Conflict and Kavanaugh

In Defying the Odds, we discuss polarization in the 2016 election.

Lloyd Green at The Financial Times:

Steve Bannon, the president’s former senior adviser, framed the narrative in near-Manichean terms: “The fight for Judge Kavanaugh became a proxy fight for Trump’s presidency — the same howling mob intends to stop his agenda if they win in November. That display of the anarchy to come is what has galvanised and united the right, the grassroots and the establishment in a final drive to victory.” So much for Mr Bannon’s antipathy for Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

Yet a majority of Americans continue to oppose Mr Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Not surprisingly, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat and ranking member of the Senate finance committee saw things very differently from Mr Bannon: “This saga confirmed yet again that we as a society have made little progress toward treating women . . . We can and must do better.” Or maybe not.

If any lesson will be drawn from this latest tussle it is that hyper-partisanship is an almost indelible feature of American politics.

Back in the day, Hamilton Fish, a former New York governor and congressman, served as President Ulysses S Grant’s secretary of state. As the general of the Union army under Lincoln, Grant had defeated the Confederacy.

Decades later, the secretary of state’s great-grandson would return to Congress. There, he represented the same constituents as Mr Faso does today. Hamilton Fish Jr, however, also reached across the aisle, and voted to impeach former president Richard Nixon.

That world is gone. Instead, the embers of the civil war continue to glow red hot.

Update on Fake News

 In Defying the Odds, we discuss social media, fake news, and Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.

From the Knight Foundation:

