Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

Just found this. Keep it up!

[Thunderbird is the word]

I really enjoy the stylistic touch of writing from the perspective of a future history book.
I've recently been toying with the idea of doing a timeline but from having it open from the vantage point of just average people discussing politics fifty years or so in the future. I could very well see a generation or so in the future this current era being looked back on as the "failed outsider age" in the same way we look back on the early twentieth century as the progressive era and comparisons between Obama, Trump and they're respective movements being made and seen as similar since oftentimes the further away you get from an era the more the nuances of that era are missed. Like how people now would see TR and Wilson as both emblematic of the progressive era despite significant differences in there worldviews. But yeah, keep up the good work!

Exactly. Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt were similar people in terms of the ideology (although with important differences). As it would turn out the Populist era presaged the New Deal two decades later.

You should absolutely give your timeline a shot. I have a couple of notebooks here filled with notes, sketches of stories, ideas, and plain out writing my thoughts.

The timeline helps me articulate where we're going as a society and what that means for our future. For me I feel the next decade is going to be extremely consequential and will be a turning point. So I write and as you can tell I try to follow the trends of history.

I try to write in three voices. 1) Newspapers 2) History 3) TIME Magazine pieces. And occasionally I do meta to guide the reader.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I look forward to your timeline.

Excellent thoughts, thank you!

[The_Doctor]

Global Nationalist Storms Abound

January 2020 -- (Washington, D.C.) As President Pence took power, the world remained in a definitively nationalist mood. The Islamic State remained a threat, but China and Russia began to grapple with internal tensions that threatened to draw their attention inwards.

The United States, from 2017 to late 2019, chose to try to unite with Russia to defeat ISIS and left the Crimean question unanswered (which suited all parties). However, with the re-ascent of the anti-Russian hawks in the Republican Party, the White House recalibrated and is now focusing attention on Eastern Europe, as a way of forcing pressure on Russia. To that end, the United States demanded a peaceful settlement for Ukraine that "recognized democratic rights and international norms." Russia was not happy about this and the sanctions, never fully lifted, were under discussion of being tightened.

Obviously, even as America turned the screws on Russia, they worked together in the Middle East for their shared interest. Inadvertently, the Great Russian Reset of 2017 had ended up in the exact same place as 2009: gone, and the two countries worked together when it suited their interests and acted in an adversarial posture when it didn't.

China - a favorite punching bag of President Trump - remained on uneasy footing with the United States. With an internal state capitalistic economy that was undergoing serious damage, China's leadership was in no mood to deal with the aggressive Americans. President Trump had bullied them into renegotiating their currency but beyond that, the Trump Administration had settled for saber rattling.

China outwardly seemed fine but internal tensions were beginning to rip it apart, and Xi Jinping spent most of 2018 and 2019 trying to reform the bloated power and economic structure of China while contending with an aggressive American posture in the Pacific Ocean and South Sea. Oddly, this was one area where President Trump had the most success in negotiations - limited as it was. China could not afford an aggressive America pushing its advantage while it struggled with domestic tensions.  Internally, people were warning of China's economy possibly collapsing and thus leading to Beijing's collapse. Official Beijing refused to give credence to these rumors but they were persisting.

Turkey rose as a regional power, with Recciyp Erdogan becoming a power player in the Middle East. Turkey was forced to confront the Islamic State to its eastern borders, as Syria recovered from a brutal civil war. To that end, Erdogan - allied with the Russians and the Americans - began aggressively pushing back ISIS from Turkey's borders and took a strong hand in confronting the ever-expanding Islamic State. Assad was basically Putin's client vassal, so Syria joined the Turks in fighting ISIS. An uneasy alliance was forged between Assad and Erdogan, brokered by Putin. The Kurds, of course, were ignored in all this, even as they protested and resisted Erdogan.

