DownWithTyranny!

Babies in Cages by Nancy Ohanian

Part of the answer is their belief that they are engaged in an existential struggle against a wicked enemy-- not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran, but rather American liberals and the left. If you listen to Trump supporters who are evangelical (and non-evangelicals, like the radio talk-show host Mark Levin), you will hear adjectives applied to those on the left that could easily be used to describe a Stalinist regime. (Ask yourself how many evangelicals have publicly criticized Trump for his lavish praise of Kim Jong Un, the leader of perhaps the most savage regime in the world and the worst persecutor of Christians in the world.)

Many white evangelical Christians, then, are deeply fearful of what a Trump loss would mean for America, American culture, and American Christianity. If a Democrat is elected president, they believe, it might all come crashing down around us. During the 2016 election, for example, the influential evangelical author and radio talk-show host Eric Metaxas said, “In all of our years, we faced all kinds of struggles. The only time we faced an existential struggle like this was in the Civil War and in the Revolution when the nation began … We are on the verge of losing it as we could have lost it in the Civil War.” A friend of mine described that outlook to me this way: “It’s the Flight 93 election. FOREVER.”

Many evangelical Christians are also filled with grievances and resentments because they feel they have been mocked, scorned, and dishonored by the elite culture over the years. (Some of those feelings are understandable and warranted.) For them, Trump is a man who will not only push their agenda on issues such as the courts and abortion; he will be ruthless against those they view as threats to all they know and love. For a growing number of evangelicals, Trump’s dehumanizing tactics and cruelty aren’t a bug; they are a feature. Trump “owns the libs,” and they love it. He’ll bring a Glock to a cultural knife fight, and they relish that.

... There's a very high cost to our politics for celebrating the Trump style, but what is most personally painful to me as a person of the Christian faith is the cost to the Christian witness. Nonchalantly jettisoning the ethic of Jesus in favor of a political leader who embraces the ethic of Thrasymachus and Nietzsche-- might makes right, the strong should rule over the weak, justice has no intrinsic worth, moral values are socially constructed and subjective-- is troubling enough.

But there is also the undeniable hypocrisy of people who once made moral character, and especially sexual fidelity, central to their political calculus and who are now embracing a man of boundless corruptions. Don’t forget: Trump was essentially named an unindicted co-conspirator (“Individual 1”) in a scheme to make hush-money payments to a porn star who alleged she’d had an affair with him while he was married to his third wife, who had just given birth to their son.

While on the Pacific Coast last week, I had lunch with Karel Coppock, whom I have known for many years and who has played an important role in my Christian pilgrimage. In speaking about the widespread, reflexive evangelical support for the president, Coppock-- who is theologically orthodox and generally sympathetic to conservatism-- lamented the effect this moral freak show is having, especially on the younger generation. With unusual passion, he told me, “We’re losing an entire generation. They’re just gone. It’s one of the worst things to happen to the Church.”

Coppock mentioned to me the powerful example of St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, who was willing to rebuke the Roman Emperor Theodosius for the latter’s role in massacring civilians as punishment for the murder of one of his generals. Ambrose refused to allow the Church to become a political prop, despite concerns that doing so might endanger him. Ambrose spoke truth to power. (Theodosius ended up seeking penance, and Ambrose went on to teach, convert, and baptize St. Augustine.) Proximity to power is fine for Christians, Coppock told me, but only so long as it does not corrupt their moral sense, only so long as they don’t allow their faith to become politically weaponized. Yet that is precisely what’s happening today.

Evangelical Christians need another model for cultural and political engagement, and one of the best I am aware of has been articulated by the artist Makoto Fujimura, who speaks about “culture care” instead of “culture war.

According to Fujimura, “Culture care is an act of generosity to our neighbors and culture. Culture care is to see our world not as a battle zone in which we’re all vying for limited resources, but to see the world of abundant possibilities and promise.” What Fujimura is talking about is a set of sensibilities and dispositions that are fundamentally different from what we see embodied in many white evangelical leaders who frequently speak out on culture and politics. The sensibilities and dispositions Fujimura is describing are characterized by a commitment to grace, beauty, and creativity, not antipathy, disdain, and pulsating anger. It’s the difference between an open hand and a mailed fist.

