By Brian E. Frydenborg (Twitter @bfry1981; LinkedIn, Facebook), July 21, 2022

WARNING: Spoilers for Star Wars in general, especially Obi-Wan Kenobi and other Disney+ Star Wars series

Author’s note: Regrettably, I have been sitting on this for nearly a month (mostly as is, with minimal edits).  I was excited to have this come out for an entertainment site—I will not get into specifics names here—for which I had written about Star Wars before.  No real history of any real issues there, certainly none with my editor at the time, but apparently that editor—again, not going into names, and I go into details I won’t go into here in a Twitter thread you can find if you really want to—despite never, not once, sending any critical or negative thought or communication to me about me or my work, couldn’t stand my views on Disney Star Wars or me as a person and projected a great deal onto what I did and did not mean in my communications, going far beyond my actual words into speculation and distortion.

This piece below, in earlier draft form, though, put this editor over the edge.  That editor then engaged in a temporarily successful political purge against me because of the views expressed here and projection related to them, but eventually the company realized major mistakes were made, apologized, and more or less fixed the situation to one acceptable to me after admitting the editor had behaved very inappropriately towards me.  So I was pleasantly surprised my attempts at open, reasoned discussion paid off (not with this editor, but with the company I freelanced with for some time; still, please do not seek out, bother, or engage the editor on my behalf, I absolutely am not trying to make this about this particular person, site, or company, but, rather, the larger issues this whole situation represents).

I really wanted to get my deep-dive on the Obi-Wan Kenobi series out to readers though, so here it is, with some edits/updates and a further explanatory note at the end* on what I touched upon here in this note, tying it into the larger issues I focused on on my original article. And oh, if you really hate what I have to say, feel free to disagree by actually sending me your critiques and views! Don’t be like that editor, engage and exchange!

SILVER SPRING—I try hard to go into new Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars projects with an open mind.  Yes, mistakes are human, but refusing to learn from the body of dedicated fans giving consistent feedback is unforgiveable.  But when you don’t have a passionate, informed person or duo leading the effort from the top (three is a crowd), you basically get a committee trying to please everyone, do everything at once, shoehorn way too much in, and executing each part of the overburdened project with less finesse than more focus and time would allow.

While in George Lucas’s films, there are occasional technical errors that usually only a close rewatch can catch—a stormtrooper hitting his head on a Death Star doorframe, some of the droid voices or random side character voices in the prequels being slightly inconsistent—there are glaring moments of cringe here in Kenobi that, unlike in the J.J. Abrams Star Wars movies, stick with you in the moment because it is not trying to move at Abrams’ blazing lightspeed, skipping or not (not that Abrams’ flaws in his Star Wars films do not come flooding through as soon as the roller coaster ride ends and the credits roll, they do and easily stick with you when your brain can take a pause from the sensory overload and actually process what you have seen).

I don’t mind an awkward sequence or two.  But what we have is almost lazy, consistent, substantive flaws that are damn distracting—that is, when the show isn’t distracting with its own intentional distractions that they confuse for major plot lines betraying the titular choice of the series.

Bait and Switch

And what I mean is that Disney/Lucasfilm is constantly faking out its audiences, trying to make each new series as much as it can a “ONE-SIZE FITS ALL FOR ALL AGES!”-snare, baiting with what looks like one thing, but ends up being something else.  The key examples:

What we were sold:

A Badass Show about a Mandalorian bounty hunter!

What we got:

Mando and son, whereas Mando learns to be a dad! (I’m partly kidding, but partly not. There is less bounty-hunter badassery than we mostly all wanted, but the balance is still on giving Mando screen time vs Grogu, who can’t speak and definitely doesn’t compete for screen time, but the father-protective/mentoring dynamic, not the bounty-hunter dynamic, dominates.  But I guess we MUST HAVE the mentoring dynamic with a kid (CHECK)… (Still, I love this show)

What we were sold:

Bad Batch: A badass show about hardcore mutant clones

What we got:

Those clones babysitting an admittedly cool kid, Omega, but still…. Hero/kid mentoring/family dynamic (CHECK) dominates the series, not mutant clone badassery (I do like this series though)

What we were sold:

A show about the OG bounty hunter from the Original Trilogy, THE BOBA FETT, being a total badass!

What we got:

A show in which Boba mostly decides “I wanna be a super nice guy,” farms out most of the badassery to the more badass Fennec Shand (LOVE her, but she shouldn’t outshine Boba in his own show), the series being extremely inconsistent with storytelling/pacing, and the best episode by far is actually a Mandalorian prequel to that show’s third season, an episode in which Boba does not even appear , but we get the mentor-kid dynamic again (CHECK)

What we were sold:

“Hey, want a badass, mature show that’s about Obi-Wan’s dark, traumatized existence after Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith? Here’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Ewan McGregor, and, bringing Hayden Christensen back, we might even give you some deep introspection on Vader while we’re it at!”

What we got:

The Adventures of Obi-Wan, Lil’ Leia, and Reva!  Plenty of kid stuff for the kiddies, and plenty of Reva (because I guess the idea is Millennials and “Gen Z”—really baby Millennials—would get “bored” with Gen-Xer-age Kenobi so we need to add a younger-adult focus! Maybe my annoyance is clouding my judgment, but I think Leia and Reva get more screen time combined than Kenobi does in most episodes. And, of course, the mentor-kid dynamic (CHECK)

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those Reva haters (again, screw the racist attacks against actress Moses Ingram), and knowing what I know now after the big Part V reveal and the ending, I am not upset with her story like some or her performance, I actually like it: it works fairly well and explains a lot of what people complained about initially, but I do agree it would have benefitted from letting it breather a little with more development over more episodes or at least longer episodes.  And I like Lil’ Leia!  A LOT!  But I don’t need THAT MUCH of her.  This isn’t the Lil’ Leia show.  It’s not the Reva show.  Instead of coming off as a series where the focus is on Kenobi where there are new (Reva) or reintroduced-at-a-younger-age characters (Leia), for a show billed as Obi-Wan Kenobi, it feels like they are just about equal stars.

We Were All Oversold on Obi-Wan Himself for No Good Reason

And this is where I get really angry with Disney/Lucasfilm.  I know they are a profit-driven corporation that is constantly trying to grow audience and hit new demographics (and we know, to appease Chinese censors, they minimized Nigerian-British actor John Boyega’s Finn’s appearance on Chinese posters, and Boyega felt misused by Disney overall).  I’m ok with trying to grow audience and expand demographics if done well, but the bait and switch—here is something we know longtime and hardcore fans will want, Obi-Wan, but instead of truly giving due focus in a show named after him to the titular character, we’re going to throw this other stuff in to the point Obi-Wan is competing for screen time with these new elements—has left a bad taste in my mouth and many others.

What’s crazy is that, for a show with just six episodes, we only got two episodes that focused on the Obi-Wan/Vader/Anakin dynamic above all else.  The rest all had way more going on, in many ways to their detriment.

If they called the show: Star Wars: The Hunt for Obi-Wan and Leia, I’d have been fine with what we got.  We are focusing on the main objects of the hunting—Obi-Wan and Leia—and we are focusing on the main actor on the hunter’s side, Reva.  It would be a great three-thread story on how they all tied into each other’s destinies, with some great Vader stuff mixed in.  But it’s a freaking show called Obi-Wan Kenobi.  And we didn’t see Obi-Wan before we saw Reva; it was the other way around, which may be coincidence, or it may not be.

I respect Deborah Chow, who, like Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau and unlike Rian Johnson and some Disney/Lucasfilm executives/producers, respects Star Wars for what it is has been and is and could be, not far more for what it could be, not as something they can “fix” or make better because it was sooo lacking, soooo missing modern sensibilities.  And trust me, anything older could use a few updates to better fit into any new era, but you can tell the difference between people who love and cherish the old and give thoughtful updates and those who are on a mission to “correct” beloved franchises in ways destined to offend longtime fans unnecessarily.  That former is what Dave Filoni did spectacularly with George Lucas with Clone Wars, that’s what Dave and Jon Favreau did with Mandalorian.

So here, again, we get to corporate plotting to have everything at the same time and nothing as an individual element being truly standout.  Some corporate committee decided they wanted to insert X stuff for the “new fans” or “potential new fans” and for “the kids” on top of the obvious elements in Obi-Wan Kenobi built on the legacy characters of Obi-Wan and Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker.  No, we couldn’t possibly just have a show focused on those two, it doesn’t check enough “boxes.”  Gods forbid!

To do this, said corporate committee hired a nobody writer to lead the writing for the series who virtually none of us have heard of before who has little ownership/attachment/knowledge of the existing material and who the committee can easily push around: Joby Harold, whose writing credits before Kenobi are only three films: Zack Snyder’s 2021 Netflix film Army of the Dead, 5.7 rating on IMDB and written with another; 2017’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, 6.7 rating by fans onIMDB and written with Guy Ritchie and other randos; and Awake in 2007, 6.5 IMDB rating, directed by Joby Harold, too, and starring Hayden Christensen (I guess that’s why??).

Except that Deborah Chow told us that we were getting a deep “character-driven story,” like the masterpiece Logan—about Wolverine, the only superhero movie, in my view, that can compete with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, which was tight-knit and very focused on Logan and his relationship with Charles Xavier and Laura, with three standout performances—or the deep psychological drama Joker, centered only on the Joker, with him being the only main character.  But at the point I was writing much of this, in the half-day before the final episode aired, I thought, no matter how good the final episode is, no matter how different it is, with five-sixths of Kenobi sealed, delivered, and opened, that is definitely not what we got (the finale mixed episode, with an amazing Vader/Kenobi showdown and a decent culmination of Reva’s story, has not changed this understanding for me).

I checked for how long each episode was not including credits: Part I included a more-than-4-minute recap of the Prequel Trilogy, so not including that nor the credits, it’s not much over 44 minutes, I’m not cutting out the recaps for the other lengths, but keep in mind these do include recaps that take over 1 minute, sometimes closer to 2 minutes, off the length: Part II isn’t even 35 minutes; Part III isn’t even 41 minutes; Part IV isn’t even 33 minutes; Part V isn’t even 36.5 minutes; and the finale Part VI is the longest, at 44.5 minutes.

I am sorry, Disney/Lucasfilm, but if you want to engage in prestige TV, the general rule for being considered top-tier is to give your viewers about an hour an episode: this has been the case since The Sopranos, with everything from The Wire and Rome to Homeland and Dexter to Westworld and Game of Thrones (AMC with Mad Men, Walking Dead and Breaking Bad is the main example otherwise, cuz commercials, and Disney/Lucasfilm doesn’t have that excuse).  Yet half of Kenobi’s episodes feel little more than half-an-hour: they feel like half-episodes.

Which brings me to this next point, what drives me crazy even more so:  we could have had every second of Reva and Lil’ Leia we have now, and if this was a proper prestige show, given the status, respect, effort, and budget those shows had, we had plenty of time to have WAY more of Obi-Wan-himself!  That’s way more time for Ewan to act, to speak, way more time for him to reminisce, to possibly commune with Qui-Gon Jinn or Yoda (as I was hoping we would get and discussed elsewhere and finally got in the finale), to watch Luke, to have Clone Wars flashbacks (and not necessarily expensive battles but some nice downtime with Obi-Wan and Anakin, maybe even Ahsoka, which I thought maybe we would still get in the final episode, but oh well).  Disney, you had Ewan hired, and these scenes could easily have been written and produced with not a tremendous amount of effort, just a writer who really knew Star Wars and had the confidence to tackle it respectfully, or even if you had to drag Filoni in to write them, I am sure he would have obliged.  You could have added three, five more minutes of each episode, even easily more, still not exceeded an hour, and given us far more character development for Obi-Wan, you know, the main character the show is named after.

Quality Control, Please: Consumers vs. Fans

Instead, we get Obi-Wan having two episodes where the main thing he does is try to find and rescue Leia, two whole episodes in a six-episode series dangerously retreading incredibly similar ground.  We also have two chase sequences involving Leia, both of which are slow and poorly directed.  Again, I like Deborah Chow, and can’t explain this.  Maybe it was the Second Unit or Assistant Directors, of which there are literally eleven for the few episodes I checked (including the lowest-rated-by-far one at 6.3 on IMDB), something I’ve never seen before, but which explains the incoherence: Chow probably directed the best parts, and pick from among the other eleven to explain the WTF moments…

Before this final episode aired, I was dreading the fact that apparently young Luke is being dragged into this, and at least his role was kept to a minimum, but still, I think we would have been better off not bringing in Luke/Owen/Beru into the final episode for Reva’s culmination because we already made the decision to take Obi-Wan off Tatooine and to focus on Leia; making Luke the focus for the end of the final episode when Leia has been the focus of the previous five just feels contrived, and, in such a short series, rushed.  And the contrived, forced way we had Bail Organa needlessly name-dropping Owen and Tatooine when Kenobi already knew that information was just ridiculous, really bad writing along with it just being dropped like that and left for Reva to find.  It was as if once not killing Reva off during the Vader fight they did not know what to do with her or how to wrap the next episode up and they just forced everything together.

We already have three main axes around which the show has revolved: Obi-Wan, Reva, and Leia, with a sub-focus on Vader.  After five episodes, bringing in a fifth axis with Luke… in a six-episode show, just no.

With Reva and Leia, I almost felt like we were getting a product testing sample: let’s see how the audience response to X and Y, and, depending on the reactions, we may develop a new product line, more products for more money.  Hell, we could have had a whole new series: Star Wars: Inquisitor, focused solely on Reva, with her being brought into the Inquisitorius, hinting at her backstory, and setting up a crossover with Kenobi.  Instead of getting a Reva series and/or an Obi-Wan series, it seems like Disney/Lucasfilm tried to do both in one and succeeded at neither.  I could say the same for Leia.  We get some great scenes for all the main characters, but the ways they were all put together make me feel the marketing boxes having their checks drawn in them, that I am being subjected to some sort of corporate algorithm.

Which I wouldn’t mind if the show was put together in a much better way, if the final produce was of a much higher quality.  We’ve already seen this with The Mandalorian (but even it can come off as uneven sometimes).  We know of one aborted spinoff (Rangers of the New Republic) and one currently in production (Ahsoka, but, to call that series a Mandalorian spin-off doesn’t do Ahsoka Tano’s character’s history in other Star War content justice; with Dave Filoni helming that, I very confident it will be amazing).  If a show is good enough, I won’t realize, won’t notice too much, or won’t care that you are trying to sell me or pitch me an upcoming product; Ahsoka and other Mandalorian cameos did not feel shoehorned int.  It won’t feel grossly commercial or too corporate-y because I will be enjoying the content so much. 

There are people who consume and enjoy a product—let’s call them the consumers—who enjoy most of what’s thrown at them without really thinking about it much or ever allowing themselves to get that bent out of shape over a particular property.  They enjoy Baby Yoda or Rey or whatever, but it’s not that important to them and they don’t feel that deeper connecting to Star Wars.  They may even post Baby Yoda memes or own Baby Yoda dolls or get their kids Baby Yoda lunchboxes, but they are primarily consumers without any deep emotional attachment even if they find Baby Yoda adorable.

But then there are the people who care deeply about the characters, themes, and worlds of Star Wars—let’s call them fans, who will think carefully about anything, will still consume but do far more than that and not without thoughts and reactions, analysis, or sometimes protestations.  Star Wars for fans is much more than entertainment and distraction.  And, at least in the George Lucas era, that is what set Star Wars apart from, say, the Transformers series, Fast and Furious series, all the Jurassic Parks after the original, and most of the other current blockbuster franchises.

The Star Wars consumers aren’t really thinkers when it comes to Star Wars content, they will happily take the flashy distractions, but the fans, they demand vision, storytelling, something more than exciting sequences strung together.  For them, Star Wars—a lot like the Lord of the Rings—was never just another fun property; it transcended entertainment, was about so much more than just fun, spoke to our souls, and was something that has to be treated gingerly and respectfully in order meet the minimum standards of what made these franchises great.  Instead, Disney had made its era feel like the Hobbit Trilogy if the Hobbit had the same weight and reverence as Lord of the Rings (it doesn’t so it was easy to shrug off those problematic, drawn-out films and even they did not mess up the main characters in the ways Disney often has).

If Lucas didn’t make the Original or Prequel Trilogies, just the first movie, and it kept being handed off to different directors and a whole plethora of different writers selected by a corporate committee, it would never have evolved into the franchise it is now: a staple of global pop culture for four decades, quoted so often in other movies (Tom Holland’s Peter Parker plays with Star Wars Legos), the subject of so many amazing video games and novels (including bestsellers), its exact costumes from 1977 appearing all over the world constantly, its references seeping into politics and everyday references, its music played at nearly every major sporting event from NCAA college sports—played by college bands—to being played on the organ at Madison Square Garden during New York Rangers hockey playoff games.

Such a team would perform embarrassingly poorly, out of line with tis stories history.

With Kenobi, this has manifested itself in significant ways.  The action apart from the lightsaber duels was almost invariably sloppy and poorly coordinated.  Things that defied belief—not sending Tie-fighters after a snowspeeder or a refugee ship (even when the Millennium Falcon had a tracking beacon on it after leaving the Death Star, a few token ties were sent to make it convincing), a roadblock that can easily be walked around, Bail’s ridiculous holomessage to Obi-Wan in Part V that forces the whole Luke subplot for Part VI, that cartoon moment when Obi-Wan walked out of a base full of Imperials with Leia walking with him under his jacket, and apparent canon issues—were just fed to us as if we should simply accept them and not think about it, let alone complain.  All of this is symptomatic of laziness, lack of respect for the audience, and rushing, none of which belong in our Star Wars.

And keep in mind, this comes after a whole Sequel Trilogy that they made up as they went along with no real plan and poorly handled, to varying degrees, the legacy characters of Han Solo, Leia Organa Skywalker, and, especially, Luke Skywalker, ranging from missed opportunities to just doing a character dirty with a postmodern deconstructionist attitude wholly inappropriate for the Skywalker Saga (but admittedly could have worked in Star Wars in a different era with all new characters unrelated to the original characters).

So the idea is that they would take more care this time around…

I will admit that I loved Liam Neeson back as Qui-Gon Jinn, I loved the final battle between Kenobi and Vader (and the first), hell, I even cried during that final duel, and I cried when Kenobi was telling Leia about her mother and father—those two scenes alone were worth the price of admission—but the journey matters, not just the destination, and so much of what got us to that final lightsaber duel was just so-so, B-level TV writing and action of questionable quality.  On my 4k TV, some of the scenes even looked poorly shot, with some of the larger scenic shots in the final duel looking grainy and buffer-y, even low-quality, not anywhere near how it should look in 4k.  Disney, where was the quality control?  Why the RUSH??  While I could give the fight a 9 or a 10, I cannot give the whole episode that, let alone the series.

Star Wars vs. Marvel MCU and the state of Disney Star Wars

I will confess that I have been turned off by the Marvel MCU its sheer volume of content (and the X-Men comics were my big Marvel reads growing up), most of which isn’t terribly highly rated (of over two-dozen films, only a handful have an 8.0-or-higher IMDB rating and the two highest are only 8.4, plus, you can’t count the Spiderman movies because they aren’t Disney), because it seems like the point isn’t to tell a great story or a great movie but to simply keep pumping out content that will be consumed by linking it to all the existing content.  If I feel like I am being fed one thing just so I will consume the next thing, I because suspicious, old geezer that I am.

But I must put some stock in die-hard Marvel fans, because they seem to generally love the MCU.  I hear relatively few complaints, let alone bitterness, rage, betrayal, or that combination leading to indifference, common to find these days among a large portion of Star Wars fans.

So Marvel must be doing a better job, because Star Wars fans are not eating up their version of the MCU.

Some were fooled on a nostalgia overload by Force Awakens, and most longtime fans hate Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, both of which help people who missed the shallowness of Force Awakens realize it upon subsequent viewings (two directors pissing on each other’s work over the course of a trilogy is not how you make a quality trilogy.  For anything.  Ever.).  Rebels is hit or (mostly) miss but I think people just took the excellent Vader/Ahsoka content and pretended the rest of the repetitive, underdeveloped, low-production-value rest was good when it was just ok or meh…  Resistance?  OOPS.  Solo is underrated (best of the Disney-era films!) and Rogue One is overrated (an awesome final combined-space-and-ground battle with Vader icing and sprinkles a great movie does not make).  The entire approach to Book of Boba Fett left most people scratching their heads, and even if the show was overall enjoyable, it was also incoherent and disjointed in some ways similar to the Sequel Trilogy, just not as horrifically so.  Yes, Favreau and Filoni were attached, which makes is even more confusing, but let’s just say we lucked out with the different-director-episode-to-episode-approach when it came to Mandalorian, let’s not repeat that with anything else. The point is, that’s three major projects with a patern.

That leaves Mandalorian and Clone Wars as the only newer content that united nearly all fans.

I think about how the Marvel section within Disney can take a new show about a second- or third-tier hero and generally please both its audience and its critics, tend to do this consistently, and then I think about this Kenobi show, from a mile away pretty clearly going to feature two of the four most important characters for the bulk of the more than forty years Star Wars has existed—Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker—which will even include some of the other two, Anakin’s children, Luke and Leia—and I am mystified as well as enraged: how could Disney allow a more coherent, well-thought-out, crowd-pleasing vision and production for even lower-tier Marvel shows get the treatment and effort that should obviously have been there from a corporate organizational standpoint for Vader and Kenobi?? As a case in point: the apparently meh The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is not even in the top ten Disney-era Marvel TV-shows by rating, and yet even it is rated slightly higher (7.2 on IMDB) than Kenobi (7.1 on IMDB) but with nearly 50% more ratings.

(Or even getting away from Marvel, I never heard of The Boys before the show, and the show just keeps banging out well-produced, well-written, coherent, consistent, good-looking episodes episode after episode.  Why is The Boys getting better treatment than Star Wars??  Or how about Peacemaker?  A very diverse show, dealing with complicated issues, that turned out to be superb, about a character I never knew and never cared about, why is this character given grade-A treatment?? [Because a person of stature with a great track record and with a vision was able to execute that vision as that person saw fit, and a studio gave him pretty much as much as he wanted to be able to do that.])

In short, why is Disney not pulling out all the stops, bringing in the best talent, bringing in veteran hands, throwing money (it has plenty), giving Obi-Wan Kenobi A-list, first-tier treatment?

Don’t try to answer this question, because there is no logical way to understand the paths that led Disney to more of less succeed and skillfully execute shows for non-top-tier Marvel characters like Wanda Maximoff (7.9 on IMDB), Loki (8.2 on IMDB), and Jessica Jones (7.9 on IMDB) but not so much with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth freakin’ Vader.  Or to understand the management approach behind any masterpiece film or TV show compared to what Disney did with Kenobi.  Those successful showrunners and film creators do not, for one thing, bring in a writer like Joby Harold.  But let’s not hate on Joby: the blame is with the mentality of the corporate powers that be thinking it would be anywhere near acceptable to do this for a series with flagship characters.  There are numerous writers who have written well-received Star Wars novels—some New York Times bestsellers for years, but, hey, let’s go with some guy who doesn’t seem to even know Star Wars particularly well.

It would be like one of the most storied franchises in sports history—Real Madrid, Manchester United, the New York Yankees, the New England Patriots, the Boston Celtics, or the Montreal Canadiens—hiring some person who done an ok job as a college coach for a few seasons and just that in any of those sports (I know some of you Star Wars folks are like “what is sports?” I promise the analogy works).  Or, better yet, it is like Disney/Lucasfilm hiring Rian Johnson to do Star Wars: Episode VIII…  I don’t blame Joby Harold, though; I do, again, blame those who put him in that position.

Imperial Hubris

For my other recent work, I have been reading and writing about the 1939-1940 Soviet Finnish Winter War between the USSR and plucky little outgunned Finland as a prism through which to examine the current Russian invasion of Ukraine.  For most of the fairly short war, the Finns embarrassed a colossally misled, improperly equipped, poorly led, mind-numbingly-stupid Soviet Red Army, inflicting enormous losses on the Soviets to far fewer losses for their own forces, with far-less advanced equipment and far less ammunition than the Soviets (think the Ewoks vs. the Imperials at the Battle of Endor and it’s honestly not that much different, except think Arctic snow instead of temperate forest.  I’m not kidding).  In other words, like the Empire vs. the little fuzzy bears, they had the resources, technology, and manpower to crush the little furballs.  But they kept making the same mistakes, week after week after week, and it boggles the mind.

At this point, that’s how I feel with Disney/Lucasfilm when it comes to Star Wars.

Those who study business in MBA programs would be at a loss, too: it is incredibly hard to understand the rhyme or reason of their approach because they keep taking an ad hoc approach where vision and consistency is obviously needed.  They did not do this with Sequel Trilogy, and it is painfully obvious.  Now, we are hearing about how Disney/Lucasfilm is making it up as they go along as to whether Kenobi really is going to be a limited six-episode series or to have a whole second season.

Enough… please!

The fans, as opposed to consumers, really want art.  They have every right to expect the prestige treatment, the quality of the Sopranos or Rome or most seasons of Game of Thrones.  Apart from Mandalorian and Clone Wars, fan reception—and with Star Wars, there is a massive fanbase, not just a consumer base—has been decidedly mixed, hit or miss.  We have every right to expect the studio to take the time, expense, and consideration to churn out a Star Wars series featuring Kenobi and Vader as the presumed centers of the series actually focus mainly on them, that matches the efforts put into the best of television and movies, not some cheaper, wildly uneven mishmash put together by twelve directors per episode and a committee of generally not-known writers without serious resumes as writers.  This isn’t your experimental product test-balloon, this is the first time we are seeing Kenobi against Vader since literally 2005.  Instead, we get unfocused and uneven, repetitive episodes.  We get cheap-looking scenes.  We get some things that really don’t make sense in jarring ways.  We get lightsabers that look like the expensive replica lightsaber toys, that look like they are rounded glass 3D blades used by coplayers but with brighter lighting that made otherwise solid-to-excellent action scenes sometimes look off visually.  We get a flashback with Anakin designed to show “ANAKIN AGGRESSIVE WANT TO WIN TOO MUCH” and that’s it, nothing deeper.  We get mostly unmemorable music (compare to the Fallen Order soundtrack; hell, compare the writing and action in that game to this series, the focus on great characters, the excellent pacing from world to world, level to level, without characters feeling shoehorned in, to Kenobi…).

Yes, we ask for a lot.  But the thing is, it has been done with Star Wars before, and Lucas, Filoni, Favreau, and the developers of Fallen Order at Respawn have shown us it can be done.  Instead, Disney/Lucasfilm keep doubling down, to one degree or another, on the errors of the aimless, non-planned/poorly-planned direction of the Sequel Trilogy.  Book of Bob Fett was the worst offender since Rise of Skywalker until Kenobi, but let’s be honest: I love Boba but he’s not Anakin and he’s not Obi-Wan.  So the carelessness is even worse here, given the weight of the material.

I loved certain scenes in this show.  That doesn’t forgive the rest of the series.  Don’t tell me we needed buildup and that explains it.  So do all other great series and the best Star Wars movies, the issue here is the quality not just of the execution, but the approach taken to hiring writers and directors, planning, staffing, everything.  Kenobi is a microcosm of the range of Disney’s version of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: highs, lows, end everything in-between.

Especially with the finale, I can say “Obi-Wan Kenobi is pretty good!”  But not great.

I’d rather they just slowed down, hired much better and better-established writers (ideally one or two-maximum, with VISION) that idolized Star Wars, better assistant/second directors, had Filoni involved as an executive producer, and spent another year developing everything far more carefully, limiting the side-plots, side-characters, giving us more of the main characters and in live location shots in the desert, not only The Volume (as Vader himself said of the Death Star in A New Hope, “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”).  I want Rome and Game of Thrones and Band of Brothers and production values.  I want a masterpiece of high-art television for Star Wars, Logan-level character development and scripts, Star Wars-quality music (Clone Wars’s and Narcos’s Kevin Kiner or the Fallen Order guys, Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab), your best damn effort, Disney!

That isn’t what we got.  We got a product, trying to do too much, appeal to too many audiences, we did not get art with a singular vision, which is perhaps what characterizes the best Star Wars Content: I-VI and Clone Wars.

Please, Disney and Lucasfilm.  PLEASE.  It’s time to take a different approach.  All-things to all people run by a corporate committee just hasn’t worked, and even if it has made you money, it has really divided and disappointed audiences.  Learn from what has united, not divided fans, form both within Star Wars and Disney and without.  Don’t fall the corporate Dark Side, open your minds to the artistic light-side, and stop repeating the same needless, careless mistakes.

And, as a writer, above all, bring quality writers who know Star Wars to write these scripts.  It all starts with the script matched with love of the material.  When you do that, it’s hard to go wrong.  When you don’t, you fail, and have no one to blame but yourselves for the messes that get created and recognized for the messes that they are.

Please, stop giving us messes.  Slow down.  Take your time.  Listen.  And learn.

Postscript

Between “finishing” this piece and its final publication, I rewatched the last episode of Season 3 of HBO’s magisterial Westworld and the premiere of the brand-new first episode of its Season 4 (and, since sitting on this piece, the next three episodes).  To appreciate my argument on its most simple, visceral level, I ask simply this:  if you are caught up on Westworld, watch the same two episodes I did; if not, watch the next two episodes from where you are in the series, and if you have not started the show, watch the first two episodes.  As you watch, notice and then compare the incredible story, mix of high-level and crass yet superb dialogue, the seamless general writing and transitions, the deep philosophical references, the Emmy-worthy acting, the lush set design and quality mixed with incredible location shots, the high general production values, the mesmerizing cinematography, the spectacular lighting, the evocative and highly memorable music, the incredibly detailed pacing and editing that gets to almost exactly an hour or even occasionally more, the dance-like-conceived action choreography, the intricate way character arcs develop and characters make decisions, the nuance competing with the intensity—and all of this built upon the overall level of effort, care, and planning that was required to pull all this off throughout the entirety of the episodes, along with the budget and patience to execute these scenes as well as they were executed—to all their counterparts in even the two best episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Then ask yourself: which is the prestige and artful television show, and which is not.

And then, you will understand where I am coming from.

After that, ask yourself why this is the case.

Then, you will understand the depth of my frustration.

*Explanatory note for author’s note: I knew next to nothing of editor’s views or work until right around the time all this went down and after I had sent this draft as a submission.  Instead of simply rejecting the draft, sharing what problems this person as an editor or human had with it, or engaging with me at all—and I would have welcomed a spirited discussion, been ok with rejection—this editor went around me and gathered a number of other folks at the company (freelancers like myself and the editor) with whom I had little to no direct interaction (most likely none) but who really didn’t like my views on Star Wars.  They went like a woke mob of the type that saw Bari Weiss and Donald McNeil, among others, driven from their journalistic home (two people whose work and views I often admire, even if I don’t always agree with them; Weiss has, since her departure from The New York Times, disappointingly moved somewhat to the right in ways with which I don’t agree, but she is still a voice worth hearing and I embrace her resignation letter’s criticism of the Times).

After days of no response of my editor to some different and related inquiries (nothing hostile), I got an e-mail with this pretty Orwellian line from a much-higher-up at the company: “Our chief goal at ___ has always been to establish active communities around each of our sites. We accomplish that through our content, primarily, and that is, in part, why we welcome and encourage opinionated content from all points of view. Some of your work, however, has challenged other members of the site and left them feeling uncomfortable. Some of the criticism you’ve included in your work has crossed outside of their comfort level.”  After that series of wholly contradictory thoughts, the conclusion was a variation of adios/sayonara to your role here, an abrupt unilateral act with no warning that seemed an extreme overreaction.

Again, this was from an editor’s and other staffers’ reactions to a series of Star Wars articles published with the approval of the staff (I cannot post directly, only an editor or higher-up can) that no reasonable person would react to this way.  Not Trump.  Not Gaza.  Not abortion.  Star Wars.  Reasonable people could disagree with my Star Wars views (and admittedly I myself in some of those pieces bring some heavy issues into the discussion), of course, but for reaction to rise to that level an enraged secret purge campaign, thinking that was a justifiable response, was extremism run amok, liberal Millennial snowflake intolerance at its worst (and I say that as a lifelong liberal). 

I suspected what was going on and was able to later directly confirm, but before I confirmed, I did my own research.  I had already known that a number of authors were very into leftist social and political activism, particularly around identity-driven issues, and were also vert pro-Disney (I’d even go as far as to say they are shills for Disney Star Wars), enthusiastically greeting each new movie, show, comic, book, toy that comes out with Star Wars on it from Disney.  Looking at the site in general, the vast majority of the content is positive on Disney Star Wars and you’d never know how incredibly serious the problems are between Disney’s Lucasfilms’s version of Star Wars and the Star Wars fandom.

To be fair, lots of Star Wars content out there is like this, particularly from voices attached to larger entertainment fan sites that seek to have a relationship with Disney to have early access to products and to interview folks involved in Disney Star Wars.  This is a serious problem in journalism, not least in political journalism, as I highlighted with The New York Times’s Glenn Thrush and that paper’s biggest political reporting star, Maggie Haberman.  Access can either blind journalists or, at worst, corrupt them.

Anyway, I specifically did my due diligence on this editor, and found this person’s articles and Twitter feed, especially, full of a crusader mentality, a clear history of not getting along well with almost anyone who challenged this person, an abhorrence of engagement with people who held sharply different views, and very much focused on this person’s social causes in a way that demanded they be fused with Star Wars and Star Wars fandom, anyone who disagreed be damned (or, blocked and denigrated as “toxic” simply for not being in full agreement with this editor).  It was appropriate to be controversial if you were in agreement with this editor, but if not, you did not deserve to speak or be heard.  Star Wars was to primarily (or at least as much as anything) be about advancing social and political agendas, and if people didn’t like it, well, they shouldn’t complain and should just be grateful for the content, the thesis of an entire article by this person (unless, again, you were unhappy from a social/leftist political perspective, and then, your complaints were valid and enthusiastically supported, the contradiction laid bare).  In particular, any Star Wars content that promoted a non-male/white/heterosexual character in a strong way was to be celebrated as wonderful, regardless of the quality of storytelling, writing, production values, plot continuity, if it damages the existing key Star Wars films and canon, if it made no sense… you get my drift, per my above article; if that person overpowers, saves, or corrects a non-diverse character (say, Obi-Wan or Luke Skywalker), then it’s even more awesome, cuz, it’s about time!

Quality is redefined as that which advances the agenda, the views of the editor and that editor’s self-selected allies.  Personally, I deeply value and respect elevating marginalized and underrepresented or poorly represented groups if done well, with care and not at the expense of story or tearing down beloved characters to make a political/social point that takes us away from a Galaxy Far, Far Away and right into the muck of our current culture wars.  That’s not to say you can’t touch on sensitive issues that resonate in our world, of course you can, but you should do so without making it so pointed and specific that it feels like your bringing us back into our world in a way that will staunchly alienate many needlessly and make them feel like they and their favorite Star Wars characters are being attacked or denigrated; again, I am a liberal, but don’t want to cheapen Star Wars by making it about scoring shallow points in a culture war at the expense of quality and coherence, hence my title).  And, again, with this editor and this crowd, if you complain about the content lacking good writing, pandering instead of really representing, or anything else reasonable to complain about, you’re bad, your views are bad, and you shouldn’t be given a platform.  You should not get a response, just a nothing or a block; there is no engagement unless it comes from a perspective these people want to elevate.

The more the Disney Star Wars content offended more longtime fans, the more they loved it and attacked the people criticizing it.

This nonsense resembles only one other thing in my writing career:  when a Russia-government affiliated think tank, the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), censored, purged, and gaslit me as a contributor for publishing views very much against the Kremlin line on the human-rights related U.S.-imposed Magnitsky sanctions that infuriated Putin and were the subject of a clear attempt to bribe and corrupt the Trump campaign in 2016 at an infamous meeting at Trump Tower, on Jared Kushner-linked Prevezon and Russian influence campaigns (all the details are here, including the gaslighting e-mails from RIAC).

