Essays and opinion pieces from our hosts and listeners involving American politics touching on current events, politics, history, and the like.
by Kevin Kelton
On our weekly political podcast, “A More Perfect Union,” I got into a spirited exchange with my co-hosts about whether Bill Clinton’s private tarmac meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch created a potential conflict of interest. I argued that it didn’t. They thought I was crazy.
They were wrong; I am right. Read More
by Kevin Kelton
Romantic couples sometimes need the help of an objective outsider to break bad interpersonal habits and patch up hard feelings, and Facebook friends are no different. As a Facebook group moderator and Psych minor (and former dorm R.A.), I’m often called on to mediate conflicts among couples who are struggling politically. Here is one Private Message counseling session I had recently with a Bernie Smathers supporter and a Hillary Clayton voter. (NOTE: Names have been changed for privacy.)
Moderator: Good morning. You two seem unusually distant today. What gives?
Kathy: Him! Or more accurately, he doesn’t give. He is the least giving person I know. Ever since his Queen Hillary was crowned the nominee by the corporate media, he’s been gloating all over our news feeds.
Rick: I’m not gloating. I’m celebrating. My candidate won, and I’m happy. Why can’t you just accept that and be happy for me? Read More
Every year my father made a donation to the Fraternal Order of Police and he proudly put that new sticker on his truck when it arrived. The expressed mission of Blue Lives Matter is valuable and essential. Police, military, secret service, and every other law enforcement organization should be fully integrated into the community they serve, along with all other emergency responders, and that means prioritizing medical and financial support.
Unfortunately, the very name Blue Lives Matter is designed to be racially antagonistic. It allows the organizers to harvest the Us vs Them environment simmering in our country. The subtext is: “you stand with Blue or you stand with Black, but not with both.” This allows the Blue Lives Matter supporters to behave like Queen Elizabeth: voicing any disagreement is tantamount to treason.
“With us or against us,” according to our Founding Fathers, is un-American and cowardly and exactly where we find ourselves.
Just like the Confederate flag, Blue Lives Matter does not have a single meaning. For many of us, including my family and friends who are members of law enforcement and first responders, Blue Lives Matter resonates with a strong message of support, just like the Confederate flag conveys a positive message of culture and belonging in certain demographic categories.
Outside of those target demographics, people still have the same big picture goals to integrate and care for all first responders, but different groups respond differently to symbols and subtext. There are good hearted southerners who still have no idea why people are making a big deal about the Confederate flag. There are good hearted law enforcement officers who see criticism against Blue Lives Matter as an attack against law enforcement. And there are good hearted members of Black Lives Matter who think that any criticism of specific members is the same as an attack on all black people.
Maybe now I understand why people lost their shit over Beyonce’s new album. Either she completely supports my worldview, or she doesn’t. Under no scenario do we both matter.
By the way, as a suburban white guy, it’s weird to be writing about Black Lives Matter, right? Like, it isn’t my place. Like, I can be on your side and all, but maybe I should leave the talking about it up to, I don’t know, black people? Do I need to mention that I have black friends and listen to hip hop to be allowed to weigh in? And if I do publicly state that America does not exist in a state of post-racial harmony and equality, does that mean I hate cops? That I want to bring the whole thing down in a fantastic conflagration from which we never recover?
No. Don’t be a dick.
I’d like to point you towards an organization called C.O.P.S. It’s true, their name is kind of corny, but they do good work. Quiet work. Hard work. The work that needs doing. And, near as I can tell, they don’t have a race-based agenda.
Jonah Knight is a co-host of the More Perfect Union podcast. He is an independent currently living in Maryland.
Bernie Sanders may be about to run as a third party candidate in the general election, whether he knows it or not. And whether he wants to or not. Sounds ludicrous? Hear me out…
Like anyone who plays with fire, Sanders is about to get burned by his own revolution. Sanders has lost control of his unruly movement, and the Bernie or Bust crowd will not go gladly into that good night – even after Clinton’s inevitable nomination, when Bernie will no doubt urge his millennial minions to get on board with her.
“Okay,” you say, “but no one can force Sanders to run in the fall. Right?” Wrong.
Yes, they can get him to run. Or at least, they can run his name. Read More
Okay, time to bust a hole in the Bernie or Bust movement. No, their noisy Facebook threats notwithstanding, they will not throw the general election to Donald Trump. Because, once again, their inability to do math disproves their theory of the race. Here’s how…
The B or B theory is that enough BernieBots who either stay home or vote third party will deny Hillary Clinton the votes she’ll need to win. But that’s extremely unlikely. The numbers prove it.
Now that New York has spoken and any realistic chance for Bernie Sanders to catch Hillary Clinton in pledged delegates has vanished, it’s time to dispel the Sanders campaign’s myth that general election matchup polls should determine who gets the 2016 Democratic nomination. It’s true that Sanders is currently doing slightly better than Hillary Clinton in head-to-head polls against Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich. But that has never been, and should never be, the deciding criteria when choosing a nominee. The proof is in history itself. Specifically, the Clinton-Obama race of 2008.
I firmly believe that Donald Trump is a narcissistic blowhard, entirely unqualified to be president of the United States. This is settled law, not open for debate. And I’m voting for him.
I am, I think for the first time, voting for a huge asshole that I do not want to win (as compared to past assholes that I’ve wanted to win).
How did I get here?
I am a registered Republican in Maryland. Until recently I had planned on voting for Governor Kasich, but recent events have made me dump this plan. I have an Ohio friend who has been telling me for months that Kasich is a buffoon, but I had been ignoring his warnings because, well, the other candidates are not the sort of Republicans that I would want to be president. In fact, for me, Kasich has the right temperament, a work history of getting stuff done outside of partisan restraints, and isn’t out in public talking about dicks and dildos. He should be my guy.
