The Political Drowning Pool

 

Asphyxiation

In medicine, there is a condition called “delayed drowning.”  It happens when a person inhales water but seems to be “fine” until suddenly they aren’t.  Delayed drowning typically occurs about 24 hours after the initial event, when the trachea spasms and shuts down, killing the person.

Democracy in the United States at this moment is very likely facing a delayed drowning event, where it seems to have recovered from the events of 1/6, but will probably drop dead, seemingly without warning, in 4 years’ time.  This is because the Republicans have set up a probable no-win scenario that will end the very idea of any sort of majority rule for the selection of the President.

Part of this stems from the Constitution, and the fact that the framers had literally no intention of ever allowing the majority to truly select the president.  They set up a complex system of allowing the states to determine how the Electors were determined, and then established the Electoral College to give significantly more power to small states than large ones.  In total, they set up a system where “the people” had a very limited say in who became the Head of both the State and the Government.  The fact that for most of the last century, the President was the winner of both the popular vote, and the REAL vote, is actually more of an accident than any deliberate intent.  And this is exactly what the Founding Fathers intended.  They never really wanted the unwashed masses to be able to choose the president in the first place, a fact demonstrated by the lack of inclusion of the right to vote anywhere in either the original document or in the Bill of Rights.  Under their ideals and intent, both Bush’s and Trump’s victories would be proof that their system worked, rather than failures of that same system.  To the Founders, it would show that the Electoral College served the stated purpose of tempering the masses and avoiding what Jefferson explicitly called “mob rule.”

This is the core of the argument behind much of what is going on in the States today.  While there might be other motives at work, and we can certainly speculate what they could be, the general principles that the Republicans argue are based in the foundational documents of the country, which sadly do support their side more than they do the points of view of the Democrats.  We can see this in play every time a Republican (correctly) argues that the United States is not a Democracy, it is a Republic.  It is also shown by the Federalist Society’s insistence on judges that are “strict constructionists,” who believe that the Constitution must be read according to the specific intent of the Framers.

However, two and a half centuries have passed since those documents were written, and it is certainly legitimate to question the wisdom of people who lived in a completely different society, and whether those antiquated views have a place in a modern Democracy.  This is the view of those who consider the Constitution to be a “living document,” and that we need to adhere to the spirit of the Constitution rather than the explicit text.  This is how modern jurists can “discover” rights, such as the Right to Privacy, that were never explicitly spelled out.  It also allows judges to sanction things that were inconceivable in the early days of the country.

We can also say that while the Founders may have intended a true Republic, the current understanding is that the U.S. is, at most, a Democratic Republic, where it is “One Person, One Vote.”  We can reject the Founder’s views, and not undermine what they built.  We can say the “arc of history bends toward justice,” and validate what the country stands for now.  We can stand firm and say, “yes, they had an idea of what the country should look like, but we have moved on form that, and we want to evolve into a more democratic (with a little “d”) nation, where we all have an equal say in how the country is governed.

However, this is increasingly improbable, and we are quite likely on an irreversible road, because the “checks and balances” in the Constitution are not just there to check the powers of each branch of government, they are there, more importantly in the Founders’ views, to check the power of the people.  And because of this fact, majority rule in the country is probably going to have a delayed drowning, that will all be perfectly legal, constitutional, and utterly horrific.

Before I explain this, I need to say something about strategy.  Democrats are generally “reaction based,” something happens, and they react to it.  They generally reel from situation to situation without much, if any, long-term planning.  They deal with things when  they become urgent, and because of that, there is generally not an examination of long term consequences, nor is there a coherent strategy behind their actions.  Democrats are generally expert in crisis management, and good at responding at immediate needs, but there isn’t a far reaching plan involved, and they typically have no idea on how to weave a larger narrative out of these short term fixes. 

Republicans, as befits a pro-military organization, strategize, and plan battles far in advance.  They plan for contingencies, lay traps, advance and retreat, without ever losing sight of the big picture.  While they may sometimes not seem disciplined on the surface, every single thing they do advances a larger strategy.  Because of this, they are conversely terrible at addressing the unexpected, sudden and surprising, and consequently frequently botch response to hurricanes, economic crises, and black swan events.  That said, they are very good at incorporating those events into their larger, long term strategy.

As my father, who was a career military officer said, “a battle is won or lost before the first shot is fired.  If you don’t know who is going to win before you take the field, you will not be the winner.”  And the Republicans know they ultimately, they WILL be the winners.  There is always the chance that the Democrats could luck out, that an unexpected event will change the battlefield, but in general, the better strategy almost always wins.

And this leads to why the America we currently know is in its final months.  To explain why they will win; they have set up a literal no win scenario for the Democrats, whether it is by brute force, or by hanging the country on the structure of the Constitution, they are likely going to be victorious.

The brute force option is the simplest course, but certainly the hardest and the one most likely to end in total violence.  For this scenario, we can posit in 2024, a Republican candidate, probably Trump, declares victory, and his supporters take over the Congress and force the issue, staging a successful version of the trial run of 2021 coup attempt.

However, this probably will not pass even a very compliant Supreme Court, and consequently, this is not the likely route unless they are absolutely certain that they will succeed.  It will also likely kick off an actual Civil War, which again, they will probably not want unless they can be absolutely sure that large parts of the military, and the billionaire set, will support them.  However, the advantage of this path for them is that if they win, they will know that they will have permanent power, and can abandon even a pretense of democracy.  Many pundits fear this happening, and it is getting a lot of press, which is overall a good thing, but it is ignoring the much more realistic course of action for the Republicans.    

The long game that they are establishing now is the more likely path.  Although this will lack the “drama” that Trump seems to love, nor will it be as overtly decisive in completely establishing a new order, it will be completely legal, and probably be easily ratified by 6 Supreme Court Justices.  For the “Law and Order” party, this fact will be very important.  The fact that it is also completely legal will likely cause most Democrats to roll over and accept it.   

