Podcaster's Populist Prescription

James Carville has spent the better part of the last few weeks arguing "woke" was responsible for the resounding defeat of the Democratic Party in this election cycle. In one instance

Carville said what "killed" the Democrats in these elections was a "sense of dishonor" among the electorate, part of which, he said, "was the unfortunate events of what I would refer to as the woke era."

"We got beyond it," he said. "But the image stuck in people's minds that the Democrats wanted to defund the police, wanted to empty prisons...it created a sense of dishonor."

In another, in which Carville delivered a similar message, the veteran party strategist denounced Jon Stewart's take on the election. In turn, Kyle Kulinski noted

So in other words- in other words- Kamlala and other Democrats ran the platonic ideal of the non-woke Democrat campaign. But yet, they're still saying that wokeness is the problem. It's not- kamala, as I pointed out a thousand times- Kamala nevr mentioned race, Kamala never mentioned gender, Kamala never mentined LatinX or trans people or political correctness or cancel culture. She didn't mention any of that. She ran on freedom, she ran on patriotism, she repeatedly stressed that she'd represent all Americans. She ran right-wing on the border. So in ther words, the Democrats do exacctly what people like James Carville wanted them to do and then he's like "well, you should have somehow done it more like I wanted you to do it even though you did it exactly like I wanted you to do it."

Kulinski emphasizes that Kamala Harris ran it their way. As with most other Democrats, she did not run a Frank Sinatra "I did it my way" campaign. She ran as the ex-prosecutor who would blow away anyone who broke into her home and would "focus... on porotecting women and children from violent crime." . As "the president for all Americans, she would usher in an "opportunity society" available to Democrats, Republicans, independents, and everyone who admires the post-partisan patriotism of a Liz Cheney

The sitting vice president didn't run a "woke" campaign, nor did more than one or two Democrats outside of a very fewin  extremely safe congressional districts. (Think a Rashid Tlaib-like district.).  Regrettably- and unfortunately, understandably- neither Kulinski nor Carville acknowledges that the Vice President did not need to run a "woke" campaign.

Harris became the vice presidential nominee, thereafter vice president-elect, in 2020 because she is a black woman. In 2024 she was elevated suddenly and swiftly, though with concern from Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and a few other leaders- to the top of the ticket.  She is a black woman who, deservedly or otherwise, became the party's nominee without any potential candidate opposing her. She was the embodiment of the possibility of overcoming racial and sexual (or gender, if you prefer) obstacles to achieve a position and status few others, and no black women, have.

She didn't have to go "woke" and didn't, and neither did virtually any other Democrat who lost. Kulinski understands the theme a Democratic presidential candidate (and ones down-ballot) could have struck when he explains

So in other words, you need to counter the immigrants and trans people are the problem with "no, it's the financial elites, it's Wall Street, it's the billionaires. They're the problem. They've bought the government, they've rigged the government. That's why it doesn't represent you anymore. That's why we don't have a higher minimum wage. That's why we don't have the PRO Act. That's why we don't have higher taxes on the wealthy. That's why we don't have universal health care." That's the argument.

Voters are justifiably disgruntled and believe the deck is stacked against them, rigged in favor of some groups at their expense. The key for Democrats is to give voters an alternative narrative without undermining their own support among the groups essential to the Democratic coalition. They include ; the black community; the LGBTQIA community, the de jure boogeyman of conservatives; and legal immigrants, whom many people believe are taking jobs others should have, benefits they don't deserve, or are diluting their own vote. Or all of that.

The Democratic Party is identified in the public mind with these groups. Yet, without their support, the Party is dead in the water. Democrats must identify with widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo across ethnic, sexual, economic, and geographic lines. Otherwise, voters will continue to respond to  Republicans who want them to punch down at ethnic minorities, the poor, or even other middle-class which many are wont to do.  If Democrats can focus on those financial elite-, on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, and elsewhere- they'll be on the right track while on the left track. 

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Progressive? Not the Campaign

I hate to agree with a journalist so anti-Israel that on Twitter he occasionally veers into anti-Semitism. However, Mehdi Hasan has heard enough of an emerging narrative and has no more- well, you know- to give. He remarks

Donald Trump winning the election was bad enough. But Democrats and much of our "liberal media" are now trying to blame their defeat on "the left, on prossives, on wokeness is just doing my head in. "Harris defeat is a stining defeatt for the left" was the hadline in the Post. "When will the Democrats learn to say no?" was the headline in the Times. A former Hillary Clinton advisor popped up on CNN to say the Democratic Party is being held hostage by the "far left." That's the new narrative- progressives lost Democrats the White House; Kamala Harris' losing campaign was a left-wing campaign. Are you fucking kidding me? This is gaslighting of Trumpian proportions. There was nothing left-wing about Harris.

Actually, there was one thing left-wing about Harris, who maintained amidst shifting positions that her principles had not changed.. It was her and most resoundingly not her campaign. Hasan continues

I mean, the centrists literally got the presidential candidate they wanted- a tough on crime prosecutor who bragged about owning a gun and spoke about her love for a "lethal" military. A candidate who famously told migrants "don't come" to this country and during the one and only presidential debate, attacked Trump for not backing a biparisan and very draconian border security bill. The idea that progressives got the campaign they wanted and then lost and so the left is now discredited is so ridiculous, so dtached from reality, so demonstrably and obviously false that Ican't believe I'm even having to sit here and rebut it.

The Democratic nominee ran commercials touting her experience as a prosecutor.

