Best Post of the Week for the Week of December of December 25, 2016

2016 exits, and 2017 begins

An introspective entry.

The Massive Decline in Violence (shout out to 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit)

The purpose of this blog has been, and remains, to explore all things, technology, culture, society, etc, of the approximate 1890 to 1920, more or less (adding, probably, something like 50 years on either side of that).  I stray from that a lot, as any reader very well knows, but I tend to come back to it.

Recently I've been running 1916 is century delayed real time so often that a person could be excused for thinking it was the 1916 day by day blog, or something like that, but it isn't.  I've been doing that do the centennial of the Punitive Expedition.  Once that story basically concludes the near day by day entries will slow down as well, to the likely relief of everyone who stops in here, but some of the newly added features that are basically slice of life type entries will likely keep on keeping on, maybe.

Anyhow, in keeping with this, I've found that there are a couple of other sites that run 1916 in delayed real time, one of which is Reddit's 100 Years Ago Subreddit.  I like it, and I post quite a few of the entries here that are posted on the centennial of their happening as links there.  But I read those entries over there was well.

Recently one of the moderators of that Subreddit posted an end of the year item noting that the murder rate in 1916 in the US was 145% of today's.

145%.

Now, this shouldn't surprise the readers here, but I still wonder to what degree we fail to appreciate that violence has really declined.  Massively, in fact.

We have run a lot of items on this before, including, Violent society? andPeculiarized violence and American society. Looking at root causes, and not instrumentalities.  So this should not  be a surprise to readers here.  But what an impressive statistic.

And how interesting in terms of how we look at the world we live in. In terms of violence, in spite of spectacular examples to the contrary, this is about the best era there is to live in, unless of course you are a victim, in which case, no doubt, that's no comfort at all.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 19: A Very Blustery Day

Today In Wyoming's History: December 19:

2016  A recorded gust of wind reached 88 mph on the base of Casper Mountain, a new record 14 mph higher than any previously recorded gust in that location.  Clark Wyoming reported a blast of 108 mph.  It was a very blustery day.

Stabbed In The Back. . . . a self deluding thesis

First of all let me note the following.

Russia is not our friend (Romney, who was widely derided when he was the Presidential candidate for noting that, was close to correct, to a degree).  

And the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails, their attempt to do so on the Republican ones, and their general behavior in these regards is so abominable that it must be addressed.  Indeed, while I haven't researched it, I wonder if it technically amounts to a causi belli, although it will not come to that.

Anyhow, some history.

By the fall of 1918 the German war effort was shot. They were incapable of winning the war.

Everything the Germans had calculated on, and gambled on, had failed.  The United Kingdom did not collapse due to a submarine blockade before the United States effectively fielded an army in Europe.  The Micheal Offensive did not break the Allied lines and take Paris, throwing France out of the war.  The introduction of poisonous gas had not proved to be a battlefield tide turner, or even particularly effective.  The surrender of the Russians under Lenin did not turn out to release a flood of men and supplies as German avarice required the deployment of German assets to keep on at nearly full strength.  Backing the Communists in Russia had helped turn the tide in the East but then had gone right to the German navy yards were it was having the same effect as it had in Russian ones.

They had lost.

They still hoped to secure a satisfactory diplomatic resolution, and in fact they actually did, but it wasn't the one they hoped for.

And soon, psychologically, they refused to accept it.

Which is just what the Democrats are doing about the 2016 election right now.

What German society did is well known.  By November 1918 they had no choice at all but to accept Allied terms. Those terms, in spite of the way they have been repeatedly portrayed, were not really all that harsh. A big part of this is that Germany had slid into a revolution at home, which strangely gets underplayed in the English language histories.  Just as in Revolutionary Russia, in Revolutionary Germany idle sailors betrayed their employers and became an unruly dangerous uniformed mob. As things disintegrated at home the Germans had to deploy its army on its own territory against its own people, a situation which would keep on keeping on after the war with the Allies ended.

By the late 1920s, however, they'd convinced themselves they hadn't actually lost the war at all, and certainly not through their own actions.  It was somebody else's fault. And that somebody became, in their imaginations, the Jews, a fairly absurd proposition anyway you look at it. But an absurd proposition that was used to launch the political career of a figure who emphasized the very worst elements of German culture and who attacked the best elements of it.

What does that have to do with the Democrats?

Well, the Democrats lost this election through their own ineptness, just as the Germans lost the Great War through their own fault and miscalculations.  I would have thought they would have won, but not because of their great campaign, but because Trump seemed to be incapable of winning. The Democrats, as we've explored already, ran a person well out of her own time, who wasn't likeable, emphasizing, where they emphasized anything, failed positions, while insulting some of their base.

Now, and here's where the stab in the back comes from, we know about some of those insults due to leaks.

It is now known that the Russians penetrated the Democratic National Committee and swiped their emails.  That's a criminal act, but we also know that t he Russians tried the same with the Republicans and failed as the Republican firewall worked. Why didn't the Democratic one work? 

And the Russian release of information, it's worth noting, did not release anything that wasn't true.  It's hard to complain, or should be hard to complain, about the truth of your own views being released.  If DNC operatives detested the Catholic Church, for example, they detested us.  The Russians letting us know that doesn't mean it isn't true. Rather, they were embarrassed by the truth.

But not so much, apparently, that they now feel they need to change at all. They don't.  They've propped up the same old, same old for their leaders and they, or at least those organs that support them, are crying about the Russians. "Stabbed in the back".  Donna Brazile and Leon Panetta were both on over the weekend  on the news shows addressing the email situation and neither of them would acknowledge that the problem, for their campaign, wasn't that emails were stolen, but what the stolen emails said.  Brazile went so far as to claim the emails were "weaponized" but if they were weapons, they were handgrenades with the pins pulled out before they were tossed out the cyber window. The real problem with them is that they let voters see how the Clintonites actually thought.

I think that its time to put Putin and his cronies in a corner.  We can't pretend that it isn't a crime, and frankly it creeps up on being nearly an act of war. 

But that doesn't mean it actually influenced the election.  I highly doubt that, to say the least.  At most they tended to confirm what the confirmed already thought.  That doesn't excuse it, but nor will there be any excuse for the Democrats to run repeat elections in 2018 and 2020, which right now is exactly where they are headed.

A rational and honest voice from the Governor's office

Governor Mead, according to the Casper Star Tribune:

Mead said in an interview Wednesday with the Star-Tribune that two state attorneys general have advised him that Wyoming is not legally structured, through an enabling act that began the process of statehood in the late 1800s, to obtain federal land. States such as Utah have enabling acts that provide a stronger case for transfer, but even they are battling to obtain the land, he said.

“Then you get into the policy,” the Republican said. “And I reflect back to 2012. We spent as a state $45 million fighting fires… If the federal lands that had fires on them would have been state lands, we would have spent another $45 million – in one summer. That’s a significant amount.”

And then the shoe dropped.

Yesterday I published this item:

Lex Anteinternet: Whining, crying, panic in the editorial room of th...: Following the flood of analysis following the recent election of Donald Trump I stopped doing my after action reports.  There's just to...

Which included this item:

Gritting my teeth and waiting for the shoe to drop.  All this might lead some to think I'm a Trump supporter.  For regular Democrats, they probably have concluded I am, and for the Greewhich village crowd that seemingly runs the party they're probably hiding under their cafe tables with their tofu sandwiches and free trade coffee by now, crying.  But actually, I'm not.  As noted way back during the election, I voted for a third party candidate, and an obscure one at
that.

Which means even though, unlike the NYT I accept the election, and unlike the Democratic Party, I actually know it occurred, I'm not a Trumpite now or before. And I'm gritting my teeth on the upcoming  Secretary of the Interior nomination. . .

Well, I didn't have to wait long.

 Secretary of the Interior nominee Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Yesterday it was announced that Trump will announce  U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers as his Secretary of the Interior.

Well, I'm not shouting for joy, that's for sure.  But it could have, maybe, been worse.

We'll have to see about her.  She signed on to the bad idea bills leaking out of Utah and Alaska to transfer public lands to the state, as did of course all of Wyoming's folks in D.C., thereby betraying the will of the people who elected them.  Rodgers' district includes Seattle so my guess is that her constituency wasn't universally thrilled either.  But what she really seems to be is an industry advocate, with most of that having been for nuclear and hydroelectric.

