Category Archives: Politics

A Strange Theory

Recently I was exposed to the theory that Joe Biden in his presidential ambitions is likely to, after winning the White House and serving a brief portion of his term, resign and turn it over to Vice President Harris.

My writer’s brain tried to sus out the detail of how this occurred to Biden and frankly I don’t have a malleable enough imagination to make it credibly work.

Biden has run for president before and in his previous excursions on the political presidential battlefields has been routed. To quote a jape from The Daily Show ‘You don’t need Ukraine to beat Joe Bide, Joe Biden will beat Joe Biden.’ But as they say in the financial commercials past performance doesn’t assure future performance. A reasonable expectation when Biden entered the race was that he was too centrist for the moment and as before would be beaten in the primary.

Given that it is hard to imagine that he launched a grueling campaign not only expecting to win but plotting to give it all away as well. And even if he had joined the fray with that intention his serious early defeats would have given him credible coverage to drop out and let the left have the field. No, I just can’t see him starting the campaign with the intention of winning it and then giving it away.

So, for this theory to hold water he would need to come to this conclusion after the campaign’s start. After South Carolina Joe’s momentum built and the candidacy that had been on life support became the monster that slew the opponents to its left. Now going from victory to victory Biden suddenly decides that he wants to win but give it to the woman who shived him in the first debate? Joe has wanted to be president for some time, he ran back in 1988 what event or turn of chance would prompt him to suddenly decide he didn’t really want it but wanted to win it for someone else?

No, the idea that he came up with this plot after the contest started doesn’t hold water either. Like the idea of reavers piloting ships from planet to planet in the Firefly universe I simply can’t envision the scene where this happens.

The truth of the matter is that Biden, who isn’t for defunding the police, isn’t for Medicare for All, isn’t for eliminating the filibuster, just isn’t that frightening and that to make him frightening one has to invoke stalking horses, Trojan horses, or Manchurian scenarios otherwise he is a fairly garden variety Democrat and compared to the insanity that is the Trump GOP that’s far from frightening.

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The Stated but Hidden Truth

Ryan Struck of CCN tweeted a quoted from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell:

“After they change the filibuster, they’re going to admit the District as a state. They’re going to admit Puerto Rico as a state. That’s four new Democratic senators in perpetuity. Once they get a hammerlock on the Senate, they’re going to then pack the Supreme Court.”

There is an interesting and unstated foundational premise in McConnell’s argument about the number of senators, that the Republican Party is incapable of persuasion. The voters it has now, its primarily white Christian voting base, is the only one it is capable of attracting.

This is a truth that is universally known but rarely acknowledged. It is the truth the motivates the voter suppression efforts of the party because this is party incapable of attracting new voters to this side. In 2012 the GOPs presidential candidate lost the electoral college with a popular vote share of 47.2 percent while in 2016 it won with a lower share of the vote a mere 46.1 percept of the popular total.

The foundational idea of democracy, direct or representational, is that it is a marketplace of ideas where political actor present and argue for various causes, policies, and ideals and the voters determine those that are place into office or enacted. In theory a part that loses voters adjusts their policies and positions to attract new voter for victory in future cycles and the only way the new states would be Democratic in perpetuity is if the GOP is incapable of adjusting itself to attract new voters in those new states.

There was a time in presidential contests when California was a solidly Republican state it is no more. Things do change and the idea of the any state belong to one party in perpetuity is false but McConnell is telling a truth.

The Republican Party as is it now standing solidly against democratic ideal and processes and confronted in a contest of ideas will lose for the foreseeable future.

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The GOP’s History of Bleeding Black Votes

Listening to a historian the other day I learned that the GOP’s bleeding of Black votes has been going on for much longer than I had expected. My thoughts were that the GOP had once been the home of the Black vote because of the warm feeling for Lincoln, the End of Slavery, and an aversion to the Democratic Party due to its explicit support of Jim Crow segregationist laws. And that this rough alignment began unraveling with the 1960s and the Civil rights legislation pushed by President Johnson, but this view is only partially correct.

The GOP was the home to the Black vote but the bleeding of that support began with the 1936 election as the Black vote started departing for Roosevelt despite that fact that at that time the Democratic party was strongly associated with southern segregationists. In 1939 the GOP commissioned a report investigation why they were losing the Black vote and what measure were required to regain it. The author, Ralph Bunche, reported that while the Black vote had no illusions about the stronger support with the Democratic party for racist policies the economic benefits of the New Deal were tangible gains for the community and to win the vote back the GOP would need to enact policies that produced tangible benefits and not simply rely on good will and historical associations.  The GOP rejected the findings and continued to lose the Black vote.

