The Post About Impeachment

With the final release of the Mueller Report a whole lot of Very Online folks have started to demand that the Democrats respond to it by impeaching Trump. And the impeach Trump movement, once the providence of egotistical gazillionaires that think they know how to do politics better than Nancy Pelosi, has gotten real legs with none other than Elizabeth Warren coming out for it.

Personally I'm going to take a few days to try and process the whole Mueller Report before I try to figure out what it all means, but I'm fairly confident of this: impeaching Trump without hope of conviction by the Senate and removal from office is a bad idea basically all around.

To begin with, what exactly, is impeachment followed by failure in the Senate suppose to accomplish other than being an event of symbolic politics? Like I get why it will be good theater and all, but other than that I'm with Scott Lemiuex, "What would it accomplish? What end would it serve?"

I've read many Twitter threads and hot takes about this today and as far as I can tell nobody really knows, other than vague ideas about "doing the right thing". Which might make it worth it, if it wasn't for the major downsides and opportunity costs associated with a doomed impeachment drive (more on that is a bit).

Other pro-impeachment people claim that impeachment is something of a "use it or lose" thing were if the House doesn't move to do it right now (on Good Friday? Really?) they won't be able to in the future. This of course is just made up nonsense, there's nothing in the Constitution that says that just because impeachment isn't persued in April means it couldn't be picked up in September.

While others draw on Captain Picard and say "The line must be drawn!" otherwise it could never be drawn in the future. Setting aside the fact that Lilly is right in that scene and Picard is being deeply unreasonable by leading his crew on a doomed suicide mission (not that that's at all relevant!), this argument strikes me as being fairly nonsensical. What is the important difference between a "line" between the House impeaching Trump and those articles going on to fail to get a majority (let along the 2/3 super majority required for removal) in the Senate, which at this point is what almost certainly will happen and not impeaching? None that I can see, other than well, the political symbolism involved.

Another argument pro-impeachment folks like to bring up is the idea that impeachment focused hearings will get "everything on the record" or something like that. Again this is a weird argument, the House already has the power to hold hearing, issues subpoenas, and hear testimony on all sorts of Trump scandals, including those related to "Russiagate" or whatever we are calling it, and all the other large number of scandals swirling around the Trump Administration. All making it about impeachment would do is narrow the focus of those hearings to Russia and obstruction issues while relegating other major scandals to the sidelines.

The big thing here to me though is that while their clearly isn't much upside to an impeachment push that is doomed in the Senate, there are some pretty major potential downsides. Let's list them:

• Impeachment is really unpopular at this time. The polling we have is pretty uniform that most voters are opposed to impeachment, indeed it's actually less popular than Trump is which is saying something. Moreover people who voted in the midterms are opposed to impeachment by a large margin too.
• People don't care about Russia. While Russiagate (again we need better terminology for this scandal) is obviously a Yuge deal, it's just not that important to most voters. Out of 12 issues Gallup surveyed voters about before the 2018 Midterms "Investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election" came in dead last, indeed it was the only issue to fail to get a majority of respondents to call it extremely or very important.
• There's a real "bait and switch" danger for Democrats here. The biggest issue for the Democrats in the 2018 Midterms was health care, deciding to just focus on impeachment just four months after being thrown in could be a major problem in 2020. Would you, as say a newly elected House member from a well to do suburban district that just swung blue (which is the type of district that got Democrats their House majority) want to go to the voters and say "I know you wanted me to deal with health care and education, and I promised to do that, but look, the political symbolism of impeachment is more important!" I sure wouldn't. Might you be seen as just another lying politician full of it? Is that the best strategy to win in your first reelection campaign?
• Negative partisanship. Negative partisanship, the documented phenomena of voting for a party not because you like their ideas or plans but because you really, really dislike the other side is part of why Trump was able to win with the narrowest of possible margins. Basically he got a lot of people who didn't like him to none the less "take the Trump plunge" because they disliked Hillary Clinton even more. In other words if just a small chunk of his 2016 coalition defects he's kind of toast and a lot of these voters are probably "getable" by appealing to issues other than "What do you think about the life and times of Hillary Clinton." Making impeachment the main issue of 2020, which it will become, will arguably drive those voters back into the arms of Trump via the same negative partisan reaction that got him elected.
• Opportunity costs are real. If you read accounts of the Nixon or Clinton impeachment sagas, one thing that becomes apparent is that once started they became something like political black holes sucking in everything and everyone in Washington. All other political concerns and most media coverage gets replaced by "all impeachment all the time" and little gets done with even government agencies become somewhat paralyzed as bureaucrats try to figure out if there's going to be a whole new administration to deal with. Divided government and a weak and embattled administration seeking reelection means the 116th Congress won't do a lot, but that hardly means nothing will get done. To pick one recent example at random (okay not at random as I worked on this) Congress and Trump recently made the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanent, this is a good thing as the fund has been something a partisan bargain chip recently despite being popular and dolling about $18.5 billion for conservation programs over it's 50 year history. This sort of bipartisan deal making is just the sort of thing Impeachmentgeddon makes really hard and while letting LWCF (as the kids call it) die might be worth it in exchange for saving the Republic, I don't think it's worth it if all I get in return is political symbolism.
• The Future. American society obviously has a lot of problems. And the Democrats have, I think, some reasonable solutions to these problems while the Republicans largely have white identity politics, never ending culture war focused on owning the libs, and a Trump personality cult. This is largely why I want to see the Democrats back in power. But one of the big problems facing Democrats is how should they prioritize their issues? Should they focus on climate change? Redistricting reform? Making DC and PR states? Another health care law? A universal basic income? A jobs guarantee? A infrastructure plan? "Getting big money out of politics"? Getting rid of the Electoral College? Universal paid family leave? High speed rail lines? A "Green New Deal"? Reparations? Child care subsidies? Student loan reform? A bigger Supreme Court? Regulating big tech? Anti-trust enforcement? Immigration reform? Abolishing ICE? Ending oil pipe lines? Breaking up big banks? Taxing the rich? Zoning reform? Early childhood education? That's just a partial list of policies I've seen Democratic contenders for the presidency talk about, and while smug progressives might want to answer "yes" to this question the reality of life, and our political system, is that trade offs and paradoxes are everywhere. Obama's decision to prioritize health care reform in 2009 instead of cap and trade was a big deal, while his focus on "good government reforms" in terms of vetting and staffing his administration made it much harder for him to get judges confirmed and people to take important jobs in the agencies. My worry is that "impeachment fever" makes the hard work of picking priorities for a future administration that much harder during this presidential nominations cycle, which in turn will make enacting a successful agenda the next time the Democrats get into power in the future that much harder as well. You see this with the Republicans where they simply failed to do the political and policy spadework during the Obama years needed to develop their own governing agenda. Which predictably lead to legislative fiasco and political disaster during the 115th Congress. This is not a good model to emulate.
• The Fourth Estate. Many of the same people who constantly complain about how terrible the media's coverage of Trump is are also the ones shouting online for impeachment. I find little reason to think the press is going to change their current style and method of covering Trump overnight because of article of impeachment being debated and instead see a lot more "'Views differ about partisan witch hunt' and 'Democrats, the only party with any causal impact on American politics, fail to remove Trump because they’re failures' coverage" instead, to use Lemieux's words. Robert Farley was a bit more blunt. Anyway I really don't get why a progressive person would invite this sort of thing. 

