Obsidian Wings

How to handicap the 2020 Democratic Primary: a view from the base

by Doctor Science

If you're going to do horse race journalism, at least do it right.

I'm writing as a long-time member of the Democratic Party base, a rank-and-file voter and regular volunteer. There are certain factors that come up when I and other Democrats talk about 2020, talk that began months ago. Now we're entering the invisible primary, with more discussion to sort out which candidates we might to support--and which should probably think that they're in it for the experience.

Spoiler: all these factors point to Bernie Sanders having zero chance of getting the Democratic nomination, while Kamala Harris is the (current) front-runner.

Factors:

1. A white man starts out behind. This factor is going to be *very* hard for journalists to recognize, because they're so deeply embedded in a system where white men are taken seriously much more than other people. For instance, they almost all work for white men.

I'm not saying that there's no way a white man could win the Democratic nomination. But he would have to be exceptional, because he starts out with a deficit. Specifically, a white man has to show a strong alliance with and support from some Democratic subgroup that is *not* mostly white men. This is a big reason why Beto O'Roarke's long-term prospects within the Democratic Party are so good: he respects, works with, and is supported by black women, among others. He's too inexperienced to be viable in 2020, but he's got a future.

Discussing our options for the 2016 primary, I said to a (black woman) friend, "I'm sick of being yelled at by white men." I am *so much more* sick of it now, words cannot express.

2. Candidates lose points with every year before 1950 they were born. Since World War II Democrats have a preference for younger candidates, which has increased as we've learned more about Reagan's health problems in office. We want a candidate whose health can reasonably extend through two terms of one of the most stressful jobs on the planet, and someone who's going to be over 70 in 2020 is not the best bet.

Elizabeth Warren was born in 1949. Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg were born in 1942. Bernie Sanders was born in 1941. Warren is the only one who has a serious chance IMHO.

3. The candidate will have to release their tax returns. Bernie got away without doing it in 2016, but it will not fly this time around. Even if there are no state laws or Party regulations in place to enforce financial transparency, we in the party base will insist on seeing where the candidate's money is coming from and going to.

4. The most important demographic in the Democratic Party is black women. The largest race+gender demo in the party is white women (like myself), but black women are the most loyally and consistently Democratic.

I make a point of following a lot of people of color on Twitter--since it's hard *not* to get white people's opinions about everything, getting different points of view takes work. I do it on Twitter because it's a medium well-suited to listening to people talking to each other without my presence influencing their conversation.

What I see is that black voters, women in particular, are small-c conservative in their choices. That is, they don't tend to fall for trendy or stunt candidates. They want to see a track record of policy and accomplishment, and they *will* have the receipts. Democracy and government aren't spectator sports for them, their lives and those of their children are frequently and literally on the line. They vote, and they take voting seriously.

So far there's been one straw poll of influential women of color, and it showed Kamala Harris as the runaway favorite. More important IMHO is that the pollees' #1 suggestion for "how to inspire and engage" them is "Hire more women of color in leadership positions." Thus: if a candidate's early hires do not include any women of color, they are not trying to connect with this crucial demographic--or at least they will not succeed.

So: if you're looking at journalism or commentary about the 2020 Democratic nomination, anyone who says Kamala Harris is *not* the frontrunner has to explain why. I've seen a lot of analysis over the past year or so saying Joe Biden or even Bernie Sanders is the "obvious" frontrunner, or that there's a place in the Democratic primary for a random billionaire, but that's laughable. Such people will only be comfortable with a Democratic candidate who has the look and feel of a Republican: old, white, male, moneyed. Nope, not gonna happen.

Adam Silverman's analysis sees the same factors I do (though he phrases them more coothly), but he points out that Sanders is likely to keep in the race as an Independent after he loses the Democratic nomination early in the process. There is a very real danger that he'll be a Nader-like spoiler in the general election,

And if he decides he’s going to be a team player and not do so, his trusted agents won’t play ball and you’ll have the same problem regardless. And we can now add Congresswoman Gabbard to the potential spoilers category emanating from Sanders orbit.

Silverman is a deeply experienced military analyst, and he emphasizes

that the US is at war. Putin has made it very clear since 2014 that as far as he was concerned Russia was, at least, in a new cold war with the US and the US was the aggressor.

We need to expect and plan for Russia to continue its program of manipulating US elections in its favor, which currently means in Trump's favor.

The Russians would be fools not to make a big push to have Sanders run third-party--and they are not fools. The Democratic Party and everyone who opposes Trump needs to start thinking and planning now about how to forestall, combat or defuse such a run. Can Sanders be persuaded to back Warren? Can some Democrat-friendly billionaire (not a terribly common animal) buy him off? Should we insist on seeing his tax returns before the 1st debate, so he leaves in shame and/or a huff?

