Category: A Major Pardigm Shift Well Under Way

It’s six days to Election Day.  That means that seven days from today, the results of this presidential race, absent a 2000-like situation or the extremely unikely chance that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton won 270 Electoral College votes on November 8, will be known, and we will know who will take office on January 20.

For reasons I have described in detail in previous posts to this blog, the person heading for the White House will be one of the following:

… and will  NOT be any of these [the one on the right represents ALL write-ins]:

All registered voters need to know now that if they don’t want the above outcome on November 9, and if their vote has been, or will be on November 8, cast for any of the above “alternative choices”, or if they don’t vote, they will actually have voted unwittingly for either Trump or Clinton.  I beg anybody who is considering one of these “alternatives” [including the alternative of not voting], to reconsider now.  A week from today, it will be too late.

Thanks.

 

Charles M. Jones

 

 

 

In over a decade running my own businesses, and in over two decades as a senior executive in larger corporations, I developed and learned to use a technique for making decisions [particularly when they involved choosing from among several options] that I knew would have a significant impact on the company’s overall performance. That technique served me very well during the course of my career, not only in my business and employment situations, but in other areas of my life.  Using available supporting facts and incorporating whatever assumptions I had to make to fill in the gaps [which there always are], I would do the best I could to come up with the decision I thought was probably best. All decision-makers do that part, whether they describe it the same way I just did or with different words. The technique I would then apply would be to project, under the assumption that my chosen option had been the decision, what things would probably be like in six months, in a year, in three years, and in five years. In business, the accuracy of such projections reduces exponentially beyond three years, making projections beyond five years a somewhat useless endeavor.

However, much longer-range [decades into the future] impacts of this election can be projected with considerable accuracy because of the huge differences between Democrat and Republican philosophies in at least three areas: 1) long-range financial stability [how to overcome our debt situation and move in that direction]; 2) the ideological balance of the Supreme Court [what it should be]; and 3) world reputation and influence [again, what it should be].  We can predict now —  before we vote — the very long-range impact of decisions the next President [and the Legislature and Supreme Court he/she will be working with] will make in these three areas — and frankly, if we don’t make the right decisions in these three areas, the accuracy of our decisions in other areas probably won’t matter much.

So let’s do some “back to the future” thinking here, using the title and logic of the famous 1985 movie in which the characters went back to the past, found a situation that clearly caused a problem that existed in their time, changed the circumstances [and therefore the outcome] at that point in the past, and then went “back to the future” to find the better result. Of course, we know that we can’t actually do that, so I will use my technique as described above in an attempt to depict the same overall scenario — i.e., we look forward a few decades into the future under the assumption that Clinton [any Democrat] won the 11/8/16 election, and then do the same thing under the assumption that Trump [any Republican] won.

Note: If you think there is some chance that a person who is not either a Democrat or a Republican can win, please see my previous blogs — even under the scenario in which neither Clinton nor Trump gets the required 270 Electoral votes on November 8, the end result will still be that the new president will be a Democrat or a Republican.  Nothing is ever absolutely certain, but for all practical purposes, the probability that any of the other candidates [or anyone else who is not a Democrat or a Republican] will ultimately be inaugurated as president on January 20 is zero.

Assumption A: A Democrat Became President on January 20, 2017

Long-Range Financial Stability

Probably at some point during the President’s first term, and most definitely within his/her second term if applicable, a true crisis will cause very drastic cost-cutting measures to necessarily be taken.  The window of opportunity for “kicking the can down the road” has almost closed already, but by then it will have long since passed.  The exact nature and form of the crisis is difficult to predict, but at least two of the outcomes are not — there will definitely be cuts to the Social Security benefits of current retirees, and for current Medicare beneficiaries, diminished benefit levels more than likely in addition to higher premiums.

Supreme Court

It is quite possible that Justice Ginsberg [who is 80] would retire in this situation, which along with the already-vacant seat of Justice Scalia, will create an immediate situation in which two liberal justices will be replacing one liberal [Ginsberg] and one conservative [Scalia].

