Jennifer Rubin abandons the Republican Party

"Surely there is a sufficient body of people in the center-right who are entirely and thoroughly disgusted with the existing GOP. The once Grand Old Party has come to embody the heinous qualities that liberals unfairly attributed to all Republicans (e.g. hostile to women, the poor and immigrants) and as a political matter has atrophied and accommodated itself to charlatans, snake-oil salesmen and alt-right bigots. Don’t try to reason with this crowd; just up and go."

"Center-right Americans committed to a strong national security policy, free markets with a humane safety net and corrupt-free politics can just leave the GOP and start something new. No furrowed brows and sweating over whether to fire Reince Priebus would be needed. No need to figure out how to expel the evangelical charlatans who believe in nothing but their own power. No need to figure out how to keep talk-radio hecklers and fake Fox News figures from spreading nonsense and making the party dumber by the year. No need to wrest control of early primaries from states that favor fringe candidates."

"Plant a flag, announce your principles and then decide whom you want to invite. Save all the energy that otherwise would be wasted on another useless autopsy report and arguing with people who threw away every conviction to support Trump."

"Instead, these refugees from the GOP can draft a simple statement rejecting the politics of division, misinformation, anger, racism and misogyny. They should not be shy about going on record to condemn the nomination of someone as patently unfit for public office as Trump. They should vow to support candidates of principle and good character."

"The charter for the New Party, or whatever it is called, should not be a laundry list of positions but rather a commitment to practice civil politics and to respect fellow Americans. Conservative habits — moderation, gradualism, tolerance, humility, rational balancing of conflicting concerns, respect for institutions that comprise civil society (from families to churches to volunteer groups) — should be front and center. It is these ideals and habits of mind, even more than issue positions, that will separate the New Party’s politics from the old Republican Party."

"Anti-intellectualism should be rejected as should the nostalgia for a bygone America that never really existed. The new movement must embrace modernism — which, yes, entails a global economy, a diverse American population, a refusal to cut ourselves off from the world and a commitment to government reform of the tax code, anti-poverty measures, criminal justice, immigration, education, health care, etc. The New Party cannot blow on the embers of the Reagan Revolution in a vain effort to rekindle a 40-year-old flame."

Link to Column

Anger is Very Tiring

I don't know about you but I am mentally exhausted by this campaign.  While watching the NLCS be won by the Cub's for their first championship in 71 years, I was subject to Donald Trump PAC advertisements slamming Hillary with falsehoods that were deemed to be falsehoods months ago.

Of course, this is all in support of a guy who spouted Birthism for years and is still reluctant to admit that he was wrong about any number of lies that he has promulgated.

Which only makes me more exhausted.  We have the future spectacle that the House of Representatives will be controlled nominally by the GOP, but in reality will likely be in the control of the Freedom Caucus which will have the sole goal of stopping a President Clinton of accomplishing anything.

The only path I can see for this not to happen is for Clinton II to govern from the middle and provide some cover to the few moderate Republicans who are interested in solving the problems that have caused such anger to boil over in Trumpism.

But what I am really wondering is how can the collective totality of the GOP sustain this anger at Democratic Presidents.  They have been angry with President Obama for over 7 years.  They are building themselves up to be angry with President Clinton II for the next 4 years.

While I have been upset with the GOP's intransigence for the last 7 years, I cannot sustain the anger that they can.  And I don't know how they do it.  They must be as mentally exhausted as I am.

And while most of my readers are in other countries, I urge my U.S. readers to get out and vote for Democrats across the board because we need to undo GOP gerrymandering in many state legislatures.

FINALLY!! Mohamedou Ould Slahi is Home.

In 2002, Mohamedou Ould Slahi was working and living near his parents in Mauritania.  He received a request to appear at the police station, which he complied with, was arrested, handed over the CIA, jailed in Jordan, Afghanistan and finally Guantanamo.  He was accused of being in Al Qaeda because he had fought in Afghanistan when the U.S. provided funding to the anti-communist mujahedeen.  So he was on our side.  Later in Germany, he crossed paths with one of the 9/11 bombers, and he happened to be in Canada at the same time as some other unsuccessful atrocity was unraveled, but he was never implicated in that original investigation.  In fact, other than coincidences, he was never implicated in anything anti-American or anti-Europe.

Yet, somehow, the CIA under Bush II/Cheney/Rumsfeld decided he had to be locked up in Guantanamo for 14 years and subject to torture.  And it has taken the Obama Administration almost 8 years to get him released.  I don't understand what took so long.  He should never have been locked up.

Fortunately, Mohamedou is educated.  He is a trained Electrical Engineer.  He learned English in captivity.  He wrote a book that was published about his captivity.  The book has been optioned for a movie.  So he has hope for a future after his torture.  Particularly because Mauritania is a poor country and a simple life can be lived on very little.  He hopes to write more books and perhaps start a business.

Shame on the government for holding him for 14 years. Thank goodness the rest of us have Habeas Corpus rights.

Finally, a comprehensive plan to address income inequality and provide hope

This is from an article by Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, which Google tells me is a conservative think tank.

"This requires a generational strategy to build an education system based on innovation, school choice and an emphasis on vocational training.  It means rewriting tax and regulatory law to stop discouraging domestic investment and squelching job creation, while also attacking corporate cronyism that gives special treatment to wealthy and entrenched interests.  It demands authentic compassion for people on the periphery of society."

I would add to that comprehensive tax reform that lowers our corporate tax rate to 15%, but does away with other tax expenditures that reduce the taxes below that rate for firms that benefit from such largesse.  The reason I support that is multi-national companies can locate jobs anywhere.  That is the level many other countries use to tax corporations.  If we make taxes neutral, the only influences on plant location will be costs, demand distribution and transportation costs from location to demand.  Taxes will not be a consideration.

