Marco Rubio Should Be Democrats' Worst Nightmare

If Marco Rubio wins the Republican nomination, he’ll probably be the next President.

But wait! you say. Democrats have a demographic lock on the electoral college. Republicans are seen as a party of racist old white men. That’ll never work in a high-turnout election. It won’t be easy, but the Clinton Machine will roll to victory no matter who the opponent is.

If only.

64% of Americans are unhappy with the direction of the country, and Hillary offers voters the same policy buffet and ideological temperament as the man she hopes to succeed. All while trying to be the first Democrat to succeed a two-term president of the same party since Martin Van Buren. If she is going to summit this mountain, she’ll need to make voting for a Republican out of the question for most people who don’t watch Fox News regularly, AKA those who are OK with the US becoming a majority-minority country, think the minimum wage is too low, and use the Internet regularly.

Barack Obama did this to Mitt Romney in 2012. in his early summer ad blitz, he defined Mitt Romney as a rich guy who fires people for a living. Through early voting and on Election Day, Obama used his popular persona and an army of field soldiers to turn out the famous “Obama coalition” of young, nonwhite, infrequent voters. The way they had painted Mitt Romney made sure these low-propensity votes wouldn’t cast ballots for anyone else. Romney didn’t do himself any favors to combat the impression Obama’s people created of him — refusing to release his tax returns, the 47% video, etc. Most voters were unhappy with the direction of the country, and the Obama slogan was merely “Forward,” but Obama won anyway.

Fortunately for Hillary, almost all Republican candidates would happily play the culturally out-of-touch role she needs him or her to play. They almost universally oppose providing a path to citizenship for undocumented families, oppose raising the minimum wage, and have spent the primary debates staking one early-90s era position (on marijuana, crime, equality) after another.

But unfortunately for Hillary, and for the country, the “it” pick to win the nomination, and candidate I have predicted will be among the last two Republicans standing, has a record and personal qualities that shield him from Hilary’s attempts to define him on cultural issues, and the ability to deliver his message with humor and aplomb, even under difficult questioning in front of millions of people (what is commonly referred to as “candidate skill”) to make her look petty and small if she attacks him.

If nominated, Rubio will likely be remembered as the first pro-immigration Republican nominee. In 2013, he was the chief Republican sponsor and public face of a bill that would have provided a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. This bill passed the Senate. It’s true that he abandoned leadership on this issue once it became clear that the base wouldn’t budge from their nativism, and has gone back on his position somewhat in the primaries, emphasizing the “long and winding” nature of this path to citizenship. But the fact remains that this bill passed the Senate, and he made it happen. How many members of Congress have a record of legislative success anymore? In a general election campaign, this will overshadow his rhetorical shifts from the last two years and render any attempts to portray him as a Know-Nothing as not credible.

Rubio has the personal qualities to peel away some of the highly infrequent voters that were so important to Obama’s repeat victories. A lot of data lately has shown that “swing” voters comprise a tiny proportion of the electorate, and that voters rarely change their minds between presidential elections. I don’t disagree with these findings, but I think that this overestimates the extent to which many low-propensity voters identify politically because of deeply-held policy beliefs. I think these voters identify politically based on cultural perceptions — perceptions that will help Rubio in a contrast with Hillary, who has been in national politics since 1992.

The most obvious factor in a discussion of cultural resonance Rubio’s race. He would potentially be the first Hispanic president. It’s hard to evaluate how significant this is. I don’t necessarily think that, upon his nomination, all Hispanic Democrats will suddenly renounce their values on health care, labor unions and other core liberal issues just because they want to see someone else with brown skin and Spanish-speaking ancestry in the White House.

At the same time, having someone of your shared cultural or ethnic identity can represent a victory for that community in terms of its place in American society. John Kennedy’s ascension to the White House was meaningful for Irish and Catholics; Barack Obama’s victory held special meaning for African Americans who had fought for civil rights. I’ve heard some Mexican Americans say that Rubio’s Cuban ancestry will not help him with Mexican American voters; I’ve heard other Mexican Americans say that this matters less than the possibility of having someone whose name is “Marco Rubio” in the Oval Office.

But Rubio won’t win on his ethnicity; his message will appeal to low-propensity voters too. Most Republicans’ core messages have something to do with how terrible everything is in the country right now because of Barack Obama, but voters don’t want to believe a message based entirely on negativity. Rubio takes a step beyond criticizing Obama to talk about the need for leadership from a new generation in the 21st century. It’s a message that even a liberal like me tends to agree with at a high level — that’s why it’s dangerous. Voters who aren’t steeped in ideology will find it appealing. I can foresee friends of mine who pay only causal attention to politics coming up to me in the fall and being like, “so what about this Rubio guy? He’s not so bad, is he?"

Finally, Hillary will have a hard time drawing sharp contrasts with Rubio. He doesn’t rattle, and you can’t get under his skin. He’s really good at taking tough questions and pivoting to his personal story with seriousness and good humor at the same time. I laughed out loud in the same debate when the moderator questioned him on why he went through personal financial problems despite his book deal. His response: a huge grin, and a plug: “It’s available paperback, if you’re interested in buying my book.” Given that Hillary is already seen as calculating and opportunistic, I don’t see attacks on Rubio going well for her. Every time she or her husband tried to get harsh with Barack Obama in 2008, it blew up in their faces. Meanwhile, Hillary hasn’t usually been able to take public criticism with a smile. This contrast will not look good one-on-one with Rubio.

Democrats do have an advantage in demographics, policy, and messaging in presidential elections. Marco Rubio's profile, record, and political skills largely negate these advantages and position him to co-opt some of the voters Democrats are counting on. Hillary’s attempts to disqualify him will likely backfire. If’s he’s the nominee, the odds of a third straight Democratic term, and a continuation of Obama Administration policies, will be slim. Republicans will own every level of government.

Go, Ted, Go!

Stuff Government Does: October 2015

This week was not great for progressive politics. Last Tuesday night, Democrats lost the governorship in Kentucky, placing my ancestral state’s Obamacare exchange and Medicaid expansion in potential jeopardy. Voters defeated an equal rights measure in Houston, and the Virginia Senate remained under Republican control after a hard-fought campaign. So I was feeling pretty angsty about the future of America until I opened my “Stuff Government Does” Evernote a couple of nights ago and remembered all the positive things governments around the country did last month. There are a lot of good reasons to be upset about the direction of politics and policy in this country. But let's have a weekend of optimism. Here's your monthly rundown of the areas where we made improvement in October.

Marijuana now legal in Oregon: It was a year ago that Oregon voters approved a ballot measure legalizing recreational pot, and as of October 1st, dispensaries could officially start selling. That makes Oregon the third state to move on from the war on weed. Hopefully, California and Nevada will join them in 2016.

Speaking of marijuana, you may have read that Ohio voters rejected a legalization initiative last week. That’s true, but it doesn’t mean that much: the measure was so poorly constructed that even Willie Nelson spoke out against it. So don’t sweat it. They’ll do it better next time.

Stricter limits on ground-level ozone emissions: Also on October 1st, the EPA issued a new rule requiring all US counties to keep their ground-level ozone measurements below 70 parts per billion. Atmospheric ozone protects us from the sun; apparently, ground level ozone is the main ingredient in smog and causes emphysema and cancer. So good for the EPA (though according to their own scientists, they should have gone even further). Looking at this map, it looks like this rule isn’t coming a moment too soon for California, nearly all of whose counties are not in compliance.

By the way — and I’ll write about this more in December — but what a year for the EPA! Limits on CO2 from power plants, heavy trucks, limits on methane, and now smog. The protections enacted by the EPA are the most important reason that we need a Democrat to succeed Barack Obama as president.

Digital privacy in California: I gripe a lot about how governments at all levels today have done far too little to adapt policy to the existence of things like smartphones and cloud services. Fortunately, on October 8th, California brought itself into the 21st century with regard to civil protections against search and seizure. Under the bill signed by Jerry Brown, law enforcement will be prohibited from compelling businesses to turn over any metadata or digital communications, including emails, texts, and Google documents, without a warrant. It also bars law enforcement from searching or tracking the location of mobile phones without authorization from a judge.

