Two Brief Thoughts On The 2016 Presidential Election

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The 2010 Midterm Elections - What Were You Expecting?

According to the pundits and the prognosticators and the magical soothsayers, Americans are disappointed with Barack Obama's presidency and want to elect Republicans to Congress again. To which I say, go ahead. And to which I also say, to all sides: what were you expecting?

First of all, to liberals: Did you really think Republicans were going to disappear? I don't know about everybody else, but personally I did not get the sense that Obama's victory in 2008 represented any sort of substantial "shift" in American politics, or in the political preferences of John Q. American. I suspect that "swing voters" were fed up with eight years of Bush and associated the economically prosperous 1990s with Bill Clinton and, by further association, the Democratic party. I've got news for you people. The 1990s are not coming back. There is nothing Barack Obama or Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck or Meg Whitman can do to bring them back. I've heard it said that voters are in "an anti-incumbent mood." If voters won't be satisfied until the 1990s return, then I hope they enjoy being in that "anti-incumbent mood," because they're probably going to be in that anti-incumbent mood for the rest of their lives.

Also, to liberals: Did you think Obama was going to magically create a budget surplus, end every armed conflict everywhere in the world, redistribute Wall Street bonuses to orphaned children, and generally pass every single law Democrats have felt like passing for forty years?

Finally, to conservatives: Do you think that massive tax cuts, the implementation of pure laissez-faire capitalism, and the elimination of all government stimulus programs is going to improve the economy and erase the national debt? I have news for you: the national debt will exist the day you die. The national debt will exist as long as the United States of America functions as a sovereign entity. Get used to it. It is not going anywhere. Electing Republicans to Congress is not going to erase the national debt. But if it makes you feel better, you can vote for Republicans if you want to. And yet, didn't we just do that? What makes you think a 2012 government led by Republicans will be any different from the 2000-2006 government led by Republicans?

Republicans often accuse Democrats of being "pie-in-the-sky liberals," but honestly I find conservative ideals more unrealistic. They seem to expect the world to be perfect in some patently shallow sort of way. They expect a world with no debt, no waste, no welfare, no terrorist attacks, no thriving autocratic Middle East dictators - no problems at all. And anything short of such a world is a disgrace and a travesty and an insult to the Founding Fathers. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but such a world will never exist. People have to let go of some superficial notion of the way the world is "supposed to be." And yet woe to the politician who fails to pretend such a world is only a couple of years away. I get the feeling that conservatives would rather live in a world where everybody's miserable but, look! The national debt has finally been eradicated!

On the whole, I must admit that Obama has lived up to my extremely low expectations. Here are some of the things Barack Obama has not done:

1) Been caught in a sleazy sex scandal
2) Started a war of choice with a Middle-Eastern country
3) Made the recession noticeably worse
4) Actively supported racism and homophobia
5) Appointed WASP-y assholes to the Supreme Court

I have no complaints.

So That's The Plan In Afghanistan

If, like me, you've been wondering just why, exactly, Obama has decided to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, you might enjoy this article in Time. The essence of the situation seems to be captured in the quote below:

Back in 2002 or 2003, when the U.S. looked almost invincible, the Iranians appeared willing to concede a lot simply to forestall a U.S. attack. Now, with the U.S. mired in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are less afraid and thus less willing to deal. Similarly, the Taliban have little incentive to break with al-Qaeda so long as they feel they're gaining momentum in the Afghan war ... The harsh truth is that the U.S. is significantly weaker in the Middle East now than it was in 2002.

Hmm ... what happened in 2002? I can't seem to recall. Oh, wait I got it, wasn't that when our then-president decided to invade a country that essentially had nothing to do with al-Qaeda? Unilaterally? Without a proper strategy? Thanks George. And of course thank you Dick, thank you Don, and thank you Condi. In other words, we had a million options, and now we don't have any. We went from looking like the most bad-ass empire on Earth to looking like a bunch of circus clowns on roller skates. Sort of like this year's Pittsburgh Steelers.

So what's an Obama to do? Apparently he can't do much. Seems like he's calling the "war on terror" off (such as it was), because, lo and behold, we actually don't have a military that can just invade five different countries at once. His plan is to basically look strong while pulling out - sort of like Nixon's beloved "peace with honor." But as the article says, "It is worth noting that while many historians applaud Nixon's retreat from global containment, his decision to cozy up to dictators in Beijing, Moscow and elsewhere elicited revulsion from Americans on both left and right." And shrugs from the middle?

I Heard Some Black Dude Is President Now

Did anyone hear something about some black guy becoming president? I just barely caught something about it on one of those tickers they have running at the bottom of the screen during last night's news. Too bad the media didn't report on it more, I would have liked to know more about this guy. Who is this mysterious figure?

"The Decider"

I was flipping through TV last night when I stumbled upon the documentary "The Decider" on MSNBC, hosted by Chris Matthews. Did anyone else catch it? It was sort of surreal watching a documentary "looking back" on the Bush presidency. Sure, maybe it's a bit early, he's not even out of office yet, but it was surely the first time I truly realized that Bush won't be our president anymore. I guess it's the strange realization that one day we'll be looking back at the last eight years as a piece of history. Like the way my parents would talk about Watergate or Vietnam. It's strange that one day I'll be telling some future kid about the Iraq war long after it's over.

Anyways, I haven't even said anything about the documentary. Basically it was trying to look at Bush's presidency with some sort of hindsight. I tell ya, it's interesting to see how much he's aged in the last 8 years. There was a clip of Bush sitting at his desk on 9/11 addressing the nation that evening, and he looked 10-15 years younger than he does now, complete with a full head of brown hair. Well, if you catch The Decider I would recommend it purely for the feeling it invokes of waking up from a long dream.

The Future is Now (on CNN)!

So I was watching CNN's election coverage last night. Not sure if you've seen it but they've got the best technology over there in Atlanta. CNN has this 'magic board' they call it, which they unveiled earlier this year, where John King uses his fingers like a mouse to zoom in and out of a map of the U.S., showing us which states are voting for whom. It's like Google Maps to the 10th degree. Then last night they had this gigantic wall where it broke down the vote by demographic, and the host could just tap the needed demographic (say, 'hispanics making more than $100k') and voila! A pie chart would open up with all the needed info.

I'm watching this when my girlfriend comes in and I'm telling her 'Wow, CNN's got all this crazy technology, like holograms and shit. Well, not really holograms'. Oh, but I would be proven wrong within minutes.

We sit down on the couch together to watch the results roll in and then suddenly - POOF! We are transported to a magical future, of maybe it was a long long time ago in a far off galaxy. Why? Because there's Anderson Cooper, I kid you not, conducting an interview via hologram! Mother fuckin' hologram!!! Seriously, I couldn't believe it. He was actually interviewing Will.I.am from Black Eyed Peas (please don't ask) and there's Will standing next to Cooper with a strange purple glow around him, like total Star Wars style. I turned to my girlfriend and said something along the lines of "Uh, I was actually kidding about the hologram", or maybe it was something more like "Holy shit we've been transported to the future!"

Well, after some brief searching on the subject it turns out that it wasn't a true hologram. It was just being projected for the viewer, it didn't exist in real space on the set. Still, if you want your mind blown, or maybe it's just a good laugh, check out the interview here .

McCain Bails on Letterman

In case you missed it, due to the "suspension of his campaign" yesterday, McCain had to bail out on David Letterman at the last minute. This didn't make Letterman too happy. But it provided for plenty of jokes at McCain's expense, including a wonderful Top 10, which I've provided here:

The Top Ten Questions People are Asking The John McCain Campaign

10. “I just contributed to your campaign - how do I get a refund?"

9. “It’s Sarah Palin - does this mean I’m pars’dent?”

8. “Can’t you solve this by selling some of your houses?”

7. “This is Clay Aiken. Is McCain single?”

6. “Do you still think the fundamentals of our economy are strong, Genius?”

5. “Are you doing all of this just to get out of going on Letterman?”

4. “What would Matlock do?”

3. “Hillary here - my schedule is free Friday night.”

2. “Is this just an excuse to catch up on napping?”

1. “This is President Bush - what’s all this trouble with the economy?”

Watch the video above for the full opening monologue, and stick around till the seven minute mark to see what McCain was really up to (no joke!).

Sarah Palin: The Speech: The Discussion

I'm throwing up this post to get some discussion going. Who here saw Sarah Palin's speech last night at the RNC? She really came out of the gate roaring, delivering a speech sure to rally the party faithful. After eight years of Dubbya I've forgotten that politicians are (usually) good orators, and no matter who wins at least we'll have people who'll be able to deliver rousing speeches. But what about Palin, what did you think?

My two cents: I'm a bit worried now. She's definitely a feisty one, and I can see her grabbing a hold of that "She's a soccer (well, hockey) mom just like me!" vote. She's definitely got that all-American mom with a dash of sexiness (dare I say 'MILF'?) thing going for her that just might appeal to women, though probably not those same women who were gunning for Hillary. I'm a bit disturbed by her nastiness though. In an election where one of the candidates appears to want to get away from the usual mud-slinging silly trite stuff of past elections (e.g. -"is he patriotic enough?"), here we've got a woman who looks like she's going to relish in the mud-slinging. A comment off of the Slate boards says it best:

"What we saw last night was the mainstreaming of Ann Coulter, the normalization of the principle that it isn't bile when it's spoken by a pretty woman. "

I won't vote for the McCain-Palin ticket not because I'm afraid of McCain keeping us in Iraq or what have you, but because A- McCain and Palin are pro-life (sorry, there's too many people in the world, we need to start making less of them) and B- In the past Palin has advocated the teaching of Creationism in the classroom (sorry, but I just can't take your opinions seriously if you believe in that).

What's your reaction?

Brouhaha

I saw the headlines, "Barrack Comment Offends Rednecks," "Obama Hates Real Americans," and "Infant Faints After Hearing Obama on Evening News." I expected to find some charged racial remark or perhaps something about free trade. Nope, what I got was:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

My immediate reaction? That statement is TRUE!

Sure, he could have picked something nicer than "cling" to be political, but don't we have enough political nonsense in this campaign already? Hearing Barrack say something 1) true, 2) important, and 3) that needs to be said makes me think more of him, not less. But then maybe that's because I'm an evil big city Californian (the worst of the worst). Even though I'm not from the city. Even though all the elitist rich farmers and real estate developers (increasingly the same thing now that small farmers have disappeared) in my home town vote Republican and my Democrat father taught me to shoot a gun and my Democrat grandmother reads the bible while my atheist Republican grandfather rants about the evils of religion. Frustration is leading to run on sentences so I'll stop soon.

One thing I'd like to note - us California suburbanites make fun of rural and urban folks equally. We make fun of militia nuts in Reading and spoiled faux-idealists in San Francisco. Everyone makes fun of LA, and LA makes fun of everyone else. "Real" Americans are no more likely to know how to take care of a farm than they are to get a BMW for their 16th birthday. Jefferson's ideal died 100 years ago - big business, by way of "the free market," killed it.