I Love My Tweeting, I'll Pass on the Dating Advice

If you know me that well, you know I have an active Twitter account. In fact, I have several accounts on my phone. My main Twitter account, @TheRichWilkins, generates a little traffic, I guess. I have 5,810 followers at the time I write this. I give them some content every day. I give them probably 75-80% re-tweets (which doesn't equal an endorsement, of course, unless it does), but I give them plenty of my own opinion too. I give them my opinions on Trump, on the Phillies, on Bernie, on Hillary, on music, on the Sixers, and a whole bunch of other topics that come to mind on a day-to-day basis. Now, I have had to block a lot of people, particularly after voicing opinions on Bernie (the Socialists really, really hate me), but clearly someone is liking my stuff, because 5,810 of them choose to follow me. I probably do plenty wrong, but I must tweet something interesting to someone.

You know though, the more you read, the smarter you are? So I read long enough to realize that my Twitter is why i'm 33 and unmarried. Apparently straight men should shut their mouth on Twitter:

There is nothing less attractive than reading anyone’s Twitter account. Little things they say to no one? It’s very insane. Trying to make people laugh? Saying an opinion? Yuck. And of all the Twitter accounts, the worst Twitter accounts are the overactive straight male Twitter accounts. So many opinions. “Here’s what I thought about this article.” Man, I don’t care. “I didn’t like this book.” “I just saw this thing happen.” “[joke]” If you’re a straight male and you already have a girlfriend probably you’re fine, it seems like she sees enough good in you to ignore or gently attempt to curb your Twitter usage over time. But if you don’t I need you to know that there is nothing less attractive to a woman than your terrible Twitter history and I promise you that they are looking and their friends are saying to them “yeah…that’s pretty bad.”

The reverse is a friend looks up the Twitter of the guy you’re telling her about and she says, “He never tweets!” and you say, “I know!”

At the risk of dying alone in a cottage under a bridge as a Twitter troll that no one could love, I must respond to this- I don't give a shit. If someone is literally deciding to not date me because of my activity on Twitter, well, I guess i'm judging right back. Again, I've built an audience on there, I speak freely, and I kind of am what I am. If someone doesn't want to date me for calling Steve Bannon a white nationalist, or for saying some group in the Democratic Party should calm down, so be it. Yes, I'm still going to tweet about my disdain for Steph Curry's basketball game and the New York Mets. You can live with it- or not. You don't have to follow someone on Twitter, or date them. If you choose to do either with me, well, you get what you get.

I guess there's a part of this that gets well beyond my little opinion though, and gets to a broader society thing- white, straight men are generally awful creatures right now. I get that. Telling them to shut up more often isn't working out so well though, it caused them to go elect the absolute most morally, ethically, and intellectually challenged dimwit they could find to lead our country. Good job, American left. Now, I basically agree that the base instincts of many straight, white men are fairly disgusting, but I am a straight, white man, and I disagree with most of them. I can also tell when this kind of advice isn't working.

So, in short, you are getting my opinions. If that's repulsive, cool. If it's not, much more cool. If my Twitter cost me a date or two, or ten... oops. I don't care.

Who's Actually Winning in the Early Days- Trump or the Resistance?

The first ten days of the Trump Presidency have been a chaotic whirlwind. He's gutted the ACA's enforcement. He's argued with the Press about the size of his Inauguration crowd. He's issued a partial Muslim ban. He's given the order to build his wall on the Mexican border. The Mexican President has cancelled a visit with him. He's called Vladimir Putin. He's fired the Acting Attorney General. He's ignored relevant agencies in issuing executive orders. He's gagged departments from releasing information to the public. He's issued completely meaningless orders to exit the TPP agreement, which was never ratified by the Senate anyway. He's sacked the management level of the State Department. Tonight he'll announce a Supreme Court pick.

All of this is happening, and probably a lot more that I've missed just because no one can possibly keep track of it all. It is very easy for those of us who are opposed to Donald Trump to believe we're winning right now. The Muslim ban was defeated in several Federal court rooms. Republican Senators have announced opposition to some of his crazier pronouncements, like bringing back torture. Articles have been written about the chaos in his White House. The protest crowds have been larger than the Inauguration crowd was. Protesting feels good. It feels like we are winning, and Trump, with his low approval, is losing. Perception may be wrong.

Let's remember something here- our protests aren't doing anything in terms of policy and law, while Trump's chaos is. Once he walks back from stopping green card holders and valid citizens in his Muslim ban, the rest of it might be constitutional. Not a single cabinet pick of his has been denied their seat yet. Some departments are still under gag order, while others have to submit their findings to political appointees who decide what goes public. President Obama's policies on climate change, health care, and many more areas are being walked back, as we speak. Trump may be on weak political ground, he may even be losing control on a lot of matters in his White House, but he's also re-shaping the government in the image of his policies, as we speak.

More important than those policy by policy fights is the big picture. Donald Trump is a test of our very system of government. He wants to fundamentally re-make our governing system to empower the leader, himself. One of the best things I've read lately was a piece by Jake Fuentes, a business leader and apparently deep-thinker on our government. From his piece:

I obviously can’t pretend to know the intentions of the new President, but let’s pretend the power consolidation move is what’s actually happening. In fact, let’s pretend we’re the Trump administration (not necessarily Trump himself, more likely his inner circle) for a second. Here’s our playbook:

1. We launch a series of Executive Orders in the first week. Beforehand, we identify one that our opponents will complain loudly about and will dominate the news cycle. Immigration ban. Perfect.
2. We craft the ban to be about 20% more extreme than we actually want it to be — say, let’s make the explicit decision to block green card holders from defined countries from entering the US, rather than just visa holders. We create some confusion so that we can walk back from that part later, but let’s make sure that it’s enforced to begin with.
3. We watch our opposition pour out into the streets protesting the extremes of our public measure, exactly as we intended. The protests dominate the news, but our base doesn’t watch CNN anyway. The ACLU will file motions to oppose the most extreme parts of our measure, that’s actually going to be useful too. We don’t actually care if we win, that’s why we made it more extreme than it needed to be. But in doing so, the lawsuit process will test the loyalty of those enforcing what we say.
4. While the nation’s attention is on our extreme EO, slip a few more nuanced moves through. For example, reconfigure the National Security Council so that it’s led by our inner circle. Or gut the State Department’sability to resist more extreme moves. That will have massive benefits down the road — the NSC are the folks that authorize secret assassinations against enemies of the state, including American citizens. Almost nobody has time to analyze that move closely, and those that do can’t get coverage.
5. When the lawsuits filed by the ACLU inevitably succeed, stay silent. Don’t tell the DHS to abide by the what the federal judge says, see what they do on their own. If they capitulate to the courts, we know our power with the DHS is limited and we need to staff it with more loyal people. But if they continue enforcing our EO until we tell them not to, we know that we can completely ignore the judicial branch later on and the DHS will have our back.
6. Once the DHS has made their move, walk back from the 20% we didn’t want in the first place. Let the green card holders in, and pretend that’s what we meant all along. The protestors and the ACLU, both clamoring to display their efficacy, jump on the moment to declare a huge victory. The crowds dissipate, they have to go back to work.
7. When the dust settles, we have 100% of the Executive Order we originally wanted, we’ve tested the loyalty of a department we’ll need later on, we’ve proven we can ignore an entire branch of government, and we’ve slipped in some subtle moves that will make the next test even easier.

We’ve just tested the country’s willingness to capitulate to a fascist regime.

