Iowa’s Longest-Serving Republican Switches to Democratic Party, Citing Trump
Rep. Andy McKean, Iowa’s longest-serving Republican lawmaker, left his party on Tuesday to join the Democrats, and cited President Donald Trump as a factor in his decision.
“With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party,” McKean told reporters at the Iowa Capitol during a news conference on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, that’s something I’m unable to do.”
McKean named several behaviors by Trump that he said were “unacceptable.”
“He sets, in my opinion, a poor example for the nation and particularly for our children by personally insulting, often in a crude and juvenile fashion, those who disagree with him, being a bully at a time when we are attempting to discourage bullying, his frequent disregard for the truth and his willingness to ridicule or marginalize people for their appearance, ethnicity or disability,” he said.
He added: “I believe that his actions have coarsened political discourse, have resulted in unprecedented divisiveness, and have created an atmosphere that is a breeding ground for hateful rhetoric and actions. Some would excuse this behavior as telling it like it is and the new normal. If this is the new normal, I want no part of it.”
McKean, who served seven terms in Iowa’s house after being elected in 1978, then three terms in the senate before retiring in 2006, rejoined the house in 2016 and returned to a very different political atmosphere than the one he’d been accustomed to. “I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the stance of my party on the vast majority of high profile issues and often sympathetic with concerns raised by the minority caucus,” he said.
McKean’s exit puts him among other state Republican legislators in suburban districts who have left the party in recent years.
American farmer: Trump ‘took away all of our markets’
The White House recently announced that it would be providing an additional $16 billion in aid to American farmers affected by the trade war between the U.S. and China.
But the problem for American farmers has becomes bigger than something a bailout can fix.
“This trade thing is what’s brought on by the president and it’s really frustrating because he took away all of our markets,” Bob Nuylen, a farmer from North Dakota who grows spring wheat and sunflowers, told Yahoo Finance. “We live in an area where we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. It costs us a lot of money — over $1 a bushel to get our grain to markets.”
A farmer surveys a wheat field near Beulah, N.D. (Photo: AP Photo/Blake Nicholson)
‘As low as I’ve seen them in a long time’
Since trade tensions began in 2018, farmers have faced major financial challenges, since China was once a major U.S. agriculture buyer.
And losing customers has become a major issue. Soybean farmers have been dealing with this, as China has turned to other countries like Brazil for soybeans. Nuylen said this is also happening for wheat farmers, as China has begun importing wheat from Russian regions.
“All these countries went to different countries to get their grain,” Nuylen said. “How are we going to get the relations back with them to buy our grain again and be our customers?”
Between 2016-2017, China was the fourth-largest wheat buyer in the world, importing more than 61 million U.S. bushels. In 2019, the top U.S. export destinations for wheat include Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, and Nigeria — China is not even among the top 10.
“Our prices are probably as low as I’ve seen them in a long time,” he told Yahoo Finance. “We were losing just about $70 an acre just by putting our crop in [the ground] this spring.”
While a deal between the U.S. and China would take months to be reached, farmers are remaining “cautiously optimistic,” Glenn Brunkow, a Kansas-based corn and soybean farmer said.
“Our hope is that the playing field is leveled up and these tariffs on the other side are taken away,” Brunkow said. “We feel like with the technology we have, the advantages we have, we can produce the crops as economically as anyone else in the whole world.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly told U.S. farmers he loves and supports them and in return they largely continue to support him even though some of his promises, better trade deals and strong support for corn-based ethanol, haven’t been fully kept. (Photo: AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)
‘Farmers are profoundly wary of the trade war’
This isn’t the first time that the USDA has doled out aid to struggling farmers. The Trump administration pledged two installments of a farmer bailout program. The first round of payments totaling $4.7 billion was paid in September 2018, while the second round was distributed in December. By February 2019, the total aid payments reached $7.7 billion.
“Payments are a welcome help for the bottom line of Missouri farmers,” Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, told Yahoo Finance in an email statement. “Although the trade payments vary widely from county to county, they’ll keep more than a few farmers in business for another year. …
“Having said all that,” the statement added, “farmers are profoundly wary of the trade war, embarrassed that ad hoc government subsidies are all that stands between many of us and financial ruin, and ready for the return of more normal times.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that farm bankruptcies in three major farm regions reached their highest level in at least 10 years. Much of this is because crop prices have been dragged down dramatically due to a decrease in consumers. Overall, U.S. farm debt soared over $409 billion in 2017, which is “the largest sum in nearly four decades and a level not seen since the 1980s,” WSJ wrote.
