When Barack Obama took over as president in 2009, the global war on terror, or GWOT, just didn’t seem to fit the tenor of his “hope” and “change” message. So wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were rebranded as “overseas contingency operations.” Talk about the banality of evil! Even Orwell’s Big Brother might be impressed by OCOs as a substitute for invasion and war.
A euphemistic word Obama didn’t banish was “surge.” The “surge” in Iraq allegedly had worked under General David Petraeus, even though its gains proved as “fragile” and “reversible” as Petraeus hinted they would be. So Obama conducted his own surge in Afghanistan, the so-called good or smart war after the Bush/Cheney disaster in Iraq. And of course the “gains” in Afghanistan also proved both fragile and reversible, though no one was held to account for the miserable failure of the Afghan War. Whoops. I mean the Afghan contingency operation for democracy and enduring freedom.
Showing that he too could learn from America’s folly, Vladimir Putin termed his invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation.” U.S. leaders laughed at this, criticizing Putin for his propagandistic euphemism, even as they persisted in using terms like “overseas contingency operation” for America’s “kinetic” military actions. The eye of the beholder, I guess.
These thoughts came to mind as I perused my Twitter/X feed yesterday and spied this illustration posted by Chay Bowes:
Though the Russian flag is on the left, it could be the flag of China, Iran, North Korea, or any other alleged evildoer. The Russians invade, we intervene (for the sake of democracy, naturally). The Russians commit war crimes, we have unfortunate instances of collateral damage. In the war of the words, the U.S. military is clearly rather clever in a self-aggrandizing and self-exculpatory way.
Looking at comments from this Twitter feed, I came across another useful illustration of manipulating language and information in the cause of war. Take a gander:
I confess I’d never heard of Arthur Ponsonby and his book, Falsehood in War-Time. I need to check it out.
This may prove a handy list to keep around as America’s national (in)security state acts to gin up the next war.
Protesting genocide in Gaza gets you punished as layoffs and job losses loom for teachers
Two stories landed in my email inbox this morning that tell us something about the state of education in America. The first from The Boston Globe shows how students are being punished for protesting against genocide in Gaza:
Suspended MIT and Harvard protesters barred from graduation, evicted from campus housing
Dan Zeno’s suspension from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for participating in an encampment protesting the war in Gaza had a swift impact on his family’s life. The graduate student has not only been barred from classes, he was also evicted from campus housing, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, with just one week to find another place to live.
He is among the MIT students who won’t be graduating as planned or have lost income by having their fellowships canceled or have had their research projects halted.
And on Friday, Harvard University began suspending protesters. They were told they can’t sit for exams or participate in commencement or other school activities, and will be evicted from student housing.
That’s the way you handle “rebellious” students: make them homeless and perhaps even degree-less. Want to protest mass murder and famine? Prepare to be evicted and probably suspended, if not prosecuted. And this is happening in the “liberal” state of Massachusetts at “liberal-leftist” Harvard.
Schools like MIT and Harvard, having intimate connections to Israel and the military-industrial complex, as well as huge endowments, are corporations rather than schools of higher learning. And, as we learned from “Rollerball,” you are not to interfere with management decisions. Corporate boards at MIT and Harvard are pro-Israel, and so must you be, else keep your mouth shut and maybe we’ll let you graduate. Open your mouth and we’ll shut it for you.
The second story involves teacher and staff layoffs as federal subsidies related to COVID are set to expire at the end of September. A quick summary from CNN:
Schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts brace for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education. The money must be used by the end of September, creating a sharp funding cliff.
Too bad we don’t have any money after September for those teachers and staff. I guess we sent all the money to Ukraine and Israel. Priorities, people.
For a bit of inspiration, consider this student from the University of Chicago, who explains why stopping mass murder is more important than his career prospects:
He gets it right. I wonder how he’ll be punished? “Criminal trespass”? Suspension? Expulsion? Imprisonment?
Someone should compare the funding of police forces, with all their riot gear and weaponry, to the funding of teachers and staff in K-12 schools across America. I’m sure America’s politicians, if pressed to make a choice, will fund the police first and to the max. Teachers? Who needs them. Our students are learning invaluable lessons from the police, who are “teaching” them about Tasers, rubber bullets, tear gas, and other instruments of “higher” learning.
Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, again. That’s America’s choice in 2024.
