Category: Domestic Policies

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics

Trump-Christie Agonistes

This is what happens when a political party is in the midst of self-destruction. I remember it well when the Democrats dissolved between 1972 and 1984, and these last, frantic days should remind us that it’s not pretty or helpful when a major political organization goes nuclear.

Such is the Republican Party.

I have been saying, for quite some time, that I didn’t believe Donald Trump will be the GOP nominee this year, and I will cling to that belief until the numbers say that I’m wrong, but it’s fairly clear that ego, infighting, stubbornness and incompetence have put Trump on the brink of attaining that prize. For once, though, I don’t fully blame the Republican Party as much as I also blame the voters it nurtured and the utter disdain and hatred they have for President Obama and government in general.

There are still some Republican leaders who do understand what their actions have wrought, such as former NJ Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who says that she will support Hillary for president, even as they are now seeing that saying ultra-conservative things, but governing less so, has gotten them into a pot of boiling water they can’t climb out of easily.

The debate last week was bad enough; a WWE-type smack-down that had little to do with politics and everything to do with the stunted maturity of the party’s front-runner and the anger of the intellectual dwarfs who want to take him down. The candidates discussed precious little about what they would do as president, which in all cases would be a disaster for the middle class, women, minorities, anyone whose sexuality differs from the norm, potentially productive immigrants and most animal species, and focused on bodily functions and who might have lied the most. They then continued the fight through the week, referring to bathroom habits and other national security issues they believe are the keys to their success.

And then came the angriest, most-inappropriate, venom-spewing know-nothing of them all: Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is so terrifically angry that the GOP decided to support Marco Rubio over him as the party’s savior that he threw away what was left of his dignity, common-sense and governing doctrine. Christie will have to spend most of his time walking back comments he made during the campaign about how unqualified his new friend Don is to be president.

Christie has clearly had it with the Republican Party, and in his mind he has good reason. After all, he spent years cultivating supporters by giving time and speeches to candidates when they were running for office. Then, as Chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association he threw himself  into party politics, doled out resources and, again, spent many months on the campaign trail, biding his time until the 2016 election, when he would gather up his favors and chits and be the instant front-runner for the presidency. The GW Bridge traffic jam destroyed his credibility and his actions on the campaign trail, including his torching of Marco Rubio in the debate just before the New Hampshire primary, proved to be not only his undoing, but the cause of his own political self-immolation.

And now Chris doesn’t have to spend more time in New Jersey being Governor, which I’m certain is one of his main reasons for making this endorsement. Christie is essentially over state politics and craves the national limelight and cable television programs. It’s Kim Guagdano’s gig now, but the Democrats have the power. Christie is fast becoming irrelevant on the state level.

Also, he probably sees Trump as the only candidate who would give him a job if (shudder) he wins the presidency. Does Christie on the Supreme Court grab your attention? It should.

Let’s see what happens on March 1, Super Tuesday, and in the big states that hold primaries between then and March 15. Trump is not likely to gather enough delegates to win the nomination and if Rubio can consistently get 20% or more in each state, he can stay close until April, when more big states will vote. Also, John Kasich will probably be out of the race very soon.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump jeb bush marco rubio News Politics

Hillary Salves the Bern: Trump Burns Bush

I don’t think this is what the GOP had in mind when they made the calendar and rules that would govern the primaries. The party clearly wanted to make it easier for a candidate to consolidate support and win enough delegates so they could then turn their attention to fundraising and the general election. This enabled Trump to win 44 delegates with only 33% of the vote. Nice job.

In the words of Rick Perry, “Oops.”
In the further words of Howard Dean, “AAAAHHHH.”

South Carolina has to be the loudest wake-up call ever recorded in a modern presidential race and the Republican Party elders clearly have no strategy to stop the bleeding. Trump won a fairly convincing victory and rendered the race for second as the only one worth watching. Now that Jeb! has left the race I imagine that phones will be ringing in the Carson and Kasich campaign offices and the person on the other end will not be shy about telling those candidates that their time is gone and that they should rally their supporters around Marco Rubio as the only person who can save the party from its angry candidates. Unless they want to rally around Ted Cruz, but I can’t see that happening.

