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Saturday, December 31, 2016

A Book Review of "Hillbilly Elegy", by J.D. Vance

Book Summary
Hillbilly Elegy is the first-person account of a multi-generational dysfunctional family.  The author was born August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio, the grandson of economic migrants from eastern Kentucky.  The author connects his personal values and difficulties to his heritage from Appalachian people.  According to Vance, the attributes of Appalachian culture include fierce independence, patriotism, suspicion of outsiders, loyalty to family, and violence.  Religion is a value that is espoused, but less often observed.

The author was raised principally by his grandparents in Ohio, but maintained a connection to Kentucky through frequent family visits.  The grandparents had raised their children under conditions of alcoholism and domestic violence.  The author’s mother raised her family while engaging in drug addiction, revolving door relationships, home instability and domestic violence.  By the time the author was born, the author’s grandparents had cleaned up their behavior, and they provided a safe haven for Vance as a child.

Vance characterizes the Appalachian culture as suffering from poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness.  He implies that these problems underlie the personal issues of substance addiction, domestic violence and apathy.  Near the end of the book, Vance brings in a political dimension when he rejects most government policy solutions for the problems of this culture, reflecting his generally conservative world-view.  Vance also provides no solutions for the systematic problems of the Appalachian culture.

Viewpoint
Throughout the book, it was difficult for me to accept that the author is writing about recent times, and not the distant past.  It took me some time to realize that I was his parents’ age, and J.D. Vance is of my children’s generation.

I knew the children of the Appalachian economic migration when I was in elementary school in the 1960s.  The children were blond and spoke with southern accents.  We who were natives of Indiana told cruel jokes about the children from Kentucky; the children from Kentucky told jokes about the children from Tennessee.

Hillbilly Elegy generalizes the problems of the Appalachian culture to the white working class.   The white working class is of intense political interest, due to the shift of allegiance of this group from the Democratic Party to Donald Trump.  Joan C. Williams, writing in the Harvard Business Review, discusses that shift in an insightful article.  (https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-people-dont-get-about-the-u-s-working-class)

I think that Hillbilly Elegy is correct in characterizing the white working class as a pessimistic culture.  This explains many of the traits of middle America.  Drawing on the writings of physicist David Deutsch, pessimistic cultures expect change to bring something bad.  Outside influences and higher education are feared, because these can bring change.  Pessimistic cultures desire authoritative government and institutions, and revere the military and police.  Pessimistic cultures encourage conformity and discipline, particularly in education.  Pessimistic cultures are also religious; relying on divine protection from dangers in a world that they fear.

Reading Hillbilly Elegy, one is left with the impression that dysfunctional families, alcoholism, domestic violence, and xenophobia are characteristic of Appalachian culture.  I’m not sure that is correct, or fair.  Vance’s description of Appalachian families suggests that alcoholism is common.  But a map of national alcohol consumption shows the opposite – Appalachian states are reported to have among the lowest rates of alcohol consumption in the country.  (Unless this is an artifact of biased self-reporting, which Vance mentions in passing, regarding church attendance.)

Vance sometimes uses the term “elites”.  Certainly, Vance has left the socio-economic class of his birth, and achieved the highest levels of education, financial success, and status that is possible in American society.   J.D. Vance has become one of the elite members of our society.  Nevertheless, I dislike the term “elites”, for the same reasons that I dislike the term “radical Muslims”.  Both terms are broad and vague.  Both terms aggregate groups with widely differing values, goals, and reasons for association.  There are different kinds of elites, and there are elites that are in absolute opposition to each other.  There are business elites, political elites (on both sides), educational and intellectual elites, pop-culture elites, social elites, inherited wealth elites, scientific, sports and religious elites.  It just isn’t very meaningful to talk about “elites” as a group. 

