Does this look like the kind of guy who can pull off a Trump impersonation?Dan Herrick via ZUMA

National Review editor Rich Lowry explains how Trumpists have turned on Ed Gillespie so fast it’s a wonder they didn’t suffer whiplash:

As of last week, Gillespie looked to be gaining on Ralph Northam fast (I thought he had a good chance to win). Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, the self-declared keeper of the Trumpist flame, believed Gillespie had cracked the code by fashioning a “Trumpism without Trump.” He managed, per Bannon, to close the enthusiasm gap “by rallying around the Trump agenda,” and Democrats needed to be “very, very worried.”

At least that was the party line until the race was called soon after the polls closed at 7 p.m. Then, Gillespie became an establishment tool who had betrayed Trumpism and the president. A Bannon spokesman blasted Gillespie for allegedly having no message and being inauthentic, which is quite the charge coming from people who will change what they are saying on a dime, depending on the imperatives of the political spin of the hour.

Lowry believes that there’s really no such thing as “Trumpism without Trump.” I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it’s certainly true that, at the very least, it requires a blowhard candidate in the Trump mold. A milquetoasty guy like Gillespie had no chance of pulling it off and probably shouldn’t have tried.

Beyond that, “Trumpism,” such as it is, is mostly just a garden variety conservative agenda with a border wall tacked on. Trump’s extreme popularity with his base isn’t really about taxes or abortion or Obamacare, it’s about his willingness to rabidly attack everyone and everything they hate. As Lowry suggests, this is not really something that can define an entire party. There just aren’t enough people who are willing to go down that road, and even fewer who can pull it off.

However, there are some, and Trump might bring more of them out of the woodwork. After getting blindsided by Trump, Republicans should keep a very sharp lookout for these pestilences. Believe it or not, there are worse things than Donald Trump.

On London’s double-decker buses, the front seat on the top level provides a panoramic view of the whole street. For tourists, at least, it’s the primo seat to get. For tourists who like to snap photos, it’s the uber-primo seat. Naturally, I made a beeline for it every time we got on a bus.

But here’s a funny story. One of the things I wanted to do was take some pictures through raindrops on the front window. You can get some interesting effects that way, and London has lots of famous sights to use for the background. Unfortunately, I bring good weather with me every place I go. Seriously, I do. And I did it again on this trip. Aside from a bit of drizzle, it barely rained at all, and never when I was on the bus. Bummer, huh? Now you’ve heard it all: someone who visited London for a month in October and complained that there wasn’t enough rain.

Anyway, this picture was taken from my usual perch on the #9 bus. We’re on Kensington High Street near Argyll Road headed west. Look at all the pretty brake lights!

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

The Washington Post has a bombshell accusation against Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for senator in Alabama. Leigh Corfman says that four decades ago, when she was 14, Moore struck up a conversation on a park bench and then offered to look after her while her mother went into the courthouse for a child custody hearing:

Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.

“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she remembers thinking. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.” Corfman says she asked Moore to take her home, and he did.

Corfman’s mother confirms this, as do two of her childhood friends. The Post adds this: “Three other women interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older. None of the women say that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.”

BREAKING: MCCONNELL on Roy Moore: “If these allegations are true, he must step aside.” pic.twitter.com/onUoPG1NIA

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) November 9, 2017

Moore says the allegations are “completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign.” The Post says its story is based on interviews with “more than 30 people who said they knew Moore between 1977 and 1982, when he served as an assistant district attorney for Etowah County in northern Alabama.” Also this: “Neither Corfman nor any of the other women sought out The Post….All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews, saying they thought it was important for people to know about their interactions with Moore. The women say they don’t know one another.”

Stay tuned.

A reader drew my attention to this Bloomberg story about the “retail apocalypse,” and after reading it I wanted to add a couple of points. Unfortunately, I went off to eat dinner, and when I got back to my desk I could remember only one of them. This morning I could still remember only one of them. So here it is:

Basically, retail’s problems aren’t new. The sector was doing fine until, suddenly, employee growth flatlined starting in 2000. (Yes, this is another example of the Great Inflection of 2000.) This flatline had almost nothing to do with e-commerce, which accounted for less than 2 percent of retail sales back in 2000. The more likely culprit is twofold. First, automation started taking away some jobs. Second, a wave of leveraged buyouts and private equity takeovers loaded up retailers with debt and forced them to focus on shedding staff as a way of cutting costs. This worked for a while, but as Bloomberg reports, it’s not working anymore. Thanks to retail’s weakness—which in 2017 is partly due to e-commerce—rolling over their debt is getting harder and harder. What we’ll see over the next few years is a “debt apocalypse”:

Until this year, struggling retailers have largely been able to avoid bankruptcy by refinancing to buy more time. But the market has shifted, with the negative view on retail pushing investors to reconsider lending to them. Toys “R” Us Inc. served as an early sign of what might lie ahead. It surprised investors in September by filing for bankruptcy—the third-largest retail bankruptcy in U.S. history—after struggling to refinance just $400 million of its $5 billion in debt. And its results were mostly stable, with profitability increasing amid a small drop in sales.