It’s hard to believe that in most of the country, if it’s not written in ink on paper, your correspondence isn’t necessarily privileged. Until the federal government becomes legislatively functional, if you like your digital privacy, move to California. 

State employees can use the sharing economy: Speaking of bringing California into the 21st century, another bill the governor signed into law last month requires state agencies to permit their employees to use Lyft and Uber and to stay in Airbnb lodging when traveling on state business. Up until today, they were required to stay in “commercial lodgings.” It’s another step in reducing government’s suspicion of technologies that are making people’s lives easier.

This has been a great fall in California. It’s too bad practically every other state in the union is under Republican leadership.

DoD withdraws support for the University of Phoenix: Student debt is drag on lives of millions of people and on the economy as a whole, and for-profit colleges are the main culprits. Of those, the University of Phoenix is by far the worst, holding $35.5 billion in student debt — over $25 billion more than the second-place creditor.

But the University of Phoenix suffered a massive blow on October 9th when the Department of Defense announced that it will no longer allow service members to use federal money to attend any of the subsidiaries of the Apollo Education Group, of which the aforementioned institution is a part. This group of for-profit colleges is no longer allowed to recruit on DoD property anymore, either.

It’s pretty sketchy that for-profit schools, whose degrees are of questionable value, have ever had access to taxpayer money, so good for DoD for shutting out a large chunk of them.

Federal loans can be used for bootcamps: For-profit colleges can no longer take DoD money; under a new Department of Education pilot program, coding bootcamps and other non-traditional education programs now can. The program is specifically designed to steer low-income students “away from predatory for-profit schools."

Men with non-degree certificates in computer / information services currently earn 72% more per year than men with a traditional associate’s degree. This shows that learning to code in a physical or online environment that focuses on practical skills is way more likely to get you a decent-paying job than anything you’d learn at Devry. This new policy will increase access to well-paying jobs for more people.

The NFL Is Our Only Shared Civil Institution

The latest thing that made me think about polarization is this post from the Economist’s culture blog about TV viewership in America. The phenomenon that they are commenting on is that the shows with the highest ratings (NCIS, The Big Bang Theory) are barely ever written about in major publications and receive no critical acclaim or awards nominations, all of which now go to familiar cable dramas like Game of Thrones. As the unnamed writer puts it, these network shows "illustrate a growing divergence in the television-viewing habits of coastal urbanites and the rest of the country.” Indeed, “combining the elements of a police procedural with an extra splash of ooh-rah patriotism, [NCIS] appeals to America’s heartland but repels big-city liberals." Translation: liberals watch HBO and Netflix; conservatives watch CBS and Fox. Even television now places you in a partisan bucket.

The Economist’s analysis echoes the subheadline of Chis Cillizza’s post today on how people in each party identify religiously: “The two parties are getting further and further away from one another. On everything.” The urban/rural political divide and the fracturing of media along party lines are old news. But I don’t think we’ve considered how much polarization exists in places we don’t think of being associated with politics. Cillizza isn’t exaggerating: almost all cultural preferences are becoming associated with one ideological preference or the other.

The exception is the NFL, which is to American culture what church used to be. It’s the basis of a Sunday ritual around which the week revolves, and it belongs equally to liberals and conservatives. People go crazy for their local team whether they are in Dallas or San Francisco or Phoenix or Houston or Queens. A halftime show could have a rapper and a country singer and neither would seem out of place. Other than members of my extended family, NFL refs are the only white people with southern accents I hear talking that I don’t immediately associate with Republican politics. If I’m at an airport bar and the dude next to me is wearing a camo hat and drinking a Bud Light, I’m talking to him about the NFL only. The liberal writing class and the people who think liberal writers are all snobs are equally likely to care about the outcome of a Giants-Cowboys game. Football unites us in the way that protestantism and Seinfeld no longer can.

Oddball Personal Patronage Networks

Sometimes, I read or listen to something and think, “that is a much better version of something I was trying to say way back when.” The kind of thing that makes me want to go back and revise a part of a blog post a little bit.

That happened yesterday when I was listening to Ezra Klein, Sarah Kliff, and Matt Yglesias talking on their podcast about Joe Biden, and his recent implication that if making friends with people from the opposing party can help them pass bipartisan legislation. Here’s the key passage from Yglesias:

"In the 60s and 70s, when ideological and single issue groups were coming onto the horizon, those were considered to be anti-partisan forces, because the political parties were these kind of oddball patronage personal networks, that had their own electoral priorities…and being a “good guy” who wasn’t an asshole, and was willing to work with people and have lunch with them, and talk about what they thought, was actually how you could discover who your fellow travelers were, and what you wanted to do with them." 

“Oddball personal patronage networks” is such a great way to describe the ideologically diverse parties of the 20th century that people hearken back to when they bemoan how little effort Obama has made to make friends with Mitch McConnell.

If I’d thought of it, “oddball personal patronage networks” is how I would have described the parties of the 20th century to demonstrate how "the political forces that encouraged consensus in government for most of our history have faded away in the last few decades: every issue stance taken by a politician places her on one side of the national Red/Blue culture war” in my piece about proportional representation.

Today, no Republican is going to vote to raise taxes or increase regulation, and if they even think about it, they’ll have Heritage Action, Americans for Tax Reform, the Club for Growth, or any number of other well-funded, uncompromising groups of activists to answer to. The liberal base is less demanding of purity than the conservative one, but it would still be very hard for a Democrat to vote to cut entitlements or to approve a trade agreement without facing organized backlash. Today’s parties are rigidly ideological, and the government can barely fund itself.

For a barely more than our first two centuries, our amorphous community of political decision-makers made policy effectively enough with the constitutional system the framers designed. But our political community has changed, and our government system needs to change with it. Five years of gridlock and a slowly mounting fiscal crisis are fair warning that we can’t hold course.

In his recently-completed magnum opus, scholar Francis Fukuyama describes a process called “political decay,” where older institutions fail to evolve with the world around them. “The fact that a system was once a successful and stable liberal democracy,” he writes ominously, "does not mean it will remain so in perpetuity.”

Our government was designed for Joe Biden’s time, but that time isn’t today. James Madison and company didn’t anticipate that base-driven party movements would one day hold virtually every office. If we are going to be sure to deal effectively with major challenges, we should give ourselves a political system less prone to stalemate.

Discursive Democratic Primary Thoughts

I’m fairly confident that either Rubio or Cruz will be the Republican nominee for president. But I can only speculate on how the Democratic primaries will play out. With Hillary and crew squaring off in their first debate tonight, here is my best attempt at organizing my thoughts on the race around answers to basic questions.

Will Biden enter the race? His doubts about his emotional durability are authentic, but he clearly wants to run. The revelation that it was Joe himself that leaked the story of Beau Biden’s dying wish to Maureen Dowd confirms this. If he really thinks he can win, he’ll decide that the best way to honor his promise to his son to “be OK,” as he related in his heartrending Colbert interview, is to throw his hat into the ring.

Can Biden win? Hillary’s performance in Tuesday’s debate and in her testimony before Congress on October 22nd will tell us a lot about whether the email scandal and lack of enthusiasm behind her campaign are potentially fatal vulnerabilities that Biden can exploit, or surmountable obstacles of the kind that that many frontrunners in history have overcome.

The debate offers her the chance to shine in the only way she knows how: through showing the breadth and depth of her policy knowledge. If you haven’t already, watch this video of her debating activists from Black Lives Matter. She was her edgy, wonkish self; uniquely compelling, if not dreamy.  If she can access that version of herself on stage when talking about Wall Street and foreign policy, it will really help blunt the sense that she is out of step with  true-believer Democrats and remind them why they’ve loved her all these years. And Bernie’s apparent refusal to prepare for the debate with mock sessions doesn’t bode well for his performance.

With at least two more scheduled email dumps and the possibility of the 30,000 “personal” emails that Hillary deleted seeing the light of day, the Congressional testimony will be her last best chance to shape the narrative of the scandal. Based on how repeatedly defensive she has been in talking about this issue thus far, I’m not optimistic that her testimony will be much different. But if she can find a way to accept culpability while making Republicans look like they are on a witch hunt, I think she will eventually survive what will regardless be a vexing story for her campaign for months to come.

