If You Can't Beat 'em...Join 'em

This month’s Presidential election did end the reign of Donald Trump, a megalomaniac framed in cartoon proportions. That was a good thing. However, it was no true victory for the Country. I was disappointed enough to walk about with a blue cloud over my head straight through and beyond the Saturday following the election when the AP called it for Biden. I probably didn’t feel much better than those crushed by Trump’s defeat.

This last year and last month particularly has been an education for us all on the limitations of our unique form of electoral democracy. Its obvious facility to support minority rule of government begs the question: what do we do now?

It is clear to me that Biden has decided to work from the same naïve playbook used by Obama, the… if we’re good, honest, and caring we can unite Americans of all political persuasions…and, as a result, will have his legs removed early in his administration (as Obama did after two years). It’s as if they both graduated from the Neville Chamberlain School of Political Persuasion.

Biden needs to work to lead the Democratic Party for the next generation of voters, not the current ones.  He needs to lead a Party that seeks ways of obtaining the power necessary to support the diversity that is inherent in a democracy, and thus force Republicans to seek diversity themselves.

I have near zero confidence he has that ability, and the de facto proof is both the results of this past election and what has occurred since, not to mention his own rhetoric. The only thing he has going for him at this point is a bar that is exceedingly low.

In Ezra Klein’s seminal work Why We Are Polarized (Simon & Schuster 2020) he outlines a diagnosis of a divided America focusing most intently on how political identities have entrapped us on opposing sides at the sacrifice of all other human identities. Those human identities (family, philosophy, joys, aspirations, sports, neighborhood, faiths…you name it) for which we could bind ourselves to one another regardless of political party leanings. It took a Civil War in 1860 to correct that kind of identity exclusivity. No war necessary here, but it’s going to take a fight.

The un-democratic institutions of the Electoral College and the US Senate are two problems that inhibit majority rule democracy and promote minority rule authoritarianism. Klein, like others, promotes simple answers like the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact (Google it) and making DC and Puerto Rico states. And, of course, the big Kahuna: campaign finance reform. Great ideas but one is tenuous and the other two require that elusive power to accomplish.

I would suggest two efforts; concentrate power to your strength and work to elect responsible Republicans.

The Democrat Party strongholds have become those states with large, highly educated urban populations, with high minority representation. Biden won 11 of the top 15 most populated states. It is noteworthy that the 2^nd and 3^rd most populated states he lost; Texas and Florida, respectfully. North Carolina, rapidly expanding with a well educated population, is also an anomaly to the rule. All have significant minority population. The Democratic Party should put their highest concentration on those three states (plus their toe-hold on Georgia) to redirect the demographics.

Second, the Republican Party or conservatism is not intrinsically evil. They have only been tools by which individuals can manipulate government to primarily; support those with financial clout and to retain their own positions of power. The best example of this is their using non-political social issues to control Christian Conservatives in supporting them even as these evangelicals contradict their own values by doing so.

Without a 21^st century Fairness Doctrine, like the one Reagan threw out in 1987, the cohesiveness of the extreme right, glued with all the tricks one associates with neo-fascist authoritarianism, will continue to dominate the Republican Party with likeminded extremist candidates.

We want good people in office regardless of Party, those where self-interest is subservient to the National interest (or at least equal to it). Democrats all over the Country should start to re-register as Republicans and, with enough numbers, begin to control the Republican nomination process.  In states, like Virginia, where no party registration is required, plan on voting in the Republican Primaries for moderate candidates who are out of favor with the Trump controlled far right. Not something to hide, but to encourage moderate candidates. This should be a campaign on the part of the Democratic Party.

There will always be enough diversity to argue over issues, and a representative democracy has no guarantee of success during any election cycle. But a true democracy allows us to change course, and changing doesn’t appear to be happening on the near horizon.

Biden's Flawed Campaign

On her afternoon show this week, Nicole Wallace asked one of her Progressive guests why Democrats (especially) have such extreme anxiety over the possibility of a Trump victory. He then waxed on about misleading polling in 2016 and facing a political déjà vu. He was wrong, or at best grossly incomplete.

Despite the jaw dropping, stomach twisting experience many felt (including me) in November 2016, what we are feeling today is quite different. Although it had seemed unbelievable that a comically excessive, reality TV host had won the Presidency there was still an unknown factor. What kind of President would Trump become?  He had been almost everything during his life, Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, pro-choice, pro-life and so on. No one, not even Republicans, were comfortable speculating.

I for one have always believed that the weight of the office always sculpted the holder into something new, something better. I don’t believe that anymore. Trump took his buffoonery and manic desire for adoration to the White House and never let go.

