Interesting Argument

This op-ed lays out a case and potentially a tactic for reaching out to WWC voters. It would most likely be DOA among those who have suffered at the hands of white privilege for so long, but that anger - while justified - neglects the fact that democracy ultimately requires majorities and the Senate requires supermajorities.

Ultimately, it does require some recognition of class, which has been Sanders' message all along, and to a certain degree Warren.  Warren has arguably done the best job of explaining that intersection of race and money and rural problems, mainly through advocating policies rather than apportioning blame.

Missing The Point Of The Game

As we enter the final few episodes of Game of Thrones, we are awash in hot takes. One that I keep bumping into (prior to last night's blowout battle between the living and the dead) is that GoT is so into subverting our expectations that the Night King should win and humanity reduced to...something.  Much of this is based on the execution of certain characters along the way, most notably Nedd and Robb Stark.  Those two men were typical fantasy heroes - noble, handsome - who turned out to be doomed because they were noble (and in Robb's case, handsome).

The point of beheading the star (Sean Bean) at the end of the first season and the Red Wedding was to point out the capricious nature of violence.  You establish those stakes early.  Think of the Omaha Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan.  While there was another similar action sequence at the end, very little of the rest of the movie comes anywhere close to the brutal first half hour.  However, that first half hour hovers at the edge of every scene, every encounter.  The death of a single character by a sniper lands a bit harder, but we are also waiting for death at every moment.

GoT set up the same dynamic.  Too many critics decided that this meant that Cersei or the Night King should wind up on the Iron Throne.  I doubt very, very much that this will happen. Martin and the showrunners are interested in how power works.  How it works when it is exercised and how it works upon those who exercise it. The Starks who died put too much faith in human decency and justice. The Starks who remain don't seem to have much of that - perhaps with the exception of Jon Snow/Aemon Targaryen. Arya and Sansa certainly don't put much faith in human decency.

The final three episodes will deal fundamentally with these ideas of what makes a good ruler and how to gain power, and the fact that they are often at odds with each other.  The Targaryens first created the Iron Throne because they had dragons.  Might made right.  Robert's Rebellion overthrew the Targaryens because they were both weak and incompetent. Danerys' claim to throne is based on heredity and dragons (and perhaps saving humanity from the Dead), but that's no different than Jon's claim.  He has blood and fire, too. For that matter, Cersei can bring blood and fire her own self.

Ultimately, the question that GoT should resolve is whether the ability to gain power is at all compatible with being a good ruler.  I'm not sure they can really resolve this issue, however.  Basically, we are headed for a few possible landing spots.

Very unlikely, but Cersei retains the throne by being the most ruthless and cunning.

More likely, Danerys finds a way to overthrow Cersei and "break the wheel."

Most interesting, Danerys and Jon overthrow Cersei and then turn on each other.  Even more interesting would be a resolution that removes Cersei in Episode 5 (Arya FTW) and then Jon and Dany kill each other in a dragon duel, leaving the remnants of the cast to piece together some sort of political order that doesn't revolve entirely around military power.

Least interesting (but maybe most likely) is Jon and Dany ascending to the throne together and complementing each other's best attributes to create a just rule.

The Night King was never going to win.  Cersei is almost certainly not going to win.  Cruelty isn't a sound governing philosophy. Even dictators bestow favors on their subjects. That doesn't mean we are headed for some saccharine happy ending. 

In the end, all that matters is that Hot Pie lives.

Shalom

Tuesday was Holocaust remembrance day, and Saturday another white supremacist walked into a Jewish house of worship and killed people. Yes, Ilhan Omar made some "bad tweets," but do we really think that's the problem when President Fine People On Both Sides is president?

We have a white supremacy terrorist problem in America.  Trump shuttered the Justice Department task force whose job it is to track these things.

Welcome to Kristalnacht America.

More Biden

This is very long and I can't say I finished it, but it's the raw notes from Josh Marshall's interview with Joe Biden back in 2004.  What's interesting is not so much what he says - classic liberal interventionism - but how he says it.  It's just...weird.  You get a sense of where the gaffes come from, as he talks before he thinks. It all just rushes out. 

