Trumpcare and the Backlash

Years ago I was driving around New Jersey and killing time before picking up a friend. Out of ghoulish curiosity I switched the radio to some conservative talk shows to get my daily supply of Vitamin Cray. I would say 50% of the callers had rage directed at other Republicans for not being conservative enough, 30% were angry at Dems for turning the nation into a gunless communist gay abortion clinic, and then 20% were angry at weirdo-fringe stuff for things like Illuminati/Masons/ aliens/George Soros conspiracists.

It was revelatory experience to listen to caller after caller rant against GOPers because they compromised with Dems to get something done. The Trumpcare and the backlash against Paul Ryan has taught me that the GOP exists in a constant state of implosion and purge b/c the party platform is so illogical that anyone trying to implement it is either a) removed from reality or b) a sociopath c) going to have to compromise or d) all of the above. What ends up happening is that someone takes over as 'the leader' and then tries to actual lead with a GOP plan (like Trumpcare) and it's a catastrophe, but also deeply unsatisfying to a certain segment of the population that wants us to live in this Walden Pond utopia without public roads. It is these GOP voters' outrage that drives the media machine. These same voters never seem to piece it all together that the principles they stand for is the cancerous and corporatist rot hollowing out the country, not faithless legislators or activists judges. This leads to a party purge because the hatred conservatives have for Dems is only surpassed by their hatred for each other.

As a side note I do think this rush to rage is out of a deep psychic and transgenerational loneliness. So if we're waiting around for 'old white' generation to die out it won't work because the problem of social disconnection is a lot deeper than age. You have millions of lonely people, a few thousand extremely passionate people with access to radio, tv, and the internet. Passion is the ultimate aphrodisiac.  Passion is the basis of community which is what we crave as social animals. Humans will convince themselves of almost anything to be in a community. Even if that community is virtual or aural-based. As someone who has worked with addiction for a long time it all comes from a spiritual deficit. Cults, drug use, right-wing fascism. It comes from vast areas of the country being lonely, having no spiritual foundation, loosened morals, even looser understanding of logic, a weakened ability to discern truth. Until we solve that will be fighting on a million different fronts with destructive illogical fanatics -whether it's the environment or healthcare or the economy or religion- because these people aren't in the fight for improving culture. They are in the fight for the community and to quell their loneliness. They are in this battle b/c it makes them feel connected, even if they tear down the columns of civilization in the process. They will renounce every moral principle and even their own family for a pat on the head from the right master b/c these are damaged people who feel like they have been left behind. And demagogues foment their power from other people's ignorance and helplessness.

Demagogues use this passionate helplessness to keep stirring unrest. There is no end in sight, there is no cultural fix because the goal is never to 'fix' anything but to keep people in a state of disease and rage. In regard to the current situation with the GOP, there situation is Sisyphean in its redundant hopeless. It's all purge and implode. Any feasible policy initiatives disintegrate into this wish for some machine gun-toting, Reagan-faced centaur that does not exist in any realm.

Trumpcare manages to fit option d: a combination of the worst and a heartless compromising of a raging sociopath with no sense of reality. It will continue the cycle of implosion and purge as we lurch even farther to the right. 

Obamacare Celebration? Just Crickets

I'm starting to wonder what's the incentive of creating thoughtful policy to address complex problems. I say that because I'm watching the last few months of responses to Obamacare aka the Affordable Care Act.

Despite website glitches, Obamacare signed up 6 million people to health insurance and Medicaid in 3 months. That's roughly 2.5 million on health insurance markets set up by states and the federal government and the rest of the people who are now covered on Medicaid package. In a year, these numbers will *probably* be in the tens of millions of Americans.  This one policy will save the lives of thousands and improve the quality of health for millions of Americans.

Political capital? Celebration? National media attention? As a result of this policy, the Dems are being threatened with losing seats in the House of Representative as well as the majority in the Senate. Republican-leaning states are continuing to block healthcare markets being set up in their states and the attorney generals are trying to stop Obamacare by finding new chinks in the armor, filing lawsuits, and trying to drown the law in a sea of litigation. President Obama's approval rating is at an all-time low.

