Under cover of the New Hampshire primary, on February 11, 2020, the illegitimate Trump regime's Attorney General, William Barr, put an exclamation point on the corruption of the Justice Department by throwing out the DOJ's sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone less than 24 hours after it had been filed. Meanwhile, Trump himself says out loud that there should be further retribution against Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for testifying before the House impeachment inquiry and today claimed in a tweet that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller lied to Congress.
It was already clear this was happening when the Southern District of New York (the once "Sovereign District of New York") did not indict Rudy Giuliani despite all the evidence of his connections to the indicted Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and an endless stream of leaks and speculation that his indictment was days away. Now it's crystal clear: Trump associates will have their crimes minimized and eventually erased, and the DOJ will harass Trump's many perceived enemies.
It's hard for me to say something coherent about all this. Since the 2016 election, politics for me has been alternately paralyzingly depressing and rage-inducing. Yesterday, fear was added to that equation. When I graduated from college almost 42 years ago, I envisioned our country becoming a better place to live 40 years hence, fairer and more democratic than ever. Instead, as I say in my tagline, things have gotten worse for the middle class over the entire time period, and I certainly never expected that democracy would be collapsing in this and so many other countries around the world. Only the 2018 blue wave gives me any hope.
But make no mistake about it. The rule of law has ceased to exist in the United States, and we are by no means guaranteed that we will have free and fair elections in November. Trump has already been impeached for his efforts to cheat in the election, and those efforts continue because Republican politicians have sold their souls to the devil. Or Putin. Thus, we face a very concentrated 9-month fight.
In an oddly appropriate line from Harry Potter, Sir Cadogan tells the trio, "Be of stout heart, the worst is yet to come!" There is no doubt in my mind that this is true for us today. There is no time for paralysis in the next nine months. We have to remember, with Greta Thunberg, "No one is too small to make a difference." My voice alone is small, but I still have to raise it. Everyone else, with voices small and large, must raise theirs, too. We don't know the extent of the dirty tricks coming, but we will have to fight them. Democracy is a precondition to improving the lives of everyday people, and we've got to fight for it now.
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Clinton's lead now more than a million votes UPDATED
As I explained last week, Donald Trump was elected to the Presidency despite having fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. She has already set a record for the biggest popular vote victory despite losing the Electoral College; according to CNN, she now (11/17/16 5:00am EST) leads by about 1,045,000 votes, roughly twice the margin of Al Gore's victory over George W. Bush in 2000. This equates to 0.8% of the popular vote.
Moreover, Clinton's lead will only increase in the coming days. The CNN infographic cited above shows that only 78% of California's votes (where Clinton leads by roughly 3 million votes) have so far been counted. Her raw vote margin will continue to climb there until the votes are all counted.
People have raised two primary arguments against my position that having the Electoral Vote trump the popular vote is undemocratic. The first takes the view that Trump won under the rules as they are: If the popular vote were determinative, he would have campaigned more in California, New York, Texas, and other population centers, and, in his mind at least, he would have recorded an even bigger victory. The problem for this claim, as Josh Marshall has pointed out, is that Clinton would have also campaigned more in those states. Increasing voter turnout usually improves Democratic electoral fortunes, so electing the President by popular vote means that Democratic margins would increase, not decrease.
The second argument claims that focusing on the Electoral College as the reason for Clinton's loss lets her off the hook for her weaknesses as a candidate and a campaigner. And there is no doubt that she had her weaknesses. The problem with this view is that the existence of the Electoral College is a necessary condition for her to have lost. None of her campaign's other problems would have led her to lose the election if the Electoral College did not overweight the Wyomings of this country relative to the Californias. This structural disadvantage that populous states face is one of the biggest threats to democracy in America. And we've got to do something about it, soon.
Update: It's now over 1.5 million, according to CNN. California still only has 83% tallied. Some sources have Clinton's lead over 2 million now. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
Cross-posted at Angry Bear.
Moreover, Clinton's lead will only increase in the coming days. The CNN infographic cited above shows that only 78% of California's votes (where Clinton leads by roughly 3 million votes) have so far been counted. Her raw vote margin will continue to climb there until the votes are all counted.
People have raised two primary arguments against my position that having the Electoral Vote trump the popular vote is undemocratic. The first takes the view that Trump won under the rules as they are: If the popular vote were determinative, he would have campaigned more in California, New York, Texas, and other population centers, and, in his mind at least, he would have recorded an even bigger victory. The problem for this claim, as Josh Marshall has pointed out, is that Clinton would have also campaigned more in those states. Increasing voter turnout usually improves Democratic electoral fortunes, so electing the President by popular vote means that Democratic margins would increase, not decrease.
