The other showdown coming on Tuesday

Of course the headlines at first will all be about who wins the presidential election - along with what happens to the House and Senate. But as we begin to absorb all that - there will be another accounting...and that one will be between facts and delusion.

The facts are most often represented by people like Nate Silver - who has been personally bludgeoned by the wingers lately for his statistical analysis. But he's hardly the only one in that camp. Take a look at the nine electoral college predictions by those working with facts ( btw - since that was published, TPM has updated to 303 electoral votes for Obama).

For those who are delusional, you need merely look at folks like Dick Morris, or Karl Rove, or Michael Barone. Their predictions are not about facts - just heavy doses of spin and delusion designed to keep the charade going.

I wanted to write about this because its a great metaphor for what is going on in our politics these days - especially as evidenced by the presidential election. One side has data, history, facts on their side. The other has anger, fear and delusion. To make matters worse, folks who've bought into the latter have constructed a system of epistemic closure where facts can't intrude.

One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted.

In case you think I might be exaggerating,  take a look at these interviews with Romney supporters (if you have a low tolerance for wingnut hate and ignorance, you might not want to watch).



The difference this time is that we are going to have a day of accounting on Tuesday. With all my heart, I hope that the outcome is one that is overwhelming enough that there can be no denying or obfuscation. We need that as a country.

But I tend to agree with Infidel753 - those who have been fooled are going to have to find a way to deal with the cognitive dissonance of a delusion being shattered...and it might not be pretty.

Changing Course

This week we've all had a stark reminder about the need to heal our planet. And many of us remember that it was Mitt Romney who thought that was a joke.

It might be helpful for us all at this moment to remember exactly what it was that President Obama said - right here in my hometown - on the night that he clinched the Democratic nomination.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge -- I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless.

... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

... this was the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

This was the moment, this was the time when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

The beginning of that refrain is something those of us who have actually been listening to the President have been hearing for a long time now.

Xpostfactoid wrote a wonderful article about this today that you all MUST read. In it he pointed to this quote from President Obama.

This metaphor has been used before, but this -- the ship of state is an ocean liner; it's not a speed boat. And so the way we are constantly thinking about this issue of how to bring about the changes that the American people need is to -- is to say, if we can move this big battleship a few degrees in a different direction, we may not see all the consequences of that change a week from now or three months from now, but 10 years from now, or 20 years from now, our kids will be able to look back and say that was when we started getting serious about clean energy, that's when health care started to become more efficient and affordable, that's when we became serious about raising our standards in education.

This is the long game we keep talking about. It's as much about a change of course as it is about specific immediate change.

I don't know about you - but that's exactly think kind of change I can believe in.

After all the lying, evading and flip-flopping, Romney's final case is a threat

It seems as though the final message of the Romney campaign is coming into focus. Here's what the candidate himself said today.

You know that if the President is re-elected, he will still be unable to work with the people in Congress...The debt ceiling will come up again, and shutdown and default will be threatened, chilling the economy.

And then...along comes David Frum with the same message.

The congressional Republicans have shown themselves a destructive and irrational force in American politics. But we won't reform the congressional GOP by re-electing President Obama. If anything, an Obama re-election will not only aggravate the extremism of the congressional GOP, but also empower them...

Finally, its pretty much the same argument David Brooks made a few days ago.

The bottom line is this: If Obama wins, we’ll probably get small-bore stasis; if Romney wins, we’re more likely to get bipartisan reform...He has more influence over the most intransigent element in the Washington equation House Republicans. He’s more likely to get big stuff done.

Kevin Drum calls it a "surrender-to-terrorists argument" and Paul Krugman calls it "protection-racket politics." Take your pick. But the argument is the same...since the Congressional Republicans are batshit crazy - vote for a Republican President who will appease them.

Thats just plain NUTS!

Who needs Nate Silver?

As if we didn't have enough data to tell us what the results of this election are going to be, what do you think it says when David Frum wants to get out front of the battle that is sure to begin amongst conservatives when their candidate loses?

