The Muelller Probe is not over

Greek dramas are written in 3 acts. The first act sets the stage and gives a taste of what is to come. That was Mueller spending the last two years gathering evidence. The second act is a ramp up to the climax, which is many different pardon-proof trials happening all over this country in multiple states, and is going to end with a pardon proof service of process to Donald Trump AND Mike Pence from some state court. Probably New York. The third act is the climax and resolution, when Trump AND Pence will both be found guilty, they will impeached or defeated in the general election of 2020 and their allies are decimated in the general election in 20 months.

 

The Mueller probe is NOT over. It's only beginning...

(This is not an April Fools joke)

Why Putin hates Obama

Introduction and rankings

No relationship of world leaders of the 21st century reaches the sheer scale of the animosity and importance between President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama. The reasons are vast, Putin has cultivated a cult of personality over the last 18 years and used religion to cement his power, Obama on the other hand was raised Unitarian Universalist and goes to a liberal Christian church, mentioning God in his speeches from time to time, but keeps his faith very personal. Putin has overseen a gross reduction of rights for LGBT people in Russia while Obama decided to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court and overturned Don't Ask Don't Tell. The Supreme Court Justices he appointed decided that gay marriage would be the law of the land.

Russia and the United States are very different political cultures. My favorite index for ranking democracies is the Democracy Index because it has the most variables which are calculated from a wide variety of experts around the world. When it comes to the Democracy Index, America under Obama started at 8.22/10, and ended in 2016 with a score of 7.98/10. The main reason for this decline is Functioning of Government and Political Participation. I suspect this mostly has to do with Congress who refused to work with Obama on even the most fundamental and basic of all duties such as passing a budget. The image this sent the American people hurt our nation dearly, and the Republicans will hopefully pay this year for their behavior. Russia on the other hand has a score of 3.17/10, scoring poorly on every metric. America is ranked as a flawed democracy (which is from 6-8) and Russia is ranked as Authoritarian. We can get back up to a full democracy, but is going to take hard work.

Political experts in the United States are generally fairly certain that our votes are counted accurately. Political experts in Russia know the system is rigged. This is reflected in our Democracy Index scores.

Importance compared to other major International Relations

The relationship between the United States and Russia matters a lot, America has the second largest economy in the world (behind China due to the growth of their economy), and Russia has the 6th largest. The three between us are India, Japan, and Germany. China is our 3rd largest trading partner, India is a military ally of the United States, a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, Japan is a Major Non-NATO ally, and Germany is a member of NATO.

During the Obama administration, both China and the United States worked hard to keep our relationship friendly despite major disputes and ideological differences. China has even cooperated with the United States some on North Korea, though not as much as we would like. Despite the United States officially once recognizing the Republic of China as the rightful government of all of China the People's Republic of China and the United States are as friendly as possible. This is while China has an authoritarian rating with the Democracy Index and is ranked 176/180 on the Freedom of the Press Index, which keeps us from being closer. China also maintains fairly friendly relations with Russia. The American-Chinese relationship is exceedingly complex, and deserves an article of its own.

Russia is the largest country the United States has major diplomatic challenges with.

Differences in human rights in detail

When it comes to human rights this is where the differences between the United States come into full focus. The United States has some real challenges with the spying on Americans and our allies without their knowledge under the PATRIOT ACT, police brutality, and racism, which Russia has as well. But still, when a journalist is arrested in America it makes headlines, and in Russia it is practically normal. America is ranked as a satisfactory situation under the Press Freedom Index, Russia is ranked as a difficult situation. I can write publicly on Twitter that I think Trump is a total traitor who deserves to be arrested. His own staff while being in court can openly say that Trump told them to do illegal things, and that is not why they will be in jail for the rest of their lives, it will be because they actually did such things. It also significantly degrades Trump's legitimacy and political power. This never happens in Russia. The case of Edward Snowden is unusual, particularly that he fled the country. Chelsea Manning was pardoned for a crime of releasing classified documents by the same administration which prosecuted her. America is very different from Russia. Obama is the polar opposite of Putin.

