Some Year-End Opinions

 

• Without BBB, the infrastructure bill is just another (lobbyist-written) highway bill.

• There were no better "team players" in 2021 than the progressives in Congress.

• I am tired of hearing the Dem narrative about "winning elections" instead of talking about doing shit.

• It is good that we are technically not "at war" anywhere in the world right now. It's not so good that we are still supporting war and warlike activity all over the world.

• I have said this on this blog before: If you go out of your way to give people a reason to not vote for you, some of those people are going to take you up on it.

• The defense budget exists more to enrich the defense industry that it does to defend the country.

• The US should hold the behavior of its "friends" (Israel, Saudi Arabia, India, the Gulf States, etc.)  to a higher standard than our ''nonfriends". Somehow it doesn't seem that way.

• Increasing the defense budget beyond what even Biden asked for is a bad signal, especially with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. How is this any different from a Republican President and Congress? Is business as usual what we should expect? Very milquetoast on lowering prescription costs but no problem showering money on Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon. Very bad.

• There's lots of deserved disdain poured on Manchin and Sinema, but my gut tells me that if they weren't there we'd still have a lot of Dems in line that would do exactly what they are doing. There were five corporate Dems who thwarted the nomination of highly qualified Saule Omarova for Comptroller of the Currency. She actually wants to regulate the banks (you know, like, do her job) but these Senators are in bed with the banks. Might as well be Republicans. In fact, they joined hands with the red-baiting Repubs. Disgusting.

• There are quite a few words and phrases that I would be fine with never seeing or hearing again in a news story. The one that's gotten to me lately is: "experts say...".

• It's worth remembering that the Tea Party originating in the late aughts claimed to be all about small government and lower national debt. They claimed the movement wasn't about any of those traditional conservative social issues. Of course, everyone but the corporate media knew this was baloney. Since the people in the Tea Party movement are pretty much now the staunchest supporters of Trump (who increased the debt to record levels with their support) and the January 6th seditionists, it's clear that it was about race and hate all along. The size of government and spending was always a smokescreen for the real agenda.

Biden's First Year

 

With the Biden Administration approaching its first anniversary, I would characterize his foreign policy as awful. The only positive is the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but the sanctions he left behind are going to kill many people. Policies towards Saudi Arabia, Israel, Cuba, the war in Yemen, and the Iran Nuclear Deal are unchanged from the Trump Administration, and in many cases worse.

The rhetoric has become almost warlike concerning China. While China's human rights abuses should be on the table, so should those of our "friends" like Saudi Arabia, India, Israel, and the Gulf States. Otherwise our credibility is zero.

Biden's domestic policy initiatives are better than a lefty like myself could have expected, especially given the crappy Senate he's been stuck with. But on balance, if a pollster asked about my approval of Biden, I'm not sure that I wouldn't say "disapprove."

Whitewashed History

 When I was in school in the 1950s and 1960s we pretty much learned white history. And the whites in America were always good guys, both at home and abroad. And I grew up in the north. Looks like Lynne Cheney is finally getting her way because we are heading back there. We'll see how that works out. I think part of what contributed to the counterculture and other movements in the '60s was that people my age were pretty pissed when they found out how they were lied to in school.

"Manifest Destiny" was presented--at least implicitly--in a positive light. The idea that it was our own unique form of imperialism was never even hinted at.

The fact that many founders and subsequent presidents were slaveowners was pretty much glossed over.

Reconstruction was presented as kinda not working out, and that was largely because those northern carpetbaggers forced the white southerners to retake control. There was no mention of the fact that many places in the south had fully functioning black majority governments that were violently overthrown.

Robert E. Lee was characterized as a pretty good guy who reluctantly decided to remain loyal to his state of Virginia (i.e., betray his country). And he didn't care much for slavery, even though he was a pretty big slaveowner.

These things and many others will now be taught again. Welcome to whitelashed and whitewashed America.

QAnon Insurrection Stories

I know someone who was at the January 6th insurrection. It's been fun to watch the narrative metamorphose as the facts have emerged over time.

• It was entirely peaceful except that Black Lives Matter kept us from getting out of town.

• It was all antifa.

• Typical tourist activity except for a few rowdies who got a little out of hand.

• False flag.

• The texts read by Liz Cheney prove that everyone in the White House was very concerned and on top of things, and did everything they could to stop it. And besides, it was mostly peaceful anyway.

Rest assured that the story will continue to metamorphose as needed.

[Incidentally, this is eerily similar to how the Covid story evolved over a couple years in these circles. Just change the narrative as needed in order prove that either (1) it's very serious and Donald Trump saved us all or (2) just a flu and the vaxxes just made everything worse]

It's Monday

 

• On the Cuomos: Good riddance to both of them. It's fun to watch Conservatives play the gotcha card. They are clueless to the fact that Andrew Cuomo was pretty universally hated (in a political sense) by the left since forever, if not earlier.

• In my lifetime, it's been common to hear folks in the center and on the right preaching about competition in the "marketplace of ideas". But then when they lose that competition all we get is whining and grievance about how they've been "canceled" or that the left somehow rigged the competition. So they sign Forbes letters or start up faux universities to assuage their hurt feelings and their loss of the entitlements that they think belong to them.

• Dr. Oz has done a complete 180 on Roe v. Wade, now that he is a Republican candidate for Senator. (He was a quite adamant believer in abortion rights just a couple years ago.) He'll fit right in with a party that believes in nothing but obtaining and keeping power

Saturday Night Thoughts

 

• The New York Times ran this story about Guantanamo with the subheadline: "With 6,000 residents and the feel of a college campus, the U.S. Navy base has some of the trappings of small-town America, and some of a police state." It seems to me that if you have "some trappings" of a police, then it's a police state. Even police states have college campuses and small towns.

• Five Democratic Senators have joined red-baiting Republicans to oppose Biden's nomination of Saule Omarova to become Comptroller of the Currency. With friends like these who needs enemies? The progressives in both the House and Senate have been pretty steadfast and loyal supporters of Joe Biden's agenda. It's the centrist ideologues who have stymied it. Dems need to understand that they aren't entitled to anyone's vote. They have to earn it. These centrists have shown that their constituents are corporations and banks. Why bother?

A Couple Quotes

Resurrecting a couple quotes I put on here in 2013. Because I like them and because I can.

"Regarding the 'trickle-down theories' which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and social inclusiveness in the world: the promise was that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefiting the poor. But what happens instead, is that when the glass is full, it magically gets bigger---nothing ever comes out for the poor."

Pope Francis

Written in the 1930s but could just as well describe today's 1%: 

"For these men were all the victims of an occupational disease--a kind of mass hypnosis that denied to them the evidence of their senses.  It was a monstrous and ironic fact that the very men who had created this world in which every value was false and theatrical saw themselves, not as creatures tranced by fatal illusions, but rather as the most knowing, practical, and hard-headed men alive.  They did not see themselves as gamblers, obsessed by their own fictions of speculation, but as brilliant executives of great affairs who at every moment of the day 'had their fingers on the pulse of the nation.' So when they looked about them and saw nothing but the myriad shapes of privilege, dishonesty, and self-interest, they were convinced that this was inevitably 'the way things are."

Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

A Veteran's Opinions on Veterans Day

 

• Both of the following can be true at the same time: (1) A significant portion of white working class folks are racist, and (2) a significant portion of the working class has been abandoned by the Democratic Party.

• Online NY Times ought to have an option to somehow show articles without the headline and sub-headline. So many times the article itself is pretty good but the headline ruins the whole thing, like it's totally unrelated to the article it's attached to.

• The problem with taxing "income" instead of "capital" and "wealth" is that lots of income (especially for rich people) can be hidden in trusts, partnerships, etc. If you own stock, there is an accepted value of that at any given time. It seems to me it would be harder to hide and manipulate your way out of that.

• Speaking of which,  the fact that trusts and other tax avoidance vehicles even exist--and at the end of the day, tax avoidance is really their raison d'etre--just shows that, even today, the tax code is written by and for rich people. The carried interest loophole still survives today, through Congresses and White Houses of both parties.

