Guns Are The Ultimate "Kitchen Table" Issue

I have been reading a lot this election cycle how Democrats are trying to avoid "social issues" in favor of "kitchen table" issues because that's what their internal polling says or something. And hey, I get that there should be a focus on those issues, like inflation and affordable housing for starters. However, I would argue that guns are the ultimate "kitchen table" issue.

They are because when I got home from work that day I sat down at the table to eat dinner with my family and looked my two fourth-grade daughters right in the eye. Just thinking about how they are the exact same age as the victims is almost too much to bear for me. I contemplate how there are fourth-grade parents in Uvalde whose children will never sit at their kitchen table again, how so many of their kids' friends they have gotten to know are gone forever, too. I have no idea how the survivors are going to carry that pain. 

Our country's insane gun policies mean that a lot of other parents in this country are having the exact same thoughts this evening as they sit down at their own kitchen tables. Protecting our children is the most basic duty parents have, and the sacrifices demanded by the gun Moloch and given freely by our society take that protection out of our hands. And yes, the odds of a school shooting happening in our own school are very low, but there is no way to not contemplate it happening to your own kids because these shootings are so common and completely random. 

The response by Democrats on this issue has been completely pathetic. They hold the House, Senate, and White House, yet have failed to get something passed. The House has taken action, but enough Democratic Senators would rather preserve a procedural rule made to protect slavery than protect our own children. Evidently the filibuster matters, and the safety of our children doesn't. The Senate Majority Leader has talked about making a compromise with Republicans, as if any of them are going to break ranks and turn against the most fervent element of their base. Schumer is just a coward, using this as a convenient excuse to kick the can down the road to the next massacre. At this incredibly fraught moment where action is needed he has called a recess for two weeks.

I have a proposal. We need to make this a very unpleasant vacation for our Senators, Democrat or Republican. They need to hear from us every day. We need to flood their public events and demand action, fill up the voicemails of their local offices, and call them out in public in whatever way that we can. They should not be able to show their faces anywhere without being asked to DO SOMETHING. Beto's recent actions might be a bit theatrical, but at least he shows he really and truly wants to disrupt this completely dysfunctional pattern. I haven't seen a single other Democrat prove that to me. 

I can't get any rest because every waking moment of my day is tortured by the thought that my kids or me (as a teacher) could be next. The faces of the victims in Buffalo and Uvalde haunt me every night when I try to sleep. I keep wondering when the next white supremacist terrorist is going to strike in this nation bathing in hatred and toxic masculinity. If I can't get any rest, these lazy cowards who actually have the power to do something shouldn't get any either. 

Post-Election Thoughts

Feeling good after yesterday

The odd off-year election last night was an interesting barometer of where things stand politically right now. Here's some general thoughts about it.

Last night was a strong showing for Democrats that presents an opportunity in more ways than one. Right before the election the pundit Chuck Todd talked about it as a referendum on impeachment. He seemed to predict failure for the Democrats for this reason, and was proven wrong. Now is the time to flip things around. The wins in Kentucky and Virginia are instead proof that the hard stance against Trump is working. That's at least the narrative that needs to get out there. I fear that weak-willed Democrats in the middle might not have the glue to stick in this fight. Hopefully last night will stiffen their spines some more.

Some have noted the swing in suburban areas that helped determine the outcomes of elections in Kentucky and Virginia. I have been thinking a lot about this, since affluent, educated suburbanites have been default Republicans ever since there have ever been affluent, educated suburbanites. The new Republican Party, beholden to Trump. nativism, and Bible thumping does not appeal as much to people who used to just pull the lever for low taxes and regulations. However, I fear this new alignment will further defang the Democrats. These new Democrat voters are likely to vote Dem on social issues, but still support neoliberal economic policy. I have a feeling that this will be a real problem coming down the road for those (like me) who want the party to have a redestributionist approach.

Last, this election yet again shows the singularity of Trumpism, which has no coattails. The same people who worship Trump do not transfer their loyalty to his toadies. Just take a look at Matt Bevin and Roy Moore. There is not going to be a dynasty with Ivanka, Jared, or Don Jr picking up the mantle. Trumpism is not a coherent ideology or a movement, it is simply about elevating one man. One key in 2020 will be getting enough people who distrust other politicians but believe in Trump to see him as a betrayer. That's not going to be easy.

Modern Day McClellans

The vacillating spirit of McClellan is alive today in the Democratic Party's leadership

Like a lot of American boys who get into history at a young age, I immersed myself heavily in the Civil War as a child. Once I was older and became a professional historian I distanced myself from the topic, which I thought of as being overrun by hobbyists and "buffs" who were overly invested in arcane minutiae. In the past few years, however, I have found myself obsessed again, but this time with the political and social histories of the war (as well as with Reconstruction.) 

I keep finding echoes of those histories in the present day. The biggest I see is with how both leaders and common people in the North radically reframed their understanding of the war as it went along. Lincoln's first inaugural speech, coming hot on the heels of secession, promised the South that he would not interfere with slavery where it currently existed. His second inaugural, coming as victory in the war was in sight, deemed slavery a moral evil and the Civil War as God's punishment on a guilty nation. 

I see a parallel in the ways that those Americans opposed to Trump, who is a political descendant of the Confederacy, are fighting him. Some understand that this is a fight where the enemy is simply not going to give up or play fair. They also know that the only forward is not getting back to the way it used to be, but to have, in the words of Lincoln at Gettysburg, a "new birth of freedom." Politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and others seem to get this.

