KENNEDY’S VEEP: THE STRUGGLE FOR CREDIBILITY

By Ken Grossberger, PhD

RFK Jr. has picked Nicole Shanahan for the vice-presidential slot on his ticket. The ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a lawyer and an activist, and at 39 finds herself in the center of the American political arena. Kennedy, in his introduction yesterday warned her about the candidate risks in current political times: character assassination, name calling, negative reporting, exposure, investigations, lawsuits, etc. She has no experience as a political office holder, which may be one of her strengths. She is from humble origins but has been in a position to contribute to various causes such as climate change, female reproductivity and criminal justice. She has also contributed to the campaigns of Democrats and progressives, and her checkbook may be one of the most attractive features to the Kennedy campaign.

But the main issue for Kennedy is his credibility. Does he really intend to win, or just make a statement? Is this a set up for 2028? There is a long history of third-party candidates for President of the United States. The fledging Republican Party (in the process of replacing the Whig Party) was running candidates in 1856 (John C. Fremont) and 1860 (Abraham Lincoln). In the 1890s issue-oriented groups formed the Greenback Party, the Populist Party and the People’s Party. The early 1900s saw the rise of the Progressive Party (also known as the Bull Moose Party with Teddy Roosevelt as their candidate in the chaotic election of 1912). Southern Democrats ran as Dixiecrats with Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate in 1948. Gov. George Wallace of Alabama ran on the American Independent line in 1968 and John Anderson ran as a liberal Republican on the National Unity Party on 1980. Ross Perot was an independent candidate in 1992 and 1996. The Reform Party ran Pat Buchanan in 2000 and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson ran as the Libertarian Party candidate in 2012 and 2016. The Green Party has run Ralph Nader several times in recent history and now Jill Stein in 2012, 2016 and this year. All of this with little success, but Lincoln won and Perot got 19% in 1992. Most of the rest were also-rans with low percentages of the votes.

So, the probability of a Kennedy win is exceptionally low, even in a cycle where both major party candidates are seriously flawed and highly vulnerable. But anything that includes Trump will defy any odds thus history may not be as much of a factor as it usually would.

TRUMP’S VEEP (AND REPLACEMENT?)

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

The latest polls suggest a probable Trump victory in November based on his edge in the swing states. Assuming this holds, his Vice-Presidential pick looms large as a successor if Trump gets convicted of any of the criminal charges against him in the multiple jurisdictions in which he has been formally charged. So who will it be?

The short list, as reported, includes Sen. Tim Scott, Gov. Ron DeSantis, business guy Vivek Ramaswamy, Rep. Byron Donalds. Gov. Kristi Noem and now former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Others have been mentioned (including former Gov. Nikki Haley). All this is speculative as Trump dangles a lot of bait in many directions. If Trump suffers a criminal conviction or goes bankrupt (or both), there is a scenario where the Republican National Committee (RNC) would have to replace him, and if he has already chosen a VEEP (before or after the Republican convention in August), then the RNC (led by his hand-picked chair and his daughter-in-law) might well select his pick as the successor presidential candidate. If recent polls are any indication, that successor might fare well against President Biden (polls during the primary showed Haley doing better against Biden than Trump did).

If Trump survives the barrage of lawsuits against him then this is a moot point and then it’s on to November. But if he takes a bad hit and is mortally (politically) wounded, then his number 2 becomes the Republicans’ number 1, and we are in a brand new ballgame. But if the potential replacement is likely to have better numbers against Biden, then exactly what is the political rationale behind the Democrat’s massive push to remove Trump from the political landscape?

Most of the Democrats’ campaign strategy revolves around bashing Trump, so if he’s not there, what do they do?

PHARMA CARTEL MEXICANO

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

The Mexican drug cartels, as a collective, are some of the largest suppliers of pharmaceutical grade drugs to the US. Reports state that record amounts of fentanyl were illegally exported to the US in 2023. Last year, these reports tell us, about 240,000 pounds of drugs were seized by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) including over a billion fentanyl doses. All this came through our southern border and was consumed in the United States.

This is a huge market. All of the US government attempts to interdict the flow across the border, all of law enforcement attempts to apprehend the offenders, all of the diplomatic attempts to get help from the Mexican government, have all been of little or no avail under the current administration. President Biden has shown little taste for doing anything meaningful at the border and has even taken Texas to court to stop their attempts to stop the flow. Clearly, the tsunami of illegals (sorry, the “deprived newcomer future Americans”) and the avalanche of drugs crossing the border are apparently what he wants. Nothing effective has been done by the White House as the problem worsens, and Biden is left in desperation to blame Trump and the Republicans.

