My thoughts on the US Senate runoff races in Georgia

Other than a drop in Trumpist/racist/fascist turnout in Georgia, I don't see either the Jewish guy (Osoff) or the black guy (Warnock) defeating the Republican Senatorial candidates, Purdue and Loeffler. 

The apparently final numbers for the three way race among Purdue, Osoff, and the right wing anti-coronavirus shutdown and gun extremist "libertarian" (Hazel) showed Purdue ahead of Osoff by nearly 90,000 votes, with another 110,000 votes for the "libertarian." I would bet the vast majority of Hazel voters who bother to vote will pull the level for Purdue, not Osoff. That's at least 110,000 vote swing Osoff would have to get to beat Purdue, even with a depressed Republican/right wing libertarian turnout.

Warnock did win in a plurality, but when adding the votes Loeffler and Collins, the two Republicans, received, the number of votes for the three candidates is even more far apart. Warnock won 1.617 million votes. However, the two Republicans combined for 2.17 million votes. That is a delta of 500,000 votes Warnock will have to make up in a two person race. I can see lots of right wingers and Republicans who voted for Collins going, "So what if Loeffler goes to jail for insider trading? We'll just replace her with another Republican." They will not be voting for the black guy who is a Democrat in the modern sense, meaning corporate or progressive.

The bottom line is this: Do we really think the Trumpist/racist/fascist turnout is going to be that much smaller in January 2021? I guess, um, maybe, but I don't see much hope. 

My advice continues to be, if you have extra money you want to spend on the Georgia senate or down ballot races that may well be more able to effect longer term change there, it's in getting out the Democratic base vote, and maybe supporting some third party PACs attack ads against Loeffler and Purdue, in order to soften support for those two awful people. And, progressives, don't think Ossoff or Warnock are going to be calling The Squad or Bernie Sanders for any advice if they win.

There are only two principles conservatives tend to have

I love how conservatives so often express their short-term political cynicism in a language of principle.  Here is US Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) explaining why he would oppose fellow-senator Bernie Sanders becoming a Labor Secretary:

I think that is somebody who we know is an ideologue and, well, it would be very unlikely he would be confirmed in a Republican-held Senate...

Really, now, an "ideologue"?  Wasn't Steve Mnuchin an ideologue for corporate capitalism? How about Eugene Scalia, who is Trump's Labor Secretary, a man who, besides being the offspring of a judicial ideologue, Antonin Scalia, is deeply and ideologically opposed to labor rights and labor unions from his significant experience as an anti-union lawyer for a large law firm? How's that for being an ideologue? Oh, and there is the matter of Cornyn voting for The Handmaid to ascend to the US Supreme Court a few weeks before the election, when he refused to give Merrick Garland a hearing in 2016, nine months before the election. We know, if the current position was reversed, and it was a Republican-elect president coming into office, we would hear about the principle that senators should support a fellow senator out of professional senatorial courtesy, as was the line to allow John Ashcroft to become Bush-Cheney's Attorney General.  And let's recall Ashcroft had just been defeated in Missouri as an incumbent senator. 

Really, Cornyn, how dare you abuse language in this manner?

Sadly, it is important in this moment to remind ourselves that the essence of conservatism, whether political, economic, or cultural, is the defense of privilege. It is the only real principle such people often have. Everything else for conservative politicians especially boils down to their other "principle," which may be expressed as "Heads I win, Tails you lose." Conservative politicians, and here Cornyn is typical, will, depending upon the moment, switch out any previously stated principle for the one goal of gaining and maintaining power.  

Let's be clear: Cornyn's statement is not about the principle of opposing someone who is an ideologue. What Cornyn means is he won't allow President-elect Biden to choose anyone for labor secretary who would actually be pro-labor.

Originalists don't know constitutional or political American history, Part Whatever: Ted Cruz edition

I was flipping around at YouTube and saw US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) spoke, with his usual arrogance, in the Senate about originalism.  Here it is.  In this video excerpt, Cruz says the 14th Amendment codified, once and for all, in the US Constitution, equal protection under the laws, but gave the example that schools should not be segregated by race.  He then said, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld the separate but equal doctrine, was wrong because the 14th Amendment meant equal protection under the laws, something it took the US Supreme Court to reverse in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). 

There are two immediate problems here: First, at the time the 14th Amendment was ratified, there were already racially segregated schools in Washington, DC, and other places, and nothing in the debates at the time which would prove the majority of Congressmen were going to immediately outlaw racially segregated schools. See this excellent summary of originalism and its limitations in Vox. Second, Plessy was about segregation allowed in public transportation, not schools, so it is not that Brown overruled Plessy on segregated schools; it overruled Plessy on the basis that separate but equal was a false doctrine based upon logic that could no longer be morally enforced. 

