Covid - One Year In

 A little more than a year ago, a colleague and I were noting the spread of Covid into the US.  We had been discussing the news out of China for more than a month.  Most of our friends and family didn't know what we were talking about, but we saw the potential for a larger spread of the disease.

Here the nation is a year later and Covid mutations are starting to spread.  The good news...fingers crossed...is that the vaccines coming out of Operation Warp Speed (I call them the Trump shots) generally provide protection against those mutations.  The bad news is that these mutated strains seem to be more contagious even if they aren't more deadly as a percentage of infected cases.

So taking some steps to control the spread of those mutations is probably a good idea.  What is the Biden administration's first step?  They ban people from entering the US from Europe and South Africa; the places where those mutations are currently running rampant.

What was the first step of the Trump administration one year ago?  To ban people from entering the US that had recently been to China.  He was called a racist.  Mayors of New York City and San Francisco encouraged large gatherings of people in their respective "Chinatowns".  Given the rapid spread of Covid in the New York City area, promoting large gatherings of people anywhere in that city was a dangerous choice.

Mr. Biden is now being praised for taking precisely the same public health step for which Mr. Trump was vilified.  Parenthetically, Hawaii has largely avoided Covid precisely because they have banned people from coming to Hawaii if they do not have a negative Covid test.  Mr. Trump's initial reaction to this disease has been validated many times, yet no one that called his reaction racist back then will be willing to retract that scurrilous accusation now.

Many people complained that Mr. Trump did not issue an executive order mandating nationwide use of masks.  While his administration did provide recommendations regarding social distancing and other measures, he did not put the force of law behind those recommendations.

During the fall campaign, Mr. Biden promised to issue executive orders on those topics.  Shortly after making those promises, he had to retract them. Why?

Because the President of the United States does not have the legal authority to issue such orders.  The President (or their administration) can issue recommendations, but they cannot legally mandate those kinds of public health orders.

The authority for those orders rests solely with the governors of the individual states.

Which President demonstrated the most respect for the constitutional limits on federal authority with respect to public health? Mr. Trump.

The Trump administration also established Operation Warp Speed to streamline the regulatory process associated with the development of new vaccines.  As a part of this program, the government offered upfront research funding as well as commitments to purchase vaccines before they had been validated by the testing process.  Companies researching those vaccines had the choice of accepting both, one or the other, or none of that fiscal backing.  

Ultimately, the first two successful vaccines were developed with some sort of financial backing from the US government.  Additionally, the modifications to the onerous FDA testing/evaluation process allowed those companies to create, test, and bring to the market two highly effective vaccines in less than a year.  All of the "experts" said it would take at least two years.

And finally, there is the preparation for the distribution of the vaccine.  The Trump administration began working with the various states to develop plans to get the vaccine doses where they needed to be in a timely fashion.  This effort began back in September.  The administration reviewed the state plans, evaluated them, pointed out potential problems, and worked with the states to improve their plans.

Each state was then responsible for properly executing those distribution plans.  Some states have done better than others both in planning and execution.  

And the result is that at the end of January, we are on track to have 100 million doses administered in the first 100 days of the Biden administration.  That simply doesn't happen without the competence of the Trump administration.

The point?  Every administration has had successes and failures.  While the Trump administration could have done better in a few areas, they have mostly been very successful at addressing Covid-19.  The Biden administration can't actually say that because it would undermine the media narrative that the Trump administration couldn't do anything correctly.

They could do things well, and in the case of Covid-19, then got most things right.  Given the choice between believing the media or your own lying eyes, take your lying eyes.

2020 Election Forward To 2021

 It has been a busy and tiring couple of months.  Keeping track of the cascade of claims about the 2020 election is a full-time job.  I already have a full-time job.  I finally have had some time to think and now have some time to write.  Get ready to be pissed.

First and foremost, Joe Biden won the Presidential election in 2020.  There is not sufficient credible information to undermine that conclusion.

I base that statement on four primary elements.

