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Well, we have reached the Midterms. Thus far, I haven’t blogged so much about this important election for reasons of emotional health: which is to say that watching America’s political crisis grind the nation’s progress to a standstill and turn us all against each other is both alarming and depressing! However, the election takes place tomorrow and it is now necessary to endorse candidates. Obviously, you should vote for the Democratic Party and its candidates for all elections on all tickets.
It is unfortunate to issue such a blanket endorsement. In better times, when the affairs of the nation were more ordered (and one of the two parties hadn’t gone completely rotten), it was necessary to assess candidates by their individual merits and positions. Hopefully that time will come again! Alas, right now, the GOP consists of anti-American fascists who are working as hard as possible to neuter and dismantle the United States of America and steal all of its assets to distribute to crooked kleptocrats and oligarchs. Their reasons any voter would want this outcome may be worth exploring later (I believe rich Republicans want to destroy the nation so they can loot it, whereas religious Republicans are unable to see that truth and instead think that treating people cruelly and badly is what Jesus would want). Yet the net result is the same—Democracy destroyed; the country rendered subordinate to Russia and hollowed out.
Americans like to pretend to be smart and cynical, so a lot of voters say “All politicians are crooked” Then these voters don’t vote…or they vote for grandstanding populists who mask graft with home-spun hucksterism. Such a fundamental mistake is understandable (since elucidating what is going on right now involves looking past the clicks-at-any-cost misdirection favored by large media-conglomerates). Also, in recent times, when the parties were very similar, pretending to be cynical so that one could be lazy and not vote was not a particularly grave sin. Yet this election demands voters’ full attention. We are nearing a point of no-return in the Republicans’ long planned doom loop (the mechanism they have used to ratchet a permanent hold of control despite commanding only a minority of votes). Read about the anti-government doom loop here!
The Republican party has not published a political platform. They believe that lies, coercion, rigged districts, and infinite dark money (from unknown payers) will be sufficient to win enough state-houses and gerrymandered house seats to permanently end representative government. They might be right! But before we just believe what they say and give up on self-governance, let’s take a closer look at what they actually want.
The real Republican Platform is horrifying. When you listen to what Republican politicians say, bear in mind that these are their true aims. In the absence of a published list of their agenda, here is an unvarnished list of their objectives and principles based on their words and actions:
- Russia is always right. Vladimir Putin is Emperor of the World and must be obeyed accordingly
- Government by self-determination should be destroyed. Monopolists, oligarchs, and foreign governments should make all of Americans’ choices for us.
- You and your family should be silent indentured servants to these same moneyed interests
- Hypocritical religious extremists should be allowed to dictate what you read, whom you love, and, above all, deny medical treatment to those they disfavor.
- Social Security and Medicare should be abolished and seniors should die in the street
It is not a surprise that the Republicans did not codify this totalitarian evil into a platform (although Greg Abbot tried). What is a surprise is that Republicans have sold anyone on any of these ideas! These corrupt and evil positions run directly counter to the universal ideals of freedom, democracy, and justice which our system was founded on. Once the Christian nationalists realize that banning abortion does not prevent abortion and that Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell are very interested in replacing the safety net with tax tax breaks for billionaires (but care very little for the false pieties of evangelical Christianity), then perhaps the great masses of illiterates who dully stand by as these con-artists destroy the Constitution will be jolted out of their pretend cynicism, but by then it will be too late to retrieve the nation from “Big Lie” adherents who believe that only their party should be legally allowed to win.
It has probably not escaped your attention that I have said a great deal against the Republican/Fascist party and not said as much for the Democrats.
I was underwhelmed by President Obama. His inability to craft political consensus and break the nation out of this political deadlock struck me as being a result of his own political inexperience. I now see that this was exactly how his Republican political enemies wanted things to look. Also President Obama cared about the hostage–I mean nation–and gave up on some of his political aims for the greater good of the country. Obviously it does not matter to Republicans if the nation is destroyed, since that is their intention anyway (after all, it’s much easier to steal from a nation where everything has been ruined and the only remaining law-enforcement agents are proudboys and hollowed-out rent-a-cops). The rule of Solomon the Wise stands against Republicans. They are happy to kill the child just so that they can have control of it (BTW you should click on that link to a previous endorsement which says what I am saying now, but with greater Biblical eloquence and better examples). Nobody should vote for any Republican this year for that alone.
The Democratic Party has an unfortunate tendency to see problems in the world as being entirely America’s fault. They are eager to coddle foreign enemies while censoriously blaming our own diplomats, military, and intelligence agents (and straight middle aged white guys) for all of the world’s troubles. Yet for all of their wonkish idealism and dogmatic identity politics, they keep coming up with policy ideas, and they keep earnestly believing in the rules of democracy. They keep fighting the Russians and Chinese (and all of their downstream villains). They keep trying to make sure that people have enough to eat asnd can go to the doctor and can look after their kids. Most importantly, they want America…and you and your family to succeed. Republicans want you to die so that a billionaire can have all of your stuff. Then they want the world to die from climate change and habitat loss ( I don’t think the Republicans have fully thought this through but have merely embraced mass extinction because it fits with their other choices)
(Also I actually think Biden has done a decent job considering all of the interlocking crises we face…AND considering that the previous guy stacked the deck so that things would be impossible for him, but political operators say not to talk about how well Biden has done, so I guess I won’t).
