who agrees with most people that the system is corrupt or whether they are actually convinced by some Trumpist frothing against Mueller that they are really onto something and should keep indeed keep going in the same direction as B’rer rabbit keeps telling them not to.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/09/politics/donald-trump-rigged-sick-institutions/index.html

Here’s their understanding of the B’rer rabbit Tar-baby story:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/01/politics/trump-russia-investigation/index.html

Earlier they did not seem at all confused, just utterly convinced that Trump (or his lawyer) acknowledging the obvious that when Trump sacked Flynn for lying and said he didn’t want Flynn charged he knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI – that means they have “got him” for “obstruction of justice”.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/05/politics/trump-russia-defense-in-disarray/index.html

Here’s some background.

Trump’s lawyer mentioned the obvious in a tweet from Trump, that he had sacked Flynn for lying to Vice President and to FBI and did not want him charged. Did not repeat Trump’s remark at the time about some other Flynn issues – presumably Flynn being an unregistered agent of Turkey and being an especially deranged Trumpist. Also did not repeat Trump’s attempt to explain in NBC interview that he knew sacking Comey would prolong the “Russia thing”.

Trump’s lawyer then explained the obvious to Axios:

• Dowd: “The tweet did not admit obstruction. That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion.”

Axios duly ran with that as “Exclusive: Trump lawyer claims the President cannot obstruct justice”.

https://www.axios.com/exclusive-trump-lawyer-claims-the-president-cannot-obstruct-justice-2514742663.html

Lots of solemn analysis followed in which fantasists tried to convince themselves that the Chief Executive officer responsible for taking care that the laws of the United States shall be enforced is prohibited from expressing an opinion about any case.

Some actually noticed that is absurd and correctly stated that President can and does give directions to and hire and fire law enforcement officers and allocate resources and priorities and issue pardons, not just make suggestions – so that “obstruction of justice” would require a “corrupt intention”.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/obstruction-of-justice-president/index.html

But that gets buried in liberal coverage because we all know that anything Trump does is inherently corrupt and they also KNOW deep in their souls that the truth is out there somewhere and Mueller will discover it because Trump won the election by colluding with the Kremlin and then sacked Comey to prevent justice being done.

If you don’t actually KNOW that is the only possible explanation for him having become and remaining President despite all right thinking people being aghast, then you may find it difficult to follow their legal analysis.

9. NPR still deeply fascinated by Russia inquiries:

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/09/569116551/the-russia-investigations-knife-fights-over-feds-trump-jr-manafort-and-more

10. California Democrat Governor “Trump doesn’t fear the wrath of God”:

California gov: Trump doesn’t fear God or ‘existential consequences’

11. A plausible view on Trump’s announcement re Jerusalem:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-08/jerusalem-favour-from-trump-hard-to-repay/9236054

My own take is that undermining the ludicrous posturing about the US being an “honest broker” in a “peace process” has no real impact whatever. I view everything Trump does as narrowly focussed on winning 2018 GOP primaries. In this case playing to Evangelicals some of who have both a bizarre alliance with Trumpists and bizarre enthusiasm for Zionism and the end times.

Here’s another contrary view attempting to analyse Trump foreign policy from a foreign policy rather than a domestic focus:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-s-foreign-policy-pure-trump-it-s-working-him-n815636

12. David Brooks says GOP now 100% swung from pro to anti globalization:

http://skidmorenews.com/new-blog/2017/12/5/david-brooks-says-trump-was-the-wrong-answer-to-the-right-question

13. Counter attack starting against blatant coup mongering from “intelligence community”:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/dec/5/barack-obamas-team-worked-against-donald-trump/

Here’s a breathless example of more “restrained” undermining rather than open coup mongering from US and Israeli “intelligence community” and/or journalists fantasizing about what stories they might have to tell:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/trump-intel-slip

14. Not sure but I’m guessing this is an attempt to wean some of the Evangelical likudniks to a more “mainstream” Zionism:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/12/09/after-trump-recognizes-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-evangelicals-work-for-peace-between-jews-and-arabs.html

15. If this quote from Chief Palestinian negotiator is accurate, it is very significant:

““Now is the time to transform the struggle for one-state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine,”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/09/trumps-decision-jerusalem-shatters-palestinian-old-guard/

16. Under the headline “Trump is cracking up”, NYT demonstrates that NYT is cracking up:

“If you think 2017 was bad, imagine an America without allies fighting another two-front war, this one involving nuclear weapons, under the leadership of the most hated president in modern history, while a torture apologist runs the C.I.A. The world right now is a powder keg. Trump, an untethered maniac, sits atop it, flicking a lighter that Republicans in Congress could take away, but won’t. If everything goes up in flames, we can’t say we weren’t warned.”

1. CNN poll. Favourable opinions of both Democratic and Republican parties lowest ever. Unfavourable highest ever.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/cnn-poll-republicans-democrats-taxes/index.html?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottommedium
More important is inclination of registered voters to vote in the mid-terms, which may point to their inclinations to vote in primaries. Needs careful analysis. I wasn’t struck by any obvious trend. (Both wings of both parties would be doing detailed private and localised polling on those numbers and correlation with voters inclinations towards the position of each wing).

Only small numbers indicating intention to vote for a party other than Republicans and Democrats. But of course there isn’t a serious contender as neither has split yet. (I would expect splits after rather than before mid-terms).

Gallup Trump approval day 296 (6-12 Nov) Republicans 82%, conservative Republicans 87%. Day 303 (13-19 Nov), 81%/87%.

2. Interesting detail in Virginia result:

Gillespie received more votes than Bob McDonnell, the GOP’s victorious 2009 nominee for governor. What buried Gillespie was a 700 percent increase, nearly 600,000 ballots, in votes for the Democratic nominee

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/11/how_donald_trump_sank_ed_gillespie.html
Despite having to agree with Slate, it does seem clear that this points to Trump’s approach resulting in big Democat win in mid-terms as the Democrats will still be angry and turnout in a year. The increase in GOP votes points to increased GOP mobilization too that is more likely to swing primaries to genuine Trumpists rather than imitations such as Gillespie.

So I still expect GOP incumbents to be defeated by Democrats and Trumpists except where they have a strong base that could be used in a split that leaves large Trumpist GOP and small ex-GOP rump in Congress with a Democrat majority that leaves things paralysed with impeachment dramas and no legislation that can get through Senate and Presidency unless it happens to suit Trump. Likewise still expect the angry mobilized Democrats to turnup at their primaries that will be vigorously contested between their two wings intensifying split.

3. Not much likelihood of Democrat divisions actually being healed:

Ralph Northam’s gutless, politically senseless, and morally debased decision yesterday to openly backtrack on his commitment to standing up for immigrant families is a picture-perfect example of why Democracy for America never endorsed him in the primary and focused the entirety of our efforts in Virginia on down-ticket races, like Justin Fairfax’s campaign for Lieutenant Governor.  It’s also why, today, we’re announcing that we will no longer do any work to directly aid Northam’s gubernatorial efforts.

“Despite our profound reservations about Northam’s commitment to the inclusive populist agenda Democrats need to embrace to win, following the conclusion of Virginia’s Democratic primary, we have continued to work alongside the Virginia Democratic Coordinated campaign for our endorsed candidates, raise tens of thousands of dollars in grassroots donations, and make tens of thousands of calls to voters to expand the electorate.

“Those concerns proved justified when, a few weeks ago, the VA Democratic Coordinated campaign (dominated by Northam operatives) bought literature for canvassers that purposely left off Fairfax, who, if elected, would be just the second Black man to ever serve statewide office in the Commonwealth.  Following that racist action, we decided to remove Northam’s name from the tens of thousands of volunteer Get-Out-the-Vote calls our members are making in Virginia, but, for the sake of Democratic comity, we refrained from publicly discussing that decision.

