DEMAGOGUE IN CHIEF

Donald Trump's speech at the Republican National Convention  accepting the nomination for president was both surprising and unsurprising; on the one hand, it was free of the crazy conspiracy theories and childish insults that pepper his normal speeches.  It appears that he mostly kept to his teleprompter and rarely went off script.  And many of his early statements were typical political speech pronouncements  about the importance of law and order.  On the other hand, he still managed to stick to the message that has propelled him this far: that this country has fallen to hell, because of our weak president and his even weaker secretary of state.  He painted a picture of a country beset by violent crime (even though violent crime rates are lower now than they were thirty years ago) and terrorist attacks and overrun by illegal immigrants (even though undocumented immigration has plateaued in recent years). And he claimed, ominously, that "the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored."  As if his mere presence in office will magically end crime, because yelling about how tough you are solves everything!

Consciously or not, Trump was hitting the soft spot of his conservative base.  Studies comparing conservative and progressive brain scans found that conservatives have a larger fear center, so it is no surprise that his fear mongering appeals to them.  But will he also scare the moderates he needs into voting for him?  I certainly hope not.  Sadly, his speech, so enthusiastically cheered by the delegates, shows how hard compromise between conservatives and progressives is; I can't imagine most progressives today perceive America as the lawless hellhole that he and his party seem to.  Truly, we do live in the same country but somehow in different worlds.
The most crucial line in the speech was when Trump announced that "I alone can fix it.  I will restore law and order."  There was no mention of working with congress or anyone else; it will be him, by himself, acting  as more dictator  than president, riding in on a white horse to save the country.  He even eschewed the normal mentions of god or faith in his speech that every candidate usually makes;  instead he held himself up as America's savior,  encouraging worship of him and him alone.  What an ego!

It 's that same ego that caused him to later call the convention "one of the best ever", ignoring the fact that it  saw  such highlights as pro and anti Trump delegates screaming at each other on the convention floor,  his wife Melania being caught plagiarizing a speech by Michelle Obama, and Senator Ted Cruz refusing to endorse him openly and being booed for it.  Hopefully, Hillary Clinton will be able to rally the country behind her by portraying herself at the Democratic Convention  as the safe, sane and experienced alternative to Trump's Messianic view.  Otherwise, I think the country is in serious trouble.

THOUGHTS BEFORE THE CONVENTION

Just as the Republican convention begins, it's important to remember where the race for leader of the free world is:  on July 5th. FBI director James B. Comey finally released the results of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails; while no criminal charges are going to be made against her, he did conclude that her behavior was "extremely careless", and he contradicted many of the public statements she had made concerning the emails.
The report confirms the public's image of Clinton and her husband as essentially dishonest people who always have some underhanded scam going on.  Sometimes this image has been proven true (Bill Clinton's lying about his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky) and sometimes it is absurd (Hillary Clinton has been accused of murdering former white house aide Vince Foster).  In any event,  her cavalier attitude towards an issue of national security does call into question her judgement.  If she were running against a normal candidate, it could become a major issue, making progressives like me write in Bernie Sanders or just stay home in disgust.  But let's not kid ourselves, her opponent is no normal candidate.
As Donald Trump inevitably prepares to accept the Republican nomination, it is important to remember just what kind of man Trump is:  he has never held any kind of elected office or served in the military.  He was born into a wealthy family, went into the family business, and inherited an enormous amount of money, all while claiming to be a great real estate tycoon.  Just how great a tycoon he is is questionable, seeing as he refuses to release his tax returns and shrugs his several bankruptcies off as no big deal.  His desire to put his name on everything from steaks to bottled water displays his swelled ego, while some of his tie ins seem like outright scams, like the worthless, defunct Trump University.
And as a candidate, he's been far worse: he first announced his candidacy thirteen months ago, and since then he has said hateful things about Mexican immigrants, Muslims and women.  His speeches are filled with lies, idle boasts and childish insults.  He has encouraged violent responses to protestors at his rallies, endorsed torture and idly mentioned that the military should kill the families of terrorists, which is a war crime.  He is the single most repulsive, hate mongering major party presidential candidate of the modern era.  He has already done damage to America, because his hateful rhetoric against Muslims has been used as a recruiting tool for Isis. And despite all of that, he just might win.

