How the Iowa Caucus Works (AFAICT)

I had misunderstood how the Iowa Caucus(es) worked, and it is quite possible that I haven't got all the details right, but here's what I understand.

On the designated day, across Iowa in numerous neighborhood gathering places (analogous to voting precincts, but possibly smaller), Iowa Democrats gather, to do the following, called caucusing:

Various places in the room are set out for each candidate.  (This year, for instance, there will be an area for Bernie Sanders, and area for Joe Biden, and so on, down the line.)  Each Iowa Democrat voter goes to stand at the space set aside for the candidate that he or she prefers.  There is also a space for those who are still undecided.

Thirty minutes are permitted for those in each little group to persuade those in the other groups to join them (for instance, the Pete Buttigieg group could be trying to persuade the undecided voters to join them.)

Now, if I understand this correctly, any voters who are in any group that contains less than 15% of those in the room are required to abandon that candidate, and join the group of another candidate.  In other words, the least favored candidates are removed from consideration.  (This is similar to, but not the same as, the method used to select a new Pope from within the college of cardinals, in Rome.  In that situation, all the cardinals are considered in the first round, so that the process is self-nominating.)

Obviously 15% is an arbitrary cutoff level, but has probably been selected for the sake of efficiency.

Once the 'low-scoring' candidates have been eliminated in the first round, it could still be that one or more of the remaining groups does not have the requisite 15% to survive, in which case, it must be dissolved, and its members redistributed.  This process is continued until every candidate has at least 15% of the vote, and an elected person records the result, to be sent on to the district, which is next higher up in the hierarchy of polling regions.  Each group elects delegates to actually represent them, as I understand it, in the caucuses that follow--District Caucuses, presumably--until the State Convention meets, at which time the delegates choose a candidate somehow; I had lost patience with the whole business by the time I was reading about the State Convention. 

However, please note, that the raw "votes" of the first round are reported to the media, and the aggregated votes are publicized, despite the fact that the State Convention might produce a different candidate rather than the one who wins the most total votes in that first round.

(Despite my having said that I had gotten impatient with the process, I should not be misunderstood as being unimpressed with the process.  In a race where there are numerous candidates, such as we have this year, this process is probably the most fair, and the various opportunities for convinced voters to persuade other voters to their way of thinking is an imaginative means of explaining why a particular candidate might be a better choice, or at least a good fallback.)

The Republican Caucuses

Evidently the Republican Party of Iowa has its own, different rules.  They appear to me to be less reliable, and less successful at delivering, historically at least, a candidate who goes on to win the nomination.  Their process, which has changed over the years (as has the Democratic procedure, to be fair,) is available for your edification in Wikipedia.  And while you're at it, shoot the Wikipedia fellows a contribution, if that fits in with your plans.

The Debate

The question has come up: now that all the non-white candidates have been almost completely eliminated, as well as many of the female candidates, should Democrats select a woman candidate, since the minorities have failed to poll up to the bar set by the DNC?

Here's my thinking.

There are two objectives.

Bringing diversity into Presidential elections.

Electing a suitable president.

Of these, it seems to me that the nominee should be one who will move forward the desperately important Democrat agenda, following the devastation of the ultra-conservative four years that have gone by.  Making a statement about diversity takes second place.  This is not to say that it isn't possible to do both.  Select a president who can stand up to the nonsense of the ultra-Right, and inspire voters to go to the polls, and elect Democrat congressmen and congresswomen and senators; and if it is a woman, so much the better.

Electability rears its ugly head.  This is why the Iowa Caucuses are so important.  They subsume the problem of electability, and deliver a candidate with electability baked-in, as it were.

Still, there's no getting around the problem that Iowa has been a state with very little diversity, and one wonders whether they are competent to be the proxies for the nation in its needs for diversity of all kinds, including biodiversity, and ecological diversity.  Do they even understand the problems of the Farming Industry, and the Manufacturing Industry, though one would expect that they are placed well enough to understand those?