1. Compared with 2016, Donald Trump's percentage of the vote in urban areas largely went up.  As an example, his percentage of the vote went up in Detroit.  While it is true that more people voted overall, a greater percentage of voters supported Donald Trump in Detroit.  Compared with 2016, Donald Trump's percentage of the vote in non-urban areas went down.  Stick a pin in this for a minute.
2. His legal team is something like 1 and 54 in court.  These courts include many conservative judges.  Absolutely none of those courts has granted relief to alter any of the votes that will soon be cast in the Electoral College.  If Clarence Thomas wasn't prepared to overturn the election, then there simply isn't justification for pursuing those legal cases. [update below]
3. His legal team is either lying or incompetent.  They stand on the front steps of a courthouse (or landscaping company, you pick) making grand pronouncements about possessing sufficient proof of fraud to overturn an election, declaring that there are tens of thousands of illegitimate votes, and then go in front of a judge to claim that there are dozens or maybe hundreds of questionable votes.  Either they lack the competence to accurately describe the evidence they are about to bring to court, or they are lying.  For some of these people, notably Rudy Guiliani, this is a terribly disappointing end to their careers.
4. Donald Trump gained support in every demographic category except one; white men.  As a matter of percentage of votes, Donald Trump improved among blacks, latinos, Asians, and women.  He lost support from white men.  Stick a pin in this for a minute.

Joe Biden is going to be our legitimately elected President after 20 January 2021.  Joe Biden will be my President.

Now accepting the legitimacy of his election does not mean accepting his agenda nor accepting the Democrat's party platform.  I believe that giving Joe Biden the Presidency will result in harm to the Republic.  He lacks the will to counter the socialist and identitarian elements that dominate the Democrat Party.  While he has recently spoken out against the excessive use of Executive Orders, he has also indicated that he wants to undo most of Mr. Trump's EOs.  Most of Mr. Trump's EOs were focused on repealing Mr. Obama's EOs.  And the vast majority of Mr. Obama's EOs were hot anti-Constitutional garbage.

While I will accept Joe Biden as the legitimate President, I will reserve my right to vigorously oppose any of his administration's policies that would appear to risk harm to the Republic.  I'm guessing that I will be opposing most of them because the modern Democrat agenda is mostly harmful to a Republic dedicated to the defense and extension of individual liberty.

We should pause for a moment to point out that this process was made more difficult by the behavior of many Democrat politicians and leaders in 2016.  Hillary Clinton may have technically conceded the election, but she spent the next four years claiming that Mr. Trump's Presidency was not legitimate.  Many elected Democrats declined to attend his inaugural.  Democrat leaders took the unprecedented step of organizing protests on the day of Mr. Trump's inauguration to declare his Presidency illegitimate.

Anyone that participated in that unconscionable behavior and has not since recanted and made appropriate apologies is part of the problem.  By failing to exhibit traditional American behavior of accepting an electoral loss in 2016, they have legitimatized the current efforts from the right to reject the licit election of Joe Biden.

Being opposed to Trump administration policies is one thing.  Attempting to deny that Mr. Trump won the 2016 election is an entirely different beast that only served to undermine our Republic.

And let's be clear, a "they did it first" defense stinks.  It's a fourth-grade level justification at best with sincere apologies to fourth graders everywhere.  I am not suggesting that the current activities are appropriate because Democrat politicians went there first.  I am aggressively asserting that if no one violates traditional norms, then we never have to deal with these problems in the first place.

As Democrat politicians have been demonstrating new and untried methods for violating political norms for my entire adult life, I simply don't have much sympathy when they now discover that those same norms are useful.  They simply must be able to support those political norms all the time and not just when it is convenient for their position.

I have seen far too many examples of unrestrained rhetoric from my friends on the right since the election.  They are citing the old saw about there being three boxes critical to democracy and individual liberty; the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box.

And again, let's be clear, the ballot box is currently trending towards those of us in the libertarian and/or conservative end of the world.  As Senator Ben Sasse is fond of observing, we are a center-right nation.

Everyone assumed that the House would swing even harder towards the Democrats.  It almost swung back to GOP control.

Everyone assumed that the Senate would flip to Democrat control and that the margin would be at least by 2-3.  Instead, we may have a tied Senate and perhaps might even keep GOP control which would act as a brake on the Democrats' demonstrably harmful agenda.  (It's now late on the day of the run-off election.  Man - nailbiter!)

Everyone assumed that Joe Biden would win in a landslide.  A landslide occurs when a candidate gets 70%+ of the electoral votes; roughly 375.  Joe Biden won 306 electoral college votes.  Pretty much a squeaker of a win.

Getting back to those "pinned" items above, we had a greater percentage of non-white males voting for the GOP than has happened in decades.  Donald Trump was apparently so racist that all those POC were willing to vote for him in relatively large numbers.

So here's the big question.  How do we build on that?

