You think Donald Trump is bad? You ain't seen nothing yet - Independent

You think Donald Trump is bad? You ain't seen nothing yet

If Roy Moore wins Tuesday's primary in Alabama it will mark the first major repudiation of Trump. But it won't have come from the ‘resistance’ of the liberal left – it will be from the far right

David Usborne New York @dusborne 10 hours ago

Nearly a year after Donald Trump’s victory, both parties in Washington are still trying to figure out what it means and how best to adapt. It’s hard to say who has faced the deeper existential crisis. The Democrats lost pretty much everything; the Republicans gained, well, Trump.

The self-flagellating of the Grand Old Party, GOP, continues as it scratches around for votes for another bowl of old mutton they’re calling a viable replacement for the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Boiled up by Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy, two senators from the South, it has been roundly condemned by the healthcare industry as unworkable and cruel to patients. Late on Friday John McCain declared his opposition, probably killing it dead. But still they try. Such is their desperation to be seen capable of passing something. Anything.

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

Heading to Alabama now, big crowd!

7:18 AM - Sep 23, 2017

The best the Democrats can say these days is that Trump has been giving them day-passes to his latest little club, namely the Oval Office. He even did a deal this month with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, leaders of the opposition in the Senate and House respectively, to find the money to fund the government, leaving Republican leaders twisting in he wind.

In its latest cover, Time examines their plight. “Eight months into the Trump presidency, the party looks to face its toughest odds since Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1984,” editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal writes. “The Democrats are in their deepest congressional rut since the class of 1946 was elected, and hold the fewest governors' mansions –15 – since 1922. Of the 98 partisan legislatures in the US, Republicans control 67. During Barack Obama's presidency, Democrats lost 970 seats in state legislatures, leaving the party's bench almost bare.”

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That’s only part of the litany of woe. He also highlights their stunning youth deficit. Among all those leading the party in Congress or positioning to be its candidate for president next time around, none couldn’t qualify as your great grandparent. No offence, Bernie or Elizabeth.

But here is the real problem for both parties: America doesn’t know what it wants. The pendulum rule of electoral politics suggests that by next year – the congressional midterms – or certainly by the 2020 presidential contest, the country will have swung back to something near the old normal. The moment for "outsider" candidates promising to disrupt the status quo will have passed. Candidates offering experience and expertise – imagine! – will be back in vogue.

A first indicator of this has been the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Trump’s outreach to Chuck and Nancy, which prevented a government shutdown. A new NBC News/WSJ poll finds that 71 per cent of Americans support the agreement which also provided funding for victims of the two recent hurricanes. And there has been uptick, for the first time, in Trump’s approval ratings too.

But then cast your eyes to Alabama where on Tuesday Republicans must decide whether to stick by Luther Strange, a former state attorney general who was appointed on an interim basis earlier this year to hold a vacant US Senate seat, or push him aside in favour of his challenger from within the party, former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore.

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Fresh from his railings against North Korea at the UN - and the return railings from Kim Jong-un – Trump flew to Alabama on Friday to campaign for Strange. A risky gambit. Latest polls show Strange, all 6-foot-9 of him, losing to Moore perhaps by a hefty margin. If that is what actually happens, it will mark the first major repudiation of Trump at the polls since he took office. But it will not have come from the "resistance" of the liberal left, but rather from the far right.

Were he to make it all the way to Washington - after defeating Strange he would still face a Democrat opponent on election day - Moore would make Trump look Kennedy-esque (and Ted Cruz a kitten). This the man who in 2005 said “homosexual conduct should be illegal,” and who was suspended from the state Supreme Court last year after he ordered all Alabama judges to ignore the US Supreme Court ruling in favour of gay marriage. It was the second time he’d been booted from the Court. The first was after he installed a stone monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building, in violation of the constitution.

On the trail just in the last few days he has spoken of “reds and yellows” in America – yes he apparently meant native Americans and Asians – and warned that punishment for loose behaviour is nigh. “You think that God’s not angry that this land is a moral slum?” he asked during a visit to a church. “How much longer will it be before his judgment comes?”

Mr Moore is no stranger to controversy (The Hill )

He and his supporters argue that while Trump’s heart may have been in the right place he is falling under the spell of the Washington establishment. Of Chuck and Nancy and also Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader in the Senate. As Sarah Palin put it, the swamp is “trying to hijack this presidency”. Yes Palin is not with Strange and therefore Trump. She is all out for Moore.

