A woman for president in 2024

What if we elected a woman to the US Presidency in 2024?

Hillary Rodham Clinton famously ran against Donald Trump in the 2016 "None of the above, please God, please" presidential election. In one of the early rallies in her campaign, she called out to a largely female audience, "Who wants to see a woman president?" 

As I have said before, Clinton didn't lose because she was a woman. She lost because she was ... um ... objectionable. Undesirable. An even worse choice than Trump, if such a thing were possible.

I had also said that I would entertain a matchup between two female statesmen (stateswomen? statespersons? respected leaders, anyway) like Condoleeza Rice and Madeleine Albright.

This year, we have two new possibilities.

On the right, we have Nikki Hailey who, in spite of her support of Donald Trump, has shown herself to be an adequate and able politician and diplomat.

On the left, we have Kamala Harris who has spent the last four years in President Biden's shadow, the spare, as it were. Before becoming Vice President, she was also an accomplished leader and politician. If, for some reason, Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, Harris would be a good replacement for him.

Here's the two of them, having fun together. (Not a real picture. Credit: OpenArtAI)

It's a pretty even matchup, with an interesting twist.

Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley (from Wikipedia)

Nikki Haley was born in 1972, in South Carolina. Her parents were Sikh Indian immigrants. Her birth name was Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She goes by her middle name, and "Haley" is her married name.

Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris (from Wikipedia)

Kamala Harris was born in 1964 in California. Her mother was a Tamil Indian immigrant, and her father was a Jamaican immigrant. Her birth name was Kamala Devi Harris.

The Bottom Line

So not only would we have two women running against each other, but we would have two Indian Americans, both of them children of immigrants, running against each other.

Both of them have a net positive track record and no serious scandals to worry about (if we ignore Haley's support of Donald Trump). Both are refreshingly young, compared to the current front-runners, meaning that they won't die or go senile in office. And both have a lot of potential.

Haley vs. Harris for 2024. It has a nice ring to it.

It's a choice I'd like to have to make.

Three things Joe Biden must do immediately

 Here are three things Joe Biden must do immediately:

1. Have his lawyers file injunctions in a Federal court, forbidding anyone in the Trump administration from burning, erasing, or otherwise destroying anything, starting right now. An accounting of this administration needs to take place, and Trump and his minions have proven their willingness to hide or destroy evidence wherever they can.

2. Put safeguards in place to keep Trump, his families, his staff, and anyone else, from looting the White House like the Clintons did on their way out the door. Tag and inventory everything, and inspect every box, bag, briefcase, suitcase, purse, or container, exiting the White House. And do something to hold these people personally and financially accountable if anything is missing.

3. Have the FBI, CIA, or NSA take immediate steps to secure and protect executive branch electronic assets, right now. I suspect that Trump, and everybody who works for him, will try to sabotage these assets. (This includes that secure server with the Trump phone conversations on it.) I submit that their sabotage will be for two reasons: first, to protect themselves and The Boss from prosecution; and second, to maliciously make it difficult for the incoming administration to do their jobs.

Kellyanne Conway, a Future Hero

Years from now, it will be revealed that Kellyanne Conway, one of the most despised members of the Trump White House, was actually a hero, in the pattern of the late, great, Severus Snape.

The following is a work of speculative fiction, which I offer in support of the above proposition.

After Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, and KAC was promoted from presidential campaign adviser to counselor to the president, she realized just how unhinged the Man in the White House really was. But she also realized what happened to people in the White House who crossed the President.

She wanted to expose him and to neutralize him. She wanted to save the country, the constitution, and the government. She knew that she could only do that if she kept her hands on the levers of power. That meant she would have to stay in the White House, and to stay in Trump's good graces. So KAC decided that she would become a mole. Here's what she did:

• She became the primary (and most trusted) source of leaks to the press. She made sure that the leaks didn't all go to the same media outlet. She varied the modus operandi of her leaks, their content and format, and even the medium - sometimes paper, sometimes USB thumb drives, sometimes anonymous emails, sometimes FedEx packages with bogus return addresses - so that the leaks couldn't be traced to her.
• She anonymously or confidentially leaked things to Democrats in Congress, to the late John McCain, to the Special Counsel's office, and to the district attorney's office in the Southern District of New York.
• She convinced other insiders to leak as well, sometimes overtly and sometimes more sneakily. She swore these co-conspirators to silence, promising them that she would never betray them. To this day, she has kept her promise and has not revealed their identities.
• She was almost caught once. A major newspaper had put together enough clues to finger her as a leaker. Only her brazen dissembling on national television put an end to that speculation.
• In public, she steadfastly defended the president, so that nobody would ever question her loyalty or suspect that she was betraying him behind his back. She knew that this would expose her to universal ridicule and contempt from the American public. This was a heavy price to pay, one that she was willing to pay for the good of the country.
• Through it all, her only confidant and comfort was her husband, former Trump associate and then Trump antagonist George Conway. Being able to dump on George, in the safety of their home, was the only thing that kept her sane. When she had first had misgivings about Trump, she had talked to George about it, and the two of them had agreed to stand together in opposition to Trump. It was the ultimate "good-cop-bad-cop" act.
• She was the main source of information for George's tweets and his public appearances.
• Sometimes, she would spend hours each night crying on George's shoulder as she dumped the contents of her day on him. He was her greatest strength, and her greatest comfort. As a result, their marriage remained strong - strong enough to withstand Trump's dirty, vicious attacks on the marriage itself.
• Her secret revelations were the key to finally bringing Trump down, although she knew that this could never be revealed. When Trump finally fled the White House in disgrace, KAC followed him out the door, enduring the jeers and taunts and flung detritus of the angry crowd. 
• She continued to defend Trump in her public appearances long afterwards, in order to protect the identities and reputations of other White House insiders who had worked in secrecy to bring the President down.

It wasn't until many years later, that a reporter from the Washington Post, putting together the puzzle that was the Trump years in the White House, noticed that some of the pieces didn't fit. When he rearranged the pieces, a new pattern began to emerge, and he saw hints - glimpses - mere flashes - of Kellyanne Conway's underground activities.

