The way to become popular on the right is to stand out as the proudest asshole in the flock. It makes it a lot easier to raise money which frees you up to golf and hobnob with oil executives.
This is possibly going to be the last year in my lifetime that I advocate for traditional political solutions to our nation’s problems. If the Republicans retain any federal power whatsoever outside of the courts after November, I believe I’ll probably determine that solutions cannot be found through politics, at least in the short term.
I don’t believe, at all, that I’ll be alone in this. The Democrats have won the presidential popular vote in every election since 1988 except for a narrow loss in 2004. Despite this, we’ve had to endure three catastrophic terms of Republican presidencies. The Democrats are winning the popular vote in Senate races and yet not coming close to winning the Senate. The same has happened in the House, where gerrymandered districts give the GOP more power than they ought to have. The playing field is not remotely even, and things look even worse when you contemplate the compromises the left has to make on its values simply to compete in a Citizens United world where right-wing media dominates left-wing media.
Trump has absolutely filled the federal courts with the worst kind of people, and that’s a problem that will take decades to fix.
The 2020 elections will not be decided in a fair fight, and the Democrats can count on no recourse if they are cheated. I won’t, in good conscience, be able to tell people that getting involved in politics has the realistic potential to remedy any of this if the Republicans have another decent election cycle. The evidence is in, and if the information can’t get to the people through the din of right-wing media and pro-Trump Russian propaganda, then there isn’t any hope that things will be any better in 2024. In fact, they’d undoubtedly be far worse by then.
This outcome would be unfortunate, because social movements that work outside of politics are by necessity lawless. Revolutionary behavior is not conducive to the maintenance of social order. But it can become necessary when the political system becomes so one-sided that there is no accountability, and especially when the will of the majority is consistently thwarted.
Mass protest and civil disobedience is far more likely to come from the left than the right. The right handles disagreeable situations by using governmental force against the people. They don’t take over our cities and cause massive work stoppages.
The Establishment in this country is on its knees, and they only have one savior at this point. That savior isn’t going to come from the right, but from the left. And that person is going to look a lot like FDR in the sense that they’ll be notably progressive compared to what came before them, but actually quite moderate compared to the available alternatives. The editorial board at the Des Moines Register has seen the writing on the wall, but I can’t say for certain if they’ve identified the right person for this moment in time.
The Des Moines Register editorial board endorses Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses as the best leader for these times.
The senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts is not the radical some perceive her to be. She was a registered Republican until 1996. She is a capitalist. “I love what markets can do,” she said. “They are what make us rich, they are what create opportunity.”
But she wants fair markets, with rules and accountability. She wants a government that works for people, not one corrupted by cash.
I’m not here to tell anyone who to vote for in the Democratic primaries. I’m still undecided in any case. But if you want something between Josef Stalin, Huey Long and Herbert Hoover, you might find it in Elizabeth Warren. If you’re looking for a more center-right savior for the “system,” then perhaps you’ll agree with the right-wing New Hampshire Union Leader editorial board.
If there is to be any realistic challenge to Trump in November, the Democratic nominee needs to have a proven and substantial record of accomplishment across party lines, an ability to unite rather than divide, and the strength and stamina to go toe-to-toe with the Tweeter-in-Chief.
That would be U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She is sharp and witty, with a commanding understanding of both history and the inner workings of Capitol Hill.
Trump doesn’t want to face her. He is hoping for Bernie, Biden, Buttigieg or Warren. Each has weaknesses, whether of age, inexperience or a far-left agenda that thrills some liberals but is ripe for exploitation in a mainstream general election.
Sen. Klobuchar has none of those weaknesses and the incumbent needs to be presented a challenger who is not easily dismissed.
The Sioux City Journal selects Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination while remaining agnostic about who they’d prefer in a general election against Trump. They also say they’d like Biden to pick Klobuchar as his running mate. Their reasoning is basically that these two moderates will save the system without turning the country into a Soviet Socialist Republic,
You can put whatever stock you want in these editorial endorsements. What they share in common is a belief that things are not so fucked yet that we need to look for help from Bernie Sanders. The Democratic electorate may not agree about that.
Senator Bernie Sanders has opened up a lead in Iowa just over a week before the Democratic caucuses, consolidating support from liberals and benefiting from divisions among more moderate presidential candidates who are clustered behind him, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely caucusgoers.
Mr. Sanders has gained six points since the last Times-Siena survey, in late October, and is now capturing 25 percent of the vote in Iowa. Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. have remained stagnant since the fall, with Mr. Buttigieg capturing 18 percent and Mr. Biden 17 percent.
The rise of Mr. Sanders has come at the expense of his fellow progressive, Senator Elizabeth Warren: she dropped from 22 percent in the October poll, enough to lead the field, to 15 percent in this survey. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is garnering 8 percent, is the only other candidate approaching double digits.
Bernie is looking strong in New Hampshire, too. It could be that he’s the only candidate who is perceived as anti-Establishment enough to appeal to the left at the moment. I’ve said from the beginning that he and Biden were the likeliest nominees, and it’s still looking that way. To my mind, however, only one of them has any chance of rallying the support of the nation behind a complete committal to push Republicanism into the sea. I have no interest in going into November with a divided Establishment that can’t make up it’s mind that Trump and Trumpism is the most unconscionable choice. I don’t want a candidate who can’t even unite Democrats against Trump, and I don’t care how well they sell on college campuses.
This is our last chance as I see it. After this, if this doesn’t work, the center will not hold and the consent of the governed will vanish into disorder, disrespect for authority and the law, and economic disruption. Sadly, that will be the logical and likely the moral choice for patriotic people.
