Thursday, November 10, 2016

I'm not cutting off my pro-Trump friends

Here and there on Facebook, I've seen a few of my friends declare they no longer wish the friendship of Trump supporters — and vowing to cut them out of their social media lives entirely.

I'm not going to do that.

To cut ourselves off from people who have made what we think was a grievous error in their vote is to give up on persuading them, to give up on understanding why they voted, to give up on understanding them in any but the most cartoonish stereotypes.

As a matter of idealism, cutting off your pro-Trump friends is to give up on democracy. As a matter of tactics, cutting off your pro-Trump friends is to give up on ever again winning in a democratic process.

And as a long-term issues, confining ourselves to echo chambers is part of our national problem.

Don't get me wrong: I expect a Trumpian presidency is a disaster, particularly for people of color. And in total honesty: My own relationships have been tested by this campaign season. There's probably some damage yet to make itself apparent.

But people are more than the sum of their votes. We are more than the sum of our votes. Let's maybe take a deep breath before we sunder too many relationships.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Here's how we remake American government.



Note: This was more or less written prior to the election — a time when I thought the campaign would end with Democrats having some power to create change. That ain't gonna happen for a couple of years. Still, for the sake of conversation....

Something’s gotta change.

That much is clear after an election that was one of the most divisive ever — one that left many of us feeling, as Alec Baldwin said on SNL, “gross.” Our governance and our politics have failed us. It is within our power to fix it.

These fixes aren’t marginal. So let’s admit up front that radical changes could have radical, unexpected consequences. But let’s also admit that a system that put Donald Trump in charge of nukes is a system that deserves radical reconsidering, at the very least.

Seven ideas to fix it all:

• Scrap the presidential system, replace it with a parliament. I suspect a lot of frustration in the land right now is that nobody really has the power to get things done. Dems get frustrated because President Obama was limited in carrying out his agenda by a Republican Congress; Republicans are frustrated that Congress was limited in carrying out its agenda by a Democratic President. Everybody has a little power, but not enough to actually make proactive changes. That’s frustrating for everybody.

You’ll notice, too, not many thriving democracies have duplicated the American system over the years, even though we’re the oldest democracy. So. Let’s build a parliament. Two houses: Congress and the Senate. The Congress would be voted in like it is now — from districts in each state. The majority party (or coalition) in Congress would then appoint the executive from within its own ranks. One big benefit? It greatly reduces the likelihood that somebody like Donald Trump, with zero record of public service, could come so close to running the show. But the structure would put Congress and the executive — we could still call him or her “president” in order to — in the hands of the same party. That party would then be held accountable by voters for how it implemented its agenda.

(One other item that’s important to note here. I was going to suggest a requirement for a pause on legislative branch investigations while the executive is in office. But only some investigations — anything involving items that transpired before the executive took office — and the pause would only last until the executive left office. We don’t need Hillary haunted by a thousand more Benghazi investigations, for example. Investigations would be reserved for actions taken by the executive and his/her representatives after they’d taken office. That leaves current accountability in place while reducing a lot of petty harassment that goes on with these things. I’m not sure this requirement is needed, though, in a parliamentary setup: One party is unlikely to harass its own executive with unnecessary investigations.)

On a related note:

Scrap the Electoral College. Or make the electoral vote apportionment in each state equal to the popular vote: The college is a relic of pre-Civil War times when the “nation” was more like a confederation — more like the European Union, say, than France. Twice in 16 years, now, the popular vote has been overridden by the Electoral College. I’m not sure the system can withstand it happening again anytime soon.

But what about checks and balances? You’re right: We don’t want crude majoritarianism to reign. How to put the brakes on a runaway majority? And how to incorporate a form of strong-states federalism that our conservative brethren will no doubt clamor for?

That’s why we have the Senate. But let’s go back to populating the Senate the old-fashioned way: Appointed by their respective state governments to represent state interests. But the Senate won’t be a co-equal of the House of Representatives, as it is now. What we’re aiming for is a House of Commons-House of Lords situation, where the House of Commons does the real work of passing bills and the House of Lords has limited powers to slow or halt legislation it doesn’t like. Let’s work out the details later — my initial, throw-it-out there proposal is that the Senate would require votes representing two-thirds of the states in order to block House legislation.