If Hillary can make touchdowns out of these these two big events, Democrats will dial back their panicking enough for a Biden candidacy to suddenly seem necessary. But if these events simply reinforce everything that’s happened to her public image since the spring, demand for Biden among a lot of donors and party regulars will rise to a clamor. He won’t refuse.

What percentage of the electorate will never abandon Hillary, no matter what? This will be the most important question if Biden announces a candidacy. By the end of the 2008 campaign, her reporters were almost as devoted as Obama’s. Meanwhile, it doesn’t look like her following among core constituencies will leave her just because Joe runs. I’d say that if her loyal base makes up 30% or more of the Democratic primary electorate, Joe doesn’t have a chance. But if her support is softer than that, he could win on force of personality.

Can Bernie win the nomination? Probably not, and only if Biden enters the race. Bernie's ideology is out of step with most Dem voters, and he hasn’t shown an ability to gain support from anyone except the kinds of people who used to read the Daily Kos every day. His views on guns are a vulnerability. After spiking in July and August, his numbers have leveled off in the last month. He needs a second act, and unless he attacks Hillary directly, I’m not sure what it's going to be.

But Bernie's campaign has taken on a movement-like quality and his supporters will stick with him until he tells them to stop and to go vote for someone else. He has raised $24 million through small-dollar donations from a huge pool of people, so he can keep going back to them again and again. He has personal appeal that will make some voters who don’t necessarily agree with his economic worldview consider giving him their vote. And he’s polling quite well in Iowa and New Hampshire; if Biden enters the race, he takes all his support from Hillary, not Bernie. With Biden and Hillary splitting the mainstream vote, Bernie could conceivably win both early states. Anyone who does that has a shot at the whole thing.

So what will happen?I really have no idea how things are going to go for Hillary tonight and for the next couple of weeks. On the one hand, she’s been taking such a beating for the last several months that the timing feels right for the narrative pendulum to swing back in her direction a bit. On the other hand, she’s handled the email scandal so poorly and there isn’t any reason to believe she’ll get better. And as big of an opportunity as the debate is for her, it’s also a risk for her to be on that stage surrounded by Bernie and 3 also-rans who have nothing to lose.

Ask me again in a month. By then, we’ll have a much better sense of Hillary’s strength. More importantly, we’ll know whether Joe is running or not (by early November, a candidate needs to start taking logistical steps to get on primary ballots). 

Stuff Government Does: September 2015

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy82RV3-sQA]

I spent last weekend in Manhattan. When I wasn’t avoiding collisions with tourists or enjoying the richest and spiciest Halal lamb over rice I’ve ever had, I was at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. Gatherings of corporate philanthropy will always be tedious exhibitions of self-importance. But Bill Clinton moved me with an opening keynote highlighting the unexpected and extraordinary progress we’ve made over the last fifteen years fighting HIV, hunger, and extreme poverty.

Bill’s takeaway: “the trend lines are more important than the headlines.” In that spirit, let’s look at what American government did well in September while you were fawning over Pope Francis (or asking your roommate, “what’s a Pope?”)

Renewable energy mandates in California: This month Governor Brown signed a bill that will require 50% of California’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030, and for the energy efficiency of existing buildings to double in the same time frame. These are big increases over existing targets first enacted in 2006. With the world’s eighth-largest economy, California can prove that running a developed, consumption-driven society on renewable energy is possible.

Automatic voter registration in California:  Low election turnout is one of the worst problems in America’s political system: it is the only reason Republicans can win national elections and leads to more extreme politics on both sides. Starting in 2016, California will nudge its residents to turn out by automatically registering people to vote when they get a driver’s license, unless the possible voter opts out or is not a citizen. This won’t require anyone to vote, but will remove one bureaucratic hurtle for doing so. California is on fire, leading the country in legislative action on big issues. Ah, to have a unified Democratic government!

Paid sick leave for federal contractors: Pivoting to the federal government: the President recently ordered federal contractors to give their employees seven days of paid sick leave per year. This means that 300,000 people working for the federal government can take days off when their kids have strep, when they couldn’t before. Obama continues to show that he can create positive changes in the lives of a lot of people, even with the political system at a standstill.

Cyber-Espionage Agreement with China: Last week the US and China signed an agreement that, in theory, will help reduce the disturbing frequency with which Chinese hackers steal secrets from American companies. The agreement sets up mechanisms for direct cooperation between US and Chinese law enforcement to investigate and arrest hackers when cyber attacks occur.

There are a lot of reasons that this agreement might be meaningless. 1) Since so many Chinese enterprises are state-owned, and since the Chinese government controls the Internet, it’s highly possible that the Chinese government is at least tacitly aware of these attacks when they occur, 2) in which case, if the US complains, China can just scapegoat any old criminal without doing anything to disrupt the hacker networks and still claim to be abiding by the agreement. 3) I can vouch from ten years’ experience of buying 99-cent DVDs in Shanghai’s back alleys that China has a terrible track record of enforcing international intellectual property laws.

But as opposed to, say, Syria, I think China actually cares about being seen as sticking to its commitments. And if they don’t live up to their end of the bargain, that will give the US leverage in future negotiations about this or anything else. For now, I’m going to call this a tentative step forward in the relationship between the two most important countries on Earth.

Obama Administration’s citizenship drive: The Obama Administration will soon offer citizenship test-prep services and hold naturalization workshops around the country  to try to get as many of the country’s almost 9 million legal aliens as possible to become citizens. The administration claims they are doing this because it was Citizenship Day a couple of weeks ago. Republicans claim it’s nakedly political, designed to get Democratic-sympathizing Asians and Latino immigrants onto the voter rolls before the 2016 election — which would significantly impact the election’s outcome.

For once, the Republicans are right — and I don’t care. I see no problem with helping likely Democrats live up to their aspirations of civic expression, and the Republican strategy of denying as many people the vote as possible is hardly the moral high ground. This initiative has no policy implications, but I had to include it in “Stuff Government Does” because of how helpful it could be to progressive candidates.

“Happy Birthday” enters the public domain: Up until September 23rd, if any filmmaker wanted to show characters singing ”Happy Birthday," they had to pay a royalty to Warner/Chappell Music, because the record label owned the song lyrics. That’s right —“Happy Birthday,” the song so common that it was the only English language song to be found in a Tibetan karaoke bar I visited in 2006 — was considered “owned.” Good for US District Judge George H. King for correcting this absurdity. 

Early Fall Elephant Walk Status Update

I haven’t been able to make any predictions about the Republican campaign ever since Donald Trump insulted John McCain’s war record, but in the two weeks since the most recent debate things have kind of snapped into focus.

The Donald will fall; of this I am now (finally) sure. His opponents seem to have found an effective way to attack him, which is to be indirectly dismissive while pivoting to strong statements about policy. As summer turns to fall, this will play well — with increasing numbers of voters, but especially with media. It was Carly’s clean jab about his comment about her face that lit the way. Others will follow from all sides. We can see his numbers already starting to slip a bit. As voters start to move on from him, he’ll try to re-insert himself into the top tier by saying something totally outrageous. But what worked in June won’t work in October, and at that point, with other candidates making their big moves, he will seem childish, not bold. Unless he has something else going on behind the bluster, I think he’s through.

Carly will ride high for a while, but I don’t think it will last. Her record at HP will leave her vulnerable, both on the merits (she apparently was really a terrible CEO?) and from an electability standpoint (Mitt Romney 2.0). And while she came across as really knowledgeable on foreign policy (Sixth Fleet, anyone?), I heard Chuck Todd on the radio the other day saying that her answers were basically identical to the ones she gave him on Meet the Press a few weeks ago. I haven’t verified that, but I’m willing to be she lacks a second gear, policy-wise. Plus, I don’t think she’ll fight that hard. After that debate, the book advances will come pouring in whenever she decides to get out.

Same goes for Carson. The “Ben The Friendly Neurosurgeon” schtick does hold appeal (wouldn’t that be a great PBS cartoon?), but as the debate goes on and on I think he’ll fade from the conversation without offering more substance, which he clearly doesn’t have. I know his following is loyal but I just can’t see him keeping his head above water when things start to get really heated, which they will.

