Donald Trump uttered the word and visited the place. We’re talking about Iowa. And off we go, the 2024 presidential election is under way.

There is virtually nothing democratic about the Iowa caucuses. But that has not kept Democrats from worshiping at the altar of Des Moines, Bettendorf and Dyersville where there is a Field of Dreams.

At a time when virtually all Democrats in the House and forty-eight in the Senate are strongly advocating strengthening our democracy with The For the People Act (H.R. 1) and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4), the party is hamstrung by Republicans and a few of their own, most notably Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ).

The Democratic Party also has a structural disadvantage in the U.S. Senate. While far more Americans vote for the 50 Democrats in the Senate than the 50 Republicans, any gain that Democrats would accrue is negated by the gerrymandered nature of the Upper Chamber. Wyoming has as many senators as California even though California has 57 residents for every individual in Wyoming.

But there is one part of our political process where Democrats can effect meaningful change without constitutional changes. This is the manner in which the party of progressives selects its nominees for president. The method for choosing nominees for president is as archaic and undemocratic as any part of our political process, and Democrats do not seem particularly concerned about it.

The quadrennial nomination process begins in Iowa. With a population of 3.1 million people, it represents less that one percent of the United States. The U.S. is 13.4% African-American; Iowa is 4.1%. The U.S. is 18.5% Hispanic; Iowa is 6.3%. In the U.S. as a whole, 13.6% of the population is foreign-born; in Iowa the number is 5.3%. Oh, and Iowa does not have a presidential primary; it has caucuses in which less than 10% of eligible voters participate.

Just across the Mississippi River from eastern Iowa is Illinois. Like Iowa, Illinois is rich in farmland and rural development. But it also is home to America’s third largest city, Chicago. It is a state that consistently votes Democrat, thus making it an excellent state in which candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination can compete. It has minority representation reflective of the country as a whole. It has strong components of virtually every crucial constituency of the Democratic Party.

It clearly makes sense for the Democrats to open their primary season in a state like Illinois. However, we all know that relegating Iowa to a lower ranking would not play well in Iowa. In the past six presidential elections, Democrats carried Iowa in 2000 (Al Gore) as well as 2008 and 2012 (Barack Obama), so there may well be a price for Dems to pay if they relegated Iowa in the nomination process.

If the Democrats choose to engage in meaningful electoral reform, it will require creating a level playing field across the country. The process of leveling will mean that some states like Iowa will have less clout in the nomination process and other states like California will have far more.

It is quite possible that in the short run, the Democratic Party will lose support in smaller states. But that is already happening, and trends indicate that Democrats will be paying less attention to New Hampshire and more to Texas.

But once the Democratic Party has a clear policy of promoting democracy across the board, it will be easier for it to argue for statehood for the District of Columbia as well as Puerto Rico. Both such developments would help Democrats bring more democracy to the U.S. Senate. Once that happens, our country will be much closer to operating as a true democracy.

It’s a small window of opportunity to talk about Iowa without getting thrown out of the room. Now is the time for Democrats to initiate that conversation. Promoting true democracy should be a consistent goal for the Democratic Party.

The post How Democrats Can Promote Democracy starting with Iowa appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There are several theories that attempt to explain why Hillary Clinton was defeated in November, and most of them are at least somewhat credible. Russian interference has been confirmed by 17 different intelligence agencies, that certainly had an effect. Former FBI Director James Comey sending his damaging letter to Congress days before the election apparently tipped the polls in Trump’s favor according to Nate Silver of 538. There are some on the left who argue that Clinton didn’t visit the Rust Belt enough, which is a fair criticism (she famously never visited Wisconsin). The new campaign tell-all book “Shattered” suggests that Clinton was a fundamentally flawed candidate with no political vision to offer to voters hungry for change; that’s harder to quantify but I don’t disagree with the thesis.

All of these explanations are well and good, but they don’t explain what happened down-ballot. If it were an issue of visiting Wisconsin or being progressive, then why did Sen. Ron Johnson (WI-R) not only beat a very progressive opponent, but outperform Donald Trump by 70,000 votes? If it were an issue of being flawed or out of touch with voters looking for change, then why did incumbent Sen. Roy Blunt (MO-R) whose name is synonymous with insider politics, defeat young, popular, earnest, political outsider Jason Kander? How did Republicans end up winning the popular vote in elections for the House of Representatives by 2 million votes?