 

In the debate with her opponent, she boasted

So I'm the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings. And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported (but) Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said kill the bill.

And in her closing statement, Harris stated that she was committed to "sustaining America's standing in the world and ensuring we have the respect that we so rightly deserve, including respecting our military and ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world." 

Hasan continued with

"It was the wokeness and it was the cultural stuff." No. Harris barely sid anything about transgender rights. She didn't utter the term "Latinx" during the campaign, either, nor did she ever mention the words" defund the police." Stop lying. And oh, by the way, the year when people were talking about defunding the police was 2020, not 2024, and Democrats won in 2020, just saying.

Even in 2020, very few Democratic officials or politicians uttered the phrase "defund the police," though in the years following, many Democrats (most notably James Carville) would use the term to denounce unnamed Democrats who allegedly had advocated it. Further, criticism of police by the left- and by the center, which joined in- focused on harsher treatment by police of blacks than of whites. And I would bet that at the time- before the pro-police backlash against the left, very few of these currently disparaging "defund the police" progressives even questioned the prevailing narrative that blacks were getting a raw deal.

But times have changed and it's now open season on the progressives whom others, who at the time were on board, claim were all in "defund the police." Finger in the air, anyone?

The "cultural stuff," writ large, did play a role in the outcome of the campaign. However, it is impossible to determine to what extent it mattered, especially because that door swings both ways. Moreover, it was intrinsic to handing the nomination to Kamala Harris, who had the upper hand in getting the party's nod because she had been vice president but faced zero public opposition because had she been elected, she would have "made history" as the first black female president.

After Biden's withdrawal from the race- but before Harris was nominated- the vice-president skipped the speech to Congress of Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu to address the national convention of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., a member of the "Divine Nine." Harris herself is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, also an historically black (and apparently currently segregated) sorority. However, this event took place after President Biden had announced that he would not seek another term but before Harris was nominated, thus avoiding most backlash while reinforcing her base. It was a shrewd move by a politician emphasizing her roots in the black community while maintaining a distance from the militaristic and failed Prime Minister.

Yet, Hasan is correct that Harris de-emphasized that cultural stuff  There was very little from the campaign about transgenderism, about the candidate's gender or ethnic background, or a general defense of equity or diversity.  Nor did many- if any- of the suddent, convenient critics of wokeism suggest in 2020 that perhaps designating Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee, likely to become almost the heir apparent to Joe Biden, on the basis of her race or sex was unwise.

Harris, female and black or bi-racial, was the living embodiment of wokeism the critics attack. However, that was Kamala Harris, who is what she is. It was  not her campaign, which was pro-institutional, emphasized bipartisanship, and eschewed ideological radicalism.

Hasan continued

Look, it's as clear as day. Harris did not run a left-wing campaign. Shje didn't run on Medicare for All. She did not run on student debt relief. She didn't run on a Green New Deal. And she didn't break with Joe Biden on Gaza.

At the debate, the Vice President declared "well, first of all, I absolutely support and over the last four years as vice president private health care options. But what we need to do is maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act." She commented "and the plan has to be to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, not get rid of it." That's not such a bold stance in favor of a program which as of March was approved by over 60% of the public.  If we were hoping that would be coupled with denunciation of a system in which health care- thus health- is up to the discretion of private insurance companies, well, that would have been a little progressive. Can'thave that.

And Democrats, most notably its recent presidential nominee, no longer utter the term "Green New Deal." That is so 2019, and reference to it is even more uncommon than to "justice," hardly mentioned since the heady days of 2019-2020.

Hasan added

So when you sy she ran left, what on earth are you talking about? This is a presidential candidate swho campaigned way more with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban than with AOC and Shawn Fain, who listened more to her mother-in-law, the chief legal adviser of Uber, than to Bernie Sanders. The truth is, in 2016 and again in 2020, the Democratic establishment wanted to block Bernie Saners, an actual leftist, from becoming their nominee. And in 2024, due to Joe Biden's stubbornness, they didn't even have a contest- just a coronation. So look, the centrists, the moderates, got their candidate in every election in which the Republicans nominated Donald Trump: 2016 Hillary Clinton, 2020 Joe Biden, 2024 Kamala Harris. And they lost to Tump two of three times. And now they're going to blame the left for that? No fucking way."

Harris promised to appoint a Republican to the Cabinet and form a bipartisan council of advisors on policy. This should be the most enduring representation of the campaign (well, along with this and this). Whatever its net effect (to be determined), this may have been less the Harris-Walz campaign than the Harris-Cheney campaign.

Clinton was more moderate than Sanders, Biden more moderate than Sanders (or Warren), and Harris more moderate than- whom? The Party establishment, as Hasan noted, prefers the moderate candidate. However, even more so, it prefers the establishment candidate. Clinton and Biden were establishment- and so was Harris, loyal vice president to the President, even to the extent of defending Biden, his cognitive ability and overall health when most of the country had serious doubts.

There was another factor, one ignored by everyone, but most significantly by vilifiers of the woke, who would strengthen their case if they didn't elide it. In our more liberal/progressive days labeled "America's original sin," it is now avoided like the plague. Nominees Kamala Harris is a black woman; Joe Biden, pushed forward by Representative James Clyburn; Hillary Clinton, spouse of the individual once only half-jokingly referred to as "the first black President."  (The word "black," recognized a s a color,was not capitalized in those largely pre-politically correct days.)