I'm clearly on the record as being opposed to septuagenarians in the White House, and reading Biden's ADD conversational style and excessive self-love, I'm doubling down on that feeling. 

At some point, the brain stops growing. It struggles to adapt to new information.  That's a major concern of mine and why we have already seen how Trump and Sanders get locked in to a certain narrative and understanding of the world. 

Policies matter when we vote, but the reality is that temperament and the interplay between principles and intellectual flexibility is most important in good leadership.  I worry about the accumulated weight of fixed positions on Sanders and Biden.

Cold Dead Fingers

Speaking of felons, maybe the NRA will become a casualty of Trumpistan.  We know that Russia reached out to the NRA through Maria Butina, and Trump and the GOP have to make increasingly irrational moves to placate the gun humpers.

But it's unclear that the NRA has any real juice left beyond the GOP base.  Technically, I'm a gun owner (though I don't keep them in my primary residence), and the idea of background checks and limits on certain types of weapons is fine with super-majorities of Americans.

The NRA was the roster taking credit for the dawn in 1994.  Time to puncture the myth of their electoral power.

Felon Voting

At some point since the CNN Townhalls, giving felons the right to vote while in jail became the cause of all True Believers.  I don't know exactly how that happened, but I doubt it extends much beyond Woke Twitter.

The arguments for felon voting is actually to have fewer felons in jail.  I'm 100% behind this.  There needs to be fewer people incarcerated for non-violent crimes.  Felons voting while paroled?  I can see that.  Felons voting after there sentences are complete?  That is a critical civil rights issue.

There is, I suppose, an argument that giving incarcerated felons the right to vote is an issue of civil rights, but incarcerated felons lose all sorts of rights. The right to assembly, the right to privacy, the right to decide when they get out of bed in the morning.  They are in prison.  They have had due process. 

The counterargument, aside from the fact that they are felons who have had their rights stripped by due process, is mostly political.  Why should we worry about Jeffrey Dahmer or Dzokhar Tsarnaev or James Holmes getting the vote?  Why should you gift the GOP a bunch of attack ads that will woo back those moderate suburban women who drifted in the Democratic camp in 2018?  It's a great example of epistemological closure, where people of any political stripe can dive so far into their own world that they fail to see that politics isn't about convincing the people who already agree with you, but finding a way to convince people who don't live and breathe politics to give you a chance to wield real power.

What a moronic battle to pick.

Impeachment Theater

This is an interesting post suggesting that not rushing to impeachment creates drama behind the initial investigations.  The thing about the Mueller report is that it basically confirmed and added a little more information to things we already knew. If we investigate Trump's business dealings and - quelle surprise! - discover that Trump was corrupt as hell...what happens next?  Is it impeachment?  I don't know!

By dragging out the question of whether or not to impeach, you create a countervailing reality show dynamic to ride over Trump's own reality show schtick. 

Handy Guide

It was never JUST about Mueller.  There are many other avenues into the dark bowels of Trumpistan.

This is why I think it's a few months premature to start impeachment hearings.  Start rolling all of these threads into a massive ball.  THEN start the hearing to create one massive picture of Trump's corruption and make the Senate GOP defend him.

He's "Running"

Last night, Democratic candidates took part in a sequential Town Hall.  I caught a little bit of Elizabeth Warren's and gave her $20, because she is clearly an excellent communicator and has the best ideas of any one in the field.  My wife liked Klobuchar, which surprised her. She made me record Buttigieg, because it was after her bedtime.

It's an impressive field, full of thoughtful people with good ideas.

Why the hell do we need Joe Biden to join the race?  We already have a white guy over 75.

It's Coming

Not winter.

Impeachment.

Just not on Twitter's timeline.  I assigned a reading from Francis Fukuyama's book from 6 years ago, where he argued that while democracy might be the global default (even authoritarian regimes have "elections") the institutions of democracy are both fragile and often unworkable. Looking around the world, it is difficult to say that democracy is in a healthy place.  Above all, democracy requires the rule of law - that the law is sovereign over everyone even, especially, the powerful.  Trump's entire life is a frontal assault of the rule of law. 

