The candidates in three words each...

Clinton – knowledgeable, hard-working, tough. 

Trump – ignorant, lazy, childish. 

It’s not about the politics; it’s about the person this year.  

I hope that even my conservative friends are able to see that Trump has lived his entire life in a money protected bubble, and he is still a nine year old trust fund boy who has no connection with responsibility, knowledge, or reality.  When he is denounced by almost every experienced and respected conservative and military and foreign policy notable (radio and Fox News personalities do not count) it is time to realize that he not only is not a conservative, not only is not a Republican, not only is not part of their movement in any way, but indeed is a danger to conservatism, a danger to the Republican Party, a danger to America, a danger to the world, and a danger to the very concept of democracy itself.  

I think Hilary will be a fine president, a flawed person, but not nuts.  The few lies that Clinton tells are understandable in the context of politics. 

Trump doesn’t lie, he bullshits, which means he has no connection to the truth, he doesn’t know the truth, he just makes shit up to get through the moment or to excite the crowds. 

Hilary is tough as nails and has proven that for decades. 

Trump is a weakling who feels he “has no choice” but to attack when criticized, and who will kiss the shoes of anyone who compliments him – Putin is the most dangerous example.   

I know it is almost impossible for a conservative to vote against the officially nominated Republican candidate, but I pray that the glaring unsuitability of this candidate can convince my conservative friends that losing the next four years of the presidency is preferable to the extraordinary dangers that the next four years of this child in the office would mean to all of us.

The Republican Party after Trump

I think there are two things that are obvious.  First, Donald Trump will not win the presidency of the United States of America.  And second, Trump is not a Republican.  So the question is - what do the Republicans do after Trump?

I think they need to learn two things. First, that the Republican voters (all voters, actually) no longer believe in Conservative Dogma.  And second, that the primary system that produced such an abomination at the head of their party needs a radical overhaul.

Regarding dogma.  Trump doesn't actually have an ideology.  I think all he did is listen to talk radio, Fox News, and hideous alt right media like Breitbart and Infowars to find out what were the hot issues that would attract votes from those who were locked into those "news" sources.  I don't think he either cared about or knew how extreme some of those sources were, and how extreme some of those followers were.  He got the fringe, and it is a shock to me that the "fringe" was so widespread amongst Republican Primary voters.  Probably surprised him as well.  I don't think he ever wanted to be president, I think he just wanted attention and a burnishing of his Brand, and a way to increase his revenue by getting a really good contract for his TV shows.

When Trump talks to crowds he becomes mesmerized by their reactions to him, and their reactions escalate the more extreme he becomes, so it becomes a sickening downward spiral into the darkest corners of the body politic - racism, hatred, revenge, violence, threats, any and all toxins that enters his brain in the moment that will generate what he really needs most desperately - attention and worship.

So, what can the Republican Party learn from Trump's triumph in the primaries?  That very few conservatives care at all about ossified Conservative Dogmas.  There were very qualified and articulate candidates representing the old hit tunes in the Republican jukebox - evangelical social conservative greatest hits, libertarian shrink the government golden oldies, send-our-children-to-war-military-aggression-to-show-what-majestic-leaders-we-are Great American Standards.  The voters didn't care. 

The old dogmas of the Right are obsolete.  They don't address actual problems of today's realities.  The forgotten aging white middle and lower middle classes know that the old conservative horses are worn out and ready to be put out to pasture.  The idea of lowering taxes, shrinking the government, pushing fundamentalist Christian social obsessions, and scaring the crap out of the world does nothing for them or the country.  They have stopped buying the dogmas that made sense during Reagan's time, but have run their course and need to be put out to pasture today.

So, what I expect the Republican Party to do is to ignore this message and decide that the problem was that Trump wasn't a true Republican, and the Evangelicals and the Shrink-the-Governmentalists, and the Lower the Taxes on the "Makers" and lower the assistance to the "Takers" folks will all fight like crazy to take on the mantle of True Conservatism and they think they will sweep the "Conservative Movement" into its rightful place in charge of the country and the world. 

But they will fail because each of those ideologies has failed, and the Republican voters have already said that loud and clear when they voted for Trump.

What the Republican Party should do is to rethink their ideology.  Let go of their dogmas.  This is a very painful process; I know, I have done it myself.  It hurts to let go of the comforting cocoon of knowing the answers to all problems - to let go of the certainty that dogma provides - and step into the terrors of uncertainty and not knowing.

What doesn't work? Lowering taxes on the wealthy and deregulating business and industry.  That does not unleash the mighty powers of the free market economy. It enriches the wealthy, harms the environment and the workers, lowers the standard of living of the Middle Classes, and drives many in the Middle Classes into the Lower Classes.  

What doesn't work?  Enforcing Evangelical morality on the country. This does not call upon God to favor the United States with His Blessings of prosperity; it violates the first amendment that guarantees not only freedom of Religion but freedom from Religion.

What doesn't work? Shrinking the safety nets of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the various governmental assistances to the poor.  These programs do not make people dependent, they help people take charge of their lives.

The Trump Primaries voters have said that endless wars in the Middle East, endless shrinking of public assistance and training, endless shrinking of the government only makes sense to wealthy and upper middle class right wing ideologues, not to real people with real problems.

So, will new leadership arise amongst conservatism to address the real world rather than try to resurrect Reaganism, or Fallwellism, or Ayn Randism?  To tell you the truth, I doubt it.  At least not in four years.  Maybe in eight though.

As to how to change the Primaries season to avoid the catastrophic results of future Trumps?  Take power away from the South (and their racism).  Have some kind of rotating schedule of states spread out over half a dozen to a dozen dates.  Don't have the same grouping of states in the same order every four years.  Have Super Delegates that can be a counterweight to populist charlatans.  I expect a lot of very smart people are trying figure out how to change the nominating process to produce sane, qualified candidates that represent all of the country.

Trump is more than a whisper that the system is failing, it is a earthquake announcing that the ground has shifted and old systems have failed.