This time around we don’t need to or have the luxury of speculating on what kind of President Trump would be over the next four years. We know precisely and that realization is devastating and truly frightening. We know not because we are in a mishandled pandemic, we know from nearly four years of grueling incompetence, self-dealing, and absolutely shameful displays of crass authoritarianism. (see my 8/22/20 post “Lest We Forget”)

However, the utter exhaustion from Trump’s Presidency seems to have been lost on the Biden Campaign and I fear there are consequences to be had, even if Biden wins.

The brain trust at the Biden Camp, whoever that may be, decided months ago to wage their war primarily on a single issue: Covid-19. A single issue? Think about it. Here you have our National leader so defective that he feels comfortable saying and doing virtually anything that comes into his head. Since 2017 he has acted no differently than if he were on the set of The Apprentice, only without producers or a director. Yet the focus of his opponent is on one issue.

The Biden strategy may be a winning strategy. Given the clown car incompetence Trump applied to the Pandemic, it likely will be. But it creates this question: might Trump have been the logical winner on election night 2020 had the Pandemic not occurred?

That question should not even be contemplated. Trump has been the worst President in modern American history and probably competes with James Buchanan for the top spot overall.

However, when Biden takes over many of the arguments the Trump devotees have made in the Fox News echo chamber may actually come to pass, at least in part. The pandemic will not go away, the extent of the contagion will still be out of control, total compliance to mask wearing will not be achieved, and social distancing and isolation will erode We will find ourselves with many more months of “living with” the virus, partially offset by therapeutics, until an accepted vaccine takes hold.

Biden will be faced with a sick nation, frustrated and not caring about who did what when. The economic problems and pandemic fatigue may make it impossible to initiate reforms in health care, immigration, foreign relations, infrastructure, climate change, and inequality (social and economic). Even worse it might result in the loss of Congress, House and Senate, in 2022. Republicans will be assembling in back rooms in January 2020 on these very points.

One thing for sure, it will be too late to try and resurrect the reality that there were a hundred reasons not to re-elect Trump before Covid, with every supporter held accountable. The Fox News crowd (plus the new network: Trump News) may be perfectly positioned to rewrite history, never having to defend it before an election, and ask the Nation to Make America Great Again.

Just enough people may listen.

Jesus Take the Bench

During the introductory statements in the Senate hearings to install Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court the new junior Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, lingered on the Constitution. Like other Republicans in the hearing, he was laser focused on religion. They were obviously trying to preempt any Democratic review of Barrett’s religious history.

What made that even more obvious was the fact that none of the Committee’s Democrats brought up religion as an issue. It appears the Democrats have essentially given up on fighting or delaying the confirmation of Barrett. Instead, it would seem, they feel the time is better spent on the coming election. So instead they focused lock-step on healthcare. Their communication is to make this nomination appear to be another attempt by Republicans to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

It’s understandable, but I also feel disappointed since the debate on the wholesale infusion of religious extremism in Government is worth the time spent.

Hawley referenced Article 6 of the US Constitution, seeming to give more gravitas to it being an Article as opposed to an Amendment (as if they would be weighted differently). Article 6 is short and mostly requires an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and laws of the Country if one is to hold office in the three branches of Federal and State Governments. At the end of the Article is single line that states:

 …but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Hawley excitedly argued that this was foundational proof that Barrett’s religious philosophy was out-of-bounds for any questioning by the members of the Committee. The only serious proof he was making was that no test of intelligence was required to become a Senator.

Prior to the forming of what is fondly referred to as the Great American Experiment in Democracy, Europe had spent centuries using religion to shore up the power of autocratic governments, mostly monarchies. In defining what this new American Democracy would be, one truly foundational aspect was that a government of the people would be secular.

They didn’t try to deny or renounce beliefs in a deity, but they understood that the organizational aspects of religion (i.e. churches), if allowed into the governance of the Country would only lead to conflict, discrimination, and ultimately victory for a single controlling sect. Someone entered that line into the US Constitution in 1787 not to protect Judge Barrett’s religious philosophy from disclosure; rather it was to restrict the Government from imposing any religious philosophy on her.

To hear nominees for the Supreme Court (the only ones we get to hear) say or infer that their job is to be a purely objective jurist to the laws of the land and that their personal beliefs or philosophy will not impact on their decisions is a kabuki dance I’m sick of observing. It’s ridiculous…just stop it! Were it true the Court would only have unanimous decisions. Ask why the adjectives of Liberal or Conservative are universally added to their names!

