Big Gestures.

Big Gestures

Politics is show business. 

Democratic candidates have been scrambling to apologize for past positions. The words they actually say are only part of the message. 

What was popular and reasonable ten years ago is unacceptable now because Democratic orthodoxy has moved left and because anything that Trump has touched has been re-defined as cruel, brutish, racist, and misogynist.

This blog has written there is a subtext to apology, that it is seen as weakness by the public. Once careful reader, writer Maureen Flanagan Battistella of Ashland, Oregon, wrote saying she disagreed. She said "A good apology reflects a compassionate, respectful, thoughtful and caring human being. Period."

She is right--in real life, where a good apology restores self and community.

Battistella

But politics is theater on a giant stage. In real life a whisper is heard only inches away but a stage-whisper needs to be heard in the back rows. Small gestures are irrelevant. Communication plays by different rules. Voters see big gestures and only big gestures, then they draw inferences about character and temperament from what they can see in the gesture, not the denoted words.

Voters saw that Hillary Clinton got $400,000 for speaking to Goldman Sachs. Nothing whatever she said regarding holding financial malefactors responsible for their actions spoke as loudly and clearly as that. 

And politician happy-talk is worse than worthless. Voters dismiss political communication about how a politician loves America, supports democracy, wants integrity and democratic empowerment, and thinks that children are the future of America. Blah, blah. 

Such talk squanders the brief time and attention voters give them, and worse, it delivers a message that is received and absorbed, "this politician is like all the others." A negative message.

Gillibrand starts at 3:55.

Voters see big, unmistakable gestures, when the candidate pays a price for saying them. A position without critics constitutes "blah, blah." For example, Ocasio-Cortez got noticed on tax rates because a 70% marginal tax on incomes above $10 million a year surprised people and drew sharp criticism. She pays a price. Some people think she is a kook, others like her for it. A big gesture got noticed. 

(Does anybody know how any other Democrat thinks we ought to tax high incomes? I suspect not. I don't.) 

An ongoing premise of this blog is that the intended message is sometimes opposite the actual message sent and delivered. 

Kirsten Gillibrand provides an example of backfire. Click the link.

Her actual message, sent and received: I am an insincere person who will lie to you to get ahead, and the lies are so obvious and implausible that even friendly observers like Trevor Noah think I am ridiculous.

Guyer

Meanwhile, another reader, Thad Guyer, the attorney representing whistleblowing employees, offers a second reason for avoiding apology. It insults the people who have not yet moved along with the changing center of Democratic thinking. 

He wrote:

      "Senator [Kamala] Harris is married to a white male corporate lawyer who does money law, exactly who Ocasio-Cortez might describe as "a privileged white capitalist pig." There are lots of blog and social media trolling of him already. As Hillary can attest, a candidate is now expected to apologize for his or her spouse, his or her misdeeds, ideologies, and greed, and even defend their marriage decision. 

     There will need to be dump truck loads of apologies downstream from Democratic candidates if they use rebuke past mainstream policy positions. Once you open that portal, it's hard to control. They will risk looking feckless and weak.

     Every apology on past cultural beliefs also offends those still holding those beliefs. Don't apologize for what in the past was not bigotry or a misdeed, especially if half the country still thinks that way. That is, not if you want to be the next POTUS.

     The Democratic apology tour will be fueled by opposition research by Democratic adversaries and the GOP. It's going to be a real political correctness circus. Senator Harris will be smart if she continues to refuse any apologies whatsoever.

Sen. Harris and husband Douglas Emhoff

     Trump is likely to be the template for the winning Democrat--Don't apologize!"

Guyer voices a thought which creates immediate pushback within Democratic activist circles, that maybe Biden's positions are both reasonable and electable. I consider it undeniable that the center of gravity has moved for Democratic activists, but what is not yet clear is whether the voters in the Democratic constituency have moved with them. 

Presumed centrist candidates like Joe Biden--and electoral victors like Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer--may well still represent the center of the Democratic electorate. If so, the apologies for past beliefs may be a mis-step. There may be ten candidates splitting up the activist vote and one candidate winning with pluralities of voters who feel the Party has moved too far left.

