What Is To Be Done?

Kamala Harris' Presidential campaign, and that of President Biden before her, focused their energy on the cause of defending democracy.  Millions of potential voters turned away.  That, and the betrayal of RFKJr made the difference in a close general election in 2024. 

Democratic post-mortems, of which there have been way too many, proposing a variety of solutions, seem to agree that the problem was the lack of a substantial alternative to that being proposed by the Trump candidacy, that moronic, lying, hateful, fearmongering proposition backed by a narrow plurality, just short of a majority, of those who chose to vote.  And it's true, our democracy, as it is practiced today, is barely defensible.  Defending this status quo proved to be a loser. 

The answer to Democrats' lack of a credible alternative is not an economic one, really.  The US economy was not so bad in 2024, or in 2016.  In both cases, the Democratic-led administration had made real progress, with its limited real means to control the economy, in digging the country out of deep holes created during the Republican-led administrations of W Bush and Trump I.  It didn't win the election for them. 

There is talk of the Democrats developing some kind of vision of Abundance as a policy to campaign upon.  That's pretty much just apple pie thinking--yes, we would all like to be wealthy, but promising that is only going to backfire in the long run, as the realization sets in that it isn't happening.  The failure of that promise of super-abundance is pretty much happening in real time to Trump's promises of MAGA.  Frankly, the US already has abundance, and the likelihood that it will flourish ever more doesn't look so good as global commerce fades, climate change hampers us, global competition rises around us, and AI eliminates jobs all over.  Just ask the young about the prospects. 

Yes, the economic failure that is coming at us rapidly will likely cause a reversal in the political fortunes for the Republicans, whose hold on government is strong, but electorally very thin, and getting thinner week by week.  That would just be another swing of the pendulum, though, and will not bring us any closer to a more successful, stable polity that we can believe in. 

Bernie Sanders was right when he said, recently, that the US is a "pseudo-democracy".  The fact of the matter is that the policies of this Federal government are not popular ones. I would accept that there are times when the collective judgment of our elected representatives should override the popular whims of the moment and pursue wise policies to benefit all of us, but that is not at all the case now.  The authoritarian, destructive policies being pursued incompetently now are harmful to most, but excessively beneficial to a few who control the power. This is not democracy; it is barely a constitutional republic. 

The Reinvention of Democracy is the Vision We Need

The reforms I suggest below are generally non-partisan (not bipartisan), and some will tend to weaken the Democratic party's power relative to what it controls today; however, because it will work to remove built-in obstacles to people's will, we can expect the Trumpist Republican cult would oppose them fiercely.  I am limiting myself to changes that can be accomplished without constitutional amendment, as that is out of the question in today's political environment, or any that we can foresee in the near future.  Once the people are back in control, though, I would think that we could consider it possible to utilize the Founders' other channel to change the constitution, a new convention, without preset limits.   

Number one of these obstacles to democracy is the obscene level of expenditure for political campaigns now.  There has been an exponential escalation of the costs in the past twenty years, and now it is on a scale where only the rich and well-funded lobbyists can participate meaningfully.  For the others, massive efforts are required, but as we saw in 2024, not sufficient.  For Federal elections, the only choices are accepting the implicit bribery of huge donations, constant fundraising, or, increasingly, self-funding by multi-millionaires.  2024 saw Trump's winning campaign funded by hundred of millions of dollars of support from Elon Musk, who's been rewarded by getting a free hand to steal the nation's personal data and re-jiggering any regulations that get in the way of his profit-making.  For the Democrats looking forward to 2028, their best chance may be billionaire J.B. Pritzker, whon I could support if and only if he agrees:  Ending unlimited campaign spending is the start of returning democracy to our electoral process. 

I realize that in the odious Citizens United case some ten years ago the Supreme Court ruled that political spending fell in the category of free speech protected by the constitution, but the lines that were drawn between true campaign-support funding and parallel "nonprofit" organizations' theoretically separate activity have been blurred, then practically eliminated entirely.  "Dark money" contributions have eliminated any accountability for political contributors, and guardrails to prevent foreign interference or produce any limitations on direct contributions have had workarounds making them ineffective.

Congress does have the responsibility of setting the dates and broad outlines of federal elections, a prerogative they need to exercise.  My principal recommendations are to re-energize the moribund Federal Elections Committee, give it increased powers to monitor campaign activity, levying fines proportionate to the danage violations cause to elections--and remove all partisan appointments to it.  Congress should emulate some parliamentary democracies and declare a period of some 60 days immediately prior to the elections in which political activity should be closely regulated.  Restore "Equal Time" provisions for free media, penalize factual inaccuracy (also known as "lies"), and limit direct campaign spending by individual campaigns to some ratio to population (I'd suggest 10 cents per person, at current dollar valuations.)  

I don't have much to complain about the actual methods of voters' registering their choices, or about the counting of the votes; these are controlled within states and localities, and there is something to be said about their being decentralized, and thus not subject to centralized or hacked manipulations.  I do believe that the ongoing debates about voter suppression and voter fraud are totally unnecessary:  Congress should authorize the issuance of tamper-proof Voter ID's to every citizen of age, equipped with 21st-century digital technology and easily transferable between precincts, counties, or states as people move their residence.  Issued universally without charge to the individual, for the first ID at least.  Coming of age would then bring this privilege of citizenry, reinforcing the special, though universal, benefit of suffrage.  I do not believe the issuance of this credential to be a difficult challenge for this nation to achieve, either in terms of the cost or the technology. 

The Electoral College is an ongoing irritant and distorter of the popular will.  In past elections, it transformed close popular votes into electoral vote landslides; now it evidences a much greater problem, reversing the outcome itself with greater frequency, something which undermines the whole prospect of the democratic choice of our top leader tremendously.  It is something fundamental to the original constitutional framework, though, and could never be changed to mere popular vote plurality without a radical set of amendments.*  

What is not at all in the constitution is the "winner-take-all" electoral slate, in which the candidate with the plurality of votes wins all the electoral votes of the state, something in effect in every state except Maine and Nebraska. It is something that developed in the 19th century as states competed to have their votes count more than others, another escalation that distorted popular will.  Now, because of it, 40 states or more have all their electoral votes virtually  put up on the board before the election even starts.  The entire presidential election is focused on a few states, with the resulting effects on policy subtle but clear.  All serious contenders for the Presidency have to focus on the needs of Pennsylvania, above all others, with a few others like Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin getting secondary attention, and the rest--nothing.

I would recommend that a compact of Congress prohibit winner-take-all, combined with enabling provisions. The Maine/Nebraska approach gives two electoral votes to the statewide winner, and the other electoral votes are determined by the candidate winning the individual House districts.  It's a good remedy, and one that would show no favor, if accompanying the measure is a resolution ending gerrymandering:  congressional district boundaries would be determined by nonpartisan analysis considering natural and significant man-made boundaries, trying to build around intact communities and metropolitan areas. 

The political parties' power of over elections, another "feature" which the US Constitution's authors opposed, needs to be reduced, and the narrowing of the field of practical candidates to the two parties' nominees, chosen through primaries which, though intended originally to give power to the voters, has resulted in recent times to intensify partisan division to dangerous levels.  The introduction of ranked-choice voting and instant runoff would address this problem.  In this, voters would be able to indicate the preference, in ranked order, for most or all of the candidates on the ballot (or write-in);  if no candidate gets a majority, then the votes of the lowest candidate, in first-choice votes, would be immediately allocated to the remaining candidates by the voters' second choice, and so on until someone achieves a majority.  It could be used for any and all elections of officials--even the Presidential one, which might head off the prospect of the constitution's infamous resolution method for outcomes without an absolute Electoral majority (voting by the House, with each state getting one vote).

The provision has settled in a few states' elections, but it is not clearly understood by most of the electorate--I would suggest that it is because opposing it is one thing both parties can agree to put aside.  It clearly gives greater opportunity to third parties and independent candidates. Most importantly, it would lead to the end of the discouraging prospect of having to choose between the "less-evil" of two, which so many decry in so many elections these days, with the winning candidate being truly chosen (to some extent) by a majority of voters. 

The final recommendation I'd suggest for now would be to extend the right of representation to all US citizens, through granting statehood to  1) District of Columbia, 2) Puerto Rico,  3) US Territories and expatriates.  Three new constituencies, and if possible, mandating voting rights to those citizens disenfranchised for whatever reason. 

Why should the Democratic party advocate this set of reforms, which as I say seem somewhat limiting to their partisan interests? Because they are necessary for our nation, because they embody the party's name and purpose, and because they will be politically efficacious. This platform for reinvigorated democracy would seem to be something broadly popular, difficult in the extreme to oppose without denying the fundamental principle that the political will of the electorate should not be suppressed or distorted beyond recognition. 

