Oblige My Feels

I've read a few Twitter feeds jumping on Pete Butigieg for criticising Clinton's 2016 campaign for not taking seriously enough the economic hardships of the Rust Belt.  This has generally been distilled into the "who should Democrats be talking to" argument.  The Extremely Online and more ideological crowd tend to believe that any accommodation of the center is stupid, pointless and dilutes the message. 

This strikes me as missing the point of elections.  Given how unpopular Trump is, just about any candidate for the Democrats can probably find their way to 270 electoral votes.  I find it hard to believe that Trump carries Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Michigan again.  But winning those states means pointing out how rough things have gotten in the Rust Belt, which is something Clinton really COULDN'T do, running - as she was - for Obama's third term.  Now, Democrats have the latitude to attack the status quo for many working class whites.

Appealing to working class whites is problematic for many constituencies within the Democratic coalition, because quite a few of them are racist, sexist and homophobic.  Many of the are indeed Deplorable and unreachable.  I don't think anyone is suggesting there is a way to win the vote of the 67 year old white guy who's aggrieved that he can't use the N-word or slap women on the butt anymore.  But there are lots of people out there who you could appeal to.

One group, in particular, are suburban GOP-leaning women.  They helped drive the Blue Wave of 2018, as they switched parties and helped deliver the House.  It is structurally imperative to turn them from Trump Protest voters into Democrats.  They already likely agree with Democrats on many of the social issues, including guns, climate change and LGBT rights.  They need to be brought along on economic issues. Similarly, some working class whites are likely already there on economic issues and need to be brought along on social issues.

Whomever wins the 2020 nomination needs to be able to create an electoral coalition that represents close to 55-58% of the country.  That wins back control of the Senate, helps control redistricting at the state level and possibly helps facilitate a truly bold liberal platform.  That will require not preaching to the choir, but the skeptics in the back pews.  And I'm not talking about Bill Clinton's triangulation.  I'm talking about the sort of political campaign Obama ran.  Right now, the main contenders for his style of candidate seem to be Harris, Buttigieg, O'Rourke and Booker. 

Red County, Blue County

Driving through the South is always an...experience.  In particular, GPS took me on a weird road through rural North Carolina to avoid Charlotte traffic.  It was striking how many Confederate flags I saw, how many "Back the Blue" yard signs, how many Trump stickers on the back of trucks.  I mean, it's not surprising, I guess, but striking.

I can't help but also note that the prevalence of a certain brand of Christianity was everywhere, too.  There is a certain culture that relies on authority to maintain a status quo, and that usually relies on a specific reading about divinity and the relationship between man and God.  It isn't fundamentally different than the attitude about authority in some forms of Orthodox Judaism or Islam.  God's authority on earth is communicated through sacred texts and interpreted, usually through a male clerical class.

This culture usually relies on various ancient gender and racial ideas that depend on uniformity and conformity.  God's word is not to be questioned or adapted.  It's God's word.

The people in these communities are often referred to as "Real Americans," but we have seen under Trump that they are unusually quick to ally themselves with an authoritarian movement, which isn't surprising, because their faith is fairly authoritarian.  People who marvel that Evangelical Christians can support someone as nakedly immoral as Trump miss that this strain of Christianity is not doctrinal but cultural.

This isn't a condemnation of all Christianity, but rather a narrow, rural sect.  But that makes any outreach to them incredibly hard, because it's not just a political position, but a religious one as well.

This Is Good News

In the century since its revolution, Mexico has had an unusual system, whereby most civil society organizations were controlled by the ruling party - the PRI.  Since the PRI relinquished power in 2000, most civil society organizations have still fallen under control of powerful state and party actors.  Civil society, like labor unions, have always been seen as a powerful support system for democracy, which remains weakly institutionalized in Mexico.

The current wave of strikes in Mexico has been a result of union members gaining independence from the corrupt bosses.  They have been assisted in this by the new president who is really the first true left wing president in Mexico since Lazaro Cardenas in the 1930s.  AMLO, as President Obrador is known, represents some real hope for Mexicans who have labored under a corrupt system of bosses.  

Global inequality as well as inequality within countries is unlikely to be adequately addressed until workers have greater leverage over wages and working conditions.

Is This True?

