Tag: politics

Iowa Debate Hot Take

For what it’s worth, and in no particular order, here’s what I thought:

Elizabeth Warren had a *great* night. All her answers were sharp, cogent, and, I’m not afraid to say it, Presidential. She was the strongest candidate up there, and to my mind has the best chance of uniting the Democratic party’s sometimes disparate elements, bringing new folks into the tent/coalition, and inspiring people who don’t normally vote that it’d be worth it to elect her.

Bernie, well, Bernie was Bernie. If you like/love him, you probably thought he did well. If you have your doubts, he probably didn’t win you over (especially, I’m guessing, if you’re a woman: more on that below). He was his usual forceful, self-involved self (which came through when he mentioned he hoped it would be him who was nominated rather than saying what he was running to do, and his mansplainity when it came to whether a woman could win the Presidency).

Joe Biden stumbled and slurred and lost the thread at least a dozen times. He’s too far past his prime (a prime in which he made a lot of bad calls, see: Iraq War, Anita Hill, the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill) and seemed like he was up past his bedtime. But it won’t hurt him, because he’s graded on a curve like Donald Trump is, albeit a slightly steeper one.

Amy Klobuchar had a decent night, and makes a decent case for herself. Which no one seems to be buying, and is not particularly inspirational. I like her okay, but I don’t think she could have moved the numbers much even if she’d turned in a Warren-grade performance, which I don’t think she did.

Pete Buttigieg made a few good points, and is obviously doing some tacking left-ish now that his surge is done. I see him as a party functionary or pundit when all’s said and done, which I imagine will help him out with that whole ‘poorest candidate on stage’ thing he keeps talking about.

Tom Steyer wasted a hundred million dollars to go on that stage and tell everyone which others he agreed with. He also stole Kamala Harris’ donor list and seems to have some bobble-head somewhere in his ancestry. I wish he’d fuck off and spend his money supporting someone who’d actually be a good President.

Moderators were okay, I guess, though I wish they were more interested in policy differences than trying to get people to fight. Still, I thought the ladies did well enough to cover for Wolf Blitzer.

The big dustup between Warren and Sanders was, I thought, pretty instructive. I was particularly impressed with how Warren handled her anger and turned the conversation to the 800 pound gorilla of sexism. I thought Bernie didn’t do himself any favors, basically calling Warren a liar (a charge she pointedly did not respond to, though I saw what looked like a quick throwdown after the debate: I’d give good money to hear what she said to Bernie when she refused to shake his hand) and mansplaining the fuck out of sexism in politics. That they gave Joe Biden the last word was as sadly predictable as the rambling nonsense that came out of his mouth about the subject.

I was glad to see foreign policy take such a big role, since that’s a big chunk of what a President does. “We’ve turned the corner so many times we’re turning in circles” is a great fucking line. I was also glad to hear Warren on trade — another big chunk of what Presidents actually co — especially the notion of making labor and environmental standards a prerequisite for access to American markets.

Will it move any numbers? Convince any voters? Who the fuck knows? Debates aren’t that big a deal. But if you were watching to see which one looked and acted like a President, I think you have to say Warren walked away with it. Do I think the MSM will agree? Prolly not. They’re too invested in the status quo, and their bosses don’t want to pay a wealth tax.

The Real Impeachment Question

Is simple. The President of the United States openly and admittedly leveraged his powers of office for personal political gain, jeopardizing the United States’ national security and undermining the free and fair elections that are the foundation of our constitutional republic. The facts are indisputable, and, in fact, no one, not even the President’s most vocal defenders, disputes them.

So the question is simply this: Are we a society in which powerful white men can do whatever the fuck they want with impunity, or are we a society in which the same laws apply to everyone?

It really is that simple.

Impeachment Articles

There are two. One for hijacking US national security and foreign policy for personal political gain. One for the complete stonewall of Congress doing its Constitutionally-mandated duty. Both proven beyond the shadow of doubt, up to and including public confessions of wrongdoing. No Mueller material, no 2016 redux.

Is it the right play? Who the fuck knows? But I get why Pelosi and Nadler and Schiff et al decided to go this route. They’ve got the administration dead to rights on both of them. The Republican defense has involved a lot of squid ink and rhetorical questions about it could be more outlandish, tho, amirite?

I mean, it’s not like this is over. The Senate will have a trial, John Roberts presiding. In any actual court of law, the case would be a slam dunk. That it’s widely expected the Senate will fail to convict on a party-line vote doesn’t change that, much as the irrefutability of the evidence won’t change the party-line voting, probably.