Meanwhile there are many other courses of action that come short of demanding impeachment now now now. For example, the Democrats in the House could just decide to investigate lots of stuff while leaving it an open question, they can always change their minds later or if new information emerges. Or they can decide to just "study the impeachment issue" in a series of hearing for now. Personally I'd pitch my own idea I remembered from my APUSH class when we were reading about the Secession Crisis. Slavery of course divided the North and united the South, but the political transformation of the question of "what do we do about slavery" to one about secession instead divided the South and united the North. So instead of making the political battle one that divides the Democrats and unites the Republicans, that is impeachment, change it up and purpose formal Censure of Trump by Congress, something that could easily unite the Democrats and divide the Republicans.

It would be historic and highly symbolic (only Andrew Jackson has been Censured) and sounds like a better plan than the current progressive idea of: do an unpopular thing that damages our ability to solve short or long term problems solely for the point of political symbolism. Or as Lemieux put it: "The only considerations of impeaching Trump with no hope of removal are political, and there’s every reason to think that the downside far exceeds the upside."
  

Beto Defended

So if you're like most of the American electorate these days you're probably either worried or outraged or glad-you-got-em-done about your taxes, happy to see spring finally arrive, or thinking about sports these days. But if you're one of us politically obsessed weirdos you're probably talking about the latest phenomenon to rock the Democrats' already ridiculously crowded field for 2020.

No, not Joe Biden. Beto O'Rouke! You know that guy who posed like Reagan in blue jeans? Yeah that guy.

To his detractors he's something of an up-jumped, "centrist", vapid, loser of a man, drench in "white male privilege" and perhaps a representation of everything that's wrong with politics these days.

To his fans he's...not those things. 

Anyway, he's who everyone is talking about these days (barring the Oprah run various media types dream of) but I think some people who are less that fans are missing his appeal, even if they get his weaknesses as a candidate and a potential president quite right.

This came apparent to me recently when listening to and episode of a fun podcast out there by two political scientists named Larry Becker and Tyler Hughes out of California State Univeristy, Northridge called The Filibluster. In their latest edition Becker and Hughes were talking about the "three white dudes" Biden, Bernie and Beto running for president and what it all means. I'll save the Bernie and Biden writing for another day, and while I agree with many of their points I did think they missed some important stuff about Beto's appeal. Especially when it comes to important party actors in the "invisible primary" party of the 2020 cycle we are in.

You should listen to the podcast to get their whole arguments, but I think it's fair to summarize Hughes' view of Beto's appeal as being "He's a young white bro, and that's how people see him, and that's what it's comes down to, he's this cool exurb bro...he's just charismatic and young and a male and a white dude."

I don't think these these points are necessarily wrong, Beto does seem to have a big appeal with a certain type of younger liberal white man ("identity politics" strikes again!) and those might be the sorts of people who do have some extra cash to contribute to his epic first 24 hour haul.

But while I get Hughes' frustration around Betomania, at the same time I think there's a reasonable argument for Beto as the Democratic nominee: simply put he may be one of the more electable candidate out there.

"Electability" in presidential politics is a very tricky subject. As Seth Masket pointed out recently much of the writing about electability is basically just praising white men for how they are very white and also men (and if I can date myself: questions about if you'd want to have a beer with them). Likewise I think most people, including me as an Obama-fanboy back in 2008, first pick their candidate, and then come up with reasons why they are the most "electable" to justify this pick to everyone else (often including themselves).

But to the degree we can measure how good a given candidate is at winning the presidency I'd argue that how they did in a statewide election relative to a "generic" person of their party is a good metric, regardless of if they won or loss. For example, Nate Silver's number crunching shows that Beto probably outperformed a generic Democrat significantly in 2016 even if he lost in a very conservative state. The same way there's good evidence in Warren under performs in her elections, even if she easily wins in a very liberal state.

Moreover I think O'Rourke has demonstrated an ability to solve a key problem for the Democrats. One of the reasons, among many others, Trump was able to win razor thin majorities in key Great Lakes States in 2016 was low turn out from otherwise very Democratic voting young people, and high levels of "defection" in the two party vote to third parties. We can argue about why this happened, I have my own theories, but it clearly was a problem. Just as it was for the Democrats in terms of the drop off in young people voting in 2010 and 2014. In Wisconsin in 2016 over 6% of voters cast ballots for third parties and write-ins, in 2012 it was just a little over 1%. Trump won by a little over 20,000 votes. (all numbers from Wikipedia).

