What Ifs

Whither the Democrats: As members of the Democratic National Committee prepare to elect a new chair later this month, party officials are beginning to openly debate the impact of President Obama’s stewardship, Gabriel Debenedetti reports for Politico. He writes, “…now that Obama and the political operation that succeeded his campaign, Organizing For Action, have expressed interest in playing a role in the task of rebuilding, it’s sparking pitched debates over how much blame he deserves for the gradual hollowing out of a party that now has less control of state elected positions than at any other time in nearly a century. That degree of mistrust — rooted in the idea that OFA was always primarily interested in advancing the president’s political interests, often at the expense of the party — is already showing signs of hampering Obama’s former Labor Secretary Tom Perez as he pursues the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.”

Related: Some dude named Sifry has the cover story in the March issue of The New Republic, titled “Obama’s Lost Army.” This is the untold story of “Movement 2.0,” an effort led by Christopher Edley, dean of the U.C. Berkeley Law School, a close personal friend of Obama’s and a member of his 2008 transition team, and Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus 1-2-3 and Silicon Valley guru, to plan for the continuation of Obama’s unprecedented grassroots campaign network. Using previously unpublished emails and internal campaign memos, I show how Movement 2.0 started with a big vision for an independent effort that would have given Obama’s millions of supporters ways to channel their energies into ongoing local, state and national fights, and how party insiders and the campaign’s top politicos killed the plan. The result: Organizing for America, the continuation of his campaign machine, was parked at the Democratic National Committee and its energies channeled into bland messaging campaigns aimed at supporting the President’s agenda.

John Hockenberry of NPR’s The Takeaway interviews me on The New Republic story and the lessons it offers for today’s grassroots Democrats.

Trump watch: The President attacked the military record of Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) this morning, in response to Blumenthal’s report that Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch had said that his attacks on the independence of the judiciary are “demoralizing” and “disheartening.”

Senator Ben Sasse (R-NB) has also confirmed Gorsuch’s remarks: “He said any attack on any, I think his term to me was brothers or sisters of the robe, is an attack on all judges and he believes in an independent judiciary.”

Blumenthal told CNN that “we’re careening, literally, toward a constitutional crisis.”

Searches for the phrase “constitutional crisis” are at an all-time US high according to Google Trends.

Little Twitler also got mad at retailer Nordstrom yesterday for dropping his daughter Ivanka Trump’s clothing line, and even got his press secretary to amplify the charge at his daily press briefing, but as Matthew Yglesias notes at Vox, the company’s stock rose 5% on the day.

Here’s a piece by yours truly in The Nation about Trump’s White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon’s magical belief in historical determinism, and how it may have convinced him that war is not only inevitable but something to look forward to.

“What is Trump doing regarding the Russian hacking, and are Trump associates being investigated for interactions with Russia?” are two key unanswered questions about the Trump administration, and as David Corn writes for Mother Jones, the White House press corps seems to have stopped trying to get answers. As he notes, “the president’s own people may be under investigation, and Trump has demonstrated no interest in holding Putin accountable for messing with US elections in what may be considered an act of covert warfare. Still, there has been no loud demand from the DC media (or most of the GOP) for answers and explanations. This quietude is good news for Putin—and reason for him to think he could get away with such an operation again.”

Trump effect: Overall average interest in flying to the U.S. has declined 17% in the last five weeks, compared to a 2% drop over the same period last year, David Yanofsky reports for Quartz. The one exception: interest in visiting the US from Russia is up 88%.

Opposition watch: Nathan Pryor, a software project manager in Vancouver, WA, has repurposed the Amazon Dash Button—the physical “buy now” button for home users—so that whenever you tap on it, it sends a $5 donation to the ACLU. (h/t Mark Pesce)

100,000 people tuned in to listen to the livestream of the 9th Circuit Court’s hearing on Trump’s immigration order, Jonathan Swan reports for Axios. He notes that Democratic insiders have been surprised by the scale and breadth of grassroots opposition to Trump’s nominees.

Here’s Civic Hall founder Andrew Rasiej calling on the New York Tech Alliance at its monthly Tech Meetup to get organized and fight to protect immigrants, save broadband access for the underserved, defend online privacy, and preserve our democratic institutions and values.

A little good news: The FBI is expanding the capabilities of its online public-records request portal starting March 1st, Andrew Couts and Dell Cameron report for The Daily Dot.