defrog | Entries tagged with i wanna be elected

Here we go again.

Final election Q&A:

1. Who do you want to win?

I gave my endorsement to Kamala Harris back in 2020, so no mystery who I’m endorsing this time around. Granted, I’d have given it to Biden or even a horse over Donald J. Trump, Billionaire. But I’m fine with the prospect of a Harris presidency.

Many people aren’t, and not just the MAGA cult. That’s fine, and I understand why in many cases. But I will say that voting for Jill Stein won’t accomplish anything except put Trump in the White House, and Stein’s campaign has been fairly open about the fact that this is basically what they hope to achieve. If you really think that voting Stein/third party/your conscience will stop the genocide in Gaza or whatever your primary issue is, okay, but I think you’re in for a bit of a shock.

2. Who do you think will win?

Personally, I think the only way Trump will win is the same way he did in 2016. Which is to say, another electoral college fluke. But the polls are close enough that he could actually squeak by. But I think the former is more likely.

Failing anything technically legit, I think he’ll cheat and try to flip results everywhere he can. And unlike in 2020, he’ll have the weight of most of the GOP behind him to help out. There’s talk that Mike Johnson will be his Hail Mary play on Jan 6, but of course that hinges on whether the GOP can keep the House, and there are enough tossup seats that a GOP House majority is not guaranteed.

Point being, don’t assume he can’t be POTUS again. He can. And I think there’s a good chance he will.

If nothing else, Trump has obviously been laying the groundwork to convince his MAGA cult that his loss will be proof the election was stolen, so even if he loses definitively, he won’t go quietly, and the MAGA cult will make the Demos pay dearly for it.

3. Did you make a playlist I can listen to on Election Night or while I’m standing in line?

Why I sure did. How did you know?

PRODUCTION NOTE: I originally intended to use the same playlist I made in 2020, but that was back when we all thought it was going to be a Biden-Trump rematch. Then when I started finding a few new songs, it occurred to me that the 2020 playlist didn’t really fit the vibe or the stakes, so I ended up redoing most of it. I kept the PSA bumpers and a couple of songs, but mostly it’s a different set.

Choose or lose,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: See above

Yes, it was like five weeks ago, but I’ve been busy. And anyway, it feels like everyone moved on from it pretty quickly – which may either be a comment on how blasé we’ve become about shootings in America (happens every day, and anyway only one person was killed and it wasn’t Trump), or the fact that the news media got distracted by the drama over whether Biden would or wouldn’t drop out.

Also, maybe it’s because I’m unplugged from the 24/7 media circus, but I’ve heard very little about how the investigation is going in terms of just what motivated Thomas Matthew Crooks. Politics? Instagram likes? Impressing Jodie Foster?

Any of these are possible, but in the interim, a lot of people have been filling that vacuum with all kinds of movie-plot conspiracy theories around. Is Thomas Matthew Crooks the new Lee Harvey Oswald? Did Trump do a Bob Roberts? I don’t know, and neither do you. Maybe we will someday.

Anyway, blog:

1. To get the obvious out of the way, I’m glad it failed – partly because I do think murder is wrong, and partly because I shudder to think what the MAGA cult would do in response to honour their glorious martyr.

2. A lot has been said about Trump’s fist-pump – it “proves” the shooting was staged by Trump, it shows that Trump is made of tougher stuff than you thought yada yada.

Well, (1) no, and (2) to me, it looked more like Trump’s media-savvy instinct kicking in. He may not have even been aware he was doing it. Either way, it’s obviously made for great optics that feeds perfectly into the authoritarian strongman image Trump is basically running on. It also inevitably contrasted with Biden’s debate fumble and alleged “frail” age issues, although – like the debate – it didn’t seem move the needle much poll-wise, and of course now it’s a non-issue with Biden out of the picture, much to Trump’s obvious disappointment.

3. The other interesting detail is the minor yet important fact that we don’t really know for sure whether Trump was hit by a bullet or debris created by the bullet’s impact on something. Obviously something hit him, but as Josh Marshall at TPM pointed out, we’ve never seen an official medical report stating what caused his injury (Ronny Jackson arguably doesn’t count), and his now-unbandaged ear looks pretty good for something that was hit with an AR-15 round.

As Marshall has said, the questions surrounding this do not undermine the seriousness of the fact that someone tried to kill Trump, but they do matter in the sense that Trump is going around telling everyone he took a bullet for democracy – which, again, is designed to feed his strongman schtick – when it’s possible he actually didn’t.

4. The GOP were clearly hoping to milk this for all its worth and use it as gasoline to throw on their trash-fire narrative that Biden and the Democrats are murderous criminal thugs out to take over America. Which is kind of ironic given that SCOTUS just ruled that a President could order his rival assassinated and never go to jail for it. But hey ho.

Anyway, that line doesn't seem to have made much difference outside of the cult. Moreover, as far as I’m concerned, the GOP’s claims that Biden incited Crooks by calling Trump a fascist hold no water with me. I will not be lectured on the dangers of inflammatory political rhetoric by a party that has increasingly thrived on it since the mid-90s. And anyway, the stuff Biden and the Demos have said about Trump is mild compared to things Trump and the MAGA cult say daily. (See: North Carolina Lt Gov Mark Robinson saying in a church that “some people need killing” – he says he meant WW2 Nazis and “evil people”, but he was also pretty clear that he includes liberals in that group.)

Hit and miss,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Voice of the Beehive, "Trust Me"

Man, this election cycle is off the freaking hook, isn’t it?

So much so that I think I’ll espouse my opinions grouped by party. I shall do the Demos first.

1. Biden is out, and Kamala is effectively in. And, you know, good.

And also, wow. As I posted before, it was always up to Biden and Biden alone to step aside, and I didn’t really expect that he would. And I have to say I respect him for it.

And also also, while I personally didn’t think Biden needed replacing in terms of winnability, I’m happy to vote for Harris – who, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, was one of my top 3 choices in 2020 (Biden, I must say, was not).

2. Some are complaining that it’s not democratic – “What about all the people who voted for Biden in the primaries?”

Well, first of all, this is how the DNC system has worked for decades. Delegates have the flexibility to change their minds as circumstances warrant – this being one of them.

Also, the people who voted for Biden were voting for an incumbent who was running virtually unopposed, which is incredibly normal. Biden seemed fine then – he seems less fine now, and might get worse as the election goes on, in which case I would think you’d want the flexibility to switch horses before it’s too late.

Which is why the answer to the Big Question – “Who do we replace him with?” – really had to be Harris. As I’ve also said before – and as Josh Marshall at TPM points out far more eloquently – a Thunderdome convention would be risky, messy and a much harder sell to everyone who voted for what was essentially a renewal of the Biden-Harris package that also comes with the presumption that, should Biden (for example, and God forbid) die or otherwise be unable to continue, Harris would take the wheel. That’s a relatively easy pitch in a unique situation like this, as opposed to giving every other POTUS hopeful a last-minute shot, which IMO would be a far more egregious middle finger to primary voters. And as Marshall notes, about the only people calling for a contested convention are news columnists who want a good fight.

3. That said, I think another reason Biden waited as long as he did is probably down to his simply being an elderly man coming to terms with the fact that he’s finally getting too old for this s***. I’ve dealt with a number of elderly people, including my mom, and sometimes the decline is slow, sometimes it’s rapid, but either way it’s hard for them to accept that once it starts. It’s also difficult for friends and family to accept it too sometimes.

And I’m sure Biden felt slighted by what he saw is his closest allies starting to turn on him, whether their intentions were noble, practical or opportunistic. I mean, Biden wouldn't be the first octogenarian to resent both his declining health and his closest family and friends essentially saying "Look Pops, we love you and you did great but you're no use to us anymore", even if they're right, and even if he knows deep down that they are.

4. John Scalzi makes the interesting (and possibly correct) observation that at least some of this has been strategic on the part of the DNC – which is to say, at some point their initial panic over Biden’s debate performance and subsequent desire to convince him to drop out transformed into an actual strategy to manage the transition with two particular goals: (1) make a plausible case for handing off to Harris after the primaries to ensure the handover was executed as legitimately as possible, and (2) completely throw Team Trump off their game.

I think he’s on to something here. Considering that Harris raised hundreds of millions and secured all the delegates she needs to get the nomination within the first 48 hours of the news, it’s possible that a lot of that groundwork was laid before Biden announced he was stepping aside.

Either that or it was a huge gamble that luckily paid off. But political parties aren’t known for Hail Mary plays unless they’re desperate. So I think it’s more likely that the DNC probably did some planning and legwork here.

