Month: January 2019

The House Democrats will soon pass a bill called the For the People Act of 2019. You could call it a modern day Voting Rights Act. It would create new rules for federal elections, including same-day registration and a mandated early-voting period. It would “strip the power to set congressional boundaries from state legislatures, 30 of which are controlled by Republicans, and hand it over to new independent commissions.” It would gut Voter ID laws aimed at suppressing the vote by allowing people to give a sworn statement as to their identity.

Generally speaking, the Republicans oppose all of these measures because they would make it easier to vote or take away the disproportionate advantage they get in being able to draw districts. However, the one provision that really seems to irk Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is the proposal to make Election Day a national holiday.  McConnell took to the Senate floor to call this proposal “a power grab” by the Democrats, and he sniffed dismissively, “Just what America needs: another paid holiday.”

I don’t know any people who dislike paid federal holidays. It doesn’t seem like a vote-getter to oppose giving people a day off work. But if we have too many holidays, maybe we should take one away and replace it with the day people are actually supposed to be doing their civic duty by participating in our representative democracy.  I can’t see that proposal being unpopular.

Needless to say, the Republicans aren’t going to take the Democrats’ House bill up in the Senate. McConnell’s home state of Kentucky is currently disenfranchising black voters at the highest rate in the country, and that’s just how he likes it. He has no interest in making it easier for people to vote. He doesn’t want to eliminate work/school conflicts for people. He doesn’t want people to be able to register to vote at the voting booth. He doesn’t want people to be able to vote early or to have more options about where and how to vote. He doesn’t want people without photo ID to be able to swear under penalty of perjury that they are who they say they are. He doesn’t want to give up his party’s gerrymandering advantage.

Since he wants none of these things, he won’t allow any of these things.

It’s just strange that he chose to pick on the holiday provision. That’s the one thing I’d think he’d want to avoid discussing, since it is doubtlessly the most popular proposal in the whole bill.

I’ll be honest and tell you that I do not know if the U.S. Senate will ever hold a trial to determine whether President Trump should be removed from office. A lot will depend on the timing of the Office of Special Counsel wrapping up its investigation. If it takes too long to provide its evidence, the Democrats may decide that it’s better to leave Trump twisting in the wind as a weakened 2020 opponent than to make a full-court press effort to impeach him.

However, if Trump does get impeached later this year, the Senate will serve as his jurors. Most likely, the president won’t be able to rely on any Democratic votes, which means he’ll only be able to afford 19 Republican defections if he wants to survive.

If the impeachment process gets to the point that there’s real doubt about whether Trump can hold the Senate Republicans in line, it’s likely that he’d resign rather force the Senate to hold a trial. At the very least, he’d be advised that he was likely to lose and asked to do everyone a favor and leave voluntarily.

However that would ultimately shake out, the part that has always been hard to imagine is that any significant number of Republican senators would seriously consider ousting their own president. After all, Trump is still getting very high approval numbers from Republican voters.  GOP senators who have stood up to him, however haltingly, have not fared well. Consider the cases of Bob Corker and Jeff Flake.

It’s obvious that half the hurdle is convincing Republican senators that they won’t be ending their political careers if they force Trump out. But the other half of the battle is convincing them that conviction and/or removal is the correct decision.  I expect the actual report will do most of the work on that front, but there will be other factors. One is whether or not they sincerely believe that Trump is doing a bad job and is unfit for the office.

The only senator to actually endorse Donald Trump in the primaries was Jeff Sessions of Alabama. The remainder were opposed to him winning the nomination. I very much doubt that he has any more sincere support in the Senate now than he did then. Many of them blame him for losing the House. Most of them are seething about being forced into a government shutdown they did not want. But the biggest sign of their discontent so far is coming directly from their Majority Leader.

Frustrated Republicans say it’s time for the Senate to reclaim more power over foreign policy and are planning to move a measure Thursday that would be a stunning rebuke to a president of their own party.

GOP lawmakers are deeply concerned over President Trump’s reluctance to listen to his senior military and intelligence advisers, fearing it could erode national security. They say the Senate has lost too much of its constitutional power over shaping the nation’s foreign policy and argue that it’s time to begin clawing some of it back.

