The Democratic Platform for 2020?

I have argued for years that Democrats need to have a cohesive positive vision for America that speaks to the average American, and policies that flow from it (see my book, We Still Hold These Truths, and my post “The Perennial Search for the Democrats’ Mission”).  Never has that been more important than for the 2020 election.  

We have a mad President to whom roughly a third of the voting electorate is in thrall.  In typical populist style, he has whipped them to a frenzy.  The rest of the electorate is not in thrall and indeed rather disgusted by the President.  

This is an opening for Democrats.  The key to winning is getting the uncommitted people who normally vote, and who voted for Trump in 2016, to vote for the Democrat in 2020.

But If activist progressives have their way, that opening will be squandered and Trump will win another term.  Some of their ideas are just off the wall.  Others have merit but the way they are expressed and their attitude towards those who oppose them creates ill will among a far larger group of people than those they appeal to. 

They have no nuance; no willingness to compromise.  They have no understanding what leadership involves.  Because they won their seats, they think they have a mandate; they don’t understand that the rest of the country may feel very differently.

For example, while most people would like better and cheaper health insurance, most are by and large happy with their current employer-provided insurance.  They need to be convinced and allowed to choose Medicare For All, not be forced into it by eliminating private insurance off the bat.  That scares them and creates a feeling of insecurity.  Let’s get back to the initial goal of making all Americans health care secure by providing access to those who don’t have it now.  Medicare For All should initially be an option for all.

Most people want to treat immigrants and asylum seekers fairly.  On the other hand, regardless our history as a nation of immigrants, many feel that things are different now than in the 19th and early 20th century.  We cannot have open doors.  And so the idea of decriminalizing illegal entry seems wrong-headed.  And providing health care by right to all illegal immigrants would not only encourage illegal immigration, millions of our own citizens don’t have that access.  

The progressive immigration reform agenda used to be to provide a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrants already here and who are part of our society and economy.  That people could understand and support, depending on the details. But that goal seems lost in the current debate.

The first Democratic debate does not bode well for winning over the uncommitted group in the middle.  Despite activist progressives representing only a small fraction of the Democratic voting base, their strong presence on social media and the Squad’s in-your-face press conferences, led most of the candidates to voice positions or raise their hands in solidarity with the activists but striking fear into the rest of us who worry about another 4 years of Trump. 

I consider myself a progressive and have argued in these pages for major changes in the relationship between government, business, and the people.  But these changes must be approached incrementally; otherwise there will be no mandate for those changes.   We need a progressive candidate who is reasonable, not strident; who will appeal to the Democratic base and beyond. 

A.O.C. and Rep. Omar scare me.  That they bring a smile to Trump’s face scares me even more.

The Need to Transform the Health Care System

There is much conversation, at least among Democrats, about the need to change the health care system from one which is based on private insurers to one which is a single payer government system …Medicare For All.  But what that would look like and how we get there is not the topic of this post.

The reform that is addressed by this post is the transformation of the health care industry, and it is an industry, from a for-profit model to a non-profit model. The model would still be capitalist, private-owned.  This is not socialism.

Why is this transformation critical, separate and apart from the need to provide universal coverage through a government insurance system.

1.  Drug/therapy development/production is currently constricted.   Under the current system, pharmaceutical companies have no interest in exploring drugs to treat illness unless they would provide, if successful, a financial bonanza.  Corporations not only have to make money, they have to keep on increasing their profits in order to please investors.

They thus have no financial incentive to test whether an existing drug, certainly one that is available as a generic, can effectively treat an illness.  They also have no interest in producing a drug if they don’t make enough profit from it.

This problem has resulted in a serious shortage of drugs to treat a broad range of illnesses.  And the development of new drugs/approaches that are extremely expensive.  It has also led to marketing ploys to increase use and thus profits.

2.  The capitalist approach is not appropriate.  When it comes to making decisions that impact an individual’s or the nation’s health, whether it regards insurance coverage of a procedure or drug research, the profit motive is not appropriate.  It should not be part of the decision process.