As for the goal of catching Team Trump by surprise, between Trump’s tweets and Stephen Miller’s meltdown on live television, well, yes, mischief managed.

5. The GOP freakout over this is, I have to admit, kind of delicious. And while some are posturing about the democratic fairness of it all, I don’t think they really care about that. I for one will certainly not sit here and be lectured about democratic processes and fairness by a party whose current candidate is a convicted felon who literally tried to overthrow the last election because he couldn’t accept the fact that he lost.

Anyway, I think they’re mainly panicking because they thought they were going to walk all over Sleepy Joe Biden and now they’ve got an actual fight on their hands.

I mean, look at some of the wild ideas they’re throwing out there. It’s a Kamala Koup to overthrow Biden! Let’s impeach Harris! Biden must resign! We’ll sue the DNC to put Biden back on the ballot!

The first one is silly (and possibly projection of some kind). The second and third ones are even sillier, and I have no idea what they think either action would accomplish that benefits them in any way.

As for the lawsuit, well, good luck with that, since Biden wasn’t on the ballot anyway, and the DNC literally did nothing illegal or unfair. On the other hand, as Ian Millhiser at Vox notes, the one thing going in the GOP’s favour is that it’s very likely to get the suit in front of a pro-Trump federal judge who may well do them a solid, and inevitably end up before the Supremes, and we all know about them by now.

6. As for Harris’ potential running mate, I don’t really mind who she picks as long as it’s someone reasonably sensible who also won’t poison the well. That said, I think would be hilarious if she picked Biden, if only to see Trump and the MAGA Party just lose their flipping minds. I’m not saying I actually want her to do that, or that she should. I’m just saying it would be funny. At first, anyway.

7. Now, of course, assuming the DNC convention goes off without a hitch and Harris' nomination becomes official, she has to go out there and win – and that includes withstanding the vile shitstorm of hate coming from Team Trump. I think she can withstand it just fine. A lot can and will happen between now and November, but at the moment, her chances look promising. If nothing else the switch to Harris has energised the base, which is good – and also gives further credence to the notion that that dropping Biden was a good idea.

(I'm not sure how Biden feels about that. But you don’t stay in this business 40 years without developing a thick skin, so I think he’ll be okay.)

8. Meanwhile, Harris’ greatest ally is probably Trump and his new sidekick JD Vance coming up with stuff like “She can’t be President because she’s never given birth” (which makes no sense at all) and then run with it to pitch ideas like “People with biological kids should get more votes than people who don’t” (which makes even less sense).

More on that in due course.

Kamala ye faithful,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Andre Williams/The Sadies, "I Gotta Get Shorty Outta Jail"

Not to bang on about the Great Biden-Trump Debate Freakout, but one thing I noticed in my Twitter feed during the debate was that a lot of people complained that even Trump’s more blatant lies went unchallenged by both Biden and the moderators.

Fair point, though I’ll add that I think this is probably due to a couple of things:

(1) I suspect part of that is because we’ve normalized the idea that politicians lie or exaggerate about most stuff anyway, so moderators figire there’s no point in fact-checking them live – let ‘em talk and do the fact checks later.

(2) As someone who has moderated panel discussions (albeit not political ones), I would note that from a pure moderation standpoint, it’s actually hard to fact-check people to their face in real time during a live debate, not least because of the dangers of falling down enough rabbit holes that it ends up throwing the entire event off track. This is especially a problem with people like Trump who seem incapable of saying anything remotely true, potentially creating infinite rabbit holes.

(Apparently there’s an actual rhetorical strategy called the “Gish gallop” that is essentially a form of gaslighting by overwhelming your debate opponent with a firehose of nonsense so that they are unable to respond – though it’s also likely that this isn’t a deliberate strategy on Trump’s part so much as him just doing what comes naturally, but the result is similar.)

Anyway, given Trump’s general tendency to spout whatever pops into his head and the general deluge of disinformation swamping social media, it’s probably time for broadcast media and moderators to figure out a way to plausibly fact-check politicians in real time.

People like Daniel Dale do a pretty good job of this on Twitter, but that’s a separate medium that viewers have to actively check. Post-game fact-checks are fine, but also arguably too little too late for a lot of people. For viewers who are only seeing the debate coverage on TV, it would be good to figure out how to integrate that capability onscreen – like a fact-check ticker or something.

That said, the other challenge is the trustworthiness of the fact-checkers – I imagine the “facts” offered by, say, Newsmax and Fox would be quite different from those offered by CNN, etc. And then you’ll get into the whole thing where everyone says that “this media network is biased because they fact-checked my candidate more than the other one”.

So it’s not so simple, is what I’m saying.

Who checks the fact-checkers,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Pacific Coffee
Current Music: R. Dean Taylor, "Indiana Wants Me"

As you probably know, Joe Biden and Donald Trump held their first debate of 2024. And everyone is freaking out about it, so I thought I’d better post something, mainly to organize my own thoughts in my head. So:

1. No I didn’t watch it. I rarely watch live debates anymore – partly because I’m in the wrong time zone, but mainly because (1) it’s rare that any candidate says anything of substance that I haven’t heard them say before, and (2) in this case, I already know who is getting my vote – and it’s not the pathological liar who has been convicted of one felony (so far) and literally whipped a mob into trying to overturn the 2020 election results by force. So the highlights reel is usually enough for me.

2. Based on that, I’ll be the first to admit Biden had a bad night, whether it was the cold medication or whatever. That said, I don’t think it justifies either the crowing on the right or the freakout on the left. I certainly don’t agree with the hot takes that Biden lost the debate because he wasn’t as loud and energetic as Trump – which is a silly way to declare the winner of a debate. I’ve actually seen some Demos say “Yes, Trump lied his ass off and made little sense, but he did it with confidence and energy.” Well, okay, but if you think that’s what makes him seem more presidential, then I don’t really know what to tell you.

3. Perhaps understandably, part of the freakout is that it plays into the GOP’s whole “Biden’s too old” meme (despite Trump being just a few years younger and obviously in far worse health, but okay), so now we’re back to the “replace Biden” meme, backed by (1) Demos who are afraid he can’t beat Trump in what’s looking like another close election and (2) hardcore liberals who viscerally hate Biden for his Israel/Gaza policy and have threatened to vote for Trump just to hold Biden accountable unless he drops out.

4. Anyone who knows about how party politics and US elections work will tell you that’s not likely to happen. Biden has won all the primaries and most of the delegates that go with them, and a brokered convention will be too messy and risky. Also, no one seems to agree on the answer to the most important question: replace Biden with who, exactly? Apart from Kamala Harris, there are a few other names being thrown about (none of which are RFK Jr, thankfully). But the fact of the matter is that of the bunch, Biden is the only one with a proven track record of beating Trump in a general election. Throwing that away for someone else over one bad debate performance would be a major gamble. So unless Biden dies or willingly steps down – and there’s currently no reason to believe that he’ll do either – we’re probably stuck with him.

5. This where a lot of people will complain about the party system and DNC mechanisms and the electoral college and whatnot, and that’s fine, but that’s a whole separate set of problems that has no bearing on who gets to be the Demo nominee for 2024, because it’s way too late for that. That’s a discussion for 2028 and beyond, and it’s worth having now, but, well, see above.

6. The bigger question of course is what all this means for November. As the saying goes, five months is a long time in politics, so even if the debate moves the needle in Trump’s favor, Biden has the time and opportunity to turn that around. Meanwhile, we’ve already seen a couple of post-debate talks where Biden was already back on form, and one of the first post-debate polls suggests that Biden’s debate performance didn’t hurt him. So Demos can probably stop panicking now.

7. However, we’re still looking at a close race that Biden can still lose. And honestly, while I’m not officially calling the election for Trump yet, I have to say, my gut feeling is that he is going to pull this off. Again. And this time with the full backing of the GOP, which is now his party. Trump won in 2016 despite all conventional political wisdom saying it was impossible AND losing the pop vote. There’s no reason to assume he can’t do it again – especially if the far left really can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden and go with Trump, RFK Jr or a blank protest vote.

8. The nihilist in me can’t help thinking that if a slim majority of people is willing to vote for Trump despite being a blithering pathological liar and a wannabe dictator who has been convicted of one felony (so far) and literally whipped a mob etc etc etc – even if the reason is that Biden is too old or whatever – maybe democracy should die?

9. Okay, not really. But for me, there’s no mystery here. We know what a Trump presidency looks like, and that was when the GOP wasn’t fully onboard and things like Project 2025 were just a gleam in Kevin Roberts’ eye. We also know what a Biden presidency looks like, and at least on paper, it’s been reasonably good more often than not and relatively sane compared to the previous admin. Which is why it’s inexplicable to me that people outside of the MAGA party would want to put Trump back in charge.