Immigration reform, climate change, class inequalities are important issues that need thoughtful leaders creating detailed policy with experts. Yet, I don't know if any of these problems can be addressed in this political climate when the incentive is on loud, monosyllabic slogans

Let's remember some of the GOP's policy suggestions to our most recent problems:

1. Energy: Drill Baby Drill!!!
2. Healthcare: Kill Obamacare!!!
3. Immigration Reform: No amnesty!!!
4. Gun Reform: Keep your hands off my guns!!!
5. Kids being slaughtered by gunmen in schools: Good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns!!!
6. Economy: Tax Cuts
7. Class Inequalities: Cut taxes
8. Corporate Corruption: Cut regulations and reduce government intake...oh hell, cut taxes!!!
9. Global Warming: Al Gore sucks!! (or some variation of a personal attack)
10. Women's Rights: Who's What?!?
11. Raising Minimum Wage: Job Killer!!
12. Abortion Rights: Baby killer!!!

Dems can't beat the brevity of these slogans posing as policies because they're shackled to some basis of facts. But I think that rational is becoming a tired excuse for the incompetency of marketing and touting successes by the left-leaning and moderate politicians.

Over the last six years, Dems have been unable to take advantage of any accomplishments. It's almost easy to think that Obama has done nothing.

Obama's Record

1. Saving the Auto Industry from Bankruptcy (saving a few million jobs FYI)
2. Stopping Economy from Collapsing (like it has in many European countries)
3. Al Qaeda War: killed Osama Bin Laden
                             killed almost every single No. 2 and major lieutenant in terrorist org
4. incentivizing boom in Green Energy and alternative energy, while expanding drilling
5. Repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell
6. Wall Street Reforms: 1000 times stronger restrictions than what others wanted to do.
7.  created Consumer Protection Agency: reducing corporate abuse against citizens
8.  credit card reform
9. withdrew everyone from Iraq!! WE GOT OUT OF IRAQ! WE ARE NO LONGER IN IRAQ!
10. Obamacare: 6 million covered in 3 months.

Yet, some times it feels like Obama administration has been a complete failure. His successes are glossed over and the national attention quickly moves to the next crisis. This lack of focus could thwart the growth of  Obamacare.

ACA can still be hurt. Yes, it would be very difficult to repeal. But enough damage can be done to ACA it so that it doesn't work at its optimal level or it leaves millions without insurance. Misinformation can scare enough young people and citizens of Red States to stay away, so that the marketplace is left anemic in the long-term. And Republican consultants will celebrate this stunt 'victory' of lies with a new wave of candidates selling more odious, ignorant, and malfeasant viewpoints.

Dems need to do better. You know what, forget Dems....well-informed people -of any political persuasion- need to do better by speaking out. We need many more voices putting the facts forward repeatedly again and again. And these 'truthers' need to have the intensity as the Machiavellian Right-wing, which has grown so cynical in its tactics that they border on treasonous behavior.

When one party decides to intentionally sabotage the health, job security, and income of all Americans for political gain, there should be some repercussions. But it seems like Democrats are the most vulnerable. If this happens, then the worst and most destructively cynical behavior will be rewarded by a GOP sweep in the House and Senate. And everyone will be punished.

The Default and Death of the Republican Party

The death of the Republican Party has been anticipated for a long time. What wasn't anticipated was that in their death throes they would try to dismantle, muck-up, and freeze the American federal government to the point of creating a global panic.

Apparently we're a few days away from defaulting on our debts. The nation is at a historic crisis point. The causes of the impending catastrophe isn't due to war, lack of money, or civil insurrection. It is a pre-planned and initiated drama aimed at satisfying a small group of radicalized followers whose disdain for a sitting president and opposition party has blocked out any rational thought as to the greater good for their own country.

Throughout Obama's presidency, Republicans in the House of Representatives have threatened to shut off funding for the entire government because of disagreements on individual bills. Rather than going through the process of election and majority rules, the GOP has now pivoted to suicide bomber tactics. They intend to destroy themselves in the hopes of causing damage and pain to others. It's not clear if they have dreams of getting to a GOP heaven with 67 virgins who look like Ann Coulter, but they certain do love using their manufactured disaster to visit the Elysian fields of Conservatism: Fox News.

