A Time for Colonels and Captains: Part Three

In Parts One and Two of this series, I offered an impudent but reasonable suggestion — that 2018 should be a Year of the Colonels. 

Not in the sense of nasty-tropical-clichéd caudillos! Rather, it's a benignly pragmatic proposal for the Democratic Party -- and or reformers in Republican primaries -- to call up real warriors for this political struggle to determine life-or-death for the great American Experiment. To sift among many thousands of retired Army and Marine Colonels (and Navy Captains, and other former officers and noncoms of spotless record), then recruit scads of them to run in every single 'safe' Republican Congressional and state assembly district, in 2018. 

And yes, this broad front approach will mean leaving the juiciest and ripest swing districts to be contested by Bernites, fine! This is in addition to the vigorous activists, at their left-end of the Big Tent. Civilization needs need every ally we can get.

Last time, we discussed deep, psychological reasons why this is how to reach those aging, bitter, non-college white boomers who were suckered into Trumpism, and thus supporting the very destroyers of the middle class in America. Many — enough — of those pivotal voters can be weaned out of the mad GOP coalition, not by emulating Foxite pandering, but instead by sending them adults! Candidates whose background and demeanor they will respect enough to listen-to.

Indeed, the problem is taken seriously. Former President Barack Obama announced he will be working with Eric Holder, his former Attorney General, on the National Democratic Redistricting Committee to help Democrats reverse their losses in the states. This is urgent, if Democrats hope to have any say in how congressional and legislative district lines are drawn by governors and state legislatures after the next census in 2020.

== Gloomy forecasts ==

Oh, but it won’t be easy. Even if Donald Trump continues his slow motion car crash, so many red-cheats (like gerrymandering and rigged voting machines) and demographic distribution problems hamper the Democrats that even a narrow win might be hard to achieve in 2018. Mara Liasson on NPR said:

“While Republicans are able to turn out their voters every two years, Democrats seem only able to turn out their voters every four. That needs to change. Democrats need to restock their pipeline with candidates for city council, mayor, state legislature and governor — and they need to do it all across the country. It's true that Democratic voters are inefficiently distributed geographically for the purposes of electing members of Congress or the Electoral College.”

Christopher Browning, author of Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers comments: 

“We already have a Congress that is so gerrymandered that it would take a Democratic landslide of 56 or 57 percent to simply get a change in the majority. And we certainly know that the voter repression laws that are likely to creep in between now and 2020 are going to make things worse.”

Aaron Blake in the Washington Post put it bluntly: 

Can Democrats get used to all the losing that lies ahead? "Despite Trump's historically bad image for a new president, the 2018 electoral map is a daunting one for Democrats, with very few good opportunities to win the three Senate seats they need and plenty of tough seats to defend. The GOP also retains its beg advantage on the House map, which would require a huge Democratic wave to sweep Republicans out of power."  

To some, the prospect is so daunting that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the much-heralded political mind behind Democrats' successful campaign to win the House majority a decade ago, says the idea of retaking majorities in 2018 is pie in the sky.

And if you find this gloom unacceptable, so do I. Wealth disparities and parasitism are approaching the levels of 1789 France and recent political cheating resembles the final days of the Roman Republic. We need a calm, but major electoral reset, or our next worries will be about revolution.

== Inescapable logic ==

In Part One, I compared two strategies the Democrats could take. Traditional politics would have them bracket in on some issues and selected districts, hoping for an anti-Trump revulsion among “swing voters” in order to pick up maybe thirty House seats and a few senators, enough to officially control both chambers. A “victory” like that will be catastrophic, since the inevitable resulting gridlock is exactly what the Republican masters most adore. Having nothing get done, but evading any blame for it!

The alternative is simple — go for broke. March with fortitude into enemy territory. Challenge every red constituency, from Senator and Governor down to state assembly. Send candidates who are simultaneously sane-compassionate and fact-using, while also simpatico with the by-personality conservative voters in those districts, because they, too, are conservative-by-personality. They’re just too smart and sane to be Republicans.

Send to these voting constituencies women and men who — as genius social psychologist George Lakoff urged Hillary Clinton to do — appeal to the “strong father” reflex of red Americans. But a version of strength that is calm, reasonable, tolerant and amenable to science. A version that can be represented by some of our "tough mama" retired officers!

Take advantage of the way an illogical, frothing, anti-fact, Fox’d and drooling-insane rightwing media has spent 25 years screeching hatred at all fact-centered professions. And now this cult is also hating on the most fact-focused profession of all -- the United States Military Officer Corps. 