On the other hand, there are plenty of modern day McClellans. George McClellan was able to organize the Army of the Potomac into a disciplined fighting force, but was unwilling to actually USE that force. He was also contemptuous of the notion that the war was about anything other than restoring the Union, and when he ran for president in 1864 that included the willingness to allow the South back into the Union without the elimination of slavery. 

The parallels are not absolute, but I see a lot of McClellan in Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and other Democratic Party leaders. Their current strategy is simply to wait Trump out. Like McClellan refusing to advance in the Peninsula Campaign when he had the advantage, they think by not fighting they will somehow win, and that fighting is too much of a risk. So they sit on their hands, and refuse to impeach a president who only responds with more violations of the Constitution. They attack the left wing of their own party, fearing that they will alienate a few retired white auto workers in Ohio while ignoring the masses of people of color, and youth of all races who support their policies but often feel alienated from the party. 

The Union army finally emerged victorious under the leadership of Grant, who understood that winning was going to require more sacrifice and more fighting. It meant fighting a different kind of war, one whose intensity matched what the situation demanded. When his methods came under criticism, Lincoln defended him, declaring that "he fights." Grant himself understood that the Union's fearful, defensive posture needed to stop. He famously told his generals soon after taking command that they needed to stop worrying about what Robert E Lee was going to do to them, but what THEY were going to do to Robert E Lee. 

That's something that the Democratic leadership could learn from. The Republican caucus is full of members like Gohmert and Gaetz who are FAR more outside of the political mainstream than folks like Ocasio-Cortez. Expanded health care, legal abortion, gun control, subsidized child care, and debt relief are all popular positions. Democrats need to run proudly on these positions and take the fight to the other side. If the current leadership does not understand that reality, they need to get out of the way.

Ocasio-Cortez's Non-Ideological Appeal

I spend way too much time on Twitter, which makes me see way too many bad opinions on a daily basis. It also immerses me too much in a mindset based more around groupthink than in observable reality. Leftist folks on Twitter commonly make the mistake of thinking that other people view the world through the lens of ideology because they do. Most people in the world, however, spend a lot less time thinking about politics than people on Twitter. They also tend not to ground every one of their political beliefs in a rigid worldview. People on the political left are constantly asking themselves "is this the leftist stance?" whenever they have a political thought. That's pretty alien to how most folks view the world.

Hence a lot of People on Twitter have been surprised at how quickly Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has gained a following among Democrats. People of Twitter use their ideological lens to classify rank and file Democrats as "centrists," usually as a way to distinguish themselves as more sophisticated. In their minds it doesn't make sense that "centrists" would flock to a self-described democratic socialist.

I'm not all that surprised, and if these people had properly understood the Bernie phenomenon they wouldn't be either. If you took the time and get off Twitter and talk to real people you'd realize that a lot of Bernie supporters were drawn to him as an alternative to the "establishment" and less for his policy proposals. His charisma also mattered a great deal, and it matters even more with Ocasio-Cortez.

She is a political natural, a truly generational talent. Ocasio-Cortez's social media presence is uniquely powerful, and wherever she goes she has an ability to distill leftist ideas in relatable and easy to understand ways. This talent has been sorely lacking among other Democratic politicians in recent years. It's not that she is "converting centrists," but that rank and file Democrats were always open to these ideas and just needed someone to articulate them and advocate for them.

This is a roundabout way of saying that the political left could gain a lot by focusing on how it talks to others. I still remember a leftist friend of mine actually attacking Ocasio-Cortez last year for not being a "real socialist." That kind of thinking is worse than useless. (It's also why I won't join the DSA even though I am in agreement with their program. I just can't stand all the posturing and holier than thou crap. I left the church for a reason.) It's a big reason why there are few people in this country who self-identify as leftists without having gone to grad school.

And while the left has a lot to learn from her example, the Democrats should also be paying attention. Their future is a return to social democracy as a core principle. It is a message that resonates with a party base that is tired of compromises and being afraid of fighting for what they actually want. Most of what is happening in the political world just makes me depressed, but the possibilities Ocasio-Cortez has opened are giving me hope.

Newt Gingrich And The Need For A Democratic Narrative

Advocating for a moon base was Newt at his Newtiest

There's a recent profile of Newt Gingrich in the Atlantic that's been making the rounds, and it has been giving me uncomfortable flashbacks to the 1990s. He led the Republican stampede into Congress in 1994, the first use of a partisan government shutdown, and the impeachment crusade against Bill Clinton. Beyond that (as was even evident in the 1990s), he was responsible for a new kind of Congressional politics. Ever since the Republicans have been practicing a kind of right wing Bolshevism, treating power as the only moral concern. Trump has merely dropped the last pretenses of decorum and civility. He is a creature who arose from the muck of this fetid swamp, not an alien to the Republican party.

Gingrich is a fatuous blowhard who likes to talk like what a dumb person thinks a smart person sounds like. Even so, he proved himself to be an effective tactician. Back in 1994 one thing he perfected was the use of political narratives. His GOPAC campaign was all about attacking Democrats as immoral, corrupt, and wasteful with coordinated messages. He also generated the so-called "Contract With America," which gave every GOP candidate, no matter how uninspired, a narrative and platform to run with. Republicans, already whipped into a frenzy with their dislike of first-term president Bill Clinton, came out in droves to the polls and took both houses of Congress for Republicans for the first time in 40 years.

