December 31, 2019--New Decade

I'll be back on Thursday with the latest from Jack. I'm afraid, it will not be a pretty picture. But we'll be of good cheer and able to handle it because we are on course to winning in November.

A day advance I wish you a great decade.

December 27, 2019--Trump Sycophants

A friend sent a note about a posting on the Daily Kos, feeling it summarized well why Trump's followers are so fervent--

I just read an article which brought me up short.  I like the bloggers on Daily Kos and today Tabanjo has written a thought-provoking article: "This is Why Republicans Have Become Trump Sycophants." We somewhat normal people are baffled by the allegiance to POTUS by anyone who can walk, talk, and piss, and I know that you and I were wondering about this very thing a few months ago.  Tiabanjo hits the mark.

Among other things Tiabanjo wrote--

They simply realized that Trump can make their dreams come true. Their dreams, and those of their fearful, entitled, racist-but-often-in-denial, Islamophobe, anti-Semitic base.

I wrote--

My conclusion thus far as to why Trump has such fervent followers is that he makes them feel good about themselves. It's as simple and complex as that. 

His people feel that at all social levels they have been disparaged by the likes of us. They feel with contempt we look down our noses at them. The best thing I've read about this is Hochschild's, "Strangers In Their Own Land." It's perplexing but ultimately makes sense about the way his people feel. And now the shoe is on their foot and they are acting accordingly. 

Though I hate their support for Trump I think they are in many ways right to feel this way as the "coastal elites" do disparage them. Remember Hillary's "deplorables?"  They for sure do. But I also think it's totally OK for us to be angry and finally fighting back. Thus impeachment.

December 24, 2019--Red-Nosed Rudolph

I couldn't carry a tune and so in 6th grade, when it was time for us to sing holiday songs, Mrs. Peterson told me just to move my lips, to lip-sync silently, so as not to throw any of my classmates off key.

And so I did. They would sing "Home For the Holidays," and I would pretend to be a part of things in my silent way.

The Christmas season was the worst. "Silent Night" was way beyond my musical capacities and I felt isolated and frustrated while the other kids negotiated the song's subtleties. And making matters worse, as a Jewish kid I wasn't up to speed about the "Virgin Mother" and child.

But then that 6th grade year a new Christmas song became widely popular--"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"--and Mrs. Peterson promptly put it on her class's playlist. She even suggested to me that I might be able to sing it without disrupting the others.

I quickly memorized the lyrics and from her nods and smiles knew when singing along I was doing at least acceptably.

This was more than 70 years ago and still, when the holiday season approaches the one song that runs in a loop in my consciousness is "Rudolph." One doesn't overcome childhood trauma all that easily. Or at all--

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it,
You would even say it glowed . . .

And yet, though I am analytically-minded, it wasn't until just last week that I paid attention to the inner meaning of the lyrics.

For example--

All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games . . .

Perhaps it is because we are in the Age of Trump where bullying is an acceptable, even preferred way to behave, I hadn't noticed that bullying is one of the important themes of "Rudolph."

Nor had I fully noticed that ultimately the song is about inclusiveness, including of those with special needs (like having a shiny nose!), and the positive power of diversity.

How one foggy Christmas eve, Santa turned to the stigmatized Rudolph and asked him, with his bright nose to guide his sleigh.

We know how it ends--

Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You'll go down in history"

I wonder what 6th graders are singing these days. I am sure some Hanukah songs and a few Kwanza songs. Hopefully, also "Rudolph." The message endures. 

December 23, 2019--Meddling For Hillary

Trump supporters are clearly not concerned that Russians meddled in the 2016 election. 

As conservatives and traditionally during the Cold War and thereafter fiercely anti-Soviet and anti-Russian, one would imagine they'd be up in arms about what our "enemies" did and are doing to undermine democracy in America.

Apparently not.

Most are devoted to the false narrative that it was Ukraine and not Russia that infiltrated our presidential election. And in truth they do not care very much about that either, assuming, as the most recent conspiracy theories have it, that the Ukrainians, not the Russians were the meddlers.

When I ran this by a few progressive friends they chided me for being naive.

"It's because they meddled to help elect Trump. That is more important to his people than defending the sanctity of our electoral process or our democracy."