Scared yet? Still think "The RESISTANCE" is winning? Still believe that the protests are changing the day?

I have some beach front property for you in Nebraska.

Trump America, Part 3- Broken Government

If a crazy man with a gun is outside of your house yelling about blowing stuff up, you wouldn't typically let that man inside. That's just common-sense. The American voters, or at least about 63 million of them, just essentially did that. Donald Trump ran against the establishment of both parties in Washington, and against the very way Washington, DC runs. He said he alone could fix it. He has come into office and attempted to blow it up.

Let's not pretend this is a normal Presidency, or that we ever should have thought it was. Steve Bannon is the President's counselor, and he has openly talked about "destroying the establishment." They have spent the first ten days signing blatantly illegal executive orders, arguing about crowd sizes, and bashing the press. Why would the American people ever invite this kind of chaos into their government.

A lot of people have decided that the government doesn't work for them. They may be right or wrong, but their perception of a Washington that doesn't work and isn't good is a driver in deciding to "blow it up." You wouldn't allow this type of behavior if you thought Washington got things done for you. Much of this is ignorance, mind you, as much of the world would love to live under the conditions that Americans do, but whether these people are right or wrong isn't what matters here. They feel left behind by their capitol. The result of that is letting the crazy man with the gun into their house.

Tell Me Again How They're All the Same, #AltLeft Activist...

I was in Chicago on the 10th of this month to watch President Obama's farewell. I'm in a unique group of people in America who can say I approve of him more now than I did in 2008. I've worked against Barack Obama several times. I worked for him a couple of times too. Today I can say with great confidence that he is one of the most extraordinary human beings with whom my life has even briefly overlapped. I can offer no greater compliment than to say I respect him.

Of course, not everyone who calls themselves a progressive, liberal, moderate, or Democrat shares my affinity for the 44th President of the United States. Maybe they've read too much Glenn Greenwald and the Intercept, maybe they've convinced themselves that the country is much further left than it is, or maybe they just need to be angry, but there is a left-wing that has re-written the Presidency of Barack Obama as some sort of progressive failure. Despite his pushing a historic health care law through that Presidents failed to pass for close to a century, they see his gaining health insurance for 21 million people as a failure. Despite record investments in alternative and green energy, as well as a multi-national agreement in Paris and a bilateral agreement with China to fight climate change, they blame him for the inability of Congress to pass greater legislation on the matter. Despite a historic nuclear agreement with Iran, normalizing relations with Cuba, and greatly winding down the eye-sore that is Guantanamo Bay, they call him a "warmonger" and other derogatory terms, because we are not completely out of the Middle East, and we used drones. Of course, the man who lead us back from the Great Depression and created a Consumer Protection Bureau is also an enemy to the Middle Class because he didn't oppose free trade, in all forms.

Well, now you have Donald Trump. You have his Muslim ban. You have his efforts to silence scientists at the Department of Agriculture, the EPA, the energy department, and across the government. You have his Education Secretary who wants to end public education. You have his plan to build a wall on our Southern border. You have his empowering of a "white nationalist" on his National Security Council, one who told the media to shut up this past week. You have a President who basically ran all the senior management career servants of the Department of State out of town. You have a man that is being condemned the world over for potentially causing both military and trade wars. You have a man at war on Twitter with the press, agents of the National Park Service, and SNL.

So, tell me again, how disappointed were you with President Obama?

It's Worse Than I Thought

I'm not sure I could have been a lot more negative than I was about Donald Trump during last year's election. I called him a white nationalist. I called him a man-child. I called him stupid. I called him a bigot, a racist, a sexist, and a lot of other negative things. The man offends my every sense. I don't consider him an impressive person, let alone Presidential stock. I was disgusted when he won. I'm not sure I could have gone any further without crossing lines I won't cross. Clearly, I didn't go far enough.

Donald Trump is now occupying our White House, and what he's doing with it is not okay. This weekend he embarrassed our nation before the world with his ban on Muslims. To say this is not who our nation has always been is an understatement. I wasn't sure he could find a way to go lower than he already had this week, but he did here. It wasn't enough to sign a ban on family planning funds for people around the world, while surrounded by a bunch of white men. It wasn't enough to ban the USDA and EPA from speaking publicly. It wasn't enough to lie about the size of his inauguration crowd. It wasn't enough to begin the process of killing health insurance for 20 million Americans. It wasn't enough to take down White House pages on Civil Rights and Climate Change. Not for this President. Hell, it wasn't enough to remove the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from full time membership on his National Security Council, while replacing them with his white nationalist chief political strategist. All of that is awful. It's awful, even in light of the fact that this man is violating the Emoluments Clause every moment he's in office. Even with all of that, his "Muslim Ban" is a new low for this country.

I'm particularly sensitive to how terrible this is because I haven't forgot who and where I came from. My great-grandmother Julia Kravchak was one of the final immigrants to come across the ocean from Europe and enter the country at Ellis Island before immigration was halted in 1924. She lived in this country as a non-citizen for 18 years before being naturalized, and raised her family in the new world until her 1992 death. America has a history of being tough on it's immigrants, regardless of race, but it's a history that I would have liked to think was in the past. It's clearly not. Nearly 63 million people voted for this bigot, a man who literally is picking and choosing which nations to ban based on a combination of their religious background and whether or not this clown-President does business in their nation. Customs and Border Patrol Agents were literally detaining people whom we gave "green cards" to, denying entry to people who we had granted asylum, citizenship, and permanent residency to, because of the executive order of a man that most of us did not vote for. This minority-elected President, a man who got less votes than his chief rival, has changed the very fabric of who our society is. All of this in the name of so-called "safety," while not banning citizens from the very nations where the 9/11 hijackers actually came from. It is a charade, an embarrassment, and an insult to our better senses.

I spoke to friends of mine around the world this weekend, friends who were quite disappointed. Whether they were in Iran, Japan, the United Kingdom, or Israel, all expressed shock that this is what America is doing now. I had no response for them. I won't condone the actions of my nation, nor will I explain them. We are run by the worst human being to ever occupy our White House, period.

I Guess I Thought Better of Easton

After 24 years of leading Easton's Football program, Steve Shiffert was not retained on Tuesday night at the school board meeting. He went 216-89-1 in 24 years. That's nine wins a year. That's less than four losses a year. In terms of coaching a high school program, that's amazing. He's missed the district playoffs once this century, and just five times in his nearly quarter century of coaching. If it were really about wins and losses, frankly, that's stupid.

Every parent in every town thinks their child is Matt Ryan or Tom Brady. In reality, they are most likely never going to start. Don't tell them that though. If only Shiffert would run a spread offense, and showcase their kid, then Easton would win state championships, and their kid would go to Alabama. Because the kids who left Easton for Bethlehem Catholic won championships and are NFL bound. Same for the kids at Notre Dame. Too many adults live in some fantasy world where Easton would beat St. Joe's Prep or LaSalle out of the Philadelphia Catholic League, recruited private school teams in the fifth largest media market in the country, if they just had a "more innovative" coach. They live in a fantasy world.

The truth of the matter is that change was coming to Easton, and there's actually some merit to that. It's not that a new coach would win state titles and send all the kids to Division I programs, but you do have to keep modern with the times. High school coaches don't hang around a quarter century anymore, and there's a decent argument that they shouldn't. It's not really the decision itself that is wrong here.

