Who is Most Likely to Beat Trump in 2020 - Biden or Bernie?

Super Tuesday has come and gone, and Democrats are now at a crossroads.

There's Joe Biden, the 77-year old lifelong Senator, two-term Vice President, and three-time Democratic candidate for President who, until February 29, 2020, had never won a single presidential primary or caucus. Why? Well, let's just say he's had some challenges communicating this ideas effectively. He's considered the "moderate" in the race - basically an extension of the Obama administration.

Then there's Bernie Sanders, the 78-year old Senator, mayor, and proud Democratic Socialist who narrowly lost his 2016 bid for President because, according to him and many of his followers, the establishment robbed him of the Democratic nomination. He's on the campaign trail again, and while he was on top recently looking like he was going to lock the nomination, a vast majority of Democrats in South Carolina - and then throughout the country on Super Tuesday - sent a message that they were not comfortable with his revolutionary message and policy prescriptions.

Biden and Bernie are currently neck-and-neck in the delegate count, and have a debate coming up, where each candidate will have an opportunity to try to knock the other one out without seeming like they're trying to do just that. And because Democrats care a lot about identity, it's hard to forget that they're both old, white men. Which for some is offensive, and for others, a sigh of relief.

Yet, one of them will beat Donald Trump in the fall of 2020. Or, neither will. Either way, Democrats have made it clear that their number one objective is to beat Trump in 2020, and the ideology of the candidate comes second. Given this, I'm going to attempt to outline what I see as the pros and cons for each candidate, providing a guide for voters who want to remove Trump from office.

Why Joe Biden is the Best Bet to Defeat Trump

• Every Democratic candidate who became President in modern times has been from the "moderate" wing of the party. 
• Biden has proven through the primaries to-date that he is able to re-assemble the "Obama coalition" that led Obama to victory twice in the modern era. 
• Biden has proven that the pivotal "black vote" (ugh, so racial) will come out for him because that community seems to appreciate his support for Obama. 
• Biden is Catholic, and Catholics have historically been swing voters in pivotal swing states.
• The majority of "Never-Trump Republicans" will vote for Biden, but will not vote for Bernie. 
• Joe has demonstrated - in South Carolina and nine additional Super Tuesday states - that his personal brand is powerful enough to overcome virtually no ground game, virtually no ad buys, virtually no events, and a slew of gaffes. That's some powerful MoJo(e). 
• Joe is not naturally charismatic in the classic sense, however, his heart is charismatic. People tend to believe that Joe is a nice guy (Bernie's words!), even if they don't know everything about him. This helps him be more bullet-proof from attacks. This was on clear display during the early debates in 2019 when other Democrats went after him, their polls took a hit, not his. This bodes well for Trump's only political tactic - attacks. 

Why Bernie Sanders is the Best Bet to Defeat Trump

• Bernie has a clear, unapologetic voice that cuts through the normal political banter. His genuine tone and style will make Trump look like the unscrupulous used-car salesman he comes off as. 
• Bernie has a bold vision to make far more Americans safe, healthy, and happy than any other candidate in modern times. This could drive voter turn-out in ways not seen before. 
• Bernie has proven that he, like Trump, can create a super-passionate "base" - and this will be best fought as a base-vs.-base election.
• Unlike Biden, Democrats won't be collectively holding their breath, praying that Bernie doesn't say something that doesn't make any sense.
• Bernie thinks the political and economic status quo is evil. Like Trump, anger and frustration with the "establishment" (Bernie) or "swamp" (Trump) is what truly animates voters in this day and age. Trump proved this in 2016, and the only way to win in 2020 is to go toe-to-toe with this kind of campaign. 
• Bernie has proven that he can energize the Latino vote. This rapidly expanding demographic is increasingly key to electoral success. 
• Bernie's staff and followers can get down-and-dirty in ways that are atypical for Democrats. In order to beat Trump's unsavory tactics and fan base, Democrats need to come to a gun-fight with guns, not woke toothbrushes.
• In an era where the candidates who yell the loudest get the most attention, Bernie's yelling is far more coherent and intelligent than Biden's...or Trump's. 