In other words Beto, for all his flaws, has a prove ability to turn young people out to the polls. This is no small thing in an age of increasingly age related political polarization. So it should be no surprise Democratic political actors are excited about Beto, he might be able to fix a fairly major problem for them.

As a liberal and a party hack for the Democrats, Beto is hardly my first choice. Indeed I find his political style a bit much. Becker might wince at Beto's jumping up on countertops, but I kind of roll my eyes at his lack of experience and vagueness about policy. Being president is a hard job, and it takes a lot more than energy and charisma to do it well in my opinion.

But at the same time I get that most voters kind of hate politics, especially now, and often find it gross and awful, and want someone who "is different" and can "change Washington." Trump after all, used this to great effect last time around. Just as Obama did back in 2008.

So while I won't be supporting him anytime soon, I thing Becker and Hughes are wrong to dismiss Beto as simply an empty suit or product of cultural factors they dislike. From a Democratic Party actor standpoint there is a reasonable argument for him.

In what might be a close election, his vagueness and can-do optimism might just win the Electoral College.

(A terrible system they discuss in great detail in that same podcast). 

Trump Two Years In

Well I missed the official two year anniversary of Trump being sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, but I'd still like to get in my two cents on where we stand when it comes to President Game Show Host two years in.

Looking back on my post about this from last year, I was struck by how much of it remains spot on, but with another year's worth of examples to point out. For example, back then I wrote that, "...one year in what I see is a weak president, exhausted by the job, and becoming reactive to events, even if he does this by screaming on Twitter." Seems about right to me.

Likewise, a year ago I linked to an op-ed by political scientist Matt Glassman about Trump's weakness in office where he argued:

Trump has had a disastrous first year. His professional reputation is awful. Major figures from his own party routinely criticize his impulsive rhetoric and chaotic management, belittle his intelligence, mock his political ideas, and bemoan his lack of policy knowledge. The White House issues talking points, and high-ranking Republicans simply ignore them. Multiple Republican-led congressional committees are investigating his administration on topics ranging from ethics violations to foreign electoral collusion.

Similarly, the president’s public prestige, measured by approval ratings, is among the worst in the polling age. He entered office with record-low approval, 45 percent, and it has steadily declined into the 30s. No other president has had an approval lower than 49 percent in December of his first year; the average is 63 percent. Such numbers sap Trump’s power to leverage popularity into persuasion. They also depress party loyalists concerned about 2018 and embolden potential primary challengers for 2020.

After a year of the spreading Mueller probe, Trump's surrender over the shutdown, the Tennessee Valley Authority telling him to shove it, and a host of other example this trend has only accelerated. Indeed Matt has continued to write follow up Twitter threads about this over the last year.

So what if anything has changed? The obvious answer is the 2018 elections that led to the Democrats taking back the House and a host of successes in the Great Lakes States (well other than Ohio) that gave Trump his razor thin margin of victory in the Electoral College. This puts most of Trump's legislative agenda on hold. He can of course still do things like nominate judges to be confirmed by the Senate, one of the few successes of his administration so far, but the dreams of repealing the ACA or whatever are very much gone.

Which of course is why, as I write this, he his acting like a profoundly weak president and trying to get his "wall" build by declaring a phony emergency. In other words, a weak and flailing president has decided on a dangerous and poorly thought out course of action to get what he wants. As I put it a year ago when outlining Matt's rather grim conclusions:

Glassman pointed out these dangers in the end of his piece this way, "A president unable to effectively govern the bureaucracy or lead American foreign policy poses a distinctly nonpartisan problem for the nation." In other words Trump might try to do even stupider stuff than he's tried so far to compensate for his weakness.

At the same time the Democrats taking the House has opened a vast avenue of investigation and oversight of the Trump Administration that the Republicans under Paul Ryan had refused to pursue. Now however the flood gates are open. To cite just one example from today, Representative Jerrold Nadler has just now vowed to open an investigation into Trump's declared emergency. Meanwhile more Trump World figures are ending up caught in the Mueller Probe's net, all sorts of other avenues of potential presidential wrong doing are being found, and profound questions about Russia remain.  

As John Dean might put it, there is a cancer on the presidency, except in this case there might be more than one. 

But things aren't all bad for Trump, probably one of the bigger trends that I've observed over the last year is that while Trump seems increasingly destined for a failed one term presidency, the conservative movement and the institutional Republican Party seem increasingly to be aligning with Trump World. Thus you see conservative media personality and once #NeverTrump movement founder Erick Erickson proudly endorsing Trump for reelection. Indeed, the South Carolina Republican Party is openly discussing just not having a primary to do their part for the Dear Leader's renomination in 2020. 

In other words, while I used to think Trump might get dumped by the GOP if things went really south it appears his grip on the party is only tightening, which is a major change over the last year in my book. Another way of putting this is the conservative movement that remains dominate in the Grand Old Party seems increasingly defined by little more than white identity politics, never ending culture war to "own the libs", and a Trump personality cult.

This is bad for the nation, but I suppose it is good for Trump.

In other words two years in and he's still the same president he appeared to be all along. What does this mean for the 2020 election? Well, I'll save that for another post.

Yes Calling Trump A M-Fer Is (Probably) Dumb

The news is so crazy right now it's hard to keep track of things, however one of the "yet another crazy thing that happened today" really caught my eye and I want to write a blog post about it before it rapidly disappears into the maelstrom of the never-ending-Trumpian-news-cycle.

Basically Representative Rashida Tlaib, who represents Detroit, went on something of a tirade at a progressive fundraiser about impeaching Trump and called him a "motherfucker" (please note I am not disputing the factual nature of this claim.) Everyone on Twitter spent all day talking about it but I think a lot of these takes miss important points.