We're now heading into the climactic weekend of the election. If you believe a "real conservative" message is a winner, shouldn't you right now be publicly urging Mitt Romney to say out loud : YES I will cut taxes for the rich, YES I will cut Medicaid, YES I will reinvent Medicare as a voucher system, YES I will favor a human life amendment to ban abortion in all cases, YES I believe it's a major priority to reverse same-sex marriage, YES i was right to say let the auto industry go bankrupt, NO I don't believe in global warming, NO I don't think it's important we cover the uninsured, NO I think we have enough immigrants already, NO I won't withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, NO I don't think we should provide the existing level of food stamps and income support to the unemployed, etc. etc. etc.

Shouldn't you be urging Romney to remind Americans that Obama is an alien, a radical, somebody bent on destroying everything good and decent in America?

If that's the winning message, shouldn't you be pleading with Romney to say it now?

And if it's not the winning message now, how will it have retrospectively become the winning message on Wednesday morning?

Dia de los Muertos: A moment to look back about how to go forward

I'd like to take a quick break from talking about the election and remember that today is the day we celebrate Dia de los Muertos in the United States. A few years ago I decided to start a tradition here of re-posting something a blogger named Madman in the Marketplace wrote back in 2006 about this day of remembrance. If you take just a moment to read his words, I think you'll understand why.

Today, in the spirit of Dia De Los Muertos, lets celebrate instead those who've fought dark times before, survived dark times before, PREVAILED in times that were much like what we face now.

I don't mean just the leaders, not just Elizabeth Cady Stanton, more than Joe Hill, not just Chief Joseph, not merely Martin Luther King Jr. or William Lloyd Garrison or Cesar Chavez. The authoritarians are the ones who have no choice but to elevate "great men" for them to FOLLOW...Our luminaries are only representatives of vast numbers of people most of us might never know by name, unless they were the grandfather who told you stories of old strikes, of meals of crusty toast with chipped beef gravy on top while sitting at his knee. Perhaps another who sat at an old formica kitchen table with tales of the struggle against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the mission schools, or stories related at family get-togethers of sitting at the back of the bus, grandmothers who remembered having no opportunity to pursue their own dreams because of their gender. Maybe your forebearers told stories of shame and having to hide who they loved, or the pressure to hide the fruits of having loved, of being spirited away to give birth in shame.

THIS Dia De Los Muertos, remember their struggles, but remember their COMMUNITY. Remember that unlike the right, unlike the worshippers of division and death, we can look back with joy and fondness at people who sang and danced and loved and communed DESPITE their struggles, despite the exploitation, the hatred, the discrimination and fear. They formed communities, they formed unions, they formed sewing circles and barn raisings and volunteer organizations. They rallied with their neighbors, mended fences, found common ground with NEW neighbors different from themselves. It's easy to remember the nativists, the klansmen, the misogynists and gay bashers and jingoists and bundists ... but also remember that there were ALWAYS good people opposing them, forging bonds, talking and working together to build a brighter, broader, more inclusive future. While there were slavers, there were abolitionists. When other men jeered and sniped, remember there were women who reminded others that a woman was every bit the equal of a man and should have a voice, and there were sons who listened to them.

Celebrate the artists, the writers, the musicians and performers who forged bonds between different groups of people, who showed us all that it's okay to be different, that different can be wonderful and exciting. Remember that every time that culture tried to expand our ties, broaden our conversations, help us see the world anew, the authoritarian minded tried to silence them, ban them, attack them, but over time the artists prevailed. From the churches and the juke joints, the beer halls and the smokey bars, from the salons to the corner table at the Algonquin, from coffee houses to underground clubs ... we can remember fondly those who found beauty and strength in the everyday and in the sublime and IN EACH OTHER. THIS Dia De Los Muertos, read their words, sing their songs, dance to their tunes, enjoy their paintings and sculptures and their videos. Remember that no matter how loudly, how violently, how insistently those afraid of openness and sharing and difference and change tried to stop it, the songs got sung, the rugs got cut, the words got read...