A guest wears a hat that reads “Make Potatoes Great Again” as President Donald Trump speaks at a meeting to support America’s farmers and ranchers. (Photo: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
And it doesn’t help that farmers are facing unprecedented severe weather. Flooding has damaged crops across the Midwest. When combining that with bankruptcies, lower prices, and trade war struggles, mental health problems among rural Americans are becoming more prevalent than ever before.
“People think that farmers are just loaded with money but … just about every dollar a farmer makes, he puts back into the economy and their state and in the nation, because our inputs are so high,” Nuylen said. “We spend just about all the money we make back into the communities. If we’re struggling, everybody’s struggling.”
He added: “We kind of get a bad picture that we’re all big money and drive all this big equipment. In reality … these are record low incomes for farmers in the last couple of years. It’s getting tough out there. We’re going to start seeing a lot of suicide and a lot of farmers going out of business. So, that’s not a good thing.”
The concern is that farmers may reach a breaking point as things drag on.
“It’s going to be a scary situation if it doesn’t turn around pretty soon,” Nuylen said.
Emmanuel Peter joins GOP’S race for Virginia’s Governor
As an ordained bishop, Dr. Peter also saw the need to serve the weak and the sick in the hospital as a patient counselor. Working as an intern in the hospital, Emmanuel came face-to-face with several cases involving senseless gun violence and the repercussions on families and loved ones.
Academia and a distinguished fellow of the American Journal of Transformational Leadership (AJTL), Dr. Emmanuel Peter, has joined the race for Virginia’s governor, International Guardian was told. Dr. Peter, a seasoned leader, teacher, and counselor spent many years helping students in the public schools system. While others found careers in the corporate America with huge benefits, Dr. Peter found a passion in saving the young minds from wasting in the schools; organizing them and creating avenues to lead them to a positive path. “Now, I want to serve them and the entire masses at a high level of political stewardship” Dr. Peter told International Guardian.
As an ordained bishop, Dr. Peter also saw the need to serve the weak and the sick in the hospital as a patient counselor. Working as an intern in the hospital, Emmanuel came face-to-face with several cases involving senseless gun violence and the repercussions on families and loved ones. He served as the National President of Global Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship -(GIMF) – an international faith-based organizational serving the need of members globally.
Dr. Emmanuel is a happy family man with a wife (Lady Hephzibah) and the oldest son (Ubong-abasi). “I am running for governor to return Virginia to her former enviable status of a safe place to raise families. At my relocation to the State of Virginia several years ago, I discovered that most people relocated from New York, Las Vegas, and even the nearby Maryland to Virginia to take advantage of the high moral values and safety associated with the region,” Dr. Peter said. He said, “Gradually, these excellent conservative qualities are being eroded; the safety of our children are no more guaranteed in the neighborhood, malls, schools etc. . Patrick Lumumba, a prolific public speaker, once said that election season is like one receiving a blank check, what you write in it or the type of leader you vote into office determine to a greater extent the future of our kids.”
Dr. Emmanuel is a happy family man with a wife (Lady Hephzibah) and the oldest son (Ubong-abasi)
Virginia’s primary election will be held on June 13, 2017. Election for governor is on November 7, 2017. The incumbent, Terry McAuliffe (D) is term-limited and ineligible for re-election in 2017, leaving the race open for contestants like Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam; and former U.S. Representative, Tom Perriello in the Democratic primary. In the Republicans camp, four candidates have already declared, including two prominent political consultants, a state senator, and a businessman.
Dr. Peter however, affirmed his chances, stating that “The time has come once again to vote a candidate whose views is never against the Second Amendment, but one who advocated the application of commonsense gun laws (background check). This is the time to vote an outsider not a career politician hook up with the world street. We have a chance once again to vote a candidate whose sole focus is on the moral values and safety of our families.”
He continued, “Opportunity is here to vote a candidate with leadership training at the doctoral level with emotional skills to bridge the bipartisan divides to create and bring back high-paying jobs for Virginians. Vote Dr. Emmanuel Peter to overhaul the ailing manufacturing industries/ infrastructures to make life better for Virginians.”
Virginia has had a divided government since Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) was elected in 2013, ending a two-year Republican trifecta. The office of governor in Virginia has tended to alternate party control over the past five decades, with no single party controlling the seat for longer than 12 years since 1969.