“Power over foreign policy has shifted to the executive branch over the last 30 years. Many of us in the Senate want to start taking it back,” said a Republican senator closely allied with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

They plan to send Trump a stern admonishment by voting Thursday afternoon on an amendment sponsored by McConnell warning “the precipitous withdrawal” of U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan “could put at risk hard-won gains and United States national security.”

The resolution also expresses a sense of the Senate that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al Qaeda pose a “continuing threat to the homeland and our allies” and maintain an “ability to operate in Syria and Afghanistan.”

It’s a pointed rebuttal to the claim Trump made on Twitter in December that “we have defeated ISIS in Syria.”

Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said his amendment “simply re-emphasizes the expertise and counsel offered by experts who have served presidents of both parties,” a subtle rebuff of Trump’s tweets from earlier in the day mocking his intelligence advisers as “naive.”

It would be appropriate if disagreements over foreign policy are what ultimately causes the Senate Republicans to oust Trump. The primary concern with the president is that he is a pawn of a foreign power. The way this most obviously manifests itself is in his attacks on U.S. allies and western organizations like NATO and the European Union. Articles of impeachment are likely to deal with witness tampering, perjury, obstruction of justice, and a conspiracy to defraud the American public. But it Trump is actually tossed out, it will be primarily because the Senate Republicans do not trust his leadership on foreign policy.

His refusal to listen to his own intelligence experts is now causing a firestorm. I can’t think of any precedent for a rebuke like this from a president’s own party.

Trump stunned Republican senators Wednesday by lashing out at Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel after they contradicted some of his optimistic claims about the threats posed by North Korea and ISIS. The senior intelligence officials also angered Trump by testifying that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear treaty it signed with Western powers under the Obama administration.

Trump tweeted “the Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!” The president added in a follow-up tweet about Iran: “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!” Trump appeared to be responding to television news coverage that focused on how the testimony contradicted his views on global threats.

Exasperated Republican lawmakers quickly pushed back against the criticism, urging the president to show more restraint.

“I don’t know how many times you can say this, but I would prefer that the president stay off Twitter, particularly with regard to these important national security issues where you’ve got people who are experts and have the background and are professionals,” said Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.). “In most cases I think he ought to, when it comes to their judgment, take it into consideration.”

For some reason I will probably never understand, the president seems to think it’s going to be more important for him to keep Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh happy than to worry about how Mitch McConnell and John Thune are feeling about his leadership. I don’t think he’s right about that.

It’s true that maintaining support among the base is key to preventing senators from throwing him out of office. But it’s far more important that he not convince those senators that he needs to be thrown out of office.

Once they decide he ought to go, it’s much harder to convince them to sweep him crimes under the rug and rally around him as their 2020 nominee.

I’ve said for a long time that the Senate Republicans don’t like Trump, have no loyalty to Trump, don’t enjoy working with him, don’t agree with his strategies, and don’t want him to be their nominee next year. The situation has grown immeasurably worse since the midterms.

They are now openly defying the president because they see him as a threat to national security. And that’s exactly what the counterintelligence investigation on Trump has been about from the beginning. So, without even seeing the evidence, they’re already convinced.

I think Trump has spoiled his jury pool, and people who remain convinced that the Senate Republicans will save him are badly underestimating how much bipartisan agreement there is at this point that Trump is captured by Putin and mentally unfit for office.

Trump’s best bet at this point is that the Mueller Report doesn’t come out until so late in the year that the primary debates have begun and everyone just agrees to fight it out at the ballot box. But, even in that scenario, Trump is likely to get challenged for the nomination by someone who is willing to express what so many are thinking.

FT: The EU cannot rescue Britain from Brexit chaos

May’s government has shown it can no longer be counted as a trusted partner

I had intended to address a slightly sheepish plea to Britain’s European partners. Even at this late hour, the EU27 should show forbearance with the Brexit shenanigans at Westminster. The prize of an amicable parting of the ways — or, in the best case, a change of heart in a second referendum — was worth it. My shaky resolve collapsed after Theresa May’s latest swerve. The EU could now be forgiven for simply throwing Britain overboard.

