WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT - MAY, 2018: NICOLA, GIULIANI, AND MULVANEY

I've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel as a companion piece to my blog. Nothing fancy. A little political commentary, stabs at humor, tidbits about life in France. And I haven't been able to start it. And I know why. It's Nicola's fault.

Nicola Blakemore lives in Quarante. Cathey and I like her, count her as a friend. But we don't get to see her as often as we'd like. Nicola is an artist who supports herself through her art in a variety of ways. She accepts commissions. She's built a formidable presence on the internet. She gives courses in person and online, posts videos, works Facebook and other social media. It's time consuming work, a full-time job. And as a result of her hard work, Nicola's YouTube channel has 6,000 subscribers and features video after video, from a few seconds to a few minutes long, that often have several thousand views. (Check her channel out HERE. Tell her that I sent you.) Her video that teaches you to paint a pot of lavender has been viewed over 123,000 times! (I find something slightly disturbing about the image of 100,000 identical watercolors of a pot of lavender floating around in the world. Think about it.) Nicola has even set up her workspace as a little video studio complete with white umbrellas to focus light.

It's intimidating. I want to be that good. So I read and I study and I think and I don't get started.

That's going to change. I watched a video the other day on some kid's channel by accident while cruising YouTube. I was astounded. It was horrible. I mean, HORRIBLE. Cheap production, cheesy visuals, and an unfamiliarity with the English language that provides proof that, in at least this young gent's case, public education has failed miserably. Oh, he's heard of The Beatles, or at least a couple of them. And he's heard a song or two of theirs that are alright, he guesses. But what's really important is that his channel had 6,000 subscribers and the video that I'd stumbled on had over 200,000 views.

So I'm just gonna put myself out there once I get a video editing program sorted. I'll try to be as good as Nicola. I can't possibly be as bad as Millennial Dude, whatever his name was. If I land somewhere in the middle, I'll be happy. Yeah, it means settling for mediocrity. I'll own that. Stay tuned.

But that's all beside the point. The point is Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has said that Trump knew about Cohen's payment to Stormy and that Trump paid Cohen back. Slow down. Reflect. You know which Trump I'm talking about. The Donald. Right? You know that Rudy Giuliani has joined Trump's legal team, even if you thought that Rudy's name would never come up again except in sentences containing the words Fox News or divorce proceedings. Right? You know that Michael Cohen is Trump's fixer, his consigliere. Right? You know that Stormy refers to Stormy Daniels, a woman whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, who has claimed to have had a sexual liaison with Trump, who signed a non-disclosure agreement about said affair, and who received a payment for her silence. Right? And you know that the amount of the payment was $130,000. Right?

Have you slowed down? Have you reflected?

Aren't you just the least bit embarrassed that you know all of that shit already?

But that's all beside the point. The point is Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney is a former member of the US House of Representatives. He's Trump's former White House Budget Director. He currently serves - in the loosest definition of that term - as temporary head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Saying that Mulvaney serves in that capacity is like saying that Bonnie and Clyde worked in banking or that the Brewster sisters know fine wine. (What would an erudite blog be without an obscure movie reference? The Brewster sisters? Arsenic and Old Lace?)

Mulvaney recently said, and I quote: "We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress. If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you." Incredible. I checked with snopes.com. Twice. He really said that. He really said that he only talked to lobbyists who gave him money. HE REALLY SAID THAT! To be fair, Mulvaney also said that he always talked to a constituent whether they gave him money or not. If you believe that, I have a bridge connecting two New York City boroughs that I can let you have cheap.

What burns my butt is that the Mulvaney is still working, still spending his days protecting financial consumers like us, and still getting paid for it. How is that possible? Whatever happened to righteous indignation? The fact that the American people haven't dragged this guy out of his office, tarred and feathered him, and run him out of town on a rail says a great deal about the ability of the American public to eat shit and say that it tastes like strawberries.

So what's really important here? What's important is that we've somehow allowed the morally repugnant to become acceptable. We have been so overwhelmed by the misdeeds of the people who we have chosen to govern us that we can no longer call up the energy to do more than march once a year or so, parade around with punny signs that go viral on the internet, then get back home in time to catch the latest episode of Elementary. (I am soooo glad that the season has finally started.)

How do we fix this?  It's up to you. The top five suggestions will win a trip to Washington, a cot and a sleeping bag, and the right to camp out in Mick Mulvaney's office until he's forced to resign.

