November 19, 2024

Disillusion of the Union

I'm going to lay out some thoughts here that I suspect people may argue with. I'm not giving right-wing talking points, this has come from nearly fifty years of watching politics in this country, and while I hope I'm wrong, I don't think I am.

1. We are in a slow motion Civil War (that's about to heat up). If you've ever watch cell meiosis occur, you're seeing the same phenomenon taking place in the body politic. In the 1950s, the two major political parties were pretty balanced -- the Democrats were a little more pro-labor, the Republicans a little more pro-business, but there was enough overlap that both parties could support a left and right wing and a moderate center. Today, on the other hand, the parties are completely polarized. The house is divided, and it's beginning to crumble. People are now moving from or to states on the basis not of work or lifestyle but increasingly of politics, especially as it is becoming easier and easier to work remotely.

2. One consequence of this is that those states which are mostly urban are becoming more "progressive" where as those states with relatively few urban spots are becoming more regressive over time. This was very evident to me in this election, where a comparatively small minority of the population in rural areas ends up having a very disproportionate impact politically because land does vote via gerrymandering.

3. Trump was ... inevitable. What differentiates Trump from almost everyone else is that he does not abide by the rules. He is by definition a criminal, but he's also found that with enough money and intimidation, he can break things with impunity. He's also learned the lesson that all rich people learn if they want to stay rich - you never use your own money. However, Trump is also on his revenge tour. He is going to get his revenge on everyone who he believes has slighted him. In a way, this is probably for the best, because a more dispassionate person would figure out how to lock in power while seemingly satisfying the masses. Trump is going to go in as a wrecking ball, which is what his handlers want, but I think that his various advisors (most notably Bannon and Musk) are going to run afoul of him quickly before he can do all that much damage. This may be about the time that they 25/4 Trump, assuming he doesn't get taken out by a drone that mysteriously happens to penetrate presidential airspace.

4. If neither of these things happen, the next most likely will be that the country is going to rupture into several different regions, probably focused around the major municipalities - New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco and maybe Seattle and Denver. Oddly enough, I don't think it's going to go Red vs. Blue. Why? The problem we face right now is that we are reaching a stage where megapoli, rather than states, are driving political divisions. In Washington State, the top 5 counties account for 68% of the population, and this number is increasing (the state overall is growing, but the metropolitan counties are growing much faster.

Not surprisingly, the West Coast (specifically along the I5 Cooridor) is the home of the Resistance to Trump, along with the Acela line cities (Alexandria, VA to Boston, MA) and Chicago. They will increasingly not recognize the authority of Trump as president, and it is also increasingly likely that Trump will send troops to "pacify" these cities. Where will those troops come from? More than likely the Southeast and Texas. I wouldn't be surprised if they are also "unidentified" (thinking back to Portland) and may end up being a mix of military troops and ICE. At this point, I expect that the governors will call out their national guard units and mobilize police. At that point we are in an undeclared Civil War.

Trump has made it clear that he's going to start purging military ranks with his "review board". If he carries this out, then you will end up seeing O7 and above ranks having to choose between their oath to the constitution and their oath to Trump. Some will choose Trump, some will choose the Constitution with Trump as the duly elected president, some will retire and go home ... where I suspect they will be hired by the various state national guard units.

The question ultimately is going to come down to whether Trump can actually staff up the military, or if he's going to go the route of working with hired contractors (Blackwater, etc., being the most glaringly obvious). I suspect he'll do the latter - it fits in with his overall fear of and disrespective of the military.

This isn't going to be a set-piece war. I think once he goes down that path, the United States as we know it is dead.

Again, I hope I'm wrong. I didn't think it possible that Trump would get back in the White House, though, and I cannot see a scenario where in four years time he will peacefully leave.

November 8, 2024

Is it time to consider a looser union?

I've been thinking about this for a long time. What we have right now is not working - we go from election to election, careening between trying to be a responsible world leader and being an increasingly dangerous and unstable empire.

It's worth noting that Europe does not have a strong central leader, rather deliberately so. It has independent countries, though they tend to form regional blocs. Each bloc tends to establish internal policy, and yes, it goes from conservative to progressive and back, but overall these blocs are stable.