10. But as I’ve said elsewhere, people vote for all kinds of personal, idiosyncratic reasons, and in the current reality schism, I don’t know what can be done to change that, especially since a complex problem usually requires an even more complex solution. All I can say for now is that if Trump does win, and if we somehow survive his second term, we might want to think long and hard about how we got here and what we should do about it.

I’m not going to debate you Jerry,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Pacific Coffee
Current Music: Warren Zevon, "Splendid Isolation"

Or, “My late and unnecessary hot take on the 2022 mid-terms”. Because, you know, blog.

PRODUCTION NOTE: Not that you’re wondering, but I’m posting this a month after the election partly because I’ve been too busy to write this, and partly because there were enough outstanding races that hadn’t yet been called that I was waiting for a definitive result first. Which we now more or less have.

1. As many have observed, the expected Red Wave didn’t happen. Neither did a Blue Wave, for that matter. In the end it was more or less business as usual – which is to say, another polarized race with the President’s party losing Congressional seats. And they didn’t lose wery many. The GOP will likely end up with 222 seats in the House – which is what the Demos had going in. As for the Senate, the Demos have at least held the status quo, and will gain one seat if Raphael Warnock beats Herschel “The Badge” Walker in the Georgia runoff (which the polls suggest is a real possibility). [Edited to add (6 Dec 2022): He did.]

2. There is much speculation on WHY there was no Red Wave. The Left credit the Supreme Court, Gen Z and January 6. GOP stalwarts blame Trump. It’s probably a mix of that, plus the fact that (as I’ve mentioned here a bunch of times before) people vote for all kinds of reasons that may never occur to the hardcore political junkies who follow this stuff like pro baseball and actually understand the issues at stake.

For example, it may seem obvious to YOU why the GOP should either lose bigly (they’re Nazis!) or win bigly (they’re cheating Nazis!). But a lot of people don’t vote based on the same information or criteria. They vote on single issues, or they vote because the candidate seems nice or talk a good game or pwns the libs or whatever. Yes, that’s terrible. But that’s how it is.

3. That said, I do think Gen Z gets some credit here – apart from the youth vote turning out in reasonably big numbers, it turns out the many young people are not especially big on a party whose platform in 2022 was essentially taking rights away from women, ethnic minorities and LGBTs (especially the Ts, which are the bugaboo of the moment for Republicans). Not to mention the whole election-denial thing. (Which, yes, should have resulted in a Blue Wave, but see point 2 above.)

4. Is Trump now persona non grata? Not likely. Or at least not for long. GOP politicians may feel he’s worn out his welcome, but that’s really only because he didn’t deliver the Big Red Wave they were expecting. And that can’t possibly be THEIR fault, so Trump is the most obvious scapegoat – and a potentially safe one, now that Ron DeSantis seems to be rising as a viable Trump alternative (see below).

On the other hand, the MAGA Cult is still very much a thing, and the GOP can’t afford to alienate them for the same reason they couldn’t do so before – they can’t risk a split vote if Trump goes third-party. If FiveThirtyEight is any benchmark to go by, Trump still polls well with rank-and-file GOP voters. That is the GOP base now, whether they like it or not, and honestly they’ve liked it just fine since 2016. So I think once the GOP gets over the shock of not winning as bigly as they’d hoped, they’ll go with whoever the political winds favor.

5. Will that be DeSantis? I’m not convinced yet. There is talk that he could be the next evolution of Trumpism – all of the xenophobic authoritarian bigotry without the paranoid batshit klepto chaos-monkey shenanigans. Maybe. The thing is, the aforementioned MAGA Cult base seems to enjoy paranoid batshit klepto chaos-monkey shenanigans over the Woke Washington Corporate Interest Swamp that they think only Trump can fix. It’s on DeSantis to prove otherwise.

So, I think that as things stand now, the only sure way DeSantis will gets the GOP nomination is if Trump dies before Super Tuesday 2024 – or maybe if Trump goes to jail, but I wouldn’t bet on that. It’s entirely legal to run for and serve as POTUS from a jail cell. Of course it might depend on what he goes to jail for. If he’s convicted over the Jan 6 insurrection, that could pose a problem for him, but not an insurmountable one.

As for the Please-Not-Trumpers, I suspect they’ll do what they did in 2016 – bad-mouth him until he wins the nomination, then pretend they were behind him all along.

6. Is democracy saved? Not yet, no. There may not have been a Red Wave, but the GOP didn’t lose by much either. Many of the losing candidates still managed to pull over 40% of the vote, and on a generic national level, the Repubs actually pulled over 3 million more votes than the Demos. Which basically means that a little over half of the voting pop is still willing to vote for an increasingly openly white supremacist fascist party that reserves the right to never accept any election result in which they lost (although, as I said, lots of people voted GOP for all kinds of reasons besides supporting white supremacist fascism ).

That said, it’s interesting that, as far as I know, nobody – apart from Kari Lake – seems to be pushing a #stopthesteal argument for the midterms like many people (including me) thought they would. Maybe they only do that for Presidents? Or maybe it’s just because many election deniers didn’t do so hot, so now is not a good time?

Anyway, the point is that the GOP (1) is continuing to embrace white supremacist fascism, (2) sees Hungary as a swell template for America’s future (i.e. an authoritarian conservative dictatorship dolled up as a democracy for the sake of appearance), and (3) still has half the country behind it. If Trump wins in 2024, we’re in trouble. If he gets the nomination and loses, we may still be in trouble because, as we’ve seen, he does not lose well.

White riot,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Ana Tijoux, "Antipatriarca"

It’s President’s Day. Whoop dee doo.

And me being me, I wondered if it was possible to put together a playlist with one song for every US President ever.

Possible? Yes.

Easy? No.

At least depending on your criteria. Which in my case was the following:

1. The song must have the President’s name in the title
2. The song must be halfway decent.

As it happens, there’s a few albums out there where a band or solo artist did songs for every POTUS, but they’re not that great. So I really had to dig around to come up with these – and as you can imagine, it’s easier to find songs about, say, Nixon and Reagan than it is about, say, Chester Arthur and John Quincy Adams.

I mean, even Gerald Ford was a challenge – I ended up going with a comedy track (I would have used a Dickie Goodman novelty song but the sound quality is terrible – they obviously ripped it from an old 45 in poor condition).

Andrew Johnson was particularly challenging because, as it happens, there are a couple of Andrew Johnsons out there making music, and they’re both prolific, and Spotify’s clever search algorithm doesn't distinguish between song titles and artists. Eventually I found just three songs, only one of which is good, and apparently was removed from Spotify a few days before posting this – at least here in HK. It may be available where you are, so if “Three Whiskeys” is playable on your list, good for you. If not, it’s also available for streaming on Bandcamp right here.

It also seems that around 85% of POTUS-themed songs fall into two musical categories: country/folk or obscure indie rock. So musically there’s not as much variety as I’d like. But that’s how it goes sometimes.

Anyway, rock on.

Who’s next,

This is dF

BONUS MATERIAL: Paste has its own Presidents Day playlist with one song for each POTUS, but in a less literal way. So I need to up my game here.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: See above

ITEM: Hong Kong has a new and improved election system that – we are assured – will result in more democracy than we’ve ever had before.

Here’s how RTHK put it on Twitter:

Which is about right.

To explain: the “reforms” were imposed on us by Beijing in response to the 2019 protests, the landslide victory of pro-Democracy candidates in the District Council elections at the end of that year, and the pro-Demo primary in 2020 that was part of their planned strategy to win a majority in LegCo for the first time in the LegCo elections in September that year.

Every single person who ran in that primary is now in jail for violating China’s national security. (No, really.)

Meanwhile, as there was a pretty good chance the pro-Demo strategy actually might have actually worked, the HK govt postponed the LegCo election for a year (citing COVID-19 as the official reason, of course), and Beijing decided our election system and our democracy in general needed fixing.

Well, they fixed it all right.

The details are here if you want them, but in the name of TL;DR, here’s an analogy:

Imagine that Congress had a total of 70 seats, only half of which (35) are directly elected by the people. The other half are elected by business sectors and special interests.

Imagine also that the POTUS (let’s say Trump, for example) is elected not by regular voters but an Electoral Committee of 1,200 electors controlled by the GOP, which gets final approval on who serves on the committee. The same committee also gets to decide who gets to run for POTUS.

That was our system until today.

