Who Decides, Who Decides?: Exit Bernie (Now Is Not The Time To Let Up)

"You are what you settle for."

<Janis Joplin>

<i.>

Let's be honest. It was always going to be a heavy lift. But it was an exhilarating run while it lasted, I learned a lot from it, and I don't feel like letting up.

That's how I feel about Bernie Sanders's exit from the presidential race on Tuesday, giving the Democratic Party establishment what it's wished for since 2016, when he first turned up to crash the party.

You can almost feel the high fiving and football spiking going on right now, all across America's boardrooms: Yeeeaaahhh! We sure showed him, didn't we? Waaa-hooo! Free college, my ass! Medicare For All, my ass! Wealth tax, my ass! The rumpled Anti-Christ from Vermont has finally, irrevocably and unalterably been put in his place.

That's the tone of pieces like the one I found on The Conversation, whose headline reads, "Bernie Drops Out, As Democrats Pick Pragmatism Over Consistency." The author happens to be an assistant adjunct professor at Colorado University, a credit reeking of irony. If somebody like this -- who apparently never won the tenure lottery -- can accept such an outcome, and by definition, the very system that keeps him at the bottom of the academic ladder, it's game over for everybody else. Telling me to head straight to the last Kubler-Ross stage (acceptance) doesn't fill me with confidence.

All's right again with the world, which is now safe for Word Salad Joe to continue with his quirky mangling of the English language.

Progressive sentiment be damned. Time to grit our teeth, as they hand us back the keys to our jail cells, and prepare to herd us into line once more, returning us to the same old, same old unforgiving muddle that's  frozen America in place for 30-odd years. Dreaming big is out; resigned exhaustion is back in. There's a pandemic raging, so what else do you expect, right? Judging by what I see on Facebook, though, more than a few folks are still expecting quite a lot. 

Reactions to Tuesday's announcement range from outright disgust ("RIP, United States," "Something is wrong"), to impatience with their fellow man's foibles ("we had a viable 'third party' candidate and fear of the word 'socialism' scared people off"), to hopes of building on the energy he let loose, as the Sunrise Movement sees it ("He inspired us to become the political revolution we had been waiting for"). 

<3D Paint Artwork: The Reckoner

Lyrics: Public Enemy ("Fight The Power")

<ii.>

If you're looking for a postmortem examination, this isn't the time or place.  Am I going to swallow hard, and vote for Biden this fall? Honestly, I don't have a clue, because I wasn't necessarily expecting to entertain the question.

It does help that Biden's pledged to pick a female running mate -- presumably to ease the pain of women voters who watched six of their own get chased out of this year's race. Maybe if he picks a progressive woman for Vice President, it'll seal the deal? Maybe. We'll see.

Progressives had other ideas, I suspect, after Biden's barrel scraping, cellar dwelling finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. For a brief moment -- a maddeningly fleeting one, just like in 2016 -- our biggest dream finally seemed possible. Hey, Bernie might really win this thing! The stars might actually fall into alignment this time!

That's not what we got. Still, I'll always relish the panic that a potential Sanders nomination aroused among pillars of the Democratic establishment, like James Carville -- the same guy who's spent 30 years dining out on that expression, "It's the economy, stupid" -- and talking heads like Chris Matthews, who infamously equated the Jewish Vermonter's initial rise with Nazi Germany's military defeat of France in 1940. 

So what went sideways for Bernie this time? I'm sure a mini-cottage industry of books will spring up to dissect that question, but I'll save that autopsy for a different day. The only thing I'd really fault him for, honestly, was sticking by his well-documented unwillingness to air his private life more openly, which he did -- briefly, around the beginning of 2019 -- only to drop it like a stone.

Most people have long forgotten that episode, I'm sure, but it fascinated me. In some ways, Bernie's pre-fame, pre-political life reads like a Marvel Comics origin story. His mother died a renter while he was still young. She never lived to achieve her dreams of owning a home. I have no doubt that this loss, and the trauma surrounding it, cast the die for the path that Bernie would follow, from civil rights campaigner, to struggling writer and businessman, to third party insurgent upstart, and beyond. 

Should have he talked more about his childhood and early adult life, and how it shaped him, on the campaign trail? Would it have immunized him, at least somewhat, from potential red-baiting onslaughts, or helped voters relate to him better, especially the doubters?

Well, he didn't do it, so we'll never know. But it's another snapshot that tempts me to think beyond what is, and what might have been.

<3D Paint Artwork: The Reckoner

Lyrics: Public Enemy ("Fight The Power")

<iii.>

Coronavirus changed everything, of course. With so much widespread suffering and dying, it would have looked odd for Bernie to continue exhorting his micro-donor army to pledge money, and keep him in the fight. Naturally, he didn't do that, deftly redirecting the focus to fundraising for the crisis, and the various charities associated with it. 

As a donor, I appreciated knowing about them, such as the Rent Zero Tenant Organizing Fund, or the Restaurant Worker Disaster Relief Fund, for example. As a creative person, I especially donating to the Craft Emergency Relief Fund, an organization that advocates for artists. 

I'll continue giving to them when I can, because art -- and the impulse of making it -- is what keeps us human, even as the tech industry would have us become navel gazing zombie goldfish. People don't think about these things until they're threatened, but that's just good old human nature for you, isn't it?