The prime minister’s embrace of her party’s hardline Brexiters was breathtaking in its cynicism. Only weeks ago she was immovable about the arrangements in the EU withdrawal agreement for the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Now she promises to try to rewrite them to suit the prejudices of her party. What of the Belfast Agreement, the treaty underpinning peace on the island of Ireland? It ranks second, it seems, to appeasement of Brexiters such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The mandate the prime minister claims to have secured to rewrite the Irish “backstop” is worthless and incredible. Worthless because all the other options for the Irish border have been exhaustively explored, and discarded, during the Article 50 negotiations. Incredible because the hardliners who backed her this week do not want an agreement. Supporting Mrs May now was a diversion. The real strategy is to run down the clock all the way to a no-deal Brexit.

What must be doubly maddening for the EU negotiators is the assumption among so many Tory MPs that the Irish arrangements were designed permanently to lock Britain into a close trading relationship. Nothing could be more removed from the truth. Governments across the EU fear the backstop, were it ever to be implemented, would give Britain an unfair advantage — unique access to the European market without any responsibilities. The EU27 would be as eager as any Brexiter to ensure such a regime was short-lived.

And therein lies the rub. Whilst the conclusion of a Withdrawal Agreement was a significant achievement by EU negotiators – not least because it kept the EU27 united – it also contained major concessions by the EU for which it has gotten zero credit. Norway pays a hefty price for Single Market access, not dissimilar, on a per capita basis to the UK’s hated net contribution for full EU Membership. There has been no talk, to date, of the UK paying a similar price – which would also serve to undermine the basis for the Norwegian contribution.

So there is a case for the EU27 (if not Ireland) to regard a no deal Brexit with a sort of equanimity, even if only as a short term expedient to lower UK expectations and result in a retrospective acceptance of May’s deal. But there has to be a considerable doubt that May’s deal, or something very like it, will even be on offer after Brexit, especially if the no deal divorce has been nasty and accompanied by much Brexiteer triumphalism.

EU politicians have Parliaments they must answer to as well, and there are EP elections coming up. My guess is that if the UK doesn’t accept May’s deal in full very quickly after Brexit day then it will be withdrawn and far harsher terms of engagement will apply. The UK will have to join the queue of third parties looking for FTA’s with the EU, and discussions won’t even start until the 45 Billion have been paid upfront, the rights of EU citizens in the UK have been protected, and guarantees on the border have been honoured.

No deal Brexiteers want to avoid as much future “entanglement” with the EU as possible, to enable the UK to become “Global Britain” and be free to engage with the world on its own terms. They may find the rest of the world, no less than the EU, will not be overly enthusiastic about engaging with a UK that cannot be trusted to keep its word or deliver on its commitments.

The priority for the Irish government must now be to achieve an “understanding” with the Commission that they will tolerate an open border within Ireland in exchange for tight controls at Irish air and sea ports to prevent UK goods using Ireland as a backdoor into the EU. “Chlorinated chicken” and the smuggling of tariff free goods will then become an internal problem for Ireland to resolve – one that is doable because so much of UK/Ireland trade is through air and sea ports anyway, and so much of the rest of it is by a handful of major supermarket chains and agri-food producers and importers who can be policed on an on-site basis.

The EU is aware that Ireland will be most badly effected by a no deal Brexit. For much of the rest of the EU27 it isn’t such a big deal. Some tolerance towards Ireland would be a small price to pay in return continued EU27 solidarity and cohesion. Brexiteer dreams that German car-makers will quickly bring the EU27 to heel and result in more advantageous trade terms for the UK are just that – dreams. This could all get seriously nasty before it gets resolved, if ever.

Hardly anyone in the UK has any conception of how difficult this could get unless saner heads prevail. The EU was created to promote peace in Europe, but on its borders instability prevails – Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Libya, and N. Africa more generally. We do not want N. Ireland to join that list. Even within the EU, democracy is threatened in Hungary and Poland and perhaps Romania and Bulgaria.