Here’s the new system:

Congress will be expanded to 90 seats, but you can only vote for 20 of them
Of the remainder, 30 will be elected by business reps and the other 40 will be elected by the same Electoral Committee that elects the POTUS
That committee (which is now 1,500 people, 1,000 of which are hand-picked and appointed by the GOP, the rest elected by approved pro-GOP corporations and interest groups) also gets final say on who gets to run for all 90 Congressional seats
A new committee will vet all candidates to ensure they are “patriots”. They will be assisted by the national security police to make sure the candidates are not national security threats.
Any candidate disqualified by the committee is subject to arrest by the national security police for violating the national security law
Encouraging people to cast protest votes in any way shape or form (to include t-shirt slogans) is punishable by three years in prison, even though protest votes are not illegal.

So, yes. That’s our democracy now.

CAVEAT: It’s an imperfect analogy in the sense that the HK isn’t a two party system. Rather, we have a number of parties divided into two ideological camps – pro-Beijing and pro-Democracy. The CCP does not operate as a political party in HK, but from this point on, only candidates (regardless of political party) who pledge patriotic loyalty to China and the CCP can run for office – which basically means anyone approved by the CCP to run for office in HK is by default CCP-adjacent, if not literally a party member.

Naturally, Carrie Lam and whatever LegCo members are left (as most pro-Democrat politicians are either disqualified, in jail or in exile) are selling it as a delightful, major improvement that it actually makes Hong Kong more democratic, because it ensures that all voices are represented. (To explain: Beijing’s idea of “representation” is that all points of view are welcome to be represented in government, so long as only pro-Beijing voices have majority control forever – and as long as all views come with a pledge of loyalty to the CCP.)

They’re also selling this in the TV PSAs as a matter of national security with a direct link to the 2019 protests. Essentially, this involves a rewrite of history that combines two separate elements – protest violence + rowdy scenes in LegCo by pan-Democrats with a penchant for theatre – as if all of this was one big violent separatist movement funded by Western govts to create anarchy, take over the govt and overthrow Beijing.

“See? It’s either this or TOTAL VIOLENT CHAOS! Which would you rather have?”

Which of course is 100% false. But this is the same govt that arrested 53 pro-Demos for attempting to legally win a LegCo majority and tells teenagers holding up blank placards in malls that they’re violating national security. So.

BONUS TRACK: Regarding the RTHK tweet, here’s a link about how RTHK (our local public broadcaster) is being slowly but surely transformed from the best and most trusted news source in the city to a govt propaganda mill. Their social media person (at least on the English language side) is apparently keen on going down swinging.

Voted off the island,

This is dF

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A while back, I posted my wrap-up assessment of Trump’s POTUS record. I usually also post my feelings about the new incoming admin, but in this case I decided to wait until the traditional 100-day mile marker, if only because my writing schedule ain’t what it used to be.

And yes, I know, 100 days is a completely arbitrary measurement, but then so is any other number, so why not?

So, let’s talk about Joe:

1. To get the obvious out of the way, Biden’s first 100 days will inevitably be compared to the preceding administration, which was essentially four years of gibbering egotistical white-supremacist fascist-adjacent word-salad alt-reality rage-tweets. So honestly, that’s a really low bar to clear.

2. As for how he’s doing so far, it’s about what I expected – a mix of reversing Trump’s more egregious executive orders and dealing with the COVID train wreck and resulting economic devastation Trump personally created and left for him to fix. And again, when you think about how things would be going now if Trump had won re-election (or successfully stolen it) Biden can only look good in comparison – unless you ask the GOP, of course, in which case, well, they’ve been inhabiting an alternate universe for years now, so who really cares.

3. There are of course plenty of people in the liberal camp who are happy that Trump is gone but unhappy that Biden is not Bernie and are angry that he is not doing everything that they imagine Bernie would be doing if he’d won, etc. And while I think it’s unrealistic to expect Biden to fix all the damage Trump did on Day 1 (or even Day 100), I would agree there are some things on Biden’s priority list that should probably be higher than they are at the moment (policing and the border crisis come to mind).

On the other hand, I do think that COVID-19 and an economic stimulus plan that helps the people that need it most should be the top priority. And sure, Biden is capable of doing more than one thing at a time, but these are deeply rooted and complex problems that will take more than a bill or an EO to deal with, and anything he does is going to make some people unhappy (and that’s excluding Republicans). It’s good to put pressure on him to keep these issues in front of him, but I don’t expect him to do it all at once.

4. Nice speech – and by “nice” I mostly mean “coherent”. Which was a nice change, as was hearing a POTUS both acknowledge the problems we face and express reasonably believable optimism that we can overcome them by working together.

That said, it's worth mentioning that Biden’s speech had its share of exaggerations and untrue statements, and he needs to be called out on those. But again, compared to the egregious firehose of lies Trump unleashed on America literally every single time he opened his mouth, Handsome Joe comes out looking pretty good.

In terms of the content … all I can really say is that it sounds good in a speech –now he has to deliver on it. As a political realist, I think that if Biden implements everything he wants, the results won’t be as good as he promises, if only because that’s been true of almost every Presidential promise ever. In any case, the GOP (especially those in the Senate) seem jolly determined to derail as much of his policies as they can. So I’m not too optimistic on that score.

And of course, the batshit GOP opposition runs deep down to the state and local govts, so I expect plenty of street-level resistance. When you’ve got close to half of the population determined not to wear masks or get vaccinated for the sole and simple reason of pwning the libs, expect things to go wrong. There’s a lot of debate over whether bipartisan compromise is advisable when one side is operating in bad faith – I don’t really have any wisdom to share on that, but I do think it’s difficult to reach a reasonable compromise with a party that bought Trump’s election fraud nonsense and openly supported Trump’s self-coup attempt until it was clear it wouldn't succeed (after which they started pretending it was no riot, or it was Antifa in disguise, or whatever).

Anyway, Joe has a lot to prove, is what I’m saying. I fully expect him to succeed in some ways and fail in others. But the outcome will still be better than a second Trump term.

5. Tim Scott’s rebuttal: lol sure.

6. Conclusion: Considering Biden has a full load just dealing with the mess Trump left behind whilst contending with a wilfully obstructionist GOP minority that delights in repeating QAnon conspiracy theories and making it even harder to vote in future elections, I think he’s doing okay. As I’ve said elsewhere, while Biden was far from my first choice in the 2020 Demo field, he’ll do. And one of my top 3 choices is his VP, so close enough. If nothing else, it’s nice to have a POTUS who seems to actually like people and care about them. Whatever you think of his politics, Biden has always struck me as an amiable and empathetic guy. If he’s faking it, he’s a master at it.

Time will tell if he blows it. But for now, he’s off to as good a start as you could hope for under the circumstances.

Steady as she goes,

This is dF

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So the debate about making Washington DC a state is now a thing again, and boy do I have opinions about that. Let’s blog them!

1. I should lead off by pointing out what ought to be stupendously obvious: the argument over DC statehood is chiefly about getting more Democrats in Congress, particularly the Senate. That’s pretty much the only serious reason Republicans oppose it. And if we’re totally honest, it’s a key reason (if not the only reason) Democrats are pushing for it. So let’s not pretend that’s not what this is actually about.

2. That said, the Demo strategy is not strictly unreasonable, given the fact that Republicans have disproportionate voting power based on the number of people they actually represent. This is because of how the Senate works, so normally this shouldn’t matter, except that the GOP is currently operating in bad faith regarding almost everything these days – to include backing an insurrection against the Capitol (at least up to the point where the insurrection didn't succeed). So I understand why the Demos would want whatever edge they can get.

3. The strategy is also not unprecedented (for example, reportedly, 19^th-century Republicans supported the North/South Dakota in large part because of the Congressional gains they would get from it).

4. Strategies aside, there are a few good reasons for making DC a state – namely, the fact that residents there have no govt representation yet still pay taxes and are subject to the same federal regs as everyone else. The population is higher than some states, yet they have no say. They can vote for POTUS and VP, and that’s about it.

5. However, there also a few actual decent reasons not to do it, although they’re more like obstacles than negative outcomes.

For one thing, there’s a couple of Constitutional hurdles: (1) Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 (the clause that specifically defines DC as a federal jurisdiction and not a state), and (2) the 23^rd Amendment, which grants specific voting rights to DC. Neither of these are unfixable, but it would probably require some kind of Constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds majority in both houses plus 38 out of 50 state governments.

And, you know, good luck with that.

The other challenge, as I understand it, is that they might need permission from Maryland, who supplied the land that DC now occupies. And of course there’s the question of expense – DC would have the extra cost of running a state government, while the federal government would have to shell out more for things like prisons and courts.