Though the state Republican Party has traditionally selected party nominees for statewide offices at a convention, in August 2016 the central committee voted to hold primary elections in 2017 instead. The direct selection by voters of the Republican nominee for governor could have a significant impact on the candidate field in 2017.
Donald Trump thanks African Americans for not voting
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Giant Center, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2016, in Hershey, Pa. CREDIT: AP Photo/Matt Rourke
During a “thank you” rally Thursday night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, President-elect Donald Trump thanked various groups of people for his expected Electoral College victory over Hillary Clinton. Among them were African Americans, but Trump acknowledged them for a reason you might not expect — he specifically thanked those who didn’t turn out to vote at all.
And they’re smart and they picked up on it like you wouldn’t believe. And you know what else? They didn’t come out to vote for Hillary. They didn’t come out. And that was a big — so thank you to the African American community.
There’s some truth to what Trump says. Overall turnout as a percentage of the electorate this year was the lowest since 2000, and voters not turning out in urban areas was enough to shift the balance in the decisive Rust Belt states Trump unexpectedly won.
For instance, as ThinkProgress previously reported, 60,000 less votes were cast in Milwaukee County this year compared to 2012, and Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 30,000 votes. In Detroit, Clinton’s vote total was 75,000 less than Obama, and Trump won Michigan by roughly 10,000. Turnout was also down in Philadelphia compared to both 2008 and 2012.
According to the Washington Post, black voters constituted 12 percent of the electorate this year, down one percent point from 2012.
Some of that decline might be attributable to lack of enthusiasm for Clinton. But another part of the decrease in turnout resulted from voter suppression measures Republicans have been pushing in recent years, particularly since the Supreme Court struck down key portions of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
Voter ID laws disproportionately disenfranchise minorities and hurt Democratic candidates. According to a Project Vote study from last year, 13 percent of the country’s blacks lack photo IDs, compared to 10 percent of Latinos and five percent of whites. (Other studies have found that as many as one-quarter of African Americans don’t have a photo ID.) Lower-income people and young adults are less likely than other groups to have them.
These groups tend to vote for Democrats. A study published earlier this year by researchers at the University of California, San Diego found that “Democratic turnout drops by an estimated 8.8 percentage points in general elections when strict photo identification laws are in place,” compared to just 3.6 percentage points for Republicans.
Asked about the impact that could have on an election, the paper’s lead researcher, UCSD political science professor Zoltan Hajnal, told ThinkProgress, “It’s fair to say that given the number of states that have these laws, there’s a very real possibility that in a very tight election, it could sway the contest one way or another.”
Despite very little credible evidence of voter fraud, Wisconsin enacted a voter ID law in 2014. And comments Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) made earlier this year turned out to be prescient. Asked during a TV interview why he thought a Republican presidential candidate could carry the state for the first time since 1984, Grothman said, “Now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is gonna make a little bit of a difference.”
Voter suppression is what Trump was applauding Thursday night in Hershey. And with Trump falsely claiming earlier this month that he would’ve won the popular vote if “millions” of people had not illegally cast ballots, we can expect whomever he nominates to the Supreme Court to greenlight more of it.
Working class voters are not just rural voters – opinion
Hon. Carroll G. Robinson, Esq
Democrats in DC need to remember that working class voters are not just white rural voters. Working America is multi-racial and lives in urban centers and suburbs as well as in rural America.
All Americans want a good paying job that will lift them out of poverty into the middle class and position them for continued upward economic mobility. All Americans want an opportunity to do better. We all want to live in safe, clean and healthy communities. We want a better life for our children and grandchildren.
Clinton not only lost white rural voters who voted for Obama; turnout was down in urban cities in the Midwest and if the exit polls are to be believed, Hispanics and women voted for Trump in greater numbers than expected.
As Democrats prepare to move forward from the Clinton era, they should look back to the Rainbow Coalition of Jesse Jackson as the blueprint for moving forward. The Obama coalition is the general election version of the primary coalition built by Jesse in 1984 and 1988.
Time changes political circumstances but the Rainbow Coalition is essentially the general election coalition that elected Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Jesse does not get much credit, but he did reach out to rural white voters and so-called Reagan Democrats.
Time changes political circumstances but the Rainbow Coalition is essentially the general election coalition that elected Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Jesse does not get much credit, but he did reach out to rural white voters and so-called Reagan Democrats.
Democrats would be wise to remember that, going forward, all elections are always about “the economy stupid” and how to make it work for all working Americans (and those aspiring to secure a job) as technology and innovation are driving change.
