Deciding Who to Throw Under the Bus

We know who republicans are fighting for:  the wealthy and the Christian right-wing.  That unholy alliance was formed to help Reagan get elected and was such a resounding success that despite seeming to be totally at odds, the two groups have gone on to be famous lovers.

On the Democratic side, we try to do the right thing, but we get so damned confused.  We want to win -- not for our own gratification of course, but because that's the only way we can do good.  It is easy to manipulate us by accusing us of, gee, almost anything; just toss out an attack and watch us scurry around in confused agitation, like a disturbed ant hill.

It is with some amusement that I have been observing David Brooks, who of late has determined to advise Dems on how to best succeed.  In a recent column he suggests that on gun control we blue people should be more empathetic towards those red folks, and let them take the lead.  In another special piece of mansplaining entitled "The Abortion Memo", he tells us that if we don't do some compromising on abortion restrictions, then we are letting Donald Trump win.  And, after all, going along with something like the twenty week abortion ban doesn't affect all that many women.

Democrat Conor Lamb just won a special election in a district that had belonged to Trump not too long ago.  In the wake of which, as described in a brilliant article by Charlie Pierce, David Brooks obfuscates into a win as a result of a move toward the center.  Pierce says, "This attempt to drag Conor Lamb into David Brooks' Cloud Cuckoo Land of Responsible Centrism is simply a load."

From the White House we have the brute-in-chief, who is always happy to tell "Schumer and Pelosi" what they need to do to make their party happy.

Enough from the republican chorus.  It takes second guessing from our own party and candidates' advisors to really put a damper on that whole liberty and justice for all thing.  If you plan on running for office on a truly progressive agenda, you are going to be facing a whole lot of squishy Democratic opinions about why you can't do that and win.  You are just going to have to hide those lefty beliefs, embrace those on the other side, and make some compromises.

What it all comes down to, this compromise business, is who we Democrats agree to throw under the bus in our race to the finish line.  And there are so very many Americans and issues to choose from.

For example, we might support Dreamers.  In fact, Dreamers are very popular.  But we might just want to be a little more agreeable about closing that Mexican border.  We could beef up security, spend more money on patrol agents and build just a little bit of a wall.  (And let's not make a big deal out of all those families being deported, and especially about the children being separated from their parents.  Oh, and let's not get into defending sanctuary cities; that's just too messy.) 

How about that Muslim ban?  We know it's a bad idea to close our borders, and it's not just the melting pot, "give me your tired, your poor" thing.  It's bad for business.  But the courts are fighting it out.  (And if our candidates make too big a deal out of it, it is just going to scare those Christians on the other side.)

Teachers.  We have heard our democratic candidates say all the same safe words about teachers.  It is so important that we praise teachers for their important hard work that there is even a website with "Words to Thank a Teacher."  (But we don't want to get into what it would cost to pay a teacher what they are worth, or provide them the environment and supplies and support that they need to do their jobs better and with less stress.)  In fact, one of our own SC Democratic candidates for governor is these days saying we should get rid of 1/3 of our teachers.

Which brings us to an even more explosive four-letter-word:  Unions.  (Oh, please don't let anyone ask about unions, please, please, please, please.  Because then I'll have to say I support unions, but people who don't "believe in them" shouldn't have to pay for them, and then union members will get angry at me and then...)

Taxes.  The republicans have long ago taken ownership of the phrase "lower taxes and better government services."  The fact that republicans that lower taxes invariably cut needed services doesn't seem to dispel the magic of the promise.  But does it?  Maybe candidates that fearlessly talk about the cost of inadequate taxation... (If I talk about taxes, I'll be called a tax and spend Democrat, so maybe I just won't say anything.)

Women's health care.  Health care.  Abortion.  If you recall, back during the Obamacare "debate," big republican donors paid for a huge astroturf campaign, much like the Russian trolls spurred in 2016, revving up the American people with fears that the government was going to kill their grandmas with their death panels, and the government was going to spy on their doctor appointments.  They even gave them bag lunches and put them on buses en route to protests.   Well, women are dying from inadequate access to health care, and our government wants to tell our doctors what they can say to us about our reproductive health and dictate and monitor our care.  Texas has closed so many clinics that over recent years the maternal mortality rate has been likened to that of a third world country.  The highest in the nation, they had no recourse but to... re-interpret the data.  Still the highest mortality rate in the country, but not as high as they thought.  (But I'll be very careful not to sound as though I'm "pro-abortion."  And make sure that I agree with the sanctity of life, and just get back to saying mothers and babies need better health care.  And hope nobody notices.) 