 

*The Popular vote initiative--to mandate that all electoral votes would be allocated to the national popular vote winner--is stalled well short of its needed objective of having 270 electoral votes' worth of states supporting it, and I see no chance of that being reached.  Even if it were, it would not eliminate the partisan firestorm that would occur if a candidate (let's say, Trump) would have 270+ electoral votes from the states under the current system, but the victory denied because of lack of a popular vote plurality. I can just see the rebellion that would result, and the chaos following when the Supreme Court throws out the popular vote-driven result.    

 For the title, I borrowed from Vladimir...Lenin, that is, and from 19th-century Russian idealist Nikolay Chernyshevsky, from whom Lenin borrowed it in his turn.

"Vice", and More

I Wish I'd Written This One
An article in the English paper The Guardian titled  "Donald Trump's worst weeks of 2018--the definitive list"; with this classic English subtitle: "The administration’s base-level awfulness has made this a competitive category but some weeks stood out as truly dire". Kudos to the writer, Adam Gabbatt, who clearly had enough time to do thorough research (and add nice links).

Cliff's notes -  he has them in this order:   Feb.12-16; July 16-20; Aug. 20-24; Sept. 3-7; Dec. 10-14; Dec. 17-21. Set your WayBack machines and enjoy--repeatedly.

 I would go with the July one (Helsinki), because that one did real damage to his base. Although we always tend to remember the recent ones, it does make sense that it's back-end heavy, as the trend for him is worsening.

"Vice" -- the movie 
(contains spoilers, but you should already know the plot elements)
Rather than a historical document (though full of specific dates and factual events), this should be viewed as the creation of the director Adam McKay.  The subject is the life and career of former Vice President Dick Cheney. McKay's career started with writing comedy (SNL, Talladega Nights) but then stepped it up big-time with "The Big Short", for which he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Director and won for adapted screenplay.  This time he does not have the writing credits, but the movie clearly has his authorship.

In some respects, the film does recall "The Big Short" (the inside story of the financial cause of the Great Crater and those who got ahead of the curve investing on it). An example is that in these "nonfiction" films he allows himself a scene of total comedy invention. In Big Short, he had Margot Robbie explain mortgage-backed derivatives from inside her bathtub; in Vice, he imagines a scene of Cheney and his wife Lynne engaged in pillow talk quoting from Shakespeare.

As in Short, McKay manages to make a dry and depressing subject entertaining, actually full of action. The raw material he found in Cheney's earlier life makes it possible: Cheney's early drunkenness, with Lynne telling him off; Cheney telling off Lynne's father after her mother's suspicious death by drowning; the scene when daughter Mary comes out as lesbian to Lynne and Cheney. Eventually, we get to the meat of the matter, with Cheney taking over (usurping?) in the Situation Room on 9/11, Cheney shooting the judge with the shotgun "while hunting' (in the movie, it's from a car!), Cheney ordering Scooter Libby to link the Wilson couple--Ambassador Joseph Wilson and CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame--if that occurred according to the scene, it was a criminal act never prosecuted (Scooter, though--that's a different story).

More than entertainment, though, the movie strives for greatness with its ensemble of actors.  First I must name Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney - what is there to say, except she consistently gives great performance in a huge variety of roles?   Here, she is playing a person of note, a writer and a woman with sharp intellect who has a deep understanding of the limitations of her time for a woman, even more so for one from a humble background, but one who is still hugely ambitious. It is her relationship to Cheney that McKay keys upon in his use of the dialogue from MacBeth where she guides and goads him to take that VP role from Dubya.

Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush was the one who amazed me most, in his expert impersonation of the voice and manner  of someone we all know all too well.   Unlike Christian Bale as Cheney, he may have been unwilling to put  on an extra 20 pounds (maybe 40 for Bale?) for the role, but the intimate, friendly W. good-ol'-boy is critically important in making credible McKay's presentation of Bush's intention always to have Cheney as the running mate and Cheney's initial reluctance even to consider taking it.

Then there is Steve Carrell as Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney's first employer in Washington (Dick was Rummy's intern when Rumsfeld was a junior Representative from Illinois). McKay shows them as being Partners in Climb throughout their careers, ultimately placing Rumsfeld in the room to push for the Iraq invasion (I was surprised not to hear Carrell speak the words "target-rich environment") so that Cheney didn't have to do it.   And I must give credit to Tyler Perry, playing Colin Powell, and LisaGay Hamilton as Condi Rice.  And there are many others.

The Bottom LIne on "Vice"
This movie is propaganda, of the best sort.  It's not quite comedy, not quite satire (too real).  I have to say it puts Michael Moore in the shade, much as i like that dude and his style, too.  This is a pro hit job.  I saw a quote from McKay in which he said that he viewed Cheney as a much more serious threat to the country than Trump. (don't know where, now)  Although I think the judgment is premature, it is clear that McKay gave a great deal of study and thought to this film, and that he was deeply disturbed by what Cheney did.

At the same time, McKay was astonished by the nature of Cheney's accomplishment, assisted by his legal accomplice David Eddington, who developed the "unitary Executive" theory's VP-corollary that the job, uniquely, has no meaningful check-and-balance.    Beyond that, he is sympathetic to the challenges Cheney faced, with his health,  with being consistent in supporting his daughter Mary, as well as being a reformed alcoholic from his early adult days.

Oscar-wise, this one could get a bunch of nominations--screenplay, editing, directing, all four acting roles, and Best Picture--but I don't see it sweeping the board like that.  It is clearly not going to be popular universally, and there are many interpretations of fact that can be dissected and dissed.  Its enduring value, though, comes from the very serious charges McKay makes through the movie about  the conniving underpinning under legal cover which allowed Cheney--who was basically an unregulated missile in the Executive Mansion (and a bunch of other places, as McKay shows) --to expand his practical control of the powers of government way beyond those envisioned for the Vice-Presidency, and to set Bush up as the goat for entering the Iraq war.  Think of whether the Founders would have wanted Aaron Burr to be able to order around the military, potentially initiating conflict, while he kept Thomas Jefferson in the air and out of the way?

Quickies
HBO running through the past seasons of "Game of Thrones" is what I would call good TV programming.   Sets us up for the new one, I guess, and meanwhile fills our monthly quotas of sex and violence without having to view network schlock or football.   I missed the marathons of seasons 2-4 while on holiday, but it really doesn't matter.

Music:  It's such a fragmented scene, anything I can say would only pertain to my little shard of it..  I would mention MGMT, alt-J, Kurt Vile, Mitski, St. Vincent as younger ones for whom my appreciation appreciated notably.  Among veterans,  Jack White, Muse, Imagine Dragons.  I'm impressed by the persistence of Tom Petty encomia; there seems to be a permanent SiriusXM station for him (big deal, you say). My concert of the year was David Byrne's American Utopia tour.  I'm happy The Cure and Roxy Music will be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.  And Broken Bells is coming out with new music this year!


2018 was clearly better than 2017, which was probably the worst one since 2001.  I feel that 2019 is going to be good and 2020 even better. 
Does it go without saying?  Well, anyway, to all who read this:

Happy 2019!

Political Whoas

Shutdown City or Shakedown City?
Have you noticed how Trump's threats to shut down the government if the Congress doesn't give him enough money to build his stupid wall have disappeared?  He is no longer on the offensive--and I do mean offensive--about immigration policy; the legal danger has thrown him, and he can barely think about doing his job.  While I feel it's sad that Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen will go to jail for their crimes--I am sad for anyone's misfortune, even if it were of their own making--I am encouraged that this thing will continue to distract the Maladministration and will reduce the harm that ImPotus can do.

If it came to it, I would be in favor of appropriating a small amount--a few hundred million or so--for an expanded prototype of the wall, a few kilometers wide.  We can stop there--it would be Trump's Monument to Stupidity, and we could paint his ugly puss on the wall on both sides so that all could see, for time immemorial, what an idiot we once had for a President.

Meanwhile, I see the US economy, while currently very strong, on a path that will lead to a crash in the medium term.  The Drumpfian trade policies are leading to inflation, and his jawboning the Fed against higher interest rates will paradoxically lead, fairly soon,  to sharper interest rate rises if he gets his way.  There is even the possibility that we will repeat the errors leading to the last crater, as consumer debt rises and collateralized loan obligations for weak mortgages, once again with layering to produce bogus investment-grade ratings, have returned to financial markets.

There is one essential result needed in the short run to guarantee his political demise:  the Democrats must win control of the House (winning the Senate is a longshot).  If that does not happen, people may become convinced that this mess has been endorsed by the voters.  The House contest is a difficult one to handicap, but I like (and am backing up with my bets on predictit.org) an estimate of 225-235 Democratic seats,  with a fairly wide margin of error.  In that situation, it is critical that we understand the seats that are truly balanced on the edge.  We are studying the many competitive races and trying to identify the ones whom I should give my (relatively small) contributions; now that the primaries are ending, I am becoming less concerned the money will be wasted on internecine party battles. 

