Villefranche-sur-mer - Winter 2026 - 1

 Dear Friends,

We arrived here on January 1, two weeks ago tomorrow.  We were delayed 3 hours leaving Minneapolis, arrived in Amsterdam 3.5 hours late, missed our connection and arrived in Nice 5 hours late.  But we arrived and were happy for it.  We were both sick when we left Minneapolis and are just now starting to cough less.  We hope to be at full strength soon.  

It has been colder than usual here, but in the last few days the weather has significantly improved.  Today the skies are a beautiful blue, there is a slight breeze, the temperature is officially 58 degrees, but with the warm sun it feels warmer.

Nevertheless, we are heartsick about what is taking place in the US and particularly in our home of Minneapolis.  We feel detached from the reality that our children, grandchildren and other family and friends are experiencing.  We don't want to be there, but feel that we should be.

The conversations that we have had recently with strangers reflects the broad range of views of what is happening.  The other evening we had a discussion with a Brit who lives in France now that was very difficult for us.  We did not know him.  He was clearly anti-immigrant regardless of where they were migrating from and where they were migrating to.  He claimed that England had become "Muslimized".  We were not sure what that meant, but it was clear that he felt that Muslims who had immigrated to England were ruining the country.  He may have missed the irony that he was an immigrant as well having immigrated from England to France.  But privileged white men often miss the irony of their positions.  Of course, he was clear that immigrants were destroying the US, a feeling that I am sure the native Americans would agree with now as they did over four centuries ago.  

Our conversation with strangers yesterday was entirely different.  We were having lunch at one of our favorite casual restaurants in Nice.  The owner is Palestinian and very familiar with the United States.  This is the last week for his restaurant and olive oil selling business.  The US tariffs have had a huge negative impact on his business, and he is of the age where he certainly deserves to retire.  Most, if not all the people in the restaurant were long-term customers like us and were sad to see the end of this restaurant and olive oil store.

We and two other tables were leaving all at the same time and all wanted photos with the owner and the chef.  One family was from France.  They spoke beautiful French but also perfect unaccented English.  The other table was a couple from Switzerland whose French was passable, like ours, and whose English was good.  I suspect that German was their native tongue.   While the languages were varied, the sentiment was the same - Trump is destroying the world.  In a conversation full of English and French, we each enumerated our complaints about Trump.  The others were all very sympathetic when they learned that we were from Minneapolis.  It seems that most everybody here now has heard of Minneapolis and Minnesota.  The Swiss woman was really upset that Trump was heading to Davos.  We asked her to please keep him in Switzerland.  She did not want him.

The Côte d'Azur is a very conservative part of France.  While most of the expats and non-French people we know who visit here for several months a year are liberal, there are also those with whom we will never agree.  When your world view is based on us v. them, black v. white, immigrant v. native, etc. compared with we are all human beings, it seems impossible to find any significant common ground.

Thank you for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Donald Trump, Inauguration Day, United States Navy and Allies

Dear Friends,

I have been living in at least two different worlds the last few days.  We are in Villefranche-sur-mer, France, a beautiful little town on the Mediterranean Sea just east of Nice.  It has the only natural deep water harbor on the north coast of the Mediterranean.  It was the home port of the United States Sixth Fleet for 14 years ending on January 20, 1967 when the fleet needed to leave because President de Gaulle took France out of NATO.  During that time about 200 french women from Villefranche and the surrounding area married US sailors.  This weekend is a celebration of the close ties between Villefranche-sur-mer and the Sixth Fleet and marks the 50th anniversary of the departure of the USS Springfield, the then flagship of the Sixth Fleet from Villefranche.  Many US sailors who served in the Sixth Fleet while it was home-ported in Villefranche have returned along with others who are Navy veterans.  The current commander of the Sixth Fleet, the USS Carney (DDG-64) and a large contingency of other sailors are here.

There have been speeches, parades, exhibits, banquets, cocktail parties and many other events.  Last night many of us were able to attend a reception on the USS Carney.  It has been about 45 years since I last set foot on a United States Navy ship.  I was the navigator on the USS Mt. Katmai (AE-16) during the Vietnam war.  The Navy has a "funny" tradition of naming ammunition ships after volcanos. We traveled between Subic Bay in the Philippines and the coast of Vietnam to rearm destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers working off the coast of Vietnam.  My next job was the communications officer for the Commander of the Amphibious Forces in the Atlantic.  You can guess which was the easier job.

As Jane and I were getting ready to attend the reception on the USS Carney, we turned on the tv (actually our computer) to watch the lead up to the inauguration of President Trump.  I felt sick and completely disoriented.  Little did I imagine that I would feel even more so after the reception and listening to President Trump's inauguration address.