Building on this theme, Mark Labberton, a colleague of Fujimura’s and the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, the largest multidenominational seminary in the world, has spoken about a distinct way for Christians to conceive of their calling, from seeing themselves as living in a Promised Land and “demanding it back” to living a “faithful, exilic life.”

Right-wing former GOP congressman assesses Trump

Labberton speaks about what it means to live as people in exile, trying to find the capacity to love in unexpected ways; to see the enemy, the foreigner, the stranger, and the alien, and to go toward rather than away from them. He asks what a life of faithfulness looks like while one lives in a world of fear.

He adds, “The Church is in one of its deepest moments of crisis-- not because of some election result or not, but because of what has been exposed to be the poverty of the American Church in its capacity to be able to see and love and serve and engage in ways in which we simply fail to do. And that vocation is the vocation that must be recovered and must be made real in tangible action.”

There are countless examples of how such tangible action can be manifest. But as a starting point, evangelical Christians should acknowledge the profound damage that’s being done to their movement by its braided political relationship-- its love affair, to bring us back to the words of Ralph Reed-- with a president who is an ethical and moral wreck. Until that is undone-- until followers of Jesus are once again willing to speak truth to power rather than act like court pastors-- the crisis in American Christianity will only deepen, its public testimony only dim, its effort to be a healing agent in a broken world only weaken.

At this point, I can’t help but wonder whether that really matters to many of Donald Trump’s besotted evangelical supporters.

One of PFAW’s exceptional endorsed progressive candidates in Virginia-- Qasim Rashid, whom we’re supporting with our Next Up Victory Fund-- is the target of some extremely bigoted attacks... and they’re not coming from the Right Wing, they’re coming from his Democratic primary opponent.

Qasim’s Democratic opponent in the primary election for state Senate taking place THIS TUESDAY, Laura Sellers, is engaged in an Islamophobic smear campaign against Qasim. Sellers has allegedly asserted that Qasim’s being Muslim makes him unelectable, and has accused him of supporting “Sharia law” and female genital mutilation.

These hateful attacks are shocking and despicable, but thankfully a progressive backlash is building. We and a growing wave of progressives-- including many other local Democrats-- are speaking out against these attacks and rallying to support Qasim.

Vangie Williams, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 1st District wrote:

Hate. Lies. Rumors. Smear tactics. Racism. Islamophobia. None of these things should ever be a part of a political campaign. Sadly, in the 28th Senate District Democratic Primary, these are all things which are being used by Qasim Rashid’s opponent in a desperate attempt to win an election. This kind of campaign is unbecoming of anyone calling themselves a Democrat and it is patently un-American.

These shameful and abhorrent tactics must stop now.

Stafford County Democratic Executive Committee Member Bill Johnson-Miles said:

I usually try my very best to stay neutral when two local Democratic candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination in an upcoming primary election or caucus. However, sometimes you just have to take a stand.

Jess Foster is running for delegate and she announced on her own Facebook page that she has been sickened by Sellers' vicious, ugly attacks on Qasim: "I have learned over the past several weeks that Laura Sellers, Democratic Candidate for Senate 28, has launched an attack campaign against her primary opponent, Qasim Rashid. It is alleged that she has made derogatory statements about his islamic faith, his electability, and accused him of supporting 'Sharia law' and female genital mutilation in an attempt to smear his good name. This is not the way Democrats treat people regardless of race, background, or religion. Denigrating another for political gain is harmful to our party, to our community, and, in this instance, to Qasim and his family. This conduct is unacceptable and I feel compelled to take a stand against it. Qasim is a good man who cares deeply about the community and shares our most cherished values. We would do well to have him in the Virginia Senate. Bringing down another to elevate oneself is poor leadership. Even worse, this particular behavior is islamophobic-- or at very least-- intended to stimulate the unconscious bias and generate fear. Because of that, I call upon Laura to acknowledge her wrongdoing and publicly apologize to Qasim. I further call upon her to withdraw from the Senate race; we cannot tolerate people who engage in this sort of behavior representing us in Richmond."

The change in Fox News’s schedule was evident in an on-screen cable guide. But a Pirro broadcast had been placed in newspaper TV listings for this evening.