“However, after seeing Northam play directly into the hands of Republicans’ racist anti-immigrant rhetoric on sanctuary cities, we refuse to be silent any longer and even remotely complicit in the disastrous, racist, and voter-turnout-depressing campaign Ralph Northam appears intent on running.

“The fight for racial and economic justice are core Democratic values, not talking points for convenient moments. This isn’t some arbitrary purity test either.  Public dithering on basic issues of racial justice, like the need to protect immigrant families targeted by a bigoted Federal government, isn’t just morally bankrupt, it’s precisely why many Black, brown, and progressive white voters that should make up the base of reliable Democratic voters don’t believe Democratic candidates have their backs and sit out elections.

“Let’s be really clear: If Ralph Northam wins next Tuesday, it won’t be because he publicly backtracked on his commitment to protecting immigrant families, but in spite of it.  And, if he loses, the blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the consultants who urged the campaign to cave on core Democratic values in the face of a virulently racist Republican campaign – and whose obsession with flipping white, Republican-leaning votes and ignoring voters of color has consistently failed.

“As we have from the start, we are committed to supporting DFA’s endorsed candidates in Virginia through election day, but we cannot remain silent as an outdated faction of national and state Democratic Party staffers and consultants run the same old, broken, and racist playbook that lost Democrats over 1000 elected offices since 2008 and allowed a bigoted billionaire to squeak into the White House last Fall.  Our country and our party deserve much, much better.” — Charles Chamberlain, Executive Director, Democracy for America

http://democracyforamerica.com/site/page/dfa-announces-end-of-direct-aid-for-northam-in-va-gubernatorial-race-after

The liberal group Democracy for America had abandoned Virginia’s gubernatorial candidate, Ralph Northam, over immigration policy, then celebrated his win days later.

“The plus of a tidal wave like this is it washes away the stains of all the campaigns,” DFA executive director Charles Chamberlain said.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/start-of-antitrump-surge-or-not-so-fast/news-story/9f3869d9859c9ffba6b81a3af3707356

4. Bernie Sanders on how to fix the Democratic party. Again no mention of anti-globalism or isolationism. Also the tone of a winner internally – implicit threats if his opponents don’t let go of their organizational grip, but very politely “inclusive”.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/10/bernie-sanders-how-to-fix-democratic-party-215813

5. This makes explicit the blindspot I see pretty well everyone else not noticing:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/10/16625308/trump-supporters-2020-polls

Most of what Ezra Klein says is true or at least plausible. The one line summary is both accurate and obvious:

Trump can keep his base and still lose reelection in a landslide.

But what it misses is far more important. This article makes it clear the following simply has not occurred to the author.

1. Trump is unpopular because he cannot deliver anything at all through the current GOP in Congress. Not because he has done anything to upset his base.
2. If Trump had lost his base he might be impeached by now and would certainly not be able to get rid of the GOP incumbents in Congress who he explicitly ran against in 2016 and therefore would remain unable to do anything much and would inevitably be defeated either by the GOP or the Democrats in 2020.
3. Consequently he has from the day of the election (months before inauguration) been totally focussed on keeping his base. Any effort to build a winning coalition would have been pointless and wasted while the GOP incumbents remain in his way.
4. For many months “analysts” didn’t even understand that he isn’t a Republican and was rallying his base to take over the GOP. They concentrated on triumphantly celebrating the stupidity of every unpopular GOP policy he could be saddled with. This article illustrates the sheer inability to think about the different situation that will exist when he DOES start to try to build a winning coalition.
5. Since he HAS kept his base, that situation will include a large Trumpist party in Congress whereas currently he has essentially NO party in Congress.
6. It will also include a thoroughly divided Democratic majority in Congress, many of whom will have run and won on an opposition to GOP policies that they actually share with Trump and his base (even though they don’t know it). In particular lots of Democrats will vote in favour of big infrastructure programs, improved healthcare and reduced taxes for workers despite an increase in the deficit.
7. The Democrats may get the credit for that, and they may win in 2020. But Trump could also get credit for it and could also win. There wasn’t any other scenario in which he could win so he is doing remarkably well.
8. There is NO sign that his opponents have even thought things through this much, let alone having a viable strategy to counter it.

BTW the “Trump country story” linked to as one of the “best” of that (useless) genre is actually more oblivious than usual -oozing liberal bewilderment at encountering people wearing different filters.

6. Thomas Frank at the Guardian shows some actual insight:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/12/aghast-donald-trump-thomas-frank

They have been at it every day for a year now, and the literature of Trump-denunciation they have produced is enormous, a vast Alexandrine library of lamentation and deploring.

Pundits pronounce him dangerous, if not “F*cking Crazy”. They explore the depths of his stupidity. They apologize for him to Muslims. They compile long lists of the man’s falsehoods and misrepresentations. They look to the past and compare him to Hitler, to Mussolini, to Nero and Caligula. They look to the future and try to imagine the exact nature of the apocalypse the dunce will surely precipitate.

They are aghast, almost every one of them, and they compete fiercely with one another to say just how aghast they are. It is a “parade of the aghast”, as an acquaintance calls it, with all the skills of the journalist reduced to a performance of perturbation and disgust.

The parade of the aghast is the obverse of the gullible way our pundits usually contemplate American leaders – lionizing them as men of crisis, admiring their gravitas as they go from international summit to emergency bank bailout. And now the buffoon Trump has exposed it all as a fraud.

A solid year of the aghast has been a good thing overall. It’s healthy for the country to have pundits periodically choose to despise our leaders instead of honor them.

…

But declaring it all so ghastly isn’t going to halt these trends or remove the reprobate from the White House. Waving a piece of paper covered with mean words in Trump’s face won’t make him retreat to his tower in New York. To make him do that you must understand where he comes from, how he operates, why his supporters like him, and how we might coax a few of them away.

The parade of the aghast will have none of that. Strategy is not the goal; a horror-high is. And so its practitioners routinely rail against Trump’s supporters along with Trump himself, imagining themselves beleaguered by a country they no longer understand nor particularly like.

They denounce people who tell the truth about how the Democratic party operates on the grounds that such knowledge is an “obstacle” to anti-Trump efforts.

A year of this stuff, and never has mainstream opinion journalism seemed so inconsequential, so powerless to envision anything useful about our national predicament.

Look at the grand sweep of history: this is an angry, populist age, and with every year – with every little tightening of the inequality index – it grows angrier and more populist still. To the satisfied and comfortable American pundit class, these are alien and deplorable sentiments, and so they fall back on high-decibel moral aghastitude. They scold and they scold and they scold. But if they really want to send Trump and the Republicans packing, they will make an effort to understand.

That’s a good start. But “they” will never make an effort to understand. “We” need to understand and help angry people replace the system that angers them and is aghast at them rather than trying to reconcile them to it or leaving them to Trump.

7. Meanwhile, Time bewildered that Trump’s chief of staff doesn’t follow Trump’s tweets.

Isn’t EVERYBODY required to be completely distracted and aghast about them?

http://time.com/5020743/donald-trump-john-kelly-tweets/

But LA Times isn’t bewildered. It simply tells Trump’s Chief of Staff to face reality and concentrate on those tweets which have “real consequences” in the world inhabited by LA Times.

Not paying attention to Donald Trump’s tweets is a luxury all of us wish we could indulge in more often! But the White House has been clear whatever he posts constitutes official statements. So perhaps Kelly could come back on down to reality town, where there are real consequences whenever the guy decides to take his 280 characters out for a spin.

[L.A. Times]

https://gizmodo.com/very-tired-sounding-john-kelly-yeah-i-just-ignore-don-1820373344?IR=T
Now just dumping old links again. I have a ridiculous number of open windows.

