REPEAL AND REPLACE?

One of the things that drives progressives like me crazy in this country is the way that middle and lower  class white people (especially men) vote for Republicans time and time again, despite the fact that the Republicans economic plans of tax cuts for the rich and rolling back social programs will not actually benefit them.  Putting it simply, since Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights voting act and declared a war on poverty back in the 60's Republicans have been  playing on racial resentments in code words, (welfare queens) allowing  the rich and the powerful to  hold onto more of that wealth and power by shifting the problems in America  onto the backs of supposedly lazy minorities.  Donald Trump campaign took those code words and turned them into outright race baiting, although he blamed Mexican immigrants more than African Americans.
One of the craziest trends of poor and middle class whites voting against their own economic interests comes from people who can only afford health care through the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) , which Trump repeatedly said he would repeal.  (And in typical Trumpian fashion, said he would replace it with "something great" without explanation.)  Recent stories in the New York Times and Vox magazine interview people who are glad to have healthcare through Obamacare and yet who gleefully voted for Trump.  Many of them felt that he couldn't possibly repeal something that has helped so many people get healthcare.  But will he?
Well, he certainly said he would, and the Republican lead congress is even more enthusiastic about it.  The result of that repeal could mean that the twenty five million Americans aided by it could be thrown off of their healthcare.  Obviously, the Republicans don't want that to happen overnight, so they have proposed repealing the bill and putting a time limit on that repeal in two to three years, at which time, so they claim, they will have a better proposal in place.  But one has to wonder just what kind of plan the Republicans will come up with that isn't the kind of big government program they claim to hate.  Both Trump and congress say that they want to retain certain provisions of the bill, like allowing  young people being able to stay on their parents's health plan until their 26, and health care companies not being able to refuse care because of a patient's pre existing condition, but they don't mention just how to afford those provisions without retaining the insurance mandate provision, that is, the part of the bill that says all Americans must purchase healthcare or pay a fee.  That provision is how the bill is paid for, and it's also the part Republicans claim to hate the most.  So what will they do?
Sadly, this all seems to be coming down to a horrible game of chicken with the well being of millions of Americans in the middle.  Will the Republicans find a free market solution that doesn't just look like they're dumping millions of people off health care?  And if they do, will the Democrats in congress filibuster it, or live  with it rather than let those millions of Americans go without care?  It's going to be interesting, but I think those white middle class voters really need to think about what they've done and learn to stop shooting themselves in the foot. (Especially since they may soon not have any healthcare coverage).

SO WHERE IS THE OPPOSITION?

As President elect Trump continues to compile a list of anti environment crazies for his cabinet, (including Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil's chief executive, as Secretary of State), a question arises: where the heck are the Democrats? 
Let's examine the chain of events that lead America to the scary unknown waters we are about to wade in:  Trump won the election while losing the popular vote by almost three million; in the history of our country there have five presidents who have won the electoral college and lost the popular vote, and Trump's loss was by far the biggest.  Throw in the fact that James Comey of the FBI gave Trump a big boost by announcing less than two weeks before the election that he still had Hillary Clinton emails to investigate (even though he found nothing), plus the fact the CIA has declared that Russia definitely hacked into the emails of the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to sway the election to Trump, and you have a formula for a weakened presidency, one that even could be overturned by dissenting members of the Electoral College, who don't officially vote until the 19th. of this month.
And yet, where is the outrage from the Democrats?  Why aren't they speaking out against the many obvious conflicts of interest Trump will have as president?  Why aren't they mounting court challenges against his tainted victory?  When Green Party candidate Jill Stein called for a recount in several states, the Democrats barely supported it.  Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders (who isn't even technically a  Democrat) have spoken out, but otherwise, there's been little reaction from the so called opposition.  Instead of uniting against an potentially wildly unpopular president, the party is licking its wounds and looking for a leader.
This, sadly, may be part of the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats; liberals are just too darn nice.  The Republican party has become the domain of the aggressive,  alpha male type (who sometimes is a woman),  with leaders who march with macho swagger, and exude the air of certainty, and who demonize liberals with over the top arguments that they never apologize for.  The Democrats are the party of compromise and reason, they're open to negotiation.  And so they get killed.  Remember how during the campaign, Hillary Clinton got in trouble for referring to half of Trump voters as a "basket of deplorables"?  And how she had to quickly issue an apology afterwards?  While she was doing that, Trump was referring to her and President Barack Obama as "traitors" and the "co-founders of Isis".  And there was never any mea culpa given for his literally saying that the president helped start a terrorist organization! And this didn't just start with Trump; for years conservative media has hyped a world view that sees the world simply in black and white terms, and with liberals in league with Satan.
 
