In The Jury Box: 2024

By David Eide

These are opinions of a free, liberal democratic citizen, not a scholar, not a political scientist. I see things. And report through whatever sensibility I may have; a certain knowledge base and experience base, perhaps a bit of idealism as well as realism thrown in there. I would give them a much more robust sense of self and take them lightly

A FEW NOTES ON ELECTION '24

I sense that the identity politics that has mesmerized the left is coming to a close. Whether it is a quick and painless death or a painful one depends on several factors. A much more dynamic relation to the nation and its peoples is really needed.

I want to be in a society that believes in itself. That believes in the inherent goodness of its project as a society. One that embraces the totality of itself.

My feeling at this point: The Democrats have little credibility, I don't respect the Republicans and President Biden should announce he's not running for another term and throw the convention open.

I could be wrong but I see Trump fading fast. The core will be there but the rings of support will fall away.

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Reading over some things about the changing role the US is having to adapt, from the unipolar to the multi polar. That actors in the world are ignoring the US and becoming regional players. I question that the US ever believed it was in a unipolar universe. The US had definitive goals in foreign affairs like protect the Persian Gulf, protect Israel, protect Japan, Tiawan, S. Korea etc, protect Europe. Had these countries paid for their own defense, they would be different countries. And how is the world going to get better by reducing the role of the US? And yet, no question, it should emphasize "soft power" rather than hard power but it also has hard power and if you use it in concert with soft power you can get some things done.

I do not see the world organizing completely around the US regardless of the US self interest or stated interest. The same voices that say if the US were gone from the scene everything would be good, are the same ones who say if capitalism were abolished the world would be better. Don't think it works that way.

Intellectuals don't like the US for a variety of reasons. For one, the US doesn't treat its intellectuals with any love. Not as they do the actors and athletes, even pro wrestlers. If you've turned the people into the most ridiculous boobs it stands to reason that what they support as "their government" will have made a ton of errors and is a mistake to begin with. "If there was any justice in the world the US would be stripped of power and have to get along like the other nations." So many of the intellectuals believe.

The US can not control the world. I don't think it wants to for that matter. It has to mark out its self- interest and make it clear that it will defend that self-interest. It has this power and so many of the intellectual crowd are upset about it they are pining for the time when China or a Russian/Iran alliance will humble dear Uncle Sam and show the fatted, complacent, dumb American populace that they can not avoid history, the same history that has destroyed all other empires and nations. And obviously if the fatted, complacent, dumb Americans allow that to happen little can be done.

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Democrats and all good willed citizens have to do two things in relation to Trump and his minions: 1- go after him aggressively, punch hard, take everything he says and work it over, explain to the American public what he would do and do it in the most provocative light. Go to war against he and his MAGA followers. Treat it as such and don't let up. 2- prepare for the next eight months in case Trump wins. Develop strategies to undermine the damage Trump can do. Resist. Make it uncomfortable for his allies in Congress. Do this strategically and not melodramatically. Prepare. That would be the operative word. And fight like hell to keep him from the oval office.

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The political is the art of putting the right people in positions of power where they work on behalf of the democratic citizens. Politics is the interpretation of how and why that happens. And the two positions today are utter mirrors of each other, self consciously so which tells me they know the way the game is played. The key is for the citizens themselves to see through the smoke and mirrors of politics and seize the nature of life today and the ameliorations necessary to improve it.

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Super Tuesday

Some observations at the super Tuesday elections: The Democrats are in trouble. Biden is very fragile in terms of his ability to hold to his electability. One or two bad gaffes or evidence that he's not quite there will doom him if it hasn't already. Trump has much more energy, he's developing much more momentum. It's looking a bit like Reagan versus Carter in 1980. Where the more intelligent, conscientious, kinder, gentler guy is overwhelmed by the energy of the opponent. A lot depends on all of these prosecutions of course.

But I would say there is plenty of hypocrisy on the Democratic side. They are not protecting "democracy in America" they are protecting their self-interest as a political party. I may agree with that self interest but I don't completely.

I am happy in the California/Bay Area bubble. I like the mix of educated classes of people, affluent people, working people, struggling people, innovative, entrepreneur types. One's who prove their love of country by exercising the very best of themselves.

I know this. I acknowledge this. I was truly shocked when Reagan beat Carter but reflected all during the 80's on the nature of leadership. The leader must be able to move the needle. In desperate times the leader is going to be controversial and stir the drink. You have to trust the people to prevent one sidedness, to prevent the destruction to one ambition as opposed to another ambition. This does prevent both socialism and fascism.

There is a danger of a Trump going very rogue and seizing control of the mechanisms of power and wreaking havoc on the liberal democracy. That's always a danger but seems much more elevated with Trump. If Trump were smart he would temper himself, be much more conciliating with the Democrats. I doubt he has the character to do it. He's fixed in a way and that could be his downfall.

Biden and Trump have one thing in common: They are both their own worst enemies. It's really too early to tell. The Democrats need to lop off a portion of the independent Republicans which means a tougher stand on illegal immigration, crime, government spending and so on. The powerful collective voice is saying that. It is not saying "build a government around the interests of victim groups."

The fight for Barbara Lee's seat will be interesting.

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The key for the future of this democracy is in figuring out the criteria for good governance. What does it mean in a huge, complex Republic such as this one? What values need to be emphasized? How do you evaluate it and so on?

Good families, spiritual enrichment, intelligent analysis, growth and development of the self/citizen, innovation/creativity in science, are among the qualities necessary for a liberal democratic society. There's a difference between the rhetoric of these things and the reality.

If we were to see our future, several hundred years down the line, we may be shocked. Or, mildly amused. Or envious. If the liberal democratic society doesn't hold any longer, if it fails to solve problems, including the problem of a meaningful life, then history dictates a certain process. A generation will produce excellent leaders who lead groups of people away from the founding contract and a huge battle will take place over power. It could be between two or three or more entities. It might include foreign parties.

No one would want to go through the process although, obviously, generations do go through it. It would lose its meaning, its creativity and enter a period of corruption infintely worse than today .

A conscientious citizen would not want or wish for such a thing because the destruction to the center would mean a loss of coherence and the unloosening of chaos that can't be controlled. Once the thing disintegrated no one could predict, control, or will a more perfect entity arising from the chaos. Therefore, even as we accede to the motion of time and history we want to forestall the decay and destruction for as long as possible. That would include, new vital meanings for the people, a renewal of the institutions and recommitment to liberal democracy, stimulating new challenges such as changing the fuel system or colonization of solar system, even of the wastelands of Earth.

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Such an awful political moment! A pox on them all.

After reading through these Events some common themes are touched on:

• Complexity requires new challenges for the liberal democratic citizen
• There is an end game to the liberal democracy both in terms of its goal and in terms of its existence in a geographical area called America.
• Growth and development is the key for liberal democracy. What is it, btw?
• Democracy is not a romantic ideal state. It is the result of a free people who see the necessity of checks and balances and accountability. Alienation from this is a challenge, even danger to the democracy.
• The basis of a literary self is also the basis of a liberal democratic one: strong imagination, tolerance, thoughtfulness, skill, awareness, connection, anti sentimentality among others.
• The spiritual and the secular need to develop fully within the same self.

"Don't be a patsy for the polarities." That's what I would tell my younger self. Sharply defined as they are today, the polarities become very predictable, very obvious in "dealing with the present moment." There is nothing hidden. Dance between the polarities. Be open to all the discharge that comes from the agitation of the polarities. That would be a fundamentally better way to go then to latch onto one polarity. That doesn't mean that one is not more dangerous to the other and has to be watched carefully. It's more a renewal of the liberal democracy that is needed, a full bodied liberal democracy. The right wing is basically mob rule at this point. The left wing are elites in institutions merely protecting their self interest. There is a crazy vitality in the right wing and bankruptcy on the left.

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First, you have freedom of the people, the actions and aspirations of the people. Out of that come institutions and organizations, associations to facilitate the multitudinous types of choices people build out of their freedom. Then the need str a structure of law that protects the process of development, especially economic. Over generations it gets complicated, especially as the culture divides between those who are benefitting and those who are not. How to keep the system open-ended so that those who are not benefitting, start on the road to benefitting? How to do that without mucking and closing other parts of the system? How much is too much? How much is too little?

Freedom is a goal. it is a positive value, strengthened and defended by people who have a reasonable shot at reaching their aspirations. What interferes with that aspiration? What internality interferes? What externality interfers? What intrinsic limitations exist in the human being? Is it possible to push that out to create more potential? Those questions are embedded in the current culture.

In a free society it is not the depiction of aspiration but the expression of unused potential for any number of reasons, that is needed.

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Student Demonstrations

Students are left alone in their demonstrations to figure out how much, how deep is the manipulation on the old wings of idealism. The college protests have faint resemblance to the 60's period. One thing is certain; the university as an institution will change with all the attention on "failure at an administrative level" and "intolerance of speech." They will change just as they did during and after the 60's. It's an opportunity, at any rate, for true reformers to get changes going that will make the university a positive place, a more well-rounded place.

I see the professors rationalizing the protests as an "American tradition" and as a profound expression of democracy. They never talk about or teach due process, the hard, grinding work necessary to get your ambiguous protest in the shape of a policy and how to get that accepted on the political platform. This protest sounds phony, it sounds like the fabrication of outside agents and ideological professors. It carries very little weight. I find the comparison to Vietnam absurd. Vietnam was a national issue. Its opposition grew organically over a period of years that was able to maintain its credibility despite bad apples. The mayor of NY suggested "professional propagandists" who want to convert the snowflakes in the university to their radical cause. It really raises the specter of violent confrontations at the Democratic convention and a victory by Trump in November. The young have to use some of their energy to understand how they are manipulated by older people with agendas. That itself is enough to toughen up even the most delicate snowflake.

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Interesting interview in the NYTimes with Congress-persons leaving office and giving their opinions about democracy and Congress. A lot of frustration. Too much money involved. It's all up to the people, the quality of democracy that is. Those are some of the opinions at any rate. One thing stood out for me, "98% of Congress is collaboration and working across the aisle. It's never publicized. The media feeds on conflict." That should be axiomatic by now in a democracy run on profit.