Buried in many of these “election security” bills passing in Red States, and in states with enough of a majority in the Assemblies to override gubernatorial vetoes, are clauses that will allow the states to override the results of the popular vote and select the electors themselves.  Again, this is perfectly Constitutional, and the Supreme Court recently reinforced that States have absolute authority to determine the election rules.  And, as stated before, there is no requirement in the Constitution that electors must be selected by popular vote in a state, and in a Republic, it is certainly possible to claim that the vote for a state legislator fits within the system of representation; the state elects an Assembly, which then, “in their wisdom of what they were elected to do” can select the electors for President.  This was the original system to select US Senators and is fully compliant with the intent of the Founding Fathers.  It also fits neatly in the Federalist Papers, and most of the other writings around the formation of our government. 

With these laws in place, it is only a matter of a completing the process, again, completely compliant with the Constitution.  Step one is that the States will ratify electors for the Republican, again probably, but not certainly, Trump.  This will give that candidate an Electoral College victory, regardless of the popular vote.  They may claim that the vote was corrupted, or that they have evidence of fraud, or they might just say that they are acting in the “best interests of their constituents” as a justification, but in any case, they will send Republican electors to vote in the ACTUAL election.  Despite the weight the population of the country puts on it, the General Election, at least for President, is literally just an opinion poll that everyone can participate in.  The ONLY actual election occurs when the Electoral College meets.

But the plan doesn’t, and can’t, end there.  In theory, if the Democrats controlled one or both Houses of the Congress, they could refuse to certify.  Now, given their outrage over Republicans pulling this in 2021, they will be extremely unlikely to do so, because the accusation of “hypocrite” hurts Democrats disproportionally more severely than Republicans.  However, if they did this, which they can under the Constitution, then the next stage of the Republican’s plan kicks in.  By the Constitution, a contested election is settled by the House. 

In theory, if the Democrats held the House, you would think the outcome is certain, and they would elect the Democrat.  But again, the Founders had NO interest in Majoritarianism, and in that election, it is based on one vote per state, where the majority of Representatives in THAT state decide on their vote.  In this system, Wyoming has exactly the same power as California, which is a greater distortion of power than even the Electoral College.  The Constitutional backup to the Electoral College is even less majoritarian than the College itself.  Every step in the process makes the will of the masses less important, which again can be used to validate minority rule in America.  As the Republicans, structurally, will almost certainly dominate more states, the House vote will deliver a Republican President.  The Supreme Court will not interfere with this, as this has all been done perfectly Constitutionally, and further, will meet all of the tests of a Strict Constructionist judiciary.

Then we enter the crazy phase.  If this were to happen, it is likely that the Democrats will do exactly what the Trump supporters did in 2021, and engage in large scale, sustained violence, leaving Biden the responsibility of either putting down the insurrection, and allowing a completely legal usurpation of power to occur, or to throw in with the revolutionaries and tear down the country.

This brings us full circle to the title of this post, “the Political Drowning Pool.”  A drowning pool is created when water flows over a shallow structure, creating an almost invisible, but virtually inescapable, current that sucks a person down.  The states are building a shallow structure designed to create inescapable political currents that will ultimately drown the United States.

The only way to escape a drowning pool is to not get into it in the first place.  The only way to escape this trap in 2024, is to change the course of the political river in 2022.  This is NOT winning the US House and Senate.  Doing that will do nothing to escape the inexorable trap that is being built.  What we HAVE to do is win state legislatures and governorships all across the United States.  If we do not take back enough states to have complete control of 271 Electoral College votes, Democracy will fall, legally, and exactly as the Founding Fathers intended.  After all, this is a Republic.

No One Understands the Game

Poker

So, Trump reversed the internment of children, and everyone thinks the good guys won. I'm sorry to break it to you, but we didn't win. It wasn't a fight we could win, because we didn't know the game being played.

I've said this before, and I will say it again, the American Media, and the American People for that matter, continue to believe Trump is playing Chess. He isn't. He's playing Poker, or maybe more specifically, he's playing Poker on a Chessboard.

I understand this, as I also play (the real game) Chess as Poker. I don't play the game as a series of strategic moves on the board, I play the person, and because of that, I very frequently win games, even ones against much more skilled players. (But I can't beat a computer, because this technique doesn't work against them, cold rational and unflappable bastards that they are.)

I find out what a person depends on in Chess, then I go after it. If their strategy is to use their Queen a lot, I make sure to get her off the table. I play specifically to keep my opponent off balance, wondering what the hell I'm doing and trying to figure out my strategy. I confuse.  I bluff and deceive. Sometimes I will lose a game to lull them into a sense of security.  I watch for signs of stress, and then exploit them.  I depend on luck even.  I look like I am insane or a really bad player.  But the end, they lose, because my strategy is specifically to get them so off balance they make mistakes and I exploit their mistakes.   

On the whole this is what Trump is doing.

He isn’t playing the game by the rules, and often he isn’t even playing the game they think he is.  And because the entire political establishment is operating under a set of expectations of what he is doing, and are viewing his actions under that set of expectations, the completely miss what is happening.

America has a long history of political Poker playing.  It’s how we won the Revolution for example; the British Empire couldn’t handle our unorthodox techniques or the asymmetric nature of the rebellion.  (Any yes, Poker was very popular in the US prior to the Revolution)  Andrew Jackson, the president who probably most closely resembles Trump, also played political poker.  Since Jackson, a lot of our general political strategies were based on bluffs, gambles, and intimidations.

But with the advent of the Cold War, we needed to play the Soviet game, which was chess.  The stakes were too high to continue playing Poker or any other game of chance; when a mistake could obliterate the Earth, a game dependent on an aggregation of small wins, and that accepted losses was no longer tolerable.   

The solidifying point was probably the Cuban Missile Crisis, where we were playing a Chess game for infinite stakes.  Had JFK depended on chance, he would have lost and so the game was set and rules were codified.  After that, American Presidents needed to be Chess Grandmasters, or at least surround themselves with people who were.  And the American media got used to politics as Chess, and in fact facilitated the system by reporting things a strategic maneuvers, gambits, and so on. 

The height of the Chess game came when Gorbachev and Bush Sr. played the game to complete stalemate, causing Gorbachev to knock over his own king in 1989 and walk away from the game by calling the first free election since 1917.  George Bush became the global Bobby Fischer.  Even though history seems to credit Regan with the end of the Soviet threat, it was actually Bush who finally got the game to end.

But even though the reason that American politicians learned Chess in the first place was gone, the game continued on with new opponents: the other party; the other end of the ideological spectrum; the United Nations; China and the Middle East, neither of which play Chess; and basically any group that the party in power opposed.

