Listen, Stooge

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The Lonesome Death of Listen, Stooge.

I have many attributes, but perseverance is not one of them. 

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/the-lonesome-death-of-listen-stooge

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I have many attributes, but perseverance is not one of them.  

So I am killing Listen, Stooge before it has even reached six months of age.  I am killing it for one very simple reason:  nobody reads it.  Not my friends. Not my family.

Nobody!  Not even you.

It turns out that the world doesn't want another random observer on American politics. It especially doesn't want one who won't predictably deliver thoughts that back-up what the readers already believe.

Listen, Stooge attacked the political Right and then it attacked the political Left. People in America are increasingly on one team or the other, so when an anonymous dickhead posts something that they like they assume he is on their team. When the next day he attacks their sacred cows they get pissed off.  "I thought you were one of us!" they think, before deleting the link forever.

To be honest, it doesn't seem as if anybody actually did that with Listen, Stooge. The counts of readers on the LS blog are not high enough to support the paragraph above as a credible theory. The facts suggest that I am the only person who ever read it.

Nonetheless, I need a reason to explain why LS is dead as dust and for reasons of psychological health the reason can't be “it wasn't very good."  That would reflect poorly on the blogger, and the blogger would rather things reflect poorly on everyone else.

In any case, this space will not become a void.  One of these days it will be replaced by Blazing Prattles.  BP will be different because it won't be full of reasoned reflections on things like political candidates. It will, instead, be whatever pops into my noggin, i.e., my impressions of the day and completely pointless thoughts. They will sometimes be funny, occasionally wry, at times insightful and, too-often, stupid as all get-out.

Most importantly, the postings on Blazing Prattles will be short. If there is anything one cannot do in 2019 if one wants to attract and maintain readers it is write something longer than a paragraph or two. The political statements will still lurch around the spectrum, disappointing many. I can't help myself on that front.

If Blazing Prattles doesn't work I will have to go back to earning a living at my real job. I will make humorously trenchant observations to my co-workers, chuckling with self-satisfaction until I notice their eyes looking for the closest escape route. I have experience at all that.

So tally ho, as the huntsman says before chasing down the doomed fox.  Tally ho.

[listenstooge-blog]

How To Tell Your Rightists Apart

What's the difference between Rep. Justin Amash and others in the Freedumb Caucus? 

Libertarianism is stupidity for people who understand multi-syllabic words. 

Populism is stupidity for people who don't.

[listenstooge-blog]

So Sue Me

In which I admit error. Three, in fact, since the year began.

Sometimes I am The Stooge. One must pay attention and admit when one is wrong. It is what adults do, and the growing rings around my middle say that I have walked the earth for enough decades that I should be in that category.

There are two things about which I have been incorrect on this blog that, admittedly, virtually nobody reads.  Well, I do. I go back and read it.  But it doesn't seem like too many others do, if anyone.

There was one that seemed to get attention, at least on Tumblr.  It said that gun nuts are fools who cook up rationalizations so they can play with their toys ("Truth For Gun Worshipers", March 17).  It seems that several of the gun fans actually believe that their toys have something to do with protecting freedom, even as their favorite president disembowels the Constitutional balance of powers, something about which they express no concern.

I wasn't wrong on that post. They're dicks.

But there are two I have already reconsidered.

An early post wrote off Elizabeth Warren as a presidential candidate because of all the Pocahontas to-do ("One Strike and She's Out", January 6).  The point was that the Democratic nominee cannot be accused of being the same as the amoral vulgarian in the White House and that given she lied he and his thugs will just call her a liar forever and she won't be able to gain headway.  Trump equivalence is still a valid concern (I'm looking at you, touchy Joe).

But I no longer think it kills her candidacy. She has run a steady, relentless and policy-oriented campaign and run it well.  There are days I think that the best way to beat the Beast is to run someone who is the opposite of him -- boring, smart and policy nerd certainly check that box. 

I still don't think she is the strongest Democratic candidate. She lectures and people don't like to be lectured to, or they would have paid attention in school. But I now think she is in the top five.