It's really clear that Trump's focus is on industry and big industry at that.  I'm really skeptical that the concept of "cutting red tape" and all of that does anything for American industry in 2016.  The ship sailed on that long ago and the idea that American industry, to include the extractive industries, is really hamstrung by regulation is questionable.  But what this may do, maybe, is to take the steam out of the Utah Delusion that all that has to happen for money to rain down out of the sky is to get regulation out of the way, because it looks like it will be getting out of the way.  If the gutters of Main Streets in Salt Lake, Juneau and Cheyenne aren't flowing with cash we'll soon know better.

This might, therefore, be like the Reagan Administration in these regards.  The Sagebrush Rebellion was on fire at the time Reagan became President but his Secretary of the Interior, James Watt was undoubtedly the most pro industry individual to ever occupy that position and most of the fire accordingly died down.

As a total aside, around 1993 or 1994 I was present on the highway just outside of Dubois Wyoming when I was a witness to a motor vehicle accident Mr. Watt was in. The road conditions were awful at the time.

Whining, crying, panic in the editorial room of the New York Times, and waiting for that shoe to drop

Following the flood of analysis following the recent election of Donald Trump I stopped doing my after action reports.  There's just too much writing on the topic and I'm sure everyone is sick of it. Still, some things do and will call out for commentary and I can't help myself.  So, a collection of things will be posted here.

The Delusional Whining.  Not a day goes by, it seems, where one of the large newspaper organizations doesn't seemingly confirm what Republicans claimed about them, they're relationship to the Democratic Party equates with Pravda's relationship with the Communist Party.  It's absurd.

The New York Times and similar organs are just screaming with "Trump Not A Democrat?  Will he appoint the ghost of William Jennings Bryan to the Supreme Court?"  Get real.

The absolutely babyish reaction to a President who isn't a Democrat and who isn't an establishment Republican has just been fantastically juvenile.  And it probably is serving to cement the views of somebody who seemed to relish taking them on.

The irony, I suppose, is that the NYT and print media has been in a decline of disastrous proportions for a long time, so for the most part, its message is not only not getting through, it's symptomatic of a big city Democratic Party that things everyone in the world lives in a big city and is a Democrat.

Nope, nothing wrong here.  The item in the last paragraph is very nicely demonstrated by the Democratic reaction to the election, now that it has time to absorb it.

It isn't absorbing it.

The Democrats failed to gain either house in Congress.

They lost the Presidency.

They now control only 18, yes that's right, 18, of the State Legislatures.

18.

And they now hold 17 of the 50 Governorships.

Yes, 17.

The Democrats have been sort of smugly sitting back for years thinking "demographics is history", which assumes a linear demographic trend (very much in doubt) while the actual trend was a decline into extinction.

A party normally experiencing this would really clean house. The Democrats are doing the polar opposite.

And in the Senate, they're going with Chuck Schumer as a spokesman constantly.  You know, the New York Democrat who sounds just as abrasive to people who don't live in New York as all the other New York politicians (yes, including Trump). Good idea that. After running one ersatz New Yorker, Clinton, against an expat New Yorker, Sanders, and getting beat by a Manhattanite, sticking with annoying Schumer is the obvious choice.

Couldn't they even perhaps have considered Amy Schumer?  She's at least as left wing and isn't annoying.

Nancy Pelosi is actually retaining her position in the House.  Schumer hasn't been sent packing.  Amazing.  By comparison the GOP cycled over last year in the House. . . and its in control. Problem with losing the House and Senate again?  Apparently not.  "We'll just keep on keeping on with the leader whose been so freaking successful so far.  Go Team!"

This has caused one on line journal to state:

What does a professional sports team do after 6 straight losing seasons? Among other things, it usually fires the coach and looks for new blood, new leadership, and new strategies.

But not if you’re the minority House and Senate democratic leadership... Or the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party shortly before the collapse of communism.

Instead, the failed, and increasingly geriatric leadership holds onto its fading power with increasing tenacity.

The highest ranking elected Democrats are now... drum roll... Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (who has served in Congress for 35 years since 1981) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (who has served in Congress for 30 years since 1986. 

Some conservative cyber screed?  No, that was the very liberal Huffington Post.

The Washington Post recently ran a headline that stated:

The next generation of Democratic leaders is, um, nonexistent

Well, as they say, you don't want to abandon a gasping drowning horse as it sinks under the waives in the middle of a stream. . . oh wait, it's a river. . .

Well there's more hope at the Democratic National Committee, right?

Actually there is.  And if they were smart about this one, they'd choose the guy who made sort of a pitch sub silentio for it the other day . . .Barack Obama.

President Obama didn't come out swinging for the fences for it, but he did sort of express some interest, for those paying attention, and he'd be a really good choice. A widely liked politician (he'd have beat Trump if he could have run for a third term), who isn't 150 years old.  But he won't get it

There are some other good choices however.

One of them isn't Keith Ellison, however.

I know very little about Ellison personally but he's the wrong choice.  In interviews he sounds like he's straight out of the party circa 1973. Another one of those guys.

He is younger, young even in Democratic political terms, as he's only 53 (hey! now suddenly I'm young too, go Keith!).  But he's the wrong choice.

Why?  Well his 1973 rhetoric for one thing, and the principal thing. It's not 1973 anymore.

And then there's the fact that he's drawing flak for having represented the Nation of Islam as a lawyer years ago.  Ellison is a convert to Islam from Catholicism, which is quite rare and a bit odd, but he's never been a member of the Nation of Islam which isn't conventionally Islamic.  Nonetheless he's drawing some flak from some Jewish groups. And oddly, he's now getting flak from Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, whom he's denounced for years, who is calling him a coward.  This is the sort of stuff the DNC doesn't need.  Close attention to religious affiliation hasn't been a factor, supposedly, since 1963 but I'd question if that's fully true now (I doubt it) and picking somebody whose drawing these odd problems so early on may not be a really good idea.  Chances are some Democrats will feel that it has a "look. . .see how diverse we are" feel to it but it isn't likely to come across the way that they think, particularly when the GOP looks at least as diverse anymore. The Democrats look 1973 diverse. . the GOP looks 2016 diverse. Diversity isn't necessarily liberal.

Speaking of 1963, I see where television is going to run something on Jackie Kennedy, with Jackie played by Natalie Portman.  I'll not watch it, but apparently it touches on Jack's personal behavior only barely, or so I read.  When we're talking about guys with unsuitable behavior for the Presidency, how come JFK keeps getting a pass?  Seriously.

Anyway, if you want to send a message that the election meant nothing, picking the same old crew in Congress and a guy who sounds like he's from 1973 as the DNC chairman would be a really good approach to that.  "Let's run the same winning team with the same winning message we have since 1973, team, because demographics his history. . . hey. . . why isn't there anyone in the stands?"

The Post Clue Era.  Amongst those on the liberal left who are recreating, Weimar Republic style ("we didn't loose the war with the Allies, we were stabbed in the back. . . let's try it again") the recent election is the press itself about the press.

Recently, for anyone paying attention, there's been a news story about there being fake news on Facebook.

Gee, really.  What a shock.

This isn't news.

Everyone with a critical eye knows this. This as been known from approximately 30 seconds after Facebook came into being.

This does allow, however, comfort to the liberal downtrodden, as in "Oh, they don't disagree with me, they were befuddled by fake news. . . I need not change".

No doubt some votes were changed by fake news, but I'll bet not much.  Most of the fake news I saw, and it was from the left and the right, was obviously pitched to the already committed.  And its still going on.  News like that just goes to those whose minds are made up already.

And speaking of made up minds. . .

Picking up the loaded gun.  Speaking of not getting the point, one lesson the Democrats really should have taken from this election was to knock off the talk about gun control.

President Obama wisely basically didn't talk about gun control. 

That's because he is smart.

This didn't keep the NRA from picking on him anyhow, which I was convinced was a poor strategy.  Perhaps Clinton did as well, as she went gun control in the primaries and stuck with it, in an oatmeal fashion, in the general election. Well, the NRA put in an all out effort and it can take big time credit for the results, whether you like them or not, this past season.

