It’s Time to Rumble

Before the Democrats destroy themselves in their debates, here’s my 2 cents so I can look back and remind myself how wrong I was.

The Democratic Party must strategize, not so the “best” man/woman runs against Trump, but so the most electable ticket is running.  The priority is to defeat someone who should not have been elected in the first place, a confluence of events which perfectly came together to elect the unelectable.  One can simply list these, the modern-day enigma of the Electoral College, the bogus Russian inspired Facebook accounts which spewed propaganda into swing states, Wiki Leaks, team Trump’s nescient campaign tactics (e.g. the meeting with the Russians), Hillary’s arrogance not campaigning in rust belt states, Comey’s eleventh hour reversal on Hillary’s email, and one could go on to document Clinton’s popular vote Pyrrhic victory, while going down where it counts in the Electoral College.  I tried to detail them following the election more than two years ago. 

So if that was the result, how to reverse it in 2020?  The Democrats seem to live in a MSNBC echo chamber.  Biden is the “safe” candidate while Elizabeth Warren seems to be emerging as the progressive favorite.  I worry about Biden in a head to head with Trump.  Yes, he’ll say all the right things. Everyone on MSNBC agrees upon the non-Presidential nature of Trump, that he is corrupt, a liar, and an embarrassment in the international community.  The retort to that was emblazoned on someone’s tee shirt I saw on TV at Trump’s recent Orlando rally: “I didn’t elect a Saint.”  They don’t care.  They feel that Trump is the first politician who has their backs; how ironic is that given he was born with a tarnished silver spoon and has lavished his rich friends with most of the “benefits” of his presidency.

Elizabeth Warren on the other hand is not the “safe” candidate, but sort of like the hand grenade Trump was in 2016.  But will it explode in the Democrat’s faces?  Dare they chance it?  Trump has already branded her a “socialist.” Have the Trump supporters ever considered SOCIAL Security, public schools, Medicare, Medicaid, and all the benefits they would never want taken away (oh, except Medicaid if it was needed by the good-for-nothing unemployed or indigent).  Warren would be tougher on the financial system which is gamed to benefit those who are part of the Plutocracy.  But is that going to bring out the rust belt voter?  If she runs for President, the now favorite Trump mantra will be emblazoned in our brains, “Freedom vs. Socialism,” 24 x 7, Fox and Friends, taking up the cause.   

I’m hoping for a candidate from the “flyover” country and I’m focusing on Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, Governor Steve Bullock of Montana, or Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, all more moderate candidates from fly-over states, ones who can drain some of the on the fence Republican voters, capture the independents, and retain the Democratic base.  Pragmatism over idealism. Perhaps someone such as Kamala Harris would run as the VP on the ticket to satisfy the more progressive minds and get a woman on the ticket.  In other words, I’m simply hoping for a WINNING ticket against Trump and all he symbolizes. 

Warren vs. Trump might be fun in the Twitter universe, but I’d be concerned about what people would do in the privacy of the voting booth.  How many people are there, who were Republican, and now call themselves “Independents” and who claim they detest Trump personally but are sympathetic to his “accomplishments” (like what, stacking SOTUS with conservatives)?  I’m not saying a fly-over candidate is going to win all these people over, but some?  Especially in the important swing states? 

In any case, this is a rumble, a gang war coming up.  Grab your zip guns even though they have AR-15s. Confront him with the least assailable ticket.
 

P.S.  Coincidentally, a MarketWatch article published the day after I wrote this sort of underscores the argument :  “If [Warren is] the Democratic nominee, that may help Trump, too. Politicians from Massachusetts generally blow presidential elections, and always for the same reason. They can’t campaign in Middle America.” The opinion is based on shifts in the betting odds. Money on the line beats any poll and the Democrats, as in 2016, may be taking this for granted, especially with a far left of center candidate from a Blue coastal State.

 

A Cuban Humanitarian Crisis in the Making

The Cuban people have been pursuing the benefits of becoming more of a capitalist society.  This was evolving even before President Obama made it possible for Americans to once again visit the island.  Since then it has been accelerating, particularly in the tourist related industries with cruise lines being able to dock there.  The Cuban tourist industry had been dependent on European and Canadian visitors, but after Obama’s effort at detente more Cubans secured governmental licenses to work as private entrepreneurs, mostly in the tourism and related industries. 

