Half Of Republicans Believe False Accounts Of Deadly Us Capitol Riot
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WASHINGTON -Since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the event that left five dead and scores of others wounded. His supporters appear to have listened.
Three months after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn his November election loss, about half of Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists trying to make Trump look bad, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found.
Six in 10 Republicans also believe the false claim put out by Trump that Novembers presidential election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud, and the same proportion of Republicans think he should run again in 2024, the March 30-31 poll showed.
Since the Capitol attack, Trump, many of his allies within the Republican Party and right-wing media personalities have publicly painted a picture of the days events jarringly at odds with reality.
Hundreds of Trumps supporters, mobilized by the former presidents false claims of a stolen election, climbed walls of the Capitol building and smashed windows to gain entry while lawmakers were inside voting to certify President Joe Bidens election victory. The rioters – many of them sporting Trump campaign gear and waving flags – also included known white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys.
DANGEROUS SPIN ON REALITY
They Just Come For Show
The four House Republicans were unfamiliar with the history of the fight over Santa Ana.
It was not addressed by the Border Patrol agents who led the morning excursion. And by the time E&E News connected with Chapman, the delegation had departed the refuge for a briefing on Border Patrol activities at the local headquarters of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Later, when asked whether Westerman thought the environmental impact of installing a wall at Santa Ana and in other refuge areas was a necessary sacrifice to stop the flow of illegal immigration, the lawmaker said it didnt sound unreasonable.
One hundred and fifty feet kind of sounds like what the right of way would be on a levee, but I dont know, he said. Obviously, if youre going to build a wall, theres going to be clearing. And from what Ive seen, stories Ive heard about human trafficking, the rapes, the deaths yeah, I think its worth building the deterrents.
At the National Butterfly Center a 100-acre nature preserve that was also exempted from having a border wall built on its land in the same 2019 spending package Executive Director Marianna Trevino Wright said she thought the GOP lawmakers were ignorant by choice.
I think they have no idea, Trevino Wright asserted. They come just for show. Theyre not interested.
The real litterbugs, she contended, were the officers with Border Patrol.
There’s Something Happening Here
But he uses a different touchstone: Occupy Wall Street, the left-leaning anti-establishment movement that blossomed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
“This is Occupy Wall Street Part 2, but this time it is on their turf, and there are real financial consequences,” he said. LeGate, who received a $100,000 Thiel fellowship to drop out of college and start a company when he was 18 years old in 2013, has been watching the WallStreetBets Reddit discussion for several years.
He said he is seeing increasing frustration and anger, which is exploding in the Covid pandemic era and it is bringing together the traditional political left and right.
“People were willing to take a risk on Trump and now they’re willing to take a risk in the markets,” he said. “A lot of people just want to see the world burn right now, and they’re enjoying watching it happen.”
He said he’s already seeing people on the WallStreetBets Reddit page looking for new targets and there are two themes. First, they’re looking for highly shorted stocks where big hedge funds might have a lot of leverage. And second, they’re looking for nostalgia plays to bring back the companies from their youth. That’s why Nokia, Blackberry and Blockbuster are all getting attention.
Border Walls In The Middle East
One major proof of concept that Republicans supporting a Mexican border wall cite is the success of similar walls in the Middle East. For example, walls along the Israeli-Palestinian border reportedly cut down illegal immigration between the countries. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is also the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, stated that he was impressed with a system of fences he had inspected along the Israeli border with Palestinian territories. Johnson stated Im always looking for best practices. Its been incredibly effective. They had thousands of illegal immigrants; its down to the teens.
House Republicans Propose $10 Billion For Trumps Border Wall
House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a plan to provide $10 billion for President Donald Trumps border wall with Mexico, a bill unlikely to clear the Senate but which could fuel a shutdown fight in December.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul said his panel will vote on the legislation next week. The bill also would add 10,000 more border patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers, tap the National Guard to patrol the southern border and target people who have overstayed visas.
Now that we have a partner in the White House who has made this a top priority, its time to send a bill to President Trumps desk so we can deliver the American people the security they have long demanded and deserve, McCaul said in a statement.
The bill represents Republicans opening salvo in both the looming year-end government funding fight and high-stakes negotiations over undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
It almost certainly wont pass the Senate, where at least eight Democrats would be needed to clear a 60-vote threshold.
Partisans Approve Their Partys Approach To Shutdown Negotiations Disapprove Of Other Partys
Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 76% approve of how Trump is handling shutdown talks, including 50% who say they strongly approve of Trumps approach. In contrast, just 4% of Democrats approve of Trumps handling of the negotiations, while 93% disapprove .
The overall pattern is similar in views of Republican leaders in Congress: 69% of Republicans approve of their partys leaders handling of negotiations, while just 10% of Democrats approve.