But you should take Biden’s integrity into consideration and you should take the wholesale moral abomination of the cowardly, lying, traitorous criminal Republican Party into consideration as well when you go to cast what they undoubtedly hope will be the last (or next-to-last) vote you are ever allowed to cast. Republicans hate democracy, they hate nature, they hate your family, and above all, they hate YOU with all of their malice and malignancy. Vote accordingly.
Like everything else in the year of our Lord 2020, the American election of 2020 was an ugly mess. As I write this, it looks like Joe Biden will probably manage to scratch out a meager victory, however any hope he had of accomplishing anything as president is already comprehensively and utterly ruined. Mitch McConnell’s icy skeletal grip upon the Senate remains, and McConnell will not allow any legislation that would benefit any non-billionaire to ever pass that ghastly house. There will be no new fiscal stimulus, or, if there is, it will be a miserable pretense which really only helps billionaires. There will be no improved medical care system. Indeed, the Supreme Court is almost certain to strike down the ACA in the immediate future, driving tens of millions of citizens out of medical care and into bankruptcy (to say nothing of what those charlatans in robes will do to reproductive rights or gun control rules). The next four years will feature no technological innovations, discoveries, or breakthroughs of any significance (Republicans and their corporate overlords have no interest in such things when the current status quo serves their purposes just fine). There will be no infrastructure deal to rebuild our crumbling nation. Americans will become poorer, sicker, and face greater day-to-day insecurity. The coronavirus will continue to kill us off and keep us separated from each other for the next several years until it burns out on its own (or do you envision folks from Kansas rushing to follow President Biden’s health initiatives?) Our standing in the world will keep on plummeting, as our autocratic foes coerce lesser nations into their thrall. Worst of all, environmental devastation will continue at a breakneck pace. Soon most ecosystems will be irrecoverably degraded and most wild lifeforms will be impossibly rare or outright extinct.
So…was the election a complete disaster? It was not! Getting rid of Donald Trump was the most important thing, and, unless he manages some Robert-Mugabe-style dark contrivance in the immediate future, he will be mercifully gone within a few looooooooong months. I am not looking forward to the cash grabs, parade of pardons, and graceless & dangerous transfer of power which we will witness during those months. However Donald Trump was the biggest threat to representative government in modern U.S history, and staving off such a threat is not nothing!. The fact that 48% of the electorate joyously voted for a white supremacist con man who has looted & preened while a quarter of a million Americans died is discouraging. Yet with Trump out of the picture (in exile, prison, or the grave) his cult of personality will recede and we will be able to look to the future and solve some of the problems which are destroying us.
Except will we really?
I did not write that first paragraph for no reason. I believe everything I said will come to pass. It is the future which Mitch McConnell is building even as I write this. And, as soon as we (non-billionaires) are being crushed beneath it, he will blame it all on Joe Biden. “Government is the problem” McConnell (or his mouthpieces) will say. Just privatize everything and let business cartels write their own rules and there will be no problem! Americans are already figuratively corporate slaves. The terrible years to come are all about making us into literal slaves.
We need to prepare for this as soon as possible. Harden your heart and stiffen your upper lip. Things in America are about to get much worse than they have been for the last 4 years. This will be entirely the fault of the Republicans. It is not even a mistake or miscalculation. It is their plan! Only by carefully explaining this again and again and again will we be able to help voters understand where their misery is truly coming from. Right now voters seem to think it is liberal snowflakes raiding their bank accounts, raising their insurance premiums, and threatening their social security. Perhaps if we can help voters understand who the true villains are (McConnell and his cronies!) we can escape some of the harm which is about to cascade down on us.
Unfortunately, before we can get back to bats and artwork, we must deal with the misbegotten election of 2020, a dark tempest which has been blackening the national offing ever since it became evident that Republicans have no interest in laws, public well-being, or representative democracy but are instead trying to use underhanded means to ensure permanent authoritarian one-party rule in the United States of America.
For the election of 2016 I wrote a thoughtful and fair-spoken endorsement which stands the test of time…and yet is also clearly from the halcyon era before Trump pulled us all onto the road to hell which we are now walking together as a nation. You should go back and check it out! I used to write so prettily before it became evident that nobody cares about that sort of thing!
The outrageous acrimony of the 2020 election however calls for a different approach. When disputes devolve to pure emotional terms of screaming, fighting, and breathless accusations of lies & criminality, it becomes hard for conscientious arbiters to figure out who is lying. There is a story from the Bible about this(confused Evangelical Christians might recognize this unknown text as the mysterious black rectangular prop which their lord and savior, Donald Trump, was holding in his June 1st photo op).
Solomon the Wise, the heir of King David of Israel, was renowned for his probity, honor, and good sense in adjudicating other people’s disputes (sadly his wisdom abandoned him in his own family affairs, which were a mess, but we can talk about that later if at all). Anyway, two women came to King Solomon with a seemingly insoluble dispute about an infant. Here is the relevant passage from the King James Bible (Kings, Chapter 3, Verses 16 to 28):
Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house. And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear. And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living. And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.
Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.
And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.