Federalists: If you want an additional role in this process, let’s talk about giving the states a role in directly proposing or scotching legislation. Again, they’d have to meet a high bar — with agreement from the majority of legislatures in two-thirds of states. We can tinker with this; let’s keep talking.

And, oh yeah: We’d still have a Bill of Rights in our new Constitution.

• Won’t gerrymandering ensure a permanent majority for one party? Not if our new Constitution requires House districts to be drawn the way they do in California now, with an independent commission drawing boundaries according to populations and community interests instead of with the intent of protecting “safe” seats for either party. The result of that reform is that more California seats are competitive than was the case under the old system.

Not only is this good in small-d democratic terms, it also has a side benefit in reducing polarization: A Republican who has no fear of running against a legitimate Democratic opponent is a Republican with incentives to run as far right as possible, in order to stave off primary opposition. Competitive races would require candidates who operate closer to the center.

• As long as we’re at it, let’s require that House candidates campaign entirely using public funds. There are two big problems with today’s money-driven politics. First, it gets our representatives in the mindset that they’re representing the money and not the constituents. Second, our representatives spend godawful amounts of time raising money for their next campaign. So. Get them out of the business.

Note to conservatives who weep about the death of the First Amendment here: Spend all the money you want advocating for the candidate you desire. But the candidate won’t be able to receive your donations to spend at their own discretion, nor would they be allowed to coordinate with you or political action committees. This leaves money more influential in the process than I’d like, but it’s probably impossible to get money out of politics entirely. So. Let’s at least insulate our elected officials from it.

One more House reform: Ranked-choice voting required in all House races. This could allow for the emergence of third parties that might more properly represent the range of American politics than just the A-to-B spectrum of Democrats and Republicans.

• Finally, term limits for Supreme Court justices. If such limits existed, I have to believe that Donald Trump’s support in this election might’ve slipped somewhat. As it was, there were too many people who weren't ready to let Hillary Clinton have possible control over the court for  generation. And frankly, this isn’t a bad idea: Merrick Garland excepted, the parties have been appointing younger, less-experienced jurists to the court in order to maximize their chances of serving 30 years, maybe more.

So. Limit justices to a single, 18-year term. Rotate the seats so that one comes up for approval every two years. And let the nominations come, as they do in some states, from independent panels, with the president picking the candidate from (say) three finalists, subject to approval from the House.


Yeah, this is all kind of crazy. It’s a dramatic reimagining of our governance. But drama is too much of our political lives these days. These six steps might help reduce that drama.

One last thought for my conservative friends

If you've spent the last eight years using the word "tyranny" to describe the presidency of Barack Obama, but then turned and supported Donald Trump — a man of clear authoritarian instincts — to be president, well: I don't believe you anymore. I have to assume everything you said about "liberty" and "freedom" was just a fog of words meant to help your side retain power.

Awake. Haunted.

I'm up. In a few minutes, I take my son to school. He's alarmed by the news I just gave him. I told him he doesn't have to worry.

I hope I'm right. I don't really believe I am.

I try to practice my politics somewhere in the neighborhood of "a pox on both your houses," trying to remember that the speck I see in the eye of my political rivals is probably matched by the log in my own. Politics is ever an elbow-throwing business, the Republic usually survives, and so I don't want to let myself get too high or low about specific outcomes.

But what haunts me is this: Many of the people I know who ended up in the Trump camp pretty much expect him to be a disaster, too, or they did until they convinced themselves otherwise.

And they did convince themselves — in some cases because tribal affiliations demanded it, in other cases out of spite, and in many cases because they ardently believed that Hillary Clinton was just as monstrous as their candidate.

But they know. They know he's awful. And hey supported him anyway.

What's next for liberals now that Donald Trump has been elected?



So, liberals, this is the country we’re stuck in. Unless you’re moving out — and you’re probably not — you now have a couple of alternatives:

• Surrender.
• Fight for your values.