In 2016 voters were capable of splitting their ballot even though the environment was hyper-partisan. Take Montana for example, where Democratic Gov. Steve Daines was re-elected while Clinton lost by 20 points or Vermont where Republican Phil Scott was elected Governor while Trump lost by 26 points.

So, what happened not just in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri, but across America? Broadly speaking, Democratic candidates put resources into turning out minority voters, maintaining the urban white vote, with an emphasis of reaching out to suburbanites, but in the process actively ignored rural voters.

These rural voters made up 17%  of the electorate in 2016. By contrast, black voters and Latino voters only comprised 12% and 11% of the electorate, respectively. It’s not that these voters are just unreachable either, as recently as 2008, 45% of Americans living in rural communities were casting ballots for Democrats. But in 2016, Hillary Clinton managed to only win 34% of these voters, and Democrats running for statewide office suffered in similar margins. These voters aren’t necessarily becoming more conservative either, Barack Obama narrowly lost Missouri by 5,000 votes and Montana by 9,000, most of the people who voted in that election also voted last November.

The entire Democratic Platform in 2016 was a whopping 25,967 words, the section dedicated to rural Americans however was a mere 268 words, just a little over 1% of the platform. It wasn’t just the platform, Hillary Clinton’s website dedicated almost as many words to an anecdote about Tim Kaine going to church as they did to rural voters on her issues page. Even her very detailed fact sheet was somewhat lacking compared to the considerable effort that was put into other issues. In Hillary Clinton’s biggest moment, her convention speech, there were zero uses of the phrases “rural”, “small communities”, “farmers”, or even “agriculture”. It doesn’t make sense not to at least acknowledge these people.

There was a time when the Democratic coalition depended on rural voters and they were represented at every convention and in every speech, for generations the Democratic Party was the party of the farmer. Democrats authored legislation to build infrastructure in rural communities, provide subsidies to people working in agriculture, and ran candidates who might not have been the most socially progressive people but at least believed in economic populism. Then at some point over the last 20 years, Democrats slowly pulled back, allowing a void to be created and subsequently filled by cultural resentment.

Rural America has been preyed upon by Republicans. These largely white, not especially wealthy, and deeply religious areas of our country have been sold a bill of goods that if only there were fewer immigrants, that if only women had fewer rights, and if only brown people weren’t given assistance to buy food that magically things would improve. There’d be no more lead in the water, the hospitals would stop closing down, and maybe they could afford to send their children to college. Republicans have never had any intention of delivering to these voters, but as long as Democrats refuse to try for their votes, the urban-rural divide will continue to widen.

The Democratic Party is a big tent party, and that means fighting for every vote. Donald Trump is a great foil right now, and presumably will be in the 2018 and 2020 elections, however the hemorrhaging of rural voters is a structural problem that could persist for decades. Frank Church in Idaho, Kathleen Sebelius in Kansas, Brad Henry in Oklahoma, Mel Carnahan in Missouri, Bob Kerrey in Nebraska and so many others weren’t elected because they ran as Republican lite. They won because they had a liberal platform that offered something to people living in rural areas, actual tangible things and not just some hokey feel good talk.

Democrats can’t just wait for the demographic trends we’ve been hearing about for so long to finally win us elections. The country is in trouble now. If Democrats ever hope to win back state legislatures and be competitive not just statewide, but in the 2,600 counties that President Trump swept in 2016, then the party needs to invest in “unwinnable races” and so called “lost causes”. It’s time to forget about expanding margins in Miami-Dade and Cuyahoga, but rather, rebuilding in Salina, Kansas and Fremont, Wyoming. Democrats are the party of the people; they should act like it.

The post It Wasn’t Just Russia: Democrats Have Larger Problems appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Ever wonder who shows up to a Presidential election? Here’s a breakdown of the 131 million Americans who voted in 2008.

The post Infographic: Who actually votes in America? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The more we produce, the wealthier we are, unless our appetite for consumption grows at a faster rate than production. It’s a relatively simple ratio that is essential to the basic concept of making  America (or any other society) more self-sustaining.

Demographics are a critical determinant in the capacity of a society to be self-sufficient.  In Haiti, for instance, an inordinate percentage of the population is below the age of fifteen (38% compared to 21% in the U.S.).  To the extent possible (which is currently very limited), they must be fed, housed, and clothed.  Most schools in Port-au-Prince were destroyed in the January earthquake; it will take years to reconstruct and staff them.  Children must be supported but cannot, and in fact should not, be counted on to be producers.

