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Upon Further Consideration

Dusty Leave a comment

*Let me give one disclaimer: I use a lot of ways to call someone crazy in this piece. At no time, not even for one second, not in any instance or in any way, am I actually referring to someone with mental illness or neurodivergence. I’m using every form of “crazy” to mean only someone who holds a position or acts in a way that I don’t agree with, and generally that I can’t understand. That’s it. Okay?

Okay. Here we go.

Conservatives are crazy.

charlize theron – foolish watcher

Okay, not ALL of them. And they’re not crazy about everything: taxes and regulations can be onerous, and while society absolutely needs to progress, it needs to do it in a way and at a pace that allows people to grow comfortable with change, which is never easy.

But conservatives created the monstrosity that is President Donald Trump. And before that, they created neoliberal economics, generally known as “trickle-down” economics, which has been devastating people in this country and around the world for the last half-century or more. And they just kept supporting it, that entire time, all facts to the contrary notwithstanding. Libertarians are conservatives, for the most part, and so was Ayn Rand — and between Rand and Trump, I don’t need to say anything else to show that conservatives, broadly speaking, are crazy. A few sandwiches short of a picnic. Daft. Cracked. Meshugge. Bonkers. Non compos mentis. The cheese fell off their cracker a long time ago.

They think that we’re crazy, of course, mostly in how we accept things that seem so obviously counter to what conservatives call common sense — like the existence and worth of trans people, for instance, or like believing the government can do good things and can be trusted (in some ways — we know about the Tuskegee Experiment, too), or thinking that guns are somehow to blame for gun violence — and partly how we are so entirely hypocritical while we accuse them of being the real hypocrites.

I gotta pause on that last one, because — really, y’all, there are some pretty upsetting things that we argue, and never even think about. Like how we argue that guns should be banned in order to reduce gun violence, but that drugs should be legalized in order to reduce drug crime. Abortion and the death penalty is another one: we mock conservatives for being pro-life with fetuses, but very happy to kill people on death row, but somehow we never talk about how we hold exactly the same apparently contradictory positions, just in reverse — we are willing to accept the death of the unborn, while we work to preserve the lives of the worst people imaginable. And that’s not to say that the left is wrong on those issues and the right is right; but it is — I’m going to say disingenuous — that we don’t actually engage with our own apparent hypocrisy while we are simultaneously aghast that the right doesn’t engage with their apparent hypocrisy.

To be clear, since I brought up the examples: the ban on drugs is different from a proposed ban on guns mainly because the users are entirely different. I suppose some gun owners could be characterized as addicts, though I think they wouldn’t enjoy that description; but mainly, drugs create a market for themselves, the members of which have very little chance to refuse to consume the substances. Certainly there are forces that push people to buy and use guns, and certainly those forces would make it impossible to remove all illegal guns from the country, should guns ever be banned here; but they are not the same forces that have made the drug war unwinnable. That’s the essential difference, and the details are worth thinking about and talking about. And with abortion and the death penalty, it is only necessary to point out that “pro-choice” is not and never has been “pro-abortion.” The left does not wish the unborn to die, any more than we wish murderers to die; that is the unknotting of the apparent paradox in our opinions. And I also have to point out that the apparent contradictions in conservative stances can be just as easily explained away: it’s just that they make assumptions that the left doesn’t make, like the idea that innocence makes a child’s life worth more than an adult’s life, or that an armed citizen is the best defense against an armed criminal. Or more simply and more importantly, that God and the Christian faith should be an important part of our political consciousness.

The point is, there are things the left accuses the right of being crazy about, which the right is not at all crazy about, and there are also things that the left thinks which are batshit insane — a whole bunch of people in the Democratic establishment who thought that Hillary Clinton made a better candidate than Bernie Sanders, for instance, and then that Joe Biden also made a better candidate than Bernie: and then that Joe Biden should have ever been a candidate for a second term. Bat. Shit. Insane. And a lot of us swallowed and set our faces right and stood in line. I did.

I have decided that I have been wrong.

I don’t need to rehash the last several elections, though; as I have said several times, Joe Biden was a much better president than I thought he would be, and MUCH better than he gets credit for being, and I don’t know that Bernie could have beat Trump either in 2016 or 2020, and I’m not sure anyone could have beat Trump in 2024. I don’t understand how that could be true, considering all of Trump’s baggage, but the truth seems to be that the economic situation in this country ensured that only a Republican could win in 2024 — and as the primary showed, Trump had ensured that of all the Republicans in this country, only he can be on the top of the ticket.

Because conservatives are crazy.

I’m not going to back off of that, not even with my both-sidesing liberal and conservative positions and arguments: there is no other way to see how the entire right side of the political spectrum in this country has embraced Donald Trump so completely other than as totally nuts; and the way people still — still — STILL!!! accept trickle-down economics as viable even after FIFTY FUCKING YEARS of increasing inequality and the resultant social unrest is proof that those same people are either insane or so utterly drool-fountain stupid that there’s no reason to even talk to them any more, because they can’t understand anything stated in standard English — only things that look or sound like this:

(I would say that conservatives are crazy because they listen to country music — but a lot of country music is good, so that’s not enough to prove that conservatives are crazy. Also, I first heard this song on Dr. Demento in the 80s, so really, who’s the crazier one? The one who listens to country music, or the one who listens to a guy named Demento who also played this?)

I guarantee you nobody in middle America listened to that garbage. I’ve been listening to it since I was in middle school. I think you see my point.

But you don’t, because in my usual inimitable way, I have failed utterly to get to my point. So let me stop screwing around and make it now.

I have for DECADES now thought that conservatives — specific ones, especially the ones in Washington — were crazy because they refused to compromise. Compromise, I hope we all know, is good. Compromise is how people get along, and how things get done. Compromise respects the value of both sides of an issue, both the humanity and the intelligence of people who happen to disagree, which makes it the best possible outcome — two heads are better than one, after all. I have essentially never entered an argument where I was totally unwilling to compromise. Okay, there have been a few online debates, sure — I’ve argued against normalizing pedophilia, and I’m not gonna meet them halfway on that one — but in real life, I have never drawn a line in the sand, put my foot down, in a place I was utterly unwilling to move. I am always willing to compromise, because in every case in my life, I have argued against other rational human beings, who deserve as much consideration as I do; so how could I do any less than be willing to compromise with someone? What on Earth makes me so much better, so much righter, than them that I would not take even a step in their direction? On a larger scale, how can you have a society where people don’t compromise? How do people get along if they can’t agree on at least some elements of their disagreements?

That’s what I thought. And I still think that, because it’s true — you can’t have a society without compromise — but also, that’s a social truth, and a practical idea.

It’s not good politics.

In politics, refusing to compromise is the right thing to do. Compromise is dangerous. And self-defeating.

My point today is this: it is time, and past time, and long past time, that Democrats specifically and the left in general started doing what is actually good politics.

I listened to an episode of Pitchfork Economics — an outstanding podcast which I recommend to everyone; though I would say you probably shouldn’t do the absurd (crazy?) thing I’m doing, which is listening to the entire archive from the beginning, in 2017; it’s a little strange that I have been listening to this podcast for two or three years now, and they still haven’t reached Joe Biden’s election as the 46th President — and they interviewed Professor James Kwak, whose books I now have to read. (One of them is free online! Nice!) But more to the point for this particular writing, in the interview Professor Kwak was talking about the Democratic party, which he both called the most important political party in the world, as the only thing standing in the way of full-on fascism on the part of the Trump GOP (My words, not the professor’s; he said the Dems were the most important party, but was more polite about the rest.) and also described as having drank the Kool-Aid of neoliberalism (Again, my wording) around the time of Bill Clinton’s administration, and thus gave up being the actual party of the people, of labor, of the poor, of progressivism and liberal ideas.

