Tag: larry sabato
Top Analyst: Trump's 'Explosion Of Greed' Is 'Moving The Needle' With Disgusted Voters

Top Analyst: Trump's 'Explosion Of Greed' Is 'Moving The Needle' With Disgusted Voters

President Donald Trump's myriad corruption scandals are now having tangible political consequences — that is, according to one politics expert, they are costing him loads of votes.

"Corruption is moving the needle whenever voters are focused on the explosion of greed and self-enrichment by Trump and his family—easily the worst in presidential history," Larry Sabato, a political scientist and political analyst, posted on X on Sunday.

Speaking with AlterNet about the 2026 midterm elections, polling expert Kyle Kondik from Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball explained why Trump and his Republican Party are at a structural disadvantage."It's primarily the president's weak approval rating combined with the usual difficulty that the presidential party has in a midterm," Kondik explained. "I also think there may be even more for voters to react to in 2026 compared to even 2018, because Trump has acted as more of an imperial president and there is more dissatisfaction both with the economy as well as the president's foreign policy choices."

Even longtime trump supporters like right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan have turned against Trump, at least when it comes to issues like his corruption. Rogan in particular criticized Trump for earning more than $2 billion since beginning his second term, much of it in cryptocurrency.

"I think part of what's going on here, Nicole, is, number one, the scale andobvious nature of this corruption is much simpler of a story to tell than some of the more bank-shot corruption of the first term," Ben Rhodes, a former Obama administration national security staffer, told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on Sunday. "You know, Saudis paying a lot of money to stay in Trump hotel rooms or something like that. The scale [this time] is billions of dollars, and it's pretty clear when you juice, like, a meme coin, and then it collapses in value, and you walk away with a lot of money and all the people that you convinced to invest in it walk away losing a lot of money. Well, that's an easy story to tell. So that's the first thing: the scale of it and how clear it is."

Speaking to AlterNet in September, Dr. Justin Wolfers — a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings and the Peterson Institute and a University of Michigan professor of economics and public policy — explained how Trump's corruption hurts ordinary Americans economically.

"The problem with the Trump family corruption — and not all of it's the legal definition of corruption, by the way; some of it meets the standard English-language definition, if not a legal definition — is what you do is you change the nexus of competition," Wolfers told AlterNet. "If the best way for me to get ahead is to go to the White House bearing gifts, and then they pass a rule and they ban you from competing against me, then that means the basic dynamics of competition and markets delivering good outcomes for regular folks just gets broken."

He added, "That in turn means that if I'm the CEO of a company, I spend less time trying to create products at lower prices, trying to outcompete, or less time creating new or better products. And I spend more time and energy at Mar-a-Lago trying to win over the favor of the president. That means bad products will win. That means expensive products will win. And the way I tell the story, compare Tim Cook's job at Apple to Steve Jobs' job at Apple."

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

House And Senate Republicans Briefed On Coup PowerPoint Before Capitol Riot

House And Senate Republicans Briefed On Coup PowerPoint Before Capitol Riot

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Two days before the January 6 insurrection several Republican U.S. Senators and Representatives were briefed on a 38-page coup PowerPoint memo. That document is being described as a roadmap for then-President Donald Trump to declare a national security emergency, invalidate all electronic votes, and move to have himself declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

It does not appear that any of the Republican lawmakers alerted the public to the in-process coup attempt. It is not known if they alerted the Department of Justice, FBI, or other law enforcement agency.

The Guardian revealed late Friday night that the 38-page coup PowerPoint "was presented on 4 January to a number of Republican senators and members of Congress." Those GOP lawmakers have not been publicly named.

Then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows turned the coup memo over to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, claiming it had been emailed to him but not implemented.

But the document itself calls for the lawmakers to be briefed.

"Senators and members of Congress should first be briefed about foreign interference, the PowerPoint said, at which point Trump could declare a national emergency, declare all electronic voting invalid, and ask Congress to agree on a constitutionally acceptable remedy," The Guardian, which saw a version of the memo, added.

