The New York Times International - 01.08.2019

(Joyce) #1

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2019 | 5


world


It took only one question — the very first
— in the Democratic presidential prima-
ry debate on Tuesday night to make it
clear that the issue that united the party
in last year’s congressional elections in
many ways now divides it.
When Jake Tapper of CNN asked Sen-
ator Bernie Sanders whether his Medi-
care for All health care plan was “bad
policy” and “political suicide,” it set off a
half-hour brawl that drew in almost ev-
ery one of the 10 candidates on the stage.
Suddenly, members of the party that
had been all about protecting and ex-
panding health care coverage were lev-
eling accusations before a national audi-
ence at some of their own — in particu-
lar, that they wanted to take it away.
“It used to be Republicans that
wanted to repeal and replace,” Gov.
Steve Bullock of Montana said in one of
the more jolting statements on the sub-
ject. “Now many Democrats do as well.”
Those disagreements set a combative
tone that continued for the next 90 min-
utes. The health care arguments under-
scored the powerful shift the Democrat-
ic Party is undergoing, and the change
was illustrated in a substantive debate
that also included trade, race, repara-
tions, border security and the war in Af-
ghanistan.
In the end, it was a battle between as-
piration and pragmatism, a crystalliza-
tion of the struggle between the party’s
left and moderate factions.
It is likely to repeat itself during
Wednesday night’s debate, whose line-
up includes former Vice President Jo-
seph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Kamala
Harris of California. He supports build-
ing on the Affordable Care Act by adding
an option to buy into a public health
plan. She released a proposal this week
that would go further, eventually having
everyone choose either Medicare or pri-
vate plans that she said would be tightly
regulated by the government.
Democrats know all too well that the
issue of choice in health care is a potent
one. When President Barack Obama’s
promise that people who liked their
health plans could keep them under the
Affordable Care Act proved to be untrue,
Republicans seized on the fallout so ef-
fectively that it propelled them to major-
ities in both the House and Senate.
On Tuesday night, Representative

Tim Ryan of Ohio evoked those Republi-
can attacks of years ago on the Afford-
able Care Act, saying the Sanders plan
“will tell the union members that give
away wages in order to get good health
care that they will lose their health care
because Washington is going to come in
and tell them they have a better plan.”
Republicans watching the debate
may well have been smiling; the infight-
ing about taking away people’s ability to
choose their health care plan and spend-
ing too much on a pipe-dream plan
played into some of President Trump’s
favorite talking points. Mr. Trump is fo-
cusing on health proposals that do not
involve coverage — lowering drug
prices, for example — as his administra-
tion sides with the plaintiffs in a court
case seeking to invalidate the entire Af-

fordable Care Act, putting millions of
people’s coverage at risk.
It was easy to imagine House Demo-
crats who campaigned on health care,
helping their party retake control of the
chamber, being aghast at the fact that
not a single candidate mentioned the
case.
Mr. Sanders’s plan would eliminate
private health care coverage and set up
a universal government-run health sys-
tem that would provide free coverage
for everyone, financed by taxes, includ-
ing on the middle class. John Delaney,
the former congressman from Mary-
land, repeatedly took swings at the
Sanders plan, suggesting that it was
reckless and too radical for the majority
of voters and could deliver a second
term to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Sanders held firm, looking ready
to boil over at time — “I wrote the damn
bill,” he fumed after Mr. Ryan ques-
tioned whether benefits in his plan
would prove as comprehensive as he
was promising. Senator Elizabeth War-
ren of Massachusetts, the only other
candidate in favor of a complete over-
haul of the health insurance system that
would include getting rid of private cov-
erage, chimed in to back him up.
At one point she seemed to almost
plead. “We are not about trying to take
away health care from anyone,” she in-
terjected. “That’s what the Republicans
are trying to do.”
Mr. Delaney has been making a signa-
ture issue of his opposition to Medicare
for all, instead holding up his own plan,
which would automatically enroll every