Walker is out. And I don’t really need to explain why Rand, Pataki, Graham, Santorum, Jindal, and Gilmore have no shot, do I? Could you pick more than two of those guys out of a police lineup?

That leaves us with six candidates who are clinging to varying degrees of viability by Christmas: on Team Establishment, we’ll have Bush, Kasich, Christie, and Rubio; on Team Zealotry, there are Huckabee and Cruz. I think Cruz will relatively quickly consolidate the far right, while Rubio will eventually win out over his competitors to consolidate the Establishment wing.

I might even be too kind to Huckabee by including him in the final round. He’s terrible at raising money and just never seemed to grasp the logistical demands of a presidential campaign. I think he just likes going on TV and being folksy, I really do. Cruz is cunning, has raised a lot of money, and knows exactly how to lather up his audience. He also clearly wants it more.

That Rubio will consolidate Establishment support is a little less certain. We know Bush has all the money and the greatest share of endorsements, etc. I just think he’s not credible enough with people who really identify as conservatives, and not comfortable enough with the bright lights on him. Maybe a switch will flip sometime in the fall and he’ll re-discover some level of candidate talent he may have had fifteen years ago, but I don’t see it based on everything that’s happened so far. Christie got himself some breathing room with the debate performance, but with a possible indictment hanging over his head he’s not a safe bet. I do think Kasich is more than the John Huntsman of this cycle, but that Medicaid thing in Ohio is going to be hard for everyone to get over. He’d be a great general election candidate, but I think his tone is off for this year’s GOP electorate.

That leaves Rubio, who is my worst nightmare general election candidate. Establishment voters feel totally safe voting for him, but he’s been popular with some real conservatives in the past. Moreover, he’s just way, way better at weaving together ideology, biography, and policy into a coherent message than any other Republican candidate. He’s been playing it cool since he declared, which is the right call; he should feel confident that when the number of voices in the room dwindles to a handful, his will really stand out — ESPECIALLY as voters start to really think, “OK, who is going to kick Hillary Clinton’s ass?”

Neither Cruz nor Rubio may be leading in national polls when we head into Iowa, but my money is on those two being the last ones standing. Which will win? Usually, it’s the Establishment candidate who can most credibly echo the concerns of base voters that ends up winning. And Rubio can certainly be that guy. But a couple of things make me stop short of predicting a Rubio presidency (he would definitely beat Hillary).

First, that rule about a candidate from the Establishment winning, as opposed to one of the base’s chosen candidates, relies on the fact that most base candidates taking themselves out of contention for some reason or another. Sometimes they are terrible at raising money, like Mike Huckabee; other times, they say crazy shit, like Herman Cain. But Cruz is the rare base candidate who actually knows what he’s doing in this political system.

Second, the Establishment slice of the GOP voter pie isn’t that big, and Rubio will have to share it with Bush, Christie, and Kasich, all of whom are talented and to some degree well-funded candidates. I think as soon as voting starts, Cruz will consolidate the far right and have it all to himself.

That brings me to the primary schedule, the first six weeks of which are comprised of states that are dominated by the very conservative, totally uncompromising, sanctimonious, and permanently aggrieved voters that Cruz has been working to earn the trust of with every move he has made since his election to the Senate in 2012.

Let’s take a look:

February 1: Iowa

February 9: New Hampshire

February 20: South Carolina

February 23: Nevada

March 1: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming

March 5: Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana

March 8: Hawaii, Mississippi, Michigan

March 13: Puerto Rico

March 15: Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri

With Iowa and all those southern states between February 1 and March 8, it’s likely that a major “Cruz is Crushing” narrative takes hold. He’ll probably also amass a significant delegate lead.

Rubio won’t quit easily; the Establishment will throw everything they have at defeating Cruz. On March 15th, the Florida Senator will almost certainly win his home state. I also think he would defeat Cruz in Illinois. The battleground here is Ohio. If Cruz wins it, I think he’ll ultimately wrap up the nomination. If it goes to Rubio, March 16th will see a lot of “The Establishment Strikes Back” headlines and the race will be tied from a narrative/momentum perspective.

I really don’t know who would win a Rubio - Cruz heavyweight match heading into the spring. Their respective strengths and weaknesses are evenly matched. Plus, I’d have to wade way deeper into each state’s delegate totals and the whole remaining primary calendar to try and predict it, and I don’t want to go to all that trouble yet.

But I will predict that Cruz and Rubio will be the last two standing, and that theirs will be a race to remember.

Technology and Trust in Government: A Direct Relationship

Government’s use of technology is abysmal. I wrote about this more than a year ago. I felt compelled to write about it again when a friend of mine who works on Capitol Hill sent me this article in which, among other things, he is quoted as saying that Evernote is blocked on House computers "because it holds data in the cloud."

Let me get this straight: in 2015, any software used by our nation’s lawmaking institution must store its data locally? No private institution operating under such rules could remain competitive for long.

That is one example; here’s another, and another, and another. Technology can help government institutions do their jobs better and faster. But a combination of restrictive purchasing rules and arcane cultural attitudes have made government like a stubborn sexagenarian who refuses to use an ATM and insists that she has no use for a smartphone.

I live in San Francisco and work at a tech company, so you can accuse me of lacking perspective. But I think I can safely assert that many people in my age group share the frustration I feel when older family members are so technologically inept that they must be refusing to learn for refusal’s sake.

This brings me to the fact that fewer Americans than ever trust government with their money and aspirations. It’s probably too late for anyone over the age of 50 to re-discover a Kennedy-esque belief in our collective possibility. But if government continues to be as unable to use technology as my dead grandmother, it will be too late for digital natives, too. Government needs to clear some bare-minimums to have any hope of a trust rating above 30% this century.

Optimist that I am, please indulge my fantasy: what if through some miracle, government could actually be ahead of the curve? If a government agency got written up on The Verge because they solved a problem with technology in a way nobody had thought of before, your Facebook friends would fawn about it all over your newsfeed.

Then, perhaps millennials and those that come after will not only overcome the distrust of government they inherited from their parents, but start to imagine the possibilities of what a well-equipped and responsive government can do.

Stuff Government Does: August 2015

It’s August. Anybody in government with the power to change policy has been on vacation for the last three weeks. That’s why all the media can cover is Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and Donald Trump’s attempt to incite ethnic cleansing. Obama has been so quiet on Martha’s Vineyard, I think some people have forgotten that he’s still the president.

It’s a little hard to write an entry for "Stuff Government Does" when the government isn’t doing anything, so this will be a thin month. But big advances were made in two areas. And with the September calendar full of, as Trump would say, yuge political events, this policy drought should be over soon.

EPA’s Clean Power Plan: Given that it’s the biggest thing our government has ever done to combat the greatest threat to civilization ever faced, I hope you heard about the EPA’s plan to regulate emissions from existing coal-fired power plants, but in case you didn’t, here’s the lowdown: each state will be given an individualized goal for reducing carbon emissions from power plants, based on that state’s existing energy makeup. Each state can choose how to get there: switching from coal to natural gas, encouraging more efficient home energy use, building renewables, whatever. If the state refuses to come up with a workable plan, the EPA will make one for them. The net affect will be to reduce nationwide carbon emissions by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Methane is another greenhouse gas that leaks from oil and natural gas wells. And on August 17th, the EPA announced a plan to lower nationwide methane emissions by 45% below 2012 levels over the next ten years. Earlier this summer, the EPA also mandated a 24% increase in the fuel efficiency of heavy trucks.

Will these regulations stop climate change on their own? Of course not. Stopping climate change will require significant technological advances. But initial reductions can slow the process. And I believe at chipping away at problems even when a full solution does not exist. When we find that solution, we’ll be glad for the head start these regulations will give us.

More importantly, in December world leaders are going to get together to take another swing at a binding global greenhouse gas reduction agreement. Without the US, an agreement is not possible; the new big emitters, principally China, will never agree to binding cuts if the US, the historically biggest emitter and per-capita biggest waster of energy on the planet, does not.

With climate change, it’s not enough to just be on the right track. But being on the right track is better than not being on any track at all. This puts us on the right track.