For fun let's do this Q and A style:

Q: This seems like a really dumb thing to talk about. Okay that wasn't a question...but what's your response?
A: It is really dumb, in a world of shutdowns and trade wars and everything else there are much more important things to talk about. Moreover it's dumb for the media to obsess over and also dumb to pretend that supporters of the president are actually outraged about this (Trump swears all the time.)
Q: So what's the point of this blog post?
A: Because while it is a dumb thing to obsess over, in some ways it was also (probably a) dumb thing for her to say.
Q: This seems pretty unfair on a number of levels, especially around gender. Male politicians swear all the time (see the president or Joe "big fucking deal" Biden), why is it bad for her but not for them?
A: Oh you're right politicians swear all the time, and I don't disagree around unfair gender norms at all, but the problem for Rep. Tlaib is that this sort of thing, while substantively is a nothing-burger, could hurt her "professional reputation" among other House members, not because of what she said about Trump, but what her remarks said about her.
Q: Go on...
A: In the House your professional reputation is a lot of what you have. Think of it as a place where you are always trying to size everyone else up, while being sized up in return. Is this person a straight shooter, or do they play fast and loose with the facts? Is this member actually knowledgeable about a given policy, or just pretending to be? Will this person have my back if my committee tangles with another, or will they hang me out to dry? That sort of thing.
Q: Is this person actually dangerous like Pelosi seems to be, or a push over? That sort of thing?
A: Exactly. In John Barry's classic book about then Speaker Jim Wright and the 100th Congress he has a line he keeps coming back to, "Everything said here matters, even the jokes." Why? Because...
Q: Jokes can be another form of conveying information?
A: Bingo.
Q: Okay this all makes sense, but I don't see why she was wrong to call Trump a "motherfucker."
A: Here's my point, when a new person comes to The Hill they kind of have to decide what sort of career they want, and if they are smart, base their choices around advancing that career. One career path is just being a advocate for your district who does what it takes to "bring home the bacon." Another is to specialize in a specific policy issues (say agriculture or Pell Grants) and work towards advancing it, often by working your way up on a committee. Another is being an "influencer" who works towards a leadership role in the future. Another is just to focus on reelection. And another is being the brash (one might say loud mouth) person who fights with the other side in a high profile way.
Q: Your point?
A: Well notice how what it takes to pursue these career paths all run up against each other. If you have the reputation of someone who just cares about your district or reelection it's harder to make allies for other work. To endear yourself to leadership you're going to raise tons of money, help other members get elected, and take unpopular votes, that's gonna hurt your chances for being known as someone who always gets money for your district's bridges. If you spend all day learning about changes to CREP it's hard to climb the ladder of power, or to develop the reputation of someone who can help you get reelected if you're in a tough race. You can of course try to balance these things to some degree but there are real trade offs.
Q: So you're saying if Rep. Tlaib spends her time calling people motherfuckers and makes major headlines, it's harder to pursue those other roles. I get that, but maybe she doesn't care about that and wants the partisan warrior role?
A: Oh sure maybe she does want that (hence the "probably" in the title), but it seems like she also wants to have influence with leadership in complex rules fights, while also wants to advance a really big policy agenda, and work on a lot of other stuff. The more time she spends trading insults with the president and calling for impeachment the harder it is to do that other stuff, like saying building the professional reputation of a possible future leader, or a policy wonk, or reliable negotiator with the White House for that matter. It's like a miniature version of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's comically short coup attempt against potential future speaker Hakeem Jeffries. You can go down that road, but trying to advance a policy agenda or get stuff for your district is quite hard when you've made long term enemies if your own party's leadership. Why should they help you? Everyone knows what a pain in the butt you are.
Q:Okay but you're still not telling my why it's bad for her to do it but okay for someone like Biden to.
A: Well that's the thing, the nature of the job means really different constraints. Being Vice President basically automatically makes you a joke (see here, here, and here) so Biden didn't have much of reputation to lose. It could have been a bigger problem if he was say running for president where he has to be taken more seriously...which of course has always kind of been his political problem, because of the job and stuff like "big deal."
Q: So she's doomed?
A: No, it probably didn't hurt her reputation in the long run (unlike Ocasio-Cortez's ill fated war which very well may have) but it was still (probably) just a dumb thing to do. 

Election Recap!

Well that just happened. In some ways the 2018 midterm election was pretty "normal", that is it's fairly typical for a unpopular president's party to do poorly in midterm elections and that's basically what happened earlier this week. We also saw some other big recent trends in American politics continue apace: the partisan divide remains pretty Yuge and the country remains deeply divided along the lines of race, education, and geography. Indeed take a look at where the Dems won in the Senate and Obama won in 2012 and it's the same map (with the exception of Florida, which the Dems might end up winning after the recount!).

I'll have deeper thoughts on what to make of the Trump Era two years in, but for now I'll just make some quick observations.

I don't know what counts as a "wave" election, but by any standards this was a pretty great results for the Democrats. We won't know for a while but it looks like they ended picking up 35+ seats in the House which would make it their best showing since the post-Watergate wave in 1974. In addition, they picked up seven governor's races, and 330+ state legislative seats all over the country. These get much less coverage, but they are very important for all sorts of reasons, from finding new candidates to run for higher office in the future, to dealing with any matter of policy issues.

The victory wasn't total of course, in the Senate Democrats lost between two and four net seats, but that again is probably just the product of a very hard map for them this cycle and the flukes of winning in places like North Dakota, Missouri and Indiana back in 2012 due to the Republicans nominating really bad candidates who made, uhhh, unconventional campaign choices among other things. In that light the Senate results, while disappointing for Democrats, are hardly some massive defeat.

It was fashionable after Trump's election to talk about the idea of "realignment" in American politics. But while there have been some pretty big shifts from the Obama years, realignment clearly hasn't happened. One of the most apparent ones was in suburbs that were longtime bastions of GOP support, swinging hard to the Democrats. Here in Minnesota we saw Democrats take out Republican incumbents in the 3rd (western Twin Cities suburbs) and 2nd (southern suburbs and some rural areas) congressional districts. Along with a slew of GOP state representatives, many in positions of leadership in suburbs all around the Twin Cities.