He made discreet inquiries and got corroborating information from many other people, before he approached KAC directly. He asked her if she had been secretly sabotaging Trump all along. At first, she angrily denied the accusation. But then George, still her loving husband and greatest defender, met the reporter at a D.C. bar and told him the whole story, confirming the reporter's suspicions. Then George went home and told his wife that the cat was out of the bag, after which KAC contacted the reporter, reluctantly and tearfully admitting her part in saving the country from a tyrant.

Kellyanne Conway was finally hailed as a hero. Fortunately, it wasn't too late.

Here's a sign that Democrats may be figuring it out

It looks like the more moderate members of the Democratic Party are finally finding a voice, according to this NBC News article. I'll let the article speak for itself. If all Democrats pay attention this article, then they may stand a chance of winning the White House in 2020.

But there's still (unfortunately) a chance that the extreme left factions of the party may frustrate and destroy what should be an easy win.

Election 2020: Advice for Third-Party Candidates

Traditionally, presidential elections in the United States have been binary contests: a choice between two major political parties. The names of the parties have changed over the years, but there have always been two major political parties.

The two-party system definitely has its strengths. Other nations, attempting to duplicate the 242-year success of the American political system, have failed because their political power has been divided among many political parties, leading to fragile alliances and coalitions that eventually fail, so their governments lurch from constitutional crisis to crisis, becoming easy victims of corruption and totalitarianism.

However, the two-party system has failed the American people at times. In 1992, candidates George Bush and Bill Clinton were not adequately addressing the concerns of the people, and so H. Ross Perot stepped in as an independent candidate. In June of 1992, he was leading in the polls. He finished the race with almost 19 percent of the popular vote and no electoral votes. In my opinion, part of why he lost the race is because his message became too strident. He started sounding whiny and alarmist.

In part, he had to sound this way to make himself heard, and that's one of the biggest obstacles that third-party candidates face: the two major parties get the lion's share of the attention.

The Third-Party Tautology

Why don't people vote for a third-party candidate? Because third-party candidates never win.
And why don't third-party candidates win? Because nobody will vote for them.

A third-party candidate will have to break this tautology in order to win. He or she will have to convince the voters that he or she has a real chance of winning, so that they will take a chance and vote for him or her.

What does a third-party candidate have to do to win?

In order to have a chance at winning an election, a third-party candidate needs to do all of these things:

1. Start early.
2. Raise a lot of money. Money fuels campaigns, and converts into votes. Unfortunate, but true.
3. Appeal to a wide range of voters, not a narrow "base".
3. Offer a well-rounded platform, one that avoids extremes or whininess, but addresses and corrects the deficiencies in the Democratic and Republican platforms.
4. Don't focus on a single issue or philosophical point. The USA is a complex nation, with complex needs and complex priorities. A candidate needs to address that complexity head-on.

Election 2020: Advice for Republicans

Here at the end of 2018, and the beginning of 2019, the whole nation is waiting to see whether Donald Trump serves his full four years in office, or whether he leaves office in disgrace, one way or another. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter.

If he leaves early, Mike Pence will be the new president, and he will serve until the 2020 election.

Donald Trump has left such a foul taste in the mouths of the American voters, that it is unlikely the Republican Party will win the presidency in 2020. By their actions, the leaders of the Republican Party have shown that they are easily bought off, bullied, fooled, and manipulated by people like Trump. To put it crudely, Americans are tired of this shit.

And they are going to make sure it doesn't happen again. Right now, a Republican candidate for president stands to lose the 2020 election simply because he's a Republican.

If the Republicans intend to win the 2020 presidential election, they need to give the American people a candidate who is electable.Here's my shopping list for the 2020 presidential candidate:

1. First, I don't care if the candidate is male or female, black or white or Hispanic or Asian. Race and gender do not qualify (or disqualify) someone for the office. But making a campaign issue of their race or gender will cost them a lot of points, in my book. So will any reference to their opponents' race or gender.

2. Second, they need to be knowledgeable. They need to know enough about the areas that matter, to be an effective chief executive. They need to be competent in talking and making decisions about:

• Domestic policy
• Foreign policy
• Waging wars and making peace
• Economic policy
• Science
• Environmental issues
• Contemporary urgent medical issues
• The law
• The Constitution
• The life of the average, working-class American

3. Related to that, they need to be well-informed and open-minded. Presidents can't possibly know everything, and so they need to get good information from others. I need to know where they will go to get advice. If I suspect that they're going to rely on yes-men, self-serving cronies, party hacks, and Fox News, then they have lost my vote.

4. Speaking of which: they need to completely ignore Fox News, and whatever its left-leaning equivalent may be. For a U.S. President, Fox News should be totally irrelevant. Domestic and foreign policy should not be dictated by a television station, newspaper or website.

5. They need to have integrity. They need to someone of sound character and good moral judgment.

Integrity, character, and morals are timeless, universal concepts. They are independent of religion.

In fact, I don't care what religion they profess. I don't want to know about it. There are, or should be, no religious criteria in a presidential election. To me, religion should be no more a factor than race or gender.


6. They need to be savvy, not naïve, in the ways of the world. Past presidents (Carter, both Bushes, and Trump) have been easily manipulated by foreign leaders and domestic actors because of their naïveté. Other presidents (Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Reagan at the beginning) were so savvy that they had the world by the balls.

7. They need to have class. Class must not be equated with coolness, popularity, beauty, social or economic status, and so on. Class is difficult to define, but easy to recognize. Mr. and Mrs. Obama had class. Trump has absolutely zero class. Hillary Clinton has never had class, and doesn't seem to care.

8. They need to practice true statesmanship and true leadership. The last true statesman and leader we had was ... hmm ... Ronald Reagan, back when his mind was still intact. No, that's not true. Obama was both a statesman and a leader. That's still being debated, but I think that in 20 years, that will be the universal consensus.

9. They need to put the entire country's interests above their own interests, above their party's interests, above their friends' and cronies' interests, and especially above the interests of the rich and powerful and self-serving.

10. They need to have vision. They need to take a long-term view on everything they do: not to next year, not to the midterm elections, not to getting re-elected or to setting things up for their party after their eight years are expired. The United States will be around long after they have left office, and their vision needs to be one that will leave the nation better off for their having served.

