15 June 2018 — 1900 mdt
As Trump’s popularity in Montana tumbles,
Rosendale attacks Tester for not loving Trump enough
Appearing gaunt, fevered, and deeply agitated, in a just released television ad, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Matt Rosendale, currently Montana’s state auditor, excoriates Sen. Jon Tester for not supporting President Trump’s efforts to save American from hordes of Latin Americans seeking jobs and a better life. A small group of people in a barn, mostly white and older, nod in agreement. One older man clenches his fist in solidarity as Rosendale concludes his harangue with “Build that wall!”
At The Montana Post, Josh Manning has an outstanding analysis of the ad’s demagogic attempt to appeal to xenophobia.
But the ad is more than an appeal to xenophobia. It’s also an argument that by not blindly supporting Trump and what he does, Tester is not supporting his country and therefore is failing a test of patriotism. Disagreement with the President, assert Rosendale and his supporter, is disloyalty to the nation and a threat to national security. By the end of the campaign, Tester’s thinking for himself will be cited as the functional equivalent of treason, if not as treason itself, and sycophancy will be cited as a virtue instead of a vice.
Tester’s independence, although aggravating at times to Montanans to his left, is his political strength. Effectively responding to Rosendale’s argument that Tester’s thinking for himself constitutes treason requires reminding the voters that Rosendale seeks to sit in the Senate not as a representative of Montana but as a rubber stamp for the White House.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity in Montana is falling. According to a report at FiveThirtyEight today, Trump’s net approval in Montana in January, 2017, was 24 percent. In May, 2018, it had fallen to just three percent:
Eight of the 10 states (I’m treating Washington, D.C., as a state for these purposes.) where Trump’s net approval declined the most are places where the president lost in 2016. But his popularity has plunged more in ruby-red Utah (-27 points), Oklahoma (-23) and Montana (-21) than in swingy Colorado (-17) and blue California (-15). (Trump of course started with pretty lackluster numbers California and Colorado, so he had more room to fall in the red states.) That said, his numbers have held up much better in states such as South Carolina (-11), West Virginia (-10) and South Dakota (-7).
Part of Trump’s decline in popularity in Montana may be due to his attacks on Tester.
But Democrats should not underestimate the power of the nativism that Rosendale’s ad attempts to exploit. A fear of people with exotic religions, languages, and cultures, is spreading across the western world, and becoming manifest in right wing politics. In Germany, for example, Angela Merkel’s moderate government may be brought down from within:
In recent days, Ms. Merkel has faced an increasingly virulent mutiny over the issue, which threatens to fracture her governing coalition as early as next week.
The mutiny is led by her own interior minister, Horst Seehofer, a former Bavarian premier with a towering stature and plenty of beer tent charisma, who sounds more in line with the nativist forces shaping politics in neighboring countries than with his own boss.
Germany’s predicament is not unique. On Sunday, the new populist government of Italy refused to accept more than 600 migrants from a rescue ship:
On Sunday, the Italian authorities ordered the Aquarius, a rescue vessel operated by European humanitarian groups and Doctors Without Borders, to stop 35 nautical miles off the southern coast of Italy.
The ship had 629 migrants aboard, hailing from 26 countries in Africa, and included 123 minors, 11 small children and seven pregnant women. It also had 15 people with serious chemical burns and several patients with hypothermia, according to Doctors Without Borders. The migrants boarded the Aquarius from six overcrowded boats adrift in the central Mediterranean.
Democrats must not not underestimate the power of the fear that American will be changed for the worse by an uncontrolled influx of men, women, and children, speaking languages other than English, and practicing religions other than Christianity and Judaism. If Montana’s election for the U.S. Senate turns on whether to build a wall along the nation’s southern border, Jon Tester could lose. If the election turns on protecting health care, on specific issues such as whether to once again all insurance companies to discriminate against people with existing conditions, Tester will win.