SUPER CHARGED?

As the impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives continues, the guiltiness of Donald Trump's behavior is becoming more and more obvious.  Right now,  Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the European Union, is giving testimony to the fact that Trump's attempts to get the country of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden's son consisted of a lot more than a phone call from the president to the leader of the Ukraine.  “I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’” Sondland said. “The answer is yes.”
This overwhelming evidence should mean that, if this were a just and honest world, Trump's own party would turn on him and he would be bounced out of office and possibly into a jail cell where he belongs.  But, alas, the country we are now living in is not just and honest.
The Republican party is now the party of the Trump cult and nothing else.  No matter what happens, the registered voters of the party still support him, so the congressional Republicans must do the same.  Which means that the Republican votes needed in the Senate to oust Trump will be almost impossible to get.  Why would  they turn on him now, when they supported his campaign as he lied, bragged and insulted his way into office?  They supported him after he called Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers, refused to put his businesses in  a blind trust or  release his taxes. Not even  the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape could stop them from sticking with him. Which means that once again, the man who has spent his whole life doing terrible things and never paying any consequence will once again skate away unscathed.

As if that isn't horrible enough, the sad fact of the matter is that Trump's almost inevitable vindication in the Senate may super charge him.  Instead of seeing himself as weakened by being impeached by one house of congress, Trump may very well see himself as being invulnerable.  Because he truly does seem to believe that he has done nothing wrong in this scandal (or indeed, that he never done anything wrong in his entire life!), the senate vote may unleash him to be even more corrupt and deranged in the upcoming election.  It is entirely possible that during the campaign Trump will openly start asking for aid from foreign countries.  In his speeches, in his tweets, in financial dealings, he will just make the same demands that he made with Ukraine: help me win reelection and I will help you, if you don't help me  I will use the might of the largest economy in the world to strike back at you.   Even worse, it's easy to predict how the two parties will react to this: elected Republicans will shrug and say that they don't agree with his methods but still support him, and Democrats will be left screaming into a void, unable to sell the idea of impeaching him all over again.
This is the rock and a hard place that the Democrats have been stuck in ever since the impeachment proceedings began.  While I certainly think that it was the right thing to bring these charges against Trump in the face of such obvious corruption, it may actually wind up helping him win reelection by embolding him to openly seek aid from Russia and other countries.  And as long as the feckless Republican party do nothing to stop him, America will become more and more of the  complete disgrace it became since he took office.

AFFLUENZA

Definition of affluenza

: the unhealthy and unwelcome psychological and social effects of affluence regarded especially as a widespread societal problem: such as 

feelings of guilt, lack of motivation, and social isolation experienced by wealthy people

Affluenza is a expression that had been kicking around for years before it became well known in 2013 after a teenager was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and valium and killing four people.  At his trial, his family's high priced lawyer used the term to make the claim that the boy shouldn't be sent to prison because his wealthy parents had indulged him all his life, setting no boundaries and never teaching him right from wrong.  Amazingly, this absurd argument worked, and he was given ten years of probation, a pathetic display of everything wrong with our legal system.  It also placed the word firmly into the public's consciousness ( the above definition came from the Webster's website).  Personally, I think the time has come to use the term to describe our president and his often crazed response to the current impeachment process.
Since the beginning of the Ukraine scandal that has led to the impeachment proceedings going on right now in the House of Representatives, one thing has stood out: President Donald Trump has never admitted the tiniest bit of regret about his phone call with the Ukraine leader in which he openly asked for "a favor" regarding investigating his potential presidential opponent Joe Biden's son.  Not only has the president expressed no regrets about the possibility (now an almost certitude)   that he used the with holding of financial aid to a country, spending which had been  voted on and passed by congress, as a means to help him win reelection, but he has continually said that he has done nothing wrong, calling his phone conversation "beautiful" and "perfect."
This kind of deranged behavior in the face of what surely should be  impeachable  is just the latest example of Trump living a life in which he got to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted without ever facing any real consequence.  I think that the president is clearly a sociopath, which is an inborn trait, but I also think that his extremely privileged upbringing  has enabled and focused his sociopathic tendencies to the point where he thinks everything he has ever done is perfect.  There are numerous examples of  his believing this, like when, during the campaign, while discussing religion,  he was asked if he ever sought forgiveness from God and, he said “I like to be good. I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good."  Amazingly, this rejection of the Christian virtues of forgiveness and humility didn't hurt him a bit with the Christian Evangelical vote.
This utter belief in his own rightness has lead to some horrible actions in Trump;s life: it would be seem to be apparent that in the past, if we are to believe multiple allegations and his own words on the Access Hollywood tape, Trump's way of expressing an attraction towards a woman is to get her alone in a room and shove her up against a wall while kissing and groping her.  Given the number of women over the years who have accused him of such behavior, it's safe to say that the he has been acting this way, (and more importantly, getting away with it) for years.  He has also gotten away with not releasing his tax returns,  multiple bankruptcies, and paying out twenty million dollars in a class action lawsuit over Trump University.  So of course he thinks that he did nothing wrong in his phone call and in his administration pressuring a foreign country to help him politically; it's just the latest in a long line of things he's never had to account for in his entire life. Putting it simply, Trump will never admit to any kind of mistake because he has never had to pay for one; his family's wealth and power have always bailed him out, so why shouldn't he continue to get away with everything?  While he never drinks alcohol or takes drugs, Trump clearly is a man addicted to his own bloated self worth and ego.  And sadly, the Republican party in the Senate appears poised to bail him out and enable him once again, allowing a man who never should have gotten near The White House to claim absolution for an obviously impeachable offense.  As America continues to sink into divided chaos...

ARE THE DEMOCRATS BLOWING IT?

