Dr. Jason Johnson discusses how many members of the Republican party are acting as if they are in a cult, and the leader is the 45th President of the United States of America. He speaks one-on-one with Lawrence O’Donnell.
Professor of Political Science. Politics Editor for The Root. Latest Book: Political Consultants and Campaigns: One Day to Sell
Dr. Jason Johnson discusses how many members of the Republican party are acting as if they are in a cult, and the leader is the 45th President of the United States of America. He speaks one-on-one with Lawrence O’Donnell.
Dr. Jason Johnson discusses the maturity of President Trump along with his White House staff. Other panel members include Juan Zarate, Bill Kristol, Megan Murphy, Donny Deutsch and host Nicolle Wallace.
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Question: What do you call an avowed “job creator” who is going to have a lot of trouble filling the second-most-important job in America? Answer: Donald Trump.
While the vice presidential pick for a major party ticket is a job to which many politicians aspire, given the demographic and self-inflicted hurdles facing the Trump campaign, his list of potential White House roommates is on the one hand smaller and on the other more open-ended than any presidential candidate’s in recent history.
The question is, once the vetting and investigating and whittling down of candidates is done, which Republicans will actually want to run hand in hand with Donald Trump?
Thanks to a campaign during which he has insulted every single voting demographic in America, twice, Trump is politically radioactive. Not the cool kind of radioactive that gives you super powers, the bad kind of radioactive that eats you up inside until there’s nothing left. While they are putting on a “good” show of grudgingly supporting the nominee privately, many Republicans will tell you they think 1) Trump is going to lose, 2) he’s going to cost the GOP several Senate seats and 3) he’s going to ruin the party’s relationship with Latinos for a generation. All of this has a huge impact on the pool of vice presidential picks from which Trump can choose.
As much as Trump has likened his vice presidential search to The Apprentice and implied that it is the “ultimate job interview,” the vice presidential selection process works both ways. No Republicans who really see themselves as having a long-term political future, or who are elected officials in purple states with diverse voters, are going to want to go anywhere near his train wreck of an image. That means governors like Rick Scott (Florida), Susana Martinez (New Mexico) and Nikki Haley (South Carolina) have already said no or will politely decline in the next six weeks.
On top of that, Donald Trump considers himself a “winner” so he doesn’t want washed-up politicos or damaged goods as his vice president. That means that political dead ends like Rick Perry, who is a two-time failure as a GOP presidential contender, won’t make the cut. Nor will Chris Christie. Christie looks so beat down and ashamed of his early Trump endorsement, even if the GOP tried to rescue him with a party-chair job or national spokesperson gig he’d probably run and hide behind Trump’s back muttering, “My name is Reek.”
Lastly, Trump has said he wants a “political person” to help him govern and that he won’t “pander” in his selection. That is a cynical way of saying he probably won’t select a woman or person of color and he needs someone who is likely currently serving in office to explain to him exactly how a bill becomes a law. This pretty much narrows the list down to successful red state politicians in electorally safe offices with no real chance of achieving national recognition outside of being Trump’s vice presidential pick. Which leaves us with three likely picks for Trump: the Balancer, the Hail Mary and the Bentsen/Benson.
Recent Examples: George Bush (Ronald Reagan, 1980); Al Gore (Bill Clinton, 1992)
The Balancer is the vice presidential pick made to even out the ticket. If the nominee is considered too liberal or too conservative for the party base, he or she picks a balancer to put voters at ease. Ronald Reagan was considered too conservative and reactionary during his time—hard as that may be to believe today—so consequently, he picked George H.W. Bush, who was considered a moderate at the time.
In 1992, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton was revealed to have smoked weed, dodged the Vietnam War and had more sexual harassment allegations than Christian Grey. So Clinton picked Sen. Al Gore, a conservative family man from Tennessee. How conservative was the Gore family? His wife, Tipper, led the moral crusade during the ’80s to put warning labels on music because she hated Prince (seriously, that’s what happened).