Dana Milbank suggests that Netanyahu and the Likud Party's aggressive alliance with conservative Americans will undermine bipartisan support for Israel.  Israel has been a "bad actor" in the West Bank and Gaza for years and Netanyahu's current plan to strip more rights from Israeli Arabs while doubling down on illegal settlements should have caused the rupture already.  But every time someone pokes their head up to suggest that Israel is behaving badly, they are smacked down.

I'm not optimistic.

I'm Worried About Who I'm Agreeing With

Once again, Jennifer Rubin makes some solid points.  Certainly, it would have been nice if we had access to the full Mueller Report that said that Trump is a Russian mole and here are the receipts.  That was unlikely, yet I still think the whole Mueller Report will be pretty damning to Trump.  That's why Mitch McConnell wants to block its release.

Still, Democrats have multiple avenues to win the White House back from a guy who needed to draw an inside straight to get there in the first place.  First, run on health care, as they did in 2018.  As Rubin notes, the GOP is doubling down on VERY unpopular cuts to Medicare and ACA.  That should be political suicide.  Rubin notes Harris' good idea to address teacher's salary, but that can extend to any number of plans that Elizabeth Warren has put forward, including various financial regulations and a wealth tax.

Finally, the "failure" of the Mueller probe to lead to Trump being frogmarched out of the West Wing should not obscure the other various and sundry crimes of this administration.  This is a target rich environment, but creating a cohesive narrative around Trump being a plutocrat is important to make it all stick.

The Best Take

Matthew Yglesias has a really good take on where we stand post-Mueller.  Yes, I bet the full report - as opposed to William Barr's interpretation of it - has much more damning evidence of Trump's many connections to Russia and dirty Russian money.  We should see that.

But ultimately, Mueller was never going to "save us" from Trump.  Only elections will.  The one we just had last November is critical for just that reason.  The House needs to look into all of it.  Trump is incredibly corrupt and has been for years.  He's a tax evader, a sexual assailant, a violator of campaign finance laws, foreign corrupt business practices, bribery, extortion...That's all I can come up with off the top of my head.  There is ample evidence for all these crimes already.

The House's job is not to impeach Trump.  That won't do any good anyway, as the Senate won't remove him.  The House's job is to make Trump a symbol of plutocrats from Wall Street who are enriching themselves while average Americans suffer.

That shouldn't be a hard case to make.

Solid Points

Jennifer Rubin used to be a conservative columnist in the WaPo, but she has abandoned the party over Trump.  She makes some good points about the next steps after Barr's summary of Mueller's report.

The full report needs to be made public.  Now that it's out of Mueller's hands, the odds of it leaking are much higher.  My guess is the full report does lay out the case for how Russia interfered on Trump's behalf in 2016 - which was Mueller's mandate, after all.  It falls short of proving that people (beyond Manafort, Gates and Page, presumably) conspired with Russia to provide this help.  Only getting the full report out there will settle this issue.  Look to see who is pushing to release the full report, and you should know who it helps.

Democrats have a case to make in 2020, because Trump was never going to be removed by the Senate.  There are multiple examples of corruption that can be pursued.  As Rubin notes, Trump's affinity for dictators can absolutely be a campaign issue used against him. 

But Democrats can make a positive case for restoring democracy, economic assistance for the working class and needed reforms that have already passed the House.  Win the House, win the Senate, win the White House and flip as many governor's mansions as possible. 

That has always been the best plan. 

I Was On The Road

Did anything happen while I was...OHMYGOD.

Look, we still don't know what Mueller found.  We have what Barr said he found.  As Josh Marshall (and almost the entire House) said, we need to see the final report.

Your Musical Accompaniment

Unhappy

America ranks 19th in the world in terms of happiness, behind Belgium. 

Belgium.

Jeffrey Sachs, an economist, suggests that the reason America is getting less happy (the trend is bad) is because of addiction. Now, addiction is a HUGE problem in America, but I would argue that addiction is simply the symptom of people's unhappiness. People use alcohol, opiates and other substances to dull whatever pain they are feeling.  Yes, it makes them less happy in the long run, and it does contribute to the unhappiness of those around them.

But I don't think it's a root cause.