If a passionately Christian Democrat nominee belongs to a church that used snake handling to ward off bad spirits or ill health do you think ol’Josh wouldn’t bring it up? Nothing illegal about it, but Hawley would be spitting fire…and he should. Do you think Republican Senators would ever vote for a Muslim to be on the Supreme Court?

The background for Barrett, with her long family membership in the religious organization People of Praise should have a big fat spotlight on it. It characterizes the rigidness of her “faith” and that is precisely the antithesis of objectivity. It’s defining of women (Handmaidens) alone clouds a myriad of future opinions regarding women and defiles the history of the woman she’s replacing. People of Praise’s reactionary views on sexual orientation are even more frightening.

Amy Coney Barrett is obviously bright and educated in the field of law. That easily makes her qualified to walk into the Senate Committee hearing. It is also impossible to prove in advance that she would act on her personal faith and philosophy in rendering opinions, as we know judges do. However, it is more than reasonable to question her ability to dismiss beliefs she holds infallible.

My reading of her personal religious history disqualifies her outright. People of Praise, as with many other evangelical Christian sects, is on the extremist fringe of Christian churches. No one is denying them their freedom to worship as they like, like any other legitimate religious organization, but don’t tell me to ignore them either. We ignored Trump’s religion – Money – and look where that got us.

The Senate has the responsibility to choose for us the best qualified individual for such an important lifetime position. Amy Coney Barrett cannot be at the top of the list, except perhaps for those who are attracted by the very rigidness that makes her unqualified.

A Single Flake from Distant Clouds?

I have a neighbor who lives just around the block.  I don’t know him, yet I have judged him…because that’s the world we’re in. I have seen him on occasions working in his well maintained yard with the time retirement provides to do so. I assume he’s married based on the cars in the driveway, although I’ve never seen his wife.

I have also assumed he is an ardent Christian Conservative and expressively Republican.  I do based on his desire to convey his (and perhaps his wife’s) political viewpoints by the signs that show up in his yard and bumper stickers on his cars, usually very early in the election season.

He also has an American flag permanently displayed on a pole affixed to a large tree in the middle of his front yard. It is a sad testimony that people, like me, who have found their political identities aligned with Progressives or Liberals, have too often surrendered the American flag as a symbol of political bias.

Early in the year, as I suspected, his ‘TRUMP 2020 Keep America Great’ sign showed up proudly on his front lawn and soon after there were a similar stickers on each car.  Later and much closer to election time other signs appeared showing support for the Republican candidates running for both the Senate and House seats.

So beyond a wave and a “good morning” I have more than kept my distance. I have categorized him as someone who has lost touch with reality, within this dark comedy we all have lived through for the past four years. Still, for the most part, I am unapologetic.

Then just today, two days after the display we can only jokingly call a Presidential Debate, I walked by his house and the Trump sign was gone, after 8 months at least. Gone!

Is it possible? Add to that the Trump bumper sticker on the one car in the driveway was also gone. Have we reached a tipping point? Maybe not…but maybe. Was that shameful display of adolescent authoritarianism enough to turn on the lights?

 It is one thing to watch or listen to news reports covering disclosures about his reflections on military service, his candid recordings of what he knew about the Corona virus while proclaiming something different, his ability to avoid Federal income tax, and (most disturbingly) his ongoing debt in enormous numbers. Combine that with pundits who oppose Trump and their prognostications of a pending constitutional crisis. It’s another thing to actual experience the impact of those revelations.

It is as if all this news is being presented like a weather report on a pending blizzard about to bury Trump in hard packed snow right up to his nose. Yet you go out and look up at the sky again and again and see only thin clouds.

Then there’s that first single flake that floats down into your vision letting you know the coming storm is real. Perhaps it’s just like that first lawn sign that suddenly disappears. 

A Pox on Your House

How many Presidential elections have you been cognizant of with enough maturity to understand the difference in the candidates? My first election was in 1960 at the age of 10. Since then I have experienced 14 elections. This 15^th election in 2020, however, is the first time a sitting President, the supposed leader of this Country, and what used to be the leader of the “free” world, has openly chosen to undermine the basic pillars of this democracy.

It should be disturbing, if not terrifying to every person in the United States.

Never once in those 60 years since the Kennedy-Nixon contest did I ever consider that the actual process of electing a President was or would be fraudulent. Further, I felt confident that every other citizen in the Nation felt the same degree of comfort regarding the process, whether happy with outcome or not. After all, we don’t live in a banana republic, where the first rule of corruption is a tacit acceptance by the populous that systemic corruption exists.