That person might win the nomination. Then the presidency.

No apology.

Authentic. Steadfast.

Popeye for president. I am what I am.

So far Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have resisted pressure to apologize.

Everyone has a history. Democratic candidates who are plausible as a president today were alive and doing something--politics probably--five, ten, and twenty years ago. Politicians who were around in 1995 and 2000 conformed generally to the acceptable standards of that time, ortherwise they wouldn't have been holding office.

But now they are stuck with that history. (Except for Bernie Sanders, who has been making the same case for a lifetime.) He was a socialist, populist outlier in the past and had a Vermont constituency that accepted him. Meanwhile, times have changed, Democrats have evolved, and Sanders-style populism is the new center of gravity for activists. 

This sets up a problem for Democrats other than Sanders. These other Democrats are Johnny-come-lately-Sanders wannabes.

Social media is revealing the judgement of activists. Sinners! Frauds! Corporate lackey!

This is the context for the round of apologies by candidates, each judged for actions in the past by the economic populist and identity-conscious orthodoxy of today. 

Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have resisted apologies, so far. 

Warren has some explaining to do. She is white, married, heterosexual. She had been a Republican. She teaches at a university that exemplifies elitism. She was a bankruptcy expert. She got rich.

This makes her suspect. It identifies her with privilege, not disadvantage and victimhood. She did in fact grow up poor in Oklahoma and had a bit of lingering family history of presumed partial Cherokee ancestry, which she mentioned. It blew up on her.  Critics say she looks like pure white privilege, and she fraudulently tried to appropriate undeserved status of disadvantage.

She took a DNA test to try to put this to bed. 

It didn't work, not at first. but Elizabeth Warren isn't apologizing for who she is. 

Cherokee criticize her, saying that Native American blood doesn't create tribal heritage, because it is cultural as well as ancestral. Democrats say that anyone who had voted for Reagan in the past couldn't be a real Democrat in their soul. Trump and Fox News call her a fraud.

But in the weeks after the DNA test she is slowly changing the definition of the Pocahontas charge from sneaky into resolute, and the apparent identity-fraud body blow "Pocahontas" charge is helping define her as courageous and self confident. She says she is tiny bit Indian, like she said, no apology. And, yeah, she used to be a Republican, but she changed her mind when she saw the corruption among the power elites. She knows who her enemies are: corrupt elites. 

She is ok with who she is. No apology.

NY Times op-ed

Kamala Harris, too, has a history. She used to be a California Attorney General and before that a prosecutor for San Francisco County. In 2004, as prosecutor, she refused to seek the death penalty on a man she prosecuted for killing a police officer in the line of duty. She said she opposed the death penalty. Diane Feinstein and the Police Officers Association were furious with Harris. 

Now she gets criticism from the left for her failure to prosecute Steve Mnuchin's bank, OneWest, for some financial irregularities, saying that the evidence was insufficient to prosecute. She gets more criticism for defending as AG some convictions of people obtained when county prosecutors inserted false confessions into a court transcript.  She is ripped for caring more about convictions than about justice.

Her opposition to the death penalty does not hurt her now, but her work on behalf of law enforcement hurts her with the Left. 

Harris has not apologized for this, at least not yet. "The bottom line is that the buck stops with me and I take full responsibility for what my office did."  

The net result for Harris: she looks like someone willing to be characterized as a "law and order Democrat" at a time when the progressive activist base of the Democratic Party is talking about immigration amnesty, abolishing ICE, defending unarmed blacks shot by policemen, and ending the current era of mass incarceration.

Is there a niche for a black, female "law and order" Democrat?  We will see. But at least her unwillingness to apologize for her history defines her as proud of her work of herself. There is no niche for a black, female Democrat who admits that her career prior to being in the Senate was to perpetuate injustice, but now feels miserable about it.

Warren and Harris are communicating a bigger message than points of policy. We are looking at character and temperament. We are choosing a Commander in Chief. A Commander in Chief knows what to do in a fight. The stand resolute and confident in themselves, even in the face of criticism.

