Category Archives: Politics

When Ethics Bite: The Senator, Hunter Biden, and Me

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Long ago, in a galaxy far away, I was the news editor of a television station in the Shenandoah Valley. I was also the anchor of the two principal news broadcasts, at 6 and 11 pm. One night, while preparing the 11 pm, a story came across the wire: “State Senator Charged With Reckless Driving.” 

There were some problems with the story, if what you wanted out of it was a scandal. The senator, not speeding and not impaired, topped a slight rise in the road and was confronted by a horse-drawn carriage plodding along in the lane ahead of him. He made an emergency stop, but not in time to avoid striking the carriage. Damage was slight and no one was hurt, not even the horse. 

The other problem, for me, was that the senator was my best friend.  Continue reading →

Okay, the Dog Catches the Car. Then What?

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Donald Trump is loudly and frequently promising to execute a coup d’état if he is re-elected president — not merely to take office, but to convert the entire  federal government to a fascist dictatorship, with himself as the dictator, perhaps for life. I have a question: why is anyone taking him seriously, let alone quaking in fear?

I have not done a survey, but every single coup d’état I ever heard or read about, in which a democratic country was forcibly subjected to a dictatorship, the army was involved. Remember all the newsreels of tanks in the streets, surrounding the parliament and the presidential palace? To convert a government from one form to another requires brute force, and only the armed forces have it. (In the case of Fidel Castro, he raised an army capable of defeating government forces, but my point remains the same — the only hammer capable of driving this nail is a powerful army.) Continue reading →

It’s an Affirmation Nation

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Political leadership does not require changing the minds of people who do not agree with you; rather it requires affirming people in the beliefs they already hold, thus encouraging them to act on those beliefs.

I discovered the power of affirmation by accident, a long time ago, and it has made a profound difference in the way I regard people and politics ever since. Allow me to tell you the story.

Once upon a time my family and I moved to a new county. We lived in the county seat in a cramped rental condo while I built our new home in the country. It was a busy time, but, news junkie that I have ever been, I never missed an edition of the local weekly newspaper. And right away, I was dismayed by what I saw. Continue reading →

By the Numbers: Why Trump Cannot Win. Part Four

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It’s over soon not because of the criminal charges, the hideous behavior, the fascism or the increasingly lunatic speeches. It’s over because of the numbers he doesn’t understand.

Part 4. The Great Poll Faults

In mid-May, 2024, the conventional wisdom — aka the narrative adopted by virtually every member of the chattering class — is that Joe Biden is an unusually unpopular president, is behind in the polls, and that therefore Donald Trump has, to quote an otherwise admirable MSNBC anchor, “a 50-50 chance to be the next president.” There are so many things just plain wrong with this picture that it’s hard to know where to start.

President Biden’s approval ratings are being described everywhere (in May 2024) as “historically bad,” for the past 18 months or so. People who throw around terms like “historically” really ought to read a little history. The approval ratings of every modern president — in the third year of their first term — have been virtually identical (Biden around 40%, Trump 40%, Obama 43%, Bush 44%, Clinton 42%, etc) . Why specify the year and term? Because in that time frame the president has demonstrated that he cannot solve every problem the world has, he has probably suffered a few defeats and made a few mistakes, and there is no nominated candidate presenting an alternate program. Asked whether they approve of him, people think of his record so far and then imagine a president who does everything they think he should do, and succeeds at every attempt. As President Biden often says, “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” Continue reading →

 By the Numbers: Why Trump Cannot Win. Part Three

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It’s over soon not because of the criminal charges, the hideous behavior, the fascism or the increasingly lunatic speeches. It’s over because of the numbers he doesn’t understand.

Part 3. The Third Decision

In order to participate in an election, a citizen of the United States has to make, and act on, three decisions. 

  1. One must register. This is a decision to participate actively in civic life, and requires making an effort — going to the courthouse, or doing some paperwork, or participating in a registration drive. (I am not among those who think registration should be automatic and effortless. I think anyone who wants to participate in choosing our legislators and governors should be willing to — and capable of — making the required effort.)
  2. One must decide which candidate gets one’s vote. The quality of this decision varies. Some vote along party lines, some according to a fleeting impression, a few after deep study of the candidate’s platform. Some decide a year in advance, others as they are walking into the polling place. 
  3. The third decision — one which is ignored by most commentators, which is not taken into any account by most polls, yet which can be critically important — is whether, after registering to vote and deciding for whom to  vote, one does not bother to actually vote.  