When it comes to gay rights, America's highest court legalized gay marriage nationwide while gay men in Chechnya are being slaughtered.

There are prison camps in Russia where North Koreans are held, and the United States has the largest prison population in the world. This is probably the biggest similarity between the United States and Russia. This is however differs wildly state by state, ranging from less than 200 per 100,000 inhabitants in Maine to over 900 per 100,000 in Louisiana. This is partly due to Federalism. This again deserves a series of articles by itself, it is a huge, wildly complex, and important topic.

There is one other index which I find comes close to the diversity of the Democracy Index, and that is the Social Progress Index. This also measures across a wide variety of factors and then averages them all together (with weighting) to get a clearer picture of how every country in the world is doing compared to every other. The USA does fairly well as the 18th country in the world with a score of 86.43 out of 100. We fall the most when it comes to the Tolerance and Inclusion dimension (which should surprise no one), and our Health and Wellness score is 75/100 (which again, should surprise no one). Russia is ranked 67th in the world, with a score of 67.17 out of 100. They are worst at personal rights and tolerance and inclusion. Both the USA and Russia do best at nutrition and access to basic medical care. This also is not surprising given the massive food surplus in the world today.

The important difference between the Social Progress Index and Democracy Index is that they are focusing on measuring different things. The Democracy Index is focused only on the freedom of the people, it is not based on economic data at all. Social Progress Index takes into account freedom, but also general material well being.

With such large differences between our human rights across most metrics it is no wonder the United States and Russia have a strained relationship.

Foreign Relationships

When President Obama was in office, he had a foreign policy which was focused on expanding American influence in the world, building relationships with former adversaries, and building strong trading relationships to reduce the probability of war in the future. He and Secretary Clinton traveled to almost every country in the world.

Secretary Clinton Travel Map 

President Obama Travel Map

War on Terror

Iraq was one of the most important relationships of his presidency since we were in a vicious war in the beginning of his term. He gave Iraq strict deadlines in which to get their country functional upon entering office, which allowed us to significantly draw down our presence there, and forcing the government to be more responsible than they were in the 2000s. It is still one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and the rise of ISIS has put the country under an immense amount of pressure. We still have troops in Iraq and until there is significant nation building in the country that is unlikely to change.

In regards to Afghanistan, the war still has not ended as of 2018. President Obama significantly reduced the number of American troops in Afghanistan, but we have a continued presence. Afghanistan needs significant nation building, with institutions such as education since their literacy rate is only 38.2%, the government needs to make it easier to do business in the country, and the presence of Islamic radicals in Helmand province is an ongoing threat. Afghanistan has all of the factors to increase the probability of terrorism which need to be targeted. President Obama succeeded in taking out Osama bin Laden, but many pieces of nation building still need to occur.

The War on Terror is not going to end any time soon.

Middle East and Iran

The Middle East was a major source of tension between President Obama and Putin. With the growing Arab Spring, the possibility of Syria moving towards a democratic government would have removed Russia's only Mediterranean military port, significantly reducing Russian influence in the region, leaving America with strong allies in practically every other country on the coast. This was unacceptable to Putin's realpolitik policy, and instead of trying to keep Syria as an ally under a change of dictatorship made the decision to support Assad as much as possible for as long as possible. We ended up then with a proxy war against the three great powers of the Middle East. One is the United States of course, who supports the rebels, Putin of course supports Assad, and Saudi Arabian plutocrats support ISIS according to a memo sent by Secretary Clinton to President Obama.  The war continue to move on, and this will be continued in the section on Trump's Presidency.

Iran is the other major conflict between Putin and Obama in the Islamic World. After the Shah was overthrown in 1979, the United States had very poor relations with the Iranian government until the zenith of President Obama's term. After years of economic isolation from two the of the world's largest economies, the President and the European Union went to Iran to get them to accept international nuclear inspectors and stop building a nuclear bomb. This deal succeeded, Iran signed, and sanctions were lifted. This was a major blow to both Saudi Arabia and to Russia. Iran and Syria had been Russia's two major allies in the region after the fall of Saddam Hussein (who had support of the Soviets for decades) and they had both been isolated from the United States. Bringing them both to a place where they can cooperate with both Russia and the United States would mean that Russia wouldn't be their sole military partner.