I thought of Easton, the place I grew up, as a tough, blue-collar town, where loyalty was the highest currency we had. I always knew we had some crazy parents who think their kids are much greater than they are, but we always handled them, and eventually they came off their clouds. I figured someone who gave a quarter century of their life to our community got exhaustive opportunities to go out on better terms. I thought wrong. Easton's not a bad place for not being loyal to a football coach. It's just not exactly the place I believed it was, for better or for worse.

The Senate Democrats are Making Mistakes

Elizabeth Warren voted for Ben Carson. Bernie Sanders has backed two of Trump's cabinet picks. Senator Gillibrand became the last Democrat to succumb and vote for one of his nominees, when she backed Nikki Haley to go to the UN. Tim Kaine voted for at least one. Indeed, all 48 Democratic and independent Senators have supported at least one Trump nominee.

They're doing this all wrong.

In their zest to "not be like them," Senate Democrats are adhering to a pointless brand of moderate politics that has no value- Donald Trump is seeking to hurt lots of people, and they aren't obstructing him because they think they can't do it "all the time." This political miscalculation, just days after millions of Americans took to the streets against this regime, is stunning. Self-described progressive champions are suddenly in a hurry to "seek common ground" with a man who is literally seeking to build walls around our nation and ban Muslim refugees. I can't fathom what makes them think agreement on any specific issue makes them think it's worth it.

I guess I'm beginning to fear that the mistake was in our leadership. I have no doubt that Chuck Schumer is one of the smartest members in the U.S. Senate. He's been a valuable part of the leadership team under Harry Reid for years, but his time as Minority Leader is not off to a fast start. Not one of Trump's cabinet members, even ethically challenged ones like Tom Price, or unqualified ones like Haley or Carson, were voted down so far. Democrats have broken away from the party on every vote, and actually given some level of consent to a madman in the White House. This is what Senator Schumer's job is- not to make sure that both Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin have places in his leadership, or to negotiate legislation in a government we lead zero percent of. Senator Schumer is there to lead an opposition government, to create a clear contrast, and to, where possible, stop the GOP from approving the destructive behavior of the man-child in the White House.

So far, the mistakes are plentiful.

Simply the Best

On February 5th, Tom Brady will quarterback the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. That's kind of not a big deal. That's not because it actually isn't, but because it's his 7th time doing so. He's won four Super Bowls, seven AFC titles, and been in 11 AFC title games. Those numbers are freakish. Those numbers have no peer.

Matt Ryan had and MVP-worthy season and might be the best QB in the league- this season. Tom Brady is on a whole other level. His peers are few and far between, with only really LeBron James even being a fair comparison in current American sports. What Brady has done speaks volumes for itself.

Of course, this Super Bowl won't happen without the common drama that surrounds Brady. We'll hear about NFL goon, Roger Goodell, who suspended Brady for deflated footballs. We'll hear about Brady saying some nice things about Donald Trump. We'll hear about Brady winning early Super Bowls amidst "Spygate." We'll hear every stupid reason why we should hate Tom Brady.

I'm just going to enjoy this.

... And So We Marched...

Friday was a dreary day. Yes, it rained, but that's not why it was dreary, obviously. With Donald Trump becoming President, it wasn't just that everything President Obama did would be rolled back, it was that an unqualified, incapable, man-child became our President. A man who spoke cheerily of torturing people, sexual assault, deporting millions, arming the masses, and taking health care from the poor was rising to lead our nation. I'd offer that in my mind, we just inaugurated the worst human being to ever occupy the Presidency, and what makes it worse is that most of us didn't vote for him and didn't want him.

But, it happened anyway. Rather than sit down and quietly watch as he takes us down a road that the nation did not truly choose, millions of people decided to rise up. Now, I am no expert on estimating crowds, but by many measures, Saturday's women's marches nationally are the largest wide-spread demonstration or protest in American History. By many measures, including metro ridership and crowd-size estimates, the crowd in Washington, DC was larger than the inaugural crowd the day before. In New York they shut down blocks. In Chicago, the crowd was too large to march. Over 50,000 gathered in Philadelphia, and 25,000 more in Pittsburgh. Madison, Wisconsin had over 85,000. The display of power was remarkable. People chanted, they held signs, they made new connections to like-minded people, they gave speeches, and they made plans for moving forward.

Not all of us went to the "big" marches though. I went to Bethlehem, to Payrow Plaza at City Hall. Some estimated a thousand of us were there. Some said 800. Some said 500. I don't know, though if I had to guess, I'd say 800. It really doesn't matter though. It was the largest congregation of progressive minded people I have ever seen in the Lehigh Valley that didn't gather to support a candidate for President. See for yourself:

Apparently, the voices were heard loud and clear- at the White House. Apparently the President sent his Press Secretary out to lie about inauguration attendance because he was so upset about the coverage of his rather small crowd size, compared to the marches.

It's important to realize that a march is not a victory. Over the next six months or so, Donald Trump will sign many new laws that are going to be very depressing. The commitment of the marchers will be tested by the negativity they will face in the weeks and months to come. A Republican President and Republican Congress will govern as Republicans, and for many of the marchers, they will wonder if their efforts are worth it, as their voices are ignored.

But, it's a start.

Trump America, Part 2- Obama, Economics, and Statistics

Sometimes you can be right, but not be right. You can be factually correct, but no one believes you. You can tell people how something has improved, but if it hasn't where they are, and they know no one seeing the benefits, they deny it's true. We just lived through that. President Obama's Administration is statistically one of the best we've ever seen. He brought us back from the brink of economic collapse, and leaves his successor with a booming job market, shrinking deficit, growing green energy economy, and falling uninsured rate. Markets boomed. Industries were saved. We prospered.

Of course, that's not true in every community in America. Also of course, that's not President Obama's fault. Decades ago, America stopped fighting the push for a global market, one that consolidates good-paying, high-skilled labor into "clusters," which of course end up being the big cities. As America has recovered over the past eight years since the market crash, much of the benefits have gone towards America's wealthiest urban areas- New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, Dallas, Boston, and others- and not much has gone to rural regions who continue to decline. People in rural Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio legitimately complain that they aren't feeling the benefits. They aren't. That's not because they are right and they don't exist though.

President Obama's America is real, and it's doing very well. It's a nation with a rising stock market and falling unemployment, with rising renewable energies and falling deficits. It's a place where 20 million people are getting health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. It's a place where the economic recovery sees building, innovation, and progress, where social progress is moving at an unprecedented rate. More and more students are going to college, and the question is really mostly one of how to make that more affordable. President Obama's America is progressing towards better days ahead.

This is where Donald Trump's America differentiates. In his America, the overwhelming majority of the land mass of America, but a minority of the people, things are not getting better. Heroin addiction is up, but the coal mine is gone. The factory in town is still abandoned, and the rust is overtaking it. The school system is failing. The bills keep going up, but the paychecks don't get bigger. While this sounds like a very rural description, it's important you realize that a lot of this is suburban even. Sometimes you can see the down towns of major cities, but even there the conditions are feeling hopeless.

No statistic makes Northwest Ohio feel like the benefits of recovery are their's, or the same in suburban Detroit, or in Northwest Wisconsin. No statistic makes Johnstown, PA feel like they aren't forgotten. Of course you govern by statistics, and the reality of the economy you have. To not do so would be stupid. It also seems ridiculous when you tell people not reaping the benefits that they are actually in a good situation. They won't and can't believe you.

