Obamacare. The GOP promises that we'll have something bigger and better. With all the rhetoric that has been spewed to the party loyalists, I doubt that they can deliver anything that is half as good as what they pledge to destroy, if only because they never have worked to design something that can replace Obama's signature accomplishment. It saddens me that the only thing unifying the GOP has been a pledge to destroy healthcare for millions. Yet, it could be much worse. We don't know what the "new normal" will be in the near future.
Recently Meryl Streep came out and protested the president elect's style in a recent speech at the Golden Globe award show. She didn't even have to mention him by name. Was she justified? She decried the bullying that passes for strength nowadays, and attacked a subculture that wants power for its own sake, and not to do something good with it. What is wrong with that?
There is a rush to undo the gains made in society over the past 8 years. We have a president who is likely owned by the Russian government. He is already breaking some of his many promises, pledging to build a wall along our Southern border with our money, then convincing Mexico to pay for it. Does anyone really believe that they will do so? I doubt it very much. Strangely enough, some of his nominees have more class than Trump has, including Jeff Sessions. Sessions is willing to say that Waterboarding is torture, something that Trump can't bring himself to say. Why is that? Could it be that many Trump supporters only care about their rights, and not the rights of humanity? Could it be that they have no empathy for others, and like Trump, are on a narcissistic ego trip?
It is troubling how extreme how today's GOP seems for a centrist. Abortion should have been a question settled 40 years ago, and it is still in play because of cultural politics. White supremacists have cleaned up their message, and use phrases such as "Southern Heritage" when they fly the Confederate Battle Flag. (Heck, most of these people don't know that the "Stars and Bars" referred to a different flag, the flag the South wanted to use for its national standard.) Centrists fear a government led by people who would shut down polling places heavily used by poor people. Centrists fear a government who would take rights away from the GLBT community because it angers a small religious minority. Centrists fear a government run by people who can not compromise in any way. And now, we will get to see what a "Right Wing" government will do.
There is a big problem in America, and it is the Urban/Rural divide. Maybe it is about time that we think of dividing this nation into three separate nations: (1) States along the Pacific Coast, (2) States along the East Coast, and (3) The "Heartland" states. Each would inherit the US Constitution, but would make its own laws following the dissolution of the America we once knew. Only then would we be able to see which nation's laws makes the most sense. But until then, we have this social conflict that can not be resolved, and can result in a second civil war. Hopefully, we will not see that happen....
Although this is not the mosque in the article, "As Houston Islamic Center burns, firefighter posts "Let it burn - Block the fire hydrant" , it illustrates what is on much of conservative America's mind - blind hatred to others who are not like them. It's not just Islam - Sikhs are being caught up in the hatred of the ignorant, as noted in this article. Even my father lumps Sikhs in with Muslims, calling them all "Towel Heads", without the slightest understanding that Sikhs are often at odds with Muslims because of their religion and practice of it.
This is the kind of event that disgusts me. There is nothing wrong with fearing the unknown. I fear the potential of having an unassimilated ethnic group demanding rights they have in other countries that no ethnic group should have in ours. But giving into that fear is something else. The quickest way to radicalize the Muslims in the United States is to treat them as third class citizens.
There are legitimate fears - Americans do not want to see the United States become like Europe. We successfully absorbed millions of people from around the world in simpler times - and virtually every major group has been successfully brought into the mainstream. People coming here wanted to become Americans and leave the old world behind. Current European immigrants want to bring the old country (and culture) with them - and this poses a dilemma for today's Americans: Will newcomers (in any large number) from truly foreign cultures assimilate successfully?
I'm concerned with the growth of Islam in the United States. It's because I see Saudi Arabia funding many of the prison chaplains, spreading the most conservative practice of Islam in the world. I'm afraid that their barbaric culture (vs. the barbaric culture we're already familiar with) will cause us problems if its members grow too large in our society.