Flash forward to 2018.

Democrats are also running against an unpopular first term president whom their base despises. It's fertile soil for a landslide, but that's hardly a guarantee. The issue is not just an unfavorable Senate map and gerrymandering in House. The Democrats have elected not to generate a national narrative. They have taken a "let a thousand flowers bloom" approach, perhaps hoping not to alienate voters in red areas with a progressive national message. The issue is, I have no clue how the Democrats will govern if they win Congress. Do you?

That is a huge problem. How can you claim to be an alternative to the status quo when you aren't telling people what that alternative even is? Democrats need to take a page from Newt Gingrich and establish a broader narrative. They need to paint conservatives as antithetical to the will of the people, and to make them have to come out and play defense against that narrative. Right now all the talk is about Trump, and that's not good enough.

There's three weeks left until the election, and Mitch McConnell provided the perfect ammunition today. He essentially said that his biggest regret as a politician was that he has failed to cut back on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, and that cuts in those programs would be necessary to cut the deficit. The narrative here is pretty simple: Democrats want a country where people's basic needs are taken care of, and Republicans want to take away your health care and retirement so that they can give even more money to rich people through tax cuts. Please Democrats. Say it. Again and again and again and again. Say it until you are blue in the face. Say it until even our wretched excuse for a fourth estate forces Republicans to have to answer to it. The stakes are too high for politics as usual, and those politics have been a massive failure for Democrats anyway.

Some Narratives For The Democrats (Free Of Charge)

This is the kind of messaging Democrats need to revive

Hey Democratic Party, this election is absolutely crucial. I am not talking about crucial in terms of power, but crucial in terms of the basic shape and direction of this country. We are ruled by a wannabe despot, and your brand of policy wonk centrism has been an absolute failure. Narratives and stories are what move people politically. You need to come up with some good ones, not awful weak tea like "When They Go Low, We Go High."

I am not necessarily the best wordsmith, but you can surely take these narratives and make them into snappier slogans. The underlying narratives are what matters, anyway. Here's basically the language I would use.

"Democrats Care About Your Health, Republicans Care About Making The Medical Industry Rich"

Obamacare has helped millions of people, but the Republicans want to destroy it. They don't care if you live or die or go bankrupt, they just want to make sure that the big health companies make more money, and that the rich and corporations don't have to pay taxes. Not only will Democrats fight to keep Obamacare, they will push for Medicare for All, which will mean a drastic reduction in your health care costs and money you can use for a better life. It will also give you security, and the ability to easily switch jobs without having to worry about losing health coverage for you and your family.

"Democrats Want to Rebuild Our Crumbling Infrastructure, Republicans Want To Sell The Country Off For Parts And Scrap"

Donald Trump promised money for infrastructure, and that was just a pack of lies. Instead he made sure that he and all his rich friends got a massive tax giveaway from the government. The big corporations are not using that to make more jobs, they are using it to make themselves richer. That is the only policy priority the Republicans have: make the rich richer. Democrats want to build a better country, and building infrastructure will also create jobs.

"Democrats Want To Protect Hard-Working Immigrants, Republicans Want To Hurt Them"

The president has repealed DACA, has rescinded protections for immigrants from many countries, and is now breaking up immigrant families. He has also told his ICE thugs to deport law abiding immigrants, even those married to American citizens and respected in their communities. Democrats want to pass a law to protect DACA, and to offer a path to citizenship for those immigrants who have been contributing to this country.

"Democrats Want To Protect You From The Big Banks, Republicans Want The Banks To Rip You Off"

Obama and the Democrats created the Consumer Protection Agency so that the government could protect bank customers from being exploited and ripped off. The Republicans and Trump administration have decided to destroy it, because they take money from Wall Street and they care more about their banker friends than they do about you. Democrats want to more tightly regulate banking so that you get a fair shake from lenders.

"Democrats Think Every Person Deserves Dignity and Respect, Republicans Don't"

Republicans support all kinds of hateful legislation to limit the rights of LGBT people, and use hatred of them to rile up the religious extremists in their base. Democrats think that all people deserve dignity, and that their gender identity or sexual orientation should never be used to justify any kind of discrimination. Republicans also recently got rid of regulations to stop racial discrimination in car loans. On top of that, the Trump administration has been soft on enforcing civil rights laws. Deep down they do not care about discrimination, especially if that discrimination benefits their rich friends.

"Democrats Want To Lower Gun Violence, Republicans Only Care About Appeasing the NRA"

After recent shootings millions of Americans have taken to the streets to say that enough is enough. They are tired of levels of gun violence several times higher than those in our peer countries. It just does not have to be this way. Despite the outcry for sensible gun control, nothing has happened. Why? Because Republicans are scared of the NRA, and they want their money and the money of the big gun companies. The NRA is an extremist organization that wants guns everywhere, but Republicans slavishly do their bidding. That money means more to them than dead children. Tell them that enough is enough.

"Democrats Want To Hold Donald Trump Responsible, Republicans Support His Thievery and Immorality"

The president promised to drain the swamp, but he is in fact the biggest swamp monster. He has been getting bribes through Michael Cohen by big corporations like ATT. He went from using debt to paying cash for his holdings, right around the time his relationship with Russian oligarchs was established. The president is behaving like an organized crime boss, while the Republicans are his enabling toadies. He is ripping you off and robbing the country blind and working on behalf of a hostile foreign nation and laughing in your face. Democrats will investigate and hold the president responsible and impeach him if need be.

