American Politics – Page 6 – Babel-on-the-Bay

The ground game has gone south?

October 31, 2020 by Peter Lowry

In my years in politics, I have taught thousands of people how the political ground game is played. It is basic to politics throughout North America. It takes lots of experience and determination to learn. You have to win some and lose some.

This comes to mind because the wife’s book club is reading a book supposedly on democracy by a guy named Dave Meslin from Toronto. She was chortling as she read me some bits from the book about his ideas on ranked ballots. She knows how that subject will get to me every time.

But I know her attitude toward the ground game and when the writer disparaged its importance today, she lost interest in his book. Seasoned politicos across the United States are in the midst of the strongest ground game they have ever played—and in the face of a virulent pandemic. The formula is the same everywhere: you identify your vote and you get out your vote. Techniques have to change to suit the times and the demographics of the constituency, the basics are the same.

The first by-election I was part of was Charles Templeton’s run as a liberal for a provincial seat in an East End Toronto riding in the Riverdale area. The new democrats handed us our heads. It was the only by-election where I personally felt the loss.

The next by-election I was part of was on George Ben’s team, another provincial liberal in the Queen and Ossington area of West Toronto. I asked George to give me the toughest NDP poll in the riding and keep out any other workers. The poll had less than 100 voters and something like 52 had voted NDP in the previous election. I spent a couple weeks walking that poll, talking to the people. On election day, the NDP were so confident, the guy pulling their vote was the leader of their party. I took a special delight in delivering that poll, that was supposed to be NDP, quite convincingly, for the liberal.

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Will there be a Trump library?

October 27, 2020 by Peter Lowry

We all know that Donald Trump has not been your traditional president for the United States. Despite his oddities, we should still mark his single-term presidency with more than the thousands of tombstones from the novel coronavirus or the hundreds of children still searching for their parents after being incarcerated in cages to show off his stopping of illegal border crossings.

What is being suggested is something more than a triumphal arch to mark his winning the battle of Lafayette Square. We must never forget the image of Trump and his generals sallying across the cleared-out park by the white house. What will amaze scholars in the future is that it was all in aid of Mr. Trump wanting to show off his religious hypocrisy.

But the objective of a library is to promote knowledge and learning. What would be better for little Harold than to be taken to a library of the greatest liar America has ever had as president. “You see Harold, you could never come up with as many lies in four years. Why would you want to be known as the second biggest liar as president?

While there were few presidential papers produced during the Trump presidency, there must be a substantial number of presidential briefing papers that he proudly said he never read.

And then where else would American golfers go to see the world’s largest collection of creative golf scores. Maybe the library could be at the Mar-a-Lago Resort, president Trump’s weekend retreat in Florida.

Mind you there is a plan rumoured for Mar-A-Largo to be headquarters for the Trump International Green Earth Society. This would be a monument to president Trump’s concern for the environment. The Green Earth Society is planned to launch right after Mr. Trump makes America great again.

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The old guy won.

October 23, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Did I miss anything? I fell asleep late in last night’s debate. The only thing I feel confident about is that the old guy won. From what I saw, it was questionable as to whether anybody cared?

What was really questionable was who was behind those cameras last night? Why was Donald Trump better lit and slightly larger in that fixed double shot? He certainly had better make-up. He always has better make-up. Does he ever go anywhere today with out full make-up and his hair colored and lacquered to his head?

But does everybody really understand just what those guys were arguing about? Donald Trump looked slightly healthier while opponent Joe Biden looked a little washed out. He looked more amused than confused when Donald Trump was trying to talk over the moderator.

Just once I wanted to hear a moderator tell the president of the United States of America to shut-up. It did not happen.

What puzzled me the most was the arcane arguments these guys were having over something to do with money. Is it okay to suggest someone is a thief if they are running for president?

With 40 million Americans having already voted, we know few of those people will want to change their vote.

With less that two weeks to election day, there is more to come. We know that whomever loses, there will be long-winded claims of cheating, voter suppression, foreign interference and multiple voting. It would hardly be an American election without these claims.

Though this is one American election where you really wish the majority of the public opinion polls were right. And, as they used to say at the end of a Star Trek episode: “Make it so.”

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You don’t get much for US$650,000.

