Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Political Rants

Song of Roland.

ISIS has lost its leader. So … that’s that? When are the leaders of my country going to work this decentralized model of resistance out? It’s not that these are leaderless movements per se. Al-Baghdadi was a founder and a leader of his grisly movement. But the relationship between his organization and the broader base of jihadists across the region and around the globe is loose at best. As Ted Rall once put it, it’s a bit like the relationship between a Rolling Stones tribute band and the Rolling Stones themselves. And like Warren Zevon’s Roland, cutting off the head won’t kill it:

The eternal Thompson gunner still wanders through the night
Now it’s ten years later, but he still puts up a fight
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley …

Had enough in Iraq ... and Chile, and Lebanon, and ...

I feel somewhat the same way about the Trump presidency. Getting Trump out of office is not going to be some kind of magic bullet. I keep hearing pundits talk about people wanting to return to normal, go back to brunch with the gang, and have a few mimosas. All that means is a return to what they consider normal, which is the slow decline into destitution, destruction, and environmental degradation. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to suppose that we will be right back here, with a different proto-fascist president, in another four years if we don’t take the bold steps that are needed to support workers, promote peace, and save the planet from total ruin.

Let’s face it – we’re coming up against the first-world version of what we see people around the world resisting in the millions, in Chile, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, Haiti, and elsewhere. As happened in the wake of the 2007-8 financial crisis, the neoliberal capitalist house of cards is falling in on itself again, failing an increasing number of people in profound and deeply unjust ways, particularly in these developing nations that have been subjected to structural adjustment policies for decades on end. The Lebanese have simply had it, as have the Iraqis, the Chileans, etc. When people can no longer afford to live day to day, there is nothing left but to link arms and demand change.

We need more than a little bit of that here. We can’t wait until people here feel the level of pain that’s being felt in Beirut. We need to get out and march like the Chicago teachers, carry Bernie to victory, and push a progressive agenda hard as hell. A million mutinies now!

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Lookout, Buchanan.

There’s no question but that Donald Trump is the worst president in my lifetime, and I’m fairly certain he’s a serious contender for the worst president in American history. In most of the surveys I’ve seen, that position is held by pre-Civil War POTUS James Buchanan (1857 – 1861), but I think Buchanan’s one distinction is under serious threat … he may be surging to second worst by the end of Trump’s current term.

Of course, Trump doesn’t see it that way. His ranging, incoherent cabinet meeting this past Monday gave him the opportunity to crow about the greatest economy in American history, his single-handed defeat of ISIS, his deal-making acumen, and so on. Sure, he got Turkey mixed up with Iraq at one point, but who’s counting? He claims to be fulfilling a promise to bring American troops home, and one wishes that were true, but of course this claim – like everything else that comes out of his festering gob – is a cheap, transparent lie that wouldn’t fool a five-year-old. Like previous failed presidents, he sold the Kurds down the river, and they are paying a heavy price for his carelessness and self-dealing. (Trump freely admitted prior to the 2016 election that he had a conflict of interest with regard to Turkey, referencing his signature twin towers in Ankara; he still makes a lot of his money there.)

Look out, Jim. He's gaining on you.

You would think it would be easy to compare Trump unfavorably to other recent presidents, but the picture does get kind of complicated kind of fast. There was a discussion of this on Morning Joe this week, wherein Joe, Mika, and historian Jon Meacham talked about leaders putting the nation ahead of their own narrow political interests. Sounds good, but the example Joe gave was that of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich in 1998, at the height of the impeachment conflict, working together to find a way “to contain Saddam Hussein.” I think what he’s referring to is the Iraq Liberation Act, passed in October 1998 and signed by Clinton, which provided the foundation for the 2003 war. This act came through at the peak of our sanction regime against Iraq that cost the lives of 300,000 Iraqi children, conservatively – a cost Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described as worth it. In other words, bad example.

Self-dealing and corruption are bad things, to be sure. They are not the only bad things, however, and we do ourselves no favor by forgetting the failed policies of past leaders in an attempt to single out the current president. It is obvious where he comes from, and we must beat him  next year. But we must also accomplish so much more than that one goal. Status quo ante is not enough.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

No half measures.

Yes, I watched the Democratic presidential debate on CNN this past week, god help me. The best thing I can say about it is that CNN dropped the dramatic WWF candidate intro segment and went straight into the questions. That said, the fact that there were twelve candidates on stage made the event a ridiculous parody of an actual debate. Candidates are given 75 seconds to respond to a question, and 45 seconds for rebuttals. It is simply impossible to grapple with the complex issues facing our nation in any meaningful way within those time constraints. The format drives a kind of Twitter-like approach to discourse, complete with the trolling. Seventy-five seconds is something like 125 words. Try talking a nation out of decades of for-profit healthcare or a century of oil dependence in that little time. It’s a format that greatly favors the status quo.

About seven too many.

And the status quo had many defenders last night. As was predicted the previous week by talking heads and broadcast journalists, undoubtedly briefed by opposing campaigns, Elizabeth Warren was targeted repeatedly throughout the proceedings, with the most pointed attacks coming from “Mayor Pete”, Amy Klobuchar, Kamela Harris, and of course, Joe Biden. Buttigieg came after her on single payer health insurance, claiming that she was being disingenuous by not providing her opponents with sound bites of her saying taxes will go up on middle class families. I will say that Warren needs to come up with a better way of talking about the funding mechanism for single payer. She stuck to her position, but it was kind of the same phrases over and over, and though true, they lose their salience on repetition.

The most ridiculous attack came from Kamela Harris, who was trying to get Warren to take a position on compelling Twitter to delete Donald Trump’s account. Mind you, this was in the section of the debate that focused on holding social media and other big tech companies accountable through anti-trust measures, etc. Warren has proposed breaking Facebook up, and I can’t say as I disagree. But somehow Harris thought it might be politically advantageous to reduce this entire conversation to a simple question of whether or not the President should be allowed to tweet like your drunk racist uncle.  As if deleting Trump’s Twitter profile would address the antitrust issue … or, really, accomplish anything substantive. Just strange.

Bernie was set up in advance to fail, the media constantly harping on his heart trouble. He put in a very strong performance, I thought, but again … the format is so limiting it just barely makes a difference. Klobuchar, Buttigieg and the half-measure chorus were crowed about by the talking heads, but will this debate move the needle at all? I doubt it. This party’s just getting started.

luv u,

jp