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There are three basic forms of "citizen" in the US. The "stressed citizen", the "leveraged citizen", and the "powerful citizen." They fight against each other, they corroborate at times, they create a "culture" appropriate the form they are in. The ideal is that the stress is lessened in the one, the leverage is increased in the second, and the powerful slice off a portion of their power for the "good of the society." This is assuming that you want a Constitutional republic that won't survive in the long run without upward mobility. It would survive for a short time but, eventually, the static culture would corrupt, pull all the assets to one, small class and the society would get inefficient, poor, reckless, in endless turmoil, interrupted only by stretches of stale, fearful peace. It would take time but it would happen. The press would be controlled, the justice system would not be independent of dictatorial power, citizens would be corrupt or frightened and wouldn't want to know. They would finally be satisfied having a basic life and a TV or computer. Activists would get silenced. Life would be bad for all but a few. This is the fate without a strong middle class which, means to me, upward mobility, amelioration for the stressed, more leverage for the middle and "sacrifice" for the powerful.

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The first formation in my student phase was filled with utopian and radical thinkers like Emma Goldman, Kroptotkin, various socialists, etc. I didn't renounce that formation but I stopped believing in it. The arguments started sounding like a rationalization for hate and violence. "Life is impossible" sort of thinking took place, where abstraction far outweighs significance. Where the adherents don't have the skills or imagination to pull it off. They only exist in tucked areas of universities and come out when the students get riled up. Paul Goodman made sense to me, as did Norman O Brown and RD Laing. I suppose they are all forgotten now. In politics it is not the idea but the facts. It is how people actually live. It is the demonstrable progress in the society. Ideas can be a guide to policy but only because the facts bear out. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the adoption of forms of capitalism in China have doomed those ideas. The facts didn't bear them out.

The truism is, "all politics is local." If it gets beyond that it's because something has gone terribly wrong and there needs to be a repair.

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Ideas in this country can be divided between Enlightenment, Marxist, and Fundamentalist. All three make claims to their centrality. Enlightenment contains both Marxism and Fundamentalism or allows them to exist. Marxism and Fundamentalism try to eradicate Enlightenment. And it is conditioned by Pragmatism. If, finally, the policies and laws hammered from your philosophy don't work they are abandoned. Look at the rejection of a lot of the extremely liberal types as district attorneys. Enlightenment belongs to small but very potent citizens who carry the "best" of the ideal forward. The other two are carried by masses. There is a failure in the Enlightenment mode, an exhaustion perhaps. The question is whether Enlightenment can be revived, renovated and gain new vitality after the clash of the masses.

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A Problem

Trump is a specific problem that can be handled. 70 million people who are alienated from the Republic is a bigger problem. I have sensed that divide since my college days. The "elites" scorned by the mountain and valley people, scorned if not out and out hated. Both sides point their fingers but I doubt that will solve anything. Power derives from the people. That is the foundational idea in America. What if the people or a large portion of them do not consent to the power that has been derived? What if a large portion of the democratic people believe that the intellectual, cultural, political, business elites are a "law unto themselves," therefore precluding that portion of the people from believing they have any input into the governing of the country? Therefore "turning against" the agents for this condition mainly science, big time capitalism, bureaucracy, any notion of fairness, and so on. This is going on as the elites themselves are changing due to the generational shift from the baby boomers to the next generation of leaders.

The elites have become wary if not frightened of the attack on them. Some of it is fear of a loss of rationality, a fear of loss of credibility and status, a fear of loss of pure self-interest. Anger meets Fear, that is the dialectic of the Trump era.

Trump is a disaster but so are the millions of alienated citizens, so are the out of touch elites. A kind of perfect storm has appeared on the horizon.

If the Republic is too big for a guy who self-consciously sought out to understand it as completely as possible, what is it for people who don't have the resources to study one inch of it? Our "success" as a society is directly related to the vast complexity of the system. A complexity that, pressed hard against it, will use new, sophisticated surveillance technology to keep tabs on the "people." This fear has been around since I can remember but is emphasized when the polarity grows so profound and one hates and fears the opposite end.

Where then is the citizen of a democratic society connected to the form of governance, the destiny of that governance, etc?

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After the conviction I get the feeling Trump is more dangerous now than he has ever been. The problem isn't Trump though. He will be out of here before you know it. All sorts of institutional and democratic responses will rise up to block his power if he gets elected and that's a big if. The problem is the severe evisceration of the democratic spirit, its bankruptcy in millions of Americans. This is the crisis that must be tended to. If the causes are "bad" it will only get worse. And it's not limited to any particular party or economic class. Once the spirit is gone the rest is sure to follow.

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Thinking back to my "history of a liberal, democratic citizen," I thought of these points or experiences the citizen goes through:

• The adrenaline of politics and its disillusionment
• Reconnection with the core of political values
• Distribution of energy between private and public concerns
• Fighting complacency
• Gaining knowledge of systems
• Criteria for leadership
• Establishment of principles

And what were the problems?

• Ignorance that breeds extremism rather than curiosity and learning
• Disillusionment where all reality is reduced to one's own pains and pleasures and curiosity is destroyed
• Complacency when life is good.
• Incompetence of power
• Corruption which divides the representative from the people.

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This is going to be one perilous, nasty political season.

The great power of democracy is its wariness of power rather than its celebration of it. It's belief that power corrupts so be prudent, have due diligence, investigate. Even those ideas and parties you support are susceptible to the natural law that power corrupts. Do not worship power, question it. Worshipping power will give you Putin, Xi, Trump among others. Even the benign despot eventually crumbles under the pressure of sustaining power.

I find the Republicans scary and way out, demented in a way while the Democrats are bankrupt. I suppose the next five or six years will be spent trying to negotiate either a Republican or Democratic government while these old fossils fade away.

The vital thing today is to develop new leadership. The Democrats have to give up their utopian fantasies about equality and try to develop a strong middle-class filled with all elements of the culture. That's seems to be forming but it is not the focus of many Democrats, at least from what I have read and listened to.

The Democrats need to cheer on a will-to-achievement and have pride in the good things the culture has done.

An imperfect government and culture is not necessarily a declining one. Trump was a red flag. On the other hand didn't the government and culture need a good shaking up?

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When is a democracy not "divided?" The essence of a democracy is to get the central conflicts out in the open and deal with them so that over time, both sides are able to absorb the criticism of the other side and go on with a new vector. In all other types of society the "divisions" are repressed only to break out later down the line in armed conflict, often enough.

The thing is to pinpoint the exact "reasons" why the conflict has arisen as it has.

Was Lincoln naive to believe that opportunity would continually develop for those who were not yet part of American success? That was the 1850-1860 period. The times we live in are always a struggle uphill. The epochs of history were always a struggle uphill. We abstract at our ease at the risk of losing this prime insight. Life is a struggle uphill, for all people, for all time.

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Loyalty

I have little loyalty to the political spectrum as it currently is configured. I trust the polarities are sincere and are seeded in either fear or hatred. I am confident that they will balance each other and keep each other relatively honest. There are spectacular players along with the corrupt rum dums. It matters if one gets a leg up and is able to determine the nature of the society. It never happens because the society has too many checks and balances in it. Even if Trump has the most ardent desire to become a dictator he would fall way short, before being removed completely from power. That is one consequence of our deep success. Many people have a lot of lose in a radical change of governing. Somewhere between "too much freedom" and "not enough freedom" is the truth of the matter. Another truth: freedom can tire of itself.

In society today there's a lot of attention on polarization, on autocracy, on reforming the Constitution. I don't say ho-hum to those questions. Democracy as consciousness. As the ability to comprehend and understand a large aspect of the life one is thrown into. That was a challenge. Political power, political imagination, political idea all in the content of the citizens mind. It's not just the structure of government and its stability or instability as the case may be. It is the acts of the citizen as democratic people both in developing new associations and new pathways into new things, new activities, new ways of being.

I know I can be very pessimistic about "American democracy". I still call it the tragic phase of our development. Too many things that happen to too many people are done away from all connection with the people. The separation between "elites" and the people is beyond repair, apparently. The Republic can be maintained but the higher you get the more that Republic is a mask for wealth. My feeling was that it needs to understand the best of itself. Good models are still possible if the wreckage ever comes and the future needs that model. Now it is just too big to fail.

It's also apparent to me that the right wing is providing the new thesis, a new sort of nationalism that will have to be met with by an antithesis among the liberal side. But to get to that point they will have to reform themselves in ways they aren't prepared to at this point.

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America's success has introduced not "ease" but the freedom to get to your comfort zone. All else is fenced off and after awhile, then, everything outside that fence is a threat. Simply making the comfortable feel guilty is not enough. It simply creates a new class of comfort who bash the culture until it is silly.

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Worst Debate Ever

Just finished watching the worst political debate I have ever seen. Old Feeble Man vs Gigantic Con Man. The mighty gerontocracy. I thought Clinton vs Trump represented the nadir but I will assert this new pair in its place. I think it's going to shift a good deal of energy to new, young leaders. Trump should never be President but I have no belief that Biden will be able to serve the next four years. So, the age has reached this point. Biden has a few months to try and rehabilitate himself but he lost a percentage of valuable non-committed voters. It's a tragedy for the US but the fault of the Democratic Party if there is any fault. Biden needs a few weeks of utterly good news. And, in the end, the election will be determined by the way the economy rolls out from September on. It's a sad day that the "appearance" of weakness, frailty determine these things but that's the fact. Exacerbated by TV and the internet. When the populace matures from their hypnotism in front of these media the better off the democracy will be. But the fact is, Biden was weak and frail, blame it on nature.

Perhaps a break will occur for new political vision, new political leaders to come to the forefront. The Democrats are certainly in an "existential" crisis in that they can't and won't go "all in" on Biden and they will not be able to rally around any of the politicians lined up to replace him. It will be split terribly. It's not outside the realm of possibility that Biden rehabilitates himself. He would have to be nearly perfect to erase the memory of the debate, something the Republicans are not going to allow happen. I can see this changing a great deal of the Democratic party. It also speaks to the lingering damage of the baby-boomers hanging onto power way beyond a reasonable time. They have to leave the stage and let the younger people find their own mojo, find their leadership qualities, find their issues, find their foreign policy and go for it. Just as the great athlete must leave the field of play as he or she ages, so too must the politician and, in fact, many areas of authority open the fields for new players.