11. They need to remember that they are public servants, not rulers.

If the Republicans don't put up someone who meets all of these criteria, then I won't vote for him or her.

Election 2020: Advice for Democrats

The 2020 presidential election is just around the corner. Here is some advice for Democrats.

The Democratic Party lost the 2016 presidential election because they nominated a candidate who was unelectable. They didn't lose because of the vagaries of the electoral college. They didn't lose because of third-party voters. They didn't lose because their candidate was a woman. And they definitely, most certainly, didn't lose because the Republicans put up a better candidate.

They lost because Hillary Rodham Clinton was unlikeable. Objectionable. To her credit, she was transparent — she was transparently greedy, power-hungry, even Machiavellian. She was elitist. She didn't hide the fact that she didn't care about the Little People. She only cared about people with money, power, and status, and she never tried to hide that fact.

And, to put it bluntly, she was a jerk. She treated everyone else like the dirt on her shoes. Maybe some people like to be treated like that, but most Americans do not.

(Don't bother telling me that the Republican candidate was the same, or maybe even worse. We already know that.)

If the Democratic Party wants to win in 2020, they had better put up somebody who is electable. Here's my shopping list for the 2020 presidential candidate:

1. First, I don't care if the candidate is male or female, black or white or Hispanic or Asian. Race and gender do not qualify (or disqualify) someone for the office. But making a campaign issue of their race or gender will cost them a lot of points, in my book. No more of this "Vote for me because I'm a woman" crap, or the after-the-fact lament, "They didn't vote for me because I'm a woman." (By the way, Clinton said both of those things.)

2. Second, they need to be knowledgeable. They need to know enough about the areas that matter, to be an effective chief executive. They need to be competent in talking and making decisions about:

• Domestic policy
• Foreign policy
• Waging wars and making peace
• Economic policy
• Science
• Environmental issues
• Contemporary urgent medical issues
• The law
• The Constitution
• The life of the average, working-class American

3. Related to that, they need to be well-informed and open-minded. Presidents can't possibly know everything, and so they need to get good information from others. I need to know where they will go to get advice. If I suspect that they're going to rely on yes-men, self-serving cronies, party hacks, and Fox News, then they have lost my vote.

4. Speaking of which: they need to completely ignore Fox News, and whatever its left-leaning equivalent may be. For a U.S. President, Fox News should be totally irrelevant. Domestic and foreign policy should not be dictated by a television station, newspaper or website.

5. They need to have integrity. They need to someone of sound character and good moral judgment.

Integrity, character, and morals are timeless, universal concepts. They are independent of religion.

In fact, I don't care what religion they profess. I don't want to know about it. There are, or should be, no religious criteria in a presidential election. To me, religion should be no more a factor than race or gender.


6. They need to be savvy, not naïve, in the ways of the world. Past presidents (Carter, both Bushes, and Trump) have been easily manipulated by foreign leaders and domestic actors because of their naïveté. Other presidents (Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Reagan at the beginning) were so savvy that they had the world by the balls.

7. They need to have class. Class must not be equated with coolness, popularity, beauty, social or economic status, and so on. Class is difficult to define, but easy to recognize. Mr. and Mrs. Obama had class. Trump has absolutely zero class. Hillary Clinton has never had class, and doesn't seem to care.

8. They need to practice true statesmanship and true leadership. The last true statesman and leader we had was ... hmm ... Ronald Reagan, back when his mind was still intact. No, that's not true. Obama was both a statesman and a leader. That's still being debated, but I think that in 20 years, that will be the universal consensus.

9. They need to put the entire country's interests above their own interests, above their party's interests, above their friends' and cronies' interests, and especially above the interests of the rich and powerful and self-serving.

10. They need to have vision. They need to take a long-term view on everything they do: not to next year, not to the midterm elections, not to getting re-elected or to setting things up for their party after their eight years are expired. The United States will be around long after they have left office, and their vision needs to be one that will leave the nation better off for their having served.

11. They need to remember that they are public servants, not rulers.

If the Democrats don't put up someone who meets all of these criteria, then I won't vote for him or her.

Looking ahead to 2020

Every day with President Donald Trump is a new disaster. We try to distract ourselves with hurricanes, earthquakes, mass shootings, and a trust-fund baby juggling nuclear missiles, but Trump is like the guy at the party who manages to insert himself into every conversation in the room — and ruin it.

If the USA were a publicly traded company and he were the CEO, the shareholders would have kicked him out by now. Too bad it's not that easy to get rid of the Chief Executive of the United States.

It's clear now that electing him was a disaster. Don't worry, if Clinton had gotten elected, we would be saying the same things about her. The 2016 election was a lose-lose proposition.

What can we do to make sure the 2020 presidential campaign doesn't go the same way?

Well, this article on NBC News got me thinking about 2020. The second-to-last paragraph says:

Late last month, [retiring Tennessee Senator Bob] Corker announced that he would not see[k] re-election, fueling speculation that he might challenge the president in a GOP primary. 

Unencumbered by the need to watch his mouth and make sure he gets re-elected to the Senate, Corker has been speaking his mind. Speaking truth to power. Calling out, repeatedly, that the emperor has no clothes. Using his bully pulpit to stand up to Trump and Co.

I don't know, he's starting to sound downright presidential. He would be a better president than Trump.

DETOUR:

After Vice President Pence's little rehearsed stunt at the Colts-49ers game yesterday, I'm starting to believe Corker would be a better president than Pence, too.

If you want to read about Pence's stunt, Google "Pence walks out". Every link I found was biased one way or the other. Read multiple sources to get a balanced view. But it was rehearsed. It was a stunt — a rather expensive stunt.. And if his airfare and hotel were paid for by the U.S. taxpayers, then shame on him. I used to respect Mike Pence.

About Pence's stunt, the great Tom Peters tweeted:

Wonder if POTUS gave VPOTUS a "good puppy" dog buscuit after yesterday's scripted showboating episode?

BACK ON THE MAIN ROAD:

If Bob Corker is serious about running for president in 2020, then he needs to start now building a few things:

• A team - an organization.
• A "base". Trump and Clinton have made this a dirty word, but it's still necessary.
• A platform - a statement of what he believes in, what he's running for.
• Knowledge.
• More name recognition.
• Credibility.
• Likeability.
• Even more visibility.
• Popularity. It shouldn't matter, but every election in the past 100 years (longer?) has proven that it matters bigly.