A majority of Americans now support impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office, he has never had an approval rating that surpassed 50%, his recent decision to remove troops from Syria has been attacked by members of his own party, including some of his biggest defenders.  And yet he still has a good chance at winning reelection next year.
How can this be?  How could America make the same mistake twice and give a second term to an obviously corrupt, impulsive and perhaps even mentally unstable president?  Part of it that his base are completely unwavering in their adoration, with the president casting a cult like spell over his followers that no impeachment trial can shake.  Proof of this is seen in the fact that while his approval ratings may never get above half of the country, they haven't gone down as the impeachment proceedings have been going on and further evidence of his corruption have become apparent.  Trump also has the power of the incumbency, which allows him to drive the agenda more than a challenger, plus he will benefit from a strong economy that probably won't tank before election day, and he's also amassed an enormous financial war chest and will probably run a far less chaotic campaign then his first one.  Another advantage is that, as with the last election, he can win the electoral college without winning the popular vote just as long as the right voters in the right states turn out for him.  These are all strong reasons why we may suffer through four more years of disastrous leadership.
But there's another reason.  In the mad scramble to gain the Democratic nomination that has left us with no less than twelve candidates only a year away from  the election, the candidates have all made promises to the progressive base of the party, promises that may push away the moderate swing voters needed to win the White House. 
The most prominent promise made by most of the candidates is Medicare for all, essentially a nationalizing of our health care system.  In principle, I totally agree with this idea: every other industrialized nation in the world has a national healthcare system.  Americans spend twice as much per capita on healthcare than people in those countries, and still tend to be less healthy and have shorter life spans.  But the details of the program are going to be difficult to sell to the American public.  In some ways, "Medicare for all" is the same kind of promise for progressives that "Build a Wall and get Mexico to pay for it" was for conservatives, that is, a base rallying cry that could  prove far easier to say than carry out.  First, it must be admitted that the Democrats will never be able to pass such a plan in congress if they don't retake the Senate, which might not happen.  Even if the Dems do get a majority, they won't have enough to break a filibuster, which the Republicans will certainly use against such a plan.  So the filibuster will also have to be tossed out (something I think should happen).
But even before a Democratic president could try to get the plan passed, he or she would have to win the White House, and the boldness of the Medicare for all plan might intimidate some swing voters.  Right now, most Americans get their healthcare through their employers.  A switch to a national plan, even one that may be better, could be jarring to some people.  And it will result in higher taxes for many people, even those in the middle class.  Now, Bernie Sanders to his credit, has pointed out that for most people the rise in taxes will be less than the current cost of premiums and prescription drug costs, but a tax increase is a tax increase, a fact that the Republican party and Trump will scream to the high heavens.  Also, our massive healthcare industry employs hundreds of thousand of workers, most of whom are not wealthy CEO's, and all of whom will face unemployment if the plan is passed.

So, again, while I agree with the principle of Medicare for all, I think phasing it more slowly than the two year switch that it's proponents call for might be a wiser path.  More moderate candidates are pushing for passing a public health care option that allows people to choose, rather than a massive switch, which makes sense to me.  Also, I think considering lowering the age of Medicare eligibility and increasing the expansion of Medicaid would be good alternatives. 
While the anger and horror that president Trump's horrendous presidency has inspired and inflamed progressives in this country, letting the left wing of the Democrats push the party to a point where many moderates will go with the devil they know (even if that devil is Donald Trump) is a possible and frightening idea.  Trump holding onto to the White House for another four years will be a terrible outcome for both the country and the world, and the Dems must avoid that outcome at all costs, even it means scaling back ambitious progressive plans that probably won't get passed anyway.  The stakes are too high to blow this election.

IMPEACHMENT AT LAST

Not to brag,  but in December of 2016 I posted these words about newly elected president Donald Trump on this very blog:

I'm saying that some kind of impeachment is possible in the next four years.  Understand, I'm not just predicting this out of angry sour grapes or my personal intense dislike of the man, I'm just honestly looking at him through media reports on his manner and disposition and finding that he is probably a psychopath, with inflated self esteem and an inability to care about any other person in the world.  Meaning that he very well may stumble into something impeachable as he childishly tries to increase his own wealth and importance...

I can honestly say that that opinion was far from being particularly insightful or prophetic; I think any person looking at Donald Trump's behavior as both candidate and unlikely president could  easily see this day coming.  It's always seemed inevitable.

Trump has lived his life like a human bulldozer, utilizing his father's wealth and successful real estate business to match his own hugely inflated self image.  And that wealth (according to The New York Times, Trump's father gave  him hundreds of millions of dollars over the years) has allowed to get away with multiple bankruptcies, hundreds of lawsuits, and nineteen separate charges of sexual assault.   And all the while he has promoted himself as a self made billionaire and "stable genius."  
But soon that stable genius may very well join a small but exclusive club of impeached presidents; yes, after months of prodding from other members of her party, last Monday Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally did the right thing and began impeachment proceedings against Trump.  It wasn't his violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution, his obstruction of justice or his payoffs to a porn star and a centerfold that finally pushed Pelosi over the edge.  No, it was the news that a  (still unknown) whistle blower inside the White House  heard Trump on a phone call pushing the president of the country of Ukraine into launching an investigation of Joe Biden's son as a way to smear his Democratic challenger before the 2020 election.  Trump appears to have gone as far as withholding congressionally approved financial aid to that country if the investigation did not begin.  In other words, he pressured a foreign country to aid him in an election, even using the with holding of US tax dollars as pressure.  This is certainly no small thing for any elected official to do; it appears criminal.  
Predictably, Trump has claimed that he did nothing wrong, and that his phone conversation with the Ukrainian leader was "perfect"(?).  But, thankfully, Pelosi and other Democrats in the house disagree, and so the process has begun.  
Personally, I think this is absolutely the right thing to do, even though the odds of him being removed by the Senate (which would require sixty votes) are small, we cannot as a country continue to pretend that the past three years haven't been the insane, chaotic mess that they have been.  From his openly bigoted tweets and statements, to his numerous lies and childish boasts, to his open corruption, there has never been a president like Trump before, and it is right to for Pelosi and company to show the world that not all Americans are accepting of his behavior.  Even if he isn't removed from office, he will join the exclusive club of impeached presidents that includes Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton (Nixon resigned before his inevitable impeachment), and that will always be a stain on his reign.  
There has been much speculation in the press that Trump being impeached may actually help in 2020, since it will fire up the cultists in his base and perhaps alienate swing voters.  While the prospect of Trump being a two term president is horrifying in the extreme, I still feel that these proceedings are the right thing for the house to do morally.  Future presidents must be made aware that there are limits to their power, and abuses of those limits as severe as Trump's must not be condoned for the good of the country.