8. “Do Trump’s Liberal Critics Increasingly Seem Unhinged?”

Do Trump’s liberal critics seem increasingly unhinged?

YES! Ok, I have sufficiently lost objectivity to continue spending hours each day on it since I was first struck by how unhinged they seemed on election day. But it IS my impression that they are actually getting MORE unhinted as time passes.

Here’s a liberal blog analysing a nutter trumpist conspiracy blog to convince itself that the attention it pays to nutters isn’t nutty and that the liberals responding to Trump having said stupid things about an opponent drinking water doesn’t make them responding in kind look similar:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2017/11/19/crokin-trump-sending-message-fiji-drink-water/
9. Some insight into the bubbles and filters:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/americans-divided-politics-unity-liberal-bubble-215843
But seems to hope for a return to the happy medium rather than for both ends to wake up.

10. Christie admits he was surprised that Trump remained in “campaign mode” after winning election. No wonder he was immediately removed from the transition team. Did he seriously imagine they can govern without first successfully campaigning to obtain a party in Congress?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/361027-christie-on-trump-hes-never-gotten-out-of-campaign-mode-as
11. Trump tweets about particular companies causing major stock price fluctuations in particular stocks he singles out despite the overall pre-crisis eerily low volatility levels:

https://www.investopedia.com/news/trump-creates-volatility-feast-stock-traders/
Now if they stopped looking for Russians and instead tracked down connections between Trump associates with possible prior knowledge of tweets and traders who make money from them they might get somewhere…

12. Wikileaks communicating with Donald Trump Jr by unencrypted twitter messages once again proves how dumb the conspirators are!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/11/13/wikileaks_was_really_really_dumb_to_send_donald_trump_jr_dms_on_twitter.html
(Doesn’t even bother to explain the necessary intermediate step – in  order to conceal the fact that they were both secretly conspiring with Russian intelligence they have cunningly communicated publicly to confuse everybody, just like Trump openly begged Russians to find Clinton’s emails to hide the fact that he was colluding with Russians in stealing DNC emails. That level of subtlety doesn’t need to be explained. The overiding principle is that they are all really really dumb and so the nightmare will be over soon).

The New Yorker gets back on message:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trumps-donald-jr-problem
(Goes straight to the heart of the matter. No point claiming that Assange and wikileaks are dumb conspirators. The point has to be that Donald Trump and his associates/family are dumb conspirators).

“The law here is somewhat murky…”

But not for CNN:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/14/opinions/the-stupidity-of-donald-trump-jr-filipovic/index.html
If we can’t prove collusion with Russian intelligence then lets try to ramp up indignation about collusion with wikileaks.

(If it isn’t actually illegal to receive and exploit information about the Clinton campaign rigging the Democrat primaries then it damn well ought to be!)

13. Long thoughtful analysis by Frank Rich in NY magazine.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/frank-rich-trumpism-after-trump.html
I think he gets it right about Trumpists wiping out GOP and bigger danger from what follows Trump.

Writes off a third of Americans as “authoritarian mindset”. (Perhaps true, perhaps far larger than one third).

But his answer? …. CELEBRITIES

The liberal elites who continue to argue that Democrats can win by meeting Trump voters halfway don’t seem to realize that those intransigent voters have long been hardwired to despise them. William Rusher, the publisher of National Review who tracked Wallace with admiration in the 1970s, presciently envisioned a GOP that allied workers and the party’s corporate donors against what he called “a new class” of “essentially nonproductive” Americans like academics, the news media, and government workers. That’s the exact Trump–Fox News–Breitbart culture war we have today.

The Democrats’ growing demographic advantages mean nothing if their voters stay home. Those who didn’t vote in 2016 have to be given a reason to turn out in 2020 with the same fervor that Trump instilled in rural white Trumpists. The party might have to fight celebrity with celebrity. The novelty polls favoring the fantasy candidacies of Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnsonshouldn’t be dismissed as a joke. After Trump, no one can question a show-business star’s qualifications (or almost anyone’s) to be president; some of them could deliver a political message with more conviction than the professional politicians in either party. And the Democrats may well have to fight anger with anger. The rage of the Trumpists will intensify in direct proportion to Trump’s downfall, which will surely be attributed within Trumpism’s ecosystem to a Mueller–Clinton–Goldman Sachs deep-state conspiracy. That anger will be further inflamed by the economic insecurity that will continue to afflict most Americans as long as the inequality compounded for decades in the age of globalization remains unaddressed and unchecked. The Democrats can’t respond with the usual ten-point policy prescriptions culled from the comfortable platitudes of a liberal think tank.

Looking to the future in his 60 Minutes White House exit interview, Bannon said, “The only question before us” is whether it “is going to be a left-wing populism or a right-wing populism.” And that is the question, he added, “that will be answered in 2020.” Give the devil his due: He does have the question right. But there is every reason to fear that our unending civil war will not be resolved by any election anytime soon in the destabilized America that Trump will leave behind.

(Clearly the “left wing populism” this “elite” proposes to mobilize are assumed to be at least as prone to authoritarian demogaguery from celebrity TV stars as the Trumpists).

14. Correct analysis that Trump has effectively forced GOP in Congress to legalize the “Dreamers”.

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/mary-sanchez/article184002166.html

15. Democrat demanding that GOP stop Trump.

It’s Time to Take It to the Republicans Over Their Protecting Trump

Sort of spoiled by smug admission at the end that whichever way the GOP goes the Democrats (“America”) wins.

16. This is NOT a sendup of a liberal blogger pathetically unable to cope with weak irony. It is REAL:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2017/11/13/trumps-inane-tweet-ever/
17. Meanwhile items about the wealth of billionaires are sneaking into my daily feed of Trump news.

This article and its links below are worth careful study:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/26/worlds-witnessing-a-new-gilded-age-as-billionaires-wealth-swells-to-6tn

The three richest people in the US – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – own as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population, or 160 million people. 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/08/bill-gates-jeff-bezos-warren-buffett-wealthier-than-poorest-half-of-us
(link to .pdf report within – really bizarre)

https://press.pwc.com/News-releases/ubs-pwc-billionaires-report-reveals-billionaire-wealth-facing-headwinds-with-overall-wealth-declinin/s/1a330ead-d03c-48ea-a38c-da3e1c677ce1
Here’s the UBS Billionaires report for download:

https://uhnw-greatwealth.ubs.com/en/insights/billionaires-report-2016/
UNCTAD calling for coordinated fiscal expansion:

http://unctad.org/en/pages/PublicationWebflyer.aspx?publicationid=1852
(Includes LOTS of discussion of rentier capitalism)

On that note I’ll go back to studying economics…

Whoops… I meant to publish this last Tuesday or so but have accidentally left it as a draft. Been busy on economics so haven’t got much to add except old links and will leave those for now and get above out.

1. A “chaired” Professor:

https://theconversation.com/democracy-on-life-support-donald-trumps-first-year-86824
Only an assumption that academics like this never do anything would justify not expecting this guy’s delusionary politics and hatred for the ignorant rabble to not result in him getting involved in some conspiratorial attempt to impose a more “democratic” dictatorship by force.

That assumption is reasonable. During the George W Bush administration and Iraq war, the fringe Democrat blogosphere (closely allied with the paleocon opposition to the war) was full of more “insurrectionary” talk, although less inclined to openly blame the people as their delusions were about them leading the people, rather than the intelligence agencies to rise up and overthrow the government. They were merely expressing their impotence and their open threats against democracy never needed to be treated seriously.

An academic like this probably doesn’t even have delusions of being taken seriously. But its noticeable that he is being published in “The Conversation” which aims to have academics taken more seriously than the popular media.

