3 years in advance, 2020 prospects

Trump's first 100 days have been relatively uneventful compared to what it looked like 3 months ago. He failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, has reduced his plans for the border wall. On the downside he has approved more pipelines, implemented a hiring freeze for the government, and slashed funding for services we rely on, like the EPA, FDA, and many other agencies we depend on. Some decisions are more nuanced, such as the actions in Syria, and it remains to be seen whether our increased involvement in Syria will defeat ISIS. He banned refugees which hurts the fight against international terrorism. His protectionist policies threaten our economy. He praises Putin will claiming NATO allies need to pay up. Officials from multiple intelligence agencies expect meddling by Russia in our election. We have seen more nepotism in this administration than any other in living memory. He removed environmental reviews for many infrastructure projects, putting our health at risk. Despite critizing Obama for vacation he already has spent more on vacation than Obama did per year on average. The very fact that he tried to repeal health care without a reasonable approval shows he does not care about the average American and is just looking for

In 2020 we are going to need a change of pace to reinstate the services he has already cut. The next president of the United States is probably in office already, and is likely either a governor or senator currently. Trump is the first president to not be a sitting Senator or governor since Eisenhower, and most Presidents in history have been one or the other. In order to be an effective candidate the Democratic nominee will need to be:

1. Someone who understands science and listens to professionals in order to make the right decision.
2. Someone without a history of corruption. I will only consider governors from the top half of states because of this.
3. Someone with a good media presence and excellent speaking skills.
4. A strong progressive background
5. Popular

The first metric I think we should examine are the most popular politicians in America. On this metric Bernie Sanders stands out as the most popular politician in America. People know who he is and his policies are popular enough for him to get +29 points (favorable - unfavorable) in a Fox News poll. The other polled was for Elizabeth Warren who also polled positively, despite only 70% of respondents knowing who she is (a massive improvement from previous polls). A Sanders-Warren or Warren-Sanders ticket would blow Trump out of the water in 2020 if they chose to run. Bernie Sanders is doing the best in primary polls right now, although it is certainly too early to call. Sanders and Warren match all 5 requirements I can think of in order to be a successful president. O'Malley also won a poll in Iowa, and he would be a fantastic president.

When it comes to governors, the following are at the top of the list:

1. Former Delaware governor Jack Markell was the most popular Democratic governor in the nation with 66% approval, 5% more than Bernie Sanders. He has been a leader on lgbt rights and the environment, and has improved state campaign finance laws. He would be a great President if he chose to run. Delaware scores well on corruption rankings.
2. Mark Dayton of Minnesota is the second most popular Democratic governor in America currently at 61% percent approval, but he doesn't have the strong anti-corruption record of Markell. Minnesota scores very well on corruption rankings.
3. John Hickenlooper already can't walk into a room without people asking him to run for president, like when he was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me a few weeks ago.  He has an amazing economic policy, strong on gun control,  and is in favor of marijuana legalization. He would be a fantastic president. Colorado scores very well on corruption convictions.
4. Kate Brown of Oregon is enjoying 58% approval and is strong on all metrics. Oregon is the least corrupt state in the nation.
5. Jay Inslee of Washington is at 56% approval and a strong progressive on most issues, despite opposing Initiative 732. Washington is the second least corrupt state in the nation.

So, my ideal primary would see Bernie Sanders (who will likely win) on the stage with Kate Brown, John Hickenlooper, Elizabeth Warren, Jay Inslee, and Mark Dayton. These are 6 individuals who do the best they can given their available information and we would be lucky to have any of these individuals as our next president.

More details:

Candidate	Age on 20 January 2021	State
Kate Brown	60	Oregon
Jay Inslee	69	Washington
Elizabeth Warren	71	Massachusetts
Bernie Sanders	79	Vermont
John Hickenlooper	68	Colorado
Mark Dayton	73	Minnesota

The first thing about these heavy hitters is that they are all fairly old to be President. Most Presidents have usually been in their 50s with an ordinary bell curve with the median at 55. Obama was 48 when he became President, Clinton was 46. All other Presidents since Kennedy have been older. Trump is the oldest President ever at 70 years old upon inauguration. These 6 candidates are all very good people but also would continue to be yet another baby boomer President. It would be ideal in my opinion to have a younger President (like Obama, the most successful since LBJ by a wide margin). All of these candidates had the opportunity to run in 2016 and only one of them did.

