Farm Implements and Rutabagas

Sea Hag by Elzie Segar

And now for something completely different, a poem:  Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape by John Ashbery.  (Please follow the link for the full text).  It's a sestina, a complex form in which six selected words are repeated six times each at the end of a line in a prescribed rotating order in six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three line envoi using all six words.  The repeated words in Ashbery's poem are thunder, apartment, country, pleasant, scratch and spinach.  Don't miss the poet's reading of it here.

The dumbed down Popeye of the 1950s as spokes-sailor for the humanities-industrial complex

Enter Stage Left

2016 Democratic Primary Results by Primary and by Convention Roll Call (source: Wikipedia)

Last week, Bernie Sanders of Vermont declared his candidacy for the 2020 US presidential election.  As in 2016, rather than bypass the primary process and run as an independent (as Starbucks billionaire and political dilettante Howard Schultz says he will do),  Sanders, who has caucused with the Democrats for as long as he has held national office, has again entered the Democratic race.  As in 2016, the candidacy of this unapologetic Democratic Socialist is a thrill for many, a muddle for some, and a threat to an influential group of others.  What the muddled and the threatened have in common (other than perhaps unfinished business with regard to events of 2016) is an argument that perhaps the Democratic race should be confined to actual Democrats.

An example of this is this brief commentary by John Stoehr at Washington Monthly.  The title of the piece is the first sentence:

Bernie Sanders is still not a Democrat. Now that the independent senator has made his run for president official, that fact bears repeating. When you want the nomination of a political party, your commitment to that party matters, especially to its members who are going to select their nominee.

Because Sanders is not a Democrat, he must find a coalition outside the party that is of two minds: those who are attached to the Democratic Party for arbitrary reasons, and those who are hostile to it. I’m not talking about Democrats who want the party to go in new directions. I’m talking about voters with weak ties to the party, who may have a history of supporting its nominees, but who are generally hostile to the very idea of political parties.

The kernel of Stoehr's argument is in this paragraph:

I could be wrong, but I don’t think there are enough voters outside the party who want what Sanders is selling. If there are, I don’t think they are as mobilized as Democratic partisans in the current anti-Donald Trump climate. Partisan commitments are categorical. I suspect there aren’t enough voters inside the party to lift Sanders to the nomination, because, really, why vote for him when you can vote for [Elizabeth] Warren? 

Shouldn't we welcome the opportunity to give primary voters the chance to answer that question for themselves?

I'm not a political scientist, but it seems counterintuitive to me to say that there is not a constituency for Bernie Sanders' message either inside or outside the Democratic party, presumably drawing voters in.  Using data from Wikipedia on the 2016 Primary, I created the table below.  Recalling that there was a concerted effort against Sanders on the part of party officials in the primary to such a degree that when it was outed by Wikileaks in the heat of the Democratic National Convention in July it forced the resignation of the head of the DNC following Clinton's nomination, Sanders' performance was extraordinary.

2016 Democratic Primary Results

		Clinton		Sanders
Primary Results	Primaries won (Convention roll call-- NH declared a tie)	34  (40)	59.65% (70.17%)	23  (14)	40.35% (28.07%)
	Votes Cast (excluding results of closed caucuses and non-binding primaries)	16,847,084	55.20%	13,168,222	43.14%
Votes Cast in Primaries by Primary Type* (percentages are of votes cast for either Clinton or Sanders) *excludes caucuses	Semi-open	696,681	56.55%	535,395	43.45%
	Open	6,363,700	57.13%	4,776,063	42.87%
	Semi-closed	4,942,794	53.42%	4,310,674	46.58%
	Closed	5,177,733	58.70%	3,643,322	41.30%
	Totals	17,180,908	56.43%	13,265,454	43.57%
Delegates	Delegates needed to win nomination	2,382
	Pledged Delegates (from Primary Votes)	2,271	55.51%	1,820	44.49%
	Unpledged (Super-)Delegates (Party VIPs)	571	92.69%	45	7.31%