A couple of particular personal political bugaboos of recent weeks:  I have been getting a bunch of emails daily from Danny O'Connor, the Ohio Congressional candidate who trails narrowly in the special election held recently.  He is somewhat deceptively arguing he will need a bunch of money for a recount.  The real deal is that the recount is not going to happen, or if it does, it will not put him into Congress.  He should be more honest and say that he needs the money to win his rematch in November, which will ultimately matter more than the outcome of the special, though it will never have the same media attention. The other one concerns one of the key governor's races, in Arizona.  There's a closely-contested Democratic primary coming to a conclusion, which has inhibited my getting involved; however, the importance of Arizona and Georgia, as potential breakthrough states for the Democrats in 2020 is paramount.  I had thought there was even a dimension of even more critical importance there, which turned out not to be the case:  if John McCain were to resign due to health or to die in the near future, that governor could appoint a Senator which could be decisive for the majority.  Except...I have been advised that Arizona has a shocking law that the appointed senator must be of the same party as the previous incumbent.  This elevates party membership to the level of state law--we are expecting a Democrat to appoint a Republican to replace him? If this ends up being a pivotal seat for a majority, there will be a huge issue, both constitutional and political.

Donnelly's Dilemma -
Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana exemplifies the political problem that McConnell has posed, through the nomination, and its timing, of Brettt Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.   For several Democratic senators in states which had large Republican majorities in 2016, a difficult set of choices will present themselves.

Donnelly is in a tough race against a formidable opponent, and thus a prime target for the Republicans to pick up a seat.  Everyone knows that Indiana went for Trump very solidly (10% margin). Not everyone remembers that Obama defeated McCain in the state, and therein lies the rub.  Indiana can be a competitive state with a strong Democratic turnout;  can Donnelly produce it?

The Republican voices pretend to be sympathetic for Donnelly's difficulties. "We know he'd want to vote the way his constituents want, but he's pressured by Schumer...."  What they mean is, please give us this vote to beat you over the head--we need a campaign message.

Donnelly is trying to walk the high road, saying that he would make his judgment purely on the merits of the nominee.   Of course. He is very likely to vote for confirmation with that positioning, as this was not some rash (or destructive) selection, but instead one based on careful preparation and designed to get 100% Republican votes for confirmation.  If that happens, then Donnelly's vote can not be decisive (even if another Republican senator goes down; then the Pence tiebreaker would decide) and he would be free to vote "his conscience" (which, by this logic, would be to confirm).

On the other side of the scales is the weight of his obligation to the Democratic party and its leadership, which seeks to apply pressure in the reverse on some Republican senators who would differ with Kavanaugh on some big issues, like abortion or same-sex marriage, but may feel compelled to maintain unity on their side.  (As things stand, with no Democrats supporting the nomination, the Republicans would need to stay 100% united.)

Chuck Schumer has leverage as representing all the rest of the country's Democrats, who would like Donnelly to do the right thing in opposing this political ploy.  To do less than resist is to help empower their despicable tactics.

In my view, this is not about overturning Roe v. Wade, as some more hysterical emails have threatened to me.  One way or the other, Kavanaugh will be confirmed, and he will push the court's decisions further in the direction of restricting access to abortion--without revoking the legal access now provided to women, at least in their first trimester. So, that is what is going to happen there, with the resulting damage to our society.

(Spoiler alert)The stage is set, and the timing of the climactic vote seems destined for the last week of September or first week of October.   The critical vote will actually be the cloture one, to end debate, which now only requires a majority vote in this case.  Here, Donnelly--and the other similarly conflicted senators, namely Heitkamp, Manchin, Tester, Nelson, and McCaskill--must stand firm and make the Republicans vote unanimously to close off the debate.  For this vote, the Democrats have all the merit of the argument:  the process will have been rushed, without sufficient consideration, and the vote's premature timing forced for political reasons.

Unfortunately, I feel the Republicans will do it/   50-49 for cloture, and then the final confirmation vote may differ substantially, when Democrats in weak political positions can argue the 'merits' of the candidate's qualifications.

So, I will judge Donnelly--who is a moderate, pro-life Democrat right in the center--by whether he stands with the party in the cloture vote.  If not, he should lose all support from thinking Democrats, who must learn to punish their own DINO's.  In this knife-edge year, it is not the right time to primary the Donnelly's of the times.  But he must justify the support of Democrats, too, especially in his state, but also those outside--his national party organizations and email base--who are asked (constantly) for help.


 

Icons of Corruption

...of the Judiciary:  Brett Kavanaugh
There will be a shared pretense of Senators carefully considering the Supreme Court nominee's record, of interviewing him privately and publicly to hear his noncommittal responses, followed by both sides lining up around party lines for the final advise-and-consent approval.  The notion of impartial justices ruling purely on principles of law has completely given way to political power plays, completing a transition evident late in the last century (bitter, partisan confirmation hearings) and confirmed by the historic disaster of the Bush v. Gore decision.

Kavanaugh is "qualified", in the sense of having the resume one would expect of a Supreme Court justice, applying typical vetting criteria (law background, practice as a Supreme Court clerk and as a senior judge).  The most important criterion, though, is the political one, and that will determine how the votes will fall.  Kavanaugh is a proven party hack (Bush acolyte, drafter of Clinton bill of impeachment) and thus is a fair replacement for Anthony Kennedy (another hack).   Some analyses suggest he will be substantially further to "the right" than Kennedy--that will be seen in the fullness of time..   What I expect is that he, and Chief Justice Roberts as well, will behave themselves politically, trying in their decisions and opinions to temper the radical right-wing views of Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito, in order to reduce public criticism of the Supreme Court and try to preclude its extremism becoming the basis for a wipeout defeat of their party in 2020 (and possible court-packing following that by victorious, vengeful Democrats).

The strategy of the timing of the Kennedy resignation and Kavanaugh nomination is a political one: it's designed to allow the Republicans to use the united (or near-united) Democratic opposition in the midterm elections to support their claim that it is Democratic obstruction which is impeding their ability to govern.  Not very original, but it may well work to inspire more of their base to turn out and avoid serious damage in the 2018 election.  This nasty piece of business (the confirmation) will wrap up before November, most likely in late September--that's something that Senators of both parties will be able to agree upon:  for Mitch McConnell, it eliminates the risk of a bad election outcome preventing confirmation, and for Democratic candidates in close elections, it gets the distraction out of the way so they can campaign.

For those who insist on the importance of parsing nominees' public statements in the confirmation process, I would suggest focusing on Kavanaugh's answer to one question (which must be asked):  Does your interpretation of the Constitution include an affirmation of individuals' right to privacy?  That is the fundamental finding behind Roe v. Wade, and the question of a fundamental right to privacy is one which will come up in other, very important contexts throughout Kavanaugh's term in the Court.  Kavanaugh is reputed to be "textualist", which suggests he would be negative on the question if he were to answer honestly (I don't expect him to do that, though--he will only betray his true views later, when it's too late.)

I see little chance that any of the Republican senators will defect from lockstep support of the second Drumpfian Supreme Court nominee.  If none do, it may appear that certain vulnerable "Red State Democrats" up for re-election are off the hook, in terms of their votes being decisive.  This notion led some  Democrats to argue that these vulnerable candidates should be free to vote according to "their conscience"--more like their conscious evaluation of the net political benefit to go one way or the other.  No doubt Manchin in W.Va., Heitkamp in N.D., Tester in Mont., McCaskill in Mo., Donnelly in Ind., and Nelson in Fla. will closely monitor polling of their constituents' preference on the confirmation vote (in crosstabs with party registration and intention of vote on the Senate race itself). and will let that data guide their individual consciences. 

I don't get to vote on these races, except in response to the constant emails I get* asking for money (all of these incumbents are actively soliciting me through email except Heitkamp--she seems to be more interested in independents than Democrats).  One thing I can guarantee all these candidates is that they will not get any more money from me if they vote to confirm.  (I just surprised myself by making a contribution for Manchin in response to an attractive email solicitation, and Nelson and Donnelly have received money from me in the past.)   For me, there is one factor that should override for any true Democrat:  let's call it the "Merrick Garland factor".

In this regard, I have added one "litmus test" issue (in this case one specifically for Democratic Senators) to the short list of my absolute requirements for those seeking my support (most meaningfully, through my contributions):  common-sense on guns (no one advocating more guns gets my support); no denying climate change; and openness to major electoral reform (gerrymandering, Electoral College, campaign financing limitation).