One common denominator of unhappiness is relative deprivation.  If you are doing OK, but you don't think you are doing as well as a lot of other people, you can feel unhappy, even though you are objectively fine.  By most objective measures, the world is a much better place than it was the year I was born. (Climate notwithstanding.) But it feels worse.  We are doing pretty well as a family, but when I think about how we will afford to pay for our kids' college...I get worried. 

One hundred years ago, people died from infections and fevers, slavery was still a thing, women had zero rights...things sucked for a lot of people.  But you didn't know how relatively worse off you were than Vanderbilt.

I suppose the internet is part of all this, too, frankly.

The Bernie Problem

The only way Trump gets re-elected, I believe, is if the Democratic party somehow splinters.  The main wedge that could splinter Democrats is Bernie Sanders, as Jon Chait lays out.  Sanders - in one way like Trump - has little loyalty to the party whose nomination he is trying to secure.  Sanders' supporters are even less committed to the Democratic party as a mechanism for winning an election.  In fact, to exaggerate only slightly, socialists don't really care about winning elections.  A President Harris or Warren would delay the glorious revolution that will destroy the existing system and especially that guy Biff in high school who bullied me and then got rich selling cars for no reason, fucking Biff.

With such a large field, anything can happen - see Trump's victory in the Republican 2016 primary.  There is certainly a plausible replay of 2016 whereby Superdelegates hold the balance of power in the convention.  Sanders has not shown the political maturity to accept that, and his followers certainly haven't.

In A Perfect World

The Platonic Ideal of Presidential campaigns is that candidates put forth their ideas and the voting public studies them and decides which policy portfolio they prefer.

Yeah, that's all bullshit.

Because if it was, Elizabeth Warren would already be the nominee.

Our System Might Be Broken

It's discouraging to think about how broken our very system and institutions are at this moment.  Some of that, obviously, is a product of Trump, but Trump represents the logical end point of the Republican Party become a soft-authoritarian, Christianist party.  Simply removing Trump from office won't solve that problem.

New Zealand looks like it will make the sort of meaningful, far-reaching gun control reform that Australia made after the Port Darwin shooting. There are cultural reasons why New Zealand will embrace this in ways that America won't.  There are a sizable number of Americans who revere their guns, and there is nothing we can do to change that.  However, there is also sizable support in America for universal background checks and hard limits on certain types of weapons, and we won't do anything about that until we have a very different government.

But even if President Harris sits down with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer in 2021, there are still huge impediments to even the sanest and easiest of gun control measures.  First is that damned Second Amendment and the various court decisions like Heller that have buttressed individual arsenals in ways that seem anathema to the intent of the Second Amendment.  The second is the nature of the Senate.  You either need 60 Democratic Senators or to eliminate the filibuster. 

Of course, the Hot Takes on Twitter will insist this is because Nancy Pelosi isn't a true Progressive or because the NRA buys politicians.  But the NRA doesn't HAVE to buy politicians and there is nothing Pelosi can do.

The Horns Of Brexit

David Cameron's original sin was the arrogance of a posh boy who was more clever than smart and confused the two.  He managed to win the gamble on the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, because - despite 50-50 feelings on the subject, about 5% of people who leaned independence worried about the potential problems created by leaving the United Kingdom.  This resulted in a spike in support for the SNP, which hurt Labour, Cameron's electoral rival.

Meanwhile, UKIP - the closest Britain has ideologically to the American Republican party - was surging in the polls and threatening the Conservatives, the way SNP was threatening Labour (Labour always runs strong in Scotland).  In order to bleed support from UKIP, Cameron agreed to the Brexit referendum, assuming that sober-minded Englishmen would - in the end - turn away from such a radical idea. 

Ooops.

Cameron then bolted the scene, like the posh boy coward that he is, leaving the mess for Theresa May to clean up.  May has been handed an impossible position and played it poorly.  The Fixed Parliaments Act ended the process of votes of no confidence on something like Brexit, so May was content to offer her plan - the Chequers Plan - which no one wanted, but was better than the Hard Brexit of leaving without a plan.  So the Remain forces wanted a second referendum, but the Leave forces wanted no such thing, because a second referendum could likely undo Brexit.  Meanwhile, the Irish border remains an impossible problem to solve.

May has been content to play out the clock and force the EU and the various factions in Britain to agree to a delay.  The EU could, of course, deny a request to extend the deadline (currently two weeks away). 