Hence, Make America Great Again. Trump promised the return of the mines, the factories, and the jobs of the past, or basically the glory day. He promised that he understood that the economy was bad, not like those "out of touch elites" in the big cities. He promised to attend to their needs, and their problems, and stop attending to those other folks, like President Obama was. It was a pure reaction, and one that is incredibly divisive. It is a movement of resources towards a minority of the public that isn't doing well, while more are doing well. That causes deep divisions that go well beyond even the personality of Trump.

It's important to understand the Trump era as a "Two Americas" tale, one where those not benefiting from the nation's prosperity have essentially ripped power from the hands of those who have prospered. Politics has become a hunger-games style battle for resources, and the advantage has shifted. That has consequences that we are all just now understanding.

Trump America, Part 1- The Media and Polarization

On Saturday I was watching Sean Spicer literally berate the media in his first press conference as Press Secretary, and the only thing I kept asking myself is "how the hell did this happen?" How did we reach a point where a White House Press Secretary thought this was acceptable? How did we reach a point where there are millions of people siding with him as he does this? The man was literally lying about the size of an inauguration crowd, something the National Park Service estimates, to a press corps that actually sat there and let him continue to talk. How?

This is an interesting question on two fronts- Donald Trump and the media. How did we get to Donald Trump's brand of politics winning a national election? How did we get to a point where this passes as media coverage? The story is quite complicated, so let me break it apart for you.

Consolidation and Expansion in Media Since the Civil War
In early America, politicians had to deal with a "gatekeeper" media. We didn't have television or the internet, or even radio for a time, so the only way to get news to the public was print media. It was also the only outlet to speak to the public through if you wanted to get out your message. The access that newsmakers needed was through the media, and not the other way around.

Of course the mediums of media have grown dramatically. Radio came along, and then television. Magazines and weeklies challenged newspapers. The internet came along and cut out a ton of overhead costs. News cycles shortened to the point where 24 hour news stations cover politics non-stop, and give lots and lots of options for a politician to choose from in their search for the right outlet to tell their story. The advantage shifted.

Access Driven Journalism
At one time, objectivity was the most important ethos in journalism. Now, to be clear, reporters were supposed to be fair and open minded in their reporting, but they could call bullshit actual bullshit. If a politician lied or said something demonstrably false, reporters called them on it. Now, both sides adhered to certain norms and fairness- FDR's health issues were left out of the press, as were JFK's infidelity issues, even though the press was tough on both for policy and political moves- but everyone respected that journalists could do their jobs.

Beginning with Richard Nixon, it became fashionable to attack the press at the core of their credibility. Now, to be fair, it was always done, but it was not always cast as a conspiracy to take down Presidents and political parties. Over the course of the 20th century, press access gradually degraded anyway, and suddenly reporters were the ones seeking the access- because there were more and more mediums by which to report news. Access became a competition, and that competition changed the way the media reported news entirely. The era of objectivity ended, because being objective meant sometimes being negative, and being transparently negative meant the possibility of losing some access. Given that media is a business, like anything else, losing access wasn't acceptable.

"Balance" Driven Media and the Death of Facts
If calling politicians out for their ridiculous statements wasn't the domain of reporters anymore (to be fair, columnists still do, but more on them in a minute), that fundamentally changed journalism. Reporters increasingly sought "balance." By "balance," I mean they essentially allowed both sides of a debate to be presented on equal footing in coverage, so as to not cause a rift with one side. This would be fine, but once politicians figured out that the press would print what they said in order to keep access, they realized they could say any damn thing. We saw this in the run up to Iraq. We see this in debates about policies every day, from Paul Ryan's budget not ever balancing (and no one questioning it), to Donald Trump continuing to claim Mexico would pay for his border fence throughout the campaign. If the press is going to give you a platform to make your case, whatever it may be, the incentive to be honest begins to die.

This is not to say that media hasn't tried to fact-check politicians. They've tried hard, actually. They've created countless fact-check sites and columns to report when elected officials lie to us. They have columnists and editorial board writings that constantly call out the most ridiculous of claims. The problem with these mediums being used to fact-check, instead of the actual news columns, is that the public who is consuming this news views it as opinion. Voters are correctly onto the fact that opinions are just that, and if they perceive fact checking politicians as news, it opens up the perception that facts are in fact, opinions.

The Rise of Opinion Driven Media
Just as fact-checking is being moved to the pages generally reserved for opinion columnists, opinion driven media rose up from the ashes of a dying media. On the conservative side, Fox News and AM talk radio provided a place to indoctrinate Republicans against the Democrats. On the Democratic side, a host of liberal magazines, from Slate and Salon to the netroots bloggers like Kos, and MSNBC on television, arose to tell Democrats what they wanted to hear. Again, if facts are opinions, then why can't I hear the facts I want to hear?

All of this produces a set of conditions that no one really saw coming a few decades ago. Politicians facing mainstream news sources are getting a pass on the news pages, ripped by "opinion" page writers for their lies, and then supported by a compliant "alternative" opinion media that suits their side of the argument. Now, to be fair, this phenomenon is much worse on the right than the left, though it's happening on both, but to be just as fair, that makes sense in the "anti-government" party.

Along Comes Donald Trump to Eradicate All Remaining Norms
Donald Trump is not normal, but he is the natural conclusion to this entire vicious cycle. If news reporters from the traditional, "mainstream" press are going to allow politicians to say any damn thing they want, and push the criticisms to the opinion columns, and our political parties are going to build sophisticated PR shops that pose as "media" to help further those narratives against the critics, then you are going to end up with a guy who literally says any damn thing he wants, thumbs his nose at the fact checkers, and simply takes his message directly to the public while demonizing the press.

Donald Trump has changed all the rules. Just a few obvious things that are now changed forever:

1. Candidates can take their message straight to the public, if they can build the social media following that he had.
2. Fact-checking organizations are dead.
3. "Balanced" reporting won't work any more, since we're now arguing over crowd sizes at inaugurations and the validity of CIA reports on Russian hacking.
4. Opinion columnists aren't reaching the median voters the way social media is, they are a mechanism of the educated, elite coasts.
5. Attacking the messenger essentially ends the discussion of the merits of the debate.

We're literally no longer all consuming the same basic facts, and when Kellyanne Conway tells Meet the Press that the White House Press Secretary is using "Alternative Facts," while that sounds ridiculous to us, it's literally not. It should be, but in the divided America that we are in, what she's saying actually has some ridiculous merit. Don't get me wrong, she's lying and so is he, but lying to the press is now a legitimate political act, because the conditions we've created say so. As more and more small town newspapers close, and the journalism industry continues to die it's slow death, our political news is increasingly entertainment, and decreasingly a conduit from the public to the truth and facts of our world. It is worth noting that there is absolutely no chance Trump fixes this, given his perfecting this broken system, but it's also worth noting that he's not the person who put us here. He's just the logical end point of a long march towards journalistic hell.

And So It Happened....

Donald Trump is the President of the United States. That's just disgusting to say. It doesn't even seem real. President Barack Obama, who was ushering in a new era in America, is gone. A relic to 1980's bad behavior is now the President. It's just dirty.

Dirty or not, it happened. It's not the only thing that happened this weekend though. Trump's Press Secretary, the over-matched Sean Spicer, used his first White House briefing to attack media reports that less than one-million people attended the inauguration, slam the press for reporting the obvious tensions between Trump and the intelligence community, and he didn't take any questions. It was possibly the worst start for a Press Secretary that I've ever seen.