The process repeated in the 1960s where one party produced real world change that could be seen and felt and again there was a report and again the action required were rejected. Instead Nixon and GOP sought the vote of the disaffected Democratic whites that opposed the new round of civil right legislation in the ‘Southern Strategy,’ over any meaningful actions and the Black Votes continued to bleed.

2012 the GOP lost to Obama and commissioned a new report, a report that advised actual actions and again the results were rejected and the party embraced an openly racist candidate with Trump. Trump gathered a vote total that was actually less than the 2012’s losing total for the GOP but due to third party defections and strategic fluctuations in voter turnout managed his Electoral College victory.

Three times the GOP has been told by people it has hired what it needs to do to reach out and win more support from Black and other ethnic communities. Three times is had rejected the answers preferring platitudes to actions, messages to meanings, and now it has abandoned all sense of honor, morality, and ethics is it quest for electoral victory.

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Is the Mafia a Militia?

A common action among firearm rights supporters is to organize into independent militias invoking the phrasing of the second amendment as a support for their actions. This is often combined with a fairly strict anti-government mentality and a stated readiness to combat the government should it overreach. This bravado has been on display this year with displays pf tyrannical government overreach such as public health measures combating a lethal global pandemic.

The Mafia and organized crime in general whether it be Russian international criminals laundering millions of dollars through real estate or Baltimore youths dealing in street drugs are all armed and anti-government are they too also militias?

The question is ludicrous of course they are not but what divides the ‘militia’ from the ‘gang?’

It is important to remember that when the second amendment refers to a ‘well regulated militia,’ it is speaking of a common and well understand definition. The militia was an irregular force that could be called up and activated at the state’s requirement. The need for individuals to have a right to bear arms was essential as the militias were not funded and supplied by the several or individual states. Each man brought his arms and the commander of the local militia, and these were men of wealth and property, financed the heavier arms such as cannons. It is clear from history and intent that the second amendment is an individual right that supports the militia’s existence.

But any group of people with arms are not a militia.

When a group of people self-organize to enforce the law as they see it, pass judgement on guilt, and met of punishment, they are not a jury they are a mob and are not conducting a trail but a lynching.

As with a jury a militia is an arm of the state. A citizen can arm themselves to prepared to fulfill their duty to the state as a member of the militia but the activation and deployment of the militia is a state matter not one of personal preference or self-aggrandizement.

If you organize, cross state lines, and commit likely crimes you are not a ‘militia’ you are a gang.

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Defeating Trump is Merely the Eye of the Storm

Trump is not the storm that is battering our political shores. Trump is the storm surge, the destructive water crushing and eroding our norms and shattering the dykes of good governance but he is merely a product of the storm, an emergent property of the cyclone and should he be defeated in November, even if it is by margins so large and unquestionable that we are certain of the result on election night, the storm will not have passed but instead will have presented the false calm of its eye.

Without the benefits of aircraft, satellites and radar an approaching hurricane seems at first like a large but normal storm, there is nothing in the growing winds, darkening clouds, and sheets of rain to foretell the monster that is imminent. For decades the growing reactionary racism, rejections of reality, and insular inbred system of information of the Republican party and its supporting organization have been the building storm. Trump is not a sudden lightning strike that shatters the air and then vanishes he is the product of the building winds, the lowering pressure that pulls the sea from its bed to wash away civilization. While the storm surge deals tremendous damage, it is not the most dangerous part of the hurricane that is the eye wall where the winds are the fastest and can rip tress from their roots and houses from their foundations.

When you pass through the eye wall into the storm’s eye the winds vanish, the skies clear, and the calm can lure you to your death. Because when the other side of the eye brings the storm back it does not build slowly as it did before but rather the winds go from calm to full force in moments, now battered weakened and damaged structures from the opposite direction, shattering weaking building with the sudden force.

Trump defeat will be a moment of clam but Trumpism, the vile, racist approach to American governance will not have vanished. The attacks, spurious and hyperbolic on the new administration will, with their resemblance to GOP behavior during the previous Democratic Administrations, seem like a return to normalcy and like the hurricane’s eye we must not be lulled into compliancy or expect that the worst is over. 2022 and 2024 will be end of the eye and the return to the fight for survival and we must be ready for it. The storm surge will have passed but not the storm.

