Politics of Fear – Page 15 – The Wrongologist

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 29, 2017

“All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” –Kurt Vonnegut.

Quoting from Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” seems to catch the Trump zeitgeist. It was hard to focus on what the GOP and Trump were doing between the tweetstorms. So you could be forgiven for not noticing that Trump’s ban on immigration includes Green Card holders from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. And Homeland Security says that’s really the policy. Legal residents holding the wrong passport who happened to be outside the US are now stranded. This includes students, business executives, and even a few US business owners. You can leave, but you cannot come back is the message of the day. Christians will be allowed in though, so here’s the best idea yet:

Trump builds a wall to keep Speedy out:

This is from Italy’s Matteo Bertelli. You can bet that in his next panel, Speedy jumps up on Trump’s head, and The Donald grabs a hammer…

Voter fraud is a yuuge problem only in the Orange Ahab’s mind:

Voter fraud? Or, voted for a fraud?

Trump wants at least one Chinese import:

Trump keeps his focus on the real enemies:

Are Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson Soul Mates?

President Trump has hung a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the oval office. Several of Trump’s spokespeople have heaped praise on Jackson, so Trump has picked Old Hickory as his populist role model.

Really? Did anyone on Trump’s staff even read the Cliffs Notes about Andrew Jackson? Here is the surface view:

A presidential candidate who strikes a wide range of observers, including leaders of his own party, as dangerously abrasive, arrogant, and racist. Partly because of those qualities, the candidate appeals stylistically to common-man voters who feel threatened by change, despite his being one of the super-rich himself. While this is Donald Trump in 2016, it also describes Andrew Jackson in the 1820s.

According to Benjamin Studebaker, when Jackson was elected, the accepted view was America needed strong economic growth to compete with Europe. Most thought the country needed to be industrialized quickly to turn us into an independent power. Tariffs should protect infant American industries from their established British competitors. Infrastructure investments should be directed towards transportation.

Jackson was uninterested in industrialization. He won the election because of slaveholding, agricultural states. The southern states had not industrialized, and they hated tariffs. Tariffs made British manufactured goods expensive, and made the price of Southern cotton uncompetitive. South Carolina attempted to nullify the tariffs, which led to tough talk and threats by Jackson to invade. But, ultimately, he signed legislation to reduce the South’s tariffs.

At the time, Jackson was praised for averting a violent confrontation, but his compromise left the issue of nullification unresolved. This eventually led to our Civil War.

The Second Bank of the United States (created by John Q. Adams, Jackson’s predecessor), was designed to stabilize prices and facilitate commerce. Jackson refused to renew the charter of the Second Bank of the US. Public monies were then directed to state banks, called “pet banks” since they were located in states that were Jackson’s core base of support. This deprived the industrial northeast of the investment funds it needed to grow.

The favored state banks began lending the new money feverishly, inflating land prices, and exposing the banks to undue risk.

Jackson blamed the resulting inflation on paper money, so he issued the “Specie Circular”, an executive order requiring all land purchases from the federal government to be made in gold and silver. This destroyed the value of the country’s paper currency, causing land prices to crash.

Executive orders can come back to bite you, Donald.

There is supreme irony that Jackson waged war on the Second Bank of United States, but he is on our $20 bill. Jackson found support for his economy policies among white men who felt threatened by changing from an agrarian to an industrial economy. But his war on the Bank, and the Democrats’ commitment to limited federal government helped propel the country into a four-year depression after the Panic of 1837.

Jackson created the spoils system. Thereafter, newly elected presidents would purge the civil service and hand out government jobs to friends, supporters, and even relatives. Jackson fired 10% of the federal workforce, replacing experienced hands with his buddies and lackeys. This practice continued for decades, ensuring that the federal government was consistently full of incompetents.

Jackson drained the swamp, and then recharged it with camp followers. Just like Trump!