If the ultimately result of this process is some sort of very soft Brexit, it will likely lead to increased support for UKIP. As after all, we have seen one consistent theme these past few years, and that's the rise across the global north of white supremacy.

So the goal of Brexit - to lance the boil of UKIP on Cameron's bottom - could ultimately fail.  All while further dividing Britain and destroying the Conservative Party.

Cold Take

I don't have much to add to the horror show that came out of New Zealand.  Any reasonable person will see a few consistent threads.

- Eliminationist rhetoric surrounding minorities has been growing, and Trump - along with Farange and Le Pen and Orban and dozens of others - have mainlined this shit into the public discourse.  Calling it White Nationalism seems insufficient to what seems like more of an international movement.  White Supremacy or White Power seems closer to the mark.  These voices were pushed to the far fringes, until Trump and others brought them back.

- The Internet has made all of this so much worse.  One frustrated Neo-Nazi isn't a problem, but once he gets into a 4Chan room or starts watching white supremacy videos on YouTube, suddenly the isolated loner sees himself as part of a movement.  I don't know how you police this, but it has to be policed.  Our sons have come to us with shitty, toxic ideas that they have found on YouTube, and it scares the crap out of me.

- Robert Kagan has a long essay where he explains how the rising tide of authoritarianism is a return to historical norms and that traditional liberalism doesn't really know how to address this problem.  It came out today in a hell of an act of synchronicity.  Liberalism's basic conceit is that human liberty is a universal goal and worthy in its own right.  Authoritarianism has - at its roots - the fear of the "other," and that can't be rolled back easily.  It's part of the lizard brain.  It takes an active will and education to embrace people different from you.  Until more people get there, we will have more Putins, more Orbans and more Trumps.

- America needs to face up to the fact that we are both the birthplace of modern liberalism and the wellspring of many of the worst ideas of racism and exclusionary thinking.  When Hitler went looking for eugenics, he looked to America.  He looked to Jim Crow.  He looked to people like Walter Plecker, who believed in forceful sterilization of those he saw as "unfit."  Or Madison Grant who wrote The Passing of the Great Race. This murderous asshole in New Zealand looked to us for his ideas.

- Some have noted that the shooter's manifesto has an almost Internet Troll-like quality to it.  "Triggering the libs" is such an ingrained part of modern right wing thinking it's become a parody of itself.  As Jeet Heer wrote over two years ago, fascists and racists like to hide behind a "jokey" personality to both give them cover and to degrade the quality of discourse in general.

I grieve for the people of New Zealand, and for Muslims around the world who feel threatened today.  I've known more than a few Kiwis in my day, via rugby.  They are unfailingly good humored, practical people.  Unlike the US, I expect they will actually address gun laws in the wake of this attack.

Good on, ya, New Zealand.  Best of luck.  But don't look to us.  Not for racism, not for gun laws.  We've abdicated our role as leader of the free world.

The Field

I'm not ready to pick a Democratic nominee, because I think there's real value in the process.  I was John Edwards Curious in 2008, for example.  But I need to narrow the list.  So here goes:

Sanders: No.  Some of that is left over ill will from 2016, but I just don't feel compelled that he has anything more than a message that things are wrong and unfair and he will magically make it better. Plus, too old.

Gillibrand: I wanted to get behind her campaign, because I like a lot of what she has done as a Senator, but there just isn't enough there.

Klobuchar: When your main selling point is that you're the most popular Senator, and it turns out you're an ogre to your staff...I have doubts.

Delaney: Who?

Gabbard: Aw, hell no.

Castro: Maybe there is something special there, but I'm not seeing it yet.

Biden: Nope.  Too old and too gaffe prone.  Classic sidekick, but not a leading man.

Hickenlooper: There would have been a time when he could've been a compelling candidate.  This is not that time.

Williamson: Who?

Inslee: Nice issue, nothing compelling about the candidate beyond that.  Plus, too old.

Yang: Who?

So that leaves me with:

Booker, Buttigieg, Harris, O'Rourke and Warren.

Warren has far and away the best policy chops, but sexism will hit her hardest.  She's close to too old, but that will likely come across more as sexism than age related.

Harris doesn't seem to attract the same negative sexist attention; she's not "shrill" which is a bullshit charge against Clinton and now Warren, but it will stick.  Harris has her problems on criminal justice issues, because of her time as DA, but I don't think that will stick.