The Trump administration has been diligently working on dismantling anything remotely connected with Obama.  It had been slowly reversing détente with Cuba and last week suddenly, without warning, went into high gear by eliminating “people to people” visits, including those by American cruise lines.  In one fell swoop, it cruelly damaged our relations with the Cuban people.   I underscore “people” as they are the ones who will mostly suffer this action.

Here was a golden opportunity to further win over the Cuban people, neighbors only 100 miles off shore. Instead, we could have undertaken a humanitarian effort to address food shortages (don’t our farmers have an excess of food capacity because of the China trade war?).  In part these shortages are due to the Trump administration’s U.S. trade embargo, as well as poor central planning by the Cuban government, and the decline in aid from Venezuela because of its political turmoil.  The confluence of all three has hastened a serious food shortage.

The Bolton hardliners see isolating Cuba as a way of punishing the Cuban government for helping keep Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro in power.  But the US clearly has another agenda and that is to overthrow the Cuban government.

So much more could be won by continuing to help the Cuban people on their path to democratization by supporting their ability to make a living through entrepreneurship.  Many Cuban’s now make their living as guides, taxis drivers, managing B&Bs and running restaurants. 

We were among the 800,000 who have visited the island via a cruise line, and as we had booked it before the first of the Trump reprisals went into effect, we were able to engage independent Cuban guides and tours without any effort. 

Our guide in Havana said his main income now was from being a guide rather than work as a well educated engineer.  Our guides in Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba were now full-time guides, working for Cuban companies which would not have been possible only a few years before.  Each guide enlisted a driver for one of the old 50s cars for the day.  These men diligently and proudly keep up these old automobiles.  They cleverly fabricate parts which haven’t been available in decades.  They too have become victims of this ill conceived decree as well. Entrepreneurship is burgeoning in Cuba and we are helping to kill it.  

To put a face on this argument, here are the guides pictured with Ann:

 Our Havana Guide:

   Our Cienfuegos guide:

 

   Our Santiago de Cuba guide:

 

A strategy of working with the Cuban people on the one hand, and negotiating with the government on the other would seem to be preferable.  It certainly was bearing fruit under the Obama administration.  It is yet another failure of the cold and compassionless Trump administration; I feel for the Cuban people.  Those we met had such high hopes that American tourism would lead them all into greater prosperity and increase the chances of repairing relations between governments.  I can imagine how this cruel act will be turned into anti-American fodder by the Cuban government.

“Truthful hyperbole”

It’s an interesting juxtaposition of words, almost the dictionary definition of oxymoron.  Here’s another two words strung together which approach an oxymoron: “President” and “Trump.”   So it is fitting that oxymoronic terms should hang out together.  This term is expressed by Brad Parscale who according to the Palm Beach Post (great local reporting in this case) is “the ‘genius who won Trump’s campaign,’ and how he’ll get him reelected.

I guess we’ll hear more about this digital / marketing “genius” as the 2020 election gets underway. Stoking the Trump base and bringing in other digital followers will be his responsibility to get Trump reelected. 

This digital gunslinger is more than that, a modern day Elmer Gantry who tackles his calling with a evangelistic fervor, whipping up his crowds, “It’s not just me and my computer and a bunch of algorithms that are going to save us. It’s all of you that are going to save us.” By saving us, he means from immigrants, “socialists,” and gun control advocates.  The details of these issues are not discussed, but are to be dropped as puns, one-liners, the repetition of talking points, etc., “truthful hyperbole.”

At his disposal will be a war chest to turn sites like Facebook into an endless stream of propaganda and fake news, oh, sorry, meant to say, “truthful hyperbole.”  His plan is to turn out an army of faithful automatons, 1.7 million “volunteers,” “super Trump fans.”  A soon to-be-released app “’gamifies’ the experience of waiting in line to get in” to Nuremberg style Trump rallies.  How “exciting” is that?

It is the stuff of the great dystopian novels and we will be living it with people such as Brad Parscale the Wizard behind the curtain, pulling the switches.  