Needless to say, I wasn’t going to just meekly slide away.  I did not, ended up engaging a very respectful senior staff member at the company, and that staff member admitted major mistakes were made, that I was treated in an extreme and unfair manner, that the whole situation should have been handed much differently, that the editor had behaved wrongly and disingenuously concerning me on a number of fronts, and basically rescinded the other e-mail ending my relationship with the company for a mutual, shared understanding that would have me step away on Star Wars content, at least for now, with a chance to perhaps reengage on that front in the future.  I was inspired by the company’s response to my concerns and it was an inspiring victory for decency, openness, engagement, and hashing out difficult issues respectfully and fairly and being able to admit mistakes (all the things which the editor’s approach and those who think like this editor don’t practice).

I took on a woke mob on a corporate level and was surprised by the results.  Treat people as people, that’s the main lesson I took away from all this.  And I was almost certain it would be pointless but forced myself to give respectful engagement a chance, anyway. There needs to be far more of such engagement in our society, with journalists and commentators having serious engagement with their critics, like I was surprised to find in this awesome video

Snowlfakes need to purge intense disagreement and wrap themselves in a Linus-blanket of an echo chamber, but the adults in the room need to know better and need to teach the younger Millennials (I will note that corporate staffer I engaged with was [or was almost] a fellow Gen X-er, like me) especially, how to do better.  It’s not just Star Wars at stake: it’s our increasingly polarizing entertainment culture overall (look at the different intense reactions to the Lord of the Rings prequel-prequel, Rings of Power, and, on the other side, The Terminal List) and our politics and society overall. 

The original George Lucas Star Wars. Like J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, UNITED people, did not divide them.  If Disney and Amazon are finding that their new content for these storied franchises are doing the opposite, and not just dividing people who did not like them from those who did over taste, but dividing intensely along social, political, and identity-driven axes, they really, really need to rethink their approach, just as Trumpist fascists and the far-left need to rethink their approach to politics.

© 2022 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome

Also see my eBook, A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials, available for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook (preview here), and be sure to check out Brian’s new podcast!

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 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse October 3, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) October 3rd, 2016

Pool/Getty Images

AMMAN — These debates worry and perplex me because I never know how the American public and the media will react. I know how rational people who aren’t blind ideologues will react. And at this point, all rational people and non-ideologues are backing Clinton. The almost 6 in 10 Americans that are irrational and/or ideologues constantly seem to prefer and encourage the atrocious. What horrifies normal, decent, civil, thoughtful people delights these “deplorables” to the tunes of shrieks and howls of delight, often with more than just a thin veneer of racism, misogyny, or some other form of bigotry and hate. So when by any objective measure Clinton easily won the debate and Trump more or less imploded, that is little comfort in trying to gauge the reaction of the mob and the can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees media.

Getting Inside Voter’s Minds

For the first two minutes, Trump seemed the most articulate I’ve ever seen him. For the first half-hour, he managed to not look terrible talking about trade and the economy. And then he demonstrated he had the attention span of an ADHD Millennial in giving us an hour of unfocused, incoherent rants in which he demonstrated no ability to exercise self-control as he was successfully baited every time Clinton tried to bait him to talk about unflattering and off-topic items. He acted unpresidential, demonstrated a solid lack of both understanding and information on pretty much everything, and was unable to fill his time without repeating himself over and over again and without parroting the same anecdotes he’s been peddling for over a year (we heard about Carrier, but I’m surprised he didn’t bring up Komatsu and Caterpillar as well…). Clinton was careful not to appear too aggressive and stayed calm, composed, seemed to be enjoying herself, and demonstrated a mastery facts and issues that has come to be a hallmark of her as a public servant.

Regardless of with whom you agreed more on this issues, this is what happened. And regardless of your thoughts on various issues and your party affiliation, it is clear that Donald Trump has a dangerous temperament, lack of self-control and focus, and a stunning ignorance that makes him unfit to be president and Commander-in-Chief. 

Any rational person can and did see and understand this.

And that is what frightens me, because I fear we rational people are outnumbered in this country. Along with irrational people who can’t see these obvious truths and hateful, childish, spiteful, narcissistic ideologues who either don’t care about the effects of their vote or are willfully blind to them (and I am convinced there are far more of the former than the latter), they may for a majority of voters. And they may not. We will see.

In the end, this debate and the ones to come, much like the election itself, are simply about math.

To Consider Impact of Debate(s), Divide Voters Into Parts of an Equation

In fact, it’s something of a long equation with various parts. Two parts of the equation are immutable: those who are definitely voting Trump and Clinton. Let’s call them Td and Cd. The there are those who are leaning but not certain, and who can be divided by how strongly they lean—high (Tlh and Clh), medium (Tlm and Clm) and low (Tll and Cll). The same thing can more-or-less be done for Johnson and Stein. Then we would have undecideds (U). 

I will cherry pick Ann Selzer’s outfit’s latest poll conducted before the first debate, as she is regarded by FiveThirtyEight as the “best pollster in politics,” to set the landscape: 43% of voters said they will vote Trump, 41% Clinton, 8% Gary Johnson, 4% Jill Stein, 3% were not sure, 2% “don’t want to tell” (I suspect these people are almost all Trump supporters), and 1% said they were not voting for a presidential candidate (if you prefer, feel free to do this exercise with the Real Clear Politics current average, which is very similar but with Trump’s and Clinton’s numbers switched and Stein significantly less than 4%, but I would venture that Selzer’s Bloomberg poll is likely more accurate). 

Now, the first main question is, whose minds can be changed and whose mind are past that point of being able to be changed?

Trump & Clinton supporters 

At this point I’d say a strong majority of Trump and Clinton supporters are going to stick with their candidate through hell and high water. I would say that all of Td and Tlh are going to turn out for him, and the same with Clinton’s Td and Tlh. That leaves medium leaners, light leaners, and the undecideds (I’d include those saying they won’t vote for president in this category) that I’d consider as people whose minds could possibly change. I think clear, overwhelming majorities—let’s say including 2/3-of the medium leaners—are going to definitely stick with their candidates in the cases of Trump and Clinton. That leaves roughly 1/3 of the medium Clm and 1/3 of the medium Tlm to be combined with the light leaners (Cll and Tll) for each to form the body of persuadable voters.

As I indicated in my last article, while there is an enthusiasm gap in favor of Trump meaning in theory that there is more possibility of Clinton’s people switching, I think that this is less likely because Clinton’s people are so anti-Trump and relatively practical that weak enthusiasm for Clinton does not meant there is a good chance that they will support Trump or someone else. If Johnson was performing better I would think he’d have a better chance of picking off unenthusiastic Trump supporters, but with the climate of fear in America intensifying, I think that effect will be mitigated. If anything, Clinton has a chance to pick up Republicans who are both rational and worried about Trump’s ability to conduct foreign policy, but I am not sure many of those people exist. So I’m sticking with only 1/3 of medium leaners being up for grabs for both candidates, in addition to all light leaners. 

As far as quantifying these, I would think that by far most Trump and Clinton voters are not light leaners, and I would think that she has more medium leaners than he does and that he has more high leaners, but I would say that the vast majority of supporters of both Clinton and Trump are definites. Including heavy leaners that I think have pretty much zero chance of leaning anywhere else, I don’t think all leaners combined for either candidate exceed 20% of their support and may be as low as 15%. I would with 100% confidence say that the 1/3 of the medium and light leaners who could actually change their minds together would not be as high as 10% and could be lower than even 5%; for simplicity’s sake let’s say it’s 5% of their support for each.

Stein & Johnson people

I think most Stein people are fanatics at this point, and selfishly care more about “feeling good” about their vote than whether or not Trump destroys many mores of democratic custom and does gods know what in terms of foreign policy. I also tend to think of Stein people as liberals who are either super into her or really just disgusted by Clinton and seek an alternative candidate, without many people in the middle, so, in other words, there aren’t a lot of Stein medium-leaners (Slm), so we’ll divide her support into Sd Slh and Sll, and I’d think her Sd and Slh to be about 2/3 of her support, with only 1/3 Sll.  Plus, Stein’s Green Party (as well as Johnson’s Libertarian Party) are drawing a lot of brand new support from people who have never voted third-party, so there is little party-loyalty and those voters disenchanted with Democrats flirting with Stein (and others disenchanted and flirting with Johnson) may, after a brief love affair, also become disenchanted with their new lover(s) the more they are exposed to her (or him); in fact, this is likely.

Johnson is more complicated than stein, though: he is attracting roughly half his support from people who would otherwise vote Clinton (I discussed this in my previous article), which is counterintuitive because as the Libertarian Party candidate he is far to the right on my issues, but is deceptively alluring because he is a pretty cool/fun guy, is very straightforward, and is cool on things Millennials really care about like weed and gay rights and is also stridently anti-foreign-interventionist. I would imagine most of his liberal support, other than misogynistic Bernie Bros, is actually up for grabs, and I think a good portion of his conservative support that doesn’t come from actual libertarians is also up for grabs because he has demonstrated himself to be atrociously and lazily uninformed and unengaged on issues of foreign policy. He will keep the conservatives whose biggest concerns are the size and scope of government, regulation, the debt, the Fed, etc., but conservatives who care a lot about foreign policy and are not isolationist may find themselves slowly moving to Clinton’s camp, especially after Johnson’s “What is Aleppo?” debacle when he demonstrated that had no idea about or had even heard of the Syrian city of Aleppo, site of some of the worst fighting of the ongoing civil war there, and his more recent seeming inability to name a single foreign leader he liked, despite being given many chances to do so and then mocking this himself as “having another Aleppo moment.” So, for Johnson, I think between 2/3 and 3/4 of his liberal support is up for grabs and about but I would think that 2/3 of his conservative support are solid libertarians or Republicans focused on libertarian issues, and since polling inferences show a strong likelihood that his support is split in half between liberals and conservatives, I’d say this means about half of his support is up for grabs, maybe even slightly more. Basically, the Jlh aren’t up for grabs with Johnson either, which I’d say with Jd are about half his support. Jlm, on the other hand, as with Stein, are virtually nonexistent so I would say about half his are weak Jll who I would bet are not only possible switchers but likely ones.

So at this point, for Trump’s “definite” support, I’d have an equation saying that = Td + Tlh + 2/3Tlm, and for Clinton, Cd + Clh + 2/3Clm.

For Stein, it would be Sd + Slh, and Johnson Jd + Jlh

Up for grabs, we have 1/3Tlm +Tll +1/3Clm +Cll + Sll + Jll

Now, before I continue, I will just point out that these following numbers are wholly non-scientific, and that this is more an exercise in thought and deductive reasoning. Now, going back to the Selzer poll, this means (again roughly) that Trump, with 43%, has 40.85% that is rock-solid; for Clinton, with 41%, 38.95% is rock-solid; for Stein, with 4%, 2.66% is rock-solid; and with Johnson, with 8%, 4.0% is rock-solid. Clearly, Johnson has the most potential to lose support, for the reasons I discussed, while it would seem Stein would have the most loyal supporters. I have a pretty high confidence on this admittedly rough analysis as being close to numbers that will resemble the outcome in November. This very roughly quantifies to [1/3Tlm + Tll2.15%] + [1/3Clm + Cll2.05%] + [Sll1.33%] + [Jll4.0%] = 9.53% that could change candidates plus another 4% equaling the undecideds/won’t vote people. Of those 2% who did not want to share, let’s give 1.0% to Trump as definite Td and 0.5% as Tll, and we’ll increase to 5.5% the number of persuadable leaners for Trump since they were reluctant to declare their support; we will imagine that the other 0.5% of this 2% could be for anyone and would also be up for grabs, though I suspect many of them are Trump people; to be more cautious that 0.5% will be added to undecideds for the sake of simplicity. 

A Loosely Instructive Equation

So, the full revised equations would look like this:

Adjusted Selzer #s: Trump T=44.5% Clinton C=41% Johnson J=8% Stein S=4% undecided U=4.5%

[Definites T + C + S + J]           + [Persuadables T + C + S + J + U]         = 100%

[Td +Tlh+2/3Tlm + Cd+Clh+2/3Clm + Sd+Slh + Jd+Jlh] + [1/3Tlm+Tll +1/3Clm+Cll + Sll + Jll + U] = 100%

[42.05%T + 39.95%C +2.66%S +4.0%J] + [2.45%T + 2.05%C + 1.33%S + 4.0%J + 4.5%U]  = 100%

85.67%                                                 + 14.33%                                         = 100%

Now, I realize this may come off as stupid and artificial and possibly pointless. Maybe that’s even fair. And I did mention that this is rough. However, I do think this does actually gives a logical and roughly-relatively-precise idea of what’s going on here. Basically, close to 86% of the electorate will not be changing their minds under any non-wild-card circumstances, and the remaining 14ish% are up for grabs, on a spectrum ranging from medium-leaners to those saying they will vote but not vote for president. I don’t think all these 14%+ people will change their leanings. In fact, at this point, if I had to guess, some of the medium-leaners (many in Clinton’s case) won’t be changing unless something dramatic happens, like a major terrorist attack on American soil or some sort of serious proof of sexual abuse or rape by Trump, etc., etc.. Let’s say that the 1/3 of the moderate leaners represent 1/3 overall of the persuadables for both Trump and Clinton; that would leave 2/3 of their persuadables with a moderate-to-high chance of being persuadable. The question is: where would they go?

Potential for Change Among Candidate’s Current Supporters

CLINTON

How Clinton could lose support

I think it highly unlikely any Clinton people would go to Trump or Johnson or Stein; she’s too cautious a candidate to do something that would cause people leaning her way to move to such dramatically different candidates; unless there is a major terrorist attack that would drive the weakest supporters of Clinton to Trump’s tent out of fear, I can’t see any of her people switching sides at this point except for maybe a tiny fraction of Millennials out of peer pressure, and I mean a tiny fraction because Millennials are so strongly supporting Stein and Johnson anyway. So I’d say at most 0.15% go combined to Johnson or Stein, probably evenly, but if this does happen it will like be less than 0.1% if it happens at all. Yes, there is the possibility of more Assange Wikileaks releases that could hurt Clinton, but the people who are likely to be animated enough by that to switch candidates away from Clinton are probably all already saying now that they are voting for that someone else.  

Likely Clinton losses: none

How Clinton could gain support

Where could she steal support? I think a tiny number of Republicans might finally realize that Trump is truly awful and does not have the temperament to command the world’s largest military and nuclear arsenal or to conduct negotiations that are going to be far trickier than any business deals he’s been part of, but not many people overall. Sill, with people like the very well-respected WWII and Korea veteran, former Republican Sen. Of Virginia, and former secretary of the Navy John Warner publicly endorsing Clinton, and with former President George H. W. Bush privately choosing Clinton, there could still be some Trump voters that might switch in these final weeks not just to Johnson or abstaining, but to Clinton if they are more conscientious of the bigger picture.  I also think that people who wanted to support Johnson but actually give a big damn about foreign policy will move to Clinton, and my hope is that some of the liberal Millennial support for him will also go to Clinton, but that remains to be seen. I do think she can pick off some of the persuadable Johnson and (particularly) Stein people, especially since most of their supporters are newcomers, as I discussed before.

Likely Clinton Gains: +1.33% from Stein, +1.5-3% from Johnson (+2.25% average), +0.25-0.75% from Trump (+0.5% average)

Likely Net Clinton: +4.08% average up to 45.08%

TRUMP

How Trump could lose support

Unlike Clinton, I think there is much higher chance of Trump losing not only his light leaners but also the medium leaners. I would think that the light leaners are looking for any reason to bolt that they can, while the moderate leaners are looking and hoping he will improve. But throughout this campaign, even when it seems like he is improving, he always seems to stumble again in ways that suggests he is incapable of consistently applying or internalizing any lessons over time in any kind of deep way. Thus, I think there is a high likelihood that Trump will lose most or all of his persuadable voters, at least if he has more performances that resemble his self-destructive first debate performance and continues to do things like tweet at 5:30 AM about a supposed sex tape of Miss Universe 1996, Alicia Machado, whom Trump weight-shamed repeatedly and who has come out supporting Clinton, something Trump did three days ago. It’s hard to imagine any of Trump’s people bolting to Stein, meaning they will divide between Clinton and Johnson and just not voting for president out of disgust.. I think the more they listen to him, read about him, and see him, the more not only the light persuadables but also medium leaners will be turned off and lose hope that Trump can be an adequate candidate.

Likely Trump losses: -0.25-0.75% to Clinton (-0.5% average), -0.75-1.25% to Johnson (-1.0% average), -0.5-1% to no-vote (-0.75% average)

-2.25% overall average loss

How Trump could gain support

Wild-cards like terrorist attacks, racial unrest, and an economic downturn could all help Trump and hurt other candidates, though to what degree would be hard to predict. But leaving wild-cards aside, Trump is likely to gain some support from Johnson as some conservatives become disillusioned with Johnson and begin to worry about the effects of a Clinton presidency on the conservative movement. I think this will offset the Johnson people who leave Trump for Johnson.

+0.75-1.25% from Johnson (+1.0% average)

Net average loss of -1.25% down to 43.25%

JOHNSON

How Johnson could lose support

At this point, with his major foreign affairs gaffes and just plain goofiness, I don’t think it’s a question of if Johnson loses support, but how much support he loses. I think him only losing 2% and keeping 6% might be middle-of-the-road estimate, given that about half of his support is liberal and/or would go to Clinton in a two-way race. I think he loses between 3-4% more from his liberal wing of support, but with some Johnson people breaking late who are particularly concerned about the Supreme Court and would be terrified by Clinton’s judicial picks, thus pushing them to vote for Trump, he will lose some of his current conservative base as well; as mentioned, though, these will likely be offset by people hoping Trump will improve as a candidate who will leave him when he doesn’t.

Likely losses: -1.75-2.75% to Clinton (-2.25% average), -0.75%-1.25% to Trump (-1% average)

-3.25% average overall loss

How Johnson could gain support

Johnson is proving himself an inept candidate, but, as with the beginning of his candidacy, even as he will likely lose support in it its twilight, the best thing to happen to his poll numbers and support levels is Donald Trump. Anecdotally, a number of conservative intellectuals are saying that since they (and if you) don’t live in a swing state, they will (and you should) vote Johnson. The message is more muddled from those and to those who live in swing states. Still, a lot of the conservatives that will lose hope in Trump if does not improve his performance may switch to Johnson on “conscience” votes, but this group will be largely offset by people leaving Johnson.

Likely Johnson Gains +0.75-1.25% from Trump (+1% average)

Net -2.25% average loss down to 5.75%

STEIN

How Stein could lose support

Stein’s core of support is a group of fanatics blind to reality. But some of her newer supporters who were seeking something better than Clinton will find the reality that Stein is anything but: a bunch of empty talk with no actual plans to move them forward and with positions so far to the left she makes Bernie Sanders look like a Republican (or, perhaps more accurately, a moderate Democrat). Thus, after exposure to her, it is hard to see any non-extremist Democrats sticking with her, so you can expect her persuadables to abandon her en masse as they realize that Clinton and Trump are so close that they will realize what the consequences of voting for Stein will actually be, and will return to Clinton as unenthusiastic Clinton voters. It’s also hard to see any of Stein’s people switching to Trump or even Johnson.

Likely Stein losses: -1.33% to Clinton

How Stein could gain support

Perhaps there is a slight chance that liberal Johnson voters will realize how conservative Johnson actually is on many issues and switch to Johnson as a second Clinton alternative, but I am skeptical of this, as any liberal supporting Johnson are not particularly aware or informed people to begin with, and the Bernie Bros won’t likely support a woman over a man.

Likely Stein gains: none

Net -1.33% loss down to 2.66%

Likely final scenario after persuadables settle: so base levels of support if things continue as they have been will probably boil down to a poll showing about 45% Clinton, 43% Trump, 6% Johnson, and 2-3% Stein: a slight edge for Clinton over Trump and diminished support for third party candidates that benefits Clinton. 

The real question will be how the undecideds will break…

Conclusion: Those Pesky Undecideds Could Decide the Election

You may have noticed that I avoided discussing the undecideds. That’s because as to undecideds, damned if I know. If Trump’s year of outrages aren’t enough to make him a clear non-choice to the remaining 4.5% or so of undecideds, I do not pretend to understand the psychology of such a person who looks at both Trump and Clinton and finds that a difficult choice to make. They could split evenly or go 2/3-1/3 or go almost all to one candidate or another. Perhaps some are torn between Stein and Clinton and Trump and Johnson, and I would think that fear of the other side (liberal/vs conservative) would drive those people towards the two major party candidates. Maybe some conservatives in particular who hate Trump so much but don’t like Clinton either will stay with Johnson. The Republican I-hate-Trump-but-not-enough-to-vote-Clinton-vote is a lock for Johnson, and that group is likely larger than the Democratic I-hate-Clinton-but-not-enough-to-vote-Trump that will be Stein’s core. This is not difficult to comprehend, even as it is also not too difficult to condemn.

But I honestly cannot fathom the mentality or even the existence of people who are unable to choose between Trump and Clinton. I can easily picture the ignorance—willful or otherwise—and/or hate that motivates people to vote for Trump because I have encountered that hate and ignorance far too often in human, corporeal form, and I can easily picture the idealistic pragmatism that animates the most passionate of Clinton supporters because in that, I am talking about myself; likewise, I can picture the liberals who dislike or even hate Clinton but who are voting for her anyway, because they care about still advancing a liberal agenda and because Trump; I can picture the moderate Republican veteran who sees Trump as wholly unfit to be Commander in Chief voting Clinton; I can picture conservatives obsessed with the size of government and young Bernie Bros voting Johnson, and I can picture the far-lefties voting Stein; I can’t for the life of me picture the person who is undecided between Trump and Clinton. And I make no predictions regarding how they will break, and I can’t make any predictions about if the undecideds are torn between Clinton and Trump or one of them and a third party candidate; it’s just one big giant mystery.

And an even bigger mystery is how they will view, and react to, the debates.

One thing I will say is that if my analysis is even close, Trump will have to win significantly more undecideds to beat Clinton and can’t afford to split them. And again, this analysis depends on a trajectory that continues as is without any big surprises in the homestretch.

Blue Nation Review

And if we’re trying to gauge what could be game changers for any voters, that’s where the debates come in. They’re pretty much the only things left aside from wild-cards that have the potential to change anyone’s votes. The VP debate will probably give Trump’s ticket a slight bump because Mike Pence is like every president in every B movie you can think of: bland, boring, but projecting strength; Kaine will almost certainly make better arguments, but his warm-fuzzy goofiness and sensitivity are not going to look presidential at all next to Pence or reassure undecideds. Though Kaine is brilliant and will no doubt perform very well, it is hard to see him win the optics battle next to a guy straight out of B-movie casting for the role of president. But then we can expect to see Trump continue to disappoint in the following debates, negating that bump. And we will still be stuck with trying to guess how very strange, indecisive people who seem to have to really mentally wrestle with whether to vote Clinton or Trump despite both candidate’s ubiquitous presence on any and all forms of media for month after month after month. With it almost impossible to guess how these undecideds will vote, the election is still up for grabs, though we can give Clinton an edge.

Between Brexit and the defeat of the Colombian/FARC peace deal at the hands of Colombian voters, we must make sure we who actually know what’s at stake get out and vote and to annoy our less mature friends to do the right thing. Democracy can be unpredictable, and can also be a scary thing, too; let’s make sure it isn’t this November.

If you appreciate Brian’s unique content, you can support him and his work by donating here. 

Feel free to share and repost this article on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981), and here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content, or would like to have Brian generate content for you, your site, or your organization, please do not hesitate to reach out to him!

  Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse September 26, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) September 26th, 2016 (Edited/updated slightly September 27th)

Getty Images/Reuters/NY Post

AMMAN — This is too close for comfort, people. And it’s important to understand why. Here are ten reasons why what some call the “Trumpocalypse” is a real serious possibility, one with about the same odds of happening as Hillary saving America, Western civilization, and the world from a President Trump. Any exaggeration in the preceding sentence is slight, if it exists at all, I’m sorry to say.

1.)   This Isn’t like 2012. Or any other year, for that matter; the past cannot provide comfort

Numerous times I’ve experienced liberals who are confident saying “This is just like when it was close with Mitt Romney and Obama. We’re going to win.” Or pointing to this trend or that swing from another election year. This boggles my mind because I thought one of the most obvious—even omnipresent—themes from this year’s election is so much being so unpredictable and so unprecedented. Republicans had 17 candidates running for president, nearly all of whom were better qualified than Trump. And Trump won. A declared “democratic socialist” won about 4 in 10 votes in the Democratic contest. So, please, don’t tell me not to worry because X happened in X past election. This year, the rulebook seems to have been thrown onto a bonfire of the vanities. Obviously, this is because of Trump (and the people backing him) more than anything else, and he seems to pay no long-term prices for his many gaffes and scandals and outrages.

2.)   Republican voters really are a mob and “principled” Republicans actually willing to stand against Trump on principle are a nearly extinct species

I will be giving myself credit, and then say what I got wrong. In August 2015, I was one of the only non-pro-Trump people to recognize Trump’s potential to win the nomination and that important factors favored his chances of doing so. But at the time I predicted he would be a disaster as a general election candidate; that is still possible, but seems very unlikely now; what seems more likely is that it will be very close either way.

How did I get this wrong? I put too much emphasis on “The Republican Establishment” and assumed it actually represented more people in the party than it actually did. One of the reasons both Mitt Romney and John McCain lost is that, unlike George W. Bush, both were relatively unliked by Republican voters for being too moderate. But in both 2008 and 2012, a number of Christian conservatives split the base votes in favor of one main moderate “Establishment” candidate. The “Establishment” elites in backed McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2004, both of whom during important early stretches only won a plurality and not a majority of GOP voters. In 2008, John McCain only won 3 of 7 contests in January, failing to even reach 40% of the vote in any contest, and on that year’s Super Tuesday on February 5th, out of 20 contests McCain only won over 50% of the votes in 3 even though he won 9 contests overall. Then in 2012, Mitt Romney won 2 of 4 contests in January, but did not win a majority of votes in either and won less than 40% in one; for all of February, he won less than half the vote in every contest save one in Nevada, where he won 50.1% of the vote, even though he won 4 out of 6 contests. In both situations, other candidates divided votes that went towards less moderate, less “Establishment”-backed candidates so that solid chances to derail both McCain and Romney and allow a single other candidate to gain clear momentum early in the campaign were lost. Conversely, there were so many candidates in 2016 that were “Establishment”-oriented and moderate that the dynamic worked somewhat in reverse, so that even after the first Super Tuesday in March, such candidates has only won a single state (Rubio in Minnesota), and the rest went to Trump and Cruz, two solidly anti-“Establishment” candidates, with Kasich being the only other candidate to win one of the fifty states, his home state of Ohio.

What I and I think many others thought is that “Well, that crazy base Republican was beaten in 2008 and 2012, and while they weren’t enthusiastic about their candidates, the more typical and moderate Republicans who voted in the general election but not the primaries were more solidly behind McCain and Romney.” What 2016 has taught us is that there are very few “typical moderate” Republicans in any meaningful sense, because such people would not be supporting Trump; I had not realized how far gone the vast majority of Republican voters are down the rabbit hole; the Kasich-Kristol-National Review-wing of the Republican Party is only a tiny fraction of the Party overall and has little sway with Republican voters in general. Sure, when the “Establishment” candidates won in 2008 and 2012, most rank-and-file Republicans had no problem supporting them over Obama but did not do so enthusiastically; yet the assumption that many Republican being rational and principled and unable to support Trump was always a myth, as Trump’s numbers now mean that he has pretty much all Republicans in his camp. The public intellectuals, commentators, and national security professionals who are Republicans and speaking out against Trump are merely a detached intelligentsia who influence the small group of elites like them and, clearly, virtually no other Republicans. I have lost track of the specific items of behavior that should have cost Trump a significant number of Republican voters—from disparaging both John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War and a reporter for being disabled to talking about his penis at a presidential debate to seeming to instigate both violence (repeatedly) and Russian hacking against Clinton—but as we approach Election Day, that support has only increased and is at comparable levels to Clinton’s support among Democrats. In fact, Trump’s behavior has in no way disqualified him from receiving support within his party comparable to levels of what other recent Republican nominees have enjoyed.

In other words, I foolishly believed that enough Republicans would be better people than to be able to support Trump. But if anything, enthusiasm is higher for Trump than Clinton. Granted, I didn’t expect this number of Republicans to be large (and knew it didn’t need to be that large to still make a big dent in Trump’s support level), but it’s pretty much nonexistent relative to other candidates, and thus, the race is basically a dead heat.

3.)   Millennials

Much has been written of Millennials’s lack of support for Clinton. It’s not a fading thing: it dogged Clinton all through the primaries and it’s still a major problem six weeks before Election Day. Echoes of Brexit—when an outcome that a vast majority of Millennials in the UK did not desire and that has drastically negative long-term consequence occurred because Millennials pathetically couldn’t motivate themselves to get out and vote—can be heard now in America, with not only worries about whether or not Millennials will turn out and votebut worries about who they will vote for even if they do turn out. Clinton’s relatively and notably strong weakness with Millennials compared to Obama is evident across all ethnic, racial, and gender groups, including with African-Americans and women. It’s not that they support Trump more, it’s that they often tend to support other third-party candidates or seem less likely to vote for Clinton or vote at all: polls tend to show Clinton’s support among Millennials from being close to significantly behind the combined Johnson-Stein vote, and the trendline for Clintons’ Millennial support is (mostly) moving down. 

In a close election, Millennials are a key part of the Obama coalition that Clinton cannot afford to do without. But perhaps even most frustratingly, such behavior on the part of Millennials is something the country and especially they themselves cannot afford. In the words of New York Times columnist Charles Blow, “As Bernie Sanders himself said last week: “This is not the time for a protest vote.” Protest voting or not voting at all isn’t principled. It’s dumb, and childish, and self-immolating. I know you’re young, but grow up!” James Kirchick, writing for The Daily Beast, echoes a similar sentiment: “…[M]illennial opposition to Clinton and the attendant blitheness toward the prospect of a Trump presidency…[can] best [be] described as a mix of moral relativism, historical ignorance, and narcissism.” However, some good news below…

4.)   Sanders Supporters

There is a lot of overlap here with the Millennials section above, but here, we must ask why so many Millennials think of Clinton as a soulless hack, the epitome both of corruption and a selfish “Establishment,” and a “warmonger.” Where, you ask, did they get such an impression? Easily more than any other source, the answer is Bernie Sanders. I have laid all this outin detail in the past, but what is important to note here is that before Sanders began his presidential campaign, this narrative of Clinton was basically nonexistent. Then he repeated it over, and over, and over, and over, and over again at every rally over many months, skillfully blaming Clinton for an entire system implicitly at first with a guilt-by-association campaign, then progressing to letting surrogates do his dirty work and not reigning them in, then becoming more direct, even to the degree of whipping up crowds into a frenzy and pausing to let them boo Clinton and the Democratic Party, thus creating an atmosphere of hatred of Clinton (as evidenced by many signs and just listening to Sanders supporters talk about her at rallies) that culminated in a mini-riot at the Nevada Democratic State Convention in May that I dubbed a mainly non-violent form of political terrorism. Now, is it any wonder, after claiming before that the contest was “rigged” against him and implying that Clinton was a monster, that many of his backers didn’t still don’t support her, despite his endorsement? 

Of course, many of the earlier discussed Millennials are Sanders supporters, as he was wildly popular with the younger crowd. 

As for that good news: just yesterday, an Economist/YouGov poll was released that showed a dramatic increase in a key stat: 70% of Sanders supporters were now saying they would support Clinton, up from 57% a week ago, which was up from 52% in a poll released on the 15th. The new poll also saw Trump’s support from Sanders supporters increase to 13% from 12%, which was 15% before that, while Stein’s support shrank dramatically to 6% from 11%, which had been 13% before that; as for Johnson, his support dropped dramatically as well, to 4% of Sanders supporters, down from 9% in the previous two surveys. This is welcome news, but is just one pollster’s group of polls and its findings do not seem to fit in the larger patterns that now have the race virtually tied. And despite the increases in these examples, they still show 3 out of 10 Sanders supporters are not backing Clinton, and when factoring in the fact that 13% of them are saying they will support Trump, Clinton is left with a net level of support of only 57% of Sanders supporters over Trump. These specific Economist/YouGov polls notwithstanding, Sanders supporters and Millennials, two groups with huge overlap, are groups Clinton needs to really focus on in the final weeks of her campaign in order to ensure a victory in November.

5.)   Dr. Stein and Gov. Johnson

In most polls, when third-party candidates are factored in, Clinton does worse than when the same poll shows just Clinton and Trump, the clear conclusion is that the two third-party candidates are taking more votes from Clinton than from Trump. When this trend first became clear, it was shocking: obviously the far leftist Stein would be taking virtually all her support from the left, but Johnson has between two and three times as much support as Stein, and he, as a L/libertarian, would be expected to be drawing more support from the right, and yet, the net advantage has been to Trump, meaning Johnson has a considerable portion of his support—roughly half—coming from the left. Since Johnson is “cool,” very independent-minded, very anti-foreign intervention, and very pro-weed, this means he is taking vital votes away from young Millennials all over the country and in key battleground states where marijuana is very popular, especially Colorado but also Michigan, Nevada, surprisingly-close Maine, and New Hampshire; New Hampshire and Nevada are also two of the states with the most libertarian support, and Colorado is also in the top third; in all five states, Johnson’s polling average is 8% or higher, and in New Hampshire, Colorado, and Maine, it’s above 10%; this is all in five states where the polling average gap between Trump and Clinton is 0.2% to 5.4% (and we did not even get into Stein). In other words, there is a very real chance that Johnson and Stein being on the ballot will end up covering the difference if Clinton loses any of these states even when just factoring in their liberal support (according to FiveThirtyEight, she’s currently favored in Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine—which is one of two states that does not award all the electoral votes to the statewide winner but splits some of its electoral votes based on Congressional district, with Trump up in one district and likely to get 1 of Maine’s 4 Electoral College votes because of that—and is favored slightly in Colorado, but is slightly behind in Nevada; Trump has recently closed the gap in the other four, as well). If she loses any of the states where she is favored and Trump holds onto every state in which he is favored, Clinton loses…

The situation of a third-party candidate acting as a spoiler is not merely hypothetical: in 2000, liberal Ralph Nader voters could easily have put Gore in the White House instead of Bush; Bush won Florida by 537 votes, and Nader got almost 100,000 there; in New Hampshire, Bush won by 7,211 votes, where Nader got over 22,000 votes; exit polls told us that if Nader had stayed out of the race, 47% of his votes would have gone to Gore and only 21 percent to Bush. Objectively, then, Nader and his voters cost Gore the presidency, and a similar situation could be giving us a President Trump in a few weeks.

Before Nader, the last time a third-party was a spolier was when Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party run cost Republicans the presidency in the election of 1912.