When reached for comment, a Fox News spokesperson said, “We’re not commenting on internal scheduling matters” and declined to elaborate.

During her broadcast last Saturday, Pirro, a former New York prosecutor, suggested Omar, a Democractic representative, did not respect the law set down by the Constitution of the United States. “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution?” Pirro asked.

A handful of advertisers have in recent days expressed their unease. Personal-finance marketer NerdWallet, pharmaceutical advertiser Novo Nordis and online marketplace Letgo have indicated in press statements they will at stop running ads in Pirro’s program.

On Sunday, Fox News issued a statement rebuking Pirro’s words. “We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro’s comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar,” the network said in a prepared statement. “They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly.” Fox News made a similar statement in November when Pirro and fellow Fox News host Sean Hannity, two favorites of President Donald Trump, appeared at a campaign rally Trump held in Missouri.

Rep. Omar responded to the controversy on Monday. “Thank you, @FoxNews. No one’s commitment to our constitution should be questioned because of their faith or country of birth,” she said via Twitter.

Pirro sought to tamp down reaction to her comments [while not apologizing] with a statement “I’ve seen a lot of comments about my opening statement from Saturday night’s show and I did not call Rep. Omar un-American,” she said. “My intention was to ask a question and start a debate, but of course because one is Muslim does not mean you don’t support the Constitution. I invite Rep. Omar to come on my show any time to discuss all of the important issues facing America today.”

Rashida: This conversation about human rights for everyone, this convo around what this looks like is not centered around hate, it’s actually centered around love.

Ilhan: I get emotional every time I hear Rashida, and I think I’m just gonna stop hanging out with her, she’s messing with my smile.

I know that I have a huge Jewish constituency, and, every time I meet with them they share stories of safety and sanctuary that they would love for the people of Israel, and most of the time when we’re having the conversation, there is no actual relative that they speak of, and there still is lots of emotion that comes through because it’s family, right? Like my children still speak of Somalia with passion and compassion even though they don’t have a family member there.

But we never really allow space for the stories of Palestinians seeking safety and sanctuary to be uplifted. And to me, it is the dehumanization and the silencing of a particular pain and suffering of people, should not be ok and normal. And you can’t be in the practice of humanizing and uplifting the suffering of one, if you’re not willing to do that for everyone. And so for me I know that when I hear my Jewish constituents or friends or colleagues speak about Palestinians who don’t want safety, or Palestinians who aren’t deserving I stay focused on the actual debate about what that process should look like. I never go to the dark place of saying 'here’s a Jewish person, they’re talking about Palestinians, Palestinians are Muslim, maybe they’re Islamophobic.' I never allow myself to go there because I don’t have to. And what I am fearful of is that because Rashida and I are Muslim, that a lot of Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel, to be anti-Semitic, because we are Muslim. And so to me, it is something that becomes designed to end the debate. Because you get in this space, of like, I know what intolerance looks like and I’m sensitive when someone says that the words you use Ilhan, are resemblance of intolerance. And I am cautious of that and I feel pained by that. But it’s almost as if every single time we say something, regardless of what it is we say, that it’s supposed to about foreign policy or engagement, that our advocacy about ending oppression, or the freeing of every human life and wanting dignity, we get to be labeled in something, and that’s the end of the discussion, because we end up defending that, and nobody gets to have the broader debate of 'what is happening with Palestine?'

So for me I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is ok for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. And I want to ask, why is it ok for me to talk about the influence of the NRA, of fossil fuel industries, or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policy? And I want to ask the question, why is it ok for you to push, for you to be… there are so many people… I mean most of us are new, but many members of Congress have been there forever. Some of them have been there before we were born. So I know many of them were fighting for people to be free, for people to live in dignity in South Africa. I know many of them fight for people around the world to have dignity to have self-determination. So I know, I know that they care about these things. But now that you have two Muslims that are saying 'here is a group of people that we want to make sure that they have the dignity that you want everyone else to have!' …we get to be called names, we get to be labeled as hateful. No, we know what hate looks like. We experience it every single day. We have to deal with death threats. I have colleagues who talk about death threats. And sometimes… there are cities in my state where the gas stations have written on their bathrooms 'assassinate Ilhan Omar.' I have people driving around my district looking for my home, for my office, causing me harm. I have people every single day on Fox News and everywhere, posting that I am a threat to this country. SO I know what fear looks like.