Meanwhile, in the real world, there is the Virginia Beach massacre:  twelve people shot dead by a deranged, supposedly aggrieved person.  Not an immigrant.  Not a Muslim.  Not a person of color.  Most of these shootings are not by such people -- as we all know.  Most are committed by angry white men.  Yet, we still hear about the murderers pouring over our borders.  Among the “solutions” espoused by this administration is to separate families, “build the wall” of course, and not achieving that just put into place tariff taxes by executive order.   Punish the innocent and let the NRA’s propaganda propagate.

The list of mass shootings in America since the infamous Texas clock tower in 1966 is staggering. 

It’s in our blood.  Guns.  The blood is on your hands, NRA.  We allow this?  How preposterous in a so called civilized society?  The 2^nd amendment now goes hand in hand with “truthful hyperbole.”  The right to bear arms never, never would have applied to automatic weapons or handguns with enlarged clips for rapid firing, had the writers of that amendment could have conceived of such weaponry. 

I’m going to simply “reprint” one of the pieces I published a couple years before, the one I think that comes closest to the beginning of a solution.  And indeed, it’s only a beginning.  But no more “truthful hyperbole” please about “bad guys” crossing over the border.  Congress, face up to what is needed!

I’ve now written dozens of times about gun control and in particular the need to outlaw military type weapons, institute stringent background checks, age limits, etc., all the usual ideas and have seen the usual push backs to the same.

I’ve also (not uniquely) suggested that firearms be regulated in the same way automobiles are, requiring registration and tracking when one is sold.

I go back to this argument as it is more of a total solution than any others.

There are of course persuasive arguments against the bureaucracy of establishing a Federal or State system of a “Bureau of Firearms Control.”  Expensive.  Loss of freedom, Big brother watching, etc. etc.  But we tolerate those for automobiles, which also includes testing, insurance, inspection, etc.  We do so for the greater good of society.  We establish laws governing their use and prosecute when those laws are broken, even by generally “law abiding citizens.”  Gun ownership advocates make virtual talking robot arguments that gun laws only hurt the “good” people while “evil” ones ignore them and thus, we should have fewer gun laws.  Talk about circular logic.

We take off our shoes at airports because someone tried to blow up a plane with a shoe. My constitutional rights allow me to wear shoes!

Annual gun deaths are now approaching those caused by motor vehicle incidents (the latter declining and the former steadily increasing).

Getting to the difficult part, implementation.

First, indeed institute stringent background checks, age limit laws, and ban the use of military style weapons.

Secondly, as Congress now sees fit to increase our national debt, go further and institute a Federal program for buying back weapons voluntarily surrendered, with higher premiums for military style weapons.  Pay fair price.  Return them no questions asked for a specified grace period.

Those choosing to keep their weapons, and those buying new ones, must register them with renewals required.  If the registered weapon is given or sold to another, forms have to be completed, the item identified, with the new owner’s name and address.  Then the new owner has 30 days to register them.  Registration fees will support the process.

Gradually a data base will be developed and ones who have a collection of weapons, an arsenal, would be identified and flagged as dealers, subject to another level of scrutiny and regulatory control.

This is complicated stuff and the devil is in the details.

Indeed, some (especially the “bad guys”) will ignore all of this, but they will be subject to prosecution if found with unregistered weapons, or if someone is found with an unregistered weapon purchased or given by them.  It will take time, maybe decades, to work through this group.  It has to start sometime.

And while more regulatory control and knowledge of our lives is abhorrent to me, something has to be started NOW and a more comprehensive solution needs to be sought by our lawmakers.  No more Sandy Hooks, Parklands, Santa Fes.  Now.  Please.

We don’t even hear much anymore about thoughts and prayers regarding the latest incident.  It’s as if we’ve all become inured to them.  That strategy never did work.  We have heard enhanced rhetoric about turning our schools into heavily armed prisons.  Is that really preferable to a “Bureau of Firearms Control?”