And while about seven-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners approve of the way Democratic leaders in Congress are handling the shutdown negotiations, just 11% of Republicans say the same.
Republicans Pray For A Border Crisis To Bring Biden Down
Joe Biden and his programs are popular. Republicans cant lay a glove on him. So theyve settled on immigration as the way to drag him into the mud.
Guillermo Arias/Getty
Republicans are crazy about immigration. No, really. The issue makes them loco. Just listen to the things theyre saying. Many of them have lost touch with reality.
Or maybe Republicans are crazy like a fox. The GOP seems to have once again pinned all of its hopes for retaking powerin this case, by winning back control of the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections and possibly regaining seats in the House of Representativeson the immigration issue. If either of those things happen, Republicans will be in decent shape to try to retake the White House in 2024.
President Joe Biden has only been in office for about 60 days, and Republicans who want to attack him and his administration dont have a lot of material with which to work.
Thats what some of the current fearmongering over the situation at the U.S.-Mexico borderabout half of itis all about. The other half is made up of good ol fashioned nativism and racism. Thats one reason why Republicans act like the prospect of what could turn out to be 100,000 would-be refugees from Central America mostly women and children is the end of Western civilization as we know it.
Here we are again. And the same Republicans who were quiet and subdued when former President Donald Trump confronted this same problem now cant stop talking about this being a crisis.
Republicans Spent Two Years Resisting Trumps Border Wall What Changed
Since the government shutdown 25 days ago, Republicans have largely defended the need for a border wall. While there appear to be some cracks in support, most are standing by the presidents insistence on funding.
As recently as September, The Washington Post described it this way:
The same Republican lawmakers who rushed through the tax bill Trump wanted, confirmed his first Supreme Court pick and are fighting to defend his second, and have remained largely deferential amid multiple scandals, have taken a far different approach when it comes to one of Trumps most memorable campaign promises deeming the wall to be impractical, unrealistic and too costly.
Most GOP lawmakers didnt come right out and say that, of course.
Instead, for the first two years of Trumps presidency, GOP lawmakers avoided the wall debate completely. In September 2017, USA Today took on the laborious task of surveying every member of Congress to determine their position on Trumps wall. At the time, the White House was requesting $1.6 billion to begin wall construction. The survey found that just 69 of the 292 Republicans in Congress said they supported Trumps funding request. Three outright opposed it, but the majority avoided answering the question directly.
Shortly after Trumps inauguration, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham , Trumps onetime nemesis turned close ally, told Politico that the border wall is probably not a smart investment.
Every Congressperson Along Southern Border Opposes Border Wall Funding
Nine congressional representatives serve the districts that line the 2,000-mile southern border. They are men, women, freshman politicians and Washington veterans. The Democrats among them span liberal ideologies, while one of them is a Republican.
But they all have one thing in common: each is against President Donald Trump‘s border wall.
Last week, the House of Representatives passed a multi-bill package that provided funding for federal agencies and reinstated Department of Homeland Security appropriations without offering any new border wall funding. All nine of the politicians serving in districts along the border voted in favor of the bills, which were an effective rebuke of the Trump administration’s request for $5.7 billion in border wall funding.
“It’s a 4th-century solution to a 21st century problem,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat and one of the lawmakers along the southern border who voted against funding the wall.
Gonzalez doesn’t oppose border security. He said, “Nobody wants stronger border control than me.” But he’s against adding to the existing border wall because he doesn’t “think it brings real border security and it comes at a major cost to taxpayers,” the lawmaker said Tuesday in a telephone interview with CBS News.
“At the time I thought we were going to be able to have a reasonable conversation,” Gonzalez said. “I had no idea it was going to get this crazy.”
Everybody Look What’s Going Down
Holmes believes the key to understanding the power of this new movement is the gamification of investing melded with an anti-elite fervor. Sticking it to hedge funds and potentially making a lot of money is, simply, fun. And if you believe its also the right thing to do, and thrive on the engagement of a community of like-minded traders, so much the better.
“When things really get going is when the fun meets the purpose,” Holmes said. “This is the perfect storm of those two.”
His warning to Wall Street is: understand this. Be willing to scrutinize yourself. This not going away, and it is probably bigger than you think.
“People need to take the time to understand the social dynamics of this. What are the problems that have created this class of retail investor who seek to completely destroy your industry, and how do you remedy that?” Holmes said.
Holmes said he has spent the past decade watching American politics turned inside out. An earlier generation of politicians spent their time raising money at country club ballrooms from hundreds of donors writing $500 or $1,000 checks.