Booker has immense potential as a charismatic candidate, but he's less impressive off the cuff.  He lacks the left wing cred that Warren has, because of his connections to Wall Street. 

O'Rourke has something.  It's tough to describe exactly, but he's got magnetism in ways that really no one else has, except maybe Booker and Harris. He would crush Trump in a debate in ways that would be a joy to watch.

Buttigieg is the perfect NPR candidate, and I have to admit there's something impressive about him.  Unlike Hickenlooper or O'Rourke, he's pretty much barred from winning a state-wide office, so why not shoot for the presidency. He's very impressive, but South Bend?  And I don't think winning South Bend's mayoral seat means that the Rust Belt will elect a gay man.

So, that's where I stand, but I am free to change my mind.

Never Change Florida

And by "never" I mean, immediately and completely.

Merit

What is missing from the coverage (and especially the commentary) on the college admissions scandal is an understanding of just how arbitrary some of these decisions are.  They aren't arbitrary in terms of throwing darts at a dartboard, but we process these decisions in ways that have no connection to how those decisions are actually made.

Basically, a college admissions office will look at their stack of applicants first in terms of "Who can we say 'no' to?"  They will cull out the ones with low board scores, poor grades, no extracurriculars and, yes, no money.  Let's say they have 10,000 applications for 1,000 spots.  Hopefully, they can throw 4,000 applications in the trash pretty easily.  That leaves 6,000 applicants.  Depending on the school, they might need to admit 2,000 in order to fill 1,000 spots.  That means 2/3rds of the "qualified" applicants are rejected.  Being "qualified" doesn't mean much.

In putting together a freshmen class, they need to field all their sports teams (I guess), the marching band, have some artists, some scientists, some humanities people.  And then they need to apportion financial aid.  So you have a pile of kids who need aid and a pile of kids who don't.  And you want some wealthy parents you can hit up for money.  That is part of your job.

Let's pause for a moment to consider the outrageous cost of a four-year college, despite the fact they are shaking down every parent and alum at every opportunity.  They have billion or multi-billion dollar endowments, but they are constantly looking for more money.  Harvard does not need to charge tuition, but they still feel the need to let in guys like Jared Kushner.  And that's perfectly "legal."

Colleges love full pay kids.  They REALLY love full pay students of color, but of course the wealth gap in this country means that there are few of them.  They want a certain number of kids who will be the first in their family to go to college.  But in order to fund the 100 full aid, first time college students, they will admit 200 rich kids who maybe don't have a ton of other things going for them. 

What this scandal did was show that even those advantages weren't enough for some.  William Singer basically took all the nerves and uncertainty out of the process for his wealthy clients.  Maybe their kids get in.  Maybe they have to go to their third or fourth choice.  But these kids were going to college (and graduating without debt).  Singer's "side door" smoothed out the uncertainty.  It's illegal, because he committed all sorts of crimes and bribes to do it, but there are plenty of ways that wealthy people smooth the road for their kids. 

The most important component of a college education is not the school, it's the student.  If a student goes to Podunk College and works her butt off, she will likely go on to be pretty successful (unless her debts crush her before she gets started).  If a student goes to Liberal Arts College and gets drunk every day...well, maybe.  But yeah, if you go to Harvard and get drunk every day, you're probably going to have doors opened for you because Harvard. 

I don't think these rich kids were stealing spots from minorities.  Those are different pools of applicants.  They were stealing from other reasonably wealthy people who didn't need aid, but perhaps had something else to offer the school - trombone in the band, editor of the newspaper, bench warmer for the hockey team. Those people who were screwed can fight back.

The lawsuits are going to be epic.

Impeachy Keen

Most House and Democratic leadership has been very reticent to embrace impeachment, much to the consternation of the Democratic base.  Trump seems manifestly guilty of numerous crimes, and to an uncertain degree he can't be charged with some crimes while still in the White House.  The other problem is that so many of the crimes pre-date his election - his tax fraud, his insurance fraud, moneylaundering - that it's tough to know whether they are properly impeachable offenses.

