Left Ahead

Hillary Clinton pulled an Al Gore, with the popular vote but Electoral Colleage loss. The furious almost-haff of America wants Trump-style vengence. She was cool, gracious and Spock to his Kirk. Now what?

Let's talk:
The winning side's denial — of ahte, including racism, sexism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, and even homophobia. The 80-year pattern of GOP Presidents ruining the economy in all key area.Huge Republican backlog of judge appointments. Do Dems play nice and even allow Senate rules to change to avoid filibuser?Do we need to prepare for a Pence replacement if Trump goes infarction or stroke?
Today's show will be the last weekly podcast after over nine years. As well to the many guests and listeners, I thank the two original cofounders in the early years, Lynne Lupien and Ryan Adams. The shows allegedly will available here, at the Left Ahead archives, and on iTunes.

I spent many years in Virginia and still identify with the best of us there. Thomas Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia (XVIII: Manners), "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just..."

As this motley, churlish election cycle completes in less than a week, let's discourse on big themes, such as:
Following the no-colored-Presidents-for-me tone, how deeply are we experiencing, the no-dames-for-President tone?Are 40% to 50% of us truly OK with a puerile, impulsive ignoramus as out leader?Are the judgmental Europeans right about us as bigots and socially retrograde?Can this election catapult us to a new America of tolerance and egalitarianism?
We've had 8 years plus the campaign of "Oh, no, it's not that Obama is Black. It's that he's foreign; Muslim, a pinko. :Assuming POTUS Clinton the Greater, do we then get, "Oh, no, it's not that Hillary's a women. It's that she's a crook, a criminal, a pinko."?

I can't believe 6% or more of the electorate is undecided, or so they claim. Then I"m an incredulous sort. Playing cards so close to your vest makes them tattoos. Bad form.

Let's kick around the final days of a much too long, far too nasty season.

Let's play the game along with Republicans. They lost the POTUS yet again in 2012 and followed that with the promies and (dare we say) hope of the Growth & Opportunity Project (G.O.P.). That jocularly named autopsy detailed the failures, forecasted the demographic trends, and mandated what they needed to do to fill up a big tent of women, African Americans, Latinos, and, well, Democrats.

The lameness of pary head Reince Priebus and ticket head Donald Trimp seem the antithesis of the autopsy findings. Assuming the obvious Hillary Clinton victory in two weeks, do Republicans:
Accept that they can only get the voted of poorly educated white men?Cling to being "the party of Lincoln" even though the modern bastardization couldn't be farther from his ideals?Try to live with a splintered and split personality of far right extremists, bigots and other anachronisms?Do another deep dive and this time really try to follow the analysis findings?
They really have become an asylum or other institution of dysfunctional quasi-adults. 

For the Democrats, if they can't geet control of at least the Senate (thus installing judges and preventing the Tea Party pledge of impeachment and other vengeance against Clinton, then what? Ideally, they could get control of most legislatures in the 32 states that let their local lawmakers do the Census Year redistricting. Republicans were brilliant and ruthless in gerrymandering. What is the Dem strategy?

For consistency, note that I called out GOP would-be POTUS Donald trump as a mommy's boy in June. HKe's still at it.

Granted, Sen. Elizabeth Warren politically popularized "the sysetm is rigged" several years ago. Then realizing her weakness with progressive sorts in her campaign against Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton wore the RIGGED button figuratively at speeches.

Now the deliciious irony is amoral Dem turned pseudo-Republican Trump overuses the term to tedium. The election is rigged. mass media and pols, even GOP officials, conspire against him in a fixed election.

Let's discuss whether he has any case at all.I love that Okie Warren's word repeately comes from the fake donkey's mouth.

Let's also touch on how the pathetic 35% to 45% who'd torch democracy for anti-woman, anti-lefty emotional voting will deal with the now-destined defeat. Some threaten rebellion, even assassination. The rotting husk of the Republican party chooses lizard-brain reactions right now. Can them come to democracy and the commonweal?

With relief, most of us look to Hillary Clinton's victory next month, and fending off Donald Trump's approach to the White House. What about the next go?

Already, people are talk king about running for the Prez. Republicans like Paul Ryan sene her campaign weaknesses. Democrats are certain to have the we-can-do-better free-lances arming.

One huge factor of the 2020 race would be what we have seen more in the debates than her stump speeches. She lets her intellectual pretense and lawyer training block her pitches. She makes a policy point or answers a pointed or nasty challenge, only to run on and on. 