The masjid I pray in in Minnesota got bombed by two domestic white terrorists. So I know what it feels to be someone who is of a faith that is vilified. I know what it means to be someone whose ethnicity that is vilified. I know what it feels to be of a race that is, like I am an immigrant, so I don’t have some of the historical drama of some of my sisters and brothers have in this country, but I know what it means for people to just see me as a black person, and to treat me as less than a human. And so, when people say 'you are bringing hate,' I know what their intention is. Their intention is to make sure that our lights are dimmed. That we walk around with our heads bowed. That we lower our face and our voice. But we have news for people. You can call us any kind of name. You can threaten us any kind of way. Rashida and I are not ourselves. Every single day we walk in the halls of Congress and we have people who have never had the opportunity to walk there walking with us.

So we’re here, we’re here to stay and represent all the people who have been silenced for many decades and many generations. And we’re here to fight for the people of our district who want to make sure that there is actual prosperity, actual prosperity, being guaranteed. Because there is a direct correlation between not having clean water, and starting endless wars. It’s all about the profit and who gets benefit. There’s a direct correlation between corporations that are getting rich, and the fact that we have students who are shackled with debt. There is a direct correlation between the White House and the people who are benefiting from detention beds that are profitized. So, what people are afraid of is not that there are two Muslims in Congress. What people are afraid of is that there are two Muslims in Congress that have their eyes wide open, that have their feet to the ground, that know what they’re talking about, that are fearless, and that understand that they have the same election certificate that everyone in Congress does.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and other senior Republicans are considering offering a censure motion against Omar, according to GOP sources. Republicans may also formally demand that Democrats strip Omar of her seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, a move that Pelosi and other senior Democrats won't take at this point

Republicans see the furor over Omar as an opportunity to drive a wedge between Democratic supporters of Israel-- long an unquestioned position inside both parties-- and younger lawmakers who are highly critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

...Two of the House’s most senior Democrats-- Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel and Lowey-- called out Omar in public statements, demanding she apologize.

Lowey condemned Omar’s use of “offensive, painful stereotypes,” leading to a fight on Twitter as Omar dug in on her comments and was cheered by some on the left.

“Our democracy is built on debate, Congresswoman!” Omar wrote, later adding, “I have not mischaracterized our relationship with Israel, I have questioned it and that has been clear from my end.”

Staffers for several Jewish lawmakers, including Engel and Lowey, soon began working with Democratic leaders on the resolution. Aides for House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) along with Reps. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ) and fellow Minnesota freshman Rep. Dean Phillips (New Dem) are also involved, according to multiple sources.

A resolution on the floor, regardless of whether it specifically mentions Omar, would be an extraordinary public admonishment from House leaders, particularly against a member of their own party, and speaks to the seriousness with which Democratic leaders view the ongoing controversy.

Just three weeks earlier, Pelosi and her top lieutenants issued a rare public rebuke of Omar’s previous remarks, which suggested pro-Israel groups were using their financial heft to shape U.S.-Middle East policy.

The announcement of floor action Monday came after a mounting backlash from outside groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, which wrote a letter to Pelosi calling for a House resolution to reject what the organization called Omar’s “latest slur.”

“We urge you and your colleagues to send the unambiguous message that the United States Congress is no place for hate,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote in a letter. Democratic staffers had already started working on the resolution before the group's letter, according to one senior Democratic aide.

Nearly a dozen pro-Israel groups also urged Pelosi to oust Omar from her coveted spot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Engel, the chairman of that committee, called out Omar for a “vile anti-Semitic slur” over the weekend, but did not call for her to be removed from the committee.

Out of the two dozen other Democrats on the Foreign Affairs committee, nearly all did not respond or declined a request to comment on Monday. Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA), who sits on the committee, wrote on Twitter that Omar should apologize for “hurtful anti-Semitic stereotypes.”

“Questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable,” Vargas wrote.