How does Spicer's claims check out? Not well. He tried to blame the Secret Service for using magnetometers, which the Secret Service notes it didn't, as a reason that people didn't reach the Mall for the speech. He claimed 1.5 million people attended an event that the National Park Service claimed 900,000, roughly, attended. He called the media liars while he stood at the podium and blatantly lied about the picture above and below this paragraph.

The thing is, this isn't limited either. In the opening minutes of the Trump Administration, the Interior Department was banned from tweeting because they showed the side-by-side photos of President Obama's 2009 Inaugural and this 2017 Inaugural for Trump (which, by the way, was an inappropriate but true tweet for a government account). Then of course, there was Kellyanne Conway's clunker of a "Meet the Press" appearance on Sunday, which included the "revelation" that Donald Trump will never reveal his tax returns now that he is in office (because "nobody cares") and that Sean Spicer was not lying to the press on Saturday, he simply presented "alternative facts," which is a unique and creative way of saying he actually did lie. The days of telling the truth are over for this crew, if they ever existed to begin with.

No, that's not all. Trump was active out the gate. He signed an executive order that told federal agencies to "minimize" financial harm from the Affordable Care Act- a very vague and unclear order, but my guess is it will be used to end the IRS penalty for not buying care. His HUD ended a program to reduce insurance premiums on mortgages. Oh, and he had a rally at the CIA, in front of the wall honoring fallen agents, you know, just to let us know he won.

No, that's not all. After an inauguration speech that referred to ending "this American Carnage," at a time of relative progress for the country, Trump is now on the attack against Congressional Democrats. He is complaining that Senate Democrats are holding up the confirmation process of his nominees for the cabinet- this after the GOP-lead Senate ignored President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court for over 300 days. Quite obviously, the pot calling the kettle black is the new norm.

There are some things that happened though that weren't that bad. Secretaries Mattis and Kelly, at Defense and Homeland Security, were confirmed and sworn into office, and both *seem* to be very competent, decent people, from what we can tell. Trump did speak graciously about both President and Secretary Clinton at the inaugural luncheon on Friday. Trump even sent out a gracious tweet about the right to protest, in regards to the Women's March.

Those good things don't overshadow the bad though. We have a President who's angry about small crowd sizes for his inauguration. We have a Press Secretary flat out lying. We have a Counselor to the President re-naming lying as "alternative facts." Oh....

And Trump blew James Comey a kiss tonight. For real.

The Makeover Democrats Need is Not the Makeover We're Debating

Yesterday was the first candidate forum among the candidates to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. While I plan to go to the one in Baltimore, believe it or not, i'm not overly focused on the race. The chair will pay homage to the village wisdom (known as DC-speak), regardless of who wins the race, and the DC narrative is already set in stone- Democrats need a makeover. Ultimately, we're going to get one, one way or the other, no matter who wins. What kind of makeover we get is going to be very important to how well it works though.

The Berniecrats of the party are making a lot of noise about the kind of party they want, and they are aiming their guns at Cory Booker and others for taking campaign donations. Their basic argument is that they are the inevitable future of the party, a more "progressive," class-driven party that demands purity not unlike the Tea Party on the right. Of course, what they miss is that "white liberal progressivism" is not the growing portion of the party's votes, the party is increasingly a party of non-white, identity driven activists. They aren't identity driven because they "don't get" that class is the real issue, they're identity driven because they literally have to be- whether it's an unfair criminal justice system, LGBTQ people facing workplace discrimination, or Latinos who have an uncle or mother who will be deported by the Trump Administration. You can't tell the growing portion of your party to "quiet down" on their issues, because you think it's more convenient to talk about the 1%. Politics doesn't work that way. Of course, "identity politics" driven people also have to realize that we don't have a nearly large enough non-white base to win national or Congressional elections without white, suburban votes, and if we don't win some elections, we aren't going to make any progress as a country. Which gets to my real point.

The real issue, the real makeover for the Democratic Party is staring us straight in the face, if we actually look at Hillary's electoral map- geography. She barely won a county without a significant sized city in it anywhere in the country, and we barely hold any Congressional districts that aren't urban based. We have to start winning suburbs. Suburbanites aren't a bunch of raging hillbilly racists, but the identity driven issues that face our less white, urban base simply don't really apply to them. Let's be honest- in Bucks County, PA, Black Lives Matter, immigration reform, marriage equality, bashing the 1%, and "Love Trumps Hate" might all be things that they can agree with, but almost none of them are all that relevant in their lives. These are educated people, they support diversity on a surface level, but they don't really care about these issues on a day-to-day level. They care about schools, wages, water and air quality, infrastructure, taxes, and jobs. Democrats have a lot to offer these people on these issues, but they aren't really trying to- because we're speaking to our base.

You see, we took all the wrong lessons from President Obama's two wins at a staff level. We behaved like activists, and not like operatives, and we internalized the themes we wanted to internalize. In both elections, President Obama beat his opponents down on bread and butter issues, and made himself the person who could fix problems for "people like me." He did this with minority voters, obviously, and he turned out record numbers of these voters as a result. He also did it with white voters, and if you look at his map next to Hillary's, it's much bluer. The lesson we wanted to learn was that the emerging American electorate was rising, and would carry us to victories for decades. In reality, that is not at all the whole story.

My general belief, looking back at the 2016 election, is that we had a bit of a candidate problem, but she did win almost three-million more votes than the new President, but we really had a party branding problem. Our messaging, our marketing was poor. No well run business tries to sell a product to consumers that the consumers in a given market don't want- but we did that anyway. We have to be nimble enough to sell the issues that matter to the communities that matter- where they are. This requires different strategies in different states, and even in different parts of states. Our messaging has to be more adaptive to the public we have.

So, I don't care much who the chair is. I have opinions of course, but they aren't critical. I do care who the staff is. I do care what kind of people are guiding the new chair, and doing the work on the ground. I do want people who think about rural organizing differently than urban organizing, and who can speak the language. The staff will be crucial to not running a "cookie-cutter" party. They will be the one's guiding the ship, every day. We have to put forward a different image of the party, one that is relevant in every community, and cares about every community. The makeover we need is not the one we're debating. That's just a bunch of activists re-hashing the primary.

That Time I Finally Fell for the District...

I acquire tastes, things don't steamroll me. I wasn't a fan of Bill Clinton in 1992. I wasn't a fan of Barack Obama in 2008 (but I voted for him). I hated New York City growing up, until I got to college. I wasn't the biggest basketball fan until Allen Iverson. For me, things have to develop. I don't start out positively on everything I end up liking. It takes time.

Since the election, I've split my time between home and Washington, DC mostly. Some of this was for work purposes, some for pleasure, all of it is kind of surprising. For those that knew me a while now, you know how much I've typically hated DC. I have a real distaste for the elitism, the smugness, the lack of connection to the rest of the country. None of that has changed. What has changed is my liking for many of the other things about DC. The monuments. The metro. The food. Even some of the people- particularly the ones not in my industry, of course. Even when there is nothing to do, a simple walk down the National Mall has amused me, and given me a chance to clear my head and think. "Liking" a place for me has always been about comfort in a place, and admittedly, DC hasn't always provided that. Suddenly in these last two months, on the verge of DC turning into Trump's DC, I feel at peace here, at least for this short time. I feel like my career is here now, and that no longer bothers me. I'm not going away anymore.

I left town today, bound to return home to Pennsylvania. I can't bare being here while the Trumpkins diverge on our capitol to celebrate their hero next Friday. My disdain for them is just too strong yet. I won't be gone long though, as I've finally come around to liking Washington.