6.)   Clinton isn’t Obama

Obama was an exceptionally charismatic candidate and came into the public eye with barely a hint of scandal (in part because he was so new). Hillary Clinton simply doesn’t have the same personality and charisma as Obama. Two points here: first, I would hope liberals/Millennials can energize themselves to vote on critical issues concerning our future without needing to have someone with an exceptionally charismatic personality as a candidate. I’ve had it with liberals not supporting the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry who may not have been “cool” but who would have been great presidents and would have spared us the human disaster that was George W. Bush (although if we have a President Trump I will imagine that I will recall the Bush years fondly) had younger voters then been able to put aside “cool” and focus on substance. But especially with liberal Millennials now, I am not sure we can trust them to do their fair share in this election or over time without the dangling of shiny new objects in front of their faces; Clinton is like the perfectly functioning and incredibly useful iPhone that just happens to have the misfortune of being two or even three versions old; there is very little difference between it and newer models, but it’s not the cool-thingy-of-the-moment, and therefore earns something between indifference and scorn from the typical Millennial liberal. It’s more about an individual and their personality that supporting a political party over time. In fact, when it comes to their politics, Millennials are pretty political party averse: about half identify as independents (hence they came out to vote for Obama twice, but voted in significantly lower proportions in both the 2010 and 2014 midterms, helping to give rise to the Tea Party and contributing to the inability of Obama and Democrats to enact key parts of a liberal agenda. The above factors are big parts of the reason why Trump is now competitive and basically even with Clinton.

Second point, related to the iPhone analogy: I would hope liberal Millennials can realize that the iPhone Hillary is much like the iPhone Barack, for even without the cooler design of the iPhone Barack, they are almost the same in many substantive ways; in other words, that Clinton is essentially running for a third Obama term but has a big gap between the level of support he enjoyed and that she is enjoying now is mainly due to a combination of one of three things: 1.) she’s not (as?) cool, 2.) she’s a woman (black men voted before women in America, and we had a black man as president before a woman), so “HELLO, sexism!”, and 3.) negative recent branding of Clinton by her former rival, Bernie Sanders, and by her current and decades-long-enemies, the Republicans. In the end, there IS SO MUCH MORE IN COMMON between Clinton and Obama than any differences that exist between them that it is hard explain the gap otherwise. In fact, it is very telling that Obama is still loved by Millennials liberals, but Clinton gets castigated and deemed evil incarnate for Libya and TPP, among other policies, that were actually Obama’s calls to make and more his than her policies because he was president, not her; listening to elements of the angry left’s denunciations of Clinton, you sure wouldn’t know this.

7.)   Ann Selzer, polls, and momentum.

Who, you ask? Only “the best pollster in politics.”  Her outfit just released a poll, conducted September 21st-24th, which has Trump up 2 points (43% to Clinton’s 41%), Stein with 4% of the vote, Johnson with 8%, and 2% of voters saying “don’t want to tell,” which sounds an awful lot like embarrassed Trump voters to me; the last poll her group conducted had Clinton up 4% (44% to Trump’s 40%), with the same 4% for Stein and Johnson at 9%, meaning their latest poll had Trump up 3 points and Clinton down 3 points from the last one. Oh, and the averages of all the other polling shows a tightening of the race both nationally and in key battleground states. At a time when it would be great for this to not be happening. Trump is gaining support, and Clinton losing support, with only weeks to go and just as the debates are starting.

No pressure Hillary.

8.)   Trump has spent very little money relative to Clinton

Since mid-June, Clinton has outspent Trump more than 5-to-1 ($109.4 million to $18.7 million) on television ads through September 13th and has spent far less than any major-party candidate since at least 2008. The fact that they are basically tied in light of this info is, frankly, terrifying and terrifyingly efficient.

If that isn’t bad enough, Trump’s campaign just announced it will spend $100 million in TV and $40 million in digital ads between now and the election. Imagine the potential difference that could make… and imagine if the billionaire decides to throw a lot more of his own money in as a surprise right before the end…

9.)   The major media outlets have generally done a terrible job covering this election

A whole article can (and will be) written about this, but we should briefly look at the dynamics behind how bad the coverage has been and how important the media is in shaping this race. It basically boils down to this: Trump has so much baggage and spews so many lies and misstatements that the media barely scratches the surface of them before it decides to move onto something else without properly revisiting what it had started exploring, but spends an inordinately disproportionate amount of time going over every little detail of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails/server (since that is basically all that can compete with the scandals on Trump’s side) and yet cannot even provide proper understanding and context for that (which I provided in my last article); there were even times that it seemed the news cycle contained nothing else about Clinton other than her news scandal, not her policies, not her ideas, not anything else, except maybe her falling favorability/trustworthiness numbers. The same can be said for the lazy, facile coverage of the Clinton Foundation arising from content in certain e-mails of Clinton and her staff, content that was anything but scandalous, yet you wouldn’t know this from the coverage. This has created a dangerous false equivalence in the coverage of Clinton and Trump, with the New York Times’ Paul Krugman noting a similar dynamic helped to destroy Al Gore’s candidacy in 2000. As for Trump, I myself wrote an in-depth article on his and his associates’ ties to Russia, making several connections before any major media outlet made them; there is no way that I should have been the one to do this, and not a major paper (but I’ll take it as a freelancer!); this is just one example of the general lack of proper coverage of Trump.

The end result has been that Trump is now more trusted than Clinton, as many Americans are getting a distorted view of Clinton and one that makes her seem in many ways to be on the same level as Trump, where people just seem to shrug off his scandals in part because there has been too little of a focus on really digging deeper, following up on unanswered questions, and getting the full, complete picture. In many ways, the damage is done and attempts at self-correction (some just starting) may very well be too late.

10.)  Americans are stupid

Rationality dictates that Clinton would have a sizeable lead. But we are not a rational country. It’s so glaringly obvious to the rest of the world, which is also increasingly irrational. I seriously have no idea how people will react, decide, or change their mind between now and the election because any rational person would choose Clinton and I do not know if we have more rational than irrational people. I hope we do, but for now, about 6 in 10 voters are saying they will vote for Trump, Johnson, or Stein. I’m not going to cite anything to show how stupid we are a nation; rather, I’ll let you, dear readers, engage in the mental exercise of looking up how bad our public education system is, how ignorant people are about basic history and geography, how crazy are some of the beliefs Americans have (like evolution and climate change), how many people believe in debunked conspiracy theories, and any other number of other topics.

Democracy may be failing in places like the EU, Turkey, Israel, India, & Russia as right-wing, racist, and/or xenophobic demagogues, from Modi to Netanyahu, from Le Pen to Erdoğan gain power, but far be it for the U.S. to be a spectator: it’s trying as hard as it can to follow suit, embrace hatred and irrationality and tribalism as well as groups in Syria, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, just in less violent ways. But such tribalism almost invariably leads to violence, and we are seeing racial unrest and disturbances not seen in a generation in America. If Trump wins, these fault lines can be expected to be the location of earthquakes.

*****

On top of all this, there’s always the room for late-game surprises: terrorist attacks could increase a climate of fear to favor a candidate presenting himself as a strong-man—like Trump is—and push the country to the right as has happened in Europe, Turkey, and Israel; even non-terrorist mass shootings may do more to contribute to fears about security more than add to any support for gun control; there’s also room for one or two bad jobs reports between now and the election, something which would cause the voters to blame Democratic Party of Obama, the sitting president, and of Clinton. Then there’s the promised “October surprise” coming from Julian Assange of Wikileaks, one which will release more Clinton-related hacked files and be sure to keep that topic in the limelight in the final days of the election contest…

And let’s not forget the possibility of Russia hacking our election to put try to put Trump in the White House…

And even amid the litany of well-documented lies and distortions coming from Trump of just the past week, the voters are moving slightly towards him and slightly away from Clinton. Some of these people are liberals who are ignoring political reality and suffer from any of a series of personality syndromes and have no business voting for anyone but Clinton when she is running against Trump. Well, one thing which hasn’t changed this cycle compared with others in the key final months: the left is still great at shooting itself in the foot while the right is making sure to be unified. Do I think Trump will win? I can’t say yes, but I can’t say no either. I feel ever so slightly more confident that Clinton will win instead of Trump, but now that is only by the faintest of margins and accompanied with a sense of dread. Whatever the outcome, shame on America and American voters that it was ever as close as it is now, that someone like Trump can get this far in our political system. 

Even if Clinton wins, we are a country with serious problems and will be an extremely divided nation. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote with perhaps millions of liberals voting with Johnson and Stein, outnumbering conservatives who vote Johnson, even as they are not enough to swing the Electoral College to Trump. It would be a kind of revenge for 2000, but one that at this point in time could really damage the credibility of the system in eyes of voters and greatly harm the ability of Clinton to govern or the government in general to function. I would be shocked if Republicans didn’t try to impeach Clinton on the “scandals” of Benghazi and her e-mails; like the last time a Clinton was impeached, the case will be ridiculous and the motives will be almost entirely political. No matter who wins, it will be difficult, but no question will America still be far better off with Clinton than with Trump. 

But on those hypotheticals another time…

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The entire series of disturbing events surrounding the Democratic Party’s state convention in Nevada, discussed in Part I, provides excellent insight into the condition I am labeling Sanders Derangement Syndrome. Weeks away from their national convention in Philadelphia, Democrats are right to worry about Sanders and his supporters: their willingness to use low-level violence and threats of disruption as political terrorism is both insidious and unacceptable, in addition to being incompatible with American political values and democracy. A detailed exploration here in Part II of just what Sanders Derangement Syndrome is will shed light on just how serious a threat it is to American democracy, a serious threat overshadowed and not given appropriate attention because of the larger spectacle of the Trump phenomenon.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse June 20, 2016 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) June 20th, 2016

AP

JERUSALEM — Having seen a full-range display from the Sanders campaign recently in a number of telling ways, and, specifically, having gone through in detail the events surrounding the Nevada Democratic Party’s state convention controversies, we can now describe how the whole Nevada situation is an excellent prism through which to understand Sanders, his campaign, and his supporters on a more general level. Specifically, this means we can break down the very real phenomenon I am labeling Sanders Derangement Syndrome.

If there’s one thing that I am learning during this election cycle, it is that in many ways the far-left and the far-right do not “cancel each other out,” they simply both make things much worse in their own, sometimes similar, ways and can even feed off of each other, much like Hamas and Likud and other like-minded non-moderates feed off of each other in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sanders and the Rise of the Tea Party of the Left

There were times during the Bush years and some of the Obama years when I really questioned whether Democrats had any spine, and I even considered registering as an independent a few times. But with the rise of the Tea Party, I increasingly grew proud to call myself a Democrat because of the Republican Party’s descent into extreme irrationality and silliness and the Democrats’ refusal to follow suit, with my party choosing rationality and compromise over hostility to facts and favoring results over “principles”.

But now I look at Sanders and his Sandernistas, and I have become horrified: they truly have become our own version of the Tea Party, cocooned in an alternative reality of “alternative” “news” media outlets like AlterNet.org, Salon.com, and USuncut (among others) that constantly praise Bernie Sanders as the second coming and political Messiah for America, preventing the permeation of much of anything that does not fit their worldview or agenda; such outlets constantly demonize Hillary Clinton and moderates in the most extreme manner while buoying false hopes and delusional expectations. Wrapped snug as babies in this blanket of generally one-sided coverage, Sanders supporters have become hostile to facts, context, and nuance; they are brimming with anger and ideology at the expense of being level-headed and exhibiting any shred of practicality, and are determined to push their views without compromise and to both “Bern” the system in the hopes of a clean start and “Bern” those with whom they disagree as punishment for holding different views.

This type of nonsense brought the Republican Party to the brink of self-destruction this spring, helped to bring about the rise of Donald Trump and see to his successful hostile hijacking of the Party “Establishment” and apparatus, and history shows us that the Tea Party may have cost Republicans control of the Senate and may have been a deciding factor in Romney’s 2012 defeat at the hands of Obama. I tremble for the damage this type of nonsense might do to the Democratic Party. I am a proud Democrat today in part because I am so proud of Democrats’ pragmatism, respect for data and context, and willingness to compromise; the Sandinista wing of the Democratic Party rejects all of this. Furthermore, Sanders and his people are engaging in a series of behaviors that are dangerous for the health of democracy. And all this and much more was on display throughout the Nevada state convention drama, which is fully emblematic of Sanders, his campaign, and his supporters.

Sanders Derangement Syndrome 

Specifically, we have the clear symptoms of Sanders Derangement Syndrome:

1.) Sanders and his fans exhibit blatant hypocrisy:

a.) Bernie and his supporters claim to be champions of democracy, but have no problems favoring undemocratic means when it suits them

Just to recap what we discussed in Part I: Clinton won Nevada by over 5%, and Sanders supporters didn’t have any problem disenfranchising the voters of Clark County (home of Las Vegas and most of the state’s delegates) when Clinton’s supporters failed to organize at the subsequent county convention, giving Sanders more state delegates from there going to the state convention even though Clinton won the county by almost 10 percentage points. Some Sanders supporters happily talked about their (mistaken) prospects of being able to win the state in defiance of the voters. In the same vein, Sanders has been complaining about the undemocratic nature of superdelegates for months, but now has no problem courting them to pick him and overturn the clear majority of voters, who have favored Clinton over Sanders by a margin of about three million votes as of May 19th no matter how you calculate it (and even if superdelegates were allocated proportionately to the votes, he’d still be losing by a lot). 

And while Bernie is happy to complain about superdelegates and closed primaries (primaries where, e.g., only Democrats can vote in a Democratic primary), he has said precious little about caucuses, which are abominations of democracy that involve public peer pressure, favor the passionate and outspoken, and discriminate against the working class, producing a result that generally does not actually represent the will of voters statewide like primaries do. As a case in point, the Washington State caucuses produced a Bernie win over Hillary, 74% to 27%, with 230,000 participants, which was the basis for how the state awarded its delegates; in a nonbinding primary, Clinton won over Sanders, roughly 52%-47%, with over 800,000 participants, and that contest was obviously a better representation of the will of the people, with people being able to vote all day, quickly, and privately, and with far, far more people voting. Likewise in Nebraska, where Sanders won 57%-43% with about 33,000 participants in that state’s caucus, and which was the basis for the state awarding its delegates; in the non-binding state primary, Clinton won 53% to 47% with over 80,000 participants. It’s pretty easy to see why Sanders is so quiet on caucuses: like most politicians, he’s pretty mum on things that benefit him (note to Sanders supporters: this is something that particularly irks non-Sanders supporters since his mantra is basically “I’m a holier-than-thou political white knight, not like other politicians!”). In fact, mostly because of caucuses favoring passionate Bernie-supporting-types, being less democratic, and having far lower voter turnout than primaries, Sanders has earned many more delegates than he would have otherwise and more delegates than the percent of the vote he has won, rending laughable the claim that the overall system is “rigged” against him.

b.) Sanders and his supporters condemn most other politicians and their tactics, but then copy those tactics when such tactics are convenient for them 

I know there is some overlap here from part a.), but we can point to when Clinton’s campaign outorganized the Sanders people at the state convention, after the Sanders people outorganized the Clinton people at the Clark County convention; yet even as Sandernistas did not even give pause to the idea that they had won more delegates out of organization than they should have won based on the caucus votes, they went into a holy rage when they were outorganized in turn and lost that advantage at the state convention even though that restored things to what the will of the voters had initially set. The issue with superdelegates, as explained above, reflects the same principle. 

Another reflection of this principle involves how Sanders criticized Clinton’s votes and positions as pretty much black-and-white, right and wrong, on anything from Iraq to the TPP; but when Sanders is attacked for his record of not being as tough on guns as he could be, he expects people to take into account that Vermont is a rural state; in other words, he is saying “My controversial positions deserve a nuanced understanding, but Clinton’s do not.” Sanders was also quick to condemn Trump for violence at Trump’s rallies, but then hypocritically issued the statement he issued in response to his own supporters’ actions in Nevada that I discussed in Part I absolving himself and his campaign. He claims that his is a campaign of high-minded principles that will avoid personal attacks, but constantly engages in indirect personal attacks on Clinton’s character and credibility by association and implication and is more than content to let his surrogates and supporters do his dirty work, rarely reigning them in. 

In other words, while Sanders claims to transcend politics, he’s still a politician who’s pretty good at politics and is quite capable of giving unfair jabs and engaging in distortions, just like many other “Establishment” politicians he criticizes.

2.) Sanders supporters are obsessed with absurd conspiracy theories that they think specifically target them and their candidate: “The Whole World Is Against Us!” (or, “Losing Is Never Bernie’s fault!”)

During the Obama years, much of the right could (and still can) be characterized by an insane sense of perpetual victimhood, that they were the victims of massive conspiracies and everybody and everything was out to get them. This was one of the great contrasts between the Republicans and the Democrats: the mainstream left generally avoided such paranoid, conspiratorial mentalities. In part thanks to Sanders and his supporters, as well as a rising culture of highlighting “microaggression,” the left is now catching up rapidly to the right. I’ve been proud for some time that the right was a bunch of whiny people with an overinflated sense of victimhood and that my left presented a real contrast to this. It’s now much harder for me to say that today (not that there aren’t many Americans, particularly minorities, that are entitled to a real sense of victimhood because of very real and present grievances, but white college-attending/graduate Millennials—a very large portion of Bernie’s base—are generally not among American society’s greatest victims).

But how you fight these battles, and what you choose to fight over, is important and says a lot about you and your crowd. And I’m very sorry to say that Sanders and his Sandernistas are at the very forefront of helping the left close the gap with the right with their own growing hyperbolic outrage on often questionable or relatively tangential issues/incidents, if it hasn’t already. As I’ve noted before, Sanders and his supporters constantly explain in nearly identical, hackneyed responses that all setbacks and defeats are a conspiracy against them, the effort of the “Establishment” media/political elites; they claim thinking people only support Sanders, and everyone else has been brainwashed; it’s up for Sanders and his supporters’ missionary zeal to convert the stupid heathens and “Bernie-splain” the truth to them, including Republicans, who will be with Bernie once they see the light. And in his effort to campaign on a sense of perpetual, partly-imaginary victimhood, he resembles all-too-much one Donald J. Trump. Sanders and his supporters constantly feel as if they are unfairly treated when, in fact, they are often treated with a lot more tolerance and their candidate treated much more gently by Clinton, her campaign, the Democratic Party, and the media than they realize; if anything, “the system” has demonstrably given Sanders a relative advantage with its many caucuses in states demographically favorable to him that skewed delegates even more towards him and with a calendar that started with states like Iowa and New Hampshire that were also very favorable to him. 

Yet in Nevada, Sanders superdelegate Erin Bilbray was quick to level wild charges of “disenfranchisement” when the state Party chief Roberta Lange calmly swatted such a conspiratorial accusation away, noting that it was the Sanders camp’s own disorganization, lack of long-term planning, and inability to effectively engage existing avenues and persuade enough people that were the reasons they were not seeing the outcome they had desired. But for far too many Sandernistas, everything that happened in Nevada is “proof” of a massive “conspiracy” and they, personally, are victims of “the Establishment.”

3.) Sanders and his supporters can’t even entertain the idea that they don’t represent most Americans despite mountains of evidence that they don’t 

It seems as if they are almost incapable of conceiving that they just don’t have a message and a candidate that is as appealing as Clinton’s and that most Americans, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics by incredibly wide margins, prefer Hillary Clinton and have entirely reasonable and data-backed foundations for concluding that Clinton is a more capable leader with a more accomplishable agenda and a more effective plan for implementing it, thus making her a leader that will help them and the country much more than Sanders and his incredibly idealistic platform and approaches that are far less likely to succeed; it doesn’t occur to Sandernistas that most Americans are not receptive to an informed understanding of Sanders and his agenda and methods, and that by far most Democrats by a margin of millions simply prefer her to him and not because they are brainwashed (if anything, Clinton supporters have a much more nuanced and data-driven mentality about politics than Sanders supporters). In fact, a major mantra of Sanders and his campaign is that, ispo facto, the more people that turn out to vote, the better it is for Sanders, that Sanders will win with high turnout but Hillary will triumph when there is low turnout; this is demonstrably incorrect (just see my discussion of Washington/Nebraska above as two examples). 

Thus, when Nevada’s state convention awarded two delegates to Clinton that gave her the 20-15 edge over Sanders that reflected the actual caucus numbers and the initial projection based on those numbers, Bernie Bros and Bernie Sistahs howled at the unacceptable idea that somehow they did not come out on top. They “feel” they are the majority and “the will of the people” even without any serious numbers or evidence to prove this.

In reality, there is no mass Bernie Sanders “movement,” just a common coalition of the leftist opposition within the left that is challenging the more centrist and mainstream Democratic Party, a coalition that rises here and there in various election cycles, “from George McGovern to Jerry Brown to Bill Bradley to Howard Dean,” even if this one is more to left and exceeded expectations.

4.) Sanders and his supporters have a wildly inflated view of their self-importance and self-entitlement, and partly as a result his supporters take political disagreements in a deeply personal way that leads to deeply personal attacks as a response 

Sanders supporters really tend to take everything very personally; they feel that they are victims (one wonders how so many young voters who haven’t lived long enough to generally have experienced too much hardship, that are participating in all this as part of a cozy-college-existence extracurricular social activity, feel so deeply aggrieved), feel personally hurt by reasonable criticism of Sanders, take it as a personal insult when you challenge anything about their worldview, and respond with personal attacks, harassment, and vicious insults to almost any challenge or criticism directed at them or their candidate; for Bernie supporters, it’s all about them, their feelings, what they want, their issues, to the exclusion of any others(’). And for Bernie, it’s all about his candidacy; he clearly feels entitled to force his agenda on a Democratic Party and Democratic voters even though a majority supported a different candidacy, with different ideas and a different approach, just as his supporters feel perfectly entitled to force their candidate and agenda on a majority of voters who picked Clinton and her agenda, Nevada just being one salient example.

Another important point to make is that Sanders was not even a Democrat when the year 2015 began, and he was proud of the fact that for years he was not part of the Democratic Party as an independent (small “d”) democratic socialist, having actively campaigned against Democrats repeatedly. And most of Sanders supporters come from voters who are not actually Democrats, but left-leaning independents: from many exit polls, it’s clear that Clinton won Democrats by about 2-1 throughout the primaries and caucuses, while Sanders won non-Democrats who voted in the Democratic contests (independents and some Republicans) by about the same margin (keep in mind these independents are generally left-leaning to begin with and are not actually representative of true independents who don’t lean right or left, with whom Sanders struggles, and struggles almost equally as much as Clinton). In fact, Sanders only won more Democrats than Clinton in 2 of the 27 states surveyed: his home state of Vermont and neighboring New Hampshire. So Sanders—only a recently-minted Democrat who has generally avoided fundraising for his fellow Democrats—and his non-Democrats feel they are entitled to control the Democratic Party and its direction.  Talk about chutzpah…

That registered Democrats think and feel otherwise is merely inconvenient; because they are Bernie Sanders supporters, and because they know Bernie Sanders is “right,” the majority must be with them. This mentality puts the utmost importance on themselves as individuals, how they feel, what they think; what others think is irrelevant, and the idea that a majority of Americans would dare to disagree is explained away as smokescreens of the political/media “Establishment.” Hence, Sanders supporters get really, really angry when there are voting irregularities (which they term voter “suppression” as if it was directed to benefit Clinton though there is no evidence for such a charge to be leveled), and assume that any irregularities, which are common in elections, are deliberately targeting them and are the difference between victory and defeat. 

For Sanders supporters, it’s all about them, what they think and want, and how fast they want it; other voters with similar views but preferring different methods, and others with dissimilar views, who together clearly outnumber Sandernistas, are not even considered, and ridiculous ideas of bringing people with fundamentally different views on board in matter of months are confidently bandied about, even though there is no such precedent in American history. Sandernistas also arrogantly assume that they are the future of a Democratic party to which many of them are not even really attached in any deep sense. 

Their certainty that they speak for “the people” without even taking time to understand what and how people other than themselves think and feel is unquestionably one of the most off-putting things about Sanders supporters.

The Nevada drama sums this up nicely: at the state convention, Sanders supporters assumed they had a majority of legitimate delegates in the room (they did not) and that it was dirty tricks (it wasn’t) directed at personally disenfranchising them (they weren’t) that made the difference (it wasn’t), that they are so important as to be the object of a mass conspiracy (they aren’t) and they took it so personally and lashed out in such a deeply personal way in response. This particular type of delusional narcissism is rampant throughout Sanders, his campaign, and his supporters.

5). Sanders and his supporters constantly project and feed off of wildly unrealistic expectations on a massively delusional and fantastical level

I’m sorry, but to anyone who’s been paying attention to the details of American politics for the last eight years, if you think there is even a remote chance in the very near future that any of Sanders’ three main policy pillars of his campaign—1.) single-payer government run healthcare for all, 2.) free public college for all, and 3.) a massive tax increase on particularly the wealthy and corporations but also the middle class to pay for the first two pillars—you are simply delusional and peddling and subscribing to fantasy of the sort that only serves to dash hopes and increase cynicism once the inevitable letdown occurs. As I have noted before, America is a conservative country—with 47 out of 50 states with more self-identified conservatives than self-identified liberals—and Bernie keeps talking as if the millions of Americans who outnumber him and his followers simply don’t exist. Expectations that even today in 2016 that a man who puts “(democratic) socialist” proudly before his name actually has a chance in a general election race are also delusional. 

Yet for Sanders supporters, visions of sugarplums danced in their heads along with visions of imminent free college, single-payer health care, massive punitive taxes on the rich, and political revolution, all arm-in-arm with the victorious Bernie Sanders candidacy both in the primaries and in the general election; feeding such expectations is particularly unforgivable on Sanders’ part (especially so late into the primaries), but with his constantly reinforcing these expectations and beliefs among his many enthusiastic followers, one truly wonders how they will cope with or without therapy when the inevitable reality becomes clear even to them. 

When it came to the Nevada convention, Bernie’s campaign had led supporters to believe they could “win” and/or expect to overturn the rules, people, and system in a matter of days and weeks, all while they were a minority; if that’s not the definition of being delusional, I don’t know what is.

6.) Sanders and his supporters subscribe to an extremist narrative and an extremist worldview

If you listen to Sanders and especially his supporters, how warped their vision of the world is becomes ever so clear. Basically, Sanders thinks that the really REALLY bad rich Americans and EVIL Wall Street have bought the “corporate” media and the “Establishment” politicians to serve their interests. He does not allow for the reality that they are, in part, the engine of much of America’s economic success even considering their massive transgressions; he does not say they have too much influence influence or a seat at the table that is too big; rather, the entire system, including the leadership of the Democratic Party, are part of a “corrupt campaign finance system” and a “rigged economy” and a “rigged” party nomination process. The “corporate” media keeps people uninformed and in the dark on all this and if only the media told the truth and if Bernie missionaries were then to make their case to people with fundamentally different beliefs, if only the masses rose and put the wealthiest Americans in their place and limited their ability to corrupt the system with their money, then a clear majority of Americans would support Bernie Sanders, democratic socialism, and Bernie’s policies and methods, which would fix pretty much everything. Other problems like racism would melt away once corruption and the wealthy are curtailed. 

In this view, the primary evils in society are capitalism and the people and institutions who benefit the most from a capitalist system. Only the “alternative” media give Bernie a fair shake. Hillary Clinton is a major force promoting this corrupt system and therefore is a major part of the problem. Using military intervention to stop mass killing is hopeless, and the current domestic system is also hopeless. With Sanders peddling this to his devotees, is it any wonder that many of them think that whenever Sanders loses, foul play and cheating MUST be to blame? That they have no faith in the current system? That there MUST a “corporate” media conspiracy or cover-up, a “Bernie blackout?”  That Hillary deserves to be called SHillary, a warmonger, and far worse? And her supporters also? That there’s “no difference” between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, or Clinton or Trump? That liberal moderates are now somehow exposed as part of the right? 

This view overemphasizes the importance of Wall Street and the wealthy in contributing to America’s problems even as they are clearly far from blameless. This view fails to make basic, obvious distinctions in a self-serving manner. This view makes his supporters think that any outcome which does not result in a Bernie victory is illegitimate, that they and their candidate are perpetual victims in a system rigged against them. This view makes his supporters think that dealing with inequality and corruption is a silver bullet for the rest of America’s woes. And this view fails to acknowledge that very real progress has been made from working within the system, instead making people believe that nothing positive can happen with our public institutions and creating an unrealistically cynical view that breeds further hopelessness and makes it even harder for actual elected leaders to mobilize support for real reforms that can help real people; to put it another way, Bernie turns people off when it comes to the system, the success of which depends on people’s engagement with it, and it creates a cycle of inaction and anger that only leads to worse outcomes and more anger. And all this just feeds further into the hopeless, cynical views that are peddled by Sanders and consumed by his supporters, regardless of reality. As an Atlantic piece notes:

“…anger and frustration are far more likely to create chaos and confusion than they are to facilitate a productive discussion about common goals—like keeping a Republican out of the White House.”

Twitter meme, totals as of late May 

This view also fails to take into consideration that by every metric (and even if the system awarded delegates differently, including if every state held primaries open to independents), Bernie Sanders lost and lost “fair and square,” to use even the words of Bill Maher, a strong Bernie Sanders supporter; it fails to take into account that no matter how just you feel your cause is and how self-righteously you behave, “sometimes you just lose.” Yep, despite flaws, the system worked, awarding the nomination to the candidate with the broadest support and the most votes by far.

Yep, in “Bernieworld,” pretty much every politician is a corrupt hack; the media, wealthy, and corporations control pretty much everything and brainwash everyone; the rich and corporations are what primarily stand in the way of solving our problems; and only a democratic socialist revolution and candidate can save the day, with anything less being meaningless. Such a mentality is not only unhelpful and unproductive, but decidedly dangerous for the health of any democracy, from the ancient Roman Republic to the republic of the United States today. 

And this extremist worldview and mentality is well-illustrated by Bernie’s supporters’ explanations and accusations swirling around Nevada, the DNC, Chairwoman Lange, and Bernie’s own statement on the Nevada state convention.

7.) Sanders and especially his supporters have an incredibly selective intake and total disregard for information that runs counter to their narrative 

Without a doubt, one of the most annoying things about Bernie Sanders and his supporters is that they constantly make their case using arguments that are easily refutable or made far less compelling with information that is easily and readily accessible and hardly in dispute. “Bernie as a socialist has a real chance to win the general election!” (but voters are more likely to vote for a Muslim, a homosexual, a black candidate, a Mormon, or an atheist than a socialist, with the hypothetical socialist earning less support than any other candidate category). “Bernie has relatively high favorable ratings!” (but he is new to the general public and has not been really attacked on many of his biggest weakness by any major candidate or organization, and Republicans are laying off Sanders [Trump is even encouraging him] with hopes that he will weaken Clinton or somehow be the nominee, a situation in which Republicans see a far better chance to win in November). “General election polls show Bernie is the better candidate!” (but polls at this stage are wildly and demonstrably historically inaccurate). “The public is behind big parts of Bernie’s agenda like free college and single-payer healthcare!” (except when members of that public are shown how much their taxes will increase as a result, when support drops dramatically to 17% and 15%, respectively). “Independents love Bernie!” (but only left-leaning independents, not truly middle-of-the-road or conservative ones). “The system is rigged against Bernie!” (except because of caucuses Bernie has more delegates than if those states held far more fair and participatory primaries). “Hillary voted ‘for the Iraq war!’” (she actually voted to authorize the president to use force if necessary, and implicitly as a last resort, to disarm Saddam Hussein of WMD and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions). “Bernie wins most working class voters!” (but only if you completely factor out African-Americans and Latinos, who overwhelmingly support Clinton, and ignore that older white working class voters support her over Sanders, too). The list goes on and on…

Thus, even in a contest in which he lost the caucus vote, in Nevada, Sanders and his supporters were able to whine that they were being robbed, whine about their delegates being disqualified, and accuse the state’s Democratic Party of foul play even though it was Sanders supporters themselves who had failed to organize properly or follow the rules, even though Clinton won the caucus by over 5%, even though Sanders’ own people sent the wrong information to their prospective delegates about deadlines. Of course their complaints and Bernie’s own complaints fail to mention any of these facts, fitting into a clear trend of selectivity and misrepresentation.

Melina Mara/Washington Post via Getty

Conclusion: A Liberal Tea Party Is Still a Tea Party, And Must Still Be Called Out And Fought As One

In the end, then, we have a compelling and clear idea of the symptoms and manifestations of Sanders Derangement Syndrome: a blithe combination of the following characteristics exhibited by Sanders and/or his supporters:

1.) hypocrisy when it comes to democracy, tactics, and politics

2.) a conspiracy-oriented mindset that allows for all manners of explanations for Bernie’s losses other than that he actually lost and was the less appealing candidate

3.) incorrectly assuming that they speak for “the people,” this not being the case being inconceivable to them

4.) a narcissistic sense of self-importance and self-entitlement that helps lead to a vindictive personalization of political discussion

5.) holding onto a set of wildly unrealistic expectations to the extent that Sanders supporters live in an alternate reality

6.) the articulation of an extreme narrative and an extreme worldview

7.) both a strong disregard for and an inability to incorporate facts and context unfavorable to their positions

If this sounds familiar, it should: these are exactly the type of symptoms exhibited on the right by those in the Tea Party. Much like how whatever we would want to call the syndrome that led to the creation of Tea Party spread rapidly like a virus and created a horde of zombies that was dangerous to anything in its proximity, Sandernistas infected with Sanders Derangement Syndrome have descended upon America, the left, and the Democratic Party and are wreaking havoc and damaging all in their path. Ultimately, like with Trump, the responsibility is not as much with the candidate but with the voters themselves but that still does not absolve Sanders of his responsibilities for channeling such an unhelpful and unproductive group of voters and encouraging their worst tendencies.  And with these crowds rising on both the right and the left, the ability of society to discuss its differences is simply deteriorating.

Just like Trump with his fans, these people were not created by Sanders, but he did bring many of them into the political process and looking at both Trump’s and Sanders’ more extreme supporters, the argument that it is always better when more people participate in democracy looks problematic at best; the fringes are better off being on the sidelines than in derailing those who are actually more interested in governing than in making noise and disrupting. It is Sanders more than any other single person, then, who can and must do something to harness these people and their passions in a productive way that thus far he has spectacularly failed to do, and it is doubtful as to whether even he will be able to do so, so extreme and myopic are Sandernistas.

I understand that what I said may be offensive to some, and that I may be ruffling some feathers. But I don’t care; the time for platitudes and pretending obvious problems are not problems is long past, if it ever existed; few people outside the Tea Party would agree that its emergence and the participation of its ranks in politics has been a good thing, and that we weren’t all better off with them stewing in irrelevance. Well, the same is true about how hardcore Sandernistas are viewed outside their own camp. There is no doubt that, rather than releasing a force upon the American body politic that will help advance meaningful and workable reform, Sanders has helped to unleash a force as unhelpful and unproductive as the Tea Party, in style if not so much with some of their intentions and end-goals.

Sanders Derangement Syndrome is a virus that must be treated as an infection, especially since it infects so many young people that could be the future of American politics. Maybe Obama and more practical minority voters are the future, and I hope that this is the case; but if Sanders and the angry white liberal hoi polloi that has so strongly contributed to the breakdown in civility and rationality in the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination contest are the harbinger of things to come, we’re in even more trouble on the left nationally than we have been over the majority of Obama’s presidency. And that thought, even in the year of Trump, is terrifying in its own right.

I have written before about how the ancient Roman Republic shows us how bad precedents, once set, can destroy a democracy from within, and have recently taken great pains to discuss Donald Trump and the precedents he is setting in this context. Without a doubt, Bernie Sanders is a far better human being than Trump and represents far less of a problem than Trump. But that does not mean that Sanders and his supporters have not set some disturbing precedents that must be called out and dealt with in their own right, regardless of the many separate and often more alarming maladies with which Trump has infected our body politic.

For anyone who thinks I am being hyperbolic or paranoid, I point the reader to the Nevada Democratic Party’s state convention and Bernie Sanders’ response to his own supporters disruptions and death threats: it is truly a textbook example of the wider phenomenon I’ve identified as Sanders Derangement Syndrome; combined with the “penchant for extra-parliamentary behavior — indeed, actual violence” his supporters exhibited in Nevada, it’s not unreasonable to view Sandernistas as a serious threat with which one cannot reason. They are indicating they will behave as political terrorists willing to use low-level violence to intimidate the majority whom they could not persuade into granting them concessions they did not and could not earn democratically; with Nevada set up as a potential coming attraction for the Democrats’ national convention taking place in Philadelphia this July, Sanders himself is still vowing to take his fight to the national convention floor, potentially inflicting serious harm on the Clinton campaign and indirectly aiding Trump, the Republicans, and their chances of victory at a time when the fate of Western democracy for the foreseeable future may be at stake.