But as Democrats across the country walk about in bewilderment, trying and usually failing to allow their prejudices to select a candidate, given that none of the candidates are TV celebrities, to make things easier for us, it is good to get a head start with those brave idealists in Iowa!

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Election 2020

There are several unrelated matters that have popped up over the weekend.  Well, not entirely unrelated.

First of all, under instructions of the White House, a missile (from a drone) has taken out an important Iranian military leader, Qasim Suleimani (excuse any spelling errors) while he was visiting Iraq.

This tendency for US presidents to kill military and political leaders without trial is something that I do not agree with.  Sure; they are usually in retaliation for an enemy action that was essentially an act of undeclared war, e.g. 9/11, or the attack that killed a contractor recently.  There are lots of others who, like me, are unhappy about killing foreign military and political leaders, but there may be reasons why the US should take that route, though we have expressed dissatisfaction with other countries that did it.

Secondly, Bernie Sanders has done some powerful fundraising in the last quarter of last year, and this has impressed many Democrat-watchers greatly.  But I am unhappy that, it is not poll-results that impress political commentators, but ability to raise money.  Can't people look at any other criteria besides fund-raising?  We're starved for objective information about the likelihood of candidates to attract voters in primaries across the country, and it is pathetic that the best we can do is to use ability to raise funds, the very thing that we are determined to stamp out of politics.  It is so demoralizing that money is a basis for comparison without any resistance to it being so.

I have started reading the New York Times, and they invariably address the question: Whom are uncommitted, and independent voters likely to vote for?  It is so wrong that we should be burdened with the preferences of jokers we don't know, and shouldn't have to care about!  Can't we just vote for whom we like most, without worrying about countless sheep who are less intelligent than ourselves?  But no; we have to agonize over these nincompoops, who might never make it to the polls.

Meanwhile, in the UK (or Great Britain, as I call it, and who cares that it's a Kingdom?), the Brexit question is destroying their electoral decision process.  Here's what I recommend.

Each party should send their leaders who are in favor of BREXIT (i.e., in favor of Britain leaving the European Community) to one place, called Brexitville, and all their leaders who are against BREXIT to another place, let's call it Remainville.  Then they should be given two weeks to explain to the whole country why they want to Leave or Remain, respectively, to the British People, who know not their left hands from their right, in words of one syllable.  Then there should be an election between these two groups.  If it so happens that Leaving Party wins, then they should undertake to get BREXIT done in a few days, and then decide who is to lead Parliament.

Similarly, if the Remainers win, there will doubtless be a lot of repairing to do for commerce to smoothly proceed, after which there can be elections for Parliament.  Trying to elect members to Parliament while all parties are divided concerning BREXIT is madness.  BREXIT is currently restructuring all the parties, and creating questions such as: If I vote for Labor, will they do a referendum, or will they do a good job of BREXIT?  What if I want BREXIT, but a referendum returns REMAIN?  There is massive ignorance about the consequences of any step any party can take, and rightly so, because the parties themselves do not know.

Why do I advocate this?  Because the fact whether or not Britain is in the European Community strongly influences whom the Brits need to have leading them.  One set of leaders for EEC Britain, a different set of leaders for NON-EEC Britain.  An election makes no sense before the BREXIT issue is settled.  This is all the law and the prophets.  (Obviously, while we're waiting for these things to be settled, British commerce will suffer.  I don't know what to suggest.)


Meanwhile, down at the White House Farm, we must wonder whether Trump is playing chicken with Congress.  There must be at least a few members of the Republican Party that thinks that in future, they must have some mechanism to ensure that a loony like Trump never takes control of the party.  But now that Trump has taken the reins, and holds his Twitter phone in his hand, they have to pretend to be solidly behind Trump, otherwise he's supposedly liable to make some Tweet that calls out any GOP sheep who is straying from the fold.  That's a possibility that all the GOP Congressmen and Senators regard with horror.  A man with bone spurs should not exercise such an ability to instill fear in such tough fellows.

Arch

Election 2020: December Debate

Well, not expecting very much, I watched the debate with the off-switch of the Remote Control in my hand.  But, to my surprise, not only did PBS / Politico handle the debate with great zip, verve and style, the candidates said some useful and interesting things that were inspiring and thought-provoking.