The US has states that act in sort of the same way. Some of those states, such as California, Texas, New York, and Florida, have economies that are as large as some of the largest countries elsewhere (California, for instance, has a higher GDP than India). Others are far smaller (North Dakota is about the same size as Serbia as an example). A nice visual that shows this:

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df75b994c1bf307fe492432/d6186eff-9b1a-42d4-b886-727df3db198c/Map+graphic+template+%28Presentation%29+%2810%29.jpg

One of the problems that we face in the US is that while the economies of each of these states is largely independent (they tend to act in regional blocs), social policies, foreign policy and cultural imperatives are increasingly being dictated from above. As the recent election showed, this can often mean that what is perfectly acceptable and even desired by one state or region (a female president of color, for instance), may be unacceptable by another state or region, and this consequently brings resentment, fear, and conflict between regions with different cultural boundaries. This can have disastrous consequences.

Perhaps it is time for the US to restructure - create four to six autonomous regional blocs, each of which handles its own internal AND foreign policy, maintain its own healthcare, welfare and taxation system, with the federal government then providing common shared services. Each region would have a regional center, ensuring that its member states have the support that they need. The federal structure would then exist primarily to deal with intercontinental issues, to establish common standards and to resolve disputes.

Again, to put this in perspective.When the US was first constituted under Articles of Confederation, this failed, in great part because at the time there was neither the population density nor the wealth necessary to support such a structure. This is why we moved to a federal system in the first place. However, today this is no longer true. Regional blocks (such as the West Coast). have larger populations than the United States did until about 1900.

This is one area where I tend to disagree with most Democrats. I don't think that the Southeast will ever be in agreement with the West Coast or the Northeast on most issues, nor do I think that Texas is suddenly going to go blue or California go red. They are just too culturally different. (I'm not really even sure that Texas and the Mountain States completely see eye to eye with the Southeast, for that matter).

There are several advantages to this - with the US as large as it is, it becomes challenging to create a one-size fits all healthcare system, especially when you have to deal with philosophical differences between fair and free economic theory. The same applies to retirement and basic living subsidies, and the role of religion in society. Moreover, it provides a level of contagion. As it is right now, the President is too powerful, and changing administrations at this level have world-wide ramifications. When you have a good leader and administrator, the country can move mountains, when bad, the same country can level them. By breaking up power, you may end up with different regions aligning with different combatants in a war, but it also means that there will be some support rather than all or nothing (it also cuts down on "adventuring&quot .

Furthermore, I suspect that this process is already underway. People are self-separating, moving out of areas that do not match their particular aspirations and into areas that more closely align. This means that the polarization that we have seen will only become more pronounced over time, not less. This becomes even more the case as the ability for people to work remotely climbs. Over time, this also becomes a referendum of its own, because as the population in a region rises and falls, so too will the economy. Right now, the overarching federal system protects states from their own follies, usually by the states that manage their economies well. In such a system, that safety net goes away.

How do we get here from there? Likely via a Constitutional Convention and from there, a plebiscite of each state and territory. The problem that we face is that we probably should have had such a convention regularly, say every 40 years. I was originally opposed to the idea myself, but given the current situation, I see it as preferable to the alternative, which is living in a totalitarian country ruled by a narcissistic conman.

November 6, 2024

OHIO going BLUE?!!!

Ohio vote tally
28.4% of expected vote

D
Kamala Harris
·
906,171 votes
53.3%
R
Donald Trump
·
783,447 votes
46.0%
L
Chase Oliver
·
6,201 votes
0.4%
Others
·
5,463 votes
0.3%

November 6, 2024

VA and NH tip into blue

I've been using Bing: https://www.bing.com/search?FORM=U504DF&PC=U504&q=election

November 3, 2024

There comes a time, in many entertainer's careers,

where they realize that nobody is coming to the club anymore to see them, no one is going to a movie starring them, they find themselves getting fewer and fewer engagements, until eventually they've had to sell everything they had at the height of their career and are facing ruin and bankruptcy. The smart ones are self-aware enough to bow out gracefully, to find that magic moment where they can go with their reputation intact, with fond memories by their fans. For others, the realization comes far too late. This is the fate of Trump.