Do we hold our collective breath until our faces turn blue?  Or do we welcome those voters into the conservative/libertarian fold?  The latter is reaching for the ballot box.

Do we hold onto a marginal person who refuses to acknowledge that he lost an election or do we pursue a positive agenda?  The latter is reaching for the ballot box.

Here's the thing.  I've watched this happen before.  Militiagan was a thing back in the 1990s.  You know what those guys never did?

• Put on some slacks and a nice polo shirt.  Trim their beards.
• Volunteer to work for their local Republican party organization.
• Donate money to the GOP (think Georgia would be in doubt tonight if every Trump voter had donated the cost of a box of ammo to that campaign?)
• Donate money to organizations doing the hard work of research and issue advocacy.  i.e. The American Enterprise Institute, Reason Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, Cato, etc.
• Donate money to groups like The Federalist Society that promote concepts of individual liberty and an originalist reading of the US Constitution.
• Subscribe to magazines and newspapers that report on the news that is routinely ignored by the mainstream media.  i.e. Reason Magazine, National Review, Wall Street Journal
• Actually read those periodicals so they will be armed with the facts.

I had the privilege of listening to Rush Limbaugh during the Christmas break.  It was only for about half an hour during my lunchtime.  I have not listened to his show in close to a decade.

For those that don't know, Rush has stage 4 lung cancer.  He was diagnosed last January and was told that he wouldn't be alive come summer.  But the treatments seem to be working to slow down the progression of the disease.  

As I understand it, his show has a great many guest hosts these days.  He hosts the show when he is physically up to the task.

What did I hear?  I heard what made me a week one regular listener.  I heard gratitude for the opportunities he has had.  I heard appreciation for the continuing support of his fans.  I heard a man grateful to be an American.  I heard confidence for the future of America; a future he simply will not live to see.

When is it time to give up on America?  When is it time to abandon the American experiment in exceptional governance?

According to the man with weeks and maybe months to live, the answer is "never".

We build and we build.  We win when we can and we are largely winning today even if the 2020 election ends up being a bit of a setback.  We build and we win.  When we lose we regroup and we build.

If the Constitution is to be destroyed, if free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to a jury trial, the right to equal treatment before the law are to be stripped from our nation, let Democrat politicians be the ones to do it.

Let the rest of us defend the Constitution as written and amended.  Let the rest of us defend federalism that allows individual states to craft laws based on the needs and desires of their citizens.

Let the ones that don't believe in the Constitution be the ones to fire the first shots.  History suggests that those that shoot first are almost always the ones that lose the most.

[update from above] The various court cases have proceeded.  Of the 23 cases decided on the merits, Mr. Trump and/or the GOP have won 16.  [as of 3/26/2021]  My understanding of those cases is that very few (if any) of them are sufficient to alter the outcome of a state's election.  Mr. Trump lost each state by far more ballots than are challenged by each suit.

Pennsylvania is the only state where it might come close.  But once they mixed the challenged ballots in with the fully legal ballots, the only recourse would have been to invalidate their electors.  That would have reduced the total number of electoral votes required to win and Mr. Biden still had the electoral votes.  [people that think that the result was to flip the state's electoral votes to Mr. Trump are mistaken]

But for those that think the 2020 elections were without blemish, you are entitled to your opinion.  The facts don't support that conclusion.

Trump - A Year Plus In

Here we are a year and several weeks into the Trump Presidency.  It seems like a good time to account for where we seem to be going.

I could probably write a couple pages on each of the topics below.  To keep this from getting too tedious, I'm only going to keep it as brief as possible.  If there is a part of a topic where you, dear reader, are inclined to say "except.....", please assume that I am not suggesting that successes (or failures) are being offered as without flaw (or completely flawed).

Where are we experiencing progress - 

Judicial Appointments - Mr. Trump has largely been appointing men and women of experience, probity, and temperament to apply the Constitution as written.  The US Constitution was written to think expansively of individual liberty and restrictively towards the size and scope of the federal government.  His appointments mostly are pointed in the correct direction.

Tax Cuts for the Middle Class - The recently passed tax cuts appear to be largely aimed at folks that are not rich.  The updated tax laws apparently will increase the total tax burden on the folks at the top of the income scale by limiting SALT deductions.  Those are reasonable changes.

Cutting the Corporate Tax Rate - Our corporate income tax rate was one of the highest in the world.  It discouraged companies from bringing overseas profits home.  It discouraged overseas companies from investing in facilities and jobs in America.  That is no longer the case with positive results, thus far.

