Campaign 2016 | Praxis

The Religious Right Loves Vladimir Putin More Than Donald Trump Does

One of the most notable but mostly uncovered political developments in recent years has been how enthusiastically many Religious Right leaders have embraced Russia’s anti-democratic president, former KGB official Vladimir Putin. It seems even more remarkable that the Republican Party’s presidential nominee has been lavishing praise on Putin even as Russia maneuvers to diminish America’s influence in the world. As president, Putin has consolidated his power through attacks on the independent media, the persecution of political opponents, and restrictions on civil society. He has annexed…

Gary Johnson: Don’t Forget About Kelo and Property Rights

In a recent interview, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson said thatKelo v. City of New London is a key case for evaluating potential Supreme Court nominees: “Would you have any litmus tests for a Supreme Court justice on cases like Kelo, for example, cases that really matter to libertarians, libertarian principles?” Benson asked. “Yeah I think Kelo is one that really does stand out,” Johnson responded. “Although we don’t have litmus tests, but Kelo really stands out as a litmus test, in my opinion.” In…

Clinton PAC: Fox News Anchor Has Conflict of Interest as Presidential Debate Moderator

Media Matters founder David Brock is demanding that the Commission on Presidential Debates remove Fox News anchor Chris Wallace as moderator of the final presidential debate in October. Brock, a staunch ally of Hillary Clinton who also founded pro-Clinton Super PACs Correct the Record and American Bridge 21st Century, argues that Wallace has a conflict of interest because of his relationship to former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Former Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes is reportedly informally advising Donald Trump and helping him…

U.S. House Seats Almost Never Change Parties

With Election Day 2016 a little over two months away, many political analysts are projecting Democrats to gain seats in both the House and Senate. But winning the 30 seats they need to wrest control of the House from the Republicans is generally seen as a longer shot than the four or five Senate seats they’d need to lead that chamber (depending on whether or not Hillary Clinton is elected president and Tim Kaine, as vice president and president of the Senate, has a tie-breaking vote). Shifts of that…

Politico’s ‘Republican Insiders’ Appear to Know Little About Politics

Politico’s “Political Caucus” is one of my favorite destinations for 2016 political coverage. It’s a running series of weekly interviews with a fixed roster of political “insiders” who offer their allegedly unguarded takes on the 2016 election from behind the protective shield of anonymity. I love it because, despite the promise of juicy details from behind the curtain, reading it will teach you nothing about the way politics works or how the presidential campaigns are doing. The Political Caucus does, however, stands a stark and unassailable case that…

Liberals Cried ‘Racist’ So Much, the Public No Longer Listens

Conservative commentators and die-hard Republicans often brush off denunciations of Donald Trump as an unprincipled hatemonger by saying: Yeah, yeah, that’s what Democrats wail about every Republican they’re trying to take down. Sing me a song I haven’t heard so many times before. Howard Wolfson would be outraged by that response if he didn’t recognize its aptness. “There’s enough truth to it to compel some self-reflection,” Wolfson, who was the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2008, told me this week. […] “And…

According to Political Science Data Models, Hillary Clinton Shouldn’t Be Leading

Donald Trump’s poll numbers have slumped over the past three weeks. His campaign is perpetually being re-configured. Meanwhile, a new survey of political experts by the site PollyVote forecasts that Hillary Clinton will win 347 electoral votes to Trump’s 191. She is, at least tentatively, planning her work as president. To be sure, with just under three months to go, it’s too soon to be hanging the proverbial Oval Office drapes. Trump still has somewhere between a 15 to 30 percent chance of winning, according to various…

Rush Limbaugh, Not Hillary Clinton, Legitimized the Alt Right

When Hillary Clinton took to the microphone to pin Trump to the racialists and racists in the Alt Right (the so-called “alternative right” that bases its philosophy in racial separatism), some on the right accused her of promoting them. But Clinton’s speech last Thursday was not the coming-out party of the Alt Right. The true debut to the national stage was in a little-covered Rush Limbaugh monologue in January where he took the words of the micro-movement’s intellectual godfather to explain Trump’s appeal. On January…

How Fox News Harms Conservatives

It’s hard to overstate the power of Fox News for those seeking a career in the conservative movement. I’ve seen the most accomplished of lawyers suddenly become “somebody” only after they regularly appear on Fox. I’ve seen young activists leave senators or representatives languishing alone in rooms as they flood over to Fox personalities, seeking selfies. Fox has become the prime gatekeeper of conservative fame, the source of conservative book deals, and the ticket into the true pantheon of conservative influence. It’s killing the conservative…

This Election May Be the Last Dominated by Baby Boomers

For the past few decades, presidential elections have been dominated by voters of the Baby Boom and previous generations, who are estimated to have cast a majority of the votes. But their election reign may end this November, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data. Baby Boomers and prior generations have cast the vast majority of votes in every presidential election since 1980, data from the Census Bureau’s November Current Population Survey voting supplement show. In 2012, Boomers and previous generations accounted for…

Understanding the present is the key to the future