Meanwhile, Iraq was in a state of collapse. Years of civil war and a rising Islamic State, allies in turmoil, and a broiling region (geopolitically) had enabled the Islamic State to become a major presence in Iraq. Iraq's weakened government could only watch as city by city fell, much to the dismay of all involved. America's hesitance to be involved had limited the American involvement there, creating a power vacuum. Russia tried but it couldn't contain the Islamic state's rise.

Over in India, the BJP won a second term as Narendra Modi gained a second term as Prime Minister. The BJP had finally wrested a majority in the Raj Sabha and gained the power to usher in sweeping reforms.  

In France, President LePen followed Trump's lead in cracking down on Muslims, banning the niqab, and railing against the (ever weakening) European Union. Germany's Angela Merkel, heavily weakened and reliant on a grand coalition after the ADP won second place in 2017, could not do much but feebly protest. Italy's bank crisis had deepened, and the government dissolved in 2017, with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi returning to power in a surprise bid in the 2018 Italian elections.

Merkel's hand as "Queen of Europe" has vastly weakened, to put it politely. After highly contentious elections in 2017 that put the ADP (a right wing Neo-Nazi party) in second place forced Merkel to strike a bargain for a grand coalition, Germany's position in Europe has been steadily weakening. Holding together a dying European Union as the continent fragmented, Germany's internal and external pressures are worsening, not lightening.

The European Union, was for all intents and purposes, slowly collapsing. Nation after nation was starting to buck it, with Greece in the lead. The Greek debt crisis continued, with negotiations continually collapsing. The reforms proposed by the European Union fell flat with Athens as collective bargaining and budget targets remained a contentious source of dispute. Greece wanted to return to the bonds market in 2018, but squabbling left the two sides unable to even agree. With Brexit on the books, Greece followed through and declared independence from the European Union.  Increasingly, Germany and the European Union looked fragile and weak.

The United States did little to stop this. President Pence, backed by a coalition of American skeptics headquartered in the South and the Midwest, who looked askance at the European Union, could not muster the political capital to back up Chancellor Merkel as President Obama (whose own more internationalist coalition empowered him and gave him a freer hand).

Great Britain saw some of the most wrenching changes, however. Scotland petitioned for independence, in late 2018, and First Minister Nicole Sturgeon vigorously campaigned. The May Government tried, as Cameron had, to hold Scotland in the United Kingdom, but it was all for naught. By a 52-48% margin, Scotland declared independence in 2019 and talks were underway on granting Scotland it's independence. Nationalism had taken a toll and Scotland had doubled down on the nationalist fever sweeping Europe. Scotland's independence fittingly coincided with the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King George VII (Charles). England's longest reigning monarch would leave behind her a Golden Age of British post-World War unity - a unity that ended upon her death.

Everywhere, the nationalist mood was deepening, hardening, as old supra-nationalist institutions began to collapse. With the hardening isolationist tone in the United States, in the face of a fragmenting world, the American role was receding, and in its place, a growing series of power vacuums were emerging.

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

First Minister Alex Salmond

What happened to Nicola Sturgeon?

[The_Doctor]

First Minister Alex Salmond

What happened to Nicola Sturgeon?

Whoops. I mean her. I thought Salmond was still First Minister. I'll change it.

[Mike Thick]

Sorry if you've covered this already, but how are LGBT rights looking at this point?

[The_Doctor]

Sorry if you've covered this already, but how are LGBT rights looking at this point?

Mike Pence has begun conversion therapy for the gays. At this point gay marriage remains legal as no Republican wants to relitigate that. Adoption rights vary state to state.  Given the blowback in Indiana when he was governor, President Pence isn't that interested in a national RTFR law.

Some federal gay benefits were cut but by and large the movement won.  Transgender rights are however stalled because Americans arent quite sure how to tackle that (although North Carolina's “bathroom law“ backfiring is deterring the Republicans from trying more).

Basically a limbo for transgender people, while the rest solidify what they've won.

[The_Doctor]

Note: I am going to learn from my lessons in 2015. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on the Democratic primaries in 2020. I picked people I think that will run and represent the wings of the Party that will be struggling for control in 2020 and how the Democrats will be changing. The Republicans, to save us all a lot of time, re-nominated Pence-Haley easily.