Here, if you are interested. It’s a good interview.

How neoliberalism captured Democrats (with James Kwak)

As I listened, I thought the professor was right: the Democrats have had a critical job especially for the last eight years, because it was up to them to stop us from having President Donald Trump, and for two of the three chances they have had to step up and do that critical task, to preserve the United States, to protect the rule of law and government of the people, by the people, for the people — they failed. Pretty badly, really.

And I thought, Maybe the Democratic party is really bad at this politics thing.

It’s not the first time I’ve had this thought. I listen to another podcast which I’ve talked about frequently before, called UNFTR, UnFucking The Republic. One of the essential claims from that podcast is that the Democratic party is bad at politics, and a bad bulwark against Trump and the rise of fascism; but because they are one of the only two parties with full access and the full machinery to mount and win a national political campaign in this country, the answer is not to create a third party: the answer is to take over the Democratic party, much as the Tea Party and then the MAGA movement have taken over the GOP, from the inside, and then turn the Democratic party into what it should be, but currently is not. Progressive. Successful. A party for the left.

But I’ve never been willing to follow that thought to the end, and to start actually arguing against voting for the compromise candidate — for Hillary Clinton, for Joe Biden, for Kamala Harris; none of whom I supported, all of whom I voted for and encouraged others to vote for.

That’s where I’ve been wrong.

In talking about how conservatives differ from liberals in the U.S., and how conservatives have managed to become so incredibly dominant, Kwak said that there were several things that conservatives had done over the last fifty years which had enabled them to become this unstoppable force that managed to sweep Trump back into the White House despite everything (Again, the interview is now five years old, so Professor Kwak is not actually talking about the current travesty in Washington, but it’s not any different, it comes from the same strategy and worked in the same way): and the main one was that they were willing to stand for their ideology, even if it cost them elections. He said that the right had been putting up more conservative candidates against moderates in primaries even when the more conservative candidate was less likely to win the general election. Which sounded crazy to me — but the result is that the right is seen as dedicated to their beliefs, their ideals, where the left is seen as — wishy washy. Because the left will back a politician who doesn’t represent all of the ideals we ourselves espouse, where the right is not generally willing to do that: you can see it in how the GOP has purged all of the members unwilling to support Trump, like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney. Their choice to throw every single bit of their support behind Trump is crazy: but the way they do it is impressive. It shows determination, and dedication, and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own preferences or ambitions for what you see as the greater good. And before this, you could see in how the GOP starting in the 80s forced all national politicians on the right to sign Grover Norquist’s oath never to raise taxes, for any reason — which was one reason George H.W. Bush lost his reelection to Bill Clinton. Which, I mean — that’s crazy.

But it got them the right reputation. A reputation that can resist anything, even facts. This is why the right is seen as willing to fight for what they believe — and why the right is seen as more reliable on the issues that they all stand for, like opposing immigration and making the economy work for people. Do they do those things? Not always: but they ALWAYS stand on those principles, and they ALWAYS stand together, and cast out those who are more willing to compromise.

They’re crazy. The shift in the GOP from the conservative party to the party of Trump has been unbelievable to watch: it has felt like a Soviet purge, removing everyone who did not fawn at the feet of the Great Leader. And the rise of Trump has definitely shown the downside of the GOP’s strategy of absolute loyalty to the ideals of the party.

But on the other hand, they fucking win elections. And then gerrymander the districts so they can win every election in the future. Which the Democrats do, too, because our system is deeply corrupt: but the main difference is that, most of the time, in most states, the Democrats DON’T win elections. And it’s partly because the left is more willing to compromise. So we’re seen as wishy washy. Soft. Unreliable. And in worse cases, or as the stakes rise and the rhetoric gets harsher, as hypocrites, and as liars.

And even worse, as corrupt, unreliable politicians who are willing to do whatever it takes to retain power, whether that requires compromise of our apparently most important ideals, or lying about what is at stake in an election, as we argue that Trump is a fascist who signifies the end of this country — and then the second he takes power, FIFTY-EIGHT FUCKING DEMOCRATS VOTE FOR THAT BULLSHIT LAKEN RILEY ACT. Fifty-eight. How many Republicans voted for Biden’s priorities? Or Obama’s? And, I mean, we claim to believe that white men should not be put ahead of, or above of, women or people of color; we chastise the right for their overwhelming whiteness and maleness. And then what do we do?

We nominate and elect Joseph R. Biden.

And then Biden waited until after the election was lost to do a whole heap of things that he should have been willing to do on day one — if he really believed in what he claims to believe. Only at the very end did he hand out the pardons. Only at the end did he warn us about the technocrat oligarchy. Six months before, he was still taking their campaign contributions.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being strategic with the support a politician has, and the public opinion of the things they want to do; that’s necessary. I love the idea of going in and just doing whatever the hell one wants, what one knows is right — but also, that’s how Trump does it. It’s not good strategy.

It’s just why he wins.

But I don’t think Biden did anything wrong, in waiting until the end of this term to, for instance, commute the sentences of people on federal death row. But when the other side is so bold, so forward, so utterly confident in their rightness that they will do whatever they think is right at any time and damn the political consequences — well. The decision to be strategic in any way certainly seems like political manipulation. Not wisdom.

And while I do not want to imitate the right, because they are crazy, I also do not want to continue losing elections to them.

So this is where I think we need to adopt an aspect of their system, of their overall strategy, that works for them.

I want to stop compromising.

Not on everything: but there have to be some issues that the left is not willing to negotiate on, that we are unwilling to accept anything else because we know, down to our blood and bones, that we are right, and the right is wrong. That anyone who disagrees with us is wrong. That we can discuss ways and means, to some extent, and even compromise on that sort of thing — or on the timeline, or the order of specific priorities; the details can almost always be discussed. But the central idea, the heart, the essential concept: that never goes away. It never stops being the ideal, and we never stop fighting for it. For them. Think of the heroes of the left: the leaders of the Civil Rights movement, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.; think of Bernie, whose appeal was based partly on this fact, that he never, ever changed what he was saying about economic inequality and the need to address it. Not in fifty years. THAT. THAT is what we need to do, that is how we need to fight for our central ideals. (It’s why we should have nominated Bernie, but I guess that train has already left the station, huh?)

I have some ideas about what those things should be — five of them coming directly from UNFTR — but I want to think about them some more before I take a stand. Because once I take a stand on these things, I don’t ever want to back down from them. Not ever. Not for any reason, not under any circumstances. Even if it costs us votes in a specific election — because look at what compromising has gotten us. It’s gotten us fucking Trump, and a Republican congress, and a ludicrously “conservative” Supreme Court. We supported the moderate candidate in order to protect the things that mattered most, like the right to choose; and we lost the things that mattered because we lost the elections. And I think this is quite a large part of why. It’s not all of it, this isn’t the only thing we need to do: but I think this is part. I think we need to do this.

Compromise in politics, on the most essential ideas, is a path only to losing. Which protects nothing, not even the compromises we tried to fight for. Look at Obamacare. Do we think that’s going to live through the next four years? John McCain saved it last time. And John McCain is gone, along with everyone else who thought the way he did, on the right. No disrespect to Senator McCain, who was a remarkable man and a man of principles, who died sadly of a terrible disease; but I think we know that if he had lived, he would have been voted out of the GOP for opposing Trump. Just like everyone else who did so, who was willing to compromise with the left. Jeff Flake. Mitt Romney. Liz Cheney. All gone. They all lost. Just like us.

