I'm a Democrat for Democracy

 

I'm back!  I haven't provided a new post since February 5, 2020.  Since then I published my second novel, The Activist with KDP on Amazon.com and wrote my third, The Survivor, which I plan to publish this summer.  Both concern the continued relationship between a grandfather, an aging liberal activist from the 1960s, and his grandson, a conservative libertarian supporter of Donald Trump through the events of January 6, 2021.  More on this later.  I am also happy to report that I and my extended families survived the pandemic and the lockdowns!  Now, with political campaigns and general elections coming up this November, I want to say more to you through this blog.

I'm a Democrat for Democracy

When I was in high school many years ago, I sat through the state-required class called Problems of Democracy (POD).  The teacher asserted that American democracy has always had problems, but we have gotten past them, because our Constitution is inviolate and our system of government is rock-solid stable.

Now I wonder.  We were taught that voting is a privilege and a civic duty, but a great number of people don’t.  We used to have competitive races in politically balanced districts, yet now we have extensive gerrymandering that produce guaranteed results and unaccountable representatives from state houses to Congress.  Presidents are being elected by razor thin margins in just a few swing counties in just a few swing states due to the “winner-take-all” Electoral College regardless of the total popular vote.  A violent mob provoked by the President himself attacked the Capitol.  We used to boast of our individual liberties and now neither our homes nor our bodies are free from government interventions.  And I could go on and on….

I remember an old man in my neighborhood when I was a child who told me that he was getting more conservative as he grew older, but he hated to think that life had already passed him by.  He was 92 years old then, and I’m now on my way there myself.  I refuse, however, to give up my long-held progressive ideals.  That’s why in our current troubled times, I remain standing as a Democrat for democracy.  I want to move forward with five very important propositions:

1.    Let every eligible voter vote and count every valid vote.  The presidential election of 2020 challenged the very foundation of American electoral democracy.  In the future, we need to both encourage and facilitate every eligible voter to vote.  Let's make it very easy for eligible voters to register and to vote – to vote only once per voter but by many different options.  We cannot disenfranchise voters away from home, the elderly, and the home-bound sick and disabled as well as their caregivers.  We also need to get stricter about voter eligibility.  Voter registration should be rigorously validated and updated in systematic and transparent ways.  Vote counting should likewise be more rigorous and open to easy and accurate certification.  In addition, there must be substantive voter equality by holding elections in politically balanced districts or other geographical units.  Maybe we should abandon districts within states and have only state-wide elections for at-large representatives.  

2.     Make all governments more efficient, effective, and responsive to the people they serve. American manufacturers lost their global dominance in the 1970s to competitors who could produce superior quality products at lower prices.  They rebounded because of new facility investments, process re-engineering that assured quality control at lower costs, waste reductions, and deployment of technological advancements, such as CAD/CAM and robotics.  Following the example of manufacturing, service companies have also undertaken process re-engineering.  Now it’s time for similar process improvements in the public sector.  They must deliver superior value for taxpayers.  Governments at all levels need to modernize facilities, reduce time delays and customer frustrations, improve accuracy, and reduce costs to provide more effective and efficient services to Americans.  Government business should be as transparent as possible while protecting national security and individual rights.   

3.      Restore ethical government.  We need to go much further with ethics laws to make public the personal assets and financial interests of all people who serve in public offices from city and county offices all the way to the White House.  We need to stop conflicts of interest and corruption from the very start.  There should be no relatives or business partners or big contributors of office holders also on government payrolls.  Contracts and investments made by government offices need to be carefully reported and monitored.  

4.      Protect Personal Liberties.  Consistent with the intensions of the Founding Fathers in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we must strongly re-affirm the role of the national government to protect at the national level the personal liberties of individuals.  Among other provisions, the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments should be broadly interpreted to include the individual right to personal privacy, including one’s health and integrity of physical body as well as real property, possessions, and assets.  No person can be denied rights to body and property without due process.  Americans are entitled to privacy in the bedroom as well as other places in homes.  They are also entitled to their privacy online as well as other forms of personal communications.  Individuals should be allowed to mind their own business as long as they are not infringing upon the rights of other individuals.  Governments at all levels must police abuses to individual rights by corporations, organizations, other individuals, and governments themselves.