The real mother was the woman who actually cared about the child and would rather see him given to a lying stranger than be destroyed. Again and again this year, similar choices have been put before America’s two different parties and their answers have revealed exactly which party is concerned with the national well-being and which party does not care if the nation is destroyed so long as they can cling to power and appoint incompetent judges (no matter how little of a national mandate they have).
The most telling of these incidents involved the second round of stimulus money, which is necessary to forestall a ruinous recession on Main Street. The Democratic House passed a generous second stimulus bill back at the end of spring. The Republican senate keeps tearing it to pieces and filling it with poisonous pills so that it cannot pass. Even if the stimulus money would help the entire nation (and help Donald Trump get re-elected) it is unacceptable to Mitch McConnell if it gives anything to needy Americans or gives the Democrats the appearance of a win. A truly cynical (but probably correct) interpretation is that McConnell has decided that Biden will win the election and he wants the nation to fail as precipitously and absolutely as possible during a Biden administration. (McConnell, one of American history’s greatest villains, is like the harlot who does not care if the child is killed…if that harlot were 300 million times more vindictive, spiteful, & murderous and somehow also looked like a melted turtle).
Other similar “Go ahead and cut him in half” moments include the Trumpist stance in the national argument over face masks & lockdowns, the acquittal of Donald Trump in the Senate despite overwhelming evidence of guilt, the grotesque mischaracterization of the Muller report, the abandonment of longstanding national allies, the jettisoning of the emoluments clause etc etc etc…
So, to be nakedly blunt about my political endorsements, every Republican other than Mitt Romney should be voted out of office as quickly as possible (if you are in Utah, Massachusetts, Michigan, or France…or wherever it is the plutocratic-yet-honest Romney calls home these days, you can judge him on his own merits). The GOP is now a party of Quislings, liars, extortionists, criminals, and outright white supremacists who are not worthy of holding public office. When Solomon said “cut the United States of America in half” Republicans happily got out their saws, scalpels, lasers, calipers, and scales to ensure that they have exactly enough of the corpse to claim complete control in accordance with the rigged anti-Democratic rules they have been foisting upon us. The health of the child in this endeavor has never entered GOP calculations at all.
I have traditionally been in sympathy with Republican’s stated platform of strong national defense and sufficient R&D to keep the nation competitive in the future (and you know…solve problems and make life better). Their actions have revealed that their true motivation is naked love of power and all other items are pretexts which will be swiftly abandoned in pursuit of their true goal.
Of course intelligent people will recognize there is a problem for all of us within the parameters of my metaphor. The Republicans do not care in any way about the nation but are happy to threaten our collective well-being in order to take what they and their billionaire masters want. Our current crisis arguably stems from past episodes where Democrats sighed heavily and let the Republicans walk away with the living child instead of cutting him in half (the controversial Bush/Gore election of 2000, the terms of the financial bailout of 2008, and the Obama administration’s capitulation to government shutdown theatrics all spring to mind). What if there were no Solomon? What if the loud and aggressive bad harlot had walked off with the baby because its true mother was afraid of hurting it by fighting? How can we save a hostage which the Republican party is perfectly happy to kill?
In days to come, we will find out if there is an answer. But fellow citizens, remember: you are not merely the threatened child in this scenario, you are Solomon too. The power to find a good solution belongs to you, dear voter…and nobody can take that decision from you. Well…they can’t take our capacity to make decisions about our lives unless we vote for Trump to become King of America (and, appallingly, that horrible scenario happens to be on the ballot tomorrow).
[P.S. Coincidentally, Joe Biden is a very decent person and a gifted leader who might actually have it in him to be a great president. However the shocking malfeasance of Republicans during the last four years has made writing about Biden unnecessary. Biden is a patriot and he is not a criminal. Sadly that is all we are required to know about him until Donald Trump is out of the White House]
The Republican Convention of 1880
In ages past, national political conventions lay at the heart of how American political parties selected candidates. This made for strange and fascinating stories, such as the tale of the Republican convention of 1880 when the delegates met in gilded age Chicago and cast their ballots 36 times before finally settling on a presidential candidate, James Garfield, who wasn’t even running for the presidency! Yet, during the progressive era, the right to select candidates was wrestled out of the hands of shadowy party grandees and handed over to rank-and-file party voters. In turn, the political conventions stopped being real political contests and became vast kabuki-style infomercials (albeit meaningful ones, where the parties try out new messages and launch the careers of aspirant national leaders). For viewers at home, the net result of all of this was dreadful tv! All of the political conventions I watched during the eighties, nineties, aughts, and teens were turgid set-pieces with lots of talking heads shouting soundbites to enormous halls filled with screaming followers. It makes my head hurt to just think about these things, and I am sure if you start reminiscing about Joe Paterno, “swiftboating,” Gary Hart, Clint Eastwood talking to a chair, the Astros being thrown out of their own stadium (snicker), Governor Ann Richards, etc…etc…ad nauseum, you too will start to be overcome by despair at the benighted human condition.