The second argument claims that focusing on the Electoral College as the reason for Clinton's loss lets her off the hook for her weaknesses as a candidate and a campaigner. And there is no doubt that she had her weaknesses. The problem with this view is that the existence of the Electoral College is a necessary condition for her to have lost. None of her campaign's other problems would have led her to lose the election if the Electoral College did not overweight the Wyomings of this country relative to the Californias. This structural disadvantage that populous states face is one of the biggest threats to democracy in America. And we've got to do something about it, soon.
Update: It's now over 1.5 million, according to CNN. California still only has 83% tallied. Some sources have Clinton's lead over 2 million now. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
Cross-posted at Angry Bear.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Election of popular vote loser proves necessity of abolishing Electoral College
For the second time in just 16 years, the new President is actually the loser of the national popular vote (click on "Popular Vote"). This is the fifth time this has happened in U.S. history; the last time it happened prior to 2000 was in 1888. As children, we were all taught to believe in democracy and majority (or as we later learned, sometimes just plurality) rule. But with the way that rural and low-population states are overrepresented in the Senate and, hence, the Electoral College, the United States has persistent problems in achieving democratic outcomes in presidential elections and in passing legislation (the overrepresentation of small states in the Senate is amplified by the use of the filibuster).
As I write this (Nov. 9 at 3:53 EST), Hillary Clinton presently has a 219,000 vote lead, according to CNN (see link above). Yet she has lost the Presidency because low-population states are overrepresented in the Electoral College. How do we avoid such affronts to democracy in the future?
The best, and most straightforward way to do this would be to abolish the Electoral College entirely. This would make it impossible to repeat this travesty again.However, the Amendment process is a difficult one, requiring 2/3 majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, and approval by 3/4 of the states.
There is an alternative, though it might not be permanent. This is called the National Popular Vote bill, which would take the form of an interstate compact that would come into effect when it was ratified by states wielding at least 270 electoral votes. The concept behind the bill is simple: The states which are members of the compact pledge to award all their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote (50 states plus the District of Columbia), rather than the winner of the popular vote in their own state. This would ensure that the popular vote winner also won the Electoral College. However, this solution might not be permanent, if one or more of the signees passed legislation withdrawing from the compact.
At present, states comprising 61% of the needed 270 electoral votes have signed on to the agreement. This is made up of ten states plus the District of Columbia, with 165 electoral votes. A quick glance at the list shows the biggest potential problem: Every one of them voted for Secretary Clinton last night (although it should be noted that the Republican-majority New York State Senate voted in favor of the bill 57-4). Although there is some bipartisan support for the bill, Republicans in other states could decide that keeping the Electoral College is a partisan advantage, making it impossible to get enough states to sign on.
And yet, one of these (or something with equivalent effect) solutions is needed. American democracy is being degraded by our inability to elect as President the candidate with the most votes. It has now happened in two of the last five Presidential elections, and continues to be a threat for the foreseeable future.
Cross-posted at Angry Bear.
As I write this (Nov. 9 at 3:53 EST), Hillary Clinton presently has a 219,000 vote lead, according to CNN (see link above). Yet she has lost the Presidency because low-population states are overrepresented in the Electoral College. How do we avoid such affronts to democracy in the future?
The best, and most straightforward way to do this would be to abolish the Electoral College entirely. This would make it impossible to repeat this travesty again.However, the Amendment process is a difficult one, requiring 2/3 majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, and approval by 3/4 of the states.
There is an alternative, though it might not be permanent. This is called the National Popular Vote bill, which would take the form of an interstate compact that would come into effect when it was ratified by states wielding at least 270 electoral votes. The concept behind the bill is simple: The states which are members of the compact pledge to award all their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote (50 states plus the District of Columbia), rather than the winner of the popular vote in their own state. This would ensure that the popular vote winner also won the Electoral College. However, this solution might not be permanent, if one or more of the signees passed legislation withdrawing from the compact.
At present, states comprising 61% of the needed 270 electoral votes have signed on to the agreement. This is made up of ten states plus the District of Columbia, with 165 electoral votes. A quick glance at the list shows the biggest potential problem: Every one of them voted for Secretary Clinton last night (although it should be noted that the Republican-majority New York State Senate voted in favor of the bill 57-4). Although there is some bipartisan support for the bill, Republicans in other states could decide that keeping the Electoral College is a partisan advantage, making it impossible to get enough states to sign on.