To that I said, "So let me try a hypothetical. Like you I am outraged by this. Protecting the fairness of our elections for all parties is as important as it gets. To secure the legitimacy of our elections, to participate through the vote to choose our leaders, we should be doing everything possible to repel attacks on our system. Not shrugging it off or lying about what happened.

"But let us assume in my hypothetical that the Russians or Ukrainians in fact meddled, but rather than doing so to help elect Trump they did it to help elect Hillary. They thought they could more easily dominate her if elected than Trump."

"What?" my friends shrieked, "There's no way the Russians would have preferred a President Hillary Clinton."

"Again," I said, "this is a hypothetical. And so, if this were true and they helped elect Hillary, how would you feel about Russian meddling in the 2016 election? I won't quote you by name or otherwise identify you. Tell the truth, how would you feel?"

In response there was generally a lot of silence.

I confessed, "I despise Trump so much I  would have welcomed that interference. We would have President Hillary and subsequently going forward do all that's possible to eliminate electoral fraud and abuse. But defeating Tump comes first."

More silence.

"I'm not proud about this, but it's the way I feel and, God help us, if it happened this way wouldn't we would be better off."

December 19, 2019--Tin Man

From my friend George Lindberg--
I've been watching the proceedings and it has brought me to an unlikely realization--

Trump is the embodiment of all three of Dorothy's companions in the "Wizard of OZ":
The Tin Man with no brain, the Scarecrow with no heart, and the Lion with no courage.
It's been a long day.

December 18, 2019--Profiles In Courage?

Reading the lead story in yesterday's New York Times, "Key Moderate Democrats Commit to Impeachment," I was struck by the following--

In comments to constituents, interviews and opinion pieces, and statements issued by their offices, the moderate Democrats said they were embracing impeachment fully aware that their decision could cost them their congressional careers.

Call me cynical, but these congress women and men who swept into office as a result of the 2018 midterms and thus have been serving in Congress for less than two years are already thinking about congressional careers?

Call me cynical but Joe Scarborough on "Morning Joe" Tuesday was so moved by these legislators putting their reelection chances on the line that he referred to their decisions as "profiles in courage." 

I'm not sure that John F. Kennedy would have agreed. Weren't they just doing their jobs to defend the Constitution?

And I wonder what our Founders would think.

When they structured our representative government and wrote and ratified our Constitution did they think that the men who served in Congress (there were no women until Montana's Jeannette Rankin in 1917) would think about that as a career? 

In fact, Madison and his colleagues worried about this very thing.

Members of Congress were viewed by them as having a citizen's responsibility to participate in governing. If anything, fearful that our government might turn to tyranny the framers envisioned these men serving for a year or two before returning to their lives as yeoman farmers and merchants. Not forming a permanent government of the sort we have had for at least 100 years. 

(I should note, though, that Madison himself served as Secretary of State for eight years before serving for eight more as our fourth president.)

One of the moderate Democrats who announced they would vote to impeach Trump is former C.I.A. analyst, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.

Setting my cynicism aside, what she said was impressive--

I didn’t dream of being a politician my whole life. This was not part of my normal plan. And if this district sees fit to elect someone else, then I will accept that and walk away with my head held high that I’ve made decisions based on principle, and not political calculus.

Madison would have been proud.

December 16, 2019--Let's Play Jeopardy

Category: United States Senators

For $2,000 the answer is-- 

This 79-year-old Republican senior senator  from Tennessee who was George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Education before being elected to the Senate and seeking the GOP nomination for the presidency is not running for reelection in 2020. He is best known for campaigning in lumber jack shirts.

Question?

Who is Lamar Alexander?

Alex Trebek--"Good"

I set this up Jeopardy style to make the point that Alexander is not a household name. How many of you got this right?

Now, here's my question--

Alexander is a lifelong political moderate, has plenty of money (about $25.0 million), is not susceptible to being primaried by a hand-picked Trump political flunky, and by all measures should not be concerned about what Trump thinks about him or what nickname he might come up with to smear him.

And yet he is on a trajectory to vote not to remove Trump from office. He is not on the Democratic party's wish list of Republican senators worried about their upcoming reelection chances who might, might consider voting to convict Trump in the Senate--Susan Collins (Maine), Martha McSally (Arizona), Thom Tillis (NC), Cory Gardner (Colorado), Joni Ernst (Iowa), and the ever-ambitious Mitt Romney (Utah).