Many on the right revere Jackson for the same reason they admire Donald Trump – he acts like a badass. Jackson killed people in duels. He spoke his mind. He may have rolled over on tariffs, but he used the word “treason” to describe South Carolina before he compromised. That made him seem tough.

The Right lets Jackson’s tough manner obscure the reality, that often he had little notion of the consequences of his actions. He sank the country’s economy for a decade, and handed its civil service over to generations of mismanagement.

A reappraisal of Jackson’s presidency forces us to look at the now-infamous policy of Indian Removal, whereby Jackson approved the confiscation of Native lands and then forcibly evicted them to the far West. He ignored John Marshall’s Supreme Court ruling that his Removal policy was unconstitutional.

He thought those in the abolitionist movement were traitors. His Postmaster General suppressed their mailings, and his party passed the Gag Rule in 1836 suppressing all antislavery petitions and discussion in Congress.

Trump’s new Gag Rule on Abortion limits the funding of global family planning providers if in any aspect of their work, they recommend, discuss, or even mention abortions to clients.

In most ways, it’s a fool’s errand to compare Trump to Andrew Jackson. Although there are gross similarities, Trump isn’t Jackson. Jackson was a military hero, but a failure at national policy. Trump has no heroic resume, and the jury is out on the success of his national policy.

For one thing, Trump confuses military school with military service.

Is It Legitimate To Say Trump’s Not Legitimate?

“As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew” – Lincoln

Everybody’s been talking about the dust up between Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Donald Trump. Lewis’s statement that Trump is not a legitimate president obviously hit our Overlord-elect in a soft, squishy spot, and he immediately lashed out at Lewis.

Advocates from both sides rushed to defend their guy’s actions. Lots of people are saying “not my president”, which doesn’t necessarily imply illegitimacy as much as disapproval, but many like the sound of saying Trump is illegitimate:

There are misguided people who sincerely think that Trump wasn’t elected in a fair election, that votes were somehow stolen from Hillary Clinton, despite the lack of evidence to support that contention.
There are others who think the result was unfairly influenced by outside forces ranging from the FBI here at home, to foreign governments, principally Russia. If you believe that FBI Director Comey’s actions were illegitimate, or that Russia intervened, you could conclude that the result may be illegitimate.

But, most think the election results reflect what happened in the voting booth; that the outcome was how people voted, and Trump won according to the rules.

Charles Blow in the NYT defined two types of legitimacy: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

It is true that Donald Trump is, by all measures of the law, the legitimate president-elect and will legitimately be inaugurated our 45th president on Friday…There simply is no constitutional or statutory mechanism to nullify the installation of an elected president based on election influencing, even by a hostile state actor. The framers of the Constitution had no way of anticipating digital warfare being used in a propaganda attack. The Constitution was ratified before electric lights were invented.

But there is another way of considering legitimacy, another test that his election doesn’t meet: That is when legitimacy is defined as “conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards.”

Here, [John] Lewis and his fellow believers are on solid footing.

Trump overreacted to Lewis, saying that John Lewis’s Congressional district is poverty stricken, and all Lewis does is talk, Trump is simply wrong on the facts. Lewis’s district includes a combination of prosperous and less prosperous bits of Atlanta. From Atrios:

But basically this is Trump’s view that all black people live in hellholes and all urban areas not within 15 feet of his golden palace in the sky are hellholes…Which is fine, he’s entitled to his preferences. But 70 years on this Earth and it seems like he’s seen his penthouse, some golf courses, the occasional glance out his limo window, and that’s it, other than 24/7 cable news. Strange life, given his resources.

Charles Blow reminds us: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)

[Trump is] A lecher attacking a legend; a man of moral depravity attacking a man of moral certitude; an intellectual weakling attacking a warrior for justice…Trump attacks Lewis as, “All talk, talk, talk — no action”; Lewis, who repeatedly thrust his body unto the breach for justice, who was arrested, beaten and terrorized, including during the time that young Trump was at his well-heeled schools, receiving draft deferments from the Vietnam War.