Meanwhile, on the left side of the docket, Hillary Clinton all but shut the door on Bernie Sanders in Nevada, winning a solid victory in a state that the Democrats will need in the fall. Word is that Harry Reid made some phone calls to union officials saying that it was fine for them not to endorse a candidate, but could the officials at least urge their members to vote for Clinton. That seems to have worked. Now it’s on the South Carolina on Saturday where Hillary has a commanding lead. A win there and on Super Tuesday on March 1 will probably close out Sanders as a serious contender, though I would not be surprised if he continue his campaign until the end.

The upshot is that the Democrats will probably achieve what the GOP had hoped for; a well-funded nominee who has time to unify the party, make nice-nice with their opponent, and start moving to attract the moderate voters who will likely be the keys to their election.

I know that I’m bucking the conventional wisdom at the moment, but I still don’t see Donald Trump being the GOP nominee. I think the GOP will find a way, or at least die trying, to rally around a candidate that they can control and win. After all, 65% of the party’s voters aren’t voting for Trump. Someone has to be able to harness that between now and June. If I’m wrong, then the GOP is in big time trouble.

But time is running out. Beware the Ides of March.

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Domestic Policies New Jersey News Politics

Public Workers: Working Hard, Paying More, Getting Less, Being Blamed. Solution?

Governor Christie wasn’t back in New Jersey for two days before his administration and its apologists went back on the attack on public worker pensions and health benefits.

The man who promised that he wouldn’t touch pensions in his gubernatorial run in 2009, and who staked his presidential ambitions on a bipartisan pension and benefits bill in 2011 is now touting a plan recommended by his appointed board of campaign contributors and Wall Street executives that would further degrade the benefits that are part and parcel of people’s decision to enter teaching, firefighting, police work and government administration in this state.

The latest plan, which was first unveiled last year and clarified on Thursday, calls for an end to the health plans that most New Jersey state workers get as part of their employment. Christie’s plan would move workers to the equivalent of Affordable Care Act Gold Plans which, despite their lofty name, have higher deductibles and more limited health care options for their subscribers. But the plan gets even better because no longer would health care be paid for by the state and employees; the cost would be shifted to the municipalities and school boards. Then the money that the state saves would be used to replenish (and plenish) the pension system.

Ingenious, right?

We got a further clarification on this proposal by Thomas Byrne, one of the members of Christie’s pension reform panel. And his point, in sum, is that teachers get more benefits than most workers in the private sector. Besides, they say the plan he and the panel recommended is the only way to solve this problem. Talk about reinforcing your own limited thinking.

What Byrne and his apologists don’t say is that there are many private sector workers who get far better benefits. Why can’t he compare public employee health care with those people? Because, simply, the same people calling for benefits reform are the same people who want to privatize public work and to destroy the power of the public worker unions. So comparing us to the average worker who’s been shafted over the past 40 years by Republicans and conservatives makes people angry at what we have, rather than what we have earned through legal collective bargaining. The rich keep what they have and the rest lose out. Haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

I do have to say that I agree with one of Byrne’s points, and this is likely to get me in trouble with my public worker brethren and sisteren. I think that putting a constitutional amendment that forces the state to make a full pension payment every year is a losing issue. Most New Jerseyans support their local teachers and don’t want to penalize them, but the thought of having to pay billions of dollars at the expense of other programs – which is what the opponents of this amendment will argue – will turn most voters against it.

Governor Christie has done a terrific job, and a terrible one at the same time, by turning public workers into the face of the budgetary, taxing and spending problem we have in New Jersey. It’s not right, it’s not fair and it’s a disgraceful turn away from decency and respect, but it’s the truth and Democrats need to understand that. An amendment will fail. Nix it.

