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.

The Discomfort of Undue Process

Ken Grossberger, PhD

What if George Santos is found not guilty? What if Donald Trump is? What if Hunter Biden is? What if Joe Biden gets indicted? The rush to judgment may satisfy emotionally, but due process gets trampled along the way.

Congress may have acted prematurely in the George Santos case. The press, and the people, may have prejudged Trump and anyone named Biden (depending on one’s predilections), in advance of any jury verdict. This is fine for a discussion at the bar at midnight, terrible for any appreciation of due process. The lesson here is that preemption may be prematurity. Expelling Santos from Congress and removing Trump from the ballot may be politically palatable to some but is also legally foundationless. The political strategies of ballot denial and power maintenance are also ethically dubious at best. The US Constitution requires due process to protect each individual’s rights, and even though in some venues due process does not apply in fact, it should apply in principle.

The most egregious example is in Maine, where Secretary of State Shenna Bellows unilaterally removed former President Trump from the primary ballot. Her argument was that Trump was guilty of inciting an insurrection on January 6, thus she was compelled under section 3 of the 14^th Amendment to the constitution to rule that Trump could not run for political office. Access to the ballot, therefore, is left to the constitutional interpretations of hundreds of unelected state administrative officials, a precedent under which democracy, as we know it, would disintegrate.

In Colorado the state supreme court also removed Trump from the ballot under the same logic. Here we have at least some semblance of jurisprudence, with a court of law involved. However, we also have the legal conundrum as to the intent of section 3 as Congress intended it in 1868. After the Civil War, Congress was left with the problem of over 5 million people who were still slaves in the south. Thus the legislature passed the 13^th amendment to free them, the 14^th amendment to provide them citizenship and the 15^th amendment to give former slaves the vote. The insurrection in question was half the country seceding and fighting a major war of separation from the federal government. Almost a million Americans lost their lives as hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides fought a desperate war in this rebellion. The superannuated but highly embarrassing January 6 frat party was incredibly wrong and damaging to the American psyche, but hardly an insurrection.

So, those who graduated from the Google School of Law, and some misguided courts, would have us believe that cherry-picking one’s way through the constitution to find a word or phrase that seemed to justify one’s preconceived conclusion is justified, due process notwithstanding. Removing Trump from the ballot, ipso fact, is supported by the 14^th amendment.

Thus we would be left whims of the perpetually upset never-Trump neurotics, or their counter-parts on the Right, to determine whom they would allow to run for office. Elections would become free-for-alls with competing jurisdictions summarily removing from the ballot candidates of the opposing parties only to suffer retaliation in turn, and then perhaps no one is left on any ballot. Court cases would pile up and the entire electoral system would be permanently constipated.

“Democracy is on the ballot,” as we hear so often, and maybe this year it actually is.

VIVEK’S PLOY

Ken Grossberger, PhD

Vivek Ramaswamy is running for the Republican nomination for President. Or is he? He started off as the new kid on the block: young, bright, rich. But over time he devolved into an old school attack-and-trash pol and even resorted to scribbled messaging at a debate calling Nikki Haley corrupt. Looks like he couldn’t resist.

But what is he really after? He has refrained from direct attacks on Donald Trump, and his pitch is that he represents the new generation of leadership. He reserves his caustic comments for Nikki and Ron DeSantis hard, so he has a fierce side, but he engages in rhetorical pattycake with the ex-President. If he really intends to be the Trump alternative, why does he only target the other candidates? He even said he would pardon Trump if he gets elected president, and Trump has said nice things about him.

Is Vivek just a MAGA version of Pete Buttigieg? It seems that he’s a stalking horse in the primaries, splitting the vote of the other candidates, and making it harder for a realistic challenge by the others (most notably Haley and DeSantis). This looks like a denial strategy.

So maybe Vivek is purchasing a cabinet position. We can be sure he isn’t serious about winning the Republican primary, but he does get attention.

Shenna Bellows – What is She Running For?

Ken Grossberger, PhD

In this era of Trump ballot denial Maine Secretary of State Shena Bellows’ decision to eliminate Donald Trump from her state’s election is the latest example of trashing democracy in the name of democracy. She tortured the dots from the 14^th amendment to Trump in a self-aggrandizing attempt to convince the political world that she actually has a point. But in the end, she mangles the meaning of the US constitution and denies the voters any say in an election designed by law to provide such voting privileges.

This is that latest attempt by the left to reinterpret the 14^th amendment into something other than what was intended. At issue here is Section 3 which reads, in part, that no one who holds an office having sworn an oath to the “support the constitution……shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same” constitution. The 14^th amendment was ratified in 1868 and was clearly designed by Congress to prevent former Confederate army veterans from holding office. Also at issue is the definition of insurrection and rebellion, which has nothing to do with Donald Trump on the infamous day of January 6, 2021. Even more ludicrous is that Trump was actually in office at the time, so the logic of the left is that Trump was conducting an insurrection against himself. The superannuated frat party of misfits that invaded the capitol that day deserve to be punished for breaking the law. They also severely embarrassed the country. Trump certainly could have done much more to stop the mob, and he did not. But this was not an armed rebellion, even though here are those on the left who are quick to point out that some of the capital transgressors had weapons. How does this one-day mess, as bad as it was, rise to the level of an insurrection on the level of the US Civil War where hundreds of thousands fought against the government and almost a million Americans died? Only in this age of extreme polarization can anyone this side of sanity suggest that January 6 was an attempt to overthrow the government that Donald Trump himself was the chief executive of.

But that was not Ms. Bellows primary motivation. She is currently the Secretary of State of Maine. She previously was a state senator. She also ran for the US Senate against Susan Collins and lost. So, stealing a play from Trump’s playbook, she makes a screwy decision to remove Trump from the ballot in Maine, not as the result of a deep-thinking process as to the legal issues at hand, but to deal herself into the big game, to grab the spotlight, to set herself up for the next office she may target.

Her political claim to fame is that she is a Biden sycophant, and now a lefty seeking higher ground. The two for one play is that she might actually believe she could keep Trump off the ballot at the same time, yet another paranoid Democrat seeking Trump inoculation. But if she actually succeeds, she would open something much worse than anything Pandora had in her bag of tricks. Consider the environment where administrative officers across the country decided who could, and who could not, have ballot access based on their perception of a criminal act. Also consider that usually most states have Republican governments. Game-set-match, the end of the Democratic party on most local levels in the US. Does future candidate Bellows really suggest we have a country where we replace legal guilt (determined by a jury) with some notion of administrative guilt determined by bureaucrats? Even though the left quickly points out that their now favorite clause of their now favorite amendment does not specifically state that a legal conviction is necessary, are they actually promulgating a government where the right to run for office hinges on the constitutional interpretations of unelected administrators?

Not quite what she may argue, but apparently, what she wants is controversy, and above all, attention. In a Trumpian way she seeks to command the notice of the media and make herself the center of the circus. But she is guilty of what Yuval Levin calls a “dereliction of responsibility” and the attempted “corruption of political culture.” By no means does this excuse the behavior of Donald Trump. He engages in what Mr. Levin labels “thuggish narcissism.” But this does not disqualify him from any ballot, and the US Supreme Court will undoubtedly make quick work of Ms. Bellows’ stunt, as well as the misguided attempt by other states to bury democracy in the darkness of gerrymandered jurisprudence.