Food for Thought: Joe Biden and Charles Koch

After a rather long hiatus from the blogosphere, I’m happy to say that I’m back doing what I love, but I won’t waste any time explaining what I’ve been up to. I’ll get right down to business instead.

Today I would like to weigh in on a couple of recent developments from the campaign trail that have been completely disregarded by the mainstream media, and not for lacking in substance. In fact, I’d say these developments would be game-changing if they’d received the attention they deserved. Unfortunately, there were no major headlines about them on the main pages of the Washington Post or TNYT, and for obvious reason. Bringing too much attention to recent comments by vice president Joe Biden and billionaire Charles Koch on the state of the race would’ve done very little to help the Clinton campaign, and that’s all we need to worry about, right?

So what exactly did these two guys say to make me come rushing back to my laptop and write about it? Nothing to make Clinton’s numbers go up in the polls, I assure you.

In a recent interview, Jose Biden praised Bernie Sanders for thinking big and even went on to say, “I don’t think any Democrat’s ever won saying, ‘We can’t think that big — we ought to really downsize here because it’s not realistic.’ C’mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I’m not part of the party that says, ‘Well, we can’t do it.'”.

To anyone who’s been paying attention during this campaign, Biden’s comments sure seem like a direct response to Sanders’ critics, including Hillary, who often question how realistic Bernie’s policy proposals really are. Can we validate Biden’s comments as an endorsement? No, we can’t. If his dismissal had been directed to Clinton’s critics instead, is it likely that the vice president’s words would have become the talk of the week? Yes, no question about it. For the first time in a long time, major media outlets completely ignored comments made by the vice president of the United States. Wanna know how I found out about this? I saw it was trending on Facebook.

As shocking as it is to see the vice president weigh in on the Democratic race like that, he is a Democrat. More shocking would be listening to a well-known supporter of the Republican Party speak favorably about one of the two candidates, specially if he’s a member of the Koch family and his name is Charles Koch.

Famous for funneling millions of dollars into the pockets of GOP candidates, Charles Koch made some comments this weekend which, under normal circumstances, would make waves. Mr. Koch said that “it’s possible” that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be better than any of the Republicans currently in the running. Yes, folks. You heard right. Charles Koch is so fed up by the lack of political competence taking over the Republican field that he’d actually prefer to see Clinton as the next president. I might be misinterpreting his words, but they sure sound like an endorsement to me. And if that endorsement doesn’t materialize in a formal public statement, I bet it will in the form of millions of dollars in campaign donations.

But why are so few people talking about Mr. Koch’s comments? Is it because the media and the Democratic Party’s base both agree that the Koch brothers have immensely contributed to the corruption of the campaign finance system since Citizens United? After years of giving bad press to the Koch brothers, how would the average Democratic voter react if they knew Mr. Koch was willing to rally behind Hillary Clinton in the general election? Well, my guess is they would be fleeing to the Sanders’ camp in flocks. But don’t worry, it’s the media’s job to make sure as few people as possible read about this.

It’s become clear to me that no matter how hard you try or how right you are about the issues, if the system stands up against you there’s very little you can do to change it. Voter registration slip-ups in NY, independents being left out of the process, 99% of the media siding with one candidate, is there even a hint of democracy left in this country?

There’s no doubt in my mind that Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s candidate in November. Sanders’ path to the nomination is simply too steep.

Things could’ve turned out quite differently, though. Can you imagine what could’ve happened if Sanders’ 30,000-large rallies had been properly covered in the media? Can you imagine what could’ve happened if party leaders at the national, state and local levels had listened to the vice president? Can you imagine what could’ve happened if media outlets like the Washington Post hadn’t spent their precious time releasing an average of ten articles a day discrediting Bernie Sanders?

I know that the Sanders camp no longer stands a chance. The only thing that could really turn the tide is having high-profile Democrats like Barack Obama or Elisabeth Warren come out in full support of Bernie Sanders to get Clinton’s superdelegates to switch sides. An improbable plot, I know. But I can dream, can’t I?

Sorry GOP, but America is Liberal

Yesterday I wrote a piece on the recent passage of a discriminatory anti-gay rights bill by Georgia’s state legislature. A fellow blogger went on to comment that she wished she was surprised, but that she wasn’t at all. And she may have a point, because I would be the one in disbelief if policies like these ceased to be part of our weekly news feed.

In contrast with its European counterparts, the United States always seems to end up on the far-right side of the political spectrum. But is America really that conservative? I reckon not.

With the exception of the 2004 presidential election, Democratic candidates have won the popular vote in every general election since 1992. And I think it is fair to point out that George W. Bush wouldn’t have won in 2004 if he hadn’t played with people’s fears following the September 11 attacks, but we’ll leave that discussion for some other time.

Source: Roper Center, Cornell University

The truth is American conservative tendencies rarely reflect the true identity of the people of this country. Believe or not, democratically-held elections don’t necessarily reveal the whole truth about what people really want from their leaders, especially when the turnout is low.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is the only presidential candidate who has included the reality of low voter turnouts as part of his campaign message, and although he has done so purely out of his own personal interest to attract new voters, Sanders has inadvertently highlighted a sad fact about American politics.

Low voter turnout is a sign that something is very wrong with our democracy. When people begin feeling like they don’t belong or are simply oblivious to the developments that affect their political system, the idea that we live in a democratic society begins to lose meaning.

But why would low voter turnout benefit one party rather than the other? To answer this question I will be relying on a bunch of data from the US census and the Pew Research Center, so please bear with me.

If you take a quick look at the graph below, you will notice that people are more likely to get out and vote anytime a presidential election takes place, and as I stated at the beginning Democratic candidates for president have won the popular vote in nearly every election for the past 24 years.

Source: US Census

But what I found most interesting about this graph is the fact that congressional elections always yield a much lower turnout, and that since 1995 there’s only been one Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Do we start to see a correlation here? Yes. Are there any exceptions? Of course there are, but I’m not done yet.

Before I expand on why the GOP benefits from low voting rates, let’s take a peek into who is actually voting for each party:

Source: Pew Research Center

The Republican Party enjoys strong support from religious circles as well as from white Americans, especially male. On the other hand, the Democratic Party’s base is made up of people under 35, minorities, women with college degrees and people with no religious affiliation. In other words, Democrats have been able to build up support from across the demographic spectrum, while Republicans don’t seem to find a way to become more appealing to people outside the religious/white male category.

So how do these political preferences from each group translate on election day? Well, it turns out that groups more inclined to support Democratic candidates are less likely to show up at the polling station during an election.

 

Source: US Census

We could be arguing for hours about the thousand reasons why young people and minorities are so seemingly disengaged from the political process in comparison to other demographic groups, but that would alter the direction of today’s discussion.

The main takeaway from all this is that America is not as conservative as it seems, that there are millions of Americans with progressive ideas who simply don’t turn out in large enough numbers to make a difference when an election is held.

This is the true makeup of America. Now, I understand why conservative leaders wouldn’t want a more notorious participation in the process on the part of these groups, but isn’t that a direct assault on what democracy should be all about?

Whether you are conservative or liberal, I hope you share my desire for greater efforts by the government to intensify political participation in America, because there is nothing more contradictory in a democracy than to have a Congress elected by less than half of the population enact rules that directly affect the lives of every single American.