You can read more of my political commentary HERE, free and worth every penny.




 

AN AMERICAN EXPAT'S TAKE ON WORLD POLITICS: PART 3 - TRUMP

When talk about politics among English-speaking expats here in the south of France turns to the USofA, two questions are inevitably asked.

1. How did Donald Trump manage to get himself elected President of the United States?
This is a technical question, asked by those who are aware that Clinton received 3,000,000 more votes than Trump.

2. How did Donald Trump manage to get himself elected President of the United States?
This is a philosophical question, asked by those who do not understand the current body politic in the United States or, for that matter, in much of the modern world.

Let's take these questions one at a time.

THE MECHANICS OF AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
A quick rehash of the fact that American Presidential elections are fought state by state is in order. The coastal American states are relatively few but with highly concentrated populations. The interior states are less populated but are more numerous. While Clinton racked up big wins on the two coasts, Trump nearly swept the interior. So, in simple terms, although Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won the vote in a majority of the states and therefore the Presidency.

BUT HOW DID IT HAPPEN? REALLY?
I've struggled mightily with this question. I have come to a simple, five-part answer:
Racism
Misogyny
Fear
Denial
Self-Deception

I have no explanation for the existence of racism, misogyny, or the fear that goes with them. I suspect that they are the result of manipulation by those seeking power in order that they may rule us by dividing us. I will not spend more time on that except to say that persons who exhibited those traits made up the core of Trump's base. Such seems to be the way with many Western populists.

Denial and self-deception are more interesting to me because they provide the basis for otherwise rational people to make irrational choices. And in the end, that's who elected Trump, otherwise rational people making an irrational choice. No, there were not enough racists to elect a President in the US, nor enough misogynists. But when you add those in denial, those blithely turning a blind eye, Trump becomes possible.

Denial and self-deception also explain why Trump is still revered by some. Take the budget recently passed by the American Congress. That budget includes both deep tax cuts and increased spending that combined will surely result in huge deficits. Republicans no longer even pretend differently. Yet political conservatives by and large welcome Trump with open arms. The only way that a conservative can approve of such financial brinkmanship is to jettison the policy cornerstones to which fiscal conservatives have adhered for decades. Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan must either be in denial that he ever held those principles in the first place or be deceiving himself into believing that they never mattered. I don't know Ryan. I can't say which explanation is true. But he's on record. He used to be a fiscal conservative. No other explanation for him applauding the current budget than denial and/or self-deception is possible.

Here's an example from a different but relevant conversation that has been raging online recently. How will we address gun violence in America? A picture of the black actor Samuel L. Jackson is circulating on social media accompanied by the following quote: "I grew up in the south with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone." (I've been on his site. It is apparently a valid quote.) A Southern black man who grew up during the civil rights struggle in the American South somehow fails to mention that, while he may never have shot anyone, or his friends may never have shot anyone, Emmitt Till is dead and Medgar Evers is dead and Michael Schwerner is dead and Andrew Goodman is dead and James Chaney is dead and Martin Luther King, Jr. is dead. And more. In the South. Through gun violence. The irony is stunning. The only way that a man like Jackson can own such a quote is to be so deep in denial as to be immune to reason.

Thus, Trump. There is no way to soften it. I cannot find a path to civility or, for that matter, forgiveness. I have listened closely to my American friends rationalize the circumstances that led to Trump's election. I understand the battle between Sanders and Clinton in the Democrat Party primaries took its toll. I understand that bots backed by big dollars and/or foreign governments messed with social media. But in the end, people voted. And the reason that they voted for Trump boils down to those five, simple reasons. Hard to swallow. Harder to deny.
Racism
Misogyny
Fear
Denial
Self-Deception

Read more of my political musings HERE. I'll wrap these musings up with a fourth in the series presently.

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT PARTY CHAIRWOMAN HOSPITALIZED

Heather McFeather, Chairwoman of the California Democrat Party, was admitted to Los Angeles Memorial Hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The injury occurred shortly after the Party refused to endorse the re-election bid of US Senator Dianne Feinstein. The hospital reported a spate of similar hospitalizations since the Presidential election of 2016.

"More and more politicians, primarily Democrats, seem to be shooting themselves in the foot," according the hospital's press release."Our thoughts and prayers are with McFeather, for whatever they are worth."