2. Perceptive article on Democrat dilemma:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-victory-has-divided-democratic-party-down-middle-ncna818211

Try as they might, Democrats will find it impossible to stick to an economics-only script ahead of the 2018 midterm and 2020 general elections. It would be foolish even to try.

The analysis of current contest for Virginia makes. Sense. The final conclusion I have highlighted is perplexing as there is no clear call for a split from the Democrats.

Perhaps it just reflects ruling class inclination in favour of stirring up both sides of “culture wars” to keep people from uniting against them.

3. Bloomberg analysis of Republican 2020 primary challenge to Trump

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-07/trump-is-stumbling-into-a-primary-fight-in-2020
Not thinking in terms of a split following mid-terms.

Not mentioned that owner Bloomberg himself could be a potential GOP globalist candidate if Democrats go anti-globalist.

4. More on Virginia race from Bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-06/why-democrats-race-baiting-often-backfires
If they win (as usual in Virginia) it will help entrench this approach of trying to out shout their opponents and help them lose elsewhere. If they unexpectedly lose I doubt that they will learn any more than they did from Clinton loss. Would reinforce their despair and hostility to the “deplorables” that won’t vote for them.

[Update, as expected Democrats won]

5. Bloombert on why Netanyahu imitates Trump

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-07/as-trump-goes-so-goes-netanyahu
Remains puzzled about it because thinks Netanyahu is a “master strategist” and Trump is not. Both are skilled ruling class populist demagogues in a situation where mainstream politics has demonstratively failed.

6. Bloomberg explanation that the GOP style features in current tax bill that are unpopular (and hence also Democrat focus) are likely to be dropped. That is also my assumption. Just part of the pretense that they aren’t  approving a massively increased deficit which is in fact what Trump wants and needs. When they are taken out you get less GOP incumbent support, more GOP donor hostility, less public hostility and a better economic climate for Trump and Trumpists to win in.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-06/look-for-republicans-to-backtrack-on-taxes

8. Remarkably silly analysis of Putin’s international situation from Bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-07/putin-is-losing-the-long-game-on-foreign-policy
Starts off right that there is a vastly exaggerated impression of Russian strength despite actual weakness.

But analysis of Syria assumes Putin wanted and wants to stay there rather than helping end it.

And analysis of Crimea/Ukraine forgets that the actual reality was a massive detachment of the Ukraine from close relations with Russia to become part of the West and a relatively minor disruption to that by the (inevitable) recovery of Crimea by Russia and the damaging support for separatism in Russian minority regions of Ukraine. The latter has indeed been popular domestically and is indeed overall damaging in long term. But omitting the context of a massive defeat rather than aggressive advance into Ukraine reflects the very exaggeration of Russian strength that the article starts off pointing out.

9. Bizarre analysis of Mueller indictments:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/swamp-creature-emerges-to-pose-existential-threat-to-trump-20171102-gze1tb.html
All it takes is some mouthing off against Mueller by raving lunatic entertainer Alex Jones of Infowars and some milder shouting in same direction from Fox news Trumpists to convince this “analyst” that Mueller is going to save them from Trump despite NO actual evidence of this.

Expect more intense fireworks from Trumpist side to keep them distracted if the hope fades and they show any signs of slackening their obsession about Russia and actually thinking about American politics. At some point Alex Jones et al may not be enough to keep them fired up and Trump himself may need to step in with something they can really get their teeth into. An unannounced secret meeting between Trump and Putin would probably be enough to tip them over the edge. Follow up with a hamburger dinner for Kim Jong-il.

10. At last a rallying cry that Democrats can really get behind and lose even the mid-terms with:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/07/donald-trump-dismantling-american-administrative-state

“What do we want, more regulations! When do we want them, now! Defend the Federal Bureaucracy!”

11. Wow! Some readers of The Atlantic actually tried to engage with a writer there about his Trump obsession and he actually tried to respond seriously…

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/trump-fans-defend-the-president-on-russia/545027/

(If this starts happening more widely there should end up being widespread agreement that a very different political system is badly needed as the current “politics” makes no sense whatever.)

12. Satire from New Yorker. Not bad sendup of liberal fantasies. Not brilliant, but not bad enough that it could be aimed elsewhere. But in the New Yorker? How can they send themselves up while also continuing …

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/russians-involved-in-trump-campaign-hold-reunion

13. Excellent article from Taibbi in Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-a-year-after-trumps-election-nothing-has-changed-w511229

Division does make money, but beyond that, it’s highly political. It’s an ancient technique of elites, dividing populations into frightened and furious camps so as to more easily control them. When people are scared enough and full enough of hate, they will surrender their rights more quickly.

It’s not an accident that as the right-left divide has grown in this country, we’ve gradually given up on almost every principle that used to define us, collectively, as Americans. We surrendered our rights to privacy, failed to protest vast expansions of federal power (including to classify the inner workings of our own government – our government), stopped requiring due process to jail people and closed our eyes to torture and assassination and all sorts of other atrocities.

This was made easier first because conservatives were convinced liberals were in league with terrorists, and more lately because progressives have been told Trump and his like are in league with Russians. Mutual hatred and fear has made us much more easily disenfranchised.

14. Despite total focus on getting rid of Trump opponents in GOP it is still possible Democrats could actually remain a minority party in the House after mid-terms.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democratic-advantage-18-poll/story?id=50918560

15. Guardian just bleating that election was rigged. Not even pretending to have a plan beyond bleating:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/08/donald-trump-illegitimate-president-rebecca-solnit

16. CNN A year out from the election, Trump remains unpopular, as do the Democrats, the Republicans and Congress.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/08/politics/donald-trump-one-year-polling/index.html

17. I’m confused by a response to Notes 11:

 This follows my reply apparently quoting my “[Update, as expected Democrats won]” in para 4 above.

I thought this whole draft post was still unpublished and therefore invisible so am not sure what is going on.

Anyway I have trashed the comment from Notes 11 and quoted it here in current post instead although I still don’t see any attempt at analysis worth responding to.

18. This looks like confirmation of my analysis that Democrats sweeping victories likely to make them even more inclined to their present strategy:

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/11/08/trump-in-trouble-seven-lessons-from-democrats-election-wave-on-tuesday.html
(Which could result in them stuck with a House majority committed to impeachment with no hope of success in Senate and faced with a completely Trumpist GOP mobilizing for 2020 with the same anger that got Dems turning out for these quarter terms and a completely plausible account that the only to unblock Washington is to remove obstructionist Democrats now that obstructionist GOP has already been dealt with.) 

19. CNN analysis that Trump won’t even face a serious challenge at 2020 primaries.

If they mean that any challenge will fail, that is plausible.

But I would expect there will be a VERY serious challenge intended to split and establish a new GOP that would throw the 2020 election to the Democrats.

The never Trumpist Republicans aren’t going to join either wing of the Democrats with their present outlooks and aren’t going to stay in Trump’s GOP or just quit politics. So I think they have to split and run a candidate just aiming to defeat Trump. (Assuming the Democrats don’t run a candidate they cannot even prefer to Trump again).

But if I am wrong and CNN is right then a united angry Trumpist GOP running against split Democrats demoralized after having got nowhere with a House majority for 2 years seems an easy win on turnout for Trump in 2020.

20. More on Democrat celebrations and inclinations to just keep going the same way they have been:

https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trumps-candidates-crashed-and-burned-sad/
21. Even celebrating the fact that Trump’s opponents in GOP are likely to retire from politics making it easier to swing their seats to Democrat in mid-terms (and easier for a Trumpist to take it back in 2020).

