The Relationship Between Consultants and the Democratic Party

A popular attack on the DNC and Democratic state-level party organizations lately has been that the consultants “run” the party. Of course, you hire consultants to help chart your path forward, so to a certain level this is true. It’s not true though in the way that those using it believe it is.

Not all “firms” are equal. Most political staffers who plan to hang around long enough will eventually form an LLC of some kind. Some times it’s just them, some times they have partners, either way it makes a lot of sense for a political staffer to have a company. First, it offers them legitimacy. Second, many political staffers are paid as contractors, because the job has a term of life- and so having an LLC saves them money on taxes. Third, they sometimes need a way around “exclusive services” clauses, and this offers them an option. Finally, there is the utility of having a company- sometimes you have a specific skill, be it social media, writing field plans, or doing direct mail, and you want to do that skill aside from whatever campaign you are officially working on, possibly with other partners who are also off doing their own thing. There are lots of reasons that political staffers would have a “firm,” and would therefore get paid there, especially if you are working for a state or national party.

Much of the party’s money they receive isn’t for them, it’s for the campaigns running under them. Presidential campaigns will usually run their payroll and much of their operation through the state parties and DNC, as will statewide candidates for Senate and Governor. The DSCC and DCCC tend to run their funding for campaign operations on the ground through the relevant state party. Legislative caucuses will sometimes do so as well. Most of the money that state parties “raise” and then “spend” on consultants was never meant for their operations, and is being spent on the behalf of campaigns running in their states. Campaigns simply can’t absorb the kind of employment costs they would otherwise have to pay for. The consultants being paid are hired by the campaigns.

Almost all direct mail is run through the party. State and national parties have the ability to pay non-profit costs for bulk mail, and campaigns save tens of thousands of dollars every year by using that rate. State parties send the mail out and pay for it, and campaigns reimburse them. While state parties “receive” that money, they can’t use it on other things. They are paying mail consultants for work on the behalf of others.

Now, all of this may seem odd to someone on the outside, and it is. It is not some sort of scheme though to send the hard-earned donations of millions of Democrats around the country to a bunch of rich, greedy consultants. While that may be a convenient narrative for people who want to demonize “the establishment” in hopes that it can fall and they can take over, it’s just a story that is made up outside of reality.

The O.J. Trial as the 2016 Election of the 1990's

Sexism. Celebrity. Racism. Money. Media. Science denial. Ignoring past bad behavior. Over-scrutinizing the woman on the other side. A famous, bad man, with his team of loud and colorful characters beating a qualified, smart woman. If this sounds like the 2016 election, it was. If it sounds like the O.J. Simpson Trial- yes, it was that too.

Two decades before Hillary Clinton’s landmark campaign for the Presidency fell short by about 80,000 votes in three states against Donald Trump, a very similar battle played out in Los Angeles, CA. O.J. Simpson, who had a history of spousal abuse, a DNA match with blood at the scene, a motive, and the means to have committed the murder of his ex-wife, was acquitted by a jury of his peers because none of that mattered in the circus-atmosphere his trial created. Simpson won on power of personalities, clouding the facts of the case, and playing on the insecurities of his audience- sound familiar?

Much like Hillary Clinton in 2016, hindsight tells us that Marcia Clark never had a chance. Oh sure, both started as close to locks in the minds of the public, and still both were never really given a fair hearing. Like with Clinton, Clark’s “tough woman” persona was used against her, putting not her competency on trial, but how she made people feel. Just as insignificant, stupid things like the tone of Clinton’s voice and what she wore were used against her, Marcia Clark faced the double standard in appearance and tone too. For Hillary it was her e-mails, for Clark it was naked pictures that her ex-husband sold to the tabloids, both perfectly legal and totally insignificant things, but things that were used to tarnish the reputation of the woman in question. Both were given slam-dunk cases that they couldn’t possibly lose, at least in the eyes of the punditry. Both were never given any shot at all in the way they were covered.

Then there was O.J. and Trump themselves. Both were wealthy and extremely famous. In fact, they remain two of the best known men in the world. Trump’s past bankruptcies, his “grab them by the pussy” tape, his ties to Russia, and his complete and utter lack of knowledge were ignored by a public who feels like they “know” him from his television persona, and decades of fame. O.J. was pretty similar. He had dozens of domestic violence calls made against him, he tried to flee after it was clear he was a suspect, his DNA matched, he had motive, and his timeline fit- but none of that mattered either. For many people, O.J. was innocent- because there’s no way the former Heisman winner would do this.

O.J.’s team was very similar to Trump’s very public, very vocal team, as the prosecution team was to Clinton’s. Line-up Johnny Cochran, Robert Shapiro, and F. Lee Bailey with Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and the rest of the “Trump Train,” and you see similarities- larger agendas, willingness to lie, willingness to cloudy the waters when needed, and need for self-promotion. The two teams are very similar. Meanwhile, contrast that with Marcia Clark, Christopher Darden, and the rest of the prosecution, who like the Clinton team, tried to run a text-book case and remain above the fray of their opponents. In both cases, they failed.

There are obviously lots of other elements too. The way O.J.’s team discredited the DNA evidence against him can remind one of climate change denial in 2016. The discrediting of the LAPD in that trial could have come right out of the Trump playbook, particularly because it should have been immaterial to the case, but it ended up dominating the conversation. Much like with Trump’s outrageous behavior, the media ate up Johnny Cochran’s antics, and covered them as substance, when they were often show. Ultimately, the rich, famous man won despite all of his flaws, while the competent, qualified woman lost- despite her fairly obvious strengths. Media coverage focused so much on the outrageous and over-the-top, and not so much on the substance of the discussion.

There is an 8,000 pound gorilla in this room that has to be mentioned, which is of course race. O.J. Simpson is an African-American man, and that played a huge role in the trial. Donald Trump is a racist, old white man, and that played a huge role in the election. There is probably little overlap in their support in the public, if I had to guess, yet they employed the same playbook in using race. For O.J., they played on distrust of the system, the white DA, the police, and even the victims, in a way that hit at deep fears among African-Americans about how they were treated by the police, which clouded their view of how he was. Donald Trump played on the fears of white people that President Obama’s term had marked the end of their country and way of life, and that Clinton would continue to erode their basic view of society and the world. While they both played to different audiences, they essentially played the same game of stoking fears and distrust among people who generally weren’t really racial separatists.