Middle America is more than a geographic place-“fly over country”-or an economic class-“the middle class”-it is a state of mind built on hope for the future and an expectation of competence in a government committed to standing up for the best interest of the people of America.
♦ Hon. Carroll G. Robinson, Esq. is a former Democratic candidate for Congress and General Counsel of the Texas Democratic Party who has served as an At-Large Member of the Houston City Council as well as a Houston Community College Trustee. Robinson is also an Associate Professor who teaches at a School of Public Affairs and has taught at two Texas law schools. Contact >>
The Clinton Campaign Was Undone By Its Own Neglect And A Touch Of Arrogance, Staffers Say
Hillary Clinton’s campaign had basic assumptions about key battleground states that turned out painfully wrong.
By Sam Stein, Senior Politics Editor, (The Huffington Post)
WASHINGTON ― In the closing weeks of the presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton’s staff in key Midwest states sent out alarms to their headquarters in Brooklyn. They were facing a problematic shortage of paid canvassers to help turn out the vote.
For months, the Clinton campaign had banked on a wide army of volunteer organizers to help corral independents and Democratic leaners and re-energize a base not particularly enthused about the election. But they were volunteers. And as anecdotal data came back to offices in key battlegrounds, concern mounted that leadership had skimped on a critical campaign function.
“It was arrogance, arrogance that they were going to win. That this was all wrapped up,” a senior battleground state operative told The Huffington Post.
Several theories have been proffered to explain just what went wrong for the Clinton campaign in an election that virtually everyone expected the Democratic nominee to win. But lost in the discussion is a simple explanation, one that was re-emphasized to HuffPost in interviews with several high-ranking officials and state-based organizers: The Clinton campaign was harmed by its own neglect.
In Michigan alone, a senior battleground state operative told HuffPost that the state party and local officials were running at roughly one-tenth the paid canvasser capacity that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) had when he ran for president in 2004. Desperate for more human capital, the state party and local officials ended up raising $300,000 themselves to pay 500 people to help canvass in the election’s closing weeks. By that point, however, they were operating in the dark. One organizer said that in a precinct in Flint, they were sent to a burned down trailer park. No one had taken it off the list of places to visit because no one had been there until the final weekend. Clinton lost the state by 12,000 votes.
A similar situation unfolded in Wisconsin. According to several operatives there, the campaign’s state office and local officials scrambled to raise nearly $1 million for efforts to get out the vote in the closing weeks. Brooklyn headquarters had balked at funding it themselves, arguing that the state already had a decent-sized footprint because of the labor-backed super PAC For Our Future and pointing out that Clinton had never trailed in a single poll in Wisconsin.
The campaign’s state office argued additionally for prominent African-American surrogates to help in Milwaukee. “There are only so many times you can get folks excited about Chelsea Clinton,” explained one Wisconsin Democrat. But President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama didn’t come. Nor did Hillary Clinton after the July Democratic convention. She would go on to lose the state, hampered by lower turnout in precisely the place that had operatives worried. Clinton got 289,000 votes in Milwaukee County compared to the 328,000 that Obama won in 2012.
“They had staff on the ground and lots of volunteers, but they weren’t running a massive program because they thought they were up 6-7 points,” said the aforementioned senior battleground state operative.
In politics, much like anything else, victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. A senior official from Clinton’s campaign noted that they did have a large staff presence in Michigan and Wisconsin (200 and 180 people respectively) while also stressing that one of the reasons they didn’t do more was, in part, because of psychological games they were playing with the Trump campaign. They recognized that Michigan, for example, was a vulnerable state and felt that if they could keep Trump away ― by acting overly confident about their chances ― they would win it by a small margin and with a marginal resource allocation.
Clinton herself has blamed FBI Director James Comey for re-launching an investigation into her emails only to clear her days before the vote; while operatives across the spectrum, including former President Bill Clinton in the campaign’s closing days, argued that she failed to adequately reach working class white voters that had been drifting away from the Democratic Party.
“It is not black and white,” said Michael Tate, the former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “I can tell you in Wisconsin that the staff they had leading the effort were top-notch field operatives. Period. Would it have helped if Hillary Clinton came in? Yes. Would it have helped if Comey didn’t push his shenanigans? Yes. Would it have helped if Trump hadn’t visited right before the election? Yes … But I think the folks here did a good job and they just came up short in an election where we were running two historically unpopular candidates.”
