“Boycotts are a powerful tool — but you know what is a more powerful tool?" Samantha Bee asked her "Full Frontal" audience on Monday night. "Not electing a bunch of transphobic numbnuts who are going to wreck the state economy to catch a nonexistent criminal.”
North Carolina's HB2 has inspired boycotts from Pearl Jam, to Cirque du Soleil, to the $24 million in tourism the city of Raleigh is losing, to Springsteen, and even PayPal canceled plans to relocate some of their offices to North Carolina. But what caused it was the 2010 election that Bee says progressives and liberals "slept through" and allowed a bunch of idiots to get elected in North Carolina. They were once considered the "not crazy" Carolina, but now, that's all going away.
"It was a blue-state dream," Bee said looking back before the 2010 election. "Democrats controlled the Governor's mansion and legislature, welfare checks grew on trees and there was an abortion in every pot. But all that changed on Election Night 2010." For the first time since the 1800s, North Carolina had a Republican legislature. The result was a set of laws like allowing guns anywhere, even on playgrounds, and the new legislature also passed laws that restricted abortions and allowed people to inhumanely treat animals. "You know North Carolina's world-class public university? F*ck that place," Bee said before rolling a clip of reports about funding cuts and tuition increases for higher education.
That's right, crazy legislatures can do just about anything, including slash funding, appoint a racist skeleton with an Adam's apple as your new Gender Studies professor, change your team to the Shrugging Atlases and you can't do anything about it. Plus, remember that Pell Grant you needed to get through school? Well, the federal government is so furious about HB2, your state will lose access to it, along with $2 billion of other funding. "Great! Now your daughter will feel safe in bathrooms while she's scrubbing them for minimum wage!"
"I bet UNC students can't wait to vote those right-wing boobs out of office. Well, sorry, those boobs are actually way ahead of you on that," Bee said before showing a clip of a local news report talking about legislation that removed polling places from college campuses and denies students the ability to use their college ID to vote.
But North Carolina wasn't the only state to lose a lot from voter apathy in 2010. Republicans ended up controlling more state legislative seats for the first time since 1928. "After the 2010 landslide, policies started happening to states the way sex happens to people who drink with Bill Cosby." Bee shows maps that color in the states that have done the most damage since 2010 restricting freedoms for everyone but gun owners. "No wonder Democrats are so hung up on appointing the next Supreme Court Justice. They need him to strike down all the sh*tty state laws that might not have passed if they'd bothered to vote in 2010."
Bee closes with this: "Look, I know state elections aren't fun. They don't have cool concerts or dank memes. But, voting in them is important. Just think of it like a mammogram. It's painful and inconvenient, but you gotta do it. Because early prevention prevents a lot less than late stage treatment."
Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, we are likely to get all sorts of mainstream media analysis about how his narrow pathway to Election Day victory runs through white working-class America, the way Ronald Reagan’s did, while the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, must corral young people, minorities and the well-educated.
In case you haven’t noticed, there is an unmistakable media bias in this – one that was framed perfectly in a Newsweek cover story by Evan Thomas eight years ago. It was about Barack Obama’s alleged “Bubba Gap,” and illustrated with a picture of arugula — and beer. Democrats, naturally, were the arugula eaters.
This idea that Republicans are “real” Americans and Democrats aren’t is now a generation-long meme in the media, and it has had tremendous repercussions for our politics. It used to be that Republicans were the effete ones and Democrats the salt-of-the-earth. Then Ronald Reagan came along and pried working-class voters away from the Democrats – the so-called “Reagan Democrats” – and suddenly the media reversed party roles, deciding that America tilted right, and that Democrats were elitists.
I have no idea who will win the election this November, but I can pretty much assure you of this: we will be hearing an awful lot about Trump Democrats who, like those Reagan Democrats, may abandon the Democratic Party because they allegedly find it too high-blown.
But this is what you probably won’t hear: those Reagan Democrats, at least not as we usually think of them — urban, Rust Belt laborers — didn’t last much beyond Reagan. They were a temporary blip who didn’t realign American politics the way the media tell us they did. Trump Democrats might be something of a myth, too – a collaboration of the MSM and the candidate to portray him and his party as the agents of blue-collar, middle America because it fits the media’s stereotype of angry workers blowing gaskets.
Let’s get a few things out of the way when we talk about Republican hegemony and the party’s appeal to disaffected Democrats. Yes, Republicans control both houses of Congress, and, yes, they are dominant at the governor and state legislature levels. This, however, is largely the product of certain peculiarities in the American political system rather than any great Democratic defection or love of Republicanism: things like low turnout in local and midterm elections among minorities and the poor, who are likely to vote Democratic; subsequent gerrymandering of districts to benefit Republicans; absurd disproportions in which Wyoming, with its population of 584,000, gets the same number of senators as California with its 39 million; and the role of money in elections, as money generally flows more freely to Republicans than to Democrats for the obvious reason that the GOP’s benefactors have more to gain from the system.
If you just read newspapers and watch TV news, you would probably never guess that actually there are fewer self-identified conservatives in America than there are self-identified liberals, or that Democrats outnumber Republicans 29 percent to 26 percent in the latest Gallup Poll.
These are, says Gallup, historically low figures for both parties, but they may heavily discount Democratic identification. According to a survey by Republic 3.0, if you add in self-declared Independents who nevertheless lean toward one party or the other, Democrats actually constitute 45 percent of Americans, while Republicans constitute just 33 percent. So if you have been thinking that this is a conservative GOP country, think again.
Which brings us to those Reagan Democrats. As Thomas Frank wrote in his 2004 best-seller, What’s the Matter With Kansas?, the “dominant political coalition” in America is the union of business voters and blue-collar voters, many of the latter one-time Democrats diverted from their economic interests by the bloody shirt of social wedge issues from abortion to gun rights to immigration. That was the great Republican prestidigitation. Now you see economic distress, now you don’t. And the great political realignment that followed was laid at the foot of Ronald Reagan.
But was it true? In 2006, in the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, the brilliant political scientist Larry Bartels, then of Princeton and now at Vanderbilt University, took on this story in a searching analysis of Frank’s thesis. Looking at voting trendlines over a 50-year period, from the 1952 presidential election of Eisenhower to the 2004 reelection of George W. Bush, Bartels found that there was, as Frank and pundits said, a decline in Democratic support — roughly six percentage points; not huge over five decades, but still significant.
But wait! That decline was among white voters without college degrees, which was the demographic Frank chose to use. If you include non-white voters without college degrees, Democrats actually enjoyed a two-point increase.
You may notice that when the MSM talks about the whole Reagan/Trump Democratic conversion, they are focusing on whites, too, even though the share of white voters in the electorate is falling while that of minorities is rising. Basically, it’s the media equivalent of the three-fifths compromise of the Constitution in which slaves, for the purpose of calculating representation, counted for less than whites.
Further, Bartels found that if you look at income rather than education, the results are even more pronounced in favor of Democrats. The percentage of low income voters going Democratic has actually risen since the 1980s. In 2012, Barack Obama received 60 percent of the votes of those with household incomes under $50,000, roughly the American median, and only 44 percent of those over $100,000.
