After the Election

Here's a nice post mortem of the election by Dylan Matthews over at VOX:

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/9/13572172/donald-trump-white-working-class

Trump also promised to massively build infrastructure while cutting taxes.   Since these are mutually exclusive it will be interesting to see which he chooses.

More military means less of everything else, including the things we have the military to protect in the first place.  Like rights and such.

Getting rid of the EPA means more rural people (who mostly voted for Trump,) will be buying their water in stores.

Because of reduced taxes and government spending, the demand side of the economy will contract, leading to higher amounts of money being taken out of circulation.  Thus continued deflation. And low growth.

The rich have shown that who they really wanted was Trump, at least as indicated by stock prices.  Hillary allowed herself to be used by Wall Street.  They never loved her as one of their own.

Rigging the Democratic Party, Continued

Below is my campaign literature for the election to be a Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia at the end of July. I brought slightly over 200 copies of it to the Sanders caucus in my Congressional district. (There was another caucus for the 3 Clinton delegates from our district.) I handed almost all of them out to other attendees at the caucus. 

There were some 300 men and women at the caucus. About 30 people, including myself, had earlier, online, applied to be one of the 4 Sanders delegates.  Most of us were pretty naïve about parliamentary procedure, a fact that was used in a maneuver which eliminated all but 8 of our names from contention.  None the rest of us realized we would have to be ‘nominated’ at the caucus, and our nomination seconded. So none of us were. 

As for the 8 who were nominated, and seconded, these 8 were comprised of two groups of 4, each of which formed a ‘slate’ for the full quota of the delegates for Senator Sanders. They were allocated to the senator for winning the district.  While the 8 candidates were voted on individually, one slate, (the more willing to compromise with Hillary slate,) won. On average something like 170 votes to 130.

The Democrats do themselves no favors with this procedure, since it is incongruent with the electoral college, which is an all or nothing process at the state level.  The result of their procedure is not optimized to result in the nomination of the most electable candidate.  

It is, however, optimized to insure the establishment candidate is the nominee.  It minimizes (statistical) variation, (Sort of like what would happen if you scored most of the points in a basketball game say, by a score of 73 to 65. But instead of it being called a win for you, it was called a tie.) and, assuming that the “Superdelegates,” some 15% of the total, and who largely are the (Democratic) establishment, actually vote for the establishment candidate, all but guarantees the nomination of the establishment candidate, no matter what the outcome of the primaries. 

It is not enough for the outsider to just win the popular vote by over 18%. (719 is 17.7% of the 4051 pledged delegates, which are more or less determined by the primaries.) He must capture 59% of the pledged delegates, or 2390 delegates, to overcome the establishment’s Superdelegates.  

In order to overcome the 719 Superdelegates, the outsider candidate would have to win virtually every one of the 435 Congressional districts.  And some he would have to win by humongous margins, to gain enough plurality of delegates.  For a district with an even number of delegates, a close victory leads to an evenly split delegation.  To split a district with say 8 delegates, 5 to 3, the winning candidate would have to win with over 56% of the vote. (I think that’s the way it works.) To split a district with 7 delegates 5 to 2, (instead of just 4 delegates to 3) the candidate would have to win over 65% of the vote.  This he would have to do in may districts in order to obtain the necessary delegate plurality.  In the reality, this is assuming the other pledged delegates, the at large and the PLEO  (Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates, are evenly split.

  The whole process is window dressing.   The procedure, and the Superdelegates, effectively disenfranchise the Democratic voters.  If Senator Sanders does win, it will only be because the Democratic establishment has decided that Hillary Clinton is unelectable.  Which, by the way, she likely is.  Whether the party elite realize this before the National Convention is the interesting question.  In these situations, where the individuals are committed to their positions in more than one dimension, the evidence usually does not suffice to change people’s minds.

But here’s my campaign literature.  All of it:  (2 copies a sheet, which I cut in half.)

______________________________________

(SIDE 1:) Any delegate we elect will bring Bernie his vote.  Go Bernie. But Bernie needs more.  Bernie’s opponents have attacked the cost and practicality of all of his positions, and this has weakened his appeal and his campaign. Just a vote at the convention will not be enough.  Bernie needs more.  Bernie needs someone who can show him how to solidify his positions and broaden his appeal. And help him turn the votes of Superdelegates at the convention.

Bernie’s plan for single payer health care is attacked as too costly. Organizations like the AMA and monopolists like Big Pharma have restricted the supply of healthcare services, and now American healthcare is simply inadequate to provide services for everyone.  This is what is driving up the price, and Bernie needs to address this by attacking these organizations and providing mechanisms for increasing the supplies of doctors, nurses, and the other things American healthcare needs.

To assure justice for all, and in particular the poor and minorities, Bernie,  as President, can bring suit against local jurisdictions for their inadequate funding of their public defender’s offices. There should  be about as much money for the public defenders as for the prosecutor’s offices in each jurisdiction.  Right now the whole justice system is just a scheme to keep our prisons filled, and with a disproportionate number of minorities. If Bernie advocates for adequate funding for public defenders, it WILL be revolutionary.

I haven’t been able to reach Bernie.  If I am a delegate, it will increase my chances of being able to talk to Bernie, and, if I can, and Bernie wants it, I will be able to help him, his campaign, and the people.  No other delegate you could elect would be able to do this.  Elect me to be your delegate.   …Help Bernie!

________________________

(SIDE 2:)  Capitalism rewards efficiency and punishes resiliency.  Capitalists seek to maximize their profits, and will do so even if it harms society.  Capitalists seek to maximize the consumption of resources, so they may maximize the profit they can take.  They do not, and in fact cannot, take the long view. Society, however, is interested in lasting as long as possible, and thus seeks to maintain the flow of resources at a sustainable rate.  When capitalists take control of government, society is no longer able to do reduce and maintain the flow of resources to a sustainable rate, and the future is consumed at an ever accelerating rate.   The interests of capitalists are not the same as society’s, and never were.  Bernie opposes the TPP, and has always opposed free trade.  Economists believe so much in free trade that they ridicule Bernie’s position, and right now Bernie does not have the arguments to fight back.  There are two arguments, however, which economists cannot answer.  The first is that under a trade deficit, the losses to producers are greater than the gains to consumers.  The second is that because all taxation is a tax on production, if a government does not tax all sources of production, production will migrate to those sources government does not tax.  This is because any producer the government does not tax will have an advantage over a producer the government does tax.  The government cannot tax foreign producers.  It can only put a tariff on imports. If it does not do this, all domestic producers will eventually go overseas, and the government will then not be able to tax any of them.   

Ask me about college tuition. Ask me about CEO pay.  Ask me about the police.  Ask me about climate change.  Ask me about the tax system.  Ask me about government and society. 

 

Donald Trump, who is a member of the establishment, has become the anti-establishment candidate. Hillary has become the establishment candidate.  Should the economy go South, as it is likely to do, Hillary will take the blame, and the Democrats will be crushed in the election.  The Republicans, and their wealthy sponsors, who are the actual establishment and ones actually responsible and who should take the blame, will be absolved.  The government will be largely dismantled, as will the rights guaranteed by that government.  These are the rights that protect us from the depredations of the wealthy, rights which the Republicans are already steadily taking apart.  The economic consequences of this will be terrible, even for the wealthy, because the people are the foundation of all wealth, and without the people there is none.  Even if Hillary is elected, the depredations by the establishment of the people will continue, and worsen, also to the point the of eventual economic and political destruction of the United States.  That is why I am for Bernie Sanders.  Only Bernie is truly opposed to the establishment policies, which are looting and destroying our country, and all our futures.  We must do what we can.  …. 

__________________________

The ellipses are where I put my name.  Only one person asked me about anything, and that was about energy.   Since I was put off by what happened, (although encouraged by the fact that so many were participating, even if the exercise was, ah, irrelevant to the real nomination process.  That was a fact they did not know.) I gave the  larger picture some thought, and, I think, gained insight.  Altogether, a worthwhile adventure. 

The Democratic Party is really not very Democratic

The Democratic Party is really not very Democratic

Hey!  All you Democrats out there! The Democratic Party is really not very Democratic. Consider first the “Superdelegates.”  Not only does the Democratic electorate have no say in who they are but it has no say even about how many “Superdelegates” are designated by the Democratic National Committee,. Not only is the voting process at the Democratic National Convention weighted by the so called "Superdelegates," but the Democratic National Committee is itself weighted by the inclusion of elected government officials and party functionaries.  The executive committee of the party is even more so. You have to check the bylaws for the prescribed composition.

Anyway, Article Two, Section 4 of the Charter describes the procedures by which ‘ordinary’ delegates are chosen, and subsection (e) seems to exclude the creation of a significant block of delegates who were selected without the “participation in good faith of all voters…”  BUT:  Article Two, Section 5 throws democratic processes out the window.  While the number of elected delegates is limited by the charter, the number of delegates which can be ‘designated’ by the Committee is not.  Basically, Section 5 allows the appointment of any number of delegates by the Democratic National Committee, and if there are a mere 700 or so of them, it is because the National Committee has exercised some restraint.  That is by my reading.  For your convenience, I provide Section 5, so you may interpret, and decide, for your self.

_____________________________________

THE CHARTER OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES

ARTICLE TWO, SECTION 5: The delegate vote allocable to each state shall be determined as provided in the Bylaws, consistent with the formula:

a. giving equal weight to population, which may be measured by electoral vote, and to the Democratic vote in elections for office of the President; and

b. giving such additional delegate votes as may be specifically designated by the Democratic National Committee in the Call to the Convention, subject to such conditions as may be set forth by the Democratic National Committee in said Call, for the purpose of providing incentives for scheduling the event constituting the first determining stage in the presidential nominating process in each state later in the year of the Convention than such event would otherwise be scheduled in the absence of such incentive; and

c. which shall also provide additional delegate positions to members of the Democratic National Committee; and

d. which may also provide additional delegate positions to Democratic elected public officials specifically designated by the Democratic National Committee in the Call to the Convention, subject to the provisions of Section 4.

______________________________________

Subsection a: is the sop to democratic process. The rest of the Article is the work around. The Charter and Bylaws of the Democratic Party and The Rules of the Republican Party, can be Googled, and any participant in our political processes should.

In a way, it is not in the interests for those members who are elected or appointed government officials for the Democratic party to actually be successful.  The greater the success of the Democratic party, the greater the competition for positions on the National and Executive committees.  

For comparison, I have also checked out  The Rules of the Republican Party.  The Republican document seems to be more procedural, and the Democratic Charter more purpose driven.   The irony is that, (At least as far as I can tell.  The comparison is not easy.  Both documents seem to me to be unnecessarily obscure.) under their Rules Republicans are more democratically represented by their party officers than the Democrats under The Charter are by theirs.  The Democratic Party structure is rigged in a way which caters to the establishment and is contrary to democratic principles.  The Republican Party structure under its rules, anyway, is not.

The Democratic Charter seems to go back to 1972.  (This is from the revision of 2012.) So there has been plenty of time for the appropriate people to notice this and bring it to the attention of the party membership.  

A note of small humorousness:  The Republicans have no mention of God in their preamble, nor of the Constitution.  The Democrats mention both.

One other important question:  Why is the government at all involved in the primaries?  No one is elected to any government office, so why is it the government that is concerned with fairness or procedure.  It is the concern of each of the various parties, to assure fairness, in their election.   (Or not.  The officers of the party may believe that an unfair nominating process will not compromise, and may enhance, the electability of their party's candidates in the general election.)  The members of the various parties elect candidates they hope are both electable, and perhaps equally important, represent the interests and desires of a majority of that party's members.

 

As things stand, one party must overcome the opposition of the other party to follow the procedures it considers favorable to itself, and the other party must follow the procedures laid down by the opposition party, whether or not those are the procedures desired by its electorate.  

These interests of the party electorate are not necessarily the same as the interests of the government, in particular the interests of the establishment politicians of the various states.  Where they diverge, the government may be expected to interfere and impose conditions which harm the interests of the electorate.  Where the government imposes procedures, the government must be expected to impose procedures which distort the primary process to favor its interests, rather than the party's.  Granted, the party’s interests are not necessarily coherent.  The party elite’s interests are not necessarily the interests of the party voters or the rank and file, as they may expected to align more with the government’s interests.  Indeed, since one or another party is the government  only if the government is disinterestedly and competently serving what the voters desire.  Simply, it is the job of each party to run their own elections.  It is not the government's job.

In fact, it is in the interests of each party to establish those rules and procedures which that party considers the best able to attain the goal of nominating the candidates who best most likely to win in the general election, while taking those positions the majority of the voters of that party desire.  Failure to do so would disadvantage not only the particular party in the general election, but compromise the ability of the government to  properly respond to the needs and desires of their electorate.   It would thus  compromise their ability to govern.  Democracy is the best system while it is the most responsive to the electorate.  When it fails to do this, when it corrupts the process or violates the principles of impartial access to information by the electorate, it is no longer.  