I'll talk about the greatest ad salesman I knew and what his lessons were. That Trump guy boasts of his sales and negotiating prowess. His business record is not so supportive of those claims and his flaccid swats during campaigning contradict it. Hillary can outdo him and future contenders, not by changing her messages, rather her delivery.

GOP Prez nominee Donald Trump keeps his puerile treatment of sex in the fore (insert foreplay joke here) of the campaign. Let's ask:

Will this lead voters to see him as manly or immature?Will trying to blame Hillary Clinton for her husband's infidelites of several decades ago backfire on an admitted serial adulterer who can't maintain a stable marriage?Will insinutations b y him and his surrogates that Hillary may have mad an affair hurt him much more than her?Will his incessant allusions to how much he wants to hve sex with daughter Ivanka (see here and here and here and here and here) make him just oo creepy for whom to vote?What, say proven incest with one of his daughters, would prove too much for GOP voters who self-identify as moral?

Admittedly, I may be an outier. I'm a long-term adultry-free married, one who raised three sons and zero daughters. To me, infidelity is just wrong. Also kissing grown daughters "as often as I can," as he is wont to say on the mouth is simply creepy or worse. I know people in open marriages and men who who snog regularly with their teen and older daughters. To me that is plainly sexual; to them, including the daughters, they say it is just natural affection.

Let's talk.

Hillary Clinton got ir right. Let's join her and keep it up...for the rest of our lives. Many Donald Trump supporters prove themselves in word and action to be hkate mongers. They need to be called out now and regularly. That may eventually get through to them.

With bitter amusement, we see Trump, his surrogates and even the amoral among commentators have been wailing about her demonizing these hard-working loyal Americans with her observation. Instead, she has pointed to the demons and called them by name. That is as right and necessary task.

Yes, she did it. Yes, she should have done it. No, everyone's feelings and thoughts are not of equal worth. No, bigots shouldn't get a free ride in the public byways. 

I mix rant with some personal experiences in calling out — and affecting — racists. Oh, and I'll point out the perfection of the Talmud on this.

Independents and self-described Conservatives are pissed. Number one is Congress does nothing. That's hard to argue with but easy to fix.

Let's consider for a moment the odious Donald Trump's "What do you have to lose?" That's jive from the con artist. Yet that question haunts.

If all the angry voters, or even most of them, get real on November 8th, the fix is before them. Elect a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic Senate. Then watch and wonder. The obstructionism we all despise will vanish. The do-nothing Congress will become a do-it-all legislature.

Four or eight years of a healthier, richer, more righteous America await.

Tansportation for Massachusetts (T4MA) wants real equityin pubilc transit. Interim Director Joshua Ostroff will talk about what's fair and how to get there.

Gone are the cavalier acceptance of the blue collar and poor sucking it up while the well-to-do have the benefits of easily accessible, ffrequent, clean and safe trains, buses and trolleys. We got part of the way there with deades of struggle for the Fairmount (Indigo) Line in Boston. Much needs doing. 

We'll talk both social equity and infrastructure requirements. This is close to my heart.

Mike

Some other states allow recreational pot.. (Clutch pearls.) Oh, no, not here, not yet, in Massachusetts. Medical marijuana barely pased and is glacially implementing. A November ballot initiateive would expand that to growing and consuming small amounts for personal use of invidiuals over 21.

I run down the four questions on this fall's ballot. The Secretary of the Commonwealth doesn't list them on is site. He allegedly will get around to mailing a booklet to registered voters in a few weeks. Local papers have had the info for months, but no soup for you, per Bill Galvin.

Anyway, the topics are:

Question 1: Expanding slot machine gaming.  A yes would permit a second slots parlor here. The first one is modestly provitable. To tip my hand, this is another way to suck money from those of modest means, the elderly and the dumb.

Question 2. Charter school expansion. This is two boots in the door. A yes would permit up to 12 new charter school each year forever and ever.

Question 3. Conditions for farm animals. Yeah, chickens are not as cuddly as kittens, but they are fellow life forms. A yes would ban extreme confinement, and likely mean increased egg and meat prices.

Question 4. Legalizatiopn, regulatiopn adn taxation of marijuana. This is about 80 years overdue. Pretending that people won't smoke pot until you legalize it is inane. This would more or less put grass on a par with alcohol, for good and bad...and tax revenue.