And yet, one of these (or something with equivalent effect) solutions is needed. American democracy is being degraded by our inability to elect as President the candidate with the most votes. It has now happened in two of the last five Presidential elections, and continues to be a threat for the foreseeable future.
Cross-posted at Angry Bear.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
It's the Middle Class, Stupid! (Review)
When I saw that James Carville and Stan Greenberg had just published It's the Middle Class, Stupid! (Blue Rider Press), I knew that I would want to read it. I had always liked Carville's We're Right, They're Wrong and wanted to know his take on approaching the declining fortunes of the middle class.
While this book includes some diagnosis of the problems and has a very detailed and very good set of policy proposals, primarily it is a work on political strategy. Based on polling and focus groups the authors have conducted over the last several years (as well as their long experience running campaigns and polling), Carville and Greenberg analyze what they consider some of the political failures of the Obama Administration, particularly with regards to messaging.
For example, they argue that Americans are not persuaded by Team Obama's continuing emphasis on the fact that the President inherited a mess from the Bush Administration (Chapter 11). Although voters place much of the blame for the Great Recession on President Bush, Greenberg reports that his focus groups reacted very negatively to President Obama's car-in-the-ditch metaphor ("I'm still in the ditch!" many told Greenberg) and the participants expressed strong opinions that we needed to look forward, not backward.
As one said, "[Obama] is trying to say things are turning around, but the numbers are still bad." The premature declaration of victory by the Administration described here has been strongly criticized by Paul Krugman, among others. Economically effective policy is the best talking point. Carville and Greenberg also give a compelling litany of sophisticated responses to even "good" job creation news on pp. 103-7.
The second big, non-obvious, point is that Americans really are concerned about the deficit and debt (Chapter 8). Again, even though they recognize the role of the Bush tax cuts and unfunded wars in creating that debt, they are still leery about the possibility of spending our way to more economic growth, though not by huge majorities. Too many of them are convinced of the false analogy between households and governments, although Paul Krugman is doing his best to convince them with his new book, End This Depression Now! The framing the authors found most persuasive to middle class voters was an emphasis on "investments that will get our country back on track." Tellingly, as Carville and Greenberg note, their respondents did not see the debt as a reason to cut Social Security or Medicare.
Third, but more obvious, middle class voters don't see government as the solution because they consider it to be captured by elite interests. The focus groups showed that this view led to some tendency to paralysis and disengagement from politics. It is from this point that Carville and Greenberg pivot to their most important policy recommendation: Amend the Constitution or obtain a Supreme Court that will overturn Citizens United and end corporate personhood. In addition, they call for public financing of elections, disclosure of campaign contributions, requiring broadcasters to cut the price of political ads, and ending the revolving door of office holders and lobbyists. All this is in support of a politics that makes rebuilding the middle class Job 1 for government, and for a consistent framing of all issues (including foreign policy) in terms of their impact on the middle class.
Not everything in the book is persuasive. At one point Greenberg says the popularity of raising taxes on the rich "is as close to an absolute truth you can have in polling" (p. 144). I have two problems with this. First, you could say the same thing for other industrialized democracies. Sven Steinmo, writing in the mid-1990s, has cited polling results for the U.S., U.K., and Sweden, all of which showed publics that thought the rich should pay more taxes, yet in none of these cases has that been the direction of policy over the last 30 years. To me, this suggests there is an international dimension that helped make government capture possible, but the book does not address globalization very much at all.
Second, the book devotes relatively little attention to another issue that also is overwhelmingly supported in poll after poll: raising the minimum wage. Yes, making work pay is an important theme in the book and the authors acknowledge that increasing the minimum wage is part of that, but they say nothing about how putting the issue on many state ballots helped increase Democratic turnout in 2006. In Missouri, for example, the minimum wage Proposition B passed by a 76-24 margin, helping Claire McCaskill squeak out a U.S. Senate win with less than 50% of the vote.
The other weakness of the book is that the authors are too close to President Clinton to give a completely objective view of his Presidency. While they make a single parenthetical reference about how NAFTA may not have been such a great idea for the middle class after all, they say nothing about how "ending welfare as we know it" was bad for the middle class. This can best be seen by thinking about income determination as a massive bargaining situation. Anything that takes away one side's options reduces its bargaining power, and the 1996 welfare reform did just that. In addition, they seem blind to the fact that income inequality (top 1% vs. the 20th-80th percentiles) took off during the Clinton Administration far in excess of what had been seen under President Reagan, as a glance at their chart on p. 52 shows.
