Category Archives: Elections

Midterm Election Worries

Posted on by

I’m a bit worried about how Trump’s offer of $5,000 will move a few “low-information” voters. We on the list are well-informed and overestimate what other people “out there” might “know” and what “information” they are getting. Listen to focus groups and you’ll realize that people out there “know” very different things from what we do. (To say the least.) And even when they do know some actual real facts they have VERY short memories. WE remember that Trump makes promises he doesn’t keep but elections only take a few percent to move the other way. So I worry that a there are people hearing they’ll get a check for $5K if they vote Republican, period. No counter messaging, no understanding, just $5K.

Billionaire Dark Money

Something else I’m worried about is the unknown effect of the unreported dark money the billionaires are putting into the election. Musk is putting hundreds of millions in all by himself.

Think about AI analyzing ALL the data, microtargeting individuals, getting specific, personal messaging directly to them through channels we don’t know about. Cambridge Analytica and Facebook happened generations ago and we got Brexit and Trump from that. Since then they own Twitter and CBS and WAPO – and everything else – and have gathered all the personal information that exists, and have AI to analyze it, and the means to reach individuals under the radar.

Headlines Say “GOP,” Not “Republican”

Also to what extent do voters who don’t like Trump even make the connection to Republicans? How many even know that Republican candidates support Trump? Do they even know that headlines that say “GOP” are referring to “Republicans?”

Little Numbers Can Add Up

I’m talking about lots and lots of small percentages adding up. 2% who don’t know GOP means Republicans, 3% who only hear they’ll get checks, 3% of Dems who hear Talarico is really a corporate CEO andis in the Epstein files…

This is the kind of stuff we hear about in the months and years after a surprise…

Organize And Be Ready

So we have to organize and organize and reach individuals and make sure they turn out and make sure it’s counted and be ready to show up if they mess with the results.

And remember, if there are typos here I do it for you.

Hard To Imagine Democracy

Posted on by

This post first appeared at Imagine Democracy – Imagining government of the people, by the people and for the people.

I haven’t posted here at Imagine Democracy for a while because it is hard to imagine democracy with everything that is happening. I’ve been writing a LOT over at Government Cheese: Chronicling the collapse of democracy because … the collapse of democracy.

So imagine democracy. Suppose We the People manage to get control of the United States again. What’s it going to take to get America back on its feet?

The World Will Need An Ironclad Guarantee It Can’t Happen Again

We the People are going to have to make changes that provide the entire world with an ironclad assurance that this all cannot happen again. Can. Not. The level of systemic reform required before any country, business or anyone dares to trust the US again will be enormous. The damage done by tariffs, threats, withdrawal of assistance, bombs and otherwise is just huge.

Why would any country agree to any kind of arrangement with the US without some kind of ironclad guarantee? This is real. Right now the EU is talking to the UK about deals opening up more trade, and a few other things. In those talks the EU is asking for the agreement to include reparations payments if the right gets control of the UK again and undoes these agreements – again.

Even domestically. Suppose you’re thinking about joining (or rejoining) the Dept of Justice. Without such a guarantee you are not only facing the possibility of being tossed out in 4 years if the nutcases get control again, you are also facing the possibility of being indicted for trying to help the country recover! Suppose you’re a scientist thinking of coming back to help fight the climate crisis. Same deal. You could get indicted for that – or worse – if they get back in.

That’s a lot of work there to undo the ways the system is rigged against the public. How do you get government back under the control of We the People? Most important: Get money out of the election system. Ban it. Ban corporate money from being used for any purpose other than running the corporation! Getting the money out might give the public a chance to start righting the ship.

Get rid of the Electoral College – it’s a leftover from the slave-state system. Make the Senate represent their share of the population instead of two senators for a state with the population of one county in a state like California! Bring in some kind of preferential/ranked-choice voting system to stop current vote for the lesser-of-two-evils system. Get corporations under control – re-regulate them and put “stakeholders” on Boards. Completely reform and expand the corrupt Republican Supreme Court. Somehow restore an honest system for the public to get reliable news & information that stops the ability to propagandize the public. (Maybe a super and expanded version of Public Broadcasting? Govt funding for news outlets and local news outlets?) Implement ironclad ways to make sure democracy is understood, respected and protected, including a Department of Democracy.
 