In spite of Clinton's inevitability* going into the race, Sanders acquitted himself repeatedly.  He performed equally well in open and in closed primaries (i.e., those in which registered voters of any party are able to vote for their choice of Democrat versus those in which only  registered Democrats may vote for the nominee.)  Tellingly, the map of wins by state reveal a North South polarity with Sanders making almost a clean sweep across the open primary states of the north including what turned out to be the all-important Wisconsin and Michigan, compared to the familiar coastal-landlocked polarity of the general election. Sanders, who takes no corporate money, did worst among the unpledged Super delegates-- the party apparatchiks and VIPs beholden to the moneyed interests that donate heavily to Democratic war chests to keep its agenda in the center.  His performance in general voting belies the notion that voters ostensibly selecting their preferred Democratic nominee rejected Sanders' strictly on the basis of his Independent affiliation.  Sanders' presence on the Democratic ballot was considered a novelty at the time, but it provided a bookend to the hiatus from politics as usual that Donald Trump's steamroller represented on the hyper crowded Republican end of the spectrum.  Something was in the water.

Sanders is going into the 2020 race with a great deal of momentum carried over from his 2016 effort as his record breaking fundraising on the day of his announcement demonstrated.  By many accounts if Joe Biden enters the race, the very wide field will narrow quickly to essentially just the two.  Setting aside my own violent intestinal reaction to the idea of Joe Biden (busing opponent, plagiarist, mandatory drug sentencing proponent, Clarence Thomas enabler, Thurmond and McCain acolyte, constituent glommer) as nominee let alone president, if he insists on running why shouldn't he, too, be given a run for his money in the rigorous trial by primary and caucus that Sanders is volunteering himself for.

This is the delicate dance that must happen in primary season.  The perpetual tension between the party old guard and challenges to the status quo from the upstart avant-garde seem always to favor those whose "time has come", whose "dues have been paid"-- the hand-picked, the inevitable-- over fresh blood, new ideas and threats of actual change that matters, but primary season is a waste of time if it doesn't infuse each campaign with the dreams of its constituents.  The American political system is a two party system-- all other voices are shut out after Labor Day when all that are left are the two major party nominees from whom only one will be chosen by voters in November and the spoilers for the one who will lose.  The system is resistant to change and yields almost no opportunity for coalitions to be forged.  This hardly mattered when business as usual was good enough.  Now the stakes are too high for partisan politics to trump (pardon  the expression) voting for the future of the planet.  Partisan politics is nothing more than an obstacle to the task at hand, and sadly it's all that we have to work with.

Perhaps Bernie Sanders has found a way around this. The party lost me for 20 years starting in the Bill Clinton years due to a steady course of triangulation, stagnation, corruption and retreat from progressive action.  Bernie Sanders brought me back.