 I've already compared Trump to one time Ku Klux Klan member and former gubernatorial candidate David Duke, and sure enough, Duke recently raised his hideous head and endorsed Trump on his radio show, an endorsement that Trump eventually repudiated only in the softest terms.   Let's look at the history of Duke's run for the governor: in 1991, after holding a Louisiana state house seat,  he ran for governor of the state and lost, but, as he would so proudly point out, he won the majority of the white vote.  I remember how I was stunned to think about how people could possibly vote for a man who had once freely admitted that he used to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday!  At the time I just shrugged that off as southern state racism, but now here we are in 2016, where a Duke like demagogue is about to accept the nomination for president from a major party.  While recent polls show Trump losing to Clinton, the fact that they are even close at all is disturbing.  Even more upsetting is Trump's standing with white voters, who support him by narrow margins.  While some of this can be chalked up to white republicans voting the party ticket and people voting against Clinton instead of for Trump, it still upsets me that a majority of white Americans support a candidate who has called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers and who wants to ban all Muslim immigrants from entering the country.  Are white Americans really so receptive to an openly bigoted candidate? Sadly, it appears so.
The silver lining in all this is that many Americans don't pay much attention to presidential campaigns until the conventions, and that Trump's inevitable bluster on national TV will wake people up to the horror of him being president, causing a turn around in the polls and a landslide for Clinton.  Still, the mere fact that he has gotten this far and that he will probably win a few states in the election is depressing enough.

NOT ONE GOOD ONE

Recent stories in the New York Times tell a sad story about human rights violations in the Asian country of Myanmar; the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, have suffered greatly under a government whose discrimination towards them has been compared to the infamous Apartheid regime of South Africa.  Even worse, religious leader Ashin Wirathu has spread hatred of the Rohingya, calling them “the enemy”, and saying “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog.”  This kind of hateful rhetoric has lead to lynch mobs killing hundreds of innocent people, and forcing thousands more from their homes.  All of this is terrible enough, but the thing I find the most upsetting is that Ashin Wirathu is a Buddhist monk, and Myanmar is around ninety percent Buddhist.
Buddhism is, to my, eyes the most open minded and easy going of all the major world religions.  In many ways, it resembles more of a philosophy than a religion, with some members of the faith actually calling themselves atheists(!). This is because Buddha himself is perceived in most sects of the faith as just a spiritual leader and not a  god or the child of one.  Although there are stories of him performing miracles like walking on air, there are practicing members of the faith who dismiss these tales as myths.  Compare that to Christianity, which requires complete belief in the miracles of Christ.
Instead of prayer, Buddhism promotes the far more self reflective practice of meditation, instead of the ten commandments, Buddhism has five precepts that are far less commanding.  They are: 1. Don't Kill.  2.  Don't Steal.  3.  No Sexual Misconduct.  4.  Don't Lie  5.  Don't Drink.  (Many Buddhists ignore that last  one).  Instead of a pope Buddhism has the Dali Lama, who is not seen as infallible, and whose speeches are more about general goodness and kindness than faith.
So while Buddhism is seemingly the least puritanical of religions, the terrible situation in Myanmar would show that any religion, taken to an extreme, can lead to hatred and bigotry.  Sadly, it's seems that part of human nature is that any large number of people having a strongly held belief system can lead to despising other people who do not hold that same belief.  And while I don't believe in God personally, I also realize that even Atheists can practice the same kind of bigotry as the faithful when they hold the power to do so, like in Communist Russia.  Really, the best that I think that humans can do on matters of faith is for us all to basically be agnostics who don't dwell on spiritual matters much.  Many European countries (and Japan) are leading the way on this, and the fact that the number of  non religious affiliated Americans is growing indicates that a global movement to move away from religion as a driving force in society may be underway.  To my reckoning, this is a good thing, and downright evolutionary when you think about it.  Science knows so much about the world around us now that religious answers are becoming less and less necessary.

WE'RE HURTING

"We're hurting."  Those are the simple, powerful words spoken by Dallas Police Chief David O Brown at the end of what was one of the worst weeks in recent American history for race relations.  Times like these show just how far the country needs to go to heal the racial divide that still exists even as our first African American President steps down.
The sad events began when a video of an unarmed (and subdued) black man named Alton Sterling being shot by the police appeared, a tragically common appearance these days.   Later this week a second video arrived, this one even more shocking as Philandro Castle, another black man. was shot by police in a car while his girl friend watched and grimly filmed and narrated the aftermath.  (Even more shocking, a four year old girl was sitting in the back seat of the car at the time.)
These two violent tragedies were compounded when in Dallas, Micah X Johnson, an African American war veteran, opened fire on police officers at a peaceful rally, killing five of them and wounding others.  To add more fuel to the fire, Johnson admitted that he wanted to kill white officers in retaliation for police brutality. 
Obviously, Johnson's horrible actions are the result of insanity inspired by crazed violent anger, no matter how justified that anger may be.  Tragically, all non violent members of the Black Lives Matter movement will be forever linked to what he has done even though Johnson was never officially connected to the group. 
Is this connection fair?  Of course not, and it should be noted that other recent acts of political violence have been treated differently.  Last January a white man in Colorado opened fire on a Planned Parenthood building, killing three people.  Would it be right for people who support abortion rights to say that all anti-abortionists agree with that man?  No.  There are fringe members of every movement, ones who go beyond peaceful protest; but that certainly won't stop conservative commentators of trying to discredit the Black Lives Matter group.  As if one cannot both condemn the unwarranted use of deadly force by the police on citizens and not equally condemn violent attacks on the police! 