So who balances out Donald Trump in 2016? The generic choice would be Ted Cruz, but he’s got too much pride to join a Trump ticket. Plus, his entire political future is based on running around Washington, D.C., with a giant “I told you so” sign on Nov. 9 after the Trump campaign has utterly destroyed the Republican Party. The Balancer pick for Donald Trump would be Mike Pence, governor of Indiana.
Pence has already endorsed Trump, and clearly shares the GOP nominee’s racial views. How else can you explain his refusal to defend fellow Hoosier U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel from Trump’s ridiculous racial attacks? More importantly, Pence is a strong moral conservative on abortion, gay marriage and LGBT rights, key evangelical issues on which Trump waffles consistently.
Recent Examples: Lloyd Bentsen (Michael Dukakis, 1988); Joe Biden (Barack Obama, 2008)
The Bentsen/Bensons are the vice presidents who are picked because they know the job, and seemmore presidential even if they have never made it to the top of a ticket. The name comes from two of the most important Bentsens/Bensons of the 1980s; one is real and the other was on TV.
Lloyd Bentsen was a Democratic senator from Texas who famously ethered Dan Quayle during the 1988 vice presidential debates. Tall, handsome, quick-witted and hailing from Texas, many observers thought Bentsen looked more presidential than Dukakis. Even before the debate, Bentsen was seen by many as being more cunning and certainly having more gravitas than Dukakis.
The other Benson was Benson DuBois from the ’80s sitcom Benson. Benson was the black chief of staff and later lieutenant governor of the lovable, but incompetent, Gov. Gatling. Benson was the smartest guy in the governor’s mansion and basically ran everything, and if he weren’t a black man in the ’80s, he would’ve been elected governor himself.
Joe Biden was a Bentsen. Biden looked like a president, sounded like a president and actually knew Congress much better than Barack Obama. He was the perfect comfort food for white voters afraid to put a black man with little experience in the White House.
So who is Donald Trump’s Bentsen? Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). Corker has all but endorsed Trump already, and is a very “presidential” Republican for modern times. He beat a black man for his Senate seat without being explicitly racist. He is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And he knows Congress, but actually believes in climate change. In almost any other year, Corker would have made a quality presidential candidate. The country could feel safe with Trump in the driver’s seat if Corker has his hand on the steering wheel.
Recent Examples: Colin Powell (Bill Clinton, 1992; Bob Dole, 1996; and George W. Bush, 2000); Sarah Palin (John McCain, 2008)
When as a candidate you’re facing a tough election, when polls, demographics, gas prices and history aren’t on your side, you throw a political Hail Mary hoping to shake up the race in your favor. The Hail Mary vice presidential pick is as much about a candidate’s desperation as it is about the vice president’s unique qualifications.
While Colin Powell was never a vice presidential candidate, he was asked by Bill Clinton, Dole and George W. Bush to take on the job. Who cares that he didn’t have any government experience? He was the highest-ranking black man in the military and a Gulf War hero! That had to be worth something.
McCain picked an unqualified, but charismatic, Sarah Palin as a last-ditch effort to not get blown out by Obama. And it still didn’t work.
Truth is, unless you’re Aaron Rogers, Hail Marys don’t work, but if you are Donald Trump and your campaign has been throwing things at the wall hoping they’ll stick for months, why not a Hail Mary candidate like Jenean Hampton?
Hampton is lieutenant governor of Kentucky and the first black woman elected statewide in that state’s history. She’s a conservative military veteran and Tea Party favorite. A Hampton vice presidential pick would either create the political superstar the GOP wanted out of Bobby Jindal and Mia Love, or she would fail spectacularly, which Trump could survive through sheer force of personality.
There are likely dozens of other vice presidential picks that Donald Trump could pursue in the next few weeks, but his choices are limited. He should pick a Bentsen/Benson because a Hail Mary wouldn’t save him and a Balancer may not be needed if enough Republicans return to the fold in time for the election. But he has to move fast, because with every single week, Donald Trump says something else that makes associating with his candidacy more dangerous. He has got to sweeten this deal and fill this position soon; his decision-making so far hasn’t been great, and everyone, including those in his own party, needs to see the kind of people he would hire.
