James Gillen

Blame me. I voted for Gary Johnson.

That was not enough to cause my state of Nevada to go for Donald Trump in the presidential election. But it must be stated: In Florida, Hillary Clinton lost the state by a margin of 1.4 percent- when Libertarian Gary Johnson got 2.2 percent of the vote. Trump won Michigan by about 0.3 percent- and Johnson won 3.6 percent. Pennsylvania, crucial to Clinton and what’s left of the Democrats’ working-class base, went for Trump by 1.1 percent of the vote. Gary Johnson got 2.4 percent of the vote there.

In other words, you have the “Blame Nader” 2000 election scenario again, although this time based on facts. And a margin not nearly as close.

What’s amazing is that believe it or not, it’s not like the Libertarian Party wasn’t trying to HELP. Not only did Gary Johnson give non-answers to direct questions from the press, his running mate Bill Weld went on Rachel Maddow’s show to “vouch” for the character and record of Hillary Clinton, something the press gave a lot more attention to than Weld’s more frequent speeches vouching for his own candidate. Of course that in itself may have been telling.

Trump’s wins were not entirely due to racism (though that’s not the same as saying that they didn’t have A LOT to do with racism). What pisses me off about this election is not only that liberals were right about the third-party factor but that Michael Moore was right about anything.

A lot of people out there are downright PISSED at me and people like me. And you have a right to be pissed. I cannot speak for other Libertarians. But I have to answer the question: Why did I not vote for Hillary Clinton?

Policy issues weren’t that important. In theory, I ought to sympathize with Republicans more than Democrats. But since I’ve seen Republican government in practice, I have no respect for their theory. I care more about getting things done. I am not a “progressive.” But I would have voted for Bernie Sanders over Trump. Hell, I would have voted for President Obama if he were eligible, rather than Trump. Because Sanders and Obama, like Clinton, know things, and Trump doesn’t. But Sanders and Obama can also make people believe in them. And Trump, whatever you think of him, can do that too. Hillary Clinton cannot.

Why did I not vote for Hillary Clinton? Because I had to wonder why I should be confident about her if liberals weren’t. Because their arguments for her were scared and defensive. Because the only partisan defense on her mendacity was that every politician has to present a public position versus a private position, that they all have to glide on the truth- avoiding the repeated messages, even from the Left, that that is exactly what Americans are sick and tired of in politics. Because even throwing ethics out, she was a horrible campaigner and could not present herself as an effective politician on the level of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. Because she could not do the easiest thing in the world: Convince people that she (or anyone) would be a better president than Donald Trump. Because this election was simply the absurd resolution of the dynamic of “you HAVE to vote for the candidate you don’t like to stop the candidate you like less.” Because if that’s all liberals had, and they were asking me, as a non-supporter, to give Clinton more enthusiasm than they were willing to muster themselves, then this thing was already lost.

For those carping that Libertarians’ desire for “purity” cost their candidate the election, I point out again that Clinton won my home state despite my not voting for her. Would I have felt more “pure” if I’d discarded my preference, done the pragmatic thing, voted for Clinton, and lost the election anyway?

I knew damn well that my position meant taking a risk. Was I wrong to take the position I did? Was my observation of events incorrect?

People are frantically asking themselves, “Why is it so hard to convince people that Hillary Clinton would be a better president than a pathological liar and sex maniac??” And I thought, “Well, they thought her husband was okay.”

A while back, I said:

“The ultimate lesson here, if you’re a Democratic partisan, is that the Republicans are living in a glass house built next to a rock quarry. But Democrats need to keep in mind that all those Millennial voters (who for some reason they can’t understand, don’t trust Hillary Clinton) were not paying attention to this scandal factory right from the beginning. And if Bill Clinton is not as relevant to this election as Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton is a good deal more relevant than Ken Starr, Dennis Hastert or any other of the conservative meanies from the Whitewater period who either got in their own sex scandals or had to retire from public life while Clinton continued to become more important.

So if Democrats don’t understand that after all this time, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is undermined by the same defensive tactics that she used to defend her husband long ago, then they can’t understand why voters loathe both her in particular and this political system in general.”

Was I wrong?

I said on more than one occasion:

“In any case, objections to the Clintons from the Right are of decades’ vintage, and there has been plenty of time to go over them, and most people who aren’t conservative dittoheads have dismissed them. But these days the most strenuous objections to Hillary Clinton are from the Left. The last time she ran in 2008, most Democrats had no objection to Mr. And Mrs. Clinton; they thought Bill was a great President and Hillary was a great Senator. They just thought Senator Obama had more to offer as a presidential candidate. But this year people are not objecting to Benghazi, or Vince Foster. The attacks on Hillary Clinton are coming from leftists offering critique of the last eight years of economic policy in comparison to the Clinton’s Administration’s push of NAFTA and its results on the American and international economies. In short, they’re a good deal more relevant to the average person than what the National Enquirer or Sean Hannity thinks of Hillary Clinton or her husband. And again, Clinton’s sense of optics is flawed: She is no more willing to reveal what she said in her speeches to Goldman Sachs than Trump is willing to reveal his full tax returns.

… Hillary’s best selling points are that she is a more experienced candidate who represents the sensible establishment position. But the reason Trump ate the Republican Party and Sanders almost snuck up on Hillary is because after eight years of Obama, (however much better he is in comparison to McCain and Romney) there’s no more hope and people have no more change in their pockets. Obama won because people were sick of the old way of doing things, and now they’re that much sicker. Trump is running as the opposite of the establishment mentality and Clinton is running as the representative of it. And it’s going to be that much more of a problem because of who she is. Obama at least has some ability to think outside the box. Whereas Hillary Clinton not only doesn’t think outside the box, she practically is the box. ”

And:

“Part of the issue is that when “first past the post” means that only two parties have a realistic chance of support, the issue of “can this candidate win?” takes almost exclusive precedence over what should be at least as important a question: “should this candidate win?” One of the problems with that mentality, as Hillary Clinton is discovering, is that not wanting Candidate B to win is not the same thing as wanting Candidate A to win. ”

Was I wrong?