For years and especially since the so-called “Gingrich Revolution,” the right has falsely caricatured the left as a disruptive angry mob; now that disruptive angry left has finally arrived. Call it whatever you want, but it’s real and it’s here and it is a problem that demands attention; we ignore it at our own and our collective peril, and perhaps why I have been so strident in calling all this out for what it is is because too many others are ignoring this serious problem, distracted by the antics of Trump and his flock, without whom this would be the darkest emerging trend of our current unfortunate and calamitous election cycle.

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Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

As Americans vote today from New Jersey to California, they should not forget what happened last month, when Sanders supporters entered the Democratic Party’s Nevada state convention disorganized and uninformed and caused a mini-riot when things (accordingly) didn’t go their way and went the way the voters of Nevada’s caucuses originally intended instead, with Sandernistas throwing things and even sending death threats to the head of Nevada’s Democratic Party; Sanders responded with a myopic, irresponsible, disgusting defense of their behavior, one unfit for a candidate of high office.  All this is discussed below, in Part I of II pieces on the drama in Nevada.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse June 7, 2016 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) June 7th, 2016

Chase Stevens / Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP

HAIFA — The sad, upsetting episode surrounding Bernie Sanders, his campaign, and his supporters’ behavior on everything related to the recent Nevada Democratic state convention tell you a lot about who Sanders, his campaign, and his fans are and what they stand for, and who they are and what the stand for will be detailed in Part II.  But it is clear that, trailing far behind in both pledged delegates and votes in a system whose rules were known well in advance and failing to get what they wanted by winning enough votes, Sanders and his minority camp can be characterized as being generally non-violent, but sometimes slightly-violent, political terrorists, using the threat of creating mass disruption in Nevada and seemingly at July’s upcoming Democratic National Convention to try to extract political concessions from the Party using intimidation—essentially non-violent or lightly-violent terrorism—that they could not extract during the voting process.

Sanders… or Trump?  And a Sanders Delusion Syndrome

Many said that with the rise, fueled by angry self-entitled white people, of a delusional, populist candidate who is attempting to hijack one of America’s great parties and push it in a direction that is far away from where most Americans find themselves, we would see this party rip itself apart, erupt into chaos, and set up a messy convention fight for July, meaning it would be all but certain that this party would limp into the general election and lose to its rival.

Surprisingly, it was that people were possibly right about what might be happening now, but picked the wrong party.  Yes, months ago there was a strong sense that the Republicans might very well destroy themselves.  However, I realized and wrote early in March, after the final Republican debate, that it was clear the Republican Party “Establishment” had resigned itself to Trump, joining the plurality and perhaps even the eventual majority of their voters.  I later noted how all the talk of a contested/brokered convention was also fantasizing about a highly unlikely scenario.  In both pieces, I cautioned about how the GOP was clearly coming together, that Democrats could not afford to risk a protracted battle at a time when Clinton was clearly for some time going to be the nominee (and as of yesterday has the support of enough delegates to clinch the nomination, and primarily because far more Democrats preferred her over Sanders), and that Sanders and his supporters had the potential to do real damage to Clinton and the Democratic Party (thereby helping Trump) depending on how they chose to behave going forward.  While there were some recent indications that Bernie might be willing to reign himself in and do what’s best for the Party and the country, the most recent indicators are that he will not, and especially the incidents in Nevada and Camp Bernie’s reaction to them have me intensely worried that Bernie’s remaining role will be that of an unwitting, internal Democratic saboteur that just could be the difference between victory and defeat for Clinton and the Democratic party in November in what increasingly looks like will be a close race.

But we must go back to the night of the Nevada Democratic caucuses to understand why I feel this way and why this entire drama is extremely symptomatic of Sanders, his campaign, his supporters, and what I will be terming Sanders Delusion Syndrome in Part II (I’m being serious here, and not trying to just get a laugh: there is an extreme level of emotional reality denial joined with narcissism here that I think deserves to be singled out, much like Bush Derangement Syndrome and Obama Derangement Syndrome, in which partisans become obsessed with blaming those people or their policies for almost everything, or with making wild assumptions about their motives; the whole Nevada fiasco will present a springboard to be able to discuss the Syndrome later).

From the Nevada Caucuses to the Nevada State Convention

That night of the Nevada caucuses on February 20th, Clinton won the contest by a good chunk over 5% of the county precincts, in such a way that, per those results, she should have been on track to receive 20 of the 35 pledged delegates going to the Democratic National Convention to Bernie’s 15 of 35.  But the process only began there; the day of the caucuses, 23 delegates were awarded (13 to Clinton, 10 to Sanders) based directly on the results of the caucuses.  The remaining 12 pledged delegates were to be awarded in May, at the state convention, but before that, there were county-level conventions in April, and a whole lot of Clinton delegates (more than half) didn’t show up to the Clark County convention, bu far the most populous county and where Las Vegas is located, where most of the state’s delegates were up for grabs, and where Clinton beat Sanders handily in February.  Ultimately, though Clinton won the county by nearly 10 percentage points, Sanders’ delegates outnumbered Clinton’s by about 600 at the country convention in April.  Based on good turnout there for Sanders and bad turnout for Clinton at this contentious county convention, a new estimate had Clinton edging out Sanders only 18-17 in terms of pledged delegates statewide, since the side with the majority of the delegates at the state convention would be able to win two more delegates (7) than the other side (5) out of the remaining 12 based on rules as to how those delegates would be allocated during that convention.

It is important to note that Sanders, his team, and his supporters were happy to use technicalities involving county-level delegate turnout to potentially pick off delegates away national delegates from Clinton in a way that did not reflect the voting in the caucuses, but that this was also fair game within the rules. 

The decisions about those delegates in question would only be made in May, at the state convention.

And this is where all hell broke loose.

Last-Minute, Disorganized Attempts to Change the Rules

Leading up to the May state convention, Sanders supporters tried in court to force the Nevada Democratic party to adopt changes to the rules for the convention, but a judge dismissed their lawsuit, saying that it wasn’t for the courts to adjudicate a political party’s internal disputes.  Specifically, there was confusion about a deadline for running for state office in time to be in power at the state convention; Sanders supporters who had missed the deadline set by the party alleged that the Party did not properly notify them and wanted to be permitted to run the day of the convention. The judge rejected this claim also, noting that the April 25th deadline was set at a meeting in which both Clinton and Sanders supporters were present, and that is was Sanders supporters who were responsible for the confusion because of incorrect information they had provided to their people, coming from an unadopted draft of the rules, not the actual rules.  The judge also more or less dismissed concerns that the Sanders people had that certain state party committee members were breaking the rules by choosing to extend their terms, noting that the convention could hold a voice vote to legitimize such moves and still be legal.  Sanders supporters were also mobilizing petitions to change the rules of the state’s Democratic Party and its convention.

Specifically, an e-mail chain highlights the disarray on the Sanders’ side: rather than taking information directly from the state party’s website, with the currently adopted rules posted and easily accessible, the wrong information was provided by Sanders supporters, as I noted above.  This meant that several people who wanted to stand for important convention and state party positions from the Sanders camp were ineligible to run because they had missed the required nomination deadline.  Erin Bilbray, a Sanders superdelegate, angrily wrote in an e-mail chain (subject line created by Bilbray: “Is this about ego or what is best for the party”) to the state’s party chairwoman, Roberta Lange, that “This is exactly how we disenfranchise voters,” but Lange calmly explained that it was supporters of sanders who spread the wrong information and that the established deadline would stand.

Lange also noted that Bilbray—a longtime party official—had had years to bring these and other concerns to her but were making her inquiries way too late in the game for the rules to be changed now: “I find your accusations about the SCC rules particularly concerning.   That section of our rules largely dates back to at least the 2008 convention and has been included in the 2010, 2012, 2014 and now 2016 rules.   You have demonstrated no objection until now despite serving on our e-board that entire time.” 

Sanders supporters in particular wanted to change the rules to limit the power of Lange as party chairwoman, who, in terms set mostly in 2008, would have enormous discretion as to calling the voice votes and determining if more meticulous methods of measuring support at the state convention were necessary. Additionally, any amendments during the convention would need to be approved by two-thirds of the delegates present, and with the Hillary delegates slightly edging out the Bernie delegates, this would not be a way for Sanders people to be able to enact their agenda. 

The Sanders campaign later alleged that “At that convention the Democratic leadership used its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place,” but the convention rules were given to both campaigns, publicly available weeks before the convention, and had basically been the same for the past three presidential election cycles.

Unconventional Convention Drama

The fine folks at PolitiFact issued a great-fact check regarding the convention, so much of this summary is adapted from their review.

The convention began forty minutes late, and Lange adopted by voice vote an acceptance of state convention delegate head count totals showing slightly more Clinton than Sanders supporters.  Sanders supports loudly protested this, ran towards the stage and Lange, flinging insults and vulgar curse words in a verbal assault directed and Lange and the Party officials.  Here (as in many other cases, as I have written before), Sanders supporters seem to have had trouble with arithmetic, because both the initial and final counts of delegates showed that more Clinton delegates were present than Sanders delegates.  So though Sanders supporters were apparently louder, Lange knew that there were more Clinton “yays” to adopt the count than Sanders “nays” and did her job correctly as charwoman in not allowing a louder minority of Sanders disruptors to dispute basic math about who had more supporters present.

When Sen. Barbara Boxer of California delivered an address on stage on behalf of Clinton, she was booed loudly.  “It was a scary situation,” she noted, “It was frightening. I was on the stage. People were six feet away from me.  If I didn’t have a lot of security, I don’t know what would have happened,” also maintaining that “I feared for my safety and I had a lot of security around me, I’ve never had anything like this happen.”

The Sanders campaign also incorrectly claimed that Lange did not accept valid petitions to change the rules at the convention, but Lange noted that some were received by the convention board, but that some of these did not receive the 20% of all the present delegates’ signatures that were required.  In addition, the period to consider petitions was during an opportunity for people to speak before the formal adoption of the rules.  Three Sanders supporters spoke during this period, including Bilbray, and none of them proposed amendments.  Once the rules were formally adopted, the Sanders people who were working on the petitions ceased their efforts, noting they had missed their window.

When the credential committee—evenly divided between Clinton and Sanders supporters—released its official report on delegates totals showing 1,695 Clinton delegates present leading 1,662 Sanders delegates—a 33-delegate margin—the Sanders people, knowing this report meant that the 2 delegates at stake would go to Clinton, meaning the final tally would be Clinton 20 pledged delegates, Sanders 15 pledged delegates, instead of 18-17 in favor of Clinton, more protestations began (again, basic math is a problem here for Team Bernie).

That 33-delegate lead for Clinton became a rallying point for the Sanders people because 58 of their delegates had been disqualified.  They came from a list of 64 names submitted by the Clinton campaign that said the people on the list were not even registered Democrats as of May 1st, the deadline for someone to register as a Party member and still be eligible to be a delegate at the state’s Democratic convention, or were otherwise questionable.  While 6 of the 64 people were deemed to be eligible, the credentials committee, which spent much of the convention investigating the list, could either not find name and address information for the remainder or the names belonged to people who were not registered as Democrats before the deadline (8 Clinton delegates were likewise disqualified).  Whether the Sanders people like it or not, simply bringing anyone they want to a convention because they support Bernie Sanders does not entitle them to be a delegate, no matter how much noise and disruption accompanies them.  But in this case, only 8 of the delegates the committee did not seat had actually shown up to the convention, so even if all the names on the list were accepted, Clinton would still have had 25 more delegates at the convention because of this turnout, and would therefore still have walked away with the 2 pledged delegates in question, meaning she would still have gotten 20 delegates to Bernie’s 15 heading into the national convention.

That’s right, Bernie supporters acted this inexcusably for a situation that would not have changed the result if they had gotten what they wanted.

Once again, we see supporters of Bernie Sanders who have no love for the Democratic Party feel they are entitled to have their say in the Democratic Party’s nomination contest even if they do not follow the established rules.

Which means all the drama was impotently silly, over a result that matched the voting from the February caucuses as intended.  But the drama got even worse.

Physicality and Death Threats

In fact, thing got so bad, Lange was even forced to take a security detail just to go to the bathroom.  Sanders supporters even pushed against the security barriers separating the crowd from the stage as they were screaming and using obscenities in a threatening manner, even throwing things (possibly even chairs) around room.

With so many Sander supporters being disruptive, confrontational, loud, and belligerent, and with the convention running hours past the time allotted by the hotel where the convention was being held (meaning local security details were about to end their shifts), local police and the hotel security officials told Lange that she had to end the convention immediately out of concerns that there would not be enough security to guarantee the safety of everyone there.  So the convention was then ended, to an absurd chorus from Sanders supporters claiming it was done so “illegally,” with Lange even being struck with an object thrown by a Sanders supporter while she was closing the convention.

But it did not stop there: there were death threats against Lange and her family, including a grandchild.  By Monday, she had “received more than 1,000 calls since Saturday night and as many as three text messages per minute. The threats, which came from men and women from across the country, were haunting and personal.”  The harassment has continued well after that, too.

Remember, this was over 2 delegates out of the minimum 2,383 delegates  required to win the nomination out of 4,765 total delegates, or less than 0.1% of the delegates needed to win and about 0.04% of the total delegates, 2 delegates which, if the actual results of the Nevada caucuses are given primary consideration, even putting the rules aside (which they weren’t), were supposed to go to Hillary, anyway.  Yes, Sanders supporters thought they would have an advantage based on the Clark County convention, but in the end, Clinton’s supporters were more organized at the state convention and there were more of them who were qualified who actually showed up, giving her the edge as far as those 2 national-level delegates were concerned, consistent with how actual voters voted during the caucuses.

Objectively, then, there is nothing for Sanders or his supporters to be angry about as far as the process or anything unfair happening, and the idea that they are mad at the party for failing to change the rules at the last minute to favor their side because they did not understand the rules and because they were not properly organized to be able to do so is absurd; they should be mad at themselves for being out-organized, and should be ashamed of themselves for explicitly trying to overturn and spit in the face of the will of the voters who caucused in Nevada.  At no point is there self-reflection from the bulk of Sanders supporters, from his campaign, from the candidate himself.  It seems that whenever the outcome that the Sanders campaign desires does not occur, Sanders and his people seek to blame everyone and everything else except themselves and their campaign and the fact that they did not get more votes than Clinton.

MSNBC

It is impossible to liken this to anything else other than a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get what he wants, when, as an example, a kindergarten class voting for what movie to watch doesn’t pick the one he wants to watch, and he wants to watch now, so he screams and throws things at the TV…

Bernie’s Terrible Response

Getty

People outside the Bernie Sanders crowd largely expected Sanders to condemn his supporters’ wholly inexcusable behavior.  Instead, they were sorely disappointed, when initially he did not even respond to questions about his supporters’ behavior, and then eventually responded 3 days later with a written statement that to say fell far short of reasonable expectations would be an understatement. 

Sanders’ statement was 490 words, consisting of 5 paragraphs and 4 additional bullet points.  The first two paragraphs attacked the Democratic Party and repeated many of the typical talking points of Sanders without addressing the issue of the threatening, intimidating, disruptive, and (admittedly low-level yet still) violent behavior of his supporters.  In the third paragraph, he rejected the criticism of his campaign as “nonsense,” made a general condemnation of violence in a single sentence without actually acknowledging that any of this supporters had done anything wrong, and then began the next sentence with a “But…” and went on to highlight 2 incidents of violence directed at his campaign months ago (“shots were fired into my campaign office in Nevada and apartment housing complex my campaign staff lived in was broken into and ransacked”).  The 4th paragraph then continued with more criticism of the Democratic Party and then criticized the Nevada State Convention, followed by 4 bullet points that the Sanders campaign felt highlighted unfair treatment of it and their supporters at the state convention.  The final, 5th, short paragraph was entirely devoted to discussing further perceived unfair treatment in Nevada outside of the state convention.

It is important to realize how disgusting and pathetic this statement—largely and correctly condemned as self-serving and inadequate—was as a response to indisputably wrong and inappropriate conduct on the part of his supporters.  For one thing, literally 1 sentence out of more than 20, a sentence amounting to 28 words out of 490 total words (or about 5.7% of all words), dealt with condemning violence.  The following sentence that addressed violent incidents directed against his campaign took up 40 words, a little under 8.2% of the total words, and contained nearly 43% more words than the sentence condemning violence in general. It is also important to point out there is no comparing mass disruption at a state convention—clearly encouraged by a top Sanders campaign official named Joan Kato, formerly the Nevada State Director for the Bernie Sanders campaign and now and at the time she encouraged disruption the National Delegates Director for the Bernie Sanders campaign—to incidents that occurred in isolation, were not during an official political event, and had no clear ties to the rival campaign (though of course those incidents are also deplorable, just of a nature that is in these and other important ways different).  Not one word (0%) specifically or directly addressed the actual behavior of his voters.  But 403 words (over 82.2%) either defended his campaign or either explicitly or implicitly criticized the Democratic Party in general, the Nevada Democratic Party, or the Nevada Democratic Party’s state convention. 

Furthermore, the 4 bullet points were riddled with falsehoods:

• “The chair of the convention announced that the convention rules passed on voice vote, when the vote was a clear no-vote. At the very least, the Chair should have allowed for a headcount.”

As PolitiFact pointed out, however, the Chairwoman Lange was allowed large discretion within the rules to rule on voice votes, despite Sanders’ supporters failed attempts to change this.  Both the preliminary and final counts of delegates showed that Clinton delegates slightly outnumbered Sanders delegates, and just being louder and more obnoxious does not mean that your vote is given more weight.  The chair was aware that Clinton supporters were the majority and, during a convention that went about four hours past its allotted time, decided not to waste time on counting votes when the clear if slight edge was with Clinton supporters.  Again, this was entirely within rules that the Sanders campaign tried and failed to change.

• “The chair allowed its Credentials Committee to en mass rule that 64 delegates were ineligible without offering an opportunity for 58 of them to be heard. That decision enabled the Clinton campaign to end up with a 30-vote majority.”

Again, Sanders and his people struggle with math; as explained, only 8 of the 58 were present, so that decision at that time to reject the 58 Sanders delegates absolutely did not “enable”  Clinton to have a 30-vote majority, which was actually a 33-vote majority; all that decision did was keep the margin at 33 votes instead of 25 votes, since, again, only 8 of the rejected delegates were present and would have been counted if that decision had not been made by the Committee.  It is possible that some of the other 58 rejected delegates who were actually registered Democrats by the May 1st deadline who were rejected because of unverifiable names/addresses could have provided that information if they had been present and may possibly have been counted.  By, just like Clinton’s campaign and supporters suffered from and were responsible for turnout problems at the Clark County convention, Sanders’ campaign and supporters here were responsible for their turnout problems and paid a price for that, which is Politics 101.  In any event, Hillary had more verifiably qualified delegates than Sanders at the state convention, hence the 2 delegates that were in serious question were awarded to her.  Pretty basic math, once again…

• “The chair refused to acknowledge any motions made from the floor or allow votes on them.”

While it is not clear what motions specifically this is referring to, it is clear that the Sanders campaign tried multiple times and multiple ways to amend rules and failed to do so through the proper channels available to it; the convention at that point was there for specific business, not to engage in a long debate about procedure, especially considering the convention ran about four hours longer than anticipated; those debates had been occurring for months and the convention was the time to make decisions and move on. Furthermore, the chair was given full discretion, per the rules, to make decisions on what floor motions to consider, and the Sanders camp began the proceedings by being hostile, loud, disruptive and threatening, and by shouting vulgar curses, which is hardly conducive to creating an environment where the chair would feel inclined to expand debate.

• “The chair refused to accept any petitions for amendments to the rules that were properly submitted.”

Again, as mentioned, the Sanders people failed to propose their amendments during the proper window to propose such amendments, even though 3 Sanders supporters spoke during this window.  And any amendments would have required a two-thirds threshold of approval, which would not have happened since the more than 3,300 delegates were almost evenly split.  And of the few petitions received, some did not even have the required number of signatures.

What is seen in these 4 bullet points is a combination of disregard for and ignorance of the rules, a feeling that the Sanders campaign should get what it wants regardless of the rules and regardless of the fact that they were a minority, not the majority, and a willingness to level serious accusations using false information and devoid of context, all while in response to a series of incidents in which Sanders supporters behaved crudely, rudely, disruptively, obscenely, even violently.

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the Sanders campaign.

The appropriate response—when any candidate’s supporters act out obscenely and with physical violence however mild, even if just throwing fruit—is to forcefully condemn such action in person and not just with a press statement.  Sanders did not even feel this merited a personal in-person response, and clearly felt he and his campaign and supporters were the victim here, even after Lange received death threats.  Furthermore, his statement practically justified his supporters’ misbehavior with its lopsided focus on their grievances rather than their actions.  When addressing violence, the proper primary responses is never “well, we were angry;” that goes for rape, murder, riots, you name it; and it goes for throwing things at state party chairwoman at a convention, too.  In many of those situations (admittedly not so much with rape) it is often important to understand the motivations of the people who engage in such acts.  But first and foremost, when the violent act occurs, the focus needs to be on the violence itself its victims, and how wrong it is.

If it was not for Trump lowering the bar of appropriate behavior to such unprecedented depths on the Republican side of the contest, this Nevada story would have gotten dramatically more attention, and Sanders, his campaign, and his supporters would have been far more emphatically condemned.  Such is one of the less talked about of the side-effects of the human political disaster that is Donald Trump: not only does his own behavior open the door to even more inappropriate action in the future, not only has Trump legitimized his own unprecedented types of behavior, but he has made it so that bad behavior that would normally be scrutinized intensely, but seems less outrageous than Trump’s antics, falls more under the radar, raising the acceptability-level of a whole host of other behaviors that do not rise to Trump-level outrages and desensitizing Americans and the media to these outrages.

In any event, the claims of Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, that party elites “hijacked the process on the floor” and were “ignoring the regular procedure and ramming through what they wanted to do” were rated simply as “false” by PolitiFact.

Read in Part II of Sanders Political Terrorism: Nevada Drama Pretty Much Sums Up Sanders, His Campaign & Supporters about how all this is a microcosm of the the whole Sanders “movement.”

Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg.  If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

A deep look at the Clinton vs. Sanders fight: the history, the present, and a path forward. Sanders never had more than the slimmest of chances. Besides never winning over even close to a majority of the Democratic constituency on a state-by-state basis, Sanders also failed to understand even the basics of politics, which is more than just haranguing special interests and saying what you think with no filter. Clinton knows this, and it is a big part of how and why she has accomplished more in her career than Sanders. Ultimately, if you don’t share the same beliefs as the political party you want to lead and don’t know how to play the game of politics, you won’t be successful, no matter how much you and your supporters would love to ignore the game. But the game is part of reality, part of politics, and part of winning. And, like in sports, in politics, winning is not only everything, it’s the only thing. It doesn’t mean you need to sell your soul, but it does mean that the model Sanders has laid out is both naive and ineffective, even more so in a general election. Still, we come here not only to criticize, but to both praise and bury the Sanders campaign.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse April 29, 2016 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) April 29th, 2016 

CNN/NBC News

AMMAN — Now is a critical time for the Democratic Party. There are two candidates vying for the presidential nomination of the Party. One is Hillary Clinton, very active in Democratic politics for almost half a century since her rejection of Republican ideology in 1968, coming after her days as a “Goldwater Girl” and being raised by a very conservative father, a political transformation she underwent during her days as an undergraduate at Wellesley College.

The other is Bernie Sanders.

*****

How We Came to This Point

The official Senate page listing all the senators of the 114th Congress does not list Bernie Sanders as a (D) for Democrat, but as an (I), displaying his status as an independent. Bernie’s own Senate website still proudly states that he is “the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history,” in his “About” section. As a non-Democratic who in twenty-five years in the House and Senate combined refused to declare himself as or officially become a member of the Democratic Party, and who proudly maintained his independence as a democratic socialist, he has clearly, beyond any reasonable doubt, failed to take over the Democratic Party as a shining outsider white knight he had hoped to be, an outsider that would have forced the Party hard and far to the left. And it was a Democratic Party that he only just joined (apparently) in time for this election season, but one for which for he so long clearly harbored disdain.

Listening to his rhetoric on the campaign trail, he clearly still harbors this disdain, playing a delicate balancing act of repeatedly decrying “The Political Establishment” that favors Clinton while simultaneously seeking its approval and endorsement (even to the degree of trying to get superdelegates to switch their support from Clinton to him), a contradiction that increasingly has not gone unnoticed. 

Despite his surprising early success (a near-tie in Iowa and a resounding, crushing victory in New Hampshire), it has been clear to those willing to look at the hard numbers of electorate beliefs and trends, supported by masses of polling and social science research, from quite early in the race that Sanders’ ability to win the diverse type of constituency necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination was practically nonexistent. As I noted before, this precise moment came in Nevada, when Hillary Clinton won by staggeringly dominant support from African Americans and Latinos. Prior to this win, the polling data already heavily confirmed that Sanders’ core of support consisted of white liberals and young people, a core nowhere near large enough win the majority of the overall national Democratic constituency. The main question was as to if Sanders’ very strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire would give African Americans and Latinos pause enough to consider, and then vote for, Sanders in large enough numbers for him to win the nomination. The Nevada contest on February 20th, coming just a week before South Carolina’s heavily black Democratic base would vote in its contest, and that coming just a few days before (the first) Super Tuesday contests that would award the most delegates in any single day and that would include most of South, with its heavily black Democratic constituency and with Texas and its huge Latino constituency, was Bernie’s one chance to show he could win over a diverse coalition of support before the South Carolina and the rest of the South would create a reality of, votes, delegates, numbers, and probabilities that would effectively end his candidacy in all practical terms if he failed to do so. 

After all, the laws of human behavior show that if a certain demographic of people favor one candidate generally by more than 4 to 1 (African Americans) or more than 2 to 1 (Latinos), those ratios will not switch in a matter days and weeks in the absence of some sort of remarkable event.

Such an event never happened in the run up to Nevada, and it has not since.  Clinton was not indicted by the FBI in relation to her e-mail scandal, a probability that might have even been lower than Sanders’ miniscule chances of winning the nominations, nor did she suffer a dramatic collapse or series of gaffes. On Sanders’ side, he stubbornly failed to tailor or alter his message in any significant way to appeal to new groups who had thus far not bought into it. Aggressively trying to court African Americans on his terms, not theirs, was never a sound strategy.

Sanders’s Ideological Disconnect

Yet it is a hallmark of his idealist, socialist, even pseudo-Marxist theories of social change that maintain if only the masses were educated in the right ideology, they would largely come on board and support the revolution (never mind that time and time again people have proven this theory wrong, from Russia to China and elsewhere). “Educating voters” was a phrase Sanders and his supporters constantly used when explaining how a conservative country like the United States would suddenly elect a socialist president despite a fierce, visceral opposition to socialism among huge swaths of voters, particularly many millions of voters in key, populous battleground swing states that are crucial for victory in November. Like many Russians, Yugoslavs, and others before them, African Americans are not receptive to ideas of Bernie’s socialist “political revolution,” its prospects even far dimmer than his sliver of a chance at winning the nomination. If Sanders can’t win over such staunch Democrats, how will more conservative non-Democrats and Republicans respond to his message?

In constant use of phrases like “political revolution” and “educate the American people,” Sanders, like most ideologues, demonstrates his disconnect with—even war against—reality. For the ideologue, data, facts, context, research, all matter little; ideas, inspiration, and ideals are what matter most; and yet, that is why the vast majority of ideologically-driven revolutions have failed miserably and have often descended into mass-murder of the very masses the revolutions are ostensibly designed to save after these masses speak out and say “no, thank you,” to revolution. 

Of course, Bernie Sanders and his movement are not violent like the Bolsheviks, Maoists, or Nicaraguan Sandinistas.

But there are similarities in mentality. 

That’s why the nickname applied to Sanders supporters of Sandernistas is so apropos; the revolutionary Nicaraguan Sandinistas were also self-styled populist “democratic socialists.”

One similarity that I’ve already noted is the arrogance of belief that most people are simply with them, a belief that is simply an assumption and not based on any wider research and is based at best on anecdotal experiences. Another similarity in mentality is that those who disagree must have been brainwashed. Still another is that every single power structure or mainstream institution is nefariously stacked against them. There are not rational people, institutions, or credible authorities that disagree with the revolutionary ideals and plans, these ideologues say, because the powers that be have either warped or bribed the vast majority of policy, political, and economic experts and academics, as well any non-“alternative” news media (“alternative” meaning media that is for the revolution, its plan and ideals, not critical of them). And Mayor of Burlington Bernie Sanders in the 1980s vigorously supported the Sandinistas, even arranging to have their TV programming broadcast on Burlington’s local public-access cable stations.

Rob Swanson/File

The idea that thinking people can either rationally disagree or rationally conclude that such ideas might be nice but are not practical on a variety of levels simply does not occur to the ideologue. In my many exchanges with Bernie Sanders supporters, I have to yet to hear or watch or read, or even see from the candidate himself, any kind of thought-out, intelligent, detailed, worthwhile response to this concept of rational disagreement. Instead, the response is snark and slogans, castigation and conspiracy theories, as if somehow, to question Bernie Sanders (!) even on his quest for the presidency automatically makes us somehow deficient, all the while these ideologues never question their own deficiency when it comes to anything regarding the nuts and bolts of actual governance. This campaign has, among too many of Sanders’ followers, become something of a messianic cult, where the messiah is come and if you don’t get it you’re part of Team Devil. And, to a degree, the contempt that Sanders’ supporters have for anyone who disagrees with them—regardless of how rational the disagreement’s basis is—is mirrored, though more politely if still quite rudely, by the candidate himself.

Decoding the Debate

This contempt was on full display in the last Democratic debate, but has hardly been limited to just that stage.

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Without a doubt, that latest Democratic debate in the Brooklyn Navy Yard (you can watch the full debate here) was the most spirited, eventful debate on the Democratic side yet: nasty, full of contrasts, and even with a few big surprises. But like all the other debates, in which Hillary Clinton had commanding leads in some sort of combination of delegates, votes, and polls, this debate once again featured a Bernie Sanders that needed to do something dramatic to alter the dynamics of the race to have even a prayer of a chance of winning the nomination, and, once again, that he failed to do.

It wasn’t for trying or lack of trying, but, as has often been the case with Sanders, the level of effort and level of strategic and tactical planning did not match each other. Both candidates were claiming that New York state was their home turf: Sanders, with his thick Brooklyn accent and his youth spent growing up in Brooklyn, and Clinton, with her service as a New York’s Senator from 2001-2009 and living in the state since those days up through the present day. Sanders made the calculation that perhaps he could afford to be, by far, his most aggressive and condescending yet to Clinton, perhaps feeling that NY would, in the end, prove to be more his home state than hers. He was snide, dismissive, and sarcastic; he laughed at her, mocked her, repeatedly used sarcasm; his body language and motions all evening were hostile, with him contorting his face constantly in expressions of derision and amusement while Clinton was talking (she, conversely, was often calm and stoic while he spoke) and literally pointing his finger at her incessantly, wagging and waving it at her invasively, raising it often while she was still talking, interrupting her, too (not that she did not interrupt him a few times as well). He was hypocritical in his modes of attack (her tiny amounts of fossil fuel industry contributions that her campaign and PACs received are, apparently, fair game, but not the small amount of high per-capita guns coming from Vermont into New York City; her votes should be viewed in black and white, his with respect to his environment and details). He even questioned her motives, again—what has been a staple of the Sanders campaign—implying that Clinton is a corrupt hack, bought and sold by her special interest donors, without actually directly leveling the accusation. Apart from interrupting Sanders, Clinton did none of these things. She stuck to a more elevated tone and to the issues, and did not question his motives for voting on gun issues the way he did with her even though he did not return the favor on other issues. 

Some would say because Bernie did not attack Hillary on the e-mail and  Benghazi issues that this is somehow him taking the high road, an example of his being exceptionally civil. I find that to be wholly unconvincing; unlike Republicans, Democrats do not see these issues as either terribly substantive or evidence that Clinton did something seriously wrong. Like most politicians, Sanders decided to attack Clinton where he could gain points for doing so; in a Democratic nomination contest with mainly Democrats voting, that was on issues of campaign contributions and super PACS, not on what Republicans were throwing at her. If anything, Bernie holding back on the e-mails and Benghazi is a just sign that Democratic voters would not have responded well to such attacks. Had he gone down that road, Bernie would have looked and sounded just like the desperate Republicans have if he had attacked her on those issues; it would have hurt Brand Bernie. So no, Bernie didn’t avoid those lines of attack out of charity and kindness; it was in his interests not to come off sounding like Republicans. When the topic resounds with the Democratic base, he has been happy to attack Clinton.

Conversely, I have not heard Clinton attack Bernie Sanders for broadcasting Sandinista propaganda in Burlington, for how he campaigned during the Vietnam War to reduce the American military to “local citizen militias and Coast Guard,” for how in 1980 he served as an elector in an obscure Trotskyist political party that called for “solidarity” with the Iranian Revolution even as its regime held Americans hostage, among other gems from Sanders’ past. And yet, you never hear Clinton being given credit for playing nice with Sanders, even though she clearly is, overall. The general approach for both seems to be that they attack each other from the left, not the right or with other tabloidy-stuff. And, as nasty as this race has gotten, the tone is astronomically more mature, substantive, and polite than the race on the Republican side. 

Of course, as the front-runner, it makes sense that Clinton would not come out swinging the way Bernie did, who was far behind and had to make up a huge gap. That is politics, and Sanders, lest we forget, is still a politician, much like Clinton. Neither has been a saint, but Sanders campaigns on being one while Clinton never has. So attack her he does, and often not fairly, often by insinuation, often indirectly, and often letting his surrogates and supporters do the dirty work, whom he often fails to restrain. That has not been much of a high road for those who have been playing close attention, although this has largely escaped scrutiny because of the outlandish conduct on the Republican side that has made it seem tame in comparison.

And in the debate, happy to attack her he was; Bernie clearly felt comfortable not holding back much against her. 

This calculation, in the end, would prove to be disastrously wrong.

In Bernie’s opening statement, he noted how far behind Clinton he was at the beginning of the race, and attributed how close it was to what claimed was the “radical” move of “telling the American people the truth” (the clear implication is the Clinton is not).

As usual, Sanders attacked Clinton for the support that she and organizations that support her received from special interests, including Wall St.

Sanders’ first big stumble was in saying he didn’t think the government should break up the banks, that the banks should break themselves up, a thoroughly unconvincing response from a man who has made the big banks one of America’s great public enemies in his campaign.  The second came right after, when he could not name a single instance of when Clinton’s money she received from Wall St. influenced a specific decision of hers when she was in power in the Senate. He followed up with his inability to do this with a salvo of nasty sarcasm belittling her speaking out against the big banks, noticing mockingly and acerbically that the bankers “must have been crushed by this.”