Vance recognizes himself as changed; an optimist.  Nevertheless, Vance is not as changed as he thinks.  In his conservatism, Vance shows the pessimism of his origins.  I read passages such as this one: “We can’t trust the evening news.  We can’t trust our politicians.”   [Pg. 193.]  It isn’t clear whether Vance is speaking for himself, or for his constituency of the white working class.  Either way, it reflects a deep pessimism about our culture. 

Policy
Vance often makes reasonable observations and conclusions.  But he shows a worrisome tendency, typical of other conservatives, to reject academically based knowledge.  This quote is an example from an interview with NPR: “And the only way to do that I think is not by - you know, not just by reading studies and academic research on what's causing this problem, but to actually get out there and talk to people who've been affected by it.”

Vance is critical of existing welfare policies, such as food stamps.  But he offers no policy alternatives for vulnerable groups, such as children, the elderly, the homeless, mentally ill or addicted.  In interviews and in the book, Vance suggests “listening”, and admits that solutions are “complicated”.   In my view, Vance should already have some suggestions about what policies will work, and evidence that those policies will work better than the policies he would replace.

Misinformation and Belief in Nonsense
Vance recognizes the problem of misinformation in society in a striking passage from page 190 to page 195.  He faults both the fake news media and the credulousness of conservatives in believing nonsense.  But he participates in exactly the behavior that he disparages, when he says, “I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many….” [negatively].  Why would Vance say such a thing?  This is nonsense.  First, presidents have little control over the economy – there is no “Obama economy”.  And certainly, the Republican Congress shares equal blame or credit with the President on the state of the economy.  Third, during Obama’s tenure, the economy has undergone one of the best extended periods of job growth since World War II, ending in full employment.  The Dow Jones Average rose from 8077 to 18873, from President Obama’s inauguration, until before the election of Donald Trump.  That is approximately a 10 percent rate of return, compounded. 

Vance is also an apologist for Fox News, writing “even the oft-maligned Fox News has always told the truth about Obama’s citizenship status and religious views.”  NO.  The TRUTH is that questions about President Obama’s citizenship and religious views are NONSENSE.  Fox News gave legitimacy to these views through their coverage, treating the questions as worthy of consideration.  Fox News gave airtime to the proponents of these questions, and presented these critics as something other than idiots.  The standard operating procedure for Fox News is to delegitimize their political opponents with false innuendo and oblique slander.  That is why Fox News cannot be regarded seriously as “news” media, but rather a propaganda outlet.  And J.D. Vance is wrong to represent Fox News as a news organization.

Networking in the American Meritocracy
Near the end of the book, Vance writes about his transition from law student to law clerk.  Vance freely admits that he lacked the basic social skills to succeed in the professional world.  Vance and his professional future were saved by networking – the intervention of professors and friends with those who would determine his future.  Vance writes: “At Yale, networking power is like the air we breathe – so pervasive that it’s easy to miss.”

Vance writes extensively about how the white working class is cut off from upward mobility, and has lost faith in the American meritocracy.  Yet in the context of Vance’s conflicted belief in the American meritocracy, the kind of assistance he received at Yale seems like something else   When success systematically depends on who knows whom, and a promising future depends on personal intervention on behalf of favored individuals, it seems to me the system is not a meritocracy, but corruption.  Vance was given a chance despite his deficits, but also benefited from a system that has cut off individuals from schools other than Yale from the highest levels in American society and government.  And that isn’t right.

The Future of J.D. Vance
It is clear to me that J.D. Vance has political aspirations, and sponsors who are promoting his career.   Vance’s rapid advancement to a principal of Mithral Capital Management, headed by conservative billionaire Peter Thiel, convinces me that he has significant sponsorship in his ambitions.  Vance recently left California to return to his native state of Ohio, a reliably Republican state in recent years.  Vance plans a “listening tour” around the state of Ohio, including speaking to a number of Republican party county chapters, lectures at Ohio State campuses, and other appearances around the state.  Vance is being assisted by a long-term advisor to Governor John Kasich. 