Target’s elimination gendered toy displays: Since this is a light month for government work, I want to bring attention to Target’s decision to remove gender-based signage from the toy section of their retail locations. They’ll also remove the pink, blue, yellow, and green paper from the back walls of their toy shelves.

Defining certain toys, aesthetics, activities, and ways of talking and thinking as male or female for young children will make it harder for them to live freely as adults. This is a big step towards a world where kids can play with whatever toys they want without worrying if something is wrong with them. Tomorrow’s children will grow up that much more self-assured.

Props to Target for doing the right thing here — despite what the Fox News crowd has to say.

Black Lives Matter, Idealism, and the 2008 Election

Hillary's private get-together with Black Lives Matter activists, captured and released on video and analyzed in this thoughtful piece on Vox made me think a lot while I drank my coffee this morning about my rabid support of Barack Obama and antipathy towards all things Clinton in the 2008 Dem primary.

When I get into debates with more liberal friends, especially in defending the achievements of Obama's presidency, I find myself playing the role of the fairly ruthless pragmatist. I focus exclusively on what's politically feasible, and I get quickly exasperated by whining about how much better things "should" be, you know, in the perfect world where Obama yells more loudly, causing Joe Lieberman to stop being a stick in the mud and support a public health insurance option. And now we have a whole movement on the left dedicated less towards making achievable improvements and more to emotional expressions of being down with the cause. So in this context, when I see Hillary's comments, I'm like, "fuck yeah! Pragmatic politics!"

But in 2008, pragmatism was a big part of her response to Obama's "change" message and I totally dismissed it as something that somebody with no energy or vision would say -- someone who, like husband Bill, would be content to have eight years in the Oval Office and no really transformational achievements, all the while looking to preserve their popularity. Meanwhile, Obama was the idealist in the race.

Reflecting on this, I think I can justify my current pragmatism because I think in 2008 Obama was an idealist when it comes to how politics is practiced, but was always a pragmatist, with an appreciation for nuance, when it came to policy. I think many on the left mistook his campaign’s political idealism for policy idealism, thus their disappointment and support for a socialist candidate today.

But when it comes to Hillary, I'm not sure what to think given what I thought in 2008. Is she TOO pragmatic? After Scott Brown won in 2010 and Obamacare was in jeopardy, would she have listened to Rahm and abandoned the comprehensive plan and fallen back on some piecemeal bill for catastrophic care only? I kind of think she would have.

Maybe that is the core difference between Obama and Hillary. Both have no patience for policies of fantasy. But Obama is willing to sacrifice his popularity in order to get what achievements he CAN get, even if they piss off a majority of Americans. I don't know if Hillary is self-assured enough to do that.

I sent this to my friend before posting it, and he wrote that "maybe she's lacked self-assurance as she reaches for the brass ring and once she's grasped it - once she's actually president - she'll be ballsy policy-wise; we know she's tough, and you know I think the rest of the country has basically caught up to the values Hillary's quietly held all along.” She is indeed smart and tough. We just can’t know whether she’d stand strong when half her advisors are telling her to fold.

Stuff Government Does: July 2015

We’re in the dog days. The temp in SF is a toasty 71 degrees (I even have to turn on a fan at night). Friends are in town; wine is consumed. Alas, posts come a week behind schedule. But never fear. The Political Blend will not neglect its duty to keep you informed of the halting, inching progress towards destiny that is government in America. And July was a great month! For conservation, for equal rights, for foreign policy, and even, maybe just a little bit for health care. So without further ado, let’s dive right in: here’s the good, lasting stuff government did last month.

Fixed Medicare Reimbursements: Sounds boring, right? Well, this might be the most important thing the government did last month. That's why I'm putting it at the top.

Typically, if you go to get your hip replaced, your doctor will bill you for every test, treatment, and other service they give you as a part of the overall procedure. But paying piecemeal creates an incentive for doctors to add on services you don’t really need. This is what people call a “fee for service” payment model, and results in massive variation in how much the same procedure costs depending on which part of the country you are in, with many procedures costing way more than they should.

Health care is getting more and more expensive every year, and through Medicare will eventually bankrupt the federal government. While Obamacare contains many measures aimed at moving the health care system off its inefficient “fee for service” payment model, these are experimental. And with premiums set to rise in 2016, we need these experiments to start bearing fruit, and soon.

Fortunately, an experiment in which Medicare reimburses doctors with a single payment for a whole procedure, like a hip replacement or a colonoscopy, has been working well. On July 15th, Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell announced a fixed Medicare payment for all costs associated with hip and knee replacements in 75 metropolitan areas. Since a huge percentage of hip and knee replacement patients are on Medicare, this will go a long way towards addressing the huge nationwide variation in how much hip and knee replacements cost, and will help Medicare meet its goal of having 50% of all reimbursements in 2018 be for a positive outcome on a specific treatment, and not for individual services.

If the government has found a tool to push the health care system into a payment model that bends the cost curve, it will have scored a direct hit on America’s long term fiscal problems. Watch out for more news about fixed payments in the coming years.

Diplomatic Relations with Cuba: On July 20th, the US and Cuba officially re-opened embassies in each other’s capitals. This is great news for anyone that favors realistic engagement with other countries, good and bad.

For decades, many conservatives have based all foreign policy decisions on emotional attachment to the idea of American supremacy in all things at all times. Cuba offends these people more than anything else. It is tiny and only 90 miles away. How DARE they defy us! We must ignore them, because to acknowledge their existence is to acknowledge that despite our role in winning World War II, the US is not omnipotent. Horror of horrors.

But it’s this kind of thinking that leads us into stupid wars and fruitless standoffs that last decades. By re-establishing full diplomatic ties, hopefully we will start to rethink our basic need for America to reign supreme, and can use the considerable power we do have to conduct more effective foreign policy.

Conservation in Nevada: Any true West Wing fan knows offhand that presidents can conserve federal land at any time by proclaiming it a “national monument”, and on July 17th Barack Obama used this authority to set aside over 705,000 acres of undisturbed desert landscape in Southern Nevada.

This new Basin and Range National Monument, according to the Washington Post, “bridges the Mojave Desert and the sagebrush step, and serves as a migration corridor for large mammals such as mule deer and pronghorn.” It also contains a massive art installation that would really fit in at Burning Man:

            City, by Michael Heizer

America's ever-growing sprawl makes it easy to think of conservation as a losing battle. But with this and two smaller designations last month, Obama has protected more than 260 million acres of public lands and waters, more than any previous president.

Rejecting Gerrymandering in Florida: Even though data shows gerrymandering has a low impact on polarization, it doesn’t help Americans’ sense of having accountable government when district borders make zero geographic sense and are created by self-interested politicians to rig elections in their own favor. It’s the most literal emblem possible of everything Americans hate about politics.

Good thing, then, that on July 9th the Florida Supreme Court ordered the Republican legislature to quickly draw new Congressional districts that make more geographic sense. The ruling was based on a 2010 referendum, and makes Florida the second large state after California to reject this absurd practice. Voters in both parties are getting wise.

Marine Corps Maternity Leave: Continuing the nationwide trend towards humane workplace policies, on July 18th Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced that effective immediately, eighteen weeks of maternity leave would be available to Navy and Marine Corps personnel. It’s hard to fathom that until now, if you were in the Marines, you only got six weeks off to care for a newborn and adjust to motherhood before going back to the office, or base, or wherever. The new policy brings the US Navy, which employs 326,253 active personnel, into line with what many of us who are in more forgiving workplace cultures are used to. I bet we’ll see more large institutions, states, and localities follow their lead soon.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal 2.0: Another month, another break in the national wave of recognition that how we identify doesn’t have anything to do with how well we do our jobs. This came when the Secretary of Defense announced on July 12th that transgender members of the military can serve openly starting in 2016, and that the Pentagon would restrict discharges of openly transgender service members before the rule takes effect.

Bonus: the predictably absurd GOP reaction.

Lots of smart people are saying Hillary is anti-Uber. Am I missing something?