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/bad-night-trump-sets-stage-more-gop-infighting-n818906

1. Uptick in GOP primary voters gallup approval since indictments! Republicans 83%, Conservative Republicans 87% (day 285, Oct 30 to Nov 5). Why on earth do people imagine Trump wants media to stop their bizarre carry on about Russia when it so clearly helps consolidate his base and must eventually end up irritating others when it does eventually come to nothing? The closer to elections it implodes, the better off he will be. Expect some fireworks to try and keep it going despite any efforts by Mueller to wrap it up.

CNN’s report on their own polling for same period confirms big deal for the week was the indictments. Report focuses on ongoing decline in Trump’s overall approval (ie increasing hysteria among Democrats).

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/06/politics/cnn-poll-trump-approval-russia-concerns/index.html
Has link to full results which confirm same 83% Republican approval as gallup.

Meanwhile Aaron Blame reports wapo polling that shows Hilary Clinton even less popular than Trump and that he would probably win a re-run of 2016 election if held now. Presumably a hint to Democrats that they still haven’t actually got an alternative and will lose again if they don’t get one fast.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/06/12-months-later-trump-would-probably-still-win-the-2016-election/?utm_term=.7f83d45f704d
2. Interesting article from Bernie Sanders in La Times:

Illustrated with photo of Bernie surrounded by supporters opposing offshoring jobs.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oe-bernie-sanders-election-anniversary-updates-1509739462-htmlstory.html
Bernie’s article itself does NOT promote anti-globalization. Focus is entirely on issues that a traditional social democrat would naturally espouse. Only a straw in the wind. But if Sanders wing positions itself this way it could attract Republican globalists as well as many Trumpist workers and traditional Democrats and be a very viable option in 2020 elections (or even in 2018 mid-terms). Conservative globalists are going to have to go somewhere and they also know they are going to have to accept a lot more concessions to workers whereas GOP incumbents seem to just not get it. (Historically conservatives have made the necessary concessions to workers themselves as well as via Social Democrats eg “one nation” Tories extended the franchise to British workers before the Liberals were wiped out by Labor party.

Also worth noting, but not new, Bernie’s denunciations of Trump are largely based on what GOP wants/does. If, as I expect, Trump smashes GOP and pushes healthcare for all, tax cuts that aren’t just for the 1%, infrastructure program etc, there will be a LOT of commonality. In a 3 or 4 way deadlocked Electoral College it could be VERY hard for Sanders wing to support a Clintonite against Trump. If they also preserve their credibility by not actually swinging the vote to Trump then the Electoral College deadlock would still throw the election to the House of Representatives voting by states, not seats. Trump would be stronger there due to smaller states being more GOP and Republicans in those States being more Trumpist, so he could win. But if he doesn’t have a majority of States, Sanders wing could win. I don’t see how Clintonites or traditional Republicans could win either in the Electoral College or the House (although of course anything is possible). If Sanders wing stops pushing anti-globalism they could swing the House of Representatives majority to vote for their President rather than traditional Republicans or Clintonites losing all credibility by voting for Trump against a Sanders wing candidate preferred by their base.

On the other hand, it is just a straw in the wind and he may not actually be following that winning strategy. A lot of Sanders popularity has been based on him being more genuinely anti-globalist and isolationist than Trump.

3. Andrew Bolt on ABC trivia:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/how-abc-turns-trivial-with-rump-hatred/news-story/4469f88a90a2f830103ac163fd628bdb
I’m wondering whether it really is Trump hatred as Bolt claims or whether reporters are starting to send themselves up. Inane twittering and organized festivals to howl at the sky isn’t what I would normally associate with hatred.

Here’s some purely fake news presumably intended to damage Trump. But is it really? Perhaps the people making this stuff up are also doing an ironic sendup about their jobs?

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/358983-media-shows-why-its-so-mistrusted-after-falsified-trump-fish-feeding
4. Detailed analysis of claims about “Trump dossier” from Washington Examiner:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-spinning-in-circles-on-the-trump-dossier/article/2639708

I don’t see anyone likely to take much interest in such detailed refutation so I suppose the breathless media accounts of “verification” still work with liberals and Democrats while the whole story just irritates Trumpists and leaves GOP incumbents helplessly paralysed. Do the people writing this stuff actually believe their own stuff? Perhaps they do. The ones just chasing ratings may be the ones also turning to sendups of themselves, while the others may be true believers who honestly think they are helping to bring down Trump by pushing a theory about Russian collusions that just isn’t going anywhere (but is also being turned against Democrats).

5. I have no idea what’s going on in Saudi Arabia or how Trump and/or US Government are relating to it.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-saudi-royal-purge-with-trumps-consent
My assumption would be that things are getting worse and will eventually collapse and that both the US Government and Trump would view that with equanimity more than bordering on enthusiasm. But I really do not know.

6. Detailed discussion of collapse of Never Trumpers in Georgia and generally:

http://www.myajc.com/news/state–regional-govt–politics/trump-holds-firm-grip-georgia-gop-one-year-after-his-election-win/s7yMZLq8sGOeAHaIZ6hulM/politicallygeorgia.html
Recent Congressional election returned a traditional GOP incumbent from a traditional GOP state. But very clear completely constrained by large and noisy Trumpist base among primary voters and adapting accordingly to embrace Trump. I would guess same in other safe GOP districts and States. The contested “purple” districts and States will have greater likelihood of nominating GOP candidates more appealing to Democrat voters and less Trumpist. They are also far more likely to lose to Democrats in the mid-terms. So I don’t see how anybody could expect anything other than a solidly Trumpist GOP in the House of Representatives, faced by a Democratic majority divided between Sanders supporters (mainly but not only from safe Democrat districts) and Clintonites (mainly from contested but also from some “identity” or “ethnic” districts. I assume a deadlocked Senate (neither side having 60% nor combined 50% willing to abolish the 60% rule).

So Trump gets to spend the last 2 years of his first term demonstrating that Congress remains completely disfunctional (far too busy with hopeless attempts to impeach him) and that this can only be resolved by electing more Republicans to booth Houses. Democrats who turned up angry at 2018 mid-terms likely to have become apathetic about possibility that their votes could achieve anything by 2020, while Republicans remain angry and turn out to vote…

7. Russian sanctions imposed near unanimously by Congress being seriously implemented:

Trump Administration’s ‘Solid’ Guidance on Russia Sanctions

Adds to the difficulties of the Democrats main tune about Russian collusion.

8. This analysis of a contested “purple” State election is useful for understanding the dynamic now at work:

http://theweek.com/articles/734304/trumpism-triumph-virginia
So a traditional GOP incumbent goes completely overboard as the most obnoxious kind of stridently racist Trumpist in order to win primary. Democrats respond by getting more stridently hostile to Republicans and more focussed on “identity” politics.

I would expect the result to be another defeat for a GOP incumbent (posing as a Trumpist) thus avoiding more internal GOP problems for Trump, and a comfortable win for the sort of Democrat who will help the Democrats lose in 2020. Perhaps even helping them not to win in mid-terms if it results in GOP nominating a more genuine and less obnoxious Trumpist and Democrats remaining strident in a contested district (though still more likely to return a stridently obnoxious Democrat in 2018 to help Trump win in 2020). 

1. Interesting developments on the Russian interference in US elections. Will wait for detailed studies likely after special counsel and Congressional investigations but have noticed a few news items mentioning that Russian trolls were stirring up BOTH sides of the various divisions racking USA (and other Western countries).

This fits with my impression of the liberal media helping foment such culture wars by fanning flames. No doubt the Russians generated far more on the Trumpist side than against it, but they didn’t need to do much of what it seems they HAVE been doing to help stir up the liberal side. The liberals just keep doing it anyway.

