I've worked for politicians, a PR firm, corporations, nonprofits, and state and federal government. Since 2000, I've run a PR and marketing sole proprietorship. I think politics is important, maddening, humorous and good fodder for a spirited conversation. So, I hang out here when I need a break from life.
Minnesota public health authorities are close to concluding that the leading culprit in the rash of serious cannabis vaping injuries is an additive called vitamin E acetate, which apparently is used by elicit street producers to thicken and dilute the THC in illegally produced vaping cartridges. The Star Tribune reports:
“The state’s findings were circulated nationally on Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has monitored the outbreak nationally and has reported 2,290 cases of vaping-associated lung injuries this year and 47 related deaths.
‘We now have evidence of vitamin E acetate in the lungs of Minnesotans and in illicit THC products from Minnesota during the outbreak,’ said Jan Malcolm, state health commissioner. ‘We have more work ahead, but every bit of evidence gets us closer to a resolution.'”
Assuming that Vitamin E is in fact the culprit, the obvious solution is to regulate the product to ensure that additive is no longer used. Easy, right?
Not so fast. The problem with that obvious solution is that cannabis prohibition makes it impossible to regulate the safety of these illicit street products.
If we want to regulate marijuana-based products to keep consumers safe from dangerous additives like Vitamin E acetate, pesticides, molds, and fungus, we need those products to be legal so that they can be controlled by public regulators, just as we control other legal consumer products.
A while back, Republican Senate leader Paul Gazelka looked at this dangerous situation and somehow came to the opposite conclusion.
“Opponents of legalizing marijuana in Minnesota are seizing on the recent outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and teen nicotine addiction to urge caution on the cannabis front — even as advocates of legalization ramp up their campaign ahead of next year’s legislative session.
‘I hope this slows down the rush by [Gov. Tim Walz] and House Democrats on recreational marijuana,’ said state Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, the majority leader. ‘If they see the correlation, that might at least slow down the process.'”
Sen. Gazelka seems like a sincere, decent guy, but that logic makes no sense. After all, if Sen. Gazelka learned that we have dangerous types of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, or stents harming consumers, would he back prohibition of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, and stents? Of course not. Instead, the sensible response would be to keep those products legal, but have public regulators monitor the products and require them to be safer. Likewise, we need to make marijuana legal, so marijuana-based products can be regulated, tested, and required to be safer.
So in addition to the social justice, fiscal, and logical reasons to end marijuana prohibition, we need to add another to the list. Public health.
Disclosure: In my public relations business, I have done work for one of two companies licensed in Minnesota to treat patients with cannabis-based medicines. However, I’m not currently doing work for that company, and that company’s legal, regulated medicines aren’t a subject of these stories. I have never helped any clients advocating the end to marijuana prohibition.
“O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.” – Walter Scott
And so it goes with congressional Republicans defending President Trump’s indefensible arms-for-dirt bribery scheme.
They can’t possibly defend it on the substance, because the substance doesn’t pass the smell test with 70 percent of Americans. At the same time, they can’t fathom not defending Trump, because they live in fear that he might mean-tweet and primary them back to, gasp, civilian life.
Therefore, they use a constantly changing array of truly preposterous defenses to get through the humiliating interviews they’re forced to do. The defenses are maddening and highly entertaining, and these are a few of my favorites:
Top 10 Worst Defenses
Transparency! Righteous congressional Republicans stormed a secure committee room and dramatically demanded public hearings!
But when televised public hearings were launched a few days later, the same Republicans suddenly switched to demanding “an end to the media circus!”
Hearsay! This one was very hot this week. Trump defenders demanded that they hear from someone who directly saw the bribery. “Hearsay,” they say.
Of course, there are several problems with that. First, the White House-verified call record clearly documents the bribery, directly in the President’s own words. It’s not hearsay, it’s Trumpsay.
Second, nonpartisan, decorated combat war veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was on the infamous call, and he’ll be testifying soon.
Finally, Trump apologists also say it’s perfectly fine for Trump, Mulvaney, Bolton, and others, who do have firsthand knowledge of the bribery, to refuse to testify about what they observed. You can’t try to have it both ways and be expected to be taken seriously.
Whistleblower! They’re outraged that someone blew the whistle on the bribery, and demand that he be publicly pilloried, even when the law says he is guaranteed anonymity and protection, and even after a long list of named, credible, nonpartisan officials are publicly confirming everything about which the whistleblower was whistling.
This initially might have had some political traction when the whistleblower was standing alone, but after all of this corroborating testimony, it makes no sense.
Incompetence! This one is especially delicious. Lindsey Graham and others have continually asserted that Trump and his team couldn’t possibly have committed bribery, because, well, they’re obviously far too inept to commit bribery.
“What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward the Ukraine, it was incoherent … They seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.”
While incompetence is always a plausible theory when it comes to Trump and his team, corruption is actually the one skill Trump that very clearly has mastered throughout his life.
Also, the White House’s own call record plainly shows Trump’s bribery: After the military aid is mentioned, Trump immediately followed up with “I would like you to do us a favor, though.”
Failed Crime=No Crime! Media darling Nikki Haley is among those who have said Trump is innocent of bribery because his bribery efforts failed after the bribery scheme exposed.
Thousands of prisoners whose criminal endeavors were unsuccessful wish mightily that this was somehow a legitimate defense. It is not.
Impeachment=SERIOUS! Many say that impeachment is only for serious offenses and this clearly isn’t a serious offense.
I’m not sure I can think of a more serious example of presidential abuse of power than this: Illegally redirecting hundreds of millions of congressionally dedicated U.S. tax dollars to bribe a desperate foreign leader — who is under attack by Russia, a sworn enemy of the U.S., and has thousands of his troops’ lives and his nation’s existence on the line — to dig up political dirt on his opponent and interfere in an American election.
That’s pretty much a greatest hits of impeachable offenses in that run-on sentence, and it doesn’t even mention the cover-up — altering and burying records, witness tampering, and refusing to honor subpoenas. Anyone who thinks that isn’t serious isn’t a serious person.
Tradeoffs=Normal Foreign Policy. White House Chief of Staff Mick “Get Over It, He Did It!” Mulvaney is among many Republicans who shrug this off by noting that trade-offs are proposed all the time in the course of foreign policy.
The problem, of course, is that when Trump said “I would like you to do us a favor, though” the rest of his White House-verified call record made it clear that the “us” in that sentence was actually “me.” That is, the bribed “favor” wasn’t for America as a whole, it was for Trump’s personal political gain.
That’s foreign bribery, not foreign policy.
Corruption-Fighting! While Trump has never shown any interest whatsoever in rooting out corruption in corrupt nations like Russia, North Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or others that he regularly praises, his apologists swear that he is absolutely passionate about rooting out Ukranian corruption. Right.
The White House’s call record showed that the only alleged “corruption” Trump mentioned was something that just happened to benefit him personally, not corruption broadly.
But Biden! In a reprise of “but her emails,” this may be the Republicans’ favorite defense. When their interviews are melting down, they spew unsubstantiated Biden corruption conspiracy theories.
First, Biden’s effort to remove a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor was not corrupt. It was official U.S. foreign policy that was done in broad daylight, and was supported by allies around the world.
Second, if an American feels a fellow American has broken the law, the only acceptable response is to report it to American law enforcement officials, not to illegally redirect tax dollars to bribe a foreign leader to effectively play the role the FBI and/or CIA should be playing.
Democracy! Many claim that impeachment is anti-democratic, since Trump was elected in 2016 and is up before the voters again in just one year.
The obvious problem with that defense is that Trump is using tax dollars to bribe foreign officials to rig said election. With foreign interference potentially rigging the election in favor Trump, stopping him through impeachment could be the only real option for Americans to hold him accountable.
Bonus Round
Oh wait, that’s ten? Already? I can only have ten? Well, if I could have more, I’d add this one to the list.
Less Outlandish! The Republicans’ lawyer Steve Castor half-heartedly tried this breathtakingly moronic defense:
“This irregular channel of diplomacy (conducted by non-government official Rudy Giuliani), it’s not as outlandish as it could be, is that correct?”
Well, yes, Mr. Castor, I guess it might have been slightly more outlandish if the bribery had been carried out by a nude Roger Stone sporting a Carmen Miranda-style fruit hat, but…
Good grief. When “not as outlandish as it could be” is the best your high-priced lawyer has, it’s pretty safe to say you’re in deep doo-doo.
In Their Partial Defense
Probably the most political palatable defense would be “bad, but not quite impeachable.” That defense is not the least bit substantively defensible, but it at least has a little political traction. After all, the matter of what is considered impeachable can be a bit murky and saying “bad, but…” at least shows Republicans are not shrugging off the whole thing.
But the thin-skinned authoritarian won’t allow his toadies to utter the “bad, but” part, so they are left to humiliate themselves for our entertainment. Pass the popcorn, please.
Throughout her career, Senator Amy Klobuchar has always stuck to political “small ball,” refusing to use her carefully hoarded political capital to fight for the proposals that will take patience to enact, but will make the biggest difference for struggling Americans. The Star Tribune explains:
But as Klobuchar pursues the pragmatic politics of constituent service and bipartisan dealmaking, she faces some frustration on the left, particularly among gay activists and environmentalists who see her playing it safe in the middle of the road.
“There are big, fundamental system change issues we have to address,” said Steve Morse of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, which has battled Klobuchar over climate change legislation and her support for a new Stillwater bridge over the St. Croix River. “Dealing with swimming pools is good and important to families, but it doesn’t change the big drivers of our society.”