Over the last few days I have been really impressed with the sailors who we have met, officers and enlisted personnel alike.  They obviously take great pride in what they do.  They were excited to show us old veterans what today's Navy is like, and they were extremely welcoming.  They came here from Spain, where their home port is during what is part of their in port time.  They are four weeks out on patrol or assignment and four weeks in port.  They were young people (even the senior officers looked young to me, I guess that's my age) who made me proud to be an American and a former sailor.  This picture is from our balcony. The warship in the foreground is a French frigate.  The USS Carney is the one farther out in the harbor.

The young junior officer who was guiding the tour we were on was very impressive both in his knowledge of his ship and his ability to answer our questions with poise and clarity.  I was particularly excited about going on the bridge because as navigator that is where I spent most of my time.  I must say they use electronics to navigate today and do not even have a paper chart on the bridge.  They push buttons and use joy sticks, but they do it very well.  On the other hand, I used the sun and stars and paper charts to keep track of our position.  I think on every bridge on every ship in the Navy there is a nice chair reserved for the captain of the ship.  When I was in the Navy something very bad could have happened to me if sat in the captain's chair, but I figured now what could they do to me.  So I sat, and here I am.

The celebration going on in Villefranche right now is honoring the friendship between Villefranche and the Sixth Fleet, but it was also about the strong bonds between longtime friends and allies.  I almost never wear lapel pins, etc. but this weekend I am proud to be wearing a lapel pin with the French and US flags, symbolizing our wonderful relationship.  After the reception, we returned to our apartment and listened to President Trump's inaugural address.  How could that man be the President of the United States?  I was enjoying being proud of the Navy and all the sailors, and I was celebrating our friends and allies, and then I hear only about America first from our new President.  I was sick once again.

Today we went to the Saturday market.  Of course, the headlines in the newspapers were focused on America first.  While we were buying fruits and vegetables, we spoke to the couple selling them who were rightfully disgusted with President Trump but enthusiastically embraced our idea that we should just stay in France.  True friends are people who will help you when you need help even though they don't know you.  We need a lot more of that in the world today.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Democratic Party Establishment finds fault in everyone except themselves

Dear Friends,

The leadership of the Democratic Party has not changed much since Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992.  Unfortunately the Democratic Party and its influence has been greatly diminished since that time.  Here is a little comparison of political control by the Democrats.

Senate Seats:              1992               Democrats 56  Republicans 44
                                   Post 2016       Republicans at least 51
House Seats:              1992               Democrats 267 Republicans 167
                                   Post 2016       Democrats 193 Republicans 239
Governorships           1992               Democrats 28 Republicans 20
                                  Post 2016        Republicans at least 33
State Legislatures     1992                Democrats 26 Republicans 7  Split 16
                                  Post 2016       Democrats 14 Republicans 32 Split 3
Since 2008, the Democrats have lost control of 30 State legislative chambers (910 seats) and 11 Governorships.

During that same period the Democratic Party Establishment led the Democratic Party further and further to the right as it became Republican lite and courted and did the bidding of Wall Street and the economic elite.  The Democratic Party Establishment became more and more out of touch with the traditional base of the Democratic Party.  It ignored the rapidly diminishing middle class and the working poor.  It failed to fight for unions and trade policies that established level playing fields.  It embraced the military industrial complex and the constant pressure for more militarization to feed the profits of that complex.

When the Democratic Party Establishment had the opportunity to return to its roots and embrace its historic values by endorsing Bernie Sanders, it doubled down on its move to the right and selected Hillary Clinton, one of the leaders of the Democratic Party Establishment who epitomizes the rightward movement of the Democratic Party and its too cozy relationship with Wall Street and the military industrial complex.  Now that she has been defeated by a racist, misogynist, homophobic, islamophobic, egotistical demagogue, the Democratic Party Establishment is finding fault in everyone else except themselves.

In an interview with Chris Hayes (here) Senator Harry Reid, retiring Democratic leader in the Senate for years, said,

She would have won this election without any problem if Comey had not been the Republican operative that he is...He is the reason she lost the election.

He went on to say, "I want everybody in America to understand if Harry Reid can make it in America, anyone can...it doesn't matter what your race is, it used to but it shouldn't anymore".  Harry Reid was born into a very poor family and has been a great success, but he was born a white man in America.  For him to say that because a white man can overcome birth into a poor family any black man can do the same shows how out of touch with the real America he is.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House for the last 16 years said

...We cannot be taking the full responsibility for what happened in the election. We have to do our after-action review thoroughly and see what we could have done differently. But a lot of it was beyond our control.

Senator Chuck Schumer who will replace Harry Reid as the Democratic leader in the Senate was probably the most honest when he said, "we needed a much sharper, bolder, stronger economic message".  Senator Schumer was not taking any responsibility for the fact that the Democratic Party has "needed a much sharper, bolder, stronger economic message" for a long time during which he was in a position to promulgate that message but instead he helped move the Democratic Party to the right.  He voted for NAFTA, he voted to get rid of Glass-Steagall, he voted for the Iraq War, he voted for the Patriot Act, he protected Wall Street, etc.