Our Continuing National Nightmare

One of the last times I wrote about politics in this blog (having made the futile promise to myself to stay clear of the topic to preserve my sanity), was after the midterm elections:  “I had only one wish for the Midterms: gain the House, although like most moderate progressives, I was rooting for Beto, Gillum, et al.  Still, I sleepily emailed ebullient messages to a few friends at 3.00 AM declaring ‘victory’ with the subject heading ‘bring on the subpoenas.’”

How naïve I was.  We now all know the effectiveness of subpoenas when the Attorney General is a shill for those under scrutiny.  Instead, investigate the investigators his boss suggests.

For a while I fantasized that maybe indeed Biden might be the best qualified candidate to “unite” the nation and make nice with the Republican Party so things can get done.  It was a dreadful, misplaced hope I now think.  Remember the Merrick!  (Merrick Garland, that is, the Obama appointee to the Supreme Court who was kneecapped by Mitch McConnell.) 

The critical nature of winning the 2020 election is no better spelled out than in a recent article in The Nation by Edward Burmila, “Empty Calls for Bipartisanship Could Doom Us All.”

 

Among his salient points are the following:

*Joe Biden’s assertion that President Donald Trump is an “aberration” in the Republican Party is naive at best and revisionist at worst

*Birtherism and Tea Party rhetoric about taking back “our” country were a product rollout, a test marketing of Trump’s politics of white identity

*The Democratic Party seems unable to recognize the seriousness of the moment. It is only luck that the right has not yet found a skilled autocrat

*Imagine what that person could accomplish with the support of a pliant Republican Senate and conservative-packed federal judiciary

*The Democratic Party has an opportunity to influence what happens next. It will not do so with empty promises to unite Americans.

*It is imperative that the eventual Democratic nominee articulate a worldview based on the belief that public policy, not markets, can address social and economic problems, with specific proposals to that end. If ever there was a time to be bold rather than to play it safe, this is it. Without a compelling alternative, ideologues like Trump will succeed by filling the vacuum with a simple—and vile—worldview.

OK, then, what kind of public policy?  We are dealing with a populace who is anti government everything.  Bring on chaos is their mantra.  They have it with their leader. The conventional extreme left progressive “wisdom” of promising to take care of everyone from cradle to grave is not going to sweep Trump and sycophant Republicans out of office.  This is where I disagree with the implication of Burmila’s argument.  There must be a place for “markets” or progressives will merely defeat themselves.  But I agree with the urgency of Burmila’s call to action.  Boldness is required.

This is underscored by Bret Stephens’ opinion column in the New York Times this weekend, “How Trump Wins Next Year” 

He argues that around the world recent elections have ushered in Trumpian populists or have solidified ones already in office, in India, Australia, the Philippines, Israel, Brazil, and Italy – and what is about to happen in the UK.

The core of Stephens’ line of reasoning is:

The common thread here isn’t just right-wing populism. It’s contempt for the ideology of them before us: of the immigrant before the native-born; of the global or transnational interest before the national or local one; of racial or ethnic or sexual minorities before the majority; of the transgressive before the normal. It’s a revolt against the people who say: Pay an immediate and visible price for a long-term and invisible good. It’s hatred of those who think they can define that good, while expecting someone else to pay for it.

When protests erupted last year in France over Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to raise gas prices for the sake of the climate, one gilets jaunes slogan captured the core complaint: “Macron is concerned with the end of the world,” it went, while “we are concerned with the end of the month.”

Stephens accurately accuses the left of being their own worst enemy: … it self-consciously approaches politics as a struggle against selfishness, and partly because it has invested itself so deeply, and increasingly inflexibly, on issues such as climate change or immigration. Whatever else might be said about this, it’s a recipe for nonstop political defeat leavened only by a sensation of moral superiority.

He makes the point, and here is where my thinking and his especially conjoin, that moderate liberals of the past, a Tony Blair or a Bill Clinton -- and while neither could be held up as perfect politicians (in particular Clinton’s moral failures) -- that neither would ever have been bested by someone like Trump.

So where is that person?  Far be it for me to speculate who that should be.  Perhaps as the primaries develop that person will emerge, but I fear that if it is someone from the far left or a reach-across-the-aisle placater singing 'Kumbaya', we will have missed our opportunity to turn back this wave of populist, know-nothing, nihilism.