There is a sad outcome, one that we already know about the case, and one that I am fairly confident in predicting about Trump- nothing good comes of either instance. O.J. Simpson was hit hard financially by paying for his “Dream Team” defense, and more so by his loss in the Civil case that followed, which he lost. He tried different stunts after that to get his hands on money, but ultimately ended up attempting armed robbery in Las Vegas to get memorabilia of his back, and now is sitting in jail as he ages away. Donald Trump is sitting in the White House now, a place he knows literally nothing about, signing executive orders to ban Muslims and tear apart the government he leads. He’s being rebuked by courts, and in time will probably be rebuked by voters, and his own political party. He won’t bring back factory jobs, mines, or the “great America” that his supporters imagine to have existed in the past, and he’ll be regarded as a failure. No, Donald Trump has not brutally murdered anyone in cold blood, and so there is a real difference in these two men. Their outcomes are heading on similar paths though. I guess that will be just one more way that Donald Trump is the O.J. Simpson of his time.

Beyond Indivisible- The Democrats and 2018

Somewhere in the night of November 8th, the majority of us in America came to a realization- about 63 million people in this country were comfortable with a person like Donald Trump being President. That was a sobering thought, because Trump was quite explicit with what he wanted to do as President. Immigration raids, Muslim bans, rolling back the rights of women, a wall on the Mexican border, and so much more was spelled out by Trump during his campaign. It was all horrifying.

Along came the Indivisible Guide, the Womens March, and soon the Science March. Citizens have organized themselves together to fight and resist the Trump agenda. They are doing amazing things, and causing a political earthquake in this country- particularly as Republican Congressmen are coming home to their districts and being screamed at in town halls. Groups are fighting to save the ACA. Others are fighting to stop cabinet members. Congressional phone lines are being over-loaded by the volume coming in. It is truly remarkable.

Emerging from within it all, the Indivisible Guide is becoming the bible for progressive activists to resist. Written by Congressional staffers, it is an incredibly effective guide for how to fight back against Trump and his agenda. If you haven’t read it, do so. If you want to understand what is happening in this country right now, or take part in it, the Indivisible Guide is the best way to do so.

Eventually though, we have to get out beyond the protests and the yelling, and actually think about the most important thing- winning elections. That will start soon, particularly for people in states with state legislative, judicial, or governor’s races- places specifically like New Jersey and Virginia. It will start for the rest of the nation in just a few short months. There is a huge difference in resisting Trump’s agenda and defeating Trump’s agenda. We need to resist it right now. We need to defeat it in 2017 and 2018’s general elections. This will eventually require a tactical change from the rallies, marches, and yelling of right now, as even the Indivisible writers would probably concede. After all, their guide is “A Practical guide for resisting the Trump Agenda.” We hope to soon not have to resist it anymore.

Here’s a little truth for everyone in the streets right now- we’re underdogs in 2018. There is just one Republican Senator, out of only eight total, who has to run for re-election in a state that Hillary Clinton won. Democrats have to win three Senate seats. In addition to defeating Dean Heller in Nevada, Democrats will desperately need to contest states like Arizona (Jeff Flake) and Texas (Ted Cruz), that are admittedly long-shots. The Senate is going to be really hard.

The House offers a better opportunity, if Democratic activists can swallow a little bit of the “electable” pill for 2018. Democrats need 24 seats, and there are 23 seats that Hillary won who currently have Republican Congressmen. These are not seats situated in the urban areas that are home to our liberal, Bernie base, or our minority driven Hillary/Obama base either. These are largely white, highly educated, traditionally Republican seats. These are seats like Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional district, mostly based in Delaware County and held by former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan, or Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District, stretching across Chester and Montgomery County, held by former Chester County Commissioner Ryan Costello. They are districts like New Jersey’s 7th district, held by former State Senator and current Congressman Leonard Lance, someone who spent years crafting their “moderate” image. These districts aren’t “liberal” by any means, they’d better be described as competent. They’re socially moderate to liberal, not interested in deporting millions and “putting women in their place,” by any stretch, but they are also fiscally moderate to conservative, not the types who want to pay huge tax increases for huge increases in spending. In other words, the “low hanging fruit” for Democrats are white, educated moderates, living in suburban districts, who traditionally have been fiscally conservative Republicans, but are socially liberal Clinton voters, and are repulsed by Trump. Even so, those 23 seats aren’t quite enough to re-take the House, which is where some of the Bernie activism has a strong place. There are a lot of districts, like Iowa’s 1st district, Pennsylvania’s 10th, 11th, and 12th districts, and many other “Rust Belt,” blue-collar districts where Bernie’s populist economic message might be able to bring back seats that were lost in 2010 and 2014’s waves, or by re-districting in 2012 to make Republicans “safe.” To be clear, there aren’t enough of these Clinton or Bernie type of districts on their own to win back the House, because gerrymandering, but if the party can walk and chew gum at the same time, we might be able to build a majority again. The noise out of Georgia, where it seems that we’re going to nominate the activists’ candidate of choice down there in a district that doesn’t really match, isn’t making me hopeful, however we shouldn’t over-read that. Republicans lost nearly every special election in 2009, while they were trying to organize all of their activist energy, but by 2010 they won over 60 seats in the House.

Here’s my fear though- activists love protests, marches, and direct action- but the track record on that turning into mid-term waves for Democrats isn’t very good. The protests of 1968 and 1969 against the Trump of his day, Richard Nixon, eventually lead us to the 1972 slaughter that was McGovern. Everyone loved having events and rallies, but when it came time to behave like a cohesive party, we didn’t. We resisted very well, we didn’t oppose so well though. We have a bad track record here.

What I’m saying is complicated and has many steps- read Indivisible, join the protests and marches, make your voice heard, but then put your pragmatic hat on and start working to win elections in the Fall, or in 2018. Politics is about winning power, as people out of power cannot do any of the things they want, as the American left is learning now. Don’t bother re-litigating 2016’s primaries, don’t get mad no matter who wins the DNC Chair race, and don’t fight among yourselves- the small differences on how you want to regulate banks, extend health insurance to all, and protect the environment are still all tiny, when compared to the differences you have with Donald Trump and anyone who supports him. Yes, we have to accept we’ll have some differences of opinion with some of our candidates, and our fellow activists, and that’s okay. Yes, we will also have to accept that what we are doing now, making noise at town halls, marching in the streets and holding rallies, while very useful, is just a precursor to running actual campaigns to oppose the President. Politics is hard, but if everyone on the left commits to doing the right things, and not the wrong ones, we can and will defeat the disease plaguing us in Washington.

A Bolder, Smarter Left

If politics were ruled by “black and white” polling, Democrats would be set. Ask voters if they want good health care, clean air and water, good schools, and most of the other things Democrats espouse, and large majorities of the electorate answer yes. The last two Democrats to lose Presidential elections, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, both won the majority of the issues polled in the exit polls among the voters who rejected them. Both still lost.

The problem for Democrats always starts when we leave the hypothetical and stop talking about ideals, but start talking details. Generally somewhere around the point that the price tag, and subsequent tax bills, start being a part of the discussion, popularity for the programs end. When you start discussing job losses, which programs lose money to fund new programs, or the taxes to finance a new program, our advantages with the electorate on the ideals begin to dissipate. They love our ideas, they hate the costs.