Biden's First Ten Months

While there are many areas that are disappointing about Biden's presidency, I have to keep reminding myself that Biden wasn't even on my Top 10 list of preferred presidential candidates. Don't get me wrong. I voted for him, and am glad he's President rather than 45. And maybe he's the only one who could have beaten Trump (although I'm not sure I totally buy into that conventional wisdom).

What to be disappointed about?

1. Other than the Afghanistan withdrawal, there is virtually no change in foreign policy from Trump, other than feel-good words. 
2. He should have been much more agressive from day one with executive orders, rather than getting 100% bogged down in legislative action. There are things in the areas of student debt, climate change, justice, et al that the administration could have done. Even if some things aren't universally popular, going on the offense is a good idea. Don't let CNN and Fox News define the narrative.
3. There have been more labor actions this year than in many years. Want to win back working class voters? Then be a more vocal ally in these strikes and union votes.
4. It might not have been successful, but Biden shoud have used the presidential bully pulpit to publicly call out the pro-filibuster Dems, especially in regard to voting rights legislation. There is some anecdotal reporting in crucial states like Georgia that some civil rights activists feel used and abandoned after working hard to win the White House and Senate.

This is all in the zone of what could have been expected. But some of Biden's rhetoric hinted at a little more movement to the left. It's been less that a year, so maybe more will happen. In the meantime I will try to mellow out with the understanding that in 2020 this is what the Democratic voters wanted. I was just hoping for more.

Friday Morning Musings

• The more I read about it, the more I am convinced that the main reason for the Virginia result (obviously there were many) was that McAuliffe ran a pretty piss-poor campaign.

• It is ridiculous that the pundits as usual are drawing conclusions of an inevitable disaster for the Dems in 2024. That could happen, but if it does it's going to be for reasons these same pundits aren't even thinking about now. Or because of events that might occur many months into the future. I always remind myself of the inevitability of G. H. W. Bush's re-election in 1992. His approval rating was above 70% only a year and a half before the election.

• It's pretty clear that when folks look into the mirror of Tuesday's election results, what they see reflected back is exactly what they wish to see (myself included).

• I agree with what I heard Rev. Dr. William Barber say a couple years ago: it is almost always movements that push politics rather than politics pulling people. In fact, movements can actually push the courts as well (e.g., marriage equality). This is certainly borne out in my lifetime. To the extent that I have any money and energy left, they will be directed at movements rather than politicians.

 

Americans and War

People totally misread the Democrats in the 1970s. I saw another Tweet today that talked about another Democratic "death spiral" like in the '70s because the lefties pushed the party too far left. 1972 was my first presidential election. McGovern didn't lose because he was too radically leftist; he lost because he wanted to get out of Vietnam and the majority of voters--including centrist Democrats--still loved the war, or at least bought into the "peace with honor" bullshit of Richard Nixon.

It's easy to spot this in history during my lifetime: Americans dig war; until they don't anymore. It happened with Vietnam. Folks loved it, until they didn't anymore. And that happened relatively quickly. The revisionists who want to pretend they never supported the War want to change the subject into "McGovern was too radical", rather than that he was weak and unmanly and not warlike enough for them.

It happened in the second Iraq War of GW Bush. Everybody loved it, including most Dems. Until they didn't. But by then the damage was done. But they loved his manliness. Almost everyone at The New York Times and folks like Chris Matthews on MSNBC were all in. Until they weren't. Americans like to appear tough.

And it happened again when Biden withdrew from Afghanistan. The war-loving media came out in full force. We didn't look tough enough or manly enough or something. So an American war disaster of 20 years was recharacterized as successful and running smoothly until Biden botched it up. Pretty incredible.

In all these cases, the centrist and conservative pundits were all in. Only years later do they pretend that they were against the war all along or some other type of revisionism.

Never underestimate Americans' love for war.

The Dems, Virginia, and Other Stuff

The Virginia results will be bringing out the mainstream media pundits in their various takes on why the lefties are responsible--as they always are--for this loss. So here's my leftist take.

A conservative Clinton Democrat lost an election in the (at least previously) conservative state of Virginia. (We should note here that all three-state wide races were won by Republicans.) It's hard for me to fathom how you can spin that into the fault of the progressives.

One possibilty, of course, is that McAuliffe was just not the right candidate at this time, or that he ran a crappy campaign. Probably some of the fault is here.

But I have a different view. I have been saying for a long time that chasing after these so-called white suburbanites is not a sustainable strategy. They just aren't reliable coalition partners. This was already looking iffy in 2020. These wonderful suburbanites helped take a pretty good majority in the House in 2018.

Then came the murder of George Floyd. Lots of white folks were sincerely upset about it and supported the ensuing protests. The problem is that this honest concern lasted for about twenty minutes. As soon as they didn't like the "look" of the protests--which various studies have show to be almost completely peaceful, except for the violence caused by police--the whitelash set in. As soon as people started talking about what needs to happen to solve the problem of police killing unarmed citizens, the discomfort set in and more whitelash. They were like rats scurrying off the ship. The seats they helped flip in 2018 were mostly lost in 2020. The centrist Dems tried blaming others as usual, but I'm not buying it.

It's time for the Dems to pursue and increase the number of coalition partners they already potentially have: minorities, younger people, workers. Many of these are voters that "swing" between voting for Dems and not voting at all. But you need to earn their votes. Stop taking them for granted. The current "negotiations" in Congress show this in real time. The reliable team players have been the progressives. The unreliable, bad-faith obstructionists (Manchin, Sinema, and plenty of others) are the conservative wing of the party.

When you rely on Blacks and other minorities to put you in office and then enact legislation and policies that serve Big Pharma and Big Oil instead, don't be surprised when bad things happen on election nights.

Some Pessimistic Takes

 

• Dubious Strategy: "We are passing this sub-par legislation. If you vote more Democrats into office in 2022, we promise we'll do it right next time."

• Reminder: Kyrsten Sinema was handpicked by Chuck Schumer. This is what he wanted and this is what he got.

• My opinion is that Congress should enact the best policies it can, without regard to ''the next election". Good policies are always good and--even now--the midterms are a year away. There is no way of predicting how they will turn out. There could be an entirely new and unexpected set of issues that will decide that vote.

• Dems have been running on lowering prescription costs for many years, and yet here we are, seemingly ready to cave once again. If people stop believing you, it'll be entirely on you.

• I think one of the biggest problems with the BBB as currently framed is that there isn't enough of it that's permanent.

Done with the Dems, Continued

Am I actually supposed to take solace in the fact that the Build Back Better plan is being sabotaged by Democrats rather than Republicans? Kinder, gentler sabotage? Sabotage without the mean tweets? Sabotage with smoother edges? Fuck that. Stop sending me stuff in the mail to contribute for a Democratic Congress. We already got that and can't get the Biden agenda passed. I'll send my checks to DSA and BLM.

We can't even get the Dems to support negotiating drug prices. Holy cow, even 71% of Repubs favor that! This is nuts.

The Dems won't even support the winner of the primary for mayor of Buffalo. Typical Corporate Dems.

I am done with the Dems. Yeah, I will have to hold my nose and vote for them like I have my whole life, but I am tried of reading about them and fretting over what they do (or--more precisely--what they won't do).

Some Political Opinions

• Strategy of the Dems: find the sweet spot where we are just racist enough to appeal to non-college-educated-whites but not so racist as to totally turn off Black voters.

• Speaking of which: every Trump voter that I know--quite a few actually--is a college-educated white person. And a majority of them are QAnon types. These are actual people I know...relatives, friends, and acquaintances.

• Today Manchin says he wants coal burning to be counted as clean energy. Every day, every single day, I am reminded why I am done with  the Dems.

• Politico is evil.

• An idea put forth by more than one commentor between the election and inauguration was for Biden to put out a barrage of executive orders and let (dare?) SCOTUS to strike them down. With the performance of Senate Dems (and it's not just Manchin and Sinema), this is looking more and more like Biden should have done exactly that. One example that has been resurrected is to enact some climate change initiatives by EO in the name of national security. SCOTUS allowed Trump to build his wall on this basis. If SCOTUS allows it to stand, great. If they strike it down (as I believe they would) Biden has further exposed the political agenda of the Federalist Society majority. The current composition of the Senate Dems--led by the Corporatist wing--is an unreliable coalition. They deserve to lose in 2022.
  