HERE'S ANOTHER IDEA:

This year, the Mormons have proven to be faster and more effective than the federal government when it comes to disaster relief. Witness the responses to hurricane Harvey in Texas, Irma in Florida, and Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico (and the U.S. Virgin Islands), and the earthquakes in Central America. LDS Welfare Services started shipping supplies, in their own trucks, even before the hurricanes hit. Local and global LDS leadership was on the ground even before the rain stopped falling. Thousands of LDS volunteers were organized and working hard, in force, before the feds ever showed up. Maybe it's time we put a Mormon in the White House?

I don't know if Mitt Romney wants to give it another try, but I think it's pretty clear that he would have been a much better president than the current occupant. If not Mitt Romney, then how about Jon Huntsman Jr., the statesman, businessman, and diplomat?

But don't vote for Huntsman — or against him — just because he's a Mormon. Vote for him because he's a good man.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

I wouldn't mind if the 2020 election turned into a race between two great women — for example, Condoleeza Rice and Madeline Albright. Come on, people, this is the 21st Century. There must be some viable options besides white, allegedly Christian, males.

And there are definitely viable options besides Democrats and Republicans. If enough people opened their eyes and had the courage to vote third party, we would break the duopoly these parties have on the presidency, a duopoly which has proven to be unconstructive, easily corruptible, self-serving, and unfortunately, self-perpetuating.

I don't care if the next ideal candidate is Democratic, Republican, or Pirate Party, as long as it's a person of maturity, integrity, wisdom and vision. All of the above. In no particular order.

Donald Trump is an Impostor

Donald Trump is an impostor. Donald Trump is a fake.

At one time, I admitted that I might be wrong about Donald Trump, and that it was possible that he was nothing more than a braying jackass.

As his presidential term lurched forward, I changed my mind, and thought of him as little more than a bawling infant.

I've changed my mind again. Just like Frank Abagnale in the story Catch Me If You Can, Donald Trump is nothing more than an impostor. A total fake.

Donald Trump has demonstrated, repeatedly, that he doesn't have what it takes to be president of the United States. He has no leadership ability. He has no morals. He has no empathy. He has no courage. He has no integrity. In place of depth, he has shallowness, an appalling superficiality. In place of knowledge and wisdom, he has willful ignorance and selfishness.

He has no talent. Okay, let me amend that: he has whatever talent it takes to be a unscrupulous, unprincipled real estate tycoon.

And all along, every time he opens his mouth — or Tweets — all I can think is "Jeez, what an idiot". The "idiot" theme spreads over all of my other opinions of him, like gravy covering everything on the plate at Thanksgiving.

The 30-something percent of Americans whom he is still fooling? He doesn't care about them. They don't realize the utter contempt in which he holds them.

It still astounds me that he made it into the White House. I didn't vote for him.

Insert picture here: If I could, I would post a picture here of protestors at an airport, waving huge signs saying "GO HOME TRUMP", "TRUMP IS A FAKE" and "GOOD RIDDANCE", as Trump's private jet lifts off in the background, carrying him back to ... well, to anywhere. Away from Washington D.C.

Update, 4 Sep 2017: Actually, Donald Trump is a mean old man, and nothing more.

You may not want to hear this, but it's your fault

This weekend was not a happy weekend for the Zymog. Two of my close friends, and a friend of a third close friend, suffered what can only be called racial harassment. The nature of the harassment, and the things that were said to them, make it clear that this only happened because of Donald Trump being elected.

I got a lot of my friends mad at me when I reposted on Facebook a blog article that says, more or less, "if you voted for Donald Trump, then it's partly your fault, and you need to fix it."

A lot of people don't want to hear that. Bear with me here, okay? Don't close your mind and get all upset yet.

Let's start with a scene from Disney's Aladdin: 

Jafar used his third wish from the lamp: "I wish to be an ALL-POWERFUL GENIE!"

So the genie said, "Way to go, Al" and granted Jafar's wish. Jafar became this huge, red genie. 

"Yessss. YESSSSSSS! The power! THE ABSOLUTE POWER! The universe is mine, to command, to control!" 

He was reveling in his power, when suddenly Aladdin said, "Not so fast, Jafar! You wanted to be a genie? Well, you got it. AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES WITH IT. Phenomenal cosmic power —"

Suddenly two two bracelets of slavery were clamped onto his wrists, and against his cries of "No! NOOOOOO!" he got sucked into his own tiny lamp.

"— itty bitty living space!"

Hang onto that story. It will become immediately relevant. (You gotta admit, I did a pretty good job reciting the scene from memory, didn't I? I'm sure that my grandchildren can do better than I did.)

Now, follow this logic:

Many voters in this country fell for the Supreme Court scam: they voted for Trump or for Clinton because they wanted to preserve the conservative or liberal majority, respectively, on the Supreme Court. I have heard from a lot of people who voted for both candidates, who told me that that was the only reason they voted for them. Well, that and all the other stuff they didn't like about the other candidate. They were both awful.

But, the Trump supporters told me, they didn't like Donald Trump because of his racist, misogynist, reactionary, petulant, et cetera, ways. They ignored, or pretended that they didn't see, all of the radical right-wingers who were chanting at Trump's rallies and posting hateful garbage on the Internet. Or they hoped it would all go away after he got elected.

(If, at this time, you want to tell me "Yeah, but Clinton supporters were the ones who actually committed violent acts at the rallies," I'm going to ask you to stay with me here. Don't distract yourself. I'm not talking about Clinton.)

Way back in June 2016, Mitt Romney warned that Donald Trump's hateful rhetoric, if he were to win the election, would change the face of America. He warned that the extreme racists would consider themselves legitimized by Trump's victory, and somehow authorized to practice their nasty racism. "Emboldened" is the current term for it. (See this CNN article, entitled "Mitt Romney says Trump will change America with 'trickle-down racism'.") 

So Donald Trump got elected. (And the extreme liberals - I mean progressives - Clinton supporters, anyway - rioted. That's also a post for another time. I don't want to dwell on it here. It's a distraction. Let's keep focused on Trump and his supporters, okay?)

