Tag: Donald Trump

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Peace and War, Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

Found an article this morning excoriating Senator Elizabeth Warren for her endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Although I’m a strong Bernie supporter, I disagree with the article’s sanctimonious tone. Sometimes, you do have to suck it up and vote the lesser evil. I personally think this is one of those times. After California, Bernie has to accept that he made a really good run, but it’s over. He got farther than pretty much anyone thought he would, and I’m glad.

I’ve voted third-party before, and might do so again. But not this time. Yes, even though we’re faced with two secretive people, each with a history of serious ethics breaches, I will vote for the Democrat this time.

Clinton will be reasonably good on domestic policy (and will recognize that the Left brought her to power) if elected. As a consistent war hawk who can’t see any fault in Israel’s ultra-right-wing government, she’ll be horrible on foreign policy, which ought to be her strong suit–and especially bad on the Middle East. I predict another war during her term. She’ll be middling-poor on energy policy. These are issues that mean a great deal to me.

But she will appoint decent people, including to the Supreme Court. She’ll be socially liberal on a number of issues, and will likely do some good for poor people as long as it doesn’t bother her bankster friends. Ordinary people’s lives are likely to get better under her administration, as they did under Obama.

And most of all, voting for Hillary is the best thing we can do to prevent President Trump.

Trump and his very scary supporters smell like fascism to me. A Trump presidency will very quickly displace GWB (who I used to refer to as His Imperial Delusional Majesty) as the worst president in history. Trump will be far worse on energy, on poverty, on international relations (where he really doesn’t have a clue), on immigration, on minority rights, women’s rights,  and almost every other issue you could name. He might be slightly less willing to go to war than Hillary, but when he does, it will be much uglier. And his response to international incidents will be belligerent enough that other people will start wars with us and he won’t have a choice.

And his thugs will roam the streets, enforcing their brand of nativism, attacking people who don’t look or think like them.

Hitler took power in an election. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

If the US had proportional representation, instant runoff voting, or any of the other reforms we’ve been working for over the decades, we’d have a choice. But in a faceoff between a no-ethics/me-first bullying fascist and an ethically challenged secrecy-loving corporate neolib, to not recognize the very real difference is slitting our own throats.

I want Trump’s margin of defeat to be so crushing that his movement goes away for 20 or 30 years. For that, I’m willing to hold my nose and vote for Hillary. This time.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , , , , , ,

Here’s the opening paragraph from the Associated Press report on yesterday’s Wisconsin primaries:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Republican Ted Cruz stormed to a commanding victory in Wisconsin Tuesday, denting front-runner Donald Trump’s chances of capturing the GOP nomination before the party’s convention. Democrat Bernie Sanders triumphed over Hillary Clinton but still faces a mathematically difficult path to the White House.

This is entirely too consistent with a long-running pattern in the mainstream media: anything that gets in the way of a Donald Trump nomination is heralded, even though the mainstream Republican Party loathes Ted Cruz—and I and many other progressives find his brand of religious extremism as much of a threat as Trump’s racism and misogyny. I’m sure they would rally much more happily around Kasich, if he could only get non-Ohioans to vote for him.

A voter marks a ballot. Photo by Kristen Price.
A voter marks a ballot. Photo by Kristen Price.

Yet the mainstream media continue to trivialize Sanders’ victories—in 7 of the last 8 contests—and talk about how difficult it will be for him to overcome Clinton’s delegate lead.

A more honest reportage would note that Trump and Cruz have swung wildly back and forth, neither emerging as a clear victor, and both wildly unpopular with mainstream voters.