It’d be nice to fight this most important battle under the banner of someone who can keep every anti-Trumper in the anti-Trump camp. But I’ll fight this one last fight under whatever banner you choose.
Biden will lose to someone like Hawley or Carlson in 2024. So, it’s Bernie now, or chaos later.
I’ll be voting for Warren or Bernie, whoever has the better chance when my primary comes.
Warren is my choice. But if not her, then it will have to be Bernie. The problem is too many Dem have their heads up their asses and HATE him. He’s going to have to pick up new voters to compensate for the loss of them. Perhaps he can do it.
Biden can win, but he will have to pick up new voters to compensate for losses on the back end as well. I’m not sure he can do it. But if he’s the nominee then I hope I’m wrong.
The problem is too many liberals and Dems aren’t hungry enough yet. They’re too comfortable. That’s why they keep sniping at each other. They aren’t hungry enough to do what our race has always done in times of extreme dire trouble; pull together. That’s one of the primary reasons why we got to the top of the food chain.
There is always hope. The tide actually has started to turn. The Obama-Trump voters I know are actually unhappy with “Herr Hair plug”. And the Senate Republicans were always going to save him. The question is how will it play to the audience. It’s working reasonably well, I think. Not swimmingly. But it is working. The republicans really should call witnesses to give themselves cover. The “The Democrates were mean so I guess we must acquit” defense isn’t going to work. But it looks like that’s what they will do. And thank God for it. The rabid Rep and Dem basses are not the refs here. They just don’t realize it yet.
Adam Schiff along the rail.
So, it’s the flight 93 election? It’s interesting how both the left and the right see this as desperate times. It’s a clear indication of the extent of polarization, and the inability of our constitutional system to resolve the conflict.
I see several (bad) trends converging at once. Political polarization, within an informational ecosystem that tends to accelerate the polarization, and in fact make it impossible for the most misinformed voters to be reached. A constitutional system of presidential democracy which requires unwritten standards of civility to operate…otherwise it will tend to lead to unmanageable conflicts between the branches, instability, and presidential dictatorship. (This is why most stable democracies have a parliamentary system.) And which has archaic structural aspects such as the senate, the electoral college, and lifetime supreme court appointments, which makes it possible for a minority rather than the majority to rule. 80 years of convergence of power in the executive, combined with a legislative branch that has neutered itself and disgraced itself by maintaining a campaign finance system that is pure corruption. 40 years of increased income inequality, which further de-legitimizes the system while at the same time making is more difficult to change. All within an context of a physical world that is getting rapidly less hospitable as the planet warms much more quickly than expected.
Man, talk about spelling things out succinctly! Irrefutable. Bravo.
We (I think) see the same political landscape, but I wouldn’t say it’s a Flight 93 election. I’d just say that if Republicans hold power in November, and particularly if they do so while losing the popular vote (again), then the left and center-left will be faced with the hard question of where to put their political energies; and I’d say they’d likely be best served by putting their energies in organizing locally, organizing economically, and organizing in arenas other than the arena of national electoral politics.
That could mean things like: organizing massive nonviolent resistance to deportation of refugees and immigrants, organizing nonviolently to disrupt and bankrupt Trump’s businesses, organizing to recruit and support and amplify whistleblowers who have access to evidence of the Trump administration’s criminality and Trump’s financial records/status, organizing to discredit and dismantle key right-wing institutions (e.g., the NRA) and funders.
The particular phrase you used that jumped out at me was “A constitutional system of presidential democracy which requires unwritten standards of civility to operate…otherwise it will tend to lead to unmanageable conflicts between the branches, instability, and presidential dictatorship.” I had not thought in these explicit terms, but that describes the quandary we’re in. Even if the election goes “our way” (whatever that is) those unwritten standards of civility have been obliterated; what do we have to put in their place–EVEN if we get the chance? (which is far from a sure thing at this point)
These words have current resonance with me:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
“… social movements that work outside of politics are by necessity lawless. Revolutionary behavior is not conducive to the maintenance of social order. But it can become necessary when the political system becomes so one-sided that there is no accountability, and especially when the will of the majority is consistently thwarted… Sadly, that will be the logical and likely the moral choice for patriotic people.”
Hmmm, how many years ago has it been since you told me to “mellow out” for making a similar observation? Now it looks like you are coming to the same conclusion… I was sincerely hoping I was wrong, and that there was still some place for truth and justice in our country. That the 2016 election was just an anomaly. But the Republican Senate’s behavior during this impeachment has been sickening and filled me with despair.
“If right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the Constitution is. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the framers were. Doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. Doesn’t matter how well written the oath of impartiality is. If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost. If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost.”
You wrote here almost exactly what I’ve been thinking for awhile about a post-2020 apocalypse, but with far greater clarity than I’ve been able to manage. I think you’re exactly right.
This is really some serious food for thought. I have been trying to reconcile what my future holds, from a political activism standpoint, if this election turns out to be a disaster. I’m still not certain how to even plan for whatever eventuality comes. If a worst case, or near worst case, scenario plays out, I am not sure there is really any reason to consider the traditional political processes to be applicable or relevant anymore. They will not be coming back in my lifetime. It doesn’t help that I am not overly thrilled at the slate of candidates from which we have to choose, and that I seem to be watching much of the same Democratic circular firing squad we saw in 2016 taking up their positions for this election cycle. That is extremely distressing to me. But I will be out there working hard for whoever comes out of all this. I am wondering if my future efforts might be better spent working on smaller and more personal causes, things which don’t necessarily require a larger institutional sized effort to achieve. I am hoping for the best, but also preparing my mind for the worst.
Our system might already be irreparably broken, but only a complete annihilation of this cancerous conservatism/Trumpism will give us even a small chance at resuscitating the great American experiment.