The Obsolete Notion of States in these United States

Here's a factoid for you: Roughly half (23) of our states have fewer than 4 million people living in them.

Trump Counties in Red

That's the population of the Washington, DC area. 
There are 14 metropolitan areas with more people living in them than 23 of our states.

1	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	19,006,798
2	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	12,872,808
3	Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI	9,569,624
4	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX	6,300,006
5	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD	5,838,471
6	Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX	5,728,143
7	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL	5,414,772
8	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	5,376,285
9	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	5,358,130
10	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH	4,522,858
11	Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI	4,425,110
12	Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ	4,281,899
13	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	4,274,531
14	Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	4,115,871

Would it not make more sense to give each of these 2 United States Senators than to allow 23 states with fewer than 4 million people to have 2 Senators each?

Clinton Voters in Blue

Thank you, Monsieur Macron

Mad Dog has not yet seen Mr. Macron's speech on youtube, but he is searching for it.
As reported in the States, it sounds delicious.

Hopefully, there will be a reaction shot from Mr. Trump, who was, reportedly, on the dias, when President Macron said:


"Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,” Macron said. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By saying our interests first... we erase what a nation holds dearest."

Hopefully, more American politicians will find the courage to say this very thing over the next few months.
Hopefully, more Americans will discuss what actually constitutes patriotism, as Henry David Thoreau defined it, has Smedley Butler defined it, as Lincoln lived it.

We can always hope.

Trump Trumps the White House Press Core

Mad Dog did not see the entire 90 minutes of the Trump show at the White House, but what he did see confirmed his impression that we are not sending our best people to tilt with Trump.

The PBS reporter asked him if his use of the word "Nationalist" meant that he had "emboldened" White Nationalists and that "some people" thought he had.

Of course, Trump is not quite bright enough to dismember that sort of questioner but he did trot out an answer which will make sense to a lot of people in Red States who do not consider themselves racists, and who resent being called racist, and he said the question was racist.

What he could have said was, "I cannot help how other people react to the word 'Nationalist' but I know what I mean when I use it and it's not 'White Nationalist.' If 'some people' hear racial overtones in that word, that's their problem. But you can take this PC stuff to an absurd level: Suppose I said I believe in a democratic process to govern: Would that mean I've switched parties?"

Far too many questions are "qualitative" in nature and Trump will trounce you if you remain vague. Every question directed to him should be numbers based, not a "feeling" or an "implication" or a "isn't that racist" or "isn't that  'misogynistic?' Start with the specific and eschew the judgmental, the slogan.

"Do you consider the current caravan an infestation?"
Then "What is the breakdown of MS13, ISIS, and under 18 year olds among that caravan?"

Let him make up some numbers, or more likely he'll backtrack and say, "Well, some of them" or "I've heard." Then you can get back to the "So why do you say it's an infestation."
So far our "professional" journalists look like a bunch of amateurs.

But the one thing all the reporters missed, is that from the President's point of view, he really did have a good night. He had a good night because all that mattered was controlling the Senate. He could care less about the House--except for investigations.
The reason the Senate is all that matters is the same reason the electoral college matters--it is the one place in the government which games the system so the "people" cannot rule but the moneyed aristocracy can maintain control over the unwashed masses. It's where the system gets rigged. As a UNC professor cited by Thomas Edsall noted:
Voters cast 44.7 million votes for Democratic Senate candidates and 32.9 million votes for Republican Senate candidates — in other words 57 percent of Senate votes went for Democrats.” Despite this huge gap — Democrats won 11.8 million more votes than Republicans — “there will be at least a two-seat gain for Republicans.”

So Trump was right. He won on Nov 6 because he almost had to win; the system was stacked and rigged by our founding fathers who were at pains to ensure the empty, low population states (slave states in those days) could keep control of their slaves, their cotton and their land, while the huddled, hard working masses in the cities, those immigrants and low life, were kept under control. Still works that way today.
Which is why the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and nothing changes. The system is rigged, always was.


As Edsall's article notes:


Democrats scored significant wins Tuesday in 2018 legislative elections — but it was hardly a blowout. Republicans continue to have a robust advantage in legislative and state control, as they have since 2010. Democrats won five legislative chambers from Republicans as well as moving the Connecticut Senate from tied to their column. That’s a shift of only six chambers, well below the average chamber switch of 12 in election cycles all the way back to 1900.


The Blue Wave never happened because the rules of the game would never allow it, as Edsall notes:


If there is one thing the election underscores it is how malapportioned America’s representative institutions are. President Trump, of course, won the presidency while losing the popular vote by millions in 2016. Democrats in 2018 managed to eke out a 35-seat pickup while winning a national popular vote margin that is apparently going to be over 7 percentage points. A 7-point victory almost always produces a wave election type margin when translated into seats. But not this year.