****

Of course, a lot of this is predicated on the Democrats being a truly social democratic party. I highly suggest that they get on that.

Why Medicare For All Matters

This week Bernie Sanders introduced his Medicare For All bill in Congress. In itself, this should not be a big deal. Congressmen like John Conyers have been proposing something like this for years. The difference is that enough prominent Democrats have rallied behind it that true universal health care has now essentially become a litmus test for Democrats.

This is a very important development. The last time that I felt this was the case was back in the early 1980s, when Democrats were still keeping the old time New Deal religion. After 1984, when Reaganism appeared to be the new reality, that changed. By the time a Democrat was able to propose a new health care system in the form of Bill Clinton, it crashed and burned. Barack Obama managed to get somewhere, but only by basically adopting a moderate conservative solution. Even that involved a great deal of struggle and opposition.

Now it appears that Democrats are willing to go all-in on a social democratic health policy. My hope is that this represents a major values change. The other side has profited from turning policy issues into moral issues. For example, the inheritance tax is opposed by saying "It's not right to keep someone from giving to their children." For years Democrats have failed to offer the proper moral argument in return, since that argument required a social democratic values system, as opposed to a neoliberal one. The Democrats have long been incapable of saying "It is morally wrong for the wealthy to perpetuate their power and advantage across generations," even though this was an uncontroversial opinion a century ago.

It is this values clarification that is necessary for the left to win out. Instead of getting lost in the weeds of policy wonkery, progressives are more willing to think big. This means starting from some assumptions, such as that every person's life has value and every person deserves to be healthy, safe, and protected. Even if the push for Medicare for all fails in this Congress, which is pretty much inevitable, it is changing the discourse in ways that are absolutely essential.

Some Advice For The Democrats

Time to bring back the spirit of George Norris, my home state's greatest leader

So today there was a big kerfuffle online today after a reporter claimed to have heard the Democrats' slogan for next year, and tweeted it. (That tweet was then deleted.) Because it was retracted, I am not going to repeat it, but it does seem to imply (and I don't doubt) that the Democrats are going to 1. still hire lame people to write their slogans 2. try to run on "jobs" and 3. try to be as middle of the road as possible.

All three are massive mistakes. The Republicans have done the best job of sloganeering, since they hire the best PR people to come up with PR stuff. Just think about how "right to work" has become the brand name for union busting. In the second place, "jobs" in the abstract is Trump's issue. The first thing you should do in any debate is to force your opponent to debate you on your ground, not theirs. If you let yourself be pulled onto the ground your opponent has created, you have already lost. And last, going to the middle of the road does not work anymore. Yes, it is very tempting to go to the center if your opponent is going to the extreme, but that formula is outdated. You need to get the base out in the midterm elections. That's how you win.

So what should the Democrats do? They should focus on health care and beat that issue into the ground. The GOP has created a massive self-inflicted wound for the Democrats to exploit. They have learned the hard way that there is a new American consensus on health care: to be remotely acceptable any changes have to expand access to care, rather than restrict it. The Republicans are on record supporting cutting off tens of millions of people from health care. Make them own it, hang it around their neck like a millstone and shove them into the political sea. James Carville has become a bit of a buffoon, but his "it's the economy, stupid!" approach was a brilliant way to nail his opponent on an issue where he was weak that the public also cared about more than any other. Right now that issue is health care.

And yes, Russia should be an issue too, but weaved with health care, as in "Those Republicans are so corrupt that they are letting Trump betray the nation just so they can take away your health care and give the wealthy a tax cut!" Admittedly, it might be hard to get the whole party behind single payer, but they can still easily craft a message based around social class and inequality. The basic message of "The Republicans want you to suffer so the rich can have even more!" is a winning message. The Russia stuff might not play as well with independents, but that's fine, since it will fire up base Democratic voters. Animus against Clinton in 1994 and against Obama in 2010 by grassroots conservatives led to huge midterm wins, it can just as easily work the other way.

Last, and most importantly, Democrats need to focus on the vote. That means getting volunteers to make sure people targeted by suppression can get the help they need to register. It also means bringing all those "resistance" folks into the party. There has been an incredible mobilization by both the left and liberals since Trump's election that has been truly bottom-up. The Democrats need to get these activists coordinated and make them want to be in the tent, especially those oriented towards Sanders. That is where more forceful messaging comes in.

Activists should be taking off work on election day if they can, driving other people to the polls. (I know I want to do that.) Turnout is key in midterms, and the Democrats have a political army that they can call on to get out the vote, if only they would just do it.

The Message Democrats Need To Send

In the midst of the political chaos this week, I have been thinking long and hard about the 2018 election. Why? Because it should be blindingly obvious by now that Republicans will not turn against Trump. And why should they? They know with him in power they will get to build prisons, slash social spending, and cut taxes for the wealthy. Basically, they will get their whole program passed, and that's all these ideologues care about.

Trump's opponents need to stop wasting time trying to cajole these conservative true believers and concentrate on how to vote them out of office, the only permanent remedy available. Doing this is harder than it may seem, because while Trump may be unpopular, gerrymandering and voter suppression and low voter turnout in midterms make this a difficult proposition.

