So far, of all the news sources I have heard or read, only three have assessed the current election process and climate as smart as Matt Taibbi’s “On Board the GOP Clown Car,” Paul Krugman’s op-ed “Failure to Fail,” and Dan Carlin’s “Trumping the Playbook” podcast. And by smart I mean logically in the ways one should understand our politics and how it is played and should be understood and how we, as a people, allow this insanity to exist.
I, for one, do not like debates unless it is informational, so knowing the history of our presidential debates and who took it over in the mid-90s or so and run them now and the rules associated with them, I find them stupid and uninformed. Also, despite the current people in charge of the debates, Hamza Yusuf pointed out how during Abe Lincoln’s time, the debates were on a collegiate level; JFK’s was on a high school level; currently, they are done on a fifth grade level. The last good debate was between Ross Perot, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton – the one where, forced to answer the question, George Bush gave an inane answer about going to a black church and nervously glanced at his watch. The reason was that it was – seemingly – off-the-cuff and the moderator and people forced candidates to answer the questions asked rather than give prepared, obvious answers. And people still do not seem to understand these debates and how they are done and how scripted and contrived they are.
So right before the first GOP presidential debate, Trump was playing golf in Europe and said he was not preparing for the debate because he did not need to, that was the first time in Trump’s career (not including the wrestling part) where I saw the brilliance of him. I never liked that part of politics where the candidates have to practice answering the known questions and how to do them with a debate partner and coach. I’ve always felt it should be spontaneous and, at the very least, extemporaneous. Bill Clinton was very good at that. But no one should already know how they will, or should, answer questions or topics. Gaffes, to me, have always been the truth seeping out.
Dan Carlin was the only person who mentioned the weirdness of starting the debate out by asking candidates to pledge that if they fail to gain the Republican nomination that they would not seek a third-party candidacy. As soon as Trump answered I knew they were targeting him because if he does, the Democrats would almost surely win the election by splitting the Republican votes.
So the reason I liked the Perot debate and Trump is, like Dan Carlin pointed out, he is forcing them to go “off script,” and I like that. It is more honest. I do not understand how people can be complacent with the ways in which elections are run. They do not like politics, yet they allow the same things to be done over and over. So even though I like most of the philosophy of people like James Carville, he did focus groups for Bill Clinton’s campaign so there was manipulation there, but that is expected.
Matt Taibbi pointed out that Trump is also the smart one (with Huckabee following suit) where he understands that any media attention is good. This is also a downfall of us, especially now with our tabloid, gossip-obsessed culture where they can say the most outlandish thing and it will be covered non-stop by the 24-hour news networks who need to sell ad time, etc. This is nothing new and, again, is our downfall as a society. Dixville Notch and the Iowa Caucuses are telling places of who wins the presidency or the party nomination, although the caucuses have not been recently but probably because of the myriad media attention these days that will outshine those broadcast and that is what is Trump is playing on. Just as Dixville Notchis the first to tally their votes for the presidential elections and its results play non-stop after that, the media attention affects uninformed, easily-led voters to remember what is flooding the media and thus affects their voting. Ted Cruz also understood this as soon as he got into the Senate he started getting his voice heard and got coverage, which is also what Rand Paul did with that filibuster among other things.
Paul Krugman focuses on other things as well such as “19 references to God” and the focus of the personal and religious characters of the candidates and that one of the other reason for their avoidance of other real subjects which affects every person and matter more especially since, taken separately Obama’s presidency “have been a time of policy disaster on every front…[y]et the candidates…had almost nothing to say about any of the supposed disaster areas.” Krugman points out that none of those disasters they predicted happened, from health reform to the economy to oil prices. People who talk about those just regurgitate what they hear on TV or political talking points, etc.
That is the problem with our country and why ideologies are dangerous and how they take advantage of us. They know how to divide and conquer. I know that, overall, there is no difference between the two parties, on the higher levels, and the issues out there are wedge issues with which they divide and conquer to keep us distracted on the real things they are doing. But unlike a lot of the people like the Tea Party, or the Anarchists (not real ones but the run-of-the-mill ones we hear more from) I know how impractical it would be to just immediately overthrow a government and rebuild one. Examples of these can be found in the Prince, the Spanish Civil War, the Bolsheviks, conditions in the South following the ending of our Civil War, modern-day Egypt and Libya, and post-Saddam Iraq or post-Mohamed Siad Barre Somalia, etc. One needs to work within a system currently and make small changes. And to me, that is where the ideology should stop.
