Category Archives: 2016 presidential race

Top 10 Worst Trump Defenses, So Far

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“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.

No Clintonites, We Shouldn’t Refight the Last War

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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. 

The Atlantic describes the development:

“…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 railing against 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.

Bullock has also said fossil fuels will remain part of the nation’s energy portfolio for decades to come and dismissed the idea that the nation can wean itself off dirty fuels within the timeframe some are calling for.”

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.

Championing Both Medicare-for-All and Buy-in Option

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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. 

That’s what a Medicare buy-in option does. 

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.

Republicans Extremely Unlikely To Impeach Trump

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Cursor_and_trump_impeachment_-_Google_SearchThere’s a popular theory among the chattering classes that Trump will be impeached fairly soon.  It goes something like this: Republican members of Congress are getting very sick of Trump, because of his incompetence, conflicts-of-interest, Putin slavishness, and overall lunacy. Long-term, they worry that Trump will hurt their brand with the non-extreme swing voters they need to win elections.

So, the theory goes, congressional Republicans will eventually latch on to an impeachable offense, such as a blatant violation of a court order, which would spark a constitutional crisis. Congressional Republicans will then join with Democrats to impeach Trump, knowing all the while that doing so will empower one of their own, Vice President Mike Pence.

To congressional Republicans, Pence, a former member of Congress and Governor, is a comfortable old shoe.  He has extremely conservative positions on social issues that won’t sit well with American swing voters.  But he has at least been to charm school, and is competent, administratively speaking. So, the Ryans and McConnells of the world would be relieved to have Pence in the Oval Office instead of Trump.

Anyway, that’s the widely discussed theory.

Not Going To Happen

I find it very unlikely. Here’s why:

Yes, Trump is committing impeachable offenses.  Yes, most Republican congressional leaders worry about Trump, and much prefer Pence.  That part of the theory makes perfect sense.

But more than anything, congressional Republicans care about winning elections and holding onto their power. That is their lifeblood. To hold on to their seats and their majority, they need to a) survive Republican primary challenges in deep red gerrymandered congressional districts and b) have their hardcore Trump-loving base turn out to vote in general elections.

I believe it is highly likely that a significant slice of the Trump loyalists would stick with Trump, even after an impeachment, and maybe especially after an impeachment.  A significant proportion of the Trump voters will never stop being loyal to him.

After a historically bizarre and controversial campaign season, Trump is currently going through a disastrous transition and first couple of weeks in power.  He has criticism coming at him from all directions, including from prominent conservative leaders.   At the same time, Republicans no longer have the demonized Hillary Clinton to cast in their “lesser of two evils” narrative, which helped them win moderates in the Presidential election.

Despite all of that working against Trump, a Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey recently found that 95 percent of Trump voters still approve of the job Trump is doing, even though only a 47 percent minority of Americans approve, a historically low level for a President in his honeymoon period.  After all of that, 95 percent of Trump voters still approve of his performance.

Clearly, Trump voters are exceptionally loyal to him.  Still, as the Trump-generated outrages continue to pile up, and Trump fatigue sets in, some of that support will die off. Eventually, I could foresee as many as half of the Trump voters changing their mind about Trump.

But even if only half of Trump voters remain loyal to Trump after an impeachment proceeding, the remaining impeachment-inflamed Trump diehards – stoked by the unrepentant pro-Trump messaging machines like Breitbart, InfoWars, and many others — could wreak havoc on incumbent Republicans who supported impeachment. In general elections, a sizable number of post-impeachment Trump loyalists – enraged by the spurning of their hero — could stay home and cause otherwise safe congressional Republicans to lose in November 2018.

None of this is lost on congressional Republicans, who are hyper-sensitive to the Trump voters.  At the end of the day, most Republican Members of Congress seem to care much more about preserving their political power than they do about saving the republic from a crooked, unstable authoritarian. Because of that, and because Trump’s hard core loyalist voters will stick with him through just about anything, I just can’t see the current Republican majority ever agreeing to impeach Trump.

In other words, unless Trump steps down on his own, I think we’re almost certainly stuck with Trump for four years.

Trump Resistance Roadmap

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For progressives aiming to win the hearts and minds of the 46% of American voters who supported Donald Trump in 2016, there is a  better and worse way to approach conversations and campaigns.

Slide1

For messages about the Trump policy agenda, the villain needs to be Trump flip-flops, not Trump voters.  The focus needs to be on Trump not keeping his 2016 promises, not on Trump voters being stupid for being conned in 2016.

Trump voters need a face-saving way out of this, so avoiding polarizing “I told you so’s” is critically important.

Much of what I currently see on social media and progressive media is using the “Trump voters are dumb” approach to messaging.  We need to stop.  Believe me, I understand why people are going there.  It’s very cathartic to say “I told you so,” but you can feel it entrenching Trump voters more deeply and permanently into Team Trump.

The messaging nuance recommended in this chart won’t win every Trump voter, but it gives progressives a more hopeful shot at winning a modest subset of them, such as voters who were more anti-Clinton than pro-Trump.  If only a small slice of the 46% of 2016 Trump voters are angry at Trump congressional allies in 2018, the mid-term elections could deal a serious blow to the Trump agenda.  Winning in 2018 is worth taking a pass on cathartic “I told you so’s” over the next two years.

Why I Don’t Say “Not My President?”

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cursor_and_not_my_president_-_google_searchDonald Trump is my President.

Those are five words that are painful for me to say or write. But I don’t buy into the “not my President” rallying cry of so many of my well-intentioned friends. I’m a citizen of a nation that uses a representative democracy form of government. Our collective democracy chose, via the electoral college system established in our Constitution, Donald J. Trump to lead us for the next four years. God help us, it’s true and immutable.

So I don’t say “not my President.” I say “not my values.” I say “not my morals.” I say “not my policies.” Citizens are allowed to have different values, morals and policy preferences than their President.   But we can’t wish away our President.  Believe me, I’ve tried.  It doesn’t work.

I also claim Donald Trump as my President because I shouldn’t be let off the hook. Using those words continually reminds me that I’m partly culpable for the American embarrassment that is “President Donald J. Trump.”

No American citizen should be able to wash their hands of this national embarassment with a cavalier “not my President.” We are all part of the nation that elected this clown, and those of us who want that to change need to do more to win the hearts and minds of that nation, including the nearly 46.9% of Americans who didn’t vote.

Donate. Speak out. Volunteer. Reform the system. Choose more compelling candidates. Support better journalism.  Own it.

It’s as important to say as it is painful: Donald J. Trump is my President. Shame on me.