No congressional Democrats have publicly called for Omar to lose her seat on the Foreign Affairs panel, though GOP leaders have begun to pounce as Pelosi and her leadership team prepare yet another rebuke of Omar’s language.

“Resolutions are all well and good, but Speaker Pelosi is clearly afraid to stand up to Rep. Omar if she continues to reward her with a plum spot on the Foreign Affairs Committee,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) wrote on Twitter Monday.

Omar has received support from prominent progressive figures, including fellow freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)-- the first Palestinian-American congresswoman, who has also strongly argued that U.S. policy toward Israel should be overhauled. Another popular progressive, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), has also come to Omar's defense.

In response to Lowey’s criticism, Tlaib defended Omar and said she had been “targeted just like many civil rights icons before us who spoke out about oppressive policies.”

I've been counseling people not to waste their energy on a primary against Muslim-hater and Likud-Congressman Eliot Engel. Now I'm ready to pledge to max out to a good candidate who runs against him.

...Omar and Tlaib have relished making public their opposition to Israeli policies-- from settlements in Palestinian territories to the lobbying influence of AIPAC-- in a way that has struck a nerve with Jewish lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Omar’s positions have directly challenged a decades-old plank of U.S. foreign policy: unfaltering U.S. support for Israel.

“I am told everyday that I am anti-American if I am not pro-Israel. I find that to be problematic and I am not alone. I just happen to be willing to speak up on it and open myself to attacks,” Omar wrote on Twitter in response to Lowey.

In the Senate, Sen. Ted Cruz has denounced “New York values” while on the campaign trail and  Sen. Chuck Grassley has suggested George Soros paid the protestors who confronted then-Sen. Jeff Flake in an elevator with their stories of sexual assault in October 2018.

Neither of them has apologized. Nor have they been censured by Congress.

In the House, Republican members have referred to themselves as “David Duke without the baggage,” accused Soros of turning on his “fellow Jews” and taking “the property that they owned,” claimed Soros funded the far-right rally at Charlottesville in 2017, sat on panels with white nationalists, invited a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union, and tweeted that three Jewish billionaires-- Soros, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer-- were trying to “buy” the midterms. On Sunday, Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted that Steyer-- whose name he spelled “$teyer” and whose father is Jewish-- was trying to influence Rep. Jerry Nadler (who is Jewish) to investigate Trump.

None of these Republicans have ever apologized. Nor have they been censured by Congress.

Trump and the Republicans’ favorite cable channels, Fox News and Fox Business, have run segments in which guests have referred to the State Department as “Soros-occupied,” and accused Soros of working with the Nazis, while top-rated Fox host Sean Hannity used to regularly interview a neo-Nazi on his radio show. Their favorite news website, Breitbart, has referred to columnist Bill Kristol as a “renegade Jew” and to columnist Anne Applebaum as a “Polish, Jewish, American elitist.” Their favorite talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has spoken of a “Jewish lobby” and was accused of “borderline” anti-Semitism by the Anti-Defamation League for his comments about Jewish bankers.

Last October, a far-right conspiracy theorist who, like the president and other prominent Republicans, blamed “globalists” like Soros for allowing immigrant “invaders” to come into the United States, shot and killed 11 Jewish worshippers in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. To quote Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: “The apparent spark for the worst anti-Semitic massacre in American history was a racist hoax inflamed by a U.S. president seeking to help his party win a midterm election.”

On Wednesday, however, the House Democratic leadership will try and formally censure Rep. Ilhan Omar-- a black Somali-American Muslim woman who came to the United States as a refugee, and who, in recent days, has been compared to the 9/11 terrorists by Republicans in West Virginia and described as “filth” by an adviser to President-- for saying she wanted “to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Her fellow congressional Democrats have said little or nothing about the aforementioned and shameful Republican record of anti-Semitism, but many have joined the pile on against Omar. One of them-- Rep. Juan Vargas-- went out of his way to insist, rather revealingly, that “questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable.”

So my simple point is this: whether or not you agree with Omar’s remarks, whether or not you were personally offended, anyone who tells you that these non-stop, bipartisan political attacks on her are about fighting anti-Semitism is gaslighting you.

