Presidential Election 2016, Cont.

In the military, you can never be too dependent on any one individual.  It's too easy for them to go missing at a critical moment in time, and so you need an entire system designed to work regardless of who is or isn't there.


That isn't necessarily true in real life.  You can act as though people are interchangeable, and yet they really aren't.  It's a bit of a paradox, actually.  There are many different types of leaders, and what works for one won't work for another.  And yet sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't.  Certain stylistic differences (such as one leader who is loud and talkative versus another that is quiet and reserved) may not matter at all.  "Quiet and reserved" can come across as dignified, and heighten respect.  Or aloof, and become a negative.  Too much depends on context, and the relationship between the leader and the led.


That said, there are times when the person filling the role makes a tremendous difference.  Going back to my earlier discussion on counterinsurgency and grievances, it makes a great deal of difference if the leaders addressing those grievances argue for non-violence (i.e. Martin Luther King, Jr or Mahatma Gandhi) versus one that opens the doors to violence.


Which kind of reminds me of the Great Man theory.  Rather than take sides on this, I will say that the truth is probably more complicated than either side wants to admit.  That there are times when large social or political forces are at play (like nationalism and the fight against imperialism), and takes on a life of it's own.  And there are other times where a 'Great Man' (or 'Great Woman') living in a certain context, can somehow rise above that context and make a history-changing difference.


You can run this analysis on all sorts of situations - in war, for example, some people like to focus on the economics behind the war.  That is, during the American Civil War the north had more economic power than the South, particularly after following a strategy that minimized Southern economic strength (i.e. the Anaconda Plan and the South's failure at cotton diplomacy)...and perhaps the underlying economics did favor the North.  Yet if the North had repeatedly lost battles wouldn't the economic tides have eventually shifted?  And didn't the personalities matter?  General McClellan, President Lincoln, General (and later President) Ulysses S. Grant, wouldn't history have been different if any one of these had been a different sort of person?


You can go deeper and deeper down that rabbit hole, too.  That is, could Ulysses S. Grant have been able to make a difference if the structure of the army (and society) at the time had been different?  What if he had never had a chance to lead a charge, and remained a quartermaster all his life?  What if he was unable to gain a militia commission?  What if his drinking problem prevented him from gaining a formal promotion?


I'm not really trying to say the system at the time was better or worse than what we have today, just pointing out that there are different contexts that can make it easier (or harder) to have the right person in the right place at the right time.  And that's assuming that Ulysses S. Grant was the right person at the right time, and that no other could have filled that role quite as well.


So I got to thinking about this, because of the current presidential election and Hillary Clinton.  It's like - if our system is healthy and robust, then to a certain extent it shouldn't matter too much who fills the role of President.  Or rather, it matters in a certain sense (Democrats and Republicans have very different points of view, and even though Congress has more influence on what becomes law than the president, the power of the President is not negligible.)  Yet, in another sense, what does it matter whether it's Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders?  Or, on the Republican side, whether it's Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.

I bring that up, because it gets yet again at what has bothered me about the Democratic primary.  In 2008 we had a very wide field of Democratic candidates.  In addition to Obama and Hillary, there was John Edwards.  Joe Biden. Dennis Kucinich. and plenty more.


In 2016 it was Bernie Sanders.  And some minor characters that hardly had any air time, to be honest.  (The names I listed in 2008 were ones I recall seeing and hearing about significantly during the race.)  Even though I was vaguely aware that Lincoln Chafee, Lawrence Lessig and Jim Webb were running they never really gained any credibility as a candidate.  And I don't even really recognize Martin O'Malley.


I've heard mutterings about the Clinton 'coronation' almost this entire primary, and it kind of looks like someone (or a group of someones) tried to do exactly that.  Bernie Sanders was the ONLY real competition, and the Democratic Party resented him for that the entire time. 


It's...un-American.  And, frankly, disturbing.  Why Hillary?  Why should so many people be so determined to make her the next President? 


Not "why do we need a Democratic president".  No.  Why must that candidate be Hillary?  Why was this settled so early in the race? 


I say that, because it almost seems like the Democratic Party is stuck with a 'sunk cost fallacy'.  Let's go back to before the e-mail scandal grew legs, before we got deep into campaigning, and look at what we knew about Hillary.  She has always had high unfavorables.  Always.  This is something the entire party apparently thought they could work around.  (You can argue about whether it's fair or not, sexist or not, justified or not...but you can't argue that it's not there.)