In the three days following his election, these three things happened to friends of mine. This isn't something I'm reposting from a remote newspaper or blog, okay? Two of these are first-hand, and the third one is second-hand, but it still counts because I know these people and I know when it happened to them.

These things really happened.

1. This first one is from one of my former math students. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. legally, before she was born. She and her two sisters graduated from college. This woman is working as a teacher in a downtown Denver elementary school (which Donald Trump disparagingly referred to as "inner city," because he didn't want to say "black" or "Hispanic" or "low-income" or "crime-ridden") while she is pursuing a graduate degree. Someone left this comment on her FB page, the day after the election: 

Try to convince me that this was not a direct result of Trump being elected. Go ahead. I'll be glad to call you an ostrich.

2. This second one is from one of my parishioners. This woman is from Saipan, an island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Saipan, and the other islands in the CNMI, have been part of the United States since 1944, and its inhabitants are natural-born U.S. Citizens. Got that? Not immigrants. Citizens, just as much as native Hawaiians and Alaskans are citizens.

She works at a large nationwide retail store here in Colorado, whose owners were yuge donors to the Trump campaign. This happened to her on Friday, three days after the election:

Again, try to tell me that this wasn't a direct result of Trump getting elected. Try to tell me (or her) that it would have happened if Clinton had been elected instead - or that it would have happened if this weren't an election year.

3. This third one is a friend-of-a-friend. One of my friends works with a Muslim man, whose brother lives and works in Seattle. This extended Muslim family immigrated legally to the United States years ago, fleeing an oppressive regime in the Middle East, and looking for freedom. They bought into all the ideals which constitute the American Dream, and have been working hard at becoming Americans. On Wednesday morning, the guy in Seattle found this piece of paper under his windshield:

I'm sure you will agree with me that this is despicable. You will even tell me that you would never do this yourself, or condone anyone else doing it. You might even point out the cowardice of the perpetrator, since he didn't leave his name or contact information on the paper.

But you cannot convince me that this is not a direct result of Trump being elected. When the message starts with "We won! Now ...", it's pretty clear and undeniable.

Now, here's the part that you don't want to hear. And you may get offended by this. If you voted for Trump, and if Trump won your state, then these racist incidents are partly your fault.

Follow my logic here. And remember that scene from Aladdin.

1. If you voted for Donald Trump, and so did a majority of voters in your state, then you were part of that majority. That's an important distinction.

2. If the majority of voters in your state voted for Trump, then all of the electoral votes in your state went for Trump.

3. Donald Trump won in 31 states, giving him over 300 electoral votes and winning him the election.

Okay so far? You can take part of the credit for electing Donald Trump. You can loudly proclaim, "My candidate won!"

4. As a result of Donald Trump's election victory, many racists and extremists, lowlifes who had been hiding in the shadows for years, muttering to themselves on their racist blogs, suddenly felt empowered. They moved out into the light and began openly harassing and threatening minorities and immigrants. 

I have given you three examples in support of this fact. Do you want more? Are three witnesses not enough for you?

Now, I know you weren't voting to embolden the low-level racists and hatemongers. You were voting to preserve the Supreme Court majority, or to keep the Clintons from looting the White House for a second time. You had no intention, with your vote, of causing pain to my former student, my Saipan friend, or that Muslim immigrant in Seattle.

And yet, just like Jafar, you got Donald Trump - and everything that goes with him. You don't get to pick and choose which consequences of Trump's ascension you voted for. You voted for all of it.

You can't say "I just wanted the Supremes, not all the rest of it." You knew, going in, that you were going to get all of it. But you squeezed your eyes shut, held your nose, and voted for him anyway.

And, just like Romney said it would, the "trickle-down racism" happened. And, whether you want to admit it or not, even if it wasn't your intention, it's partly your fault.

On Sunday, November 13, five days after the election, Donald Trump was interviewed on 60 Minutes.  Leslie Stahl asked him about the harassment that had been taking place, and in typical Trumpian reality-distortion mode, he said:

Donald Trump: I don’t hear it—I saw, I saw one or two instances…
Lesley Stahl: On social media?
Donald Trump: But I think it’s a very small amount. Again, I think it’s--

One or two instances? I have told you of three real instances, and I'm just one person - a white male person, no less.

So then, to his credit, Trump said:

Lesley Stahl: Do you want to say anything to those people?
Donald Trump: I would say don’t do it, that’s terrible, ‘cause I’m gonna bring this country together.
 Lesley Stahl: They’re harassing Latinos, Muslims--
Donald Trump: I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, “Stop it.” If it-- if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it.

So Donald Trump told everyone to knock it off with the racist stuff that's been going on. Do you think it will work? The horses have left the barn, Mr. Trump. There's no use locking the door now.

Now, if you are a white person who voted for Donald Trump, what are you going to do about it? You voted for him, what are you going to to do fix it?

John Pavolovitz, a white Christian blogger, pointed the finger at all of the white Christians who voted for Trump, and told them what they need to do to fix the situation. Basically, he told them that this mess was their fault. He gave them two tasks:
1. Reach out to the victimized minorities, tell them you're sorry, and try to make amends.
2. Stand up to the perpetrators. Protect the victims. Do your part to bring an end to the harassment.
And he suggested that this should be done, live and in person, person to person.

For some reason, a lot of white Christian voters reacted poorly to his article. He was very blunt, he did point the finger of blame, and it made a lot of people uncomfortable. In reaction, there was a lot of "It's not my fault" and "I don't have to fix anything." (Remember Jafar.) And, even in the face of what he said in his blog, many people insisted that it was up to the victims to reach out, to establish a dialogue, and to be forgiving.

The Latinos and the Muslims aren't the ones who need to have a change of heart. And it's time that everyone who helped to put Donald Trump in the White House take their share of the blame and do their part to make amends.

Some of the white Christians didn't take kindly to be singled out. They say that's not fair. Some of them, not really understanding what "racist" means, have told me that it's "racist" to single them out like that. Then I challenge them to explain away this article from Religion News Service, entitled "White evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons carried Trump", or this one from World Religion News, entitled "Why the majority of Christians voted for Donald Trump".