In fact, one of Trump’s five deferments was in 1965, the same year as the Selma marches and “Bloody Sunday,” during which Lewis was struck so violently by a state trooper wielding a billy club that Lewis’s skull was fractured.

Let’s stop focusing on whether the Overlord-elect is “legitimate”. The important thing is that we now have a president who wants to help Putin destroy the European Union. He wants to dismantle NATO, tear up the Iran Nuclear Agreement, and confront China.

At home, we will lose the ACA. There will be malicious surgery to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Corporate and personal income taxes (at least for the wealthy) will go down. (In fact, the rash of corporate commitments to build new production facilities in the US may be in anticipation of a corporate tax deal). We may see a Value Added Tax (VAT) of 20%-30% to pay for it all. VAT’s fall disproportionately on the middle and lower classes.

There will be ideologically-driven Supreme Court appointments as well.

It is worth emphasizing that Trump has the most conservative Senate and House since at least 1930. Part of the reason he is dangerous is that the restraint centrist Republicans once placed on Republican Presidents is largely gone.

America’s center and left are so weak, they can’t stand against the programs that conservative Republicans, the Tea Party and the alt-right coalition that will govern us, are now preparing.

The question shouldn’t be whether Trump was elected legitimately, that ship has sailed.

But how will we derail his program?

What, Me Worry?

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” –HL Mencken

As we head towards the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, it is interesting to look at a recent survey by Ipsos Public Affairs, Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens? that was cited in an article by the World Economic Forum. The global conclusion was that people think things are getting worse:

Between October and November 2016, the percentage of people who believe things are on the right track in their country dropped by 2 percentage points to 37% globally.

The survey is conducted online monthly in 25 countries by Ipsos. The countries are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the US. Ipsos samples 18,110 adults aged 18-64 in Canada, Israel and the US, and aged 16-64 in all other countries. They were interviewed between October 21^st and November 4^th 2016, with about 1000 people participating in the US and other Western countries. The survey has an estimated margin of error of +/-3.1 percentage points.

Here is a chart giving a snapshot of right track/wrong track just prior to the US presidential election:

This shows the US in the middle of the pack, with 65% of those surveyed saying we are on the wrong track. That is consistent with other surveys of American sentiment. In China, 90% of people expressed confidence in their country’s direction, followed by Saudi Arabia (80%), India (76%) and Russia (58%).

Among Western nations, Canadians are the only people with a predominantly positive outlook (54%).
The US showed a small month-on-month drop in “right track” from 37% to 35%.
France and Mexico bring up the rear as their citizens have the least confidence in their country’s direction: 88% and 96% of the populace respectively believe that their country is on the wrong track. Only 4% of Mexicans think their country is on the right track!

Ipsos also surveyed the issues that worry citizens in each country the most. They asked the question: Which three of the following topics do you find the most worrying in your country? In the US, the top three issues were:

Terrorism: 33%
Healthcare: 32%
Financial/Political Corruption: 29%

It is not clear that terrorism is profoundly worrying to Americans, since 67% of those surveyed chose something else to worry about. Remember that the rankings are based on how frequently the item is mentioned as the first in a list of three issues. Here is an Ipsos chart that compares the number one issue people worry about in each country:

Only Turkey, Israel and the US ranked terrorism first. Americans fear terrorism slightly more than uncertainty with their healthcare (32%). And they worry about corruption slightly more (29%-28%) than they worry about crime and violence. Where are poverty and social equality? Seventh, with 19%. What about education? Ninth, with 15%. Maintaining social programs are 14^th tied with inflation at 7%.

Fear is emotional, it is not driven by logic about actual levels of risk. Assessment of risk is (mostly) a logical process, with a tiny element of emotion. Acts of terror are frightening, but the likelihood of one happening to you is infinitesimally small in the US. It is therefore, an irrational fear.