It's time democracy fought back.

Happy Easter

And how horrible what happened in Sri Lanka. Religion so often is used to fuel the worst of us, when it should appeal to the best of us.

Impeachment

Impeachment is inherently a political process.  It is not a criminal proceeding, but rather an ability for the legislative branch to check rampant lawlessness in the executive.  There are arguments being made that impeachment isn't worth it, because you will never get the Senate to remove Trump from office.  "That's what 2020 is for" goes the argument.  There is not much of an argument that Trump doesn't deserve to be impeached, rather that it would be politically counterproductive.

I don't buy it.

But I do believe that starting impeachment now, over the Mueller report, wouldn't be helpful.  There are multiple avenues into the Trump Crime Family.  There is the obstruction of justice in the Russia probe. There is the rampant tax evasion and money laundering. They are ongoing violations of the emoluments clause. There is the rampant corruption involved with Mar-A-Lago.  There is the selling of access within the Cabinet.

Investigate it.  Investigate all of it.  Find all the dead bodies, Michael Cohen can help you find them.

Start impeachment hearings in November of this year.  Let them run all winter.  Take every sordid detail of Trump's plutocratic corruption and lay it out before the American people.  Make every Republican Senator and House member defend him. Turn the screws.

Yes, if Trump wins despite all this, we are screwed, but we are screwed anyway if he wins.  Every party that has impeached (or started to impeach in Nixon's case) won the White House in the next election.

Most Americans aren't really paying attention.  They won't be paying attention until the presidential race gets under way.

So, put it off a bit, wait until the political season is in full swing, then air it all out.  Every bit of it.

Lessons From The Mueller Report

It's long.  The broad outlines are in place, but there will be more information to glean from it, especially as the redacted parts are read by members of Congress.  As Josh Marshall explains, we know what Trump did, we know it was - at the very least - incredibly sketchy, we know he did almost everything in his power to obstruct the investigation.  Very little in the Mueller report is fresh information, if you've be diligently following this story.  Basically, the special prosecutor found that what we believed to be true was, in fact, true. Russia wanted Trump to win. Russia worked to help Trump win.  Trump desired Russian help to win.

Therefore to me, the real story is the complete failure of the media in reporting on this story.  Or more accurately, the failures in evaluating the importance of this story.  The investigative reporters did exceptional work and got most of the information correct. The problem remains that too many media figures extend to the Trump administration a benefit of the doubt when it comes to truthfulness that the Trump administration has completely unearned.

One "revelation" in the report is that Sarah Sanders lied when she said that FBI agents thanked her for the Comey firing.  Did anyone seriously believe this? Has Sarah Sanders EVER been completely forthright?  Much of the news coverage (as opposed to the investigative reporting) has fallen into the predictable "he said/she said" dynamic when it comes to initial reports.  At some point, the Times and the Post and CNN simply need to assume that a Trump spokesperson is lying until proven otherwise.  The disgraceful performance of William Barr should be the final nail in a coffin that should have been buried two years ago. 

Mueller decided to abide by the OLC decision that he couldn't indict a sitting president, therefore turning the matter over to Congress.  So far, House Democrats seem gun-shy about pursuing impeachment, preferring to let the election decide the matter.

But if the media have failed to learn the lessons of 2016 and every day since, we are screwed.  False balance and unearned credulity will destroy the republic.

Please Do Me A Favor

Don't believe anything about the Mueller Report until someone has actually read it that isn't AG Barr.

Also, this:

Windsor Mann

✔@WindsorMann

Replying to @RadioFreeTom

Imagine what Barr would have done if Republicans still controlled the House.

284

9:23 PM - Apr 17, 2019

The Future Liberals Don't Want

Martin Longman lays out the startling argument that Democrats are likely headed to a brokered convention. Ultimately, this is why Biden feels like he has to jump in, and might wind up consolidating his choice.  Few people within the party want Bernie Sanders to be the nominee.  But in a badly fractured field, no one would wind up winning the nomination.  That would lead to a brokered convention, and - as Longman notes - the Russians and GOP would turn the simmering embers left over from 2016 into a bonfire.