If Justice Ginsberg doesn’t retire, the odds are substantial that she will die during the President’s first term, and they are even higher that she will die during his/her second term, if applicable.  In either event, the court will have shifted to the left even with one appointment by this President [Scalia’s replacement], and even farther left with two.

Justice Kennedy [generally left of center, but not always siding with liberals] is 80, and Justice Breyer [liberal] is 78. A Breyer replacement under this President would not affect the left-right mix [i.e., he would be replaced by another liberal], but a Kennedy replacement would shift the court clearly at least liberal-leaning, and it would remain that way for a generation.

Another key factor to consider regarding the Supreme Court is how President Obama has used Executive Orders to drive his policy positions. Although the number of his Executive Orders isn’t alarming vis-a-vis that of his predecessors, the scope of them is alarming.  If another Democrat is in the White House and Republicans are able to hang on to their majorities in both the House and the Senate, or if they retain House control but lose their Senate majority, the new president will face the same challenges as the current one.  Since Senate Republicans even in a minority could exercise the same “blocking by the minority” ability the Democrats have now, the Supreme Court could become the way the President could drive a liberal agenda.

World Reputation And Influence

Our reputation and stature on the world stage will continue to decline.  We will have clearly ceased to be considered a major power, maybe even a major influence.  This will be brought about both by continuation of the Obama foreign policies and by the huge financial problems that will literally be consuming our attention. It is almost a certainty that North Korea will be a nuclear power, and it is highly likely that Iran will be.

Assumption B: A Republican Became President on January 20, 2017

Long-Range Financial Stability

Although some painful financial decisions will have to be made during the President’s first term, they will be made [i.e., the “can” won’t continue to be “kicked down the road”].  If these decisions are made wisely, cuts to the Social Security benefits of current retirees will probably not be required, but cuts to benefits of future retirees will probably still be required [we’ve been “kicking this can down the road” for too many years already].  For current Medicare beneficiaries, diminished benefit levels may not be required, but it is likely that higher premiums, and probably a means-adjusted premium scale, will be necessary.

Supreme Court

Justice Scalia’s replacement will probably be considerably more conservative than any Democrat-appointed Justice would have been — at a minimum, he/she would be a strict constitutionalist.  Justice Ginsberg [who is 80] would not likely retire in this situation. If she doesn’t retire, the odds are substantial that she will die during the President’s first term, and they are even higher that she will die during his/her second term, if applicable, which along with the already-vacant seat of Justice Scalia, will create an immediate situation in which two conservative justices will be replacing one liberal [Ginsberg] and one conservative [Scalia].

In either event, the court will have shifted very slightly to the right even with one appointment by this President [Scalia’s replacement], and even farther right with two.

Justice Kennedy [general left of center, but not always siding with liberals] is 80, and Justice Breyer [liberal] is 78. A Breyer replacement under this President would not affect the left-right mix [i.e., he would be replaced by another liberal], but a Kennedy replacement would shift the court clearly conservative, and it would remain that way for a generation.

Many, probably most, of the Executive Orders Barack Obama used to drive his policy positions will be cancelled. The Supreme Court will then have to become the adjudicating mechanism in any reversals of direction those cancelations will require. It is unlikely that a Republican president will subsequently engage in as many congressional by-pass maneuvers as did Obama.

World Reputation And Influence

Our reputation and stature on the world stage will improve, but by how much remains to be seen.  We will definitely get back to being considered a major power, maybe even more of a major influence.  This will be brought about by a clear reversal of the Obama foreign policies and a more decisive leader in the White House, but what will remain unclear [until it becomes more evident] is the degree to which domestic financial problems can be averted fairly quickly [i.e., by getting us onto a more sustainable fiscal path], thereby giving us more capacity to deal with our international status.  Whether renewed American strength and more decisive leadership internationally can prevent or at least substantially delay North Korea and Iran becoming nuclear powers is not certain, but our level of influence in both of these situations will certainly be higher.