That's the only justification for horse-race journalism at this point in the cycle: so that party members like myself have info we need to figure out who to support early and who to discourage.

At the Races, Before the Start by Edgar Degas. [source] I wasted spent a lot of time looking for good picture that wasn't by a really anti-Semitic artist, and failed.

Living Up Down to Expectations

by wj

We are all familiar with the phenomena of a figure in public life who seemed to promise one thing but then failed to live up to expectations. But there are also those for whom we have expectations, who go on to fulfill them (in whole or in part). Today, we have one of the latter:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-allows-trump-restrictions-on-transgender-troops-in-military-to-go-into-effect-as-legal-battle-continues/2019/01/22/e68a7284-1763-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html
So, a 5-4 decision with exactly the split anticipated by everybody (pro and con) after Mr Justice Kavanaugh’s addition to the Supreme Court.

I was particularly taken by the reaction from the Department of Justice:

The Department of Defense has the authority to create and implement personnel policies it has determined are necessary to best defend our nation.

Note, just to be clear, that the Department of Defense did not, repeat double underline NOT, feel the need for this policy. Whether to best defend the nation or for any other reason (costs, perhaps?). Indeed, when the policy was imposed on them, DoD did everything they could to delay implementation. And even after this decision, DoD’s response was:

“As always, we treat all transgender persons with respect and dignity . . . The proposed policy is NOT a ban on service by transgender persons.”

Doesn’t exactly sound like military folks have a burning desire, let alone see a need, to keep transgender individuals out of the military.

Just for some personal context. I think empathy, the ability to put oneself in the other guy’s shoes, is a great thing. But it is possible to see that something is the right thing to do even without that. I’m very much a product of the society in which I grew up. (See my comments in the past on homosexuality and gay marriage.) Which is to say, that I really cannot wrap my head around anyone wanting to change gender. I realize, intellectually, that some people do – and must be pretty desperate to do so, considering what is involved in doing so. But I simply cannot relate to it. Even so, it doesn’t take being able to relate to these people to recognize that the policy is flat out stupid. Emotional, certainly, but not based on reality.

Testing, testing, testing

by liberal japonicus

[Title should be sung to the tune of Rawhide]

This weekend is the weekend of the Daigaku Nyūshi Sentā Shiken (大学入試センター試験). A page giving a brief explanation is here.

As tenured faculty at a university that is a test site for the senta shiken, I have to proctor the test roughly 3 years out of 4 and this year, I don't have to. I generally agree to do everything that my Japanese colleagues do, but this test is one that if I could, I would pull the foreigner card. Imagine taking the worst trait of every standardized test you have ever taken, be it SAT, ACT, MCAT, LSAT, GRE, GCE, whatever, take out any opportunity for individual expression and then cover it completely with a bureaucratic grit to such an extent that one is constantly reminded of the truth of Foucault's observations in Discipline and Punish.

This article gives some basics about the current state of Japanese exams and makes me think that testing is often simply a reflection of demographic trends.The test itself is supposed to be discontinued in a few years and as a strange coinkidink, Japan is privatizing parts of their testing regime. I used to be more up on this, but as I approach retirement, I've stopped keeping track of it.

And here is a research paper discussing Japan's National testing.

One thing that I didn't realize was that Korea has their own version of the test, the College Scholastic Ability Test, which apparently turns all these dials up to 11. While the Wikipedia page notes that

CSAT has been praised for its efficiency, meritocratic factors, and high international results.

Unfortunately, this is just after this paragraph

On the test day, the stock markets open late and buses and subways are increased to avoid traffic jams that could prevent students from getting to testing sites, and planes are grounded so the noise does not disturb the students. In some cases, students are also escorted by police officers. Younger students and the members of the students' families gather outside testing sites to cheer on the students.

Small wonder that "Pressure to perform well on the CSAT has been linked to stress, psychological depression and suicide."

And about Korea's test
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/11/south-korean-seniors-have-been-preparing-for-today-since-kindergarten
and
a cheating scandal that gives some insight into the testing culture

Coming back to Japan, there was recently a big scandal about one Japanese medical university systematically increasing the exam scores of male applicants, with this Guardian article giving some other details. This is a bigger issue here because medical education is not post graduate, but requires entering a medical university as an undergraduate and going for a longer period of time. One should note that the only reason the Tokyo Medical University scandal was exposed was because of an investigation into a specific bribery allegation, which led to finding all kinds of dirt. While the Education Minister has said that they well investigate other schools, I wonder if, in typical Japanese fashion, schools that are simply discriminating against women are going to be told to 'correct' their procedures with little or no transparency.