5.    Define infrastructure broadly.  Governments at all levels are responsible for a commonly shared infrastructure.  In earlier times, infrastructure was narrowly defined as streets and roads, bridges, and public buildings.  It also included public safety and health services, such as clean drinking water, sewage treatment, garbage collection, and responsible police forces.  In the changing world that we live in today, infrastructure must be broadly defined to include air and water standards and regulations, climate change mitigation, management of pandemics, universal access to health care, and affordable education for all households from pre-school through the post-secondary levels.  We might further define infrastructure to include a nationwide system of public and private sector collaboration to provide broadband connectivity and electricity from manufactured energy sources.

   copyright 2022 Stephen M. Millett (all rights reserved)  

         

 

   

The Next Civil War Is Getting Closer

     I created this blog to elaborate on my book, American Ways (2016).  I began it with the question "Are We Headed for Another Civil War?" (posted February 23, 2017).  I followed up with further blogs on this topic during March 2017.  Now, about three years later, the possibility of another civil war seems even closer.  On September 30, 2019, a megachurch pastor in Texas predicted that if Pres. Donald Trump were successfully impeached then there would be a revolt of Evangelical Christians and "a Civil War like fracture of the Nation."  Trump retweeted this prediction and added "Democrats don't care if they burn down and destroy this nation."  In Trump's mind, impeachment always was purely partisan and a way for Democrats to reverse the election of 2016 (in which he won the Electoral College, but lost the country-wide popular vote), and to prevent his re-election in 2020.  He has reiterated several times that he is the barrier to a civil war coming from the Radical Left.  His attitude about his Presidency reminds me of Louis  XIV, the Sun King of France, who warned "After me, the deluge" and defended the doctrine of absolute monarchy in the 1600s.  Trump has often tweeted his own version of the Absolute Presidency.
     Rather than preventing it, Trump will more likely cause a civil war.The next American civil war will center on the continued legitimacy of Trump in the White House.  Less than a year yet, Trump supporters are already warning of a fixed presidential election  this November.  Four years ago Trump complained that  the 2016 election would be fixed, "unless I win, of course."  In response to the failed results of the Iowa Democratic caucus on February 4, Donald Trump, Jr., tweeted "The fix is in...AGAIN…."  His brother Eric tweeted, "Mark my words.  They are rigging this thing."  This trend in objecting to false elections (like false news) suggests that if Trump were to lose re-election, he will ignore the results and claim that he actually won.  Buying time to prove (or fabricate) his case, he will refuse to vacate the White House, even after January 20, 2021.  In this scenario, the new Senate may recognize the Electoral College selection of the Democrat candidate as the winner and allow him or her to be sworn in as the new President.  If force were used to evict Trump and install the new President in the Oval Office, there will be widespread violence between Trump loyalists and Democrats who will be in positions of public authority.  In another scenario, if Trump were to lose he may peacefully leave the White House, but refuse to attend the inauguration of the new President, whom he will condemn as the Phony President.  His more violent base will take up arms and march on the White House.  If the police or the Army fires upon them, then there will be a civil war of periodic assassinations, bombings, arsons, and occasional shootouts (not military battles like the last Civil War) between the Trumpobites supporting the "Pretender" and the Democratic Administration.
     Another possibility is that Trump wins re-election, but Democrats contest the results as bogus.  They will accuse Trump and the Republicans (and the Russians) of fixing the results of polling places, especially in critical swing states.  The contested results will begin in various state and Federal courts and then spill into the streets as demonstrations, which will turn ugly in time.  In this scenario the Democrat winner of the election will be "The Usurper" and Trump will become a virtual dictator imposing martial law across the entire country, only inciting further violence by The Resistance.
     I will pursue further scenarios in the future.

copyright 2020 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved.)