We're also down to our final 14 articles. (74 written so far. Ugh)

Democrats Look Ahead to 2020: Brown and Cuomo Square Off

March 2020 -- (Chicago, Illinois) The Democratic nomination to date has been rocky and tumultuous. The two wings of the party - the Sanders liberal wing versus the more moderate Clinton wing - have been at war as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Sherrod Brown battle for the Democratic nomination.

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) announced his bid for the Presidency after a successful re-election victory in Albany, where he won 61-36%. Styling himself as a pragmatic liberal who was a successful deal maker, the Governor campaigned on the kind of transactional liberalism that Barack Obama trafficked in. While clearly liberal, he was far more transactional than his main Democratic rival, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). The Governor fundraised off Wall Street and the financial sector, relying on a major donor network amassed from his days in Albany. Ideologically, he was more Clinton than Sanders, but he was pretty close to both 2016 candidates ideologically. He was the Democratic Party's wine track candidate, cautiously a free trader and in favor of reforms like universal college education. Backed by the Clintonite supporters of 2016 (like Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) (who endorsed him after his failed bid), former Gov. Jerry Brown (D-Calif.), and others in the Democratic establishment. Cuomo was widely understood to have the backing of the Clinton campaign machine, as well.

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who had convincingly trounced Treasurer Josh Mandel (again) by a sound 56-41% margin in 2018, now campaigned for the Presidency as Bernie Sanders' heir and talked about the need to combat income inequality and unfair trade deals that had cost Ohioans and Midwesterners their jobs. He was backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and other radicals (including Gov. Richard Cordray (D-Ohio). He railed against free trade deals and talked about single payer, An unabashed liberal, he argued the Democratic coalition needed to beat President Pence with a rallying cry that would win coastal and heartland populists alike. Sen. Brown relied on a grassroots base and small donations, much as Sen. Bernie Sanders had.

Both men campaigned on the idea of true immigration reform, stopping RyanCare, and on campaign finance reform. Surprisingly, both Democrats endorsed a more hawkish line on Russia and urged the United States to take a stronger line in international affairs (although Cuomo favored intervening in Syria-like conflicts while Brown opposed them). And of course, former President Trump came in for a solid round of being the Democratic bete noir. Essentially, both men agreed more than disagreed and their disagreements were peripheral, much as it had been in 2016. The style was what mattered; whether to take Gov. Andrew Cuomo's more nuanced pragmatic dealmaker style or Sen. Sherrod Brown's fiery grassroots oriented style.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J) had been an early contender, but bowed out after a disappointing finish in Iowa. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) had contemplated running as did Sen. Warren, but both backed out, as did Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). John Hickenlooper had decided to run for President, but a disappointing finish in New Hampshire doomed him. Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) had made noises but ultimately took a pass. Most of the first term Democratic Governors were unwilling to take on the race so early in their terms as they rebuilt the state party and President Pence was in decent shape (at 51% approval, 44% disapproval).

Brown won Iowa's caucuses, but Cuomo took New Hampshire. In South Carolina, Brown took the state 53-44% and won Nevada 51-46%, and now Super Tuesday looms to decide the Democratic nomination.

Polling shows that President Pence is locked in a tight battle for re-election with either man.  

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I'm surprised the fields so small.

[The_Doctor]

I'm surprised the fields so small.

Short answer: I wanted to get to the matchups as soon as possible and given my primary forecasting was horrible last time (to be fair? Trump wasn't even a candidate when I wrote the '16 election timeline)  I chose to kind of go to the final two showdown on the Dem side. I wanted to show the clash between the party's wings and then go to the General election.

[The_Doctor]

Notes: I might do a Pence article of some kind today on how the GOP is approaching 2020. Also there's a GOP Congress & Gubernatorial article. Also, now that I think of it, we need to check in on the old coot from Vermont. Around 13-15 more articles to go ... maybe I can get this done by Inauguration Day!