One of the problems liberals have is that we look at the changing demographics of the country that seem to favor us, and the polls that show that most Americans agree with us on issues like gay marriage and abortion, and we think we will win.  But we often fail to see the passion and sense of moral certitude on the other side that can bring more voters to the polls; conservatives just seem to want power more.
Now, as a passive liberal who hates to raise his voice in anger and likes musicals more than action films, I can relate to the problems of the left.  But now is not the time for complacency!  We have to take a page from the Republican play book; in 2008, when Obama won the White House and the Democrats made big gains in congress, did they decide to start compromising?  No, they filibustered everything they could in the Senate, and they stood united against everything Obama said and did.  They proudly became the party of NO.  And they were rewarded by retaking congress and grid locking the  government in Obama's second term.  Well, if the Republicans can stall a president who won the popular vote twice, certainly the Democrats should be able to stall a president who lost the popular vote by a wide margin.   So come on Democrats, do you really just want to let Trump dismantle everything Obama has done in the past eight years, from rolling back environmental regulations to throwing millions of people off of health care?  If not, get out there and fight. There can always be more than one party of NO.

MORE REMINDERS

The above picture is of a Klan rally that was held in Washington DC in 1922; the idea that such a hateful organization could at one time come together in our nation's capitol seems like a relic of our backwards past.  Surely, white supremacist groups like them have no power or influence nowadays, right?
Well, their numbers may be smaller, but the Klu Klux Klan is still with us, and they still like to come out in force sometimes.  Like they just did last Saturday in North Carolina, only now, instead of rallying in front of the White House, they just rally in favor of the man about to live in the White House.  Yes, along with their usual cries of "white power", Klan members were also heard yelling "hail victory" in praise of Trump's win.  And to make things even more clear, here's a direct quote from Amanda Barker, an "imperial komander" in the group: “Actually we have the same views,” she said, referring to the president-elect. “A lot of white Americans felt the same way, especially about the wall, immigration and the terrorism coming here. I think Donald Trump is going to do some really good things and turn this country around."
And that Klan leader has reason to be happy:  Trump's choice for Attorney General is Jeff Sessions, a man who was denied a federal judgeship back in 1986 for racially inflammatory statements, and Trump's chief strategist is Steve Bannon, a former alternative right media leader also known for racist and anti Semitic statements.  So don't be fooled by his appointment of African American Ben Carson to be Secretary of the House And Urban development, most of the people Trump will surround himself and listen to as president are white men whom those Klan members will approve of.  And  the more you think of it, the worse it gets: over two million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Trump, but he won because we have an outdated electoral college system, which was first devised to give more power to smaller, less populated slave states.  So our legacy of slavery just gave the White House to the most openly race baiting modern presidential candidate ever!
And then there's the so called "pizzagate"  scandal: last Sunday a man opened fire in a Washington DC pizza parlor; while he thankfully hurt no one and was quickly caught, his inspiration for the shooting was clear.  Shortly after Wikileaks released thousands of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta's  emails last November, a conspiracy theory began that stated that somehow the DC pizza place Comet Ping Pong was the center of a child prostitution ring, with Clinton herself inevitably involved! (Every time Podesta emailed Clinton about ordering pizza, he was actually ordering up another child prostitute, so the theory goes). There has never been a shred of proof for any of this, but the belief has escalated from threatening messages towards the pizza place's owner and coworkers to the aforementioned gun toting nut job shooting up the place.
So how could this now violence inspiring crazy conspiracy get any worse?  How about the fact that one of the people who spread it is now Trump's choice for National Security Advisor?  That's right, today's New York Times reports that Lt. Gen. Micheal Flynn has endorsed this conspiracy on his twitter account, along with other Clinton and President Obama conspiracies.  The fact that a candidate for a major political appointment could believe something so insane and unproven should be a major scandal, but, as with so much else, Trump just sails over it. And  it should come as no surprise.  Why should it matter that a Trump appointee believes bug nut crazy conspiracies when the president himself recently tweeted that millions of illegal voters voted in the presidential election?  As with pizzagate, there is absolutely no proof of Trump's voter assertion, but then there is absolutely no proof in so much of what he has said in the past eighteen months that one more lie is nothing.  He lies multiple times in practically every speech he's given as a candidate, and he won, so why stop?
So let's review: American voters elected a man who ran a campaign filled with bigotry and conspiracy theories, and he now is surrounding himself with bigots and conspiracy theorists!  This is why progressives must never stop opposing him, this isn't about Republicans vs. Democrats, this is about wrong and right.