The pandemic also killed the massive, festive rallies that provided the Sanders campaign's enduring visual signature. Virtual campaigning will never substitute for getting up close and personal with potential supporters, as Biden's awkward broadcasts from his Delaware home have already demonstrated. (Then again, Trump can't hold his massive Nuremberg-style rallies, so I guess that balances out the equation in some perverse way, I guess.)

If nothing else, however, the pandemic has brutally exposed the shortcomings of the system that's still taking millions of Americans for a ride. We live in the 21st Century, but it looks and smells more like the 19th Century: Insecurity with an app. All the shiny digital imagery and feelgood techspeak about "sharing" can't paper over those particular cracks.

The crisis also poked a hole in Trump's long-anticipated plan to coast on how well the rich are doing, as his well-documented obsession with the stock market suggests. For those at the top, it's always morning in America. For those who aren't, the mood is closer to twilight, with one missed paycheck or job loss away from total disaster.

The mainstream media's reaction to Bernie's exist has been oddly measured, and downright respectful, as this nugget from yesterday's New York Times editorial ("Bernie Sanders Was Right") suggests:

"He was right from the very beginning, when he advocated a total overhaul of the American health care system in the 1970s. 

"He remains right now, as a pandemic stresses the meager resources of millions of citizens to their breaking point, and possibly to their death. 

"He was right when he seemed to be the only alarmist in a political climate of complacency. 

"He is right now that he’s the only politician unsurprised to see drug companies profiteering from a lethal plague with Congress’s help. In politics, as in life, being right isn’t necessarily rewarded. But at least there’s some dignity in it."

<3D Paint Artwork: The Reckoner
Lyrics: Public Enemy ("Fight The Power")

<iv.>

Reading those words feels a little bit odd to me, because The New York Times -- and also, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post -- ranked high among the complaints about how the mainstream media covered him. I'd throw in other suspects like CNBC, that hosted the now-discredited Matthews' infamous on-air meltdown.

Much of their coverage felt dismissive, jeering and patronizing, and I have no doubt the steady drumbeat of fear that they worked to arouse ("Don't vote your heart, vote your head instead/Or you'll get Trump, you'll get Trump, you'll get Trump") left its mark. This is understandable, from a historical perspective. If you beat down people long enough, they'll stop demanding, stop marching, and stop trying to hold the same empty suits who play sneaky panther power games with their lives accountable for the slow, steady erosion of those lives. 

It's a trend that picked up steam during the 1980s, when the Democratic Party rolled its eyes, shrugged its shoulders, and began forsaking its core base of blue collar, minority and poorer voters to pursue the same Big Money Chase that the Republicans already down to a science. So what's a progressive to do, exactly?

We must continue casting ballots for Bernie, who remains on the ballot nationwide. If nothing else, it'll enable Bernie to keep amassing delegates, exert an influence on the Democratic Party platform, and remind Team Biden of our energy and strength that he'll need to lift him over the finish line.

We must continue organizing around issues that matter, whether it's canceling student debt, or rent freezes, for example. Why can't we get the same national pause that Denmark gave its citizens? Sure, it's a smaller country, but people who've lost all their income shouldn't foot the bill for those who haven't, full stop.

We must continue making our case against the institutions that don't serve our interests, by any means necessary, as that shopworn saying goes -- whether that happens online, or on-air calls, op-ed pieces, and similar mediums. We shouldn't stop pointing out the absurdities of tying health insurance to employment essentially an historical accident of the post-World War II era -- or the overweening authoritarianism of the gig economy ("Hey, we're giving you opportunities to drive"), or the posturing of media outlets that cater to an established order that's never known the constant insecurity and turmoil that haunts young people today.

We must continue keeping our arguments simple, when we do make them. This ability to express complex ideas in a sentence or two proved one of the biggest assets that Bernie -- and his counterpart, Elizabeth Warren -- brought to their campaigns. The fog of nuance ("I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it"; "Abortion should be safe, rare and legal") is no substitute for a simple message that gets people to think bigger: A job shouldn't leave you in poverty. Serious issues deserve serious discussion. You shouldn't have to choose between food or medicine.

We must continue to cultivate the deep bench, if we're serious about building a progressive movement that will outlast the man who helped to launch it. As forcefully as he came across on the campaign trail, Bernie's advanced age (78) likely threw up more roadblocks for voters who already doubted his ability to pass his agenda. In a country whose senior leadership is all over 75, it's imperative that the next generation gets a chance to make its influence felt, and its voice heard. 

I leave you with these words from that same New York Times editorial:

"One freedom 

that cannot be taken from you 

is your freedom

 not to like the status quo —

your freedom to be angry, disaffected, unimpressed,
your refusal to be cajoled, soothed or consoled with small tokens of influence 

devoid of real power.

"Mr. Sanders, ill tempered

 and impatient with pleasantries, 

embodied that freedom, 

and he offered it to you."

The last sentence irks me -- isn't the constant demand for pleasantries what's bogged us down in the first place?  But the rest of it is well taken. We have the blueprint, we have the energy, and we have the technology to gain so much more than the system seems willing to allow us. We owe ourselves nothing less. Now is not the time to let up--The Reckoner

Who Decides, Who Decides?: Stockholm Syndrome, South Carolina Style

Stockholm Syndrome.