In a related story, President Trump tweeted: Now McFeather knows how painful bone spurs in your feet can be.

DEFEATING THE RIGHT - A EUROPEAN LESSON

Third parties have not had much success in the United States lately. Perot threw enough money at the Presidency to make things interesting in 1992. And Nader proved that a cranky gadfly could attract enough votes to be troublesome in 2000, maybe even influencing the result. But in a year when the nominees of both major American political parties were as popular as Aedes mosquitoes, the performance of the Bobbsey Twins (Green Stein and Libertarian Johnson) may have set third party politics back for years to come. They were terrible spokespeople for their causes.

Europeans, on the other hand, are quite familiar with multi-party elections leading to multi-party governments. In Iceland, the party that came in third in the national elections has been asked to form a government because the two parties that received more votes couldn't get it done. And I can't wait to see how Iceland's Pirate Party governs. (You can't make this stuff up.) But when I talk about a lesson that the American Left can learn from the Europeans, shouting Aaaaarh and raising the Skull & Crossbones is not what I had in mind. I had in mind the manner in which the French kept Marine Le Pen's far right National Front out of major regional offices recently.

CAVEAT: Be aware that I'm relatively new to the study of French politics, I'm therefore by no means an ultimate authority, and that I get most of my information from English language sites.

How was the party of the Far Right in France thwarted? The opposition Left quite openly decided to make sacrifices for the sake of the country. Novel concept.

France periodically holds elections that determine the legislative and executive bodies in its thirteen regions. Initial balloting determines which parties reach a threshold that makes them eligible to participate in a runoff. There were three main parties jockeying for power after the first round of voting in the most recent regionals - the Left (Socialist), the Center-Right (Republican), and the Far Right (National Front). In that first round, Marine Le Pen's National Front was a big winner. To be clear, they only received 28% of the total vote, but that was a record for the party and in two regions in particular they were almost certain to win in a three-party race for control.

What did the Socialists do? They decided not to run candidates in the two regions that threatened a National Front victory.

What was the outcome? The Republicans won both regions, the only two regions in which the National Front polled more than 40% of the vote in the runoff, enough to have won if the Socialists had participated.

In other words, the Socialists blocked the Far Right from taking regional power by ceding those regions without a fight to the Republicans, regions in which they would have lost anyway. So instead of five Socialist regions, six Republican regions, and two National Front regions, France now has five Socialist and eight Republican regions. Hardly a big win for the Socialists but an important denial of a power base to the National Front if your politics are left of center.

How does such a strategy convert to the American two party system? Oddly enough, we have a model - the Tea Party and the Republicans. For all of the huffing and puffing and primary challenges pitting the Tea Party against Establishment Republicans, in the vast number of cases once the primaries are over, the Republicans unite. They decide that their internecine squabbles pale beside a possible victory by the Left. On the other hand, it is clear that when Democrats suffer divisive primaries, the losers tend to vote for third parties or stay home. How do we know this? Look at the numbers.

In recent contested Presidential elections - I don't consider Bush v Kerry contested in any real sense - Democrats won by a popular vote margin of from 500,000 to 9,000,000 votes.  The lower winning margins, Gore and Hillary, came in elections during which the Democrats experienced considerable pushback from the Progressive wing of their party - Nader and Sanders. And Gore and Hillary lost in the Electoral College. The circumstances were different but the result was the same. On election day, the bitter battles over policy purity had taken their toll. The Democratic Party did not unite. George W. became President and Trump will become President. And any Democrat who thinks that those results were reasonable and proper for America is a nihilist, not a Democrat.

But winning the popular vote means nothing if you don't win the electoral vote, you say? OK. Take five of the major Rust Belt states, where this year's Presidential election might indeed have been lost by the Democrats. It is true that Republicans gained a few hundred thousand votes over 2012. But it is also true that Democrats lost nearly 1,500,000 votes in those states. Something over 1,000,000 voters who had voted Democratic in 2012 either stayed home or voted third party in just those five states.

Were either Gore or Hillary perfect candidates. Of course not. But might Gore have listened to his intelligence briefings and prevented 9/11? Had 9/11 happened, would Gore have broken the Middle East by taking his eye off Bin Laden and going after Saddam's nonexistent WMDs? Is Trump the President we need to replace Scalia and 100 federal judges, putting any number of our freedoms at risk, the freedoms that those folks who stayed home on election day probably cherish even more than those who voted?