(Sure, some such retired officers could run in Republican primaries, instead of as Democrats… I have nothing against that ultimate answer to the Tea Party, which might spark the gradual resurrection of a sane American Conservatism. A 21st Century, grownup GOP is not impossible to imagine -- just very, very hard.)

One of you noted: "Apparently, the Republican strategy for defeating conservative Democrats in conservative districts is to smear them as liberal. Which is not a difficult charge to make stick, honesty."  Well, sure.  But it's harder to make it stick on a retired officer, as Doug Applegate showed, in California's 49th. And this year we've seen that it is a hard, ground game... push just another few percentage points and the madness might collapse.

In part one, we looked at the fly in this ointment — that Democratic activists — in their own state of righteous fury — might reject these new allies, instead of embracing them. Steve Bannon and Alex Jones and that whole pack of shills count on a reflexive hostility by liberals toward military folks. If the left is stupid enough to refuse this spectacular gift, then we are truly screwed.

== Not just colonels! ==

Oh, sure, I am oversimplifying! We need all sorts. In Part One I linked to She Should Run — a national organization that works to encourage women and girls of all backgrounds to aspire to public leadership and run for office next to men…   

…and to 314 Action, helping those with backgrounds in science to contend in the political arenas, defending the integrity of science and promote the responsible use of data driven fact based approaches in public policy.  See also the older group, ScienceDebate.org.

Want a really aggressive approach?  A regular commenter on this blog proposed: “Adopt an Elephant.” In this gambit. Each democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives would be randomly assigned the constituents of one of their Republican colleagues. Each foster parent gives these constituents the same love and attention as they would their own. Mail. Phone calls. Commercials. Advocacy. And lots of face time visits to their adopted territory. Just act like you're the real congressman and be a better parent to your foster children than their real “parents.” What’s nice about this is that it isn’t necessarily a joke. The power of empathy forces compromise, even as dogmatism crushes empathy. 

The notion resonates with another suggestion from George Lakoff:  

“If the Dems are going to recover, I think they need to put permanent teams in the areas whether they have reps or not. This is not for campaigning, though they should contest more places. But parties (all of them) need people, agents listening (and helping where it is with the philosophy or plank of the party). What the Dems lost may be due to no one was paying attention because no Democratic Congress person felt need to keep contact. in an area that was not represented by a Dem.”

Of course running against the tumor-like murdochians is one thing, but it is the ideas or memes that make this warped version of American conservativism truly toxic.

== The USMOC Strikes Back ==

I spoke last time about struggles within military culture. And while many, many officers care more about facts and logic and love of a dynamic, scientific nation, there are others, a large minority, who are like Michael Flynn, steeped in fanaticism, proto-feudalism and religious fundamentalism.   

Illustrating this internecine culture war, the new commandant of the U.S. Air Force Academy can expect a rough reception from the surrounding hotbed of radical Christian fundamentalism – Colorado Springs. Indeed, it has long been known, even openly avowed, that such groups try to inveigle and suborn the service’s tradition of non-sectarian and adult secularity. But if any officer can ease the USAFA out of this trap, it will be its new commandant, Brig. Gen. Kristin Goodwin, former B-2 pilot and former commander of the Second Bomber Wing, who arrives soon with her two children and her wife. And yes, I put great faith in the stature, maturity and enlightenment-loyalty of our officer corps. 

In fact, the reds are doing some of our recruitment work for us. Articles like this one – "denouncing the “Deep State” – are trial balloons that test possible justifications. They set the stage for actions against all the knowledge castes, but especially security professionals.

== Final words ==

The brilliant thing about the “colonels gambit” is that there are plenty of these retired officers to seek out, vett, and armtwist into running for office.  Moreover, when a colonel knocks on a red door, the folks within cannot slam it in his or her face.  they will listen, with respect.

Moreover, these folks can run in wide variety.  From crewcut-liberal to Eisenhower conservative, and (yes) even Reagan conservative!  So long as they are willing to sign a very general statement of not-crazy principles, they can be Big Tent Democrats and run in districts that are currently GOP-safe.  Indeed, such districts should be represented by conservative-minded people!  Though ones who are sane.

Those basic principles might be:

Running as a Democrat, I accept and avow that:

- Facts matter. We should find ways to refute lies, from all sides, and let evidence change our minds.