Additionally many Haitians are infirm, suffering from malnutrition, or are emotionally traumatized and thus not capable of working.  There are others who may be healthy, but who never developed the skills to be productive.  Compounding the limited assets of Haiti to produce is the fact that the country has been stripped of much of its natural resources after years of excessive deforestation.  While charity may now be the most effective way of addressing the extreme poverty in Haiti, the long-term solution is similar to that in any other country. The capacity to produce as many goods and services as the population needs to survive must be developed.  There must be opportunities to be productive which will result in opportunities for people to work.  In a country with 80% unemployment, this is a long overdue must.

The United States is not immune from demographic changes.  As you can see in the table below, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2050 the percentage of the population that is over 80 years of age will be over four times what it was in 1960.

The acceleration of this problem was cited by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on April 4, 2010:

It was just reported that Social Security this year will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes — a red line we were not expected to cross until at least 2016.

Fortunately, some people over the age of 80 are productive.  In fact, they produce more for society than they consume.  At the same time, many people are retiring from work at earlier ages.  In the U.S. in 1910, the average age at which people retired was 74-years-old (although many did not live that long).  In 2002, the average retirement age had dropped a dozen years to 62.  While this may be a healthy development – rewarding people for “jobs well done–” it means that fewer people are pulling the wagon uphill to ensure that we adequately provide for all citizens.

If we have fewer people producing for our “society of consumers,” each one of these people must produce more.  Perhaps more importantly, he or she needs to produce “more smartly.”  In other words, as a society we must ensure that what is produced meets at least the basic needs of all citizens.  A fundamental tenet of a free-market system is that production will be driven by that for which people are willing to pay.  If you’re a smart entrepreneur, you can take advantage of this phenomenom, but it may not be particularly helpful to society at large.

For instance, a company such as Pinnacle Casinos can build a new casino (possibly in a flood zone), and make a large profit from the operation of the gambling mecca.  However, such a development can result in significant societal harm, as the people who can least afford to lose money do so.  They may then not be able to feed their children, meet a mortgage payment, or even be productive at work, if they are consumed with their gambling losses.

Similar reservations might be raised about the production of guns, alcoholic beverages,  pornography, and a host of other items that at the very least should come under closer societal scrutiny as to their value.  I am not advocating the prohibition of any of these items; only that we see them in a different light from what is needed to provide basic needs for everyone.  If it does not already exist, we need a metric that excludes the production of dysfunctional goods and services from the measurement of positive production in our society.   Perhaps such a measurement should even give them a negative value, because in the long run they weaken us.

As we examine the true benefits of what we produce, let us not forget the distortion that Wall Street shenanigans brings to our society.  When sub-prime mortgages are bundled together as an investment, and a financial institution purchases these “bad assets,” it does not add to our wealth.  Rather it weakens us, while a few individuals game the system.  When these bundles are insured by a company like AIG, we should not count the premiums they receive as wealth.  They really represent a foreboding of financial disaster for the most gullible among us; they have negative value.   As we all know,  speculators who have made money by swindling people, have  been rewarded by the government for “ceasing and desisting,” and then finally they go back to their play houses and start another round of swindling.

Sustenance for a nation, or for the world, involves many complicated variables.  But what remains simple is that we must at least produce as many goods and services as we need to survive.   The demographics of this equation are different from what they were at the beginning of The Great Depression in 1929; we have fewer producers.  Perhaps more alarming is producing items that can be detrimental to our society.  When guns are produced at the same time that we lack adequate health care facilities in inner cities or rural areas, we are in trouble.  When alcohol is a money-maker for businesspersons, but building adequate housing for low-income people is not profitable, we are in trouble.  When a casino can be built in a flood zone, we are in trouble.

We need to not only produce more, but to produce “more smartly.”  This process  involves judgments that at times will restrict some individuals’ freedoms.  It certainly will harm those who peddle vices as well as frivolous items.  We may not yet be ready to go full throttle in this direction, but at least we have to widen the conversation.  Necessary economic incentives must be provided for investment opportunities to produce what is healthy for our society.   These decisions are rarely easy, but the price we pay for ignoring them is too high for us to justice to both our own population and those who live outside our borders.

The post Trying to make America more self-sustaining – Part II appeared first on Occasional Planet.