Losing both allies in the Middle East would have made Russian military power in the region diminish significantly. While the United States has a mixed record on our alliances, we have major democracies like Canada, all of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc. etc., we also have allies like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, and more with problematic human rights accords, who maintain power through force.

Russia has no such allies. There is no country in the world which has a strong democracy and a strong economy which has a military alliance with Russia. In this way, the closest alliances of both countries mirror that of their closest partner. America's most important alliances are all democracies, Russia's are all dictatorships, and the list is short. The list of countries which have significantly closer relations to Russia than the United States are Belarus, Syria, Iran, Kazakhstan, North Korea, and Uzbekistan. None of these countries are full democracies, and are all seriously corrupt. They all maintain power by crushing all dissent with an iron fist. This strategy does work in the short term, because Russia has military alliances with all of them, but they survive by keeping the people down. As soon as the people of these countries have a voice, it usually ends up like a deja vu from 1989-1991 once again, and they choose to not be friendly with their former overlord.

For Putin this has a major historical and geographical dimension. Despite having a low GDP per capita, and no good port access, Russia was one of two dominant powers in the world for half of the 20th century. After the people got a voice across Eastern Europe that is no longer the case. The crash has been incredible, and Putin is seeing his iron fist policy merely push countries further into the European Union. Ironically, the growth of the European Union might not have been so fast in the 2000s if Putin hadn't scared them all away. But Realpolitik is the only lens which he can see the world through. He fully believes there cannot be mutual gains. On top of this problem, Russia has a terrible economy based on natural resources despite having a highly educated population. Despite a literacy rate of almost 100%, Russia is a lower middle income country with their only good port being Vladivostok, a rather small city as far from the capital as possible on the Sea of Japan. Murmansk is iced in for half the year, ships from St. Petersburg has to go through Danish (NATO) waters to go anywhere, and Sochi is not very small and any ships have to go through the Strait of Hormuz (NATO) to get to the Mediterranean, where almost every country on the northern shore is once again a member of NATO. Watching the former colonies of his country ally themselves with the United States and choose to not be allied with Russia at all is a sign of the further fall of Russia into geopolitical obscurity.

Obama's making peace with Iran, further projecting American geopolitical influence right into the heart of what used to be solid Russian territory is a throwback to the end of the USSR when Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan countered the Soviet expansion with the Mujahideen (Taliban), which was the beginning of the end for Communism. Losing not just all of Eastern Europe but also their only two allies in the Middle East, with no prospects for new alliances anywhere in the world makes Putin scared. This is the main reason he retaliated in 2015-2016.

Europe

President Obama had high approval ratings in Western Europe for his entire presidency. He supported the European Union, and worked on building the TTIP with the European Union. The TTIP was complicated in a lot of different ways, and is worth another article. I personally feel like the TTIP wasn't a true Free Trade Agreement and was more about extending copyright and patent terms in the European Union to be the length they are in the United States, among other problems. The European Union was a major partner in the Iran agreement, and Obama supported the accession to the European Union of numerous Eastern European states.

President Obama refused to criticize Britain for leaving the European Union, but instead stated they will both remain close partners of the United States for a long time to come.

The closeness of President Obama and the European Union is most clearly shown with the Iran nuclear deal, which is probably his most important foreign policy achievement.

This is the biggest reason I believe Putin hated Obama out of everything else. Putin is a nationalist and sees Eastern Europe as solely part of the Russian sphere of influence. Under the Bush and Obama administrations, Russian influence in Eastern Europe has waned significantly as the majority of the population in country after country vote to join the European Union. The only countries in Eastern Europe which are not member states of the European Union or currently in the membership process are Kosovo, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Russia. Belarus is a member of Russia's Union State, and have been under the dictator Lukashenko since 1994. If Ukraine had succeeded in joining the European Union, the Russian sphere of influence would have collapsed. In response to the seemingly unavoidable collapse of the Soviet sphere of influence Putin invaded Ukraine, and bolstered the brutal regime of Assad.