The fact we continued to play Chess put us in the same position as the British in 1776, we could no longer defeat enemies that weren’t playing our game, especially in the Middle East.  We “won” concessions in Iran where Chess (Shah) originated, but that was the only even remote victory in that region, and we only got it after being outplayed by Iranian masters over and over since the Iranian Revolution. 

We applied Chess to Korea and got a stalemate, as Go (which the Chinese played) and Chess are similar enough that we could get to a draw, even if neither side could win.  But we lost against every country that wasn’t playing the game by our rules, we lost Vietnam, and bogged down into ceaseless quagmires in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.  And because modern warfare is asymmetric, we likely will continue to lose as long as we think of it as Chess on the battlefield.

But Trump is different.  He isn’t playing Chess.  He has neither the temperament nor long term planning abilities to play the game.  He sees a big picture, however, not through the lens of a grand strategy but through the lens of a bunch of short hands that can change fortunes in an instant.  The goal is still to win it all, but the way to get there isn’t necessarily dependent on past victories.  The “wins” are only important in terms of filling his coffers for the next round.  A lost hand, or three, doesn’t matter, as long as his losses are relatively minimal and don’t reduce his basic bankroll, which in the case of politics is the support of the base.

As long as he keeps his 35% absolutely in the bank, he will have the ability to fund losing hands, and when he wins, he will increase his reserve.  He might give some of it back on some hands, but slowly, steadily, he is growing his bankroll of political capital.  Currently, his approval rating is at its highest mark since inauguration.  He hasn’t done this through a grand outmaneuvering of the Democrats, he’s done this by winning hand after hand, laying traps that the Dems walk into, bluffing his way, and folding when it is necessary.    

Which leads us to the current situation.  From a Chess standpoint, it was insane.  He exposed many pieces to being taken out by the other side, risked being put in Check, and not gaining any board advantage.  As a Chess Gambit, it actually showed weakness because there wasn’t anything to gain, and a lot to lose.

But if you look at it as a Poker hand, the whole play changes.

As a round of Poker, the Kid Internment mess was done for two reasons. First, it was to shore up his base, for whom any cruelty or viciousness towards brown people is better than sex. He has to throw them brown meat every so often so they don't get pissed at him, just like a good poker player has to lose some hands so the rest of the table doesn't walk off in anger.  Again, as long as he keeps his 35% bankroll of absolute loyalty, he can continue to play. 

The second reason was much, much more devious and evil, and talks to the larger poker game.  He was proving a point. He was showing America that he has no concern about the rule of law, proving he will act on a whim, and telling them locking people up in Concentration Camps is something he will be OK with.  This is a classic intimidation move, because it has raised questions among the opposition, myself included, as to what the threshold for future incarceration might be.  Today, it is an activity that is at best a civil offense, not a criminal one.  In the case of refugees applying for asylum, it isn’t even a civil offense, it is the actual legal process, so he has shown that even obeying the law and following exactly proper protocol can risk being locked up.

BUT, he had to end it fairly quickly, which is why he reversed it.  He won the hand and needed to take his winnings.  The reason?  There were court challenges coming, court challenges he might lose at this stage. He needed to make sure that didn't happen this time, as he needed to not have this a settled matter.

Because of his executive order, it is likely the lawsuits will be thrown out; the policy has changed and the courts don't like to adjudicate speculations. Their response to "he might do it again" would probably be "If he does it again, file another case and we will judge that one." He gets to walk away with the ability to do this left intact, even though right now he isn't doing it any more.

But all of America now knows that he could do it again. And that will make them either hesitate out of fear, or it will ramp up hatred against him. In the first case, he wins because he has further cowed the American Public into submission. In the second case he still wins because his supporters will be pissed that liberal crybabies are still whining about the kid thing, when he very clearly ended it, and should be considered the hero of the day. Further, it will fuel his narrative that the Left is attempting a slow motion coup, and will fit into his narrative on that. This then leads back to the mass incarceration in concentration camps which he hasn't gotten any ruling against.

Until people realize he isn't playing Chess, we will keep getting played, and he will keep winning. Remember, despite all of this horror, his approval ratings have hit their highest point since he entered office, and the midterms are not looking nearly as good for Democrats as they did a few months ago.

As of this moment, Donald Trump IS winning, and it is up to each and every one of us to do something about it.

Never a More Pyrrhic Victory

Victors

  

I wanted to follow up on my last post about Cliven Bundy, where I alluded to something critical in our national character that lies at the root of much of what has consumed this country for the last 150 years.  This is something I have been working on for the last year or so, and had threaded through a number of posts, but I wanted to put the disparate elements into one coherent piece and actually start to draw some conclusions.

Simply put, you can explain a lot of the tensions in this country down to this simple set of facts:, the South knows that it lost the Civil War, but does not want to accept that fact; and the North knows it won the war, but fears that it actually lost it; and the West just wants to run away from the war.  I have detailed some of the reasons for this in previous posts, but I will sum it up in a brief statement, "Gone with the Wind" changed a nation's attitude towards the Civil War, and completely rewrote the sentiments on that conflict.  Simply put, a single book reframed the entire discussion, and tilted the weight of sympathy towards the South, and causing the North to be viewed as the unwarranted aggressor in the conflict. 

Let me explain.  The South overtly and obviously lost the War on the Battlefield.  They were virtually obliterated militarily by the Union and for almost a decade treated as an occupied country.  There are facts that everyone knows, however, the South, on some level, still lives in a state of denial which stops them from fully processing the reality.  Similarly, the North knows that it certainly won the war, but with the collapse of Reconstruction, it fears that it didn't achieve any meaningful victory.  Compound that with the shift in national perception initiated by Margaret Mitchell's book, and you shift the history to favor the South.  Then there is the West, which was founded by people, North and South, who were fleeing the war.  Perhaps not literally, but they could no longer live with the memories that confronted them everywhere they went and in everything they did and they had find a fresh start.

Before I fully explain this, and how it impacts our national character though, I would like to talk about the experiences that I had that led me to begin to develop this hypothesis.  I understand this is anecdotal, but there is quite a bit written on this subject to back up my observations.