2020 Begins- Bernie Sanders, Shrewd Politician

I am not a Bernie-ite, but I give the man some credit- he's a shrewd politician. His message against Hillary Clinton, while it didn't win him the nomination this time, it mortally wounded her politically, it was effective. While the Clinton folks refused to really go after Bernie (c'mon- hitting him on gun control was actually the weakest stuff they could use), Bernie repeatedly landed body blows in that race. The guy was effective- even if I don't like him for it.

If you had any doubts that Bernie Sanders wants to control the 2020 narrative- either to run himself again, or pick who is the ultimate Democratic nominee- you can check those at the door now. With this week's prescription drug re-importation legislation that Bernie put together with another potential 2020 candidate, Amy Klobuchar, you have now seen Bernie's cards. You see, Hillary-supporter and New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker was having a really good week. Senator Booker was grabbing headlines for his push against Jeff Sessions' Attorney General bid, establishing himself as a leading voice in the fight against the Trump Administration. Sanders is smart, he saw that. Like a well-timed, random event, along came his pharmaceutical bill.

The background here- Sanders and Klobuchar's bill is right on it's intentions. We should re-import drugs from Canada that are made by American manufacturers, because it lowers the price of medication. The bill, like most bills did have some flaws though, the most common of which being cited is safety protections. Could it have been fixed a bit? Sure. The thing is, there's another version of this bill, from Senator Ron Wyden, that is very nearly identical, but a little better on the concern areas some Senators have. Almost everybody in the party supports that bill. Most support both bills. Senator Sanders knew something though- Senator Booker could not vote for his bill- and when he didn't vote for his bill, Bernie could attack him later as a shill for the pharmaceutical industry.

You see, Cory Booker represents New Jersey. In New Jersey, pharmaceutical companies are plentiful. Yes, Cory Booker has taken money from pharma's political PACs. Everyone in New Jersey has. You see though, there are also tens of thousands of people in New Jersey who work in pharmaceutical jobs. In fact, most of them are Democrats, or at least have voted for Senator Booker before. Take one ride through the Princeton area- all along route 1, you will see pharma laboratories and headquarters. Senator Booker wins that area, and big. He represents those people. Does that mean he can't vote for re-importation? No, not at all. It means if he's going to take a vote that diminishes that industry though, the legislation better be pretty damn close to perfect. In most cases, Senator Booker is going to vote pro-pharma, because he represents them- this is what Congressional members have done as long as there has been a Congress, or at least the ones who want to get things done.

Bernie Sanders hasn't really had that problem very often. When he voted for the gun industry on giving the manufacturers immunity from lawsuits, Bernie was voting Vermont over his ideology, which is pretty similar to what Booker did here. For the most part though, Sanders represents one of the most liberal states in the union, and is free to move as far out as he wants. It's freed him up to be an anti-corporate crusader, and to rail against big industries from other states. Expect him to use that to his advantage in the next four years, as he has in the past. Remember, Senator Booker is a top potential rival to Sanders, and he represents New Jersey- a state with lots of Wall Street ties, lots of pharmaceutical ties, and big-city, machine politics. Sanders is going to try and use that to his advantage.

Now, the kicker- this piece of legislation was nothing but a sideshow from Sanders, something meant to give him a talking point against potential Democratic rivals, because this legislation has no chance of ever reaching the Presidents desk, either President Obama or President Trump. There is something called the United States House, which is far more conservative and Republican than the Senate, and they will never even consider a bill to lower pharmaceutical prices, at least not unless they are sure it will fail. This was all a big charade meant to embarrass a 2020 contender who did not support Bernie Sanders in his quixotic bid for President in 2016.

Welcome to the new norm, folks.

The End of Days

I've been in DC for almost a week now, and it is positively one of the weirdest places I have ever been right now. Congress is back in session, giving the town some "normalcy." Yet, there is nothing normal, as the Trump people move in, and the Obama people move out. They have the chairs set for the inauguration at the capitol, and White House Twitter accounts are starting to be "archived." One group of people is having "goodbye happy hours" and being sad, and the other is arriving to take over the place.

Washington is a really, really liberal place. This city hates Donald Trump. For the most part, even the traditional allies in NOVA that make their money on defense contracts despise this man. The mood over this city has been according to those feelings. People are concerned about the amount of damage he'll do, decrying the people coming here for the inauguration, and just generally moping. There's a lot of turnover in this city, and it's not a nice thing right now.

If I had to choose between this city feeling excited for a beginning and feeling like it's an ending, this is definitely an ending. No one has a clue what the mad man our heartland has inflicted on us will do. No one is comfortable with the future. This is not George W. Bush coming to town in 2001, or Barack Obama in 2009. This is a scary time. We are about to be ruled by an idiot.

The Hero We Never Deserved

And just like that, it's over. President Barack Obama is on his way to the history books now. His farewell address is over, and his Presidency will be over at the end of next week, replaced by one of the least popular President-elect's ever. President Obama will move out to a quiet Northwest DC home for another year or two, then move on in life to whatever is next.

I was in McCormick Convention Center in Chicago last night, and it was one of the more emotional political events I've been at. The good-will towards the President, First Lady, and Vice-President were very apparent. The President's speech was as amazing as I expected. The crowd was very into it. The President made a passionate argument for his Presidency and decisions, and that room agreed with him. Even so, I felt sad at the end. We can argue the President's legacy all day, and I think it's mostly a good one, but we cannot argue about the character of the man.

I've worked against President Obama several times. I've worked for him a couple too. As he leaves office, I can only pay him the highest compliment I have- I respect and admire him as a person. Amidst negativity and polarization never seen before, against a party that set new standards for obstruction, and facing the weight of being the first African-American President, Barack Obama and his family stood firm with grace. He rarely showed frustration, almost never showed true animus, and held himself to a higher standard. He is one of the most incredibly gifted politicians I've seen in my life (right next to Bill and Ron), but an even better person. The Obama family never once embarrassed us, never once gave in to the allure of scandal, and never once behaved as a family under siege- which they were at all points.

Our politics are nasty and ugly, but the Obamas were not. Our population is cynical and conspiratorial, and the Obamas were not. Our media treated his opponents' behavior as somehow normal, yet the Obamas never complained. They maintained. They endured. In the long run, they won.

I'm going to miss the Obamas as a family, particularly as the new circus comes to town. They were everything the nation around them wasn't, at a time when it was tough to be so. The Obama family were the heroes we didn't deserve these last eight years- but they were the heroes we had.

A Man-Child Who Was Handed Everything in Life, Rises to Power

The picture above is Donald Trump's driver's license. Donald Trump likes to say he is 6'3", which is pretty tall. In fact, his official driver's license says he is 6'2", which is really not at all significantly shorter, but apparently it really bothers him. A man who is bothered by an inch on his height is ten days from becoming the President of the United States.

Welcome to the bizarre world our country is entering. Nearly 63 million people voted to give the nuclear codes to a man who goes on Twitter each morning and basically trash talks his target of the day. Yesterday it was Meryl Streep, many times an award winning actress, who Donald Trump called "overrated" because she dared attack him in her Golden Globes award speech. It has been Saturday Night Live in the recent past, for doing the same comedy they've done about every recent Presidential nominee (let alone winner). He made fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger for lower ratings than he had on "The Apprentice." He used Twitter to attack "his enemies" in his Happy New Year tweet. This is nothing short of an out-of-control man-child being let loose on Twitter. Again, 63 million people voted for this.