In 2016 Donald Trump had proclaimed to his audiences late in the election that certain states were going to have “rigged” elections, notably Pennsylvania.  This barely registered at the time given the buffoonery of the candidate and the widespread belief that Trump was going to lose. Those claims evaporated after the election.  Poof!

In this election year Trump, as President, has gone far beyond his clown car antics of 2016 and has engaged in rhetoric which damages our Country in a way that may take years to repair, whether he is re-elected (God forbid) or not.

Trump has now proclaimed in multiple gatherings and interviews that the only way he can lose, the only way, is for the election to be “rigged”.  He is sending out this message to a vulnerable 30% or so of the electorate who view him as their defender against Left Wing conspiracies and the ravages of wealth-sucking minorities. They will believe him in the face of bare and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because he has come to embody their political identities.

Of course, the obvious corollary to his proclamations is that even if he should win (God forbid) the election was still “rigged”, just not so efficiently as to elect Joe Biden. Either way Trump has sought to poison a well which has made this Democracy the oldest and most respected in the World, at least up to four years ago. 

The question, of course, is has he succeeded? Undermining the confidence of elections is a major step toward autocracy, right after the successful denouncement of a free press. Will our new compatriots be the citizens of Moscow, Manila, and Istanbul? 

We won’t know how well or even if we recover from this assault on American Democracy. Even though most of us can speculated that Trump is an aberration in the political history of this Country, I am absolutely sickened to see the Presidency used as an autocratic tool. His unprecedented use of the White House (the “People’s House”) for political campaigning, is like a metaphor for a decline of American prominence.

Four more years of Trump and we could end up with Russia on the Potomac. 

What sickens me also, perhaps more, is the silence of Republican leaders and legislators who don’t have Trump’s ignorance as an excuse. They hear what he says and they ignore it. They see what he does and they say nothing. They appear solely focused on retaining their positions and power by courting Trump’s 30% and not bearing the wrath of Fox news or Conservative talk radio.

Republican leaders have crowded on the corroded vessel Donald Trump, and they are more than willing to throw overboard every sacred facet of American Democracy in order to stay afloat. 

A pox on their house, I say…would I could.  Even when Trump is removed from office (God willing) they will still be a presence to participate in the healing.  I won’t be holding my breath.

My Case for Reparations...Again

To Kamala Harris. My hope is that you become the lead on matters of civil discord and that President Biden first focuses on Foreign Affairs (including immigration), and climate change.

(In January 2019 I posted an essay on a case for reparations for African Americans. This post takes mostly from that essay, but also modifies the conclusion, a result current civil unrest.)

There has been a tussle between Liberals and Conservatives for decades on the question of reparations for slavery in the United States. It has never managed much traction because it has always been relegated to an intellectual debate.

It has been over 15 decades years since the ratification of the 13^th Amendment ending slavery, so it is difficult to see how specific losses can be quantified to apply to currently living individuals. At the end of the American Civil War there were approximately 4 million freed slaves. The current estimate of African-Americans in the US is 46 million.  How do you do the math?

In fact, it is too simplistic to look at the great American stain of slavery and assume that there is some means by which the Nation as a whole could compensate its way out of that shame. Further, there are virtual armies of Conservatives who view individuality as having no historical liability. They believe that any given person has the potential wherewithal and opportunity to lift themselves to social and fiscal success.  No societal help necessary and certainly not with their tax dollars.

Liberals who see reparations as only fair are stymied by how to distribute such largess and are muted by questions on how such reparations would be used. No wonder. The problem is that the injury cost is viewed, and often attempted to be calculated, based on what was essentially stolen (i.e. freedom and labor) prior to 1865. There is a mistake in believing that something could get repaired today by simply throwing money at it.

Yet here we are, still a segregated society. Black Americans continue to occupy a sub-culture which includes a disproportionally large segment of the lower middle class and poverty portions of our Nation. Black Americans populate a highly disproportionate segment of an incarceration “system” that is nearly as shameful today, by worldwide standards, as slavery was 155 years ago.

One can travel nearly anywhere in this Country (and everywhere in the South) where poor, undesirable, or simply “bad” neighborhoods are vocalized synonyms for Black neighborhoods. This fact overflows into schools, perceived crime, and use of public services.  It is the mother’s milk of social Conservatism whether it’s the simple vilifying of the term “welfare” or the grotesque marching for White Supremacy.

That Liberals want a quick fix is as useless in solving this national conundrum as Conservative’s focus on self-interest.

Reparations? Yes. For Slavery?  No.