So, last night it was hardly surprising to see Klobuchar taking cheap shots at Senator Elizabeth Warren over Warren’s championing of for Medicare for All, which will obviously be challenging to pass in the near term.
“The difference between a plan and a pipe dream is whether it can actually get done.”
Bam! Klobuchar is likely high-fiving her (ducking) staffers this morning. She’s in the news! She’s finally relevant!
But from a progressive standpoint, here’s the fatal flaw with Klobuchar’s lifelong approach to leadership. Once upon a time, the following things were all considered by moderates like Klobuchar to be “pipe dreams not plans,” or things that Klobuchar would not deem worthy of a fight because, in their day, they didn’t immediately have the votes to pass: Medicare, civil rights, voting rights, minimum wage increases, and marriage equality, to name just a few.
Those things just happen to be some of the crowning policy achievements of the modern Democratic Party, and they never would have been enacted if progressives with political courage hadn’t fought for them at a stage when the votes weren’t there.
Senator Klobuchar’s biggest problem isn’t that she has a sordid record of being immature and cruel to staff, as disturbing as that is to those of us who believe that character is revealed by how you act when no one is watching. Klobuchar’s even bigger problem is that she will never be the kind of courageous leader who fights the most consequential fights for ordinary families, when the fight is not yet politically advantageous to her in the short-term.
As for Medicare-for-All, 247 independent economists recently are on the record countering Klobuchar’s criticism that Senator Warren’s approach will cost too much. Those economists find that Medicare-for-All will cost Americans less than the current corporate-driven system protected by Klobuchar, not more.
In the letter, the economists underline the savings of the multi-payer insurance system in the United States, especially compared to other countries. “Public financing for health is not a matter of raising new money for health care,” the letter states, “but of reducing total health care outlays and distributing payments more equitably and efficiently.”
Economic analyses by the Mercatus Center and the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, for example, have projected the Medicare for All would reduce total national health care costs by hundreds of billions of dollars each year while simultaneously guaranteeing safe, therapeutic health care for every person in the United States.
Senator Klobuchar is smart and does her homework, so she understands this truth. She also understands that if the votes aren’t immediately there for Medicare-for-All, Democrats will adjust, and try to enact Medicare-for-All-Who-Want-It or Obamacare improvements until the votes for Medicare-for-All do exist. She knows that’s how legislative strategy works.
But Klobuchar, hovering at just 2% in an average of national polls, is obviously desperate. So last evening, she went with a self-serving cheap shot over the truth, and advocated the easy policy path over the more impactful policy path. To Minnesota progressives, that sure sounds familiar, which may explain why she is running in fourth place in her home state.
The Generals really do love to refight the last wars, don’t
they?
Aging generals reliving the glory days of Bill Clinton’s political wars are advocating for the blueprint that worked for Clinton in 1991. That is, they want Democrats to nominate a moderate Governor from a red state who offers a modest agenda, namely Montana Governor Steve Bullock.
“…there’s a distinctly Bill Clinton–esque sensibility to many Democratic Party veterans urging Bullock to stick with his presidential campaign, despite his failing to make the September debate stage and remaining, at best, in the margin of error of most polls. They see another popular, moderate governor of a small, conservative-leaning state who started his campaign late and is being written off, and they don’t just feel nostalgic—they feel a little déjà vu. They insist they are not being delusional. Paul Begala, the former Clinton strategist and current CNN pundit, earlier this week went on Twitter to encourage people to donate to Bullock’s campaign.
For several reasons, nominating Bullock would be a mistake.
WRONG IDEOLOGY. While Bullock offers a modest moderate agenda that fits the Clintonites’ dusty blueprint, survey research is showing that America is much more progressive in 2019 than it was in 1991. In fact, Vox recently reported that University of North Carolina James Stimson says America is more liberal than it has been in six decades:
“Public support for big government — more regulation, higher taxes, and more social services — has reached the highest level on record in one of the most prominent aggregate surveys of American public opinion.
“The annual estimate for 2018 is the most liberal ever recorded in the 68 year history of Mood,” (Stimson) wrote. “Just slightly higher than the previous high point of 1961.”
Similarly, The American Prospect recently published a long list of recent poll findings from a variety of polling firms showing that Americans overwhelmingly want liberal policies, not a re-run of Bill Clinton’s cautious “third way,” “triangulated,” Dick Morris-shaped policies.
WRONG PROFILE. Like Bill Clinton, Steve Bullock is a white male, which in 1991 was pretty much the only profile for presidential candidates that anyone could imagine being effective. But Barack Obama broke that barrier, and the electorate is much more diverse in 2019 that it was in 1991. The Democratic party is even more racially and ethnically diverse than the nation as a whole, and much more female-heavy. CNN explains:
Over the past decade, the electorate in the Democratic presidential primary has grown more racially diverse, better educated and more heavily tilted toward female voters, an extensive new CNN analysis of exit poll data has found.
Party strategists almost universally expect those trends to persist, and even accelerate in 2020, as minority, white-collar and female voters continue to recoil from President Trump. Just two of the demographic groups most alienated from Trump — white women with college degrees and African-American women at all education levels — could compose as much of two-fifths of all Democratic primary voters next year, the CNN exit poll analysis suggests.
Those trends are not exactly crying out for Democrats to nominate yet another white male. To beat Trump, Democrats need a nominee who can appeal to women, and generate historically high turnout from traditionally under-voting groups, such as people of color and young people. A moderate white male is hardly the ideal profile to inspire those key voting blocs.
WRONG GUY. Performance matters, not just profile, and Bullock’s performance has been underwhelming to the electorate. The reason Bullock is no longer on the debate stage is because he simply didn’t stand out to voters when he was on the debate stage. Therefore, even in relatively moderate, white Iowa, Bullock is polling at a paltry 0.07 percent.
While Bullock and the Clintonites like to lecture progressives on the importance of choosing an “electable” candidate who can beat Trump, electability is best shown, not told. Bullock seems like a decent guy, but in sharp contrast to Bill Clinton, he simply isn’t proving that he can excite the electorate.
WRONG AGENDA. Finally, the Clintonites are wrong about nominating a moderate because our 2019 problems require much bolder solutions than our 1991 problems required. For instance, at a time when the planet faces an existential climate change crisis, we can no longer nibble around the edges. We need major changes as soon as possible, and the biggest obstacle to those changes are powerful oil and coal lobbyists and donors.
Facing this stark reality, Governor Bullock remains true to Montana’s Big Coal and Big Oil, as Huffington Post reports:
“(Bullock’s record as Governor) includes protecting the state’s coal industry and railingagainst Obama administration greenhouse gas limits and a moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. He supported the development of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and blasted President Barack Obama for his decision to block the project in 2015. He voiced “deep concern” about the Obama administration’s proposed hydraulic fracturing regulation in 2013, aimed at better protecting water resources.
Climate change isn’t just any issue. Scientists say we have about a decade to dramatically change course before we hit a catastrophic tipping point. With the planet in crisis, Begala and the Clintonites should think twice about pushing the most pro-fossil fuels candidate in the field.
Whether driven by ego or inflexible thinking, the Clintonites recycling their simplistic “nominate a moderate red state Governor” formula is a bad idea. Bullock had his shot. Now he should drop out of the overcrowded presidential race and head home to win Democrats a Senate seat.
I’m writing this for my granddaughter, but I’m not telling her. I don’t want her to be scared.
Zinnia is 7 years old. She’s small for her age but otherwise precocious. She reads above her grade level and trampolines like a jumping bean. Other kids her age may make “yuck” faces at sight of spinach or broccoli, but Zin already relishes oysters, kalamata olives and “stinky” cheeses. Her favorite bedtime lullaby is “The Sounds of Silence,” which I thought was beyond precocious until her dad explained that the Simon and Garfunkel song is featured in her favorite movie, Trolls. She’s watched it so many times, she knows it by heart.
In the early 1990s, long before Zinnia was born, I was
starting to worry about the impact of the greenhouse gases we were belching
into the atmosphere and the plastic litter that we sent floating down the
rivers and into the seas. I wrote a song
about our dangerous notion that we could consume and pollute all we wanted and
then, if things got really bad, just fly away.
It began:
The
planets and the stars
Will
not be ours
Except,
of course, to dream on
For
all our Star Trek
fantasies
This
island Earth will be our home
Our space-travel capabilities have improved in the
intervening years, but we still haven’t found a destination planet enough like
our big blue marble to aim for or developed the means for even a re-con party to get there.
In the meantime, we’ve created a floating plastic
garbage patch twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. We’re experiencing
record high temperatures. Hellish fires are raging from Brazil to Siberia, and
hurricanes and typhoons are growing in size and intensity. Hurricane Dorian
left much of the Bahamas looking like a land fill.
As if these inconvenient truths aren’t troubling
enough, we know from credible scientific research and computer modeling that if
we don’t significantly reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, the annual average global temperature could increase
nine degrees Fahrenheit or more, compared with preindustrial temperatures, by
the end of this century.
The year 2100 seems a long way off. Most of you who
are reading this won’t be around when that new millennium is rung in. I surely
won’t be. But Zinnia and my other grandchild, Jackson, will be around to suffer
for our short-sightedness and stupidity. So will millions of other kids here
and around the world.