6. So, while I personally don’t mind if DC becomes a state, I think there are significant obstacles (the GOP alone being the biggest one) that make it unlikely to happen.

7. While we’re at it, I feel the same way about Puerto Rico statehood. I’m not against it, but there are tradeoffs. For example – unlike DC – PR citizens don’t pay federal income tax. Statehood would change that, and most of the people there probably couldn't afford it.

Point being: I’m fine with adding more states, as long as everyone involved understands both the benefits and the potential disruptions, as well as the legal snags.

8. Meanwhile, here’s a great statehood math joke.

https://twitter.com/DaveGragg/status/1374091442893815811

The state I'm in,

This is dF

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The outcome of Impeachapalooza 2 is old news by now, I know, but in light of the spectacle of Donald Trump headlining CPAC – which is packed with his minions parroting his election fraud conspiracy theories – I thought I might as well post some thoughts.

1. In regards to Trump’s acquittal, I mean, sure – we knew more or less how this would end. The only real surprise was that seven Republicans voted to convict – which is apparently a US record in terms of bipartisan impeachment. Still, you know, where were most of these people when he was impeached the first time?

2. Apart from those seven, the GOP basically confirmed that they are the Trump Party, and that if he wants to make up stuff about election fraud and whip his MAGA base into a violent frenzy to overturn the election and install him as POTUS for life, then they're totally cool with that.

3. Mitch McConnell’s post-vote speech did not impress me. He can bloviate all he likes about the unconstitutionality of impeaching someone who isn't President anymore (which, let’s not forget, was the result of McConnell intentionally delaying the trial until after Trump was out of office) – the truth is that he knows which way the political winds are blowing, and if he wants to remain the Senate minority leader, he can’t be showing disloyalty to the Trump MAGA cult that comprises most of the Senate GOP now. He’s trying to have it both ways – he wants to be loyal to Trump without looking like he’s actually condoning Trump’s attempted coup.

Ironically, of course, Trump is not having any of that. Which just goes to show.

4. Speaking of which, Trump is now free to start his 2024 campaign. Or whatever it is he plans to do. Whatever it is, he did it at CPAC this weekend, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect – insult comedy, conspiracy theories and a declaration of war against his enemies. Which, notably, includes all disloyal Republicans who didn’t do enough to keep him in office. Whether or not he actually runs in 2024, Trump made it pretty clear that he’s not interested in starting a new political party – he’d much rather complete his takeover of the GOP and purge the anti-Trump heretics, or at least the ones that don’t change their tune permanently. And he’s likely to succeed.

5. On a side note, I would be very surprised if Trump didn't run in 2024. Yes, there’s the possibility that Trump will be in jail by then. However, there’s literally no rule saying you can’t run for President from a prison cell – Eugene Debs and Lyndon LaRouche did it in 1920 and 1992, respectively.

Granted, both lost. Which is why we don't yet know whether you can take office if you win – being in jail might count as “impairment”, which could result in 25^th Amendment proceedings to make Trump’s running mate President. There’s also the question of whether you could be released via pardon or some other mechanism. As I understand it, it’s pretty straightforward if you’re in a federal prison, but harder if you're in a state prison (remembering that if Trump does go to jail, it will be for breaking state laws).

In any case, I think running a campaign from prison would probably help him by feeding the “political persecution by anti-American libs” meme that the MAGA cult thrives on. So yeah, I think Trump is likely to try to get his chair back. And barring any other viable options, I think the GOP will go out of their way to help him get it.

6. As I’ve said before, the key takeaway from all this is that America does not have a viable mechanism for dealing with a crooked authoritarian President. Impeachment and the 25^th Amendment are too political to be effective remedies, and the ballot box option is only available every four years. Trump did plenty of damage in that time, not all of which can be fixed with executive orders.

The challenge is that the Founding Fathers intentionally made it difficult to get rid of a POTUS. If it were easy, the Opposition would spend every waking moment finding some excuse to have him arrested, and we’d have impeachments probably every year.

However, as we just learned over the last four years, as long as we stand by the DOJ concept that a sitting President cannot be indicted, the truth is that a sitting POTUS can commit all manner of high crimes and misdemeanours – to include attempting a coup – with no fear of consequences (apart from maybe losing the election).

We need to have a very serious conversation about whether this is a status quo worth preserving, and whether the alternatives would be worse in the long run.

Crime time,

This is dF

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It’s a tradition of mine where I write a review of an outgoing US President to assess his accomplishments, failures and overall legacy.

Now it’s Trump’s turn and I’m like, “Man, why bother?”

I mean, seriously. Why bother to assess the legacy of a man who not only was easily the worst and most corrupt POTUS in my lifetime, but also was a POTUS who by most reliable accounts never wanted the job to start with (he apparently went in hoping to raise his brand – and fast cash – to launch his own TV network, not literally win the election) and only really tried to keep it partly out of spite and ego, but mostly to avoid his creditors and stay out of jail. Then spent every day after Election Day screaming that he won by a landslide, the Demos stole the election, and tried everything from batshit lawsuits to an angry mob invading Congress?

In fact, why bother when – after four years of pathological lying, collusion, corruption, racism, pussy grabbing, fake news, brown kids in cages, and COVID-19 – he still got 70 million people to vote for him, after which he convinced some of them to stage a coup on his behalf by pretending the Democrats had already staged one by stealing the election?

I mean, Christ.

To be fair, I’m trying to think of his accomplishments as POTUS, and this is what I have so far:

1. 500,000 dead from COVID-19 (so far)

2.The first POTUS to be impeached twice

3. Successfully transformed the GOP into the Trump QAnon Tea Party

4. Showed us just how complicit the GOP would be if their POTUS successfully staged a coup after losing an election. (Answer: very)

5. Made white supremacy great again

6. Wrecked the economy

7. Covfefe

8. Golf

9. Blew billions on a border wall that doesn’t even work

10. Space Force

11. A dab hand with a Sharpie

You see what I’m saying.

Okay, he also signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, but he almost didn’t, and only did so in the name of pressuring China for a better trade deal that he didn’t understand. And that doesn’t balance out everything else he did.

In the end, Trump was an insult comic who ran as a joke and a publicity stunt, accidentally won and treated the job as the grift opportunity of a lifetime. He used the White House mainly to feed his insatiable ego, insult his enemies, undo every single thing Barack Obama did out of spite, and cozy up to every dictator on the planet who he admired. He surrounded himself with family members and cronies whose only qualifications were agreeing with everything he said. He lied about virtually everything. And he fleeced the taxpayers to prop up his businesses and finance his golf trips.

It's also worth noting that his popularity never cracked 50%. It hovered around the low-mid 40s, and I suspect the only reason it dipped into the 30s right before he left is because his coup failed. Nobody likes a loser, especially when you’re on the losing side.

But let’s be clear – the GOP, for the most part, loved every minute of it. Some Reagan conservatives were horrified, of course, and sure, some were onboard mainly for the tax cuts and the SCOTUS appointments (which, let’s admit, were dumb luck). But the GOP embraced Trump and everything he stood for, because he was (more or less) the desired outcome of 25-30 years of Republicans pushing their Angry White Guy culture war against libs, feminists, LGBTQs, BIPOCs, Muslims, non-white immigrants and everyone else they considered to be the enemy of White Straight Male Christian America. They may have preferred someone a little less obvious about it (or at least less prone to psychotic episodes and batshit conspiracies), but they were on the Trump Train all the way to the bitter end because they wanted to be. If the coup had worked, they’d say he did the right thing. Mike Pence probably would have said it right before the MAGA cult strung him up.

That is Trump’s chief legacy as POTUS: the GOP is Trump’s party now. The second impeachment vote proves this. So does Trump’s invitation to headline CPAC. So does the fact that Trump proteges like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laurie Boebert and (ironically) Ted Cruz are racking up outrage points as if they’re angling for the 2024 GOP nomination. They know Trump still has a posse – especially at the state and local levels of the GOP – and that as far as the MAGA cult is concerned, he is a POTUS in exile, the true ruler of this land denied his rightful place as emperor by an evil liberal Deep State conspiracy against him.

There’s been talk that Trump might start his own party to challenge Republicans who want to get off the Trump Train, but I’m not sure he needs to, considering the vast majority of Republicans would probably join it – which suggests he already has a new party: the GOP itself.

It’s more likely that Never-Trump Repubs will form their own party. And even that’s doubtful because it’s hard to start third parties in America, and it’s even harder for them to win elections.

And so much for Trump. He may be out of office, but he did a lot of damage in four years, and he will come back for more. Even if he goes to jail between now and 2024 (which I have my doubts about, though it would be nice), his martyrdom will drive the GOP to new levels of batshit hysteria.