"Popularism" and Other Stuff

 

• What I hear from popularism: the purpose of running for office is to win, not to do anything.

• Dems: We do austerity better than Repubs ("Compassionate Austerity"??)

• Many people among my extended family have gone full QAnon. The issue for me isn't so much that they have gone utterly cuckoo (the have a Constitutional right to be cuckoo). The problem for me is that many of them are or were teaching our kids in classrooms and preaching from pulpits. Very scary.

• David Klion made some excellent (and obvious) points on Twitter today. "My issue with 'popularism' is not just that it assumes the median Dem voter can never be persuaded and must be catered to; it also assumes left voters/activists, by contrast, can be persuaded to abandon their core goals. Former outnumber latter but Dems can’t win without both." If the Dems simply take the left for granted (and I can personally testify that they do), "they don’t have to alienate all that many voters to blow a close election." And: "All this said, insofar as the idea is just 'emphasize popular stuff and de emphasize less popular stuff' as a candidate (as opposed to as an activist or a journalist), then sure, that seems prudent. I agree winning is better than losing. But you need the left to do it." But the Dems often act like they don't.

Friday Afternoon Trivia

 

• The US was never under anything close to a lockdown at any time during this pandemic.

• Out-of-the-blue sports opinion that no one else cares about (but it's my blog so here it is anyway): there is nothing more useless in sports broadcasts than interviewing coaches/players on the bench or sidelines while the game is going on. Canned questions, canned answers, useless. Whoever thought this was a good idea?

• Anecdotal fact of my life: Most of the military veterans I know are pretty liberal. Most of the conservatives I know aren't veterans.

• Every time I see discussions about David Shor and his ideas I am still left with the uneasy feeling that he is saying that Democrats should stop talking about things they believe in. We aren't going to get cops to stop killing unarmed people without some form of "defund the police". "Reform the police"? We've been doing that most of my life and Tamir Rice is still dead with no accountability; didn't change much. What are their ideas of how to solve the problem. Ignore it? Act more like Republicans? I just don't understand.

• Hint: white voters voted for Trump by larger numbers in 2020 than 2016. What Shor says can be heard as: you need to go softer on this racism stuff or you won't win elections. An alternative reading is that there are two kinds of swing voters (oversimplified for sure): the white surburbanites who swing between Dems and Repubs (i.e., the ones the Dems seem to pursue over anything else); and the younger, more non-white pool of voters who swing between voting for Dems and not voting at all. The former kinda sorta voted for Biden but in some places not for down-ballot Dems. My opinion for a while now is that these voters aren't reliable coalition partners. Maybe we should be finding ways to cultivate those other swing voters.

• A majority of white voters have not voted for a Democratic candidate since 1964. I wonder why? Who are we kidding?

 

• A political party that can't enact an agenda supported by the vast majority of its members/voters isn't much of a party.

• The left flank of the party is holding firm, and the centrist/conservative flank is not happy about it. The left is doing what the centrists think only they should be allowed to do.

• I think I will stop referring to "centrist" or "conservative" Democrats and start calling them "corporate" Democrats  instead. Much more accurate.

Inflation and Politics

 

• I'm trying to get my head around the so-called surge in inflation. The reason for my skepticsim is that there seems to be little linkage between this and interest rates. Passbook savings rates are still essentially zero. You need to go out 3-5 years to get 1% on a bond or CD. My interpretation is that "the market" doesn't view the inflation issue as permanent. Or at least something that's in some sectors but not general or across the board.

• Things are always framed in the press in a way that blames the left when Democrats get their butts kicked in elections. In my lifetime, we got Nixon twice largely because a lot of centrist/conservative Dems (I refuse to use the word "moderate" in this context) voted for him. But the left was blamed for being too radical or something. (Back then most Dems were in favor of the Vietnam War, though most would deny it today.) It wasn't the left that put Nixon in power. Nor was it the left that voted overwhelmingly for Reagan. There is a good chance that Biden's agenda will be stymied because the conservative Dems are reneging on their deal, but I can see the press already framing it in a way that blames the left for demanding too much. If the centrist swing voters abandon the party every time it tries to do something worthwhile, perhaps the Dems should be trying to appeal to more reliable coalition partners.

• Jonathan Chait--no lefty there--has a pretty good article in New York magazine today, properly framing the peril of Build Back Better as a refusal of the conservative Democrats to negotiate in anything approaching good faith. On a Twitter thread today he further expanded on this. If the reconciliation bill fails to pass, then Biden left only with an  infrastructure bill that is mediocre all by itself. It is really a glorified highway bill, with lots of stuff for the fossil fuel industry, big telecoms, and other corporations. A pretty typical top-heavy spending bill. Chait then posits--correctly I think--that if that is all Biden gets, he is left with a failed presidency. While I think it is at least possible for the Dems to keep the House and Senate in 2022, it's better for them to act as if they won't. They have less that a year and a half to accomplish something (which may not be there again for ten years or more). If that happens, there might well be revolt of the left flank of the party. If the conservative Dems sabotage the Biden presidency, maybe a realignment will be a good thing. I am ready to give up on the Democratic Party as it is today.

Excerpt of the Day

For me, a very powerful excerpt from Rachel  Kushner's The Mars Room (referring to Button Sanchez, a young girl serving a life sentence for murder, from the point of view of Gordon, a teacher in the prison).

All these details in the newspaper article build a portrait, a set of impressions. Gordon had met Button on the other side, a lost little girl who looked twelve years old. Once, when Sanchez smiled as Gordon praised her in class, he saw her young essence. It was so wanting, and bright, he'd had to look away.

The word violence was depleted and generic from overuse and yet it still had power, still meant something, but multiple things. There were stark acts of it: beating a person to death. And there were more abtract forms, depriving people of jobs, safe housing, adequate schools. There were large-scale acts of it, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in a single year, for a specious war of lies and bungling, a war that might have no end, but according to prosecutors, the real monsters were teenagers like Button Sanchez. 

 

End of September Bullets

• I'm trying to remember an instance in my life when I ever thought or said, "Thank God for the filibuster. It just saved us from a terrible mistake."

• My recollection of the ACA and how it affected the 2010 midterms is different than the conventional wisdom I see in the media today. My memory is that the Dems passed the ACA and then acted like they were ashamed of it or had to explain it away, They didn't run on the idea that this was a great accomplishment that they were proud of. If people perceive that you don't think something you voted for is a good thing, how do you expect them to react?

• To restate the obvious: the Dems have the White House and both branches of Congress. If they can't get their agenda enacted, it is 100% on them. Nothing else.

• The lefties in Congress have been the real team players during Biden's first year. To pretend that the conservative Dems are the adults in the room is just objectively false.

• Why in world would NBC think that Meghan McCain has anything important enough to say that they actually have her on Meet the Press? What's the media world coming to? Certainly not better journalism.

Simple Things - Part 2

 Lest anyone think I am an apologist for all things Biden because of my last post, here are a few more simple things:

• American policy vis-a-vis Yemen: unchanged from Trump.
• American policy vis-a-vis Israel: unchanged from Trump.
• American policy vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia: unchanged from  Trump.
• American border policy: unchanged from Trump.
• American "trade war" policy: unchanged from Trump.
• America's Iran policy: unchanged from Trump.
• America's Cuban policy: unchanged from Trump.
• America's forever war: other than Afghanistan, the jury is still out.

Simple Things

I tend to like things short and simple. (Maybe it's a shortcoming of having a linear mind, but oh well.)

So here's something simple and linear:

• GW Bush had most of his eight years to end the war in Afghanistan and didn't.
• Obama had eight years to end the war in Afghanistan and didn't.
• Trump had four years to end the war in Afghanistan and didn't.
• Biden ended the war in Afghanistan in his eighth month.

Bad Faith

I am going to use this essay by Ibram X. Kendi in The Atlantic as a starting point for my two-cents worth on the latest panic attacks by conservative (and some liberal) pundits concerning their made-up version of Critical Race Theory (or any other anti-racist discussion).