Yet that apparently didn't matter.  Next - we know the Republicans go after the Clintons like a dog chasing a squirrel.  Funny how, in the last eight years at least, they didn't seem to go after the Obamas to quite the same degree.  That implies that (again - fair or not, sexist or not, justified or not) you will see the Republicans make life difficult for Hillary Clinton to a degree they probably wouldn't for any other candidate. 


On top of all of that, we have Hillary Clinton's noted preferences for privacy.  Again, her supporters say it's all justified, having survived those aforementioned attacks. (Isn't it great when you can use a word like 'aforementioned'?)  She's found a tactic that she seems to think works, and she sticks with it.  Unfortunately, her preferred tactic ends up making issues that might have been minor otherwise turn into something bigger.  See, Democrats and Republicans focus so much on each other that they forget most people don't really pay attention and hardly care.  It's kind of like in a counterinsurgency, where you're so focused on getting 'the bad guys' that you forget about the neutral farmers and workers who are just trying to make a living.


At the end of the day, half of what the news reports about politics is just white noise.  It only matters to politicos (and I'll include myself here) who follow that sort of thing.  So while Hillary may think she's got a great strategy for dealing with Republican harassment, the thing outsiders tend to pick up on is that her strategy involves privacy and secrecy.  And that she will go to ridiculous lengths to keep it that way, to the point where it seems like she really must have something to hide.


Even worse, is that I suspect she thinks it's okay to do whatever it takes to defend against Republican attacks, and doesn't seem to care that her defenses make her sound like a liar or an idiot.  See my previous post about her testimony on the (C) in her e-mails.  Okay, I can see why you'd think it's okay to lie to Republicans.  But to the FBI?  And to the general public?  They're more forgiving than the Republicans, and they probably wouldn't care too much if you had just told the truth from the beginning.  It'd probably be more like the wikileaks of state department cables, where anyone actually paying attention just shrugs and says "whatever".  (I added 'from the beginning' because if you don't do it right away, everything that gets dragged out into the light is suspect.  And if you apologize after denying you did anything wrong it sounds more like you're just doing what it takes to get people to forget and move on, not because you sincerely believe you actually did something wrong.  Especially if you undermine your own apology with later statements.)


This is tied in with something else I said earlier - why did nobody in the Democratic Party pull Hillary aside and tell her that being the subject of an FBI investigation was bad news, and that maybe she should withdraw?  Why, instead, did the entire establishment somehow act as though it was no big deal?  (yeah, yeah...those of you who still think it's not a big deal will disagree with me on this, entirely.  The funny thing is, though, that the people arguing that are almost inevitably people who have never worked with classified material before.)


So anyways.  The more that the Democratic Party insisted that Hillary was their gal, the more they put resources into supporting her, the more difficult it becomes to change course when her weaknesses come to light.  And the timing gets worse and worse.  If she had withdrawn at any point in the last year, the Democratic Party probably could have found another candidate.  At this point, however, they'd be in a lot of trouble if that happened.


Same thing with the possible 'October surprise' Assange claims he has.  If he released it now, the Democratic Party would have time to deal with it.  The fact that Assange is holding on to it indicates he cares less about sharing information and more about deliberately releasing it in order to shape the course of the 2016 presidential election.


If I were the Democratic Party, I would want to know what he thinks he has.  If it truly is enough to shape the race I would either try getting it out pre-emptively (if it's not as big a deal as he thinks) or get Hillary to resign right away (if it really is).  Why wait until October? 


Anyways.  To tie this in to my beginning musings - why is the Democratic Party (and the media, and all the various other organizations who have overlooked her weaknesses as a candidate) so determined to make sure she's the next President? 

I have no idea who I'll vote for, can we have a do over?

Sometimes, on occasion, one of my employees will tell me about something another employee did.  Responding to that is kind of tricky, though some supervisors say you should discourage this entirely.  Too much tattletelling can create a work environment where everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and people may only tell on those they dislike...which lets personal issues get in the way of it.

On the flip side, I (as a supervisor) can not be everywhere at once.  And my people generally know when I'm around, and aren't stupid enough to do something wrong where I will see it.  So I won't really know there's an issue to address if I'm not told...

Stepping aside from those sorts of questions, however, is what happens if I do decide to address it.  First, I have learned to space things out from when someone talks to me and when I address it.  That's because one of the first things the employee does is to try and figure out who told on them.  To me, that's missing the point.  I'm addressing you because you did something wrong.  Something you should fix.  Who told me that you did something wrong is beside the point, and makes me feel like you don't really think you did anything wrong.  And probably aren't going to do anything to fix it or change it in the future.  (Or, at best, that you'll just try not to do it where you might get caught). 