NOT LIKELY, BUT POSSIBLE

"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8

The above clause of the US Constitution is known as the Emoluments Clause, and it was included out of a concern  that members of English royalty may try to influence American politics through bribes or royal titles.  Just how it applies to the modern American political scene is debatable, although I doubt few of our citizens would argue with the basic notion that our politicians shouldn't take bribes from foreigners.   Which brings us to President-elect  Donald Trump; he will be groundbreaking in his presidency not only because of his complete lack of political or military experience, but  also because he will be the first to ever to run a massive, multi million (perhaps billion) dollar global corporation just before entering office.  While he has stated that he will hand over his corporation to his children once he is in office, this will hardly remove any potential conflicts of interest that may arise.
Indeed, even before taking office, there are reports of him receiving a congratulatory phone call from the prime minister of Argentina and turning it into a plea for restrictions to lifted on a building his company is working on there.  He also has interests in India that he may see advanced through his ascendancy to the White House.  And the Secret Service may be renting a floor in his New York Trump Tower building, at a cost of over a million dollars a year (if that happens, that's our tax dollars going to a standing president, folks!).  And these examples are just the tip of the iceberg.  It really appears that Trump plans to use the office of the Presidency to advance his own economic interests first and to implement policies second (unless those polices also advance his interests).  Is this all constitutional?  Probably not, but given that it would take a Republican majority congress to do something about it, there may be no move to rebuke or restrict him.  But as long as he uses his office like a cash machine, there may come a time when public outcry causes congress to act.
And then we need to consider the general temperament of the man we somehow elected president; during the campaign, Trump advisors often admitted that he would listen to their advice for a short time, before impulsively doing his own thing, like sending insulting tweets at three in the morning.  This is bad enough when one is a candidate, but when you're president?  Quite frankly, he has the maturity level and attention span of a toddler, combine that with his godlike sense of self importance and lack of experience in politics, and it is entirely possible that this man may blunder into some kind of criminal corruption or international crisis without even knowing it.
What am I saying? 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, and don't forget that many Republicans in congress did not support his campaign and would rather have his VP  Mike Pence as president than him, and we may see our country's desire to have a inexperienced, immature, sexist, bigoted, bullying, demagogic, hate filled, narcissistic leader turn out to be short lived.  Boy, I sure hope so...

