It sometimes seems that binaries are at the core of the American psyche. Maybe it goes back to the puritans. I dunno.
Binaries, of course can be useful.
They make computers run pretty well.
But they can also be very dangerous.
There’s a reason nobody ever talks about false ternaries. We have in this presidential election a
candidate who is the closest I’ve seen in America to a bona fide dictator,
complete with a corps of menacing thugs, a complete disdain for truth, a
disdain for his supporters, and a certifiable narcissism. I hear republican friends say, when asked if
they would vote for him if he were nominated “ya, but he’ll change,” or “he’s
just taking extreme positions for bargaining purposes,” or, “he’s speaking off
the cuff. That’s what’s great about
him.” Um, you might want to check your
history, and then check your present, and recognize that history has been a
parade of tyrants, but none with the amount of catastrophically destructive
technology, not to mention influence, an American president has access to. George W. Bush was given similar kinds of
indulgence. “Ya, he’s a dunce, but he’s
going to appoint smart guys to help him.”
Um, like Dick Cheney? Donald Rumsfeld.
Never, ever appoint or elect a leader of anything who is dumb, ill
informed, etc. It never works out. That’s where you get the shadowy figures who
have no accountability but who have really dark constituents to answer to.
It’s hard for me to understand the appeal of Trump. To me he’s a greasy, sleazy bookie who can’t
even run hideous, tacky gambling establishments with any degree of integrity
or, indeed, profitability. He has
hideous taste. His speeches are rambling
strings of insults, brags, and logical syllogisms. His answer to any objection never addresses
the issue being addresses, but basically boils down to, “believe me.” Trump loves the worst binary of them all:
winners and losers. He recognizes that
darkest of American impulses, the desire to label human beings as winners and losers
is a potent force. The concept of
winning is odious and false and needs to be gotten rid of. So much evil can be traced to this idea. Trump does, however, in the midst of all the
insanity, utter a few things that really ring true. He talks about trade deals in the ‘90s that
gutted the middle class. He talks about
money in politics. Well, maybe that’s
it. But that’s a lot. Democrats barely touch these things, and yet
they are absolutely fundamental to what is wrong with America.
Back to binaries. The
two-party system. Ouch. What a disaster. Winner take all elections. Trying to prevent people to vote. Let’s talk about the two-party system. First of all, let me be very clear: the
republican party is hard for me to characterize without invoking a certain
individual sometimes described as a prince of a certain quality usually
identified as the antonym of light. While I have many friends and loved ones who identify with this party, I
believe the organization itself is about as pure evil as an organization can
get. It’s been pretty bad for quite
awhile, certainly going back to Nixon, but maybe back to Goldwater. But the wholesale embrace of evil goes to
1994, where Gingrich redefined the party, its strategies, and it’s postmodern
embrace of strategy over substance. Now
that we’ve got that out of the way, does that make the democratIC party good,
since the republican party is evil? NO!
Doesn’t work that way. False
binary. In fact, the postmodern/evil
version of the republican party was, in part, facilitated, egged on, by the
Bill Clinton era, DLC version of the democratic party. I watched all this happen in horror. Gingrich embraced bullying, Bill Clinton
embraced appeasement, moved to the right, and you know what bullies do with
people who don’t show resistance. They
just can’t help themselves. The result
was a series of hideous, anti-non-tycoon legislation in the 90s that, among
other things, destroyed the social safety net, shipped virtually all
manufacturing jobs out of country, destroyed newspapers and radio stations, and
thus the music industry, and destroyed the checks and balances in the banking
system, thus resulting in the 2008 collapse.
Worst of all was the obscene accumulation of wealth ever upward. This is all because of legislation that Bill
Clinton signed. I remember at the time
thinking that these bills were too heartless even for the republican party, but
that they were so conditioned to push for whatever they could get away with
that they couldn’t help themselves. And
Clinton, ever wanting to appease and show himself a “centrist” (whatever the
hell that means) gave in, despined himself on our behalf.
Let’s not forget that Bill Clinton had a majority in the
house and a super majority in the senate in the beginning of his first
term. I’m trying to remember if anyone
else had that…. Oh yeah, Barry
Obama. What about our current president. Like Clinton, and like democratic presidents
in general, he has managed to get rid of deficits run up by the previous
republican administration and has brought the macro-economy back to life and
reduced unemployment. That’s kind of
what democratic presidents do. That’s
good. But what about micro-economic
issues. How about these hideous
mortgages that people got into? The
houses they lost? What about the
6-figure student loans? Some small fraction
of the welfare that went to wall street and the auto industry could have
completely saved millions of people from losing their houses by refinancing
their predatory mortgages. A similarly
small fraction of this bailout could save entire generations from student loan
induced poverty. What about
Obamacare? Well, I’m glad it
exists. It’s a very modest step. But it’s was created by the Heritage
Foundation. It’s better than nothing,
but it’s not that great. It still leaves
us with the most expensive and inefficient health care system in the
world. And the very simple yet
transformative provision of a public option could easily have been part of the
ACA, but for some mysterious reason, it was dropped.
Back to the binaries again.
There’s no either/or here. Trump
is scary, not because he’s conservative, in fact I agree with some of the
things he’s mentioned. He’s more right
about trade and campaign finance than the Clintons or Obama. He’s scary because he behaves like a dictator
and is a narcissist. In this way, almost
any other republican would probably be preferable as president. But Cruz’s ideas and world-view are truly
odious and the Ohio guys is not much better.
The republican establishment hates the poor and sucks up to the rich in
a disgraceful way. Nonetheless, they are
preferable to Trump. Hillary is a part
of the democratic establishment that is highly problematic and maybe slightly
evil, but maybe not wholesale evil in the way the republican party is. And her/the democratic establishment’s appeal
to voters is, in essence, we’re not going to do much, but we’re certainly not
as bad as those other guys. Vote for us!
The thing is, I agree.
The establishment democrats are less bad than any republicans. But that’s pretty sad. But in a binary political system, one can be
forgiven for voting for the least worst candidate. That’s what Hillary is offering. We say what happened in 2000 when Nader
rightly pointed out how the two major parties fed off each other in a sick
codependency. But, wow, what a disaster
to try to work outside of that system.
Which is where Bernie comes in. He is literally the only candidate who is
actually talking about the stuff that makes life suck for most people in this
country, and the root causes of these things.
And he has figured out a way to work within this two-party system. If Hillary is elected, we can feel pretty
good about not starting crazy wars, changing bankruptcy laws, giving huge
giveaways to every industry, going backwards on environmental policy, etc. These things are big. But if the past couple of “centrist”
democratic administrations are any indication, there will be nothing better
than stagnation for the non-rich, and pretty much misery for the poor. Higher education and healthcare costs will
continue to skyrocket. People barely in
the middle class will continue to be burdened with odious lifelong debt.
So if Hillary is nominated, no matter who the republican
nominee is, I will do whatever I can to support her. But Bernie is, to my mind, a truly
transformative, inspiring candidate, who appears to have even more appeal than
Hillary to the swing voter and even to some republicans. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that
he is unashamed of speaking the truth.
He’s unafraid of offending corporate constituents. He doesn’t flee from right wing
characterizations. He’s ok with words
like liberal and socialism and seeks to rehabilitate them and the wonderful ideas
they represent. People actually like
that. They are justifiably suspicious,
on the other hand, of sheepishness, defensiveness, etc. It’s like what are they hiding. He has also demonstrated that you don’t need
any kind of Hollywood sheen to be viable.
That Americans can be persuaded by genuineness and truth. That Americans actually have good hearts and
that a candidate can succeed by appealing to their higher motives.