Which is likely to mean a big roll back on what gun control there is.

Indeed, the NRA must push on this.  It would have anyhow, but as a practical matter, it must.  The NRA was consistent on Obama being the worst thing ever, second only to Hillary Clinton, for years.  Having assisted in getting in a Republican President when many, including  me, thought that was a mistake, and there being a GOP House and Senate, it it rest on its laurels its doomed.  In truth, Obama did nothing much on gun control until the very end of his presidency, at which time there was no point in him not trying to do something, as he was never going to get any NRA love anyway.  But, for the NRA, you cannot decry a person for eight years as hideously awful and then allow his successor to pretty much do nothing, which is pretty much what Obama was doing. So the NRA has to argue for roll back on gun control and national right to carry.  It has to.

One of the reasons that the Democrats should stay away from this entire topic as they don't know what they are talking about. Voters who vote on gun issues do know what they are talking about.  Democrats, when they speak about gun control, come across as ignorant or liars.

They probably don't know that. But when they speak about guns, if they do at all, as opposed to gun control, they generally demonstrate a profound ignorance on the topic.  And when they speak of gun control they tend to speak about stuff like "common sense gun safety" which means, to anyone listening, "I don't know anything about guns, but I'm going to assume that you will agree to me that we can make all guns Nerf Guns and that this makes sense".  When they do that, they come across like somebody who is trying to lie.

Most of this is, again, because the Democratic Party is heavily urban and it thinks of all guns being snubnosed revolvers from the movie Shaft, that early 70s things again, or it thinks of every gun being a true, selective fire, assault rifle (which are exceedingly rare and heavily regulated in civilian hands).  Most firearms users, and the numbers are growing, don't see firearm that way at all.

Anyhow, if the Democrats had brains, they'd not try to talk about "common sense" gun control or "gun safety" or any of that baloney.  They'd be a lot better off taking some other approach, if they really want to discuss this at all.  If they must discuss it, frankly, they'd be a lot better off just stating the truth, which his "I don't ever get outside of Greenwich Village and I think the only legitimate activity of a decent person is reading Vanity Fair".

No matter, I'm sure they won't listen.  Indeed the NYT (remember that journal, its noted above?) just published an article about lawyers and law firms volunteering their time on gun control.

Yawn.

That's not going to do diddly except make lawyers look even more like left wing weenies than they already do.  Indeed, just recently I heard a young person disparage the entire profession of the law in a way that was graphic, but suggested that all lawyers were a bunch of wimps in the most dramatic fashion.  Some people don't credit the opinions of the young, but I do.  People's opinions on professions and activities change over time.  A lot of older lawyers even now imagine that they're Al Pacino in With Justice For All, just as an older generation yet thought all lawyers were Atticus Finch.  Apparently we're now looking more like Zippy the Pinhead however and the smiling firm portraits in the article do sort of come across like "look at us. . . we're afraid to go outdoors!"

Gritting my teeth and waiting for the shoe to drop.  All this might lead some to think I'm a Trump supporter.  For regular Democrats, they probably have concluded I am, and for the Greewhich village crowd that seemingly runs the party they're probably hiding under their cafe tables with their tofu sandwiches and free trade coffee by now, crying.  But actually, I'm not.  As noted way back during the election, I voted for a third party candidate, and an obscure one at that. 

Which means even though, unlike the NYT I accept the election, and unlike the Democratic Party, I actually know it occurred, I'm not a Trumpite now or before. And I'm gritting my teeth on the upcoming Secretary of the Interior nomination.

So far, I've seen Trump's picks for various posts as mixed.  People crying in their free range, free trade, buttermilk about picking various generals about things haven't impressed me.  I haven't thought those picks bad.  I'm okay with his pick for Secretary of Defense.  That position used to be called the Secretary of War, and a former Marine Corps general who probably isn't impressed by the attempt to ignore physics and nature in the military is plenty okay by me. Likewise I'm okay with Kelly for Homeland Security, although I wonder why we need a Department of Defense and a Department of Homeland Security (I know, let's have a. . .um. . War Department!)

And I'm not going to freak out, or even get particularly excited, or even interested, with Nikki Haley at the UN.

I'm also okay with Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.  I know he's taken flak, but Trump would have had to pick the Barrista at the 9th and Centre Metro Station in Greenwich Village to please his opponents on this one, so why bother?

Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education bothers me a bit, but I'll wait to see how that plays out.  It wouldn't surprise me if some corrective actions are needed there, but that isn't a department I pay much attention to.

And picking Ben Carson to anything strikes me as a really poor idea.  I guess we'll see.

Scott Puritt at the EPA, strikes me as a poor choice.  No surprise, but a poor choice.  I'm worried about what that will mean.

And I'm really worried about the Interior.

So far, for potential Interior picks, the only one I liked was Matt Mead and he's taken his name out. And yes that does mean I don't want Cynthia Loomis, who is another Wyoming politician who turned her backs on the views of her constituents on public lands.  Boo.

Frankly, the pick I may be most comfortable with is Donald Trump, Jr.  I know that wold be a shocker, but he actually is the most measured of the potential candidates.  And he might be campaigning for it.

Now, I'm sure that people will say Trump can't pick his son, but why not?  That great American skirt chaser, um President, John F. Kennedy, made Bobby Kennedy the Attorney General and hardly anyone things that was improper. Appointing Bobby that is, not the skirt chasing.

Well, apparently the skirt chasing was okay as well.  The copy of People magazine wondered in here in the wife's grocery bag with an article on what Jackie "knew" reports that she grew up in a family where her father did that, and Jack's father did that, and '"that's what men did.'

Yes, that's bulls**t. But even now?

Anyhow, we're staying tuned.

Lessons Learned. I guess there weren't any.

I'm tempted to stop this series of posts, and likely will slow them down or halt them for awhile, somewhat.   There's been a flood of post election commentary and so there's hardly any point in doing any more, which doesn't seem to mean that anyone is stopping however.

Nonetheless, in the spirit of warning those who will not learn from history, I cannot help but note that part of the Democratic and left of center commentary has been a howling scream of "we did nothing wrong and we intend to keep on doing the same".

It's truly been amazing.

There has been, to be completely fair, a fair amount of post election analysis in these quarters that's pretty biting, quite analytical, and likely correct.  But there's also a lot that's flat out delusional.

In that category, there have been some who have been floating suggestions along the lines of "if Trump really wants to work with us, like he says, he'll (fill in terms of surrender to the Democrats here).

First of all, I haven't heard him saying that at all.  Indeed, I think the great self delusional element in much of the post election analysis is that Trump isn't going to keep on keeping on in the direction he's been going.  He will.

So, I don't think he's really that worried about working with Democrats.  He really doesn't have to.

He has to work with Republicans, but they also have to work with him and they know it.  Republicans now will have no excuse at all for not doing things they've paid lip service to, but have not done.

Chief amongst the more off the rails suggestions I've seen is that if Trump really wants to show that he can work with Democrats (a doubtful proposition) he should renominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.  That's largely the same in nature as suggesting that if Lincoln really wanted to show the South that the nation was one again, in 1865, he should allow slavery to continue.  I mean, seriously?  There's no freaking earthly way that's going to happen, and indeed it should not and could not.

Now, as noted, I'm not a Trump fan (and I wasn't a Clinton fan either), but a person like Trump doesn't get elected to go in and say, "oh, I guess everything is okay here".  Not hardly.  And cherished items such as a left wing Supreme Court were the very things that probably served, in this instance, to torpedo the Democrats chances this year.

Indeed I think a good case can be made for the proposition that the turning point for the Democrats in this election was the Obegefell Decision.  Like it or hate it, it was on legal ice so think that a person could have taken a steam bath in it.  As such decisions are inherently anti-democratic, and that decision certainly was as well as being legally anemic, celebrating it the way the White House did, combined with major Democratic figures announcing that they no longer stood by the things they'd said, when they had to say them to get elected, a few years prior may very well have doomed them.  So essentially saying that the Supreme Court should be turned over to the hard left for a generation, maybe, as a peace offering is really out there.

It's not the only such suggestion that's out there, however.

A less obvious one is the suggestion that the Democrats blast into the future by putting their party in the hands of the same sort of thinking that got them where they are now.  Basically their decision is akin to the "once more over the top" thinking from World War One.  "What, we've been mowed down. . . huh. . . well, let's try it again"

There's a popular suggestion that Keith Ellison be put in charge of the party.  Have you listened to him?  His stated comments, so far, sound pretty much like a repeat of failure.  The New York Times, in an op ed, suggests that Chuck Schumer, one of the most detested Democrats outside of the East Coast, will be given a leadership role. Really, NYT, wouldn't a better suggestion be that Schumer simply keep quiet?  Outside New York, he's not exactly super popular.

In fairness to the Times, however, Schumer was mentioned as an inevitability, along with Sanders, who at least deserves a voice.   They urged the party to look towards younger leaders and I'll note that at least Ellison, who is a few months younger than me, actually fits that definition by Democratic terms.  Not in human terms.  53 years old is not young.  But when the two candidates who ran for the Democrats this year in the primaries have a combined age of over 140, well, I guess its youngish.

Lessons Learned: Nobody cares what celebrities have to say about politics

Late in the election the Clinton campaign drug out a platoon of celebrities.

A television advertisement was run in some venues featuring them.

Miley Cyrus, Jay Z, and Beyonce all chipped in for Clinton.

It turns out that nobody cares what these people have to say.  Nor should they.

Now, so its clear, I also don't think anyone should care what Clint Eastwood, or other figures that people claim hold right wing views (I don't know if they really do or not) say about politics either.

I don't wish to cast aspersion on anyone personality (although I will below) but entertainers are entertainers.  That doesn't make them wise sages.

Indeed, as a class, entertainers are amongst the most screwed up people on the planet.  I sometimes wonder if the fact that their fame is based on performing, rather than on something deeper than that, is the reason why.  I don't know that, but I wonder that.  Indeed, as a rule, most modern performers aren't performing things they have directly created it, but interpreting something someone else has.  That is, truly, an art, but it isn't the same as creating it.  At the end of day, in other words, we tend to remember Shakespeare, not the Shakespearean actor.  I guess with singers its a bit different, as we tend to remember the performer rather than the author.  I.e, we associate Me and Bobby McGee with Janis Joplin, not with Kris Kristofferson. 

Anyhow, while not commenting on the candidates directly, yet, the fact that the electorate apparently doesn't care who Beyonce is going to vote for is a mighty good sign.  Indeed, the fact that the electorate doesn't care who Miley Cyrus supports, given as she's become the poster child for creepily pathetic, is a very good sign.

That doesn't, once again, amount to an endorsement of Trump or Clinton.  But, quite frankly, the image of a 69 year old woman appearing on stage with Beyonce and Jay Z is weird.  And awkward.

I guess if Janis Joplin were still alive, Clinton appearing with Joplin would have been less weird, as Joplin would be older than she is. But that's the point.  Appearing with the hip kidsters makes you look like an unhip oldster.

What's It Mean? The Federal Judiciary

Amongst real conservatives, and by that I mean real ones, not libertarians (who aren't conservatives) and not amongst country club Republicans, but the real deal, one of the few saving graces of the Trump election is that it would appear to mean that appointments to the Federal bench will be made up of individuals who take a conventional approach to statutory interprestation, rather than excessively straining the text to reach what a very ancient body of judges think is an emerging social context, something they should not be doing.

You know, the kind who read the law, and actually apply it.

That sounds, I know, extremely harsh, but right now on the Supreme Court we have at least a few judges who are tending to sort of make stuff up.

Judicial interpretation of statutes can be difficult, if they are poorly written, but that usually isn't the case. Usually, you can read the text, and its plain meaning is obvious.  That is is, in fact, the first principal of judicial interpretation.  Read it.  Does it make sense?  Do that.

If it doesn't quite make sense, then the second thing you are supposed to do it to see if the intent of the drafters can be discerned. That's  more difficult, but often can be.  If the left notes, discussions, text of their debates, you can research them, and find out what they meant, quite often.  Then you do that.

If you can't do that, you have a problem.  Indeed, a maxim of interpretation is "void for vagueness".  That means, "I can't tell what this is supposed to do, so it does nothing".

What you don't do is interpret by "evolving social norms" or pretend that a bunch of text on a paper is a "living document".

You do not want, for example, a judge to say "the text of the statute says that the speed limit, where not posted, is 30 mph, but the evolving social norm says 45 mph is super nifty, so 30 means 45!"

No you do not.

But that's exactly what the Supreme Court has done within the last year.

This is particularly problematic as its highly undemocratic, and when the Court renders decisions of any kind based on what it thinks the law ought to be, rather than what it is, and contrary to the opinions of a sizable percentage of the electorate, it creates havoc and dissension.   As a general rule, the only times taht this doesn't occur when the Supreme Court gets out on a limb is when an overwhelming percentage of teh population has already reached the opinion the court has.

Otherwise, people prefer to have a voice of their own, and that's the way that the system is generally designed. There are, surely, liberties and rights that are protected in the Constitution, but only where that is clear are people generally willing to accept rulings that are otherwise contrary to their personal views.  For example, a lot of people would squelch some speech, and some people would interject religion into law, and lots of people would be happy with broader police powers to search, but they accept that the  Constitution restricts all of these things.  Where such acceptance is wide it will occasionally express itself in an effort to amend the Constitution accordingly, such as efforts to restrict Congress' ability to pass deficit budgets, or for the President to serve more than two terms, or for states to allow the sale of alcohol, etc.

When the Court just makes stuff up, however, it tends to spark real bitterness and disrespect for the Court.  And it puts the nation into what are sometimes decades long efforts to overcome what a nine judge body has determined ought to be the law.  Ironically, this often tends to assist the very body that the Court was seeking to oppose.  The Dred Scott decision did receive acceptance from abolitionist, Roe v. Wade was not accepted by opponents to abortion.  Obegefell will not be accepted by people who wish to retain the traditional, natural, definition of marriage.

Indeed, Supreme Court decisions that do violence to the actual text of the Constitution not only do not receive acceptance, they actually tend to focus and sharpen the arguments that are contrary to the Court's opinion.  In those instances in which the Court, made up of nine older folks, attempts to get out in front of state legislatures and foist a minority view on the nation, those who were campaigning for that minority view tend to go home, but the losers go to work.  Of note, for example, support for abortion has massively declined since the generation that saw Roe v. Wade become law aged out.  The support for the opinion is largely gone.  Support for abolition became so high the country fought a massive Civil War after Dred Scott.  During the period during which the right to keep and bear arms was sort of regarded as mushy by the Federal Courts support for gun control, which was extremely high in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, evaporated.  Those rejoicing over Obegefell, if they really support the holding, ought to hope that the Supreme Court reverses itself immediately so they can try to get back into the legislatures while they still have time.

Because, while people will support clearly spelled out rights, they won't support an anti democratic body telling them what they ought to think.

No matter what else the results of Trump's election may be, based upon his campaign, the one thing actual conservatives can probably safely take some relief on is that the next couple of Supreme Court justices are unlikely to be judicial liberals.  That may actually be the one thing that can safely be predicted about the upcoming next four years.

A D- Analysis: "Energy, Cheney helped fuel Trump's success in Wyoming"

The Tribune has a headline today that declares:

Energy, Cheney helped fuel Trump's success in Wyoming

An article follows.

Oh, what complete bumpkis.

Trump won in Wyoming because he was the GOP candidate.  Absent a spectacularly successful and credible third party candidate, that was never in doubt.  The GOP candidate was going to win here no matter what.

The bigger story is that there were actually over 2,000 write in votes in the Presidential campaign in the state this go around. Given the small population of the state and the accordingly small number of voters, that's the story.

And Cheney aiding Trump?  As if.

Cheney won because Tim Stubson and Leland Christenson tore each other apart in the primaries. Together they took more votes than Cheney.  A person can argue about it, but if one of those two had dropped out, chances are not bad that person, not Cheney, would be the new Representative.

I suspect that Liz Cheney is much less popular than people suppose.  She was, however, the Republican and that seat was going to a Republican. Greene ran a good campaign, it should be noted, but his early support for Bernie Sanders and the fact that he came out in support of Clinton sank any chance he ever had, as my analysis on the local races noted.