American under 65 in a new public
health care plan or let them choose to re-
ceive a credit to buy private insurance
instead. He repeatedly disparaged what
he called “impossible promises.”
He was one of a number of candidates
— including Beto O’Rourke, the former
congressman from Texas; Senator Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota and Mayor
Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. —
who sought to stake out a middle ground
by portraying themselves as defenders
of free choice with plans that would al-
low, but not force, people to join Medi-
care or a new government health plan,
or public option. (Some candidates
would require people to pay into those
plans, while others would not.)
The debate moderators also pressed
Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren on whether

the middle class would have to help pay
for a Sanders-style plan, which would
provide a generous set of benefits — be-
yond what Medicare covers — to every
American without charging them pre-
miums or deductibles. One of the reve-
nue options Mr. Sanders has suggested
is a 4 percent tax on the income of fam-
ilies earning more than $29,000.
In defending his plan, Mr. Sanders re-
peatedly pointed out how many Ameri-
cans are uninsured or underinsured, un-
able to pay high deductibles and other
out-of-pocket costs and thus unable to
seek care.
Analysts often point out that the focus
on raising taxes to pay for universal
health care leaves out the fact that in ex-
change, personal health care costs
would drop or disappear.
“A health reform plan might involve
tax increases, but it’s important to quan-
tify the savings in out-of-pocket health
costs as well,” Larry Levitt, executive
vice president for health policy at the
nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation,
tweeted during the debate. “Political at-
tacks don’t play by the same rules.”

A Kaiser poll released Tuesday found
that two-thirds of the public supports a
public option, though most Republicans
oppose it. The poll also found that about
half of the public supports a Medicare
for all plan, down from 56 percent in
April. The vast majority of respondents
with employer coverage — which more
than 150 million Americans have —
rated it as excellent or good.
In truth, Mr. Delaney’s own universal
health care plan could also face political
obstacles, not least because it, too,
would cost a lot.
He has proposed paying for it by,
among other steps, letting the govern-
ment negotiate drug prices with phar-
maceutical companies and requiring
wealthy Americans to cover part of the
cost of their health care.
Had Mr. Sanders not responded so
forcefully to the attacks, it would have
felt like piling on, though some who criti-
cized his goals sounded more earnest
than harsh.
“I think how we win an election is to
bring everyone with us,” Ms. Klobuchar
said, adding later in the debate that a
public option would be “the easiest way
to move forward quickly, and I want to
get things done.”

Unifying issue turns divisive for Democrats


WASHINGTON

Health care dispute
draws in almost all
candidates in debate

BY ABBY GOODNOUGH

Candidates in the first night of this week’s Democratic presidential debates. The health care argument underscored the powerful shift the Democratic Party is undergoing.

ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

“We are not about trying
to take away health care
from anyone. That’s what
the Republicans are trying
to do.”

For three weeks President Trump has
engaged in the sort of racial divisive-
ness unseen from a national political fig-
ure since the days of George Wallace,
pushing forward with grievance-based
attacks against Democrats of color that
he is convinced will energize his base of
rural white voters.
But Democrats who might otherwise
be giddy about Mr. Trump’s inflamma-
tory language — and the prospect that it
would further alienate suburban white
voters while provoking African-Ameri-
cans and Hispanics — instead appear
uncertain of how to confront a president
intent on recreating the unconventional
playbook that won him the 2016 election.
As with much of Mr. Trump’s political
career and presidency, there’s no prece-
dent for guiding their responses to his
provocations, especially since his re-
marks appear to be divorced from any
broader political strategy.
“This kind of thing is maddening and
demoralizing,” said Gov. Gretchen Whit-
mer of Michigan, host of the second set
of Democratic debates Tuesday and
Wednesday in Detroit, conveying a
sense of exasperation.
Many Democrats believe that too
much focus on Mr. Trump’s fitness for of-
fice contributed to Hillary Clinton’s loss
in 2016, but at the same time they recog-
nize that the party’s assurgent progres-
sive wing will not allow 2020 candidates
to merely condemn attacks on promi-
nent black and Hispanic figures like
Representative Elijah Cummings of
Maryland, the Rev. Al Sharpton and a
quartet of freshman congresswomen
known as “the squad.”
Though nearly all of the 24 Democrat-
ic presidential contenders have rebuked
Mr. Trump for his behavior, he is rarely a
focus of their campaign stump speeches
or events. Instead, they have found a
Democratic electorate hungry for sub-
stantive policy proposals and ideas for
how they will repair and shape the coun-
try in a post-Trump era.
And while the attacks would likely
have proved devastating to previous
presidents — and may ultimately harm
Mr. Trump in the election — Democrats
offered only minimal optimism that they
would redound to their benefit 15

