Politics: National

James Kwak has a new book that captures the zeitgeist of a Democratic Party that is trying to recreate a left-wing version of what the Republicans did in making itself an exclusively right-wing party. In Taking Back Our Party: Restoring the Democratic Legacy, he lays out our situation of inequality, business monopsonies, and complicit "third way" Democrats pioneered by Bill Clinton. Even Barack Obama bought a $12 million home on Martha's Vineyard.

Kwak writes:

And so, because this is a book about how to make things better, it’s a book about Democrats. It’s about how, in the wake of the Reagan Revolution, we latched onto the idea that a more modern, more sophisticated, more business-friendly Democratic Party could successfully compete for the White House. It’s about how this transformation, while paying off in victories in four of the past seven presidential elections (six if you go by the popular vote), has left us impotent in the face of growing inequality, even when in power, and incapable of making the case that we can help families struggling against economic insecurity and misfortune. And it’s about how a new Democratic Party, dedicated to a progressive economic agenda, can take up the challenge of ensuring a decent life for every American.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are on board. So are numerous Democratic activists, AOC and "the squad." I'm sympathetic to many of their positions, but I have some misgivings.

For Thanksgiving week, talented friend-of-the-blog Carl Muecke has been busy creating his unique takes on our crisis. Enjoy if you dare — in times such as these satire is a great antidote. (Click on image to enlarge).

Carl Muecke illustration.

According to the New York Times, "OK Boomer" is the Gen Z/millennial declaration of war on the baby boom generation. Shannon O'Connor, who is selling T-shirts and hoodies with the phrase, said:

“The older generations grew up with a certain mind-set, and we have a different perspective. A lot of them don’t believe in climate change or don’t believe people can get jobs with dyed hair, and a lot of them are stubborn in that view." The younger generation is mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.

One problem, of course, is which boomers? The older cohort of this large and diverse generation got drugs, sex, rock'n' roll, and pensions. My cohort got the AIDS and STD scares, disco, and (if they're lucky enough) inadequate 401(k)s.

Is "OK Boomer" President George W. Bush or President Barack Obama (born 1961)? Such luminaries as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Sir Elton John, Michael Jordan, UA climate scientist Diana Liverman, chess grandmaster and Trump nemesis Garry Kasparov, Stephen King (who also relentlessly trolls Trump on Twitter), Elizabeth Warren, and yes, Hillary Clinton are all boomers.

I was a loner and never much identified with my g-g-g-generation. But I hate today's "woke" ideology of forcing people into groups that can be made into neat packages of victims or villains. That includes generations. No room for individuals in that ideology.

Carl Muecke illustration

Even though seven have dropped out, 19 Democrats are still running for the presidential nomination. One of the many hard lessons of Donald Trump's Electoral College win is that anyone can run for president, whatever (insert pronoun-war choice here)'s qualifications.

I'm old enough to remember when each party put up their most experienced and accomplished people to become Leader of the Free World. Ike never held elective office, but as a five-star general he successfully managed the politically charged alliance that liberated Western Europe. Reagan was "just an actor" (so was I, so this dismissal always grated), but he served two terms as governor of the nation's then-third largest state. The same was true of W. His father was "Mister Resume." JFK's resume was thinner, but included war hero, congressman and Senator.

No more. Here's my take, and the comments section is below for your's:

Michael Bennet. Who? He's a Senator from Colorado, been in office for 10 years, and before that was Denver superintendent of schools. Enough said.

Joe Biden. While the former vice president is experienced and has a centrist temperament, he's bungled two previous presidential runs, wears a target for every opponent, and is a haphazard speaker. His handling of Anita Hill and support for bankruptcy "reform" would dog him. He'd be no match for Trump in a debate.

Yes, I'll be writing about the needless election to save light rail.

But I was struck, forgive the pun, by last week's news that a "city killer" asteroid had passed our planet, coming so close it was only one-fifth of the distance between the Earth and the moon. The rock wasn’t one that scientists had been tracking, and it had seemingly appeared from “out of nowhere,” Michael Brown, a Melbourne-based observational astronomer, told The Washington Post.

I was strangely unsurprised. My black-dog mood since 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes but our fate was sealed thanks to 78,000 votes in three Midwestern states, in a deeply tainted, nay, stolen, election, has yet to abate. One of the most qualified people ever to seek the presidency lost to an astonishingly unqualified quisling for a foreign prince, a mob boss, a man now normalized by the media and heading for reelection.

Since then, everything has been falling apart. And all this time, I have thought: If we were surprised by a deadly visitor from the cosmos…yes, of course. The haunting 2011 film Melancholia, starring Kirsten Dunst, come true. Life, or its end, foreshadowed by art. Bad things coming our way.

President Carter (center) aboard the USS Los Angeles in 1977, first in its class of highly-advanced nuclear fast-attack submarines. At right is Carter's mentor, Admiral Hyman Rickover, "Father of the Nuclear Navy."

The idea of the treasonous criminal Donald Trump presiding over the funeral of Jimmy Carter is almost too much to bear. At age 94, it's a depressing possibility.

I confess to disliking Carter's presidency. But the man had real accomplishments. A Naval Academy graduate, he is the only president to have qualified in submarines. That means much more than serving in a boat — to "qualify" means an officer or enlisted person must have mastered every task aboard the sub. It's a big deal. Carter intended to make the Navy a career until the death of his father brought him back to Georgia.