Both Political Parties Need to Create Hope

Reading way too much about the state of the election campaign I uncovered a glimmer of truth.  Many Trump supporters want change in Washington D.C.  And even though Trump is campaigning on more trickle down economic and tax cuts for the rich, they believe that an outsider is needed to bring about change in policy that is not working for them.   They don't connect the dots between globalization and automation that have lead to their economic stagnation and that trickle down economics will not have any effect on those trends.  What Trump does not connect on is breaking  trade agreements and disrupting manufacturing doesn't undo the effects of automation or supply chains and he will not be able to help these people with his policies.

I have long written that I don't have a solution, but I know there are think tanks out there with people who understand how policies effect people and there must be some good ideas there.

I can see RedStateVt fuming that I am advocating more income redistribution, but that is not the case.  The dependency economy is one of the things that people are angry about, even those who benefit from it and rely upon it.  People want to work.  Many of the most angry, however, don't want to move to find work.

So there must be something done about job creation and wage stagnation and the distribution of employment around the country.  That would involve state policies perhaps more so than federal policies.  But something must be done to create hope, because when you don't have hope, you allow a tyrant to stoke fear and gather votes.

Two columns this morning provide insights around this.

David Leonhardt on how stagnation creates anger

David Brooks on the damaged psychological make up of Trump



And just when I thought I could get on with my day, I read the following on how unfit the current GOP is to lead any part of the government.

No Profiles of courage in the GOP

Finally, someone agrees with me. GOP must renounce talk radio

Donald Trump is the result of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and any number of other burn the bridges down and never ever discuss compromise with the Democrats.  They have promulgated lie after lie after lie and they provided the license for ordinary people to believe Donald Trump's behavior was tolerable because these radio show hosts are hero's to these people and they support Donald Trump.

Link below.


Thank You Michael Gerson

The NYT explains why this time is different and GOP office holders are abandoning Trump

Link to article

We will see if the voters agree in sufficient numbers to end this nightmare of a candidacy.

Of course, we will still be dealing with the likes of Ted Cruz and the Freedom caucus so I will not expect a return to the rational politics of compromise.

The far bigger question is how this party that claims to represent family values ever nominated this unfit boorish individual.

There are so many reasons to vote against Donald Trump that it really makes me wonder if Democrats remain believers in the rights of individuals (AS THEY SHOULD AND MUST) that they can ever get the 30% to 35% of the electorate that supports Trump to vote for them.  I think that segment of society is so caught up in their circularity of argument that they are permanently lost and dangerous to society.

On the other hand, as a book reviewer writes into today's NYT review of books about African American GOP members, the GOP was the preferred party of African American's as it was Southern Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Bills and Northern Republican's who supported it.  But Johnson got the Civil Rights bill passed, Nixon & Reagan pursued their southern strategy of converting those southern Democrat's to Republican and moderate GOP people lost elections to either more conservative GOP people in primaries or Democrat's in general

But the real reason I am writing about this is the following truism that is written in the review.

"and they agreed that black Americans would do best when both parties were competing for their votes"

That truth is critical for all voters and politicians to remember.  It is hard when the country is so partisan, the primaries more important to many than the general election because of gerrymandering, and the issues (guns, abortion, immigration, trade, Global Warming, Supreme Court) so black and white in different directions; that for politicians to appeal to the other side or voters who believe in the other side voting to make their voice heard and represented by those politicians difficult to imagine.

That is not a situation that I think will be overcome easily without ending gerrymandering and increasing the importance of general elections over primaries.

The Intelligent People Created Donald Trump

With a bit of ego, I will admit that I think of myself as an Intelligent person.  Not a genus, but I can compete in the world of thought.

But when you read Roger Cohen's list of all the social and economic trends that have created the opportunity for a narcissist like Trump to get 40% of the voter's support you realize that policies (of both the GOP and the Democrats) over the last 50 years are responsible for the position we are in.  And if we had certain policies that this substantial minority want in place, you would have an equal amount of anger on the left and in the minority community.  But reading the column what I realized is that people who get left behind get angry before they depart and we are dealing with the unintended consequences of polices I thought were settled a long time ago and were basic operating procedures for the U.S.A.

Link to Roger Cohen who says it better than I do


Meanwhile David Brooks discusses the concept of citizenship and how Trump is an example of how a complete focus on greed within policy undermines citizenship.  Since this is where the tax cutting GOP slaves to Grover Norquist function it is an interesting link.  After all, the GOP thinks they are more patriotic than the Democrat's are, yet it is GOP policies that are undermining the concept of citizenship.

Of course, I am of a generation that was deeply affected by the Vietnam War.  It's not that I think ill of men who went there, I have met many who did and am amazed by some the brave things they did and then there are all the ones I have not met.  But my dismay at the futility of sending troops to fight an enemy that can blend in with the people who are supposedly on our side has reduced my fervor for honoring some of the symbols of patriotism.  My dismay at the way the government can obfuscate reality and send troops in harm's way eliminates any unquestioning attitude I might have had when it comes to saying "Yes Sir, What do you want me to do?"  And when the police (who have every reason to be afraid for their lives) go killing unarmed African American men, I understand that such self-identifying people might not want to honor the symbols of the government that is not protecting them.

This is a complicated subject, so I will let you read David Brook's column and you can see where your thoughts go.  Fortunately, there are responsible ways in which I do behave as a citizen.

Link to David Brooks column