Likewise, a millionaire’s tax would help, but will not raise enough money to pay for the shortfall. Reducing pension investment fees is also a necessary step, but a small one. So what to do?

A 1% tax on corporate profits. After all, it’s the business interests that have been driving educational reform since 1983, including the calls for more cooperative learning, back-to-basics content retention, tenure reform and the Common Core Curriculum Standards. Business is interested in education because schools supply their future workers, and they also have an interest in well-run towns, police forces and firefighters. So why not have them pay a greater share of the expenses? That way, all public workers could share in the proceeds and homeowners wouldn’t have to bear the burden of ever-rising property taxes. One percent is not too much to ask and any company that decides that it’s too much and leaves New Jersey would be sacrificing its highly educated labor force and would risk ridicule for running away.

Obviously I don’t have complete details and I’m sure the accountants would discover all manner of roadblocks. Plus, having corporate interests pay for things usually means they’ll want their names and logos on it. But I think this is better than having taxpayers voting on a multi-billion dollar plan that will hike their taxes. And it just might solve the problem of our underfunded school systems.

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Domestic Policies

Christie’s Fat Tuesday Result Leaves His Campaign In Ashes

Those of us in New Jersey knew that this day would come, and it’s really best for the country that Chris Christie has ended his presidential bid. The governor does not have the personality to be a thoughtful, caring, empathetic leader and there’s some poetic justice in the fact that he lost mainly because Donald Trump won. Christie always thought that he was going to be the wise-cracking loudmouth in the race, but Donald upset that cart with his first campaign utterances last spring. Add in the terrible job Christie has done with the economy, his utterly disgraceful YouTube rants and his poisonous attitude towards public workers and anyone who disagrees with him, and you have the recipe for…well, for what just happened.

What struck me about Christie is that he didn’t seem to have a moral compass when it came to running for office. He would say anything, even contradict himself if it served his goals. His charge to the right on many issues left New Jersey in seriously bad shape. He vetoed a train tunnel that the state and region desperately needed, refused to raise the gas tax to pay for our potted roads, and slashed budgets for social services that many state residents needed to survive after the financial crisis hit. He did make his name during the aftermath of Sandy, but even that is overshadowed by the number of people who still don’t have their homes back.

Christie will now come back and be the governor, for at least a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if he left at some point because what’s he really got to work for now? His legacy? Another run in 2020? He can be a FOX News host or lobby for a radio program, but I can see him getting very bored and frustrated by an emboldened Democratic majority that will savage him during the 2017 election, and the state GOP that is furious with him for abandoning them during the Assembly elections in 2015. The man has no coattails. He doesn’t even appear to have much of a coat.

I’m thinking that the biggest beneficiary of Christie’s supporters will be John Kasich as he tries to navigate the rather unfriendly South Carolina political landscape. Perhaps Carly Fiorina’s backers will go with Kasich too. Or maybe I’m just a dreamer and they’ll all go to Trump because he’s such a peachy guy.

The campaign moves on.

Chris Christie goes home.

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The Very Late New Hampshire Primary Predictions

Here’s how it will go down:

GOP

Trump–28%
Kasich–20% (upset special)
Rubio–17%
Bush–13%
Cruz–11%
Christie–8%
Fiorina–2%
Carson–1%

Democrats

Sanders–54%
Clinton–46%

There’s a real possibility that nobody on the GOP side drops out, but I think that Fiorina is the likliest.

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Domestic Policies News Politics

Christie’s Last Stand

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gives a news conference in Trenton January 9, 2014. Christie on Thursday fired a top aide at the center of a brewing scandal that public officials orchestrated a massive traffic snarl on the busy George Washington Bridge to settle a political score. Christie told a news conference he was stunned and heartbroken by revelations that his staff was behind the traffic jam designed to punish a local mayor who declined to endorse Christie's re-election bid. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS HEADSHOT) - RTX177WY

It’s too late to say it with any meaningful conviction now, but Chris Christie should have run for president when the Republican Party and Nancy Reagan were imploring him to do so in the late fall of 2011. He was the guy, the shining star, six months removed from pounding out a public worker pension and benefits bill that would be his most lasting achievement. The stars were aligned, and let’s face it; that doesn’t happen twice.