The New York Times, also on Friday, added that the coup PowerPoint "included a claim that China and Venezuela had obtained control over the voting infrastructure in a majority of states," which is false.

Larry Sabato, the highly-respected director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics said on Twitter the 38-page document was "COMPLETE HORSESHIT."

It's unknown if the document he linked to is the same one sent to Meadows, which he turned over to the Committee.

Before taking office federal lawmakers are sworn in, usually with their hand on a bible or other text, and state: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

Sen. Josh Hawley

'Bad To Worse': Hawley's 'Craven' Servility To Trump Is Doing Him No Good

Things have gone from "bad to worse" for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), whose devotion to President Trump wavered not at all after the deadly Capitol riot that the president incited last week, according to an analysis from The Washington Post.. But then Hawley incited the violent mob, too.

Along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and a handful of other Senate Republicans, Hawley voted against certifying the electoral votes that officially confirmed Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. At the time, Hawley's backing of the now twice-impeached president was seen as a sound political move for the little known freshman who is trying to pose as a serious 2024 presidential candidate. But now that Hawley has encountered a chorus of demands that he be removed from office, according to the Post, his ambitious plan appears to be sinking under .its own weight.

"Two new polls bolster that what may have seemed at the time like a sound political move — however craven — has earned Hawley few friends and many more enemies," explained the Post's Aaron Blake.

Though backing Trump was supposed to give Hawley a national profile, a new Economist/YouGov poll shows that he is still relatively unknown among American voters. "Hawley is still unfamiliar to many Americans, but among those who do have an opinion of him, it's 2-to-1 negative," noted Blake. "Thirty-five percent view him unfavorably, compared with 17 percent favorably."

According to the Post, an Ipsos poll commissioned by Axios revealed similar unflattering results.

"When people were asked whether they approved of the "recent behavior" of Hawley and other political figures, 68 percent disapproved, while just 24 percent approved," Blake wrote. "The Ipsos poll, in fact, shows that even Republicans are about evenly split on Hawley's recent behavior, with 49 percent disapproving and 46 percent approving."

Blake also points out that:

The YouGov poll is somewhat better for him, with 30 percent of Republicans having a favorable opinion of him and 16 percent having an unfavorable one.

But even in that survey, he doesn't seem to have won over many people. Just 21 percent of Republicans have a "very favorable" opinion of him. He seems to have done much more to alienate the other side, with 54 percent of Democrats having a "very unfavorable" opinion of him.

Hawley defying his oath of office by trying to undermine our democratic process has hurt him in more than just polls.

"Many Senators now despise him, the public saw a craven opportunist giving the mob a clenched-fist salute, his top sponsor [former Senator] Jack Danforth denounced him & a publisher canceled his book," tweeted Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

On Saturday, Loews Hotels canceled a planned Hawley fundraiser at its Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando, reported the Orlando Sentinel.

"We are horrified and opposed to the events at the Capitol and all who supported and incited the actions," Loews said in a statement on Twitter. "In light of those events and for the safety of our guests and team members, we have informed the host of the Feb. fundraiser that it will no longer be held at Loews Hotels."

Back in Hawley's home state, The Kansas City Star also called for the Senator to be removed from office in a powerful rebuke of his misconduct:

No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday's coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway.

This, Sen. Hawley, is what law-breaking and destruction look like. This is not a protest, but a riot. One woman who was apparently part of the pro-Trump mob was fatally shot by Capitol Police as lawmakers took cover. Some of those whose actions Trump encouraged and later condoned brought along their Confederate flags.

And no longer can it be asked, as George Will did recently of Hawley, "Has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment?" Hawley's actions in the last week had such impact that he deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that's been shed.

And there was yet more ominous news for Hawley from the nation's most ferocious Never Trump outfit. Now that the president is almost departed, the Lincoln Project has labeled Hawley as its "public enemy No. 1," according to a tweet from Kyle Griffin, senior producer of MSNBC'S The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.


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