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bustedbernie · 5 years ago

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Oh hai. Lately there have been a slew of think pieces about Bernie Sanders being the front-runner, discussing how his movement has threatened to withhold their votes from Democrats if Bernie isn’t the nominee. Hidden between the lines is the idea that Democrats, in general, owe their votes to Sanders if he is the nominee, regardless of the fact that his voters do NOT owe Dems their votes if he is not. So, rather than call them out for using the same tactics that lost the 2016 election, there is a faction in the media that is growing more and more permissive to the idea that Bernie and his Revolution are somehow the victims in all this, and that mainstream Dems have done them wrong time and time again when picking a candidate that appeals to the Dems masses.

Let me let you in on a little secret.

I don’t owe Bernie Sanders or his fucked off revolution of stanerific emo-marxist cyber-terrorists a goddamn bit of shit the fuck all. When these utter fucking geniuses in the media reflect on how energized and dedicated his enthusiastic fans are when engaging in their harassment of the average Dem, they seem to think the people who have been abused don’t fucking matter. These Dems are people who have never done anything whatsoever to deserve the constant bullying, cyber-stalking, targeting, threats, or in my case, being falsely reported to the FBI by fans of Bernie who seek to silence dissent. What these media personalities don’t understand is that the abuse by Bernie fans, in his name, actually causes the gap between MAGA and Berners to shrink to the point where it is non-existent. There is no real difference between the abuse from either side, and since Sanders isn’t the warm and fuzzy type that reaches out to the people who have been abused, often there appears to be no real difference between Sanders and Trump.

Slate:

Still, the Bernie-or-Busters, small as they may be, have spun their position into an argument for why others should vote for Bernie Sanders too, regardless of the platform they prefer. As efforts in political persuasion go, this contingent puts forward an openly hostile argument. Sanders is the only electable candidate, they suggest, not just because of his policies, but because of the single-mindedness of his followers. The reason you should vote for Sanders is that we won’t vote for anyone else. You don’t want Trump to win again, do you?

No. But I also don’t want Bernie Sanders to win. In a case of one not liking either candidate, people look to see which movement they feel most comfortable with, Bernie’s or Trump’s. If it turns out that both movements engage in racist behavior, sexism, and homophobia, it really doesn’t matter what they profess to be in favor of as far as policy is concerned, what matters is how they treat their fellow citizens by and large. We all know that unless we take back the Senate with a large majority that can defeat Republican attempts to stop legislation from hitting Sanders’ desk, nothing will pass anyway. So, if you’re not in favor of Bernie’s policies in the first place, and do not like him or his movement, why would you be enthusiastic about showing up for the guy who leads the movement that engages in attacks on you?

Yes, it sounds like ugly hostage taking—not a brilliant persuasive strategy but a crude ego-boosting exercise for a group of leftists who can’t resist the impulse to lord some power over an electorate that doesn’t normally consider them relevant. But that’s exactly what makes it so normal, even understandable, in a depressing “we’re all human” sort of way. [NO.] Because the truth is this: Every threat these Sanders stans are explicitly making is one the venerated Centrist Swing Voter makes implicitly—and isn’t judged for. The centrist never even has to articulate his threat.

Excuse me, it IS ugly hostage taking, it is NOT normal, and no, it doesn’t make me see them as more human.

Another thing is this: not everyone opposed to Bernie Sanders is a Centrist, Moderate, or a Swing voter. Many of us are as far left or to the left of Sanders, I for one am definately to his left, and had supported him in 2015. That was until his racist abusive Bern Mafia targeted me for expressing concern about his lack of outreach to black voters. I noticed his lack of history in hiring black people (D.C. is Chocolate City, we could not find one black staffer in 2015; I am open to correction on this point; if he had black staffers prior to 2015, please send me receipts because I have been looking for them.), lamented and mocked his poor showing at Netroots, fumed over his constant MLK appropriation, jeered at his white ass crowds, and felt humiliated by his inability to discuss black people in ways that were not centered on Poverty or Prisons. It is HIS FAULT that his voters have no clue how to engage Black people without resorting to stereotypes and outright bigotry, because he does the same thing.

Buzzfeed:

Sanders, seated across the table, a yellow legal pad at hand, responded with a question of his own, according to two people present: “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African American?” The candidate, whose aides froze in the moment, was quickly rebuffed: The answer, the activists told him, was no. Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error, the two people present said.

No. He did not apologize for spreading this stereotype, and yes, it shows how he views black people in general.

Slate:

One of many disorienting factors in this election cycle is the fact that the left is more popular and more viable than it has been in a long, long time. They have not one but two exciting candidates, and both are offering policies closer to what leftists actually want than most presidential contenders in U.S. history have.

I wanted the party to move to the Left towards the direction of where I stood too. I can’t really name my ideology because it’s so far left I am almost hitting the wall. Additionally, I am more Libertarian than Sanders, who trends more authoritarian. Yet, I instinctively know that playing a game of “my way or the highway” won’t lead to a place where poverty programs are expanded up and out, ensuring all necessities of life are provided. It will lead to gridlock and we will make zero progress.

Because folks at the center tend to be wooed by multiple candidates, they’re used to having options, and they’re used to the experience of their vote determining who ends up with the nomination. This means that they usually like the candidate they vote for, in the primary and in the general. Not so for leftists, who get to merely tolerate the candidates they end up having to vote for in order to mitigate the damage from a worse result.

Here’s the rub… I’m Black. None of this shit applies to me, because as a Black person, I rarely even LIKE or TRUST any of the candidates I have been voting for over the years. I also usually, especially in State and Locally, don’t have any say so in determining the nominee of any race. I am always stuck voting for whoever White People choose as the candidate, and as such, am merely tolerating whoever is chosen to prevent a worse outcome, which usually means preventing a racist shitmonger from winning a race.

Speaking of race… Progressives refuse to address race as a factor in anything; they like to ignore race in everything they do and allow Prison Policy to stand in for Racial Policy, so it’s impossible to get them to see my reality. They get this shit from Bernie.

From Buzzfeed:

“The real issue is not whether you’re black or white, whether you’re a woman or a man,” he said in a 1988 interview. “The real issue is whose side are you on? Are you on the side of workers and poor people or are you on the side of big money and the corporations?”

Not much has changed with Bernie, as you know, Bernie never changes, because he was born as a 72 year old yelly man, just like Benjamin Button, but louder and not as cute.

“It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry,” the Vermont independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hillary Clinton”

Bernie’s attacks on Identity Politics filtered down to his base, causing them to feel confident in their attacks on Blacks, LGBTQ, and Women who brought up issues of race, sexuality, and gender over the past few years. They love to say shit to black people online that they would never say to an actual Black person IN PERSON, because they are scared as fuck of Black people. Kinda like Bernie. The refrain of “that’s identity politics, not real policy’ rang out constantly on social media the past few years to the point where pointing out racism, homophobia, and sexism was met with swarms of white men attacking Black people, All Women Who Dared To Be THAT Bitch, LGBTQ, and really, anyone worried about social justice issues that focused on identity. The attacks were and ARE bigoted in the extreme.

This is racist as fuck and is one of the ways the Bernie Titty-Babies managed to marginalize Kamala Harris and drive a wedge between her and Black Voters. Somehow they thought keeping it going would make us like dusty ass Bernie more, but they’re stupid, because we don’t even like that geriatric Bernadook now.

This is homophobic.

