Category Archives: Politics

04.22.16
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Political Quick Hits

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“Let me tell you about my grades…”

A) There’s nothing that better encapsulates the dark cynicism at the heart of politics than a campaign manager announcing how they are rolling out a new image.

“That’s what’s important for you to understand: That he gets it, and that the part he’s been playing is evolving,” Mr. Manafort said, suggesting that Mr. Trump was about to begin a more professional phase of his campaign.

“Well, we’ve got some suckers. Now we’re going to get a different kind of sucker.” I don’t think this works anymore for two reasons: we’re too plugged in, and enough people (though far from all) hear about these cynical mechanisms. Shooting bull with political pros isn’t the same anymore. Two, and most importantly, it’s nonsense. Trump has been telling people for decades that the incendiary style is just an act, but there has never been a single recorded instance of him being gracious or decent or even recognizably human. Part of his self-mythology is telling people that he can act any way he wants, and his sycophants have to do the same (“Mr. Trump is a master of controlling himself, the very best”) but he’s always the insecure idiot who fights people on Twitter at 2AM despite having a billion dollars and a smoking hot wife. The “this is just an act” is the biggest act of all.

2.)  Ted Cruz having to explain why he should get the nomination even if he doesn’t have the majority of delegates is going to be peak-Cruz:

  • Wrapping self-interest in the whiny squeal of self-righteousness,
  • Trumpeting his endorsements while railing against the “Washington cartel” while both lacking a hint of contradiction and possessing unbearable disdain if you can’t accept which argument he spins at any given moment as the Revealed Truth
  • Unbearable smugness when explaining the rules
  • That look he’ll give when he explains why he’s the popular choice, even though he doesn’t have as many votes. You know, the one that is so condescending, as if he just can’t believe that you won’t accept that what he is saying is literally the opposite of the truth.

In some campaigns, like in 2012, a candidate has to tack so far to the right to get the nomination that they can’t get back. That’s not Cruz’s issue. His problem is that to get the nomination, he’ll have to act like Ted Cruz, and there is no getting back from that.

iii) From the same article:

Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney in 2012, said that many aspects of the primary process — holding the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, for instance — would appear widely unpopular if posed to voters in a poll.“None of this tests well,” he said. “It’s like a bowling league. Do the rules of bowling make sense?”

Look, I’m not a heartland type, I guess, but aren’t the rules in a bowling league that whomever knocks down the most pins win? I don’t even mean this as a metaphor for Trump or whatever; I’m genuinely confused. I know that strikes and spares have somewhat strange rules, but not really, right? It’s a rolling reward for doing well. I don’t know if I don’t understand politics or bowling (or if, maybe, the chief strategist for Romney 2012 might not be a supergenius.)

04.20.16
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Voter Suppression In New York! Or, The Revolution Has Gone Mad

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Remember 2008? As it became clear that Barack Obama was going to win the nomination, Hillary Clinton and her supporters become more fervent that not only would he not, but that he was a weak candidate who couldn’t possibly beat the Republicans (Hillary less so than her supporters and surrogates, honestly). To me, the culmination of this nonsense was when she won West Virginia in mid-May. It was a rout, and the Clinton camp used that to argue that they were better positioned to win in November, because, as the candidates said “I’m winning Catholic voters and Hispanic voters and blue-collar workers and seniors, the kind of people that Sen. McCain will be fighting for in the general election.”

Those of us in the Obama camp were obviously incredulous. There was no way that she was going to win West Virginia in November. Winning the Democratic primary there was about as valuable as in Idaho or Wyoming, places that wouldn’t go blue if a Democrat promised to make potatoes our new currency. She was losing the popular vote, states won, and total voters. There was no case that she should be the nominee.

So basically, this is kind of weird mirror year, no?

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04.19.16
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Why Losing New York Won’t Bother Ted Cruz

The brutal and terrifying interrogation scenes in Koestler’s Darkness at Noon are, in some ways, a generational clash. Rubashov, the old revolutionary, is interrogated primarily by two men, Ivanov and Gletkin. Ivanov is a contemporary, a former running mate, and has some sympathy for Rubashov, if not for his apostasy. This sympathy and inability (or unwillingness) to get a confession by any means necessary leads to Ivanov’s own execution. Gletkin has no such hangups, and not out of fear. He’s a child of the Revolution, essentially born into it, and has had his moral compass shaped entirely by the revolutionary rhetoric. He doesn’t just force Rubashov to confess. As Hitchens put it, “Orwell’s more widely read Nineteen Eighty Four, which has many points of similarity with Darkness at Noon, makes the same terrifying point that the fanatics don’t just want you to obey them: They want you to agree with them.”

Anyway, long story short, I think Ted Cruz is actually pretty happy he’s going to lose New York today.

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04.18.16
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Dick Lugar Explains, At Length, Why He Can No Longer Win Elections In A Republican Primary

Well no, not really. But he did write an op-ed in The Times arguing that of course President Obama has the power to enact executive orders that deal with immigration resources, even saying that  the”nature of immigration enforcement and the resources (or lack thereof) appropriated by Congress necessitate exactly the type of choices that the president has made,” which is the same thing.

