Monday, November 14, 2016

NATIONAL ELECTION REDUX

► In today’s Yakima H-R — Latinos in Yakima concerned about Trump’s words, but say they remain hopeful — Outside Fiesta Foods, a supermarket specializing in Mexican groceries, customers were taking a wait-and-see approach Sunday over president-elect Donald Trump’s stance on mass deportations. “We just do not know if he’s going to do what he promised or not,” Ignacia Ibarra said in Spanish.”We’re hopeful that he won’t, but we really don’t know.”

► From Huffington Post — Trump says he’ll immediately deport or imprison up to 3 million undocumented immigrants — “What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.” Trump said. “But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally.” In saying that 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records live in the U.S., Trump was repeating a claim that The Post fact-checked and determined was inaccurate.

EDITOR’S NOTE — In a related story, private prison stocks are surging after Trump win.

► In the Seattle Times — Peaceful anti-Trump marchers in Seattle say activism is just beginning — Hundreds rallied at Cal Anderson Park, then marched through Seattle to Westlake Center downtown to protest and “mourn” the election of Donald Trump.

► In the Seattle Times — Kshama Sawant should’ve blasted Trump when it mattered (by Danny Westneat) — The Seattle City Council member, you may recall, spent the last six months protesting not Trump, but Hillary Clinton… I don’t believe Sawant actually wanted Trump to win — she said repeatedly that she didn’t. Or that she influenced the outcome of the election, because that’s hard to imagine. I’m highlighting her here because she’s an example of how progressives nationwide just forfeited the election by standing down.

EDITOR’S NOTE — An interesting read that cites some important facts about suppressed voter turnout. But Westneat jumps the shark when he suggests a “purity virus” among liberals helped suppress low turnout and that Obama’s vision of the politics of compromise should have been embraced. Most of the people we know who spent the last several months complaining about Clinton were Democrats who believed Hillary Clinton had compromised too much. It wasn’t about her emails, it was about her coziness with Wall Street. It was her longtime support of bad free-trade deals that are killing manufacturing jobs and, gradually, a significant chunk of rural America. It was about out-of-touch Democrats — including President Obama to some extent — touting job growth and other positive economic data that was a vast improvement from the Bush administration disaster, but ignored or downplayed the dramatic damage that globalization and skyrocketing income inequality have done to America’s working class.

► In the USA Today — Sanders backs Trump protests — “We have a First Amendment. People are angry. People are upset. And they want to express their point of view that they are very frightened, in very, very strong disagreement with Mr. Trump, who has made bigotry the cornerstone of his campaign. … I think that people are saying, ‘Mr. Trump, we have come too far in this country fighting discrimination and bigotry. We’re not going back. And if you’re going to continue that effort, you’re going to have to take us on’.”

► From Politico — Sanders ‘humiliated’ by Democrats’ failure to connect with working class — “I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite. I come from the white working class, and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from.”

► In today’s NY Times — Pulling Democrats back to ‘It’s the economy, Stupid!” — Even as Democrats agree about the need to promote their agenda more aggressively for the middle class and voters of modest means, especially in parts of the country where the party has suffered grievous losses, they are divided over how aggressively to position themselves on the economic left, with battle lines already forming over the lightning-rod issue of foreign trade.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From The Guardian — Democrats once represented the working class. Not any more. (by Robert Reich) — The Democratic Party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs. Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class — failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with simple up-or-down votes. Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22% of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to less than 12% today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains. Bill Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify – with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated. The unsurprising result of this combination – more trade, declining unionization and more industry concentration – has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. This created an opening for Donald Trump’s authoritarian demagoguery, and his presidency.

The power structure is shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. Perhaps it also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in enabling the presidency of Donald Trump.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

► In the Washington Post —  The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead, Schumer tells labor leaders — The Senate’s soon-to-be top Democrat told labor leaders Thursday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal at the center of President Obama’s “pivot” to strengthen ties with key Asian allies, will not be ratified by Congress.