However, despite it being a great night for the Democrats overall it wasn't that great for progressives. I totally agree with  Eric Levitz, that you can always cherry pick a few examples to show that the key to winning elections is to embrace your policy preferences and preferred style of politics. After all progressive heroes like Beto and Stacey Abrams lost, but so did more moderate incumbents like Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heidkamp.

So while I wouldn't agree with the idea that "2018 shows that progressives can't win" I do think we did see an important dynamic play out. As I see it the much of the "regular" groups and actors in the Democrats "expanded party network" really did seem to be bowled over by Trump's win and initially didn't know what to do (this is true of a lot folks, Trump's camp itself seemed as surprised as everyone else that they won). And with no clear national leader or strategy in 2017 a lot of insurgent progressives forces where able to jump in to the gap aided by a progressive media figures eager to chart a new direction for the Democratic Party and the non-partisan press who loved the idea of continuing the Hillary vs Bernie death-struggle into the Trump era.

This whole trend never struck me as being grounded in reality as most of the real action in Democratic politics as of late hasn't been around ideological disputes over the future of the party. Moreover if you look at the actions of party aligned groups this cycle it's pretty obvious that the "regulars" did much better than the "insurgents." Two notable insurgent groups, the Bernie aligned Our Revolution and the new pressure group Justice Democrats saw zero of the challengers they backed be able to flip a US House seat. While more regular groups like Emily's List and the most regular of them all, the DCCC, saw dozens of the candidates they backed win.

In other words the first two years of the Trump Era were ones of great chaos, but as Petyr Baelish might put it, chaos is a ladder, and those two years presented a lot of opportunity for all sorts of groups. Trump could have tried to fasten his mixture of resentment and economic moderation into a new type of Republican politics but he either wouldn't or couldn't. Likewise unified GOP control of government gave conservatives the opportunity to really remake American society according to their own lines, but they failed to do that as well and ended up with just a remarkably unpopular tax cut instead. While progressive groups who really wanted to change the Democratic Party had a opportunity to wrestle control from the regular groups and actors who held it during the Obama years, but in the end they only succeeded in winning a handful of primary elections. While the GOP Senate and a need to defeat Trump will probably confine a lot of their ideas to the shelf for a while, with the regulars seemingly in control as ever.

In that sense we might be looking the 2018 being something of the beginning "return to normalcy" in American politics with fairly unchanged parties from 2015 squaring off in divided government. In any event much of Trump's agenda outside of judges is now dead in the water and attention will turn to the morass of scandals he's sinking into to and 2020.

Or not! In the Age Of Trump you of course never know.

Handicapping the Democratic Field

Here's a fun topic to distract us the various constitutional crises going on in Washington DC: how's 2020 shaping up?

There are a lot of ways to approach this question, but I like the method Matt Ygleisas, Laura McGann, and Dylan Mathews took in Vox recently where they looked at this question by saying who'd they "buy" (they're underrated) and "sell" (they're overrated) on the PredictIt betting website.

As I see it the Voxers, who are smart people who work for a good website, are a bit off to begin with when they announce, "It’s obviously way too early for anyone to have a realistic sense of who is going to prevail in Democrats’ large field of 2020 presidential candidates..." Sure, in the Age of Trump who really knows what will happen, but we can already draw some conclusions.

I don't know what to tell you about the Republicans these days, but in the Democratic Party it appears that party actors are still important and the "invisible primary" has been underway for quite some time. Indeed the gigantic Democratic Field has already been winnowed twice by my count with Jason Kander deciding to run for mayor of Kansas City instead of president, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo basically bowing out of 2020 who with his "only caveat" which I'd say is a pretty Shermanesque statement.

In other words the Voxers are right about it being hard to pick the winner, but there's already a lot of ground to cover. My position is to sell Bernie and Biden and buy Martin O'Malley and Montana Governor Steve Bullock (this sounds insane I know but it'll make sense).

To make things simpler let's just go through by candidate as the Voxers rate them and I'll say what they get right and wrong:

