Tag: bob mcdonald
Trump Voters Aren’t Angry At The ‘Establishment,’ They’re Angry At Brown People

Trump Voters Aren’t Angry At The ‘Establishment,’ They’re Angry At Brown People

Of 435 Members of the House of Representatives, three — 3! — have lost primaries in 2016. Two of them were retired by redistricting. One Democrat — Rep. Chaka Fattah — couldn’t overcome the small matter of a federal indictment.

Not exactly an anti-establishment wave filled with angry voters set on undermining, setting fire to, or jamming hot spears of frustration into the rusty gears of the corroded DC machine.

Analysts looking to excuse Republicans for nominating a demagogue relying on racist tropes have turned to two alibis.

First, we hear about “economic anxiety” — a defense that gets hollowed out by antiracist educator Tim Wise’s simple assertion: “If the only reason for Trump’s support was economic anxiety, then people of color should be flocking to Trump.” Because people of color, statistically, are still suffering far more in this economy, which has been generally improving for almost six years. If there’s anyone who should be “economically anxious,” it’s Black people — who give Trump the highest unfavorable rating of any group at 94 percent. In America, that’s as close as you can get to unanimous.

Secondly, we hear about a general anti-establishment desire to watch the whole craphouse go up in flames in which Trump’s appeal is explained by the charm of his blather on the stump, the kitsch of his rallies, and statistical anomalies of a few vocal women or people of color backing the self-proclaimed billionaire.

I understand the urge to absolve our fellow Americans of being seduced by bigotry’s craven lure. But in the past few weeks any attempt to excuse Trump supporters from at least being tolerant of racism has become even more futile.

A Washington Post/ABC poll released on Monday showed that 7 of 10 Americans disapprove of Donald Trump. This data followed two weeks in which the probable GOP nominee continually explained that a heroic federal judge born in Indiana couldn’t give Trump a fair trial because the judge is “Mexican.”

Even Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called Trump’s outburst an example of “textbook racism.”

Trump supporters who found their hero’s attack on the judge’s heritage compelling argued that it couldn’t be “racism” because “Mexican” isn’t a race. Apparently, to them, it’s a massive coincidence that Trump’s worst qualities — his birtherism, his suspicion that the president is secretly Muslim, his urge to deport millions, and his insistence that we cower behind a wall — all tend to be evoked by fears of non-white people.

It’s a decent sign for America that even Trump supporters want to dance behind the pretense of acceptability — as if just insulting someone’s ethnic heritage alone isn’t disqualifying for a presidential candidate. And though Republicans were the only group that didn’t overwhelmingly find the comments racist, many in the Party of Lincoln recognize the stench of this bullshit.

Remember: A majority of the party voted for another candidate in the primary. And several party leaders have refused to fall behind Trump, a genuinely brave stance that could cost their movement a majority on the Supreme Court.

But the “anger” of Trump’s unapologetic supporters needs to be examined — not absolved — if there’s any hope of using this abominable moment in our nation’s history to expose how conservative tropes have long used strategic anti-minority rhetoric to turn people against the institutions that built the middle class..

If Trump said that Canadians or Germans or Israelis were “rapists” who bring drugs to America, though some are probably okay, the offense would be obvious. Trump supporters might argue, “Well, he wouldn’t say that because it isn’t true,” without any more data to debunk those accusations than Trump had to utter his slurs against Mexicans. And that’s exactly the point.

Trump carefully picks his targets — as he always has. Though he is in general rude and abrasive to anyone who doesn’t kiss his ass, the Trump political style, derived from George Wallace, is designed to focus a wellspring of hate against convenient targets — generally with a thin veneer of strategic deniability.

You see now that GOP establishment figures are attempting to legitimize Trump’s bigotry by writing apologia for his “temporary Muslim ban,” which would have prevented exactly zero terror attacks. Trump didn’t invent the bigotry he is using. Republicans have argued for Muslim internment camps and House Republicans have voted for mass deportations over reform over and over and over.

Trump has awakened an urge that has been mostly sublimated in the Republican party toward outward bigotry. And I wouldn’t make such accusations if the data didn’t back them up.

Let’s start with the group that Trump decided to target by choosing birtherism as a way to make himself politically relevant, after decades of looking for ways to get people to beg him to run for president.

“The Republican Party relies almost entirely on whites, who provide about 90 percent of its votes,” New York Magazine‘s Jonathan Chait points out.

This has been true since the mid-1960s and is either the result of a huge coincidence or an overwhelming, undeniable sense that the party prioritizes one identity over others. Republicans occasionally argue that this is is the result of minority voters’ passion for “free stuff,” or maybe of Black and Latino voters being fooled into the “Democratic Plantation” — which are racist arguments in themselves.

Millionaires who support Democrats vote against their own material interests, as do working people who vote for Republicans intent on destroying collective bargaining rights. We all vote against our narrow interests sometimes, because voting is mostly about identity and values. We should assume that Black, Latino and Asian voters understand what they’re voting for and and are able to formulate their own visions of America.

And we should assume the same about Trump voters.

“Among the vast majority of GOP voters who think that the growing number of newcomers to the U.S. ‘threatens traditional American customs and values,’ 59 percent have warm feelings toward Donald Trump – with 42 percent saying they feel very warmly toward him,” Bradley Jones and Jocelyn Kiley of PewResearch explain.

Demos policy analyst Sean McElwee — along with his collaborators Jason McDaniel and Philip Cohen — looked into the polling data and found that “racial resentment” is the defining factor of Trump’s appeal.