The sad fact of the matter is that there are no easy answers to these problems.  Racism was baked in the American cake before it was even officially a country. And I must admit, as a white man I don't understand the difficult gauntlet that black men must pass through everyday, when sometimes just walking down the street or being pulled over can be deadly.  But we have to get better.  We have to stop hurting.

DROP OUT BERNIE

Like a lot of progressives, I'm a big fan of Bernie Sanders.  Sanders's brand of class warfare in which he continually hammers the rich in this country for holding far too much wealth and power is just what we need to hear in a nation where the top 1% of the population own somewhere between 38-40% of the total wealth.  More importantly, Sanders has proved that an American presidential candidate can proudly proclaim to be a European style Socialist and still remain popular.  He has connected with and excited younger voters, and pushed Hillary Clinton to the left on issues like the minimum wage.
But, after a stinging defeat in the New York City primaries, it's time for him to drop out of the race.  Although he still has a slim chance of picking up some of the so called super delegates, who are not committed to one candidate, his chances of winning are essentially zero.  For the good of the Democratic party and the country he needs to step down.  He's done much better than most pundits thought he could, and he's had a hell of a run, but enough.
Am I sad that he can't win?  Sure, but I'm more upset at the turn his campaign has taken lately; he first ran as an upbeat candidate not making overtly negative attacks, but as the primary election has slogged on, his statements in debates and interviews have gotten mean.  Recently he claimed that Clinton, who has served in both the Senate and as Secretary of State, isn't qualified to be president.  That's absurd.  He has also ranted about the fact that independent voters in New York aren't allowed to vote in the primaries; sorry Sanders, the rules for picking Presidential candidates in this country may be complicated (and slightly crazy), but you knew that going in.  You don't get to change those rules when they don't go your way.
While I call myself a Socialist and therefore identify more with Sanders than Clinton, I still think  that she will make a good, solid President.  And given that she's more than likely to be running against either the extremist conservative Ted Cruz or the extremist egotist Donald Trump, my enthusiasm for her grows more each day.
For those disappointed Sanders supporters who may sit out the election, let me tell you a story: back in the 1990's, many progressives like myself became disappointed by Bill Clinton's moves to the right and voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in the 1996 election.  Nader's relative success in that election  led him to run again in the super close 2000 election between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W Bush, and it's more than likely that Nader's presence on the ballot helped Bush score a razor thin victory.  And Bush then spent the next eight years completely disproving the notion that Republicans and Democrats are all the same.
Here's one dispiriting example of that:  way back in 1981, shortly after  Sandra Day O'Connor became  the first female Supreme Court Justice, the court heard a case involving a law that said that a married woman who wanted to get an abortion had to have her husband's permission.  The court overturned the law, and O'Connor wrote a blistering majority position on it, calling it sexist and patriarchal.  Decades later, in 2005, O'Connor decided to step down from the court to care for her ailing husband.  She was replaced by Samuel Alito, who had, as a lawyer, defended that law she hated so much at the Supreme Court back in 1981! So, would Al Gore have been a great President?  Probably not.  But would a heavy right winger like Alito be on the court right now if he had won?  No way.

O'Connor meeting with President Bush, not seeing the knife he's about to sink in her back

This is just how much lingering influence a President can have, and why I will unequivocally support Clinton in the upcoming election.  To quote comedian and political commentator Patton Oswalt when he was asked about people who won't support Clinton after Bernie is gone :  "Well, then you're a fucking child."