And this is the govt POTUS Joe now gets to deal with – a two-party system in which both parties live in completely separate realities and one will not rest until the other is vanquished forever.

Are you not entertained, America?

Next,

This is dF

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One of the strange hallmarks of US elections is that it’s over when the TV news channels say it is – which is not the same as when all the votes have been counted. Officially, at least, Joe Biden hasn’t won just yet. And of course Trump is going to contest this with every lawyer he can throw at it.

But close enough.

I’ll have more to say later once things start to gel. Meanwhile:

PART 1: INITIAL THOUGHTS

1. Thank Christ that’s over.

2. I use the word “over” loosely – for one thing, Trump is still POTUS for the next two months and God knows what he’s going to do between now and then.

3. More importantly (and a number of people have also pointed this out), we have to live with the fact that after four years of this absolute racist corrupt trash fire of a presidency, over 70 million people (almost 48% of the electorate) said, “Yes, give us more of that.” As I said earlier, the reasons vary and are not as ideological as you may think. But the fact remains that these people are not going to magically turn back into Reagan conservatives – not with the current meme that the election was rigged, and not with the whole Trump family blustering away on Twitter.

4. This has made a lot of liberals very sad – and understandably so. Many of them seemed convinced that Trump would not only lose, but would get creamed to the point of humiliation as America utterly rejected his toxic brand. That clearly did not happen – Biden barely pulled this off. What’s even more sad is that the GOP still controls the Senate – which in turn means that Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and John Cornyn are still Senators. Which doesn't seem fair at all.

5. In fact, it's worth widening the scope to understand just what has happened here, and why there is no going back to business as usual.

Zeynep Tufekci sums it up brilliantly here, but the general takeaway is that the GOP is now the MAGA Party, who may have lost the White House barely) but kept the Senate (barely), and made gains both in the House and at state level. They have been exploiting populist anger to establish authoritarian rule long before Trump, with the goal of propping up a strongman who would ensure they keep power forever within democratic trappings a’la Putin, Erdogan, etc. It was their bad luck that a buffoon like Trump ended up the first beneficiary of all that work – but their next POTUS candidate is likely to be someone smarter who actually wants to be POTUS and knows how to play the political game, which will make him a lot harder to defeat than Trump (and again, Trump almost won).

6. Which might make Joe’s “let’s give each other a chance” comment to Trump voters in his victory speech seem naïve or disingenuous. And sure, probably, in the sense that most GOP voters, politicians and pundits are probably more interested in petty revenge than reconciliation. (Meanwhile, I’m sure plenty of liberals will find it hard to reconcile with a party that openly embraced white supremacy, homophobia, etc –and justifiably so.)

But I think it was important for Joe to say that – partly because tactically it puts the ball in their court, and partly because sociopolitical division and systemic racism are major problems that we need to address now. Yes, it will take a long, long time to resolve – it’s not something you fix with a new POTUS. But you have to start somewhere. And it sure won't start with Biden telling Trump voters to get fucked and they're all officially canceled as of now.

7. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that polling forecasts suck and we probably need to stop using them to treat the election like the world’s biggest horse race.

PART 2: SOME GOOD THINGS (APART FROM TRUMP LOSING)

1. A black woman is Vice President. In fact, it seems people are more stoked about Kamala Harris than they are about Biden. And, you know, I can’t blame them. I mean, of the two, only one made my Top 3 Choices in the primaries. And Joe wasn’t one of them.

2. The Squad is still in effect. Hurrah!

3. Election Day violence was mercifully minimal, and – at least so far – the pro-Trump protests haven’t resulted in anyone getting murdered. May it continue to be so, because we’re about to hit the Anger Stage of grief.

4. Everyone at Fox News seems very, very sad. Poor lambs.

5. SCOTUS isn’t likely to save Trump.

6. The Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference was of course perfect. The going theory is that Trump tweeted the press conference before they had confirmed the hotel booking, and when the Four Seasons said “Forget it”, his team booked anything named Four Seasons so as not to contradict Glorious Leader. Which is very North Korea.

Which is why my own take is that they probably did try to book another hotel, but no hotel would take them.

Whatever the case, you couldn’t ask for a more fitting finale to this reality show.

Even RTHK in Hong Kong took notice:

Well played, RTHK. Well played.

Next,

This is dF

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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I made a playlist for Election Day. You know, in case you have to stand in line for a couple of hours, or just need something to distract yourself from the horror of it all.

Rock the vote,

This is dF

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If you’ve been following this blog for any time at all, you know that I’ve been predicting a Trump re-election in 2020. Now that we’re down to the wire and Trump is down an average of eight (8) points in the polls below Biden, the obvious question is:

Would I care to change my answer?

Well, if that’s not a blog post, I’d like to know what is.

1. As others have pointed out, Hillary Clinton had a pretty comfortable lead around this time in 2016. We saw how that went.

Granted, there are some differences – for one thing, Biden is relatively more well liked than HRC, and the battleground states that Trump won last time appear to be turning against him in 2020. And of course voter turnout may be historically the largest ever – which Republicans openly admit works against them (hence their utterly transparent attempt to keep as many people as possible from voting).

So in that sense, I think a Trump re-election victory is less likely than 2016. But it’s certainly not impossible. An 8-point spread is not all that big – especially when by all rights, given Trump’s record, it ought to be much larger.

2. Consequently, the spectacle of Republican politicians and conservative institutions reportedly turning on Trump is small comfort for me. I have no way of knowing how many of them are sincere, and how many are simply trying to avoid becoming collateral damage. My hunch is it’s a mix that skews towards the latter group, most of whom I’ll bet will still secretly vote for Trump – and if he wins (fairly or otherwise), they will be right back in his corner as though they had always supported him all along.

3. For everyone who is looking around them gesturing vaguely at everything and thinking “HOW CAN HE POSSIBLY STILL WIN AFTER ALL THIS”, hey, welcome to American democracy, where people vote for the damnedest reasons.

Most voters don't deep-dive into this stuff. According to the NYT, somewhere between 80% and 85% of Americans either follow politics casually or not at all. My own anecdotal experience more or less backs this up. I know people who only care about one issue and will vote accordingly. I know others who picked a party ages ago (to include independent parties) and stick with it no matter what. I know others who don’t follow politics because they have more pressing concerns, while others used to follow politics to some degree but now don’t follow it at all because of ALL their hyper-political friends posting nothing but furious political memes on Facebook all the live long day.

So, you know, while it may be obvious to me that Trump is a racist, sexist, fascist trash fire who now primarily sees being POTUS as his only chance of staying out of jail and avoiding his creditors, it’s by no means obvious to everyone else.

And of course, let’s not forget that some people like him precisely because he’s a racist, sexist, fascist trash fire – either because they agree with him, or they want nothing more from a POTUS than someone who rips into every liberal/minority group they hate with insult-comedy routines.

So I wouldn’t count on Trump’s obvious awfulness being a deciding factor in 2020.

4. There is, of course, the additional possibility that Trump will cheat his way into a second term. We know he (and the GOP and his minions in general) are doing everything they can to keep as many people from voting as possible and disqualifying as many ballots as they can. We also know that Trump plans to contest his defeat, and is banking on SCOTUS (which now sports three of his own appointees) to back him up, and even to stop the vote tallies while he’s ahead.

Of course, this could backfire spectacularly if Biden is leading by a landslide at 11:59pm Nov 3. Indeed, any Trump strategy to steal the election hinges on a close race. Also, while the notion of a GOP-heavy SCOTUS handing a Repub candidate victory is not without precedent, it’s not pre-ordained either.

Still, the going wisdom is that with an 8-point spread, Trump’s chances of stealing the election are slim, but it’s by no means impossible.

And Trump has done the impossible once already.

5. So basically it’s hard to say how this will play out – there are too many “what ifs” to contend with.

I can predict two things with confidence: (1) Biden will at the very least win the pop vote, and (2) as welcome as a Biden victory will be, it will not solve America’s most fundamental problem, which is this:

The GOP is a weird white supremacist hate group that lives in an alternate reality and believes (or pretends to believe) every fool word Trump says. It has been totally remade in Trump’s image, and a Biden victory won’t change that.

Moreover, these people have been primed by both Trump and conservative media outlets to expect (and accept) nothing less than a Trump landslide. Any other result will be deemed proof of a Democrat conspiracy to rig the election. Even if that doesn’t result in wholesale violence, this is the opposition party that Biden and the Demos get to deal with. And he can expect the same treatment from the GOP as Clinton and Obama – total obstruction, batshit conspiracies and endless investigations into Hillary’s emails. And they’ll make Trump into a martyr even (and especially) if he ends up in jail. Kamala Harris will have it even worse because – unlike Handsome Joe – she’s both a woman and a black person.