It would also note these key differences in the Democratic race:

  • Sanders has been remarkably consistent on issues for his entire adult life, going back to his days marching for civil rights with Martin Luther King; Clinton has changed positions frequently (moving left under pressure from Sanders in her rejection of the TPP trade partnership, embrace of same-sex marriage, and energy issues—even outflanking him from the left on guns
  • Much of Clinton’s delegate strength is in “superdelegates” pledged to her, but not bound to her; this same group switched to Obama in ’08 and will switch again if Sanders enters the convention with a commanding lead among elected delegates, because they don’t want to give away the presidency to the scary and fractious Republicans
  • The mainstream media continually says that Clinton does better with black voters and urban areas. Yet, some of the most highly urbanized and ethnically diverse states have gone for Sanders, especially Michigan, where a “close race” turned out to be huge for Sanders—and my own diverse, urbanized state of Massachusetts was a virtual tie (as were Iowa and several others)
  • Clinton has consistently benefited from early voting, gaining tallied votes while Sanders gets his campaign warmed up, while same-day voters in several states have overwhelmingly supported Sanders; Daily Kos calls this “Hillary’s Surge Protector.”
  • Clinton’s greatest strength has been in the conservative South—but those states aren’t likely to go blue in November; in likely Democratic states, Sanders has an enormous edge

So hey, AP, hey, New York Times [“Mr. Sanders’s win is so surprising that it’s hard to know what to make of it. Are we learning, for the first time, of a big latent advantage in the Rust Belt? Was it a fluke?”], hey, Washington Post [“Bernie Sanders may be drawing thousands of people to his rallies and raising millions of dollars online, but increasingly he’s also having to make the case that his campaign isn’t a lost cause.”], and hey, CNN [“Trump remains the Republican presidential front-runner, but he didn’t clean up on Saturday…Sanders still a thorn in Clinton’s side”]

—how about if you use the same standards to judge Sanders’ rapid ascent against Clinton as you to for the anyone-but-Trump pushback that has given legs to the Cruz campaign?

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Branding, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , ,

The 21016 US presidential race shows that branding repels as well as attracts.

Three of the five remaining candidates have very strong brands. Trump has the strongest, clearest brand: “it’s all about me; the issues don’t matter.” I found him repugnant 11 years ago when he keynoted a conference where I was speaking, and find him even more so today. What part of his brand that is not based in Donaldism is rooted in misogyny and racism. His cult of personality is far too reminiscent of dictators in other countries, other centuries. His cluelessness on the issues, tolerance of violence at his rallies and in his campaign leadership, and his blatant disregard for truth create a strong brand indeed—but it’s strong like the odor of raw sewage, a push-away. This is not who I want governing the country!

Next strongest is Sanders, who is all about integrity, consistency, and giving a leg up to those who’ve been squeezed out by the 1%. And who got my vote in the primary. While just as much an outsider, Sanders is the opposite of Trump. I think ultimately Sanders’ “we” will trump Trump’s “me.” Win or lose, he is out there to build a movement, and is universally respected for it.

Interestingly, both of these two have built brands on their outsider-ness. Not a good year for the mainstream candidates, even those who are the son/brother—or wife—of former presidents.

The third brand-builder is Clinton. She is very much a mainstream candidate and has built her brand around “isn’t it time for a smart, powerful woman to be in power?” Like Trump, she’s a “me” candidate, but with more appeal to constituencies that vote. Unfortunately for her, it’s been wrapped up in a package of entitlement, incompetence, lack of transparency, and settling for crumbs.

That Sanders has even been a contender, let alone actually won so many contests and nearly tied several others, shows some of the flaws in Clinton’s strategy. Without resorting to attack ads, he has successfully pointed out that she is a Janey-come-lately on issues ranging from LGBT rights to the TPP trade agreement, where he has been forthright and consistent for decades. He is the first serious contender in decades to raise a viable campaign budget from a broad base of millions of supporters. Meanwhile, she tells the American people to be satisfied with what they have, while he talks about redistributing wealth from the 1%.

There is certainly some part of the Clinton brand that is wildly successful. She is perceived as greater a friend to people of color, while even though Bernie grew up in ultra-diverse New York City and marched with Martin Luther King while she was working for Barry Goldwater, he is perceived as trapped in whiteness. And she has successfully outflanked him from the left on one issue: guns. But the perception is that she doesn’t see the big picture, doesn’t understand the shift in the culture, will be at least as obstructed by the other side as Obama, and expects people to vote for her just because she’s been waiting so long.