Trump tries to pretend he wasn't asking second amendment people to shoot Hillary

I am so tired of writing about Donald Trump.  He sickens me.  Yesterday he called for his "second amendment" followers to shoot Hillary Clinton. I know, we're just supposed to write this off as another dumb thing that the out of control bloviator said, just another day of grabbing the headlines. Later he is being forced to say that he was just talking about the second amendment people going to the polls.  We're supposed to pretend that he didn't really mean it.  But I'm not so sure I am wiling to give him a pass.

This man calls his political opponent a criminal.  His convention, and his rallies, repeatedly shout "Lock her up!"  Are we to pretend he doesn't mean it?

This man has promised to be a war criminal by killing the families of terrorists and by torturing prisoners of war. Are we to pretend he didn't really mean it?

This man has promised to change the libel laws to that he can sue media that criticizes him.  Are we to pretend he didn't really mean it?

Promising to violate the first amendment, be a war criminal, lock up or shoot your opponent is what this man has done.  This is beyond sickening.  It is a moral imperative to oppose this un-American "man" as president of the United States of America.  He is no longer just an embarrassment to America.  He is promising and encouraging criminality.

Am I over-reacting? I'm not so sure.

His actual quote is, in his inimitable ungrammatical sentence fragments: 

 "Hillary wants to abolish, to essentially abolish, the second amendment.  By the way if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks, although the second amendment people maybe there is I don't know, but I tell you that would be a horrible day..."

So, it is clear by the last part of that quote - "... that would be a horrible day..." that what he is talking about is assassination of his political opponent, otherwise what would be horrible about that day?  if it were a day where "second amendment people" voted for Trump and Hillary lost, would that be what Trump means by a horrible day?  Of course not.  He is talking about using guns to go after Hillary.  

Is this just another example of Trump saying whatever fractional thought is in his brain?  Or is this something he has planned? I'm not sure which is worse, a candidate advocating the incarceration or assassination of his political opponent, or a candidate whose impulsiveness is so out of control that he has no ability to give a second's thought to what comes out of his mouth.  Which is worse?

I believe it is a moral imperative to oppose this man who has clearly promised to disregard all human decency, all moral restraints, and the constitution itself.

Trump supporters, Trump, and Hillary

Trump is a mess.  As a friend of mine wrote early on, Trump isn’t a political problem, he is a human problem.  My Republican friends are in a tough spot.  Some of them think they have to vote for him because he is a “Republican” and he isn’t Hillary.  But he is not a Republican - he is an unstable child.

Trump voters are in a mess.  The best thing about the Trump vote is the elevation of the of the Trump voters into the national consciousness.  They are the poor whites who have been left behind by the Free Market forces of globalization.  These folks are no longer seduced by the normal Republican theology of cutting taxes for the rich and deregulation as a way of creating jobs for them.  It doesn’t. It creates great wealth for the upper classes but they get very few crumbs.  Trump voters deserve better than Trump.  All he did was listen to talk radio and Fox News to find out which hot buttons to push to get their support, but he is in way over his head and he doesn’t have a clue, and doesn’t even think he needs to learn anything. 

Trump supporters need both parties to pay attention to them, their pain, and their despair.

Since a substantial percentage of them are of the Appalachian honor society mindset – Scotch-Irish honor driven personalities – they don’t want handouts.  They want work and the honor that comes with honest labor and careers. They don’t see the “elite”, educated experts in both parties, as creating jobs for them. 

Welcome to the Great Recession, and its fallout.  FDR and the Democrats responded to the Great Depression by creating jobs for those devastated by the Depression.  They were government programs, make work programs, much of which provided lasting benefit to the country, from bridges to dams to power plants.  It gave people work, not handouts.  The beneficiaries received pride rather than shame. 

We need the modern equivalent of FDR’s jobs programs today.  Government jobs programs aren’t the answer, but what is?

Well, it turns out Hillary has a plan.  Of course she does.  Hillary always has plans.  Unlike Trump, she is not a walking, talking bumper sticker; she has dedicated her life to thinking about, creating, and managing actual government programs and departments.  

Whoa! say my Republican friends, Government programs?  Saint Reagan said Government is not the solution, government is the problem, so how can a government program solve any problem?  Well, by focusing on the goal rather than the process.

The goal is to lift the middle class - the Trump voters - by creating jobs, work, careers, lives.  You don’t have to have Government paid works programs, you can have a public-private partnerships to create jobs.  It is her infrastructure plan that includes creating an infrastructure bank to finance, public goals, public leadership in dealing with regulatory issues, etc. that finances private industry to build infrastructure.  It is detailed.  It is thought through.  It is smart.  It will work.

It is so good that even the guy who thinks about nothing (except how admired he is), the guy who knows nothing (except what the polls say and how much money he has) decided to offer the same thing, without any detail of course, only better, he wants to double the size of the bank.  What a creative guy!!

Underneath it all is a massive economic change in the world. 

Communism collapsed as a total failure 25 years ago.  What the forgotten white Americans may be shouting at us now is that unfettered Free Market capitalism is a failure too.  They are living proof. They are dying proof, as a matter of fact, as terrible drug addiction and suicides become part of their story. 

Both parties need to face up to the plight of the abandoned working classes, and face up to the collapse of obsolete capitalist dogma and create new models of how to grow the economy, how to grow the middle classes, how to once again create America as a Shining Light Upon the Hill.  

The world needs America’s leadership.  Not the stupid brute force of an authoritarian despot, but the brilliant ideas of a creative economy.  It can’t be Communist because Communism is a brutal failure – for the people.  It can’t be Unfettered Free Market Capitalism because it is also a brutal failure – for the people.

It is time for the Reps to give up their dogmas.  So say the Trump voter. It is time for the Dems to reach out to the powers of private enterprise.  Seems to me that is what Hillary is doing.

Donald Trump is a holographic projection of the caricature of the Ugly American

I've finally figured out what Donald Trump is - he's a holographic projection of the caricature of the Ugly American that the rest of the world holds of us. Crude, loud, crass, boorish, insensitive, mean spirited, uncaring, proudly ignorant, greedy, obsessed with money and status, and unknowingly stupid.  He is the manifestation of all that is disgusting about Americans as seen in Europe and the rest of the world.

We aren't like that, really world, we aren't like that. Really.  

Well, maybe a little, but we'll mend our ways, honest we will.  Now that we can see it so graphically.  

Sorry.

Hillary issues a call to our better selves

The Democratic Convention spent three days presenting a positive message of America, of themselves, and of the future.  This was a clear contrast to the dark, paranoid vision presented by Trump's Republican Convention.  The Dems had inspiring speeches by top Democratic politicians, notable civilians, and a former and present president.  The Trump convention was notable for an absence of Republican notables and politicians.  

Hillary capped it off with a determined, workwomanlike, display of competence, knowledge, and caring. It was a sharp contrast to the dystopian harangue of the Reps.  

Hillary's main point is her deep knowledge and a lifelong engagement in the issues both domestic and foreign. She and her party spoke to their commitment to national security, and her primary message was one of caring and compassion.  This is the natural home of the Democratic Party - caring.

Her message is that she, and her party, have a lifelong commitment to making people's lives better.  That people are not on their own in a cruel world, but rather we can all create better lives by working together, by helping each other, by caring about and for each other.  She contrasts that with Mr Trump who offers only tweets and bumper sticker slogans - a man without a clue, and a man without a plan.


Hillary, on the other hand, is full of plans.  She could lay them out for 24 straight hours.  She laid out a bunch of them in her acceptance speech.  That doesn't end up with a big bumper sticker moment to remember her speech by, but the point is still important.  Hillary's message is that it takes more than bumper stickers, it takes hard work, caring, compassion, toughness, determination.  Her message is her life of service and determination.  Her message is that she will work her tail off and get things done to help and protect the American people.  She doesn't have soaring rhetoric, she has a lifetime of service and engagement in all aspects of government.


She promised to be a knowledgeable workhorse. Underneath it all is her main message - I am not a flibberty gibbet, and I am not crazy.  Which is her real distinction from Donald Trump.

Don't brief Donald Trimp on security issues after the conventions!

Donald Trump has shown, repeatedly and in many ways, that he can't be trusted to keep his big mouth shut.  His only motivation is the spotlight.  He will do and say remarkably harmful things with no thought to the consequences.  Today, he stepped into the land of traitorous felony by directly asking Putin and Russia to hack Hillary's 30,000 missing emails.  He is asking a hostile foreign power to hack an American presidential candidate's account. What?  It's hard to be astonished at this childish man's utterances, but this is truly astonishing to me.

His motivation is pretty standard, people weren't paying attention to him.  So, he did what he always does, he created an egregiously shocking and inappropriate headline.  He is no longer acting like a nine year old, he has descended to the level of a "terrible two" having a fit to get attention.

OK. So, isn't that just Donald being Donald?  Yes.  That is THE problem. Donald being Donald is a terrible thing if he is the nominee of the Republican Party.  

The tradition is that each candidate is given a top level security briefing after the conventions.  In this case I urge that Donald Trump not be given that briefing. This child has no impulse control. He will very, very likely spill top secret strategy or info at the spur of the moment with no thought that it is something he shouldn't do.  Spoiled children don't consider consequences, they just do what they want right now for their very self centered reasons.

He has only one motivation - whatever helps Donald Trump, whatever has people notice him. If it gets him a one day headline, he will do it.  If it gives him a way to attack someone who he feels offended him, he will do it.  If he is just bored and wants some attention, he will do it.  He could, and does, say anything. 

Don't tell him real secrets.  He will not be able to keep his big mouth shut.

America is better than Donald Trump

OK, so Donald Trump took advantage of a deeply flawed Primary System that political parties use to nominate their candidates and used his media skills to sweep into the Republican nomination.  So what? America is better than Donald Trump.

This is a land of dreams, of opportunity, of cooperation and community, caring and innovation.  This is a country that stands tall in the world as a beacon of freedom, a land of vision, character, vitality, and dignity (to borrow an idea from a dear friend). 

The United States of America is not a banana republic that elects a thug who promises to imprisons his political opponent upon victory.

I understand that a significant group of people in America feel hopeless and afraid.  This is not a country that elects authoritarian dictators.  This is not a country that elects a child with a limited attention span who calls out the worst in it's people.  This is still a land of hope, a land of dreams.  

We will not be sucked down into the dark vortex of the fears pounded into some of us day after day by the likes of extremist talk radio, right wing television, ridiculous conspiracy mongering, and promises of a violent authoritarian government that is going to come to the rescue of the frightened.

America is better than Donald Trump, and it is time for America to speak against his dystopian blatherings.

The Republican Voters Over-rule the Republican Party and Nominate Trump for President

So the amazing inevitable has happened and the Republican voters over-ruled the Republican Party and nominated Donald Trump to be the Republican candidate for president of the United States.  Whew!

First, some good things about this.

2016 has been the year that an overlooked and forgotten minority has raised its voice in a crude shout – what about us?!?.  The theme “Make America Great Again” speaks to the lives of these people.  For many people, America is NOT great.  For many people, the America they believed in is gone and they are scared and angry.  These folks are the aging, white middle and lower middle classes who have lost their jobs and their lives to globalization, de-industrialization, and the Great Recession. Trump blamed immigrants, Bernie blamed Wall Street, and both messages attracted a lot of votes.  Trump’s was more successful than Bernie’s and Trump won his nomination. 

I forgot where I read it, but someone noted that Trump respects his voters.  He “respects” them by paying attention to them, by not criticizing the way they talk or behave, by being overtly “politically incorrect” (largely racist and misogynist),  by speaking as crudely and simply as possible in a language that attracts and arouses the dispossessed.  He speaks for them and they think the will help them.  ??  Why they think he will help them is never illuminated, it is enough just to be a vessel for their outraged voices of protest.

The second good thing to come from the Trump triumph is the shattering of the obsolete, rigid, unworkable conservative ideologies that the purists have enforced upon the Republican Party ever since Reagan had been turned into to a demi-god.  The Republican field has a plethora of true believer dogmatists running and they all got creamed.  The fundamentalist Christian social conservatives, the Libertarians, the budget scolds – all got creamed. The Republican voters are not loyal to the ossified ideologies, they could care less, and  they proved it in 2016.

Now for some bad things about a Trump candidacy.

He is a child.  He has no impulse control.  He continually says “he has no choice” when he attacks someone who he feels has wronged him.  I do not want a Commander in Chief with nukes at his disposal to be someone who thinks “he has no choice” if his manhood is challenged.

ISIS wants the United States to be drawn into their attempt to establish a Middle Eastern Caliphate, and Trump is the most likely to rise to the bait.  ISIS, and al Qaeda, and the rest of the extremists, know that the way to explode recruitment for their fanatical religious cause is to have the West, and especially the U.S. attack them.  Then, real hell breaks out.

He is not only ignorant, but he has no desire to become informed.  He has a delusional ego based notion that he can walk into a situation and intuitively and instantaneously and miraculously find the genius solution to any problem.  This is pathologically delusional, I am afraid.  And unbelievably dangerous for us all.

He is unconstitutional.  One of the things he is remarkably uninformed about is the Constitution and the nature of the Federal Government.  He thinks he can change libel laws so he can imprison media that are critical of him. That is a violation of the First Amendment.  He thinks he can keep Muslims out of the country based upon their religious beliefs.  Another violation of the first amendment.  He has promised to torture prisoners - an actual promise to be a war criminal.  And he has no idea how bad these ideas are, he just sees himself as bravely uttering common sense “politically incorrect” declarations.  Astonishing.

Worst of all, he doesn’t understand democracy.  He promises to imprison his political opponent, Hillary Clinton.  That is not how democracies work.  The heart of democracy is peaceful transfer of power.  His more rabid followers call for her death by firing squad or hanging – and he doesn’t slap them down.  Hard to believe.

Donald Trump  is campaigning as a tough guy, an authoritarian.  It is natural for a country frightened of terrorists to turn to authoritarian rule.  He might be authoritarian, but I am pretty sure he would also be stupid. He has already disavowed our alliance with NATO, and he has supported a nuclear Japan and South Korea.  America First (says Trump, his rabid followers, and the pro-Nazi movement of the 1930s). His lack of knowledge leads him to remarkably bad ideas.  And he thinks this makes him brave rather than tragically wrong.

It would be hard for me to imagine that he would use the power of the military in anything resembling a judicious, thoughtful, way.

Donald Trump is a danger to the United States and to the world.  The voters who are attracted to him, those who have been left behind in a country that no longer has jobs for them, deserve someone much, much better than him to give them the respect and dignity that they need.  

They have chosen a pretender.

Three crimes, three tragedies, maybe one problem - the War on Drugs?

America has had a bad three days after our Independence Day celebration.  

Two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, were killed by police in what appeared to be criminal acts.  This was followed by a sniper killing five police officers  and wounding seven others who were guarding a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, TX. Terrible bloodshed.  Hate crimes in all likelihood in all cases.  I know we are supposed to wait for the investigations of the killings by police before we "rush to judgement", and indeed they may end up not being charged for the killings, but there is no doubt that the black community sees these as typical examples of what is racially motivated killings of young black men in their communities.

There is no excuse for any of the three killing incidents.  The sniper was the worst by far since it was a premeditated hate crime. The officer shootings were likely fueled by fear and perhaps racism. But what is going on?

My African American friends will say, at least amongst themselves, that the killings by the police is part of a very long history of racist oppression that has not stopped up until this day.

My conservative white friends will say, at least amongst themselves, that the police live in an extraordinarily dangerous world where they put their lives at risk every day.

Both are true, it seems to me.  I think there is one underlying issue, and I'm not just talking about racism.

There are parts of our cities that are war zones.  The people in the war zones are fighting life or death battles every day.  Because of our War On Drugs initiated by the Republican President, Richard Nixon, inner city blacks and browns live in the war zones of that war. Combatants get killed. Mass imprisonment is part of the war.  There is collateral damage of innocents. Maybe it's time to call off the war.

Most people who live in these drug war zones are not part of the war, they are civilians caught in the crossfire.  There are terrifying drug gangs, who are the warriors on one side of the war, and there are the police who are on the other side of this war.

Why not end the Drug War?  Some countries are trying this with some degree success, I believe - the Czech Republic, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal... I don't think there is an easy solution, it needs to be thought out and experimented with and smartly applied.  I don't have a great plan, but the way things continue to go in the inner city war zones is just not sustainable.

I would like to see some political leadership nationwide on this, and that means, to me, calling off the War on Drugs and to start dealing with drug addiction as a disease to be handled as a medical issue with assistance in rehabilitation rather than incarceration.

Did Britain just decide to become England?

Britain just voted to leave the European Union – Brexit passed 52-48.  This is not an issue that I have studied so I don’t really have an informed opinion, but I do want to mark what I think is probably a pretty important event with at least some random thoughts and wonderings.

It appears that Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales now are all talking about breaking from Britain because they don’t want to leave the European Union.  Did Britain just vote to become England?

Leaving the European Union might also unravel the European Union.  It is fine to have a common market, but a common currency, and bureaucratic control from Brussels without a common, united government seems to have stopped working around September 15, 2008 when Lehman Brothers in the United States declared bankruptcy and the entire world economy nearly collapsed, hitting the European Union particularly hard.

This is a big step in the general unravelling of the world, or at least the unravelling of many of the existing structures of the world.  I never really understood the European Union – how did such completely different peoples decide that they had a common identity?  After centuries of disastrous wars?  In order to prevent future disastrous wars, of course, was the objective, but the old WWII folks are mostly dead now, and newer generations might have to learn those old terrible lessons all over again?  I certainly hope not.

On the surface it looks like the biggest cause of the Brexit is saying NO to forced immigration policies onto England by Brussels.  I think there are a number of right wing movements in the rest of Europe pushing back very hard on the acceptance of immigrants from the exploding Middle East.  (thank you Osama bin Laden for leading these attacks, and thank you George W Bush for taking bin Laden’s bait and invading Iraq (that’s a bit of sarcasm just in case I was confusing)).