I'm sure all the lower tier candidates are hoping to catch fire the way people like Buttigieg have.  If your Corey Booker, you're hoping that "something happens" to catapult you into relevancy.  But at some point, you're not helping.  When do Gillibrand, Booker, Castro, Swalwell, Yang, Inslee and the others pack it in?  If it's after New Hampshire, it could be too late.

Helplessness

Watching Notre Dame burn yesterday was like so much of watching the news these days.  You watched something precious slowly being destroyed and there was nothing you could do about it.  You also know that at any moment, some nitwit on Twitter will start talking about "who started it" in a way designed to tear further at the increasingly fragile ties that tether us together as people.  Sometimes terrible things happen by accident. We aren't entirely equipped to handle that.  Many of us would prefer if there were some dark cabal behind every misfortune.  But sometimes terrible things happen for no reason.

On Ilhan Omar

I would argue that two things are simultaneously true:

1) Trump and the Republican attacks on her are Islamophobic and racist, designed to fire up their evangelical voters and pit one American against another.  It serves to buttress their long running argument that only Republicans are true Americans, because they are white people who live in the countryside.  These comments are going to get someone killed.

2) Representative Omar is not very good at message discipline beyond her base.  When you compare her to another high profile House freshwoman - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Omar simply hasn't found the right way to leverage her high profile to make a consistent and valuable attack on the GOP.  AOC has mastered the Twitter age message war; Omar has not.

Democratic leadership was called out by Leftist Twitter for not forcible defending Omar by name.  Most of that was bullshit.  But there is no doubt that if you are trying to keep your House majority, create a Senate majority and win the Presidency, you don't want to be dragged off message.  The Democrats' message seems to be about corruption, democracy and inequality, with a little climate and guns thrown in.  They don't want to be arguing about Ilhan Omar in 2020, because she steps on their message in ways AOC does not.

Game Of Thrones

Watching the beginning of the end - plus some of the marathon recap - it strikes me that one of the most pervasive themes in the show is how people are trapped by their history.

Cersei, Daneyrs, Jon, Sansa, Arya, Jamie, Tyrion...they are all prisoners of their past.  Even Bran, who can see everything, is trapped by the past.  Trapped IN the past.  Cersei is captured by the death of her children, the cruelty of her family, her hatred of her brother.  Danerys is a Targarean, ultimately relying on Fire and Blood. Jon finds that he, too, is trapped by his lineage. Sansa by the barbarism inflicted on her by others, Arya by her quest for revenge, Jamie by his past callousness, Tyrion by his lack of wisdom at critical moments.  Everyone is flawed, because everyone carries the tremendous weight of past cruelties that they both inflicted on others and had inflicted on them. 

That's why my king will always be Hotpie, First of His Name, Long May He Reign.

We Live In The Stupidest Universe

And SNL is here to catalog it.

How Broken Are We?

When I read this story about the bullshit posturing over who gets "credit" for the first images of a black hole, it's difficult to think of anything but how broken we are as a society.  It's understandable  -given how underrepresented women are in the STEM fields - to see Katie Bouman held up as a nice example of the contributions women make to science and technology.  However, it was wrong to say that she "did it."  It was even more wrong to denigrate her important contributions out of some peevish whine about male grievance. 

The most important advancements in human history have almost always been collaborations.  Or they have been the product of work that comes to fruition at the same time.  That's why Liebnitz and Newton both invented calculus at the same time, and two different people invented the telephone at roughly the same time. 

Some of this is the myth of the solitary genius, which has always warped our understanding of human achievement.  Edison ran a factory full of inventors, but he gets the credit for their work.

Now, of course, the internet allows us to force every single goddamned story through a political filter.  Every event is thrust forward to advance some political agenda - usually a shitty one.  My guess is that these opinions were always out there, but now they are amplified by being shared. 

It's exhausting.

It's not going to get any better.