- Science is real. Public policy should pay attention to – even if it doesn’t always follow – the advice of folks who know facts.

- Our children deserve a healthy planet to live in. We can invest in both a clean environment and energy independence, while maintaining a strong economy. Only losers believe in zero-sum games.

- No child should have his or her future harshly limited by race, gender, poverty or class. 

- Schools should be held accountable to high standards of performance, and have the resources to give us an educated generation.

- It’s okay for there to be “winners” in the economy or politics, but not by cheating.

- It is time to sensibly ease our way out of the insanely self-defeating "War on Drugs."

- “Supply Side” experiments in huge tax breaks for the rich have universally failed, leading only to parasites draining the middle class. We will not let them bring back feudalism.

- Government must be open and accountable. Elections must be clear, verifiable and in fair districts.

- Our military must be strong, capable and used responsibly, in carefully considered and adult ways.

Further suggestions are welcome for this list. 
But you know I’m not done.  
Because if you are sending these folks into districts that are conservative by personality, then be prepared to hear some items from the older-saner side of American conservatism. 

For example:

Running as a Democrat, I feel free to differ with other Democrats, and to express my own position on:

- Gun rights. While I do feel there are reasonable ways to reduce gun access by irresponsible people, I fully support gun ownership by American citizens.

- Abortion: people of conscience can disagree over when life begins. But we can all strive to find ways to empower and help women avoid ever facing that decision. Though the decision must be theirs.

- Nuclear power: many “tech-liberals” are parting company with the standard position against this relatively clean and helpful power source.

- Globalization: we need careful analysis how to keep the benefits of world trade, while ensuring that our innovations benefit us and that good jobs stay in America.

If some of these positions make me “conservative” in the older sense of Eisenhower and Reagan, then so be it. I am still running as a Democrat! Because, to paraphrase President Reagan… “I did not leave the Republican Party… the Republican Party long ago left me. 

"And then it went, stark, jibbering loco.”

Here is the core question: If a thousand candidates took on crazies in a thousand deep-red districts, would such a pledge make you ready and willing to help? Or are you a litmus-purity fanatic, just like the enemies of freedom?

This is not about "left" vs. "right" (can you even define those lobotomizing clichés?)  It is about decency and ability to recognize that facts actually are things. To couch it in liturgical terms: God made objective reality for us to live in and a planet that feeds us. And hence, who gave hypnotists like Sean Hannity the power to croon: "ignore what's true!"

The crux of it all. With some exceptions, our officers - the heirs of George Marshall - are too practical to ignore facts, and thus, most of them simply cannot be mad elephants. Yes, some of them have crewcuts and erect posture and may even sound like the dad in Leave it to Beaver, or Andy Griffith, so?  If lots of them enter Congress and statehouses they'll negotiate with us again, restoring something called grownup democracy. 

So, let's call up bunches of them and ask their help winning back a nation and civilization of sane, logical, compassionate, forward-looking, mature and fact-using citizens.

All our other problems will be tractable then. Because there's nothing we cannot negotiate -- or accomplish -- together.

== Return to Part 1 of this series.

The "Name One Exception" Challenge

Last time, I shone light briefly on the "name one exception" challenge. This is an argument device that makes it difficult for your opponents to weasel out, using the usual polemical tricks. Under normal circumstances, such stark and spectacular challenges should only rarely be available, since they expose the other person as painted into a corner of his or her own making. Alas, in this era of declining reason and logic -- and skyrocketing dogmatism -- it is actually all-too easy. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

The example I gave last time had to do with the top excuse given by certain Asian-mercantilist states, for their relentlessly predatory trade practices. "We are only taking reparations for the harm done to us under brutal colonialism," goes the justification. Only I then ask: 

"Across four millennia, name for us one example of a great and loyal foreign friend that your nation ever had? One powerful friend who ever came - voluntarily and repeatedly (though not always vigorously or intelligently or with complete purity of motives) - to your nation’s aid, in times of need?"

It's a good example of this method, in practice. Worth reading... and socking away for the international arguments to come.

== The Challenge to our Dogma-Blinded Neighbors ==

But of course, the most worrisome plummet into fact-free dogmatism is happening in the USA, once a domain of moderate-pragmatists. For more than a decade, I have been searching for ways to get around the rigid, defense mechanisms that keep so many of our fellow citizens locked into rigid ideologies, along an insipidly lobotomizing "left-right axis." 

It's not easy! Some brilliant (if traitoriously cynical) minds have concocted rationalizations and incantations that keep radicalized voters murmuring: "I know my side is crazy... but our opponents are worse!"