And the presidential race of 2016. Initially, Hillary Clinto was supported for the nomination by more black Democrats than was Barack Obama. Once Obama won the Iowa primary- thus proving that whites woould vote for a black man for President-  the Illinoisan emerged as the favorite candidate of blacks. The rest, as is often said, is history.

That may seem off the point, but isn't. (Classic John Oliver: "The point is....") The soul-searching goes on, with "progressives" and "progressivism" taking incoming fire. Kamala Harris did not run a progressive campaign,  and had she won, her detractors from the right would have rightly denied that she had. If their beef with the left is that she was defeated because of the identification among voter of the Democratic Party as "woke," then they need to step up and be more specific. That they fail to do so, and refuse to acknowledge that the nominee herself was a bad choice, indicates that Mehdi Hasan is not only right about the nature of the presidential campaign but that the critics will offer no alternative..

"The ‘moderates’ got *their* candidate in every single election in which the Republicans nominated Trump: 2016 Clinton, 2020 Biden, 2024 Harris… and they lost to Trump two out of three times. And now they’re going to blame *the left* for that? No f*cking way."

My rant: pic.twitter.com/VzRcqbm5cT

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 27, 2024

                                         HAPPY THANKSGIVING

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Needing a New Eyeglass Prescription

Well, of course Bill Maher's comment, uttered during the main segment of Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, doesn't make sense. Whites didn't want to sit next to blacks because of race or color and in some cases believed they were superior. Some liberals don't want to sit next to Trump voters because of a difference in values, a lesser number believing the vote a reflection of a deficit of character. Significant difference.

This week Bill Maher likened liberals not wanting to sit with the Trumpers in their family at Thanksgiving to "not letting certain people sit next to you on the bus" and showed a picture of Rosa Parks and the more I think about it, the whole comparison makes no sense.

— Touré (@Toure) November 25, 2024

Sometime during a meandering convesation which began at 2:14 of the Overtime segment, Donna Brazile stated "it's time folks, We know how to lead. We can build a future for everybody." 

Who is "we?" "We" was not a choice on the general election ballot. It was the nominee herself, and therein lay the problem. Andrew Sullivan, who does not like Kamala Harris, nevertheless endorsed her in what he called "an anguished but emphatic endorsement" (free subscription required). In the exchange which began at 4:05,  Sullivan (mirroring James Carville, by the way) stated

Next time, you have an active primary where a candidate can prove her worth and not just be stuck in and nominated at the very last minute because you have a dotard running you wouldn't fess up to.

The choice of noun, as Maher recognized, was "unfair" but Sullivan at least was making better sense than Brazile who, trying to get a word in edgewise within the crosstalk, responded.

Well, first of all, first of all, first of all, we had a primary, Kamala and Joe. Joe and Kamala did win enough delegates. Fourteen million people participated in it. And we should not disenfranchise those Americans. So-

Officially, Joe and "Kamala" won the delegates. However, "Kamala" won none as the presidential candidate. Rather, Ms. Harris became the nominee only after, and only because, Mr. Biden dropped out.  Relatively few people are persuaded to vote for the presidential candidate because of the running mate.

Nonetheless, Brazile- without cracking a smile at her reasonably good attempt at humor- actually maintained "she was a good, strong candidate" and "I can put my glasses on and I can still tell you, I can see a leader when I see a leader."

That would be her imagination. Though Kamala Harris may have been a good President, she struck too few people as a leader. Maher stated "well, I think people think that a woman leader has to overcompensate a little toward strength and people are drawn to strength. Look at Clowny- I mean Trump."   "Secretary Clinton" does not project strength; neither did "Kamala."

Brazile suggested that "one hundred seven days" is insufficient time for a presidential nominee. Justifiably, Maher responded "one hundred seven days was more than enough time. That's a stupid excuse in my view, that it wasn't enough time... She was actually doing fine after the first few months."

Better than fine, even. Harris' campaign was inspiring and impressive. The candidate, though, left a lot to be desired and in the end, "Clowny" convinced enough voters that four years with Kamala would be even worse than four years with himself. As Maher and Sullivan understand, that should be sobering

  .

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"Qualified" is Not Enough

I like the Merriam-Webster definition of "qualified," especially on the (b) side:

a fitted (as by training or experience) for a given purpose : competent

b having complied with the specific requirements or precedent conditions (as for an office or employment) : eligible

By that definition, Pam Bondi certainly is qualified to be Attorney General.

CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig: "Pam Bondi is, without a question, qualified to be Attorney General. She's been a prosecutor for 20 years in Florida. For 8 of those, she was the Attorney General of the state. That's a very big, very complicated job‚ and that level of experience is… pic.twitter.com/61T4wEhCol

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 22, 2024

 

The otherwise sane, sensible, and somewhat shrewd (alliteration day!) Honig added

If we compare her to Matt Gaetz, she exceeds him on every level by far. But if we go back to sort of a normal curve, I think it's a closer call. One person who I thinkis an interesting historical comparison for Pam Bondi is Janet Reno. Now, I'm not saying P:am Bondi will be Janet Reno but Janet Reno had a similar background. She had been a state level prosecutor in Florida for about 15 years at the time when Bill Clinton nominated her to become attorney general.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think this sounds anything like Janet Reno:

In March 2016, CREW discovered that the Trump Foundation had broken the law by giving an illegal $25,000 contribution to a political group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Charitable foundations like the Trump Foundation are not allowed to engage in politics. Even more problematic was the fact that the contribution was given as Bondi’s office was deciding whether to take legal action related to Trump University.