Changing The Rules

HR1 is a good start at reforming democracy, but there has to be a series of laws passed after Democrats gain control of government that limit some of the egregious loopholes that Trump has exploited.  Presidential candidates must be transparent with their personal finances.  New safeguards need to be put in place surrounding the Justice department's impartiality.

And there are going to have to be more vigorous nepotism laws.

These fucking people....

Good News From Across The Pond

The EU has given the British an extension on Brexit until October.  That lessens the chance of a global recession caused by the nationalism of Putin's willing fools in Britain.  Meanwhile, another willing fool  - accused rapist Julian Assange - has been arrested in London after the Ecuadorians finally had enough of his shit.

Also, they deposed the long time dictator of Sudan.

Not everything is awful.  Just in DC at the moment.

Today In Your Democracy In Crisis

Where shall we begin?

The Attorney General of the United States was spreading conspiracy theories.

He also looks like he will refuse to issue the Mueller report.

The Treasury Department said they can't give the House Trump's tax returns, even though the law is very clear on this.

Fox News questioned whether a Muslim member of Congress was a real American.

Three or more states are moving to make abortions effectively illegal.

A Trump nominee for the Justice Department could not say if Brown v Board of Ed was properly decided.

The interim director of ICE is leaving because he's not sadistic enough.

These.  Fucking. People.

The Worst People

Among all the grifters, incompetents and racists that have populated the Trump Maladministration, there was - for a spell - an agreement that he would staff certain critical positions with competent people.  This was why his first National Security team included people like Mattis and McMaster.  The jettisoning of Nielsen from Homeland Security is a troubling expression of the idea that Trump is no going full bore into hack loyalists over any sort of expertise or competence.

This look also to be true for the Federal Reserve.  Trump has nominated two complete fools for these powerful positions.  Stephen Moore is a hack's hack with no discernible economic insights or abilities.  And he's the BETTER of the two candidates being vomited forth from the West Wing. The assumption is that Herman Cain will be voted down and Moore given a seat on the Fed Board, because the GOP can only oppose outright lunacy (Cain) as opposed to mere incompetence (Moore).

Still, it's worth gaming out if there are four GOP Senators who might oppose both Moore and Cain.  My first thought was obviously Murkowski, just because she's the only even slightly independent voice in the GOP caucus.  One has to assume that Collins will dither and fuss and then vote for Trump's people anyway.  Rob Portman might defect as a Senator with at least a modicum of financial expertise. 

But the best way to sink these disastrous choices would be in Committee.  Neither will get any Democratic votes, so only one GOP member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee would have to flip.  Jerry Moran is retiring and sick of the bullshit, Martha McSally has to win re-election in a purpling state, Ben Sasse and Tim Scott occasionally wander off the beaten path, and Pat Toomey and Richard Shelby are also votes to watch.

Looking over the roster, I have to admit, it's very on-brand of the committee on Urban Affairs to have GOP Senators from: Idaho, Alabama, Nebraska, Arkansas, North and South Dakota and Kansas...

How Do We Talk About This?

Age is central question in the 2020 election, and we need to address it.  Trump, Biden and Sanders are all over 70.  Elizabeth Warren is 69.  Not every septuagenarian is mentally impaired, but a lot are.  Trump was never an intelligent man - cunning perhaps - but there are clear signs that he lacks even the average capacities he demonstrated as a younger man.  Biden has already demonstrated a mental inflexibility when it comes to his tactile experiences with other people.  Sanders locks in on his ideology at the expense of seeing anything on the periphery.

There are excellent candidates in the "sweet spot" of their 50s.  There are also some young candidates.  I believe that Pete Buttigieg is a very impressive person and candidate, but I think his age is a legitimate concern.  You aren't as wise at 37 as you might be.  Life has more lessons to teach you.  If Buttigieg's youth is an issue - and it should be - then Biden and Sanders' ages should be an issue, too.

Talking about it is tricky, because of accusations of "ageism."  However, we have mandatory retirement ages in certain industries, and it strikes me as being plausible that we should have one for a job that requires extraordinary mental dexterity. 