But I think Josh Marshall makes some important points.  First, the House needs to investigate before they impeach.  You need to look like a neutral investigator rather than someone who is simply looking for any excuse to impeach.  The GOP used Benghazi, the Fast and the Furious and Solyandra to try and gin up controversies in order to delegitimize Obama, but their transparent agenda rendered those investigations DOA.  The categorical difference in criminality (Obama wasn't, Trump is) matters to those who have already convicted Trump.  But the House needs to be seen as upholding the institutions and norms of government.  There are too many people who look at the aggressive bad actions of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump and conclude that the Democrats need to do the same.  Great, they can rule over the ruins.  Yippee.

Secondly, impeaching without a shred of hope of convicting in the Senate is problematic.  If you impeach and the Senate decides not to remove, then Trump gets weirdly exonerated, not because he's innocent, but because the GOP continues to put Trump ahead of the country and even their party's long term prospects.

Investigate, indict the bit players, build the case...and maybe you introduce impeachment hearings in the fall of 2020.  Run against Trump!  He's uniquely unpopular!  Hope for a second blue wave that creates a Senate majority (not 60 votes, sadly) and solidifies the House and (most importantly) state house and governor's races, so you can control redistricting.

I want the son of a bitch gone as much as anyone (not being held in a cage on the southern border), but there are sound strategic reasons not to rush into a pre-determined impeachment.

Sometimes...

...Good things happen.

But...But...Ilhan Omar Said Israel Was Bad

Your modern GOP.

Oh, and this freaking guy...

This Is A Problem

The incredibly light sentence, relative to the sentencing guidelines, that Paul Manafort got is problematic on several levels.

First, the judge in the case was clearly on Manafort's side throughout the hearings.  (The next judge who will sentence him will not, so hopefully any sentence will be consecutive.)  There is nothing wrong with a judge reducing sentences because the sentencing guidelines are too harsh.  In a vacuum that's a good thing.  Sentencing guidelines often ARE too harsh.  We should talk about that.

But when I was on Twitter last night, there were a host of lawyers talking about how their clients who had committed petty crimes were looking at roughly the same or more jail time over small offenses.  The system is tilted towards those with the wealth to wait out the plea bargains. 

There was also the unbelievable statement by the judge that "He's lived an otherwise blameless life."  Any cursory example of Manafort's professional career comes across a host of bad actors, dictators, war criminals and shady dealings.  The presumption by the judge that his advocacy for some of the worst people in the world is blameless represents a foundational problem in how the efforts of wealthy men are judged.  Manafort was not a criminal defense lawyer upholding the important of the rights of the accused.  He was a lobbyist and influence peddler.  He broke the law repeatedly.  He is literally going to ANOTHER sentencing hearing soon.

Gahhh. 

Time Travelling Green Lantern Theory

The Green Lantern Theory of politics is that if a President (or anyone, really) just exerts enough "will" then problems will be solved.  This is linked to the Sorkin Principle whereby a President (or anyone, really) makes a damned fine, stirring speech and everyone agrees with him and their problems will be solved.

Jamelle Bouie - whom I like very much as a writer - commits a time travelling version of this fallacy.  His target is Grant, and his argument is that Grant "allowed" Reconstruction to fail.  Of course, he acknowledges that Grant made more efforts to make Reconstruction work than any other president, but - for some reason - the failure should be laid at his feet.  This assumes that the failure of Reconstruction is a failure of Grant's "will" to create better race relations.  Grant, like many people at the time, believed in the ideology of "free labor."  He tried, within the limits of Presidential power in the late 19th century, to help African Americans, but ultimately he was thwarted by the will of the vast majority of Americans who simply did not care enough to provide the Freedmen with free land.  Even if they had, the odds were very good that the white South would simply have doubled down on the campaign of violence against blacks that had already begun. 

Reconstruction is one of the greatest American tragedies, but it is tragic because of what it says about America, not Grant.

When You've Lost Lou Dobbs

You've lost the Angry Old Man Shouting At Clouds demographic.  Which is pretty much the GOP.

I remember when my parents said - back when he was at CNN - that Dobbs made good points on trade, but Dobbs' perspective on trade is mired in the pre-New Deal ideas about protectionism and national economies.  He should be irrelevant.  He's not because he's on Fox and Fox is Trump's policy shop.