But here is where Putin has been sowing the seeds of his own destruction, just as communism did: as soon as the people of any country Russia has had a strong alliance with get a voice, they always choose to move towards the American sphere of influence. American influence is strong not because we are holding a gun to the heads of our allies, but because we have strong relationships beyond military. We trade with our partners in every type of good, we have cultural exchanges for students, we help build most of our allies with institutions which grow their economies. The Marshall Plan worked because it built Europe up, giving them all strong democracies which have stood the test of time. Yes, we have strong military alliances, but when a country decides they don't want to participate in a war we have started, we don't cut them out. That is why the 21st century is the second American century in a row. President Obama made this a guarantee by building our relationships in Europe to be the strongest the world has ever known.

East Asia

While maintaining close relations with the European Union, President Obama also moved what he called America's "pivot to Asia". This included increasing economic and military ties with almost every country in the region. This is yet one more region of the world where economies gained increased access to one of the largest economies in the world, further cornering the Russian sphere in Putin's eyes.

Americas

There is only one country in the Americas which Russia has a strong alliance with which is not at complete risk from internal problems, and that is Cuba. The travel ban of the United States only pushed Cuba closer into Russia's grip and prevented the people from having the necessary tools to gain things such as a free press which they had lacked. American tourism and tourism to the United States is probably the biggest foreign policy tool the United States has, because when intellectual Americans travel around the world we can talk about the truth of what it is like in the United States, increasing American power abroad. Eliminating the travel ban was going to push Cuba back in to America's sphere of influence and doom the communist government in the long term if that had been allowed to continue. Given the brutality of Castro, it is highly unlikely that the Cuban people would freely choose to go back to the Russian sphere of influence.

Magnitsky Act

On top of everything else, President Obama signed the Magnitsky Act with bipartisan approval. Sergei Magnitsky had been investigating corruption in Russia for over a few years and had been arrested, being (definitely wrongly) accused of committing fraud himself. He was beaten in the prison he was being held in while he suffered from cancer, for which he received no treatment. He died in 2009. Bill Browder went to Congress to get support and convinced Senators John McCain (R - AZ) and Benjamin Cardin (D - MD) to cosponsor it, after which it passed easily.

Putin's response

Perhaps the most amazing thing of all, is that after the very successful foreign policy of President Barack Obama, the next candidate would be his Secretary of State, who fostered strong relationships with over 100 countries across the world, building strong economic and military ties with as many as possible. It was known by about 2015 that she would run, and Putin knew that if President Clinton served her term that it would just mean stronger alliances for America, and Russian influence at the point of a gun would decline. More travel between the US and Cuba, closer ties with the EU, the Balkan states, Ukraine, and the Caucuses. Perhaps worse of all is if America had been able to bring peace between the Armenians, Turks, and Azeri governments that would give America political dominance in the Caucuses. To make matters worse, American sanctions in response to Russian persecution of journalists with the Magnitsky Act

Putin saw the writing on the wall and he recruited the richest American billionaire who he had close ties with, the reality TV star Donald Trump. At least one meeting is known about, which he had on 9 June 2016 with Natalia Veselnitskaya with his top campaign staff. It is hard to believe it is the only one which occured given his long standing business relations which stretch all the way back since 1986 with the Kremlin and Russian Plutocrats. Trump is very malleable, and by using advertising on Facebook and Google, which are fairly apolitical organizations and really just give people what they want to see, was able to get Donald Trump to become the Republican nominee and narrowly win the Electoral College through election manipulation. I suspect the corruption between the Republican Party and United Russia goes far deeper, though I have no proof yet. Getting voter disenfranchisement laws and manipulating the vote in key states in the Midwest worked and got his man into the White House.