This isn’t counter-intuitive, or even good ol’-fashioned common sense: it’s just a basic understanding of how our country works, and the underlying assumption that since Barack Obama won elections, he should be able to govern as the President, which is the kind of apostasy that makes you lose primary election to lunatics.

That Lugar is writing this as an ex-Senator really tells you all you need to know.

04.18.16
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Hillary Clinton Is Not The Enemy

And neither, for that matter, is George Clooney. He is someone who wants a Democrat to win against either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz (or Paul Ryan)!

Come on… 

Money plays a damningly huge role in our elections. It has transformed American democracy into a weak and flickering simulation, corrupting everything it touches. There clearly needs to be a change, but that won’t come without winning elections. It certainly won’t come if a Republican wins and they solidify their grip on the House and Senate.

Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, and for all the moneyish grasping that marked Bill’s tenure and her political career, is not the enemy of the progressive movement. She’s another side of it: less radical, more cautious, not a true soldier, but not a summer one, either. Vote for Bernie (I did!) and agitate for him. Drag Hillary even further to the left. Make her work for votes. But she shouldn’t be treatead her as an alien, as someone to unload upon. She shouldn’t be equated with the desperate venal clowns in the GOP.

It is great that people are fighting for Bernie, and in any election there are going to be hard feelings. But the #bernieorbust movement is an absurdity, a privileged expression of pique. Does it suck to vote for the “lesser of two evils”? Of course it does. But the alternative is the greater of two evils, so come on.

Protesting George Clooney because he is raising money for Hillary Clinton is just as bizarre as anything on the other side. It’s a weird moment in our politics.

 

04.13.16
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Counterpoint: Come On, Paul Ryan Will Totally Accept The Nomination

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Still not as fit as Trump, you handsome dork.

Writing at Slate, Jim Newell ably lays out the reasons why it would be stupid for Paul Ryan, who is not stupid, to seek or accept the nomination at the Republican convention in Cleveland this year (which already has a perfect theme song). Basically, as follows:

It’s a compelling argument! And it’s based in reality. After all, between them, Cruz and Trump are pulling some 80% of the votes, and there would be an open revolt in the base. Who would vote for him? Democrats hate him because, well, he’s a Randian superman wants to starve the poor, despite dewy protests to the contrary. And because he’s taken the role of Speaker of the House, he’s seen as a betraying Chamberlain by the far right (i.e. most of the Republican Party). The Ryan Bubble, as Newell points out, is driven by the same media who has heaped lavish praise on his non-existent wonkitude. That’s all true. My counterpoint though, is thus:

  • Come on…

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04.08.16
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Pope Francis Leads From Behind


President Obama was a liar about gay marriage. He initially supported it, and then said he didn’t, but said he was “evolving” on it. That was a transparent ruse, and a cynical one, but not in a normal cynical way. Yes, it was partly just to get elected. But while Obama wasn’t a leader on gay rights, he was a promoter of them. He normalized the tone in which we talked about gay rights, made it clear that there wasn’t anything weird or unhealthy about them- that it was frankly strange to be opposed- and helped to mainstream activism. He worked to overturn DOMA and DADT, and when he officially endorsed gay marriage, after Joe Biden delightfully jumped forward with it, it seemed perfectly normal. When it became the law of the land, it was met by most people with either joy or a shrug. There are some rearguard monsters who will fight against it, but I feel like most people were embarrassed that they once thought it maybe it shouldn’t be legal. That’s what the Obama “leading from behind” mentality was. Let the activists do the work and lead, and help create an atmosphere for their success. The activists deserve to be lauded throughout history for what they accomplished, but the President also deserves some credit for his ability to make the thought of gay marriage normal.

Pope Francis is not President Obama (although they are both invited to my place for dinner at any time). I don’t know if he actually approves of gay marriage, or is wants to see it happen, or is working for it, in a way that I always knew Obama did. Still, though, he is changing the tone of the Church, and in many ways that is far braver and bolder. He may not be going far enough for many activists, but I think he is going as far as a Pope can. He may be, like Obama, leading from behind, but the trail is considerably longer.

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04.07.16
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Dems Getting Ugly

<> on July 24, 2014 in Washington, DC.

Stay the course…

I don’t remember ever actually hearing about Bernie Sanders, growing up as a political addict. It might have been sometime after his election in the 1990s, one of those things you kind of learn by osmosis. I do distinctly remember reading something about him while in the reading room at Irwin Library at Butler University, where I spent many hours flipping through issues of The Nation, The Atlantic, and obscure regional journals, instead of, you know, talking to girls. That memory is just one being surprised that none of the small handful of politically active liberals/socialists on campus ever seemed to talk about him, myself included.

Not remembering when you first heard of someone, when that is lost in the fog of decay, makes you feel like you’ve always known someone. It was giddy elation when he won a Senate seat in 2006, part and parcel of that wonderful election night. I was proud to vote for him in the Illinois primary, and think he could possibly beat either Trump or Cruz. Maybe even handily.