Now it must be truthfully acknowledged that even in a nonprofit atmosphere or with government insurance, there will be a need to take account of the cost of a procedure or a drug.  Because the availability of money is not infinite.

But the decision will be made not on the basis of it’s impact on a company’s profit, but rather whether looking at the good of all it is the best use of resources.  For  example, under the current system, the last days/weeks of life are the most expensive medically and yet they give no hope of recovery; they merely postpone, often with suffering, the inevitable end.  Many will object to what is viewed as "rationing" health care, but is this the right or even compassionate use of resources?

3.  Competition is wasteful.   Since most hospital centers are for-profit institutions, they compete with each other for business just like all other corporations.  As a result each hospital feels the need to have the latest technology across a broad range of fields.  This is a very inefficient use of very expensive technology and drives up our health care costs.

The model instead should be one of regional planning, with all hospitals having a core competence but specialization and the expensive technology that supports it being divided up among the region’s hospitals.  While that would not provide the greatest convenience for the patient, it would provide significant cost benefits for the system and thus for the patient/consumer who is ultimately paying for the system either through insurance or taxes.

For these reasons, the law should be changed so that any business involved in the health care system … insurance companies, hospitals, doctors offices, pharmaceutical companies … should be required to be organized on a nonprofit basis.

Trump As Antichrist

An Antichrist is someone who is an antagonist of Christ, someone who is an adversary of Christ.  What does that mean?  It means someone who works against everything that Christ taught and valued.  It means someone who routinely does the opposite of what Jesus would do.

The core of any religion is its teaching on how to live life, on how to interact with yourself and those around you.  This is usually termed its ethical or moral code.  And in Christianity, “the moral standards for human beings flow from God’s moral character."  God/Christ “commands us to love, to be merciful, and to not bear false witness.” 

Let us examine President Trump by these moral standards.  

1.  Does Trump love his fellow man?  The only people Trump loves, and that is using the term very loosely. are those who do what he wants them to do.  Anyone who opposes him or displeases him are vilified in his tweets and other public pronouncements.  Trump loves no one but himself.  But he is not the garden-variety narcissist that we all know; he is instead someone with Narcissist Personality Disorder as defined by the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM Manual.  He is an evil person.

2.  Is Trump merciful?  No.  This is most evident in his actions and pronouncements regarding illegal immigrants from Mexico.  The issue is not that he regards their presence as being illegal - that’s the law - it is that he vilifies them and treats them as dirt.  Regarding those seeking asylum from the violence in their Central American homelands, he makes no distinction between their status and those of illegal immigrants.  Not only is he confused about the law, he is not merciful.  Regarding the LGBT community he has attempted to rollback protections afforded by Federal regulations causing much suffering.  The examples are endless.  And if you are a perceived enemy or antagonist of his, he certainly shows no mercy in his blistering attacks.

Unlike Christ, he has not opened his heart to those who are despised by our society, the contemporary equivalent of lepers and prostitutes in Christ’s time.  Instead, he has inflamed his bases’ intolerance towards them for one reason only - to manipulate them and be secure in their unwavering support of him.

3.  Does Trump lie?  Is the Pope Catholic?!  The answer is a resounding, yes.  All Presidents have lied to protect themselves on occasion.  Trump, however lies many times every day.  He is a pathological lier.  Ironically, what he calls “Fake News” is telling the truth and his version of the news is instead fake.  But by branding various media as Fake News, he has cleverly set himself up as being the truthful one.

Let’s look at this another way.  The seven deadly sins of Christianity are pride, greed. lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth.  Many if not most people are to some extent guilty of these sins.  But Trump is guilty of them in spades; indeed, these sins define him.  I don’t think it’s necessary to offer any proof that he is guilty every day of all seven deadly sins.

To me though the most disturbing aspect of Donald Trump's spiritual immorality is that he has no conscience, he has no concern for his fellow man, he certainly doesn’t “do unto others as he would have them do unto him.”  He uses everyone around him and his supporters shamelessly to advance his only goal … which is his own power and reputation.  He is a con man par excellence.  

