An odor most foul

It’s been several days since the Democratic candidates’ debate in Las Vegas, but the stench of it lingers still. The worst of it was at the end, when Chuck Todd posed the Todd Test to each of the candidates: If none of you has enough delegates at the Democratic National Convention to clinch the nomination, should the person with the most delegates at the end of this primary season be the nominee even if they are short of a majority?

It should have been a softball question. After all, the candidates had been preaching party unity and the dire need to unseat Trump since the beginning of the campaign. Bernie Sanders, the candidate with the most momentum, said yes. No surprise there. The other five “unifiers” said no! Now, we always hope that the President of the United States will be a person of clear vision and sound judgment, but here we had five aspirants advocating the ruination of their party and four more years of Trump, for that’s exactly what a “Take it away from Bernie” convention would do.

Save for the evisceration of Bloomberg, it was an evening of disappointments. I had long admired Elizabeth Warren. Until last week, this was her pledge: Let’s be clear: I won’t take a dime of PAC money in this campaign. I won’t take a single check from a federal lobbyist, or billionaires who want to run a Super PAC on my behalf. She staked out a moral position, but lately her coffers have been running low. That’s what happens when a campaign wanes and donors turn away. Now, desperate to survive, she’s taking super PAC money because everyone does it. This on top of her willingness to throw the most popular candidate under a bus! She’s like a wax figurine on a hot griddle.

Then there’s Buttigieg, with a memorized stock of idiotic one-liners to use against his rivals … er, I mean “colleagues.” He laid into Klobuchar for a forgivable memory lapse and, much worse, labeled Sanders a “socialist.” No, not a democratic socialist of the kind common in Europe. He was pandering to ignorant Americans who think either “communist” or “ivory-tower fool” when they hear the word. It’s taken decades of patient explaining to give “socialism” the dignity it deservers, yet there was Buttigieg defiling it again.

The rest of the field doesn’t excite me. Biden is pathetic, with his insistence that he’s been a tower of progressive enlightenment for decades. I think of him only as Tonto to Obama’s Lone Ranger. And Klobuchar is almost as sad. I wince every time she reminds us that she’s “in the arena” and brags of her invincibility in Minnesota elections. I’ve yet to hear a compelling reason to vote for her. I leave Bloomberg for last, and for criticism I defer to the others on the stage.

If Bernie goes into the nominating convention with less than a majority of the delegates, I suggest a pre-emptive strike — stern warnings and demonstrations that the Sanders plurality is not to be trifled with.

Whither the Dems

In my last post, I mentioned the Democrats had become “confused and sightless” about the future. I saw them as a party driven by polls, not principles. But that’s all right. The process is reversible. I hereby offer my idiosyncratic purification plan for getting the Dems back on track.

No whippoorwill sales. This is a reference to the absurd song “Cockeyed Optimist,” from South Pacific. In it, Nellie Forbush, perhaps the biggest ninny in all of Broadway music, observes, “They say the human race is falling on its face, and hasn’t very far to go… But every whippoorwill is selling me a bill, and telling me it just ain’t so…” And this madness is in the middle of World War 2!

Nellie hasn’t put away childish things. She hasn’t learned to see through a glass, darkly. She doesn’t see the enslaver, the despoiler, the exploiter. She doesn’t see the conquered, the conquistador, and the Inquisitor, the colonialist and the colonialized, the oppressor and the oppressed.

Democratic politics are for people ready to confront the dreadful truth of their humanity; for those who have said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us!” Anything else is a Disney movie.

Collective action is the highest expression of civilization. I’m taking about the kind of teamwork that transcends nationalism and builds international cooperation. The International Space Station is an example; the World Wildlife Fund is a better one; the Paris Climate Accords is the best of the lot. Any international action that defies our tendency toward self-extinction is enlightenment.

The lowest expression of civilization, by the way, is selfish action. It’s the course of action that persistently seeks out the narrow, short-term gain. One would be hard pressed to find a better motto for such short-sightedness than “Let’s make America great again!” Whatever that means, let’s not do it.

Justice is the central business of government. Once upon a time, the appropriate purpose and size of government was an interesting subject of discourse. Then something happened. People understood the enormity of injustice in our country was such that government could never again deal with it unless some basic assumptions about government were re-examined and restated. For example, there was no possibility of coping with injustice unless the raison d’être of government became the eradication of injustice. (And after all, why bother instituting governments if they would not operate at cross-purposes with injustice?)

Does anyone question that government and a concern for injustice have all but parted company? If you harbor any doubt, let me help clarify the question. How’s your health care? Does it depend on how much money you have? How well are your children nourished and educated? Does it depend on how much money you have? How easy is it for you to find and hold a job? Does it depend on your race? Your ethnicity? Your religious convictions? Your sexual preferences? Do you have a sufficient opportunity to vote? Early? By mail? On a weekend? Is your vote real, or has it been gerrymandered into insignificance? Do you feel safe in your neighborhood and in your home? Or do you and your loved ones feel you could be victims of violence at any time? Do the local police serve you? How about the safety of your environment? Are nearby roads and bridges secure? Is your water safe to drink? Do you live in proximity to poisons? Are you in touch with your anger yet? If you are, I congratulate you. You are on the Progressive-New Deal-Great Society arc of history, and you are pointed where Democrats need to be pointed—toward socialism!

In the last presidential election cycle, Bernie Sanders offered the Dems a course correction, away from “let’s fly this up the flag pole” toward “justice, for the survival of the people.” Hillary thanked him with the assertion he was trying to destroy the Democratic party. Au contraire. The lapse of leadership was entirely hers.