How Democrats Lost to the Worst GOP Presidential Candidate of Our Times

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Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about three million votes, a larger margin than Presidents Nixon and Kennedy had. She only lost the electoral college by roughly 100,000 votes (0.08 percent of the electorate) in three states. In a race that close, there is a long list of things that might have shifted the outcome of the presidential race.

I am sure that the Clinton campaign’s get out the vote (GOTV), data mining, advertising, debate zingers, primary election peace-making, voter suppression battling and many other things could have been better.  Who knows, those improvements might have swung that relatively small number of votes. But if I had to name the top three things that swung the election, I wouldn’t name any of those more tactical issues.  Instead, these are my nominees:

WORST POSSIBLE NOMINEE PROFILE FOR OUR ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT TIMES.  I admire Hillary Clinton on many levels, and think she has been treated very unfairly in this campaign and throughout her career.  But early on in the nomination cycle, it was extremely clear that general election voters were in a white hot anti-Washington establishment mood, and were looking for someone very different than a Hillary Clinton-type candidate.

Hillary Clinton was the ultimate Washington establishment candidate. Her resume, network, husband and demeanor absolutely screamed “Washington Insider.”   Democrats could have run a less establishmenty candidate that was more sane than Trump –Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, others — but they chose to run a candidate who had the worst possible profile for the times.

This created two huge problems 1) It caused Hillary to lose change-oriented voters who supported change-oriented Obama in the past and 2) It caused much of the Obama coalition to sit out the race, or effectively throw their vote away by supporting a third party candidate.

President-elect Trump won a somewhat smaller vote total than Republicans have been winning in their past two presidential losses.  Despite all of the post-election hype about the Trump political magic show, he didn’t perform that well, historically speaking.   The difference wasn’t that Trump created a tsunami of support, it was that the cautious establishment-oriented Democratic candidate was unable to generate sufficient excitement among the Obama coalitions of 2008 and 2012, particularly millennials and people of color.  This chart tells the story.

cursor_and_john_edgell

COMPLETE LACK OF ECONOMIC MESSAGE. In May, I made this argument:

The Clinton campaign needs to stick to a small number of lines of attack, even as the Trump vaudeville act continually tosses out new bait to lead the Clinton campaign down dozens of different messaging paths.  Trump is clearly incapable of message discipline, but Clinton can’t allow his lack of discipline to destroy hers.

Swing voters are disgusted by establishment figures like Hillary and Congress, because they see them as part of a corrupt Washington culture that has rigged the economy for the wealthy few to the exclusion of the non-wealthy many.  That is the central concern of many Trumpeters and Bern Feelers, and so that issue is the most important messaging ground for Clinton.

Therefore, Secretary Clinton should align a disciplined campaign messaging machine – ads, speech soundbites, policy announcements, surrogate messaging, etc. — around framing Mr. Trump as: Trump the self-serving economy rigger.

Why choose this framing over all of the other delicious options?  First, it was proven effective against a billionaire candidate in 2012.  There is message equity there.  Why reinvent the wheel?  Second, it goes to the core of what is bugging swing voters the most in 2016.

Needless to say, this never happened. The Clinton campaign reacted to pretty much everything that Trump did, and never stressed anything close to a bold agenda for addressing income inequality.  She also failed to offer much of a critique of a Trump economic agenda that would badly aggravate income inequality for Trump’s base of voters.

For reasons I’ll never understand, the economic populist message and agenda that an unlikely candidate like Bernie Sanders used to light up the political world earlier in the election cycle was almost entirely ignored by Team Clinton.  As a result, 59% of Americans are somewhat or very confident that the economy will improve under President-elect Trump.  Given the truth about the devastation that will be caused by Trump policies, shame on Clinton for allowing that level of public delusion to develop.

CANDIDATE WITH WAY TOO MUCH BAGGAGE. The “controversies” swirling around Secretary Clinton were less a product of corruption than they were a product of three decades of relentless witch-hunting by conservatives in the Congress and at Fox TV, and gutless false equivalency reporting from the mainstream media. The FBI Director’s shameless manipulation of the email investigation and the New York Times’ ridiculous inflation of the email issue was especially damaging to Clinton.

But as unfair and maddening as most of the Hillary criticism was, Democrats knew full well that it was coming.  They knew Clinton had three decades worth of earned and unearned skeletons in her family closet, but arrogantly chose her anyway.

If Democrats hope to win more Presidential elections, the days of always nominating the candidate with the longest political resume must end. In the current environment of non-stop congressional and media investigations, long political resumes now will always come with a long list of real and imagined “scandals.”   Those alleged controversies will, quite unfairly, make veteran insiders increasingly unelectable, because confused, under-informed voters will always tend to conclude “if there is corruption smoke, there must be fire,” as so many did with Clinton.

If Democrats had run a candidate who didn’t have known “scandals” looming, and who had a background, demeanor, agenda and message that gave voters confidence that they were willing and able to do something about an economy rigged in favor of the 1%, Democrats wouldn’t have needed to look for a stray 100,000 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. They could have won in an electoral college landslide over the worst Republican presidential candidate of our times.

When The Lie Referees Lie

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False equivalence is a form of logical fallacy in which two arguments are made to appear as if they are equally valid, when in fact they aren’t. Here is a prime example of how false equivalence in newspapers inadvertently misleads.

The Star Tribune editorial page carried a guest commentary on October 31, 2016.  It was written by authors associated with the terrific nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize-winning organization Politifact.  So far, so good.

But the Star Tribune headlined the piece: “Politifact:  The 10 whoppers of both leading presidential candidates.”  This piece then lists ten false statements for Hillary Clinton and ten for Donald Trump.  Ten and ten, presumably to appear “balanced.”

While Politifact’s 20 lies are all fair and well-documented cases, the overall impression given by the headline and commentary is that both candidates lie in equal measure.  As someone who has conducted lots of focus groups in my career, I can almost guarantee you that a focus group of undecided voters — the coin of the realm eight days before the election — would overwhelmingly report “both candidates lie at about the same rate” as their central take-away.

The problem is, that’s not true.  Politifact itself has found that the “both candidates lie in equal measure” assertion is a lie. A more complete look at Politifact’s full body of work finds that the two candidates are far from equivalent in their level of veracity.helpful_infographic_for_disputing_those_who_claim_that_donald__the_line_of__make_america_great_again___the_phrase__that_was_mine__trump_is_better_than_the_same_as_clinton_-_imgur

This chart is not updated through the present, so an updated chart is needed.   But the point is, either the Politifact authors or Star Tribune editors should have included a summary of the complete Politifact findings, to put the “ten whoppers” in proper context.  Doing so would give Star Tribune readers what they deserve, a more clear and complete picture of the truth.