So I think we should stop compromising, and start winning.

Now we need to decide what we will not compromise on. It can’t be everything: but it has to be something. And once we decide, we can’t ever back down. We can’t every compromise, not on these things.

And then there’s this: it makes sense to me not to compromise with the party of Trump. After all — they are crazy.

Abidin’ Biden

Dusty Leave a comment
Joe Biden: The President | The White House

There’s my guy. My buddy Joe. Pretty regular fella — other than the fact that his 81-year-old face has fewer wrinkles than my 49-year-old one, which, sure, fine, lots of people use Botox and plastic surgery and all — but Joe is unquestionably at the stage where his face has been so thoroughly Zambonied that it looks more “plastic” than “young.” But other than a flat plastic face, overly-squinchy eyes, and those too-white-pearly-whites? Very normal man. Reminds me of my dad. Especially when he talks, since most of the time he sounds like he’s kind of running out of breath, unless he is particularly excited.

I have to admit, though, that for a normal man — a regular dude — he’s sure fond of supporting some pretty fucked up things. Like Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Hopefully we can all agree that the ones really responsible for the atrocities and the genocide are Hamas, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-loving government, both of whom benefit from increased conflict and greater frequency and intensity of atrocity, as it increases their support by radicalizing more of the population; and also creates enough confusion among the smoke and rubble for them to siphon off wealth. I do not for a second believe that my old buddy Joe could put his arm around Bibi’s shoulders, lean in real close, and whisper, “Hey, man, cut the shit, okay?” and get any kind of real result. Netanyahu is never going to stop the war, because when the war stops, so does his political career, as he is epically unpopular now — but when he leaves office, he’ll no longer be able to avoid prosecution for his corruption, which is pervasive and pretty concretely proven everywhere but in that court of law he is avoiding. (Sounds like a certain would-be Fascist dictator in this country, doesn’t it? No wonder they get along.) But on the other hand, even though Ol’ Joe can’t stop the genocide in Gaza, I would very much appreciate not having my country supply the weapons to Israel for their genocide.

And then there’s Joe’s past support for crime bills targeting African-Americans, and a lack of support for abortion access for women, and for clearing Clarence fucking Thomas for the Supreme Court, and his willingness to destroy people’s lives at the southern US border, which he backs partly because he wants to be able to blame the Grand Ol’ (Fascist) Party, the GO(F)P, for their failure to secure the border, undercutting their own main talking point; but also because he’s clearly pretty comfortable with adopting said Fascist party’s framing of the issue as a crisis at the southern border, and the problem being one of too many people trying to live out the American dream and the ideals we claim to stand for, and with the argument that punishing those people as brutally as we can is definitely the best way to handle it.

All of that is garbage. And all of it is Joe Biden.

Plus there’s the simple fact of the man’s titanic goddamn ego, which makes him look in the mirror every morning and say, in all sincerity, “The only man who can be President is you. The only man who can stop Trump is you. You have to run again, Joe. You gotta save the world! All by yourself! LET’S DO THIS!” That’s Joe Biden, too.

But you know what else is Joe Biden?

He’s the most progressive president we’ve had in 75 years — even though he failed to provide Medicare for All or a livable minimum wage or a permanent child tax credit or a Voting Rights Act or a balanced and reasonable Supreme Court.

But the focus on climate change spending, particularly in the Inflation Reduction Act, is brilliant. The Infrastructure bill was good though not enough — but it was good, no question. The change in tone and the reintegration of the US into the world’s leadership, particularly NATO, was necessary. And his administration has done a good job of making sure the US did not fall into the economic malaise that the rest of the world has fallen into. I don’t like everything about the way they did it, because like always, inflation was brought under control mainly by punishing working and middle class families by raising interest rates to levels high enough to make us stop buying houses, even though the rent is too god-fucking-damn high; and like always, the majority of the GDP gains went to the top 1% so the corporations and Wall Street mavens could keep making campaign contributions to Joe and the Democratic party; but still, unemployment is ridiculously low — and there have been some actual gains to wages set against inflation and the cost of living.

So. Considering all of that, I have a request for all of you.

Vote for him. Vote for my man Joe in November.

I mean, to be clear, the only other realistic option for someone who could actually win is the fucking Fascist. And you — yes you, person who is reading this right now, who has felt enough connection to me that you came here to read this piece that I wrote — you better not vote for the fucking Fascist.

But that’s not the issue here. Right? Millions of cultish fans, and millions of people freaking out over the scourge of Socialism, are going to vote for Trump; but he lost the popular vote in both of his elections, so I expect he will lose again. The issue is whether or not enough of the voters on the margins, the ones who maybe don’t want to vote, who don’t care enough to vote, or who are wavering between the two choices, will swing the battleground states to the right side to win the Electoral College. That’s what the issue is, and what I want to talk about: will the undecided voters decide to go the right way?

It should honestly be pretty simple for every Democrat and progressive: Joe Biden is no progressive — but the progressive movement has made major gains with this administration, and importantly, Smilin’ Joe’s worries about his legacy, and also his genuine and historic support for unions and the working class, mean that he would likely continue to move slightly to the left of center, and might be able to enact and solidify some of the gains made in this first term. Any other president, from the left or the right, would be likely to ignore Biden’s accomplishments and try to create their own: but Biden will try to make sure that Biden’s wins stay in place. And Barack Obama doing exactly that is why we still have the Affordable Care Act despite all the best attempts by the fascists and corporate interests to root it out and remove people’s health insurance. Compared to Medicare for All, the ACA is hot garbage; but it was and is progress. It was and is a good thing. The same goes for Biden’s wins. Even though we’d like to have more of them, it would be useful to make sure what we’ve got, we won’t lose; like any other leftist/progressive idea, once it is in place, people realize it’s probably a good thing — and then they don’t want to get rid of it. Just ask Trump and his Republican congress about the ACA.

So re-electing Biden would make sure that we don’t move backwards. And let me point out how important that is: both Trump and Biden did a whole lot of stuff through executive order; and because those come from one man’s pen, they can be (and were) undone by another man’s (or a woman’s) pen. That fact, and the stark contrast between Trump’s foreign policy (Which is basically this) and every sane President’s desire to remain involved with the world on some kind of good terms, are why so much of the rest of the world is now wary of relying on the US for anything. And while I definitely think it would be better for the US and the world not to have the US in any kind of leadership role, since we have fucked up almost every other country on the planet at one time or another for our own desires or aggrandizement or simple profit, I do think that inconsistency from our policies or our economy has severe negative long-term knock-on effects on the rest of the world. So keeping ourselves in check is the best possible thing for everyone: and for that, a second Biden term, with his focus on maintaining American value around the world and renewing and continuing old policies about connection and cooperation, are the best possible choice.

I understand and agree that just maintaining what we have is not enough. We need to have an actual progressive administration, and more importantly, a progressive congress to go with a progressive executive, so they can name progressive judges, and then we can do some of the things we really need to do. And the more often we are given this kind of bullshit either-or, Lesser-of-Two-Evils choice, the longer we have to delay an actual progressive movement and the accomplishment of simple but necessary things that will save lives, like a livable minimum wage and Medicare for All. But to accomplish that, we need to start at the grass roots: and that’s where progressives suck. Don’t we? Because we won’t fear monger the same way the establishment and especially the Fascists will, we can’t drive the same kind of brand loyalty that only comes with paralyzing fear of the other side. We have to educate. And the political education of the populace relies on one thing: actual policy wins. Actual things being done, by government, to help people. And you know what we need in order to achieve that? More progressives in office, which basically starts with more progressives in the world.

