My Political Tidal Rage

It feels like it's been a long time since I've completed a post on this blog. I've tried to start new posts up, I promise. You see, I would start writing and then realize that I had
gone off the reservation. Here's what I mean by that. Anything that's worth writing about right now (and there's so much that is worth it) genuinely begins to make me angry when I start writing. I veer off, get a little bit partisan/spiteful/personal. I lose the tone that I'm trying to maintain.

The truth is that this election is bringing out the intellectual worst of me.

I think we all look around and see the most ridiculous spectacle in politics that we've seen in at least one, if not two, generations. Listening to CSPAN earlier, a guest equated the current insurgency on both sides to the Goldwater insurgency in the 60s. Interestingly enough, I do see a bit of truth in that. Similar to now, a counter-establishment candidate came along and riled the people up. Before the establishment knew what was happening and realized this was a serious threat, it was too late and Goldwater became the inevitable nominee. It was stated that the night Goldwater became the nominee for the GOP was the beginning of the 'modern era' of the Republican party, that is until now.

Donald Trump's rise and momentum is analogous to the movement 60 years ago, but Goldwater is certainly no where near the character that Donald Trump is. He certainly never had the luxury of social media and a 24/7 news cycle either. This leads us to the advent of the new Republican party, a marriage between populism and a persistent media with an injection of rabid anger. Things will be getting strange for the Party's elites for the remainder of this election cycle and the next few congressional cycles too until this new movement figures itself out.

Donald Trump is a bipartisan product that was conceived from a toxic environment of stagnation, political polarization, and a frustrating lack or results. I say again, a BIPARTISAN product. This is not solely the fault of the President's party or the controlling party in Congress. Their inability to work for America forced the American people to find the most disruptive candidate that gave the best chances for a hard reset they so desperately desired.

Now, on the Democratic side, that counter-establishment candidate in Bernie Sanders is fading but not gone. The Establishment will likely win out and award Hillary Clinton the nomination. While Sanders will not likely be in the national political conversation for many more weeks or months, his impact and the challenging of the status quo will certainly linger and be ever-present in the Democratic Party for some time, which will likely force any front-runner further to the Left to maintain support.

So, this is where we're at. I wrote a piece called the Hoberman Sphere Cycle, which argued that parties' candidates will expand out to the poles to win over the support of their party but contract back to the center during the General election. I'm not backtracking from that completely, but the current trajectory is not kind to my analysis. My hope is that both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump make a very delicate dance back to the center, but their tidal wave of support is currently built on rage. It is a rage that symbolizes the entire 2016 election cycle and a rage that has been built to such a burning fury over the past several months that I doubt there is a legitimate means to quell the flames and return civility to the discussion.

Let's face it. As citizens and voters, we have been dealt a horrible hand this year. On the Republican side, the remaining legitimate contenders are a reality TV star/business mogul with overly questionable character attributes. There is a Texas Senator that has changed his position more times on key issues over the last several years than I care to count and has no friends in Congress Then there is a Florida Senator that cannot show up to work and doesn't have enough of an 'it factor' to be many peoples' first choice.

On the Democratic side, we have a bona fide socialist that, while well-intentioned, is completely out of his element and is largely a single-issue candidate. Then there is a candidate who is synonymous with scandal, questionable decision-making, and lacks an ability to be consistently honest.

This is what we have to work with. No wonder the anger is at a fever pitch in this country. We deserve better than this, we truly do. For months, the candidates have not even engaged in true policy discussions. Instead, there has been the same type of bickering and toxicity that is the cornerstone of the same Federal leadership and system the country has grown to abhor. So, even when we hope for something new, all we get is more of the same.

Truthfully, a third-party candidate would not solve this, it might even make it a more contentious and splintered environment. So, we need to work with the team we have right now.

I have always hated highlighting problems without providing a solution to consider. Yet, here I am, doing just that. I don't know what the solution is. It can't just suffice to tell the respective parties to 'do better', but I find that I'm a critical hope deficit at the moment. That is painful.

APN readers, I don't recognize my country right now, but it needs to go find itself in a hurry.

We Still Have Jobs To Do

The sudden passing of the long-serving, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia brings a brand new dynamic to current primary election politics, as well as national-level politics. At the risk of being dubbed Captain Obvious, the balance of both the White House and Supreme Court look to shift in the coming months, as the 'political balance' of the Supreme Court now sits at 4-4.

Going back to 1990, each President has successfully nominated two Justices to the Supreme Court and have largely kept the 5-4 partisan spread to one party or the other during that time. The Court had been in a 5-4 conservative lean, but the death of Justice Scalia means that the sitting Democratic President could effectively re-balance the Court. This typically would not cause such a stir as it is now, if it weren't for a very partisan, GOP-led Congress that has already stated firm opposition to approving any of President Obama's nominations.

The political charge doesn't ease in an election year either.