This year, however, the Covid-19 global pandemic has forced some much needed changes on America’s worn-out political conventions! What I have seen so far from the Republican convention has not been encouraging (unless you are a cannibal lizard person or a devout believer in the same), but last week’s Democratic convention had a wholesome charm which was a tonic in this fragmented and frightened era. Structural differences in the two parties generally do not favor the Democratic convention. Because of their big tent , it is easy for endless smaller issues to drag the event in too many directions to easily comprehend a larger theme. This year though, all individual grievances were subsumed into an overarching theme of grief and of how the nation can overcome and allay the disasters and follies of the past few years. This involved hearing from more actual workaday Americans than in any convention I can recall. There were small farmers talking about losing their livelihoods, children mourning their plague-stricken parents, and victims of gun violence. George Floyd’s brother spoke with steady eloquence about his dead brother’s gentle spirit.
There were also pointless celebrities like the annoying Julia Louis-Dreyfus Hall, but there is no need to dwell on them. Celebrities have ruined enough things in America. If we can drive them away from politics, it will be a huge relief (although I doubt it will happen).
The best part of the convention, unexpectedly, was the role call of delegates pledging their votes to the candidates. This involved little clips of lots of local figures and local, um, locations, and it was a delight to see so much of the country and its inhabitants for a change (as opposed to the red, white, & blue bunting, confetti, makeup and lies which are the fabric of most conventions).
Among the 2020 delegates, Khizr Khan was back–older and with one drooping eye–but with the same fierce pride in the United States of America, and radiating the same righteous anger at those who would threaten or abuse our beloved Constitution.
Also compelling was the Rhode Island delegation. There was a standard leader of some sort pledging his support to Biden, but next to him was a masked calamari chef! The culinary ninja just stood there silently with a huge glistening tray of fried squid. His physical presence radiated power, and his golden brown seafood banquet certainly won my heart (did you know Rhode island was famous for squid?) Ferrebeekeeper has fantasized about mollusks being the highlight of a political convention, but I never thought it would really happen…
I am not sure if the convention was satisfying to hardcore political junkies. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and the Obamas all made fine presentations (Bernie talked to us from the woodshed where he maybe wants to take some obtuse Americans), however none of these speeches were really about the granular details of policy or political competition. That is fine with me. I think the Democrats were wise to try to make emotional inroads into the unsettled hearts of Americans who are seeking a better life for themselves and their family. We already know that Biden and his allies have ample experience of public policy and legislating. We need to see that they care about the whole nation (as opposed to one particular group).
At the end of the event, Joe Biden gave his best speech so far: a homespun but competent and compelling oration which made him seem like what he is: a lifelong public servant who cares about Americans of all sorts. He said he was willing to work with opponents to get things done for the nation as a whole. I believed him. There was no balloon drop, but even the awkward final moment of the convention had a certain earnest charm: Biden and Harris clearly wanted to hug each other, but were constrained by social distancing guidelines. Instead of embracing and mingling with their families, they put on masks and stood there awkwardly before heading out into the parking lot to watch some fireworks. We all know exactly how they feel.
All of which is to say, I liked the Democratic Convention more than any convention I have seen so far. Although it did not address lots of points of policy with exacting detail, it did not need to. There is time for such things during the campaign, and anyway, let’s face it, the fact that Joe Biden will not flout the law or sell out our national interest to Vladimir Putin or some murderous Saudi Prince has already won my vote (although I believe there are many actual policy choices which Biden pursues which will be beneficial to all Americans). Plus he will actually show up and do the job! Although there were plenty of less-than-polished moments in terms of the new format, the convention radiated decency, competence, and compassion. Obviously we will talk more about the election this autumn, but the Democratic Convention has already surpassed my expectations. It made me feel better. When was the last time you could say that about a political event?
Kindly accept my sincere apologies for not writing any posts last week! It is late August, the last moment of proximate calm before the big election, and it seemed like an ideal moment to take some summer vacation (also I have had to keep on trucking to the office this whole time, so I needed some downtime).
Anyway, to get back to the affairs of the world, the 2020 United States presidential election is indeed coming up! Unfortunately I find it completely enervating to write about the current occupant of the White House. Donald Trump is a criminal, a con-artist, and a would-be-dictator. Despite how eagerly he is embraced by Jerry Falwell Jr. and evangelical leaders of such ilk, Trump is no Christian at all: Trump’s true master is not Jesus but Vladimir Putin. If you doubt it, just compare Trump’s (nonexistent) deference to Jesus to his (supine) deference to Putin. In New York it is widely speculated that the only way Donald Trump was able to borrow money after multiple high-profile bankruptcies was because the Russian mafia (which is, again, to say Vladimir Putin) backed exorbitant loans to Trump so that he would help them launder money through his crooked real estate empire. So far Trump has successfully fought off all of the (somewhat feeble) attempts by investigators to get to the bottom of his financial relations with Russia, but the truth will eventually come out someday. Since even the most dim Americans would probably (?) object somewhat to an American president who openly works for Russia only, Trump has confused the issue by attacking the concept that anything at all is knowable in any way. Attacking knowledge itself (!) has had more severe ramifications than usual in this time of pestilence (although all of the other terrible harms which Trump has done the nation will become more obvious in time). All of which is to say nothing of Trump’s self-evident tyranny, cruelty, idiocy, sexism, mendacity, anti-environmentalism, racism, cronyism, nepotism, cowardly personal behavior, and unpleasant personal appearance.
