Bernie Sanders

After the first few primaries, it seems that the best placed person to win the Democratic nomination is Bernie Sanders. It could have been Joe Biden, but he's missed his opportunity.

Any one of the candidates still in the race could be a better president than Trump. But electability wise, each of them have a downside.

The downsides of Bernie Sanders are that he's a socialist, he's too old, he's had a heart attack, he's Jewish.

The downside of Joe Biden is that he's not a great campaigner, he has a stutter, and he was a VP. Traditionally Vice presidents find it very hard to get elected. Nixon didn't get elected until 8 years after the Eisenhower administration. George Bush senior was a one term president, Walter Mondale got creamed, Al Gore got unexpectedly pipped at the ballot box. He was prone to gaffes, and his performances at the debates do not inspire confidence that he can take on Trump. He's aging, like Bernie Sanders, but it seems to slow him down even more.

Pete Buttigieg seems like a very capable politician, but he doesn't have enough experience. He's gay, and he can't appeal to black people.

Elizabeth Warren seems to be a capable substantive administrator, but women find it hard to be directly elected, and somehow she wasn't cutting it in the polls. But if Sanders took her in as a running made, the two of them could be a very good combination.

America has never had a socialist as a president, but at the same time, they've never had a game show host, and they've never had a black man. Notwithstanding that in retrospect, Obama being a black guy is the only knock against his electability.

All the presidents were similar in a way. They were old, white males, who had some experience in government. But Barack Obama represented a departure in the sense that he was black, and he grew up overseas. Dubya represented a departure in the sense that his background didn't inspire much confidence (but he got in anyway). And Donald Trump was the biggest departure of all, considering that he had never worked in government before becoming president.

Bernie Sanders will be the first socialist Jewish president. There are ways in which he's not really electable, but all of the candidates have some knock against them in some way, and he's not any less electable relative to the other choices. And he's been pretty disciplined when it comes to messaging. This system is screwed up and we have to tear it down. Screw the billionaires, screw the oligarchy, more funding for education and healthcare. Same talking points, hammering it down.

That's actually a good thing. Dan Pfeiffer, one of Obama's campaign staff, said that successful campaigns usually have a good slogan. Bill Clinton's was “It's the economy, stupid”. Dubya's was “compassionate conservatism”. Barack Obama's was “Hope and Change”, Trump's was “Make America Great Again”. Hillary never had a good slogan. “Better Together” was not a good slogan. “I'm with Her” was not a good slogan. The first one was not good because it was ridiculously trite. The second one was not good because of the inclusivity paradox. When you advocate for inclusivity on behalf of a certain group, you end up sounding less inclusive.

I looked up Bernie Sanders' slogans. They're good. “A Future To Believe In”. “Not me. Us.” “A Political Revolution Is Coming” “Not For Sale” “Enough Is Enough” “Feel the Bern”

Bernie Sanders has to be respected because he's built an entire career, even got elected to the US Senate, on the back of being an independent. He has been campaigning all his life, and he knows the messaging. He represents change, instead of status quo. It's not surprising that a lot of the recent presidents were in their way change candidates.

FDR was a change candidate.
Eisenhower and Truman may have been establishment people, but Eisenhower was in a way a change candidate because they were sick of the Korean war.
JFK was a change candidate, because he represented something younger and fresher (ironically he wasn't even medically fit).
Nixon was a change candidate because people were sick of the Vietnam War and the protests.
Jimmy Carter was a change candidate because people were sick of Nixon.
Reagan was a change candidate because people were tired of the Iran debacle and stagflation.
Bill Clinton was a change candidate because the economy was going south.
Dubya was a change candidate because Clinton was tainted by the impeachment.
Obama was the hope and change candidate.

Bernie is in a way similar to Trump because he represents a protest against the status quo, and because he's an insurgent candidate against the party establishment. He's gruff, but he's got a gruff charm, he's a fighter.

He doesn't have the charm of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, both of whom were, in their own way, very good candidates. And America passed up the chance to have somebody as qualified as Hillary in that seat. I think he's the best that they've got at the moment.

We'll see how it goes, because a lot of Democrats are freaking out that he will lose the house for the Democrats. I'm not knowledgeable about US politics to evaluate this claim, but it's pretty interesting.

1995

I liked the idea of 1995 being an extremely important year in world history. It was also the time when I was making the JC to NS transition, which is a big thing in a guy's life. You have 12 years of basically the same old shit, and suddenly, you have to adjust to national service, then university, then working life and beyond. Things suddenly change very fast.

This book lists five events: the proliferation of the internet, the OJ Simpson trial, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Dayton accords, and Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The most amazing thing about this book, when I leafed through it, is that it didn't mention Donald Trump. And that's when I realised that the book was written in 2015. By 2016, three of these events would have been associated with the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency. The internet, and what it had become by 2016, would have become the fake news machine that would drive the twin shocks of Brexit and Donald Trump. The Oklahoma City bombing was a foreshadow of the rise of the alt right that was briefly resurgent in 2017. (But would be battered down by another hate mob shortly after). And Hillary Clinton would forever be tarnished by the way she responded to the Clinton Lewinsky scandal, and questions would be raised over whether it cost her the presidency, and cost the rest of the having to weather through Trump in the White House.

In 2020, there would be a big trial that would demonstrate that acquitted doesn't mean innocent, with Trump instead of OJ Simpson.

It's an interesting point to make that the Dayton accords was a path towards a bolder foreign policy, but sometimes you have to wonder what that bolder foreign policy would have looked like if Al Gore was president. I think that 9/11 would still have happened, and the US would have still gotten into Afghanistan, but not necessarily Iraq.

But three of these events did contribute to the sense that all was not right in the American politisphere. It had been bad enough that Ronald Reagan had dismantled much of the workings of the federal government, but 1995 showed that the system was not working in three ways. First, the OJ trial was a gross miscarriage of justice, and put the thought into peoples' minds that the judicial system wasn't working. Second, the Bill Clinton impeachment in 1998 was some indication that there was a Congrss that would stop at nothing to score cheap political points. And the Oklahoma bombing was basically a protest against the Federal government – not sure for what, but it was a reflection of distrust in the system. It would be too dramatic to say that the US was at its apex and was about to go downhill, but it was an unwanted harbinger.

Because the focus of 1995 was on the US, they didn't mention some of the things that were going on in 1995 in UK popular culture. Eric Cantona karate kicked a fan, was banned for months, and when he came back, he sealed his place in Manchester United folklore by leading them to another title. Britpop was at its apex, as was trip hop, it was an apex of a wonderful decade for UK pop. Bjork released “Post”, and her list of collaborators on that album was a who's who of tastemakers for that decade. Radiohead released their first of many great albums with “The Bends”. (“Pablo Honey” does not count as a great album).

I think in a way 1995 was a great year for the US, but it signalled some kind of a bookend. Another year that people considered to be pivotal in the US history of being a strong nation was 1945, after Victory over Japan and Victory in Europe. America had basically conquered the world, or at least half of it. And I would mention the era just before 1945, as the work of the Greatest Generation, who struggled through the Depression and the Second World War and built something great and wondrous. At the same time, I would also think about the era starting from the end of the Cold War to 9/11, as another smaller kind of greatness. During this time, the US helped to end the Cold War gracefully, spread the internet around the world, create the greatest start-up scene in the world in Silicon Valley, spread neoliberalism around the world, expanded NATO and the EC, help end the former Yugoslavia wars, and to a smaller extent, helped to deal with AIDS in Africa. These were wonderful things, but after that, I fear that America, owing to the faults and the stresses within its own society, is maybe on the way down.