Stop the Cheaters! Vote Democrat.

Political cheating has been allowed to undermine confidence in our political process and democratic institutions.

swift-boat – verb [with object] informal – target (a politician or public figure) with a campaign of personal attacks | (as noun swift-boating).[1]

“Republicans are cheaters!” Bob declared.

I considered his words carefully. He is, after all, one of my best friends and perhaps the smartest person I know.

A series of political cheating episodes came to mind, a history now at its below-the-belt nadir with our current President and airwaves filled with lies and fear-mongering.

Historically, neither party may be blameless; however, in my lifetime, the Republicans have led out with what now seems a coordinated campaign of gerrymandering, voter suppression and media manipulation.

Of these three evils, voter media manipulation is the most visible (and so the focus of this blog post).

A notorious example is the 2004 Bush II campaign attack on John Kerry’s heroic Vietnam-War-Swift-Boat career.[2] The attack ads (funded by Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens) were later proven false and resulted in the neologism.

Then, in 2010, to help fund future media strategies, the Republicans succeeded in opening the floodgates with Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission. A Republican-led PAC, Citizens United, sought to reverse FEC restrictions on timing and funding of a smear campaign against then presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

The case made it to the Supreme Court and was decided in a narrow, 5-4 decision that allowed corporations to be people and unlimited corporate funding to flow into our political system.[3]

In his dissenting opinion in the Citizens United case, Justice Stevens warned:

“The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. . . . A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

We now live in the future Justice Steven predicted: Untethered by Citizens United, corporations and special interest groups fill campaign coffers, to fund media and manipulate the vote. Confidence in our most important democratic institutions has consequently been eroded.

And we have seen an escalation in the last two election cycles: The volume of aggressive, false content in well-funded Republican attack ads has been unprecedented.

President Trump has set the example, honed the strategy and otherwise led with a steady stream of divisive, fear-inducing labels, lies and conspiracy theories — amplified and distributed by PAC-funded media campaigns, Fox Broadcasting and far right social media sites. (Recent episodes of racial and anti-Semitic violence are within the tragic consequences.)

At this dangerous time, we must restrain the growing divisiveness by stopping the swift-boating cheaters. We must elect candidates who will bring character and balance back to our political processes and repair our damaged democratic institutions.

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[1] New Oxford American Dictionary (Second Edition).

[2] In Idaho, a similar example can be found in the 2014 governor race. The Otter campaign, just before the election, aired attack ads against A.J. Balukoff falsely branding him as a “California liberal.”

[3] Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

“Kava-gnaw, gnaw, gnaw!”

With the Kavanaugh confirmation, the President and a Republican-controlled Senate have accomplished a feat that will gnaw away at the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court for decades to come.

Not so long ago, Supreme Court justices could be confirmed by acclamation. The confirmation process focused on intellectual rigor, character and independence, not political leaning or affiliation. Both sides of the political aisle could collaborate and agree.

In recent decades, the confirmation process has been progressively poisoned with politics. Justices have been nominated for their support of the party in power, to add to a conservative or liberal bloc on the Court, and, ultimately, to secure a predictable, controlling majority.

As a result, the confirmation process has become more and more fractious and the Senate votes more narrowly partisan.

No matter your party (or idealogy), this is a dangerous trend. It has reached crisis phase with the Kavanaugh nomination and confirmation.

The Kavanaugh confirmation will be remembered as the closest, most partisan vote in modern history — eclipsing even the Clarence Thomas vote in 1991.

The following illustration charts confirmation votes for Supreme Court justices since 1975. It shows the growing partisan and cultural divide, the pinching off of collaboration, and the ruination of the confirmation process.

Think of the closing trend lines as a graphic illustration of the narrowing of the major arteries of balance, cooperation and deliberation (“Senatorial Arterioclerosis”).

votesmargin3 — Prepared by Jerry Sturgill; Data Source: www.senate.gov

Imagine if, in this latest round, the Senate – the “world’s greatest deliberative body” – had responded to the political pressures of the Kavanaugh nomination by stepping back, agreeing that the unseemly fight sure to follow would so damage the image of the Senate and the integrity of the Supreme Court that this nominee should be rejected and replaced with a more moderate one, one who could be supported by the largest number of members from both sides of the aisle — for the sake of institutional integrity.

Did not happen.

Instead, freed of the filibuster, the Republican majority charged ahead — the minority Democrat members sidelined and ignored.

Then came the allegations of sexual misconduct — echoes of the Clarence Thomas debacle — but this time set amidst the growing angst and awareness of the #MeToo movement.

With a deadline set ahead of the looming mid-term election, the theatrics of volcanic anger and the shock of mockery, careful inquiry and factual truth were avoided and obscured. Credible testimony of sexual assault was dismissed as a “Democratic conspiracy” sponsored by George Soros and the vengeful Clintons. A “hit job.”

Imagine if, as tempers rose and the accusations flew, the Senate had called a time out and agreed that the nomination should not proceed without, at the very least, an exhaustive FBI investigation — no matter how long it might take — for the sake of instituional integrity.

Did not happen.

Instead, art-of-the-deal–strong-man strategies — misdirection, hyperbole, fighting back – pushed the process forward, fed the news cycle and, supposedly, energized the Trump base.

In the aftermath, the institutions of the Senate and the Supreme Court have been damaged, the credibility of each, impaired.

The Senate process looked like an unplugged UFC fight fest. The essential independence of the Supreme Court (actual and perceived) was overrun by politics.

More than ever, the Supreme Court has been made to look like a mere extension of the executive and legislative branches of government and their political “excesses.” Constitutional “checks and balances” have been eroded and the Court compromised.

Only the VOTE promises some measure of correction. We must organize to get out a vote for change: this November and in 2020. Out with the sclerotic old and in with the new.

Elect those able to return our democracy to fair representation, effective collaboration and service of the greater good.

The future of our great country and its democratic institutions depend on it.

Charlottesville: Shadows of Darkness

The eclipse came early. The insanity abroad has been eclipsed by insanity at home. White nationalists invaded Charlottesville this weekend and the country is bathed in darkness.

When the president attributed blame for Charlottesville to “many sides,” he demonstrated an alarming moral emptiness and intellectual vacuity.

We need presidential resolve and encouragement at such a moment of national crisis.

Much has been said about this overnight, including a retributory Tweet from the “Grand Wizard” himself, David Duke. Among all the critiques, this one is perhaps the most gut wrenching.

Duke attacks the President for his ambiguity, for being an ingrate to the White Nationalists “taking back America” in Charlottesville, for his failure to take their side and for failing to condemn instead the counter-demonstrators who opposed their efforts to “preserve” White History, White Culture and White Identity.

And it was not just about color, these white boys flew and wore both Confederate and Nazi symbols, spewed anti-Semitism, pulled down rainbow flags and rejected every individual and collective quality of a diverse, pluralistic society.

This is White Darkness indeed. It expects to be unleashed from “political correctness” and “in control” with the license and leadership of a bouffant-blond, Aryan-looking White President.

These defenders of White History are the “spiritual” and intellectual descendants of the white American immigrants who, among other things, robbed the indigenous peoples of their land, killed them off with guns and disease, stole Africans from their homes, pressed them into the holds of ships to be transported like animals from Africa, and precipitated the death of millions in a civil war fought over the abominable practice of slavery. They evoke the Nazi crimes of World War II, defend the Holocaust and justify other nationalist horrors of the modern era.

Yes, Mr. President, please do look in your mirror. These people voted for you, echoed your words this weekend and proudly wore your absurd MAGA hats while they hissed their hate and wreaked their havoc. You have enabled them and by your example and, by your silence, you have left them unshackled.

I hope these White Americans represent just a small number of the white Americans who voted for you. But every white American who did, should also look in the mirror, especially the mirror of history.

“You gotta knock the hell out of them — Boom! Boom! Boom!”

It’s amazing how blowing things up in the middle of nowhere can cover your faults and boost your reputation.

“If you look at what’s happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what’s happened over the past eight years, you’ll see there’s a tremendous difference, tremendous difference,” Trump told reporters after the military unleashed [the 22,000 pound “Mother of All Bombs”] on a largely unpopulated region of the Afghan wilderness. “This was another very, very successful mission.”

Washington Post, April 14, 2017

DISCLAIMER: THIS STORY WAS TOLD TO ME BY AN OLD FRIEND. I WAS NOT INVOLVED. IT REMINDS ME OF RECENT EVENTS—SERIOUSLY.

It was a hot summer night in a Western, sagebrush-covered desert. Another weekend gathering of “the guys,” high school boys, drinking beer away from the attention of parents and police.

This was the Pre-Game-Boy Era, when testosterone-infected young men competed with cars, guns, beer—and things that go “BOOM!”

On this particular night, around a blazing fire built in a remote clearing that had for years been the regular “drinking spot,” testosterone needles jumped when one of the guys showed up with his dad’s new Oldsmobile and a stick of dynamite.

oldsmobile Dynamite

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT CONDONE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

One genius among the young, beery group suggested connecting the dynamite to a jackrabbit—the desert was full of them—and went to his pickup for a roll of duct tape. The rest of the guys eagerly went looking for a jackrabbit.

Black-tailed Jackrabbit Sniffing

After surrounding and grabbing a stringy male, the boys strapped the red stick to its back, like a rocket pack, and lit the fuse. The poor panic-stricken animal jetted away into the dry sagebrush darkness, trailing the sparks of the burning fuse.

The group howled in delight and the kid with dad’s new car felt proud of his accomplishment—manly and more accepted by his peers for this extraordinary, albeit impetuous and inhumane, show of manhood.

Burning fuse on black background

Everyone leaned forward, in anticipation of the blast. But then–“HOLY S#%T!”–the jackrabbit suddenly veered back, out of the sagebrush, toward the group. Everyone screamed and ran for cover.

The rabbit found cover too, moments before the blast—under dad’s new Oldsmobile.

“KA-BOOM!”

LESSON: BLOWING THINGS UP IN DESERTS (OR MOUNTAINS) CAN HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. IMPETUOSITY AND SHOWMANSHIP, WITHOUT A STRATEGY, ARE DANGEROUS.