One line of attack that I thought was particularly unfair was Sanders’ minimum wage cheap shot swipe against Clinton. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. I will point out that from 1998, when I had my first job one summer while I was in high school, through mid-2013, the vast majority of the jobs I had and the vast majority of the hours I worked were at or near the minimum wage ($7.25-$8.25 an hour). Much of this was in the retail industry while I was in school or trying to transition to something better suited to my background and skills. So I know what it’s like to work a minimum wage job more than many Americans, and I care about this issue a lot. Hillary Clinton wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, a huge increase of over 65%. She further thinks that in many localities, like New York City, $15 makes more sense, and she has supported such efforts at the state and local levels to make the minimum wage $15. The thing is, Clinton and many experts recognize that a one-size-fits-all minimum wage is not a good solution for the country as a whole; the cost of living in Northern Virginia, New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston, among other places, is dramatically higher than in most other parts of the country, particularly rural areas and small towns. A $15 minimum wage in the near future would be very difficult for many small businesses outside of major U.S. metropolitan areas to handle or afford. Clinton’s nuanced approach is very much called for, Sanders’ oversimplistic approach (as is often his type of approach to many issues) is not and would harm the economy in many parts of America. For Sanders to try to portray Clinton as if she is somehow against American workers, as if she has not fought for a $15 minimum wage in important instances, and to attack her so strongly on this issue, to me does not seem fair. Sanders’ calling for a nearly 107%, unrealistic increase in the minimum wage across-the-board, period, and to attack Clinton’s over 65% increase—still a major, historic increase—is attacking someone who is still fighting hard on an important issue to most Democrats, just in a different way than Sanders, and seems to be splitting hairs on an issue where they are far closer than they are apart. I would also add that it is telling that Sanders wants to discuss who wants the higher federal minimum wage instead of actually discussing the actual policy itself and the differences between $12 in a rural area and $15 in NYC, between federal efforts and state and local efforts. Sanders should, if his mantras are to be believed, be better than hyperinflating such differences. 

One could be tempted to say the same for Clinton on Sanders with, say, guns, except that she is generally responding to attacks from Team Sanders that have been going on for months. If he is going have some major attacks that focus on minor differences, it is entirely reasonable that Clinton respond in kind. Further, I would argue that their differences in guns are more substantive than their differences on the minimum wage

Bernie, as was his usual response to the issue of gun violence, noted that he had a rating grade of a D- from the NRA. Hillary was very effective in attacking his votes that were in line with the interests of the NRA (for these he had a nuanced explanation, but for all the issues with Clinton where her votes are questionable, it’s black and white to him!), but she should have mentioned that her grade is an F, and while that might not seem like a big deal to some, Sanders voting against the Brady Bill five times and for shielding gun manufacturers from liability are not insignificant differences; they are differences that may very well account for lives lost and lives saved, and certainly account for the different grades they have received from the NRA and for why Clinton’s grade was lower than Sanders; even in the NRA’s view, Sanders did not do everything he could to restrict guns; in its view, Clinton did; otherwise, both candidates would have received and F. And, while only a tiny number of the overall traced guns from crime scenes in New York came from Vermont, Clinton is still absolutely right that Vermont had more guns per capita showing up in New York crime scenes than any other state, so using that statistic to point out that that laxer gun laws in Vermont have had negative consequences for New York—an effect outsized for its tiny population—is fair game when discussing gun policy in general before the New York state primary, since both Sanders and Vermont have been less tough on guns than Clinton and New York.

Israel, Palestine, and the Politics of Political Theater

The one moment where I was by far the most impressed by Sanders was when he was bold in speaking out on the plight of the Palestinian people. I have written numerous pieces in which I have been extremely critical of Israel’s policies towards Palestinians, of its tactics and strategy, of its occupation, of Netanyahu.  I agree with Sanders 100% that, overall, the military intervention in Gaza in the summer of 2014 was disproportionate. A part of me was disappointed that Clinton did not express some of the same sentiments time in her recent AIPAC speech that Sanders has expressed, but at the same time, Sanders did not make the comments in question to AIPAC, which he skipped and which would certainly have been hostile to his message, and made the comments instead in an interview with the New York Daily News. Rather, Hillary (understandably if not admirably) tailored her message in a close race with Sanders, where even some polls in NY had them close, and, while not denying Sanders’ points, certainly avoided discussing them at all in favor winning over America’s Jewish political establishment in what has been a difficult primary (with NY state voting soon after this speech, NY being home to a huge portion of America’s Jews and, therefore, the world’s) and looks to be a difficult general election, one in which Republicans will try to make Democrats and Clinton look weak in terms of support for Israel. Sanders, as an American Jew and as many Jews do, may feel freer to criticize Israel than Americans who are non-Jews. Sanders also made the aforementioned comments to the New York Daily News as someone whose chances of ever being president were very slim; months from now, when Sanders is not the nominee or the president, he will face little scrutiny, and pay few penalties, for uttering them. Yet, if Hillary Clinton had said these things the way Sanders had said them, she could very well pay a price in November in a close race with Trump, or even once in the White House as she seeks to engage Israel and win reelection.

I can’t fault Hillary for not taking a big political risk on publicly speaking out for Palestinians the way Sanders has, though I would have preferred that her AIPAC address contained more lines addressing the plight of the Palestinians. Playing her cards closer to her chest is more than warranted in this instance, and I take far more comfort in Clinton’s actions over her long career rather than ascribe much to her statements made on the campaign trail when it comes to demonstrating fairness to both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She came out for a Palestinian state as First Lady, before her husband, and when she was Secretary of State, she repeatedly criticized Israel and Netanyahu for their treatment of Palestinians and settlement expansion, both privately and publicly.

As admirable, then, as Sanders’ speaking on the plight of the Palestinians was, it also demonstrated how politically unsavvy he is.  And political savviness is a crucial trait that one trying to run the American political system and run one of its two major political parties must possess. Sanders was even forced to suspend his Jewish outreach coordinator after it was discovered just days before the NY primary that she had posted some very pointed criticism of Netanyahu, utilizing offensive language, on social media. It is entirely possible, even probable, that Sanders comments and the story of his outreach staffer may have cost him some Jewish support in NY; Clinton did, after all, outperform the final polling that was conducted in the state, and Sanders underperformed. If she campaigned strongly right now during the election for Palestinians rights, it might cost her votes in a crucial state like Florida, and if she lost the election, she would also lose her ability to push for those very rights even as she spoke for them on the campaign trail. Sure, she slyly dodged the issue at AIPAC and the debate, but doing so was simply smart if not admirable politics (the former often more effective than the latter in terms of public discourse), and her record shows that there is little reason to believe she won’t stick up for Palestinians while still vigorously defending Israel’s right to defend itself.

If only politics were as simple as simply saying what you think, directly, all the time, consequences be damned, then Bernie’s style would make sense. But it’s far more complicated. Sometimes politics involves holding your tongue, playing your cards close to your chests, not saying everything you believe, tailoring your message, waiting for the right time. People who support Bernie like him for generally doing none of these; even some people who don’t support him like him for the same reason. 

But politics is often a dance, a game, kabuki theater; in Bernie’s world, most people agree with him (the silent masses!), and if you just mobilize their support, presto! That’s how you get change done, that’s how you transform America from a plutocracy to one of shared socialist values.  And that is what Sanders and his supporters believe.

Except it’s never that simple, that is not the real world, that is not the real America. 

The bottom line is that such an approach has not made him a winner in this race (it was clear since Nevada he would not win, clearer since Super Tuesday I, and now only painfully, obviously clear to all but his most die-hard, delusional partisans). But even before this presidential campaign, his approach has only led him to pass one—just one—of his own bills in twenty-five years in Congress to Clinton’s ten bills in eight years. His mentality and worldview have not made him an effective legislator; relative to Sanders, Clinton was a very and far more effective legislator. Sanders might not realize this as deeply as he should, but there is a hell of a lot more to politics than simply standing up and saying what you believe. Millions of people in the streets may sound nice, but that is not how any major change came about in America, certainly not without numbers and leadership in Congress to back up such forces. As Sanders’ candidacy has proven beyond a doubt, filling tens of thousands of people in a park, street, or stadium is hardly representative of the level of support a candidate has: Sanders drew a remarkable 27,000 people to a rally in Washington Square in Manhattan about a week before the New York primary, yet lost 42% to 58% to Clinton, by about 300,000 votes.

Truce, Peace, or an Alliance with Sanders and Sandernistas?

I know I’ve been hard on Sanders, and his followers. I just don’t have much patience for “movements” that are clearly doomed from the start, that at best, succeed only in highlighting a few issues a bit more than usual, but that most often simply succeed in inflaming the passions of a minority of millions, filling their heads with unrealistic expectations, causing their hearts to swell with hope, a hope that will only be crushed and let down, feeding a roller coaster of emotions that crests mightily, continues to crest well-after all reason has warned them this will not end the way they envision, and inevitably leads to disappointment in one way or another. The Sanders “movement” is but one of many of such “movements,” and whether or not it is generally forgotten and just a minor blip on the political radar, has less to do with Sanders himself and more to do with whether his adherents buy into the two-party system, make their peace with reality, and start to work on their causes as active, registered members of the Democratic Party, bolstering it during mid-terms (when it has recently suffered losses), and thereby earning a seat at the table and a right to help steer the course of the Party, having put in their time, having voted with Democrats for repeated election cycles, have been there to withstand the onslaught or organized Republicans. Because what is perhaps most offensive to me about the typical Sandernista, besides the gleeful and inaccurate denigration of Hillary Rodham Clinton, is the sense of entitlement that most Bernie Sanders supporters—most of them non-(registered)-Democrats, independents, unaffiliateds, who are and have been supporting third-parties, whose inaction or misdirected action has been as responsible for the Tea Party takeover of Congress and the election of George W. Bush in 2000 as any other single group of people—feel that they automatically have the right to participate, take over, and lead the Democratic Party for which they have long held disdain and have not fought for over the years. 

Sorry, but you haven’t been with us, you haven’t supported us, not enough. If you get to take part in an open or mixed primary, good for you, welcome to the action, but this is rightfully at the discretion of state parties, and the state parties that say “Democrats only for the Democratic primary” are perfectly within rationality and their legal and political rights to make their contests closed to non-Democrats. Nothing entitles you to have power in my party, not when you’re not a member, not when you haven’t been there fighting on our side. 

Sure, we appreciate the level of enthusiasm you have displayed; now, let’s see if you have the patience and maturity to stay engaged over time and apply that enthusiasm to actually making a difference. Simply latching onto a single candidate in a single election cycle that you think will change everything is not only foolish, but is the lazy, easy way out, when far more is required of you as a citizen over far longer a period of time than months or one year. I could have—and did—say many of the same things about Obama supporters in 2008; we got a fine president in Obama, to be sure; but the “hope and change” he campaigned on in that election, the transformative persona that so many of his supporters believed in, turned out to be a big disappointment, to no surprise to me. And yet with Obama, even if that more emotional aspect of his appeal never came to fruition, we had a candidate and a president who at heart was also a deep, substantive thinker, and thus disaster was averted and a pretty decent presidency emerged where “hope and change” failed. I was able to proudly cast my vote for him in November, both in 2008 and 2012. Bernie Sanders, as he has amply demonstrated time and time again, in interview after interview (most clearly in the now infamous New York Daily News interview), is not a man of substance, is not a deep thinker. It would have been with a large sense of unease if I had to vote for him in November in order to prevent Trump from winning the White House.

So no, I will not apologize for not respecting your movement, for not respecting your candidate, for not respecting the awful way you and he have treated the remarkable if imperfect woman who will be our standard bearer this fall. I was right to declare war on you when you and your candidate were out of hand and going to far.

But now I offer an olive branch: I offer a truce if you reign in your atrocious attacks on her, if Sanders is careful to encourage you to do the same, if Sanders stops allowing crowds to loudly boo Hillary at his rallies, if he himself reigns in his attacks on Clinton and focuses primarily on the issues for which he has been such a vocal and passionate advocate, then I happily offer a truce. I offer peace if you vote for Hillary in the fall, and do your part to stop a Trump and Republican takeover of the government. And I offer an alliance if you will register as a Democrat, be there election after election including midterms, stick with the Party and try to slowly change it from within, and maturely note as adults that, like in any relationship, there will be times that the Democratic Party will disappoint you, and such are no times to childishly storm off and say “I’m through.” 

Believe me, I understand being frustrated with the Party; I thought a few times about leaving myself, so full of disappointed was I. But that is no way to help the party, to change it over time, to make a difference. And the sidelines are no place to be for anyone who claims to care about politics, their countrymen, their nation, is not place for doers; the sidelines are for the narcissists, the delusional, the selfish, the self-indulgent, the noisemakers. And it’s not about me, about whether or not I respect you or vice versa, about any personal anger you may or may not feel in reading this or any of my other pieces, comments, or tweets, or those of anyone else; it’s about whether or not Bernie Sanders supporters are mature enough to become part of the solution—swallowing some bitter pills, compromising, even putting up with some things and policies they don’t like (gasp!) in the interest of the greater good—rather than being part of the problem.

There will be no revolution, no unicorns. Just the same type of political warfare we’ve had for generations. You have two sides; you don’t have to love one or both, but you either pick the one that is closest to you on the issues and help it move policy and itself in the better direction on those issues, or you are irrelevant at best, or empowering the side that moves policy in the worse direction on the issues at worst. This is reality. Declaring war no reality has not worked out well for you or the Sanders campaign. But history will judge you if you declare war on reality, if you aren’t part of the solution, of the real fight for real change.

Bernie Sanders is a passionate, exceptional advocate for the small number yet incredibly important types of issues he has chosen to take up, and he has drawn in millions of people who, together with him, can make a difference if they are willing to dance. They don’t get to dance on their terms; newcomers seldom do, and if they try to dance on their terms, they will dance alone, in a void, with no music. And even someone like Hillary Clinton is very constrained by both the realities of the political system and the American electorate. Operating within those constraints, and knowing how to do so, is the key to success in politics. And Clinton has understood this from her days as an undergraduate; even then she pushed against the Saul Alinksy tactic for disruption, and passionately knew that the best way to affect change in a messy system was to take responsibility for that system by working to change it from within, something Clinton has done ever since her days as an undergraduate at Wellesley, as this must-read article notes. 

This is the difference between her and Sanders, the realist and the fantasist.

Sure, it would be wonderful to destroy what we don’t like about the system by simply willing and haranguing it away. But that does not happen in reality, revolutions are incredibly rare, successful ones even rarer, non-violent ones that are successful even rarer than that. 

Sanders and his supporters never had more of a chance than hope and prayer; it is now time for responsible citizens to come together and to stop dreaming of a longshot Hail Mary, to not to make demands on a front-runner who will have more than enough delegates to seal the nomination, but to roll up their sleeves, and to get ready for the long-hard work of bringing about real change, to not bank an entire critical election against a terrifying opponent and the fate of a nation to hope and a prayer, but to bet more solidly on thought-out plans of workable change within the constraints of present reality and to back a candidate with an actual record of bringing about change by working practically within the system.

To be fair to Sanders, he and his wife Jane have signaled and begun to demonstrate over the last few days that the campaign will be toning down its attacks on Clinton and that they have no plans to play a “spoiler” role or run as a third party. This is both a welcome and a necessary step, if overdue. If this is indeed what they are doing, this is great news for all of us.

Join Us and Vote Democratic in the Fall

George Takei/Facebook

I know many of you Sanders supporters are angry and bitter. But that’s life. I was angry and bitter in 2008 when Clinton lost to Obama, but I came around to support Obama by November; Clinton lost and I did not feel she was entitled to make any major demands. I was also bitter and angry when Kerry and Gore lost in 2004 and 2000, respectively. But I didn’t give up. 

George Takei’s recent eloquent plea to unite for this fall election, to #VoteBlueNoMatterWho, should not go unheeded. We are defined just as much by what we do in defeat as what we do in victory. Sore losers and sore winners are both noxious forces. Yet as a Hillary Clinton supporter, I don’t feel like we’ve won anything yet. It’s all about November. And it’s been clear since the last Republican debate that the Republicans will not be nearly as big a mess as liberals were hoping they would be, as I have noted before, and the conventional wisdom that the Republican Party will deny Trump the nomination if it comes to a contested convention, thereby leading to a Republican meltdown and schism and the Party’s destruction, is misleading, as I have also noted before. In other words, Democrats will face an organized and tough foe in the fall, one led by Trump, who has an unprecedented ability to play the media in his favor. Unless Trump and the Republicans are kept out of the White House, their hands kept far away from Supreme Court nominations, we will all have lost. Like it or not, you’re stuck with Clinton if you’re on the left. But it’s up to all of us to make sure we aren’t stuck with Trump and the Republican Party that produced and empowered his rise over many years of anti-intellectualism, nativism, hatred of government, of division. Love or hate Hillary, she is against all of these things. So the choice in November is no choice at all. Are you with me? Are you with her? Are you with us? Or will you help them, even by inaction or misdirected action?

I’m with her. And you should be too, Sandernistas. And who knows, once you see what she can do in power, maybe you will actually like her. Even if you never like her, you still have a part to play if you want to be a responsible citizen in stopping the Republicans and Donald Trump. It’s up to you to convince your most die-hard compatriots that Clinton is better than Trump and worth supporting against him.  Get to it!

If you appreciate Brian’s unique content, you can support him and his work by donating here. 

Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

This handy chart provides the most common responses Bernie Sanders and his supporters have given to most issues, questions, or challenges.  If Sanders or any Sandernistas are pushed uncomfortably off message, asked to go into detailed explanations, or demonstrate any degree of expertise whatsoever, this chart will come to the rescue!  Because so many of the talking points work so well for so many different situations, you can even make a matching game out of it.  Guaranteed to be fun for any Bernie fan “feelin’ the Bern” and hatin’ on Hillary Clinton, this can also be used to avoid getting berned by fact checkers, Clintonites, Republicans, or more thoughtful voters.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse April 12, 2016 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) April 12th, 2016

Click on chart to zoom in!

Now, let me just say this: GO, be Apostles of Political Revolution.  The entire country besides white liberals and the very young aren’t getting it and time is running out!  Bernie is THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, even though most of them don’t know it yet, don’t share his values or ideas, and prefer other candidates.  But don’t let tiny details like these stop you, POLITICAL REVOLUTION is just around the corner if you just stick to the talking points on this chart come hell or high water, just like Bernie does.

Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg.  If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse February 18, 2016

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) February 18th, 2016

Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters

I earlier posted this at the end of a recent article titled “This Map Proves Sanders’ Political Revolution a Delusional Fantasy, or, My 1 Question for Bernie,” but I felt this needed its own post, so… Also, I am my own man, have never been paid by or formally associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. I just exercise critical thinking, thank you very much… and here are my April 29th terms for peace with camp Sanders!

AMMAN — Jay Michaelson, writing a column for The Daily Beast titled “Dear Bernie Fans, a Vote for Him is a Vote for Donald Trump,” basically wrote a sugar-coated, kinder version of what I have written, and more or less says the same thing New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says at the the end of one of his pieces, noting that the white, college-educated, privileged liberal core of Bernie supporters should consider the far less privileged people who would truly be hurt the most by the dramatically-far-increased-risk of a Republican (Trump?!) victory a Bernie Sanders nomination creates, to think about how all the policies and programs these people depend upon would be negatively impacted by such an outcome.

AP/John Locher for photo without text

It’s a truly excellent piece, but I think aim is strategically and tactically wrong. Strategically, Michaelson seems to be trying to win over Bernie Sanders supporters, and tactically, his approach is to engage them in reasoned dialogue backed by data. Unfortunately for his approach, he seems to have discovered that Sanders supporters aren’t interested in reasoned dialogue backed by data, as this post-article Tweet by Michaelson demonstrates:

This matches my own experience with Bernie supporters for some time now: there is no point in discussion, and research and data unfavorable to their fantasy are simply not acknowledged at best or are outright dismissed at worse. I often hear the line “We’ll see!” as if data-driven approaches are just some outdated method for winning as if data and research were not major components in the Obama campaign’s impressive victory over Romney in 2012, not even four years ago. 

The truth is, Bernie supporters are not worth engaging because they don’t want a discussion, at least not one the basis of data and details about moving forward: they’ve found their prophet and savior and are supporting him no matter what in true cult-like fashion, thinking through and consequences be damned. Some of them will support Hillary if she wins the nomination, others will not. As Michaelson notes in his Tweet, and as I noted earlier, neither of these groups can point to data that supports Bernie’s viability as a candidate (the type they do point to, early-election-season general election polls, are as a rule demonstrably wildly inaccurate and are therefore irrelevant and will continue to be so for months until much closer to November). As is obvious, and as I pointed out at length in my last piece, the main reason for this is that such data does not exist. But, even worse with my own experience with Bernie supporters and pro-Bernie “alternative” media is that there is not even an attempt to seek out such or even to ask the tough questions needed to translate any candidate or social movement into anything other than a fad.

Bernie and his supporters asking me and others to support him based on the far-fetched hypothetical possibility of the virtually impossible is not responsible politics and is not a recipe for a successful social/political movement. This is basically asking me, other Democrats, and many other Americans to take a huge gamble on someone who has not proven himself capable of doing what he says he wants to do or done the legwork to maximize his chances of victory. Sorry, I can’t respect a “movement” that hasn’t put in the time and effort to organize and build up a following over time, as other successful social/political movements have. To say that this Sanders democratic socialist “movement”—now only months old—is rushed is a dramatic understatement.

The hubristic mentality Berners exhibit is that they are somehow a silent majority or will be able to convince Middle America to hop aboard the democratic socialist love-train, which is most definitely an express train with very few stops along the way. That train passed the realm of rational discussion long ago.

So, no, my main goal is not to engage Sanders supporters. I see them as the harbinger of something new and dangerous for the left: a possible delayed (equal?) opposite reaction to the movement of and forces behind the Tea Party. Just as the Tea Party is doing incredible damage to their long-term goals and the Republican Party without realizing it, this new group of Berners may very well be situating themselves to do the same for progressive liberalism. 

The question is, will the Democratic Party become beholden to Berners the way the Republican Party has become beholden to Tea Partiers? That is what the Clinton vs. S anders contest is all about.

So my goal? Point out how, like the Tea Party, all but those who are flirting with Bernie have become a destructive force within the left, a force that, like the Tea Party, will drive voters away in big national elections. As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death should remind us all, elections have very real world-consequences. So my goal is to drive away any voters who are not in the Bernie camp away from that camp’s self-destructive, self-indulgent, delusional nonsense by exposing it for what it is, bluntly and harshly and rightly so. I’m basically declaring war on Camp Bernie because it declared war on the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton months ago, not wanting to participate in the Democratic party but to hijack it Tea Party-style. I’d like to win over the light Bernie supporters, those flirting with his candidacy, and undecideds to our side in this nomination contest before it’s too late, making anyone not under this Pied Piper’s spell realize how inane and ridiculous his message and followers are. It’s not enough to say “Well, enough Bernie supporters will come around to Hillary in the end.” Because the more normal Democrats calmly act like that will happen and the more we stand by and don’t fight back, the more people will think it’s not extreme to support Bernie, the more people will be attracted to his candidacy, and the greater the chances that Bernie could actually win the nomination. 

If however, moderates unite and loudly denounce Camp Bernie for the unhelpful, destructive camp it is, then undecideds will see our passion andour reason and come to us. But if we are quiet with our passion, Camp Bernie has too great a chance for my comfort to win out with their passion over our quiet reason.

The time to act is now. One of George W. Bush’s greatest faults was his long support of his secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who refused to admit to himself, his boss, and the American people that U.S. forces in Iraq were facing a metastasizing insurgency drawing increasing support among the disaffected and malcontents of Iraq. The consequences were disastrous, and we are still living with them today. Eventually, they drove Iraq to a period of-near civil war, in which many normal Iraqis found themselves tangled and transformed, even to the point of becoming violent malcontents themselves. Well, the Democratic Party needs to recognize the insurgency in Bernie Sanders it has on its hands now, call it for what it is, and stop treating it with kid gloves. Rick Perry called Trump “a cancer on conservatism.” That cancer appears to be terminal. Sanders is on liberalism’s chances to affect real change. Time for some chemo.

Don’t get me wrong; I like Bernie Sanders, agree with him on many issues, and know his intentions are good; I can say the same for many of his supporters. But history shows us far too often alone are not enough to succeed, and are no substitute for a practical plan that both incorporates an understanding of the pressures that place limits on the currently possible and addresses reality it exists, not as we wish it to be; “Politics is,” after all, “the art of the possible,” to quote the great nineteenth-century German statesman Otto von Bismarck. And at a time when the Republican Party has, for years, been acting irrationally, has lurched far to the right, and increasingly disdains both compromise and governance, now is not the time for the Democratic party to lurch to the left; now is the time to broaden the Democratic Party’s practical, rational, centrist appeal, to draw centrists and liberal Republicans who are horrified by the far-fight turn of the Republican Party and the rise of Trump. For decades, no Democrat has run as a liberal and won the White House: Carter in 1976, Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and Obama in 2008 and 2012 all ran as center-left candidates. Under President Obama, Democrats have worked hard to cultivate a brand that is centrist, rational, non-extremist, and non-ideological; it would be more than foolish to abandon this very clear contrast with Republicans that Democrats can provide to voters in favor of Sanders’ extreme, narrow, and polarizing approach to politics.

The battle lines are drawn. Time is running out. And it’s time to fight. Now is not the time to show that, like the Iraqi Army then and even now with ISIS, that moderates don’t want to fight, that only the extremists have the passion to really fight. That is how we lose support to the Sanders Insurgency.

U.S. Department of State

Hillary Clinton is a fighter. I’m with her.

If you want to win and help people in real life, you should be, too. Join us, join us now, and get ready to fight, or get ready for President Donald Trump.

Don’t be a Berner.

UPDATE April 29th: See my terms for peace with camp Sanders

Hillary for America

If you appreciate what I have to say, please like and share my analysis and do so throughout all the primaries and caucuses, especially with Sanders supporters. Too much is at stake and Bernie must be stopped!

Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse February 14, 2016   

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) February 14th, 2016

AP photo/Morry Gash

AMMAN — The recent Democratic debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was not one where either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders landed any knockout blows, and though Clinton seemed stronger than Sanders, he was not bad either; thus, this debate is very unlikely to change the terms of either’s support. In the context of the overall nomination contest, this is a clear win for Secretary Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders, as she holds the high ground and it is Sanders who needs to gain at her expense, for several key reasons which will be discussed below.

For one thing, Bernie absolutely needs to grow his support to be competitive, and it is not likely that this debate helped him do that. Bernie’s support, as far as we can tell from Iowa and New Hampshire, comes mainly from white liberals.

The state with the highest proportion of white liberals is Sander’ home state of Vermont; the state with the second highest proportion of white liberals is New Hampshire, right next door to Vermont and where he crushed Hillary Clinton in a blowout victory on Tuesday. The states with the next highest proportions of white liberals in a #3 slot tie are Massachusetts and Iowa, the latter of which he lost to Hillary Clinton by the narrowest of margins. I think you’ll see where I am going here, especially if you’ve read my other pieces where I discuss this: it’s all fine and dandy for Bernie with his blowout win in New Hampshire, but he was not able to even win in one of the two states that are the most demographically favorable to him after his home state and only two other states, and he has already won one of these others, New Hampshire, suggesting a truly narrow appeal for his candidacy. So the mathematical certainty for Sanders is that unless his support grows beyond that white liberal core, New Hampshire will be either the only state he wins, or one of only a handful. And because New Hampshire is a small state that shares a long border with Vermont, voters in New Hampshire would have been more familiar with Bernie than anywhere else besides Vermont; this means that Iowa, where Sanders lost to the narrowest of margins, is likely much more telling for the prospects of his campaign. The coalition that won him New Hampshire and almost won him Iowa is far from sufficient to win the nomination, then.

Bernie’s best bet to broaden his support is with young Latinos and young African-Americans, as 84% and 83% of 18-29-year-olds voted for Bernie in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively, but those electorates were almost entirely white; that, however, will just be the beginning, and he will need to win more moderate white and/or minority Democratic voters, as well, for him to even have a chance. As it stands, black political leaders overwhelmingly favor Clinton, who most notably received the “near unanimous” endorsement of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, collectively the voice of the nation’s black federal legislators. And Clinton still holds quite sizable leads among Hispanic and African-American voters, with recent data showing her holding a clear majority of young African-Americans, and although it is possible that recent events may have shifted things a bit, this remains to be seen.

Thursday night’s debate was a chance for Bernie Sanders to attack Hillary Clinton on certain issues in order to weaken her support among minorities and possibly moderates, and to simultaneously court these same groups. While he did show a modest, decent effort to increase to his appeal to minority voters, it was not particularly strong and he was challenging a candidate with a very high lead in support from minority voters; as far as the debate was concerned, Hillary’s performance in the debate was more than enough to remind any minority or moderate voters who were considering Bernie why she is a better candidate as far as they are concerned. For minority voters, she was able to remind them that her experience and accomplishments made her by far the best candidate to ensure both that 1.) the progress made under Obama is not lost and 2.) building on Obama’s legacy, Democrats continue to make more progress, step by step, policy by policy, vote by vote, which is how African-Americans have always seen progress made in America. African-American voters, as African-American New York Times columnist Charles Blow pointed out, are justifiably cynical and wary of politicians who make grand promises, as the history of African-Americans since colonial times is one oppression and rampant inequality and discrimination. Even for all the progress since desegregation, even with a black man in the White House, unfairness, broken homes, shattered dreams, and having to see their relatively inferior socio-economic status as a group shoved in their face as a matter of daily existence is still the norm for black Americans. 

Basically, Bernie had to try to convince black Americans that they should place their trust in him and his far loftier, far riskier, far vaguer goals that seek to replace the systems Obama worked to improve with new ones, rather than trust Hillary Clinton with her more down-to-earth, less risky, far more specific policies that build on the legacy of both Obama’s presidency and her husband’s. It’s not that Sanders does not offer an attractive message to African-Americans, it’s just a message that’s not tailored to their specific community and asks an extraordinary amount of trust in someone who is relatively brand new to them and whose presidential campaign is selling policies that far outsize anything Sanders has been involved with in his career. 

In contrast, Hillary’s message to African-Americans is more tailored to them her and relationship with the African-American community is deep and goes back decades; she is not asking for an extraordinary level of trust the same way Bernie Sanders is because the types of incremental improvements she is selling are the types that have defined her career since the failure of her universal-coverage “Hillarycare” healthcare reform effort in 1994. 

Sanders is coming late to courting African-American leaders’ and voters’ political support even though he was in Congress for decades. If he can make any but the youngest African-American voters abandon Clinton in significant numbers in a matter of weeks for a riskier and unproven advocate, that would something of a political miracle on his part, a historic collapse on the part of Clinton, or a mixture of the two. The same goes for the Latino vote, which clearly favors her, too, though it is not as pro-Clinton a demographic as black voters.

To its credit, the Sanders campaign had made public display of minority voters at Sanders’ rallies, the enlistment of minority surrogates, and the seeking out of prominent minority endorsements all priorities (while Dr. Cornell West was on board early, Sanders most notably just picked up the endorsements of former NAACP chief Ben Jealous and legend Harry Belafonte). These efforts have only been noticeable over the past days and weeks; previously, his rallies were lily-white, so he is moving in the right direction even if at the tenth-(perhaps the eleventh)-hour. Still, his most recent attempt to engage the black community at a black issues forum went less than smoothly when he insisted on addressing racial inequality through economic inequality rather than view is through its own prism, an approach that is objectively problematic and insufficient in addressing racial inequality.

The other big question is how Bernie can do with moderates. He did well with them in New Hampshire, but not in Iowa. I would submit that rather that represent any momentum with moderates, his success with them in New Hampshire was due more to New Hampshire’s peculiarities and proximity to Sanders’ home state of Vermont. We shall see is my gut is right in the near future. But I don’t think Sanders did anything to win over moderates during the debate; time and time again he articulated a narrow view and a narrow focus, the narrowness of which was only matched by the ambitious heights of his proposed solutions and the vagueness or impracticality of their specifics. Also, any moderates who were looking for insight into candidates’ foreign policy would have found that Sanders in general seemed reasonable—sounding a bit better than he has previously—but was lacking, as usual, in specifics. And when he tried to attack Hillary, he did so in ways that made him look ideological (something moderates aren’t really hoping to see too much of) and small: when he criticized Clinton for her 2002 vote on Iraq (something he has done pretty much every time he discusses foreign policy) by misleadingly characterizing it as a vote “for war,” Clinton’s response was brilliant: “I do not believe a vote in 2002 is a plan to defeat ISIS in 2016. It’s very important we focus on the threats we face today, and that we understand the complicated and dangerous world we are in;” when Sanders ducked a question about his foreign policy advisors to criticize Clinton for taking advice from Henry Kissinger, Clinton responded that, of course, hearing opinions from people with deep experience even if you don’t agree with them is smart, making Sanders look immature. Clinton also had her best response to Sanders’ attacks on her ties to corporate America, noting Obama’s donations from Bankers didn’t stop him from pushing for restrictions on them. Of course this will still be an issue for her, but at least in the debate she was effective in defending herself.

Undecideds might have noticed Sanders’ narrow focus and lack of depth on foreign policy, and Clinton’s comparative master of foreign policy. For voters who have concerns that might include but go beyond economic inequality, Sanders is not making much of a case by simply saying that almost everything rests on economic inequality and punishing the wealthy and corporations. Many African-American and Latino voters in less-than-stellar urban environments have a whole range of social justice and microeconomic issues that Sanders’ ideological, more big-picture agenda tackles less directly than Clinton’s more practical, nitty-gritty, down-to-earth approach. And more so than other debates, Clinton was relaxed and likable, seemed less angry when mixing it up with Sanders. In contrast, Sanders seemed more tense and uncomfortable than usual from a visual perspective, but he was still the more exciting performer, for those who prefer that (apparently, the youth vote). In any even, it is hard to see Clinton chipping into Bernie’s enormous lead with young people as a consequence of this debate. 

Overall, Clinton did play an excellent prevent defense while scoring some modest but important points on offense, and seems likely to command the field in the next few contests barring any catastrophes.

Of the roughly eight-million who did tune in to the debate, it is hard to imagine that those supporting Sanders would have switched to Clinton or vice versa. The debate from Thursday night was only the fourth-highest rated Democratic debate, with about half the audience of the most-watched debate.  Thus, it is questionable as to what kind of an impact it had, especially with no clear-knockout blow and with solid performances for both candidates, performances that their core supporters would appreciate. But since Sanders is the insurgent, and Clinton the favorite, this means Clinton basically held the high ground and still commands the field. If the media ends up pushing any kind of narrative of an imminent Clinton campaign collapse and a Sanders surge, it sure won’t have to do with the debate. I have already pointedly noted that Sanders’ “political revolution” is nonsense, pure delusional fantasy with absolutely no data to back it up; if Sanders is to secure the the nomination, it will have to be along much more traditional political methods. Perhaps the most important questions of the Democratic nomination contest between Clinton and Sanders will be answered by entry and exit polling on February 20th in Nevada and February 27th in South Carolina and, of course, in the final results of both contests, where far fewer liberals and far more moderates and minorities will be voting.

One thing is for sure: compared to the disgraceful, childish, feces-throwing spectacle that was last night’s Republican debate, Democratic Brand Mature Adult seems secure for now.

Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

The math and data that show why the “political revolution” can’t and won’t happen anytime soon.

 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse February 5, 2016; over 35,700 unique views  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) February 5th, 2016

Updated February 8th to include data on political ideology of Americans, February 11th to include commentary by New York Times columnist Charles Blow, February 12th to include data on turnout in the 2008 Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries vs. 2016 numbers, and February 19th to point out that Gerald Friedman, one of the economists most often cited by Sanders people in support of their program is actually voting for Hillary Clinton; my February 17th update has since been turned into a new post, see the end for details.

AP/John Locher for photo without text

AMMAN — For those who have studied or crafted public policy and those who support Hillary Clinton based on her record of accomplishment and her sound, workable policy proposals, the rise of Bernie Sanders, the passion of his supporters, and the vitriol some (but thankfully, not all) of those supporters directed against Hillary Clinton—Hillary Clinton, for decades painted and attacked by the right as a dangerous leftist!—is at the very least frustrating and for many downright infuriating and depressing. More than anything else, this map I will get into later will help you understand why the political and policy classes are not feelin’ the Bern.