With the passing of George H.W. Bush, Carter is the only living president to be a real military veteran.

Along with John Quincy Adams, Carter is the most successful and inspirational former president, from his work with Habitat for Humanity to overseeing elections around the world and carrying out numerous humanitarian and diplomatic missions. He never sought to monetize — and degrade — his office in the way most of his successors have done.

In 1969, Dean Acheson's memoir Present at the Creation was published, going on to win the Pulitzer Prize in History a year later. At more than 800 pages, the book remains essential reading, not least because today we are present at the destruction.

As President Truman's Secretary of State — "the clearest thinking, most effective Secretary of State of the twentieth century," as Yale's Gaddis Smith rightly said — Acheson was the lead architect of the post-World War II order. The Marshall Plan, NATO, Bretton Woods, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and more.

As Tom Ricks wrote in Foreign Policy magazine:

It’s useful to remember that the international “system” as we know it today didn’t exist before World War II and would have been unthinkable except for the cataclysm of the war, the deployment of the atom bomb, and the aggression of an implacably hostile Soviet Union.

Truman and Acheson were in unknown territory, leading a country tired of war and ready to revert to its prewar isolation. “History is written backwards but lived forwards,” Acheson says, reflecting on the United States’ leap into the unknown. American leadership was never foreordained.

Illustration by Carl Muecke

I provoked quite a reaction on Facebook when I predicted that Trump would get away with his many crimes and be reelected. Let me explain.

From the very beginning of winning the Electoral College by 80,000 votes, Trump began violating norms. Instead of "we have one president at a time," he was making all sorts of policy diktats and claiming to save Carrier jobs in Indiana. The media, the only commercial entity deemed so important to the republic's health that its protection was enshrined in the Constitution, largely gave him a pass.

Much worse norms were broken and evidence of massive malfeasance and unfitness for office piled up, and the pattern continued. Some exceptions arose, especially the Washington Post; even the New York Times, which downplayed Trump's known corruption and Russian interference while overplaying the nothingburger of Clinton emails, produced some worthy investigative journalism on the Don. But most people don't get their news from newspapers, and most newspapers are infected by toxic both-sidesism. So the outrageous has become normalized.

The most recent example was the media's pivot away from the Mueller investigation and report, based on a memo from an Attorney General handpicked by Trump to ensure his protection from the rule of law. The actual 400-page report hasn't been seen by reporters or the public. The fierce curiosity and fight for truth by journalists in Watergate has been replaced by, "Nothing to see here, move on."

"Vote like your life depends on it" is a slogan popular among Democrats. But the large numbers that support Donald Trump (42 percent according to FiveThirtyEight's compilation of polls) obviously think the same from their corner.

Beyond that, I have little to say about polls. After 2016, none of us should trust them. They can be skewed by the Bradley Effect — in this case GOP voters lying about their intentions — vote suppression tactics, gerrymandering, Trump's firehose of lies and distractions, maybe more interference from the Russians. Remember, 80,000 votes in three states decided our fate two years ago. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes — despite the factors listed above, plus media malpractice in overlooking Trump's deep corruption, unfitness for office, and Kremlin meddling.

From where I sit, our lives do depend on at least Democrats winning the House. If Republicans, who are complicit in Trump's corruption and malgovernment, hold all the branches of government, then it's over. I don't see how we come back. It's going to be difficult enough with a hard reactionary Supreme Court thanks to the evil Mitch McConnell (and I don't apply the adjective lightly).

Under continued GOP control, we will not only shirk essential American leadership in addressing human-caused climate change, we will make it worse by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. There's no upper bound to worse, either. This is the greatest existential crisis humanity has faced.

More tax cuts for the wealthy, more cuts to domestic programs, then the big enchiladas: repealing the Affordable Care Act (instead of merely sabotaging it) and coming after Social Security and Medicare. No checks on Trump's power. No accountability for his crimes. Mueller is likely toast. An American Reichstag fire would provide the "president" and his supporters a convenient boost into full-blown authoritarianism. As Paul Krugman points out, Republicans must lie about their intentions because their actual programs are highly unpopular. 

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

Every norm broken by the Trump administration, every norm threatened, brings commentary using the words above. Violating the emoluments clause, firing James Comey, threatening the Mueller investigation, leaning on the Attorney General, nominating a manifestly disqualifying Supreme Court Justice while withholding 100,000 pages on him, etc. Constitutional crisis.

The biggest is that the Republican-controlled Congress will not exercise its duty to hold the executive branch to account. It won't because Republicans are getting all the right-wing goodies (tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks) and they fear Trump's base. Checks and balances? We don't need no stinking checks and balances.

Cynical Ben Franklin is looking down, shaking his head. Leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he was approached by a woman who asked whether we would have a monarchy or a republic. Said Franklin, "A republic, if you can keep it."

In reality, the current Constitutional crisis began on Nov. 6th, 2018, when Trump won the Electoral College thanks to 80,000 votes in three states with the help of a hostile foreign power.

No, it preceded that, with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refusing to grant President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland even a hearing, so the GOP might get the seat (as it did). The sainted John McCain promised he would vote against any nominee of a President Hillary Clinton. This was unprecedented.

Or it began in 2000, when the Supreme Court, with the deciding vote cast by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, made the constitutionally unsound decision to intervene in the presidential election, swinging it to George W. Bush.

The Roman Republic died of a thousand cuts. So it is with the American republic.