It seems to me that the Republican Party develops candidates for national office, focusing on Ivy-League law-school graduates.  These candidates are groomed through developmental assignments in both state governments and private finance companies.  J.D. Vance’s book, which has given him a sympathetic public persona, is part of that process.  Ironically, this process promotes the “elites” that Vance identifies as part of the problem of American politics.  Nevertheless, the process is effective in electing Republicans.  By contrast, the Democratic Party does not appear to have any effective program to develop candidates for national office. 

I predict that Vance will run for Democrat Sherrod Brown’s Senate seat in 2020, and that he will win. I could easily believe that Vance has Presidential aspirations, as well. 


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References:
Hillbilly Elegy, by author J.D. Vance, published June, 2016.





Thursday, December 15, 2016

Why did Hillary Clinton Lose?

This post is a “post-mortem” of the 2016 presidential election.  This was a winnable election for the Democratic party.  This post analyzes the reasons for that loss.

Short Version
Hillary Clinton was groomed for a presidential run since 2001.  The decision to develop her as a leading candidate inexplicably ignored her known unpopularity.  Since the earliest days of Bill Clinton’s administration, Hillary Clinton has been a lightning rod for conservative opposition.  For the past 25 years, few other people have motivated and energized conservative opposition as much as Hillary Clinton.   Beyond conservative opposition, many people across the political spectrum found Secretary Clinton unpleasant.  (I asked my wife for a single word which described Hillary Clinton, from the time before her candidacy.  This is the word she chose.  This is the same sentiment that I heard from many of my acquaintances, who nevertheless supported Clinton in the election.)

Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State must be judged as a complete failure on the basis of results.  There are civil wars in Ukraine, Syria and Libya, and unresolved conflict in other parts of the world, strained relations with other world powers, and disruption of the European Union.  The humanitarian disasters resulting from failure to curtail these conflicts threaten to overturn Western nations and progressive values.

In particular, Hillary Clinton demonstrated a blindness to real and apparent conflicts of interest.  In event after event, Secretary Clinton and her family enriched themselves far beyond any reasonable compensation.  The appearance of systematic corruption was a clear factor in her defeat.

Secretary Clinton lacks the personal charisma and speaking ability of other presidential-caliber candidates.  People in a number of different demographics groups found her personally unlikable. 

Despite these serious negatives, Hillary was the presumptive candidate from the earliest days of the campaign, with committed support from the great majority of party super-delegates.  Clinton’s ability to direct SuperPAC money to state party organizations raises more questions about corruption.

Secretary Clinton and President Obama pursued issues on the liberal agenda that alienated many conservative voters.  Leading Democrats should have recognized which battles are worth fighting, and which battles might lose the war.

Finally, there are external factors in the Democratic loss.  American political sentiments swing like a pendulum, and conservative sentiment was rising in 2016.  Also, right-wing propaganda has become a routine feature of our cultural landscape.  Misinformation and distortion are heard from major candidates, from leading news organizations, on social media, and from fake news sites.  The Democratic Party found no way to fight the onslaught of propaganda. 

In conclusion, the Democratic Party nominated a flawed candidate.  Secretary Clinton had a known and deserved reputation for apparent corruption, and became an easy target for the opposition.   Surely focus-group studies in critical states and in critical demographic groups would have shown her weaknesses.  The nomination of Secretary Clinton was an act of almost willful self-destruction by the Democratic Party.   It is difficult to understand why Clinton persisted in her campaign, and why she had the support of the Democratic Party leadership in seeking the presidency.  Secretary Clinton’s loss in the election will set back the party, the nation, and the causes which she worked to advance.



Long Version
Amid the cacophony of voices analyzing the recent election, perhaps there is room for one more.  I have thoughts that I have not seen elsewhere, so it might be worthwhile to write another article. 

Democrats have been asking the question “Why Did Hillary Lose?”  It’s a good question, and a question the Democratic party must answer if the party wants to win presidential elections.