But a thread about testing for all of you.

25 Days and Counting

by wj

Article II, Section 3 of the US Constitution requires the President to annually "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union”. President Washington did so with an address to Congress. But President Jefferson changed the practice to a written report. And so it remained until President Wilson re-established the practice of an address in 1913.

The way this works is, a formal invitation is made by the Speaker of the House to the President several weeks before each State of the Union Address. But not this year! Speaker Pelosi has written to the President to say that there are security concerns, what with the government being shut down. (After all, the Secret Service are one of the groups currently working without pay.) So either they can reschedule “after the government is reopened” or he can submit a written report. Zing! An un-invitation!

Conventional wisdom has seemed to be that Trump would continue the shutdown until the economic pain became too great. That is, great enough to penetrate the information bubble in which he lives. But it appears that Pelosi has found another handle: take away from Trump his opportunity of be the star of an hour long speech to the entire nation (covered on live TV) where he can boast of his accomplishments and generally prance about. And that, far more than mere economic pain, is hitting him where he lives.

[I wanted to do something to include the Brexit mess. Talk about the political polarization on both sides of the pond. But I couldn’t come up with much that would cover both. See, however, an article in today’s Washington Post entitled From Brexit to NATO and the shutdown, Putin is winning so much he might get tired of winning.]

Interview with Rick Perlstein about AOC

by liberal japonicus

I've got a bunch of stuff to put in the previous thread, but I wanted to open up another thread about this interview with Rick Perlstein about AOC.

A pull quote

Well, I don’t think they’re afraid so much for the Democratic Party as they’re afraid for themselves. This is obviously a changing of the guard. When I watch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez operate with such aplomb and skill and obvious erudition, she reminds me of when people like you and me stood around at a cocktail party or a dinner party and inevitably the conversation turned to, Why are the Democrats where they are? Why don’t they take the fights to the enemy? Why don’t they pivot off troll-y comments from the Republicans, instead of playing the game on their terms? Why aren’t they offering clear, bold, long-term, super-jumbo policy solutions that people can remember instead of triangulating everything the Republicans suggest?

And, suddenly, someone emerges who seems to be listening to all this, who is probably part of those conversations. And, suddenly, she has the power to actually act in a way that the Party hasn’t—a party that, almost forty years later, is still traumatized by the success of Ronald Reagan. It’s a profoundly generational phenomenon, and, clearly, it’s scary.

Discuss

Learning Languages

by liberal japonicus

A discussion about learning languages briefly broke out after the subject of immigrants learning English came up. While I'm not going to be the thread police here, I'm starting this thread to talk about how you and others learned/are learning/used to learn languages rather than societal issues that are involved. Pointless rambles about the nature of language, writing and learning are encouraged.

another real america

by russell

I read this piece in the Washington Post with a mix of pride and affection.  Affection for the people portrayed here, who remind me of my own mother's people, immigrants and plain old American poor people clawing their way into the middle class in 20th C Brooklyn and Queens and New Jersey.  Affection for the many people I know who left behind often quite successful lives in other places to come here and work as janitors, or hospital orderlies, or to open small neighborhood businesses.

And pride that we are, somehow, still a place where all of that is possible.  In spite of all of the toxic, hateful rhetoric of the last few years, it's still possible. Or possible-ish.

The thing that I think I hate the most about the social and political climate of the last couple of decades is the idea that there is some "real" America out there, which is the exclusive legacy of some particular set of people.  There is no one "real" America.  There are ten, or fifty, or maybe a hundred real Americas, and they're all legitimate.  All part of our heritage as a nation.

We contain multitudes.  That is our strength.

What I really wish is that all of the people out there in "the heartland" - the folks who the politicians flatter and kiss up to every two or four years, the folks who all the NYT reporters harass for quotes while they're trying to eat their scrambled eggs at some "picturesque" diner, the folks who are trying to figure out how to keep the lights on now that their factory job is gone, the folks wearing their made-in-China MAGA hats and crossing their fingers in hope that they're not being played for fools - I wish those folks could meet the folks in the Post article for a cup of coffee and an empanada and realize that they're pretty much the same.

Same worries, same problems, same pride in their own families and work.  Not their enemy, not trying to "take their job", not trying to free-load off anybody's hard-earned pay.  Just hard-working people trying to get by.

If there are enemies involved, those folks are not them.

Onward and upward.

Something from this side of the pond

by liberal japonicus

Not sure if this is something that is being followed or is even interesting to people here, but the foreign community here in Japan has been watching the Carlos Ghosn saga closely. A quick summary. Carlos Ghosn, who was able to revive the fortunes of Renault, came in when Renault bought a stake in Nissan and turned Nissan around in a even more spectacular fashion.