As such, Donald Trump is in his everyday actions an Antichrist.  Not only is everything he stands for and does antagonistic to the human values that Christ put at the center of his moral code, but as President, the leader of this country, he inflames large segments of the population to follow his example, rather than adopting a Christian moral position regarding the problems we are facing and those less fortunate among us, who suffer from discrimination and bigotry.

Asylum v Illegal Immigration - The Truth Must Be Told

I read a fact recently that I have not seen reported anywhere before that would have a huge impact on the discussion of Trump’s actions regarding those trying to enter the U.S. from our southern border

In the past, virtually all those crossing the border illegally were single men from Mexico looking for jobs in the U.S.   That flow of illegal immigration has virtually ceased.  Whereas it accounted for 98% (1.6 million apprehensions) in 2000, it 2014 they accounted for only 186,000 arrests.  The drop has been largely the result of a more stable Mexican economy and a declining Mexican birthrate.

But since 2010, the number of women with children, or single children, from Central America who are seeking asylum in the U.S. from the violence in their home countries has been increasing and now account for the majority of those attempting to cross the border.  Typically, they present themselves for asylum at the border, rather than attempt to cross undetected illegally.

To Trump, there is no difference between the two groups.  They are all dangerous scabs to be kept out of the U.S.  Yet to any sane, reasonable person there is a huge difference.  Women and children, or complete families, seeking asylum from the terrible violence in the Central American countries fit into a traditional category of people seeking to immigrate to the U.S. without a visa.  And they should be treated accordingly.

Even the single men who crossed the border illegally from Mexico did not fit Trump’s xenophobic description of dangerous men.  They have since immigrating taken their place in the American workplace, taking low-paying, menial jobs that Americans have no interest in but are of vital importance to the functioning of our economy.  And mostly they are paying the appropriate taxes.

Immigrant supporters and Democrats in Congress need to clarify for the American public the nature of people coming into the country today from the south.  Americans are still primarily good-hearted people.  When they learn the truth, as was the case with the separation of children from their families, and most recently with the report of the deplorable conditions children were subjected to, their attitude towards these women and children will change and Trump will be force to change the government’s anti-immigrant policies.

The Inhumanity of the Pro-Life Movement

If the damage weren’t so devastating, one would say that it is ironic that the movement to protect human fetuses, that brands itself “pro-life” and sprang from the moral and religious reverence for human life of the Catholic Church and Evangelical branches of Christianity, is in fact an inhumane movement.

The reader may well ask, “How can I call the pro-life movement inhumane?”  The dictionary definition of inhumanity is lacking kindness, compassion; being cruel.

Let me count the ways in which the pro-life movement is inhumane.

First, it is an act of cruelty towards the very lives that the movement seeks to save.  The life of a child is a difficult one filled with anxiety, insecurity, and fear.  Even when raised in what can be described as a loving family, things typically happen within the family that cause a child to suffer from these emotions.  And these are children who are wanted.

How cruel it is to force a child to be born into a family that does not want him or her.  How much more will that child suffer than the average child?  And if the child is given up for adoption or placed in a foster home, how much more will the child suffer? 

That the fate of these children once they are born is of no concern to the pro-life movement is itself an act of cruelty.  What’s worse, many of the same conservative Evangelical forces that are pro-life are actually in favor of reducing government aid to needy families with children.  Making it more likely that some of these saved children will suffer from malnutrition, poor health, and inadequate housing.  That some now offer short-term housing for women and their newborns is not an answer to the problem they have created.  

Second, it is lacking compassion for the living person, the woman who is bearing the child.  Any woman who makes the decision to abort the life moving within her struggles with that decision, not because of the pressures of society or family, but because of the biological and psychic bond between the mother and her unborn child.

