Tag Archives: elections

Political Rants

Lock X Up.

It’s full fledged campaign season again, folks – my very favorite time of every four year cycle … not. Elections are necessary but painful, essential but insufficient, and so on. I acknowledge all of that and will participate, as well as encourage others to do so, but god don’t they make it a pain in the ass? I don’t watch that much television, but I’m nevertheless being bombarded by ads for one candidate or the other. This week there was a Biden ad with a voiceover by Sam Elliott. (I was waiting for him to recommend a visit to Kinney Drugs. ) Then there’s the Trump ad that has Biden saying he’s going to raise taxes, cutting him off before he gets to the “on people making more than $400,000 a year” part. I guess when all else fails, Trump – like every other Republican – goes for pappy tax cut. Low hanging fruit.

Most of the GOP ads in my local Congressional district race (NY 22) are being pushed out either by the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee or third party, dark-money groups hoping for a return of my old high school classmate, Claudia Tenney, to the House of Representatives. Some of these ads are hilarious, calling out Rep. Anthony Brindisi, the incumbent, for not being a “centrist” as he claimed he would be. What’s particularly funny about that is the fact that Claudia is the farthest thing from a centrist that has ever represented this district, at least in living memory. She so closely clings to the fading shadow of Donald Trump that she (or, perhaps more likely, someone on her behalf) has distributed lawn signs that read “TRUMP / TENNEY”, as if she were running for Vice President. (Pro tip: she’s not.) A few of her own ads have shown up now that we’re in the closing weeks of the campaign, but they’re not all that memorable.

Of course, home-stretch Trump is worth ten Claudia Tenneys in terms of bombast and crazy-ass proclamations. As has been reported practically everywhere (on the basis of simple observation), the president is desperately trying to recreate the conditions of his 2016 electoral upset. The FBI probe into Hillary Clinton was a help, so he’s trying to get them to investigate Joe Biden. Actually, he’s calling on Bill Barr to arrest Joe Biden for crimes against the internet, I imagine, and has been leading his unprotected, non-socially distanced rally crowds in chants of “Lock Him Up” or “Lock Her Up”, which I assume is referencing VP candidate Kamala Harris, but which could also be Hillary, given the president’s and his followers’ obsession with the former Secretary of State. I’m not sure if what I hear rattling in Trump’s voice is COVID or extreme frustration at his attorney general for not following his autocratic directions. Either way, he’s riding the crazy train to election day, and we’re all in the passenger cars, chugging along right behind him all the way.

This can’t be over soon enough. Just don’t try to reach me on November 4 – I think one way or the other i’m going to be out for the count.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Slow progress.

The election is less than sixty days away, and already I’m sick of thinking about it. More than likely, that’s the predictable result of a news media that is hyper-focused on elections to the point where they literally begin reporting on the next big race before the votes in the current one are even counted. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I think the press likes the horse race aspect of elections – it’s an easy story to report, there are opposing sides, melodrama, jockeying for position, etc. I haven’t done the analysis, but I’m confident that horse-race stories far outnumber more substantive reporting. Whatever the proportion may be, it’s a silly thing to report on, particularly when there are such titanic issues facing the nation and the world, issues that are on the ballot this fall, in some respects.

To be clear, I don’t think electing Joe Biden will be enough to, say, turn the tide back on climate change, or expand affordable health care to everyone, or stop COVID in its tracks. The project of making Joe Number One is more about avoiding bad things than promoting good ones. He still seems married to the concept of employer-provided health care, just as Nancy Pelosi is, and his campaign was positively ecstatic over its endorsement by former Michigan governor Rick Snyder, who condemned a generation of young people in Flint to the depredations of lead poisoning. So yes, we have a lot of hard fights ahead of us, even with a Biden victory. But I think it’s fairly easy to see the writing on the wall this time. Look at the skies over San Francisco. Look at the legions out of work and on the edge of eviction. Look at the kleptocratic travesty that is Wall Street, gorging itself on public dollars like almost never before. This obviously needs to stop, as Trump said, right here and right now.

Still, I feel like the two opposing sides are playing different board games. It kind of amazes me to hear the reporting around Trump’s comments to Bob Woodward, the shock of his admission that he downplayed the virus, etc. Is it shocking? Really? The man’s public statements since the beginning of the year tell you everything you need to know. Did we really need to hear his conversations with Woodward to surmise that he wasn’t taking COVID seriously, or that he wasn’t leveling with the American people? Did we really need that Atlantic article to imagine that Trump would hold uniform military, veterans, or any group of people in utter contempt? While our representatives in the mainstream media project shock and surprise, the Trumpists just continue along their merry way, deconstructing the administrative state stick by stick.

I know the institutional Democratic party wants to make this an election about manners and integrity. But this election, like all elections, is about policy, and we have to drive the distinctions home if we have any hope of getting this loser out of the White House.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Unconventional.

I suppose you heard the big news this week. Excited? Well, you should be. It’s a tremendous accomplishment for a woman of color in this deeply racist nation. Tuesday’s big news practically guarantees another two years of Ihan Omar in the United States House of Representatives. Woo-hoo!

Oh, right … and Biden picked Kamala Harris. Thought as much. Frankly, that could have gone a lot worse. We were hovering very close to Klobuchar territory before the murder of George Floyd, and then it was all over. I’m terrible at predicting things like VP picks, but this one seemed pretty obvious – Biden needed somebody youngish with some star power, experience, and grit. He obviously feels no need to give a nod to the left, and that’s no surprise either. My biggest complaint about her is that she let Mnuchin off the hook over his foreclosure mill in California and that her criminal justice record is not the kind of progressive counterbalance you would hope for in a Biden-topped ticket.

Their announcement event was kind of dismal, largely owing to the fact that COVID is still running wild. I just wish the Biden Campaign would hire someone who can compose a shot. The two-shot as Harris spoke was just weird – Biden in profile, giving that SOTU squint of his, which from the side doesn’t look all that great. I’m not sure I heard anything encouraging in the torrent of platitudes, but be that as it may, I hope to hell they get over the finish line this fall. The Democratic Party is positively expert at shooting itself in the foot, and they may not know it, but they’re taking a big chance on Biden this year. The notion that Harris is going to help light a fire under the activist base is a bit of a stretch, but hopefully there’s something to it.

As we approach the non-Convention, scheduled for next week, there are some worrying signs. First, some progressive grassroots media outlets, like The Young Turks, have been denied press passes …. to a virtual event, for crying out loud. Even worse, anti-choice Bush administration alumnus and former Ohio governor John Kasich, last seen attempting to school yeshiva scholars on the Old Testament, has a major speaking role at the convention …. whereas Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), leading voice of the progressive left in the party, is being allowed … wait for it … sixty seconds to speak. This tells you all you need to know about their electoral strategy. They appear to be listening more to the partisan flacks on DNC-friendly media than to the masses of people their party depends on for any chance of victory this fall.

What the fuck. We’ve been to this dance before, and it didn’t turn out well. The so-called centrists in the Democratic party need to get their heads out of their 1990s asses and get a clear look at who their constituencies are. And they need to do it fast.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.