...Of the Executive Branch (Scott Pruitt)
A hallmark of the Drumpfian "philosophy" of governing is to appoint incompetents and destructive administrators to Cabinet positions.  There are so many examples: Ben Carson at HUD, Rick Perry at Energy, Betsy DeVos for Education are three clear ones.  Maybe the worst appointment of all (except for the non-Cabinet appointments of Michael Flynn, and then later John Bolton, as  his National Security Adviser)  was Scott Pruitt, who proved to be toxic in every way.  Trump was tolerant of his wasteful spending and self-aggrandizing paranoia, positively supportive of his anti-environmental approach to environmental protection, but he ultimately became politically harmful.  So he had to go, but the departure was eased for Drumpf by the fact that he will be able to replace him with a pollution industry lobbyist who was Pruitt's deputy.  More damage to follow.

...Of the Legislative Branch (Devin Nunes, Trey Gowdy)
The most serious corrupting influence on our Congress today is the emergence of massive PAC money, and worse, "dark money" from donors whose identities do not have to be made public.  To be honest, this is a problem that plagues both parties and many candidates, and the necessity of constant fund-raising and placating major donors is more than a distraction from true legislative activity.

I am singling out Nunes and Gowdy for the disrespect they have engendered with their perversion of the Congressional power of investigation (which is supposed to be for the purposes of aiding legislation).  Nunes has been colluding with the White House in trying to undermine the Mueller investigation through the House Intellligence Committee which he chairs,  and Gowdy has made a fool of himself in the House Oversight Committee, first with the Benghazi investigation and now with the shameful attacks on FBI agents.

...in the White House itself  (Trump Conflicts of Interest and the Russian Oligarchs)
As I have said before, with the Trump administration, there are no conflicts--only interests.  I leave it to the investigative reporters to detail all the ways in which Trumpian greed intersects with Drumpfian policy (here and here are a couple of relevant links I can recommend).  The key storyline is this:  critical to the survival of the Trump enterprise, in the time around and since the Great Crater, has been the sale of high-end real estate to Russian oligarchs.  For the buyers, this was a proven safe way to get money out of Russia and into legitimate assets:  this is generally referred to as "money laundering".  It is not that the purchase of US real estate is in any way illegal; it's more where the money came from that is shady and that makes these buyers shady.  Most are connected with the regime of Putin, the biggest oligarch/money launderer of them all.

So, Trump Org.  finds them good to do business with, and he isn't going to turn on these "friends"; instead he becomes an apologist for Russian provocations.  He seems to have no problem with Putin's agenda item of trying to weaken the West and their alliances, as America's allies have snubbed Russia and coddled the Ukraine, which has gone back and forth but is currently antagonistic toward Russia.  For its part, Russia has found Ukraine a suitable target for its expansion and disruption efforts.

Meanwhile, the Trump offspring are free to make hay from their political connection to the President, and they will make the most of it while they can.  Other Trump cronies, like Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, are wealthy enough, but still encouraged to find an angle to benefit if they so choose.

The Russia/Trump collusion to help the Republican win the 2016 election was just business:  there was no intention to betray the US or even to break laws, just that there might have been a few statutory limitations that got in the way.   Russian hacking of Democratic databases, and infiltration of Facebook, are only standard practice, the illegal parts generally deniable or protected by national boundaries, and the only interruption in the activity will be to build new cover when necessary.

This is what is going on; the only remedy seems to be the will of voters to defeat Drumpfites, if it can be mustered, this year and then again in 2020.   All of what I say here will come out eventually (even without the Trump tax returns, though those will likely become part of the story), but I have no confidence at all that it will sway Republican voters, Republican legislators, or Republican judges from their great partisan suck-up to this petty dictator.


*Over 200 emails asking for money on June 30--every single one referring to their second-quarter deadline at midnight.  When will they learn that I don't care about their deadlines?  In fact, I would prefer to have lower numbers come out of those deadline reports from the Federal Election Commission, in order to reduce the dollar arms race.

Italian Elections 2018

What could be less interesting, right?  Wrong! I won't say that this is a world-history making event, since Western civilization's continuation or development no longer depends on the fate of  political struggles in Rome (OK it's been awhile since that was the case), but I find it to be a subject with important ramifications, for both Europe and the US, as well as a fascinating case study.

Modern Italian culture, in all its facets, has been a particular interest of mine, ever since I "discovered its existence"in plain sight, Christopher Columbus-like, about 40 years ago.   A little background on the national scene follows--please bear with me and I will try to be brief. Then I will go into more depth about the likely outcomes and the major personalities involved. 

Italy since World War II has prospered spectacularly, but unevenly.  By most measures, Northern and Central Italy are on par with the most developed countries of Europe, but the Southern part of the boot and Sicily have lagged.  This has been true much longer; one could say that the initial disparity present at the founding of the modern state (mid-19th century) has never been remedied.  The Parliamentary state has consistently disappointed people's expectations, but there is still strong support among the people for democratic ideals.  The Italian economy is recovering more strongly recently after a long, slow recovery from the Great Crater, but it is still a difficult place to do business, for many reasons.  The wealth of the people comes from their great assets:  land and people, and to a large extent, the interaction of the two. 

Why Does It Matter? 
I will make this quick.  It is a significant country in Europe, and if its election is won by the right--which has various Trumpian characteristics among its leaders, including xenophobia, corruption (though probably not with Russia so much), immigration, turning the economy to the favor of the wealthy, and clownish behavior--it will be very harmful for the European Union as we currently know it.  Many of the center-right coalition openly advocate going the Brexit route, and Italy, unlike Britain, is a core member of the EU initiative from its very earliest form in the postwar EEC.

If we think more narrowly, the result is also significant for the US, in the sense that it is yet another very relevant test of democracy and of the public desire, or lack of desire, to reject tribalist and ultra-nationalist thinking, and thus a possible portent of upcoming US political soundings.  Unlike the US, Italy has  a very real current immigration problem--poverty-stricken people coming over to Italy in boats from Libya (after migrating there from many other Third World countries), and there is also a general Italian view that the country has not been properly supported by the rest of Europe in handling this peaceful, but unwanted, burden of handling mass migration. 

The Scenarios and Their Chances
So, to the political structure (of the moment):  This parliamentary election will be conducted March 5 under different rules from the last one, five years ago.  (In a somewhat rare occurrence among Italian governments since the postwar republic replaced constitutional monarchy, the Parliament remained intact for the full five-year term.)  The new Parliament will be composed of a mixture of proportional representation and "first-by-the-post" election of individual districts by plurality (like the US House).  The distribution of seats among the parties for the proportional portion* is somewhat apparent from the opinion polling--opinion moves fairly slowly, in general. The wild card is how the individual seats may play out, as the balances are very fine.  There are a number of possible coalitions, in classic Italian fashion.

On this one, I have some small skin in the game (predicti.org); I will make some references to the market they have on this election:  "Who will be Prime Minister on July 31?"
Here is my list of  the possible outcomes, in order of likelihood:

1) Generally unclear, no coalition easily identifiable.    This has two major variations:
a) totally indecisive result, and everyone sees that it's so (no party or coalition above 30% or so)--the Parliament might seat, make some new rules, or not, but just call a new election.
b) no surprises in the outcomes, continuing discussions, no new outcome on the horizon.  This could go on for a very long time--the 7/31 deadline is a good reference point, as it is shortly before the midsummer break called "ferragosto" when everyone, and especially the politicians, shut it down and go on vacation.  In this case, there could be a continuation of the caretaker government that has been running since the collapse of the Renzi government (see below).  Paolo Gentiloni is the Prime Minister, from the Partito Democratico (yes, the Democratic Party, and it is very comparable to the US one).  He's a dignified, moderate techno-bureaucrat; few would regret the result, though it would be a defeat for: 

2) The Center-right coalition.  This is the only currently-announced coalition that has any chance to get close to a governing majority by itself. The leader of this combination of five parties is none other than Silvio Berlusconi, back for another run at it after his conviction and retreat from the scene.  His party is called Forza Italia (I would translate it as "Go, Italy!"), and it's the only one of the alliance that has meaningful national appeal.  The problem is, because of his conviction, he's supposed to be ineligible to actually serve in the new government.  So, there's a very interesting range of possible PM's.  My money (in predictit.org) for this scenario is on Antonio Tajani, the most respectable of the leaders of Forza (FI).  His odds have surged--I bought him at .14 a month ago and he's up to .33 (on a .01 to .99 scale, pre-election;  after it's decided 7/31, values will go to 0 to 1.000).  Good gains so far, and I may hang around to see if I can make more.