Communityness is not Socialism

     Communityness is the aggregate of relationships and bonds among individuals who share things in common.  The sharing might be the DNA of extended families (or race or ethnic identity), geography (neighborhood, town, or polity), experiences and history, beliefs (religion, ideology, or worldview), and interests (both material and non-material).  The bonds may range from very strong to very weak and may fluctuate over time.  As I discussed in my book American Ways, strong communities make strong individuals, who in turn make strong communities.  Nobody makes it through life all alone all the time.  We need and benefit from shared resources and support.  Empathy is an important value.
      In communities, the people pursue common interests, such as defense from outside enemies and internal civic law, justice, and order -- the physical safety and predictability that allow everyone to go about their day-to-day business.  It also means public education as well as public health and sanitation.  In times of great distress it might also include general economic as well as public physical health.  Sickly, poor, homeless, and hungry individuals may pose a threat to the wellbeing of all other individuals in the community.
     In the eyes of extreme libertarians, all forms of communityness look like socialism.  They see the world through the lenses of fear -- fear that a strong community, especially government, will take away individual freedoms, even the freedoms that extend to greed and selfishness.  They fear dictators and domination by sub-communities of rival ideas and interests.  They fear losing their property and money.  They reject environmental regulations, measures to address global climate change, and common health insurance as forms of public health and sanitation.  They advocate lower community resources and spending and fewer government regulations that infringe upon short-term profits, however gained.  They completely reject the idea that the community may need to save free enterprise from itself by reacting to bad community behavior.
     Individuals do not have to surrender their personal liberties to achieve strong communities; they only have to cooperate with other individuals. As in team work, each individual is important working together toward a group goal.    Individuals need to take a broader and longer-term perspective to their own private wellbeing.  Sometimes personal gratifications have to be delayed.  All communities require a give-and-take among its members.  The key is fairness, defined as consistent processes to control problems, complaints, conflicts, and frustrations..  The members of a community need to agree to common processes and then abide by their rules.  This also means that members alike in standing within the community are treated alike.

Copyright 2019 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)

Undercutting the New Deal

     Building upon the ideals of fellow-Republican Abraham Lincoln two score years before, President Theodore Roosevelt believed that the Constitution of the Union was the same Constitution of individual liberties facing a new threat.  In the early years of the 20th century, the threat to personal liberties was not secession but the domination of Big Business in the form of large corporations and industry trusts.  In 1901, TR informed Congress that "great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with those institutions."  He asserted that the Federal government is a public institution (in the words of Lincoln, "of the people, by the people,  for the people") and therefore had the responsibility to protect everybody by regulating business practices, ending corporate abuses of consumers, and preventing business trusts and monopolies that restrained free trade and fixed higher prices.
     Three decades later, TR's concept of the Federal government as the public institution of the people to protect themselves was furthered by another Roosevelt, this time a Democrat.  Franklin D. Roosevelt reflected a widely held view that the Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression were caused by the greedy Wall Street crowd, abusive banks, and short-sighted manufacturers.  FDR argued that it was the role of the Federal government to manage an "economic constitutional order" that protected individuals from unethical and greedy business interests and maintained a balance between legitimate business interests and the right of each American to make a comfortable living.  The power of the Federal government extended beyond just commercial regulation at the national level to include the redistribution of wealth concentration through taxes and public programs that put money directly into the pockets of individual consumers, even the chronically unemployed and poor.
     Ever since FDR defeated  President Herbert Hoover in 1932, conservative Republicans have condemned the concepts of both President Roosevelts.  They have sought to curtail if not terminate government regulations of businesses and the lingering "big spending"programs of the New Deal, such as Social Security, food stamps, and other aid programs in the spirit of the New Deal, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.
     To advance their cause, conservatives have waged a vigorous and persistent ideological war to undercut the conceptual foundation of the New Deal.  They have reverted to the arguments of the anti-Federalists of the 1780s.  They have asserted with increasing anger that Big Government is not the friend or protector of the people but rather its enemy.  The Federal government endangers free enterprise, the freedom to work hard, make money, and enjoy the full benefits of property, so they claim.  Their point of view gained much support following  the Great Recession of 2007-2009, which was blamed on Big Government rather than Big Business.  A popular belief was spread by radio talk shows, 24/7 cable TV news,  and tabloids that Washington curtailed economic growth by over-regulation, excessive environmental controls, high taxes, and bad foreign trade agreements.  It was also accepted that  "give-away" programs to undeserving people discouraged individual initiative, hard work, and full employment.
     The U.S. Supreme Court in numerous cases has upheld the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and impose taxes.  The core questions are matters of policy:  Congress should regulate what businesses, how, where, and when?  And such questions turn on complex interactions among partisan politics, personalities, and vested interests as well as ideals.  An even more fundamental question centers on who benefits most from the existence or absence of Federal government regulations?