Trump’s hostility to legal immigration, which he so aggressively sought to hide in his speech, is key to understanding the real implications of his immigration agenda. Once again on Tuesday, Trump signaled that he prioritizes no cause more than building a wall across the southern border, portraying his determination as a sign of his commitment to ensuring Americans’ security and upholding the rule of law. His praise for legal immigration, though distorting his record, provided a critical buttress for that case: It allowed him to suggest that his motivation for the wall isn’t resisting immigration per se, only illegal and dangerous behavior. The truth, though, is that the wall is itself only one brick in a much larger structure aimed at restricting most kinds of immigration.

“This administration and this president are opposed to all forms of immigration regardless of status, really regardless of the type of category that they enter under,” Bier said. “They have attacked them all; they have tried to prevent them from being able to come in. It’s not specific to any region of the world, even. It’s everyone coming into this country from abroad is a threat or a problem and needs to be stopped.”

Each pillar of this agenda faces opposition from a majority of Americans in polls. Surveys show that Trump has never persuaded more than 45 percent of the country to support the border wall, and that number stood at just 40 percent, with 60 percent opposing, in a Gallup poll released this week. National surveys, such as this week’s CNN poll, consistently find that two-thirds of Americans, an even more preponderant majority, oppose Trump declaring a national emergency to build the wall, as he’s threatened to do. Gallup this week found that four-fifths of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S., an idea that Trump derides as amnesty.

Gallup has also found that support for legal immigration has steadily increased under Trump: In this week’s survey, the share of Americans who supported increasing legal immigration (30 percent) reached the highest level Gallup has recorded since it first asked the question in 1965, while the share of Americans who want to decrease legal immigration (31 percent) essentially matched the lowest level ever recorded, in June. The combined percentage of Americans who want to maintain legal immigration at its current level (37 percent) or increase it also matched the all-time high.

“In spite of Trump’s policies and rhetoric, more and more Americans support immigrants and immigration-- from citizenship for the undocumented to better pathways for legal immigration,” notes Ali Noorani, executive director of the pro-immigration group National Immigration Forum.

What’s more, the polling evidence clearly shows that Trump has built very little constituency for his wall beyond the hard-core base of Americans most resistant to immigration in all its forms. Seven in 10 Americans who believe that legal immigration should be reduced also support building the wall, according to detailed figures provided to me by Gallup.

But the wall is opposed by nearly four in five of those surveyed who want to increase legal immigration and by more than two in three who would maintain it at its current level. Similarly, Gallup found that three-fourths of Americans who back mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants also support building the wall. But among the clear majority who oppose mass deportation (roughly three-fifths of all Americans), 80 percent oppose its construction.

All this underscores how Trump, across a broad range of immigration issues, is steering the GOP toward the preferences of a distinct minority of Americans. And yet the evidence is also clear that Trump is systematically eradicating opposition to his agenda inside the GOP. More than four-fifths of Republicans in the House and nearly three-fourths of Republicans in the Senate voted for the massive cuts to legal immigration that Trump supported last year, though the bills ultimately failed. (Taken together, that was a much higher percentage than the share of Republicans who backed cuts to legal immigration the last time the party seriously proposed them, during the 1990s.) While many Republicans were initially skeptical of the border wall when Trump first endorsed it in the 2016 campaign, those voices have been almost completely silenced: Until the very end, hardly any congressional Republicans complained about his strategy of shutting down the federal government for five weeks to pursue funding for the barrier.

Republican senators have grumbled more loudly about the prospect of Trump declaring a national emergency to unilaterally fund the wall. But pressure on them to consolidate behind an emergency declaration is rapidly increasing, too: Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina this week warned that there will be a “war” within the GOP if Trump issues a declaration and Republicans don’t support him.

The party’s willingness to link arms behind Trump over the wall is especially striking, because the idea faces such preponderant opposition from all the groups that powered the big Democratic gains in November’s midterm elections: young adults, minorities, independents, and college-educated white voters, especially women. The party’s embrace of the wall is symbolic of its larger choice to follow Trump’s strategy of trying to squeeze bigger electoral margins out of groups that are shrinking in society: the blue-collar, evangelical, and rural whites who consistently express the most unease in polls about not only immigration, but also other types of social change, from increasing diversity to evolving gender roles.