This was a winnable election for the Democratic party.  Donald Trump was initially seen as a joke, as sideshow freak, a reality-show imbecile.  Trump was the butt of jokes among late-night comedians, politicians, and liberal communities on social media.  In pre-election polling, Trump had the highest unfavorability rating since such figures were first gathered in the 1950s or 1960s.  And yet he won. 

In an act of almost willful self-destruction, the Democratic Party ran the candidate who was most likely to lose.  Hillary Clinton had the second-highest unfavorability rating of any modern candidate.  The blame for nominating an unsuccessful candidate must be borne by the entire Democratic Party, but especially by Barack Obama.  The President is the de facto leader of the party, and more than anyone else, bears the responsibility for choosing and grooming candidates for succession.  The choice of Hillary Clinton was a poor decision.

Grooming for Presidential Candidacy
Hillary Clinton was groomed as a candidate for president from the last day of Bill Clinton’s presidency.  She was given the nomination for Senator in the deeply Democratic state of New York, which virtually guaranteed her election to the Senate.  After her unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2008, she was named Secretary of State, presumably to improve her foreign policy credentials for a run in 2016.  Following the Benghazi embassy attacks and subsequent criticism, Obama replaced Clinton as Secretary of State – perhaps before events could do further damage to her chances for election. 

It seems to me that both posts – Senator and Secretary of State – were handed to Hillary Clinton on a silver platter because she was the wife of the former president.  She did not earn these posts by merit, and was not sufficiently tested by the process of competition.

Tenure as Secretary of State
U.S. foreign policy under Clinton as Secretary must be judged in terms of results.  Clinton established policies that elevated human rights and women’s rights as critical to U.S. interests.  Clinton and Obama continued the aggressive promotion of democracy begun during the second Bush administration.  Key events in her tenure included the uprisings of the “Arab Spring.  Also, an initial effort to “re-set” relations with Russia failed after the U.S. State Department actively promoted the eastward expansion of the European Union into Ukraine.  Clinton advocated aggressive responses to tyranny and oppression, supporting military intervention in the Libyan civil war and by training and arming the Syrian rebels. 

I have to wonder whether Hillary Clinton’s aggressive policies as Secretary of State arose from idealism, pragmatism, or from a desire to burnish her record as a tough leader, for her eventual presidential candidacy.  In any event, the results of her tenure have been terrible.  The prospect of improving Ukraine’s ties to the west ended in a brutal civil war and the annexation of Crimea by Russia.  Libya and Syria have collapsed into chaotic and ongoing civil wars threatening global peace.  One-third of the population of Libya has fled the country.  In Syria, hundreds of thousands have died in the fighting, and twelve million refugees have been displaced from their homes.  About five million refugees have sought shelter in neighboring countries, and about one million have sought shelter in Europe.  The refugee crisis has contributed to a backlash in Europe, threatening the unity and stability of the European Union.  By any measure, Secretary Clinton’s legacy in foreign relations is a disaster.

Appearance of Conflict of Interest
Secretary Clinton carries a reputation that she is dishonest and untrustworthy.  In polling leading up to the election, as few as 11% of voters characterized her as honest and trustworthy.  That reputation was established very early in her public life, and her actions during the years leading up to the election did little to dispel that perception.  I will discuss only the earliest and the latest of scandals involving Secretary Clinton; there were many in between. 

Commodities Trading Scandal, 1978 - 1979
Hillary Clinton was involved in a commodities trading scandal in 1978 and 1979, beginning just weeks before Bill Clinton’s election to Governor of the State of Arkansas, and continuing for most of the first year of Clinton’s term.  The general counsel of Tyson Foods (the largest employer in Arkansas) encouraged Hillary Clinton to trade in commodity futures, although Clinton had no experience in such trading.  Clinton made an initial investment of $1000, which over the course of ten months was successfully parlayed into $100,000.  This is about a 12,000% annual rate of return.  Needless to say, that is unusual.  An economics journal calculated the likelihood of her results at one in 31 trillion. 