But, looking at this firmly from my point of view,--and your mileage may vary, obviously, but we've got to be honest about the lenses through which we view this election--I must make clear what my objectives are.

First, let's make an unordered list (which means that the items are not in order of importance) of matters that I am worried about.

(1) Climate Change / Environment.  This is not the most worrisome thing for me, because I'm old, and I'll probably be past caring when the climate really goes to hell.  But on second thoughts, I probably should care about it, because it is a time-sensitive thing.  But practically, you can't get anywhere because the fossil-fuel (read oil, gas and coal) lobby has such a stranglehold on all businesses and politics, and through them on Congress, the Senate, and the Presidency.

(2) The Financial Well-Being of the Population At Large.  This does not simply mean that I want to have money taken from the very rich and given to the poor, though that would certainly be one option.  The wealth of the very rich is sort of illusory; capitalist economics has made it so.  For instance, if laws are passed making it impossible to burn gasoline, all the holdings of people who have stocks in oil companies will be worth nothing.  But guess what: the very rich have enough power to prevent the poor increasing their power, again through influencing Congress and the Senate, etc.

(3) Social Justice.  Discrimination is not something that the vast majority of us thinks about all the time, but for those who are affected by discrimination, it is right there, front and center.  As never before, we have enacted legislation that promises women, minorities, and those with alternate preferences equal rights and privileges as everybody else, but there is huge hostility towards this process from certain groups, which feel threatened.  Most importantly, there is hostility from uneducated whites, and their lack of education is not only in the areas of the three R's, but in general knowledge about how things work, or should work.  But those in power see advantages in keeping things the way they are.  Some of them are cynical, but others simply notice that ignorant folks are more easily persuaded by the advantages of wild schemes that only consolidate the power of the rich.

(4) As you can see, Money in Politics is a huge problem, and I see this as synonymous with corruption.  (This whole Impeachment story is one of how differently Trump and his handlers view money, from how Congress views money.)  Elections are now so money-driven that a person of modest means could almost never run for elected office, and win.  TV ads are expensive, and the political process is so complicated that TV ads are almost essential.

(5) Health Care.  Yes, this is important.  And I'm beginning to believe that a single-payer scheme is the most logical, provided the bureaucracy that it needs can be kept sane and streamlined, which certainly is a tall order.  (You can just imagine how much lobbying there is to prevent a government takeover of health care!)

(6) Education.  This is a very difficult problem for us to discuss.  How difficult is it going to be to persuade every parent in the US that a broad, intensive education is important, and worth encouraging their children to work for?  The American Way is cutthroat competition: get ahead by showing how much better you are than all the others.  The realities of a difficult life get in the way of kids learning to cooperate and work for a future that's better for everyone.

(7) Gun Legislation.  People are so tired of talking about this that it hardly came up during the debate.  It is not that people are no longer interested.  It is that there is so much agreement that it is a waste of time talking about it with those who agree about it.

So, to summarize, it becomes clear that Corruption and Money in Politics are the most acute problems that face us, because Combating Climate Change and Health Care Reform, and Financial Services Reform, and Gun Legislation, and Clean Energy Initiatives are all impossible if lobbies are allowed to influence policy decisions.

Elizabeth Warren.  Senator Warren (now in her early 70's) had consistently reasonable answers to every question, though her lecturing tone was a little annoying.  Not so much to me, personally, but because I could imagine that her tone would annoy others who would otherwise support her.  But will the hordes of former Trump followers be comfortable backing E. Warren?  I'm determined not to be looking over my shoulder at everyone else.  Warren is solid.

Bernie Sanders.  He comes across as a little more moderate than Elizabeth Warren, but he seems relentlessly angry.  And he is angry, not in a personal way, but angry at the system that disenfranchises ordinary folks.