Roll Call

Don’t get me wrong.  I like Bernie Sanders.  I like what he stands for.  I’ve been a fan for years (my personal favorite Bernie moment was when he destroyed Michele Bachmann on live TV).  But as someone who has studied politics and public/foreign policy for over fifteen years—and if that makes me a “Washington Insider,” I’m guilty as charged!—I am one of those is more vexed than pleased with his sudden, meteoric rise.

Bernie’s “Plans”

To lead with just one example, let’s talk about healthcare.

Hillary tried hard to get a reformed healthcare system that would provide universal coverage passed (dubbed “Hillarycare”) when she was First Lady, during Bill Clinton’s first term; she was attacked and demonized by the Republican Party in a bruising battle for her efforts, and though defeated, but she did not give up on health reform and she was a key force in later seeing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) eventually enacted, a program that has provided millions of children with access to healthcare.  This exercise taught Hillary and anyone paying attention then (or who bothers to look into the history now) that enacting sweeping legislation is easier said than done.

But now we have a candidate in Sanders who is promising an incredibly ambitious single-payer healthcare system if elected, and promises a “political revolution” as the means to this end.  His supporters seem to forget the healthcare battles of the last seven years and fail to understand that a “political revolution” is not a means to anything but an end in and of itself, one so daunting and impossible in current or even near-term circumstances that any plans dependent on them will only remain on paper and in people’s heads for the foreseeable future.

Exit polls in Iowa tell us a lot: it is very instructive that older voters—those who have seen more than a few elections and political battles, who have some life experience and wisdom—favor Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly (those aged 65 or older favored her 69% to only 26% for Sanders), whereas the youngest voters, who have seen the fewest elections and political battles and are the most inexperienced and naïve, favor Sanders overwhelmingly (84% to 14% for Clinton among 17-29-year-olds).

On foreign policy, Sanders’ entire campaign seems to consist of two things: 1.) his contrast in voting in the negative during the misleadingly-labeled “Iraq War vote” with Hillary, who voted for the relevant bill, and 2.) pretty much nodding in agreement with what Hillary says about foreign policy, never going into the detail she does because he simply does not have the ability to do that.   With issues closer to home, the Bernie Sanders campaign seems to address just about every domestic issue through one or more of three prisms: 1.) inequality/the wealthiest 1%, 2.) Wall St/the big banks, and 3.) corruption/money in politics.  He has a good short pitch on each, and those tend to be his answers to just about everything domestic.  His big policy proposals are also a triumvirate: 1.) single-payer healthcare, 2.) free college for all, and 3.) massive tax increases on the rich and corporations and a modest tax increase on the middle class to pay for the first two. Even the most generous credible assessments of these “plans” (and most are not generous) suggest his numbers and mechanisms are off as he presents them or would need luck for them to work (in fact, Gerald Friedman, one of the economists most often cited by Sanders people to lend credibility to Bernie’s plans, has just declared publicly that he will be voting for Hillary Clinton: “I support Clinton…I donate $10 a month to Clinton. I remember the woman who said, women’s rights are human rights. I think she did a great job as secretary of state. I agree with Bernie on economic issues, but there are other issues.” He is also adjusting his analysis in a way that is less favorable to Sanders’ plans).

Hold on here folks, time for an adult to say ”Gee, sounds great, but how the @#$* are you going to make any of this happen?”  Someone who has not fallen for the Sirens’ song of Bernie Sanders, who can still exercise critical thinking and due diligence, because, as of yet, I have not found a single Bernie Sanders supporter who has done this and has come up with a plausible answer.  How do I know this?

Every time I ask how, the answer comes back to “political revolution” (cue eye roll/face palm).  Their chosen candidate is no better with his answers.

We’ve seen this sitcom before, in the campaign of Barack Obama and his presidency.  The famous line of his that became a mantra—that America could not be reduced to “a collection of red states and blue states,” liberal or conservative parts, that, rather, “We are…the United States of America,” and much of the accompanying rhetoric, told us we had a candidate who disdained and would remain aloof from partisan politics, who would reach out to Republicans and try hard to work with them, ushering in a new era of bi-partisan cooperation and bi-partisan achievement.  That era never happened: Obama’s two signature domestic legislative achievements—the stimulus package and the Affordable Care Act (dubbed Obamacare)— combined garnered a grand total of three Republican votes: three votes in the Senate for the stimulus only and that was it (of those three senators, one has since retired and one switched parties before first losing his senate seat and then dying of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma).  And on both packages, not even all Democrats voted affirmatively.

Obama’s selling of so much “hope and change” and bi-partisanship made people feel good and believe in the America that they wanted to exist, but was incredibly naïve, since it was clear long before he was elected that Republicans had no interest in cooperation and lurched to the right and to obstructionism even more than before with the rise of the so-called Tea Party, which came to some surprising power in the 2010 mid-term elections; since the Republicans took back the House in those elections, a dysfunctional House has voted to repeal Obamacare over sixty times. 

So yes, Obama the candidate sold a naïve approach to governance, but he never aggressively sold massive legislation programs that were wildly unachievable.  And while this approach was his greatest weakness as president, he still managed to be a pretty good president despite this.

Now, candidate Bernie Sanders is doubling down on the impractical, taking the stupendously naïve to ethereal new heights: Bernie is selling three wildly unachievable massive legislation packages, and is selling a wildly unserious approach to achieve them…

Bernie’s “Political Revolution” vs. Math, Geography, and Reality

Which brings us back to the “political revolution” slogans, talking points, rhetoric, take you pick of words/phrases which correctly signify the emptiness behind them.  “You’re being too cynical!” I am told.  “How do you know if we don’t try?”  And I always have the same answer: “Look at this map!”:

Roll Call 

As the map shows, Republicans hold 247 seats, Democrats 188, with 218 seats being the magic number to give one side a majority.  Well, for the Republican side, a full 219 seats are virtually certain to remain in Republican hands come Election Day.  This is a majority.  The Democrats are virtually certain to hold onto 183 seats.  There are only 31 seats that are competitive: 18 of these favor Republicans (12 heavily, 7 moderately, 3 slightly), 7 of these favor Democrats (2 heavily, 1 moderately, 4 slightly), and 11 seats are “tossups.”  Even if, by some miracle, the Democrats won all 31 of these competitive seats, they would still not have a majority, and even the chances winning all those seats are, truly, of a supernatural nature.  I have heard nothing of a realistic strategy for how to prevent any losses whatsoever for Democrats and win all those 31 seats, let alone how to chip into the 219 seats virtually certain to remain Republican.  On top of that, a President Sanders who is not even a Democrat and has often run against Democrats would hardly have an easier time getting Democrats on board with his agenda than longtime-Democrat Obama, who was unable to prevent some Democrats from voting against both his stimulus package and Obamacare.  And Sanders would need every Democrat and a virtually impossible combination of miracle victories in races in both the House and Senate for his controversial legislation to pass both the chambers of Congress.

There are a lot of problems with how these districts are designed, as well: they favor Republicans because Republicans control a lot of state legislatures, which are the bodies that control the long and complex process of creating congressional districts; as I wrote a few years ago, “1.4 million more votes were cast for Democrats in the 2012 House elections, and yet Republicans ended up with a 234-201 advantage in House seats.”

Though the Senate is more competitive, the situation still favors Republicans, the the House could still block any legislation it wants, and, constitutionally, only the House can propose official budgets.

In addition, this is also crucial to consider: in 2008, when Obama won election, only 5 states leaned or were solidly Republican, while the Democrats had 35 states that leaned or were solidly their side.  In 2015, that balance reversed dramatically: now, Democrats have only 14 states solidly in or leaning towards their camp while there are 20 states that lean or are solidly Republican.  Thus, Republicans nationally currently have a commanding majority of positions in state-level governments, the very positions that control the redistricting process.

Another insurmountable realty for Sanders is that out of all 50 states, only 3(Massachusetts, Vermont, and Hawaii) have more people who identify as liberal than conservative, and all by a margin of 4.6% or less, while 47 states have more people who identify as conservative than liberal, with the margin as high as 36% and with 19 states having at least 20% more self-identified conservatives than self-identified liberals.  The people are not with Bernie and would not be with his program.

The math is daunting and stubborn, and Bernie’s talk of “political revolution” has not credibly addressed this math; it is obviously not capable of doing so.

So when, during the debate last night and in response to a question about prioritizing his political agenda that implied and begged a discussion of “the how” behind it, Sanders said “No, you just can’t negotiate with Mitch McConnell. Mitch is gonna have to look out the window and see a whole lot of people saying, ‘Mitch, stop representing the billionaire class. Start listening to working families,’” the clear implication was that mobilizing millions of Americans to take to the streets and march on Washington will have some sort of effect on Mitch McConnell and other Republicans.  That’s part of what Sanders is getting at with his nebulous “political revolution” talk. 

Frankly, this idea is as absurd as it is empty: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has held his Senate seat for Kentucky for over thirty years, and won his sixth term in 2014 by over 15 percentage points (56.2% to 40.7% for his main rival) and by a margin of over 220,000 votes.  Mitch McConnell will not care about the millions in the streets; he will care about the over 800,000 Kentuckians who voted him into office, and any other Kentuckians he can add to that total.

There is also the issue of high Republican turnout.  In response to Bernie’s idea of political revolution, Charles Blow, a passionate New York Times columnist and an African-American, noted in his column titled “Stop Bernie-Splaining to Black Voters” that Bernie fans aggressively courting the black vote should respect—and themselves consider—the sound reasons why back voters are cynical and not easily moved by lofty promises from politicians. While Blow noted one of these reasons was the long, arduous journey of being black in America, Blow also in particular asked those with visions of “political revolution” dancing in their heads to consider that Republican turnout has been higher than Democratic turnout in this 2016 nominating contest thus far, in both Iowa and New Hampshire, with each contest setting respective records for turnout among Republicans.   For Blow, “That’s a stubborn fact emerging — a reality — and it is one that all voters, including black ones, shouldn’t be simply told to discount.”

But the bad news for Sanders’ would-be revolutionaries continues: in 2008, Democratic turnout in the Iowa caucuses was about 240,000 caucus-goers and in the New Hampshire primary it was about 288,000 voters.   This year, only about 172,000 people participated in the Iowa caucuses, while only about 250,000 people voted in New Hampshire, declines of roughly 28% and 13%, respectively. 

With Republican turnout higher than Democrats’ and increasing, and Democratic turnout lower than Republicans’  and decreasing, it would seem that Sanders’ key independent variables on which the the success of his “political revolution” depends are not only insufficient, but moving in reverse.

Along with all the other data presented in this article, this turnout data would suggest that the Sanders-advertised “political revolution”— one based on high Democratic turnout from all the supposed Berners who have been lurking in the shadows but who will now supposedly swell the ranks of Democratic voters enough to empower a Sandersesque agenda—is a “political revolution” that cannot be discussed in the present tense, certainly not in the this election cycle, and thus can only be mentioned in a hypothetical conditional future tense.

We may not be able to teach Sanders’ supporters public policy and politics, but they should be able to learn basic math.

Bernie Supporters Need a “Revolution” in How They See Reality

When the hypothetical farce of a fantasy of Sanders’ agenda is stripped down by these cold hard numbers to what is actually realistically possible—leaving out the political damage and pushback that would be suffered by pushing such drastic, unworkable legislation on a majority of Americans who currently don’t reflect the left-wing of the American population and who would be strongly opposed to such legislation, we are generally left with policies very similar to Hillary Clinton’s.  Because once we realize there is no real-world answer in the America of 2016 (and 2017, 2018…) to the question of “How?” in regards to Senator Sanders’ agenda, we must then ask “Why do people support him?”  The disturbing answer is that these voters care very little for process, for records, for details, for implementation, for statistics; they hear lullabies of what they like to hear and are happy to drift to sleep in dreamland rather than mentally exert themselves with the details of trying to turn their dreams into reality, because if they did, their dream would shatter and they would be stuck in the less cool, less fun, less Bernie-friendly real world, where Republicans and non-liberals actually exist.  Berners are eager to support whomever will say what they want to hear, who say it the loudest and most often, without any serious regard as to how to turn words into action, and they scoff at, even vilify, someone who is, in the words of The New York Times, “one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.”  Then, combined with what is going on in the calamitous circus of the Republican nomination contest, we see signs of an unhealthy electorate that is incapable of passing sound judgement on presidential candidates, among many other elected officials.

Over the seven+ years of Obama’s presidency, Democrats have built a brand of being reasonable, rational, and realistic in contrast to the Republicans’ well-earned brand of being ideological, irrational, and inane.  It was Republicans who were selling things like programs on extremely unfavorable terms to Iran and absent major leverage with Iran, deporting eleven million people, and getting Mexico to pay for a wall on the U.S. southern border.  When talking to centrist undecided and unaffiliated voters, Democrats could laugh and point to Hillary Clinton as their party’s standard bearer.  If Bernie is to be our new standard-bearer and our new brand is to be militantly progressive, willfully blind to political reality, and tone deaf to non-liberals, the Democrats will be abandoning brand traits that are the most important in a general election in favor of becoming more like Republicans in style and approach.  And for what?  To feel good about a candidate that makes you “excited?”  That excitement will only lead to disappointment.  In the words of longtime-liberal Paul Krugman from his column “How Change Happens”:

“The point is that while idealism is fine and essential — you have to dream of a better world — it’s not a virtue unless it goes along with hardheaded realism about the means that might achieve your ends. That’s true even when, like F.D.R., you ride a political tidal wave into office. It’s even more true for a modern Democrat, who will be lucky if his or her party controls even one house of Congress at any point this decade.

Sorry, but there’s nothing noble about seeing your values defeated because you preferred happy dreams to hard thinking about means and ends. Don’t let idealism veer into destructive self-indulgence.”

The February 17th update has since been turned into a new piece: I Declare War on Bernie Sanders and His Fans: Why They May Become the Liberal Tea Party and Why They Must Be Stopped

Related: 3/11 Recent Republican Debate a Game Changer: Party Will Unify Behind Trump, Cease Circus; Democrats Will Face Much Stronger GOP, Must Unify ASAP

Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters

If you appreciate what I have to say, please like and share my analysis and do so throughout all the primaries and caucuses, especially with Sanders supporters.  Too much is at stake for these questions not to be asked, and answered!

Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg.  If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse February 4, 2016   

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) February 4th, 2016

AP

AMMAN —Wow, Iowa.  Thanks for making everyone’s job harder…

The scenario that would have virtually sealed the Republican nomination for Trump was a clear Trump win, with a big gap between him and Cruz, and a big gap between Cruz and Rubio.  The scenario that would have virtually sealed the nomination for Clinton would have been a clear Clinton win by more than just a few points.

Instead, we got scenarios that provided for about as unclear a nomination process as possible.  When I wrote earlier that America was suffering from political chaos and wild-card candidates, I sure wasn’t wrong about that, even if I incorrectly predicted Iowa to go for Trump (see my explanation at the bottom).  Much of the discussion below relies on these entrance polls (you can also see Democrats’ and Republicans’ info separately).

The Democrats:

On the Democratic side, both surviving candidates have reason to feel good, but also cause for concern, though Clinton is still easily the favorite.

AP/John Locher

Clinton: The Good:

A win is still a win, no matter how close.  Just ask President Al Gore.  As explained earlier, except for Vermont, Bernie’s home state, and New Hampshire, no other state was more suited politically and demographically for a Bernie victory than Iowa, which also shared this position with Massachusetts and is is the only of these states outside of New England, Bernie’s backyard.  Clinton’s well-run campaign competed with a well-run Sanders campaign on territory exceptionally tailor-made for a Bernie win and eked out a win for Clinton.  Her organization was, therefore, slightly better and succeeded in turning out more Clinton supporters by the slimmest of margins than her rival’s campaign.  After New Hampshire, almost every single state will be more favorable to her, so if she was able to do as well as she did last night in Iowa, she has little reason to panic, even if she loses in New Hampshire by a wide margin.  Clinton won more delegates from the Iowa caucus process, both at the state level in the number of delegates Iowa’s caucus process will send to the national convention, so for all the false talk of a “virtual tie,” Clinton is indisputably a winner, if only by the narrowest margin in the history of Iowa caucusing.

Clinton The Bad:

Clinton won, but it would be virtually impossible to have won by less.  A sizable win would likely have been a knockout blow against Sanders in the first round; that Bernie did so well and that the two were are virtually tied is most certainly going to be part of the narrative going into Bernie’s backyard, New Hampshire, where she is trailing Bernie currently by huge margins.  That is a part of the narrative that Team Clinton would have preferred not to have had to grapple with at all.  If Clinton wants to keep Sanders from having a shot at broadening his thus-far-narrow-support to other groups and to keep him from having a chance at chipping into her sizable lead in South Carolina and in other important states after New Hampshire, she will have to at least partially close the massive gap between her and Bernie in New Hampshire.  In particular, Clinton would have to hope that any major negative revelations about her e-mail situation do not occur at a time when she needs to dominate in certain states like South Carolina and others going forward, and though it is unlikely such revelations will unfold, it is not impossible that this would happen.

Sanders: The Good

Sanders has a lot to be proud of: his insurgent campaign in a matter of months came from being extremely far behind Clinton in Iowa to coming painfully close to beating her.  Bernie will be getting a lot of attention and money as a result of his strong performance there, more than enough to keep him in the race for a while and possibly as long as he wants to stay in since it is likely he will win New Hampshire also and will thus have a steady stream of positive coverage and donations coming in for weeks, enabling him to remain a presence for the foreseeable future.  Bernie also clearly dominates among young voters by an overwhelming margin, and his remarkable ability to bring new young voters into the process is also something that all Democrats can celebrate if those voters are willing to be team players in the long-run and are not just “Bernie-or-bust.”  Whatever the result of the nomination process, Bernie has helped the liberal wing of the Democratic Party roar back to life in a way not seen in a generation even if they still remain a minority within the party; because of Bernie, their voice has been heard loud and clear and they can be pleased with their candidate and their movement even for just that.

Sanders: The Bad:

If Bernie’s candidacy was going to have any serious viability, he should have been able to beat Clinton in a state that is basically tied for being the third-most favorable state in the nation to him based on political and demographic identity.  That he did not increases the already substantial doubts about his ability to be a viable candidate and to win over significant numbers of people who are not white liberals.  Bernie’s performance in Iowa does not bode well for the prospects for his campaign after New Hampshire.  If anything, it suggests that Iowa and New Hampshire will be the peak of his performance and will likely be the only time throughout the race he is even close to Hillary in the delegate count.  Bernie also did terribly with older voters, who tend to be more reliable voters than younger ones.  Bernie also promised his supporters that he would win if there was a high turnout, and there was a high turnout, but he lost, even if barely.  Finally, with O’Malley mercifully withdrawing, there will be much more time for public scrutiny of Sanders, especially during debates, a scrutiny to which he has not yet been subjected and with which Clinton is very familiar.

Verdict:

Both Hillary and Bernie did well enough to be able to hold their heads high and not be dogged by a negative narrative going forward.  Bernie performed admirably against a formidable foe in Hillary Clinton, but unless something drastic happens, Hillary’s far stronger support among moderates and minorities means that Sanders has a statistically verysmall chance of winning the nomination.  His best bet would have been a sizable victory in in Iowa followed by the same in New Hampshire; that would have given Bernie a dominant and overwhelmingly positive narrative for at least three weeks in February, and Clinton would have been dogged by a negative, losing narrative.  Since that has not happened, the long-game does not look good for Sanders. Bernie should win in New Hampshire, a state in his own backyard and with similarities to Vermont’s electorate, but if his margin of victory shrinks significantly between where the polls have him now and where the results have him Tuesday, that would be the equivalent of his political obituary as it allows Clinton to credibly sell a narrative of momentum; if Bernie only wins by a slight margin or somehow manages to lose to Clinton (the latter seeming not likely looking at current polls), expect a very clear public narrative that he is done as a candidate.

The Republicans:

On the Republican side, the results of Iowa may not (as usual) be terribly indicative of what is to come.  Apart from the death of some of the bottom-tier campaigns, the race changes little for the rest of the candidates, with the possible exception of Rubio.

AP/Reuters 

Cruz: The Good

Without a doubt, Ted Cruz surprised a lot of people.  He put together a top notch organization and out-campaigned and out-politicked his opponents, and had one of the most efficient ratios for money spent per vote.  Even when a national audience and the national media questioned some of his decisions, they played well with Iowans.  Cruz also managed to win when virtually everyone—his rivals, Republican elites, and the media—were questioning his record and behavior.  He even managed to win with two scandals relating to his personal loans and his eligibility to run for presidentdogging him.  To be able to come out on top with so many negatives weighing him down is, objectively, a remarkable feat.  Cruz also dominated among conservatives.  In addition, unlike recent past Iowa caucus winners, Cruz has a solid organization and is well funded, and this status is only likely to improve as a result of his win; he has already raised $3 million since his victory.  He also won his key demographic—Evangelicals—by 12 percentage-points, getting 34% to Trump’s 22%.  In addition, Cruz was able to bring in a substantial number of new people into the process: 23% of all first-time caucus-goers, second only to Trump.  He also did the best by far with Iowans on the issue of terrorism, and also led on the issue of government spending.

Cruz: The Bad

Make no mistake about it, Cruz’s victory was a dirty one.  He doubled down on insulting “New York values” and it played well with enough voters In Iowa; he mailed out deceitful, lie-filled flyers to scare and shame his supporters into caucusing; his campaign even falsely suggested that Dr. Ben Carson had dropped out of the race while the caucuses were still happening, drawing the rare anger of Dr. Carson directly onto Cruz; and he played and pandered as much as possible to religion in a nation that is supposed to have secular governance.  At the same time, Cruz only got about a third of the Evangelical vote, more than any other candidate, but such a divided Evangelical constituency is something that is a troubling sign for a candidate who is banking his entire campaign on dominating this group.  Cruz also did terribly with moderates.  All of this suggests that Cruz’s ability to broaden his support and to win in states that are not heavily conservative and/or religious is weak, making him a weak candidate and a possible one-state wonder (or just a few at most).  He is also now one of everyone else’s biggest targets after his win in Iowa (and was so was even in the week before), and it is extremely unlikely that Cruz will be able to build momentum that will help him in New Hampshire, as there are very few Evangelicals there and it is not terribly conservative.  It is very possible, maybe even likely, that he will come in third or worse in New Hampshire, something that would weaken him going into the primaries in the South, where he needs a strong showing for his chances of winning to survive.

Trump: The Good

With a candidate who operated in the manner that Trump did, it was inevitable that so many of his rivals and in the media would pummel him for coming in second.  But Trump has more to be pleased about than should worry him.  For one thing, Trump spent less money than any other candidate per vote in Iowa and still came in second.  He also spent significantly less time in Iowa than Cruz, Rubio, Carson, and other rivals, meaning there is easy room for improvement, plus he still did better than all those candidates except for Cruz.  Likewise, he kind of winged it when it came to his on-the-ground campaign organization in Iowa, and still managed to come in second, and he has time to adjust tactics.  And, like Cruz and third-place Rubio, he won thousands more votes than any candidate had ever won in an Iowa caucus before 2016.  That means that even half-assing it, Trump was able to bring in record support and hold his own in a crowded field against everyone else except for Cruz.  Trump also managed to bring in more new caucus-goers than anyone else by far, 31% to Cruz’s 23%.  Furthermore, from the beginning, Iowa was described as territory naturally hostile to Trump: it was rural and super religious and Trump was big-city and hardly known for his religiosity, like Cruz and Carson; yet somehow, Trump was able to only lose the state by less than 4%.  In addition, he did well with Evangelicals, taking 22%, more than anyone else except Cruz.  Moving into much more favorable territory, he can boast that he dominated moderates to New Hampshire, a moderate state where he is leading all other candidates handily.  Trump’s support also remained the most steady of any candidate, with by far the highest portion of supporters who had decided earlier on their candidate rather than later.  Additionally, Trump was the candidate who by far dominated on the issue of immigration and was most thought of as the candidate who could get stuff done.  Also, to people paying attention to the details, Trump has demonstrated growth as a candidate, able to be more restrained when he chooses to be, and also showed he would not tolerate a level of public disrespect from Fox News when he boycotted the last debate, a sign of toughness many Republicans nationally will appreciate regardless of how it played out in Iowa.  Trump has created a national movement largely built on media exposure and has barely begun to bring any of his substantial personal resources to bear in this race, and a second-place finish in Iowa will hardly mean the disappearance of this movement as he campaigns in New Hampshire, where he still has a huge lead.

Trump: The Bad:

A large portion of Trump’s campaign narrative that is fueling his success and dominance in media coverage involves the two pillars that he is 1.) leading in almost every poll and 2.) is, therefore, “winning.”  Well, both those pillars took significant hits with the Iowa loss, but while the idea that these two pillars have crumbled and that the Trump Tower of Babble is going to imminently collapse, is premature, it puts the candidate in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable position.  Being a “loser” in Iowa is still not where Trump wanted to be.  In particular, his campaign came off as not particularly organized or intense on the ground there.  Among voters who made their minds up in the throughout January, Trump significantly underperformed compared to both Cruz and Rubio, suggesting Trump may have problems winning further support among undecideds beyond those who have already declared in favor of him.  He also did terrible in the metric of voters feeling that a candidate shared their values.  Now, the pressure on Trump to do well in New Hampshire is the highest pressure he has yet faced as a candidate.  A stumble in New Hampshire might not be fatal for Trump’s campaign, but there is a good chance it would knock him out of the top spot nationally and threaten his top spots in key winner-take-all states like South Carolina and Florida.

Rubio: The Good

Nobody exceeded polling and expectations in Iowa more than Sen. Marco Rubio.  Before, he seemed to be the distant-third to Ted Cruz and only marginally ahead of Dr. Carson, with multiple other candidates chomping at the bit to break into his lad; with his strong third-place showing only about 1% behind Trump, he is in a position to potentially dominate all the other remaining candidates after Trump and Cruz and to turn the election into a virtual, three-way fight between himself and Trump and Cruz; in such a contest Cruz would almost certainly struggle nationally and Rubio would essentially be in a two-way race with Trump.  At the very least, this positions him to be a favorite for a vice presidential slot and/or to be the heir-apparent to run again for president as a favored candidate four years from now.  Not bad at all for a young, freshman senator from Florida.  In many ways, his rise is not dissimilar to Barack Obama’s: both were ethnic-minority state legislators who won a U.S. Senate seat and then ran for president during their first senate term, though apart from that the two men are very different people.  Rubio has indicators coming from Iowa that he can also boast of: he did respectably well with the key Evangelical demographic (with 21%, almost as well as Trump, who came in only behind Cruz), and was by far seen as the most electable candidate; perhaps most surprisingly, he led among all candidates, even Trump, on the issue of jobs/the economy.  He also did the best with independents, and there are lot of them in New Hampshire. 

Heading into the New Hampshire primary, he is pulling in a lot of cash and garnering a lot of positive media coverage, especially from conservative media.  The wind is definitely in his sails nationally more than anyone else at this particular moment, even allowing for his third-place finish in Iowa.  In particular, he can be happy that his two biggest rivals, Trump and Cruz, are focusing most of their attacks on each other heading into the next Republican Debate and New Hampshire’s vote on Tuesday.  Without a doubt, Iowa made Rubio The Establishment/”moderate” candidate to beat, giving him a boost at the best possible time for his candidacy, which thus far has failed to take off and has not gained traction despite his being a darling of much of the conservative media.  If Rubio takes off in any way going forward, his third-place finish just slightly behind Trump will be seen as the moment when it all began.  As it is, there are already signs that he may be displacing Cruz for the #2 spot in New Hampshire, which is exactly where the Rubio campaign wants to be. 

Rubio: The Bad:

With success comes greater risk: Rubio will be walking into New Hampshire with a huge target on his back and it remains to be seen if he can take the heat.  He remains incredibly vulnerable on immigration, an issue of primary concern for many Republican primary voters, and remains vulnerable in terms of his lack of experience when tangling with Bush, Christie (who is now calling him “the boy in the bubble”), and Kasich, all of whom seem ready to go after him in New Hampshire (especially the first two).  He is also taking serious heat from Trump and Cruz, and New Hampshire may very well elevate someone other than him to either be in the spot to challenge Trump or perhaps only to weaken Rubio’s chances. On average, he will likely be the main target in the next debate, and Rubio has not yet faced anything so fierce in this contest.  His extreme views on abortion are also likely to hurt him in a state like New Hampshire.  Rubio has at least as many signs to worry him in New Hampshire as he has to be happy, which is why he may be campaigning so cautiously there.  New Hampshire will be a real test for Rubio’s viability as a candidate.  If he does not finish second there, it will be difficult to see him having a real shot at challenging Trump, let alone winning the nomination, despite him being a new favorite of The Establishment and the conservative media.

AP 

Rest of the Pack and Verdict:

For the Republicans, Trump is still likely to win handily in New Hampshire.  If this happens, things do not look good for the non-Trumpers as the race heads to South Carolina.  It will be very hard for Cruz to finish in the top two spots in New Hampshire, and he may well finish lower than even third, as what played well in Iowa will not play well with New Hampshire’s different crowd.  His best hope for remaining viable is for his non-Trump rivals to keep splitting support fairly evenly among themselves so that none of them can rise to prominence and displace him.  Rubio could rise to be second behind Trump, but the three governors—Bush, Christie, and Kasich—could do some damage to and I believe they will go a long way to exposing his weaknesses as a candidate and that he will not do as well in New Hampshire as some are hoping he will.  If this happens, who emerges strongest in New Hampshire between Bush, Christie, and Kasich?  Having just lost Huckabee, Santorum (winners of the 2008 and 2012 Iowa caucuses, respectively, a fact testifies remarkable to the increasing volatility of modern politics), and Rand Paul, who will be next to drop out?  Bush still has a ton of money, so it seems there would be more pressure on Kasich and Christie to drop out if they do not perform well in New Hampshire.  Fiorina is irrelevant in New Hampshire and nationally as well, but as a millionaire and the only woman running on the Republican side, she has reasons to stay in the race to at least make a solid audition for being the vice presidential pick.  Carson is irrelevant in New Hampshire but is still a strong fourth nationally and has plenty of money in the bank to continue his campaign.  His continued presence hurts Cruz the most, who depends heavily on Evangelical support, and Carson remains a darling of Evangelicals nationally.  Expect Carson to be just… there, and possibly until the end of the race.

Overall Verdict:

Iowa is not a state that is representative of America as a whole, and, more often than not, Iowa fails to pick the winning candidate on the Republican side.  To be sure, candidates at the top should not expect similar results and/or similar margins in New Hampshire.  Trump and Bernie are clear favorites, but a win is a much bigger deal for Trump than for Sanders.

*****

Epilogue: Why I Got Iowa Wrong for Trump

If you read one of my last articles, you know that I wrote it was a pretty sure thing that Trump would win Iowa.  Without apologizing, I want to explain to my readers where I erred and why I was wrong:

1.) I assumed that billionaire Trump would not skimp on organizing a campaign in Iowa, even if last minute, and that he would dump a lot of money into the state in the final week. I just assumed that the people around him, and that The Donald himself, would not be so cavalier in Iowa.  However, those who dismiss Trump as “stupid” neglect his overall spectacular management career.  I am not saying that I lean towards what I am about to say, but I also would not be surprised if Trump and his people didn’t mind risking a close Iowa loss to seeing all his rivals tear each other apart because of the results.  Right now the focus is all on taking Cruz and Rubio down, and a win in an atypical and small state like Iowa, in the end, is not much of a threat to Trump’s candidacy, especially since Cruz was the victor.  If Rubio was trailing him, and not Cruz, in the final days in Iowa, I suspect that Trump & Co. would have had a different approach.  So perhaps this is a sly, calculated plan to elevate Cruz and thus make Trump look less extreme and see Cruz and his rivals damage each other to Trump’s benefit.  I’m not saying I think this is the case, but that, again, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.  After all, this almost certainly had to have been part of the calculus in Trump’s skipping the final debate in Iowa. Either way, Trump is an amateur at political campaigning, but he is learning fast and on-the-fly, and don’t assume he will make the same mistakes with his ground game in New Hampshire and other states as he did in Iowa.

2.) I mistakenly (and naively) assumed that Cruz’s dirty tactics and attacks on Trump’s “New York values” would backfire and help to keep him from winning Iowa; while I am right that they are certainly backfiring on him on a national level, they clearly helped him in the closing days in Iowa. I assumedhis dislikability on the national stage would spill over to the local level in Iowa, and did not give the specific nature of Iowans and the state of Iowa enough consideration when I ended up deciding to favor Trump as much as I did and to not favor Cruz as much as I did.  I will admit that I personally find Cruz the most detestable of all candidates, and while I never consciously allowed that to affect how I went about my research, in the future I will check myself a bit more when analyzing him and his campaign to guard against any subconscious factors.

3.) In general, Iowa is difficult to predict; in fact, it is the most difficult state to predict, especially since it holds its contests as wacky caucuses, not simpler, superior, and more democratic primaries. The oft-cited gold-standard Des Moines Register poll, run by polling virtuoso Ann Selzer, was wrong this time on the Republican side; it has only been wrong one other time from 1988 until now.  One of the problems is that this poll and most of the other final polls were not conducted in the final days before Iowa, so they missed a late break of momentum for Rubio and other shifts; there was also a surprisingly high Evangelical turnout and over 1/3 of Iowa caucus-goers made their decisions in the final few days and were thus missed by most pollsters.  All of these reasons contributed to why the polling in Iowa did not reflect the final result, though it probably did reflect the mood when the polls were actually taken.  If the election were held a few days earlier, my prediction, and the picture painted by most pollsters, would likely have held.

Overall, it was a good experience for me.  I had a feeling Hillary would beat Bernie, but hesitated in making an “official” prediction since it was so close.  I am happy to say that I can learn from my mistakes on the Republican side and hope my errors are understood by my faithful readers.  I am confident I can do better in the future (my non-public predictive record in past elections state-by-state has been pretty solid) and hope you will stay tuned as I continue my coverage of America’s 2016 elections, as well as other topics.  Also, bonus points to anyone who gets The Hobbit reference…

Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg.  If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse February 17, 2017

By Brian E. Frydenborg (Twitter: @bfry1981) February 17th, 2017; a condensed, edited version of this article is featured on War Is Boring, and a Kindle edition, a Nook edition, an Apple iTunes iBook edition, and an EPUB edition are available with previously unpublished content. 

5.) Why Democratic Fascism Is Not a Label Too Far For Trump & His Movement

“American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.” — Henry A. Wallace, 1944 , Vice President of the United States 1941-1945

AMMAN — By the standards discussed in Part I, Donald Trump is clearly a democratic fascist and the Trump Administration is moving America into democratic fascist territory, with the Republican Party, by and large, following Trump on a leash, as has mostly been the case since even before the Republican National Convention; the consequences of this will be disastrous and far worse than even the considerable damage the George W. Bush Administration was able to inflict upon America and the world. Trump and a core of his team have created a kind of cult around Trump as Leader and campaigned and are now governing on much of the traditional fascist political platform—demonization of immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and other minority “others;” a promise to “return” to the glorious past; vacuous promises to “destroy” ”enemies;” creating an atmosphere of permanent conflict; cultivating a sense of national victimhood, hatred of elites, contempt for diplomacy and the modern international system; corporatism; a disaffected populism—and style—bullying, bellicosity, fantasy, the dramatic and theatrical, exaggeration of threats, dumbing-down of language, serial lying, conspiracy-theory believing, anti-intellectualism, shutdown of any debate, an emphasis on action over discussion, misogyny, an obsession with weapons, treating the government as if it is Trump’s personal plaything—and each of these to an intense degree so that the overall resemblance to fascist movements of the past in far too many ways is indisputable, with the differences accounted for by the new, at least outwardly milder and far less violent democratic iteration of what we had hoped were the long-exiled ghosts of fascism.