This is where I'm supposed to put down two or three pithy statements and a final zinger, to make a powerful concluding paragraph. I don't have any. I'm too tired.

Four Years is a Long Time

Four years is a long, long time. Whatever the American public does to survive these four years, we need to make sure that this never happens again.

The Republican party needs to start now to seek out men of integrity and wisdom, something that was sorely lacking in 2015 and 2016. They need to be prepared to replace Donald Trump in 2020 - or before then, if impeachment or resignation is a possibility.

On the Democratic side: if that party ever wants to be in power again, they need to find someone with the integrity of Jimmy Carter and the savvy of Ronald Reagan. It looked like Hillary Clinton had this one in the bag. She should have won by a landslide, instead of being edged out by a mysoginistic, bombastic, lying windbag like Donald Trump, but the people rejected her. What message should the Democrats take from this? It is as follows:

The American people have said in this election is they don't want someone in the White House as corrupt and nasty and greedy as Hillary Clinton.

On the third-party side: Americans need to look deeply inward, and ask themselves if it was worth it, compromising their morals to vote for "the lesser of two evils" this year. I still maintain that it wasn't worth it, not even from the beginning. I'm realistic enough to know that we will never have a perfect, flawless candidate to vote for. But these two were so badly flawed that neither of them was qualified for the job.

Something that needs to be said: I don't think that this election was a rejection of the idea of a woman as President. I think it was a rejection of the person, Hillary Clinton.

As evidence of this, I point out that nobody, not even Donald Trump, intimated that she should not be elected simply because she was a woman. Maybe our society has made some progress after all.

One final word: if you have spoken out against Donald Trump in the last 18 months, and if you have not changed your tune yet, you would do well to find someplace to hide. Your name is probably on his enemies list (here's a link to another one), and either his secret police or his storm troopers will be coming for you.

Congratulations, Utah. You blew it.

Congratulations, Utah. You blew it. You had a chance to make a difference in this election, with your 6 electoral votes. But you chickened out.

As of this morning, with two states still uncounted, Donald Trump had exactly 276 electoral votes. That's six more than he needed to win. Six electoral votes. That's Utah.

If Arizona and Michigan swing for Hillary Clinton, Trump will have won by only six votes. If one other state, say Arizona or Idaho, had swung for Clinton, and Utah had voted for a third party, it would have forced an Amendment 12 election and we would have been spared both of these losers.

This election was a squeaker. Neither major political party can claim a mandate. Trump won by the slimmest of margins, the Republicans hold a slim majority (18 seats) in the House and only a one-seat majority in the Senate. It was more or less a coin toss.

Whether Clinton or Trump won, either way, we would have awakened to despair on Wednesday morning. There had been a glimmer of hope from the Rocky Mountains. This was a race in which a third party could have made a real difference. Instead, the Mormon majority in Utah decided to align with the Evangelical Christians in the Deep South, to abandon their principles and vote for what was expedient instead of what was right. They wanted to save their precious conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

You people have it all wrong. Haven't you seen how Donald Trump has used, abused, and manipulated the justice system for his personal gain, since 1973? Nothing's going to change. Trump is going to appoint judges who will enrich him, who will help him to amass wealth and power, and who will help him to punish his enemies, even those whose only crime was to speak out against him.

Let me put it in words you Mormons will understand: You have elected King Noah. (Now is a good time for everybody else to go and read the book of Mormon.) Of course, your other choice was the Gadianton robbers - but again, that's only if you buy into the fallacy that the election was an either/or, two-option choice.

Again for the Mormons, there are two scriptures that matter, although it's too late for you to apply them to this election:

From Doctrine and Covenants, 98:8-10:

I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore ye are free indeed; and the law also maketh you free.
Nevertheless, when the wicked rule the people mourn.
Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.

And from Doctrine and Covenants, 121:39:

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

Utah (and Idaho, and Arizona), you could have taken a moral stand, however futile it might have appeared. You could have stood on principle. And, in hindsight, now that the numbers are in, you would have made a difference in this election. But you abandoned your principles in favor of expediency, thus joining the evangelical Christians, who threw in the towel months ago. You're no better than them.

And you have reinforced the tautology that a third-party candidate will never win an election because nobody will vote for him, and nobody will vote for a third-party candidate because he will never win an election.

Let's all try again in four years, okay? Stay tuned for the next two posts.

Donald Trump and the Supreme Court Argument: Don't Be Fooled

UPDATE, 20 OCT 2016: You Mormons will understand this one immediately. One of my friends pointed out that electing Clinton is like electing the Gadianton Robbers, while electing Trump is like electing King Noah. That's perfect. 

I've seen the "Supreme Court Justices" argument against voting for Clinton for president. This argument makes an important, but WRONG assumption: that Trump, if elected, would appoint justices that reflect conservative ideals and will make decisions that favor the desires of (pick one) Republicans, conservatives, or religious people.

ARE YOU PEOPLE BLIND? What is Trump's opinion of the judicial system? Does the name Gonzalo Curiel ring a bell? And that's just for starters. He has abused other judges as well, and he has flouted the law and dared us to try to bring him to justice for it. He has been involved on one end or the other of 3500 over 4000 lawsuits, an astonishing abuse of the civil court system.

If he is elected, Donald Trump will appoint justices to the bench (and judges, to lower benches) who reflect HIS ideals, and who will make decisions that favor HIM and HIS desires. He will appoint judges who will throw his enemies (starting with HRC) in jail. He will manipulate judges to decide civil and criminal cases in his favor, just as he has done (or attempted to do) in his private life. He will declare war on his enemies, either openly or in secret, and use everything in his nearly limitless power to destroy them.

Anybody who speaks against him, opposes him, or even makes fun of him, will see their lives ruined. He or his operatives will harass people, getting them fired, dispossessed, evicted, whatever he can get away with to make their lives miserable.

When he said about Clinton in debate #2, "She'd be in jail," I got chills. That was a sinister threat, evoking images of totalitarian regimes in Russia, Argentina and, of course, Nazi Germany. If Donald Trump gets elected, and if he has his way, Lyin' Hillary will be the first of thousands of American desaparecidos.

