Month: February 2019

Democratic Differences

It’s “spring-time” in the Democratic Party, and the Presidential candidates are peeking out of the fertile anti-Trump garden.  Like the flowers of the spring, some will blossom, and others wither.  Some are familiar; Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro.  

Others are new to people: Pete Buttigieg, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang.  At least one, Howard Schultz is an unwelcome “weed” threatening to take up resources.  Of course, there are still those bulbs waiting to appear:  Biden, Bloomberg, Holder, Klobuchar and “Beto.”  And finally there are those mystery seeds that we don’t even know about yet.

Conservative commentators are excited:  they see the plethora of candidates as evidence of fractures in the Party, divisions from the left middle to the left to the far left; Bloomberg to Biden to Booker to Warren (aw, if only Buttigieg would fit) and far to the non-candidate, Ocasio-Cortez.  They see the Democratic Party being dragged so far to the left that the great “purple” center of America is deserted, leaving it open to re-capture by a resurgent Trump saying “I’m all you have.”

So let’s start with the “weed” in the garden, the independent candidacy of Starbucks’ Chairman Emeritus Howard Schultz.  Schultz sees himself as an “abandoned” Democrat; left behind by the leftward lurch of the Party.  He disagrees with “Medicare for all” and other forms of national health insurance, seeing the Affordable Care Act as the end limit.   Schultz feels the same way about government financing of higher education and raising the national minimum wage, simply saying “we can’t afford it.” 

Like the Mitt Romney incarnation as governor of Massachusetts, Schultz really represents the old-school center-right Republicans, a breed now largely extinct.  And for those who raise Ohio’s Governor Kasich as a surviving example, they have missed the shift; Kasich is really a Republican-Conservative of twenty years ago.  He hasn’t gone anywhere, but his Party his gone so far-right, he’s all that looks like it’s in the center.  Even the Utah-incarnation of Romney has moved farther to the right.

And for those who claim that the Affordable Care Act is a “left-wing” radical proposal foisted on the country, it is good to remember that the concepts originated in 1989 from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank financed in part by Joseph Coors, scion of the ultra-conservative Coors brewing family. The tenets of the Affordable Care Act were first put into law as “Romney-care” for the state of Massachusetts while Republican Romney was governor.  

Democrats agreed on the Affordable Care Act under President Obama as a compromise they hoped Republicans could join.  This was despite strong Democratic support for a “single payer” system with a federal program displacing individual insurance companies, and health insurance not linked to employment.  Following Senator Mitch McConnell’s lead, Republicans in Congress refused to vote for any compromise in order to prevent an Obama victory, so Democrats were left alone to pass the Act.

All this shows that the Affordable Care Act type government health insurance denotes the right limit of the Democratic Party.  It should be no surprise that most mainstream Democratic Presidential candidates are looking at greater government involvement in paying for health care, the center of the Party is closer to “Medicare for All” (for a further dissection of health care proposals – see this earlier essay on Trump World – Health Insurance.)

The point then, is that the Democrats aren’t a “fractured” party; dividing over the issues of health care, education costs, and minimum wages.  All Democrats are in favor of some form of improvement in each of these areas, the differences are how much and how soon.   This was, by the way, the situation in 2016 with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders; it wasn’t a matter of policy disagreement, but rather one of policy degree.

If raising minimum wage and reducing income inequality, providing affordable health care, making our nation more inclusive and reducing the debt-burden of education is “left-wing,” then the Democratic Party is left wing.  It will be the task of all the “budding flowers” of the Party to explain why their solutions to these problems should appeal to all Americans, particularly those who are left out of the American dream.  They will have a thorough, and probably raucous debate.  Ultimately Democrats will pluck one to speak for the Party, and run against Trump or whoever is left after his collapse. 

In our incredibly polarized nation, we will see whether labels, left, center or right, will prevail; or whether the needs and wants of the majority of Americans will overcome the divisive pressure to pick a side or a color.  It will be up to the Democrats to persuade the vast “center” of America that, regardless of right-wing evangelism, it is the Democrats that have their best interests at heart.

Fox Conn or Trump Con

It was the middle of the 2016 general election.  Trump’s analytic team discovered they had a chance of winning Wisconsin.  With the state voting system already tilted Republican by the questionable efforts of Governor Scott Walker, Republican Party Chairman Reince Preibus, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; it would only take some “convincing” to push Wisconsin into the “win” column.  

The major Republican regions of Wisconsin are agricultural: the famous “cheese-head” dairy farmers who were voting for Trump regardless.  But it was in the more urban areas around Milwaukee and Green Bay that Trump’s message of “ Making America Great Again” by bringing back industrial employment found appeal.  Walker and Trump touted the coming of Foxconn, a Chinese based manufacturer; bringing 13,000 jobs to the state.  Foxconn makes high-tech screens for I-Phones and other devices.

On the announcement that Foxconn was coming, candidate Trump announced:

“The construction of this facility represents the return of LCD electronics and electronic manufacturing to the United States, the country that we love. That’s where we want our jobs. To make such an incredible investment, Chairman Gou put his faith and confidence in the future of the American economy — in other words if I didn’t get elected he definitely would not be.”

The promise of manufacturing jobs made a difference.  Out of almost three million votes cast for President, Trump gained 1,405,284 to Clinton’s 1,382,536:   22,748 votes or two thirds of one percent to win the ten Wisconsin electoral votes.

This week, Foxconn announced that they aren’t going to build a manufacturing plant on the site.  They are now looking at a “technology hub,” and while some manufacturing will be done, the 13,000 promised jobs are now uncertain.  

In October of 2016, Carrier announced that it would be closing its plants in Indianapolis and Huntington, Indiana, and moving its operation to Mexico.  Candidate Trump, and more importantly his running mate former Indiana Governor Mike Pence, went to work to “save the Carrier jobs.” Their apparent success was touted as the kind of impact a “business” President could have.  While it didn’t determine the voting outcome in Indiana, it did make a difference in the “blue wall” states nearby, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  

A year later, Carrier announced layoffs at the Indianapolis plant.  Five production lines have been reduced to three, and 2000 jobs reduced to 700. The Huntington plant will soon stop manufacturing all together, with only salaried workers remaining doing research, design and customer service.

The President promised the workers of Youngstown that they didn’t need to move, jobs were coming back. Last month, General Motors decided to close the Lordstown assembly plant.  The famous question of the Watergate era was:  what did the President know, and when did he know it. Perhaps we ought to be asking the same question of this President; what did he know about Foxconn, Carrier and GM, and when did he know it?  

President Trump has a “tenuous” relationship with the truth.  That’s a nice way of saying that he says whatever he thinks will get him out of whatever problem he’s in at the moment, regardless of the facts.  Yesterday was a clear example:  he stated that the “media” misstated what the President’s intelligence chiefs said to the Senate committee, even though the C-Span 3 broadcast (yes, I watched it all) showed that there were no misstatements.  So when the Trump Administration claims that “ISIS is defeated” or “the Russians aren’t obeying a treaty” or “North Korea isn’t building weapons” or “Iran is breaking the agreement” or “caravans are coming to the border” or “no collusion:” we really have no idea what is true.

After almost four years of the Trump campaign and Presidency, the public has become numb to falsehood.  After four years of “alternative facts” and “the truth isn’t true” we have come to expect lies.  There is no longer outrage, or surprise.  It has infected our entire political system, and made many voters, if not most, cynics. 

This is the true legacy of the Trump era.  Whatever happens in the next two years, impeachment or not, re-election or not, the American people will be forced to answer a simple question:  how long are we willing to be conned?