The EU has to be seen to protect and defend the interests of its member states, or else it too could disintegrate. If that has to be at the cost of non-members like the UK, then so be it. When trust breaks down it can be incredibly difficult to recover. Brexiteers like to talk about “our friends in Europe” as if their actions were without consequence. Their regard for the problems their alliance with the DUP is causing Ireland borders on contempt.

Britain First in its own headspace could well lead to Britain Last as far as the rest of Europe is concerned. The UK could be gaining the World at the loss of the best friends it ever had.

I’ve spent virtually every day of the last fourteen years writing about American politics, and in particular about the horrible behavior of the American right. As a result, I find myself shrugging at a lot of outrageous hypocrisy, low-level criminality, and basic projection simply because I’ve written about similar stories hundreds of times already and it just doesn’t seem very newsworthy.  My tendency to overlook things is even more pronounced in the Trump Era. When the president is basically the pawn of a foreign dictator, it’s hard to get worked up about a lot of the more mundane sins I see getting committed on a daily basis.

For whatever reason, however, I just can’t let this story go.

A group of undocumented immigrants who worked at Donald Trump’s golf clubs in New Jersey and New York met with members of Congress in Washington this week, hoping their personal stories can ultimately lead to a formal investigation into abuses and potentially criminal hiring practices by the Trump Organization.

One of the workers, maintenance worker Gabriel Sedano, had been employed at Trump’s Westchester, New York, resort as recently as this month. Sedano was among the number of undocumented workers dismissed during a mass firing on Jan. 18, in the midst of Trump’s government shutdown over his stupid wall. “It seemed unjust that they just call you and they fire you, when they knew we were good workers,” he said. Sedano had worked there for more than a decade.

Other good workers like him were subjected to horrific treatment. Former Bedminster, New Jersey, housekeeper Victorina Morales said she was verbally and physically abused by resort management, who also mocked her immigration status. She worked so close to Trump that she cleaned his clothes and made his bed. Their stories, said Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, “really speak volumes about the hypocrisy of the president who rails against immigrants, but uses their labor and does so in a way, and an in an environment, as I understand it, that was hostile to them and threatening to them.”

An indignant Eric Trump, who supposedly manages the day-to-day operations of his dad’s businesses (fact: Donald Trump is still involved in his businesses), blamed everyone but his organization for hiring undocumented immigrants and then abusing them.

The president who claims to be tough on crime and the best friend of the police is in fact a criminal. He claims that America is being invaded by Latino immigrants from Mexico and Central America who are committing crimes and taking American jobs. He’s on the verge of declaring this a national emergency so he can use extraconstitutional powers to build a border wall, but he’s been employing undocumented Latino workers in his hotels and resorts for decades, in violation of the law.

When stories like this fail to elicit the proper amount of outrage and get wall-to-wall media coverage, it permits people to proudly wear their MAGA hats and say that the message is “buy American, hire American.” In truth, Trump doesn’t hire American if he can help it. He’s running the biggest con I’ve ever seen.

It’s not like the con isn’t getting exposed. The problem is that there are so many examples of his hypocrisy and criminality that they all bleed together.  To me, this story about his use and mistreatment of undocumented workers should be an exception. I’d like to see every Republican office holder asked about this on a daily basis. I’d like to see every person with a MAGA hat have to respond to why this is okay.

Yet, if I’m honest, I won’t be writing about this tomorrow or the next day.  I’ll be chasing the next big thing like everyone else.

Welcome back, music lovers. This is diary 101 in the series. Last week I focused my attention on the career of Brian Eno, an individual who did a great deal to popularize ambient music, and prior to his decades-long stint recording ambient tracks (some intended for visual art installations), he was a progressive rocker in his own right. Eno is also known for his numerous collaborations over the years, starting very early on in his solo career following his split with Roxy Music. Those projects run the gamut from prog rock one-offs to more experimental offerings. Some of those collaborations were part of or the aftermath of some work he’s done as a producer. I stumbled on to his rather unusual musical world as a teen when I bought my first Bowie album. Anyone whose credits include playing instruments with names like cricket menace is bound to get my attention. Just the way my mind works.

