Thirty-six percent.
That's where Donald Trump's popular support has bottomed out.
But it's holding. Seemingly nothing can budge it any further. And this phenomenon has the folks in legacy media spellbound. They send reports out to Trump country to find out how Trump is able to retain his hold on these people.
What do they find out?
Not much. To these folks, all of the stories about the chaos and corruption in the Trump White House is so much media noise, Washington nonsense, or whatever winger cliche works at any given moment. Doesn't matter to them. Their guy is Making America Great Again, signing executive orders, giving fiery speeches, ticking off all the people they love to hate. That's all that counts. They voted for him partly because he was white (unlike the other guy), but also because he promised he would bring all of the good blue-collar jobs back. They count on him to keep his word when it comes to that. They know it'll happen, sooner or later. It's only been six months.
Only six months. But, as it turns out, things have been happening on the jobs front. The blue-collar jobs front, that is.
They're continuing to leave.
Remember that triumphant moment during the transition period when Trump went to Indiana and boasted about saving factory jobs from leaving for Mexico?
Guess what?
They're going anyway. And the company's keeping all of the state aid that it got to keep the jobs here.
There's your billionaire hero for you, folks.
Another year of that, and not even racism will be able to keep you in the Trump camp.
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Mitch McCONnell, Fortune Teller
Who knew?
Mitch McCONnell, Senate Majority Leader, and thus-far failed co-captain of the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, can foresee the future. Or, at least, he can when his ability to count votes depends on it.
As you know by now, McCONnell has, for the past several months, been engaged to repeal (and, possibility, replace) the ACA through a so-called "stealth" process that involves no hearings, no attempts at bipartisanship, no input from anyone in his caucus that is a woman, and no disclosures to any member of the public as to what health care in this country might look like once the repeal-and-replace (or repeal-only) process might look like. Except, of course, for horror-show predictions from the Congressional Budget Office, which are quickly dismissed by conservatives as "fake news."
And all he has to do, because the budget reconciliation process is being used, is get 50 votes. Not 60. Not even 51. 50. Because, of course, he's got the Vice-President's vote in his back pocket.
But it hasn't been easy. It turns out that talking about repealing Obamacare is one thing for Senators, and making actual voters in their home states suffer for the sake of "keeping their word" is quite another. Why, they might forget all of the lies that they were told about Obamacare and discover that not only does it work, but losing it would be painful. For their friends. For their families. For themselves.
So, then, what does Mitch do?
He puts a scarf on his head, gazes into his crystal ball, and tells wavering Senators that the cuts to Medicaid recipients will never really happen!
I mean, it must be the case that he can do this because he has a crystal ball. Because, otherwise, it would just mean that the Republican bill is not really an effort to make America great again, but just a rank exercise in cynicism and self-serving hypocrisy focused entirely on next year's midterm elections.
And that can't be the case.
Can it?
Mitch McCONnell, Senate Majority Leader, and thus-far failed co-captain of the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, can foresee the future. Or, at least, he can when his ability to count votes depends on it.
As you know by now, McCONnell has, for the past several months, been engaged to repeal (and, possibility, replace) the ACA through a so-called "stealth" process that involves no hearings, no attempts at bipartisanship, no input from anyone in his caucus that is a woman, and no disclosures to any member of the public as to what health care in this country might look like once the repeal-and-replace (or repeal-only) process might look like. Except, of course, for horror-show predictions from the Congressional Budget Office, which are quickly dismissed by conservatives as "fake news."
And all he has to do, because the budget reconciliation process is being used, is get 50 votes. Not 60. Not even 51. 50. Because, of course, he's got the Vice-President's vote in his back pocket.
But it hasn't been easy. It turns out that talking about repealing Obamacare is one thing for Senators, and making actual voters in their home states suffer for the sake of "keeping their word" is quite another. Why, they might forget all of the lies that they were told about Obamacare and discover that not only does it work, but losing it would be painful. For their friends. For their families. For themselves.
So, then, what does Mitch do?
He puts a scarf on his head, gazes into his crystal ball, and tells wavering Senators that the cuts to Medicaid recipients will never really happen!
I mean, it must be the case that he can do this because he has a crystal ball. Because, otherwise, it would just mean that the Republican bill is not really an effort to make America great again, but just a rank exercise in cynicism and self-serving hypocrisy focused entirely on next year's midterm elections.
And that can't be the case.
Can it?
Trump, The Muscovite Candiate Unmasked
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, as more and more information became available about Donald Trump's financial ties with Russian interests, and as Trump, while denying the existence of such ties, heaped words of praise upon Russian President Vladimir Putin, an unsettling question emerged in the minds of many (mine being among them): is Trump the real-life equivalent of "The Manchurian Candidate," the title character of the 1962 film (and the 2004 remake), a person who has been manipulated in becoming an agent of a foreign power, even though perceived by the public as an American hero?
Trump himself, unsurprisingly, was not particularly honest in addressing this question. He denied having any business dealings in Russia, even while evidence of such dealings slowly began to accumulate. Since his election and inauguration, that process of accumulation has only accelerated, to the point at which former FBI director Robert Muller is now acting as an independent prosecutor investigating Trump's Russian ties, among other related matters.
One of those related matters, of course, is the extent to which the Russians used cybertechnology to meddling with the votes and the outcome of last fall's election. At the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany earlier this month, in a private meeting that reportedly did not even include Trump's own translator, Putin allegedly assured Trump that no such meddling had taken place, and even offered to work with Trump to ensure that it would not take place in the future. In return for Putin's reassuring, unverifiable words, Trump gave Putin carte blanche to intervene in the Syrian civil war in any way that he wanted. Further, and perhaps even worse in some ways, he gave him carte blanche to continue to suppress and assassinate his one people, upending decades of American foreign policy dedicated to the advancement of human rights.
OK, you tell me, who got the better of the deal here? Only the most die-hard of Trump voters would say yes. As a matter of fact, some of the saner member of Trump's own party are saying no, and pushing him to act more like he's the President of this country, not Russia. But, instead of taking the advice of people whose self-interest (and the interests of the nation) depend on helping him, Trump chooses to sail even deeper into the limitless depths of his ignorance and arrogance.
Much more recently, Trump has gone so far as to not only hint at firing Muller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but also to inquire into the extent of his office's power to grant pardons. As in, can he pardon himself, if he has to? In particular, he hinted that Muller should not investigate any of Trump's businesses. If you think after hearing that hint that there's an innocent explanation for Trump's refusal all though last year to release his tax returns, feel free to inquire about this bridge I own.
But perhaps the most direct evidence of Russian attempts to interfere with last year's election came when it was revealed, and subsequently substantiated by direct evidence in the form of e-mail communications, that Donald Trump, Jr. took a meeting with a Russian lawyer under the pretext that the lawyer possessed damaging information about Hillary Clinton that the Trump campaign could put to good use. Trump's son, as it turns out, was being totally bamboozled; the lawyer had a different agenda altogether. The information about this meeting should have been turned over to the FBI; instead, it became just another one of numerous foreign contacts that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law (who was also at the meeting) "forgot" to report.
Art of the deal, my foot--either one of them. Who falls for such an obvious attempt by a foreign power at gaining access to the American political process? And who honestly believes that, in the fishbowl of international politics and Web-based journalism, it would be possible to be part of such an attempt and yet expect never to be caught?
I believe that this article holds much of the explanation. Trump, his family, his closest followers and, to a degree, the people who voted for him, are all afflicted by that peculiar form of narcissism that Americans are prone to display, especially in dealings with foreign nations and nationals. Our perception of our "exceptionalism" leads us to believe that we have nothing to learn from the rest of the world, even though the principles behind our system of government had antecedents in European philosophy and history. Couple that with Trump's silver-spoon pedigree, and the sense of entitlement that it nurtured in him, and you have all of the ingredients you need for self-love to self-inflict a disaster for everyone in this country.
Sadly, in the process, our idealism about what America and the rest of the world should be like, which is very much linked to our narcissism, is sacrificed in the process because Trump regards our ideals as little more than words, empty vessels to be given away at will for the same of short-term gains. As the Vanity Fair author explains, it is those ideals that offer our best defense to the level of foreign corruption that Trump and his cronies have invited across our borders. Our borders! He's the last person who should be talking about weakening this countries borders; he may have already allowed the Russians to erase them. And they certainly aren't shy about letting him know--or us--know it.
Donald Trump, the Muscovite Candidate. It's not a movie. It's the reality that surrounds us. It's the reality that may devour us.
Trump himself, unsurprisingly, was not particularly honest in addressing this question. He denied having any business dealings in Russia, even while evidence of such dealings slowly began to accumulate. Since his election and inauguration, that process of accumulation has only accelerated, to the point at which former FBI director Robert Muller is now acting as an independent prosecutor investigating Trump's Russian ties, among other related matters.
One of those related matters, of course, is the extent to which the Russians used cybertechnology to meddling with the votes and the outcome of last fall's election. At the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany earlier this month, in a private meeting that reportedly did not even include Trump's own translator, Putin allegedly assured Trump that no such meddling had taken place, and even offered to work with Trump to ensure that it would not take place in the future. In return for Putin's reassuring, unverifiable words, Trump gave Putin carte blanche to intervene in the Syrian civil war in any way that he wanted. Further, and perhaps even worse in some ways, he gave him carte blanche to continue to suppress and assassinate his one people, upending decades of American foreign policy dedicated to the advancement of human rights.