Now, as it is, the government does subsidize the primaries by providing and servicing the polling places and vote counting and so forth.  But as we have seen in places like Arizona, the government need not always provide these services fairly and in the desired quantity.   So the government could provide the necessary services while allowing the various parties to form and follow their own policies and procedures.   Provisions could be made to accommodate the minor parties.  

Politics in More than One Dimension

The terms ‘right’ and ‘left,’ as political terms in use today appear to me to be applied in an ad hoc and makeshift manner.  Certainly, there seems to me to be no clear theory underpinning their application to politics.  So let’s develop one.

We will start with two positions: 1)  Society should act to benefit the individual.  We will suppose that to be the premise of the right.  The nest step is the notion that society is best served when it serves the individual.  The extreme logical conclusion is that society can be sacrificed for the individual.

                                                      2)  The individual should act to benefit society.  We will suppose that to be the premise of the left. The next step is that the individual is best served when he serves society. The extreme logical conclusion is that the individual can be sacrificed for society.

This is just where we are starting.  We will come back to this. 

This will not give us our usual alignment of interests.  For instance, from this basis, universal health care is something which should be desired by someone on the right. On the other hand, the justification for national defense is found on the left.  So, apparently we have another axis, independent of the left or the right, which is the size of government.  The argument against universal healthcare, then, is against a larger government, and in favor of a smaller one. But it cannot be one of efficiency.  There are dozens of examples where universal healthcare is more efficient at delivery of services to citizens than what happens in its absence.  Neither can it be a liberty argument, and it cannot be a danger argument.  

We also observe that while totalitarianism is indeed on the left, anarchy, reputed to be a phenomenon of the left, is under these premises, in fact a possibility of the right.  Note we have said nothing about inequality.  We have not mentioned any relationships between individuals, but only between an individual and the rest of his society.

Now our two premises are incomplete, and in fact pejorative of the left.  We have placed the benefits to the individual on the right, and the costs to the individual on the left.

Lets go back to what we see. Or rather what we are told is what we see:   We see Right and Left.  We see Republicans and Democrats.  We see the rights of the individual versus the demands of the state. But I do not think that is the real situation.

Consider instead that all politics comes down to who gets the benefits, and who bears the costs.   And remember, all benefits have to be paid for.  The extreme positions on each of these then is either the individual as a particular, or society as a whole.

But this gives us the following table:  I have also included some rubrics one might consider these positions, and their arguments, to go under.

  Society pays: Society Benefits                     Society pays:  Individual benefits

           (Communism)                                                      (  Capitalism )

Individual pays: Society benefits                 Individual pays: Individual benefits  

           (          ?           )                                                   (Libertarianism)

          

So these statements are like the corners of a physical table.  They are the extremes, and all of politics, all the actions of and in society, goes on on the surface of this table, inside these corners. 

                     

Now, no society really exists, or has ever existed, at the corners, or even at the edges, of the table.  Robinson  Crusoe, for instance, being both the individual and his complete society, is squarely in the middle.   They are ideals that (misguided) individuals strive for.  They are misguided because these corners properly apply to different aspects of every society.  These values are themselves a higher dimensional structure than we have come to understand, and -  and the table,  it’s actually a tetrahedron.  I am preserving the line of my thinking because, even described, it is far more difficult to jump directly to the tetrahedron.

But to return to consideration as a table, the left-right axis is from the lower left corner to the upper right hand corner.  The lower left corner, we can substitute for the question mark "altruism."  Or, taxes.  Similarly the upper right, which we have shown is congruent with universal health care, we have put capitalism. As we have stated above, there is another, independent, dimension, which is size of government.  On the right we can have all government, (which de facto I suppose would be fascism,) and on the left no government, which we have named "altruism," extending the definition of the word to include the corresponding political structure, however it may be constructed.   

Links to NPR: Money in US Politics

Here's a link to an NPR episode on money in US politics.  You probably don't know how bad it really is:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/take-the-money-and-run-for-office

Here's the teaser.  Just 10 minutes:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/03/30/149712857/the-friday-podcast-im-calling-to-ask-for-your-contribution

 Should make you want to listen to the main episode.

This American Life is doing a series, which we will try and keep you up on.