Our plan to eliminate poverty through human attrition
Democratic voters in 2020 are more indecisive than ever. For the most part, the fear of electing the "wrong" candidate against Donald Trump, which would result in four more years of authoritarian government weighs on most people's minds as a major social responsibility. The Democratic Party is divided, and tensions, at times, are high. Many feel that a conservative candidate is the answer - someone who will draw those independents and conservatives who are repulsed by the political actions of the current GOP. Real progressive candidates are, in their estimation, "too far left" to draw those voters, thus assuring a Trump re-election, should they become the nominee - something no American who believes in traditional American values and comprehends what is currently happening within our government wants to see happen.
Although 73% of incumbents have won reelection since the civil war, looking at approval ratings since their earliest reliable date, 1940, every incumbent with an approval rating of 49% or more won, while those with an approval of 48% or lower lost. Donald Trump's approval has been pretty static - around 40 to 43%. That would seem to make his chances of reelection pretty slim. However, it is hard to base a prediction on those figures today. Although, for various reason, data can be contested, it is quite evident, from this writers assessment of the facts, that the under-the-table antics of the Republican Party allowed them to steal both the 2000 and 2016 elections. Gerrymandering and the Electoral College, voter caging and other forms of voter purging, ballot purging, the closing of hundreds of polling places in mostly Southern state minority districts, black box voting (voting machines that do not provide a tangible record of individual votes cast), and other nefarious activities described in other current and upcoming articles in this blog, have all contributed to the GOP's ability to "win" elections without actually winning. Statistics show that the Democrats should trounce Trump in the upcoming election. Reality, unfortunately, skews those statistics unpredictably. Democrats must have a strong showing at the polls in order to overcome Republican shenanigans.
Given that reality, the question becomes not of policy as much as who can turn out the greatest number of voters. My conclusion is that the candidate most able to provide that kind of turnout is Bernie Sanders. The reasons have little to do with all the complicated analyses I have read. Although those analyses have value, more likely than not, they get lost in the forest of unpredictability. The clearing in the forest is in looking at the least (or lowest) common denominator - something most analyses seem to overlook.
GOP election fraud aside, Donald Trump could not have achieved victory without a significant number of American voters casting ballots in his favor. Despite his subversion of governmental norms and the rule of law itself, his disgraceful character, fabrication of facts and even impeachment, he has managed to hang on to the majority of his cult followers. Two things become quite obvious - the current drive of the GOP is authoritarian control and a large segment of the population is quite civically illiterate.
What causes many to scratch their heads is that many of these voters also voted for Barack Obama. In addition, according to a massive survey of 50,000 voters by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, 12% of voters who cast a ballot for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries voted for Trump in the general election. An interesting statistic here is that those Sanders voters who went to Trump were less likely to have voted for Obama than other Sanders supporters. These relationships all seem a bit paradoxical. Looking back at history, however, it is not so complicated.
What are those common denominators? There are just two things that drive most voters to the polls. Neither have much to do with their personal attraction to a candidate or their dislike of that candidate's opponent, nor do they have that much to do with specific issues. Although those factors come into play, the common denominators are much more general. People want 1) Real Change and 2) Inspiration. Those are the common denominators, and the candidate who can most concisely and convincingly project their ability to accomplish those two things will win the election.
This election is not about left or right, socialism or capitalism, or any other matter of conventional wisdom. People are fed up with status quo government. That is the reasons many voted for Obama and that's why many voted for Trump. Face it folks - There is no solid and predictable future ahead. If the economy tanks, we know what someone like Bloomberg will do. Like every modern president before him, he will depend on Wall Street to call the shots, which is akin to throwing gasolene on the fire. Kicking the can down the road will only make the fall worse when it happens. One of the reasons the economy is in the state it is in today is due to Wall Street's design to deal with the last disruption. The problem is, we've used up all the tools, and we still have not fixed the problem.
Let's take a look at elections in this country. John Adams was an authoritarian, to the point where he threw over 20 newspaper owners in prison for criticizing him. Thomas Jefferson was a reformer who defeated Adams in what has often been termed the Revolution of 1800. 28 years later, Andrew Jackson ran on a platform "for the people", as Jefferson wrote, Jackson ran against "an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry." Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt brought about massive changes. JFK was also a reformer, and his proposals, brought forward and implemented by Lyndon Johnson after Kennedy's assassination brought us the revolutionary "Great Society" and civil rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act. Barack Obama was a reformer, proposing Real Change in bringing back a government "of the people". Although he was constantly obstructed, he still brought us the Affordable Care Act. Donald Trump also ran as a reformer.
Democrats are not going to win an election with talk about "reaching across the isle". Obama tried that and was subverted at every step. Neo-Republicans have made it quite obvious that they are less concerned about cooperative, bi-partisan legislation, the U.S. Constitution and the "rule of law" than they are winning at any cost, in the lowest example of dirty, winner-takes-all politics this country has seen in generations of modern government.