Actually, especially in the face of criticism. Otherwise, it isn't a fight.

Democrats Apologize.

"I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was such a fool. I didn't know love could be so cruel  Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yes.

You tell me mistakes are part of being young. But that don't right the wrong that's been done."

              Brenda Lee, "I'm Sorry," Billboard #1, 1960


Donald Trump is famous for doubling down. He doesn't apologize. He stands his ground. His voters like fortitude and defiance.

Some Democrats are going the other direction.

Ed Battistella

Most Democratic apologies are the kinds of heartfelt and fulsome apologies that apology expert Ed Battistella says constitutes a "good" apology. 

They state the error in detail. 

They take responsibility for the error. 

They acknowledge people may have been hurt by the error. 

They apologize. 

They announce their intention to reform and restore the social order they agree they breached. 

Kirsten Gillibrand says she is sorry. As a Member of Congress representing an upstate rural District she had held positions she now says were "callous." She had supported gun rights and got an A+ rating from the NRA. She had opposed amnesty for the undocumented and had used the words "illegal aliens" to describe them. She wanted to make English the official language of the US.

That was then. "Looking back, I just really regretted that I didn't look beyond my district," she said. She traveled to Brooklyn and met the family of a girl killed by a gunshot. "I just knew I was wrong, and i knew I had to do something to make sure that young beautiful girl did not die in vain."

She is sorry for all that. She is different now.

Tulsi Gabbard has a history that muddles her credentials as an accept-no-compromise successor to Bernie Sanders. Her father was an anti-gay activist in Hawaii. She joined him in statements opposing same sex marriage. She apologized. 

She put her past error into context: "I grew up in a socially conservative household where I was raised to believe that marriage should be only between a man and a woman. Many years ago I apologized for my words and more importantly for the negative impact that they had. I sincerely repeat my apology today. I'm deeply sorry for having said them."

Beto O'Rourke apologized for a review he wrote at age 19 about a musical in his college newspaper. He criticized the glitzy actresses, saying they pasted on a "parma-smile" and that their "only qualifications seemed to be their phenomenally large breasts and tight buttocks."

O'Rourke: "I am ashamed of what I wrote and I apologize. There is no excuse for making disrespectful and demeaning comments about women." 

Bernie Sanders apologized "from the bottom of my heart"  for not knowing about the salaries of some of his campaign workers, nor the $30,000 settlement paid to one female staffer because of actions by his former Iowa campaign manager. "When we talk about ending sexism and ending all forms of discrimination those beliefs cannot just be words. They must be based in day-to-day reality and the work that we do. And that was clearly not the case in the 2016 campaign. The allegations that I have heard speak to unacceptable behavior."

Joe Biden understands that he didn't handle the Anita Hill hearing in a way acceptable to today's woke and empowered women. Following the 1991 hearing Biden wrote and ushered through the Violence Against Women Act. He jumped immediately onto the anti-Weinstein bandwagon. He wants to be judged by subsequent actions but he carries the burden of the 1991 hearing. He said he attempted to act like a judge--a committee chair--not an angry partisan. (In the Kavanaugh hearing Lindsay Graham set the standard for 2018 propriety: full on, angry defense of teammate.) 

Biden's apology on Anita Hill is imperfect. "I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill. I owe her an apology. My one regret is that I wasn't able to tone done the attacks on her b some of my Republican friends. I mean, they really went after her. As much as I tried to intervene, I did not have the power to gavel them out of order." 

Notice he is apologizing for being helpless, not for being wrong. Inadequate.

The takeaway: compliance, not defiance. 

These Democratic candidates are hastening to accept the harshest judgements of the political left and to conform to their expectations. 

What did not happen is Gillibrand saying that a great many people in upstate New York actually like their guns, and in rural contexts maybe they have a point, and in any case they deserve representation, too. No. She said she had been wrong.

Will Rogers Follies

Gabbard did not say that a decade ago most people agreed that marriage should be between one man and one woman, but customs and expectations changed and she changed with them. No. She said she had been wrong. 