There's also the difficulty of messaging. The scandals play well with Democratic voters, obviously, but you won't get independents with promises of impeachment. The health care bill is massively unpopular, making it a much more fertile ground to plow in the election. However, this did not mean giving up on Russiagate.

The two can be melded very effectively. Democrats simply need to tell the voters that "The Republicans are not going after Trump on Russia because they want to take away your health care and give the money to the rich." That needs to be the mantra. Voters must be told again and again that they are going to lose health insurance or pay a lot more for it so that the wealthiest people get even more money. And adding that this is the priority, not investigating Russia, keeps that issue around in the minds of voters who care about it more.

If the Democrats really want to be daring, they should offer Medicare For All. That will free them from having to defend the status quo, and also offer something tangible that would greatly benefit the majority of Americans.

Contrary to what some might say, Russia and economic critique are not mutually exclusive issues. They can, and should be combined, and if they are the Democrats will have a potent message.

We Need Social Democracy, not Sanders Worship

I'll take Bayard Rustin over Bernie Sanders any day of the week

There's been a lot of discussion this week about Bernie Sanders campaigning for a Democratic candidate for mayor of Omaha who's sponsored mandatory ultrasound bills and other anti-choice measures associated with the most repressive conservatives. (This is different than maintaining a moral opposition to abortion a la Tim Kaine. If you think otherwise you are blinded by your adulation.)

I find this to be the most recent iteration of a deep problem I have with a lot of people on the left side of the spectrum who support Sanders. They are willing to compromise on or ignore the issues that matter very specifically to women and people of color. (Sanders is also soft on gun control, which is another issue.)  It is the same problem many self-described socialists I know have, whereby they think that if social class is addressed all other inequalities will somehow melt away. It is a narrow and dangerous way of thinking, and it is in fact quite insulting to the people whose grievances are going unheard.

I keep hearing people talk about the Democratic primaries last year as if the party apparatus itself stopped Sanders.

No.

He lost primary votes because he failed to appeal to the specific concerns of many voters due to the narrowness of his message. Most obviously, he failed to get the support of African Americans, who are one of the absolute pillars of the Democratic Party and its most loyal constituents. Those voters clearly perceived Sanders' inability to see their specific concerns as separate from his general bromides about the 1%. While he made efforts to correct this, it was too little too late. His recent support for Mello in Omaha and his assertion that Trump voters "aren't racist" pretty much shows that he is still trapped in a vision of social democracy that is race and gender blind.

We deserve better than this. As loyal readers may note, I have written for both Jacobin and Liberal Currents. I do not see a contradiction, because I define myself as a social democrat, and that is an identity in this country that straddles the line between liberalism and the Left. It's also one that leaves me feeling like a man without a political country. Sanders' message is inherently social democratic, but the cult of personality around him has sucked the life out of any true social democratic movement. Instead, so many people are hung up on supporting Sanders, rather than leading a movement of their own.

That must change, because Sanders' vision of social democracy is wrong and outdated. I want a social democracy rooted in an uncompromising commitment to the rights and dignity of all people. That means treating issues around race, gender, and sexuality with as much seriousness as economic ones, or, for that matter, not treating them as if they are separate, rather than intertwined. (I am not going to say "intersectional" because I want a mass movement on the left that does not resort to grad student jargon.) I appreciate that Sanders has helped popularize a more social democratic politics, but it is time for others to step up and for him to take a step back. If not the current flowering of social democracy in this country will wither and die.

Into The Fire

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made wretched nightmare by this son of Queens

In a little over two weeks, Donald J Trump will be the next president of the United States, and I fear that we don't stand a chance. In conversations I've had with those who voted for Trump, both online and in person, they simply do not have any concerns or reservations about what this man has done or anything he is about to do. In most cases they are people who want their version of America to triumph, and that's a version where gays are in the closet, immigrants deported, bosses control their workers, people of color are invisible, and women are in the kitchen. If Trump has to break a few laws and break a few heads for that to happen, they simply do not care.

Just think of all the violations we have already seen -by Trump and by his allies- that have failed to move these people. Republicans blocked the president from nominating a Supreme Court justice in an unprecedented breach of the Constitution that would have caused a crisis in an ordinary year. Republicans in North Carolina have a attempted a Reconstruction-era coup. Trump did not release his tax returns. What we know of his taxes shows that he does not pay them. He openly bragged about groping women. He mocked a reporter's disability. He insulted the parents of a soldier who died for this country. He insulted the service of a man who spent years in a POW camp. He received support from the hacking of a foreign government opposed to the United States, has praised that nation's dictator, and has now taken steps to kneecap America's own intelligence apparatus. He has appointed the editor of a white nationalist rag to a new advisor position previously unheard of. He has failed to give a press conference since July, preferring to use Twitter as a platform to kvetch, insult, and threaten. On Twitter he has made alarming statements about nuclear weapons.

None of these actions has swayed his supporters, because they have been fighting a low-grade civil war in this country for decades, and are convinced that an autocrat will finally give them the victory they crave.