The Default Crisis has been great for TV news ratings and stirring outrage on both sides at the expense of crippling our ability to regulate, tax, pay debt, and function as a federalized government. What is sad is that we have been heading toward this point in our history for a while. For many decades a small group of radical Conservatives have associated America with their way of thinking exclusively. If there's dissension then it can't be American. Despite this unbending belief, the country has changed in the last 30 years. Their demographics are dwindling. The party for people who think like Old White Men is running out of members and they can't find a way to convert a significant portion of women and non-Whites over to a philosophy steeped in xenophobia, isolationism, misogyny, and bigotry. Despite all the flags and country music, a vast majority of the younger generation isn't buying into the idea that one party holds the exclusive rights to Patriotism and Americana. In response to this, the patriotic Republicans are going to burn down America. This act of willfulness they claim is out of love, in the same way that an abusive person beats, burns, and kills their battered partner and then says 'why did you make me do that? You know how much I love you, right?'

They've dug the hole and intend to get out of it by going deeper: now some members are threatening to impeach Obama for the default. The very destruction they've worked to bring about is -in their eyes- a sign of Obama's treason. He should have given into their demands. Even though he was twice elected by large margins, even though Dems maintain control of the Senate and many states in the union, it is Obama who must bend to the will of 30 House Republicans. And if he doesn't then the country will fail and, at that point, he will be responsible for the crisis they created. It's Mad Hatter logic.

The GOP claims it wants government out of our lives...except when it comes to a woman's vagina, or illegal immigrants, mandatory sentencing, Black teens being illegally stop n' frisked, or unarmed people of color being killed by law enforcement officers and vigilantes. They are fine with government taking a very violent and coercive role in the lives of Brown and Black people, invasive procedures against women to humiliate them away from having a right to choose abortion, denying basic civil rights of privacy to all, splitting up families through deportation so that children are abandoned, adding more rules to make it more difficult to vote for minorities. It makes sense when their ideal America looks like a 1950s TV sitcom.

But other than your body, health, and mental well-being, the GOP want government out of our lives so we can be free to...enjoy unregulated water supplies and breathe in toxic air, eat genetically modified food, work below the minimum wage, have employee benefits stripped away, and plunge 300 million citizens into the hellmouth of unregulated casino capitalism.

The Default crisis isn't an aberration. It's a long-term cancer that continues to pop up in manufactured disasters by a few people who are losing their way and losing the country. I just hope the majority of people don't let an angry few take everyone down with them.

The death of the Republican party has been diagnosed but it's not the shifting demographics. The cancer of hate in their body politics is too far gone to salvage its remaining virtues. Their perspective is too warped on memories to see the present reality. In short, the patient's condition is terminal and there's no need to linger. For the sake of our children and all future generations, the Republican party can commit itself to one last patriotic deed: to die.

Romney's Nation: Is Poverty Now Un-American and Immoral?

There's a popular clip of Mitt Romney talking privately to donors

The belief is that half of the country doesn't pay federal income tax and, therefore, are freeloaders and portray themselves as victims.

The math doesn't work. Over half of America doesn't pay taxes for a variety reasons.

1. many are children
2. even more are elderly who have worked their whole life and now are in retirement
3. many more are homeless and/or are so poor that they have no income that can be federally taxed
4. and finally even more are working poor: which means these are families who usually have one or two people who are working jobs that are so bad, that they don't even qualify for taxes. These are millions of Americans who work and still go hungry.

It's often been stated by socialists, that American remains oddly independent even as the wealth gap explodes. That's because a significant amount of the working poor have been convinced that they're poor but are going to get rich real soon.  Yet, upward mobility has been stagnating for a generation which means the more likely you are to have the misfortune of being born poor, then more likely you are to remain there.

The logic is beyond Republican and Democrat, conservative vs. liberal. It's a belief that half of the people are leeches, which means the concept of giving is doused in condescension. The poor are to be pitied at best but mostly ignored because they are illogical and immoral.

The greater concept is that poverty is now being equated with being 'Un-American' and unethical, similar to how being a Communist was considered un-American or how being gay is un-Christian. This fits in with the trajectory of the culture: wealth makes right. Corporations are people, and freedom of money is equal to freedom of speech. Therefore the wealthy have more freedom of speech than the middle class.

