While Donald Trump is “explaining”
his abandonment of the Kurds and overall nonsensical foreign policy as
“strategically brilliant” because the Kurds did not send troops to fight “with
us” in World War II, the Russians—who have been accused of war crimes for
deliberately bombing hospitals—are gratefully filling the void in Trump’s
brain. It should be pointed out that the Kurds did not then, nor do they have
now, their own state, so the stupidity of Trump’s claims—even if you “agree”
with the pull-out from Syria—only demonstrates that there is no rhyme or reason
to what he does. The Kurds were helping us beat back the threat of ISIS, which
was also destabilizing our “friend” Iraq and threatening to become a terrorist
threat around the world, so he can’t claim that he is making the country
“safer,” either, now that ISIS fighters have taken the opportunity to escape
imprisonment. But then again, the Department of Homeland Security has become
almost exclusively geared to counter the great “threat” of migrant families
escaping violence, which is the U.S.’ principle “export” to Central America.
Meanwhile, in its “winners and
loser” analysis of this past Democratic presidential debate last night, The Washington Post informs us that in its humble opinion,
Elizabeth Warren was the “winner” and Joe Biden was the “loser.” This isn’t
surprising, since this has been the paper’s and the media in general’s “analysis”
since the debating season began; one gets the “impression” that Warren is the
media favorite—including in its own way Fox News, with its trumpeting of Biden
conspiracy theories—for reasons that are not difficult to ascertain. It is a
bit hypocritical given that in 2016 the pro-Hillary media kept telling us that
Bernie Sanders was too far to the left to be elected. Sanders and Warren are
suddenly viable because Trump himself is just too far “out there” himself, but
Warren has that special “something” that the media likes: she is a woman, and
once more you have the fans out there who are going to ignore her “issues” with
little things like telling little “white” lies and such, and accuse anyone who
doesn’t support her to “misogynist,” “sexist” and what have you. Also ignored
is the uncomfortable fact that there are an awful lot of white nationalist
female voters out there—the kind that were less interested in creating
“history” in 2016 than in voting for someone who gave voice to their race hate
and paranoia.
So, despite the fact that it
admitted that Warren repeatedly declined to expand “concept” into detail—preferring
to posit upon the personal effrontery of it all—the Post (and others, like CNN) still deemed her the “winner” for the
simple reason that because she was under assault for her views for much of the
debate, this indicated that she must be the “frontrunner,” and thus this was a
“boost” for her campaign. In her favor, she is doing what Clinton failed to do
in 2016, which was to “speak” to disaffected white working class voters and
making this a “class” struggle against moneyed interests, which of course makes
her no friend of Wall Street and its campaign cash. But so was everyone else on
the debate stage to one degree or another, so it was incumbent upon her as the
media-anointed “frontrunner” to go beyond what she is “against” and explain
what she is “for”—which admittedly was a problem for everyone on the stage, save
for Beto O’Rourke, who has not been “shy” about talking about what he is actually for on many pressing problems in this country, such as in regard to "hot button" issues like gun violence and immigration.
Perhaps the intent of the
pro-Warren media has been successful in
putting into the minds of some voters that she is the most “viable” candidate
available, and people like to jump on bandwagons; she still hasn’t proved that
she can pull in black voters in Southern states, but we we’ll find out when the
primaries actually begin. But the truth (I know, it’s a tough word to get
around) is that Warren was a “target” because she has some very real issues
with that pesky little thing called the “truth,” just as Hillary Clinton did.
Although she wasn’t confronted directly about her recent attempts to rewrite
history to remake herself as one of the “little people” who had to overcome
“adversity” and gender discrimination, anything she had to say on the issue
would have been all hogwash anyways; her path was and has been greased because
of the advantages that a politically correct society provided her.
It is all fine and dandy to
present yourself as a “fighter” for the working people; as Charles Foster Kane
explained to Wall Street banker and childhood guardian Mr. Thatcher, “If I
don’t look after the interests of the underprivileged, maybe somebody else
will, maybe somebody without money or property, and that would be too bad”—that
is, for him and other people who have been doing well while others are not
doing so good. Warren doesn’t have anything on her resume like Sanders, who as
a young crusader was arrested in Chicago for his participation in a civil
rights protest; Warren can only point to made-up stories about how she was
allegedly a “victim” because of her gender.
It was hard to see Warren as
“winning” the debate when she repeatedly refused to add “meat” to the bare
bones of her ideology. Some commentators have suggested that this actually
“helps” her to avoid too much scrutiny; some have even likened her to Trump,
who feeds into people’s fears and paranoia, and this “fills” them without
regard to its “fat” content. On the question of Medicare for all, Warren
avoided explaining how it would be paid for, yet Sanders to his credit was
upfront about it. Of course middle class people would be obliged to pay more in
taxes for it; what do they think—they are going to get something for nothing? Such taxes would take the place of the
premiums they would have paid for private insurance, and there presumably would
be the added benefit that there wouldn’t be any arbitrary denials of coverage
for the sake of profitability. Yet Warren could not even be straightforward about
something that should make complete sense to sensible people. It makes you think
that if push comes to shove, she will just lay down.
Still, as noted before most of
the candidates on the debate stage were like her, seeming to prefer to tell us
what they are against, rather than what they are for. For the time being, I’m
just going to wait to see how things shake out, but I can’t say I’m too hopeful for anti-Trump prospects in
2020. I’m not sure it is enough to beat Trump merely on “principle”; that might
actually be enough for many voters, but if you allow the enemy to conjure up nightmare
scenarios to define vague philosophies
on policy no matter how strongly felt, then matters of credibility, trust and anxiety
and such enter the picture.
The Democrats need to be showing
that they have serious, specific policies that contrast with the uncontrollable
chaos that is the Trump administration. Pointing out that targeted tax hikes
for Medicare for all directly benefits those who pay the tax with no BS from
private insurers, and the need to roll back the Republican tax bill whose only
economic impact has been to make the rich richer while decreasing the
government’s budgetary capacity to deal with a major economic downturns. They need
to put a human face on migrants seeking asylum in this country rather than
demonizing and dehumanizing them—and pointing out that their labor does matter
in maintaining this country’s economy. And the dangerous policies of the Trump
administration on a whole range of issues—like foreign policy, trade, the
environment—must be itemized so that people are made to understand why his
policies cause both short-term and long-term harm for this country; some
hardheads just have to have it beaten into their heads.
The danger of just telling what
you are against without explaining in some semblance of detail what you are
for, like the “frontrunner” Warren is doing, is that it allows the paranoid and
fearful to either invent their own “reality” about what a candidate is
proposing, or let Trump and his familiars do it. That might not happen until
someone on the Democratic side appears clear and free in the delegate count.
Michael Bloomberg is still around to muck things up, but if he decides to enter
the race as a Democrat instead of running as an independent, that might be what
is needed for the current crop to make up their minds what they are actually
for.
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