Pete Buttigieg.  Most of the policies the Mayor espouses are fine, except for his Health Care plan, which is a little wimpy.  But the biggest problem with Pete is, in my mind, his lack of a sense of urgency about fighting corruption head on.  Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are mad about corruption.  Pete is more even-tempered about it, but will that work?

Amy Klobuchar.  She came across far more powerfully last night than ever before.  She seems a little too much of an insider, very much into her effectiveness as a Senator.  That's important.  But she must stop talking like a Senator, and talk like a President.  All her values align with mine, but in the US, values alone are not enough; you got to have charisma.  And, unfortunately, it is charisma that everybody is looking for in these debates.  If she believes she is a president in the making, she could make us believe.

Joe Biden.  The Un-Trump, Joe Biden, is a sort of a fall-back candidate.  If all else fails, we have Joe Biden!  He's too much of a old-school man to deal with the problems we have, and the problems that the GOP of the next four years will be throwing up to slow us down.

Andrew Yang, and Tom Steyer.  I hate to give these two guys a thumbs-down, because between them they have lots of good ideas.  But Yang has too much of a mechanistic view of social psychology, and--forgive me--I just can't take Steyer seriously, though if he had come along one year earlier, and if we watched TV more often, he might have been more convincing.

As one of the PBS commentators said it last night: people are watching the candidates to see whether their values align with theirs.  This is almost a no-brainer, but until it's expressed that way, it seems a puzzle about what is going on in these debates.

Once the values thing is sorted out, like me, most people are looking for charisma, and why?  Because it reflects on how other voters will vote!  I know, I know; I said I was only concerned about how I will vote.  But, well, I guess I lied!

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Kamala Harris, and Election 2020

It is such a shame that Kamala Harris has decided to abandon her run for President.  Most importantly, I believe that Senator Kamala Harris would be a good choice for President in a more typical election year.  There are few or no policy issues on which we disagree, she is a plausible candidate from the point of view of diversifying our nominees for elected leaders, and she is able to think on her feet, most ably when it comes to points she has prepared beforehand.

This time around, however, I believe that withdrawing at this point is the clever thing to do.  I explain below.

Reason No. 1.  This particular race for nomination has become confused between several groups of issues; principally two.  Firstly, there is the urgency of ensuring that the Democrats defeat the Republican nominee.  Of course, this is always an urgent problem; the Republican always seem to emphasize the well-being of wealthy individuals against the good of the nation, the majority of which is comprised of people who are poor.  However, this year we are alarmed at the particular team that the Republicans have allowed to steal their nomination, a more frustratingly destructive choice than ever before in history.  If you Republicans are congratulating yourselves on rattling the equanimity of liberals with the Trump presidency, be aware that a total revolution in norms is not what will work for you.  Now the Democrats want a counter-revolution in norms that is going to make you very sorry.

Secondly, there is the expectation from a number of different quarters, that it would be most convenient if each candidate would put forward a single major initiative that distinguishes him or her from the other candidates, so that everyone can call that candidate "The Environment Candidate," or the "Wall Street Reform Candidate," or the "Medicare For All Candidate."  By implication, a candidate who supports most, or all, of these initiatives, but who is not particularly focused on any one of them, is seen as wishy-washy.  This was perceived as Kamala Harris's weakness.  As far as I was concerned, it was really not a weakness at all, but rather an advantage; all these fronts need to be pushed forward, regardless of whether voters consider them important.  Once a president is elected, as I keep reminding my readers, he or she will appeal to her fellow-candidates for ideas or detailed plans to further all these plans.  But the media, the campaign staff, and the voters are all disappointed in the lack of a focus, and that results in low fund-raising results, and ultimately leads to the candidate dropping out.  It is a great pity.

Reason No. 2.  The Democrats--the more progressive party by far, whether or not it is the better party--has gradually embraced racial, ethnic and gender diversity.  Obama, the first non-white president of the US, was a great success (one reason why conservatives hate him with a passion), and being a moderate, and a flexible man, was able to get much progressive legislation passed.  (Another reason why conservatives hate him.  And he was articulate and eloquent, a third reason.  And he was educated, a fourth reason.  I shall temporarily now abandon this line of thinking.)  If the Democratic Party is to keep up this effort to reflect our diverse society with diversity in its presidential nominees, it would make sense to nominate a woman or a minority person.  Kamala Harris would have been perfect.