And here is another problem: today I had meant to write about the Democratic National Convention (which was much more earnest, heartfelt, and effective than I had imagined it would be), however outrage over Trump has trumped my message of support for Biden. Trump derangement syndrome is not a real thing (there is no effective way for Americans of conscience to accept or even comprehend this corrupt oaf is indeed in the nation’s highest office where he is happily destroying everyone’s future), yet just beginning to look at Trump’s corruption drowns out all other themes! It is yet another terrible emotional trap of these Trumpian times. My old anti-Trump posts were more thoughtful than today’s self defeating screed because everything hadn’t become Trump all of the time!
I promise I will write about the Democratic convention tomorrow. It was an improvement on old-fashioned political conventions and I have a feeling we will be seeing more things like it, (even in a blessed Covid-free future). In the mean time, perhaps it is necessary to begin coverage of election 2020 by denouncing the brazen & outlandish criminal who today sits at the Resolute desk. Joe Biden can and must beat him (otherwise the nation is going to break and a lot of us are headed off to concentration camps). Tomorrow we will deliberately look away from the Walpurgisnacht rituals currently happening in Charlotte and talk about why a Biden/Harris victory will be a good thing even if we omit Donald Trump from the picture entirely. Then we will get to work omitting Trump from the picture entirely.
After the horrible election of 2016, a friend of mine who is more sanguine about life than I (and more effective at predicting what markets will do) opined that we don’t have to worry about Trump and the Republicans. “Trump is like the pied piper leading Republicans into a crack in the mountain” my friend said. “The fact that he won, merely means that they are truly following him all the way into the unseelie darkness before the crack slams shut and vanishes.”
And yet I wonder if Trump hasn’t already taken all of us into the darkness already. The Democratic convention gave me a moment of hope that there are still some people and things which won’t be destroyed by Trump’s final act. We will talk about it tomorrow.
Whether he acknowledges it or not, tonight marks the end of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for the presidency. This year’s primaries have been a white-hot crucible, and many of the assertions upon which Sanders based his hopes were assayed away in the flames. Young voters did not show up in record droves. There was no great untapped seam of voters at the left (or if there is, they still didn’t vote). The Democratic party has been surprisingly effective, disciplined, & solid (who ever thought we would be writing those words?) and has come together to support the candidate who has the best shot at beating Trump and delivering the Senate to blue control. Key portions of the Democratic coalition–African American voters and older working class voters–seem to actually like the affable gaffe-meister (as do all-important suburban swing voters). College educated white voters preferred Warren, but will no doubt flock to Biden to beat the loathed Trump. Unhappy outsiders, such as Latino voters, idealists, actual socialists, and fired-up “Bernie bros” will have to come into the fold or else risk four more years of Trump’s mendacity, incompetence and criminality. If Traitor Trump does somehow win despite his monstrous acts, I frankly doubt the constitution or the democracy will survive (indeed we citizens probably won’t survive either: Trump’s hideously bungled response to 2019-nCoV is already casting doubt upon our continued existence).
I never got to write out the presidential endorsement which was in my heart, but that’s ok. Even at its best (which we are very far away from) politics is a sloppy business. I assure you I WILL find lots of things to love and praise about good ol’ Joe Biden. Before we get into that in earnest though and start the Biden V. Trump slugfest, I would like to ask Joe Biden to reexamine a mistake from the dawn of his national political career. I want to go back in time to 1974 and ask everyone to rethink some choices which were made during that politically explosive year.
Before 1974, the Democratic Party busted up monopolies and trusts. The old guard left in the party from FDR’s days (!) made it a point to do so because their youth had been dominated by fighting the terrible political hegemony of oligarchs and anti-competitive-corporations. Because of Nixon’s criminal misbehavior, a whole new crop of junior senators was swept into power in 1974 and the ancient trust-busters were turfed out of their last leadership positions. The Democrats who I have lived with my whole life (like Joe Biden) come from that era. Anti-trust does not seem to be a priority to them, either because they also suffer from a degree of monetary capture, or because other issues of social justice and cultural warfare seemed more important to them. This was a terrible mistake!
Elizabeth Warren knows that the virtues of capitalism cease to be virtues and become terrible chains if there is no actual competition in the marketplace. That is the reason her highly educated supporters like her so much! Bernie Sanders had all sorts of regulatory plans ready for today’s cartels and oligopolies (the forms of trust have become more subtle since the 20s and 30s) but it doesn’t seem like we will see his revolutionary zeal come to flower. Bloomberg’s sixty billion dollar personal fortune came directly from his monopolistic business practices (so perhaps he would not have pushed for necessary reforms). What about Joe Biden?
Trust busting is not going to be easy. Price-fixing, regulatory capture, lobbyist written legislation, monopsony labor markets and lots of new game-changing anti-competitive tricks and tools have given the trusts a huge advantage (just look at your cable bill or at our nightmarish health care cartel). Yet these trusts are destroying our culture and indeed our very ability to survive! They must be fought and vanquished. It will take enormous effort from all people of good conscience (and it is going to take a lot of patient explaining, because this all-important issue doesn’t fit easily into moronic soundbites).