The Clinton campaign continues to refuse to acknowledge that Hillary and her campaign were completely out of touch with the economic woes and anxiety of the country.  Sure, they moved to the left when forced to by Bernie Sanders, but it was not believable particularly in light of the decades during which the Democratic Party Establishment ignored the middle class and working poor.  In an interview on CNN (here), Karen Finney, a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign had a whole list of reasons why Hillary Clinton lost, including sexism, voting rights act, third party candidates, FBI Director Comey, media coverage and Bernie bros.  Interestingly enough, she did not mention the lack of an economic message to address the economic woes of the middle class and working poor.  When she was pointedly asked what mistakes the Clinton campaign made, there were none of significance.

In fact it is probably true that the Clinton campaign did not make too many mistakes.  The problem was that Hillary Clinton was the wrong candidate, and she could not overcome the fact that the Democratic Party Establishment had ignored the middle class and working poor and moved the party to the right for the last several decades.  Probably the best analysis of the election that I have seen was the op-ed in The New York Times by Naomi Klein entitled "Trump Defeated Clinton, Not Women" (here).  You should read it, if you have not already.  I selected some of my favorite paragraphs.

Voters chose a loose cannon of a man with zero government experience over a calm, collected and supremely qualified woman. The root cause of this injustice, many have suggested, can only be sexism — proof that the glass ceiling protecting the highest reaches of power cannot yet be shattered.
The reaction is understandable. It’s also wrong and unnecessarily demoralizing.

...

Yes, she had a gold-plated résumé that more than qualified her to be president. But that overlooks an important fact: Virtually everything about Mrs. Clinton’s biography made her uniquely unsuited to draw blood where Mr. Trump was most vulnerable.
This election needed a Democrat who could call out, again and again, the myriad hypocrisies and absurdities of Mr. Trump’s claim to be a hero for the downtrodden working class. In the debates, Mrs. Clinton landed points when she exposed Mr. Trump’s history of outsourcing and tax dodging. But by then Mr. Trump had already spent the summer mocking his opponent for her private parties with oligarchs, painting her own lifestyle as profoundly out of touch with ordinary Americans (which it is).
In short, she landed on many of the right messages, but she was the wrong messenger.

...

Here is the biggest problem with elevating sexism to the defining explanation of Mrs. Clinton’s loss: It lets her machine and her failed policies off the hook. It erases the role played by the appetite for endless war and the comfort with market-friendly incremental change, no matter the urgency of the crisis (from climate change to police violence to raging inequality). It erases the disgust over Mrs. Clinton’s coziness with Wall Street and with the wreckage left behind by trade deals that benefited corporations at the expense of workers.

...

That Mrs. Clinton could be defeated by the likes of Mr. Trump remains disgraceful. But Mrs. Clinton was too flawed a candidate for this disgrace to go down in history as a defeat for her gender.

The Democratic Party needs new leadership and needs to return to its core values.  Keith Ellison is running for head of the DNC and even Senator Schumer understands that he needs to support him.  Tim Ryan is challenging Nancy Pelosi for leadership of the House Democrats.  The traditional values of the Democratic Party should not simply be relegated to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, they should be the values of the entire Democratic Party.  We need new leadership to reclaim the Democratic Party.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

The Democratic Party needs to look inward to understand why we lost

Dear Friends,

The United States of America is a country where racism and misogyny are fully institutionalized and rampant.  This racism and misogyny existed long before this election cycle, and long before Donald Trump said things out loud that had only been said with dog whistles and in private before.  These pre-existing conditions and their exposure to all those who had previously ignored them cannot explain Hillary Clinton's loss in this election.  The mainly white, more often males, who voted for Donald Trump were no more racist and misogynist this election cycle than they were in prior ones.  So why did so many of them desert the Democratic Party this time when they had not done so in such huge numbers in the past?

My thesis is that historically the Democratic Party was the champion for these people, and they voted their economic interests over their racist and misogynist feelings.  The Democratic Party lost most of these people in the South with the voting and civil rights legislation of the early 1960s.  Unfortunately, the Democratic Party Establishment since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992,  has  attempted to become Republican light and do the bidding of the monied interests and has deserted the poor and middle class.

It was Bill Clinton who fought for and signed the revised NAFTA into law in August 1993.  NAFTA caused a significant loss of good jobs in the United States.  Since NAFTA, low wage workers have seen their compensation decline.  It was also Bill Clinton who supported and signed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act which was one of several steps at deregulating Wall Street that helped to produce the Great Recession.