So many things will have to be done. But seriously why should anyone trust the US “system” again without this level of real reform?

After what happened with Japan and Germany this is the level of change that had to happen. Complete transformation. It didn’t happen after the Soviet Union fell, and look where they are now!

Colbert, CBS, FCC and Election Interference

Posted on by

Colbert stood up to the FCC and the new CBS. This is good.

But what we’re seeing here is not really a story of the little people overcoming the boot on the throat. We are seeing the boot arriving at the throat. This is the beginning of one piece in the coming wave of election interference. The signal has been sent to the stations and networks: No coverage for Democratic candidates, issues & viewpoints.

Colbert has power but the FCC has massive power. What happens now is every local station and national network will be afraid to give local, state & national Dem candidates and viewpoints airtime. And they will likely feel they should boost coverage of Republican and fringe right-wing candidates and viewpoints (even more than they already do).

We have already seen how this works. We’re old enough to remember a time before Reagan brought in the corporatization & commercialization of news, back when all kinds of issues were (required to be) discussed. We’ve seen how “news” – especially local news – became commercialized, sensationalized and fear-mongering. When was the last time you saw coverage of union leaders talking about the benefits to working people from joining a union?

Remember “hard-hitting” documentaries on the nation’s problems, etc…?

I fear that we are about to see another shift in what the public is shown.

Campaign Donations Should Be ‘Secret Santa’

Posted on by

Campaign “donations” to fund politics are necessarily and obviously corrupting. Massive amounts are “donated” with the clear expectation of receiving something in return. Normally that is called “bribery” but the corrupt recipients of the bribes call it “free speech.”

And everyone knows this. Everyone sees the political finance system as corrupt. Everyone.

“Public financing” is one proposed solution. Campaign donations would be banned. Government finances political campaigns. But aside from the complexity of such a system, there are legitimate “free speech” arguments that people should be able to support candidates and parties they favor.

Secret Santa Donations

Here is an alternative that preserves “free speech.” Set up a “Secret Santa” system that prevents recipients from knowing where donations come from. You want to help a candidate or party? Fine! Sure, give all you can. But don’t expect anything in return because they won’t know where the money came from!

The point of a Secret Santa donation system is to stop the obvious bribery. So of course for this to work it must be difficult and illegal for donors to tell who they donated to and how much they gave, and for the candidates or parties to find out where money comes from.

Democracy Was Lost Decades Ago

Posted on by

1) Trump got 2 million fewer votes than 2020. This election turned on the 12 million who voted for Biden in 2020 but not Harris. I guess there’s historical value in finding out why they didn’t vote. Gaza was clearly one factor in this. I’m not saying it was all Gaza but Michigan would have gone to Harris except for Gaza. This is very clear when you look at Michigan’s vote count, Fewer than 100,000 votes would have given Michigan to Harris. But this doesn’t account for the 12 million nationwide.

2) As I wrote, this was inevitable Dems have been fighting a holding action for decades, and the dam broke. I wrote about how this loss is the culmination of the long-term, strategic, billionaire/corporate-funded “Conservative Movement” plan that has played out since the 70s. The Master Plan podcast does an excellent job of showing how this played out. If you want to know what has happened, please listen to this podcast. You can’t fight that with short-term efforts at election time. The country was lost long before this election.

3) I think if there is a root of this loss during the Biden admin it was that big Build Back Better bill was split in half, with the social spending split from the infrastructure part. The Chamber of Commerce wanted the infrastructure part. Biden promised not to allow that part to pass without the other part. They passed the first part. Manchin/Sinema worked with the right to kill the social spending. Progressives refused to vote for one but not the other, then corporate Dems used that as a cudgel to defeat progressives.

That social spending was what would have made people FEEL that the economy was working for them. That’s why the Chamber got it knocked out of the bill.

4) But really it is #2, which many of us “dirty hippies” have been warning about since the early 2000s at least, trying to get ANYONE to set up a counter-effort. Democracy Alliance was an attempt…

5) I do not see a way to overcome this. The world has entered a new era of oligarchal control. Democracy was defeated some time ago. Just look at all the studies showing that literally nothing has been passed in the US without the support of the wealthy, regardless of population support.

