Donald Trump? He’s a uniter, not a divider. Just in ways he never imagined.
Sally Jenkins/WaPo, sports columnist and co-author of Pat Summit books:
The Bible teaches that there are no real “shitholes,” of course, that the only things that defile us come from somebody’s mouth. But if that source isn’t persuasive enough for you, there is always the evidence you can acquire from firsthand acquaintance with someone from a faraway place.
Ngozi Anosike was one of those “why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here” immigrants. Coach Pat Summitt met her 15 years ago next week, in a gymnasium on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2003, when she recruited Ngozi’s daughter Nicky to play basketball at the University of Tennessee. Pat and Ngozi immediately recognized something kindred in each other: They both started from “holes.” “At the bottom, and I mean as far at the bottom as you can possibly go,” Nicky said.
At first, Nicky Anosike didn’t want the great Pat Summitt to see their Staten Island apartment in the projects, didn’t want her to see the cockroaches and the mice, and the mattress on the floor instead of a real bed. She was afraid the immaculate coach who wore diamond rings and was always on ESPN would take one look at the hole she was from and pull the scholarship offer. So she asked friends to let her entertain Pat at their home instead of her own.
“I was just so embarrassed with where I had to live,” Nicky told me a few years ago. “She will think so low of me, maybe she won’t want me at her school. Will she still want me?” What the 18-year-old Nicky didn’t know was that Pat came from a cabin on a tobacco farm in Tennessee with no water except what came from the pump off the porch and chinks in the walls that let the weather in, so sometimes you had to throw frost off the blanket in the morning.
Axios:
Trump's day of reckoning ... The one thing that could dramatically diminish President Trump’s chances of avoiding impeachment and chalking up legislative wins is Democrats winning the House.
- And, thanks to series of recent developments, Trump knows this no longer just seems plausible, but probable.
- Hill sources tell us that a House Democratic takeover is now likely.
- One strategist close to Republican leaders believes that a loss of the House is "baked in," and said top Republicans don't see a way to avoid it.
- It would take a flip of 24 seats for Dems to take over. The average loss for the president's party in his first midterm is about 32 seats, and we're hearing forecasts of 40+ losses.
WaPo:
New alarm among Republicans that Democrats could win big this year
At least 29 House seats held by Republicans will be open in November following announced retirements, a greater number for the majority party than in each of the past three midterm elections when control of Congress flipped.
The president’s own job approval, a traditional harbinger of his party’s midterm performance, is at record lows as he approaches a year in office, according to Gallup. Polls asking which party Americans want to see control Congress in 2019 show a double-digit advantage for Democrats.
“When the wave comes, it’s always underestimated in the polls,” said a conservative political strategist who has met with GOP candidates. “That is the reason that Republicans are ducking for cover.”
Not ducking enough, my friends. Not ducking enough.
Josh Kraushaar/National Journal:
The Week From Hell for Republicans
While the press is focusing on Trump’s bigoted language and uninformed interviews, his party’s rank and file are raising the white flag.
Several of Trump’s closest allies rebelled over the administration’s offshore-drilling plan. Republicans enjoyed ample opportunities to score political points over President Obama’s environmental overreach, from his refusal to green-light the Keystone XL pipeline to an eagerness to impose regulations on energy producers, regardless of the economic cost.
But now it’s the Trump administration’s turn to embrace a policy championed by the base, even as it’s generating fierce pushback from some unlikely sources. Trump’s decision to open up much of the ocean for oil and gas drilling sparked outrage from leading Republicans, including Florida Gov. Rick Scott, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, and outgoing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. One of the most conservative lawmakers in the House, Rep. Mark Sanford (whose district includes Charleston, South Carolina), is a vocal opponent of the move. Several of the most vulnerable districts held by Republicans—particularly in California—are near the coast.
Scott, who is considering a Senate campaign in Florida, managed to convince the administration to give Florida a reprieve from the policy—a move that reeks of political favoritism. His fierce pushback over the drilling plan—in a swing state that backed Trump last year—is as clear a sign that the move is a big political loser for Republicans.