Bernie’s supporters are engaging in a hate campaign against Mayor Pete and are trying to convince the world that they are not being homophobic, they are just saying Pete is suppressing his dangerous serial killer nature by being so straight laced. This is fucked up because they are attacking a gay man for being “straight appearing” in spite of the fact that his seeming straightness is how he interacts with a world that hates gay people, and has at times (and Still Does) MURDERED men and women who are gay for not assimilating or conforming to hetero-normative stereotypes. Bernie ignores this behavior from his fans like he ignores all of their nasty hate campaigns. I blame him.

This is misogynistic. No explanation needed.

Racist and fat shaming. Black hair is not your fucking business, bitch. Back the fuck up.

This is just blatantly false and caused people to harass Kamala Harris supporters until they stopped using the Yellow Circles she asked supporters to wear, it stems from the misogynoir his fans engaged in towards Kamala. Bernie has never said shit, so I blame him.

Bigotry. Also erasure of Biden’s Black support in a effort to make it seem as if Bernie is the candidate of diversity. Bernie is at fault, he also erases minorities.

Sexist. Also, damn near all of his fans seem to hate Obama on the same level and with as much heat as MAGA. Why the fuck would we want to join in unity with this man when his fans HATE the first black President. Oh, you think Bernie has nothing to do with setting the tone?

“The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure,” Sanders started, responding to a question about the young voters who supported his campaign. “People sometimes don’t see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama, who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012.

“He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy. But behind that reality, over the last 10 years, Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country.”

Bernie doesn’t fucking like Obama either.

Sexism. Racism. Bernie does the worst with Black Women, and is often dismissive when asked a question by one of us. So, his fans see nothing to lose by targeting us in particular, and we in turn are likely the largest group of people willing to sit this one out if Bernie manages to come out on top. The media is no help whatsoever to marginalized people, because they ultimately weave a narrative where Bernie comes out the victim.

We can already see it happening amongst the Children of the Bern, where they have taken to labeling K-Hive, a movement started by a Black Woman (Me) for a Black Woman (Kamala Harris), “Liberal ISIS” for our resistance to Bernie and willingness to defend the other candidates from the attacks levied by the Berner Swarm.

Oh, cry me a fucking river! We don’t dox, cyberstalk, harass, abuse, try to get people fired, engage in bigotry, we learn from our mistakes, and we never make it our mission to ruin someone’s life.

We simply turn the tables on the bros and ask tough questions, like Kamala Harris. If that breaks you down, you were already broken before you found us. Oh, yeah. That’s another thing. We don’t go looking for Berners to abuse; we wait until they come to abuse US and refuse to play along.

Regardless of what poor Peter Daou says, there is no “Unadulterated Hatred” in asking if someone has checked on him.

So, yes, I can blame Bernie for the nastiness of his movement and choose not to ever join it no matter what. Progressives love to play forever victims, even while they engage in their vile abuse, but I do not have to empower their movement or help them elect Bernie. Maybe if enough people sound the alarm and let him know we will not be helping him in November while suffering constantly at the hands of his Branch Bernidians, then he will have no choice but to be a leader and fucking lead these assholes into being decent people. I don’t expect the abuse to magically end if Bernie becomes President or loses to Trump, and I also don’t expect him to do shit about it, so I guess I’m just Never Bernie. What I am now stuck with is the same as always; White States get to vote first and create the narrative that Dem voters are in favor of whoever these powerful white voters choose, and I am sick of it and sick of Sanders. I didn’t become a Democrat to not only be marginalized by the White Moderate, but to also suffer abuse from the punk ass White leftist bitchmade humdinger of a Revolution. I’m not here to empower shitfucks that search me out no matter where I am just to heap abuse on me, threaten me, or report me to the FBI as a possible MASS SHOOTER, all because I think Bernie is an old bigot who minimizes Black oppression to appease the white voters he thinks he’ll need to win the General.

I’m just Never Bernie, deal with it or die mad about it. I don’t care which.

#neverbernie #bernie #berniesanders #bernie sanders #berniebros #bernie bros #notmeus #feelthebern #long post #longpost #faq

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nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany · 5 years ago

Text

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/8/2019

Digital Elixir 2:00PM Water Cooler 8/8/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

“2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination” [RealClearPolitics] (average of five polls). As of August 7: Biden down to 31.0% (31.6), Sanders down to 15.8% (16.6%), Warren flat at 15.5% (15.6%), Buttigieg flat at 5.5% (5.4%), Harris down at 8.3% (9.4%), Beto separating himself from the bottom feeders, interestingly. Others Brownian motion.

* * *

2020

Harris (D)(1): “Kamala Harris, The Early Years”:

Six weeks after the second largest bank failure in US history and about a week before the government would take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Kamala Harris was asked how the country would be different if she were POTUS for 8 years. This was her answer. pic.twitter.com/fGAyHCnq6S

— Walker Bragman (@WalkerBragman) August 8, 2019

Sanders (D)(1): Sanders goes into the lion’s den…

A thread of Youtube comments from Joe Rogan’s podcast with Bernie Sanders. pic.twitter.com/vUhgjtq9Cd

— rafael (@rafaelshimunov) August 7, 2019

… and comes out riding a lion.

* * *

“The Main Difference Between Warren and Sanders” [Benjamin Studebaker]. “Warren believes in a meritocratic system, where the deserving members of the working class and underclass can work hard and earn their way into the professional class. Sanders believes that all our citizens, regardless of class position, ought to be entitled to a decent life. That’s the difference. That’s why Warren declined to endorse Sanders in 2016. That’s why Warren says she would have accepted an offer to become Hillary Clinton’s Vice President. That’s why Warren still says she’s “capitalist to her bones”. That’s why Warren clapped for Trump when the president said there would never be socialism in this country:” • Excellent piece; I just cut out the bottom line. Studebaker really firing on all eight cylinders here

IA: “Gun policy activists organize Des Moines forum following mass shootings; Democratic presidential candidates will attend” [Des Moines Register]. “In the wake of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, gun policy activists quickly organized a presidential “gun safety” forum in Des Moines Saturday. Despite Democratic presidential candidates’ busy Iowa schedules for this week — with the Iowa State Fair, the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox at the Fair, and several other multi-candidate events — at least 14 have said they will attend. The event starts at 8 a.m. at the Iowa Events Center in downtown Des Moines. The event was organized by Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, groups advocating for gun regulation after previous mass shootings throughout the country.”

The Debates

“Sanders: Democratic debate format is ‘demeaning’” [The Hill]. “Speaking on the ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast, Sanders said ‘you shouldn’t even call them a debate.’ ‘What they are is a reality TV show in which you have to come up with a soundbite and all that stuff,’ he said. ‘It’s demeaning to the candidates and it’s demeaning to the American people. You can’t explain the complexity of health care in America in 45 seconds, nobody can.’” • Drag ’em, Bernie!

Identity Politics

Know your enemy:

White supremacy is often subconscious. & Clearly, our nation has not been inoculated. WS is our nation’s original sin;the driving logic of slavery, of Native genocide, of Jim Crow, of segregation, of mass incarceration,of “Send Her Back.”

It never went away. It was just dormant.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 8, 2019

Apparently, the “driving logic” of slavery had nothing to do with profit — or capital. Really?

“White Supremacy Is Not The Arsonist — It’s The Fire.” [Ryan Dalton, Medium]. • The same objection applies.