Let’s choose the latter. How do we do that? A couple of lessons learned and strategies going forward:

Let’s vote our hearts. Except for the opportunity to nominate (potentially) the first woman president, Bernie Sanders (despite not being an actual Democrat) probably stood closer to the heart of the Democratic base than Hillary Clinton, who had supported the Iraq War and who was enmeshed in Wall Street.

I supported Clinton during the primaries, despite my concerns about her on policy, as well as the Clintons’ predilection for making it easy on GOP scandalmongers trying to ruin their reputation. (The same scandalmongers never really laid a glove on President Obama, but it requires the target of that scandalmongering to be disciplined, a trait the Clintons have never managed consistently.) I was thinking tactically — expecting she would be more likely to beat a Republican opponent and thus defend what gains have been made the last eight years. I was wrong.

In fact, if you want to jump out of the piece right now because I didn’t see what was coming and why, I don’t blame you.

If you look back at the 21st century elections, Democrats have won when they love their candidate — Obama in ‘08 and ‘12 — and lost when they’re thinking tactically: Kerry ‘04 and now Clinton ‘16. So. Vote what you love. And if you’re worried Americans won’t accept the lefty you love, consider this: Nobody would’ve given Donald Trump more than a punchers’ chance of winning when he started. Anything can happen, and having the nominee you like can move the “Overton Window” in a direction you desire. Timidity does not move that window.

(Would Sanders have beaten Trump? Who knows? One thing’s for sure: He would’ve robbed Donald of some potency on economic issues and in challenging the elites. In any case, you either win or you lose — and Dems lost with Clinton. Might as well lose in the pursuit of ideals.)

Monday, November 7, 2016

Why we can't give up on each other. (Or: Holy crap, Glenn Beck!)

I saw this on a friend's Facebook page today, telling his Trump-supporting buddies to get lost, and it admittedly resonated:
I strive to be a man of peace and I will always be cool if we find ourselves in the same place. But if this circus clown gets elected, I will never forget what you have done.
I want change as much as anyone, but you’re standing by a monster who boasts of committing sexual assaults, won't reject his endorsement from the fucking KKK, taunts his audiences to physically harm his critics and rejects religious freedom and other rights that generations of Americans have fought and died to earn and preserve.
This election season has been deeply trying to all of us. As it culminates, it's natural and easy to wonder how the hell we can live with the other half of Americans whose values so repulse us. Maybe it's time to divvy up the country? Liberals get the coasts and Great Lakes states, while conservatives get the rest? Might that be safer than trying to stick together?

What I keep trying to remember is this: The people we are today — the thoughts, the worldview — are not set in stone. We can change. For example, Glenn Beck*:
“I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama.” But, he said, “Obama made me a better man.” He regrets calling the President a racist and counts himself a Black Lives Matter supporter. “There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to,” he said. “I had to listen to them.”
We have not always been this polarized. It's not a given that we need remain this polarized. But some of us are going to have to change our worldviews. And all of us, all of us, are probably going to have to listen to experiences that we cannot otherwise relate to.

*

Schadenfreude will kill us all.

Rod Dreher's not voting for Trump, but he'd still kinda sorta like to see those nasty liberals suffer the pain of having Trump win.
If Trump wins, on Wednesday morning I will wake up looking for something good, anything. The idea that the election results will have ruined the day of these horrible people, as well as this sad-sack sycophant, is … well, it’s better than nothing.
That Rod Dreher. He sure is a super-Christian, isn't he?

Only thing: Can any liberal deny feeling the same way about the prospect of a Trump loss? I hope we wouldn't feel that way if we thought Hillary Clinton was a disaster, like Dreher says about Trump. But we probably would.

I can't escape the feeling that schadenfreude and associated emotions are driving too much of our politics. We admire politicians and give them our support because they make the "right enemies" instead of what we want them to do in office. Delighting In The Tears of Our Enemies — becoming an "Effyouocracy" — is probably not the foundation for wise and prolonged self-governance. 