And you know what drives more progressives in office? Anger and frustration with Fascists and with the establishment Democrats who appease them. In the large historical sense, the longer we have to deal with these people in charge, the better our side will do in recruitment and inspiration and drive. You cannot stop the pendulum from swinging: the GO(F)P has done a fantastic job of slowing down the swings for a long time now; but there have been lots and lots of little swings — LGBTQ rights, for instance, even though we’re seeing the violent Fascist reaction to that swing — and the big swing? It’s coming. And it’s going to swing a long way.

And then it will swing back again.

Let me also point out that the reason the GO(F)P has done so well for the last twenty-five years is because they started at the grass roots FIFTY years ago, and built up slowly; and the best news I can say for the future of the progressive movement is that Trump and MAGA have completely torn down the Republican infrastructure that helped put Trump into office. So if we can stay focused, and pay attention and do the work, we can take the country back. For real. I’ll write more about that another time.

And if none of that convinces you? Let me just remind you: the guy on the other team is a fucking Fascist. And no, I won’t tone down that language or that accusation: it is appropriate, and accurate. I will express that in greater detail another time, but I hope everyone reading this is already close to accepting that, if you’re not already there.

So let me sum up.

Biden has done a genuinely good job. He should have done more, but he has done more good than harm — and that’s an important metric for any politician. The first line of the Hippocratic Oath is “Primum non nocere” — first, do no harm. Politicians should all swear the same thing. Actually, we all should. And Biden has done good, for the economy, for the country’s manufacturing and infrastructure, for climate change adaptation, and for the international rules-based world order.

The best criticisms against him are: he has failed to end support for the genocide in Gaza, which is an entirely fair criticism, and the reason why I voted against Biden in my state’s primary, as I want him to recognize that this is an issue; he has tried to meet the GO(F)P in the middle of the aisle, particularly on the border, which shows far too much acceptance of Fascism and, essentially, racism and sexism, which were already issues for Biden as they are for so very many white male Americans; and he has accepted the current framing of issues like the economy, where he has failed to support the real change that would actually achieve his “from the bottom up and the middle out” economic growth.

Oh right — and he’s old.

And he sounds kinda dumb when he talks sometimes.

Those criticisms are bullshit.

He’s old. Granted. So why does he need to be young? Because only young people understand the needs of young people? Are we really that wedded to identity politics, that we believe that nobody can understand the needs of a group to which he doesn’t belong? That nobody can be sympathetic to those needs, and supportive of them? How different are those needs, really? Do we actually think there’s that much of a gap between the basic human needs of someone who is 8 and someone who is 80, when both people are human beings? Both love their family, both want to be safe and healthy, both love cheese and naps; must we have an 8-year-old president in order for 8-year-olds to live good lives? And if not: why do we need a 40-year-old President? Or a 50, 60, 70-year-old President?

He doesn’t speak well. And? Why does he need to speak well when he can get other people to deliver complicated policy platform announcements, or to handle press conferences with the piranhas of the press corps? Do we really need Joe Biden to inspire us with his soaring rhetoric? Or could we maybe read a book, listen to a poem, watch a Rage Against the Machine concert video, and get our inspiration from those? If we have a President who needs the help of other people to run his administration, then maybe we get something more like, I dunno, a representative Republic serving democratically. Instead of a strongman who handles everything himself, and who can and might want to build a cult of personality.

Whatever else you say about Old Joe, he is not going to build a cult of personality. None of us can stand his personality. No: he will build a team of smart and capable and driven people, who will help to fill in the gaps where he doesn’t have the best strengths. One of the best things about Biden is that he realizes who he is and what he can do (Other than his enormous ego, but clearly that is a prerequisite for an American politician), and he looks to others for help. He stood behind Barack Obama completely. That says a lot. I am also, despite my criticisms of his past shitty positions, genuinely impressed with his ability to recognize when he might be wrong, and to listen to others with better ideas. The fact that he is not the same man with the same ideas he had fifty years ago? That’s a good thing.

Look. Seriously. The President doesn’t need to be young. The President doesn’t need to be strong. The President doesn’t need to be a good speaker. We like all those things in our politicians, as we like them in all of our celebrities: but the reality is that the President is a politician and a leader. And that doesn’t require strength in a physical, youthful sense. It requires determination and drive: and Biden has those. Even if he needs to take a nap every day (And don’t pretend we wouldn’t all support a President who mandated a daily nap), he gets up and still has the same absolute convictions about the right things: the goodness of America, the desire to help people, the opposition to cruelty and violence. Right? You can’t miss those things when you talk about Biden. That same ego I was mocking earlier actually shows his strength in this area: he believes he is right, and a lot of the time, in a lot of ways, he is.

Let me also note: if our President is strong-willed, so strong that nobody could stop him or oppose him or stand in his way — how do we not end up with a dictator? Hell, we almost got a dictator with the last guy, and he only thinks he is strong and commanding. Someone who actually is? There’s a real risk there. And there’s only a benefit in that if we think that this country is actually carried by one guy.

It is not. The strength of this country is not in the leadership. It is not in the White House. It is not in our politicians, at all: they are all — or almost all — weak people. Weak morals, weak wills, and a lot of weak minds, especially in the GO(F)P.

We are the strength of this country. We are smarter, stronger, braver, wiser, kinder, and better in every way than our political leaders. As we should be: because we are the ones who run this country. We are.

When we abdicate those roles and those responsibilities, when we elect politicians intending for them to carry the load for us, to do our thinking for us, to do everything for us so that we need to do nothing for ourselves — we get exactly what we want. We get controlled. We get exploited. We get screwed: because we put people in power over us, people who want to screw us, and we hand them the tools to do it.

Joe Biden, whatever else he is — old, weak, stumbling, mumbling, moderate, somewhat racist, somewhat sexist — he is not looking to screw us. He just wants to help.

So let him.

Vote for him.

My man.

Joe Biden 'not sure' he would seek re-election if Trump were not running

Off course.

Dusty Leave a comment

So Lamar Alexander is going to vote with the GOP. Which means that despite Mitt Romney and Susan Collins (And ten’ll get you five that she would have changed her vote to the party line at the last minute) saying we should have witnesses in the Senate trial, Mitch McConnell still has enough votes to block witnesses and acquit Trump of wrongdoing. Which he will do in the next 24 hours.

Of course.

Alexander made a statement critical of the President’s actions, of course. Because he wants to be seen as moral, even as he abdicates all responsibility, all semblance  of actually doing his job and adhering to the oath he took. Nobody likes admitting that they’re doing the wrong thing. Even when they are doing the wrong thing.

Oh — President Obama did the wrong thing when he used drone strikes to kill Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists, especially because there were civilian casualties, and especially because he targeted American citizens. He did the wrong thing when he refused to close Guantanamo and either try or release the accused terrorists imprisoned there. He did the wrong thing when he —  okay, I can’t think of a third thing. I think he probably did the wrong thing when he pulled troops out of Iraq and allowed ISIS room to grow; and he probably did the wrong thing when he refused to send troops into Syria to stop Assad from using chemical weapons, and he did the wrong thing when he allowed the CIA to help overthrow Gaddafi in Libya. But I think any intervention in foreign wars is probably wrong. You can make a case for intervening to end brutal dictatorships, but it’s tough to maintain that case when we’ve not intervened in either North Korea nor Rwanda, so. It’s easiest to say that American foreign policy smacks of jingoistic imperialism, capitalist exploitation, and colonialist arrogance, and therefore  is troubling even when the goals are good.