So here’s a prediction: no matter who wins, 2021 is going to be worse. Either Trump wins and drags us further down the plughole into authoritarianism, or Trump loses and his MAGA cult will dial the culture war up to 11, which will inevitably include some level of attempted extralegal violence. The Proud Boys may not get the Boogaloo they imagined, but it won't be for lack of trying.

I have never wanted to be as wrong about anything in my life. But the fact is that America’s two-party democracy is fundamentally broken, and I’m not sure Biden knows how to deal with that – although to be fair, I don’t think any major Demo candidate does.

This interview with political scientist Pippa Norris gives a good breakdown of the problem – along with possible solutions, though again, it all depends on what happens after Election Day. But the point remains that the US flavor of democracy is in really bad shape, and it won’t take much to send it into a fatal tailspin.

Screwed, glued and tattooed,

This is dF

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I’m a little behind on political commentary and I know you’re all dying to hear what I think about that debate and the thing about his taxes, etc.

So:

1. I didn’t watch the debate, because (1) I already know which candidate I prefer, (2) I already know that debates never tell me anything I don’t already know about the candidates – it’s all trainwreck entertainment theatre that I can live without, and (3) I value what little sanity I have remaining. My Twitter feed of people watching the debate live assures me I made the right decision.

That said, based on the coverage and commentary, it went the way I expected. Which is also why I find all the hand-wringing over how it was a low point in Presidential elections and a total shit show and etc a bit disingenuous. I mean, yes, it was all that, but what honestly did they expect? Trump did exactly what Trump always does when you put him in front of an audience – lies and bloviates and bullies and disregards all rules and decorum generally shouts word salads at you He always does that. He’s never not done that. It’s his brand. Like, dude, where have you been for the last four years?

2. While we’re at it, the “Trump paid almost no taxes” story was welcome, but again didn’t say much we didn’t already know. If anything, it told us that Trump is like most rich people in America – he pays people good money to make sure his tax bill is as close to zero as you can get.

I don’t think it matters in terms of the election outcome. To be clear, I think it does matter very much in the sense of understanding how desperate Trump is and what he may do to save his own skin (rig an election, say, or cry fraud if he loses), and it matters in the sense that Trump’s tax returns are symptomatic of a much wider problem of systemic tax evasion that the rich have been utilizing for years.

But as a game changer in the 2020 election? It’s not going to move the needle much, if at all. It certainly won't turn Republicans and his MAGA base against him – most of them would love to know how he did it so they can do it, too. Remember how the Panama Papers showed just how many rich people with actual money do this kind of thing all the time? Remember how no one did anything to really change that?

So yeah. I don’t think it will affect the outcome of the election. It should. But it won’t.

Also, I admit I’d be kind of annoyed that this would be the dealbreaker for Republicans that have backed every other horrible thing Trump has done so far. The racism, the cruelty, the sexual assault and harassment, the bullying, the incitement of violence, kids in cages, collusion, corruption, nepotism, mocking the disabled, the constant lying – and this is where you draw the line? Come now.

3. Back to the debate, the big takeaway for me is his statement about/to the Proud Boys. It’s hard to make it more obvious that Trump supports them and approves of their intentions and activities.

Predictably he’s been trying to walk that back in his usual bizarre way – simultaneously claiming he has no idea who the Proud Boys are but he condemns them anyway. But like most of his walkbacks, he sounds like he just saying what his advisers told him to say and doesn’t really understand why he has to say it, and is just as likely to turn right back around and say what he said the first time. The fact that he didn’t condemn them the first time when he had a chance – and honestly, the fact that it has to be asked at all is not a good sign – speaks more loudly than his damage-control followups.

4. Even if you can somehow prove that Trump was just mouthing off and wasn’t serious, or misspoke, or whatever, the fact remains that the Proud Boys and groups like them are feeling mighty proud that that President Himself supports their manifesto and their actions, which makes them even more dangerous and more likely to pull a Rittenhouse in the belief that Trump will have their back.

5. Anyway, the debate experience was so awful that even before Trump got sick, people were suggesting maybe we cancel all the others. I cannot think of a good reason against this. POTUS debates don’t really add any value in terms of learning where candidates stand on topics and hashing out whose plan is better. The only people who benefit from TV debates are the candidates (cos hey, free airtime) and the TV networks (cos hey, trainwrecks are good television).

And in this particular election year, I’d wager most people already know what the choice is – four more years of Trump TV, or something that is not that.

Anyway, if the tone of that first debate really put you off, here’s the bad news: that’s as good as it gets, and it will not get that good again. Maybe the Harris/Pence debate is worth doing as a relative palate cleanser, but I think the other Trump/Biden matches are going to be more of the same, and once was plenty.

The talk about extra rules or tools for the next debate to make it more civil is adorable, but look – the first debate had rules. Trump characteristically did not bother to follow any of them. He’s already opposed the proposed changes for the next one. That’s no reason not to put the rules in, but Trump is gonna Trump.

And honestly democracy won’t suffer if we cancel the rest of the debates. Frankly, democracy has far bigger problems to worry about.

Muted,

This is dF

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Kristin Hersh, "White Trash Moon"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1668562.html

As you may know, the US Postal Service is in big big trouble – thanks largely to the guy who’s running it and the guy who appointed him.

And we all know why.

It’s actually one of several ways that Trump and the GOP are going out of their way to make it as hard to vote as possible – unless you think COVID-19 is a hoax or just another flu, in which case it will be as easy as it always is.

Guess which party this dynamic happens to favour.

FiveThirtyEight lists five ways TrumpCo is undermining the election process, and they fall into two basic categories: (1) making it harder to vote in general, and (2) pre-emptively delegitimizing the results in case Trump loses (which, according to current polling, he might).

For me, the latter is the more insidious of the two, and goes to the heart of Trump’s war on USPS. He’s been constantly labeling mail-in voting as susceptible to massive voter fraud (which it's not) whilst claiming the Democrats are actively planning to do just that (which they aren't). If millions of mail-in ballots arrive late, or even on Election Day, we won’t know the results for weeks, and you can bet Trump will exploit the ensuing uncertainty and chaos to simultaneously declare himself the winner and that any other result is due to the Radical Left Antifa Demos trying to steal the election. And you can also bet the MAGA cult won't take that calmly.

The Demos have been mobilizing to encourage people to plan their vote now, and they’ve been creating various alternative options to bypass the USPS such as drop boxes and curbside voting – and of course Team Trump is resorting to lawsuits to stop them.

But again, the USPS is just one part of a bigger push by Trump and the GOP to not only limit voting as much as possible, but ensure that the 40% of people who support Trump will refuse to accept any outcome that doesn’t result in him winning another term.

And to be clear, Trump isn't doing this all by himself – the GOP is fully complicit in this, whether they simply do nothing to stop him or actively help him (for example, here’s the GOP governor of Tennessee Bill Lee signing a state bill that says anyone who gets busted at a BLM protest will lose the right to vote).

Meanwhile, for fun, here’s a video of Trump telling people mail-in voting is bad whilst signing his own mail-in ballot.

Your cheatin’ heart,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: The Buggles, "Technopop"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1656031.html

ITEM: The Democrats have staged the first ever Democratic National Convention held entirely on Zoom.

Although I did not watch it, I shall nevertheless blog my opinions about it.

1. Judging from the highlights reels, it went reasonably well. So much so that some people have suggested they should do it this way from now on – or at least the roll call. I don't think that will happen, unless COVID-19 never goes away ever again. But I never watch conventions live anyway (the highlights reel is plenty convention for me … obviously), so it doesn’t make a huge difference to me.

2. Vox has listed the winners and losers of each night here, here and here, if you’re interested.

3. A lot of people have complained about how AOC only got 60 seconds of air time, though she used them well. And they have a point. Matthew Yglesias wrote a good piece about how the Democratic National Convention speaker list was more about celebrating past glories than looking to the party’s future, which has to deal with a far more diverse, complex and polarized voter landscape than ever before. AOC and the Squad are a lot more attuned to that landscape than (say) Bill Clinton.

There are probably decent tactical reasons for focusing on the elder statesmen, and they did balance it out with a lot of more ordinary speakers like Philonise Floyd, Kristin Urquiza and lots of young people.

4. People have also complained that John Kasich got air time at all (and more than AOC did). I do understand the reason for it. Kasich was the only sane guy running against Trump in 2016, and he’s the face of establishment Republicans who are dismayed at the fact that their party has been hijacked by Trump and QAnon, but still need a good reason besides that to swallow their pride and vote Demo.