We can and will prevail, we will find a way to become a font for peace again. It doesn't matter how you add to the struggle, it not necessary for all of us to become politicians or full-time activists. You can help those who do that vital work by volunteering for them, or donating to them, or by merely talking to your neighbors, chatting with the frightened and cowed who you encounter in your daily life. Smile and quietly talk back to those who spread hate and fear. We are where we are because those with no faith in humanity TALKED TO EACH OTHER, and refused to compromise. We can do the same, because we believe in community, not division, and in community there comes strength. The fight, the struggle, the great human show continues, and throughout history given time and perserverance it has been the cultivators, not the extractors, who have brought beauty, peace and prosperity to the world. Over the next couple of days, remember them fondly, and let those memories inform your choices as we face the struggles ahead.

What struck me in reading this again today is the relentless optimism demonstrated by our ancestors in getting us to where we are today. I can't help but believe that what sustained that optimism was a grounding belief in the old saying..."the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice." Its the North Star that kept them going when the odds appeared to be stacked against them.

I believe that when we listen to our ancestors, we're likely to hear that cynicism is our greatest foe and optimism (ie, hope) is the most radical act of all.

The best way I can think of to bring that home is to suggest that you watch this video and think about what it took to get us here.

Photo of the Day: What we used to be

A Great President Who Deserves Re-election

Back in early 2009 during the heat of the debate about health care reform, it was Jonathan Chait who used the term "conciliatory rhetoric as ruthless strategy" to describe Obama's method.

This apparent paradox is one reason Obama's political identity has eluded easy definition. On the one hand, you have a disciple of the radical community organizer Saul Alinsky turned ruthless Chicago politician. On the other hand, there is the conciliatory post-partisan idealist. The mistake here is in thinking of these two notions as opposing poles. In reality it's all the same thing. Obama's defining political trait is the belief that conciliatory rhetoric is a ruthless strategy.

In that same article, it was Chait who pointed me to an article by Mark Schmitt from way back in 2007 during the primaries in which he analyzed the main Democratic candidate's "theories of change." Here's what he said about Obama:

One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that's not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists -- it's a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict.

Regular readers here will recognize those quotes. They became the basis for much of my understanding of how this President operates.

I say all that as a reminder and to lay the context for a fantastic article Chait has written titled The Case for Obama: Why He Is a Great President, Yes Great.

I supported Obama because I judged him to have a keen analytical mind, grasping both the possibilities and the limits of activist government, and possessed of excellent communicative talents. I thought he would nudge government policy in an incrementally better direction. I consider his presidency an overwhelming success...

Obama’s résumé of accomplishments is broad and deep, running the gamut from economic to social to foreign policy. The general thrust of his reforms, especially in economic policy, has been a combination of politically radical and ideologically moderate. The combination has confused liberals into thinking of Obamaism as a series of sad half-measures, and conservatives to deem it socialism, but the truth is neither. Obama’s agenda has generally hewed to the consensus of mainstream economists and policy experts. What makes the agenda radical is that, historically, vast realms of policy had been shaped by special interests for their own benefit. Plans to rationalize those things, to write laws that make sense, molder on think-tank shelves for years, even generations. They are often boring. But then Obama, in a frenetic burst of activity, made many of them happen all at once...

What can be said without equivocation is that Obama has proven himself morally, intellectually, temperamentally, and strategically. In my lifetime, or my parents’, he is easily the best president. On his own terms, and not merely as a contrast to an unacceptable alternative, he overwhelmingly deserves reelection.

Those are the highlights. But I encourage you to go read the whole thing.

As this election draws near, more and more my thoughts also go to a reflection on these last four years and making the case for why I support this President. I guess it should come as no surprise that one of the few pundits who seemed to "get" him from the beginning would articulate that so effectively.