GOP & LP 2024

It looks like we’re finally getting rid of #45 and replacing him with a Democrat who most people choose because he’s not nearly as obnoxiously incompetent as Trump and not nearly as arrogant and unlikable as Hillary Clinton.  Over the last 4 years, the Republican President cost his party the House (2018 midterms) and the Senate (losing both Georgia seats).   He’s compromised the integrity and reputations of all the Republican congressmen who were induced to follow him, not that we’re particularly sympathetic to their plight.  What’s next for the GOP?

 My suggestion, likely to be immediately rejected by everyone, is for the party to break up.  Any Republican with something close to ethics and real values should defect to the Libertarian Party.   I can understand most politicians’ reluctance to do so piecemeal, in dribs and drabs, but a wholesale defection of sitting Congressmen should be another story entirely.  Possibly, but not likely, some Democrats could also defect, though as I write this I can’t identify any plausible candidates by name.  The leading Republicans would be Mitt Romney, Justin Amash, Rand Paul, and Thomas Massie, just to name a few. 

I’ve been re-reading, for the third time, Harry Turtledove’s alternate history series which begins with How Few Remain and continues with three WWI stories, three interwar stories, and four WWII stories.  Herein, the CSA won the Civil War (1861-62), also defeated the US in the so-called Second Mexican War (1881-82), and allied itself with Britain, France and Russia in WWI.  For its part, the US found itself allied with Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.  Now imagine US and Confederate soldiers fighting in trenches, with biplanes, machine guns, and poison gas, but in western Virginia, Kentucky, and other locations.  The CSA had purchased Sonora and Chihuahua states from Mexico in 1881, so their territory extends westward from Texas, along the New Mexico/Arizona border to the Pacific Ocean, giving the CSA a Pacific Coast port city at Guaymas.  They also have Cuba.

 In the aftermath of the Second Mexican War, Abraham Lincoln – who was not assassinated in 1865 but survived to become a Marxist – split up the Republican Party in 1882 into a Socialist Party, with the Democrats taking the role of a conservative/reactionary party.  The twin Presidents in 1914 are Theodore Roosevelt (USA) and Woodrow Wilson (CSA).  By this time the Republicans are reduced to an insignificant third party.

 The LP candidate in 2020 was Jo Jorgenson, who had no experience as an elected official and her prime political experience was being Harry Browne’s VP candidate back in the day.   Gary Johnson, the 2016 candidate, was much stronger: a successful two term state governor (New Mexico).  His 2012 result, 1%, was somewhat disappointing, but he was up against both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  In 2016 he received 3%, and probably would have gotten more had he known where Aleppo, Syria, was.  If the LP has former state governors or US senators as its candidates – the kind of candidates the major parties run – they may well have a much stronger shot. 

 Returning to reality, I do believe the heretofore marginal Libertarian Party may well be able to accommodate a large influx of dissatisfied Republicans.  Sadly, over the years the Republicans went from Lincoln’s party abolishing slavery to a conservative party giving lip service to capitalism but more accurately being a quasi-fascist party giving us a corrupt form of capitalism mixed with religious right nonsense telling us how to live our private lives.  The Libertarians, in many ways, are a more pure and principled form of what the Republican Party would be if it actually adhered to many of the ideals which it claims to stand for but which fall by the wayside either due to true indifference or political reality.   Trump’s debacle here in 2020 can serve as the impetus for the more principled Republicans to abandon the party altogether and turn the Libertarian Party from a marginal third party to a real competitor with the Democrats. 

 Quoting Picard:  MAKE IT SO.

Elections

Now we have President Donald “Orange” Trump.  I voted for Gary Johnson, and it looks like he didn’t win.  Let’s look at the prior ones…

1976.  The first election I can remember, as I was only 3 years old in 1972 and not even born in 1968.   This was between the GOP candidate, the incumbent President Gerald Ford (VP Bob Dole of Kansas) and Democrat, Jimmy Carter, former Governor of Jawja, with VP candidate Walter Mondale.   With the exception of my friend Mike’s dad, who preferred Ford, most people I heard express preferences for Carter.  Ford had become President when Nixon resigned, and had become VP when Spiro Agnew resigned, so he had no prior track record of winning a Presidential election. Honestly, though, I can’t remember who my parents voted for.   Carter won fairly easily.

1980.  By this time we were living in Paris, France, going to Marymount.   I was in seventh grade.  The election was between Ronald Reagan (George H.W. Bush, VP) for the GOP, against the incumbent Jimmy Carter.  By now Carter was highly unpopular due to the Iranian hostage scandal.  Jon Anderson ran as an independent.  I heard no one voice support for Carter, and one student – Michael B., now a university professor and Bernie Sanders supporter – voice support for Anderson.  

1984.  Now Mondale came into his own and ran as a Presidential candidate for the Democrats, with Geraldine Ferraro – a woman – as his VP candidate.  Reagan was highly popular.  Mondale did himself no favors by admitting he would raise taxes.  By this time I was in high school (sophomore year) at the American School of Paris.  Michael B was going to the Lycee International, so I don’t know who he supported; I’d guess Mondale, but both of us were still below voting age at this time.  Most of my fellow students supported Reagan (even if we couldn’t vote) but a few expressed support for Mondale, which earned them ridicule.  Of course, Reagan won this.