In the little bit less corrupt category,  Democracy Docket notes

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bondi was one of several Trump lawyers who was spreading voting conspiracy theories and false allegations of election fraud. She was part of the Trump campaign’s legal effort to challenge ballots in Pennsylvania in 2020 and went on to spread false allegations of election cheating in the Keystone State.

“All the good residents who are all supporting us in Pennsylvania, their votes don’t count by these fake ballots that are coming in late,” she said on Fox News. “And they are not letting us watch the process.” 

Retired offensive tackle understands

She also ran around w nut job Guiliani spreading conspiracies & lies undermining democracy and cornerstone institution of America. Helped erode America's faith in elections. Pathetic https://t.co/NFwUdDLlzO

— Jumbo Elliott (@JumboElliott76) November 22, 2024

It shouldn't be too much to expect of an Attorney General that she accept the results of an election, at least to the point of not spreading scurrilous lies. Having done so, though, Bondi ought at a minimum to concede that she was wrong and that Joe Biden has been the legitimate President from January 20, 2021 through January 19, 2025.

This is setting the bar very low- necessary but not sufficient. If qualifications themselves were enough to catapult someone into an important government position, an individual who had served as District Attorney of a major city, Attorney General of our largest state, United States Senator, and vice president of the USA deserved to be annointed as President of the nation.  

It's ironic, then, that the individual who defeated that candidate is now appointing to the most important position in the entire Cabinet a person whose chief qualification is that she has served in a similar, lesser, position.  This year, the bar was set low for a Democratic nominee for President, and infinitely lower for her opponent. And now that President-elect, eager for a Justice Department to prosecute his political and personal enemies, is determined to set the bar as low as possible.

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Seemingly Oblivious to the Obvious

There is an excellent point US Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania makes here. However, as in the tweet below, it will be lost in Lee's racial blindness.

Lee: When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was up for confirmation or when VP Harris was added to the ticket, they called them DEI hires. They want you to believe that Harvard graduate with over 20 years of experience is not qualified but Fox personality is qualified to run the DOD pic.twitter.com/Q1MTAfS1aK

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 20, 2024

Summer Lee argues

When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was up for confirmation and when Vice President Harris was added to the ticket, they called them DEI hires. They want you to believe that a Harvard graduate with over 20 years experience- who happens to be a black woman- is not qualified but a Fox News personality is qualified to run the Department of Defense and a WWE executive is qualified to run the Department of Education. 

Let's be real. There is attempt to create a direct correlation between our race, being a black person, and our qualifications so muc to say there is no way to be a black woman, there is no resume that a black person cold have that could qualify them unless that black person is a Republican. And there is a quota there.

So, let's be real.  Of course, Republicans don't believe a black female Democrat is qualified, because she is a Democrat. And as Lee seems to understand, if a black person is a Republican, he or she instantly becomes qualified because he/she is a Republican.

And also to be celebrated as being not a black male. Representative Byron Donalds, a black Floridian who reportedly was on Donald Trump's long list as a running mate, appeared on CNN on Wednesday night defending as to diversity President-elect Trump's choices for his Cabinet. He cited the nominatiosn of Suzie Wiles as Chief of Staff, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, and Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the United Nations. There are a few other picks who also are not white males. When a black person is nominated, Republicans will own it like Donald Trump hugs the American flag or Republican honchos chant "USA! USA!" Anything that sells.

They won't admit it but the DEI game is one Republicans can play almost as well as Democrats. It's a grand old tradition for the Grand Old Party, which exploits it effectively. The primary difference is that Republicans usually pretend their quota is not a quota, as when President George HW Bush ludicrously referred to Clarence Thomas as "the best person for this position" of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. By contrast, Democrats typically do little to disabuse voters that a selection has been made for demographic reasons.

In July of 2022, making good on a campaign promise, President Biden stated

While I've been studying candidates' background and writings, I've made no decision except one: the person I nominate will be someone with extraorinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity- and that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme court. It's long overdue, in my view.

At the time, the percentage of federal judges both female and black was somewhere between 9.5 and 11.8, inclusive. That Biden's selection, of Judge Brown, has proven to be an excellent one is remarkable given that by his specifications, he narrowed the universe of acceptable candidates by approximately 90%.

The short list of running mates being considered by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in July of 2020 included probably five black women and possibly one white woman (Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer). Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose influence was influential in anointment of the nominee, had told Biden (probably months earlier) that the selection should be a black woman.

Obviously, that choice did not work out so well. Biden very likely would have won the 2020 election if his running mate were someone else. As vice-president, Harris was the simple, albeit unfortuante, choice as the party's presidential nominee in 2024. She lost an extremely winnable race, lipstick on a pig and all that. 

Of course, Pete Hegseth is not qualified to become Secretary of Defense and Ketanji Brown Jackson was well qualified to be a Supreme Cour justice. And though I had serious doubts that Kamala Harris would have been a good President, she was clearly well qualified for the position. However, both Jackson for the High Court and Harris for the presidence were DEI hires, or there is no such thing as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness movement. 

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Score One for the Former, and Still, Thespian

Not the main question but: if we're fools, what does that make the two moderates of The View?