3) Center-left coalition.  There are two big parties in this (potential) space:  the PD (Dems), who had control of Parliament the last five years, and the one-of-a-kind Italian invention called Movimento Cinque Stelle ("Five Star Movement", abbreviated as M5S).  It just missed five years ago, when headed by a sharp-tongued comedian, Beppe Grillo; it has shown some staying power after some purges and other separations se and is now headed by an emergent 31-year-old talent, Luigi di Maio.  Its themes have been opposition to the Establishment and all the other parties, use of 21st-Century technology to create democracy, bloc voting, and eternal internal squabble.  If di Maio has conquered that last tendency then he would be truly deserving of leadership, but probably not as the PM this time around.
They (M5S) and the PD will be the leading single parties in the proportional vote (as they were in 2013) dividing 50-60% of the total.  The question is whether these two could get together; every early indication is no (M5S has sworn off all alliances), but that underestimates the Italian impulse to conspire:  I believe that if the PD and M5S both became convinced that their alliance (after the election, of course, first they have to attack each other all through the campaign) were necessary to prevent someone like Berlusconi winning, they might find a way. 
If there were to be an actual agreement, I would think the likely form would be to agree upon someone unexpected, neither Gentiloni nor di Maio (and not PD leader Matteo Renzi):  they could find some sap from another of the many tiny parties sprinkled through this range, maybe someone who won their district but whose party didn't reach the 3% threshold level for proportional representation.  (In predictit.org terms, all Yes bets would then lose;  if you liked this theory, you'd bet No on everyone and make a relatively small profit.)  More likely that M5S would fulfill their promise of non-participation by abstaining for some center-left variation of government formation, thus allowing it to happen. 

4) "La Truffa" - Somehow, the center-right find some tricky way to put Berlusconi at the head of the government (despite his not being in the Parliament):  they make a law to allow it? 

5) A PD-dominated government - This is a variation on #1 in which the PD does surprisingly well, such that they--and any smaller partners they can find--get to 40% or so of the Parliamentary seats.  Then, suddenly, a government headed by Renzi would become a possibility. 
The problem is Renzi, for my taste the best prominent politician--intelligent, honest, uncorrupted--that Italy has had for a long time. (At least since the deaths of Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer, for those like me who've been following this stuff for decades.) Naturally, everyone hates him--except for his admirers, who have become a lot less numerous since he became a loser.  That happened with the electoral referendum last October.  He openly staked his career on it, a valiant but ultimately and totally unsuccessful crusade to make the company more governable by making it less democratic. 
Shards of his old support have since dropped off to various splinter groups (and the M5M) since then. He is now seen by the left as a would-be Napoleon who betrayed the working class; most of his remaining appeal is to the moderate left wing of the former Christian Democrat party, from whence he came.  I would say his game now is to let someone else try for a few years--and eventually fail.  He would hope to maintain his role until when he could then make a comeback.  He's still only 43. 

Additional Notes
It is rather unlikely that the scenario will present itself immediately from the electoral results (though we will not have to wait long to hear them--the polling is very efficient, as is the tabulation).  Instead, certainty that there will be no electoral majority, and the multiplicity of parties, will mean that the outcome will take weeks or months to emerge.  A recent article in The Economist suggests an obscure southern Italian party (Noi con l'italia--"we are with Italy"), recently formed, could get a surprising number of local district wins and become a critical factor.  In the respected Italian weekly magazine L'Espresso, a writer under the name of "corleone" (could he be from Sicily, perhaps?) points to the elections for the President of the two houses of Parliament (scheduled for March 23, or 18 days after the general election) to get a clue where this thing will be going. 

The other alternatives to Tajani or Berlusconi as PM for the center-right range from scary to laughable; the most noteworthy miscreant after Silvio is Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Lega Nord (Northern League), who leads a party popular in the North whose supporters are tired of the welfare queens and foreigners from Third World countries getting all their tax dollars.  You can see the appeal, right?  His party will be the second-largest in the center-right coalition, earning 13-15% and winning a number of constituencies. He is pretty much disqualified from being the PM because of the intense distaste everyone else has for him, but he would be a force* in the government if it happened:  I imagine he would then be able to lobby for sending the Italian navy down to patrol the Libyan shores, a provocative military stance that could either work--stopping the boatpeople, and their exploitative aggregators, at the Libyan ports--or start actual conflict.  (Libya was an Italian colony for decades, until the Fascists lost it during WWII.)

I have a lot of (very cheap) shares on Renzi, who is currently viewed as a longshot with no chance; a few on Gentiloni, hoping to average down sometime down the road; and a moderate bet on Tajani (another for which I will add more shares if his price drops).  I have No bets on Berlusconi, Salvini, and Di Maio.   The current polling--Wikipedia is maintaining an excellent graph which shows each data point for each party over time--indicates eight parties will make it past the 3% threshold (while several others will win seats through having localized strength.  If you'll permit me to use the TLA's (two-letter acronyms, or three-letter acronyms) I reviewed above, one gets, approximately, the following current values for those who name their choice:  M5S 28%, PD 23%,  FI 18%, LN 13%. Left Alliance 6%, 5% for a neo-Fascist remnant now called Fratelli d'Italia ("Brothers of Italy", a quote from the first line of the national anthem), and about 8% for others. 

*Sorry for the word, couldn't resist. 

Looking Back without Anger

There's a lot of talk about "holding Donald Trump accountable"--as if we actually wanted him to keep his promises.  I am nearly the opposite--I want him to go back on all of them.  With some, the result would be an improvement; with the others, he would alienate his base and make it impossible for him to be re-elected.  That would seem to be the best possible outcome, given that he completes his single term.   That, and not getting us into a stupid war.

Now, holding Barack Obama accountable--that is a different question, and one on which I have prepared my expectations from the very beginning.

On the Issues -- The Ten-Point Program:  10 Years Later
Let me be clear:  this was my 10-point program for the 2008 election, not Barack Obama's.  I did do a subsequent post comparing mine to his and found plenty of similarity, but this was one I outlined ten years (plus a month) ago, in December, 2006.  This was two months before Obama officially announced his run, but it was clear at this point that he would, and I set these down as the basis for my evaluation of the candidates on the issues.

On the issues!  That's how far we have fallen; ten years ago we were considering a host of possible candidates (Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards on the Democratic side; John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, George Pataki),  respectable, proven politicians who had meaningful, considered positions on the principal issues.  In this last general election campaign, the issues were barely noticed (somehow "conflicts of interest" got overlooked, too), and we remained mired in controversies about emails and pussy-grabbing.

Anyway, to begin my retrospective on the subsequent 8-year Obama presidency now about to end, let's review the progress, or lack thereof, on the issues around which I built my hopes and long-term expectations at the time.  Here they are, in order:

1. Get control of climate-changing gases.
2. Preserve our biosphere.
3. Rebuild our relations with the world.
4. Visualize our children’s / grandchildren’s society, and the implications of that vision.
5. Reform the UN Charter.
6. Get control of armaments.
7. Establish clearly the political dimensions of privacy and of permissible government intrusions into it.
8. Provide health care to our people.
9. Electoral reform.
10. End the "War on Drugs" (or at least give it some focus on the more harmful ones).

I would say, looking at the Obama Administration's accomplishments, that they did not do half-badly against these ambitious goals.   

The good:  On the #1 priority, the Paris Conference agreement was a huge step forward, and I do not believe the Trumpists will be so blind as to reverse or withdraw from it (perhaps overly optimistically), and even if they do, it will survive four years of Drumpfen depredation.   #2 is a big, long-term one, but the recent executive actions Obama made with regard to offshore drilling, the dreaded tar sands pipeline, and expansion of protected lands show that they had the right idea. Obama made huge progress with #3, however, it is reversible progress, and Trump & Co. will do a lot of damage to that progress, maybe more than the original gains since the Bush era.  

We will come back to #8 in a moment, but I would give the greatest credit to Obama's efforts on #10. Decriminalization of marijuana was always going to be a second-term initiative, at best, and would have needed a Congressional majority which was never present.  Still,  the progress on reducing the harm of Federal mandatory sentencing rules, the commutation of many excessive sentences for non-violent drug offenders, and the tolerance shown toward states adopting liberalization of marijuana--even for recreational purposes--turned a corner in the decades-long, failing "War on Drugs".  There is still a real possibility of a U-turn--the Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions would probably favor one, while Trump, though non-committal, seems inclined to leave the status quo. 

Health Care (#8)--the mixed bag: Well, Obama tried, he really tried.  There were flaws in the initial concept, which borrowed heavily from Republican free-market approaches.  Perhaps they were necessary: For this to succeed, Obama and his team needed to line up the willingness of the private insurers to support the exchanges in the states.  He was able to make the other two key compromises with Congress:  to define the juice which needed to flow to make it work (the additions to Medicaid made available to states), and the individual/employer mandates and taxes to make it fiscally sound. 