Last Saturday several articles appeared previewing the contents of Hillary Clinton's economic policy speech on Monday. I was excited to see what Hillary would say to counter the Sanders boomlet. Unsurprisingly, the advisors commenting for the preview articles outlined a speech meant to make her sound left-of-center while ruffling as few feathers as possible. The gist: that middle class wage stagnation is the defining issue of our time; that automation and globalization has reduced the need for middle-skill jobs that used to pay well; and she said that the “on-demand” economy is "raising hard questions about work-place protections and what a good job will look like in the future,” a direct quote from the actual speech. Pretty topical, even-keeled stuff, right?

So having read a handful of these preview articles, I was surprised late on Saturday to see venture capitalist Marc Andreesen retweet Tea Party Senator Mike Lee’s spokesman:

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Andreesen’s Twitter feed is one of the most insightful around. So I was confused, and I skimmed the linked Politico piece, wondering if it included some strong language about the sharing economy that hadn’t been in the articles I’d read. Seeing nothing, I Tweeted back out of genuine curiosity:

at which point I kind of got burned by a billionaire:

I read the article again just to make sure I hadn’t missed something inflammatory, and again found none. "That's weird," I said to myself. I thought. "Andreesen must be more of a conservative than I thought, because how could anyone read those articles and reasonably think Hillary is 'anti-sharing economy?'" But later on, I saw neutral media outlets parroting this narrative; when I Google’d “Hillary speech,” on Sunday, the top hit was a story from Marketwatch who’s headline read, "Hillary Takes Aim At Uber Economy In Speech.” Wired and Mike Allen's Playbook published similar blurbs on Monday morning.

If people actually think Hillary opposes the sharing economy, that’s dangerous for her. And the idea is so widespread, I’m half worried that in a year one of my otherwise smart friends will say to me, “well, I was thinking about voting for Hillary because she is better on gay marriage, but now I’m thinking about Rubio because Hillary is anti-Uber, right?”

If that happens, I’m going to shit a brick, because Hillary is not anti-sharing economy, and it’s unfair for Andreesen to say she is. In her speech, Hillary expressed that these businesses are creating “exciting economies” and “unleashing innovation” while lauding the fact that "many Americans are making extra money renting out a small room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car.” There are plenty of people in the country and around the world who actually want to shut down the sharing economy, like taxi unions who want to ban Lyft from dropping off at the airport, or David Campos, the SF city supervisor who wants to ban short term housing rentals.

It’s possible to be concerned about how new industries are re-shaping the economy without being stubbornly opposed to those industries existing in the first place. And to a thinking person, is there any doubt in the world that the sharing economy "raises tough questions" about the employer-employee relationship in the coming decades, as Hillary said? Since when does raising legitimate questions make someone anti-anything?

When I first saw a Tea Party spokesman tweeting this reactive “Hillary is anti-Uber” nonsense, I figured it was just conservatives reaching deep for an issue position that would resonate with the city folk who are offended by so many issue positions conservatives take. But now that many outlets I trust are branding Hillary as anti-sharing economy, I’m legitimately concerned that people other than conservatives might agree.

Jeb Bush’s Silly 4% Promise (or, why everyone thinks politicians are full of it).

Americans are used to rolling their eyes at politicians who fail to live up to their campaign promises. So I can’t understand why Jeb Bush has announced that if he is elected president, his goal will be for American GDP to grow by 4% per year.

Almost every time a candidate or elected official publicly dangles a specific macroeconomic statistic, he regrets it. A couple of weeks before President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the chairwoman of his Council of Economic Advisers published a report called “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” which tried to predict the impact of the “stimulus package” that was the administration’s top priority. Among other things, the report said that the deficit-funded, $762 billion spending package would keep unemployment under 8.5%.

When the unemployment rate shot all the way up to 10%, Republicans attacked the administration for breaking its “promise.” Since then, Obama’s opponents have successfully characterized the stimulus as a failure, because even though it helped stave off another Great Depression, it objectively did not achieve its arbitrary, nice-sounding goal. Since then, any further stimulus has been politically impossible.

When they issued the controversial report, the Obama administration was facing an economic disaster and trying to pass a debt-financed rescue bill with a bigger price tag than any bill any American had ever heard of being considered before. You can hardly blame the Obama administration for trying to objectively measure what this behemoth would do for the economy.

Jeb is in no such position, so it makes no sense that he would promise the economy will reach some nice-sounding benchmark that is highly unlikely and over which, if elected president, he will have limited influence. Say in 2017, the economy grows 3.2%. This is a strong number. But Democrats could reasonably say that Bush failed to live up to his campaign promises. To voters, he’ll become yet another politician who says one thing and does another.

If politicians stopped campaigning as if they have minute control of the  economy, Americans would hate them less.

Bernie Sanders' Greece Problem

One of the most basic human experiences is of seeing something you want for sale, then realizing you can’t have it because you don’t have enough money. This applies to governments, too. Spending on schools, health care, and pensions come from revenues; revenues come from taxes on economic activity. If taxes are so high that people decide economic activity isn't worth it — or if people don’t pay taxes at all — revenues go down. Governments can borrow money to continue spending programs, but eventually those bills come due. If the government hasn’t collected taxes on revenue by then, the spending programs fall apart. If people rely on spending programs to be able to buy things, the economy falls apart, too.

I just gave you a patronizing macroeconomics lesson only because so few people are discussing the fundamentals of what’s happening in Greece right now. Greece may have been a victim of the 2008 financial crisis; it may now be a victim of overly-harsh demands for austerity by a country that has no business being harsh with demands. But crimes committed against Greece by outsiders are miniscule compared to the fiscal crime Greece has committed against itself: creating a generous welfare state and failing to collect taxes to fund it.

Yet on Meet the Press last Sunday, Bernie Sanders heaped praiseon Greek voters for demanding a bailout and rejecting further austerity in a national referendum. Framing the Greeks’ decision as a righteous one that would protect programs for children, the sick, and the elderly, Sanders didn’t mention the fiscal realities that are precisely reason those programs are threatened in the first place.

Sanders, an avowed socialist who is bizarrely running for the presidential nomination of a party he has never been registered with, wants to drastically expand the US government’s obligations to citizens: repealing Obamacare and replacing it with Medicare-for-all, free four-year college tuition for all, and much else. Like Greece’s socialist leaders, and, though their national circumstances are not so dire, the socialist leaders of France, Sanders is attached to the idea that the state must guarantee the economic well-being of all its citizens.

I’m on record as sharing, albeit to a lesser extent, the belief that the government must provide education, health care, and worker protections so that everyone has a chance to pursue happiness as they understand it. But Sanders seems to not notice that a country first must have a growing economy, and then tax it.

I hope that finding a way to pay for increased government spending would be top of mind for a socialist candidate. What with his perspective on the crisis in Greece, I doubt it is.

Stuff Government Does: June 2015

Hurtling down the 101 in Mendocino County, my web developer friend asked me, "what's the point of the federal government?"

This friend shares qualities with many people I know: chill, technically knowledgeable, relentlessly logical, experience-enjoying, socially liberal, and pessimistic about government. He was expressing dismay at a lack of government action in response to NSA spying and the drought crisis in California.

"I would argue that we're headed in the right direction on those issues," I replied. After all, I told him, President Obama had recently signed into law the USA Freedom Act, which prohibits the NSA from storing mass phone data, and about Governor Brown’s recent order restricting water usage.

My friend was surprised. Though these government actions directly addressed issues he purported to care about, he had not heard of either of them.

I understand why most of my friends are pessimistic about politics—  Congress is too polarized to even vote on most legislation. It’s frustrating to read about so many urgent problems that government seems unable to fix. Meanwhile, even things like the USA Freedom Act don’t go far enough, and people are disappointed.

But in jurisdictions around the country, government is doing good. And even watered-down, symbolic measures have value; after all, Congress had to pass at least two weak civil rights bills before the cultural and political stars aligned to pass the big one in 1964. And while by no means do I want to suggest that congressional gridlock isn’t a problem, or that we shouldn’t radically change the system to mitigate it, I want to clue in the smart, tech-saavy, socially liberal, politically disengaged people in my world on the sane and fair policies getting put into place as I type.