I need a ghost writer. This will all equal 85 - 90 articles when done.

Also, leave comments if you want me to do Election Night like I did in the old thread, where I called it state by state and re-simulated the actual election night. (NB: Once again, I nailed the winning state: Pennsylvania.)

Democratic Nomination Settled: Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)

(April 2020) -- (Columbus, Ohio). Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) emerged as the Democratic Presidential nominee after defeating Gov. Andrew Cuomo convincingly in the Super Tuesday primaries. Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden announced their endorsement of Senator Brown as he cemented his leadership over the Democratic Party as the Party's nominee. Governor Cuomo graciously conceded to the nominee-in-waiting.

Brown's victory sets up the stage for a faceoff against President Mike (R-Ind.). Brown, representing the more populist liberal wing of the Democratic Party, is poised to take the battle to the incumbent Republicans in the White House. The nominee also represents a victory for the Sanders forces, which has spent four years to cement their presence in the Democratic Party. The Clinton forces and the more moderate Democratic establishment found themselves on the receiving end of a successful minor insurgency.

The Brown campaign had focused on replicating Bernie Sanders' strength among the grassroots and mobilized them. They had relied on small donations and a liberal message to fire up the masses, expertly using social media and apps to connect and energize Democrats in the primaries. They had castigated Cuomo as a tool of the powerful forces that had held the party captive and led to Trump's victory in 2016. Brown himself was most at home delivering a fiery spiel, focused on trade, manufacturing, and restoring economic prosperity for the forgotten 50%.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo had tried to win heavyweight endorsements, corner the major Democratic donors, and the major social liberal groups (NARAL, NOW, NAACP, etc). He also had campaigned extensively as a synthesis of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's Democratic ideology: a pragmatic liberal New York reformer who had worked with the GOP State Senate to enact progressive measures. Where Cuomo had failed was like in New York, where he had failed to win much excitement from the party's base and core voters. Many saw him as Prince Andrew, the well heel dynastic son of Mario Cuomo who thought his pride of place was to lead the Democratic Party back to glory.

Brown had lost New York, California, New England, and the Pacific Coasts for the nomination - but performed well enough in the South, Midwest, caucus interior states, and split the Sunbelt to win the nomination. A blue collar Democrat, wine track Democrats were willing to endorse him but Cuomo had been their first choice to lead the Party. He had won the backing of unions and powerful blue collar Democratic groups across the country.

The Democratic Party had realigned - in a way. They had embraced their Rust Belt brethren and their more populist side while slowly jettisoning the corporate wing. The Senator was a clear indicator that Bernie Sanders' war to remake the Democratic Party in his image was bearing some fruit. Brown had vehemently campaigned against Wall Street and Goldman Sachs, bearing in mind Hillary's bitter loss in 2016 over the Rust Belt.

Meanwhile, the Democratic vice presidential search centered on Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), former HUD Secretary Julian Castro (D-Tex.), and surprisingly, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). The Ohio Senator wanted to unite the entire party behind his campaign.

Polling averages indicate a narrow Pence lead of 46-44% and an electoral college map of 200 electoral votes for the Democratic nominee, and 164 for the GOP nominee. Messr. Brown has wide polling leads in every state Madam Secretary won by at least 5 points (including Virginia). Meanwhile, the President holds leads in every state former President Trump won by 5 points. That leaves Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada as tossups.

The President leads by narrow margins in Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Iowa; while the Senator leads by a hair in Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire. The rest are close to pure tossup. Ohio has a lean Brown polling of 3-4 points.

The Conventions would be of interest. The GOP was holding their convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while the Democrats held their convention in New York (no word if a former ex-president had decided to attend or not. Or two of them, really!).

[The_Doctor]

Meta Programming Notes.

The next few articles taking us to November 2020. I need to jump back a year and solve a few lingering issues before we go to the fall election. I'd like to...reasonably wrap this up by next week, and do a sprint to 2024 by Inauguration Day. But that may be difficult because the 2021-2025 term is very meaty.

