Liberals Suck at Politics

I attended an emergency community meeting the other night sponsored by the AFL-CIO and I came away with one giant take-a-way:  Liberals/progressives suck at politics.  I've actually known this for a while, but it was reinforced by some of the denial that I witnessed.  With the election of Trump, I think it's critical that liberals understand some things.

1. Don't care what the opposition thinks.  There is value in listening to other perspectives and understanding other points of view.  That being said, energy is much better spent trying to get non/low propensity voters to show up to the polls than to persuade conservatives to change their minds.  Are you really going to convince someone who completely disregards the scientific community and thinks climate change is a hoax that climate change is real?  No.  Are you going to persuade someone who thinks that black people have major advantages over white people that racism exists?  Not likely.  Are you going to sway someone who thinks that there is no difference between the two parties that Social Security and Medicare are more likely to be cut if they elect a Republican?  Maybe.
2. Understand the opposition.  If I had to choose Obama's biggest failing as a President, it would be not understanding conservatives.  I think that Obama thinks, that all conservatives are like the ones he met at Harvard (think David Brooks).  They're not. Newsflash:  People who allow your citizenship to become a defining issue for the first part of your presidency are not operating in good faith.  People who impeach a president over lying about a blowjob are not operating in good faith.  People who hold the economy hostage by credibly threatening not to raise the debt ceiling, are not operating in good faith.  People who refuse to even hold hearings for your SCOTUS nominee are not operating in good faith.
3. Emphasize the stakes.  You know what I didn't hear from the Clinton campaign?  I didn't hear about the Supreme Court.  I didn't hear about Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  I didn't hear about climate change.  I didn't hear about college tuition.  I didn't hear about building infrastructure.  Clinton had policies to improve these things, but they rarely if ever came up. Not in her ads, not in the debates.  The only things I heard were "Trump is a monster" (true) and "Go to HillaryClinton.com" which is the single worst phrase a candidate can utter.
4. Bipartisanship is a means not an end.  Working with the other side is fine if it aimed at achieving a greater good even though you don't get everything you want, but that is never where you should begin the conversation.  Working with the other side is bad if it ends with overly complicated policies that barely address the problem and make it easy for conservatives to label government ineffective.   Too often I see Democrats beginning from a negotiated position before negotiations have even started.  Set high goals and aim for them to be implemented broadly (like Social Security), that way if they're repealed they fuck over a much larger chunk of the population.
5. Politics happens more than once every four years.  Generally speaking, if Democrats show up to the polls, they win.  The problem is, they only show up occasionally and usually only for a presidential election.  Republicans show up to nearly every election like clockwork and that is why they control the majority of statehouses, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and soon the Presidency and the Supreme Court.  Democrats didn't even show up in high numbers in the primary where there was the possibility for real divergence from the party elite.  As brilliant film director and sexual predator, Woody Allen said, "80% of life is showing up".
6.  You don't need to like the politicians you elect.  I very seldom vote for someone I like as a human or don't have some serious disagreements with.  You have to be a little off to run for office, so don't expect these people to be perfect.  At the end of the day, you're electing someone to do a job.  Politicians are vehicles for change, not the catalyst.  It's crazy to place a whole lot of trust in politicians, so regard all of them with skepticism.
7. Voting is a collective act, not personal expression, or a consumer choice.  Refer back to rule six.  If voting was supposed to be a form of self-expression, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anonymous.  Voting is a collective action to assign power.  Nothing more, nothing less.
8. Expect them to cheat.  People cheating to gain power?  Next thing you'll tell me is people lie on their resumes.  Seriously, they cheat because they know the electorate as a whole is not on their side.  What's the best way to respond?  Get more people to vote.
9. Politics is about power.  This is rule number one of political science, but it seems completely lost on many people.  Ultimately, power is being assigned and divided up.  The only difference between democratic forms of government and undemocratic forms of government is how power is assigned.  If you want to understand politics don't watch The West Wing, watch Game of Thrones.