AND guns.  Maybe our Democratic politicians could stop prefacing every statement on gun control with, "I believe in the Second Amendment" or by telling us how old they were when they first went hunting with their daddy.  The numbers of  shootings in this country, mass and otherwise,  is obscene.  We can all agree that we have to do something about it.  We can take a tough stand against the NRA when it comes to bump stocks and AR-15's and background checks, because poll after poll has shown that this is supported by the vast majority of Americans.  (But stay away from registering guns, or making laws about safe use; we sure don't want anyone to think we are planning on restricting their God-given -- I mean constitutional -- right to carry a gun.) 

Oh, I could go on.  There are so many minefields, and so much opportunity for republican opponents to attack us Democrats for taking a stand.  And so much potential for in-fighting.  But there are minority rights and individual rights and constitutional rights being eroded, and we are the ones who must turn that tide.

If we don't stand up for every single one who is affected by those issues, if we are willing to sell out one woman who may at some future time need a third-trimester abortion, or ignore one immigrant whose family is being torn apart, if we allow our unions to be undermined and our workers underpaid and unprotected, we are not who we claim to be.

A smart candidate in Trump's failed America should be able to explain why it is good for us all to welcome immigrants, support women's reproductive rights, and restrict access to guns.  We should also be able to explain the difference between responsible taxation and burdening the middle class.

Yes, voters are often tempted to follow the shiny object:  the biggest mouth, the most brazen promises.  But we have had special elections this year where fearless candidates fought against the lies and the fearmongering, and they have won.

Don't let anyone convince you that the way to victory is through caution.  Let us not throw anyone or any group under the bus in the cause of victory.  Not this year. 

The Inevitability of Zombie Cows

The Ironic Cherry... reads...

My most recent hero is Paolo Bacigalupi.  In January I wrote a review of his newest book, The Doubt Factory, which took on in no uncertain terms the corporate product defense industry, those guys who brought us decades of bought scientists explaining why smoking was not hazardous to our health.  Okay, it wasn't really a review so much as me telling you you have to buy a copy for every young adult you know, and read it yourself before you gift-wrap it.

Well, the good news is, there is a whole backlog of books by this author that I haven't read yet.  And I am on it.

The Doubt Factory is a young adult novel written primarily for high school aged teens.  Zombie Baseball Beatdown is decidedly directed toward middle schoolers.  While there is nary a girl in this story, I am going to say that girls I know wouldn't want to miss it.

Bacigalupi doesn't just get the voice of the characters, adults as well as the kids, he manages to tell a truly comic tale with major serious topics.

The main character is an American of Bengali and German descent, with one best friend a Mexican with undocumented immigrant parents, and another best friend with an alcoholic dad.  The main industry in town is the cattle processing plant, the creepy and oxymoronic "Milrow Meat Solutions."  Foul smells and secrecy, rumors of new types of drugs tested on cattle to fatten them up, and the cover-up that involves deporting attempted whistle-blowers whirl around the lives of the kids who are just trying to play baseball and stay out of the way of the town bullies.

The only place that this plot can logically go is:  zombie cows.

With one hysterical scene after another, Bacigalupi doesn't fail to make the allegory entertaining, but very real.  The USDA and the FDA look the other way, and the sleazy corporate lawyers take care of any annoying problems with the help of the many "farm protection laws" throughout the country.  We know all about the mysterious foodborne illnesses that have become a way of life, and "pink slime" is still around.  So what's not to believe about zombie cows?   

It's a quick and fun read, so after you buy a copy for all the middle schoolers in your life, be sure to give it a read before you wrap it up.
   

Racism and Reverberations

First thing I want to do (as do we all) is vent.  The republican party has had big balls and they have been bouncing them around since Obama's landslide six years ago.  We all laughed when Boehner said, "Hell, no," but it worked, and it has worked ever since.  Today I heard Michael Steele say that Obama should just try to approach the new Congress, nicely, regarding immigration.  Really???  Did this image occur to anybody else:

Whenever they say "hell, no" they reinforce their power and confidence, and when we waffle, we are seen as unsure of what we think will work and maybe even a little shady.  It began with health care when Obama backed off from the public option; our Blue Dogs added a few nails to the coffin when they failed to throw their support behind the Affordable Care Act.  And with a few exceptions we have been seen as cowards that will do anything to survive ever since.