One would think, given that reality, that Democrats and the broader left in general would be the party taking a serious look at tax reform and a major budget overhaul- but we’re not. Instead, Democrats have ceded that ground to Paul Ryan for the better part of the past decade, putting progressive tax reform and re-prioritizing our budget expenditures on the political back-burner while we try to argue for the large-scale domestic programs we want, even though they aren’t politically feasible. It is a hopeless cycle, and yet Democrats have literally chosen to live in this political impotency- for no good reason.

If what Democrats want is large scale new investments in health care, education, and renewable energy, and they want those positions to be politically tenable with the public, then what Democrats need to be fighting for right now is progressive tax reform and an entirely re-worked budget that shifts spending towards the programs that match our values. A Democratic Party that really wants to make progressive change would start by immediately calling for:

1. A shift in taxation off of the middle class by increasing the number of income brackets, removing tax loopholes, reasonably taxing inheritance, and generally moving the tax burden from middle-class suburbanites, and onto wealthy interests and people.
2. An end to corporate welfare, particularly for industries that use the money to cut their workforce or generally harm the health of our nation.
3. A shift of our budget priorities, away from a massive military industrial complex, and towards the bread and butter needs of our people at home.

The net effect of making this the liberal economic agenda is that we would free up more dollars for domestic policy programs, without a net massive tax increase that is easy for the right-wing to attack in an effort to win the argument without winning the merits. It would give Democrats some more serious street-cred on being good stewards of tax dollars, but also give Democrats some actual tax dollars to work with in a hypothetical future Congressional majority where we have a shot to re-write existing domestic programs, and create the ones that our activists constantly pine for.

In very rough terms, about a third of federal budget dollars goes towards discretionary domestic programs, while another third goes towards mandatory spending dollars. This leaves Democrats strapped for the dollars to make the bold change they promise the electorate, and forces them to make deals and cut corners that undermine their political argument. This is simply unworkable.

Activists don’t like to hear about pragmatism or strategy all that much, it’s a lot less fun than talking about the grand plans we have. Unlike the right-wing, we want to do things with government, not just tear it all down, and that is a much more difficult task. If the left wants to go bold, and make transformational change, we need to take a good look at the nuts and bolts, and figure out how to make things work better. We have to be the “smart” party, and stop ceding the important work of deciding how the government works to the people on the other side who don’t want it to work. We have to be smart. We have to think three steps at a time. We have to be bold. Mostly, we have to realize that government can’t do all the big, bold things that we want, because of politics, until we make government work again. That must be our immediate agenda.

Secretary of State Burroughs? USA and Iranian Wrestling Show How Diplomacy is Done

We live in a pretty messed up time. Society is divided in ways we haven’t seen in a half century, and that’s just here in America. Globally, it’s not much better. After the U.S. President made the boneheaded decision to make good on his “Muslim Ban” promise from the campaign, the Iranian government made the equally stupid decision to reciprocate- and Olympic Wrestling’s World Cup event, scheduled to be contested in Tehran, Iran, was suddenly in doubt.

Fortunately, we have courts and laws, and the Iranian public’s desire to have the World Cup of their most favored national sport won out over political stupidity. Team USA made it to Tehran. Both teams competed in the tournament and did really well. The two teams ended up in the finals. They had a really great, exciting match, which Iran won for their sixth straight World Cup title. The Americans had a few individuals win in that match though, including both Olympic Gold Medalists on their squad. The crowd was loud and intense, but also more than respectful of their American guests. They treated America’s top competitors like rock stars during the event, taking pictures, giving them ovations, and cheering them on during other matches of the tournament. If you want to believe that people are generally good, and that peace can be achieved even between rivals, you should do some googling and check out the videos and coverage. It was awesome, and it will make you feel better amidst the sea of negativity coming out of coverage of our new President.

I don’t think we can say enough about the performance of USA Wrestling in this event, on or off the mat. Jordan Burroughs, a 2012 Olympic Champion, seemed to take a particular leadership role off the mat, and represented our country not just like a champion athlete, but like a diplomat- something sorely needed right now. One of the iconic pictures of the event was him taking a picture with the statue of Iranian Wrestling legend Takhti, something i’m sure did not go unnoticed by the great wrestling fans of Iran. Whether it was Burroughs interacting with Iranian wrestling fans throughout the event, David Taylor’s breakout performance featuring two victories over Olympic Champions, or 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist Kyle Snyder’s continuing mastery of the globe’s biggest freestyle wrestling stages, the American wrestlers performed like mini rock-stars- on and off the mat.

I don’t like writing something so negative, but I do believe there’s a chance we end up at war with Iran in the next four years, a terrifying outcome for people in both countries, truly something we don’t want. I don’t like to make too much of a sporting event against such a bleak global back-drop, but I don’t think we can make too much of the importance this event took on. The U.S.A. Wrestling team almost didn’t go to Tehran for the World Cup. Instead, they did, and the images of Iranian wrestling fans greeting our national freestyle wrestling team as heroes in their country went such a long way to turning the psychology of doom into one of hope. For a few minutes, you could watch the match, or look at the photos coming out of Tehran and feel hope. Sports can literally serve no higher value than that.

May I just suggest, based on this event, that the new President, and future ones, could consider Burroughs or literally anyone on this U.S. Team as a future leading diplomat, and probably be done pretty proud by their performance. If the skill needed to forge peace and bring rival people together has ever been shown by Americans going abroad, U.S.A. Wrestling just aced the test. If you needed to see a higher value in sports, a group of Americans just went abroad and showed us how it’s done.

The Republican Blueprint for Winning Elections- for Idiots

Elections are not about issues. The sooner you come to understand that, the easier it is to understand American electoral results, and how we get to them. We’ve seen this before, and we’ll probably see it proven again. John Kerry won the majority of issues that were polled in the 2004 exit polls, and lost the election anyway. Hillary Clinton suffered the same fate in 2016. We keep wondering how, but the GOP’s recipe for success is plainly right in front of us.

There are three main points to a successful GOP Presidential campaign:

• Strength. Be the strong, security candidate.
• Boogey man. Have something to run against. Massachusetts liberals. Gay marriage. Benghazi. Hillary’s emails. Any nonsense “bad guy” that you can come up with.
• Run against big government/process. Democrats are going to raise your taxes. Obamacare is taking away your choice.