OTOH, do people worry about being mugged when walking through a sketchy part of the city? Most do. How many actually get mugged? Not many. But that fear has a basis in fact.

And terrorism isn’t about killing as many people as it can. It is about gaining a political victory through terror. Think about the 9/11 attack in NYC. Millions watched the Towers fall. Those in NYC saw the smoke for weeks. That is the end point of terror, and probably explains why so many rank it as their top worry.

In the survey, six countries worried more about terrorism than the US. They are: Turkey (66%), Israel (51%), France (44%), India (43%), Saudi Arabia (40%) and Germany (34%). Those countries all have more real-world reasons to worry about terrorism than do Americans.

However, our neo-con politicians in collusion with a number of think tanks, and the military-industrial complex, have made a significant portion of Americans believe it is a rational fear. They do this for financial gain and control.

Control keeps the grift going.

And, like Israel, the more Muslims we kill, the more terrorists we create. Where is the virtue in this for anyone except the Defense Department, Lockheed, Rockwell, Northrup, Raytheon, Honeywell and Wall Street?

Monday Wake Up Call – Russian Hacking Edition, January 9, 2017

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” Saul Bellow

Trump had his briefing last Friday by the Intelligence Community (IC), about the Russian hacking. He then released this statement:

I had a constructive meeting and conversation with the leaders of the Intelligence Community this afternoon. I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation.

While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democratic National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines…

Whether it is our government, organizations, associations or businesses we need to aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks. I will appoint a team to give me a plan within 90 days of taking office. The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm. Two weeks from today I will take the oath of office and America’s safety and security will be my number one priority.

He denied nothing that the IC presented, and agreed with several points. His bottom line, that the hacking did not affect the outcome of the election, is important: Trump is all about meme creation and meme destruction. His goal is to prevent the “Russians elected Trump” meme from becoming the next birther movement. If his tweets stay on message, he’ll get by this moment.

For what it is worth, hacking isn’t noteworthy; it’s been going on for years, by the Russians, the Chinese, the US and just about everyone else. There is way more hacking now, since most management systems are online, and few corporations are willing to invest enough to insure real protection from it.

OTOH, disinformation is a big deal. Social media makes Russia potentially a potent force in opinion control in the US and Europe. Hacked information can now be fed into the disinformation machine to great effect. We ignore Russia’s ability to influence US public opinion at our own risk.

Trump’s reaction to the IC briefing is comforting, since there was no histrionics or name calling. He said in this tweet that he will continue to push for a good relationship with Russia:

Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only “stupid” people, or fools, would think that it is bad!

This makes him seem reasonable, so he can get on with the work of NOT going to war with Russia over the hack of the DNC.

When you look at the IC Report, it looks like Russian hackers were responsible for the phishing attack against John Podesta. The same accounts were used to hack into the DNC.

The next thing to know is whether it was the Russian hackers who shared this information with WikiLeaks. That appears to be the case, although we are taking it on faith, since the IC hasn’t shown us their work:

US intelligence has identified the go-betweens the Russians used to provide stolen emails to WikiLeaks, according to US officials familiar with the classified intelligence report that was presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday.

We may never see more on how they identified them, since it may be a little too sensitive to divulge.

It pains Wrongo to say this, as a lifelong Democrat, but if Trump manages to beat back the neocon/pro-New Cold War crowd and work cooperatively with the Russians, the world will be a safer place.

Hillary would never had gone there as president.

This is perhaps the silver lining to a Trump presidency, possibly avoiding what looked to be a showdown with Russia and potentially, WWIII.

From a domestic policy perspective, however, the odds have increased that we tear this country apart by 2020.

So, today everybody needs a Wake-Up. The hacking didn’t change the election result, instead, we got this outcome as the result of a successful campaign strategy by Trump, and a failed campaign strategy by Clinton.