Everything Trump has done thus far has been to increase Russian influence. He insults our allies to weaken our bonds, threatens NAFTA which binds us to our neighbors, and is working to stop American military support of Western Europe. The European Union could probably win a war against Russia given their superior economy and larger population, but with the United States as well the war would be over within a year with an absolute victory over Moscow and the overthrowing of the Russian government. American influence turns a fair fight into a slaughter.

By reducing our commitment to investing in renewable energy it further weakens the European Union who are dependent on Russia for natural gas which is what fuels the Russian economy. An oil future is a Putin future. Removing us from the Paris Agreement further achieves this aim.

Stoking the fire of our relationship with Palestine puts Israel at risk, threatening American influence in the Middle East, and is done so haphazardly to not make any new friends.

The trade war with China leaves China with only Russia, ending their standing as the middle power between Russia and the United States. All which needs to happen now is a revamping of the military alliance of China and Russia and Russia is back on the world stage as a major player, South Korea is crushed and Japan has no chance in a Russo-Chinese invasion in revenge for the Rape of Nanking and Invasion of Manchuria. American influence in East Asia would be gone with the invasion of Taiwan in such an incident.

As soon as Trump became President he ended the tough talk on taking out ISIS by ending American support of Syria's rebels, giving Putin control over Syria.

His ending of the Nuclear Accord of Iran thrusts Iran back into the Russian sphere of influence. A Russo-Iranian military alliance will project power into Iraq, reversing the oil war Bush started.

I'm not quite sure how his deal with North Korea benefits Russia, that might be the one thing he has done which actually does benefit the United States.

In conclusion, so many of Trump's actions play right into the hands of Vladimir Putin, while one of these actions would not be enough to make me suspect that Trump is a pawn of Vladimir Putin the combination of his decisions regarding China, Israel/Palestine, Syria, and all of Europe all serve to increase Russian influence in those regions to the detriment of America and the people who live there. On top of this, there is proof that Russia bought online ads to support Trump and we know for a fact that high ranking Russian officials were in Trump Tower before the election.

This is too much to be a coincidence. I have absolutely no doubt that Trump was hired by Putin to undo all of the gains President Obama made to increase American diplomatic power which Trump has been doing for almost 2 years now.

Trump must be removed as soon as possible. A lot of people will die if he is not impeached.

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections
• Democracy Index, eiu.com
• Wikipedia for statistics, maps, and membership lists of IOs.
• Years of studying the topic, and this is just a blog post.
• Social Progress Index: https://www.socialprogressindex.com/
• IPSOS Ranking of Presidents: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-01/Obama_and_Trump_Slides.pdf
• White House announcement on Brexit: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/06/24/president-obama-uk-decision-leave-european-union
• https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868

2016 Recap and 2020 cycle

That was a terrible election. This is the second time in my life where the electoral college has not selected the winner of the popular vote, and this time the consequences could be dire. I have already talked about the Orange Bag and how he is a despicable human being, and I fear for my country's future. His economic policies are going to ruin us if they are implemented and his social policies will destroy our soul.

Locally, Washington State was a mixed bag. Washington wasn't very good defeating the carbon tax (which I poured my heart, mind, and soul into) and the state finance initiative, but we did get paid sick leave, and most importantly the Governorship and both houses of the Legislature will be held by Democrats. Kim Wyman won reelection after rigging the election against the carbon tax however, she has disgraced the office of the Secretary of State with the inaccurate information she has published in the voter's pamphlet. The rest of State executive positions (except treasurer which had a massive spoiler effect in the primary) have gone to the Democrats. We hopefully will be able to keep many of the protections the Orange Bag is about to eliminate here in Washington, but there are some things, like marijuana, which are going to become illegal again very soon.

When we look at the Rust Belt however, we see a fascinating trend in the exit polls. Comparing the results in 2016 and 2012 in Michigan we see a 6% boost for the Orange Bag from white men, and interestingly a 4% boost for the Orange Bag among black men. This boost was enough to give him the Presidency, and the only theory I have on how the Orange Bag had been able to get more votes from African American men than Mitt Romney did in 2012 is through deliberate voter discrimination. Providing more places to vote per capita in white conservative areas as opposed to minority liberal areas is vote rigging. There is no other word for it. Among white voters, their voting for third parties was enough to tip Michigan over the edge. The majority of white voters (regardless of gender, as always) voted for the Republican both times.