False equivalence is itself a type of lie that is muddying our democratic discourse. So what are citizens to do we do when the Lie Referees also, inadvertently, lie? The Star Tribune and Politifact are two organizations that I value and support, but this is not their finest hour.

Difficult Time of Year for Decision Deficit Disorder (DDD) Sufferers

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cursor_and_custom_ribbon__decision_deficit_disorderWashington, DC — Just as the holiday season can be difficult for those who have recently lost loved ones, election time is a horrific time for those suffering from a little discussed condition known as Decision Deficit Disorder (DDD).

During the election season, DDD sufferers get overwhelmed with anxiety and confusion as they are asked to take 18 months worth of campaign-generated information to make a final decision about which candidate they will support.

“DDD can be extremely, oh gosh I just don’t what the right word would be,” said Jonah Wildarsky, who suffers from DDD and is the Executive Director of the Decision Deficit Disorder Foundation.

As a defense mechanism, those with DDD frequently accuse all candidates of being equally poor, rather than deciding who is the better one, as other voters do.

“Clinton or Trump, Trump or Clinton, it’s just not fair to ask us to decide, because they’re just so identically bad,” screamed Wildarsky. “The pressure during the last month of the campaign is immense. I’ve personally had to suffer through 127 news interviews this year, because there are just so few DDD survivors left for reporters to interview.”

The Foundation works to create awareness of DDD. For instance, Wildarsky says the Foundation hopes some day to distribute ribbons, if a color choice can be finalized.

“Golly, I don’t know, is yellow or pink or some other color best,” asked Wildarsky. “The colors all  seem equally bad to me.  Why in the world can’t we have better colors?”

From O.J. to the Deplorable Appeal of Donald T.

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NEW BLOG PHOTO_edited- 3A couple weeks ago I hit Maximum Trump Wall. Too much stupidity too much of the time. So I took a break and caught up on some good TV. Bad mistake.

Tuning down the wall of Trump noise I filled late summer evenings binge-watching stuff I had heard was “must see” TV. (The Emmys are this Sunday.) On the list was, “The Night Manager”, an adaptation of a John LeCarre novel. Then “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” a dramatization of the case with John Travolta, Nathan Lane, David Schwimmer and Cuba Gooding Jr., followed by HBO’s “The Night of” with John Turturro, but most importantly, written by the great Richard Price. Finally, the major investment, 479 minutes of ESPN’s documentary, “O.J. Simpson: Made in America”.

The last one was where my strategy of Trump avoidance went completely to hell. “Made in America”, I’ve been telling (boring) people in the days since may be the single best thing I’ve seen on TV in years … “Breaking Bad”, “The Sopranos”, “Game of Thrones”, Frontline documentaries, you name it. Directed by Ezra Edelman, ( the son of children’s rights activist Marian Wright Edelman and Georgetown University law professor Peter Edelman) the film is the thickest, richest slice of modern America culture I can recall ever. As with all great filmmaking/storytelling it is Edelman’s perceptive sequencing of the mostly familiar story of Simpson, the murders and the court case into the context of the culture surrounding it all.

Re-visiting the Simpson story night after night, it all came back. The indemnified status of celebrities in modern America, a culture cynical of authority while simultaneously delusional about fame. The noxious racist police culture of Los Angeles, not significantly different than every other large American city, and the indifference of white America to it. The intense resentment and sense of grievance of blacks toward law enforcement and the judicial system. The appalling cynicism of lawyers supplied with enough money to tell a wholly implausible story that exploits grievance to maximum effect, and a media culture first and foremost committed to trading in the elements of any story that sustains the story viewers and readers want to hear, thereby enhancing the value of the media itself.

Trump avoidance was an impossibility.

With what is it now, 56 days until the election we have pretty well swept aside every issue other than grievance, resentment, racial animosity, celebrity and media self-service to explain Trump’s appeal. There is nothing more to it. There’s no “small government conservatism”. No “libertarian notion” ersatz or otherwise. There’s no economic incentive particularly. It’s not even so much a distaste for Hillary Clinton specifically, as it is a resentment of and grievance against anything that smacks of a culture/a class of people easily blamed for what are in fact personal failures.

About as I was wrapping up “Made in America” I read Arlie Russell Hochschild’s feature in Mother Jones, “I Spent Five Years With Some of Trump’s Biggest Fans. Here’s What They Won’t Tell You.”

In a nutshell, Hochschild spends time shadowing a woman selling Aflac insurance to the desperately poor whites of rural Louisiana. The grand takeaway of the piece is this: After growing up in a culture that had long accepted sneering at shiftless blacks, people forever gaming the system for (fraudulent) welfare disability benefits, food stamps, public housing, whatever, these sad crackers have been slapped in the face with a new reality. Lacking necessary 21st century skills, family after family is unemployed, living by welfare threads and being hammered by opioid and other drug addictions. They have come to realize, even if they don’t want to say so out loud, that they are the new shiftless, hopeless-loser blacks. They are the people “respectable” society — skilled workers, white collar professionals, liberals and most of the media — has written off as lazy drags on society. Needless to say, they’re all in for Trump, who promises them they’ll be “great again.”

So yeah, these people are “the deplorables” Hillary Clinton was talking about in such an impolitic way the other day. And their grievances and misplaced resentments are among the long, long list of highly relevant questions Matt Lauer didn’t bother to ask Trump on that aircraft carrier last week.

I think I’ve said this before, but a saving irony of the Trump disaster (whether he wins or loses) is that it has fully dispensed and blown away the illusion that the United States is living in some kind of post-racial era. The virulent racism roiling just under the keel of Trump’s garbage barge is a startling reminder that very nearly half the country today, your work colleagues and neighbors, are comfortable with hostilities a lot of us thought subsided in the ’60s. Moreover, today’s “blacks”, in the form of under-educated, substantially unemployable, perpetually aggrieved whites have been convinced by their media of choice of something no real black of old ever thought, namely that they are entitled to more and better just because of the color of their skin.

 

 

 

Banning Trump From Ballot Doesn’t Pass Smell Test

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cursor_and_democrats_right_to_vote_-_google_searchWhen it comes to the Minnesota DFL’s attempt to bar Donald Trump’s name from appearing on Minnesota ballots, the party is making a mistake by focusing on the could versus the should.

Yes, banning Trump from Minnesota ballots could be possible. It appears as if the ever-bungling Minnesota Republican Party perhaps didn’t follow the letter of the law in nominating their presidential elector alternates. I’m no great election law mind, so I’ll let the Star Tribune explain the DFL’s legal argument:

The petition said the state GOP erred at its state convention on May 20-21 in Duluth, where delegates “at large” and from each of Minnesota’s congressional districts nominated 10 presidential electors but failed to nominate 10 alternate electors.