Cruz opened his argument with a non-sequitur, which is to deny originalism is about original intent. Instead, he said it meant original meaning. That remains so funny to me, since one of the original expounders of originalism, Justice Story, stated the Constitution, as with all written "instruments," is to be construed "according to the sense of the terms, and the intentions of the parties." Robert Bork, another originalist, in Bork's polemical work, The Tempting of America, favorably cited to Story's statement (see page 6 of the book). Bork, in his book, preferred to use the phrase "original understanding," which is sort of like Scalia's semantical dodge, "original meaning."  I call both semantical dodges because each jurist wants us to believe they don't mean the intent of the Constitution's framers, or later entire Congresses and Presidents, but they are somehow discerning the meaning of the Constitution through the general understanding of words used at that time. So, the people who write the laws, and the words contained in the laws, are somehow not part of the people in the society in which they lived while they were writing the laws?  There is a better word for these originalists' type of argument: sophistry.*

This is not to say there is no philosophical foundation for originalism.  Indeed, in 1827, Justice John Marshall, in Ogden v. Saunders, wrote:

On this subject also, the Court has taken such frequent occasion to declare its opinion as to make it unnecessary, at least, to enter again into an elaborate discussion of it. To say that the intention of the instrument must prevail; that this intention must be collected from its words; that its words are to be understood in that sense in which they are generally used by those for whom the instrument was intended; that its provisions are neither to be restricted into insignificance nor extended to objects not comprehended in them, nor contemplated by its framers is to repeat what has been already said more at large and is all that can be necessary.

Yet, it was Marshall who expounded on what originalists themselves have called "living Constitution" theory, in M'Culloch v. Maryland, where Marshall opined:

To have prescribed the means by which Government should, in all future time, execute its powers would have been to change entirely the character of the instrument and give it the properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide by immutable rules for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best provided for as they occur. To have declared that the best means shall not be used, but those alone without which the power given would be nugatory, would have been to deprive the legislature of the capacity to avail itself of experience, to exercise its reason, and to accommodate its legislation to circumstances. 

And then, a few years later, in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Marshall ripped into those who would support any strict construction of the Constitution, saying it would cripple the government's ability to respond to changing situations and viewpoints. He said:

What do gentlemen mean by a "strict construction?" If they contend only against that enlarged construction, which would extend words beyond their natural and obvious import, we might question the application of the term, but should not controvert the principle. If they contend for that narrow construction which, in support or some theory not to be found in the Constitution, would deny to the government those powers which the words of the grant, as usually understood, import, and which are consistent with the general views and objects of the instrument; for that narrow construction which would cripple the government and render it unequal to the object for which it is declared to be instituted, and to which the powers given, as fairly understood, render it competent; then we cannot perceive the propriety of this strict construction, nor adopt it as the rule by which the Constitution is to be expounded.

Marshall then went on to say we should still look to the words expressed and how they were intended to be construed, which of course begs the question once again.  We really should go back to James Madison, in Federalist Paper no. 37, where Madison admitted a lot of terms and phrases in the Constitution are vague, and will only be rendered understandable in posterity, and with experience in the situations which will arise. Jack Balkin, American University law professor, holds to my view of originalism as a dodge when conservatives use the term, and is really more what Madison is talking about, which is far more subtle and recognizes perhaps a degree of humility in the art of statutory and Constitutional interpretation. 

Cruz is just another bomb thrower, and his understanding of American history, let alone constitutional history, is only deep in its shallowness.

*I should add that, when I confronted Scalia about not knowing the framers' intent in any case he had ever heard as a jurist--this was at a law seminar, during a lawyers' conference in Orange County in 1995, sponsored by Orange County's Chabad (the conference was about Jewish law and Anglo-American jurisprudence), Scalia did not challenge me to say he was only defining "originalism" to be about "meaning," and "not (subjective) intent."  The audience of at least 500 lawyers in the room knew what each of us were talking about, as I had multiple people come up to me saying I had slayed Scalia with one question in the question and answer period following his debate on originalism with the now late Judge Reinhardt, the liberal 9th Circuit jurist. Reinhardt was, of course, against Scalia's originalism, but did a poor job in defending his own position, which was frankly vague, and devoid of any true knowledge of constitutional and political history. As I have noted before, Reinhardt refused to speak with me after that performance, while Scalia was charming and kind with me, which proved what people said about the guy, which is Scalia loved a good debate.

Trump's plan all along was to create his own television/Internet channel

What is amusing about Trump now openly stating his intention to create his own television network to rival and undermine FoxNews is this was Trump's original plan in 2015. Trump had seen how Sarah Palin, after being part of a losing national political campaign, raised tens of millions of dollars as she dangled her idea to run for president in 2012, and then, at the last minute, decided against it. Trump also tired of his continual negotiations with NBC over "The Apprentice," as the show's popularity continually waned after a big-hit premiere season. Trump really went "off the rails" when he learned pop singer (and former indie rocker) Gwen Stefani was making more money per episode of "The Voice" than he was on "The Apprentice." 

Trump, of course, had it in for Obama, with the endless tweets during Obama's second term especially, which tweets ironically have proven to apply more to Trump. Trump therefore decided he would run for president, and expected, and actually wanted, to lose--but, in the meantime, build an Internet-based television network that also relied heavily on social media to promote the network. Then, a sad thing happened to Trump. He won in 2016. It is why there is evidence of Trump and his wife being so weirdly sad the night he won in 2016. The only thing Trump cared about then was to figure out a way to make the grift work while in the White House. That helps explain why he didn't care for following norms in the transition, as he was already focused on how he would leverage his properties for White House business, continue to play golf nearly every week, and ensure the government compensated his various businesses he was going to be still conducting.

Of course, the irony is FoxNews was initially wary of Trump, as Roger Ailes knew Trump for decades and knew Trump was a con man. However, FoxNews eventually fell in line with its viewers, who were swooning to Trump's siren song, so cleverly crafted over the Obama years and with a symbiotic relationship to right-wing hate talk radio--even as, in the waning weeks of the 2016, Trump was already plotting to create his own Trump branded network to rival FoxNews. 