The other I was not completely wrong about. In "Don't Impeach The Beast...Yet" (April 20) I praised Speaker Pelosi's calm in not going all-in on impeachment.  I still believe that is the best strategy to rid us of the demon -- the public does not want impeachment and until that changes it is a good way to lose in 2020.

But I also said Democrats should investigate aggressively and build a case so that impeachment can occur if-and-when more bad stuff comes to light (or more people start to realize that a lot of bad stuff already has).  The Democrats aren't doing that.  They don't seem to be doing anything.  

Doing nothing is worse than impeaching -- it lets Trump and is paid liar Barr control the story. Nancy Pelosi does not now seem so much to have a firm hand on the tiller as to have fallen asleep in the captain's chair.

That's it. Pretty much I have been correct on everything else in 2019 save the left turn I took in March when looking for a restaurant.  But errors are errors and in a society that has as much of a commitment to redemption as does ours I believe I deserve forgiveness so we can all move on. 

OK, so I can move on.  Nobody else is paying the slightest bit of attention to this blog. Not even my friends or family (this is a test for you guys). I know that because I see the counts.  But I do it anyway. 

Oh, and it was a right. I should have taken a right turn.

[listenstooge-blog]

America is not a far left country.

Nominating the most liberal candidate would probably doom Democrats to defeat. There is no reason to believe that this year will be magically different than the others

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/america-is-not-a-left-country

Those of us who want to remove the execrable Trump from office have different ideas of how to do it. Our battles on policy matters can wait until after he is gone. For now we need to unite on a pragmatic course, the one most likely to succeed.

Those on the Left believe that there is an untapped well of support for their positions out in the country.  I don't think there is evidence of that. Yes, I have seen polls on individual issues. But polls change.  America has always made progress incrementally, with the exception of the first FDR term.

Going back to 1972 it is clear that the American people consistently choose conservative or center-left candidates over farther left. We can go back deeper into history, but before 1972 the nomination process was not as open. The trends are the same, anyway, with the possible exception of 1932 and 1936.

Note that in my list below "moderate" means relative to the other candidates.

1972 - George McGovern (most liberal) nominated and won one state, Nixon re-elected

1976 - Jimmy Carter (moderate) nominated and elected

1980 - Carter defeats liberal Ted Kennedy in primaries -- arch conservative elected

1984 -- Walter Mondale (moderate) defeats liberal Gary Hart in primaries -- Reagan re-elected

1988 -- Michael Dukakis (moderate) defeats several liberals in primaries. Loses to center-right Bush

1992 -- Bill Clinton (moderate) nominated and elected

1996 -- no primary challenge to Clinton, reelected

2000 -- Al Gore (moderate) defeats more liberal Bill Bradley in primaries. RIght wing Bush elected.

2004 -- John Kerry (moderate) defeats liberal Howard Dean and others for nomination, Bush wins

2008 -- Barack Obama - arguably the more liberal candidate but still derided by the left as a sell-out, is elected

2012 -- Obama re-elected

2016 - Hillary Clinton (moderate) defeats socialist Sanders for nomination. Reactionary Trump wins.

In the 12 presidential elections since 1972:

--The most liberal candidate nominated (McGovern) won one state in the general election.

--The more liberal candidate in the primary race (Obama) was elected twice.  

--The more moderate Democrat won the primaries and nomination 9 of the 12 times.

--The more conservative (R) candidate won the election 6 times, including the far-right Reagan and reactionary Trump.

People choose center-left, at most, and more conservative. They almost never choose "most liberal".

I know the argument will be that people don't get a choice in November, that the Democrats are too cautious and so will often lose. But that ignores the fact that nominees are chosen by voters. It ignores the reality that the more moderate candidates are the ones Democratic primary voters want.

A recent analysis in the NY Times says " The outspoken group of Democratic-leaning voters on social media is outnumbered, roughly 2 to 1, by the more moderate, more diverse and less educated group of Democrats who typically don’t post political content online, according to data from the Hidden Tribes Project. This latter group has the numbers to decide the Democratic presidential nomination in favor of a relatively moderate establishment favorite, as it has often done in the past."