In digging through the record bins and so on in my teens, I continued to find various gems that included Eno as a collaborator. I’d bring back whatever I could afford at any one time. Usually I was lucky to walk away with a single record at any given time, and then had to save up to get the next one. In the process, I learned of work he did with members of Cluster. Honestly, I had no idea who Cluster were until I picked up an album that had Eno on the credits. The songs ranged from electronic instrumentals to tunes almost akin to death disco. An example:

I always loved this track. It is dark, and in some sense its content seems fitting even four decades hence. Really I could listen to the work he did with members of Cluster endlessly. And learning about Cluster opened up a whole musical world to me at a very early age. But that’s another story for another time.

I will post a bit more as time permits, just like last week. If you enjoy this series, please rec, and make sure to tip the posts. There are facets of what we call popular music for which I have a nearly encyclopedic knowledge, or at least that is what I get told by family members who probably find the amount of trivia I can recall boring or exasperating. So it goes. Still, it did come in handy when curating sets for a radio show (back when I did college radio) or even just finding something fitting for a party that would be just a bit off the usual beaten path. And you never know what questions might be asked at a trivia night. Enjoy!

The Irish Times has published two letters of mine on successive days, which is a record! I would be interested in your views on it.

Free public transport – could it work for Dublin?

A chara, – I read with interest Lara Marlowe’s article on the almost exponential growth of free urban public transport systems throughout the world (“Free public transport – could it work for Dublin?”, Weekend, January 26th).

The Irish Times published a letter of mine proposing such a system for Dublin in 1980. In it I argued that such a system could massively reduce traffic congestion, reduce car imports, reduce fuel imports, and increase employment in the city.

In the meantime, we have seen a massive increase in traffic congestion, urban sprawl, commuting times, population density, and proposed and actual new public transportation systems such as the Luas and Metro causing massive disruption during the building phase and costing many billions of euro.

Tripling the size of Dublin’s bus fleet would probably be required to meet the latent demand for an efficient and free public transport service, but the capital cost would be minuscule compared to the cost of the aforementioned projects.

Instead of requiring exorbitant new infrastructure, existing and underused bus lanes would be more fully utilised, and journey times improved as car traffic diminished. Valuable space currently required for car parking could be repurposed for social housing or public amenities.

Such an expansion of the public bus system would massively improve the convenience of the existing bus services by increasing the frequency, range, and scope of current routes.

Instead of wasting time, burning fuel, polluting the atmosphere, and contributing to global warming, commuters could work on the bus, engage with social media and, horror of horrors, actually talk to one another, thereby recreating a more convivial and socially egalitarian city.

If the buses were primarily electric, they could further reduce our carbon footprint, and reduce the fines we will soon become liable to pay for failing to reach our carbon reduction targets.

As we have little oil and no car manufacturing industries, such a system would also improve our balance of trade and employment levels.

As a nation, we think nothing of spending billions on (partially) free education, healthcare, roads and public facilities. But an efficient public transport system is every bit as vital to the functioning of a modern economy. How much time is wasted driving cars on congested roads which could otherwise be devoted to more productive work or social activities? How many lives could be saved by less tired (and sometimes intoxicated) driving?

It is an idea whose time has come. – Yours, etc,

FRANK SCHNITTGER,
Blessington,
Co. Wicklow.

In a written report and congressional testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, the senior members of the United States intelligence community had some interesting things to say. The most important arguments they made directly contradicted their boss, the president.

They assess, for example, that North Korea is unlikely to give up their nuclear program and that Iran is not currently pursuing their nuclear program. They assess that Russia is currently and will continue to interfere in our politics and our elections. They assess that ISIS is nowhere near defeated. They reiterated a report released to Congress last week by the Pentagon that insists climate change is a national security threat.

We’re supposed to have a chief executive and commander in chief who is a customer for this kind of intelligence. Our president is supposed to be the primary customer for these types of assessments.  But that’s not the situation we have in this country right now. At the moment, our president has taken public positions contrary to every one of the assessments I highlighted above, and he’s simply not interested in contrary evidence. He is certainly not interested in being contradicted.