Democrats opposed to the candidacy of Bernie Sanders are not proposing meaningful reform. Neither are they providing inspiration. These are the two common denominators that have driven people to the polls to vote for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. There are "centrist" candidates, but the question is, are there "centrist" voters. The so-called "middle ground" does not exist in the terms of common perception. What you have, instead, is a mishmash of voters, most of whom vote along partisan lines. Of so-called "independents" (38% of U.S. adults), according to an in-depth study by Pew Research, only 7% actually express no partisan leaning (But only 1/3 of that 7% actually vote, compared to almost 50% of Democratic leaners). 13% lean toward the Republican Party, while 17% lean toward the Democrats. In an earlier study, the gap between independents who lean to the GOP and those who lean to the Democratic Party on Trump's job approval (73% vs. 9%) was nearly as wide as the gap between Republicans and Democrats (85% vs. 8%). It is noteworthy, as the study pointed out, that Democratic leaners generally are more progressive than partisan Democrats, favoring gay marriage, marijuana legalization and minority equality in larger numbers. Independents also are more likely than partisans to express positive views about immigrants. 51% of Democrats are under age 50, but that figure rises to 68% among Democratic leaners.
Looking at the same study, being thoughtful of just who is more like likely to draw those independent "cross-voters", 2016 Sanders primary voters who ended up voting for Trump were much less likely than Sanders-Clinton or Sanders-third party voters to have been Democratic independants in the first place. In other words, they were Republican leaners who broke away from the norm and voted for Sanders.
FiveThirtyEight.com is owned by ABC News, one of the more moderate of mainstream media. MediaBiasFactCheck.com gives the site a very high rating, stating "Overall, we rate FiveThirtyEight (538) Left-Center Biased based on story selection that slightly favors the left, but does not favor the progressive left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing of information, a solid record with poll analysis and a clean fact check record." The Web site takes its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college. Their electoral analysis is based on a great number of sources and their reputation in that analysis is highly rated. Their current state-by-state analysis shows Bernie Sanders as the clear primary delegate winner. Their methods are described here.[EDIT]: When this article was written, before "Super Tuesday", the predictions (as shown below) were, overwhelmingly in favor of Bernie Sanders. In my considered opinion, those institutions that support the status quo and big money interests have jumped on the Biden Bandwagon, using voters in a few conservative Southern states to convince the American public that Biden is the man to vote for. Due to this big-interest gathering around their candidate, the predictions now look quite different. A very good, in depth article on why this may be a catastropic event, can be found in Current Affairs
As a member of the "Boomer" generation, "Socialism" never struck me as a word I would hear in serious American politics. It took me a while to understand where Bernie Sanders was coming from in the use of that term. I had never heard of Democratic Socialism, and I felt, at the very least, given the average concept of the term, it's use was a political quagmire. I've learned a lot since then.
Of course, most of America is not learning along with me, and even if they were, the staunch defenders of capitalism would disagree. Should Bernie become the nominee, the country will go through an education. It is an education that must happen if we are to survive as a viable democracy. Ignorance of just what Democratic Socialism is and how Capitalism is quickly failing us must be understood, and certainly can be. His presence as a candidate, without a doubt, will bring that discussion to the forefront.
Bernie Sanders is the canary in the coal mine. Only this canary has a plan, if we will listen. This plan is directly in line with traditional Democratic values.
"The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."
These are the words of Adam Smith, the patron saint of capitalism. Pope Francis recently echoed the same sentiment, when he said "The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose ... While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few."
Economist Thomas Piketty seems to have become the latest pop-star economist, but his words make sense when he says that "capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based."
The Bank of International Settlements is the central bank for the central banks. It's 18 board members rarely make public statements, but their decisions are on the top of the world economic structure. Peter Dittus, Former BIS Secretary General from 2005 to 2016, said the following at a recent economic conference in Geneva: "The economy is not doing so well ... There is investment in stock buy-backs and financial engineering, but in real investment, it's very low. We have huge debt, high asset prices, no investment in real activity and, at some point, this is going to blow up! ... International mechanisms that one can think of to deal with it - the international mechanisms are totally inadequate to deal with a major crisis and the fallout ... The current trajectory of economic policies in the G7 countries, we believe, is leading to a systemic crisis that will call into question many of the beliefs that the capitalist system is built on. ... The trigger for this revolution will be a loss of confidence in the Alice in Wonderland world, where, suddenly, people will realize the accumulated debt in G7 countries cannot be serviced and that asset values were artificially boosted by monetary policies that cannot continue."
Contemporary capitalism is in crisis. Sooner or later, we must face up to the fact that there is no cure. The sooner the better. The collapse is coming, and no one can predict when. Speculation, though, is that it can happen at any time. The only thing missing is the right trigger. We need to not only rethink our processes, but the very structures upon which those processes depend. That will take years to accomplish, but it begins with understanding the problem. As historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz put it, "If corporate capitalism and traditional state socialism both systemically fail to sustain values of equality, genuine democracy, liberty, and ecological sustainability what must we do?"