GAMING THE SYSTEM

Joe Biden is out of it.  Flummoxed, a gaffe machine, too old and out of touch.  This is the narrative drum beat we have heard about Biden since he first announced his candidacy, and that has persisted even as he has consistently led in the polls against his Democratic rivals.  Inevitably, president Donald Trump has joined in the insults, dubbing Biden "Sleepy Joe", and bragging about how much younger he feels than Biden.  Of course, Trump is only three years younger than him, and. like Biden, he clearly seems to having trouble with his memory.  Recently he stated that his father was born in Germany (he wasn't) and has claimed no less than six times publicly that he was once given the Michigan Man of the Year award, despite him never having received that award, which doesn't even actually exist(!).  Imagine the mentality that not only dreams up an award for himself, and then boasts about it multiple times.  Trump's verbal mistakes (of which these two are only prime examples of many) have been reported on by the media, but it seems that it is Biden more than Trump who is being tarred as having age related mental problems.  Why does this image persist for Biden and not Trump? 
While there are a number of factors, one big reason is that the right wing media can focus in on an issue and yell so loudly that it can pull the mainstream media along with it, until what was once a right wing talking point becomes the subject of serious journalism.  And they've been playing this game for years.
Although there has always been a right wing media in America (from pro slavery pamphlets to the John Birch society), it first really took hold when Rush Limbaugh began broadcasting nationally in 1988; his mixture of childish insults, boasts, crazy conspiracy theories, misogyny and bigotry (which are echoed in Trump's rally speeches) sadly found a large audience, spawning a cottage industry of right wing radio personalities who seemed to compete with each other for the award of the  most extreme conservative.  From the start, these right wingers saw that they held an advantage by accusing the mainstream media of having a liberal bias, while blatantly having their own, realizing that if they ranted about issues loud enough and long enough, these issues could eventually make their way beyond their audience and into the mainstream media.  Putting it simply, if you throw every possible glob of mud at your target, inevitably some of it is going to stick.  It was a formula that Fox News also picked up and perfected shortly after it began broadcasting in 1996.  While sometimes their pathetic attempts at finding scandals are laughable (Fox News once spent hours of broadcast time attacking then president Barack Obama for wearing a tan suit!), they often can successfully pull the whole country to the right even while only broadcasting to a few million people.
There was no better indication of this than in the 2016 election when the so called scandal around Hillary Clinton emails became a rallying point for the right wing media that led to multiple stories covering it in the mainstream media in the interest of "fairness".  Meanwhile, negative stories about Trump (like say, the chicanery of Trump University, or his multiple bankruptcies)  were ignored by the right wing media and only lightly covered by the mainstream media, leaving us with the spectacle of Clinton having to apologize more than once during the debates for her email kerfuffle, while Trump's numerous ethical and legal issues were glossed over.  The right wing media successfully got the rest of the media world to conflate Clinton's scandal while deflating Trump's multiple scandals.  And it worked like a charm. 
The central dishonesty of  the right wing media  became apparent once Trump was elected: back in October of 2018 the New York Times reported that Trump was using  unprotected iphones to make calls (despite his aides begging him to use secured land lines) in which he may have been discussing confidential national affairs.  Those calls were almost certainly monitored by China and Russia.  This is essentially the same national security related scandal that hurt Clinton so much.  But this story never gained traction, entering into the ether of the new reality in America in which our president does whatever he wants without consequence and right wing media ignores or defends any potentially scandalous behavior by him and many of  the mainstream media's stories seem to wind up being ignored by the public. 
The influence of the right wing media  has of course now reached the highest office in the land, with Trump repeating talking points from Fox News and often communicating with their onscreen personalities like Sean Hannity.  At times, it seems that our president trusts the people on TV more than his own  cabinet members!  Is there any way that the influence of the right wing media can end?  The only possible hopeful sign is that Trump's approval ratings have never crested over the 50% marker, and that as he leaves an a foul stench of bigotry and corruption over the Republican party for years to come, some of that stench will waft to the fawning members of the media who have refused to accurately report or discuss on the moral bankruptcy of his presidency.   But for know we just have to get used to the fact that we have a president who veers between spouting his own lies and repeating the lies told on Fox News. 

THE NEW "S" WORD

 

Sociopathic: of, relating to, or characterized by asocial or antisocial behavior or exhibiting antisocial personality disorder

There are many words that can be used to describe Donald Trump:  liar, bigot, misogynist, egotist, narcissist. immature.  Another that really needs to be added is sociopath.   I don't put that word out there lightly, but I definitely feel that, time and time again, Trump has showed that he is lacking in the most basic human emotions other than anger and rage.

We've all seen the picture by now:  President Trump, visiting families in El Paso Texas, grieving from a mass shooting, took a picture with a baby, orphaned from the shooting.  And how did our president mark this somber, sad moment.  By grinning like an idiot and giving a thumbs up.  It's no surprise at all, really.  I'm sure in Trump's mind, this baby is lucky to be in a picture with him, the most important and god like person who has ever lived.  As conservative columnist David Brooks put it on NPR: 

…”I look at that photo and I think, well, he’s a sociopath.  He’s incapable of experiencing or showing empathy.”  And the context of that photo gets even worse when you realize that that baby was orphaned by a shooter who targeted hispanics and posted an online white supremacist manifesto that echoed many of the words that Trump himself has used in his speeches shortly before he began his killing spree.   Other presidents have dealt with moments like this with the right kinds of emotions: Barack Obama teared up while talking about children being gunned down in Sandy Hook, George W Bush (despite being a terrible president in my opinion) was resolute after 9/11.  But Trump cannot publicly express any emotion other swaggering pride and insulting exasperation.  And from all accounts, his lack of empathy for any living being other than himself publicly is exactly how he also acts privately.  Look at how his media coverage over the years has been filled with his constant womanizing and bragging about it to the press, with little to no regard for the women themselves as anything other as something to conquer and then disregard.  It's no surprise that twenty different women have accused him of sexual assault, or that he can blithely dismiss them all as liars.  Even his own son, Donald Jr., according to a 1990 article in Vanity Fair magazine, is quoted as having once yelled at him at the age of twelve “You don’t love us! You don’t even love yourself. You just love your money!” after his ugly and very public divorce with his first wife Ivana.  Although Donald Jr may have since returned to the fold, he really hit upon a truth back then; his father cannot express the tiniest bit of emotion of sympathy for anyone else.  From his constant bragging about the size of the crowds at his speeches to his complete willingness to embrace any conspiracy theory, (saying millions of undocumented immigrants voted in 2016, or that the Clintons may have had  Jeffrey Epstein killed), Trump is a human bulldozer who shoves aside anyone that does not adore him as much as he so obviously adores himself.  And the fact that his tax cut and trade war has hurt the very voters who propelled him to the presidency in the first place obviously doesn't matter at all to him.  In his mind, those voters are just stepping stones for him to reach his own greatness.So if Trump is an unfeeling sociopath, how could he have possibly reached the  White House?  Sadly, his sociopathic tendencies have actually helped him out enormously: his unfeeling nature allowed him to channel his lack of caring onto undocumented immigrants, which sadly tapped into the loathing and anger that drives the modern Republican party.  Now, there is undeniable proof that Trump himself has often employed undocumented immigrants at his own properties, and he probably couldn't really care less about them either way as anything other than a source of cheap labor. (Even his infamous "build that wall" rhetoric was something devised by his handlers as an easy to remember phrase for him to repeat in speeches.)  But before he announced his presidential candidacy he immersed himself in conservative media and found that "illegals" were seen as an easy shorthand for everything wrong with this country, hitting that conservative sweet spot of racism and xenophobia.  And he, of course, wasted no time in attacking Mexican immigrants in his opening campaign speech, branding them as "rapists" and saying that they were bringing "drugs and crime".  And now years into his presidency, whipping up hatred  hatred of immigrants, using words like "invasion" when talking about them, is still his signature move, because he knows that his adoring crowds will cheer him for it, which is all he really cares about.Naturally, there is nothing that the country can do but try to ride out this national embarrassment and hope that the hate filled rage that he has tapped into will not lead him into a second term in the White House.  If so, our nation, and indeed the world, will be greatly diminished both environmentally and economically.  