Alabama is not America, that’s for sure. But this is confusing, nonetheless, for all of us and for the leaders of the two parties. Support for Trump’s deal with the Democrats suggests an appetite for less extremism in Washington not more. But a Moore victory in Tuesday’s Republican primary would send an entirely different message: that Trump’s time in the Oval Office is but the beginning of a nationalist and populist wave in America. That it’s barely got started. In other words, for those not exactly enamoured of Trump: you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Kim Jong-un, the NFL and 'screaming at senators': Trump's Strange night in Alabama - Guardian

Kim Jong-un, the NFL and 'screaming at senators': Trump's Strange night in Alabama

President heads to Alabama to rally support for incumbent senator Luther Strange who is facing a runoff election on Tuesday

Ben Jacobs in Huntsville, Alabama

Saturday 23 September 2017 12.54 AEST

Donald Trump gave one of his signature stream of consciousness speeches in Hunstville on Friday night as he tried to get out the vote for embattled Alabama Republican senator Luther Strange.

During an address inside the Wernher Von Braun Center that lasted an hour and 20 minutes, the president called North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man”, said NFL owners should cut players who kneel for the national anthem and returned to familiar targets like John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

Strange is facing a runoff election on Tuesday for the GOP nomination to hold the seat he was appointed to in February. The former state attorney general was handed the seat after former senator Jeff Sessions was appointed attorney general by Trump. Strange is currently trailing in the polls against Roy Moore, an ardent social conservative who has twice been removed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

The race has become a top priority for Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and a superPAC affiliated with him will spend over $9m on Strange’s behalf. The Alabama senator is seen as reliable vote for Republican priorities while Moore has mused about making “homosexual conduct” illegal and suggested that the terrorist attacks of 11 September may have been divine retribution for the United States turning away from God.

The campaign has largely focused on McConnell. Moore has attacked the Senate majority leader as a creature of the “swamp” that Trump wishes to drain while Strange has tried to distance himself from the Kentucky Republican. Strange went as far as to assert in his brief introductory remarks on Friday night that Trump was backing him so that he could have the votes in the Senate to “stand up to Mitch McConnell.” The President later asserted that Strange “didn’t know” the Senate majority leader.

Trump repeatedly praised Strange and often calling the 6’9ft senator “Big Luther.” However, he did note that Moore, who has been backed by a number of prominent conservatives including former Trump aide Steve Bannon, was “a good man” and that he would campaign for him if the former chief justice won on Tuesday.

Instead of direct criticism, Trump simply claimed Moore would a face a difficult general election in deep red Alabama. He said Moore “has a very good chance of not winning a general election.” Trump also dwelled on the political risk he was taking backing Strange, insisting that the media would attack him if the Alabama Republican lost.

In between his praise of Strange, Trump touched on a smorgasbord of topics. He renewed his criticism of Kim Jong-un, whom he called both “Rocket Man” and “Little Rocket Man” and warning of the risk posed by North Korea’s nuclear program and its recent threats to test a hydrogen bomb. “Now he’s talking about a massive weapon exploding over the Pacific Ocean, which causes calamity. Where the plume goes, so goes cancer, so goes tremendous problems.” However, Trump confidently said “I’m going to handle it.”

Hours after John McCain torpedoed Republican hopes to repeal and replace Obamacare, Trump expressed his disappointment. He said McCain’s opposition was “totally unexpected and terrible.” He also chided the Arizona Republican for what he saw as hypocrisy. “Repeal and replace, John McCain if you look at his last campaign it’s all about repeal and replace and that’s fine, we still have a good chance [of repealing and replacing Obamacare.” He described his attempts to court senators on health care, saying “I’m on the phone screaming at people all day long for weeks.”

Trump also returned to some of his favourite topics. He talked at length about the wall he hopes to build on the Mexican border, insisting it needed to be see-through. Trump said this was because drug dealers are currently using catapults to send 100 pound bags of drugs over the existing concrete wall and they are landing on people’s heads in the United States. He also responded the familiar cheers of “lock her up” directed at Hillary Clinton by telling the crowd “you gotta speak to Jeff Sessions about that.”

The president also dwelled on NFL players who take a knee during the National Anthem in peaceful protest. He asked the crowd “Wouldn’t you love one of the NFL owners when someone disrespects our flag, ‘get that son of a bitch off the field right now.’” He told attendees “if you see it, leave the stadium, I guarantee things will stop.”

Since 2016, a number of African American NFL players have taken a knee during the National Anthem. It was spurred by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick who was the first to do so in protest what he saw as oppression of people of color. Several other players have since followed suit and it has sparked national controversy.

Trump’s visit to Alabama comes just four days before the primary runoff and only hours after Ben Carson, a member of Trump’s cabinet, issued a quasi-endorsement of Moore. In a statement issued by Moore’s campaign, Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development said “Judge Moore is a fine man of proven character and integrity, who I have come to respect over the years.” Carson did not explicitly endorse Moore though.

Vice president Mike Pence, who will hold a rally for Strange in Birmingham, will follow Trump in Alabama on Monday. Moore is scheduled to hold an election eve rally with Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.