No music today, instead, we will watch a short clip from the 1983 movie, “War Games”. Matthew Broderick hacks into a Pentagon computer, assisted by his sidekick, Ally Sheedy. He then plays “Global Thermonuclear War” with the computer, except it isn’t a game. Broderick plays the Russians and the computer plays the USA. Ultimately, the world is saved:

Wrongo’s Useless 2017 Predictions

“It’s tough to make predictions. Especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra

Since you have already plunged a stake into the heart of 2016, it is time for some predictions about 2017, which most likely, won’t happen. We can expect the following:

There will be more global political and social turmoil:
1. The EU could collapse. France is a Marine LePen government away from pursuing an exit from the EU, so there would be a Frexit to go along with Brexit.
2. China’s economy is wobbling, and China’s president Xi has leaned into a populist message:

On this New Year, I am most concerned about the difficulties of the masses: how they eat, how they live, whether they can have a good New Year…

The US will continue to lose influence globally despite “Mr. Unpredictable” becoming our Orange Overlord: Trump brags about winning when he negotiates. That has been undeniably true in his real estate and name brand licensing. He will find that when the other side doesn’t need access to his brand in order to succeed, he will have to resort to instilling fear. That may work once, but it will not work consistently.
A corollary: Trump arrives in the Oval Office as an overconfident leader, the man with no plan but with a short attention span, and within six months, he will have his first major policy failure. Getting his hand burned will make him more subdued, more conservative and less populist thereafter.
A second corollary: The triumvirate of Russia/Turkey/Iran will elbow the US firmly out of the Fertile Crescent, and secure friendly regimes in Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran. This will push American influence in the Middle East back to just the Gulf States, a weakened Saudi Arabia, and an increasingly isolated Israel.
Domestically, drug abuse, suicide, and general self-destructive behavior will continue to climb and become impossible to ignore.
The Trump stock market rally has already turned into the Santa Selloff. The Dow peaked on December 20 at 19,975, 25 points away from party-hat time. But since then, Dow 20,000 slipped through our fingers like sand. It closed the year at 19,719, down 281 points from 20k.
Regarding the stock market, many people who want to sell stocks waited until 2017 in order to pay lower capital gains tax. Selling in January could lower prices further.
The growing antibiotic resistance to main stream drugs will impact health in the US.

Meta Prediction: It is certain that few Trump voters will get the results they voted for. Some people who voted for Trump have incompatible outcomes in mind, so it’s a virtual guarantee that a sizable minority are going to feel cheated when they fail to get what they were promised.

OTOH, when Trump fails, most of his base will blame anyone but the Donald. The question is, when disillusionment sets in, will the reaction be a turning away, or a doubling down on the anger?

Wrongo thinks anger will win out.

The coming Trump administration will seem like a fractious family outing: Just under half of the family (the “landslide” segment) wanted to go out, but now, the whole family has to go. Those who wanted to stay home will sulk in the back seat while Daddy tells them to stop bitching.

Meanwhile, once we are out of the driveway, it dawns on everyone that Daddy hasn’t decided yet where to go. Everyone pipes up with suggestions, but Daddy again tells everyone to shut up, because it’s his decision alone. There will be the usual “are we there yet?” complaining, some motion sickness and incessant fighting over who is touching whom.

Daddy won’t reveal the destination, but insists everyone will love it once they get there, even those who wanted to stay home, those who wanted to go the beach, and those who wanted to head over the cliff like Thelma and Louise.

Time for our Monday Wake Up Call, “Wake Up Everybody”, originally by Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes, featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Teddy left the group for his solo career after this album.

But, today we will hear and watch John Legend’s cover of the tune, backed by the Roots Band along with Melanie Fiona, and Common. The song is as strong as it was 42 years ago when it was released:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Christmas Eve 2016

(We will be taking the next few days off. Regular posting will resume on December 27)

Family starts arriving tonight here at the mansion of Wrong. We always have three Christmas parties, one the weekend before the holiday week, and in this case, on the 25^th and the 26^th. It’s a big family, with many adult children and adult grandchildren, so we try to accommodate as many schedules as possible. There’s less tension that way.