However, this new push for a TrumpTV network hinges on Trump not being indicted or convicted following his one-term presidency. This is why Trump needs to continue creating enough chaos for leverage to negotiate federal and state pardons for him and the Trump Family Syndicate. If Trump gets his pardons, Trump will certainly find financial institutions and groups ready to lend him money to spew truly Q-Anon level poison into the homes and motor vehicles of his never-give-up fans. Trump will finally have won what he actually sought, and not be as bothered by ethics rules and laws any longer.  

The Electoral College is now as divorced from the popular vote as much as the stock market is divorced from Main Street and American consumers

Well, here we are. 

As of late this afternoon, New Mexico time, Biden is up to 50.75% of the nationwide vote, and rising, while Trump is coasting downward toward 47%. Biden has now achieved a percentage level which is higher than presidential winners from 1976, 1980, 1988 (this was the one where Bush I beat Dukakis by 50.7%), 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2016. And the popular vote differential is now about 4.75 million. Yet, Biden is at "only" 290 Electoral College "votes" if one also counts AZ, where it looks like Biden will also prevail, though much closer than was previously thought. 

It is time to say the Electoral College fails to speaks to the popular vote at this point in US history the way the stock market fails to speak to Main Street and consumers.

As I survey the state vote counts in remaining battleground states, I am thinking Biden looks like he will win GA, while Trump wins NC (I don't have any clue why that was not called for Trump days ago). So Biden will end up with 306 EC "votes," the same number Trump won in 2016.

As I have said, this election result is what Dem leadership wanted, which was a referendum on Trump. Too bad as Republicans prevailed in even more state houses and kept the senate. A poor strategy ultimately. This election must really hurt Trump's narcissistic ego as this result is a personal rejection of Trump. What has to also be said is the election is not a rejection of the ideologies and delusions that brought him to power in the first place. 

The only hope I have is more of us Boomers and Oldsters may not be around as this new decade continues to move forward. Kids, you must continue to take to the streets, continue to agitate, and push for The People's Party (and be very active in leading its direction). I am willing to defer to the young folks, and merely provide historical data where I will also say, Make your own history, do not be afraid to be bold, and be guided more by helping others more vulnerable than you, including other creatures on this planet, and the planet itself--rather than helping yourselves.

Progressive brand actually better than Democrats' and certainly Neo-liberal brands

 What David Doel says.  Except that Katie Porter won by about seven points, not 20.

And Mike Figueredo is correct here and here.

Andrew Yang is correct, too, about the Democrats' toxic brand in so many places, and why the Dems need a coherent economic message, when the Republicans have a coherent cultural message. I just don't like when Andrew falls for the coastal/city mouse vs internal/country mouse dichotomy, when we can see economic messaging can be unifying from a populist perspective.

More thoughts as dust continues to settle...Also, The People's Party is an independent party, not a third party

Is it me or did Biden have no real coattails, and in fact, often ran behind in any state not already deep Blue? 

Brianna Joy Gray, Bernie's former press secretary (who I adore, by the way), said on her show Bad Faith that if Bernie's performance led to the Dems not gaining back the Senate, we'd never hear the end of what a mistake it was to nominate him, and how he was a drag on downballot races.  It is worth listening and watching her clip from the November 5 show she uploaded on her Twitter account.  

If Biden does prevail, as is increasingly likely--though I think Biden may still lose AZ in the process, and therefore run way behind the Dem Senate candidate Mark Kelly, who beat an incumbent Republican--we have to really begin to treat Biden and Harris as largely Republican-oriented opponents. And by Republican, I mean Republicans circa 1976.

The pro-Establishment Dems propaganda from MSNBC and CNN will continue, which is why I say we need an independent political party such as The People's Party. It is important to not call The People's Party a third party. There is no second party in this nation on issues of the Empire and the systemic inequality that pervades the United States. The Dems and Reeps are merely two wings of the same party, which is The Property Party (Gore Vidal called them that for decades, and he was correct then, and correct now nearly a decade after his death in 2012). We should acknowledge the differences in the two wings, starting on the quality of judicial appointments, and some acceptance of scientific realities. But they are still two wings representing the Owners of this nation, not the rest of us.

The People's Party represents a party independent of corporate power and money. It is truly a party independent from The Property Party. And once we join, it is no longer relevant for Dems to say, Oh you are spoilers. If enough young people join, the Dems will be told the Dems are the spoilers. This occurred with Bernie and Dems in Vermont, and I see a possibility we can make that happen nationally. The Dems' brand is toxic for many rural and working class white people, and increasingly among Latino and Black working class people. It is past time to acknowledge this, and move forward.

Dust settling thoughts

As I wake up to Biden overtaking Trump in Pennsylvania and Georgia, and appearing likely to hold Arizona and Nevada, for a solid Electoral College win--and a 4 million vote margin of victory--I have some thoughts that are unsettling even as dust settles on this election season.

First, Biden's percentage margin of victory is more than the presidential victors in 1976, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2016, and likely higher (just about) than Bush I's victory over Dukakis in 1988. Yet, we are still in an Electoral College nail biter.  And the Republicans still control the senate, though the total votes for senators across the nation favored the Democrats by a couple of million votes, too.