It shows a total lack of respect for another human being, one who is living, to not acknowledge this decision-making process.  Whether she is in a bad marriage.  Whether there just isn’t enough money for another baby.  Whether she is at her wits’ end.  Regardless the reasoning, abortion is never undertaken lightly.

“Ah,” the pro-life advocate will say, “then she should have practiced birth control.”  Of course, the Catholic Church does not sanction protective birth control of any sort.  But putting that aside, this retort points to the third way in which the movement is inhumane.  

As has most recently been shown in the passage of a restrictive abortion bill by the Alabama State legislature, pro-life activists will not even allow an exception from their crusade for women who have been raped or been the victim of incest.  Such women had no choice to practice birth control.  But nevertheless the movement would force these women to bring into life children who were formed either by their rapist or their father or other relative who abused their trust.  If this is not a lack of compassion, if this is not cruelty, I don’t know what is.

Another cruelty, is that most pro-life advocates will not allow an exception for cases where the mother’s life is at stake.  They are pro-life for the unborn fetus, but anti-life for the living mother, who more than likely has living children.  They show more compassion for the fetus than for those living children; how will they be harmed by the death of their mother?

The Religious Right, as well as the Republican Party, has for the past several decades been extremely clever at setting the terms of debate, ever since the days of Lee Atwater.  At branding themselves in a way which comments favorably on themselves and branding their opponents, typically Democrats, in way which comments unfavorably on them.

Thus the recent pro-life hashtag, #EndInfanticide.  How in the world do you fight against the image that by protecting a woman’s choice, you are promoting infanticide?

I suggest that you fight fire with fire.  It is not enough to counter “pro-life” with “pro-choice.”  The slogans just don’t carry the same moral weight.

There are four strategies I would suggest.  The first is that Democrats and other pro-choice activists must make very clear that they are anti-abortion.  No one is pro-abortion.  Everyone detests the idea.  It’s just that in certain situations, some feel it is the lesser of two evils.  Thus the first new hashtag for the pro-choice movement should be, #antiabortion.

The second is calling the pro-life movement on the inhumanity and the hypocrisy of their position.  Thus I propose a second hashtag, #prolifeisinhumane.

The third is to bring the Christian denominations that have official policy supporting Roe v Wade to the forefront.  It must be clear that this is not a fight of the religious against the secular.  One can be Christian, religious and have a moral and religious reverence for life and yet support the right to end a pregnancy in properly limited circumstances.  This is not a contradiction.  Indeed, as I argue above, it is the pro-life position that is a contradiction.  Of course other religions should be included, but this should not be allowed to appear as a Christianity v other religions issue.

The fourth is to come up with a new name or names to replace “pro-choice”  as it just doesn’t have the necessary moral heft.  This one I had trouble with.  It has to have the right image, be short, and resonate.  Possibly “Pro-Mother” or “Pro-Child” with the accompanying hashtags.

It is past time for the tables to be turned on the Religious Right and for Democrats and other pro-mother/pro-child people and religious institutions to set the terms of debate.

The Failure of Religion to Lead

I was reading a book the other day that happened to quote two verses from the Bible that just stopped me in my tracks, realizing what a failure not only we are as humans but what a failure religion has been in leading its flock.  The verses were:

“For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

“Who shall ascend onto the hill of the Lord?  He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.”

These are core principles of Christian teaching, together with “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Similar teaching with different words can be found in all the great religions.

According to a 2017 Gallup poll, 37% of Americans are classified as “highly religious” based on their self-reports of church attendance and the importance of religion in their lives.  Another 30% are classified as moderately religious.  

Yet the same poll found that 48% of highly religious Americans approve of Trump’s performance in office, 40% of the moderately religious.  Regarding party affiliation, 80% of Republicans are classed highly or moderately religious, but only 61% of Democrats.

How does one make sense of this data considering the teachings noted above?  It is obvious that there is a serious disconnect between what people feel being religious means regarding their own and others’ actions and the teachings of the Bible and other spiritual sources.  This is not only seen in the support of the religious for Trump but in their everyday actions, be it within their family or in the context of their work.  