The biggest failure was a political one:  too many states' regressive governments gambled on creating failure through denying their own constituents the benefits of increased Federal aid   In the long run, such a policy would have been self-defeating in a number of ways, but the short-term refusal to accept "Obamacare" worked as a political rallying cry, and we are now here.  What will happen seems unclear from the variety of Republican postures, but I think it is clear:  They will take the unilateral step of "ending Obamacare", while preserving its most popular features.  Private insurers will get an even better deal, the individual/employer mandates will wither, and the question of thee Federally-funded expansion of Medicare to all age groups (the so-called "public option" which Obama's team eschewed), exactly contrary to Paul Ryan's inclinations, will return as a major political issue for 2020. 

Bridges Too Far:   I put #4 and #6 in this category, long-term goals which could never be accomplished in one eight-year administration, especially with intransigent partisan opposition, ones that were overly ambitious in this contentious political atmosphere. #4 is all about making the adjustments in taxation and endowment benefits needed to stabilize the long-term fiscal approach (and de-escalate the generational conflicts now emerging with the retirement waves of Baby Boomers).  There were programs put forward which could have been the basis for bipartisan negotiation (the only way this can happen), but they died due to the Republicans' phony obsessions with debt limits and their threats to shut down the government to get a balanced budget (where are those concerns now?).  As for more controls on armaments, nuclear and otherwise, Obama had the will, but the prospects soured when Russian President Putin decided to pursue instead a policy of Cold War revanchism in the Crimea and Ukraine.  The agreement with Iran, brokered with the assistance of all the major powers, was a significant achievement preventing a new wave of proliferation in the Middle East: let's see if it holds, or if Trumpian freelancing will destroy it. 

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: On the U.N. (#5), Obama gave the organization  the respect due, no more or less.  There was no leadership, and the organization is now in serious trouble due to the reactionary wave of xenophobic nationalism; already reduced to a debating society, the will to continue funding the essential functions of the Security Council and General Assembly at an adequate level may once again be endangered.  I'd have liked to have seen some structural recognition for the rising power of responsible nations like India, Germany, South Africa, and Brazil.   It's still possible, but I also admit that nine nations with veto power is nine too many. 

The limits on government intrusion into private communications (#7) remains a sensitive area, and one about which advocates of a right to privacy can only be pessimistic.  The odious Patriot Act from the hysterical post-9/11 period was rolled back somewhat, but notions that Americans can speak and act, secure in the protections which enable truly free "speech" are illusory.  Meanwhile, TV cameras monitoring everything, designed to reduce various forms of crime, are functioning largely to protect property rights, not individuals' ones, and we are all ever more dependent on the digital realm, which is also tending toward increasing vulnerability. Nothing good happening here. 

Last, and most egregious, only negative progress was made on electoral reform (#9) during Obama's watch.  More and more is being spent every campaign to produce less and less of substantive result. Voting rights are being eroded to prevent fictional electoral fraud; elementary measures to increase voter turnout are spurned. Finally, I included in my announcement of my 10-point program in 2006 that we must eliminate the Electoral College; my opposition is not partisan (nor is mine to the Citizens United world of unlimited spending), and I pointed out in 2009 that Obama must not be deceived by his apparent advantage from the E.C.  What the Electoral College produces is randomized havoc which undermines the legitimacy of our elections, and that is not not new news, nor fake. 

A Few Items I Didn't Include in My Program
Filling The Great Crater - In 2006 the collapse of the economy was two years away but nowhere in sight (except to a handful of people--see "The Big Short").   I do not fault the Obama Administration's handling of the economic crisis which he inherited one bit.  Given the limitations of his job and the willingness of Congress to spring for remedies, he did nearly the best possible.  I don't feel the Dodd-Frank bill did enough to prevent a relapse (requiring huge capital for banks with the combination of investment trading and consumer assets could have done it), and I don't feel enough was done--after the crisis was ended--to punish some of the worst offenders in investment banking, and credit rating agencies, but still--given the way I feel about "job creation", I cannot and will not complain

The Middle East/Russia - Obama had a very clear mandate to keep the US out of new wars in Asia and to get us out of the ones we were in.  With the single exception of the surge in Afghanistan (barely memorable now), he did not violate his mandate.  The ballyhooed use of "soft power" did not turn out to be all that was suggested (if not promised).  Two signal successes for it were the above-mentioned Paris Conference agreement on climate changing emissions and the Iran nuclear agreements; otherwise, though, it failed badly when put to the test in the Arab Spring (Egypt, Libya, the Arabian Peninsula), and with ruthless countries like Syria, Iraq, Russia, and, most unfortunately, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinians.  With Syria, I would not say our intelligence was too bad--most of the groups we decided not to back ended up being about as bad as Assad was; with Russia and the Ukraine, I would say we did too little, though we were right not to overpromise--the fact remains, though, that Russia had promised (in the Budapest agreement) to protect Ukraine, in exchange for its giving up its share of Soviet nukes, and we did not punish Russia nearly enough for overtly violating its promises. Our President-elect should be reminded that, with regard to that, a deal is a deal, and deal-breakers must not be rewarded, no matter how seductive their propaganda may be to a narcissist's ears. 

The Racial Thing - I guess I was not expecting race relations to blow up in the way that they did--around allegations of police bias toward blacks, and whites claiming to be under-privileged by left-center government. My greatest concern in this area was that there be an attempt on Obama's life, and the consequences of that.  So, given that did not occur, things did not go as well as I would have thought. And here we are, with reactionary forces ascendant.  Do I blame Obama, though?  Of course not--I blame the Republicans for their dog whistle approach to stirring up resentments, and I blame the canine humans who responded to them. 

Finally, The Democratic Party - I do think Obama and his team deserve a share of the blame for the amazing failures of the party which climaxed with the 2016 disaster. They weren't particularly generous about sharing resources in 2010, 2012, or 2014, and the support provided in 2016 didn't turn out to be too effective.  Particularly at the state level, Obama's popularity and governing successes were not well translated into local campaigns. This past year was supposed to be the year the wheels came off the republican Party; the bolts holding them on were extremely loose, but it was the Democrats instead that got ejected from their vehicle with a brutal face-planting.  I accept that reality, though I do not consider it definitive and still feel their opponents are the ones that history will find in the dustbin. 

By my critical analysis (let no one say I am insufficiently critical of our President) and scorekeeping, I have: 

• Five big successes (#1,2,3, 10, plus the  response to the Great Crater)
• Two very large mixed bags (#8, and the Middle East/Russia)
• Three areas where my expectations were simply too high (#4, 6, and the Racial Thing); and 
• Four areas where I was disappointed (#5, 7, 9 and the Democratic Party). 

I know, I am falling into the trap of which I accuse others--expecting too much of a US President. Guilty. I am grading on the curve, though, and by the standards of postwar Presidents, I rate him in a tie for second, behind only Eisenhower, tied with Truman, who shared some characteristics with Obama (dropped into a hot mess, good with the allies, far-sighted, but left some sticky foreign entanglements himself), and just ahead of Kennedy, Johnson, and Reagan.   In the all-time list, he would be in the back half of the first quartile, somewhere between 7th and 11th. *

We will be missing him--daily--for the next four years, at least. 

*Top 6:  Lincoln, Washington, FD Roosevelt, Jefferson, T Roosevelt, John Adams; Obama grouped with Jackson, Truman, Wilson, and Madison. 

Response to Democracy For America's Poll Question

I received a survey recently from Democracy for America, which, if I am not mistaken, is the PAC founded by Howard Dean--progressive, mostly within the Democratic party tent. They asked me to pick my three preferred choices, from a list of about 15, for the Democratic nomination in 2016.  My first choice was Hillary Clinton, my second was Kirsten Gillenbrand (an agreeable Hillary surrogate, should HRC decide she can't run or some such thing), and my third was Joaquin Castro (he must be too young to run for President, but I like putting his name out there).

No mention in my ballot of the two whom I knew were the preferred votegetters of this group's members (and who got the most votes in the end, Hillary being third), Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.  Warren has flat out, repeatedly, said she is not running.  Bernie has hedged on that and now does seem to be about to run, I am guessing because of the renewed war footing Obama has recently placed us on, in both Iraq and Afghanistan.   But let's be serious:  Bernie has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination--he's not even a Democrat--and even less chance (a negative probability, if such a thing were to exist) of winning in a general election.