Second, the DNC and their enablers in corporate media cause Democrats to lose where they should win more often, and keep progressives divided as to strategy.  To have set so much money on fire with the Lincoln Project, and to direct monies to losing campaigns (from the start) such as Jamie Harrison in South Carolina and Amy McGrath (the Trumpian Democrat) in Kentucky, when we should have had far more directed use of non-corporate money, is something that is unfortunately beyond incompetence and part of the continuing project to stop anything resembling social democracy in our nation.

Third, the strategic failure of the national Democratic Party powers that be, and their cynically dumb commentariat in corporate media, is why I am now ready to start supporting fusion balloting in NM and the creation of The People's Party.  My advice is to support these two items across the nation.  Corporate Democrats must realize their agenda is over, and Biden only won from revulsion against Trump's handling (it is not merely non-handling as his conduct was intentional recklessness) of the Coronavirus. Had that misconduct in handling the virus not occurred, meaning had Trump taken responsible leadership, the Republicans may have won back the House--not just the senate--as well as Trump winning "bigly" over Biden or any other corporate Dem. As Alan Lichtman said a year ago, pre-COVID, with a relatively decent to strong economy, the incumbent wins unless there is a populist alternative from the Dems--and I wonder who, cough, Bernie, cough, he meant there? LOL.  By the way, Lichtman's record of predicting the winner who gets to occupy the White House was vindicated again, as, post-COVID crisis beginning, he correctly predicted Biden would defeat Trump.

Third, it appears we will not suffer the worst case scenario of Republicans controlling the senate again and Trump winning. However, I must admit I may well have been happier if the Dems had taken the Senate and Biden lost to Trump.  I say this not because I am angry Biden defeated Trump.  I say this because Trump would likely do less damage with a Democratic Party controlled Congress than in this now likely scenario where Senator John C. Calhoun--I mean, Mitch McConnell--and all Republicans (including the outright dingbat Susan Collins of Maine) will continue to stymie anything decent Biden can do--with even Biden's reversals of Trump executive orders heading to Trump-McConnell-drenched federal courts, which will suddenly find executive orders to be executive overreach.

Just sayin...Yes, I again am happy Trump is likely now to be vanquished.  And, as I said yesterday, we will start to hear from Republicans who will say how vulgar they found him all along. However, apart from tut-tutting about tone, these Republicans will still fight against anything decent for the majority of people and still scapegoat oppressed minorities' communities.  

Therefore, my advice to progressives, and especially to the Millennials and Gen Zers, is keep the track shoes on. There is a nation to save from itself. That means more protests and movement politics, more primaries against corporate Democrats and DNC anointed candidates for Republican held or open seats, fusion balloting, ranked choice, the national popular vote compact, and the formation of The People's Party.

Good election results in the House for progressives. For corporate Dems, not so good. And Red states pass Blue state laws across the nation. Populism lives.

This article from Yahoo! is structured as a Democratic Party House of Representatives loss, but within that, it shows the ones who lost, including the one term fluke of a Congresswoman in southern New Mexico, were all corporate oriented Democrats. The article shows the Dems are more progressive than before and still have a majority of congress members.  

Then, the article shows voters in Red and sometimes somewhat Blue states (Colorado) passed laws to legalize marijuana, provide pay for family leave, defeated a harsh anti-abortion bill, and raising the minimum wage statewide (Florida!).  On the down side, CA voters were fooled by Uber and Lyft into giving more money for the executives at the expense of the gig workers (lots of advertising had the intended effect), and a few good procedural reforms went down to defeat in Missouri and elsewhere.

I am more convinced than ever we need a left economic populist set of politicians and a political party more interested in winning that way than the Democratic Party currently is standing these days.  The pissing on AOC and her brand of very popular politics continues at the DNC and I am convinced this will not change without first leaving the Democratic Party, at least the national one and your state party if progressives are not prevailing at a sufficient rate.  In NM, it is rather interesting to me to see progressives continuing to win power in the state apparatus, and in elected offices in the state legislature.  I think it may be worth it to merely get the People's Party on the ballot here, and add laws to allow Fusion candidates, where a candidate gets more than one party's nomination for office, and a person may vote on either party line.

But then, there's this. Louisiana's anti-abortion constitutional amendment.

My thoughts about New Mexico election results

New Mexico did fairly well in our voting, with the State continuing to trend Democratic or, as they say on television, Blue. 

Biden won the State by a solid ten points over Trump. In the US Senate race, Ben Ray Lujan won by five points, something I had predicted to friends all along (state polling data, always a bit off due to rural voting patterns, had Ben Ray up by as much as 10 points). Ben Ray was popular in the district in which I live, but was largely unknown to the rest of the state when he made his move. He had lots of money and could trounce any progressive, but I like him more than any other establishment Democrat, I have to say. The Republican candidate was a tv weatherman who successfully conveyed a folksy charm in his tv ads, and I was worried for Ben Ray throughout the race. 

Two of New Mexico's three Congressional seats went strongly for Democratic Party women who at least pose as progressives (now second term, Deb Haaland, and newcomer Teresa Fernandez-Leger, replacing Ben Ray). However, the first-term "moderate" (meaning corporate bound) Democratic Party Congressional incumbent, Xotchil Torres-Small, went down to what appears to be a significant defeat to a woman Trumpist, after XTS' fluke win in 2018, which win based upon high young, progressive, and Hispanic turnout in that mid-term, and Trumpist voters staying home after a bruising, divisive primary. XTS was a major disappointment to young people and progressives, as she lacked any real enthusiasm for her re-election campaign among the natural Democratic Party base in this still Republican oriented district. XTS ran away from the Green New Deal, never once trying to say it was really a jobs bill, voted against increasing the minimum wage, and looked for votes from elusive "moderate" Republican so beloved on cable news, as noted in my earlier morning post on the national election. She was far better off hanging with The Squad in Congress than coming off as a phony who was neither progressive nor conservative.

