Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Political Rants

On the brink.

Here we are, once again, staring down the electoral precipice, praying for salvation. It’s a quadrennial tradition, though sometimes more acute than others. This is certainly one of those times, though count me as among those who considered John McCain to be an existential threat to the nation back in 2008; his seemingly insatiable appetite for warfare would have led us in a very dangerous direction, to say nothing of his economic proposals. (He likely would have been a one-term president, but I’m not sure we would have lasted four years.) Now, of course, we’re sweating out a resurgent Trump, buoyed by bad news for Hillary Clinton. This is a reactionary, climate change denialist detour we most certainly cannot afford at this juncture, but … here we are.

Just make her do this. Then move on.The fact that we so often find ourselves on the edge of disaster is an indication that we need to do something about not only this process of electing leaders, but also about the magnitude of power they wield in office. It is simply unacceptable that a single person should have the ability to make enormously consequential policy decisions and even blow up the world without having to consult with anyone else. The fact that an unstable, hyper-narcissistic creep like Trump can be elevated to such an office indicates a fatal flaw in our system. If we cannot raise the bar on who can be admitted to the presidency, we need to constrain the destructive power of the office by some means.

What also gives me heartburn about this election is the sense that I cannot rely on my countrymen to do the right thing. I have to wonder what it would be like to have that kind of confidence in the wisdom of the electorate. The history of the last 40-50 years is not encouraging on that score. How many election years have I thought, god no, that fool would never be elected, only to be proven disastrously wrong? Too many, and we are still living with the consequences of each and every instance. If Trump is elected, he will do  damage that we will be grappling with for decades. (Well, perhaps you will. I don’t have a lot of decades left.)

Modest suggestion: do the right, if hard, thing. Vote to defeat Trump. There’s only one way to do that in a contested state: Hillary. Swallow hard, do it, then turn to something more useful … like organizing.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Veep debate postmortem.

I know most people did not watch the quadrennial spectacle of the vice presidential debate this past Monday. For those who missed it, you didn’t miss much. That said, it appears as though the corporate media in particular is intent on scoring this match-up on the basis of style points, thereby awarding the debate to former right-wing talk show host Mike Pence, one of the most reactionary men ever to adorn a major party presidential ticket. He was smooth and relaxed, the commentary goes, whereas Kaine was somewhat agitated and even rude. Well … glad we’re focusing on what matters.

centrist, reactionaryI have, however, heard some more interesting points made outside of the beltway punditocracy. Majority Report has been particularly good on this. Much of it confirms the impression I had at the time that Kaine was basically setting Pence up to defend, point by point, the most ridiculous and intemperate statements Trump has made during the campaign. Not rocket science, right? He was being pretty systematic about it, getting Pence on the record as denying that he and Trump had said things they had obviously said on camera, getting him to take positions at odds with those of his running mate, and drawing him out on some of his own well-documented extremism. That content was subsequently cut together into Clinton campaign web videos. And all of Kaine’s interrupting? Some have suggested it was to deny Pence usable soundbites. Basically all the Trump campaign could do was clip together Kaine’s interjections in kind of a whiny little ad about him being rude. Kaine – so the thinking goes – basically threw himself under the bus for the good of the order. Why not? Does it matter who “wins” the veep debate?

This is completely aside from the content of what was discussed. That was abysmal, for the most part. The moderator had some kind of Russia obsession, asking at least three questions about it and zero about climate change. Even more irritating was the unchallenged claims by Pence that the Obama administration “paid ransom” to Iran for the release of a detained journalist, that they had some option with regard to the Iraq status of forces agreement George W. Bush had signed with Baghdad forcing a U.S. withdrawal in 2011 (or that to remain would have been either desirable or effective in some respect), and that the “Russia Reset” led to the annexation of Crimea and Russian involvement in Syria. Worse, both men appeared to endorse the creation of a “safe zone” in Syria, which would require a no-fly zone, which would demand a U.S. fighting force of tens of thousands, plus the destruction of Syria’s air defense capabilities and its aircraft. That would put us into direct conflict with the Russians. Something to look forward to?

So, yeah … it was pretty awful. But the fundamentals of this race are the same. We have to do the hard thing – vote for someone we don’t like in order to block someone who should never be president under any circumstances. Hard to swallow for many, but we should swallow hard, vote to elect Clinton, then continue the fight as soon as we leave the voting booth.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Trojan horse.

The polls are tightening, and it’s no surprise. The Clinton campaign has spent the summer on the sidelines, courting centrist republicans and waiting for Trump to collapse under the sheer weight of his contradictions and xenophobic rhetoric. That strategy has been a dismal failure. Young people and the left are drifting away to third-party dead-end candidates or to simply sitting on their hands, mostly because the Clintons have done virtually nothing to attract them and plenty to piss them off, like naming fracking advocate Ken Salazar as transition chief and courting the approval of the likes of John Negroponte. When you see Trump ahead in Ohio, that’s down to the fact that fewer left-leaning members of the Obama coalition are self-identifying as likely voters. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Here they come.What would light a fire under these voters? Well, a more determined and effective candidate, for one. The Democrats have a good platform, they just need to push it harder. But there’s also clearly identifying and characterizing the opposition, not in terms of the singular problem of Trump but rather the broader Republican party as it is currently comported. Trump is a bombastic idiot and a hypersensitive man-baby with tiny hands, but his xenophobic rants reflect the core of the party that nominated him. Clinton should make that clear.

And if she can stop praising neocons from the Bush administration, Hillary might want to point out that because Trump is a total idiot on foreign policy, that area of his presidency is likely to be populated by recycled Bush people. And because he hasn’t spent five minutes thinking about domestic policy either, she might want to mention that his economic team, justice department, interior department, you name it, will very likely be run by right wing ideologues of the kind represented by his vice president or his (meaner) campaign manager from Breitbart. Trump, she can say, will basically be a Trojan horse for the crew who (a) started the Iraq war, (b) let New Orleans drown, and (c) crashed the economy into the worst recession since the 1930s.

Oh, and that crew has a name: it’s called the Republican party.

luv u,

jp