But energy and Cheney aiding Trump?  Nah.

What's It Mean? Getting the "race" story all wrong

 The American concept of race has been long lasting, but who fits into a "race" has changed dramatically over the years.

One of the most persistent stories we have heard before the election, and now after, is that Donald Trump won the election due to "white people". Even George F. Will, citing demographic information that supports this "white people" thesis, notes this in his lament over Trump's election in his recent post election column.

The problem is, who are the "white people"?

The press, when it talks about this, tends to redefine it if it looks at it in depth, as the analysis doesn't seem to work from the very onset, so we soon learn that they aren't talking about all "white people", but something like white men without college educations, or maybe white people without college educations, or maybe white people who are or were blue collar.

Well, bumpkis.  This is part of the whole, clueless, press analysis this year.

Here's the problem.

This way of looking at demographics is racist, but fits in with an historical American approach.  Traditionally, although not for a long time, "white people" meant White Anglo Saxon Protestants.  The mere fact that we, in the US, define who is white and who is not dates in large measure to this.  Speaking of WASPs was common when I was still young, and it basically fits this mold, except that the WASPs, to the extent its any kind of real classification, doesn't really fit what actually occurred in this election or what is supposed to have occurred either, let alone what actually occurred.  It does have a lot to do, however, on how Americans inaccurately categorize "race".

This is actually a flyer for an old detective movie, but the press could use some historical detectives themselves.  They use the term "white" as if it is a real classification, which is questionable, without even pondering what it means and how it came to mean anything.

I've written on this before, but this entire way of looking at the world dates to an era when to be a "real American" meant you were probably descendant from a British Isles Protestant.  Some continental Europeans got a pass, but only somewhat.  But many didn't.  If you look back at literature of a century or more, you'll see that Italians, Irish, Greeks, and Eastern Europeans were not "white people".

Oh, surely you say, that can't be right.

It most certainly can be.

All of these groups shared certain characteristics, the most common of which is that they were not likely to be Protestants.  They were likely to be Catholics or Orthodox. Virtually nobody admitted that their racial concepts were based on this, but in fact, they largely were.

Added to this is that the British went into a period during the Victorian Era when they hugely admired the Saxon invaders of their homeland and came to the conclusion, erroneously as we now know, that everyone in England was descendant from the Saxons as surely the Saxons had killed off all the Britons who didn't end up in Wales ultimately. As it turns out they did nothing of the kind, and the English are, genetically, more Celtic than Germanic, but at the time, they were imagining the opposite. This fit neatly into the early views of the United States which emphasized British colonist as being on a civilizing, Protestant, mission.

At the tend of the day, therefore, what defined "white" was whether or not you were part of the culture of the Reformation.  The English fit that nicely, the Scots less so as they were not Germanic, but they were British, and were given a pass, and even the continental Germans and Dutch were as they had to be to fit this definition.  And oddly enough, this definition persists.  In looking at this earlier, I noted: 

So turning to race in general once again, consider that up until probably World War One or so Italians and the Irish were regarded as separate races, and as much so as American Indians or blacks.  Jews were very much a separate race.
Indeed, so were the "Anglo-Saxons".

And that tells us a lot about how "race" categorizations are false.

The early colonist in this country were largely from Great Britain. They were also almost all Protestant, if not all the same type of Protestants. And their view of the world was that they were the vanguards of Protestant Christianity against Catholicism and Heathenism.  They were English and Scots pioneers, and they viewed themselves as right thinking.  People could come around to their way of thinking, or get out of the way. Those who didn't, even if it was King George III, would be pushed out of the way.

Over time, what happened to these various non white (in the concept of the time) is that they were assimilated into the American mix and became "white" Americans.  It sure didn't happen all at once, however.  With the Irish it started with the Mexican War but it lasted all the way until the 1920s and the real assimilation was accomplished by World War Two. This is true of the Italians as well, who were some sort of weird, swarthy, dirty people in the public eye up until after World War Two when they were just part of that great old American melting pot society.  

 Political cartoon from the 1860s, depicting the fear that the United States would be consumed by Irish and Chinese immigrants, who are both depicted as odd looking races.  In the cartoon, the Irish and Chinese immigrants swallow the US, and the Chinese immigrants swallows the Irish one.  Today, nobody would regard the Irish as a separate race, and by and large Asians tend not to be either.

Of course, in this time frame some things had actually changed, both in these groups and in our view of them. The odd accents, and in some cases the strange languages, became less common. And as they worked themselves into positions in the Middle Class, association with them caused familiarity and they seemed more American all the time. And of course, they actually became more American.

And as that occurred, they became "white". That was a pretty significant development, as in doing this, the meaning of "white', except apparently to the American press, changed quite radically.  Irish Americans would never have been regarded by early 20th Century Americans as real whites.  But by the mid 20th Century anyone would laugh at that notion.

And that's because concepts of race are purely cultural, and not without prejudice, having no other basis in anything at all, other than perception.  The culture had changed to accommodate Christian people who weren't Protestants.  Bizarrely, it still hasn't accommodated African Americans to the definition, keeping its oldest racial category, in spite of the fact that most African Americans are more a part of the culture than many more recent arrivals, and more part of the original colonizing culture, which forced them over and into it, than many of the later ones now regarded as "white".

Perhaps one of the best examples of this are Lebanese Americans, of which there are a lot.  They're regarded as white.  I have a large collection of Lebanese-Irish cousins and nobody would ever put them in some separate race.  Nor would I.  But, in terms of DNA, they share genes from the Middle East, which some Americans today would regard as the land of a separate "race".  Most Lebanese Americans are Catholics and always have been, and indeed Christianity is the sole defining thing, really, between who was Lebanese and who was Syrian at one time.  I suspect most Americans today would regard most Muslim Syrians as members of another race.  They aren't.

Because, as noted, race is cultural and a matter of perception.  

Or let's take Bernie Sanders.  He's white, right?

Well, he is today, but a century ago he would have been a mistrusted member of the "Hebrew Race".  Indeed, one of the 1916 newspapers I just ran referred to Americans who were Jewish in that fashion.

Modern Americans don't regard Jewish people as members of a separate race even though they have a distinct culture.  And we haven't had that view for a long time.  The reason is that acceptance of the entire culture came in as they largely assimilated.  This came to be so much the case that an entire meaningless word was adopted to rationalize it, that being "Judaeo-Christian".

Judaeo-Christian as  word, is entirely meaningless. There is no such thing as a Judaeo-Christian culture and the United States is not a Judaeo-Christian nation.  The US started off, basically, as a nation with a Protestant Christian culture and its evolved into one with a broad Christian culture, although its still more Protestant than anything else.  We just adapted our definitions and accepted the Jewish culture into our redefined definition.

Which brings me to election puditry babble.

The entire concept that there's a "white vote" is a completely erroneous way of looking at the election demographics.  What it does is make a false assumption that skin color defines how a person thinks and what they are, and it more particularly acts as if being an Hispanic or a Latino is some deep DNA classification that defines how a person thinks, as if they are a separate species.  

And this is important, by speaking of the new "minorities" or "diversity", in an ethnic sense, the Press, while it includes other groups, mostly means Hispanics.

In truth, as we've noted before, the term Hispanic is so broad a person can be an Indian, black, or a European American and still be attached that label.  It's a fairly meaningless label, therefore.  

It's particularly meaningless as quite frankly but for the fact that most are of relatively recent arrival, and have Spanish names, a large percentage of these individuals would otherwise be classified by people who must make such classifications as "white".  And this is what will occur in fairly short order.  Here's what we noted before:

This brings me to Hispanics and other new groups.  I'm constantly reading that the country is becoming more "diverse".  Maybe it is, but I suspect that Hispanics are a group that's going to be regarded as its own race, now that they are a significant demographic, about as long as Italians were, and for the same reasons.  Fifty years from now, to be Hispanic will be to claim a certain ethnic heritage, and that will probably be about it.