Even worse, of course, is that whoever I'm addressing might try to take revenge or get back at someone if they figure out who did it.  And may even mistake the source, and make life difficult for someone who is completely uninvolved.  (I had someone at our mid-year review mention that she was mad at the HR person and me for a little while, because one of her co-workers claimed we had told the co-worker she'd said something.)

So anyways.  I generally try not to fill this blog up with work stuff.  I brought all that up more because I want readers to understand where I'm coming from when I say that I'm pretty disgusted with how the Democratic Party has handled a variety of issues over the last year.  Some of their arguments sound like something a five year old would say (i.e. "But everyone else is doing it!!!"), some of it is the response of my less mature associates (i.e. "Who gave you that information?!?  Was it the Russians?)...

and none of it actually addresses the wrong that was done.  It makes me think that they really don't see a problem with it, assume that this is just 'business as usual', and are more upset at having to deal with a media scandal than that they have any real belief that wrong was done.

One of my employees likes to talk politics, and he claims that the Democratic Party has always been corrupt, and that it's only this past year that's made it obvious to everyone.  Note: I am not looking for a "Republicans are just as bad" response, because that's just another way of looking away from the problem.

And is there a problem?  I think so.  The wikileaks e-mail dump about the DNC shows that Debbie Wasserman Shultz was playing favorites.  Howard Dean, who I presume ought to know as he was a DNC Chair himself, believed the DNC was supposed to be impartial.  If the Democratic Party can show that these e-mails were forged, then I would care more about Russian involvement.  (Their attempt to influence the election is disturbing, but it wouldn't have been possible if the DNC wasn't doing something wrong in the first place.  So to me this is a lesser problem than what the e-mails revealed.  Wikileaks allegations that there is more to leak is somewhat more disturbing, mainly because if they're going to leak it they should just get on with it.  This attempt to time when you release info shows that they aren't really about freedom of information so much as using an information  I get that loyalty is a prized trait in political circles.  So much so that they will value the loyal supporter over someone more talented (and this brings it's own issues, and has it's own implications, but that's a post for another time).  If Hillary wanted to take care of a loyal supporter - someone who wasn't supposed to act like a loyal supporter in the role she was in - than I'm sure she could have found an ally to hire Debbie.  The fact that Hillary felt no need to distance herself from Debbie, and hired her on (even if it's a token role), shows that Hillary really doesn't see anything wrong with what Debbie did.

All my arguments hold true, as well, for what I find disturbing about those defending Hillary's use of a private server. 

And the total lack of concern about this, the attitude that nothing wrong was done and it's all just conservative witch-hunting, kind of makes me mad.  I still think Trump is worse, but I just can't bring myself to say I would actually vote for Hillary.  Not when she, her staff, and the entire Democratic Party doesn't seem to realize that they're doing anything wrong.  In some ways I have more respect for the Republicans who are speaking out against Trump than for the Democrats who are willing to look the other way so long as their candidate wins.

And this ties in to another article I read, Politico's article discussing how Barack Obama decided Hillary should be his successor.  See, I get why he would want his legacy to continue.  I suppose there's reason to think Hillary's most likely to succeed.  Hell, according to a site I go to Hillary most closely matches my own views...and I guess I'm supposed to be a supporter.

But here's the thing.  How you get somewhere matters.  It's part of that whole "do the ends justify the means?" debate.  If the only way you can make your policies continue, if the only way to secure your legacy, is to do things that subvert the democratic process and basically take away our right to choose...

Than that's a pretty big problem.  Almost, but perhaps not quite, as big as Trump taking office.  It's presents a very different sort of problem, one not quite as big and bombastic, one that is perhaps even scarier in how quiet and subtle it is.

After all, nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with Hillary hiring the former DNC chair.

Election 2016

This is very close to my beliefs, though I have a few quibbles.

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-25/democratic-machine-chose-clinton-long-ago-but-why

I will eventually write more, but I'm playing a lot of pokemon go and get tired of railing about things people either already know or refuse to get. 

Hey, I caught a (low powered) Pikachu yesterday! 