RAGING BIGOT OR SCHEMING TACTICIAN?

     
        It's been over two weeks since President Donald Trump launched one of his more overtly racist attacks by tweeting out against House Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna S. Pressley, all women of color,  telling them that they should go back to where they came from.  This a despicable taunt that bigots have directed at non white people (and even white immigrants) for decades.  It appears that Trump based his hateful statements on a broadcast from Fox News  that had deeply criticized the four House members that he had seen that morning, and, in typical fashion, he vented the rage it created in him out onto twitter with any reflection or insight.
         There are contradictory reports as to how his advisors in the White House reacted to his statement, with some of them realizing that this attack was over the top, even for him, as he plead ignorance of the racist nature of what he had said and tried to shrug it off. But there are other reports that his tweets were made with full knowledge of just how the public would react.  Sadly, Trump seems to realize that the more offensive and racist his comments are, the more it fires up his base of almost entirely white voters.  It also distracts the  media from covering things like Bob Mueller's recent testimony to congress or his administration's mostly failed attempt to round up undocumented immigrants.   In any event, in later statements to the press, he refused to apologize for the tweets (just like he has never apologized for anything in his life) and instead lashed out Ilhan Omar specifically, attempting to turn the argument over to her alleged anti semitism.
          A few days later, Trump again ranted over twitter after watching another Fox News broadcast.  Another House Member, John Lewis, was the target this time, with Trump assailing Lewis's district in the state of Baltimore as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" adding that "No human being would want to live there."   While this may be another example of our childishly impulsive president posting on twitter without thinking, it also may be yet another calculated attempt to speak to his voters.  Quite simply, Picking a fight with an African American civil rights hero like Lewis is just what a lot of people who voted for Trump want to see.  Some of his advisors have freely admitted that that is what is going on here, that turning out the same white blue collar voters that voted for Trump in 2016 means running the same kind of campaign tinged with the same kind of race baiting statements that he did before.  Why shouldn't he repeat the formula when it somehow worked once already?
         The message from President Trump to his base is simple, horrible and resounding: sure, I may have not built the wall that I promised (blame congress!), my tax cut to the rich didn't benefit blue collar workers, and my trade war with China is hurting states that voted for me the most, but I can still channel your hatred about non white people (especially immigrants) and boldly state it to the world.  It's a raw, emotional argument in which the reality of America's rapidly changing demographics no longer exist, in which some wondrous past image of  America as a place created by and for white people to rule alone is somehow still here.  It's depressing to consider that this message may work again, and that Trump may very well win reelection.  But how much of this does Trump really mean?  Is he really a bigot, or is just someone who has tapped into a line of bigotry that makes him popular, so he's decided to just go with it?  It's hard to say, since, with his massive ego and enormous desire to be worshipped, he clearly would say or do almost anything that would gain him the kind of applause he gets at his rallies. (Notice how he's gone from being "very pro choice" to anti choice in the space of a few years).
        As disheartening as this all is, there may be a silver lining: even though Trump may manage to win reelection, the Republican party will never be able to wash off the stench of their support for him, and those changing demographics I mentioned before won't help them.  Yes, the Republican party can cling to the lie of voter fraud, the immorality of gerrymandering and the absurdity of the Electoral College for a while, but at some point their appeal to only white voters will come back to haunt them.  With America becoming more diverse, and with younger voters being more progressive than their elders, the clock is ticking on their party's continued relevance nationally.  Trump may win two terms in the White House, but he just may destroy the Republican party while doing it.  And it's hard for me to sympathize.

THE DEAFENING SILENCE

              Way back in the 0's, when George W Bush was president, there was serious talk of working out some kind of immigration reform deal in congress, until congressional Republicans, faced with anger from their voters, backed down.  After Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, for a brief time the Republican party started once again to consider passing some kind of immigration reform, with Sean Hannity of all people, saying it needed to be done.  Sadly, it was once again shot down by anger from conservative voters. who saw any kind of reform as amnesty for "illegals", forgetting, of course, that conservative icon Ronald Reagan did that exact thing for over a million undocumented immigrants when he was president.  The general consensus from the party at the time was that if they had nothing to offer the growing Hispanic population of the country, they would never win  the White House again. 
        Sadly, we all know how this turned out, with Donald Trump openly courting the anti-immigrant vote in 2016 and, with a combination of luck and  Russian interference, somehow winning the presidency.  Not only did he win, he single handedly changed the Republican party from a party that appealed to mostly white voters through dog whistled racial statements (supporting states rights and opposing Welfare queens), to one that openly defended the brazenly racist statements of their party leader.  The change in members of the party has been depressing:  during the campaign, House Speaker Paul Ryan called Donald Trump's vile comments about a Mexican American judge not being able to fairly rule on a case involving Trump as "the textbook definition of racism."  Once Trump was president, Ryan would describe his leadership as "elegant"(!).  Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted in 2016 that “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it”, even going so far as to say in one interview that Trump is "... a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot."   He is now one of the president's biggest defenders in congress.
         Which leads us to the president's recent tweets in which he specifically called out four new Democratic members of the House of Representatives, all women of color, saying, among other things, "Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?" .  Not only is this factually wrong (of the four women, three were born in the US), it's also openly bigoted and offensive.  The terrible trope of telling non white people to go back where they came from is one that racists have wielded for years; the fact that it is now coming from the president makes it so much more offensive.  In the face of these horrible tweets, the Democrats in the House voted to officially (if only symbolically) condemn his tweets, the Republican party reacted with....silence.  While four Republicans in the house voted with the Democrats, one hundred and eighty seven did not.  And, somewhat inevitably, Senator Graham defended the president on Fox News by attacking the four congresswomen again, calling them Communists (yes, Communists!).
           As for the president, he is predictably refusing to back down while somehow stating that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body.  Trump has now so completely taken over his party (according to Vice magazine, his approval ratings in the Republican party went up after the tweets!)  that he could host a cross burning on the White House lawn without losing their support.  But, even if he somehow manages to win reelection in 2020, Trump won't be president forever, and the stench of hateful bigotry that he has attached to his chosen party may not wear off quickly.  Remember that back in the 90's Republican Governor of California Pete Wilson  ran a reelection campaign that demonized undocumented immigrants much like Trump's, and while he won that election, the Republican party was so  linked to him that they now have almost completely faded as a political force in that state.  While national elections are obviously different, the demographic changes the country is going through can't be avoided or gerrymandered by the Republican party forever.  Someday they will have to pay for having attached themselves to Trump's hateful ways.  I just hope it happens soon.

