Category: If Nothing Changes …

I thought it was one of Yogi Berra’s famous quotes, but after research I realized it was apparently somebody else [and I got tired of trying to trace it down], but this comes to mind as I write this Election Day post: “When you get to where you’re going, well there you are”. Here we are, Election Day 2016. So where have we been going to this point, and where are we today? More importantly, where are we going from here?

One of Hillary Clinton’s major snafus during her Benghazi testimony was the oft-played video clip in which she said “What difference, at this point, does it make”?  Relating that to the current situation: “at this point”, the only question that matters is “Where are we going from here?”. 

When the results of this election are known, I will decide what, if any, direction I will take with this web site and my blog posts associated with it.

“At this point”, if I have made a positive difference for even a handful of people who may have been struggling with what to do in the ballot booth this year [or with whether to go there at all], and helped them fully understand that their vote counts, and is needed, the time and energy I have put into this site and my blog posts to it will have been time and energy well spent [or I believe, invested — in America’s future]. Let me say “at this point”, thanks to more than 2,000 people who have generated “unique visits” [non-redundant “hits” to at least one site page or one blog post] to this site. I never thought I’d have opportunity to express my thoughts to more than a few hundred people. Please either check the “follow” button or check back in the next week or so to see where, if anywhere, I intend to go with this site and blog posts to it.

Any “expert” in the media who says he/she can accurately project this morning what the situation will be by the time the last polling place in the last precinct in America closes tonight is either lying or trying to lure voters toward one candidate or the other.  The truth is that this election is truly unique, historical analysis is meaningless, and nobody can accurately predict the outcome of this election.

By the end of today, this country will have made what I believe is the most critical decision in my lifetime: whether we, as a nation, as a people, believe that the path on which we’ve set ourselves in the last eight years is the right path, or that it is not the right path, and that a move in an entirely different direction is needed “at this point”. I hope and pray that our decision will be made after careful consideration of facts and objective assessments of party platforms, and will not be influenced by media hype or what makes us, as individuals, “feel good” about our vote — because this is not about each of us as individuals; it’s about the future of our country.

Thanks!

 

Charles M. Jones

This edition of my Down The Stretch series of posts will be very brief. The thought occurred to me that a simple table might be the best way to communicate something that has been an underlying theme at this web site and in the posts to this blog … On November 8, everybody who is registered to vote [including those who do not vote] will be voting for either the Republican Platform or the Democrat Platform [see previous posts for links to these platform documents, and to a table comparing them], whether consciously making that decision based on their worldview and value system or unwittingly because they don’t understand how the current system for electing a President works. For details as to why that is the case, I would simply recommend reading all my previous blogs, but particularly It’s not about the candidates — it’s about the parties (Parts 1 and 2). I won’t go into the details again here, but I’ll offer this simple table for figuring out [to the extent possible — see the footnote in the table] which of these two candidates you may have unwittingly voted for: Voting For “Alternatives”.

One other point worth re-emphasizing [again — sorry to be repetitive, but this is important]: it’s the current system that will play out in this election. This campaign has amplified some flaws in that system that need to be examined, but that will not happen in this election. A “protest vote” for an “alternative” candidate, or a decision not to vote will, in this election, be counted as I’ve represented in the above-referenced table.
 

Charles M. Jones

 

In Part 1 of my two posts entitled It’s Not About the Candidates, It’s About The Parties, I outlined the only three possible situations that could even theoretically exist on 11/9/16: 1) Hillary Clinton won 270 or more electoral votes and is President Elect, 2) Donald Trump won 270 or more electoral votes and is President Elect, or 3) neither Clinton nor Trump won 270 or more electoral votes, which according to the Twelfth Amendment, has moved responsibility for selecting our next President and Vice President to the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively.  I also pointed out why regardless of which of these is the outcome, the ultimate result will be the same — i.e., we will have made a choice between two ideological extremes, the tenets of which are expressed in the platforms of the Democrat and Republican parties [I have explained in depth in previous posts to this blog why none of the “alternative candidates” will become President, and why 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].

In Part 2 of those two posts, I included a simple table that boils the “planks” from the platforms of the two parties down to their ideological/philosophical positions on ten issues that I think most people would agree highlight the extremes of their two ideologies. Click on this link to display that table:  Party Philosophy Comparison.  To access the full party platforms themselves [which I suggest in the table that you also read], follow these links: Democrat Party Platform; Republican Party Platform.

I have repeated here these brief excerpts from those posts simply to emphasize yet again how important it is for voters to 1) understand what a clear ideological / philosophical choice we have at this time, 2) decide for themselves which of these choices most closely aligns with their own worldview and value system, 3) let that guide their voting decision [not the personalities and shortcomings of the candidates], and 4) VOTE.

 

Charles M. Jones

 

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