I re-iterate; the liberal Democrats are back peddling and trying to hold on to a shred of what reminds them of their glories. The right-wing Republicans are creating the energy for a new political culture. At some point the necessity to create resistance will begin to shape a new Democratic party. It will have to get rid of identity politics, victim as hero, the bits and pieces of nihilism that make it up, its disdain for the middle and working classes, its aversion to "patriotism" and "faith". It will take a good deal of creativity and imagination as well as hard headed thinking to get to that point. That is accelerated by the spate of new Supreme Court rulings that have come down in the last few weeks. Biden looks like he isn't giving up. He may be giving interviews in the near future to show everyone the marbles are all there or a significant number of them. The problem is not the number of marbles in his head but the number of years those marbles are going to have to rattle around if he's President. I can't imagine him going four years more. It's unfathomable but things will play out as they will, in the next four months.

Will historians mark 2016 as the beginning of the end of the American Republic? And rather than generals creating the destruction, entertainers like Trump are the catalyst? And rather than military adventure depleting the material resources of the Romans, the frivolous, degrading pop culture and corporate entertainment industry depleting the kind of morale and intelligence a "free, liberal democratic Republic" absolutely needs to sustain itself? Wealth creates greed, corruption, and the magic of "power" that hypnotizes a good deal of this society.

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Trust, Biden and Trump

The nihilists of the left and right are not the ones to trust. Trust those who "know how things actually work," not in the cynical, conspiratorial sense but in the practical sense. That means people who have worked with something complex and seen both the eyes and the anus of the thing.

I see a lot of questions raised by what "America" is. It is not the nation of yore, that is, not the government that gave men free land to work and try to make some wealth from it. It's transformed into the hyper tech/capital/mass culture with just enough democracy to keep the Republic going. The question for America is, "how are you going to transform those masses of people in the vortex of high tech/capital into liberal democratic citizens?" Is it still a society of opportunity, of invention, of community, of upward mobility? Most Americans spend some time in Hell. Most of it is in Purgatory. There are snatches of Heavan from time to time. That is, in terms of freedom. And it has more to do with the psychology of the citizen rather than legal or even economic constraints. A fair society would be one where each American spends time in each phase. Political power is often a struggle over the phases.

America is the place where the person has the opportunity to discover something, including "how to achieve happiness". As the poet says, "you are the work of your lifetime."

That discovery can be in an almost infinite variety of areas. Make that discovery the precious stone you never give up. Protect it with your life. Make it a profound challenge.

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There's still a question of what Biden will do. The window is closing fast. Personally I think he will give a speech and tell everyone he is not running for a second term but he will pursue the final months of his presidency with every fiber in his being. He will remind people that the goal in '24 is to ensure that Trump does not get elected and will pledge himself to join in that effort. He will throw the convention open but will endorse Harris. The next month will be spent in sizing a few candidates up, a lot of poll taking, a lot of discourse. The Democrats are such a loose confederation I don't trust many of its parts. If this happens there will be a big fight over the center of the Democratic party. I think it will go left but will have to cut off the identity politics which are toxic. Perhaps there will be time enough for a large assessment of what the society needs to go forward, I don't know. Society is starting to look to me like a thin band of existence along the west coast. Lol. Keep the vitality going! Invention! Humanity! I think the public desperately wants to get away from this Biden/Trump period of time. It needs to get broken.

The story I keep remembering as the Biden thing continues is "The Emperor with No Clothes" which is a story of the maintenance of illusion on behalf of our self-interest. It takes the naive, the less-interested, the child without power to say, "that man is naked." And then the gasp and no matter how many new clothes they slap on him he will never be seen the same. He's an old, frail man trying to be President of the United States. As an 81 year old he could do fairly well, live long, enjoy life, etc. He can't be President. My dad was a vigorous 81 year old who lived 19 more years and at no time during that period could he have been President, flown the planes he did in his youth, or do his job at the water company designing water systems. And there is no way, even if I believe Biden's "ok" now do I believe he will be "ok" one year, two years, three years from now. An old, feeble man who we would constantly worry about. And that would be the face of the US? I don't think so. And beyond all that, even if Biden were the most vigorous 81 year old in history his approval rating is at the lowest range since people counted such things. No, nature has reared up and spoken the tragic truth. The only chance the Democrats have is to get a youthful, vigorous leader who can back Trump into the age corner, the incompetence corner, the crazy-man corner and keep him there.

A lot of this looks like the perfect storm that destroys one establishment and provides the seeds for a new one. The gerontocracy needs to be taken down. New political life and imagination needs to be unleashed from below the shadows. It may be rocky to start but over time something good will be developed.

The Democrats have played the "end of democracy" trope so often its becoming meaningless. If the tens of millions of followers of Trump spell the end of democracy I would say it's already dead. If the people are passive, which is always the fear, then it is dead. The transition, the subduction that I'm speaking to means that there will be no privileged points of view. You already see that in quite a few places. All assumptions developed by the baby boomers in the last 40 years are subject to criticism if not ridicule.

Biden's problem is that no one or fewer people are listening to him or believe him. He doesn't have the vitality that is necessary to lead a huge country like this. Trump has the crazy energy most "common Americans" understand perfectly.

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If Trump wins then the "other" US has to resist, has to associate and form new types of democracy to keep the liberal democratic idea alive. Congress should resist, the courts should resist, the people should resist, the state governments should resist. Resist on behalf of the purest forms of liberal democratic ideas rather than the self interest of this group, that group and so on.

I think what Trump would create would be a huge kleptocracy, rather than a strictly repressive one, although he'd have to throw a few bones in the direction of the fundamentalists. I would look at his administration as objectively as possible.

I'm almost ready to say, "the hell with everything west of the Sierra's." I relate to that strip of land along the Pacific Ocean, between the Skagit, Willamette, Sacramento, San Joaquin valleys, between the Cascade and Sierra mountain ranges, with all the great national parks and lakes and rivers. Dotted by the major cities of Seattle, Portland, SF Bay, LA, San Diego, even Vancouver BC. This is the region I care about, that has nurtured me, taught me and so on. Most everything else is Red as a monster's eye.

Trump and his crowd shouldn't get so exultant over the problems of Biden. When Biden is done, when he has closed the books on his candidacy you will have two factors in play. One is the full, total attention on Trump, no holds bared. There will be tremendous effort to prove his unfitness and will be much more aggressive, obeying the public view that neither candidate is a fit. This will have a much more devastating effect on Trump, much more than in the past. Everything he has ever said or done will be scrutinized and reexamined under the theme of, "neither dog is worth adopting." I think it will be unrelenting. The other thing is that Biden will probably stay in office through the election and have at his behest a whole galaxy of ways and means to make things much more difficult for Trump than in the past. All this depends on the wave of revulsion that will sweep through the election cycle as the people decide that neither candidate is a fit and they demand more. It's their system after all.

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I can't predict the future. I don't know "what shape the US is in", whether it is declining or something else. I don't trust the intellects attempt to dole out judgements like that even as I have doled out a few myself. Something is always missing in the calculations. Always. Embrace enrichment. Embrace truth and beauty. Embrace the best principles. And fight if you have to.

The assassination attempt on Trump is not a shock to me. I didn't expect it but now that it has happened things add up. For one, there's all the gun violence of the past several years and the inability to come to some conclusion about it. Then the violence of opinion I've seen since '16. Some of the division is understandable and a function of a huge, lively democracy. Other parts of it are disturbing, not good, not healthy for the liberal democracy, including the conspiracy, election-denial energy, if not pure hatred I glimpse at in social media. You need to tamp things down so that the candidates are not "ultimate". Biden will not destroy America, Trump will not turn America into a fascist state. You know more than a few nuts will pick those sentiments up and believe they are the "will of history" and try to get one or the other "threat". I have a hunch this attempt will help Trump in a variety of ways.

In the story a decent novelist would write, Trump would reflect on himself, what he's done, what he's said and come clean, ask forgiveness, admit his fallibility. He won't. Added to everything, of course, is the last month of Biden, focusing on whether he's demented or not and trying to pry him from his candidacy even though he has all the delegates! There's a huge backstory there about the Democratic party and its inability to deal with Biden before the campaign. So, a lot of dynamics operating today. Maybe a watershed, maybe not. Maybe a full collapse of the political culture, I don't know. The dynamic will have to shift.

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If I'm a liberal democrat I get very worried. Events have combined to create an impossible situation. And it, at first glance, looks like the "destruction" to the current Democratic party and its resolution into a more "Republican" form. In other words, exchanging the "radical" portion for an attempt to curate a portion of the Trump voters, the lower middle working class whites. Of course, anything can happen. Irony is the law of nature and the nuttiness of this election cycle has not finished. But I see a very united Republican convention in a few days, the almost-martyred President in triumph, his numbers going way up just as the Democrats are in turmoil over the question of whether Biden is even up to the task.

It makes me reflect on my political loyalties. They are not with parties. It's a geopolitical identity with a region, the northern half of CA, with the West Coast as background, centered in the urban Bay Area. In other words, a dynamic mixture of ideas, identities, etc. I support progressive ideas when I see them, when I feel they have a shot at reality. However, ideas have to be patient, they have to go out and fight for themselves in the dirty world. When the "time is not right" I can get conservative. I am for an aspirational culture, not a victim culture. I am for the freedom to explore and to know over the passivity induced by "corporate culture."

At this stage of things I say "to change anything you need to understand what is being changed." That includes society and the political system.

Just like Las Vegas, what is learned in college, stays in college. lol

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MYTH

Everyone inherits the "myth of freedom", ie. it is a given, there is entitlement to it, so when the reality of limitation, of failure, of obstacle and resistance, drops down on people who assume they are the freest of the free there is a lot of disenchantment, disillusionment, depression, and soon enough, anger, fear, and hatred. Many people survive this moment but many don't and they transfer that dissatisfaction to their kids who will do crazy things like shoot politicians. This is amplified in an "affluent" society where the level of affluence measures your level of freedom. It's a tough society to grow up in.

Watching the Republican convention. My first impression is that the Democrats are in great trouble because of the Trump-defiant-fist. I saw Biden in a live interview. He faltered and lost trains of thought but he did one thing I admire him for. He defended himself. He fights. His record is fairly good although the Republicans ran that record into the ground.

Inflation and immigration are the two weaknesses of the Democratic party. That and the fact they haven't curated intelligent, youthful leadership and try to hold an impossible coalition together. Coalitions are made to be broken, why hasn't the old Obama coalition not done the same?