Born Lucky

This essay by David Roberts is really important. The perceptions people have of why they are successful is an incredibly important predictor of how they view the world.  If you are successful and believe that your success is solely because of your ability and hard work, your perception of those who aren't successful will necessarily be negative. This is the problem at the root of Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy.  While he believed he had a responsibility to help other people, his preferred means - building them libraries - were based on his own experience, whereby he attributed his success to his literacy.  Meanwhile, he's forcing his workers to work 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week, and then saying what they really need to do at the end of the day is read.

Another Gilded Age example of this mindset is the Acres of Diamonds sermon by Russell Conwell.  Here is a key passage (and remember, this is a clergyman talking):

While we should sympathize with God's poor—that is, those who cannot help themselves—let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings, or by the shortcomings of someone else. It is all wrong to be poor, anyhow. Let us give in to that argument and pass that to one side.

This argument sounded wonderful to the well-fed "Christians" who flocked to hear him speak. You are rich, because God and your God-given talents and character made you rich.

Roberts' thesis that luck is a powerful factor in your success or failure requires a dramatic re-thinking of how we exist in the world.  WaPo has an article about the GM workers of Youngstown, OH, who have been laid off because GM doesn't want to make compact cars in the US anymore.  Their economic conditions have been dictated by events outside their control: luck.  Their ability to adapt to this change varies widely.  One worker has already picked himself up and landed on his feet as a commercial truck driver and prison guard.  His natural flexibility was also wedded to the fact that he hadn't been working at GM that long.  Other workers are older than me and unable to learn the new technical skills to transition to new jobs.  Trying to teach a 60 year old autoworker to write code is simply not feasible. 

Each individual brings his or her unique talents and experience to every situation, but every situation is dictated by luck or circumstances.  (Roberts acknowledges and dismisses the various straw men arguments against luck as a controlling factor.)

If Americans ever embraced the idea that luck is a critical factor in one's success, we might be more willing to tax the very rich at levels they deserve, in order to fund programs that improve the circumstances (luck) of the broad majority of Americans.  We can do that without ignoring the role of individual merit in determining outcomes.  That's the definition of "safety net."

Where Do The Crimes End?

Apparently, we can now add insurance fraud to Trump's litany of misdeeds.  Mar-a-lago apparently got $17M in insurance money for hurricane damage in 2005.  The problem is that it never got anything close to that level of damage (if any).

The headline says Trump got the money “for damage few remember.” But that pretty seriously understates the scope of the AP’s investigation. They found contemporary photographs showing no damage, actual bills and permits for very minor clean up that did happen, the failure to get permits or produce any paper trail for any substantial damage repair. Basically, there’s zero evidence of substantial damage. And you’ve got to get building permits to do major repairs if there is damage.

I can't wait for Congressional Republicans to explain why this is OK, and why holding Trump accountable for years of breaking the law is some sort of witch hunt.

The Most Important Story Of The Week

(This offer not valid fifteen minutes after I post this.)

Jane Meyer has one of those in-depth New Yorker articles that meticulously details a topic in ways we haven't seen drawn together before.  In this case, it's again not something that it really surprising - Fox News is Right Wing agitprop and has a direct link to Trump's "brain" - but it's the depth of research and comprehensiveness of the story that is amazing.   Someone said, back in 2016, "We used to think Fox News worked for us, now we know we worked for Fox News."  That relationship is laid out in acute detail in the article.

A few key points.

First, Rupert Murdoch is a huckster who understands how to appeal to people's baser instincts in order to win their viewership.  He's always a tabloid guy, first and foremost. He knows how to tickle the amygdala of his audience.  From there, it all flows in an escalating cascade from Whitewater to Trump.  Fox News works by scaring its audience; that's not an outside observation.  That's the business model.

Second, Trump really is captured by Fox and to a certain degree, vice versa.  And because of this closed informational eco-system, the people working there and working "for" them never question the merit of their decisions.  This echoes the question I asked yesterday about how Mitch McConnell can do the things he does.  If he's high on his own supply, he's not going to question his assumptions.  Working for Fox is working for America.

We are truly fucked.

Finding The Words

It's an interesting controversy surrounding Representative Ilhan Omar.  On the one hand, she is articulating a belief held among many on the left that Israel somehow calls all the shots in Washington.  A superficial reading of Israeli policy certainly supports that reading.  American support for Israel seems fixed and inflexible.  Israel has been "doing bad things" for a while now, things that are in direct contradiction to stated US policy in the Palestinian territories.  Also, you have the overt political alliance between Netanyahu's Likud party and the Republican Party.  As long as Likud runs Israel, there is precious little reason for Democrats to support Israel, except for a general sympathy for the existence of the Israeli state. 

