Candidates: How Do You Decide?
We elect people to do one thing only – to make decisions.
But we never ask them the fundamental question: ”How do you make a decision?”
Read More
Yes, he’s guilty, but I don’t care!
As we await the trial phase of the impeachment proceedings, it’s apparent that many members of the U.S. Senate are jumping past the first question – the question of fact – and starting on the question of punishment.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
A favorite quotation from American founding documents is this partial quote: “We, the people.” Taken from the Preamble (and thus the first words) of the U.S. Constitution, “We, the people” is meant to illustrate the primacy of the people of the United States over other powers, especially the powers of the government formed by that same Constitution.
But this reading misses the mark. I take those opening words to reflect that the people and the government are one and the same.
This seems like an important point in the discussion of 2nd Amendment rights. It is also an important point in many other aspects of how the people and the government relate to one another. And understanding that point drives many of the policies we operate under, and advocate for or against, today.
If we hold that “the government” is some entity that exists outside of, separate from, and in enmity against, the people, then many of the policies of the Republican party follow quite naturally.
Lady Liberty
A wall is a nightmare. A wall is the opposite of what America offers the world. A wall says:
America is Closed
America must never be closed.
Government should be optimistic
“The West Wing”, Season 3, Episode 12: “100,000 Airplanes” (January 16, 2002) SCENE: The team is gathered in the Oval Office. President Bartlett has told them that he wants to include something in his State of the Union speech to say that we will cure cancer. His advisers explain, one by one, why he can’t…
Message-Making: The Biden Speech
The speech is a lesson in the tactics, large and small, that hold a message together and burn your ideas into your audience’s consciousness. Repetition. Litanies. Framing. Promoting your Values, naming the Villain, holding out a Vision.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I remember Nixon’s “enemies list” – a list of people and organizations that Nixon considered to be major political opponents. So I expect the new president – being far more paranoid and more sensitive to any criticism – to have an enemies list as well. And it would, of course, include anyone who is effective…
Speak to their Values
If the impeachment managers hope to win this persuasion argument, they must speak to how Republican senators can stay in power – or recover their lost power – or protect themselves from the loss of power. They need to demonstrate that the actions of the defendant threaten the ruling authority of these Republican senators.
2020’s Woke Population
“I am not sure how we parse out how much of [the result] might have been related to reaction to Clinton and how much of it is motivated by the panic so many Democratic voters seem to be expressing in their desperate search to decide which candidate will beat President Trump,” University of Wisconsin political…
Results AND Resistance
What do we resist? We resist job losses. We resist wage stagnation. We resist corporate welfare. We resist corruption. We resist cruelty. We resist dictators.
We resist Republicans.