We live in a culture that promotes the quest for power at all cost, vanity, and deceitfulness.  We live in a culture that is supremely irreligious.  But why do the religious, who rebel against some aspects of modern culture, not stand up against this ethical and moral cancer?

One could look at this situation and say that the failing is due to the weakness of man.  But that is only part of the answer.  The more damning (pardon the pun) answer is that our major religions, especially the more orthodox branches, have failed to pass on the most meaningful aspects of their religion … how one acts towards his fellow man.  Of course they give lip service to the moral and ethical responsibilities of man, but they do not press the point.

Instead the orthodox branches of religion are obsessed with gaining power, with having influence, and as a result stress the functional aspects of orthodox religious practice far more than the moral or ethical aspects.  The only moral aspects they promote are cherry-picked from the Bible and again are geared to their defeating what they see as enemies of their power.

And so, whether it’s their stand against a woman’s choice, which they label “pro-life” and “anti-abortion” (is anyone pro-abortion?), or whether it’s their stand against the LGBT community, that is the orthodox moral litmus test for being a good Christian or a good Jew.  To abstain from vanity, from deceitfulness, from the quest for power and wealth at all cost seems not to concern them.

And this is not just a criticism of Evangelical Christians (much has been written about the apparent hypocrisy of their support for Trump) or ultra-orthodox Jews.  The Catholic Church in general has fallen into this same trap.  Actually, the preeminence of survival is nothing new for the Church.  It has historically seen its most important role as preserving its power, its presence.  So for example, during WWII, Pope Pius said nothing about what was happening to the Jews in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy or the conquered countries.  He was more concerned that the church not be attacked.

And what about the ongoing scandal of the abuse of children, not just boys, by Catholic clergy?  Not just the abuse, but the deceitful, disingenuous actions of church leaders in keeping the truth of this monstrous moral failure from their own flock.  All in the name of preserving the power and strength of the Church.  

If one reads the Bible in its entirety, not just the favored sections intoned in the culture wars, they will know that they and their religion have failed.  That they are not leading a religious life in any truly meaningful way.  Evangelicals may be “born again,” and ultra-orthodox Jews may maintain all the rituals and study the Bible and pray for hours, but orthodox Christians are not doing what Jesus would do, and ultra-orthodox Jews are not doing what G-d would have them do in dealing with their fellow man.  And by the way, I should note that the eastern religions are not free of this problem.  Look at the violence that Buddhist monks have promoted against the Muslim Rohingya of Myanmar.

Religion should be at the forefront of a real culture war, which is to say against the prevailing culture’s promotion of power, vanity, and deceitfulness.  It should be our moral compass.  But that would take real courage because it would risk turning people off and thus “weakening” the church’s power and presence.  

It is ironic that it is the less-orthodox, less-conservative branches of the religions that do a better job at teaching the moral values of their religion, and those who are classified as “not religious” who do a better job at implementing those values.  Something has gone haywire.

Tariffs 101 - The Big Trump Lie

Trump is fond of saying, in support of his trade war tariffs, that as a result China is paying billions of dollars directly into the U.S. Treasury.  That is blatantly and categorically false.  Either Trump knows the truth and is lying, or he is just dumb about how tariffs work, which is certainly possible.

What really happens when tariffs are imposed is that the producing country, here China, does not pay a penny.  The tariffs are instead paid by the company importing the product into the U.S., typically an American company.  It is they who are paying the billions of dollars into the U.S. Treasury.

And guess what the importing company then does?  They pass the cost on to their consumer, whether it is a business or the American public.  

So at the end of the day, the billions of dollars in tariffs are in fact paid by the American consumer, not China.  China is only hurt by the tariffs in so far as the increase in the cost of their products to consumers because of the tariffs causes sales to decline.

And that, as Edith Ann (the Lily Tomlin character) would say, is the truth.

* Note:  Prior to publishing, this post was sent to the New York Times as a letter to the editor.  When a few days later they published an editorial making this very point, I was free to publish my post.