Indeed, it's already the case that I read piles of wedding announcements in the newspaper every week between people with Spanish surnames and English, or other, names. These cultures are already mixing at an extremely rapid rate, and not just in terms of marriage, but culture.  Some time ago I attended something at Mass where a person self identified as Hispanic, but who would have been impossible to identify that way by appearance, and this is becoming the absolute norm.  Hispanic last names are rapidly only indicating ethnic heritage and not race, and usually mixed American ethnic heritage, the same way Irish, German or Italian last names do.  Hispanics may have been a strongly identifiable minority in many places, and indeed they still are, but they're rapidly entering the mainstream and vice versa, the latter being an interesting process we rarely think of.  Just as minority cultures pick up and adopt large parts of the majority culture, the majority culture adopts parts of the minority culture as well.  Across the street from my office, for example, there's a Mexican restaurants that's really Mexican.  It's very popular with local Hispanics, but most days at noon, any more, it's swamped with everyone else.  An establishment that started off being patronized mostly by members of its own culture now no longer is, even though it hasn't changed a bit.  Restaurants are, of course, a superficial example, but it's also interesting how many people now celebrate Cinqo De Mayo in some fashion, and Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated at Catholic parishes everywhere.

This doesn't mean that any one ethnic group doesn't have its own unique cultural aspects to it, of course. But the differences in culture do decline over time. St. Patrick's Day, for example, is still a serious day with strongly Catholic Irish Americans, but it's also a national party for those looking for one.  Cinqo De Mayo has already gone from being a date somewhat remembered in Mexico as the anniversary of a battle against the French, to being an excuse to have Mexican food.  Columbus Day still brings out Italian Americans in some parts of the country, but in most regions they ignore it like everyone else.  And of course the American habit of intermarriage means that after awhile everyone is pretty much everything.

And this is why the Press is so far off the mark.

This election wasn't about "race", but rather culture and economics.  And the cultural war here isn't between "white America" and " the new more diverse America".  It's between the deep urban white upper middle class and upper class America and middle and lower class America.  So, if there's a cultural war going on, it's between two different "white" demographics, with any other ethnic groups merely filling in, in a highly temporary fashion, where it suits their immediate needs.

This is certainly the case with the Hispanic demographic.  Almost completely missed in this entire story if the fact that while a large Hispanic minority many be somewhat new, that same demographic is assimilating so fast it soon will not be there in the sense that the press imagines it to be.  In this fashion, that particularly demographic strongly resembles that other "race" of our early history, the French.

What, you didn't know that French were a race?  Oh yes they were.  Or at least the early English colonist thought they were, as long as they were Catholic, which they almost all were.  And they did something the English did not, they intermarried at a high rate with other cultures.  This is true, we should note, of Hispanics as well.

A person can get into the history of this, and we need to a little, but the entire topic would be a lengthy one.  Basically, it gets back to their Catholicity.  Anglo Saxon, i.e., English, culture of an earlier period discouraged intermarriage.  It's a complicated story, but the English colonist to the United States and elsewhere saw themselves as a superior, Protestant, civilizing people, as noted above.  No matter how down and out you were, at least you were English, and that made you, in the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries, part of a civilizing mission to the world.  I don't want to be all down on the English, who did a much better job of colonial administration than most other European people, but that was part of their outlook at the time.  The French were bad colonial administrators, and in their later colonial period they also saw themselves as missionaries for French secular Republicanism, but early on, and shared with the Spanish, their rank and file colonist were fairly devout Catholics who believed that everyone was an equal before God.  So intermarriage was not uncommon at all, resulting in a highly mixed population wherever the French and Spanish went.  This carries right on to the present day and unlike some other immigrant cultures they do not spend the first several generations principally amongst themselves.

Which doesn't mean that their culture evaporates.  Like the Irish Catholics, and Italian Catholics, it'll tend to assimilate with the existing culture.  The  point is that people who imagine that the Hispanic culture is some mysterious other, and practically genetic in nature, with a genetic affiliation for the Democratic Party that will cause it to rise up unaltered once again, are fooling themselves.

Indeed, we should note that this year it was the GOP that ran one Catholic Hispanic and one Protestant Hispanic in the primaries, while the Democrats ran two really old white people.  Cuban Hispanics, which would describe the two individuals just noted, are already highly assimilated and. . . gasp. . . frequently Republican.

Hmmmm.

And New Mexico has had Hispanic governors twice who were. . . Republicans.

Gee.. .

Anyhow, that takes us to the next step of this.

If this years vote doesn't amount to a pure racist "I'm white and you are not" vote, what does it mean?

Well, I've already noted a lot of what it means just recently.

But what I think it means is that people paid their $20.00 to come to Ray Kinsella's field.

Eh?

Recall this line from Field of Dreams:

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

Okay, what do I mean by that?

Well, this.

People don't like what the United States has become and they're sick of being told to accept it.

This has been going on for a long time.  Indeed, it's always going on to some extent.  But its been much more noticeable over the past twenty years and now a lot of average people are really fed up. They're fed up in part because the GOP has kept telling them that it would address their concerns, and the Democrats  kept telling them to learn to love the new reality that the Democrats would bring and that everyone would be happy on that bright, shiny, Greenwich Village on the Hill.

So what are they fed up about?

By and large, contrary to what pundits tend to believe, and particularly contrary to what the political left believes, and to the surprise of people from other nations, Americans culturally are a fairly conservative people who go through bouts of liberal fevers.  They have private libertarian tendencies, but they aren't "liberal" or "progressive" in the way that the Democrats would like them to be.  Basically, therefore, to put it crudely, a lot of voters looked at the Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton and barfed up all over it.

As noted earlier, what people are saying is that they liked the more rural, more working class, lives they once had.  They are also saying that they value traditional societal views even if they don't adhere to them, which has often been the case for a lot of people.  They were appalled when, and it may have been the final straw for them, when Anthony Kennedy wrote a legal opinion that said that there really wasn't any difference between men and women, as they know that there is, as unlike Kennedy, they live in the real world.  They're sick of being dragged to the cultural left. And they want things to slow down, and even reverse. And that's their right.  That doesn't make them bigoted, and it doesn't make them wrong.

Also, and very importantly in this context, we are also seeing something within the "white" culture that seems likely to spread to the "Hispanic" culture as it assimilates.  And that's that the Catholics, who have never defined "whiteness" in this society, suddenly rediscovered themselves as a voting block and bolted the Democratic Party. This is a huge, and missed, development.

No Catholic voter could have been comfortable with Trump, but sincere Catholic voters found themselves in a situation in which they cold not morally vote for Clinton. Clinton defined the death from cradle to grave view that Progressives have taken up.  Indeed, its been noted a bit that the demographic that's most identifiably Democratic, the white, urban, Protestant, upper middle class is now in the self eliminating mode as it doesn't reproduce. A person can analyze what that means, but it is curious that a group that has come to define marriage in terms of "happiness", "life support" and economics is the one that backs gay marriage. It would, as it has come to believe that sex is a species of entertainment and that personal Joy is the end of life, and that at that end, that's pretty much that.  Most people don't think that way at all, as they live in the real world, and Catholics definitely don't think that way.

Indeed, not only most people not think that way, most people don't live in an economic strata that would allow them to.  Most people still have children, still have bills, and still struggle to some extent to get by.  It's easy to imagine how nifty the new economy is if you are a comfortable urban sophisticate in the high value condo district, with two  high incomes, not children, parents you don't need to take care of, and enough surplus cash to afford anything you reasonably want to your exclusive enjoyment, but that doesn't define most people.  It's come to define, however, many in the upper echelons of the political class. Think Huma and Anthony, before the implosion.  I may be completely unfair (knowing nothing about them personally), but do they match the nature and appearance of the couples of the same vintages you know?

Catholics have generally been Democrats since they first showed up in the country in numbers as the Democrats were good at organizing them and passing out patronage.  That tradition reflects itself in the Hispanic community today, but with it assimilating so rapidly, that's unlikely to continue.  If this election is any guide, the demographic time bomb may be going off inside the Democratic hall, not the Republican one.  Indeed, it may have exploded this election.

This election it appears that a majority of Catholics, who are a minority in the country (recall, they weren't even mostly "white" until the 20s and 30s, the way the culture defines it) voted for Trump. They likely held their noses and voted for Trump, but they did.  They felt they had no choice.  This is huge, however, as its the first time that they've voted as an identifiable voting block since the 1960s, its the first time that they really strongly followed the homily from the ambo on a political issue in all that time, and its the first time that the Church itself came out with blistering attacks on cultural issues in the political sphere.