For him the tipping point came in November 2020. Had he conceded the election, it's likely that he would have been considered a poor president by the historians, but still idolized by millions. That was the point he could have gone out on a high note, and his post-presidential career would likely have been filled with ample rewards.

However, he didn't. He kept the same schtick going, hoping to regain the crowds, the adulation, the power. Trump has always been a weak man, prey to his own vices, but the single biggest one of those was pride, in his case which metastesized as hubris. After he was defeated, he could not accept that he was no longer considered good enough to lead the country, that he deserved to lead the country, not having learned anything from the last four years.

We have long had a convention in this country, after a president is defeated, that he must meet with his successor in a collegial manner, for them to both clear the air after frequently bruising campaigns and to impart knowledge and wisdom gained from four years in one of the hardest jobs in the world. It's a good custom, because in any election, there can be only one winner, and we hope that the people that we elect our mature enough to recognize that.

It was obvious to me after Trump refused to meet with Biden after he lost that Trump was too immature to ever be president again (It was obvious long before that, but this moment I think defined Trump indelibly). It was also the moment that he could have walked away with his dignity, and likely moved onto the next phases of his life, older but wiser. But he couldn't move on. His hubris had become so dominant that it could not accept that he wasn't perfect. People who believe they are perfect are incapable of learning - they have evolved as far as they ever will, and they would only devolve from there.

For the last four years, we have watched the devolution of Donald J. Trump. We have watched as he became more thuggish, more demeaning, more abrasive and threatening. Gone was the apparent charm and good lucks, in its place was an increasingly decrepit old man who used every artifice possible to appear like he was ageless. No doubt the presidential portrait, tucked away in a spare storage area in the White House, has been becoming more cracked and festering, to the point where even it could not hide his moral degeneration and burst into greasy flames smelling vaguely of McDonald's fries and unchanged depends.

I don't know who will win on Tuesday, though my gut feeling is that Kamala Harris will become our first female president. However, what I can say about Trump is that while he will not go gently into that good night, he will, nonetheless, go.

October 26, 2024

Will RFK, Jr., Sink Trump?

I mailed my ballots here in Seattle last night, and noticed when we got to president that (1) Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were right there at the top (Yay!) but also that (2) RFK Jr. was on the ballot in Washington State. I saw elsewhere that he was frantically trying to get his name off the ballots elsewhere, but that he's being overruled by state supreme courts pretty much unanimously.

This got me to wondering - will RFK, Jr., sink Donald Trump? I think back to all of the Nicki Haley votes that she received AFTER she had dropped out and endorsed Trump. I don't think he's going to take many votes from Kamala Harris - the people who are likely to vote directly for Harris are not going to find RFK an attractive alternative, but there are a fair number of Republicans who cannot bring themselves to vote for a Democrat who may nonetheless not be able to stomach Trump, who they would otherwise pull the lever for holding their nose. I similarly can see independent voters doing the same thing.

He may not account for much - perhaps 2-3% in total, but that could make a huge difference between a tight race and blowout, especially in swing states.

Thoughts?

October 2, 2024

Do Debates Matter? Yes

I was in debate club in high school, though to be honest I wasn't very good at it. This is partially because I was not then, and am not now, a naturally gifted speaker - I hem and haw and um, need to take time to think about answers, and have trouble getting to the point of what I'm trying to say. This is pretty typical of introverts, by the way - we are at our best when we have a chance to reflect and ponder and examine, and these things take time. Extemporaneous speaking doesn't come naturally to most of us as a consequence, and consequently debates are usually tilted towards those characteristics that are more extroverted - confidence, looking good, being charming, sounding authoritative. This is the style component of debates, and by some objective measures, the VP debate was won by Vance on style and presentation.

Debate afficianados often point out that facts matter, and they do, but less than one may think ... especially in an environment where we are literally drowning in facts and the media engages regularly in bothsiderism and false equivalencies. Facts and fact checking by its very nature takes time and research, and by the time you've actually found the facts to support your position, your opponent has sold the keys of the lemon car to the audience, and you can be left having won the debate on technical points but losing out where it really matters.

Abraham Lincoln was a lousy debater, and contrary to belief, he lost his famous debate to Stephen Douglas, who was a much more accomplished orator. Lincoln had the facts on his side, but he was fairly plain, had a somewhat high pitched voice, and even as a lawyer he was not all that successful, because the court of law, when you get right down to it, is debate club writ large.

What debates can do, however, is leave people with impressions, impressions that can often stay with you for weeks or months even after the first bit of rhetoric fades into memory. In the Kennedy/Nixon debate of 1960, the impression that was left was of a confident young Kennedy and a slightly disreputable Nixon, due in part to his five o'clock shadow, a trick of the TV that would set Nixon's presidential ambitions back nearly a decade. More recently, the things that stand out in debates were often subtle, but made a huge difference - the play for domination by Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 (that I believe set the tone for the misogyny to follow), Biden's pallor and and sickness compared to Trump's apparent dynamism (even though Trump didn't even bother making acquaintance with the truth), and Kamala Harris' repeated schooling and confidence in the face of an increasingly flustered and belligerent Trump.

These impressions are important, because they are often subconscious, the tells that get picked up that make people excited or anxious or suspicious. We know that the used car salesman is trying to make the sale, is giving us a lot of bull, because we are picking up those subconscious cues that make us reluctant to engage, even when the salesman sounds so convincing. This was what I saw last night.

What those impressions, that subtext, says about last night's Vice Presidential debate is telling. The descriptions I heard about Vance, even from media praising him, were surprisingly uniform - he was polished, confident, almost even likeable, but he was also described as smarmy, slick, glib. He looked handsome, even if he also gave the impression of being a shade too young. As I said, he got the points for style, yet even independents felt like he was trying to sell them something, and the skepticism was clearly there.

Tim Walz, on the other hand, started out nervously, had trouble articulating his thoughts, paused, hemmed, hawed, and tended to be elliptical in his speaking, because summarizing is difficult when subjects are complex. Walz is not handsome in any normal sense - he looks a lot like a high school football coach or a master sergeant, neither of which are known for their stellar looks. Yet he spoke like a normal Midwestern farmer, not trying to sell so much as explain, to make other people understand their world. He was relatable, and in so doing, he raised some very disturbing questions about his opponent, especially about whether Vance would support Trump in another insurrection attempt, whether he believed that Trump lost in 2020. That was what the debate hinged around, even though it was a very small slice, of the total, and it was Vance looking very uncomfortable when he tried to deflect that I think defined the debate for not only myself but most people.

Tim Walz came out of this looking human and relatable in ways that Vance did not, and because Walz has a very shrewd intelligent brain behind his eyes he also managed the trick of getting Vance to appear like a somewhat recalcitrant student facing a kind but stern teacher, something that no debater wants to be in. Walz was visibly becoming more perplexed about his opponent as the debate wore on, not so much because there was animosity there, but rather because Vance was acting more and more like a problem student that had promise but just couldn't get the lesson. That to me is an invaluable characteristic, because it means that he has managed to harness his anger into something constructive, to help him better figure out how to help shape the people he is interacting with, even when they are political opponents. You want that in a president.

Debates matter because they can often give insights into a person's character that the ten second soundbite usually cannot. In that light, while I don't think Vance didn't gain something from the debate, Tim Walz clearly did, and proved that oftentimes the real value of debates is their ability to help see people in a more expansive light.

September 11, 2024

Heard It At Starbucks

Two guys sitting at a table, one a fairly flashy dresser, the other in sweats. Dialog went roughly like the following:

Dresser: Did you see the debate last night?
Sweats: Yeah, I did.
Dresser: I'll tell you this. Sam Reed (former Republican Sec State for Washington State) is a friend of mine. I sent him an email this morning saying that we either support Kamala Harris or we explicitly don't support Trump. He was ... that was just embarrassing. The guy was unhinged. What the heck was that eating pet thing all about? Huh?"
Sweats: Yeah, definitely.

TFG may have lost everyone but the most committed MAGAs at this point.

September 11, 2024

Anyone following Freeper or X?

I'm having too much fun watching this, but wondering if anyone's seeing how the MAGAts are reacting?

September 3, 2024

I've posted a new Democratic Policy GPT for 2024

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-QOnDK05gf-democratic-party-policy-2024-gpt

It's fed from the policy statement PDF produced by the DNC during the convention. I will update it as more information becomes available. You can explore policy options or just ask questions of the document.