I am going to be supporting Joe Biden as much as I can. But Joe, please look at this issue and think about how you can save capitalism from itself and give us all an America worth working for! This all went wrong in 2016 (just look at this post from back then). In 2020 we need to master our passions and use all of our strength to get things right.
I haven’t written about last week–which was about the most miserable week which American democracy has endured since 2016 (or maybe since the 1960s…or the 1930s). Like most good-hearted people, I have been feeling quite depressed about the sordid Senatorial acquittal of our very-obviously-criminal president…and about said criminal president’s ridiculous State of the Union speech…and about the disastrous Iowa caucuses…and about the reprisals and threats against witnesses and career civil servants coming from the White House (and its lapdog GOP)…and about, sigh, about the galloping authoritarian rot which is destroying the nation. The only way to stop the gangrene in our political body is to cut off the afflicted parts (ahem, any GOP politician other than Mitt Romney) by sweeping the bounders, liars, traitors, thieves, and enablers of the Republican Party out of office in November’s election.
Which brings us to the subject of today’s post: this troubling article which is worth reading in its entirety at The Week. To quickly summarize, the author believes that Bernie Sanders is unelectable because greedy Wall Street bankers dislike him. However even if he (Sanders) were somehow elected and Democrats also swept both houses of the legislature, still nothing would change. The fact that Sanders is doing well in the primaries and yet the market has not crashed proves this point! It is sort of a peculiar and vacuous argument, yet it makes me furious. The author asks whether successful business lords and fiance moguls are worried about the possibility of a Sanders presidency upsetting their cozy financial plantation and he answers:
…that’s not how Big Money sees things playing out. “A whopping 80-90 percent of participants at our client conferences thought that President Trump would win re-election in November,” Goldman Sachs noted in a recent report. With the unemployment rate at a half-century low and economic confidence at a 20-year high, it seems inconceivable to many investors that voters wouldn’t return Trump to office. For this crowd, prediction markets are as important, if not more so, than polling. And they show Trump as the favorite over the Democrats, with the exception of Mike Bloomberg.
The author is from the American Enterprise Institute (a right-wing economic think tank) and therefore he doesn’t believe in democracy unless it is a rubber stamp for some elaborate rent-seeking project from his paymasters in high finance. I was going to excoriate him more about cultural and foreign affairs issues, but he seems indifferent to such things, and mostly concentrates on economic policy. In fact, in many ways he and I have disturbingly similar points of view: we believe that the nation’s largest problem is underinvestment in research and infrastucture. We are both technophiles. He is even an enthusiatic supporter of space exploration!
But there the similarities end. Pethokoukis believes that medical care should cost as much (and be as ineffectual) as possible. He believes that monopolies should run rampant and unchecked. He believes that white collar crime should go unpunished and giant multinational companies should not be regulated by the government. In short he is a pro-business enthusiast of the status quo.
So why does this silly short article make me so angry?
I have some friends in the Wall Street world, and after they have had a few drinks, they confide that a shocking number of their fellow finance titans and hedge fund folks support Donald Trump at the ballot box (and with huge donations). These are not under-educated people who have been dazzled by the bits of Hollywood tinsel or false piety which Trump wears as a costume (albeit a costume which is even less believable than that awful fake tan ). They fully understand the President’s incompetence, ignorance, corruption, and racism. They also can see the damage that this fascist dolt is doing to the nation’s well being and future prospects. Yet they simply don’t care. Since they are getting such astronomical kickbacks…er tax cuts, the idea of the degradation or collapse of the United States doesn’t bother them: they will simply fly off to Zurich in their helicopters and private jets. They are willing to pay to keep Donald Trump in place even though they know he is extremely detrimental to society.
So what the author doesn’t quite say openly is that Wall Street IS Donald Trump. They have the same interests: (1) making as much money as possible through any means; and (2) ensuring that they “win” no matter what the cost to other people or the world. The market makers don’t really care about the long term, or the medium term, or anything at all other than their bank balance in the immediate present. They don’t even care about the free market–it is “free” only in name and is really a done deal where the winners have already been chosen by collusion, insider deals, and price-fixing.
I simply have no idea about whether Sanders can win either the Democratic nomination or the presidency. I don’t agree with everything he supports, but he is earnest, hard-working, and concerned about the serious degradation of our nation which has happened during the last few decades. His sympathy for the working class is not a sham, like Trump’s pretend love for coal miners, factory workers and farmers (although I worry that Trump somehow intuits how to communicate with wage-slaves better than Sanders does). One would think that such things will appeal to anyone not wearing political blinders but our ongoing political crisis is making it difficult to predict or even understand how voters (or anyone) will react to things. Also, everyone older than I am remembers communists and socialists as despised national enemies. We will get back to Sanders in future posts. I don’t think he is the real subject of Pethokoukis’s article. The real premise is that the market (and market makers) are infallible.
So what truly infuriates me about this article is its smug faith in a free market which doesn’t exist. Pethokoukis pretends the market is all-knowing (and that it has completely dismissed Sanders before he has even secured the nomination!) but what he is really writing about is a cabal among the management elite who control the system grasp for short-term profit. Of course such people are fine with Donald Trump (just as the latter is unable to see how extorting foreign aid to win the election is problematic). It is maddening! The people who have subalterned free competition, smugly assure us that everything is very fair, unless someone with different ideas has any chance of winning. then they threaten to upend the system and destroy everything. I guess this article strikes me as the real Wall Street response to the the impeachment debacle. Yes Trump is as guilty as possible but that is fine because it benefits us personally. Just as the Senate’s terrible impeachment acquittal vote left American voters as prey to dark money and foreign interference, Pethokoukis attitude leaves small investors at the mercy of finance titans who can and will punish us if they aren’t guaranteed carte blanche to do exactly as they like.
