Category Archives: Barack Obama

Lt. Governor Matt Birk? We Need to Know a Lot More

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Former Minnesota State Senator Scott Jensen (R-Chaska) announced who he believes is the second most qualified Minnesotan, after him, to run Minnesota’s state government during very challenging times.  Jensen picked — fake gjallarhorn, please! — the Minnesota Vikings’ former Center Matt Birk. 

A celebrity! Intriguing! Fresh!

An all-white male ticket! That has got to be first for Republicans, right?

Predictably, the Birk announcement got a lot of uncritical news coverage in Minnesota, particularly from local TV and radio newsrooms.  These are some of the same jock sniffers who spend roughly one-third of most news broadcasts building up local athletes as heroes.

And who knows, the Birk stunt just might work, politically speaking.  After all, this is a state that “shocked the world” and elected an outlandish and churlish former fake wrestler, and then was shocked when he turned out to be an outlandish and churlish fake Governor.

To be fair, Birk is certainly no Ventura. The Saint Paul native is Harvard educated, and not clownish like Ventura . He’s also done a lot of admirable charitable work in the community. On many levels, I admire him.

But he’s applying to be Governor, and he is largely an unknown quantity on policy issues. So maybe the local media should pump the breaks just a bit on the Birk bandwagon. You know, like maybe ask him a few questions about his actual plans and positions? 

Reasons for Skepticism

Here’s a few reasons why skepticism is warranted:

He’s an Extremist Abortion Banner.  One of the few Birk policy positions we know about is that he supports overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy.  Birk feels so strongly about this that he refused to join his Baltimore Ravens teammates in being honored at the White House, because Birk would have had to stand in proximity with then-President Barack Obama, who opposes overturning Roe.  

Citizen Birk obviously had every right to express that opinion. But he is now applying to be Lieutenant Governor for all of Minnesota, and this position puts him at odds with the a huge majority of the people he seeks to represent. Surveys show that two-thirds (67%) of Minnesotans oppose overturning Roe. 

At a time when it looks likely that the court is about to overturn Roe and start allowing state governments to take away women’s abortion rights, Birk’s refusal to listen to two-thirds of his constituents on this timely issue is a particularly big deal.

He’s an Extremist Marriage Equality Banner.  Abortion isn’t the only issue where Birk is out of step with a majority of Minnesotans. In 2012, he very actively campaigned in favor of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment that would have changed the Minnesota constitution to specifically prohibit marriage equality for same-sex couples. 

Once again, Birk is on the right wing fringe, ignoring the opinions of two-thirds of his would-be constituents. A 2018 poll shows 67 percent of Minnesotans support same sex marriage. 

Birk’s positions on abortion rights and marriage equality would seem to portend how he would come down on other socially conservative changes being pushed by the far-right, such as book banning and “don’t say gay” laws.

He’s Unqualified for the Job. Then there’s the small matter of qualifications. Birk currently has as much directly relevant experience to be a heartbeat away from the top position in state government as current Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan has to be a professional football player.  

After electing a wealthy celebrity with no governing experience President blew up in the nation’s face, maybe we should be a little more cautious about hiring someone who has never done any actual state governance to lead a very complex $48.5 billion per biennium endeavor. How many times do we have to make this same mistake?

He’s Hitched His Wagon to a Extremist Quack.  Even if you like Birk as a player, philanthropist, and sports analyst, and I do, you should learn a little more about his running mate Scott Jensen before signing up to be a Jensen-Birk supporter.  

For instance, the non-partisan fact-checking organization Politifact cited Jensen as a major source of its 2020 “Lie of the Year 2020 about coronavirus downplaying and denial. This is arguably the most lethal political lie of our times, and Jensen played a very prominent and destructive role spreading it. 

Jensen also joined U.S. Capitol insurrectionist Simone Gold and others in suing the federal government to prevent children from receiving COVID-19 vaccines.

But apparently none of this bothered Birk.

COVID denial and anti-vax messaging earned Jensen a lot of love on Fox News and other far-right outlets, but now he is trying to win a plurality of votes in Minnesota, a state with the second highest rate or boosted residents, and where about three-fourths (74%) of voting age residents rejected Jensen’s ignorant, irresponsible medical quackery and got themselves vaccinated.

What We Don’t Know

Beyond the handful of issues cited here, Minnesotans have no idea where Birk stands on a whole host of other important issues. 

Paid family and medical leave?  Public funding for free birth control, which is proven to dramatically reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions?  Giving Minnesotans the option to buy into MinnesotCare?  Prayer in public schools? Which religion’s prayer? Taxpayers subsidizing billionaire sports team owners’ stadiums?  Making the wealthiest 1% of Minnesotans, which includes Birk, pay higher taxes to fund education improvements?  Accepting Obamacare funding for Medicare expansion in Minnesota? Maintaining the MNsure Obamacare insurance exchange? “Don’t say gay” laws to punish teachers who mention gay people in school? Allowing parents to ban books from school libraries? 

In addition, the state where a majority (52.4%) of 2020 voters rejected Trump should know whether Birk voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and whether he plans to vote for the insurrection inciter in 2024.  We also must know whether Birk supports the Big Lie that Trump didn’t lose the 2020 election.

