Tag Archives: elections

Political Rants

In his image.

Apparently, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has a book out, and this past Tuesday night, while talking with Rachel Maddow about the book and the Russia probe, he opined that Russian government interference was very likely enough to tip the 2016 election to Trump. Now, it’s possible that he’s drawing on some still-secret information, but based on what we know, I doubt it had that profound an effect. It was one element among many that took Hillary Clinton down, not least of which was the candidate herself. So it certainly contributed to the Trump victory, whether or not that was their intention.

Project or amusement? Maybe both.I have to think that, within the confines of their fondest fevered dreams, Putin and his allies may think the United States would be easier to deal with if our form of government was more like theirs – namely, a relatively bald-faced oligopoly. Trump brings us a hell of a lot closer to that anti-ideal than we have been in decades. He is acting in a dictatorial fashion, treating the Justice Department like it was his own personal legal team. He is denigrating the FBI in a way that would make a sixties radical (or throw-back, like me) blush. He is cutting deals with foreign governments and the centers of private wealth that give them their marching orders, all to enhance the Trump brand and fill its coffers. There’s nothing in this that Putin would find disagreeable.

Of course, Putin is a government official and has been one his entire adult life. He may identify his own interests with those of the nation, but he does think about the Russian national interest if only out of concern for his political well-being. He may want to make Russia stronger in the particular way in which he understands strength, but it is a desire that is somewhat distinct from his devotion to his own personal self-interest. That’s where Trump diverges from the Putin model. Trump has no governmental experience, no history of dedication to anything larger than himself. In his mind, there IS nothing larger than himself. That’s why he is so transparently trashing our government institutions, our constitutional norms, our collective fill-in-the-blank … it is simply not his concern at all.

Did Putin want Trump to be president? Who knows. I’m guessing he didn’t want Hillary to be president. The more salient question: is Putin happy with the results of the 2016 election? Maybe on a personal level, but as a national leader, I have to think he waivers between joy and panic. Trump is a four-foot drunk with a ten-foot gun and there’s no predicting where he’s going to point that thing next. So, Vlad …. be careful what you wish for.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Cold day.

No, this isn’t a post about the weather (though it is cold as hell out there). I just wanted to make a couple of points about the possibility of bipartisan cooperation in 2018 – something that’s being kicked around the corporate media as if it were somehow desirable. This is consonant with the oft-stated desire to see “things get done” in Washington, as if the precise nature of the things being done was somehow irrelevant; that legislation passed is a good in and of itself, abstracted away from the substance of the bill. Another piece of conventional wisdom, served up daily. I expect I’ll pass on this, and I would recommend my fellow left-leaning Americans do the same.

Why the GOP loves Trump. As far as I’m concerned, the GOP has demonstrated its bad will in about as many ways as can be imagined. And before anyone gives me a lesson on how politics works, on how you can disagree from morning to evening but at the end of the day you need to work together, etc., let me just say that the Republicans have become an extremist party bent on wrecking the country, and the only thing to be done with them is to beat them at the ballot box and then drag their sorry asses into the future along with us, kicking and screaming if necessary. Nothing short of that will do.

I know there are many in the Democratic party who feel that we need to provide a positive example and be willing to compromise as a stark contrast to the other side’s absolutism. There’s some of this sentiment circulating around discussion of an infrastructure bill next year. This is ludicrous. The Republicans just voted to blow an enormous hole in the federal budget, diverting a trillion and a half dollars from essential programs and handing it to the richest people in the country. If they want to make a deal on infrastructure, tell them to cancel that bill. And while you’re at it, tell them to stop working overtime to pack the federal judiciary with twenty-something Nazis. Change course and we can talk.

If the GOP says no, just say “see you in November”. Let’s let the people decide what kind of country this is going to be.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Three percent solution.

Some election news this week. Jon Ossoff, Democratic party candidate in the Georgia 6th congressional district “jungle” primary topped 48% of the vote tally, which is impressive in Tom Price/Newt Gingrich territory but still a couple of points below an outright victory. As always, the Republicans furiously worked the refs on this race, establishing the easy-bake narrative that Ossoff needed to win an outright majority and that anything short of that would be an abject failure. The mainstream media, of course, adopted this line because it’s simple and requires zero analysis (a lot of stories run this way), so the news shows the morning after the election were full of Democrats falling short postmortems. Useful.

Actual Tenney quote.Okay, because I am at heart a fair person, I will admit that the likes of Joe Scarborough said something that I actually agreed with this past Wednesday – something to the effect that Democrats need to rediscover getting out the vote, knocking on doors, calling people, etc. I agree. If Dems are ever going to return from the electoral wilderness, they need to start building their ground game right now. With the Georgia race and the contest in Kansas for that open House seat (lost to the GOP by seven points), that point has now been underlined and circled in red. (Okay, you can go back to despising Scarborough again.)

This doesn’t amount to a repeat of the same “air war” strategy the national Democratic party keeps running over and over again, dropping TV ads at the last minute. Democrats need to be a factor on the ground; they need to be a positive force in people’s lives. In my region, the congressional seat is held by a tea party Republican, way to the right of her district. We have only elected one Democrat in my lifetime – Michael Arcuri back in 2006. The only reason why he won was that the Democratic party invested in the race. They sent paid, seasoned campaign organizers to the district. They invested in a sizeable call center. They ran phone banks and knocked on doors. That – not the ads – was what put Arcuri over the top. I remember one of the party organizers giving a pep talk to the volunteers, telling us that a good ground game can add three percent to the vote total on election day. “We’re going to need that three percent,” he said.

There’s a coda to that story: two years later, there was none of that. Calling was done out of a cramped room in the local labor council office, and Arcuri just barely squeaked by in a presidential election year. In 2010 he got knocked off; same problem. This past fall, I was dialing for the Democratic candidate at the labor council again, working from a pretty crappy list. It’s not just lack of investment – it’s lack of the right kind of investment that kills our chances.

We have to start winning elections. It’s not the only thing we have to do, but it’s goddamned important.

luv u,

jp