I hope the Dems have once and for all said goodby to Clinton and her surrogates. Nothing but sorrow lies down that road.

Halley’s Comet returns

I’ve seen 13 presidential races come and go, and I got fired up only once. It was the race of ’71-’72, when the Democrats managed to field an antiwar candidate. Sadly, a pall of doom descended on that election and gave it a sour “what’s the use?” flavor that became all too familiar. That was more than four decades ago, a long time to be uninspired. But now the thrill is back. Another political Halley’s Comet has entered my life: Bernie Sanders is running.

Two very different obstacles stand between Bernie and the White House. They’re the customary ones—getting a party nomination and winning the general election. The former, I think, will be the more difficult one. The Republicans will implode, no matter whom they nominate. I’ll explain why further on, but first to the question of why Hillary is so formidable.

Hillary Clinton is the presumed Democratic nominee, not just by John and Jane Q. Public, but by the media, too. True, this was also the case in 2007, and we know how that turned out. This time, however, it’s a little different…. Hillary is the archetype of the unrewarded woman. She married a satyr who could not be controlled, not even at the risk of a national scandal and her humiliation. It was her bravery, loyalty, and dignity in the face of humiliation that put her in the Senate. She served with competence, became even more admired, and, in 2007, seemed the perfect antidote to the 8-year Bush debacle. But no. Complete vindication—and the honor of becoming the first woman ever to ascend to the presidency—was snatched from her by a rank outsider, an upstart whose only credits were a gift for rhetoric and early opposition to the Iraq War. She tasted bitterness again, but again she showed courage, a willingness to serve, and extraordinary patience. Now she is surely entitled to claim what is her due! No one could be so cruel so as to deny her! Or so many women—millions of them—believe.

The aura of entitlement that surrounds Hillary translates into a mystical quality known as “electability.” The polls say she has a lot of it. She’s an excellent bet to win the general election, or so the Democrats believe. So why take a chance on an old Jewish guy from an all-white state who no one ever heard of before this summer? A guy who’s stuck with the accursed label “Socialist” to boot. What a dumb gamble that would be.

Bernie’s certainly got his work cut out, but he’s up to the challenge. He’s got the most powerful assets a politician can have: intelligence, compassion, and authenticity. His talking points are simple and factual, delivered without deceit or manipulation. There’s no soft soap about coming from the working poor or about parents who were simple union folk. No bad-mouthing or snide innuendos about his opponents. No negative campaigning whatsoever. He’s all about issues. Here’s a small sample from his speeches:

When you look at the basic necessities of life—education, health care, nutrition—there must be a guarantee that people receive what they need in order to live a dignified life.

The time has come to say that we need to expand Medicare to cover every man, woman, and child.

It is insane that we have hundreds of thousands of bright young people who have the desire and ability to go to college but their families cannot afford the tuition.

America is now an oligarchy, not a democracy.

The current campaign system is corrupt and amounts to legalized bribery.

It is an obscenity that we stigmatize so many Americans with a criminal record for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near-collapse of our entire economy.

The fossil fuel industry is destroying the planet and getting rich while doing it.

Why is it that Republicans are willing to bail out Wall Street but refuse to act on climate change? Let’s be honest. If the environment were a bank, it would have been saved by now.

The time has come for us to stand up and fight back against voter suppression. We will make sure that voter registration is automatic, the responsibility of the government.

Can you imagine Hillary saying that people must be guaranteed the necessities for a dignified life? Or advocating a health care system that would put health care insurers out of business? Or knocking Wall Street and labeling America an oligarchy? Or acknowledging that campaigns such as hers are legalized bribery? No, all of that is inconceivable. This is a person who has worked incessantly to convince corporations and billionaires to give money to her family’s foundation and to her campaigns. How, then, does Hillary approach the electorate for support? Well, take a look at her first campaign ad… and be prepared to gag, repeatedly.

As to the Republicans…

Could anything be more grotesque than the pronouncements, frequently made by party flunkies and the candidates themselves, that America is blessed to have such an extraordinary array of presidential hopefuls? New Speak was never so perverse! The first candidates’ debate was little more than a showcase for ignorance and mean-spirited ideas. But that isn’t why the Republicans are doomed in 2016. Americans can be sold bad ideas, if they are delivered loudly and pridefully. No, the reason the Republicans are doomed is because Donald Trump, an unelectable, egomaniacal billionaire, has captured the dumbass core of the party. I know of only one other personality like his, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s. Take a look and see if you don’t agree.

If Trump were electable, the Republican establishment would embrace him. He isn’t, so somehow they have to ensure he isn’t nominated. Pulling this off will be quite a trick. Trump’s popularity isn’t likely to crumble; it seems to be 100% bullet-proof. He’s going to win some primaries, maybe more than a few. The only workable anti-Trump strategy is to keep as many candidates as possible in the race until next spring and hope to deny Trump 51% of the delegates. It will help that some of the states will parcel out their delegates proportionately, according to the distribution of votes. If this strategy works, the convention will be a mess, and the alternative to Trump will be decided in the proverbial “smoke-filled room.” Of course, this will provoke considerable ill-will, making a Trump third-party candidacy likely. If the strategy fails, Trump will be nominated. Either way, the Republicans lose in the fall.

This presidential race will be quite a show, with a possible jackpot at the end. I acknowledge that Bernie’s odds are long, but for now I’m hopeful. And if he falls by the wayside, will it be decades more before another like him comes along? I’m inclined to think not. Bernie has defined “the chasm,” the distance between what America is and what America could be. He’s defined it better than any major party figure in my memory. So come what may, I’ll always thank him for saying what needs to be said, clearly, repeatedly, and on a big stage.