6) If it is as bad as we think the “blue” states will have to decide their own way forward apart from the rest of the country. California and others should become countries and try to fight off what is happening.

Panic Over Biden

Posted on by

I have taken positions on every side of this issue. That will likely continue.

I understand everyone on every side of this. Trump is literally an existential threat, when you figure in climate and nukes. And if you’re in a group that will be executed or rounded up. So to me every argument is understandable because so much depends on winning this.

People are terrified, so if Biden’s age makes it look like he could lose there is panic. And people are terrified so if it looks like replacing Biden could cost the election there is panic. And people are terrified so if it looks like replacing Biden with Harris could cost the election there is panic. And people are terrified so if it looks like running someone besides Harris could cost the election there is panic.

PS It also depends on planning for what happens after the election if Trump does not get the votes because their plan is obviously to have a Republican House or Republican Supreme Court put him in anyway. That’s why there was so much detailed planning for a next administration, and meetings with autocrats around the world, even when it seriously looked like he would not “win.”

The Debate And The Election

Posted on by

This post first appeared at Government Cheese (Chronicling the collapse of democracy)

The way I look at the election and in particular this debate is, “how the fuck is Trump even or ahead in the polls, and how does the voting public see things?” Not, “how do I see things?” How in the world does the voting public see their lives under Dems and Biden as worse than Trump?

So you look at the information environment that regular people are in. And you try to see what they see.

I know what the public saw in the first 15 minutes of the debate – which is all that matters. Impressions are set and no one cares after that.

I am of the belief that you have to vote for Biden anyway because of the existential threat of Trump or at this point any Republican. (I wavered because of Gaza but am still there.) And I was shaken by what I saw, wondering even if Biden can even stay alive until November, never mind another 4 years. And the brain was not functioning. I see no future in a Biden vote. No hope for more of what we saw that last four years, only a Harris ascension quite soon. But I still will vote Biden – only because of Trump.

Will the debate change things? The right-wing-dominated information environment regular people live in already had Biden as old and demented, so all that happened is that was confirmed. For people outside of that information environment, Trump is clearly understood as extremely dangerous, and that was confirmed if you could stomach even watching him which I could not and did not except for a bit.

Anyway what matters now is are the polls going to change? I think maybe not. I think enough people already had it in their mind that Biden is too old but Trump is too dangerous.

If we can change the information environment America could come back. At this point that means overcoming Murdoch, Sinclair, private equity, billionaires etc. Musk and his cohorts did not buy Twitter to make a profit.

What Biden And Dems Should Say About The Economy

Posted on by

Biden and Democrats should be explaining to the public that, “The economy is starting to turn around.”

Polling vs The Reality

Polling shows that people feel “the economy” is doing really poorly right now. Every poll. “Grim” numbers.

Lots of top Democrats are reacting to this by saying that all the “numbers” show that the economy is actually doing really, really well. It seems like these voices are declaring that the voters are wrong, which is politically a terrible approach.

What To Say?

Telling the voters they are wrong is a recipe for electoral disaster. What should Democrats be telling the public when the numbers are great but the public says they’re feeling terrible about the economy? Here is how this was successfully handled in the past.

When Obama was running for reelection people were in a sour mood and a “businessman” (Mitt Romney) was running against him. Republicans were telling the public that government should be “run like a business” (Strip the government and harvest the public for profit?) and this meant they should elect a businessman.

The “Explainer-in-Chief” Speaks

Along came Bill Clinton to speak at the 2012 Democratic Convention. Whatever you might think of his policies, Clinton had amazing spot-on political instincts. He said Obama feels the country’s pain. He said things have been bleak for a long time. He said we’ve taken hit after hit, faced problem after problem. But now we’re turning the corner. Everything is in place thanks to Obama and things are starting to get better. You will feel it, just give it a little more time.

He explained things so well he was labelled “Explainer-in-Chief.”

Here is more of what Clinton said in the 2012 speech that I think re-elected Obama

He inherited a deeply damaged economy. He put a floor under the crash. He began the long, hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for innovators. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, are we where we want to be today? No.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Is the president satisfied? Of course not.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But are we better off than we were when he took office? (Cheers, applause.)

