Category Archives: Politics

A Thousand Little Compromises

A friend on Facebook asked how was that conservatives were disgusted and ashamed by this presidency and its horrific actions.

The truth of the matter is that is a very human things to do to turn a blind eye towards one’s tribe and one’s self when looking for flaws and hypocrisy and simultaneously be hyper-aware of the same things in others. Understanding this requires understanding that people rarely go from one extreme to another in a single leap but rather get there by a thousand little steps, justifying, if they think about it at all, as unpleasant actions and compromises taken for a greater good. Think back upon Saruman in The Fellowship of the Ring, “Our goals need not change only our methods.”

That element of goals is critically important, it is what allows someone to accept the unacceptable because the destination is worth it. Of course, this is the classic ‘the ends justify the means,’ and that so often leads to terrible consequences but it is difficult to see that slow corruption in one’s self and it is equally difficult to admit error particularly for anything of high personal importance. So, when someone of your team acts in a dishonorable manner, cheats, or is abusive it is far easier to excuse it, justify it, or point an accusing finger back at the opponents than face the painful truth of what you have even tacitly supported.

However, this has limits and eventually people either abandon their previously held truths for new ones or they abandon the tribes associated with their previous selves and both are ruptures of identity.

Among conservatives you can watch this process in action. Some have gone silent, simply no longer associating with the tribe as it currently stands, some have abandoned the tribe and formed their own new identity, the ‘never Trumpers,’ and some have adopted the uniform of their new movement, washing away their former ideals. It is wrong to think of conservatives as a single monolithic block and the same is true for any very large ideology. The reactions among conservatives is varied but the political party and its apparatus is firmly in the control of a single faction, Trump’s, and it would be best not to confuse the larger collection with the party.

 

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Just a Few Thoughts

I don’t have a lot of time and there is prose writing to be done but I have a few thoughts to share.

 

It is abundantly clear that in the nation we have a police brutality problem. Far too often they act as occupiers with the rest of the population subjugated.

It is also abundantly clear that systemic racism amplifies this brutality and black and brown people suffer disproportionately because of it.

The president in the words of a conservative podcaster ‘fetishizes brutality,’ and his most devoted followers fetishize his illusionary strength.

That which cannot be endured will not be. All people, individually and collectively, have their breaking points and when those are reach chaos predictably follows.

People who so confidently asserted that the GOP 94 victory averted a ‘civil war’ will remain blind to the causes of the current unrest.

And finally;

This is all far from over.

 

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It Always Matters

Six years ago, after a meeting of the writers’ group I belong to one of the members voiced the opinion that in the3 USA who you voted for did not matter as all the politicians were effectively the same. It was another instance of cynicism masquerading as wisdom. The next presidential election presented the choices between an experienced candidate who had spent their entire life in the arena of publica service and narcissistic game show host with no experience in politics, service, or empathy. Today we are paying the price for selecting the game show host and pretending that the choices were in any way equivalent.

As of this week more than 100,0000 American have died of the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis is far from over. When the news began filtering out of China, there were those in the administration that tried to sound alarms, tried to ready the nation and the government for a crisis but their leadership shut their eyes and plugged their ears pretending the crisis did not exist. When the outbreak became undeniable the nation was plunged, state by state, into an economic coma, throwing tens of millions out of work and destroying more than a decade’s growth but that might have been the right choice if the time it purchased had not been wasted. The ‘shut down’ was not the tool that would by itself suppress and mitigate the pandemic it was there to buy time so that the real tools, testing and tracing could be brought to the front and deployed against the enemy.

Again, the leadership failed the public. There was no mass mobilization for either testing or tracing. There wasn’t even coordination of efforts across the federal system but rather the opposite, states were pitted against states and against the Federal government itself. At least one state deploying its guard to protect incoming vital medical supplies not from bandits but from the Federal government coming in and confiscating the supplies for itself.

So now we are beginning to revive the comatose economy and we still do not have adequate levels of testing and we do not have the capacity to contact traces outbreaks. The best we can hope for is that the curve does not go up again but that we can keep the rate of infection and death level. If we do that, forestall any increase as people venture out and are forced back to their employment weather it is safe or not, then we can expect another 100,000 dead Americans by the end of the year. We will be near a quarter of a million dead Americans and for what?

For conservative judges?

For tax breaks on capitol?

What conservative gain is worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of American lives?

(Side note: Sweden did not put its economy into a coma and it is seeing as of this morning the first signs of economic growth, but it has a death rate from COVID-19 of 4.55 per million and the USA’s is 3.55 per million. Had the US followed that course it would have produced another 28,000 corpses.)

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Trump is Not the Root of the Trouble

Over at The Bulwark, a place for ‘Never Trumpers’ conservative to make their case from the right that Trump is a deranged, unstable, and terrible person to hold the office of the Presidency Charlie Sykes made this observation:

But in this case, the vector of this disease is not Twitter: the root of the malignancy is the president himself. Until we deal with Trump, everything else is just noise, because he is the bully pulpit.

