Political Discourse 2020

The elevation of Donald J. Trump to the presidency—for the second time—is both absurd and obscene. Absurd, for the very presence of this cartoonish jokester, which is a sick parody of the low-brow culture that he personifies. It is as if Marshal Mcluen’s dictum that the media is the message got processed through Neil Postman’s classic, Amusing Ourselves to Death in the elevation of an utterly uncouth TV reality host to the highest political position in the land. Interpreted through Postman’s lens, Trump’s appeal to the lowest common denominator among those who are inclined to be persuaded by right wing media outlets, is a structural phenomenon that uncannily mimics the absurdities of a constitutional republic which has been corrupted by the multitude of forces that push the nation in the opposite direction. In short, it is absurd to the nth degree that this ridiculous individual, and his group of election denying cronies that he is promoting to the uppermost offices in the land, will ...

  Various commentators have provided rationales as to why Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election. These include the charge that the Democrats were out of touch with the average voters and were either too consumed by the machinations of identity (woke) politics or a radical “far left” socialist agenda that could not be operationalized in the current social, economic and political climate.   Some Democratic prognosticators thought that Harris did not veer sufficiently to the center while others identified the failure to embrace a hard-working class agenda based on high paying jobs and a firm commitment to the labor movement.   I had wanted Biden to announce he would not run for a second term right after the mid-term election, which would have provided time for a sufficient airing of several candidates for the Democratic nomination.     The Harris campaign was launched with a burst of energy after Biden pulled out of the race. Harris dominated the ai...

  I appreciate editor of the East Hartford Gazette, Bill Doak’s detailed article last week on the many legislative accomplishments of 10 th District Rep. Henry Genga. Without repeating the specifics laid out in Doak’s article, what comes across is Rep. Genga’s commitment to serve the needs of those he represents by delivering tangible benefits to them. I observed Rep. Genga hard at work recently at the Rivermead Pointe manufactured home community meeting between a homeowner’s group—the newly formed Rivermeade Council—and the management of the park in their discussion of critical issues raised that the resident group wanted to discuss.   I am uncertain as to the results of that meeting, but it was clear that Rep. Genga was there to work toward solutions in his encouragement of constructive dialogue between the two groups.     I also read the letter by Matt Harper in his endorsement of Salema Davis for her election as the next 11 th District House Representative. ...

I n 2013 President Obama’s Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Reform Bill passed the US Senate by a 68-32 margin. The bill provided a conservative pathway to citizenship that would take 13 years for most undocumented immigrants. It also included almost $50 billion for border security enforcement, an E-Verify mandatory employment system, and a “ renewable work visa for low-skilled workers, with annual quotas that depend on market demand.”  ( https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2014/6/30/18080446/immigration-reform-congress-2014-house-john-boehner-obama ). House Republican leadership tried to get the bill passed; due to the opposition of the prevailing conservative wing of the GOP, it was never brought to the floor. With its failure, the political climate over immigration policy took on an increased polarized cast.    Given his accusation of Mexicans bringing drugs and crime to the U.S., as well as being rapists, the polarization intensified once T...

  At stake in this upcoming presidential race is nothing less than the direction of the United States of America for the present and near-term future (circa 2025-2040). Given the role of the U.S., as the consequential nation throughout the world, the election not only has domestic significance, but high-level global implications. While there may be substantive differences on the nature of such direction among informed people who probe this matter, a baseline criterion for the assumption of public office is studied attentiveness to the core objectives this nation needs to address in the near- and longer-term. The alternative is that our political leaders get sidetracked on extraneous matters or subsumed in culture war outrage rhetoric and ignore the domestic and international matters that should arouse the studied attentiveness of this nation’s most informed political minds and decision makers.   For the Democratic Party such a pathway is based on the importance of the centra...

The working classes allied with the Democratic Party from the New Deal era (1930s) to the beginning of the Johnson administration in the mid-1960s. Through the domestic reforms of FDR, the patriotic fervor of World War II, and the flourishing of the post-war consumer economy, the Democratic Party was supported by a carefully balanced alliance of northern liberals, immigrants, workers, African Americans, and white southern segregationists. The durability of that coalition began to crumble as civil rights enactments aggravated southern stakeholders beginning in the 1940s. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origins, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 led to a mass exodus of the South from the Democratic Party. President Lydon Johnson, aware of the political costs in passing these bills, concluded that the South would be lost for the Democratic Party for a generation.    The social and cultural ...