A BREAK OUT MOMENT

In nearly every presidential primary campaign, there's a moment when a candidate stands out from the others, when they step forward and make a lasting impression on the voters that can really help push them into the nomination.  Sometimes, it happens even before they're a candidate, as when a young Senator Barack Obama gave a memorable and moving speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.  Other times it happens right at the moment when a candidate announces an interest in running, as when Trump openly made bigoted statements about Mexican immigrants almost immediately after announcing his candidacy, letting the world know that his candidacy would be like no other in modern history,  propelling him to the top in 2016.  Last night, during the second Democratic debate, Senator Kamala Harris may have had such a moment.
She already had started off strong before the moment came, shushing people talking over each other with a clearly prepared but effective line: “America does not want a food fight, they want to know how we’re going to put food on their table!”.  It silenced the talking and won applause from the crowd.  But her real breakout moment came when she leaned in against front runner in the polls, Joe Biden. “I do not believe you are a racist,” she began,“ but it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”  The way that she turned a complement into a criticism, went after both a controversial statement and a past position by Biden, and then personalized it at the end, with just the right amount of emotion (no tears, but a slight quaver in her voice at the end) really hit her point home.  Like the earlier line, it was clearly rehearsed in advance, but so what?  It had a mixture of anger and sadness that cuts through the usual political rhetoric.  And, without stating it outright, it made a generational argument about the 76 year old Biden and his pining for the good ol' days of politics when senators got along, while forgetting that some of those senators literally ran pro segregationist campaigns. 
And Biden's befuddled response to Harris's attack did not look good, as he lamely sputtered about busing being a state's rights issue.  Clearly she took the  moment.  And it really shows how unprepared Biden is for the race; it's now common knowledge that Biden's own advisors have told him to stop telling the story about getting along with those pro segregationist senators, and he just ignored them.  Now that story has come back to bite him, illustrating why Biden had no luck in his previous attempts at the presidency in 1988 and 2008.
Of course, I could be wrong about all of this, and Biden could still sail into the nomination with the support of older Democrats who just want to beat Trump.  But after last night, most of the talk is about Harris.  And from the night before, Elizabeth Warren, with her striking intellect and ability to spell out specific plans for the country's problems, was also seen as the big winner.  This raises the possibility  that the Democratic ticket could have two women on it (just who's name would come first is the big question!).  While I love this idea at first, it does make me wonder if this country is still not ready to elect a woman president.  Remember that 2016 Hillary Clinton ran as a highly experienced, clear headed candidate, and she still lost to the rampaging Trump.  Having another woman lose to Trump in 2020 could be utterly demoralizing to the country, maybe even more upsetting than his win in 2016.  Still and all, I think Harris, as a former prosecutor, has the wherewithal to stand up to Trump in the debates and eviscerate his lies and boasts, making her my favorite candidate out of the 23 Democrats running for the nomination.

2020 TIME

Donald Trump just started his reelection campaign officially, kicking it off with a speech in Florida last Tuesday, and like a toddler banging on a piano, he hit same the chords that he always has over and over again.  He lied about his job as president ("Perhaps the greatest economy we've had in the history of our country."), bashed Hillary Clinton as if she were still his opponent, railed against undocumented immigrants, and boasted constantly (he called his 2016 win "probably the greatest election in the history of our country.”)  The only real takeaway from this speech was how much the media coverage has been changed by his crazed behavior since he took office: once upon a time a president that described the opposing party with the words  “Our political opponents look down with hatred on our values and with utter disdain for the people whose lives they want to run.”  and that the Democrats stand on immigration was “the greatest betrayal of the American middle class and, frankly, American life”,  would be seen as a big deal, acts of overreaching aggression.  But the news media mostly yawned at his hate mongering; same old Trump.
His speech certainly seemed to fire up the president's base, as the crowd cheered his every move as he puffed himself up with self importance.  But is his base large enough  for him to win reelection?  He is, after all, the first president in modern history to never have an approval rating over 50%.  And recent polls show him losing badly to Joe Biden, and several other Democratic candidates (in typical fashion, when his own pollsters showed him those numbers, he fired them!).
But none of this certainly means that the Dems have the election in the bag.  First of all, the election is well over a year away, and various unexpected news stories could affect the outcome in  ways we can't foresee.  Plus, Trump has already raised a huge war chest to spend, meaning that this campaign will be far less chaotic and freewheeling as the last one, especially now that the entire party has fallen behind him, come what may.
Also, there is a different X factor in facing Trump that must have the Democrats worried: never before has a celebrity candidate  swooped in and won the biggest office in the land without ever running any kind of campaign before.  How do you run against someone who has only had one unlikely but successful campaign?  Since Trump's kickoff speech shows that he intends to run for reelection the same way he ran in 2016, there is no doubt that this will be yet another ugly campaign, with him creating a childish nickname for whomever his opponent is (he's already using "Sleepy Joe" for front runner Joe Biden) and then lying about his or her record repeatedly and shamelessly (remember when he called Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton "the co-founders of ISIS?").   The tricky thing is just how to counter such a barrage of lies and insults?  During the 2016 primary contest, Republican Marco Rubio tried out descending to Trump's level, (making crude remarks about Trump's hand size) and looked foolish, gaining no traction in the race.  But then when Clinton tried to mostly ignore Trump's mud slinging, she still lost too.
So what will work against a president that's never lost an election?   Personally, I think the Clinton route was the right one, even though she lost.  Remember that Trump's victory was a matter of luck in the Electoral College, aided by Russian interference and that infamous letter to congress from James Comey.  The Democratic candidate should mostly ignore whatever crazed thing Trump is tweeting or saying and stick to issues like health care, education and student loan debt.  It's important to remember that Trump's novelty factor has worn off, and that he can no longer call himself an outsider. Add to that the fact that 2016 polls showed that many voters were personally repulsed by Trump but still voted for him under the expectation that the office would somehow change him, which obviously hasn't happened.  Overall, I think the Democrats stand a good chance to retaking the White House, but it's certainly no certainty, and we're in for another ugly, cringe inducing campaign either way.

THE TIPPING POINT

“The F.B.I. director is wrong.”

Donald Trump in his years as president has avoided interviews outside of the Fox News bubble, because anything other than fawning, adoring questions often make him angry or blurt out terrible things.  For example, shortly after winning the White House, he gave an interview with Lester Holt in which he freely admitted that he fired FBI head James Comey because of "this whole Russia thing", contradicting his own advisors that had given other reasons, and bringing on more scrutiny of his behavior regarding Russia aiding his campaign.
Now Trump has given another interview that's seen him put his foot in it again: last Wednesday, while talking with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, he cheerfully admitted that if a foreign country were to offer him information on a political rival, he would take it, and that he would tell the FBI only “if I thought there was something wrong.”  The American public has heard Trump say so many offensive, stupid, and dishonest things in the past few years (the sound from windmills causes cancer?),  that the full measure of what he just admitted to there may not sink in.  But it should.  There are laws in place that make it illegal for American candidates to accept foreign aid in a campaign.  Therefore, this is the President of the United States openly admitting that he would break those laws to gain an advantage in his reelection.  When Stephanopoulos pointed out that Trump's own FBI leader disagreed with him, he snapped back “The F.B.I. director is wrong.”  This gets even worse when one considers that the whole world is watching this interview, and foreign countries hoping to influence the election are seeing a president essentially asking them to help him with no consequence.  He's not just saying that he would take illegal information, he's encouraging it!
Of course, why should Trump care that he breaks the law, as long as he wins?  This is a man who has lived his whole life in a cushion of wealth and privilege that has prevented him from ever having to pay for any of his bad behavior.  He's grown from a spoiled brat six year old that once punched his music teacher because she didn't know enough about music, to a man who can shrug off multiple bankruptcies as good business and multiple sexaul assualt charges as lies.  After all, Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign, which he once openly asked for in a speech, may have helped push him over the victory line, and he has never had to pay for getting that help as president.  (The Mueller report said that he was aware of that Russian aid, but did not openly conspire with Russia).Why not ask for help in his reelection, since it worked last time.
Can't we, for once, hold this man in check?  Can't we just once say to him, after all the lies, boasts, bigoted and misogynistic statements, that he should be held responsible? I think, in light of this interview, it really is time for the House of Representatives to start impeachment proceedings.  This is about more than Trump, this is about congress saying that the office of the presidency is not above the law, and that we as a nation cannot and should not tolerate a president who blithely states that laws do not apply to him.  It doesn't matter that the Senate will not vote to remove him even if the House does vote to impeach, it is still imperative to the future of this country that congress at least register its disapproval.  If we can't hold the most powerful person in the country to any legal standard, then what is the point of having laws?   How can people tell their children to follow the rules and support a leader who sees himself as above any rules at all?   It's time to stand up to this man for once, or the damage he could do to this country is irreparable.

RAW POWER

According to a 2017 Gallup poll, only 24% of Americans identified as Republicans, compared to 31% for the Democrats (the rest are independents).   That number for the Republican party has dropped five points since Donald Trump was elected in 2016.  If the Democrats have a pretty strong advantage in numbers, and with demographic polls showing that younger voters and America's growth in diversity favoring them over Republicans in the future, why then do the Republicans currently own the White House, the Senate and a majority of Governorships in the country?  Because, quite simply, the Republican party only cares about gaining power for themselves and has no qualms about how they get it.  Their macho swagger, with an  entitled sense that they should always run things, has lead to them find ways to game the system in their favor.  Consider that in this century there have been five presidential elections, and a Republican candidate has only won the popular vote once (in 2004), and yet by 2020 a Republican will have held the White House for 12 out of the past twenty years.
Recently, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell showed just how deeply he doesn't care about being a hypocrite: when asked what the Senate would do if a Supreme Court vacancy came up within ten months of the 2020 election, he quite simply answered "We'd fill it."  This is the same man who refused to allow a confirmation vote (or even to meet with) President Barack Obama's supreme court choice Merrick Garland ten months before the 2016 election, an unprecedented power grab that he vaguely justified as "letting the voters decide", a view point that he now completely refutes when the tables are turned.


And just look at the picture  of him smiling as he said "We'd fill it"; it's the look of a man who realizes how dishonest he was in the past and just doesn't care as long as he wins.  This is, after all, the same Senate leader who led his party to filibuster everything that then president Barack Obama did when his party was in the minority in the Senate, and said that his number one priority was preventing Obama from winning a second term.
And McConnell is certainly no outlier in the party: in 2009 the Republicans targeted state elections, realizing how important it was to control states that would be redistricting after the 2010 census.  Once power was gained, they used computerized voting lists to gerrymander state districts to their advantage, with strong results.  In 2012, more voters voted for Democratic candidates in the House of Representatives, but Republicans still held control because their manipulations had rendered many votes useless.
Along with gerrymandering, the party has also pushed the  notion of wide spread voter fraud, which has never been proven despite many accusations.  Not that that matters, it's just a convenient way for the party to pass laws that will lead to lower voter turnout in Democratic districts; from voter ID laws to restricting early voting, the Republican party has shamelessly exploited this false narrative to gain an advantage.  After all, what else can you expect from a party led by a man who claimed, without an ounce of proof, that he lost the popular vote in the presidential election because millions of people voted illegally?
Finally, this brings us the issue of the 2020 census.  The Trump administration has decided, for the first time in decades, to add the question "Are you a citizen of the US?" to the census form.  Although this may seem like an innocuous question, many political analysts have stated that it will greatly harm the political influence of more diverse, urban areas because many immigrants will fearfully refuse to fill out the form, fearing government deportation (and can you blame them?).  The administration has been saying that the citizenship question should be added to help aid the Civil Rights Voting Law, but this is a lie, as we now know for a fact.  Why?  Because recently Thomas B. Hofeller, a Republican party member who was famous for gerrymandering, passed away and his daughter released to the press computer files he had discussing the citizenship question issue in which  he blatantly admitted that this was a pure and simple power grab that would benefit the Republican party.  This is just two weeks before the Supreme Court is due to rule on whether the question is constitutional.  Given the brazen partisanship nature of adding the question to the census, it would seem to be common sense for the court to disallow it, but the court has become more and more partisan in recent years, and it sadly appears that the question will be allowed.
So what can Democrats do to prevent such naked lust for power on the part of the Republicans?  In the short run, not a lot; even if Trump is a one term president, the number of life time court appointees he has made will insure his insidious influence for years to come.  While I'm optimistic on the idea the country is slowly turning to the left politically, the fact that the Republicans have so openly worked to cement their advantage even with a lesser percentage of the vote shows that they will not go down slowly, and that the Republican party will have power despite its dwindling numbers for years to come.

TO IMPEACH OR NOT IMPEACH

"Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment."  -Michigan Rep. Justin Amash