When people asked, with good reason, why anyone on the Left would not vote for Clinton, I said:

“It’s pretty clear that just from the standpoint of not making things worse, a center-to-Left voter ought not to choose Trump, or even to abstain from voting Clinton if she is the most realistic way of stopping Trump. But on economic issues at least, a lot of voters are seeing “progress” only in drips and drops, often despite and not because of the Democratic Party. This is why a lot of them supported Bernie Sanders in the first place. And the way (the nomination) ended up is part of why they still don’t trust Clinton.”

Was I wrong?

And just on Election Eve I said:

“I say the same thing now I (said about the 2000 election): It isn’t the fault of third-party voters if your candidate sucks and nobody likes them.  It ought to be that much more damn obvious when the stakes are that much more dire.  If it’s a simple choice of Hillary Clinton versus Orange Julius Caesar, and you STILL have people hedging their bets, what the fuck does that TELL you??

It tells me that Democrats have pinned their hopes and this country’s future on Hillary Clinton, who symbolizes everything that Americans are sick of and do not want in American politics, a career politician who has all the appeal of soggy shredded wheat and would be that much less likely to end the war in Syria.”

 

 

Was I wrong?

So.  It’s almost Election Day.  And on social media, I’ve been getting a lot of flak for voting for Gary Johnson, or at least not being rah-rah-sis-boom-bah for Hillary Clinton.  “It’s Good vs. Evil!  It’s the end of civilization itself!  Don’t you understand the stakes?  Don’t you remember Bush vs. Gore???”

Well, YES.  How the fuck could I FORGET Bush vs. Gore when liberals have spent the last 16 years reminding me of the 2000 election because they need to rationalize the fact that Democratic candidates other than Obama have been both unpopular and incompetent?  I say the same thing now I say then: It isn’t the fault of third-party voters if your candidate sucks and nobody likes them.  It ought to be that much more damn obvious when the stakes are that much more dire.  If it’s a simple choice of Hillary Clinton versus Orange Julius Caesar, and you STILL have people hedging their bets, what the fuck does that TELL you??

It tells me that Democrats have pinned their hopes and this country’s future on Hillary Clinton, who symbolizes everything that Americans are sick of and do not want in American politics, a career politician who has all the appeal of soggy shredded wheat and would be that much less likely to end the war in Syria.

She just happens to have the good fortune of running against Donald Trump, who has exacerbated all the demographic issues the Republicans identified in their “autopsy” of the Romney campaign, adding onto that a schism within the Republican Party itself.  Either some Republicans didn’t get the memo that they were supposed to be appealing to racism all along, or they were okay with that but just don’t like being so tacky.

In retrospect, the main lesson Donald Trump seems to have learned in life is that he can get whatever he wants and do whatever he wants and act as boorishly as he wants because neither society nor reality has ever forced him to pay the consequences for his incompetence and malice.  And I suspect that in the back of his mind, he realizes this.  And so the only way Trump can justify his inflated self-image is to attain the office that actually would make him all-powerful and unaccountable.

So here’s my prediction for tomorrow: Sometime around 7 Pacific/10 pm Eastern, Trump will come out to make his speech.  He will be preceded by his entourage of family and sycophants.  And then he will waddle towards the podium with that Resting Trump Face of his.  And then he will take the mic and fire off so many profanities in the course of two minutes that he will make Andrew Dice Clay look like Pope Francis.  And then he will mount the podium and bellow for ten seconds.  Then he will lock eyes with the nearest male reporter, jump off the podium, land on the reporter feet first, then pull down his pants and shit on the guy’s face.  And then he will run down the nearest female reporter, force her to her knees, and skullfuck her for the twenty seconds or so it takes him to reach climax.

And that’s if he wins.

Letter from James Gillen to Wes Benedict, Executive Director of the Libertarian Party

Subject: The LP Store

Dear Wes,

As a card-carrying Libertarian, I’m glad to get notices and ads from you, but I’m sorry that I am not able to buy the election/promotional materials you advertise for the Johnson/Weld campaign.  I am in fact so broke that I wasn’t able to afford the parking fee to attend the Gary Johnson event at the MGM in October, where you were handing out the materials.

In any case, I’m afraid there isn’t much to advertise.  You see, I did early voting in Nevada, and I did vote for Gary Johnson.  I had wanted to vote Libertarian all the way down ballot, but there was one problem: There WERE no other Libertarian candidates.  For the Senate, for my Congressional District, or my State Assembly district.  We DO have candidates for the Independent American Party, and they’re the guys who want the Bible taught in schools.  I think that in the next series of elections, especially the midterms, you would be much better served by putting such resources you have into recruiting candidates for offices OTHER than President, so I can tell people that there are other people to vote for.

If I may make a suggestion for the immediate future: Do you have any T-Shirts or bumper stickers saying “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Gary Johnson”?  I predict those will be VERY popular in the next 12 months.

Sincerely,

JAMES GILLEN

 (UPDATE: Response from Wes Benedict:

Soon, we’ll be offering a sticker that says “Don’t blame me, I voted Libertarian”. When you see us promoting it, send me an email and I’ll send you a free one.

We’ll be encourage people to run for more Libertarian offices in 2018. This year we do have people running in 600 offices, but not many are in Nevada.

Thanks for your interest.

Wes Benedict, Executive Director Libertarian National Committee, Inc.

—

Thanks, Wes!)

 

Early voting in Nevada started this Saturday (October 22, 2016). I just went to my local shopping mall and voted. I want to go over the choices that I made as a sort of endorsement and analysis.