O'Rourke did not say that for Gosh sakes I was nineteen, lighten up, and that what I wrote was the simple truth.The women did, in fact have big breasts and tight bottoms, which is part of why they were hired for the role, and there is no shame in noting the obvious and intentional element of their stage costumes. No. He apologized. 

These apologies accept the premise that actions of the past should be judged by the new, tough standards of the 2018-2019 political environment, and that these judgements are valid. Compliance.

It is very opposite to Trump. Trump's brand is not to let others tell him what he should do and think and to communicate that he won't be pushed around by moral scolds. He defies the politically correct police.

As the campaign develops I predict this will become a major point of difference, both among the Democratic candidates and between the Democrat and Trump. Watch this space.

.

Tomorrow, two Democrats who are not apologizing: Elizabeth Warren for taking a DNA test, Kamala Harris for having been a prosecutor.

White moderates

White men are moving from having power to sharing power.

It is a new status quo. It feels like "disorder."

   "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."

                              Martin Luther King, from a Birmingham jail, 1963

This holiday is a day to reflect on two changes. One is the black civil rights changes of 1950s and 1960s when the country slowly and imperfectly ended legal segregation and Jim Crow laws. Black people were legally equal to whites. Then, in the 1970s a second wave: "women's liberation" and the notion of men and women as legal equals. 

White men got displaced as the default, legal possessors of economic, political, and social power. Black people could eat in the same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels, be seen on TV with middle class jobs. A woman was no longer referred to as a "female doctor" or a "female lawyer." She was a doctor or a lawyer. 

Boston, 1976. School busing protests.

Legal change moved faster than changes in the hearts and minds of many Americans, especially people who were culturally conservative and invested in the old ways.

I watched white ethnic Boston--the epicenter of abolitionist politics a century prior--erupt in fury that white ethnic neighborhood high schools might be integrated with black children. They fought for "neighborhood schools," which meant keeping black kids out. Blacks and whites mixed while shopping at Jordon Marsh department store, but not in housing. There were black neighborhoods and white ones. Therefore white schools and black schools.

Just because a white man may have a wife, or daughters, or mother, does not make him immune to feelings of displacement. What was formerly a given is now something to be achieved. 

Black voices and female voices assert the simple truth that the old system was unfair and unconstitutional. It was. Men had unfair advantages and they are losing those advantages. That makes it just, but it doesn't make it pleasant for the men feeling displaced.

Republicans and Trump have a  message. Yes, they want equality, of course, but they want order to go along with it. Equality and order--who can disagree?

Democrats have a harder, messier message. Yes, they want equality, of course, but this means ratifying and incorporating in daily life the cultural changes that equality is bringing. It means female bosses. It means black neighbors. It changes the default notion of society. Men experience this as loss. As displacement. An objective way to look at it is that white men are experiencing others stepping into line alongside them, taking their rightful place, but for white men themselves, it is experienced as some people stepping into line in front of them.

This feels like disorder to them.  Democrats are in the position of saying that what may feel like disorder is actually justice and order. But feelings are always true to the person who feels them. 

The country is experiencing change and change feels like disorder because change is disorder.

Shove. Bernie or Bust.

"If an old establishment Democrat is the nominee Bernie-crats will sit out, break away or create a new Party this time around. . . . Without major concessions on critical issues I could not vote for any of the usual suspects, Biden, Booker, Harris, even O'Rourke."                  

             Andy Seles, Sanders supporter and political activist

Democrats have lots of choices. Everyone thinks they are deserving and owed this time. A mess is shaping up.

Two days ago this blog wrote about scales for measuring Democratic candidates and listed five.

   1. Left to centrist.

   2. Race: White, Latino, Asian. Black. 

   3. Gender confrontation intensity, MeToo to more relaxed.

   4. Business orientation: Anti-capitalist to corporate.

   5. Generational. Old to young.

Today I add three more, because they reflect the current divide within the Democratic coalition.