► From The Hill — Civil rights groups alarmed as Bannon heads to White House — Steve Bannon, who was named as chief strategist and senior counselor to Trump, has proudly adopted the mantle as leadership of the nationalist “alt-right.” He has a history of promoting offensive statements against Jewish people, Muslims, African-Americans and other minorities at Breitbart, critics say, and has allegedly expressed anti-Semitic statements in his personal life.

► From Think Progress — Major newspapers normalize Trump’s selection of white nationalist as chief strategist

► From Reuters — Trump looking at fast ways to quit global climate deal, source says — President-elect Donald Trump is seeking quick ways to withdraw the United States from a global accord to combat climate change, a source on his transition team said, defying broad global backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

► From Politico — How President Trump could reshape the Supreme Court — and the country — If Trump sticks to the list of proposed justices he released during the campaign, the court is likely to look and act similarly to that of any other Republican president.

► From The Guardian — Labor movement braces for three-front battle with Trump, Congress and courts — After spending tens of millions of dollars in hopes of electing Hillary Clinton, the labor movement fears that President-elect Donald Trump, the Republican-controlled Congress and the supreme court will be hostile to labor and take numerous steps to hobble unions.

► In the Boston Globe — Warren charts a course for the left in Trump’s Washington — Sen. Elizabeth Warren opened her arms to working with Donald Trump on populist issues Thursday afternoon in a talk to the AFL-CIO, using her first public remarks since Democrats lost the presidency to reach out to his white, disaffected working-class voters. Warren’s remarks represent a watershed moment for the Democratic Party as its leaders try to puzzle out how they will deal with a Trump presidency: Even as she denounced Trump’s “bigotry,’’ her message was that the progressive wing of the party is in line with Trump on many of the very issues that make the Republican elites uneasy with their next president. She outlined common ground on regulating banks, protecting Social Security, opposing trade deals, college affordability, and rebuilding infrastructure. (Photo by Tim Pierce, licensed CC-BY-2.0)

STATE ELECTION REDUX

► In today’s (Aberdeen) Daily World — Purcell vs. Walsh still too close to call — The latest updates from 19th District ballot counts so far add up to a paper-thin advantage of 83 votes for Teresa Purcell (D-Longview) and Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen).

EDITOR’S NOTE — Union volunteers interested in participating in “ballot curing” activities to make sure all votes are accurately counted in this and other close races should email WSLC Field Mobilization Director April Sims or call her at 206-281-890. These close races will determine whether or not the Legislature has a worker-friendly majority in 2017.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Passing Sound Transit 3 boost for commuters, jobs (by Jon Talton) — This will be an enormous infrastructure investment, adding construction and operating jobs. More important in the long term, it will give people options about how they travel as freeways and roads become maxed out… A critical effect is that ST3 will connect more affordable residential areas in the South Sound and Snohomish County with employment centers in Seattle and on the Eastside.

► In the Seattle Times — What changes could Trump bring to Washington state? Inslee is taking stock — Among other things, Trump campaigned on a platform to restrict immigration and repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Such a repeal could have a major impact on the state. “That’s a big dollar number to watch, depending on how they replace it,” said Doug Erick­sen (R-Ferndale). “Once they repeal Obamacare, we’ll have to make changes at the state level with how we do health care.”

► In the News Tribune — Our state shows why Trump should spare Obamacare (editorial) — Washington state is proof positive that Obamacare can work. Rates will increase here a modest 8 percent in 2017, and competition is relatively strong with 13 insurance companies remaining in the market. Those who rejoice that the ACA is on course to collapse may want to ask the 1.6 million Washington residents who have accessed health care from Washington Healthplanfinder.

► In the Yakima H-R — Trump’s potential impact on Washington’s ag industry ‘a big unknown’ — Dan Wood of the Washington Dairy Federation: “This is a big unknown for everybody, but we’re not fearful. We’re going to be engaged with the new administration on trade and immigration issues.”

► From the PSBJ — Boeing’s Chinese jet orders are ‘vulnerable’ under Trump, analysts say

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.