Now, these three points may seem overly simple and stupid, but they are the constants in a good GOP Presidential campaign. Why do they work? First, Republicans understand they aren’t competing for the whole electorate. The GOP isn’t going to win in Manhattan, Chicago, or Los Angeles. They also aren’t going to lose in Central Pennsylvania or Southwest Virginia. They don’t have to compete among voters who are decided, and they don’t try to. They aim their simpleton strategy right where American elections are decided- the suburbs. Suburbia picks our Presidents, regardless of the election year, and regardless of the candidates. President Obama got this when he campaigned on “Osama Bin Laden is dead, and GM is alive.” He spoke security, competency, and “down home American” with that message. He reached this key demographic.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign message really didn’t have any meaning in suburban and exurban America. “Love Trumps Hate” performs great in large urban settings, but what does it mean 30 miles from Cleveland or Pittsburgh? What does it mean in Dallas County, Iowa, as opposed to next door in Des Moines? Sure, women everywhere share a number of commonalities, but the priorities of the more-often-married suburban women may not match up perfectly with the more-often-single women who live in urban centers. African-Americans in the suburbs may share more economically in common with their white neighbors than African-Americans in center cities. Suburbanites certainly have identity and race issues like anyone else, but they are politically more subtle, and the things they want are distinctly different than what is wanted in urban and rural settings.

Donald Trump, like George W. Bush understood that suburbanites live in their own world, and want to continue to do so. Suburbanites like security, be it physical, economic, or social. Suburbanites don’t have as close of a relationship to their government as people in urban areas, and mostly just want it to function out of their plain sight. Suburbanites don’t like blatant racism, in part because they have more interaction with minority groups than rural Americans, but they tend to also like to keep to themselves, and therefore are open to appeals against “boogeymen” who are taking their jobs or threatening their way of life.

In Bush’s 2004 election, he was the candidate of strength and defending America after 9/11. Liberal judges instituting “gay marriage” was the lead boogeyman, with Kerry’s French background and anti-war activism adding a big assist on the “other-ism” front. Then there was the basic “meat and potatoes” Republican argument on government, that Bush cut your taxes and Kerry would raise them. In 2016, Donald Trump checked all of those boxes. He contrasted his tough talk against Mexicans, ISIS, and Muslims in general against Hillary’s multi-cultural world view and Benghazi “incident.” He used her e-mail incident as his “boogeyman” argument, essentially claiming she was in fact a criminal. Maybe the most underrated blow to Democrats was his attacks on Obamacare and environmental regulation- shots straight across the very idea of an activist government. Trump, like Republicans before him- Bush 41 and 43, Reagan, and Nixon- hit the holy trifecta of Republican politics, and in doing so won the suburban voters who basically decide our national elections in Florida, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in North Carolina, and in Wisconsin. While Hillary Clinton was talking about issues that appealed to her urban base, and who were largely already voting for any Democratic nominee, Trump in his deranged way was talking about issues that suburbanites at least thought applied to them.

I’m not saying Democrats need to abandon their platform. I’m not saying anything Trump said or proposed made any actual sense or is good for anyone in America, suburbanites included. I am not arguing that any of what I wrote above is rational or should make sense in a civilized society. I’m saying these are the voters who decide statewide and national elections, this is how Republicans are making an appeal to them, and yes- it’s working. We can argue about the why’s and how’s, or we can do what President Obama did and craft a message that actually appeals to these voters and wins us elections. The choice is our’s, moving forward.

America is Pretty Awesome- in "Blue America"

Before former President Barack Obama became a national “thing” in 2008, there was John Edwards, a “made for TV” Southern Senator from North Carolina who spoke eloquently about the “Two Americas” that we lived in. Edwards was never quite able to convince the public that he had the “meat on the bones” the way President Obama did, in terms of how he could fix this problem, but Edwards was able to put his finger on the pulse of America’s divide. He identified the “Two Americas” divide, and President Obama was able to take that divide to the next political level.

Here we are after eight years of President Obama though, and the reality is that Donald Trump is now our President because no one to this date has been able to bridge the “Two America” divide. A map of America in the 2016 election would show Hillary Clinton winning literally almost every “urban” county in the country, while Donald Trump won literally everything else. If you broke out counties by economic output, Clinton won almost every highly productive county in the country, while Trump won most of the less productive ones (by raw dollars, not any other standard). Hillary Clinton won New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, and just about every other big city in between. Donald Trump won just about every county in Oklahoma, West Virginia, Alabama, and Kansas. If there was a large metro area where you were voting, Clinton won. If there wasn’t, Trump won. There is almost no crossover. We literally live in two different Americas.

I was recently reading a piece talking about the horrible 21st century we’re having. In the piece, they basically hypothesize that “elites” are so out of touch that they don’t know how terrible life is in most of America. The idea is that America since 2000 has been moving backwards for most people in terms of economic opportunity, health outcomes, and quality of life. If you ask someone in New York City if things have become worse in that period of time, they would probably say no. If you ask someone in Southeast Ohio that same question, they’d give you a different answer.

This was completely predictable, given that we are a part of a global market. A globalized market basically moves good paying jobs into “clusters,” usually around large markets (cities), where skilled laborers are most likely to be. In other words, life is great in Chicago, where much of the Midwest’s skilled work-force is likely to go. Things are not as great in rural Missouri. There is way more at work than that, but the point is that no one should be acting shocked.

It’s also worth noting that New York and Philadelphia’s economies (to name two) are not really dependent on factory and manual labor jobs anymore. That matters a lot, because it means that they are not suffering in the age of automation. The simple reality is that low-skill labor is not necessary in an economy that can have robots do those jobs cheaper. Since big cities aren’t running on low-skill labor jobs anymore, they largely don’t care about the ravages of automation. Meanwhile, much of the “Rust Belt” rural areas actually did depend on the factory jobs. With those jobs gone, the “Wal Mart” economy is now their dominate job creator. Life was a lot better in Southwest Pennsylvania in the age of the coal mine and steel factory than it is in the era of Wal Mart.

What we are now realizing is that we’re in two different countries. In the parts of the country that voted for Hillary Clinton, America is doing really well. In the parts that Donald Trump won, we need to “Make America Great Again.” Neither side is wrong, within their own reality, but neither knows much about the other’s reality. To be clear here, a sexist, racist, protectionist Donald Trump is not going to make things any more united. In fact, the political choices of both are basically diametrically opposed to each other. Electing President Obama seemed alien to more rural settings. Voting for Donald Trump is evil in San Francisco or Manhattan.

The fact that we’re coming to different answers about the state of the country based on where we live is pretty alarming. It means our shared “American experience” is no more, and we are living in some sort of new “segregated” America. In one America, this is a really great country. In the other? We needed to elect “MAGA.” I think we can all agree that in that respect, nothing has changed over the past 15 or so years.

Impeachment? That's Funny.

