Friedman Is Right About Bloomberg And Sanders

I don’t usually care for Thomas Friedman’s columns. It isn’t that I necessarily disagree with his conclusions–although I often do– but he tends to adopt a “let me explain to those of you not as smart as me” tone that I find extremely annoying.

But his recent column about Mike Bloomberg’s candidacy deserves to be read, and read with an open mind. (This is not an endorsement–just a corrective to the predictable circular firing squad sharing the conviction that no bread is better than half a loaf.)

The first point Friedman makes is one with which most readers of this blog will agree: this is no ordinary election. It is imperative that we rid the country of the Trump malignancy, and that goal absolutely must take precedence over everything else. And it won’t just be Republicans versus Democrats.

Because, without doubt, Russia and China also will be “voting” Trump 2020 — for three reasons: (1) Trump keeps America in turmoil and unable to focus on building the infrastructure we need to dominate the 21st century the way we did the 20th. (2) Both Beijing and Moscow know that Trump is so disliked by America’s key allies that he can never galvanize a global coalition against China or Russia. And (3) both Russia and China know that Trump is utterly transactional and will never challenge them on human rights abuses. Trump is their chump, and they will not let him go easily.

Friedman says it is important that we run the right candidate against Trump, and that Bernie Sanders is not that candidate–a claim with which I agree for reasons I’ve previously explained.

Friedman says that Sanders has the wrong solutions to the right problems, but whether as a policy matter Sanders’ solutions are right or wrong is–in my opinion–beside the point. Bernie’s solutions are simply not salable to the wider voting public. Sanders’ popularity is limited even within the Democratic Party–he has a fervent base of at most 27%, which is the only reason he leads a fragmented field– and as I pointed out in the linked post, the popularity he does enjoy has never been tested by the sort of vicious but effective opposition research that would be thrown at him should he be the nominee. (Did he really have to honeymoon in the Soviet Union?)

The great irony is that Mike Bloomberg (also imperfect, as he displayed at the recent debate) would be more likely to actually achieve a number of left-wing goals than Bernie.

As the New York Times documented last Sunday (in what was definitely not a puff piece), for years, Bloomberg has put immense amounts of money behind organizations fighting climate change; he has worked long and hard for gun control (an issue on which Bernie has historically been on the wrong side); he has consistently supported Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights; and he’s been on the right side of issues from immigration, to voting rights, infrastructure, and affordable housing.

Do I agree with every policy he has endorsed? Of course not. Stop and frisk, for one, was both wrongheaded and unconstitutional. But unlike the mentally-ill moron in the White House, Bloomberg acknowledges past errors.  Has he made statements or engaged in past behaviors (especially with women) that should be criticized and will be used by opposition researchers? Yes.

But the real problem many Democrats have with Bloomberg is that he’s very, very rich. It isn’t that he hasn’t always been a Democrat–neither has Bernie. (And unlike Trump, Bloomberg’s positions have generally been consistent–and liberal– even if his self-labeling hasn’t been.) Too many Democrats equate money with evil. But money is ethically neutral. It can be used for good or ill, and if you look at Bloomberg’s charitable choices, he has used his millions to support causes with which most of us overwhelmingly agree.

Let’s get real.

Until the country somehow gets rid of Citizens United and other decisions based upon the Supreme Court’s naive insistence that money equals speech, the obscenely rich will continue to buy our government. That is definitely a very bad thing–but it defines our current political reality. Folks like the Kochs buy control through SuperPacs and back-room deals; billionaires like Nick Hanauer and Mike Bloomberg try to influence public policy or win votes by very publicly spending gobs of their own money. (Money alone isn’t enough to get that job done, as Tom Steyer has learned.)

All I know is that it is absolutely essential to get rid of Trump–to install people who understand how government works, who respect the rule of law, who understand the importance of the environmental and social challenges we face, and who are on the right side of those issues. Bloomberg–like all the Democratic candidates– is right on most issues, and he has three other very important assets: intelligence, executive experience and enough money and political savvy to wipe up the floor with Trump.

So if Bloomberg does become the candidate, don’t rule him out simply because you hate rich people. The saying is: “Vote blue no matter who” –not “Vote blue unless the candidate is a billionaire.”

In the primary, support the person you think has the best chance of defeating Trump, or the person whose positions you most prefer. But in the general, vote blue. No matter who.

I will. Even if it’s Bernie. Hell, I’ll vote blue even if it’s an ashtray. (Or, in my sister’s memorable words, toenail fungus.)