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Was The Cold War Just Over Tax Rates?

From the post-World War II period through to 1991 the United States of American and its allies engaged in a deadly game of brinksmanship utilizing nuclear bombers, middles, and artillery, with the Soviet Union and its allies for the fate of the world. We were assured that this was a war that pitted democracy, with the First World, the USA and its allies, against the tyranny Second World, the USSR and its allies with humanity’s future balanced on the knife’s edge. The USSR’s collapse ended the conflict and revealed a corrupt, monstrous system if lies, propaganda, and murder.

And the American Republican Party can’t let the war go.

In any two-party system each of the two major parties are a coalition of interests ideally with a few unifying themes or goals and for the second half of the 20th century what unified the GOP was a dedicated stance against the USSR and communism. Bereft of that binding force the GOP floundered for compelling arguments for its election and finally settled on culture war issues that satisfied its religious wing, energized it racist elements, and the business elements provided the control rods required to keep the entire pile from going super-critical and melting down. Beginning in 1994 more and more of those control rods were removed until 2016 provided the final crisis, sent the entire stack critical, and released the rampaging nuclear monstrosity that is Donald J. Trump.

And now we have reached a point where a majority of the GOP finds more than 170,000 pandemic deaths ‘acceptable,’ and in order to retain their minoritarian grip on power our votes are being undermined, the Post Office is sabotaged, and very concept of democracy is under assault. So, what was that Cold War victory for? Was it just to preserve low taxes for the wealthy? Was the entire conflict about biblical literalism?  It must have been because it seems the only charge the GOP knows to deploy is to point at their opponents and with mouths agape like the 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, scream ‘Communist!’ And like that movie it is an idea out of time and out of place with the moment.

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Quick Hits Aug 20, 2020

Just a few quick thoughts and observations for today.

Democratic Convention: Despite being a former poli-sci major and minor political junkie I have not been watching the convention. However, from analysis and coverage from both the right and the left it seems that they’ve found a way to do their messaging in these strange terrible times. They are keeping their aim fixed on the prize, defeating Trump, and are showing a level of unity quite unusual for this party. I understand the frustration from progressive that Republicans have highly placed speaking slots at the convention but this election is unlike any other in our nation’s history and the first problem, removing Trump from office, takes priority over everything else at the moment. More than ever, policy must come after victory.

Agents of SHIELD: The series, with all its ups and down, completed its seventh and final season swinging for the fences and engaging in some seriously epic storylines. Overall, I really enjoyed the series and I have started a re-watch from season one. The hints and rumors of a tie-in with the next phase of the MCU are intriguing and we’ll see where they go.

Writing my Next Novel: I’m almost ready for the prose outline of the new and still untitled novel. I’m currently working on a bullet point outline, just the most critical points for each of the five acts but as I go each act has more bullet points than the previous indicating that the story is taking off on its own. For this murder mystery aboard a generations starship I plan to incorporate some of the story structure ideas advocated my screenplays writer and Chernobylseries creator Craig Mazin.

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Work in Process Nation

It’s a fuzzy line between patriotism and Jingoism but I think that divide lies along the capacity to admit error. A patriot can recognize that their beloved nation is in error, demand that the nation be better, and work to make it better, while the jingoist can only proclaim their nation is best and reject the recognition of any flaw. You might think of a jingoist as a narcissist whose narcissism is projected onto their country and not themselves.

While you are writing a book it is called a work in progress and it continue to be one until the final edits have been approved and the text goes to production. In a way the United States of America is a work in progress that never is submitted for publication and one where the revised text remains in the copy all the way through.

Our text started with some very good ideals that were executed terribly. It’s hard to be for freedom and equality when some are enslaved, some are disenfranchised, and some are nothing more than an occasional count. But with fits and starts and not a few bad chapters we’ve improved the work, gotten closer to the ideal and further from that terrible first drafting. There is more equality but not enough. There is more liberty but not enough. There is more justice, but not enough. The work continues and we are its authors.

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I am not shy about sharing my political views. it goes contrary to advise I have received that as an author trying to move product, convince more people to buy my books, I should avoid politics because I may offend some and lose those sales.

That’s true. It may cost me sales.

But I have a duty to ideals I believe hold to be true and to be derelict in that duty for mere money is something I simply can’t do. I have not always met my duty, my responsibilities, we all sometimes fall short but we have an obligation to try and my voice, however soft it might be, must still be raised for what I think is right and I must take my part in crafting this national work in progress.