And so, with that in mind I would like to introduce Stuff Government Does: a monthly rundown of the baby-steps our governments are taking. I’ll include actions taken by federal, state, and even local governments, provided that the local actions help illustrate a national trend that might affect large numbers of people. Given that this is meant to highlight and explain policy changes you may not have heard about, for now I won’t bother including things that made for huge, newsfeed-dominating stories, like the gay marriage decision from last week. If you think I’m leaving anything out, please let me know!

My hope is that seeing all the things government is doing well in one place will help some people find their optimism. Come hang out with me here when the rest of the news makes you think everything is fucked. It’ll be fun.

California’s vaccination law: Among all political positions a casual observer hears of people taking, only one is less rational than climate change denial, and that is to oppose vaccinating children. And so we should celebrate the recent enactment in California of one of the toughest mandatory vaccination laws in the country, which eliminates personal and religious exemptions for required vaccines.

The only thing worse than anti-vaxxers' comfort with endangering their own kids is their comfort with endangering other people’s kids, too. It’s a sign of how far we have come since the Salk vaccine that some parents are more worried about the drugs that stop disease than they are about disease itself. We have enough to deal with in the 21st century that we shouldn't invite the problems of the 20th back into our lives.

Expanding eligibility for overtime: Speaking of exemptions, we took a progressive step last week when President Obama announced plans to raise the annual income level above which workers are exempt from overtime pay from $23,660 per year to $50,440.

Overtime pay was mandated in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (fuck yeah, New Deal!), and includes a provision allowing the Labor Department to decide an income level above which a worker is considered well-off enough that they should have to work nights and weekends without making 50% more money. This exemption is aimed at workers in banking, consulting, law, medicine, and other glamorous professions.

But the Labor Department has not updated the exempted income level since 1975. Which is why, in 2015, you can be a retail worker making under $24k a year, and if an employer calls you a “manager” they can make you stack shelves on weekends without having to pay you overtime. But soon, you will have to get paid at a rate of more than $50k per year for your boss to tell you that working weekends for the same salary is “just part of the job.” According to the Economist, the threshold change should create upward pressure on wages, and eventually on the employment rate. It’s great when basic fairness translates into sound macroeconomic policy.

Sick leave in Oregon: One of the most discussed issues in progressive economics this year has been paid sick leave, and on June 23rd Oregon became the fourth state to require companies over a certain size (in this case, ten or more workers) to give five paid sick days per year.

These policies reflect an understanding that yes, sometimes everyone gets sick, and no, it’s not their fault. One of the benefits of the political culture’s newfound fixation on income inequality is that it has given momentum to humane, common-sense policies that will not drastically hamper economic growth but will give many, many people a much better shot at living happy lives. This is an example of that momentum leading to a real change in policy.

Decriminalization of marijuana in Delaware: Compared with the full legalization of marijuana in four states, the decriminalizing of marijuana in Delaware, signed into law by Gov. Jack Markell on June 18th, is the babiest of baby steps. But any time a state decides to stop arresting adults for possessing a drug that someone can certainly abuse, but with far fewer consequences for other people than any other intoxicating substance I can think of, it’s good news. I just thought you should know.

Uber driver considered an employee: As on-demand services grow in their significance to the economy, how they treat their workers now sets a precedent for how millions more workers will be treated in the future. Which is why it's a good thing that on June 16th, the California Labor Commission decided to consider a petitioning Uber driver an employee of the company—with all attendant rights and protections under the law — not as a contractor.

Don’t get me wrong: Uber is awesome. Never again will I stand at a cold intersection for 45 minutes squinting at approaching cabs to see if their “available” light is on. But even if many more jurisdictions start considering Uber drivers as employees, I think the company will find a way to adapt; they will just have to consider the implications of the economy they are helping bring about, where a significant proportion of workers are employed full-time, on-demand.

Change Arrives

The crushingly disappointing presidential campaign of 2004 was the beginning of my obsession with politics.

I moved from DC to Shanghai that summer. A proud little nationalist in a foreign land, I desperately wanted John Kerry to unseat George Bush so that that world could see America get back on the right track. I also felt threatened by China’s rising status as global power, and clung to my understanding of America as an open, tolerant place to maintain my patriotic edge. Which is why I was so offended by Bush’s vocal advocacy for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

I faked sick on Election Day so that I could stay home and watch the returns in my pajamas, but by the evening’s end I might have rather gone to school. Bush was victorious, and the consensus among analysts was that opposition to gay marriage had been the driver of high Republican turnout in Ohio, the decisive state. In sum, the election had been decided in favor of the offensive candidate specifically because of voters who were themselves offensive.

With ten new statewide constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, the outlook for equal rights was bleak. The war in Iraq would continue unabated. Stem-cell research would continue to go unfunded. A foreign policy based on cowboy rhetoric, lead by men who saw intellectualism and critical thinking as weaknesses, would continue to preclude any possibility of diplomatic resolution to any problem. And these were just the things we knew would go wrong.

In those grim hours I could not have believed that in just over ten years, we would see the week that we’ve just seen. For the first time, Confederate symbols became truly taboo in our culture, as they should always have been. The Supreme Court upheld the Obamacare subsidies, thus removing any reasonable doubt that universal access to health care in this country is here to stay. And the court declaring what was obvious to me in that hot China summer — that if straight people have the right to marry who they love, gay people must also have that right.

As I lay in bed Friday morning, having just awakened to see the Washington Post's push notification telling of the court’s good news, I could not help but recall deeply my sense of loss, disgust, and despair that November evening ten years ago, and think: my goodness, how far we have come.

My Procurement Experience

It’s never been more convenient to buy stuff than it is in 2015. When you need a new set of shower speakers, you probably will have them delivered directly to your home from Amazon. If you’re like me, you’ll read feature descriptions and user reviews to make sure you’re choosing the right model. The web has given us convenient access to a wealth of information on whatever we’re looking to spend money on.

It wasn’t always like this. Up until e-commerce went mainstream, if you decided to get those shower speakers, you had to leave your home on a Saturday and drive to a mall with a Best Buy or Radio Shack. After finding parking and walking across a baking asphalt lot, you had to find the section of the store with shower speakers and get the attention of the right salesperson, who you then had to rely on to give you information on pricing, quality, and features. Unless you knew somebody who owned the exact model you were looking at, you had no point of reference beyond what the salesperson told you.

But today, you can skip the hassle and spend all that time doing chores or watching sports or whatever you do on weekends. And with more complete information on the range of products available, you are more likely to buy what you actually want. Isn’t it great that the Internet is here to aid the process of buying stuff?

Apparently not if you are buying technology for the government.

I’m a salesperson at a technology company, and I’m trying to sell to a government right now. Literally every piece of information about our company and products, from security and technical documentation to detailed pricing and volume discount breakdowns, is publicly available on our website. Yet I’ve spent the better part of my week watching my number of unread emails spiral out of control (even for me) while I rush to write all of this information down in essay format. Then I have to get our lawyers to read and sign it. Then I have to make two hard copies and physically mail them across the country. This is literally the only way that this government is legally permitted to acquire information about our company to help their buying decision.

Regulation of how governments spend taxpayer money is critical to limiting corruption, so we should preserve aspects of procurement policies that ensure unbiased evaluation of options. But when the laws that dictate purchasing processes were made, the website — that great invention that allows you to make information available for people to find at their discretion without having to physically tell it to them — didn’t exist. There was no way to make information publicly available short of posting a giant billboard over your store or office.

Now we have websites that can help governments make informed decisions. And laws that stifle informed decision-making present a risk to taxpayers, too.

In October of 2013, only seven people nationwide were able to enroll in health insurance plans through Healthcare.gov. Not long after, it came out that the contractor chosen by the Department of Health and Human Services to build it had failed, among other things, to load test the solution before launching it. This was just the most conspicuous instance of a pervasive problem. In a recent interview with Fast Company, President Obama admitted that across government, “technology has been terrible."

The president also said that changing this state of affairs can be “transformative,” not only in improving government services, but “in changing people’s attitudes’ about government.” And I’ve argued before that technology can be the path by which government regains the people’s trust.

Maybe we could start by allowing government purchasers, like consumers, to do their own research on websites so that they can discover all the relevant information, not just what a bidder chooses to show them.