OK, you tell me, who got the better of the deal here? Only the most die-hard of Trump voters would say yes. As a matter of fact, some of the saner member of Trump's own party are saying no, and pushing him to act more like he's the President of this country, not Russia. But, instead of taking the advice of people whose self-interest (and the interests of the nation) depend on helping him, Trump chooses to sail even deeper into the limitless depths of his ignorance and arrogance.
Much more recently, Trump has gone so far as to not only hint at firing Muller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but also to inquire into the extent of his office's power to grant pardons. As in, can he pardon himself, if he has to? In particular, he hinted that Muller should not investigate any of Trump's businesses. If you think after hearing that hint that there's an innocent explanation for Trump's refusal all though last year to release his tax returns, feel free to inquire about this bridge I own.
But perhaps the most direct evidence of Russian attempts to interfere with last year's election came when it was revealed, and subsequently substantiated by direct evidence in the form of e-mail communications, that Donald Trump, Jr. took a meeting with a Russian lawyer under the pretext that the lawyer possessed damaging information about Hillary Clinton that the Trump campaign could put to good use. Trump's son, as it turns out, was being totally bamboozled; the lawyer had a different agenda altogether. The information about this meeting should have been turned over to the FBI; instead, it became just another one of numerous foreign contacts that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law (who was also at the meeting) "forgot" to report.
Art of the deal, my foot--either one of them. Who falls for such an obvious attempt by a foreign power at gaining access to the American political process? And who honestly believes that, in the fishbowl of international politics and Web-based journalism, it would be possible to be part of such an attempt and yet expect never to be caught?
I believe that this article holds much of the explanation. Trump, his family, his closest followers and, to a degree, the people who voted for him, are all afflicted by that peculiar form of narcissism that Americans are prone to display, especially in dealings with foreign nations and nationals. Our perception of our "exceptionalism" leads us to believe that we have nothing to learn from the rest of the world, even though the principles behind our system of government had antecedents in European philosophy and history. Couple that with Trump's silver-spoon pedigree, and the sense of entitlement that it nurtured in him, and you have all of the ingredients you need for self-love to self-inflict a disaster for everyone in this country.
Sadly, in the process, our idealism about what America and the rest of the world should be like, which is very much linked to our narcissism, is sacrificed in the process because Trump regards our ideals as little more than words, empty vessels to be given away at will for the same of short-term gains. As the Vanity Fair author explains, it is those ideals that offer our best defense to the level of foreign corruption that Trump and his cronies have invited across our borders. Our borders! He's the last person who should be talking about weakening this countries borders; he may have already allowed the Russians to erase them. And they certainly aren't shy about letting him know--or us--know it.
Donald Trump, the Muscovite Candidate. It's not a movie. It's the reality that surrounds us. It's the reality that may devour us.
A Few Words Of Explanation
I didn't write as much in June as I normally do and, as you can see, I'm off to a somewhat late start for July. The main reason for this is something I discussed in an earlier post.
The surgery that my oldest granddaughter had in late June went as well as could be expected. She stayed in the hospital for a few days less than was originally expected--ten days instead of two weeks. One happy consequence of that stay, given when it occurred, is that she and her parents got to see the fireworks in downtown Baltimore on the Fourth of July from the Johns Hopkins Childrens' Center, a tall building that, by virtue of its location, commands a view of the Inner Harbor from which the fireworks are launched.
During her hospitalization, my wife, with some help from me, watched our youngest granddaughter to enable her parents to focus their attention on her sister. My stepdaughter and son-in-law are caring and dedicated parents; they alternated spending each night with my oldest granddaughter, and have done everything humanly possible to get her through all three of the surgeries she has had on her heart. On the last Saturday of June, my wife and I took our youngest granddaughter down to see her sister and her parents. The six of us spent time together in the very large, well-supplied playroom, where I allowed my oldest granddaughter to beat me at Monopoly Jr..
She has now been out of the hospital for two-and-a-half weeks, and just started day camp this past week. Since her discharge, she has been under a number of dietary and activity restrictions which should be lifted as time passes. If all continues, as we hope and pray, to go well, she will start kindergarten this fall.
All of these surgeries that she has had are palliative in nature. There is no "cure"; the closest thing to that would be a full heart transplant, which she may have to undergo in another ten years. But, hopefully, the surgeries will enable her to get more oxygen in her blood and allow her to grow and function more normally. One thing she has going for her is that she is a tough little girl; she even refused to take prescription-strength pain killers although she was in very real pain. If that counts for anything--and I believe it counts for a lot--she has a lot going for her, even with her heart condition.
And something else she has going for her are not only the doctors, nurses and other staff members at Hopkins, but the many family members, friends, co-workers, and others who helped out during a very trying time for all of us, whether with actions for words (and prayers count as both). Our sincerest and inexpressible thanks to everyone.
And now, back to the news, fake and otherwise ...
The surgery that my oldest granddaughter had in late June went as well as could be expected. She stayed in the hospital for a few days less than was originally expected--ten days instead of two weeks. One happy consequence of that stay, given when it occurred, is that she and her parents got to see the fireworks in downtown Baltimore on the Fourth of July from the Johns Hopkins Childrens' Center, a tall building that, by virtue of its location, commands a view of the Inner Harbor from which the fireworks are launched.
During her hospitalization, my wife, with some help from me, watched our youngest granddaughter to enable her parents to focus their attention on her sister. My stepdaughter and son-in-law are caring and dedicated parents; they alternated spending each night with my oldest granddaughter, and have done everything humanly possible to get her through all three of the surgeries she has had on her heart. On the last Saturday of June, my wife and I took our youngest granddaughter down to see her sister and her parents. The six of us spent time together in the very large, well-supplied playroom, where I allowed my oldest granddaughter to beat me at Monopoly Jr..
She has now been out of the hospital for two-and-a-half weeks, and just started day camp this past week. Since her discharge, she has been under a number of dietary and activity restrictions which should be lifted as time passes. If all continues, as we hope and pray, to go well, she will start kindergarten this fall.
All of these surgeries that she has had are palliative in nature. There is no "cure"; the closest thing to that would be a full heart transplant, which she may have to undergo in another ten years. But, hopefully, the surgeries will enable her to get more oxygen in her blood and allow her to grow and function more normally. One thing she has going for her is that she is a tough little girl; she even refused to take prescription-strength pain killers although she was in very real pain. If that counts for anything--and I believe it counts for a lot--she has a lot going for her, even with her heart condition.
And something else she has going for her are not only the doctors, nurses and other staff members at Hopkins, but the many family members, friends, co-workers, and others who helped out during a very trying time for all of us, whether with actions for words (and prayers count as both). Our sincerest and inexpressible thanks to everyone.
And now, back to the news, fake and otherwise ...
Sunday, July 2, 2017
Where Should G-d's Law Be Written?
As you can see by following this link, the latest effort to use the power of government to promote all or part of the Bible came, quite literally, to a crashing halt. In a relatively short span of time, too.
Two aspects of this are interesting.
First, there's the whole idea promoted by religious conservatives (and their secular partners in blasphemy) that the power of the state should be used to promote theology. And not just any theology. Their theology. Whether those who disagree like it or not. The "logic" behind this routinely cited is that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and therefore the power of the sword (whether held by a Federal or state hand) is fully justified in keeping it that way.
I could, at this point, launch a screed about the failure of many of these "Christians" to translate other aspects of the Bible into public policy. Caring for the poor, and the strangers and sojourners within our midst, are among those aspects (to say nothing of the ever-present problem of winking). But that's not even the most significant problem with this whole Ten-Commandments-in-government-buildings trend. Neither is the fact that, like it or not, this nation was not founded as a "Christian" nation. Read the Preamble to our Constitution. Find any "Christian nation" references in there? Didn't think so. And, even had you done so, there's always this to chew on.
There's a more important question to consider, however: where should G-d's law be written?
Well, a superficially plausible answer would be on and in houses of worship. Perfectly reasonable, and utterly, utterly superficial.
Let's step back for a moment and ask the question: What does the Bible say?
In fact, this is something that orthodox Christians and Jews can agree upon: G-d's law is ultimately meant to be written on and in our hearts. Take a look, and note that the word often translated as "heart" in the Bible is more correctly understood to mean "center"--that around which every other aspect of our lives revolves.
That is why the First Amendment to the aforesaid Constitution prohibits either the establishment of religion by government, or the restraint of freely worshiping. Religion, first and foremost to the Framers, was meant to be a choice. Nothing else could truly be called religion; in fact, it can only be described as tyranny.
And the second interesting thing about the Arkansas story?
As I've said before, a war in this nation has been brewing for some time, and now both sides have joined it. This is a fact none of us should celebrate (I surely don't). But it is one we all must now face--and join together to find a better way. Hopefully, G-d's.
Two aspects of this are interesting.
First, there's the whole idea promoted by religious conservatives (and their secular partners in blasphemy) that the power of the state should be used to promote theology. And not just any theology. Their theology. Whether those who disagree like it or not. The "logic" behind this routinely cited is that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and therefore the power of the sword (whether held by a Federal or state hand) is fully justified in keeping it that way.
I could, at this point, launch a screed about the failure of many of these "Christians" to translate other aspects of the Bible into public policy. Caring for the poor, and the strangers and sojourners within our midst, are among those aspects (to say nothing of the ever-present problem of winking). But that's not even the most significant problem with this whole Ten-Commandments-in-government-buildings trend. Neither is the fact that, like it or not, this nation was not founded as a "Christian" nation. Read the Preamble to our Constitution. Find any "Christian nation" references in there? Didn't think so. And, even had you done so, there's always this to chew on.