But now they spend their time on the internet raising money from millions of donors making $5 and $20 contributions. In politics, the retail money turned out to be bigger much bigger — than the institutional money. And that’s driven massive political spending inflation: the big Senate campaigns that once cost $15 million now cost $100 million.
There’s Battle Lines Being Drawn
But what explains that nostalgic impulse in the midst of a revolution? It is the same emotion that animated the MAGA movement which, after all, stood for make America great, again. It is a desire to return to an earlier time that the members of the movement remember as better than today.
“There’s a feeling I sense across society that people want to go back to a simpler time,” LeGate said. “No one likes Covid. People don’t feel the economy is fair. Everything looks better in hindsight.”
And he argues that efforts to regulate trading will feel to Reddit traders more like suppression, and could fuel more anger.
“If someone on Main Street loses half their portfolio in a day, nothing’s going to happen. But if a hedge fund does, they literally stop the trading,” he said. “I myself question whether this is really about protecting the individual investor or protecting the hedge fund.”
Public Disapproves Of How Shutdown Negotiations Are Being Handled
Most Americans offer negative evaluations of the way that the nations political leaders in both parties Donald Trump, Democratic congressional leaders and Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations over the shutdown.
Overall, just 36% of the public approves of how Trump is handling negotiations over the government shutdown, including 23% who say they strongly approve. About six-in-ten disapprove of Trumps approach to the negotiations, including 53% who say they strongly disapprove.
Views of how Republican leaders in Congress are handling shutdown negotiations generally parallel evaluations of Trump. Six-in-ten Americans say they disapprove of the way Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations, while just 36% say they approve. However, fewer Americans characterize their views of GOP leaders handling of negotiations as strong approval or disapproval than say this about the president.
Public views of Democratic leaders handling of the shutdown talks are somewhat more positive than views of Trump or GOP leaders. Still, more disapprove than approve .
Intensity Of Trumps Support Increases
Also in the poll, 46 percent of voters approve of President Trumps job performance, which is consistent with the other NBC/WSJ polls over the past year and a half.
But other numbers in the survey his strong job approval ticking up to its all-time high, his positive rating jumping to its highest level since after his inauguration prompts GOP pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies to call this Trumps best NBC/WSJ poll in three years.
Still, 49 percent of all voters say they are very uncomfortable about Trump when it comes to his re-election bid in 2020.
Thats compared with 43 percent who are very uncomfortable with Sanders, 36 percent with Warren and 35 percent with Biden.
Klobuchar: Trump’s Actions Are Like A ‘global Watergate’ Scandal
Today, as Democrats in the House of Representatives move toward bringing articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, with the next Judiciary Committee hearing of evidence set for Monday, few Democrats are still clinging to the hope that Republicans will reach a breaking point with Trump like they did with Nixon.
“I really don’t think there is any fact that would change their minds,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC News.
Why? Two key changes since Nixon: a massive divide in American political life we hate the other team more than ever before and a media climate that fuels and reinforces that chasm, powered by Fox News on the Republican side.
Himes said he was “a little stunned by the unanimity on the Republican side,” especially among retiring lawmakers who don’t have to worry about surviving a GOP primary had they gone against Trump. “We’re in a place right now where all that matters to my Republican colleagues is the defense of the president,” he added.
No Republican congressmen have said they support impeachment. In the Senate, the entire GOP voted to condemn the impeachment inquiry, except for three moderates: Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The three have stopped short of saying they support Trump’s impeachment, however, and it would take at least 20 Republican senators to vote to convict him in a Senate trial for removal to succeed.
What Do Republicans Believe In
Do all Republicans believe the same things? Of course not. Rarely do members of a single political group agree on all issues. Even among Republicans, there are differences of opinion. As a group, they do not agree on every issue.
Some folks vote Republican because of fiscal concerns. Often, that trumps concerns they may have about social issues. Others are less interested in the fiscal position of the party. They vote they way they do because of religion. They believe Republicans are the party of morality. Some simply want less government. They believe only Republicans can solve the problem of big government. Republicans spend less . They lower taxes: some people vote for that alone.
However, the Republican Party does stand for certain things. So I’m answering with regard to the party as a whole. Call it a platform. Call them core beliefs. The vast majority of Republicans adhere to certain ideas.
So what do Republicans believe? Here are their basic tenets:
Questions Ahead Of The Democratic National Convention
Andrew Redleaf, founder of the hedge fund company Whitebox Advisors, has been a Republican donor in the past. He gave to the campaign of 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He calls himself a libertarian conservative who favors free trade and immigration.
This year, he’s given money to the Lincoln Project, a group of conservative never-Trumpers who are running scathing ads against the president in swing states.
“I’d like there to be a right-of-center, limited-government party … which is not the Trumpist Republican Party,” Redleaf says.
