Electoral reform + the best issue for wagers

== Electoral fixes ==

Am I alone in liking the recent Democratic Party presidential debates? I like the well-tuned level of mutual probing.  I like the exposure given to future important cabinet members. And one whole year ahead of the 2020 DP convention, I see no rush to "narrow the field." Sure, there are some I wish would go away. Delaney, Gillibrand for example. But Williamson's bizarro trip has swung toward harmlessly entertaining, and possibly slightly helpful pulling in more of the Goop Community.

Does anyone else wish Lawrence Lessig, who failed to make the debate cut under far-harsher rules back in 2016, had been onstagethis time? Lessig’s Equal Citizen campaign asks the mass brain - (you folks) - to offer debate questions via hashtag #askaboutdemocracy. 
     
I submitted one. Every Democratic proposal - from climate action and Health Care to student debt, consumer protection, equal rights and repairing democracy - can be supported not just morally, but by fair appraisal of facts. That's why the top agenda of today's right is fomenting hate toward all fact-using professions! From science, medicine, teaching and journalism to the "deep state" officers of law, military and intelligence agencies. Since (almost) every Democratic proposal is supported by facts, shouldn't we combat the War on Fact first? 

Hence my question to candidates:

"What would you do to restore Americans' ability to get past today's fog of confusion that's spread deliberately by right wing media and their foreign sponsors, and get back to negotiating based on demonstrable verifiable facts?" 

Sound impossible? See a dozen ways we can fight back for the very concept of objective, verifiable reality.

And here’s another encouraging item: researchers found that "psychological resistance" to fake news could be increased by having the subjects play an online game. In the browser game, called Bad News, launched in February 2018, players become propaganda producers. They are allowed to manipulate the news and social media, invoking anger and fear. Tactics at their disposal include twitter bots, conspiracy theories, impersonation and photoshopped evidence. Still, while they use such Machiavellian approaches to attract followers, the players must maintain a "credibility score" to continue to be persuasive.

Huh. Find anyone who used that phrase “credibility score” before my novel EARTH, wherein it had a very similar purpose and use. Anyway, it’s not too soon to lure every “susceptible” you know into playing this game.

Meanwhile...

Workers in mostly red states aren’t seeing minimum-wage hikes, even though local lawmakers passed them. State-level officials and legislators in Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin have all invalidated wage increases passed by cities, costing nearly 350,000 workers a total of $1.5 billion per year, a study finds. Even the smartest Democrat hasn’t figured out how to package this… and a myriad other travesties… so that our red neighbors wake up and remember who their parents’ favorite living human was.

== The acid test ==

WAGERS can be effective! But start with a wriggle-proof bet that corners denialist cultists and their Exxon/Russia/ Saudi/Koch masters. If you prove glaciers are retreating and every U.S. Navy officer is fretting the warming, they’ll just beat a retreat to the next magical incantation. (“Cow farts!” one idiot snarked at me, as a voodoo protective spell.) See my posting: Fight disinformation with wagers!

Above all, two words send every Fox-head fleeing: “ocean acidification.” They stammer and change the subject. There’s no goalpost shifting. Use those two words for wagers! 

Here goes. Demand your denialist cultist either refute these charges or pay up:

1. Acidification and eutrofication are killing the oceans and thus our planet. The Black and Caspian Seas are almost dead. The Mediterranean, Caribbean and East China Seas, plus the Gulf of Mexico are dying, as are much of the Pacific and Atlantic. Eutrofication is inarguably from human pollution. 

2. Acidification happens when you add Carbon-Dioxide to water (prove it with a 2 minute experiment! A straw, a glass of water and a swimming pool test strip.)

3. The source of rapidly skyrocketing CO2 is humans burning fossil fuels. Period. 

4. Foreign meddlers - coal barons, petro-boyars and oil-sheiks warring on our children for short-term greed - have stymied US creative response by ordering the GOP to slash R&D, thwart sustainables, block sensible legislation and mileage standards that saved us billions at the pump. They cancelled NASA and NOAA satellites, suppressed scientists. They ordered actual words, like “Earth” and “climate,” banned at federal agencies. (Part of the larger GOP war on all fact-professions.) 

Of course, there are more climate effects than acid-burnt and fertilizer-choked seas. (Red America is hard-hit!) But those two words “ocean acidification” are especially effective. They leave no room for even a squirming, wriggling, incantation-spewing confed-foxite to escape. And hence, you start here.

Demand your foxites either bet on points #1-4 above (and pay $) or admit their side is monstrous… or else (the usual result) they flee in panic while you get to slash their credibility before witnesses, by casting after their scurrying butts a single, manhood-demolishing hex-word: 

“Coward!”

 

== A structural improvement that matters ==

From cowards back to heroes and another Lessig project. The Maine legislature passed a bill for “ranked-choice voting” in selecting electors for President. The "we're the opposite of Florida" state has passed a number of intelligent reforms - this one long pushed by Lessig's Equal Citizens campaign. 

If more states did this, the folks who dream of fostering 3rd party candidates could do their thing without screwing us up, as they did with their preening Nader and Jill Stein gestures. It would prevent many (not all) kinds of noxious outcomes. We need it nationwide.

It is also the way that people of the UK should have a second Brexit referendum. The insipid Remain vs. Leave dichotomy never captured the public's want, which would win any multi-choice, RCV-style poll: 

"Remain, if the EU negotiates some changes like better residency sovereignty."

Lessig urges you to send the Maine governor (@GovJanetMills) a tweet saying we need RCV for president. 