L’Affaire Joffrey Epstein

“The Right Kind of Continuity” [Jewish Currents]. “Within the Jewish institutional world, however, Wexner’s relationship with Epstein is significant in a different way. Wexner is among a small number of Jewish community megadonors, billionaires who provide an outsize and growing proportion of funding for communal organizations and to a large extent determine what those organizations look like. Along with Sheldon Adelson, Charles Bronfman, and a few others, he has spent millions of dollars on institutions ranging from Birthright Israel—which has sent over 500,000 young diaspora Jews on free trips to Israel—to the Jewish Theological Seminary, where Conservative rabbis are ordained… Epstein was closely involved with Wexner’s charitable giving; together, for instance, the two men helped fund the construction of a new building for Harvard’s Hillel. Tax filings suggest that Epstein spent six years as a trustee of the Wexner Foundation, and that the foundation gave millions of dollars to pet projects of his own…. These ties are now stoking anxiety and division behind the scenes at Jewish institutions led by Wexner-affiliated professionals.” • As well they might.

RussiaGate

“Did Russian Interference Affect the 2016 Election Results?” [Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball]. “No.” From the summary:

— Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent testimony was a reminder that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and very well may try to do so again in 2020.

— This begs the question: Is there any evidence that Russian interference may have impacted the results, particularly in key states?

— The following analysis suggests that the 2016 results can be explained almost entirely based on the political and demographic characteristics of those states. So from that standpoint, the answer seems to be no.

So, a well-regarded, mainstream political scientist and horse-race analyst throws in the towel. Scholars Ferguson, Jorgenson, and Xie got this right in 2018; kudos to them. Humble bloggers who were also skeptical of enormous claims made on little evidence may also take a bow [lambert blushes modestly].

Realignment and Legitimacy

“The Destructive Politics of White Amnesia” [Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, The New Republic]. “To counter [Trump’s] terrifying demagoguery, the party must be as unified in its repudiation of racism, xenophobia, and misogyny as the Party of Trump has been in enabling them. One would think, therefore, that candidates angling to become the standard-bearer of the loyal opposition should be capable of articulating not only the danger of this political moment, but also how their own party helped create this tragedy. Democratic candidates will never be able to steer a fresh course so long as they continue decades of denial and dissemblance. Joe Biden’s status as the 2020 field’s front-runner, in spite of his cringeworthy efforts to account for his part in that history, speaks volumes about how far today’s Democrats still have to go before they can meet the challenges of Trumpism head-on. A good deal of Biden’s inflated standing comes from an all-too characteristic Democratic posture of risk aversion, compounded by a talismanic faith in Biden’s mystic “electability.” Many party leaders and voters clearly view a Biden candidacy as the safest post-Trump course correction—and Biden as a pragmatic man of the people with the unique ability to build coalitional bridges between coastal elites and the so-called forgotten men and women of America’s heartland.” • Crenshaw, a law professor, coined intersectionality. It will be interesting to see which non-amnesiac she endorses.

“Reapportionment Projections and the Potential Impact of New States” [ESRI (hat tip…)]. “[I]t is estimated that, compared to the current seat apportionment determined by the 2010 Census, nine states will lose one seat, six states will gain one seat, and one state will gain three seats. The final five seats in the apportionment process (seats 431-435) are given to Texas, Arizona, California, Montana, and Alabama. These “bubble” states are at the highest risk to lose seats as a result of any differences between the population projections and the actual Census 2020 counts. On the other hand, the five states that are closest to gaining additional seats are Minnesota, West Virginia, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Florida (four of which are projected to lose a seat when compared to the current 2010 apportionment). Based on these projections this would be the first time since statehood that California would lose a congressional seat.”

Stats Watch

Jobless Claims, week of August 3, 2019: “Declines to even more favorable levels are the results of the latest jobless claims report” [Econoday]. “The current state of the labor market, which is strong, isn’t why the Federal Reserve cut rates last week.”

Consumer Credit, June 2019: “Consumer credit came in below consensus expectations” [Econoday]. “Although the monthly drop indicates a loss of credit-card spending momentum, revolving credit for the second quarter still increased [for] the strongest quarterly growth in more than a year. This is a negative for household wealth but it has been a positive to consumer spending.”

Wholesale Trade, June 2019: “Inventories in the wholesale sector were unchanged” [Econoday]. “Inventories of autos did fall in June but were still up percent on the year. This will likely be a negative for near-term auto production.”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 26 Fear (previous close: 25, Extreme Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 43 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 7 at 12:19pm. • Restored at reader request. Note that the index is not always updated daily, sadly.

The Biosphere

“Climate Change and Land: Summary for Policymakers” (PDF) [IPCC]. An “approved draft” of a new report. Handy chart from page 4:

“What is Agrobiodiversity?” [FAO]. Yikes:

* Since the 1900s, some 75 percent of plant genetic diversity has been lost as farmers worldwide have left their multiple local varieties and landraces for genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties.

* 30 percent of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction; six breeds are lost each month.

* Today, 75 percent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species.

* Of the 4 percent of the 250 000 to 300 000 known edible plant species, only 150 to 200 are used by humans. Only three – rice, maize and wheat – contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants.

* Animals provide some 30 percent of human requirements for food and agriculture and 12 percent of the world’s population live almost entirely on products from ruminants.

This all seems a little fragile.

“The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons” [Scientific American]. “Fifty years ago, University of California professor Garrett Hardin penned an influential essay in the journal Science. Hardin saw all humans as selfish herders: we worry that our neighbors’ cattle will graze the best grass. So, we send more of our cows out to consume that grass first. We take it first, before someone else steals our share. This creates a vicious cycle of environmental degradation that Hardin described as the ‘tragedy of the commons.’ It’s hard to overstate Hardin’s impact on modern environmentalism…. [H]e promoted an idea he called ‘lifeboat ethics‘: since global resources are finite, Hardin believed the rich should throw poor people overboard to keep their boat above water…. But the facts are not on Hardin’s side. For one, he got the history of the commons wrong. As Susan Cox pointed out, early pastures were well regulated by local institutions. They were not free-for-all grazing sites where people took and took at the expense of everyone else. Many global commons have been similarly sustained through community institutions…. Despite what Hardin might have said, the climate crisis is not a tragedy of the commons. The culprit is not our individual impulses to consume fossil fuels to the ruin of all…. The truth is that two-thirds of all the carbon pollution ever released into the atmosphere can be traced to the activities of just ninety companies. These corporations’ efforts to successfully thwart climate action are the real tragedy.” • NC readers have long been familiar that Hardin is in error.

“Into the deep: Deep sea mining is upon us, whether you would risk it or not” [Ocean Bites]. “The deep sea is almost entirely unknown, with only about 5% of it having been explored with remote vehicles and less than 0.0001% of the seafloor having been sampled. This is largely due to how difficult it is to navigate the region….. we don’t know how mining could impact deep sea ecosystems, or even others. For example, global fisheries are an important source of income and food. Mining could stir up sediment from the bottom of the ocean, which could drift in and out of country boundaries, changing shallower ecosystems. Could this impact fisheries? The little we do know about deep sea ecosystems emphasizes how risky this is to them. Animals in the deep sea tend to live a long time, grow slowly, reproduce slowly, and reach sexual maturity later in life. All of these characteristics makes it difficult for these species to recover from disturbances, much less adapt to change…. Maybe one of the most concerning elements of the approach of deep sea mining is its legal ambiguity. Rights to the seafloor are generally controlled by two groups: countries, which have control over the continental shelves off their coasts, and the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which controls international waters referred to as the Area… ISA uses guidelines outlined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to make decisions; in this case, they follow Article 140, which states that mining can be done “for the benefit of mankind as a whole.” But that is the ultimate question. If “benefit” is interpreted economically alone, who benefits?”