The BLM movement does not advance their cause by trying to re-write history to mesh with modern ethics, such as vilifying anyone associated with slavery (which could include practically everyone during the first 80 years of this Country and for centuries before). The great wealth of the antebellum South, accumulated on the backs of slaves, was effectively destroyed by the Civil War. The true crime, for which those of African descent are still victims, is what happened to them, as free Americans, during the decades following the War and how they were systematically deprived of a just recovery.

   

Where we are today is less a problem of former slavery than it is about how the Nation (and especially the Southern states) reacted to the end of Slavery. The horrors of hate, terror, incarceration (with associated servitude), Jim Crow, Ku-Klux-Klan, and general discrimination notwithstanding, the underlying issue which today creates this great racial divide is primarily economic…and cumulative.

The hostile application of prejudice since the mid-19^th century compromised the economic evolution of Black Americans in two important ways (among others); education and the accumulation of real property (real estate or land).  Today’s white American stands atop a history of education and real property transfers that span literally hundreds of years.  It can be argued that Black Americans can count any equivalent success in a few decades at most. Combine that with our National penchant toward economic inequality across all sectors and there is nothing I see that signals a real change in direction.

Two “reparations” could be as follows: 1) for the next 50 years (two generations) every Black student would receive tuition-free education to any public (non-profit) college, university, or training school simply because they have a Black biological mother or father, and 2) for the next 50 years every adult who had a biological Black parent would have access to a one-time, Government guaranteed mortgage (at the same rate as VA mortgages – no equity needed) and where the only criteria for acceptance is the ability to make monthly payments. Essentially a "GI Bill" for Black Americans. 

The total elimination of prejudice is probably impossible.  Human beings will always gravitate toward those for which they feel a common bond.  However, discrimination should be, if not eliminated, fought against as the struggle for our better selves. There is no reason to think that simply adopting preacher elevated ethics will get the job done. When mistakes are made you need to correct them with dollars and sense.

Trumpression

I’m quite sure I have it…do you? Is it a new condition, or just a new name? 

Last night I awoke at about 3am. Not unusual, but in normal times I’d fall back to sleep. Not last night, or several other similar nights. Instead I began considering the possibility of something happening to Joe Biden, perhaps something with Russian sophistication or White Supremacist crudeness.

Then I thought about a less than resounding defeat of Donald Trump and the aftermath of conflict. I saw Institutions being blown apart in the wake and a psychotically pure narcissistic mad man, with the power to inflict martial law and exercise nuclear codes. No…I didn’t get back to sleep.

Take this new form of Depression, I’ll call Trumpression, mix it with the uncertainties we must all now deal with daily regarding a malevolent disease, and sprinkle in social inequities that have finally (and understandably) reached a boiling point, and November 3^rd starts to feel like a lifetime…no, two lifetimes away.

Perhaps if I was a bit stronger or maybe more clever I could compartmentalize. Like many Americans, or others around the world, most of my Trumpression is derived from watching the idiot in the White House, listening to the pundits who rail against him, and railing at the pundits who worship his idiocy.

(Let me pause briefly: the President IS an idiot, not because he is profoundly stupid but because he is woefully lacking in knowledge. But, more importantly, he has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and therefore his world view, personal or otherwise, is totally subjective. He does not have, nor can he have any empathy or shame. It is the stuff of nightmares for us, but interestingly for him as well. It is why autocrats are such focused, corruptible, and miserable people.)

My life is not significantly different than it was when Obama was President. The economy was tracking up year after year, the United States was still respected around the world for things other than its military, those that supported science began to hold sway, and the realities of wealth inequality and systemic racism were becoming inescapable. Still, none of that affected my day to day life, really.

However, those pleasing abstract realities, ending with a few thousand people voting or failing to vote in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016, have now been replaced. So now my diet, my sleep patterns, and my level of energy are all enslaved to Trumpression. No matter how much I try to tell myself how well off I am compared to so many others, it is inescapable.

Being over 70 I’m supposed to help the impact of the Pandemic by remaining out of circulation. That, of course, only exacerbates the problem. I know that to thrive through these next 66 days I’m going to have to find some ways to apply my time and money to ending my Trumpression.  Perhaps you do too. Maybe I’ll see you out there. We need a universally identifiable mask.

Stay healthy Joe.

Switcharoo

Why do you believe Donald Trump?  I’m not speaking to Republican bureaucrats, Fox News personalities, Christian Conservatives, QAnon nut jobs, or white supremacists. I’m directing that question to Democrats, the Democratic leadership, and non-Fox media. Because Trump says something often enough and loud enough makes it so? Is that correct?