And here is something else Bartels discovered. Nearly all the Democratic decline among low-income white voters without college degrees came in the South: 10.3 percent. Outside the South, the Democratic percentages actually increased (11.2 percent) for an overall national increase of 4.5 percent. Again, that is just among whites. The inescapable conclusion: All those blue collar workers who are supposed to have left the Democratic Party for Reagan and then stayed in the GOP, or who might soon be leaving for Trump, didn’t in the first case, and aren’t likely to do so in the second.
I suppose there is a reason why the MSM doesn’t feel comfortable broadcasting those numbers. Doing so would force them to label Republicans for what they are: the party of white, rich, disproportionately Southern folks, as opposed to the Democrats, who are a diverse party racially and economically. When put that way, it inevitably sounds like the media are taking sides, even though it would only be fact-providing.
This isn’t to say that in 1980, when it came to union households, Reagan didn’t cut seriously into the lead Carter had over Ford in 1976. And he made some inroads into the working class as defined by income as well. But the real story of the so-called post-Reagan Republican tilt is that white Southerners, who had long been departing the Democratic Party, until one of their own, Carter, stanched the flow in 1976, were the primary defectors. And presumably they were leaving not over economics but over race.
That’s another story neither the MSM nor the Republicans are eager to tell because it makes the GOP out to be overly dependent on racist troglodytes. For the MSM to tell the truth this way would, again, seem to be picking on Republican salt-of-the-earth rank and file, and the MSM won’t risk doing that. Picking on allegedly Democratic elitists? That’s OK.
None of this is to say that Trump won’t attract lots of angry, white working-class voters. It is to say that it’s highly unlikely he will draw many working-class voters away from the Democrats, in large part because there probably aren’t a whole lot of white Democratic votes left in the South to take away, and because most blue-collar workers still identify with the Democratic Party. So get ready to hear about all those angry, blue-collar white guys who love Trump and might hand him the election. But when you do, remember this: Democrats drink beer too, even though the MSM has you thinking they’re all sipping chablis as they munch their arugula.
Barely a day goes by when Donald Trump offers Latino something new to get riled up about. In a “Cinco de Mayo” tweet on Thursday, for example, he declared “I love Hispanics!” in the caption to a selfie that showed him digging into a “taco bowl” at his desk.
“This can’t be serious,” said my Mexican cousin. “No words,” wrote a Cuban colleague. “No” and “disgusting” were just some of the other comments my Latino friends – both Democratic and Republican – posted after I uploaded a screen shot of the tweet to my Facebook page.
The presidential candidate started his campaign by saying that Mexicans are rapists and criminals. He then extended his hateful remarks to include those “coming from all over South and Latin America” and the Middle East, vowed to deport all undocumented immigrants and bar all Muslims, and proposes rescinding birthright citizenship and building a great wall between us Mexico. And yet, he is now the presumptive Republican nominee.
It’s tempting to simply ridicule the clumsy pandering of his tweet, but it would be a mistake to do so. From the beginning of his run, Trump has been protected by his buffoonery – it’s hidden him from genuine media scrutiny and prompted many to simply shrug him off. I’ve lost count of the number of friends and colleagues who answered my early alarm with assurances that the Donald was a joke and a distraction.
But “the Hispanics” (as Trump has taken to calling us) were never so cavalier about his emergence as a Republican candidate, his ascent to frontrunner nor his presumptive nominee status. The campaign he built on hatred and fear was, from the first, a campaign weaponized against us. Seventeen percent of the US population is Latino, and 64% of those Latinos are Mexican – the same folks Trump first (and repeatedly) impugned as criminals. His followers now routinely use derogatory language when responding to Latinos critical of Trump, along with spitting on us, demanding to know our documentation status and even beating the crap out of us .
Even though the majority of US Latinos are either citizens or authorized residents, we don’t cotton to Trumps promise of mass deportation either. 16.6 million people , and a third of US citizens who are children of immigrants, currently live in mixed-status families (where at least one person is out-of-status). Many of us would feel the impact of this far-fetched and inhumane proposal directly.
Who knows what a President Trump would actually do when it comes to the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the US. What is clear now, though, is that the proposal serves a dual purpose. One, it is supposed to instill paralyzing fear in us Latinos; and two, it is intended to instill mobilizing fear in those who blame all the ills of the nation on undocumented immigrants.
Even those Latinos who haven’t been very concerned about the targeting of undocumented immigrants have sounded alarms about Trump’s belligerence toward nations that are historic friends and allies. Trump’s great wall gambit has prompted Mexico – our third largest trade partner and a huge market for US goods – to begin to prepare for the “ emergency ” the Trump presidency would precipitate.
It came as no surprise to Latinos that a recent poll conducted by Latino Decisions indicated that a full 87% of us view Trump unfavorably and 79% of us view him very unfavorably. What might have been more of a surprise was the revelation that 41% of those Latinos surveyed said they intended to vote in the 2016 specifically to stop Trump.
That 41% should have been 90% (allowing for the 9% of poll respondents who view Trump even somewhat favorably). If there ever was a time for us to mobilize to show our numbers and assert our electoral clout, this is it. We cannot allow Trump to become president. We cannot allow a person whose default understanding of Mexicans and other Latinos is so limited that he can only represent us as criminals or his Cinco de Mayo taco bowl.
In 2012, Latinos voted in record numbers – 71% of us voted for Obama, and 27% of us voted for Romney – but our voter turnout lagged behind other demographics and we constituted only 10% of the electorate . Between then and now, approximately 3.2 million US citizen Latinos have turned voting age. With a big turnout, we have the opportunity to be the electoral demographic that drives Trump out of politics with his tail between his legs and never to return.
Let’s not wait for an invitation, mi gente. Let’s just do it.
The US Department of State reported an increase in passport applications in 2016. It could be a sign of a more stable economy and desire to travel, but some are saying it comes from fears of a Donald Trump presidency. If you've seen claims in your Facebook feed like "I'm moving to Canada!" you know what I mean.
While our neighbor to the north is a lovely place with polite people and good health care, it can get a little cold and could be chaotic with a sudden influx of angry liberals. If you're afraid of what life might be like under a Trump White House, and you've got the means to move, Canada doesn't necessarily have to be your country of choice. Here are six others:
1. Costa Rica
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Boasting beautiful beaches, intriguing rainforests, stunning waterfalls, a range of birds and wildlife as well as delicious foods Costa Rica could be your next home away from home. The exchange rate is in Americans' favor and the country is affordable for anyone renting a hacienda with an ocean view.
2. Ireland
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The Emerald Isle is the poetic pseudonym for Ireland thanks to lush green meadows and a glorious countryside. A green farmland also means amazing produce to feast on as well as the beautiful vista. Other than an odd snow, Ireland is generally spared from natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes or droughts too, making the climate ideal. The shores also have amazing waves, perfect for surfers, and if you should get hurt, medical care is free.
3. Japan
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If you seek the action of a bustling city with amazing local culture, Japan is for you. The exceptional healthcare coupled with healthy and delicious food would be perfect to detoxify your body from America's fried cheese and expensive drugs. The people are amazing and go out of their way to help, even if you're struggling with your Japanese. If your language is solid, you can even travel to some of the smaller cities that are less than 50 miles from Tokyo.