However (and here, things get interesting), Ghosn was arrested when he arrived in Japan on the basis of a Nissan whistleblower who had evidence of some financial chicanery in the form of under-reporting income and avoiding taxes, though some have noted that it was deferred income, so it's very strange to be arrested, because the whole point of deferring is to pay the taxes later. The reporting in Japanese has also been interesting, Ghosn is always referred to as a 'yougisha', which is usually translated as 'suspect', but the word is 'charged-person' and the Japanese stories never say exactly what he has been charged with. The English stories give a charge, but I'm not convinced that there has been a formally stated charge, though I'm not sure exactly how a charge is made official. This points to an interesting wrinkle in Japanese law where police can hold people for a period of detention, and can re-arrest them to extend the detention period. This has often been used to help police maintain an abnormally high rate of guilty confessions. A few articles that discuss this
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/japanese-court-extends-detention-of-nissan-s-carlos-ghosn-1.3745040
https://www.voanews.com/a/ghosn-case-shines-light-on-japan-justice-system/4712662.html

There is a bit (only a bit) of the same dynamic of OJ Simpson (which isn't a really good comparison, but bear with me) One group assumes that anyone who reaches the heights that Ghosn did has to be doing something wrong. Another group sees the Japanese justice system throwing the book at a foreigner for crimes that would not rise to the level of notice for a Japanese. Thus you get foreigners defending Ghosn vehemently largely because they see the underpinnings of racism that is often hidden but present.

But there is more. One thread is that this is a boardroom coup where Nissan got the prosecutors office to do the dirty work. Here's an interview with the wife of David Kelly, another American who was arrested with Ghosn. Kelly has been released, but Ghosn remains in custody, and each time the deadline comes up, he's rearrested.

I can't really detail all the ins and outs, but if you have questions, I'll try to answer them, but I just read this article by Ghosn's speechwriter that discusses this in a very interesting way, at least for folks here. It does a lot more psychologizing than other articles, but the discussion of Ghosn's background and its interaction with the notion of French identity is really fascinating.

An interesting article

by liberal japonicus

Well, getting back to it, this article seemed interesting and a bit strange.

Why Trump has spared Pelosi from his personal vitriol--so far

His decision so far not to go after Pelosi personally, even as his top aides have blamed her for the shutdown, hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Capitol. Pelosi’s allies have viewed Trump’s restraint toward the incoming speaker as a sign that he’s looking beyond the shutdown in the hopes of notching some bipartisan wins this year — on infrastructure, perhaps, or prescription drug pricing.

Of course, Trump's tone toward Pelosi could change on a dime given his penchant for pummeling adversaries and the likelihood Pelosi will refuse his demand for billions in border wall funding. But the relative peace between the chief lightning rods of their respective parties, at least to this point, is pretty remarkable.

Trump’s allies told POLITICO his tack represents not some grand negotiating strategy but a sign of genuine regard for her.

“I think the president respects Nancy Pelosi and understands that she represents voters that would never vote for him but also that if she’s serious about getting things done, he’s willing to really negotiate in good faith with her,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a Trump confidant on Capitol Hill. The president, he added, views her as a "worthy adversary."

Added Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), “His base is not enough to get him reelected. The American people want to see him get something done. And he needs Nancy Pelosi to get things done.”

It is really hard for me to credit Clickbait with any thinking beyond the immediate. It frightens me a bit that the article is citing "Pelosi's allies" and I nearly spit up when the quote about Trump's allies talking about 'a sign of genuine regard'.

But the fact that Trump didn't respond to Pelosi's comment about the skunk or her questioning his masculinity seems to suggest that there is something there. And as much as I would like Pelosi to tell Trump to pound sand down a rathole, she's not going to let everything fall apart.

2019 is going to be one of those years...

Multiple lessons from a heartwarming story

by liberal japonicus

I don't know about y'all, but I've been pounded into silence by the torrent of news, goverment shutdown, Brexit, tsunami. It is enough to turn me into a cat picture person.

However, I felt like I needed to post an end of the year post, so there was this story, about an unlikely friendship that some of you may have seen

https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/12/14/lin-wang-charles-barkley

which is also an NPR podcast that I caught later, which has recordings of the quoted telephone conversations that make the story even better

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/12/17/charles-barkley-lin-wang
(I love Charles Barkley's North Alabama pronunciation of 'bothering' and the twists of the English of Lin Wang's father (My dad held on to his Hawaiian pidgin till the end, so strong that every girlfriend I ever had was baffled by it on first encounter.))

An overly microscopic view below the fold.