Redleaf is wary of Democrats and has no particular affection for Biden.
But the former vice president is a known commodity on Wall Street and is widely seen as a more centrist, acceptable alternative to more liberal Democrats who ran for president, such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Biden has also been a top recipient of financial industry money for decades as a senator from Delaware, home to financial and credit card companies.
“He’s not somebody that the industry is particularly afraid of,” Bryner says. “So I think that we would see them kind of hopeful that he would be a more moderating influence, whereas Trump can be quite unpredictable.”
Widening Party Divide Over Expanding The Border Wall
Public views of a U.S.-Mexico border wall have changed little over the past three years. But the partisan gap has widened, as Republicans have become more supportive of a border wall, while Democratic support has declined.
Currently, 58% of Americans oppose substantially expanding the wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, while 40% favor the proposal.
Since early 2016, roughly six-in-ten Americans have opposed building or expanding the border wall .
Yet partisan differences are now wider than they have ever been. Today, 82% of Republicans and Republican leaners favor substantially expanding the wall along the U.S-Mexico border. Over the past year alone, Republican support for expanding the border wall has increased 10 percentage points . Over the same period, the share of Democrats who favor expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall has declined from 13% to 6%.
Conservative Republicans and Republican leaners overwhelmingly favor expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall . Moderate and liberal Republicans are somewhat less supportive .
Overwhelming shares of both liberal Democrats and conservative and moderate Democrats oppose expanding the border wall.
As in the past, opinions about expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall are divided by race, education and age. Whites are more than twice as likely as blacks or Hispanics to favor expanding the border wall.
Why Do Republicans Behave The Way They Do
Why are the Republicans so mean-spirited when it comes to the poor and so indulgent when it comes to the rich?
Why are the Republicans so mean-spirited when it comes to the poor and so indulgent when it comes to the rich? Thats the incessant question as posed by liberals today about the partys now enacted tax reform. Not only does the bill include another attack on Obamacare, but it provides the pretext the need to reduce deficits to go after other long-held goals, the end of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
The answer should be obvious by now. Republicans behave as they do because they can get away with it! Its no more complicated than that.
Contrary to liberal opinion, Republican politics isnt out of the mainstream provided we push the clock back sufficiently. A political economy without social services and entitlements is in fact the default position of the capitalist mode of production from its inception. If recent comments from Republican Sens. Orin Hatch and Charles Grassley sound like characters from a Charles Dickens novel their barely disguised contempt for the working poor that should come as no surprise. Such attitudes were almost de rigueur for ruling elites in capitals long ascent. The constant refrain of the rich Why should we be taxed to pay for the education of the children of the irresponsible poor? explains why public school education became a widely accepted norm only in the 20th century.
How Dems aided and abetted
What Republicans And Democrats Have In Common On Wall Street Regulation
The Democratic and Republican parties disagree on most major issues. When it comes to Wall Street, however, it’s a mixed bag. Take the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
Democrats believe the bill has reined in the type of out-of-control behavior that led to the near collapse of the banking industry in 2008 and prevented a similar crisis. Republicans have criticized the legislation calling it “the Democrats legislative Godzilla.” They feel the financial regulations have made it too difficult for small lenders and community banks and has indirectly slowed the growth of small businesses.
Regulation of the financial services industry has been a major issue not only in the current presidential election but in house and senate races. Democrats believe that the electorate largely sides with them that banks have overstepped and that they can use their position to win votes and take back the Senate. Republicans currently hold a majority 54 votes. Because of gerrymandering rules, Democrats will have a tougher time retaking the House.
Dodd-Frank was intended to increase transparency and accountability in the financial services industry and to protect consumers. Among other things, the bill created a new consumer protection agency and standards for a number of common financial services products.
A Shift In Immigration Thinking
Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois is one of the Houses most outspoken Democrats on immigration reform, and she understands this shift, and believes it is essential. Lives are at stake and the lives of Dreamers are more important to me than bricks, Gutierrez said. If advocates would reject any money for Trumps wall in exchange for freedom and legalization and eventual citizenship for the Dreamers, I understand their choice, but for my part, I would lay bricks myself if I thought it would save the Dreamers. For me, the very real attacks on legal immigration are far greater threats than bricks and drones and technology on the border.
This shift has also led Democratic views on a border wall to soften in general. As Trump has become less demanding, Democrats have begun to consider what type of barrier, and what size, they would be willing to agree to if push came to shove. The 2,000 mile wall that Democrats had feared would be a looming symbol of America turning inward on itself is becoming something closer to the 2006 plan; some new barriers, some new monitoring technology, and that is somewhat agreeable to Democrats, especially if they can garner support in other arenas in exchange for it.