4. Australia
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While maps can distort the size of Australia, the continent is roughly the size of the United States, with just as much uniqueness as our own country. It's easy if you need an English-speaking country to relocate your family. Australia is also perfect for foods that are similar to our own and great for short travel to other countries south of the equator. The exchange rate isn't great for Americans right now and you'll likely need to lease a car, but seeing the southern constellations and getting away from Trump might be worth it.
5. New Zealand
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As long as we're down under, New Zealand is a glorious place to live. Another English speaking country, the people are known for being so friendly that even hitchhiking is safe, legal and encouraged. The crime is very low and the State Department rates it number one on HSBC's report for a better quality of life for young people. You'll have access to beaches as well as mountains and you can explore some of the places "Lord of the Rings" was filmed. Sleep in a tree house, surf the waves, hike the mountains or kayak the lakes, New Zealand might be the place to make your escape.
6. Ecuador
[caption id="attachment_795758" align="aligncenter" width="500"] A bike path from Banos to Puyo, Ecuador (Photo: Shutterstock)[/caption]
Most expats love Ecuador for the exchange rate and the low cost of living in the country. InterNations lists it as the number one country for Americans to move, but implies you should have a working knowledge of Spanish to help you assimilate. It's also relatively close to the United States should you need to zip back to family or friends. A flight to Miami, for example, is only four hours. The weather is exceptional, which is perfect for the amazing beaches and the infrastructure is probably even better than some places in the United States. If you're going to flee, do it in style in Ecuador.
There’s been plenty of virtual high-fiving following the cancellation of Quiverfull patriarch, Vaughn Ohlman’s “Get Them Married!” retreat which he had planned to facilitate the marriages of young teen girls and boys by their freakishly-perverse “daddies” for the purpose of getting the kids breeding early and often for Jesus.
This past Wednesday, I wrote about Ohlman’s plans to host a weekend retreat in Kansas where ultra-conservative, Duggar-like Christian mega-families would gather to “network” with like-minded fundamentalists to decide which junior patriarch would be betrothed to which old man’s very young daughters -- all without the children’s consent. Plus, there would be negotiations for the fathers to receive payment of a “bride price” for their virgin girls.
Raw Story readers responded to the news of what would at best be described as a super weird Christian meat-market, or more accurately, as blatant child sex-trafficking, with disgust ... and activism. The story went viral and within a day, public outrage and demands for an investigation and protection for the children of these sickos resulted in the event being cancelled when the Salvation Army corps in Wichita which owns the campground where Ohlman intended to hold the retreat refused to rent their facility.
While Vaughn’s been busy scrubbing his website of incriminating blog posts and lamenting his persecution by evil, busybody liberals … sensible folks are wondering, “Who the frick is this creep, anyway?”
While he’s been called a founder and leader of the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement and linked to the Duggar Family of TLC’s “Way Too Many Kids and Counting” fame, in truth, Vaughn is only a small-time blogger who spends an exorbitant amount of time thinking about young virgin girls’ budding breasts and which Bible verses justify knocking up the teenyboppers before they have a chance to finish school, get out in the world, make careers for themselves, and live independent lives.
Let me tell you a bit about Mr. Ohlman.
“Husband to one, father of six,” Vaughn works as an ambulance driver in Schulenberg, Texas, and wastes his spare time running a website called “Let Them Marry” which promotes “a Biblical understanding of the godly path to marriage.” His book, “What Are You Doing? A Conversation About Dating and Courtship,” addresses the “catastrophe” of thousands of young Godly people who are “well past the flower of their age, and they are not married.”
Christian boys and girls have been prepared for marriage … “for early marriage, for early, fruitful marriage… and they are not married.”
Unmarried kids frittering away their most fertile years … the horror! Much tragedy!
But don’t worry ... Vaughn has thoroughly searched the Scriptures to determine what marriage is and how it should be realized. According to Ohlman, “the general purpose of marriage is to glorify God by fulfilling His dominion mandate, to the end that the whole earth may be filled with the knowledge of His glory. God created marriage because it was not good that man be alone; and so He provided a wife as a help meet and for mutual companionship, producing godly seed, and rejoicing in one another physically. Marriage is a training ground for raising up Godly elders, a reflection of the picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church, a vehicle for the blessings of God, and is the God-given bulwark against fornication.”
Vaughn was apparently so concerned that his own children might fornicate, he arranged for the early marriage of all six kids ... starting with his oldest son, Joshua.
You can read the edited version of the betrothal of Vaughn-the-Patriarch’s son, Joshua, to Andrew-the-Patriarch’s daughter, Laura only two hours after the young couple were allowed to meet in person here. Just to give you a taste of how petty and ridiculous these dads are, here’s a quick quote from the would-be-amusing-if-it-were-only-a-joke betrothal story:
[Only] one roadblock remained. Andrew, and his daughter, were paedo-baptists. Vaughn, and his son, were credo-baptists. The elders on both sides were clear: they expressed it differently, they had different objections, but they certainly did not approve.
But Andrew and Vaughn were both also clear. They would both rather have their children marry, even across a doctrinal divide, than to remain unmarried, barren, celibate. Unfruitful.
Better to marry Laura off to practically-heathen, wtf-kind-of-baptist Joshua than to waste one more minute of the kids’ potential fertility!
Aside from the ludicrous atavism of the Ohlman-Camp union, the couple did not obtain a marriage license.
This wedding had no minister to pronounce the two 'man and wife'. Indeed, we were not there for that. We were there to celebrate the coming together, physically, of a couple that had already been joined covenantally. A couple that was 'betrothed' in a similar sense to Mary and Joseph... or 'espoused' in the same sense that the church is to Christ.
This morning, I discovered that public outrage over Vaughn Ohlman’s plan to arrange the “marriage” of young, unconsenting girls for money via his “Get Them Married!” retreat has put him at the top of Ranked.com’s “Worst Person of the Week” list of people who have lowered the bar the most this week … a well-deserved dishonor.
Vaughn Ohlman is #1 ... Worst Person of the Week. Way to go, Von!
P.S., You're welcome for all that publicity. Any time you wanna think up another horrifically bad, bad idea involving young virgin girls and their daddies, I'll be sure to get the public's attention for you again.
Vyckie Garrison was once a minor celebrity in the Quiverfull Movement, made famous by TV’s Duggar family. As a devout, Bible-believing Christian and the mother of seven homeschooled children, Garrison spent 16 years, with her husband, publishing a newspaper for families on a similar path. Today, via a website called No Longer Quivering, she publishes resources for women leaving the movement.
(Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Laura Ohlman was 16 years old when she married Joshua Ohlman in 2013)
The media can’t seem to get its stories about Prince right. As the news feed overflows with stories with the word “Prince” and “addiction” in them, very few of them feature the word "chronic pain." Multiple reports mention that Prince had suffered from years with pain in his hips due to injuries racked up during his performances. His body wracked with pain, Prince relied on opiate pain medications to provide him some relief. And yet, even today, the stately New York Times features a long article about Prince seeking “help” with an "addiction."
Prince was not addicted to pain medication. Prince had a medical condition — chronic pain — which is criminally under-treated. It is also a medical problem that is more likely to be reacted to with stigma and condescension, even challenges about the patient's moral character, or, if male, masculinity. Pain is still the condition that we treat by telling its sufferers to just “suck it up," or “maintain a stiff upper lip,” or to stop acting like a “wuss.” And yet, when someone dies from complications of the disease — for that is what chronic pain is — we react with shock and pity and anger that the person died from a drug overdose. Some outlets make money off our confusion about overdose and medications and our fascination with drugs.