2016 Presidential Election

I've had a couple posts circulating around in my head, but finding the time to solidify it and type it out has been hard.  I can't let myself get sucked into my writing headspace too much...if I do that, then I start thinking about it too much at work.  And then I'm not doing what I actually am paid to do.  So I try to figure out what I want to type in the evenings. When I'm not unwinding from work, or reading something new, or taking my Little to go swimming, or whatever.  Point is, life gets in the way....which is only to be expected in a hobby like this. :)

The downside to this is that I occasionally come across some really, really good articles and I have to either do a quick link (that may not do the article justice), or shift some of my other posts aside to cover the new material (still got one I'd call 'Step 2' on Making America Great Again, focused more on foreign policy and strategy), or forget it entirely.

This article was one of them, and I want to discuss what it means to me.  I think I've made it clear I'm not a Hillary fan.  I want to go into that a little bit first, actually.  I was talking to an aunt of mine about the election a few months back, and she asked me when I first started disliking Hillary. I originally said it was when she chose to 'stand by her man' after the Lewinsky scandal, but that's not quite right.  (I never really understood why that was considered a good move.  Some politician does some bone-headed and idiotic thing and gets caught, and next thing you know they're trotting out his wife - who privately might feel or think anything, and probably hasn't had time to really get through their own anger and shock.  If it was a shock.  Anyways, they trot her out to give some line about how she forgives him and we all should forgive him too.  But hey, their marriage is not actually my business.  Any of them.  I just think most of the public speeches are lies meant to smooth the political waters, and I have more respect for wives like Jenny Sanford than for any of the ones that put on the standard show.)  In thinking about it, however, that wasn't quite right.

Or rather, I had picked the moment but not the real reason.  The reason had to do with how both Clintons reacted to the affair.  Deny, deny, deny.  Deny until you absolutely can't deny any more, and then when you have to, admit to some sort of failing...but not anything like what your opponents are accusing you of.  This is, apparently, good politics.  I think it's absolutely atrocious leadership.  I suppose that comes from the military, or my own upbringing.  Where you respect people for owning their mistakes, taking responsibility, and working to fix things.  In many ways, it isn't even the scandal itself (which is sometimes extremely stupid).  It's the way they respond to it.

I've come across a couple of articles that, if not exactly reconciling me to it, at least make me understand better why they'd make a choice that reflects so poorly on their characters.  I could write an entire post about why character matters in a president, and I might do that some other time.  At this point I think a quote from The American President is appropriate -

"For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character" (emphasis mine)

I have a friend who follows politics, and one of the things that bothers me in our discussions is how little she cares about character.  To her, all politicians are corrupt.  All politicians are liars.  So it doesn't matter what scandal you catch them doing, since they all are doing it anyway.  (Some just got caught, that's all).  And so she focuses only on the issues.  To me, you can't separate them out like that.  Character is what drives your reactions to the things that aren't pre-planned and vetted out.  Character is what makes you decide what to fight for, and when to follow the crowd.  (Though this, too, can be open to debate.  Do we elect politicians to do what we voted them in for?  Or because we expect them to use their judgment and make wise decisions?  If the former, than following the political winds makes sense.)

So anyways.  This article discussing the racial divide revealed by the Bernie/Hillary primary seemed important and enlightening for entirely different reasons.  I remember when the OJ trial occurred, and how most every (white) person considered it a travesty of justice.  We're almost certain he was the murderer, though of course you can't convict someone based on public opinion.  Yet it seemed like he did it, and he got away with it.  And murder!  One of the most horrific crimes out there!  And yet to African Americans, this was important for an entirely different reason.  It showed that a rich black man could get the same justice as a rich white man...what mattered was having the money to afford that slick lawyer.

And as I've been reading about modern slavery, I decided to pick up a book that my friend (mentioned above) gave me when she was clearing off her bookshelf.  It's called Dwelling Place, and it's about life on a plantation in the slave-owning south.  And the thing of it is - when decisions were so very arbitrary, and justice a pipe dream, can you blame the southern slaves for not caring so much about the points I just made?  And when you have a culture that knows justice is a joke, that life isn't fair, and that the people who claim to have 'character' are the same ones that enslaved your ancestors, can you really blame them for deciding to support someone who stands for the issues they care about?  Regardless of their character?

I still don't like Hillary, I still think she's an awful choice, and I'm pretty disappointed at how much the Democratic Party (and the media) appears to have pushed her through as a candidate.  If the Republicans could have come up with a decent candidate she'd have been in real trouble.  But I get, to a certain extent, why she has some of the support she has.