I’m very interested to know the answers to these questions. Is Birk Trumpy enough to win far-right primary votes, but too Trumpy to win swing voters in the general election? Or will Birk expose himself to be insufficiently Trumpy, and subsequently be a “kiss of death” for Jensen in the primaries, where Trump loyalists are dominant and demand total obedience.

To be clear, I deeply respect the man’s ability to calmly read a defense with another man’s hands nestled firmly in his buttocks. Skol!

But maybe Minnesotans deserve to know more about Matt Birk than that.

If Trump Loses and Refuses to Leave, We Need A Plan

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We’re all thinking it, but are afraid to say it out loud. If Trump loses the Electoral College in a close race and refuses to leave the White House on January 20, 2021, claiming he actually won but was cheated, what will the guys in and around the White House with the guns do?

It feels paranoid to even discuss this.  This is what people living under dictatorships in Moldova, Sri Lanka, the Congo, and Gambia discuss, not citizens of the self-described “greatest democracy on earth.”  America has long have been admired for its ability to follow-up bitter political campaigns with the peaceful transition of power.  Our ability to consistently do this is arguably our single greatest achievement as a nation.

But with Trump, we can no longer be sure that the peaceful transition of power will be a given.  Keep in mind what Trump’s former right hand man Michael Cohen said: “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, there will never be a peaceful transition of power.” 

Trump himself, has more than said as much, as documented by The Atlantic:

“In December (2019), Trump told a crowd at a Pennsylvania rally that he will leave office in ‘five years, nine years, 13 years, 17 years, 21 years, 25 years, 29 years …’ He added that he was joking to drive the media ‘totally crazy.’

Just a few days earlier, Trump had alluded to his critics in a speech, ‘A lot of them say, ‘You know he’s not leaving’ … So now we have to start thinking about that because it’s not a bad idea.’

This is how propaganda works. Say something outrageous often enough and soon it no longer sounds shocking.”

One thing is almost certain:  Even if Trump suffers a clear defeat in the Electoral College, he will still claim mass cheating.  Remember, this is the guy who made the false assertion that “millions” voted illegally in California, and that was after he won the Electoral College. 

If he loses the Electoral College, and subsequently faces the prospect of multiple criminal prosecutions as a civilian, his claims of fraud will get even more desperate, expansive, and outrageous. The question is, will armed authorities in and around the White House listen?

(By the way, I’m being vague here, because I’m not sure who would ultimately be responsible for removing the President. Secret Service? U.S. Marshals?  The military?  We don’t have historical precedence to guide us here. )

Trusted Third Parties Needed

By January 20, 2021 at noon, the Secret Service, U.S. Marshal Service, and U.S. military no longer would be under Trump’s control, unless they decided that Trump’s claims of cheating were correct, and that Trump therefore was reelected and is still their boss.

Will those armed authorities agree with Trump’s claims of election cheating? I’m not sure. “Was Trump cheated in the election or not” is not something that will be easy for armed authorities to judge. After all, they’re not experts in election law or in a position to investigate claims of election fraud.

In trying to sort out the Trump claims of election cheating, I would hope that the guys with the guns will look to third parties who they find credible.  The courts obviously will be in play, but that will take quite a bit of time to reach a final decision in the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In addition to the courts, we need third parties that can act more quickly than the courts, and be credible with the American people and the armed officials who may need to remove Trump on January 20th.

Bipartisan Presidents Weigh In Jointly

Here’s my hope:  We need a bipartisan group of former Presidents from the past three decades to unanimously weigh in on this by mid-November. 

Specifically, I propose that Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Dan Quayle (the second in command under George H.W. Bush, because he passed away), and Jimmy Carter privately pledge to each other right now that they will stand together to counter any false claims of mass fraud and publicly affirm the presidential election outcome as soon as it becomes apparent.

I understand that it could be that the election outcome won’t be clear enough for the quintet to make a unanimous declaration, and their decision has to be unanimous for it to carry the necessary weight.  In that case, all of this is mute.  (I also definitely understand that Trump could easily win reelection, and that it might not even be close enough to be contested.)

But if the bipartisan group can agree on the outcome, they should commit to jointly and publicly announcing the outcome in November, before Trump has a chance to send several weeks to sell his conspiracy claims unrebutted.

Why ex-presidents, and a vice president proxy?  First, their political careers are effectively over, so they can’t credibly be accused of wanting to further their political careers.  Second, they’re bipartisan, so it will be more difficult for Trump and his cult to marginalize them as a “partisan group.” Third, they have knowledge and credibility on the issue of fair elections, because they’ve worked in that world up close for decades. Fourth, ex-Presidents have extra gravitas, so their announcement will feel weighty, newsworthy, and historic.  Finally and perhaps most importantly, the Secret Service and Generals are used to following these former Commanders-in-Chief, and likely have residual respect for at least some of them.

If the nightmare scenario I describe here plays out, an early bipartisan declaration of the past three decades’ ex-Presidents won’t guarantee that the guys with the guns will do the right thing and remove Trump.  But it’s the best thing I can come up with to try to avoid an event that could mark the end of democracy in America. For something that historically consequential, we need a plan.