It began to scratch at the back of my awareness when I first moved to the South.  Before moving to Savannah, the sum total of my experiences with the South were visiting my Great Aunt in Cape Coral Florida.  (and I realize that Southern Florida is NOT culturally the South, at least it hasn't been for a long time)  Other than those trips, I had never set foot in any part of the South.

When I was moving down to that part of the country, I stopped for gas in Murfreesboro and saw a T-Shirt that said the following; "It is better to have fought and lost than to have never have fought at all - the South shall rise again."   Later, I was lost in the backwoods of Georgia and came upon a compound surrounded by Confederate flags and fronted by a sign stating "And the Children of Ham shall ever be servants of Man.  Genesis 9:25."   Asking around, I discovered things like the fact that lists are still maintained in some quarters of the South that list who belongs to who, so that someday they can "reclaim their property."  All of this fleshed out the idea of Southern denialism.  They flat out couldn't accept that they lost the war, at least not on some fundamental and vital level.    

I do want to state here though, despite my serious problems with the South and Southern Culture, it is equally wrong to paint the entire region and everyone from there as illiterate, racist redneck Bible Thumpers.  There are many Southerners who don't idealize the Confederacy and slavery, and who utterly reject those atrocities, just like there are many Northern Racists who idolize the KKK.

But that stereotype lead to my realization about the North.  This also starts with an anecdote that occurred after moving back to the North.  One of my friends, at a social gathering, went into a complete diatribe against the South and everything Southern, painting with that broad brush that I just described.  Even though this person did not have any relatives with firsthand memory of the Civil War, it was still as personal an affront to him as it was to some of the Southerners I met in Savannah.

Then I went to Boston and Providence last summer.  This was the first time I had really been  in New England.  Although I lived in New York City, that isn't the North, nor really anything related to the Civil War.  In New York there is the attitude that there are two parts of America, The City, and then the Rest.  North/South issues are irrelevant there.  (I have also been to Hartford, but that was for a job interview so there really wasn't any chance to explore, and it didn't spark any thought)

What shocked me when I went to Providence was the fact that they proudly displayed two cannons from Gettysburg.  I found this odd, given Gettysburg had nothing to do with Rhode Island, other than possibly supplying troops and such.  But, this was significant.  Gettysburg was the definitive turning point in the Civil War, the point at which Northern Victory really became inevitable.  In a sense, displaying those cannons was as clear public statement about the Union Victory as the T-Shirt showed Confederate Denial.

As I processed these revelations over the course of the summer, I really got angry, especially when at another social gathering, there were both Northerners and Southerners, and they began criticizing each other's part of the country.  I just basically wanted them to both shut up and stop wearing the War on their sleeves.  Seriously, it was a century and a half ago.  There isn't a single person alive today who even heard firsthand accounts of the war.  It is dead and buried., its over, done, finished, and it's time to move on.

That's when I realized that I, as a Westerner, am perpetuating the Western escape from the Civil War.  I, like most people in the West that I know, are sick of hearing about the war, sick of the recreations, sick of the tensions, sick of the TV shows, and just generally want everyone to shut up about it.  The war is over, we don't need to keep re-litigating it. 

But, being me, I couldn't just figure this out and move on from it, because I knew that this was a very important realization about the country, and why things are what they are, and why we are so polarized.    Before I go any further here, I want to say, the polarization of the country is no better or worse than it has been at any point for the last century and an half.  The reason we think it is worse is the result of two aligned factors. 

First, we see and hear about the tensions more now than previously.  This is partially because of the 24 hour news cycle, and partially because of the great internal migration of the last 30 years.  Before about 1970, if you were born in the North you generally stayed in the North (unless you moved to Florida, which is why Florida hasn't been "Southern" in a generation)  It was similar with the other regions of the country, except for people continuing to move West.  But, as with all of the Western migrations, North/South allegiance disintegrated at the Colorado/Kansas state line.   However, with the recent migrations across the nation, we are living in regions ideologically opposed to where we were brought up.  We don't like it one bit, when we have to live in places that give us culture shock, which is a typical ex-pat lament.  It is even worse when we are forced to think, "This is America and it's my home too, I shouldn't be feeling this way in my own country."  I know that firsthand, as it was a serious problem for me in Savannah.

The second reason that we think polarization is worse is because of the proliferation of news; in our media saturated environment we hear more and we know more, and most of it upsets us severely.  This works two ways.  First we hear a lot of voices condemning the other side for their essential evil and sharing all of the immoral, unnatural or even evil things that our opponents are doing.  Second, we hear what our government is doing, specifically, we hear when they are treating with the enemy.  And because we hear so many outrageous things that the enemy is doing, we hold our politicians feet to the fire in such a way that they cannot broker the kinds of deals that pasted the country together and created the illusion of a "United" States of America.

Now for my point after this lengthy exposition.  Much in this country can be explained through this filter:  the South rejects any political ideology espoused by the North, the North rejects any cultural ideology tied to the South and the West just wants to be left alone.

First, to look at the South, and their part in the play.  The South rejects Northern political solutions.  This stems from the Carpetbaggers and the Reconstruction, where Northerners tried to turn the South into their own little marionette, where they pulled the strings and made the puppet dance.  This may sound like I sympathize with the South, and perhaps I do a bit.  We made the same mistakes after World War I in Europe, which directly led to Fascism and Nazism, and ultimately to World War II.  Had we not punished the South, and instead embarked on an American version of the Marshall Plan, American might be a much different and more unified place.

By humiliating the South, the Union guaranteed inter-generational hate of the North, and anything that came from there.  Progressivism, Unions,  Equal Rights, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, all of these things were Northern political solutions, pushed through by the Federal Government, and more of less imposed on the South.  Further, other than some brief anomalies, Northern politics and policies, regardless of party, have dominated in the Federal Government.  It is no surprise that the South is rabidly anti-government, and that disdain is the core of the Tea Party Ideology.  To the South, the Federal Government has become the symbol of Northern Aggression, and anything it does is therefore wrong.

But then, there is the Northern rejection of Southern Culture, that engenders equal derision and even hate in the Union States.  Southern Culture, specifically, their innate cultural conservatism and resistance to change, is what spurred the Civil War.  Rather than accept that slavery was rapidly becoming immoral, not just in the United States, but across the globe, the South stubbornly clung to the institution, to the point of tearing the country apart to try to preserve it. 