The petition quoted the law (the italicized type is the party’s) as saying, “Presidential electors and alternates for the major political parties of this state shall be nominated by delegate conventions called and held under the supervision of the respective state central committees of the parties of this state.”

The petition continued: “This language is clear and unequivocal: Alternatives ‘shall’ be nominated — not unilaterally by party leaders — but by ‘delegate conventions.’

It sounds as if they might have case.  But letter of the law aside, should DFLers ban Trump?  The spirit of the law is that citizens should get to a chance to vote for the candidate who prevailed in the nominating process, in this case Trump.   That’s what Minnesotans of all parties feel in their gut.  The practical effect of the DFL’s move is to effectively disenfranchise Trump voters in Minnesota, more than one-third of the citizenry. For a party that justifiably preaches keeping democracy open to all voters, effectively disenfranchising at least one-third of the voters just doesn’t pass the smell test. It will offend many voters, including some who would otherwise be DFL-friendly, and it will seed even more cynicism in an already dangerously cynical citizenry.  That’s not good for our democracy.

Beyond the disenfranchisement of it all, DFL Party leaders perhaps should be wary of unintended consequences. An April 2016 Star Tribune-sponsored survey found Clinton with 48% of registered voters, Trump with 35%, and 17% undecided. While that’s a four month old poll, the chances are that Clinton still holds a lead in Minnesota. So, absent Trump being banned from the ballot by the DFL, Clinton probably would win Minnesota the old fashioned way, by earning the most votes.

So, there probably isn’t a lot to gain Electoral College-wise by gagging Trump voters. However, what happens if Trump refugees and undecided voters coalesce around Libertarian Gary Johnson?  What likely would have been a blue state could become, I don’t know, the Libertarian Party color.  That’s probably a long shot, but the possibility exists after the DFL kicks the Trump hornet nest by taking away their ability to vote for their hero.

DFL electoral tacticians likely see it differently. They may think that if Trump isn’t on the ballot, discouraged Trump voters will stay home, which will help the DFL win down-ballot races.  They’re banking on Trump voters to stay home and sulk, and they may be right.  But what happens if Trump voters instead get outraged enough by the perceived injustice of the situation to turn out in record numbers to vote against the party that they feel stole their votes?

DFL leaders probably feel quite self-satisfied about this clever little “gotcha” game.  I’m one strong DFLer who just doesn’t like it.  It feels like a betrayal of one of the party’s most admirable values – defense of every voter’s right to vote for the candidate of their choosing.  In my opinion this is not the Minnesota DFL’s finest hour.

Hillary, the ACA and the Art of the Possible

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Cursor_and_hillary_clinton_-_Google_SearchThough I’m a solid Hillary Clinton supporter, I don’t particularly relish defending her at water coolers, dinner tables and social media venues.  When defending Hillary Clinton to those who hoped for more, I often feel like I do when defending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to those who hoped for more.

To be clear, neither Hillary nor the ACA were my first choice. Elizabeth Warren and single payer were my first choices.

Neither Hillary nor the ACA are as bold as I’d prefer. They both promise modest incremental change, rather than the more revolutionary change that is needed.

Neither Hillary nor the ACA are, shall we say, untouched by special interests. The ACA is the product of accommodations made to private health insurers, physicians and the pharmaceutical industry, while Clinton is the product of accommodations made to corporations, unions and military leaders.

Also, neither Hillary nor the ACA are easy to understand. Hillary is a wonk’s wonk whose eye-glazing 20-point policy plans don’t exactly sing to lightly engaged voters.   Likewise, the ACA has given birth to 20,000 pages of the densest regulations you’ll ever find. (By the way, a primary reason the ACA is so complex is that conservatives and moderates insisted that it accommodate dozens of for-profit insurance companies instead of  using the more linear single payer model that has been proven effective and efficient by other industrialized nations. In this way, the need for much of the ACA complexity was created by conservatives, not liberals.)

At the same time, neither Hillary nor the ACA are anywhere near as bad as the caricatures created by their demagogic critics. Hillary is not a serial liar and murderer any more than the ACA led to “Death Panels” and force-fed birth control.

The bottom line is that both Hillary and the ACA, for all their respective flaws, are far superior to the alternatives. The steady, smart, savvy, and decent Clinton is much better than the erratic, ignorant, inept and vile Trump. The current ACA era, with a 9.2% uninsured rate (4.3% in Minnesota, where the ACA is more faithfully implemented than it is in many states) and all preexisting conditions covered is much better than the pre-ACA status quo, with an uninsured rate of 15.7% (9% in Minnesota) and millions denied health coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions.

Hillary and the ACA both bring progress, but they are hardly the final word.  The fact that I am supporting the ACA in 2016 doesn’t mean I’m going to stop advocating for ACA improvements, a Medicare-for-All option and ultimately a single payer system. The fact that I am supporting Hillary in 2016 doesn’t mean I’m not going to push for more progressive, bold, compelling and independent leaders in the future.

But politics is the art of the possible.  Hillary and the ACA are what is possible at this point in the history of our imperfect democracy.   As such, I can champion both comfortably, if not entirely enthusiastically.

Progressives and Moderates Intrigued By Gary Johnson Should Look Deeper

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Cursor_and_gary_johnson_funny_-_Google_SearchWhen I started seeing ads and social media chatter about former Republican Governor Gary Johnson running for President, I went to OnTheIssues.org to learn more.

I liked some of what I saw on foreign policy and law enforcement reform, but one line jumped out at me as particularly disturbing. It said Governor Johnson wants to:

“cut the federal budget by 43%.”

Just to be clear, a 43% cut in federal spending would constitute a major conservative revolution.  That would bring a much deeper reduction in government services than has been proposed in the past by ultra-conservative firebrands such as Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, or Michele Bachmann.

Still, I realize that a 43% cut has surface appeal.  After all, nobody feels a deep affinity for the abstract notion of “the federal government budget.” But budgets are collections of individual programs that deliver individual sets of services and benefits to Americans,  so we need to evaluate Johnson’s radical austerity plan on a program-by-program basis.

So, my fellow Americans, which federal services are you willing to cut by 43%, as Gary Johnson proposes.

Cut Infrastructure by 43%?  For instance, are the American people willing to cut infrastructure investments by 43%?  Do we want to slash investment in roads, bridges, transit, trains, airports, water and sewage systems, and the like?  A GBA Strategies survey finds that an overwhelming 71% of Americans want to spend $400 million more on infrastructure, not less.  Only 13% oppose such a massive federal government spending increase.

Cut Medicare by 43%?  Do the American people want to cut Medicare by 43%? After all, Medicare is a huge and growing part of the federal budget.  Americans not only don’t want to cut Medicare, more than three-fourths (77%) of Americans want to fund a new, massively expensive Medicare-for-All option.  Only 17% oppose such an expansion of government services and spending.