Nominating the most liberal candidate would probably doom Democrats to defeat. There is no reason to believe that this year will be magically different than the others. There is no reason to think there is a silent majority of the left. It's fantasy.

[listenstooge-blog]

Democrats Are Blowing the 2020 Election

Continuing down the road of embracing the farthest left position will result in a Trump re-election, which means we will lose on issue after issue, far into the foreseeable future. 

ListenStooge.com

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Trump administration putting a citizenship question on the US Census it will depress the response rate -- and that means an under-count in certain areas that will shift representation and voting power further to the right for at least ten years. 

What damage will be done after that? The conservative Supreme Court can be expected to rule against things like gun control, voting rights, environmental regulations and health care.  Do you think that if he gets another four years the current president will nominate reasonable, moderate justices -- or do you think he will solidify the conservative majority?

These are the stakes. This is why Democrats need to win the 2020 election. It's why Democrats need to stop talking about things that are politically toxic in swing states and districts - like letting terrorists vote, reparations and eliminating private insurance.  

Asked about giving the vote to killers or terrorists with life sentences, a ridiculous idea offered by Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris said we should have a "conversation" about that.  

In other words she was afraid, for fear of not seeming sufficiently left, to say  "Are you crazy? The 13th amendment allows prisoners to be enslaved. You think they have voting rights? Tim McVeigh should have had voting rights before he was executed? People like the terrorist who killed and mutilated people at the Boston Marathon give up all sorts of rights-- including freedom of movement and the right not to be killed by the state. No, I'm not for that."

What constituency is out there supporting voting rights for imprisoned murderers and rapists? We are not talking about post-incarceration, it is a reasonable position to say people re-entering society should be able to reclaim their franchise. We are talking about people in prison, even people serving life sentences.

It makes Democrats seem crazy and scary. They can't win doing that.

It doesn't matter what you think on issues. What matters is getting 51% of the vote in places such as Iowa and Pennsylvania and Michigan.  

Systemic racism exists. Do you want to debate reparations? Elect Democrats first, then have the "conversation".  Because you know what the debate will be like during an election campaign. It will be made ugly and divisive, on purpose, by the people who brought you the Nixonian "Southern Strategy" and Trump's Muslim ban. I can't see how someone who recognizes the deep and stubborn racism in our country would think they could win that battle.

Do you think the tens of thousands of people in Connecticut or Iowa who work for the health insurance industry will vote for a candidate who wants to eliminate their jobs? Iowa is a swing state, Connecticut should be solidly blue - do you want them to go red over that?

Continuing down the road of embracing the farthest left position will result in a Trump re-election, which means we will lose on issue after issue, far into the foreseeable future. 

Think with your heads, not your emotions. To make progress we need to win the White House and Congress. It is not "progressive" to take extreme stands and get nowhere with them. 

Democrats: you are blowing this election.  Stop it, or get used to saying "President Trump." 

Get used to losing.

[listenstooge-blog]

Don’t Impeach The Beast...Yet.

Reality is that unless there is enough evidence to convince the Senate, impeachment will not result in the removal of Trump from office.  He will then get to say he was "acquitted" or "exonerated", even thought the decision was made by his enablers -- the Senate's cowering, partisan stooges.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stands between Democrats and the political abyss. She is taking the long view, making pragmatic decisions that give Democrats their best chance to take control of Congress and the White House in 2020.