Many of the Trump voters lost their jobs, theirs houses and their self-respect in the Great Recession.  Wall Street was bailed out, and there were no prosecutions for any of the wrongs that were done, even when President Obama took over. While many jobs have returned under Barack Obama, they are lower paying jobs with little or no job security or upward mobility.  In 2007 Candidate Obama promised to walk the picket lines with the workers whenever the right to organize was being challenged.  He broke that promise in 2011when Governor Walker in Wisconsin was passing legislation designed to kill unions and thousands of people were protesting.  President Obama, along with the rest of the Democratic Party Establishment, remained silent and certainly did not join the picket lines.  He let them fight alone.  Is it any wonder that Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania all voted for Donald Trump?

Not only has the Democratic Party Establishment turned their backs on the working people of this country, they have sent their sons and daughters to unpopular wars where both sides are using arms supplied by the US arms industry with support and encouragement from the United States government and in particular from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  To make matters worse, the Democratic Party Establishment supports and nominates Hillary Clinton who is clearly a hawk.

The Democratic Party Establishment courts the oligarchy and takes their money in the form of political contributions, charitable contributions and paid speaking engagements at the same time that it ignores the plight of the working class.  The wealth and wage inequality continues to rise and the rich and powerful are treated differently from the working class.  Is it any wonder the working class is angry?

It is not just old white men that the Democratic Party Establishment has turned its back on.  Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities most of whom are working class have been hurt even more than the old white males.  As hard as it is to believe, Donald Trump did better with these groups than Mitt Romney did.  Hillary Clinton got 6 percentage points less of the Hispanic vote than President Obama did and 7 percentage points less than Bill Clinton did. I am convinced that part of this reduction in support is the result of the failure of the Democratic Party Establishment to stand up for and with these minorities.

The former white Democrats who flocked to Donald Trump in this election did so because they could no longer see any hope of the Democratic Party Establishment helping them economically.  While at the same time they saw a "strong" man who was standing up for them and giving voice to their racism, misogyny and economic fear and anxiety.

What can I do?  First and foremost, as a person of great white privilege, I must actively, publicly and boldly stand with my brothers and sisters who are the focus of Donald Trump's racism, misogyny and hatred, and I must actively, publicly and boldly protect the earth.  I must also work and organize to reclaim the Democratic Party.  It must be restored to the party that protects those least able to protect themselves, that fights for justice for all, that protects the earth and that demonstrates true love, compassion and empathy.  The Democratic Party has lost its way, and Donald Trump's victory is just the latest proof of that fact.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Vote for Hillary Clinton

Dear Friends,

I have been trying to figure out how to write a post in support of Hillary Clinton.  As you all know, I would have much preferred Bernie Sanders, but that is not a choice now.  I thought that Bernie's speech at the convention was great.  He has now written an op-ed in the LA Times (here) entitled: "Bernie Sanders: I support Hillary Clinton.  So should everyone who voted for me".   It is similar to his convention speech and outlines very clearly not just the reasons why Donald Trump should not become President, but why we should support Hillary Clinton.

As he says in the final paragraph

I understand that many of my supporters are disappointed by the final results of the nominating process, but being despondent and inactive is not going to improve anything. Going forward and continuing the struggle is what matters. And, in that struggle, the most immediate task we face is to defeat Donald Trump.

While I disagree with many of Hillary Clinton's policy positions, have concerns about her tendency to slide to the right, do not believe that her incrementalism is what the country needs right now and am very concerned about her hawkish foreign policy, I also agree with many of her positions.  We should all focus on the reasons that we can support her.  Despite her incrementalist tendencies, she is clearly moving in the right direction on healthcare, the economy, education, Wall Street reform and trade.  Her nominees for the Supreme Court will be important proponents of getting the money out of politics and preserving a woman's right to choose as well as being intelligent and thoughtful people.

Much has been written lately about how Secretary Clinton should campaign in light of how Donald Trump campaigns. While she needs to point out how incredibly bad he is, I think that she should be making the positive case for why we should support her.  She needs to generate enthusiasm to vote for her not just getting people to vote against Donald Trump.  If she is clearly pushing the truly progressive policies that she adopted during the primary,  she should be able to gain support from Bernie's supporters.

We need to keep the revolution moving forward.  We need to elect Hillary Clinton.  Then we need to hold her accountable and work to get true progressives elected at all levels of government.  This plan is one that I am looking forward to working hard on.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton and the Establishment don't get it

Dear Friends,

The Establishment (Republican, Democratic, business and media) all knew that Jeb Bush would be the Republican Presidential nominee and that Donald Trump was a joke and going nowhere.  The Establishment knew that Bernie Sanders was a fringe candidate whose campaign would go nowhere.  The financial markets knew that Great Britain would stay in the European Union and showed it when the Dow Jones Average rose to18,008 before Great Britain voted to exit the EU and the Dow dropped to 17,401.

The Establishment is completely out of touch with the reality of average people.  These people are frustrated with income and wealth inequality, with the fact that they are unemployed, underemployed and/or working harder and making less than a decade ago, with the fact that the political and economic systems are controlled by big business and the ultra wealthy, with the fact that they are powerless over their destinies and with the status quo in general.