• New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Matt says sell. Makes sense due to him basically bowing out already.
• Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Matt says buy, makes sense, and please see my crazy O'Malley/Bullock theory outlined below.
• Joe Biden: McGann says time to sell. I agree, sell sell sell! But her analysis is all wrong. Biden's problem, and it's been basically the same thing since he decided to run for president sometime around 9:45 pm eastern on November 6th, 1984 is that the party loves him, just not for the top spot. McGann focuses on various "scandals" and gaffes to explain Biden's defeat that strike me as fairly similar to "But emails!" claims about Hillary Clinton. Likewise Biden's often bashed by younger liberal journalists like, well Matt Ygleisas about his length and "problematic" record. Which makes sense! Again the Democratic Party and politics in general have changed a lot since his shocking upset win against J. Caleb Boggs back in 1972. But that doesn't mean he;s not without his charms (progressive Vox journalists might hate him, but I love him, and yeah I saw him speak in person in a small room, it was amazing, shut up, you weren't there!) and a certain type of voter loves the man, but that same piece points out that Biden is going to "make a decision" about running around Christmas. Which means the man who ran for 30 years could give up the ghost. Or he could charge ahead and that would be a world in which in the invisible primary where, "What's left of his New Hampshire network, for instance, is fragmented, aging and undecided heading into 2020." Anyway feel free to sell.
• Tim Kaine: McGann claims Kaine is "a good buy at 2 cents" my response is, really? Don't get me wrong he could have been a incredibly formidable candidate but he's done none of the things you do when running for president. This tells me he doesn't want it and like's being a senator, so 2 cents is probably a bit much at this point. You can't win if you don't play!
• Kamala Harris: Matthews says sell, and I agree that 22 cents is way to high, instead put her in the middle of the pack with Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand around 10 cents or so. But note that Matthews' analysis is still bad. Matthews argues that Harris, "...will face a challenge winning over Black Lives Matter activists, #AbolishICE proponents, and other voters critical of mass incarceration and police brutality." and goes on to criticize her for a bunch of other things. I think this gets the Democratic Party wrong on a number of levels. To begin with the Black Lives Matter Movement isn't really part of Democratic party politics (and they have stated that!) and itself is an composed of a whole bunch of groups with all sorts of differences that would find backing, or not backing, a candidate for president difficult for a number of reasons. Likewise #AbolishICE is a vague slogan that in my conversations seems to mean everything from "America shouldn't have immigration laws" to "Make the INS great again" so that's a loophole Harris can drive her Chevy Impala through at top speed  Moreover there's a Yuge problem with party actors not being able to dismiss someone without an alternative. If you're a progressive journalist or voter who dislikes Harris you can just shout "dealbreaker!" about this or that. But if you're a party actor you kind of have to pick an alternative or be like much of the GOP in 2015-16 and remain paralyzed while disaster strikes. In other words you can say "Kamala Harris' stance on transgender rights in prison is simply unacceptable, I can't support her." And if you can't come up with who you'll back then I can barge in on your fun party, rip the mic out of your hand and shout "Which is why we are caucusing for Steve Bullock for President baby! WHOOOOO!" Is that what you want? Well no, but that's kind of the way this works.
• Bernie Sanders: I know people who read this will get annoyed, but yes sell. There's the obvious points that Sanders isn't a Democrat (problem!) and would be 81 years old in January of 2021 (also problem!). But let's just go through Matthews' points line by line: 
• "He tied in Iowa last time, and there’s no regional candidate who would obviously be stronger than him there." See my Bullock post below, also the idea that "because I did good in Iowa before I'll do it again!" Isn't backed up by historical data. Once upon a time Dick Gephardt won Iowa in a shocker. Doesn't tell you what the future is. 
• "He won New Hampshire in a blowout, and even against fellow New Englander Elizabeth Warren, he’s in a strong position to do the same again." This is just silly writing. New Hampshire voters are notoriously fickle and love to ask "What have you done for me lately?" of their candidates. This afterall was the state where Bill Clinton becomes "the come back kid." Where Hillary seems on the ropes and then "found her voice", where they apparently they love John McCain, and Donald Trump, and George Herbert Walker Bush, but not this son. That is to say New Hampshire voters winnow, but they all the over the map when it comes time to pick, and Dylan's theory about them being ruled by ideology or "local appeal" strikes me as nonsense. 
• "It’s common for parties to choose runners-up as their nominees the next time around (as Sanders learned when he lost to Clinton)." Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale all stare at you and say "That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works."
• "He’s the genuine article in a field of imitators. If you’re a nurse in Iowa, would you rather go with someone who’s supported single-payer health care his whole life, like Sanders, or someone who signed on last year, like Booker, Gillibrand, Harris, or Warren?" This strikes me as being profoundly off base. Matthews sees a world filled with voters, caucus goers, and party actors deeply committed to ideological stances. I get that, it's a way for a "politics journalist" to think about the world, but it strikes me as missing a lot of how American party politics works. Maybe the nurse in Iowa has changed her mind, or thinks that since Bernie and Deval Patrick both support Medicare for All she'll go with Patrick because Bernie is old and Patrick is fun. Likewise maybe you've just had enough of Trump's misogyny and despite your ideological commitments you throw caution to then wind and back this woman Gillibrand because, well, what she said about Trump and women at the first debate, you can't top that.
• I'll add in that there are often claims about Bernie's powerful "organization" that he'll be able to activate for 2020. I really don't see it. Like Gary Hart, a lot of his support wasn't from people committed to his ideology or values, but rather people who disliked a party status quo. After all nobody is more Mr. Status Quo than Walter Mondale, or Ms. Status Quo that Hillary Rodham Clinton. Likewise Bernie Sanders' support in the 2016 cycle was largely about identity, that is age and race, more than anything else. Thus while there might be some core of supporters committed to Bernie personally or his ideology, it's likely much of his impressive "network" is falling apart as we speak. Especially since people who want a passionate liberal New Englander who wants to fight big business can always jump on board the USS Elizabeth Warren, who also happens to be a Democrat. 

Which brings me to my crazy idea about Martin O'Malley and Steve Bullock. Most observers would look at them and see candidates that "can't win" as they are white men in a political era where the Democrats "need" to nominate a woman or racial minority. Likewise both are fairly conventional liberals in a time when the Democrats "need" to nominate some sort of progressive.

Don't get me wrong, there will be many groups and actors pushing for things like a more liberal candidate, or nominating a woman or a racial minority. The thing to remember though is that so many candidates are running you could see how coordinating around one single candidate could be a big problem for many political actors and groups. Honestly if you want to nominate a liberal woman woman you have four strong contenders so far by my count. And indeed that's a big part of how Trump was able to win the GOP endorsement! That is so many candidates were running, few dropped out, and few wanted to take him on under the theory that he would implode allowing them to gather up his supporters. So that's were you get Jeb! spending 20 million dollars to tear down Rubio in negative ads instead of Trump. And the GOP party leaders refusing to rally around Ted Cruz (probably the most viable alternative to Trump) after Iowa because they don't like him, or would rather dither. And Kasich refusing to drop out long after it's become possible to win enough delegates for him to win thus divided the anti-Trump vote for reasons.

Could something similar happen to the Dems in 2020? Probably not, but it could, and you could see O'Malley or Bullock being able to win a "bandwagon" campaign by wining Iowa and getting tons of people to jump on board, which as Seth Masket has pointed out is basically how the not very liberal Jimmy Carter was able to win four years after George McGovern.

Will this happen? Probably not. Is there a greater that 1% chance it could? Sure.

The Real Problem With Caucuses

Let me start this post by saying that I've long been an apologist for the dying system of caucuses as a means of picking political candidates. Part of this is probably because I'm from Minnesota, a sort of land of caucuses, where we still have a caucus system that both the DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (even our state parties have weird names)) and the Republicans put on well before elections to decide on endorsing a given candidate which historically has meant a lot. 

Part of the reason is also that caucuses reward participation, and as someone who both has strong opinions about politics and believes that we liberals need to do a lot more "doing" in politics and a lot less complaining about it on the internet, wasting a Tuesday night, or even a whole Saturday, in some school gym has a sort of stoic appeal. As my Methodist grandmother might have said, "Suffering in caucuses is good, it builds character."

The case against caucuses is well known and you can expect to see it trotted out the closer we get to Iowa in 2020. To summarize about a gazillion op-eds and blog posts: caucuses are deeply unfair as they are hard for many to access, few people participate in them relative to a given electorate, and they are rarely if ever representative of a given population they are suppose to represent. People making this case some time jazz things up by declaring them "racist" or "classist" or "elitist" or some other "ist" but the arguments are usually pretty similar.

The old me that use to defend this strange system would have replied something like, "That's a fair description but it's also kind of irrelevant." The reason? Political parties are private organizations, not creatures of the state and so how they chose to endorse and nominate candidates should be left up to them. The same way there shouldn't be some law declaring that every registered voter should be able to have a voice in what the Black Lives Matter movement chooses to do, even though that is essentially what "open primaries" allow for political parties.

Moreover there are benefits to the caucus system (in theory). They reward participation so people who are willing to work hard, say by building up good will in a precinct or bringing a bunch of friends to the caucus and having them help make you a delegate to the next level, get that much more say because they are that much more committed to advancing the goals and doing the work of the party. The same way a committed Black Lives Matters activist should have more say in what they chose to do than a random white guy named longwalk who doesn't participate in the movement at all.

In addition, caucusing (again in theory) is cool because it is a rare example in modern life where you, an ordinary citizen can have real power. In a primary you are just yet another random voter who's vote will almost certainly not change the outcome of an election even in a town of thousands. Let alone a state of 5.5 million people. But caucuses are different, in caucuses you have power. 

You'll probably never believe me but I really did once have a state representative come to my door to ask for my support because I was a delegate. Likewise I once really did have a member of Congress once ask for my personal support for a candidate at a senate district convention. In a primary system you go to the candidate rally to shake their hand, they don't come to you. If you're a delegate in a caucus system it's different.

Meanwhile supporters of primaries often just ignore that system's very real shortcomings. The biggest example of this can be found in the 45th President of the United States who's take over of the party of Lincoln was caused in no small part by saturation media coverage because he was so "interesting" as a candidate. In most other democracies, and in most of American history, party leaders would never chose a know nothing reality show host to lead their party both for electoral reasons, but also because that person should never be put in charge of the party or the country. But here in the US in our post McGovern–Fraser "better" more "democratic" primary based presidential nomination system the voters, in their infinite fucking wisdom, decided to go with reality show host. 

Likewise the fans of primaries arguments about "democracy" often don't hold up under scrutiny. As political scientists Julia Azari and Seth Masket put it in an excellent op-ed in the New York Times "democracy" inside political parties isn't a very helpful standard as parties by definition involve a balancing act between leaders of different sorts and rank and file members:

Part of the problem for parties is our insistence that they be run democratically. That turns out not to be a very realistic concept. Yes, we can hold elections within parties, but party leaders will always have vastly more information about candidates — their strengths and flaws, their ability to govern and work with Congress, their backing among various interest groups and coalitions — than voters and caucusgoers do. That information is useful, even vital, to the task of picking a good nominee. As the political scientist E. E. Schattschneider once said, democracy is to be found between the parties, not within them. 

More over the anti-caucus "democracy" and "participation" arguments don't really hold up on inspection. After all, most primary elections are pretty low turn out affairs and like caucuses turn out in primaries is often older, whiter, and wealthier of any given electoral constituency. To cite a recent example Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her recent primary win a whopping 15,897 votes, in a district with perhaps 240,000 registered voters. Does that really represent "the will of the people"? Likewise many voters in states with "open" primaries often vote in another parties's primaries than the one they'll vote for in the general election to cause trouble, or just because they think it's more fun.

So if caucusing is so great, why am I writing this post? Well, that's the thing. After participating in Minnesota's caucus process for the last 10 years I've come to see that the arguments for caucuses just don't hold up. This isn't because primaries are better, I'd argue that Donald Trump shows that primaries are actually pretty terrible. Instead what I came to see was the main problem with caucus is that they are dominated by political hobbyism.

"Political hobbyism" is a term coined by the political scientist Eitan Hersh that he laid out not to long ago in a great New York Times op-ed. As he puts it:

For years, political scientists have studied how people vote, petition, donate, protest, align with parties and take in the news, and have asked what motivates these actions. The typical answers are civic duty and self-interest.

But civic duty and self-interest do not capture the ways that middle- and upper-class Americans are engaging in politics. Now it is the Facebooker who argues with friends of friends he does not know; the news consumer who spends hours watching cable; the repeat online petitioner who demands actions like impeaching the president; the news sharer willing to spread misinformation and rumor because it feels good; the data junkie who frantically toggles between horse races in suburban Georgia and horse races in Britain and France and horse races in sports (even literal horse races).

What is really motivating this behavior is hobbyism — the regular use of free time to engage in politics as a leisure activity. Political hobbyism is everywhere.

I'd argue that this is everywhere very much includes the 2018 DFL caucus and endorsement process. Consider my experience this cycle, not from the mindset of a pro-caucus partisan talking about "grassroots democracy" or an anti-caucus person declaring it some diabolical system of "voter suppression" or elites "subverting the will of the people."