Many say that this is the most wonderful time of the year. Perhaps it’s better if we don’t think about what a roller coaster ride of a year we had in 2016.

Do you think that we need a little Christmas after the year we had? The tune “We Need a Little Christmas” is from the musical Mame, which opened on Broadway in 1966. It is sung in the scene when the stock-market crash of 1929 has just hit, and Mame’s deceased brother’s 10-year-old son has been entrusted to her care. She introduces him to her free-wheeling lifestyle, using her favorite saying: “Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death.”

Sounds about right in our unequal society.

We are having a little collapse of our own in America now, although it is more prospective than a harsh reality. Right now we are either at the end of the good times, or we are about to go on such an awesome winning streak that you will bow in obeisance to our Orange Overlord, saying you are so sorry we ever doubted him. You be the judge.

Wrongo is thinking about all of this. He is also thinking about the loss of his brother Kevin to complications of ALS in June. Kevin personified resilience, and fought very hard. Wrongo and his sisters were able to be with him up to his last moments. We miss his humor and fierce intelligence every day.

Kevin didn’t live to see his candidate win the presidency.

One thing that we did at Christmas when he was alive was to all sing the Tom Lehrer song “Christmas Carol”. It was always an exuberant rendition, if not always on key. Here is the real song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffO8nZThwmM

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Lyrics:

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don’t say “when.”
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas day you can’t get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore.
There’s time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense’ll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
“Just the thing I need! How nice!”
It doesn’t matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit.
Sentiment will not endear it,
What’s important is the price.

Hark the herald tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry, merchants,
May you make the yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don’t stand underneath when they fly by.

In closing, you may not know that it is perfectly correct to use “Xmas” wherever “Christmas” is called for. From Today I Found Out:

Myth: “Xmas” is a non-religious name/spelling for “Christmas”.

It turns out, “Xmas” is not a non-religious version of “Christmas”. The “X” is actually indicating the Greek letter “Chi”, which is short for the Greek, meaning “Christ”. So “Xmas” and “Christmas” are equivalent in every way except their lettering.

The practice started with religious scribes, who used the symbol “X” in place of Christ’s name, and it has been continued by religious scholars for at least 1000 years. If it seems offensive to you to use Xmas, then by all means spell out Christmas.

Still, it’s another loss for O’Reilly’s War on Christmas.

And there’s this: Public Policy Polling (PPP) released a survey on Monday that shows that only 34% of Americans believe there is a war on Christmas. Most Americans now find both “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” to be acceptable greetings but favor “Merry Christmas” when asked to choose.

So, no need to get angry with people who say “Happy Holidays”.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 18, 2016

Wrongo had hoped to avoid writing about the Russian email hacking, but it seems that it is all that the pundits will talk about. The argument is that Russia interfered in the US election, and the intervention gave the election to Trump. The drumbeats have gotten louder as Monday’s Electoral College voting looms.

Mainstream TV news anchors are reporting with indignation, and as fact, that Russia (specifically Vladimir Putin) not only sought to influence the US election and promote “doubt” about the whole legitimacy of the US electoral system, but to throw the vote to Donald Trump.

The main accusation by the government is that the DNC and Podesta emails leaked through WikiLeaks were provided by state-backed Russian hackers, while no Republican materials were leaked. The leaked emails seemed to be genuine, since no complaints about the contents were made by the victims of the leaks.

The case against Russia is plausible, but many questions remain. Jeremy Scahill and Jon Schwarz of The Intercept have asked Obama to disclose the government’s secret evidence:

US intelligence agencies have repeatedly demonstrated that they regularly both lie and get things horribly wrong. In this case, they may well be correct, but they cannot expect Americans to simply take their word for it.