Noun.Feelings of trust 

or affection felt 

in many cases 

of kidnapping 

or hostage-taking
by a victim or a captor.

<i.>

Everything, finally, seemed to roll Joe Biden's way this weekend. After several less than stellar showings, he finally got the primary win that he needed Saturday in South Carolina, with 256,047 votes, or 48.4%, to 105.197 (19.9%) for his insurgent rival, Bernie Sanders. He definitely got the delegates he needed (35, to 13 for Sanders, with zero for the remaining also rans), plus the endorsements, notably longtime Congressman Jim Clyburn, that arch avatar of Democratic and black political establishment thinking, which seemed enough to seal the deal for voters -- particularly the over-45 crowd, who have kept Biden's flagging campaign afloat.

Fellow also-rans Tom Steyer and Pete Buttigeig, who finished third and fourth, with 11.2% and 8.7%, respectively, got the message, dropping out within a day of each other. Steyer left his Presdential vanity project after burning through $253 million, with no delegates and no wins. (Jeb Bush can rest easy now, after lighting up $130 million during his equally calamitous binge and purge campaign for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016: "See? I'm not the only guy who tanked in three states.") 

The bell also tolled today for Plucky Amy Klobuchar, as I've called her, who ended her campaign, after called off her off quixotic run, after finishing sixth in South Carolina, with 3.2% of the vote. When your bronze medal finish is your high point -- as it played out in New Hampshire -- there's not much to say, is there? She never polled well anywhere, but that didn't stop the establishment and its pundit allies from constantly trotting her out as a more "adult" alternative to its rumpled Antichrist, Bernie Sanders.

Buttigeig, of course, never really got off the ground after his Iowa showing, where he held Bernie Sanders to a draw. As I've been pointing out for awhile now, Mayor Pete's currying of Democratic establishment favor -- starting with the 40 billionaires and spouses funding him -- puts him slightly at odds with younger, more progressive voters hungering for something beyond minor incremental changes to a society that's never seemed more unequal and one-sided. 

There's a silver lining, though. I won't have to dedicate an entry in this series to Mayor Pete. He triangulates more than my high school math teacher ever did, which is enough to keep him off my shortlist...but we haven't heard the last of him, I suspect. Ditto for Plucky Amy, who's expected to join Mayor Pete in endorsing Biden. Surprise, surprise. For a moment there, I thought they'd do something original, like form the Third Way Party, or something along those lines. But that's way too creative for them, isn't it?

Billionaire Mike (or maybe we'll call him Mega Mike) -- Bloomberg, that is -- will probably stick around a bit longer, since he can spend way more on his Presidential vanity project. And, given all the resources -- monetary, and material -- that he muster, I suspect he won't step aside because someone asks. He'll do that on his own time, and his own terms, I'm sure.

<ii.>

But there's an even stranger takeaway from South Carolina, one that the commentariat seems to have missed or ducked entirely. South Carolina boasts the nation's second highest medical debt ratio, at 38.2%, with a median amount of $787 per resident, according to a story on Yahoo News. That figure, in turn, comes from a 2017 report by the Urban Institute, which is worth a quick skim, at least.

If you do skim the report, you'll find that eight of the 10 states with the highest medical debt ratios are in the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and West Virginia). Two are in the Midwest (Indiana, Missouri). "Overall, state past-due medical debt rates correlate strongly with state uninsured rates," the report notes. Man bites dog stuff, right?

Yet residents have little recourse, short of electing a more responsive state legislature, or sympathetic Governor, which are both scarce commodities in South Carolina. Nor does the Palmetto State allow the referendums that have worked in idaho, Nebraska, and Utah -- states that have expanded Medicaid, versus those that spitefully refused...like, ahem, South Carolina.

This quote in the Yahoo News story, from a business owner who pays $800 a month for her insurance, and planned to vote for Sanders, gives a vivid glimpse of the desperation and frustration that's often on display with our healthcare system:

"I just went to the doctor yesterday for a checkup and had to pay $100 just to be seen, and I still have to pay for the labs. When I go in, it's always at least $350, and it's that much for my kids. At a certain point, it's like, 'Why am I paying for this?'"

"Yer wallet's lookin' a tad battered lately..."

<Photo, wallet & tape: The Reckoner>

<iii.>

Apparently, such factors didn't prevent African-Americans, in particular, from turning out big time for Biden -- who played a key role, let's not forget, in ramming through The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention And Consumer Protection Act in 2005, which made it harder to file, and harder still, to get out of debt. Biden took an active role in passing it. 

Like most legislative concoctions of its type, BAPCPA is cruelly misnamed, since medical debit is the biggest driver of bankruptcy in America. The law also makes no provision for student loan debt, something Biden also worked to keep out of the final bill -- which marked the first time he butted heads with fellow candidate Elizabeth Warren, whose own warnings went unheeded, and unheard (though they've largely played out).

It's not a stretch, then, to say that Joe Biden played some major part in making life worse for millions. Yet that didn't prevent people from handing him the victory, and leaving Warren in fifth place (7.1%). It all looks like a case of Stockholm Syndrome, at its most extreme -- but anything to exorcise the demon of Trump, right? 