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Lies, Damned Lies and Sanctuary Cities

A week or so ago, a commenter to this blog asked for an explanation of Sanctuary Cities and States. The question was understandable, because the Trump Administration–beginning back when Jeff Sessions was Attorney General– has consistently misrepresented the issues involved.

Anti-immigration activists and apologists for the administration insist that “sanctuary” cities and states are places where the rule of law has been suspended — places where evil Democratic-controlled governments have formed alliances with “open borders radicals” (as Sessions once put it) to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting unauthorized immigrants even when they’ve been convicted of crimes.

Back when Sessions was threatening to withhold federal grants from cities and states that dared to declare themselves Sanctuaries, Vox did one of its “explainer” columns, in an effort to dispel misunderstandings on both sides of the political divide with what it termed “the wonky truth.”

The federal government has spent the past 20 years using local government (especially law enforcement) as a force multiplier to help it find, arrest, and deport immigrants more efficiently — and for almost as long, progressives have been trying to reassert local autonomy. At this point, the line between “obstructing” federal law enforcement and simply deciding not to help isn’t as clear as one might expect.

In the courtroom, the fight over sanctuary cities is narrow and technical. Outside the courtroom, it’s a culture war.

One of the problems is that–as the article points out–“Sanctuary city” is not an official government term. In fact, it has no legal meaning.

Lots of people use the unofficial term “sanctuary city” to refer to local jurisdictions (not just cities but counties and sometimes states) that don’t fully cooperate with federal efforts to find and deport unauthorized immigrants. If that sounds vague, that’s because it is, and it gets at the tension between federal policy and local law enforcement generally used to carry out those laws.

One reason for the confusion is that local police departments aren’t legally required to assist the federal government with just any policy the federal government might want to enforce. In 1997, in Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court confirmed that the federal government “may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the State’s officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.”

Immigration law is federal law. Not only is immigration enforcement not a local law enforcement priority–as the article points out, local police don’t usually get involved with the enforcement of, say, federal tax law either–most police chiefs argue that helping apprehend otherwise law-abiding immigrants is a “net negative” for local law enforcement, because it makes immigrant communities leery of police and less likely to report crimes or cooperate with investigations.

So exactly how much assistance local governments should provide in immigration enforcement is an ongoing fight. At heart, it’s been a policy fight over what local governments should do. But under the Trump administration, in particular, it’s taken on the color of law: the idea that cities are refusing to do something they’re obligated to do.

The Trump administration alleges that local ordinances or state laws that bar the sharing of information about immigrants — like California’s SB 54, which prevents jail officials from telling ICE when a prisoner will be released (in many cases) unless ICE has a warrant signed by a judge — violate the federal law. Cities and states that have passed such policies, however, argue that sharing information about when someone will be released from jail or prison is different from sharing information about their immigration status, so it’s legal for the state to put restrictions on the former.

Whatever the technical legal arguments, the real fight over sanctuary cities or states is political and cultural. As the Vox article notes, in the aftermath of Trump’s election, a number of mayors signaled their “resistance” by declaring themselves sanctuary cities. It was also a way to reassure immigrant residents that while Trump might be making them feel unwelcome in red America, they would always be welcome in America’s (almost all blue) cities.

In response, Republicans have continued to stoke fears with dishonest rhetoric about those “criminal immigrants” and blaming cities and states controlled by Democrats.

Today’s Republicans are waging war with anyone who is  “other.” Meaning anyone who isn’t a white Christian native-born male.  They’re just reluctant to put it that baldly, so they settle for exaggeration and confusion.

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There Is Only One Question

Several times on this blog I have quoted a partner in the law firm for which I first worked for his favorite statement: “ultimately, there is only one question, and that is what should we do?”

There’s a lot of wisdom in that formulation. Analysis is critically important, of course–but only if it allows us to determine the appropriate course of action, and then only if we actually pursue that action.

I thought again about that ultimate question when I read a Washington Post article arguing that Trump’s authoritarianism has begun remaking America. White House reporters have described the president as “simmering with rage, fixated on exacting revenge against those he feels betrayed him and insulated by a compliant Republican Party.”

He is willing to test the rule of law even further and is comfortable doing so, they reported, “to the point of feeling untouchable.”

“If a president can meddle in a criminal case to help a friend, then there’s nothing that keeps him from meddling to harm someone he thinks is his enemy,” Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney, told my colleagues. “That means that a president is fully above the law in the most dangerous kind of way. This is how democracies die.”

Those Americans who have watched this administration with growing alarm and horror–among whom I count myself–increasingly are asking for concrete proposals, specific actions we can/should take, beyond the obvious ones of registering people and helping to get out the vote.

It’s not my intention to point a finger, but I get very frustrated by (frequently holier-than-thou/smarter-than-thou) commenters, both here and elsewhere, who are all critique and no prescription–or who are constantly arguing that we should insist upon the perfect and never settle for the merely good.

Is our current situation precarious, thanks to spineless and/or corrupt “party above country” Republicans? Well, they tell us, Democrats are only marginally better, so there’s no point in voting “blue no matter who.”

Are elections insufficient to fix what ails us? They insist they are–but fail to follow up that declaration by suggesting any concrete alternative.

A couple of years ago, a retired friend of mine shared a rule imposed by the firm for which he’d worked. Employees were encouraged to bring any and all complaints to firm meetings, subject to one simple rule: they had to accompany their criticism with suggestions for remedial action. In other words, the rule was “yes, you can bitch about that, but only if you have a suggestion for how we should fix it–how we should do whatever it is instead.”

A few days ago, I attended a meeting of a volunteer committee on which I serve. The members are all older–more “mature”–women. The anger and frustration in that room was palpable–and it was all based upon recognition of what Donald Trump and his collection of gangsters and buffoons have done and are continuing to do to the country. Most of these women were not previously politically active, and several of them had been Republicans. The question that came up repeatedly was: what can we/should we do between now and November?

What will it take to get Americans out into the streets? What can we do to send the cult that was once the GOP the message that we are mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore?

Save the lofty criticisms for a time when we can afford them, and suggest concrete, do-able actions!

And for heaven’s sake–and the sake of what’s left of our country– vote blue no matter who.

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But What About The Children?

When I was growing up–admittedly, sometime during the Ice Age–children were admonished to tell the truth by being told the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree.

Granted, it turned out that the story was a fable, but it was widely believed because George Washington was considered an admirable man, an excellent President and an all-around role model for the nation’s children.

Donald John Trump, not so much.

And that’s a problem, because it turns out that Presidential behavior really does encourage imitation. It can normalize ugly behavior, and not just in the already flawed/racist adults that comprise Trump’s base.

A regular reader of this blog recently shared this article with me. After I stopped puking, I decided to share it.

Evidently, it isn’t just Trump’s constant lying, with the implication that “truth” is whatever you want it to be. The article referenced studies that find America’s children using Trumpian rhetoric to bully their classmates–mostly Latino, Muslim and Black classmates.

Children across the US are using Donald Trump’s rhetoric to bully their classmates, a report has found.

The Washington Post reviewed articles throughout Mr Trump’s presidency that reference elementary, middle, or high school bullying and found students using the president’s inflammatory statements, which are often described as racist or xenophobic, to bully.

The newspaper analysed 28,000 articles starting from the beginning of 2016 for its research relating to bullying in the classroom. It found Mr Trump’s words, chants at his campaign rallies, and even his last name were used by students and staff members to harass other people in more than 300 reported incidents.

Of those incidents, 75 per cent showed inflammatory language relating to Mr Trump directed at students who are Hispanic, Muslim or black.

The article recounts incidents in which Latino students were subjected to taunts of “build the wall” and “Make America Great Again.” In one particularly horrific account, last year in New Jersey a 13-year-old boy told his 12-year-old Mexican American classmate that “all Mexicans should go back behind the wall”.

The classmate’s mother approached the bully the next day about his comment and was beaten unconscious by the child.

Buzzfeed also analyzed the impact of Trump’s words and their use to bully other students, and found 50 incidents in 26 states where students who were intimidating or harassing other children used phrases frequently employed by the president.

One incident happened at a high school in Shakopee, Minnesota, where boys in Donald Trump shirts swarmed a black teenage girl and sang The Star-Spangled Banner. But instead of singing the correct lyrics, they replaced the closing line with “and home of the slaves”.

There are multiple reports of native-born white children telling Hispanic or Asian classmates that they will be deported, that they aren’t “real” Americans.

While on a school bus in San Antonio, Texas, a white eighth grader told a Filipino classmate, “You are going to be deported.” A black classmate in Brea, California, was told by a white eighth grader, “Now that Trump won, you’re going to have to go back to Africa, where you belong.”

As incredibly corrupt as he is, as horrible as his policy positions are, and as hurtful to the nation’s most vulnerable children, the emerging research about Trump’s effect on the lessons we want to teach the young about civility, morality and ethics–not to mention racism, sexism and other assorted bigotries– is arguably even more damaging.

Assuming we soundly defeat this crude, ignorant, semi-literate buffoon in November, we will have a lot of remedial work to do. If we don’t, it will be too late to save the children.

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Too Much Democracy?

When I was working with a colleague in the Political Science department a couple of years ago, he convinced me that one of the problems with our electoral system was actually “too much democracy”–that too many of the votes we cast for state and local offices are not informed choices between, say, the candidates for county auditor, but simply opportunities to support our favored political party.

His position was that choices in these “downticket” elections are both uninformed (at least, about the merits of the candidates) and burdensome– time-consuming for voters and vote-counters alike–and for some voters, part of a ballot they see as intimidating.)

Whether we continue to vote for coroners and county surveyors, his observations raise some foundational questions about what sorts of electoral processes define actual democracy.

Along the same lines, an article from the Atlantic also challenged the assumption that “more” is better–where “more” is greater decision-making by the grass roots. The first Democratic debate of the 2020 election cycle had just been held, and the article criticized the decision to let small donors and opinion polls determine who deserved the national exposure of the debate stage.

Those were peculiar metrics by which to make such an important decision, especially given recent history. Had the Democrats seen something they liked in the 2016 Republican primary? The GOP’s nominating process was a 17-candidate circus in which the party stood by helplessly as it was hijacked by an unstable reality-TV star who was not, by any meaningful standard, a Republican. The Democrats in 2016 faced their own insurgency, by a candidate who was not, by any meaningful standard, a Democrat. And yet, after the election, the Democrats changed their rules to reduce the power of the party establishment by limiting the role of superdelegates, who had been free to support the candidate of their choosing at the party convention, and whose ranks had been filled by elected officials and party leaders. Then, as the 2020 race began, the party deferred to measures of popular sentiment to determine who should make the cut for the debates, all but ensuring runs by publicity-hungry outsiders.

The authors pointed out that no other major democracy uses primary elections to choose its political candidates. The Founders certainly didn’t provide for primaries. (As the authors noted, Abraham Lincoln didn’t win his party’s nomination because he ran a good ground game in New Hampshire. Party elders chose him.)

In fact, America didn’t have binding primaries until the 1970s.

The new system—consisting of primaries, plus a handful of caucuses—seemed to work: Most nominees were experienced politicians with impressive résumés and strong ties to their party. Starting in 1976, Democratic nominees included two vice presidents, three successful governors, and three prominent senators (albeit one with little national experience). Republican nominees included a vice president, three successful governors, and two prominent senators. All were acceptable to their party establishment and to their party’s base.

In 2016, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders exploited what the authors term the primary system’s “fragility.” The electorate had come to view the establishment’s seal of approval with hostility, and that encouraged outsider candidates to claim that their lack of party support showed “authenticity.” Meanwhile, the media provided lots of coverage to rogue candidates.

What to do?

Restoring the old era of smoke-filled rooms is neither possible nor desirable. Primaries bring important information to the nominating process. They test candidates’ ability to excite voters and campaign effectively; they provide points of entry for up-and-comers and neglected constituencies; they force candidates to refine their messages and prove their stamina. But as 2016 made clear, primaries are only half of a functional nominating system. The other half is input from political insiders and professionals who can vet candidates, steer them to appropriate races, and, as a last resort, block them if they are unacceptable to the party or unfit to govern.

This eminently reasonable observation is sure to infuriate ideologues in both parties, who insist that the electorate is all-knowing, and that party professionals are all part of some corrupt “establishment.” Yet survey after survey finds a significant majority of the electorate woefully ignorant of the most basic elements of the system of government for which they are choosing leadership.

When candidates are supported despite a lack of evidence that they know what the job entails and what the rules are, celebrity trumps competence.

As the authors conclude,

The current system is democratic only in form, not in substance. Without professional input, the nominating process is vulnerable to manipulation by plutocrats, celebrities, media figures, and activists. As entertainment, America’s current primary system works pretty well; as a way to vet candidates for the world’s most important and difficult job, it is at best unreliable—and at worst destabilizing, even dangerous.

Trump certainly proves their point.

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