There’s a kind of inevitability to all of it. But it’s also not over til it’s over. Keeping the prosecution focused on obvious and admitted wrongdoing that goes to the heart of our constitutional republic is probably the best of a bunch of bad options. The Republicans want the situation chaotic and complicated, so people throw up their hands and decide the truth can’t be known. But the truth is very simple. Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses, admitted it in public, and has obstructed justice to keep the consequences from coming down on him ever since. That he’s done a million other things that would be impeachable if we lived in the world we all thought we did til the last few years doesn’t matter.

I’d love him to answer for every last one of them. I really would. But why reopen old arguments? It just muddies things.

Keep it simple is a good plan. Will it work? Probably not. But neither would any of the other options. At least this way it’ll free up Bernie and Liz and Cory to get back to running earlier, and who knows? Maybe it’ll wind up the albatross around those Republican Senators’ necks that it would in a just world. Stranger things have happened.

Bringing A Strongly-Worded Letter to a Knife Fight

Compromise and civility. They’re the hallmarks of a functioning democracy. Where we may not always, if ever, fully agree — we are human, after all — but we accept that those with whom we compete politically argue and act in good faith. And when the votes are counted and power changes hands, we accept that outcome and carry on with the business of self-government as best we can.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? I mean, I’d really like to live in that kind of world, wouldn’t you?

But we don’t. And it’s time to stop pretending we do. It’s time to stop bringing a strongly-worded letter to a knife fight. Time to stop pretending everything is normal, whatever normal is supposed to be. I mean, I think it’s something along the lines of reasoned disagreement in a marketplace of ideas, where policies and goals compete and the one that’s best for everyone emerges to make everyone’s life better. Like if The West Wing was an accurate reflection of reality instead of an aspirational fantasy.

Not that I don’t love The West Wing. I do. But I love it precisely because it’s a fantasy. Because it shows a picture of how I’d like the United States and the world at large to work.

I mean, how do you compromise with someone whose political philosophy boils down to ni shagu nazad? With a Republican party that met on the day of Obama’s inauguration and decided their number one priority — in the middle, by the way, of a giant recession their laissez faire economic policies brought about — was to make him a one-term President, and has never looked back? The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives elected in 2018 has passed over 400 bills this year. Fewer than 70 have been enacted into law by Mitch McConnell and his Republican Majority grave diggers in the Senate. And don’t even get me started on Merrick Garland. Or Brett Kavanaugh, who I hope gets to have some very uncomfortable talks with his daughters someday.

And that all’s just the tip of the iceberg, which metaphor frankly fails since it’s all out in the open if you care and know how to look. Which is probably one reason it’s worked so well, since as Americans we seem to believe anything done in the open must be on the up and up (at least if it’s done by a rich white dude who claims to be Christian).

As for civility, and the calls for it, well, first off I think that’s pretty rich coming from a party and movement that calls their opposition the Democrat party instead of the Democratic party because it sounds more like ‘rat’, and that decries ‘political correctness’ to the moon and back because sometimes they get blowback for speaking disrespectfully to marginalized people who’re sick of their bullshit. The whole thing reminds me of an ex-girlfriend of mine who every time we were arguing and I made a point or observation she didn’t like suddenly changed the subject from what I said to how I said it. I hadn’t heard of gaslighting back then, but in the rearview it’s as clear as the diamond in Melania’s engagement ring.

So yeah, fuck civility. With a criminal conspiracy running the White House, a major political party that stokes -isms to provide cover for transferring wealth from your pockets to a bunch of gazillionaires who couldn’t spend all they’ve got if they did literally nothing else for every waking minute left in their lives, and a looming environmental crisis that will destabilize and destroy human civilization as we know it creeping closer to the point of no return with every passing day, playing nice with the people helping speed things along for their own short-term gain and the coal-rolling, styrofoam-burning, won’t-recycle-cuz-it’s-not-manly crowd who back them up is about as high a priority as organizing your 8-track collection.

Look, I’d love to live in a West Wing-type world, where ideas and policies compete on a level playing field, where all involved believe in the rule of law and the legitimacy of free and fair elections, and, at the end of the day, everyone wants what’s best for all of us, even if we disagree how to get there. But we don’t live in that world, and I don’t know that we ever have. The world we do live in is one where oligarchs, autocrats, and authoritarians are working and fighting to make a world where they have everything, most people have nothing, and, when Armageddon comes, they’ll be safe and comfortable in their high-tech bunkers while the rest of us die from starvation, unrest, extreme weather events, desertification, and roving bands of armed paramilitaries who’d rather rob, pillage, and rape than cooperate, build, and thrive.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna talk nice and play fair with people working, whether they know it or not, to bring about the end of all that’s best, brightest, and hopefullest in human civilization.

Fuck that shit. There’s too much at stake.