The Democrats are going to have to find some wonderful meadow and puke out the last 40 years of politics and all the thought that supports it. The Republicans are establishing the thesis. It feels like Reagan and Carter in 1980. Reagan was so transparently inept and bad but he had "it" that captured the hearts of large groups of people. And while Carter was smarter, more conscientious, kinder than Reagan the coalition of Democrats formed in the Vietnam/Civil Rights era couldn't hold. The underlying tension did Carter in.

The Democrats got tied into knots through identity politics, thinking that "identity" would be total and compliant. And what did I learn in the forerunner of this, in Berkeley and the Bay Area? Just because your color or your gender has the power to govern does not guarantee that wealth and goods will be accrued to the ones with the same background. Often, the opposite takes place. They saw, "white people run everything, white people enjoy all the fruits of the society, therefore it is rigged by race. And if only our race can get into positions of power we will start producing people like us enjoying the fruits of the society." There has to be a criteria of leadership, in a liberal democracy, in a culture of "self-rule" that has to transcend these identities. And my guess it does in many areas. It has to attract investment. It has to provide law and order for the citizens, especially the poor citizens who can't defend themselves.

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All I can say is that I'm a California guy and I look at what is happening "nationally" with a bit of horror if not total disdain. And I'm the first to admit that California is getting too complacent in its liberalism, its too top heavy with the same Democrats. But the Republicans are not the answer. So, it's apolitical dilemma to be solved by the good sense of the California citizens. Something new has to wash through the American political scene, as well as California and each has different needs.

The Democrats are in a no-win situation. The Republicans have the momentum. Things could change and this is one of the weirdest election cycles in memory. It is not finished. The Democrats will have their convention and will spin things in their direction. This Republican affair is drab and muted. They are confident they are going to win and are giddy over the difficulties of Biden. How many in the blue states are tired of the old liberalism? How many are worried about deficits and inflation? How many decent thinking citizens believe the Democrats are bankrupt? Their attempt to pry Biden apart from his elected office is unseemly. The poor man is defending himself against the gerontocracy and has enough pride to fight like hell. What more humiliating thing could happen to a sitting President than the party coming in and saying, "old man, you can't do it any more." For gods sake they have no sense of human decency or human nature. He's going to rightfully turn around and say, "I have 15 million votes. I accomplished many things in those three and a half years. Who is going to be able to use those accomplishments in the fight against Trump?" And Trump, a softy now, who pats his grandkids on the head and embraces them is not the Trump they fought before. The truth is that Biden is the only one who could win against Trump.

The three or four I've seen mentioned have not a clue, have no leadership qualities that the American people want to see in a President. No, as I said before the Democrats are going to be like the entitled baseball team that has won a lot and employed great superstars but those stars are fading, their salaries prohibit the development of new talent, the team sinks and then collapses to the bottom where they have to start all over again. Unless Biden wins.

It's not the same period but it does remind me of 1980. I never believed the buffoon actor who had made enemies of the students would ever defeat Carter. And Carter was a much more intelligent, thoughtful, conscientious, humanitarian type of guy but he got rolled pretty badly. It was at that moment I realized the Bay Area and California are not the rest of the country. Lol

The Rural Idiots vs the Urban Decadents I suppose.

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After watching the Republican convention I can say a few things:

1. This is not my crowd.
2. The literary and philosophical, even scientific education are meaningless in a democracy like this.
3. Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman must write, never run to govern.
4. Listening to Trump is like watching a soccer game: leave for an hour, come back and never miss anything.

I'm right that the polarities zero each other out in some ways. The politicos are looking for those ten thousand uncommitted voters, swing voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevade, Arizona etc. The convention makes a lot more sense when that is understood.

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I am for Biden even though he will accede to the awful characters prying him loose of the oval office. I am for him because I saw how hurtful it is, how devastating it is for a man to get old and unceremoniously thrown on the heap. It is a form of regicide. And it's being done by the "elites", the despised group who created Trump ten years ago. I have no respect for what is going on. I'm out of the loop anyway. I've outlined my political identity and it is not exclusive to Democratic or Republican brands. The Democrats are in a no win situation. They can't win with Biden, can't win without him.

And I doubt if Biden is going to be a happy warrior in total support of whomever is chosen to lead them. Let us not overlook the non-democratic process that is taking place either. It won't get me to vote for Trump but I wash my hands of the whole, dirty deal.

The only thing that matters in the upcoming election is what candidate will work to strengthen the middle class. Biden is trying to do that but the elite members of his party want him out. I don't think they have the middle class in mind as they replace him with their favorite. It remains to be seen.

So Biden steps away. He gives full support to Harris. This is not shocking but the definitiveness is rather jarring. I wouldn't say Harris doesn't have a chance. This has already been a crazy election cycle and it feels nearly anything can happen. I think she has an advantage in that Biden, himself, was a block to potential support and Harris is much younger than Trump. The "crazy" and "incompetent" characterization will go to Trump.

I don't think Harris is up to the job. I don't see her as an executive but I could be wrong. I lived near where she grew up, know a lot of her background. They are going to bring out her Marxist dad for certain. Lol. Time will tell. I have no role in it. I have no problem with a lady as President. What country hasn't had a lady as head of state? I was turned off by the buffoonery of Trumps convention and the machismo they tried to foist on things. And I am not at all convinced that there are those in the Democratic party fully supportive of Harris. I think many believe she can't pull it off, she is a relative lightweight and can turn people off.

This happened, of courses, in 1968. I remember it well. LBJ used a televised address to say he wouldn't run for President that year. Humphrey, Kennedy, McCarthy all fought it out in primaries. Kennedy won California and then was assassinated. Humphrey limped along but started to catch up at the end and lost a squeaker to Nixon. And Jimmy Carter was challenged in 1980 by Ted Kennedy but that fell apart, though weakened Carter against Reagan.

Presidents come and go but the suffering people all stay the same.

I have little faith in either candidate or, reputed candidate since the Democrats have not officially penciled in Kamela. She may have learned a few things as vice-President but was it substantially so or mere rote learning, the surface learning for quick learners.

Thinking today, while driving, I am not for welfare supports as a final goal for government. I think they are damaging, make people passive and further sunk in the alienated state. That the key to a healthy economy is to "make your own money" an incentive at all levels, especially those levels that have been plagued by poverty. Even asking people to sacrifice more while working toward a bit of improvement in their life is a greater incentive, more meaningful, than handing out cash. Investment in meaningful jobs is at least one rung on a ladder.

The prospect of turning the US into a "fundamentalist theocracy" is not attractive either. A "culture of victimization" is pretty awful itself. Where is the stalwart yeoman? Where is the free man invested in a broad spectrum of humanism? Where is the practical, fair minded person imbued with common sense?

Kamela Harris and I share a few things. Not only the same neighborhood but most of my doctors are east Indian, in fact, my first oncologist had the same last name as Kamela's mother. While I was not an activist I knew the Berkeley environment, experienced it pretty thoroughly, even though the halcyon days were gone by the mid-70's. Still, I haven't quite bought into her candidacy. Something doesn't smell right and her great asset, at this point, is that she isn't Biden and she's not Trump. And she stands between Trump and the American government. There's a long ways to go.

There's nothing more preposterous than a "journalist" towing the line. I don't think you can call the electronic press "journalism" at all. It is predictable without being reliable.

Despite the fact that the Democrats have renewed enthusiasm now that Biden has made his decision does not mean the Democrats are a "new" party with "new ideas" and new angles of attack. In fact, it is the elites and special interests that are mostly enthused and sending the donor dollars that way. I don't think it will take too long for the enthusiasm to diminish.

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Victimization is the worst political attitude to nourish because it fosters passivity. What people need is knowledge and understanding to lift up toward aspiration, toward respect, toward mutualism. I've seen victimization in both parties and it merely transmits a soggy, downgraded, frustrated population who then believe a man or woman in the guise of a politician can save them. That is a population that will not be able to compete for global power in the future. It will produce people who don't know how to build anything.

I see where the elites in SF are giving a lot to Harris's campaign. That includes the widow of Steve Jobs. My guess is that a lot of support for Kamela comes because the elites believe they will be able to control her, that she is basically empty and a vessel for certain obsessions of the elite. I don't see anything in her that would make for an effective leader. That's an impression that covers a decade of her public life. She still has time to show something different. Her greatest asset is that she's running against an aging felon/buffoon. That may get her into the White House.

Live and let live. Develop ideas outside your self interest or identity. Go up the learning curves. Don't back down.

Politics doesn't solve anything. Or, at least, the expectations overreach the results. Politics is a deft way for a democracy to divide between antagonists and protagonists, to make each side more honest and keep the thing rolling into the future. The Democrats try to create a new "multicultural society" from the top-down. It will fail because human beings resist the top down, especially now. In a democracy social well being occurs through trust between different groups within the society. That will happen over time if it hasn't now. It will happen because people will see it's in their self interest and the interest of the larger nation. Politics hinders the process. Just as the Republicans will not create a "Christian nation" because it can't be imposed. Americans are a free people. They don't want to be penned up. The intellectuals don't get this, the minsters and priests don't get it. Sometimes that freedom is grotesque, sometimes it is quite startling. A decent citizen will have both the tolerance needed for a multicultural society and a spiritual component able to bypass some of the regrettable aspects to human nature like greed and violence. This has to come from the people, it can't be imposed and those who think otherwise are foolish. The more they try the harder it gets.

Book Review

"Democratic Party Still Broken" by Lee Drutman. He dismisses the Republicans as a cult of one and I believe that is basically true. It's that or they're the most cowardly group in the history of politics. Drutman says: These parties have become "coalitions of interest groups and activists" and are disconnected from the people. Television introduced the need for stagecraft and for enormous sums of money to get messages out. There's huge indifference with the political parties on behalf of the citizens but that just makes the parties stronger. These are some of his major points.

It's the passivity of the people that will do them in as Jefferson and Adams warned each other. It creates a new oppressive class of people who are claiming all kinds of things for themselves. Drutman continues: There's no fiber to the political system because, and here's a main point, it is not based in communities, real communities, controlled by the community members. There's no incentive for the parties to evolve because the single-winner system ensures one of the two parties will triumph and the spoils will be deep and powerful. "We need parties that are capable of collective action on behalf of a genuine social base," the author writes. He suggests changing the electoral system to one of proportional representation. The key is competition and members of coalition able to break from the main party and compete for, especially local elections. His conclusion is way to optimistic or naive but nonetheless.