Once that happens, Democrats can fight among ourselves about what the correct public policies should be. That's what we want to be doing. For example, if Democrats control the federal government we can argue about whether we should improve Obamacare, have a public option or single payer without private insurance. If Trump wins again the debate will continue to be about whether there should be any guarantee of health insurance at all. The only way to accomplish anything at all is to win elections and then make policy progress where you can. I detest what Donald Trump has done to our country. It breaks my heart. On an emotional level I would enjoy seeing him impeached and humiliated. But we can't let that short-term pleasure come at the price of the 2020 elections. Reality is that unless there is enough evidence to convince the Senate, impeachment will not result in the removal of Trump from office.  He will then get to say he was "acquitted" or "exonerated", even thought the decision was made by his enablers -- the Senate's cowering, partisan stooges. No good can come from that result. Democrats will be seen as having been on a witch hunt, they will be more likely to lose Congress and the monster's re-election chances will improve. On the other hand, thorough investigations by House committees can expose Trump's criminality and moral corruption to the public at large. If even worse transgressions are found there is a possibility (admittedly slim) that Republican Senators may start to crack.  It gives time for other jurisdictions -- like the Southern District of New York -- to do their work, too. The argument against this is that if Congressional Democrats aren't aggressive enough and don't dive right into impeachment the left will stay home and pout. This argument is tied to the theory that people will turn out in large numbers to vote for an aggressively left Democrat. There is no evidence that this will happen. You might be able to argue that FDR was elected running to the farthest left part of the spectrum, but even if that's true it was almost 90 years ago -- and there hasn't been one since. People in swing states and districts have a tendency to vote for Republicans and moderate Democrats -- and they don't do that because they want aggressive leftists. Believing otherwise is a dangerous delusion that elects conservative Republicans. I simply don't get the argument that the party shouldn't try to appeal to the middle because if they do those farther left will stay at home and pout. They'll not turn out to vote because the House only had several committee investigations but not an impeachment inquiry?   That is a luxury of the privileged. The price for their ideological righteousness will be four more years of Trumpian horrors -- horrors suffered by the weakest in society. The priority needs to be removing the monster.  We can argue among ourselves later. Play the long game. Don't overreach. We need to win swing states with 51% of the vote, winning New York and California by 40 points doesn't help. Nancy Pelosi is not an appeaser, she is not weak. She has done this a long time and knows what works. She is trying to win, for you.

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The Electoral College Is Anachronistic Nonsense.

It was created to defend slavery. It now does the opposite of protecting against electoral mistakes. It gives power without reason to a minority of voters based solely on their states. It is contrary to one-person, one-vote. The Electoral College has got to go.

There were two important reasons why the framers of the US Constitution established the Electoral College.  

One was a compromise between slave states and free states, just as was the decision to count slaves as 3/5 of a human. There shouldn’t need to be a discussion on that, it is clearly immoral and invalid, at best a relic of its time, a temporary political necessity that has been on the ash-heap of history since 1865.

The other was to establish a wall between the electoral spasms of the majority and the presidency.  The idea was that the public might, in a momentary frenzy, vote for someone essentially unfit.  The thought was that the college of wise men (and it was all men in their minds) would act as a check on that type of emotional excess.

In a system through which electors are political partisans and vote according to the wishes of the majority in their states this purpose clearly no longer exists – not to mention that in 2016 the Electoral College, following votes by their states, did the opposite: it chose the most unfit candidate ever over the person who was arguably the most qualified in a century.

When an institution does the opposite of its intention it is time to reconsider its usefulness.

Supporters of the Electoral College have a limited number of arguments, all of them mere rationalizations for the basic one: it gives them the presidents they want, regardless of what the majority desires.

After the 2016 election, social media was peppered with red/blue maps that showed how much of the country was Trump-colored.  This was offered by people whose main argument is that people in cities and in places like California and New York shouldn’t decide for everyone else. They actually say this out loud.

This is an argument that the Electoral College should reflect a decision based on acreage, not the humans who have to live with the results of elections. There is no logic in saying the votes of people in thinly populated areas should count more than those of citizens with equal rights who happen to live in densely populated ones.

When they say the votes of people in urban areas or on the coasts should not count as much as theirs, they are devaluing the votes of people (a) they see as smarty-pants elites and (b) racial ethnic minorities.  The first is sort of typical populism, the idea that people who know about stuff shouldn’t have equal voting weight. The second is straight-up racist.

Another argument is that being against the Electoral College is the same as being against the Constitution. That’s simply wrong.

Article V of the Constitution establishes a process for amending the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, for example,  is a series of Constitutional amendments. The prohibition of slavery is a Constitutional amendment, as is women’s suffrage.  Would being in favor of the Bill of Rights have been seen as anti-Constitution?  