President of the United States

I have already addressed my reasons for endorsing Gary Johnson and choosing a third-party candidate over one of the “real” candidates, in particular Hillary Clinton. As of October 23, fivethirtyeight.com is projecting at least a 72 percent chance for Clinton to win Nevada, with initial turnout giving the Democrats a substantial edge.  Basically, things have gotten to the point with Donald Trump’s repulsive campaign that if Hillary Clinton somehow loses the presidential race, it’s because she deserves to. And up until fairly recently, that could not be ruled out. Because until Trump, there were no other candidates more incompetent at campaigning than Hillary Clinton and more unappealing to the voting public, and I didn’t think that was possible. The difference is that Clinton doesn’t GO OUT OF HER WAY to piss people off. The question is whether someone who doesn’t endorse Hillary Clinton should officially approve her coronation especially when the result is pretty much determined already.

And given that Trump is not really an outlier in the GOP but merely the most honest expression of the ideology they’ve been building for some time,  it gets to my long term assessment of why I would rather be in a third party than one of the majors. I would rather work to refine something that doesn’t have an institutional presence than an institution that doesn’t think it needs to reform. (As anyone who voted for Sanders and then went to a Democratic state convention might testify.) And after this election, anyone who’s still registered Republican needs to consider what the future of that party is and whether it is going to turn around when it has rather clearly declared that Trumpism is what it wants. As it stands, I think a lot of the people voting for Democrats this year will be in the same mind as Will McAvoy in The Newsroom when he said, “I’m a registered Republican. I only seem liberal because I think hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure, and not gay marriage.”

I’ve also been willing to say that as a candidate in general and as an advocate for libertarianism, Johnson has screwed up. The thing that most pissed me off about Johnson’s Aleppo moment(s) was the realization that there IS NO good choice for president this year- not even on the sentimental, hypothetical level of “Gee, if only my vote was the only one that counted and it wasn’t gonna be drowned out by 65 million other people.” Because the Republican Party is that much more blatant in abandoning its public responsibility to present a serious candidate, and however qualified Hillary Clinton is, much of her resume is built on creating the stagnant economy and shaky foreign policy situation that Americans are objecting to in the first place.

I don’t think Gary Johnson is a good candidate for President. But at least he doesn’t disgust me.

United States Senate

The real problem with being a third-party voter in the short term is that your party is usually too small to run candidates in the “down-ballot” races. Take Nevada. I would like to vote for Libertarians in other offices, but the LP is not running anybody in the other federal races. The only third party that is is the Constitution/Independent American Party, which is basically where you go when you think that the Republicans are a bunch of godless pinkos. The two main candidates are Republican Joe Heck (currently a US Congressman) and Catherine Cortez Masto (formerly Nevada’s Attorney General). I don’t have anything against either candidate personally and think each did reasonably well in their prior jobs, but if the main issue other than the presidency is control of Congress and the Senate, the Republicans as a whole are sufficiently rotten and incompetent that where I didn’t get a chance to vote Libertarian, I went Democrat.

United States House of Representatives

Similarly I voted Dina Titus (Democrat) for the Congressional race for my district, since I know and like her well enough and didn’t think the other candidates matched up.

The Questions

The main issues that are up for vote in this state are the ballot questions, and these require examination in a certain level of detail. Because when you into detail it becomes clear that in many cases the question is worded in such a way as to convince people to vote for the opposite of what the ballot measure would actually do.

Question 1: Shall Chapter 202 of the Nevada Revised Statutes be amended to prohibit, except in certain circumstances, a person from selling or transferring a firearm to another person unless a federally-licensed dealer first conducts a federal background check on the potential buyer or transferee ?

I have no particular fondness for guns, but I am fond of the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. I also know that with the rate of civilian shootings in the last few years that many people have become concerned about “loopholes” to existing laws allowing people to get access to guns. The specific text of the measure says that it is intended to address the discrepancy allowing unlicensed sellers to transfer ownership of a firearm without a background check (which is now required for licensed sellers). Section 6 of the measure specifically exempts sale to law enforcement officers, sale of antique weapons, transfer to immediate family members, to trustees or executives of the owner’s estate, or temporary transfer at recognized shooting ranges and competitions. This basically covers most of the situations that “No” voters raise on the grounds of increasing bureaucracy. Arguably it doesn’t go far enough for “gun safety” advocates who say that many acts of gun violence occur within the home.

With some difficulty, I voted for Question 1, though I could have just as easily voted No. My main skepticism was whether any gun control law is actually going to accomplish its stated purpose. On balance I decided Question 1 actually accomplished the stated purpose of reducing the loophole of unregistered gun sales without creating an undue burden on private gun owners.

Question 2: Shall the Nevada Revised Statutes be amended to allow a person, 21 years old or older, to purchase, cultivate, possess, or consume a certain amount of marijuana or concentrated marijuana, as well as manufacture, possess, use, transport, purchase, distribute, or sell marijuana paraphernalia; impose a 15 percent excise tax on wholesale sales of marijuana; require the regulation and licensing of marijuana cultivators, testing facilities, distributors, suppliers, and retailers; and provide for certain criminal penalties?

This is a prime example of where what seems to be plain language on the ballot is something entirely different in the actual legal text. In this case the text states in Section 10 that a certified “marijuana establishment” cannot be located within 1000 feet of a public or private school, or 300 feet of a community facility, and to a limit of 80 licenses in a county with a population greater than 700,000. The provisions of legalization would render the possession of more than token amounts of marijuana, or the startup of a marijuana business, all but impossible to already wealthy interests. In all, the measure would be much like the 2014 measure in Ohio that failed because even legalization advocates saw it as a vehicle of established interests rather than protection of individual rights. And of course, until the Federal government re-classifies marijuana, a lot of this is technicality. I voted No on Question 2.