So where are those who can check Trump's power, and call him to account? The news media has been servile, giving him credit for the Carrier deal and the House Republicans' retreat from scrapping independent oversight of Congressional ethics, even though he was not responsible. And those are the "liberal" outlets like the New York Times. With Fox News and Breitbart, Trump has a massive propaganda operation backing him. The Democratic opposition is typically pathetic. Bernie Sanders, the supposed champion of the left, greeted the election by talking about how he could work with Trump. Schumer has been playing the backroom buddy game. The left generally has been divided and disorganized. Time, money, and effort was put into a doomed recount campaign headed by the charlatan Jill Stein but supported by gullible liberals. So-called radicals have been downplaying the significance of the Russia hack and Trump's response to it, seeing it as yet another opportunity to chide liberals rather than to actually do anything constructive. Liberals have had a tendency to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. The united nationalist front behind Trump, which is drooling over itself at the thought of smiting the left and erasing its influence, will be the anvil on which progressives are smashed by the Trump hammer.

I don't like being such a downer, but if Trump's opponents remain this divided and disorganized, and the media continues to play into his hands, we are really and truly fucked. In two weeks we are headed into the fire.

2018

I've got some things to get off my chest. My time on Twitter has been a constant aggravation recently, because the Monday morning quarterbacking of the Clinton campaign ceases to abate. We are over a month past the election and I am just tired of it. There were some obvious strategic mistakes as well as some harder to control factors (electoral college's structure, voter suppression, Russian hacking) that contributed to Clinton's loss.

At this point, however, anyone who is talking about 2020 and not 2018 is wasting their time and mine. In case you don't remember, the Republican surges in midterm elections in 2010 and 2014 helped to hamstring the Obama administration. The Democrats need to learn a lesson from their enemies and do likewise. Not only that, state legislatures elected in the coming years will be in charge of congressional districting in 2020. Gerrymandering has hurt Democrats severely, and winning on the state level will be absolutely crucial to turning back the tide.

Democrats will be able to do this only through a fifty state strategy and through going on the offensive. For too long Democrats have been playing defense, defending the status quo in a society where the status quo is loathed. For example, if Republicans want Obamacare repealed, Democrats need to run on expanding access to affordable health care even more. Push for a public option, or even Medicare for all. Give people something that can help them and something positive for party activists to fight FOR. Expanded health access at low prices without the rigamarole of the health care exchanges is something that working people of all races -those elusive working class whites included- will find attractive.

Also, exploit the mistakes that Trump and the Republicans are about to make. If they try to privative Medicare and reduce Social Security hang that around their neck and light it on fire. Those actions would be EXTREMELY unpopular. Make the corporatist 1% agenda the image Republicans are known for, and hammer them on it. It is not a popular agenda, hence their need to stir up nationalism. Make them defend it. Beyond that, Trump is proving already to be unpopular and disliked. Make other Republicans pay for being on his side. Associate Republicans with him and make the 2018 election a referendum on his time in power.

I just said it, but I will say it again: rehashing 2016 is a waste of time. 2018 (and 2017, in some states) is where the focus should be. The Democrats have done a poor job of building from the bottom up in recent years. Now is the time to do that, and the consequences of not doing so are far too dire to ignore.

Let's Be Honest, The Democrats Are A Party In Crisis, Too

It's very easy these days to point and laugh at the Republican Party and mock it for getting itself into its current position. Years of a cynical leadership promoting supply side economics while throwing some culture war bones to supporters getting screwed by those economics created a base so rabid that it can no longer be controlled, and can be easily swayed by a Trumpian demagogue. The bill for decades of double-dealing has finally come due.

Because the Democrats are not imploding as spectacularly, it is easy to overlook their current mess. Their party's clear standard bearer has been losing states to a cantankerous outsider with few presidential bona fides who until recently held office as an independent socialist. The most enthusiasm from the base is coming from his supporters, even though he's not even really a Democrat. More crucially, while Republicans have turned "red" states like Louisiana and Kansas into one party governments capable of maintaining power even after running their states into the ground, Democrats have lost control of "blue" states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Jersey. This has led to once impossible things, such as Michigan becoming a "right to work" state.  Clinton is 69 years old, Sanders is 74. The party's failures on the state and local level have left it without a new generation of Democrats in office. Who the hell would even be able to run in 2020 with any real national following?

The crisis runs even deeper than these tip of the iceberg symptoms of decline. The Democrats have been getting squashed in midterm elections, effectively squandering the Obama presidency as the Republicans have gone into full-on resistance mode. The scene was set back in 2009, when the screamers and ranters went out to berate politicians who supported the Affordable Care Act, leading to the Tea Party midterm of 2010. As the current election has shown manifestly in the case of Jeb Bush, lots of superPAC money won't swing a presidential election by itself. However, in Congressional races, it makes a huge difference. With corporations solidly in the Republican camp, the Democrats play at a huge disadvantage when it comes to winning Congress. After that 2010 sweep, they also got to redraw electoral maps and gerrymander several states. On top of all of that, the Supreme Court invalidated parts of the Voting Rights Act, enabling voter suppression on a massive scale.

The only way for the Democrats to overcome these obstacles is by increasing their turnout, especially in off-year elections. Voter suppression makes that hard, as well as the fact that the Democratic party does so little for its base. Teachers and their unions are supposed to be a part of the coalition, but Democrats consistently enact education "reforms" contrary to what teachers want. It's as if Republicans passed major regulations on oil companies then expected their usual support. Latinos support the Democrats, but when the party had both the presidency and Congress, it increased deportations rather than push through comprehensive immigration reform. African-Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic, but the party has been slow to move against mass incarceration after spearheading such efforts in the 1990s. How do Democratic politicians expect to win if they refuse to do the things their voters put them there to do? Is someone really going to be motivated to go out and vote in an off-year election for a candidate who will give them nothing but lip service?