The more universal explanation, however, was that the data that informed many of the strategic decisions was simply wrong. A campaign that is given a game plan that strongly points to success shouldn’t be expected to rip it up.
“We all were blinded, and even at the end, we were blinded by our own set of biases,” said Paul Maslin, a Madison-based Democratic operative and pollster.
Which explains why, in a Midwest battleground state that the Clinton campaign’s data said would be closely contested, its ground game capacity was robust. Adrienne Hines, chair of the Democratic Party in Ottawa County, Ohio, just east of Toledo, said the Clinton campaign had a very active outreach and turnout operation. But the county, which Obama won twice, still went to Trump as his message ― however detail-free ― of bringing back jobs to the economically depressed area resonated.
“We were dealing with somebody who could say whatever he wanted. It is like being at the Olympics and somebody is on steroids and somebody is not, and then blaming the person not on steroids,” Hines said of criticism of Clinton campaign tactics.
It is like being at the Olympics and somebody is on steroids and somebody is not, and then blaming the person not on steroids.Adrienne Hines, chair of the Democratic Party in Ottawa County, on Trump’s messaging
As Democrats begin to repair their party and learn from the shortcomings of the Clinton campaign, one of the primary arguments being made is that candidates have to show up if they expect to win. Obama said as much in a recent press conference when he tied his success in Iowa to the sheer number of stops he made in the state while campaigning. And the data strongly suggests that this was a vulnerability for Clinton. As the Washington Post reported, Clinton’s campaign and outside groups supporting it aired more television ads in Omaha during the closing weeks than in Michigan and Wisconsin combined. And as NBC News reported, during the final 100 days of the election, Trump made 133 visits to Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin while Clinton made 87.
On the margins as well, campaign operatives say the Clinton campaign’s failure to have a footprint did real harm. In Pennsylvania, for example, the campaign had a healthy canvassing operation and was flush with volunteers, many of whom poured in from New York City and Washington, D.C. But according to one longtime grassroots campaign operative who was involved in the 2016 cycle, leadership was focused predominantly on turning out their own voters and not on persuading others to come on board.
This was a perfectly logical strategic decision, considering the massive voter registration advantage that Democrats enjoy in the state. But it meant that the Clinton campaign wasn’t able to anticipate the surge in Trump support in the rural areas because they weren’t having conversations with voters there.
The results bear this out. In Philadelphia County, Clinton got slightly more votes than Obama did in 2012 despite having a slightly smaller percentage of the vote total. But outside the city and suburbs, she lost badly. Whereas Mitt Romney won 57 percent of Elk County, 63.7 percent of Clearfield County and 72 percent of Jefferson County in 2012, Trump took in 70 percent, 73.1 percent and 78.3 percent of those counties respectively.
“Paid canvassers compensate for candidates who don’t have a huge volunteer base,” said the grassroots campaign operative. “Hillary Clinton had [a huge volunteer base]. It just wasn’t always in the places they needed it to be.”
Donald Trump’s Transition Team, Or Lack Thereof, Is Causing Real Panic
The self-proclaimed government outsider is having trouble finding people to run the government.
WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump’s transition team is nearing a state of stasis, causing concern among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington that his White House will be woefully ill-prepared once he is inaugurated.
The primary cause, according to multiple sources, is the revamped leadership structure at Trump’s transition offices ― the demotion of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the top post and his replacement with Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
On Tuesday morning, for example, the Obama administration alerted the press that it had not yet received a memorandum of understanding signed by Pence, which would legally allow the old and new administrations to begin discussions on how to hand off critical government functions. That document still hadn’t arrived by 4:30 p.m., and only later in the evening did a White House official confirm it had been received. The official noted that the language signed by Pence was identical to a memo signed by Christie, making the holdup all the more peculiar.
The disarray has left agencies virtually frozen, unable to communicate with the people tasked with replacing them and their staff. Trump transition team officials were a no-show at the Pentagon, the Washington Examinerreported. Same goes for the Department of Energy, responsible for keeping the nation’s nuclear weapons safe, where officials had expected members of the Trump transition team on Monday. Ditto for the Department of Transportation. Over at the Justice Department, officials also are still waiting to hear from the Trump team.
“The Department began planning for this transition well before the election and we are fully prepared to assist the incoming transition team,” Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said in a statement. “As the President has said, we are committed to a smooth and successful transition, including the seamless continuation of the department’s essential law enforcement and national security functions which are performed each and every day by its career staff.”