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Some themes that can be developed from "our time":

• The unprecedented complexity of the world works to diminish understanding
• The political system is stuck, both parties are stale. Liberal democracy thrives with competing parties, new political growth in between the solid rocks of political parties and "ideas".

You have to approach politics from inside the main intentions of liberal democracy but outside the ongoing choices that politics offers up. Outside the prejudices of both parties. Outside of many of the shaping influences of the current society.

I get fairly pessimistic when I look at the society and look at the political culture. The wealth of the US is both its epitome and its bane. The wealth ensures that the US will continue in a familiar way for decades if not longer. But that wealth will diminish, while the influence of the US wanes. The people will hardly care. They will hardly notice because they have decent lives. This induces complacency and corruption in all areas. It makes knowledge negligible. Knowledge is only useful, then, in the manipulation of votes, consumers, and raw materials. There will be an evaporation of the democratic spirit. In fact, it will be seen as a negative.

Give incentive to people to "make their own money." Welfare does not work.

Make sure there is a generous pool of creatives and innovative types running free in the society.

Make the culture filled with a critical mass of middle class families.

Large turnover of representation in all areas of authority.

Criticize when the system is clogged with too heavy a representation in age, gender, race, religious affiliation, income, etc.

Admit that "wealth creation" is a good, a goal in society but put the main emphasis in terms of value, cultural and political, with the middle class. If wealth does not discipline itself then it will be done for them.

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Good article in Atlantic by G Packer about water and the city of Phoenix, AZ- Trump and illegal immigrants. It covered quite a bit in a long article. Trumps' appeal is the simple fact he stood up for people who felt they were getting the shaft. No more complicated than that. For the Democrats not to pick up on this is very fool hearty on their part. The "elites" can not fabricate the society that they fantasize about. They need to be humbled of the effort. It points out another truism: there's no more easily exploited emotion than political despair.

Never underestimate how much boredom, at every level, is created in a rich, free society and then converted to the most bizarre politics. There is the starkly poor, the abject poor but then many gradients of revenue up, through working class, middle and upper middle, wealth. Each gradient has its share of affluence and freedom. It's relative is it not? And boredom does strike even the most resourceful. Many of the politics, especially of the extreme, come out of this boredom.

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Harris came out with her vp candidate, Walz of Minnesota. They said good things to a roused-up crowd. The same old good things. Basic liberal democrats of 1972 vintage. They always say we will raise the taxes on the uber wealthy and corporations, and everyone knows, by now, that those entities are powerful enough to skirt those taxes, hide from them and the tax burden cascades down to the middle classes. Government cannot substitute for character, aspiration, deferral of gratification and other qualities of self, needed to get on a path of well-being. Old, old politics brought forth by McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Hillary. And how much has been spent already? Billions? Trillions? And how it is working out? The Democratic ticket is still better than Trump. The team is weak on economy, on immigration, on foreign policy (if they have one) and I still stand by my statement that the election will be determined by the September-October economy. Trump and his ilk can also bring out so much identity politics and culture war crap that scares people in certain parts of the country. The Democrats did remind me of a team who decides to go out with a roar to start, get adrenaline pumping and get on top. It works if you stay on top, if you remain in control of the game. But look out if you lose momentum. You can never get it back.

I burst out laughing at some of the pontificators who are designing context for their favorite candidate. "It's all bullshit," I say to the crisp autumn air. "No one believes in the malarky any more. That's what happens when the political class gets so disreputable and corrupt it can't be trusted. The people understand the words that are crafted for the political speaker, crafted for effect by consultants and so-called experts. One huge con job.

What politician anywhere in the world, in any epoch has not promised to "lift the people up?" "I will lift you people up, despite your puny selves!"

I'm not cynical so much as disgusted at the political culture. Both parties need to blow themselves up and come up with something more real, more palatable to common sense. I would be a naive citizen and let the words and deeds of the candidates have some excellent play in the political imagination and allow it to lay side by side with experience. That naivete ends when I hear the old BS, when the BS detector starts going off with flashing lights and vibrates with the urgency that a snow job inspires.

I am more sympathetic to the Harris/Walz ticket. Just as I was toward the McGovern, Carter, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary tickets. But by Hillary it was quite obvious to me that the Democratic party had crusted over in its own assumptions and no longer had any creativity left. There's no progress without taking into account the "unintended consequences" of the progress.

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I would take California to task for having little political competition in its politics. It needs the sharp angles of the opposite view to keep honest, to keep connected to the authenticity of the people.

The media looks solidly behind Harris, almost embarrassingly so. They so hate Trump. Trump brought it on himself to a large extent. However, the media does not do democracy a favor by letting their favorite candidate skate free of scrutiny and the tough questions. The public can't afford to simply be carried up and out by the enthusiasm of the candidates and their media pals. In fact, it's necessary for those who want power to prove to the people their worth in a variety of ways; that will convince the people that the person who wants power will be able to respond in an emergency and will be able to set a course for the country and convince the majority to get there. Without the proper vetting the people and candidate set themselves up for a huge failure and greater disappointment. Aren't the people tired of the manufactured candidate? That was one attraction to Trump but Trump lies so much he creates chaos and that's not a good state for a democracy. I think many people are beginning to suspect that the liberal left of the Democratic Party manufactured the ouster of Biden to get Harris in there and to cultivate a manufactured product to the end. Once they're in, they're in.

It further demonstrates that, after all, the elites do control everything and are jealous of their power. Not a healthy situation.

The opinions in the media are not credible until hard questions are asked and penetrating analysis begins to appear in relation to the policy statements of the candidates. I've seen the media fawn over the left and right. All it does is make the media an intelligent idiot whose word is not worth spit. It proves to me that underneath it all the media loves Trump and don't want him to leave the scene until they've wrung out the final drops of revenue he can deliver for them.

Sometimes it just must be said: Money corrupts everything it touches. This includes politics, the university, media, hi-tech, etc etc. And the corruption of intention and value is just as severe as the corruptions of the bribe and pay off. I can get evangelical about it but it doesn't do any good. It discredits things. Money is a power that will not let go of itself and, in fact, has an instinct about its own survival that is primitive. So the chances of purifying or renewing the institutions are slim. It really depends on whether it is a "severe" sort of corruption or a "soft" sort that is inconsequential for the most part.

A "multi-cultural" society is not being created. What is being created is a "multi-cultural" elite who are very separated from the people they are supposed to serve. Under that elite are people organized by ethnic, racial, religious groupings out of the sense of protection and survival. The "multi-cultural elite" will not break itself apart in order to create a new multi-cultural middle class, where the middle-class controls the political and cultural values. Those values will be imposed by the new elites but resisted by a variety of types who are more grounded in the reality of life in America.

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I am caught between a rock and a hard place. I can't accept Trump. I don't trust Harris and the Democrats. So, again, my only role is to extoll the virtues of liberal democracy and criticize the foibles of it. The Democrats are much more in the van of what I think a political party should be about. I don't think they can execute policy though. I think they have a few bad apples in the group. And they would spend to kingdom come. The attention shouldn't be on politics but on "humanity". On the growth and development of the democratic citizen. On the nature of "existential" threats against the humanity of the democratic citizen. On freedoms old and freedoms new.

The social "progress" such as feminism and multi-culturalism are simply acts of privilege from that class of people who have benefited the most from rising markets. It does indicate that America has arrived as a bonifide world power with its privileges in front where all can see them. And it's not shocking that the "leaders" of these progressive groups slip into the privileged classes very easily but that the "others" do not. In fact, there is hardly any move toward that privileged state by the "others." The progress in that sense is nothing more than peacock feathers for people who use the word privilege against their ideological enemies but never themselves. The problem is that the "others" exist. And the gap between them is getting wider and wider, the resentment deeper and deeper. Wealth and privilege live as they wish. We know the propensity for perversion among the wealthy. If they establish the cultural values then the cultural will be in for a rude awakening one of these days.

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Many people refuse to see America has ascended to a position of power and history that few get to. It will revel in it for a few generations then get sick unto death of it. There is still upward mobility but not enough to call it a "fluid class system." Every generation grows its own peacock feathers and displays them proudly until they are snipped off by a more ambitious generation.

I doubt if anything can be done. It will run its course. It will take political skill to keep the whole from disintegration. It feels like that at times, especially when I listen to Democrats.

Several things: no utopia is possible on earth, including our own dear USA. The "culture of victimization" is a toxic one and needs to be shucked off. A renewal of aspiration is necessary. The more flourishing that happens the better off the whole is. Ideas have to work for a living.

The free citizen, of course, is free to pursue any goal, any ambition. It's never in isolation and there's no guarantee of anything. Resources created by Americans belong to all Americans.

"Political myth" as I read in a book on American political myths exists to manipulate on behalf of the party, a politician or a product of some sort. The destruction of the myth simply makes people ignorant unless they dig deeper, penetrate the myth and discover the richness the myth ineptly pointed to. It raises another interesting question. If the old American myths like "the frontier" "the founders" "the civil war" "WWII" is disintegrating why won't the myths that replace them be as false and as manipulative? And if the agency this is done through is the media shouldn't we call media an evil liar and perpetuator of falsehoods meant to enrich some and not others? The key is to penetrate the myth and get to the richness and suck the richness out leaving all the husk behind. Why isn't the death of one myth the death of them all?

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Democratic National Convention

Been trying to watch the DNC through a bad illness. Haven't heard all the speech's, though I've heard them many times before. I certainly don't want Trump to win. I think America has to move on. I wonder if there isn't some self-destructive gene in the US. Or perhaps a critical mass of people don't have the democratic spirit any more.

It's an awful time for American politics. Yet the thing sails onward, relatively free, relatively wealthy. I don't want Trump as President. I have a lot of skepticism about Harris, who I've know about for many decades. I think she will be severely tested, there will be great opposition organized by the right, she will be pulled too far left and people will express dismay, she will come back to moderation and lose the left. She seems very strong now but then she has hardly been vetted, questioned, analyzed, probed and all else with the intensity of someone who wants the most powerful position on Earth. That could change over the next few months. But wouldn't it be tragic if it turns out she was a fabrication with little substance and little real experience, who has to win over the military and business to get anything done? And I can't help thinking that her closest supporters see in her an easy mark that can be manipulated, if not controlled. Hope I'm wrong.

Had a very pessimistic rant about the failure of US politics in the car I was driving. The problems don't get solved, just get worse. The citizens, the democratic citizens can't possible know all they have to know to make informed opinions about policy and representations. "Too big, too complex". It makes us all ignorant.