The Democrats have been able to console themselves with presidential wins, but the current favorable conditions won't last forever. A nightmare scenario could be coming. Trump could well be the nominee, then go down in flames in the general election. That might give the Romney wing of the party the ability to say "see I told you so" and push the party in a more moderate direction, especially on immigration. If the Republicans are able to pivot on those issues while not totally losing their base, the Democrats will be in deeper trouble. I'm not putting any money on this, but this is a party whose success has more to do with the dysfunction of their opponents than any other quality. That's not a good place to be.

The Post-Watergate Democratic Party Has Eaten Itself

Some buttons from more prominent members of the class of '74

I was reading a book about Nixon this week, which got me thinking about a related topic, the realignment of the Democratic party post-Watergate.  It's an especially important topic to consider on Labor Day, since labor had been the backbone of the New Deal Democratic Party, which began to fade in the 1970s.  Labor's role in the party changed along with the loss of industrial jobs and weakening of union membership and power that came with it.  Even before that reality had fully set in, a new wave of Democrats after Nixon took a decidedly more technocratic direction.

Jimmy Carter, for instance, was no great friend to labor and did not support the full-employment plan pushed by the Democrats' old guard in the late 70s.  The wave of Democrats brought into Congress post Watergate, exemplified by the likes of Gary Hart, emphasized their independence from the old guard.  This was understandable in many respects, since that old guard was associated with the likes of Richard J. Daley.  That old guard (which was literally dying off, in Daley's case) had often been unresponsive to the needs of people of color and women of all races and tended to be socially conservative.

The new class of Democrats emphasized their competence and know-how, as if they were above the demands of any particular constituency, labor included.  In the 80s and 90s this impulse dove-tailed with agenda of DNC types, who were willing to accept a lot of the new neoliberal economic thinking.  The next Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed NAFTA, drastically cut welfare, increased prisons, and declared the era of "big government" to be over.  Since this agenda did not exactly excite the Democratic base (keep in mind that Clinton did not get a solid majority of the popular vote in either election), Democrats relied more on raising big money than getting their base to the polls, as if that was some kind of dirty machine tactic.

For the past thirty years Democrats have expected to get their base to the polls by pointing out how awful the alternative would be.  The Republicans have obliged them by putting forward reactionary troglodytes at every opportunity.  This, of course, has absolved the Democrats of doing anything positive for their supporters.  To wit: African Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, but the party is just as guilty as their opponents of supporting prison industrial complex, which is institutional racism at its worst.  Teachers unions reliably go to bat for Democrats, but in Chicago Rahm Emmanuel is attacking teachers, and the Obama administration supports education policy opposed by teachers' organizations.

The Democrats, flailing hopelessly along since 1994 as conservatism lite, got extremely lucky with Barack Obama, a candidate who could excite the base and bring a ton of charisma to the table.  Further down the ladder, however, the rot was setting in.  The Democrats have lost governorships in "blue" states like New Jersey and Wisconsin, and have failed to gain traction in red states like Texas despite favorable changes to demographics.  This has drastically depleted the ranks of possible successors at the top.  Just look at their presidential field, which is thin, and in which Martin O"Malley is the only candidate not eligible for Social Security.  That post-Watergate generation still dominates the party because they were never able to sustain one afterward.  (This is also a stinging comment on the effects of Baby Boomer narcissism and inability to share the spotlight with Gen X.)

It should hardly be a surprise that Bernie Sanders, a socialist in his 70s with a distinct lack of smoothness, is doing so well right now.  Rank and file Democrats have grown tired of decades of not having their voices heard.  The fact that the party does not have younger leaders at the start of their ascent (or even in the middle of their careers, for that matter) is a damning indictment of the party's failure to build for the future.  Despite lauded demographic changes and the apparent clown show that is the Republican Party, don't expect the Democrats to make any major gains, or even to hold what they've got.

The Democrats Are Still The Party of Richard J Daley

During the last five years Republicans have been taking radical actions on the state level, fulfilling Tea Party ambitions that have been thwarted in Washington.  The new wave of conservative governors and legislators has enacted a massive wave of abortion restrictions, has gutted social services (with Kansas as a prime example), busted public worker unions, and slashed money drastically to public universities.  Just this week it appears that Scott Walker is trying to essentially destroy the public university system in Wisconsin, and Sam Brownback is willing to keep massive tax decreases in place that have made it extremely difficult for the state to finance itself.

You would think that in response to this onslaught that Democrats would be using their power in Blue States to enact a progressive agenda.  If you thought that, you are sadly very wrong.  Democratic politicians in blue states and cities that vote overwhelmingly for their party have turned around and offered conservatism lite, as opposed to any kind of progressive agenda.  In Chicago Rahm Emanuel has sought to fire unionized teachers and replace them with Teach for America recruits.  In New York Andrew Cuomo keeps pushing the testing of teachers, despite the positive results so far on previous tests.  His bloodlust for teacher firings must be filled, I guess.  Other Democrats are more concerned about lining their pockets than anything else, as this week's revelations about Sheldon Silver revealed.  Here in New Jersey local Democratic bosses like Joe DiVincenzo and George Norcross continue to support Chris Christie in a cynical power play.  With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?