All of this is, of course, a distraction from much more serious things that Donald Trump doesn't really want to discuss. He has fired all Ambassadors and Special Envoys as of the 20th at noon, an extraordinary and unusual step for White Houses to take. He has sent a bunch of cabinet appointments up to the Senate that have incomplete background checks, haven't answered Senate questions, and haven't undergone ethics reviews. He is hiring his son-in-law as a senior adviser, a clear violation of at least the spirit of anti-nepotism laws, even though there appears to be nothing anyone can do about it. His major campaign promise, building a wall on the Mexican border and making Mexico pay for it, is still alive, but now he's asking the public to pay for it. He continues to deny the findings of the U.S. Intelligence Community that Vladimir Putin and Russia were responsible for hacks at the DNC that helped Trump during the election, and appears poised to give Putin what he wants- control of Crimea and Syria, and an ending to sanctions on him and his government. Oh, and he is ready to sign a repeal to the Affordable Care Act, and possibly Medicare, which would take away the health care of at least 20 million people. I guess with that kind of an agenda, I would want to talk about the Terminator and Meryl Streep too.

Donald Trump is fooling some ignorant working-class folks with talk about stopping Toyota from building a plant in Mexico (I'm not even sure why he feels he's relevant to that conversation), when in reality he couldn't be more out of touch from those working-class folks. Donald Trump, like many inheritors of large fortunes, is a man-child. He was handed his success, and really coasted on that. He's bankrupt casinos for God's sake, let alone stakes, colleges, and everything else. He likes to talk about the "small one million dollar lone" his father gave him to start his business, which of course was really a lot more, and of course isn't a "small" loan anyway. Trump was handed everything he made, and frankly wasn't even that good at that.

In keeping with the spirit of the privileged and born wealthy crowd, Trump is a petulant man-child. If you don't put your lips on his rear-end, he takes to Twitter to attack you and gain the adoring praise of his fan base. He is, at his core, an inadequate rich man, one who could market his way to the Presidency (a talent that must be acknowledged), but knows inside he is over-matched in his new role. We are handing this silver-spoon born man the Presidency. I'd be terrified if I were you.

Judging President Obama

Tomorrow I'm getting on an airplane in Washington, DC and flying to Chicago to see President Obama's farewell address. As an OFA alum, i'm sad to see him go, and as a Democrat I'm sad to see him go, but more than anything, I'm sad to see him go as an American. President Obama has been an excellent leader, inspired millions, and never embarrassed us as a country with the taint of scandal or war. Compared to what is coming into office, I'll miss him.

Still, there are legitimate questions on whether or not the Obama era was good for the Democratic Party. Democrats end the President's term exiting the White House, down 12 Senate seats from their 2009 high, down some 70 seats in the U.S. House, having lost over 900 state legislative seats, and down to just over a dozen governors. States like Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan, states the President won twice, have Republican governors. State legislative chambers in Washington, Delaware, and Virginia, all twice going to the President, are teetering on the results of special elections in the coming weeks that will decide their majorities. Hillary Clinton carried a record low number of counties, and lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, becoming the first Democrat to lose any of those since 1988. The famous pollsters Stanley and Anna Greenberg sum it up nicely:

His legacy regrettably includes the more than 1,000 Democrats who lost their elections during his two terms. Republicans now have total control in half of America’s states.

I pin a large chunk of this on the operative class from the Obama-era. We took all the wrong lessons away from his electoral victories in both 2008 and 2012. The idea that demographics were destiny, that we only needed to talk to our base, that we won solely because of "big data" and great modeling of the electorate, and that we mostly won on the "emerging electorate," and not because of the collapsing economy in 2008, and beating Mitt Romney into the dirt with white working class voters in 2012. While I mostly blame the operatives, the President does have to share some of that blame.

Of course, politics are not how I or anyone else should judge President Obama alone. His record is extensive eight years later. 75 straight months of job growth after taking over an economy bleeding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. The Iraq War is over. The Affordable Care Act is law. Relations are normalized with Cuba. The Paris Climate Change agreement. The Dodd-Frank stopped some of Wall Street's worst abuses. The Iran Agreement has stopped them from pursuing a nuclear bomb. The bi-lateral climate change agreement with China. Osama Bin Laden is dead. The Stimulus Bill created consistent growth in the economy and job markets. The American car makers in Detroit not only survived, they are thriving. Two Supreme Court Judges. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is law. Wages are finally back on the rise. Marriage Equality is the law of the land, while "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is dead. A record number of pardons and commutations for non-violent drug offenders. This is just a small part of the President's numerous achievements in office. He leaves office with a growing economy, and a nation that is more secure than eight years ago.

You can't judge the President without both of these arguments being present. He is turning the country over to Donald Trump and unified Republican control of most of the American government. He also did a lot of amazing stuff along the way that made American life better. It's also worth noting the obvious, President Obama broke a major barrier in America- being the first non-white guy President. Donald Trump will undo a lot of his legacy, but President Obama will leave a long, long shadow over the capitol after him. He is as complicated to judge as any President before him, and is probably more likable than almost all of them.

Not a Single Nominee Should Be Confirmed

Republicans on Twitter are up in arms that Democrats might slow-walk Senate confirmation for Donald Trump's cabinet. In normal times, I actually might agree with them. Presidents should usually get the cabinet members they pick, unless there is a major problem with those cabinet picks. This is even true for Donald Trump's cabinet picks, who mostly should be approved, short of a major problem with them that makes it impossible to see them fairly or legally carrying out their job. Elections must have consequences.

Of course, you have to be able to know if a nominee is actually qualified and capable, which is not something Senators can currently know. FBI background checks, ethics paperwork, and other critical information on these nominees has not been made available yet, information that Senators have to see on nominees like Rex Tillerson and Steven Mnuchin who have major questions. Still other nominees, like Jeff Sessions, are having major questions raised in the process of looking into their past. This group can't be viewed as much more than an overall disaster, a group of people who would never have been picked by even previous Republican Presidents.

In the end, I'd like to see them confirmed, because again, I think elections have to have consequences. I don't think you can have election results where the effects are not felt on the public, because you won't allow the new President to have a cabinet. In order for Donald Trump to have a cabinet though, he still must adhere to some basic norms, like submitting candidates for his administration to vetting. This isn't optional, and if he fails to do so, Democrats should have 48 "no" votes against every one of his picks.

The Worst of the Alt-Left

If there is one lesson that I learned from 2016 it's this- just because someone else is a self-described liberal or progressive does not make them an ally to one as a liberal or progressive. We learned this in the primary, when the seemingly fine Shaun King fed into the "Bernie or Bust" movement after the New York Primary, when Bernie had no mathematical pathway to the nomination- he behaved no different than the clearly insane H.A. Goodman during that time. Sure, on a lot of policy questions, I agree with Shaun King, in fact I agree with him on almost all policy points that he writes about. It's very clear though that King, Goodman, and others who fed into their cult-movement to discredit Clinton aren't motivated by winning elections and actually governing to make the lives better of the people they claim to represent. This is all about their agenda of destruction of people within the left-wing coalition of America who don't see the world exactly how they do.