….Just $100 million of high-yield retail borrowings were set to mature this year, but that will increase to $1.9 billion in 2018….Even worse, this will hit as a record $1 trillion in high-yield debt for all industries comes due over the next five years, according to Moody’s. The surge in demand for refinancing is also likely to come just as credit markets tighten and become much less accommodating to distressed borrowers.

There’s a political side to this too:

The spillover will likely flow far and wide across the U.S. economy. There will be displaced low-income workers, shrinking local tax bases and investor losses on stocks, bonds and real estate. If today is considered a retail apocalypse, then what’s coming next could truly be scary….States like Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan and Illinois have been among the hardest hit, with retail employment declining over the past decade, and now those woes are likely to spread. Many states, such as Nevada, Florida and Arkansas, have overly relied on retail for job growth, so they could feel more pain as the fallout deepens.

Here is Bloomberg’s map of where retail pain is the greatest:

If it’s true that “economic anxiety” in 2016 was mostly code for underlying racial resentment, in 2020 it’s likely to be all too real. But not because of coal mining jobs, which are minuscule: we’ve lost about 20,000 coal mining jobs since 2000. By comparison, the flatlining of retail has cost about 3 million jobs, and in 2017 retail employment started to actually decline:

Politicians take note. It’s a mug’s game to predict the political future, but this might well be a big issue in 2020.

When Republicans sustain big losses in an election, Fox News knows just what to do: change the subject. Their viewers really don’t want to hear about it. Instead, how about if we bombard them with scary Mexicans and Crooked Hillary?

Here’s the latest news on the tax front:

Senate Republicans on Thursday plan to propose delaying a cut in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent until 2019, four people briefed on the planning said, a major departure from President Trump’s insistence on immediate changes that he says are necessary to spur the economy….To try to prevent companies from waiting until 2019 to invest, Senate Republicans will propose to allow companies to immediately deduct all capital investments in 2018 to incentivize them to spend more money immediately, the people said.

I have two comments:

• This is idiocy in the extreme. The sole reason for delaying the tax cut is to reduce the cost of the plan in its first ten years. It makes no sense as policy, but it’s a good way to game the CBO score.
• It’s not a “major departure” from anything. Donald Trump doesn’t have a clue what he really wants, and he will praise anything that Republicans produce.

We are now entering serious smoke-and-mirrors territory.

Pat Benic/CNP via ZUMA

Remember Wilbur Ross, Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary? He’s the guy who held onto his stake in Navigator Holdings, a shipping company, without really letting Congress know about it. But it turns out he owns more than just a stake in Navigator:

An APM Reports investigation reveals Ross has financial ties to 36 previously undisclosed ships that are spread among at least nine companies….Ross has a financial interest in at least 75 ships, most of which move oil and gas products across the globe. The value of those ships stands to grow as Ross negotiates trade deals on behalf of the U.S. and advises on U.S. infrastructure policy.

How about them apples? But it’s all OK because Ross says that from the very start he recused himself from any decisions focused on transoceanic shipping. Or maybe not. Here is David Dayen:

In May, the commerce secretary personally negotiated a deal to facilitate the transport of American liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to China. Ross touted the deal on CNBC, saying it would open the lucrative Chinese LNG market to American producers and “liberate American energy.” He has cited LNG as a way to reduce America’s trade deficit.

LNG, you say? What a coincidence. Navigator just happens to own a lot of LNG tankers. Dayen adds this nugget:

A member of the Navigator board, Wendy Teramoto, held that position while serving as a part-time adviser to Ross. Teramoto didn’t resign the board seat until July 17 and was then hired as Ross’s chief of staff August 1.

So one of Ross’ advisors was a board member of Navigator, and when she finally resigned her seat she was immediately hired as Ross’ chief of staff. Nothing fishy about that! I guess that’s one more Trump cabinet member to start investigating.

Here are three little public service announcements about Obamacare:

• Enrollment is ahead of last year. But after the first week, things will get tougher. If you know anyone who uses Obamacare, tell them to get going NOW NOW NOW. Most of them have only until December 15 to sign up, and that will arrive sooner than they think.
• Shop around! THIS IS IMPORTANT. The premium hikes due to Donald Trump’s elimination of the CSR subsidy have a very different effect on different plans. You might be able to get a bronze plan for free. You might be able to get a gold plan cheaper than a silver plan. If you’re lazy and just renew your current plan, it could cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars.
• If you don’t get a subsidy, DON’T SHOP ON THE OBAMACARE EXCHANGE. Premiums have gone up a lot thanks to the CSR business, but if you go to a broker you’ll probably find off-exchange plans that aren’t affected by it. This could save you a ton of money. And if you don’t get a subsidy, there’s really no point to enrolling in Obamacare anyway.