This New Yorker item is headlined “How Trump Helps Russian Trolls”, illustrated with an ad attempting to trick Clinton voters into voting by twitter instead of turning up at polls and is naturally oriented on the theme of Trump backed by Russian trolls rather than liberals ALSO helping and being helped by Russian trolls.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-trump-helps-russian-trolls

But it does mentions the following:

much of the material from the Russian social-media campaign was directed at sowing division in general rather than attacking a specific candidate. Senator Susan Collins told a story of how trolls seized on racist comments made by the governor of Maine to set up two phony groups, one of African-Americans protesting the governor’s comments and one of nationalists defending him. Senator Richard Burr described a devious Facebook campaign that organized a real-life duelling protest in Houston last year between supporters of Muslim rights and Texans in favor of secession. Earlier this year, Russian trolls pushed both sides of the N.F.L. debate over kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality toward minorities.

Also has links to other articles and mention of similar Russian stirring up conflict in Europe.

It could be well worthwhile to follow the Congressional hearings and study the material already available on this. I hope somebody does but I won’t have time and will just wait for the eventual reports.

2. Here’s a better analysis of same issue, with more info:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-02/facebook-ads-reveal-the-real-russian-game

3. Things are hotting up in the Democratic party split. Proof now published by Donna Brazile, the DNC chair that replaced Clinton’s flunkey after the email hacks that Democrat National Committee was indeed bought and paid for by Clinton campaign while DNC was supposed to be neutral conducting primaries in which Hilary was running against Bernie Sanders.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774

This is the origin of the whole “Russia” story as Clintonite Dems were desperate to deflect attention from the contents of the hacked emails that indicated this onto the fact that they had been hacked and suspicion that it was Russia who did it and Trump who benefited (which he certainly did – lots of Sanders supporters didn’t vote against Trump after learning about the rigged primaries by Clinton).

Not sure if this is just “old news” or dynamite but expect it will not be highlighted by media if they can avoid it. Initial reports angle it as a Trump tweet.

the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.

The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.

I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn. Well, here was the answer.

…

When you have an open contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I was manager of Al Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.

Elizabeth Warren has agreed that the primary was rigged and emphasized that Sanders supporters must be brought into DNC.

Former DNC vice chair: Democratic primary was ‘rigged’ for Clinton

(See link within above).

This is still “breaking news” at the moment. But even if it does get buried it won’t be easy to avoid a major Democrat split before the end of Trump’s first term.

Above was yesterday (Saturday 2017-11-09). Today, Sunday, it looks like media cannot avoid talking about it since they just HAVE to respond to Trump’s tweeting.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/358617-trump-i-would-have-run-against-sanders-if-clinton-hadnt-cheated

That tweet expertly mobilizes Sanders supporters while appearing to be directed at Trumpists. The analysis links to a Trump pollster confirming that polls showed Sanders more likely to have defeated Trump. So anti-Trumpists have a LOT to be angry about, not all of which can be contained into anger at Trump when his Presidency is the direct result of other things they can actually DO something about.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/357937-trump-pollster-sanders-would-have-defeated-trump-in-the-presidential

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/04/opinions/trumps-bogus-clinton-allegations-eisen-wertheimer-opinion/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/03/trump-fbi-clinton-russia-donna-brazile

This links to a twitter hashtag:

https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverSaidHillaryRiggedElection?src=hash

So Donna Brazile has announced she “Never Said Hilary Rigged Election” and responses are highlighting that she DID say Hilary rigged the nomination. Ditto for Warren.

Even if the general readership goes for the line that this is all about Trump and whether he can get the Justice Department to prosecute an internal Democratic party matter, that is not likely to cut much ice with the millions of Sanders supporters or prevent a Democrat party split.

Sanders and Warren are both playing it straight, expressing appropriate partisan indignation against Trump butting in, but that only strengthens them internally in fight with Clinton machine.

Warren knocks Trump: Tweets won’t ‘keep your people out of jail’

Sanders hits Trump over DNC tweet: ‘Do your job’

NPR is covering it as the equal third most important thing that happened this week. But its conclusion is:

What was revealed only reinforces for the left that there was collusion — against them. It’s only going to harden and deepen the fissures in the party that is trying to oust Republicans in Congress next year and President Trump two years after that.

If the Democratic Party doesn’t shape up, create a message and figure out — most importantly — how to unify its divergent factions, it’s going to be hard to mount a campaign to defeat a sitting president with a locked-in base.

4. Resuming dump of old links.

The party Trump took over in November 2016 is now purging itself of its past. It also happens to be the overwhelmingly dominant party in the United States, controlling the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House, as well as 33 governorships and 69 out of 99 state legislatures. It reflects the new American normal far more than the Democratic Party does. And it is increasingly Trump’s party.

Trump did not rise out of nowhere to smash our norms and replace them with new ones. His successful candidacy was a reflection and enshrinement of changes in the American body politic we do not yet understand — nor does he, for that matter. But everyone distressed by the Trump phenomenon will not achieve a greater understanding of it if they continue to comfort themselves by arguing he’s not the new normal.

The question they must find an answer to is this: How can they successfully replace Trump’s new normal with a new new normal?

http://nypost.com/2017/10/25/sorry-sen-flake-trump-is-the-new-normal/

5. Libertarians “Reason” making similar point:

http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/25/anti-flake-anti-trumpers-illustrate-they

Also mentions that liberals (“the left”) have similar problem:

The left has a similar problem: Candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have to pretend to be skeptical of or hostile to free trade to allay their base while nudging and winking to international trade partners. On immigration, Democrats have lost the current debate in large part because they’re unwilling or unable to make the economic case for liberal immigration policies, instead relying on emotional appeals that only contribute to the hyperpartisan divide.

The Trump difference is that Trump has mostly stuck to his rhetoric after the election. Establishment Republicans have long been comfortable cultivating economic ignorance and racial resentment among their base in pursuit of electoral victory and then pursuing other priorities in Washington. But eventually the base clues in to the bait-and-switch and seeks out candidates who seem less likely to compromise. What set Trump apart wasn’t his ideas so much as his perceived authenticity: He seemed like a guy who would actually follow up on that Trumpist rhetoric once in office

Paul Krugman illustrates this “Conscience of a liberal” by arguing that corporate tax cuts would benefit “foreigners” (who own 35%).

6. Bizarre headline saying GOP incumbents should call Bannon’s bluff by not folding attached to article demonstrating that there is no bluff and that they are folding.

http://nypost.com/2017/10/10/call-bannons-bluff-the-only-way-hell-beat-gop-incumbents-is-if-they-fold/

7. Same GOP columnist has perceptive article on latest news and Democrat implosion:

http://nypost.com/2017/11/02/did-hillarys-rigging-at-the-dnc-push-biden-out-of-the-race/

8. CNN “analysis” explaining how one of Trump’s opponents giving up and quitting politics once again illustrates Trump’s utterly hopeless lack of any strategy just like the analyst has always said and will always say.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/08/politics/trump-corker-attack/index.html

Similar from NPR, still not getting it that Trump wants a deficit that he will get from Democrats and not from his opponents in the GOP.

http://www.npr.org/2017/10/08/556517100/corker-answers-trump-s-endorsement-tweet-by-calling-the-white-house-a-day-care

9. Australian Trumpist boasting that Trump attack on Green card immigration in response to recent islamo-fascist murders will win him second term. Highlights contrast with liberals twittering about “Russia”. Plausible enough. Instead of actually presenting any principled defense of immigration etc US liberals are indeed opening the way for a second term.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/rendezview/david-penberthy-donald-trump-may-have-just-won-a-second-term/news-story/3540577f9dbcbf05336e59e19b4d53fe

10. Here’s a different example of liberal twittering. Standing applause at women’s resistance conference when recent Mueller indictments announced. It gives them “hope” that there will be a “saviour from on high” and substitutes for having any actual program.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41862976

11. USA today explains the vital differences between the Clinton campaign paying foreign espionage agents to get fake “dirt” against Trump from unamed “Kremlin sources” and Trump campaign hoping to receive dirt against Clinton from Kremlin sources. One would think they would just shut up and write about something else.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/03/russia-investigation-trump-tower-meeting-and-trump-dossier-comparable/825346001/

(But of course there are indeed legal differences between actually paying and hoping for free gifts…)

Meanwhile Democrat lobbyist who helped Manafort launder his money from Ukraine has resigned…

Why are they so sure Mueller will not do them at least as much damage as he does to Trump? Perhaps just certainty that he is part of the swamp doesn’t actually care about Russian interference but desperately cares about getting rid of Trump. Doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that there is any other possibility.