Health Care

“Financial Eligibility Criteria and Medication Coverage for Independent Charity Patient Assistance Programs” [JAMA]. “In 2018, among 274 patient assistance programs operated by the 6 independent charity foundations, the majority did not provide coverage for uninsured patients. Medications that were covered by the patient assistance programs were generally more expensive than those that were not covered.” And:

“California auditor blasts Medi-Cal overseer for failing patients in 18 rural counties” [Sacramento Bee]. “In a report released Tuesday, California State Auditor Elaine Howle upbraided the state Department of Health Care Services for its failure to ensure Medi-Cal beneficiaries have adequate access and quality of care in 18 rural counties stretching from Inyo to the south to Tehama and Plumas in the north…. In a report released Tuesday, California State Auditor Elaine Howle upbraided the state Department of Health Care Services for its failure to ensure Medi-Cal beneficiaries have adequate access and quality of care in 18 rural counties stretching from Inyo to the south to Tehama and Plumas in the north…. Anthem has scheduled these Medi-Cal patients with AIDS specialists, psychiatrists, pulmonologists and physical therapists more than 300 miles away, according to the auditor’s report, and Health & Wellness has directed patients to travel more than 300 miles to see dermatologists and 200 or more miles to see ear, nose and throat doctors; kidney specialists; and neurologists.” • California’s Medicaid program.

“Just one season of playing football—even without a concussion—can cause brain damage” [Science]. “In the new study, researchers at the University of Rochester (U of R) in New York followed 38 of the school’s football players. The athletes wore helmets outfitted with accelerometers to track the number and force of hits during practices and games. Before and after each season, the scientists took MRI scans of the players’ brains. The researchers looked specifically at the midbrain, a region on the brain stem that governs primitive, thoughtless functions such as hearing and temperature regulation. When a player’s head is hit from any angle, the brain ripples like the surface of a pond after a rock is thrown, explains study author Adnan Hirad, a medical student at U of R. Although the forces can affect many regions of the brain, the midbrain’s central location makes it likely to sustain damage. The results were striking. Although only two of the 38 players received a concussion, more than two-thirds of them showed changes to the integrity of the white matter of their midbrains. Rotational hits—when a player’s helmet is struck by a glancing blow—were particularly bad for the midbrain’s white matter.”

The Last of the Feral Hogs, I Swear

Lot of dunking on this thread, for some reason. I think it’s interesting:

Ok y’all did it: A thread about hogs, ferality, and race in American history.

— Gabriel Rosenberg (@gnrosenberg) August 6, 2019

Class Warfare

“The College Wealth Divide: Education and Inequality in America, 1956-2016” [CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP13864]. From the abstract: “Using new long-run micro data, this paper studies wealth and income trends of college and non-college households in the United States since 1956. We document the emergence of a substantial college wealth premium since the 1980s, which is considerably larger than the college income premium. Over the past four decades, the wealth of American households with a college-educated head has tripled. By contrast, the wealth of non-college households has barely grown in real terms over the same period. Part of the rising wealth gap can be traced back to systematic portfolio differences between college and non-college households that give rise to different exposures to asset price changes. Non-college households have a lower exposure to the equity market and have profited much less from the recent surge in the stock market. We also discuss the importance of financial literacy and business ownership for the increase in wealth inequality between college and non-college households.” • Oh, man. “Financial literacy.”

EPI updates its productivity-pay gap chart:

“Here’s why the economy feels so bad when it sounds so good” [Business Insider]. “Americans are broadly pessimistic about what’s coming next, the Pew Research Center found earlier this year. Increasingly, they believe that our political and economic systems work only for those with power. This is because neither the stock market nor employment data captures what’s ailing most American families: rising costs for critical, necessary items. Meanwhile, despite wages eking up a little bit since the financial crisis, adjusted for inflation, Americans haven’t gotten a significant raise since 1999. This is why Americans are drowning in debt. As for the stock market, most people aren’t involved…. Employment numbers don’t tell you anything about that. Having a job doesn’t mean as much as it used to because wages simply don’t cover the same costs they used to.”

“Karl Marx Is Useful for Our Time, Not Just His” (interview) [David Harvey, Jacobin]. “The question of sovereignty is: Does the state control finance, or does finance control the state? In Greece, for instance, the latter is clearly the case — there, state sovereignty is pretty irrelevant, a minor part of the power relation running the country. Interestingly, this is even what’s said in the United States. When Bill Clinton came to power after the 1992 election, he laid out an economic program. His policy advisor Robert Rubin — who came from Goldman Sachs, and later became secretary of the Treasury — said, “You can’t do that.” Clinton said, “Why not?” Rubin replied, “Because the bondholders won’t let you.” Clinton supposedly said, “You mean my whole economic policy and my whole chances of re-election are dependent on a bunch of fucking bond traders?” And Rubin said yes. So Clinton implemented neoliberal measures like NAFTA and a whole set of welfare measures and did not deliver what he’d promised — free health care. I think we’re in a situation where it’s the money changers who rule, not the politicians.” • This is an interesting interview, and more “moderate” than the headline conveys. Harvey also has interesting things to say about the contrast between the US and the Chinese responses to the 2008 Crash.

“False Freedom: Sharing the Scraps from the Perilous Gig Economy” [Steven Greenhouse, Lit Hub]. “The digital on-demand economy resembles globalization in that it has created a larger, and often a worldwide, labor pool, putting workers in the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, and other industrial nations in competition, via the internet, with workers in India, China, and elsewhere. Like globalization, the app-based economy often pulls down wages in the industrial world, even as it creates new opportunities for workers in poorer nations.”

“Foundation announces gift of more than $768,000 to unpaid Blackjewel miners” [WYMT]. “Two major announcements regarding relief for unpaid Blackjewel miners took place at the Harlan County Courthouse and at the Letcher County Extension Office Monday morning. Ross Kegan, former Vice President of Operations of Black Mountain Resources, spoke in Harlan County on behalf of the Richard and Leslie Gilliam Foundation. He said the foundation will give a total of $492,000 to Harlan County CAA so that each Blackjewel miner in the immediate-needs database will get $2,000. Another announcement took place in Letcher County at 11:00 a.m. and then another is expected to happen in Virginia. Kegan said the foundation is giving another $276,000 to Blackjewel miners in the area, which will also amount to $2,000 each.” • Foundation bails out unpaid workers in Harlan County, while DSA is silent. Another win for noblesse oblige!

News of the Wired

Not all programmers get free meals and massages. Thread:

if you have a cable modem, there’s a really good chance that it has a “DNS ALG”, which is a type of software that has no excuse to exist whatsoever, serves no identifiable purpose, and is absolutely batshit

— Utterly dispassionate, documentary hog slaughter (@gravislizard) August 8, 2019

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (MF):

MF writes: “Spotted these while waiting for a table at a local restaurant with a friend. She tells me that these are Canna lilies, likely canna indica or a hybrid of canna indica with another canna species.”

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser.Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

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If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/8/2019

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itsfinancethings · 5 years ago

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Less than 24 hours after the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump, seven Democratic candidates took the stage at the last debate of 2019 to hash out what they’d do differently if elected.

From California’s Loyola Marymount University, the candidates sparred over their campaign financing decisions, their past support of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how to best combat climate change. The debate stage was the smallest and least diverse yet, but the two women on stage — Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Elizabeth Warren— had some of the most memorable moments: rebuking Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigeig for his relative inexperience compared to the other contenders, and criticizing him for his fundraising methods, respectively.