So we look at another option. A French drain (not to be confused with the French Connection), is a technique whereby a structure constantly gets flooded, so instead of trying to stop it, the water is let in through a drain, and then it is let out by the same drain. In other words, control the flow. Why not do the same thing at the border? Let the drugs in but regulate it, and then tax it. If we’re not going to stop it, we might as well make some money from it. Maybe Biden can use some of his proposed almost 100,000 IRS agents to collect taxes from the cartels. If he doesn’t want to secure the border, at least he can get some revenue out of it (“the rich should pay their fair share”). So let’s make a cartel out of the cartels. As Pharma Cártel Mexicano (stock symbol PCM) grows, Biden can get a brokerage to put together an IPO and Americans can then invest, hopefully making enough money to pay for the drug rehab for relatives addicted to the fentanyl that illegally came across the border in the first place.

THE IGNORABLE PAIN OF THE VOICELESS: ISRAEL’S MORAL QUANDARY IN GAZA

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

The butchery and torture that took place during the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, would have embarrassed the Gestapo. Israel immediately declared war and attacked Hamas in the Gaza strip, a small piece of land in the Middle East and one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world. The Jewish state is convinced that Hamas must be eliminated to ensure the survival of Israel, but unfortunately Hamas was, and is, deeply embedded in the Palestinian people. This is the deadly tactical issue, how can the IDF kill Hamas without killing innocent Palestinians. The answer: they can’t.

Reports (which vary) state that about 31,000 people have been killed in the war, including around 12,000 Hamas fighters and several hundred journalists and UN workers. This leaves about 18,000 or so Palestinian civilians killed. About 1,800 Israelis have died, including almost 600 IDF soldiers. Again, reports of these numbers vary. But if they are reasonably close, a lot of innocents have been killed, which has generated a great deal of protest and uproar. Much has been made of the IDF killing civilians, and this in a region where the fighting has a long history. Many have died on both sides over a long time thus October 7 cannot be viewed in isolation, but the sheer savagery of Hamas cannot be condoned in any historical frame. Israel means to destroy that organization once and for all, but not without severe collateral consequences. It has tried to minimize the casualties but are getting a lot of blame in the press and from around the world nonetheless. There is a partial defense for Israel in that attempting to not kill innocents, and actually killing innocents, are two different ethical constructs, but the damage has been done and the dilemma remains. Israel does not want to kill Palestinians but must kill them to accomplish its mission to eliminate what they firmly believe is an existential threat.

Palestinian children caught in the cross-hairs of a violent war are innocent in the baseline meaning of the word, and by any estimate thousands have been killed. This is the agonizing choice for the Israeli people, and a desperate moral quandary: are the deaths of innocent children necessary to the survival of the Israeli people? Supporting Israel and saving the innocent Gazans are not necessarily mutually excludable goals, thus the current attempt at a deal between the warring parties to exchange the remaining hostages in return for a 6 week pause in the fighting. But then Hamas resupplies and repositions, and how many more IDF soldiers would die as a result? How does Israel make such a decision? Innocents for soldiers. No good answer.

Not as many Americans are paying attention as there were in the early days of the war. How quickly these disasters fade in the rearview mirror, maybe a few new cycles. But the great moral issue remains.

POLITICAL POLEMICS PARTY

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

Only a schizophrenic could make sense of Tuesday’s House of Representatives hearing on Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report. The Judiciary Committee is loaded with Members of Congress who are also attorneys, and the hearing immediately devolved into a contest of can-you-top-this in argumentation and fact parsing.

Republicans and Democrats crafted statements designed to proffer a point view, irrespective pf anything Mr. Hur wrote in his report, or stated verbally. For example, a number of Democrats insisted that the Hurt report exonerated President Biden of any wrongdoing, irrespective of the number of times Mr. Hur categorically stated he did not exonerate the President. Similarly the Republicans only found evidence of guilt in the report. Wasn’t this the same document?

How can intelligent people come away with such dichotomously different interpretations of the same report? They can’t, unless of course its Congress and it’s an election year. Thus the problem. No matter what the issue, each side argues what they must to leverage advantage, facts notwithstanding. The more naïve portions of the public are bewildered, the more savvy listeners hear the same old song and dance. Left in the dust are honesty, honor, and a sense of justice. A poor showing after more than 200 years of democracy and trillions spent on a large, modern government. Yet this nonsense goes on and on.

Third party candidates such as RFK Jr. try to coalesce the middle in an attempt to cobble together a coalition of the reasonable, side stepping the noise in the DC swamp. To what end we will find out in November, but in the meantime it’s a fight to the finish over every scrap of information, every hearing, every special election, every bill and every issue.

We would need a legion of Diogenes-like warriors to wrangle the truth out of the political class in a desperate attempt to make sense of anything that is coming out of Washington.