Hillary Clinton is well entrenched in the Establishment and is just as clueless about the frustration of the people as the rest of the Establishment.  She is clearly not taking the advice I offered her in my blog (here).  She continues to campaign on the basis that she is better than Donald Trump, that she has experience and that she is practical.  She is essentially saying that she will continue to work the way that President Obama has, trying to convince the Republicans to take baby steps to solve our problems, but she will be better at it than he is.

On Tuesday, June 22, Secretary Clinton gave her much touted economic speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.  It was the perfect opportunity for her to announce some bold initiatives, but she simply reiterated her five point plan.  It was a rehash without any details of her plan as put forth during the primary campaign. She lacked passion and credibility.  The following sentence typifies her speech:

We'll say no to bad trade deals and unfair trade practices, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which does not meet my high bar for creating good-paying jobs.

She has never made any attempt to explain why she was a strong advocate of NAFTA and called the Trans-Pacific Partnership the gold standard of trade agreements, before Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others forced her to the left.  Until she acknowledges and explains away her past, she will continue to lack credibility and be unable to generate excitement.

She made this economic speech two days before the Brexit vote as the financial geniuses were pushing the Dow back to 18,000 because, of course, Britain would vote to stay in the EU.  She was living in the Establishment bubble.  After the Brexit vote, instead of changing her approach, she doubled down.  In her official statement, she said

This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House...

The Establishment believes that Donald Trump does not stand a chance to win the Presidency.  So far this year the Establishment has been wrong every time.  The Real Clear Politics Electoral Map (here) has Hillary Clinton with 211 electoral votes, Donald Trump with 164 electoral votes and 163 electoral votes undecided.  The undecided states are pretty much the ones that always fall into that category, and the recent polls in those states are within the margin of error.  There is no question that this election will be decided by which party is better at getting people to vote.  While there will be people who will show up to vote to vote against Donald Trump, to ensure that Hillary Clinton wins, she needs to start to generate enthusiasm and excitement among the people who were energized by Bernie Sanders.  So far she does not even appear to be trying to accomplish that result.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton makes her own problems

Dear Friends,

I have long believed that Hillary Clinton is a flawed candidate and not just because of her policies and positions.  She continues to create problems for herself.  Two of these problems were apparent upon reading the news this morning.

First, the State Department's Inspector General (not the Republicans) came out with a report severely criticizing Secretary Clinton for using her personal email account for official business.  One need only read the first paragraph of the story in The New York Times (here) about the report.

The State Department’s inspector general on Wednesday sharply criticized Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, saying that she had not sought permission to use it and would not have received it if she had.

Buried deep in the first section of The New York Times this morning (here) was an article comparing the Clinton campaign's spin on what the Inspector General's report said with the reporter's analysis.  Here are a couple of the comparisons.  The bold is from a statement by the Clinton campaign.  The rest is the reporter writing.

From the statement: “The inspector general documents just how consistent her email practices were with those of other secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email.”
Only one other secretary of state — Colin L. Powell — exclusively used his personal email for official communications. Condoleezza Rice said she did not use personal or government email. Madeleine K. Albright did not use email, which was in its infancy when she was in the job. Secretary of State John Kerry said he occasionally used personal email, mostly to reply to people who emailed him on his personal account. But the report said that after discussing the issue with his aides and other staff members, “he began primarily using his department account to conduct official business.”
“As this report makes clear, Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email was not unique, and she took steps that went much further than others to appropriately preserve and release her records.”
Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email and server stored in her home was, in fact, unique. She left the State Department without turning over any emails, and only did so after she was contacted by the department’s lawyers, who were under pressure to produce documents from the House Select Committee on Benghazi. The 55,000 pages of emails she delivered did not include anything from the first three months of her tenure.

If Secretary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump will use this report and her campaign's statements to attack her as being untrustworthy and lacking judgment.  Her statements and those of her campaign about her emails are at best misleading and at worst completely inaccurate.  Since she will want to attack Donald Trump as being untrustworthy and lacking judgment, he will easily distract with his own attack on the same issues.  The conclusion of the public will, I am afraid, be that they are both untrustworthy and lack judgment.

This problem was not created by the Republicans or the press or Bernie Sanders, it was created by Hillary Clinton.  In my view it was some combination of bad judgement, arrogance and paranoia.

Problem number two results from her decision to back out of the fourth debate that she had agreed to have with Bernie Sanders before the California primary.  Let's be clear, she did not just decline to debate, she broke her agreement to have four debates including one before the California primary.