Question 3: Shall Article 1 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the establishment of an open, competitive retail electric energy market that prohibits the granting of monopolies and exclusive franchises for the generation of electricity?

Most of the state is under an official energy monopoly called NV Energy, which is ostensibly regulated by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to protect consumers. However, this same PUC decided last year to remove credits that were previously given to customers of private solar energy producers by allowing them to sell power back to the main grid, a practice called “net metering.”  The irony being that such a subsidy is supposed to be how liberalism ought to work, using the power of the state to protect the consumer while promoting more progressive policies (in this case, a cleaner energy system). In practice, the power of the state is more likely to be used to protect those who already have wealth and power. Removing NV Energy’s monopoly would if nothing else remove the question of whether competitor energy providers are taking “their” energy.

I voted Yes on Question 3, with the reservation that while both Questions 1 and 2 are very detailed in their provisions, Question 3 merely states that after passage, the state legislature shall pass legislation to provide for an open energy market. Ay, there’s the rub.

Question 4: Shall Article 10 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the exemption of durable medical equipment, oxygen delivery equipment, and mobility enhancing equipment prescribed for use by a licensed health care provider from any tax upon the sale, storage, use, or consumption of tangible personal property?

The ballot measure would add a Section 7 to the Article 10 of the state Constitution: “The legislature shall provide by law for the exemption of durable medical equipment, oxygen delivery equipment and mobility enhancing equipment prescribed for human use by a licensed provider of health care acting within his or her scope of practice from any tax upon the sale, storage, use or consumption of tangible personal property. ” So similar to Question 3, the matter is left up to the legislature. Still, this is pretty straightforward: People using durable medical equipment (DME) would not have to pay state taxes on what are often lifesaving devices and usually keep a person’s living standard from being debilitated. The main objection to Question 4 seems to be the concern that not having these taxes would create a budget shortfall, but anyone familiar with this state’s politics knows that it strains credulity to think that Nevada politicians won’t create some new consumption tax on the middle class when they want more money for something, as opposed to a tax on mining or income. I voted Yes on Question 4.

Question 5: Shall Clark County continue indexing fuel taxes to the rate of inflation, through December 31, 2026, the proceeds of which will be used solely for the purpose of improving public safety for roadway users and reducing traffic congestion by constructing and maintaining streets and highways in Clark County?

This is a Clark County (Southern Nevada) measure as opposed to a statewide measure. This simply allows the current practice of funding road construction and maintenance to be financed through fuel taxes through the next ten years. Since this is not really changing anything for the worse, I voted Yes on Question 5. Still, Las Vegas is a great rebuttal to the people who question libertarianism saying, “Without government, who would build the roads?” My response is, “We have government and taxes, and I don’t know if the roads are being built now or just ripped up.”

The next Clinton-Trump brawl is scheduled for Wednesday October 19^th, and Wednesday is a date that I usually go see friends, so I will most likely have to watch coverage after the fact. But I want to discuss certain things that have come up since, namely in regard to “Pussygate.”  As you remember, towards the end of the first debate, Hillary Clinton brought up Trump’s abuse of Miss Universe contestant Alicia Machado, the subject of which brought Trump nearly to rage even before Clinton specified Machado’s name. This caused Trump to respond that he was going to say something very bad about Clinton and her husband, but decided to stop himself. But never let Donald Trump be accused of class and restraint.

As you also know, on October 7, audio footage was released from 2005 of Trump and Access Hollywood reporter Billy Bush having an on-mic conversation about Trump’s technique with women which included the lines “you just kiss…when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything…grab them by the pussy…” While Trump was unusually defensive and willing to apologize over his 2005 quotes, he also insisted that “this is nothing more than a distraction” and “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.” Just the Sunday afternoon before the October 9 debate, Trump rounded up Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Kathy Shelton, the first three of whom had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or outright rape, and the latter being the plaintiff in a rape trial where Hillary Clinton was the defense lawyer who successfully plea-bargained her client’s case. Not only did these four women appear at a press conference where Trump openly accused Bill Clinton of assault, he had them appear as guests at the town hall debate that night. Since then he has told audiences that he is the victim of a great smear campaign and “character assassination”, and that the allegations against him since the Oct. 7 tape are “made up”.

Well, as many have pointed out, it isn’t Bill Clinton who’s running for president this time. Also, bad behavior on someone else’s part cannot be used to excuse bad behavior on your part. (Trump and conservatives may be unaware of this ethical principle, so it ought to be stressed at some point.) In any case, there’s also a factor of relevance. I mean, have you seen Bill Clinton lately? He’s deathly pale, near anorexic, he’s had heart problems, and cancer scares… let’s face it, his best raping days are behind him. Whereas Donald Trump is big, extroverted, and ruddy. Well, whatever that color is supposed to be. He looks like he could keep raping two, maybe three more years.

Another defense along similar lines is where Trumpers on social media show the picture of Miley Cyrus twerking her ass in front of Robin Thicke in that one awards show, or Beyonce in her stage outfit, and they’ll say something like “these are the liberals who say that Donald Trump is degrading women.” Well- for one thing, Miley Cyrus isn’t running for president either, and if she was, I would even vote for that tongue-wagging twerker before Trump. But however hypocritical or misplaced conservative criticisms of their opponents are, they aren’t totally lacking in point.

The actions of a politician or government official are potentially more corrosive to the public culture than the actions of an entertainer, partially for the obvious reason that entertainers do not have legal power over us. And because we recognize that the issue is different, we expect politicians to follow a different standard. We expect different behavior from George Clinton than from Bill Clinton.