(C) 2019 Stephen M. Millett (all rights reserved)          

D. C. Stephenson: An American Tyrant

Americans typically think of tyrants in the context of ancient Greece and Rome, royal France, or 20th century Latin America, but tyrants could never occur in the U.S.  Yet, we have seen our own kind of tyrants in the sense of political machine bosses and corrupt city and state autocrats.  They have acted like tyrants by insisting upon unconditional personal loyalty and obedience.  They are highly egotistical, mean spirited, and even cruel.  They manipulate patronage for family and friends and exploit public projects for personal gain.  They insist that all public affairs rotate around them as indispensable personalities.   They would put Louis XIV to shame as absolute rulers by divine right.  Paradoxically, American tyrants are most likely to emerge at the city, county, and state levels even though we believe that the best governments are local and closest to the people.  We have yet to see a tyrant at the national level.
    Examples of American tyrants include Boss William Tweed of Tammany Hall and the Tweed Ring in New York City and state in the 1860s, Tom Pendergast of Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri from 1925 to 1939, and  "The Kingfish" Huey Long, the governor of and U.S. Senator from Louisiana, 1928-1935.
     Another, equally evil but not so famous American tyrant was D. C. Stephenson, the Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana during the 1920s.  By 1923, Stephenson, known as "Steve" or "the Old Man" at the age of 31, was recruiting an average of 2,000 new members at $10 each per week.  It is estimated that the Indiana Klan may have had as many as 262,000 hooded members, or one-third of all native-born white Hoosier men.  Stephenson packaged the Klan as a secret  fraternal society.  A master salesman, Stephenson peddled 100% Americanism, law and order, honest government, Protestant beliefs, traditional family values (with men as heads of households), and Prohibition.  He denounced corruption, Catholics, the Pope, and immigrants, especially low-life Irish.  Stephenson made a fortune off of the Klan and converted large amounts of cash into political power.The Grand Dragon captured the Republican Party in Indiana and set his eyes on the national party.  In the elections of 1924 Stephenson-backed candidates won the state's governor's office as well as a majority of the state legislature.  Plenty of county officials, too.  By 1925, Stephenson boasted, "I am the law in Indiana."
     Then the Grand Dragon fell even more dramatically than he rose.  In the spring of 1925 he was implicated in the death of a young woman who was a state employee.  He was arrested, indicted, and tried for the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer.  The defense argued that she died of self-administered poison.  The prosecution, however, showed that she died from a staph infection caused by human bites to her body.  Stephenson professed his innocence and exuded confidence that no jury in Indiana would ever find him guilty, but it did.  He was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.  He further asserted that he would get a pardon from his lackey, the governor.  He didn't.  In revenge  Stephenson exposed Klan-inspired corruption by state officials.  The Indianapolis Times subsequently won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Stephenson, the governor retired from politics, but the Grand Dragon remained in prison.  Meanwhile, the Indiana Klan collapsed as respectable men despite their agreement with Klan tenets rejected an organization associated with such a monster as D. C. Stephenson.

I have published a fictionalized history of the Indiana Klan in my recent novel, The Listener, which is available both as an e-book and paper copy at Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Listener-Novel-Stephen-M-Millett/dp/1731227310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546985622&sr=8-1&keywords=the+listener+stephen+millett


(c) 2019 by Stephen M. Millett  (All rights reserved)    