(Aside: if you visit this space often, you know that I believe one end of the political "spectrum” to be more dangerously crazy, right now. But don't you worry, far-leftists, I spare some jaundiced ire to aim in your direction, now and then. Your wing of craziness is far, far less dangerous to the Enlightenment Experiment at this point in time. But we remember the USSR.  “Less crazy, less numerous, less anti-science, less-often wrong and less dangerous” is hardly an encomium. (Watch:  Why Our Politics Doesn’t Work.) But sure. Let’s turn back to the worse crazies.)

To the point: I have found that my “name one exception” challenges are very effective at weaning intelligent conservatives away from the Confederacy. For example:

“Name one statistically significant and attributable metric of U.S. national health that improved across the span of either Bush administration.”

Or: “Name more than a couple of statistically significant and attributable metrics of U.S. national health that did NOT improve dramatically across the span of either the Clinton or Obama administrations.”

Or: “Name one “winner” of the Bushite wars, other than Iran, the Saudis and Bush-Cheney family companies.”

Or: “Name one industry that - for all their talk - Republicans ever actually deregulated, other than banking-Wall Street and resource extraction… and we know how those sweetheart deals worked out, for the 99.99%.”

(In fact, democrats did all the effective loosening of government in this last half century: from the ICC and CAB and ATT to GPS and the freaking Internet… and any libertarian who ever votes republican is -- to put it frankly -- a hypocrite.)

Or this great old standby:  “Name one accurate prediction ever made by Supply Side “economics.”

I have a ton of these “name one exception” challenges, any one of which woud prove that the GOP should never again be trusted with a burnt match.  

Only now I guess there’s two of them I will have to retire!

== Okay, Okay, so you got me, this time… ==

The problem with the "name one exception challenge" is that sometimes, even members of a crazy movement are actually able to meet the challenge.  They are able to come up with an exception.  In fact, here are two of them that were answered!

“Name one fully-red state that has done a damn thing about the utterly criminal cheat known as gerrymandering.”   

 …and…

“Name a red state that has joined two dozen blue states in (variously) backing out of the insane so-called War on Drugs.”

Taking them in order: more than a dozen blue states have seen citizen revolts to end gerrymandering’s foul, evil and treasonous practice, plus a few purple ones. (Illinois and Maryland are still blue cheaters. Hey, I admitted there are scoundrels on the left. They’re just not as numerous or anywhere near as perfectly disciplined-organized.)

Red citizens and states, in contrast seem perfectly happy with monstrous, vote-stealing cheat-crimes like tortuous districts… except, as someone recently pointed out…

"Prior to 1994, the Idaho Legislature was responsible for redrawing its own districts. In 1993, the Legislature passed SJR 105, creating a constitutional citizen's body that would instead be responsible for drawing the districts. The voters of Idaho passed that constitutional amendment in 1994, with 64% in favor and 36% against." ‪

Idaho did that? Dang! This is the first of my "name one exception" challenges that I am gonna have to retire, then. (I’d still like to see how it worked, in practice. In fact, Idaho is so deeply red, they probably figured it didn’t matter.)

Likewise… it turns out one red state has joined the blue surge against the Drug War.  It is Alaska. Though seriously.  You’d have to call sourdoughs anomalies. Perhaps they’ll lead the libertarian exodus, at long last, from the GOP.  Start a genuine guns n' get govt outta my face party, instead of remaining lap dogs to the Grand Oligarch Party?  Hey I could respect that.

Okay, that’s two cases where challenged folks came up with an actual counter-example! 

Rats. I have found the "name one exception" riffs to be very effective at showing still-sapient conservatives how spectacularly vile the hijackers of their once-proud movement have become. But by revealing a single red state exception, in each case, at least my honestly shows. (Try it, some time. Letting a fact affect your dogma. Especially re climate change.)

I now have to say;

“NEARLY ALL red states support criminal gerrymandering" instead of all. 

And “NEARLY ALL red states support the staggeringly insane and evil Drug War" instead of all.

I can respond to data and change my assumption sets.  Can you?  Then name exceptions to my other challenges.

 == Oh... by the way...  ==

ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... and
ocean acidification...

How is that a “name one exception” challenge?  It amounts to the same thing. Name a way that the debasing of the seas is not (1) blatantly happening, (2) blatantly dangerous to us all, and (3) blatantly the result of atmospheric carbon dioxide created by humans burning Koch/Saudi/etc. products.