Then came his insatiable desire to win the biggest landslide in New Jersey history which led to the George Washington Bridge scandal which occurred at the same time that New Jersey’s economy was doing bupkis and the governor was actively running away from his signature accomplishment. When asked the NJ Supreme Court to rule his pension and benefits bill unconstitutional so he wouldn’t have to make a full pension payment. This is not at all presidential and, to their credit, most of the national Republican electorate has rejected Christie’s message, such as it is, his bluster, and his insufferable swaying back and forth on the issues. Of course, that same Republican electorate seems to have fallen for the political alchemy that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are pandering would suggest that the voters are batting .500.

Last night’s debate was really and truly Chris Christie’s final chance to turn an aggregate 5% polling average into a stunning political comeback. He yelled mightily at Marco Rubio and continued to tout his aggressive style of governance, which is exactly what the country doesn’t need. He was angry at the weather when it forced him to leave the campaign trail in January and understands that he needs to finish way ahead of Jeb Bush and John Kasich in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.

I don’t see it happening.

Christie should blame Trump for most of the damage done to his campaign. Christie was all set to be the loudmouth truth-teller, but even he couldn’t have foreseen Trump’s supreme ability to say whatever was on his mind and watch his poll numbers rise. When terrorism reared its ugly head in November, Christie’s numbers rose too, but ultimately there were just too many other candidates for him to leapfrog in the standings. If Christie can somehow finish in the top three or four with double-digit number next to his name, then maybe he can move on to South Carolina and Nevada and get squashed there.

But then what? Christie says that he’s going to come back to New Jersey to finish out his term, but he will return to a very different political landscape. He won’t be able to be the dominant force in Trenton that he would like, and will find that many GOP legislators will defy him if it’s in their political interests. And it will be. The Democrats can smell a victory in 2017 and will do all they can to get a supermajority in both the Assembly and the Senate. Further, those Republicans who voted against Christie when bills would come up for votes but then vote to uphold Christie’s vetoes, will not always do so in the future.

On the flip side, Christie will not need to be so conservative if he returns, so maybe we can get some common sense laws on firearms, school financing, health care and transportation. In the end, it will be up to the Governor and what he wants to see as his legacy.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump iowa caucus marco rubio News Politics

Cruz Bumps Trump, Rubio A ReMarcoble Third, Dems Deadlocked

I’m not really the type to say “I told you so,” but I indeed told you so on numerous occasions that Donald
Trump would not be the GOP nominee and neither will Ted Cruz.

Trump’s second place finish in Iowa is but the first blow to his campaign, because while he was battering Cruz with ads and withering sarcasm, Marco Rubio, who is no moderate, snuck up on him and finished a very strong third. This gives the GOP alternatives to Trump and my sense is that they will take advantage of that.

Iowa also marked the beginning of either the beginning or the end of some of the more moderate Republican campaigns. Jeb, Kasich and Christie absolutely must come in second or third in the Granite State if they are to have any traction for the rest of the month and to stick around for Super Tuesday. By next week the GOP field should lose Fiorina, Carson and Paul, and their supporters will have to go somewhere. My guess is that they won’t go to Trump or Cruz.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Bernie and Hillary were locked in a tight race that likely serves Sanders better because the polls said he would lose by a small margin. To lose by an even smaller margin, or perhaps to eke out a small win, puts Clinton back a bit going into New Hampshire where Bernie is expected to do very well.

Funny how actual voting can really mess up a narrative. Onward we go.