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However, I also fear radical Christianity. We've identified the San Bernardino shootings as terrorist activity. But what about the bombing of Abortion Clinics, as well as the assassination of doctors who have practiced there. Many of the same people who say abortion is wrong often try to impose their moral values on the rest of us by also getting in the way of women having a full range of safe and legal contraception options. (The "Hobby Lobby" case comes to mind here.) So I am concerned for the women who do not have convenient access to safe and legal medical procedures to keep a baby healthy while it's in the womb, as well as access to safe and legal medical procedures for those women (for whatever reasons) need to abort the fetuses inside them.
Once a woman's right to control her own body is taken away by social conservatives, what is next? We've already seen legislators pander to the religious right by saying that church attendance should be made mandatory. How would Atheists fare? Then, I'd bet that religious purity zealots would go after "social undesirables" such as Homosexuals, Bisexuals, and Transgender people. And then, who would be next to suffer in the potential religious purges?
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If you don't think anything like this could happen here, you haven't been paying attention to history. Politicians will lie to the people. But sometimes, they get caught up in their lies, and have to act in disgusting ways. For example, we've seen Japanese Americans herded up into prison camps - only because of their ancestry. Was this done to people of either German or Italian ancestry? No. But we feared the Japanese, and "needed" to control the "Japanese" in our midst in the most brutal and inhumane way possible. (And Donald Trump) is using this as a model of what we should do to Muslims living in America.
After seeing pictures of Jews wearing Yellow Stars in Germany, it sickens me to see this crap being proposed here. And I feel very sorry that the most "conservative" of Christians are making the same mistake Germany made in the 1930's. Instead, I'd like to see America address the problems brought up in this video clip from the HBO series, The Newsroom. Only then, can America be great again (no help from Trump.)
From what I understand, our forefathers thought that the Speaker of the House of Representatives would be America's most important political position, and not the office of the President. However, it is the presidency which has become the most important office - and for good reason. As Harry Truman said: "The Buck Stops Here!"
Lately, no sane man would consider the position of Speaker of the House. Rep. Boehner resigned, as he felt that he couldn't control the extremists in his party and get them to vote on "must pass" bills needed to keep the government running. He was tired of the responsibilities of the office, and decided to retire instead of destroying himself by staying in the battle. But this left Rep. McCarthy next in line for the office.
There are many reasons why McCarthy should not be Speaker of the House. But I won't go into the ones that many Democrats might bring up. Instead, I'll trust his judgement that he is not the right man for the job, and speculate that he did not want to take the blame for a likely government shutdown (which would likely happen by the time this entry is made public). He's smart enough to know that the same angry people who are propelling Trump's candidacy are also the same people who no longer trust political insiders to do anything to address their concerns. They feel they have nothing to gain by keeping the present elite in charge, so they are willing to collapse the system to make their voices heard.
But what does this mean for our "democracy"?
If the House was designed as a place where the people could vent their feelings, and the Senate was a place to prevent short term feelings from mucking up the system, then what happens when the legislative branch is dominated by a party which is unable to govern? To me, this forces a president (most likely from the opposing party) to govern by edict and by novel interpretations of existing law. This is very dangerous, as power keeps shifting from the legislative branch to the executive branch - and this power is subject to fewer checks and balances as time goes on.
Eventually, one party will control the two elected branches of government. And if the party is as dysfunctional as today's GOP, then I have serious concerns. The angry mob that is disrupting the functions of the House could gain control of the executive branch - and that could be the end of the republic.
Why such a concern?
Let's take an inflammatory issue such as abortion. Many scholars thought that Roe vs. Wade was a horrible decision - not because of which side won, but because it forced society to adapt too quickly to change. Later rulings have softened the blow, and have rolled things back a bit. But they (SCOTUS) have always relied on judicial precedent to guide them in new rulings. What would happen if a new, replacement elite were to ignore precedents? The loss of abortion rights in themselves might not be that onerous. But could you imagine possible government intrusion in a woman's reproduction to make sure that all fetuses are tracked and accounted for?
Long term government policies that cross administrations could also be overturned at a whim. Could you imagine the lunacy of a rapid rapprochement with North Korea? Heck, Cuba and Iran have never been as much trouble to the US as the DPRK has been, and yet they get all the press these days because of a slow and careful movement towards normalization with these countries. Would we kill NAFTA without serious thought? Possibly. But this is why our government was designed to implement change slowly - so that we don't make the mistakes often made when the voice of the mob drowns out the voice of reason.
But what role should an elite play?
This question has been central to American polity since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton. As for me, like Hamilton, I believe that there is a natural elite that tends to form in any society. But like Jefferson, I also believe that to be free, "the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of tyrants." America has been a stable republic because its design provides for a greater tolerance of instability in the system. I only hope that the design keeps working - and I'm not too sure of this any longer....
Recently, "The New Yorker" published this little satire about Ted Cruz:
A disturbed Canadian man wants to try to get into the White House, according to reports.
The man, who was born in Calgary before drifting to Texas, has been spotted in Washington, D.C. in recent years exhibiting erratic behavior, sources said.
In 2013, he gained entry to the United States Senate and was heard quoting incoherently from a children’s book before he was finally subdued.
More recently, he was heard ranting about a plan to dismantle large components of the federal government, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the nation’s health-care program.
Despite a record of such bizarre episodes and unhinged utterances, observers expressed little concern about his plans to get into the White House, calling them “delusional.”
Although I find this article amusing, it says one important thing - the race to the White House is now on.
Lately, I find myself politically leaning towards the left, only because the right has gone off the rails. In the past, being conservative only meant that one prefers a slower rate of social change, where being liberal meant that one prefers a faster rate of social change. Now, conservatives want to roll back change - in part because many people who label themselves as conservative have been sold on the idea that if we restore the values of the 1950's, everything else will fall into place, and a prosperous America will be restored.
In the case of Ted Cruz, he denies reality to stir up his base. How many of us really think it possible to dismantle the IRS? And if we did so (with the dismantling of the government that would ensue), we'd be left with a government in worse shape than the United States was under the Articles of Confederation. Yet, the base cheers him on. But I wonder - Can any sane person take this person seriously? He is a serious risk to this country, but he's more of a bad joke being played at the expense of his base.
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Cruz is only one of a large field of GOP contenders for the office of POTUS. And each one of them is singing the song so popular among the GOP's base: "Repeal Obamacare." But what do any of them have to replace Obamacare?
Obamacare is not the only issue. We also have "Pro-Choice" vs. "Pro-Life". It's hard to believe that at one time, Abortion was not an issue in our society. When "Roe vs. Wade" was being decided, it was the pro-choice side that offered a compromise that the pro-life side didn't accept. And SCOTUS gave the Pro-Choice side more than it ever dreamed of. And now, "Choice" is under siege in many states. Terrorism has been used to intimidate anyone connected with or doing business with an abortion clinic. The authors of Freakonomics have shown with statistics that there is a correlation that links legal abortion to a reduction in teenager crime in urban settings. Are we ready for the potential increase in the crime rate if abortion again is illegal?
Regardless of where one stands on these issues (and I can make good arguments against the positions I support), one should be looking at the degree of honesty between a politician's words and actions, as well as that politician's position before supporting him/her.
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You'll note that I painted the Abortion issue from a mildly leftist viewpoint. In order to understand the Right Wing of American politics, one has to come to it from the Left. And we're seeing a GOP (largely old and white) out of sync with America's long term demographics (largely young and people of color).
The GOP's base has some legitimate complaints. We did not bother enforcing our laws regarding illegal immigration. There are over 12 million (estimated) illegal aliens resident in the USA, almost 30 years after the blanket amnesty given during the Reagan administration. And the base is rightfully upset about successive GOP and Democratic administrations not doing anything these immigrants who (wrongfully) are seen as taking the jobs once held by white males. The reality is different and more damning - neither political party has a F'ing clue about what to do about structural unemployment.