Rahm Emanuel, who's re-election bid as mayor of Chicago is less than a month away, is perhaps the best example of the continuities of the worst aspects of the Democratic Party.  Chicago is as true "blue" as they come; I can't imagine a Republican ever getting elected to be mayor of that city.  At the same time, it has been ruled for decades by Democrats who have impeded progressive political action at every turn and have favored corporations over their own people.  Rahm has attacked teachers and privatized key public functions of the city while refusing to listen to calls to reign in police violence.  He is governing much the same as his predecessor, Richard M Daley, who never met a corporation that he didn't like.

Of course, little Richie never lived up to his father Richard J Daley's reputation.  The elder Daley ruled Chicago with an iron fist from 1955 to 1976, and in the process became one the most important Democrats in country, despite holding only a local office.  As the book American Pharaoh points out, he used his immense power and ability to tap federal largesse to keep the city segregated.  Interstate highways formed walls between black and white neighborhoods, and massive housing projects warehoused the black poor.  Today it might be easy to look at his racial politics and see a man from a bygone time, but modern Democratic mayors have done little or nothing to fight the growing waves of gentrification that bring segregation in their wake.  They are more likely to welcome it for boosting the tax base.  Just like Daley, politicians like Cuomo and Emanuel are primarily interested in one thing: the preservation and expansion of their personal power.

They are allowed to do sobecause the old party apparatus has a stranglehold on Democratic institutions on the local level, and because too many rank and file Democrats are unwilling to push for better.  Back when I lived in Chicago, at a time when Richie Daley's administration was allowing mass transit to rot while throwing out tax giveaways to Boeing, most locals seemed to respond with the old chestnut "Chicago is the city that works!"  As long as the Loop looks spiffy and they have jobs, these types won't complain.  Organized labor is so cowed that even though the likes of Emanuel and Cuomo have been actively hostile to unions, they still fall in behind them.  By undercutting labor these modern day bosses have effectively neutralized the one institution that has any chance of challenging them.  It's hardly a surprise that Democratic bosses like Norcross and DiVincenzo have been Christie's buddies, they're cut from the same venal cloth.

Bill de Blasio gives me hope that genuine progressives can gain power in Democratic strongholds, but he has faced an unprecedented rebellion by police for daring to publicly utter the obvious truth that blacks and whites have a different relationship with the police.  He is effectively being punished for not governing in the style of Emanuel in Chicago, where the cops still have free reign.  If he governed like Richard J. Daley, "shoot to kill" order and all, the police would be just fine with him.

Progressives rightfully fear the things that Walker and his radical ilk are doing on the state level, and rightfully excoriate the inability of the president and Democrats in the capital to consistently push a progressive agenda.  Something they ought to be paying more attention to is that in supposedly "blue" territory like Chicago and New York, that the Democrats are still the party of Richard J Daley.

My Uneasy Embrace of the Democratic Party

I have been spending a surprising amount of time watching the Democratic National Convention over the last couple of days, and during Bill Clinton's speech last night, I thought about how my identification with the Democratic Party has been a rather recent development.

As a child, I considered myself a Republican because my parents were Republicans, and so I assumed I was one too.  At the age of sixteen I had a political awakening, where I realized that most of the things I believed in were in fact not what the Republican party believed in.  In fact, I learned that my views were actually to the left of the Democrats!  Nevertheless, I put a lot of hope into Bill Clinton back in 1992, and felt betrayed by a president responsible for signing the Defense of Marriage Act, voting to deregulate banks, "reform" welfare, and generally supporting a less rapacious version of Reagan's neo-liberal economic policy.  By the 1996 election, I considered both major parties to be corrupt institutions only looking out for their own interests, and much less different from each other than their partisans claimed.

Consequently, I voted for third party presidential candidates in 1996 and 2000, feeling a moral obligation to cast a vote for the candidate who best represented my views.  (In the first case I lived in Nebraska, in the second Illinois, neither one a swing state.)  While I typically voted for Democrats, I would never have considered myself one, and registered as an independent.

Things changed after the 2000 election.  During that campaign, I scoffed at Al Gore's timidity and unwillingness to take strong liberal stances on the issues, although I developed a strong dislike of George W. Bush, who appeared to me to be, in technical terms, a goddamned moron born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  Once it became obvious how extreme the Republicans had become during the Bush administration, I realized that maintaining my moral purity by sitting on the sidelines and refusing to throw in my lot with the Democrats emboldened conservative radicals to run riot.

Essentially, I chose to be a Democrat out of fear of the alternative, not the strongest reason in the world, but one that has stuck.  The GOP has gone from being a center-right, broad-based party to the front organization for an extremist, ideologically-driven political movement seeking to impose Christianism, Dickensian laissez-faire capitalism, and an essentially racist, homophobic, and misogynistic definition of "America."  As much as I think the Democrats are hapless, weak-willed, compromised by their own corporate corruption, and lacking in vision, the alternative is unthinkable.

I've chortled a few times watching speakers at the DNC making promises they can't keep an wrapping themselves in the flag.  However, I have also nodded, smiled, and shouted a few "hell yeah!"s when folks like Lilly Ledbetter, Deval Patrick, Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker have taken the podium.  By contrast, what little I could stomach of the RNC struck me as ridiculous, narrow-minded, and delusional.  Clint Eastwood's performance art piece pretty much summed it up: the Republicans live in an imaginary world of their own making, ruled by a bogeyman president who bears little resemblance to the real person.  I can only hope that more people like myself in the "reality based community" who are still undecided realize that the Republican Party is not a moderate alternative to an incumbent that are disappointed in.