DONALD TRUMP, FROM COMEDY TO TRAGEDY

There is an interesting phenomenon that occurs in polling: people often respond to a poll differently depending on how the poll is conducted.  If a poll is done by  a person, whether door to door or by phone, respondents often exaggerate or outright lie because they don't want to disappoint the poller, whereas polls done anonymously get different, more honest answers from people. This makes sense: let's face it, no one likes admitting to another human being that they, say, never exercise or eat healthy food.
This difference in honesty is often called the Bradley effect, named after Tom Bradley, an African American gubernatorial candidate in 1982 who led every poll leading up to the election and then lost, because, it was surmised, white voters didn't want to admit they weren't going to vote for him in polls.  The Bradley effect has made itself known again recently because Republican voters may have been lying in phone polls about which candidate they support, not wanting to openly admit that they support Donald Trump.
When Donald Trump first announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, he was happily egged on by late night TV show hosts and pundits, who realized that having  a reality TV star with a huge ego and a penchant for blunt statements  in the race would make for interesting stories and easy satire.  And Trump's initial lead in the polls was seen as just a momentary blip for someone with lots of media coverage. Remember that a similar candidate, Herman Cain,  led the polls for a short time back in 2012 before the far more experienced Mitt Romney took over.  Everyone predicted that Trump would fade soon.  Well, as of January 8th, 2016, Trump doesn't look like he's going anywhere: according to the website Politico, Trump, while losing to Ted Cruz in the state of Iowa, is leading the field nationally, at at resounding 35 percent, a full fifteen points ahead of the second place Cruz.  How did we get here?  How did a man who's never held any political office at all in his entire life, and who offends Latinos, women, and Muslims with nearly every speech, wind up as a likely candidate for the office of the leader of the free world?
OK, let's all take a deep breath here.  Donald Trump will not be president next year.  How do I know this?  Well, first let's examine his popularity:  as of 2015, according to a Pew Research poll, 23% of American voters are registered  as Republicans, which translates to about sixty seven million people, and of that number, he's getting a little more than a third, which puts him around twenty two million total voters.  That makes him a big fish in the pond of the Republican candidates. but in a country of 270 million adults, it hardly makes him hugely popular beyond his outspoken base.
Furthermore, in the aftermath of the 2012 election, the Republican party took a long hard look at itself and realized that they had no chance of holding the white house in the future without finding some way to appeal to non white voters.  Gone were the days when those voters could be ignored, as Ronald Reagan had done so successfully in the 1980's; part of the reason Mitt Romney lost was because President Obama received a whopping 77% of the Latino vote.  The party was going to have to change or face becoming more and more irrelevant on a national scale.  This common sense advice forgot about one thing: actual Republican voters.  The overwhelmingly white, mostly rural and southern based party had no desire for any kind of appeal to nonwhite voters, and opposed any kind of immigration reform beyond building a wall with Mexico, and Trump has, of course, completely capitalized on that sentiment. This may help him in getting the Republican nomination, but it will definitely hurt him in a national election, where Obama's 77% of the Latino vote will probably increase for whomever runs against him.
So not only will Trump never be president, Republican party officials are worried that his name on the ballot will drive turnout against the Republican party in general election, threatening their hold on the house of representatives and the Senate.  As a progressive, this doesn't bother me a bit.

Now drink from the trough of race baiting and spray it on the crowd

In many ways, Trump is a monster of the Republican party's own making, as the party has become increasingly right wing over the years.  It all really began in 1987 when the Federal Communications Committee ended the so called "fairness doctrine" that stipulated equal time for opposing editorial opinions in broadcasting.  This brought about the rise of right wing media, spearheaded by Rush Limbaugh.  Soon Limbaugh and his ilk found a large audience (of mostly angry white men)  for extremely conservative politics mixed with race baiting, homophobia, sexism and crazy conspiracy theories, in other words, many of  the same elements that are propelling Trump to the top of the Republican heap.  It's reasonable to say that what's happening with Trump is what would happen if someone like Limbaugh were to run for office; like Limbaugh, Trump says outrageous things, brags constantly and rarely apologizes, and is loved for it by a certain base of people who reflexively agree with every statement.  Just as Limbaugh has often said things that you think would get him fired, only to continue as popular as ever, so Trump has continually lead in the polls despite making one absurd, offensive or outright wrong assertion after another.  (Politifact, a non partisan fact checking organization has rated a stunning 78% of Trump's statements as false).   Don't forget that Trump's real entrance into modern politics came when he repeatedly stated his belief that President Obama was born in Kenya and not in Hawaii, a theory that continues to be promoted in right wing media to this day, despite it being completely disproven.
So if the Republican party does nominate Trump and lose in a landslide, they have only themselves to blame, they've been playing to the extreme for so many years that they've lost any idea of moderation in their party and play only to people who honestly believe that a Muslim born Kenyan somehow stole the presidential election.  If, on the other hand, Trump should happen to somehow win, oh man would we be  in trouble!  He would probably prove to be such a divisive and crazed president that the Republican brand would be ruined for good, but, the damage he could cause getting to that point....is downright unthinkable.

IS DONALD TRUMP A PSYCHOPATH?