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Trump is a Wounded, Rabid, and Cornered Animal

There is no doubt in my mind that with Trump and this election we are facing the most dangerous political moment in our nation’s history. Even when Lincoln won the 1860 election and the Southern States traitorously rebelled sparking a war that killed hundreds of thousands, they still respected the electoral process, Trump is very likely to not.

I chose my description of Trump with care not only top present an image of snarling, biting animal dangerous to approach but with each qualifier signifying a particular aspect that is challenging our electoral process.

Much of the analysis about Trump fighting to remain president seems centered on a very traditional model of political behavior that people who become president and want to remain president do so from political motivations and in his re-election for Trump this is a very minor factor.

Trump is wounded because his life of likely crimes has been dragged into the bright daylight and his vile bigoted personality makes it impossible to ignore. Should trump be removed from office he and his family will face a vast array of criminal investigations. There is already a mountain of testimony from former associates about his criminality and the office of president is the only thing shielding him. To lose the office is very likely to go to prison and so wounded in the manner you should expect that he will have absolutely no limits in what he will attempt to retain the presidency.

Trump is rapid because his own narcissism and idiocy make it impossible for him to manage is problems in a rational and effective manner. The pandemic which had it been managed with even the barest competency could have actually boosted his re-election chances, but because he has never actually solved a difficult challenge but always lied, blustered, and bought he way past them. His fumbling attempts, that may very well succeed, to hamper a free, fair, and open election are the clumsy machinations of someone without any skill, talent, or industry in political life. The sabotage of the Postal Service is blatant and exposes him to greater danger rather than reducing all because he is incapable of acting subtly. He always has to shout the quiet parts out loud.

Trump is cornered because the polls are against him. His popularity never crossed the fifty percent line and only the electoral college gives him a chance at actually winning re-election. What talent his team once possessed has been lost as he purged them for sycophants and co-conspirators. This makes him doubly dangerous because as legitimate victory slips out of his grasp the need for victory, to escape a possible looming lifetime in prison, he will absolutely employ more and more illegitimate methods of holding onto his power and his safety.

We have never confronted a president like this, never faced a man so lacking in decency and morals in our highest office and we must be ready for anything in our compelling needs to remove him from the Resolute Desk.

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Corona vs Chernobyl

For some strange and unknowable reason here in the depth of a global pandemic I have started re-watching HBOs Chernobyl mini-series. Brainchild of show runner and writer Craig Mazin the five-episode series follows the historical disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear powerplant following the explosion that ruptured the core and endangered million with its radioactive contamination. The series has won a number of awards around the globe and garnered praise for its acting, direction, and writing.

Mazin centers the themes of truth and lies at the heart of his scripts for Chernobyl opening the series with the question, ‘What is the cost of lies?’Given the lengthy time for writing, pre-production, and production Mazin’s work was not a direct comment on the Trump presidency but the applicability of those themes and questions are unavoidable.

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor number 4 exploded because of lies and because of the reliance of the system upon not only lies but that the lies of the authorities were never to be questioned. Lies hampered the recognition of the disaster and hampered attempts to mitigate its lethal consequences.

And yet dozens of scientists and engineers and bureaucrats managed to evade the lies and with the dangerous work of hundreds of thousands more and the sacrifice of millions more confront and contain the contamination. The Soviet system when confronted with the awful truth of the explosion and what it imperiled spent vast amounts of treasure and resources doing what was required. Mikhail Gorbachev the final General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has expressed the belief that the economic cost of the Chernobyl disaster was a critical factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Which brings me to the global COVID-19 Pandemic.

The government of the United States, the world’s wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation/state, under the presidency of Donald Trump, aided and abetted by support from his governing party the Republicans, has lacked the courage shown by the brutal communist government of the former USSR.

The Administration has failed to spend the treasure necessary, has failed to muster the resources required, has left its citizenry to face the crisis alone and instead has continually counseled with lies resulting in a count of 150,000 thousand dead, a count that continue to rise.

Trump and his GOP enablers have plugged their ears, squeezed their eyes shut and like children pretended that the mess simply doesn’t exist.

This is not to praise the Soviet System. It was a brutal, monstrous, and evil empire responsible for the murder of millions. It subjugated and enslaved its own citizenry and that of its neighbors the world is better off with its collapse.

It is shocking however that a system so utterly reliant upon lies and the denial of truth rose to a crisis while a party that prides itself on virtual signaling its patriotism leaves its country to burn.

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