February 2020 Archives

Dear America,

When Donald Trump became president I was disappointed.  He seemed so obviously unqualified intellectually, and his sophomoric, egotistical aggressions were, to use his favorite word, a disgrace.  But I assumed that once he showed his true colors for long enough that people got to know him the way I did just watching the news in the New York City metropolitan area a few times a year when I went to visit my family of origin, he would be relegated to the status of an unfortunate accident.  After four years, I thought--he's so erratic, egotistically peremptory and his ideas are so deracinated from truth and reality that I even thought it likely that he would be gone in just two or three...damn...almost--we would get a real president.  And maybe that is still the case, but the way the Democrats are conducting themselves, my confidence is seriously shaken.

First, there was the failure of the Democratically controlled House to include an impeachment count for the well established attempts at obstruction in which Trump attempted to suborn the removal of Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor investigating Russian election interference, and thus thwart the intended purpose of the investigation.  The irony of that failure is that Trump's attempted intervention was as gratuitous as Nixon's attempt to cover up the Watergate burglary in which he had played no role at all.  Like Nixon, the villain of the piece in the Russia investigation regarding the attempts to collude with the Russians were focused on others, not the president.  And also like Nixon, Trump refused to take "no, it's not you" for an answer.  But he tried to interfere with the investigation anyway, and that seems to me to have been an offence for which impeachment should lay; an opportunity lost.

Now there are the debates among the  Democratic candidates for the opportunity to succeed Trump, and what a feckless group they are.  Bernie Sanders is irascible far past what we tolerate in our grandfathers.  Joe Biden seems effete and lacking in everything presidential but his resume and his charm.  Michael Bloomberg is...well, he's Michael Bloomberg.  And the others seem to have been also-rans right from the beginning.  Elizabeth Warren keeps trying to feign gravitas but it keeps coming out as stentorian stridency and Pete Buttigieg demonstrates only a pale imitation of substance.  As to Klobuchar and Steir, I can barely remember their names much less what distinguishes them from the average man or woman on the street.  Yet, dubious as each of their chances of nomination are, each of them presumes him- or her-self to be a viable candidate to beat Trump, and thus will say anything to diminish the others even though the net effect is to give our demon-in-chief more confidence in his impunity than he already had, and more simulated justification among "his base" to vote for him again.  But s Will Rogers used to say, "I'm not a member of any organized political party.  I'm a Democrat."  If our party members don't form a circular firing squad at election time, I can't help but think that something is wrong.  It's all just standard politics.

But the firing of the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) because one of his subordinates informed the House Intelligence Committee that the Russians are still at it--trying to get Trump elected...again--that was cause for sheer consternation.  It's not that Trump was indignant about the claim made by our intelligence community en masse.  It's the reason for his indignation.  He doesn't want anyone to believe that he needs any help getting reelected.  It was his ego that made him fire the man who fills an office created in order to prevent another 9/11 on account of the failure of our intelligence community to work together instead of protecting turf and thwarting each other.  The firing is thus consequential for two reasons.  First, it undermines our national security by putting us back where we were in 2001 when Islamic extremists saw us as fair game...and they turned out to be right.  Former DNI Maguire's replacement is a political shill who knows nothing about national intelligence gathering.  He is an obsequious sycophant who is already setting up the DNI's office to tell Trump only what he wants to hear.  That is dangerous.

But add to that Trump's apparent desire to pander to Vladimir Putin by discrediting those who reveal what he is actually doing.  Add Trump's claim that R.T. Ergogan is a "good friend" of his, and that he has had a "bromance" with Kim Jong Un, and you get a clear picture of Trump's aspirations.  He wants to be one of them: an autocrat who keeps getting reelected as if he is stellar rather than feared...as if he is a saint rather than a sinner.  Combine Trump's moral vacuity with his political ambition to be a political legend like the other, even if it's only in their own minds, and you have a real potential anti-democratic phenomenon.  That's what keeps me up at night.  It's not just we who are in jeopardy.  It's our way of life too.

Your friend,

Mike

The polls in 2016 predicted that Clinton would win by about 2%, and she did win the popular vote by that margin contrary to the popular perception, and that of at least some political analysts, that the polls were grossly wrong.  As to the congressional elections, the Democrats netted a gain in The House of five seats and a gain of two in The Senate.  In fact, the Republicans won nothing that November; Democrats even won more votes generally in house and senate races than Republicans did.  That all sounds like a victory to me, not just in an election but of ideas as well, but the party experts bemoaned the Democrats' failure to conform to the public mood and preference.  True, in December, the Republicans' man won the electoral college, and admittedly, though that victory comes nowhere near connoting a popular mandate, that changed America, but it did not change Americans.  

Consider 2018. If the pessimists were right, that election should have confirmed Democratic pessimism, but instead it reaffirmed a sense of steady momentum toward regaining the prevalence of Democratic ideals and ideas that actually was incipient in the 2008 election, albeit interrupted briefly in 2010 and 2012 in congress.  In 2008 the Democrats came away controlling both the White House and both houses of congress: a total repudiation of George W. and his party.  Similarly, after an electoral victory in 2016, in 2018 the Democrats regained control of The House with more than 30 seats changing party from Republican to Democrat.  True, the Republicans regained the two net senate seats they had lost in 2016, but they had an advantage going into the election in that nearly twice as many Democratic seats as Republican ones were up for election, and the odds would have made anything less for the Republicans a "disaster," to coin a term  favored by our "disgraceful" president.  Thus, I would argue, 2018 was an affirmation of the trend toward Democratic principles among our people despite the blustering prominence of those who are going the other way.  Why change anything.

Now we come to 2020.  In accord with the Democratic tradition of internecine electoral conflict, The Democrats started shooting themselves in the feet early with 20 contenders, more or less, for the presidency all biting each others' backs rather than putting their own policies on display for the party primary voters to choose among.  That circular firing squad winnowed the field down to what are now only about six or seven survivors, all of whom carry some baggage as we inch toward super-Tuesday.  Naturally, consternation is setting in among those who start thinking about national elections early, because the issue this year isn't who is best, but rather who can beat The Disaster, and I wouldn't minimize those fears.  With Trump inexplicably reaping a gain in popular approval to 49%--a temporary aberration, I believe--the mood is understandably growing heavy.  But it is most important to remember that Democrats have an advantage among the populous if the last two election results are considered.  So, without changing party philosophy...without misguided pandering, can the Democrats do anything to enhance the prospect of victory in the fall?  Yes, a couple of things.

First, the candidates need to stop competing for the nomination by trying to cut each others' legs out from under them.  The debates and campaign speeches should be characterized by advocacy of ideas and policies rather than invidious comparisons.  The electorate will decide who's ideas they like best.  The candidates should accept that democratic principle and stick to illuminating them.  Second, the party should hire strategists other than those who advised Hillary Clinton.  A total of 70,000 votes in three states--Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania--gave Trump his remarkably slim popular-vote victories in those three states, and their electoral votes swinging in his direction gave him the electoral college victory he didn't deserve.  Even so...even despite his claim that he won an electoral college landslide, he won it by the slimmest margin since Jimmy Carter with the exception of another Republican who won the presidency despite losing the popular election: George W. Bush.  If Clinton had appeared in each of those states by one or two more times, we might not be bemoaning the past three years today.

So, if the Democrats do just those two things, I predict that the White House will change hands next January on inauguration day.  It's just a matter of strategy...of not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Your friend,

Mike