Of course.

Alan Dershowitz is wrong: the idea that abuse of power is not impeachable because anything done in the public interest, according to the president’s understanding of that, can at worst be seen as misgovernance, which the Founding Fathers clearly refused to allow as grounds for impeachment and removal — that as long as President Trump thinks he’s doing what’s best for the country, and not committing any officially illegal acts like witness tampering, he commits no impeachable offenses — is ridiculous. It’s almost cute, because the President’s defense team is arguing that the House impeachment rests on reading the President’s mind, and knowing what he intended to do and why, because his actions by themselves are not impeachable (Mostly because no official crime, but also because according to them Trump did nothing wrong in that perfect phone call — it’s wild to watch smart people shift their stance daily, almost hourly, and still refuse to admit their case is weak); but: Dershowitz et al. knowing that the President thought what he was doing was in the public interest is also somehow reading his mind. Unless they have evidence as to the President’s specific, provable intention with his perfect phone call, in which case, that evidence should be brought forward and examined. Maybe call John Bolton, or something.

But they won’t. Because this is not a real trial. It’s not a real adherence to the Constitution and the law. Of course not. You can tell because they’re arguing that bullying an ally into mudslinging to win an election is somehow not abuse of power. Or that it is abuse of power, but that it isn’t impeachable — which is amazing, because that means there is some level, and in this instance it’s a pretty high bar, of acceptable abuse of power.

Abuse of power has to be impeachable. You can argue that it’s a vague category of offense, but so is the “specific” wording in the Constitution: “Treason, bribery, or other High crimes and misdemeanors.” Treason is betrayal of the United States, but what does that mean? If you do something like, I don’t know, start a trade war that ruins American manufacturing and farming just as those industries are pulling out of a recession, is that a betrayal of this country? Or how about betraying a longtime ally in a critical military operation, by pulling out troops so that their longtime enemy can move across an international border and bomb the shit out of innocent civilians? Is that a betrayal of the country? Is that treason? Is it bribery if you accept money from foreign heads of state who rent rooms at your hotel? How about if you put in place as ambassador to the EU some random schmoe who gave you a million dollars? Is that bribery? (Of course it is.)

Would it be a high crime and misdemeanor if the President shot someone on 5th Avenue?

What if he had sex with a 21-year-old intern and then denied it under oath? Would that be a betrayal of the country? Is that treason?

And the point is, it’s a judgment call. There is no clear and well-defined standard of what is and is not corrupt because corruption comes in as many potential forms as there are people. I have changed grades because it was funny. Seriously: I had a student make some snarky comment about how grammar didn’t matter, except he spelled it “grammer,” and I gave him +1 for irony. That’s corrupt. It’s a betrayal of the trust put in me to grade my students to the best of my ability and with perfect honesty and integrity. I think it’s a minor infraction, but — that’s subjective, isn’t it?

Of course it is.

Abuse of power is the whole point of impeachment and removal from office. It has to be impeachable, and it has to be left vague so that it can be interpreted to fit the context of the present situation. Abuse of power is the definition of “high crimes and Misdemeanors,” a phrase taken from English common law and used to describe someone who betrayed an oath of office and the public trust placed in him, but who did not necessarily break any legal statute. I recommend you read the Wikipedia article on this, actually; very illuminating.  My favorite part is this:

Benjamin Franklin asserted that the power of impeachment and removal was necessary for those times when the Executive “rendered himself obnoxious,” and the Constitution should provide for the “regular punishment of the Executive when his conduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused.” James Madison said that “impeachment… was indispensable” to defend the community against “the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.” With a single executive, Madison argued, unlike a legislature whose collective nature provided security, “loss of capacity or corruption was more within the compass of probable events, and either of them might be fatal to the Republic.”[9]

I mean, Trump “rendered himself obnoxious” before he even took office, so. The Democrats who have sought to impeach him from day one have always been correct. I think the case for negligence and corruption, both potentially fatal to the Republic, is even easier to prove in this case. The goal is not to find the perfect set of rules and restrictions, definitions and elaborations, that will stop only those specific crimes that constitute an impeachable offense; it is to put our trust, the public trust, into our elected officials to hear the evidence, weigh the facts, and make a decision.

Of course.

Let me just boil all of this down, rather than getting too deep into the arguments. This is really, really easy stuff.

Trump did the thing. It was a violation of the public trust because we expect that the President not do anything in office expressly to benefit himself personally; and especially not fuck with an ally in danger: we expect that he not fuck with military aid intended to protect several allies from one of the world’s more dangerous countries. That’s an abuse of power, and it’s impeachable, and he should be impeached and removed.

He won’t be, of course. Because the GOP is becoming more and more obedient to a single, specific goal, which is “Fuck the liberals.” That’s what really got Trump elected — because I know there were a hundred reasons why the moderates and independents and disillusioned Democrats voted for Trump, and plenty of reasons why people voted against Clinton, and the Electoral College is the only reason Trump’s lost popular vote put him in office, but when you get down to it, if 30 million or so angry fucking Republicans hadn’t voted for him from the outset, those other things wouldn’t have mattered — and the harder Republicans work to keep him in office and get him reelected, the more they are showing their loyalty to exactly that base, and exactly that credo. Republican congressmen and Senators are toeing the line because they’re afraid of being primaried, afraid that someone will show up in their districts who is more credible when they say “Fuck the liberals,” and will take their job away. And they’re right, that’s exactly what would happen; because Trump’s base votes to fuck the liberals. That’s it.

You can tell that this is their fundamental idea because every single argument about Trump and what he has done comes back to liberals (mostly Obama) doing worse. You say that Trump is abusing his power, and they say that Obama abused his with executive orders. You say that Trump is hurting our national reputation, they say that Obama did worse when he bowed, or went on his “apology tour.” You say that Trump is a rapist, they say so was Clinton.

All of those are terrible arguments. If you accuse me of murder and I say “Well Ted Bundy killed WAY more people than me!” it doesn’t mean anything other than “Fuck you.” And that’s all I’ve been hearing this entire time, ever since the whistleblower tried to do the right thing: Trump isn’t as corrupt as Biden, he didn’t hurt Ukraine as much as Obama did by not providing actual weapons to fight Russia, the GOP bullshit tactics aren’t as bad as Adam Schiff. All they’re saying is that your side is just as bad as your side; and if they then don’t go on to say “Wow, that’s  fucked up and  we should fix both sides,” their real belief is that your side (the liberal side) is worse simply because we’re liberals. So even if what Obama did isn’t comparable to what Trump did in an absolute sense (And it’s not: comparing clear criminal acts and abuse of power to actual policy decisions, even policy decisions you hate, is just bullshit.), it’s worse because Obama did it. Because he’s a liberal. Of course.

I did realize the other day that there’s a fundamental difference in opinion that changes how people see this impeachment. I don’t think anyone really believes Trump when he says he did nothing wrong; I am positive that no one believes President Zelenskiy of Ukraine when he says there was no pressure; when the teacher comes across the bully in the middle of applying an atomic wedgie, and the victim says, “No, sir, nothing wrong here; we’re just playing around,” you don’t believe that kid. You know better. Zelenskiy still needs the military aid and the goodwill of the US, and as Trump has made abundantly clear to him since last July, that means doing whatever makes President Trump happy, and fuck everyone else in America. So Zelenskiy is lying to suck up to the bully. Of course.