Fear motivates much of the base. There is a very high correlation between being religious and being an active member of the GOP - this being a result of Nixon's successful "Southern Strategy" which flipped the South from Democratic Blue to GOP Red. Many Christian fundamentalists are very fearful of the wrath of God - and internalize that fear. Tradition is extremely important to the base - breaking tradition is as much a cultural crime as it can be a legal crime, when it comes to maintaining the social order. This is why the battle for civil rights is triggering religious lunatics to commit terrorist acts.
When the base chooses news sources, it chooses sources that speak in the words of fear - whether or not this fear is valid. And the base is manipulated by fear. One does not have to go far to see (what should be) a small issue blown way out of proportion by lies that triggers fear in people without cause. For example, take the issue of Same Sex Marriage (SSM). There is no proof that stable marriages between people of the same sex harms any traditional marriage. Yet, traditionalists are being manipulated: "SSM will lead to marriages between men and livestock", "SSM will cause a complete moral breakdown in America", "God will destroy the world, if we allow SSM." The conservative media chosen by the base repeats the same messages, reinforcing fears, and stirs up hatred. And in fear and the hatred of social dysfunction, the base finds false comfort.
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So, what happens if we elect someone to the office of POTUS who panders to this kind of fearful person? In the past, the political machine would listen to this person (and others like him) and give him lip service. But this person (and others like him) will not be satisfied with the usual broken promises. And here is the point where the left should be concerned.
In the past, there was a ruling clique from both parties which knew how to get things done. People like Goldwater and Kennedy knew how to reach across the aisle and find votes to achieve things that benefited people on both left and right. When Johnson (a former US Senator from Texas) fought "the war on poverty", he changed the focus of bills meant to help poor black people, to laws which helped poor people regardless of color. Johnson knew that the South would never help black people, even though the whites there were directly responsible for the poverty of Blacks. But by refocusing the Southern electorate on poverty (instead of its hatred of Blacks), Johnson was able to make the electorate see that these laws benefited them as well.
Today, things are very different. It is virtually a crime for someone to work across the aisle. The GOP's base will not broach compromise with the left - it is tired of compromises they see as not benefiting them. They want ideological purity at all costs. Only through purity can the results they want be achieved. Sadly, reality differs from that faith....
We are now seeing a lot of "potential" candidates looking to establish funding for the race to the White House. The lunatics are out, because they are stirring up the party base for funds and early primary votes. Thankfully, most are unelectable. But what would happen if one of these candidates actually wins? I doubt the base will get what it wants. Instead, I see something like the Iranian Revolution of 1979 happening here - the powers that be will enforce laws to maintain (or roll back to) a conservative cultural conformity we haven't seen since the 1930's, and will not show any restraint in harming Gays, Transgenders, Political Apostates, and People of Color. "Ozzie and Harriet" would be considered leftist by the new standards of the day.
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I am afraid that the Democrats have (mostly) selected Hillary Clinton as their nominee designate. She will not have to fight for her nomination, and as such, she will not be at the top of her game if an energized GOP candidate opposes her. Like many centrists, I will hold my nose if I have to vote for her, as she is someone I can't trust. There is too much history behind this person for me to feel comfortable with her (or anyone named Clinton). A Machiavel like her would make a good president - but only if the people who "own" her have a desire to benefit this country at their own expense. Otherwise, a person like Hillary will use the office of POTUS for her own gain at our expense.
Let's say that something happens to Hillary. Election day 2016 is still a long time away, and anything (such as a health issue) can take her out of the running. Who do the Democrats have on their back bench that can replace her and win the votes needed to keep 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Blue? I do not have a clue. Jerry Brown of California? Possibly - but he isn't running. But who can speak the "fearful" language of the South and gain its trust? Bill Clinton is no longer available, save as someone who can help Hillary. And Obama deserves the much needed rest that he will be required to have....
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It is a good thing that the office of POTUS has term limits. But I wish we had a better filter to prevent unqualified people from holding the office in the first place....