But this isn't the only cultural touchstone that the South has imposed on the North.  Religiously based discrimination, Segregation, Creationism, distrust of Science, conservative religious morals, and all that follows from Confederate Culture has equally been imposed on the North.  This has been through both churches and through control of things like the Texas Board of Education which heavily influences textbook content for the entire country.  And just like most of the country's political solutions has been Northern Impositions, most of the nation's cultural development has been restrained and molded by Southern Culture.  Just like in the end, we have fairly strong Northern Federal Government model, most of our morality is Southern Christian.

And this creates a situation where the South hates all political solutions to problems, regardless of where that solution originates, and the North hates all Southern cultural impositions, again regardless of what type it is.  The Southerners still paint all politicians with the Carpetbagger brush, believing them to be fundamentally corrupt creatures, and the Northerners stereotype all Southerners with the Slaveholder image, considering them to be backward, ignorant racists.

And then there is the West, which really hates both sides of this fight and just wants to be left alone.  Many in the media conflate Western Libertarianism with Southern Tea Partyism, but they are actually quite different, although sometimes their goals align.  But sometimes the Western though aligns with the Northern Ferderalism as well. 

The Southern Tea Party wants to get government out of people's lives, so that religion can take over the guidance of the country.  It isn't anti-authoritarian, it is anti-government.  On the other hand, Western Libertarianism just wants to be basically anarchic to a greater or lesser extent.  They are not really pro-government, but they also aren't particularly sold on religious authority, or any sort of over-arching system of control.

Remember, the West was born out of escaping the conflict that tore the East apart.  It was also founded in a strong individualism because there wasn't much out here to rely on until recently.  In point of fact, even when I was a child, you pretty much kept six months of food, a good supply of water, and candles handy, because, in an emergency, you needed to be able to take care of yourself and family.  This has led to a kind of survivalist mentality among Westerners. 

But in even in that independence, there is something important wrapped up in it.  Even though you needed to take care of yourself, you still helped the community.  In the West, the community, whatever that might be, is far more important than it is back East.  Back East, you help the people you know, in the West, you help the people around you, even if you don't know them that well.

The other aspect of the independence of the Western mindset is basically, if I'm not hurting anyone, leave me the Hell alone.  Legalization of Pot, prostitution, gambling, isolationism, gun rights and anti-regulation are part and parcel of this worldview.  We have no problem with being left to our own resources, but we really don't like being told what to do, even if it is in our best interests. 

This leads to the West being relatively volatile in terms of national politics.  Our allegiances shift with the winds, sometimes we side with the Northern Politics, sometimes with the Southern Culture, but no one seems to realize out East that these are temporary alliances, because this group or that group just happens to be going in the direction we want to go.  We have no sense of commitment to either side.  Right now, because the politics of the North seem to be more about freedom, i.e. legalization, gay rights, etc, we tend to vote in that direction, sometimes.  But if Southern Culture seems to give more freedom, i.e. gun rights or reduced regulation, we will go that direction, sometimes.  And in the end we will go for whatever freedoms we want more at that moment.  We are a very fickle date, which neither party seems to recognize.

But in the end, I think this really frames what is going on in this country.  Northern Political Solutions vs. Southern Cultural Solutions vs. Western leave me alone solutions.  It will be interesting to see over the next decade if we can solve this, and overcome the bitter legacy of a War that honestly has been over for a century and a half.  Of course, that is just the Westerner in me talking.

Dead Man Walking

Toast

John Boehner is in an absolutely no win scenario; no matter what happens in the coming weeks, he WILL lose his Speakership.  Let me examine the possible scenarios and look at why this is going to happen.  The Tea Party, and the magical thinking crowd are driving the bus, and they want no compromise.   For his part, Boehner thinks that going along with them will preserve his station as Speaker of the House,  so he is refusing to buck them. 

Of course, this entire post is predicated on Boehner's pride, and desire to retain his Speakership.   There are other possibilities: his family is being held hostage, and he has been informed that if he refuses to play along, they will be killed; he has a REALLY nasty skeleton in his closet that they are using to blackmail him with; or they have some sort of equally horrendous thing that they are holding over his head to get him to do what they want.  There is another possibility, that he is actually crazy himself, but I tend to discount this, because, as bad as he is at his job, he has still seemed fairly rational, and not ridiculously hyper-partisan.

So to look at how this could all play out:

Scenario 1: They blow up the Debt Ceiling and it is as bad or worse than the experts believe it will be.  At the moment, this is unfortunately the most likely scenario to happen.  (And I hate to say that, but the rhetoric on the Right seems to really want this to happen)

In this case, there are two further possibilities.  First, we are plunged into a world wide Great Depression that will make the one in '29 look mild.  In this case, everyone in leadership will be expelled from Congress in the next election.  We might even have recalls for the senators not up next election, and maybe even an impeachment.  (Not that I think it would be Obama's fault, I'm just saying how we would likely react to this.)  In this case, Boehner is out in '14.

The second possibility here is even worse, that the Debt Ceiling Breach actually spurs a revolution, rebellion or national breakup.  This could happen quite easily as well, because if the country can't pay the military forces, we are headed to implosion.  We saw this happen in the Soviet Union, (albeit for a somewhat different reason) and there is no reason it can't happen here as well.  In this case, no one is Speaker, but most notably, John Boehner isn't.

Scenario #2: We breach the Debt Ceiling, and it isn't the end of the world.  Although this is highly unlikely, if we patch it fast enough, perhaps we wouldn't spark another Depression.  Still, the breach would, regardless, spur high interest rates, and likely high inflation as well, because the value of the dollar would fall.

This is a scenario we have seen in the past, during the 70's with Stagflation.  In that case, President Carter, and a lot of other Democrats, paid the price for the country's financial woes.  This time, the blame would be placed firmly at Boehner's feet, and trust me, the discredited Republican Party would throw him under the bus to save themselves.  They would claim it was all Boehner's idea, and he is at fault for the mess.  Again, Boehner is no longer Speaker, and he also get Tarred and Feathered by his (former) compatriots.