months from now. Some pointed out that
Mr. Trump regularly disparaged people
of color, including the Muslim parents of
a dead soldier, during his successful
2016 campaign.
“Democrats can’t simply rely on peo-
ple’s hate for Trump for being the aspira-
tional thing that turns people out,” said
Rashad Robinson, the president of Color
of Change, a progressive civil rights ad-
vocacy organization.
Alluding to the respect and loyalty
black voters showed to Barack Obama,
he said, “When black people’s numbers
surged in 2012, it wasn’t because they
hated Mitt Romney.”
The president has also had the benefit
of minimal pushback from Republicans,
who have mostly refrained from rebuk-
ing him. Even Mr. Romney, now a Utah
senator — who came to Washington say-
ing he would stand against racism from
the White House — has been silent since
a July 18 tweet saying that “send her
back” chants at a Trump rally in North
Carolina were “offensive.”
Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks against
prominent politicians of color are not
driven by a grand strategy or backed by
Republican research, people close to the
president said, speaking anonymously
to discuss private conversations. In-
stead, they are the product of impulse
and personal grievance, which are fur-
ther stoked by the president’s favorite
television network, Fox News.
His denigration of Mr. Cummings and
the city of Baltimore, for instance, were
motivated largely by the decision by the
House Oversight Committee, which the
congressman chairs, to subpoena texts

and emails sent or received by Ivanka
Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner,
on their personal accounts.
One senior adviser, who was not au-
thorized to speak for attribution about
campaign deliberations, said that at this
point some aides see Mr. Trump’s tweets
as politically harmless. While they are-
n’t strategic, they have the potential up-
side of pushing Democrats further left,
the aide said — suggesting, for instance,
that Democrats might regret support-
ing Mr. Sharpton so forcefully down the
road.

The aide also said that the tweets cost
the president no votes among his own
base, and that aides think Democrats
overstate the cumulative weight of the
tweets with swing voters. If anything, a
second senior adviser said, most voters
are tuning much of this out.
Planned or unplanned, Mr. Trump’s
stream of invective has far-reaching im-
plications for the 2020 presidential race,
ensuring that a searing debate over race
in America will play a central — and
ugly — role in next year’s election. A
Quinnipiac University national poll re-
leased Tuesday showed that 51 percent
of American voters said Mr. Trump was
a racist, compared with 45 percent who
did not.
“It’s polarizing, it’s divisive and I
think it’s an old school strategy that may
pay off in the short term,” said Donna

Brazile, a former Democratic National
Committee chairwoman. “Long term it’s
damaging to our country. It’s tearing us
apart.”
Outside the White House, Mr. Trump's
supporters are echoing his sentiments
about Baltimore and Mr. Cummings.
Senator Rick Scott of Florida con-
demned the congressman in a Sunday
interview with NBC News. And Darrell
Scott, a Cleveland minister who was a
co-founder of the 2016 Trump cam-
paign’s diversity coalition, said Mr.
Trump is correct about living conditions
in Baltimore.
“We can’t say just because someone
was a civil rights activist and marched
50 years ago that that immunizes them
against any criticism,” Mr. Scott said of
Mr. Cummings. “He shouldn’t walk it
back. There’s nothing to walk back.”
The president showed no signs of re-
treating on Monday, unleashing new
criticism against Mr. Sharpton, continu-
ing his attacks on Mr. Cummings and
gathering African-American supporters
at the White House. Late Monday, he
laced into Mr. Cummings and Baltimore
again, saying that money funneled to
the city had been “stolen or wasted.”
While the president presses his at-
tacks with few repercussions, Demo-
crats are left in the familiar position of
debating the best way to respond: At-
tack him? Ignore him? Pivot to issues
like health care?
Polling conducted before last year’s
midterm elections by Priorities USA, a
Democratic super PAC, found that men-
tioning Mr. Trump depressed enthusi-
asm among African-Americans, espe-

cially younger ones, who viewed his
2016 victory as proof of a political sys-
tem stacked against them.
With that in mind, Democrats who
carried the party to victory in the House
and flipped seven governor’s mansions
did so largely by ignoring Mr. Trump in
their campaigns, treating the president
as background music they could sing
along to without addressing him di-
rectly.
But now Mr. Trump’s vilification of
Democrats of color has ratcheted up the
volume and carries the risk for the presi-
dent that it will increase black voter
turnout as well.
“When black communities are under
attack, they do feel more motivated to
get politically involved,” said Jenn
Stowe, the deputy executive director of
Priorities USA. “His election was demo-
tivating to young black voters, but when
Trump is attacking their communities
they are more likely to get involved po-
litically.”
Then there are the suburban voters
who powered Democrats in 2018 — mil-
lions of them were former Republicans
repelled by Mr. Trump’s behavior. They
are hardly the target audience for the re-
sistance politics of “the squad.”
Oakland County, Mich., a wealthy sub-
urb northwest of Detroit, backed Mr.
Obama and Mrs. Clinton by eight per-
centage points each in 2012 and 2016, re-
spectively.
But in 2018, Ms. Whitmer, a Democrat,
carried Oakland County by 17 points, a
102,000-vote margin that if repeated in
2020 makes a statewide victory nearly
impossible for Mr. Trump, who carried

the state by just 10,700 votes in 2016.
“The average voter in Michigan is not
paying attention to President Trump’s
Twitter feed,” Ms. Whitmer said in an in-
terview. “They’re worried about infra-
structure, our roads and bridges and a
skills gap that is keeping us from getting
them into good paying jobs and trade
policies that are hurting our economy.”
Asked what effect Mr. Trump’s re-
marks might have on voters in her state,
she said, “My sense is that it is all or-
chestrated to try to depress turnout and
get people disengaged, and I think that
it has the exact opposite effect.”
Stu Sandler, who managed the losing
campaign of former Representative
Mike Bishop of Michigan, pointed to
Democrats’ getting presidential-level
turnout in 2018 while Republicans did
not. If Mr. Trump gets Republicans to
turn out at 2016 levels in 2020, he could
again carry the state, Mr. Sandler said.
“In Michigan, the president’s num-
bers have been pretty steady since Octo-
ber 2016,” Mr. Sandler said. “It was
enough to win in ’16, and it could be
enough to win next year, too.”
Mr. Trump is hardly a rookie when it
comes to launching racially derogatory
broadsides against those he perceives to
have wronged him. His rise in Republi-
can politics coincided with his false
claims that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in
the United States. Then he launched his
2016 campaign by declaring that many
Mexican immigrants were “rapists.”
During his campaign, Mr. Trump,
among other insults, referred to a fed-
eral judge overseeing a lawsuit against
Trump University as a “Mexican judge,”
who he claimed was biased against him
because of his heritage; criticized the
Muslim parents of a dead American sol-
dier after they spoke at the Democratic
National Convention; and said African-
Americans should vote for him because
“what the hell do they have to lose?”
As president, he has denounced the
intelligence of an array of black and His-
panic elected officials, including but not
limited to Representatives Maxine Wa-
ters of California, Frederica Wilson of
Florida and Mia Love, formerly of Utah.
In Detroit, Democrats greeted Mr.
Trump’s weekend Twitter broadsides
with an air of resignation. There was a
hope, but not necessarily optimism, that
his attacks would spur renewed activ-
ism in the city, where 79 percent of the
population is black.
“He says so much,” said Sherry Gay-
Dagnogo, a Democratic state represent-
ative from northwest Detroit. “I think
some people have Trump fatigue at this
point. It’s not anything out of the ordi-
nary. It’s what most people have come to
expect of him.”

Candidates unsure how to respond to Trump’s race-baiting


WASHINGTON

Those seeking to oppose
him are facing a choice:
Fire back or focus on policy

BY REID J. EPSTEIN
AND MAGGIE HABERMAN

A Trump rally in North Carolina. The president seems to believe that grievance-based
attacks against Democrats of color will energize his base of rural white voters.

President Trump, who has been regularly disparaging people of color since the 2016
election campaign, is rarely the focus of Democratic candidates’ campaign speeches.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM BRENNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

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