(Source: Wikipedia)

~~~~~

* There is undoubtedly lingering (misplaced) resentment directed at Bernie Sanders and his supporters for what happened after Clinton won the nomination.  For a vivid analysis of why democrats would do well to learn from what Clinton herself could have done to tighten the screws on her own campaign (regardless of any and every force-- real or imagined-- beyond her control you could name that was against it) and why failure to do so is asking for a repeat of history in 2020, this lengthy piece by Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs rewards the read. 

Who's afraid of Virginia?

Mark Herring, Ralph Northam and Justin Fairfax

It may be hard to believe but unspeakable (as heck) holds almost no sway over political outcomes in Virginia, a state we do not reside in.  Nevertheless, we feel compelled to speak about recent developments in the commonwealth in an effort to attempt to shine some light on the significance and implications of an absurdly chaotic series of unfortunate events in recent days.  At this writing, we don't know how we feel about it, but we hope to correct that through the application of our patented method of reasoning and crafting of pleasing sounding sentences in the service, we hope, of getting at truth in some measure, however ugly or inconvenient.

As a refresher, Ralph Northam won a surprisingly decisive victory over republican Ed Gillespie in the 2017 Virginia gubernatorial election, in what many saw as a referendum on Trump a year into his presidency.  Northam had openly made a case for himself as an anti-Trump in political ads throughout the campaign (in one of which he famously referred to the president as a "narcissistic maniac"), and in response, Trump had heavily endorsed longtime Republican operative Gillespie in typical fashion, on Twitter.   Gillespie himself had not so subtly taken the side of the Charlottesville white-supremacists (and the dog-whistler-in-chief) on the question of preserving confederate statues in Virginia.  In an election that had the highest voter turnout in 20 years, Northam defeated Gillespie by nearly 9 percentage points, 53.9% to 45.0%.   More than 33% in exit polls said their vote was in protest of Trump, versus less than 20% who reported their vote to be cast in support of the new president.  Northam received more than 80% of the African American vote-- an increase from the prior gubernatorial election. 

A year later, it's clear that Northam has made good on his promise with several initiatives: most notably expansion of Medicaid and raising of the minimum threshold for grand larceny in the state from $200 to $500 (a small move with big positive consequences for the state's most desperate citizens).  In keeping with the theme of decriminalizing poverty, initiatives for 2019 include relaxing of marijuana laws, and strengthening and expanding arenas in which women can exercise choice in family planning.  In December Northam released a budget increasing financial aid and tuition grants and requiring schools in Virginia to adhere to standards ensuring predictability in raising tuition.  Also included was increased expenditure on affordable housing and funds earmarked for legal and rent assistance to reduce Virginia's eviction rate, one of the highest in the nation.  In essence, his administration has been vigilant in keeping the needs of Virginia's poorest on the agenda-- vindicating the hopes of those who elected him. This is in the state that gave us the confederacy, George Mason University and the cruelly ironically named "public choice economics."  This is in the state that rather than integrate schools as mandated by the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board decision in the 1950's closed public schools where that could happen for up to five years.

For this reason, the stealth reveal of racist content on Northam's 1984 Medical School yearbook page (discovered by the Breitbart affiliated pro-Trump Republican propaganda outlet out of North Carolina, Big League Politics-- conveniently and probably not coincidentally in the heat of debate on a bill to roll back invasive requirements for women seeking abortions in Virginia behind which Northam was throwing his support and his nuanced medical expertise) produced the expected reaction: public outrage, shock and dismay, and rapidly escalating calls for Northam's resignation most notably from nearly every major democratic figure in Virginia including Virginia's first and so far only African American governor, democrat Douglas Wilder as well as Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, the African American democratic leader who first recruited Northam to run for office.  And so it should have-- the photo appearing directly under his name was of someone (was it Northam?) dressed as an outrageously racist stereotype in blackface glad-handing with someone (Northam?) in Ku Klux Klan robes, drinks in hand.  Northam apologized within hours for his poor judgment in appearing in the photo although he did not say which figure was him.  His backpedaling on appearing in the photograph the next day did not help his case which was further murked up by his admission that while not in the photo on his yearbook page he had worn blackface to impersonate Michael Jackson on another occasion later that year in order to enter a dance contest performing a moonwalk.  Northam was 24 when his medical school yearbook was issued and 25 at the time of the dance contest.  By all accounts, whether he was in the yearbook photo or not, the photo was likely submitted for inclusion on his page, under his name by Northam himself.  If true, who can fathom the reason?