SYMPATHY FOR (SOME) DEVILS

While I am still reeling from the victory of Donald Trump, and enraged at the over sixty million American voters who supported him, I must admit that I do have some sympathy for one strain of Trump voters, and a recent  New York Times headline explains why: TRUMP'S PROMISES WILL BE HARD TO KEEP, BUT COAL COUNTRY HAS FAITH.  While job growth and the overall economy are strong right now, there are many mostly white, working class counties in this country that are in trouble, through no fault of their own.  And they overwhelmingly voted Trump, even after many of them supported Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012.
Why?  Because Trump promised to bring back coal jobs and Hillary Clinton (in a moment she later apologized for) openly remarked "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and companies out of business."  To people like myself who live on cities in the coastal part of the country, this comment was no big deal; of course America needs to move away from the burning of coal, which contributes greatly to climate change.  But to people who live in coal mining communities, it's a way of life,  with entire towns built around people working in the local mine for generations.  When those mines close those towns are devastated, with depressed people often turning to drug and alcohol abuse, or even suicide.  A recent  Princeton study found that between the years 1999 and 2013 the average life expectancy of middle aged white Americans actually decreased, especially for ones without a college degree, (that is, for coal miners and other factory workers) due mostly to this increase in drug and alcohol use.  These are the people who went to Trump rallies and cheered, seeing him as their voice; to them "making America great again" meant going back to a time of good paying blue collar jobs that you could get right out of high school.
But there's a reason why that Times headline says that Trump's promises will be hard to keep; the reality is that coal jobs have been deteriorating in this country since the 1980's.  Even if Trump does roll back all the regulations that Obama has put in place in regards to phasing out coal energy, there are two factors that even a President can't change: the first is the free market; with the onset of fracking, natural gas is cheaper to use than coal, so many communities are turning away from coal energy to save money.  The other is mechanization.  Simply put, drilling machines can do the job of people for less money, just as machines in factories can do the same.
This trend towards mechanization is something that the US and the world will have to continue to deal with, and there are few easy answers.  While retraining displaced workers and making college more affordable are laudable goals, they are often easier said than done, especially for workers who have made a good living for years in one job.  But we have to try, because physical labor is quickly becoming a thing of the past; consider the rise of self driving cars, which are definitely coming ready or not.  While these cars will prevent  thousands of  auto accidents, not to mention the billions of dollars trucking and delivery companies will save, think about the millions of drivers that will be put of work by those companies.    This is enough of a problem that Andy Stern, a senior fellow at the Columbia school of business, proposed in a recent interview in VOX magazine that the US adapt a policy of a Universal Basic Income, literally in the form of the government paying each citizen enough money to survive on.  While this might seem like anathema to the basic American work ethic, it really might help those struggling communities survive, and in the long run, cost the tax payers less than all the money we lose from dealing with depressed people using drugs and alcohol.  I think it's worth a try.  It certainly stands a better chance of working than the empty promises that Trump made in the campaign.

WHY WE CAN'T JUST GIVE HIM A CHANCE

After giving Donald Trump literally billions of dollars worth of free air time by breathlessly reporting on every speech he gave, allowing his lies and insults to marinate in the public consciousness, the media is now in the process of normalizing Donald Trump as inauguration day looms like a black cloud ahead.  60 MINUTES did an interview with him in which he mostly sounded like a real politician  and not the demagogic hatemonger he ran as.  We can't live in a bubble and say "he's not my President", we have  to own up as a country at the potentially world shattering decision we have made.
It is essential in the next four years that we never forget just how Trump violated every standard of a normal Presidential campaign, along with every standard of normal human decency.  Here's a list of just how radical a choice America made on November 8th:

1. He is the first President ever to have never held any previous  political office or serve in the military.  (He once claimed that his running the Ms Universe beauty pageant qualified as foreign policy experience!)

2.  He is the first President in modern history to refuse to release his Income Tax returns.  He has repeatedly boasted about all the money he has made in his lifetime, while shrugging off his multiple bankruptcies and numerous claims of unpaid bills that have been made against him over the years. According to a USA TODAY investigation, the number of lawsuits he is involved in stands at a whopping 3,500,  an unprecedented number for any President.  And  his Trump University seminar programs may well prove to have been an outright scam aimed  at making empty promises to customers while providing no real advice and bilking them of money.

3.  He is the first Presidential Candidate to openly embrace conspiracy theories, (like when he said that Ted Cruz's father was somehow involved in the assassination of President Kennedy!).