Instead, now, we're either going to get Bernie Sanders, who might be the first Jewish nominee (though I'm not sure whether there might not have been Jews in earlier times), or Buttigieg, the first openly gay nominee, or Elizabeth Warren, the second woman nominee.

I'm a little nervous about Elizabeth Warren; she seems a little oblivious to public sentiment, though her attitudes towards the Banks and Wall Street are perfect, in my opinion.  There is a danger in proceeding too far, too fast; it is the easiest thing for the Republican Party--if anything goes wrong with the reforms, and the Democrats lose the next election--to reverse all the changes (just as the Democrats can be expected to reverse the effects of the 2017 tax cut of Trump).

Bernie Sanders worries me because of his age; Joe Biden worries me because of his children, and because he seems to trip over his tongue, and sometimes lose his temper.  I'm fine with Buttigieg; he is clever enough to get the help he needs from among the talent in the party.  One feels sad for the arrogance of the present administration, which does not have the humility to admit to being unable to run the country.

So, Senator Harris: we expect you to take a break, and jump back in, in eight years, or four, as appropriate.

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Footloose (2011)

I just got done watching Footloose (2011), and I give it about four thumbs up.

Julianne Hough comes across in quite a different way than Lori Singer (who was first famous as the cello-playing all-rounder in the TV series Fame).  In contrast to the ballet-dancing, tall, slim Singer, Hough is a cute, pocket battleship of a girl-next-door, with great big blue eyes.  Julianne Hough is excellent in her role, as are Dennis Quaid and Andie McDowell, who play her parents.  Both Lori Singer and Julianne Hough are acknowledged to be excellent dancers, though in different eras, directions and styles.  Both are all-round dancers.  Julianne Hough is a professional dancer who acquired fame in Dancing with the Stars, and as a Country singer.

Kenny Wormald does a fabulous job as Ren McCormack, and projects quite a different personality than the taciturn Kevin Bacon.  Both actors did a wonderful job in their respective movies, but the 2011 actor had a certain sparkle that was appropriate to the expectations of modern audiences.

Dennis Quaid took on the role that John Lithgow played in the older movie, a tough act to follow.  But he did a better than adequate job.

Andie McDowell's role was earlier played by Diane Weist.  I adore Diane Weist, but I must confess that I can't remember enough of her performance in 1984 to compare with Andie McDowell's excellent job in this remake.

The writing in the 2011 movie is, in my view, excellent.  Writing a teen movie is not easy, since you have to capture the feel of the speech and the mood of young people, both the mood across the country, and the mood of the particular locality in which you have placed the action.  The humor and repartee has to be right, the references have to be right; a tough order for middle-aged writers, who have to base it all on the young people they know, or failing that, on other teen movies of the time!  The writers on the present screenplay is: Craig Brewer (from a story by Pitchford).  The writer for the older film was Dean Pitchford.  Standards for the writing in this genre have risen, in my opinion, and Pitchford and Brewer have made good use of the intervening decades to refine the story and the script.

The music for both movies was excellent, and the remake makes use of almost all the songs in the original, with necessary changes needed to handle modern teen dances.  There is a charming scene in which two little girls, Ren's cousins, sing "Let's hear it for the boy," a signature song in the 1984 movie, sung by the beloved Deniece Williams.  The little girls are seen on either side of Andie McDowell, in the inset.  (It turns out that Dean Pitchford is some sort of literary and musical genius, and co-wrote many of the songs in both movies.)  This remake is probably one of the most successful in the past few decades.