State legislature races reveal New Mexico's progressive wing of the Democratic Party scored net gains in the State Senate and House of Representatives, though some seats in conservative districts were lost. The great news overall is the conservative Democrats in the Senate certainly have had their wings cut, and, where I live, voters replaced, in the State Senate, a conservative Democrat with a liberal-progressive, Brenda McKenna. Our state House rep, Daymon Ely, cruised to victory over a well-funded Republican. 

Interestingly, Sandoval County overall voted for Biden over Trump by over seven points, which is somewhat surprising, considering how rabid the Republican white voters in my area were for Trump.  However, the County Commission, which votes in districts, and not county-wide, retained its 3-2 Republican (and right wing) control, with our local Commissioner, Jay Block, winning re-election by about 300 votes (not sure if all counted).  I had thought Jay would win, on the power of incumbency, most of this cycle, and I worried about the gravitas of our Democratic Party candidate. Jay and I became friendly, at least for awhile, though I was very clear, at least I hoped I was, that he and disagree on too much for me to make my vote a personal vote as opposed to a policy vote.  I hope, though, Jay will take me up on my idea to bring In-And-Out Burgers to Rio Rancho...:). It looks like, though, for the next four years, I'll be fighting Jay on the cultural issues that creep into county politics, and especially the environmental issues. Local government tends to be more about fixing streets and such, and there, Commissioner Block's good work there I believe helped him convince some Dems in our district to vote for him. He was the only Republican to score the Firefighter's Union vote, which I felt was pivotal in this close race.  

While ballots continue to be tabulated, some post-election day thoughts

Last night, Zoey The Dog, had to go to the animal emergency room, and we spent a good part of last night (till about 10:30 pm), with her before leaving her for an overnight observation. She has stayed overnight, and, later in the night, the dog doc called to say she may be okay this morning, and was stabilizing. Zoey The Dog is nearing her 17th birthday, which is pretty amazing for a bijon-poodle who has had, much like her Dad (um, me! LOL), heart issues--though she has also always had a glass stomach, and limited in what she could eat. Anyway, I was not planning to watch the breathless, DC-oriented speculation on television or radio while partial results came in last night. I figured I would see this morning where and how things stand. Contrary to what I lately thought, but not initially thought, I guess there are still a lot of absentee ballots to count--mostly the ballots dropped off before Election Day, and sometimes weeks before Election Day. Nonetheless, Democratic Party voters may wish to read David Sirota's six takeaways this morning, and see if some may get past their cognitive dissonance--particularly his insight, which I have consistently had, that there is no "NeverTrump Republican" constituency other than the illusion created on corporate owned television and radio.

Still, at this moment, I have thought deeply about one of my avatars, Michael Harrington. In Harrington's last book, "Socialism: Past and Future," meaning not then then-1989 present (it was published after Harrington's relatively early death from cancer in 1989), Harrington said, as economic globalization would continue into the 21st Century, and as capitalists continued to establish oligarchies to operate within that global economy, leaving more and more workers and peasants behind, he had hope the vast majority of left-out people would finally recognize socialist ideals, with democratic-republican processes applied to economics, were the only way to hold humanity together. He didn't go in for pop-culture references, but he saw much more of a Star Trek future than a Star Wars future.  

However, as I sit in front of the computer this morning, all I can say this morning to Michael is "Too bad, Michael. In the US, and much of Great Britain, white people of a certain age and up, and 20%, or even in some places 30%, of blacks and Hispanics, would rather hate on each other, and make political decisions based upon cultural fears and prejudices, than move forward in harmonious humanity." 

In his book, Harrington expressly recognized his hope for a socialist aesthetic, an ideal, was not inexorable or bound to happen. He foresaw people could well continue to behave as they were already behaving in the United States during the last decade of his life, which was the Reagan Era. Harrington, in his last chapter of that posthumously-published book, hoped a good portion of the economic and educational elite would embrace a "visionary gradualism," a concept he first began to speak of in different terms, such as living with theological "uncertainties," in his most sadly ignored book, "The Politics at God's Funeral" (1983). Harrington was acutely aware the project he proposed was precarious, and I think Harrington hoped the highly educated, particularly those who economically succeeded, would see beyond short-term self-interest.  So far, the results are in, too, and the answer is: Nope. Not a chance for such enlightenment. 

As I peruse the book this morning, I am reminded how Harrington (like me, sometimes, as The Daughter recently reminded me) was also probably more of a cultural conservative-to-moderate, like his friend, the sociologist, Daniel Bell, though not as culturally conservative as was Bell. I don't think Harrington could anticipate how the Internet would create a knowledge revolution that predominates and accelerates cultural wars, and overwhelm political discussions that focus on the economy--what Adam Smith and Karl Marx would both call a "political-economy."  I don't think Harrington wanted to emotionally face the very viable possibility the 1870s financier/railroad baron, Jay Gould, may have apocryphally expressed, when Gould, confronted by railroad workers' leaders threatening a general strike, said he did not worry about general strikes and workers holding together across races, ethnicities, and the like. Gould was said to have told the workers' representatives: 

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other.