Snotty Progressives did notice that this was going on early on, but their reaction was to bitterly attack the beliefs of the Church and make no effort to accommodate a demographic that had been loyal to them, and indeed Progressive, for well over a century.  Now they're gone.  John Podesta should get a dope slap for his insulting comments on Catholics and should have been fired about 30 seconds after they went public, but instead the Clinton campaign kept him on, just as it stupidly entrusted its campaign to people too close to the Weiner scandal.  Now, Hispanics are overwhelmingly Catholic in culture, even when they are not individually Catholic. As their economic fortunes increase and they come more and more into the American mainstream (i.e., as they become "white", as the press defines that) they'll quite being Democratic for patronage reasons and start acting more on their individual cultural beliefs.  That doesn't bode well for the Democrats at all.

Does all of this make Trump nifty?

Not hardly.

Indeed, its flat out bizarre that multiply married, super rich, former Democrat Trump became the choice for voters in this class.  As a salesman, he tapped into the current and read it right.  That doesn't mean that he personally believes any of it.  We have no idea.  But as a salesman, with something to sell, we can suspect that he'll keep selling it for at least four years.

During that four year period the GOP and the Democrats have a chance to reform. But will they?  I doubt the Democrats will.  The Democratic Party's halls of power seem to be mostly populated by the ghosts of the politicians of the 1970s.  George McGovern seems to be their guiding hand every year.  A party that claims to represent minorities can't seem to find a single person of color to run. This is particularly bizarre in that African Americans, who have been highly loyal to the Democrats since Franklin Roosevelt, just can't seem to get into the Presidential race and be treated seriously.  The only black candidate this year who performed at all was in the GOP.  This does not mean that there should be a racial litmus test to run for President, but how could a party that actually ran a post Baby Boomer black candidate, successfully,  the past two terms only mange to find a pants suit wearing 1970s throwback and a pre Baby Boomer New Yorker (yes, I know he was the Senator from Vermont, but he's a New York) to run this go around?

Indeed, are there no viable Democrat candidates located outside of New York state?

It's hard to take the Democrats seriously and the voters didn't.

And my guess is that they won't reform.

The Democratic Party is too controlled by crowed that go to trendy cocktail parties in big cities to begin to grasp that most people aren't vegans who wear their trousers five sizes too small.  A world in which women gush at little babies, where boys oogle attractive girls, where those girls seek to be chased, where men go hunting on the weekends, and where crowds spill beer rooting for baseball teams that have no chance of winning is completely foreign to them.  If they have any chance of success, after this, they have to find some candidates that 1) aren't ancient, 2) don't see every womb as a chance for sterilization; 3) seem to care about the native born; 4) don't hate Catholics, Orthodox, and Orthodox Jews.  But are there any left that have a chance?

This doesn't mean that the GOP can sit on its laurels either. The GOP basically lost this election at the Presidential level, as Trump isn't a recognizable Republican.  He's something else, somebody, the way he ran this time, who would have been more at home in the old Populist Party of the 19th Century.  But as he ran as a Republican, and as the Republicans held on to Congress, and as Trump adopted the positions of the social conservatives, they have an opportunity that they didn't before.

They also have a duty to act on it.  If the GOP doesn't act right away to curtail abortion and to reverse the court imposed redefinition of marriage, it's sunk.

It also has to act on immigration, as Trump does, but it ironically has an opportunity here to begin to reshape itself into something that the new immigrant communities and the old persistent minorities  can recognize and support.

Immigration in the US has been controversial along ethnic lines forever.  But in modern times, and seemingly now forgotten, the post World War Two battles over restricting immigration came originally from the far left.  It was organizations like Zero Population Growth that argued for strict immigration control, and still do, on environmental grounds. They argue, and frankly correctly, that you can't take in an infinite number of immigrants and still have a country that is nice living in, basically.  Put another way, we don't want to have the population density of India or China. That has nothing at all to do with "race".

Democrats and Republicans, at the Congressional level, have given lip service to immigration issues but at the end of the day the Democrats imagine every immigrant as a Democratic voter and the Republicans imagine every immigrant mowing their lawns.  So they've done nothing.  But poorer Americans, white, black and whatever, know that more immigrants mean more competition for jobs.  And middle class Americans who are not on the threshold of being rich know that more people in general make for towns, cities, and a countryside, that's more crowded.  All of that's what fuels anger over immigration, not really the culture of the immigrants.

Indeed, immigration at the level we have is most harmful to urban blacks, who often have a really seething resentment towards new immigrants for that reason.  The late Richard Stroud, a liberal, used to argue that the employment impact on American blacks was so severe that immigration should be shut down completely until blacks achieved economic parity with whites. That's hardly a "conservative" or "racist" position, but it's one that a lot of people hold instinctively.

Beyond that, no national conversation about immigration has taken place for at least thirty years other than the incredibly lame "we're a nation of immigrants" argument that everyone hauls out.  I often think that if you are Sioux or Shoshone, etc. that argument must be really aggravating, as in "yeah. ..  your nation is one of immigrants, Wašíču".

Anyhow, as the public is reacting on this, and the GOP has to accordingly, this is a chance for the GOP in numerous ways.  If the GOP doesn't begin to appeal to the social views of Hispanics while taking in its more corporate and collective cultural concerns, it has to be staffed by idiots. At the same time, if it doesn't seek to rebuild an immigration policy based on the countries present population, actual economic needs, and the special concerns of African Americans and Indians, it will have missed the boat as well to come across as more rational less bombastic in an odd way.

And indeed, the GOP has to.

This is the last chance, I suspect, for both of these parties.  The voters have screamed that they don't want any more lies and they're willing to gamble on a nearly completely unknown on the hopes that he'll do what he says, as much as that may scare most of the politically attune.  In doing that they've told the GOP we don't want any more boring Bush's and we don't want your country club culture either.  They've told the Democrats they don't want any more Clinton's and they don't want to have their likes and religious beliefs insulted or ignored.  Maybe this guy won't get the job done of getting that message through, but they're willing to gamble that he will, or that he won't be worse than getting ignored anyhow.

It's going to be a wild ride, that's for sure.

But it doesn't have anything to really do with race, in the mind of the average voter.

Indeed, as close as this election was, and it was incredibly close, if Trump hadn't gotten the support of Catholics, he would have lost.  If he didn't get the support of cross over Democrats, he would have lost.  If he didn't get the support of some African Americans, he would have lost.  If he didn't have the support of some Hispanics, he would have lost.

And for the Democrats, he Clinton didn't have the support of most Hispanics, an eroding base of support, she would have done much worse.  And if she didn't have the support of African Americans, the Democrats most loyal and most ignored based, she would have done even worse.

A clear wake up call for both parties.

But not one based on "race".

Lex Anteinternet: The 2016 Election

Lex Anteinternet: The 2016 Election: I didn't see that coming. . . like all of the rest of the pundits. It's been a wild election year. Yesterday, Donald Trum...

The popular vote:

Trump: 47%:  59,611,678

Clinton:  48% 59,814,018

Johnson:  3%  4,058,500

Stein:  1%  1,213,103

Others:  .07%  802,119

A disappointing performance for Stein, given that she was trying to riff of the popular Sanders.  Not very impressive for Johnson either, whom some thought would do well.  That's probably at least 3,000,000 votes off of Trump, however.

Trump becomes President with a minority of votes cast.  Clinton took more, albeit only 200,000 more.  An example, perhaps, of every vote counting, or not, depending upon your view.

What's it mean?

I'll likely do a series of posts on what the recent election means, and lessons learned.

Of course, given my poor performance as a prognosticator in this election, the value of such articles may be fairly questionable.

Be that as it may, I think its interesting to note that fully vested organs of the hard left and hard right have already rushed to print with analysis that amounts to "we were right all along".  Right now, right wing comments of that type necessarily have more credence than those of the left, but the basic gist of some of these is "nope, nope, we've been right all along and don't have to listen to anyone" Suffice it to say they aren't rushing out to buy Thomas Frank's book "Listen, LIberal:  Or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People.".  Put another way, simply reassuring yourself that you are right and everyone else is an idiot is an effective analytical tool

Anyhow, I'll put in my two cents, from the outside, here in coming posts.