October 18, 2020 by Peter Lowry

When they hustled president Donald Trump off to Walter Reed medical center a couple weeks ago, there were questions about whether he had covid-19 or not. Many wondered why vice-president Pence was not on standby to take over for an ‘incapacitated’ president? All we know is that a cantankerous Trump was returned to the White House at an estimated cost of about $650,000, including helicopter transport.

And the amazing part is that the expensive treatment at Walter Reed has all been debunked as useless in large studies. All we know is that for the next week, Mr. Trump sounded like he was getting over a bout of laryngitis. He was as nasty as ever.

The key to his survival, according to the doctors at Walter Reed, was the wonder drug Remdisivir. This wonder drug has been debunked by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO study involved some 11,000 patients and was found to have no effect on covid-19 patients.

This was similar to the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine that the president had been telling people he was taking. This drug also failed to have any benefits in larger studies.

But we have the irrepressible Mr. Trump, unmasked and preaching to the unmasked across America that the pandemic is no big deal. After all, he tells them, he expects a miracle vaccine before election day and America will be great again.

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The insecure Donald Trump.

October 12, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Look at that son-of-a-bitch standing up there on the Truman balcony of the White House. Thinking about it, you wonder why this boor would insult every previous president of the United States of America by using the White House so irrespectively. And then you smile. You know why. He is afraid of losing.

This guy is in fear of losing. He would do anything. He would try anything. He desperately wants that second term. And the guy’s not stupid. He is a lot of things. Stupid is not included.

What confuses people is that he lies so much. He appears to live in a fantasy world that would believe him. It used to be one of the things that confused me about his followers. They know he lies. They seem to be alternately acknowledging the lies and being amused by them.

Talking to an American university professor the other day who voted for Trump four years ago, he admitted that he was not going to vote for him this time. He has had enough of Trump.

But then he told me, he was not going to vote for the other bastards either. This shows the real problem. American politics has grown so corrupt over the years that people are now believing everything they are told about how corrupt it has become. Both sides are to blame. And until, people start to get serious about cleaning up the mess, nothing is going to change.

A friend on Canada’s wet coast told me the other day that democracy is nothing other than the governance with the consent of the governed. I am still thinking about that and other delusions about democracy.

What really scares me about Trump is that he does not even believe in democracy. He envies his friend Vladimir Putin in Russia. Trump wants a fascist regime. Give him four more years and he has got it.

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It’s not about who won or lost.

October 8, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Your choice of who won the American vice-presidential debate in Utah last night tells more about you than the antagonists. Supporters of either were not disappointed. We knew that vice-president Mike Pence is not a dynamic speaker. He knows his party’s line and right or wrong, he will defend it.

We came to see how Pence would make out against an experienced prosecutor. Those of us who watched Kamala Harris in the run-up to this election knew that this lady can handle herself. No errors for her such as calling her opponent a clown.

Yet she was alternately frustrated and amused by Pence’s deafness to a frustrated moderator. She also wanted to get her licks in. She wanted equal time but it was not there for her. Maybe it will be in the newspaper reports tomorrow about where she stands on packing the supreme court.

Oddly enough, it will be Americans who least understand the concept of packing. Most politically knowledgeable Canadians understand that the prime minister can appoint as many additional senators as are needed to give his (or her) party the majority needed to clear a legislative log jam in the Senate of Canada. In theory, the same solution can be applied to the supreme courts of the two countries.

There was no question for the hour and a half that the debate took, that Kamala Harris is by far the better debater. At the same time, Pence gets marks for being deaf to the pleas of the moderator. He also got marks for getting more hard hits (though maybe inaccurate) on his opponent.

The only problem with picking a winner, is that this debate was not about the job of vice president. What Americans and others were assessing was the kind of president each would be if anything happened to the geriatric winner of the presidency.

Both vice-presidential candidates stuck with the partner who brought them to the ball. Nobody won or lost.

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The wondrous recovery of Donald Trump.

October 6, 2020 by Peter Lowry

You have got to hand it to the boys and girls over at Walter Reed military hospital. They had a cure ready for their leader when he needed it. How many do you know who have suffered from the coronavirus and told you that there is no need to fear a disease that has already killed more than 200,000 Americans?

It just goes to show you that Donald Trump is invulnerable. No silly masks for the Trumpster. He can laugh in the face of a deadly illness. Did you see the number of medical personnel getting the credit for this miraculous cure and taking their bows outside the army hospital?