What really got me concerned was when Ross Douthat--one conservative whom I respect as usually dealing in good faith--wrote a pretty awful op-ed in the Times in which--among other things--he compared Kendi to Rush Limbaugh, suggesting that they were comparable intellectuals on the two extremes of the debate. What a disappointing argument. The former is a recognized history professor; the latter was a hate-spewing liar. Douthat should be ashamed of himself.

Now, Ibram X. Kendi hardly needs a seventy-something white boomer like me to defend him, but here's my two-cents worth anyway.  I actually read Kendi's two recent books, Stamped fron the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist. I will say that these books, especially the first, changed the way I look at both the history of this country and its current circumstances. I am grateful to Kendi for that. But did I come away from either of these books with the impression that Kendi wants me to hate this country? No, never, nada, not once. Did he tell me to hate myself because I am white? Never.

I am used to conservatives putting words into the mouths of a person (cf. Ilhan Omar) and then using those words that the person never said to discredit her. I have never seen Douthat do that before. I am not an expert on CRT,  but am pretty sure that almost anything that, say, Ted Cruz says about it is a lie. Henceforth, I will also be wary of anything Ross Douthat writes about it.

Not Optimistic

This essay by Ezra Klein in today's Times is thoughtful and quite good. But I am afraid that Klein's optimism for our country is a little rosy-eyed . As someone points out in the piece, by any reasonable definition, the US is really a quite young democracy. A sizeable portion of its people didn't have full legal citizenship rights until at least the 1960s. This same scholar notes that young democracies are more fragile and susceptible than older democracies of which we try to claim membership. Recent years seem to bear that out to one extent or another.

On my first birthday, Jackie Robinson had been in the (white) big leagues for almost exactly one year. 70+ years later, after all those years of supposed racial "progress", I wish I could share Klein's optimism. But quite the contrary, I have never been more pessimistic about the present and future of this country. 

Time for a New Direction

In regard to this Bret Stephens piece in today's Times:

I am always wary of discussions that come from the angle of "reverse racism". It's not unlike my reaction to the police-have-a-tough-job-so-just-leave-em-alone argument. The point is that police unions, police departments. and the criminal justice system in general have had ample time to solve the problem of police murdering unarmed black people. They failed. Now other people have decided to try different things and they whine about it. Well, you had your chance.

This is similar. Speaking as a seventy-something white guy, we've had our chance to solve the race problem in America--a problem entirely created by us white people--and we have failed. Now other folks are advancing ideas to try address the issue. Maybe some of those ideas are better or worse than others. Over time we can weed out the good from the not-so-good. But I for one am ready to start listening--and I hope heeding--nonwhite people about this. We had our opportunity. It's time to stop whining and start listening.

Bret Stephens says new racism won't solve the old racism. I say bullshit. It's too late.  You and your ilk had your chance.

Another Update

About a month ago I had a post "Done with the Dems". In the ensuing month I have become nothing but more pessimistic about everything I said there.

So glad the Dems got the White House, Senate. and House. Bleh.

Bernie Is Right Again

Bernie Sanders has an excellent essay in Foreign Affairs and, as usual, he is right on. As he says in the piece, there are plenty of things to be concerned about vis-a-vis China, but none of them requires declaring a new Cold War.

Twenty years ago the Chamber of Commerce and other right-wing-capitalist lobbying groups were all for trade with China. After all, they claimed, if China becomes a part of the rest of the world, it is inevitable that it will moderate--it just has to. Well, that didn't quite happen. But that wasn't their real reason for supporting "free trade" in the first place. The real reason was that there was a lot of money to be made. And a lot of money was made, largely at the expense of American workers (and Chinese workers as well).

Well, lo and behold, now there is money to be made by declaring American First. So the same right-wing capitalists are banging their jingoist drums about human rights and all sorts of fear mongering.

It's all about money.

Quote of the Day

"If you’re sick of 'defund the police,' if that’s not a 'helpful message' for your community, then give me a plan to stop the cops from shooting us."

Elie Mystal

With Friends Like These (Part 2)

The Democratic Leadership put out an almost identical statement to the one referenced in my earlier post today. This is disgusting and dishonest. We know which constituency they aim to please. Another nail in  "I'm Done with the Dems". Pelosi is endangering the life of Ilhan Omar.

With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemies

There are some problems with this statement put out by some of Ilhan Omar's fellow Democrats, who once again are way too eager to throw her under the bus.

1. I read Omar's tweet. She never equates Israel and the US with Hamas and the Taliban. I have been following Rep. Omar since she was elected to Congress, and have found that every time the Dems throw her under the bus it's for words they put into her mouth. Same thing here.

2. The statement is factually incorrect. It says that the US and Israel are at times "worthy of critique", but, in actuality, unequivocal criticism of Israel is never allowed except in a "ya but" way. As in: maybe Israel went a little too far "ya but" Israel has a right to defend itself. Such "critique" amounts to no critique, but it is the only one allowed without being attacked as anti-Semitism.

3. Apparently, Omar's colleagues didn't contact her first for "clarification", but released this instead. I am sure they are aware of the kinds of death threats she receives. This sort of thing isn't helpful. With friends like these....

I had a post not long ago about how I have given up on the Democrats. They pull crap like this frequently enough to reinforce that position.

@RepAuchincloss, @RepTedDeutch, @RepLoisFrankel, @RepJoshG, @RepElaineLuria, @RepKManning, @RepJerryNadler, @RepDeanPhillips, @RepKimSchrier, @BradSherman, @RepDWStweets

We urge Rep Omar to clarify her words placing the US and Israel in the same category as Hamas and the Taliban pic.twitter.com/KfcnmpLRO6

— Rep. Brad Schneider (@RepSchneider) June 10, 2021

Update: Color Me Skeptical

 Bernie Sanders was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote against the "China Bill". 

Color Me Skeptical

This article in today's NY Times leaves me quite puzzled. They can weasel all around it all they want, but this indeed is picking winners and losers. Don't some of these semiconductor and chip companies already make a ton of profits? And like the article suggests, tech industry sharks will be circling the waters for more handouts, just like companies did for coronavirus "relief". Looks a lot like the typical public investment followed by privatized profits. Whenever politicians tak about making investments and turning them over to private companies so they can "create jobs", color me skeptical.

We Are in Trouble

This Substack piece by Timothy Snyder describes a scenario of very high probability in 2024. What he describes is precisely what was attempted in the 2020 election and only failed because the right people were not in place to accomplish it. With the election laws being passed and considered in various states, the correct people will now be in place to ignore and overturn the 2024 election if that is what is needed to seat a Republican president in 2025.

The vote against the 1/6 Commission by almost every Republican shows us that the entire party is on board for this scenario, not just Trump. And the fact that the Democrats seem unwilling to address this issue bodes very ominously for the future of this country. SCOTUS will not save us.

The scenario then goes like this.  The Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022, in part thanks to voter suppression.  The Republican candidate in 2024 loses the popular vote by several million and the electoral vote by the margin of a few states.  State legislatures, claiming fraud, alter the electoral count vote.  The House and Senate accept that altered count.  The losing candidate becomes the president.  We no longer have "democratically elected government."  And people are angry.

No one is seeking to hide that this is the plan.  It is right there out in the open.  The prospective Republican candidates for 2024, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, are all running on a big lie platform.  If your platform is that elections do not work, you are saying that you intend to come to power some other way.  The big lie is designed not to win an election, but to discredit one.  Any candidate who tells it is alienating most Americans, and preparing a minority for a scenario where fraud is claimed.  This is just what Trump tried in 2020, and it led to a coup attempt in January 2021.  It will be worse in January 2025.

A Follow Up

A follow up to my post about being done with the Dems.

https://www.dailyposter.com/bailout-3-0-lobbyist-optimized-no-strings-attached/

Also another example of Bernie Sanders being in the right side of most issues.

Done with the Dems

I think--finally--I am done with the Dems.

Outraged that Saudi Arabia murdered a journalist and cut him into pieces, with no repercussions from Trump? Vote for Biden, because he won't do anything either.

Not too crazy about our foreign policy vis-s-vis Israel? Vote for Biden, and nothing will change? Sell more weapons to them so Boeing can make a lot of money. Status quo.