As early as 2009, reports surfaced that Prince was in chronic, debilitating pain. His friends reported that he was taking pain medication to try to control the constant, excruciating pain from damaged hips. The supposed conflict between Prince’ conversion to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and his ability to accept a blood transfusion -- should the need arise during hip replacement surgery -- was bandied about by the vultures who pose as gossip reporters. The idea that Prince would forego surgery in order to serve his faith contributed to the undercurrent that Prince was “weird.” Nevertheless, at least some news outlets report that Prince did have the double hip replacement surgery in 2010.
But it’s not just about how the media doesn’t understand how chronic pain works. They are also ignoring the realities of the impact of race upon the practice of medicine.
Into the mix must surely be added the element of race. Prince was a black man. Strong racial disparities in how doctors and other medical staff respond to pain in the emergency room has been documented. For example, a recent study published in one of the most prestigious pediatrics journals studied the treatment of appendicitis, a condition that is often initially suspected after a "chandelier test." In medical slang, if a doctor places her hand on the pain point in the lower abdomen affected by the pain of an inflamed appendix, the patient will try to jump up into the metaphoric chandelier on the ceiling above their head.
"Our findings suggest that there are racial disparities in opioid administration to children with appendicitis," wrote one of the lead researchers, Dr. Monika Goyal.
"Our findings suggest that although clinicians may recognize pain equally across racial groups, they may be reacting to the pain differently by treating black patients with nonopioid analgesia, such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen, while treating white patients with opioid analgesia for similar pain."
Similar studies have documented that African Americans’ chest pain is less likely to be diagnosed correctly as a heart attack. Other studies have attempted to measure whether African Americans have a "lower pain threshold." Similar studies about why women’s pain is not taken seriously in emergency rooms have also been produced.
Surgeries can fail to repair the issues that trigger intense pain. And they fail often. In medical conditions in which pain has been long-standing, scientific evidence suggests that the brain’s pain receptors “short out.” After a while, regardless of even whether the painful part of the body has been removed — as in amputations — the brain’s pain receptors continue to process signals that the body is under attack. Phantom limbs can cause severe pain. It does not make the pain fake. It is the brain that feels pain. And the brain can continue to experience pain even after surgery has been performed.
And yet, despite the evidence that Prince was being given Percocet for documented pain, the media narrative has shifted to a story in which Prince died of an overdose. An overdose is a self-inflicted wound. It's a moral judgment. That’s how we react to it. “He was such a talented actor. Why overdose?” Or, “She had such a powerful voice. But she was a demon for drugs.” That story allows us to distance ourselves, to see it as the fault of a weak personality, an “addictive” personality. It’s part of the mythos we create around talented folks. The idea that the truly gifted are also the ones in the worse psychological pain, and their psychological “weaknesses” make them ripe for drug addiction.
Prince is being pushed toward that precipice over which we have pushed Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michael Jackson and every other artist who has died from drugs in the past century — especially those who succumbed to heroin. But heroin and pain medication are not the same thing. Undoubtedly, some will gain fame for their discussions of the "abuse" of pain medication.
Chronic pain management requires, in most cases, the taking of strong, often-opiate based medications. ANY patient who takes these drugs on a daily basis will become “physically dependent” in a short time. Physical dependence is not addiction. Diabetics are physically dependent on insulin, and yet we do not call insulin an addictive drug. Without it, diabetics would die. Stopping pain medication that has been used for chronic pain can kill you if it’s done abruptly. Under a doctor’s care, a change in pain medication is handled on a strict schedule in which the body is weaned off one drug in order to either start a new medication, or to determine whether the body is reacting in a different way to the condition causing the pain.
I am not Prince. And yet, I know chronic pain from the inside. And I know how it is treated by cynical doctors who suspect that everyone is just trying to score.
My own experiences in hospital emergency rooms have involved being willing to go through several treatment options before being given the IV opiate medication that I need when I have a cluster headache. Cluster headaches are nicknamed “suicide headaches” by doctors, for good reason. The pain of cluster headaches has caused me to hallucinate, to have trouble breathing, and, of course, to wish for death. And yet, in the midst of a cluster headache, or its cousin, migraine, I have been interrogated by emergency room physicians who want to get me to admit that I am faking my symptoms while on a “drug-seeking” mission.
Prior to moving to the state of Florida in January, I had spent 23 years living in New York state. For the past nine years, I have suffered with migraines and clusters. During that time, I have been hospitalized for more than 24-hours seven separate times. I have had every diagnostic test available that might reveal why my head hurts so much. I have tried nearly every prophylactic treatment available. I have changed my diet. I avoid “triggers” that may cause a headache. I exercise, try to eat right, and wear prescription eyeglasses to make certain that it’s not eyestrain that make my migraines feel as if someone has inserted a bottle opener under my orbital bone and is trying to pry it out.
In New York, after all other treatments had failed, I was prescribed opiates. Yet, when I moved to Florida—which in a moral panic about its reputation as a state where it was easy to score drugs—has passed laws that make it near impossible for a family doctor to prescribe strong pain medications. Instead, I had to wait nearly two months to get in to see a specialist—in my case, a neurologist, who prescribes what I need. Triptans, the most common and effective way to treat migraine pain, are also expensive. My insurance company limits my triptans so that I can only use one of my pills for every three headaches I experience. Opiates are cheap. Guess which one my insurance company prefers to pay for?
Before the media narrative of the tortured genius who abused drugs takes over the story, there needs to be a pushback. Chronic pain patients should step forward and speak of their own experiences of living with the condition, and the constant barriers that are being thrown up to treatment. The latest obsession with white kids using heroin is stigmatizing those with chronic pain.
Chronic pain kills. It killed Prince. It's time to talk about it.
I’m slow sometimes, but after years of writing about abortion rights it finally occurred to me that “life begins at conception” is one more version of a multi-millennial infatuation with the penis as symbol and proof that manliness is next to godliness.
On the surface, conservative Evangelical and Catholic insistence that life begins at conception appears to be aimed at elevating the status of fetus over woman. But just beneath the surface, what it elevates is the status of the penis—and anyone who has one.
What creates the wonder of a new person? Forget about the maturation of germ cells, and the nine-month labor of a woman’s body, and painstaking parental nurture. It’s a sperm, a penile projectile shot forth by the ultimate organ of demi-divinity. Sperm penetrates egg and voila! A person! A new soul! All the extraordinary and unique value we accord to human life is created instantaneously.
Three Millennia of Penis Worship
Once noticed, the pattern is inescapable. Our ancestors thought that the penis was literally divine.
Dharmic cultures worshiped it by whacking stalactites and stalagmites out of caves and air-roots off of trees and carving phallic shapes out of granite by the thousands. Abrahamic cultures took the opposite approach and insisted the penis was so precious and powerful that it couldn’t be seen, even in art, and had to be chiseled off of statues or at least covered with fig leaves.
They also insisted that a man’s magic wand could permanently transform a female from one kind of being to another, from a prized “virgin” into a worthless “whore.” In medieval Catholicism’s recipe for sexual hang-ups, the prior touch of a penis (or lack thereof) became the most defining aspect of a woman’s identity, economic value, and moral virtue. Penis penetrates female and voila! No longer a whole person! The same magic wand that made her valuable could also do the reverse.