And In Either Case ..,

The two-dominant-party system, if not completely dead with their control over the election process totally gone, at a minimum will have lost even more of its influence. The far left wing of the Democrat Party [Sanders, Warren et al] will be even stronger if still within the party at all.  The far right wing of the Republican Party [Cruz et al] will be even stronger if still within the party at all.  The moderate / centrist segments of both parties will be much weaker if they are still in their current parties.  Even if they have merged to form another party, their influence will be lower than it is now if they are essentially all “Old Guard” politicians [McConnell, Pelosi et al] — perhaps not as much lower if their ranks include a significant element of younger, more visionary members.

To try and predict more specifically how all of this will infold would be pure conjecture at this point.  One thing is certain, though: what I have labeled in previous posts as the Trump/Sanders Phenomenon is not going away.  It is here to stay, and it will “evolve” and mature into whatever it is going to become — but in any event, it will have a dramatic impact on American Politics.

So we’re back to an underlying theme in all of my previous posts, and in the pages at this web site — it’s not about the people who are the candidates; it’s about the platforms [ideologies] of the parties of which they are a part.

Depending on how this week’s news unfolds, I may offer in my next post [which will be this week] a perspective on the 10/27 decision by FBI Director Comey to revisit the Clinton email scandal.

 

Charles M. Jones

 

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the least despicable of them all? …

Well, the campaign is in its final stretch.  We can be sure that probably well over 90% of what we will see, hear and read in the media between now and November 8, whether in news and commentary or in paid advertisements, will be four things: 1) each candidate trying to convince us that the other candidate is more despicable than he/she is [thereby making him/her the least despicable, and therefore the better choice]; 2) poll results showing who is “ahead” [with heavy focus on “swing states”]; 3) fact-checking and “interpretation” stemming from statements the candidates make and/or newly uncovered evidence of their shortcomings; and 4) talking head pundits, from their vast pool of knowledge and wisdom, telling us, the ordinary people who need their wise counsel, what all of this means.

Wouldn’t it be great if the technology existed to weed out all the “voting for Trump [or his party] no matter what” and “voting for Clinton [or her party] no matter what” voters and just do targeted advertising [through social media, snail mail, email, blogs, etc.] to people who are likely to vote but are still trying to figure out how they should vote. That would spare the 2/3 of us who are more decisive from being “road kill” in the wake of billions of dollars being spent on negative broadcast ads and force the pain of those ads onto the 1/3 of voters who can actually be swayed by them — but who, I’m sorry to say, will probably determine whether our next president is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump [or more importantly, whether the Democrat Party ideology (platform) or the Republican Party ideology (platform) will guide the direction of our country].

There is an important “undercurrent” in all of the media buzz going on this week since NBC’s release just prior to the October 9 debate of the vulgar and disgusting 1995 videotape of a Trump discussion with one of its show hosts. It should be obvious to anybody watching or listening to almost any news/commentary show, or reading almost any newspaper or magazine, that most of the entire media world is heavily liberal-leaning at best, or completely in the tank for Hillary Clinton at worst. Rapidly-growing and equally damaging and derogatory information about Clinton during that exact same time period [scandal after scandal, newly released emails, etc.] gets little coverage [if any mention at all], but every detail any reporter can muster about that one thing about Trump is plastered across front pages of newspapers and scrolled across TV screens as “breaking news”.

A Special Note To Women

Before I move on to my continuing emphasis on why this is a critical election and why our votes in it need to be for parties, not necessarily for the people at the top of their tickets, there’s something I’d like to say to people — particularly women — who are so disgusted with Trump’s remarks in the 1995 video that they are really struggling with voting for him even though they are more closely aligned with his party’s platform than they are with Clinton’s party’s platform.  I do not in any way want to seem insensitive to those people [again, particularly those among them who are women] in the remarks I will make here or in future posts to this blog.  I fully understand how deeply some people, particularly women — and even more particularly women who have personally experienced that kind of interaction with men — may feel about the remarks Trump made. But this is a time when all of us need to make our thoughts about our country more important than our thoughts about ourselves and our personal feelings.