In Pennsylvania we see a decreases in the diversity of voters this year. White voters jumped 3%, which was enough to swing the election. We also saw the same number of Orange Bag voters but a reduction of 2% of white voters due to third parties. People with only a high school education switched from 60% in favor to Obama to only 43% in favor of Clinton. Whites with no degree were the only demographic the Orange Bag won when you consider both education and race together. This election was swung a great deal due to a decrease in diversity of voters.

In Wisconsin the number of white vs. non-white voters stayed the same as it was in 2012 with 86% of the electorate being white. White support for the Orange Bag was 2% higher than it was for Mitt Romney and Clinton was 6% lower than Obama (4% increase for third parties) which is way more than enough to swing the election. Minorities voted about the same as they did in 2012. We see the swing in support from education where people with only high school degrees shifted their support from Obama (with 55% of the demographic) to Orange Bag who won 54% of the demographic.

If just half of Jill Stein voters had voted for Hillary Clinton in swing states Tuesday would have been a very different day. Their ideological purity has hurt our country far more than a vote for Clinton. This is the the simplest way to explain the gap between the number of votes Clinton won as opposed to Obama. The reach by third parties also significantly hurt Clinton this year, while the Orange Bag is winning about the same number of voters Romney won in 2012, but Clinton saw a significant decrease. The latest count on Google with 99% of precincts reporting is that 126,061,003 people voted in this Presidential election versus 129,085,410 people voting in 2012. this predicts about a 2% decrease in the number of people of voting, way more than the margin between the two candidates. A 6 million person decrease in the vote for Clinton vs. Obama, in a country which has grown by 4 million people is a gigantic amount in such a close election. Also, Michigan and Pennsylvania haven't voted Republican since 1988, and Wisconsin has been a reliable Democratic state since 1984. With such a record it can be understood why Clinton did not spend so much time there, preferring Ohio and Florida to these other states. This demonstrates that every vote counts. Other states which have voted for the Democrat since 1988 and voted for Bush in that year include Vermont, New Jersey, Maine, Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut, Delaware, and even California. The only states which could have been considered safer than Wisconsin are DC (which has always voted Democrat) and Minnesota (which is extremely similar to Wisconsin in demographics). These were about as safe states as you can get! The Orange Bag campaigned heavily in these states which was extremely intelligent of him and by doing so won the Electoral College. These three states also had enough third party votes to spoil the election for Clinton which is a two pronged attack on Hillary Clinton which has doomed us.

Another way the election could have been different was for Democrats to reach out to White people with less than a college degree who overwhelmingly supported the Orange Bag this year. That is where this election swung. In 2018 and 2020 we are going to have to see Democrats supporting policies which maintains their hold on highly educated individuals (like myself) and also appeal to people without a lot of education. Hard decisions are going to have to be made. Another path to victory which will be more difficult is to have more access to voting which would  boost turnout of minorities, who are only going to grow in importance over the next few years. If Democrats have policies which appeal to Hispanics more than the lead can grow from 66% to 70% which is enough to win nationwide in these key states. The appeal to younger voters is going to help Democrats naturally over the next few years as our demographic ages. The key is for people in their 20s to not despair given how hard the next 4 years are going to be and vote in 2018 and 2020 so that we can rebuild what is about to be destroyed once we regain the Presidency in 2021.

The other big issues is Millenials didn't turn out to vote. I am ashamed of my generation and our apathy has hurt us more than any other generation. We need to start investing over the next 4 years and if our economy does as well as is likely to do under the Orange Bag as with other Republicans over the last 50 years then we just royally screwed ourselves and will suffer the effects for the rest of our lives. Clinton had all the policies that we wanted, maybe not exactly as Bernie Sanders proposed, but the same outcomes as his policies would do. People in my generation not voting was immature, stupid, mean, and shameful. We will need to turnout in the midterms up and down the ballot and in 2020 to kick out this racist shit bag.