“My own sense of it is people like Lindsey Graham are being exceedingly shortsighted,” says Pete Wehner, a senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center and a frequent Trump critic. “All they are looking at is the next day and the next week and the next month. If the Republican Party breaks with Trump in a fundamental way, there will be costs to it because it will be a divided party. What they are missing is the medium- and long-term damage in attaching themselves to Trump. He is leaving a crimson stain on the party. And instead of finding ways to remove that crimson stain, they are making it more indelible.”

The damage from that “stain” was evident in last fall’s House races, when Republicans were annihilated in metro-area districts that contain large numbers of immigrants, minorities, and college-educated voters. After the 2018 result, Democrats now control more than 80 percent of the House seats in which minorities exceed their national share of the population, and nearly 90 percent of the seats with more immigrants than average, according to Census Bureau figures. Fewer than one in 10 House Republicans now represents districts with more foreign-born residents than average, compared with about six times as many Democrats. Most of those diverse places moved sharply against Republicans in Senate and governor races, too.

...[T]he magnitude of the GOP’s defeat in House elections last fall suggests the size of the coalition that Trump is potentially solidifying against his party, particularly as the unprecedentedly diverse Millennial and post-Millennial generations grow as a share of the electorate. As Wehner noted, “the real problem” Trump is creating for the GOP is that “the very thing that alienates the Republican Party from most of the public is the very thing that energizes most of the base, which is cultural identity and ethnic nationalism.”

Despite his bravado during the State of the Union, Trump already has conceded that he will, at best, win funding for a wall in designated areas, not the massive concrete barrier he once proposed across the entire Mexican border. But the biggest takeaway from this week’s speech is that Trump may be systematically walling off the GOP from the places in America that are most powerfully forging the country’s future.

White House Communications Director Bill Shine has told friends he’s angry that Trump has singled him out for the bad press during the government shutdown. “Bill is like, ‘you’re the guy who steps on the message more than anyone,’” said a Republican who’s spoken with Shine recently. Economic adviser Larry Kudlow has told people he’s probably got six months left. “Larry’s really tired of it all,” a source close to Kudlow said.

What’s driving a lot of the frustration is that Trump, now more than ever, runs the West Wing as a family business. Four sources said the only White House advisers he truly consults are daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. “This is a family affair, and if you’re not in the family, you’ve got problems,” a former official said. The special privileges and access afforded to Kushner and Ivanka have been alienating Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. “Mick is not entirely thrilled with the family,” a Republican close to Mulvaney told me. Multiple sources said Mulvaney is looking for a way out of the West Wing. He’s said to be interested in a Cabinet position, either at the Commerce Department or Treasury, and he’s reportedly been pursuing the University of South Carolina presidency. A senior White House official recently lobbied a friend of Mulvaney’s to convince Mulvaney to stay.

In the meantime, Mulvaney is working to stave off another political crisis before Trump either shuts the government down again or declares a state of emergency to fund his southern border wall. One source briefed on the internal debate said that Mulvaney is advising Trump to accept less than his demand of $5 billion and make up the difference by shuffling money around the existing budget. “Mick wants to re-program existing funds,” the source said. Trump has insisted he won’t compromise, but he faces no good options, with a G.O.P. revolt likely if he goes the national-emergency route. “Trump is going to declare whatever happens a victory,” a former West Wing official said.

Perhaps Trump can bring back the A-Team?

• Ammar was born and raised a Christian and has been active in his church for his whole life
• Ammar was born 16 years after his grandfather in question had died. (For any Trump fan who might be reading this: that means he never met his grandfather.)
• Ammar worked in the Department of Labor and was thoroughly vetted for the Secret Service, passing a test that Druncan Hunter couldn't pass if his life depended on it
• Ammar, when asked, told me his favorite band is Metallica.

Publicly disgraced, out of money, and facing both jail time and a suddenly surging challenger-- what was an indicted congressman to do?

Eventually, Hunter seemed to arrive at his answer: Try to eke out a win by waging one of the most brazenly anti-Muslim smear campaigns in recent history.