Let’s Keep Focused On What’s At Stake

Let me re-emphasize at this point how important it is that voters in this country focus on what is at stake in this election — at this critical juncture in our history, we have an opportunity before us to choose between two diametrically opposed ideologies, the tenets of which are expressed in the platforms of the Democrat and Republican parties [Democrat Party Platform; Republican Party Platform]. We cannot afford to let ourselves get focused on the shortcomings of either candidate, because both of them are equally undesirable. It’s not about how we as individuals “feel”, regardless of how validly-based we believe our disdain for either or both candidates may be; it’s about the future we will be building for our children and grandchildren.

In previous posts to this blog [which can be read by simply scrolling down from here — they are in reverse chronological order (most recent to oldest)], I have spelled out in considerable detail the rationale for the fact that all possible scenarios that could exist on November 9 [the day after Election Day] will ultimately result in the ideological choice I’ve described here — and people who vote for anyone other than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton [or who don’t vote] will have unwittingly voted for one of these two candidates — and it’s impossible for them to predict in advance which of the two they will have unwittingly voted for!

⇒ Think about that.  People who, in protest because of their disgust for the candidate on the ticket of the party with which they are most closely aligned ideologically, vote for anyone other than Clinton or Trump — or don’t vote at all — may be unwittingly actually voting FOR the candidate that is the source of their disgust!

So let’s step away from all the media hype and just look at what we actually know about each candidate’s shortcomings [i.e., not at how these shortcomings are characterized in the media — as Sgt. Friday of the 1950s Dragnet TV series would say, “Just the facts, Ma’am”].  I decided to list out in tabular form several issues [lying, corruption, derogatory remarks about entire segments of the U. S. population, etc.], and just put “yes” or “no” in each candidate’s column as to whether that issue or accusation applies to him or her [based on verifiable facts, not media characterizations].  You can look at the table at this link: Clinton-Trump Comparison.  What does this tell us? Nothing we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves by just ignoring media characterizations and filtering out “just the facts”: a) both of these candidates have serious personal character flaws; b) there is suspicion about the business dealings of both of them; and c) neither is the profile of person most of us would like to see occupying the Oval Office. That is exactly why we must put our personal likes and dislikes of the candidates [the people at the top of the two tickets] aside and vote for the party whose platform most closely meshes with our own worldview.

So if you’re considering a “protest vote” for somebody other than Trump or Clinton, or just not voting, consider this: check the “party ticket” item in the voting booth to vote for the entire slate of candidates in races in your precinct for the party with whose platform/ideology you most closely identify.  Maybe that will mitigate whatever stigma you may attach to casting your vote for the person at the top of that party’s ticket — and you will have 1) done your country a service and 2) made yourself feel better by not specifically checking the box by a candidate you can’t bring yourself to vote for as a person.

In my next post, I’ll explore what I think is an interesting — perhaps unique since I haven’t observed any expression of it in the media — perspective on all the hype about how “devastating” recent revelations about Trump have been to his presidential campaign.

Charles M. Jones

One of my biggest criticisms of Barack Obama is that he appears to view the world and the country as he would like them to be, and he makes decisions from that perspective.  While that is a noble way of looking at things, it is not practical, because the world and the country are what they are, not what any one of us might want them to be.

Some people I know seem to be in that mode of thought as we approach the coming election.  They say they don’t like the choices before us, that they can’t see themselves voting for either of the major-party candidates, and that out of their frustration or to just “make a statement”, they may vote for the Green Party or Libertarian candidate, or write in a candidate — or worse yet, simply not vote.

[Note … If you haven’t read my Introduction To USAparadigm.com blog post and the Home Page of USAparadigm.com, I strongly urge you to do so. This and all subsequent posts will make more sense to readers familiar with that introductory information.]