Reductions in Regulations - Just as we are Taxed Enough Already, we are similarly regulated enough already.  While there are areas where new regulation might be useful, there are far more areas where existing regulations are numerous and counterproductive.

Trade/Treaties - I support free trade.  I believe that our general trend towards engaging in free trade agreements has largely served to improve conditions in the United States while also benefiting our trading partners.  At the same time, I also believe in fair trade.  It is hard for American workers to compete in a global marketplace where other nations do not have the same level of environmental and employment regulations.  Persuading our trading partners to embrace worker and environmental protections should be a part of crafting effective trade agreements.

The Economy - I am generally of the opinion that a President's actions take months and years to impact the economy.  I am generally of the opinion that government policy has less impact on the economy than some people imagine.

But you have to admit that the US economy came busting loose starting in November/December of 2016.  Mr. Trump wasn't even in office and things were improving.  Why?

Because we knew that we would not have to face another 8 years of an administration that could not express a limit as to how much government should collect in taxes, how much government should spend, and how much government should regulate.

Couple what Mr. Trump's administration is not taxing/spending/regulating with their other actions and I am hopeful for our economic future.

But not everything is rosy...see below.

Beating the ISIS/ISIL "Caliphate" - ISIS was in control of regions of Iraq and Syria before Mr. Trump assumed the Presidency.  Our military had been supporting local efforts to undermine ISIS for years without much measurable progress.  Within 10 months of taking office, ISIS no longer controlled cities in Syria or Iraq.  The US military can accomplish a great deal worth accomplishing when they are unfettered by overly restrictive rules of engagement.

Foreign Policy/Diplomacy - Right at the start, I want to point out that Nikki Haley is precisely the sort of person that we need at the United Nations.  She fearlessly highlights abusive and despotic regimes with precision and passion.

It is also useful to note that our belligerent administration has caused Iran to cease harassing our ships in the Persian Gulf.  It has motivated North Korea to begin a rapprochement with South Korea without conditioning that action on meeting with the U.S.  Neighbors should talk without the US having to be at the table.  This is what diplomatic progress looks like.

We could also include the change in attitude in the Middle East following our recognition of Israel's capital of Jerusalem as their legitimate capital.  There is a growing recognition that the PA has little interest in a negotiated solution.  As such, the world is moving past their concerns and forcing them to re-evaluate their perspective.

As with every diplomatic issue, events will unfold over time.  History may well render this reading as overly optimistic.  One year in and things appear pointed in the right direction.

Cabinet Appointments - From Jim Mattis to John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, Ben Carson, and Betsy DeVos, the cabinet seems to be staffed by people that are capable and competent.  Mr. Trump appears to be listening to those people...at least some of the time.

Immigration - While a bit of a mixed bag, we have seen some progress in this area.  The Obama administration's DACA program was illegal.  Only Congress can establish our immigration standards.  By terminating the DACA program, Mr. Trump has put the proverbial ball back where it belongs; in Congress.  I'm generally supportive of giving the DACA kids a legal path to residency.  Citizenship begins at a US embassy or consulate.  Not by jumping a fence or overstaying a legitimate visa.

I appreciate the desire to move towards a merit-based immigration system.  I also think we need to re-balance our immigration quota system to make it fairer for people in more populous countries.  (A special hint for those in need, that means that we'd have more legal immigrants from Mexico and fewer from some European nations.)

We need to discuss positive changes to our immigration system.  But at the core of that discussion needs to be the twin principles that our representatives in Congress get to determine the conditions of immigration and that respecting US immigration laws is a pre-requisite for eventually becoming a US citizen.

Where things are off the rails:

Immigration -  This issue can get just flat divisive.  Normal folks just want to know that the government is reviewing potential immigrants to filter out criminals.  I know too many people that have followed US immigration laws to become valued and productive US citizens to want that process to be shut down.

Mr. Trump's insistence on shutting down immigration from south of our southern border while simultaneously signaling that people from Norway would be welcome gives the appearance of racism in public policy.  Given his history, this is probably something more than "appearance".  And it is a deeply disturbing distraction from the process of negotiating sane changes to our nation's immigration policies.

TWITTER! and other acts of randomness -  There just isn't enough space to list all of the weird "ideas" coming out of the White House these days.