Worried about voting rights and the very future of our country? Or an infrastructure bill? Why don't we elect a Democratic Congress and watch as they bargain with the Repubs who will filibuster it anyway, because Senate traditions are more sacred than democracy.

Don't like cops killing unarmed black people? Apparently the Dems agree with you, so long as you don't say anything to offend all those suburban white women who are their new core constituency. Shut up about Black Lives Matter.

Oh, I'll still vote for them I suppose, just like I have my entire adunlt life, but I am finished with paying attention to them or wasting my money on them. Just text me when it's time to vote and I'll be there, but in the meantime I'm going to go read some good novels or something. That's a lot more rewarding.

Some Complaints and More

 

• Chuck Schumer voted against the Iran Nuclear Deal.

• In foreign policy, Biden continues to disappoint.

• From what I see today, Biden is backing away from campaign promises on student debt relief and prescription drug price relief.

• I am afraid that the "how-are-you-gonna-pay-for-it" camp is winning out.

• Looks like we can expect a lot of status quo on a lot of issues.

• Politico, NY times, and other outlets are already presenting Biden's handling of the Israeli bombing campaign as a "success". Not good,

• I say this many times and will continue to do so: every time I turn around, Bernie Sanders or AOC or Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib (and there are others) are saying something I agree with. And they say it early on, not caring how it will play out politically. They are on the right side of every issue I care about. I will eagerly and unapologetically support them.

• There are a lot of reasons not to like Netanyahu, not the least of which that he intentionally insulted the President of the United States (and, by extension, the American people) in the Congress of the United States. I regard anything coming out of him or his government with as much trust as I did the Trump Administration (he is an admirer of Trump). Nothing the Israeli government says about the latest mess carries any weight for me.

Friends and Enemies

There is something gravely wrong with the picture that the US paints for the world. Specifically, when our "enemies" do bad things, we condemn it, but when our "friends" do bad things, we over look or even defend them.

Saudi Arabia assassinates journalists with no US actions. (The Biden administration is no better than Trump's in this case.) Israel uses its occupying army to attack a mosque during Ramadan and the State Department condemns only Hamas. (Here again, no change in policy from the Trump administration.)

I don't care what kind of realpolitik diplomatic euphemisms people want to come up.  Here is what I believe: we should expect better behavior from our allies than from our foes. If not, then what's the point?

So far, I am extremely disappointed with Biden's foreign policy.

Democratic Numbers

It is an objective fact that the Dems have enough members in both Houses of Congress to do pretty much anything they want, at least until 2022. If they don't do something, it will not be for the lack Democrats. It will be for one of the following two reasons (maybe others can find more than two):

• Unwillingness to modify or eliminate the filibuster, and/or

• Conservative/centrist members opposed to certain initiatives on ideological grounds, such as a minimum wage increase, immigration reform, infrastructure spending, etc

In either case, then, if a good Democratic agenda is not enacted, it will not be because the Repubs wouldn't work with them (we already know that). It'll be a conscious choice made by certain members--especially in the Senate. If you like the filibuster, I guess that's your right. Just own it and take the responsibility that you've chosen it over other possibilities.

           

One Sentence Truths

 

• Biden's first hundred days are way better than this leftie expected.

• In a democracy, the people get to decide how they are policed, not the police.

• One of the central teachings of today's Religious Right (and I include my former church body, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Church here), is that God is not just White, but a White American.

• None of the financial crises of my lifetime has been caused by the federal debt or deficit.

• The Trump administration couldn't figure out a way to undercount Hispanics in blue states without also undercounting them in red states.

• Until SCOTUS struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia), interracial marriage was illegal in Delaware.

• If you are a business that can't survive if you have to pay your employees $15 and hour, then you are not a viable business.

Embarrassing Things

One of the most common things I see from conservatives (and this pre-dates Trump by many years) is for them to use phrases something like "liberals are offended if I say X" or "saying X makes liberals mad". I have always found this amusing. My first reaction is to say, "Don't flatter yourself." When my conservative friends or family say dumb (and usually untrue) stuff, I may be astonished or bewildered, but mostly I am embarrassed for them, certainly not angry. It's embarrassing to see people you know and love publicly post crazy shit. And when people I don't know do the same, the last thing I am is offended. They mistake this embarrassment for offense, but I don't have the time or inclination to be angry or offended by dumb things.

A Few Saturday Morning Thoughts

 

• Yay! Another presidential commission.

• I am not buying what John Boehner is selling. But watch the beltway media gobble it up.

• If H.R. 1 and infrastructure program aren't enacted, it will be because of the Manchins and Sinemas, but somehow the Neera Tanden/Abigail Spanberger wing of the party will blame the lefties or BLM or "defund the police." Just watch.

• I am in what seems to be a tiny minority. I am all for criticizing China for its human rights abuses and have no illusions about its motives. At the same time, with some of our most important friends practicing their own forms of genocide and apartheid and corrupton, I have a hard time getting on board with the current unhinged (and bipartisan) level of China hatred. I'm not sure I trust the motives of the American position on this issue.

Pretty Disturbing

I saw this post yesterday for the first time. The more I read it and the more I think about it, the more utterly disturbing I find it. We just had an impeachment in the US because a President tried to overturn a democratic election. The impeachment was an attempt to hold the President accountable. (This coup was unsuccessful.) In Bolivia, there was a successful coup. The resulting junta government killed many hundreds of Bolivian people, including many indigenous citizens. Now, when the legitimate government is trying to hold these criminals to account, this is what the US Secretary of State tweets out. We have a Democrat in the White House and his Secretary of State is putting out tweets worthy of Mike Pompeo. It is deeply upsetting and--along with some other things the Biden Administration has done in the area of foreign policy--raises serious concerns about Biden's policies. We must do better than this Yankee Imperialism.

We are deeply concerned by growing signs of anti-democratic behavior and politicization of the legal system in Bolivia. The Bolivian government should release detained former officials, pending an independent and transparent inquiry into human rights and due process concerns.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) March 27, 2021

A Couple Opinions

 

• Some of the cancel culture warriors on social media are accusing the world of canceling Glenn Greenwald and Matt Tiabbi (as well as Bari Weiss et al). I think this is incorrect (aside from he fact that cancel culture is not a thing). If other perople are like me, they've simply decided that those folks have nothing to say that interests them anymore. There is this thing among some in the the media that they are entitled to your follow-ship. If not, they're being canceled. Grievance culture.

• There is a fair amount of revisionist history going around Twitter to the tune of: almost every reasonable person "knew" that Iraq had WMDs so stop criticizing the Max Boot crowd about all of that. In fact, many millions of Americans and probably most people in the rest of the world believed just the opposite. There was no evidence that there were WMDs and the inspectors responsible for determining this said exactly that. To take this one step further, there are many routes a person could draw to how we got to this place in history where 40% or more of America believes that Republican fairy tales are the real truth. But one reasonable route is that it started here, where the WMD fairy tale lie was put out there by an entire administration, and then even after it was obvious that it was bullshit, Fox News and the Repubs made up instances that proved that they were really there. (Every piece of scrap metal someone found was turned into a WMD.) I think some people still believe Saddam had them, because they know it in their bones, just like they know the election was stolen. This started with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, etc with the help of Fox News. Sound familiar?

Ron Johnson Redux

As a follow up to my post about Ron Johnson a few days ago....

In a radio interview yesterday, Senator Johnson basically said that he was not afraid on January 6 because the rioters were patriotic,  peace-loving White People who love law and order (and the police who they pummeled). He went on to say that if it had been Black Lives Matter, then he would have been afraid.

I am anxiously awaiting the public statement from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (of which Johnson is a member) condemning his blatantly racist comments.

 

• This is getting crazy. I have done this sort of thing in the past, and I guess it's time again. Any time I read an essay or other opinion piece that contains the terms "woke" or "cancel culture" I will stop reading (whether from right or left). There is nothing that person has to say that I need to hear.

• Most of the stories in the MSM about Senator Sinema's infamous thumbs down don't address what most people on the left (at least me) are pissed about. It wasn't the vote; it was the glee and relish with which she delivered it, and the fact that it looked like she was performing for Mitch McConnell. She is a public person--something which she chose to be--so it is entirely fitting to judge her for her public actions.  And this one wss pretty awful. (The fact that her spokesperson chose to play the sexism card to deflect from her public action just makes her look even worse.) It is not good reporting to overlook this dynamic.