Recently, Michigan Representative (and diehard libertarian gadfly) Justin Amash became the first Republican member of congress to express an opinion that has become increasingly popular on the left; that the obstruction of justice that President Trump committed, according to the Mueller report, rose to the level of an  impeachable offense.  Add to that the fact that around 800 former federal prosecutors recently signed a petition stating that Trump would have been prosecuted for obstruction if he were not president, and the drumbeat for some kind of impeachment proceedings is getting louder.
And it's not just his obvious obstruction of justice that could be impeachable, don't forget that the president may be in violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution, and appears to have made illegal payments to silence porn starlet Stormy Daniels and playboy centerfold  Karen McDougal.  Plus there's the numerous shady dealings and tax dodges that he and his family have made over the years before he tantrumed his way into the White House.  And he's certainly not doing himself any favors by ignoring every subpoena from the House of Representatives, blocking every attempt to release his tax returns or business dealings, and persuading former and current members of his administration from testifying before congress, all of which certainly appears suspicious.
But are impeachment proceedings a good idea?   Democrats are divided on the issue, understandably.  On the one hand: for the president to be removed from office, two thirds of the Senate will have vote for it, now matter what the House does.  And there's really no way that the spineless, excuse making Republicans in that body will ever turn on Trump no matter what he says or does.  Even worse, after such a vote is defeated in the Senate, Trump will inevitably strut around braying to the press that he was vindicated. Plus polls show that most Americans don't support impeachment, and it could wind up helping him in his reelection bid in 2020. And his popularity within his own party is unshakeable; (as TV pundit Mark Shields so aptly put it, "There is no Republican party anymore, there's just the cult of Trump.") and an impeachment attempt by the House could just fire up his base even more.  Those are all solid reasons.
On the other hand, just how much corruption should we allow the president to get away with without some kind of check being put on him?  It's obvious that by claiming executive privilege and ignoring subpoenas, Trump is flat out saying that there are no limits on the president's powers, denying the checks and balances of different government branches that the constitution spells out.   And impeachment investigations would give the House more  power of investigation, which would make it harder for the president to hide all of the various corrupt things he has done before and after he became president.  Impeachment hearings may reveal things so terrible in Trump's past that even Republicans won't be able to support him anymore (although, given how they still supported him after that Access Hollywood tape, I sure wouldn't count on that!).
So this is the impasse that American politics are now stuck in, with an obviously corrupt and unfit president remaining in power because of his ability to channel the frustrations of his constituency, with whom he remains popular.  Personally, I lean towards the inclinations of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who isn't for impeachment but is heavily pushing for as many investigations   into the president as possible. According to the New York Times, there are currently a whopping twenty nine of them on both the federal and state level, which means that there's an enormous amount of corrupt and or criminal behavior that may be revealed.   Pelosi's position  makes sense, in that the more investigations that are done, the madder and more childish the president gets.  Hopefully, with each toy throwing tantrum and pouting tweet shown on the news, more and more undecided voters will wake up to the fact that our country is being run by a pathetic spoiled man child who, if he hadn't been lucky enough to be born into a family of enormous wealth and privilege, wouldn't be qualified to run an Arby's.

THE "I'M NOT HIM" CANDIDATE

Joe Biden has just announced his candidacy for president, and he has immediately moved to the front of the pack of the twenty Democrats running.  Alike Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren, the former vice president has not proposed any big policy ideas, and he has not publicly embraced recent progressive policy ideas like The Green New Deal or Medicare for all.
So why has he moved to the front?  Part of it is just simple name recognition: as a former vice president,  he's obviously been in the media a lot more than his opponents (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, who's running second), and there's also a nostalgia factor, with Biden reminding Democrats of the good ol' days of Barack Obama's reign.
Another reason may be simple pragmatism: Biden looks like he has the best chance of winning.  While most registered Democrats may support Medicare for all and The Green New Deal, they also realize that these progressive issues may alienate moderate voters who dislike Trump's personal behavior  but don't want the big changes those issues could bring.  Biden, who has made no sweeping policy proposals,  is a moderate old white man who can perhaps bring back those voters who voted for Obama in 2012 and then turned to Trump in 2016.  And Donald Trump seems to know it, as he has already started attacking Biden (calling him, in typically immature fashion, "Sleepy Joe") and bizarrely bragging about how young he feels, even though he is only four years younger than Biden, and currently the oldest president ever.  Biden seems to playing up to the idea that a vote for him will be a return to dignity in the White House, openly criticizing Trump's muted reaction to the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, wisely reminding voters of what was probably the low point of his presidency.  Biden candidacy seems to be less about big ideas and more about not saying and doing things that hurt the image of the country, which is a fair point, even if it's not exactly inspiring.
So, is this is the choice that the Democrats face?  Ignore the younger, more diverse and policy oriented candidates in favor of the old white guy just because he has the best chance?  As someone who voted for Ralph Nader back in 2000 and has regretted it ever since, I'm sympathetic to the simple desire to win. And while I don't completely buy into the notion that age and race are so important to beating Trump, (remember Obama won handily twice, and he was not only the first African American president, he was also the second youngest) and even though my personal favorite candidates are Harris, Warren and Mayor Pete, I'll still gladly pull the lever for uncle Joe.  But then, I would literally vote for every political figure in America (other than David Duke) before I'd vote for Trump.  He has set the bar so low, and seems to get more immature, dishonest and egotistical with every passing day. So if saying Joe Biden is better than one of the worst people to ever be involved in American politics is not much of a ringing endorsement, I'll still make it.

THE MUELLER REPORT RELEASE

Acting Attorney General William Barr held a press conference last Thursday in which he did the same thing that every member of the Trump administration is forced to do routinely: praise his boss repeatedly.  Sounding just like Trump himself, Barr  used the words "no collusion" several times to describe the findings of the report.  Then he released the full  four hundred plus page report of Bob Mueller's two year investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 election, and even his spin couldn't shake the stink off of Trump's behavior.
While it is true that the report does not reveal outright conspiracy with Russia on the part of the Trump campaign, it does show a campaign that was aware of Russian interference and openly welcomed it.  (The New York Times documented in the report 140 contacts between Mr. Trump and his associates and Russian nationals and WikiLeaks or their intermediaries, which may not have been part of a conspiracy, but they certainly look bad.) One thing is sure, Russian influence is now an undeniable fact, despite the reluctance of the president to admit that fact.  It's amazing to think that, after decades of the confrontations of the cold war between the US and Russia, Russia's greatest victory over us may have been its disruption of an American presidential election and the victory of their chosen candidate.  While we  can't know for sure just how much of an influence Russia had on the election, the Washington Post has pointed out their campaign of fake Facebook news feeds reached over a hundred million people in this country.  Add to that the hacking and leaking of the Democratic National Committee's emails, and the importance of the timing of those leaks (thousands were released as a distraction less than an hour after the infamous tape of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women went public), not to mention the closeness of the election itself, and it's safe to say that Russia played a hand in Trump's victory.

As to the report itself, it gives further insight into a president that has always been wildly unqualified for the job, lacking the patience, intellect and temperament to run a country.   He is reported to be a egotistical, tantrum throwing brat that is extremely difficult to work for.  Furthermore, there are reports of him ordering the outright firing of Mueller, causing White House council Don McGahn to threaten to quit while telling other members that the president was asking him to "do crazy shit".

Yes,  the report shows us that the president clearly wanted no investigation at all, and may have obstructed justice in order to stop it.  But is that truly an impeachable offense?  Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, thinks so.  She recently tweeted "The Mueller report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack."  While I agree with her that the president acted terribly, I don't see any advantage to the House of Representatives pursuing an impeachment process that will inevitably die in the Senate, where Republican support is both crucial and almost impossible.   Furthermore, such a partisan exercise could wind up helping Trump in the election by firing up his base.  Although I'm a fan of Warren and her policies, I can't help but thinking that she is saying this as a way to stand out from the many other Democrats currently running for the presidential nomination.
So do we just let the president get away with possible criminal behavior?  Sadly, the answer seems to be yes, just like we let the Reagan administration get away with selling arms to Iran, Bill Clinton get away with lying under oath, and George W Bush wiretap Americans without a warrant.  In America, we give our president so much power, and make it so hard to remove him from office, that only overwhelming evidence and strong public disapproval (like Nixon had with Watergate) can successfully impeach him.  And while I agree with the idea that impeachment shouldn't be easy, it's allowed Trump to skate into potential criminal territory without any serious penalty.  Sadly, he may even win reelection in 2020, much to our nation's deep disgrace.