  6. Sanders or not-Sanders.

  7. Relation to elites: populist to establishment.

  8. Central focus: economics or race/gender identity.

Personal. Bernie Sanders created a large body of people who are loyal to him, personally. If he runs he will consolidate this block. He will distinguish himself from Warren, Harris, Castro, and other candidates on issues of policy. Sanders' message is a moral one, a matter of right and wrong. Age, race, and gender are incidental, but if Warren, Beto, Biden, disagree on a policy issue, then it is a moral failing. Moral issues cannot be compromised.

Sanders has a niche to defend

Populism. All the Democratic contenders are transitioning to a populist message. Populism of the right--e.g. Trump--defends "the people" against foreign or domestic racial or religious impurities. Populism of the left--current Democratic Party style populism--defends "the people" against corrupt elites who have rigged the system to benefit themselves. This is Sanders' message, now voiced by other Democrats, but not as purely as by Sanders. 

Leftists are seeking out flaws in Sanders' opposition. Warren was a Harvard professor, an archetype of elitism, and the DNA test worked out weirdly. Beto O'Rourke's father in law is a billionaire and the Texan didn't really oppose fossil fuels. Harris, Booker, Biden, and others each have powerful businesses in their states which needed to be accommodated. Meanwhile, Sanders was from rural Vermont and no one faults him for liking Ben and Jerry Ice Cream. Others fall short of Sanders.

Economics or identity. The Sanders-oriented left wants to focus on economics, not prejudice. They remember FDR as the populist hero who took on the wealthy and pushed through the New Deal. But FDR's coalition was possible because of the segregated "Solid South," and its white political leadership. FDR tolerated cruel white supremacy laws and customs. Social Security excluded black servants.  Blacks were kept out of federal jobs. 

It was populism for whites. 

After 1963 the Democratic Party made a consequential choice. Racial justice mattered. And then gender justice. Democrats began losing the votes of white men. 

Sanders' supporters skew white and male. Andy Seles wrote me, "we Medicare for All, New Green Dealers won't forget identity politics, however the focus is economic because it underlies everything else." This attitude is widely expressed within Facebook chatter by other Sanders partisans. 

FDR is their hero, not Martin Luther King. Sanders has the white progressive vote in college towns, but did much less well with women and people of color in the 2016 primaries. Women and people of color are essential to the Democratic coalition.

This has consequences. 

Sanders moral framing of left populism created a perfect-or-nothing mentality within the various constituencies of the political left. All are embolden by Trump's presumed weakness. Our way or nothing. We want one of our own.

Sanders is a white male from a lily white rural state.

Seles says the socialist left constituency has the upper hand in the struggle among the Democratic groups.  Women, blacks, Latinos, Asians, moderates, and centrists will all settle for Sanders rather than elect Trump. But Sanders people would boycott anyone other than Sanders. So Sanders wins, Seles predicts.

Maybe not.

Sanders is under attack by women. Sanders is an old white man. He apparently paid female staffers less. Partisans wonder, what does he know about driving-while-black? What does he know about sexual harassment? Sanders doesn't "get it."

Demand perfection. Condemn heresy. We saw the attitude at work with the defenestration of Al Franken by Gillibrand and others. We see it with Seles' comments on centrists. 

Sanders may not survive to endure Trump's criticism that he is a "crazy, money-confiscating Socialist." Sanders may discover his greatest challenge is from the left. Every group in the Democratic coalition wants one of their own. They, too, may dig in.

Oddly, the solution to the Democratic mess may be for Trump's poll numbers to rise. Then Democrats will get real. 

Have Fun with Political Insults! (But know the rules.)

There are "Do's" and "Don't's" to calling someone a "fucking asshole."

It is confusing and it doesn't seem fair. 

Mock "Low IQ Maxine Walters"

Donald Trump can get away with calling Jeb Bush "low energy", he can call Ted Cruz "Lying' Ted", he can make an ethnic reference against Elizabeth Warren with "Pocahontas," and call Maxine Walters "Low IQ."  And yet Congressman Joe Wilson yells out "You lie!" at Obama, and he gets formally admonished by the House.

Where's the justice?!