• I hope I am still saying this a year from now: the Biden presidency is way better than I expected.

I Thought I Should Post Something, It's Been Awhile

 

• I didn't see the Oprah interview last night so some might think I am not entitled to have an opinion. (The consensus seems to be it was a really good interview.) My comment is that I think it's premature to conclude that this racist stuff is going to bring down the monarchy. The monarchy survived the Jeffrey Epstein pedophilia stuff. I think they stand a good chance of surviving this.

• I am just naive enough to believe that the main cause of poverty is the lack of money.

• Members of the Democratic Socialists of America have won every leadership position in the Nevada Democratic Party. The entire staff of the party has resigned. Oh yes, the defeated incumbent slate ran as "The Progressive Unity Slate". So much for unity. It seems that they also gave themselves severance pay and raided the party Treasury before they left.

• After all is said and done, this bill the Dems are ready to pass is really good.

Tweet of the Day

From a Madison, WI woman’s obituary: "In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Ron Johnson’s opponent in 2022.” https://t.co/G7K9xvMHC8

— Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) March 3, 2021

Ron Johnson, Poster Child

This blog's existence was originally due in large part to my attempt to warn about the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's (WELS) evolution into--at first--a wing of the Republican Party and--eventually--into an allegiance with the Evangelical Right. 

[As an aside, that term (Religious Right or Evangelical Right) has become less descriptive of reality. More recently, some people are using more apt terminology such as Religious Nationalism or White Evangelicalism. Indeed, some have referred to the January 6 riot as a White Evangelical Insurrection. The biggest reason for changing the terminology, is that this sect of the former Religious Right is almost exclusively identified with cult-like loyalty to Donald Trump.]

This descent started out gradually and then took a real nose dive during the four years of the Trump presidency. The WELS has historically been one of the most (doctrinally) conservative church bodies in America. But this was also historically coupled with a pretty steadfast recognition of and adherence to the concept of the "Two Kingdoms". Without getting too deeply into theology, this is the teaching that God created the Church as the authority in spiritual matters (heavenly kingdom) and he created governments as the authority over civil society (earthly kingdom). The synod is run by human beings, so there may have been occasional lapses, but for the most part the WELS did a pretty good job of staying out of the earthly kingdom.

That slowly began to change after (1) Roe v Wade and (2) the election of Barack Obama. I recall fighting some battles with the WELS and some of its affiliated organizations over things like the Affordable Care Act (and its "death panels"), the birth control mandate (where WELS falsely claimed that churches would be required to provide certain coverages) , and (3) same-sex marriage (the gays are going to takeover our churches!). Now, all of a sudden, the WELS was making "public statements" about political issues like it never did before.

The curious thing is that once you start making public statements about certain things that you disagree with, that leaves others to speculate about all the things about which you are not making statements? Does it imply that you approve or at least you dont disapprove. Where's your statement about family separation? children in cages? In effect, the WELS has chosen sides in the culture war and has broken down the wall between the heavenly and earthy kingdoms.

This is kind of a long introduction into my peeve for the day.  You see, Senator Ron Johnson is a WELS member and one of the leading promoters of lies about the past election and the January 6th White Evangelical Insurrection (one of many stories here). Where is the WELS public statement? But beyond that, I would say that the  majority of WELS members I know also believe Johnson's lies, and I am pretty sure they aren't hearing anything from pulpits that pushes back on these lies. My fear is that the WELS has simply become another outpost of the Trumpian Religious Nationalist, White Evangelical political movement, and Ron Johnson is just the poster child.

Trying To Stay Mellow

I was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2020. I think he would have been a terrific and transformative president. It was not to be. It is obvious that the rank-and-file of the party--as well as the insiders--preferred Joe Biden. I was happy to vote for him in November and I am very glad he was elected.

So now what? It's obvious that Biden has reached out to the Bernie wing, which is a good thing. Whether that actually leads to progressive action remains to be seen. There have been both pluses and minuses.

Among the pluses include a few pretty good cabinet appointments and more empathy and transparency in the Covid response. And also just the general temperament of the White House.

As a leftie, I also see the negatives: disappointment at the timidity on issues like student debt and minimum wage. And now the bombing in Syria barely a month into his administration.

Having said that, my goal is to try to stay as mellow as I can about it. I knew going in that there would be plenty of disappointments with Biden, just as there were with Obama. But it's too easy to get sucked into the Twitter outrage at the latest disappointment (most recently the call for the blood of the Senate Parliamentarian).

Take a deep breath, choose your battles and your allies well. If you're a progressive you knew that Biden wasn't going be a savior or anything. For now, take some comfort in some of the smaller things and keep pushing, unashamedly, for the bigger things that we know are needed.

American Foreign Policy

This piece by Stephen Wertheim in yesterday's Times is pretty close to my take on where US foreign policy ought to be headed. Yeah it's behind a paywall but if you can get to it, it's worth a read.

"Investing military might with self-righteous moralism has not only produced one policy failure after another, it has also tarnished the very ideals conscripted into power politics. In crusading to spread American-style freedom, presidents have put the credibility of liberal democracy on the line. When their campaigns failed abroad, a segment of Americans turned to strongman rule at home. Possibly Mr. Trump, with his bottomless performances of cruelty, could become president only after previous leaders treated fundamental issues of power and justice with superficial moralizing and left others to pay the price."

 

Tweet of the Day

Tweeted by the Republican National Committee on Biden's 36th day in office. (As you'd expect, this tweet generated some mighty fine replies.)

On the campaign trial, Biden promised to reopen schools within his first 100 days in office.

But that is just another promise that President Biden hasn’t kept.

— GOP (@GOP) February 25, 2021

Cuomo and Other Things

• There are several Democratic governors who are worth admiring and even putting forth as presidential material. Andrew Cuomo is not one of them. I couldn't believe how many of my liberal friends in 2020 were putting him out there as an unbeatable Democratic presidential nominee. Please stop it. He never was or will be anything but a bad governor.

• Today is a good illustration of why I say Political Correctness (as well as wokeness, cancel culture, etc.) is not a thing. The unhinged Right finds and condemns PC-ness in every corner of America. But Rush Limbau dies and they are invoking it as a wonderful thing to be practiced with vigor.

• Wanted: A Republican officeholder who is willing to take responsibility for something. Anything at all.

• For a long time now, I have been having a hard time getting my head around why eliminating the filibuster is some sort of sinister evilness. Even without the filibuster, the Senate is an inherently undemocratic body.  It was at the country's founding and has become more so as new demographiics have evolved over the years. With the filibuster, the institution is even more obscenely undemocratic.
  
  In short, I can't see how making the Senate more democratic is a bad thing. And no one has been able to convince me otherwise so far.

Headline of the Day

 From Jennifer Rubin's op-ed in WaPo:

Opinion: Texas shows that when you cannot govern, you lie. A lot.

Ignoring the Vote

I wrote a blog post early this year about the idea that the real aim of all the bogus Trump lawsuits was to set up further voter suppression initiatives (with the Supreme Court's approval) for the next election. The idea was to create "doubts" which then require "reforms" with the true goal of keeping the wrong type of  person from voting.

While I still think they Republicans will do this, it is also somewhat true that minorites have found ways to come out and vote anyway (with some exceptions). So now I think we are starting to see movement by the Trumpies controlling the state parties of finding ways to gain control of the voting commissions and other state entities that could have the power to actually overturn the results. They were hoping to get the courts to do it but without success.  So instead, they will empower some of these canvassing boards or other groups to actually not certify the results and throw the election into the state legislatures.

The idea is to go ahead and let the people vote, but if we don't like the result, we now have the infrastructure in place to overturn it. "Suppressing" the vote didn't work (before and after the election) so we'll try "ignoring" the vote instead. They may not be successful, but there's no doubt in my mind that they will try to do exactly that.

Influence of Black Lives Matter

Centrist Democrats in Congress (Spanberger et al) can sputter all they want about how bad Black Lives Matter is, but one of today's most underreported stories is how much influence and inspiration the movement has had all over the world, including Europe and the Global South.