Although both the Socialists and the Republicans will continue to struggle for the hearts and minds of the French electorate, both parties also had the ultimate welfare of their people at heart at election time. Why don't we Democrats?

Can't we all just get along?

WHAT'S WITH DONALD TRUMP?

When we are visiting with friends here in the south of France, sipping pink and munching aperos, the question is inevitably asked. What's with you people and Donald Trump? We are, after all, the Americans in the room. As such, we are the de facto experts on the wacky world of American Presidential politics. Do you want truth, we reply? Are you ready for the truth? Can you handle the truth?

OK. Pay attention. There will be a quiz.

The Trumping of the Republican Party is primarily the result of two American political events.

The first was the election of Ronald Reagan. You remember Reagan? Trees cause more pollution than automobiles? Ketchup is a vegetable? Those may sound silly to you today but Reagan was The Great Communicator. The disconnect between rhetoric and reality became irrelevant.

I repeat in case you missed it. In American politics, the disconnect between rhetoric and reality is irrelevant.

Thus, Reagan was able to preside over a huge increase in federal spending, a huge increase in federal debt, and still claim that Big Government was the problem and that tax cuts would balance the budget. Thus, Trump could say that he would build a wall on the Mexican border, that the Mexicans would pay for it, and nobody in his audience laughed.

The second political event leading to the Trumping of the Republicans was the election of that Kenyan-born Muslim, Barack Obama. Obama's election confronted a vast swath of Americans with the shocking truth that being born with white skin, having a closet full of rifles, and holding a world view that failed to consider anything happening beyond your own little cul-de-sac was not going to cut it any more. And it was Obama's fault - Obama and everyone who looked like him.

That the next refugee allowed on our shores might grow up to be President was no longer a point of American pride. The next refugee was probably not going to be white.

Yes, folks. Trump represents the worst of America. And in a primary election in the United States, winners are decided by those voters that show up. Since only the most rabid, highly motivated voters tend to show up in the primaries, the winners are the ones willing to feed the beast.

Beware. The fringe right wing of politics with which Europe is so familiar and against which Europe is constantly on guard has invaded America with a vengeance. I have decided to leave the United States and live in France for a reason. And it's not about the wine and the cheese.

Well, not just about the wine and the cheese...

NETANYAHU, CONGRESS, AND A PALESTINIAN-ARAB STATE

I believe in Israel's right to exist in peace with its neighbors.

Is peace possible when the charters of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas call for Israel's destruction, when regional despots like Ayatollah Ali Khamenei call for death to Israeli Jews? There are those who would tell you to ignore the charters and the speeches, that they are just words. But Jews have come to understand, after centuries of being taught by example, that when a political movement or a government official says that they will kill Jews, they are to be believed. The original Zionists made that assumption and the Israeli government continues to operate on that premise.

Ask yourself a simple question: Which hypothetical circumstance would be most likely to lead to peace in the region, disarming the Palestinians Arabs or disarming the Israelis? As Golda Meir is reputed to have said, though she certainly wasn't the first: Disarming the Palestinians Arabs would lead to peace. Disarming the Israelis would lead to the destruction of Israel.

Step back for a moment and look at history. There are those who will tell you that history doesn't matter, that we should focus on the present. Those people don't understand either the Jewish or the Arab mentality. Events that took place centuries ago are to both peoples as fresh today as a cool morning breeze. We can dispute whether or not the Palestinian Arabs were in the main chased from Israel by Zionists in 1948 or if the bulk of them left their homes at the urging of Arab armies promising a swift return once the Jews were pushed into the sea. Either way, certain subsequent events cannot be disputed:

1. The Palestinian Arab refugee camps were built by their Arab brothers who, with the exception of Jordan, refused to allow the refugees basic civil rights and a path to a normal life within the host country. As a result, while in other countries Palestinian Arabs have been radicalized and promised a right of return that has not been and in all probabilities will not be granted, the bulk of Palestinian Arabs in Jordan are fully integrated and say that they wouldn't return even if given the opportunity.

2. From 1948 to 1967, the West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands. A Palestinian Arab state could have been declared without Israel's involvement. Israel would no doubt have had security questions. In the central part of the country, before 1967 you could have taken a flying leap from Israel's eastern border and landed hip deep in the Med. But if the neighboring Arab states had prepared for peace instead of war, those questions could have been answered.