As Josh Marshall points out, however, Omar has used increasingly dicey language to describe Israeli influence in Washington.  This allows the debate to shift to whether this particular Muslim Congresswoman is somehow anti-Semitic.  Of course, the real reason Israel has such staunch support on the right is the alliance between evangelical Christians and hard right Likud types. (Marshall notes this, too.)  This is ironic, because the evangelicals want the Temple to be rebuilt so that Jesus can return and...presumably cast the Jews into eternal damnation.  (I don't know the exact parameters of bonkers evangelical eschatology.)

There are a lot of very good reasons for Democrats to distance themselves from the Israeli government, while maintaining support for the people of Israel.  Likud should absolutely pay a price for overtly intervening in American politics.  (It wouldn't surprise me if some of the international ratfucking that went on in 2016 didn't have an Israeli component.)  But if you are careless or inflammatory with your language when doing so, you allow people to change the discussion towards whether YOU are the problem.

Rome

There's an interesting interview with an historian about the parallels between the fall of the Roman Republic and today.  This section struck me:

I think the erosion of norms really starts when Roman politicians convince themselves that their personal ambitions and the good of the republic are one and the same. In other words, they started acting in their own self-interest but deluded themselves into thinking that it was really for the betterment of Rome.

The other thing you see is that Roman politicians, much like American politicians today, started to believe that all they needed was 51 percent of the people to support them, and that the other 49 percent didn’t matter. But that’s not how the Roman system was supposed to work, and it’s not how the US system is supposed to work.

Representative democracies are designed to cool down the passions of a pure democracy and find representatives who can think more long-term and craft policies that solve problems in ways that also have broad support.

Of course, I believe that Republicans are those that believe their self-interest equals the same as the good of the republic.  I suppose they would say the same about me. Of course, I'd be willing to pay higher taxes for a universal health care system, which doesn't sound like self-interest.

But it would explain why people like Mitch McConnell do what they do.  They genuinely conflate their own self-interest with what is good for everyone.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Socialism

This is a good run down on the variety of beliefs within what is sometimes lumped together as a monolithic "socialism."

Spent Pretty Much The Entire Day Offline

Which must account for my good mood and overall cheerful demeanor.

Let's see what's going....WHAT THE EVERLOVING HELL!

The Question

This is a very interesting article and argument.

The basic contours are this: The House has a strange procedure called the Motion to Recommit.  It allows the minority the ability to add amendments, often uncomfortable amendments.  Because the Democrats are a "broad church," as opposed to the lockstep discipline of the GOP caucus, they see defections on issues that make a good bill worse. 

The question becomes how much latitude the Democrats should allow their more moderate members.  For a member like Ocasio-Cortez, it's difficult to conceptualize the dynamics that a rep from rural New Mexico faces.  There is an idea that the problem with progressive politics is that Democrats don't make a case for unadulterated liberal policies.  If only those white, rural voters were exposed to true, provocative arguments from leftist politicians, they would choose those candidates.

Because Republicans have been able to hold power with ironclad discipline, the assumption is that Democrats should exert the same discipline over their members.  But the reality is that the Democrats are not the Republicans.  This is still a country with a sizable proportion of the population who are committed to the Republican party.  Those mushy centrist types have to be part of the electoral coalition, because there just aren't enough urban votes to keep a majority in the House, win against the over-representation of rural America in the Senate and hold the White House.  It's not enough for Democrats to have 52% of the population on their side, because of how that 52% is distributed.  Democrats will need to have 55%+ support in order to create a governing majority.

Republicans have never paid a steep enough price for their lockstep loyalty with the Teanderthal movement.  They haven't been punished enough for embracing racism and climate denialism and plutocratic economic policy.  You can see it in the craven display during the Cohen hearing.  Most of them know that Trump is a crook, but they can't see their way clear from the ruffles of his skirt. 

I sympathize with the frustrations that new members like AOC feel.  But I'm not certain that those vulnerable members don't have a point.  The only way to know is to create a governing majority, pass liberal legislation and see how it shakes out.  And that might lead back to 1994 or 2010.