Former Vice President Joe Biden also evoked a rare criticism of the Obama Administration, pushing back on the notion that he supported the 2009 decision to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan. “I’m the guy from the beginning who argued it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan. Period,” he said. “We should not have done it, and I argued against it constantly.”

Here are some of the night’s other biggest takeaways:

The Democrats’ diversity problem

Seven women and men took the stage on Thursday night, and the only non-white candidate among them was Andrew Yang. Except for Yang and California Sen. Kamala Harris, who dropped out at the start of the month, only white candidates qualified for the debate. This forced the uncomfortable conversation about how the party that talks so big about including diverse voices and that depends on minority voters ended up with such a white set of candidates in a field that was, at one point, historically diverse.

Yang was asked to respond to this from stage, where he argued that if more voters had disposable income, more would donate to political campaigns, resulting in more diverse candidates. He also predicted that Sen. Cory Booker, who BuzzFeed News reported was circulating a letter to other campaigns urging the Democratic National Committee to make its qualifications more inclusionary, would be back. (Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Gov. Patrick Deval, the other minority candidates still running, also did not qualify.)

Sen. Sanders, asked the same question about what message that sent to voters, pivoted to climate change, though the moderator interjected to say that the question was about race. “People of color, in fact, are going to be the people suffering most if we do not deal with climate change,” Sanders shot back. Twitter was immediately alight with tweets from progressives afterwards backing Sanders, arguing that climate change was climate justice. —Lissandra Villa

Warren and Buttigieg spar, exposing fault lines in party

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came to blows over campaign funding and what Buttigieg called “purity tests.” The exchange mirrored an internal debate in the Democratic party, between progressives who denounce the influence of money in politics and candidates who accept big money donations in the name of beating Trump. The question is whether big money is inherently corrosive: Warren (and Sanders) say yes, Buttigieg says no.

Warren, who has vowed to reject corporate donations and closed-door fundraisers, argued that “we can’t have people who can put down $5,000 for a check drown out the voices of everyone else.” Buttigieg pointed out that Trump and his allies would stop at nothing — even foreign interference — to win the election, and that Republicans had raised hundreds of millions for his re-election campaign. “This is our only chance to defeat Donald Trump, and we shouldn’t try to do it with one hand tied behind our backs,” he said.

Then Warren went for the jugular, bringing up the recently revealed Buttigieg fundraiser that took place in a wine cave. “Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States,” she said. Buttigieg hit back hard. “I’m literally the only person on this stage who’s not a millionaire or a billionaire,” he said. This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass.” He then referenced the fact that Warren used money she had raised in previous fundraisers to help seed her presidential campaign. “Did it corrupt you?” he asked. “Of course not.”

It was an exchange that illustrated the battle lines of a party at war with itself, torn between the progressives like Warren and Sanders who want to remake the American political system and liberals like Buttigieg, Biden, and Klobuchar who think that getting rid of Trump is the priority. And it’s an exchange that could haunt both Warren and Buttigieg, depending on how the race plays out. Warren’s grassroots fundraising strategy means she’s cultivated thousands of small donors, but it will be hard for her to compete with opponents (like Trump) with no qualms about raising money from billionaires. And Buttigieg’s willingness to take money from big donors — and the potent image of the wine cave — could make it difficult for him to win over the young progressives who embrace the “purity tests” he denounces. —Charlotte Alter

Biden earns his standing

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who has been at the top of the Democratic field since his spring entry to the race in the spring, finally delivered a debate performance to justify his membership in the top tier. Largely spared barbs from his rivals and offering his most solid showing yet, the veteran politician was forceful, level and clear. He successfully deflected any criticism about his deep-pocketed donors by saying his average donor gave $43. He dodged a question about a Washington Post report that Barack Obama’s administration misled the world about conditions in Afghanistan. He brushed past a suggestion that he may only commit to serving one term. And he turned a question about climate change into a moment to promote an infrastructure.

Nothing, in fact, seemed to ding him hard. In one stand-out moment, Biden challenged rival Bernie Sanders over his Medicare for All plan that would spike federal spending on health care. “Now tell me, you’re going to add 84% more, and there’s not going to be higher taxes? At least before, he was being honest about it,” Biden said. In another, he used the ongoing impeachment drama unfolding on Capitol Hill to promote his calls for civility and bipartisanship. Democrats say Trump used a July call with his Ukrainian counterpart to condition U.S. aid on Ukrainian prosecutors publicly pursuing an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, who was hired by a Ukrainian energy company. “If anyone has reason to be angry with Republicans, and not want to cooperate, it’s really me, the way they’ve attacked me, my son, my family,” he said, before adding: “I know we have to… be able to get things done.” — Philip Elliott

Candidates have to talk about age — again

It’s not going away. Three of the top-tier candidates were made to reckon with their age in a question hinged on comments President Barack Obama made earlier this week, arguing that if women in charge the world would be a better place, and that it’s often old men standing in the way of progress.

Sanders, Biden, and Warren, all of whom are in their seventies, responded with quips (“I’m white as well!” said Sanders; “I’m going to guess he wasn’t talking about me,” Biden responded; “I would also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated,” said Warren) before addressing the substance of the question. “The issue is where power resides in America,” Sanders said. “The issue is not old or young, male or female. The issue is working people standing up, taking on the billionaire class, and creating a government and economy that works for all, not just the one percent.”

Biden would not commit either way when asked whether he would run for a second term if elected, even as Politico recently reported he’s been privately signaling that he would only serve one. “No, I’m not willing to commit one way or another. Here’s the deal, I’m not even elected one term yet— let’s see where we are. Let’s see what happens,” Biden responded.

Finally, Warren used the question as an opportunity to talk about her renowned selfie lines, which she argued give people who normally have not had the opportunity to substantively interact with candidates the chance to talk with her. “I believe that President Obama was talking about who has power in America, whose voices get heard. I believe he’s talking about women and people of color and trans people and people whose voices just so often get shoved out. And for me, the best way to understand that is to see how people are running their campaigns in 2020.” —Lissandra Villa

Klobuchar works hard for the Midwestern vote

Iowa will be the first state in the nation to cast ballots for a Democratic nominee, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar leaned into that fact during Thursday’s debate. “The way we take on climate change in a big way is by talking about what’s happening on the coast as I just did,” the Minnesota lawmaker said, “but also by talking about what’s happening in the midwest — where I’m from. It’s not flyover country to me, I live there. And what we are seeing there is unprecedented flooding.” In her answers, she was more determined than ever to reach midwestern and other blue collar workers, many of which have seen their farm bankruptcies increase by 25% in one year, and extreme rain increase by 50% since 1900.

Later in the night, Klobuchar garnered a rousing round of applause after rebutting Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg for their brawl over billionaire donors and the private “wine cave” donor event recently hosted by Buttigieg. “I’ve never even been to a wine cave,” joked Klobuchar. “I’ve been to the Wind Cave [National Park] in South Dakota.” Klobuchar will need the support of these middle America voters to stay in the race. Though a recent Emerson poll clocked her at 10% in the Hawkeye State, her nationwide polling average is still hovering just above 3%. — Abby Vesoulis

Disability policy makes a debut

Health care largely took a back seat on Thursday night, but the moderators asked about a related topic not often discussed on the debate stage: people with disabilities. One in four Americans has a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but politicians have historically not paid much attention to disabled voters and no other Democratic debate has featured a question explicitly about disability issues. However, voter turnout surged among people with disabilities in 2018 and this time around, many of the Democratic presidential hopefuls have started to talk about the topic, with many publishing disability policy plans and hiring disabled campaign staffers.