Personally, it serves as the reminder to me (of which I am constantly in need) that movements are the leaders and partisan politics is the follower. That was true of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as well as Black Lives Matter and, say, Occupy Wall Street in this century.

This is not to pooh-pooh the importance of politics. I am encouraged more than I expected to be by some of President Biden's proposals. But he and the Democratic political class aren't pulling the people into these positions. Rather, they have been pushed there by the activists.

Jezebel?

As a little follow up to my recent post about the WELS, this article in HuffPost shows the sort of religious folks with whom the Wisconsin Synod has now allied itself. They would deny it but they're all in.

Today's Opinions

 

• Lowering the income phase-out from 75/150 to 50/100 on the current simulus package is terrible from both policy and political perspectives. This is how Democrats lose elections.

• Liz Cheney is her father's daughter. I am quite confident that it won't be long before she will do something that will make me not like her again.

• I agree with those who say we need no new "domestic terrorist" laws after January 6th. We have plenty of laws, just enforce them. If post-9/11 legilation is any indication (and why wouldn't it be?) any such laws would ultimately be used more against minorities and leftists than against the right-wing terrorists for whom they're be intended.

• Random observation: Sheriffs aren't inherently any sort of law-enforcement experts. Although I'm sure there are many decent and honorable shroffs around the country, it is a political office for which anyone can run. And beoing a political office, it will always attract the likes of Arpaio and Clarke who like the power.

Bret Stephens

I've gotten to the point where I actually like to read Bret Stephens' op-eds in the Times even if there are some areas (e.g., climate change) where he is full of crap. This piece, "A Letter to My Liberal Friends" has some valid points. The problem, though, is one that is common in many conservatives commentaries: it ascribes beliefs and motives to "liberals" that maybe aren't there. 

In this essay he implies that all of us people in the Left want the whole country to be like California. Then he proceeds with a litany of all the shitty things in California, and therefore proving that liberals are all wrong.

I am a lefty living in Chicago. There are a lot of good things happening in California. And people can find lots of bad things. But I can say unequivocally that I have no desire for Chicago to be, say, San Francisco. I would also tell Mr. Stephens that there are actually many days that go by when California doesn't even enter my mind, much less wishing I lived there, or that I want this place to be more like it.

So, I am actually more than happy to hear good-faith arguments about where I might be misguided. But this straw man doesn't measure up.

A Few Things about Conservatives

 

• We'd like to thank the ten Republicans for their "compromise" bill. This makes it almost too easy to see exactly what working with Repubs gets us: nothing--just cut the original by two-thirds. The original $1.9 trillion was already too low, but was maybe another (!) attempt by Dems to try to attract GOP support. Not gonna happen. On to reconciliation. Might as well add more to it while they're at it.

• Most of the "reasonable" Republicans everyone is fawning over never used the phrase "President-Elect Biden" after the election. Such a low bar.

• Mike Huckabee once described himself as "I'm a conservative, but I'm not angry about it." The media went out of their way to describe him as the kind of guy you'd want to have a beer with. But he is just another incarnation of Donald Trump. He hasn't changed. He was always this. And now his daughter, too. The media keep wanting to present us with reasonable, principled conservatives (Rubio, Cruz, Walker, Haley, and on and on), but they aren't there. They try to invent them but sooner or later they expose themselves for what they are.

An Open Letter to the WELS

Even among those few people who seem to come across this blog now and then, most won't be interested in this post. It involves a church body of which I was once a member: the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (hereinafter referred to as WELS or the WELS). Indeed, I initially started this blog, and decided on the name Leftist Lutheran, as a push-back against things I was seeing in the WELS and some of its affiliated organizations that were of concern to me (and my spouse). So if you have no interest in the esoterica of Lutheranism, you might want to skip this.

The things that concerned us started pretty much when Barack Obama was elected, and that should have raised even more of a red flag at the time as to some of the motives behind what we were seeing. WELS has an officially-affiliated organization called Christian Life Resources (CLR), whose primary purpose is anti-abortion. If you read my blog in its earliest days in 2010 and onward, you saw that I spent a considerable amount of time challenging this group's activities. They were contrary to the doctrines and teachings of the WELS, and I wrote about that. (I also pushed back directly at both CLR and the WELS leadership, but to no avail.) What was concerning was that moral relativism was creeping into their activities, as well as out-and-out falsehood.

For example, they bought into and encouraged the false allegation of death panels in the ACA. They used the edited and discredited tapes of supposed Planned Parenthood selling of body parts. For many years they had the Life Wire News on their website, a highly questionable advocacy news source with questionable journalistic standards. In short, as long as something "served the greater good" it was deemed "true". There were lots of other issues, but you'd have to go back and read posts from the first few years of the blog. It was disturbing at the time but we never dreamed of where we'd be today.

Later on in the Obama presidency, the Synod itself started putting out public statements concerning Obamacare and same-sex marriage that were misleading at best and untruthful at worst. When we challenged the WELS President the response was basically "you are probably technically correct but we still think that generally what we said is true." The WELS had become openly political. This was the point at which we decided we could no longer be a part of that church body.

Fast forward to the Trump years. This embracing of untruth in order to justify social or political or cultural beliefs has become a central tenet of the majority of WELS people we know (also Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which has a lot of similarities to the WELS). We know quite a few members of these two church bodies, and anecdotally the impression we have is that many or most have gone full QAnon. And these people believe they are living their religion. And some of these people were preaching from pulpits or teaching our kids in Lutheran schools. I have come to believe that you tell the beliefs of a church body by what people in the pews believe, not what is written in some tomes in the Synod archives. These people believe this stuff. And I don't think they would if they weren't getting some sort of validation (or more) from the pulpit and other church leadership. What started as fudging the truth to help along in the culture war in the Obama years has metamorphosed into total QAnon conspiracy craziness. It is sad and scary to see people I though I knew being a part of this.

Hank Aaron, RIP

Hank Aaron was one of the best, in so many ways.

As a kid who spent his early childhood in Milwaukee in the 1950s, just after the Braves moved there, I think my earliest and most enduring memory concerning Hank Aaron (his rookie year was 1954) is that none of the white suburbs wanted him to live in their city. 

It was probably my first time experience with the fact that the America I was taught in school wasn't the America that actually existed in lives of many people. And this is still the false America that conservatives want to teach our kids today.

Some Inauguration Day Thoughts

 

• Red states hate the coastal elites, but they do almost everything they can to get those elites to move to their states.

• I guess I am okay with this "get tough with China stuff." As long as we also get tough with Saudi Arabia and Israel and India and Turkey and all of our other authoritarian "friends".

• Matt Walsh on Twitter today said that with Biden we have our first president with full-blown dementia. That's an interesting take. I saw two speeches today--Trump's "farewell" and Biden's Inaugural Address. I agree that one of our last two presidents might be suffering from dementia, but it's not the one Walsh thinks.

• Biden is changing the name from "Ambassador to Israel" to "Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza". I like it!

 

Tweet of the Day

GOP traded 400,000 American lives for 234 Trump judges & tax cuts for the rich

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) January 19, 2021

Friday Opinions

 

• I'm a big fan of contrarian journalism, but Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi have gone to such an extreme, it's like they've become clowns. Their journalism today does a lot of judging the motives of the left, to such an extent that I now question theirs. It's possible that they have discovered a niche in the anti-anti-Trump world that is very lucrative for them, so they're going to milk it for all it's worth.

• The latest Washington Post poll shows wide margins of disapproval for the riot in Washington. The problem is that--to the extent that Republicans actually disapprove--it's only to the extent that they blame antifa infiltrators for the riot. Most of these people haven't changed their minds about anything. Not a hopeful sign for the future of this country.

• President-elect Biden presented a vaccine distribution plan (in an effort to rescue the country from the Trump disaster). The actual President met with the pillow guy about declaring martial law.

• I return to this every now and then: Donald Trump is responsible for a couple thousand deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria. It turned out to be just a dry run for the deaths of hundreds of thousands he caused from Covid. And 80% of Republicans approve.