Same Old Same Old
Fundamentalists who are anchored to the Iron Age by sacred texts and patriarchal traditions still hold to this archaic view, though they may use updated terms like “licked lollypop” or “chewed gum”—and some do offer second chances through “born-again virginity.”
But at least in the West, millennials finally are catching on to how ridiculous the whole virginity thing is. As one Facebook meme put it recently, “I don’t believe in virginity. Why? Because nobody’s penis is important enough to change any part of my identity.”
The idea that a penis can permanently change a woman’s value and the idea that a penis can instantaneously create a new soul both derive from the idea that men uniquely, were made in the image of God and that the penis (circumcised, of course) is the supreme symbol of man’s divinely anointed headship. And once they are packaged together, the idea that life-begins-at-conception starts sounding as transparently male-aggrandizing and silly as the idea of virginity.
No You Didn’t Build That
Yes, the occasional sperm does end up inside an egg rather than a towel. And yes, sperm-penetrates-egg is a necessary – if insufficient – step in person formation. But the incredible process of making a new person begins long before conception and continues long after. To the trained eye, conception is no more or less magnificent—or critical—than the creation of the egg or the sperm itself, or of the many stages of transformation that come after.
In the subconscious of a patriarchal male or religious institution intent on preserving privilege, the claim that a penis can create a new person—or better yet, a new soul, almost ex nihilo—may flow naturally and logically from man’s god-like qualities and “rightful” dominance. But from an outside vantage the men making such claims seem rather like puffed up architects who scribble partial plans and then claim they build buildings. Nice fantasy, but in the real world both buildings and people get made one step at a time. Construction is slow and hard and takes teamwork.
Everything’s a Project
In the case of forming a new person, two bodies produce germ cells that independently hold half of a biological blueprint. If each half works well enough and they meet, then a woman’s body starts the structural engineering to determine whether the design actually works. For very good reasons, the answer usually is no; the engineering team rejects the project and dumps it into the porcelain circular file. Most embryonic humans get booted out so fast that nobody even knows they existed. If and when engineering gives the preliminary go-ahead, a woman’s whole body gears up to start building a person. Her circulatory system pumps up blood flow. Her bones and teeth transfer calcium to the construction site. Her digestive system demands enough food for two.
Not only is the process slow and costly—like any construction project, it’s dangerous. Eight hundred American women die every year from pregnancy. Around the world, it’s that many every day. Most of us survive the project, but we do endure nausea and swollen ankles and fatigue, and irreversible wear and tear. When we women choose to incubate a child, which we often do quite gladly, we do so knowing our bodies and lives will never again be the same.
So, patriarchs, love your orgasms all you like, but don’t fall for the weirdly puffed up idea that they make babies. Penis power is solely limited to fertilizing eggs. And a fertilized egg is a fertilized egg—no less, no more.
Real Fatherhood
Silly willy worship aside, many men deserve real credit for making children, because they take on the actual parenthood project in a deep and devoted way. Wanting to be good parents of healthy children, they wear condoms till the time is right, put their lives in order, bring home prenatal vitamins, and make peanut butter sandwiches in the middle of the night.
When pregnancy ends, they endure labor vicariously (yes vicarious pain hurts), anxiously awaiting the slimy little creature that will spill out in a puddle of blood. Labor over, they gingerly hold a sweet-smelling, flannel-wrapped burrito and look into eyes that are seeing the world for the first time and fall in love.
Back in the home they have helped to create, they wipe spit-up off shirts and go to work bleary-eyed when illness strikes and a child can’t sleep. In better times, they get down on the rug and play pretend and read stories even though maybe—just once in a while—they’d rather be playing video games or reading the Times. They understand that making something as wonderfully complex as a fully-fledged, thriving person takes everything a parent can give for decades, and they give it.
Name It
Conception worship is willy worship. It diminishes fatherhood by trivializing the many other parts of themselves that men can and do bring to the process of creating a new person—heart and mind, labor and love. And it diminishes all of motherhood.
So, if you’re one of the guys who either is or intends to be a real father—please call out posers who think themselves endowed with some divine instrument that can turn an egg into a precious little person. And if you would, while you’re at it, you could do us women a favor by calling out the equally-ludicrous conceit that the touch of a penis turns a female from one kind of being into another. Men don’t have magic wands in their pants—just body parts, and exaggerating the power of your dick just makes you one.
With the triumph of Trump the media are now going into Deep Navel Gazing Mode. This is what they do whenever the conventional wisdom is upended as it has been this week.
In the New York Times there have already been two mea culpas (here and here) and one j'accuse.
Each of these accounts has merit. But what none seem to acknowledge is that the fundamental reason they got the outcome of the election wrong is that the model they carry around in their pockets is based on homo economicus -- rational man -- and he don't exist.
Trump's comments seemed insane to them as they would to any rational person. But the average voter is not rational. Voters go on instinct. And instinct is not rational, a point I have made over and over again.
You may be thinking that you didn't fall for Trump so therefore I'm wrong. But we are all irrational, if we're honest with ourselves. We are just irrational in different ways and to different degrees. Trump's appeals aren't going to resonate with people whose fundamental outlook is liberal. So he's not going to take in someone likely to be reading this blog. But liberals like me have our own blindspots.
Think back to the election of 2004 and the reaction of liberals to John Edwards. If you remember at that point he seemed very appealing, especially after he emphasized his working-class roots and his concern for the poor. How refreshing! What we didn't admit was that we also seemed to be enchanted with his looks. Like the irrational voters who fell for John Kennedy because he was charismatic, liberals (me too) fell for Edwards. It's hard to resist a politician who is both articulate and handsome who spouts views with which you agree.
Ah, you may be thinking, but what about 2016? This year liberals fell hard for an old man who's often kind of cranky. But the same irrationality was at work. This just happened to be a year when the anti-politician was cool. And nobody has seemed more anti-politician than Sanders. His age didn't work against him, it worked for him. It insulated him from the charge that he was just another ambitious career politician. His supporters haven't cared that his policy numbers don't pencil out, as the economists say. What mattered was that his heart was in the right place.
In short, we are all irrational, even when we try hard not to be. I thought the pundits finally were getting it. Alas, they still by and large seem clueless.
If you are a regular reader of my Facebook posts or this blog none of what I'm saying here is going to strike you as new. If, on the other hand, you have not been reading my posts, what I am saying must sound downright subversive.
Donald Trump now faces no serious rival in his campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. As the party comes to terms with the news, three experts take the measure of his chances.
Republican meltdown, Democratic opportunity
Inderjeet Parmar, City University London
Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the Indiana primary election, coupled with the withdrawal of his principal rival, Ted Cruz, has made him the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. It has exposed a deeply divided Republican party whose leadership has lost all credibility and whose conservative philosophy, which it has held dear since 1980, is in tatters. The party’s very survival is now uncertain.
This near-apocalypse has been years in the making. The Tea Party insurgency has badly undermined both state and national party elites, driving the GOP further to the right and electing highly ideological congressmen and senators who refused to compromise with the Obama administration – not least Cruz, who defied the GOP leadership and forced the US government into a total shutdown in 2013.
