The Iowa Caucus Has Problems

Though the Iowa Caucus has been a great idea, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get great ideas working as they should, in this new improved world of ours!  (Last I heard, someone had created an App for the leaders of the Iowa caucuses to send in their numbers, and either the App did not work as advertised, or the leaders didn't use the App appropriately.  Apps are tricky things.  And furthermore, any and all Apps can be made to report to people and websites of which the users don't know anything about.  I'm not saying that happened in Iowa, but . . . the fewer Apps, the better, if you know what I mean.)

Anyway, its going to be a while before the information from Iowa comes out, but the null hypothesis there is (in other words, what we would believe if new information is not forthcoming) that the top four contenders are running neck and neck: Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg.

Now it is time for us to worry less about what everybody else thinks, which is what most of us have agonized about thus far, and settle what we think. 

Those who simply focused on getting rid of Trump (to put it crudely) have wondered which candidate can get the most votes at the general election.  Well, for those who are afraid that the most radical candidates will alienate moderate voters, listen: a Democratic president cannot simply put things in place without the active participation of Congress.  (Well; he or she might be able to do this, but it will create a stink from both the conservatives and the liberals.)  So the most far out schemes of both Bernie and Elizabeth Warren will be toned down to the sort of plans that Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg are likely to try to float anyway.  So let us not worry about our nominee being too radical.

As far as the unaligned moderates out there: we can't do better than choosing someone who is not looking to antagonize the GOP.  None of the Democrat candidates are looking for a fight with the GOP (though, to be honest, we do think that they have betrayed themselves, and the conservative part of the population, by going this route of hostility to migrants, and belligerence to foreign nations.)

Biden: historically, he has been willing to compromise with conservatives (to the extent of talking in conservative language, occasionally).  But I'm afraid that, as some commentators have pointed out, if he is elected, Republicans could try to impeach him simply based on the Ukraine fairy tales that Trump and Giuliani have manufactured.

Warren is against the usual Washington shenanigans, but (she claims) she isn't prejudiced against the GOP as such.  I believe her; the question is whether the moderate rank and file believe her.  She has a few months to make them believe her.  She can be an excellent president, and in fact, I don't believe we can do better than her.

Sanders is becoming increasingly belligerent.  I think he would win if we have a massive Democrat turnout at the polls in November, but he is likely to get the Republicans all fired up as well.  I don't see a lot of healing taking place with Sanders on the ballot.  Now, bear in mind: Sanders is not mad at the GOP as such (or rather, he hasn't been.  After this impeachment, he is likely to be quite angry and disappointed in the conservatives), he is angry against money in politics, and corruption in government, and against the tax laws.  But those who are against money in government (and the tax laws) must also have conservatives among them.  It has only recently been the case that those who call themselves Republicans have been OK with the sorts of shenanigans that they have got into recently: with Russia, and bribery, and spreading false rumors, etc.  It is as if they're saying: we can't beat the Dems legitimately, so let's hand over the elections to Trump and these crooks, and see what we can get.

Yang is really a millennial moderate.  The young folks who have phones surgically planted in their palms see Yang as a hero, and he isn't really bad.  He hasn't alienated the conservatives, and he has retained a large number of liberal Democrats who are not interested in getting hostile with the Alt Right.  He calls himself 'a numbers guy,' and he seems at home with the numerical gymnastics that the economists like to play with: let's cut taxes by this much, and people will spend that much, and the unemployment rate will fall that much, and Wall Street will do that much.  I don't like these sorts of calculations, but if he must be the one who gets the nomination, I guess I can stand four years of him.  He at least knows the language better than Trump.

Buttigieg is a moderate.  Electability-wise, we have to consider all those whose view of the White House is that of a distinguished-looking guy in the Oval Office, and a gracious woman standing behind him, ready to help host a few nice parties for bigwigs from Europe.  I only know a few people among my neighbors.  I don't think having Buttigieg in the WH will be a disaster, but I have a feeling that it would be a tough sell.  Heck, a woman president would be a tough sell, but people have done it, and it has worked nicely.  But in these matters, the USA is not a trail blazer; we wait until it has been done in, say, Netherlands, or Russia, before we elect a gay president.

Klobuchar (Amy to her friends) is also an excellent choice, but she can't do it alone; she needs to be backed up with a strong army of administrative supporters, but I'm sure she can get one together.  She isn't committed to any of these Health Reform plans that have got some people all upset, but neither is she very hostile to any of them.  Honestly, a Health Reform plan must come from some sort of committee; I don't think it needs to be a detailed Take It Or Leave It plan.  A president needs to have the will to make it palatable, and not likely to be repealed by the GOP if they win the next election.  (The difficulty the GOP has had with repealing Obamacare simply goes to show how well the latter was put together.)

Bloomberg.  I hope he doesn't win the nomination.  If he does, it will go to show that only someone who can mobilize big, old-fashioned pots of money can win this election.  Maybe Trump has set us back a decade or two, and the idea of Big Money Can Win has captured the electorate, but I fervently hope not.  The same goes for Tom Steyer.  They both have excellent ideas, but they're sort of a tough sell; many people are tired of the bi-coastal power wielders to let them keep the leadership of the nation.  All the other candidates except Buttigieg and Klobuchar are bi-coastal types, but these two billionaires are obnoxiously bi-coastal.