Don't Kid Yourself

The Republican Party of the last four years will be the Republican Party of the next four years, and probably longer. It is more likely to be the party of Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy and Lauren Boebert than to be the party of Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski or even Liz Cheney. It is Trump's party. The Trump of the last week or the last couple months since the election is the same Trump as always. The GOP can pretend it's something new but they know that's a lie. This is the same guy to  whom they've bent the knee for four years. We know their true colors.

Two-thirds of the House Republicans and a significant number of Senators voted a few days ago to overturn the election. Republican state legislatures are already talking about messing with the Electoral College to further disenfranchise Black voters. You can be certain that all around the country, states will be enacting laws to further suppress the votes of those they regard as less worthy. And there is a Supreme Court ready to give its stamp of approval.

The fact is that the Repubs are fully on board with the racism, xenophobia, mysogeny, and general awfulness espoused by Trump. They prefer that it is done a more acceptable dog-whistle sort of way but they are fine with it. The insurrection at the Capitol is simply an annoyance they are trying to work through, but you can tell by their milquetoast condemnations of the attack (with a few notable exceptions) that they just want to get past it and get on with their agenda.

The Religious Right is still on board and they are still a controlling partisan force. They've sold their souls. I include my former church body in this group: the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Church. It's membership has gone full QAnon. The Trinity they worship today is God, Guns, and Trump. They even wear t-shirts bragging about it.

Many have characterized the events of January 6 as a deflection point. I think it was Ta-Nehisi Coates who said it in a different context: I am hopeful but not optimistic. There have been a lot of platitudes the past few days with sentiments like, "This is not who we are." I guess we need to hear that at times like these, but I'm afraid it's likely that this is exactly who we are.

I hope everything I have written in these paragraphs turns out to be wrong.

Tweet of the Day

This is actually from October 2016, but is awfully prescient and relevant for today.

Nothing about Trump has ever looked kinda bad at first but turned out OK. He's always worse than you thought.

— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) October 8, 2016

What a Country

• It turns out that "deplorable" was the correct descriptor after all.

• Max Berger on Twitter: "I would bet on the Bannonite wing of the Republican Party over the Romney wing of the Republican Party." I think this is the correct take.

• I decided to do a DuckDuckGo on what pretend-Christian Franklin Graham was saying about the Trump/QAnon riot at the Capitol. From a couple tweets I saw, what do you think he was saying? You guessed it. Both parties are responsible. Oh, and antifa, too! What an awful man.

• I actually know someone who traveled all the way to DC to take part in the riot. Then she claimed that she was at the Capitol and it was peaceful except that antifa infiltrated the peace-loving deplorables and became violent. And then they couldn't get out of town because Black Lives Matter was there tying up traffic. I am not making this up.

Tweet of the Day

Thinking about all the excuses being made for the grown adults who stormed the capitol (they've been having a hard time, they got brainwashed, they saw no future) and how they apply to 16 year olds in gangs but you don't often hear it applied to them when they get arrested

— Danny Gold (@DGisSERIOUS) January 8, 2021

Just a Quick Reminder

I am as disgusted as anyone about the riot in Washington yesterday. Attempting to overturn or undo a fair democratic election is a terrible thing. It is also something the US has done many times in other countries.

Tweet of the Day

Former General John Kelly just said on TV that he wasn't fully aware of President Trump's flaws before becoming chief of staff, and this is why you should never listen to a general when they tell you about how great the wars are going.

— Dario DiBattista (@DarioDiBattista) January 7, 2021

White Guy Entitlement

Josh Hawley's tweet about Simon and Schuster's decision to cancel publication of his book is the height of elitist white boy entitlement grievance. Your First Amendment rights do not require that Simon and Schuster provide a forum for your drivel. Oh and also: if your book is as full of banal right-wing cliches as your statement and tweet, then maybe that's the reason for S&S's decision.

My statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/pDxtZvz5J0

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 7, 2021

Just Another Day in Trumpworld

• I am suspending my normal no-name-calling self-edict for twenty seconds so that I can add myself to the list of people telling Josh Hawley that he is a wimpy snowflake.

• Seems like not many antifa in DC today but plenty of pro-fa.

• Also seems like a bunch of rioting white people are treated a little different. This is what white privilege looks like.

• I can't wait for Thiessen and Abernathy to tell us how this is the fault of the radical left.

Now Here's a Good Political Ad

A political ad at Georgia Democratic candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock Labor Canvass Launch at IBEW Local 613 on January 5, 2021 in Marietta, Georgia. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

Quoting George Will

This is probably the first time I've ever quoted George Will. It is testimony to how bat-shit crazy the Repubs have become that the once far-right Will now almost sounds moderate (or something).

Anyway, here are a couple quotes from his op-ed in The Washington Post.

For many years, some people insisted that a vast conspiracy, not a lone gunman, masterminded the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy near the grassy knoll in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza. To these people, the complete absence of evidence proved the conspiracy’s sophistication. They were demented. Today’s senatorial Grassy Knollers — Hawley, with Cruz and others panting to catch up — are worse. They are cynical.

 And:

But for scores of millions of mesmerized Trump Republicans, who think the absence of evidence is the most sinister evidence, this proves that the courts, too, are tentacles of the “deep state.” Hawley and Cruz, both of whom clerked for chief justices of the Supreme Court, hope to be wafted into the White House by gusts of such paranoia.

I don't think this ends after the inauguration. This is now today's GOP.

The Real Aim: Voter Suppression

 

I think I agree with a lot of folks I've seen online: maybe the big endgame for the Repubs here is voter disenfranchisement. They know that they will lose in their seditious behavior in Congress this week, but are hoping to lay the groundwork for "reforms" to address the nonexistent ''irregularities" that they have created in their QAnon alternate universe. The easiest way to not lose Georgia and other states again is to make sure that certain voters not be allowed to vote again.

The Courts have come out of this looking pretty good. But never forget that the Courts--and SCOTUS in particular--are not opposed to voter suppression. They just aren't allowing this kind of voter suppression, i.e., after-the-fact throwing out of votes. They will be more than eager to be complicit in more "respectable" forms of disenfranchisement and suppression. Indeed, they have a long and consistent track record of doing exactly that.

Just watch.

c

• Trump's call to Raffensperger is surely an impeachable offense (although nothing will come of it). But don't forget that for something like 40% of Americans--and maybe a majority of White People--Trump is doing exactly what they want him to be doing.

• If you spend any time on Twitter, one of the things that jumps out at you is that a lot of people totally lack a sense of irony.

• Liz Cheney has actually said some good things lately. I never expected to say that anytime in my lifetme. Now that it's happened, I fully expect the earth's magnetic field to flip next week.

• If I see one more piece on "Covid wasn't all Trump's fault", my head is going to explode. (The latest was in Vox). Of course it wasn't. But guess who the President of the United States was in 2020? Only one guy, and he was a disaster. Fifty governors wouldn't have been able to rescue us from that. So just stop it already.

2020 Reading List

Books I read in 2020. Quite a few more than a normal year, thanks to Covid. On the bright side, I discovered some new and amazing authors. The world keeps producing more and more of them all the time.

Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings

Henrik Pontoppidan, Lucky Per

Ella Cara Deloria, Waterlily

Gail Tsukiyama, The Samurai's Garden

Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons

Téa Obreht, Inland

E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime

Alia Trabucco Zerán, The Remainder

Zadie Smith, Swing Time

Mario Levrero, Empty Words (trans. Annie McDermott)

Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues

Han Kang, The Vegetarian (trans. Deborah Smith)

Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel

Mohsin Hamid, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

John Mauceri, Maestros and Their Music

J. M. Coetzee, Foe

Bernadine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other

Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang

Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

Robert Hicks, Orphan Mother

Paul Monette, Last Watch of the Night

N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became

Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Martin Riker, Samuel Johnson's Eternal Return

Anna Quindlen, Blessings

Sally Rooney, Normal People

Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Madhuri Vijay, The Far Field

Jennifer Ackerman, The Genius of Birds

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Esi Edugyan, Washington Black

Julia Scheeres, Jesus Land

Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice

Fatima Farheen Mirza, A Place for Us

Sandra Newman, The Heavens

Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

Ursula Hegi, The Vision of Emma Blau

Nell Zink, Doxology