Lessig for President? Let's struggle free of cheating, dogmatism and bought elections.

First, I am proud to know Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig, who has been the most successful opponent of big money in politics, gaining a following and some real traction in his campaign to raise public awareness.  Now Lessig  says that if he can crowdsource $1 million by Labor Day, he'll leave Harvard and enter the Democratic primaries. "He'd be a single-issue candidate, campaigning for a legislative package that would undo restrictive voting laws, make Election Day a national holiday, bar the gerrymandering of congressional districts, and finance elections through public matching funds or vouchers for small donors." 

Lessig's running mate would in-effect be the Real Candidate, because Larry intends to resign office the day after signing such a bill into law. A law that would then free up the political process to deal with all our other major issues, on a basis of negotiation on their merits, and not who has purchased the most politicians.  Secretly, many Senators and Congressfolk want this too, as it would eliminate the endless tedium of fundraising that now takes more of their time than legislating.

(Note: I just signed up for one of Larry's crowdfunding donations. I hope some of you will, as well. You only pay if he reaches his million dollar threshold.  Say I sent you!) See his book: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It.

Yes!  This is exactly the sort of role I envision also for two other admirables who don't really want to serve -- Jerry Brown and Jon Stewart. Dive in guys! And show us what an idea fest the demo-party debates could be, as opposed to the 16 dwarves and Trump on the other side, mostly parroting whatever Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes tell them to... or else making Fox the issue, without shedding any real light.

== Trumpapalooza ==

The staying power of Donald Trump will not last, but it remains transfixing, the way you cannot tear your eyes away from a catastrophe.  This Salon article -- Donald Trump is the last whimper of the angry white man: What's really behind his stubborn lead -- plumbs some fascinating explanations:  "Two facts about all this deserve special notice. The first is that the tenor of Trump’s rhetoric has been directly related to the trend in his poll numbers — the wilder and harsher the former, the higher he has climbed in the latter. The second is the desperate (and largely futile) struggle of our political media to make some sense of the first fact."

Some attribute the pyrotechnic rage of lower-middle-class white males to an inchoate sense that the nation's demographics are removing their sense of entitled paramountcy. Others ascribe it blatantly to Rupert Murdoch's relentless -- Saudi funded -- assault on trust in any and all American institutions or loci of expertise (hence the "War on Science" actually includes all Smartypants Elites, from teachers and civil servants to economists and law professionals).  Or is it exactly and precisely the same syndrome that plantation lords used, to get a million poor whites to fight and die for them in one of the earlier phases of our ongoing civil war?

Can this demographic really forget that their fathers -- the soldiers and workers of the Greatest Generation -- adored one living human above all others -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt? (Whom Rupert's shills portray as Satan Incarnate)? Maybe, at a deep level, they remember this, and perhaps the favorite thing Trump is doing is spurning all the GOP's bribing fat cats (he can afford to) and finally casting doubt on the Cult of Fox?

There you have my advice for Donald Trump. Make Rupert Murdoch a core issue! Divert from the Fox pretty faces. Congratulate Megyn Kelly for her well-earned bonus. But Rupert has no loyal following. He has painted himself into a corner.  He and Roger Ailes are sitting ducks for a hunter who does not need their network or their money.

(Late word... now a few pundits are reversing themselves and wondering -- Might Donald Trump be the new Reagan? Yipe!)

== How ideology shapes our views ==

“One of the key trends in public opinion over the past few decades has been a growing divide among Republicans and Democrats into ideologically uniform “silos.” A larger share of the American public expresses issue positions that are either consistently liberal or conservative today than did so two decades ago, and there is more alignment between ideological orientation and party leanings.” -- Americans, Politics, and Science Issues, from the Pew Research Center.

When it comes to science, the results are mixed:  “Americans’ political leanings are a strong factor in their views about issues such as climate change and energy policy and whether government should finance research, but much less of a factor when it comes to issues such as food safety, space travel and biomedicine. At the same time, there are factors other than political party and ideology that shape the public’s often-complex views on science matters. For instance there are notable issues on which racial and generational differences are pronounced, separate and apart from politics.”

Again and again, I point out that we are navigating between a political Scylla and polemical Charybdis. And while the current version of (hijacked) American conservatism has gone flat-out loco… there are also some loonies on the other extreme who do less harm, but only quantitatively. Qualitatively – crazy is still crazy.