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Political Junkies Unite! It’s Time to Vote

I predict that the global rise in temperature will show a significant decline on Monday as all the hot air bloviators, pollsters, consultants and media talking heads hold their steamy breath as they await the results of the Iowa caucuses. And why shouldn’t they? The numbers all say that Donald Trump will win the caucuses over Ted Cruz, with the rest of the GOP field barely in their rear-view mirror.

And then of course there’s Iowa’s importance as a…as a…mid-western, um, evangelical-heavy, um…white, um…state. That really doesn’t represent much about America except that the Republicans there seem to have fallen for Trump’s snake oil and Cruz’s smarmy insincerity.

Which is why I think the results will likely be different from the media narrative that’s been written since the fall. I could be wrong, and if I am I will say so because I live in New Jersey and from the governor on down to us little folk, we New Jerseyans always tell the truth and admit our failures and flip-flops.

For what it’s worth, I have been saying all along that neither Trump nor Cruz will be the GOP nominee because both their personalities and their policy prescriptions will not appeal to a majority of either party voters or the electorate at large. Trump has been inconsistent in his message on the stump and hasn’t really come up with specific fixes for the economy, foreign policy or constitutional issues mainly because he doesn’t have many. Calling people stupid or losers or saying that he can fix things because he’s a businessman doesn’t inspire confidence. Cruz, likewise, is running to head a government that he doesn’t even respect. He says he knows what the constitution means and the original intent of the framers, but my suspicion is that they would laugh him out of the room for being a presidential pretender at best.

Trump and Cruz are likely to be first and second in Iowa, but I don’t believe that either one will crack 30% of the vote and the big surprise will come from Marco Rubio, and one of Bush or Kasich, who will do far (far) better than what they are polling right now. I think they could approach 20% of the vote, which would instantly put them in line to be seen as the moderate/establishment savior for the party, and the de facto person to beat in New Hampshire.

For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton’s e-mails have reared their ugly heads again and they will have a slight impact on the race, but I think she will still win the caucuses by about 5 percentage points over Bernie Sanders. He’ll likely poll in the high 30s or lower 40s on Monday, and will go into New Hampshire as the favorite to win there, but I don’t think he’ll do that either. Clinton has too much money and more support among minorities for Sanders to mount a national challenge.

After a very long pre-season, it’s time for political junkies everywhere to get their electoral needles ready for the voting binge to come. The fun starts now.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump Foreign Policies Healthcare Immigration Reform ISIS Politics

A Political Snow Job

If nothing else, the big blizzard that hit the East Coast is sparing us from some of the oh-so-trite coverage of the presidential election, which actually only gets underway eight days hence.

Governor Christie did make it back to New Jersey for the storm, even though he had originally said that the Lieutenant Governor, Kim Guadagno, could manage the preparations and aftermath well enough. And she probably could, but New Jerseyans elected Christie and we want him to fulfill at least some of his duties before he slinks back here in the spring to either finish out his term or pull a Palin and resign to do his own cable TV insult show. Besides, his brief run up the polls in New Hampshire seems to have stalled and he’s now behind the other so-called moderate or establishment candidates, and far behind Donald Trump in the February 9 primary.

In fact, it’s the other governor, Ohio’s John Kasich, who seems to have caught a bit of a tailwind in the weeks leading up to the first votes. Some of those polls will likely be outliers because they show him with 15 and 20 percent of the vote, but the trend is positive, and that’s what every candidate wants just before the election.  Meanwhile, it’s Marco Rubio who got the De Moines Register‘s coveted (by those who work for newspapers) endorsement, but that only shows that the Register can be just as wrong as the Manchester, NH Union-Leader, who endorsed Christie before the holidays.

And on your left, that’s Bernie Sanders holding an aggregate lead over Hillary Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire on the strength of the youth vote, which can be treacherous for any candidate to rely on. These results might hold until February, but in the end I don’t believe that Bernie will be the nominee, and that goes for Trump or Cruz too. There’s a president in both fields, but they don’t have a clear lead in the early states.