Tell me that’s not an abuse of his power. Tell me he’s working in the public interest. Go on.

But that’s what I realized: the people who think Trump is the best president we’ve ever had — and the vast majority of those are, I am confident, the Fuck the Liberals wing of the Republican party — really don’t think he did anything wrong because they think getting Trump reelected is the best thing for the country, and so whatever Trump does to achieve that is actually a good thing. Even if it’s shady. Even if it causes some conflict with Ukraine — the Ukrainians (anyone, really) don’t matter as much as America does, and America is better off with Trump in office, these folks say. So that’s why there was no crime, no impeachable offense: he was doing the right thing. 

Of course.

(A couple of quick things while we’re on the subject: the accusations keep getting thrown around that this is a partisan impeachment. Of course it is: all impeachments are partisan. But in the Democrats’ case, while they may be biased against conservatives, it’s not because they belong to the Democratic party, it’s because they disagree with the ideas. So even if the parties were reversed — like, say, the Republicans being the party if Lincoln and the Democrats being the party of the segregationist South — the ideas would still clash and they’d still disagree, and the process of impeachment would be partisan no matter what parties there were, or how many. The parties reflect our divides, they don’t create them. Though I wonder if that is still true of the GOP under Trump. And also, it keeps being said, in various ways by both sides, that this process will ruin impeachment, ruin Congress, ruin the country. Of course it won’t. If people with integrity and good intentions get into office, things will improve; if corrupt cowards get into office, everything will go badly. The question is if this process will lead to more corrupt cowards being elected, and at the moment, I’d say: of course.)

So, now we won’t have witnesses or evidence, and Trump will be acquitted and will go back on tour leading up to his reelection bid. And about 50 million people will vote for him because A) he’s not a socialist; B) he put in place those nice white Jesus-lovin’ Justices who will end abortion for us all, and C) fuck the liberals. And I truly hope, and I mostly believe (as cynical as I am, I still believe) that a large number of key voters, moderates and swing voters and those who really hated Hillary Clinton so much they voted for Trump instead of her, will vote for someone who didn’t abuse their power and who isn’t a spurting fountain of corruption. I think a lot of smart people voted for Trump in 2016, and a lot of them realize it didn’t work out the way they wanted it to. I believe that a lot of them will vote him out of office, at least partly because he abused his power and the Congress failed to act on it, failed to do their jobs as Trump has failed to do his job. I hope that they will also vote out the Republican majority in the Senate, because they abdicated their responsibility and betrayed the country.

I don’t know if it will happen that way. I hope so.

But I know this: if he does get reelected, I’m going to look into emigrating to some other country, somewhere that doesn’t reelect a corrupt narcissist because the other political party makes them mad. It’s bad enough that the politicians choose party over country, but they’re cowards who want to keep their jobs more than they want to do their jobs (And yes, that goes for both sides; Dianne Feinstein fucked up the Kavanaugh hearings because she played it for maximum political damage to Trump, and so we got that shitstick on the court for the next thirty years.), but when my countrymen do that? Fuck them. I’m out. And yes, that means they win, and they will gleefully cheer as I leave. And I sincerely hope that my fellow liberals will all come with me, and leave this broken, failing country in their hands, so they can turn it into Gilead and start picking out their Handmaids. I wish them as much joy of what’s left of America as they wished me when they voted Trump into office expressly to fuck with me.

That is: none. Of course. Choke on the ashes of what you’ve wrought, you GOP bastards. Follow your Perfect Leader into hell. I’m done with all of this.

To be perfectly clear: I will fight with everything I’ve got for the next nine months. But if they win again, presidency and congress, that’s my last straw. This is my Waterloo.

Of course.

Investigation

Dusty Leave a comment

There should be an investigation.

Sorry: I assume that I don’t need to give any more explanation than that of my topic here; but in truth, there are several things happening right now that could lead me to call for an investigation, so I should certainly give my audience a little more than that.

There should be an investigation into the accusation of sexual assault made against Brett Kavanaugh.

There. Is that clear enough? Mmm, perhaps not; I know this story has exploded into unavoidability, but I also know that many of my fellow citizens, and many interested parties around the world, make a point of staying away from the mass media and the political news cycles; those people may need more information. I don’t expect that any of them read this blog – not sure that anyone will read this blog once they have realized what my subject is – but in case they do, I should explain.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, currently an appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington D.C. District, has been nominated by President Trump for the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court vacated by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Judge Kavanaugh is on the fast track to confirmation, partly because he’s a fine conservative judge with excellent experience and credentials, and therefore a good choice for the seat (if you don’t mind the fact that he’s a perfect fit for the mold of Republican Honky, having grown up wealthy and privileged and white, attending private schools and Yale, working for the Bush White House, et cetera, et cetera. He’s even married with two children whom he coaches in softball, for God’s sake. He’s a Republican Ken doll. Does that make him a good or bad choice for the Supreme Court? Honestly, I want to help my party stop playing identity politics, because identity politics are bullshit, and so I’m going to say we should let Judge Kavanaugh’s stereotypical markers go, and focus on his actual record of words and deeds), and partly because the Republican-controlled Senate wants to fill Justice Kennedy’s seat before the November elections, when the Democrats may win control of the Senate, and may then cast out any Republican judicial nominations while chanting “Merrick Garland! Merrick Garland!”

I have to say: I had this splendid and insane idea. What if the Democrats, should they win the elections in November and take control of Congress, could call Merrick Garland for a hearing, and then vote him into Kennedy’s seat? I mean, he was nominated for the Supreme Court by a President, and he wasn’t voted down by the Senate, simply never given a chance to be considered. Could they go back and pull his nomination out of the cold case files, so to speak, dust him off and put him through the process now?

The answer is no, sadly. His nomination officially expired when the 114th Congress closed in January of 2017. Too bad. Think how sweet that would have felt. It might even have precipitated the second civil war, and about time, I say. I don’t mean that.

Anyway. Judge Kavanaugh was going forward with his successful bid to become an entrenched 30-year bastion of conservatism, when suddenly the car went off the road and crashed down a hillside. It is currently flying, in super slow motion, over a cliff’s edge; it is not clear yet whether it will flip over, smash into the ground and explode in red-white-and-blue flames, or if it will glide perfectly onto another roadway on the other side of the narrow chasm it may currently be flying over. That is to say: Kavanaugh’s nomination has suddenly gone awry, but it may still straighten out and land him in a seat at the Supreme Court.

The reason the Kavanaugh car went off the road is a woman named Christine Blasey-Ford, Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford, who has stated publicly that, when she was a teenager known simply as Christine Blasey, she was assaulted at a party by a drunken 17-year-old boy who pushed her down, lay on top of her, groped her and kissed her, tried to take her clothing off, and when she tried to scream for help, he put his hand over her mouth to silence her. That drunken assault was committed, according to Dr. Ford, by Brett Kavanaugh.

Okay. Cue outrage. Cue insanity. Cue tens of millions of people all saying, “Oh, shit.” I know I certainly did, several times, when I first heard this story after it broke. But after the outrage and insanity and the Oh-Shits have passed, we now have to deal with this situation. And the question is, what do we do?