Bernie Sanders is not talking about replacing Capitalism with Socialism. Instead, he is proposing democratic programs to curb the current crisis in a manner that will benefit the society as a whole, without harming our capitalist institutions. It is vital to prevent the exponential accumulation of society's wealth into the hands of a tiny group of that society. His ideas are not adverse to democratic principles and, at the very least, will save Capitalism from itself. It is not an ultimate cure, but it will give us some breathing room. Adam Smith, himself, predicted the self-destruction coming. The situation will not get better. Only worse. 85 billionaires, right now, have more wealth than the 3.5 billion poorest half of the world population. 400 people own the majority (Over 60%) of this nation's stocks and bonds. A recent study showed that 44% of the U.S. population lives at or below the poverty line.
The GOP and it's cohorts will do their best to damage confidence in whoever becomes the Democratic nominee. As Pete Buttigieg said, just as they did with Obama, the Republicans will label any Democratic nominee as a "socialist", and fill Fox News with false facts and twisted truths. This will play well to the Trump cult, and most conservative-leaning independents, as pointed out previously, will follow the party line, as their dislike of Democrats will exceed any misgivings they may have of the Republican Party, and the Trump cult will remain the Trump cult. As borne out in the 2016 primaries and election, however, there are a number of conservative-leaning independents who will vote for Bernie Sanders where they will likely not vote for other Democratic candidates. Those independents will vote for Real Change and Inspiration over absurd authoritarianism. It is unlikely, as past results have proven, that they will be Inspired by a status quo Democrat.
Climate change, the burning of fossil fuels, the deregulation of corporate industry and other processes cannot continue if we are to move forward with bold optimism and common sense. Leaps and bounds are being made in viable and renewable solar energy, in affordability, efficiency and adaptability to varied usage. With the application of good old American innovation it can be made cheaper and more efficient. But first, we need to put a concerted effort in that direction. Corporate Democrats are not about to get behind such drives when their political funding comes from those who want to convince the public that climate change does not exist, excessive Co2 is good for the atmosphere and renewable energy is a pipe dream. We are at that level of corruption because it costs millions of dollars to run a political campaign. Candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have disproved the need for such funding. The status quo cannot conceive of such a concept, even though the proof is before their eyes.
It should also be considered, given economic references already stated, that Wall Street could collapse or, at the very least, have a heart attack during the next four years. It could hardly be anticipated that, at the very least, a major recession is not on its way. With a Democratic president, it is inevitable that the Republicans will make hay, challenging that the Democrats are to blame. If it is a disastrous fall, the ultra-rich class will still be doing fine. A centrist president will be left holding the bag, with nothing tangible to convince the American public to elect him or her for another four years. We will end up with an empowered GOP, and we will have gained nothing and lost considerably. However, if that candidate has shown that they have the ability to instigate change that shows concern and tangible benefits for the average American, they will be more likely to place their faith in that administration.
We've had a good ride for the last 70 years, which has seen the rise of trade unions, helping to establish a strong and affluent middle class, advances in civil rights, a strong economy, and a reputation throughout the world as an arbiter of progress and decency. Although the myth has been disfigured over the years, and, particularly, with the current administration, we still have an opportunity to be a world leader. But Mahatma Ghandi said, "The true measure of any society can be found it how it treats its most vulnerable members". Whether we realize it or not, we are at a stage where, unless we are members of the top 10%, we are all vulnerable. The very near future holds many obstacles that are at a point where they can no longer be ignored. We can no longer depend on our status quo establishment to save the day with band aids and pretty pictures. We need to understand and face reality. Not to do so is sheer folly. The American economy is sitting on a rising bubble of debt, while a small number of individuals are scooping up as much of society's wealth as they can get their hands on. Most of them know where we are heading. Those who are not as oblivious as the general public and the pundits that feed them are either extremely concerned, sticking their heads in the sand, or making preparations they believe will save them when the earth begins to crack and the bubble bursts upon the surface. Most Americans do not understand real economics whatsoever, but they know something is wrong. They are losing jobs to overseas workers and automation, there is no longer one "breadwinner" in the family, childcare takes most of one members wages, college education has become extremely expensive while student loans have become big business, we have amazing medical technology that a great number of the population can no longer afford, severe climate change is pounding at our doors, and the gap of financial inequality is widening exponentially. We cannot go on like this. We are already years late in addressing these issues that make for a healthy society. An establishment candidate is not a "safe bet", will not drive independents to the polls, and will only further the status quo nature of kicking cans down the road. We're running out of road. There is no better time to elect a progressive candidate. Four or eight more years of giving token nods to the crises before us, risking the possibility of unprepared disaster, is not a viable option. The time to act is now.