The New Yorker’s Gopnik, writing in May of 2016, would approve of my term democratic fascism to describe Trump’s campaign and presidency:

There is a simple formula for descriptions of Donald Trump: add together a qualification, a hyphen, and the word ‘fascist.’ The sum may be crypto-fascist, neo-fascist, latent fascist, proto-fascist [quoting George Packer’s description of Trump as “a celebrity proto-fascist with no impulse control”], or American-variety fascist—one of that kind, all the same.

For some experts, the term fascism can’t fit movements that are not overtly anti-democratic (although one should consider the very real possibility of a difference between stated aims and actual aims) or violent, but that is why I like discussing fascism’s evolution and reincarnation into today’s democratic fascism. Writing two months later, Gopnik correctly notes that it is myopic to argue that Trump is not fascist because of one or a few major differences between historical fascism and Trump’s democratic fascism:

…to call him a fascist of some variety is simply to use a historical label that fits. The arguments about whether he meets every point in some static fascism matrix show a misunderstanding of what that ideology involves. It is the essence of fascism to have no single fixed form—an attenuated form of nationalism in its basic nature, it naturally takes on the colors and practices of each nation it infects. In Italy, it is bombastic and neoclassical in form; in Spain, Catholic and religious; in Germany, violent and romantic. It took forms still crazier and more feverishly sinister, if one can imagine, in Romania, whereas under Oswald Mosley, in England, its manner was predictably paternalistic and aristocratic. It is no surprise that the American face of fascism would take on the forms of celebrity television and the casino greeter’s come-on, since that is as much our symbolic scene as nostalgic re-creations of Roman splendors once were Italy’s. 

Stefan Zweig, a globally celebrated Austrian liberal intellectual of the interwar years of the twentieth century, furiously penned in the summer of 1941 in exile in the United States a memoir he aptly titled The World of Yesterday, much of it an analysis of what enabled Hitler to rise and how so few saw his rise coming; many of the dynamics he discussed—namely the failure of traditional democratic elites and the ensuing desire of the masses to punish and replace them, that intellectuals ridiculed the leaders of these fascists as boorish and unwashed while failing to give proper weight to their programs, of the essential role that mass propaganda and sensationalism had in destroying the line between fact fiction and desensitizing the public, respectively, of the diminishing power of “the word” and journalism and intellectual discourse and writers to counter fascism, of the role serial lying had in propelling fascists to power, of the belief that such a powerful and liberal and sophisticated society could never fall under the sway of illiberal goons, of the faith that a society built on the rule of law would be strong enough to resist those who would destroy it, of how the extremism of fascists enables even the slightest recalibration to appear to opponents as a hopeful sign of moderation, of the fascists’ gradual and strategic introduction of their most extreme portions of their program to test public reaction and desensitize the public over time, and that one seismic ill event once such people were in power could be the point “[w]hen it’s too late to stop fascism”—are so painfully obviously present in America with Trump that to read the New Yorker article discussing Zweig is more than enough to send shivers down one’s spine (as for Zweig, he and his wife committed suicide only months after he penned his memoir).

Scholars of a mid-twentieth century German-originated school of thought known as the Frankfurt School noticed the power of American mass media that stifled diversity of thought (something Tocqueville noted long ago when he observed the power of the American press to influence American public opinion but also its subservience to public opinion, how that affected American public life, and recognized the overall oppressive lack of diversity of thought in America) to combine with an authoritarian leader and “large numbers of people…susceptible to…psychological manipulation” who were also “potentially fascistic individuals” as a recipe for disaster; reacting to the McCarthyism of the 1950s, these academics predicted the rise of fascism in America in their own time, and while their predictions were then premature, the dynamics they predicted would lead to fascism in America are in many ways far more present today; like others mentioned earlier, they saw a particular danger in the mass blurring of fact and fiction.

To quote Andrew Sullivan (who was also a friend of the late Hitchens and a fellow admirer of Orwell) in a seminal piece written last spring that was his return to writing after a long hiatus:

…[Trump’s] movement is clearly fascistic in its demonization of foreigners, its hyping of a threat by a domestic minority (Muslims and Mexicans are the new Jews), its focus on a single supreme leader of what can only be called a cult, and its deep belief in violence and coercion in a democracy that has heretofore relied on debate and persuasion. This is the Weimar aspect of our current moment. Just as the English Civil War ended with a dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell, and the French Revolution gave us Napoleon Bonaparte, and the unstable chaos of Russian democracy yielded to Vladimir Putin, and the most recent burst of Egyptian democracy set the conditions for General el-Sisi’s coup, so our paralyzed, emotional hyperdemocracy leads the stumbling, frustrated, angry voter toward the chimerical panacea of Trump.

Sullivan continues:

Those who believe that Trump’s ugly, thuggish populism has no chance of ever making it to the White House seem to me to be missing this dynamic. Neo-fascist movements do not advance gradually by persuasion; they first transform the terms of the debate, create a new movement based on untrammeled emotion, take over existing institutions, and then ruthlessly exploit events. And so current poll numbers are only reassuring if you ignore the potential impact of sudden, external events — an economic downturn or a terror attack in a major city in the months before November. I have no doubt, for example, that Trump is sincere in his desire to “cut the head off” ISIS, whatever that can possibly mean. But it remains a fact that the interests of ISIS and the Trump campaign are now perfectly aligned. Fear is always the would-be tyrant’s greatest ally.

and then quotes from Sinclair Lewis’s aforementioned It Can’t Happen Here. His nightmare having come true, writing the night of the election in a piece titled “The Republic Repeals Itself,” Sullivan remarks that “This is now Trump’s America. He controls everything from here on forward. He has won this campaign in such a decisive fashion that he owes no one anything. He has destroyed the GOP and remade it in his image. He has humiliated the elites and the elite media,” just what a successful democratic fascist needs to have done to set his democratic fascism up to “succeed,” as much as that word can be applied to a movement of this nature.

He further elaborates that

…the now openly revanchist right — far more radical than the Tory government in Britain — [will have] total control over the levers of power. They will not let those levers go easily. They will likely build a propaganda machine more powerful than Fox and Breitbart — and generate pseudo-stories and big lies that, absent any authoritative or trusted media, will dominate the new centers of information, Facebook or its successors. We will be in a new political and media universe in which an authoritarian cult will thrive. This is how fascists tend to govern.

The generally spot-on William Saletan, writing for Slate, noted in October, 2016, how, without equating the two, Trump was even thematically and stylistically “sound[ing] more and more like Hitler,” albeit approaching the younger Hitler of the early 1920s. And just this month, in case people might think that only Trump at the top is the source of all the fascist-y stuff, Saletan explained how Trump’s far more well-regarded Vice President, Mike Pence, “is the chief enabler of the president’s fascist ways;” on top of that, let’s not forget the Republican Party as a whole, which seems far more partner than hostage to Trump and that just put out a survey that seems deliberately crafted to advance what we’ve described as democratic fascism, harping especially on “illegal immigration,” “radical Islamic terrorism,” and “the mainstream media” and clearly trying to hurt the reality-based media’s coverage of the first two issues in favor or more hysterical views (Question 13: “Do you believe that political correctness has created biased news coverage on both illegal immigration and radical Islamic terrorism?” and Question 24: “Do you agree with President Trump’s media strategy to cut through the media’s noise and deliver our message straight to the people?”); yes, the GOP is doing its part, some enthusiastically, some reluctantly, some in between, some unwittingly, and with only a minuscule resistance, even if it is larger than commonly found in a relatively monolithic and extremely monochrome Republican Party (all new GOP congressman from the 2016 election were white and out of 293 senators and representatives, only 14, or less than 4.8%, were non-white; in contrast, Democrats had 89 non-white members representing about 37% of their Members of Congress), a resistance whose voices generally come from a tiny group of out-of-power elites with something of a megaphone who are far less representative of the Party’s rank-and-file or current elected officeholders. So, lest we forget, Trump has plenty of help.

Michael Kinsley, writing in The Washington Post, focuses on Trump’s corporatist tendencies that resemble fascism’s past corporatism, that “Donald Trump is a fascist,” and while “[i]t’s ridiculous to compare any living person to Hitler or Mussolini…I mean ‘fascist’ in the more clinical sense.” For Kinsley, Trump’s

seemingly erratic behavior can be explained — if not justified — by thinking of Trump as a fascist. Not in the sense of an all-purpose bad guy, but in the sense of somebody who sincerely believes that the toxic combination of strong government and strong corporations should run the nation and the world.

The realization that Trump is something of a fascist hardly comes from the left or the media class alone; renown counterterrorism expert Peter Bergen also labeled Trump a “proto-fascist,” while conservative academic Max Boot tweeted all the way back in late 2015 that “Trump is a fascist. And that’s not a term I use loosely or often. But he’s earned it” (he has also referred to Trump as a “fascist demagogue”). One of Boot’s fellow conservative academic travelers, Robert Kagan, wrote in May 2016 that Donald Trump

…is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.

And they are not alone on the right (Sullivan is something of a conservative), with even the fairly restrained Ross Douthat noting, all the way back in December, 2015, that, “[w]hether or not we want to call Trump a fascist outright, then, it seems fair to say that he’s closer to the ‘proto-fascist’ zone on the political spectrum than either the average American conservative or his recent predecessors in right-wing populism,” and that “Trump may indeed be a little fascistic;” later, in May, 2016, when it was long clear to all but those bingeing on denial (not that there was a shortage of prominent conservatives fitting this description) that Trump would be the nominee, he referred to Trump as “a proto-fascist grotesque with zero political experience and poor impulse control.”

I remember when some liberals called George W. Bush a fascist or a Nazi; they were very few, and never anyone of particular importance or who was widely-respected as an intellectual, a journalist, a politician (and no, Dick Durbin’s ill-phrased Guantánamo criticism can in no way honestly be represented as an attempt to call Bush or his Administration fascist in their overall nature, and that is the closest thing that comes to mind), but, rather, were often fringe rabble-rousers or small numbers of individual protesters, which was ridiculous (and I am not fan of Bush or his disastrous presidency), and I was happy to call out anyone calling Bush a fascist or a Nazi.

Well, this is different; across the political spectrum, a number of widely respectable, mainstream, serious, non-hyperbolic, measured, thoughtful people—some of whom were very critical of Bush and yet were hardly labeling his Administration “fascist”—who have been generally prescient and correct in their commentary are writing pieces unlike any they have written before, sounding the alarm that democracy and Western civilization is in peril; when I wrote my own similar call to arms—ahead of much of the crowd—it was more a call to arms that, while discussing a theoretical possibility of Clinton not winning, was meant more to play out the severe challenges a (second) Clinton Administration would face; I was extremely confident in a Clinton win at that point, but it turned out the far worse hypothetical would be our current nightmare of a reality. Sage people I’ve never known to be hysterical are using the words “fascist” and Trump in the same sentence, though this is generally an elite print media crowd and the reality of our new democratic fascism is not widely seeping through the television news crowd and the population as a whole, and that even allows for a huge portion of Americans who know this is very bad, very unprecedented, and yet still don’t know how bad it is. Today, more and more people do seem to be catching on because there is a sharp rise in the public consumption of dystopian, Orwellian fiction.  If the reader will indulge me in a bit of speculation, I think there are some very wise political leaders—senators, congressmen, governors, etc., of both parties (though clearly far fewer on the Republican side) who see that this is a form of fascism but avoid using the term so as not to turn away voters who would see such a term as “unfair” or “partisan,” a non-use aimed at laying the groundwork for bringing in even some of the reluctant Trump voters to help oppose him at some point in the future; this approach makes sense, and just throwing around the word “fascist” is both unproductive and counterproductive (more on that in a bit); I submit democratic fascism used consistently instead of just plain fascism is a remedy for some of the concerns that crowd might have, and I do hope they will begin to bring the term into the current lexicon.

Another point that must be made: these respectable commentators calling Trump out for his fascistic tendencies are not lunging towards the far left, and are not part of some intelligentsia that has suddenly already found itself there (though, if the “Sandernista” Bernie Sanders-wing of the Democratic Party and the far left in general has its way, the left and the Party may yet radicalize in the future, and that process may already be underway); no, it is not a symptom of the problems of the left that fascist is being applied as a label for Trump and his agenda; it is simply a product of the man and that agenda and where the right now finds itself, and while it is not common to use the label fascism or some sort of prefixed-fascism (as I am doing), to call him out, those doing so are not members of an extremist minority who have lost their moorings but are a minority of the most prescient, bravest, sharpest voices, whose their records back up their description as such.

And that is why this moment is, these moments are, are so terrifying.

Hell, even the U.S. Holocaust Museum has a poster “Early Warning Signs of Fascism” that reads almost entirely like this election’s Republican Party Platform or the Trump White House to-do-list:

@RaRaVibes

While Trump is clearly a democratic fascist, then, it important, here again, to make the point that being such, Trump is all the way on one end of a fascist spectrum, an end that overlaps slightly with democracy, while Hitler is all the way on the other end of that fascist spectrum. Despite important similarities between the two, it is crucial to note that Hitler was in most respects much more intense and went much further than Trump and that Hitler embraced genocidal mass killing, which Trump does not; thus, those who would correctly call Trump out for his democratic fascism must take care not to equate or appear to equate Trump with Hitler or his movement with Nazism or even come close to this, for doing so only plays into Trump’s hands and diminishes the chances both of those calling out Trump for what he is to be taken seriously and, in turn, that he and his movement can be stopped; in this effort, the prefixing of democratic before fascism is eminently useful.

Yes, Trump, is a very serious threat that could very well destroy American democracy, Western democracy, the West, and the international order as we know it and we can ill-afford minimized his menace, but we must also not exaggerate his threat, as awful as it is, as it seems he would not do these things through genocidal mass killing and world war or generally use violence the way the twentieth-century fascists did; obviously, this brings little comfort, but if Western civilization is to remain intact, we must defeat Trump by being fastidious in our distinctions and accusations and make those distinctions, however nuanced, clear, because Trump’s war on civilized values is also a war on truth; those opposing him by making facile, lazy, even just somewhat inaccurate comparisons and accusations weaken our best weapon against him: the truth. For if those fighting democratic fascism embrace a twisting of the truth to try to beat Trump, they will be trying to use a tactic that their opponent has already mastered; Republicans who tried to out-insult Trump in the primary failed miserably, and others wishing to out-Trump Trump in other ways will also fail spectacularly. In the end, sacrificing the truth to win short-term attention and political points will lessen the distinctions between the democratic fascists and those opposing them; this is not politics as normal, and the opposition can’t afford to turn more of the people more likely to oppose Trump away from politics by creating more apathy and cynicism in behaving more like him. So we in the opposition must not only not call Trump Hitler or a Nazi or his movement fascism or Nazism, we must call out those who do.

That is why democratic fascism is such a useful term: it helps to make those important distinctions away from Hitler, Nazis and other historical fascists that are so necessary, and yet still communicates the serious and insidiousness of Trump and his movement.

6.) Democratic Fascism: A Global Problem

In Sullivan’s election-night piece, he began by quoting Orwell:

“To see what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle,” George Orwell famously observed. So what is it that we have just seen?

We are witnessing the power of a massive populist movement that has now upended the two most stable democracies in the world — and thrown both countries into a completely unknown future. In Britain, where the polls did not pick up the latent support for withdrawal from the European Union, a new prime minister is now navigating a new social contract with the indigenous middle and working classes forged by fear of immigration and globalization. In the U.S., the movement — built on anti-political politics, economic disruption, and anti-immigration fears — had something else, far more lethal, in its bag of tricks: a supremely talented demagogue who created an authoritarian cult with unapologetically neo-fascist rhetoric. Britain is reeling toward a slow economic slide. America has now jumped off a constitutional cliff. It will never be the same country again. Like Brexit, this changes the core nature of this country permanently. 

Sullivan places Trump squarely in a broader global movement. And that movement is one set out to destroy Western democracy as we know it, one that is far larger and far more organized than most people in the West have realized thus far.

If America was seeing the rise of a leader like Trump, the most extreme version of the Republican Party ever to exist, and pervasive extremist news outlets, that would be catastrophic enough; but when one takes into account similar trends all over Europe, in Russia, Turkey, in Israel, in India, and in the Philippines, to name the most salient examples, there is a worldwide trend in important democratic centers of charismatic leaders of right-wing parties/coalitions playing on hatred, fear, and division and pushing agendas that go against core democratic, liberal values, all while being backed by a megaphone of sympathetic extremist media that often either blend fact and fiction or ignore facts altogether. And America’s counterparts in this movement are arguably as dangerous because these leaders are dressed up in more of the proprietary graces and trappings of conventional politicians and are thus better able to mask tendencies that Trump could not hide even if he tried, making then sneakier, their threat less obvious, their appeal more infectious.

Though to varying degrees, one of the strongest common threads in this reactionary political movement is that the right wing parties and voters that are either rising in power or have come to power care little, or even not at all, about minority rights and about their leaders’ and parties’ publicly expressed willingness, either in words or in actions, to apply one standard of the law and enforcement to themselves and their supporters and to use a looser standard on political opponents and minorities (ethnic, religious, or otherwise, e.g., immigrants) who are not in line with the ruling parties and groups; if anything, they and their supporters embrace such double standards. 

In a Europe already seriously weakened by Brexit, these rising or newly empowered rightist democratic fascist parties that are enjoying successes across the continent exhibit a hostility and unequal application of the system that applies mainly to immigrants, in particular but not limited to Muslim immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa; recent polls now show anti-EU, anti-immigrant far-right populist parties in the lead in the Netherlands, Italy, and, perhaps most alarmingly, in France, while Germany’s election, perhaps the most important test for Europe’s future, remains fluid and uncertain, even if, for now, prospects seem much better for saner heads to prevail there than in the Netherlands, Italy, and France. To add to the growing concern, in a just-released survey of over 10,000 Europeans in 10 EU countries, 55% agree on having a Trumpian travel ban that would stop all migration from Muslim-majority countries; only 2 of 10 countries did not have a majority approve, and the disapproval rate in none of the 10 countries exceeded 38%; Poland had the highest approval at 71%, and France, Germany, and Italy all had majorities that also approved, all of this boding ill for centrist, pro-EU, pro-tolerance candidates. Meanwhile, the Slovakian Prime Minister recently directly called the far right party that is his country’s fifth-largest and is on the rise fascist; “[s]ome people say that fascism is creeping here in Slovakia. It’s not creeping here, it’s present here,” he said. And rather presciently, at the end of 2015, The Economist worriedly noted the progress of these movements, with the title of the relevant article saying it all: “The march of Europe’s little Trumps.”

In Russia, this hostility, sometimes lethal, is directed towards ethnic minorities that try to assert their rights or protest their treatment and any sort of organized political or media opposition to Putin and his party, especially those speaking out against Russian actions in Ukraine; but the lack of protections hardly stops there: a bill with apparently robust public support partly decriminalizing wife-beating and child-beating easily passed the Russian Duma (the lower house of parliament) and was signed into law by Putin this month; additionally, the only politician who had any kind of serious chance of beating Putin in the next presidential election—Alexey Navalny—was just convicted of (likely trumped-up) fraud and barred from running against Putin (Navalny vowed to fight the conviction; let’s see how that goes…). The Russian people aren’t helping, either: a just-released survey found out 46% of them think positively of Stalin, the highest level in 16 years; only 21% had negative views and 22% responded with neutral feelings; that means Russians like Stalin by a margin of over two-to-one compared with those who don’t like him (and none of this even touches on the energetic activities Russia is doing to advance democratic fascism outside of its own borders; more on that soon).

In Turkey, this hostility has broadened not only to Kurds, the main Kurdish political party, and political opposition, but to purging journalists and news outlets and entire swaths of civil society and thousands in the government bureaucracy that Erdogan and his AKP party feel they cannot control or will not be loyal or silent in their opposition, even as Erdogan seems poised to transform the country’s constitution to give himself dramatic, sweeping new powers with an upcoming referendum. At the same time, both Turkey’s government and media feed their public with outlandish conspiracy theories centered on the the idea of America undermining Turkey at every step of the way and as the root of all Turkey’s present ills, drawing attention away from the both the government’s and media’s slide to one-party authoritarianism.

In Israel, the hostility is generally against Arabs but includes other groups, too. While Benjamin Netanyahu certainly deserves credit for not being authoritarian in the mold of Putin, Erdogan, or even Trump, the trendlines under his extensive watch are clear and the direction in which they are moving is shared by the others in this unfortunate list (we will elaborate a bit more here because, at least in the U.S., there is more doubt when asserting Israel is part of this trend than, say, Turkey or Russia). Netanyahu is a huge part of the problem himself, with a penchant for playing fast and loose with facts and an aptitude for even weaponizing history, perhaps most notably when he claimed a Palestinian had inspired the Holocaust, resulting in strong condemnation even from Israeli and German historians and a subsequent retraction; he is a huge champion of (adding) settlements—illegal in the eyes of the entire rest of the world—and their expansion, among the most extreme parts of Israeli policy and those bearing the most resemblance to fascism; and he continually engages in demagoguery designed to incite ethnic and religious division that empower him and his Likud Party. Yet Netanyahu is hardly alone, and is often pressured to move even further to the right by other politicians and public opinion, for not only many politicians, but many Israelis themselves—more and more of them—are embracing racism and illiberal undemocratic values; even mob violence inside Israel, not just settler-instigated violence in the Palestinian territories, is not rare enough, and punishment of Jews who commit violence is comparatively mild when compared to punishment of Arabs who commit violence, just one of the most salient qualities demonstrating how unequal Israel is as a society. Israel’s rightist government is also cracking down on liberal NGOs and has a racist migrant/immigration policy. And while Israeli courts, to their credit, have pushed back against the legitimization and establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank that were illegal even under Israeli law—with some of them being established on land owned by Palestinians who can prove their ownership—Israel just adopted a law that basically negates the court rulings, making those settlements legal, though the courts may yet overturn this law; yes, Israel basically just passed a law that allows the government to take land belonging to Palestinians because they are Palestinians and give it to Israelis because they are Jewish, something that squarely fits in the fascist tradition. And let’s not forget how much admiration Netanyahu and Trump have expressed for each other.

In India, the world’s largest democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling right-wing Hindu populist BJP party (both fans of Hindu religious nationalist rhetoric), since coming to power over two years ago, have sought to curb free speech, encourage and/or turn a blind eye both to police abuse and to sometimes violent religious nationalism on the part of right-wing Hindus who target minorities, and are cracking down on civil society groups critical of the government and its human rights record. 

In the Philippines, anyone involved in illegal drugs have essentially lost the protections of due process and equal application of the law, with President Duterte himself bragging about killing criminals when he was mayor as his extremely controversial drug war that has killed thousands of Filipinos in the less-than-a-year he has been in office continues in full force. As far as accountability, a Filipino senator who criticized the drug war was even removed from her investigative committee role, part of an increasing trend of the government using its power to limit criticism of Duterte and his government; experts fear the longstanding Filipino democracy, one of Asia’s oldest, may be in trouble.

And in the United States, we have now (mostly) sworn in a government that at the very least seems unenthusiastic about or unwilling to protect minority rights and may even be downright hostile both to preserving these rights and to minorities asserting their rights, whether African-Americans who are grossly mistreated by police and the criminal justice system, members of the LGBT community worried about losing their newly won rights, Muslims who saw anti-Muslim hate groups rise from 34 to more than 100 last year, or women worried about losing both access to contraception and their ability to decide on pregnancy without government interference. Basically, like the people backing right-wing populism in other countries, Trump voters see the America in which they reside as “theirs” to the exclusion of others and resent those other groups asserting equality (“when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”), seeing this assertion as a loss of their own prerogatives and politics as a zero-sum game in which they can only benefit in denying benefits to others and keeping those benefits, or the degree to which they are enjoyed, to themselves. These people don’t care if such sentiments and their end results directly violate the spirit of and/or laws of their very nations; in fact, they seek to remake their nations into illiberal systems that favor themselves and discriminate against certain others officially, longing both to recreate past discriminations and hierarchies, if perhaps more subtly, and part of this is to recreate a false mythological image of the past in present reality in which their ethnic, racial, religious, or other forms of superiority existed unquestioned and unchallenged (even in America, where slavery was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution—though only reluctantly and initially—opposition to slavery was still exhibited during the colonial era and the subsequent constitutional conventions in which the Constitution itself was drafted and ratified). Real or not, on this weaponization of history perhaps no one here is more succinctly instructive than Orwell in 1984: “…if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”

7.) Putin Leads an Assault on Western Democracy and Reality

And right now, the Russian government is by far the most skilled and prolific weaponizer of information—of spreading fake news, false history, and false facts—in the world, and this is where things get even scarier.

I wrote about a year ago that Western democracy was on trial, more than any time since WWII, that internal problems and forces growing in the West were posing a threat to the survival of the Western liberal democratic order that was greater than any Soviet armies or nuclear arsenals of the past; little did I know that the Soviet Union’s successor in Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, would lead a brilliant campaign—including the (First) Russo-American Cyberwar—to exacerbate, further, and accelerate these trends, and effort that, so far, has been enough to ensure that the West is largely failing these tests, most notably in the oldest continuing and most powerful democracy in the world, the United states of America. And with the very latest revelations that multiple Trump campaign officials were in constant contact with Russian intelligence operatives, there is even less of an excuse not to realize that Putin and his people acted to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign and help Trump’s campaign with the aim of helping Trump secure the White House, in addition to their also being a much higher possibility that there was collusion of some sort between (some staff on) the Trump campaign and this Russian effort.

In a Foreign Policy piece published just after Trump’s election by Yascha Mounk titled “Donald Trump Is the End of Global Politics as We Know It” and with a subheading of “What it means to live without a leader of the free world,” what is described is Vladimir Putin’s dream come true, and it makes you think about how much was at stake in this election and how the consequences of a world devoid of American leadership or with an American leadership that is cartoonishly incompetent, damaging to its own bedrock alliances and its own society, and blithely self-defeating were exactly the results Russia’s campaign against the United States was designed to bring about. By the time Trump is out of office, it’s entirely possible that there is no more EU and no more NATO, and it is likely that even in the realistic best-case scenario they are substantially weakened; how could things be worse? Just imagine Russian troops and Russian bases in various European NATO deserters, hardly an impossibility.

Putin is certainly imagining this possibility and acting to make this possibility a reality. “We’re on the verge of a new global order,” to quote one spokesperson for a movement within Putin’s own Russian United political party that is trying to help France’s far-right, anti-EU, very pro-Russia candidate triumph in the upcoming French election.

As I pointed out not long ago, Russia has a history of actively meddling in elections and votes in other countries; in a few cases where the final tallies were very close (the UK with Brexit and the U.S. with Trump), the burden of proof is on people asserting Russia made no difference, so large were Russia’s efforts, be they hacking, disinformation, or both. In other places like Bulgaria and Moldova the meddling has been longstanding and finally paid off with the victories of new pro-Russian leaders over the last few months; in other cases like Sweden and the Baltic States, there is a constant effort as well that has made an impact, though these countries are still very much on the alert and seem very unlikely to shift to overall favor Russia in their politics anytime soon; with other cases like Italy’s recent election, it’s hard to argue that Russian meddling made the difference, even though it seems Russia was still quite active in trying to hurt pro-EU centrist parties with fake news; with elections early last year in Germany, it seems Russian propaganda efforts did hurt the ruling party in regional elections. 

Some support and cooperation has been far more overt and public, though, than the shadowy hacking, fake news dissemination, and covert funding programs: all over the continent, from the UK to Italy to Austria (where fake news was rampant during its recent presidential election but that as yet has not specifically been tied to Russia) to France and beyond, Putin, his government, and Russian-government-dominated media has offered praise—sometimes even formal audiences in Moscow or political alliances with Putin’s own ruling party, United Russia—to right-wing populist and anti-EU parties along with criticism of pro-EU rivals of these parties; sometimes, this has even extended to financial support from Russian-government affiliated financial institutions, most notably in Le Pen and her party’s case in France; these parties often respond by adopting pro-Russian policies (for example, being against Western sanctions against Russia) and expressing enthusiastic public support for Putin and his program. Coupled with the massive disinformation campaign, Russia is clearly trying to manipulate public opinion and offer direct support to specific parties in Europe in an effort to change the politics of the whole continent. And even when these democratic fascist movements do not succeed in winning, they are still increasing their support and representation in parliaments; thus, all over Europe, they are on the rise and on the march with a purpose, a purpose that very much serves Putin’s goals of weakening Europe so that the EU and NATO will crumble and Russia will be able to extend and intensify its spheres of influence.

Putin’s efforts here are not a random or haphazard one; after years of exerting influence, he has sympathy and supporters spread over one-quarter of the European Parliament, and Russia’s efforts are, as before, pinpointing countries with upcoming elections, with the Netherlands, France, and Germany (and possibly Italy) the big tests for 2017; there are questions about whether these votes may lead to more exits from the EU, say, a Nexit or a Frexit (with a Grexit perpetually in the realm of possibility, too).

The Dutch vote in less than a month, and officials are nervous enough about hacking and interference that they are going to be counting all ballots by hand amid increased Russian cyberactivity targeting Dutch entities and suspicions Russians might have been involved in swaying an eventual Dutch “no” vote in a referendum on a free-trade pact between the EU and Ukraine last April, likely derailing the whole agreement. The party of the man called “the Dutch Donald Trump”—Geert Wilders—is leading in the polls and there are serious worries he may win, especially with so many Dutch voters still undecided (as was the case in America) and the rise of so many new, tiny parties that make the way a coalition will be formed much more unpredictable. One thing is quite predictable, though: he wants to hold a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the EU and very clearly wants to leave it, and some of Wilders’ policies are even more extreme than Trump’s: “[h]e wants to ban the Quran, shut down mosques and…cut all foreign aid,” and some of his tactics are quite Trumpish (he recently caused an uproar when he tweeted a fake photo of a rival with a “Shariah for the Netherlands” sign). If his party does well and especially if he becomes Prime Minister, that could increase enthusiasm for like-minded parties and voters in other European elections on the horizon, just as Brexit and Trump’s win might already be doing that.

France votes in two rounds in late April and early May. So far, France’s race has been incredibly tumultuous of late; the last few weeks, various revelations have upended the race. First, starting late in January, a French newspaper published a series of damning revelations that conservative and moderately pro-Russian candidate François Fillon had used his position in France’s National Assembly (it’s lower legislative house) to pay nearly $1 million in public funds to his wife and children for “bogus” positions, which seems now to have knocked him from the lead to on track to miss the runoff (only the top two advance but he is not a distant third); this seemed to make France’s independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron the favorite; but now it seems Russia is trying to hack his campaign much like it did Hillary Clinton’s, and Russian-controlled media like RT and Sputnik are slamming him (going so far as to spread rumors that he is gay); while praising his rival, far-right, very pro-Russian, and Putin’s favorite candidate: Marine Le Pen. 

Le Pen is similar to Trump: she is extremely anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim and is pledging to remove France from the euro currency, even NATO, and possibly the EU entirely. Also like Trump, Le Pen has a globally-spread army of internet trolls engaging in shadowy tactics to boost her and hurt her rivals, and she has the highest internet engagement numbers of any of her rivals. She is furthermore like Trump in that she has not disclosed her campaign fundraising or spending, though her rivals have; this is a particular issue because she had been funded back in 2014 to the tune of a €9 million loan by a Russian bank with strong ties to the Russian government (the deal was even brokered by a member of Russia’s Duma and was suspiciously close in timing to her announcement that she believed Russia’s annexation of Crimea was legal, with incriminating evidence that she received financial support at Russia’s direction in return for her adopting this position); at the same time this happened, a €2 million loan was given to a political fund named Cotelec run by her father from a mysterious Cyprus-based company run by ex-K.G.B. agent Yuri Kudimov who is known to run “the financing arm of the Kremlin,” and from there it went to Le Pen’s party for its 2015 regional elections; this past December she just received a €6 million loan from her father’s Cotelec, and after her 2014 Russian lender was shuttered by the Central Bank of Russia (possibly because of a possible embezzlement scandal) and as she is being shunned by other mainstream lenders, she may be may be seeking another loan from a Russian entity to cover a €20 million shortfall in her campaign war chest.*

*(As an aside, if you are familiar with my work and this reeks of the familiar, your nose is not deceiving you; this is remarkably similar to the gigantic Eurasian gas scheme I wrote about— including some exclusive revelations—just before Trump won, a scheme involving billions of dollars in shady gas deals and the profits from them being laundered by the Russian mafia to buy Ukrainian politicians and corrupt the Ukrainian government so that Putin could dominate Ukraine; Paul Manafort—Trump’s future Campaign Chairman for some of the most crucial months of the Republican primaries when he clinched the GOP nomination and through the Republican National Convention—was one of the major players in this massive scam, and Rick Gates was definitely involved as was possibly Carter Page, both future Trump campaign advisors; in many ways this gas scheme led to the current war in Ukraine, and this modus operandi of “diplomacy” is more the vehicle of Putin’s foreign policy than the Russian Foreign Ministry).

While Le Pen is leading and has for a while now in the first-round polling, conventional wisdom holds that she won’t be able to get enough support to triumph in the second-round-runoff… And yet, conventional wisdom said Donald Trump had no chance of beating Hillary Clinton; the thing is, once a candidate starts winning—be it Trump in the primaries or possibly Le Pen in the first round of voting—that has a way of changing how people think and vote, and with scandals and propaganda efforts embroiling her rivals, the confidence that Macron should triumph in the second-round of voting against Le Pen is weakening, with at least one just-released credible big-data analysis from an investment firm predicting she will pull off a Trumpian upset and the French bond market already showing negative effect from its worries about the possible outcome of a Le Pen victory that seems less remote now than before. 

France’s foreign intelligence chief expects Russian internet bots to make millions of posts to help her candidacy and also fears that there will be releases of hacked private e-mails of her rivals; government officials are worried that the Russians will be working actively to alter the outcome of the French election, and there is also concern that Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks—Russia’s stooges, be they unwitting or witting—will have an impact, as they are already teasing thousands of documents related to the candidates, with indications that it will be trying to help Le Pen and hurt her rivals. And WikiLeaks overnight just released what it said was a CIA document showing orders for the U.S. to spy on the French elections of 2012; while such actions are routine even among allies, it is clear that WikiLeaks is selectively releasing this now with the intent of drumming up anti-American sentiment, which will, in turn, harm centrist candidates that support the current global order; this echoes previous recent efforts by WikiLeaks to discredit Merkel’s government for cooperating with a U.S. NSA intelligence-gathering program.

Speaking of Germany, it’s up next, having elections this fall. De facto leader after Trump’s win of the Western liberal international order and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (and her party) have already been a target of Russian fake news and WikiLeaks. While the far right Alternative for Deutschland party has gained in polls overall in recent months, for now, it seems safely behind both Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union-led bloc and the party of her rival coalition partner, leader of the German Social Democrats party Martin Schulz, who are neck and neck in the latest polls. Still, an EU task force has noted in the past few weeks that Merkel is a specific target of Russian fake news, and German government officials, like their French and Dutch counterparts, are worried about Russian attempts to alter the outcome of their election. And as we saw with Hillary Clinton, there is plenty of time for Russia’s efforts, and the damage they may do, to fundamentally alter public opinion in Germany.