Scenario #3: Boehner capitulates and allows for a clean debt ceiling vote.  This is also a possibility, although one that I put at less than 50% right now.

In this case, Boehner is excoriated by the Far Right and the Rightwing media as a traitor to the cause and country.  He will be primaried by a Tea Party candidate who will likely win the primary, and then possibly lose the General.  We have seen this happen time and again.  Although the Tea Party can motivate enough people to win a Primary, they tend to do poorly in a general election, unless the district or state is an utter conservative stronghold like Utah.  The mainstream Republicans are not likely to vote for crazy, especially after going through this shutdown.  They will very likely quietly vote for the Democrat, and move on with their lives. 

This scenario will likely ripple across the country, destroying any moderate, or sane conservative Republican who votes on a clean CR and Debt Limit.  This actually will lead to an additionally difficult problem, because most of the Republicans who will be left in Congress after this are likely to be as crazy as Yoho and Cruz, so we will have one functioning party, and a group of people howling in the wilderness.

And as before, Boehner does not return to the House.  And further, Nancy Pelosi likely returns to the Speaker's chair.

Scenario #4: Obama and the Democrats capitulate and give in to Republican demands.  Unfortunately, this is also a high likelihood, given the past performance of the Democrats. 

This scenario would seem to be a win for Boehner, and the way to preserve his job, but that is doubtful, because several other things would play out in this scenario.

First, it would galvanize the Republicans, who would be seen by both their constituents, and the media, as being at the height of their power.  Second it would demoralize the Democrats, who might even sit out the next election.  Regardless, it would greatly strengthen the hand of the Republicans going into the next election, and they would see it as vindication of their agenda.

This means they would probably run more Tea Party candidates, because the Far Right would be empowered.  Even if the Democrats were pushed to fight to win back the house, the media narrative would be against them, just as it was in 2010.  In this scenario, Boehner might be Primaried, but he would certainly be challenged for the Speakership by a Tea Party type, because they were at the seeming apex of their power.  And given that Boehner is not popular, even in his own party, he would likely lose to his challenger.

So no matter what, Boehner is highly unlikely to keep his position, therefore, out of love of country, he should let it come to a vote.

The problem with this entire situation is, when you hold the government hostage, like the Republicans are doing, and then the other side capitulates, like Obama might, you set the stage for this to become common practice.  This time, Obama gives in on the ACA, next time, what will it be, a complete ban on abortion?  An end to Welfare? Defunding of the Department of Education?  Once you open the door to these types of threats, there is no closing it.  And it won't matter who the party in the driver's seat is.  You could have a Republican President and Senate, and a Democratic House blowing it up unless they put into place a single payer health care system.

And even worse, once the bullet is in the chamber, it will eventually be fired.  If not this time, then in the future.  The demands become ever more extreme, and sooner or later, the bomb will be dropped.

We saw this with the hijackings of the '70's.  As much as it pains me to say this, if they had attacked the first hijacked plane, and risked the lives of everyone to end the hostage situation, it is unlikely that there would have been any more hijackings, because the technique would not have been viable.

The same thing here, if this hijacking of democracy succeeds, expect it to become a regular occurrence.  If it fails, it is unlikely that we will see it again.

If Boehner actually cares about democracy more than he care about a position that he will not hold on to in any case, he needs to allow a vote.

Unless, of course, they actually are holding his family hostage.  Then at least his behavior might make sense.  Otherwise, it doesn't. 

And So It Begins...

Disintegration

We are watching the earliest stages of the dissolution of the Republican Party, and at this rate, it is quite likely that the G.O.P. will suffer the same fate as the Whigs did in the middle of the 1800's.

I am not saying this because of the disaster that was the 2012 Presidential Election, nor am I saying this because of how the current political Right cannot seem to do anything to address the shifting demographics of this country.  In and of themselves, this is damaging, but not truly fatal.  In time, the Republicans could re-brand themselves to appeal to these groups. 

It has happened before, when the Democrats cut loose the segregationist ties that the Southern wing of the party had and whole-heartedly embraced the Civil Rights Movement.  Remember, until President Kennedy met with Martin Luther King and convinced him that the Democratic Party would push for a complete end to segregation in this country, Reverend King was a Republican.  Until the mid-sixties, most blacks in this country were a swing demographic at best.  Now they are one of the most solidly Democratic groups in America.     

So in this sense, demographics are not necessarily destiny; all it would take is the Republican Party spearheading truly compassionate immigration reform, equal pay for women and a few other similar causes.  If they did this, they might level the long term playing field, maybe not for 2016, but probably for 2020 and beyond.  It only took about ten years to shift minority support into the solid Democratic column, and it is not a guarantee that it will always remain there.

The reason that I am saying the Republican Party is doomed is because Charlie Crist became a Democrat.

It is not specifically because he changed parties, while extremely popular in some areas of the electorate, his political shift is not what is going to bring down the Republicans.  Instead, it is what the change symbolizes.  Charlie Crist said the same thing Arlen Specter said a few years ago when he switched parties.  He comments, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me."  And it is that statement that shows the disintegration of the party.

Understand, Charlie Crist IS a Republican, not a Democrat, at least not genuinely one in the post F.D.R. and Johnson Democratic Party.  I am not condemning Crist with this statement; he is actually one of the Republicans I admire, along with Jon Hunstman.  I think they are stellar examples of Republicans who are trying to work for a better America, and who passionately care about the future of this country.  While I may find them to be a bit conservative for my tastes, I do recognize them as excellent leaders.

But both of them are still slightly Right of center, whether you call them Progressive Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats.  Their ideology is more on the right side of the traditional political spectrum than the left.

Before I go any further with my overall point, I want to take a moment and discuss the political spectrum in the country.  Despite what you hear from the talking heads on Fox News, the United States is actually a center-left country, at least in terms of what they want the government to provide.  I am not saying this because I tend to be liberal and want to paint the country into my own frame of reference.  I am saying this because the facts on the ground prove this orientation.