Cut Social Security by 43%?  Maybe Americans want to cut Social Security benefits by 43%?  While Social Security represents an enormous slice of the federal pie, the vast majority of Americans not only don’t want to cut Social Security benefits, a whopping 70% want to strengthen them.  Only 15% oppose expanding Social Security benefits.

Cut National Defense by 43%?  What about a 43% cut in national defense spending? Gallup finds that only 32% of Americans support national defense budget cuts.

Cut Other Programs by 43%?  Similarly, the GBA survey finds that an overwhelming majority of Americans want major government spending increases for green energy technology (70% support, 20% oppose), debt-free public higher education (71% support, 19% oppose), and subsidies for high quality child care  (53% support, 33% oppose) . There is no public appetite to cut any of those federal programs by 43%, as Governor Johnson proposes.

In other words,  only a thin slice of the most deeply ultra-conservative voters support Johnson’s fiscal austerity ideas.  Therefore, more moderate voters who are concerned about the nation’s poor, middle class, national security and global competitiveness need to learn about the implications of Johnson’s fiscal proposals before they jump on the Johnson bandwagon.

Confessions of a Facebook Killjoy

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“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Martin Niemöller, 1947

“I try not to post political stuff…”
Me and most of my Facebook friends

Cursor_and_speak_no_evil_-_Google_SearchIn the era of Donald Trump and social media, these two statements haunt me.

On the one hand, I know that silence heals.  During these bitterly polarized times, it seems more important than ever to have a safe place like Facebook where politically divided friends and relatives momentarily set aside political rantings.  Sometimes we need to just take time to small talk, coo over snapshots and chortle over animal videos. So maybe, I think to myself, since I speak out in the blogosphere and on Twitter, I can give it a rest on Facebook.

But, as Niemöller reminds, sometimes silence doesn’t heal.  A grossly ignorant, bigoted, emotional pygmy with bullyboy tendencies could be about to become the leader of the free world during very dangerous and fragile times.  That is not an exaggeration. That may not end well.  So maybe, I think to myself, shame on me if I don’t heed Niemöller’s warning.

I was thinking about this the other day after reading a New Yorker article about Tony Schwartz, the ghost-writer of Trump’s bestselling book “The Art of the Deal.” Schwartz spent a year interviewing and shadowing Trump, so he got to know Trump better than most. He came away from that up-close exposure with this to say about the man who soon could be President:

“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.”

He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”

So, the stakes of this election could be just a little bit high.  If so, what am I going to tell my grandkids if things turn out badly?

“He came to nuke the Muslims and I did not speak out— Because I didn’t want to put a damper on the baby elephant video.”

As a friend and I were discussing the other day, I’m not really sure how to be a responsible citizen during a time of crisis. I’m a rookie at this, as I suppose Niemöller was during Hitler’s rise.  We have lived our whole lives during a time when there has not been what I would consider a mega-crisis, such as an epic moral battle over slavery, suffrage or segregation, a Great Depression or a World War.

In the wake of the biggest crisis of my lifetime — the 9-11 terror attacks — I wasn’t a particularly responsible citizen. I didn’t speak out against the anti-American Patriot Act. I didn’t speak out in a timely way about the wholly unnecessary Iraq War. I didn’t speak out against anti-Muslim hate crimes.  In the process, my silence contributed in a small way to making the the world less stable, just and safe.  I also haven’t been a very responsible citizen in the face of a mountain of evidence proving an unconscionable level of societal racial bias.

So, forgive me Facebook friends, but I just don’t feel like I can afford to completely sit silent over the next four months of this historically scary election.  I need to speak out, at least a little.  It may not make any difference, but I have to try.

And if everything turns out okay on November 8th, I promise on November 9th I will stick to baby elephant videos for a while.

Hillary Needs A Singular Trump Critique, Not Dozens

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One of the problems with running against a historically bizarre opponent like Donald Trump is that there are so many different juicy ways to run against him.  Most activists and pundits think of that as an opportunity, but it also poses a very real problem – focus.

Because Trump is such an outrageous cartoon character of a candidate, Secretary Clinton could be tempted to use her campaign platform and resources to frame up Mr. Trump in a myriad of different ways.  But that would be the biggest mistake she could make.

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Trump the bigot.  Trump the philanderer. Trump the misogynist. Trump the bully.  Trump the trigger happy. Trump the uncouth.  Trump the simpleton.  Trump the liar.  Trump the inciter.  Trump the right winger.  Trump the failure.  Trump the blunderer.  Trump the neo-facist.  Trump the war criminal.  Trump the con artist.  Trump the demagogue.  Trump the hypocrite.  Trump the rejected.  Trump the authoritarian.  Trump the unstable.  Trump the novice.  Trump the flip-flopper.  Trump the all-of-the-above.

It’s dizzying.  One of the worst possible strategies is the last one — to throw everything at Trump in roughly equal measure, which is de facto what is happening at the moment.  And that is what happens when you don’t have a disciplined communications strategy.

Singular Key Message Needed

The essence of communications strategy is sacrifice.  You have to walk past some tempting messages in order to have a focused strategy.  If you say everything you possibly could say about an opponent, you effectively are saying nothing.  All of those very valid Trump critiques piled one upon the other becomes a cacophony to voters.  Subsequently, eyes roll and ears shut.

The_Key_to_the_Key_cg-50_jpg__320×247_So communications strategists typically identify a small number of messages or themes that they strive to repeat and stress above all the others. They’re often called “key messages,” or “frames.”

The key message is the one idea that you need to stick in your target audience’s mind in order to achieve your goal, which in this case is persuading swing voters to reject Trump and get more comfortable with Clinton.

Therefore, the Clinton campaign needs to stick to a small number of lines of attack, even as the Trump vaudeville act continually tosses out new bait to lead the Clinton campaign down dozens of different messaging paths.  Trump is clearly incapable of message discipline, but Clinton can’t allow his lack of discipline to destrory hers.

Trump The Economy Rigger

So which crystallizing key message should Clinton stress?

Swing voters are disgusted by establishment figures like Hillary and Congress, because they see them as part of a corrupt Washington culture that has rigged the economy for the wealthy few to the exclusion of the non-wealthy many.  That is the central concern of many Trumpeters and Bern Feelers, and so that issue is the most important messaging ground for Clinton.

Therefore, Secretary Clinton should align a disciplined campaign messaging machine – ads, speech soundbites, policy announcements, surrogate messaging, etc. — around framing Mr. Trump as:

Trump the self-serving economy rigger.