All over the campaign trail in South Carolina, GOP candidates are speaking out against the President nominating anyone to the Court due to 'precedent' of Presidents not doing so in the final year of their term. The is, of course, the appointment of Justice Kennedy in 1988 (Reagan's final year in Office), but there was also a political reality at that point in time. There was hardly any thought given to the fact that the GOP would lose the White House, and that proved to be true when George H.W. Bush destroyed Michael Dukakis in the general election in '88.

Fast forward to current time, and it is abundantly easy to see that the argument being made is certainly a political argument and does not touch on true legal precedent or any precedent of another kind. This is going to be a close and contested election, but the Republicans appear to be certain of a victory if they are insisting on pushing the nomination of a justice for another year.

As an independent observer, this seems entirely irresponsible that there is insistence that the President and Senate doesn't even attempt to go through the motions to replace Justice Scalia. But isn't this just more of the same?

As a country, we have grown weary of the partisan politics that both sides of the aisle are equally responsible for. This is another chapter in the long saga of the continual let-down that the two sides will not simply come together and have some sort of civil discourse to find a way forward. Surely there is a federal judge or legal scholar somewhere that both sides can, at least, halfway agree upon? Well, maybe not.

Per Oliver Knox, Yahoo News Chief Political Correspondent,

Obama’s shortlist includes Sri Srinivasan, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the District of Columbia circuit; Merrick Garland, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit; Attorney General Loretta Lynch; Neal Katyal, a Georgetown law professor who spent one year as Obama’s acting solicitor general; Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson; Solicitor General Don Verrilli; and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

There are a few names on there that would meet with very aggressive disagreement from the Republicans. You know what, though? That's fine. I would much prefer that our government does its job, the job we elected them to do, than to roadblock each other from even trying.

Ultimately, they all still have jobs to do. If they don't yield results, that's another thing to deal with, but that is so much better than never trying at all for the people that they work for. But what if this process causes some true negotiation? What if the most unthinkable, inconceivable thing happens in this entire process? What if the two parties work together???

I digress though. There are potentially many more opportunities for the President and Senate to work together in the coming term(s) with the possibility of the next President nominating up to three new Justices (one previously nominated by Reagan and two by Clinton). But, we will get to that when those situations arise in a couple years.

The current situation still remains unresolved, but to President Obama's credit, he plans on going through the motions to uphold what the Constitution outlines as his responsibility in a situation such as this. Though these motions may not be truly in good faith, the fact remains that these elected officials still have jobs to do, and we implore them to try to do them. It's a sad state of affairs that these kind of pleading even needs to take place, but this is the current reality.

My final thought is that the remainder of this Presidential term and a key focus of the next President must not be solely on issues that the core of their party holds dear, but to keep the common interest in mind and prioritize institutional and cultural healing. Otherwise, we will continue to find ourselves in a ceaseless, vicious cycle.

The Swamp Got Murkier?

The New Hampshire Primary does not have a precision-riddled history. In fact, the New Hampshire results consistently do very little for predicting the ultimate winner of the two parties' nominations. Though the 'First in the Nation' primary has a bet of a better track record than the Iowa Caucus, this just isn't the pressure gauge to make any sort of long-term judgement by.

If you look at each party's primary dating back to 1980 (excluding unopposed runs), the Granite State primary has only had a 9/14 accuracy, that's a 64% accuracy rate. Arguably though, since 2000, the New Hampshire primary has been much more accurate than since 1980, but all trends rely on history and many, many data points. That being said, I'm not putting much stock into what the primaries tonight mean for either party.

So, you ask, what do the primaries do? What's the point then?

Politically speaking, there are significant primary and secondary order effects, potentially much more so for the GOP than the Democratic field. With regard to Republicans, there are two factors that come into play when the results are finalized: momentum and the culling of the herd. Momentum was all of the post-Iowa talk. We heard about the bull market on Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and the bear market on Donald Trump and the three establishment candidates.

Obviously, this market trends in all directions at all times as we saw with Marco Rubio's stifled #Marcomentum post-Saturday's debate and John Kasich's seemingly steady climb toward the top of the second tier when he was never awarded a single delegate in Iowa. As we scream (or crawl) closer to the respective conventions, the next wave of momentum for the insurgents and the establishment will be key for anyone's long term viability.

On that matter of long-term viability, the New Hampshire primary also has the historical effect of culling the herd....historically. 2016 may very well be an exception with all 11 candidates that entered tonight (yes, even Gilmore) on the road to South Carolina. That aside, textbooks tell us that the field ought to be whittled down by a candidate or two, which means that you have brand new, undeclared voters that are just looking for a new home. This type of open capital puts candidates into a free-for-all to vie for the affections of these newly available supporters. Depending on who drops out (Fiorina? Christie? Carson?) that opens up a lot of people that swing the balance of the primary in a major way.

On the Democratic side, there's obviously going to be no culling of any herd. You have two candidates, and you're going to have two candidates until the winning delegates total is reached by one of them. Again, this comes back to the momentum argument. By all accounts (pre-results), Sanders ought to win the primary, but now this is where the expectations game comes into play.