There are rules about insults, but practitioners sometimes discover them after the fact. Too late. Some rules we thought we knew, but didn't. For example, it is forbidden to make fun of the mentally retarded, but if the target is obviously not retarded, but is black, it is acceptable, if you are a white Republican trolling a powerful black Democrat. (Then the insult is arguably about party, not race, except in fact it is absolutely about race and everyone knows it. Some people take joy in there being a deniable bit of race baiting, some people deny there was race baiting, and some people--Democrats--see it and it makes their heads explode in indignation. Then even more people take joy in watching Democrats' heads explode.)

See how fun this is?

But whenTrump made fun of the uncontrolled motions of a reporter who in fact had a disability, there was blowback across the board. Democrats made a fuss, Meryl Streep complained about it at the Oscar event. Republicans minimized it, but had to admit it was a mis-step. Still there was the benefit of watching how angry it made Hollywood big shots, and the GOP base enjoys watching Hollywood go all judgmental. 

Mock Disabled. 

Another example: it was conventional wisdom that a US veterans with Purple Hearts were untouchable, yet we discovered we were wrong. John Kerry got "Swift Boated" and Trump preferred people who were not captured to McCain. 

Yet a new female Member of Congress said she wanted to impeach the "motherfucker" Trump at a private gathering, and it blew up on her. Of course, Fox News criticized her. That was a given. But so did Trump, who called her words "disgraceful." Trump expresses disapproval over a breach of decorum.

See how complicated it is? We need a rulebook.

Thad Guyer started the important work of writing one. Guyer is a lawyer who represents employee whistleblowers. 

Guest Post by Thad Guyer

“The Fun of Insult in the Age of Trump”

Thad Guyer

President Trump is a “motherfucker”, exclaimed a newly elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Does that go too far or not far enough?  In the age of Obama, it was shocking to our sensibilities to hear a Congressman shout “you lie”. Nancy Pelosi says she disinvited Trump from the State of Union in her chamber due to security concerns.  Just as likely, however, is her concern that she and her man at arms Steny Hoyer cannot control the fallout from some member yelling at Trump “you’re a fucking liar”.   Consider the fallout from Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s expletive-not-deleted fiasco, as Pelosi loyalists (she herself had to stay below the fray) denounced Tlaib, which in turn led to Tlaib’s loyalists counter-attacking the admonishers as establishment oldsters, if not cowards or bigots.  

Still, regardless of the New Yorker’s “Unfit to Print” article tracing the rapid demise of civility in the age of Trump (Jan. 15, 2019, https://goo.gl/PPmmMi), many partisans find it uplifting to insult each other, perhaps nowhere more unbridled than among us Democrats.  So after a bit of online research, here are the rules as I understand them:

1. Regard light political insult as comfort food.  The point is to make yourself feel good and virtuous.  For example, it’s usually safe to denounce those who disagree with you as “complicit” or “Trump enablers”. Like a pint of ice cream, there may be consequences but they won’t be that bad.  

2.  It’s safer to insult people in your own party, group or family.  Insulting members of an empowered or networked opposition can lead to credible threats of retribution, even violence. Thus, if you’re a progressive, your appropriate victims are centrist Democrats.  You can get away with calling them “cowards”, “cynics” or “fake Democrats” because, as centrists, they try to make peace among the waring factions and seldom retaliate.  

3.  Don’t bite off more than you can chew.  Despite the banality of profanities like “motherfucker”, “piece of shit”, or “asshole”, you actually have to be a national politician (Congresswoman Tlaib), actor (Jack Black) or political commentator (Tevor Noah), respectively, to get away with profane insults.  I agree this seems unfair, but the privileges of fame and power are just facts of life. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of a “who dis?”.  See, “Who dis?: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mocks Joe Lieberman”, MSN (Jan. 11, 2019, https://goo.gl/umryii).

4.  The value of quick retraction cannot be overstated. Although the self-satisfaction of politically binging with insult followed closely by remorse has been likened to bulimia nervosa, the data suggest that a rapid response apology almost always works.  But don’t be too hasty, as experts say you can “usually” wait until an apology is demanded, and if no one demands it, there’s no need to give it.  Remember, apologies show weakness.   