It was not difficult to see the day the story broke that perhaps Northam's past had justifiably caught up with him in a way that necessitated his resignation from office.  Northam, a privileged child of the Eastern shore of Virginia (like so many in the south, rich and poor, the great great grandson of a slave owner as he reportedly discovered only recently when his father had the family's genealogy done) graduated as salutatorian from Virginia Military Institute in 1981, and followed that with 3 years at Eastern Virginia Medical School of notorious yearbook fame*.  He served in the army for 8 years afterward, retiring after serving in the Gulf War in 1991, during which he tended to the wounded at Landstuhl Regional Medical Facility in Germany.  On returning to the states he practiced as a pediatric neurologist at Johns Hopkins, specializing in epilepsy.  He describes himself as apolitical throughout this period, by way of explaining votes cast for George W Bush in 2000 and 2004 prior to running for public office for the Virginia State Senate for the first time, as a Democrat in 2007.   Perhaps he accepted the call from the party to run as a  Democrat for strategic reasons since he was unopposed in his first primary, however if so, the strategy paid off in that he defeated his Republican 2-time incumbent opponent by nearly 10% his first time out.  From the start he pursued liberal legislation with a great deal of success.  His ascent through Virginia politics thereafter was rapid, culminating in a term as Lt Governor under his predecessor in the Governor's office Terry McAuliffe before Northam's successful gubernatorial candidacy in 2017.

Calling for Northam to resign when his voluntary resignation was not forthcoming was a no-brainer on Saturday when that meant handing the office to his Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax, who would be Virginia's second African American governor.  But by Monday evening a story had broken, again on Big League Politics that hinted almost unambiguously that Fairfax had forced Vanessa Tyler, now an associate professor of politics at Scripps College in Claremont, California, to perform oral sex on him in 2004 during the Democratic National Convention in Boston.  Fairfax denied the allegation.  The Washington Post had been given the story in 2018 but been unable to corroborate it.   However on Friday a second woman alleged that Fairfax had raped her when both were students at Duke University in 2000.  Now both Northam and Fairfax looked done for in Virginia politics.  Almost before anyone had a chance to recognize that next in the line of succession was Attorney General Mark Herring, Herring volunteered a confession and an apology that he himself had made a poor decision as 17 year old high school student to wear black face and a wig to impersonate rapper Kurtis Blow at a party.

If it sounds like a Republic dream come true it's because to a large extent it is.  Should Northam, Fairfax and Herring all be forced to resign (or be removed) from their offices, the next in line for Governor would be Kirk Cox, speaker of the Virginia House and a Republican.  While Virginia's constitution stipulates that a governor cannot succeed him or herself, Cox being unelected would most likely be allowed to run for the office 'for real' at the end of his term and if successful would have the longest incumbency of any modern Virginia governor.  (It's interesting to note that Kirk Cox was chosen by chance as speaker when he tied with another Republican in votes for the job and his name was pulled out of a hat to decide the matter as required by House procedures.)

So the question at hand is should Northam resign? As of this writing, the governor appears to have decided for himself that the answer is no, but the matter feels far from settled.  Republicans of course are gleefully rubbing their hands over the possibility of a trifecta-- in essence a coup by attrition-- in Virginia.  On a recent Bill Maher, former Georgia Congressman and current Trump mouthpiece Jack Kingston suggested that there might be hypocrisy in Democrats giving Northam a pass on a racist yearbook photo when Brett Kavanaugh was called on questionable behavior in his past in his nomination process for a Supreme Court seat,  (never mind that his nomination was pushed through in spite of the damning testimony against him). But, Kavanaugh's behavior was not merely offensive.  Kavanaugh's behavior had actual victims.  And while Kavanaugh's judicial behavior demonstrates that his professional attitudes remain stunted at his high school mentality, Northam's legislative accomplishments and goals speak of growth and reform. It isn't up to me, and that is how it should be.  But I'm inclined to agree with Dahleen Glanton of the Chicago Tribune that in this case, the political motives of those outing Northam's past should not be shrugged off as irrelevant.

But let's ask the people of Virginia what they think.  A Washington Post poll tonight indicates that Virginians are evenly split (47% to 47%) on whether he should remain in office.  Tellingly, while whites narrowly favor Northam's departure (48% to 46%), African American Virginians are strongly in favor of Northam remaining in office by 58% to 37%.

Not quite so open and shut to those to whom it matters most.
~~~~~
* Eastern Virginia Medical School's wikipedia page reports a tradition of raucous collegiality among the small student body including a custom of dressing up in costume according to theme on Match Day each spring, when the graduating class receives notification of where they will be spending their residencies.  The tradition was ended by the school in 2016.  Furious searching has failed to turn up the theme for Match Day 1984.