I sympathize with Charlie. A political organization that he had believed in, devoted his adult life to, and fought for is now lead by a narcissistic man-baby throwing tantrums and feces at anything and anyone that displeases him, but Trump is not the root, he is not the cause, he is the end result of decades of ‘red meat’ cultivation by GOP heads that believed that they could always control the monster that they created, the GOP rabid base.

Trump did not, like Athena from Zeus’ forehead, spring fully formed during the Republican Primary but rather he grew in carefully cultivated ground. He grew in soil prepared with decades of racist attacks carefully coded to allow plausible deniability, in soil watered with attacks on expertise, in soil weeded of dissent and inconvenient facts, and in soil that was sheltered with illusionary morality providing its fruit of illegitimate righteousness.

The leaders of the GOP injected their base with steroids of hate, deploying state initiatives banning gay marriage, demonizing undocumented immigrant without ever truly addressing the big businesses that employ them, stood aside while the levers of power were deployed in endless investigations of political enemies, turned blind eyes to overtly racist and baseless attack on politicians of color all while cloaking their supporters with an armor of victimhood, asserting that they were the ‘true victims’ of untampered hate.

No, Trump is not the root cause he is the inevitable metastasized tumor of this untreated cancer.

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No Post Trump GOP Part II

It is a presidential election year, the economy is in shambles, a pandemic ravages the US population, and the political partisanship is a mental pandemic that has infected out psyche for years.

Trump won the presidency with an electoral college victory from votes that total less than the number of Americans that have died from COVID-19 against an opponent that rightly or wrong carried 30 years of personal and political baggage into the contest with an electorate that had the erroneous sense that Trump simply couldn’t emerge victorious.

This time his opponent doesn’t spark the same visceral emotions, unemployment is skyrocketing, everyone knows he can win, and there is a clear record that Trump is incapable of making a pivot to being ‘presidential.’ There is every possibility that Trump will lose.

Setting aside the more fantastical result of a Trump defeat that he simply refuses to leave office and assuming the much more probable outcome that Biden is sworn in next year what happens next?

First off, Trump will insist and never move from the position that the election was ‘stolen.’ Illusionary and delusional claims of ‘voter fraud’ will be his constant whine. Because the GOP voting base is solidly behind him, they will pick up and echo these baseless conspiracies.

Because there is money to made in sky high rating, Fox News will make him a frequent feature in the broadcasts, keeping the base energized and watching.

In order to retain the support of the GOP voters that determine life and death in the primaries Republican Politicians will hew to, endorse, and legitimize all of his insane, nonsensical, and baseless charges of fraud, driving the party further into his ‘ideology.’ White nationalist will continue to gain power in the GOP and the ‘Never Trumpers’ will be as outcast of the Birchers once were.

This is the future of the National Republican Party for at least the next decade.

 

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Trump’s Obesity Should be Off the Table

Listen, I am far from any fan of the current narcissistic man-baby occupying the Presidency. In my opinion he is a conman, corrupt, dim-witted, mean, lying and morally reprehensible. The sooner he can be removed from this position and someone of general competence installed the better for this nation and yes for the world. The current pandemic illustrates perfectly why there is always someone to vote against and that the office of President of the Unites States of America is not place for On-The-Job training.

That said attacks on his weight are offensive and stupid. The man’s corruption and incompetence are a factor of his BMI. People who would consider themselves sensitive to marginalized communities will still, gleefully, share memes and gifs that are hurtful far beyond their target of the man-baby president. These attacks belittling him due to his size are no better and in my view equivalent to Trump’s mocking of a disabled reporter. Is that really the company you want to keep?

I also despise the food snobbery people direct at Trump and indirectly at others. Food is one of the purely personal pleasures in life. I’m not going to judge you by what you eat to make you happy and if that’s what you do to others then in that instance, you’re the asshole.

I’ll vote for a potted palm to get this cruel, petty, dishonest, conman out of the office but I will maintain my morality while I am doing it.

 

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One Possible but Unlikely Scenario

With Jared Kushner’s irresponsible and utterly unsupported and unsupportable statements about not being ‘committed’ to holding the Presidential contest on the scheduled election date, and you can imagine the utter freak-out if anyone close the Obama had ever even whispered such an idea, people are concerned and frightened for what this lawless corrupt conman of a president might do to steal the election.

Moving the election date requires an act of congress and the House ain’t going to do that. Canceling the election is not going to happen. No, there will be an election but it is vital to remember that in November you are not voting for a person but a slate of electors committed to voting for a particular candidate. The constitution does not require that the people have a direct say in how the electors to the electoral college are selected, that is a matter left to the states. Voting for slates of electors to support this or that candidate arose very quickly after the constitution was adopted but it is not required at all.

So, take an important swing state like Florida, currently under GOP control in both the executive and the legislature. There’s nothing constitutionally preventing the Florida Senate and House in coordination with the governor from setting aside all votes cast in the November election and sending a slate of electors of their own choosing to represent the state in the electoral college. Such an action would take place after the popular voting and before the Electoral College meets and could swing the legally results of the election.