From the moment he took the oath of office, Donald Trump has been in violation of the emoluments clause, and should be impeached. That is not really my opinion, it’s a simple fact- he is taking payment from foreign governments, through his hotels and real estate holdings, which violates the clause. He is not facing impeachment though, and for a pretty obvious reason- the Republicans hold majorities in both houses of Congress, and have no interest in impeaching the guy their voters picked to be the President, particularly while he’s signing the legislation they want to send him. Republicans who try to reign in Trump risk the backlash of their voters in primaries. As long as Trump is willing to sign Republican-backed legislation, they have no incentive to do that.

There seems to be some feeling among all sane Americans of all stripes that the Trump White House is in new, untested waters right now that might require impeachment to be on the table. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, or now former National Security Adviser, had to resign because of the heat of an FBI investigation into his pre-Inauguration conversations with Russia. Now it is leaking that the FBI now knows that the Trump Campaign was talking to Russian Intelligence officials during the election. People are starting to wonder if in fact Donald Trump really is completely compromised by Russia (as though most of his opponents didn’t think that before).

Let’s be clear here, unless Trump is going to be charged by the FBI with charges related to being a Russian agent, he’s not going to be impeached. The truth of the matter is, it’s still a matter of Congress. Republicans will control Congress through 2018. Looking beyond 2018, it’s not very likely to change right now. The House is gerrymandered badly, and while Democrats may be able to get to 218 votes, barely, in the 2018 mid-terms, it’s unlikely they’ll have 218 “safe” votes to impeach the President, short of the case being a slam-dunk. Even if they do, the Senate is even bleaker. I haven’t seen anyone yet count out three potential Democratic Senate victories in 2018 that would get them 51 seats to control the Senate. Even in some crazy “wave” election, Republicans are only defending eight seats, which means a Democratic sweep (impossible) would only get them to 56 seats. Here’s the really bad news for people who want Trump impeached- you need two-thirds of the body, or 67 votes. There is simply very little chance that Republican Senators would defect in those numbers to convict and remove the President. If it got so bad politically that they needed him out, there’s a better chance of Trump not running again, and announcing so they can pretend that’s adequate. Again though, given the dynamics with Republican primary voters, they aren’t going to vote to convict him.

What i’m saying is that short of some scenario where GOP Congressional members are super embarrassed by Donald Trump, and think they are going to lose over it, there is a less than zero chance that he is impeached. I’m not even sure what would embarrass them that badly? We already have heard more than enough evidence to suggest that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia, and that his National Security Adviser did too. We know he violated the emoluments clause. They stuck by him through an election season where he repeatedly embarrassed them, but it didn’t cost them. This is a group that stuck together on virtually everything for the last eight years against President Obama, even when he was popular. I can’t see a scenario where Republican members of Congress would turn on Donald Trump now. 

Donald Trump is probably going to occupy the White House for at least four years. The reason is that Republican voters don’t care about any of this. When Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would care, he was right. Republican voters don’t care if Trump’s Administration breaks laws. Since those voters don’t care, neither do Republican lawmakers. If Republican lawmakers have no incentive to remove Trump, then you can let go of that idea now. I’m hard-pressed to figure out what would make them change their thinking.

How Identity Politics Work, and How They Don't

From the moment Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 Election, there has been a fight going on within the Democratic Party over what the future will look like. Some of this is just basic “team” politics- people who supported one candidate or the other in the primary, blaming the other for why we lost. Some of this is substantive though- should the Democrats continue to argue a case that is identity/Civil Rights based, as Hillary Clinton did, or should they argue a class-based economic argument, as Bernie Sanders did? The reality of this fight is that it’s far more complicated than that, though I generally come down on the side of identity/Civil Rights based politics. A few points here:

1. The most successful progressive political figures of the past 60 or so years did both. RFK and MLK Jr. certainly argued both for Civil Rights and class based identities, and in fact both fused those arguments into one. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both reached the White House by making an explicit appeal to non-white voters, and making a full-throated economic argument. 
2. Hillary Clinton did lose the election making an identity based argument to many voters. There’s no solid evidence either way on whether Bernie’s class-based argument would have worked though. Candidates of the same style as Bernie Sanders (Russ Feingold, a ballot initiative for single-payer health care and Zephyr Teachout come to mind) were not successful either. It is next to impossible for anyone to say with any certainty whether one argument would have been better than the other.
3. We all like to hear the story we like to hear though, whether we win or lose. The Democratic Party, in the aftermath of President Obama’s wins, liked to tell a story about him winning in 2008 and 2012 because of a “rising electorate” of non-white voters, who were going to carry us to victories forever. In reality, President Obama made an explicit appeal on economics in both elections as well, and rode a lot of norther, blue-collar white votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states to his two victories. As I said in point number one, successful politicians can walk and chew gum at once.

All of this leads me back to the argument of what went wrong in 2016, and the “discussion” the left has had during the DNC Chairman’s race. Is it best that we “drop” identity politics and just make a class appeal in hopes of getting back “white working class” voters? Honestly, it’s not. They have been trending away from us for many cycles of elections now, and all we’d do by going hard the other way is lose our own base of voters (who largely aren’t white), and probably push the GOP to even more explicitly racist appeals to these voters (which does not guarantee that we would win them, by the way). Doing the opposite of what we just did will not guarantee us any better results.

With that said, let’s be honest- Democrats have to do better with people outside of our core demographics if we want to govern in this country. The minute you mention this to some operatives and leaders in the party, they re-coil and go on the attack, because they perceive it as threatening their position in the party. It doesn’t. Democrats should not, and in fact cannot compromise our positions on Civil Rights issues for people of color, the LGBTQ community, women, religious minorities, or any of the people we seek to protect from potential pain and suffering inflicted by bigoted policies in our government, unless we want to be left as a party that literally represents nothing and no one. With that said, we also don’t have to pretend that this is all we represent, and that Democratic campaigns are perpetual Civil Rights struggles. Whether all white voters are racists or not, it’s fairly obvious that the product we are selling them here has less and less appeal to them.

So, what are a few steps we can do to appeal better to white voters while not dropping our Civil Rights platform as a party?

