Dems need to learn from this loss

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Friday November 11, 2016 · 9:27 AM PST

2016/11/11 · 09:27

In reading post-election analysis, I followed a link to a Facebook comment made by a British Guardian and Financial Times contributor named Vincent Bevins in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. His commentary struck be as being very insightful and extremely relevant to the the surprise Trump victory we’ve had the misfortune of witnessing this week.

Here’s Bevins on Brexit:

Both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very, wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for thirty years.

Questions such as - Who are the losers of globalization, and how can we spread the benefits to them and ease the transition? Is it fair that the rich can capture almost all the gains of open borders and trade, or should the process be more equitable? Can we really sustainably create a media structure that only hires kids from top universities (and, moreover, those prick graduates that can basically afford to work for free for the first 5-10 years) who are totally ignorant of regular people, if not outright disdainful of them? …….Immigration is good for the vast majority, but for the very small minority who see pressure on their wages, should we help them, or do they just get ignored?

He then goes on to make clear how wrongheaded he thinks the Brexit vote was, and how people like like Trump and Farage are dangerous opportunistic charlatans:

The leaders of these movements (Trumpstick, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage) have acted cynically for their own benefit. They've been willing to stir division and nationalism. And some of their supporters are real racists. The only solution for that small minority is to be crushed and thrown into the dustbin of history.

I’m not sure if I agree with the extent to which he downplays racism as a factor – he says that “some of their supporters are real racists”, but later goes on to suggest that most aren’t. He’s speaking about the UK and Brexit, of course, but even there it’s clear that there was a strong racial factor for some, if not many in the pro-Leave vote supporters.

In the case of the recent election here in the US, there's no denying that many of Trump’s supporters were driven by racism/xenophobia/sexism. And those Trump voters who weren't racists voted for him knowing and somehow overlooking the fact that he had said and done some very awful hateful things. Which is in its own way pretty awful.

But with all that being said, I think it is crucial for Democrats to acknowledge and recognize the economic factors in this surprise Trump vote. In particular, the phenomenon of people in forgotten, hard luck areas in flyover America, the so-called losers of globalization, wanting to express their anger with the status quo and using the only lever available to them, Trump, to express that anger in the general election. For some of them, their vote for Trump was a way to throw a bomb into the world of the elites, as a means of saying “Oh, do I have your attention now?”

The election of Trump is obviously incredibly disturbing, as there is no question that he is a hateful man, with a long, well-documented history of racist and sexist statements and behavior (and now, policy proposals). We should all be vigilant against fighting against the awful policies he has in store for us.

But I think it is a mistake for Democrats to completely ignore the role of economic factors and unresponsive elites in both parties as a factor in Trump’s surprise election. Some analyses I’ve read attribute Trump’s support entirely to racism and xenophobia, and I don’t think it’s as simple as that.

It would be a huge mistake for Democrats to not learn from this loss, and to fail to reckon with the ways in which their Party tuned out and failed people struggling economically. If the Democrats don't address this by making concerted and sustained efforts to look out for the economic welfare of people (and no they shouldn't look out for struggling whites only - they should seek to help economically struggling people of all races) , this sort of Trumpism is going to happen all over again, albeit in some other twisted form. We need to learn from this.

the email I just sent to the Bernie campaign

mosec

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Thursday May 19, 2016 · 1:29 PM PDT

2016/05/19 · 13:29

I voted for you, I donated to your campaign twice, and made phone calls for you.

Though I agree that Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been biased against you throughout this process, and though I think you have some very legitimate complaints with her and the way she has run things as DNC chair during the primaries, I believe you need to come out A LOT more forcefully against the online threats and harassment and doxxing that some of your supporters recently engaged in. That sort of behavior is beyond the pale, and needs to be addressed forcefully and clearly and directly by you.

In the statement you released, you waited until the middle of the third paragraph to address this awful behavior and only dedicated a sentence to it. That’s not good enough. You need to publicly condemn this behavior first and foremost. Lead with it - come out and condemn it in no uncertain terms. It is only after you have addressed this issue clearly that you can move on. Right now it’s hurting you and dragging your campaign down and turning off voters who may want to vote for you (and who may want to vote for other progressive candidates down the road as well — aka., the future).