Which of course brings us to the next topic which is, what any of these candidates will, or could, do if they are elected. And that’s where things get complicated. When asked about the limits of what they could do as president, only Rand Paul answered questions about executive powers.  Every other candidate–every one–declined to give an answer. Not only is that dangerous, it likely shows quite a bit of ignorance about how our constitutional system works.

First of all, should a Democrat be elected, and that’s the scenario I see, the Republicans will control the House of Representatives, and the Senate will either have a small Democratic or Republican majority, but likely not the 60 vote threshold the parties need to stop a filibuster. That will mean that any of the far left policies that Sanders or Clinton advocate will not see the light of day. Public option health care? Nope. Free public college tuition? Nope. Carbon tax? Nope. Immigration reform with a legal status option? Probably nope. Any Democrat will have to compromise and try, incrementally, to move the system to the left.

But wouldn’t a Sanders win be the result of a massive electoral shift to the left? Yes, absolutely. Which is why he won’t be elected. Such a shift is at least two cycles away.

On the Republican side, if Trump or Cruz wins the election, that would mean that the electorate will have moved decisively to the right, which it hasn’t. So they won’t.

A more moderate GOP candidate would have a friendly House and possibly a small Senate majority. This is a recipe for some serious legislation, but the Democrats would likely filibuster the worst ideas away. It would also mean more tax cuts for the wealthy and a rollback, via the same executive orders the Republicans decry from Obama, of the EPA rules that govern everything from automobile standards to coal plant closings to public land management, fewer limits on Wall Street banks (Hillary might do some of this too), and more limits on women’s health care. Of course, the most ominous event would be the rollback of the ACA, which is a very real possibility.

In such a polarized environment, and I don’t see a decisive shift either way in November, much of what the candidates are saying will not come to pass. Throwing 11 million people out of the country would signal the United States as throwing out its historical legacy and I discount it out-of-hand. The same is true of having the Mexicans building a wall on our border. And none of the far right’s agenda concerning marriage equality, banning and criminalizing abortion and bombing ISIS targets will become law. The Sanders agenda, even if some of it is carried by Hillary, is also unlikely.

My faith in the judgement of the American people leads me to believe that the nominees will not be any of the far right or far left varieties. If it looks like one of them might come out of Iowa and New Hampshire with momentum, I can see a backlash by more moderate voters in the later voting states. It won’t mean that the polls now are wrong, but it will mean that they will shift in what is usually a fluid political environment. The money will flow to the establishment candidates for good and for ill, and by the time this is over the country will have experienced a messy, rocky, changeable, infuriating, frustrating, unsatisfying, but ultimately liberating process.

In short, democracy.

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The Urgency of King’s Message: Forty Eight Years and Counting

I think I’ve found a new, potent source of energy; Martin Luther King, Jr. spinning in his grave over the state of race relations in the country and on the presidential election trail. All we need to do is tap into it and we can power our devices for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, it won’t do much for our national soul.

In the 48 years since his untimely and tragic death, King’s legacy has been begged, borrowed and stolen by those who believe they knew his intentions and by those who wanted them buried along with him. From the start, politicians – mostly on the right, including President Reagan and Senator Jesse Helms – opposed even making King’s birthday a national holiday. Arizona had to be threatened with the ultimate penalty of no Super Bowls, before they would accept the day. It’s also become a favorite day for the NBA to schedule afternoon games, but that seems to be the upper limit on MLK Day commercialization, and that’s a good thing. Those of us who are old enough might remember that January was traditionally the month when retailers would run sales on textiles that they labeled “White Sales.”

Can you imagine?