It would certainly make my life easier.

Bernie Sanders Wants Us To Be Like Sweden, Except For Guns

It’s a common exercise among liberals in America, particularly among those who have never spent more time abroad than the first semester of their junior year, to compare our country unfavorably with European nations, what with their expansive safety nets, liberal social cultures, money-free political processes, and general absence of absurd conservative craziness.

So I wasn’t surprised in early May when I saw Bernie Sanders make such a reference in an interview on ABC.  Responding to George Stephonopoulos’ questioning of whether a self-avowed socialist could be elected president of the United States, Sanders spoke reverently of Scandinavia:

“In those countries, health care is the right of all people. In these countries, college education, graduate school is free. In those countries retirement benefits, childcare are stronger than the United States of America. And in those countries, by and large, government works for ordinary people in the middle class rather than as, is the case in our country, for the billionaire class."

Fair points, all. While I don’t totally agree with his characterization of government in the United States, his outrage at the disparity between us and our European friends with regard to economic, social, and environmental policy is not ill-founded. What is jarring is that Sanders does not seem nearly so outraged at the disparity between America and our European friends when it comes to gun policy.

Sanders shouldn’t be mistaken for a disciple of Wayne LaPierre (the NRA gives him an F). But for someone who wants to challenge Hillary from the left, his views are less than progressive. Sanders voted against the Brady Bill back in 1994. More recently, he voted to allow guns on Amtrak. Several recent media reports have documented his ambivalence towards gun control going back decades.

For someone who is so quick to praise the way they do things in Sweden, this is bizarre at best, and at worse, quite upsetting.

And in response to yesterday’s act of terror in Charleston, he made a statement of condolence that included no reference to the role our loose gun restrictions played in this and other such tragedies of mass violence that have plagued America for decades. Friends of mine who make their living fighting to reduce the presence of guns in our society tell me that this is unacceptable.

My gut tells me that the overwhelmingly progressive Democratic primary electorate will feel the same way.

Trump!

A few hours ago I was kicking back with my copy of David Axelrod’s autobiography on the sofa of my favorite neighborhood fancy beer haunt. CNN was on TV, and a banner under John King’s large face caught my eye: “BUSH, TRUMP HOLD DUELING CAMPAIGN EVENTS IN KEY STATES.” Yes, I thought. So it begins.

Donald Trumps’s presence in the presidential race will diminish the stature of his fellow candidates and significantly increases the likelihood that, like in 2012, the GOP nominating process makes their party look like a pack of bellicose clowns. It’s the best thing that’s happened to Hillary Clinton’s general election chances since Bernie Sanders launched his campaign.

Jeb Bush is the former two-term governor of the nation’s fourth-largest state. Trump is, among much else, a loudmouth occasional celebretician who has never shown himself to be serious about public policy once in his life. By describing Bush and Trump’s campaign events as “dueling,” CNN is roughly equating their qualifications for office and the legitimacy of their candidacies. That’s not a great look for Jeb. Moreover, since Trump is laughable to most people who vote, it makes Bush seem laughable to be mentioned in the same sentence as him.

A couple minutes later I looked up again, and the banner changed to the much juicier “TRUMP ON BUSH: ‘HE’S A STIFF.’” I could hear it in Trump’s voice, and I lol’d gleefully. He's going to be a bountiful source of  hilarity for months to come.

Poor Jeb. I can’t wait to see what The Donald says about Rubio and Walker — the real threats to Obama’s third term — and more importantly, how CNN portrays whatever he says about them.

I wonder what Sean Hannity and the rest of the Fox News crew are saying about Trump. If they are praising him, that’s good: the more legitimacy Trump has among movement conservatives, the less legitimacy the conservative movement has with the American public. Can anyone let me know? My roommates are playing FIFA on the TV and I don’t think they’ll be happy if I switch on Fox.

TV Dany is a Wimp

If we held a presidential primary for characters on Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen would be the clear frontrunner.  Even the most casual fans, the ones who couldn’t tell a Bronn from a Bran if their life depended on it, always pay close attention when the khaleesi comes onscreen. There is always a chance of seeing her ordering a dragon to burn some pathetically wicked slave owner to a crisp. And in a series where women are frequently raped, burned, married off against their will, and otherwise marginalized by a medieval social structure, she was the one female character who achieved power all on her own terms. Which is why, having read the books, I was so dismayed by the “dance of dragons" that concluded episode 9 of this season.

Remember her arc in Season 1? She started as a young woman with no agency, married off by her abusive brother to a tribal warlord who raped her repeatedly on their wedding night. Yet she survived, and as time passed, she slowly found ways to take control of her own life: she became a queen, ate a horse heart in one sitting, asserted dominant influence on her husband, and saw her brother forcibly gilded to death. By the season’s final scene, when she rose from the ashes of her dead husband’s funeral pyre with three dragons hanging off her unburnt body, she emerged as the show’s most compelling protagonist: bold, tough, and powerful.

The story calls these qualities into question frequently thereafter, as she wanders from place to place with her loyal followers, languishing at remote outposts. And yet, at pivotal moments, she always found a way to rediscover the self-confidence and instinct for drama to triumph over her adversaries. We saw this when she escaped the House of the Undying at the end of Season 2, and when she outwitted the Astapori slavers to take control of their city and army of eunuchs midway through Season 3.

And in the books, we saw these qualities in full display in the key scene at Draznak’s Pit. Here’s how it played out in the source material: after Dany’s reluctant marriage ceremony to Hizdahr zo Loraq, the couple head to the arena to take in a little traditional bloodsport. While there, Hizdahr offers her a plate of fried locusts; she declines. On eating the locusts, one of Dany’s advisers (who was written out of the show) starts to vomit, leading many to believe the locusts are poisoned and that Hizdahr is trying to kill her. It’s at that moment that Drogon shows up from his long absence — possibly drawn to the arena because he could sense that Dany was in danger, but just as likely because a pit full of humans spilling blood everywhere smelled like Sunday brunch. When he starts burning people left and right, Hizdahr screams at the assembled guards to “kill the beast!"

Only then does Dany go down to the arena surface. Trying to get him to stop burning the people around him, she runs towards him screaming, and when she gets close, strikes him repeatedly with a whip. Turning his head in her direction, Drogon opens his mouth as if to incinerate her — but she locks eyes with him, knowing that to show fear would mean her death. Meanwhile, Hizdahr’s guards continue to throw spears and arrows at the young dragon’s body. That’s when Dany, realizing that her new husband may be trying to kill her and certainly wants to kill her child, finds herself climbing on Drogon’s back and flying up, up, and away. In this rendering, it’s Dany that is moving to protect her child — not the opposite.

Seeing Drogon surrounded by enemies, she looks inward and finds the courage that she’d been lacking throughout her time in Mereen. It’s a giant leap forward in her character development, and it’s riveting to read. When I finished it, I think I immediately got up and took a shower while listening to epic trance music and whispering “fire and blood” to myself over and over.

By comparison, the way the scene played out on the TV show made her seem like a helpless damsel. When the Sons of the Harpy attack, she runs to the arena floor, surrounded by her entourage, hoping for an escape. The small group soon find themselves surrounded by hostiles, their death certain. Dany simply holds her servant’s hand and closes her eyes, as if to accept the inevitable. Drogon, sensing his mother is in danger, shows up to save the day.

In this rendering, Dany doesn’t look inward or discover any long-dormant qualities to propel her forward; she doesn’t show any development at all. She just stands there. Only by sensing that his mother is in danger does Drogon show up.  The portrayal significantly diminishes the qualities that set Dany apart from others in the story. And it wasn’t particularly inspiring to watch.

What’s worse, unlike so many of the plot deviations that Benioff and Weiss have made from George RR Martin’s text, this diminishment can’t be explained by the difficulty of adapting a sprawling narrative to the small screen. As written in A Dance with Dragons the scene almost exclusively involves central show characters. Having Drogon show up because of bloodsport alone, and showing Dany bravely charging into the arena to protect him, would not have taxed the viewers' ability to understand what was happening. It’s a sad change that calls into question the showrunners' understanding of what makes the story compelling, and their ability to tell it effectively.