THIS STUDY IS ONE OF THE LARGEST ANALYSES TO DATE ON HOW FAKE NEWS SPREAD ON TWITTER BOTH DURING AND AFTER THE 2016 ELECTION CAMPAIGN.
Using tools and mapping methods from Graphika, a social media int­elligence firm, we study more than 10 million tweets from 700,000 Twitter accounts that linked to more than 600 fake and conspiracy news outlets. Crucially, we study fake and conspiracy news both before and after the election, allowing us to measure how the fake news ecosystem has evolved since November 2016.
MUCH FAKE NEWS AND DISINFORMATION IS STILL BEING SPREAD ON TWITTER.
Consistent with other research, we find more than 6.6 million tweets linking to fake and conspiracy news publishers in the month before the 2016 election. Yet disinformation continues to be a substantial problem postelection, with 4.0 million tweets linking to fake and conspiracy news publishers found in a 30-day period from mid-March to mid-April 2017. Contrary to claims that fake news is a game of “whack-a-mole,” more than 80 percent of the disinformation accounts in our election maps are still active as this report goes to press. These accounts continue to publish more than a million tweets in a typical day.
JUST A FEW FAKE AND CONSPIRACY OUTLETS DOMINATED DURING THE ELECTION—AND NEARLY ALL OF THEM CONTINUE TO DOMINATE TODAY.
Sixty-five percent of fake and conspiracy news links during the election period went to just the 10 largest sites, a statistic unchanged six months later. The top 50 fake news sites received 89 percent of links during the election and (coincidentally)89 percent in the 30-day period five months later. Critically—and contrary to some previous reports—these top fake and conspiracy news outlets on Twitter are largely stable. Nine of the top 10 fake news sites during the month before the election were still in or near the top 10 six months later.
OUR METHODS FIND MUCH MORE FAKE AND CONSPIRACY NEWS ACTIVITY ON TWITTER THAN SEVERAL RECENT HIGH-PROFILE STUDIES—THOUGH FAKE NEWS STILL RECEIVES SIGNIFICANTLY FEWER LINKS THAN MAINSTREAM MEDIA SOURCES.
Our study finds much more fake news activity than several recent studies, largely because it examines a larger corpus of fake and conspiracy news sites. Fake and conspiracy news sites received about 13 percent as many Twitter links as a comparison set of national news outlets did, and 37 percent as many as a set of regional newspapers.
MOST ACCOUNTS SPREADING FAKE OR CONSPIRACY NEWS IN OUR MAPS ARE ESTIMATED TO BE BOTS OR SEMI-AUTOMATED ACCOUNTS.
Machine learning models estimate that 33 percent of the 100 most-followed accounts in our postelection map—and 63 percent of a random sample of all accounts— are “bots,” or automated accounts. Because roughly 15 percent of accounts in the postelection map have since been suspended, the true proportion of automated accounts may have exceeded 70 percent.
OUR MAPS SHOW THAT ACCOUNTS THAT SPREAD FAKE NEWS ARE EXTREMELY DENSELY CONNECTED.
In both the election-eve and postelection maps, our methods identify an ultra-dense core of heavily followed accounts that repeatedly link to fake or conspiracy news sites. Sites in the core are typically not the highest-volume tweeters of fake news. However, the popularity of these accounts, and heavy co-followership among top accounts, means that fake news stories that reach the core (or start there) are likely to spread widely. The pre-election fake news network is one of the densest Graphika has ever analyzed, necessitating unusual map drawing procedures.
FAKE NEWS DURING THE ELECTION DID NOT JUST ADOPT CONSERVATIVE OR REPUBLICAN-LEANING FRAMES—THOUGH IT HAS BECOME MORE OSTENSIBLY REPUBLICAN SINCE.
While a large majority of fake news came from supposedly pro-Republican and pro-Donald Trump accounts in the month before the election, smaller but still substantial amounts of fake news were passed on by liberal or Democratic-identified accounts. After the election period, though, left-leaning fake news decreased much more than right-leaning fake news.
THERE ARE STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE ROLE OF RUSSIAN-ALIGNED CLUSTERS OF ACCOUNTS POSTELECTION.
In the pre-election map, clusters of accounts affiliated with Russia serve a broker- age role, serving as a cultural and political bridge between liberal U.S. accounts and European far-right accounts. Postelection, however, accounts in the Russia cluster have become more peripheral, while the International Conspiracy | Activist cluster (which similarly spreads pro-Russia content) is spread broadly through the map. This structure suggests that international conspiracy-focused accounts have become more important as brokers of fake news postelection.
MOST OF THE ACCOUNTS THAT LINKED REPEATEDLY TO FAKE AND CONSPIRACY NEWS DURING THE ELECTION ARE STILL ACTIVE.
Twitter has claimed repeatedly that it has cracked down on automated accounts that spread fake news and engage in “spammy behavior.” Yet of the 100 accounts that were most active in spreading fake news in the months before the election—the large majority clearly engaged in “spammy behavior” that violates Twitter’s rules— more than 90 were still active as of spring 2018. Overall, 89 percent of accounts in our fake and conspiracy news map remained active as of mid-April 2018. The persistence of so many easily identified abusive accounts is difficult to square with any effective crackdown.
A FEW DOZEN ACCOUNTS CONTROLLED BY RUSSIA’S INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY APPEAR IN OUR MAPS—BUT HUNDREDS OF OTHER ACCOUNTS WERE LIKELY MORE IMPORTANT IN SPREADING FAKE NEWS.
Of the more than 2,700 IRA accounts named publicly as of this writing, 65 are included in at least one of our maps. The IRA accounts in our maps include several accounts that were widely quoted in U.S. media, such as @WarfareWW, @TEN_GOP and @Jenn_Abrams. Most of the publicly known IRA accounts are filtered from our map because of relatively few followers and little measurable influence. Plenty of other accounts, though, do tweet in lockstep with the Kremlin’s message, including hundreds of accounts with more followers than top IRA trolls.
THERE IS EVIDENCE OF COORDINATED CAMPAIGNS TO PUSH FAKE NEWS STORIES AND OTHER TYPES OF DISINFORMATION.
Most news stories on Twitter follow a statistically regular pattern: The rate of new links ramps up quickly (but not instantly), peaks in an hour or two, and then decays in an exponential, statistically regular fashion. But many fake news stories do not follow this nearly universal pattern. Organized blocks of accounts appear to coordinate to extend the life cycle of selected news stories and hashtags. Segments of our maps associated with Russian propaganda are key participants in these campaigns, and many of these efforts align strongly with Russian goals and interests.
COORDINATED CAMPAIGNS SEEM TO OPPORTUNISTICALLY AMPLIFY CONTENT THEY DID NOT CREATE.
Public discussion has often vacillated between portraying fake news as an organic, small-scale phenomenon driven by ad dollars, and characterizing it as the product of massive coordinated efforts by state actors. Our data tell a more complicated story, in which some narratives are carefully crafted, but others are amplified because they fit with the agenda of those running these campaigns. This is the information warfare equivalent of giving air cover to a rebel group, using outside technology and resources to augment otherwise-weak organic efforts.
ONE CASE STUDY SUGGESTS THAT CONCERTED ACTION AGAINST NONCREDIBLE OUTLETS CAN DRASTICALLY REDUCE THEIR AUDIENCE
The Real Strategy was referenced by more than 700,000 tweets in our election sample, the second-most linked fake or conspiracy news outlet overall. After being tied to a large-scale harassment campaign and the “Pizzagate” falsehood, though, The Real Strategy’s Twitter account was deleted, it was blacklisted on online forums such as Reddit, and a network of supportive bot accounts was partially disrupted. The postelection sample showed only 1,534 tweets to The Real Strategy, a drop of 99.8 percent. This example suggests that aggressive action against fake news outlets can be effective at containing the spread of fake news.

Poll Numbers: Blue House, Blue and Red Stripes in Senate

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

Scott Clement and Dan Balz at WP:

Likely voters who live in 69 battleground House districts across the country narrowly prefer Democratic candidates, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School survey, a potentially worrying sign for Republicans given that the overwhelming percentage of these districts are currently in GOP hands.

With just a month to the midterm elections and with early voting set to begin in many states, the new poll highlights the challenge for Republicans as they seek to maintain their House majority at a time when President Trump’s approval rating remains below 50 percent despite sustained economic growth, low unemployment and a rising stock market.