Donald Trump doesn't care one spotted fig about ideologies, morals, the rule of law, or YOU. He only cares about HIMSELF. Don't fool yourself.

Postcript: Some of you Trump defenders are ready to hit the "Comment" button and tell me that Clinton will do the same thing, or worse, or that she is already guilty of crimes. I don't know why you're even bothering to tell me that. I already know what Clinton is like. Reminding me about it is not going to prove that I'm wrong about Trump. 

Morally, I cannot vote for either one of them. Fortunately, the third-party alternative is a reality, and it's becoming more tangible every day. 

Post-postscript: It has come to my attention that I may be completely wrong about Donald Trump. I'm willing to entertain that possibility. 

PLEASE VOTE THIS YEAR - Even if You Don't Like The Choices

Just end it already. (This image carelessly copied from imgur.com)

In a previous post, I did some math and I'm sure it flew over everybody's head. Here's a restatement of the math. Please bear with me - especially those of you who are so fed up that you don't even want to vote for president this year.

This year, more than ever, we need you to cast your ballot on November 8, and not for the Democratic candidate, nor for the Republican candidate.

In that previous post, I mentioned that Donald Trump got nominated because less than 7 percent of all registered Republicans voted for him. About 7.8 percent voted for all of the rest of the candidates, combined. That means that 85 percent of registered Republicans didn't vote at all. If you stop and think about it for a bit, those 85 percent are the real reason that Donald Trump won the nomination. They didn't vote for anybody, and their apathy let a [insert really nasty adjectives, invectives and epithets here] minority of Republicans give him the nomination.

I also mentioned that similar percentages voted for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders - and I also noted that the Democratic National Committee had the fix in for Clinton all along. There was no way they were going to let Sanders win the nomination. This has been revealed in leaked emails, which leaks resulted in the resignation of four top DNC executives shortly after the Democratic National Convention. But nobody apologized, nobody went to jail, and nobody offered to undo the damage that had been done. So in Clinton's case, it was a comparable minority of Democrats, plus a conspiracy among the party leadership (one in which Clinton was undoubtedly involved, or at least aware of), that elevated her to the candidacy.

Now, here's the thing. As this presidential race comes down to the wire, it has turned into a contest of not-Trump vs. not-Clinton. "Which one do you not want to win?" says the prevailing wisdom, "Then vote for the other one." THAT'S THE WRONG THING TO DO.

The choices are so unpleasant that many voters are going to stay home and not vote - again. THAT'S THE WRONG THING TO DO. Just as the 85% who didn't vote are responsible for Trump and Clinton getting this far, likewise the ones who do not vote, who do not exercise their Constitutional right and obligation, will be the ones responsible for the wrong person getting into the Oval Office. The majority cannot afford to be silent this time.

So who do you vote for? You vote not-Clinton and not-Trump. You vote for a third-party candidate - any third-party candidate. Let's be realistic: no third-party candidate is going to win the election. But all we want to do is deny both Clinton and Trump the majority of votes. We want to deny both of them the majority of all registered voters who voted in this election.

It would be really cool if the only majority on Election Day was "none of the above."

So on Election Day, go down to the polling place. If you cannot in good conscience vote for either Trump or Clinton, DO NOT leave your ballot empty. Let the silent majority become the Very Vocal Majority, which rejects both candidates. Stand up and make sure your rejection is counted. Vote for somebody else.

One Two final thoughts:
When the votes are counted, I expect that Clinton will win. Her one term as president will be full of greed and corruption, and she and her family will pillage the White House (again) on their way out the door in 2021. But I think (and I hope) that most Americans realize before it's too late what a disaster it would be to let someone like Donald Trump loose in the White House.

And after the election, when your friends point their fingers at you and say, "Your vote is the reason XYZ won!" you can tell them, "I didn't vote for XYZ! But I did vote. I did my civic duty, I joined my voice with thousands of others, and my conscience is clear. XYZ won because of everyone who didn't vote."

Don't be the reason that either one of them wins. Vote for someone else.

#votethirdparty #noneoftheabove

Seriously, America? Is this the best you have to offer?

Seriously, America? Is that the best you have to offer?

We're stuck with Donald Trump because less than 7 percent of registered Republicans voted for him in the primaries, but that was more than voted for any other Republican candidate.

We're stuck with Hillary Clinton because (1) a comparable percentage of Democrats voted for her, and (2) the DNC rigged things in her favor, as news reports and public resignations have made clear. Thanks to all the crooked backroom dealing, poor Bernie Sanders never had a chance.

There is no place for an honest politician in American politics.

If all of the registered independents go off and vote #noneoftheabove #votethirdparty, then the losing side will point a finger at the independents and say "You cost us the election. By voting third party, you took away the majority from our candidate." And the independents will point a finger right back at them, and say, "No, YOU cost yourselves the election - by YOUR lousy choice of a candidate. YOU picked someone I could not vote for."

And the winning side will look past all of those independents - right over their heads - and say to the losing side, "Thanks for picking such a LOSER! You GUARANTEED that we would win the election!"

You may tell me that my ravings are insane and illogical. I will counter that this entire presidential election has been insane and illogical.

I want one of these signs.

Seriously, America? Is this the best you have to offer?

Seriously, America? Is that the best you have to offer?

We're stuck with Donald Trump because less than 7 percent of registered Republicans voted for him in the primaries, but that was more than voted for any other Republican candidate. We're stuck with Hillary Clinton because (1) a comparable percentage of Democrats voted for her, and (2) the DNC rigged things in her favor, as news reports and public resignations have made clear.

If all of the registered independents go off and vote #noneoftheabove #votethirdparty, then the losing side will point a finger at the independents and say "You cost us the election. By voting third party, you took away the majority from our candidate." And the independents will point a finger right back at them, and say, "No, YOU cost yourselves the election - by YOUR lousy choice of a candidate. YOU picked someone I could not vote for."

And the winning side will look right over the heads of those independents, and say to the losing side, "Thanks for picking such a LOSER! You GUARANTEED that we would win the election!"

You may tell me that my ravings are insane and illogical. I will counter that this entire presidential election has been insane and illogical.

I want one of these signs.

More proof that Barak Obama is a classy guy

I have written that Barak Obama is a classy guy. I have never written about his wife, Michelle Obama, who is even classier than he is.