People are provincial as ever, will not get out of their racial, gender, class, religious identities to find something more comprehensive and transcendent. Liberal democracy has not made them brave but rather, complacent and more apt to hide behind the power of the US. The trust and mutual respect necessary for a workable republic is missing. The sense of entropy is not finding its transformer to step things back to near its original state. Sometimes that transformer can be a new invention, sometimes its war.

Whenever I watch one of these over-produced celebratory conventions, I'm always reminded that the main attitude a citizen should have is utter skepticism of power and men and women who seek it. Don't treat them like Queens and Kings for gods sake. The process is necessary and can even be entertaining but once the hoopla is over, once the person has been selected he or she has to prove they are worthy of loyalty. She or he has to prove his rightness. The press of course, in this decadent phase of US society, falls over itself for a candidate who has proven nothing and not at all to the task of discovering everything they can about her, relevant to her desire to have this sort of power. The victory of Harris is not about "democracy" it's about power. The victory of Trump is not about "democracy" it's about power. And power corrupts. This is especially the case with the naturally corrupt man who will amplify the speed downwards into chaos. Be skeptical, very skeptical. Let things prove themselves out in an open forum.

What is not talked about is "if the system is broken there is no repair from small pieces of legislation." And one of the reasons the system is broken is the feeling that nothing can solve these intractable problems. Some band-aids can be applied, a few can be helped but then the problem expands and consumes the good that is produced. If this is chronic there's a great loss of faith in the democracy to fix anything, truly move forward and such. And it's been this way for 50 years!

Harris made her acceptance speech. Not bad. Pretty generic, Democratic liberal speech. I liked the reference to "where I come from you either live in the hills or the flats." I lived in those flats and the hills in Berkeley. And once again she's going to pit them against each other. She was fairly strong on military. Never mentioned China. I didn't feel the surge of emotional greatness as with the Cuomo speech in '84 and Obama speech in '04. It won't be memorable. It is a speech Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry etc could have made.

Harris says some familiar things that I support. "Aspirational, middle class".

The Framers

This is a quote inside the Federalist Paper #85, "To balance a large state of society whether monarchical or republican on general laws, is a work of so great difficultly that no human genius, however comprehensive, is able, by the mere dint or reason and reflection, to effect it. The judgments of many must unite in the world; experience must guide their labor; time must bring it to perfection, and the feeling of inconveniences must correct the mistakes which they inevitably fall into in their first trials and experiments." "These judicious reflections contain a lesson of moderation to all the sincere lovers to the Union, and ought to put them upon their guard against hazarding anarchy, civil war, a perpetual alienation of States from each other and perhaps the miliary despotism of a victorious demagogue, in the pursuit of what they are not likely to obtain, but from time and experience." Hamilton. Don't know the source of the quote but it is a wise one.

(I also credited Hamilton with a quote in Events on FAREWELL TO ALL MY GREATNESS- should have been John Jay.)

How interesting that they viewed their government and society and world as anything but bucolic but we look at it and say, "you had it simpler in those times!" That is, in the least, comprehending both the society, culture, and government, even local examples of it, regional ones as well.

They did the right thing by shutting themselves up in the Hall and forcing themselves to come up with a document. Otherwise it's doubtful one would have even gotten completed for all the different inputs.

I thought this last night: The risk of a bad President in Harris is worth the reward of removing Trump from the scene and making the Republican party reform itself.

It's obvious to me that Thoreau, Whitman, Emerson, MLKing, etc do not get elected President. They are actually better for it. The President emerges from huge, corrupt, inglorious, money dominated parties. "Who can manipulate certain demographics the best wins." A face, a voice, a trope can all be used in that manipulation. It's not the philosopher-king and I always had that prejudice I must say. I always tried to understand what the framers wanted in a leader, in a President. Many Presidents in my time would have been eliminated by the framers, I'm certain of that. Political leadership has been gifted a society of immense wealth and power. And it is that which is so attractive to persons who seek that leadership. This is a fact of a maturing world power. The test for a liberal democracy is not when rotten leadership leads it to a cliff but how the democratic, responsible, caring citizens form new institutions as it is falling.

The national press has set up a Demon vs Angel fight for the White House, again, a great mistake. Any chink in the armor could be devastating to the Angel. We know the Demon won't change, he won't get more Demon like.

I am highly suspicious of the whole operation. I don't trust people, especially elites, who don't question power or those who want to be power. Not a good look.

When I think back to the Democratic Convention and all the jubilation and shouts of "Joy!" I can't help thinking about Jonestown. Again, when Harris said about the East Bay "you either live up in the hills or down in the flats" it said something. And Jonestown used to drop leaflets on my doorstep down in that neighborhood around the time Harris lived there as a girl. And Jonestown recruited from that class of people, the flats people, working poor, black and white, idealistic but desperate as well. Perhaps it's just a coincidence. When the powerful think these things that usually means their "utopia" is control of the money and enriching themselves believing it's all going to a worthy cause.

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Interview with Harris. She did what she needed to do. She seemed more confident to me. But it also reminded me that she is the insider in this election. She's the establishment candidate. Perhaps that's what the people want, esp considering the alternative. The VP candidate was a sad, odd figure like some stage dummy. I thought to myself, "Kamala is breaking him, humiliating him to show him that the VP is nothing, does nothing but sit quietly and looked confused." Very strange. Her problem will come as you get deeper into September and the pressure gets to be extreme. Chaos may be pervading her campaign by then. The reports out of it may not be flattering. Someone who doesn't like her will make a secret tape or something. I still would vote her over Trump if she is the common sense person she seems. She'll be tested by the progressives for all kinds of nutty things. She still has a long way to go. I found myself much more sympathetic to her than previously. She was my neighbor after all.

I think "liberals" underestimate just how despised they are by millions in this country. They despise top down government. They despise the liberals contempt for their religious beliefs. On and on it goes. The problem with the elite liberals of the Democratic party is that they are bankrupt, empty of ideas and are corrupting under the need to hold onto power. Power that is threatened not only by Trump but by the wholesale change from one generation to the other and wholesale abandonment of the "assumptions of the baby boomers."

Trump is not the problem, he's not the threat. In fact, he may have been a needed safety valve for the frustration of millions of people. The problem is the depth and range of alienation from the "Republic" by those millions and millions who feel it isn't doing anything for them and is a negative influence in their life because it tells them what they should do. It robs them of the pride of living free. It's dangerous to do in a democracy, if it is truly a democracy. The liberal elites are as much a danger to democracy by deflecting the blame from them to Trump. And it's the corruption of the elites and the bankruptcy of the liberal left that is preventing a decent conception of the future. The Republicans are reptilian and repressive no question. They have no credibility but the Democrats are in a position where all they can do is impose from their long standing power in the cultural, financial, political elites. Not a good source for democracy.

Get rid of as much top down government as possible. Make space for people "to make their own money." That is the primary motivator in the modern world. That generates new economy.

K Harris is starting to win me over. She has so much more vitality and ideas, pure savviness than Trump who declines every time I see him. The attention on unions is exactly correct, the working poor, the lower ends of the middle class. All of that needs to be shored up and pushed up into the depths of the middle class to regain the stability now missing. You have to do it with political acumen because you can't harm the non- union, affluent middle class or upper middle class. Biden has laid the groundwork. She has to avoid "identity politics" and has to overcome the feeling among certain males in the swing states that women can't do the job. Endurance. A bit of wisdom. Management of conflict. These are needed and can't be predicted until the person actually governs. I think with Harris you'd have a lot of stimulation at the beginning but then the road would get heavy with resistance and then the true tale would begin.

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I do believe the power and affluence of the US precludes great change from occurring. It's this, take it or leave it. Incremental changes can take place. Ameliorations can take place. The basic structure can't be changed. Or is changed through the system which automatically presents resistance to any idea, nullifying its dramatic ability to change everything.

It's the "creatives" who have to take up the cause, who have to recognize the situation, culturally, and use every resource possible to bring to created objects, on a level never before seen. It is the obligation of the creatives to fulfill American culture and produce legacies. Politics is repression. Politics is a huge limitation. Politics is necessary but creatives are stupid to get swarmed under politics.

************

Harris has to avoid looking like the candidate who showers Blacks and women with favors. Not that they shouldn't be given special status it's just not politically doable. In fact, this myth that the race and gender of a representative is somehow connected to the well being of those who are represented by that race and gender is a good habit to break for a democracy. The check on the President is not only the Congress, it's the mid terms which can make or break a presidency, at least the first term.

The only way to get some of these progressive ideas in action is to wait until a large, excellent stash of political capital has been won and then try out those ideas. Too quick and the reaction is severe. And the President fears, then, the mid terms are lost and so is his or her effectiveness.

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The best attitude for the "free, liberal democratic citizen" is skepticism toward power, toward anyone who seeks power. The minions are eternal. They love power and want an increment of it through association with the candidate. Question the motives. Question the people behind the candidate. Question the record if there is one. Peel off the layers of talking points the experts and consultants have devised. What you discover is that most political affection is irrational. Most are attracted to a candidate because he or she looks like him or is from the same area, even practices the same faith. These are irrational attractors to various candidates, amplified now by "identity politics". But it's not confined to identity politics. Prejudice is irrational and will cross out a candidate because he or she is the wrong race, gender, or belief. It's foolish perhaps to believe you can get a perfect citizen among a vast majority of people but the more the merrier.

It is "democracy" when a large group of disaffiliated citizens speak their dissatisfaction, even through a goof ball like Trump. It is a full expression of democracy but a symptom of "something wrong" or something that needs a bit of remedy. The elites, the liberals and Democrats expose themselves too much in their fright of Trump and his followers. Fright does not make a good democracy. In fact, the emotion that is anti-democratic is fright. Don't be scared. Used your head.

Conflict, "difference" is good in America, it's good for the culture. It creates stimulation. It throws one off their base and proves that their absolutism is false. A crack appears in the armor of self and a bit more reality comes in. Simply allowing the background, the "idea of the world" of a stranger, of a complete opposite is a plus in many ways. It's people who block conflict, shield themselves from all who could contradict them, that creates stasis. They are the ones "left behind".

Conflict is nothing to be worried about in the US. It's the management of strife and conflict that determines the success or failure of any particular time. You want a dynamic culture not a static one.