But whether you think Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation should have gone into the matter of Bill Clinton’s affair in the Oval Office,  or whether such a thing is a “private matter”, consider that at the time the Clinton Administration was defending a policy under which gay military members could be forcibly discharged over their private affairs, partially on grounds of being a security risk.  When you see the president flat-out lie about an affair on camera and ultimately get away with it, it does create an impression that as far he’s concerned, laws and standards only apply to others. And when you see Hillary Clinton get absolved by the FBI for security breaches that WOULD have gotten anyone else at least reprimanded, you see the same issue at play.

Of course, it wasn’t even as simple as Bill Clinton getting impeached over perjury and then found not guilty by the Senate. During the House investigation leading to impeachment, Republican head of the Judiciary Committee Henry Hyde was revealed to have had an affair in office as a state legislator almost 30 years prior. Pornographer and Democratic partisan Larry Flynt used Hustler Magazine to expose Bob Livingston (R.-Louisiana) who was expected to be the next House Speaker, but had to step down in favor of Dennis Hastert.

Contrary to Michelle Obama, the Democrat standard is not “When they go low, we go high.” It’s “when they go low, we go lower.” To be sure, it’s not the Democrats’ fault if they have that much more opposition research to work with.

The ultimate lesson here, if you’re a Democratic partisan, is that the Republicans are living in a glass house built next to a rock quarry. But Democrats need to keep in mind that all those Millennial voters (who for some reason they can’t understand, don’t trust Hillary Clinton) were not paying attention to this scandal factory right from the beginning. And if Bill Clinton is not as relevant to this election as Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton is a good deal more relevant than Ken Starr, Dennis Hastert or any other of the conservative meanies from the Whitewater period who either got in their own sex scandals or had to retire from public life while Clinton continued to become more important.

So if Democrats don’t understand that after all this time, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is undermined by the same defensive tactics that she used to defend her husband long ago, then they can’t understand why voters loathe both her in particular and this political system in general.

Nor is the Right unique in demonizing their enemies, nor even pioneers in that regard. I can remember “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” In certain “progressive” circles anybody to the right of Che Guevara is a Fascist. And it’s not like right-wingers aren’t taking notes. Charlie Skyes is a NeverTrump conservative talk show host in the Midwest who’s been making the rounds on MSNBC and other places giving his takes on where the conservative movement is now. Recently he decided that the culture had gotten to the point that he decided to retire his show after this year. But he gave an interview to Vox magazine about that, and I found this exchange very interesting:

Charlie Sykes

Absolutely. And you have these websites out there, like Breitbart.com, which is like reading third-world propaganda. These guys like Breitbart are smart enough to know that they’re full of shit. But if you inhabit that world, you can’t push back without being seen as a sellout.

Now I will say this one thing on the flip side. Some of these people have flocked to sites like Breitbart and they’ve retreated into these dark corners because the left has too easily tossed words like “racist” and “xenophobe” and “sexist” around.

So what’s happened is that when a guy like me or anyone or you says, hey, you know, Donald Trump is a racist and a xenophobe and a sexist. The conservative media world, the consumers, they tell me we’ve been called that for 20 or 30 years. They’ve become conditioned to blow it off as crying wolf.

Sean Illing

I think that’s a fair point.

Charlie Sykes

I’m old enough to remember that being called a racist was the worst thing, the most devastating thing you could call someone — and now it’s lost all currency. I mean, people don’t even blink at it anymore. John McCain’s a racist, Mitt Romney’s a racist, Paul Ryan’s a racist.

But when Donald Trump comes, who is the real thing, we call him that and say we didn’t really mean it about those other guys. This is who we were warning you about. It’s blown off by a lot of the conservative base.

So when you see that one side plays by certain rules and expects you to play at a disadvantage, you resent it. If you’re expected to act in good faith but they get to call you Klansmen and Nazis, you decide to fuck good faith. Fuck negotiation or even acknowledging the other side’s humanity. If they really think you’re a caricature- or know better but act like they don’t- you think there’s no point in trying to disabuse them with proofs. But then if you hold that attitude long enough, you either don’t notice or don’t care that some of your new friends on the alternative-to-being-right are REAL Klansmen and neo-Nazis.

There is a phrase I use that I am going to keep going back to, as appropriate. It is possible for two different things to be true at the same time.

A LONG time ago – a long enough time ago that it depresses me to think about how old I am – some of us judged the Lewinsky scandal and simultaneously decided that the President being an adulterous horndog was not the end of the world AND that it was still not a good thing for the country. It certainly was not a good thing that the President felt the need to commit perjury and get impeached over it. In any case, if an impeachment takes place in the Senate and they end up acquitting the defendant, then legally that’s it. Both the people and the government have spoken. The question then is, why would one bring up the matter again when it only brings up the point that you have more skeletons in the closet than Liberace’s Halloween Party, and in the broader picture, means that if we wash that one issue, forces us to consider your lack of record and competence in contrast to both Bill and Hillary’s political successes.

None of this justifies “conservatives” doubling down on immorality by supporting Trump, who magnifies all the Clintons’ vices while having none of their abilities, but if Democrats still can’t understand why some of us shake our heads at their invocation of morality, then Republicans aren’t the only ones with no sense of irony.

I did not immediately follow up on the October 9 Clinton-Trump debate, partially because I need a real job to pay the bills and mainly because I have spent the other part of the last 24 hours trying to find some way to thread a Brillo pad through my nasal cavity out my ear canal so I can scour my brain.

If the first debate was a steel cage match where Donald Trump got bladed, this one was a knife fight in the depths of the Calcutta sewers. Even if you won, you still are bleeding and contaminated with toxic shit.

With Hillary Clinton, she at least got a couple of opportunities to explain her resume and speak unapologetically about her agenda, including gun control and creating a more liberal Supreme Court. But she continues to give non-answers with regard to her emails and lack of regard for their security, and when she responded to the suggestion of being “two-faced” and said that she was referring to Abraham Lincoln’s policy of having one public policy on Civil War legislation while pursuing a different private policy, Trump was able to respond by mocking her use of “Honest Abe” as a defense of her mendacity. Again, Clinton overall comes off as far more knowledgeable and competent than Trump, and can be sincere about positions she actually cares about. But she still does not come off as honest, and thus she suffers in comparison to Trump, who at least conveys the appearance of honesty even if that’s only because Trump confuses “honesty” with “having no internal monologue.”