In spite of holding these senators in contempt if they vote to exonerate Trump, I get the craven ones seeking reelection who are trying to figure out not how to defend the Constitution (as their oath requires) while at the same time not enraging Trump,

But Lamar Alexander?

What secret power does Trump have over him?

I understand a lot about what is going on politically, including why Trump in 2016 received 54 percent of white women's votes. But this one I don't get.

I'd very much welcome your thoughts.

December 13, 2019--It's In Their Hands

Earlier in the week there was a blizzard of presidential poll results. 

Mainly about how the candidates were faring in Iowa and New Hampshire and how, nationally, individual Dems were doing in head-to-head contests with Trump.

The upper tier could not but feel encouraged. Even Amy Klobuchar, who was in about 8th place overall at four or five percent, appeared to be leading Trump by five or six percentage points. In first place, holding steady, Joe Biden was nine percentage point ahead of Trump.

Yes, the election is still nearly a year away, though almost everyone I know would like it to be next Tuesday, or tomorrow, and we know from the 2016 polling and results that people who eventually voted for Trump didn't reliably show up in the polls--apparently many people were and perhaps are reluctant to admit, perhaps are embarrassed to reveal they plan to vote for Trump--Biden's numbers especially are looking encouraging to anyone who wants to send Trump packing to Mar-a-Lago.

There was also a trickle of related poll and election results chat in the media that was both encouraging and concerning.

Some of the polls broke out data about how women are thinking about Trump and a generic Democratic opponent. Encouraging, 60 percent said they planned to vote for Trump's opponent, but concerning, 34 percent of polled women said they planned to vote to reelect him.

I know 60-34 represents a landslide and I'll take it, but how can one account for the fact that more than a third of American women say they will vote for Trump in spite of all the outrages he has committed when it comes to women.  From Stormy Daniels to the Access Hollywood tape to the way he characterizes any women with whom he disagrees. Ask Congresswoman Maxine Waters how he has smeared her.

And then, when discussing the polling results someone on "Morning Joe" reminded the panel and viewers that in 2016 only 19 percent of young people voted. Not for Trump, not for Hillary but did not vote at all. 

Also, someone pointed out that three years ago 4.4 million of Obama's 2012 voters did not vote.

So, looking toward 2020, unless women turn out, especially if black women vote at close to Obama levels, unless young people turn out, Trump could win a close Electoral College victory.

The good news though--it's all in our hands. 

December 12, 2019--Dershowitz

If he can get a leave of absence from Fox News where he seems to be happily ensconced, Alan Dershowitz will likely join Trump's impeachment defense team. 

Not quite the equivalent of OJ Simpson's Dream Team, but he would eagerly sign up if Trump would agree to offer him in lieu of a fee a supply of 14 year-old girls.

Their mutual pal Jeffrey Epstein may be gone but I feel certain Trump inherited his little black book.

December 11, 2019--Presidential Obituaries

It is claimed that if a president is impeached it will be mentioned in the first paragraph of his obituary.

Here's what Wiki has to say about Andrew Johnson, the first to be impeached--

"He came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in impeachment by the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote."

And about Richard Nixon--

"A vigorous campaigner for Republican candidates while serving as the nation's 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961, and as a representative and senator from California, he became the only president to resign from the office due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal."

Then, Bill Clinton--

"In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives. The impeachment was based on accusations that Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice for the purpose of concealing his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 22-year-old White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate and completed his term in office."

This will be true for Donald Trump as his impeachment is all but inevitable.

Even for ahistorical Trump this must be on his mind. How he will be remembered by posterity. And also for senior members of his administration as they too will be remembered this way. Bill Barr, for example, who is his (and I underscore his) Attorney General and all-round lackey.

I have been wondering this week about Barr who is so much in the news. Is this how the erstwhile establish Republican seeks his place in history? Isn't it enough that he is the only American to be named Attorney General by two different presidents--George H.W. Bush and Trump?

Clearly not.

Could it be that he doesn't care because he knows how very few Americans know anything, anything about their country's history?

Clearly he doesn't. It is certain that Trump knows even less.