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The Debate

In these debates it comes down to a central thing: who looks and sounds Presidential. That is the key, that's what I will look at tonight. The careful ordering of words and policy concepts back and forth are rather foreplay. And it could go either way. If Trump goes off as he often does and starts sounding like the buffoon as he often does then he's in trouble. If she giggles or does that strange laugh or comes on as a prosecutor she will lose.

Ist half of debate: my old neighbor, Kamela, is driving nails into Trump. Trump tries to recover but turns quickly into a buffoon. He's made a few points. All the points have been raised in the last few months if one is paying attention. The difference is that she is going after his authentic weakness and those are blow darts. It's gotten under his skin. Perhaps this will blow up the thing and you'll have the wipe out that the country needs, to blow all the bad air out of things and resettle. I don't know how others are taking it. And if this debate does not move the needle then trouble ahead.

Trump a bit stronger in the second half. Kamela sounds pretty empty when she coaxs the country to "move on," and wanting to get the society together. She's a bit smug. They both zing and zang. They both hate each other. On rationality and articulation Harris won hands down. She didn't say anything new. She was prepared to attack his vitals and did it well. Trump settled down a bit and came across as knowledgeable from time to time. They both emerge wounded. What will the polls say in the later parts of September? Kamela sounded like a Hillary with a West Berkeley accent.

Kamela appeared to be a well prepared person who has been in government for many many years. Trump got a bit unhinged and started acting like a buffoon. He settled down and finished fairly strong. But, no where is this debate like the first Reagan debate or the Biden debate early in the year. Trump was not really prepared to ask her pointed questions about her shifting ideas. He was filled with bile. He did defend himself against the race accusations and did his best to defend himself in the January 6th fiasco. Nixon vs Kennedy it was not. There's talk of a second debate. The dislike was palatable. The question is how much do the American people want to move on from the past ten years? They wanted to with Biden but Biden became a disappointment. And how much do the people want to "help" the flats and tax the hills?

The best zinger I heard came after Trump was extolling his ability to solve all these wars going on. She said, "these dictators love you because they can eat you for lunch." Or, something of that sort. Excellent.

She's trying to appeal to his crowd, the small business owner and the lower middle class, but is it believable? Trump did mention her "Marxist professor father." So that finally got played and didn't go anywhere. Harris won the debate hands down. Did it effect the election? If you were speaking about a rational crowd of people it probably would. But this is an irrational period of time. If it was rational it would have voted in Hillary. Populism is irrational. How many, for instance, resented the fact that Kamela poked and humiliated Trump? How many, for instance, were turned off by her prosecutor skill in presenting a case? How many, for instance, were put off by the excellence of her preparation? More than a few and, I would guess, a few of those swing voters in those swing states. It's irrational but it works that way. And a few are definitely turned off by her Jamaican/Indian roots. They shouldn't be but they are. It's irrational. And how many, for instance, are turned off by a woman demeaning a man as she did? A few. Perhaps a few key portions of the population. So I would still be very concerned about this election.

How many, for instance, disdain a professional politician who comes from the ranks of lawyers? Again, irrational but we live in these times. How many, for instance, distrust the intellectual background of her parents and upbringing? Remember too, that it was Harris who prepared to zing Biden in the 2020 debates and got him with the bussing thing. For a moment she was celebrated as one who had brass balls. But then her campaign fell apart. Those brass balls went to her head. She alienated people. They quit on her. I don't think it will happen that way this time but perhaps a new manifestation.

The liberal pundits underestimate how people are looking for the anti-hero to come in and dismantle the administrative state. They don't want professional politicians and dinked Biden even though the economy performed fairly well. They must take their cues from old westerns where the sheriff is as bad as the bad guys but cleans up the town so all is forgiven . And that's all they are looking for so they can live with as little complexity as possible. It's the dilemma Hillary had. How do you govern a broken system or one no one respects? Normalcy goes out the window. Lawyers are not wanted. Perots' and Trumps' are wanted. After the disaster of a Trump comes the repair. That is the crucial thing to look for in these times.

The debate for the SF mayor position was far more interesting and informative than the recent debate between Harris and Trump. The wannabe mayors had plans. They spoke extensively about the central problems of housing costs, homelessness, drug use and crime.

Then there was an article about the woes of California and how it can't be all pinned on the dominant Democratic party. And many of the problems in California are mirrored in the problems of SF. California has the problem of a non-dynamic political culture who "throw money at problems" without a lot of resistance. The two reparations bills were turned back so it's not radicalism that is the problem. It's the fact that the liberals have no competition. They have no need to serve either the progressives or the conservatives. But they are trained to believe that if you are elected to a position of government you are supposed to solve problems and it appears so easy when it's "other people's money". That's the prevailing ethos at any rate. They messed up royally with the mentally ill. They've messed up royally with the lack of new housing. They've messed up royally by making California less and less business friendly through regulation and higher taxes. It's not that the Republican party has any dynamic to it because it lacks a great deal. It's candidate for Senator is a stiff old ball player who doesn't have a clue about the reality of most people.

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Politics is a turn off- I don't think anything can be done on a large enough scale. The Republicans are nasty, not trustworthy, and the Democrats are empty, bankrupt, smug. Neither candidate inspires authentic respect for their leadership qualities. My big concern is the future of liberal democracy deep into the 21st century. How to reconnect the alienated aspects to the larger mainstream. How to bring back "make your own money" as the essential motivator in citizens. How to produce a new political imagination that collapses the assumptions of the baby boom generation and generates new angles of attack. Clean out the universities of the remnant of the pc crowd. Perhaps its beyond my abilities but "politics" will occupy those concerns.

************

The Republicans and the Right, generally, are a bizzaro world's version of the "60's". Disaffiliated, alienated groups of people who yell, scream, break, threaten, organize, find leadership both in the normal channels and populist channels until there is change and resolution. It is the effect or result of the government's involvement in the efforts of Blacks and women to gain traction in the society. Since this is where the disaffiliation exists, most of the political vitality is created there. The liberal democrats can only put up resistance and support old programs and assumptions that were cooked up in the storied time. A lot of careers and money depend on those assumptions. But, nothing new emerges from the Democrats, nothing to shake it up and make it think. Nothing new emerges from academia which is the thinking arm of the Democratic party. There is no competition in the university, only the assumptions of the baby boom generation. Trump is not the problem and if he is elected or defeated will mean little in the overall way these things play themselves out. The problem is that you have tens and tens of millions of people who are alienated and disaffiliated from the "mainstream". That will continue way after Trump. That will continue until you have a resolution.

This period of time is producing some of the same phenomena that was produced in the post-Watergate period of time, mainly cults. As the "establishment" gets more discredited people lose faith or their "idea" sharpens as a warrior's spear and likes seem to find likes, always galvanized around a charismatic leader or one who gain credibility. The "Christian Nationalists" appear along these lines. And frankly, when you read a full history of the US it's not uncommon at all. It has to be countered by a strong sense of "liberal democracy". It's a pluralistic society and draws on many talents, many intellects, many skills and efforts that cross every boundary imaginable. Separation into cult groups was never a good idea or, at least, led away from the "idea".

While I loathe Trump, I think his emergence is the very epitome of "democracy". Democracy is not a fairy tale. It needs to understand itself and it does so by the organization of disaffiliated, alienated people. It's like the fever one feels when getting sick. It is an alert. And those who are concerned with the future of the Republic are the ones who need to take responsibility for this illness. They will be there long after Trump is out of the picture. They will be a floating iceberg in the ocean of politics, aggressive and obstructing and nullifying the safe and comfortable part of culture.

Democracy is certainly not rubber-stamping the policies, attitudes, ideas of the last forty years. There is nothing static about democracy. It tends to upend the pyramid from time to time. The problem with the liberals is that they were very successful and embedded themselves in the significant institutions. The sound of the rubber stamp is the only noise that comes from them that means anything.

Oh weary politics!

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"Who is going to build up the middle class so the political and cultural values are there?" That's the central political question. I see Harris as addressing the problem, at least in her sympathizes. It just seems to me that Biden can get things done that Harris cannot.

There are disturbing things about Trump: his admiration of authoritarian types. His lack of knowledge, lack of character, lack of political experience. All of the election denying, all of the incidents in his past, all the cult like clinging that goes on in the Republican party. The total absence of modesty. The loud mouthed jerk who lies all the time. The sort of entitled type the framers feared. The warnings that are sounded from so many diverse places, including many who worked for him in the last administration. There is so much that is regrettable about Trump. A President? No, a pro wrestler promoter, a carny, a pornographer, a "celebrity", sure. As I said, the problem is not Trump but the tens and tens of millions who will be there after Trump is gone. That's the threat to democracy and anyone who loves democracy or sees its good should try to figure out how to patch them back into the mainstream.

As I said, I have no faith in Harris. I haven't seen enough even though I was her neighbor years ago. I see a lot of problems with her as President. A lot of problems either way. The risk/reward ratio, however, goes to Harris, especially considering the age of Trump. She would not allow the Democratic party to get free of the "progressives". She would, however, provide some stimulant that Trump would not. Would there be a parody of inclusion? Probably. There will be a lot of push back and resistance.

You have to ask yourself: since the rise of my consciousness in my teen years, has there been an improvement? Has there been a falling off? What? Where? The technology has improved I suppose. I think you have a basic decline in society and culture. That's a very general statement of course. Some things have improved. It's always a mixed bag in a huge nation-state of 330 million. It went through the 60's, it went through the Reagan years, it went through the war on terrorism years, it went through the Trump years. It survived and there is still a lot of good in it.

My first political perspective was "historical". I was fascinated by the way maps changed through the centuries and my curiosity led to this, this, and that. Change is experienced slowly by the living mind. It is explicit when you look back into the decades. However, in my time there was a phenomenon known as "future shock." That is, the changes come fast and furious and the living mind can't keep up with it so finds protection for itself and is filled with wrong impressions and mistakes driven by fallible human nature. That's one reason why the stability of the Republic is a good, whether that stability is gotten through the Republican or Democratic parties. The stability allows for reflection, thoughtfulness, and the strengths of the rational mind. When culture breaks down there is something like what you are seeing today. Massive resistance if not contempt for the rational so that all the defenses against "future shock" are brought to the surface to do battle in a primal war between good and evil.

I like the image of the firefly darting in all the dark complexity, flitting from place to place, listening, watching, learning.