There's a more important question to consider, however: where should G-d's law be written?
Well, a superficially plausible answer would be on and in houses of worship. Perfectly reasonable, and utterly, utterly superficial.
Let's step back for a moment and ask the question: What does the Bible say?
In fact, this is something that orthodox Christians and Jews can agree upon: G-d's law is ultimately meant to be written on and in our hearts. Take a look, and note that the word often translated as "heart" in the Bible is more correctly understood to mean "center"--that around which every other aspect of our lives revolves.
That is why the First Amendment to the aforesaid Constitution prohibits either the establishment of religion by government, or the restraint of freely worshiping. Religion, first and foremost to the Framers, was meant to be a choice. Nothing else could truly be called religion; in fact, it can only be described as tyranny.
And the second interesting thing about the Arkansas story?
As I've said before, a war in this nation has been brewing for some time, and now both sides have joined it. This is a fact none of us should celebrate (I surely don't). But it is one we all must now face--and join together to find a better way. Hopefully, G-d's.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Is It Time For Us To Guarantee An Income?
My answer to that is yes. A qualified one. Because I would go much further than guaranteeing an income.
Let me explain.
I have felt for a long time, and have written here about those feelings several times, that the so-called "welfare reform" law from the 1990s was a perfect example of cutting off our economic nose to spite the political face of traditional liberal politics. Indeed, from my side of the political fence, the only real reason for doing it in the first place was political. A moderate-to-liberal Democratic President, threatened with the prospect of being investigated into impeachment proceedings, needed to throw a bone to the first all-Republican Congress in 40 years. He admitted that he didn't like the bill he was signing. But he decided that he liked being re-elected more than he disliked the bill. So he signed it. (And got impeached anyway, for the constitutional equivalent of jaywalking. I mean, it's not like he sold his office to fill his hotels, if you know what I mean.)
A bit more than a decade later, under an all-Republican government, and after a cornucopia of tax cuts and deregulation, the nation almost drowned in another Depression, despite a record level of military spending that should have helped guarantee full employment. Why?
Well, the aforementioned cornucopia had a little something to do with it. The American financial system was seduced by it into a casino of fraud and debt, one that collapsed when the frauds were exposed and the debts could no longer be paid. But make no mistake: there was something else going on.
Consumers, the real drivers of our economy--the real "job creators," if you will--had less money to spend. And that is in no small part because we forgot, in our overeagerness to punish "welfare frauds" that did not exist to the extent many people believed, we forgot that welfare recipients were also job-creators. They spent their money. They kept businesses in poor neighborhoods afloat. They generated tax revenues, and helped cities and states balance budgets, giving other businesses the confidence to expand and create even more jobs.
As the Nobel Prize-wining economist Paul Krugman is fond of saying, my spending is your income, and your spending is my income. (Thereby proving that he knows more about economics than Ayn Rand, to say nothing of your typical conservative economist.)
But a guaranteed income offers a way of fixing this problem in a way that might be politically palatable. Even to conservatives.
First of all, by definition, it would not be means-tested. It would go to billionaires as well as zero-aires. And it would not be subject to taxation. This slays two conservative objections: excessive taxation, and the creation of a class completely dependent on government.
Second, it would not be restricted in use. An individual could treat it as either disposable or as investment income. As the former, it offers a way of lifting people out of poverty without the creation of a bureaucracy dependent on the existence of that way--again, overcoming a potential conservative objection. And as the latter, it would enable money to be invested in a wider variety of ways than is currently possible with so much of the money in existence being controlled by a handful of people. This is what is meant by the motility of money: money has a greater impact on the economy when it moves from one individual to another.
Third, and what should be most important from a conservative perspective, it has been shown to be practical. I remember when I first got into political debates in high school, conservatives would identify themselves to me as people who believe in things that work. Well, if this is still the case (and, in this day and age, I sometimes wonder), they should all be in favor of a guaranteed income for all: it has been shown, again and again, to be extremely practical.
But there's one more thing to consider: American exceptionalism.
Americans, and American conservatives in particular, don't like the idea of handouts. And, from a certain perspective, that's what a guaranteed income essentially is. It runs against the grain of the American soul, which emphasizes the moral as well as the financial value of employment
Well, in that case, why not supplement the income, or perhaps even replace it, with a guarantee of a job for everyone who needs it? That's something that could be financed in a number of ways, including tax credits. And not everyone would need to look for such a guarantee; they would already have other means of supporting themselves. As for financing the guaranteed income, it doesn't necessarily require a new income stream. I suspect that it could be financed in a number of ways, through the elimination of wasteful defense spending as well as closing corporate loopholes.
And it might also be financed from existing block grants for welfare under the reform law, which many conservative states have redirected toward purposes other than helping people find work, like balancing budgets and paying off political patrons.
Sounds too good to be true? Why not give it a chance and find out? Last time I looked, that approach was called "the American Way." Perhaps it still is.
Let me explain.
I have felt for a long time, and have written here about those feelings several times, that the so-called "welfare reform" law from the 1990s was a perfect example of cutting off our economic nose to spite the political face of traditional liberal politics. Indeed, from my side of the political fence, the only real reason for doing it in the first place was political. A moderate-to-liberal Democratic President, threatened with the prospect of being investigated into impeachment proceedings, needed to throw a bone to the first all-Republican Congress in 40 years. He admitted that he didn't like the bill he was signing. But he decided that he liked being re-elected more than he disliked the bill. So he signed it. (And got impeached anyway, for the constitutional equivalent of jaywalking. I mean, it's not like he sold his office to fill his hotels, if you know what I mean.)
A bit more than a decade later, under an all-Republican government, and after a cornucopia of tax cuts and deregulation, the nation almost drowned in another Depression, despite a record level of military spending that should have helped guarantee full employment. Why?
Well, the aforementioned cornucopia had a little something to do with it. The American financial system was seduced by it into a casino of fraud and debt, one that collapsed when the frauds were exposed and the debts could no longer be paid. But make no mistake: there was something else going on.
Consumers, the real drivers of our economy--the real "job creators," if you will--had less money to spend. And that is in no small part because we forgot, in our overeagerness to punish "welfare frauds" that did not exist to the extent many people believed, we forgot that welfare recipients were also job-creators. They spent their money. They kept businesses in poor neighborhoods afloat. They generated tax revenues, and helped cities and states balance budgets, giving other businesses the confidence to expand and create even more jobs.
As the Nobel Prize-wining economist Paul Krugman is fond of saying, my spending is your income, and your spending is my income. (Thereby proving that he knows more about economics than Ayn Rand, to say nothing of your typical conservative economist.)
But a guaranteed income offers a way of fixing this problem in a way that might be politically palatable. Even to conservatives.
First of all, by definition, it would not be means-tested. It would go to billionaires as well as zero-aires. And it would not be subject to taxation. This slays two conservative objections: excessive taxation, and the creation of a class completely dependent on government.
Second, it would not be restricted in use. An individual could treat it as either disposable or as investment income. As the former, it offers a way of lifting people out of poverty without the creation of a bureaucracy dependent on the existence of that way--again, overcoming a potential conservative objection. And as the latter, it would enable money to be invested in a wider variety of ways than is currently possible with so much of the money in existence being controlled by a handful of people. This is what is meant by the motility of money: money has a greater impact on the economy when it moves from one individual to another.
Third, and what should be most important from a conservative perspective, it has been shown to be practical. I remember when I first got into political debates in high school, conservatives would identify themselves to me as people who believe in things that work. Well, if this is still the case (and, in this day and age, I sometimes wonder), they should all be in favor of a guaranteed income for all: it has been shown, again and again, to be extremely practical.
But there's one more thing to consider: American exceptionalism.
Americans, and American conservatives in particular, don't like the idea of handouts. And, from a certain perspective, that's what a guaranteed income essentially is. It runs against the grain of the American soul, which emphasizes the moral as well as the financial value of employment
Well, in that case, why not supplement the income, or perhaps even replace it, with a guarantee of a job for everyone who needs it? That's something that could be financed in a number of ways, including tax credits. And not everyone would need to look for such a guarantee; they would already have other means of supporting themselves. As for financing the guaranteed income, it doesn't necessarily require a new income stream. I suspect that it could be financed in a number of ways, through the elimination of wasteful defense spending as well as closing corporate loopholes.
And it might also be financed from existing block grants for welfare under the reform law, which many conservative states have redirected toward purposes other than helping people find work, like balancing budgets and paying off political patrons.
Sounds too good to be true? Why not give it a chance and find out? Last time I looked, that approach was called "the American Way." Perhaps it still is.
When The Poltical Is The Personal
In my previous blog post about the current Republican health care debacle that may, or may not, be foisted upon us, I made an unintentional omission, one that I would like to address here.
George Will, in the context of writing about Down's syndrome, once wrote that that an opinion-maker with a personal stake in an issue had an obligation to the public to reveal that stake. He then discussed revealed that one of his children has Down's syndrome, a statement that earned him both my sympathy and respect. For that matter, I happen to agree with his position as it relates to revealing a personal stake in issues about which one comments publicly. I do so now.
My oldest granddaughter, who turned 5 a week or so ago, was born with a series of congenital heart defects: a pair of conditions known as criss-cross heart, and transposition of the great vessels, in addition to a leaking mitral valve. Had she been born a few years earlier, she might not have survived outside of her mother's womb. However, thanks to medical advances, and to a handful of children's hospitals with the knowledge and skills needed to treat these conditions (in this case, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center). she has beaten the odds and made it (knocking on wood) through three surgeries, the most recent of which was this past Monday. I should add that all of this is purely palliative care; there is no cure for the conditions she has, and the path forward for her almost certainly involves a heart transplant at some point.