Yes, I believe Gould could well have said that, and, more ominously, done that. Our nation's modern broadcast corporate media has certainly defined "politics" as "culture," where even wearing certain clothes is as important to us, and often, more important to us, than union law reform, climate change policies, and single payer health security. We are continually led to vote based upon our personal hates and fears because we are told we should have no sense love and hope can ever win out. It is why I hate--yeah, ironic, cue Tom Lehrer--when Boomers and Oldsters shame our children and grandchildren for wanting to vote for their best hopes and dreams, and tell them to vote for corrupt corporatists in the Senator Payne mode, such as Biden and the Clintons, or, in recent years, identity grifters such as Mayor Pete or Kamala Harris, and that classic technocratic, self-actualizer, Elizabeth Warren. 

Perhaps, in a Harringtonian mode, I retain hope in a Biden victory after the absentee ballots are fully counted. I retain a hope the US Supreme Court, with the new Handmaiden of Reaction on the Court, are not in a position to take away those votes for Biden. However, I am sure glad I never wasted any of my limited money on those senate races in places such as Kentucky or Texas. I may have given $25 to Jamie Harrison in South Carolina, but that was it. I never bought into those polls they would send by email and text, as the reliable state polling data I saw had both of them losing. In my defense for that possible $25 contribution to Harrison, real polling data had Harrison much closer to Dame Lindsey, though still losing, while I never saw a reliable poll that had Trump-Democrat grifter, Amy McGrath, closer than 9 points down to John C. Calhoun, er, I mean, Mitch McConnell.

So, let's keep our spirits up at least a bit as we wait for the absentees to be counted. 

The Reliever Era in Major League Baseball

There has been much criticism of Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash for removing his ace pitcher, Blake Snell, in the sixth inning, after Snell had given up a strongly hit ball from a relative scrub, Austin Barnes.  The analytics showed Snell's earned run average from the sixth inning forward was a whopping 12 runs a game, compared to 2 or less runs a game before the sixth inning.  The Rays' manager, Cash, faced a decision in what was a do-or-die game for The Rays: (1) keep his pitcher in to face the first three Dodgers in the lineup, who were normally formidable, but who, in this game Snell had recorded seven of eight strikeouts against, and who were hitless; or (2) remove Snell for one of his better relievers, Nick Anderson.  

Adding to this was one thing we heard over and over again from the Fox TV announcers, which was these top Dodgers' batters learned to adjust by late innings to any starting pitcher--and any pitcher who pitches long enough. I am also certain--certain!--Cash knew what the Dodgers did to Justin Verlander in Game 6 of the Houston Asterisks vs. Dodgers 2017 World Series, which was to score two runs off Verlander in the sixth inning--after Verlander had dominated the Dodgers nearly as strongly as Snell was doing in this Game 6.  

Well, we know what happened. Cash, who had been making great managerial switches and moves throughout the series, keeping the underrated Rays in the series against a formidable Dodgers' team, decided to remove Snell for Nick Anderson. And the Dodgers scored two runs in the inning anyway, taking a lead the Rays had held since the first inning, 2-1.  It is worth noting how Cash had opened Game 6 with a change in the lineup order, moving his star hitter to second spot, and putting in a reliably good hitter, who usually batted lower in the lineup, into the first spot. I said to The Mother at the start of the game that Cash wanted to get The Rays on top in the first inning, and rely on Snell for a good five or six innings. It worked for Cash, as the new number two hitter hit a first inning home run, and Snell was already showing he was on fire against the tinder Dodger bats.

I go into this because I don't want to hear how the Rays lost because of Cash's decision in the sixth inning of Game 6.  If one is to compare managerial decisions throughout the 2020 World Series, Cash is far more the reason the Rays were even in the hunt. Cash made no managerial judgment errors at all, and had managed his team with a quiet confidence and determination that made this team believe they could beat anyone--and had beaten the Yankees in a long series and the Asterisks, seeking redemption, in a long series, before facing the Dodgers. Meanwhile, Dodgers' skipper, Dave Roberts, made several poor managerial moves in the Series, which had turned what Los Angeles Times sports writers thought would be a Dodgers' sweep into a nail-biter. In Game 6, Roberts decided to start an unreliable rookie, Tony Gonsolin, instead of going with the steady and effective veteran, Rich Hill.  Then, with a quick home run in the first inning against Gonsolin, and then Gonsolin having a shaky second inning, where the Rays may have blown open the game, Roberts realized he was wrong.  Roberts then brought in Dylan Floro, who got the last out against the Rays' superstar, which shows The Rays had already gone through the order in 1.2 innings. One would have thought, Roberts is now going to leave in Dylan Floro for the third inning. Nope.  Going with these ridiculously overrated left on right and right on left matchups, Roberts essentially wasted Floro, and Floro never came back on the field after Snell quickly mowed down the Dodgers in the bottom of the second. Instead, Roberts finally put in Hill, showing why I and probably a couple of million Dodgers' fans were right that Hill should have been the starter.  Hill went on to pitch two innings of no-hit, no-run ball, something more likely to have happened had he started.  Instead, the Rays were up 1-0 going into the sixth inning, and Snell pitching like Sandy Koufax and Bob Feller in the first five innings.  