For whatever it’s worth, I don’t “like” either of the major-party candidates — one of whom, under our current system [not what I might like the system to be],  will win the 270 Electoral College votes needed to become our next president.  When I cast my ballot [which I most definitely will, because it is not only my right but my duty as an American citizen and as a Christian], it will not be because I want that specific candidate to be my President.  It will be because, given the realistic options available to me at this time, and given the pivotal nature of this particular election, the person I vote for has the greatest potential of creating an environment 1) with which I can identify from an idealogical / worldview perspective and 2) that includes a sustainable fiscal path to a better future for generations that will follow mine.

Let’s just look at this logically from the perspective of fiscal responsibility and two idealogical perspectives [abortion and marriage].  On fiscal responsibility, the dominant mindset of the party with which one candidate is aligned is essentially that anything they think is desirable for the government to do for people should be done regardless of the costs.  On ideology, this party supports abortion for any reason at any point during a pregnancy, and marriage being defined as any relationship that legislators or judges [who are appointed, not elected] think are currently, or in the future may be, appropriate.  If you think my descriptions of these positions are more extreme than that party endorses, or would endorse, just look at the current trajectory to see that these two extremes are the ultimate end points on the path that party has chosen.

The party with which the other candidate is aligned is no less compassionate than the other party toward those among us who are less fortunate than others, but from a fiscal perspective, it takes the position that the needs of all citizens, regardless of their economic status, their race, their ethnicity, or whatever, must be balanced — and that providing benefits to less fortunate citizens must necessarily be done in a fiscally responsible way. Idealogically, this party supports abortion only in situations where a choice must be made between the life [not the “health”, an extremely open-ended term when used in this context] of the mother and the life of the unborn child, and marriage as between one man and one woman.  Just as with my comments about the other party, if you think my descriptions of these positions are more extreme than this party endorses, or would endorse, just consider the internal “fights” they’ve had on exclusions and wording details to see that these two end points represent the basic philosophy.

At a very minimum one, almost certainly two, and perhaps as many as four [particularly if that person serves two terms], Supreme Court justices will be appointed by the president we elect this November.  The Court, currently with only eight members, is about as ideologically split as is possible in today’s environment.  Just two, and certainly four, new justices who lean toward either ideological camp will shift the overall position of the Court heavily to one or the other side of the spectrum bounded by these camps, and it will remain there for at least a generation. Given the accelerating tendency of the Court to “legislate from the bench”, its to-be-determined-soon makeup will have a huge impact on our nation’s ideological framework.

This consideration alone is worthy of potentially being the key reason to vote for the major-party [Democrat or Republican] candidate you either support and want to win, or consider the “least bad” of the two. The impact on each of these two candidates of a vote for any other candidate, or a decision to just stay home and not vote, is impossible to predict in this election.  It is quite possible that we may see one of the highest voter turnouts in American history, and that alone would make almost all historical statistics useless as predictors of the outcome on Election Day. The probability that what I referred to on the A Major Paradigm Shift Well Underway page at www.USAparadigm.com as the Trump/Sanders Phenomenon will bring millions of new voters to the polls is at least as high as the probability that disillusionment over the available choices will cause millions of Americans to either vote out of desperation for candidates with no chance of winning [Green Party, Libertarian Party, write-ins, etc.] or just stay home and not vote.

This table may be useful in following my logic on this: Decision Logic For Voters.

The current system is not going to change between now and the upcoming election. We must make our choices based on what is realistically before us, not on what we think the system should be.  This is a time, perhaps more so than at any other time in American history, when every person who is eligible to vote should do so — because the outcome of this election will either solidify the trend of the past seven and a half years and accelerate our path in the current direction, or at least potentially produce directional changes that can avoid what lies ahead if we continue on our current trajectory.

Every voter should think very carefully before casting his/her ballot.  This is not a time for casting votes that do nothing but voice dissatisfaction with the current system [or for not voting].  Electoral College math is what it is, and “making a statement” votes — or not voting —  can, and likely will be, wasted votes.  I hope what I have written here illuminates this thought process.

Charles M. Jones