If anyone should understand this, it's Howard Dean, who was branded a slightly-left winger (i.e., a wacko) and couldn't make it out of New Hampshire as a party favorite.   The Democrats have had one national candidate since FDR who dared to tell the truth and was more than a little left-of-center:  his name was George McGovern, and he won 17 electoral votes out of 538, against one of the most cynical, corrupt Presidents in modern history (Richard Nixon, for you young people unaware of history)--and McGovern was an authentic WWII hero, a decent man, a loyal American, and they threw everything in the book at him.  Those who saw Barack Obama as such a person were either reacting in fear or deluded by hope--they never looked at the reality of his political stances, which were, again, slightly left-of-center (if one insists on a single left-right spectrum, something I resist, but will accept for purposes of argument). Sanders and Warren have no chance of being elected in these United States--maybe in some other, hypothetical one, with a fair electoral process, equal access to media, and less vested-interest talking heads getting in their way, but not this one.

Anyway, the folks at Democracy for America were nice enough to come back to me a few days later and ask me to explain my choice.  Here is my verbatim answer to them: 

Hillary Clinton has the best chance to win the general election, and that is the objective--to win, and win big (so as to win back Congress).
She can be a leader to unify the Democrats, if she has the right program, which in my view should be the following:*
1) A Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and support for a variety of measures--such as ease of registration, Federal control over redistricting abuse, absentee or early voting- to open up and facilitate popular (as opposed to elitist) participation in the political process;
2)  A new set of environmental measures suited to addressing the challenge of climate change;
3) Investment in infrastructure, education, and retraining for a competitive future economy;
4) Settling the long-term budgetary issues of the retirement and healthcare programs in a way that deals equitably with each generation's concerns and assures the programs' long-term survival; and
5) She should announce--before her nomination acceptance speech, maybe when she has the nomination locked up, that she will serve for one term only!
The only problem for some will be her close relations with business and with the military-industrial complex (she is a hawk, no doubt).  The key will be her strong stance for helping the middle-and lower-classes economically and to propose a clear plan to wind up the war in the middle east (if it is still going on in 2016).
Obviously, serving for just one term will break the glass ceiling, she will avoid nasty comments about being old, and avoid the Second-Term Syndrome (which has affected every Presidency in 50 years).  The Democrats can have their battle over future leadership four years later, having accomplished a great deal in her single, historic term in office.  I call it "The Polk Option", after Pres. Polk in the 1840's who did something comparable.
I am Ready for Hillary!  
*And I have a catchy name for the program:  "Vision 20/20"
(as in, seeing things clearly, getting it done by 2020). 

Attentive readers will recognize many of the same points in the above that I made in my previous post on "The Polk Option" earlier this year--I have not changed my mind one iota on this topic, and I am willing to spout freely on the subject as long as space permits, to anyone who might listen.  My next recipients of this unsolicited advice will probably be James Carville--a noted, though untitled, Clintonian--and Stephanie Schriock, a journalist/political advisor/Emily's list director whom I like a lot, and who is rumored to be in contention to be Hillary's campaign manager.

I am not asking for Hillary to announce her one-term plan so early, or as a condition for my support (though I will enthusiastically support the idea if I hear it is being considered):  She should think--and discuss with her advisors--about the optimum timing for such an announcement (above, I suggest either her nomination acceptance speech, or to keep things interesting once she has wrapped up the nomination).  I do feel very strongly that this is the right thing for her to do, the politically most advantageous approach, and one that will cost her none of her effectiveness as President--it will help her win a big majority in Congress, which she will need to accomplish her reforms.

I do ask--require--that she have a plan for what she wants to accomplish as President, in order to earn my support, and for me to feel it appropriate to advocate her Presidency to anyone else.  I also am concerned about the ISIS/Afghanistan moves President Obama has made recently--not their validity in the sense of the war against the pathological ISIS, or the intransigent reactionaries of the Taliban--but the political box they may end up putting Hillary into if the wars do not go well enough to permit Obama to begin pulling back by 2016.

Finally,  I would like to provide a little historical backup for my contention above that the last President who has had a successful second term is Eisenhower--in the sense of being able to continue effectively the policies and approach of the first term.  It's probably out of the question now for Obama; though I feel he can still accomplish a great deal, possibly more than he has in the first six years, whatever he does from here on would be as the result of a complete change of approach, one in which he may have already made a few dramatic steps.  The clock is ticking, though, and Congress is against him.

JFK - didn't make it to a second term
LBJ - the second half of his second term (counting the 1 1/2 years from '63-'65 as his first) was totally ruined by the Vietnam War morass he allowed the US to sink into
Nixon - didn't make it through the second term (Watergate)
Ford - not re-elected
Carter - not re-elected
Reagan - Iran-Contra was just the clearest example of a second-term Presidency with lights on, nobody home (the man was senile in his second term, face it)
Poppy Bush - not- re-elected
Clinton - Didn't get much done in the second term, except surviving impeachment and getting some backlash support in the '98 midterm elections.
Dubya - To my way of thinking, he was not nearly as odious in the second term as in the first, but his popularity hit the skids by 2006 and never rebounded.  Plus, he presided over the collapse of the economy into the Great Crater--if you call that presiding.
Obama - Political pattern paralleling Dubya, only for the other party.  Gets zero credit for the slow but steady recovery of the economy from the worst recession since the '30's (or early '80's, if you want to argue the point). 

Accomplished: 0; Spent: $4 billion--A few lessons

Of course, that's just my perspective.  Based on my scoring proposed in my final Pre-election post, absolutely none of the objectives were accomplished.  A few things of a negative nature were accomplished, though I did not put a pre-election valuation on them:

The face of the miserable short-term future chosen by the Florida voters "in their wisdom". 

• The Republicans will have drawn the conclusion that they have just the thing to offset the Democrats' Get-Out-the-Vote strategy:  dumping a couple hundred million in attack ads from dark sources in the last days of the campaign.  That's what they did this time, and it moved the needle 2-3% across the board, about the equivalent of what the Democrats' GOTV can accomplish in its best days.  Unfortunately, the massive money dump worked for the Republicans this time, while the Democrats' "we don't spend as much, but we do it better" did not.  So, the Republicans will be even less open to the idea of spending restrictions. 
• Some Democrats will have learned that their strategy--avoiding their party and their nation's leader in the hopes of maintaining some sort of squishy moderate, non-Obama Democratic posture in states where Obama approval was weak and Democratic identification also--reeked of hypocrisy and failed miserably. Those Democrats may not have much of a political career to come back to after that failure, though. A few who fell honorably and did not fail miserably as campaigners--I'm thinking of Kay Hagan, possibly Mary Landrieu if her runoff does not succeed, a few of the Congressional candidates--may live to fight another day. 
• The American electorate--those low-participation, low-information voters who allowed themselves to be numbed into staying home or browbeaten into voting against their economic interests by the wave of negative ads--they will experience the joy of continued gridlock and obstruction (the Democrats might get into blocking things more, now, to give the Republicans a taste of frustration) which they have richly earned ("in their wisdom"). 
• The central Democratic committees will have learned that they cannot "localize" Federal elections anymore; further, state legislative and gubernatorial elections must be understood to directly impact the Federal elections through rules on voter ID, vote counting, redistricting, and now, perhaps, even Electoral College vote allocation.   Also, it might help to have something like an issue to point to as a reason voters might want to choose their candidates. 

What did I learn?  No more money for piecemeal contributions to individual candidates, trying to leverage close races (my miserable $5-$10 bits, spread around too widely, were drowned by megabucks, even if they added up to more than 1 or 2 ninety-millionths of that $4 billion in wasted money, 90,000,000 being the approximate number of voters in the elections); almost all of the candidates I backed lost (and it is stupid to try to improve that percentage by only contributing to candidates who are going to win, at my level).   It was like throwing a coin to a few selected beggars who were all crowded around me;  there were always more of them, and even the ones who received my pittance immediately came back for more.

Although President Obama will continue to labor tirelessly for us ingrates, I don't feel there is much he can do or could have done this time around.  What, exactly (without getting into name-calling), is the problem with him, anyway?  (That's directed to those who "disapprove" of him.)  To give just the most obvious example,  the economy was in shambles and falling into a deep Crater when he came in; his policies helped get us out, and onto a reasonably healthy basis.  How much credit did he get in the campaign for that?  Similar things could be said about healthcare, diplomacy, involvement in wars.  And Ebola?  Please.

I will never draw the lesson that politics, the art and science of large-scale human interaction through the advocacy and administration of public policy, doesn't matter in this country (a conclusion many seem to have drawn);  it is among the things that matter most, in the long-term view of a society which is critical for the future success of the human experiment.  I will say that this election's failure will have effects that are mostly transitory (loss of opportunity), because I expect them to be washed away in two years by a larger wave, in an opposite direction, by leaders with a plan and a new organizational approach to win elections.   We'll just have to muddle through a couple more years of asinine Congressional behavior,  with some of the leading protagonists being the donkeys who just won their elections with their dirty money.