In the final weeks of the election, Hunter has aired ominous ads warning that his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, is “working to infiltrate Congress” with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has circulated campaign literature claiming the Democrat is a “national security threat” who might reveal secret U.S. troop movements to enemies abroad if elected. While Hunter himself floats conspiracy theories from the stump about a wave of “radical Muslims” running for office in America, his campaign is working overtime to cast Campa-Najjar as a nefarious figure reared and raised by terrorists.

As multiple fact-checkers in the press have noted, these smears have no basis in reality. Campa-Najjar-- a 29-year-old former Barack Obama aide who is half-Latino, half-Arab-- is a devout Christian who received security clearance when he worked in the White House. His grandfather was involved in the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics, but he died 16 years before Campa-Najjar was born, and the candidate has repeatedly denounced him. (Growing up, Campa-Najjar became estranged from his father, a former Palestinian Authority official, and was raised primarily by his Mexican American mother.)

But facts do not appear to be Hunter’s chief concern. The political strategy here is self-evident: Feed on anti-Muslim prejudice to scare enough conservative voters into pulling the lever for the incumbent-- indictment be damned.

California’s Fiftieth District hasn’t drawn much attention from horse-race obsessives this year. There are other races with tighter polls, other House seats more likely to flip. But what’s unfolding here in the suburbs of San Diego represents an unnerving microcosm of this campaign season: white Republicans frightened by cynical conspiracy-mongers; religious minorities frightened by the fallout; a community poisoned by Trumpian politics-- and a bitter question hovering over the whole ugly affair: Will it ever get better?

Duncan Hunter is not an easy man to find these days. He rarely holds campaign rallies, and doesn’t attend town halls or debates. When I emailed his office asking for an interview, I was politely told my request would be added to the “list”-- and then ignored when I tried to follow up.

...On the whole, Campa-Najjar said he was surprised by how ham-fisted Hunter’s strategy had been. “I thought there would be more finesse to it,” he told me.

Now, though, he was more confident than ever that victory was at hand. With Obama-esque audacity, he began ticking off all the reasons to be optimistic. The district was more diverse than many realized. “McCain Republicans” were repelled by the Muslim-bashing. While his own campaign was infused with idealism and “youth,” Hunter’s was cloaked in the stench of “desperation.”

Very soon, he assured me, the good voters of the California Fiftieth would reject the ugly politics that had permeated their community this year and send him to Congress.

Perhaps detecting my skepticism, Campa-Najjar tried to conjure an alternative happy ending. “And if we fall short,” he tried, “we proved that we exceeded expectations and that...” but then he stopped himself. He couldn’t do it.

“I think we’re going to win.”

3 more hours to vote

• Early voting in Tennessee is at 95% of the total turnout for 2014.
• Early vote turnout among 18 and 29 year olds is up 317% compared to 2014.
• Early vote turnout among first time voters increased by 973% from 2014 (57,253). New voters represented 8% of the total early vote.
• 566,666 Tennesseans who did not vote in 2014 voted early this year. In other words, 40.81% of this year’s early voters did not vote in 2014.
• 105,487 Tennesseans (8% of the early voting electorate) did not vote in August 2018, 2016, or 2014. Half of these voters are under 50 years old.
• Women 40 years and younger increased their early vote participation by 266% from 2014.
• African American midterm early vote increased by 169% compared to 2014, largely due to increased participation among young African American voters.
• African American women vote increased by 172% compared to 2014.

Compared to all other states, Tennessee is now:

• #1 in overall increase of early votes cast compared to 2014
• #1 in the increase of 18-29 year olds voting

One Republican strategist said that Rep. John Culberson, who is in a tough re-election bid in a solidly Republican district in the Houston area, was polling four points ahead of his opponent, Democrat Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, in the days after the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

After Trump escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric and visited Houston, internal polling showed Culberson down three points.

In some races, including Culberson's, “the certain tone and the certain issues he’s chosen to focus on is not helpful” the Republican strategist said.

...Other vulnerable Republicans are trying to counter Trump by focusing their campaign on local issues. Rep. Jeff Denham, who represents an agriculture district with a large Hispanic population in central California, has ignored Trump's national messaging on immigration and instead focused largely on water, a crucial issue there.

But if Republicans lose a large number of seats, someone will be blamed. And some Republicans are already pointing the finger at Trump.