The current debate about Russia’s possible hacking is plagued by innuendo similar to what we saw in the McCarthy era. There is a disturbing trend emerging that dictates that if you don’t believe Russia hacked the election or if you simply demand evidence for this tremendously significant allegation, you must be a Trump apologist or a Soviet agent.

Wrongo is neither. The growing lack of trust in government and news media means that few of us know what to believe. It will take facts to make a case that this isn’t just more fake noos. Even if a few CIA or NSA secrets are made public.

Putin needs a password:

Are Putin and Trump running a con? From The Economist:

When asked about the hack by Obama, Putin said nothing:

Trump picks Rick Perry:

Trump helps make coal great again:

Trump offers presents for the rest of us:

Hail The Orange Overlord

(Wrongo will say more about Veteran’s Day during Sunday’s cartoon edition. For today, let’s acknowledge that Veteran’s Day is one of America’s most patriotic holidays, and that this year, it feels very disappointing to many of us. Leave that aside. Take a minute to reflect on those who fought for us so that we have the right to vote for whomever we please.)

Regarding the election: Aren’t you happy that America is on its way to being great again?

For both the winners and the losers, please don’t make things worse than they have to be by deepening the divide between the two political camps. Most of all, try to be understanding of each other. Half of the country is not reacting well to this, and some on both sides are going to say things that they’ll regret, or that put them at odds with you and your core values.

People aren’t at their best when they’re afraid and confused, so take a beat, and let the next month or two go by without overreacting. There will plenty of time to do that after the inauguration.

And there is little value for Democrats in performing a self-flagellating post-mortem. We can analyze the results, but we can’t change them. We know what went wrong, even if we won’t admit it. Here’s what has to happen:

Democrats need to find a way to make sure that their primary process favors new faces with bold, inspiring ideas. We can’t have any more competent retreads. Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry and Hillary Clinton were all competent technocrats who were really weak candidates. How many times must we replay this record before changing direction?
It’s time for Democrats to stop using white working classas a pejorative. Not so long ago they were the bedrock of the New Deal Democratic Party. Find a way to be respectful. Think about how to bring them back to the Democrats’ side.
There is one argument that we need to see less of: that the demographic makeup of the US is sure to produce a Democratic paradise. This argument is false, as we learned on November 8, and it promotes lazy thinking by the leaders of the DNC: the “We’ll just sit back and they’ll drop into our hands like ripe fruit” kind of thinking.

Finally, the notion that since the old white people will die off, we should focus solely on Millennials is stupid. Time makes more old people every day. And as people age, they change their opinions and politics.

Hillary and her campaign team failed. They raised $1.1 billion by Election Day, and lost conclusively. Their strategy, and its execution were both failures. If you spent a $billion in the corporate world and failed, you would be fired immediately by your organization. Dems should take no consolation from Hillary winning the popular vote. It doesn’t change who the president is. The real numerical difference is very small, and may even be reversed by the time all votes are counted.

Hillary did not articulate an inspiring vision. Her damned emails and the Clinton Foundation were self-inflicted wounds. Her team’s strategy of micro-targeting, which worked well for an inspiring candidate Barack Obama, was self-limiting for the technocrat Clinton.

The 2016 problem that Democrats failed to address was that nearly half of the electorate was dissatisfied enough that they were willing to vote for Donald Trump, arguably the least qualified person to ever hold the office. And Clinton and her campaign team had no message or vision directed at the group Donald inspired.

Presidential campaigns are an affair of the heart, but Hillary was a cerebral candidate in a highly-charged emotional situation.

The so-called Deplorables have spoken. Democrats have opened the door and let the Right Wing demons in. The GOP now has free reign. And doubtless, there will be no mercy dispensed as they roll back the new deal legislation that remains of the books.