Zinnia is just
beginning to figure out what she wants to do with her life. Maybe she’ll become
a cross-fit trainer like her mom or a podcast producer like her dad. Maybe
she’ll be a doctor or a chef or a scientist or a maker of animated films like Trolls. Maybe she’ll have kids herself.
I want her to have those opportunities. I want her to
be living on a planet at least as beautiful and diverse and healthy as the one
I grew up on – and, if at all possible, better.
No challenge we are facing or issue we are dealing
with today is more important than our acting like responsible, caring adults
and implementing every measure we can imagine to limit further physical
deterioration of the only planet we have.
Not gun control or reproductive rights. Not Latin
American immigrants or North Korea’s nuclear weapons. The environment. Our environment. Our
incredibly complex, life-giving, life-sustaining, shared environment.
We need to do this whether we believe we’re God’s
appointed stewards or simply because we recognize it’s stupid and suicidal to
foul our nest. Pick your rationale, but make reversing damage to the Earth a
personal and political priority.
We were making encouraging progress not that long ago,
prioritizing cleaner energy sources, discouraging pollution, setting aside
nature preserves both land and sea. Now, under new “leadership,” we are in
spiteful retreat. Our president didn’t even bother attending the climate change
panel at the recent G-7.
There are those among us, including some rich and
powerful people, who insist that the dire warnings of scientists like those who
compiled the Fourth National Climate Assessment are a hoax or an
anti-capitalist plot. The former claim is an absurdity that would require a
conspiracy of millions of scientists who’ve never met. The latter ignores the
commerce to be engendered and the profit to be made from cleaner industry.
If the scientists turn out to be wrong, we will still
be living a cleaner, healthier world as the 21st Century speeds
along. If they’re correct in their
predictions and we’ve allowed our leaders to shirk their responsibility, we and
our children and grandchildren will be facing a rising tide of misery.
I would accuse the deniers of playing Russian roulette with our little ones’ lives, but that analogy overestimates the odds in our favor.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
In an article for The Guardian, Stephen King, man of letters and master of horrors, talked about two characters he created who kinda-sorta predict the rise of Donald J. Trump.
I know what you’re thinking, but no, he didn’t mention
Cujo or the clown-faced maniac in It.
In The Dead Zone (1979), there’s Greg Stillson, a snake-oily Bible salesman who flimflams his way to a mayor’s post, the U.S. House and finally the Presidency, where he starts a world war. King also points to Under the Dome (2009), in which he gave readers Big Jim Rennie, a self-promoting car salesman and small-town alderman whose authoritarian tendencies grow stronger and sociopathic when his community is cut off from world by a mysterious, impenetrable bubble.
I can see King’s points, especially the huckster part,
but for me, his more prescient novel is The Stand, an epic tale of life
in America after a laboratory-engineered super-flu wipes out 99 percent of the
human population. Published in 1978, The Stand was soon being hailed for
its uncanny anticipation of AIDS and other virulent new threats to human
health.
That’s not the prescience I’m talking about. The more
interesting parallel today is King’s meticulous laying out of a crisis of
American democracy.
We hear constantly about the “polarization” afoot in our
supposedly United States, of red-blue rifts over immigration, guns, minority
rights and government’s societal role that end friendships, divide families,
even provoke mass shooters.
The website FiveThirtyEight recently posted an
interview with a guy who believes our nation has become ungovernable, “run its
course,” and should be divided up into five or six separate countries: a Left
Coast strip that includes California, for instance, and a Dixie-fried
aggregation that includes most of the old Confederacy.
And speaking of the Great Secession, we’ve all heard
murmurings, nervous speculation, that we could be headed for an actual civil
war. Heard it, or read it on Facebook or Twitter.
In The Stand’s decimated America, the poles are
amplified. Survivors of the apocalyptic disease are assembling under distinct
banners for a war for the nation’s soul. (Heard that phrase lately? If not, you
obviously haven’t been watching the Democratic Party’s televised debates.)
In Las Vegas, good ol’ Sin City, an army’s worth of
the criminal, the bitter, the resentful, the envious and the toady – a basket of deplorables, some might call them
– is in the sway a seductive demagogue-cum-devil who goes by the name of
Randall Flagg and makes them all feel important, useful, wanted. They’ve
happily embraced tyranny.
On the other side of the Rockies, in Boulder,
Colorado, another legion is forming, this one united around the notion of
rebooting the nation that the super-flu has laid to waste, not just the
machinery but the republic that was.
In a key passage, Stuart Redman, a classic reticent-reluctant
American hero, gets down to brass tacks over a jug of wine with Glen Bateman, a
sociology professor who exists as a character in large part to theorize and
philosophize on behalf of author.
Bateman says their first task must be to “re-create”
America, albeit in miniature. He says they’d need to call a meeting of all the
survivors in Boulder and “read and ratify” the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
“Christ, Glen, we’re all Americans…,” Redman
interjects.
“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” Bateman responds.
“We’re a bunch of survivors with no government at all. We’re a hodgepodge
collection from every age group, religious group, class group and racial group.
Government is an idea, Stu.”
He goes on to say they need to act quickly. “Our
people here are very soon going to wake up to the fact that the old ways are
gone, and that they can restructure society any old way they want. We want – we
need – to catch them before they wake up and do something nutty.”
We obviously still have a government, gridlocked though it too often is. And Trump is no Randall Flagg; he’s a needy, greedy man, not a supernatural creature. Nonetheless, we do find ourselves in a tricky situation, disorganized and disunited. And arguably the scariest thing, with regard to our Republic’s vulnerability, is that it didn’t take a plague to get us here.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
Note: This is a Wry Wrerun, originally posted by Joe Loveland in August 2011. It’s tired and dated, but posting it every few years helps him survive late August in Minnesota.
I loathe State Fair TV news coverage. And just to preempt the question, yes, I’m not “from here.”
The State Fair begins today, but State Fair TV news coverage started in roughly February. I’ve already been through a lot, so allow me my primal scream.
Reasons to hate on State Fair TV news coverage:
Reason #1: Because it crowds out all other news coverage. If in the next ten days the Republican Speaker of the House comes out for a 75% tax on all Tea Party members’ Medicare benefits, the Vikings trade a 73-year old groundskeeper for Aaron Rodgers and Charles Woodson, and space aliens colonize a Mahtomedi strip mall, this much I promise you: You will not hear about it. No chance. Why? Because during the last 10 days of August there is sameness happening in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. And there is an unwritten rule in Twin Cities TV newsrooms: All that is the same in Falcon Heights must crowd out all that is new in the rest of the state. (Though to be fair, the crop art turns over every year.)
“It could be that his head wasn’t screwed on quite right. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small.”
Reason #2: Because skinny people repeatedly fabricating overeating stories is never that funny. One of the many recurring gags we will suffer through during State Fair TV news coverage involves willowy anchors and svelte reporters exchanging witty repartee about how grotesquely bloated and obese they are from going all Joey Chestnut on Commoner Food all day long. Oh, the humanity! Their image consultants tell them that pretending to be like the binging masses will help their Nielsens. But make no mistake, they are mocking us, as they spit and rinse their Sweet Martha’s at station breaks, and nibble the sensible sack lunches packed by their personal nutritionists.
“And they’d feast! And they’d feast! And they’d FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!”
Reason #3: Because even hilarious jokes lose their charm when repeated the 653,776th time. “On a stick.” “Jokes” using those three hideous words will be repeated hundreds of times over the next 10 days on TV news. Though even Ed McMahon wouldn’t laugh the 653,776th time, you can count on our TV news friends to guffaw uproariously at every “on a stick” utterance, as if they just heard it for the first time. To make things worse, every PR person in town will put their client’s product or service on-a- stick – long term care insurance on-a-stick, get it?! — because it is the one guaranteed way to get coverage for your otherwise non-newsworthy client.
“They’d stand hand in hand and they’d start singing.”
Reason #4. Because Def Leppard hasn’t been remotely newsworthy for at least twenty years. …yet we can be certain that there will be a full length news story about them by every station. Why? Because for the last ten days or August, anything within earshot of the broadast booth is automatically deemed newsworthy. Plus, it’s so adorable when Frank tosses “Pour Some Sugar On Me” segues to Amelia.
“They’d sing! And they’d sing! AND they’d SING! SING! SING! SING!”
Reason #5. Because the 3.5 million Minnesotans who avoid the Fair every year are people too. One of the most fascinating parts of State Fair news coverage – and it’s quite a competition — is regular attendance updates. Spolier alert: The number will astound the reporters. Last year, it was 1.77 million. Though I’ve always suspected that’s probably the same 177,000 mini-donut addicts coming back each of the ten days, for the sake of argument, I’ll accept the number. Even using that number, that leaves something like 3.56 million of us — about two-thirds of all Minnesotans, I’ll have you know — who have chosen NOT to attend the State Fair. And maybe, just maybe, those of us who chose to stay away from the Great Minnesota SweatTogether would rather the news broadcast contain a little actual NEWS.
“Why for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now! I MUST stop it from coming! …But HOW?”
There. I’m better now. Nothing like a good rant. On a stick.
Americans are constantly being nagged by bosses, human resources directors, career coaches, and etiquette police to carefully “manage your social media profile or brand.” Rule number one for said managing? Avoid saying anything “political.”
For instance, a typically shallow article in Medium concludes with very clear and sweeping rules:
1. Don’t post political stuff on social media.
2. Don’t comment on other’s posts even if you have just the right witty comeback.
3. Don’t even ‘like’ anything political.
4. Tell the algorithmic overlords you don’t want to see politics on facebook.
5. Be happy.
Somewhere Bobby McFerrin is smiling. I was surprised that the author didn’t add: “6. If you view anything political, flush your eyes with bleach, ammonia and hydrogen peroxide.”
“Politics” Or Protection?
I get the point, but that is one helluva a privileged outlook. After all, one person’s “politics” is another person’s “protection.”
With grandkids on the horizon, speaking out about deficits, the student loan crisis, unnecessary wars, and the climate crisis is ultimately about protecting my family, not just politics.
With gay people in my family, speaking out on gay bashing masked as “religious freedom” is about protecting my family, not mere politics.
With a viable small business needed to support my family, speaking out about things that weaken the economy — self-dealing trickle-down tax cuts, health care insecurity, childish trade wars, etc. — is about protecting my livelihood, not politics.
With these things in mind, it’s easy for me to see why people of color feel the need to speak out on social media about police brutality and immigration, young people feel the need to speak out about student loan debt burdens and the climate crisis, women feel the need to speak out about wage equality and reproductive freedom, and rural families feel the need to speak out about fighting the opioid epidemic and the trade war.
To the privileged who are doing fine under Trump’s status quo, maybe speaking out about these things looks like distasteful “politics.” But to many of us, speaking out about Trump and his enablers is ultimately about protection of ourselves and our loved ones, not politics.
Historical Resisters
If you still have doubts, maybe this is a useful exercise to ponder. What would have happened if people who resisted past racist, corrupt authoritarians had chosen to “manage their brand” instead of fighting back.
Instead of risking his life by saving over 1,000 Jews from the Hitler’s holocaust, what if Oskar Schindler had stuck to stockpiling “likes” by only sharing adorable jokes?
Instead of leading peaceful protests and armed resistance against apartheid atrocities, what if Nelson Mandela had stuck to building his brand by constantly sharing photos of his dazzling smile?
Instead of leading thirteen
underground railroad operations to save slaves from brutal treatment and murder
in the American south, what if Harriet Tubman had protected her brand by instead
sharing a steady stream of inspirational sayings?
Wouldn’t that have been such savvy brand management for Oskar, Nelson and Harriet?! Think of the “Likes!”
Naomi Schulman made an observation about this “fighting back versus not offending friends” dilemma that has really stuck with me.
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away.
You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
“Nice people made the best Nazis.” Maybe being perceived as “nice” by people “not into politics” isn’t the most important thing to worry about in life.
Extraordinary Times
Trump isn’t advocating for anything of the magnitude of the holocaust, apartheid, or slavery. But he is easily the most incompetent, corrupt, misogynistic, and racist American leader of our times.
He’s separating asylum-seeking kids from moms and keeping them in cages. He’s banning people from traveling to America based on who they worship. He’s fueling hatred among unstable white supremacists wielding weapons of war.
If there is no resistance to stop or slow him down, Trump will hurt a lot more vulnerable people in the future. He wants deeper cuts in safety net programs for vulnerable Americans. He wants to force women into unwanted pregnancies and unsafe back alley abortions. He wants to make things worse in the battle against climate change, when we urgently need to be getting better. He wants to take health care coverage from 20 million Americans, and preexisting condition protections away from all of us.
This moment in history isn’t normal. In so many ways, it could be pivotal for the world we leave to our kids.
So in between sharing of baby elephant videos, vacation snapshots, and results of your “what piece of IKEA furniture are you” quiz, maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to occasionally incur the passive aggressive wrath of “not into politics” friends by speaking out about the threats we’re facing. Maybe it’s okay to take that little bit of a hit on your “personal brand.”
It’s more than okay. It’s necessary.
I don’t mean to suggest that speaking out on social media is the only or best thing you can do. By all means, have difficult in-person conversations with loved ones, donate until it hurts, march in the streets, and volunteer on campaigns and/or for nonprofits. But the very least you can do in these extraordinary times is to ignore the short-sighted advice about “staying above politics” on social media.
Polls show that a large and growing majority of Minnesotans support ending marijuana prohibition. So why isn’t legislation moving forward in the Minnesota Legislature?
It appears that the size of majority simply isn’t quite large enough yet to overcome a number of factors working against passage, such as:
Fear of Law Enforcement Lobbyists. The war on marijuana has kept a lot of law enforcement officials employed, so they have a self-interest in lobbying fiercely to preserve it. The political strength of law enforcement lobbyists is weaker than it has been in the past, but it is still relatively strong with some legislators.
Minnesota Meekness. The Minnesota Legislature isn’t exactly brimming with bold leadership. When it comes to passing new laws, Minnesota tends not to be the first or last state, but pretty square in the in middle. With “only” eight other states out ahead of Minnesota proving that full legalization is not the disaster predicted by prohibition supporters, it still feels “too soon” to timid Minnesota leaders.
Comfortable Status Quo. Finally, old habits just die hard. So many institutions have been waging a war on marijuana for so long that they just can’t seem to give up the fight.
So what will overcome those significant challenges? Even more public support. Deeper support is particularly needed in Greater Minnesota to persuade a few more Greater Minnesota legislators to get on the right side of history.
“Safer Than Alcohol” Campaign
How will we expand the level of majority support? By going directly to Minnesotans, particularly to Greater Minnesotans, with a thoughtful public education campaign methodically presenting the the mountain of evidence showing that illegal marijuana is safer and less addictive than already legal alcohol.
LESS DANGEROUS. When it comes to harming the user and harming others, illegal marijuana ranks as much safer than alcohol. Marijuana is not benign, and steps should be taken to limit its harm. But British psychologist David Nutt (and could there possibly be a better name for a psychologist?) bundled a number of statistics into a “Harm Index,” and found that already legal alcohol and tobacco were both much more harmful than illegal cannabis.
LESS ADDICTIVE. Contrary to the opinion of many skeptics, marijuana is also much less addictive than alcohol. Psychopharmacologist Jack E. Henningfield Ph.D., formerly of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz MD of the University of San Francisco ranked marijuana less than half as addictive as alcohol. Both researchers found marijuana to be roughly as addictive as ubiquitous caffeine.
Once skeptical Minnesotans have been made aware of these kinds of facts, the question that needs to be posed is essentially this: If you don’t support prohibition for coffee, alcohol or tobacco, why support prohibition for marijuana?
Right now, those facts would be extremely surprising to many Minnesotans. Billions of dollars worth of Reefer Madness– and D.A.R.E.-style propaganda, law enforcement lobbying, and war on drugs news coverage has caused too many Minnesotans to believe the myths that marijuana is somehow much more addictive and dangerous than alcohol. Changing those misconceptions must be job one.
Advertising professionals can improve on this, but the summarizing tagline of the campaign could be something as simple as:
SAFER THAN ALCOHOL End Marijuana Prohibition in Minnesota.
Tone Matters
Beyond having credible third-party proof points, the tone of this “safer than alcohol” campaign matters a lot. Unlike smoking joints on the Capitol steps and other similar self-defeating stunts, this “safer than alcohol” education campaign can’t have a whiff of headshop or hippy to it.
The off-putting counter-culture vibe of many tactics used by well-meaning proponents inadvertently drives away the disproportionately older Greater Minnesota moderates that must be persuaded so that their Greater Minnesota legislative representatives can be persuaded. The campaign needs to put a spotlight on credible third-party expert messengers delivering facts in a measured tone that is comfortable in Greater Minnesota.
Again, polls show that Minnesotans are ahead of their elected officials on this issue. But the majority needs to get just a bit bigger and more committed before enough elected officials representing Greater Minnesotans will have the courage to do the right thing and end marijuana prohibition. A thoughtful “safer than alcohol” public education campaign is a necessary next step.
Every year, more than 500,000 men in the United States undergo a minor surgery to block sperm from mingling with the semen they ejaculate from their penises. As you probably know, even if you’ve not had one, the procedure is called vasectomy.
A vasectomy doesn’t affect a man’s ability to get an
erection or to ejaculate. He still produces seminal fluid; there just aren’t any
squiggly-wiggly swimmers in it. The body absorbs the sperm produced by the testes
so, in slang terms, a guy fire blanks.
According to the American Urological Association, a
vasectomy prevents pregnancy better than any other method of birth control (except,
of course, abstaining from sex). Only 1
to 2 women out of 1,000 will get pregnant in the year after their partners have
had a vasectomy.
Ponder that statistic as I sketch out a modest
suggestion for reducing the number of abortions in our country to near zero, a
goal espoused by both pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates.
Almost all vasectomies can be reversed. That being the
case, what if we required all males, upon turning 18, the age at which they can
vote, to undergo vasectomies?
Once their tubes – they’re called the “vas,” by the
way – are snipped and tied and their negative sperm counts have been confirmed,
they can resume whatever sex lives they had before the surgery. They’ll still
be wise to take precautions, such as condoms, to reduce their chances of
spreading or contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
If a man subsequently decides he wants to be the father
a child and is intimately acquainted with a woman who wants to be the mother –
or if a woman requests a man to make her pregnant – they can apply for a
license to reproduce and complete a contract that establishes the
responsibilities they expect from each other over the course of the first 18
years of whatever child they bring into the world.
The would-be father will then undergo a vasectomy
reversal which, because the healing typically takes 1 to 3 weeks, imposes a de
facto waiting period during which he, the would-be mother, or both can have
a change of heart.
Unwanted pregnancies under this system would be nearly
nonexistent, and abortion, while it would still be available under the same
Roe v. Wade terms as now, would be an option seldom exercised.
Downsides?
Well, the mandatory part does violate privacy rights
(though not as much as the state commandeering a pregnant woman’s body for nine
months). If vasectomy could settle one of our most polarizing issues, isn’t it
worth putting to a vote? If the initiative failed, we could always go the
voluntary route, backed by a clever advertising campaign and incentives — free
football tickets, craft beer, perhaps even cash. It wouldn’t be quite as
effective, but it would still improve on the status quo.
No doubt there would be those who would argue that
mass vasectomy will increase promiscuity. Perhaps, but recent studies indicate
that Americans are engaging in sex less frequently than in the past, when it
was more of a taboo and birth control was less accessible and effective. That
worry seems moot.
That leaves male fear, which is just plain silly. I
had this procedure decades ago. It was a temporary inconvenience. I’ve had no
problems and no regrets.
The “V” sign has long stood for victory. Let’s give it another meaning. Let’s win one for the snipper.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
Give leaders in the state of Washington a lot of credit. Governor Jay Inslee and the Washington Legislature recently passed legislation to create a public health insurance option that will save Washingtonians an estimated 5 percent to 10 percent compared to private health plans. Starting in 2021, the privately administered “CascadeCare” plan will be available to Washingtonians in the “individual market,” those under age 65 who can’t get insurance through their employers or another public insurance plan.
That’s significant progress, much more progress than Minnesota Governor Walz and the Minnesota Legislature made during the 2019 session when they failed to even seriously consider a plan to give Minnesotans in the individual market the option of buying into MinnesotaCare. President Trump and his followers are working overtime to sabotage and try to repeal popular Affordable Care Act (ACA) health protections, while Inslee is strengthening the ACA.
We need that kind of leadership in Minnesota. In the 2020 session, champions of the popular MinnesotaCare buy-in option should hold critics accountable for trying to block an initiative that could save consumers at least 10 percent of their health insurance costs.
The Fatal Flaw With Washington’s Law
I say “at least 10 percent,” because Washington leaders caved to medical lobbyists in order to get the law enacted. In the process, they sacrificed significant consumer cost-savings.
One of the primary reasons to give consumers a public option is because public health insurance programs with a huge pool of patients are in a relatively strong position to leverage lower medical costs. You know, like Medicare does. Here’s what a recent Urban Institute study found about Medicare’s ability to control medical costs.
“…average spending on private health insurance per enrollee grew 4.4% per year between 2006 and 2017—faster than the growth of spending per enrollee in Medicaid and Medicare, and faster than the growth of the gross domestic product per capita, which grew an average 2.4% each year.
Per-enrollee spending in Medicare grew an average 2.4% per year while per-enrollee spending in Medicaid grew 1.6% each year. Holahan said Medicare and Medicaid experienced slower spending growth than private insurance because public programs have more leverage over provider payment rates, helping them to keep costs down. Private payers end up paying higher hospital and physician prices.”
In the face of such findings, what do Washington leaders do? They guarantee reimbursements at a rate that is much higher than Medicare. The Seattle Times explains:
The (Washington) law will require health plans to reimburse medical providers and facilities at up to 160% of the federal Medicare rate. That is a higher rate than the original version of the bill, which capped the reimbursement at the Medicare rate.
CascadeCare champions had it right in their original bill. The reimbursement rate for the MinnesotaCare buy-in option should be set at the Medicare rate to allow savings to be passed on to Minnesotans. Washington leaders apparently were spooked by lobbyist threats that caregivers would deny care to patients if they got paid Medicare reimbursement rates.
Physicians Can’t Be Sacred Cows
We will never be able to significantly control health care costs until we demand savings from every part of the healthcare system — pharmaceuticals, medical devices, unnecessary procedures, administrative overhead, and, yes, caregiver reimbursements. American physicians, particularly specialists, are being paid more than physicians around the world, so controlling that cost-driver also must be in the mix. American doctors can no longer be treated like political sacred cows.
As long as lobbyist-cowed legislators keep carving out these kinds of special interest exceptions, medical inflation will continue to skyrocket and keep Americans from accessing health care. Minnesota legislators need to pass the MinnesotaCare buy-in option in 2020, and they should do it without caving to any of the interests driving medical costs making health care unaffordable and inaccessible for millions.
Democratic presidential candidates have been having a white hot debate about whether to support Medicare-for-All, which would move people onto Medicare and eliminate private health insurance plans, or a Medicare buy-in option, which would allow Americans to choose between government-run Medicare and corporate-run health plans.
Substantively, Medicare-For-All is Best
Substantively, Medicare-for-All makes more sense. Going to a government-run single payer system would be the fastest and most effective way to cover all Americans, reduce administrative overhead, stop excessive profiteering, reduce medical costs, make the American economy more competitive, incentivize better health care best practices, and produce better outcomes.
Compared to health systems used by other developed nations that are to varying degrees more like Medicare-for-all would be, the current U.S. system is worst.
Yes, a large tax increase would be needed to finance Medicare-for-All, and Democrats should be honest about that. At the same time, Americans would no longer be paying premiums, deductibles and copays. Many Americans who have subsidized employer-based coverage should see higher pay as employers are freed of that enormous expense. Because of these kinds of issues, 200 independent economists recently signed a letter stating that Americans would be paying less overall with a single government-run system than they pay under the current system, not more.
Politically, Medicare Buy-In Option Is Best
Politically, however, a Medicare buy-in option makes much more sense. Because many Americans get extremely nervous about not having the option to stick with their familiar private health plan, about 75% of Americans support a Medicare buy-in option compared to about 56% who support Medicare-for-All. Given how difficult it will be to defeat Trump in 2020 and pass something in the Senate in 2021 and beyond, political marketability and sustainability is no small consideration.
Harris’s Hybrid
After initially indicating support for Medicare-for-All, Senator Kamala Harris yesterday proposed a thoughtful hybrid approach. While Harris still calls her proposal “Medicare-for-All,” it’s more accurate to call it “Medicare-for-All-Who-Want-It,” since it allows Americans to choose private plans that are required to have the same benefits as Medicare. After a 10-year phase-in to limit transition-related bumps, all Americans would have the kind of coverage Medicare currently offers, with some coverage upgrades.
This approach would achieve much, but not all, of the substantive benefit of Medicare-for-All, and it has enormous political advantages over Medicare-for-All. Importantly, when Trump and the corporate insurance interests attack “government-run health care that takes away your insurance coverage,” those critics can be disarmed with very simple and compelling rebuttals: “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to choose it.” “If it’s as bad as they claim, no one will choose it.”
Those simple, powerful rebuttals, which can only be used with a buy-in option, de-fang the “they’re taking away your health insurance” bite.
Progressive critics like Sanders are criticizing the Harris plan as too “moderate.” It certainly is moderate compared to the Sanders Medicare-for-All plan. But when compared to ACA repeal/Trumpcare, where 20 million lose their coverage and all Americans would lose popular and effective ACA protections, the Harris proposal represents huge progress. Also, the Harris plan offers an important quantum leap forward from the current ACA-driven system.
Importantly, the Harris proposal offers Americans a consumer-driven path to the future. When given a choice, it’s very likely that most Americans will choose the cheaper and better Medicare option over corporate care. Corporate care won’t be competitive with Medicare, because of its higher overhead and the need to make profits. But giving all Americans the ability to comparison shop and vote with their feet is key, so that Medicare-for-All eventually comes to American by popular mandate, rather than government mandate. Taking that consumer-driven approach ultimately will make Medicare-for-All more politically durable.
Though I don’t know all the details yet, I like the general balance Senator Harris has struck. Obama’s former chief Medicare/Medicaid administrator Andy Slavitt said it well:
“Sen. Harris’s plan balances idealism and pragmatism. It says in effect: We have a mandate to get everyone affordable health care and put people over profits — but we don’t need to tear down the things people have and they like in order to do it.”
That’s what Democrats need: Idealism to stay true to their progressive values and excite lightly voting Democratic constituencies such as young people and people of color and pragmatism to smooth over political and logistical challenges and win over critically important moderate swing voters.
On the first night of the first round of
debates among Democratic presidential aspirants, Julián Castro, who was
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, had a
spotlight-grabbing moment when he upbraided fellow Texan Beto O’Rourke for not
supporting his plan to end criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants
crossing our southern border from Mexico.
On the second night, when a different 10 hopefuls
fanned across NBC’s Wheel of Fortune stage, the impact of Castro’s
attack was obvious. Aked if they backed Castro’s plan, nine candidates raised
their hands. All 10 said they would back federal health subsidies for
undocumented immigrants, an idea President Barack Obama nixed a decade earlier.
The candidates’ stampede to out “left” each
other reached its most bizarre point when Castro volunteered that his universal
healthcare plan would cover abortions, including abortions for trans women. At
least this would not be a benefit that would significantly affect the deficit.
Since those nights, one of the hottest topics
among the commentariat has been whether Democrats are going to blow their
opportunity to dethrone President Trump by catering to their most progressive
constituents.
Writing in The Atlantic, Peter Beinart asked, “Will the Democratic Party go too far?”
“I’ll vote for almost any Democrat, but lurching left won’t beat Trump,” read the headline on a USA Today editorial by Tom Nichols, a national security professor at the Naval War College and a self-identified “Never Trump”-er.
“Democratic candidates veer left, leaving
behind successful midterm strategy,” read the headline on a Washington Post analysis
piece by Michael Scherer, one of its national correspondents.
Hogwash, say others,
among them Keith A. Spencer, writing in Salon.com about “hard evidence” that supposedly
proves a centrist Democrat will belly flop in 2020.
Other op-ed’s have warned
Democrats to beware of Republican trolls trying to trick them into pursuing
foolish moderation.
So, what are Democrats to
do?
Well, what if they
borrowed a phrase from “A Clockwork Chartreuse,” Loudon Wainwright III’s
tongue-in-cheek paean to an anarchist: “Let’s burn down McDonald’s/Let’s go
whole hog.”
Here are few things Democratic candidates can advocate at the next round of debates – July 30 and 31, CNN — if they really, really want to test the notion that the way to deny Donald Trump a second term is not moderation but a triple jump to the left. In no particular order:
Claiming “originalist” interpretation, ban private
ownership of all firearms designed after 1789, the year the U.S. Constitution
was ratified.
Ban bacon and big-ass pick-up trucks.
Remove slave owners’ heads from Mt. Rushmore.
Outlaw Mountain Dew.
Expand national park acreage to include Texas.
Along with abolishing private health insurance and
replacing it with Medicare for All, reimburse patients for parking at hospital
ramps.
Mandatory kale consumption.
Stop construction of Trump’s wall; commence
construction of automated “people mover” walkways.
Change national anthem to Neil Diamond’s
immigrant-friendly “(Coming to) America.”
Abolish apple pie as the national dessert. I’m thinking rhubarb.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
I’m a big fan of Governor Walz’s proposal to give Minnesotans a new MinnesotaCare (MNCare) buy-in option. If it passes, it would be a signature part of his legacy as Governor. But he has a lot of work to do before he gets it passed, and he should start by wiping the slate clean and dropping the name “ONECare.”
To be clear, the name ONECare is hardly the biggest problem Walz faces. The much bigger problem is an army of well-connected health care lobbyists and industry-employed donors pushing legislators to stick with a status quo that reimburses the industry at higher rates than MinnesotaCare, an argument that legislators who are serious about cost-containment must reject.
To pass this proposal, the Governor is going to need to use his political capital and get a lot more personally engaged in the fight than he has been so far.
But the name ONECare certainly doesn’t help the cause, a cause I’ve been supporting over and over, and it’s easy and painless to fix.
When selling ideas and policies, words matter a lot. Think “estate tax” versus “death tax.” “Tort reform” versus “lawsuit abuse reform.” “Medicare-for-all” versus “single payer.” We’ve seen it over and over: Words impact clarity and emotions, and clarity and emotions impact voting behavior.
For three primary reasons, the brand ONECare doesn’t help Walz to convince anyone to enact perhaps the most important policy proposal on his agenda, and instead inadvertently hurts it a bit.
ONECare DOESN’T DESCRIBE, OR DISARM MOST DAMAGING CRITICISM. I prefer the very boring, literal name “MinnesotaCare buy-in option.” I know, I know, it obviously isn’t very lyrical or concise, but it instantly explains the patient benefit, and that’s the most important advocacy need.
This is a concept that almost no one understands, so they need a concise description. ONEcare is not the least bit descriptive. If a Minnesotan heard ONECare come up in a shorthand way, they would have no idea what is being discussed, and very likely would assume you were talking about a corporate health plan.
After 27 years in existence, “Minnesota Care” has a bit of brand equity, and “buy-in option” explains the concept much more clearly than “ONEcare.”
Even more importantly, “MNCare buy-in option” also shines a bright spotlight on that key word “option.” The word “option” disarms the most potent critique of the proposal, the false claim that Minnesotans will be forced to use “government-run health care” against their will.
In a year when Medicare-for-All is being lambasted on the national stage for being mandatory and coercive, it’s critically important to be repeatedly stressing the disarming key message that this is merely another “option” for Minnesotans to take or leave. Stressing that selling point in the name is the best way to achieve that kind of repetition.
ONECare SOUNDS VERY CORPORATE, WHEN IT’S THE ANTITHESIS OF CORPORATE. Also, ONEcare sounds very much like a corporate health care brand. In fact, if you search the internet for “onecare,” numerous private health ventures pop up.
Adopting a corporate-sounding brand name confuses and sullies an initiative that’s actually all about providing an option for relief from corporate insurance. That makes no sense.
ONECare IS TOO WALZ-CENTRIC AND PARTISAN IN TONE. Finally, ONEcare politicizes the proposal by using a derivative of Walz’s 2018 campaign theme “One Minnesota.” ONEcare comes across like a partisan advertisement, as opposed to a sincere effort to help Minnesotans get cheaper and better health care coverage.
Governor Walz likely intended ONEcare to be unifying – “we’re ‘one Minnesota’ and this gives everyone the same option in all parts of the state, including areas where there are few options.” I get that. But the fact that the “One Minnesota” sloganeering was so central to Walz’s recent election campaign makes ONEplan feel like it belongs to one political tribe only, instead of something that people of all political stripes should support.
Again, dropping the ONECare name obviously isn’t going to guarantee passage. For that to happen, legislators are going to need to have more courage, and Governor Walz is going to need to really use his political capital to fight for this. But dropping “ONECare” will help make their explanation of this excellent idea feel a bit more clear, direct, disarming, and apolitical.
Laugh if you will. I realize it’s more than a little ridiculous, the notion that the most science-averse U.S. President of all time would bequeath his corpse to the medical school at Harvard or Emory or the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater.
But I’m serious. He’s an unusual human specimen, and he owes it to the nation — to the world – to make himself available for posthumous study.
First of all, there’s his body, the ample corpus that, clothed in white tie and tails for his recent state dinner with British royalty, led wiseacres and fashion critics to suggest that he wouldn’t be out of place leaping for mackerel at a Sea World show pool.
What life-extending secrets could medical science learn about longevity, energy and endurance from dissecting an overweight septuagenarian who stays up half the night watching cable news and tweeting angry insults, gets little exercise beyond walking to Air Force One and his golf cart, and eats mostly the sort of fatty fast foods that are the foundation of America’s obesity epidemic?
How is it that a walrus with the added weight of the world on his shoulders can make it through day after day of cabinet meetings, sit-downs with foreign dignitaries, medal ceremonies, interviews, photo ops, and campaign rallies without even taking regular naps? His performance on such occasions – his logic and lucidity – may leave many of us scratching our heads and grinding our teeth, but you kind of have to admit that his stamina is impressive.
I don’t know about you, but I’m two years younger than he is, close to the ideal weight for my height, an exercise buff and a healthy eater. I take a siesta most days and still can’t stay awake for Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Fallon. And I don’t have the added stress of Nancy Pelosi or Rachel Maddow talking about jailing me.
More challenging, but also more rewarding potentially, would be the study of Trump’s brain. He says he’s a genius, and a stable one at that, but his declarations of mental prowess sometimes seem at odds with his erratic behavior, his childishness, and his very, very limited vocabulary. What could dissections and tissue scans discover about the wiring of his brain?
Some people believe that Trump is a narcissist, a liar, a con artist, a crook, or even a psychopath. He says he isn’t, and that he only interrupted his lucrative business career to take a relatively low-paying government job because America’s greatness needed restoration. Objective scientific study of his brain could, among other things, settle such debates for posterity.
In an article for the website Live Science, writer Clara Moskowitz reported about a Mayo Clinic study of people with antisocial personality disorder, a condition commonly found in criminals and characterized by an indifference to laws and the rights of others.
“Brain scans of the antisocial people, compared with a control group of individuals without any mental disorders,” she wrote, “showed on average an 18-percent reduction in the volume of the brain’s middle frontal gyrus, and a 9 percent reduction in the volume of the orbital frontal gyrus – two sections in the brain’s frontal lobe.”
Another study Moskowitz cited compared the brains of like numbers of psychopaths to non-psychopaths. “In the psychopaths,” she wrote, “the researchers observed deformations in another part of the brain called the amygdala, with the psychopaths showing a thinning of the outer layer of that region called the cortex and, on average, an 18-percent volume reduction in this part of brain.”
“The amygdala is the seat of emotion,” she was told by a member of the research team, Adrian Raine, of the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. “Psychopaths lack emotion. They lack empathy, remorse, guilt.”
A close look at Trump’s orbital frontal gyrus and his amygdala could add to our understanding of how he came to be who he is – and possibly exonerate him.
Finally, there’s the fame factor. Very few celebrities have donated their bodies to science. Not only could Trump join that short list, but he would be also the first President. He really ought to do it. Let’s hope he does.
The big reveal could be the basis of a prime-time special, like The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault. The ratings would be huge.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.
Among political reporters and pundits, the fashionable take on Democratic presidential candidates is that they’re recklessly veering too far to the left, consequently putting their chances of defeating Donald Trump at risk. That critique is all the rage.
“But the Democrats are in danger of marching so far left that they go over a cliff. That’s not just my view. Mainstream reporters, who tend to be less sensitive to liberal positions that match their personal views, are openly acknowledging and debating the dramatic shift. It was even on the front page of The New York Times.”
“The Democratic debates this past week provided the clearest evidence yet that many of the leading presidential candidates are breaking with the incremental politics of the Clinton and Obama eras, and are embracing sweeping liberal policy changes on some of the most charged public issues in American life, even at the risk of political backlash. But with moderate Democrats repeatedly drowned out or on the defensive in the debates, the sprint to the left has deeply unnerved establishment Democrats, who have largely picked the party nominees in recent decades.”
“That sound you heard in Miami on Wednesday evening? El partido demócrata dando un fuerte giro a la izquierda. The screech of a Democratic Party swerving hard to the left. As the first 2020 Democratic debate wrapped here, there was a palpable sense that the 10 contenders on stage were reflecting the sentiments of the most liberal corners of the party.”
Yes, Democrats are more liberal than they have been in my lifetime. Yes, it’s possible that they could eventually go too far. But I disagree with the punditosphere that Democrats have hit that point.
Why Moving Left?
The explanation of aghast pundits has been that Democrats are supporting progressive policies for two primary reasons:
Echo Chamber Parrots. First, they argue that Democrats are more liberal because they spend too much time in self-reinforcing “echo chambers” — social media and cable news channels where like-minded ideologues radicalize each other and get isolated from opposing viewpoints. Pundits say candidates spend too little time in the habitat of “real people,” which they usually identify as Mayberry-esque Main Street cafes.
Liberal Bidding War. Also, pundits explain that Democrats are now more liberal because they’re desperately trying to out-liberal each other to court ultra-liberal primary and caucus voters.
These are both very real occupational hazards for politicians, and valid contributory factors for the shift to the left. I don’t disagree with them, but they’re not the only explanations.
Democrats Are Listening To Americans
Many reporters and pundits are missing or under-emphasizing another explanation that is at least as important,:
Listening To Americans. Democrats are moving left because they are actually listening to Americans.
Democrats are not just marching in lockstep with Rachel Maddow, Moveon.org, Daily Kos, Paul Krugman, and Bernie Sanders. They’re not just trying to one-up each other. They’re also reading the survey research.
The American Prospect recently compiled a long list of recent survey polls showing overwhelming majorities of Americans embracing a broad range of progressive attitudes and policies, excerpted below. Remember, the following is dozens of independent statistically significant surveys speaking, not the liberal American Prospect magazine speaking:
The Economy
82 percent of Americans think wealthy people have too much power and influence in Washington.
78 percent of likely voters support stronger rules and enforcement on the financial industry.
Inequality
82 percent of Americans think economic inequality is a “very big” (48 percent) or “moderately big” (34 percent) problem. Even 69 percent of Republicans share this view.
66 percent of Americans think money and wealth should be distributed more evenly.
72 percent of Americans say it is “extremely” or “very” important, and 23 percent say it is “somewhat important,” to reduce poverty.
59 percent of registered voters—and 51 percent of Republicans—favor raising the maximum amount that low-wage workers can make and still be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, from $14,820 to $18,000.
Taxes
76 percent believe the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes.
60 percent of registered voters believe corporations pay too little in taxes.
87 percent of Americans say it is critical to preserve Social Security, even if it means increasing Social Security taxes paid by wealthy Americans.
67 percent of Americans support lifting the cap to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages.
Minimum Wage
54 percent of registered voters favored a $15 minimum wage.
63 percent of registered voters think the minimum wage should be adjusted each year by the rate of inflation.
Workers’ Rights
74 percent of registered voters—including 71 percent of Republicans—support requiring employers to offer paid parental and medical leave.
78 percent of likely voters favor establishing a national fund that offers all workers 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
Health Care
60 percent of Americans believe “it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage.”
60 percent of registered voters favor “expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every American.”
64 percent of registered voters favor their state accepting the Obamacare plan for expanding Medicaid in their state.
Education
63 percent of registered voters—including 47 percent of Republicans—of Americans favor making four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free.
59 percent of Americans favor free early-childhood education.
Climate Change and the Environment
76 percent of voters are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about climate change.
68 percent of voters think it is possible to protect the environment and protect jobs.
59 percent of voters say more needs to be done to address climate change.
Gun Safety
84 percent of Americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers.
77 percent of gun owners support requiring background checks for all gun buyers.
Criminal Justice
60 percent of Americans believe the recent killings of black men by police are part of a broader pattern of how police treat black Americans (compared with 39 percent who believe they are isolated incidents).
Immigration
68 percent of Americans—including 48 percent of Republicans—believe the country’s openness to people from around the world “is essential to who we are as a nation.” Just 29 percent say that “if America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.”
65 percent of Americans—including 42 percent of Republicans—say immigrants strengthen the country “because of their hard work and talents.” Just 26 percent say immigrants are a burden “because they take our jobs, housing and health care.”
64 percent of Americans think an increasing number of people from different races, ethnic groups, and nationalities makes the country a better place to live. Only 5 percent say it makes the United States a worse place to live, and 29 percent say it makes no difference.
76 percent of registered voters—including 69 percent of Republicans—support allowing undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children (Dreamers) to stay in the country. Only 15 percent think they should be removed or deported from the country.
Abortion and Women’s Health
58 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
68 percent of Americans—including 54 percent of Republicans—support the requirement for private health insurance plans to cover the full cost of birth control.
Same-Sex Marriage
62 percent of Americans—including 70 percent of independents and 40 percent of Republicans—support same-sex marriage.
For people who suffered through eras when the NRA, the Catholic Church, the health insurance lobby, the Moral Majority, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Tax Reform, and trickle downers like Reagan, Gingrich and Bush dominated politics and policymaking, these findings are pretty stunning.
Make no mistake, America has changed. A solid majority of Americans now are supportive of left-leaning policies, whether or not they self-identify as “liberal.” In a representative democracy, public opinion is supposed to have a powerful impact on candidates and policymakers, and it is.
“Scaring the Independents”
“Harumph,” say the grizzled veteran pundits and reporters. Hubris-laden Democrats are going to scare away the Independent voters and be responsible for four more years of Trump.
That’s certainly a danger, and an important thing to monitor in coming months. But remember, all of those polls listed above have a representative number of Independent voters in their samples, and breakouts show that on most issues a solid majority of Independents also are backing very progressive policy positions.
In addition, when you look at how Independent voters are currently leaning, they are leaning in the Democrat’s direction by a net nine-point margin.
Obviously, these polls are just a snapshot in time, so Democrats could still lose Independent voters after they are exposed to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of attacks. However, it’s worth noting that, after watching Democrats being lambasted for embracing progressive positions in recent years, Independents are still leaning fairly decisively blue.
Expanding the Electorate
Finally, let’s not forget that it will be easier for Democratic candidates to win if they can expand the electorate. That is, Democrats need to make the overall size of their electorate larger than it has been in past presidential election by motivating and activating the parts of their coalition that have traditionally voted in relatively low numbers, such as low-income people, people of color and young people. Even just a few percentage points improvement with those groups could impact the outcome of the 2020 elections up and down the ballot.
Positions in the “mushy middle” — ACA stabilization tweaks, incremental tax reform, inflation adjustments only to the minimum wage, semi-punitive immigration law changes, Pell Grant adjustments, etc. — probably won’t particularly motivate and activate these important voters.
Bolder progressive policies — Medicare-for All, Medicare buy-in option, repealing Bush and Trump tax cuts for the wealthy to fund help for struggling families, increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour, family medical leave benefits, bold immigration law changes, higher education loan forgiveness — might.
Short-term Needs. So even if supporting progressive policies were causing Democrats to lose amongst Independent voters — and remember, so far the data seems to indicate that they aren’t — there is an argument for Democratic candidates to take those progressive stands anyway, in order to keep young people, poor people, and people of color from sitting out election day in large numbers, or backing a left-leaning third party candidate.
Long-term Needs. Appealing to those lightly voting groups with progressive policies is also important for the long-term future of the Democratic Party, not just the 2020 election. That’s because people of color are the fastest growing portions of the population, and today’s young people obviously will be voting for many years. Making those groups into committed members of the Democratic coalition would pay long-term dividends.
More Room To Grow. Still, some maintain that voter turnout is going to be so large in 2020, due to the polarizing nature of President Trump, that the size of the electorate will be maxed out without having to motivate lightly voting groups with progressive policies.
But when you look at the dramatically lower than average turnout figures for loyal Democratic constituencies in 2018, when their turnout levels were actually very high compared to 2014, it’s clear there is still much room for growth with these groups. For instance, 36% of young people voted in 2018, compared to 53% of the total population. Again, even an increase of a point or two in some of these categories could be decisive.
Who’s Out of Touch?
So yes, Democrats have indeed moved left in recent years. That much is obvious. But given this consistent stream of survey research from a wide variety of sources, I can’t agree with those who conclude that Democratic candidates are the ones who are “out of touch” with the pulse of the American people.
During last night’s Part I of the Democratic Presidential debate, moderators and candidates acted as if candidates must make a choice between advocating for Medicare-for-All and a Medicare buy-in option. It was one of the few areas of division among the progressive candidates
Why? Progressives should be simultaneously advocating for both policies.
Stop Bashing Buy-In Option
Medicare-for-All advocates like Sanders and Warren need to stop taking cheap shots at a Medicare buy-in option.
The reality is, without a filibuster-proof Senate majority, Medicare-for-All simply can’t pass for a while. Therefore, progressives need a Plan B that helps as many Americans as possible, shows that Democrats can deliver on their health care rhetoric, and advances the cause of Medicare-for-All.
It helps more Americans in the short-run by bringing much more price competition to the marketplace and ensuring every American has at least one comprehensive coverage option available to them, even in poorly served areas.
Beyond helping Americans in the short-term, a buy-in option also advances the cause of Medicare-for-All. Americans have been brainwashed by decades of conservatives’ vilifying of “government run health care,” but a buy-in option will give younger generations of Americans first-hand evidence showing that Medicare is not to be feared. It will show millions of Americans that Medicare is cheaper and better than conservatives’ vaunted corporate health plans.