It is not “anti-Constitution” to be in favor of eliminating the Electoral College.  It is participating in the type of debate encouraged and envisioned by the founders.

Ross Douthat of The New York Times says one argument is that “drives politicians and political hacks (by nature not the most creative types) to think bigger than regional blocs and 51 percent majorities.”  Perhaps, but I don’t see how that justifies giving more weight to a minority of voters based on the size of the arbitrary geographic area in which they happen to live.

It was created to defend slavery. It now does the opposite of protecting against electoral mistakes. It gives power without reason to a minority of voters based solely on their states. It is contrary to one-person, one-vote.

The Electoral College has got to go.

[listenstooge-blog]

Truth for Gun Worshippers

Listen. If there is more of something -- anything -- there almost certainly will be more problems caused by that item.  

Where there are more tin cans, there will be more cut fingers. The linoleum floor with the most banana peels will have more people slipping on them than does the floor with none.

To claim that guns are the only things to which this does not apply is dishonest nonsense. 

It is also, like most pro-gun arguments, a rationalization.  The truth is that most of you like playing with your toys and you are willing to accept the occasional slaughter of innocents so you can have your fun.  

Just admit it. First to yourselves, then to the rest of us.

[listenstooge-blog]

Marching Madness

There are two versions of every ethnicity and religion: the real one, in which every human being is different from every other person and the one we've made up about them, in which everyone is the same.. 

It is raining, which means that the St. Patrick's Day Parade will probably be canceled, depriving thousands of the opportunity to celebrate the religious holiday by doing things like getting drunk and peeing on the sidewalk.

I used to work downtown.  The Monday after the parade the streets were full of litter and liquid mess. Much of the detritus comprised beer cartons and whisky bottles. Harp and Guinness and Jameson's Irish Whisky were big hits, judging from the ripped cardboard and broken glass.  

Each year the crowd at the parade is split 50/50.  Half of the people are loud drunks, roughly ages 16-35, and the rest are families with small children.  The little kids are amazed by the marching bands and dancing troupes and firemen, and flummoxed by the 25-year-olds with green faces screaming that women marchers should show their boobs.

Or whatever. Once I was at a urinal and the man next to me looked over and commented upon my apparatus. I don't know why. I hadn't known it was interesting.

The parade always included the Shriners, who would ride on miniature motorcycles while wearing faux fezzes. They would buzz around and around in circles near a truck on which was written "Arab Patrol".  As far as I know they still do this for parades.

Arabs, even in those irony-free days after 9/11/2001, were a costume to be worn.  I have never heard of anybody complaining about it, although I imagine someone has.

In 1973 my family moved from a dying factory city to a smaller, rural town.  Many years later the town is a suburb and the factory city has finished becoming dead.  

I was in high school when we moved. One year in my new town, on Halloween or another dress-up day, a kid came to school in black face. He darted around, too, popping up around corners like some kind of goofball.  The other students laughed and laughed.

I am not a perfect man and I have my prejudices. I have revealed them at times in my life and I regret having done that. I have certainly not finished with my prejudices and I probably never will.  They sit behind sandbags in my brain along with things like the birthdays of childhood friends, people I haven't seen for half a century. But even at  fifteen or sixteen I knew that it was wrong for a white kid to come to school in black face. I knew as a teenager that black people are not a costume, and that white guys in fezzes should not pretend to be Arabs.

Just as it is wrong to celebrate Irishness by being drunk and obnoxious.

In 1988 Mario Cuomo declined to run for president of the United States. It was a significant decision and one he made at the last moment.  He was a popular choice among Democrats, having given a convention speech four years earlier about the immigrant experience, the best political speech I have ever heard.

In the days that followed his great refusal two very liberal-minded people, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, separately said to me almost in these exact words "I think there is something in his background he didn't want to come out."

I asked them each what they thought it might be. They backpedaled and said it was probably something about his background in Queens. Neither one of them knew a damned thing about the antics of politicians in Queens and I doubt either had ever even been there, unless it was for a Mets game.