Of course the conventional political wisdom is that the frontrunner can only lose by having a debate.  I think Hillary Clinton is making a terrible mistake.  If she wins the nomination and wants to have Bernie Sanders' supporters vote for her, she needs to show that she listens to them, has views similar to them, respects them and will make big not just incremental changes.  Right now she is ignoring Senator Sanders and claiming out loud that she will be the nominee.  By breaking her agreement to debate, she is fueling the narrative that she cannot be trusted, that she is going to move to the right as soon as she can and that she doesn't really care about the issues that Senator Sanders' supporters do.

After last night when both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders said they would be willing to debate the other, Secretary Clinton's decision to break her agreement looks really bad.  If a Trump/Sanders debate happens, she will look even worse.  If Senator Sanders does really well in that debate, it will be clear to everybody that Senator Sanders will be a better candidate against Donald Trump than Secretary Clinton.

This problem was not created by the Republicans or the press or Bernie Sanders, it was created by Hillary Clinton.  Secretary Clinton does not understand that times have changed, that she should not be running her campaign according to the conventional political wisdom, and that if she wants the votes of the Bernie Sanders' supporters she needs to truly court them.

While it is a very narrow and steep path for Bernie Sanders to obtain the Democratic nomination, it is possible.  If Bernie Sanders has a big win in California, particularly if he debates Donald Trump and has a really good night, I would hope that the super delegates would face the reality that Bernie Sanders has the better positions and policies, is the better candidate and is the best bet to beat Donald Trump.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Which candidate beats Trump?

Dear Friends,

The mainstream media continues to proclaim that the Presidential race will be between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  These same media giants and their pundits, all of whom failed to recognize that Donald Trump was a real candidate regardless of his lack of qualifications and personality and who were certain that he would never be the Republican nominee and that Bernie Sanders would never pose a real threat to Hillary Clinton, are now saying that Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump by a landslide.

They continue to fail to understand that the American people are angry and scared.  Many Republicans are angry because they are finally figuring out that the Republican Party establishment has been using them for years.  People are angry because the establishment including big corporations, Wall Street, the mainstream media and the two major political parties have created a political and financial system that has concentrated all of the wealth and power in the hands of the few at the top of the economic heap.  They are scared for a variety of reasons and not all reasons apply to all the people.  Old white men are scared because they are losing their privilege.  Most everybody is scared about their financial futures.  Thoughtful ones are scared for the lives their children and grandchildren will live because of climate change.  Those who have fallen for the Republican fear mongering are afraid of Muslims, blacks, hispanics and GLBT people.  The establishment types in the mainstream media do not understand that the American electorate is ready for real and significant change, and they are looking for leaders who agree with them and can lead them in achieving that change.

I cannot imagine anything worse for the world and our future than Donald Trump beating the Democratic nominee and becoming President of the United States.  In addition to all the reasons that I have put forth in prior posts demonstrating why I think that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to effectuate the real and radical changes that we need, I now want to make the case for why Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.

I have created my own spreadsheet of the Electoral College results by State for 2000 through 2012 and my predictions based on history and the polls to date.  Under my analysis, there are 10 states that are up for grabs this year.  I have given the electoral votes from the others to either Donald Trump or the Democratic candidate.  The result being
Donald Trump          180
Democrat                  226
Undecided                132
Keep in mind that a candidate needs 270 votes to win.  Under my analysis and virtually all the others I found online, the Democrat has a big lead but does not get to 270 without some of the undecided states.

Here is what I have gleaned from the polls about the undecided states.

In three states there is no worthwhile polling: Colorado (9 votes), Nevada (6 votes) and New Mexico (5 votes).

In one state, Indiana (11 votes) both Democratic candidates lose to Donald Trump in recent polls but Hillary Clinton loses by 7.5 percentage points while Bernie Sanders loses by only 1 percentage point indicating that he might win Indiana.

Florida (29 votes) is the only state where the polls indicate that both Democratic candidates would beat Donald Trump where Hillary Clinton wins by more than Bernie Sanders.  Hillary Clinton wins by 4.3 percentage points and Bernie Sanders wins by 0.5 percentage points.

In all the other states Bernie Sanders beats Donald Trump by wider margins than Hillary Clinton.

Iowa (6 votes)                               Sanders +9        Clinton +4
North Carolina (15 votes)             Sanders +7.3     Clinton +3.3
Ohio (18 votes)                             Sanders +5        Clinton +3
Pennsylvania (20 votes)                Sanders +12.7   Clinton +7

Based on the current polling numbers, Bernie Sanders is a much better bet to beat Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton and her surrogates claim that Bernie Sanders has not been fully vetted and attacked they way that Donald Trump will attack him.  The Clinton Campaign has attacked Bernie Sanders repeatedly, and his campaign gets stronger.  The more people know Bernie Sanders the more they like him.  The more people are exposed to Hillary Clinton the less they like her.  The Huffington Post tracks the trends for the favorable and unfavorable ratings of both Bernie Sanders (here) and Hillary Clinton (here).