It is likely that the “lesson” the DNC will learn from their loss will be to move even further to the right. Yet, when Americans have to choose between an ersatz Republican-lite and the real thing, they will choose the real thing every time. If the DNC had an ounce of clever thinking, they would recognize the need to be once again have a platform that is:

Fully committed to adding more jobs, jobs, jobs
For reining in the economic power of large corporations
For reversing income inequality
For Medicare for all
For additional taxation of the highest personal income brackets
Against endless war
Against Citizens United

The question is whether progressives attempt to “reform” the Democratic Party, or whether they organize a new party. It might begin like the Republicans began when they split from the Whigs. The Whigs split started in 1850, and by 1856, the Whigs were no longer a national party.

Maybe in these times, a new “American Justice” party could recruit Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard, Gavin Newsom and most important, a battalion of young messengers to bring a third party to power in the US.

If that doesn’t happen, we need to see the DNC leadership’s heads on a pike.

In either case, we face a decade or more of rebuilding progressivism into an American political majority.

Election Day 2016: Closing Argument

“I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.” – John F. Kennedy

JFK said that at Amherst College less than a month before he died. He wasn’t running for reelection yet, but that quote shows how he towers over the two presidential candidates in front of us today.

We could ask: “What does wisdom have to do with being president?” And our answer should be “everything”!

Some Americans are angry. Some are mainly angry with Washington. Many are impatient, unable to keep a long complicated idea in their heads to a conclusion, saying things like: “bottom line this for me” after less than a couple of minutes of talk. People are overwhelmed with information, much of which is patently false, so they do not know what to believe. The simply angry people will not help us solve anything, and they may not even accept a solution designed to help with some of their problems.

This is the context for today’s election.

The best case for Hillary Clinton is that she represents a continuation of Obama’s policies, with a few slightly more progressive ideas forced into the mix by Bernie. If Clinton is president, she will continue to have the same fights with Republicans in Congress that Obama had, but since Trump wants to enact policies that are destructive, some of which will be enthusiastically supported by Republicans in Congress, wisdom indicates Hillary is our best option this year.

Over the next four years Clinton is unlikely to do anything domestically that makes the lives of most Americans worse, and any Supreme Court justices she picks are likely to be reliably liberal on social issues, assuming Republicans are willing to confirm any nominee offered by a Democrat.

Her foreign policy is hawkish. This is the one place where Trump seems to be to the left of Clinton. How we handle Russia, China and the Middle East will be a huge challenge to the next president, but the leader of the free world cannot be an impulsive know-it-all.

What about the arguments against Clinton?

Emails are Hillary’s quicksand. Win or lose, Congress will keep worrying on that bone for a long, long time.

What about the paid speeches, the relationships with Wall Street and foreign governments? None of that is unique to Clinton. Her neoliberal positions and affiliations are common in both Parties. Obama, both Bushes, Bill Clinton, and Reagan have all taken money from most of these same groups through the campaign finance system.

Money and influence are the business plan for all American politicians. There’s nothing particularly revelatory about that, and it doesn’t make her any more corrupt than most other Democrats and Republicans who have run for president.

Arguments for Donald Trump:

The best argument for Donald Trump doesn’t rely on any of his policy positions, some of which are unclear and many of which are completely detached from evidence-based reality. Instead, the argument for him is that he will shake things up, and possibly, change some things.

Arguments against Trump:

A Trump presidency would be risky, since his ideas and temperament could easily make things worse than the current situation. He’s been called many names, his own ghostwriter for the book “The Art of the Deal” called him a sociopath. Many words describe Donald Trump, but here are a few that do not: Thoughtful. Serious. Presidential. So, wisdom argues that we not elect Trump.

People are looking for change. For them, it’s disheartening to settle for someone like Clinton who seeks gradual improvement, but is not a change agent.

America needs change, but it has to be a positive kind of change. That means it’s better to stick with the lower risk candidate unless there is a political alternative who really might make things better.

There will be better messengers for left-driven and right-driven populism down the road. When that happens, we will have more chances to pick a workable political alternative to the neoliberalism of both establishment parties.

Be patient, while we wait for a better alternative.

And vote today, if you haven’t yet.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Politics of Fear