Saturday, November 5, 2016

No to Donald Trump


I’ve been trying to come up with a closing argument on this election that edifies rather than irritates — a way of communicating that embraces wisdom and thoughtfulness instead of the shrill anger that has characterized so much of the campaign.

After days of introspection, what it comes down to this: I got nothing. Either you agree with me or you don’t. There’s not much I can say that will change your mind now.

I have tried to resist the idea for years now that people having different political ideas makes them bad people. But Donald Trump appears, from everything I can observe, to be a bad person. At best he’s a boor, the proverbial rich boy who was born on third base and assumed he’d hit a triple. Mostly, though, he’s a breeder of resentments — against Mexicans, against Muslims, and against Jews. (Oh, and women. Perhaps especially women.) He doesn’t ask us to be our best selves. Instead, he glories in being his worst self, calls it a crusade against political correctness, and invites us all to sink deeper into the mud with him.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Republicans seem intent on destroying the Republic

Let's be clear, there's a straight line between this:

In a vintage return to his confrontational style, Sen. Ted Cruz indicated that Republicans could seek to block a Democratic president from filling the vacant Supreme Court seat indefinitely.
And this:
Jared Halbrook, 25, of Green Bay, Wis., said that if Mr. Trump lost to Hillary Clinton, which he worried would happen through a stolen election, it could lead to “another Revolutionary War.” 
“People are going to march on the capitols,” said Mr. Halbrook, who works at a call center. “They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office, because she does not belong there.” 
“If push comes to shove,” he added, and Mrs. Clinton “has to go by any means necessary, it will be done.”
The connecting line: Conservatives have spent a generation arguing that Democratic governance isn't just wrong, but illegitimate. (Thus the Clinton impeachment, thus birtherism, etc.) If Democratic governance is illegitimate, then of course you block all judicial nominations, of course your partisans warn darkly of an armed revolution if the election doesn't turn out their way. It's an approach that invites disaster. We're about to find out if that disaster is finally at our doorstep.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

The difference between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump: (Or, compartmentalization is a good thing)



Conservative thinker Hadley Arkes doesn’t understand why #NeverTrump Republicans can’t just get on the bandwagon already. Don’t they know what’s at stake?

I can hardly blame the Bushes for recoiling from the indignities and insults, the lies and calumnies, thrown off with such abandon by Donald Trump. But accomplished public men are even more obliged than the rest of us to respect the difference, searing at times, between personal wounds and public duties. To take those duties seriously is to raise the question of why the Bushes and people like them do not care as much for the things that other Republicans, ordinary folk, see at stake in 2016:
  • the prospect that medical care will be politically managed at the national level, with an independent commission rationing care, bringing everyone under their control;
  • the specter of federal courts filled at all levels with the professoriate of the Left, ready to install as law those fevered theories that have now become the fashion at the “better” universities; and
  • the crushing effects of Dodd-Frank, creating vast costs in compliance and damping incentives for banks to invest in new businesses.

I won’t argue with Arkes’ assessment of the issues. If you’re conservative, this must indeed be what the election of Hillary Clinton looks like.

But Arkes is mistaken, I think, in how he understands the stuffy refusal of people like the Bushes or Paul Ryan to give Donald Trump their full-throated support. In his telling, Trump is basically Rodney Dangerfield in “Caddyshack” — gauche, “flawed,” but, in the end, one of the good guys.



The idea, hinted at more than a few times, is that Trump might end up like Bill Clinton — who was personally gross, perhaps even criminal, but who also happened to be (by many accounts) a pretty effective president in spite of his personal foibles.

Here’s the thing — and it’s why, I think, some #NeverTrump Republicans won’t just concede the point: Bill Clinton managed to be a reasonably effective in spite of his personal foibles because he understood and observed the line between “personal” and “public” to a degree that Donald Trump cannot fathom.

During Clinton’s impeachment, this trait was known as “compartmentalization,” and it was generally discussed pejoratively. As one writer put it: "Bill Clinton famously compartmentalized his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, convincing himself his relations with her were neither sexual nor related to his performance as president. He did not convince much of the country."