It’s not fair to treat this as a special case because of the political ramifications. If Dr. Ford’s story is true, then she was attacked by a drunken savage, who may quite possibly have raped her had his equally drunken buddy, a man named Mark Judge, not jumped laughingly atop the two while they struggled on the bed, knocking all three to the floor and enabling the young woman to get away. (I have to say, though maybe I shouldn’t, but I have to: that’s the part that makes me think Dr. Ford’s story might be true exactly as she said it. That is not the kind of act someone would make up, because it’s so absurd, so entirely dumb; it turns an attempted rape into a bad Three Stooges skit. It makes the rape attempt seem less serious, which would undercut the narrative if Dr. Ford wanted to invent an attack to use as a weapon. But it is also clearly something that a drunk-ass teenaged boy would do. I also think it is something that a guy would do if he thought his buddy was taking a joke too far, and he suddenly got disturbed that maybe this wasn’t a joke, to his buddy: according to the story Dr. Ford recounted, Mark Judge was laughing wildly the whole time, and he jumped on top of them twice, only knocking them off the bed the second time. I can quite easily see that young man doing that intentionally to make Kavanaugh stop, maybe after seeing Kavanaugh do something that wasn’t playful and funny in that Ha-ha-we’re-drunk-guys-assaulting-a-girl-but-not-really kind of jokey way. Maybe putting his hand over her mouth after she screamed? However: I also have to note that there is no indication other than Dr. Ford’s testimony that the two guys who carried out this, to me, realistic-sounding attack, were actually Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. So I believe the event happened. I do not know for certain if Kavanaugh was the one who did it. That depends on whether we believe Dr. Ford. Is it believable that she would forget who did this to her? It is not; trauma creates strong memories, and she knew both boys’ identities at the time. Is it possible, since memory is often deceptive, that she has mixed up the identities of her attackers in the intervening years? It is possible, and it is also possible that Dr. Ford is lying intentionally. So I can’t be sure; there is a reasonable doubt. Forgive the ridiculously long aside.) Whether that savage would-be rapist is now a judge, or nominated for the Supreme Court, or if he was just some dude who drove a bus or sold insurance or ran a car wash would make no difference. Dr. Ford’s account should be considered carefully, and the reasonable next steps should be taken. We are well past the statute of limitations, so there cannot be any criminal or civil action taken against Dr. Ford’s attacker; but the purpose of acting on an accusation of assault shouldn’t be for the sake of punishing the attacker: it should be for the sake of trying to make things right, however that can be done. The truth is, of course, it can’t be made right, because Dr. Ford can never be relieved of the burden of what happened to her; but that makes it more important, not less, that we try.

At the same time, this case can’t be separated from the politics. The potential stakes have been raised, all the way to the highest court in the land. This may be important not only for those involved, but for the entire country. It doesn’t change the situation, but it changes the extent of it, and therefore changes the extent of our response to it. Howsoever far we might be willing to go for the sake of doing what is right for Dr. Ford – and I’d argue that that should be pretty goddamn far – we have to be willing to go much, much farther to do what is right for all of us.

So what is the right thing to do? Let me start by stating, as I think I’ve been doing all along, the obvious: we should not be playing partisan politics with this. And as is always the case, neither party is innocent of that crime, the crime of exploiting intense suffering, perhaps even causing intense suffering, for the sake of partisan political gain. It is utterly appalling that the Democrats, specifically Senator Dianne Feinstein, sat on the accusation for two months, revealing it only when it was the last bullet in the gun and could be used to delay Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination as long as possible. It seems likely that the political calculus here also sought to make it impossible for President Trump to nominate a replacement in time to get someone confirmed before the midterms if he and the GOP should decide to abandon Kavanaugh, which means they have little choice politically but to stick with the man accused of sexual assault, which will surely be used to make much political hay regarding the President and the rest of the privileged white dudes in power and their tendency towards sexual violence and misconduct. That’s a disgusting abuse of Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and the entire political system. (Honestly, if I may be allowed another aside, I have to say that I think President Trump did nothing wrong here. I’m already seeing memes associating Trump with all of the sexual misconduct in the GOP, and though he certainly bears responsibility for his own alleged crimes and multiple verified instances of misogyny and sexual misconduct, he didn’t make the Republicans, nor the Democrats who have also committed crimes and sexual misconduct, into the scum that they are. He could not possibly have known about this assault accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, and so he should not be taken to task for picking a man who had this hidden in his past; it was hidden too well and too deep for anyone to know, which is why Judge Kavanaugh has the title and the position that he does. I saw Trevor Noah of the Daily Show making a comment about how Trump seems drawn to other sexual assaulters, and while that may be true, it also hides the truth that people who commit sexual assault are not always, not even often, clearly criminal in their demeanor. There is nothing to show, on the outside, that someone may have committed sexual assault in their past. The nicest guy you know might be guilty of sexual assault, and still seem like the nicest guy you know. There’s no particular reason to think that Trump could sense if Kavanaugh is guilty of this, and he couldn’t have known that Kavanaugh would be accused of it. That being the case, I actually think the honorable thing for the President to do is to stand by his nominee until and unless the truth is proven; and that’s what Trump is doing.) I don’t believe the cover story of protecting Dr. Ford’s anonymity; it wouldn’t even be hard to bring up the accusation without details but with enough information to scuttle the nomination before it went to committee. Senator Feinstein could have gone to President Trump’s advisors and presented the situation, and they absolutely would have steered the President to a different nominee; it’s not like Brett Kavanaugh is the only good Republican Ken doll in the judicial branch, and there were a dozen other possible names floating around for the seat. No, it seems clear that Senator Feinstein held this grenade until the very last second so as to inflict maximum damage, and that is simply gross.

On the other hand, the idea that the Republicans can push this nomination forward to a vote without properly pursuing the matter in a manner befitting the seriousness of the allegation, and the potential impact of putting a man guilty of sexual assault onto the Supreme Court for the rest of his life, for the sole reason that that man is also a conservative, is just as utterly disgusting. I can’t imagine being so cynical that I could do what the GOP seems to have done, which is to find a way to spin this that seems acceptable to enough of their base that they can then go ahead and do what they planned to do before this came to light: put a fifth conservative justice on the Supreme Court and start laying down precedents that will help them win the culture wars. But all I hear from them is, “Well, she’ll have a chance to speak, but we can’t delay this nomination. Don’t have time. Got to get this done fast.” Their reasoning is clear, and grotesque.

The right thing to do politically would be to go to a vote and vote Kavanaugh down, right now, and then get a second nominee through the process as fast as they possibly can; I would also argue that this would be the right thing to do for Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh, because it would take all of the ungodly pressure and scrutiny off of the case, and Dr. Ford could pursue it as she saw fit. It should be pursued, now that it’s out, both for her sake and because even if he is not headed for the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh is currently a judge on the Court of Appeals: he may not be one of the nine most powerful judges in the country, but he is one of the 188 most powerful judges. But bringing an accusation to light, proving the allegations, and potentially calling for Kavanaugh’s impeachment from the appellate court, none of that has the same insane heat as this does. And that way, the GOP could go ahead and get their fifth judge on the Supreme Court. Without inflicting a second justice, along with Clarence Thomas, who may be (is, in Thomas’s case) guilty of criminal sexual acts. (And Democrats worried about the long term effects in the culture wars should keep Thomas in mind. He is 70 years old, and he will not want to live out his last years as Ruth Bader Ginsburg is doing, working into her 80’s through ill health because she needs to keep her seat and do the right thing. Thomas does not have a hundredth part of Ginsburg’s strength, and his moral character is essentially nil. So make sure that Congress is Democratic, and Trump is out by 2020, and you’ll get a fifth liberal judge when Thomas steps down.)