Biden is mainly running to “save democracy” from Trump as well as on abortion rights. Trump is running on a MAGA platform that includes stopping the flow of “illegals” into America. You’re going to hear a lot about Biden’s age and Trump’s alleged designs for a dictatorship.
It’s Biden versus Trump again!
The presence of third-party candidates might enliven the race. Jill Stein is running again for the Green Party. She has good ideas but virtually no chance. Robert Kennedy Jr. may cause some excitement. especially if he chooses former governor Jesse Ventura as his running mate. Americans, unexcited by the Biden/Trump repeat, could conceivably vote in large numbers for RFK Jr.
As grim as the Biden/Trump repeat is, it does capture the end of the American empire. I’ve been reading an interesting book: “The Leading Man: Hollywood and the Presidential Image,” by Burton Peretti. Image may not be everything for a U.S. president, but it surely is vitally important. Biden and Trump capture something of the essence of America today. Biden, obviously in decline, is thoroughly obedient to corporate and banking entities, special interests like AIPAC, and the military-industrial complex. He is the “nothing will fundamentally change” guy.
If Biden were a dinosaur, he’d be a steady, stolid, past-his-prime triceratops.
Trump, with all his bluster, his boasting, his bragging, his bullying, is the image of a swaggering imperium that refuses to recognize its time has come and gone. Self-involved, bent on vengeance, spoiling for a fight against his enemies, real and perceived, he is the image of an angry America blinded by perceived slights and grievances, always demanding respect rather than earning it.
If Trump were a dinosaur, he’d be a predatory, angry, carnage-seeking T-rex.
Trump and Biden frame the other as a danger to democracy when it’s the both of them who demonstrate democracy is just a sham. More than half of Americans said in 2021 they didn’t want to see a Biden/Trump rematch in 2024, but here we are. The DNC acted to ensure Biden had no real challenger and the RNC sold its soul to Trump, who has an ability to connect with people because he occasionally blurts out an uncomfortable truth, even as he’s spinning his usual con.
One thing is certain: It’s very difficult to reform entrenched power bureaucracies, especially when we’re given an illusion of “choice,” Biden or Trump. And when we’re so heavily propagandized to believe that we still have a democracy and that the biggest threats come from Russia and China.
As Yoda the Jedi Master once said, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” America needs to unlearn the idea that we’re a democracy, that we have choice, and it needs to learn the biggest threat to America is from within, partly our largely unaccountable government and partly a system that places nearly all the power in the hands of those with the most money.
How to effect a democratic awakening, without shedding barrels of blood, is a question for the ages. One thing is certain: no awakening is coming from either Biden or Trump. Both will ensure the further decline of the American empire; the problem is that, as empires decline, they tend to lash out militarily, in desperation, mistaking military action for a resurgence in strength and vitality.
Biden or Trump: Neither man has what it takes to manage the decline of the U.S. imperium. Neither man has the wisdom, the vision, the fortitude, to imagine a new path forward for America. Both men, in their own way, are dinosaurs.
It’s Triceratops Biden versus T-rex Trump. What drama! But both men are fossils—dinosaurs, after all, are extinct, much like democracy in America.
Today is Super Tuesday in America, where sixteen states go to the polls, including mine. At the presidential level, the expected winners are Joe Biden and Donald Trump, setting up a grim rematch of their 2020 contest, won by Biden, who campaigned mostly in Covid lockdown from his basement.
Down in the basement, we hear the sound of machines …
The revolution America needs, of course, isn’t going to take place at the ballot box. The big money and powerbrokers make sure of that. The DNC has acted to ensure a one-horse race for Biden, as Marianne Williamson has noted. Biden should perhaps be put out to pasture, if not sent to the glue factory, but the horse is not dead yet. Even if it stumbles to the finish line in November, losing to Trump, that’s still a win for the DNC, whose main job it is to ensure no progressive Democrat ever wins the nomination. No matter who wins in November, with Biden the DNC has already won.
On the Republican side, Trump should win easily over Nikki Haley, who’s basically a younger female version of Biden when it comes to fighting wars, kowtowing to Israel, and serving Wall Street and big finance. A conundrum in American politics is that a Con Man is the most genuine mainstream “big party” candidate, the one most likely to blurt out uncomfortable truths.