So, there's those managerial decisions from Roberts. Now, let's talk about Game 4, which the Rays should never have won. Roberts, defying analytics that should told him likely washed up reliever, Kenley Jansen, was unable to hold a one-run lead, put in Jansen in a one-run lead situation in the ninth inning. Roberts wanted to give Jansen confidence, after a solid performance in an earlier game when the Dodgers had more than a one run lead (and note Jansen gave up a home run in that short relief appearance). And we know what happened there. Yeah, yeah, the Dodgers committed two errors to end that game in favor of the Rays, but there is no way Julio Urias or Rich Hill or Dylan Floro or another good pitcher would have let a non-entity player like Brett Phillips hit any ball out of the infield in that ninth inning crunch time. Also, I don't hear anyone criticizing Roberts for removing still strong ace, Clayton Kershaw, in the sixth inning of Game 5, when Kershaw had clearly found a groove, and should have been allowed to finish the sixth after recording two easy outs--but I was screaming at Roberts while at The Folks house watching the game.  Had the Dodgers lost that lead and game, I know people would have woken up that Roberts had been making poor managerial moves, and I even said on FB that if the Dodgers lose this World Series, Roberts would be fired. Not for removing Kershaw alone, but a series of moves.  

It is ridiculous to think the entire Series goes against The Rays because of Kevin Cash's still-reasonable move, when Cash knew Snell better than anyone in the park, and couldn't afford to take any chances--particularly with Snell's weak sixth and later innings.  The announcers and baseball writers were already going to blame Cash if Snell faltered, as, again, there was so much chatter about the Dodgers' hitters being able to adjust to any pitcher's moves as a game wore on.

What is NOT ridiculous, however, is the fact we are in a baseball era that should be called the Reliever Era.  Nowadays, no starting pitcher in Major League Baseball ever goes past the fifth or sixth, and maybe seventh inning, and the entire statistic known as Complete Games for a pitcher is a distant memory.  Remember the days when Ferguson Jenkins would win 25 games in a season, and pitched at least 20 complete games?  That was a real statistic, and now....a pitcher may get a complete game once a season, if at all.

I found myself thinking about this as I first watched, on YouTube, the seventh game of the 1965 World Series between the Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins.  At one point early in the broadcast, Vin Scully, the legendary Dodgers' announcer, said the starting pitcher for the winning team in all six games of that World Series pitched a complete game. And then, in Game 7, Sandy Koufax, the winning pitcher for the Dodgers, pitched a complete game, too. Last night, and this morning, I watched the nearly one hour documentary just released on YouTube (for some reason, the last minutes of the 2018 reunion day at Dodgers Stadium are missing; too bad) about the crazy, amazing Dodgers' team in 1988, which defied all odds and defeated the Oakland Athletics, after defeating a "mighty" (Tommy Lasorda's word) Mets' team in the NL Championship Series.  And what do we see there?  Orel Hershiser's astonishing pitching, where the man Lasorda called The Bulldog, pitched two complete games in the series, plus a relief appearance to get a save in a game. Lasorda left in his star pitcher to complete a game, whether he had a shut out or whether he had given up a few runs. 

We see something else in the Dodgers' 1988 championship run, which is the brilliance of Tommy Lasorda's gut-level managing. Lasorda remains, in his 90s, a character, and he is not a smart guy in any intellectual sounding sense.  But, Tommy Lasorda knew and knows people, and he knew and knows baseball. He was a genius at knowing how to rile up or calm down a player to give confidence in that player to perform at his best. There was an old saw back in the 1980s that "Gene Mauch was the dumbest smart baseball manager and Tommy Lasorda was the smartest dumb baseball manager." Mauch could quote Shakespeare and was well read.  Tommy? Anti-intellectual to the core. Yet, we know who we'd rather have managing a ball club any day of the week: Tommy, hands down.  Mauch never won a World Series and Tommy won two. And I frankly don't remember second guessing Lasorda on anything except Lasorda letting then-ace reliever Tom Niedenfurer pitch to the St. Louis Cardinals' slugger, Jack Clark, in the 1985 National League Championship Series.  Tommy never lived that down.  I don't know any Dodger fan in real time who thought that was a good decision. I was visiting relatives in NJ at the time and was screaming, "No! Walk him! Walk him! Don't pitch to him!"  And then, Boom!  Sigh.

The Dodgers of 2020 were the team which was supposed to win the 2020 World Series. They had the best record in baseball (The Rays had the third best, behind the Dodgers' division rivals, the San Diego Padres). The Dodgers were the 1988 Oakland A's in 2020, and The Rays had begun to look like the 1988 Dodgers, with improbable wins and timely hitting that was amazing. Yet, The Dodgers prevailed. And to think The Rays' loss should be blamed on Kevin Cash is ludicrous, when considering he clearly out-managed my admitted hero (I have loved him since his playing days) Dave Roberts.  Before this series, I used to defend Roberts, especially when we learned how the Houston Astros/Asterisks and likely the Boston Red Sox cheated their way through the 2017 and 2018 World Series against the Dodgers. And the fact a now older, and less stellar, Kershaw pitched extremely well in this year's playoffs, proves to me how The Boys in Blue would have won at least the 2017 World Series if the Asterisks hadn't cheated. I therefore think the Dodgers were ready and determined to win this year, and, despite Roberts' various bad managerial moves, the Dodgers prevailed as they are a truly deep team in nearly every category.