Our system is built on a foundation of trust and norms that presupposes honorable people acting with moral motivations and there lies it fatal flaw.

This scenario is vastly unlikely but entirely plausible.

 

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COVID-19 in the Executive

With reports that members of both the presidential and vice-presidential Staffs have tested positive for COVID-19 the pandemic has now reached the executive branch of the United States of America.

It is not inconceivable that both the president and the vice president who have been directly exposed to members who have tested positive for the virus may themselves catch the virus and become ill. Should that occur with both men being of the demographic group likely to be hard hit by the virus it is equally conceivable that both men could be incapacitated and admitted to intensive care units to deal with a raging infection.

If you think the current political environment in Washington DC is not chaotic enough just imagine the sheer pandemonium that would result from such a situation, the succession of power for the presidency is clear. In the event that the president is incapacitated and fulfill his duties those duties devolved to the vice president if vice president is also unable to fulfill the requirements of the office then the powers devolved to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

I can think of no greater political thermonuclear device and our heated divided and sharply partisan times then to have the powers of the presidency residing with Nancy Pelosi. That is not to make a comment on whether she would wield those powers well or badly or if this a desired or undesired outcome only an observation that such an event would prove catastrophic Lee cataclysmically disruptive to our national political conversation, such as it is.

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Masks? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Masks

As with everything else in the current United States the simple logical and socially responsible act of wearing a mask in public had become a signifier of one’s political and tribal identity. In order loyalty-signal that one if a true and virtuous supporter of the President and all things beloved by Trump a mask in public must be forsworn, save for the township of Santee, CA where a KKK Hood is considered an acceptable substitute. Even in the White House and people who have direct contact with the nation’s chief executive, despite that the wearing of such equipment is about protecting not the wearer of the mask but the people that come into contact with, one does not wear a mask lest you provoke a Trump tantrum.

Of course, it has now turned out that one of the presidential valets who serves Trump his meals did not wear a mask and has now tested positive for the corona virus. Sources describe the president as ‘lava mad.’ I suppose it will be two weeks before we know if Trump has been infected enough to become ill with COVID-19 throwing this country into a political crisis on top of an economic crisis on top of a pandemic crisis.

Seriously, think about Trump falling critically ill. IN theory, on paper there’s no trouble if the president become incapacitated the Vice-President assume the powers of the office and things proceed, but this Administration does not exist in a theoretical ideal state. It is staffed with bootlickers chosen for their personal loyalty to Trump with motivations that do not line up neatly with the political class’s objectives. Our nation’s capital, already a swamp of backstabbing and camera hogging would turn so vicious as to make King’s Landing look like an afternoon volleyball game.

For the GOP, decades of degrading expertise, rejecting objective knowledge, and fomenting grievance politics over rational thought has come home to roost.

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2016 versus 2020

Barring extraordinary circumstances, and really how likely is that (*cough cough*) we have our contenders for the 2020 United States presidential contest this fall, Trump and Biden. As we look forward to the elect it is instructive to look back at the last cycle and consider some of the things that worked in Trump’s favor in that election and ask how they may have changed for this one.

First off, Biden is not Hillary Clinton. For whatever reason and however large a part misogyny may have played a part in it, Hillary Clinton carried 30 years of vicious political baggage going into that November. Clinton’s candidacy provoked intense reactions that appear to be absent, fairly or unfairly, with Biden. I am not diagnosing why, only observing the effect. Biden is not attempting to counter such levels of visceral hate robbing Trump of that advantage.

In 2016 for those inclined to be charitable Trump was an unknown. There existed in the air the expectation that the immense responsibilities of the office could not leave any person unchanged and that would lead to Trump becoming ‘presidential.’ I think that there was also an attitude that disregarded all of the troubles reporting on trump, his behavior, his disregard for the truth, as simply part of politics and thus turned such things into a non-factor. After a term as president, Trump character is fully revealed and his approval number show that he’s had a difficult time convincing anyone beyond his base of his worthiness.

Perhaps the most important difference between the 2016 and 2020 elections is that it is no longer considered an impossibility that Trump can win.

Five Thirty-Eight on the eve of the election gave the odds of a Trump victory as 1 in 3 and they were roundly mocked for that assessment as so many thought it was by far too generous to Trump.

The L.A. Times predicted an electoral college victory for Clinton of 332 to 206.

Fox News favored Clinton in the E.C. with 274 to 215.

The Associated Press had her at 274 to 190.

The accepted consensus view was that the election was a mere formality to Clinton claiming the presidency and that the evening would prove to be terrible dull of political watchers.

What happened was that by a margin of about 70,000 votes in three states Clinton lost the electoral college. How many people stayed home because they ‘knew’ the outcome? How many people didn’t bother to vote because they ‘knew’ that there was no need to stop Trump because he had already lost? If you ‘know’ that the lying, racist, fool can’t win there’s no need to put yourself through the psychological trauma of ‘holding your nose’ and voting for someone you dislike. It doesn’t matter.

But of course, it did matter.

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