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski really made us fools.. Such ass kissers.#morningjoepic.twitter.com/wJ4gvjTVOs

— Neo Jane (@Neo_Jane8) November 18, 2024

According to British tabloid The Mirror, Alyssa Farrah-Griffin said

So, I actually think it was the right thing to do and I've hard a lot of folks on the left coming after Joe and Mika saying, 'Don't normalize him.' Well, 75 million plus voters normalized Donald Trump by making him President-elect Donald Trump ... They met with him for over 90 minutes. They both raised very valid concerns. They both see themselves as opinion journalists who want to actually be able to engage the person they talk about every day, actually be able to raise issues with them when they're concerned

Not quite as idiotically, Sara Haines remarked

I absolutely think it was the right decision and I think it's good they work on MSNBC. I don't want only FOX people going to see them. That was some of the problem that I think everyone can agree, maybe even people who voted for Trump can agree, that the things they were watching on FOX are wrong. That's the only network that's had to pay billions of dollars because they got it wrong....

I don't need to know [Joe and MIka's] motivation. I just know you get nowhere in silence. Conversations had to be had ... I would absolutely sit down and always have a conversation because I'm confident enough to sit down at a table in contrast and disagree when I disagree. I'm not scared. I'm not afraid. You have the conversations or nothing happens.

Those opinions were expressed on Monday morning, soon after Scarborough and Brzezinski broke the news of their November 15 chat at Mar-a-Lago with President-elect Donald J. Trump. It's onfounding that Haines would be unconcerned about motivation, which does not appear to be something other than having a civil conversation with a disagreeable person in order to open lines of communication.  On Tuesday morning, CNN reported

 

In private conversations, Scarborough argued that having face time with a world leader is a no-brainer. Some of his MSNBC colleagues agreed, but there was more to the Mar-a-Lago meeting.

 According to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration.

Scarborough claimed that the duo did not intend to "defend or normalize" Mr. Trump. Yet, Brezinski described the the incoming President, an accomplished actor, as "cheeful" and "upbeat."  She also cotended that he appeared "interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues," whicht he shrewdly aimed to have Brzezinski deliver to the MSNBC audience. 

Other journalists face the possibility of retribution but didn't immediately cave. Jennifer Rubin has not. Neither has Will Bunch, who noted

it was more than a little shocking Monday morning when Scarborough and Brzezinski revealed their unorthodox way of dealing with a “fascist” president — that they’d gone to Mar-a-Lago Friday to meet with the president-elect, presumably on bended knee. It certainly can’t be called an act of journalism, because there were no cameras present. “Don’t be mistaken: We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump,” Scarborough — a firebrand conservative GOP congressman in the 1990s who now is an independent — told his presumably shocked viewers. “We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times.” But the MSNBC star also claimed that an “upbeat” Trump “seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.”

Brzezinski, for her part, answered her own question of how could they meet with Trump by asking, “How could we not?” A better question and answer would have been the one way the MSNBC stars could have gone to Mar-a-Lago while retaining their integrity, and even performing a public service: by demanding that Trump only agree to speak to them on camera, unedited, with no subject restrictions, and to ask some of the tough questions that the president has avoided, like his wackadoodle cabinet picks or his plans to use the military for mass deportations.

Joe Rogan very likely would have bagged an interview with candidate shortly before the presidential election. However, he justifiably insisted that the meeting would take place in his studio in Austin, Texas.As Bunch argues, the Scarboroughs should have demanded that Trump speak to them- unedited- on camera and with no restrictions. Conducting the interview or having the chat at Mar-a-Lago also does the public a disservice compared to an exchange at a neutral site.

.

Honest and professional journalists who do not want to ennnoble President Trump or facilitate his effort to accrue absolute, unquestioned power face rough sledding over the next 4+ years. Their response to the imperial presidency is crucial, and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski appear headed in the wrong direction.

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Reality Ignored

It's time to face reality. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen, as reflected in the following tweet from this misguided auhor.

This election result isn't about Dem messaging.

Their messaging during the campaign was pitch-perfect in any other iteration of America. It was about helping the middle class, lowering taxes for the average American, continuing with sound economic policies to cut rising grocery… pic.twitter.com/djEWDJGMEW

— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) November 18, 2024

With Kamala Harris having run an exciting and efficient campaign, Pavlovitz is correct that "there is no messaging that can overcome prejudice and ignorance."  Prejudice and ignorance are endemic to the human condition, and the number of black males and, especially, Latino males who voted for Donald Trump is stunning.

Nonetheless, there are many factors which led to the horrific result in the presidential race and racism and misogny are not the two most significant. (Lack of education is a different sort of thing and a whole other issue.)

Of course, there is not "some perfect Democratic candidate." Regrettably, though, Kamala Harris was nearly as far from a perfect candidate as is possible.

Perhaps the Democratic Party (or presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden) should not have selected a candidate who had responded to a 2019 questionnaire from the ACLU in such a problematic way.

Harris was asked whether she would "champion legislation to provide fair and achieval paths to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants." She stated "As president, I will prioritize immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million plus people living in our communities." The American people would have preferred "I will prioritize securing the border," even if it had been followed by a "however.'

Asked if she would "commit to ending the use of ICE detainers," she replied that she would do so and bragged that "as Attorney General, I issued a bulletin on December 4, 2012 informing all California law enforcement that they did not have to comply with ICE detainers." That is quite a boast for an ex-prosecutor, thus an ex-law enforcement officer.

And then, of course, there was the big one- as pertained to the presidential election. As a matter of policy, it is virtually irrelevant because these situations occur very rarely. However, Harris' perspective was skillfully exploited by the GOP this fall. The ACLU queried

As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so? 