The guy who did the big interests' bidding can fight another day for the promotion he so desperately craves, while the woman who opposed him is slowly being chased out of the race. Never mind the Yahoo News headline. Evidently, South Carolina voters weren't swayed enough. This is our system, in all its grubby, banal, awful glory.

What does this say about us, and where does it leave us? Two thoughts spring to mind, one from the Grateful Dead ("One way or another, this darkness got to give"), and the other from Crass: "They'll use you as a target for demands and for advice/When you don't want to hear it, they'll say you're full of vice" ("Do They Owe Us A Living"). Either way, we're hardly in a great place. --The Reckoner

Links To Go:
Forbes: Billionaire Backers:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2019/12/21/here-are-the-billionaires-backing-pete-buttigiegs-presidential-campaign/#2d6d84ad5fc6

The Checkup: 2019 Medical Debt Statistics:
https://www.singlecare.com/blog/medical-debt-statistics/

The Urban Institute:
Past-Due Medical Debt 

Among Non-Elderly Adults, 2012-15:
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88586/past_due_medical_debt.pdf

Yahoo News:
With No Insurance And Deep Medical Debt,

South Carolina Voters Swayed By Health Care:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-insurance-deep-medical-debt-151700628.html

Who Decides, Who Decides? The Orwellian Hit On Elizabeth Warren

<Elizabeth Warren
Official Portrait, U.S. Senate>

<i.>

Every candidate enjoys their moment in the sun, no matter how the race turns out, and Elizabeth Warren is no exception. I remember when it arrived, a couple of months ago, after covering a local board meeting. I was having the usual post-meeting chat with the board's spokeswoman.

Talk turned to who might make noise in this year's presidential election, which horses people were people, and why, all that stuff.

"Most of the folks in my circle," I ventured, "seem to be coalescing around Bernie -- faster than in 2016, when he came up as the candidate from nowhere."

"I'm hearing about somebody else," the spokeswoman responded. "If you look at all the mommy blogs lately, it's 'Warren, Warren, Warren.'"

"Wow, Elizabeth Warren?" The spokeswoman nodded. "Well, that makes sense, since she and Bernie represent the populistic side of the coin...you know, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

We shared a quick laugh, and hurried off to our cars. Another January night's work beckoned, in all its mid-teen temperature glory -- she, to write the usual post-meeting press release, and me, to serve up the usual post-meeting story.

<ii.>

But maybe the joke was on us. Voters in last week's New Hampshire primary seemed to laugh loudest, relegating Warren to a dismal fourth, at 9.2 percent, or 27,387 votes, and no delegates. It's a drop off from her Iowa performance, where she still managed a respectable third place (18 percent, eight delegates) behind the top finishers, Bernie, and his sleek 'n' scripted nemesis, Pete Buttigieg.

Yet the Orwellian erasure of Warren as a top contender has begun, with a haste that's not hard to miss. One clue came in the Democratic debate held on February 7, before the New Hampshire primary.

As The Week noted, Warren's total speaking time (16 minutes) essentially tied that of Minnesota Amy Klobuchar (16 minutes, 21 seconds), versus Bernie Sanders (19 minutes, 54 seconds), his floundering rival, former Vice President Joe Biden (19 minutes) and Mayor Pete (alias Mayo Pete, or Wall Street Pete, to those who loathe him: 18 minutes).

National polls showed Warren in third place. it's hardly a spot that any candidate wants to inhabit, but offers enough breathing room to move up. But that's not how the mainstream media treated her after New Hampshire. CNN didn't show Warren's post-primary speech. Not to worry, though. We did get Biden's live streamed (!) consolation pitch to supporters in South Carolina -- after he'd fled New Hampshire, where he fnished a notch behind Warren, in fifth place (8.4 percent, with 24,921 votes, no delegates).

Humiliated or not, though, Biden has two factors going for him. First, as a man, he can afford to tank twice in a row, as he did in Iowa, where he finished fourth (again, just a notch behind Warren). Second, there's the possibility -- faint though it seems, as badly as Biden's campaign has sputtered and misfired -- of him mounting the Great Comeback, depending on his showing in South Carolina primary (February 29).

Comeback tropes are a staple of horse race journalism, with all its lopsided focus on money, and momentum, standings and strategy. But that narrative still requires Biden's participation, if only for another week or two. Contrived as they feel, such dramas probably sound more appealing to the pundit class than Warren's populist stance -- which is a more measured offering than Bernie's, but still goes against the narrative they push: Hey, we can't fix income inequality, because capitalism needs a little inequity to work. Now leave us to it. Or else.

<iii.>

Another unpleasant surprise awaited Warren fans in New Hampshire, though. Amy Klobuchar emerged as the mainstream media's true darling, goosed along by her surprise third place finish, one that seemed ample excuse for the usual overripe puns that headline writers love to indulge ("Klobocharge," "Klobosurge" and "Klomentum," anyone?). But it wasn't a major surprise, given the rapturous coverage she'd already garnered in Iowa, where Plucky Amy proudly proclaimed: "We are punching above our weight." Watching at home, I wondered, What's she been taking? How can someone who finished fifth say such things? Is her mixture off?

The strangest aspect of all this flattery, though, is that Plucky Amy -- like her counterpart, Mayo(r) Pete -- has yet to prove that she can win a national race, especially when you see their standings among black voters. The last time I checked, Pete polled four percent, while Amy didn't even register, with zero percent. They do both equally dismally among young and less affluent voters (see my last post, "About That Electability Thing..." for reference).

That blacks seem especially allergic to Amy's and Pete's charms shouldn't surprise anyone with an IQ above room temperature, given their shaky records in dealing with those issues as Hennepin County Attorney, and mayor South Bend, respectively. Barring a major magic trick, I suspect that they're about to hit their electoral ceiling with a sickening thud.

But for now, at least, such trifling details -- like whether voters really want to elect them -- don't bother the pundits a bit. That's because Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete fit another horse race trope -- the Exotic Outsider beaming down from a galaxy far, far away, to coin a phrase. You know, the plain folk, decked out in cowboy hats, plaid shirts, and suspenders, tellin' it like it is to them uncomprehending city folk, those darn reve-noo-ers who want to tax us to death, and confiscate our corn stalks. Time for those pitchforks and torches! You get the idea.

Sounds absurd? Of course. As a Midwesterner, I find it bad enough when politicians from outside of the region stereotype us that way. But it's even more surreal when homegrown types, like Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete, run the same cornball shtick, one that ignores or sidesteps the region's radical history (see links below). Yet the stereotyping serves another narrative, one of "being outspoken about what Beltway elites consider to be objective truths about the limits of political possibility in policymaking," as the New Republic states.

In a weird way, it's reminiscent of the rock 'n' roll gold rush that greeted bands in the mid- to late-'80s, who hurriedly donned plaid shirts and straw hats, and boned up on their Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie covers, as they cranked out twangy ode after twangy ode to the heartland that they'd never known. That they grew up in suburbs surrounded by aluminum siding and got driven to school every day doesn't matter a whit. No forgiveness will await you if your narrative doesn't fit the marketing plan, as Elizabeth Warren is finding out.

<iv.>

So where does this messy post-primary fallout leave us? Critics suggest that Warren bears some of the blame for leaving too many fingerprints on the weapons that caused her poll numbers to sag -- notably, her revised stance on Medicare For All, which now can wait until the third year of her presidency, once she passes her own public option plan. Both ideas rest on huge, untested assumptions, but that's another post for another day.

Like Kamala Harris, however, Warren has found that pivoting on a pet issue won't help more people line up behind you. In many ways, Warren seems to have inherited all the angst of Hillary Clinton's 2016 defeat, as The Week notes --  because the Democratic Party seems skittish about shooting for the stars again so soon, with another female nominee rallying the troops.

But it's difficult to draw a different conclusion when all those old double standards grind on without letup. The commentariat has yet to call out Mayor Pete as a flipflopper, even as he's ditched the progressive rhetoric -- no more talk about boosting the Supreme Court's size -- that he used to launch his presidential bid. Or imagine if Biden suddenly embraced a single-payer system, after decades of opposition to one. He'd be hailed a visionary for changing his mind in a heartbeat. One's person shapeshifter is another person's visionary, and so on. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Time will tell if Warren sticks around for the long haul. However, her treatment by the US media machine seems especially galling, when smaller countries have no trouble electing younger women to lead them, as Finland and New Zealand have done, with Sanna Marin (34) and Jacinda (39), respectively.

Meanwhile, back in the US presidential primary jungle, we're conceivably looking at a race between two aging, go-driven, populist-preening, old white billionaires. At 73, it may be the only time that President Donald Trump can stake out a claim as the youth candidate -- since the man who's trying to buy his place, Michael Bloomberg, is five years older.

Where does this leave us, now that nearly all of the women and candidates of color have  gotten chased out of the race? Nowhere to go but sideways, or it seems. Or maybe straight down the chute. Time will tell soon enough. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before They Fix That Darn Glass Ceiling Again)
Columbia Journalism Review:
The Media, "Klomentum," And
The Erasure Of Elizabeth Warren:
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/klobuchar_warren_new_hampshire.php

The New Republic:
The Elite Media's Amy Klobuchar Blind Spot:
https://newrepublic.com/article/156294/elite-medias-amy-klobuchar-blind-spot

The Guardian/Yahoo News:
Politicians Pander To The Folksy Midwest:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politicians-pander-folksy-midwest-ignore-111610486.html

The Week: Elizabeth Warren 
Is Third In The Polls, But Fifth In Speaking Time...:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/894695/elizabeth-warren-third-polls-but-fifth-speaking-time-democratic-debate

The Week: The Sidelining of Elizabeth Warren:
https://theweek.com/articles/895463/sidelining-elizabeth-warren

Who Decides, Who Decides? About That Electability Thing...

<Cory Booker: Official Portrait,

114th Congress, U.S. Senate>

<i.>

The Vice-President-of-Something-or-Other stared without blinking. Finally, he offered a response to my question. "The issue isn't who has signature authority, or ever had it. The issue is...who decides, who decides."

"Excuse me? I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from, John..."

I had been trying to determine, for my college paper, if the Student Senate President had the right to sign bills and invoices, as he'd been claiming.

Campus was in an uproar, because this particular president was a left-leaning sort. He'd gotten elected -- along with roughly a dozen friends, most of whom I knew, or hung out with -- and wasted no time moving aggressively on his priorities.

Planning Homecoming celebrations was out; coordinating the Student Senate's response to the US invasion of Grenada was in. This didn't bother me, since I wasn't a Reagan fan, but  our college had other ideas, especially when the newly-minted President asserted signature authority (instead of passing that paperwork to the Senate's adviser, as custom held).

The vice president repeated himself, more firmly this time. "The issue is, who decides, who decides. Follow that, and you'll find your answer."

<Going, Going, Going...>

<ii.>

"Who decides, who decides." That may be the epitaph for Cory Booker and Julian Castro, who recently ended their presidential bids. What started as the most diverse field in memory has, yet again, been whittled down to...surprise! Old white people. They're the ones running Congress, the Supreme Court, and God knows how many other governmental institutions, right?

Now, on one hand, given my own long-standing support of Bernie Sanders, the Democratic and Republican Establishment's worst nightmare, you may argue that's not such a bad thing (especially if you see Elizabeth Warren as your fallback). Yet Booker's and Castro's exits do  raise troubling issues about that E-word that's getting tossed around like so much salad this campaign season: "Electability."

On paper, such news hardly seems surprising. Neither broke out of a polling sub-basement that showed them registering just 4 percent (Booker) and 1-2 percent (Castro), nor did they gain traction from the debates in which they appeared. Cue the inevitable death spiral: lack of coverage equals lack of momentum, and lack of donations (since nobody writes a check to a go-nowhere campaign, right?).

Still, there's something surreal about seeing them drop out, on the heels of Kamala Harris's own spectacular flameout, while Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar are ready to press on, no matter how tonight's Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary (February 11) turn out. What's interesting is that black voters, by and large, seem to have soundly rejected them as an option.

Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete are netting zero to three percent among blacks, depending on the poll. That's painful, compared to what the Washington Post showed in a January 11 poll for Joe Biden (48 percent) or Bernie Sanders (20 percent, fueled largely by blacks 35 and under). Warren's total is equally anemic (9 percent), but could well improve, as black voters learn more about her.

Given the importance of black voters to any Democratic nominee's chances, it's hard to imagine how Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete will remain competitive, since young people -- another constituency you're hearing a lot about lately -- don't seem terribly willing to embrace them, either. For example, Plucky Amy polls at zero percent among voters 35 and under, and just 1 percent in the 35-49 demographic, according to a Politico.com story published last month ("'Moderates Don't Excite Us': Amy Klobuchar Struggles to Win Over Young Voters").

If those results emerged from a movie testing lot, the stereotypical cigar-chomping decision-maker would bark, "One percent want to see this piece of shit? Leave it in the can! We'll just have to eat this one."  Who decides, who decides?

<Going, Going...>

<iii.>

But that's not always how it works. Film, music and politics share two major characteristics: merit doesn't always carry the day, nor do the rules apply equally to everybody. That explains the career of stars like Jennifer Aniston, who turn out three dogs for every decent picture they make, yet never have any trouble finding work, because somebody's always willing to dust them off, and give them another shot.

I'd say that Cory Booker and Julian Castro struggled with lack of media visibility, and the idea that both needed white voters' validation before other demographic groups could look at them. Most of the Booker-Castro coverage was decidedly negative. Would they make the next debate? Would they raise enough money to stay competitive? Why hadn't their campaigns caught on yet? And so on, and so forth.

So why not Castro? He served as Obama's Housing Secretary. Eight years of Cabinet experience seems on par, at least, with eight years of Biden's tenure as Vice President. Like Bernie Sanders, Castro only accepted small donations, and wouldn't take PAC money. And, like Bernie Sanders, Castro proved himself as an outspoken advocate for progressive priorities like single-payer healthcare.

Or why not Booker? His background bears a striking resemblance to Mayor Pete's resume. One went to Oxford (Booker), the other to Harvard (Buttgieg). Both cut heroic figures to the public, from pulling a woman out of a burning building (Booker), to serving in the military (Buttigieg). Both served as mayors of contrasting-sized cities, Booker, of Newark, NJ (population 282,090), Buttigieg, of South Bend, IN (population 102,245). Both built deep ties to the tech industry, on which they relied to pad their own fundraising.

Yet one candidate received way, way more attention. When Mayor Pete wasn't lighting up the podcast circuit, he was hosting town halls on CNN, cutting it up on "The Late Show," or sitting on the couch for "Ellen." In contrast, his rivals were increasingly reduced to playing the political version of GoFundMe to get any attention, such as Castro's plea last summer to an audience in New Hampshire: "So if you get a strange phone call, maybe from an unlisted number in the next couple of days, please answer it."

Technically, Booker should have proven no less electable, especially in stacking up his own resume against that of his white counterpart, Mayor Pete. yet the electability trope plays out in strange ways, as She The People's founder, Aimee Allison, told Politico.com: "He wasn’t a senator. He was the mayor of a small town. So if you just compare that, those two things, you realize how the narrative of electability acts as a bludgeon for campaigns who are trying to gain momentum in this environment.” 

Call it the Aniston Effect, political-style. Who decides, who decides?

<...Now Gone...>

<iv.>

Needless to say, I never got to the bottom of the whole signature authority debate. I never found, despite all my best gumshoe work, a single piece of paper that answered the question, nor any witnesses to answer it. The college administration says this, my resulting story read, the Student Senate says that, and both are claiming the high ground. We called it a day, left our readers to decide, and moved on to something else.

The fallout of Booker's and Castro's exit leaves me feeling likewise, now the Democratic National Committee has just scrapped those spiraling donor and poll thresholds that both men blamed for driving them out of the race. if billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer can simply buy a place on the debate stage, as they continue to carpet bomb the country with robocalls and ad blitzes...what's the point of having such rules in the first place?

Then again, as Jeremiah Wright once told me, "What is legal is not the same as what is fair, and what is legal is not the same as what is just." Those words rang through my head when I read Politico.com's wrap-up of Booker's departure, and South Carolina State Rep. John King's response to the now-scrapped thresholds: "“If we have people who are bold enough to put their names out there to run for office, they should have an opportunity to debate. They don’t have a threshold when someone runs against me. They don’t have a threshold when someone runs for governor. They don’t have a threshold when someone runs for U.S. Senate.”

But that's not how the system works, as Booker's now-former South Carolina co-chair, State Rep. J.A. Moore, who notes in the same article that it's designed "for people of color to have challenges in doing everything."

Or, as Moore puts it more bluntly: "The system is designed to keep people that are in power, in power. And the majority of the people in this country, unfortunately, that are in power don't look like me, don't look like Julian Castro, don't look like Cory Booker nor Kamala Harris. They're the exception, not the rule."

Or, if this were a box score, it might well read: Status Quo: 1, Something Else: 0. When that kind of stink test is allowed to stand, it's not just the Cory Bookers, the Julian Castros, and their supporters who end up being left out in the cold. Everybody's teeth chatters, everybody shivers -- and everybody loses. Who decides, who decides? --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Start Saving Up
For Your Debate Stage Slot Now):
CNN: An Immensely Frustrating 
Time For Julian Castro:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/02/opinions/julian-castro-dropping-out-is-a-loss-reyes/index.html

FiveThirtyEight
Why Klobuchar's Strength
In Minnesota May Not Translate To The Primaries:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-klobuchars-strength-in-minnesota-may-not-translate-to-the-primaries/

Politico.com: Booker Drops Out
Of The Presidential Race:
https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/01/13/booker-drops-out-of-presidential-race-1250519

Politico.com: How Julian Castro
Got Drowned Out:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/30/julian-castro-2020-president-profile-227985

Winners & Losers: The Stability Lottery Goes South

<https://www.michiganlottery.com/games/212-lucky-7s-tripler>

Winners and losers which one am I,
Is it the same under the sky?
Black motorcycles and the will to survive
Losers and winners low and high

Iggy Pop, "Winners & Losers"

<i.>

My health insurance experience is over, at least for now. After nearly two years, the state of Michigan has pulled the plug, apparently because I make way too much money for their blood to support it. In simple terms, I exceeded the official income cutoff limits that allowed me to keep my coverage, which officially expired on June 1.

If you saw my tax return from last year, you'd realize that the assumption doesn't hold water. Once my deductions kicked in, I cleared just over $11,000, hardly a superfluous amount by any standard. Like most people right now, I scrimp and skimp wherever I can, however I can, to make the math work out from week to week, to varying degrees  of success. 

But none of these rhetorical talking points can paper over the anxiety I feel about going without insurance, yet again, after a 10-year drought. It's a symptom of how public agencies operate -- once your head finally inches above water, their automatic reflex is to shove it back down, either by cutting back on something (like your food allowance), or yanking it completely (sorry, kid, no more healthcare for now).


But wait, there's a silver lining, I tell myself. I'm safe from those damned work requirements that they're slapping on Medicaid recipients. At least for now.

For all the yammering our political class does about those "bums on welfare," they have yet to get the memo as I've laid it out it here. Why should I have to choose between earning more money, or covering my meds? Why should women have to choose between working some crappy $8-10 an hour job, or risk losing benefits, because they can't afford daycare, or a car that runs?

A couple of years ago, I attended a public forum with our state legislators, where several nursing home operators bemoaned their struggles to find (and keep) aides. They wondered how they'd make any headway in a system that "incentivizes people not to work," as one employer put it. Folks, I told myself, there's an old saying here: You get what you pay for. 

For all too many people, the die was cast long ago. American life increasingly resembles a Stability Lottery. Those who get some high-powered job, and keep it -- in some well-paying sector, like big tech, finance, government, or healthcare -- experience life's richest pageant, with the battleship-sized benefits, cars, and homes to prove it. Hovering just a notch or two under the oft-criticized 1% of our society, these are the fortunate few, whose lives will largely without the peaks and valley that await the rest of us. 

I got a vivid reminder of this reality while embarking on a late night search to see what happened to several high school classmates. Guess what? This one became a doctor, that one became a CFO and visiting professor of accounting. After three or four instances, I got so annoyed, I stopped. I haven't gone to any reunions before, and I sure as hell don't plan on going now.

Oh, yeah, what about the rest? For further reference, crank up "What Do I Get?", via The Buzzcocks, and you'll get the drift quickly enough: "For you things seem to turn out right/I wish they'd only happen to me instead/What do I get, oh-oh, what do I get?/What do I get, oh-oh/What do I get?" 

While Pete Shelley and his merry men were confronting fractured romance here, it's not hard to apply the above lines to the punishment that's constantly dished out to the great majority -- a life battered by benefit cuts, endless outsourcing, flat wages, food insecurity, housing shortages, lack of healthcare, and mind-numbing McJobs that can go belly up any time. No future for you indeed, eh? You didn't win The Stability Lottery, so that's all you get. Your shop didn't come in, simple as that. "Againsters" need not apply.

No Santa Claus no happy elves

In this smoking gun existence

It gets harder to unwind

I'll just eat my breakfast

Iggy Pop, "Winners & Losers"

<ii.>

For the past four months now, I've struggled to put my revulsion over Joe Biden's candidacy into words. Initially, I just wanted to build on the rhetorical groundwork that I've laid out in previous broadsides, like "A Cure For Political Codependency (The Hillary-Bernie Endgame)," and "What Accepting The Lesser Of Two Evils Got Me," hit cut, print, and call it a day.

Ironically, that task is proving more difficult than I'd anticipated, simply because of all the unforced errors that the so-called Democratic frontrunner is already racking up. Whether it's romanticizing the joys of working with hardcore racist boil weevils -- like the late Senators Herman Talmadge, and James Eastland, who called blacks "an inferior race" -- or telling the deep-pocketed donor classes how great they really are, straight after speaking at a poor people's march (!), Biden's reputation as The Gaffe Machine remains proudly and perversely intact. If he didn't exist, comedians would have to invent him ("No one's standard of living will change," indeed).

Naturally, all these foot in mouth disease acrobatics have left Biden's neoliberal backers wringing their hands aloud, and sweating a few more bullets than usual. For those of us who witnessed Biden's  train wreck campaigns of 1988 and 2008, it's par for the course. We nod our heads at one another, and wink: See? Yup. Uh-huh. He just stepped into it again. Deeper this time. As hardened Biden watchers, we form a peculiar brotherhood, indeed. 

Still, what makes great late night comedy fodder isn't so great for the nation. But I've finally figured out what turns my stomach most about Biden, as he sleepwalks from gaffe to gaffe, and that's the brittle defensiveness he often exhibits. We saw that tendency yet again this weekend, when he finally acknowledged that gushing like a teenage boy about rolling up his sleeves with Eastland and Talmadge wasn't the most adept way of pushing out the nostalgic bipartisan narrative that forms the centerpiece of his campaign.

Even so, Biden being Biden, he couldn't apologize without slipping in a belligerent reminder about his civil rights bona fides, that didn't stop President Obama from running with him: "I was vetted by him and selected by him. I will take his judgment of my record, my character, and my ability to handle the job over anyone else's."

As Biden noted, the U.S. Senate that he joined in 1972 looked (and felt) like a different universe. That's a fair point, at first glance. However, in celebrating wastes of sperm and egg like Eastland and Talmadge as Bipartisan Exhibits A and B, Biden left the barn door open for rivals like Kamala Harris to take him down a peg, as she did so effectively during last month's Democratic debate.

For those who want to write in, and issue dire warnings against valuing purity over power, I get it -- so don't bother.  Nobody wants to miss an opportunity to vote against the Grifter In Chief next year. But we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger goals that we're trying to advance. 

As I've already told a few Biden backers, I understand how the political environment doesn't always favor big ideas. Timing is everything: that's why heavy rock bands learned to love touring Europe and Japan during the late '70s, when disco music and rolling mirror balls mesmerized the American masses.

Even so, now that ideas like universal health coverage -- and the potential dismantling of student debt -- are finally back on the table, we shouldn't let up on our demands that the political classes do something to make life better for the majority who sweat and strain at the bit every day. That's why we should pursue a multi-pronged approach at the state, federal and local levels.

Winning the Presidency might feel great, especially after the Great Electoral College Screwover of 2016. However, it will only feel like a consolation prize if the Republicans keep  the U.S. Senate, so that Mitch McConnell can finish his pet project of getting enough right-wing judicial activists in place to transform America into apartheid-era South Africa, where a tyrannical minority can enforce its will indefinitely, unchecked by such nettlesome inconveniences as public pushback.

But I do hope, however faintly, that Biden can actually grow beyond the weary pragmatism that he espouses, between the lines: Hey, kid, it ain't a perfect world. The best we can do is rerun 2008 -- free trade for the masses, "I feel your pain, so here's a plan" for the losers. it's a game of inches. We settle for what we can get. 

Yet this narrative, coupled with the "lesser evil" logic, also makes extreme politics more attractive to people, and hence, more likely to capture their imaginations. That's surely what leaders like Heinrich Brüning discovered during the early 1930s, as Germany's Weimar Republic stumbled into its final death spiral, you can only tell people to keep starving for so long, because their rainbow is just around the corner. And we all know how well that turned out, don't we? --The Reckoner