Speaking of Con Man Trump, he said something the other day that was so outrageously Trump that I had to laugh. Naturally, it was about immigrants (recall in 2015 how Trump said Mexico was sending drugs, crime, even rapists, to America, but “some I assume are good people”). This time he hit a Trumpian home run describingthe languages young immigrants speak in New York schools:
“Pupils [come] from foreign countries,” Trump explained, “from countries where they don’t even know what the language is. We have nobody that even teaches it. These are languages that nobody ever heard of.”
Something about “languages that nobody ever heard of” tickled my funny bone. OK, maybe if these young people were from previously uncontacted tribes deep in the Amazon rain forest, or perhaps from the lost island of Atlantis…
I know, maybe it’s not that funny, but if I couldn’t laugh I’d go insane, to quote the late great Jimmy Buffett.
America desperately needs a new generation of leaders
President Biden sees dead people. Recently, Biden resuscitated François Mitterand, the former leader of France who died in 1996. He’s made references to Helmut Kohl as being Germany’s leader in 2021 (he died in 2017). Yesterday, he tried to reassure Americans his memory is just fine; it didn’t go well, as CNN reported this morning:
President Biden in a speech forcefully rejected what he said were inappropriate and incorrect statements about his memory lapses. But just minutes after defending his cognition, the president misspoke and called President of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the “president of Mexico,” a moment that undercut his forceful pushback against the report.
The report CNN is referring to is by a special counsel who investigated Biden’s illegal holding of classified information. The special counsel decided not to charge or prosecute Biden, partly because he believed a jury would sympathize with the president, seeing him as an old, forgetful man who probably made an honest mistake due to his deteriorating memory and cognitive skills.
Here’s how the British Guardian reported this yesterday:
Special counsel worried jurors would see Biden ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’
Special counsel Robert Hur wrote that he was concerned jurors would not believe that Joe Biden “willfully” kept classified documents, and that was one of the reasons why he does not think the president should face charges.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur writes.
“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Hur wrote that: “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully – that is, with intent to break the law – as the statute requires.”
Special counsel Robert Hur wrote that in an interview last year, Joe Biden struggled to recall key chapters in his personal and professional life:
In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
Biden’s lack of ability to remember things would make it hard to prosecute him, Hur said:
We also expect many jurors to be struck by the place where the Afghanistan documents were ultimately found in Mr. Biden’s Delaware home: in a badly damaged box in the garage, near a collapsed dog crate, a dog bed, a Zappos box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with duct tape, potting soil, and synthetic firewood.
A reasonable juror could conclude that this is not where a person intentionally stores what he supposedly considers to be important classified documents, critical to his legacy. Rather, it looks more like a place a person stores classified documents he has forgotten about or is unaware of. We have considered – and investigated – the possibility that the box was intentionally placed in the garage to make it appear to be there by mistake, but the evidence does not support that conclusion.
*************
Box of classified documents stored haphazardly in Biden’s garage (FBI photo, 12/21/22)
Now, it’s certainly possible that some of Biden’s memory lapses were tactical in nature, i.e. better to say “I don’t remember” rather than to lie or admit a mistake that could lead to criminal charges. Still, there’s been plenty of evidence, over the last several years, that Biden is under increasing mental and physical strain due to his age, not surprising for a president in his early eighties.
My criticism is not so much directed at Biden as the DNC and media sites like MSNBC that tell us that Biden is doing just fine, that he’s still on top of his game, that we shouldn’t worry at all about reelecting a president who would be 86 at the end of his term. That, based on the evidence before us, is total BS.
Also, my criticism of Biden and his age-related gaffes does not imply an endorsement of Trump. Far from it. Trump is no spring chicken; though four years younger than Biden, Trump has a family history of dementia and recently confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi.
Outspoken as usual, Caitlin Johnstone may have put it best: “A Dementia Patient Is President Because It Doesn’t Matter Who The President Is.” Real change in America will have to come from us. The so-called Deep State isn’t about to allow the election of anyone with fresh perspectives and a truly populist agenda.
America desperately needs a new generation of political leadership. Both Biden and Trump should be passing the torch to younger public servants who actually want to serve the working and middle classes. The rich, after all, can take care of themselves.
News that the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Trump is ineligible to be included on the presidential ballot due to his encouragement of and participation in “insurrection” during the January 6th Capitol riot is being greeted as tidings of comfort and joy in many quarters, especially among Democrats facing lengthening odds in the 2024 election. Is this the way to beat Trump: to bar him from the ballot due to his alleged crimes against the Constitution and the country?
Readers of Bracing Views know that I’m not a Trump supporter, nor for that matter do I support Joe Biden. Trump, I wrote back in March of 2016, disqualified himself from office when he boasted during a debate that U.S. troops would follow his orders irrespective of their legality. The man is most definitely an ignoramus and therefore is a menace to himself and to others.
That said, being an ignoramus is not disqualifying for the presidency.
After a swift appeal, I’d wager the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the decision of the Colorado Court, putting Trump back on the ballot. What then?
I think it’s relatively easy to defeat Trump in November 2024: run a candidate whose views and deeds correspond to the views and desires and priorities of the vast majority of Americans. The working and middle classes.
Cartoons like this one are frankly unconvincing
If I were a candidate for the presidency, and wanted to maximize my vote vis-a-vis Trump, here are a few things I’d support:
Higher wages for American workers. A hike in the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour.
Health care for all. Use the common wealth for common health.
“Free” college education at state colleges and universities. (By “free,” I mean subsidized at a tolerable level for students, with tuition and fees capped at $2000 a year.)
Legalization of marijuana for personal use across the USA.
Criminal justice reform that would greatly reduce the number of non-violent offenders held in prison.
Major reductions in military spending and a commitment to peace and diplomacy.
With the hundreds of billions saved from reductions in war spending, a major commitment to rebuilding American infrastructure, including the creation of a new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) tied to alleviating damage due to climate change.
An end to divisive rhetoric and talk of “deplorables” and “blue and red” America. A national celebration of and renewed commitment to the U.S. Constitution.
The salute of brave people willing to inform Americans of crimes being committed in their name. The return of Edward Snowden to America and a celebration of his patriotism and service to America. The pardon and release of Daniel Hale from prison. The dropping of all charges against Julian Assange. A commitment to freedom of speech, the press, and indeed of all Constitutional rights.
Privacy for the people; transparency for the government.
That’s ten positions that I believe would garner the support of a majority of Americans in the 2024 election.
The problem is that the main rival to Trump in 2024, Joe Biden, is a “nothing will fundamentally change” guy who lacks the will, energy, and wherewithal to motivate and unify the American people behind these and similar popular positions.
What does Biden have going for him? Well, he’s not Trump. That’s seemingly the beginning and the end of Democratic messaging. And it’s not enough. Which is why Democrats are so excited about the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling.
That court ruling isn’t going to stop Trump. What will stop Trump is a candidate of courage and conviction who truly wants to serve the people. All the people, equally. The obstacle to be overcome is a Washington establishment, including most especially the corporate owners and donors, the big money people, that is determined to block any candidate or any party that is truly dedicated to the Constitution and to the needs of the people writ large.
Another deadly police shooting of a black man led to this Wendy’s being torched in Atlanta. The Atlanta police chief has resigned.
W.J. Astore
Here are ten thoughts that have occurred to me lately.
Police are a nation within a nation (“the thin blue line”), with their own flag, their own uniforms, their own code of conduct, maybe even their own laws. How do we get them to rejoin America? How do we get them to recall they’re citizens and public servants first?
Our systems of authority, including the presidency under Trump, serve themselves first. They all want the same thing: MORE. More money, more authority, more power. And they all tend toward more violence. And because racism is systemic, much of that violence is aimed at blacks, but it’s aimed at anyone considered to be fringe or in the way.
We need an entirely new mindset or ethos in this country, but the police, the military, the Congress, the president are all jealous of their power, and will resist as best they can. Their main tactic will be to slow roll changes while scaring us with talk of all the “enemies” we face. Thus we already see Trump hyping China as a threat while claiming that Biden wants to “defund” the military — a shameless and ridiculous lie. Meanwhile, Biden is against defunding the police and proudly took ownership of the crime bill that created much of the problem.
We used to have a Department of War to which citizen-soldiers were drafted. Now we have a Department of Defense to which warriors and warfighters volunteer. There’s a lot of meaning in this terminology.
Even as the police and military are government agencies, publicly funded, they are instruments of capitalism. They protect and expand property for the elites. They are enforcers of prevailing paradigms.
It amazes me how cheaply one can buy a Washington politician. You can buy access for a few thousand, or tens of thousands, and get them to dance to your tune for a few million. This is capitalism, where everything and everyone can be bought or sold, often on the cheap.
Doesn’t it seem like Washington foreign policy is dropping bombs, selling bombs, killing people, or making a killing, i.e. profiteering?
America always need a “peer enemy,” and, when necessary, we’ll invent one. America is #1 at making enemies — maybe that should be our national motto.
Too often nowadays, “diversity” is all about surface or “optics.” Thus the call for Joe Biden to select a black woman as his running mate, irrespective of her views. Thus we hear the names of Susan Rice and Kamala Harris being mentioned, both mainstream Democrats, both servants of the national security state, pliable and predictable. But you never hear the name of Nina Turner, who was national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s campaign. She’s an outspoken black progressive, and that’s not the “diversity” Joe Biden and the DNC seek. Or what about Tulsi Gabbard, who has endorsed Biden? Woman of color, extensive military experience, lots of appeal to independent-minded voters. But she’s an opponent of forever wars and the military-industrial-congressional complex, and that’s “diversity” that cannot be tolerated. So we’re most likely to see a “diverse” ticket of Biden-Harris or Biden-Rice, just like Hillary-Tim Kaine, i.e. no progressive views can or will be heard.
One secret of Trump’s appeal: He makes even dumb people feel smart. After all, even his most stalwart supporters didn’t drink or inject bleach after Trump suggested it could be used for internal “cleansing” to avoid Covid-19.
Bonus comment: Can you believe that those who worked to suppress protests in Washington, D.C. compared their “stand” to the Alamo and the Super Bowl? Talk about Trump-level hyperbole! Here’s the relevant passage from the New York Times:
On Tuesday, during a conference call with commanders on the situation in Washington, General Ryan, the task force commander, likened the defense of Lafayette Square to the “Alamo” and his troops’ response to the huge protests on Saturday to the “Super Bowl.”
Mission accomplished! What’s on your mind, readers?
If ever there was a time to put aside partisan politics, you’d think it would be now, as the United States faces the COVID-19 virus. (When the American Mecca, Disney World, closes, you know times are tough.) Instead, partisan politics are raging, especially in the White House, as President Trump implausibly blames his predecessor, Barack Obama, for the chaotic response by the Trump administration. (Will “Crooked Hillary” be blamed next?)
Americans need to come together, and I think we are; Bernie Sanders gave a fine speech emphasizing science and teamwork as well as compassion and aid for those who lose their jobs and so on. We need a much better testing regimen and we need to give doctors and health care personnel the resources they need to do their jobs.
But as I read David Lauter (LA Times Essential Politics), I despaired at the games being played as America faces a serious health crisis. Here’s what Lauter had to say:
The Democrats have made clear what their line of attack will be: As Biden showed, they’re poised to say that while Trump didn’t cause the coronavirus outbreak, he made it worse by cutting government agencies designed to deal with epidemics and by refusing to take the advice of health officials and act aggressively to counter the illness when he could.
In his address to the nation Wednesday night, Trump repeatedly used rhetoric of a foreign invasion to describe the virus, as Noah Bierman wrote. His main policy response was to ban Europeans from traveling to the U.S., blaming them for having “seeded” many of the disease outbreaks in this country.
The speech did nothing to calm markets — indeed it roiled them further, as Bierman and Eli Stokols wrote. But it did provide a preview of Trump’s likely path.
Since the first moments of his astonishing political rise, with his opening blast against Mexican rapists, Trump has campaigned against immigrants and foreigners. And, despite much talk about blue-collar workers voting for him because of economic distress, the overwhelming weight of evidence is that opposition to immigration, concern about the changing demographics of the country and a belief that white Americans face discrimination form the biggest factors in predicting a person’s support for Trump.
In 2018, faced with the prospect that Republicans would lose control of the House, Trump tried to turn the election into a referendum on the supposed threat of immigrant caravans moving north through Mexico — a specter that largely evaporated soon after the election.
In 2020, deprived of the chance to campaign on economic prosperity and a rising stock market, it’s near certain that he will return to the theme that has powered his rise.
That approach might not work. His effort failed spectacularly in 2018 as suburban voters turned against Trump in droves. But Democrats would be wise to avoid overconfidence: The history of epidemics is also a history of xenophobia.
It would be a disaster if COVID-19 led to yet more fears of “foreigners,” however defined.
If anything, a threat like COVID-19 should remind us of our common humanity. We are all vulnerable, and the smart way to meet this threat is to remain calm, to work together, and to listen to the experts.
Sure, the people who’ve botched America’s response so far should be held accountable. But let’s first and foremost get a grip on the virus itself and stop its spread. Because one thing is certain: partisan politics won’t stop a pandemic. It’ll just make a bad situation worse.
He’ll make America great again — it says so on his podium!
W.J. Astore
My wife and I watched the results come in last night on MSNBC and the four speeches by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and John Kasich. Surprisingly, the best speech of the bunch was by Kasich, but more on that in a moment.
Hillary charged ahead with a concession speech that was basically a recycled stump speech. It looked like she was using teleprompters. She offered the obligatory thanks to her supporters, to New Hampshire, and so on, but you could tell she just wanted to move on from her crushing defeat. She has real difficulty connecting with an audience, and her campaign’s message that she’s the most competent candidate, the one best able to step into the Oval Office on day one, simply isn’t resonating with voters who are fed up with establishment politics.
Bernie went next and also gave a modified version of his stump speech. He spoke too long, but I’m guessing he was doing his best to exploit his “prime time” moment. He offered kind words for Clinton but then proceeded to attack the politics as usual that she represents. What got me most was the genuine excitement in the room for Bernie. The people cheering behind him were an especially eclectic and vibrant mix (I know the “optics” are usually managed, but still). There was a young black guy wearing a hat and a Bernie t-shirt who was simply a riot. (He was standing behind and to Bernie’s left.) My wife and I looked at each other and said: “He should be Bernie’s Vice President.”
Trump came on the heels of Bernie, and the shift in tone was immediate. With Bernie, it’s all about the movement. With Trump, it’s all about Trump. Flanked by his photogenic family, Trump once again told Americans how he is going to make America “great” again, how America is going to win again — at negotiating treaties, with the economy, with wars — heck, I guess we’re going to win at EVERYTHING with Trump in command. Again he boasted how he’s going to make the U.S. military so big and so strong that no one will dare attack us. In a word, he bloviated. But Trump should never be dismissed lightly, certainly not after his decisive victory in New Hampshire.
Kasich came next after Trump, and again the tone shifted. Coming in a strong second in NH, Kasich talked about listening to the American people, and how the 100+ “town halls” he had done had changed him as a candidate and as a person. He told personal stories and connected with the audience; he closed on a note of compassion, asking Americans to decompress, to take time to listen to one another, to find time for reflection. His speech was the most personal and heartfelt of the four that I heard, and I found myself hoping that Kasich’s message would ultimately triumph over the bellicosity of Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and the rest of the Republicans.
Overall, last night was a night of surprises, with two unconventional candidates, Sanders and Trump, winning convincingly. Their messages, of course, are polar opposites. Bernie wants a better future for all Americans, especially for the disadvantaged, whereas Trump is all about making America big and strong, a “winner.” Put differently, Sanders sees a lot of ordinary Americans who are losing in today’s “rigged” economy, and he wants to lift them up. Trump sees America writ large as losing, even some of the wealthiest, vis-a-vis foreign competitors like China, and he says he’ll lift all of America up.
It’s that message of uplift, expressed so differently by Sanders and Trump, that resonated so powerfully in New Hampshire.
Politics: Sometimes I just want to do a face plant (Photo: Barbara Neiberg)
W.J. Astore
Continuing our election coverage, I thought I’d try to sum up each major candidate with a single word (excluding profanities). I encourage readers to submit your own words for each candidate in the comments section below.
The Democrats
Clinton: Compromised. No candidate is more beholden to special interests and the establishment than Hillary.
Sanders: Revolutionary. Let’s face it: It would be revolutionary for a Socialist Jew to win the Democratic nomination. And “revolution” is one of Bernie’s favorite words.
O’Malley: Eclipsed. I had to strain to remember his name, and I’ve watched the debates. Simply overshadowed by Hillary and Bernie.
The Republicans
Trump: Bombastic. Trump makes a lot of noise, and my dad always told me “the empty barrel makes the most noise.”
Cruz: Oleaginous. There’s something slippery about Cruz.
Rubio: Callow. An eager beaver, apple-polishing type. Not quite ready for prime time.
Bush: Uncertain. He doesn’t seem to believe the words coming out of his own mouth. This is one reason why Trump calls him “weak,” because The Donald never doubts himself.
Carson: Serene. His calm is perfect for a neurosurgeon, but he’s out of his element on the political stage.
Christie: Angry. He seems to despise both Obama (“feckless weakling”) and Hillary. Like Tony Soprano but without the charm.
Kasich: Grey. A conventional Republican governor, he blends into the background due to the strutting peacocks that surround him.
Bracing Views 