For younger politicians, the following spark my interest:

1. Senator Tammy Duckworth is a veteran from Illinois with an excellent record.
2. Keith Ellison is a representative (the only President elected from the House so far has been Lincoln) but a strong progressive voice for our country.
3. Kamala Harris of California has a fantastic record as a prosecutor in California and I expect great things from her.

There are not very many ideal presidential candidates in America today. The Democratic Party has failed  to get a pipeline of candidates from the local level to be a dominant force in politics like the Republican Party has done. They need to fight gerrymandering and voter discrimination now in order to be a competitive party nationally. Until this happens we will continue to see the Republicans rule the country at all levels of government. But, we have 9 great choices for President, hopefully one will win the election in 2020 and make Donald Trump the first one term president in a generation. We can do it, if we choose to.

Sources:

https://www.benzinga.com/general/politics/17/04/9302898/americas-most-and-least-popular-politicians

https://mic.com/articles/171382/a-fox-news-poll-just-found-that-a-socialist-is-the-most-popular-politician-in-america#.61keVuNrG

https://morningconsult.com/governor-rankings-april-2017/

The General Election has begun

So, the Sanders revolution has ended. Clinton has won the nomination, and I am now seeing countless Sanders supporters I know claiming they will "never vote for Clinton" "Vote for Stein" and other rubbish.

For me, I originally wanted a Warren/Feingold dream team ticket. I wrote about this dream way back in 2013. I still wish Warren had run and know that if she had that she would have won the Presidency in a landslide by gathering all of Sanders supporters and a large number of Clinton supporters. However, this did not happen obviously so we have to stick to what is available at the moment.

When it comes to criminal records, Clinton has never been indicted once in her life. Even the Senate committee on Benghazi which is composed of Republicans whose entire purpose is to discredit Clinton and send her to jail to give Republicans the nomination to Donald Trump is unable to get any dirt on Clinton to the point where she can be indicted. When it comes to criminality, no one has ever been able to prove that she has ever committed a crime.

When it comes to policy, Clinton comes out to be about the same as Obama. The political compass for 2008 puts her as slightly more capitalist than Obama and the same level for social issues. In 2016 she has moved more right in both directions than she was in 2008, and Sanders is about the same point when it comes to social policy as she was in 2008. Clinton will probably drift slightly further to the right in the general election because of the median voter theorem, but as president I do not expect any significant social policy changes under her. Economically, she is going to probably whittle away our financial regulation but besides that I do not expect any other major reforms. Trump, on the other hand has talked about significantly eliminating a lot of civil rights laws and incredible discrimination against Muslims and Hispanics. This is what the election comes down to. Economically we are screwed either way, but with Trump there is little doubt we are going to quickly move towards a fascist state, and given the Democrats willingness to vote for the PATRIOT ACT without thinking in 2001 I don't think there will be anyone to stop Trump from truly destroying the United States. This will not happen under a Clinton presidency. She is definitely a hack for corrupt bankers, but she is no fascist. For this reason I prefer Clinton over Trump and will not waste my vote voting for Jill Stein until the minor parties start to run candidates and get elected in local offices.

Clinton is far to the right of President Lyndon Johnson, but she is no Hitler. Trump on the other hand talking about banning Muslims from the US, and policies against Hispanics is racist to the core. I do see Trump as a Fascist in his economic views, social views, and foreign policy and so out of respect to the millions who have died and lived under Fascist governments (including some of my favorite relatives) I will call him what he is. My family lived under Nazi Germany and I have studied the Third Reich as a way to understand my history and understand how to avoid Fascism at all costs. (if you want to understand the Third Reich, read Hannah Arendt) There is no overarching moral issue where I see a divergence between Trump and Hitler (find "Jew", replace "Muslim") so out of respect for those we have lost I call Trump a Fascist. I will write a longer comparative post later.

Also, the majority of African Americans voted for Clinton even after all of the welfare reforms done under the first Clinton Presidency. They know what is best for them ultimately and if they feel that they will be better off under a Clinton Presidency it doesn't matter how long you or I have been involved in organizations fighting racism, it is inappropriate to deny the voices of millions of people.

Please do not waste your vote and vote for Clinton this November. If you want to get real change going, you need to get involved in your local politics, demand ranked voting, and help our country get a better election system.

2016 election, late February 2016

It is the end of February and the current status is that Hillary Clinton is picking up most members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is currently leading the Presidential election by far. She is likely to beat Donald Trump in the general election under almost any probable outcome.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

So the big question now is that who will be Clinton's running mate? My personal favorite would be Bernie Sanders actually. It would help win over a lot of current Bernie Sanders supporters, and if he accepted the nomination would all but guarantee a victory. The biggest advantage to this is that campaigning together Sanders could rile up his crowds, all but guaranteeing them supporting the ticket, and Clinton will fulfill the lifelong dream of many feminists of having a woman as president (as I have seen far too often on-line). Sanders will help Clinton from drifting too far right on many social issues as her Vice President, and Clinton will hopefully help make sure their economic policies have a chance that people will vote for them. This is the best possible ticket at this point in time, it will keep the Executive Office from drifting too far right (like happened with Clinton's husband) and make sure the policies have a chance of actually passing Congress with Sanders as VP. While I wish for a more inspiring team overall, as I wrote about several months ago, and it is by no means a dream ticket, I think this is the best possible ticket at this point in time. I see it as a choice between someone who is hyper idealistic who doesn't consult advisors and doesn't propose anything with a chance in hell of passing, and someone who is too quick to run to center trying to appeal to as many people as possible. As a team together hopefully they will balance each other out like the Earth and Moon.

I will not be voting in the primary this year, but I will be voting for the Democratic Nominee in the General Election no matter who wins.

Sanders and Media bias

Bernie Sanders is by far not my favorite member of Congress, and looking at the Senate and governors across the country, he doesn't even make my top ten candidates who I believe would make a fantastic president (Warren, O'Malley, Inslee, Whitehouse, Feingold, Wyden, are six politicians who I believe would make far better presidents off the top of my head) in terms of their ability to lead and stay consistent. But, Sanders beats all but one of these candidates in his current run for the President because he is actually running, and he is beating O'Malley not because of any major policy improvements he has (he is actually far less progressive than O'Malley given O'Malley's leadership in Maryland) but he has been able to pronounce a very angry and often inaccurate, such as his comment about the Iraq War and various incorrect economic statistics, message which people identify with in our current debate atmosphere as opposed to O'Malley's extremely well researched calm explanation about very distressing issues which he exemplified in the last debate. I do not want to see O'Malley be like Sanders, I'd much rather see Sanders be like O'Malley, but that is sadly what turns people on, which is not a new phenomenon in American politics. Going back all the way to the founding of our country we have frequently voted for personality over policy. (The Ultimate Guide to the Presidents) It is a great shame that O'Malley does not have the social media organizing team that Sanders has put together in an Obamaesque fashion. This is the only reason why O'Malley is not winning the election.

Despite this, there is a lot of talk about the media silencing Sanders as much as they can, which I find despicable. Yellow journalism is by no means a new event in American politics, it stretches all the way back to when George Washington was President and has been an integral part of American politics since then. Albeit, it demonstrates where the media's loyalties lie and that they do not lie with the American people. While I do not care for Sanders I like him far more than I like Hillary Clinton, and if he ends up being the nominee I will vote for him over any Republican candidate.

What is the solution to media bias? We cannot have the government shutting down publications it sees as too biased of course which raises all sorts of questions about who will get shut down versus who will not, and who will be the judge of who is practicing yellow journalism and who is reporting accurately. The only solution I can see is improving our history and civics education in this country so people have a better ability to understand various ideologies which these candidates are exemplifying, and learn how to find out the truth in these various issue in a meaningful way which is not prone to bias. This truly is one of the greatest challenges for a democracy, how to foster civil debate while also bringing forward the best and the brightest to lead the country.