REPARATIONS? A MODEST PROPOSAL

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Around five years ago, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an article in The Atlantic entitled “The Case for Reparations”,  promoting the idea that the legacy of slavery in America has been so destructive and long lasting that only some kind of reparations given to African Americans can truly end that legacy.  It's an idea that has been kicked around on the left for years, but has never really entered the mainstream of American political debate.
But the notion has never completely gone away, and lately, some Democrats in the running for the presidency are discussing some form of reparations.   Most Americans oppose the idea overall (according to a recent Marist Poll, around 70% of Americans do), but it is popular in the African American community, where the voters are a  crucial part of any Democrat's road to the nomination. 
It is clear that discrimination against African Americans still exists, with our judicial and educational systems heavily slanted against them.  But should every black American just get a check from the government?  Why kind of reparations are really needed, if any?
I think the answer to that lies in our past: look at the 1950's, when the income tax rate on the wealthiest Americans was a whopping 90%.  Flush with cash, the government spent large amounts of money on education and infrastructure, and the result was the largest increase in the middle class in our nation's history.
So what does that have to do with race?  Sadly, a lot: with all that government money pouring in, city planners would draw lines on maps to designate where the money went.  (A process literally called redlining) And guess who lived in the parts of the city that got little to no funding?  That's right, African American communities were held behind while white communities got better infrastructure and schools, leading to superior opportunities for the families living there.   The long term effects of this have been devastating to inner city communities, where little education and job opportunities have led to high crime rates and poorer education.
So, I think what the country should do is raise taxes on the rich (not back to 90%, but certainly higher than they are now) and use that money on infrastructure and education where ever it is needed, especially  in every poor neighborhood in the country.  Hire people in the neighborhoods to rebuild them or work in the improved public schools.  Make sure that no child is ever exposed to lead fumes, or any other serious environmental dangers.  The improvement in the neighborhoods will lead to more businesses opening there, which will lead to better job opportunities and increased quality of life, not to mention better relationships with the police. 
Not only is improving our inner cities the right thing to do morally, it's also economically sound in the long run: remember that less people going to jail results in less tax dollars being spent on them.  Add to that the fact that improving public school education results in more people getting good jobs and putting money in the economy, making things better for the country as a whole in the long run.  This plan shouldn't be seen as  radical; in fact, as I just pointed out, it's already happened!  We just need to have the same economic priorities that we did in the 1950's, without the evil redlining.
If you look at the great modern entrepreneurs in this country, they almost always tell stories about how they were nurtured and encouraged in their childhoods not only by friends and family members, but also by their teachers and  community; right now, the next potential Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos could be living in a poor inner city neighborhood, not being given the proper support to reach his or her dreams.  What a waste.

A BIG BOOST FOR THE BAD MAN

Donald Trump has lead a charmed life: Born into a wealthy family, when he was a child, his father found ways to avoid taxes and divert funds making his son a  millionaire by age eight.  After mysteriously avoiding the draft with a supposed bone spur, Trump entered the family business, and his father found ways to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars more to him, even as he wound up declaring bankruptcy five times.  Despite his reliance on  his father's money, due to his enormous ego and love of media attention, Trump was able to cultivate an image as a self made tycoon.  Eventually this image led to an entire reality show built around him appearing as an almost god like figure deciding the fate of others.  All while he put his name on dishonest money making con jobs, like Trump University, or subpar products like Trump Steaks.   And then, somehow, he managed to win the presidency, despite his lack of experience and while running a chaotic campaign based on bigotry, lies, childish boasts, and misogyny. Not even the release of his repulsive comments about sexually assaulting women on the leaked public access tape couldn't stop him.   His victory itself was a fluke, as he got just the right number of votes in the right states to win the electoral college while losing the popular vote by millions.
Which takes us to the recently released Robert Mueller report on whether or not his campaign conspired with Russia to give him an electoral advantage.    For two years now progressives have been hoping that this report will deliver a knock out blow to Trump, outlining outright criminal behavior on his part.  Instead, it states that no one in the Trump administration openly worked with the Russians.  Somewhat amazingly, it even let Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr off the hook for their infamous meeting with a Russian operative in Trump tower.  As an article in Slate magazine so aptly put it, "It sure looked like at least Trump Jr. and perhaps others at that meeting committed a crime. Federal law makes it a potential crime for any person to 'solicit' (that is, expressly or impliedly ask for) the contribution of 'anything of value' from a foreign citizen."  Sadly, this seemingly obvious crime committed by Donald Trump's son and son in law will go unpunished.
Even though the report does not expressly say that Trump did not engage in criminal obstruction of the investigation itself, it's been mostly seen as a vindication, something that he has, of course, trumpeted to the hills.  And this perception of  innocence leads to a truly depressing fact:  he now has a better than even chance of winning reelection.  I know, I know, Trump has never had an approval rating over 50%, and there's a huge swath of Democrats ready to run against him, but the power of incumbency is very strong.
Remember that in 2004, George W Bush was running for reelection while the Iraq war that he started was crumbling into a disaster, and the economy was not doing well.  Yet he not only won, he did better in 2004, than he did in the previous election, winning the popular vote after losing it in 2000.  Trump will probably have more advantages than Bush did: the economy has been strong for the past three years, and while it appears that there are signs of a slow down, it probably won't turn into an outright recession.   Trump's other advantage is the thing that so many many Americans have feared the most: normalization.  The country has just gotten used to having a president who lies, attacks and brags constantly.  Every time Trump says something that seems outrageous even by his standards, (like say, defending people at a Klan rally or attacking Senator John McCain months after his death), his approval ratings hardly ever budge.  He has set the bar so low that he can't sink any lower before the election, which means nothing he says will really hurt him by then. 
Oh sure, the Democratic base hate Trump just as much as the Republican base loves him,  but those two groups of voters will mostly cancel each other out in 2020, leaving things up the people who always have decided presidential elections in this century: swing voters in swing states.  A lot of these people are the kind of voters who mostly ignore political media coverage until right before the election, and then make their decision based on how the economy is doing and whether they feel a big need for change.  While I sincerely hope that the reluctant Trump voters that put him in office will turn on him, they certainly can't be counted on.
So is Trump's victory in 2020 a  lock?  Of course not.  Remember that there are other investigations of his potential criminal actions going on in congress, not to mention that the Democrats haven't even picked their candidate yet.  A lot can happen in a year.  But right now, to the deep abiding shame of this nation, Trump has the advantage.