For the meantime I'll merely note that one thing this election means is that relying upon people like Miley Cyrus to bring you voters is not a sound campaign strategy.

The 2016 Election

I didn't see that coming. . . like all of the rest of the pundits.

It's been a wild election year.

Yesterday, Donald Trump won the Presidency.  I frankly thought that impossible.

As I noted here yesterday, I figured that the coronation of Hillary Clinton meant that her enthronement as President would merely need to be ratified yesterday.  I was sure off the mark, and badly so.

So was about 100% of the national press, I'd note ,which was discussing the inevitable Clinton victory as late ago as early last night.  What happened?

Well, a massive working class revolt against both parties happened.  After well over a decade of being lied to, they poked both parties in the eye.  

When this became inevitable or even probable is hard to say, but the Democrats deserve a lot of the blame or credit, depending upon your view, for trying to coronate a 1970s throwback that was widely despised.  Frankly, had Bernie Sanders been nominated by the Democrats he'd likely be yesterday's victor. But rather than do that, they went solidly with a candidate that nobody loved and who was consumed her entire life with politics.  Most people aren't consumed with politics and are disgusted with it right now. So the disgust flowed over onto her.

And the disgust was deserved.  Clinton had spent her entire life in politics in one way or another.  Her role in the Senate may have made sense to the people who voted for her, but to a lot of Americans elsewhere her relocation to New York appeared purely opportunistic.  Her association with her husband, who I never felt to be a bad President, left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people who recalled how she defended some of his bad personal conduct, and it further left people suspecting that her marriage had become a political wagon with a certain direction, whether that was right or wrong.  The Trump comment "such a nasty woman" struck the upper middle class and upper class elements of society as incredibly rude and sexists, but it sort of defined the way a lot of average people already viewed her.

Beyond that, and perhaps more significantly, she defined a certain 1970s view of the world that the Beltway Democrats have and which they deeply believe in, but which is not the same view held by huge segments of the Democratic base, let alone average Americans.  Existing as long ago as the 1920s, but coming up in the world following the disaster of Watergate, this world view virtually defines the Democratic Party's official outlook and has all but killed it off in rural areas which can find nothing to identify with in it.  This even translated to younger Democratic women who did not see a modern American female ideal that they felt any commonality with.  In turn, the old entrenched feminist in the Democratic Party were outright hostile to younger Democratic women whom they felt should shut up and take orders.

Everything combined meant that the Democratic Party nominated somebody who was deeply out of sync with the electorate. The GOP nominated one that was deeply despised indeed, but not in the same way that Clinton was.  We learned yesterday that there were a lot of Democrats and independents who had supported Sanders and detested Trump and Clinton, but forced into a choice, the populist message of Trump called more than the 1970s vision of Clinton.

But that also tells us that a large amount of the vote was based on absolute disgust.

And on to the entire system, quite frankly.

 Bea Arthur in an advertisement for Maud.  Arthur played the brash, loud, pants suit wearing feminist in two 1970s era television series.  For those who recalled it, Clinton tended to come across rather unfortunately as a character from Maud or at least from the era. Younger women never warmed up to her at all, and indeed people who weren't voting by the 1970s were left fairly cold.

Additionally, the late Democratic administration and things associated with it combined with things that have been brewing for a long time overwhelmed both parties.  It turns out that you cannot take in 1,000,000 immigrants a year and tell rust belt voters that they just need to adjust to the new economy, you can't tolerate shipping endless employers overseas and tell those voters that new better jobs will come, you can't tell people who can tell what gender they are actually in that people can determine their "own gender identify", and you can't threaten to reverse course on firearms possession when people have pretty much determined how they feel about that.

The voters who revolted are, no doubt, going to be accused of being racist.  But to desire the America they grew up in, which was more Christian, more employed, and more rural, doesn't make them that way.  The Democrats have been offering them Greenwich Village, the Republicans the Houston suburbs.  It turns out they like the old Port Arthur, Kansas City or Lincoln Nebraska better, and want to go back. That's not irrational.

 

Port Arthur Texas.  I listed to people discuss the upcoming election two weeks ago at the Port Arthur Starbucks and thought they'd really be surprised when Clinton was elected. Turns out, they were much more on the mark than I was.  And it turns out that people in Port Arthur like Port Arthur the way it was twenty or thirty years ago, and they don't like a lot of big, hip trendy urban areas that they're supposed to.

Will Trump be able to do that?

Well, any way you look at it, it's going to be an interesting four years.

Trump will have to act on his populist world view.  I'm certain that it will be only momentarily before the pundits will start opining about how Trump, now that he is the President Elect, will moderate his views, etc., but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that. So far, his entire behavior has been true to what appears to be his basic character. We can anticipate that he will continue to act that way. And an electorate that, essentially, voted to rip everything down wants it down.  I suspect, therefore, that's what we will get.

I also, quite frankly don't think that this is universally bad. As noted, I never supported Trump, and I did not vote for him yesterday.  I'm in the camp so disgusted by both political parties and their candidates that I could not bring myself to hold my note and vote like so many others did. But I do think that Trump will listen to the blue collar element of American society, and somebody needs to.  I do not think that this segment, which knows its being forced out of work by a combination of forces that are not of its own making, but which are more than a little the fault of policies favoring the wealthy, will be quiet.  Clinton would not really have done anything for those people other than to lament their status, Trump will have to do something.  And I also think that Trump will actually nominate justices to the Supreme Court who do not feel compelled to stick to it, such as Justice Anthony Kennedy or who have a social agenda that colors and informs their decisions.  Justices who decide the law are needed on the Court and I think they'll actually be appointed.

Who knows what else shall occur, however.

Locally, 818 Natrona County voters went for write in candidates, myself included, for President and Vice President.  That has to be a record.

And a warning.

If even here, in solidly Republican Natrona County, 818 voters said no to all the recognized parties, and that doesn't include those who voted for Johnson or Stein, something is really wrong  with the system.

Locally, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney's locally repatriated Virginia daughter beat out Greene and has probably taken Wyoming's House seat in Congress for life, or at least until she wedges that into something else, which she almost certainly will.  The seat is the gift of two other candidates who were really from Wyoming and who destroyed each other, but who jointly took more votes in the primary than she did.  Hopefully she'll grow into her position and learn the lesson that the Democratic and Republican establishments did not on the national stage, that people love their local lives more than they do the big issues of any kind.  A local revolt with populist elements is brewing on these issues and it is not impossible that this will turn out to be a pain for politicians from this state who do not know which way the wind is blowing. While Cheney likely will hold her office no matter what, t his year did see a surprisingly resurgent Democratic Party in Wyoming and there is a growing and very active movement that's focused on public lands that isn't afraid of being very vocal.

More locally, Gerald Gay went down in defeat, a victim of statements he could not explain about women.  Gay was controversial in any event as he had sued fellow legislators and the Governor over matters recently and he may have been more set up to topple than people might have supposed.  His comments were inexplicable and did him in.  Dan Neal, whose campaign literature arrived in my mailbox every day for awhile, lost to Republican Jerry Obermuller.  In some ways, I think Neal may have been a victim of his supporters as his own mailings concentrated on public lands while his recent backers mailings urged support of him because of his support of abortion, LBGT rights and "reproductive health", which probably served to turn votes away from him. Being hugged enthusiastically by somebody who people doubt doesn't engender their support for you but Neal probably couldn't, maybe, have told them to shut up and go away, he was doing fine on his own.  Anyhow, at the close of his campaign the enthusiastic embrace by clearly left of center elements was probably just about as welcome as a big hug at your wedding reception from that lush of a girlfriend you never mentioned to your just married spouse.  Maybe he didn't know that.  Chuck Gray, young radio mouthpiece of the far libertarian right did get in, but the Democratic campaign against him was anemic.  I suspect that if Neal had contested with Gray, Neal would have won.  Todd Murphy, whose Facebook ravings brought attention to him in the press, did survive the sort of attention that Gay did not and ended up on the city council, to my enormous surprise.

The county commission was less surprising, with incumbents generally doing well.  A stable race, it seems.