Address it and you can renew your focus on California and also raise issues with the way Debbie Wasserman Schultz is appointing delegates for various committees for the convention. This latter-most issue is a very valid criticism that you have every right to make. I think most fair-minded people would agree that this raises the question of unfairness against your campaign and that the appointments made thus far don’t reflect the percentage of the Democratic electorate that you have legitimately won during the primaries.

However, due to the controversy surrounding the online threats and harassment, you aren’t in a good position to raise this very legitimate complaint at this moment. Come out forcefully and unequivocally against the threats and harassment as soon as possible!

You have often said during this campaign that this movement was about more than just you. Prove it by stepping up and doing the right thing and condemning clearly and unequivocally the threats and harassment and doxxing. If we want this movement to last beyond this election (and I very much do), we can’t let the ugliness of this sort of hate-filled behavior become associated with the movement. You need to lead on this issue. We need to protect the gains that have been made for progressive causes via your candidacy, and not throw it all away via ill will generated by the bad behavior of some of your most vociferous supporters.

Thank you for hearing me out,

Somewhat nuanced thoughts from a halfhearted at best Boston-area sports fan re: Deflategate

mosec

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Thursday January 22, 2015 · 11:25 AM PST

2015/01/22 · 11:25

As a Boston area guy who doesn't follow sports very closely at all (and who prefers baseball and hockey to football), I'm admittedly not particularly well-qualified to discuss Deflategate, but I thought I'd weigh in with a couple of thoughts on it all the same. Hopefully I'm not inviting a heap of scorn on my head by doing so.

Based on the reports I've seen referenced in the papers, I tend to think that it looks pretty damn shady for 11 of the 12 Patriots footballs to have been discovered to be deflated during the game. Especially when one considers Belichick's past with Spygate

Last night on All In, Chris Hayes compared Belichick to Nixon in Watergate and I think there’s something to this analogy. Only insofar as the Patriots were already really well-positioned to smoke the Colts (much like Nixon was all set to destroy McGovern before the Watergate break-in). So why cheat when you don’t need to? You’re already gonna win, so why risk delegitimizing your victory like that?

At the risk of being a disloyal Buwahston spahtz fan, I will say that I think Bill Belichick is kind of an a-hole. This doesn't mean he's not a really smart coach, and it doesn't mean he cheated in this case (I don't know if he did or not – maybe some ballboy did it at the behest of Brady, maybe something else will come to light).

All it means is that it seems like Belichick is kind of an a-hole as a human being. Case in point: going for it on 4th down when you're winning by 31 points in the 4th quarter (which he did this past Sunday). That's a "twist the knife in" move if ever I saw one. It's just rubbing someone's face in it - there's no need to do such things when you're winning by 31. It's not a classy thing to do in my opinion, and Belichick doesn't help his cause by being such an arrogant AH. For his part, Brady isn’t particularly likeable either.

But with all that being said:

It does seem more than a bit over-the-top how some people are turning Deflategate into The. Scandal. of. The. Century. Especially considering how much of the Patriots offense was the running game, and also considering that Brady threw better in the 2nd half after the refs reinflated the Patriots’ footballs.

All these sanctimonious people who are oh! so outraged about the Deflategate thing, I expect they must be equally outraged about the fact that admitted spitballer Gaylord Perry is in the baseball Hall of Fame. I’m sure they write letters to the Hall of Fame demanding that Perry’s membership in the Hall be revoked immediately. I mean spitballs are illegal in baseball – it’s cheating!

(The previous paragraph comes from a person who happens to think G. Perry and spitballers of his ilk are a great and colorful part of baseball).

And if anybody reading this is thinking to themselves "There is a plethora of much more important things for us to be concerning ourselves with as a nation", you are of course right. This is incredibly minor in comparison, I know.

Some Unsolicited Advice for Elizabeth Warren re: the Cherokee Ancestry Kerfuffle

mosec

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Friday June 01, 2012 · 2:41 PM PDT

2012/06/01 · 14:41

I’m a big supporter of Elizabeth, and have volunteered and made phone calls at her campaign headquarters on several occasions already. I plan to continue supporting and volunteering for her, but I have to say, I think the way she's going about handling the Cherokee ancestry controversy has not done her campaign any favors.

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