So that's my take on the acceptability vs. electability conundrum we're faced with.  Of course, these issues will be decided one state at a time first.  But unless we stand by whoever the Party picks, no matter how lame, we're screwed.

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A “Leaderless” World? Hmm... Leadership and Trust

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In a recent article in the New York Times, David Brooks puts forward the view that political opinion in the US regarding leadership has significantly changed.  This is hardly news, but Brooks is talking about a very specific kind of leadership: US leadership in international politics, and our participation in it.

In his article he cites a recent (2014-3-7)  Pew Center survey report (Milennials in Adulthood) which reveals that in contrast to the Baby Boomer generation, of whom 40% responded that ‘most people can be trusted’, of Millennials (the folks just approaching adulthood at present) less than 20% responded this way.  Brooks’s theory is that this makes the younger generation less comfortable with entrusting international affairs to high-stakes diplomacy, or military intervention.

You need to read the entire article to get the subtleties, all of which are fascinating, of Brooks’s op-ed, but it all seems to depend on exactly why the Millennials --anyway, young people, let’s say-- responded this way.

The actual statement --see at right-- was: ‘Most people can be trusted, vs. You can’t be too careful in dealing with people.’

This is an unfortunately vague statement, whose interpretation is almost too broad to be useful.  If you mean:  “Can you trust a counter clerk to return a wallet to the Lost and Found?” the mistrust of a person means one thing, while if you mean “Can you trust the Rebels to hold off hostilities until the Convention is over?” it means something entirely different.  In both cases, however, a Millennial is likely to be less trusting than a Baby Boomer.

Why?

Because Baby Boomers started out being naive about the world, and even a long cold war and the missteps of the Vietnam War only adjusted their habits of thinking in specific ways.  Their mistrust was saved for “people over 35”, or people in politics, or whatever, whereas Millennials —and I might be generalizing where angels fear to tread— have been brought up to mistrust even Uncle Ed.  Millennials might think that Mom’s cautioning is a little over the top, but the steady diet of a certain kind of news in the media has had its results: There are people out there who are very . . .  different.

How does that fit in with the increase in diversity, the rise of women in politics, the significant presence of Latinos, Chinese and Vietnamese and Japanese in American Colleges, even Canadians!  A far greater proportion of American citizens come into contact with people of different ethnicity, both US nationals, and visitors or immigrants, in ways that are positive, in this century than in the last.  This must support a young person’s belief that people are differenter than their parents thought.  But, I suggest, they are probably comfortable with differences.

One must wonder what it is, in the vast arrays of assumptions that support the thinking of an idealist such as David Brooks, that leads him to interpolate between what he sees in world affairs and US responses to them, and the Pew Report, and his knowledge of the people around him, to arrive at the conclusions he does.  Clearly some of his conclusions are straightforward: Millennials are probably suspicious of military action, certainly more suspicious than older Americans.  The causes could be many, but I suspect that among them is the huge suspicion that neither Congress nor the Pentagon can be trusted to oversee a military action of any sort.

Millennials are probably —and I’m alarmed at how smoothly the term Millennials slides off my fingers— cautious about whether political conversations between foreign leaders, especially those who are non-Western educated, and American diplomats, are understood correctly by Our Side.  It is not just that the foreign leaders are being deceitful; leaders are invariably deceitful, including our own.  It is that deceit is less well understood today than it has been in the past; and you know what?  I wouldn’t be surprised that brighter Millennials are well aware of that.

[And here’s something else to think about, completely unrelated to David Brooks’s article.  Whatever deceit is involved in international diplomacy, the intolerant Christian Conservative Right can be trusted to make a big fuss about it, further muddying the waters.  One wonders what the Millennials think about that.  A pox on the Christian Conservative Right: may rabid dogs . . .  Sorry.]

One thing is certain: it is fascinating to analyze how the younger generation will approach political leadership and its problems.  I still see energetic and enthusiastic young undergraduates rushing to declare double majors in Business and Political Science, and I shudder.  I sincerely doubt whether we can continue to be guided by the received wisdom of those pseudo-disciplines.

Appendix: A summary of Brooks’s Article

The main thrust of the article is that there appears to be a trend towards less engagement in world affairs: military, political, business and economic.  This is not isolationism, says Brooks; he argues that while the younger generation distrust big actions by individuals, large corporations, or star diplomats, they do look favorably on person-to-person conversation and persuasion.  “The power is in the swarm,” he quotes.

The conclusion is that individuals tend to be less comfortable delegating power to others, simply because they don’t “have enough trust” in political leaders.  (I wonder whether Mr. Brooks has lost trust in the President over the years? Hmm.)

Do please read the article yourself; it is worth reading, not least because of the additional information there which I have not passed on to you.  There are a few deplorable lapses in clarity due to unclear uses of tense; something about which I am hardly in a position to complain.

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