There was a long line at the Brooklyn polls tonight and plenty of time to color in this little (barely) allegorical flounder which I drew in my little sketchbook I carry with me. Afterwards I stuck my voting sticker next to the cartoon. Let’s see what the returns reveal as they roll in… Ferrebeekeeper will be back tomorrow with more mollusks, cities, gothic artworks, farm fowl, and so forth.
Sigh, I guess we had better talk about the American Mid-term election ( I am writing this in 2018 AD, in case the Republicans win everything, and you are reading this in annihilated ruins in a lifeless desert).
Throughout my life, American elections have traditionally been formalistic affairs between two similar parties. Indeed, years ago, in a more innocent (!) time, I proposed that everyone should vote for the non-incumbent party to prevent the ossification and stalemate which were coming to define American politics. Alas! such fantasies are now relics of a distant past: the two parties have diverged very greatly (although the false equivalence of “horse race” style reporting still occludes the true distance between them).
The Democrats concentrate far less than I would like on blue sky research, space exploration, and defense funding (which, ideally, is where our national R&D budget comes from). Additionally the Democrats have not created a compelling narrative for the future and they have petrified national leaders…along with all of the various problems of ego, corruption, and incompetence which occur in politics at a granular level.
I endorse them completely for everything without reservation. Vote Democratic up and down the ticket.
This is not an ordinary election. The Republican Party is changing and metastasizing into something fundamentally un-democratic and truly awful. Looking at their efforts to dismantle government, rob the state, roll back fundamental constitutional protections, and destroy our international alliances, it is perhaps finally time to use the F-word.
Indeed, President Trump is an obvious and self-avowed fascist. He makes no pretenses about it. He openly denounces the press, threatens political opponents, espouses violence, and gleefully supports white supremacists. Additionally he lies endlessly about everything, trusting that his propaganda mouthpieces will concentrate on other stories to feed to his imbecile brownshirt supporters. Based on Occam’s razor, he is most likely operating on orders from Russian superiors (he squandered his family fortune, and then misrepresented his crooked finances to increasingly dodgy investors till all that was left for him was to launder money for Russians). Trump throws everyone under the bus and talks garbage about them…everyone except for Vladimir Putin. Why would that be?
So I am no fan of Trump, however, this year, he is not on the ticket. Instead we must concentrate on the other portions of government which are in play tomorrow. The founders left us a system of checks and balances to constrain the crimes and excesses of unfit executives. These systems do not work if weak, foolish, and pusillanimous legislators refuse to engage the failsafes. This is the situation we are now in. The Republicans in Congress have abdicated all responsibility for the national well-being. They are like the sycophantic senators of the Roman Empire after the Republic fell: they still have the trappings and appurtenances of high office, but all they do is eagerly acquiesce to the whims of Caligula and Nero.
Vote them out. They all must go. Vote against the Republicans in congress, even if they once allocated a highway in your district 27 years ago, or served in the Air National Guard, or went to the same school back in the fifties. Unless you are a billionaire, they care nothing about you and are only looking for ways to take away everything you have. First they will take away your healthcare and then your property and then they will squeeze you dry for their robber-baron friends.
After Mitch McConnell’s successful theft of a Supreme Court seat, and the recent elevation of abusive and unfit apparatchiks to the Supreme Court, there will be no succor from an illegitimate Supreme Court. If congress does not immediately push back against the rot in the White House, elections will most likely not be free in 2020. This may be the only chance for voters to prevent tyrrany from breaking the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy–maybe for a generation…or maybe forever.
This is a pretty grim picture. I did not paint it. You can see it by looking out the window or picking up any international newspaper. I suppose we all crafted it together by letting monopolies pour money into Washington and by pursuing our own short-term self-interest (and by letting fear get the better of us). Historians know that democracies are fragile. Our democracy is in real peril from within, perhaps for the first time since FDR assumed the mantle of life dictator. Indeed this might be the most extreme challenge to our institutions since the Gilded Age or the Civil War. There is only one way to fix democracies. So vote! And drag every registered voter you can find to the polls. If you love Trump and think he is America’s radiant savior, vote! (and maybe check in with the neurologist). If you are like me, uneasy with the Democrats, but appalled by the treasonous perfidy of he Republicans, then vote! Let us throw the GOP out of power so it can rediscover bygone virtues in the wilderness. We will work on fixing the many many things that need fixed (and on crafting a new paradigm that better suits the changed times) once the house is not on fire.
Well, the American election is coming up tomorrow. I have tried not to write too much about this great national contest, since every other media channel in the world has covered it non-stop for 20 months now, but I guess it is time for Ferrebeekeeper to hop down into this mudpit and support a candidate. In the past, when there has not been such difference between candidates, I have supported voting out incumbents or cross-voting (i.e. voting blue in red states or red in blue states). Alas, Americans neglected my fine advice and we are now experiencing some real national strife, so for the 2016 election I am advocating a different course to unite the troubled nation.