1. Our next Presidential nominee should do more than visit large metro areas. Hillary Clinton loved going to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, because the algorithm the campaign was using told them to, but Pennsylvania is won in Scranton (she visited one time in the general election), Harrisburg (twice), Erie (none), and Allentown (none). Wisconsin can’t be won if you don’t visit, and again, dropping into Milwaukee and Madison once each might not be good enough. Stopping into a UAW Hall in Michigan, a VFW in Ohio, a John Deere plant in Iowa, or a high school gymnasium in Wilkes-Barre may not be the best appeal to our base, but I have some news for people who argue against it- Barack Obama did it; Bill Clinton did it; Jimmy Carter did it; People who win statewide and national elections tend to dig a little deeper into the electorate, and talk to more people.
2. I wouldn’t go to a Vegan Food Conference and try to sell steaks, nor would I talk about the same issues in Scranton as I do in Philadelphia. DO NOT confuse this with changing ones positions while riding on the Northeast Extension north-bound, but perhaps you want to talk about Hillary’s plan to increase apprenticeships through Building Trades Unions when you’re in Scranton, and gun violence prevention while you’re in Philadelphia. The Democratic Party has a rather large and deep platform document that gives candidates lots of things to talk about on the policy front, depending on where they are going to talk. A one-size fits all message that focuses on policy positions that only appeal to a narrow cross-section of the electorate ends up losing voters even who agree with you on those issues. While a huge portion of the Trump electorate were turned on by his nativist rhetoric, some were simply turned off by the sense that the Democratic Party wasn’t even attempting to talk to them. We have things to talk to them about, we have things they care about, let’s make sure they get that.
3. Let’s stop pretending that “identity politics” means speaking to each group in a vacuum, where all African-Americans or all Latinos care about the same issues, and are going to vote for us because we call the other side racists or intolerant. African-Americans in the suburbs (yes, there are millions of people who fit this description, Democratic operatives) may have more in common from a political want and need standpoint with their white neighbors than African-Americans in urban or rural areas. Latinos have long shown us political divisions, and did so again in 2016, where the immigration issue hurt Donald Trump very badly across the Southwest, but was less potent as a political weapon in Florida and on the East Coast. Quite obviously, the Puerto Rican population on the East Coast is less concerned about immigration than the Mexican population in California or Texas. Seeing the “shades of gray” in our messaging would be very helpful when we are “playing identity politics” in the future, at least if winning is a goal here.
4. This point is pointed directly at any other white, straight, Christian men who might read this- you have to be advocates for people not like you, when you are talking to people who are like you. Look, “identity politics” is inevitable, and Donald Trump played them like a fiddle in the 2016 election. White, progressive men have to stop running away from issues that impact women, people of color, other sexualities, and other religions. That might feel uncomfortable at first, but no one is going to have a bigger impact on changing the attitudes of white voters than white, straight, Christian men who happen to agree with “the left” on social issues. This means not running away from the Affordable Care Act in your “white” Congressional district, not running away from the good that Medicaid and Food Stamps does for all of us when talking to “blue-collar whites,” and not conceding that there is something radical about women who want to make their own health care decisions. If we (yes, I’m talking to “we” here) are going to concede that these are the positions of some sort of “urban, leftist fringe,” as the GOP tries to portray social justice and social issues of all kinds, we’re not going to win elections, we’re not going to ever stop being attacked for siding with these positions, and (and this is the important part) we’re never going to make any progress towards actual equality and progress in this country- which is supposed to be our goal. If it’s just women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, and religious minorities arguing for their own rights forever, it’s too easy for white voters to dismiss their plea for basic humanity, it doesn’t ever seem real to them. These issues will always be “identity politics” if we don’t force that very barrier to break down.

I don’t believe that “dropping” identity politics from the Democratic Party is a moral or electable option moving forward. I also know that if we don’t at least take back suburban America from the conservative movement, Democrats won’t ever control Congress and the White House together for long enough to make any meaningful difference. Democrats don’t have to make a choice between talking about union organizing and racial justice- Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t, Barack Obama didn’t, and Ted Kennedy didn’t. It’s not “class OR Civil Rights,” it’s both, or it’s defeat. How we put forward our message, how many people we try to reach with our message, and how honest we are with ourselves about how we try to sell our party and our message are the questions we really need to answer, as opposed to some sort of battle where we re-litigate the primary and argue about who’s message is better. While that may stoke our passions, the answer we get from that question won’t make us feel any better. The answer is neither, which is why we are where we are. The minute we start being honest with ourselves about the product we’re putting forward, Democrats might just find ourselves with a governing majority that can take this country forward. It’s there for us, if we want it.

When We Define Our Exceptionalism...

Americans like to view our nation as special. For much of our history, we have been. We put the first men on the Moon, we won the World Wars, we defeated the British and enshrined the most progressive founding documents the world had seen to that point, we built the interstate highway system, American innovators have consistently created technological breakthroughs, and we rose again after 9/11 to fight al-Qaeda- to name a few things we’ve done that were great. America has a record of being great, being exceptional as we like to tell it. In each and every one of those instances, and others, it took people actually taking action and being great. We weren’t just great because we were born in sovereign American lands. 

The thing is, we like to leave out the low-lights of our history, of which there are plenty. We had our long history of slavery, followed of course by Jim Crow. Women couldn’t vote for the first 150 or so years of our existence. There was the “Trail of Tears,” and our general treatment of native peoples here. In none of those cases did we behave exceptionally. In none of those cases were we a “great” nation. We were not great when we banned immigration for most people in 1924. We were not great when we interned the Japanese during World War II. There have been many cases in which we did not live up to our greatest values. Now, 240 years after the birth of our nation, we are dealing with another low-light episode in our history, starring Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump. Whether it’s denying climate change and shutting down our scientists, banning Muslims from nations that don’t do business with Donald Trump, or attacking and lying to the media, this is not going to be a high point in our history.

Once again, America will not be great just because we woke up in the United States in the morning. If America is to be great, it will be because the people who live here live up to our highest ideals. Make no mistake, it’s not going to be a pretty or fun four years- as we have seen in the cabinet approvals form Donald Trump’s team, patriotic Americans will have to deal with losing almost all of the battles that lie ahead. Congressional elections in 2018, particularly in the U.S. Senate, are almost certainly not going to yield a Democratic Congress to stop him. Trump is most likely going to serve at least a four year term, and do a lot of damage along the way. He’s going to trample on the ideals of a multi-cultural nation, he’s going to empower white nationalists and other bigots, and he’s going to tilt our economy towards billionaires like him- and we’re going to have to bare it. Just being American will not be what makes us great, as we saw during the election. How we respond to terrible negative event after terrible negative event will likely define us. Donald Trump will choke off immigration, start trade wars, take health care from millions, and do untold other horrible things. We will have minimum opportunity to stop him.

Eventually though, we will rid ourselves of Trump. We can hope that is on January 20th, 2021, but it might not be. If you want America to be an exceptional nation again, if you want us to be the nation of the Statue of Liberty, and not of a big, ugly, useless wall on our southern border, then what happens after will matter. Resist now, march, protest, and make your voice heard against this occupying regime that was selected by the system and not the majority of American voters. Fight as hard as you can. Most of all though, remember that we must convince our neighbors, our families, and our friends to come along, and make America truly great again, when we get past this dark chapter in our history. That is what exceptional nations do. That is what we must do.