The timeline will end with an epilogue in around 2025.

01. ObamaCare under the GOP: 2019 Face Off (2019)
02. The Opiod Crisis: the Republican Response (2019)
03. The Conventions: Brown v. Pence.
04. The Brutal Fall Campaign
05. Election Night 2020.
06. Inauguration Day 2021 and the New Term's Promise

[The_Doctor]

Schumer, McConnell negotiate ObamaCare Deal

(October 2019) -- (Washington DC).  In a tense standoff over the fate of the ObamaCare law, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) negotiated a resolution to the healthcare law. Schumer won many concessions from the GOP leadership, who were unwilling to risk a voter backlash in the aftermath of the Trump resignation.

The simple reality was that the law had covered many people and ripping away their insurance risked a major backlash that could have propelled the Democrats to victory. The Democrats held all the cards here and the GOP knew it. McConnell knew it, which is why the GOP had delayed the law's reforms to 2019. The drug companies also knew it, which is why they pressured the GOP to keep much of the law.

It was a stunning victory for the Democrats that a divided GOP chose to uphold much of the law with minor reforms. Analysts noted that the law's core came from the Heritage Foundation, in the 1980s and 1990s. But still, it was amazing, given the GOP's decade long furious opposition.

The GOP made the same calculations that their forebears in the 1920s and the 1950s had made. After Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt's reforms the GOP had calculated that the political damage of repeal would be too high and chose to tweak around the edges. The conservative base was outraged each time but over time, came to accept these new laws as woven into the fabric of society. The time to really stop the law had been in 2012, but Governor Romney had lost the election and the law went into high gear.
 
President Pence had expanded Medicare in Indiana in cooperation with the Obama Administration, which signaled he knew very well the danger of ripping out the expansion. He also understood well the exchanges were popular.

The whole thing had started with kabuki theater. Schumer vowed that it was all or nothing. McConnell threatened to gut the entire law and blame the Democrats for being obstructionist. The White House doubled down on "holding the line." All Washington drew to the deadline like moths to a flame.

As the deadline neared, McConnell and Schumer engaged in feverish backchannel talking, which became a form of kabuki theater enmeshed in negotiation in itself. Both sides tried to one up each other and to get as many concessions as possible. As the final days bore down on them, McConnell and Schumer cut a deal and informed the rest of Washington what it was (the Majority Leader briefed the White House continuously throughout)

The mandate stayed in place. It was explained - in brute terms - to the GOP leadership and the White House that the mandate held the law together and forced everyone to pay into the pool and put "skin in the game." The law would have a death spiral if the mandate was eliminated.

Tax credits were expanded to buy healthcare and the "risk corridors" were shored up (in a dramatic reversal after the '14 Rubio amendment gutted the funding for them). Some parts of the law were curtailed - Medicare's expansion was allowed to stay, but with more stringent requirements for future beneficiaries and a work requirement attached (as well as vastly more leeway for the states). A pilot program for block grants to the states for Medicare was also worked in. But since RyanCare had failed in '17, the GOP didn't go too far on this front.

Obscure parts like mammography requirements and the like were gutted from the law (something the GOP crowed about). But in the end, the GOP spun it as a major conservative victory - but it was anything but. The Daily Kos crowed howled in outrage and Schumer came under heavy fire from the left - but it was kind of like the '11 budget deal that Obama had negotiated - the one where he got a budget deal that allegedly cut billions but really cut hundreds of millions of dollars. The Right roared in fury and threatened primary challenges all around. (Frankly, a paper tiger of a threat: most rank and file Republicans looked to the White House for guidance on nomination contests).

In the final vote, furious Republicans threatened to filibuster the law in the Senate and a significant segment of House Republicans voted no. So did some House Democrats, but nowhere as near as many. The law cleared the lower chamber 357-75 and 84-16, with both the Democratic leadership and the White House furiously lobbying.

Schumer walked away with most of the law intact, the GOP walked away with some reforms, and Obama saw a critical component of his legacy upheld.