By "classy", I don't mean someone who is rich or powerful, or well-dressed. Normal, everyday people can have class. Donald Trump, in spite of all his purported riches, has no class. Zero. Hillary Clinton, in spite of her professional and political career, has no class, either. But Obama has tons of it.

You don't have to like his politics, and you can even disagree passionately with some of his words and actions as President. (Personally, I still do.) But you can't deny that the man has class.

As yet another piece of evidence, I offer this photograph, by official White House photographer Pete Souza, published in a photo essay in the Huffington Post called simply, "Obama With Kids." This is a picture of the prez with Ella Rhodes, daughter of National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, in her elephant Halloween costume last October.

That's the Oval Office, people. And the President of the United States. In a really expensive suit and shoes. During business hours. AND this isn't the first time he's gotten down on the floor to play with this little girl.

I will say it once more.

The man has class.

Election 2016: Let's All Vote Third-Party This Year

With a respectful nod in Mr. Sanders' direction, it looks like, when November 2, 2016 comes around, we will be faced with a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Not necessarily.

I have some alternative proposals for you to consider. The first one is too easy, it's the one that most people will do, and it may backfire. Don't do it - think a little harder. The last proposal is the greatest idea ever. But to work, requires an open mind, a bit of daring, and a lot of cooperation - like millions of people combining to do it.

The cool thing about voting in the United States of America, exit polls notwithstanding, is that it's a secret ballot. You don't have to tell anybody how you voted. Remember that.

1. Vote not-Clinton or not-Trump. Choose the one you hate the least, the proverbial Lesser of Two Really Bad Evils.

(Maybe you are one of the rare Americans who really does support Clinton or Trump. Good for you. Vote your convictions.)

2. Vote for Dictator, not for President. Decide which one you would be most willing to live under as a dictator, because that may happen. Vote for the dictator of your choice.

3. Vote for the Vice-President. Look carefully at the candidates for vice-president. Vote for the vice-president who will make the best president, on the assumption that the elected president is likely to get impeached or otherwise removed from office before his or her term is up.

4. THIS IS MY FAVORITE: Vote for somebody else - anybody else. We tend to forget that the Democrats and the Republicans are NOT the only political parties in the nation, and are definitely NOT the only parties with candidates for president. And while the conventional wisdom has always been that (1) third-party candidates cannot win a presidential election  and that (2) a strong third-party candidate unnecessarily muddies the waters, this year they may be very useful. Stay with me here. Read on.

WARNING: There is some math in the second paragraph following this one.

It is common in modern politics for the winning candidate to claim a "clear mandate from the people." The word "mandate" implies that, through the popular vote, the people overwhelmingly chose this candidate to rule. The mandate is claimed even when margin of victory is laughably slim. This year, let's deny the winner any mandate.

It's inevitable that one of the two major candidates will win the election. But if enough people vote for a minor-party candidate, then the winner will be denied a majority of the popular vote. If the winner gets less than one-third (33%) of all the votes cast, and the loser gets even less than that, then more than one-third of the votes (more than the winner got!) will go for the bloc of third-party candidates. We will have demonstrated to both major candidates, and both major parties, that we don't like them and that We The People are supremely dissatisfied with the way this election turned out. We will show them that they do not have a mandate to rule, and that we prefer anybody else to them.

So vote Libertarian. Or Green. Or United States Pirate Party (arrr!).

Or vote for comedian Ron White - yes, he's a registered presidential candidate this year. It doesn't matter who you vote for. Your candidate will not win, but your vote will be counted, and if enough of us do this, we will deny the major parties their so-called mandate, and somebody important will finally Get It. We will send a message to Washington D.C. that they won't dare to ignore.

---

Picture credits:
 "Giant Meteor 2016" appeared on the Nihilist Memes FB page as a reader submission. 
"Alien Invasion 2016" was created by Randy Cassingham at This Is True, the Internet's oldest and most successful news-and-commentary newsletter. It appeared on True's FB page.
"None of the Above 2016" and the pie chart are my own creations. © 2016 Ray Depew. Go ahead and spread them around, free of charge. Just remember where you got 'em.

Everything else I found on Google. 
And the United States Pirate Party is a real thing. Arrr, matey.

Election Day 2016 - Say It Isn't So

Please don't tell me that the next U.S. Presidential election will be a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

UPDATE: If it does boil down to Clinton vs. Trump, then vote for the vice-president of your choice, and wait for the president to get impeached.

Oh, great. The idiot is running again.

While the spotlight has been shining on Hillary Rodham Clinton and her remarkable lack of Democratic contenders, Republicans have been quietly walking up to the Goblet of Fire and slipping their names into it.

The latest Republican to announce his candidacy for the presidency was our own Billionaire Clown, Donald Trump. He can't stand it when the news isn't about him. And he just can't stand to stay out of his own spotlight. I guess that's his right. He bought the spotlight, and paid for it, so he might as well shine it on himself. It's a pity he couldn't spend the money on a better hairpiece.

Clearly, he didn't learn his lesson from the "birther" beating he inflicted upon himself in 2011.

Anyway, in the latest installment in the comedy-cum-soap-opera that is his life, Trump invoked God Himself in promising:

I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.

I remind you that in 2011, all of the Republican candidates, except for Mitt Romney, announced that God had told them to run for President. This statement sounds like Trump is telling God what to do, and not the other way around. Ladies and gentlemen, the Clown is back, and he's about to eat his clown shoes.

Reuters reporter Alana Wise wasn't too impressed with his announcement, as she makes clear in this report of the press conference announcing his candidacy.

Everytime I read or hear about Donald Trump saying something, I get this mental image of a donkey in a pasture, braying loudly because he loves to hear the sound of his voice, while all of the other animals grazing in the field ignore him or silently wish he would be abducted by aliens.

UPDATE, JUNE 17: Most of the news media didn't take Trump's announcement very seriously. One of them even accused him of "throwing his rubber nose into the GOP ring." This jesting at his expense, and lack of respect, hasn't sat well with Trump, who fired back in a fit of petulance: "Well, I'm rich and you're not, so nyah. Jerks." Now we can really take him seriously.