It’s all reactionary.  I think it starts with WWI, goes to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, goes to Colonialism and Imperialism of the Middle East, goes to supporting despotic Middle Eastern regimes by the West (just send us the oil and stop Communism), goes to terrorism to drive out the “infidels”, goes to chaotic realignments in the Middle East, goes to massive immigration into the West out of the Middle Eastern slaughters, goes to xenophobic and nationalistic reaction against the immigrants out of fear of terrorism and out of fear of dilution of existing nationalistic boundaries and identities, goes to Brexit…

Where to next? Britain First!  America First? (Trump?  dear Lord please no ) France first? Sweden first? etc etc etc?

I think it is a natural response for people to pull into themselves when things are in chaos and they feel threatened.  But I don’t think it is necessarily wise.  

ISIS claims responsibility for the Orlando slaugher

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the slaughter of innocents in Orlando last night where 50 were killed and another 52 were injured in a gay night club.  This is an unthinkable level of depravity and carnage.  

How is it possible for anybody to buy a weapon that can mow down over 100 people?  As far as I'm concerned it needs to be illegal to sell any weapon capable of firing more than 10 shots.  

Beyond that, how is it possible that someone who is on an FBI terrorist watch list to buy an assault weapon?  Must the weapons lobby, the NRA, insist on selling anything to anyone just as long as it gets its money?

My heart goes out to the killed and wounded and all those who love them or loved them.  This is just too much pain to have to live with.

Apparently, the fascist wing of Islam, the Islamofascists, think that they are justified by their holy texts to kill gay people.  What a stupid idea.  It's just bigotry and fear of homosexuality dressed up in religious robes.  I am convinced that those who are violently against gays are afraid that they actually have gay tendencies and are violently opposed to gay urges in themselves.  They manifest that fear by acting out dogmatically and violently against gays.  They are manifesting their own fears, and quite frankly revealing their own attractions to same sex people which is something they cannot come to terms with in themselves.

I believe that ISIS wants to have a say in this year's presidential election. They have been trying to bait the U.S. into a massive ground war in the Middle East because they believe it is written in their holy scripts that the Armageddon is coming and is necessary for the establishment of their caliphate where strict Islamic rule is the rule of the land.  They see this as required by their God.  So far, Obama has done a good job of not taking the bait and keeping the U.S. out of the religious civil wars in the Middle East (at least as much as possible)

I have expected atrocious attacks during this election cycle because I believe they want our presidential candidates to take the bait and promise to send massive troops to the Middle East.  It's bait.  It's a trap.  

We should treat this as terrorism, not as an existential war.  So far, Obama is doing that.  Will Trump? How about Hillary?  I think Trump will see this as his ticket to the White House because the only people he pays any attention to are the Right Wing radicals on the radio and Fox News.  And I presume that there will not be any call for thoughtful response in those quarters. 

I would love to be wrong about this.

The problem with gerrymandering and with the primary elections process

Two of the biggest political problems, in my opinion, are gerrymandering and the current primary election system.

Gerrymandering is where the party in power in a state draws the lines of voting districts.  They do this in a way that will most benefit their own party for elections over the next ten years.  As has been said by others, it changes the whole idea of democracy.  Rather than having the voters choose their politicians, the politicians choose their voters.  And we end up with an unrepresentative democracy.  In 2014 Republican House members in total received 51.2% of all the votes cast nationwide, yet they got 56.8% of the House seats on D.C.  That is not what the Founders had in mind.

Solution? Eliminate gerrymandering by having independent, non-partisan committees draw voting lines in each state, legislated by Federal law.  Or better yet, have a mathematical formula based on geography and population applied to each state so there is no human bias possible in the drawing of the voting districts. Probably a complicated math problem but should be solvable.

The second big problem is what we are seeing in these 2016 elections – the primary voting system being used by both parties to choose a nominee for president. 

The biggest distortion is that the voters who turn out in primary elections are more politically committed, and more ideologically extreme than the general voting public.  So, we get extremists nominated who do better in primaries than they would in a nationwide general election. 

Also, there is a set order, established by tradition, that puts some states at the beginning of the cycle and others at the end.  So, Iowa farmers have an outsized influence on who survives the primary gauntlet.  And South Carolina too, with it’s strange effect of having lots of African Americans voting in the Dem primary, and white not so unbiased whites voting in the Rep primary.  And then California ends up at the tail end despite being the largest state by far.

Primary elections were not handed down from the Founders of America.  They have only been around for about fifty years, and the flaws are becoming more and more apparent.  What to replace them with?  There was something to be said about the old smoke filled room party leaders that chose who would represent their party.  They were a vetting system.  They were natural suppressors of extremist nut jobs.  They were a force for stability.  Turning the selection over to the voters opens up the parties to change, and that is good, but it also opens the doors to extremists and populists, and in this year of Trump it opens up the Republican Party to a populist demagogue who threatens to be an authoritarian despot.  Not good.

My suggestion would be to keep the primary system, but moderate its effect in two ways. 

First, have the order of primary states be on a rotation basis based upon random distribution – with a mix of large population states and small population states having their primaries every two or three weeks in groups of about five or ten until the cycle is complete.

Second, have the total number of delegates selected by the primary voters be only half of the delegates who go to the conventions, where the real election to nominate each party’s candidate happens.  The other half would be professional elected politicians, men and women who have already succeeded in winning their positions at the voting booth.  These folks would be the governors, attorney generals, the state legislators, the city mayors, etc.  The math would have to be worked out and guidelines set as to their qualifications to attend the conventions, but that should be doable.

That way, a populist or ideological extremist would have substantial mitigating forces of professional politicians that would either support or not support him or her.  And at the same time, corrupt or intemperate or unethical candidates would have those who knew them behind the scenes there to stop them as well.  Also, a traditional candidate would have these same elected politicians who might be part of a movement or populist sentiment there to push back against them. 

So I think we need some balance in our electoral system.  End the corrupt, undemocratic gerrymandering.  And balance the popular vote which is now overly influenced by extremist ideologically committed voters and those vulnerable to populist frenzies with professional already elected politicians in each state.  Checks and balances.  We need them, I believe.  A Trump nomination is wake up call for both parties and for the nation.