Heat

On a recent Real Time with Bill Maher (the one that concluded with the New Rules segment in which Maher mocked the immaturity of our culture's current obsession with superheroes and comic books), the conversation turned to a recurring topic: Maher's own very grown up and mature pastime of dope smoking.  In particular, he was getting exercised about where presidential contenders stand on the issue of decriminalization.  Moreover he was proposing a contrasting litmus test for Democratic candidates on the legality of pot with the long established sacrosanct Republican candidates' required stand on gun control:  to be for decriminalization Maher proposed should be as reflexively Democratic as being against gun control is Republican.  Maher was drawing a line between what the progressive left electorate is willing to defend and protect ownership of and the counterpart obsession of the right.  On the right, it's an as yet still legal implement that makes loud noises and big holes.  On the left, it's a not fully commercially legal consciousness-expanding vegetable.

It does not have to be this way.

Guns don't vote for republicans, people vote for republicans.  I modestly propose that the left stop doing to gun owners whenever there is a mass shooting what bigots do to muslims whenever there is an act of terrorism.  Don't force gun owners to choose sides.  There's nothing particularly right wing about gun ownership.  It's a passion.  It's a thrill.  It is and should be a right.  It is not unreasonable to believe guns to be the first thing a tyrant will try to take away from his subjects.  Gun ownership is an American prerogative to a greater extent than in most countries in the world.  Most gun owners practice it exceedingly responsibly.  You don't like comic books, pot or guns?  (I'm not particularly excited by any of them.)  Okay, don't purchase them. But learn to live and let live with our brothers and sisters who do.  Don't take it from me, take it from Michael Render, aka Bernie Sanders supporter Killer Mike.

If you dig deep enough you will find agreement among many gun owners that society should find ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who intend to do harm with them.   But too often the conversation is diverted by misplaced disrespect of what for many is merely an enthusiastically pursued hobby that is honestly come by and for others a way of life-- in essence shutting out expert voices from the conversation toward a real solution.  The results of this polarization speak for themselves.

I am not naive about the focus of many gun aficionados on over-zealous self-defense and undue antagonism toward perceived enemies, of whom many are among the natural allies of the most uncompromising gun control advocates on the left.  But I'd think we'd want fewer armed opponents, not more.  If anything we don't need to antagonize those who are beyond the pale.  Ideally, we should be finding common cause with those whose gun ownership is not tethered to regressive ideology.

This is not just a contrary stance.  I'm beginning to think it's a matter of survival.  There are forces that love to divide the people from each other.  These forces which comprise less than one tenth of one percent of humanity have vast resources and materials at their disposal.  Their wealth far surpasses that of the bottom half of humanity.  But what they do not have is number.  In order to secure their own place at the top of the heap, they have put a tremendous amount of treasure in the service of keeping the other 99.9% divided.  The conversation around certain issues is designed to drive wedges between us, but few issues are more heated in the United States than gun control.  In my view this is low hanging fruit in the effort to remove barriers between us.   It just needs to stop.  The elites long ago learned that it's better for them to have an army on their side.  (Pot smokers, not so much.)  When will the left wake up to this and stop doing the work of the masters for them by chasing the armed into the enemy's court?

Global warming, the product of a surprisingly small number of the 1%,  will make the planet unlivable for pot smokers, gun owners, comic book collectors and the rest of us.  It's time we band together to try to forestall the inevitable, hopefully indefinitely, until we can figure out how to reverse the effects of carbon monoxide and methane emissions.   In this battle, the best weapon is unity.