1988.  By now I was in college at the University of Maryland – and finally old enough to vote.   No surprise that Reagan did not seek a third term.  His VP, George H.W. Bush – father of later President George W. Bush – ran on his own, with a head-scratcher as a VP candidate, Dan Quayle of Indiana.  Handsome but dumb was the consensus on him, not entirely accurate or fair.  I voted for Bush.   In fact, this was the ONLY election in which the candidate I voted for actually won (though for some special reasons you’ll see below).   The Democratic candidate was Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts, a short guy.  His VP candidate was Lloyd Bentsen, who was more popular and respected than Dukakis.  A cartoon at the time showed a GOP elephant holding a sign with BUSH in big letters and QUAYLE in very small type, while the Democratic donkey carried a similar sign with DUKAKIS in very small type and BENTSEN in large letters.  Not a close race.

1992.   Ah, Bill Clinton (with Al Gore).   My vote for Bush Sr. went by the wayside, and Clinton won easily.  This launched Hillary’s political career, such as it was, as well.  I was in law school at the time.

1996.   The GOP picked Bob Dole – It’s my turn now, damn it! – with Jack Kemp (RIP) as his running mate.  My vote for Dole went down the tube.  The election was called for Clinton fairly early in the evening.   By this time I was in private practice as an attorney.

2000.   Here’s when I got fed up and started voting Libertarian:  in this case, Harry Browne, who I met in person at a Libertarian event.  I had just started a job in Woodbridge at a firm, doing only contested Virginia divorces.   Based on the prior elections, we all expected the race to be called before bedtime, but even by midnight, we still didn’t know who won:  George W. Bush (w/Dick Cheney) or Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.   I went to bed assuming they’d have it figured out by the morning – WRONG.  It took a Supreme Court decision in December halting recounts in Florida before Bush came out as the winner.

2004.   I voted for Badnarik (Libertarian) this time around, and he lost.  Yes, really.   John Kerry and cheating-on-his-wife DURING THE ELECTION John Edwards were the close losers this time, with Ohio being the state which decided this one.   So we got four more years of Bush & Cheney.   I didn’t mind that much.  By now I was in solo practice in Northern Virginia.

2008.   Time to vote for Bob Barr!   What?  Cheese made of breast milk?  So that’s why he didn’t beat Obama or John McCain (w/Sarah Palin as VP).  Still at the same job this time around.  And Obama easily took Virginia, my state.   Barr’s %, like the prior LPA candidates, was negligible.

2012.   My mom, fearing another four years of Obama, convinced me to wait three hours in line reading Game of Thrones and vote for Mitt Romney, who lost not merely Virginia but also the heavily BLUE zone (Fairfax County) in which I live and vote.   However, Libertarian candidate and successful two term New Mexico governor Gary Johnson pulled 1% this time around, with better numbers than the Ed Clark/Dave Koch LPA ticket of 1980.

  

2016.  My brother and I voted for Rand Paul in the GOP primary – the first time I can recall actually voting in the primary as opposed to just the election.  By that time he was out, but had withdrawn too late for his name to be removed from the ballot.  Having voted either GOP or LPA in the past elections, and with Hillary Clinton not particularly likeable, I couldn’t vote for her.  Trump, of course, was out of the question.  So Gary Johnson was a no-brainer for me.  Like everyone else, I assumed – incorrectly, it turns out – that Hillary would win.  At the very least, she would easily wrap up Fairfax County and Virginia.  As it was, she narrowly won Virginia, but lost the electoral vote nationwide, and did so well before bedtime.  For his part, Johnson pulled 3%, below the 5% we needed, but still 3x the prior number and a good sign for the future, depending on how poorly Trump does, who the Democrats pick in 2020, and who the LPA chooses.  Austin Peterson will STILL not be qualified absent an unusually productive four years.  Adrian Peterson might be a better pick - well, he'll win Minnesota.

Since the guy just took office, it’s too early to predict just how badly Donald Trump will ruin our country.  Will we be speaking Russian by 2020?   Mushroom clouds over Washington, a la Man in the High Castle?   A huge wall, paid for by Pink Floyd?   Or will he just muddle through, doing vaguely what his GOP competitors – aside from Rand Paul – would have done?  For those of you morbidly hoping he has a convenient accident, let’s look over the track record:

William Henry Harrison (1841).   He caught enteric fever three weeks after the inauguration, and died.  Given the timing of the illness, we no longer blame his long speech and light wardrobe for his death. 

Abraham Lincoln (1865).   Shot at Ford’s Theater, DC, by a disgruntled actor, John Wilkes Booth, who proclaimed “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”

James Garfield (1881).  Shot by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker who felt he’d been cheated out of a patronage job – consul in Paris, despite not speaking French.  Nominally the Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, would be responsible for giving Guiteau the positon, but Blaine considered Guiteau completely unqualified for the job.  Guiteau had no actual beef with Garfield, but simply calculated that Chester A. Arthur, the VP, would be more inclined to allow him to get the job once Garfield was out of the picture.  An odd theory, since he shot Garfield in public at the train station and was recognized immediately by Blaine, who was present.  He was tried, convicted, and hanged.   