The game is rigged, as Bernie has said.
Amy Walters of the Cook Political Report showed some charts on the PBS News Hour which revealed the problem: In Indiana, a Deep Red state, the usual shift of young voters and educated voters toward Democrats did occur, but in deep red states that shift is not large enough to change the outcome. Red states are red for a reason: The voters there are true believers, and even if the red state gives the GOP a victory by 51-49%, they take all the electoral votes and the two Senate seats.
 In Blue states, or formerly Blue states, (WI, MI, PA, OH) there is a soft Democratic vote which can go red when things are right. And if you lose each of those states by just a few votes, it's winner take all and the electoral college shifts massively to Red, and even if the Democrats win NY, CA and the Pacific Northwest by 20 million votes, the total electoral vote stays red.


The problem is quantifiable. The solution is more difficult.

One happy thought: Chris Kobach got beat in Kansas.

Red Wall Holds, Blue Wall Crumbled Still

Democrats narrowly squeaked out a House majority. They needed 23 and got 26, hardly a Blue Wave. They will have a very thin 219 vote majority. Hardly a resounding repudiation of Mr. Trump, in a midterm. One might almost say--and Mad Dog is sure Mr. Trump will say: VINDICATION!

Republicans beat Tester in Montana, showing the effectiveness of Trump's visits there, and the most slimey of the creepy crawlies, Ted Cruz, beat the Democrat's great Blue Hope, Beto O'Rourke, a seat Cruz owes to Trump, I'm sure Trump will crow.

And McCaskill and Heitkamp were thrown out of the Senate by a Republican Red Wave. Those Senate seats were won by Trump.

There was good news only for the delusional and Mad Dog is sure Mr. Trump will turn last night's results into the BEST RED WAVE EVER!

More locally, Sununu beat Molly Kelley, the Democrats having fielded a weak and retiring candidate to face a Trumpophile.



The one bright spot is Chris Pappas won the seat formerly held by Carol Shea Porter.

Of note, all the Democrats in Hampton running for the House of Representative won!
And Tom Sherman won the State Senate seat after a really slimy last minute poisonous telephone call campaign from Innis, whose minions told voters Tom Sherman wanted to publish a list of all women in New Hampshire who had had abortions. 
A testament to the doggedness of local Democrats who went door to door or maybe just a reflection of a shift in demographics on the SeaCoast.
So Chris and Melanie Muns, Mary McCarthy, Patty McKenzie, and dozens of other who did yeoman's work managed to save the Hobbit.
Looking at lawn signs, one would have concluded Zaino and Emerick would have won, but as Chris Muns once said, "lawn signs do note vote."
New comer and youngster Tom Loughman got himself a seat and he may well be the new rising star, and Cushing and Edgar were rewarded for fighting the good fight, day after day for no reward other than the knowledge they did right.

Bushway 3907

Cushing 4027

Edgar 4028

Loughman 3999

Bean 3541

Emerick 3306

Hurst 3089

Zaino 3493

Sherman 4476

Innis 3762

Could have been worse. 
Should have been a lot better.
But no better than the country is right now.

Wholesale v Retail Politics

All politics is local, Tip O'Neill  told us.
Until it wasn't.

Today, all politics is Trump, for better or for worse.

Two, three times a week, from Montana, to Florida to Tennessee to Kentucky, to Georgia, you see throngs, people whose enthusiasm rivals those delirious crowds who adored Hitler.
Look at those arenas, tiers upon tiers of frenzied fans. 

And against that, we have small bands of mostly women, knocking on doors, where 30 out of 34 doors on the list go unopened. The canvassers leave behind fliers, paper, stickers: "Vote."

Or "Vote Democratic."

Our party leaders tell us this is the way elections are won.

This is the way they've done it in New Hampshire for generations.

But look at the Trump rallies. Look at the Trump twitters. 

Have we been left behind with 20th century tools in a 21st century political world?

He doesn't need an advertising budget.  He does his rallies, for the price of renting an arena and CSPAN and Twitter and Facebook do the rest.

And where is the charismatic Democrat to bring this demagogue down?

The Lie Factory

Mad Dog loves Bill Maher. 
He really does.
Maher is, taken with Stephen Colbert and Jon Oliver, the only really visible and effective force for liberal thought readily available to the masses and he is effective.
Jon Stewart has fled the field of battle. 
There are wonderful voices of criticism--Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle--but they are too coarse for Peoria. 

George Carlin is gone, although watching his "Jammin in New York" show is startling--he is speaking about 2018 from 1992. He was a quarter of a century ahead of his time. Always was. People who see the truth become prophets, not from some supernatural power, but from simple bravery. They see the truth nobody else is willing to see, to say it and later people say, "How prescient!" The Oracle is able to see the future by simply seeing the present clearly and without fear.

But getting back to Maher. His latest riff, which I loved, was effective, but flawed.
For dramatic effect, he asserted that Trump is something new, is more vile and more dangerous than any other President in history. He claims he was a history major in college, and all I can say, as someone whose last formal history course was high school--and that class, worse than useless--Bill ought to be reading more history now, and more widely.