But this is all beside the point. Because this is not a political issue. There are political issues attached to it, which change the dynamics of it; but they do not change the core issue. The core issue is that a woman has said she was attacked. And while there is no evidence beyond her word that Kavanaugh was the man who did it, there is evidence that it happened, both in her willingness to come forward with the accusation when there is little evidence that she gains thereby (I say “little evidence” because she might be using this allegation to hurt Kavanaugh and Trump, and her gain might be their loss. But there’s no evidence that Dr. Ford is a fanatic who would throw away her entire life for the sake of sticking it to Trump, just so he could nominate a different Republican Ken doll to the court after tossing out Kavanaugh. Also note that if her intent was political drama, she would have made the very same play that Feinstein made, coming out publicly at the most intense moment, rather than sending a letter to her congresswoman two months ago.), and in the fact that she recounted the attack to her therapist in 2012, long before she could have predicted she’d make an allegation against a Supreme Court nominee. It is not clear that she is telling the truth, because it is not clear that she definitely recalls the truth; that it happened seems likely, but that it was Kavanaugh is in some doubt. She took a polygraph test and passed it, but that isn’t good evidence; the therapist’s notes from 2012 differ from her story in critical ways (The notes say there were four males in the room when she was attacked. Kavanaugh is not named in them.); she can’t recall many details about the overall situation (though she has not had the opportunity to speak about this and answer questions, so we don’t yet know everything she recalls, only what her initial public statements describe); the other people in the room deny her allegations. That Kavanaugh denied it doesn’t show he’s innocent, because of course he has quite a lot to gain from denying it and nothing to gain from admitting guilt; the testimonials of his good character and the fact that there are many women whom he hasn’t attempted to rape do not, of course, mean anything at all.

So what do we do when there is a credible but not airtight accusation of a serious crime? It depends. What would be gained from pursuing the matter? What would the costs be? If this was just two people with an old trauma between them, then there wouldn’t be much for society to gain, and it wouldn’t be worth very much to pursue it; it would of course be worth the world for Dr. Ford to pursue it, and people who could help her would be, I think, honor bound to do so if they could, for her sake. But this is a 35-year-old crime, and if she brought it to a Maryland prosecutor, even if the statute of limitations didn’t exist (And by the way: it shouldn’t. The statute of limitations is that “Boys will be boys” bullshit made into law – “Well, shucks, he hasn’t raped anybody since then, so what’s the big deal?” – and it’s everything wrong with our justice system.), the prosecutor might not pursue it because there are other crimes and other criminals that pose larger threats. I think the story should be published, because there is not a better way to find out if other women might have suffered similarly; and if there is a pattern of behavior, suddenly there is much more reason to pursue charges against the assailant, to protect other innocents from harm.

I recognize that publishing an unproven allegation would ruin a man’s reputation. I face that possibility myself, all the time, because society believes someone like me, a man in his 40’s who spends all day with teenagers, is already probably 40% of the way towards child molestation; a credible public accusation would be more than enough to end my career forever, and prevent me from ever working in anything remotely like this field again. But the truth is that victims are destroyed by sexual assault, and it is the work of a lifetime to rebuild themselves; many can’t ever do it, particularly not if they are victimized more than once. Coming forward in our society with an accusation is even more dangerous than being accused: Brett Kavanaugh might lose his nomination for the Supreme Court; Dr. Ford has received death threats and has had to move out of her home, just in the last week. There isn’t an instance of public accusation that doesn’t go approximately that way: for all the grief that Bill Clinton (And Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore) got because of Clinton’s misconduct, it wasn’t a patch on what Monica Lewinsky went through. Laughing stock of the entire nation, for – well, for life, really, though she has done an admirable job of rebuilding herself since then. If I were accused of sexual misconduct, I’d be ruined; but the one who accused me, because I am a successful and popular teacher and a good guy, would be the target of every single bit of anger and hate that all of my friends and family could bring to bear. It would be bad. If someone were willing to do that to themselves, it would stand as reasonable evidence that the allegation were true. Proof? Of course not. But evidence. And because I recognize that, I work hard to make sure I don’t ever make it easy for someone to bring a false accusation against me, and I work even harder to make sure that no one could make a genuine complaint about my behavior, could accuse me of harassment or discrimination or something similar.

Plus, I’m not a rapist. Which makes it a lot easier to avoid accusations of rape.

I have to say, I got drunk as a teenager, more than once. Really drunk, sometimes. At parties, even. And I never even jokingly pretended to rape anyone. There is a difference between someone who will commit an act this heinous when their inhibitions are lowered, and someone who would never commit the act. That difference matters. And it has nothing to do with age and nothing to do with alcohol. People who say “Boys will be boys” about sexual assault, or who use a phrase like “drunken hijinks,” need to learn that.

So as I said above, what do we do when there is a credible but not an airtight accusation of a serious crime? We investigate. Of course we investigate. We ask questions. We send professionals in to interview everyone involved, and everyone who might know the truth, and we find out everything we can about it. Everyone should want this: Kavanaugh is already at risk from the accusation; if he’s innocent, an investigation is the best chance to prove it. If it were me, I wouldn’t be satisfied with being able to deny it – even if I categorically denied it, as Kavanaugh has – and then move on, I’d want someone who knew what they were doing to ascertain the truth, and make it known as an objective fact. Dr. Ford should want an investigation in order to prove that she’s telling the truth, and to bring herself one step closer to justice and the good rebuilding of herself from her trauma. And indeed, Dr. Ford has asked for, even demanded an investigation. Well, one out of two ain’t bad. The Republicans should want an investigation because it will be far faster than pursuing another nominee if Kavanaugh is innocent, and far better than either confirming an attempted rapist to the Supreme Court if he’s guilty, or abandoning a man just from an accusation, which is neither good nor politically savvy. For those concerned about how a mere accusation can do irreparable harm to a man’s reputation, an investigation would increase the penalty for those who make false accusations, and show that the accusation alone is not the end of the story.

For all the rest of us, an investigation would help ensure that we get a decent person on the Supreme Court (Partisan politics aside, please: a decent person who is a conservative is a decent person; many and many a conservative Justice have made decisions that have been good for the country. And remember that any decision does not have to be the end of the fight, because even the Supreme Court can be overridden by the will of the people. Even if we don’t get Kavanaugh, we are going to get a conservative: because even if the Democrats win in November, they won’t take control until January, and that’s plenty of time for a whole new nominee. So let’s get a decent one). An investigation would help us learn the truth, and help a victim work through a trauma, and those are both good things regardless of other considerations. An investigation would help us remember how seriously we have to look at sexual assault, and if Kavanaugh is guilty, it may help us start thinking seriously about how we can work to prevent similar things from happening, and also how we can’t assume that all sexual assaults happen in the same way, or that all those who commit sexual assault are the same kind of person, or that finding 65 women who think you’re nice shows that you couldn’t possibly have tried to rape a 15-year-old girl, and gagged her when she tried to scream.

Nobody knew about what happened at that party when it happened, because society has stigmatized victims more than attackers, and girls more than boys, for millennia. We have to change that. We should make sure we all know now what happened then. There should be an investigation, a complete investigation by the FBI, intended to help ensure the best outcome for our national interest, as well as do the best we as a society can do for the victim.

Christine Blasey-Ford has been silenced once before. Now she should be allowed to speak.