As for “Sniffy” himself… he fought back this time.  Whatever his prior feelings about his old friends the Clintons, he has shown himself willing to take on the concerns, however warped, of the Republican base.  More than ever, Trump has answered the question, “what if AM radio could run for President?” He played all the greatest hits: Benghazi, Juanita, the emails that Hillary “acid-washed” like trendy jeans. As the pundits kept saying Sunday and today, he stopped the bleeding. But mainly in the sense that he threw red meat to the base and kept them going, which he really didn’t do last debate. He didn’t persuade the rest of us, who have been nothing but appalled by him, to find a reason to vote for him. In fact he doubled down on the offensive stupidity. He did not explain (beyond removing the barriers between states for insurance policies) how he would make a better replacement for Obamacare. He did not explain how he would straighten out Syria, beyond bombing the shit out of everything, which has worked so well up to now. He did not reduce the suspicion of his dictatorial whims when he said (in between sniffs) that he would appoint a special prosecutor to dive into Hillary’s email accounts. He certainly did not appeal to female voters, some of whom happen to be Republican.   Trump continued to insist that Pussygate was just “locker room talk” as if between Friday and Sunday, social media had not shot down, skinned and dressed that argument. And he did not reduce the impression of being “rapey” when, during Hillary Clinton’s addresses to the audience, he glowered and paced around, showing behind her in camera, stalking her like a particularly lazy and overweight lion with sleep apnea.

And next debate is a week from Wednesday. In Las Vegas. People here have no clue how to drive in optimum conditions, and here we’re going to have TWO Secret Service details on the road.

Technical Winner: Hillary Clinton. But only by virtue of NOT being Donald Trump.

Real Winners: Gary Johnson (who can only look better in comparison) and anybody who skipped this thing to watch Sunday Night Football or Ash vs Evil Dead.

Losers: Intelligence, good taste, public service and the premise of a functional republic.

On October 4, the two running mates of the main presidential candidates, Democratic Governor of Virginia Tim Kaine and Republican Governor of Indiana Mike Pence, got together in their first and only national debate, in which the two-party system attempted to answer the question: “Which one of these two men is better suited to be president once their running mate is impeached?”

Whereas the last vice-presidential debate (Biden-Ryan) seemed fairly substantial and respectful, this one didn’t come off that well in my opinion. It didn’t even come off that well compared to the September 26 presidential debate, where at least Hillary Clinton came off as both professional and sociable. What was odd is that for the most part it was Tim Kaine who was doing all the pointless interrupting, which only gave Pence the opportunity to say “let me respond” and go off wasting time on that point rather than answer the questions that Elaine Quijano asked. Not that either one of them is that good. Both of them seemed to be composed of their respective party’s cliches about supporting working people when the person at the top of the ticket has managed to get very rich gaming the status quo. Kaine at least has the advantage of living in the reality-based community, although he didn’t benefit his party as much as Clinton did in September or Joe Biden did in 2012.

So: Kaine. Pence. Who won? The answer is obvious. Gary Johnson.

And now for something completely different.

Sunday October 2, HBO debuted its re-imagining of Westworld, which was based on a 1973 movie written and directed by Michael Crichton.  Westworld was a major example of the weird old days of 70s science fiction on film, of a piece with Rollerball, Logan’s Run and Silent Running.   In the film, there’s this major corporation running a sort of “adult” Disneyland (featuring Medieval World and Roman World in addition to West World) where the “animatronic” characters are actually androids capable of interacting with humans at almost any level.  But their programming starts to go awry (in what may be one of the first mentions of a computer virus on film), and the androids start killing the customers, so that the movie ends up as a horror-stalker scenario where star Richard Benjamin (and his 70s pornstache) is being hunted by a sinister android gunslinger (played by Yul Brynner and dressed almost exactly like his character in The Magnificent Seven).

The difference here is that in the movie the androids were an unknown Other attacking the human protagonists, while in the TV show, the human customers are largely an afterthought to the narrative, with secondary focus given to the corporate staff running the resort and maintaining the androids, with the ultimate focus going to the androids themselves, whose increasingly complex programming is causing some of them to realize that their world is artificial and everything in their lives – including their deaths – is scripted for the amusement of others.

Foremost of these androids is the pure, beautiful and ever-suffering Dolores (played by Evan Rachel Wood) who apparently exists to see her father get killed over and over again.  She and her father both start to encounter what their inventor calls “reveries” of past programming.  But since their real-time experiences occur within a repeated script, the pilot episode plays less like the Westworld movie and more like a weird cross between Groundhog Day and Deadwood.

The odd thing about this setup is that even though the android “hosts” are there as stock Western characters for human tourists, they also seem to have interaction with each other that may not be strictly necessary for the purpose of the business.  For instance, the pilot episode sets up a romance between Dolores and Teddy (James Marsden), one of the “Newcomers” who just came to town.  But then Teddy gets killed, more than once, and is revealed to be one of the hosts.  It raises the question of whether the characters were “built” to be involved with anyone else, especially since their scripts change in response to customer interaction but otherwise repeat.

Meanwhile, the evil gunslinger in black is revealed to be a human (Ed Harris), who seems to be pursuing some quest within the setting that is unexplained at this point.  Back in the company labs, the head of the programmers (veteran character actor Jeffrey Wright) is trying to integrate the new programming codes with the help of the company’s founder, Ford (Anthony Hopkins).  Ford is both gentlemanly and sinister, a man who genuinely thinks of himself as a loving God in control of the perfect world he created.  The sort of role Anthony Hopkins could do in his sleep.

Otherwise, again, the focus is away from the humans (other than a small story with Currie Graham as a deputized crimefighter) which produces a deliberately alienating effect when one sees how they treat the androids.  The female hosts (not all of whom are prostitutes) are used to prurient ends by the male guests, and when two of those guests hire Teddy as a local guide, they raise the question of whether they should take him out to the wilderness and kill him just because they can.  So once again James Marsden is cast as the nice, handsome guy who exists to get stomped on.  It seems to be his karma for some reason.

That artificiality makes the show seem rather sterile, though I’m pretty sure that’s by design.  But that, and the question of how long it will take the whole situation to blow up, raises the question of whether this premise can be stretched out past one season, although it seems like it would be a very interesting miniseries.

 

 

 

 

That’s a question I see a lot of liberals asking on social media. The gist of the query was probably best summarized by celebrity George Takei on Twitter September 24: “Libertarian Johnson supports TPP, fracking, Citizens United, and no min wage. How any Sanders supporters could back him is baffling to me. ”

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party presidential nominee, has gotten a lot more attention than most third-party candidates, often for the wrong reasons. But while never having much of a chance, Johnson cannot seem to be killed. Even despite his own best efforts. I had thought that this means that Johnson has learned from Donald Trump that any publicity is good publicity. But I have also said that the primary lesson of the Trump campaign is that voters will lean toward you if they identify with your own ignorance. It seems that others agree. The Christian Science Monitor had a recent article citing the polls on Johnson’s foreign policy gaffes.

“It isn’t that foreign policy doesn’t matter to young voters, although older people do place slightly more importance on it. … But the young also tend to view foreign policy differently. A 2015 study by the libertarian Cato Institute concluded that Millennials – defined here as those born between 1980 and 1997 – see the world as “significantly less threatening than their elders,” and policies drawn up to deal with foreign threats as less urgent. They’re also more supportive of international cooperation, and far less keen on the use of military force, the report found.  Both major candidates are considerably more hawkish than this standard. In comparison, Johnson’s floundering on foreign policy questions might seem relatively benign. ”

Indeed, his polls don’t seem to be going down. The same article says, “The lapse didn’t hurt him in the polls: for months, about 7 or 8 percent of likely voters have said they would support him.  His peak, of just over 9 percent? According to polling averages from RealClearPolitics, it came from Sept 8-14: the days immediately following the first incident.”

And more than that: On September 27, Johnson was endorsed by the Detroit News.  This was followed two days later by his most prominent newspaper endorsement to date, when the Chicago Tribune officially endorsed Johnson for president.

In context, what makes these endorsements that much more remarkable is that they were issued AFTER Gary Johnson started having his “Aleppo moments.”

I direct the reader to the Tribune article, because it’s one of the better opinion columns I’ve read on this subject and the 2016 campaign in general. It goes over why (despite his problems) Gary Johnson is a serious and qualified candidate for President, and why Clinton, despite her obvious superiority to Trump, has too many problems to endorse, addressing much the same points that I did earlier, but in much greater journalistic detail.

I’m sure these editors, like the rest of us, are perfectly aware that “third” parties don’t win elections, at least for president, because to get Electoral College votes you need to win at least one state, and third parties don’t have enough votes to do that (without effectively supplanting one of the other ruling parties) and they certainly don’t have those votes this year.  Knowing that, and knowing that other conservative papers have endorsed Clinton, I take these endorsements to be a “no confidence vote” in our political system from a center-to-Right community that is not “with Hillary” and also recognizes that the Republican Party, at least currently, is too broken to fix.

What then of all those lefty “progressive” Millennials who supposedly should be voting for Clinton? Why are they looking at the “neoliberal”, pro-market, pro-privatization Gary Johnson and preferring him to Hillary Clinton or even Jill Stein? It’s actually a good question.

Because if I were a “progressive”, I’d probably follow the logic of Bernie Sanders: Run for the Democratic Party nomination on the premise that they are a more effective vehicle for my ideas than the Green Party or an independent run, and if I win the nomination (unlikely given my lack of network in the party), that’s great and I can move on to the general election. If I don’t win (likely because of the structure of the party) I can still use my support base to agitate for reform of the convention platform- and at that point, I will endorse the eventual nominee on the premise that she now IS the most effective vehicle for my ideas.

Of course I’m not a progressive, but broadly speaking, the Democrats have done a fair job adapting to that community, to the extent that the party has experienced less internal dissent than the Republicans with their civil war of Tea Partiers versus “Republicans In Name Only”. But a lot of leftists do remember that Bill and Hillary Clinton didn’t seriously endorse gay marriage until after the Obama Administration did. With the Affordable Care Act, there were several opportunities to make the final project more “progressive” and closer to single-payer (like the public option) than the corporatist project that the ACA became. And the main reason it had to be compromised down was not to win Republicans, who were already a bloc against any Obama legislation but were not yet a majority, but moderate (often pro-corporate) Democrats. Not only that, Senator Barack Obama had promised as a candidate to roll back the security state that George W. Bush and Congress had created in the wake of 9-11, and his record in that area has been uneven at best. And if a young and woke Barack Obama has proved disappointing by “progressive” standards, they won’t be much more enthused by Hillary, who as Senator voted for an Iraq invasion that Senator Obama opposed.

It’s pretty clear that just from the standpoint of not making things worse, a center-to-Left voter ought not to choose Trump, or even to abstain from voting Clinton if she is the most realistic way of stopping Trump. But on economic issues at least, a lot of voters are seeing “progress” only in drips and drops, often despite and not because of the Democratic Party. This is why a lot of them supported Bernie Sanders in the first place. And the way that ended up is part of why they still don’t trust Clinton.

During the Clinton-Sanders run to the Democratic Party nomination, Clinton ended up winning a majority of states without counting superdelegates, although there were several states where results were close enough and tabulations were vague enough that the outcome was in doubt, and Sanders voters felt the need to investigate. The state of Nevada was the most prominent example. Under the caucus process, which is questionable to begin with, Clinton ended up winning a majority in Nevada, but that simply meant electing delegates to represent candidates at the county conventions, which would then send delegates to the state convention to vote at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. To the surprise of the Democratic Party in Clark County, more Sanders people showed to the Clark County convention than Clinton people, despite their pre-emptive suspension of the party credentials chairwoman for allegedly being pro-Sanders. So going into the State convention, Sanders people had a technical majority, except that this time the party got more Clinton people to show up. According to party rules, delegates had to be approved by two-thirds voice vote, which party chairwoman Roberta Lange ruled for Clinton. Even a Politifact article which was sympathetic to the party position conceded “trying to determine the outcome of a voice vote from a video of around 3,000 delegates is somewhat arbitrary to begin with. The only person with authority to call for a different voting mechanism is the convention chair: Lange.” And: “Volunteers circulating the petitions changing the rules abandoned their efforts after the permanent rules were adopted, saying they missed their chance to introduce them. Either way, any rule change would require a two-thirds majority vote which would be highly unlikely given the Clinton campaign’s public opposition to any rules changes.”

Now with me, I think that the September 26 debate proved Clinton to be far superior to Trump in both knowledge and temperament, while Johnson is getting problematic in both areas (although STILL better than Trump). But the liberals ‘shakin my head’ as to why Sanders fans would pick Johnson apparently didn’t remember that the lackluster past eight years inspired a “change” campaign with both Trump and Sanders after Obama’s “change” failed to give us much. They forget that some of us were physically present (and posting on social media in real time) about the “Democratic” establishment ginning the results at party conventions. And establishment liberals look at something like Secretary Clinton’s email issues (which the press has obfuscated as much as illuminated) and ask why she is considered “untrustworthy” as though not being forthright on email security was one isolated reason why she would be considered untrustworthy.

This undermines the final promise of the Sanders campaign: that even in the likely event that he lost the nomination, he would still have an influence. A party establishment that goes to such lengths to control results can’t be trusted to maintain its promises more than it absolutely has to. Yes, a lot of the dissenters are grousing because they’re “kids who don’t understand how the world works”, but I’m not sure that anybody who gets into American politics for the first time would come away thinking that it DOES work.

And a lot of those folks look around and if they’ve rejected the Green Party (because it has that much less organization, registration and exposure than the Libertarians) they look at the Libertarian Party and think, “okay, these guys aren’t really aligned with me on a lot of things, but they are with me on some things, and they seem like they would actually LISTEN.”

Not only that, but there’s the impression that Donald Trump could be a Central Casting villain recruited by a Democratic focus group to trigger all the buttons of feminist/liberal support networks, AND is so incompetent at running his own campaign that he might as well be throwing the race, and it just contributes to a sense that the fix is in.

Indeed, this resistance (subconscious or otherwise) to the establishment foist of Queen Hillary the Inevitable would explain not only why the anti-Trump majority hasn’t fully rallied around Clinton but why Trump remains competitive in the polls despite his kamikaze debate performance in September, not to mention despite objective reality.

 

 

On Wednesday, Chris Matthews at MSNBC deigned to have the Libertarian presidential ticket of Gary Johnson and William Weld appear at 7 pm Eastern time at a town hall at the University of New Hampshire. While the ticket did take some time to dispel a few strawmen (Johnson DOES believe climate change is man-made, and does believe we should have an EPA), events did not all turn out well. Not only was Johnson a bit… agitated (at one point predicting that Hillary Clinton could ‘press the button’ in a war), he didn’t seem to get Matthews’ question as to why marijuana is called dope (answer: it makes you a dope), and there was one point Matthews held a lightning round, promising “maybe you’ll make some news.” He asked, “who’s your favorite foreign leader?” Johnson said Shimon Peres of Israel – who has just died. Matthews specified it had to be a living leader. Johnson confessed, “I guess I’m having an ‘Aleppo moment’ in the former president of Mexico.” (Vicente Fox, by the way.)

So out of all the other things (good and bad) that came out of Johnson’s mouth, GUESS WHAT WAS THE ONE THING THE PRESS WILL. NOT. SHUT. UP. ABOUT.

In one respect, this just confirms it’s a bad idea for libertarians to appear on MSNBC (or as I call it, MSDNC), given that most of their hosts, including Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, love libertarianism the way an Orthodox rabbi loves bacon cheeseburgers, but really it confirms a point I’ve made here more than once: If a “third” party candidate wants to be taken seriously by the press, they need to ACT like a serious candidate and bone up. Again, you are NOT Donald Trump. People will not watch you do a spontaneous monologue from Ubu Roi on national TV and say, “Aw, that’s not fair, his mic was bad.”

Well, cheer up, liberals. If you’re a Clinton fan (or just someone who doesn’t want Trump to get elected and make his first executive order the restoration of droit du seigneur), Johnson’s apparent quest to destroy what credibility he might have had will greatly reduce the chances that a third-party vote will “spoil” a state for Hillary. But then, you won’t be able to blame Johnson if Hillary chokes anyway, so everything’s a tradeoff.

If however Johnson retains his previous poll numbers or actually increases them, it will mean that Gary Johnson has absorbed the primary lesson of the Donald Trump campaign, which is that people will vote for you if they identify with your ignorance. Either that, or Americans hate Hillary THAT FUCKING MUCH.

Meanwhile, the lesson I take from this, which the Libertarian Party should note for 2020, is that just because marijuana use should not be a bigger crime than armed robbery, that does not mean that you want a marijuana user to be your presidential nominee.

Just sayin’.