Well, he was found “not guilty” at the impeachment trial. More importantly, this seems to be model for what Trump’s advocates believe he can be as president.

But there’s very little in Trump’s history, or in his campaigning, to suggest he’s capable of such line-drawing. His whole career has been about stamping the “Trump” name on an endless array of products — real estate, in particular, but also steaks and wine and ties — so that the distinction between Trump the person and “Trump” the brand grew very blurry indeed.

As far as the campaign, I keep coming back to the third presidential debate, where Hillary Clinton and Trump were both asked how they’d make Supreme Court appointments. Here’s how Trump opened his answer:

Trump: Well, first of all, it’s so great to be with you and thank you, everybody. The Supreme Court, it is what it is all about. Our country is so, so, it is just so imperative that we have the right justices. Something happened recently where Justice Ginsburg made some very inappropriate statements toward me and toward a tremendous number of people. Many, many millions of people that I represent and she was forced to apologize. And apologize she did. But these were statements that should never, ever have been made. We need a Supreme Court that in my opinion is going to uphold the second amendment and all amendments, but the second amendment which is under absolute siege.

Observe: Trump processes a key policy question in terms of how he, personally, has been aggrieved by a member of the Supreme Court before he can start to get to the issue itself.

Let’s not forget Trump’s appearance at Gettysburg, where he spent 13 minutes griping about the women who have made groping allegations against him before getting down to the business, supposedly, of the day: Unveiling his agenda for the first 100 days in office.

Can Trump separate his personal issues from the job he’d be required to do as president? The evidence says “no.” He is not a compartmentalizer.

In this, he resembles not Bill Clinton, but Richard Nixon, whose dark resentments so occupied him that he self-destructed his way out of power, having lost the confidence of the country and even of the Republican Party that was supposed to have his back.

I’m not conservative. I’m not a Republican. I was never going to be somebody who might vote for Donald Trump. But Trump’s temperament is why, even if you’re 100 percent on board with his policy prescriptions, you should be hesitant to lend your support to his candidacy. He’s not simply a flawed man who will do the business of the American people; he is a flawed man who, it seems likely, will make those flaws the business of the American people.

Not all flaws are equal, it turns out. And the presidency is bigger than policy outcomes.

If you have lousy character and want to be president, you’d best be a compartmentalizer. Trump’s not. It’s why #NeverTrump Republicans are correct to withhold their support.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Hillary Clinton's debate problem: She's a woman named Hillary Clinton

I'm seeing friends, right and left, suggest that Hillary Clinton failed to land a knockout blow against Donald Trump in tonight's debate. I'm not so worried: I think Clinton knows, after Friday's release of the "Billy Bush" tape, that she's ahead on points, and she doesn't have to work too aggressively to win the championship.

Here's the problem: She's a woman named Hillary Clinton.

This is the woman who commentators tell to smile more one debate, smile less then next. She's a woman who faces the same issue many professional women do — act too aggressively and you're a bitch. Moderate your presentation and you come across as a shrinking violet. No woman can win by those standards — indeed, they're not supposed to.

Hillary, after decades in the public eye, is ultra-aware of the dynamic. So: If she presses the case too hard against Trump tonight, there's an excellent chance that lots of post-debate pundits are using b-word euphemisms to describe her tonight. The knockout blow expected from a man in her situation would likely be used against her.

So. She lets her opponent punch himself out. It's not like people are going to like the Billy Bush tape tomorrow morning. She just had to stay on her feet and not let Donald land a clean hit. It's not the genital-measuring contest we might've expected to see between two male candidates, but it does require patience. And for better or worse, Donald was right: She does have that patience. She never gives up. Her fighting style is the one that's best suited to who she is.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Teaching our sons not to be Donald Trump

This is the Facebook status of a friend. I'm so angry on her behalf that I can barely hold back the tears.


I've just had a conversation with my son. He's a good kid. But he lives in this stupid, fallen, fucked-up world.

We told him

Never touch a girl or woman without her permission.

Never call her names.