But still, he, they know something and what will be said about them after they are gone must rankle them.

At least that is my hope.

December 10, 2019--In the Crapper

Trump said--

"Energy-efficient bulbs don't make you look so good.

"Being a vain person, that's really important to me. It gives you an orange look, I don't want an orange look."

Trump? An orange look? No.

At a White House meeting Friday with small business leaders about deregulatory issues, he also said--

"We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on--and in areas where there's tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don't get any water." 

Then--

"In other places you turn on the faucet and you don't get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out." 

He also said--

"You go into a new building or a new house or a new home and they have standards only you don't get water. You can't wash your hands practically, there's so little water comes out of the faucet. And the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands.

"There may be some areas where we'll go the other route--desert areas--but for the most part you have many states where they have so much water--it comes down, it's called rain. They don't know what to do with it, so we're going to be looking at changing the standards very soon."

And finally--

"We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on--and in areas where there's tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don't get any water. 

"You turn on the faucet and you don't get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. Just dripping out, very quietly dripping out."

And so-- 

"People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once."

It's come to this. Scary.

December 5, 2019--Wither Kamala Harris

A friend asked me to repost this, thinking there were a few insights that might have been overlooked when it first appeared in July--

It began so auspiciously. Kamala Harris's campaign for the Democratic nomination. 

20,000 turned out in Oakland for her announcement ceremony. Millions in cash and pledges poured in with promises of more to come. Hollywood gazillionaires have deep pockets.

Then there was The Debate. She took frontrunner Joe Biden down in a preemptive strike by attacking him face-to-face on the most vaunted part of his legacy--his record of support for civil rights. 

Harris knew that Biden's core constituents are African Americans, especially African-American women, and unless she could attract some to support her candidacy it was doomed. So she went after him. Almost calling him a racist by saying she didn't think he was a racist. She just let that hang in the air. And it seemed to work.

For a week after the debate things were looking good for her. No matter that she slammed Biden for his position on court-ordered school bussing, which though designed to reduce segregation all evidence shows was a disaster for blacks as well as whites. Schools were no more integrated and neighborhoods were shredded by White Flight though some individuals such as bussed second-grader Kamala, by her account, benefited.

Harris's poll numbers rose five to 10 points while Biden's plummeted by similar amounts.

But then something seemingly surprising happened--her campaign appeared to stall. She began to slip in the polls and contributions to her campaign went from flow to trickle. 

And on Monday of this week an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed Harris slipping to fourth place in head-to-head competition with Trump, trailing still frontrunner Biden (who led Trump by nine points) by eight points, trailing second-place Sanders by six points, and third place Warren by five.

Well within the margin of error, unlike the other three who did well in the poll, Harris led Trump by just one percentage point.

None of this is good news for Harris.

What happened?

I suspect over time underlying race and gender issues are coming into fuller play.

Too many Democratic voters were turned off by the overly-aggressive way in which Harris raked Biden over the coals. She was perceived to be more angry than assertive. It was too much a beatdown than a disagreement about ideas and policies. And too many women as well as men, white as well as black, think of this as you will, felt she was acting in an emasculating manner. Instead of confronting his political history she was attacking his manhood.

Biden came away from the confrontation looking like a punished child.

As I did, on YouTube replay the confrontation to see if she crossed some of these tripwire lines. 

We should probably be beyond these kinds of reactions in our public discourse. But sadly we aren't and it may be costing Kamala Harris a potential path to the nomination. We are not yet that enlightened to be OK with a black women taking down a 70-plus year-old white man. We still have a long way to go.

December 4, 2019--From Hillary

Within a hour of Kamala Harris ending her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, a campaign that got off to such a brilliant and promising start, Hillary Clinton, who knows a thing or two about having one's presidential aspirations thwarted, tweeted--

To all the candidates, staff, and volunteers who have worked their hearts out for presidential campaigns that have ended—remember that fighting for what you believe in is always worth it.

If this generous Hillary had shown up in 2016, we would be living in a very different, more hopeful America.

I know she is desperate to come up with a way to get into the race, but . . .

December 3, 2019--Lindsey to the Rescue

Up for reelection next year, poor Lindsey Graham is so afraid he will be defeated and thus need to find a real job, seemingly with some reluctance but with less than gentle prodding by best-selling author, Don, Jr. and Fox's Lou Dobbs, he has agreed to take the lead in defending Trump in the Senate after he is impeached by the House. 

