Dunning-Kruger

This is new to me, but no doubt many others have heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect. (I don’t know if this is a real thing or a joke.)

Dunning-Kruger is a cognitive bias where people are too stupid to realize they are stupid. They are unable to recognize their own incompetence. 

Consider “the criminal case of McArthur Wheeler, who robbed banks while his face was covered with lemon juice, which he believed would make it invisible to the surveillance cameras. This belief was based on his misunderstanding of the chemical properties of lemon juice as an invisible ink."  (From Wikipedia)

Or consider the leader of the Free World, who cannot grasp  what scientists tell him, so he tells us that the coronavirus may “magically disappear.”

Stopping Bernie

The Dems cannot win the Presidency without the support of most of the Sanders voters. If one of the other candidates catches fire and beats Sanders in the primaries, my guess is that the great majority of voters will accept that. But if some party elite and media heads successfully manage a campaign whose only purpose is to block Sanders any way possible, the Dems' turnout will fall, and I will expect them to lose to tRump.

There already is a small public stop-Sanders movement. There are those for whom retaining control of a major party is more vital than defeating the trumpvirus. And there are those who will depart if they feel cheated. Good vote counters (Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid) seem aware of this possible clash and will probably try to head it off.

The Mayor of 'South Bend

I live in Santa Rosa, California, which has a mayor and a larger population than South Bend, Indiana.  You, too, are likely to live in or near a city with a mayor. 

In my case, I don't recall my current mayor's name, but I believe she is not running for President. The man who was mayor before her is now running for country supervisor but not for President. What about your mayor? Is she prepared to lead the NATO?

David Brook on Sanders

People often seem surprised if I say that there are third-rate intellectuals (just as there are third-rate generals).  To illustrate I use David Brooks as an example of a genuine intellectual who doesn’t know his butt-smile from a missile silo. 

In a recent column Brooks compared tRump and Sanders as myth-makers (good myth-making accounting for their political followings). tRump’s myth is that “the coastal elites are greedy stupid people” etc. And Sander’s equally false myth is that corporate elites hoard the nation’s wealth and oppress working families and so on, according to Brooks. 

Brooks wants a different sort of leader, maybe a billionaire like Bloomberg who listens well and grasps the real problems of low income people of color.

Reality check: Sanders’ political myth is that many people lack good health care, can’t afford preschool or college for their children, sleep in vacant lots, have lost faith in a racist government and fear that their planet will soon be baked and burned (where it isn’t under water).  

Sanders is describing reality.

What happens when the super-rich sequester the money and power is that ordinary people, having no other kind of voice, begin to rise up. You see very public discontent,  Black Lives Matter, the moronic Tea Party and so on. 

Five years ago Sanders began to listen to young people. He took their discontent seriously and modified his priorities. Young people and people of color could see that he meant what he said. Now they back him, because they want to live as long as their parents (and in a decent climate and out of debt).  

Who Were the Celts?

I come from a family that took defiant pride in being Irish-American. My mother was about two-thirds of Irish descent, and I am, it turns out, about one-third Irish or Celtic. But what does it mean to be Celtic?

Recent DNA studies show that the European Celts (the original Celts) have no DNA connection to the Brits or Scots or Welsh or Irish. It is likely not true that the Celts ever invaded Ireland. What did permeate the British Isles was (probably) a language and culture spreading along the European coast. 

Millions of people in India today speak English, but that does not make them Angle-Saxons.

Red hair, I also learned recently, is a genetic gift from the Neanderthals. Or so they say.

The Chris Mathews Scale

Dan Monte has suggested the Chris Mathews Scale, which resembles the Richter Scale. It is a unit of measurement, not for ranking earthquakes but for ranking how shaken old white people are by Bernie Sanders.

For example, if Sander's winning the votes of people of color in Nevada terrifies you worse than your neighbor's pitbull, you would rate a 3.4 on the Mathews Scale.  If Sanders winning the white vote finds you comparing the primary in New Hampshire to Hitler's invasion of Belgium, you would rate a 6.6 on the Mathews. Believing you are personally in danger of being singled out by Sanders to be dragged into Central Park and shot in the face by a  youthful POC would earn you a Mathews score of 8.0. So far only Mathews himself and some members of the DNC have merited that high mark. (Don't hesitate to congratulate MSNBC on their election coverage.)


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The Two Lane Theory

No Democrat has ever won the popular vote in the first three Presidential primaries unless you count Bernie Sanders.

In Nevada Sanders somehow swept the votes of the Amerindians, the Filipinos,  the Asians, the Hispanics and people of color (POC) in general. He also finished first among white people. That left  little for the other candidates to share (Joe Biden did just edge out Sanders for most African-American votes).   

For some time I have been arguing that there is one lane, not two lanes, in the Democratic party. The polling evidence suggests that if one of the stop-Bernie candidate like Amy Klobuchar  drops out,  many of her votes shift to Sanders. There is no current candidate Sanders cannot beat (the polls say).

Among voters in Nevada who called themselves moderates, Sanders won.

As an independent outsider, Sanders expresses the outrage many voters feel at being ignored, lied to and cheated over decades of rule by Wall Street and its bots in the two major parties.

If he wins the Presidency, Sanders will have to work with Nancy Pelosi and so on. That will mean compromises.

tRump will accuse Sanders (or any Dem) of being a socialist. Sanders will reply, "Whatever." He won't burst into tears. 

And what about Harry Reid? When Hillary ran the first time, Reid figured she would lose to a Republican, and he drafted Barack Obama. This time around, many of Reid's sharpest people in Nevada helped manage Sander's campaign in the state. 

Who knew about Harry Reid?

Dems Tax the Poor

Highway 37, which runs from Vallejo to the coastal counties north of San Francisco, is already drowning in water, thanks to global warming. 37 is the road traveled by Vallejo's low-income folks to their jobs cleaning toilets and pulling weeds for the vastly more important and lazy denizens in Marin etc.  You know, people too busy on their smart  phones to wipe their own bums. 

The  Democrats in Sacramento, sitting on billions in excess funds, are backing a bill designed to charge poor people $6 to drive to work on a new, raised, toll-road version of 37. That's the approach to social justice that pushed people like me out of the party.

Rikki Tikki Tavi

My Impressions of the Vegas Democratic Debate

Elizabeth Warren was on Bloomberg like a mongoose on a duck. 

Bernie Sanders raised a ton of money.

Joe Biden did better than before. 

Mayor Pete made his stance on the issues clearer.  He favors some progressive proposals, scaled back a little, as long as no one acts on them.

Two Tracks?

This morning the talking heads on TV were again assuming that there are two tracks to the Democratic nomination. As they see it, one track is "liberal" and consists of Warren and Sanders. The other track is "moderate" and consists of everyone else--and candidates in the moderate track total more votes than Warren and Sanders combined. The talking heads' point is that if the "moderate"  candidates get together and settle on one candidate, that candidate will easily win.

That's one way to look at the situation. But is there a reason to believe that the voters see it that way?

And what is a "moderate"? Someone moderately obedient to the 1%? 

What if many citizens are voting for candidates they trust regardless of the candidates's views on healthcare and the fossil fuel industry? 

Last week a poll asked voters to weigh in on a series of one-on-one contests between the Democratic candidates. Sanders vs. Klobuchar would be an example. In all these pairings, Sanders won, with only Biden being close. It may be that the two-track analysis of the race is founded on puffery. (Isn't it obvious that many people vote for the person they like, not for the person with the best platform?)

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Authenticity

Back in the 1950s, authenticity was a big deal.

Maybe many voters are influenced by how authentic a candidate seems to be. I'm convinced that quite a few voters respond to tRump that way. He is an ignorant, stupid, lying, sexist, racist, homophobic narcissist, and he always looked like one. He openly lied a lot. He lied about being a genius, but he is clearly the authentically bad lying person in town. He is a genuine liar. That's what some fearful or angry voters and Putin preferred, someone deranged and awful who really would blow up binding institutions and the Bill of Rights that protects minorities. Burn down the house.

The Clintons did many things effectively, but they seemed calculating. 

This time around, which candidates do you think are authentic?  Who is good at faking authenticity? Which ones are trimmers, people who shift messages to get more traction? Being authentic--even authentically Satanic--may give a candidate an edge. 

The State of the Race

Some of the pros are saying that only Mike Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders, two old Jews, have the organizations needed to do well on Super Tuesday. That might change.  

For one week that analysis looks accurate to me. 

Many people committed--with sound reasons--to other candidates, refuse to accept that their candidates fall short in two vital areas. They are not organized well in Super Tuesday states. And/or they do not have trusted connections to voters of color. As I see it, those candidates have about three weeks to fix things, or they will fail. 

African Americans and Hispanics form the base of the party, something more than 40% of all Democrats. Without them turning out big, the Democrats cannot win.  

Bloomberg is currently attempting to buy the Presidency in the same way he bought the NYC mayoralty as a Republican (!)  He has 60 billion dollars. He is already paying huge sums to the shrewdest and least ethical political operatives in the nation. He is buying tons of ads, and he buys lots of endorsements. He will give millions to your favorite charity, whose leaders will then find ways to show gratitude. That is how he runs for office. It works (so far). 

I should be blunt here. I worked in New York for 34 years.I was aware of Bloomberg. He is mildly racist in the way that many ordinary people were mildly racist in the last century. Current voters are likely to catch on to this.

 Bloomberg is infinitely better than tRump, but in the primary I'm voting for Sanders, who is ready to take on the fossil fuel industry that is making our planet uninhabitable, if that matters.

Power

We live in a nation where one voter makes $500,000,000 a year and another voter makes $50,000 a year. That imbalance of power makes us an oligarchy. 

There are worse forms of government. A dictatorship is worse. Compared to a dictatorship, an oligarchy is somewhat less apt to suffer from a personality disorder. 

I will vote for anyone the Democrats nominate. But what we need today is a broadly based system, one in which ordinary people are better represented in government. As I see it, the major candidate most committed to making structural changes is Bernie Sanders. This is our best chance to democratize the country since the end of the New Deal.


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Brexit

This is something to keep in mind.  Vancouver Island is bigger than Great Britain.

MSNBC Polling

MSNBC regularly reports on a poll  that shows tRump is becoming more popular. They have said recently that he is at an all-time high. I wonder why they keep saying that.

Of course, the claim might be true. Today I checked on six polls from two days ago, including the Rasmussen poll--which usually delivers surprisingly good news for Republicans--and on average the polls showed a 9.6 percent negative figure for tRump. I hope that is correct.

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POC and Mayor Pete

Mayor Pete has done well in Iowa, and that is a genuine accomplishment. But keep in mind that Iowa is a white state. What will happen in states where people of color have political weight?

At the moment, Mayor Pete has zero support in the Black community. Black people have a list of reasons for this. Among Hispanics in Nevada, Pete pulls about 1% of the Democratic voters to Bernie Sanders' 32%. 

Mayor Pete has a people of color problem. They don't like his record.

   

Mike

PG&E, our local electrical company, has failed to provide service that is safe or reliable. Many homes and lives have been lost in wildfires as a result of its negligence and management priorities. 

When I had my first kidney stone, the damned fools turned my lights off. 

The state senate may soon be voting on a bill to buy PG&E from its investors and make it a public utility. The workers would retain their jobs, their union and their rights. Public management could not possibly be worse that the money-grubbing private leadership that increased profits by postponing safety maintenance.  

Among those considering this buy-out is local State Senator Mike McGuire. He said, "I don't trust PG&E's board, the CEO or executives. All options need to be seriously evaluated and should be on the table." 

Exactly.

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Jim Wood

Voters often don't know what their elected representatives are doing. They may be talking one game while playing another and so on. The media don't cover (very well) what state assembly members are really up to.

My assembly member is Jim Wood, a somewhat retired dentist and, a rare thing in politics, a scientist. I read recently that he is supporting a bill that will give more autonomy to nurse practitioners. 

A nurse practitioner is an RN with extra training and at least a masters degree, She or he can diagnose, order tests and write prescriptions.  My nurse practitioner sends me to specialists when that is indicated. 

We have a doctor shortage. Jim Wood supports a bill (which recently passed in the assembly) that will provide better access to quality health care for the people who need it most, including me.