Of course, two other candidates still remain on the Republican side: Cruz and Kasich. Neither has really built a brand. What Cruz stands for—a hard-right agenda fueled by religious conservatism (and, seemingly, some personal unlikability)—is not widely known around the country. If he becomes the nominee, the Democrats will build his brand for him, warning of the apocalypse to come (as they’re already doing regarding Trump).

As a relatively personable moderate with a reasonable track record, Kasich would actually be the Republicans’ best hope if he had any marketing traction. Of the three remaining, he’s the only one who could get independents and centrist Democrats aboard. Fortunately for the Democrats, he doesn’t. The GOP clearly wants an extremist this year, and Kasich has won only his own state of Ohio.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics-International, Marketing Trends/News, media-general, Politics, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The US presidential race is full of outsiders this year. Trump gets lots of attention in the media–but Sanders seems to be having more of an impact on policy questions, and on bringing disenfranchised-feeling voters in from outside the electoral process.

There are many parallels between Sanders on the left and Trump on the right–both of them attracting attention for being firmly OUTSIDE the mainstream, and both waging far more successful campaigns than the pundits predicted. And they both look and sound like the New Yorkers they are.

But in many other ways other ways, of course, they’re completely different: Unlike Trump, Sanders is…

1. Seriously concerned about making things better for those who are not wealthy, and basing this on a 50-year record of activism (vs. concern only about making things better for Trump and a few others of enormous class privilege).
2. Thoughtful, willing to engage on issues, analyzes more deeply than most candidates with charisma.
3. A populist fundraising champion who does not fund his campaign with–and thus is not beholden to–corporate money or party money, but from millions of ordinary people. I don’t think this has been done before on this scale (vs. Trump self-funding out of his personal fortune and claiming that this makes him honest because he’s the one doing the buying of politicians instead of being bought by them)
4. Someone who tells the truth (Trump has been caught in more lies than any of the others).
5. A successful coalition builder who has a track record of working well with people who think differently

But even Cruz and Rubio (and certainly dropouts Carson and Fiorina) are outliers too. It is scary to see the Republican Party start to coalesce around the very scary Ted Cruz, who only looks rational because Trump is so far in right field that he moves the public perception of what’s mainstream. When Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (a slasher of the safety net) is considered a centrist, we have a serious distortion in perception vs. reality.

So the big lesson I take away is this: when four out of the five most popular candidates this year are outside the mainstream, the mainstream had better look at why, and what they can do about it. With the exception of Clinton, all the mainstream candidates are out of the race–even presumptive GOP nominee (as of last summer) Jeb Bush.

Me? I agree with at least 80% of what Sanders says, and was happy to vote for him in our March 1 Massachusetts primary.

Oh yes, and let’s not forget the role of the media in king/queen making and unmaking. One of Sanders’ other strengths is in engaging millennials who are good at creating their OWN (social) media–while defeating the myth that a self-declared socialist can’t run a serious campaign for national office in the US.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, language, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Senator Bernie Sanders, looking relaxed
Senator Bernie Sanders, looking relaxed

A friend and I were discussing the presidential election, and he brought up the tired old shibboleth that the Democrats got so badly burned on George McGovern’s 1972 campaign that they don’t feel any progressive candidate is electable.

I will concede some surface similarities: both are/were genuine progressives who can ignite the youth vote, neither had the support of the party elite, both were critical of the war machine.

But if anything, I’d say McGovern is more accurately compared to the failed campaigns of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry—and even John McCain.

Now—why is Bernie’s campaign different?