Trump and his Republican cult have been proclaiming for too long that he created the “greatest (US) economy in the history of the Nation”, only to have it woefully snatched away by the “China” virus. Why haven’t I seen his claim of economic prowess challenged by Democrats with the kind of ferocity equal to the fantasy?

US Presidents have very little short term impact on an economy.  The Economy and various markets are like a mammoth oil tanker. They can be torpedoed or otherwise disabled quickly by an unforeseen disaster or accumulated negligence. However, for the captain and crew to make a radical change in course, for better or worse, that ship is going coast in the same direction for some time and distance.

So it goes with a change of Administrations in Washington, especially if it also includes a change in a governing Party.  The most dramatic example was the collapsing economy transitioning from George Bush to Barack Obama in 2009. During Obama’s first year the GDP went negative, the unemployment rate (already a high 7.3%) increased another 34%. The stock market (using the DOW as an index) dropped over 50%.

Trump’s first year in office was no different, and yet also the complete opposite.

The Obama Administration turned it around, constantly attacked by Republicans for shepherding a “too slow” recovery.  The reality is that it began the longest period of sustained economic growth in the country’s history. During the remaining 7 years the stock market increased 203% and unemployment dropped from 9.9% to 4.7%. Just as important, the wounds of mistrust in financial systems were mostly healed.

The first year of the Trump Administration saw the unemployment rate continue to fall to 4.1% and the stock market climbed another 32%.  Conservatives, Republicans, and Fox News were quick to give Trump credit. This was actually the end of the Obama Economy.

What did Trump do to deserve this adoration?  Nothing! His first year was spent trying to dismantle Obama social programs, defend his Russian assisted campaign, anger allies, find money for his wall, travel to and pontificate at “rallies”, Tweet, and watch TV.

It wasn’t until December 22, 2017 that he signed the great Republican Tax giveaway, for which his Republican Congress argued would bring real “life” to the US Economy (albeit with a wink and a nod).

What happened?  Over the next two years, up to the point of the Pandemic, the Unemployment Rate dropped a whopping 0.5%, from 4.1% to 3.6%.  The stock market was actually lower by the end of 2018 and had “skyrocketed” a massive 8% before it fell off the Pandemic cliff. GDP remained basically unchanged. If Obama had presided over similar results during his second and third year, Mitch McConnell and the gang would have been gleefully heating tar and plucking chicken feathers.

Of course I can’t make comparisons regarding what has occurred in 2020. The Corona Virus crippled economies around the globe. However, thanks to the anemic and incredibly stupid response by Trump, our recovery will lag the rest of the world and we will be paying a price for many months to come.

Once again, a Republican President will be handing a Democrat successor an economy the size and odor of a three story cow pile. Yet once again, Republicans will claim the mantle as the Party for Economic growth, and will minimize and disparage the recovery as inadequate. The real tragedy, it appears, is that too many Democrats will believe them.

Lest We Forget

No one in the US is immune from the affects of the Corona Virus Pandemic, one way or the other. So for the Democrats and the Biden campaign to target the Pandemic and expose the many flaws Trump and his administration have applied to its defense is understandable. However, I find their focus too narrow, dwelling excessively on the disease and its impact, both on the national health and economy.

We knew before the Pandemic that Trump was a failed human being, let alone President, and needed to be removed from office. It didn’t take a pandemic to understand that.

So much is not being said. Entire books, for example, will be written about the inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants on our southern border, with the callous separating of children from their families, some never to be reunited, or the indifference given to the American Citizens in Puerto Rico, resulting in over 3000 dead. Were those actions of Trump’s even mentioned at the DNC?

I understand his ineptitude (call it “covfefe”) is not being pursued, but what about his general disregard for the job? He played golf 236 times during his first three years, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars (Forbes puts it at over $350 million), much going into his own pocket at the clubs he owns.

He has held 97 (ego) “rallies” since his election victory, again the taxpayers picking up millions in transportation and security expenses. He has tweeted and re-tweeted over 17,000 times during his first 3 years in office. He has tweeted so often on some weekends, it’s difficult to do the math and not conclude he has done nothing else. He watches television constantly, apparently whenever he’s not tweeting or playing golf. He virtually allows Fox News pundits to direct his policy or rage. He doesn’t start his work day until 11am and reads virtually nothing.

Current counters have shown his lies, misstatements, and untruths to now exceed 20,000! 

During his first year in office 34% if the entire White House Administration was either fired or resigned (the average for the previous four Presidents was 8%). He is surrounded by cronies, with enough corruption and indictments to be rivaling the Nixon Administration, always shielded by the Republican Senate. This, of course, includes his own corruptions, one of which led to his impeachment.

There is so much to shine a light on beyond the Pandemic. I have compiled a partial list for my own edification, which I share with you. Please read through and remember, and add any that I missed, which are likely numerous.  They are in a rough chronological order:

-          Inaugural crowd delusion

-          Missing millions from inaugural fund

-          FBI discloses Russia connection

-          Comey fired, Russians in the Oval Office

-          Flynn resigns, later arrested and convicted

-          Manafort arrested, later convicted

-          Gates arrested, later convicted

-          Puerto Rico ignored, 3000 dead

-          Stormy Daniel bribe uncovered

-          Playmate affair exposed

-          NFL slammed

-          Charlottesville and his “fine people” aka Nazis

-          Defends guns after Las Vegas

-          Backs child abuser for Senate

-          Signs Republican tax cut for wealthy

-          “Falls in love” with Kim Jong Un

-          Announces he is a “stable genius”

-          Gives credibility to North Korea

-          Trade wars initiated

-          Trashes Christine Blasey Ford

-          Violates International Iran Nuclear Treaty

-          Attacks Muller

-          Withdraws US from Paris Climate Accords

-          Attacks John McCain

-          Abandons the Kurds

-          His lawyer arrested, later convicted for Trump's crime

-          Holds refugees in detention cages

-          Separates children from families

-          Sides with Putin against CIA/FBI

-          Shuts down Government for 35 days

-          Money illegally diverted for “wall”

-          Withdraws US from Russian Nuclear Treaty

-          Vetos Yemen withdrawal

-          Trump Foundation shut, pays $2MM fine

-          Directs military planes to his Irish golf club

-          Sues to eliminate Affordable Care Act

-          Withholds military aid from Ukraine

-          Pressures Zelenski to investigate Biden

-          Is impeached, with no dispute of facts

-          Orders assassination of Iranian General

If the Covid Pandemic had never reached our shores and the economy, created during the Obama years, had remained intact, there was always a deep well of reason to get rid of this narcissistic clown.

My dream now is to lay down to sleep at night and suddenly realize for the first time in years that I hadn’t heard the name "Trump" once all day.

President Pence, POTUS 46

When President Pence is sworn in we can feel confident there will be no debate over the size of the crowd.  That’s a relief all by itself.

This week Donald Trump Tweeted his suggestion that the 2020 elections on November 3^rd be postponed and it turned the American news streams into various levels of dither. Fox News et al, along with most Republican legislators, just tried to dodge the comment or “laugh” it off. This is something they’ve learned to be quite good at.

Some respected Republicans took issue with it publicly. Democrats, left and center, went ballistic, calling out terms like dictator, autocrat, or destroyer of the Constitution…something they’ve learned to be quite good at.

I think they all may be missing the point.

Since 2016 I have been writing in this blog several times my conclusions that Donald Trump suffers from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and that this condition explains all his actions, short of those he has felt compelled to act on to protect himself. Not to argue this point further, my opinion is leading me inescapably to a final speculation:

Donald Trump will likely resign the Presidency before the November election.

The importance of his Tweet is not the suggestion of a postponed election, something he has no power to do. It is with his reasoning…points he has repeatedly raised. Attaching those points to his absurd suggestion magnifies their importance in his mind.

He has proclaimed that this election will (not might or could) be “the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history”. He neither reflects on the fact there has previously been no inaccurate and fraudulent election in US history or that he assigns all the fraud and inaccuracies to benefit only his opponent. He really doesn’t care a fig about how the election is run.

If Trump truly has a NPD, a major loss would painfully conflict with his self-perception. Intuitively his knowing that a post-election analysis would later deem the contest accurate may be a bridge he is unwilling to cross.  His only out would be to resign. In his mind, the “fraud” in the election makes it impossible for him to win, and that the resulting landslide loss (the election cannot be stopped) will be primarily due to his resignation.

Someone with an NPD faces an imperfect world with subjective perfection. It’s as if he lives his life on reality TV.  His niece, a PhD psychologist, in her book “Too Much and Never Enough” discounts the idea that her uncle has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, even as she admits that every characteristic of that disorder applies to him. She essentially claims he is too complex to be labeled in that fashion. Having read her book I can understand how she would find it difficult to not include the impact of such a dysfunctional family. However for the rest of us, he is simply a dysfunctional President and NPD fits the bill.

Sure, it’s not inevitable. After all, Trump has to deal with his cowardice and there is no telling for sure in the end. He also could delude himself into thinking he could magically win, delusion and paranoia are later characteristics of NPD. Of course it didn’t work well for him in figuring the Corona Virus was just going to suddenly disappear, and that memory may linger.