Hilary Clinton should be our president. If you are a voting-age United States citizen you should vote Democratic up and down the ticket.
Now, admittedly Hilary is 1) grasping, 2) secretive, and 3)shifty , but she exhibits these traits well within the ordinary operating tolerances of American politicians. Indeed, in the right light, and, with a bit of squinting, these traits could be 1) ambition, without which, no one would be a politician to begin with, 2) the ability to plan, and, 3) the ability to compromise and change tack based on the circumstances. Additionally, she personally knows every important leader in the world. Above all, she is a workaholic, a smart person, and somebody who cares that the nation succeeds and prospers.
So there are some very legitimate reasons to hope that Clinton will be our own iron lady (provided she can jettison this stupid rubbish about how free trade and globalism are bad for us). Hopefully she can also project American power a bit more robustly than certain presidents in order to gladden our allies and dismay our enemies. She certainly has vast experience of public life, a sharp mind, and an indomitable will. So I am not merely voting for Hilary because of the despicable nature of her opponent.
Speaking of whom: beyond Donald Trump’s lack of policy, his ignorance of world affairs, and his extremely shady business practices, there is one overriding reason Trump should never be president: he is mean. He takes personal delight in cruelty, violence, and spite, in a way which I have not seen in another American politician (or even in any other person except for a few outliers in Junior High School whom I suspect have long since been hanged). Because of his sadistic streak, I have been sad to see Trump win over so many voters. New Yorkers know that he is a con man, a loser, and a violent lout. Why can’t everyone see these things about him? I kind of suspect it is more about primatology and less about people sharing Trump’s atrocious values–I certainly hope so.
But enough. Too much has been said about Trump. The whole world has paid attention to him for far too long. However I would like to talk about Trump supporters before the election ends tomorrow and we pretend we never have to think about this again. The followers fall into two different categories: established Republican political leaders (who have always pretended to be lukewarm, although I don’t think that is really the case), and grass-roots political supporters who tend to be rural working-class whites.
Appallingly, the Republican establishment has supported Trump even though anyone who has lead people in any capacity can plainly see he is not a worthy leader. This is why I recommend you vote against all the Republicans tomorrow. A lot of writers and talking heads have acted like they are sorry for Paul Ryan, or Ted Cruz, or other Republicans who have been forced to support Trump. This is ridiculous. Those people haven’t been forced to do any of the things they have done. They have chosen their actions for specific reasons, and they should be judged accordingly. The current Republican leaders have been throttling the government of resources so that it doesn’t work right and then acting as though this somehow the fault of government. They have been throttling people of resources so they don’t work right and acting as though it is the fault of people. They are behind Trump not out of fear (although they do strike me as singularly cowardly) but out of lust. If Trump wins they will be able to use his inattentive narcissism to remake the country in a grasping and mean-spirited way of their choosing.
Which brings us to Trump’s grassroots support. I am a West Virginian. The whole nation makes fun of the state and this is generally regarded as fair sport (since, among the chattering class, it is not uncouth to make fun of poor white people the way it is regarded as bad form to make fun of poor brown ones). Additionally, the benefits of globalization have not much “trickled down” into West Virginia, except perhaps in the form of fracking revenues. To my horror, West Virginians are taking their revenge by voting for Trump. It is like the capuchin throwing away the cucumber. It will not help them. Indeed, this time, such spiteful protest could actively hurt us all.
East Flatbush, the Afro-Caribbean immigrant neighborhood where I live now reminds me greatly of Clay County—in bad ways and good ones. Poverty, addiction and feuding are big problems, but the great bravery, loyalty, and personal generosity of the inhabitants tends to keep everyone moving forward and make life worthwhile. The distinction between city and country is a false one. The distinction between Americans of different races, religions, and genders is likewise not so big as some people would make it out to be. Democrats for all of their flaws, believe in a united nation. Lately Republicans are deliberately dividing us so they can get everything they and they alone want. The Democrats are wrong-headed and frustrating. They tend to neglect the two most important issues in front of us, research and national defense. But Republicans have stopped caring about these issues as well and they are actively trying to injure the nation so that they can advance their own agenda. “Everyone is equally bad!” they say, as they shovel cash into the coffers of their billionaire masters. This political infighting is causing people to lose faith in the system (which feeds into the “government is broken” death cycle which is so dangerous).
The United States needs to be careful. The Han Dynasty and the Soviet Union stopped thinking they were countries and suddenly they were not. We are the United States of America, but it could be otherwise. Anyone who wants to be president should recognize that the nation needs both the sharp-eyed riflemen from West Virginia and the shrewd-minded accountants from Montclair–and all sorts of people from everywhere else (Hillary Clinton, an Appalachian who ended up in New York, knows this) . The states and their people are deeply heterogeneous but stand beside each other through any crisis–structural, cyclical, or natural. We are not the “Fiscally Independent and Selfishly Aloof States of America”. Our name is much finer than that. Let us remember that on election day…and all of the other days after that. We must work hard with President Clinton so that the election of 2020 is not so divisive and awful.
ferrebeekeeper 