My god, what a depressing week. Our first-in-the-nation presidential electoral contest ended in a train wreck, when the brainchild of Democratic Party operatives managed to turn the already chaotic Iowa Caucuses into a failed experiment in participatory democracy via digital technology. While it’s not clear exactly what went wrong with regard to the Shadow app, what is clear is the fact that the party officials and app developers did not adequately test their reporting system before the day of the caucuses. I’ve heard stories of technical problems, user errors, poor training, inadequate support, poorly staffed phone banks (which was, essentially, the traditional means by which results were reported in previous election years), etc. What I HAVEN’T heard is someone saying, “it was my damn fault.”
What was worse was that, days later, we still didn’t have the full results. When I looked Wednesday afternoon, only 75% of the results were in. That night it got up to 92%, the next morning, 97%. What the fuck is the matter with these people? And because of the screwed up precinct weighting algorithm they are using for whatever reason, even though Bernie Sanders over a thousand more votes in the final round, for two days Mayor Pete was still being described as the winner. Through Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Sanders gradually closed the gap in what they term “State Delegate Equivalents”, but if he doesn’t overtake Buttigieg, we all know what that means: More votes loses, fewer votes wins. What does that sound like? Is this the way all elections function in America now?
Of course, the timing was horrendous, as Trump’s great dictator-like State of the Union speech was Tuesday night, during which he staged a dramatic family reunion for an American soldier, decorated Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and spun insane tales of prosperity in the face of a continuing recovery that if anything has lost steam over the past three years. There’s a lot to criticize about this speech and about the reaction of Democratic senators and representatives to Trump’s triumphalism about Iran, Venezuela, and other points of bipartisan imperial consensus. The biggest problem with it, though, is that in the wake of a major Democratic party failure, the president gets a prime-time opportunity to brag about accomplishments both imagined and hideously real. Iowa revives the “gang that can’t shoot straight” trope about Democrats (see the ACA rollout), while the SOTU raises the faint specter of Reagan standing tall against the “doom and gloom” crowd.
Oh, and then there was the impeachment acquittal vote. No big surprise, but again …. timing. Only one thing to do – pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start fighting again.
luv u,
jp
“A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land,” he tells us, referring to a year ago, then jumped right in with the anecdotes and the guests of honor. “We always will pull through together, always.” Runs through a litany of lifesavers, mostly from disasters of our own making, through climate change, gun violence, etc. “The state of our union is strong because our people are strong. And together we are building a safe and strong and proud America.” Platitude.
And the substance of the king’s speech? Nauseating, in my humble opinion. The truly low points for me were the jingoistic celebration of the widow of that Navy Seal killed in that botched Yemen raid, the announcement of a special Homeland Security office tracking victims of immigrant crimes, the promise to raise the already bloated military budget by 10% … I could go on. Of those three, the first one was strange in that Trump had previously (that day, I believe) thrown his generals under the bus for that failed mission, on Fox News. (Plus, the Navy Seal’s father is hopping mad about it, and rightfully so.) But point to a war widow, and politicians will always stand up and cheer. It’s their way of channeling our relief that we are no longer called upon to fight wars or to pay for them up front. Cynical in the extreme.
someone you could describe as disappointed in the president: he is very much the kind of leader I expected him to be following his 2008 election. Probably the most prescient look at the then-early Obama presidency in 2009 was published in Harper‘s under the title 
Sad thing is, Obama seems ready to assist them in this. His somewhat schizophrenic SOTU lurched from major investments to multi-year spending freezes. Domestic spending kept level for five years? Sounds like McCain. What would the impact of that be on all of these domestic initiatives he’s mentioning in the same breath? We shall see how that shakes out. Of course, the CBO came out with dire estimates regarding both the federal budget and Social Security practically while Obama was speaking. The primary culprit? The tax cut deal, which is blowing the predictable hole in the Federal budget and starving Social Security of its payroll tax funding. Guess how they’re going to try to fill that hole. Ask Paul Ryan.