4. On the campaign trail he continually made over the top personal attacks on his political opponents, calling President Obama and Hillary Clinton "traitors" and "the founders of ISIS".   He also often encouraged people at his rallies to physically attack protestors.   And in a real low point for American politics, he once ridiculed a handicapped reporter by mimicking his handicap.

5.  He was rejected not just by progressive news outlets like the New York Times, but also by more conservative papers and magazines; The National Review, once the think tank of conservative thought, openly attacked him in a cover story.   And the newspaper USA TODAY, which normally never endorses candidates, said he did not deserve to be President.

6. His crude statements during debates, in which he made childish insults and interrupted constantly, lowered the general level of public discourse.  In a Republican primary debate he defended the size of his genitals; in a Presidential debate he threatened to have Clinton thrown in jail.  Add to the insults his constant immature boasting ("I have a very good brain!") and it's easy to see that this man  sets a poorer role model for children than any other President in recent times (and probably ever).

7.  He was once recorded joking about sexually assaulting women on an open microphone, and was later accused of making such assaults  by eleven different women.

8.  The nonpartisan website Politifact rated a mere 15% of his statements as true or half true.  While all politicians exaggerate or mislead, no Presidential candidate in modern times has every lied openly and repeatedly as much as he has. His biggest lies include that he opposed the 2003 Iraq war from the start, that Clinton started the birther movement against President Obama and he ended it, and that he saw thousands of Muslims celebrating in Jersey City after the attacks of 9/11.   Clinton's record of true or mostly true statements during the campaign stands on Politifact at 75%.

9.  He has engaged in childish personal vendettas during the campaign: he tweeted angry messages against former Ms Universe Alicia Machado, and threatened to sue every one of the eleven women who have accused him of sexual assault.   He also has said that he wants to "open up" federal libel laws to make it easier for people like him to sue news organizations like the New York Times.

10.  He gleefully encouraged Russian hackers to hack into Clinton's files to release her emails.  The Russian government has now formally admitted that it collaborated with Wikileaks to attempt to discredit Clinton and aid the Trump campaign.

11.  He has expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, dismissing the distinct possibility that Putin has had dissenting reporters in his country killed.

12.  He criticized the war record of Republican Senator John McCain, saying "I like people who weren't captured."   He also attacked the gold star  Khan family after Kzir Khan spoke against him during the Democratic Convention.  It should also be pointed out that he avoided being drafted into the service during the Vietnam war because of a mysterious bone spur in his foot; in a later interview he couldn't remember which foot it was in!

13.  He has advocated killing the families of terrorists and torturing terrorist suspects ("waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse.").  The fact that these two things are international war crimes doesn't phase him.  He has blithely discussed the US not living up to NATO alliances, and encouraging South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons.  There are also reports that during military foreign policy briefings he wondered aloud why the US doesn't use nuclear weapons on other countries since we have them.

14.  He is either an outright bigot, or at the very least has inflamed racial hatred.  From his long stated  belief that President Obama was not born in this country to the day he announced his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists, Trump has played the race card repeatedly: he once asserted that an American born judge of Mexican descent could not rule fairly in a fraud case against Trump University  because of his race (something Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called "The textbook definition of racism.").  His signature issues were building a wall on the border with Mexico (while somehow getting Mexico to pay for it) and deporting the estimated eleven million undocumented immigrants living in the US.  He has also called for a ban on all Muslim immigrants entering the country. When  his candidacy was endorsed by former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan David Duke,  he only tepidly denounced him.  The KKK's official newspaper put a glowing article about him on the cover just before the election.

The scary thing about this list is that it kept getting larger the more I thought about it; it seems like there is no end to the unprecedented, horrible things Trump has done since he first began demanding the President's birth certificate in 2011.  He is not a normal Republican, a President Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio would upset me, but not horrify me. Trump is all new combination of inexperience, lies, bullying and boasts.
This is why we cannot "give him a chance", like so many conservatives are saying.  Not when there has been a spike in hate crimes against Muslims  in the past year, not when the KKK has announced that they will hold a rally in honor of him, not when he has decided that Steve Bannon of the extreme right wing website Breitbart will be his Chief of Staff, a choice the New York Times editorial board characterized as "turn on the hate", and which David Duke praised, saying that this might prove that Trump is "for real".  Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is 2016 and we have a former Klan leader openly praising a President.  This is not normal, this is not in any way good, and there is no way we should accept it; progressives must fight this man at every turn, and never let the country forget the hate filled people  that now support him.

THE POWER OF POLITICAL SPEECH

A young Ronald Reagan on the air

Another takeaway  from this stunning  election is the importance of public speaking and playing to a TV camera can have on a Presidential election. The ability to connect with and move thousands, or even millions of people simultaneously is an intangible skill that, while it can be honed over years of practice, seems to be essentially inborn; you got it or you don’t.  Hillary Clinton is a smart woman who can talk intelligently and clearly about just about any political issue in interviews and debates.  But she can't give a great speech; the speech of her life that she gave at the Democratic National Convention was good, but not great.  The speech everyone remembers from that convention was Michelle Obama's, which was so good that many Democrats want her to start running for office. Big, stirring emotional rhetoric is just not Clinton's thing, and while the few Trump campaign speeches I have watched left me either appalled at his lies and offensive statements, or amused by his bizzarro word salad statements ("I know words, I use the best words."), it is clear that they  had an enormous appeal to a certain demographic.  His campaign speeches were straightforward and understandable (a grade level analysis of them showed him speaking at a fourth grade level), playing to his base of non college educated white people.  More importantly, they worked because he sensed the anger that his crowds felt and channeled it into easy targets (undocumented immigrants, Muslims, the media) for them to hate and for him to say that he would "take care of."  Clinton spoke from her mind and Trump from his gut, and in the end, raw gut anger and emotion defeated cerebral thought.
The ability to give a good campaign or electoral speech, while always a good thing (Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fireside chats were legendary)  has become more and more important as TV has become such a big part of modern Presidential campaigning; in fact I would argue that the candidate with superior speech ability has had a  big advantage in  every election since 1980 (with wooden Al Gore and bumbling George W Bush's poor performances essentially cancelling each other out in 2000.).  Ronald Reagan, like Trump, had years of experience in front of cameras before entering politics, and he could effortlessly display lovable folksy charm even as he said things that were flat out untrue.  In 1992 Bill Clinton defeated  George Bush mainly on his empathetic appeals to people hurt by the poor economy ("I feel your pain.").  And then in 2008 Barack Obama, running against Hillary Clinton in the primaries, defeated a more experienced candidate by rousing crowds with uplifting speeches, and then took that same oratory ability to two successful  terms in the White House.
While I like a good moving speech as much as the next voter (and yes, I teared up too when Michelle Obama spoke at the Convention), I wish that things like facts and issues played more of a role in people's voting decisions than a candidate's ability to string together some nice words.  The effects of this are often amazing: Clinton has had years of experience dealing with Middle East  terrorism as Secretary of State; Trump has literally no foreign policy experience whatsoever, and yet in poll after poll he was rated by  the public as being "stronger" on the issue, simply because he yelled and talked tough about terrorism during his speeches ("I'm gonna bomb the shit out of  Isis!”).  Please, give me the smart woman with a history of dealing with  an issue over the blustery inexperienced loud mouth man any day!
This gets even worse when one looks at issues: 54% of white women are pro choice, a demographic that went 53% for Trump, who has pledged to put anti abortion judges on the Supreme Court.  A majority of Americans now support gay marriage, which is also in jeopardy once Trump starts making court appointments.  Majorities also support expanding background checks on gun purchases and doing something about global warming, putting them clearly on the other side of Trump.  It would appear that millions of Americans were talked into ignoring Trump's stance on important issues because they responded to the raw emotion of his pumped up speeches.  Which is part of why we’re in this mess.