Politics

There are 144 posts filed in Politics (this is page 2 of 15).

Why I am sticking with Joe Biden

Yes, I watched the CNN debate on Thursday with Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Yes, I  thought Joe Biden’s “performance” at the debate was poor, compared to the confidence of Trump’s presentation. However, Biden answered the questions set by the moderators and generally answered those questions truthfully, while Trump repeatedly refused to answer the questions in the debate, even after being pressed several times for some of those questions. Trump told so many lies that it took CNN’s Daniel Dale several minutes just to list all the lies that Trump spewed out over the course of the debate (also see text of fact checking). As Joe Biden mentioned afterwards, “It’s hard to debate a liar.”.

Several other perspectives:

Mary Trump (Trump’s niece) on Substack:

While Biden’s performance is rightly being criticized, it was the debate moderators who allowed Donald to steamroll the truth with an incessant stream of increasingly bizarre and dangerous lies — that he, not President Biden instituted a cap on insulin, that blue states allow women and their doctors to commit infanticide, and that Nancy Pelosi  was somehow responsible for January 6th — while refusing to answer the questions asked of him. Why Jake Tapper and Dana Bash chose to abdicate their journalistic responsibility in service to a man who is an enemy of American democracy and a free press only they know, but that abdication should be a much bigger story, I know who Joe Biden really is. And I know who my uncle really is.  And I’ll take the decent guy with the sore throat who believes in democracy over the rapist insurrectionist monster every single time.

https://marytrump.substack.com/p/why-im-still-with-president-biden

Seth Abraham on Substack:

Biden will not step away from the 2024 election cycle because it would hand the presidency, beyond any doubt, to a confirmed rapist, serial sexual assailant, active insurrectionist, convicted felon, pathological liar, malignant narcissistic sociopath, gleeful adulterer, career criminal, unrepentant con man, traitorous would-be U.S. dictator, misogynist, antisemite, racist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, and budding war criminal.

https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/the-extremely-simple-reason-maga

Heather Cox Richardson on Substack:

Tonight was the first debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and by far the most striking thing about the debate was the overwhelming focus among pundits immediately afterward about Biden’s appearance and soft, hoarse voice as he rattled off statistics and events. Virtually unmentioned was the fact that Trump lied and rambled incoherently, ignored questions to say whatever he wanted; refused to acknowledge the events of January 6, 2021; and refused to commit to accepting the result of the 2024 presidential election, finally saying he would accept it only if it met his standards for fairness. 

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-27-2024

The American people have a choice between a convicted felon and liar, and a man who has fought to preserve democracy and improve our way of life. I am going with the second one. 

What If Trump Wins? An interactive web site

Via an email newsletter from Eileen Flanagan, I found out about an interactive web site/story called “What If Trump Wins?”. The site presents the reader with an initial choice – does Trump or Biden win the 2024 US presidential election? Based on what result the reader selects, a set of other choices is presented along with a narrative to fit the initial choice. From the main site page, there are 25 different ways that the story ends. The site was created by the advocacy group Choose Democracy, which conducted trainings back in the 2020 election to prepare for a coup or possible electoral mischief. I “played” the story both ways (first selecting Trump and following the suggested actions, then selecting Biden and following different actions). I thought it was an excellent “thought exercise” which provided insight in how a Trump presidency might unfold. Check it out – it might make you want to get involved in the election!

Book Review: “Rules for Resistance: Advice from Around the Globe for the Age of Trump”

I found this book on the shelves near the John Kasich book I posted about yesterday. The book is a series of essays published in 2017 and edited by David Cole, National Legal Director for the ACLU. The essays are grouped by region (Europe, The Middle East, Asia, Latin America) as well as a set of essays for journalists covering Trump, and the text of the original guide from the group Indivisible.

Each essay passes on ideas/anecdotes on specific authoritarian rulers in those regions. The ones about Silvio Berlusconi in Italy were most like Trump, but essays about Orban, Modi, and Putin were also instructive. There were two essays that I thought had the best advice for opposing Trump:

Luigi Zingales, in an op-ed for the New York Times in November 2016 (paywall, also mostly available in this Washington Examiner post), compares Trump and Berlusconi, showing many similarities. He points out that Hillary Clinton spent so much time explaining how bad Trump was that she did not often promote her own ideas, to make the positive case for voting for her. Also, the news media focused too much on Trump’s behavior. The only two politicians who beat Berlusconi did it by focusing on the issues, not Berlusconi’s character. From this, I would say that the Democratic Party is trying to point out the significant policy differences between Trump and Biden, but I think there is still too much focus on Trump’s character flaws. Also, the hope that the indictments against Trump would keep him out of the election have gone for naught, so he will have to be beaten at the ballot box.