Fortunately, our intelligence community leaders seem to have enough stature and self-confidence to provide an honest threat assessment and to testify about it truthfully before Congress, but there are other people with less stature and security who will shy away from giving candid information to our elected representatives if they know the president’s stated position is different.

It’s a problem that Congress can’t get reliable information from our various agencies, but it’s an even bigger problem that our president, who is the final decider on many issues, is living in an alternative universe where up is down and left is right.

In a comment on my recent post Beto O’Rourke: Much Ado About SOMETHING!!! (http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2019/1/28/131526/654), joeldanwalls…after missing the whole point by totally inaccurately comparing Beto O’Rourke to the career neocentrists/neoliberals who currently control about 80% of the U.S. government and its captive mass media…asked:

Give me a reason to consider supporting Beto O’Rourke and I will listen.

My answer follows.

Read on:

OK, I will.

Beto O’Rourke is asking questions that to my knowledge have not been asked…publicly, at least…by any other truly possible candidates for national office. Ever!!! I am quite sure that they have been asked in private by right-wingers whose sole answer is a draconian, white supremacist, corporate-owned dictatorship, but not by someone like O’Rourke…someone who clearly believes in a one vote/one voter democracy of the people.

All of the people!!!

Like this:

“…I think that’s [this is] the question of the moment: Does this still work?” O’Rourke said. “Can an empire like ours with military presence in over 170 countries around the globe, with trading relationships . . . and security agreements in every continent, can it still be managed by the same principles that were set down 230-plus years ago?”

I believe that we need a real one vote/one person democracy here. That would necessitate a true constitutional convention. The minute another legitimate Dem candidate for the presidency says something this potentially revolutionary…questioning the very legitimacy of the system as it now stands…I will start paying attention to that candidate as well.

Until then?

O’Rourke stands alone.

I have heard nothing even remotely similar from the pack of lockstep Dems now vying for the presidency. They have all come up through the ranks of the Permanent Government’s Deep State political system, and are thus demonstrably good little boys and girls who are permanently in thrall to the Big Money controllers.

O’Rourke isn’t.

He sees a possible way out through the creative use of popular media.

Good on him!!!

Will he win?

I don’t know.

If he doesn’t…if a Biden, etc. wins?

We all lose.

Even Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the other (apparently) true progressives at or near the top of the current heap haven’t publicly said anything nearly this radical.

Can an empire like ours …still be managed by the same principles that were set down 230-plus years ago?

OOOOOooooo…!!!

The “empire” word!!!???

Questioning the current legitimacy and effectiveness of the Holy U.S. Constitution!!!???

Deep courage.

He will eventually be blasted by that empire’s captive mass media, and by its captive politicians on both sides of the non-existent political aisle.

Bet on it.

But…and here is the one positive thing that has arisen from the execrable Donald Trump’s rise to power…

It proved that the combined forces of the empire’s two parties and its mass media cannot any longer count on defeating a candidate who effectively uses the media against itself!!!

There’s your “revolution!!!

Gil Scott-Heron wrote and performed a revolutionarily and prophetically accurate piece of music in 1970 called The Revolution  Will Not Be Televised. He probably didn’t see how that prediction would really work out, but about 50 years later it’s looking very good that the internet and social media has…so far, at least…”Trumped” (sorry, couldn’t resist) the system. Now it’s just a matter of which side uses that power best, the right wing or the left wing.

Fascists or freedom lovers.

My bet…the only bet that I can see right now…is on Beto O’Rourke and an American Spring.

I think…or maybe “hope and pray” might be a better phrase…that he kicks some serious ass with his all-inclusive humanism.

No “deplorables” for Mr. O’Rourke.

He’s listening to everybody!!!

If not him?

Eventually?

Either someone else does it or an apocalypse of some sort solves the whole problem for us.

Yer OUTTA HERE!!!

A question for 2020.

Which one do you want to support?

Your answers count.

One voter/one vote.

Unfettered access to what the candidates truly think.

Consider them.

Seriously.

Later…

AG

P.S. A distillation of what I have been hearing from the rest of the possible candidates…Republicans and Democrats…and Beto O’Rourke:

Mainstream candidates:

It’s us against them!!!

(Whoever they seek to define as “them.”)

