Politics

Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial election promises to be a rambunctious affair, testing all the familiar fault lines of contemporary politics: racial divisions, social wedge issues, immigration angst. It also promises to be the first election of its kind for state office in Georgia: one in which local politics are totally nationalized.For decades, voters in Georgia have differentiated their national and state politics. From 1964 to 2002, Democrats kept a 130-year stranglehold on the governor’s mansion. But, apart from Jimmy Carter, only one Democrat won Georgia’s electoral votes in a presidential contest.When Republicans finally took over in 2002, they won as the party of fiscal sobriety and economic prosperity.

Is Donald Trump right about Google? His latest fusillade came early this morning as he kvetched about Google being ‘rigged’ against conservatives. The Week called it ‘rage-googling.’ In part he was probably peeved because the death of John McCain stole the spotlight from him. Like Norma Desmond, he is always ready for his closeup. His economic adviser Larry Kudlow promptly followed up Trump’s complaint by saying he would take a ‘hard look’ at the tech giant, a familiar target of obloquy from the left. Now the right is getting on on the game. For its part, Google piously announced that its search results aren’t biased toward any ‘political ideology.’ Surely not.

I am not going to comment directly on the passing of Senator John McCain. Although I voted for him in 2008, I thought him a deeply flawed candidate. His behaviour subsequently, especially after Donald Trump became the Republican nominee and then President, was in my judgment petty, self-aggrandising, and harmful to the country. What interests me now, however, are the hallelujahs of praise and commendation that surrounded his passing. He has always been a hero to the neo-conservative faithful. But here we have The New York Times running a fawning obituary with the title ‘War Hero, Senator, Presidential Contender.’ It was the full lion-of-the-Senate treatment: ‘proud naval aviator . . .

Oh, how Vice President Mike Pence must be licking his chops today. One by one, Donald Trump’s retainers are jettisoning their old boss. Yesterday it was David Pecker who apparently has a safe bulging with unflattering stories about Trump’s escapades. Today it is Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, whose flip in exchange for immunity about his payments of $420,000 to Michael Cohen is perhaps the most damaging blow yet to Trump’s political fortunes. These defections suggest why Trump’s tried and true playbook of piling the Pelion of distraction on the Ossa of calumny will no longer work. Each day seems to bring another hammer blow.

The Paul Manafort conviction and Michael Cohen plea deal were met with the usual hysterically gleeful shrieks from the usual anti-Trump suspects: ‘The president is finished!’ ‘Impeachment inevitable!’ ‘Watergate redux!’ None of which is true and all of which is wishful thinking by card-carrying members of the perpetual outrage machine who must #Resist Donald Trump As President. Many of these people who profess indignation over a Trump payment to a porn star to keep quiet over an alleged affair defended Bill Clinton in the face of credible rape allegations and coordinated smear campaigns of his female accusers.

A few take-aways from yesterday’s prosecutorial frenzy. 1. Paul Manafort is in deep trouble. Absent a presidential pardon, he is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars. 2. The crimes of which Manafort was convicted — eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud — not only predated his brief relationship with Donald Trump but had nothing to do with main focus of Robert Mueller’s original writ, namely, to investigate ‘any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.’ That was the nub of Mueller’s marching orders. But note that Rod Rosenstein also authorised him to pursue ‘any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.

Donald Trump has stopped going to the dogs. Now he has landed upon rodents. White House counsel Donald McGahn, he tweeted early this morning, would not be a ‘RAT type’ like John Dean, the Nixon aide who fessed up to felonious White House activities before Congress to avoid being the fall guy for the administration’s misdeeds. It seems, according to a New York Times report, that McGahn was intent on avoiding a similar scenario and spoke for some 30 hours with the Mueller investigation. This revelation predictably sent Trump into a Twitter frenzy. Among other things, he’s claiming that Special Counsel Robert Mueller, or Councel, as Trump apparently likes to spell it, is Joseph McCarthy reincarnated.

If Donald Trump, as Susan Glasser shrewdly notes in her New Yorker column today, is running an ‘unreality show,’ then the latest installment arrived with his cancellation of a military parade in November on Pennsylvania Avenue. He blamed, as he always does, someone else. In this case it was Washington mayor Muriel E. Bowser who says that she ‘finally got thru’ to Trump about the exorbitant expense of his little parade. Trump stated on Twitter that the $21 million bill that the city wanted to submit for the cost of hosting the event would have amounted to a ‘windfall’ that he was unprepared to disburse.

Al Franken must be livid. After all, the failed screenwriter and former senator found himself chased out of office for far less serious allegations. He was accused of merely groping a few unsuspecting – and in one case, sleeping – women. Despite Good Feminist Gloria Steinem’s 90s declaration that Bill Clinton got a pass for one free grope from progressives, the DNC got their folks in line to force Franken’s resignation as allegation after allegation of lewd, forceful behavior unfolded. Yet somehow, Keith Ellison has dodged the bullet of some serious allegations of domestic abuse without so much as spilling his tea. For over 48 hours, the DNC remained silent as their Deputy Chair continued to campaign in the primary race for Minnesota’s Attorney General.