The then-candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination checked the "yes" box and explained

It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.

Unlike some of the other answers which at least represented good policy, this is a bad idea. And Senator Harris should have realized that at some point in a general election campaign this would come back to haunt her. And haunt her it did, when she was caught on video reassuring the LGBTQIA community of her commitment:

   

           

Yet, given her oppponent, the Vice President still had an excellent chance of claiming the presidency. And she appeared in the best possible venue, one which included only as interviewees only supporters of hers and audience members poised to applaud enthusiastically a candidate on the precipice of becoming the first female President of the USA. An entire cheering section, in miniature a replica of the huge rallies she handled expertly.  And then, this:

 

                       

It's awkward when a Vice President is confronted about whether she or he would do anything different than has the incumbent President.  For Ms. Harris, it should hae been, as characterized by questioner Sonny Hostin, a "layup."

Moreover, it's a question she had to know she would be asked, if not on The View than elsewhere. And it turns out that she was:

             

This failure to prepare wasn't about racism, misogyny, lack of education, or even the campaign. It was about the candidate. The candidate wasn't the only reason for defeat of the Democratic nominee. However, it was a major reason, and failure to recognize and acknowledge that is an exercise in self-delusion.

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If Only We Could Imagine There is No Tulsi

Former Democrat, now an independent (sort of) partial to Republicans, Tulsi Gabbard is expected to be nominated by Donald Trump by Donald Trump to be the Director of National Intelligence. On an unrelated matter, she is particularly exorcised by the acceptance of most Democrats of gender transition treatment for children. In May, we learned

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii congresswoman known for criticizing the Democratic Party, says Democratic elites have put themselves in the place of God and seek to erase the deity from American public life.

A former Democrat, Ms. Gabbard slammed the Biden-Harris administration for “using the tools of government [to target] different people, particularly Christians.”

“This is the fundamental precept of our country, this freedom of religion,” Ms. Gabbard said in a telephone interview before a multi-state book tour. “It’s important for voters to know and to understand what’s going on here and the dangerous mindset that’s driving it.”

She is promoting her new book, “For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind.”

“Many of those who are in great positions of power in the Democratic Party, whether they admit it or not, or realize it or not, they see themselves as God. They appoint themselves as the authority,” she said. “They view themselves as the ones who get to decide how we live our lives, what we’re allowed to say, who we’re allowed to hear from [and] how we get our information.”

“They’re most recently [decided] that things that are objectively true are not, such as the biological differences between men and women,” said Ms. Gabbard, the first Hindu and first Samoan-American to become a member of Congress in 2013.

It's quite a trick to see yourselves as something but not realize it. It may even be impossible- if one does not realize something, one does not see himself as that.

Either Tulsi Gabbard is confused about this or it is a feint. We're expected to believe that someone who slams Democratic officeholders for "see(ing) themselves as God" is herself a woman of deep religious faith. And indeed, the former congresswoman may be a woman of faith- in Bashar al-Assad or Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. However, she is not someone with faith in God. This is her below:

 

And these are some of the lyrics to that awful- "godawful" obviously would not apply- song written by John Lennon and performed by the Beatles: 

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us, only sky

Imagine all the people

Livin' for today

Ah

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

Imagine there's no heaven.... and no religion, too. Enjoy the song- the lyrics, the melody, the lyrics and the melody- if you wish. Difference of opinion is what makes horse races. Feel free to worship your God, enjoy the song, and sing it in your home. But allowing yourself to appear in a YouTube video singing a song promoting atheism and the erasure of religion, then denouncing a political party for real or imagined affrontery to God, is hypocrisy with a capital H (Hypocrisy, then).

Hypocrisy is not the worst thing about Tulsi Gabbard. Her fondness if for the strongmen who run Syria and Russia is far more serious. Still, it reveals a side of Gabbard's character that is stunningly loathsome.

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Finger in the Eye

True, but not only because of Matt Gaetz and the Department of Justice, the latter of which will become a hellhole whether or not the ex-congressman is approved.

Say goodbye to institutions of democracy. Been swell. SMH https://t.co/vn2rgDPp0S

— Jumbo Elliott (@JumboElliott76) November 14, 2024

In a larger- albeit more speculative sense- democracy is endangered because it appears that the incoming President of the USA  will be dancing to someone else's tune.

Snopes set out to examine the claim circulating on social media that "Russian state TV aired nude photos of Melania Trump shortly after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the Nov. 5 presidential election."  It explained

An article published on Nov. 8, 2024, by Vox News Albania read: "Russia's largest television 'denigrates' the First Lady and publishes 'embarrassing' photos of Melania just 1 day after Trump's victory."

In short, because Russian state TV did indeed air revealing photos of Melania Trump taken during her modeling career shortly after the 2024 U.S. presidential election, we have rated this claim as true.

An article published on Nov. 8, 2024, by Vox News Albania read: "Russia's largest television 'denigrates' the First Lady and publishes 'embarrassing' photos of Melania just 1 day after Trump's victory."

In short, because Russian state TV did indeed air revealing photos of Melania Trump taken during her modeling career shortly after the 2024 U.S. presidential election, we have rated this claim as true.

The video containing clips from Russian state TV was shared on Nov. 11, 2024, on the YouTube channel of Russian News Monitor, a project of Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis that tracks Russian state media propaganda trends.