There was his idea for a military parade like the one he saw in France.  I will bet that the number of folks serving in the military that would be willing to trade a long, holiday weekend with the chance to practice drill for a couple of months before participating in a general cluster of a parade could be safely contained in a public restroom.  A very small public restroom.

The most recent weirdness was Mr. Trump's praise for Xi Jinping effectively declaring himself China's "president for life".  Mr. Trump suggested that he'd have to try that sometime soon.  Ummm...no.  Just....no.

And as a final example, there was his approval of eliminating due process considerations when seizing guns from people deemed a threat.  Has he never read the Constitution?  On second thought, don't answer that.

We will all have another group of bizarre proclamations to discuss by this time next week.  Fixing that problem will not be easy.

Constant brinksmanship and randomness - While some of his "tactics" have yielded positive results, his other tactics are downright ghastly.  Challenging North Korea was sound.  The use of diminutions like "rocket man" and discussions about who has a bigger red button ought to be beyond discussion.  The man has impulse control issues on a staggering scale.

Again, fixing that problem will not be easy.

The Economy - This was originally rolled into the Twitter and Randomness above, but it rates its own entry.  Now we are going to engage in a trade/tariff war?  Has the man never heard of Smoot-Hawley?  Is he unfamiliar with American history?

I am all for fair trade, but that support ends when it morphs into outright protectionism.  I predict that this "trade war" will not end well for anyone if it continues unchecked.

Racism/Sexism -

My outline for this section used the phrase "whiff of racial animus", but that is a poisonous use of euphemism.  Donald Trump may not be actively racist in the vein of the Klan or other such groups.  His comments in the wake of events in Charlottesville, VA may only represent his being habitually and/or reflexively racist.

The racism is there either way.  His history as a New York landlord also suggests that he is as committed to classifying people based on their race as any left-wing activist engaged identity politics.

His denigration of women from claiming to grab 'em by the pussy....we're going euphemism free here....or cheating on his wife with a porn star are easy indications of how he perceives women's roles in our modern society.

I have no desire to have either perspective as a part of our national leadership.

What are the alternatives?

A Republican could certainly enter the primary against Mr. Trump.  As I didn't vote for Mr. Trump in either the primary or the general in 2016, I'm certainly willing to look at alternatives.

The Democrats could run a viable candidate for a change.  Had they done so in 2016, I believe that Mr. Trump would have been significantly less likely to win.

What would a "viable" Democrat look like?  Not Hillary Clinton.  Not Bernie Sanders.  Not Elizabeth Warren.  They need to find someone willing to supporter lower tax rates and a simpler tax code.  This prospective candidate needs to appreciate the sterling benefits of free markets.  They need to support simplifying and modernizing government regulations.  They should support a position of American strength on the global stage...diplomatic, economic, and military...to support oppressed people that are denied their individual human rights.  They should be focused on broad-scale public policies aimed at blue-collar voters.  They need to abandon the left's obsession with identity politics.

If the Democrats run a candidate that displays most of those qualities, then they might well get my vote.

If they don't, then at the least we will have a President that is guaranteed to have at least one success every day as soon as they get out of bed.  They will not be Hillary Clinton.

Precisely How Elite Are They?

A number of thoughts come to mind in the wake of the British referendum on leaving the European Union as well as events in this year's US Presidential elections.

Central to those conflicts, large and small, is the perceived sense of self-worth of the self-described elites; the folks whose opinion should matter just a little more than the hoi polloi.  The suggestion is that the world would be better off if we let those elites offer a bit firmer guidance in the affairs of state.

This perspective is shockingly highlighted by the usually progressive....more accurately socialist leaning....Rolling Stone magazine.  Matt Taibbi's article suggests that the reaction to Brexit justifies why Brexit became an issue in the first place.

The overall message in every case is the same: Let us handle things.

But whatever, let's assume that the Brexit voters, like Trump voters, are wrong, ignorant, dangerous and unjustified.

Even stipulating to that, the reaction to both Brexit and Trump reveals a problem potentially more serious than either Brexit or the Trump campaign. It's become perilously fashionable all over the Western world to reach for non-democratic solutions whenever society drifts in a direction people don't like. Here in America the problem is snowballing on both the right and the left.

Even the quote from Mr. Taibbi illustrates the sort of non-self-aware perspective that pervades the leftist perspective.  It is most certainly undeniable that Mr. Trump has used indelicate language on the subject of race on mulitple occasions; specifically in commenting on American immigration policies..  It is equally undeniable that blatantly racist individuals and groups have come out of the proverbial woodwork in support of Mr. Trump.  Similarly, there were racists supporting the Brexit initiative.