The transition dysfunction extends beyond failure to promptly execute a memorandum of understanding. According to several sources close to the Trump transition team and inside the Obama administration, the president elect and his staff have had difficulty finding able-minded Republicans willing to take on critical posts. One Democratic source, who like others would only discuss sensitive talks on condition of anonymity, said transition officials had been informally asking Obama political appointees to recommend Republicans to take over their jobs.
Other administration officials said conversations had not gotten to that point of desperation quite yet. But they acknowledged the pace of getting people in line for critical posts was moving painfully slowly.
The problem is twofold: Trump and his staff are not creatures of the establishment and are naturally skeptical of those who are. At the same time, many Republican lawyers and government officials who would have jumped at the opportunity to work in a GOP administration are balking at employment under Trump and his cabinet picks.
According to one Trump insider, this is particularly true for potential national security and intelligence officials.
“One issue is [Retired Lt. Gen.] Michael Flynn,” said the insider. Flynn, vice chair of the Trump transition, is reportedly in line for a top national security post in the new administration. “It’s a major problem. No one wants to work for him or around him because of the time he was running the DIA,” or Defense Intelligence Agency.
Eliot Cohen, a longtime neoconservative voice, tweeted a window into the disorder, recounting his talks with transition officials.
The internal rivalries inside Trump’s transition have not helped matters. The promotion of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff was supposed to set the tone for the rest of the administration. But it came with Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as chief strategist, a move that delighted the ardent, anti-establishment wing of the party, but has given others pause because of his history peddling anti-Semitism and white nationalism.
Priebus, according to sources, is also skittish on the possibility of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski replacing him at the RNC, worried that he may undo a lot of the work from the past six years.
Perhaps nothing illustrates the warring fiefdoms roiling the Trump transition effort better than the demotion of Christie. According to the Trump insider, the president elect and his team soured on Christie after he “abandoned Trump,” refusing to do media appearances after videotape of Trump bragging about sexual assault surfaced and skipping surrogate duties during the presidential debates.
When Christie’s top aides were indicted in the Bridgegate scandal, Trump decided to cut him loose, along with the officials he had brought along to help with the transition. One of those officials, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), left the transition team on Monday morning.
The American Democracy Truly a Disaster – Opinion
By SKC Ogbonnia
The title of this piece conveys a strident mood. But the angst is no longer because a bozo of catholic proportion emerged as the US president-Elect. It is not because of the reality that a labile character is set to become the leader of the free world. It has nothing to do with the fact that a worldwide outrage greeted Donald Trump’s triumph. And this is absolutely far from the whistling implication of the thought that the best-qualified person ever to seek US presidency was trounced by a definite nothingburger.
The seemingly venom is by no means induced by the nature of the rude awakening my 13-year-old had to endure that long night. The stolid school girl, who I had though cared less about politics, usually goes to bed at 9 PM. But not on November 8! As soon as I turned off the TV after major stations broke the sad news, I heard some strange footsteps in my media room. Lo and behold, it was the little girl wandering around perplexed and murmuring on her phone. Instead of running to her bedroom after sighting me that late, as expected, she stood and looked my way, unloading nonstop questions I still find difficult to answer: “Dad, what happened? President Trump? But Hillary won when we voted in school last week, and they said she was gonna win? What went wrong? What are the minorities gonna do now after all he said about them? Are we gonna move to some better place? How about Nigeria? Has it gotten better over there since the new leader?”
Any sense of animus here against Trump is not about any sympathy for the frustrations of women like a Nigerian-American lady who called me the wee hour of the same fateful morning, 3.30 AM, to be exact, openly crying, praying, and truly wishing the unthinkable that Ibrahim Babangida, a former Nigerian military head of state, is suddenly President Barrack Obama so he could annual the US election of November 8th—for God’s sake.
Frankly speaking, the mood has nothing to do with any of the above. For hysteria has no place in my DNA. The core problem, instead, is rooted in something else with the portent for another wave of perpetual crisis.
The US “electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” But that is not SKC Ogbonnia fomenting such notion from the start. The original quote was precisely the reaction of no other person than Donald Trump himself following Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney in 2012. If the quote is remotely vague, “what Trump means to say”, as his surrogates would always spin, is that the system that produces the leader of the free world is a disaster. There is hardly a thing an objective person can wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Trump, because the celebrity cretin does not espouse any core values or beliefs. But one cannot agree with the man any more that whatever system that made it possible for him to emerge as US president-elect is truly a disaster.