Not Terrible Enough

I think Kirstjen Nielsen is guilty of crimes against humanity for what was done on our southern border.  But she wasn't cruel and stupid enough for Trump. Apparently, only Stephen Miller is cruel enough.

As Trump gets more and more erratic, those who are merely cruel as opposed to depraved will abandon his administration to those who are truly vile (a la Miller).  Policies will get stupider and crueler.

I'm A Touch Concerned

I've been arguing on Facebook with David Greenberg about Joe Biden.  I am not a fan of a 76 year old man running for president.  I am not a fan of someone feeling entitled to the nomination because he was VP and a running punchline under Obama.  I am not a fan of Biden's bankruptcy bill when he was in the Senate.  I loved "Uncle Joe" memes, but when it comes to taking down Trump, I don't think Biden is the guy.  For many of the same reasons, Bernie isn't the guy.  He's 77, he has almost no legislative accomplishments to his name, he's a cranky old guy whose vision of America is either vague or negative.

The problem is that Sanders and Biden have the highest name recognition of the Democratic field.  As long as the field is hopelessly crowded, high name recognition will insure a sizable portion of the vote.  Harris has demonstrated some considerable political chops.  Warren has easily the most comprehensive and important policy agenda since Lyndon Johnson.  Buttigieg and O'Rourke have tapped into considerable charisma.  But as long as the field is crowded with Yangs and Salwells and Gabbards and Inslees and Hickenloopers...there is no room for the next page to be written.  It will be 2008 and 2016 re-runs.

Hopefully, the bulk of these aspirational candidates are simply building their national profiles and donor lists.  But if they stick around past Christmas, we have a problem.

Biden Ain't Your Jesus

Joe Biden is the current polling leader of the Democrats and he's not currently running.  However, Biden's high approval ratings are likely a product of several factors:

- He's got the highest name recognition of any candidate.
- He benefits from Obama nostalgia.
- He appeals to a certain important segment of the Democratic electorate.

But there's a counterpoint to all this:

- Name recognition is a weak predictor of future electoral success, especially when there are so many extremely capable candidates in the field. Lots of that name recognition is a function of a long career.  A long career means a target rich environment.
- Obama and the people around him have never really given Biden full throated support.  And Biden is just...not Obama.  He's gaffe prone and impulsive, where Obama was disciplined.  He's a career politician where Obama was an outsider.
- That segment of the Democratic party that Biden appeals to is shrinking in importance.

I believe that Biden would have beaten Trump in 2016, because he would have likely won Pennsylvania and Michigan.  Biden does have some appeal to WWC voters and he wouldn't be damaged by the latent sexism that hurt Clinton.  I believe that Biden could beat Trump in 2020, but then I believe most of the Democratic candidates can beat Trump in 2020.  (Remember several important things: Trump voters are older, so there are less of them each year; he ran an inside straight to win the Electoral College; a lot of voters said "what's the worst he could do" and now regret that.)

The question is: Which candidate can thump the Republican party so hard that it takes several electoral cycles for them to recover?  Who can usher in the next stage of building a Democratic coalition that will be as ascendent as the FDR and Reagan coalitions?  Who knits together people of color, college educated whites and single women into a majority party that consistently wins elections for the next 20 years?

THAT is the goal for 2020.  Biden is a look backwards.  He's old.  He's never been a good campaigner at the national level.  He suffers from fatal flaws as a Democratic candidate today: his closeness to the financial sector (Bankruptcy Bill), his past lamentable votes (the Crime Bill) and his inability to read where women are at this moment when it comes to entitled behavior from powerful white men.

Biden's touchy-feely personal style isn't really the problem, it's that he's old, when the party skews young. His tone-deaf joking about this issue shows how little he has a read for the bulk of the party and how prone he is to stepping on his own dick.

The Onion had a lot of fun lampooning Biden as Vice President (at least in part because Obama proved so hard to mock).  They did it by basically depicting him as your loser, dropout relative who cleans pools to buy a used Camaro because the chicks dig it.  They mocked him as being a man out of time.  He still is that.