And listen to this. Listen to this. Everybody — (inaudible) — when President Barack Obama took office, the economy was in free fall. It had just shrunk 9 full percent of GDP. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month.

Are we doing better than that today?

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yes! (Applause.)

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The answer is yes.

Now, look. Here’s the challenge he faces and the challenge all of you who support him face. I get it. I know it. I’ve been there. A lot of Americans are still angry and frustrated about this economy. If you look at the numbers, you know employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend again. And in a lot of places, housing prices are even beginning to pick up.

But too many people do not feel it yet.

Read the rest here. It’s actually a fun read.

My Point

Clinton single-handedly reelected Obama with that speech. My point is, Biden & Dems need to be saying, “We understand how hard it has been and we’ve been working on it. It is starting to turn around.” Not what they’ve been saying, “Shut up stupid voters, things are great, stop whining about the economy.”

I have spoken.

Biden’s Problems Go Back To 2009

Posted on by

This post is in honor of Seeing the Forest’s 20th Anniversary.

As the country dissolves into fascist turmoil, it’s useful to look back at How We Got Here. 2009 was The Year Democrats Could Have Done Something, but chose not to.

The W Bush Years

‘W’ Bush lost the 2000 election but was appointed president by the Republican Supreme Court. The Bush years were terrible for the country and ended in absolute disaster. He oversaw an administration of lies, corruption, enrichment of the rich, scams targeting the poor… The Bush administration ignored warnings so we were attacked on 9/11 Republicans used the attack to polarize the public into an illegal war for oil.

Remember this?

“People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

THAT was how the nation was “governed.” The Bush response to Hurricane Katrina and the financial collapse showed the public how that sort of “governance” works out for them.

And the voters knew it.

2008 Election – The Public DEMANDED Change
Continue reading →

July 16 Marks 20 Years Of Seeing the Forest

Posted on by

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

First post, July 16, 2002, Ralph Nader is a Scab:

In the union movement we learned the hard way that the only way to fight the moneyed interests is to stick together. It’s called SOLIDARITY. It’s what “union” MEANS.

When unions are in a fight the members stick together, and those crossing the lines are called “scabs”.

In the 2000 election it was the usual fragile Democratic coalition fighting the usual moneyed interests. Ralph Nader broke the solidarity, divided the coalition, and lost us the election. Ralph Nader is a scab.

No one was “taught a lesson” by people voting for a 3rd party to “teach the Democrats a lesson.” We got Bush and death and corruption and destruction. OBVIOUSLY “the Democrats” did not learn the lesson.

Vote for the right person in primaries! Get the bad Democrats out. Then show up and vote for the Democrat in the general. No matter what. Otherwise the fascists win.

Dem “Establishment” Lucrative Losers

Posted on by

The Democratic party “establishment”… The elderly “centrist” leadership, the high-paid consultants, the fundraisers, the lobbying class…

For all their “practicality” about turning to the right to win elections, obviously the only winning election strategy is showing voters they’re on their side. But the “conventional wisdom” and advice to candidates is rarely to do that.

It’s all about the money. Raising enough money for candidates requires backing off from anything that smells like it might be “to the left,” which means helping actual working people. (Also known as “the voters.”)

The “practical” belief that only lots of money (showing donors whose side they are on) can win elections has cost Democrats so many local and national seats over the years. And it has cost the country & planet almost everything. But you have to admit it has been a lucrative practice for a lot of top Dems.

It is difficult to get top Dems to understand something, when their lucrative payoffs depend on their not understanding it.

Republicans Do What They Accuse

Posted on by

The old “Seeing the Forest Rule” (scroll down, it’s a whole category) is “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.”

Today’s edition: Voter fraud. Republicans are accusing Dems of voter fraud. Turns out the only voter fraud is Republicans.

Daily Beast, Yet Another Resident of The Villages Busted for 2020 Voter Fraud,

A fourth retiree from The Villages has been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into voter fraud at the well-known central Florida retirement community.

There are lots of examples of Republicans committing voter fraud. There aren’t any examples of Dems doing that. Of course.