So when a moderator told the candidates about a disabled man named Kyle and asked how they would help ensure people like him were more integrated into the workforce and their communities, disability activists were excited. Billionaire Tom Steyer answered the question first, saying he wanted to “treat everybody equally” but then quickly pivoting to talk about taxes that he would need to pay for increasing services. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang was up next, and he gave a personal answer that referenced his autistic son, who he has often mentioned before.

However, the way Yang talks about people with disabilities is controversial. “How many of you all have a family member or a friend or a neighbor with special needs or autism?” he asked. Many disability advocates see “special needs” as outdated phrasing and would prefer politicians not use euphemisms to refer to their disabilities. Advocates have also stressed that they would like to see politicians treat them as people who matter on their own, not just as family members or neighbors or friends of voters.

The most detailed person to answer the question was Warren, who spoke about fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as well as helping people with disabilities secure housing, jobs and equal pay. But even Warren ended her answer by calling disabled people the “least of thy brethren,” a reference that many on social media saw as pitying, even if well intentioned. For Democrats’ first time answering a disability question on stage, their responses showed that they are paying attention, but still have more learning to do. —Abigail Abrams

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Why You’re Wrong About the Democratic Primary

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/why-youre-wrong-about-the-democratic-primary/

Why You’re Wrong About the Democratic Primary

Warren’s down! No, she’s back! O’Rourke is hot! No, he’s faltering! Biden is dead on arrival! No, he’s unstoppable! The 2020 Democratic presidential campaign already has the feel of a stock market, with TV pundits and Internet prediction experts monitoring the minute-by-minute movements on the big board.

There’s much to praise about all this attention. It provides gainful employment for hundreds, if not thousands, of campaign workers, journalists, pollsters and hotel, restaurant and car-rental employees. It offers leisure-time speculation for the millions of TV viewers searching for a successor to “Game of Thrones.” And in the pages and on the websites of our best journalistic enterprises, it even provides detailed, tough-minded looks at what the women and men in the race intend to do with the powers they seek.

Story Continued Below

Here’s what it does not do, though: tell us what will actually happen in 2020. If voters and the news media take that to heart, and focus our attention on the character and the intentions of the candidates instead of who’s winning eight months before anyone votes, the coverage—and the choosing—will be better for it.

And what the history of modern presidential nominating contests suggests about this moment is that the seemingly daily polling, and the “she’s-surging-he’s failing” stories, have all the staying power of sandcastles at high tide. The last half century of presidential primaries is a catalog of slow erosions of “insurmountable” leads, sudden shifts of the current, candidates left for dead who have revived and triumphed, front-runners hit with a blow from nowhere that recalibrated the certainties of a moment ago. If there’s a candidate you like in this race who you feel isn’t getting the attention she deserves, it’s far too early to fret. The history is varied enough to worry every one of the top-tier candidates, and provide comfort to most, or even all, of the rest. Even John Delaney. Here are a few lessons for the field.

How confident should Biden be?

Joe Biden entered the race in April, and since then, the former vice president has polled more strongly than nearly anyone anticipated, staking out what is, six weeks later, a 17-point lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average. How safe is a lead like that? The canonical cautionary tale is that of Ed Muskie, the former senator from Maine. In 1971, he was the consensus choice for president among a wide range of Democrats, considered the most electable challenger to a president despised by progressives: Richard Nixon. But the intensity of the party’s anti-war elements, and a New Hampshire win that was characterized as a defeat by the news media, sank Muskie by spring.

But if Biden starts to fade, that doesn’t mean you can write him off. More than three decades after Muskie, in the summer of 2007, the Republican front-runner, Arizona Sen. John McCain, was out of money, having gorged on an army of operatives. His top campaign aides had fled. By that autumn, the new, undisputed poll leader was former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose path to the nomination would be a romp through moderate, populous states like New York and New Jersey. In California and Florida, Giuliani was anywhere from two to fourtimesas popular as his nearest rivals. Could a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun-control candidate actually win the presidential nomination of the Republican Party?

Well, no. As soon as voters actually began, er, voting, Giuliani sank like a stone. And as is so often the case in presidential campaign politics, Giuliani’s collapse helped to cement a conventional wisdom that was soon upended. The failure of a mouthy, socially moderate New York mayor was one reason so many discounted the consistent lead in the polls held by Donald Trump in 2016. Could a formerly pro-choice, currently anti-free trade, antiwar candidate actually win the nomination of the Republican Party? Well, yes.

The very year that Giuliani fell apart, as McCain was going from front-runner to also-ran to GOP nominee, Hillary Clinton held a sizable lead in the Democratic polls. One of the keys to her contest with Barack Obama in 2007 and 2008 was supposed to be her strong position in the battle for African-American votes. In November, 2007, POLITICO reported that Clinton was besting Obama among African-Americans. As late as December 2007, she and Obama were effectively tied among black voters. But when Obama won the Iowa caucuses, his victory in a virtually all-white state validated him as a credible Democratic nominee. Within days, the African-American vote moved decisively to him, and black officials who’d endorsed Clinton began switching almost by the day.

This is why the results in Iowa and New Hampshire are so crucial for Biden: If Kamala Harris or Cory Booker perform well in the early states, Biden’s own significant lead among black voters in 2019 might similarly fade.

There is a Democratic campaign, however, that offers Biden a measure of reassurance. In 1984, the most recent Democratic vice president, Walter Mondale, seemed to be facing nothing but calm seas and fair winds. Mondale proclaimed the campaign “the sweetest primary in history.” On the day of the New Hampshire primary, eight days after he won the Iowa caucuses by a 3-to-1 margin, theNew York Timesreported that “Walter F. Mondale now holds the most commanding lead ever recorded this early in a presidential nomination campaign by a nonincumbent.”

The next day’sTimesreported that Colorado Sen. Gary Hart had beaten Mondale in New Hampshire by 10 points—a win that upended the race completely and put Hart on a path to win a series of primaries. Still, by the time it was over, Mondale was saved by black voters in Alabama and Georgia, by big-city Democrats in Illinois and New York, and by questions about the “unknown” Hart.

Then again, in November 1984 Mondale lost 49 states to the incumbent Republican president, so perhaps Biden shouldn’t take too much comfort from this history.

What about Bernie?

As for Bernie Sanders, his surprising strength in 2016 might be mitigated by the precedent of a similar candidate from 2004. By late 2003, the insurgent campaign of his fellow Vermonter, Howard Dean, had turned the Internet into a cash machine of astonishing and unprecedented proportions, fueled by the anger of progressive Democrats at what they perceived as a timid and centrist party in Washington that wasn’t responding to the grassroots anxiety over the unilateralist Republican in the White House.

Just in the third quarter of 2003, Dean raised $15 million, almost all of it in small donations. His anti-Iraq War message had won him a significant lead in the polls. At year’s end, CNN reported that Dean was polling twice as high as his nearest rivals. Both of the Democratic contenders from 2000—Al Gore and Bill Bradley—endorsed him.

John Kerry’s more mainstream campaign, meanwhile, had become a joke. In November, Jon Stewart mocked the Kerry campaign on “The Daily Show” and highlighted the departure of key staff members. Then the calendar flipped to the election year of 2004, and a combination of fears over Dean’s electability and a Democratic electorate unsure of the risk of an unknown candidate caused Dean’s support to collapse in what his top campaign aide Joe Trippi calls “a flight to safety.” The former Vermont governor finished third in Iowa and was plummeting in New Hampshire even before his caucus-night “scream.” A few weeks later, he was out of the race.

