Bye Bye Bernie

Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential campaign on Wednesday, and he urged his supporters to continue to vote for him in the remaining states with primaries (and by the way, New Jersey goes dead last again, with its primary rescheduled to July 7 thanks to that damn virus)  in order to accrue more delegates to the Democratic convention to have an impact on the platform.

But - and Sanders was clear about this - he wants to make sure that Joe Biden, as the sole remaining candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and thus the likely nominee, is elected in November because, apart from that damn virus, nothing is more important now than defeating Donald J. Trump.  Sanders hasn't officially endorsed Biden yet, but he will likely do so once the very last primary - again, that would be the New Jersey primary - is held.

Sanders said he lost the nomination but won the ideological battle.  That's about right.  Biden will almost certainly be the nominee, but he will also likely endorse several of Sanders' ideas, and he's already backed Sanders' college tuition reform proposals.  And even though Biden will have a hard time getting Bernie Bros to back him, he won't have an impossible task - not like Hillary Clinton did in 2016.  Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were not friendly with each other and they formed an uneasy alliance in their opposition to Trump. Sanders and Biden, by contrast, are good friends and they have a deep respect for each other.  Party unity won't be so difficult for the Democrats this time,. even though there will always be some Bernie bros who will never vote for Biden because, well, they literally hate him.     

And if they help Trump get elected, I will literally hate them.

Not to worry, though.  Bernie ought to be able to get them to do the right thing. Not him, bros - us.    

Union Jerk

The United Kingdom is officially out of the European Union (EU), the withdrawal having taken place this past Friday.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is looking forward to negotiating new trade deals with the EU before the end of the withdrawal process on December 31.

Good luck with that, Boris.  Experts who know a whole lot more about these things than I do say that Johnson will have a tremendously difficult time negotiating with a 27-nation economic bloc with a hundred million or so more people than the U.S., a country that would theoretically benefit from Britain's new free-agent status in terms of trade. Britain is a country of only sixty million people or so.  What's Johnson's leverage?

The British probably dream of restoring their empire, which is pretty hard to do when you remember that its collection of overseas dependencies is down to Bermuda, a few islands in the Caribbean, the Falkland Islands, a military base on some forgotten atoll in the Indian Ocean, and a rock on the Spanish coast.  They probably hope to re-affirm their close ties to the Commonwealth formed out of its former colonies, particularly its economic ties, but at this point re-affirming its connections to Canada and India, and other places mentioned in that Kinks song, would sort of be a parent-child relationship in which the children take care of the mother country.  Ironically, it was the Commonwealth that served as a reason for French President Charles de Gaulle to block British entry into the EU, then called the European Economic Community (EEC), or the Common Market, and worries about the fragmentation of the Commonwealth made joining the EEC made it a hot issue in Britain for the Wilson and Heath governments.  (Britain joined in 1973.)  

Britain is not profiting off its exit from the EU just yet and may not do so for a long time.  The pound is sinking (to cop a song title from Paul McCartney),  and economic growth has stagnated.  Scotland, where the EU is more popular, is thinking of seceding and joining the EU, and Ulster could re-unite with the rest of Ireland on the basis of Scottish independence.  But no matter how dumb this withdrawal from the EU may be, Brexit is nowhere nearly as stupid as the U.S. exiting the Paris Agreement.  Crashing out of a continental market is much less severe than crashing into the climate. >:-( 

Outslee

Jay Inslee, who was one of the first 2020 Democratic presidential candidates that I evaluated, has become the fourth 2020 Democratic presidential candidate (after Eric Swalwell, John Hickenlooper and Mike Gravel - yes Gravel was actually running!) to withdraw from the party's presidential nomination process. 

Inslee centered his campaign around climate change, citing his strong environmental record as governor of Washington State.  He wasn't the only presidential candidate talking about climate change, but he was the only one who made it the cornerstone of his campaign, arguing that all of the other issues the country faces revolve around the future of the planet.   Despite the fact that he earned credit for this, climate change proved to be as much his headstone as it was his cornerstone; not enough people cared about his message.  And besides, a lot of people dismissed him as just another boring white guy, apparently confusing him with Bill de Blasio.

See, this is why I'm disgusted with partisan presidential primary politics (though I'm not disgusted with alliterations).  Were I not so cynical, and were I interested in participating in the Democratic primaries, I likely would have considered supporting Inslee for his climate-change stance alone, but the fact that he was polling in the low single digits - the main reason he's withdrawing - meant that he was never going to get anywhere, and the same could have been said for Hickenlooper, Swalwell, and other dark-horse presidential candidates with spell-checker-unfriendly surnames.  I have no stomach to support anyone whom I think should be President as opposed to just falling in line with one of the front runners; after my Martin O'Malley experience, I have no desire to go through O'Malley Mark Two.

I'm even more disgusted that the presidential candidate who emphasized climate change more than his primary opponents couldn't get enough people to care about it and so had to drop out - on the same day tornadoes plowed through . . . Connecticut.

Inslee isn't going anywhere just yet.  He plans to run for a third term as governor of Washington State in 2020, and I wouldn't be surprised if, should the Democrats win the Presidency then, he becomes the winning nominee's EPA administrator.

Eric the Small-Faced

Eric Swalwell is out of the Democratic presidential nomination contest.

There were still several candidates I hadn't fully assessed in this space - including Joe Biden, whom I was saving for last - and I dreaded going through them because it's been so exhausting.  Eric Swalwell was one of them.  I'd like to thank him for lightening my load.

Except that Tom Steyer, the pro-impeachment Democratic donor, has decided that, yes, he will run for President after all, canceling out the net loss of lower-tier candidates that Tom Perez at the DNC was hoping for.

As for Swalwell, he never had a chance.  His centerpiece issue was gun control, an issue Democratic primary and caucus participants aren't known for voting on, though it polls higher than Swalwell ever did as a presidential candidate.  Besides, he had three strikes against him - he's white, he's male, and he's a white male from rambunctiously diverse California.

Tom Steyer has the same three drawbacks.

As for Martin O'Malley - whose only supporter in 2016 from Congress was Swalwell - well, if Steyer can change his mind about running . . .  

Total Withdrawal

"Strange to relate, as a result of my travels around the United States the past seven years, I begin to come to the disquieting conclusion that we Americans are these days a wicked people who deserve to be punished. The idea embarrasses me, but I nevertheless stand by it." - James Howard Kunstler, 1996

"No, no, no. Not God bless America - God damn America!!" - Jeremiah Wright, 2003

*

When Donald Trump announced that the United States was beginning a withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, I started hyperventilating.  I began getting chest pains.  I literally felt sick.  I started spitting on the ground - repeatedly.   This agreement - hammered out in a foreign capital, which left many of Trump's supporters in the cultural backwaters of America up in arms - was the best possible agreement to minimize increases in carbon dioxide emissions and incentivize the development of alternative energy sources that could have been reached, and virtually the entire planet was on board with it - but not Trump's base, not Environmental Destruction Agency chief Scott Pruitt, not climate-change-denying Republican morons like James Inhofe, and not Steve Bannon.  Rex Tillerson, yes.  Ivanka Trump, yes.  Bannon, no. 

Trump claims that he's putting America's interests first, but he's really taken us Americans out of the effort to improve the well-being of the planet and taken us out of opportunities to capitalize on new energy technologies and to develop a more profitable and sustainable "green economy."  For Trump, of course, America's biggest interest is getting the coal-mining industry going again to create more jobs.  (He might as well try to being back the buggy whip or phonograph industries, because they ain't coming back either!)  He boasted about putting Pittsburgh ahead of Paris, which would make sense - alliterative names, comparison of a blue-collar city to an effeminate, elitist enclave (I can alliterate, too) where men design clothes and women wear them to the opera - if not for the fact that the Democrats carried Pittsburgh in the 2016 presidential election.  

Some American cities, like Trump's hometown of New York City (another city full of fashion and culture) and Newark (which has neither, but that's another post), and whole states, including New York, California and Washington, are sticking with the Paris Agreement.  And New Jersey might join in if Democrat Phil Murphy is elected governor this November as expected.  But as long as big states like Texas can't be bothered, none of that matters much.  The United States has about only four percent of the world's population but is the second biggest emitter of carbon dioxide.  It is now one of only three countries not in the Paris Agreement, the others being Syria and Nicaragua.  Syria is run by a brutal dictator fighting two enemies at once in two wars at once (the Syrian Civil War and the war against the would-be country founded by the Islamic State), so Bashar al-Assad obviously can't be bothered to save the planet when he can't even save his part of it.  And the only reason the Sandinista government in Nicaragua hasn't signed on to the Paris Agreement is because the Sandinistas think it doesn't go far enough.  And don't think the White House won't try to retard local efforts at living up to Paris on the grounds that state and local governments can't abide by an international agreement not subscribed to by the federal government.

And the Paris Agreement isn't the only one of those international accords we're not part of, let me tell you.

Trump indicated in advance of his announcement that he would offer a mitigating factor to environmentalists.  I'd like to say he threw them a crumb, but it's more insignificant than that.  He said he would re-enter the agreement if he can - you guessed it - renegotiate it.  France, Germany and Italy made it clear that a renegotiation was not going to happen.

While about 70 percent of Americans support the Paris Agreement, though, I wonder - would most Americans support more concrete efforts to combat climate change? Would they live in smaller houses, drive smaller cars, maybe even take mass transit to work?  Would they agree to pay more for more environmentally friendly products?  Would they stop using so many disposable items, like paper plates and plastic utensils?  Would they be willing to give up their barbecues?  Their chemically treated lawns?  Their cheap, petrochemically produced foodstuffs?  Would they pay more taxes to support any environmental initiative??? 

I am thoroughly disgusted by my country and I am ashamed to be an American.  Even if we re-enter the Paris Agreement under a future Democratic President (yeah, right, like we're actually ever going to have another Democratic President!), how will the rest of the world ever trust us again???    

As of 3:30 PM, Thursday, June 1, 2017, when Trump pulled this sorry excuse for a nation out of the Paris Agreement, the United States is now the pond scum on the waters of humanity.  We will most likely be punished by the rest of the world.  Maybe we'll be boycotted.  That means no foreign tourists.  Even if Trump does bring back American manufacturing, foreigners may just decide not to buy our products.  They might not buy our apples and oranges or our corn and soybean products.  How about cultural boycotts?  No more U.S. concert tours from Adele.  She may decide not to release her next album here.  Ditto Ed Sheeran.   No Balkan tennis players at the U.S. Open.  And no Olympics in 2024 for Los Angeles.  The LA bid committee members, who are waiting for the International Olympic Committee to decide on the location for the 2024 Games in September,  might as well turn out the lights and go home, including Athletes Commission Vice Chair Janet Evans (Janet, I love you, but Los Angeles'  2024 bid is toast now - you know it and I know it!).  The 2024 Games will now most likely be awarded to . . . Paris.  As for the Tokyo Games in 2020 or even the 2018 Winter Olympics, we might even be allowed to send a team to them!      

Mark my words.  We will pay.  We are going to be ostracized at any international gatherings we do take part in.  We may be banned from entering other countries.  We may suffer an energy crisis - oh, the irony! - not only if the Saudis stop selling us oil but if the Chinese don't sell us their wind turbines, which they probably got the know-how for from Americans.  We will be the second most miserable people on the face of the earth.

The most miserable people on the face of the earth, of course, will be the Syrians. :-( >:-(     

They Weren't Hungary Enough

The Hungarian capital city of Budapest (below), which was vying to be the first city from the old Warsaw Pact bloc since 1980 to host the Summer Olympics, is vying no more.  A combination of local politics and doubts about the costs involved caused the city to withdraw its bid for the 2024 Games. It looks like the athletes aren't going to be sampling authentic goulash after all.

To be fair, Budapest was a long shot, going against two cities that had the experience and the resources to pull off a summer Olympiad, Los Angeles and Paris.  Many people in Hungary didn't want the Games, being fearful that the costs would invite corruption.  Budapest's city fathers were reluctant about the whole idea, only having gone along with it because the Hungarian Olympic Committee was urging them to. Katinka Hosszú must really be bummed about the lost opportunity to shoot for swimming in the Olympics with a home-court (or home-pool) advantage.

This leaves only Los Angeles and Paris remaining in contention for the 2024 Games.  My money is on Paris.  See, French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is likely to finish behind right-wing extremist Marine Le Pen in France's presidential election this spring.  But because of François Fillon, the third candidate, no one will get a majority, and so there will be a runoff.  However, once Fillon - whose downfall is the most rapid one I've ever seen of a candidate for national office since Gary Hart in These States back in the late eighties - is out of the way, Macron should defeat Le Pen easily in the runoff.  Thus, France will have a respectable president, whereas we'll still have Donald Trump.  And as I wrote back in November, the International Olympic Committee is probably in no mood to award the Games to a country that elects a rhymes-with-glass-pole as its leader, like Trump . . . or Le Pen.  Also, Paris hasn't hosted the Games since 1924, and Los Angeles has hosted it twice since then.  And, Paris has lots of culture.  Los Angeles's culture is restricted to the yogurt section at the local Safeway.

In fact, I'm rooting for Paris.  Yes, I know that my Olympic heartthrob Janet Evans is Vice Chair of the Athletes Commission for the Los Angeles bid.  And believe me, it kills me to have to take a position against hers, but it's nothing personal.