The method works.  I got a ton of ‘em.  And so should you.

OH... AND BY THEY WAY,  in case you denialists averted your gaze, let me force you to face the basic fact... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification... ocean acidification...

== Another “Name an exception” challenge. ==

Here’s another:

“Can you point to a single positive item on the Republicans’ agenda, now that they control Congress?”

(Other than Keystone XL, which will give the US zero actual oil.)  

 It’s one thing to disagree over agendas.  It’s another to have NO agenda, except versions of “no.” Again, the challenge — name one positive-assertive republican goal.

Banish the Export Import Bank that gave taxpayers a net profit all but one year out of the last forty?  Sure, it benefits exporters of goods and services, not resource extractors, so off-with-its head! But that’s a negative. 

Reverse Obamacare? (Without offering the 6-years-promised replacement?) Ambitious… but negative. 

Same with reversing Obama’s immigration moves. He said he’d stop them the instant Boehner put a credible bill on the floor, like one the GOP leadership agreed-to, six years ago. But no. With American politics killed-dead (deliberately murdered) we’ve been operating on *continuing resolutions* for ages. Now even those are impossible.  And so we lurch. Lurching is the new normal. It’s hilarious and sob-inducing to watch a sane conservative blink and try to talk sense.

Or making a real budget. Take Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, who said he hoped his colleagues had learned to “stop making the perfect the enemy of the good.” …and… “You make the progress and the deals you can. You’re going to have to bargain, and that means the other side has to get something, and in this House, you have to understand that beating on the table and yelling doesn’t turn 54 into 60.”

Poor Mr. Cole sounds like a republican of the Eisenhower days. Heck, Nixon negotiated. Even Reagan did. Mr. Cole is like a sincere missionary urging a mob of zombies to use a knife and fork while eating braaaaiiins.

What does it mean, when your side has nothing but negatives to put on the table? Not one tangible proposal of any kind... about anything at all?  Seriously, this has nothing to do with "left-vs-right."

It is about being the deep-depressive side of our national bipolar disease.  (Hey dems!  Guess what that makes YOU!)

== More on morons moving the goal posts ==

We have got to do something about the troglodyte tactic called “moving the goal posts.”  That is, declaring that science cannot prove something and then - when it is proved - drawing a new line in the sand and proclaiming this is what we really meant, as the line you’ll never cross! 

In another place, I dissected how this has been the core process by which climate denialism maintains itself. A decade ago, that cult declared that glaciers were advancing everywhere and the real danger was from an ice age. Then it became “what warming?”  Then “Okay the North Pole is melting, but not the south!”  Then: “Okay ice is collapsing in north and south and Greenland, but it’s all natural!”

Such agility is actually quite impressive!  See it also illustrated here, with the latest snarky position of the creationist cult’s Discovery Institute, who used to pooh-pooh the possibility of planets beyond our solar system… in part because that would entail admitting that the light from those worlds was emitted more than 6000 years ago.  Now that we’ve lately discovered thousands of other planets out there, implying truly vast numbers across the univers? Those trillions of planets and galaxies out there are just the natural “slosh” and spillover from God’s process of perfecting one Earth, one sapient species, intended to last just 6000 years.

Until recently, even the possibility that microbial life might exist out there was ruled not only heretical, but also impossible (via crackpot mathematics.) Now? According to this report, the intelligent design crowd doesn’t any longer rule out the existence of what it calls “simple life” on other worlds. However, “we likely won't be satisfied with microbes barely surviving on a moon. … We are looking for much more complex life, with a brain capacity similar to our own, and the ability to modify its surroundings into complex technology.”

That admission would have been anathema, just a few years ago! Now they admit life might evolve?  Just not into anything impressive! And so here we return to the Moving Goal Posts Problem.  The tendency of fanatics to deal with any factual challenge by redefining, with great agility, their own arguments and goals.

Do not think for an instant that this is solely a province of the Mad Right!  A lesser version of the same reflex can be seen in those sectors of the left that utterly refuse to accept the notion that we’ve made real progress, as a species, nation and civilization.  While rightfully demanding further movement against racism, sexism, poverty and environmental neglect, too many activists deem it anathema ever to admit that past actions, by millions of sincere citizens, actually made things better, bringing us to a higher plateau  and raising our standards. 

While the liberal version of Goalpost Shifting may be less harmfully crazy, it is still kind of nuts.  And ultimately unhelpful.