The logical conclusion of this ideology has been growing for half a century and now comes to light in this video. But it's not shocking. It's completely logical within the Rand-ian concept of rugged individualism and corporate capitalism. Mitt Romney is merely carrying out the philosophy to its dead-end suicide pact.

We are watching a philosophy implode on its own cruelty, craven power lust, and un-Christian, un-religious, utilitarian talking points. The question is how much longer will we endure the death throes of politicized hatred and demonization of the poor? It wasn't long ago that poverty was considered a social problem to be fixed, not to be condemned.

Romney/Ryan ticket = Obama re-election

When I heard that Mitt Romney had selected Paul Ryan as his VP running mate, I did a little dance. In my head at least. On the outside, a smile burst over my face. I literally exhaled in a giant sigh of relief. On the inside I was spiking the ball in the end zone and doing the funky chicken. I was leaping through fountains of champagne. I was reciting the 'hardest' Kanye West lyrics I could think of to the kitchen table, which was a stand-in for Romney.

BALL SO HARD!!!

"Suicide doors on the private jet/Ya know what that means: I'm fly to death."

I rarely write about politics on this blog. I know who I am voting for in the 2012 elections: Obama and any Democrat. Seriously. You got a Dem? Put on the ballot. It doesn't matter whether they're dead of alive. They have my vote.  There is no question about these last two elections and it's not because I'm Black. My confidence is based on having a pretty good memory of GOP policy in the 1980s and what it did to most Americans and what Bush's policies did to the nation and world at the turn of the millennium. But I respect other people's beliefs. Furthermore, I don't really have a desire to change other people's minds about politics.

But the Ryan announcement brought out the old news/politics wonk in me. I grew up consuming CNN and the NYTimes. My favorite show as a kid wasn't "The Simpsons." It was the British House of Commons "Questions to the Prime Minister" on C-Span every Sunday night. On more than one occasion my sister had some choice words for my turning the channel away from Sunday evening shows to sights of old cantankerous British men sitting on 1970s lime green shiny seats bellowing at each other in, often in sarcastic football cheers and shouts that followed surly exchanges...

Yayayayayaya...OHHHH!!!

I could wake up to that in the morning and it would still make me smile.  It's the low rumbling sound of democracy and discourse. It is the music of freedom and the bombastic boom bravado that each person has a right to in a free society.

And all these years of watching and consuming politics has given me an instinctive feel for certain political maneuvering. I don't always have that gut, instant reaction but when I do it's often right.

I remember being in my friends car in LA in 2000 when Gore announced Joe Lieberman as his running mate and me slapping the dashboard in frustration. My friend asked what my problem was and I blurted out 'GORE JUST LOST FLORIDA! AND THAT MEANS HE LOST THE ELECTION." Three months later on election night I just shook my head as the whole thing boiled down a fundamentally flawed campaign and bad decisions.

In 2008 I was driving back from Miami and listening to newcomer Sarah Palin on the radio. Without the visual, I just paid attention to her words and delivery. The gut reaction kicked in...

Small, mean, empty. Vicious 'bully' pleasure in attacking, but probably can't take it. 

When I got home the pundits were praising Palin based on how she looked and performed on TV. Everyone was ensorcelled by the instant image. She cast a 48-72 spell over the nation. But the delivery of the words stuck with me. Even on the radio, I could feel her smiling with delight at the small-minded mean jabs written into the speech. This wasn't presidential or even vice-presidential. This was a high school cheerleader with a platform to stick it to the 'nerds' and 'non-jocks.'

So the dance I was doing in my head over the Ryan selection was also another instant reaction moment. This time it was joy and relief. It has nothing to do with Ryan as a man.

I've only heard Ryan speak once on TV and my instant reaction was:
Nice guy.
Doesn't get out much.
Talks to people only in his circle.
Pampered Bureaucrat.

And there was another image that popped in my head when I thought of Paul Ryan: a hydroponic plant.

A living thing sustained by artificial means, growing in the basement, but utterly unable to handle the natural elements. Ryan's mind has been locked in the cellar of some conservative think tank, being fed history through an artificial tube, and mistaking the hot lamps of Fox News from the bright August sun of national presidential campaign that will be nothing short of relentless.

