Mark Russell, a writer in Oregon I've never met, posted one of the best descriptions of the differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders that I've seen on Tuesday:
[T]he truth is that this is not a battle between good and evil so much as an awkward contest between two animals who evolved in entirely different ecosystems.
Hillary Clinton is like a grizzled hunter in the Amazon. Every day is a battle for survival. She has suffered every venom and poison imaginable and from her time as being the wife of a Democratic governor in a red state to being Secretary of State to the most besieged administration in modern history, she has lived her entire life in a rainforest filled with things determined to kill her. Her political survival instincts have adapted accordingly.
Bernie Sanders is like a wallaby. He hails from the benign ecosystem known as Vermont, where he lacks any natural predators. He will be the beloved senator from Vermont for as long as he cares to be. So he hops around wherever he wants, unafraid that anyone might use his words to crucify him. Propose a $15 minimum wage? Just have a friendly chat with anyone who disagrees. Call yourself a "socialist?" Sure, why not? We're all friends here. On the other side of the world, though, if Hillary Clinton channels her inner Eleanor Roosevelt, the Republicans call it a seance. Write a few State Department e-mails from your personal server? Suddenly there's a major Congressional investigation, even though nobody cared when previous Secretaries of State did exactly the same thing.
I'll be reaching out to him for permission to publish his whole post.
I have three books in the works and two on deck (imminently, not just in my to-be-read stack) right now. Reading:
On deck:
- Kevin Hearne, "Iron Druid Chronicles" book 8: Staked.
- Kim Stanley Robinson, "Mars" trilogy book 2: Green Mars.
Meanwhile, I have these articles and blog posts to read, some for work, some because they're interesting:
Time to read.
Meanwhile, I seem to have a cold. Yuck.
No more or less than any other state. But that doesn't mean Iowans have any ability to pick winning candidates for president:
The problem is not that the people of Iowa are stupid. They are not, by most measurements. It’s that Iowa looks nothing like the rest of America. As a result, the winners, more often than not, are nationally unelectable extremists. Who can remember President Rick Santorum or President Mike Huckabee, both previous winners? Or President Uncommitted, who beat Jimmy Carter in 1976? And what to make of the finding that 43 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers this year are self-described socialists, prepared to select a dyspeptic and unelectable senator as their candidate?
As a bellwether, the Iowa caucuses are no more predictive than a gasbag on an ethanol high swaying from a bridge in Madison County. As a representative exercise relevant to the concerns of a nation of 322 million people, the caucuses are laughable.
Consider that half of all the babies born last year in the United States were nonwhite. Not in Iowa, of course, one of the whitest states in the nation. On Monday, if the Republican caucus is anything like the 2012 turnout, 99 percent of the attendants will be white. That’s not even the United States of 1816, let alone this year.
Meanwhile, the Republican party held a debate last night that their front-runner skipped, which apparently shows how big his testicles are.
I may or may not have a letterspacing error in the headline...
Short list today, so I may do it after work before rehearsal:
Not to mention, I still haven't finished the Economist's special Christmas issue. Maybe I need a long flight or two?
This means I have some time to digest this over the weekend:
I might have a chance to read this weekend. Perhaps.
Too many interesting things to read today. I've got some time between work and Bel Canto to get through them:
I have not read Bel Canto, though I understand it's loosely based on an actual historical event. I also haven't ever heard anything from composer Jimmy López before, since it only permiered last month. Friends who work for the Lyric tell me it's pretty good. I'll find out in a few hours.
...a report from the Executive to the Legislature required by Article II, section 3. Everyone is following along, yes?
9:11pm: First applause line: "I'm going to try to make it a little shorter."
9:15pm: My companion: "Fear!" Me: "No, that's Feinstein."
9:18pm: Oh, dear. Third "fear" of the speech. Might not make it...
9:21pm: "Anyone who says America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction."
9:29pm: "There is red tape that can be cut." Bi-partisan applause, for different reasons.
9:32pm: "When the Russians beat us into space, we didn't argue whether Sputnik was up there. ... Twelve years later, we were on the moon."
9:41pm: "People of the world do not look to Moscow or Beijing to lead. They call us."
9:46pm: "If you doubt the resolve of the American people, or mine, just ask Osama bin Laden."
9:54pm: On the Guantanamo line, PBS showed Kelly Ayotte, and her lonely tear. She knows he's right. She knows her party's gone barmy. She knows she's out soon. But she's a decent senator.
9:58pm: "It doesn't work if we believe the people who oppose us are motivated by malice."
10:06pm: Overwhelming urge to watch The American President right now.
10:09pm: "The state of our union is strong. God bless America." Mic drop.
Dan McLaughlin, writing for the conservative Federalist, examines the 2016 Republican primary race in terms of military strategist John Boyd's philosophies:
Boyd’s core insight was about the interactive and disruptive nature of speed on human decision-making: success in conflict can be rapid and dramatic if one can “operate inside the OODA Loop” of the opponent. Operating inside the opponent’s OODA Loop means presenting him with a constantly shifting battlefield that keeps him off-balance and disoriented so he is unable to process information and make and implement sound decisions before the situation changes again.
So, what does this all have to do with Donald Trump? Quite a lot. Few candidates in recent political memory have been so effective at altering the reality around them in a way that crashes their opponents’ OODA Loops.
As a major-party nominee, moreover, Trump would lack the ambiguity he has deployed against Republicans, and in a two- or even three-candidate race, he could not exploit the collective action problems and Hobbesian scramble for free media that have enabled his rise. Indeed, few of the factors that have allowed Trump to trigger fear in his Republican opponents would even apply in a general election, and Clinton’s team would have plenty of time to prepare a counter to the things he has been doing so far.
That’s not to say that Trump’s celebrity and attention-grabbing power would present no opportunity to win (he would only be the nominee if he’d already figured out how to solve the low-turnout proclivities of his natural base), but ultimately, he could not deploy the same approach without major adaptations. Trump would have to prove himself flexible and open-minded enough to the dynamic general election system to attract the necessary 70 million voters. His ability to do so remains very much unproven.
I don't always read the Federalist, but this analysis made a lot of sense to me. It's a long read—and worth it.
Last night, the GOP candidates for president debated technology a little, and they just had no idea what they were talking about—or they dissembled. Take your pick:
It’s not exactly clear what Trump means by “closing areas where we are at war with somebody,” and we’re not exactly sure Trump knows what he means, either. Our best guess is that he’s saying it’s possible for the US to shut down Internet access in countries like Syria. That’s problematic, not only because it would shut off millions of innocent people from the Internet, but also because the US simply doesn’t control the Internet in countries like Syria, and neither do US companies.
There were other missteps throughout the night, like Governor John Kasich’s claim that the San Bernardino shooters’ communications couldn’t be monitored “because their phone was encrypted.” He’s right that their phones contained encryption, but so does mine, and yours, and, in all likelihood, so does Kasich’s, because most smartphones today are encrypted.
And don't even get me started on that clown Fiorina...