Perhaps more than anything about the candidates, we got an excellent lesson on which media to trust for giving accurate accounts (NPR) and which media to toss for only reporting on their candidate and being biased. (New York Times for imbalance and CNN for deleting their poll on who won their debate after it showed a Sanders victory)

College For All Act Summary

I'm reading the full text of Bernie Sanders' bill and in reality it is not as it is being portrayed by the media.
1. It works like TANF, in that it will be administered by the states but only if state governments choose to according to Section 1(d). States are not required to participate, neither is there any mechanism in this section to help students in the states which would refuse the program given any benefit.

2. PLUS loans are going to see an increase in their interest rate of about 1%. Section 2(C) This is completely contradictory to Section 483A.

3. The only real improvement in this bill over our current system is in section 301 where the amount of money available for Work Study will increase.

4. There will then be some small transaction taxes in the final section of the bill.

Here's the full text:
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/collegeforall/?inline=file

So, a more accurate reading of the bill would actually be an increase in interest rates for student loans nationwide along with free tuition for students who reside in states with liberal governments. That is NOT what is being portrayed in the media about this bill. This bill is not like Social Security where everyone qualifies, it is like TANF.

Fortunately for students this bill will never pass the House. TANF is a failed program which only exacerbates the inequalities between the states, and we don't need to replicate its failure in our education system as well.

A real solution to education would be in reality very simple, and that is to expand the Pell Grant system to cover college tuition for all students who are admitted to accredited universities in the country. That is all that really has to happen in reality. We don't need higher interest rates or another system to be disfunctional like TANF. We need someone who will propose a bill which will increase the grant money available to reduce student tuition to 0. We almost have the system with the Pell Grant system, but no one in Congress seems willing to propose such a bill.

President Dayton

I have seen a lot about Governor Dayton of Minnesota recently, and seeing his record, he looks like a very viable candidate for President in the next election.

Right now, along with Governor Dayton, the potential candidates I find attractive or notable are:

• Hillary Clinton - She has a better record than her husband, but is not as good a choice as other people I have been following
• Bernie Sanders - not reliable and not honest as I have previously described.
• Elizabeth Warren - not running, she remains my first choice
• Martin O'Malley - Has a great record as governor of Maryland
• Jim Webb - He has a strong progressive record in Congress.
• Sheldon Whitehouse - Senator from Rhode Island, very progressive and honest, and would be a fantastic President
• Jay Inslee - My governor is doing a fantastic job here in Washington state and has experience in Congress where he was progressive. I would vote for him in a heartbeat.
• Brian Schweitzer - The last governor of Montana is a strong progressive and would be a fine president.
• Steve Bullock - The current governor is also extremely well qualified like his predecessor.

The Huffington Post wrote an article about Governor Dayton, and it is a very fair analysis.

Bernie Sanders' Record

Bernie Sanders is one of the most publicized senators in Congress by left-wing pages on Facebook and the press. He calls himself a socialist and claims he decrees all the corruption in congress... but after looking at his record, it is really hard to believe anything he says.

Bernie Sanders has been the Senator from Vermont since 2007 and was the sole Representative of Vermont from 1991 until he became a Senator. In this time period he has voted on many important bills that have effected the United States, and I am going to here analyze his record by looking at the rolls of important bills since 1991 that he has had a chance to vote on.

• Civil Rights Act of 1991: Yea
• Motor Votor Act: Yea
• NAFTA: Nay (more detail below)
• Digital Millenium Copyright Act and Sonny Bono Copyright Act: Unknown
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley: Nay
• No Child Left Behind Act: Yea (see below)
• PATRIOT ACT: Nay
• TARP Bailout: Nay
• Closing Guantanamo Bay: NAY, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/111-2009/s196
• Affordable Care Act: Yea

NAFTA was the first vote where he voted against the working class. This is because NAFTA expands foreign demand for American high-value added goods. It also lowers prices expanding the purchasing power of the working class and all other people. My earlier blog post on the details of NAFTA goes into depth on why Bernie Sanders made a mistake on this.

He voted for the No Child Left Behind Act which limits funds to public schools unless if they go through regulations which pulls money from productive activities and wastes class time. 

He voted against the closure of Guantanamo Bay, creating an extra hurdle to block what he had been calling for for years beforehand. 

Most of his votes as we can see from his record are in line with what he claims, but when it comes to the most important bills of the last 23 years there are a few major issues where his walk and his talk are not in line. Generally though he has been one of the better members of Congress in terms of his honesty, but this is a very low bar, especially since Reid and Pelosi became the leaders of the Democrats in Congress.

The biggest problem of all of course comes from his current discussions regarding Obama's presidency which make me lose most of his respect for him. He is talking about how Obama has betrayed the American people with the tax reform packages, such as the 2010 Tax Relief and how bankers have not been sent to jail.

It is true that most speeches are meant to please the base of a politician but this is unusually so. The Affordable Care Act and Obama's first act as President, to close Guantanamo Bay Prison, when they left his desk to go to Congress as proposals were very progressive. The ACA was deeply modeled after the German Health Care System which functions as Universal Health Care, and GITMO's prison is one of the biggest embarrassments of this country today. However, the ACA was watered down significantly by Congress and the closing of GITMO's prison was blocked completely. The bill that was sent to the President included it as one line and if the President was going to send the bill back to Congress where over 80 Democrats in the Senate voted on passage the military would have been unfunded and it is highly unlikely that these Democrats would have passed the bill. We don't have a line-item veto in this country so this also prevents the President from sending particular parts of the bill back to Congress which is a flaw. When we consider the situation the President is in with his own party tearing apart the legislation they say they support on the campaign trail the President doesn't have much he can do. Instead of ripping on the President who can't choose which parts of the bills he supports and which he doesn't, Bernie Sanders should tear into his opponents in Congress who are blocking the actions the President passes and proposes who are preventing him from acting. This would be an honest response and focus on where the real problem lies, and he is being dishonest to his supports when he blames the wrong branch of government, even though he is usually one of the good guys.

There are three ways to fix the bundling of legislation, requiring bills to stay to a single subject which is problematic because many issues are interconnected and telling which things are and are not connected are subject to interpretation. Another potential is to have a word limit on how long bills will be, but since large programs can't be written in 250 characters are less this would be more problematic. The final solution is to have a line-item veto, and this is actually a very reasonable proposal.

Requiring the President to pass the whole bill or only part of it frequently puts him into a Prisoner's dilemma where he can either vote for the whole bill or none of it which means he frequently gets blame that he doesn't deserve and can easily have his reputation damaged when Congress passes him bills which he would oppose lumped in with bills that he is forced to sign. This will save the President from being blamed for things that he doesn't want to do but is effectively being forced to, giving him the ability to always do what he believes to be right ending any question of where he stands. Some of President Obama's most controversial actions on the left (GITMO, wiretapping by the NSA) are due to being bundled with things that are necessary. These problems will be fixed by a line-item veto. However, it isn't a cure all since the government's failure to expand AMTRAK as proposed is due to Congress not providing him funding, A line-item veto won't fix the entire problem, but it is a step to getting a government that is less confusing to the masses and is easier for people to point the finger at the people who are truly causing the problem, and it is a big step forward.

Example of his current speeches: http://billmoyers.com/segment/bernie-sanders-on-the-independent-in-politics/

The biggest problem with him is how he doesn't accurately represent the relations between the parties in congress in his speeches and misportrays our system. Instead of tearing into the President (who is what he constitutionally can) he needs to tear into the other members of Congress who have repeatedly prevented the President from acting on his platform. If he was serious about what he wants to do he would be supporting Democratic challengers to both incumbent Democrats and Republicans across the country who are serious about progressive values. His talking about how a President who has a progressive record is against things he is actually for, and voting against progressive actions the President actually does do is dishonest. I cannot support someone who lies to the American people about how their government works.