According to the Huffington Post analysis, Bernie Sanders currently has a 51.6% favorable rating and a 41.1% unfavorable rating, a net 10.5% positive.  Since July 2015, both his favorable and unfavorable ratings have gone up as people have been exposed to him, but his net positive rating has steadily increased since that time.

Conversely, the Huffington Post analysis shows that Hillary Clinton currently has a 41.5% favorable rating and 54.6% unfavorable rating, a net 13.1% negative.  Except for a small bump up in February 2011, Hillary Clinton's favorability rating has declined since October 2010 and her unfavorable ratings have steadily increased since February 2011.  The last time she had a net positive favorable/unfavorable rating was in April 2015 and her net negative rating has continued to grow since then.  The Clinton campaign likes to say that her bad ratings are the result of decades of unfair treatment by the Republicans, but just over a year ago she had a net positive rating which during the campaign has rapidly become a really significant 13.1% net negative rating.

Of course Donald Trump has worse ratings than Hillary Clinton.  The Huffington Post analysis (here) shows that Donald Trump currently has a 58.6% unfavorable rating and a 36.5% favorable rating for a net negative rating of 21.1% which is worse than Hillary Clinton's net negative rating of 13.1%.  If you only read the mainstream media you would not believe that Donald Trump's favorability ratings have been increasing and his unfavorability ratings have been decreasing since April when he had a net negative of 31.3%.  If the trends of Hillary Clinton's net ratings getting worse and Donald Trump's net ratings getting better continue, Hillary Clinton's chances of winning would be further diminished.

While I understand that Bernie Sanders has a narrow chance of winning the Democratic nomination, if he continues to win the primaries/caucuses between now and the convention and the polling numbers and favorable/unfavorable numbers continue their present trends, I would hope that the Super Delegates would do their job for the good of the world, country and party and nominate Bernie Sanders.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Who is more electable??

Dear Friends,

One of the arguments I hear all the time about why I should support Secretary Clinton instead of Senator Sanders is that she can win the general election and he cannot.  I disagree with that argument.  In fact I think a very strong case can be made that Senator Sanders can win and that Secretary Clinton cannot win.

While the polls are not the best way to analyze who is more electable, they do provide some insights. Real Clear Politics provides a very helpful service in compiling all the major polls.  I strongly recommend that you visit their website (here) because the information is very interesting and available in lots of formats.  In the average of the polls they follow for March through the 22nd, here are some interesting averages,

Clinton beats Trump on average by 11.2 percentage points
Sanders beats Trump on average by 17.5 percentage points
In both cases, the spread increased in March.

But it is also important to consider what happens if the stop Trump movement is successful.
Clinton beats Cruz on average by 2.9 percentage points (well within the margin of error)
Sanders beats Cruz on average by 8.4 percentage points
Whereas Clinton's lead over Cruz has dropped during 2016, Sanders' lead over Cruz has widened considerably.

With respect to the Democratic nomination, the average of the polls in March so far give Clinton a 9 percentage point lead over Sanders but that is down from 24 percentage points at the beginning of 2016.

The truth is that the more people find out about Senator Sanders, and the more they hear and understand his message, the more popular he is and the better he does against all other candidates, Democratic and Republican.  In addition, Senator Sanders is the only candidate with a positive favorability rating.  According to the averages on Real Clear Politics for March, here are the results:

Sanders      Favorable  48.7%  Unfavorable  41.3%   +7.4
Clinton       Favorable  40.7%  Unfavorable  53.9%  -13.2
Cruz           Favorable  33.4%  Unfavorable  51.0%  -17.6
Trump        Favorable  30.4%  Unfavorable  63.2%  -32.8

The latest polls indicate that perhaps Donald Trump is beginning to lose ground, but we have heard that before, so who knows.  Also the latest Democratic nomination poll shows Sanders ahead of Clinton by 1 percentage point.  The daily and weekly variations among polls should not receive too much weight but the overall direction is important.  Also so far in this election cycle, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders tend to out perform the polls.

So if you believe in polls, it is clear that Bernie Sanders is more electable than Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has won 14 states by more than 1 percentage point and 4 by 1 percentage point or less.  Nine of the 14 states are very red states.  Trump has won 12 of those states as well, and all but 3 of those states are very red states.  The only two states that Trump has not won that Clinton won were Texas (home of Cruz) and Ohio (home of Kasich).  So the states where Clinton performs well are states that have been won by Trump and are overwhelmingly red states.  So it is impossible to say that Clinton has demonstrated that she can win against Trump based on her current performance.

Sanders has won 11 states.  Of those states, the Republicans have not yet had a primary/caucus in 2 of them.  In the nine states that have voted, Cruz has won 5, Trump has won 3 and Rubio won 1.  Six of the 11 states that Sanders won went for Obama in 2012, 2 of which are on the list of the closest races in 2012.  The results so far suggest that Sanders would win the traditionally blue states and be apt to win the close states that went for Obama last time.  If anything, this analysis says that Sanders has a better chance of winning the general election than Clinton does, but the analysis is far from certain.