Needless to say, all of the medical treatment she receives is very expensive. Fortunately for her and the rest of us, she has two wonderful, incredibly dedicated parents with first-rate health insurance. More importantly however, in her case, the Affordable Care Act (hatefully known to some of you as "Obamacare") outlawed insurance bans for pre-existing conditions and lifetime insurance caps on the amounts paid for health care. Without those reforms, my granddaughter's health care road might well be an impossible one for her to travel.
It is precisely why, on a personal level, the political shenanigans and game-playing in the media on an issue as vital as health care is for everyone beggars belief. Do these people have no thought for the impact their game-playing has on the rest of us? Mitch McCONnell suffered from polio as a child. Does that give him no ability at all to relate to children like my granddaughter? And these people--I'm tempted to say something stronger than "people"--had the colossal gall to talk about "death panels" in opposing Obamacare. Their so-called bill, which would repeal the reforms that benefit my granddaughter (among others) is nothing but a giant nationwide "death panel."
Shame on them. And shame on all of us if we don't fight them with all we've got. My granddaughter's life may depend on it. Perhaps the life of someone you care about will as well.
George Will, in the context of writing about Down's syndrome, once wrote that that an opinion-maker with a personal stake in an issue had an obligation to the public to reveal that stake. He then discussed revealed that one of his children has Down's syndrome, a statement that earned him both my sympathy and respect. For that matter, I happen to agree with his position as it relates to revealing a personal stake in issues about which one comments publicly. I do so now.
My oldest granddaughter, who turned 5 a week or so ago, was born with a series of congenital heart defects: a pair of conditions known as criss-cross heart, and transposition of the great vessels, in addition to a leaking mitral valve. Had she been born a few years earlier, she might not have survived outside of her mother's womb. However, thanks to medical advances, and to a handful of children's hospitals with the knowledge and skills needed to treat these conditions (in this case, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center). she has beaten the odds and made it (knocking on wood) through three surgeries, the most recent of which was this past Monday. I should add that all of this is purely palliative care; there is no cure for the conditions she has, and the path forward for her almost certainly involves a heart transplant at some point.
Needless to say, all of the medical treatment she receives is very expensive. Fortunately for her and the rest of us, she has two wonderful, incredibly dedicated parents with first-rate health insurance. More importantly however, in her case, the Affordable Care Act (hatefully known to some of you as "Obamacare") outlawed insurance bans for pre-existing conditions and lifetime insurance caps on the amounts paid for health care. Without those reforms, my granddaughter's health care road might well be an impossible one for her to travel.
It is precisely why, on a personal level, the political shenanigans and game-playing in the media on an issue as vital as health care is for everyone beggars belief. Do these people have no thought for the impact their game-playing has on the rest of us? Mitch McCONnell suffered from polio as a child. Does that give him no ability at all to relate to children like my granddaughter? And these people--I'm tempted to say something stronger than "people"--had the colossal gall to talk about "death panels" in opposing Obamacare. Their so-called bill, which would repeal the reforms that benefit my granddaughter (among others) is nothing but a giant nationwide "death panel."
Shame on them. And shame on all of us if we don't fight them with all we've got. My granddaughter's life may depend on it. Perhaps the life of someone you care about will as well.
Actually, Mr. Lasswell, It's The Other Way Around
A few weeks ago, a graduate student at the London School of Economics named Charles Lasswell had an essay published in TIME magazine chastising the Democratic Party for not making the most of its current state of powerlessness, by not going beyond the we're-not-Trump banner to describe how they would actually lead the nation if they once again had the opportunity to do it. Playing it safe--and, worst of all, from Mr. Lasswell's perspective, relentlessly mimicking the end-of-history, capitalism-is-all framework of politics from the 1990s--is not going to extract the Democrats or the country as a whole from the rut into which the current President is driving us.
I'm inclined to agree with much of what Mr. Lasswell has to say, at least on the surface. In particular, I appreciate his noting the fact that more young people voted for Bernie Sanders than for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined. It reinforces my thesis that politics, more than anything else, is generational. The Obama campaigns, and subsequently the Sanders campaign, were the voices of a new generation, one with a renewed faith in the power of government to make the lives of the governed better, and with a deep appreciation of the urgency in our present condition to unleash that power more fully.
Where Mr. Lasswell goes astray, however, in discussing politics as entirely or fundamentally as a top-down process. To borrow from and paraphrase another president who did much to inspire young people, ask not what the Democratic Party can do for you; ask what you can do for the Democratic Party.
And what you can do for the Democratic Party is this: pay Republican voters the compliment of imitating their political behavior, by getting involved with party politics on an everyday basis. That's how democracy works best, when the process is as close as possible to the people who are most affected by it. That means stop paying Jill Stein the compliment of only showing up every four years. Frankly, it means more than showing up at the polls every two years.
It means getting involved in the day-to-day mechanics of party operations and decision making. It means getting involved in government at the least sexy levels, like school boards (the ones that decide whether your children will be studying fantasy or reality). It means some very old-school, but very effective tools called hard work and sacrifice. It means getting away from the virtual reality of social media (yes, me too; blogging's not enough) and into the actual reality of the political process. It means compromise, disappointment, and the occasional loss. As Winston Churchill once said, it's the worst system in the world. Except for all the others.
The Democrats don't need to be lectured, Mr. Lasswell. They need to be engaged. So get going, you and your generational colleagues. Your country and your future need you. NOW.
I'm inclined to agree with much of what Mr. Lasswell has to say, at least on the surface. In particular, I appreciate his noting the fact that more young people voted for Bernie Sanders than for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined. It reinforces my thesis that politics, more than anything else, is generational. The Obama campaigns, and subsequently the Sanders campaign, were the voices of a new generation, one with a renewed faith in the power of government to make the lives of the governed better, and with a deep appreciation of the urgency in our present condition to unleash that power more fully.
Where Mr. Lasswell goes astray, however, in discussing politics as entirely or fundamentally as a top-down process. To borrow from and paraphrase another president who did much to inspire young people, ask not what the Democratic Party can do for you; ask what you can do for the Democratic Party.
And what you can do for the Democratic Party is this: pay Republican voters the compliment of imitating their political behavior, by getting involved with party politics on an everyday basis. That's how democracy works best, when the process is as close as possible to the people who are most affected by it. That means stop paying Jill Stein the compliment of only showing up every four years. Frankly, it means more than showing up at the polls every two years.
It means getting involved in the day-to-day mechanics of party operations and decision making. It means getting involved in government at the least sexy levels, like school boards (the ones that decide whether your children will be studying fantasy or reality). It means some very old-school, but very effective tools called hard work and sacrifice. It means getting away from the virtual reality of social media (yes, me too; blogging's not enough) and into the actual reality of the political process. It means compromise, disappointment, and the occasional loss. As Winston Churchill once said, it's the worst system in the world. Except for all the others.
The Democrats don't need to be lectured, Mr. Lasswell. They need to be engaged. So get going, you and your generational colleagues. Your country and your future need you. NOW.
Mitch McCONnell: The Only Thing That Matters Is The Game
The title of this post is taken from an early version of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Road Show," back when it was called "Bounce" and played at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The show is about the Mizner brothers, Wilson and Addison, in the early 20th century; the latter an architect who designed the city of Boca Raton, Florida, the former a born con artist who sold much of the real estate his brother designed. Coming from a song entitled, appropriately enough, "The Game," the song enables Wilson to let us know what really gets him out of bed in the morning: the thrill of the con, the vicarious joy involved in getting away with "putting on over" on others, regardless of the cost to them. And the artist? By the time his or her victims have caught on to what's happened to them, he or she is off to the next con. The game is essential. The consequences for others aren't.
If you've been with me for a while, it should be no secret to you that I consider the current Senate majority leader to be a con artist. This is why I refer to him routinely as Mitch McCONnell: a not-so-subtle tribute to his essence. The only truly interesting thing about him, as with all con artists, is the answer to an important question: how far will one of them go in putting one over on others, regardless of the self-inflicted consequences.
In McCONnell's case, we can now put a more-or-less exact number on it: one million. That is the difference between the number of people who would lose health insurance under the House version of repealing and replacing Obamacare, and the Senate version of that bill cobbled together by McCONnell and a handle of senators (all Republicans, all male) in secret. A big difference in one sense, but an inconsequential one to anyone with a heart for the millions of Americans who will lose health insurance if either version of the bill becomes the law of the land.
Beyond that number, we can add another number to it 100. That is the percentage of McCONnell's brazenness when it comes to the gap between his words and his deeds. McCONnell has been in the Senate for decades, but only become its majority leader after the 2014 election season. Prior to that time, he had managed to convince a large number of chattering-class members that, considerations of partisanship aside, he deeply respected the legislative process as it has existed for decades in the so-called World's Greatest Deliberative Body. In fact, during the 2014 election process, he made a point of complaining about how the then-Democratic majority had subverted that process, and that he would make a point of restoring it if the election flipped control of the chamber.
No one should have taken that viewpoint seriously, given what we know about McCONnell's unprecedented use of the filibuster rule, as minority leader, to deny then-President Obama not only a number of significant legislative accomplishments, but also a large number of judicial appointments to the Federal bench. In hindsight, that should have been a sign of the shape of things as they would subsequently come. Nevertheless, for a majority of voters and pundits, it wasn't.
And so, McCONnell as majority leader showed us exactly what he though of Senate traditions, and so-called "regular order" generally, by a long-shot gambit to keep a Supreme Court seat open for a year in the hope that a Republican president would be able to fill it. He won. "Regular order," due process, the right of Obama to offer a nomination to the Court, and perhaps constitutional government itself, all lost.
As bad as all of this was and is, the current debacle over repealing and replacing Obamacare is far worse. To begin with, there was the decision to use the budget reconciliation process to move forward, thereby eliminating the threat of a Democratic filibuster. Never mind the fact that conservatives had criticized Democrats for enacting the ACA in exactly the same way; it was now time for revenge, and revenge is sweetened by using the tactics of the enemy. Besides, to break a filibuster, they would need to offer concessions to Democrats in exchange for cooperation, and President Chump's base would never accept that.
Next, there was the secretive process of drafting the Senate version of the bill, without public hearings or any opportunity for the media--and the public--to examine and debate it. As previously noted, women were specifically excluded from this process, despite the impact it might ultimately have on the care of many of their female constituents. Finally, there was the finished product itself, unveiled days before a snap-vote was scheduled to push it across the finish line. Somehow, all of this was enough for Senate Democrats and the media to grow something resembling spines, and slow the process down long enough for people to discover what had been written in secret.
And boy, when they did, were they less than excited. Less than 20% of the public supports this monstrosity. Not even the ACA has ever polled that badly. Has that stopped McCONnell? Well, maybe a little bit, since the vote has now been delayed until after the Fourth of July. But not really. Even now, he's wheeling and dealing to make the bill marginally less worse, or to at least find new and more exciting cosmetic ways to disguise its badness. Anything, anything, to get those 50 votes (with Vice President Pence ready to break the tie). Why, he's even raised the threat of--shudder!--cooperating with Democrats if he can't get those 50 votes!
Amazing. Using the threat of the democratic process, so that you can accomplish your ultimate goal of subverting it. And, in the meantime, the goal of serving the American people, like the rest of Republican thinking, has been reduced to little more than a bumper-sticker.
But, that's what happens when the only thing that matters is the game.
If you've been with me for a while, it should be no secret to you that I consider the current Senate majority leader to be a con artist. This is why I refer to him routinely as Mitch McCONnell: a not-so-subtle tribute to his essence. The only truly interesting thing about him, as with all con artists, is the answer to an important question: how far will one of them go in putting one over on others, regardless of the self-inflicted consequences.
In McCONnell's case, we can now put a more-or-less exact number on it: one million. That is the difference between the number of people who would lose health insurance under the House version of repealing and replacing Obamacare, and the Senate version of that bill cobbled together by McCONnell and a handle of senators (all Republicans, all male) in secret. A big difference in one sense, but an inconsequential one to anyone with a heart for the millions of Americans who will lose health insurance if either version of the bill becomes the law of the land.
Beyond that number, we can add another number to it 100. That is the percentage of McCONnell's brazenness when it comes to the gap between his words and his deeds. McCONnell has been in the Senate for decades, but only become its majority leader after the 2014 election season. Prior to that time, he had managed to convince a large number of chattering-class members that, considerations of partisanship aside, he deeply respected the legislative process as it has existed for decades in the so-called World's Greatest Deliberative Body. In fact, during the 2014 election process, he made a point of complaining about how the then-Democratic majority had subverted that process, and that he would make a point of restoring it if the election flipped control of the chamber.
No one should have taken that viewpoint seriously, given what we know about McCONnell's unprecedented use of the filibuster rule, as minority leader, to deny then-President Obama not only a number of significant legislative accomplishments, but also a large number of judicial appointments to the Federal bench. In hindsight, that should have been a sign of the shape of things as they would subsequently come. Nevertheless, for a majority of voters and pundits, it wasn't.
And so, McCONnell as majority leader showed us exactly what he though of Senate traditions, and so-called "regular order" generally, by a long-shot gambit to keep a Supreme Court seat open for a year in the hope that a Republican president would be able to fill it. He won. "Regular order," due process, the right of Obama to offer a nomination to the Court, and perhaps constitutional government itself, all lost.
As bad as all of this was and is, the current debacle over repealing and replacing Obamacare is far worse. To begin with, there was the decision to use the budget reconciliation process to move forward, thereby eliminating the threat of a Democratic filibuster. Never mind the fact that conservatives had criticized Democrats for enacting the ACA in exactly the same way; it was now time for revenge, and revenge is sweetened by using the tactics of the enemy. Besides, to break a filibuster, they would need to offer concessions to Democrats in exchange for cooperation, and President Chump's base would never accept that.
Next, there was the secretive process of drafting the Senate version of the bill, without public hearings or any opportunity for the media--and the public--to examine and debate it. As previously noted, women were specifically excluded from this process, despite the impact it might ultimately have on the care of many of their female constituents. Finally, there was the finished product itself, unveiled days before a snap-vote was scheduled to push it across the finish line. Somehow, all of this was enough for Senate Democrats and the media to grow something resembling spines, and slow the process down long enough for people to discover what had been written in secret.
And boy, when they did, were they less than excited. Less than 20% of the public supports this monstrosity. Not even the ACA has ever polled that badly. Has that stopped McCONnell? Well, maybe a little bit, since the vote has now been delayed until after the Fourth of July. But not really. Even now, he's wheeling and dealing to make the bill marginally less worse, or to at least find new and more exciting cosmetic ways to disguise its badness. Anything, anything, to get those 50 votes (with Vice President Pence ready to break the tie). Why, he's even raised the threat of--shudder!--cooperating with Democrats if he can't get those 50 votes!
Amazing. Using the threat of the democratic process, so that you can accomplish your ultimate goal of subverting it. And, in the meantime, the goal of serving the American people, like the rest of Republican thinking, has been reduced to little more than a bumper-sticker.
But, that's what happens when the only thing that matters is the game.
Monday, June 26, 2017
The Overlooked Benefits Of The Draft
The Op-Ed pages of the New York Times never fail to yield something that provokes my thinking in a positive way (and, of course, much of that ends up here in this blog). Here is a very recent example.
I did not turn 18 until 1974, a point at which the American involvement in the Vietnam conflict was winding down. But I vividly remember going with my mother to register for Selective Service (i.e., the draft), and, while signing in, seeing the signatures and information of some of my high-school classmates. I found myself wondering what it would be like to actually be drafted, to serve in uniform, to put myself in harm's way. At the time, I'm forced to admit it was not an appealing concept.
Having read the Times' piece, however and, otherwise in retrospect, I'm forced to agree that the author is 100% correct. Mandatory service, whether in combat or in other forms, is a great leveller of Americans from all backgrounds, and perhaps serves as a way of tempering the political desire to use combat as a way of scoring electoral points. I'm also forced to agree that reinstating mandatory service is probably a political non-starter. A shame. It might provide a number of not-so-obvious benefits, such as reducing the general level of friction among Americans with different viewpoints, and helping young people searching for a personal and professional identity to find one.
At the risk of grinding my professional ax, and that of my wife, I'd also like to point out one other overlooked benefit of mandatory service: the opportunity to travel, to learn about other cultures and to share those cultural experiences domestically. Once upon a time, we were at war with the Vietnamese people; now, many of them are here, working in a variety of roles to claim a share of the American dream.
As the long-term outcome of a war that painfully divided this country, and many of its families in particular, there is a measure of solace in the Vietnamese presence in America today. Our way of life is a lot stronger than we think. This is why, for my wife and me, the current state of the immigration debate in this country is a tragedy and a disaster. If war does nothing else in a positive sense, it does teach us that there is more to humanity than ourselves.
Even if reinstating mandatory service is a non-starter at this point, it would be a worthy goal for an ambitious leader, or perhaps a new generation willing to reinstate in this country a sense of common purpose, of obligation to one another and to the rest of the world. I don't look forward to that happening while Trump is in office. But, maybe, one day ...
I did not turn 18 until 1974, a point at which the American involvement in the Vietnam conflict was winding down. But I vividly remember going with my mother to register for Selective Service (i.e., the draft), and, while signing in, seeing the signatures and information of some of my high-school classmates. I found myself wondering what it would be like to actually be drafted, to serve in uniform, to put myself in harm's way. At the time, I'm forced to admit it was not an appealing concept.
Having read the Times' piece, however and, otherwise in retrospect, I'm forced to agree that the author is 100% correct. Mandatory service, whether in combat or in other forms, is a great leveller of Americans from all backgrounds, and perhaps serves as a way of tempering the political desire to use combat as a way of scoring electoral points. I'm also forced to agree that reinstating mandatory service is probably a political non-starter. A shame. It might provide a number of not-so-obvious benefits, such as reducing the general level of friction among Americans with different viewpoints, and helping young people searching for a personal and professional identity to find one.
At the risk of grinding my professional ax, and that of my wife, I'd also like to point out one other overlooked benefit of mandatory service: the opportunity to travel, to learn about other cultures and to share those cultural experiences domestically. Once upon a time, we were at war with the Vietnamese people; now, many of them are here, working in a variety of roles to claim a share of the American dream.
As the long-term outcome of a war that painfully divided this country, and many of its families in particular, there is a measure of solace in the Vietnamese presence in America today. Our way of life is a lot stronger than we think. This is why, for my wife and me, the current state of the immigration debate in this country is a tragedy and a disaster. If war does nothing else in a positive sense, it does teach us that there is more to humanity than ourselves.
Even if reinstating mandatory service is a non-starter at this point, it would be a worthy goal for an ambitious leader, or perhaps a new generation willing to reinstate in this country a sense of common purpose, of obligation to one another and to the rest of the world. I don't look forward to that happening while Trump is in office. But, maybe, one day ...
Stabbing On Stage--Violence Or Justice? Depends On Who's The Victim
The shootings in Alexandria two weeks ago, the subject of my previous post, unleashed (as I noted) a wave of fake news by the right-wing press about left-wing violence. As I also noted, the Alexandria tragedy is, thus far (knock on wood) an isolated cased, in contrast to the waive of shootings by white males of young, mostly male, mostly African-American over the past eight years. And, by the way, does anyone doubt for a second that every one of those young African-American men was, effectively, a surrogate for Barack Obama? That's what so-called "stand-your-ground" laws are really all about; standing one's very white ground against the progress of the oppressed.
But never underestimate the paranoia of the American right, or its talent for self-publicity, no matter how hypocritically or stupidly executed. This summer's Public Theater productions of Shakespeare in Central Park included a recently-ended production of "Julius Caesar" done in modern dress, with Caesar and Calphurnia made up to look like the Trumps. This led the conservative noise machine denouncing the Public Theater for encouraging violence against the First Family and conservatives in general, and even to an incident in which people attempting to peacefully watch the production almost had their night ruined by a pair of Internet trolls looking for their 15 minutes of fame.
Why all of this? Well [spoiler alert], Caesar is of course assassinated in the play. But anyone who has even seen or read the play knows that its point is not the endorsement or glorification of assassination, but the exact opposite. Conservatives used to revel in their knowledge of the classics; now they revel in their utter ignorance of them, as in the case of the trolls. Corporate sponsors, unfortunately, are not much better; two of them withdrew their support for the production after the "controversy" surfaced. It's not much more encouraging to know that the captains of what's left of American industry don't know how to read, either.
But perhaps the richest irony in all of this is the fact that, not too long ago, a modern-dress production of the same play was done with a Barack Obama stand-in as Caesar. Not only was their no right-wing outrage over this, but one of the corporate sponsors of that production was one of the ones that withdrew their support from the Public Theater production. Not to name names, but it'll be a very cold day in July before I fly on Delta Air Lines again.
Once again, it's OK if you're a Republican, and you're the oppressor, not the oppressed. Never forget that. They sure as hell don't.
But never underestimate the paranoia of the American right, or its talent for self-publicity, no matter how hypocritically or stupidly executed. This summer's Public Theater productions of Shakespeare in Central Park included a recently-ended production of "Julius Caesar" done in modern dress, with Caesar and Calphurnia made up to look like the Trumps. This led the conservative noise machine denouncing the Public Theater for encouraging violence against the First Family and conservatives in general, and even to an incident in which people attempting to peacefully watch the production almost had their night ruined by a pair of Internet trolls looking for their 15 minutes of fame.
Why all of this? Well [spoiler alert], Caesar is of course assassinated in the play. But anyone who has even seen or read the play knows that its point is not the endorsement or glorification of assassination, but the exact opposite. Conservatives used to revel in their knowledge of the classics; now they revel in their utter ignorance of them, as in the case of the trolls. Corporate sponsors, unfortunately, are not much better; two of them withdrew their support for the production after the "controversy" surfaced. It's not much more encouraging to know that the captains of what's left of American industry don't know how to read, either.
But perhaps the richest irony in all of this is the fact that, not too long ago, a modern-dress production of the same play was done with a Barack Obama stand-in as Caesar. Not only was their no right-wing outrage over this, but one of the corporate sponsors of that production was one of the ones that withdrew their support from the Public Theater production. Not to name names, but it'll be a very cold day in July before I fly on Delta Air Lines again.
Once again, it's OK if you're a Republican, and you're the oppressor, not the oppressed. Never forget that. They sure as hell don't.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Like It Or Not (And I Hate It), The Battle Has Been Joined
I have warned many times in this space that we as a people have for some time been headed to a state of civil war. In fact, I suggested in a recent post based on election-related events in Montana that this war had already started.
Well, it takes a minimum of two opponents to make a shooting war. And eleven days ago, on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, the other side finally shot back, as a deranged gunman who had supported Bernie Sanders opened fire on members of Congress and others as they were practicing for a charity baseball event. The gunman lost his life; his would-be victims were more fortunate in that all of them survived, thanks in no small part to the heroic efforts of Capitol Police who were on the scene because Rep. Steve Scalise, one of four who were injured, is part of the House of Representatives leadership. Fortunately, Scalise's condition has been upgraded over the past eleven days from critical to serious to fair. I pray that he and the others will fully recover, as many of us already have prayed.
But, even if they do recover, it still leaves us with the fact that, after a long string of violent incidents and threats by those on the right against those they thought of as easy targets on the left ("snowflakes," I believe, being the epithet of choice), it appears that the days of easy targets are over.
Make no mistake. If there is one person out there like the Alexandria shooter, in a nation of 300-plus people (and at least one gun for every one of them), there are many, many more. And they will not be deterred by the prospect of death. Desperation will do that to people. If an incident like this is any indication, I fear that we many not have to wait very long for the next Alexandria. I do not stand along in thinking this way; John (son of Norman) Podhoretz, no one's idea of a bleeding-heart liberal, recently made much the same point I have made about the level of division in America.
Let me be as unambiguous about where I stand on all of this as possible.
I do not condone violence. I do not advocate violence. I cherish our democratic ideals and institutions, and I pray that they will continue to serve the nation and the world for many, many centuries to come.
But ideals and institutions are only as strong as the commitment that they receive from the people--from all of the people. It has, however, been obvious to me for decades that one side of our political divide lives by those ideals, while the other is content to pay them lip-service. Lip-service that has disguised the libel, the threats, the behind-the-scenes manipulation, the outright bribery, and the damnable lies for which, in the name of the Republic for which all of us should stand, they and they alone are solely responsible.
For years, the practical aspects of the relationship between Democrats and Republicans have best been summed up by many through the running gag in the comic strip "Peanuts" in which Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick, but pulls it away just as he is about to kick it, causing him to slip, fall, and feel foolish. Over and over again.
We saw this happen once again, sadly, in the aftermath of the Alexandria shooting. While Paul Ryan attempted to take a bipartisan tone of congressional unity and support for the victims, and Donald Trump was once again using someone else's tragedy to call attention to his foolish self, Democrats once again issued calls for unity and bipartisanship, taking yet another run at that fickle football.
And, unsurprisingly, it got pulled away from them again.
It got pulled away by the anonymous phone calls to congressional Democrats, threatening them with thinly-veiled promises of violence
It got pulled away by the Georgia Republican Party, which bragged about how the shooting would help them win a special congressional election in Georgia. (Sadly, they were right).
It got pulled away by the return of Hillary-hatred, pumped up to the level that Trump pumped it up during the campaign (when he suggested a "Second Amendment" outcome for the election).
It got pulled away by ridiculous suggestions that the shooting reflected some kind of epidemic of leftist violence.
Really?
Oh, to be sure, there's been an epidemic, all right. But one would be hard-pressed to honestly call it "leftist" violence. More like "rightist" violence--or, to truly put cards on the table, racist violence.
Think, for a moment, about the dozens of victims of gun violence during the Obama years. What did many of them have in common? Did someone say "African-American"? Well, that would be me, because, if the other side was equally honest, they would use a less-attractive phrase.
I sum it all up in a single name: Philando Castle, gunned down by a police officer while he was peacefully and lawfully sitting in his car committing the unpardonable crime of being a black man with a lawful firearm. If the word "black" could honestly be removed from that sentence, the NRA would be (no pun intended) up in arms over his fate. The fact that they are not speaks volumes about the real motives of the NRA and their fellow-travellers. The fact that the National Review (again, no commie-pinkos here) denounced the shooting speaks volumes about how much Castle's tragic death undermines the entire conservative position on guns.
But it won't stop conservatives from pandering to gun-toting voters. I'm reminded by this fact of a quote by Lenin, to the effect that if the Communists announced a plan by which they would hang all capitalists, the capitalists would trip over each other to sell the rope.
And thus, we have one of the targeted members of Congress advocating already for yet-looser gun laws. We also have another one who voted against background checks wanting to know more about the background of the Alexandria shooter (you might have known, you fool, if you hadn't cast that stupid vote). We have yet another one denouncing DC gun laws while simultaneously admitting that the threat of guns is the reason that Republicans aren't holding town halls during congressional recesses. And, of course, we have one of my personal favorites, Senator Rand (named after Ayn) Paul neglecting to take off of Twitter a seemingly embarrassing-in-light-of-recent events quote.
Or did he neglect it? Maybe the threatened loss of gun voters outweighed the embarrassment.
Perhaps the most honest comment from a congressional Republican is this one. Yes, it's no longer safe to chase the gun vote. Like it or not, and I take a back seat to no one in hating it, the battle has been joined.
Well, it takes a minimum of two opponents to make a shooting war. And eleven days ago, on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, the other side finally shot back, as a deranged gunman who had supported Bernie Sanders opened fire on members of Congress and others as they were practicing for a charity baseball event. The gunman lost his life; his would-be victims were more fortunate in that all of them survived, thanks in no small part to the heroic efforts of Capitol Police who were on the scene because Rep. Steve Scalise, one of four who were injured, is part of the House of Representatives leadership. Fortunately, Scalise's condition has been upgraded over the past eleven days from critical to serious to fair. I pray that he and the others will fully recover, as many of us already have prayed.
But, even if they do recover, it still leaves us with the fact that, after a long string of violent incidents and threats by those on the right against those they thought of as easy targets on the left ("snowflakes," I believe, being the epithet of choice), it appears that the days of easy targets are over.
Make no mistake. If there is one person out there like the Alexandria shooter, in a nation of 300-plus people (and at least one gun for every one of them), there are many, many more. And they will not be deterred by the prospect of death. Desperation will do that to people. If an incident like this is any indication, I fear that we many not have to wait very long for the next Alexandria. I do not stand along in thinking this way; John (son of Norman) Podhoretz, no one's idea of a bleeding-heart liberal, recently made much the same point I have made about the level of division in America.
Let me be as unambiguous about where I stand on all of this as possible.
I do not condone violence. I do not advocate violence. I cherish our democratic ideals and institutions, and I pray that they will continue to serve the nation and the world for many, many centuries to come.
But ideals and institutions are only as strong as the commitment that they receive from the people--from all of the people. It has, however, been obvious to me for decades that one side of our political divide lives by those ideals, while the other is content to pay them lip-service. Lip-service that has disguised the libel, the threats, the behind-the-scenes manipulation, the outright bribery, and the damnable lies for which, in the name of the Republic for which all of us should stand, they and they alone are solely responsible.
For years, the practical aspects of the relationship between Democrats and Republicans have best been summed up by many through the running gag in the comic strip "Peanuts" in which Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick, but pulls it away just as he is about to kick it, causing him to slip, fall, and feel foolish. Over and over again.
We saw this happen once again, sadly, in the aftermath of the Alexandria shooting. While Paul Ryan attempted to take a bipartisan tone of congressional unity and support for the victims, and Donald Trump was once again using someone else's tragedy to call attention to his foolish self, Democrats once again issued calls for unity and bipartisanship, taking yet another run at that fickle football.
And, unsurprisingly, it got pulled away from them again.
It got pulled away by the anonymous phone calls to congressional Democrats, threatening them with thinly-veiled promises of violence
It got pulled away by the Georgia Republican Party, which bragged about how the shooting would help them win a special congressional election in Georgia. (Sadly, they were right).
It got pulled away by the return of Hillary-hatred, pumped up to the level that Trump pumped it up during the campaign (when he suggested a "Second Amendment" outcome for the election).
It got pulled away by ridiculous suggestions that the shooting reflected some kind of epidemic of leftist violence.
Really?
Oh, to be sure, there's been an epidemic, all right. But one would be hard-pressed to honestly call it "leftist" violence. More like "rightist" violence--or, to truly put cards on the table, racist violence.
Think, for a moment, about the dozens of victims of gun violence during the Obama years. What did many of them have in common? Did someone say "African-American"? Well, that would be me, because, if the other side was equally honest, they would use a less-attractive phrase.
I sum it all up in a single name: Philando Castle, gunned down by a police officer while he was peacefully and lawfully sitting in his car committing the unpardonable crime of being a black man with a lawful firearm. If the word "black" could honestly be removed from that sentence, the NRA would be (no pun intended) up in arms over his fate. The fact that they are not speaks volumes about the real motives of the NRA and their fellow-travellers. The fact that the National Review (again, no commie-pinkos here) denounced the shooting speaks volumes about how much Castle's tragic death undermines the entire conservative position on guns.
But it won't stop conservatives from pandering to gun-toting voters. I'm reminded by this fact of a quote by Lenin, to the effect that if the Communists announced a plan by which they would hang all capitalists, the capitalists would trip over each other to sell the rope.
And thus, we have one of the targeted members of Congress advocating already for yet-looser gun laws. We also have another one who voted against background checks wanting to know more about the background of the Alexandria shooter (you might have known, you fool, if you hadn't cast that stupid vote). We have yet another one denouncing DC gun laws while simultaneously admitting that the threat of guns is the reason that Republicans aren't holding town halls during congressional recesses. And, of course, we have one of my personal favorites, Senator Rand (named after Ayn) Paul neglecting to take off of Twitter a seemingly embarrassing-in-light-of-recent events quote.
Or did he neglect it? Maybe the threatened loss of gun voters outweighed the embarrassment.
Perhaps the most honest comment from a congressional Republican is this one. Yes, it's no longer safe to chase the gun vote. Like it or not, and I take a back seat to no one in hating it, the battle has been joined.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Handel To Workers: Drop Dead
OK, not a particularly original headline. If you don't know already, I stole it from the New York Daily News, who its original version of it to savage then-President Ford for promising to veto any legislation that would bail out then-cash-strapped New York City. Still it's hard to know how else to react to the moment in the recent debate between the candidates in the special election for Georgia's 6th Congressional District when Karen Handel, the Republican candidate, decided to put her foot in her mouth in a major and irreparable way.
How? In response to a moderator's question about whether the candidates supported an increase in the minimum wage, Ossoff offered a measure of qualified support for it, but Handel offered something else: "I do not support a livable wage." As if that weren't bad enough, she made it clear that she felt it was more important for government to enable businesses to maximize their incomes than it was for government to require that they share a certain amount of that income with their employees, who are the real maximizers of the incomes of their business and (in their roles as consumers) the incomes of other businesses.
Wow.
I'm not surprised that she feels this way. I know for a fact that most, if not all, Republicans feel that way. I'm surprised by her candor, although I think that it's such an inherently un-politic thing to say that I don't think the statement was birthed by a desire to be candid. Rather, I think it's a reflection of her inexperience in politics. Seriously, who comes out and says that they are not going to support a level of wages that would allow people to live? Who believes anymore that business people have any reason to avoid paying the lowest possible wages they can get away with, absence some form of government coercion?
Not the majority of the American people, that's for damn sure. And not the Democratic Party. Which is something to remember, the next time someone tries to tell you that there's no difference between the two major political parties. There is a difference. An enormous difference. It is, quite literally, the difference between life and death.
So get off your you-know-whats and VOTE NEXT TIME for the party that cares about whether your wages keep you alive or not! Especially if you're in the 6th Congressional District in Georgia on June 20. Go Ossoff! May the voters tell Handel to "drop dead."
How? In response to a moderator's question about whether the candidates supported an increase in the minimum wage, Ossoff offered a measure of qualified support for it, but Handel offered something else: "I do not support a livable wage." As if that weren't bad enough, she made it clear that she felt it was more important for government to enable businesses to maximize their incomes than it was for government to require that they share a certain amount of that income with their employees, who are the real maximizers of the incomes of their business and (in their roles as consumers) the incomes of other businesses.
Wow.
I'm not surprised that she feels this way. I know for a fact that most, if not all, Republicans feel that way. I'm surprised by her candor, although I think that it's such an inherently un-politic thing to say that I don't think the statement was birthed by a desire to be candid. Rather, I think it's a reflection of her inexperience in politics. Seriously, who comes out and says that they are not going to support a level of wages that would allow people to live? Who believes anymore that business people have any reason to avoid paying the lowest possible wages they can get away with, absence some form of government coercion?
Not the majority of the American people, that's for damn sure. And not the Democratic Party. Which is something to remember, the next time someone tries to tell you that there's no difference between the two major political parties. There is a difference. An enormous difference. It is, quite literally, the difference between life and death.
So get off your you-know-whats and VOTE NEXT TIME for the party that cares about whether your wages keep you alive or not! Especially if you're in the 6th Congressional District in Georgia on June 20. Go Ossoff! May the voters tell Handel to "drop dead."
The (Expletive Deleted) Narcissism Of Donald Trump
In my last post for May, I noted that I was writing on Memorial Day weekend, and mentioned the fact that I have three family members--my uncle, my cousin, and my father-in-law--who all served our country in uniform. My uncle, in particular, stands out in my mind, even though I never knew him. He was a successful athlete and scholar in high school, but was drafted, shipped out to Europe and killed in action during the Battle of the Bulge. My father-in-law also served in Europe, on D-Day and in the Battle of the Bulge. He came back, and lived to the age of 90 with two broken vertebrae broken in combat. He never complained, and always told me (and others) that he wasn't a hero, that the real heroes were the ones that didn't come back. And my cousin served in Vietnam; although he came back, he ultimately died from cancer he likely developed through exposure to Agent Orange.
I take issue with my father-in-law's assessment. They're all heroes. They put their lives on the line for all of us. They all had to make varying degrees of compromise with life as a result. I know the pain that leaves behind; for my mother and aunt, the loss of my uncle in World War II was a life-defining experience. I think all of us need to find ways to make the dreams of those who didn't get to pursue them come true, however we can do that.
Which is why I find the self-absorption of our current pathetic excuse for a Commander-in-Chief beyond belief and beneath contempt. For his first D-Day in the Oval Office, he went on Twitter not to commemorate the fallen and the sacrifices made by their families, but to vent his various and largely imaginary grievances at the media, the part of our society that put his miserable life on the map in the first place. It's all here.
With this insult to those members of our society who should have respect above anyone else, on top of the muddled, likely criminal mess that he's made out of his Administration, Trump should no longer be given any benefit of the doubt. He has no true constituency--only 46% of the voting public who would vote a turnip into office if it had an "R" after it's name on the ballot. That, and a lot of sad, desperate people who were willing to believe his promises just because they sounded so go.