Here's my story:

• I tramped to a school gym on a cold winter night to go to my local precinct caucus on caucus night, it was pretty good turn out, but then again I live in a very Democratic neighborhood in a very Democratic city so that's to be expected. I voted in a straw poll that wouldn't allocate any delegates and thus only counted for bragging rights. This kind of makes sense from a hobbyist standpoint, straw polls, even if meaningless, are fun.
• Our caucus went relatively well (ie it took 2 hours) but no fist fights broke out and no pistols were drawn so that's a win (we used to have those in Minneapolis caucuses back in the 70's). Delegate allocation was done not by debating the issues or voting but by volunteering. So I got to be a delegate for my precinct to my senate district convention because I raised my hand and didn't demure when the convener asked for some to step aside as we had too many men in our delegation (we have rules about gender balance among delegations). This could be seen as a failure of the caucus idea, or just hobbyism. Some kids would hang out with us when I was on the Quiz Bowl team in high school to have fun, but wouldn't necessarily want to go to any meets on the weekend.
• And a meet on the weekend is kind of what a senate district convention is! Basically I went to a day long convention of all those people elected as delegates from the numerous precincts in my state senate district to be elected delegates to go to the state convention. When I say "day long" I mean it took 12 hours, but it could have been worse, one convention in Minneapolis got kicked out of the building after their 14 hours ran up and had to reconvene another weekend for eight more hours. From a party standpoint this is an idiotic fiasco that needs to be addressed. But these sorts of crazy conventions are pretty regular, believe me, and from a hobbyist lens they make sense. Like your insane 18 hour Dungeons and Dragons game or LAN party in high school, the fact that it's goes on forever kind of ads to the mystique. "I survived my 12 hour convention", you could put it on a t-shirt. In fact the DFL party put something like that after the record turn out in 2008 that devolved into chaos in many parts of the state. Ah, memories. 
• I left my convention after 8 hours (before delegates had been elected to go to the state convention) because I had other things I had to do. In other words the day was effectively a waste. Also because of having a sort of "I don't like this process, I hate this process" moment that Hersh's piece would later help me understand. But there were great moments of hobbyism. For example, an old lady at the microphone screaming at us that it wasn't okay to leave early due to her commitment to racial justice. This is a strange way to approach party politics (maybe some people only budgeted six hours for the convention?) but it makes sense as hobbyism. To put it in Dungeons and Dragons terms "You can't go home now! Your dwarven cleric is crucial to our plans to confront Theronorax is his lair!" If that's too much insert a golf metaphor about someone bailing of your own choosing.

But what about the state convention? Surely some precinct caucuses and senate district conventions are poorly run. But delegates at that level must be the most dedicated, and care deeply about the issues and electing good candidates, and thus they are ready to make the best decision they can when that's hard!

Nah, the reality was more like "hobbyism, hobbyism, hobbyism."

I wasn't there, and there are many media accounts you can read, but here's my general impression of a hobbyist fiasco. Once upon a time (ie in June) Attorney General Lori Swanson was well liked and seen as a rising star in state politics. She was on the short list for replacements for Al Franken after he resigned. 

But at the convention the DFL delegates decided to endorse a 37 year old progressive activist (who full disclosure I've met and is a good guy in a lot of ways) for reasons that have never become clear. According to some I've talked to the "buzz on the floor" of the convention was something like, "Vote for Matt Pelikan (the insurgent) to send Lori a message. We'll endorse her on the second ballot." The problem of course is he won the endorsement on the second ballot! From a party standpoint this and what followed is something of an epic disaster, but from a hobbyist standpoint it's great: we rooted for the underdog and they won, hooray.

But from a party standpoint though this was a disaster. Swanson, for reasons that remain unclear, decided to run for governor after this rebuke and after her campaign was engulfed in scandals came in third in the August primary. Meanwhile Representative Keith Ellison (my member of congress and full disclosure I worked on his 2010 campaign) jumped in to run for AG himself, leaving the DFL endorsed candidate with 10.6% of the vote for AG in the recent primary election. Meanwhile the endorsed DFL candidate for governor Erin Murphy had trouble gaining traction with voters, who remember are pretty disconnected from liberal hobbyist types like me, resulting in Congressman Tim Walz, who lost the endorsement at the state convention, wining with 41.6% of the vote compared to Murphy and Swanson. 

The hobbyism though seemed to reach a peak, at least for me. When Senator Tina Smith's name came up for endorsement. Tina is an amazing person (full disclosure I've worked for her) and when you think of a older white Boomer feminist Democrat in politics her face should pop up in your mind. She worked on a number of campaigns in the 90's, she managed Walter Mondale's crazy "Fritz Blitz" campaign in 2002 for the Senate seat that opened after then Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash less that two weeks before the 2002 election, she then worked for Planned Parenthood. In government she became chief of staff to then Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak in 2006 and after that she was Governor Mark Dayton's chief of staff for four years and was then elected Lieutenant Governor in 2014. 

From a party perspective she's about as good as they come. As a DFL delegate you know she's committed to your party and knows she must value what you value right? That's how I see it it, but not to some DFL state delegates, who gave her a big victory with 74.5% of the vote for endorsement, but one out of four decided to go with someone else. Many instead went with with Richard Painter, a former member of George W. Bush's administration and a contributor with the Federalist Society who was a talking head on CNN as well. The fact that such a person could still win a significant chunk of the vote of people supposedly deeply part of the party due to advancement through the difficult caucus process seems like a indictment of the whole process in and of itself. But from a hobbyist standpoint its a great way to spend the weekend. Fight for the little guy. Let's make things interesting. Etc etc. 

I recite this story because Hersh spells out the consequences of political hobbyism in this piece so well.

....all the way down to the everyday armchair quarterback who professes that the path to political victory is through ideological purity. (In the face of a diverse and moderate country, the demand for ideological purity itself can be a symptom of hobbyism: If politics is a sport and the stakes are no higher, why not demand ideological purity if it feels good?)

That seems like the epitaph of the 2018 DFL State Convention. Especially considering how the endorsed candidates largely would lose.

I guess the question here is what is my alternative, and to be honest my answer is I don't really have one. Caucuses may no longer work but if you care about politics remaining engaged makes sense. Likewise primaries may be awful, but that's the world we are living in. 

I don't really have an answer here, other than to say that to improve our politics we need more that fights over process reform. We need to engage with politics, as messy as that is, in ways we've shied away from for a while.