There are two versions of every ethnicity and religion: the real one, in which every human being is different from every other person and the one we've made up about them, in which everyone is the same.  But caricatures are not full people, they don't get the same benefit of the doubt when they make mistakes. We certainly don't have to take seriously people who are outfits we can put on for holidays. We can do things to them, like making it harder for them to vote and then we can dismiss them as trifling whiners when they complain.

I don't go to the St. Patrick's Day Parade any more. It isn't out of some great principle, I'm just too old to be around loud 22-year-olds.  But someone ought to let them know that playing to stereotypes is not an expression of pride.  It is, in fact, the opposite. It is surrender.

[listenstooge-blog]

Like It or Not, the Center Will Always Hold

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/the-center-will-hold

We can fight among ourselves later. For now let's make practical decisions and, together, drive the demon from the temple.

I am tired of reading people saying “centrism” isn't a set of coherent beliefs, that it's a myth and that because of that candidates shouldn't pursue them.

Of course it isn't a set of beliefs. There is no "centrist" ideology. It is the opposite of that. It is not being locked in to an ideology -- ideologies that constrain one from taking positions that aren't part of an orthodoxy.

A person can be for universal health coverage and against gun control - or vice versa.  Someone can be in favor of equal pay for all and against deficit spending - or the other way around.  There are no inherent contradictions there.

Yes, people tend to check the same boxes because of the way they view society. But that shouldn't and doesn't make them incapable of evaluating each issue on its own merits.

That’s why a leftist candidate can blow the 2020 election. Nobody in the “center” wants rigidity. Democrats won the U.S. House by winning swing districts that had been held by Republicans. The people there had not previously voted for Republicans because what they really wanted were Sanders-like Democrats. They voted for Republicans because the left scares them more.  This time the moderate Democrats scared them less than the Trump-supporting Rs.

But they had voted for Trump in 2016.  The monster won independents by 4 percentage points. In a recent Huffington Post/YouGov poll 42 % of the people said Democrats are too extreme and 40% said Republicans are.  Another 11% said both parties are too extreme. That last group is the target, guys. Trump won them two years ago and Democrats won them in 2018.

The "progressives" say turnout will win the election. Turnout is important. But getting 80% of the vote in California or Massachusetts isn't going to elect a president. Getting 51% in swing states will. You can turn out as many votes as you want, but if you get swamped among the "centrists" you are not winning Missouri, you aren't winning Ohio or Iowa and you may not be winning Pennsylvania, either.

That doesn't mean selling out principles. It means crafting your message in an appropriate and less-extreme manner. Had Hillary won two years ago we would have had a healthy debate about whether the minimum wage should be $12 or $15 an hour. But because Trump won there is no national debate about it at all.

This will, of course, generate the response that the $15 isn't extreme. Anyone saying that is missing the point. And the point is winning.

Kamala Harris gets it. When she said "Medicare For All" means the end of private insurance  people went berserk. She saw polls that say that support for it drops to below 40% when people learn they won't be able to keep the coverage they have. And she backpedaled, saying that universal coverage is the goal and that she will push as hard to get the most that is possible, but won't insist on the perfect to the detriment of the good.

For the record, I'm not a centrist. But I believe that progress is made incrementally and by compromise. You need to get to a majority of voters and legislators or you get nothing. You don't make a point - you get nothing. Did the Nader voters make a point in 2000? If they did, it was missed by everybody who was killed due to the needless invasion of Iraq, an invasion that occurred because the imperfect Al Gore lost.

You need people on the extremes setting the goals, but you have to be elected to do anything at all. And scaring off the center is not the way to get elected.

That's the message for anti-Trump voters who say they won't bother to vote for a less-than-perfect or the "corporate" Democrats they hate so much.  Elections are about winning and making progress, not about making statements and losing.

If you insist on orthodoxy and the demon wins again you won't be getting what you deserve. You won't be building a long-term revolution. You will be cursing others to suffer for another four years -- families separated at the border, for example, or people who lose health care coverage.  That's the great statement made by the people who voted for Jill Stein, Gary Johnson or who just didn't vote.

Do that again and every child ripped from his or her mother by ICE will be on you.

We can fight among ourselves later. For now let's make practical decisions and, together, drive the demon from the temple.