Worse is the slurs and insults directed at the President by the opposition, and the Democratic flight to safety in response.  When Bill Clinton was kicked around, we can say he gave Newt and his gang the ammunition, not only by his sexual misadventures, but by dancing around the truth and outright lying about everything from not inhaling to whether he had sex with that intern.  Barack Obama has had no such dark deeds in his background; he has an enviable family life and was frank about past casual drug use and even his cigarette habit.  Unable to dig up any hidden bodies, the idiot brigade resorted to making up racist nonsense about a Kenyan birth.  But once they did, the noise reverberated for years.  The racism that has accompanied this president's years in office has been overt more often than not, and barely masked at other times.  And the Democratic Party predictably failed to stand together confidently to back our President.

And we can thank the media from both sides and in the middle for helping to keep the echo going.  Anything for a story.  Anything, that is, but the issues.

Speaking of which, if we were to talk honestly about the issues, this president has done some heroic things against great odds, including the auto bailout, handling terrorists with intelligence and calm and making gains with sustainable energy that have been too little publicized.  He has also made some serious mistakes by siding with Wall Street over Main Street, stepping up deportation of undocumented immigrants and excessive border control,  and  giving the NSA a free hand with domestic spying and failing to protect whistleblowers.  But there has not been a president who has done great things who has not also shown a tragic flaw, as did LBJ with civil rights juxtaposed alongside the Vietnam war.

Sadly, we have been hearing the media talk about Obama's unpopularity for some six years, almost through his re-election.  We have all believed it because it has been said so often by so many.  Rather than simply and rationally disagree on certain of the issues, we Democrats have allowed ourselves to reject the President on the whole, to the delight of the republican party.  And I have to say, it has not just been us red staters.  And the midterm election disaster was what we ended up with. 

Barack Obama is a great statesman and an admirable politician.  I believe that if he were to run a third term, he would once again be re-elected, and he could do it on all the good things he has done during his time in office.

So it was tragic when Alison Grimes, once running ahead of McConnell, chose to refuse to admit that she voted for Obama.  So many ways she could have said he was and is the best man for the job, although she disagreed with him on energy and would always vote what was best for her constituents.  Instead, she bumbled and looked embarrassed.  The media ran with it, and the republicans did not need to do anything other than look smug.

And the absence of the President during the campaign -- noted often and loudly by the media -- was what was wrong with these midterm elections.  Yes, there are other factors that affected the outcome, and I would like to talk more about those at another time.  But had we stood proud and tall with the leader of the country, who has after all, done some amazing things with a country that his predecessor had pretty nearly flushed down the toilet, we would no doubt be on the other side of history these next two years.

The GOP Search for a Normal Woman

It came as no surprise to me to hear that the GOP had chosen Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington State to rebut President Obama's State of the Union.  They have made it clear that they are sincere about proving to women that, well, there are Republican women.  It also came as no surprise that they had chosen a women that pretty much nobody had heard of.  After all, this is the bunch that delivered us Sarah Palin in 2008, and we are all appreciative of that choice.  The GOP could have had another comedic coup had they chosen Michele Bachmann in 2011, but they went and let her represent the Tea Party rebuttal:

Sadly, we all were so focused on the fact that her eyes were trained, in the distance, on those aliens that only she can see that we missed her sincerely spoken words of Tea Party misinformation.  I can only imagine whoever was running the GOP into the ground back then sighing with relief that instead they had gone with male robot Paul Ryan.

But the election of 2012 caused the Republican party leadership to reconsider.  With the words of Todd Aiken and his subsequent loss still stinging, leaders like Bobby Jindal of Louisiana urged his fellow republicans to stop being "the stupid party."  By this he meant, of course, that they should stop letting the American people know what they really think.  As we have seen since then, those old white men continue to loudly fault the poor for their poverty, the undereducated for their lack of success, and women for their menstrual cycles.

What to do, what to do?  The problem being that since nothing is going to convince these guys that they might be wrong, they have apparently come to the conclusion that if women were to hear one of their own speak nonsense, they might not notice that it's nonsense.

So, just as in the not-too-distance past, the GOP found Marco Rubio to talk trash about immigration and Tim Scott to defend the denial of voting rights protections, they hunted and found a woman little known nationally to speak for them.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers has a voting record any Tea Partier would be proud of.  She is a strong supporter of all those rich white men, against not just the Affordable Care Act, but Medicare and Medicaid, prefers subsidies to the rich to subsidies to the poor, and opposes women's rights to medical privacy -- by which I mean abortion and contraception services.  Like her brothers-in-arms, she opposes equal rights and protections for LGBT, undocumented workers, American Indians, and, let me say it again, women.

I am looking forward to hearing what Rodgers has to say tonight, although to be honest I might not be able to get through it.  I am confident though that in Rodgers the GOP has found exactly what they are looking for:  someone to represent the men of today's republican party.