EDIT 3/15/2017: Read this article for more interesting details.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The opioid epidemic has hit my family like millions of others, so I'm excited to see what Trump/Pence does to stop it. Rubio is apparently pretending to be a Senator again and is making waves.

[The_Doctor]

The opioid epidemic has hit my family like millions of others, so I'm excited to see what Trump/Pence does to stop it. Rubio is apparently pretending to be a Senator again and is making waves.

Yes - there is a major subtext here that will be addressed, regarding the opioid epidemic and how it has hit communities that largely voted Trump/Pence. I almost forgot about it but it will be a key subtext of 2020 or one of these under the radar issues.

Rubio features somewhat in the story I have in mind.

[The_Doctor]

Feedback welcome - have we covered immigration and the Wall in sufficient detail? (Yes there was a wall. Yes there was a restriction on legal immigration. Yes, there were deportations. No. It didn't cause as major a wave of outrage as you thought).

[The_Doctor]

Note: The next story will deal with the drug epidemic and why it matters for 2020. Then we do the 2020 showdown and then that puts 2020 into the history books (at least, in our timeline).  

The Dog That Didn't Bark: Immigration and the Wall

(May 2019) -- (Washington, D.C.) Liberals expected President Trump to receive heavy blowback on the wall and immigration restrictions upon becoming President. It never materialized to the level expected. The simple reason was that it was the dog that didn't bark. Donald Trump had campaigned explicitly on the wall all campaign long and won 46% of the vote based on it. Trump, at his convention speech, had called for restrictions on legal immigration, as a matter of fact. In short, the public knew that Trump had a definite position on this, knew that he would execute it, and knew he would honor logistical limits on immigration restrictions.

Start with what Trump did do. He built the wall or at least, significantly expanded on George W. Bush's wall that had been built during the 2000s. This was not a controversial move as fencing and walls were alongside the Mexico-U.S. border since the 1990s and earlier. The public may have disapproved of Trump doing it because of the connotations but the key blocs of Trump's support didn't oppose the idea.

Deportations began in Spring 2017 and continued into 2018 and 2019. President Obama had initiated the deportations and they just became more aggressive under President Trump. Most Americans were used to this by now and the Latino community, powerful as it was, was not yet electorally strong enough to prevent the deportations.

Second, the law that was enacted in 2017 that restricted legal immigration and limited HB-1 visas (to the outrage of Silicon Valley) was designed to deliver on the essential promise of restricting access to the pool of labor that native Americans were in and competed for jobs with. Of course, the whole move was freighted with the undertones of "others" coming to dominate America, which is why so many of Trump's supporters backed the law. Sharing that base of supporters included most of the Republican Congress. As a result, Congress limited legal immigration and funded the wall. (Mexico did not pay for it. We did). It was a law that Donald Trump signed with some apparent glee.

The Latino community was furious and outraged. The Republicans were impervious to it beyond those already reliant on them (or looking to secure their support in the future). The Trump Administration promised supporters that immigration reform would be on the docket in 2018, enabling Senators like Marco A. Rubio (R-Fla.) to support the President. Trump himself had won 29% of the Latino vote (or 26%, depending on who you asked), and his political base was in the very white Midwest, the I-4 corridor of Florida, and the rural and white suburbs of North Carolina. In short, the GOP pushed the law through with very little fear that their voting blocs would penalize them. The GOP also calculated (accurately) that their base would punish them if they didn't take punitive measures on immigration against the newcomers, so in a sense, fear became the great driver. The Republican Party had become a party that had gone from viewing the electorate in 10-20 year spans to fighting the 2018 and 2020 elections, and letting future generations of Republican leaders to litigate 2024 and 2028.

The Democrats, taking a strategic view, opposed the law. They understood well that this had the potential to lock in Latinos into the Democratic Party permanently (at least, for the next 20-30 years) and limit the GOP victories to 50-51% of the vote. The Democratic math was simple. Hold 35% to 40% of the white vote, swamp 90% of the black vote, take 65-70% of the Latino-Asian vote. But in the immediate future, where whites were projected to still be around 68% of the vote in 2020, the strategy merely limited the GOP vote rather than delivering majorities to the Democratic Party.