SOCIALISM, SNICKERS AND SNARKINESS: THE HATE OF THE UNION SPEECH

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

Article II of the constitution requires the president to deliver “from time to time” “information” on the state of the union. In recent memory we heard the soaring rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, the eloquence of Barack Obama and the incisive words of Bill Clinton. Joe Biden’s speech on Thursday was none of that. Give-Em-Hell-Joey came out blazing in what amounted to more of a campaign rally pep talk than a state of the union address.

Was the raised voice approach evidence of some newfound energy, or a failure of anger management? He came across as a roboticized angry old man. His rant was more blame game than solution oriented as he referred to his “predecessor” 13 times. It was a polarizing, divisive speech that did nothing for independents. He was loud, contentious, confrontational, mawkishly pandering and unpretentiously partisan. It was a baseless attempt to appeal to the base in a transparent exercise to reset his campaign at the cost of reason and civility. After digesting this speech the American people needed a dose of philosophical Narcan. At times it seemed like an exercise class, how many times could the Democrats stand up? You could almost hear the Pointer Sisters in the background. The Jack-In-The-Box Democrats jumped up so often the House clerks almost had to send out for oxygen. It’s the kind of theatrical fawning that renders the political process as appearing spurious and self-serving.

In Biden’s imaginary America the only real problem is “my predecessor,” and his arguments are based on carefully parsed data and reality avoidance. It’s an election year, so he romances the left with a list of expensive giveaways (how all this is to be actually paid for no one knows, maybe “tax the rich” again) but with each promise one could see America’s future fading into the sunset under a growing mass of unpayable debt. Another check-the-box exercise in political manipulation, and he kept coughing as if even he didn’t believe his own jive. In a bizarre moment, he interjects a point about the great snack rip-off (so much for lofty rhetoric and the promise of the great American experiment), which went nowhere. He then perfunctorily proposes a two-state solution for the middle east. Which Israel is he supporting? He pandered to the left, heckled the hecklers on the right, and blew his response to a call to “say her name” with his Lincoln Riley faux pas. Then came they pedantic core values wrap up. Which core was he referring to? Then chants of “four more years” (meaning we want power). He closed with “I’ll always be the president for all Americans.” Really?

So the president uses the state of the union speech to re-launch his reelection bid, as he mumbles, fumbles and stumbles his way into the future. Unfortunately, the antidote to current President Biden is former President Trump, who has his own blizzard of problems. He attacks his friends as much as he attacks his enemies (basically he just attacks) in a desperate attempt to get back what he craves most, power.

It’s a race to the bottom in what we hope is the last of this tawdry exercise in how politics in America is not supposed to be.

DEMOCRACY DIES IN THE GREAT PARTY DIVIDE

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

Dean Philips has been told he should not run for the presidency because he takes votes from Biden. Same for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. No doubt the same for Cornel West and the Green Party candidate. The same will be “explained” to the No Labels candidate (if and when). Independents and moderates who state they will not vote for either Biden nor Trump are being told, alternatively, depending on whether they are getting advice from a Democrat or a Republican, that not voting for Biden is a vote for Trump, or not voting for Trump is a vote for Biden. The rationale for this voting strategy is that the other guy is so bad that he is an existential threat to democracy. But the real existential threat to democracy is the elimination of choice in a free society.

Free speech is infringed upon when people on either side of the great party divide think that what someone on the other side says is all lies, is dangerous and should be suppressed. Also, the Not-So-Mainstream Media edits and smothers content, as does social media, because what they don’t like is “dangerous.” None of this passes constitutional muster. Many Democrats suffer from a bad case of replacement racism and some Republicans wish to reconstruct the first amendment to mandate religion as part of government. Not good for democracy but policy has become the new religion and ideology has become theology. Let the sinners be damned and thrown to the scrap heap of democracy. But whatever happens, don’t let them vote.

This is party driven. Republicans and Democrats have fostered a dangerous age of polarization, and the fallout has covered the nation in an anti-democratic toxicity that is poisoning the ability of the electoral system to provide fair outcomes and reasonable office holders. The key variable is power, not useful policy, and certainly not good government.

AGEISM, THE 14th AMENDMENT AND THE BIDEN PROXY CAMPAIGN

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

At the end of the US Civil War there was a problem: approximately five and a half million African Americans were technically still slaves, still the property of their masters. So Congress passed, the president signed, and the state legislatures approved, the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th amendments the constitution. The 13^th amendment abolished slavery, the 14^th amendment provided the now former slaves with citizenship (among other things) and the 15^th amendment gave them the right to vote (except for women). The 14^th amendment contained other significant provisions, such as the protection of citizens’ “privileges and immunities”, incorporated due process into the states, and gave “equal protection” to all Americans. This last clause has become the basis of many laws since, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which have become the bedrock of defending citizens against discrimination based on so-called protected characteristics, including age. Here is where the political rubber meets the electoral road. The prejudice against President Biden comes to mind.