12. Sign at anti-Trump protest rallies:

“I am sexually attracted to indictments”

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/conspiracies-fizzle-anti-trump-rallies-171104234340659.html

13. Meanwhile readers of the Guardian and the Chicago Tribune are comforted with sheer fantasizing about how dumb Trump is:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-perspec-chapman-donald-trump-dumb-20171103-story.html

and the certainty that if they keep on banging those rocks together they will win:

Is the Russia investigation, probably the most important ever conducted by the justice department, closer to bringing down the Trump presidency than it was a week ago? Sipher noted that his demise has been widely predicted before yet somehow he manages to survive – until the day he doesn’t.

“It’s like hitting a boulder with a hammer 1,000 times and it doesn’t break,” he said. “Then you hit it the 1,001st time and it smashes to pieces. Its hard to predict.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/04/robert-mueller-donald-trump-russia-manafort-gates-papadopoulos

Now trying to dump links as I find them. Still have huge backlog.

1. Gallup approval rates were still 80% for Republicans and 86% for Conservative Republicans (day 254 of term, polled Sep 25 to Oct 1). Then still 81% and 86% (day 261, Oct 2-8). Now 79% and 85% (day 268, Oct 9-16).

Slight decline perhaps due to latest flurry over seeming to want worse healthcare than Obama. But so far much smaller decline when a more serious case could be made about the GOP legislation that Trump nominally supported. 

Basic stability of Trump’s base implies no successful challenge from incumbent GOP this term (and no impeachment), general capitulation and large Trumpist party after 2018 mid-terms (including replacements and turncoats). That will be totally different political situation from the current President with no party in Congress, still not widely grasped.

2. This wapo/fairfax article does partially get it:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-is-on-track-to-win-reelection-20171007-gywdp8.html
As usual focus is on need for Democrats to get their act together. Could be just wanting to avoid complacency by acknowledging he is on track to win second term. Incredible levels of complacency among most commentators who just outraged they cannot remove him by sheer indignation rather than contemplating that they could lose again. Does not mention implications of Republican incumbents collapse in 2018. But does see multiple candidates (eg Democrats split and more small party Independents rejecting both does favour Trump who will still have a solid base for a large party). Not aware of the implications of House voting by States when Electoral College deadlocked. Avoids mentioning increasing rejection of political system with low turnout to vote.

Says:

We have entered a new era in American politics. The 2016 election exposed how economic, social and cultural issues have splintered the country and increasingly divided voters by age, race, education and geography. This isn’t going to change.

What have changed are the political fault lines that have driven the debate since the early 1980s. Until now, the ideological divides between the parties were largely differences around social issues, defense spending and trade, as well as tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Today, the central issue has become populism as voters have moved away from the two political parties and increasingly self-identified as independents.

In 2016, Trump capitalised on this changing political environment. He consolidated the growing number of angry voters who felt let down by the people and institutions controlling power in the country. Trump’s support from these voters is personal, not ideological. That explains their willingness to stick with him despite his failures of leadership.

Since Trump’s inaugural address, his focus has been on maintaining his support among this loyal base rather than expanding it. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this could be a winning political strategy.

I have highlighted the ridiculous claim that Trumpists support is personal (which shows total incomprehension). But rest of it basically gets far closer to understanding than I have come to expect from a “Democratic political strategist” (Doug Sosnik).

3.  “Calm before the storm”. CNN does know that Trump is running a reality TV show always aimed at attracting attention. They know because he is their main source of their ratings (and they are a major source of his). They treat this as just his narcism rather than a successful means to keep his base mobilized and his opponents totally discombobulated. But I cannot tell whether they also share the widespread fears that something might blow up over North Korea or Iran or it is just part of CNN’s contribution to the show. The hysterical commentary on those “dangers” does not seem to differ much from the hysterical commentary about anything to do with Trump nor bear any relation to anything actually (not) happening in the real world, like actual changes in force posture, let alone deployments.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/06/politics/trump-storm-coming/index.html
4. I haven’t been following Brexit details as it seemed clear to me that the last British election must inevitably result in reversing Brexit. This article from the anti-Brexit Guardian tends to confirm that this is getting closer. Whatever the legal situation, “Outer rim” like Norway and Switzerland might well be a feasible intermediate stage, but long term the “core” that will become a European Federal State will include both them and Britain.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/07/theresa-may-secret-advice-brexit-eu

5. Meanwhile the Catalan referendum may provoke more breakouts of nationalities into independent States. But this is in a context where the nationalities remaining part of the EU reflects growing assimilation of nations rather than increasing nationalism. Could happen with Scotland if reversing Brexit delayed too long. Bizarre contradictory trends in Poland and Hungary that espouse strident populist nationalism but need EU.

6. This level of imbecility was quite common in liberal and pseudoleft blogs during Iraq war. Now it is mainstream media.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-revenge-rex-tillerson-generals-obama-presidency-a7989111.html
7. Here is a former speech writer for George W Bush disintegrating. Trump is so stupid and ignorant he doesn’t know why he won in 2016 so he won’t win in 2020. His opponents who lost on the other hand are very clever.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/08/donald-trump-government-215691
8. Trump is clearly nuts. Convincing people of that will save us from imminent nuclear catastrophe.

Worried About Trump’s Mental Stability? The Worst Is Yet to Come.

(People who understand this are sane, cool and rational should be put on a panel to decide  whether people elected to political office should be removed from it for being so insane as to not agree with them.)

9. New Yorker ridicules the psychiatrists above. Seems quite rational (unlike New Yorker) until the last paragraph that suggests it is is Trump voters who should be diagnosed and prevented from installing such dangers to humanity in positons of power. I am honestly not sure whether it is being sarcastic.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/diagnosing-donald-trump

10. On the other hand this satirical item from New Yorker is unmistakably sarcastic.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-accepts-larry-flynts-ten-million-dollar-offer-for-information-leading-to-his-impeachment
It would not be possible to write and laugh at that piece without getting how utterly ludicrous the impeachment “campaign” has been.

10. Here’s a fairly detailed analysis of the recent healthcare announcements.

As far as I can make out it demonstrates plausibly that the results will be:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/16/16480438/obamacare-trump-csrs
* talking points of Democrats claiming that funding cuts will hurt poorer voters in Trump’s base most.

(Media is indeed full of articles repeating those talking points – so far with surprisingly small decline in Trump’s approval rate among Republican primary voters).

* actual substantial rise in Federal tax rebates to those voters (as premium rises for poorer tax payers are automatically refunded directly to the taxpayer) so as usual no actual substance to Democrat talking points.

* thus massively increasing the fiscal deficit that Trump needs for an economic climate conducive to second term.

* substantial rise in premiums for better off voters that don’t get tax rebates for poverty

* thus putting major pressure on GOP to fix the problem or get wiped out by Democrats in mid-terms

* no pressue whatever on Democrats who have every incentive to offer nothing or split over whether to demand a single payer system that would be a real improvement.

So natural question would be, “what is there for Trump not to like?”