5.  Heed the cautions of “call out culture”.  See, David Brooks, “The Cruelty of Call-Out Culture”, New York Times (Jan. 14, 2019, https://goo.gl/Jk6U3b).  You must be certain of the racial, gender, and other “identities” of your victim.   If the person you call a “cowardly asshole” is not as defenseless as you thought,  the next thing you know you’ve got a “call-out posse” after you on Facebook, Twitter, or some guy’s blog. Not pretty!

Follow these 5 rules and you should be fine in insulting, belittling, or diminishing the thoughts, ideas and opinions of almost anyone.  Have fun!

John Kasich: Understudy in the wings

Lurking. Stalking. Waiting.

      "President Trump was asked by Fox News if he is worried about Gov. John Kasich or others challenging him in the 2020 Republican Primary. His response: 'I hope they do.'  Team Kasich's response: 'Be careful what you wish for!'"

                        From a recent Kasich fundraising letter.

John Kasich has a strategy and it is not a hopeless one.  

It requires Trump to fail.

Readers not on John Kasich's mailing list may be unaware that he is actively promoting himself as both a loyal Republican and alternative to Trump. His path to victory requires a disorderly end to the Trump presidency. Trump is a disorderly person. 

Kasich just got a CNN gig. That puts him in they public eye, although not with the right network. CNN gives a platform to talk to people disgusted by Trump, i.e. people who don't vote in Republican primary elections.  

Kasich relentlessly sends out policy statements and fundraising appeals. I am on his list. 

Kasich has a theme. Good government. Compromise. Be prudent. Be grown up. Don't say racist, xenophobic things. Be a good Christian.

Example:  

Kasich new role

"Dear Peter, I was in New Hampshire today, meeting with old friends and supporters, and I spoke about what we can all do to make a difference in our communities during these times of deep partisan division. This is a message that more and more Americans need to hear. We all instinctively know right from wrong but it will take each of us doing our part to drive real change."

And, in response to Trump's oval office speech: 

"The President and the Democrats need to learn how to compromise and put the American people first. It starts with the President putting the country ahead of his politics and being more flexible with his goals."

Messages like that. Then buttons to push to give money.

The political landscape for Republicans is simple. Trump is the star. He owns the GOP. People who have openly opposed him lose primary races. 

The Cook Political Report sums up the situation: "Trump's approval rating among Republicans has never dropped below 77 percent and sometimes reached as high as 91%. Trump is not hemorrhaging among his fellow Republicans, though we may be seeing a bit of erosion."  

New Website

The Trump successor niche is filled. Trump has political heirs already, Vice President Mike Pence, and former Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. If Trump leaves office constitutionally, Pence is the likely successor. 

If Trump announces that his work is done and that he won't run for re-election, and leaves with head held high, then we could have an open primary battle between the dishwater dull Pence and the charismatic Haley. It would be an exciting contest. Haley is Sarah Palin, but with brains. She sounds like a populist. Pence sounds like an establishment puppet. Still, Pence has the head start and Pence is a white male in a party most comfortable with white males in power and women in support roles.

Kasich's path to victory: Trump in disgrace.  

If Trump is in the position that Nixon was prior to his resignation--holding on but being abandoned by Republicans--or in the position that George Bush was in November, 2008--amidst a financial collapse--then Republican voters may be looking for a dignified, qualified alternative to Trump, someone like Kasich. Someone not tainted.

Kasich would have a single rival, Mitt Romney.  Both would represent a retreat from Trump high drama and it would be an election do-over. Romney is better known, but Trump has labeled him a "loser." Romney is a Mormon. There is a great deal more anti-Mormon sentiment among Christians than I had understood in 2012. The Christian evangelical vote is crucial in the GOP primary, and Kasich does not force them to choose between a Mormon and a Democrat. It could be a factor.

What has to happen for Kasich to have a chance? Mueller needs to have found something really embarrassing on Trump or the Trump family, or we need to have a financial or global crisis that appears to be Trump's fault. Or both.

It could happen.