Where does Trump fit on the Republican continuum?

Now that Trump has locked up  the Republican nomination for president, who is he really?  Where does he fit on the Republican or conservative continuum?

Many Republicans and conservatives are starting to try to see Trump as a kind of normal Republican politician, one that competed in Republican primaries and beat out the competition, and thus one who is deserving of some kind of respect and support.  They are twisting themselves into pretzels to do this, but I wonder if it makes any sense

Where on the Republican continuum is Trump?  Evangelical social conservative? - well, no.  Libertarian minimal government intrusion conservative? - umh, no.  Shrink the government and starve it into non-existence? - I don't think so.  Lower taxes and deregulate industry guy? - not really.  Where does he land on a continuum from Reagan to Rockefeller, from Goldwater to Huckabee, from Gingrich to H W Bush?  I don't think he even shows up on the screen.

I think Trump isn't on a conservative or Republican continuum at all.  I think he is on an authoritarian continuum.  His signature popular attraction is his threatening nature.  His threats against Mexicans.  His threats against Muslims. His threats against immigrants.  His threats against journalists.  His threats against his political opponents.  His threats against those who sue him for business fraud and betrayal.  His threats against judges ruling on lawsuits against him.  His threats against... and .... and .... forever and ever and ever.

He is not on the continuum that includes Republican politicians like Reagan or the Bushes or the candidates he defeated in the Republican primaries.  

He is on the continuum of authoritarians, like Putin, Kim Jong-un, Chavez, Castro, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Assad, Peron, Pinochet, Franco, etc. etc. This is a man who thinks he has no choice but to attack when his manhood is questioned.  This is a man (overgrown child actually) who would threaten, attack, damage, and harm his political critics inside the country, and, worse yet, do the same in the world - and he would have nuclear weapons at his disposal.  This is a man about whom former CIA director Michael Hayden said military leaders would have to disobey orders that Trump has threatened.

The Republican primary voters have not voted for a Republican to lead their party, they have voted for an authoritarian to destroy those that they hate.  They are somehow mistakenly thinking that this dictator in waiting will only attack others.  But no one will be safe, and certainly not Trump supporters.  We all are at risk.

The U.S. has never had an authoritarian dictator.  We are naive.  We think we are immune to such things.  Republican primary voters have shown us that we are not immune, but rather we are in danger of being buried under a tyrant.  It can  happen here.

Unless we vote against it happening, which I firmly believe we will.

A sad day in America

By winning the primary election in Indiana, Donald Trump has locked up the Republican nomination.  Ted Cruz and John Kasich have both dropped out of the race.  The dream of a contested election with an ultimate defeat of Trump is gone.  This is a very sad day in America.

The Republican voters have chosen. They have chosen a childish, bullshitting ignoramus to be their nominee.  This is an astounding event.  

I can understand that there is a voice in the Republican Party that has needed to be heard, and they have been heard very loudly and very clearly.  That is the voice of those who have felt for a long time that nobody listened to them or cared about them - the ever more disempowered older white men.  They have seen their jobs disappear; they have seen their life styles mocked and ridiculed; they have been told that their attitudes about women, other races, and other sexual orientations are vile (softened in their minds to the phrase "politically incorrect").  They have said they are as mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.  

So they nominated Trump, who will not be able to do anything about any of their grievances, but that is beside the point to them, I guess, because they think that at least they will have a president that understands them and will fight, fight, fight for them.

This is the formula for tyranny, dictatorship, oppression, chaos and violence in America and in the world.

A couple of interesting and positive notes, however.  The Republican base seems to have spoken out that they don't passively accept a couple of Conservative Holy Creeds - first that tax breaks for the wealthy will create jobs for the middle class, and second that the invasion of Iraq and endless war in the Middle East is a good way to spend the lives of American men and women.  Trump has exploded some of the conservative ideology by showing that the actual conservative voters could care less about those sacred conservative ideological cows.  

But, but, but... a Trump presidency is terrifying to me, to many Americans, and certainly to the world.  The rest of the world has seen this play before.  They know what an out of control, childish, authoritarian ruler means - it means oppression, it means crushing of the press, it means crushing of political opposition, it means political imprisonment, it means torture, it means the complete annihilation of human freedoms and human dignity.  

Do I exaggerate the authoritarian nature of Trump?  I hope so, but I don't think so.  

My biggest fear is that there is another voice that will speak in this election - the voice of radical Islam - ISIS, al Qaeda.  They want a massive war in the Middle East.  They will continue to bait America into that massive war.  They have a deep religious belief in the end times, and the trigger to the end times is apocalyptic confrontation between their radical version of Islam and the infidels.  They think Allah wills it, they think they will win with Divine assistance.

I expect at least one terrifying attack by the radical jihadists shortly before the election.  Their purpose will be to manipulate the voters into voting for the "strong man" Donald Trump who will promise to wage all out war in retaliation for the atrocity of their barbarisms.

And then we would have a president who would feel he would have no choice but to crush them, just like he felt he had no choice when Marco Rubio intemperately implied that Trump's genitals didn't "measure up."  Trump feels he "has no choice" but to attack when attacked.  

He attacks.  We die.  Lots of people die.  If he is president.  He is a child.  He has no impulse control.  He would have nukes at his disposal.  I do not exaggerate the threat he presents to the country and to the world.

Yesterday was a sad day. 

Trump whines that the nominating process is rigged

Donald Trump has whined that the nomination process is "rigged."  Poor baby. Trump doesn't bother with details about ... anything. His preposterous claims about what he will do as president are never backed up with any real substance. He is good at one thing only: promoting himself, getting "ratings" for himself. 

Details? Campaign rules in different states? How delegates are actually selected?  How someone wins the actual election to represent the Republican Party at the convention? What does he care? He thinks that all he has to do is show up, make simple and outrageous statements, bluster, prance about, intimidate and move on to the next photo op.