Getting the Big Ones Right

Thursday I was getting planning to write an Andy Rooney-ish post about a variety of minor annoyances. Leaving work, though, I felt in a great mood and didn't feel the need; however. there was something bothering me.  This news story about the Yazidis and Christians in Iraq put to flight by threats of imminent massacre; I got into a couple of chats about it, as I am wont to do, and suggested that the correct action would be a humanitarian relief effort with an armed escort, and I predicted, based on the dire reports, that it would be announced within hours. I went to bed uneasily that night, my cellphone set to CNN so I could easily check updates during the night.

I would say I had it about 40% right. The timing was spot on; when I woke up and checked at 4 a.m. (10 p.m. Eastern), the announcement from President Obama was there.   Of course, that's usually the time when major Presidential announcements are made, late in prime time (East coast).  With regard to the humanitarian effort to provide food and supplies to the Yazidis on the mountain, there was no announcement of an armed escort, which would be there to make sure the supplies did not fall into the wrong hands and to help with distribution.  Of course, thinking about it, it would not make sense to say Americans were rappelling down to the mountaintop to help; it could bring up unwanted discussions of whether there were technically "combat forces' boots on the ground", as well as providing an extra incentive to the besiegers to attack: the trade value of a captured US military person would be enormous.  Neither did the announcement say there was not an armed escort--what would have made most sense was to have a few brave, armed Iraqis go down and help, and word that there is an airlift of people from the mountaintop--very limited--suggests this is probably the case.

The big one that I didn't anticipate was the initiation of airstrikes against the forward elements of ISIS* forces approaching Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region (and new refuge for thousands from fleeing Iraqi minorities).  There is a tactical military sense to it; by slowing their thrust at a reasonable distance from the city, the airstrikes can prevent panic in the justifiably nervous civilian populations there.  There is also the fact, of which I was unaware or that I had forgotten, that US military advisers were in Irbil with the Kurdish forces--this is always a key factor in the equation determining future US military calculations.  Still, this was a bit of a surprise and not entirely welcome.  I agree with the statement from Keith Ellison, head of the Progressive Caucus in the US House, who supports Obama's initiatives but warns against "mission creep".

The US woke up yesterday to find we had started military action, and then today found out that our journalists have concluded for us that we are in a new war--as the Times said in one of their least fair headlines, that "Airstrikes May Continue for Months, Obama Says".  Actually, he said no such thing, though it is possible to conclude that they could.  In his televised speech Friday, which I recommend as a perfect example of the Obama Doctrine--the difference between no wars and stupid wars--he gave the reasons for the orders commencing the airstrikes, clearly and persuasively.  In his hasty news appearance on Saturday (with a helicopter waiting in the background to take him on vacation), he was a little less careful.  He said efforts to support the Kurdish forces (and Iraqi forces) would continue, and that the priority was on getting the different factions together into a new--and different--government.  This is the "long-term project".   He didn't say the airstrikes near Erbil wouldn't continue, of course--that would tend to reduce their effectiveness--but one can hope that blunting the assault would buy the time needed.  As for the humanitarian effort, it should be over in a few days.  Neither enterprise is assured of success.

Public reaction, I would say, puts Obama's position right in the center of the spectrum, from those who want more war now to those who are convinced this is Iraq War 3.  It may be, but unlike the first two, there won't be American ground forces in Iraq:  I'm pretty sure of that, at least as long as President Obama is around, but that's only 29 more months, and it would be optimistic to think that the country will get all straightened out and peaceful in that amount of time (29 years, maybe)  Just a couple points about Iraq:  we don't "own it", because we didn't "break it"; it's pretty much been broken for at least 50 years.  And we are there under the terms the previous President and current Iraqi Prime Minister left us:  if, as much as, and as long as, the government there wants us, and no more--maybe less, in the actual case.

Not Saying She's a Critic, but 'Helpful' Would Be Stretching It
Would-be President Clinton has popped up in recent days with an interview in Atlantic in which she does some careful distancing from Obama's positions, in particular the old debate--now more or less a dead issue--of arming anti-Assad moderates.  She doesn't come out and say this would have prevented the emergence of ISIS, but she suggests it might have helped (and again the headline writers jump headlong to the misleading and provocative conclusion--"Hillary Clinton: 'failure' to help Syrian Rebels led to the Rise of ISIS."  Well, she did use the word 'failure'.)

Headlines like those make it easy to see why there is some erosion in public support for Obama's foreign policy.  Things are quite difficult right now, on a number of fronts, and the support of Obama's political allies is a bit ambivalent.  Meanwhile, the partisanship has spilled over into the handling of foreign affairs.  Debate over these is something I support--it's better than everyone falling in line once the flag is unfurled--but Obama is given little credit for the successes, and every one of them has a "yes, but..." attached:  exiting Iraq and Afghanistan, deposing Qaddhafi, removing the chemical weapons from Syria, agreement on the enriched uranium with Iran, even punishing President Putin's Russia for Ukraine and containing China's naval ambitions.

Clinton says plenty of positive things about Obama in the interview, but does indicate a few points of divergence.  The one about Syrian rebels is public knowledge; Obama has the view that it was never a real option to arm them. Her positions in general are a bit more hawkish, and significantly more completely in line with Israel's in the current confrontation in Gaza.

Israel-Palestine has been one singular lack of success so far in the Obama foreign policy.  I am certain that he and Secretary Kerry will give it one more go in the last two years of his administration, but Clinton's comments (quite revealing on some of the specifics in the recent negotiations) suggest to me that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is a close observer of Washington, will conclude he can get a better deal in the next administration. And so it (always) goes:  somebody there always seems to think there's reason to delay.

Avoiding Cold War II
With regard to the famous Russian Reset, what we got the second time around doesn't seem to run any better, and it's too late to re-boot again, for all concerned.  That "increased flexibility" Obama was overheard to promise the Russian Foreign Minister after the 2012 elections (it was taken out of context and referred to strategic arms limitation negotiations only) is long since gone. We have to deal with the Putin we have, not the one we would like to have.  I don't think it's impossible to deal with Putin; he's willing to help if it's in his interest (for example, with Syrian chemical weapons and with Iran).  The difficulty, as seems always the case with Russian leaders, is fully appreciating their different point of view on the world.

Let me suggest a little counter-factual thought piece which might help.  Let's propose that the full depth of the Great Crater of 2008-09 emerged a few months later than it did, and that John McCain won the election, immediately proceeded to irritate the Chinese, who pulled out their money and the recession became a depression.  Let's further assume that the deficit became unmanageable, the government defaulted on its debts, and that the Constitution came crashing down.  A few states--let's propose a Redneck Republic of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, along with outlying territories Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico--decided to go their own way. Now, how do you think those of the 45 remaining states, who managed to pull it back together somewhat, would feel toward those renegades a couple of decades later?  And what if a faction emerged in Arkansas (headed by Chelsea Clinton) that suggested that Arkansans were sick of the Rednecks and might welcome it if the NUSA might take them back?  What would President-for-life Marco Rubio's response be?

All quite ludicrous, I suppose, but we have to consider the roller coaster ride Russia has been on, and the unsatisfied nostalgic desire for what now seems to have once been that is present in a large portion of the Russian people.  They want Putin to do the things he is doing:  in Ukraine now, and before that in Georgia, Abkhazia, and the Caucasus. Like Cubans under our embargo there, the reaction of the world's punitive actions against Russians will only make it easier to bring them more tightly around to the nationalist line. Although there is no new Treaty of Versailles (and maybe there should be some peace terms developed even now, though not humiliating ones), it brings to mind the volatility of Germany between the Wars, which became an eagerness to settle the score.

We have to be careful--and I think President Obama is--to get the right mix between punishing the (clearly) bad behavior of Russia in Ukraine and driving Russia back toward the isolation that historically has been a strong impulse of that country.  Worse still would be if we drove Russia into the arms of China and a formal alliance against the West--the Chinese might be receptive, if they felt our policy toward them was strictly one of containment, and given their ongoing energy resource issues for which Russia, if it gets frozen out of Europe, would be in a position to offer help.

My conclusion is that these are exceedingly "interesting" times for US foreign affairs, and I would really like Obama to get as many of them settled as possible before he leaves:  I trust him--his careful, intelligent approach--more than any other alternative I can see on the horizon.

*ISIS:  The movement has now taken the name (in English) "IS"--Islamic State, probably wanting to avoid association with the ancient Egyptian "devil-worshippers" god Isis, and reflective of their now-global ambitions (as opposed to just Iraq and Syria).  The US is now officially referring to it as "ISIL", which is neither a concession to the Islamists' expressed will nor inflammatory.  I prefer the inflammatory title, which also is the one in the Atlantic article.