There is a lot of talk about Sanders supporters who say they will vote for Trump rather than Clinton if Clinton is the Democratic nominee.  Clinton supporters attribute this position to the privilege of those Sanders supporters.  This allegation is yet another example of Clinton supporters and others in the "Establishment" not understanding the anti-establishment sentiment that exists in this country.

For the last 30 years at least, the middle class has lost ground while the rich and powerful have gained incredible wealth and power.  Many Sanders supporters are active in the political process today because they are tired of the status quo and are appalled at the inequality, in all respects, in this country.  They did not become involved to fight for a Democrat or a Republican.  They became involved to get rid of the "Establishment" and make big changes to the status quo.

It is not showing white privilege or any other kind of privilege for these voters to say that the most important thing is to get rid of the status quo.  These voters will not vote for Clinton because she represents the Democratic Establishment.  They might vote for Trump just to get rid of the "Establishment" or they might just drop out of politics.   I disagree with that approach and will most certainly vote for Clinton if she is the nominee, but to tell those voters that they are rejecting Clinton because of their privilege is not only wrong, it is stupid and offensive, particularly if you want their vote.

I believe the reason that Sanders does better against Trump and Cruz than Clinton does is that these voters will stay involved and vote for Sanders rather than either Trump or Cruz.  If, however, their choice is Clinton or either terrible Trump or Cruz, they will either vote for the terrible person or they will just drop out.  This result will be even more certain if Clinton wins the nomination and then moves to the right during the general election campaign.  Certainly her history of positions suggests that she has only moved left because of pressure from the success of the Sanders campaign.  If she wins the nomination, moves to the right and continues to denigrate Sanders supporters by calling them uninformed, sexist, naive and now privileged, she will surely lose their support and votes.

Neither Trump nor Cruz is actually crazy.  They are fighting for the Republican nomination now.  They will run a different race once they get the nomination.  Cruz is an ideologue who will have trouble changing his positions but can probably change his demeanor.  Trump has no scruples so he will change to whatever he thinks will win.  He will certainly try to become less awful as a general election candidate and who knows what positions he will take.  He might even try to make himself look normal, as difficult as that is to believe right now.  If he does that, Clinton will have an even more difficult time defeating him because she will sound like the pot calling the kettle black if she criticizes Trump for changing positions. Sanders, on the other hand, has not changed his positions and  will be able to call Trump on his change in positions without fear of hearing the same back.

The nomination of the Democratic candidate for President is a long way off and much can change.  While it is true that Senator Sanders has an uphill battle, that has always been the case.  The Democratic Establishment, the media, the elites and the general establishment are all against him, but together we can overcome all of that and have a Presidential nominee and a President that will change this country and who will make us proud.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Why Sanders defeats Trump, but Trump defeats Clinton

Dear Friends,

The title of this post is the title of an article on The Hill  (here) by H.A. Goodman.  The first paragraph of the article is a great summary:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) currently leads Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump by 4 percentage points more than Hillary Clinton does, according to RealClearPolitics. However, while the polls have Clinton over Trump now, it's Sanders who represents the best chance for a Democrat to beat the reality star. The Vermont senator is the worst nightmare for a GOP challenger, primarily because his value system is the antithesis of Republican stances on war, foreign policy, Wall Street and the economy.

The article goes on to discuss the well known baggage that comes with Secretary Clinton as well as the fact that Trump and Clinton both have close ties to Wall Street and have similar views on some issues.  One of his major points is that to defeat Trump, the Democrats have to present the exact opposite of Trump and that is Bernie Sanders.

On the other hand, Sanders isn't linked to scandal, he's vehemently against billionaires controlling politics, and his brand of democratic socialism serves as a stark contrast to Trump's brash billionaire persona. Everything Sanders warns about is personified by Trump; billionaires in politics, Republicans and Democrats uniting to coddle Wall Street, a rigged economic system, etc.

As we saw in the last Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton is not in favor of breaking up the big banks that are too big to fail, she is not in favor of reinstating Glass-Steagall, and she does not speak forcefully about taxing Wall Street and billionaires as Sanders does.

The article concludes

Ultimately, the only hope for Democrats beating Donald Trump is Bernie Sanders. He's honest and brings tremendous enthusiasm to progressives and he's raising more than enough money, without a super-PAC, to win the presidency... He experienced a greater boost in the polls than Clinton after the debate, so Democrats are rallying around the Vermont senator even as loyal supporters defend Clinton at all costs. When given the choice between Sanders or Clinton, Trump and the GOP would choose Clinton and her scandals over an energized base of progressives championing a Sanders presidency.

The more people see and hear Bernie and his ideas and positions, the more they like him.  His support will continue to grow particularly among new voters.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal