The Winning Strategy

I think democracy's basic problem is that to win an election, you often have to win your share of the stupid vote. You can't do that with logic or issues. They don't register with stupid voters.

To impress the stupid, your candidate must have charisma and make giant promises. Consider the recent NYC primary. For once the lame Democrats have nominated someone who is not a centrist dullard. (Now they will try to dump him.)

Giant promises are okay. That is how FDR did it. You try wild things until something works. Maybe a candiate could say, "I intend to try things until something works. There will be failures but in the end some change and success, too."

Walter

July 5 is a day for me to think about Walter Bligh. He grew up about a block from me in Compton, the only child of my aunt and uncle. 

Walter was fifteen years older than I was. He's a shadowy memory now, shot down by the Japanese somewhere over Borneo. 

I remember him.

At the onset of the war, black people could not vote in half the nation. No women held office. We interned Japanese Americans. Anti-Semitism was open and powerful. Yet women, people of color and Jews joined the military. They risked their lives for what small stake they had in a vigorous system that had already invented Hollywood,  the light bulb, the airplane, the telephone. They must have felt the flaws, but they unashamedly fought for what they had and hoped to have. 

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A Model Cracker

Donald Trump admires Andrew Jackson, an ignorant, uncontrollable, murderous cracker. 

(My great-grandfather moved from Kentucky to California to escape the McCoys.)

Anyway, when several senators disagreed with him, Andrew Jackson threatened to cut off their ears.  

Jackson got into a gunfight with Senator Thomas Hart Benton. He killed Charles Dickinson in a duel. As a general he ordered more of his own men executed than George Washington. He executed two British citizens, including a man who had actually been sentenced to one year in prison. Jackson found that insufficient.

He killed hundreds of American Indians, and he deported entire tribes from their own country. 

To match Jackson, Trump will have to deport the Navajo Nation to prisons in Africa. 

Phonics and MAGA

Lately The Press Democrat, MAGA and President Trump have taken up the cause of phonics, calling for phonics to be mandated in public schools. 

There are many ways to learn how to read, and most of them work with someone. People differ in how they learn.

Maybe how you learn to read should not be a political issue. But for MAGA it already is. 

When our children were small, my wife did not know how the schools on Long Island taught reading. Rather than take a chance on bad methodology, she and I taught our children to read when they were between three and four. No problem. It took about five minutes a day for three months. When young, children absorb language. 

After the first of our children entered kindergarten, reading on a third grade level, her teacher told us, "Yes, she can read, but you taught her the wrong way."

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The Good German

Years ago I volunteered to help immigrants learn English, which is how I met part of a Mexican American family. The mother and father became American citizens. Their two sons were born here in Santa Rosa.

The parents work like sled dogs. They now own their own house. 

The older son has been through the local school system, earned excellent grades and played better soccer. He's now enrolled at the junior college, taking classes to qualify as a fire fighter. He works part-time at Home Depot. 

ICE is now raiding Home Depots and arresting everyone Hispanic. So this young man with brown skin may be grabbed by four or five large Ice agents, who will beat him to the ground, mace him, cuff him, beat him again and then throw his body into a van and disappear him.  He will be charged with attacking an ICE official. 

That happens every day now. 

Because the young man actually is a citizen, he might be let go after a month or two.  

I'm really thinking about myself, though. I'm old and blue-eyed, safe enough. Safe as a good German in Hitler's era. 

King Donald's War

 I woke from my nap to the news that King Donald the Draft Dodger had bombed Iraq or Iran or Ireland, one of those countries staffed with foreigners. Congress did not authorize a war, but kings do as they please. 

Netanyahu has made Israel a pariah state, and America's presidents, Biden and Trump, have followed him into infamy, dragging us in their wake. 

Maybe this is a joke.

"The leaders of Iran, Israel and the United States walk into a bar. . . ."

Against The Law

The L.A. Dodgers recently refused to let ICE enter the parking lot at Dodger Stadium. 

If we want to keep our partly-representative government, we must be a giant movement that will not obey. Like the Dodgers, we have to act, to disobey. 

To oppose disrespect and brutality, I might have to test minor laws and, if necessary, take the penalty. 

A king is only a king when you obey him. 

 

Someone Large

Democrats--I speak as an independent--might want to learn more about the Americans who vote intermittently. About 20% of our people vote only in presidential elections. They skip most chances to participate in politics. 

These people tend to be low-information and low interest voters.   

Bigger turnouts in presidential elections used to favor Democrats. In 1940 the Democrats got their fair share of swing voters, including racists. But after Nixon's southern strategy, most of the cognitively-impaired Democrats shifted to the Republican Party. Today a big  turnout of intermittent voters helps Republicans in swing states.  That is fact.

That is how Trump won. Fact: he took the intermittent voters in swing states.

Also, in the last election immigrants (underprepared new citizens) favored Trump. 

In selecting their next candidates and platform, the Democrats might want to consider exactly how they can win the votes of immigrants, young white males and voters with cognitive deficits. Winning these votes cannot be achieved with issues. Uninterested people do not care about issues. Their votes spring from primitive urges. 

When I was in basic training, the sergeant had to pick a leader for our squad. He chose the largest recruit in the room, a quiet young man with no  interest or skill in leading.

That isn't news. Swing voters nearly always choose the candidate with the most height and roundest belly. So, Democrats, nominate a winner. 

War

As you know, last week Israel attacked Iran, starting a war. 

I believe in self-defense, which is why I volunteered to serve in the American army (long ago, before Vietnam). I oppose wars of aggression, where one nation attacks another. For me (and the UN Charter) that is a basic principle.

What struck me today is the way MSNBC has responded. This morning I watched a series of experts brought on to discuss the war; every one of them strongly supported starting the new war in which hundreds have already been killed. 

Maybe this afternoon MSNBC will try to do the right thing.  Or maybe not. 

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