I’d give better than even money that come late September or early October Trump will throw up his arms in “disgust” and walk off the set, not waiting to hear the words you’re fired. Ol’Mikey will become the shortest office holder in US history, beating out the previous record holder, Warren Harding, by 27 months. I’m sure they’ll get his picture up in at least one little Post Office in Indianapolis.

Don't Know Modern Monetary Theory? Buckle Your Seat Belt.

When I was born in 1950 the National Debt was $257 billion. Adjusted for inflation that amount in today’s dollars would be about $2.7 Trillion. Today that debt is nearly $27 Trillion (watch it run at Debt Clock ) almost exactly ten times the size.

I’ve spent nearly my entire life listening to politicians extol the value of balanced budgets, warn against debt passed onto future generations, and condemn social expenses deemed “welfare”.  Usually these efforts came from those considered “fiscally conservative” and they were a mantra for the Republican Party.

Liberal leaning Democrats have fumed over unpaid wars, special interest pork, and reductions in taxes for the very wealthy.

We have learned, and should know, that it’s never made a difference which political party had power in Washington. Only in 5 of my 70 years have there been budget surpluses (all under Democratic Administrations). Dealing with the “Great Recession” in 2009 the Obama Administration almost doubled the National Debt during his 8 years in office. Trump is getting ready to nearly double it again in his first 4 years, even though he and the Republicans were given a relatively healthy economy.

Given the erratic, embarrassing, upside down world of the Trump Administration, the Covid19 Pandemic, and the explosion of racial awareness you might think enough news is on your plate, and you’d generally be right. Still, have you stopped to think for a second that the trillions of dollars thrown at every problem that has surfaced seem a little different…a little unusual?

Your familiar Republicans, a’la Paul Ryan, who would rail against excess spending and fight to reduce revenues have been deafening in their silence, have they not? If you weren’t paying attention, this disappearing act has been going on since Obama left office, not just since the Pandemic hit. They’ll attack Democratic proposals for spending, which seem endless in their presentation, but go mute regarding the spin of the Debt Clock.

Actually the whole gang, Republicans and Democrats, have quietly entered us into a new era. They have for some time now adopted a new economic reality that embraces a new discipline known as Modern Monetary Theory. Our economic dingy has been launch on to virgin waters and there’s no telling where it’s going to end up.

To give a detailed explanation Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) would be no easier for the average citizen then to explain Keynes’ General Theory (1930s-70s) which focused on Government spending or the Monetarist Theories of Milton Friedman (free market determination of money supply) that followed Keynes. It is easiest just to present the practical application of MMT.

Both Keynes and Friedman argued that excessive increases in money relative to the supply of goods and services ultimately produced inflation.  MMT takes a different tact. MMT argues that there is no limit to the increase in money into the economy as long as the economy has excess capacity and inflation is at bay. Excess capacity is often referred as unemployment.

MMT claims taxes are not used to pay for government expenses; rather they are a tool for government to regulate the money supply.

The supply of money, as you may have been noticing, certainly since 2008 or before, is simply accomplished by the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) creating instruments of debt (bonds). It is simply the way we have for decades printed up money without the necessity of paper. The accounting for this increase in money is what we fondly call the National Debt.

Andrew Yang knew this when he proposed his $1000 a month for every American. The left side of the Democratic Party (Bernie Sanders et al) have also embraced MMT with all their proposals. In neither case was the Theory presented along with their plans.  The Republicans have been no better with unfettered military spending and reductions in revenue.

Bottom line is that there is now no real ceiling to the National Debt nor any reason to reduce it. Perhaps when it is more than twice the Nation’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), in another $20 Trillion or so, they might start to take a look at it.  As long as inflation is cool the spending in Washington will remain hot.

There is good thinking behind MMT, and in an economic petri dish it offers Government extraordinary fiscal power.  Fix the infrastructure, provide health care, or educate the populous, on the short list. However, there are so many variables (foreign currency markets, corruption, natural and manmade disasters, international conflicts and competition, and shortages to name a few) that our Economy seems to resemble the Starship Enterprise now that we’ve been freed from what we thought was gravity.

The takeaway I always come back to from my Econ education is that Economics is not an exact science, it’s a social science. Therefore, it is subject to the behavior of the people that lead and inhabit it. Science can eventually provide reasonable predictability about things like Pandemics and Climate Change, but Economic Theory can take us on a wild ride. I have some suspicion we’re one right now. All Economic theories work…until they don’t. Buckle up.