Finally, the book has no index, which is very annoying when you have 296 pages of text and 25 pages of endnotes.
Those caveats aside, this is a very good book that deserves a careful reading by progressive activists. I certainly learned something from it, and I'm sure you will, too.
Cross-posted at Angry Bear.
While this book includes some diagnosis of the problems and has a very detailed and very good set of policy proposals, primarily it is a work on political strategy. Based on polling and focus groups the authors have conducted over the last several years (as well as their long experience running campaigns and polling), Carville and Greenberg analyze what they consider some of the political failures of the Obama Administration, particularly with regards to messaging.
For example, they argue that Americans are not persuaded by Team Obama's continuing emphasis on the fact that the President inherited a mess from the Bush Administration (Chapter 11). Although voters place much of the blame for the Great Recession on President Bush, Greenberg reports that his focus groups reacted very negatively to President Obama's car-in-the-ditch metaphor ("I'm still in the ditch!" many told Greenberg) and the participants expressed strong opinions that we needed to look forward, not backward.
As one said, "[Obama] is trying to say things are turning around, but the numbers are still bad." The premature declaration of victory by the Administration described here has been strongly criticized by Paul Krugman, among others. Economically effective policy is the best talking point. Carville and Greenberg also give a compelling litany of sophisticated responses to even "good" job creation news on pp. 103-7.
The second big, non-obvious, point is that Americans really are concerned about the deficit and debt (Chapter 8). Again, even though they recognize the role of the Bush tax cuts and unfunded wars in creating that debt, they are still leery about the possibility of spending our way to more economic growth, though not by huge majorities. Too many of them are convinced of the false analogy between households and governments, although Paul Krugman is doing his best to convince them with his new book, End This Depression Now! The framing the authors found most persuasive to middle class voters was an emphasis on "investments that will get our country back on track." Tellingly, as Carville and Greenberg note, their respondents did not see the debt as a reason to cut Social Security or Medicare.
Third, but more obvious, middle class voters don't see government as the solution because they consider it to be captured by elite interests. The focus groups showed that this view led to some tendency to paralysis and disengagement from politics. It is from this point that Carville and Greenberg pivot to their most important policy recommendation: Amend the Constitution or obtain a Supreme Court that will overturn Citizens United and end corporate personhood. In addition, they call for public financing of elections, disclosure of campaign contributions, requiring broadcasters to cut the price of political ads, and ending the revolving door of office holders and lobbyists. All this is in support of a politics that makes rebuilding the middle class Job 1 for government, and for a consistent framing of all issues (including foreign policy) in terms of their impact on the middle class.
Not everything in the book is persuasive. At one point Greenberg says the popularity of raising taxes on the rich "is as close to an absolute truth you can have in polling" (p. 144). I have two problems with this. First, you could say the same thing for other industrialized democracies. Sven Steinmo, writing in the mid-1990s, has cited polling results for the U.S., U.K., and Sweden, all of which showed publics that thought the rich should pay more taxes, yet in none of these cases has that been the direction of policy over the last 30 years. To me, this suggests there is an international dimension that helped make government capture possible, but the book does not address globalization very much at all.
Second, the book devotes relatively little attention to another issue that also is overwhelmingly supported in poll after poll: raising the minimum wage. Yes, making work pay is an important theme in the book and the authors acknowledge that increasing the minimum wage is part of that, but they say nothing about how putting the issue on many state ballots helped increase Democratic turnout in 2006. In Missouri, for example, the minimum wage Proposition B passed by a 76-24 margin, helping Claire McCaskill squeak out a U.S. Senate win with less than 50% of the vote.
The other weakness of the book is that the authors are too close to President Clinton to give a completely objective view of his Presidency. While they make a single parenthetical reference about how NAFTA may not have been such a great idea for the middle class after all, they say nothing about how "ending welfare as we know it" was bad for the middle class. This can best be seen by thinking about income determination as a massive bargaining situation. Anything that takes away one side's options reduces its bargaining power, and the 1996 welfare reform did just that. In addition, they seem blind to the fact that income inequality (top 1% vs. the 20th-80th percentiles) took off during the Clinton Administration far in excess of what had been seen under President Reagan, as a glance at their chart on p. 52 shows.
Finally, the book has no index, which is very annoying when you have 296 pages of text and 25 pages of endnotes.
Those caveats aside, this is a very good book that deserves a careful reading by progressive activists. I certainly learned something from it, and I'm sure you will, too.
Cross-posted at Angry Bear.
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