United Coalition of the Divided - 2018 Edition

UPDATED: 7/25/17

Welcome to the United Coalition of the Divided - the Dividist's social media version of retail door-to-door politicking. 

We advocate voting strategically for divided government. We know why we should vote for divided government. We know how to vote for divided government. In this post we [virtually] gather those of like mind who help [intentionally or not] make the case to vote for divided government in 2018. One voter at a time.

The Dividist initiated this exclusive club during the 2008 election cycle and recycled it in every federal election since. It was an ignominious start, with the Democrats seizing unified control of the federal government. The 2010 edition was barely posted in time for the midterms.  Amidst the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, divided government was emphatically restored. The 2012 membership drive worked out fine with the reelection of Barack Obama and divided government. In the 2014 midterms, it was just a question of how divided we were going to get as the Democrats managed to dig themselves an even deeper hole in Congress.

Then 2016 happened.  The Republicans were in control of  both branches of Congress with no realistic chance of losing majority control in the House of Representative. It seemed like such an easy, obvious choice. All we had to do was elect Hillary Clinton and the government would stay divided for at least four more years.

As it turns out, it was too obvious. Clinton's inevitable victory was so obvious to so many in the punditocracy (including The Dividist), that Democrats did not even bother to articulate the argument for divided government. In fact, so many Democrats and Republicans were so certain that Clinton would win, Democrats delusionally argued for One Party Rule, and Republicans co-opted the divided government argument - asking voters to focus on GOP candidates in Senate and House races in order to keep a legislative constraint on the inevitable Clinton presidency.

We tried. The Dividist patiently explained there was no chance for Democrats to take the House majority in that cycle. You didn't listen.  As a consequence, not only did Democrats lose the executive branch, but they failed to win majority control of the Senate in a cycle where the political playing field was heavily tilted in their favor.

So we've come full circle.  We again have a Unified One Party Rule Republican Government as we had in 2006 when the Dividist started this blog. It's "deja vu all over again". In celebration of Festivus later this year the Dividist be airing more than a few grievances with you people. But I digress.

Funny, you don't look libertarianish.

 Wherein the Dividist "buries the lede" so deep no one will ever find it.  

 Lady Liberty comments on Lee Drutman Voter Study Group Analysis 

On Sunday, Fareed Zakaria invoked the recent Lee Drutman Voter Study Group (VSG) analysis of the 2016 election.  His opening monologue summarized and repeated the conclusion of his recent Washington Post guest editorial.

The VSG study has become something of a Rorschach Test among the punditocracy. Data on 2016 voter attitudes are distilled into multi-dimensional charts with - sometimes conflicting - analysis of what it all mean. That leaves a lot of room for any good ideologue to find a nugget that will confirm their bias about the election.

The "Pelosi Problem" - If she could turn back time.

Mainstream media are calling it the "Pelosi Problem". Democrats have lost four out of four special elections since Donald Trump was sworn in as President.  A blue-on-blue political feeding frenzy has erupted as Democrats eat their own.  With the President rubbing salt in the wound, Nancy Pelosi is being blamed by some on the left.  Democratic desperation is palpable and the growing Progressive panic is not limited to the beltway political class.

When even the solid support of liberal entertainment industry icons turn on Nancy Pelosi, a political firewall has been breached. Pelosi lost Cher  ...

👏🏼.CONGRESSIONAL RACE IS NOT OLYMPICS,THERES NO MEDAL🥈FOR 2nd PLACE‼️I ADMIRE & RESPECT NANCY PELOSI,BUT IN“EVERY”RACE,GOP RUNS AGAINST HER🥀 pic.twitter.com/QX5I26Yl3s

— Cher (@cher) June 21, 2017

... and Cher may be right. Republican strategists credit invoking the specter of - Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House - as a cudgel keeping disgruntled Republicans in the fold and contributing to the GA-06 win. From CNN:

"Why the relentless focus on the Democratic congresswoman from San Francisco? It was at the heart of their strategy to turn out reliably Republican voters who might be queasy with Trump's first five months in office, but did not want to see Pelosi and national Democrats celebrate a marquee victory in their own backyard. Pelosi "consistently polls very unfavorably," said John Rogers, the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- the House GOP's campaign arm. "I think in this instance it had a motivating effect for our voters on the turnout front."

Exhibit A: This right wing superpac ad was one of several mining the Anti-Pelosi vein that saturated GA-06. It was effective and is exactly what we can expect to see in every contested district in 2018:

What it takes to impeach a President and why we're not remotely close to impeaching President Trump.

 It takes testimony under oath and corroborating physical evidence of a criminal act. 

To Impeach or Not to Impeach...
Democratic representatives Brad Sherman and Al Green are drafting resolutions to impeach Donald Trump with the apparent intent of introducing said resolution in the House of Representatives. They are cheered on by extreme partisans on the left. However, more rational Democratic Party leadership understand just how premature any such consideration is at this time.