As Clintonista James Carville might say, “it’s the economy rigging, stupid.”  That is, Trump the privileged billionaire selfishly seeking to win control the Washington levers of power in order further rig the economy to benefit himself and his privileged class at the expense of everyone else.  If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s precisely the strategy that Team Obama used to defeat billionaire Mitt Romney in 2012.

Why choose this framing over all of the other delicious options?  First, it was proven effective against a billionaire candidate in 2016.  There is message equity there.  Why reinvent the wheel?  Second, it goes to the core of what is bugging swing voters the most in 2016.

With this kind of framing, the Clinton-Warren or Clinton-Sherrod Brown team would focus like a laser on Trump’s tax giveaways to the rich. It would highlight his proposals to weaken Wall Street protections. It would stress Trump’s opposition to Clinton proposals to  increase the minimum wage hikes and taxes on the wealthy. It would hammer relentlessly on Trump’s refusal to reveal his taxes, and stress that he doesn’t want ordinary Americans to know that the billionaire pays a much smaller percentage of his taxes than they do. It would focus on his history of lobbying to create and perpetuate the wealth-protection measures to rig the economy in his favor, while harming the rest of us.

Executing that kind of messaging strategy would require the Clinton campaign to largely take a pass on the other juicy lines of attack against Trump, all of which will be magnified during daily news coverage, but are unhelpful diversions of public mind space compared to this framing.  It would require her to be saying things like this:

“You know, I care much less about today’s latest sideshow than the fact that Mr. Trump’s plan to cut taxes for the rich and oppose a minimum wage hike will further rig the economy for the ultra-wealthy. His outrageous giveaway to  his fellow billionaires is much more offensive to me than his latest round of crudeness.”

Focusing on “Trump the self-serving economy rigger” would make Clinton look a bit more like a change-agent, and less like a defender of the despised Washington status quo.  It also would help erode the silly notion of among some swing voters that Trump is somehow the champion of the common man.

This won’t come naturally for Secretary Clinton.  Her establishment instincts will continually tempt her to focus her critique of Trump through a Washington lens.  She’ll instinctively want to crow about the fact that she knows more about policy details, and that the smarty pants Washingtonian centrists, and even some conservatives, are embracing her and rejecting Trump. She’ll want to scold Trump about saying things that, well, refined Washingtonians simply do not say.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  When Clinton does that, many swing voters hear her as “Washington insider looking down her nose at Washington outsider,” and in the current political climate the instincts of many will be to side with the outsider. Hillary needs to fight her instincts and frame Trump as the ultimate nest-feathering insider masquerading as an outsider.  She doesn’t need to feel her inner Bubba and triangulate the center right, or jump on each of Trump’s outrage du jour.  As much as she may want to resist it, Hillary needs to feel the Bern.

 

Minnpost_Blog_Cabin_logo_3_small

Note:  This post also was published as part of MinnPost’s weekly Blog Cabin feature.

Note:  Collage portrait by Conor Collins.

What Can Hillary Learn From Bernie?

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Cursor_and_clinton_smug_-_Google_SearchAs a Sanders supporter, I concede there are many valid reasons to worry about him. But one of the biggest “go-to” criticisms used by Senator Hillary Clinton and her supporters strikes me as simplistic and overblown. More importantly, her focus on that issue makes me worry that she perhaps doesn’t truly understand what it takes to be an effective general election candidate and President.

Before I get to that, here are just a few of the more valid reasons for being concerned about supporting Sanders: 1) You don’t think enough moderate voters will ever be willing to pay higher taxes to allow him to be elected in a general election; 2) You worry whether a perpetually shouting septuagenarian white guy is the best option for leading an increasingly diverse electorate that values charisma (see McCain v. Obama); 3) You worry that the term “democratic socialist” Sanders uses to describe himself is too toxic to attract swing voters in November;  4) You worry that if we don’t elect a remarkably well credentialed female leader like Clinton, the shameful White House glass ceiling will remain intact for a very long time.

Those are valid concerns. While I also have a list of concerns about Clinton, I do admit that Sanders is not an entirely safe political bet.

But one thing I’m not particularly worried about is his policy aptitude.  Many Clinton supporters, and Secretary Clinton herself, have become obsessed with the notion that Sanders doesn’t have the necessary policy chops for the job.  That certainly was an oft-repeated Clinton theme on last night’s MSNBC’s “town hall” broadcast.

As evidence, Clinton and her supporters continually point to her more detailed policy plans, or editorial board interviews in which Clinton shows a deeper grasp of policy detail than Sanders. For instance, many Clinton supporters have been pumping social media channels full of articles like this from Vox’s Matthew Yglesias:

“Hillary Clinton does a better job than Bernie Sanders at explaining the details of his bank breakup plan.”

I’ll be the first to admit, Sanders should have a stronger answer to questions such as “how would you break-up the banks.” After all, that is a marquee issue of his campaign.

At the same time, let’s keep all of this in proper perspective. These interview performances are hardly evidence that Sanders is not intelligent enough to be President. They aren’t evidence that he will fail to surround himself with advisors who are experts on such details. They’re not evidence that breaking up the banks is a regulatory impossibility. Therefore, they are not particularly strong evidence that Clinton would be a better President.

Moreover, maybe, just maybe, communicating on a less wonky level to lightly engaged voters is a more effective way to connect with them.  After all, that approach has led to Sanders swiftly moving from being an obscure fringe candidate with almost no support to a serious contender for the nomination of a party he only recently joined.  That approach also has led to Sanders polling significantly more strongly than Clinton in general election match-ups against Republicans, according to Real Clear Politics current average of major surveys.  So maybe, there is something here Clinton can learn.

Real_clear_politics_4-26-16

If the American people were interviewing Sanders as a candidate to become the nation’s lead banking regulator, his failure to go deeper into the regulatory weeds would concern me. But we are interviewing Sanders to be hired as the nation’s Chief Executive, a position that operates at a much higher level.

Think of it this way: The Obama Administration’s White House and Treasury Department is thick with brilliant, learned staffers who know much more about banking regulations and foreign policy than President Obama. But that doesn’t make Obama a lightweight, and it doesn’t mean those staffers are more qualified than Obama to be President.

The most important qualifications for a President to have are the right values and vision, the backbone to stick to that their values and vision, the communications chops to persuade the American people, the ability to enact the related policy agenda, and the judgment to react wisely to developments that we can’t yet foresee. Those things are infinitely more important than the ability to score the highest marks in the editorial boards’ Wonk Olympics.

At this stage, I realize my guy Sanders is not going to be the nominee.  I can count.  As the great Mo Udall said, “the voters have spoken, the bastards.” Therefore, I am, gulp, hereby “ready for Hillary.”  Actually, given the alternatives, and given how much there is to admire about Clinton, this is not close to a difficult decision.

