I don't want to hear "Bernie would have won."

When the last election started out, I was a Sanders delegate. And yet, and yet, even at the time I knew that the oppo in the general election would have been fierce.

The Republicans would have dug up his 1972 alternative press essay on sexuality and gender roles and spun it as rapey. They'd have dragged out his support for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and said he was a Communist and a traitor. They'd have dog-whistled the white supremacists, painting Sanders as a race traitor, and spun up the anti-semitism, all the while claiming he was a bad Jew and a traitor to Israel. They'd have told the African-Americans he was racist, and told the white folk he was too soft on African-American criminals. They'd have leaned on his atheism.

Sanders lost the Democratic primaries by more-or-less 20%. His support in the general election might have been just as poor. Instead of winning the popular vote and losing the Electoral College vote in a squeaker in the swing states, he might have lost the popular and the Electoral College vote.

So I really don't want to hear "Bernie would have won." Perhaps he would have – Trump won, after all, so anything is possible. But Sanders' victory was not assured and at the time of the primary votes he was less popular than Hillary Clinton. I also don't want to hear people blaming the Democratic Party for not making him the nominee – Clinton won. Even without the machinations of the deplorable Deborah Wasserman Schultz and the Democratic National Committee she chaired, Clinton won. And, most importantly, I don't want to see the opposition to the fascist Republican Party further split. So suck it up, Americans, and let's get on with fighting the fascists.

On Senator Flake's Decision Not to Seek Reelection

I feel Flake's announcement that he will not run again (all the while voting for the same garbage he has always voted for) is the act of a coward. If the Republican Party has turned into a disaster it is partly his work and if he wants to atone for it, the best thing he could do is stay in the Senate and fight. He is one of a very small number of truly powerful Republicans (there are only 100 Senators, after all) and, if he chose to use his power to heal the harm he spoke so eloquently of, he could make a difference.

When the histories are written, I do not think the likes of Flake will fare well.

"Nice economy you have there;" Tweets to Paul Krugman on the CSR default and NAFTA

The cut off of the ACA CSR payments are a well-considered extortionist tactic, not random spite. If Trump keeps badmouthing the Exchanges people will stay away, with who knows what effect on profitability.

You worry about NAFTA, I worry about payments on the national debt. When he was a crooked developer in New York City, his policy was never to make the last payment. That is what he has done with the CSR payments. He may wait to the worst possible moment, then default on the national debt.

Nice economy you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.

Trump Clearly Just Loves Stiffing People

Trump clearly just loves stiffing people. That's the method in the ACA sabotage. It also suggests that eventually he will default on the national debt.

Blogging Quiet

I haven't been posting much lately, as I am sure you have noticed. I've been busy, for one thing, and, for another, I'm basically a dilettante (that's a hard word to spell) amateur political scientist and this isn't a time for theory – we need to be out in the streets, or at least writing our elected officials. I do have a long and historical Second Amendment piece in the works that has turned out to be unexpectedly topical, but it's going to be a while yet before I get through putting it into shape for publication.

Meantime, here's a link to Indivisible, which seems to be the most effective of the resistance groups.

So, quiet for a while. Be well, all of you. Resist!

A Department of the Economy?

When the Federal Reserve System was created in 1913, it was in an effort to stabilize the US national economy, which was beset by panics and fraud. It is a semi-independent government agency, with its Board of Governors appointed by the President, and the individual bank presidents selected by the member banks.
  The Federal Reserve was created before Keynes, before there was a macroeconomics worthy of the name. To implement the insights of Keynes, which is to say, to implement macroeconomic management policies based on our best knowledge, we need a Department of the Economy, which has power over the whole of national economic policy, and laws that order that policy, so that this power is exercised in a democratic fashion.