So, the plan for the next four years is to run candidates in every congressional and legislative district in 2018 to try to take back as many legislatures and seats in the House as we can. If the Orange Bag does what he says he is going to do and our economy tanks as a result it will be easier to do so despite the gerrymandering. Democrats need to do some soul searching and admit that moving to the center has not worked as they planned. By becoming more solidly socially liberal and expanding the coalition to include as many Hispanic voters as possible the party will be unstoppable. The issue that will work best is having a strong education plan, working to expand access to jobs, and access to health care will help Hispanic voters significantly and attract them to the party. These are the issues they care about. It will also make Millenial voters even more solidly Democratic. Working to expand access to retirement options and cracking down on abuse as opposed to making it hard for people to enter to the financial advising industry will help attract working class people. The current approach to punishing newcomers to finance has not worked well and people still are locked into plans which give terrible returns. These can be stopped by making it illegal to be locked into a retirement plan and giving people the option to switch plans when their portfolio is not working for them. This type of a platform with these four major planks will attract people back to the Democratic Party. We will need a candidate who has a record of fighting for these issues.

Bernie Sanders is currently the most popular politician in America and he would be an excellent choice for getting the Presidency back. He has already promised to not sacrifice American values to the Orange Bag which will be extremely popular with a majority of Americans and get people out to vote. Elizabeth Warren is another candidate who I have written about for years who would be a fantastic president. Electing a moderate did not work, though electing a progressive in 2008 did. It is clear to me the Democratic Party needs to move to the left in order to embolden my generation and have a future. These are the candidates currently with the most potential and national stage presence. Jay Inslee of my home state (Washington) is currently the most liberal governor in the country, is strong on race relations, education, and women's rights, and would make a fine President. Governor Kate Brown of Oregon is another fantastic choice for President.

Over the next 4 years more governors will appear, and hopefully a gubernatorial landslide in 2018 (when most governors will elected) will give us a large batch of excellent candidates to choose from. If the Orange Bag does particularly badly this will be easy to do. Recruiting local leaders to run for public office at the city, county, and state level needs to be the top priority of the Democratic Party and it needs to embrace its progressive wing as soon as it can in order to survive.

Time to work down the ballot

Trump with his latest move has made his final mistake. He has alienated people of every minority over the last year, Hispanics, Muslims, African Americans, and with his latest train of disgusting degrading remarks he is now losing the support of the Republican Party, with some calling for him to withdraw from the race.

What is striking about this is how none of these types of comments are new for Trump to say on cable news. What is different this time is how he is not targeting a racial group but all women in the world. The modern Republican Party endorsed Trump through all of his racist comments and openness to his bigotry over the last year. They have shown they do not care about Black Lives, Muslims, Hispanics, Native Americans, or anyone who is not white to be honest. Their unwillingness to stand for all Americans and support of a blatantly racist candidate makes them the most despicable party in this country over the last 150 years.

Trump is going to lose. He is a racist rapist who doesn't deserve any time on the news. Only the Democratic Party has shown that it is willing to at the bare minimum to oppose people like Donald Trump and vote for things like the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Granted, the Democratic Party has a lot of room to improve and need to be better about passing legislation with their important pieces intact, in cases including the Affordable Care Act, and voting against legislation which is opposed to American principles, including the PATRIOT ACT. But these are small issues compared to the amount that Donald Trump has already destroyed our civil discourse and wants to move our country backwards. The Republican Party supports him so I must assume this means they support his policies as well.

We need to vote down the ballot and kick out as many Republicans as possible. We need to elect strong progressives in local, state, and Federal offices this year if we are to move our country forward. The President gets all of the headlines, but Congress as a body is just as powerful as she is. Most Presidents in history are former Senators or Governors (Clinton, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman, and Roosevelt all were either a Senator or Governor before becoming President) meaning the 46th President is already in office somewhere. Senators and Governors usually are State Legislators when they are elected to Federal Office for the first time, and those individuals grow their campaigns originally through being leaders in their local communities years before they run for office.