3. After 1967 and after Egypt recognized Israel's right to exist, Israel traded land, valuable land, to Egypt in turn for peace. That peace has held for close to 50 years. I repeat. Peace with Egypt - as well as Jordan - has held for 50 years. The prerequisite? Simply recognizing Israel's right to exist and establishing diplomatic relations.

I believe in a two-state solution. I believe that Israel's settlement policy is misguided, primarily in place as a sop to the Israeli political Right. But I support Israel against such uninformed charges as genocide against the Palestinian Arabs. Israel could level Gaza and bounce the ashes. It restrains itself from doing so even if its recent actions in Gaza do not lend themselves to the term 'restraint'. Ask yourself the outcome if such military asymmetry were reversed.

And now we come to Netanyahu. Why shouldn't Netanyahu address the US Congress?

Let me count the ways...

1. The Constitution clearly gives the Executive responsibility for the bulk of the conduct of foreign affairs including the negotiation of treaties. Yes, Congress must approve. But the Founders understood that there should only be one voice at the table during negotiations with foreign powers. That voice belongs to the Executive. Negotiation by committee, and therefore this foray into the negotiations with Iran by Congress, is just stupid.

2. We know what Netanyahu will say. He will say that Iran is an existential threat. That Iran cannot be trusted. That Israel cannot allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. There. I've given Netanyahu's speech for him. He can save the time and the jet fuel it will take to get here and back to Israel to continue campaigning for reelection.

3. Speaking of campaigning, the US has a longstanding policy of not interfering in democratic elections conducted by its friends. Well, except for the CIA. But since the Mossad is better at covert ops than the CIA, the Israelis don't have to worry on that score. They should worry, however, that Netanyahu thinks that it's a good idea to drag the US Congress into Israeli politics. Our Congress has an approval rating only slightly higher than Boko Haram's. And there is reason to believe that the fear tactics Netanyahu is using may backfire, that his political opposition is coalescing. Is Netanyahu desperate or just clueless?

4. And speaking of politics, Americans have a saying that politics ends at the border. Not any more, apparently. If speaking before Congress makes Netanyahu look silly, John Boehner conducting foreign affairs behind the President's back makes John Boehner look silly - or sillier, depending on what you think of his tanning spray.

There's more, but that's enough. The proposed speech is bad for the negotiations with Iran, bad for Netanyahu, and bad for Congress. What's the point?

IT'S ROMNEY

While I was on vacation, Santorum failed to close the deal. He was too scary even for the Republicans. Of course, saying that Romney closed the deal may be overstating the case. His inability to garner more than 50% of primary voters in any state until the sideshow geeks were the only opposition left standing would be troubling except for the fact that Republicans are herd animals.

Herd animals stand on the sidelines while adversaries for top dog duke it out, then fall in line docilely behind the winner. It would seem that the herd scenario is being played out by the Republicans, but there may be a caveat or two to consider. Can Romney run away from Romneycare, from the perception that he’s just another effete, privileged Massachusetts liberal in Tea Party clothing? Will the Tea Party rally back to him? Does the Tea Party matter anymore?

Don’t be silly. Of course the Tea Party matters. If nothing else, the Tea Party has pulled the Republican Party hard right and taken the national conversation along with it.

Anybody but Obama. That will be the subtext – and in some cases the explicit message – to every bit of advertising, every speech, every Fox News commentary for the next five months.

Will it be enough? Predictions will have to wait just a bit longer. Right now? Too close to call.

BACK FROM VACATION

Howdy Folks!

I'm back from my sojourn in Mexico and Texas, I'm organizing my thoughts and I'm writing away. You'll hear about the Mexican silver-mining town of Guanajuato; about barbecue in Lockhart, Texas; about visiting a west Texas ranch; about my nephew's wedding party; and about anything else that strikes my fancy.

Stay tuned.

SANTORUM! WHO KNEW? I DID!

Yes, I did. Analysis HERE.

HANDICAPPING THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

Now we get serious. People will begin taking notice. Check out my take on the candidates' prospects here: PoliticalBlogContinued

QUICK TAKES ON REPUBLICANS: One Week Before Iowa

VERY quick takes. Read them at PoliticalBlogContinued. It'll only take a second.