Non-Creative Destruction of the Free Market Economy

In 1942, the eminent economist Joseph Schumpeter coined one of the most profound terms in modern economic theory:  "creative destruction."  In his book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, he argued that free market capitalism is always a messy work-in-progress.  It is an economic system that is inherently unstable due to the dynamics of entrepreneurship, competition, technological discoveries, innovations, and productivity improvements.  These systemic characteristics destroy existing products and markets while providing greater value to consumers.  Because he approved of thses characteristics as modes of positive economic behavior, he said that in the long run such destruction of old businesses was creative of new and better products.  It was actually creative, even though some interests and individuals were damaged, while on the whole many people benefitted.  He saw economic growth as spurts of creative destruction along with entrepreneurship and innovation.
     Unfortunately, history tells us of many negative modes of economic behavior.  The free market system is unstable for many bad reasons, too.  Businessmen can destroy their own enterprises along with the whole free market economic system  with absolutely no creativity.  Schumpeter ignored the dark side of American capitalism: the abuses and stupidity of too many bad business practices, personal greed, and the creation of monopolies to eliminate competition and fix higher prices.  In the American economic system there is extraordinary pressure on enterprises to show attractive short-term profits -- to make money, as much and as soon as possible.   Americans prize immediate successes.  The fixation on short-term goals often leads to short-sighted decisions and corporate policies, and investments.  Managers get bonuses for quarterly profits even at the expense of long-term business growth.  There also have been corrupt businessmen who have deceived customers and investors through false claims and down-right lies.  They often cover up their greed and selfishness with false reports and falsified tax returns.  In he pocess they can destroy customer and investor confidence with ripples through the entire economic system.  Consumers will stop spending and investors will sell off stocks when they lose trust in business.

In a national democracy with a nation-wide economy where individuals are workers, consumers, investors,  voters, and taxpayers all at the same time, does the government have the responsibility to protect the people by regulating business practices and policing non-creative destruction of the free market econmy as though they were victimized by common criminals or attacked  by hostile foreign invaders?  Too many conservatives and business people would say "no way" and "over my dead body."  Along with plenty of innocent dead bodies as well.  If left entirely on its own, the greed, selfishness, and stupidity of a few players would make the free market system so unstable that it might destroy itself.





Copyright 2018 Stephen  M. Millett  (all rights reserved)      

The Curse of Sarah Palin

     A milestone of contemporary American politics was hit on September 24 and 25, 2008, when CBS aired Katie Couric's interviews with Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP candidate for Vice President.  At the time, many people were appalled by the Alaskan governor's superficial knowledge of American domestic and foreign issues.  They should not have been.  The curse of Sarah Palin was that it was not what you knew or how much experience you had but rather what you believed in that counted most.  She expressed a feeling of frustration and indignation that reflected the mood of many Americans who would later support Donald Trump.  And still do.
     The idea that candidates for public office should be well informed is now seen as elitist.  It reflects the values of well-educated Americans who dominate the professions, high skilled occupations, and most middle management in manufacturing and services.  They are the American urban upper middle class.  They place the accent on proven competency for any position of responsibility, regardless of race, gender, ethnic origins, religion,or personal orientation.  They respect preparation, analysis, and rational problem-solving.  These same people get denounced as liberals, do-gooders, and snobs.  By 2018 they might even be accused of constituting the Resistance.    
      Gov. Palin called Barack Obama a socialist.  Name calling was certainly not new.  What was new was the deliberate use of disinformation and blatant lies to attack political opponents.  For example, Palin popularized the wrong idea that Obamacare would create medical review panels that might deny coverage to the chronically ill and dying.  She called them the death panels, and her followers believed her.
     Her beliefs morphed into the Tea Party movement that merged with the alt right to support Donald Trump.  In 2016 they captured the Republican Party.  Today, President Trump consistently exploits disinformation to shore up his base of supporters, which might be as large as one-third of the American active electorate.  This base includes white men of the Baby Boomer Generation who are still fighting the battles of the 1960s, unrelenting Republican partisans, anti-regulation vested interests, the very rich who hate income taxes, people with lesser education and skills who have lost once well-paying jobs due to  technological changes and industry restructuring, deeply religious people who adhere to a rigid reading of the Bible, and rural populations in decline who have nowhere else to go.  They are anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-Muslim, anti-free trade, anti-immigration, and pro-military.  They worry about the Iranians, ISIS, and the North Koreans, but not the Russians.  They blame their own troubles on the snobbish urban elite that looks down on them, assertive minorities, Hispanic immigrants, and social deviants.  They greatly fear violence in the forms of crime, riots, and acts of terrorism (but not so much school shootings).  They see conspiracies everywhere and dread social upheaval.  And yet, if the U. S. were to have a violent revolution or a new kind of civil war, wound it not come from the Trump supporters after the eventual political fall of their hero?  After all, they are the people who are armed to the teeth and warn "Don't Tread on Me"

(C) 2018 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)