Trump is different in that he plays a different game than anything we've seen over the past century and a half--he cannot speak the language of the intelligent, by which I mean, he cannot gather "facts" and examine the limitations of those "facts" and still build a case, and so he speaks the language of the bar room, of Archie Bunker: the simple declarative, often ill informed, mostly bigoted statement. 

He deals not in persuasion, but in challenge. He is not interested in ideas, but in power. He has no ideology, unlike Hitler, but seeks popularity and adoration. In that sense, he is not a modern leader at all, a man like Hitler or Mussolini who seek to bring the masses along to his world view; he is more like the kings of ancient times, who wish to be adored, feared, exalted, seen as a "winner" whose place on earth is God given, a chosen man, not by the masses, who only appreciate his genius and superiority which has been bestowed on him by nature, from good genes and the right parents. 

It's not really that he is anything new; he's simply part of a past most people are too young or too old to remember. 

Reading Jill Lepore and Oliver Stone, the venality, the deep seeded hate, the ignorance are nothing new in occupants of the White House. But like most common criminals, the Presidents do horrible things to other people, all the while seeing themselves as victims.

Lepore does trace a change in the major issues. She notes that since slavery, there has been no issue which has rent the fabric of American thought until abortion.

High paid opinion manipulators, "political consultants" pushed politicians in directions which meant "abortion was murder and guns meant freedom, or guns meant murder and abortion was freedom."

All reasonable discussion flew out the window and the blown open door.

I'm now almost finished Stone ("Untold History") and halfway through Lepore ("These Truths.")

And yes, Maher is correct, the effect of reading these stories--they are not attempts at "history" so much as an interpretation of the past for present purposes (as all history really is--the effect is calming.

But calm people may not vote.  And what Maher was doing in his Nov 3 plea, was to urge action among people (especially young people) who have historically been either too lazy or too self absorbed to vote. 
If we are facing an emerging Adolph Hitler, then this really does demand action, and a willingness to sacrifice a few hours standing on line or fighting with poll workers intent on suppressing your vote and voice. So Maher was well motivated to claim Trump is something new, something we've never seen before, someone who can make "it can't happen here" actually happen here. But he is wrong--we have had Presidents in the past who were every bit as stupid, venal, unfit as the present President.

Nixon played the Trump game: divide the Whites against the Blacks--and forget about winning the Black vote; go after the resentful White voters. Forget the underclass, go after the middle class. Trump is doing the same. The difference is that Nixon did not have to openly vilify his boogie men; all he had to do was wink and nod and everyone knew who he was talking about--those dangerous Blacks burning down the inner cities and those white children, the spoiled, pampered children of privilege who are "bums" and who are contemptuous of hard working work-a-day Middle class solid citizens. 

George Carlin's analysis from more than 25 years ago is still true today: You got the rich on top, who pay no taxes, controlling everything; you got the middle class who pay the taxes and keep the government and the country rolling; and you got the people at the bottom, the lower class, who are there to scare the Hell out of the middle class. 

The people on the bottom now aren't so much the Blacks or even the more recently arrived Browns, but the wannabes, all those scary, tattooed face, lean and hungry invaders from South of the Border, who can throw rocks like shooting rifles and who want to rape White women--we wouldn't care if they wanted to rape just Brown women--and who want to take your jobs!

Answering

Jill Lepore supplies two quotes from Republicans of the 1960's:

"How long are we going to abdicate law and order...in favor of the theory that the man who heaves a brick through your window or tossess a fire bomb into your care is simply the misunderstood and underprivileged product of a broken home?"

And...
"Working men and women should not be asked to carry the additional burden of a segment of society capable of caring for itself but which prefers making welfare a way of life, freeloading at the expense of more conscientious citizens."

The first is Gerald Ford, not remembered today as a particular virulent or rabid Republican in the mode of Donald Trump.

The second is Ronald Reagan, saint Ronald, who is not today remembered as a far Right Republican.

But both gave voice, or perhaps shaped the perception that colored underclass men were both dangerous and incorrigible and lazy. 

Reagan loved talking about the "Welfare Queen" of Detroit, a Black woman who drove around town in a big Cadillac, living off welfare checks, raping the system.

When the guy who owned the garage or the HVAC business hears all this, he seethes and fumes and votes Republican.

Obadiah Youngblood, Salt Marshes

The Democrats have never learned to answer this.
Give me just one Democrat who says, 

"Look, if the prisons are 80% Black and Hispanic maybe it's because 80% of crimes are committed by members of that group--or maybe it's because 80% of those coloreds accused are found guilty and not all of them are guilty. 
Sure we need borders. No country can exist or manage itself without borders. Democrats are just as tough on borders as Republicans for good reasons. But this big lie about an invasion by ISIS, terrorists and MS13 is just that, a big lie by a little man who is trying to create a phony crisis so he can coming riding to the rescue and get credit for saving us from a lie."

Just once, I'd like to hear a guy like that, from the Democratic side.