Yes, that same Trump who, during the 2016 campaign (Graham was a nomination-seeker himself but never managed to rise above 1 percent in the polls) after Trump mocked him mercilessly, calling him a "nut job" and even giving out his private cell phone number, Lindsey responded by telling it like it is--calling Trump out for being a "a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot"--in spite of all this GOP bad blood, Graham discovered enough Republican religion to agreed to begin his craven defense of Trump by trashing his old best friend, Joe Biden, who he once, choking up, said is “as good a man as God ever created.”

He used to say the same thing about his old best friend, John McCain. But that was then and this is Trump time.

Graham is so into his new role, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has already begun an investigation of  Joe and Hunter Biden.

Since he will be available for duty 24/7 and being a U.S. senator is a part-time job, since more than anything else Graham loves being on TV--check that, he loves even more caddying for Trump--perhaps in addition to the Biden witch hunt he can work in a few more investigations. 

I know he's busy so here's a get-started list--

Investigate Ivanka Trump's business dealings in China.

Find out which foreign government bailed out Jared Kushner's failed Manhattan real estate deals.

Probe how Donald Junior's recent book rose to the top of the best sellers list.

Discover how Jared and Ivanka qualified for security clearances.

Get Trump's draft records to see which foot had the bone spur that kept him from serving in Viet Nam.

To be fair and balanced--

Discover where Hillary Clinton's 30,000 emails are and while at it locate her server. Hint--it's not in Ukraine.

Find out what Hillary Clinton was doing the night our embassy in Benghazi was attacked.

Finally answer the question who killed Vince Foster.

December 2, 2019--Moderation

I suspect in response to a piece I posted early last week urging Democrats for political purposes to move on from supporting impeachment and focus instead on censuring Trump, I have been chided by some progressive friends who are fed up with moderation in general and me specifically. They feel passionately that we need less moderation of the sort they feel I am promoting and more revolutionary thinking and behavior.

I have revolutionary thoughts of my own, for example, that we need deep structural change in much of our public policy--from education to healthcare to economic inequality--but feel that by pressing many of these issues at this time we would only contribute to Trump's reelection because Trump and his followers would weaponize them by labeling those of us who oppose him socialists and communists. For Trump and his people, we would further fuel this demagogic, potent reelection strategy already underway. 

Our focus, I have been arguing, should be exclusively on denying Trump a second term by all means possible. This is so urgent that it is smart to put the revolution on hold until he is no longer in the White House.

The part of my piece that I suspect was responsible for some of the negative reaction was--

Democrats should condemn Trump's behavior and move on. Take impeachment off the table. Censuring a sitting president is a big deal and would demonstrate to moderate voters that the Democrats are capable of behaving decisively and moderately.

To both disagree and take a poke at me, among other things that came my way, was this from the New York Times. It was posted on Facebook by a young friend. It is an excerpt from Jamie Aroosi's "Are You a Moderate? Think Again"--

As Dr. Martin Luther King understood, the problem he was facing--and that we now face again--is the problem of moral imagination. Moderates might have the “good will” that leads them to acknowledge injustice, but their very moderation is indicative of a “shallow understanding” that is emptied of the pain of those who currently suffer. For these moderates, injustice is a foreign affair, an abstract problem to be solved. Their response then lacks the urgency that a true understanding would bring. Learning how to expand their moral universe--learning how to turn opponents into allies--is just as pressing a problem as ever.

There is much to be said in response to this. Among other things it is absolutist and thus lacks the nuance we need to figure out where we stand and what we need to do to prevail. The Aroosi piece also drives deeper the wedges already separating those of us who should be strategic allies. 

And it doesn't help to compare moderates to the Ku Klux Klan, as Aroosi does in the full piece, when he quoted Reverend King--

"These white moderates were a potentially greater threat than the members of the Ku Klux Klan." 

This kind of talk is enough to dash all hope for rational and temperate dialogue. 

But sadly, this is where too many Democrats are--fighting each other, calling even those who are potential allies names. It is no wonder that this encourages many to seek the comfort of their favorite echo chambers.