This invariably leads to mail, decrying that my attempts at “balance” break up what must be a uniform dogma, to oppose the right’s current madness. That breaking ranks hurts the good “side.” How ironic!  Since I do believe there is a level where war is a correct metaphor. And in this phase of the recurring American Civil War, it is imperative that the re-igniting Confederacy not prevail.

And yet, I have seen the wretched effects of left-wing insipidities. If it were only by serving as examples of PC-police bullying, for Beck and Hannity to point at while rallying their troops, that would be plenty.  But that isn’t the worst crime that leftists regularly commit.  The most harmful one is preaching endless gloom and despair.

I urge you all to read this eloquent and heartfelt and passionately intelligent essay - A letter to my dismal allies on the U.S. left - by one of the finest journalists in the world, Rebecca Solnit, who is definitely to the left of me. And yet, who shares my belief that our lefty allies regularly seek the sanctimony high of righteous gloom, and thus help demolish the very pragmatic, incremental reforms that can save and improve the world.  That have done so much to make life better for millions and billions, across the last several generations.  

“O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we're talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.”

She goes on: “An undocumented immigrant writes me: "The Democratic party is not our friend: it is the only party we can negotiate with." Or as a Nevada activist friend put it: "Oh my God, go be sanctimonious in California and don't vote or whatever, but those bitching radicals are basically suppressing the vote in states where it matters."  And:  “People who told me back in 2000 that there was no difference between Bush and Gore never got back to me afterward.”

Do read this essay!  Pass the link around and keep it in your pocket to read aloud to these flakes, in fall of 2016. 

Nevertheless, I have a way to say it all more fiercely and penetratingly, with just five words:  

“It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.”

Our entire civilization teeters around getting those reforms of Larry Lessig passed, and especially getting Citizens United reversed, so that we do not descend into some kind of cyberpunk version of feudalism.  One party wants that to happen.  The other does not. And you prima donnas out there who think there is any justification for “they’re all the same”?  You are stupid-crazy people.

== What would a sincere conservatism try to do? ==

Back when conservatism still contained some cogent-sane elements, Barry Goldwater asked a significant question.  (Paraphrasing.)

“Let’s assume that the liberals see some genuine problems – poverty, tainted food, bad drugs, false advertising, unsafe factories, inadequate access to education and health care – but we on the right disdain paternalistic “solutions” that come via government’s alphabet soup.  Welfare, the FDA, FTC, OSHA, Medicare, and so on.

“Instead of denying problems exist… or vaguely arm-waving faith that blind markets will solve all things… shall we examine HOW markets  actually solve some problems?  And look at ways to enhance that process?”

It struck Barry G like a blow. Insurance. For those who can afford it, insurance creates a betting market that causes people to seriously re-assess their risk factors. Making it marginally less necessary for paternalistic government to do the same thing for you.  

Goldwater looked around and found one area wherein insurance companies were truly doing their jobs, actively working with clients to reduce risk exposure, and thus eliminating much government oversight. Industrial fire prevention. Through a number of very involved institutes, like Underwiters’ Labs… and by requiring meddlesome company inspections… the insurance industry had reduced bureaucratic supervision from Washington. The theory actually worked! 

So why hadn’t the same effect happened in other realms of insurance?  Why didn’t companies demand to see their clients’ refrigerators and medicine cabinets?  Might that cause the FDA to “wither away,” the way OSHA stopped bothering much with industrial fire prevention?  It sounded good, in theory!  Goldwater proposed to fund studies of how the insurance biz might be encouraged to move in this direction…

… and he got no support at all.  Not from democrats, who like their alphabet soup solutions… and none at all from republican colleagues, who got money from insurance executives who like things just as they are, with civil servants doing all the hard, regulatory work. Most surprisingly, Barry got no backing from libertarians!  Why, after all, try to tweak capitalism’s rules so that markets solve problems, when the far more satisfying incantation is to just screech at evil government, 24-7, and never admit that there are bona fide problems that need solving, one way or another.

Goldwater gave up.  And late in life he denounced the hijacking of his beloved conservatism by genuine monsters.

But let’s get back to insurance.  Have a look at this item:  “Rarely does a document prepared by an insurance group read like an apocalyptic screenplay. But it does happen. In this case, Lloyds, a storied insurance market put out a report outlining the potential global meltdown that could occur if parts of the food supply chain failed.

“So why do insurance companies care? Because they're the ones that are betting against disaster. If something goes wrong, they're the ones that have to pay out claims.”