“[I]ncreased levels of racial stereotyping among white respondents — as measured by beliefs that Black people, Muslims and Hispanics are ‘lazy’ or ‘violent’ — strongly increases support for Trump, even after controlling for other factors,” McElwee and McDaniel write. “The opposite is true, however, when it comes to support for Marco Rubio.”

This doesn’t mean every Trump supporter is a raging racist or even conscious of his or her own racism. It just means Trump supporters are, according to, McElwee and Cohen, “dramatically more likely to embrace racial stereotypes than the average Republican or Democrat.”

Even the slogan “Make America Great Again” harkens to some mysterious period in the past, which he won’t quite identify. But you can be sure that wherever in the past Trump takes us, it will be an era when women, minorities, and the LGBTQ community had fewer rights and less dignity.

We shouldn’t insult Trump supporters by suggesting that they are in denial of the ugly overtones and undertones that define the Trump campaign. They aren’t oblivious to the qualities that have made Trump the choice of David Duke, Stormfront, and hordes of online anti-Semites. They get why students at a Des Moines high school chanted “Trump! Trump! Trump!” at the students of a predominately Latino high school that defeated them in basketball.

America has often been confronted by a choice between our worst instincts and our better ones. Trump campaign is unprecedented in the way he lies and abandons any responsibility for reason, preparation, or consistency. But his worst crime is to play on the infectious and deadly prejudices that have been ingrained in our society. And now the Republican Party needs to decide whether it is willing to align itself this twisted version of “patriotism” forever.

 

Photo: Demonstrators protesting Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump (in window, L) are reflected in the side of his car as he departs after he was deposed for a lawsuit involving partners in a restaurant venture at offices in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016.  REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst 

Obama Turning To Ex-Procter & Gamble Boss For Veterans Affairs Job

Obama Turning To Ex-Procter & Gamble Boss For Veterans Affairs Job

By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — In nominating Bob McDonald as the next secretary of Veterans Affairs, President Barack Obama is recruiting a West Point graduate with experience in running a big corporation — Procter & Gamble — to turn around a department whose failure to provide timely care to veterans has caused a political furor.

If confirmed by the Senate, McDonald would succeed Eric K. Shinseki, a retired four-star general who stepped down last month amid a scandal in which VA employees falsified records to cover up long waits for medical appointments.

McDonald would face a daunting task in trying to fix the numerous problems within one of the largest federal departments, which a White House report described as having a “corrosive culture.” The VA also is struggling to respond to increasing demand for services from veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A White House official signaled that Obama would nominate McDonald, 61, on Monday, saying the former corporate executive’s 33-year tenure at Procter & Gamble “prepares him well for a huge agency with management challenges in servicing more than 8 million veterans a year.”

At P&G, McDonald oversaw more than 120,000 employees, the official noted, adding that business associates have described him as a “master at complex operations.”

McDonald served in the Army for five years, achieving the rank of captain in the 82nd Airborne Division, according to the White House. He retired from P&G in June 2013 and lives in Cincinnati.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, planned to meet with McDonald next week.

Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said McDonald faced the challenge of turning around a VA “under a specter of corruption that may very well surpass anything in the history of American government.”

Investigators are examining whether VA managers pressed subordinates to manipulate waiting lists for appointments so that the managers could qualify for bonuses. The investigation could lead to criminal charges.

Miller said the next secretary would need to “root out the culture of dishonesty and fraud that has taken hold within the department and is contributing to all of its most pressing challenges. Quite simply, those who created the VA scandal will need to be purged from the system.”

Miller, who has complained about the VA’s failure to respond to his committee’s requests for information, said the next secretary also would need to focus on “solving problems instead of downplaying or hiding them, holding employees accountable for mismanagement and negligence that harms veterans, and understanding that taxpayer-funded organizations such as VA have a responsibility to provide information to Congress and the public rather than stonewalling them.”

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said in a statement that although McDonald is “capable of implementing the kind of dramatic systemic change that is badly needed and long overdue at the VA,” he would only succeed if the president “commits to doing whatever it takes to give our veterans the world-class health care system they deserve by articulating a vision for sweeping reform.”

Born in Gary, Ind., and raised in the Chicago area, McDonald led P&G from 2009 to 2013. During that time, P&G’s annual sales exceeded $84 billion, according to the company, and its stock price rose from $51.10 on the day he became chief executive to close at $81.64 on the day his last quarterly results were announced — a 60 percent increase.

Dan Dellinger, national commander of the 2.4-million-member American Legion, said he was encouraged to hear that Obama planned to nominate a new VA leader.

“The VA needs a permanent secretary as soon as possible to oversee the restructuring necessary to guarantee that our veterans receive the care they have earned in a timely manner,” he said.
The VA, which operates 1,700 hospitals and clinics and handled 85 million outpatient visits last year, has been rocked by a spate of critical reports.

Last month the VA inspector general found systemic problems throughout the VA health care system in scheduling veterans for medical appointments in a timely manner, including instances of manipulation to mask long waits. At the Phoenix VA, investigators found an average wait of 115 days for a sample of veterans, when the VA’s goal was 14 days.

Last week, the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, assailed the VA for failing to acknowledge the “severity of systemic problems” that have put patients at risk.

And on Friday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors, who has been visiting VA facilities, issued his own report, finding a “corrosive culture” inside the department that has been exacerbated by poor management and a history of retaliation toward employees who report problems.

The department’s inspector general is investigating 77 facilities and is due to issue a final report in August.

In the meantime, House-Senate negotiators are working to reconcile differences on legislation that would allow more veterans facing long waits at VA facilities to see private doctors and expand the VA secretary’s authority to fire senior managers for poor performance. A potentially contentious proposal would increase VA funding so that it could hire more doctors and nurses.

Kathleen Hennessey in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

AFP Photo / Stephen Chernin

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