  1. Unlike the Dukakis disaster, the Republicans can’t make “liberal” sound like a curse word. Bernie is more than liberal. He’s progressive. He is an open socialist, so calling him a socialist has no traction; we all know that already, and it doesn’t seem to be hurting his performance.
  2. He has a track record of coalition building and getting things done both as an executive (as Mayor of Vermont’s largest city, where he served multiple terms and continues to be enormously popular) and as a legislator.
  3. His fundraising prowess is astounding, and has been outside the mainstream Democratic party channels. It’s new money coming into the party. While Trump can claim he’s not beholden because he’s funding his own campaign, he is closely allied with his fellow billionaires. Bernie is a candidate of the people and supported financially by the people.
  4. Bernie has enormous integrity—and that makes him unique in the current crop of candidates. Clinton, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio have all been accused of various shady dealings (as was Gore).
  5. Bernie’s strength on the left and Trump’s on the right shows clearly that the old style of politics-as-usual is out of favor. About the only thing they have in common (other than their NYC roots) is that their campaigns have been fueled by enormous voter disaffection with politics-as-usual.
  6. He uses social media better than anyone else in the race—and this is one of several reasons he polls so well with Millennials.
  7. Unlike McGovern, Dukakis, Kerry, or McCain, Sanders is a skilled orator who really knows how to work a crowd.
  8. He polls better than Clinton in match-ups against all the Republican candidates.
  9. Ambitious agendas are always more popular than treading water. Clinton urges us to tread water—to protect Obamacare, to accept the economic crumbs falling off the silk tablecloths of the 1%—to keep things as they are. Bernie urges us to think big. It’s the same message of hope and change that inspired millions of first-time voters to come out for Obama. But Obama was a centrist running as if he were a progressive, and he let a lot of those people down. Sanders has been putting his beliefs into action for decades. And he can show consistency over time, unlike the flip-flopping Clinton and Trump.
  10. His positions would actually help the majority of voters if they became policy.
  11. He’s attacking an enemy that is disliked (Wall Street). And he’s reaching out to all the constituencies Trump (and to a lesser extent the other GOP candidates) has attacked.
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Branding, Business Ethics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Trends/News, media-general, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

A friend of mine, a very successful author and marketer, a deep student of the human psyche, asked on Facebook, “Why do you love/hate Trump? (Disclaimer: I’m indifferent.)”

It was the disclaimer that got me worried. This is part of my response to him:

I have enormous respect for your analytical skills, M.______, but I question deeply your indifference…

M.______, I hope you’re pulling our legs. You of all people understand human motivations and psychology. Trump is a master marketer and manipulator. I don’t know if he’s studied NLP [Neurolinguistic Programming] (or maybe you) or if he’s actually a natural.

I do know that if he wins, I will be looking seriously at what other country I might live in for the next 4 to 8 years. I have family who died in Nazi concentration camps. I don’t want to be part of an America where ordinary citizens are rounded up because they’re Muslim or Mexican, just as my parents’ cousins were for being Jewish.

I don’t say this lightly. I consider him extremely dangerous, and it scares me that enough people in the US take him seriously enough that he’s doing well in the polls (we’ll see if this translates to actual votes).

 Some things I didn’t say to my friend:
In the courtyard of the new Reich Chancellery, the Fuhrer partakes of the "one-pot" communal stew meal in the company of invited fellow citizens. Photo by Heinrich Hoffman, courtesy New York Public Library
In the courtyard of the new Reich Chancellery, the Fuhrer partakes of the “one-pot” communal stew meal in the company of invited fellow citizens. Photo by Heinrich Hoffman, courtesy New York Public Library
 But my deep message to my friend is that we cannot afford indifference. Let’s remember that Hitler was democratically elected, and that Berlin in the 20s was a liberal, arts-centered city. We must not get complacent. We must not think “it can’t happen here.” And we must not be swallowed by indifference.
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Politics Tagged with , , , , ,
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/

This 1979 profile of Donald Trump in the Village Voice should be mandatory reading–in the Know Your Enemy department. The corruption, refusal to acknowledge responsibility, self-aggrandizement, and use of other people’s money are not at all surprising. Only two things surprised me: 1) the racism goes back so far in time. I’d always thought that was a “party dress” he put on in order to run a demagogue campaign for president–but he was apparently the enforcer keeping blacks out of his father’s apartments.

2) The notorious McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn, one of the sleaziest figures in 20th-century US politics, was one of the family’s lawyers.

If Donald Trump becomes the nominee (or runs 3rd-party), we need to distill some of the central points into a highly readable one-page flier and get it absolutely everywhere. If Trump is the nominee, I will personally do that flier. And I want a legion of volunteers to distribute it.