[listenstooge-blog]

One Strike and She’s Out

This is how the Right has defined her and they will never let it go. She cannot be the Democratic nominee because they will continue to pound it until in the minds of voters there is an equivalence with the Pumpkin Prevaricator. That is the beauty of one-second attacks like saying "Pocahontas" or "Sacagewea". The message is instantly conveyed and easily understood. Her response? Not so memorable.

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/one-strike-and-she-s-out

Yesterday the first question asked of Elizabeth Warren by an Iowa voter was about her claim of native American ancestry. Earlier this week Florida nitwit Congressman Matt Gaetz called her "Sacagewea" rather than his cult-leader's favorite nickname for her, "Pocahontas".

All this because as a Harvard law professor Warren had identified herself as a minority in a faculty book.  She later said her Indian heritage was family lore or something. She even took a DNA test and found that she has some DNA sequences which show some native American strands, leading one genetics researcher to say the ancestor probably lived six to ten generations ago. 

So while a reasonable person might say her claim to have some native American ancestry is technically true, to claim that she's a minority because of someone six generations ago is...well, it's quite a stretch.  While I don't know that she ever got any kind of tangible advantage from the claim it is fair to assume that at a minimum she blew it out of proportion to seem other than what she is. I don't know why she would do that...to look cool and persecuted? 

It took her fifty five seconds to give a response to the Iowan, according to the Washington Post story.  That's fifty seconds too long as a response to an opposition meme. Compare it, as a response, to one of the many effective rejoinders by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Let's put the Warren act into context. According to the Post  Donald Trump has told more than 7,500 lies since taking office. The untrue things he says blur in the mind. No single lie has a chance to stand out because there will be another one the next day, and sometimes in the second half of the same sentence. Whether this single claim by Warren was a lie or a mistake doesn't matter. Whether Trump leads her in lies by 7,499 makes no difference. Whether it is fair or not means nothing.

It should disqualify her as a potential Democratic nominee in the minds of primary voters. 

This is how the Right has defined her and they will never let it go. She cannot be the Democratic nominee because they will continue to pound it until in the minds of voters there is an equivalence with the Pumpkin Prevaricator. That is the beauty of one-second attacks like saying "Pocahontas" or "Sacagewea". The message is instantly conveyed and easily understood. Her response? Not so memorable. 

No Democratic nominee can afford to spend almost a minute explaining why his or her transgression is not the same as Donald Trump's.  There is a reason Trump took the Bill Clinton accusers to one of the debates, and it wasn't to throw Hillary off her game.. It was to tell the American people that while he may be a misogynist, the other guys are, too.

This is why Senator Al Franken had to resign. It made no difference whether the degree of his actions were the same as the myriad things Trump has done.  It may be unfair, but every minute a Democrat would spend explaining away Franken's antics would create another few thousand voters who would conclude there is no difference between the parties. Americans who claim to be "independent" don't like either party as it is, and they are quite open to that argument.

The idea that "they are all the same" is the single biggest threat to Democratic efforts to defeat the ​de​mon. His awfulness is his defining characteristic and "I'm not as bad as him" isn't a good rallying cry for victory. I am sure Elizabeth Warren is an intelligent and sincere candidate. But she should not be the nominee of a party that wants to win in 2020.

[listenstooge-blog]

The Boomer’s Last Gift To America

When looking around for someone to blame for the fool in the White House, though, anyone born between 1946 and 1964 should look in the mirror. He may be the monster, but we're Dr. Frankenstein.  

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/the-boomers-last-gift-to-america

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Who’s Fault Is It, Anyway?

The Trump Party is increasingly the Conspiracy Party - a party full of people in tinfoil hats who apply the principle of self-reliance to others but who have no intention of being accountable for anything themselves.

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/who-s-fault-is-it-anyway

Donald Trump, who inherited millions of dollars and who seems to have never taken responsibility for anything, now blames the Federal Reserve for the recent stock market dive -- the worst December drop since 1931. 

Trump loudly took credit when the market was up. Now that it's down he wants to fire the Fed chairman -- the one he appointed. 