But this collapse is also the fruit of decades of economic deterioration of the party’s white working-class voters, especially those without a college education. Compounded by the 2008 financial crisis, decades of deindustrialisation have left a legacy of unemployment, underemployment, falling living standards and expanding social and economic inequality. This has also hit middle-income Republicans hard. Many of them now support higher taxes on corporations and the very wealthy and back some kind of redistribution of income and wealth.
This is a rejection of the core principles of the Reaganite conservative consensus: low taxes, free markets, welfare cuts, laissez-faire government. Trump has also shown that social conservatism is not a prerequisite for victory in the GOP primaries, another blow to the party’s Reagan-era principles.
And so, is the GOP leadership left with no choice but to get behind Trump? There have been recent overtures. Some GOP stalwarts responded noticeably warmly to Trump’s first “serious” foreign policy speech, and Karl Rove’s well-funded campaign organisation has reportedly indicated that if necessary, it would back Trump against Hillary Clinton.
But Cruz’s verdict on Trump, which is shared by a majority of Republican voters, speaks to just how toxic the GOP’s presumptive nominee really is. “This man is a pathological liar, he doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies … in a pattern that is straight out of a psychology textbook, he accuses everyone of lying,” said Cruz on the threshold of the Indiana vote. “Whatever lie he’s telling, at that minute he believes it … the man is utterly amoral”.
The GOP civil war is unlikely to abate any time soon – and that’s a boon to Clinton. The big question now is whether Clinton can turn the other party’s crisis into the Democrats' opportunity. She must now fashion a message that inspires and unites her party for the general election – even as Bernie Sanders, her flagging but still formidable opponent, continues to win states and vows to continue his campaign against the party’s establishment.
Trump won the battle: can he win the war?
Leighton Vaughan Williams, Nottingham Trent University
Donald Trump has been declared the Republican Party’s nominee for the presidency of the United States – and for once, not only by himself. This victory defies all the laws of political gravity.
The traditional Republican way is to elect the establishment’s chosen candidate, generally someone who has served the party faithfully and well – and preferably someone plausibly electable against the Democrats' standard bearer. The nominee is expected to stick to mainstream conservative principles and to be broadly acceptable to those pulling the strings at Fox News.
Trump fails all these tests. And with his signature blend of populism, provocation and spectacle, he has driven the party into a schism, pitting conservative against conservative.
In the immediate wake of the Indiana result the audience of Fox news was treated to a downcast debate between the network’s two principal conservative voices, Bill O’Reilly and Charles Krauthammer. While O’Reilly tried to defend Trump as a misunderstood populist hero, Krauthammer declared himself implacably opposed to a man he declared was not a true conservative and who could not be trusted to defend conservative values.
The party shows no sign of being ready to unite behind Trump. The Hill, an influential political newspaper published in Washington DC, has even provided a list of Republicans who have declared on the record that they simply will not back him. The list is long, and includes some very influential conservative names.
These horrified “NeverTrumpers”, who’ve been pushing their own #NeverTrump hashtag, are all too aware that nominating “The Donald” would not only betray the party’s core principles, but possibly doom the GOP to electoral catastrophe. Disgusted conservatives might well decline to vote at all. That would contaminate Republican candidates across the country; the party would probably lose control of the Senate, and perhaps even of the House of Representatives.
So what exactly are Trump’s chances against Hillary Clinton? The Real Clear Politics average of the most recent half dozen polls has Clinton leading Trump by an average of 6.2% in a hypothetical (and now very likely) match-up.
Take out the poll by the Rasmussen firm, which has a very chequered history – not least projecting a Mitt Romney victory on the eve of the 2012 election – and Clinton leads by 7.8%.
The respected Sabato Crystal Ball project at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics offers another perspective. This uses expert judgement on a state-by-state level to assess the likely number of electoral votes that would be won in a match-up between Clinton and Trump.
The best estimate offered, as of today, is a projected 347 votes for Hillary Clinton in the electoral college, with 191 going to Donald Trump. A total of 270 votes is required to win the presidency. By way of comparison, Barack Obama won 332 electoral votes in 2012 to 206 for Mitt Romney.
The betting and prediction markets tell a broadly similar tale.
Finally, let’s look to the PollyVote project, which combines evidence derived from polls, expert judgement and prediction markets, plus a few other indicators, to provide an overall forecast of the likely outcome in November. As of today, the PollyVote predicts the Democrats to obtain 53.3% of the two-party popular vote, compared to 46.7% for the Republicans.
Trump stands today at the top of the Republican tree. He has won the battle. He will find it much harder to win the war.
Insurmountable obstacles
Matthew Ashton, Nottingham Trent University
Now that Trump has vanquished his Repubican rivals he can start setting out his stall for the general election and perhaps trying to pivot to the centre ground. But as a presidential candidate, his flaws are glaringly apparent.
Trump has burnt an unprecedented number of bridges within the GOP. Primary races are normally fairly rough-and-tumble affairs, but Trump has taken name-calling and mud-slinging to a whole new level. Given the level of vitriol he unleashed, it is difficult to imagine many of this year’s failed candidates enthusiastically endorsing him, as usually happens once a presumptive nominee emerges. This might in turn make finding a credible vice-presidential candidate difficult.
Equally, given some of his exceptionally provocative remarks, Trump will struggle to appeal to crucial voting groups – Latinos, African-Americans and women in particular. He’ll also struggle to attract independent and moderate voters while holding on to his more angry radical supporters.
In terms of organisation, Trump currently has quite a weak ground game. One of the reasons Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney back in 2012 was the fact that he arguably had the best campaign machine in history. While Hillary Clinton will inherit some of that equipment to augment her already formidable primary operation (and perhaps some of Bernie Sanders’s too), Trump is essentially starting from scratch. He’s shown the ability to adapt politically, but building a serious machine requires a lot of effort very quickly.
To compound all this, Trump will now come in for a lot more personal scrutiny. One of the arguments in favour of the primary system is that it means the eventual nominee will have been thoroughly vetted by the party establishment and media. But apart from in one or two cases, notably the brief flurry of stories about Trump University, they’ve given Trump a relatively easy ride on his record. With the Democrats prepared for the general election fight, that is going to change.
None of these obstacles are insurmountable, but they will demand monumental organisation and discipline. So far, Trump has demonstrated neither. And his temper and natural instinct to defend by attacking might be his biggest downfall.
While John Kasich garners more attention from the press for quitting his campaign than he ever did while stumping for president, here at Raw Story, we've gathered together a sort of greatest hits collection of the candidate's most awkward moments.
Choosing a single favorite was too difficult; thus, we offer an EP's worth of cringe-worthy moments from his aborted suspended campaign.
Pink Floyd fans wondered if they had landed on the dark side of the moon when Kasich promised to re-unite the band during an interview with CNN.
“And if I’m president, I’m am going to once and for all try to reunite Pink Floyd to come together and play a couple of songs,” he continued. “And since we have so much trouble in America with our finances, I’m going to start with a little song they created called ‘Money’.”
Kasich, who once vowed to ban teachers' lounges if he were king of the world, started musing about his love of Pink Floyd while explaining that "The Wall" was the best concert he had ever been to.
[caption id="attachment_779318" align="alignnone" width="615"] John Kasich gives a Bible lesson to Jewish voters in Brooklyn (YouTube/screen grab)[/caption]
“The great link between the blood that was put above the lamp posts,” he said, seemingly unaware that “lamp posts” were not in the Passover story. “The blood of the lamb, because Jesus Christ is known as the lamb of God. It’s his blood, we believe…" Raw Story reported.
In the Middle Ages, Christian clerics whipped up anti-Jewish hysteria by claiming that Jews were so envious of Christians that they ritually murdered Christian children. During Passover, it was claimed, Jews added blood to the matzoh to turn it into the Eucharist.
Samantha Bee, at Full Frontal, jumped all over his mangling of the Passover story during his "Birthright" tour of Brooklyn, "where he rained down condescension like a plague of frogs falling from the sky," before playing the clip of the "Blood on the Lamp posts" explanation from Kasich.
"Whaaat? Did John Kasich just fan fiction Jesus into 'the Passover?' Then, as she explains to Kasich why you don't talk about Christ's blood during Passover, woodcuts depicting Simon of Trent, a ritual murder accusation against the Jews living in Trent in 1475 whipped up by unhinged Franciscan cleric Bernardino da Feltre.
In another moment where Kasich alienated the very people he was attempting to woo, he declared that his campaign was running off the labor of "women who left their kitchens to go out and go door to door and to put yard signs up for me."
Perhaps realizing that referring to women in their kitchens wouldn't play well in 2016, Kasich quickly added that things had been different when he first ran for elected office. The fact that Kasich had just signed a bill, the weekend before this campaign stop, de-funding Planned Parenthood in Ohio, made for awkward questions from women in the audience. The backhanded longing for the days when women only ventured out from their kitchens to support his campaign combined with the de-funding of an organization that contributes to female independence revealed Kasich to be less "moderate" than his campaign staff had been painting him.
Kasich offered rape-prevention tips to a young woman at a campaign stop in Watertown, New York when she asked him for his plan as president to make her "feel safer ... [from] sexual violence, harassment, and rape."
"I will give you one bit of advice. Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol," Kasich said. He also pointed out to her that rape kits and counseling service were available to rape victims.
And while it would be possible to continue the greatest hits to compile an LP, this playlist will stop with this last one. Kasich offered a plan to defeat ISIS (daesh) when Salon reported that he wanted to broadcast propaganda as a means of defeating "the darkness."
“We need to beam messages around the world about what it means to have a Western ethic, to be a part of a Christian-Judeo society,” Kasich said in an interview Tuesday with NBC News, announcing his plan to create a new federal agency tasked with supporting the Jewish and Christian traditions around the world. Kasich said his new agency would have a “clear mandate to promote core Judeo-Christian, Western values that we and our friends and allies share."
The question of whether real estate mogul Donald Trump will be the Republican Presidential nominee is yet to be determined, but the assumption is that Trump, if nominated, would lose the election in a landslide, taking the Republican Party down with him.
Some observers think he would lose so badly, that he could be one of the worst defeated Presidential nominees in American history, but that requires an analysis, state by state, of the likelihood of a total disaster. If one does that, it is clear that Trump would NOT be defeated by a political “earthquake,” and under the “right” circumstances, such as a major economic collapse, or a major terrorist attack such as September 11, could conceivably win the Presidency, as horrible as that thought is. But assuming no earthshaking event, here is one historian and political pundit’s view on the election.
If we examine the nation section by section, it seems clear that Trump would have little chance of winning the New England states or the Middle Atlantic States, with the exception of, in a major shock, the state of New York. Trump, being a native New Yorker who has played a major role in New York matters, despite his being controversial, COULD win the Empire State and its 29 electoral votes. He would be likely to win upstate and Long Island, but the issue is could he overcome the New York City Democratic stronghold? Let’s assume he wins New York. The rest of the Northeast would be unlikely to go to Trump. So figure one Northeastern state by a close margin and 29 electoral votes.
When we reach the Southern states, it is possible to imagine that Trump would win South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky, which would give him a total of 62 electoral votes. Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia would be harder to win for Trump, due to their growing Latino population and would be likely to go to Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, Texas would be easier for Trump to win, although the Latino population is growing, but not enough to stop the Republican nominee, so if Trump won Texas, he would have 38 more electoral votes. Florida is much more of a battleground, but seems likely to go to the Democrats once again. So figure nine Southern and Border states in the Trump column and 100 electoral votes, and Hillary Clinton would carry two states, North Carolina, and Georgia, won by Mitt Romney in 2012, along with Virginia and Florida, won by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Now to the Midwest, where Trump could win Indiana and Missouri for certain, but unlikely to win the upper Midwestern states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, or Illinois. Ohio would be a battleground, but seems likely to go Democratic once again, with Iowa also staying “Blue.” But gaining Indiana and Missouri would add 21 electoral votes to Trump, and a total of two states in the Midwest, and close races can be expected in many of the other states in the area. And in the Great Plains states, it seems possible to believe that all five of them—North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma—would go to Trump, adding 24 electoral votes to the total. So in the broad midsection of the nation, we could see a total of seven states added to Trump’s total and 45 electoral votes.
As we move to the Mountain West, it seems rational to say that Trump would win Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, while losing Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, but with the five states mentioned, it would add 27 electoral votes to Trump, as would Alaska with its 3 electoral votes, making a grand total in the Mountain West of 30 electoral votes in the Trump column. But Trump would have no chance of carrying the Pacific Coast states, which would remain “Blue”—California, Oregon, Washington State and Hawaii.
Overall, Trump COULD win 23 states to the Democrats’ 27. The electoral vote total would be 334-204 in Hillary Clinton’s favor. The only gains for the Democrats would be North Carolina and Georgia, and the only loss would be New York. That means 31 electoral votes gained and 29 lost, so Clinton would win two more electoral votes than Barack Obama did in 2012, when the final totals were 332-206.
So Donald Trump would lose the Presidency, but would not be “wiped out” in the Electoral College, actually make it similar to what Mitt Romney gained in 2012, and better than John McCain did in 2008. And Trump would only carry “Red” states, with the exception of New York being the one unusual case due to Trump being a lifetime resident of the state. Of course, that would be a major slap in the face of Hillary Clinton on her way to the Presidency, and it is likely that the popular vote would be very close in the Empire State. The popular vote percentage would likely be 53-47 nationally, with the fact that the larger states in population would be primarily Democratic, except for New York and Texas. So all the “swing” states would continue as “Blue” and North Carolina and Georgia would be added to the status of “swing” states.
Were Ted Cruz to end up as the Republican Presidential nominee, the math would be different in a negative way, as Cruz would NOT carry New York, but everything else would be the same as this pundit projects, so that would mean an Electoral College vote of 363-175, a more substantial victory for Hillary Clinton, basically two-thirds of the electoral votes, similar to Barack Obama in 2008, and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.
And if Governor John Kasich were to be the nominee, again the math would be different, with Kasich winning Ohio, his home state, but losing New York, changing the math to 345-193 for Hillary Clinton. So one “swing” state would go “Red” for its “favorite son.”
To sum up: Trump would do the best, followed by Kasich and Cruz, with Trump and Kasich winning 23 states and Cruz 22 states. However, IF Trump were to run as an independent third party candidate, or if some conservative Republican were to run against Trump on an independent third party line, then the situation would be even more disastrous for the GOP, and would insure that the Democrats would win by an even bigger margin of electoral votes. With a third party on the Right, it is possible to believe that Hillary Clinton would retain New York, and have a good chance of gaining Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, and Montana at the least, adding 64 electoral votes to her total of 334, making the number at least 398, with a total of 32 states. This would leave the Republicans and an independent candidate dividing just 140 electoral votes and 18 states.