Anne Applebaum wrote an article for the Washington Post (also available on her site) called “Advice from Europe for Anti-Trump Protesters”, in which she made some observations about elections in Poland in 2015 and 2016. A radical populist party was able to win with a minority of voters, and started to destroy democratic and state institutions. Poles took to the streets in huge demonstrations. Here is a summary of her reflections on the value of those protests (her sub-headings from the article):

  • Protest makes people feel better
  • Protest, if not carefully targeted, achieves little
  • Protests inspire conspiracy theorists
  • Politics matter more than protests
  • In a democracy, real change comes through politics, political parties and elections

I think her final two sentences sum up her advice well:

“Protesting might make you feel better, it might win a few battles, and it might attract attention. I’m sorry if you are angry at “the establishment”, but you need to work for it and within it if you want it to change.”

https://www.anneapplebaum.com/2016/11/16/advice-from-europe-for-anti-trump-protesters/

Book review: “It’s Up To Us” by John Kasich

The subtitle of this book is “Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change”. I stumbled across this while researching some other posts, and recently got it from the library. It draws on John Kasich’s career in public service (governor of Ohio, US presidential candidate, US House rep). The ten ways are as follows:

  • Start A Movement – Mentions the women’s suffragist movement, environmental issues (think Greta Thunberg) among others
  • Be The Change Where You Live – Look at what you can do in your neighborhood, your town or city
  • Be Prepared To Walk A Lonely Road – Being out in front of an issue can bring criticism, but accept that you might need to stand out from the crowd before you can find a way to convince others to stand beside you
  • Slow Down – Take time to stop, look and breathe
  • Bounce Back – After a setback, we need to be able to dust ourselves off and get back in the mix
  • Love Thy Neighbor – Work to lift people up, not tear people down
  • Get Out Of Your Silo – Take in other points of view and stay open to revisiting your own points of view
  • Put Yourself In Someone Else’s Shoes – Understand other people’s struggles
  • Spend Time Examining Your Eternal Destiny – Think about the footprints you are leaving behind
  • Know That You Are Made Special – Live each day in a way that lets your individuality shine through

I thought this was an uplifting book, if short on specifics, worth a read if you are thinking about activism.

Checking on past electoral results in your precinct

In my previous post, I was able to locate the precinct number in my county in Oregon where I vote. My next exploration was to see the results for the 2022 and 2020 elections for races that I voted on. There is a site called OpenElections which works to collect raw data from elections across the United States. This data is stored on Github. The data is organized by state, so I was quickly able to find the folder/repo with results for Oregon. Next, I found the 2022 general election results and the 2020 general election results (both results were saved as CSV files). Here were the results for my precinct for both of those years for the major (Dem/Rep) candidates:

2022

  • State House Rep: Tracy Cramer (Rep) 523, Anthony Medina (Dem) 542
  • State Senate: Richard Walsh (Dem) 533, Kim Thatcher (Rep) 528
  • US House Rep: Andrea Salinas (Dem) 517, Mike Erickson (Rep) 511
  • US Senate: Jo Rae Perkins (Rep) 466, Ron Wyden (Dem) 564
  • Governor: Tina Kotek (Dem) 486, Betsy Johnson (Ind) 71, Christine Drazan (Rep) 508

2020

  • State House Rep: Teresa Alonso Leon (Dem) 660, Anna Kasachev (Rep) 525
  • State Senate: Not up for re-election
  • US House Rep: Amy Ryan Courser (Rep) 508, Kurt Schrader (Dem) 649
  • US Senate: Jo Rae Perkins (Rep) 503, Jeff Merkley (Dem) 669
  • US President: Donald Trump (Rep) 507, Joe Biden (Dem) 678

Overall, this precinct is pretty evenly split between Democratic and Republican voters, even though statewide Democrats hold majorities in the Oregon House and Senate, and all 5 statewide offices. In my opinion, based on the results of the 2022 governor’s race (Tina Kotek beat Christine Drazan by 67,000 votes out of 1,935,852 votes cast), Oregon is becoming more of a “purple” state than remaining a “blue” state.

Who represents you? (2024 edition)

Back in 2022, I wrote a post about looking for my electoral precinct and who represents me in Oregon. The original tool for “finding your legislator” has now moved to this URL. It allows the user to type in their address, then the tool displays the the Oregon House and Senate districts that cover this address. The other piece of information to find out is my voting precinct. Since Oregon votes by mail only, there are no physical precinct voting locations that could help guide this. I checked my voter registration online, but the web app did not display my voting precinct within my county (grrr!). I then checked the Marion County website and found a link to a GIS map of voting districts. I then scrolled around until I could see my address, and found the precinct via color coding (mine is 835). The state of Oregon also provides a dataset of all precincts in Oregon (downloaded the spreadsheet to take a look). My next post will try to use some of this information to look at past election results.

I have been following the Gaza student protests across the US, starting at Columbia University (AP timeline, FOX5NY TV timeline). As a graduate of the University of Texas, I have been saddened to see its students being harrassed and intimidated by local and state police, with the blessing of UT president Jay Hartzell and Texas governor Greg Abbott. More often than not, law enforcement is being used to stifle legitimate nonviolent protests. More coverage: Texas Monthly magazine, Texas Tribune, Daily Texan.