Five devastating rebuttals to use with our worst allies... the mad ones who would "split" our coalition.

When I say we must stomp splitterism, I do not mean AOC and the sincere-liberal 'left.’ (Heck, my fave among the 20 DP candidates is Liz!) The “squad” types are welcome to primary old line dems in deep blue districts and create a big socialist caucus. Fine, earn it, fair n’ square. 

But some dogmatic fools - plus Kremlin provocateurs -  go much further. They aim to shatter the broad coalition against Putin-Fox-Trumpist treason. They denounce “corporatist Democrats” as “sockpuppets” for oligarchy, no different than Republicans. These splitters constitute the one great hope for Putin’s putsch to avoid 2020 annihilation.

 All of you have friends teetering along that lunacy. Here are five direct answers that might slap sense into them. 

FIRST: Democrats had power to pass national legislation for just two years out of the last 25 - the 111th Congress 2009-2010, during which these “corporatists”:

- passed the ACA, insuring 40 million more Americans, 

- banned bias for pre-existing conditions (enraging the insurance companies who then donated heavily to Republicans in 2010), 

- passed banking regulation (enraging that cabal, who donated heavily to Republicans in 2010, when many splitters didn’t vote), 

- created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau whose destruction was Trump’s top goal, 

- vastly increased auto gas mileage standards, saving Americans billions at the pump, 

- expanded support for sustainables, resulting in the solar+wind “takeoff,”

- did a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street rules (enraging that cabal, who donated heavily to Republicans in 2010), 

- passed a $787 billion economic stimulus package,

- repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell”, allowing gays to serve openly in the military, and much more…

President Obama called the 111th Congress the most productive in generations. “Measures that have almost become afterthoughts — like pay equity for women and the new power of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco — would have been signature achievements in other Congresses. And the Senate confirmed two of Mr. Obama’s nominees to the Supreme Court — both women, one Hispanic.”  

Right. Tell us about “corporatist sellouts”! Hey splitters, even having just read that list, could you describe those bills and their effects and why you think they were just meaningless gestures by corporatist sellouts? No? You won’t even try, because knowledge can’t replace that sanctimony high. Oh, and we lost Congress ion 2010 partly because of splitters.

SECOND: Ask your splitter if he or she knows anything about the waves of legislation that have passed in blue states, where “corporatist sellout” democrats had lots of power for more than just 2/25 years. CA, OR, WA (yay Inslee), CO, NY… these have been bulwarks against Trumpism. California just infuriated Old Two Scoops by negotiating its own clean air and mileage deal with five auto giants, preserving the gains made under Obama. The list of legislative achievements under fine governors like Inslee and Brown is huge. If you want to rave “corporatist sellouts!” how about you actually know something, first?

THIRD: Most of you have seen my list of 29 CONSENSUS GOALS that every high level Democrat wants. Every one of the 20 candidates on the debate stage, along with Pelosi and all the rest, want at least this basic list of important items. Getting those 29 could save our future. It’s worth making a broad coalition to get them. In which case “corporatist” is a pretty broad and useless term.

Yes, many of you out there want more than those 29 "consensus goals." Fine! But suppose we get all 29 during the first year. We’d then have honest elections, safe DACA kids, healthcare for all children, and so much more. Then, in that vastly better nation, you and the lefty caucus can split and fight the moderates! Okay deal?

FOURTH: Ralph Nader & Jill Stein tipped the balance for Bush and Trump in 2000 and 2016. 3rd party folks are welcome to campaign for Ranked-Choice Voting, which would open their path ahead without screwing us all. (Join Larry Lessig's Equal Citizens movement and help make it happen!)

Meanwhile, every sincere 3rd Party person should campaign in deep-blue or deep-red states to build their donor base and recognition. But they must pledge to stay out of Florida and key tipping states… or we need to pounce with fury. 

FIFTH: For ages we’ve heard the leftist mantra: “We can attract red district voters by offering them truly vigorous socialist solutions!” 

Alas, it’s failed in every election. Every single one. In fact, 2018 was the final, blatant refutation to this insane nostrum. Every seat gained in the House —  and the reason why Jerry Nadler now has subpoena power — came where a crewcut (or hair-bun) military vet (or similar) who loves science and justice invaded a red or purple district and took territory away from some monstrous GOP (Giving Over to Putin) shill. Every… single… one of those crucial gains. 

Again, the lefty-purity nostrum was tested and utterly failed one-hundred percent. But we did learn what works. It’s a wide tent. A broad coalition of the kind that was forged by Franklin Roosevelt. Moreover, so long as the candidate agrees to most or all of those 29 points, then goal #30 is simple. Win!

SIXTH: The bonus reason to oppose splitterism? Because Valadimir Putin. Because Putin will spend tens of millions and vast resources to encourage splitterism. Splitter memes are already pouring in a tsunami from those Kremlin basement trolls. 

Again, the Confederacy and Fox can only win against a divided Union.

In fact, here is what the AOC social democrats should do! 

Want to primary and oust some old “moderate” from your deep blue district? Knock yerself out! Create a big socialist caucus? Fine. But each of you should also adopt and raise funds for some crewcut (or hair-bun) vet who loves science and justice, helping her (or him) take back some red or purple district. Because our only chance to oust Moscow Mitch McConnell is named Amy McGrath. (Look her up.) And that’s more important than any pompous-purist-preening sanctimony high. 

By doing so, the AOC and her pals would say: "We can argue later over how much socialism to do beyond the basics, or how much of the FDR social contract to build upon. Right now, let's focus on those basics we all share. We are united in saving the USA and our revolution."