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In politics nothing is a better ally than a fierce enemy. The fierce enemy will smell out your weakness and shove it in your face so you will deny it as a weakness and treat it as a strength. It is only with great losses and new perceptions that the political idea see's the trick the mind is playing and accepts and integrates the dreaded judgement as an attack on its weakness. The conservative weakness is its non-acceptance of the secular form of problem-solving, its lack of rationalism, its lack of experience in the world as-it-actually-is from top to bottom, and the liberal weakness is the loss of root in "love of nation of birth" and "faith".

October 5, 2024

Disparity of wealth is multi cultural, it is not one race or one geography. This is why it's so complex and impossible to solve through "identity" politics. It won't be solved until poverty is recognized across all boundaries and the effort for upward mobility is strong and united. That requires a confident middle-class.

To teach that the "society" is the beast that needs to be overcome is the most cruel joke of them all. How exactly does a person who believes society is evil surrender to that society to gain its benefits? That person doesn't, is permanently divided and suffers as a result. The foundations need to be firm before a real critical view can gain credibility within the person or a group.

************

A lot of the political types are upset because they feel that a "non-commitment" to Harris supports Trump. In California, of course, the question was settled long ago. Harris wins. The sticking point with me is that anyone who is seeking the vast power either Trump or Harris are after, needs to be questioned, probed, investigated, held to account, put under pressure with feet against the fire. If this doesn't happen you don't have an honest election. And you end up with questionable leadership without credibility. Kamela Harris is appealing in a number of ways. I question whether she can execute decisions, programs, policies etc at the level that they require. I don't see evidence of that at any rate. I don't know of any Democrat who does not raise the question, "who is this person and why is she in this position?" It is not an unfair question to ask. She has the great advantage of running against Trump, making any alternative moot.

Anyone with a fair sense of democracy is put to the test, "it's either Kamala or else." That's pretty soft support if you ask me. And it begs the question, "then who should the Democrats put in there?" The Republicans should address the same question. The next four years will determine who comes forward as leaders in these parties, but there will be political dysfunction no matter who the President may be. So will I mark my ballot for Kamala? Most likely but then I'm not positive. Perhaps I will conjure up the next four years and decide to write in someone no one has heard of.

October 14, 2024

I don't like the arrogance of the left. They want to be unquestioned factoids and impose a view on everyone else. Where did that come from? It came from their successful struggle to gain power in all the institutions. It emerged from academia that didn't have any competing ideas against the orthodoxy. The right has a kind arrogance but one never looks to the right for answers or solutions. They are only appealing as the old progressive party decays, before a new one is built.

Arrogance of the left versus nuttiness of the right; an unbalanced culture produces this. Wealth and "freedom" produces this condition. Human nature produces it in large measure as the mind attempts to confront the modern world and, if not the world, then the American portion of it. The hardness of the political line is a tell that there is no substance to the line.

"Understanding first, then go to the root." Says the odd citizen who can't relate to either party.

October 19. 2024

Democracy starts with the individual, extends to all that the individual-is-not. What if trust breaks down between the citizen and not-citizen?

What happens when the "society" appears to be indecipherable to the normal mind? What happens when the Republic becomes a complex monstrosity no one can fully comprehend or understand? What happens when the criminal is more attracted to public office than the "good"? What happens when the culture is denatured of its pride and wants to end or be turned over?

It's plain to me that when the spirit of democracy is killed in the mind and spirit of the citizen, in a large segment of the citizens, then democracy is impossible.

What happens if a majority of people are "living well" yet the Republic is disintegrating?

Whether one is talking about democracy or not it's always about power. In a democracy you can become power or you can oppose power and often the roles reverse. The healthy structure is going to have a lot of checks and balances to keep things off-balance for the tyrannical nature human beings possess.

I don't want to believe it but I think either candidate will preside over a disastrous Presidency. Harris, with little leadership ability against a storm of resistance, Trump with his kleptocracy and lack of governing ability will produce, hopefully between '25 and '29 a new. vital political imagination that will fill the liberal democratic idea with vitality again. A whole new vision. And then let the 30's work out the details. That depends on the creative class abandoning the failures of the left and right and leaping into the undiscovered space between the polarities.

Forty years of "white vs black", "men vs women", "urban vs rural", "environmentalists" vs "developers" and on and on and on. This election has brought all of this to the fore. The winner will not decide the winners and losers of these conflicts. Whoever wins will inherit political dysfunction. The only winners will be those who oppose the US, either as a political model or as a geopolitical force.

What people see, somewhat rightly, is that women have leveraged the system on their own behalf to gain power in the culture. They were able to do this better than minorities and, in the process, marginalized a lot of males, black and white. They shouldn't be blamed for it. They voted, for the most part, to protect themselves by ensuring they could handle their own money and body. I doubt, however, if they will be treated with kid gloves going into the next few election cycles. It was a reason Hillary was defeated, it was a reason Roe V Wade was overturned, it might be a reason why Harris will lose.

It's difficult to prove these things, just as it's difficult to know how much race plays into the final decision of a voter. Still, the Democratic party has become a feminist party, an elite party, a kind of woke Republican Party and the outlier groups are going to start making demands on them. They may start demanding that these excluded males, black, brown, and white, get some of the protections and privileges the females got on their way to power.

If government leverage is a form of success it would benefit the society to corral these groups and bring them back into the rational fold instead of letting them find heroes out in the wild. There's nothing more dangerous than a mass of males with no purpose, no meaning, no self-worth, no sense of power. Armies can be formed from those types of males. It's not the fault of women who strive for their best selves. But it is a phenomenon that needs attention by those who are concerned about "democracy" and the health of the society.

October 30, 2024

It's a few days before the election. The one thing that stands out in my mind, the only number that makes sense is that 68% of people don't like the direction the US is going. Only 28% approve. And that 28% would include the "elites" and those who had projected dire fears against Trump. So it comes down to how far will the people go in their dissatisfactions. Will they cross the threshold and elect the "big bastard" or will they play it safe and elect Harris? "Safe" in that the status quo won't change one iota, the elites will not be effected, and common sense says that there will be a lot of resistance to anything she tries to do.

The big bastard in US business history comes when there is a new invention afoot or new development like the telephone or airplane, computer certainly and in the competitive rush to get the invention to market there are many cross-purposes that work against the efficiency of the new invention. The big bastard comes along and imposes his will on the market, drives out the competition, the technology and delivery systems are made efficient. Then the political culture gets rid of the big bastard who has made a lot of enemies. The question is, can you treat the liberal democracy and Constitutional law in that fashion? My guess is no unless you are in a crisis moment. We live in a difficult moment but not a crisis one. A civil war is a crisis moment, World War II was a crisis moment. This is a tired moment but that's not a real crisis. That may predict a crisis down the line if the ratio between dissatisfied and satisfied doesn't balance out more.

I always go back to the "free, liberal democratic citizen" which is a literary concern and not a political/scientific concern. If the national government is derived from the people, then all manifestations of the national and local governments would bend back into the citizen. I wanted to look at that relationship, a common one certainly. If the citizen took in the whole of that government I'm sure that citizen would evaporate in both BS and corruption but be that as it may. If that relation is not maintained you then consign the government and, eventually, the society over to the jackals. Yet, how is it possible that the "citizen" receives and process that which "derives from him and her?" A question. I don't know what the answer is but I would start there if I were concerned about the future of democracy and a source of its difficulty.

November 3, 2024

ELECTION NIGHT

When democracy is good there is always another day, no matter the result. And you learn over time that you win some, you lose some. I voted for Harris on weighing the preponderance of the evidence. Now she joins McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry as unsuccessful votes by this particular political animal. The experts are saying that the real divide is not race, gender, religion but education. That's been known since I was a college student back in the 60's. And oh, how the rural folk hate the arrogance of the educated! But aren't you educated in order to know things beyond the provincial? Don't you travel and get into larger communities in the urban areas to leave your provincialisms? It's that trust and mutual respect, both necessary in a democracy, has collapsed between them.

I do assign blame to the Democratic party and its "identity politics", its hostility to "nationalism" or, more precisely national pride and its disdain for the spiritual. There should have been a firmer commitment to limit Biden to one term and then have a primary season. Now we'll see if Democrats become that wonderful role player, the "loyal opposition." If they project hatred onto Trump they will blow it. Simply criticize him intelligently and build up a portfolio of opinion that can be taken up in 2026 and 2028. It's almost impossible to see ahead for the next four years. Harris gave a decent concession speech that simply said she was a nobler spirit than Donald Trump. Her calls to keep fighting were a dud since people are absolutely wiped out by this election. It was long, nasty, dire and the outcome, always predicted to be razor thin, was an anticlimax once the proceedings got going.

Whenever I hear race or gender I switch off and stuff it in the "past politics" barrel. The women and people of color I saw on the grounds of Howard University are doing a lot better than a great many white kids in these god awful rural and semi-rural places. And I'm glad for the women and people of color but, next time, take up your poor white brothers and sisters as well and don't divide them by political affiliation. Said the odd citizen to no one but the political atmosphere.

November 5, 2024

Trump is true to form with his appointments and will either modify the government in odd ways or collapse that government. However, before that happens I expect to see what happened to Joe McCarthy, happen to Trump. Someone credible, someone from the Republican Party denounces Trump at just the right time and his support will collapse. He will shrivel like a punctured balloon and, along with age and health factors, it will bring him down. If at the end of the process you have a slimmer more efficient government, less corrupt, more imbued with service than power, then something good got done. We need to know if the society can operate with less government or find out how much government we actually need. A clarification of this would do good in the political area.

I have little confidence in Trump or his appointees but time will reveal the facts of the matter. It could be that pulling the plug on an agency or department simply opens up a flood of godawfulness. I have no doubt his "mass deportation" is a fantasy. It may begin but will end shortly as there are mass protests and legal opposition.

Trump has done one thing Biden couldn't do, however, and that is send a signal from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, not to come up to the US. "Your services are not wanted until there is a rational border in place." Where, in other words, people can be vetted, processed in a way that allows for the absorption of those people into the communities they are going to.

I think eventually, people will see that illegal immigration was used to build a new labor force, in preparation to an expanded economy. Nothing else explains the lax and stupid conflict at the border. And now the brim is filled. In my day it was the entrance of women and minorities into the economy that expanded it through the 80's. Then came the global workforce that expanded economies throughout the so-called advanced countries. The largess was not evenly distributed as we have come to discover. The slack has been taken up by the illegal immigrants.

December 1, 2024

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