O’Rourke:

No, It’s us against us!!!

A “Wake the Fuck Up” moment if ever I’ve heard one!!!

Pogo For Preznit!!!

Please!!!

It infuriated me at the time when Politifact made “if you like your health care, you can keep it” the Lie of the Year in 2013. Unfortunately, that they felt comfortable making that choice is a good indication of how politically toxic it is to screw around with people’s preexisting health care plans. A small percentage of people lost their plan, but it still added up to approximately four million people. Many of them should have been grateful, since their plans were complete rip-offs, but that didn’t make it less of a headache for the Democrats.

In theory, I am very enthusiastically in favor of eliminating the private for-profit health insurance industry entirely. Yet, I know that this would cause a political firestorm unlike anything we’ve seen since George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security. In fact, it would likely be an order of magnitude more controversial than that fiasco. To make matters worse, it’s a promise that could not be kept. To even contemplate passage of such a bill, the Democrats would need a supermajority in the Senate, and that’s not in the offing anytime soon. In truth, the Democrats would probably need eighty or ninety senators to feel comfortable about getting 60 of them to vote the health insurance industry out of existence. In addition to the staggering number of negative constituent phone calls the senators would receive, many of them would be representing states that have thousands of health insurance jobs that would be on the line.

The question, then, is why would a presidential candidate run on a platform that included the elimination of private heath insurance? It might help them win the Democratic nomination, but thereafter it would weigh on them like an albatross. As a general election candidate, they would be savaged using similar rhetoric to what caused the Tea Party revolt and the midterm wipeouts of 2010 and 2014. Only, this time, the rhetoric would largely accurate and backed up by the media. If they nevertheless won the election, which is certainly possible, they would have to abandon their promise or they’d wind up taking a huge beating much like Trump did in his effort to repeal Obamacare.

This time, I am going to have to agree with Jonathan Chait that Kamala Harris is taking a huge risk.

In which Jake asks Kamala Harris whether people would be able to keep their private insurance, if they prefer, under Medicare For All system — and she rejects that. “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.” pic.twitter.com/A1AY2TOT4g

— Rebecca Buck (@RebeccaBuck) January 29, 2019

For the record, Chait agrees with me about the merits of the policy.

There’s no doubting the worthiness of this ambition. Financing health insurance through private firms does not add any important value. It is obviously possible to run an entire country on a single-payer basis. Lots of countries do it, and people there tend to like the experience much better than Americans do.

He’s just taking the position that it’s not a wise political choice to run on doing something that is unpopular, easy to demonize, highly disruptive, and impossible to deliver. Trump’s promise of a border wall that Mexico will pay for is an example of what can go wrong even if you win the election.

It’s true that if you ask people if they support a national health care plan like Medicare-for-All, they say that they do. If you ask them if they favor eliminated private health insurance, they are significantly more emphatic that they do not.

Now, if the the policy is the correct one and the goal is worthy, one might reasonably ask how we can ever achieve it without a presidential candidate running on it and winning.  Public opposition must be overcome somehow.  There used to be public opposition to gay marriage and a lot of Democrats cowered in fear rather than taking a courageous stand and leading by example. Public opinion shifted very quickly on that issue, so why couldn’t the same happen with a national health care plan?

My short answer to that is that there is too much money involved in health insurance for it to be equivalent, and too many people will feel a direct rather than an abstract threat.  The U.S. Congress isn’t passing a national health care plan anytime soon regardless of how many seats the Democrats win.

This isn’t a satisfying answer to countless Democratic voters, but being set up for disappointment isn’t something people should welcome, let alone set as a litmus test for your political support.  It’s an odd thing to be upset that a candidate is advocating a policy I agree with using arguments that I consider completely sound.  But the same candidate is also failing to level with me about the prospects of success and the downside political risks.  It’s the latter part that bothers me and that more than cancels out the former part.

In one way, convincing presidential candidates to support a national plan is definitely progress for those of us who want to reach that goal one day.  I want them to argue for that goal. I just don’t want them promising to deliver it, because that’s a lie that will produce a risky backlash and just fuel cynicism when it isn’t kept.