Paul Kane/WaPo:
‘The wave versus the map’: Democratic control of Senate moves from preposterous to possible
“Just how bad is this map for Democrats? It’s bad enough that it may be the worst Senate map that any party has faced ever,” Nate Silver, founder of Five Thirty Eight, the data analytics blog covering sports and politics, wrote Wednesday.
But some veterans suggest that the broader national environment is beginning to break so sharply against Trump and Republicans that the Senate could very much be in play.
“A key question for November is which will be dominant: the environment or geography. Put another way, in both the House and Senate, it’s the wave versus the map,” Charlie Cook, the founder of the Cook Political Report, retorted a day later.
Amy Chozick/NY Times:
Hillary Clinton Ignited a Feminist Movement. By Losing
She was poised to lead and now is on the sideline
Throughout her career, many women would view Mrs. Clinton as an imperfect vessel for the feminist cause. She was a Yale-educated lawyer who at the height of the 1970s women’s movement moved to Arkansas to put her own ambitions on hold in furtherance of her husband’s career. A refrain I’d often hear from voters on the 2016 campaign trail was that they were happy to vote for a woman, just not “that woman.”
But the roiling, messy, often painful progress made since Mr. Trump took office has recast Mrs. Clinton, who recently topped Gallup’s poll of most admired women. Her career brings to light the truth that there is no perfect vessel, that sooner or later, the harder we strive, the higher we climb, we all become that woman.
She may go away. She may not. But the movement remains. And so does the misogynic truth about 2016 voters (aided and abetted by now disgraced media figures shaping the narrative).
Put the 2016 “but her emails” in perspective. How important/not important was that story? Not its effect or length of coverage, its substance. The NY Times has never had a proper reckoning of that, for example. All they did is get rid of the public editor.
Yasmeen Serhan/Atlantic:
The U.K. State Visit That Never Was
Donald Trump claims to have canceled a trip over the London embassy location. But speculation it would be canceled has swirled for months.
While such behavior may not be enough to sever a more than two-century-old relationship, it has proven enough to force both sides to address the question that it could. “This is a long-term special relationship that we have,” May said of the U.K.-U.S. relationship following a terse exchange with Trump in November. “It is an enduring relationship that is there because it is in both our national interests for that relationship to be there. As Prime Minister, I am clear that that relationship with the United States should continue.”
While a Trump visit to the U.K. appears to be ruled out for now, at least he’ll be there in spirit. Shortly after the president’s cancellation, the London-based Madame Tussaud’s wax museum offered their own replica of the president to take his place.
Bret Stephens/NY Times:
Proud to Live in a Nation of Holers
Donald Trump has not, to say the least, risen from a hole. But he is sinking into one. It may be that it won’t damage him politically — Republican Party leaders, increasingly unshameable, will mumble mild disapproval until the news cycle turns — but it does damage the country. We have a president even more ignorant of America than he is of the rest of the world.
Maybe there really is something wrong with the president’s head. Modify with any four letters you wish.
LA Times:
Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is back. So too are Latino voters who helped oust him
In 2016, Latinos accounted for almost 20% of all registered voters in Arizona. Latinos make up about 30% of Arizona’s population.
Getting voters to the polls is another matter. In 2016, Latino voter turnout was 44%.
Voter turnout and registration typically dip in midterm election years, and that’s been the case with Latinos in Arizona. In 2010, 26% of Latinos eligible to vote cast a ballot, according to One Arizona. In 2014, the figure was even worse, with only 18% of eligible Latinos voting.
One Arizona now hopes that at least 350,000 Latinos — about one third of those eligible — will vote in 2018.
“He and Trump are energizing our base and, unlike other demographics in the state, our base is growing,” Arredondo said. This, in turn, helps Democrats in a red state that, with Latino voters, is inching closer to purple with each election.