We reach a point in our lives where we realize we have to walk and chew gum sequentially. This apparently has not yet dawned on the president. Thus the public consternation at his decision to run for reelection. But are the objections to his age or ability? The public perception is that it’s the former, but oh yeah, it might be the latter also. His age as a disqualifier is openly discussed, ad nauseum, as if the constitution doesn’t exist. Ironically, he picked his vice president based on gender and color, another egregious violation of standing law. Any employer would be on the wrong end of a lawsuit based on such flagrant violations of the constitution and subsequent statutes. But in this era of extreme polarization, with the attendant prejudiced partisan press, these discriminatory choices and comments have become mainstream.

The long history of the civil rights movement, and numerous court cases and laws, also include the Fair Pay Act, the Bakke case, the Fair Admissions cases, and many more. Yet we see blatant age discrimination (Biden is too old to be president), gender discrimination (the selection of running mates based on sex) and racial discrimination (the selection of Harris for VP based on color).

So Biden is both a victim and a perpetrator, but as his own worst enemy, he not only continues to feed the negative narrative, his White House staff and campaign staff seem to want to replicate the hidden candidate trick of 2020. Another proxy campaign, where his surrogates, apologists and excuse makers will ignore the bad, tell the country all is well and try desperately to have everyone focus on the evil Donald Trump. Meanwhile Biden will again be on vacation, taking trips or simply back to Delaware again and again.

This will not be something akin to the 19^th century back porch campaigns, not in the high speed, instant information space. The President-In-Hiding maneuver may well backfire in this cycle, age discrimination or not, yielding a reductionism of the politically neurotic – it’s always about Trump.

And we are one terrorist act away from a brand-new ballgame.

NIKKI HALEY: THE MUSIC HAS STOPPED

Ken Grossberger, PhD

It’s difficult to understand what Nikki is doing. She has virtually no path to the nomination, and continuing in the race increases her reputation risk. It seems she is intellectually stuck on an idea that does not correlate with reality. She needs to suspend her race while she can still clean up the damage.

Is there a future for the former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador? She’s smart, she’s tough and she can raise money, but her loss of perspective is troublesome as we assess her prospects in the post-election cycle. There is a sense of arguing too much as she repeats that she is going to continue her race because “Republican voters deserve a choice”, one they quite obviously have already made. Will she continue past Michigan primary (tomorrow) and head into Super Tuesday with a string of losses to show for her efforts? Will she continue past Super Tuesday when Trump will have officially locked up the nomination?

She is seduced by her own rhetoric, the force of which is supported by the constant repetition. It is difficult to know, at this point, what it will take to convince her to suspend her campaign. Polls don’t seem to matter, neither do losses. And this for a woman who has won every political race she has run in, and now an increasingly long string of losses. The logic of hanging in waiting for a Trump criminal conviction borders on the foolhardy as Trump has developed a Teflon political shield and will highly likely survive the White House coordinated legal tsunami.

So the music has stopped, the chairs are full of other humans and Nikki is still circling, waiting for some quixotic chance to get back in the game.

TRUMP v. BIDEN – NEGATIVE COATTAILS

Ken Grossberger, PhD

This month has been a disaster for Biden, but since Trump just can’t gracefully accept a gift, he has to continue to make self-immolating comments. How do we gauge the political effects of two candidates in a race to the bottom?

There are likely to be negative coattails in a super close war for control of the House, with either side winning by less than a handful of votes. The Republican pickup of perhaps 5 seats due to population shifts maybe offset by the unusual number of Republican retirements, and if the Dems pick up seats in swing districts due to social issues (e.g. abortion) they may take control of the House but by a margin so small they will need Genghis Khan and Atilla the Hun as whips to keep the troops in line.

The situation is different in the US Senate where the Democrats are defending in 33 states (including 3 independents) and the Republicans in only 10. The Democrats are vulnerable in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, Arizona and perhaps Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Maryland (with former Governor Larry Hogan now running). But still, coattails are a factor, witness the poor record of Trump-endorsed candidates in the 2022 cycle. The map may favor the Republicans, but the irascible and unpredictable former president has a hard time taking yes for an answer and can’t resist sticking in his nose where it may not belong and may do no good.

Polling shows the country continues to split down the middle politically. In recent election cycles winners win close and any advantage gained is usually lost soon hereafter. The country just doesn’t trust this generation of politicians very much.