Over the past few years we’ve witnessed terrible incidents where African-American men, women and children were unjustly killed by the police, unnecessarily fined to the brink of bankruptcy by corrupt public officials, and stopped by the police for reasons that white Americans don’t experience. And what is considered good news for African-Americans, that their rates of narcotics deaths is lower, is tragically caused by racism, as this article recounts:

There is a reason that blacks appear to have been spared the worst of the narcotic epidemic, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a drug abuse expert. Studies have found that doctors are much more reluctant to prescribe painkillers to minority patients, worrying that they might sell them or become addicted.
“The answer is that racial stereotypes are protecting these patients from the addiction epidemic,” said Dr. Kolodny, a senior scientist at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and chief medical officer for Phoenix House Foundation, a national drug and alcohol treatment company.

On the campaign trail, the Republicans continue to express their outrage that minorities are not working because white tax money is easily available to them in the form of public assistance and unemployment benefits. Their fealty to Donald Trump’s immigration scheme will doom them with a majority of Hispanic voters and they can’t win the White House with only White Votes. Their opposition to a fair minimum wage, infrastructure projects, labor collective bargaining rights and public schools really doesn’t allow for any middle class group to support them, much less those who have traditionally been marginalized in American society.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders is making his move in Iowa and New Hampshire and is now trying to appeal more to African-Americans, a group that Hillary Clinton has always done well with. Both of them have had problems with Black Lives Matter and their relative success could come down to the minority vote in southern states and northern cities. The Democrats cannot take the African-American vote for granted because the party has controlled many cities over the years, yet the schools have not improved, housing has not become more affordable, the minimum wage hasn’t helped and many jobs have fled the country.

Barack Obama’s election will have a lasting effect on this country, even as he is the victim of both overt and subtle racism on the part of many of his opponents. That he has served this country with distinction, morality, forthrightness and a stubborn streak that has forced his opposition to argue against fair treatment of all people, makes him a worthy representative of King’s legacy.

And this is why we need to have a holiday for Martin Luther King. It’s here to remind us that we will never live up to the true meaning of our founding documents as long as we treat people differently under the law, in the workplace and schools, and, most importantly, in our heads and hearts. I would urge you to add to your resolutions to lose weight and make more money, one that includes an action, an attitude change, or a commitment to act in King’s spirit and honor his words.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump News Politics

Ugliness in the Season of Beauty

I usually look forward to the December holidays because, for at least one month, people in the United States tend to he hopeful, helpful, optimistic and happy. They look backward at the year that was and take stock, and they look forward with anticipation at what the new year will bring.

This year, things are most certainly different. The terrorist attacks here at home and in France, Afghanistan, Iraq and other places have sapped some of the love and light from the season. We are a scared nation with no clear path forward. Want to brutally bomb Syria? An option. Want to send ground troops to Syria and Iraq? Another option. Want to create a coalition of American, European and Middle Eastern countries to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups? A third option. But none of these seem like THE option and they all involve terrible risks both overseas and at home.

President Obama has been steadfast in his insistence that we will not send masses of American troops to Syria or Iraq and I think that’s exactly the correct strategy for now. He has rightly been criticized for downplaying the ISIS threat and for not standing behind his threat to attack Syria if Assad used Chemical weapons, but most Americans do not want to see our men and women coming home in body bags. The old joke is that we shouldn’t elect anyone who actually wants to be president because it’s a terrible, impossible job. These are the times.

The focus on attacks from radical terrorists has overshadowed the home-grown terror that has also shaken the nation.  The killings at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs was quickly forgotten in the wake of San Bernardino, but both were shocking events by people who were motivated by hatred, a misplaced fanaticism, and unbending ideology. In both shootings, the perpetrators should never have been allowed to get their guns, but because we are rapidly making the Second Amendment more important than the First, more people will get guns and use them on innocent people.

The other event that is dampening the holiday spirit is the presidential election. The Republican candidates are falling over themselves to blame Muslims and immigrants for our problems and have created an atmosphere where attacks on American Muslims are rising, and overreactions to a school assignment in Virginia that led to the entire school system being shut down because a teacher asked her students to copy a passage from the Koran using calligraphy. Dangerous, inflammatory rhetoric has its consequences and we are now living those consequences.