And that will help disarm conservatives’ red-faced criticisms of “government run health care” and Medicare-for-All.
Stop Bashing
Medicare-for-All
At the same time, champions of a Medicare buy-in option like Biden and Buttigieg need to stop railing on a Medicare-for-All.
Even though Medicare-for-All can’t pass right away, progressives need to keep explaining what the world’s other developed nations figured out a long time ago, that a single payer government-run is the only real solution for any nation that hopes to control costs, cover everyone, and improve health outcomes.
For far too long, progressives have been afraid to educate Americans about why a single-payer system is needed. When fearful progressives sensor themselves from explaining why Medicare-for-All is needed, they leave the stage to conservative and corporate demagogues relentlessly spreading myths about the evils of “government-run health care.”
And when progressives leave the stage to conservative demagogues — surprise, surprise – progressives lose the debate.
Start Pushing Both
What would it sound like to advocate these two positions simultaneously? It could sound something like this:
Ultimately, we must cover everyone, control skyrocketing costs, and improve health outcomes. And you know what? Ultimately, the only way to do that is Medicare-for-All.
In America, Medicare has proven effective and is popular with those who use it. In developed nations around the world using government-run systems like Medicare, everyone is covered, costs are much lower and health outcomes are much better.
So Medicare-for-All must to be our ultimate goal. We have to keep our eyes on that prize. We need it as soon as possible.
At the same time, the Republican-controlled Senate won’t pass Medicare-for-All. That’s reality folks.
Given that reality, what can Democrats do right now to both help the American people and pave the way for Medicare-for-All in the long-run? A Medicare buy-in option. A buy-in option has lots of public support among Republican voters, so it has a much better chance of passing the Senate than Medicare-for-All.
Let Americans choose between corporate care and Medicare. If they want to keep their private health insurance, they can. But given them another option.
President Trump is afraid to give Americans make that choice. I’m not. He knows Americans will like Medicare better, and doesn’t want to give them that option. I’m not afraid, because I know that a Medicare plan that isn’t required to profit off of patients will be cheaper and better that corporate care. So let Americans choose.
Enacting a buy-in option now will show more Americans that they have nothing to fear from Medicare coverage. And that will help us move the American people towards embracing Medicare-for-All.
Pols and pundits keep framing this issue as if it must be a battle to the death for progressives. But Medicare-for-All versus a Medicare Buy-in Option is a false choice. Progressives should be advocating for both, and stop savaging each other on the issue.
If you want to defeat Trump in 2020, I’d argue one of the worst things you can do right now is donate to Democratic presidential candidates. I’m serious.
Bear with me.
Last time I checked, Democrats have something like two dozen candidates in the race. That means any given donor’s chances of picking the winning candidate who ultimately runs against Trump are poor. Therefore, the contribution you give today could be, for the purposes of defeating Trump, pretty much wasted.
But what if you really feel strongly about a candidate?
Look, the policy differences between most of the candidates are not very significant. The differences get artificially magnified in heated primaries, but let’s keep things in the proper perspective. If you feel strongly about Issue X, the odds are very good that you are going to have several candidates in the race who agree with you, if not all of them.
So, donating now won’t particularly help promote Issue X. That’s why it’s very difficult to pick a Democratic candidate deserving of your donation.
Finally, making a contribution to an individual candidate now could inadvertently prolong the portion of the campaign season where Democrats have so many candidates in the race that their message is pretty much incoherent. Candidate winnowing is particularly needed with a field of 24, because a crowded, contentious field muddles the eventual nominee’s message and probably muddies the nominee’s reputation.
Candidates typically leave the race when they run out of money to pay for staff and ads, so giving to candidates now could simply delay the badly needed winnowing phase of the campaign.
So, which candidate or candidates should get your contributions? None of them.
Instead of contributing to one of the Democratic presidential candidates at a stage of the process when the race is essentially a roulette wheel, direct your contributions to Unify, Or Die.
Unify, Or Die was started by the hosts of the excellent podcast Pod Save America, in partnership with Swing Left. The idea simple and brilliant. People who want to defeat Trump can Donate to the Unify, Or Die Fund now, and the minute there is a Democratic Party nominee, all of the accumulated funding immediately will go to the Democratic nominee, so they can hit the ground running post-Democratic Convention against Trump and his massive war chest
So before you write that next big Hickenlooper check, stop, think big picture strategy, and redirect your money to a unified movement to remove the most corrupt, incompetent, and bigoted President of our times.
Joe Biden is stuck in a bygone era where Democrats were desperate to be accepted by wealthy donors. That’s at the root of his recent comments that he opposed “demonizing” the wealthy.
“’Remember, I got in trouble with some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side, because I said, you know, what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people. Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who’s made money,’ Biden told about 100 well-dressed donors at the Carlyle Hotel on New York’s Upper East Side, where the hors d’oeuvres included lobster, chicken satay and crudites.
‘Truth of the matter is, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done,’ Biden said. ‘We can disagree in the margins. But the truth of the matter is, it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living would change. Nothing would fundamentally change,’ he said.”
Just to clarify, contemporary Democrats are mostly talking about restoring tax levels for the wealthy to, at most, something like the Clinton-era levels, a time when the wealthy still were getting plenty rich. That’s hardly “demonizing.” If Joe doesn’t understand that, he doesn’t belong in the race.
Moreover, restoring tax fairness through progressive tax reform is the only real way to responsibly finance badly needed help for families, children, students, patients, workers and the environment. Democrats can’t live up to their progressive values if they don’t make those investments. If Joe doesn’t understand that, he doesn’t belong in the race.
Policy substance aside, this episode reveals a dangerous political blindspot, and/or insufficient awareness that everything you say anywhere in 2019 is very much “on the record.” Characterizing core progressive ideas as somehow “demonizing” the wealthy is spectacularly dumb primary politics. It also forfeits perhaps the strongest issue Democrats have for running against a corrupt billionaire and his congressional apologists, whose entire agenda has been designed to further enrich billionaires at the expense of the middle class and future generations of Americans.
If Joe doesn’t understand that, he especially doesn’t belong in the race.
And you know what? After reading Biden’s remarks, I’m pretty concerned that the 76-year old, who has been an elected official for 48-years, during political eras that were very different from the current era, doesn’t sufficiently understand any of those 2019 realities.
I usually like the book better than the movie, but the reality is, most of us never get to the book. And so it goes with the Mueller Report. Reportedly, only 3 percent of us have read it. This contributes mightily to the fact that 52% disapprove of Trump, but only 41% currently support impeachment.
We Americans are drawn to well-crafted imagery and storytelling. We love our movies and series, and a dramatized version of the Mueller Report would make quite a show.
Imagine it.
A MysteryMovie
The screenplay could begin by telling the story of how Trump’s multiple business failures made borrowing impossible.
But then suddenly in 2014, Eric Trump is publicly boasting:
“We have all the money we need out of Russia.”
Wait, what? Why? How? Who?
It’s a compelling mystery, and Americans love mysteries.
A Spy Movie
The screenplay could then then focus on Part I of the Mueller Report findings, which focus on the Trump campaign’s 272 contacts with the Russians in the midst of the Russians’ attacks on America’s democratic crown jewel, our free and fair elections.
“If it’s what you say I love it…especially later in the summer.”
“Russia, if you’re listening…”
“Wikileaks, we LOVE Wikileaks.”
12 Russian intelligence officers indicted for interfering in the American election to help Trump
It’s a spy story, and Americans love spy movies.
A Mafia Movie
It could then dramatize Part II of the Mueller Report findings, which focuses on Trump’s cover-up of the Russian collusion and witness tampering.
“Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
“I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it. . . . when I decided to just do it, I said to myself — you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.”
“Mueller has to go. … Call me back when you do it.”
“I don’t do cover-ups.”
It’s a story of a family engaged in criminal activities doing whatever is needed to hold on to their wealth and power, and Americans love mafia movies.
A Horror Movie
It could end with the President’s son-in-law trying to set up a back channel communication to the Kremlin, President Trump repeatedly insisting on meeting with Putin without an interpreter or note-taker in the room, and Trump and the smirking Putin spooning in Helsinki.
“He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
Scrolling before the credits would be the letter signed by over 1,000 former federal prosecutors who reviewed the findings of the Mueller Report.
“We are (over 1,000) former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system.
As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction …puts our whole system of justice at risk.
Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.”
It’s a story with a horrifying ending — an American President seemingly in the pocket of a hostile foreign enemy who is being held above the laws that every other American is expected to obey. And Americans love horror movies.
Bring It To Life
Close your eyes and imagine all of this flickering on screens across the nation. All laid out as a clear, linear story, as opposed to a lengthy, abstruse report. All portraying documented evidence, but evidence brought to life by talented actors and cinematographers. All applying an ethical “smell test” instead of a sterile legal test. All presented in the summer and fall of 2020 to Americans as a three-part miniseries on a widely available streaming service, such as Netflix.
To save America from this corrupt President, we need to give the people what they want. They don’t want a 448-page reading assignment. They don’t want 19-hours of audio book. They don’t want Mueller on C-Span3 making their eyes glaze over with his gray, inconclusive, buck-passing legalese.
They want the findings of the Mueller Report spoon-fed and dramatized in a highly condensed and entertaining format. They want it brought to life.