Never act disrespectfully in any way to a girl or woman.

There will be times when it might seem like the fun thing to do. When you see other boys acting that way. That doesn't make it right. There will be peer pressure. Resist. And talk to us, if you will.

I realize that there's only so much we can do. He spends so much time in this stupid, fallen, fucked-up world already without us. So it's imperative that we use the remaining time to affirm, and reaffirm, and reaffirm again, what those values are.

Look at Donald Trump, son. Do the exact opposite.

Friday, October 7, 2016

I am Billy Bush




By now, you've probably heard of Donald Trump's horrific recorded comments from 2005 about how he treats women. It's hard to see how he survives this and gets elected, but this is a weird and stupid election season: Never say never.

What interests me in the recording, though, is the acquiescence of Billy Bush, who just goes with the flow as Trump describes his interaction with women in ever-more-disgusting terms:

“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.” 
“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.
Trump today described the comments as "locker room banter." It's been a few decades since I spent regular time in a locker room, and I remember it could get rowdy and bawdy — but Trump's recorded comments exceed anything in my memory.

Still, I'm now racking my brain. Am I Billy Bush?

Have I sat by, maybe even chuckled, as a man — thinking he was speaking among men — spoke of a women or women in such disrespectful terms? I don't have a clear memory of it if so.

But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Indeed, it's all too easy to understand how, confronted with such comments, one might try to chuckle nervously and get the encounter over with. "Boys will be boys" and all that.

And yet.

I interviewed Fred Phelps, the notorious gay basher, once. It was brief phone call. A national Jewish group had put out a report demonstrating that Phelps was also a fairly accomplished anti-Semite. I asked Fred for his response, and his quote was this: "I welcome anything those Christ-killing fag lovers have to say about me."

I giggled.

I giggled because it was shocking. I giggled because I wasn't going to get into an argument with Fred Phelps while I was on the job and I didn't know what else to do. I giggled because, for whatever reason, I wasn't going to tell Fred Phelps he was wrong.

I've laughed at racist jokes, too.

The point is: This stuff happens unless we choose to make ourselves uncomfortable — if we choose to make other people feel uncomfortable — and confront comments that are so at odds with our values. It's tough. Oftentimes it doesn't feel worth it. But every time we don't — every time we chuckle — we signal our approval. We tell the person making the lewd, disgusting comments that it's ok to be that way. Even if we think otherwise.

So yeah. I've probably been Billy Bush. Probably you have too. What are we going to do about it?

Monday, October 3, 2016

In (sort of) defense of Donald Trump's comments about vets and suicide

This Donald Trump comment is making a lot of people mad today — the insinuation that vets who commit suicide are "weak."

ABC:
"When people come back from war and combat and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over and you're strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can't handle it," Trump said, speaking Monday morning at a panel for the Retired American Warriors PAC in Virginia.
Sounds pretty bad, right? Well, ABC at least includes the rest of the quote — which is omitted from a lot of media accounts.
"We need mental health and medical, and it's one of the things that is least addressed and one of the things — one of the things that I hear most about when I go around and talk to the veterans," he said. "So we are going to have a very robust, very, very robust level of performance having to do with mental health."
Now: I'm not one to defend Donald Trump.

But in this case he's not dismissing a rival politician, a la his comments about John McCain's captivity. He's not insulting parents who took a stand against him at a rival party's convention.

By God, I think ... he's trying to be sympathetic. He's trying to be sensitive, in his clumsy ham-fisted way. He's trying to provide a policy answer to help veterans who need it!

Now. If you want to criticize him for a worldview that separates everybody into winners and losers, strong and weak, I get it. And if you want to get after him for having an understanding of PTSD that, I'm willing to bet, comes from action movies and old episodes of "24" instead of any firsthand encounters with soldiers, be my guest. (At one point, he references how the experiences of such vets are worse than what you'd ever see in movies.)

But I don't think Trump was trying to bash suicidal vets here. I think he was trying to offer help. There are plenty of reasons to think he's an awful person. This isn't quite the reason everybody seems to think it is.