Clinton did not make the trades herself, but allowed her broker to make the trades, often without her knowledge.  The broker was a former Tyson executive.  The broker placed trades for various clients, betting both ways against the market.  At the end of the day, the broker would assign winning trades to Clinton, and losing trades to the other clients.  The broker was later investigated by the SEC for various technical violations, fined and suspended from trading for three years.  Clinton’s supporters at the time defended the legitimacy of her trading. 

What I find unbelievable is that this smart woman, this Yale Law School graduate, was apparently unable to recognize a bribe when it was given to her.  Tyson Foods was one of the largest businesses in Arkansas, and necessarily had many regulatory issues before the state government.  Through illicit means, the company found a way to funnel $100,000 (about $300,000 in today’s money) directly to the newly elected governor’s wife.  But Hillary Clinton never renounced the gains, and never admitted any wrongdoing on her own part, or the part of Tyson Foods or its associates. 

Speaking Fees
Speaking fees are a fixture in Washington DC.  It is customary for public officials to receive exorbitant fees for giving speeches.  Bill and Hillary Clinton have been masters of this process of accumulating wealth.  Bill Clinton received $131 million dollars for speeches given after leaving the presidency in 2001, until 2015.  Hillary Clinton earned an additional $21.6 million, in less than two years, between 2013 and 2015.  For reference, a net worth of $150,000,000 is five times the threshold for the 99.9th percentile in net worth in the United States. 

Hillary Clinton’s minimum speaking fee is $225,000.   A large majority of the organizations who engaged her are also engaged in lobbying the Federal Government; many have Federal contracts and/or previously lobbied the Clinton State Department.  About 40% of the organizations engaging Clinton were trade organizations; financial institutions were the second-largest group. 

These are enormous sums of money.  And the organizations paying these speaking fees had reason to look for favorable treatment in the event Hillary Clinton became president.  It gives the appearance of a quid-pro-quo.  

                Chelsea Clinton’s Contract Earnings
Chelsea Clinton is no longer young; she is an independent adult in her mid-thirties.  Nevertheless, she is a Clinton. In 2014, NBC News signed Clinton to a one-year contract for $600,000 as a news commentator.  Simultaneously, in that year she earned $300,000 as a board member for IAC/Interactive Corporation, a media company.  She was a board member for other organizations, and presumably also received compensation for that work.  Also in 2014, she earned a PhD in International Relations, and gave birth to her first child.  One can only wonder how she divided her time in each of these endeavors. 
It is unusual for someone to earn $900,000 or more in a year.  It is clear that Chelsea Clinton was given these contracts and compensation because she was a Clinton.  It appears to be another way of currying favor with a powerful family.

Clinton Foundation Scandals
Let me first say that the Clinton Foundation is a legitimate charitable organization, doing good in the world.  That is not at issue.  The issue is that contacts established through donations to the Clinton Foundation appear to have carried over to the Clinton State Department.  Clinton’s personal secretary fielded requests from Clinton Foundation donors for access to Secretary Clinton.  While some of the requests were denied, it seems that there was a back-door to official channels at the State Department.  The existence of the Clinton Foundation set up the potential for conflicts of interest in performing the duties of Secretary of State.

                Summary of Conflicts of Interest
In my earliest ethics training at my career employer, I learned that it is insufficient to avoid wrongdoing; it is necessary to avoid conflicts of interest. Further, it is insufficient to avoid conflicts of interest; it is necessary to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. 

Hillary Clinton failed to avoid conflicts of interest, and her actions gave ample appearance of conflicts of interest.  As a candidate, Hillary Clinton earned her reputation with voters as an untrustworthy person because of her actions.  Clinton greatly increased the wealth of her family, through actions that gave the impression of conflict of interest. 

In a 2016 interview, David Gergen, a senior advisor to Bill Clinton in his presidency, was discussing the Whitewater scandal (another scandal, which I will not take the time to discuss).  Gergen said of Hillary Clinton: “She does not see the world in the same way that others do, when it comes to transparency and accountability.”

Although the practices of speaking fees and foundations may be typical of Washington, these conflicts of interest are real.  Just because everybody is doing it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a bribe.  Voters understand the appearance of corruption.  And Hillary Clinton must be completely tone-deaf to not understand the implications of those appearances.

Charisma and Oratory
I listened to Hillary Clinton’s stump speeches during the campaign, and compared them to speeches I heard from Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.  In my opinion, Clinton sounds wooden by comparison.  Her speeches do not show insightful reasoning and logic.  To me, Clinton’s speeches consisted of a lot of clichés strung together. 

In debate, her logic sometimes completely departed.   For example, the “Stop and Frisk” method of policing was a topic in a debate with Donald Trump.  Trump defended the practice, which had been found to be unconstitutional by the courts.  Clinton commented that the practice had been discontinued because it was “ineffective”.  This shows a complete misunderstanding of the issue – “Stop and Frisk” was discontinued because it was UNCONSTITUTIONAL! 

Clinton simply did not seem to have a fundamental grasp of issues or the necessary intellect to think on her feet and reason persuasively. 

The Fix Was in For Hillary Clinton
In the earliest days of her campaign, Hillary Clinton had received the support of about 90% of the super-delegates to the Democratic National Convention.  These super-delegates are Democratic Party officeholders and officials, guaranteed seats and votes at the convention. 

Secretary Clinton was in a position to direct SuperPAC money to state parties.  The apparent trade of campaign money for super-delegate support gives yet another appearance of corruption to Secretary Clinton and her campaign.

It may be important for the party to coalesce support around a single candidate early in the campaign, but the process in this case short-circuited the primary process and the voters.  By making the process a coronation, instead of a competition, the Democrats lost the opportunity to engage the voters.  Voters care about the process, and were not pleased that Clinton was given the prize before the race.

Popularity
As mentioned at the beginning, Hillary Clinton was an unpopular candidate.  She has been unpopular with almost half of the nation for nearly a quarter of a century.  Hillary Clinton has been one of the most hated politicians among Republicans.  There are few other Democrats who can motivate and energize the Republican base as much as Hillary Clinton.  Well before the campaign, in polls and among my personal acquaintances, Hillary Clinton was deeply unpopular among men, unpopular among older women, and unpopular among Millennials.   She was highly popular only among professional women between the ages of about 35 and 60. 

So what were the Democrats thinking??  Why did Barack Obama choose to groom Hillary Clinton for a presidential run?  Why were there no other serious mainstream Democratic candidates?  Why did Clinton have 9/10ths of the super-delegates wrapped up on the day she announced her candidacy?  Why did the Democratic National Committee act to ensure that Clinton won the nomination?  Did no one think to run a focus group in each state, and seriously consider the results?

Losing Issues
In politics, as in all things, you have to pick your battles.  In the 2016 election cycle, Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration chose badly.  Although I agree with the President and Secretary Clinton on these issues, I recognize the political expediency of not fighting losing battles.  This is especially important with regard to fighting battles that cause you to lose the war.

In the early 1990s, the majority of Americans supported gun control.  There was a bi-partisan consensus that some regulation was necessary, and that these restrictions did not infringe on the Constitutional right to own guns.  But the issue became a major political divide following aggressive campaigning by the National Rifle Association (NRA).   Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans in 1994, largely on the issue of gun control. 

In the aftermath of mass shootings in the United States, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spoke out on the issue of gun control.  This was a political mistake.  The issue of gun control in the United States was decided in the 1990s.  It is a losing issue for Democrats.  In the face of atrocities due to guns, it is necessary to ask Republicans to lead any efforts on gun control.  Efforts to push gun control on the nation in the face of Republican opposition are doomed to failure, and will lose all progress on other critical progressive issues, such as gay marriage, climate change, financial regulation, public assistance, etc.  I know that over 10,000 Americas die each year because they are shot by other Americans.  Another 20,000 Americans die each year in suicide by guns.  But there is no way to win on this issue – pursuing gun control will simply lose elections for Democrats.

Another losing issue was the issue of transgender access to bathrooms.  Unlike gay marriage or abortion rights, this is truly a fringe issue, but it became a defining issue for liberal politics.  By pushing Federal rules on access to bathrooms, Democrats alienated conservative voters.  There are people who feel their privacy or safety might be threatened, if access to public bathrooms was granted to people of the opposite biological gender.  Those feelings cannot be dismissed as not legitimate.  There are few transgender individuals in the country, and one way or another, they have been able to deal with this problem without Federal assistance.  This was a losing issue, and pursuing this reform as a headline issue was a mistake for Democrats.

The Loss of Middle America
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a convincing margin, but lost the election due to the structure of our republic.  Small states have disproportionate power by design of the Constitution.  To win the Presidency, it is necessary to win support across a broad cross-section of the country, and that includes conservative Middle America.  Hillary Clinton disparaged Middle America voters, calling half of them “a basket of deplorables”.  Hint – this is not the way to win hearts and minds.  Secretary Clinton needed to listen to these voters, and accept their criticisms of American Government.  Clinton had no response for the manufacturing job losses in Middle America.  Clinton had no answer for declining standards of living among middle-class workers.  Clinton did not accept or listen to the discomfort of white America with the growing diversity in the country.  Clinton did not have answers for the stagnation of black America in terms of opportunity, hopelessness or the prevalence of crime (and the consequent racism and fear among white Americans). 

If Democrats are to win the presidency, it is necessary to raise Middle America in prosperity and opportunity.  As another presidential candidate once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The Swing of the Pendulum
Power in American national politics swings from party to party on roughly an eight-year cycle.  Since 1825, only rarely has a party held the presidency for longer than 12 years.  It is the natural state of our democracy that citizens demand some change and improvement.  That is probably healthy. 

Hillary Clinton was fighting against the current of public sentiment in this presidential campaign.  But still, considering the state of the country and the economy, the Democratic Party should have won this election.

Propaganda
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary Clinton famously complained about “a vast right-wing conspiracy”.   She was correct. 

Right-wing media blossomed and flourished – or rather, spread like a cancer – over the past 20 years.   Fox News became the nation’s leading television news source; right-wing radio bashed Democrats and President Obama 24/7 on multiple channels; religious television became a megaphone for right-wing politics; internet media such as Brietbart and The Daily Caller, became dominant in internet news feeds, and were amplified on social media.  All of these new sources play fast and loose with the truth; their “reporting” was designed primarily to undermine the legitimacy of the Obama administration through an unrelenting barrage of falsehoods, distortion and negative innuendo.  Completing the spectrum, foreign parties created counterfeit news websites, and populated those websites with fake news, that was regarded as truth by right-wing voters.  It is likely that some of the false stories were deliberate attempts to influence the election by Russia; campaigns of Russian dis-information are a standard feature of elections in the former Soviet Republics. 

Republican Party leaders and candidates, especially Donald Trump, also seem to have lost all respect for the truth.  The Trump campaign misrepresented the condition of the country on substantive issues of unemployment, immigration, crime, and taxes.  The lies and misrepresentations accumulate faster than they can be refuted.  It is unclear whether Trump is misinformed (some of his sources are the aforementioned false news sites) or if he is lying. 

Right-wing propaganda is one of the most troubling developments in the 2016 elections cycle.  Some conservatives would say that the process goes both ways, but there is truly no equivalence.  A quick check of Snopes, Politifact, FactChecker.org, or articles reviewing false news will show that right-wing falsehood exceed left-wing falsehoods by a magnitude of at least ten-to-one.  And it is clear that the propaganda is effective; voters believe the lies circulated on social media whether those lies were told by candidates, by right-wing news organizations, or fake news sites. 

The Democratic Party (and the nation) need to figure out how to respond to the right-wing propaganda campaign.  Propaganda threatens the fabric of society; it threatens our democracy, and it is a slippery slope into fascism.   Democracy cannot function if voters are hoodwinked; we cannot have decency in politics without a common understanding of what is truth.  I don’t know what to recommend to the Democrats, and I don’t know how we will solve this problem as a nation.  But I believe that we must.

Conclusions
In 2016, the Democratic Party lost the presidential election that they should have won.  Many factors played into that loss, but the most important factor is that Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate.

The Democratic Party needs to address the processes that generated such a deeply flawed candidate. Part of the problem is that the party is doing a very poor job of developing candidates and leaders in local elections.  I have observed many local races in which there is no Democratic candidate.  The unions appear to be the only truly organized part of the Democratic Party in identifying and running strong candidates. 

An example of how to develop a candidate can be seen in the career of Dan Sullivan, the current Senator from Alaska.  Sullivan is originally from Ohio.  He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, and earned a law degree from Georgetown cum laude.  Sullivan served in the Marine Corps from 1993 to 1997, and continued in the Marine Corps reserve, with later periods of active duty.  Sullivan moved to Alaska in 1997, and was soon named Alaska Attorney General by governor Sarah Palin.   After a year as Attorney General, he was appointed to the important post of Commissioner of Natural Resources, until his campaign for Senate in 2014.  I believe that Sullivan was identified as a potential candidate very early, and groomed for a Senate run through developmental assignments.  I do not believe that the Democratic Party is actively or successfully developing candidates in this fashion, or targeting states in which a talented candidate might succeed. 

The selection of Hillary Clinton as Democratic candidate for president showed a complete disregard for her weaknesses as a candidate.  These weaknesses included a poor performance as Secretary of State, and a reputation for corruption that goes back for over two decades.  To me, it is incomprehensible why she was groomed for a presidential run by Barack Obama, supported by the Democratic National Committee, and backed by the vast majority of party super-delegates before primary voting had even begun.

The Democratic Party must learn from the defeat in the 2016 Presidential Election.  The party must do more to develop young and talented down-ballot and local candidates.  Some of these candidates will develop into leaders of national caliber.  The party must subject potential candidates to competitive processes, to weed out flawed candidates.  The party must improve its ethical standards, and must not tolerate leaders with real or apparent conflicts of interest.  The party must find a way to combat right-wing propaganda.  The party must also develop policies which address the needs and values of conservative middle America. 


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 References

Multiple polls show that 59% to 68% rate Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy, with dates ranging from May to August 2016.   At the time of the Democratic national convention, two polls approached 70% of people rated Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy.

Superdelegate support for Hillary Clinton was obtained in a quid-pro-quo deal, through Clinton’s allocation of SuperPAC money to state party organizations. 
Superdelegate support for Hillary Clinton was obtained in a quid-pro-quo deal, through Clinton’s allocation of SuperPAC money to state party organizations. 

Between 40% to 60% of responders rated Clinton as not honest and trustworthy, in polls dating from 2006 to 2016.   (pg. 7).

Clinton’s standard speaking fee is $225,000, and she collected over $21.6 million in two years.

A list of organizations which contracted with Secretary Clinton for speaking engagements.  About 40% of the organizations were trade groups, and nearly all of the organizations engaged in political lobbying. 

Bill and Hillary Clinton received $153 million for speeches over the period 2001 – 2015. 

Chelsea Clinton had a contract with an annual salary of $600,000 in 2014, working for NBC news.  At the end of the term, her contract was converted to month-to-month, with undisclosed terms. 
Daughters of President G.W. Bush and Senator John McCain received similar contracts.
Chelsea Clinton was 34 at the time of the contract.
Chelsea Clinton simultaneously earned a $250,000 grant of restricted stock and a $50,000 retainer from Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive Corporation.  Chelsea Clinton also completed work on a doctorate in international relations and gave birth to her first child in 2014.  Chelsea Clinton’s estimated net worth is $15,000,000.