Category Archives: Politics

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Once you accept that politics is a three way street, it gets easier.

Far too much time is being wasted, by people running for office, by pundits, by Facebook posters and especially by the Biden administration, trying to figure out how to change the minds of Trump supporters. I could make this the shortest essay on record by simply saying, “you can’t change what you don’t have,”  and going home, but I have a more serious point. 

These speakers, almost without exception, make their arguments as if there are only two kinds of voters in America — left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans. These groups hate each other and are almost everywhere almost the same size, so it follows that the way to win an election is to persuade some of “them” to vote with “us.” I have encountered a good many campaigns lately that regard that as their job. They lost. As will any campaign so organized. 

Because here’s the reality I am familiar with: in every political jurisdiction — precinct, county, or state) I have ever analyzed for political purposes since I started doing it in 1965, the profile of registered voters has been, approximately, one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third other (independent, third party, whatever). Continue reading →

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There have been two major reformations of the practice of American politics during my time in or near the arena. One was launched in 1980 by a movie actor whose lines were given to him by a coterie of wealthy backers and cynical political operatives. The other was detonated in 2016 by a reality-TV host with no experience in or knowledge of politics, acting virtually alone. (My concern here is with practical politics, not issues, so I am laying aside for the moment such things as the obvious impact of the Civil Rights movement.)

Prior to 1980, politics was widely defined as “the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best,” in the words of Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismark. Political combatants were expected to go into the committee room or the legislative assembly and hammer out their differences, giving a little here, taking a little there until the result was not perfect, in anyone’s view, but was acceptable in everyone’s view. The focus was on what needed to be done, and how to get it done.

It was hard work. And both the reformations I refer to had to do with professional politicians finding ways to keep their offices but avoid the hard work. Continue reading →

Look, sweetie, he’s been gone a month now and you really have to start getting over your rage. Two things to know about rage: hold on to it too long and it turns incredibly toxic — for you, not for him; and rage almost always begins with fear.

Of course you were afraid of him. We all were, as long as he was the accidental president of the United States.  (I say accidental because he lost the popular vote but became president by an accidental alignment of the electoral college, and although he later claimed to have brilliantly planned the whole thing it is certain that he did not then and does not now have a clue as to what the electoral college is or how it works.) Fear was the right response when he could drop a nasty tweet and ruin a life, or mention someone in a speech and get them hounded by trolls spewing death threats; or get someone investigated because they looked at him the wrong way. And fear, when it’s prolonged and helpless, morphs into rage. Continue reading →

When a political party achieves the majority in the United States Senate, it acquires not only the ability to win all votes (that don’t require a 60% majority), but to appoint committee chairs and set the legislative agenda. It is an event of enormous significance for the party, the government and the people. Parties strive to achieve the majority, usually, by putting forth an agenda of things they would do if only.

In 2020 the Democratic Party won not only the presidency and vice presidency, but the senate, by virtue of winning two special elections in Georgia after the presidential election. Actual membership in the senate is an equal split of 50-50, but since the vice president chairs the Senate, and she is a Democrat, her party is the majority. Continue reading →

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AUSTIN, TX. Nov. 7, 2020. A Protect the Vote rally is held in Wooldridge Square shortly after former Vice President Joe Biden was declared the projected winner of the 2020 Presidential Election. Michael Minasi/KUT

When  they finally told us who had won the 2020 presidential election, I felt a profound sadness. Not because I wanted the other guy to win — not hardly — but because I felt sorry for the winner.

Like most successful campaigns, Joe Biden’s offered a clear and simple promise — “I am not Donald Trump, I will restore competence and decency to government.” Eighty-one million American voters approved, more than voted for any presidential candidate ever before, and seven million more than voted for Trump. But not-being-Donald-Trump is not going to be enough. Consider what we confront: Continue reading →

The Army of the Deplorables assaults the US Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.

Overheated rhetoric deployed against overheated rhetoric is like spraying gasoline on a fire. The events at the Capitol last Wednesday were awful enough; exaggerating them serves no purpose.

1. It was not an attempted coup. A coup seeks to assume the power of government, something these morons were obviously not equipped to do, and to be objective were not trying to do. To the extent they had a strategy it was apparently to delay the certification of the Electoral College vote for president.  
2. But it is not at all clear that there was a strategy, an overall plan. By appearances they were just a mob, rioting, and mobs have IQs that equal the average shoe size of their members. Clearly, some of them wanted to kill and maim, others wanted to trash, and some wanted to take pictures of the pretty statues and selfies of their grand adventure.

Continue reading →

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No, the armies of democracy did not wear uniforms. Maybe they should have. To get a little respect.

If they had done what they did a few days ago as a military operation — wearing uniforms, carrying weapons — the world would have been transfixed, our adversaries carried out of the arena in a dead faint. 

By the hundreds and then the thousands and then the tens of thousands, they left their homes in the predawn dark last Tuesday and headed for their assembly points. For a few of them it was just another day on the job, but the great majority were volunteers with a day’s training under their belts. stepping up because someone had to. According to a well-rehearsed plan, they took possession of a critical building in each of their neighborhoods, booted up their complex computerized equipment and donned their face masks. Remember, all this was happening at the height of the worst pandemic, the worst public health emergency, in a hundred years. Continue reading →

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Color them red, and blue, and that’s it? I think there’s more to it…..

I often think we — and be we I mean all of us collectively, people, journalists, politicians, etc. — overestimate the degree to which judges appointed by a particular president continue to represent that president’s point of view for the rest of their careers. I am also suspicious of the meaning of the labels “liberal” and “conservative” as applied to jurists, and as used to predict their future opinions.

Years ago a friend of mine was summoned to jury duty. It was a long, complicated and serious case, a charge of manslaughter as I recall. My friend was the owner of a small construction company, a Republican, a hunter and second-amendment guy, who didn’t have much good to say about people who didn’t look and think as he did. (As I recall it, the accused at trial was a member of a minority.) Some time after the trial was over I ran into him and asked him how it had gone. His answer surprised me.  Continue reading →