These folks are not alone, nor are any of the folks I just named the worst. In fact, they pale next to the worst offenders. Take Glenn Greenwald, and most of those in his "Intercept" crowd, a left-wing conspiratorial news outlet. He has road the coattails of Edward Snowden, a former NSA hack turned traitor, who ran off to Russia with thousands of e-mails about a program we already knew existed, and then acted like he had a story. Greenwald is willing to defend anyone who worked with or defended Snowden from the U.S. Government, because Snowden fit Greenwald's world-view of a big, evil national security state that is spying on random Americans and breaking laws, just because they can. Greenwald defends Julian Assange, at a minimum a criminal hacker that founded Wikileaks, possibly a rapist (though to be fair, he hasn't had a trial yet, but that's because he's hiding in an embassy in the UK), and certainly works with the Russian state-sponsored hackers to smear the enemies of Vladimir Putin. Now Greenwald is giving cover to the Trump Administration on his Twitter, basically echoing his questioning of the entire U.S. Intelligence community's conclusion that Vladimir Putin and Russia were behind a coordinated hacking effort aimed at defeating Hillary Clinton in the election. Greenwald tweets such nonsense as:

Even the Intel Community's friends are complaining about what an evidence-free bad joke yesterday's report was https://t.co/66ohBhn22R pic.twitter.com/aBJhfV1ZDu

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 7, 2017

If your standard is that the intelligence community should release their classified info to satisfy your need for "proof," then we should never believe them. Greenwald, like Trump, returns to Bush-era intelligence failures in making his case that we should, in fact, not believe them- ever. This is, of course, because Putin has protected and worked with some of Greenwald's biggest cash-cows, namely Snowden and the federal prisoner, Chelsea Manning. Both of these people violated their oath to the nation and gave our secrets to enemies, like Russia, and that's just fine with Greenwald because in his mind the American national security complex is the scariest, worst thing in the world. Basically the enemy of his enemy is his friend.

Greenwald is simply a minor annoyance, who's place in history was providing Donald Trump left-wing cover for denying findings of fact by his own government that he will soon lead. That is small-potatoes next to Tulsi Gabbard, a very sharp and capable Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii. Gabbard has a shot to be a very big deal someday, she's bright, handles the media well, and stays on message. Unfortunately, part of her message is that we should basically concede Syria to Putin and the Assad regime, and not back any rebel groups fighting them, because their may be bad people in their ranks. Now, there's some merit to not wanting to arm ISIS or al-Qaeda, but that merit has limits- Assad is a war-criminal, and he and Putin are killing people by the thousands in their thuggish attempt to maintain power. Gabbard is arguing against President Obama's position that Assad should go, and instead is agreeing with the incoming Trump policy- which is essentially going to be allowing Putin and Assad to crush the rebellion and maintain their grip on the country. It is such a cold, calculated sell-out that it is nearly impossible to believe that it's coming from a Democratic U.S. Congresswoman.

Hey though, we are supposed to like her, right? I mean, she surfs...

As I said- sometimes your friends aren't your friends.

When Stupid Became a Virtue

It was sometime in the year 2000 when I realized what was happening around me in America, I was watching George W. Bush speak. I was a junior in high school, and I wasn't eligible to vote yet. Now, we can debate the merits of whether or not George W. Bush was actually stupid, or whether it was an act (I believe it was mostly an act), but we cannot debate the bottom line- it helped him. I realized something as I watched him- he actually represented an alarmingly large portion of America while he butchered our language. He would be elected President that year.

The late-1990's were a different time in America. The "most important" issue in the country was whether or not it was a big deal that President Clinton had an affair with his intern. The Cold War was over, we had no rival in the world, and 9/11 hadn't happened yet, so most people in this country couldn't find the Middle East on a map. "Conspiracy theory" at that time centered around who killed the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. A walk down the board walk in New Jersey would entail looking at lots of "Austin 3:16" and "The Rock" shirts. The entire 1990's could be summed up by Seinfeld.

I consider the 1990's to be the golden age of my life, the best of times, period. With that said, it's not difficult to trace the line from those days in the late-1990's, through the Bush years, to the point we're at today- the era of Trump. I recently read an article blaming our current state of affairs on the TV show "Friends," and while I wouldn't entirely put this mess on that, the basic point is 100% true- We made it a virtue to be stupid. From that piece:

The show ended in 2004. The same year that Facebook began, the year that George W. Bush was re-elected to a second term, the year that reality television became a dominant force in pop culture, with American Idol starting an eight-year reign of terror as the No. 1 show in the U.S., the same year that Paris Hilton started her own “lifestyle brand” and released an autobiography. And Joey Tribbiani got a spin-off TV show. The year 2004 was when we completely gave up and embraced stupidity as a value. Just ask Green Day; their album American Idiot was released in 2004, and it won the Grammy for Best Rock Album. You can’t get more timely. The rejection of Ross marked the moment when much of America groaned, mid-sentence, at the voice of reason.

Yes, my theory is that Friends may have triggered the downfall of western civilization. You might think I’m crazy. But to quote Ross: “Oh, am I? Am I? Am I out of my mind? Am I losing my senses?” Did you know the song that originally accompanied the Friends pilot episode was R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know (And I Feel Fine).” A blissful song with an apocalyptic message that goes largely ignored.

I was a teacher in 2004. I coached our school’s chess club. I saw how my students were picked on, bullied. I tried my best to defend them, but I couldn’t be everywhere. My students were smart, huge nerds, and they were in hostile, unfriendly territory. Other students would be waiting outside my room to ambush the chess club members who met in my room every day at lunch. During my tenure as a teacher, I gained the reputation of being a slayer of bullies and defender of nerds. I promise you: bullies can be mean, but they knew Mr. Hopkins was much worse.

Maybe intellectuals have always been persecuted and shoved in lockers, but something in my gut tells me we’re at a low point — where social media interaction has replaced genuine debate and political discourse, where politicians are judged by whether we’d want to have a beer with them, where scientific consensus is rejected, where scientific research is underfunded, where journalism is drowning in celebrity gossip.

I see Kim Kardashian’s ass at the top of CNN.com, and I am scared.

It's hard to argue with much of that. Ross, the smart guy on the show, is depicted as weak, inept, and just not cool in general. He has to chase around Rachel, who really isn't that smart, and fails basically for the entire show. He is not depicted as the winner in the show. In fact, it's hard to find anyone in the show depicted as more of a loser.

Intelligence is not an American value. To be fair, America has done some really intelligent things- an interstate highway system, NASA, built amazing Skylines, earthquake-resistant buildings, anything done by the Army Corps of Engineers, amazing research at universities, even the internet- but we don't view Silicon Valley or Manhattan as the epicenter of American life. American identity is much less vested in Ernest Moniz, and much more so in Donald Trump. We don't elect the "smart" or qualified candidates for President, like Hillary Clinton or John Kerry, but we elect the "cool" ones- as we've seen time and time again.

We like balance in our debate, even if that "balance" puts climate deniers on the same pedestal as scientists. Frankly, we don't like scientists, I don't like scientists, because they tell me behaviors I like (like eating a Big Mac) aren't good for me, and I shouldn't do them. Intelligence challenges the norms, it challenges our way of life, and we don't like it. What we like is strength, particularly in men.

I actually think we crossed the tipping point when Sarah Palin was elevated to a national platform, but it's unfair to blame her for being unprepared and incapable. Palin was essentially a byproduct of years of "priming" of the pump towards stupidity. It began when everything was bliss, under Bill Clinton. It reached a fevered pitch in 2016, when we elected a reality TV star over Bill Clinton's wife. Where we go from here is truly uncertain to me, but I am quite concerned that we will continue to elevate "stupid" as a virtue. We certainly don't value intelligence, deep thought, and learning as the key virtues to success today.