This article originally appeared online at The Root.
The midterm elections in the United States do not have the dramatic fanfare and theatre of the presidential elections, but they are no less important in their impact on the rest of the world. The US president for all of his constitutional power still has to work with Congress to implement and fund his policies. Nowhere is this more prominent than in foreign policy where Congressional approval is crucial to ratify treaties and fund military actions abroad. In the wake of the Republican takeover of the US Senate the world could see some fundamentally different foreign policy coming out of the Obama administration for its final two years. And these changes will likely influence how the Obama presidency is viewed for decades.
President Barack Obama has staked a lot of his international credibility on the JPOA (Joint Plan of Action) a UN-sponsored plan to freeze Iranian nuclear development in exchange for easing US-backed sanctions. The US and Iran have until November 24 to finalise the deal, but with Republicans taking over the US Senate, Obama’s ability to back up the deal may be weakened.
There are already about 67 votes (out of 100) in the Senate including many in Obama’s Democratic Party, who are very hawkish on increasing sanctions on Iran. Thus far, Democratic leaders have stalled votes on any tougher sanctions on Tehran but come January when the new Senate takes over, a tougher bill will likely get passed. This will force Obama to either veto a sanctions bill against Iran, which would be political suicide, or take a harsher stance in nuclear negotiations with Iran to appease the Senate back in the US.
More aggressive with Russia
There is no love lost between Obama and Vladimir Putin, and their relationship has soured even more since the Russian soft invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
Obama was quick to impose sanctions by executive order because ultimately those can be reversed or amended should the conditions in Ukraine get better or worse.
Now that Republicans have taken over the Senate, Obama’s hand will be forced. The US only pledged an additional $53m to aid Kiev after an impassioned plea for help in September, and Obama will have a hard time getting more funding to the Ukrainian government with a Republican-controlled Senate that controls funding to foreign policy endeavours.
Worse than little or no funding to Kiev, the new head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker, wants to put harsher sanctions on Moscow essentially picking a fight that Obama would rather avoid. If Russia gets more aggressive in the coming months, expect Republicans to pressure him for sanctions that are more binding than executive orders.
ISIL – boots on the ground?
The US doesn’t really have a plan on how to fight ISIL because it is still not entirely clear how big or how powerful it really is. However, that hasn’t stopped many Republicans from calling for putting “boots on the ground” all throughout the Middle East, including Syria, to battle ISIL no matter where they may be operating.
Former Republican presidential nominee John McCain will take over the Senate Armed Services Committee and he’s been very clear that he wants US troops on the ground in Syria and fighting ISIL. Very few Senators (in either party) are willing to go that far to fight ISIL but any of the president’s plans going forward will likely have to put troops into play in order to get full support from the Senate.
Relations between Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama have only been a shade better than those with Putin. With Republicans controlling the Senate, Israel will have more allies to lobby to obstruct any efforts by the Obama administration to put pressure on Israel to limit or stop building new settlements. US involvement in the Middle East peace process may slow to a crawl in the next two years.
The US has its political or military tentacles in just about every part of the globe right now and that won’t change due to midterm elections. However, if the Republicans have their way, the grip of those tentacles across so many crucial foreign policy issues might get a little tighter. The world will soon see just how much fight Obama has left in his last two years as president.
This article originally appeared on Al Jazeera English.
Dr. Jason Johnson is a professor, political analyst and public speaker. Fresh, unflappable, objective, he is known for his ability to break down stories with wit and candor. Johnson is the author the book Political Consultants and Campaigns: One Day to Sell, a tenured professor in the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland and Politics Editor at TheRoot.com. Dr. Johnson has an extensive public speaking and media background ranging from … [Read More...] about About Jason Johnson