And, you know, maybe it says a lot that for many Repubs, Trump’s batshit presidency isn’t enough reason to vote Biden/Harris – to say nothing of the fact that the evolution of the GOP to the Trump/QAnon White Party is a monster of the GOP’s own making. So their dismay is kinda disingenuous, but then I’ve learned in the last 20 years never to underestimate people’s capacity for self-delusion.

And anyway, a vote’s a vote, so I can’t blame the Demos for reaching out to every possible voter bloc. Still, I’m not sure Kasich is the person to make that case. Maybe Rick Wilson would have been more fun?

5. Anyway, I have to say that the Demos managed to pull off a remarkable feat – a Zoom convention with no major hiccups and an impressive line-up that arguably worked better in a virtual setting than it would have in a packed convention hall.

6. It will be interesting to see how the GOP convention goes. They’re sticking to a live event, and even with social distancing and masks, I can’t imagine that will end well.

7. Also, it’s interesting to me that both conventions serve as a remarkable metaphor for both parties – one embraces new technology and innovation to adapt to an emergency situation and ensure maximum safety, while the other clings to a decades-old format in denial of the same situation and thus puts lives at risk just so their leader can have an adoring audience to cheer him and feed his ego.

I mean, which one would you trust with the future direction of the country?

Leave meeting,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Cows, "The Bucket"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1655319.html

ITEM: Joe Biden has selected his Veep.

In my opinion, he has chosen well – not least because it’s encouraging Tucker Carlson to make an even bigger fool of himself than usual.

However, I know people who are very unhappy with Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris.

Most of the reasons I’ve heard fall into the usual categories: sour grapes, DNC conspiracy theories and/or the fact that neither Biden nor Harris tick nearly enough of their ideological boxes, or have at some point in their careers done or said things that are ideologically blasphemous, or atavistic, or whatever.

And … well, look, I don’t know what to tell you.

And you know, Biden wasn’t my first choice either – not by a long shot. Harris was in my Top 3, and if it were up to me, I’d just as soon she switch places with Joe on the ticket. Or I’d keep her where she is and replace Biden with Elizabeth Warren.

But Biden/Harris is what we’ve got to work with, and looking at the alternative choice in 2020, I personally will vote for a Biden/Harris ticket so hard I might accidentally break the machine.

For the progressives seething that they’re being forced by the DNC to support politicians instead of the activists they wanted, I’ve already posted some thoughts about that here. I don’t have much to add to it.

As for the obvious question – “Is it a winning combination?” – I don’t know.

On the one hand, Biden has built up a good lead in the polls as Trump keeps digging himself into a deeper hole – and picking Harris seems to have helped – but then Hillary had a decent lead on Trump too. Between that and Trump’s war on the USPS (to say nothing of the Russians), I am taking nothing for granted.

Toot toot hey veep veep,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Missing Persons, "Here and Now"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1653966.html

Hong Kong was scheduled to have its next LegCo election next month. It has now been postponed to next year.

The move has been condemned by Donald Trump – who as it happens wants to postpone the US election in November.

Let’s blog this, shall we?

1. The excuse for the HK election postponement is COVID-19. The loyalists either really believe this or are pretending to do so. The rest of us are reasonably convinced the actual reason is that Beijing wants it postponed because if we hold it on time, there’s a decent chance that the pan-Democrats might actually gain ground or – even worse – win a decent-sized majority. And we can’t have that.

2. We were expecting this, of course. Both the HK govt and Beijing went out of their way to state that the pan-Demo primary was probably maybe a violation of our shiny new National Security law. This was followed by election officers asking the pan-Demo candidates who topped that primary to ask them whether they would support the NSL and every other HK govt policy wholeheartedly and without question (and the answer had better be yes, and it had better be a convincing yes).

Result: 12 of them were disqualified. Which was also expected – not least because Beijing was directly involved in the decision.

The only reason to think they might not postpone the election was if Beijing opted to just keep disqualifying pan-Demos until there were none left. Why cancel an election when you can just rig it? But I suppose they thought that was too blatant – that, and the pan-Demos planned to make them work for it by having a rather long list of back-up candidates.

Anyway, Stephen Vines sums it up well here, but basically Beijing has made it clear that it will only suffer the pan-Demos’ existence as long as they have no real power and they learn to shut up and like it. And given the momentum the pan-Demos have thanks to the Lam admin being generally hopeless at handling major crises like political unrest and COVID-19, Beijing apparently decided they would much rather call off the election using a plausible excuse like COVID-19 than take a chance that DQing candidates they don’t like might be too obvious.

3. Speaking of which, the COVID-19 excuse is also nonsense. Carrie Lam pointed out that several countries have also postponed elections because of COVID-19. Which is true, but plenty of others have successfully held elections – and their COVID stats are far worse than HK’s. The pan-Demo primary was a masterclass in holding an election safely, and that was organized and managed by a tiny polling organization with minimal resources. The HK govt has far greater resources and is perfectly capable of taking measures to ensure the Sept election is carried out as safely as possible. It just doesn’t want to.

4. Which raises the obvious question: will the election really take place in one year? And the obvious answer is: who knows? I think Beijing needs HK to have an election at some point, otherwise they can’t exactly claim with a straight face that HK is a democracy under One Country Two Systems. However, I’m reasonably sure that Beijing will not give the green light until they’re convinced the pro-BJ camp can’t possibly lose.

5. The other obvious question is how the current LegCo can legally keep serving for a year after everyone’s term expires? No one knows yet. But I fully expect the solution to be bad news for the pan-Demos still in LegCo (four of whom were among those disqualified from running again).

5. As for Trump wanting to delay the November election because of non-existent mail fraud, the catch is that you can never tell when he’s serious and when he’s just spouting paranoid nonsense to feed the base.

The one thing we can be reasonably sure of is that it’s not just because he’s worried about mail-in votes. He’s worried about having his ass handed to him, which would not only bruise his ego, but make him more likely to face prosecution and jail for his many high crimes and misdemeanors.

I don’t know how worried he is about the latter. But I do think at the very least he’s continuing his efforts to lay down the groundwork to de-legitimize the results should he lose.

6. Also, I take little solace in the technical fact that legally and Constitutionally, Trump can’t unilaterally delay the election. Which is true, but Trump somehow strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't really care about breaking laws or violating the Constitution.

That said, in order for him to literally prevent the election from going ahead in all 50 states, he’d need some way to enforce that. I don't think the MAGA Boogaloo Cult with their AR-15s and whatnot have the manpower or firepower to stop every single election in each state. He’d need the support of the National Guard and Armed Forces commanders – which might look and feel too much like a coup for their taste.

I’m not saying he won’t try. I’m just saying his odds of succeeding are not good. At least right now. But as I say, I think he mainly wants his MAGA cult to throw a locked-and-loaded hissyfit if he loses and take their anger out on whatever liberals and minorities happen to be at hand while he tweets for the rest of his life from a secure location about the Democratic Liberal Coup of 2020.

7. Anyway it takes some nerve for him to send his press secretary out to condemn the HK election postponement when he’s planning on doing the exact same thing at home, and with an even flimsier excuse. On the other hand, it’s very on-brand.

Cancel culture,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Dee-Lite, "Vote Baby Vote"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1648781.html

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ELECTION SPECIAL 2024

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT DONALD TRUMP’S EAR

ELECTION MADNESS PART 1: KAMALA MY HOUSE

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY OTHER POST ABOUT THE TRUMP-BIDEN DEBATE REMATCH THING

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT THE TRUMP-BIDEN DEBATE REMATCH THING (PART 1)

WHERE’S THE KABOOM? THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A DEMOCRACY-SHATTERING KABOOM!

POTUS: A MUSICAL HISTORY

HONG KONG: NOW WITH EVEN MORE ERSATZ DEMOCRACY!

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WHO WANTS TO BE THE 51ST STATE?

IMPEACHAPALOOZA 2: COUP COUP KACHOO (SLIGHT RETURN)

TRUMP DYNASTY: SEASON 1 REVIEW

ELECTION 2020 IS OVER (IF YOU WANT IT)

ELECTION SPECIAL: A PLAYLIST FOR WHAT'S LEFT OF DEMOCRACY

I REVISIT MY PREDICTION FOR THE 2020 ELECTION. YOU MAY WISH I HADN’T.

WILL YOU SHUT UP, MAN?

HOW TO STEAL AN ELECTION BY POST

UNCONVENTIONAL! or ZOOMA ZOOM ZOOM IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM!

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