Continue reading →

By the Numbers: Why Trump Cannot Win. Part Two

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Part 2. The Rules of the Game

It’s over soon not because of the criminal charges, the hideous behavior, the fascism or the increasingly lunatic speeches. It’s over because of the numbers he doesn’t understand.

Now that we have a clear view of the playing field, aka the electorate, it is pretty obvious what you have to do to win an election:

  •  notify the members of your party (about one-third of the electorate) that you are running and why. Although they will be predisposed to support you, you need to give them a reason to be enthusiastic about your prospects, as they will be the source of most of your votes, volunteers and money;
  • then reach out to Independents (another third of the registered voters), especially but not exclusively the ones that “lean” toward your party, and provide them with reasons to support you;
  • avoid members of the other party — any time spent arguing with them is wasted;
  • if and when possible without compromising the essential tasks just described, conduct voter-registration drives to bring in possible supporters from the 25% of adults who are not registered;
  • phase your outreach and expenditures so that your campaign is at its most intense in the final weeks. This is because the great majority of people get interested in an election only when it is imminent. Trying to reach them before they are interested is like talking in an empty room.   

Continue reading →

By the Numbers: Why Trump Cannot Win. Part One 

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Part One. The Playing Field

It’s over soon not because of the criminal charges, the hideous behavior, the fascism or the increasingly lunatic speeches. It’s over because of the numbers he doesn’t understand.

Four years ago I gave to my local Democratic Club a talk titled, “Why Donald Trump Will Not Win the 2020 Election.” Last month I reprised the talk, but this time it was titled, “Why Donald Trump Cannot Win the 2024 Election.” This conclusion is based not on wishful thinking or partisan ardor, but on years of experience as a political operative and consultant.

There is a great deal of misinformation, disinformation and just plain nonsense swirling around the subject of politics and elections. We must begin by clarifying where we are. 

Contrary to conventional wisdom and the received wisdom of the media chattering class, we are not a nation bitterly divided, 50-50, between Democrats and Republicans. I first realized the depth and breadth of this misperception when, some years ago, I heard Bill Maher say, “You can hate Trump, but you can’t hate his supporters, they’re half the country.” Since then I have heard him and many other commentators — and many politicians — either repeat the thought out loud or assume it in their calculations. Just the the day Chris Mathews, a favorite TV anchor, said offhandedly — the way you say the glaringly obvious — that Donald Trump “has a 50-50 chance of being the next president.”   Continue reading →

Playing the Averages — and Losing

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It is harder every day to have a discussion about any public issue that does not slide quickly into anger over irreconcilable differences. This is partly due to massive, deliberate attempts to pollute our language with lies and conspiracy theories untethered to any notion of reality, a fog of misinformation applied mostly by the far right. But there are other, less obvious culprits. One of the big ones is not political, it’s mathematical. And diabolical. 

It is one of the most pernicious concepts ever invented by mathematicians, the notion of the average — a concept that is virtually meaningless, that not only has nothing to offer our understanding of the world, but actively interferes with it. Continue reading →

And the Band Plays On

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Play louder, guys! I can still hear people screaming….

The Trump cult is doing for today’s America what the orchestra did for the passengers on the Titanic during its final hours: providing a distraction for people who are in extreme peril. They strut across the political stage, juggling shiny objects — abortion bans, book bans, drag-queen bans, gun-law bans, transgender-sports bans, immigrant bans, critical-race-theory bans, on and on — and many Americans, far more people than agree with them or follow them,  are thus distracted from reality. Continue reading →

The Politics of Extinction

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Today’s Republican Party is practicing the politics of extinction, pursuing activities and policies that will lead to its destruction — unless and until the decent but cowardly majority members of the party rise up against the minority of evil and stupid people who have declared themselves to be its leaders.

It’s important to remember that Donald Trump holds no office in the Republican Party. In the past, all our ex-presidents have, when termed or voted out of office, retired. They take up painting, or charity work, they build their library, and they shut the hell up. Even MAGA lunatics such as Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz had the grace to dive quietly into obscurity when their political heads were handed to them. Trump, on the other hand, defeated and disgraced,  acts like he is the head of the party and the party acts the same. But the party plan, which is the legally enforceable constitution of the party, does not provide for any such office. It defines a national committee that is the governing board and a chairperson who is its executive. Those people exist, but they are being  ignored.    Continue reading →