Donald Trump's entire history has been a study in epic self-absorption. He doesn't care, and never will care, about anything and/or anyone except Donald Trump. He is a menace to all of us, even to his supporters. He would just as soon blow the world up, if he could somehow convince himself that the survivors (if any) would serve him with unquestioned loyalty.
The fallen spit on you, Donald Trump. And so do I.
I take issue with my father-in-law's assessment. They're all heroes. They put their lives on the line for all of us. They all had to make varying degrees of compromise with life as a result. I know the pain that leaves behind; for my mother and aunt, the loss of my uncle in World War II was a life-defining experience. I think all of us need to find ways to make the dreams of those who didn't get to pursue them come true, however we can do that.
Which is why I find the self-absorption of our current pathetic excuse for a Commander-in-Chief beyond belief and beneath contempt. For his first D-Day in the Oval Office, he went on Twitter not to commemorate the fallen and the sacrifices made by their families, but to vent his various and largely imaginary grievances at the media, the part of our society that put his miserable life on the map in the first place. It's all here.
With this insult to those members of our society who should have respect above anyone else, on top of the muddled, likely criminal mess that he's made out of his Administration, Trump should no longer be given any benefit of the doubt. He has no true constituency--only 46% of the voting public who would vote a turnip into office if it had an "R" after it's name on the ballot. That, and a lot of sad, desperate people who were willing to believe his promises just because they sounded so go.
Donald Trump's entire history has been a study in epic self-absorption. He doesn't care, and never will care, about anything and/or anyone except Donald Trump. He is a menace to all of us, even to his supporters. He would just as soon blow the world up, if he could somehow convince himself that the survivors (if any) would serve him with unquestioned loyalty.
The fallen spit on you, Donald Trump. And so do I.
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Politics Is Now Generational AND Financial, Not Local
All politics is local, according to Tip O'Neill. Well, perhaps not, in a globalized world. Perhaps there are other benchmarks we can and should use. Especially if by "we," we men (as I do) progressives.
Less than 48 hours ago, the British political system received the second of two major shocks in less than a year. The voter approval of Brexit, the departure of Great Britain from the European Union, has now been followed by not simply the loss of a Conservative majority in Parliament, but an absence of a majority by any one party to replace it. I'm prone to push against exaggeration, and yet I can't think of a point in my lifetime at which British politics has seemed so muddled. Despite that, I think that it's possible to look at the muddle and find some signs of the future's likely direction.
Apart from the Tory loss of its parliamentary majority, the most notable feature of this election is the increase in the number of MPs elected from the Labour Party, which has shared a kind of political duopoly with the Conservatives for much of the past 70 years. Labour is far from a majority, and could not form a government even with the help of its two likeliest coalition partners, the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats. But the party nevertheless enjoyed a major surge in support through this election, and it did so in spite of the fact that its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has long been regarded as a pariah by the political/economic establishment in Britain.
How did Corbyn and his party pull this off? How, in particular, did they manage to do so despite the fact that the weeks leading up to the election included two major terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, attacks that in theory should have played to the Conservatives' perceived advantage on law-and-order issues?
Corbyn did this in part by a response to the attacks that was as overdue on substance as it was direct in style. He did so by connecting the dots between terrorist attacks at home and the Conservatives' foreign policy abroad, although (IMHO) he could have gone much farther by connecting the dots between that policy and the Western dependence on oil-producing, terrorist-financing nations. That, however, will have to be a subject for a future post (and it may well be).
But, mainly, he did by recognizing what was happening to the generation that will inherit nearly four decades of conservative economic policies (yes, Tony Blair, I'm including you). That generation is broke, with many debts and few prospects. And its members are angry at a system that they feel is rigged against them. That anger was palpable even in their culture; now, it has been translated into votes.
Could the Democrats do something similar here, in 2018? Or, perhaps, even sooner, since there are special elections for Congress and gubernatorial elections to be held in 2017? There's nothing that's standing in their way--except, perhaps, their addiction to Wall Street money.
Despite the success of Howard Dean, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders in relying on individual donations to help build national campaigns, Democrats have not yet shown any significant willingness to abandon their corporate donor base. That played a major role in last fall's disaster. Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff thought that they could successfully run for the White House on the strength of identity politics. They overlooked the fact that Obama won two terms in it based not on his personal demographics (which he actually soft-pedaled), but as an apparent advocate of progressive policies. The fact that he was not as strong an advocate of those policies as he appeared to be played a large role in the midterm losses during his Presidency, as well as last year's rise of Bernie and fall of Hillary.
In the process, it may have helped to feed the rise of Donald Trump; voters that were looking for the kinds of policies Democrats used to offer routinely, and thought they found them by listening to the self-absorbed ramblings of a New York real estate developer. The proper way to view that is as an act of desperation, based on a despair that Democrats have inadvertently fed by running away from their natural base toward a political "center" that has largely disappeared. European history has lessons for American politicians on the dangers of doing this; Trump is proving to be perhaps our first such lesson.
Frankly, Democrats don't need money nearly as much as they need voters. Badly. And not all economically-stressed voters are voting for Trump. Many of them are just staying home, with the majority of Trump's voters coming from higher-income brackets--exactly the people most likely to vote Republican anyway.
The young and the poor: those are the demographic benchmarks the Democrats should use to strengthen their voting base and start winning elections again, especially given the now-historic overlap between the two groups. The British election proved it; now it is up to the Democrats to learn it and act on it. Perhaps they already have: take a look. And another one.
The Democrats' future lies in the economic populism of the past, not the middle-of-the-road corporatism of the 1990s. The country's future--especially its young people's future--lies there as well, not in the pseudo-populist white nationalism of Donald Trump and the we'll-do-anything-for-power Republicans. Let's hope the Democrats learn all of this in time to save the nation, as well as the rest of the world.
Less than 48 hours ago, the British political system received the second of two major shocks in less than a year. The voter approval of Brexit, the departure of Great Britain from the European Union, has now been followed by not simply the loss of a Conservative majority in Parliament, but an absence of a majority by any one party to replace it. I'm prone to push against exaggeration, and yet I can't think of a point in my lifetime at which British politics has seemed so muddled. Despite that, I think that it's possible to look at the muddle and find some signs of the future's likely direction.
Apart from the Tory loss of its parliamentary majority, the most notable feature of this election is the increase in the number of MPs elected from the Labour Party, which has shared a kind of political duopoly with the Conservatives for much of the past 70 years. Labour is far from a majority, and could not form a government even with the help of its two likeliest coalition partners, the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats. But the party nevertheless enjoyed a major surge in support through this election, and it did so in spite of the fact that its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has long been regarded as a pariah by the political/economic establishment in Britain.
How did Corbyn and his party pull this off? How, in particular, did they manage to do so despite the fact that the weeks leading up to the election included two major terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, attacks that in theory should have played to the Conservatives' perceived advantage on law-and-order issues?
Corbyn did this in part by a response to the attacks that was as overdue on substance as it was direct in style. He did so by connecting the dots between terrorist attacks at home and the Conservatives' foreign policy abroad, although (IMHO) he could have gone much farther by connecting the dots between that policy and the Western dependence on oil-producing, terrorist-financing nations. That, however, will have to be a subject for a future post (and it may well be).
But, mainly, he did by recognizing what was happening to the generation that will inherit nearly four decades of conservative economic policies (yes, Tony Blair, I'm including you). That generation is broke, with many debts and few prospects. And its members are angry at a system that they feel is rigged against them. That anger was palpable even in their culture; now, it has been translated into votes.
Could the Democrats do something similar here, in 2018? Or, perhaps, even sooner, since there are special elections for Congress and gubernatorial elections to be held in 2017? There's nothing that's standing in their way--except, perhaps, their addiction to Wall Street money.
Despite the success of Howard Dean, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders in relying on individual donations to help build national campaigns, Democrats have not yet shown any significant willingness to abandon their corporate donor base. That played a major role in last fall's disaster. Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff thought that they could successfully run for the White House on the strength of identity politics. They overlooked the fact that Obama won two terms in it based not on his personal demographics (which he actually soft-pedaled), but as an apparent advocate of progressive policies. The fact that he was not as strong an advocate of those policies as he appeared to be played a large role in the midterm losses during his Presidency, as well as last year's rise of Bernie and fall of Hillary.
In the process, it may have helped to feed the rise of Donald Trump; voters that were looking for the kinds of policies Democrats used to offer routinely, and thought they found them by listening to the self-absorbed ramblings of a New York real estate developer. The proper way to view that is as an act of desperation, based on a despair that Democrats have inadvertently fed by running away from their natural base toward a political "center" that has largely disappeared. European history has lessons for American politicians on the dangers of doing this; Trump is proving to be perhaps our first such lesson.
Frankly, Democrats don't need money nearly as much as they need voters. Badly. And not all economically-stressed voters are voting for Trump. Many of them are just staying home, with the majority of Trump's voters coming from higher-income brackets--exactly the people most likely to vote Republican anyway.
The young and the poor: those are the demographic benchmarks the Democrats should use to strengthen their voting base and start winning elections again, especially given the now-historic overlap between the two groups. The British election proved it; now it is up to the Democrats to learn it and act on it. Perhaps they already have: take a look. And another one.
The Democrats' future lies in the economic populism of the past, not the middle-of-the-road corporatism of the 1990s. The country's future--especially its young people's future--lies there as well, not in the pseudo-populist white nationalism of Donald Trump and the we'll-do-anything-for-power Republicans. Let's hope the Democrats learn all of this in time to save the nation, as well as the rest of the world.
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