William McKinley (1901).  Shot by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, at the exhibition in Buffalo, New York.  Czolgosz was apprehended, tried, convicted, and executed.  But he gave us Theodore Roosevelt as president.

Warren Harding (1923).  Died of a stroke.   The  VP, former Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge, took over.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1945).  Died of a stroke.   Two in a row.  The VP, former senator from Missouri Harry S. Truman took over.  

John F. Kennedy (1963). Shot by Lee Harvey Oswald – and no one else.  VP Lyndon Johnson (senator from Texas) took over.  

Ronald Reagan (1982).  Shot at by John Hinckley, who was trying to impress Jodie Foster.   He survived to finish out his term in January 1989.  He died in 2004 of pneumonia/Alzheimer’s. 

Of seven Presidents to die in office, three died of natural causes, and four were shot.  Presumably Trump will improve security at the White House.   We’ll see.

The Crimson Unicorn

The outflowing of support for Bernie Sanders on Facebook seems to mirror the similar swell for support among equally deluded fans of Donald Trump.  Here my focus is on the Cult of the Crimson Unicorn, i.e. US socialists circa 2015.

By crimson I mean “red, socialist, communist” and by unicorn I mean something that is fictional and has no basis in reality:  an unattainable ideal held by people too clueless to understand that.

Semantics.  First, let’s get some semantics out of the way.   When the Colonel Sanders crowd barks and brays for socialism, they mean the flavor served in Denmark and Sweden, not the one from North Korea.   Generally we refer to Denmark as “socialist” and China as “communist”.   In doctrinaire terms, Denmark is actually capitalist and China is socialist, and no country has attained the anarchic state which Marxists call “communism”.  I agree the Denmark is actually capitalist – albeit with a heavy dose of socialism – but just so everyone understands what we’re talking about, it’s probably best to continue referring to countries like North Korea as communist anyway.

One element the Sanders crowd never addresses, but which their opponents love to bring up – as I do – is taxes.   I did a blog a few years ago about this, http://formula57l.blogspot.com/2012/08/who-wants-to-run-america_2532.html.   I still think It’s relevant today.

Leaving aside a totalitarian dictatorship I don’t think anyone wants, the question is why we can’t have something like Denmark.   Yes, most things are paid for, including health care and education.   But it comes at a price which few in the US would be willing to pay:  horrendous taxes.  Income taxes are much higher, sales taxes are higher (25% vs 5% in the US), and the tax on cars is 180% (almost triple).  In Sweden the top bracket approaches 100%.  Not everything is as bad as they say it is (http://www.snopes.com/denmark-socialism-brutal-meme/) but it’s still far higher than any of the Crimson Unicorn crowd will ever admit.  I would suggest the theater majors clamoring for Bernie Sanders take a closer look at the cost of their plans.

Libertarians.   I’m a Libertarian.  What that means is that I read Ayn Rand in college, adopted capitalism as an ideal, and initially took the Republicans’ support for that doctrine at face value.  Until I read books like The Suicidal Corporation, by Paul Weaver, and saw how Newt Gingrich and his cronies cynically floated the Contract With America in 1994 as a means of co-opting what they perceived to be libertarian values, with no sincere expectation of supporting that agenda.  Republicans have too much in common with big business and – with few exceptions – no interest in supporting libertarian ideals.  

The Tea Party movement is often described as Libertarian, but I see too much evidence that much of that is simply opposition to Obama because he's black masquerading as libertarians.   Where were these people when Clinton was in office?  Or Carter?

I’d distinguish libertarianism from socialism in the following manner.  Ideologically they’re opposites.  In practical terms the best we can hope for from “socialism” is a Sweden-Denmark deal with everything paid for by the government and insanely high taxes.  The best we can hope for from libertarianism is lower taxes, less wars, and more freedom.  As for the political possibilities….

Jane Fonda once said that if we all truly understood what communism was about, we’d embrace it.  I’ll switch that on its head and say that if Americans were given the truth about what the Danish flavor of socialism meant – super high taxes – we’d reject it immediately and never think about it again.  That’s the ugly truth about Bernie Sanders’ platform:  wishful thinking and assuming that everyone else is drinking the same Kool-Aid.  And I don’t consider Denmark to be a real ideal anyway, although they can claim they’ve “made it happen”, which is more than the Marxists can claim about “true communism”.

As for libertarianism, I sincerely believe that it’s practical as a reality in terms of being a workable model that would actually work in real life.   That is not the problem.  The problem is that there are too few Libertarians and too much entrenched interests in Congress and in America – both major parties – to make enacting this agenda a reality.  The Tea Party came closest, and Rand Paul is this flavor’s biggest candidate, but unless Donald Trump or Ben Carson “have a fatal heart attack and die” between now and the GOP convention in summer 2016, I’m not holding my breath for Rand Paul to win the nomination.