Biden is not going to save the Democratic party, because he's not a very good candidate.  He wasn't in '92.  He wasn't in '08.  He is very much not today.

UPDATE: This.

How Many Continents Are There?

I love this argument.

"Continents" are whatever we define them as.  That makes the definition important, but also how we apply the definition. 

That's what makes it so fun.

Fixing The System

Buttigieg and Warren get it.

Kill It With Fire

Dana Milbank bemoans the latest chipping away with the filibuster in the Senate.  But it's tough to say that the problem with the Senate is the filibuster.  The problem with the Senate is the fact that Wyoming has as many votes as California.  In fact, the filibuster perpetuates and extends this anti-democratic feature, by requiring 60 votes for meaningful legislation. Given that Democrats tend to be the ones actually trying to legislate, I'm not sure why they feel it's important to give 41 Senators the right to stymie the will of the people. 

These F-ing People

The Trump administration is literally an enemy of children. Between caging children on the borders, cutting school funding and now working hard to make products for children less safe, I think we can safely say that if the Republican party was a parent, we would be calling child services on it.

Blunderbuss

It is somewhat amazing that Trump has not cratered the global economy, even if he has greatly hurt American farmers.

Still, maybe he will close the border, which combined with no-plan Brexit, could tip us into a recession.

As a recession caused by policy rather than macroeconomic failures, it could presumably be reversed by better policy.  Which we will hopefully get in 2021.

Ponies For Everyone

There is no perfect candidate.  There is no one who will not cross some line you feel is important.  I remember telling some starry-eyed students back in 2009: "Obama will disappoint you."  That was because so much of Obama's ascent to the presidency seemed impossible that everything now seemed possible.  "Hope and change" was such a load of vacancy that anyone could step into that "vision."  Why, yes!  I do like hope!  AND change!"

The 2020 primary is already exhausting online.  This example was especially interesting.  It's a comprehensive takedown of Pete Buttigieg based on the fact that Pete Buttigieg has worked hard and succeeded.  The very fact that Buttigieg went to Harvard and joined the military is what the author - ironically or not a Harvard grad student - finds so troubling.  Buttigieg is one of those "naive liberals" who believe the best in America.  The author routinely derides Buttigieg's fascination with Graham Greene's depiction of American power and the idea that more often than not, America makes bad choices for the right reasons.  If we make foolish and destructive decisions, it comes from a place - usually - of well-meaning ideals.

That's a reasonable criticism for a Harvard grad student in Sociology to make.  It is an appalling position for an aspiring politician to make.  I cannot imagine ANY successful run for national or statewide office that is predicated on America being an immoral place.  The author admits his bias:

I don’t trust former McKinsey consultants. I don’t trust military intelligence officers. And I don’t trust the type of people likely to appear on “40 under 40” lists, the valedictorian-to-Harvard-to-Rhodes-Scholarship types who populate the American elite. I don’t trust people who get flattering reams of newspaper profiles and are pitched as the Next Big Thing That You Must Pay Attention To, and I don’t trust wunderkinds who become successful too early. Why? Because I am somewhat cynical about the United States meritocracy. Few people amass these kind of  résumés if they are the type to openly challenge authority. Noam Chomsky says that the factors predicting success in our “meritocracy” are a “combination of greed, cynicism, obsequiousness and subordination, lack of curiosity and independence of mind, [and] self-serving disregard for others.” So when journalists see “Harvard” and think “impressive,” I see it and think “uh-oh.”

And, again, that's fine as far as an academic criticism of meritocracy goes. 

My worry is that the Extremely Online Progressive Left has replaced pragmatism with ideals.  Republicans have failed to successfully govern the country because they are more wedded to their ideology than they are to facts on the ground.  The next Democratic president will be as progressive as the Senate allows her or him to be.  That's it.  The policy differences between Harris, Warren, Hickenlooper, O'Rourke and Sanders are really no more than HOW to do certain things that WHETHER to do certain things.

I think Buttigieg is too young and too inexperienced.  But the fact that he is ferociously intelligent, genuinely empathetic and has achieved a lot in his young life is not to me a disqualifying set of conditions.