Silly season again?

It’s Silly Season early this year

Can you believe that the Democrats have dozens of candidates for President this year?  Isn’t this exactly what the Republicans did 3 years ago?  I am looking forward with great interest to the events upcoming from this party.  Here’s the Rolling Stone link on the subject.  https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/2020-democrat-candidates-771735/  

I wrote on this subject in October of 2016 http://sep-11-2001.blogspot.com/ and I am not especially happy to report that my words proved prophetic.  Here’s what seems to be happening this year.  Joe Biden appears to be the front runner, although he is certainly not a shoo in at this point.  Nobody seems to be talking about the fact that he will be 78 when he takes office if he should be elected.  Now, your friendly neighborhood scribe is 75 and that’s too old to be president. 

Outside of being too old, Biden isn’t a terrible candidate -especially if you look at the other choices.  I am not going into them individually at this point, I will just point out what I tried to last silly season.  I think it is the job of the political parties to provide a candidate for President.  He doesn’t have to be a wonderful candidate, just an acceptable candidate.  Two people should wind up with the nominations and they should both be acceptable candidates.  There will be differences, but they are generally minor ones.  Nobody who wants to make basic changes to the government or to society is an acceptable candidate.  Yes, I know there are some people who would like to overthrow the government and force changes on society – but those people are too small a minority to elect a president. 

Let me emphasize this, to make meaningful changes you must FIRST get elected.  Promising things that there is no way to pay for like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren just won’t work because there are too many people who understand that somebody would have to pay for all this free stuff.  In a future blog I will address the student loan situation because I think it is drastically misunderstood. 

 Also on this vein, I think we should beware of single issue candidates.  Far too often splinter candidates get fixated on one minor issue like student loans, abortion, or minimum wage.  If you choose one narrow issue as all important (such as “save the whales”} you run the risk of electing someone for the really wrong reasons.  We really need to elect a candidate that has a realistic grasp of the entire world situation as well as the US economic situation.  A few months ago I would have said there was a 90% chance that the Democratic nominee would be our next President.  Now it appears that the DNC is in just as much disarray as the RNC was last election.  I don’t see some outsider in the wings with the public support and the money to swoop in and carry the election so at this point my prediction is that whoever the Republicans nominate will be the next president.  

And, that’s the way I see it.

For my European Friends

At the request of some European friends I am going to try and explain the US government.  Let’s start with the original US government, the articles of Confederation.  My European friends may find this constitution very similar to the current EU.  The Confederation was formed in 1781 during the revolutionary war and it was the government that signed the peace treaty in 1783. 

It didn’t take long for it to become obvious that the national government didn’t have enough power to operate as a government because the 13 sovereign colonies were not at all sure they wanted to give up their own authority.  The second continental congress convened in 1787 (I think) and wrote a new and much more federal constitution which brought much more power to the central government at the expense of the state governments.  In order to get it accepted, in 1791 the first 10 amendments were added which we call the “bill of rights”.  That substantially limited the role of the federal government.   

 I am going to use the British government for comparison as if it was still a sovereign government (as it will be again in the near future).  The model seems to be similar for most European governments.  Practically speaking, the House of Commons IS the UK government and the members represent about 100000 people each.  The Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons.  If there is no party with a clear majority, then whoever can put together a coalition becomes the prime minister.  Since there are currently 11 parties who have seats in Parliament that can and does happen. 

No party other than the Democrats and Republicans hold seats in either house of the US government. 

It would appear that since the prime minister is also the leader of the majority party in the UK he has considerable power to make laws and run the government.  Theoretically, the sovereign has overall power but I am under the impression she doesn’t actually wield any real power. 

The US system is more different than I realized.  For instance, the President is the head of the government and he is elected directly by the public.  The two houses of congress, commonly called the house and the senate exercise approximately equal powers.  Generally it requires agreement between both houses and the President for a bill to become law.  Members of the House represent approximately 733,000 people and are directly elected by those constituents.  Members of the Senate represent the states and are elected by the states at large.  That is, all citizens of a state vote for both Senators.  (Each state has two senators) Senators are elected for staggered 6 year terms with 1/3 of them elected every two years.  That plan was to provide stability to the government.  Members of the House of Representatives are elected every 2 years in hopes of making them responsible to public wishes. 

The function of the third arm of the government, the Supreme Court is to compare laws made to the constitution.

 The US Constitution provides very specific guidelines as to what powers are held by the Federal Government and which are NOT.  Probably the most important of these guidelines says in essence that the Federal Government has ONLY those powers specifically granted to it and all other powers are maintained by state and local governments and the populace.   (10^th amendment) 

That’s about it, I will add that to this day the biggest difference in political opinion has to do with the authority granted to the federal government.  There are those who want it to take a smaller role (conservatives) and those who want a larger role (liberals). 

Anyway, that’s how I see it.