When push comes to shove, Americans like the left at least slightly better than the right, even if they don't realize it or recognize that the things they like are on the liberal side of the spectrum.  Some of the most popular things in America, the things that the majority of people by double digits say they like are to the left of center.  Most people love Social Security, Medicare and disaster relief funds.  Most Americans also strongly support Unemployment Insurance, Public Schools, the Interstate System, National Parks and Progressive Taxation.  They even support things that they may not totally agree with like Welfare, Food Stamps and Medicaid.  In general, over 60% of this country, including a fair number of Republicans, support at least the idea of a social safety net, and very few would like to see these programs cut back or eliminated.  In the past, most of the debate centered not on the programs, but simply on the funding mechanisms for them.

These are left of center ideals.  They are not Socialist by any stretch of the imagination, but they do fall on the left side of the scale.  Even our obsession with an enormous military force does not shift the scale that much, especially given our equal support of the V.A., the  G.I. bill and military pensions.

To further clarify the point, a center-right country might support some social safety net programs, but only in more extreme circumstances.  It certainly would not accept the universality of these programs and benefits.  You see the center-right approach on things like means testing of benefits, lifetime caps and other things to limit or eliminate access to them.  Understand, I am not making a value judgment here, and this is a far cry from the "Makers/Takers" dialog that is occurring.  I am simply talking about how a center-right country might approach these things.

I also want to say here, for most of the 20th century, liberal and conservative were separate distinctions from political party; you had Progressive Republicans and Conservative Democrats.  In fact, some of the greatest "liberal" achievements in this country were initiated by Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Robert La Follette.  Also remember, Strom Thurmond was a Democrat until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which he tried to filibuster.

For most of the 20th century, with the exception of the anomalies of the 1920's, and the Regan era, where the country to a decidedly right turn, the United States has been slightly liberal.  And since the Bush years and the economic meltdown of 2007/2008, we have shifted back to our standard position of being a social democracy. 

However, the Right Wing of the Republican Party has not moved with the country; in fact, it has gone in the opposite direction.  Today, even Ronald Regan, the ideological father of the modern conservative movement would be chucked out of the party for the simple fact that he raised taxes many times.  At best, Regan would be called a moderate to his face and a R.I.N.O. behind his back.  Eisenhower, who was probably the greatest Republican President since Teddy Roosevelt, couldn't even get nominated in today's party.  Instead, that nomination would have gone to McCarthy.

To return to my point, the reason the Republican Party is falling apart is that there is no room for the Specters or the Crists in today's party.  The Far Right is purging them.  To be fair, there have been extreme ideological impulses in the Republican Party before, Barry Goldwater being a perfect example, but even at the height of that movement, the moderates like Gerald Ford were not shoved out of the party.

This time they are.

Ideological purity trumps electability, it trumps reality, and in the end, it trumps viability.  And if it continues, this is the end of the G.O.P. as a national party. 

Even though the Republicans currently have quite a bit of power in the States and in the House of Representatives, they are still killing themselves by pushing a hard Right agenda that will turn off the majority of voters eventually and accelerate driving the moderates out.  But before Democrats crow about a perpetual majority, it also dramatically and irrevocably changes the face of the Democratic Party as well.

Let me chart what might be the next twenty years of politics in this country unless the Republican Party reverses course and the moderates seize back the party.

As more and more economically center-right and socially liberal Republicans are shoved out of the party, the party becomes more and more an echo chamber of Far Right Ideology.  You see it even now with the calls to purify the conservative message.  The party heads claim that they need to articulate the conservative vision better and people will flock to them in the next election.  The problem with that is, the majority of the country is repelled by the call to turn Medicare into a Voucher Program, privatize Social Security and all of the other dismantling of the safety net that these people are advocating.  However, purging the moderates removes what little reality check exists in the Republican Party, and so they move even farther and farther to the Right.

And with it, they become more and more unappealing to the majority of people in the country, who as I said before, tend to be slightly center-left, and tend to like their government programs, at least the ones that they think they might need.

In the short term, this means that the Democrats will continue to rack up huge wins, especially as the Republicans push an ever more extreme agenda.  In this process, disaffected Republicans will become independents and then ultimately Democrats, but their core beliefs will still stay on the Republican side of the spectrum.  It has been years since there has been a truly Progressive Republican; they fell victim to the Goldwater Purge of the 1960's.

And as these former Republicans move into the Democratic Party, the party will shift somewhat to the Right to accommodate and welcome them.  In fact, it will likely end up as a purely centrist party, sometimes falling slightly left, and sometimes slightly right.  And during this period, there will likely be essentially one-party rule, with the Democrats becoming slightly schizophrenic trying to fill the role that was once held by two viable political parties.  Also, as the Republicans purify, they will become a fringe party that is not much more viable than the Libertarian Party is today.  Even if all of the Far Right parties were to merge, they still would not be viable in this center-left country.

This is not a sustainable situation, and at this point, something interesting is likely to happen; the Democrats will become the conservative party. 

As the Republicans become increasingly bizarre, the Democrats will have to function as both a liberal and conservative party.  Since the Democrats value their current image as the "Big Tent" Party, they won't throw the conservatives back out of the party, they will accommodate them, and in doing so, they will alienate the actual liberals of the Kennedy/McGovern wing of the party.

Then, those disaffected Liberals will also succeed from their party, but since there is no viable party on the left, they will probably form their own party, splitting the Democrats in half.  For a couple of election cycles, they will not win, any more than the remnants of the Republicans will, but they will gain steam as the Republicans start to see the Democrats as a true centrist party where their voices can be heard.

In the end, we will be back to a fully functional Two-Party System, but this time, the Democrats will wind up on the center to center-right end and the new party, let's call them Labor just for kicks, will end up on the center-left to left end of the spectrum.

And through this process, the system will self correct and the political spectrum will shift back to it's traditional orientation.  We will again have two viable and truly representative political parties in this country, who are not so ideological that things cannot get accomplished.  Once this happens, the United States will return to it's moderate roots, and gears of good government will begin to freely turn, instead of grind in place.

And we will be better for it.

Know Thy Place

Placism

A couple of months ago, I was reading a very interesting book called "Better Off Without 'Em," which is an exploration of Southern culture, and how, for all intents and purposes the South really is a distinct country from the rest of the United States.  The book is on the whole, very interesting, but it is pretty much a condemnation of the South.  A lot of it is on the money, but it is harsh.  And I should say here, any part of the country could be dissected like that and a negative book written on it.  As much as I love the West, we are also very different from the rest of the country and we have cultural normatives out here that can really frustrate and upset who did not grow up here.