Davis also shared it on her X account on Nov. 8, 2024, writing "Meanwhile in Russia: this is how the most watched state TV channel in the country welcomed Melania Trump's upcoming return to the White House. Olga Skabeeva is trying not to laugh. This was probably her idea."

The segments featured in the video aired on Nov. 7, 2024, during "60 минут" ("60 Minutes"), a Russian political talk show on the Russia 1 channel, hosted by Skabeeva and Evgeny Popov.

The program was available on Smotrim.ru website, an official online platform of Russian state television.

The video shared on social media was compiled from separate excerpts featuring Melania Trump, taken from a program aired in Russia at 6:30 p.m. at timestamps: 41:35-42:18, 42:33-42:48, 43:34-43:42 and 45:28-45:33. (These clips also appeared in the "60 Minutes" program aired at 11.30 a.m. at time stamps: 1:05:30-1:05:45, 1:06:32-1:06:38 and 1:08:06-1:08:12).

The photos of Melania Trump used in the broadcast were not new or leaked images but widely known and previously published photos from her modeling career....

The Russian TV segment also referenced a video in which Melania Trump asked: "What does my body, my choice mean?"

Melania Trump did not deny that the photos were authentic, instead defending them because "we should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using att as a powerful means of self-expression."

This episode is a fitting eptaph to the death, occurring nine years ago, of the Republican Party as the "pro-family" party. Notably, the President-elect has said nothing. He has said nothing because he knows who has him by the short hairs.

Most likely, this is nothing new. In Helsinki in August of 2018

At a news conference after the summit, President Trump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president when it came to the allegations of meddling in the elections.

"President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be," he replied.

US intelligence agencies concluded in 2016 that Russia was behind an effort to tip the scale of the US election against Hillary Clinton, with a state-authorised campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media.

To then-Arizona Senator John McCain, it was "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory." McCain had a suspicion, as have many others, including invertebrate Kevin McCarthy when in June, 2016 (when he still had a semblance of a spine) he admitted "there's two people I think Putin pays: (US Represenative Dana) Rohrabacher and Trump."

The sarcasm practically writes itself. Due to Donald Trump's forgiving nature wherein he lets bygones be bygones, and shrugs off insults, he has turned a blind eye to the effort of Russian state TV to taunt him.

Returning to reality: Donald Trump does not believe "revenge is a dish best served cold." Everything is an insult to him and he will strike back with a ferocity greater than what is directed to him. He will viciously denigrate the individual  any wy he can, as long as he can get away with it.

And  yet, he is quiet about this major slap in the face. Sometimes one has to take abuse directed at him. That's especially true when the puppet is due to assume the American presidency and the Russian president is the puppet master.

               

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Pro-Israel Ambassador for Israel

Controversy has broken out with the realization that

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday was his pick to serve as US ambassador to Israel, previously argued that there was “no such thing as a Palestinian.”

Huckabee, who has been a strong defender of Israel throughout his career, made the statement during his 2008 presidential campaign, asserting that Palestinian identity was “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

Well, of course it is. The land of Palestine is as it has been since much of it was occupied by the Philistines in the 12 century B.C. Beyond, "Jews, Muslims and Christians have all claimed special connections to the region" and the Old Testament "contains narratives of ancient Israelites' presence in the land."

Skip to 1918, when in the wake of World War I the League of Nations isued a British mandate for Palestine, to go into effect in 1923. That lasted until 1947, when the United Nations" proposed a plan to partition Palestine into two sections: an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab state."

Great Britain withdrew from the region- Palestine- and in 1948, the State of Israel was declared. This did not amuse Muslims, and five countries attacked Israel. This proved unwise as "by the war's end in July 1949, Israel controlled more than two-thirds of the former British Mandate, while Jordan took control of the West Bank and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip."

Yet over the past few decades, Jews of the region have been transformed- for political purposes, as Huckabee recognizes- into non-Palestinians while other Muslims in the ancient land of Palestine and beyond have been granted psychic status as "Palestinian." So

In a video obtained by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski during Huckabee’s 2015 run for president, Huckabee suggested that if a Palestinian state were to be created, it should be in neighboring countries like Egypt, Syria or Jordan, rather than within Israel’s borders.

“Basically, there really is no such thing as — I need to be careful about saying this, because people will really get upset — there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” Huckabee said at a 2008 campaign stop in Massachusetts while speaking to two Orthodox Jewish men. “There’s not.”

In response to a question from one of the men about the possibility of a Palestinian state existing outside of Israel, Huckabee said he believed this was the preferable option.

“You have Arabs and Persians,” Huckabee continued at the 2008 appearance. “And there’s such complexity in that. But there’s really no such thing. That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

Political tool, indeed.  In questioning Israel's policies, journalists, pundits, politicians, and even academics refer to "Palestinians" indiscriminately and unquestioningly, without clarifying who these Palestinians are. While Israel is said to be conducting a war against "Palestinians," Palestinians reside throughout the Middle East, including in the countries (Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) cited by Huckabee. In all, these three countries encompass 492,893 square miles while Israel's land mass is only 1.7% as large. 

Yet, we are to believe a Palestinian state must come from land controlled by Israel. Thus

In the video, which was previously published by BuzzFeed, Huckabee added that he thought a Palestinian state could be made out of land in Egypt, Syria or Jordan.

“My point is, if that’s the issue, if it’s real estate, if you look at a map, and say here is how much Israel has and here is how much the Arab states hold, there is plenty of land,” he said.