Podcast 3/26/2016: News Rundown and College Tuition

In this episode, we run through a news-packed week including Brussels, Obama in Cuba and Argentina, the real reason behind the "War on Drugs", North Carolina striving to be a shittier state, racist twitter bots, voter suppression in Arizona and more.  We then dive deep into the practical and philosophical reasons for cheap college.

http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-rgth8-5df71e/download

Notes:

• Timeline of the riots in Gujarat http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/world/asia/modi-gujarat-riots-timeline.html?_r=0#/#time287_8514
• A history of the Tamil Tigers:  http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/2008/11/2008112019115851343.html
• North Carolina did ban using climate change data.  More evidence that we should put birth control in their water. http://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-bans-latest-science-rising-sea-level/story?id=16913782
• The Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell (Republican) was in charge of the polling places in by far the most ethnically diverse and most populous part of Arizona.  I implore my fellow Bernie supporters not to engage in ridiculous conspiracy theories about how this was Hillary Clinton's evil plan.  Clinton conspiring with Arizona Republicans is pretty far fetched for me.  Also, you can place  a lot of blame on the Supreme Court overturning parts of the Voting Rights Act, more reason why the "Bernie or Bust" movement is idiotic and counter-productive. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/arizona-hearing-latinos-demand-answers-primary-voting-problems-n547131
• Steve Jobs was a terrible person.  Apart from the deplorable near slave labor conditions overseas in Apple's contractors, he engaged in collusion to keep the wages of software engineers down.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/technology/engineers-allege-hiring-collusion-in-silicon-valley.html?_r=0
• Cost of the University of Vermont's proposed new hockey arena:  $65 million  http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/sports/college/2014/11/14/uvm-gaining-ground-new-arena/19053135/ 
• Estimated in-state cost of attending University of Vermont for 2016-2017:  $31,960 ($15,096 in tuition alone) http://www.uvm.edu/~stdfinsv/?Page=tuition-fees.html&SM=tuitionsubmenu.html
• Ben Bernanke's surprisingly good and surprisingly subversive Baccalaureate speech to Princeton http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20130602a.htm#f1

NSFW

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Today in Moronic Memes #3

 

The warmongers are all a fluster, as they won't get a chance (for at least today) to send someone else to fight an expensive and dangerous war on their behalf.  So now they must criticize substantive diplomacy because Iran=bad.  Ironically, the neo-conservative hawk's disdain for this deal is shared by the very people they are supposedly worried about:  The Mullahs in Iran.  They are kindred spirits of sorts, after-all if you've called someone evil for 36 years; it's awful hard politically to negotiate with them.  

Should We Charge 47 Senators With a Violation of the Logan Act? No.

Sen. Tom Cotton

This trend of me defending people I find reprehensible is unsettling.  If I wanted to defend scumbags, I would have gone to law school.  I'm writing about the petition circulating right now asking that the justice department pursue charges against the 47 Senators who wrote a letter to Iranian leadership saying that any deal reached wouldn't be upheld after President Obama leaves office. The petition reads:

On March 9th, 2015, forty-seven United States Senators committed a treasonous offense when they decided to violate the Logan Act, a 1799 law which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years.
At a time when the United States government is attempting to reach a potential nuclear agreement with the Iranian government, 47 Senators saw fit to instead issue a condescending letter to the Iranian government stating that any agreement brokered by our President would not be upheld once the president leaves office.
This is a clear violation of federal law. In attempting to undermine our own nation, these 47 senators have committed treason.

Beware Green Lanternism

Source: Wikimedia Commons

As the Presidential candidate carousel heats up for the 2016 election, I can't help but think about how terrible political coverage is in this country.  My specific gripe is how much importance is placed on the presidential election, while the other elections are mostly ignored. Without a doubt the President is the most important individual in our political system, however even he cannot take go to the bathroom without the consent of congress and the blessing of the judiciary.