Conventional wisdom informs us that impeachment proceedings against a sitting President will not happen while the legislative branch is in control of the same party as the President. History bears this out, as impeachment actions against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were all initiated when the House of Representatives was controlled by the opposition party. But with President Trump, history and conventional wisdom may be steering us in the wrong direction, as many establishment Republicans would far prefer Mike Pence as President. Regardless, it is certainly true that divided government would make impeachment easier and the 2018 midterm election looms large.

The unfolding James Comey testimony, and in particular his opening statement published a day earlier, has precipitated predictably contradictory analysis of whether the threshold for impeachment has been crossed or not.

That is the Question
For those of us of a certain age, the question of what it takes to impeach a sitting President, or force a President to resign under threat of impeachment, is not a hypothetical historical exercise. We've seen it twice in our lifetime. We saw President Clinton impeached but not convicted. We saw President Nixon resign under threat of impeachment. In both cases, congressional leadership from the party of the President calling out the President were critical factors.  In both cases, there was an evidentiary Rubicon that had to be crossed before impeachment became a realistic possibility.

Dear Democrats - about that 2018 House election - Here's your silver lining playbook.

UPDATED*: 20-June-2017 

Democratic hopeful Jon Ossoff came close in his initial bid to win the reliably Republican Georgia 6th congressional district. He finished first in the April election with a large plurality over a fractured Republican field but failed to secure a majority. Ossoff will face faced and narrowly lost* to second place finisher Republican Karen Handel in a June 20 runoff. Promoted as a proxy for Democratic resistance to the Trump administration, the mixed results gave both parties plenty of "spin" space. Whether it was a victory, loss, moral victory, repudiation of President Donald Trump, bellwether for the 2018 midterms, GOP wakeup call, or some mix of all the above can and will be debated.

In the bigger scheme of things, it's just one district that should and probably will stayed* Republican. By itself GA-06 is not all that important. What is important - very important - is what happens in the 2018 midterms. Can Democrats can wrest majority control of the House of Representative from the GOP, restore divided government, and provide real oversight of the Trump administration?

On that score, the Dividist can show Democrats a silver lining around the dark cloud of 2016 and offer a ray of hope for 2018. But to explain it, we must first digress through a bit of history.

Six pundits and one poll that got the election right and what they've said since - seriously & literally.

 They got it right. 

Let's get this out of the way: The Dividist got the 2016 Presidential election wrong. It is not unexpected for the Dividist to advocate for a continuing divided government state and vote. That is, after all, the raison d'etre for this blog. But the Dividist went beyond advocacy in 2016. We confidently predicted that we would continue to see a divided government in 2017 and into the foreseeable future. The Dividist even considered declaring victory and shuttering this blog post-election. We fantasized about triumphantly proclaiming "Our job here is done".  Yeah, that didn't happen. We now have One Party Republican Rule, a Unified Government and the Dividist has work to do.

With the passage of time, and with judicious use of Third Person Plural, the Dividist has created enough distance from the election to get back to work and begin posting again.

Misery loves company. Company is comforting. Who else got it wrong? Besides the Dividist, pretty much everybody:

 They got it wrong. 

The reader may recall that in the closing days of the election the most respected polling analysts in the country were fighting flame wars over whether Clinton had a 71%, 85% or 99% chance of being our next President. In case you didn't notice, she finished with a 0% chance of becoming President. We'll let Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball represent all the failed pundits, pollsters and prognosticators with this straightforward Mea Maxima Culpa:

"We heard for months from many of you, saying that we were underestimating the size of a potential hidden Trump vote and his ability to win. We didn’t believe it, and we were wrong. The Crystal Ball is shattered. We’ll pick up the pieces starting next week as we try to unpack what happened in this election, where there was so much dramatic change from just four years ago. We have a lot to learn, and we must make sure the Crystal Ball never has another year like this. This team expects more of itself, and we apologize to our readers for our errors."

Credit where it is due. Not everybody got it wrong. There were more than a few voices from across the political spectrum that saw the writing on the wall. Those of us who "knew" Trump was going to lose either dismissed or laughed at them when we should have listened. So let us listen to a few notables who got it right. Let's listen to what they said before the election and what they've said since.

Just Vote Dividist - 2016 Election Edition

 Choose Wisely 

Welcome to the sixth election eve "Just Vote Dividist" post. This blog was started in 2006 to advocate a divided government voting heuristic.  In this post we suggest a specific divided government vote for the 2016 election.

In light of the media angst surrounding our presidential choices this cycle, we'll begin by repeating one critically important and almost universally overlooked point. The President of the United States is not the government of the United States. The President of the United States is not even necessarily the leader of the government of the United States.

We're Not Electing a President -  We're Electing a Government
The executive is one of three co-equal branches of government. The government of the United States is led by the Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader representing their respective democratic institutions, in concert with the President of the United States. The personalities, interpersonal relationships, communication skills, ideological motivation, partisan loyalties, personal ambitions, institutional obligations and dynamic interactions between those three leaders determine the domestic policy and international posture that governs the United States.