It's Never "Just the System"- and the System Won't Save You

I was driving home from work last night, and Philadelphia sports talk radio was debating the greatness of the New England Patriots (and for that matter, the San Antonio Spurs came up too, and fit this conversation just the same). Among the points being made against Tom Brady being the “greatest ever” was that he is “made by his system.” In other words, Brady is great because his team runs under a great system, and that environment elevates him. It felt like a really stupid argument to be having the day after the man set the record for Super Bowl championships for a starting QB.

We do know that environment is a big part of human development though, whether we are talking about the play of a professional quarterback, or a child in a poor, under performing school system. If you are in a positive environment, one that creates the conditions for success, you tend to thrive. There is very little class mobility in America, in no small part because of this. People born in successful situations succeed. People who aren’t, don’t. It’s sad, but it’s statistically true here, overall. I guess we could say this proves the ridiculous argument against Tom Brady- sort of.

When Tom Brady was selected in the 6th round of the NFL Draft, the Patriots were 0–2 all-time in Super Bowls. They are 5–2 since. Bill Belichick had championship rings, as an assistant coach, but none as a head coach. It is important to note that their “system” hadn’t worked before these people got together. The same could be said of Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs, who had really been a nothing franchise prior to that duo getting together. Yes, since then many players have come and gone through these franchises, and it may seem like they are all just interchangeable pieces on the board, but they aren’t. They all had to be athletes capable of playing their roles. You also needed an all-time supreme athlete like a Tom Brady or Tim Duncan to make everything happen, and a mad scientist mind at the helm who could manage those teams. The people in the equation really did matter in making the system work. Nick Saban’s not Nick Saban if he’s coaching a bunch of five foot, three-hundred pound round men, and not the Alabama Crimson Tide.

This brings me back to America, and the seeming belief of many in the public that our society will just keep working, because of the strength of our system. Americans are a fairly optimistic people, and tend to forget that government has to function for many of the things they take for granted to happen- the trash getting picked up, cops patrolling our neighborhoods, public schools to send our kids to, paved roads, safe food to eat, clean water to drink, Medicare and Social Security as we get older- all of these are government functions, functions that require a government that is functional. They may seem like basic “givens” to all of us, but that is a huge mistake. The reason we have a functional government is because we always elected functional people, from functional political parties, in part because our voters were smart enough to value some level of demonstrated competency and experience. Our “system” worked, much like the Patriots or Spurs, but it worked because of the pieces we put into it.

This brings me to Donald Trump and his White House. These people can’t turn on the lights. I wish I was just kidding there, but i’m not. Look, to be completely fair, nothing in Donald Trump’s background suggests he should know as much about running a White House as George H.W. Bush, or Harry Truman, or Teddy Roosevelt, or any of his 44 predecessors, all of whom had either government or military experience, and none of whom had run so anti-establishment as Trump. The thing is, Trump isn’t the only issue here. Melania Trump isn’t exactly Nancy Reagan or Hillary Clinton in her desire to use the First Lady’s office to further a policy plan, she’s currently arguing that negative stories about her are costing her the chance to make money from the job. You know though, that’s not even a big deal, but let’s look at the advisors. Kellyanne Conway is making up massacres to sell administration talking points. Jared Kushner is literally the President’s son-in-law, in the ultimate nepotism move since Camelot. And yet, neither of them stacks up at all to Steve Bannon- we literally have a white-nationalist nut serving on the National Security Council, and as the closest aide to the President himself. This line-up doesn’t resemble the ’27 Yankees of White Houses- they look more like the 2016 Cleveland Browns.

While many people are sounding the alarm about the intentions of this group, and talking about the intentional damage they want to do, I think we’re also missing the unintentional errors that tend to follow incompetent governments around. If the Flint Water Crisis shows us what local and state failure can look like, imagine it nationally. I think we have all heard the case at this point for how bad the intentional damage of this White House’s Muslim Ban, Obamacare Repeal, and de-regulating Wall Street banks, again, could be on our society. That’s being competent, but wrong on the policy though, which is to say that we think these people are going to do bad things, but do them according to their plans. What about the unintentional consequences of them just being a dumb group? In their failed Yemeni raid that left a Navy Seal, children, and civilians dead, we got a taste of how their incompetency can hurt. In their not talking to agencies involved, we saw how they can screw up using their Muslim Ban plans. Sometimes their bad plans and incompetency has already mixed, like when they sent their over matched Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, out to lie and say that 1.5 million people attended the inauguration, when any idiot with two eyes could tell they probably didn’t have a half-million actually show up. What happens when these people are simply incapable of executing their jobs, because none of them is really up to them? It might actually be even scarier than thinking about their ridiculous plans to take health insurance away from 21 million people, or start trade wars around the globe, or deport 12 million people, or build a wall, or block Muslims from entering our nation. That’s pretty awful, isn’t it?

You see, even the best laid systems in the world don’t protect us from incompetent people being put into them. You can joke about Julian Edelman seeming like an unlikely star wide receiver, but you couldn’t replace him with me and still win a Super Bowl. People had grievances with Hillary Clinton as a candidate, some legitimate and most not, but it would be far-fetched to believe that she would be struggling right now to turn on lights in the White House and keep aides from making up terrorist massacres that never happened. You might have thought Barack Obama’s White House was only decent at their jobs, but you had confidence that they were talking to the other parts of the government with whom they were working on implementing policies. The American political system has a wonderful track record of functioning despite stresses on the system, or even moral failures in it’s workings, but that’s not just because it’s a nice system.

Basically since the rise of Gingrich-ism in 1994, American Government has been slowly moving towards being dysfunctional. Newt and his supporters decided to start disregarding norms within Washington culture, and to start moving towards a world where political actors within the system could disrespect each other, the institutions they were in, and the system they worked within. It took just over two decades to go from that to the Washington of Donald Trump, and Americans don’t like it. Until we start identifying the people within our system who aren’t allowing it to work though, and removing them, we should expect that this is the new norm in Washington, that our great system will cease to operate at it’s best, and that the United States will not be able to claim “greatness” in the way that we have for generations before us. Our system won’t save us. Only our people can.

Yes, I’m a Democrat Who Likes Tom Brady

So, I’ve taken a lot of grief over the past 72 hours- how could I, a very liberal Democrat, who worked for Hillary Clinton, be cheering for Tom Brady in the Super Bowl, the guy who had a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker. Shouldn’t I be cheering against him just because Trump likes him? Clearly, I don’t get it.

Ok… well, here’s a few more confessions I need to make while we’re at it:

1. I listened to Kanye West- in the last 72 hours. Yes, really.
2. My favorite baseball team (the Phillies) is owned by a Republican. My favorite basketball team (the Sixers) is owned by the guy who’s house Mitt Romney famously delivered the “47% line” at.
3. I don’t really like Lady Gaga- or Beyonce- musically speaking.
4. I’m an Aerosmith fan- Steven Tyler’s a Republican.
5. I may or may not have had a beer with a Trump voter, or two, on Saturday night.