Oddly enough, most people who qualify for subsidies will probably be able to buy health insurance more cheaply this year. But only if they shop around. I know that’s a pain, but it’s more important than ever thanks to Trump’s sabotage, and it means starting your shopping early. Be sure to spread the word.

Chris Kleponis/CNP via ZUMA

Ambassador Barbara Stephenson describes what’s happening at the State Department:

Our leadership ranks are being depleted at a dizzying speed, due in part to the decision to slash promotion numbers by more than half. The Foreign Service officer corps at State has lost 60 percent of its Career Ambassadors since January [the equivalent of a four-star general]. Ranks of Career Ministers, our three-star equivalents, are down from 33 to 19. The ranks of our two-star Minister Counselors have fallen from 431 right after Labor Day to 369 today—and are still falling.

….Not surprisingly, given the blocked entry path, interest in joining the Foreign Service is plummeting. I wrote with pride in my March 2016 column that “more than 17,000 people applied to take the Foreign Service Officer Test last year,” citing interest in joining the Foreign Service as a key indicator of the health of the institution. What does it tell us, then, that we are on track to have fewer than half as many people take the Foreign Service Officer Test this year?

The big question is why this is happening. Republicans have long had a distrust of the “striped pants brigade” in the State Department, but that’s never led to a wholesale decimation of the diplomatic corps. It’s led—as you’d expect—to Republican presidents appointing lots of conservatives to senior positions. And Republicans in Congress aren’t pushing for this anyway. They mostly want funding and staffing levels to stay about the same.

So this is all Trump—and Rex Tillerson appears to be wholly on board. And yet, Trump isn’t pleased with Tillerson:

“The one that matters is me,” Trump said. “I’m the only one that matters because, when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.” Asked if he planned to keep Tillerson on board for the rest of his term, Trump told Fox, “Well, we’ll see. I don’t know.” 

….On Thursday, Trump said many of the posts were not needed and he is “not happy” with others already there. “I want my vision, but my vision is my vision,” he said. “Rex is in there working hard … he’s doing the best he can.”

This is a mystery. Is it possible that Trump is destroying the State Department solely because it was once run by Hillary Clinton? Even for Trump that seems like a stretch. But why else would he be doing it? Can the career diplomats at State really be so unhappy with Trump that they’re actively obstructing his policies? I’ve heard nothing along those lines.

So what’s going on?

After correcting an error in their model, the Tax Policy Center has re-released their analysis of the Republican tax plan. The basic numbers are no surprise.:

The biggest cuts go to the rich, and this lopsidedness gets even worse ten years down the road. Here’s the number of households who will see their taxes increase:

This is pretty similar to the estimates from ITEP that I showed you on Monday. And here’s an estimate from a different source on the effect of the Republican tax plan solely on families with children:

Keep in mind that the Republican plan has already changed to the tune of about $100 billion, and it’s likely to change more. So these estimates are already out of date. However, I doubt that the changes will dramatically change these results.

It’s a little hard to understand how Republicans think they’re going to sell this. They’re already in trouble with their base over things like ending the adoption credit and killing off the deduction for state and local taxes in blue states:

Nope, lower rates and AMT elimination do not make up the gap. I am paying more. Under a GOP plan. Fuck that.

— Patterico (@Patterico) November 6, 2017

I’m with @Patterico. Raise *my* taxes, declare war on me then I declare war on GOP. May as well elect Dems if I wanted higher taxes. https://t.co/na3z1Oy7Hx

— (((Ikeonic))) (@ikeonic) November 7, 2017

There’s a lot of families with kids who are going to see a tax hike, and that’s marketing gold for Democrats. It’s pretty easy to send mailers just to families with children, and the disclosure that these figures are for 2027 is likely to be a very tiny footnote on the back page. In fact, it’s quite possible to break down the tax implications even more precisely and then target mailers and social media to very narrow segments of the population.

What happens to the suburban vote when families learn that a third or a half of them are getting a tax hike so that Republicans can fund a tax cut for big business and the rich? Or in Republican districts in blue states where lots of people learn that their net taxes are going up thanks to the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction or the state and local tax deduction? And that’s all on top of a Democratic electorate that’s pissed off and ready to vote in big numbers. I sure wouldn’t want to be the guy who has to defend this.