The survey of 2,672 likely voters by The Post and the Schar School at George Mason University shows that likely voters in these districts favor Democrats by a slight margin: 50 percent prefer the Democratic nominee and 46 percent prefer the Republican. By way of comparison, in 2016 these same districts favored Republican candidates over Democratic ones by 15 percentage points, 56 percent to 41 percent.

CBS:

The battle for Senate control finds Democrats trying to mount upset challenges in a string of typically Republican states, and this round of Battleground Tracker polls shows them having at best mixed results so far. In the closely watched race in Texas, incumbent Republican Ted Cruz has a lead over Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, at six points among likely voters, 50-44.

In Arizona — an open seat in a state that went for President Trump in 2016 — Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has a slight edge over Republican Martha McSally, 47-44.

Tennessee finds Republican Marsha Blackburn with an eight-point lead over Democrat Phil Bredesen, 50-42. Bredesen is a former governor who, having won statewide office before, has given Democrats hope of flipping a red state that Mr. Trump won easily.

Typically blue New Jersey finds Republicans trying to mount an upset of their own against incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez, but Menendez has a sizable 49-39 advantage over Republican challenger Bob Hugin.

These Senate races have been nationalized: By more than two to one, registered voters say national issues outweigh local ones, and voters in all the states surveyed say their vote for the Senate is mainly about the direction of the country over a list of other factors. Across the states, large majorities of each candidate's voters say their vote is explicitly to put either the Democrats or Republicans nationally in control of the Senate. Supporters of each party are about equally likely to say they'll turn out, and more than two-thirds of each describe themselves as very enthusiastic about doing so. There is a bit of difference in Texas, where Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they'll "definitely" vote, which is helping to bolster Cruz.

Heitkamp Explains Her Vote Against Kavanaugh

In Defying the Odds, we discuss how the issue of Supreme Court nominations affected the 2016 race.  The Senate narrowly confirmed Kavanaugh, who immediately took the oath.  Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) voted no, which may hurt her reelection chances in a conservative state.  She explains her vote in a new spot:


 

Wall Street Money Goes Blue

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.  Campaign finance is a big part of the story.

Shane Goldmacher at NYT:

In interviews with two dozen Wall Street executives, fund-raisers, donors and those who raise money from them, Democrats described an extraordinary level of investment and excitement from the finance sector. And many Republicans fretted about a softening of donor enthusiasm — Mr. Short warned of “complacency” — in what has long been one of the party’s most critical and reliable sources of campaign cash.

The numbers are stark.

Four years ago, in the last congressional midterm, Republican incumbents and candidates outraised Democratic counterparts by more than $50 million in direct donations from the broader finance, insurance and real estate industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And in 2016 and 2012, Republicans outraised Democrats from that group by nearly $50 million and $100 million respectively, the data show. This year, Democrats held a narrow $5 million advantage through the middle of the year.

Kavanaugh In

In Defying the Odds, we discuss how the issue of Supreme Court nominations affected the 2016 race.  The Senate narrowly confirmed Kavanaugh, who immediately took the oath.

At WP, Brendan Nyhan writes:

A post-Kavanaugh conservative majority could be vulnerable to a political backlash for a less-appreciated reason. Both Kavanaugh, if confirmed, and Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump’s first appointee to the court, can be considered “minority” justices — judges who were nominated to the Supreme Court by a president who lost the popular vote and would be confirmed by senators representing a minority of Americans.

Of course, the framers designed the court to be “counter-majoritarian,” meaning that it often sides with individuals or principles over popular majorities. However, the court derives some democratic legitimacy from each justice being nominated by an elected president and confirmed by a majority of elected senators. Just this week White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused Democrats of “trying to undercut the voice of the American people when they elected Donald Trump.”

But the breadth of support that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch enjoy is uniquely narrow. First, Trump famously lost the popular vote. In addition, because each state gets two votes in the Senate, regardless of population, the confirmation process overweighs the views of voters in small states, where Republicans tend to dominate. As a result, when the Senate confirms Kavanaugh with support from every Republican present plus one Democrat (which futures markets consider the most likely outcome), a majority of Americans will have had their Senate representatives oppose both Trump nominees.

This scenario is projected in the figure below, which illustrates that no other nominee since 1981 has been put forward by a president who lost the popular vote and confirmed by votes from senators representing a minority of the American public. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch would be outliers in the contemporary era. 

Original Gangsters

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character and record of dishonesty.

Jonathan Swan at Axios:

Sources in Trumpworld who spent their careers attacking McConnell as a weak and corrupt totem of the “establishment” are now praising him for ramming through Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation without flinching.

• “A straight-up gangster,” said one source who had previously dedicated a significant amount of time to trying to destroy McConnell.

It makes sense that someone in Trumpworld would use "gangster" as a compliment.  Trump has long had extensive Mafia connections. 

And a mob boss likely served as a role model of sorts.   In the 1970s, when Trump was coming of age in New York, mob boss Joe Colombo became a celebrity by brazenly denying that he was a mob boss, indeed denying that the Mafia even existed.  Not only did he proudly declare such falsehoods, but he also mobilized white ethnic resentment by launching the Italian American Civil Rights League, claiming that people like him were the real victims of discrimination.