I have never understood why people need to label themselves or form an identity. People divide themselves within the two-party structure and say they are a certain type of Republican or a certain type of Democrat. Why are you one then?! If one disagrees that much with an ideology so much so one needs to hyphenate their affiliation such as Joe Perry’s “old-school Republican” label, why does one need to limit themselves to those causes? If one cause gets fought for, yes, they should go in and make those changes and after a few years, dissolve that party and a new party should form based on newer issues. That way, things stay fresh and focused and no one gets to that point where there is a good ‘ol boys network. The President has no real power outside appointing Supreme Court nominees and a few other things. They are in that position for four or eight years while Senators and Congressmen can be lifetime and they need to be re-elected. There should be changes to our Constitution since it has been so distorted and perverted overtime and make term-limits so one gets in, does something and gets out.
We need to start thinking and make the government work for us. Not that there is currently a difference, but if you do it on the ideological level, I cannot understand how a normal person could vote Republican. Unless you are very rich and/or a corporation or have corporate interests, you do not benefit from anything they are going to do. Even if you understood that and voted for those interests, one cannot just vote on slogans and idealistic, ideological rhetoric. One if pro-life so it ends there, not with affordable or a single-payer system, paid leave, affordable child care, etc. One is against helping to pay for disabilities or special education so they do not integrate into our society and are dependent on disability which does not cover much. One votes against the minimum wage but are okay with us footing the bills on the government, social programs those corporations force their employees to depend on (this does not cover small businesses with less than fifty or so employees, because most of those places, in my myriad experiences, start at more than the minimum wage and want to provide more but cannot afford to. The ones that are highly successful do provide those benefits because they show their appreciation and value towards individuals beneficial to their company’s success).
Louis CK (and others in similar situations) said in a bit about letting a car roll through an intersection that we should act in a way in which if everybody did that, that chaos would not ensue. This Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses because to anyone (but because of the same-sex marriage deal) because it is against her religious belief is a huge example and why it is literally impossible to have anything ruled by any ideology – especially by a religious one. Whose version of that is going to be the one to follow? This goes back to the aforementioned failed-states. People sight the Constitution in these debates when religion and even political parties were not intended by the Framers for these exact reasons. And by this rational, an ISIS-type of uprising (or Nazi) would be justified. We need to act in a way that if everybody acted that way, things would run well. We need a government voted for by honestly informed, smart individuals with no ideological bias with the idea that everyone cannot get everything absolutely how they want, but one that fairly represents everyone.
And if anyone could take anything away from Trump this time around and another reason why his popularity is so high, he says what most Republican-leaning people think. He is voicing their real concerns and convictions. But you also see the latent-hatred which comes out as a result of that. It makes me think back to the Arizona/Freemont, NE profiling thing. In those environments, one cannot enforce policies like those because of what happens. Bigotry, hatred, and all those disgusting things come out and get justified as "Americana" or things along those lines. It is another in the recent myriad examples of ways in which our cultural/societal deficiencies are manifesting itself on us and gives us a chance to recognize it and do some self-reflecting and analyzing to fix what's wrong with our obvious problems. We keep convincing ourselves that we are the best nation with no problems yet all this bad stuff is going on all around us and we seem to not notice it and then criticize other countries.
By the way, it is annoying enough listening to the average person try to talk politics, just as it is to people talking sports who just regurgitate what they've heard with no real insights or just share the popular point of views, but try talking or listening to hipsters who believe themselves to be really informed but they just regurgitate or have viewpoints which seem smart. Ones they get from Bill Maher (who is just an informed American media infused person with a better understanding of politics on our side but not real politics or real foreign ones. Also who cannot think logically or critically when religion is involved, even if it has nothing to do with the topic) or Jon Stewart (really smart source, but again, it should not be your source, but his view points should back up your own informed decision which could be changed due to more or better information that comes along) or MSNBC, etc.
Rick Santorum on "Real Time with Bill Maher" the other week was actually better informed than Bill on something that the liberal/hipster crowd gets behind with no qualms and it is that on climate change. Rick was telling Bill that CO2 is just a small percentage of everything causes this temperature change and Bill asked where he's pulling it from his ass or something like that. Bob Guccione, Jr., on WTF this week also said when he first heard Al Gore give his proto-presentation for "An Inconvenient Truth" how it was flawless and that struck him as odd. But then realized he is a lawyer; he's presenting his case. If one goes beyond the mainstream media and does look at the studies on climate change, the Republican viewpoint is (to a point) correct, albeit with a different set of interests, which also does not take into consideration other things like coal mining, pet coke, fracking, industrial pollution, etc. Randall Carlson is a good person to be informed by on this and can lead you in the direction to look for this information.
