Potpourri

I've actually enjoyed seeing Donald Trump flail about like a child as he slips further and further behind in the polls.  His actions are pretty typical of conservative mindsets, namely, the habit to proclaim themselves as the strongest, most badass people on the block and then the moment anything turns against them, start bellowing about how they're being victimized and are powerless against the onslaught.  It's such a perfect example of the victim culture that so many of Trump's supporters routinely mock everyone else for, so the irony of it all is just delicious.

Speaking of, Trump actually did say something worth listening to.  His call for Senators and Congressmen to be subject to term limits is actually, a good plan.  Of course, even if he was President, he couldn't enforce or impose those limits himself; if he tried, it'd be an action so blatantly illegal that he'd have the honor of being the first President ever convicted in an impeachment trial. Also, I'm sure Trump is making this case because he really wants to clean up the government and not, say, punish all the Senators and Congressmen who've abandoned him in the last few weeks.   But still, calling for an amendment to force guaranteed new blood into Congress isn't a bad idea for people to consider.

The ground work for getting further involved in wars in the Middle East is already being laid.  The Navy launched missiles into Yemen, and ground troops are among the forces trying to take back Mosul.  My main concern here is that if the Mosul offensive is successful, Hillary will take the opportunity to make the case that we can drive ISIS out of Syria, too.  If that happens, and the public doesn't put up much of a fight against the war, than I don't know how bad it will be, but Iraq will most likely look like a full blown success in the aftermath.  For one, since Hillary has said multiple times, her real goal in Syria is overthrowing Assad.  She hasn't said who exactly would take his place, but since the only real opposition in Syria is ISIS and al-Qaeda, they'll probably fill the void.  Or they won't because of a high troop commitment to stop them while we install a puppet government that will survive until a new civil war breaks out.  But that's okay; Hillary will just use another surge which will lead to the same political stability that you see in Iraq and Afghanistan today.  I haven't even mentioned how Iran, the Saudis, the Gulf States, Turkey, the Kurds, or Russia will react to all of this and how that will make any full scale war in Syria a ludicrous option, because this America, those countries are lucky we even know they exist.

I've been seeing a lot of breathless headlines lately about how Democrats are eyeing Utah, Texas and other states that were previously thought to be no-win situations as back in the game and an opportunity to re-take the House and Senate both.  My reactions are 1. That's counting a lot of chickens before they hatch and 2. Even if does happen, so what?  After the 08 election, Democrats had super majorities in both houses of Congress and did... pretty much nothing with it.  Obama insisted on using a Congress that would write him a blank check on demand to it through away that power and instead reduce themselves to cajoling and bargaining with a Republican minority that from the start explicitly said would do nothing but sabotage his administration.  Hillary and her hypothetical Democratic Congress won't have the mandate that Obama did, and Hillary is even less inclined to pursue anything that would resemble a public good.  If the Dems do get Congress back, it's a safe bet that they'll be so ineffectual and worthless that they will lose it, again, two years from now anyway.

To close, I've been thinking a lot this year about how Obama is likely to be remembered, and my conclusion is he'll be thought of well, which is better than he deserves.  I'm not saying he didn't do good things as a President- his support of gay rights and the nuclear deal with Iran are his highlights- but more often than not he proved to be found wanting.  The economic crisis in 2007-08 still plagues the country, he could've pushed through a bigger stimulus package which would have kick started the economy again.  But no, instead he choose to make it smaller to gain more Republican support.  The support didn't come, and the smaller package halted the downfall but didn't make the economy strong enough for people to go back to work.

When it came to healthcare, Obama very noticeably failed to back the public option, which would've been a government operated insurance plan that would've directly competed against the private operators around the country.  It would've likely been cheaper and produced better coverage than the insurance companies, instead he deferred again in the name of compromise and fed people to the same predatory companies that had made our healthcare system the most dysfunctional in the world in the first place.  He also formalized a global assassination program, indemnified the banks who caused the financial crisis from criminal prosecution, and is as ironic a Nobel Peace Prize winner as Henry Kissinger.  Almost everyone blames Republican obstructionism preventing Obama from actually getting anything done, what this point misses though, is that it was Obama himself who kept Republicans in the game and afforded them every opportunity to stymie his agenda.  If Obama had simply bypassed the Republicans when he had the chance, he wouldn't have had to deal with their bullshit for six years of his Presidency.

But, it wasn't to be. Because bold action has to come from a bold man, and Obama is simply not that.  He's persistent, pragmatic, and charismatic, but bold he is definitely not.  He was given a chance to rewrite the status quo, to fundamentally alter what we thought possible in our lives and what we, as a country, could do.  Faced with all of that, Obama doubled down on the same status quo that had born the economic crisis that had propelled him to victory, he solidified, normalized, and extended the worst practices of the Bush administration, and now, at the end of his reign, is leaving the country almost exactly as he found it; teetering on the edge, desperate for a change or new direction.  Except, this time, the standard bearer of the new way is Donald fucking Trump.  If my legacy helped make that pathetic little thing have a chance to be President, I don't think I could be proud of it.  I certainly couldn't ask anyone else to, either