Blaming others is a fundamental tenet of Trumpism.   

We live in a country that worships "the American Dream", the belief that anyone who works hard and is a quality person should be able to bathe and frolic in piles of money like Scrooge McDuck.   

Where people are in life is usually a matter of circumstance -- whether they are born smart, have a family that teaches resilience, are healthy or talented and so on.  It's mostly luck, a roll of genetic dice. Yes, it can result from choices a person has made. However, they tend to be decisions made when a person is too young to make good ones, such as finding out too late that the recruiter lied and bazooka training has limited application once you're discharged.

But that's not the traditional ethos. What we're often taught is that successful people are worthy and unsuccessful people are...not. This is especially popular in the self-reliance wing of the Republican Party. 

So with what does that leave people who look around and decide life didn't turn out as they'd expected? Unless they're sick or injured they have one of two explanations - either they are not worthy or somebody did it to them. 

Guess which they prefer -- and Donald Trump is more than happy to indulge them: it's the Mexicans or the Muslims or the Deep State or the media or the elites. Whoever it is, it's someone else.   

Trump's base believes him when he blames others because he has practically hand-selected them as his audience. They're primed to find scapegoats for their own lives and easily believe that the guy who had the guts to call out their tormentors is himself being victimized by invisible forces.   

The Trump Party is increasingly the Conspiracy Party - a party full of people in tinfoil hats who apply the principle of self-reliance to others but who have no intention of being accountable for anything themselves.  It is not only an aspect of Trumpism, it's one of the guiding principles. 

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The Last Relatively Adult Person In The Room

That isn't "good". It is at best relatively good. Nobody raises their child in the hopes that they will grow up to be not as horrible as Stephen Miller.

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/the-last-relatively-adult-person-in-the-room

I'm glad that the departure of Jim Mattis is raising concerns.  His resignation comes after those of other so-called adults, such as Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn. It's a positive development when anyone walks away in disgust from the uncivil Trump, especially if they fry him in a resignation letter  -- but it doesn't make them worthy of praise.

For whom did they think they were going to work?

It was clear in 2016 that the fool now in the White House is an ignorant bigot and misogynist, deeply corrupt both morally and financially -- with a history of business failures to boot. 

Somehow the majority of American voters figured that out and knew he should not be  near levers of power - but these guys?  It didn't matter to them. They didn't care about the bigotry or bragging about sexual assault -- or that at one point he claimed the voice on the Billy Bush tape wasn't his (which is, y'know, crazy).  They didn't care that he lumbered around the debate stage like a library-stack pervert as he tried to bully Hillary Clinton.  

The three morally blind mice and others, like John Kelly and Steve Mnuchin, went to work for him anyway.

After he took office they didn't care about his entanglements with Russia and his lapdog act with Putin, nor his weird love moment with the murderous Kim Jong Un.  At least Cohn walked out after the President of the United States made excuses for Nazis. The others didn't even quit then. They also weren't troubled by his daily lies and half-truths, now totaling 7,546 according to the Washington Post.

One of the 'adults" wrote an op-ed about the dangers posed by the manifestly unfit and insane man in the oval office but...um...didn't sign it.

That isn't "good". It is at best relatively good. Nobody raises their child in the hopes that they will grow up to be not as horrible as Stephen Miller.

It's one thing for the general public to be bamboozled by a charlatan (not that his voters should be absolved.)  Everyday folk have other important things to care about like, for example, work and Instagram and tv dramas about people living in castles.

But these "adults" were people involved at the highest levels of government, politics and business. They can't say they didn't know. But we can say with certainty that it didn't keep them from wanting to be big shots.

They share the blame for the debasement of our institutions and culture by the vulgar criminal before whom they bowed. 

They had no shame or scruples as they sought personal power and glory. They didn't care then and they shouldn't be given a pass on it now.

[listenstooge-blog]

Crazytown

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/crazytown

[listenstooge-blog]

Trumpergate?

https://www.listenstooge.com/home/circling-the-drain

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https://www.listenstooge.com/ 

in which N. Greeman opines on the passing of George H.W. Bush.