LEFT IN EAST DAKOTA

Bernie’s social democracy has a libertarian feel, not only because Sanders himself is a stout civil libertarian, but because for lots of reasons (good and bad) the US doesn’t have the same overarching officialdom (Josie Appleton’s “busybody state”) that has taken over many of the European welfare states, even as they implement austerity. (My brother and his wife have horror stories of the layers of bureaucracy sewn into everyday life when they lived in England.) Bernie’s plans play to the good parts of that as they are universal, easy to understand (Medicare for all paid for by a progressive payroll tax), and not only don’t infringe on personal freedoms they substantially increase them.  It’s often the Vox inspired liberal, the one who fetishizes means testing and builds policies based on nudge theory, who wants to enshrine officialdom into our lives. (The Obamacare disaster is a key example.) This is mayor Pete’s, and even Elizabeth Warren’s, constituency. They represent the publ

Trevor Noah has this bit (on The Daily Show) about Trump being shunned by the “cool kids” at the recent NATO gala. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is a  teetotalling blowhard (the worst kind) who I love to see ostracized, but who are the “cool kids” in this scenario? Macron? He’s about as well liked as the US Congress. He was elected on the platform of being slightly more agreeable than an open fascist and his major accomplishment is furthering France’s descent into a full-on police state. Trudeau? He is the ultimate cynical politician. He’ll march for the climate in the morning and sign an oil deal in the afternoon. He’s an image of his father, though that imagine is in a wavy piss puddle. No, forget that. The best thing Trudeau has going for him is that persistent rumor that he’s Fidel Castro’s bastard son. I’m not even going to say anything about Boris Johnson because he’s already Boris Johnson for Christ’s sake.  Also, NATO is an unnecessary organization that is a danger to world pe

As the fickle centrists continue to fold in the Democratic primaries, we are starting to see the usual suspects talk about how the system actually does work if you just get the right people involved and the executive branch doesn’t have much power anyway so getting Congress is really the more important battle. These, of course, are the same people who after Clinton’s loss claimed the system was absolutely broken (the electoral college was supposed to prevent a demagogue like Trump!) and the White House was in the hands of a dictator and the very fabric of our democracy was being destroyed! They continued to be incredibly wrong about Russiagate, to an embarrassing extent, and now they are clueless when it comes to how the general public feels about the impeachment inquiry. Yet they just keep talking.