I don't think he'll managed the attack dog role with as much unbridled glee as Sarah Palin. And he seems like a clean-cut professional. But Ryan also comes across as incredibly sheltered and naieve in his opinion on how things actually work outside of his immediate life and existence. When you think about great leaders -regardless of the party affiliation- they've usually faced some huge challenge and were forced to go outside of their comfort zone.

Rich old white guy selects younger, whiter-looking Midwestern guy to appeal to...
Blacks? No.
Latinos? No.
Women? Hell no!
Older voters? Not with his budget plans.

The Ryan pick shores up the GOP base at the expense of all other voters. It's a catastrophic mistake that  almost gift-wraps the election for Obama. He just lost women and older voters and, without that, the GOP can't win any of the swing states. In fact, Dem politicians might be able to win a few House seats back on the Ryan pick.

Instead of the election being a referendum about Obama's middling economic performance, it will be about Ryan for a few reasons: 1) we're sick of talking about Obama and the economy 2) Obama's actual policies are very mild 3) most people still blame Bush for the economic collapse so Obama attacks on go so far 4)Ryan is the new story, the media will focus its attention on over the next month. And this is bad, awful, very terrible, not good news for the GOP.

Paul Ryan's politics represent the bottoming out of a delusional think tank fantasy. They are not only impractical but downright scary when applied to reality. He lists Ayn Rand as a hero. I loved Ayn Rand too. When I was 13 years old. I was immature, rebellious, and had no concept of social structures.  Ryan is 43. What's his excuse?

 To understand how bizarre and scary his 'deregulate social services' idea can be it takes a bit of a perspective. You have to go back to before Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid existed. You have to look at the poverty numbers for elderly and remember the stories of senior citizens eating dog food and dying from perfectly treatable disease because they couldn't see a doctor. To know what America was like before Social Security you need to just think about that seniors went from being at the highest risk for living in squalor to being relatively stable and middle-class within a few generations. This didn't happen by accident. This happened because Americans said 'that's enough. I don't want my mother to work her whole to be eating Purina One out of a can in a slum house. Do something!'

Government did do something. Tremendous and drastic to address a serious problem. And, for the large part, it has and continues to work. That doesn't mean Social Security is perfect and couldn't use tweaks. But deregulating it would leave people at the mercy of the financial market and trade. These are the same markets that bankrupted entire continents in a matter of hours in 2007. These same markets evaporated billions of dollars in college funds, endowments, and grants in a cloud of numbers. And these are the same markets that were bailed out, never apologized, rolled over, and continued making billion-dollar bonuses. These are the markets that Ryan thinks will 'fix' Social Security.

Of course, Ryan will be given better coverage this first week before people start really digging in. But then they'll turn and begin digging into his beliefs. This will be around September, which is when the public opinion will solidify about Rep. Ryan. October will be the debates and then November is the election. So pretty much there is one strong month that will focus on Ryan. September was the month that broke Sarah Palin. And September will be the defining month for Ryan and Romney. Dem operatives will probably let Romney/Ryan have their convention and post-convention bounce. Because that's as good as it's going to get for the GOP.

In September Bill Clinton, Obama, and every friendly Dem politician will be sprinting across the country talking about Romney's tax returns, Bain Capital, and Ryan's budget. Congressional Republicans will be be responding to tax return and economic fairness questions. These are not the questions the GOP wants to focus on.

GOP operatives are going to try to define Ryan in a strong light. But they've been trying to do that for Romney for the past year and look how far it's gotten them. What makes anyone think that image/myth creation work the GOP couldn't do for Romney with a 12-month head start, they can pull for Paul Ryan in 6 weeks?

Long-term the Ryan pick is equally promising for Dems. The GOP base is shrinking. It needs a desperate restart before it loses the next two generations of Americans. Ryan's pick is a crowd-pleaser for Fox News and a non-starter for most voters. The only thing they'll remember about him is his Rand-style budget that's a hatchet job on the middle class.

Congratulations Romney: you just made a game changing move. Unfortunately it's for Obama.

And although the White House is too cool and professional to admit this, I bet I wasn't the only one doing a touchdown dance in my head this weekend.