But Clinton needs to disabuse herself of the notion that the ability to spout policy details like a Spelling Bee champ is among the more important qualifications for President. Rather than smugly dismissing Sanders’ preference for addressing the American people on an inspirational and aspirational level, Clinton should have enough wisdom and humility to learn from Sanders’ approach.  Doing so would make her a better candidate and President.

Bernie Needs To Give Democrats One Final Parting Gift

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Sanders_from_behindPresidential candidate Bernie Sanders has already given much to the Democratic Party. But even though his chances of being nominated remain slim, he still has a bit more he could give to his adopted party.

Largely because of Clinton’s dominance when it comes to establishment-oriented super delegates, we’re being told by elite analysts like FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver that Hillary will likely be nominated, even after a likely Sanders win in Wisconsin today and a possible win in Clinton’s home state of New York. Sanders’ exit from the stage couldn’t come soon enough for frustrated supporters of Hillary Clinton, who see Sanders as an annoying speed bump on her trip down Inevitability Lane.

Bernie’s Gifts To Democrats

But the fact is, Sanders’ questioning of Clinton has helped her improve as a candidate. Though still too cautious and programmed, Clinton is a better candidate now than she was before Sanders joined her on stage.

Beyond changing candidate Clinton for the better, Sanders has also changed the Democratic party for the better. This longtime political independent has reminded Democratic partisans that it’s okay to dream of progressive policies that go beyond the cautious incrementalism ushered in during the 1990s by the Clintons and their center-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

With every major western nation operating universal health care systems that are more fair, effective and efficient than today’s complex Rube Goldberg-style Affordable Care Act (ACA) machinery, Sanders reminded Democrats that it’s reasonable to both appreciate the progress being made under the ACA, while continuing to fight for the superior single payer models.

Sanders also reminded Democrats that a college degree is as vital today as a high school degree was at the time the American public education system was created, so we need to keep fighting to update our public education system by offering tuition-free public higher education.

Sanders reminded Democrats that even Republican presidents such as Bush, Reagan, Nixon and Eisenhower all required wealthy Americans to pay more to support their country than we do today, so it’s reasonable to ask more of the wealthy again to help rebuild the American dream for the lower- and middle-class.

Sanders reminded Democrats that the party that created a wide array of popular socialist programs that built the great American middle class — New Deal job programs, Social Security, the GI Bill, the Rural Electric Administration, Medicare —  doesn’t need to cower in fear every time conservatives label their proposals as “socialism.”

Finally, Sanders shined a light on the corrupting influence that big money has had on America’s corporatized Congress.

Democrats owe the Independent Senator a debt of gratitude.  The fact that many to most of Sanders’ proposals could not have passed in the short-term with a Republican-controlled Congress does not mean that progressives shouldn’t advocate for those policies, to improve their viability over the long-term.  It’s self-defeating to allow do-nothing congressional conservatives to limit how Democrats use the bullypulpit.

Bernie’s Parting Gift

But where does Sanders go from here? If delegate geeks like Nate Silver are correct that it’s impossible for Sanders to come from behind to win the nomination, should he just pull out of the race, as indignant Clinton supporters have been demanding?

Before Sanders leaves the stage, I’d ask one more favor of him:   Expose Trumponomics for what it is.   To limit the number of Sanders refugees who are tempted to support Trump over Clinton in November, Sanders should spend the next few weeks exposing the fraud Mr. Trump is attempting to perpetrate on Americans.

For instance, Sanders should explain that billionaire Trump may claim that his partial self-financing makes him independent from the uber-wealthy interests, but Trump’s tax plan exposes the truth. According to a Tax Policy Center (TPC) analysis, Trump’s tax plan would give an average tax cut of $1.3 million per year to the richest one-tenth of one percent.  Sanders should make sure his audience understands that billionaire Trump plans to further enrich his fellow billionaires.

Sanders should also explain how the businessman’s proposals will destroy the American economy, rather than make America “win so much will be sick of winning.” For instance, look at what Mr. Trump’s plan to lavish the mega-rich with tax breaks would do to the national debt:

“The Tax Policy Center estimates the proposal would reduce federal revenue by $9.5 trillion over its first decade and an additional $15.0 trillion over the subsequent 10 years, before accounting for added interest costs or considering macroeconomic feedback effects.”

Some have suggested that Sanders and Trump compete for the same type of voters, those most frustrated with the status quo. Therefore, before Sanders leaves the stage, he should conduct a seminar for “open to Trump” voters about the fraud Mr. Trump is attempting to perpetrate on them. Doing so could constitute Bernie’s greatest gift of all to the Democratic Party.

Note:  This post was also chosen to be featured by MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

The More Relevant Poll Finding Pundits Are Ignoring

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trump_angry_-_Google_SearchDonald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now pretty assured of winning their party’s nomination for president, both because they are far ahead and because it seems unlikely either will implode with their respective bases. They have both had fundamental vulnerabilities exposed, yet they both continue to have a sufficient amount of support to win their nominations.

As the campaigns shift to the general election, Team Clinton shouldn’t take Donald Trump lightly, says the boy who watched slack jawed as a sophomoric but entertaining professional wrestler with no real policy agenda became Governor of Minnesota.   The Trump-Ventura parallels are imperfect. For instance, the Minnesota electorate in 1998 was divided by three strong general election contenders, making the general election threshold unusually low for the middle finger voting block to attain.  Still, that experience has given me a healthy amount of respect for the electoral appeal of entertaining protest candidates.

But to put this in casino terms, in honor of the candidate who somehow finds ways to regularly bankrupt rigged casinos, I’d much rather have Hillary Clinton’s hand than Donald Trump’s hand. Here’s why:

As pundits continually remind us, Trump is indeed the runaway Republican front-runner. But this doesn’t mean he is broadly popular.  All this really means is that his antics have charmed about 40% of the one-third of Americans who participate in Republican primaries. That equates to about 14% of the general election electorate.  So, yes, he’s the front-runner for the nomination, and that’s a shocking thing.  But we have to keep in mind that eight months from now, he needs to win over a lot more people to win a general election.

The problem for Trump is, general election voters are a very different audience than the people currently voting for him. Most notably, they include large numbers of Independent voters. To win a two-candidate — don’t you even think about it, Michael Bloomberg — general election Trump has to win Independent voters.

What do Independent voters think of Trump’s nomination campaign performance.  As of December 2015 poll showed 47% of Independent voters would be embarrassed to have Mr. Trump as President.  Only 20% of Independents would be proud to say “President Trump.”  Even pilloried Hillary, one of the more systematically smeared political figures in modern political history, has a much lower 32% of Independents who say they’d be embarrassed to vote for her.
National__US__Poll_-_December_22__2015_-_Half_Of_U_S__Voters_Embarrasse___Quinnipiac_University_Connecticut

This is a big problem for Trump, because the “would be embarrassed” question is a reasonable approximation of “would never vote for.”  Therefore, the finding shows that Trump’s pandering to his authoritarian-loving base has badly damaged his chances in a general election, perhaps irreparably so.