Fie on me for suggesting that the president’s little bout with a fever might be a faux covid-19. All along, these intrepid military medicos had the secret to a cure in their back pocket. It is a shame they are not prepared to share the secret of that cure with those countrymen and women suffering more seriously.

But Trump is back in the White House and the stock markets are rising. Just wait until the next presidential debate, He will teach that upstart Joe Biden not to call him a clown! He will teach him not to try to talk over him when he has so much to say.

But there are other questions to be answered. How is Melania? Is the first lady feeling better? Or looking better?

And what about all those White House insiders who might have got inside the coronavirus? Are they going to get the same miracle cure as the president?

Did you see the clips of the president taking a victory lap around Walter Reed hospital in an armoured SUV? It was hard to tell how he looked as he waved at the admiring crowds.

And here you were thinking the real miracle would be in getting Trump re-elected?

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Trump’s Progress.

October 5, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Has it occurred to you that president Donald Trump might be faking his bout with Covid-19? It would certainly have to be an elaborate ruse. There would just be too many weak links. He could probably never pull it off.

But just think. What if someone had come up with a mild strain of the coronavirus and salted the White House? Or something that presented like the coronavirus and had everyone fooled?

The very worst thing that could happen is to have Donald Trump back in the White House in two weeks, healthy as a horse and in his usual form. Just think of him being ready to double down on his first debate.

It would take him no time at all to convince his clique that it was all a scheme by those antifa and hard left radicals who are out to get him.

But the more interesting situation will be if he loses the election anyway. This guy could never win a sympathy vote. His followers have little sympathy to share.

It is also hard to contemplate him having white-supremist supporters taking up his call for election watchers. That could open up to violence at polling places and an incomplete election process.

We can only imagine how Mr. Trump might be enjoying his respite at Walter Reed military hospital. The presidential suite there would make an excellent contained site to plan the take-over of America and turning it into a fascist regime.

Mind you, we are only exercising our imagination here.

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The shaming of America.

September 30, 2020 by Peter Lowry

The quality of entertainment in America has gone down hill. By no stretch of the term ‘debate’ does one refer to an opponent as ‘that clown.’ Despite this egregious error, former vice-president Joe Biden came out of the first contact with Donald Trump with his game plan intact and looking like a potential winner.

The moderator won the argument with Mr. Trump about the environment. This was the unexpected subject and one wherein Mr. Trump made few interruptions. Trump came across as defensive and ill prepared. He had been thrown off his game plan.

Mr. Biden had a few good zingers in his plan but was a bit off-stride in the early going. He did not seem prepared for just how far Trump would go to try to take the debate away from him. At first, no subject was safe.

At one point it appeared as though the former vice-president was prepared to walk out on the debate. That would have been pointless and proved nothing. It would have helped Mr. Trump.

And there was no point in making the case that Mr. Trump was a rude and ignorant opponent. That was there for all to see.

It will be interesting to see the drop off in viewers of the next two debates.

But I cannot see anything helpful in beating on this event.

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I am ANTIFA and proud of it.

September 29, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Donald Trump and his fascist supporters in the United States have been complaining about the antifascist and the radical left causing the recent troubles in the U.S.A. Listening to that guy complain about the antifascists and the radical left can make me feel warm and loved all day. Where he got the term antifa from is my only question?

I have been part of the radical left since my early days in politics. My only problem is that I cannot find a truly radical-left-wing group to join in Canada today. I think there were more of us when I first joined Canada’s liberal party. One of my first projects for the party was helping produce the Liberal Action monthly paper.

There were those who laughed at the effort but Medicare was one of the elements of left-wing policy that we successfully pushed. I remember the distain right-wing liberals such as Mitch Sharpe showed for my efforts. Yet, in the long run, it was Medicare that won.

More recently it was the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) that appealed to us on the left. We saw CERB as a first step towards a guaranteed annual income for Canada. At the next meeting of the federal liberals in Canada (hopefully after the pandemic is over) we should see a strong push by both the parliamentary wing and the rank and file to make Pharmacare and a guaranteed annual income liberal party policy.

But listening to Trump extoll the virtues of ‘antifa’ is really heart warming. I guess he refers to us as antifa because he realizes that there might be lots of Americans who also disapprove of fascism. As part of the radical left, I try not to frighten young children with it. The only fascism that the world has really seen in action was in an Italy, Germany, Romania, and in Spain during the last century. I mention the four examples because all the regimes failed.

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