Isn't negotiating about knowing the issues? knowing the rules? knowing the people? Isn't deal making about dealing with ... people?  knowing the people? knowing what makes them tick? knowing who stands for what? taking time, doing research, having an advantage over your competition by knowing more about the people and what is important to them than the competition?

Donald Trump is proving that he is a terrible negotiator, is a terrible deal maker in this most important issue in his campaign so far - how to win delegates to win the nomination of the Republican Party.  He literally had no idea, or at least thought there was no need to bother to inform himself about how the convention itself works. 

So, he blows it off, and is caught by surprise by others who actually dig into things and figure things out and operate on actual knowledge and deal with actual people to negotiate, make deals, to work the rules and ... win?

Donald Trump is proving that one thing he doesn't know much about is negotiating - how to make deals.  He is just a braggart, with no real substance.  All hat and no cattle.

Maybe it's time people started to re-evaluate what he claims is his biggest strength - does he actually know anything about deal making, about negotiating?

The Problem with Authoritarianism

There are many problems with the terrible idea of Donald Trump as president.  At the heart of his candidacy is the promise of authoritarian rule.  So, what's wrong with authoritarian rule?  (Except, of course the history of the last 100 years with authoritarian examples from Mussolini and Hitler to Stalin and Castro).  The fatal flaw of authoritarianism is that there is no room for love in its world view.  David Brooks, New York Times conservative editorialist, summarized it concisely on his appearance with Mark Shields on the PBS Newshour last Friday:

"The thing about his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who has received no love, so his relationship with women has no love in it - it's trophy.  His relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating - as if he's going to win by competition what other people get by love. So you are really seeing someone with an odd psychology, unleavened by kindness or charity, but where it is all winners and losers, beating and being beaten - and that's part of the authoritarian personality, and it comes out in his attitudes towards women."

I think authoritarianism is at the heart of the Trump appeal.  He is seen as strong by voters who are either authoritarian themselves, or frightened people who want an authoritarian to protect them.

But I don't see Trump as strong. I see him as a pathetic child who is obsessed with promoting himself as strong, successful, as a...Man.  But he's not a man, he's a child. And he knows almost nothing about the country, the government, the law, the world, and especially he knows nothing about dignity or honor or ... love.  

Nixon's War on Drugs was actually a war on his political opponents - blacks and hippies

John Erlichman, President Richard Nixon's aid who went to prison in the Watetgate scandal, revealed the crass, heartless political motivation for Nixon's War on Drugs.  It was a way to attack his political opponents, hippies and blacks. Here is the stunning quote:

"You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”"

So there you have it - destroy lives to attack your political enemies, to win votes. Nixon's War on Drugs and his Southern Strategy (courting the South by welcoming racists who wanted to abandon LBJ's Democratic Party) has attacked  American blacks. Inner city black and brown neighborhoods are literally war zones where the police are often seen as an occupying military and huge numbers of young blacks are imprisoned. 

The anti-back tactics continue in the Republican South as they continuously find ever more creative and crude ways to restrict black and brown voting.

I know that my black and brown friends will find nothing surprising about this revealing quotation, but I find it deeply shocking and dismaying. 

Obama's opening to Cuba

Obama is visiting Cuba.  Good for him.  The problem with Cuba was never Cuba itself.  The problem with Cuba had been the Soviet Union, which is dead.  When the Soviet Union was dedicated to the expansion of its communist empire across the globe, Cuba was a big problem for the United States.  It was a forward outpost of the USSR on America’s doorstep.  It’s not that Cuba was a threat, but rather that the USSR was a threat.

Now, Cuba is just an impoverished communist nation of no real import.  But it is filled with some wonderful baseball players.  Aging Cuban-Americans who have good reason to hate Castro, and good reason to hate Communism, notwithstanding, opening relations with Cuba  is just a fine thing to do, as far as I can tell.

Right wingers still think Cuba is a problem, I guess, but it makes no sense anymore.  Just old ideology that is blind to reality.

Trump calls for riots if the convention doesn’t nominate him

Authoritarian Donald Trump, in the lead for the Republican nomination for president, continues to show how dangerous he is, and how much more dangerous he would be if given governmental power.  He has just called for riots at the convention if he shows up with the most delegate votes but isn’t nominated. 

This shows his ignorance, of course.  The delegates are to vote for who won their allegiance during the primaries – on the first ballot and the first ballot only.  If there is no majority winner on the first ballot then the delegates are free to vote as they see fit.  There have been many conventions in U.S. history where it took many votes for the political party to choose a nominee.

Why?  Why is that the way American democracy is conducted?  I think it is important to remember that the United States is not a direct democracy – thank goodness.  The United States is an elected Republic.  The political parties nominate their candidates.  The use of primary elections to assist the parties in the nomination of their respective candidates is relatively new – JFK used a couple of primary victories to make his case – at the convention – and was nominated.  But the real election of the nominee is on the convention floor.  For about the last half century, the conventions have been just rubber stamps of the primaries - the winner of the majority of delegate votes during the primaries won on the first ballot at the convention. 

OK, so what?  If no one wins the majority of the delegates on the first ballot, they have to win the actual election – the election of the convention floor delegates. 

The parties have every right to do their best to nominate a candidate that they think can win the election, and an even greater duty to nominate a candidate that they think will not destroy their party, and a moral duty to nominate one  that they think will not destroy the country.  Donald Trump is not that candidate.  Donald Trump is rightly perceived by many as a candidate that will destroy the Republican Party if nominated, and God Forbid, would destroy the country and perhaps the world if elected president.

If Trump wins on the first ballot and gets the Republican nomination, we can only pray – and VOTE – that he does not become president. 

If Trump fails on the first ballot, we can only pray that he is defeated on the convention floor.

If he creates riots to force his nomination I would expect that would permanently dismember and destroy the Republican Party.

If he wins the nomination, especially if he does so by riotous force, I would expect a third party Conservative Candidate to run for president so as to give conservatives someone to vote for.  That may happen even if he wins on the first ballot.  He is rightly despised by conservatives (and liberals too, of course)

Donald Trump is on a mission of destruction in the service of his astonishingly grandiose ego. The question is - how far does his destruction reach?  The best answer is that he manages to destroy himself, with a humiliating loss of the nomination, or failing that with a humiliating loss of the election.  The next target of his bile is the Republican Party.  The next level out is the United States.  Then the world. 

He must be stopped.  The ugliness is only getting uglier, and will become ever more so the further he advances in his quest for fame and power.  He is a pathetic man, needing adoration of supporters and fear of all who oppose him.  He promises nothing except bullying violent despotism.  Why does anyone think that is going to benefit them?

Very ugly. 

If you make a deal with the devil, you don't get the deal, but you do get the devil

I was listening to the evangelical conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt talking with conservative editorialist George Will.  Hewitt said that he would support Trump if he was the Republican nominee because Hewitt so wants a Republican president to put Christian conservatives on the Supreme Court.  Will said he would not even consider supporting Trump.  

My message to Hewitt, and all the poor lost conservative souls who are watching the Trump tornado with hopeless despair, is that if you make a deal with the devil, you don't get the deal, you get the devil.  Hewitt himself had interviewed Trump some time back and got a pledge from Trump that he would release his tax returns.  Gee, what a surprise, but when Hewitt put that same question to Trump in the last debate, not only did Trump refuse to release his tax returns, but he insulted Hewitt for having a small audience that nobody pays any attention to - normal Trump method - if someone asks a tough question, or says something critical about him, he attacks and insults them, on the level of the third grade bully.

So, why on earth would Hewitt, or any conservative, believe that they can count on Trump delivering Supreme Court nominees that he has mentioned on the campaign trail once in office.  Do they think a president Trump is going to be more dignified, more dependable, operate with more integrity than campaigner Trump?  Are they crazy?

I think New Jersey governor Chris Christie has just learned that lesson in a very deep and humiliating way.  Trump had a bad debate, and Rubio had attacked and mocked him quite successfully.  Trump's rejoinders were pathetic.  The next day Rubio was doubling down and gaining ground, but Christie rode in to the rescue and stole the headlines with an endorsement of Trump. It was an astonishing act of ambition.  He had obviously decided that Trump would win if Christie helped him at that critical moment, and he may have been right.  Trump went on to dominate the Super Tuesday primaries.

But what did Christie get?  He was humiliated and diminished by Trump.  It was painful watching Christie try to sound enthusiastic as he introduced Trump for the victory speech after the Super Tuesday results had come in.  And it was even more painful to watch Christie's face and eyes as he was forced to stand behind Trump and listen to Trump's narcissistic ramblings.  "What on earth have I done?" was written all over him.

So, whatever deal Christie thought he was getting from the devil, it won't be happening, he won't get the deal but he will get the devil. And believe me, Trump is as close to the devil as I ever want to see running for president (Cruz might be worse, but let's slay one dragon at a time)

Is America in the Process of Losing its Innocence?

It looks like Trump has won enough in yesterday’s Super Tuesday primaries that he is the likely Republican candidate.  I think this is a sad day for the Republican Party, and an even sadder day for America and the world.  Trump’s rise is a sign that America is in danger of losing its status as an exceptional country, and is becoming just another country in a big world filled with problems.  It is in danger of electing an authoritarian despot, just like so many other countries have all too sadly done.

There are many reasons I am appalled by Trump.  He is remarkably wrong in many, many ways to be president of the United States.  But let me just write about one issue – authoritarianism.  Trump is, or is pretending to be, an authoritarian.  America has been very, very lucky so far.  We have not been guilty of electing monsters to be our leaders. There have been many presidents that have engendered a lot of opposition, but none have been actual monsters.

Other countries have to live with a past that includes monsters.  Italy had Mussolini (whom Trump consciously or unconsciously mimics in his face and body language); Italy also had Caesar; Russia had Stalin, (and Lenin, and Peter the Great, and now Putin), China has Mao Tse Tung (and a few thousand years of brutal rulers); Japan had crazed generals; and of course Germany had Hitler.  These countries all lost their innocence long ago.  They were seduced by authoritarian leaders who became monstrous despots and war mongers. 

I don’t know if Trump is capable of sinking to those depths, I certainly hope that he is all show and little reality, but this is a man who is overtly campaigning on the promise to be a war criminal, to end first amendment protection of a critical press, and who refuses to disavow the KKK with anything other than annoyance and impatience that he is being asked to do so.  If Donald Trump is real, he should be terrifying. 

Why?  Why are Republicans voting for Trump?  People say old white people are angry at government.  Sure, that’s true.  People say people who believe in conspiracy theories are drawn to Trump.  OK, that’s probably true.  But, is that what is happening?

I think that the explanation of Trump can be found in a brilliant book written after WWII by psychologist Erich Fromme “Escape from Freedom.”  Fromme’s thesis was that authoritarian people were drawn to Hitler and Stalin and empowered them.  They wanted an authoritarian personality like themselves to rule brutally, like they would if they had the power.  They got Hitler.  They got Stalin.  It was not good  - for anyone, not even for them.

I believe the one trait of Trump supporters is that they are authoritarian personalities, and have a will to dominate, and see brutal domination as what is needed in a dangerous world, and in a government that refuses to do exactly what they want.

Just a final thought – blacks and Native Americans are under no illusion about the brutal nature of America’s past, so maybe my analysis is flawed.  But America is perhaps best explained by English Historian Paul Johnson made the point in “A History of the American People” that the United States has always had two parallel energies in operation – idealism and greed.  The slaughter of the indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans should disabuse us all of the notion that brutality and domination are not part of the American character.  But, so far in our history our despotism has not gone beyond our own shores the way some of our older, sadder neighboring countries have done (early 20th century empire building as an exception).

I hope I paint too dark a picture of a reality show personality that has figured out how to get TV ratings and win votes.  I hope that when you scratch beneath the surface of Donald Trump all you find is a shallow, vain narcissist who only wants to be worshiped.  I just don’t know how far he will go to make people kiss his ring.  Looking at Chris Christie who was forced by Trump to stand behind him while he gave his acceptance speech, looking like he was a captured hostage with a knife to his throat, is not a good sign about what Trump will make people do to kiss his… ring.