That said…Bernie, please don’t give a long speech in which you say that Hillary Clinton isn’t qualified to be President. I know it seems like she said it first, or at least didn’t proclaim that you were qualified. I know running against her can be maddening, given the air of expectation and coronation around the campaign, and the condescending way she seems to be tired of this whole election thing.

This isn’t how you win, either the nomination (which is a long shot) or win your cause. Nerves fray during long campaigns, and no one can be expected to be genial the whole time. But the Sanders campaign has achieved what it has because it gave us another vision of politics. This alternate vision isn’t like the circus-act fascism of the Trump campaign, where politics is an extension of a mutated personality, but a truly inclusive form of democracy. It’s been inspiring, and thrilling to see a simple message- the game is rigged- get such traction.

That’s been a message that even a compromised candidate like Clinton hasn’t been able to ignore. And while it is hard to say shrug off her attacks, it is a far more effective strategy to just keep relentlessly plowing ahead with the message. When it becomes a political tit-for-tat, the message gets lost. The campaign becomes breathless political fodder, filler material for hacks like Halperin and Heileman. The message gets lost. The politics you are helping bring back get lost in the noise of our idiot machine.

The other problem is that, not only is it cutting ads for the GOP, saying such things encourages the #neverhillary rump of your movement, and makes it harder for progressives to campaign for her in the fall. Going against any Republican is vital; Trump or Cruz makes it impossibly so.

The flip side of this is to write an unread letter to Hillary asking her to knock it off. But that’s not the dynamic. She is a politician’s politician who is getting pulled to the left by an irresistible force. That’s the way this year has been played, and has to be continued to be played. I think she’ll be a very fine and competent post-heroic President, and any questions about her toughness are absurd. She’s been the most reviled woman in America for a quarter-century, the victim of endless vulgar attacks, and is close to winning the nomination. She’s plenty tough. She’ll be fine.

But she’s a politician. The point is to bring her closer to the truly revolutionary movement the Sanders campaign has unleashed. Moving closer to her just makes the whole thing unsuccessful.

04.06.16
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Cruz, Sanders, and The Weirdness of Wisconsin

Wisconsin, with its proud progressive tradition, its long history of student activists, farmer/labor axis, its revulsion at organized money and the power it can wield, and its basic Midwest decency, gave Bernie Sanders his biggest win in a long time last night, and keeps his momentum alive long enough to continue to pull Clinton to the left. This is good: she can win from the left. Triangulating isn’t the best strategy this year. Clinton needs to use that sort of historic Wisconsin coalition moving forward, bringing it into the fold of her equally-important base. If she can do that, she can  have a thumping victory regardless of her opponent.

Meanwhile. Wisconsin, with its tradition of right-wing ideological purity and resentment against the liberal coalition, gave Ted Cruz the victory he needed to almost certainly force a contested coalition. This wasn’t a rebuke to Trump being “rude”: in a state where Governor Walker becomes more popular by giving away the environment, destroying labor, and having grandmothers arrested because their singing gives him the vapors, the sneering Cruz is a perfect fit. He speaks the language of overlapping resentments that drive the party, and have found perfect expression in Wisconsin. What a weird state.

 

Really, you have all three? That’s amazing! 

 

I’ve been driving up to Wisconsin for years, and have always gotten a kick out of this sign, but as far as I can remember it is only recently that they put the “open for business” at the bottom. That’s such a Walkerian way to describe one of our most beautiful and lake-filled areas. Business is obviously important, but Walker’s definition of “open” is pretty much the same as Big Bill Thompson’s in Chicago: come on in, boys. The place is yours. Don’t even bother wiping your feet or not polluting the lakes. Clear cut what you want, just kick something back upstairs. (That’s not to insinuate that Walker is getting money out of all this. He just does it because he likes it. Give me Big Bill any day).

If you want to know everything base and venal about Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans, remember that the literally wanted to edit the Wisconsin Idea to remove anything about the human spirit, and put in language about the state’s workforce needs.

The mission of the system is to develop human resources to meet the state’s workforce needs, to discover and disseminate knowledge, to extendknowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campuses and toserve and stimulate society by developing develop in students heightened intellectual, cultural, and humane sensitivities, scientific, professional and technological expertise, and a sense of purpose. Inherent in this broad mission are methods of instruction, research, extended training and public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition. Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.

 

(lines are Walkers’ proposed edits)

This is the part of Wisconsin for whom Ted Cruz has the most appeal. This wasn’t a return of Midwest decency or a revolt against Trump’s ill-manners. It was a revolt against the idea that the poor and working class have any purpose other than to make the rich even richer. That’s Walker’s Wisconsin. The only nice thing about this is that it is going to revive Walker’s image as a national player, even though it only confirms, once again, that he is only capable of winning elections in the conservative Milwaukee County suburbs. So seeing him get smacked down again now that his usefulness is up will be gratifying.