Huckabee reiterated that point during a 2015 interview on Israeli TV, in which he argued that a two-state solution was “irrational and unworkable” and said “there’s plenty of land” outside of Israel in the “rest of the world” for a Palestinian state.

CNN reached out to Huckabee and the Trump transition team for comment on whether Huckabee stands by his comments.

Unless the situation in the Middle East changes radically, no Palestinian state will come from real estate in Egypt, Sytia or Jordan, especially because no nation wantts any more Palestinians even adjacent to theirs. Jordan deserves to catch a break because Palestinians already comprise half the population of the country, packed into only 34,296 square miles.

That leaves Syria and Egypt. A Palestinian state may be all the more necessary because neither these two nations, nor any in the region (given the ruling coalition in Israel), wants to be part of the solution.

Arguably, there is such a thing as a "Palestinian." Inarguably, the term has become popularized for strategic advantage. It's a good thing that President-elect Donald Trump won't be nominating Mike Huckabee for ambassador to any majority-Muslim nation in the Middle East. However, his appointment will be to Jerusalem and unless somebody comes up with something other than a video in which he is making sense, Mike Huckabee is being sent where he belongs.

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"Not At This Table" Is Part of The Problem

Fareed Zakaria is right about the first and third point. However, the other guy makes an excellent point about factor #3.

In fact, Trump ran much more on identity politics, but his identities were “white” and “male”. Those are the only two demographics he won.

Of course, those are not regarded as identities by you and others because they are still seen as the default.

— Ali Minai (@barbarikon) November 10, 2024

A year ago, Donald Trump charged that immigrants (not illegal immigrants- immigrants) are "poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done..." In October, he said of immigrants "you know, now a murderer, I believe this, it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now."

That's pure, unadulterated, classic racism and only two examples of the identity politics Trump traffics in.

Nonetheless, identity politics, central to Donald Trump's message and appeal, is alive and well on the left and on cable television. I had to watch this twice because I couldn't believe the silliness and stupidity:

"I am NOT going to listen to transphobia at this table!"

CNN panelist loses their mind over "slur" used by Republican strategist during trans sports debate. pic.twitter.com/5PXnSJW4A0

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) November 9, 2024

If we wanted an example of the role of identity politics which Zakaria believes played a role in the defeat of the Democratic Party in this cycle, you can't do any better than this exchange.It's hard to hear everything while guests are interrupting other guests, as is common on CNN's Abby Phillip Tonight.

Conservative Republican Shermichael Singleton can be heard remarking "I think there a lot of families ut there who don't believe boys should play girls' sports." Openly gay Jay Michaelson, a writer, journalist, professor, and new-age rabbi angrily retorts "They're not boys. I'm not going to listen to transphobia at this table."

There is no such word as "transphobia," except insofar as it was made up for ideological purposes. It has been common to take something we believe in- in this case, trans- and add "phobia" to it to disparage critics or skeptics. Moreover, though "trans," which is cooler than "transsexual" or "transvestite," has become a thing, it is not a word but a prefix. As the absurdly politically correct Merriam-Webster puts it (italics theirs)

While the word trans has been used as a shortened version of both transgender and transsexual, the word transsexual is dated and sometimes offensive. The word transgender is preferred..

Preferred by whom? The answer, evidently, is those who for whatever reason are "offended" by "transsexual." Not that "transsexual" isn't accurate- it makes people feel bad. By contrast, as has been explained

"But crushing truths prish from being acknowledged," (Albert) Camus writes- and what a wise observation. There are so many applications of that statement! Acknowledging something negative about your condition (something you were avoiding) is the same as acknowledging a crushing truth- but only after you acknowledge it can you conquer it. Go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and they will tell you that getting past denial is the first and hardest step towards recovery.

Another truth is that transsexualism exists, notwithstanding Merriam-Webster's intent to disappear it. And so does the widespread sentiment that boys now are being invited to play against girls in girls' sports leagues. Whether Shermichael- with whom I typically disagree- believes that they should be allowed to do so, or even whether transgendered individuals are still male- is not his point. 

As it is, it is not at all clear that boys attempting to transition to girls are now female, or that they are yet male, despite Michaelson's apparent certitude. But assuming the unassumable- that these individuals are not boys- the "I'm not going to listen to transphobia at this table" is very problematic.

Not only is it usually self-defeating not to listen to- or rather, to shout down- individuals with whom we disagree, it is particularly reprehensible to do so on Abby Phillips Tonight, which is meant to showcase differing opinions. Unfortunately, the host seemed not to understand the raison d'etre of her own show when she stated

Look, this is a really heated issue, alright? Shermichael, I know you. I know that you understand that people have different views on this. I think out of respect for Jay, let's try to talk about this in a way that is respectful. 

Singleton then assured her "let me rephrase this since I'm being targeted here," (which was obviously the case) and the show went on. Contrary to Phillip's implication, Singleton was disrespectufl by neither manner nor words.  And ironically, his point was in fact that people have different views on this, contrary to the heated Michaelson, who believed either that everyone is of the same view as is he or, more likely, that anyone who disagrees with him is a bigot or dunderhead.

Posing as open-minded, Abby Phillip runs a dishonest program. More importantly, though, the exchange exemplifies the identity politics Fareed Zakaria believes has come to define the Democratic Party in the mind of voters. This wasn't the only, and not even the most important, factor in the awful results from Election Day. And it's unclear how exactly sensible politicians separate themselves from the narrow-minded people who believe sexuality and race must define their own Party. But they must start with an open acknowledgement of the problem.

 

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