And if Italy holds an election? Who knows…

The Czech Republic, we may add, was also recently hacked by what its officials suspected was a foreign power, and few countries would have more incentive to hack the Czechs than Russia; the EU is generally trying to improve and prioritize its efforts to fight back against Russia’s hacking, disinformation, and electoral interference, but it remains to be seen if such efforts will be successful. What is certain is that, with precision, Russia and WikiLeaks are targeting the opponents of the far-right in Europe and proponents of centrism and the EU, including its NATO military alliance formed to check the USSR during the Cold War. According to one expert quoted all the way back in April, 2016, “Russia is starting to weaponize electoral processes in Europe,” and today, we can remove the word “starting” from that quote. Right now, fear of Russia is spreading among officials all over Europe as it seeks to advance the cause of democratic fascism.

And it’s not just Putin and Russia seeking to support these democratic fascist movements and undermine the EU: Trump’s master strategist, right-wing nationalist, and disinformation master Steven Bannon wants to link up and partner with these movements, too, as well as see his former fake news factory Breitbart expand into Europe, in particular, France and Germany, even as Trump criticizes NATO and reaches out to Putin. The EU President Donald Tusk recent wrote a letter to all 27 EU national leaders stating that the Trump Administration was a “threat” to the EU, one of the most dangerous it has ever confronted, along with Russia; on top of this, another top EU official flat-out said that Trump and Bannon were existential threats to the EU—which he said they were seeking to break up—along with two other such threats: Putin and “radicalized political Islam.” In fact, applying the analytical framework outlined in NATO’s recent Handbook of Russian Information Warfare, Donald Trump is doing the Russians’ work for them, for:

As the  Handbook emphasizes, Russian information warfare thinking anticipates that trolls and bots not under Kremlin control will amplify the messages and effects of Russia’s own information operations. However, having a U.S. president, his administration, and his own networks of disinformation playing these roles is probably beyond the wildest dreams of Russian strategists and tacticians of information warfare. Putin will not squander this opportunity.

This point is echoed by Saletan and, in fact, some European allies are so nervous about Trump’s relationship with Putin that they are spying on Team Trump’s communications.

Lastly, Putin is not only cultivating and using the far right; he is also weaponizing the far left as his “useful idiots;” while generally not taking the bait on the Kremlin’s pro-Trump propaganda, far-lefties in America were all too eager to gobble up its anti-Clinton efforts, and we’re not only talking about supporters of Jill Stein and the extreme-far-left in America, but also supporters of (relatively-to-Stein-&-Co. moderate) Bernie Sanders; these far leftists were often blithely retweeting RT articles about Hillary and echoed their distorted talking points. When it comes to stein, Putin even invited her to a gala in Moscow honoring RT propaganda station, where the now scandal-ridden Gen. Michael Flynn was also a guest of honor, and Stein is a regular on the channel. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on here: the far left has no chance electorally in the way the far right does, so Putin can throw support at it knowing he is safe from its agenda but happy to see it weaken the center and take votes away from credible parties that can help stop his far-right darlings; in this way, the far left helps the far-right come to power through their myopia, narcissism, and willful blindness, as clearly happened in the U.S. election, particularly with liberal Millennials. By constantly attacking “the system” and the center and the mainstream reality-based media, it also generates specific mistrust of crucial institutions and general apathy and cynicism among those on the left, apathy, cynicism, and mistrust that also worked handily in favor of Trump over Clinton. This has even succeeded to the degree of compromising respectable leftist publications like The Nation into putting out apologias for Russian behavior, and it goes beyond propaganda and is happening, and has been happening for some time, all over Europe to the degree that Russian efforts help to explain the less-often-discussed rise in the success of far left parties in Europe; there is apparently evidence of clandestine funding of far-left parties and groups by the Kremlin, in addition to its more salient efforts to covertly fund the far-right. And besides Russian propaganda, “WikiLeaks is clearly the online epicenter of the 21st-century’s red-brown convergence”: Trump couldn’t stop talking about WikiLeaks, and neither could Bernie Sanders supporters.

Yes, Russia under Putin now is succeeding in projecting its power and influence in ways way few Soviet or Czarist leaders could ever realistically envision, not with troops and tanks, but with a brilliant master strategy that plays on and exploits the flaws and vulnerabilities in Western democracy and the very worst in human nature, with the media and cyberwarfare as its main weapons of war, all fueled by the aforementioned* massive oil-and-natural-gas-scheme of epic proportions (and in which some of Trump’s associates—including one very senior one, Paul Manafort—were involved). Yes, we are at war for the survival of our very way of life, and we still don’t even realize it yet. Perhaps the damage and worry Donald Trump is generating not even one full month into his presidency is a good example of how much more we should be alarmed when we look at it in conjunction with this global campaign as a whole and what is happening in Europe and other bastions of democracy.

8.) Conclusion: Democratic Fascism is on Track to Destroy the West As We Know It, Or, Time to Break the Glass, This Is an Emergency

Again, in light of my old piece published about a year ago, I write with a sad and terrified heart now: I never imagined so much damage would be done in so short a period of time; at the time, I saw the threat, but thought it more distant and thought we’d be beating it back more successfully at this point; instead, we—the West, Western democracy, liberals who believe in liberal values and multiethnic democracy—are losing, and losing badly.

Revolutions tend to have far-flung roots and can spread in unpredictable ways, but the beginning of this wave of massive populist discontent on the right was the Tea Party protests that began early in 2009 (or, if you want to really go far back, the religious conservatives’ global return to public life in the 1980s); if 2009 can be thought of as the global democratic right’s 1789 French Revolution Bastille-storming moment, we are now in something of the beginning of a political Reign of Terror, much as the initial French people’s uprising of 1789 gave way to a far more extreme (and the original) (Jacobin) Reign of Terror in 1793 (in the words of Trotsky, “Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism”). More polite, less bloody efforts directed at limiting or rolling back the power of the governments in Washington and Brussels, over taxation and regulation, have now exploded into outright culture wars in which aggrieved dominant group on both sides of the Atlantic felt like other groups gaining rights and increased diversity were assaults on their status and responded increasingly ferociously towards these groups, often embracing racism and xenophobia to these ends; “Kick them out!” no longer applied to mainly the current politicians in power, but to whole groups of people: Hispanics, Muslims, even other European immigrants; a similar spirit in the U.S. was directed at kicking disadvantaged minorities off of government assistance, even as their economic plight had worsened relative to those wanting to deny them assistance. Angry white people were… angry, and they were going to punish not only the political elites, but people who looked and dressed and prayed and spoke differently than they did, denying them either a physical space in their country or resources from the government, even if they were, at times, fellow citizens (that seemed to not matter too much). The political systems which governed America arguably since the Founding but at least clearly since the New Deal and the Civil Rights Act are now to be overthrown in America, just as the post-WWII EU-centered systems in Europe are also to be overthrown if Trump and his Bannon-led crew—and their allies in Europe—succeed in their endeavors.

If we think Western civilization is not capable of some sudden collapse, then we are deluding ourselves. As Adam Gopnik noted in July, 2016:

Those who think that the underlying institutions of American government are immunized against [fascism]…fail to understand history. In every historical situation where a leader of Trump’s kind comes to power, normal safeguards collapse. Ours are older and therefore stronger? Watching the rapid collapse of the Republican Party is not an encouraging rehearsal. Donald Trump has a chance to seize power.

And seize power he did; I have a hard time believing many Democrats really switched from Obama to Trump, and the evidence is that Trump’s popular-vote-losing, historically very narrow Electoral College victory (narrow despite Trump’s outlandish characterizations to the contrary) came largely at the hands of white rural conservatives who voted in larger-than-usual numbers and white centrists and white liberals (and Millennials of all stripes) staying home or voting third party. Because of that, there may only be one way to stop the collapse and self-destruction of Western civilization and Western democracy as we know it: the left as a whole uniting behind the center-left faction with the broadest support, whatever qualms the far-left may have with this compromise towards the center; if we—and yes, I include myself—do not unite, if too many on the left who claim to care about liberal causes and values and other human beings don’t step up and actually do what is necessary to prevent democratic fascism from becoming the new modus operandi of the West, if many leftists—Bernie Sanders supporters included—embrace myopia, impatience, and narcissism as their approaches to politics, then we won’t need jackboots marching down the Champs-Élysées or Pennsylvania Avenue to know that democracy is losing or defeated. Worst of all, the defeat will have come at the hands of our own stupidity, because if Trump and his ilk aren’t enough to make the liberals of the world unite under whichever factions get the most votes in their elections, then perhaps we don’t deserve the democracy we inherited, and perhaps we deserve democratic fascism instead. Perhaps we need to suffer to appreciate how amazing the post-WWII international system—pejoratively and inaccurately labeled “neoliberal,” as if Reaganism and Thatcherism still reigned supreme and dramatic improvements and changes have not happened globally since the end of WWII and especially in the decades since the end of the Cold War—actually is, no matter what ludicrous anarchist, libertarian, Marxist, or fascist-oriented schools of thought claim to the contrary.

In the 2016 American election, African-American and Hispanic voters, especially those old enough or with enough education to understand how much has improved even while understanding how much work still needs to be done, voted overwhelmingly for Clinton both against Sanders and against Trump (and Hispanics almost certainly voted for Clinton in much higher numbers than the exit polls suggest as indicated by data from special surveys that capture the notoriously-difficult-to-measure Latino vote much more accurately than normal exit polls); these wise (the wisest!) voters, these voters of color were practical all the way through because that is the only way they know their people have seen gains over time. For Hispanics, many of them came from places that did not offer them anywhere near as much opportunity, safety, or social justice; they had suffered enough to appreciate the Western system, warts and all. For African-Americans, there was a deep understanding of how much effort and blood had been spilled for them to earn the rights that many younger people today take for granted; from slavery through Reconstruction and segregation and beyond, mature black voters have been and are only too painfully aware that allowing one’s emotions to overtake reason and practicality by putting one’s hopes behind candidates that overpromise and offer easy fixes, that don’t have a plan, that seem too good to be true, that this all too often turns into bitter failure and disappointment, even catastrophe, and with dire consequences that are not overcome by speeches and wishful thinking; they know all too well that progress is a hard struggle and a long-march that is gradual and always leaves more to be desired.  That’s not to wholly reject idealism: idealism is beautiful and necessary, but it must be channeled practically “to hard thinking about means and ends,” to quote Krugman, or it is self-defeating, as history shows only too clearly to those who study it and study it well. 

But if millions of voters in a two-party system voted for someone other than Clinton or stayed home when they knew Trump was worse than her, if the impassioned entreaties of their favorite pop stars and pro-athletes and movie stars and their parents and sensible friends and mentors and a president they voted for twice and civil rights legends (sorry, Cornell West has nothing on John Lewis) weren’t enough to convince them to do their duty to stop a madman from taking over the most powerful office on the planet, then maybe those people need to suffer in a way that makes them realize this is not a game, this is not simply an exercise in abstract self-expression, this is not simply about them, that voting carries real world consequences that affect other people, sometimes a neighbor, sometimes someone living half a world away. Because if the left can’t unite—not with a minority of it screaming at majority to undemocratically accept their minority wishes, program, and leadership when they were unable to convince a whopping majority of their fellow liberals to accept their program or their candidate—then, it seems, we will have one-party rule in a democratic fascist state, not just for a few years, but for a long time to come. The same can be said of Europe: if too many liberals there selfishly and childishly vote for tiny parties that don’t even pass the threshold required to get seats in parliament, just like third party voters in the U.S., all they will succeed in doing is diluting the liberal vote away from parties that can actually compete with Democratic fascism; you must vote strategically with an eye to the relative support of different parties and the likelihood they can win and have an actual impact on the outcome in favor of advancing your espoused values, not simply drawing away votes from other competitive parties by voting in a way that only leaves a snowball’s chance in hell of your vote actually helping to advance that values you so loudly proclaim but are apparently unable to think through with enough effort to understand how to help, not hurt, them.

Perhaps some pain is required then, in order for enough of the left to mature and become more practical for us to actually start winning elections when we don’t have a candidate with once-in-a-generation charisma, because if the does not mature and mature fast, pain will surely come, and almost surely come in the form democratic fascism and the destruction our societies, democracy, the West, and the international system as we know it. Democratic fascism, in its possible triumph, may actually do some good, then: it may finally teach the most naïve of us with objectively good intentions and who say we believe in human rights, social justice, and equality that a vote is never something to wastefully throw away, and that its effects often go far beyond ourselves, let alone our sense of personal satisfaction.

The Economist

*****

Even as I write this, I am watching Trump talk to a crowd in South Carolina at a Boeing facility to talk about Boeing military-industrial-complex products and ordering billions in new weapons systems; yes, a day after the worst and most unintentionally farcical press conference in American history and after his new choice for National Security Advisor declined the job offer after the previous one had to resign amid an exploding scandal after less than a month on job, Trump is going to his base to offer platitudes and fetishize the idea of American greatness by appealing to militarism and weapon fetishism; “God bless Boeing,” he finishes his speech, and yes, that came after “God bless America,” with a CNN panel of generally solid pundits playing right into his game by saying it’s a great speech compared to his press conference, giving him compliments for improvement after he set the rhetorical bar lower than any president since 1789 (including, yes, Andrew Johnson’s infamous drunk VP-swearing-in speech); yes, Democratic fascism is here: the question is, what do we, what can we, do now?

The choice is clear and, sorry kids, limited: liberals can stand united against democratic fascism and halt its progress before it’s too late or stand divided in the face of its systemic, Putin-backed onslaught and empower fascism in spite of their unwitting selves and professed values. That is your choice, and as a citizen and a voter and one who professes to subscribe to liberal values, in the end, if you choose that second option history will judge despicably and judge you totally independent of whatever linguistic or intellectual contortions in which you engage to frame your action as something else other than empowering this democratic fascism, and history’s harsh judgment will matter far more than how you personally judge yourself or how often your like-minded peers in a social media echo chamber give you self-serving likes and comments, retweets, or any other number of shallow accolades; democratic fascism, though it thrives on social media, is a result far deeper and more lasting that any tweet or like. 

And this democratic fascism is approaching faster and with more momentum than just about any but the most prescient of us, even at this late hour, can see; the time for debate is limited, the time to fall in line is soon, and unless we face “hard truths” about our present realities, what is possible and not possible now in these upcoming elections, idealistic dreams will remain fantasies and we will all be living in a nightmare in which the best we can dream of in the foreseeable future will be a fantastical ability to again make use of the chances to make a true difference that we already blew back when we had that chance to actually do so, before it became too late, back when we were living in a flawed but still historically magnificent system that still gave us the power actually make a difference in a democracy of liberal democratic values, before democratic fascism and we, through our own stupidity, destroyed that precious system like Shakespeare’s Othello when he “threw a pearl away (5.2).”

*****

© 2017 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, no republication without permission, attributed quotations welcome

See related article: The (First) Russo-American Cyberwar: How Obama Lost & Putin Won, Ensuring a Trump Victory

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*****

The story of how Russia won the (First) Russo-American Cyberwar because American President Barack Obama did not fight back and failed to protect America’s democracy from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s well-orchestrated, wide-ranging cyberassault, part of Russia’s wider war on Western democracy

 January 21st, 2019. Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse December 7, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Twitter @bfry1981, YouTube, Facebook) December 7th, 2016 (a condensed, edited version of this article is featured on War Is Boring, and that version was quoted in another article by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [RFE/RL] here and was also mentioned in a morning briefing here by that article’s author; here are the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and ePub eBook versions)

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Reuters

AMMAN — It is fitting that, on the anniversary of Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack, I am publishing an article discussing an attack far worse in its overall effects on America than Pearl Harbor: if December 7th, 1941, is “a date which will live in infamy,” 2016 is a year which will live in infamy.

All things being equal in an election that was decided by, at current count, less than 38,600 votes spread across three states (a few over 22,150 in Pennsylvania, slightly more than 5,350 in Michigan, a few under 11,100 in Wisconsin) out of over 136 million votes cast (under 0.0284% of all votes cast), it is certain that without Russia’s political cyberwarfare offensive in the (First) Russo-American Cyberwar—and Obama’s stunning lack of response to it—Hillary Clinton would now be President-elect.

Full disclosure: I am a liberal Democrat who proudly voted twice for Obama, but I will make clear what no one seems to want to, though it pains me: I tried making excuses before and after the campaign—he thought she would win anyway, he wanted to play it safe, maybe he has something secret in store, etc.—but as the days turned to weeks after the election and I spent more and more mental energy thinking it through, the stubborn truth reared its ugly head: Obama failed miserably in his role as Commander in Chief, protector, and defender of the United States of America in the final months of his eight-year presidency. In doing so, he ensured his own legacy would be destroyed, likely along with the American political system as we know it and possibly (likely?) the U.S.-led international system that has been a bulwark of great-power peace since WWII.

Here is the story of how Obama lost the war.

*****

First Strikes

In June of 2015, a unit of elite Russian hackers known as Cozy Bear, or APT 29, working at the behest of the main security service of the Russian government—the F.S.B., main successor to the famed Soviet-era K.G.B., where Vladimir Putin had served for over 15 years—successfully hacked into the systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the national governing body of the Democratic Party, completely unbeknownst to DNC staff.

The FBI contacted the DNC in the fall of 2015, warning it of possible hacking and asking its people to look for suspicious activity, but not providing any specifics; when DNC staffers responded with a sweep and found nothing, they asked the FBI to provide specifics, but it declined, keeping from them then and in future meetings the fact that U.S. officials suspected the Russian government; if the DNC had known this, it would have taken additional steps that could have limited the damage that came later. Only late in March 2016, did the DNC realize its systems were compromised and later bring in private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in April for help.

Also that March, another group of elite Russian hackers known as Fancy Bear, or APT 28—working at the behest of the G.R.U, Russia’s military intelligence service—targeted the DNC as well, in addition to targeting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, namely the e-mail accounts of senior campaign officials, including Chairman John Podesta. The FBI warned the campaign in March about possible hacking, but, again, did not mention anything specific about the hackers; only in April did the campaign realize its systems had been penetrated, something U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper publicly hinted at vaguely in May.

It took until June for the DNC to expel the Russians, and on June 14th, DNC officials and CrowdStrike experts informed the Washington Post of the successful hackings. The next day, CrowdStrike released an analysis that detailed ample evidence of Fancy/Cozy Bear’s involvement. The following day, the Clinton campaign hacks were first reported.

Only days after this, a hacker/hackers going by the moniker Guccifer 2.0—an homage to the Romanian hacker made famous by publicly outing Clinton’s private e-mail server—began publicly posting DNC documents, but it was quickly clear from a consensus of experts citing overwhelming evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was actually a front for Russia’s Fancy Bear.

Soon after, it was also reported that government officials realized in June that the Clinton Foundation was also the target of attempted Russian hacks. The same month, the Russians tried to breach voter databases in Arizona but apparently failed; in July, the Russians succeeded in hacking into Illinois voter databases, stealing information on some 200,000 voters; experts suggested it was likely other states’ voter databases had been hacked undetected.

*****

Information Bomb

The hacking stories largely receded until the evening of Friday, July 22nd, just after Donald Trump’s official nomination and days before Clinton’s Democratic National Convention, when WikiLeaks posted close to 20,000 e-mails from the DNC that had been hacked by Russia. The grossly overblown fallout from that release has been well-documented.

The leaks could not have come at a worse time for Clinton, who was desperate to rally liberals (particularly the conspiratorially-minded among hardcore Millennial Bernie Sanders supporters, whose emotional state demanded an alternate reality where the only possible explanation for their savior’s loss was that Clinton “cheated”) wary of her to her banner for the coming fight with Trump and to display Democratic Party unity at her convention; the leaks slowed and partly prevented this process, creating remarkable public displays of disunity at the Convention and in the streets outside of it and reopening wounds that had only just begun to heal. By the time a later round of leaks came, the ability of Clinton to have built up enough goodwill among many of these people to stay with her in the face of such new leaks playing into their negative stereotypes of her was greatly diminished by this first round of DNC-related leaks.

This was not a coincidence, and it was clear from the beginning that WikiLeaks and the Russians who gave WikiLeaks the hacked information (either directly or indirectly) had designed the release to have a maximum negative impact on Clinton. Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ extremely anti-American founder and leader, made no secret of his intent to harm Clinton’s campaign and his visceral dislike of her, even while refraining from criticizing Trump, Republicans, and Russia, as he and his organization have a complicated but largely beneficial relationship with Russia.

Putin had far more reason to fear a Clinton presidency than one led by Trump, who has spent many years courting Russian favor, whose positions were the most pro-Russian for a major party candidate in American presidential campaign history, and whose campaign manager at this time, Paul Manafort, was notoriously known to have for years been on Putin’s payroll, even if indirectly.

During the week of the Democratic National Convention, it became even more obvious how intent the Russians were on damaging Clinton and the Democratic Party, and Trump even publicly called on Russia to hack Clinton. That week, it was reported that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a voter database used by the Clinton campaign and other Democrats were also targeted by Fancy Bear. It was also reported during the same period that both cybersecurity experts and U.S. government officials had determined that that the Russian government was behind the hacking of the DNC (including a consensus of FBI officials), that officials saw this as a full-blown national security issue, and that U.S. government officials had shared this conclusion—and evidence that Russia was responsible—with the White House, which had discussed the hacks prior to the WikiLeaks DNC release; some officials had also concluded that the DNC e-mails’ release was part of a Russian attempt to hurt Clinton’s chances and help make Trump president. 

Numerous Obama Administration officials were concerned enough with the lack of response that they anonymously shared their frustrations with the media. Apart from serious internal pressure on Obama from some of his advisors, the day Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination a bipartisan group of dozens of prominent former military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials and experts called on Obama to act swiftly and forcefully to counter, deter, and punish those responsible for the hacking, describing the attempt to hack and influence the American electoral process in the gravest, starkest of terms. In addition, senior Democrats on congressional intelligence committees called on Obama to publicly name the attackers. 

Later it was discovered that the hacking efforts were on a wider scale than initially thought, including the Democratic Governor’s Association, left-leaning think tanks tied to the Party, and other Democratic insiders and organizations.

Presidential Pensiveness and Paralysis

Despite all of this, Obama was steadfastly refusing to publicly name Russia as the culprit, in part because of fears of igniting a conflict and uncertainty as to how to respond to such attacks. 

The most absurd part of his rationale was that he was worried naming the Russians and taking a strong stance against them would harm John Kerry’s then-ongoing diplomatic efforts to win cooperation with the Russians on Syria, as all recent diplomatic talks with them on Syria had been a farce. The same officials noted that Obama “fear[ed]” additional cyberattacks by Putin, additional military harassment in the Black and Baltic seas, and further aggression in Eastern Europe. 

Yes, incredulously, Obama imagined that turning a blind eye to Russian interference in domestic American elections would somehow invite Russian compromise on other fronts, frustrating some on his team.  I am reminded of the scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when the heroes are trying to convince Théoden, King of Rohan, to stand up for his people against the disinformation and aggression of Saruman; Théoden responds by saying “I will not risk open war,” to which Aragorn retorts “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not;” in the real world, we had Obama playing the role of a Théoden in denial.

His maddening naiveté manifesting hardly for the first time during his presidency, Obama, demonstrated how poorly he understood his adversary, and unsurprisingly, Putin was emboldened on all these fronts.

Even during Kerry’s fastidious diplomacy, on September 19th Russia deliberately bombed a well-known UN aid convoy heading for an Aleppo, Syria, civilian population that was under siege and desperate for supplies; a few days after, Russia and Syria launched a “ferocious” indiscriminate air offensive against Aleppo, an “unrelenting assault” that quickly became the most intense campaign to date in the war and involved systematic targeting of hospitals (today, Russia and Assad are, with impunity, threatening whole parts of Aleppo with mass slaughter); Ukraine also saw Russian escalation.

Kerry’s talks failed because the Russians were never serious about them, much like previous negotiations on both Syria and Ukraine had repeatedly failed. After some two weeks of these Russian war crimes, the U.S. formally broke off negotiations on October 3rd; the day after, the Guccifer 2.0 APT 28 front released fake documents it claimed proved corruption at the Clinton Foundation.

In the face of Russian mockery of Obama’s diplomatic efforts and his continued non-response to Russia’s cyberwarfare, some of Obama’s “top national security officials” grew furious with him and felt U.S. credibility was being severely damaged, especially in the intelligence community and State Department, while even top Democrats in the House and Senate intelligence committees were either criticizing Obama’s caution (Rep. Adam Schiff) or publicly stating that Russia’s goal could be to harm Clinton’s candidacy and empower Trump’s (Schiff and Sen. Diane Feinstein). Calling on Obama to do more, they issued a joint statement on September 22nd publicly blaming Russia and stating its intent was to influence the election; incredibly, the White House had repeatedly urged them to delay the statement.

In fact, for all of 2016, Russia’s own media was decidedly pro-Trump and anti-Clinton. Additionally, all throughout the campaign, up to and through Election Day, it is now quite clear that Russia’s propaganda machine of hundreds of websites and many thousands of social media accounts—some unwittingly duped, others complicit or even an army of paid agents—posted many thousands of anti-Clinton, pro-Trump, pro-Russian, and anti-American comments, posts, and stories. Sometimes they amplified true stories like the DNC hacks, often they promoted only partly true or even totally false stories that were seen hundreds of millions of times by American voters, with a core of some 15 million Americans regularly consuming the propaganda and sharing it with much larger audiences on Facebook and Twitter, to the extent that in the final months of the election, fake U.S. election news produced greater engagement and shares than real U.S. election news, a period for which Trump had just placed the despicable Steve Bannon—a major American master of creating and promoting fake news—in charge of running his campaign. I can personally tell you from my own experience that Russian trolls even have ample time left over to direct their blatant propaganda at someone of my own lowly status often, repeatedly, and energetically.

*****

Bloodless Victory Against a Passive Opponent

Even considering all this, Obama waited the better part of a week after the Syria talks formally ended, and some two-and-a-half months after his administration had reached a consensus that Russia was behind the hackings and at least involved in the passing of the information to WikiLeaks, to finally formally accuse Russia on October 7th, explicitly asserting that the aim of its operations was to “interfere” with our presidential election, the conclusion of 17 American governmental intelligence agencies. 

Later the same day, a recording from 2005 of Donald Trump vulgarly bragging about committing serial unwanted sexual advances appeared; “almost immediately after” it surfaced, Russia and WikiLeaks came to play defense for Trump and offense against Clinton, with WikiLeaks beginning a series of releases of many thousands of Clinton campaign Chairman Podesta’s e-mails, obtained earlier by Russia; they highlighted campaign infighting, transcripts of Clinton’s paid-by-Wall Street-banks speeches, and Clinton’s ties to political and financial elites, all of which generated negative publicity for Clinton. The batches were released almost every day from October 7th through Election Day on November 8th, ensuring they would constantly be in the headlines in the closing month of the election, even as U.S. officials were coming across even further evidence that Russia was feeding them directly to WikiLeaks. Exit polls—especially in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and others—showed that voters who made their time up during this period broke overwhelmingly for Trump; additionally, they showed that far more voters broke for third-party candidates in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—as well as every swing state that Trump won—in the final weeks and month than before. For those who had been deeply angered by the DNC leak but were trying to give Clinton a chance, these new Podesta leaks were a reminder of the previous controversy and played into many of the same negative emotions and perceptions these people had harbored about Clinton.

At this point, Obama was considering a “proportional” response to Russia, but such a response still has not materialized, as any appropriate response of any proportion would have sent a public message that the world would unmistakably have heard, being that this Russo-American conflict is playing out very markedly on the global public stage; what has materialized instead is a deafening silence of action from Obama, causing Western democracies to despair. To add insult to injury, weeks before the election Trump claimed America “had no idea” if Russia was behind the hacks at the final presidential debate and Russia even requested it be allowed to send election observers to several U.S. states, which rejected the requests.

Pathetically, Obama warned Putin directly on October 31st on a sensitive nuclear-related hotline not to hack the electoral process (but making no mention of the WikiLeaks DNC and Podesta leaks), only eight days before the election and long after so much damage had already been done, clearly enough to shape public opinion and achieve Putin’s aims without direct election hacks, and the WikiLeaks leaks still continued after this message was delivered. 

Obama laughably claimed the warning amounted to successful deterrence, yet even if Clinton had won, the U.S. was possibly facing massive unrest and a Congress intent on impeaching Clinton, its constituents incensed in part by Russian propaganda. 

In charge of a relatively weaker Russia taking on the most powerful nation in the world and regardless of the election’s outcome, Putin had already won: he took to heart von Clausewitz’s maxim that “War is the continuation of policy [or politics] by other means,” something that Obama seems to have missed. Putin had essentially “weaponized” WikiLeaks (and, in the process, the unwitting U.S. news media) against Clinton, the Democratic Party, the U.S. electoral process, and American democracy itself. And almost overnight, he has largely silenced the Republican Party’s hostility to him and his regime: most Republicans seem to prefer not to attack their new benefactor, while the most vocal GOP critics of Putin are mostly a fading old guard (as a case in point, just a few days ago, all Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence called for the Obama Administration to declassify information on Russia’s interference in the U.S. election; not one single Republican on the Committee joined the call). 

Russia’s hacking and disinformation campaigns coupled with Obama’s dismal failure to respond appropriately to them were themselves certainly more than enough to explain Clinton’s razor thin loss, even as other factors—Clinton’s e-mail server scandal, the way FBI Director James Comey engaged with the public (or did not) during the FBI’s multiple investigations, the Bernie Sanders phenomenon and the behavior of Bernie Sanders, polling errors, the style and focus of media coverage, and, of course, many Americans’ irrational, visceral hatred of Clinton born largely out of still-pervasive sexism and misogyny—undeniably also played a role. Any one of those alone not becoming a factor could have swung the election to Clinton, but they were largely out of the hands of the Clinton campaign. President Obama could have declassified most or all of Hillary’s e-mails and shown the public how innocuous they actually were; he could have reigned in Comey and the rogue actors within the FBI, as they were part of the Executive Branch, though this would have carried considerable political risk and could have at least created the appearance of a president interfering in an official investigation for political reasons; but the single area where the president could have had the most impact and been able to act in a way least tainted by questions of propriety was concerning all things related to Russia.

*****

The Worst Defeat in American History and a Serious Blow to Western Democracy

Russia had simply waltzed into America’s national election, President Obama’s political party, and the campaign of President Obama’s chosen successor Hillary Clinton, did what it pleased for all the world to see, stared us down at our own gala, grabbed the microphone, repeatedly endorsed the savage critic of Obama and rival of Clinton Donald Trump, repeatedly badmouthed both Obama and Clinton, took a crap on the dance floor, the dropped the mic and laughed hysterically while doing a slow waltz out the door.

Wars have been fought for far less, and yet Obama’s response was to avoid confrontation with his legacy and the future of the nation, even the future of Western democracy, very much at stake.

In a follow-up piece, I shall deal with the many options Obama had as Commander in Chief besides doing virtually nothing. But for now, perspective:

The most successful cyberattack in world history also involved the weakest response by any American president ever to foreign aggression. It was also the worst foreign attack on American soil since the War of 1812: neither Pearl Harbor nor 9/11 resulted in a regime change that put in place a President of the United States who is so unwitting a mole for Russia, grossly unfit for high office, and oblivious to how much he will undermine critical institutions and values as Trump. It is the first time a party in power in America was toppled by foreign interference and the first time a foreign power toppled the political leadership of a long-reigning first-tier power since arguably Alexander the Great took over Persia. 

Additionally, Russia’s activities have greatly helped to diminish confidence in the American system, further fan the flames of cynicism, and normalize fake news, making America overall more divided, less governable, and more confused than at any time since the Civil War/Reconstruction period; these acts have also damaged the U.S.-led international system that has been in place since WWII.

It can only said of Putin’s resoundingly successful cyberwar that he played so many segments of American society to his ends without their knowledge that it was a masterful orchestral performance and that Putin was a legendary conductor. This (First) Russo-American Cyberwar will be studied for generations, for centuries, as a brilliant way for a state to take down a democratic nation, no matter how powerful, if its people are divided, and to do so without actually firing a single shot but by turning that nation’s strengths against itself. 

This is part of a larger Russian war against the West that is becoming increasingly brazen: until this year, Syria and Ukraine were the most glaring centerpieces in Russia’s disinformation campaigns; then, Russian disinformation caused a faux scandal early this year in Germany that weakened Merkel and her party ahead of key regional votes; Russia’s propaganda machine went intensely against Remain and for Brexit in the UK’s big vote this year and its efforts were clearly crucial in swaying votes in what was an intensely close decision; Russia has also been active in non-NATO Sweden this year, particularly when it was voting on closer ties with NATO; Finland, which shares a huge border with Russia, has also seen a surge in Russian disinformation; early in November, it even became apparent that Russia may have even been involved in an attempted coup in Montenegro, which is on the verge of ascending to membership in NATO.

Since Trump’s election and just this week, Russia’s tool WikiLeaks is already unleashing its might against Angela Merkel and her party in Germany, which fears far more interference in its 2017 national elections, and Russian propaganda was active in supporting the right-wing parties in Italy’s big vote that was a stinging defeat for it centrist pro-EU leader and his party (he will now soon resign), though efforts were less successful in Austria, where the pro-Russian far-right candidate failed by only a modestly large margin in an election that still signaled a significant weakening of Austria’s political center and in which fake news (not yet directly linked to Russia) played a major role during the campaign. In Russia, lawmakers cheered the developments in both Italy and Austria, seeing them as further signs of the demise of the current European system. Also since Trump’s victory, pro-Russian presidential candidates won in Moldova and Bulgaria, where Russian political meddling has been a significant force in shaping the political climate in the years preceding the recent votes. Additionally, Russia’s neighboring three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—already subject to heavy Russian disinformation operations—have seen a significant increase in Russian disinformation since the U.S. election and many there fear what is to come next. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the leader of close U.S. ally South Korea is now facing impeachment during a period of massive unrest in part provoked by Trump, even as a politician known as “Korea’s Trump” is rising in the polls.

Today, right-wing extremists—now that the Soviet Union is gone and Russia is not a champion of communism and the international left—admire Putin’s authoritarianism and see him as a defender of the West, a newly increasingly illiberal, rather than liberal, West, and Russian support for right-wing pro-Russian parties in Europe is hardly limited to propaganda and disinformation: Russia has been orchestrating loans to right-wing parties all over Europe, including (but hardly limited) to France. And Trump and his advisor Bannon have made no secret that they want to ally with and support the same far-right, anti-NATO, pro-Russian parties in Europe that Putin wants to see succeed. Even in just four, let alone eight, years of a Trump presidency, the damage such a coordinated effort could do to the EU and NATO as institutions should not be underestimated, especially as Russia’s successful disinformation and propaganda operations increase Putin’s standing and support across Europe. 

Putin sits on Europe’s eastern border, part wolf, part vulture, both inflicting wounds and picking those wounds apart, weakening the body politic of the West. And by any standard, 2016 was a year of spectacular success, with Russia’s desired outcomes being achieved in the US, the UK, Italy, Bulgaria, and Moldova, while seeing trends favorable to its interests significantly increased in places like Germany and Austria. Furthermore, U.S. and NATO “ally” Turkey has taken a decidedly sharp anti-democratic and anti-Western plunge and is clearly cozying up to Russia. 

2017 may be even better for the Kremlin, and even worse for what is still referred to as the West.

This is the new face of warfare, one in which the lines between politics and war are erased and in which Russia is dominant and ahead of everyone, and this should be terrifying all of us. I am not going to write that this is a fatal blow for the U.S. or the West, but it is a grievous one, and that it is one that the public and news media seem unable to discover or acknowledge, let alone comprehend or respond to appropriately, makes it all the more dangerous and all the more likely to happen again… and again.

AP

© 2016 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, no republication without permission, attributed quotations welcome

See related articles: EXCLUSIVE: Top Trump Aides’ Deeper & Linked Roles in Putin Agenda Revealed; Russian Mafia Nexus With Trump & Aides Goes Back Years

Trump, Putin, Russia, DNC/Clinton Hack, & WikiLeaks: “There’s Something Going on” with Election 2016 & It’s Cyberwarfare & Maybe Worse

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