Now, if anyone is uniquely positioned to dig himself out of this hole, it may be Mr. Trump. First, he’s instinctively talented at reading audiences and adjusting to them on the fly. He’s like a veteran door-to-door salesman in that way.  Second, he’s no ideologue.  He’s perfectly comfortable changing positions to win over whichever audience happens to be in front of him at the moment, and skilled at deflecting “flip-flopper” criticisms. Therefore, as soon as the Republican nomination is in the bag, we can expect Trump to quickly be moderating his positions and tone, and that should help him partially rehabilitate himself with some Indies.

Still, it will be very difficult to erase the memories of Trump’s boorish behavior over the past several months.  Social media and massive ad buys will keep Trump’s Greatest Hits fresh in general election voters’ minds.  Moreover, over the next eight months Trump will still have his hard core Trumpeters coming to his rallies, which will continually tempt him to pander to them, both to win their adoration in that moment and to ensure that they don’t stay home in November.   So, Trump will moderate compared to his current self, but he probably will remain plenty embarrassing.

These same numbers also show how critically important it will be for Hillary Clinton to partner with Bernie Sanders to get Sanders’ 18-34 year old supporters to the polls in November.  After all, an astounding 73% of these younger voters would be embarrassed to have Trump as their President. This should be a solid voting block for Secretary Clinton in the general election, but they could easily stay home in large numbers if they can’t get more excited about her than they are now.

So as the nomination fights wind down, it’s time to stop obsessing about the nomination horse race numbers and delegate counts, and start focusing on the more general election-relevant data points in the survey research. When you dig a little bit deeper into the data, there still is a very high wall around the White House for the wall-obsessed Trump to scale.

Sanders Drawing Wrong Parallels To Explain Democratic Socialism

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Cursor_and_Denmark_flag_-_Google_SearchWhen presidential candidate Bernie Sanders explains why Americans shouldn’t fear his “democratic socialism,” he usually points to Scandinavia.

“I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn what they have accomplished for their working people. In Denmark, there is a very different understanding of what “freedom” means… they have gone a long way to ending the enormous anxieties that comes with economic insecurity. Instead of promoting a system which allows a few to have enormous wealth, they have developed a system which guarantees a strong minimal standard of living to all — including the children, the elderly and the disabled.”

His opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton, who clearly understands American exceptionalism biases, quickly shuts down Sanders’ arguments with a smug shrug: “We are not Denmark.”

By continually citing countries other than America to explain democratic socialism to Americans, Senator Sanders is hurting his case. Instead of pointing to Norway, he should more consistently cite the New Deal.

First, let’s consider the definition of “democratic socialism” offered by Democratic Socialist’s of America:

“Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives.”

Truth be told, the United States of America is no stranger to this kind of democratic socialism. It was brought to us during some of the most successful and popular presidencies of the past century. Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower enacted a whole series of popular measures that fit under this definition of democratic socialism.  At the time their ideas were proposed, they were criticized as infeasible, un-American and socialistic, just as Sanders’ ideas are today.

Therefore, Senator Sanders should be explaining his democratic socialism with American examples that a large majority of Americans already know and love. Sanders might say something like this:

You want to know what democratic socialism is? When the great Republican Teddy Roosevelt dissolved 44 corporations to protect the middle class, and when he protected ordinary Americans from the railroad companies and other big corporations, his critics said “you can’t pass that, because it’s socialism.”  But he passed them anyway, because the American people demanded it.

When the enormously popular Franklin Roosevelt used government funding to put Americans to work building community infrastructure, they said “you can’t pass that, because it’s socialism.” When FDR proposed a Social Security system of government-run pensions that lifted millions of American seniors out of poverty, conservatives said “you can’t pass that, because it’s socialism.”  But he passed those things anyway, because the people demanded it.

When Harry Truman enacted Medicare, people like Ronald Reagan called that socialism too.

And you know what? When Republican Dwight Eisenhower invested in an enormously expensive interstate highway system and had 90% income tax rates on the ultra-wealthy, they said it again: “You can’t pass that, because that’s socialism.”  But he passed those things anyway, because the American people demanded it.

And despite the dire predictions from critics, America’s economy prospered under these policies that were all predicted to be catastrophic for the economy.

So in 2016, when the defeatist “no you can’t” crowd tells Americans “you can’t pass bills to provide higher education and health care to all, because that’s socialism,” I get my inspiration and courage from Teddy, FDR, Give ‘em hell Harry and Ike.  Because of them, I know America can overcome the cynics’ name-calling and naysaying to do great things for the middle class now, just as we did then.”

Democratic socialism is already in America, and it is enormously popular. Surveys consistently show that Americans are vehemently opposed to cutting or eliminating democratic socialist programs such as Medicare, Social Security, and the minimum wage.

Americans not only have embraced democratic socialism in the past, they strongly support it for the future. A recent GBA Strategies poll shows that likely 2016 voters overwhelmingly support a whole range of Sanders’ ideas being dismissed as socialist ideas lacking sufficient political support:  Allowing governments to negotiate drug prices has 79% support. Medicare buy-in for all has 71% support. A $400 million infrastructure jobs program has 71% support. Debt-free college at all public universities has 71% support. Expanding Social Security benefits has 70% support. Taxing the rich at a 50% rate — the rate under conservative icon Ronald Reagan — has 59% support, and only 25% in opposition. Breaking up the big banks has 55% support, and only 23% in opposition.

This is hardly a portrait of a nation that opposes democratic socialism.  Overwhelming support for democratic socialism is already there, ready to fuel a 2016 presidential candidate.  But for two reasons, Senator Sanders needs to cite American parallels to explain his approach, not European.

First, citing examples of American policies will help build confidence that bold measures can be enacted over fierce opposition now, just as they were in the days of Teddy, FDR, Truman and Ike.  Second, citing American examples will paint Sanders’ democratic socialism label and his policy ideas red, white and blue, rather than just red.  It will show that such ideas have been embraced in the past by idolized Republicans and Democrats.  It subsequently will normalize democratic socialism.

Americans are in a very nationalistic, ethnocentric and nostalgic mood. So, rather than continually pointing to the Rikstag, Storting, and Folketing to explain democratic socialsm, Sanders needs to point to the faces on Mt. Rushmore.

Note:  This post was chosen for re-publication in MinnPost’s Blog Cabin feature.