But since they still don’t get it that Trump is at war with the GOP and the Democrats are still irrelevant they are deeply puzzled as to why Trump would do such a thing. Some complicated theory that preserves their assumption that he is so stupid he doesn’t realize that his claim to be putting pressure on the Democrats rather than the GOP is nonsense.

Still got a huge backlog, but will leave it there for now.

UPDATE 1 below

1. Level of bewilderment among “analysts” seems to be increasing. Scott (Dilbert) Adams has a good description of recent “mass hysteria”:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble

2. Scott also does not rule out Trump inviting Kim Jong-Un over for a hamburger:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/165009907411/why-north-korea-and-the-united-states-are-near-war

(Certainly more plausible than the imminent danger of nuclear war touted in media).

Here’s some more links on the general discombobulation as Trump more or less openly works with Democrats to endanger Republican incumbents in 2018.

3. BBC concludes that Democrat establishment won’t cooperate with Trump, because it would outrage their “resistance” base. More realistically it will intensity the split on Democrats side, since they cannot afford to oppose popular measure but base will continue to be outraged.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41192767

4. Why would Trump want to weaken the GOP?

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/07/trumps-dealmaking-weakens-gop-242469

5. This one (from a less ant-Trumpist conservative) is more perceptive, explains why and also why Democrats will cooperate in creating the economic conditions he needs for 2020:

http://thefederalist.com/2017/09/07/trumps-potential-triangulation/

(Oddly ends with idea that Trump only just now starting to grasp the situation accurately described by the article).

6. New Yorker quotes possible outcome from above analysis of Trump/Democrat convergence on populist policies:

“What does that look like?” he wrote. “daca for e-Verify. Minimum wage increase for welfare work requirements. Cutting payroll taxes while raising the phase out. Infrastructure billions for employee labor reforms. Universal catastrophic coverage in exchange for regulatory relief to drive down health care prices.”

New Yorker dismisses that sort of outcome as “fanciful” on bizarre grounds that it would be inconsistent with that magazine’s story that Trump wades “further into the cesspool of white identity politics by ordering the rescinding of Barack Obama’s policy of providing legal protections to undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors, which is known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or daca? (Trump’s subsequent tweets and verbal statements urging Congress to take action didn’t alter the fact that the government is no longer accepting daca applications, and the program will expire in six months.) ”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/can-donald-trump-change-course

7. Anti-Trump nativist conservatives are under no such illusions about what Trump actually did by giving Congress six months to deal with “Dreamers”:

http://www.dailywire.com/news/20739/oh-no-trump-tweets-warm-feelings-toward-dreamersat-ben-shapiro

8. But liberals just don’t get it:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/09/06/rolling_daca_cancellations_will_dog_the_trump_administration.html

9. Neither do mainstream GOP analysts:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/349332-gop-fears-damage-from-trumps-move-on-daca

10. I would have expected Obama to get it, but apparently not:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/06/barack-obama-speaking-up-trump-excesses-daca

Actually it may have been the Guardian taking Obama to be just saying what they want to hear. He was, but on looking at the end of his actual statement I think he does also know that the inevitable result will be that Congress will give Trump the legislation that they would not give Obama:

https://m.facebook.com/barackobama/posts/10155227588436749

11. And NYT explains how Trump doing the opposite of what they reported he was doing about “Dreamers” is due to his inconsistency and sudden switch:

12. Here’s a quite serious and thoughtful Democrat analysis:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/349614-opinion-trump-democrat-alliance-a-game-changer-for

“Stay tuned for a probable civil war within the GOP pitting feuding factions against each other, and a resurgent Democratic Party making a strong bid to regain control of Congress in the 2018 midterm elections.”

Obsessive focus on Democrats vs GOP ignores entirely new situation that would result from Trump winning the GOP civil war. Democrats regaining control of House more likely to help Trump win in 2020.

13. This item from Slate seems to have noticed that Trump has just illustrated how he can govern as a bipartisan populist:

“And yet a majority of Republican members who voted—133 out of 223—supported the deal. Likewise, when the Senate approved the deal on Thursday, 33 out of 50 Republican senators supported it.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/09/08/trump_schumer_pelosi_debt_deal_breezes_through_congress.html

(But since it was in Slate, maybe it was just being sarcastic about GOP rather than actually noticing. I cannot tell).

14. But this GOP analysis does seem to get some of it:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/national-party-news/349817-trumps-winning-bond-with-schumer-is-gops-latest

===

UPDATE 1 (Minor typos above plus item numbers above, new items below 2017-09-10T1140)

15. NYT notices Trump represents a third party that has upended the two party system:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/us/politics/trump-republicans-third-parties.html

(But still no mention that he cannot do much without party in Congress and that is why his focus is on the GOP 2018 primaries).

16. “Business analysts” demonstrate their sophistication compared with the ignorant Trump:

““Trump might understand real estate deals, but he’s a rube when it comes to dealing with Congress. The Democrats want more spending, no tax cuts for the rich, and protection for the ‘Dreamers’ — and those goals now look attainable in a mega-deal this winter.”

Should be obvious that Trump wants more spending, populist not GOP tax cuts and comprehensive immigration reform. Business wants that, Trump wants that, Democrats want that. But “analysts” know he is a conservative Republican so they know he cannot be doing what he plainly is doing:

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-schumer-pelosi-deal-tax-reform-healthcare-agenda-2017-9?r=US&IR=T

This is the first article I have seen explaining that Trump’s focus on Republican primaries is working.

Still does not discuss likelihood that MOST GOP incumbents will face Trumpist challengers whether or not openly backed by Trump, that many of these will be successful and likely outcome is a large Trumpist party in House of Representatives (including both newbies and intimidated incumbents as well as pure opportunists).

Does mention the Democrat shambles and implied possibility of Democrats not having a majority after mid-terms.

Does not mention that even if a Democrat majority is likely the four way split would be favourable to Trump getting populist measures through conducive to an economic and political climate that could result in a second term.

No mention of large wing of Democrats convergence towards anti-globalist and isolationist policies that would jointly have far more impact in creating a climate for real damage by implementation than the gestures towards such policies that Trump has been able to make so far with no party supporting them in Congress, let alone two.

Still this is as clear a shift towards agreement with my basic analysis as I have seen so far:

1) https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/why-gop-is-stuck-with-trump-commentary.html

I’ll add some other background related links below without explanation. Don’t have time now to include in a coherent post but may be useful to anyone interested in the meantime.

2) http://thehill.com/homenews/house/348629-gop-rep-trump-cant-bully-senators-this-isnt-the-apprentice

3) http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/28/trump-karl-rove-2018-elections-242074

4) https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-28/why-people-still-support-trump

5) http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-damaged-democracy-silicon-valley-will-finish-it-off

6) https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-looks-to-2020-but-a-more-immediate-peril-looms-democratic-control-and-impeachment-power-in-the-house/2017/08/25/c4fe5046-89dd-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html?utm_term=.d08057a273eb

7) http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/08/25/trump-voters-cnn-panel-dont-mind-his-charlottesville-response

8) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/24/trump-is-starting-to-tear-the-gop-apart/?utm_term=.f63e93e15fc7

9) https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/no-he-wont-back-down/538125/

10) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/26/what-if-trump-ditched-the-gop/

11) http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348048-the-memo-trump-allies-say-he-needs-a-gop-scalp

12) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/donald-trumps-attacks-on-republican-politicians

13) http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/the-media-cant-help-but-help-trump.php

14) http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/trump-republicans-loyalty-arizona-241861

15) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/22/trumps-own-pollster-just-confirmed-his-base-is-weakening/?utm_term=.2e92c7ab75d7

16) http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/08/trump_s_bigoted_base_by_the_numbers.html

17) http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/why-so-many-people-still-support-donald-trump-20170829-gy68sl

18) http://time.com/4386335/donald-trump-trade-speech-transcript/