Yet, watching the documentary, I remain struck by how much Lasorda managed by instinct and gut, and not analytics.  And I was also struck by how Kirk Gibson, not Lasorda, first decided he could bat, and that it was Gibson, not Lasorda, who had studied the scouting report on the A's ace reliever, Dennis Eckersley. Gibson knew, if he got Eckersley to 3-2 count, Eckersley would likely throw an inside slider.  Unlike the Asterisks and BoSox, Gibson did not know for certain Eck would do that.  It was sorta like an analytic and a gut, wasn't it? :). Anyway, Gibson also knew he had no leg strength, so he had to hold and swing the bat in a manner which relied only on upper body strength.  In other words, Gibson scripted himself into the Hollywood ending that has become the key moment in all of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers's history--and even Dodgers' announcer, Vin Scully, was scripting the ending as one hears him say, after literally waiting two minutes to let the visuals and sounds unfold in the pandemonium at Dodgers Stadium: "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened."  

Back in that moment, I was sitting in Berkeley, CA with the legendary labor organizer, and 1930s Communist, Clyde Johnson, then about 80 years old.  Clyde was rooting for the A's, which for him was the home team. As Clyde and I watched Gibby get up to the plate, and then quickly, but weakly, foul off two pitches, looking terrible, Clyde said to me (and after so many years, I must paraphrase), "You know, if Gibson just uses his upper body, I think he can hit a home run to right field." I looked at Clyde in disbelief and said, it's an 0-2 count and Gibson looks horrible. Well, Gibby worked the count to 3-2, and then, Bam! The famous home run to right field.  After a moment of shock, I jumped up screaming, and Clyde was laughing.  He then said he felt bad for his team, but he admitted he loved how he was a prophet and loved that I was so happy. The next day, I was at my wife's friends' house in San Mateo, for a World Series Watch Party, and Hershiser mowed down the A's, yes, in a 3-hit complete game shutout, 6-0.  It was hard then to show any positive emotion as these people were all expecting their A's to bounce back and beat these imposters who did not even belong in the World Series that year.  These people were in shock and deeply depressed. 

I have another personal story about that series, which happened about a week later.  I was in a deposition in downtown Los Angeles and was sitting next to a lawyer from O'Melveny & Myers, a nationally top rated law firm.  People in the room began talking again about the Dodgers' victory and Gibson, and, somewhat meekly, he said he was at Game 1, the game Gibby hit his history-changing home run. He then went on to say that, because he had to complete preparing a summary judgment motion, he left the game in the eighth inning, when the Dodgers had just scored a run to make the game 4-3. The Gibson home run occurred in the bottom of the ninth with Mike Davis on second base.  We all laughed and said, You couldn't stay on a Saturday night, and just go in Sunday morning to finish the motion?  He replied, Well, the motion was on my mind, and I figured, how were the Dodgers ever going to come back against Eckersley?  The fellow went on to be a partner at O'Melveny, and I think may have finally retired, though he was around my age (He was obviously more successful than I was...). 

When I think of the 1988 Dodgers now, I have to say Vin Scully is correct that these 1988 Dodgers were at least as improbable as the 1969 New York Metropolitans, also known that year as The Miracle Mets. But there is something more mechanical about baseball management these days, with managers especially quick to pull starting pitchers and treat them like glorified relievers. The managers, and with  oversight during the game from the front office, runs upon a cold numbers-based analysis, not a Tommy Lasorda's warmed gut or a Kirk Gibson's personal determination. While one can say, even under analytics type decision-making, Snell had pitched less than 80 pitches, and had not played a full 162 game season in this pandemic, Roberts was managing the same way, when, in Game 5, he pulled Kershaw at a time Kershaw had shown he was in a groove and dominating.  A Tommy Lasorda would never have pulled either pitcher, and, as noted above, in the 1965 World Series, managers routinely let starting pitchers pitch a complete game. When Roberts pulled Kershaw, I was screaming at Roberts that he was nuts. However, the Dodgers held on in Game 5 despite that quick-pull of Kershaw. Had Nick Anderson squelched the Dodgers in the bottom of the sixth inning of Game 6, we may be hearing  how Kevin Cash was a genius for timely removing Snell and replacing him with Anderson. But, instead, The Rays were not able to hold on in Game 6 after Cash's quick-pull of Snell. 

In the end, baseball is about teams, and a series of games, not really a single moment.  Gibson's home run would not have made much difference if the Dodgers didn't have the hottest pitcher of the 1980s, We cannot emphasize enough how Hershiser really led that team in the last month of the season, and into the playoffs, and that he pitched two complete games in that World Series, and even hopped in to do a save--again, with Lasorda's gut decision-making. In the documentary, we learn Lasorda began calling Hershiser "Bulldog" when he was a young pitcher, and did so in an ironic bait to demand Hershiser perform with more confidence. When he first came up to the big leagues, Hershiser was apparently afraid to directly challenge batters. The nickname stuck, and Hershiser became a guy who competed with the frenzy of a bulldog on a burglar's leg. 

It is my take that this year, even analytics-style decision-making cannot change the fact the 2020 Dodgers, unlike the 1988 As, were a determined bunch who had lived through frustrating losses in 2017 and 2018 in World Series play, and were not going to let a World Series loss occur again. They had already come back from a 3-1 deficit to the Atlanta Braves, who really looked strong during the last part of the shortened season, and rolled through the playoffs till the Dodgers showed up. So, congratulations to my Boys in Blue, and, as Bob Costas said in one of his discussions about this recently ended series, I admit I felt relief as much as joy in the Dodgers' World Series Championship win. :)