The Rise of the Rest

The rest of the field—from rising contenders like Pete Buttigieg to candidates like Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke and Elizabeth Warren who were deemed to be struggling after promising debuts—can take heart that primary campaigns are so volatile that they sometimes shift, quite literally, overnight. In March 1976, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan had lost five consecutive primaries, and was virtually out of money. His aides were beginning to reach out to the campaign of President Gerald Ford to discuss the details of Reagan’s withdrawal. But in North Carolina, Reagan was propelled to victory by the field army of Senator Jesse Helms and the impact of a half-hour televised speech that denounced Ford’s foreign policy. Reagan then ran off a string of primary wins, leading to an intense, contested convention in Kansas City, where he fell just a few dozen delegates short of unseating an incumbent president in his party’s primaries.

Reagan faced a similar, if more abbreviated, challenge four years later. After Reagan lost the Iowa caucuses, prominent NBC analyst Tom Pettit said, “I would like to suggest that Ronald Reagan is politically dead.” Six weeks later, Reagan’s landslide win in New Hampshire put him on the road to the nomination and the White House.

History’s lesson is not that front-runners are always doomed to fail like Muskie or Dean or Giuliani, but that at some point they will have to survive a serious competitor. For Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, the worst days were in 1999. Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey senator, was out-raising Gore and leading him in some New Hampshire polls. The sitting vice president was jettisoning longtime political aides and moving his headquarters. But once the voting started, Gore won every contest. That same year, Gov. George W. Bush’s coronation was disrupted when John McCain beat him by a record margin in New Hampshire. But starting in South Carolina, the consensus choice of the GOP establishment prevailed over the heretic. In 2011 and 2012, Mitt Romney was often displaced as the front-runner in polls by a series of rivals, including “9-9-9” tax-plan candidate Herman Cain and, more plausibly, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But once Romney dispatched Gingrich in Florida, the contest was over. Hillary Clinton in 2016 did not expect Bernie Sanders to match her bankroll, or to prove a persistent rival, but he did, though by the end she was the clear winner in total votes cast and delegates won.

Unless Trump Changed Everything

But even that time-tested observation—that every frontrunner must surmount an existential challenge to his or her candidacy—has now failed the test of time. In 2016, Donald Trump, a candidate with no political experience and no measurable support from his party’s establishment, never trailed in the polls and was never seriously threatened during his campaign for the nomination. Based on the lessons of history, Trump’s inevitable fall was confidently predicted by journalists and insiders, even as he racked up primary victories and delegates. The day former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush withdrew from the race, on February 19, 2016, his brother George W. was telling a New York audience that he did not believe Trump would win the nomination.

Every winning candidate’s journey to the nomination is serpentine, and their stories are so varied that, depending on what contest you look at, there are enough different paths to provide encouragement to just about any candidate. Will voters choose familiarity, as they did in 1984 and as Biden may hope they will do again? Or will they go for a Reagan-like insurgent who represents a rising ideological wing of the party, like Sanders? Can Harris or Booker draw large portions of black voters by doing well in an early contest, as Obama did in 2008? Will a candidate now struggling and basically given up for dead (Kirsten Gillibrand?) come out on top, as Kerry did in 2004 and McCain did in 2008? Or what if the past offers no guidance whatsoever, as was the case in 2016?

The answer to each of these questions is: We don’t know, and we won’t know for quite a while. The adage that “if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan” has a corollary: If you want to hear God start wheezing and crying and struggling to breathe, make a prediction a year in advance. And when it comes to presidential primaries, you could sometimes have generated a divine belly laugh just by trying to project adayinto the future.

#Democratic #Foreign #Politics #primary

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avanneman · 6 years ago

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O My Democratic Party, Where the F*ck Art Thou?

Well, good question. If Happy Days aren’t here again, and they aren’t, life is better, definitely. To have the House of Representatives back in Democratic hands after eight long years is definitely a pleasure if not a treasure. As one representative put it “Being in the majority is a thousand times better.” Furthermore, the party’s position at the state level, particularly in the Midwest, except for Ohio, has improved from Obama disaster levels to “not terrible”.

The fantasized “blue wave” failed to materialize, of course, but the thirty-plus seat gain in the House is more than gratifying. It was beginning to seem that Republicans had a lock on the House similar to the Democratic lock that prevailed, with only two interruptions, from 1932 until 1994. But now it appears that the Democrats can win the House without both a hurricane and a war. And it also appears that the party has made significant, though still limited, progress from the woeful downticket performance of the Obama years, to which, as I’ve frequently complained, Obama himself contributed himself to a painful degree, both in terms of policy and administration. Now we’re starting to look like a normal party again.

So what’s next? I recently opined that Old Lady Pelosi held most of the cards, if not the answers, in the upcoming power struggles. It’s true that a number of new reps made it a talking point that they wouldn’t vote for Pelosi, but luckily for Pelosi if no one else, she faces divided forces. A lot of the talk against Pelosi is that she’s “too California” and that we need some Midwestern blue-collar muscle rather than Silicon Valley slickness to win in Trump’s America. But there’s another big batch of energy coming against Pelosi from the new kids, saying she ain’t woke, or at least she’s so old you can’t tell if she’s woke or dead. I confess I’m not up on which wave of feminism we’re up to these days, but obviously Nancy ain’t current with the current current, you know what I’m sayin’? So some are sayin’ she’s too coastal, and others are sayin’, not enough. And if you give an old war horse like Nancy an opening like that, she’s liable to run right through it, which is precisely what she is doing.

As I also previously opined, Nancy’s strongest card is the one she never flourishes in public, money. Decades of successful politicking have given her a whatever it is the kids call a Rolodex these days to die for. Nancy knows moolah, and she knows how to dish it out, but will her cash “moderate” the Democratic Party enough to keep Neoliberal Nancy in control? And even if it does, how much can Nancy do as a mere faute de mieux (aka “lack of a better”)? I think the big issue for the Democrats to address is income inequality, but the “answers” suggested by Bernie Sanders in 2016, and very popular with both the “blue collar” and “woke” wings of the Democratic Party, strike Neoliberal Alan as absolutely the wrong way to go.

The “unifying factor” for Democrats on the campaign trail in 2016 largely seemed to be “Medicare for All,” the original Bernie riff, which appeals to old Paleolibs like Thomas Frank and Michael Moore, who think they’re helping the party return to its New Deal roots, as well as the new kids, like the famously famous (and no doubt privately envied and resented) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who would be rockin’ that socialism, if they knew what it was. The problem is, as representatives who actually represent blue-collar districts know, real blue-collar folks don’t want Medicare for All. They want Medicare for themselves, for those who have “earned it” and not for those who haven’t—you know, the “Government, hands off my Medicare” crowd, who love “white socialism” but hate “welfare”.1

“White socialism” includes employer-provided health insurance, which is, of course, highly subsidized, because it’s effectively tax free income, though most people tend to think of it as entirely free—at least it ought to be.2 I think, when push comes to shove, that voters with employer-provided health insurance will not be enthusiastic about either giving up what they have for whatever “Medicare for all” would be, nor do I think that those on the current Medicare program will be interested in “sharing”. Certainly, the Republican “war” on the Affordable Care Act should be reversed, and the Act itself strengthened, but the Democrats need to address the broader issue of income inequality, and income stagnation, beyond health care alone, if the Democrats are going to reclaim a respectable share of the “less than college” white vote. But how?