The U.S. presidential elections of the last five decades (1966-2016) sufficiently highlight the challenges of the American democracy. Even though both Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton received less than 50% of votes cast in the 1968 and 1992 general elections, respectively; they still assumed power on the basis of the Electoral College system. Clinton would also be re-elected in 1996 with only a minority of the votes cast for the same reason. But none is more perplexing than the 2000 presidential election where George W. Bush emerged victorious despite garnering fewer popular votes than Al Gore. Even worse, not only is Donald J. Trump widely seen as unqualified to be president of the United States, he was declared the winner in the 2016 elections despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
What is more, it is not entirely a coincidence that each of the former presidents mentioned above could not prove the electorate wrong. Nixon had to resign from office in shame. Bill Clinton became the second US president in history to be impeached. And George W. Bush left office forlorn. Mr. Trump? The guess is open-ended. In fact, since the morning after November 8, the whole world has been on its knees hoping that the 70-year-old enfant terrible could ever grow to comport himself as a leader of the free world. But mere hope can only take us so far. The past remains a relevant predictor of the future. Expecting a pig to fly as high as the bird is no different than leading a merry chase. Even if Donald Trump can show any remorse and do some good moving forward, the havoc this man has already unleashed on human civilization can never be undone.
Yet we can not entirely discount hope, because “there is God.” The living God has not abandoned the United States, as Donald Trump wildly claimed. The image of the pathological liar alone is enough to finally provoke the Americans to demand a more deserving change. The change calls for the country to discard the archaic Electoral College system that produced an unrepentant heathen as US president—by default. This change requires an amendment to the outdated US Constitution in line with an ever-changing society towards the greater good.
The ultra conservatives will ultimately liken this proposal to the naked slaying of the utmost totem, but the main idea is far from novel. In the book, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, Robert Dahl, fondly remembered as the Dean of American Political Scientists, had ridiculed the US Constitution immediately after the 2000 election that saw George W. Bush prevail with minority votes. Dahl called for change, charging that the ideal Constitution is one “that, after careful and prolonged deliberations, we and fellow citizens conclude is the best designed to serve our fundamental political ends, goals, and values.” Make no mistake about it, the existing Constitution has served America reasonably well and is deserving of a sacred place in history. But it is far from perfect.
The problem here is that a defining imperfect area of the US Constitution, the Electoral College, is profoundly polar opposite to democratic principles. America needs a system that can guarantee that the majority truly carries the votes. Moreover, it defies logic that the US citizens will continue to glue their thinking faculty to a document adopted over two centuries ago by ancient dwellers—to cope with the complexities of the Post-Modern era. The blind following of ideology rather than prudence is a recipe for disaster. That is how America gave us the Iraq war and the perpetual crisis that has followed. That is how and why the world is now grappling with the reality that a gambling goofus is soon to become the sole custodian of America’s nuclear code. It’s gloomy, square.
♦ SKC Ogbonnia, Ph.D. is the Executive Chairman of First Texas Energy Corporation. He writes from Houston, Texas. Contact>>
Developing a New Black Agenda – A Comprehensive Insight
Criminal Justice Reform is an important issue on An Accountability Agenda for the next president when it comes to the African American community.
Congressman James E. Clyburn’s Plan to fight poverty (10-20-30) should be on the agenda, but it is just a starting point. There also needs to be a wealth building and accumulation policy agenda focused on lifting African Americans into the middle class and sustaining them there while ensuring they have real access to economic and entrepreneurial opportunities and upward economic mobility.
Economic growth alone won’t end income inequality. Inequality is a result of both slow economic (distorted) growth and existing public policy decisions. Equal pay for equal work is both a gender and racial issue. Women get paid less than men and African Americans get paid less than whites in far too many instances. This does not even take into consideration the times when race is used to deny employment opportunities.
Fixing Social Security is a major issue, but doing so won’t be enough to address the growing “retirement insecurity” facing aging African American retirees. The attacks on public pension plans disproportionately impact African Americans who over the decades have become a large segment of the public sector employment pool from teachers to local, state and federal government employees. Like many Americans, most of their individual savings were wiped out during the Great Recession and they have little personal savings beyond their pension benefits to sustain them during their retirement years.
The advancement, evolution and expanding deployment of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is a development that has both positive and potentially negative – racial bias- consequences for African Americans. Involvement and oversight in this area must be a priority for not only the next President, but also for African American elected officials at the local, state and federal levels of government.
The Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs has produced a free digital reader on Artificial Intelligence and Racial and Gender Bias. A copy of the Reader can be obtained by emailing a request to Robinson_cg@tsu.edu.
Finally, for the next President, 2020 will be all about re-election, but for African Americans and other people of color and low income urban Americans, it will be the next constitutionally mandated national decennial census and the kick off to the next round of redistricting.
Political power begins with the official census count and urban cities and community based organizations and leaders need to begin preparing now for the 2020 Census count and the redistricting that will follow.
To protect someone’s voting right, the first thing that needs to happen is that they need to be counted during the Census. Census data is what will be used to draw new political districts at the city, county, state and congressional levels.
Not only is the Census count the foundation upon which political maps are drawn, it is also the numerical data that will be used to distribute federal funding – billions of dollars – for a decade.
The Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs is developing a major civic engagement project focused on helping urban cities begin preparing for the 2020 Census.
If you are interested in participating in our Let’s Count – People of Color and Low Income Urban Americans – Project, please send an email to us at robinson_cg@tsu.edu.
This is the 21st Century and African Americans must not be afraid to have an agenda like the Hispanic and LGBTQ communities. We must be willing to speak up and out for our agenda.
As Adam Clayton Powell advocated, we must not be afraid of “Audacious Power”.
President Obama is leaving the White House and for those who didn’t want to speak out too loudly for the Black Community for fear of embarrassing the first Black President, that issue is off the table as of noon, January 20, 2017.
Generic policy prescriptions have not been enough to fix the challenges facing African Americans whether they live in urban, suburban or rural America.
Now is the time to develop A Specific Policy Agenda to address the challenges facing Black America as a new President is about to be sworn in.
■ Robinson and Adams are members of the faculty of the Political Science Department at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas.
President-elect Trump names Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus to his senior White House leadership team
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and Reince Priebus. (Photos: Evan Vucci/AP; J. Scott Applewhite/AP; Ralph Freso/Getty Images)
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus will be his chief of staff and Steve Bannon, his campaign’s chief executive and the former chairman of the conservative website Breitbart News, will serve as his chief strategist and senior counselor. The announcement came in a statement sent out by Trump’s transition team that said the pair would work as “equal partners” in a continuation of “the effective leadership team they formed during the campaign.” Bannon received top billing in the campaign’s announcement.
Late last week, the New York Times reported Trump’s choice for chief of staff had been whittled down to Priebus and Bannon. Both Priebus and Bannon traveled with Trump during the final weeks of his grueling campaign.
The chief of staff traditionally sets the tone in the White House, acts as gatekeeper to the Oval Office and is typically the first and last person the president talks to each day. (The person also acts as a go-between for the president and Capitol Hill.) And Priebus, who has close ties with House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Wisconsinite, as well as other GOP leaders, would be a logical choice to help bridge the gap between Team Trump and a wary Republican establishment while helping shepherd the president-elect’s agenda through Congress.
And Priebus, 44, who had a more public role in Trump’s campaign, would be a familiar face in and around Washington.
“Reince, he’s good on TV,” one Trump campaign source told Yahoo News. “Steve, I don’t know if he’s ever done that.”
While the chief of staff isn’t necessarily someone who spends a lot of time doing television hits, the source said this could change with Trump’s “unconventional” approach.
Trump greets Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus during a campaign rally in Erie, Pa., in August. (Photo: Eric Thayer/Reuters)
But it was Bannon who crafted the messaging and strategy that propelled Trump’s stunning victory.
“I mean, the guy clearly knows how to get things going, how to get a message going, and how to push that and layer it so those things are going to take root,” the source said, adding: “That’s something people are going to like. I mean, clearly, that’s how he’s built Breitbart and how he acts on the morning calls for the campaign. When we’re talking about messages he’ll say, ‘Let’s jump on this story … Let’s start talking about this. It’s going to be huge and we’ve go to go big on it.’”
The 62-year-old Bannon assumed the role as head of Trump’s campaign in August in a shakeup that was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans because of Breitbart’s far-right worldview. He took a leave from his role at the news site to join the campaign.
Hillary Clinton tried to use Bannon’s hiring to tie Trump to the so-called alt-right — a fringe movement marked by white nationalism and racist undertones — that Breitbart News frequently championed. In speeches and on social media, Clinton and her campaign highlighted some of Breitbart’s more controversial headlines.