Now, I know- my privilege is showing, blah, blah, blah. Just like it was when I was at a women’s march, or a vigil to support Muslims against Trump’s ban, or working for Hillary, or not watching the inauguration, and so on, and so on. I have put thousands of hours into politics as a young adult, dating back to protesting the Iraq War in 2002. I’ve been a part of the causes. Sometimes though, there has to be lines where politics stop.

I am perfectly willing to mock, oppose, berate, and fight this awful White House every day of the week. I will fight Donald Trump at any and all times. I will not fight every Trump supporter in the same way. I’m unwilling to, and frankly I think it’s counter-productive. I will spend every waking day trying to show them the error of their ways, but at no point will I make them all my enemies. That kind of move towards anti-social radicalism will help drive the Democratic Party off of a 1972-style cliff. The level of division in this country is unhealthy, and while it will be necessary for every day that Donald Trump occupies our White House, it is not what we should aspire to beyond these dark days. If we eliminate our ability to bond over such things as sports even, we can’t even hope to move beyond these awful divisions in the mythical “someday” that we all are hoping for. This doesn’t mean embrace the Breitbart-reading racist Uncle who mocks your politics, but it does mean not prescribing extra political value to sporting events that are supposed to be trivial entertainment for us.

So yes, I rejected Bill Maher’s call to cheer against New England, because the organization is pretty Republican. I enjoyed watching the Patriots come back and beat the Falcons (who I could really kind of care less about, to be honest). Sorry, but i’m not sorry. Tom Brady’s the best quarterback to ever play the game, and I kind of just want to enjoy watching that without having to consider who he voted for. It’s not like the guy’s an anti-Islamic bigot like Curt Schilling, for God’s sake.

Damn New Englanders.

The Cast of Misfits Actually Guiding the Ship, Lead by White Nationalist Bannon

Donald Trump is an idiot, and he doesn't even know it. He's hardly the first President who didn't realize how dumb he is, and he almost certainly won't be the last. He's a puppet for many people, from Republicans on the Hill and Grover Norquist, who just need any idiot with hands to sign their legislation, to Putin and Russia, who clearly have this guy over a barrel for whatever reason. He's no one's puppet more though than the cast of awful characters in his White House, most notably Steve Bannon.

Bannon was a leader in what we called the #AltRight before this, editing at Breitbart, and like Trump, taking shots at basically everyone leading both parties in Washington. He was a bomb-thrower in the political world, not someone that say, Speaker Ryan would like. He's pretty much an open white nationalist, having no use for diversity or really anything that doesn't fit into his narrow definition of "traditional America." He, in many ways, is the kindred spirit for Trump, but far smarter than the imbecile President.

We haven't had an open white nationalist this close to a President in a long time, and that actually should be even more alarming to you than his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the rambling Kellyanne Conway, or the useless Reince Priebus being around the President. All of them are awful characters. What they represent though are normal loathsome political behavior. Bannon represents something far worse.

Bannon is undoubtedly at the center of all the chaos in this administration. He openly has said in the past that his goal is to destroy Washington, and to destroy the establishment. It's been said he was behind the Muslim Ban Executive Order that Trump put out. He's now slated to be on the National Security Council. He has direct access to the President, and the ability to influence his mind. From what I can tell, the only person with rivaling influence over Trump, besides perhaps his daughter, is her husband, Kushner. Bannon has told the media to "shut up" this week, and is showing some serious authoritarian tendencies in his actions. In the chaotic world we seem to be in, Bannon feels like the eye of the storm. He is the bad guy to watch.

Democrats Must Filibuster Neil Gorsuch

There's a new logic floating around- that Democrats shouldn't waste their ammo fighting against Donald Trump's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. This is a fool's logic, but it's begun to float as a trial balloon, mostly because the Hill lacks good political strategists, particularly in the leadership offices right now. Not only does this plan make no sense, it's a good way to insure this country remains run by Republicans for a generation to come.

Let's start with the obvious- Gorsuch is a younger Scalia. Scalia died under President Obama's tenure, and Republicans simply refused to give Merrick Garland a hearing. They ran out the clock, and now assume the Democrats will not play as rough with them as they did with us. If they are right, that will be the lesson of this fight, and Republican obstruction from the Obama years will be seen as a winner. They paid no political price for their behavior, and now they'd know they can push around Chuck Schumer as Democratic leader, any time they need. The message of capitulation is damning, for a generation.

Then there is the ridiculousness of the Democratic logic in this- they believe the Republicans might invoke the "nuclear option" and end the filibuster in the U.S. Senate if they filibuster now, so they shouldn't filibuster now, so they can filibuster later. Any fool would realize of course that if the GOP is going to end the filibuster over a Supreme Court nominee, they will do it this time or next time, or whenever we decide to fight them. If the GOP is going to deny us one of the main tools of their obstruction against President Obama, then they are going to do it. You don't not fight because you think maybe they'll be nicer next time.

I'll go on the record now and say that Gorsuch will probably reach the Supreme Court either way, but that shouldn't dictate Democratic strategy. The Democrats absolutely need to show some backbone, and fight against the nomination that we should have been able to fill last year. The Democratic Senators should want to fight for this, because it's the only way they are actually relevant in this Congress. The Democratic base though, the people who elected those Senators, is absolutely demanding it.

All of this leads me to the last, and most important point- it's good politics to fight this pick. The Democrats absolutely have to win in the 2018 mid-terms, or face a growing perception of not being able to. Giving in to Gorsuch does nothing to help them do that. It will leave their base voters despondent or disinterested, take your pick. It will allow Donald Trump a major victory to trumpet to his base. It of course will allow a more conservative court to move election law further to the right. It will make the urgency of electing a Democratic Senate far less- since they won't fight for anything anyway.

There is no political price to obstruction. Mitch McConnell can thank himself for that. He managed to obstruct President Obama in unprecedented ways, a President who's approval was over 50%, and ended up rewarded with a unified Republican Government. If the presumption of the Democrats in the Senate is that Gorsuch will end up on the bench, and the GOP will kill the filibuster whenever they attempt to finally use it, then the correct political read is to make the GOP kill the filibuster to get their obvious, presumptive judge. Extract a price for this thing that they are going to get anyway. Further the Democratic narrative, which is that Trump and the Republicans are acting like tyrants, and forcing their will on a country that didn't really vote for him. If you're not going to win anyway (which by the way, I am not certain of), then at least get a scalp for showing up. To simply let Gorsuch go through on a party line vote would trigger a revolt in the party, and kill the energy that is blossoming in the streets of America. There's no point to that.