Category: Politics

Super Tuesday is mostly over. Here in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren seems to be on track to place third (NPR). That’s a dismal performance considering that she is the only candidate with a connection to Massachusetts and is, in fact, our senior Senator.

If politics is mostly a professional endeavor, how could the professionals have failed to predict her lack of appeal? (perhaps it was the 70-year-old’s comparative youth and lack of life experience that caused voters to reject her?) She spent more than a year campaigning.

Separately, below are the diverse political signs at our polling place, which happens also to be a school where diversity is celebrated (said school soon to be torn down and the students moved into trailers for three years). There is good news for Native Americans who want to wear the mantle of modern victimhood: “We are ALL Immigrants.” We can “Respect the Science” by re-electing Senator Ed Markey, who last took a science course in high school circa 1962 (Wikipedia suggests that he got an unspecified BA and then went on to law school).

In short, “If you Vote for Democrats, all of your wildest dreams will come true.”

My Facebook friends seem to be newly excited about Joe Biden. One of them posted a recent quote:

“We can and we must build a more perfect union. Because the American people have seen the alternative, so let’s get back up. We’re decent, we’re brave, we’re a resilient people. We can believe again. We’re better than this moment and we’re better than this president. So get up and let’s take back this country. We’re the United States of America. There’s nothing we cannot do if we do it together”

This sounds a bit like a Hollywood Democrat back in 2016:

“I don’t want to move to Canada, but I certainly don’t want to see Donald Trump [win] with bigotry and racism. … This is really serious. It’s somebody appealing to the worst in us.”

But if people who vote for Biden are “better than this president,” aren’t those Biden voters also better people than Trump voters? Why would the “better people” want to do stuff together with people who are racist, sexist, and stupid?

Since there’s nothing we cannot do if we do it together, we will be able to make our own mobile phones, flat screen TVs, and tunneling machines instead of buying them from the Chinese, Koreans, Taiwanese, and Germans? We will be able to dig new metro systems and build out nationwide high-speed rail at a reasonable cost? We will be able to deliver health care without bankrupting ourselves? We could construct cruise ships as good as the ones currently made in France, Italy, Finland, and Germany and not be shut out of this multi-$billion market? If true, why wait until the hated dictator is removed from the White House? Why not start doing these things together tomorrow? Is Trump actually stopping us from working together? How?

My Facebook friends love to post about the evils of states requiring ID to vote. This will, in their view, disenfranchise black voters because black Americans are not competent to obtain ID (unclear where this knowledge comes from since, except for selfie time at Black Panther, none of these folks are ever seen in company with African Americans).

In trying to figure out when our polls will be open tomorrow, I stumbled upon “What To Know About Voting In Mass. On Super Tuesday” (WBUR):

You may be required to show your ID when you check in at your polling place, the state says, under these circumstances … The poll worker has “a reasonable suspicion” that leads them to request ID

In other words, a poll worker can make an arbitrary decision, potentially based on skin color, to demand ID.

Happy South Carolina Primary Day!

Who wants to predict the outcome?

(Separately, how is it that these folks vote on a Saturday? If that makes sense, why don’t all of the states do it? If it doesn’t make sense, why does South Carolina do it?)

Landing page for a recent Facebook alert:

Assuming that I am not special, why does Facebook the Company care whether or not we all vote? (as it happens, the ballot in our suburb is mostly taken up with candidates running unopposed; in the general election, it is nearly all unopposed Democrats)

If this is about general virtue, why not encourage Americans to quit smoking, eat less, study and work harder? Those are much more important and useful messages in all but a handful of swing states.

Top of my Gmail, day after the New Hampshire primary:

How do folks think the Nevada caucuses will shake out today? Are there enough government workers and people on the traditional welfare system in Nevada to appreciate an old-school Democrat like Uncle Joe? Enough Californians who moved there to escape taxes to appreciate the idea of yet higher taxes under President Sanders? Enough Native Americans to give Elizabeth Warren a boost?

Per https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/07/02/why-isnt-pete-buttigieg-the-front-runner-among-democrats/ , my money is on Mayor Pete! (except that I am not energetic enough to drive down to our local casino and place an actual bet)

A Facebook friend in Dallas pointed out that it isn’t reasonable to complain that Michael Bloomberg is trying to buy the election. In his view, so are the other [tax-more-and-spend-more] Democrats, but they’re trying to buy the election with our money. “At least Bloomie is spending his own.”

(this guy can’t be dismissed as a hater/Deplorable because he doesn’t refer to Mr. Bloomberg as “Mini Mike”)

How is the Bloomberg campaign going? The ads that I’ve seen on Facebook seem targeted at coastal elites who want to feel better about themselves via Trump-hatred and the hatred of Trump voters. Trump and his fans are stupid, racist, etc. Usually there will be a quote from Trump that set the New York Times and its readers on fire, but that Trump voters interpreted in a different way. It is tough to imagine these ads persuading anyone who voted for Trump in 2016 to switch allegiance. But maybe that is the point? It is primary season so the only people who need to see the ads and be persuaded are Democrats?

Separately, I heard that the latest debate among the Democrats involved some sharp exchanges. If the real enemy is Trump, shouldn’t the opposition candidates all be at least as polite as tennis competitors at Wimbledon? The message is that any Democrat is far better than Trump, right? If true, why say something harsh about a fellow Democrat? It would be a personal disappointment to lose the primary round, but saving the country from a Hitler-style dictator is surely more important.

Related:

• “The Radicalism of Warren’s Unapologetic Aggression” (New Republic); Warren is part of the tribe, so to speak, of Democrats saying we’ll all be infinitely better off if Trump is defeated. Why wouldn’t she at least appear to celebrate the possibility of Mayor Pete or Michael Bloomberg winning in November?