Unfortunately, his campaign is a bungled mess here in Maryland. He should be surging, but instead he has proven that when given a fantastic opportunity to assemble a crack team of professionals to work on some serious shit, he fucks it up.
Two examples. First, his campaign screwed up the delegate dance. Even if Kasich wins my state, he won’t get the delegates. Read about that here if you’re low on your daily headslap quota.
Second, and this is anecdotal, nobody on the Maryland Kasich team knew how I could get a yard sign. My county and state reps shrugged and glossed over my requests. I even had an active Kasich volunteer friend in Virginia try to get me one. Nothing. I’ve have yard signs for board of ed candidates, but this request was too much for the Kasich team.
Anyway, back to Trump. I see zero chance that this guy could win the presidency.
Around 79% of women think that he is a piece of shit.
Around 8 in 10 Hispanics think that he is a piece of shit.
Around 2 out of 3 Republicans think that he is, well, not entirely human (my interpretation).
So, why don’t I rally around Ted Cruz and join the Never Trump movement? I do love me a good movement.
Whereas Trump is an unqualified narcissistic blowhard, Ted Cruz is an evil fuck. President Trump would damage our nation due to ignorant ineptitude, but Cruz would burn us to the ground with anti-American hate. Cruz has a record in the Senate of attempting to permanently damage our way of life, much like the 9/11 terrorists, and his rhetoric shows in him a desire to divide Americans into Us and Them.
By voting for Trump I hope to provide some small anti-Cruz ammunition at the Republican convention. I will add modestly to Trump’s plurality of the popular vote and, modestly, contribute to the sense that taking away the nomination from the candidate with the most votes is unfair. I am voting for a contested convention. I am voting to make the Republican Party stand face-to-face against the Tea Party and deal with the shit they left on the table. This may be the most strategic vote I have ever cast.
Jonah Knight is a swing voter who really hopes that the world won’t end before his son becomes supreme leader.
A lot has been said in the last few weeks about which Democratic candidate is or isn’t “qualified” to be president. But in assessing the qualifications for the nation’s highest and most demanding office, one has to look at physical qualifications as well as professional ones.
I’m sorry if this post isn’t Politically Correct or offends someone’s delicate sensibilities, but watching Sen. Bernie Sanders in last night’s Democratic debate, I couldn’t help but feel he looks too elderly and frail to take on the likes of Putin or Assad. We know what happened to FDR and Woodrow Wilson under the stress of the job, and they were much younger men than Sanders is now. And as pleasant and articulate as Jane Sanders is, I’m not sure she’s ready to run the country in her husband’s place.
Okay, BernieBros and SanderSistas, have I got an offer for you! For weeks now you’ve been telling me that delegate math is less important than momentum and youth turnout. And you’ve been howling that since Bernie does better in head-to-head match-ups against Donald Trump and the rest of the GOP ne’er-do-wells than my gal Hill does, he will make the stronger fall candidate. You don’t think it’s fair to have to play delegate catch-up to her Super Tuesday southern primary blowouts or to have to win the hearts and minds of the mean, establishment super-duper delegates that Debbie Wasserman “Shifty” Schultz handpicked to cheat Bernie out of his rightful nomination.
You just want the nomination bestowed on the Bern-man based on effort, energy, and overcoming a 60-point deficit in a mere 9 months. Do I have that right?
Well, okay, then – here’s my offer: I’m agreeing with you!
That’s right. Stop the presses! Hold your Make-America-Great-Again hats! Kevin Kelton is about to change the rules for getting the Democratic nomination. Or at least, change the rules for earning my endorsement.
The argument goes like this:
“If Donald Trump goes into the convention 30 or 50 delegates shy of 1237, they can’t deny him the nomination. The people would revolt!”
But that logic is wrong, because it does not take into consideration the series of steps that would occur before another nominee emerged. It wouldn’t just go from Trump falling a few votes short to Cruz being crowned. It would be a slow, constantly evolving scenario that would make the process more palatable.
Here’s the way it would most likely go down: Read More
by Kevin Kelton
Yes, at one point Bernie Sanders won 7 out of 8 straight contests, plus some impressive victories in Michigan and Wisconsin, and he’s poised to win a few more in May. Yet that is only a partial snapshot of what has happened in his contest with Hillary Cintin this primary season. To date, Clinton has won 27 contests (including American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands) and Sanders has won 20 (including Democrats Abroad).
But let’s narrow things down what really counts in a presidential election: swing states. There are 12 purple states in 2016. Hillary has won primaries or caucuses in 8 of them (OH, FL, VA, NC, MO, NV, IA, AZ) and Bernie has 4 (WI, NH, CO, MI).
by Kevin Kelton
In the 1979 movie Americathon, a fictional U.S. president decides to hold a telethon to pay down the national debt. That was a satiric look into the “future” of 1998. But just decades later, what seemed like satire then now seems all-too-real. America has become a telethon.
It’s everywhere. On my newsfeed. In late-night comedy shows. At the dinner table and dentist office. Even coming from my kids. The world is now a 24/7 presidential election. They might as well call it an Elect-A-Thon.
Ever since the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation decided to end it’s annual 21-hour charity telethon, America has been in search of it’s next “thon” fix. Sure, there’s still the Boston Marathon, the Penn State “THON” charity dance-a-thon, the St. Jude Trike-A-thon (a real thing), and the “Surf Dog” Dog Surf-A-Thon (I kid you not!).