The President who will be elected in 2028 is currently in their 30s right now somewhere in the country. This individual is possibly running for a state legislature seat right now in some state in this country. This individual is starting their political career which will catapult them to the Presidency this year only if people get out to vote. Elections down the ballot matter because a future President is running for a legislative seat this year and the only way they are going to lead the United States as President is if they get elected in a month. Do you want that individual to be a progressive fighting for the Bill of Rights and opportunity, or yet another corporate tool who believes that unlimited money in elections is a good thing and that internet surveillance works? (hint: Generals in the military say it doesn't) The only way we are going to be able to secure our future is if we vote for our local races this year all the way down to that boring county commissioner position, which is actually a very important role for determining land use and many other services we rely on everyday. Great leaders in American history start at the bottom, as community organizers gathering petition signatures as they move up the food chain. We get the leaders we deserve by who we elect into those positions.

Please fill out your ballot. Your county needs you.

Ideology of Trump

Donald Trump is new to American politics, and this has left a lot of people very confused on how to understand him, or unwilling. On my blog I really enjoy writing about political theory/philosophy and using those lenses to help understand the underlying intentions of candidates so that we can make better decisions as citizens.

Now, in political science there are several major schools of thought. Liberalism, Marxism, Mercantilism (economics only), Objectivism, and Fascism. These four schools are very easily defined against each other by breaking down policies into their social, economic, and foreign components.

	Social	Economic	Foreign
Liberalism	Socially left-wing. Believe in individual liberties, both positive and negative freedoms. (freedom to do things and freedom from harm) Minority rights. Feminism.	Economically free market. In favor of regulations as they benefit society. Greatest Good for the greatest number.	Believe that trade brings peace. In favor of global trade as a good for society.
Marxism	People are divided by class and the Bourgeois need to be torn down in order to build up a Communist utopia.	Economic control by the state.	Spread the Marxist ideology throughout the world.
Fascism	People are divided by race and we need to purify our country from all people who are not like us.	Economic control by the state or state-sponsored corporations.	Isolate ourselves from foreign goods. Go to war with other nations.
Mercantilism/Realism	N/A	Economic control by the state or state-sponsored corporations.	Isolate ourselves from foreign goods. The gain of another country is our loss.
Objectivism	Do not help other people, another person's gain is your loss. Altruism is bad.	Free market completely unfettered by government intervention.	Isolate ourselves from foreign goods.

Now that we have our definitions which are universally accepted among political economists, where do we place Trump?

Starting with economic policy, Trump is firmly anti-trade, placing him in either Mercantilism or Fascism. Trump proposes a social policy of deporting foreigners, he is anti-feminist and anti-immigrant. He has spoken out against hispanics and Muslims, making his foreign policy clearly in the fascism camp. He is clearly not liberal, and he is obviously not socialist. He is more extreme than Objectivism with his talk of actually deporting people. The full list of Trump's comments on what he would do which fit into this is listed on Reddit and provides enough examples to place him firmly in the fascist camp.

Being politically correct nowadays means to not call people out for what they actually claim. We are used to living in a free civilized country that when someone comes along who wants to destroy everything that makes America great we don't know what to do about it. For those of us who have close family who lived under Fascism, and those of us who are educated in political thought, the connection is obvious. For myself, I am part of a very small number of Americans who 1. Are trained political scientists, 2. Have family who survived the Drittes Reich, 3. are American. I don't know anyone else who fits this particular demographic, but there might be someone else out there. With this background knowledge I have every right to say that my professional diagnosis as a political economist of the thoughts and plans of Donald Trump put him firmly into the Fascist camp. I also believe that with my education it is the duty of my country to call politicians what they are, and the evidence is overwhelming.

I didn't earn a Political Science degree by misusing terms. I wasn't born onto this world in my family to allow history to be repeated. My background with Quaker and German ancestors (plus being a practicing UU) means I am in a very unique position to help people avoid human rights violations and I feel like it is my duty. We, the People of the United States in order to defend our imperfect union need to ensure Donald Trump never becomes President of the United States.

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.