Side note: I’m proud to say my mom was one of those white Urban League volunteers mentioned in the article, who determined if an apartment was *really* “already rented” after a family of color was refused. I have no idea if she was involved in the Trump Village investigation–probably not, since she lived far away in the Bronx.

I do find it deeply ironic that he has managed to build a meme that as a “self-made man,” he has so much money, he can’t be bought. He and his father got their money in the first place by leveraging political connections and doing deals with little or no skin in the game, if the article is accurate (and I have high confidence that it is).  What is self-made is not his wealth, but his image.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, General Commentary, language, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

So much of the news is bad right now. Both my local papers had the same depressing Associated Press article this morning. In the years since Sandy Hook, apparently, many states have made it EASIER to carry guns and basically nothing has been done to bring gun violence back to levels typical of most civilized countries.

Another article talks about the attacks by Republicans in Congress on our democratic society, on the environment and the new #COP21 climate agreement just hashed out, and even on medical benefits for 9/11/01 first responders, among the other bad stuff they have in store.

“What does he mean by ‘attacks on our democratic society?'”  you ask. I’ll answer with a couple of excerpts from the article:

The trucking industry wants to allow longer tandem trucks and block rules requiring added rest for drivers.

If you don’t think that’s an attack on our democracy, consider the consequences if the driver of a supersize truck falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a school bus. There’s the human cost of an avoidable tragedy, of course, but also the financial burden on cities and counties already squeezed to the bone. It will be the safety net that gets shredded.

Financial companies want to ease tighter regulations imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law.

Have we learned nothing from the debacle of 2007-08?

And there are efforts to repeal a law requiring that meat be labeled with its country of origin…and to block mandatory labels for genetically modified foods

Whatever happened to consumers’ right to know?

And then, of course, there’s the usual run of Islamophobic racism in our land built by immigrants, many of them refugees:

Republicans want to include a House-passed bill restricting Syrian refugees trying to enter the U.S. Faced with an Obama veto threat, that may be replaced by a measure, approved with bipartisan support by the House, restricting visa-free entry into the U.S. by many foreigners.

These Republican politicians forget that they are also descended from people who came here seeking a better life.

It happens that I sent a birthday greeting on Facebook to a Muslim (Pakistani immigrant) friend yesterday (I happened to sit next to him at a Bruce Springsteen concert several years ago, and we’ve stayed in touch). His response and the dialog we’ve had is relevant to the conversation. I reprint with his permission:

Him:
Thank you Shell….. It’s been an awesome few weeks. Finally became an American citizen and celebrated my birthday the same week.
Me:
Wow, congrats. We’ll have to change that Springsteen song (did he sing it the night we met? I don’t remember) to “CHOSE the USA!” It’s a powerful time to make that choice, with anti-Islamic crazies running high-poling campaigns for president.
Him:
Lol…. The same day I received my naturalization, Trump opened his mouth …. Lol…. It was funny…. However, the support has been wonderful from friends and coworkers.
Me:
All I can do is shake my head in wonder. He is sounding more like a Nazi. It shakes my faith in America that he has measurable support. My best hope is that he doesn’t get the nomination but gets close enough that he runs as an independent. And Hillary (more likely) or Bernie (my preferred choice) leads a Dem sweep that gets not just the WH but both houses of Congress and we can actually get some stuff done around here. Of course, US media has been playing up anti-Arab and anti-Islamic bigotry since at least the 1970s oil crisis–even though other than 9/11, Fort Hood, and this recent tragedy in California, most of the gun violence is at the hands of people who self-identify as Christian (I don’t think Christ would agree with their claim).
It just occurred to me as I hit send that this might make a good blog post. May I have your permission to reprint your comments–you can be an anonymous “Muslim friend” or I can name you.
Him:
Sure. Trump is just an attention seeking idiot. Amazing that a reality star, upstart millionaire can received so much attention …. Lol.
I’m glad he’s not deterred by recent xenophobia. Like my ancestors and yours, he will help us build a better country in the US.
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail