Tag Archives: Democracy

This is not the West Wing: Listen to Dan Pfeiffer spill his guts

This is a take that gets a blog.

I direct you to a five minute portion of the November 3rd episode of Pod Save America, “Last Call for Democracy.”

Pfeiffer is correct, and you have to listen to his rant on Pod Save America. This is a brilliantly articulated version of what rolls around in my head all the time.

Starts at 25 minutes and 15 seconds (to include John Favreau sigh). Ends at 29:20

“Last Call for Democracy.”


Listen to all of it, please. Then report back in the comments.

Walk out your fucking door, and touch some grass.

What should the British do with their monarchy?

I think most American progressives would agree that a form of government that does not have a monarchy is better than one that does. So, it is not surprising that so many people see the death of the Queen of England* as a moment to consider ridding Great Britain and the United Kingdom of any vestige of monarchy. I mean, why not? Many Americans on the opposite of any known political spectrum from progressives saw the end of the Trump Presidency to be a moment to consider the end of democracy and installation of a fascist MAGA state!

But I wonder if monarchy-hate is fully appropriate, given some of the reactions I see from actual subjects of the Queen/King. Said subjects seem blind to the argument that the monarchy is a burden on the budget, has no practical use, and is linked to a history of colonialism and repression. Or are they?

Here is why these ideas may be misguided if not just wrong.

  1. The monarchy has not been the prime mover in colonialism and repression since well early in the 18the century. The monarchy is a part of, and an increasingly no-effective part of, the British government during the last 300 years of British colonial advancement, colonial retraction, and colonial separation. One could easily argue that the parliamentary part of the British government is more responsible for everything that happened than the monarchy. Not to let the monarchy off the hook. I’m just saying that if you have a small gang of thieves and get rid of one of them, you still better keep checking your pocket to see if your wallet is still there.
  2. The portion of GDP attributable to the monarchy is difficult to determine. The annual cash flow of the monarchy represents about one one-hundredths’ of a percent of the British GDP. The annual cost to taxpayers is about 3 one thousand’s of a percent of the British GDP. The total value of the monarchy (if you sold it off tomorrow) is between 2 and 3% of GTP. So, the monarchy is a low-maintenance very valuable asset, assuming that it produces some payback.
  3. Compare it to sports. In America, we have no monarchy, but we do have sports. Sports takes up more American cultural space and energy that the monarchy takes up British cultural space and energy, I would assert. Or at least, they are in the same ballpark, as it were. Sports value as a percentage of GDP is about 2 tenths of a percent in the US. Small nationwide, but huge compared to the equivalent annual cash flow of 1 one hundredths of a percent for the British Monarchy. American sports are a burden on the American budget (every time a city is asked to build a new stadium or bail out a team, or as a function of increased vandalism and criminality associated with sports culture) but with limited practical use, and linked to a history of segregation, racism, nurturing of violence and criminality, and overall stupid behavior. One could argue that sports has advantages, and one can argue that the monarchy has some value too.

I’m agnostic, and I prefer to follow the lead of British progressives. It is their monarchy, after all.

Americans tend to think we threw off the monarchy centuries ago because we did not like it. That is not what happened. America rebelled against unequal tax and representation by our government (we were part of Great Britain) as it applied to the Americas, and against home-country (UK) rules against killing Indians. Our government in London told us we had to stop grabbing land that wasn’t ours. The British government was on the verge of getting rid of slavery, which Brits in the Americas (our forefathers) did not want to do. Our revolution was not about being a democracy instead of a monarchy. It was about us being an out of control asshole on the world stage, not held back by certain British sensibilities. So fellow Americans, maybe lose the impertinence, OK? Not a good look coming from one of the very small number of countries that maintained slavery longer than everyone else, and then converted slavery into something as close to slavery as possible for the next rest of time.

Finally, I suspect most people who are down on the monarchy are not aware that the role of the British monarchy in the British government is not to rule, but to be dignified. Like this:


*I know I know, she is not the “Queen of England” except that she is, but also, Queen of some other things too. As an American I’m not into getting sidetracked by the whinging about the complex national identity associated with that which is British-ish and related.

How the US National Press Is Hurting Democracy Right Now

I am astonished at how utterly ignorant journalists from national outlets are of the Iowa Caucus. If the Iowa Caucus going “wrong” can be the virtual end of the Democratic Party as we know it, and the end of all caucuses, you would think the press would know what they are. The press never notices that the total number of delegates awarded on precinct caucus night is less then the total number awarded by Iowa. You would think that if the caucus results being available a few hours after Chuck and Andrea’s bed time was an existential crisis for democracy, that they would also have noticed that half of the delegates that Iowa will send to the National Convention are not ever awarded on on this fateful evening to begin with. Until the TV talking heads can explain how that works, they should really tone down their rhetoric on what did and did not happen in Iowa.

Here is a piece of information that might be helpful. If the following is new to you, then you didn’t really know what the caucuses are. If it sounds familiar, you probably still don’t know, but at least you have a vague idea. If you read and absorb all of this, you still don’t know because this is a 20,000 foot look at parts of a large and important grassroots system.

There is no such thing as “a caucus.” On “caucus night” there are hundreds of individual caucuses, and although there are prevailing rules, they are independent conversations happening among voters during which several tings are decided, including electing a very large number (maybe thousands?) of delegates to go on to engage in other levels of activity, things like resolutions to shape the party platform, party business, party officers, and so on. Oh, and during the Iowa precinct caucus process, there is the first part of a multi-part process that involves deciding on some of the national delegates. So in that sense, what we think of as the Iowa Caucus is one piece of a multi-part part of a multi part thing. The day Chuck Todd can tell us how that works without screwing up the explanation is the day he gets to tell us what went wrong in any given year.

“The Iowa Caucus” is also not “A caucus” because it is the first of several stages of meetings. The first one is called a caucus, and the later ones are called conventions. But the conventions are still caucuses, and at them, delegates are elected, generally among the larger initial number. I believe (I’m a Minnesota caucus guy, not an Iowa caucus guy, so I many have this muddled a bit) that Iowa ultimately selects, during precinct caucuses, delegates who will ultimately be selected among to operate at the County level, Congressional District level, State level and National level. These are grassroots party activists who engage in several important party activities, basically running the party, thus ensuring that the Iowa Democratic Party remains a grassroots organization with lots of knowledgeable and engaged volunteers.

Here is a common conversation on social media I am having these days:

Other person: “Caucuses suck. They dont’ work. There should just be a primary. The system is broke. Bla bla bla.”

Me: “Which caucuses have you been involved in, I’d love to know specifically what is wrong.”

Other person: silence because they have never been to a caucus and have no clue

Make no mistake. There are people who are involved in caucuses who don’t like them. But, that doesn’t make them right. Most of the complaints they have are invalid for one of the following reasons:

1) There are things wrong with caucus, and things wrong with primaries. You can’t only complain about the one and not the other.

2) Things like “accessibility” and the like are often complained about. That is a factor, but it can be fixed, and good organizing units have fixed it. For instance, the caucus I help run is done at a huge facility that is among the most accessible in the region, and since the facility is capable of handling many thousands of people all day every day, our caucuses don’t stress things like handicapped parking, etc. (Other caucuses are not as good as us, but that is not the problem of the caucus, but a problem that can and should be fixed.”)

3) Complaining about the caucus but ignoring the entire party structure, with conventions, central committees, etc. is like saying you don’t like a person because of their hat. Maybe they have a stupid hat, but their hat is not as bad as your determination that they are a bad person because they have a bad hat.

4) It is said by haters that a caucus limits participation because it is held at a certain time at a certain place. That is true, for some potential participants. But it is also true that the caucus and convention system on balance enhances involvement, and that matters. In addition, as noted several times already, the caucus is part of a larger process. Anybody in Minnesota’s Senate District 44 want to get meaningfully involved in DFL politics but can’t do the caucus? Find me, I’ll fix you up. You can be very involved, influentially involved, meaningfully involved. But not if we have only a primary.

For every complaint about caucuses, I have one countervailing complaint about primaries: You can’t really buy a caucus (no, you can’t), but you can buy a primary. In a time when we should be eating the rich, do we really want to give up the last of our grassroots power?

I’ll just add this to complexity things. Tonight I’m going to caucus with some people over support of a particular candidate for a local race. Two night ago, Iowa had its precinct caucus, and on Feb 25th Minnesota does that as well (though there will be nothing about the presidential race at that caucus). I’m a member of the DFL Environmental caucus, which does not caucus. Recently, the Democrats in Minnesota, whose caucus is in the majority in the house but not in the Senate, formed the House Climate Change Action Caucus. And so on.

Not only is the thing that they call the “caucus” only one part of a larger, and good, thing, but the word “caucus” is a bit like the word “desktop” in that it means many things. Until Chuck and Andrea and the other national reporters can keep all of this straight, and not just some of it, it is irresponsible of them to force changes in our political system because they are annoyed at the scheduling of events.

Various comments and current news

For some reason, Facebook is not posting reliably and I will not abide writing paragraphs that the Internet sucks into oblivion!

So, I have a few thoughts I’ll put here and try to link to.

Rebecca Otto for Governor

Let’s start with Rebecca Otto, who just gave a great talk at the DFL (that’s what we Minnesotans call “Democrats”) Environmental Caucus meeting. Rebecca is running for Governor, and we need her to win.

I’ve written a bit about that (see: Rebecca Otto: by far the strongest and most progressive candidate for Minnesota Governor in 2018), and some time over the next week or so I’ll officially endorse her. (Yes, of course, bloggers can officially do whatever they want!)

Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Vs. The Trumpublicants

Speaking of governors, here is something you should know. In Minnesota, where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the Republicans are children, we are having a contentious time in the State government. The voters gave both houses of the legislature to the Republicans (riding on Putin’s coat tails?) but our Governor is Mark Dayton. Dayton, a DFLer, has been Governor for a while, and before that, he was in the Senate. Before that, if I recall correctly, he was a department store, but that was before I moved here.

Anyway, the fight is getting nasty and both sides are punching hard. Dayton’s latest move was to line-item-veto the budget item that funds the legislature. That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in politics since Kennedy turned up the heat in the debate studio to make Nixon sweat heavily. Dayton did this, and a few other things, to force the Republicans to negotiate on some key issues where the people of the state really want a certain thing (like no tax breaks on the wealthiest, some improvements in the education budget, etc.) but the Republicans refuse.

Here’s the thing. Dayton’s approval rating right now, in the middle of this big fight, is very high, and his disapproval rating is very low, and this applies across the state (though higher in DFL areas, obviously).

The lesson in the madness: Standing up to Republican tantrums is popular these days. Democrats: Do more of that, grow a spine. If you don’t know what a brave Democrat looks like, go look at Mark Dayton.

Cheap Malcolm Nance Book

You know Malcolm Nance, author of The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election. He’s on the Rachel Maddow show all the time. One of his other books, Hacking ISIS: How to Destroy the Cyber Jihad, is RIGHT NOW (and I assume for a limited time?) available for $1.99 in Kindle version. Just noticed that, so I thought I’d pass it on.

Will trump stump Comey?

This is the paragraph that was sucked into the Internet Void: The New York Times is reporting that Trump has no intention of interfering with this week’s testimony by fired FBI Director Comey. But the New York Times also says one never really knows what Trump will do. And, what the heck does the New York Times know anyway?

There are other, more subtle and less reliable, suggestions that Trump may in fact invoke some sort of executive privilege rule and shut down Comey.

The reason I mention this is to encourage RESIST activist groups like Indivisible, and individuals who are willing to go to the street to protest, to be ready for this. If it happens, an appropriate and good outcome would be swarming the streets.

Why? Because Trump shutting down Comey is not only the next step in this very important process, but it could be THE moment of truth for our democracy. Which is a subtle way of saying, the actual end of our democracy. When the President shuts down the Congress investigating possible treason by the President, that is the end. You do understand that, right?

Or, maybe that won’t happen, but we need to be ready.

Thank you very much that is all.