There is a chance that Bernie Sanders blows his shot at the nomination tonight even if he wins. Expectations going back to just last week had the Vermont Senator sitting at a comfortable, victory formation distance. In the last week, polls show that Hillary is closing that gap. Now again, probably not enough to win, but she sets herself up very well going forward if the loss is in the low to mid single digits. She beat expectations and completed an effort to make her the second Clinton 'Comeback Kid'.

On the other hand, New Hampshire feels the Bern, we have a long race ahead of us, America.

There's a good chance that tonight's election does us no favors, but isn't that the fun of watching all of this? Politics itself is not a spectator sport, but being a spectator at this juncture is all the rage to me.

Is America's Glass Ceiling Shatter-Proof?

In the lead-up to the GOP Debate on Thursday, a thought that I had buried away months ago aggressively returned as the attacks surged against Megyn Kelly. While I make no claim of support on her feud with GOP candidate Donald Trump, it is certainly difficult to ignore the enormous tidal wave of negativity that was predominately thrown her way. What ought to be even more difficult to ignore is the type of negativity she encountered. Regardless of where one leans on the issue that caused Mr. Trump to skip the debate on Thursday, it certainly feels more than fair to say that many have lost (or perhaps never had) the ability to maintain civility.

You can find the evidence on any social media or news outlet comments section. Pardon my language, but we read that Megyn Kelly was a 'bitch', 'slut', and 'whore', and those were some of the more tame comments in some cases.

What necessitated that type of response? Perhaps the explanation is as simple as this was a case of a small portion of Donald Trump's supporters going to bat for him (though way above and beyond the necessary means). I don't think we can be so sure that that's the sole explanation here though. I would submit to you that there is still an inherent double-standard that exists is enough places in our society.

What do I mean by enough? Translating it to the current primary election season, it is simply that the double-standard exists in enough places that it stymies momentum or even could outright block a candidate from receiving their party's nomination.

Taking a look at this election cycle, as well as the 2012 election season, Hillary Clinton, Carly
Fiorina, and Michelle Bachmann all hit or are hitting up against a glass ceiling.

I think it's fair to say that all three of these women's leadership styles all include an element of brusqueness. Additionally, I think it's fair to say that all three women are very passionate about their core issues and about the business of trying to lead America. As a result, that brusqueness comes out during policy speeches, town halls, debates, and rallies.

Enter the double-standard. My observations show a remarkably different take that we have with men still. If a man does not illustrate a certain level of sternness, he is deemed weak and therefore unworthy of the office of President. Mr. Trump's appeal, as well as the appeal of so many other men in both parties across many years of political races is based on a perception of strength.

It does not take long to find a 'Comments' section or a tweet that has something to the effect of 'Wow, she's being a real [insert flowery expletive here].'. Yet, if a male candidate took the opposing posture, we would be saying 'Jeb Bush just looks so soft'. Well, the truth is that many do say that. If Mrs. Fiorina, Secretary Clinton, or Mrs. Bachmann took a much softer stance, then they would simply go unnoticed and would be largely patronized by their competitors and the media throughout the election.

Going back to 2012, Mrs. Bachmann certainly was known to take very firm stances on a common conservative issues. Her more aggressive posture was also capitalized by being at the forefront of the rising Tea Party Movement. Let's not forget the Newsweek magazine front cover, which labelled Mrs. Bachmann as the 'Queen of Rage' and posted a non-flattering photo across the entire page. It certainly disrupt the campaign, since it came so early in the campaign, but it was arguably a contributing tone-setter to the electorate's perceptions of the congresswoman from Minnesota.

Even when these candidates are not speaking at the podium, they are often being judged by their looks. It's insane to have read that the posture of these candidates can be categorized as 'RBF', but it's just Mr. Trump or Senator Cruz relaxing in between questions.

For all of the progress that we have made, America just is not there yet and the cultural swing in that direction might not be complete by November. I remember Senator Bernie Sanders saying this during a town hall recently, and I am still surprised this did not make more headlines. He was asked if he felt that America has made more progress in gender or racial equality.He actually responded that we have made greater strides in racial equality, which might be abundantly surprising to some still in the wake of Freddie Gray and Ferguson. Still, Senator Sanders might be on to something here. After all, as he cited, 'we elected an African-American to the White House', but we still have yet to take the next step to push for a woman.

This all being said, proportionally men dominate the political scene and therefore there is a greater statistical likelihood of a male-dominated field and a man consistently getting these opportunities. That is still an issue that needs to be examined and figured out, but, then again, maybe the right woman has yet to enter the scene. Ultimately, we should not elect a woman just for the sake of achieving a milestone, but I would like to see a woman in the White House and see her continue to put our country in a position to thrive.

So, does it not better suit these candidates to take the risk of coming off as brusque and giving it all they can in this race?

Unfortunately, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't 'Catch 22' type of situation.