The Democrats’ dilemma is discussed, not too intelligently, in a recent post appearing in Slate, written by an unenthusiastic Jordan Weissmann, “Kamala Harris’ Big Policy Idea Is Even Worse Than I Thought”, going after the “LIFT The Middle Class Act” being pushed by California Senator Kamala Harris. Okay, the name’s not catchy, and it’s scarcely more than an expanded version of the Earned Income Tax Credit, and it’s too generous, providing as much as $6,000 a year to couples with an income of less than $100,000 a year, but, to my mind, it’s very much a step in the right direction.

Weissmann’s first complaint–and his take is not nearly as “outraged” as the headline would suggest–is that too many U.S. households–almost 30% of them–are above the $100,000 a year figure to make this a winner. Bernie Sanders, he says, was smarter, promising free college tuition for everyone, even if your daddy is a billionaire. My reaction is just the other way–that we shouldn’t be boosting the income of households who are making more than the national average. Catering to kids who think that socialism means that everything is free isn’t going to win back blue-collar workers in the Midwest.

A bit surprisingly–and showing how the Democratic Party has “drifted”–Weissman doesn’t emphasize what would be an “old Democrat’s” immediate complaint–that the bill wouldn’t do anything to help the non-working poor, the group that so many liberals insist on always going to bat for–see, for example, the recent “outrage” over proposed changes in the food stamp program voiced by Paul Krugman.

It’s certainly “arguable” that the food stamp proposal, if it had passed, which it did not, could have been administered in a punitive manner at the state level, but the main criticism voiced by Krugman and others was the mere idea that poor people should be forced to do anything, that cutting benefits to an able-bodied person simply on the grounds that they refused to look for a job3 was the ultimate in Republican villainy. Many Democrats continue to insist on throwing themselves into the “welfare trap” that Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan dug for them so long ago, while Weissman wants to dig a new welfare trap–welfare for the upper-middle-class. Harris, at least, is trying to craft something that will reach the “real” middle class.

Working to expand the notion, and respectability, of outright income redistribution should be a major Democratic endeavor over the next two years. The Earned Income Tax Credit, because it’s tied to employment, because it provides people with cash, because it’s “invisible” (unlike food stamps), and because it “travels” across state lines, unlike eligibility for most assistance programs, all make the EITC a near perfect vehicle for addressing the “shocking” fact that the free enterprise system, while the only system capable of creating the kind of economic growth that can actually provide a decent standard of living for all people, is not in any sense of the word “fair”. I subscribe, at least in part, to the various theories floating around arguing that the “happy times” of declining income inequality following the two world wars until recently were the product of a variety of factors extraneous to capitalism itself. Today capitalism is continuing to better the lives of millions, and even billions, around the globe, but while the globalizing of capitalism is great for the Third World folks,4 it’s “disruptive” here, now that U.S. corporations can no longer get away with charging monopoly (or at least oligopoly) prices and thus can no longer afford to pay monopoly wages.

The decline in wages for many Americans is popularly regarded as the result of imports, but in fact it’s the decline in bargaining power for American workers now that they are competing with a global work force almost as skilled and ten times larger. Automation, not imports, is destroying the old manufacturing jobs that paid union wages—wages that were high because of the unions, not because there is some magic to manufacturing jobs that lets blue-collar workers earn white-collar salaries. As the manufacturing jobs disappear, workers find new ones, but they aren’t joining unions. Unions have nothing to offer private-sector workers these days because they can’t protect them from international competition.

Hatred of international competition and immigrants drove the Bernie boom in the Democratic primaries in 2016.5 Pelosi’s California money, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s New York money, won’t fund a Democratic Party that runs on Bernie’s issues. If Democrats are going to be competitive in the big Midwestern states that they lost to Trump in 2016, they have to address the issue of income inequality, and a massive expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, so that it pushes millions into the middle class, is the most direct and effective way to do it, a way that is politically acceptable to lower- and middle-income whites, and a way that is compatible with coastal priorities—i.e., a globally competitive economy, which, if you actually care about reducing poverty worldwide, instead of engaging in moral posturing, is absolutely the only way to go. Unfortunately, “the left” is much more inclined to posture.

Income stagnation and growing inequality strike me as the great domestic issue that the Democrats need to address to recover some ground in the Midwest, particularly the rural areas, where we’ve been losing by massive margins, as I’ve discussed earlier. I obviously don’t think the party can win by going further left, which would only increase our margins where we’re already winning. Health care is closely related to income stagnation, since people are paying more and more for it. Whether cutting the rate of increase for health care costs—correctly identified by President Obama as the “real” crisis, rather than the increases in entitlement costs—can be dealt with in a politically palatable is a (very) open question. But at least proposing a meaningful plan of income redistribution tied to employment would put the Democrats in good position for a decent shot at unseating President Trump. And, barring nothing but good luck as a result of well-deserved investigations into this grossly corrupt presidency, we’re going to need all the good positioning we can get.

Afterwords I’m going to skip moaning about the dangers of getting into fights over impeachment (a terrible idea no matter what, because the Republican Party is as corrupt as Trump is, or rather as corrupt as Trump needs it to be) and engaging in excessive “wokeness”, since I have a general aversion to culture wars. There are a variety of other policies for increasing incomes for lower and middle income folks, which I’ve discussed here, and here. A particular policy, to be pursued at both the federal and state level, is the diminution and (dream on) eventual end to the “War on Drugs”, which gives hundreds of thousands of young black and Hispanic men criminal records while wasting billions on police, prisons, courts, etc. This is the best thing Democrats can do to improve the situation of blacks and Hispanics in this country.

I discuss “white socialism”—the deliberate tailoring of all the major New Deal programs to exclude as many blacks as possible—here in the course of a beatdown administered to poor, pitiful Paulie Ryan and here, in the course of an extended beatdown administered to the poor, pitiful Democratic Party. ↩︎

AARP has an ad showing old folks talking about the issues, and what this country “really” needs, and the closer is provided by an old broad who says in a grandly self-satisfied voice “affordable health care!”, as though the viewer is supposed to exclaim “Affordable health care! Affordable health care! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Because of course what people mean by “affordable health care” is free health care. ↩︎

The bill, which passed the House but never would have passed the Senate, had a number of waivers that made the bill sound much more “reasonable” (though, again, the impact of these provisions would likely depend on administration at the state level). But what enraged Krugman et al. was the notion that self-sufficient employment was considered a more desirable outcome that unrestricted welfare dependency. Because for Krugman et al. the real purpose of these programs is to allow “us” to prove how generous “we” are, not to improve people’s lives. ↩︎

Great, but, uh, massively destabilizing, for both First and Third World countries, which is why virtually everyone is seeking protection of some sort from global economic forces, often with strong nativist overtones. ↩︎

Sanders was, of course, not at all racist, but he did originally advocate shutting off immigration—an easy position to take in Vermont, one of the whitest states in the union, and very few immigrants, legal or no. Pressure from Hillary drove Bernie to the left on immigration. ↩︎

#Democratic Party #economic growth

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itsfinancethings · 5 years ago

Link

December 19, 2019 at 11:55PM

Here are some of the night’s other biggest takeaways:

The Democrats’ diversity problem

Warren and Buttigieg spar, exposing fault lines in party

Biden earns his standing

Candidates have to talk about age — again

Klobuchar works hard for the Midwestern vote

Disability policy makes a debut

#IFTTT #Blogger

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