Mr. Taibbi fails, as do many critics of Mr. Trump, when he conflates the small but vocal racist component with the respective larger movements.

Permit me to pause here to note that I didn't have any position on Brexit...that is for British citizens to decide....and I am 99+% certain to vote for Gary Johnson in the U.S. Presidential election this fall.  Back to the issue at hand.....

What Mr. Taibbi and those critics fail to understand is that the U.S. government has the authority and the responsibility to determine who gets to immigrate into our country.  There is nothing racist with expecting that immigrants obey our immigration laws.  There is nothing racist with the expectation that potential new citizens abandon the governmental traditions of their home nations in favor of the governmental traditions expressed by the Constitution of the United States.

I possess a passion for the US Constitution.  It describes a limited scope of authority for the federal government and presents an expansive view of individual liberty.  American liberals have generally been successful on those issues that can be properly framed as pursuing the interest of individual liberty.  American conservatives have similarly been successful on issues that are framed by the Constitution's limits on the size and scope of government.

The Constitution is the rhetorical DNA of the American political system.  America succeeds when the plain language of the Constitution succeeds.  We falter when that same language is subverted.

A similar perspective applies in the case of Brexit where an unelected and largely unconstrained government in Brussels perceives itself to be superior to the founding documents of the British commonwealth.  The British people have the reasonable expectation that they will be governed in a manner consistent with which they have previously given their consent.

Michael Totten, an author I hold in high esteem, offered his perspective on Brexit.

If I lived in the United Kingdom, I would have voted to Remain in the EU, but it’s not hard to see why the majority voted to Leave. I wouldn’t want the United States to join the EU for the same reasons the Brexiters want out of it.

The EU is a brilliant idea. Unite splendidly diverse yet like-minded nations into a powerful bloc that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Provide minimum standards and guidelines for countries that aren’t as advanced (such as Greece and Romania). Pull down trade barriers and do business in a common market. Open up job opportunities and leg-stretching room for all. (I wouldn’t want to be confined to a place as cramped as Belgium for the rest of my life, but I’m one of those cosmopolitan "elites" everyone likes to complain about nowadays.)

The actually existing EU, though, isn’t so brilliant. It includes all the good stuff, yet it’s crushed by a staggering amount of centralized regulatory bureaucracy and a disregard for the wishes of its individual member states. It’s hardly a gulag empire, but it’s autocratic enough that Europe’s democracy deficit has its own Wikipedia page.

Mr. Totten is what I consider to be liberal of the old-school variety; open-minded and tolerant.  While I suspect that we would disagree on some of the particulars that describe an appropriate level of government, we most definitely agree on the basic instrument of the role of the people in establishing and maintaining that government.

It is regrettable to note that the "elites" have little interest in analyzing where they went wrong.  Instead they work for another referendum, another election, another opportunity to get an answer of which they approve.  If only we can give them enough time, they will develop a system of mathematics that will let two plus two equal five.

In their minds, the only election that matters is the one they win.

I do have to offer some appreciation for former President Bill Clinton in his response to the 1994 elections that saw both houses of the US Congress to the Republicans.  Rather than dig in his heels, he eventually modified his agenda to work with the Congress.  The Republicans did the same.  It wasn't perfect, as illustrated by the government shut-down.  But Mr. Clinton did demonstrate an appreciation for the fact that ALL elections matter; not just the one that he won.

In contrast, American leftists only seem to care about Mr. Obama's election.  Mr. Obama himself has demonstrated little interest in working with Congress to achieve whatever might be possible within two very different philosophical agendas.  Hence the his lack of success when compared with Mr. Clinton.

While I would certainly disagree with the average Briton about what constitutes an appropriate level of government, I wholeheartedly agree that the perspective of the average voter ought to influence the actions of government.  When a government undermines the legitimate objectives of all people to freely pursue a satisfying life, those same people have the right to change their government, or institute a new one, in a manner that to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When the elites in government lose the tangible supports of the average citizen, it is incumbent upon those elites to undertake serious self-evaluation and reflection on their actions and whether or not they have been good stewards of the public interest.  Their first step should not be to change the rules of the game so as to ensure a different (electoral) result.  Their purpose should be to respond in a manner that is above the brown-shirts attacking people peaceably attending political rallies in California.  It shouldn't be to join them.

*modestly edited 6/29/2016