So expect a somewhat competitive race, but no chance of Trump winning 270 electoral votes, unless there is a catastrophic event. The same would apply to Kasich and Cruz. The dominance of the Democrats over the Electoral College would be solidified, and last into the long term future, as long as the Republican Party does not reform its image of being racist, nativist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, and anti environment. And the likelihood of the dissolution of the Republican Party as we know it is highly likely, if Trump is in the race, either as the GOP nominee or as an independent third party candidate, or someone else runs as his opponent on an independent line.
Donald Trump could actually be the next president. Just let that sink in.
This is a man who actively demeans women, has encouraged violence at his campaign rallies, would ban all Muslims from entering the US and recently seemed undisturbed by an endorsement from a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. And yet Trump, a political outsider, is poised to grasp the highest office in the land.
It was never supposed to happen. But here we are. Tonight in Indiana, in the primary that nobody thought would matter, the thing that nobody thought possible a year ago, is really coming to pass. Donald Trump is going to clinch the Republican nomination. He is really winning, like he always says. Only it’s not a joke or catchy mantra – it’s reality.
And even he seems to understand how absurd that is. “It’s been an unbelievable day and evening and year,” Trump said at the beginning of his acceptance speech.
Unbelievable is one word for it.
After the race was called from Trump on Tuesday night, Ted Cruz, the only thing standing between him and the nomination, suspended his campaign.
This was never supposed to happen. Early polling had showed a tight race between Trump and Cruz. And Cruz had thrown everything he had at the contest, from money, to a newsy presidential pick and a non-aggression pact with John Kasich. Even up until tonight’s election, insiders continued to insist that delegate math protect the party from Trump’s nomination.
But suddenly with Cruz’s announcement, the specter of a contested convention fell away and the Republican primary was a one-man show. One big, orange, frightening one-man show.
Beaming at his audience on stage in the Trump Tower, he heaped lavish praise on people he’s disparaged the most, from women – he’s called them “dogs” and “fat pigs” – to Cruz himself, whom he recently declared “everyone hates.”
“He is a tough smart competitor”, Trump said of Cruz, a man he’d earlier said that everyone hates. Nevermind what’s honest, Trump has never been concerned with that .
The relationship between the two men has always been politically transparent , and tonight was no exception. After all, Trump will need to win over Cruz’s evangelical base if he’s ever going to beat Hillary Clinton in a general election. So with Cruz out of the race, he went from being Trump’s Opponent-in-Chief to being his Ally-in-Chief.
Not everyone’s on-board (Cruz, in one of his last acts as a presidential candidate, nuked the billionaire real estate mogul as a “pathological liar”), but it doesn’t matter anymore.
With all 57 of Indiana’s delegates under his belt, Trump has a breezy path to the 1,237 count he needs to steer clear of a contested convention in Cleveland this summer. And he doesn’t have an opponent in sight.
Indiana was the moment when Cruz said that, if Trump wins again, “America will plunge into the abyss.” Maybe he was right – November is still a long way off.
Meanwhile the new normal in America is a strange reality indeed. Donald Trump is winning and nobody – not Ted Cruz nor the entire Republican party working in concert (remember the #NeverTrump crusade?), can stop him.
This spring, over 2,000 Washington insiders, journalists and Hollywood elite filtered into the ballroom of the Washington Hilton to attend the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner.
The first comedian to perform for the group was Mark Russell in 1983. His political songs were full of puns, satire and mugging to the crowd. He was funny and sharp, but hardly biting.
The same cannot be said for this past weekend’s comedian-in-chief, Larry Wilmore, the black host of Comedy Central’s “The Nightly Show.” Wilmore began his routine by dubbing President Obama’s opening act and his own “Negro Night.”
Wilmore ended his routine by emotionally describing the historical significance of the first African-American president before saying, “Words alone do me no justice. So, if I’m going to keep it 100 – Yo, Barry, you did it my n-gga.”
Some in the audience shrieked, others laughed and many murmured. To use the term to refer to the president of the United States was a huge risk, and The Twitterverse lit up seconds after Wilmore uttered it.
Former White House staffer Van Jones said the comment was “disgraceful” and he’d never appear on any show hosted by Wilmore.
Meanwhile, activist Al Sharpton called it offensive and in “poor taste.”
As a person who studies media representations of diverse people across time, I generally find the term objectionable. Still, in this one case, I’m OK with it. And it’s not simply due to the standard trope “He can say it, he’s black.” I excuse Wilmore because in this case, the “n-word” triggered a rare code shift for Obama – a breath of blackness that we have rarely seen from the president over the past eight years.
In this brief moment, Wilmore was able to connect with the president in a way that no previous headliner had. He also highlighted a type of tension that all African-Americans – including President Obama – can relate to: that being black and “being black” are two different things.
Navigating tricky terrain
Afterwards, Wilmore pounded his chest and pointed at the president. In response, the president thumped his own chest. With this gesture, Obama acknowledged his brotherhood with Wilmore, another black man from Chicago.
Black America has long had its own lexicon of coded language and symbols. But people of color that succeed in corporate or political life tend to pick up and drop the mannerisms, symbols or words that they have grown up with.
The phenomenon, known as code switching, can be thought of as acting differently in different situations. And to assimilate with those who wield power, we often feel pressured to be like them.
For example, historically, blacks in the workplace have felt pressure to change the way they dress, do their hair and even greet each other to make their presence more palatable to coworkers.
Sociologist Chandra Waring has noted that the ability to code switch can be an asset for black Americans. It’s part of how many blacks navigate American society: yielding to the expectations of the dominant culture, while still retaining credibility with other blacks.
While it’s unfortunate, there is a comfort that people of color give to white America by temporarily eliminating the affectations that can come with our culture. Since ascending to the presidency, Obama has rarely been seen connecting with his black constituents this way. After all, as president, he’s supposed to represent all of America. Regrettably, that has tended to mean defaulting to the white majority.
Being president while black
Every now and then, however, we’ll see President Obama being black. There was, of course, the famous campaign trail fist bump with Michelle in 2008. Then there were the different handshakes he deployed during a locker room meet and greet – one for a white guy and one for black basketball star Kevin Durant.
Certainly Obama’s singing Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” at a fundraiser at Harlem’s Apollo Theater was far more soulful than it would have been in a different setting, with a predominately white audience. And the president’s speech that culminated with a touching performance of “Amazing Grace” could have happened only in a Charleston church touched by racially charged violence.
Wilmore knows what all black men know: There are at least two guys lurking under the surface.
And after more than seven years, Wilmore wanted to be honest about it in a way that, while toeing a line between acceptable and objectionable, was culturally familiar.
Of course, the president had pulled off his own code switch at the end of his standup routine.
“Obama out,” he said, kissing the peace sign and dropping the mic.
In the final year of his administration, he reminded the room that even though eight years in the Oval Office may have aged him, he was still the cool black guy from Chicago.
And with Wilmore’s code switch, he was able to tell a president that has been criticized for being both “too black” and “not black enough” that black men are proud to be his brothers.