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Tariff Epidemic, and other unrelated facts

International trade is a delicate thing.  Trade, generally, is a delicate thing; in fact, when you come right down to it, all commerce, and economics generally, is delicate, and it is a wonder that the current position among political philosophers is that the economies of nations must be left alone, only steered with minute adjustments by those in charge of interest rates and the money supply.  From the point of view of rational socialists---people who take a more mechanical point of view of economics, and I believe I should count myself among them---this is just asking for trouble.  They believe in controlled economies, where the government controls production more directly.  They've said this for decades; it was just pure luck that the number of idiots who stumbled upon ideas to enrich themselves at the cost of the economy were few, until the junk mortgage debacle of 2006-2007, and now Trump.

One wonders whether the gambles that caused mortgage-gate were the results of ignorance and carelessness/stupidity, or sheer disregard for economic principles, principles in the sense of standards to which one holds oneself, out of consideration for the needs of society.  I tend to think it was ignorance, but one never knows.  Every once in a while, a child is born, who grows up to be an adult who's willing to throw the world under a bus, just to enrich him- or herself.

This brings us to tariffs.  Just this morning, the newspapers report that the administration has imposed tariffs on imports from South America, throwing various national economies off balance, and tariffs have been imposed against French imports, which have, or could, result in tariffs against certain luxury goods that are sold in high volume during the holiday season, including French champagne.  Now, I don't think I have ever drunk French champagne, certainly not knowingly.  I don't hobnob with the class of people who would splurge on the stuff, but if these tariffs throw the business of French wine producers (including champagne-producers) off-balance, then ultimately it is poor workers who suffer.  Most of my readers will look at the problem from the point of view of consumers; yes, our prices will rise, and the prospect of rising prices for luxury goods is alarming.  Trump himself will be unhappy, because his extended family is almost certain to be wanting champagne for the holiday season.  (But he would probably bill it to the White House, just as he bills his numerous golf vacations, which is very un-American.  Evidently, he and his entire entourage stay at Trump properties, which, in turn, raise their prices to profit from the stay.  I believe this practice is called price-gouging, but is not exactly illegal.)  But the workers in the fields, in the warehouses, the wait staff in restaurants, it is they who will suffer, and we must keep that in mind.

Again, I'm no expert, but it seems to me that tariffs must not be changed heedlessly.  (The word I want is not heedlessly, but I can't think of a better word at the moment.  Gratuitously?  Capriciously?  Arbitrarily?)  Because the consequences of a tariff do cascade in such long chains of implication, the world markets are not equipped to respond to a rapier-thrust of a punitive tariff, and they will never be.  These punitive tariffs are the actions of a cruel man who loses his temper, because the consequences are to punish those who are not near the decision-making center.  The chains of blame will not generally follow the chain of cause-and-effect, and quite innocent people will be blamed for the ensuing problems.  (Trump, if he himself were to have to suffer through such a situation, would most likely blame the wrong actor.)

Is international trade a good thing?  Initially, they provided the affluent with inexpensive luxury goods made by poor workers in underdeveloped countries.  But now, food and fuel and clothing have settled into flows on such vast scales, that when this flow is disrupted, people will starve, and be cold, and parents will be unable to provide the silly little things that kids expect, even if they're not the expensive electronic toys that American kids appreciate, but the little Tinker Toys that Third World kids probably play with.  The America First viewpoint is not something that many Americans themselves will be comfortable adopting.

In some quarters in the US, in some mega-churches, the rhetoric that is used is probably that Americans have been mistreated by foreigners, e.g. Chinese, for so long, that it is probably no more than simple justice that they should suffer, for a change.  But this sort of retaliatory thinking has never been Christian thinking, or rather should not be.

Well, this brings us to the fact that a businessman, one who is just a businessman without any experience in public service, is entirely unsuited to be the head of a nation.  Among all such individuals, we seem to have selected the most ill-tempered, the most ignorant, the most suspicious, the least diplomatic, the most unread, the most unprincipled businessman to be our president!  To be honest, it isn't his fault; the blame must be distributed among all the Republican rank and file, who have been made to believe that they have been wronged by the liberals and Democrats, by unscrupulous Republican demagogues.  It is unfortunate that American voters can be so easily manipulated by domestic demagogues, and foreign meddlers; but the world population at large has been revealed to be tragically susceptible to propaganda.  Propaganda, Marketing---what's the difference?

It's interesting that the Democrats, now that they have committed to keeping big money out of politics, have to drum up support among millions of ordinary people, whom they are cudgeling into making thousands of small donations into their campaign coffers.  So many families are targeted for piles of junk mail, ironically paid for by this very process of begging for contributions to various campaigns!  Even those of us who are determined to overturn the campaign finance decision of the Supreme Court are doubtless thinking that it is almost worth allowing dark money in politics, if it lessens the onslaught of political junk-mail to which we're subjected, particularly if we've responded to requests for money!

Political contributions that are not secret are tabulated and published by interested news sources, so we know, for instance, from where Elizabeth Warren's financial support came, before she chose not to accept money from big donors.  Unfortunately, vast numbers of voters of both parties have got out of the habit of reading this information for themselves.  Instead, they depend on TV Talking Heads to filter this data on their behalf, which is a very dangerous thing to do.  Talking Heads have their own agendas, and their filtering is often not a benign service they offer.

I have drifted far afield from the problems of tariffs, I'm afraid.  I'm going to alter the title of this post to reflect the chaos that is this post.

Archimedes

Thoughts About The Political Scene

I'll try and make this brief, because I honestly do not know as much about national politics as much as many of my readers undoubtedly do.  Furthermore, I'm going to write about other subjects, some of which I have talked about before, but which I want to bring up again, which have little to do with politics.

We're currently observing the progress of an Impeachment in the House of Representatives.  It has its seeds in Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President, Joe Biden, sitting on the board of a Ukrainian company, which was under suspicion of corruption.  Some folks believe that corruption is terrible all over Ukraine, which is very plausible.  Corruption in former Soviet Union countries is sort of endemic, because once the Communist Party got really large and powerful, and its bosses began casting envious eyes on the ruling classes of the world, some of the sorts of abuses that George Orwell outlined in his book Animal Farm actually happened.

Republicans, and lots of people in and out of politics, can't believe that the President is being condemned for asking the Ukrainians to investigate both the DNC*--and by extension, Hillary Clinton--and the Bidens, father and son.

This is a shakedown, from the point of view of the Democrats.  The Democrats think of what Trump and the new Ukrainian president were discussing as a personal request from Trump.  On the other hand, Trump and his supporters view the discussion as Trump bravely investigating wrongdoing by the Bidens and the DNC, on behalf of the American People, who hate corruption.

It is certainly foolish of Hunter Biden to have joined the board of Burisma, but Hunter Biden has done several foolish things, and ambitious younger sons of people in the public eye, who have had a taste of wealth and fame, notoriously tend to be attracted to dangerous and high-profile actions.  Trump's bafflement at having this incident elevated to the level of treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors, is understandable, if not exactly excusable.

Why are Republicans as a whole refusing to condemn Trump?  Many reasons.  For one thing, the only matter on which Republicans agree--or rather, the two matters on which they agree--are that (1) They hate the Democrats, and (2) The Democrats are out to get them.  For the rest of it, each Republican has his or her own little agenda, and the single recurring theme in all these agendas is that of trying to get re-elected.  This is no surprise.

There are many reasons why the Republicans completely disagree with what the Democrats want to do, is that the Republicans have as a main principle: We can't do everything for everybody.  If you ask any conservative, this is something they will agree on.  Now, the Democrats say: we're not asking to help every citizen with everything.  But we certainly must help them as follows:

(1) Help the poorest with basic needs.  Food stamps, cheap lodgings, etc.
(2) Help disaster victims after a hurricane or a flood, or fire, etc.
(3) Help partially with education.  We need this, because we need an educated electorate.
(4) Help the recently unemployed, the disabled, and the elderly, with money and health services.

To this list, the Democrats are adding:

(5) Help everyone (or at least the poor) with Healthcare.  Ideally, everyone.
(6) Help everyone get a college education.
(7) Help the country move to clean energy immediately.
(8) Help everyone with free family planning, and abortion, as needed.

A few years ago, I would have supported Health Care for All, except that I'm seeing how crazy the Health Care business is.  The prices are insane.  In fact, the costs for anything in the US is wildly different from anywhere else.  For example, the other day I got a blood test done from the local hospital, and I was charged on the order of $400. **  These blood tests are ordered by doctors as a defensive measure, to protect themselves from being accused of performing unnecessary procedures.  Well, I guess we've got to swallow that situation, because frivolous litigation does have consequences.  The fact is, a simple blood test only costs around $80, unless the lab technicians want to wear $5000 gloves, to prevent litigation on sterility failure, and want to perform only 5 tests a day, to prevent being accused of being fatigued in the workplace, and so on.  Mind you, I'm not exactly saying that these things happen.  But our culture certainly encourages cost inflation.

College Education for all is a sad thing.  Having got one myself, I would be a hypocrite if I were to say that other young people do not deserve one.  But the fact is: students do not learn very much in school--again, a cultural matter; all of US society pressures students to not pay attention in school--so that all the material they ought to have learned in school gets postponed to college, where it has the potential for being taught well, but in fact only a workmanlike job is done of teaching this remedial material.

We've talked about the Environment and Clean Energy already at length, and need not address it here.

As I have pointed out before, Business has been elevated to the status of the greatest occupation that anyone can have, in the USA.  People are mistakenly identifying American Business as what makes the USA great.  In actual fact, the US has had a large share of people who are thoughtful, and who write well.  The great wealth that the American Middle Class has enjoyed in the 20th Century meant that we could support more writers than many other countries.  Arguably, Business supports this wealth, which makes other things possible.  But it seems silly to point to Business as the genius of the USA, because it makes these other things possible.

As a result of this deification of Business, people assume that a business tycoon could run the country better than a lawyer, or a former Governor, or an Actor, or a Professor.  Trump was the first experiment in handing the reins of government to a business executive.  And what happened?  He surrounded himself with yes-men and lobbyists, and went off to golf.

Knowing that Trump had no government administrative experience, his circle of supporters indulged his eccentric whims, and in exchange, he pushed through a few pieces of legislation, highly damaging to the country, and to people of little wealth or income.  Most importantly, Trump finds it impossible to view himself with a critical eye.  Since a shakedown in business is considered perfectly fine, and since Trump considers that the USA is helping countries around the world with very little to show for it, he must have thought that doing a deal with Ukraine was a reasonable thing, and nothing to do with the election, really.  It seems to that this thing cannot be resolved until and unless Joe Biden drops out of the presidential nomination race.

To come back to Congressional Republicans: they're probably thinking, we must give the impression of fighting this impeachment all the way.  Of course, even if it passes, the Senate will (probably) not convict Trump, but Trump probably doesn't realize that.  Anyway, these sorts of gestures are important with Trump: if we sit out these Impeachment votes, thinking that the Impeachment will fail in the Senate anyway, Trump will still be mad at us.  Furthermore, making a show of opposition will stiffen the backs of Senate Republicans, who might otherwise cave, and vote for Trump's removal.

If and when the Impeachment fails, Trump will have a screaming victory at the polls, and a grateful Trump will help all the Republicans get re-elected.  (Trump isn't sure he has the energy to actually campaign on behalf of all his Republicans; instead, he's promised to help them from his campaign money chest.  He's going to buy the election for his party!)

Elizabeth Warren's quite reasonable suggestion that she is going to tax wealthy families at 2% of their wealth every year, is in my mind a minor step in offsetting the huge windfalls Trump obtained for very wealthy families and corporations.  For a family whose holdings are around a billion dollars (which is not rare these days), that is an annual tax of $20,000,000 per family.

On the other hand, after Trump's enormous tax-cut of 2017, our national debt is on the order of $23,000,000,000,000 (that's twenty-three trillion dollars).  This extra Elizabeth Warren tax will pay off this debt only after a thousand years (assuming there is a thousand families who will pay this tax).

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*DNC: Democratic National Committee, the steering committee of the Democratic Party of the USA.

**Startling as this is, in some places, the costs are higher.  Crazy.