The left also has its problems when it comes to these issues. Calls for safe spaces and trigger warnings on college campuses only serve to segregate students and ideas, making common cause that much more difficult. If a person doesn’t feel safe in the general population, that’s a problem that needs to be addressed head-on. The answer is not to provide areas where people can retreat to or have their ideological bubble re-inflated.

The unfortunate aspect of this particular racist, phobic spasm we’re living in now is that it’s a very American trait. In fact, it’s more a part of our history than acceptance of different people and ideas. We eventually do make room in our society for those we first shun and isolate, but it takes too long and we backslide far too often. One need only look at how African-Americans and Latinos are treated by police forces to understand just how much more work we need to do on justice, even as we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

We will eventually move forward as a country and I’m looking forward to a shift in tone from politicians and a shift in attitude from many of my fellow Americans. In the meantime, I wish you peace and joy, humility and introspection, thoughtfulness and forthrightness, love and honor. And let’s turn the ugliness around. Now.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Let’s Get This Straight: Donald Trump Will Not Be President

He won’t even be the Republican nominee in 2016.

Yes, I know, the New York Times just published a poll that has Trump high atop the GOP field and gaining strength as the one candidate who will keep us safe. He’s everywhere on cable and network news and is a constant topic of conversation on social media. Even Hillary Clinton has stopped dismissing him as a joke and is responding to his absurd claims. This is necessary for now because Trump will not go away on his own. He has to be shown the door and that will happen. It will be messy, but it will happen.

Why am I so sure about the Donald? Because he’s essentially an excellent salesman but a political fraud who knows how to sell himself, and he’s attached himself to a message and a persona that insulates him from criticism for saying outrageously xenophobic, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and just plain wrong things on a daily basis. What he has done marvelously well is to tap into the country’s fears about terrorism and he has accused the president of not only not doing enough, but of purposely allowing us to be vulnerable.

Trump doesn’t need to repeat the lie about Obama not being a citizen because he has better ammunition: the president is the problem, the other, the un-American, them. He’s also been able to reduce Jeb Bush to a quivering mass of jello, make fun of Marco Rubio’s youth, calls Ben Carson a know-nothing, and says that of course Chris Christie knew about the GW Bridge lane closings despite the fact that not one shred of evidence has been credibly produced that he did.

My question, then, is this: Is this what we want in a President? The answer is no.

The simple reason is that not even Donald Trump can continue to run his campaign this way. As soon as Trump stops saying vile things, he’s finished, because the truth is that he really has no platform, no singular idea other than hate, no economic plan, no foreign policy, no domestic policy and a lifetime of conflicting views on issues on which most Republicans will not ever compromise.

Right now he gets a pass at the debates because of the sheer number of GOP candidates still in the race. Come January, the real campaign begins and I’m assuming that Trump is not going to be prepared for it. Voters will want real answers for their economic problems and they’ll want details as to how Trump is going to carry out his plan to throw out 11 million people from this country and what it would take to barricade us so that other people can’t come in.

They’ll want to know what he wants to do with taxes, legal issues, health care and business policy. He’s said some things about these, but the media and the people will demand answers.  And he either won’t have them or he’ll give vague answers or he’ll do what he’s doing now about national security–he’ll try to fake it. This isn’t the midterm or the early semester quiz. It’s the final exam and Trump is going to fail.

In addition, as the GOP field narrows, Trump is going to need to say even more because there will be fewer voices to take up precious airtime. This is where he will falter because he will need to become less radical and say fewer provocative things. Trump has built his campaign on those two pillars. Once he stops, his reason for running will be gone. The Republican Party is hoping that this happens in January before he can do real damage. I’m not sure the party will get its wish, but ultimately the balloon will deflate.

I’ve certainly been caught off-guard by Trump’s durability and political stamina. It’s delayed the ascent of a viable candidate and will only hurt the GOP for as long as his campaign lingers.

But rest assured my fellow Americans, Donald Trump will not be elected president in 2016. And for that, we can be thankful.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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