The President is also the leader of a political party. When we have a unified one party government, the President may function as the leader of of the United States government if the president's party demonstrate sufficient partisan discipline. When we have a divided government, leadership of the United States government is just as likely to reside in the Congress as it is in the Executive branch. We'll come back to this point, but first some context to explain why divided government is good for us.

The Haunting Specter of Divided Government

It happens every election year. As the Halloween electoral landscape comes into focus, Republicans and Democrats stake out their positions on the prospect for a divided federal government. The usual partisan hypocrisy abides. Partisans who see an opportunity for Unified One Party Rule will decry the evils of divided government. Partisans who fear their party being shut out of power will extol the virtues of checks, balances, and the restraint on power found in a politically divided government. Neither party exhibits any shame when flip-flopping their feelings about divided government from one cycle to the next.

This year there is less partisan clarity about the prospects of either party regaining One Party Rule than is usually apparent this late in the election cycle. Some of this is fueled by delusions of grandeur on the part of Democrats indulging in Nancy Pelosi's bi-annual fantasy of retaking the House majority (see 2014, 2012 & 2010 prognostications of the Once And Never Again Speaker).

The Dividist staked out a position on the 2016 election in a pre-election post shortly before the 2014 midterms ...

"In 2016 Democrats will enjoy many of the structural advantages that favor Republicans in 2014. There is a high probability that a Republican majority in the Senate will not last beyond the 2016 election. If we go into that election with Republicans in majority control of both legislative branches, it makes the divided government vote easy to determine. There will be a greater risk of Single Party Republican Rule, so the 2016 Dividist vote will be for the Democratic candidate for president. A strong Republican presidential candidate could have the coattails to retain the Senate and usher in another era of One Party Republican rule. Even with a strong Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, the Republicans will be likely to retain the House and we get divided government for another 2 to 4 years. QED ... And yes, under those circumstances, the Dividist will gladly support and vote for Hillary Clinton for her third term as President."

 ... and never looked back. Two years later, nothing significant has changed. The Republican House majority is a lock, the Senate is a coin flip, and Hillary Clinton is poised to begin her 3rd term as President of the United States.

Under these circumstances, we would normally expect Democrats to be waxing eloquently on the virtues of divided government. We would expect Republicans to be fear-mongering the prospect of gridlocked government unable to deal with the dire threats posed to the American way of life by the Democratic Party. To some extent, this is exactly what is happening. But, like in so many aspects of this election cycle, Donald Trump changes the game. So instead, we now see principled Republicans and libertarians arguing against voting for Trump, preferring a vote for a Clinton presidency shackled by a divided government.  And we see some deluded Democrats arguing for an implausible return to One Party Democratic Rule hoping that Trump blowback will nationalize the House elections in their favor. In this case, it is the principled Republicans who are grounded in electoral reality.

Investors Love Divided Government - Algo Enhanced 2016 Edition -

UPDATED: 02-Nov-2016 

 Algos For Hillary 

So this happened. Last week the stock market was percolating along with moderate gains on the back of positive economic news and earnings results. Then, on Friday (28-Oct-2016) FBI director James Comey released a letter to Congress indicating FBI investigators found additional Clinton private server e-mails. The new e-mails may or may not have any relevance to his prior testimony but, in an abundance of caution, Comey informed Congress. The DJ Industrial average immediately dropped almost 200 points. 

This NPR story was typical of business media coverage: "The Stock Market Stumbles After Friday's Clinton Email News."

"Around the time that the email news broke, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted from a peak of 18,255 to a trough of 18,097. That's not quite 1 percent, but the sharp drop, albeit small, is a sign of a broader storyline that has persisted through this election: that investors are scared of a Trump presidency."

Partisan bluster aside, after it became apparent that breathless mainstream and social media reporting was less than meets the eye or that can be supported from the actual content of Comey's letter, the market recovered most of the midday losses.

 CNBC "Closing Bell" wraps it up:

Stunning Gallup Poll Finds Voter Preference For Divided Government Slipping vs. Council Of Elrond

Gallup runs this poll every election cycle and every time the Dividist must explain why there is far less than meets the eye in any conclusion based on this poll. The headline conclusion in the 2016 edition of this Gallup Poll is "In U.S., Preference for Divided Government Lowest in 15 Years":

"STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 20% of Americans say they want divided government

• Fewer Republicans want divided government now than four years ago

• Fewer Democrats want the same party to control Congress than four years ago

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- One in five Americans believe it is best for the president to be from one political party and for Congress to be controlled by another, the lowest level of public support for divided government in Gallup's 15-year trend. The remainder are evenly divided between those who favor one party controlling both the presidency and Congress (36%) and those saying it makes no difference how political power is allocated (36%)."

I am sympathetic to their plight. Gallup's clear intent is to use the same poll question year after year in order to divine trends over many election cycles. To do that, they must ask the identical question every time. The problem is that the question they've asked every year since 2002 is deeply flawed as it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual choice American voters make when they go to the polls.