However, in the book, he introduced a concept that I had never heard of before, but now that I know about it, it is a perfect explanation of many things going on in the country right now, especially things in the South, and things in the Presidential race.

The concept is called Placism.  Placism is similar to racism, and in fact, they often go hand in hand with each other, but it is possible to be a placist and not a racist, or visa versa.  In fact in the South, poor white people face many of the same Placism challenges that minorities do.  The basic idea of placism parallels classism; with placism, as long as you remain in your place, and don't try to challenge the social structure, you can get along just fine.  Step outside of that box, and all hell will descend on you.

After reading about it, I realized that I had actually known about it while I was living in the South but I just ascribed it to run of the mill racism.  The episode that sticks in my mind was a conversation I had with the woman who ran the diner that I frequently ate lunch at.  She told me about an incident with her daughter's new job in Birmingham.  Her daughter had gotten an MBA, and gotten a good, although entry level, job in an investment company.  On her first day on the job, her new boss told her, "There are many opportunities here for a person like you, as long as you know your place and don't try to rise above yourself."

And that is the core of the problem.  There are many opportunities for someone, as long as they don't try to rise above themselves.  In other words, they cannot show up decent upper class white folks.  They cannot be visibly smarter, more skilled, or more accomplished that their "betters."

Once I started looking at my experiences in the South through this filter, things began to make more sense to me.  For example, as I have pointed out before, on the evening news, no matter who won the game, they would almost always show a white guy scoring a point against a black guy.  For example, they never showed a black guy making a basket, unless both teams were entirely black.  I had thought of that as racist, which is probably a part of it, but now, through the new filter, I realize that it was a visual to show cultural dominance.  Black people cannot show up white people.

Another point that is explained by placism was the faculty and staff demographic where I taught.  There were very few African-American faculty members, but there were a number of foreign born black faculty.  The staff had many African-Americans, but typically, they were in subservient roles such as security guards and administrative assistants.  There were a few in middle management, but the upper echelon of the school, both in faculty and administrative roles was exclusively white.

While on the surface, that looks like racism, it goes deeper than that.  If it was racism, why could foreign blacks get slots on the faculty while African-Americans didn't?  Placism, and the fact that educated people from other countries exist outside of the normal class structure, is a better explanation. 

And I would like to note, skilled foreigners often exist outside of normal class structures, no matter what country you are dealing with.  I applied for, and was interviewed for, several jobs in the United Kingdom, which is a notoriously class-ridden society.  I talked to a few American ex-pats living there, and they told me that they had no problems moving between the classes, and everyone accepted them.  Class in this case was strictly for the natives.  Similarly, one only needs to look at the percentages of foreign born doctors and engineers to see that in action in our country.

However, this does not translate down to the unskilled or semi-skilled end of the spectrum.  The uneducated immigrant faces the worst sort of Placism imaginable.  Back to my personal work situation, African-Americans comprised almost all of the security force at the college.  Although it was a low paying, more or less dead end job, there was a certain dignity that came from the responsibility of keeping the college secure.  The janitorial staff, which is the lowest end of the scale, was entirely Hispanic immigrant. 

And this is the norm everywhere.  Anyplace you go in this country, the first generation low skill immigrants are shoved into menial, and often degrading, jobs.  The doors to education and social improvement are closed and barred to them.  It is only the second or third generation that is allowed to break out of the placist role that is assigned to them. 

And then, that often only happens if they do not look different from the rest of the people.  The Irish were, in their day, treated just like Mexican immigrants are today, however, once they lost the accent, they could easily blend in with the rest of society.  Still, you only need to look at the occasional and very subtle discrimination of "gingers" to know that one segment of the Irish, the one that looks different, is still not as fully assimilated as the rest of them.  Being a redhead won't block you from a job or an education, but, I can say from personal experience, it does limit your dating options.

Blacks and Hispanics, except for the very light skinned, tend to get locked into certain roles permanently.  And furthermore, the people who are very light skinned, almost indistinguishable from white people, have many more opportunities available.  You can see this in this Harvard Study.

So how does this concept of Placism translate to Presidential politics.

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton both rose above their station, and both have been more viciously attacked than any President since the Reconstruction.

Bill Clinton faced the same placism issues as President Obama.  He came from a poor background, and he rose to the pinnacle of American society.  And the Right never forgave him for it.  They tried to destroy him and stop him from having any legacy.  Specifically, they wanted to show that a person from his socio-economic background was not equipped to be President, because the inspiration of Bill Clinton was that anyone, from any background, CAN become president.  He was the first truly middle class president since Truman, and we all know how that ended.  (Truman ended up for years on the worst president list; he's better now.)

And Bill Clinton set the stage for President Obama, who also does not come from the background that we expect of our national leaders.  Racism does play a part in the hatred of Obama, and I will not deny that.  There are many people who cry, in coded words, I don't want a black man as my President.  But that isn't the full story, it is only half of it.

Similarly, not all possible aspects of Placism are in play with the President.  Remember my example of the foreign black faculty and remember, Barack Obama's father was not born in this country.  As my mentor Joe said, shortly after Obama's victory, "It is no accident that our first black President was not descended from slaves."  He explained that, at least for the first black President, he could not have won with the baggage of slavery in his past.  Again, Joe was talking about Placism, I just didn't catch on. 

However, that said, Placism is still strongly at work in most aspects of the hatred of Obama.  Obama was raised by a single mother, he came from a relatively poor background, certainly middle class at best.  Also since his father was foreign, he carries the Placist taint of "not one of us" that you see in the Birther attacks. 

Look at the other attacks on him and you can see Placism all through them.  He got where he is because of affirmative action, which means, he could never have gotten into Harvard on his own accord.  He was a community organizer, which means, he worked in poor communities filled with poor people.  He's lazy and incompetent, which means, no one from his background has the skills to run the country.

And the single worst thing that he did; he beat a rich old white man out to become President.  He showed him up in a landslide.  He made him look bad.  He rose above his station.  He didn't know his place.

And that is nothing compared to the Hell that will open up when he beats Mitt Romney, the ultimate scion of who the Placists think "should be President."  The poor black kid wiped the floor with the rich man who is entitled to be President because of "Who he is."

It will be an interesting four years.