One part of the law had real world economic ramifications that had potential consequences. The HB-1 visa that allowed skilled foreigners to apply for technology visas to work in Silicon Valley was heavily restricted, in a bit of nativist nationalism. The result was that the technology sector was poised to take a hit around 2021-2022 as the brain pool shrunk.

The Republican strategists, after Trump's resignation, chose to shelve immigration reform for 2021. The waters were too troubled and the base highly restless after the implosion of the Trump Administration to risk another 2006 style showdown over immigration reform.

[Frodo]

Any updates?

[The_Doctor]

Note: This is the last issue - oriented post before the 2020 elections coverage. After this, we'll be covering the 2020 presidential and congressional elections.

The GOP takes on the Opioid Epidemic

(February 2020) -- (Washington, D.C.) -- President Pence and the Republican Congressional majority took on the pressing issue of the opioid epidemic in February 2020. The political calculus was simple. The communities hit hardest by the epidemic had voted for Trump/Pence in 2016. The GOP signaled a willingness to take on the issue in 2016 when all the Republican presidential candidates talked about the drug epidemic.

It was a reflection of the time that there was no talk of jailing the drug users, as might have been the case during Reagan. Even as late as the second President Bush, the Republicans had been loath to embrace treatment as an option for drug addiction, rather than prison time. With a bevy of (largely) blue states legalizing marijuana and marijuana legalization support passing 55% in most polls, the GOP was loathe to return to the policies of the ‘80s. They could ill afford to alienate millennial voters who viewed the war on drugs as a failure and even less could they afford to alienate these small town voters who had swung GOP.

Sen. Marco A. Rubio (R-Fla.) took the lead on this issue, having made it a major centerpiece of his re-election victory. He proposed expanding funding to make naloxone available to communities, rehabilitation centers in rural areas, and to increase the number of treatment facilities as well as creating facilities to dispose of drugs. The GOP Senate also approved sentencing reform to divert those convicted of opioid abuse from prison and into treatment facilities. The GOP - led Senate, however, killed a proposal to decriminalize opioids, a remnant of their hostile opinion on drugs.

What the measure did not live up to be was a measure that amounted to criminal justice reform, either. The GOP hardliners and the reformers were split too deeply and the Majority Leader, McConnell, did not want to risk a disunited GOP front. With the elections of 2020 coming up, the GOP was intent to project a united front solving this critical issue.

Senate Democrats went along, since the drug epidemic was also a major issue in their communities. In the House, the measure cleared easily, as it had in the Senate. The President touted the measure and signed the legislation in spring 2020.

Voters largely credited the Republicans, who were in charge of Washington, for taking the lead on the measure (although many polls showed bipartisan credit being given). But the measure helped boost the President as he headed into a tight re-election fight.

[The_Doctor]

Any updates?

Sorry been busy. See above, there's a new article.   Tomorrow or Wednesday will be the Convention, Thursday the Fall 2020 article, Friday Election Night.

[MRX]

I need a ghost writer. This will all equal 85 - 90 articles when done.

Can I be your ghost? Looking to get back into the game on here.

[GoTfan]

How would the Sanders wing take control in 2024 when (presumably) Pence defeats Brown, a noted progressive, in 2020?

[The_Doctor]

I need a ghost writer. This will all equal 85 - 90 articles when done.

Can I be your ghost? Looking to get back into the game on here.

Sure, PM me. We can collaborate.

[The_Doctor]

How would the Sanders wing take control in 2024 when (presumably) Pence defeats Brown, a noted progressive, in 2020?

Can't comment as this would give away a lot of details.

[The_Doctor]

One last FoPo article, then the 2020 Convention. Then a fall article then Election Night 2020 tomorrow. I'll try to squeeze them all in by tomorrow night and we can begin the 2021-2025 term in short order.