Why Joe Biden is Not Fit to Defeat Trump

• My 82-year old father who suffered a stroke sounds more coherent at times than Joe does. How can we expect someone who rarely can successfully stitch three sentences together to win an argument with Donald Trump in a debate? 
• Almost all of Biden's rationale for becoming President is based on what he did - not what on what he plans to do.  "I signed that!" "I did that!" "That was me!" are continual refrains during debates. It's small, petty, and exhausting. 
• Biden has a son, Hunter, who got a high-paying gig at Burisma in Ukraine clearly based on his relationship to his father, and Republicans are aiming to link Biden's successful push to oust the Ukrainian prosecutor that was investigating Burisma. And, stunningly, Biden has yet to come up with a decent rebuttal to this charge. 
• There aren't enough Never-Trump Republicans to help Biden overcome the high probability that Sanders supporters will sit on their hands (or vote third party again if given the chance) on election day. 
• Biden is part of the "establishment" which increasing numbers of Americans are sick of. They think of all of these people -- Hillary, Biden, Bill, and to an extent, Obama -- as being lapdogs to the status quo, and the passive enablers of the Republican agenda.  No bold strokes - just foolhardy conciliation with Republicans. Democrats are frustrated by Obama's lack of impact, and don't need his VP continuing a lackluster "can't we all just get along?" misguided administration. 
• Biden has decades and decades of votes (especially for the Iraq War) that gives the appearance that he has terrible judgement. And his excuses for this vote are almost as bad as the vote itself. 

Why Bernie Sanders is Not Fit to Defeat Trump

• The best historic precedent for a Bernie Sanders candidate is George McGovern (lost in a landslide in 1972) and, far more recently, James Corbyn (lost in a landslide in the UK in 2019).
• Bernie is already famous for being the first popular (Democratic) Socialist candidate in modern times, and polls show that Americans have no appetite for a socialist message, even if they like many policies that come from the socialist playbook. 
• In the four years since he last ran for President, Bernie has not demonstrated that he's been able to connect with the black community in a meaningful way. And the black community has been a linchpin to electoral victory in recent successful Democratic campaigns.
• Bernie will drive swing-voters to Trump, and has proven in the primaries that he is not, in fact, able to bring out a surge of young liberals to compensate. 
• Bernie has decided to lose swing-state Florida due to Castro compliments, and to lose new-swing-state Pennsylvania by standing firm on banning fracking (removing over 300k jobs in PA alone).
• Bernie has not shown any interest in moderating his tone or approach to gain favor with the vast number of moderate Democrats. Politics is a game of addition, and Bernie seems to be playing a game of subtraction - especially when he accuses his competitors of being "funded by corporations and billionaires." As if to say that corporations that employ 38% of the American workforce are evil. Or when he says that health insurance companies will be made illegal - putting millions of people out of jobs. This is not how you gain favor to win a majority in a popular vote. 
• The Latino vote that Bernie has been so good at attracting doesn't show up in enough swing states relative to the importance of the black vote.
• Bernie's political and economic revolution doesn't have the same firepower as it did four years ago, when we were still climbing out of the great recession. Coronavirus impact notwithstanding, the economy is simply doing far too well for the majority of voters to scrap the whole thing and go in on a more centrally planned, government-run system that takes huge industries out of the private sector. 

For Democrats, beating Donald Trump is super-important. So it's equally super-important for Democrats to be clear-eyed as to which candidate is the most fit to beat Trump in 2020. From my point of view, there are no easy answers. Each voter should open their eyes to the pros and cons of their preferred candidate and make sure that they stand up to the test of objective analysis.

Which contender do you think is best suited to take on Delusional Donny in the fall? Bumbling Biden or Socialist Sanders? What a selection!

It's the End of the World as We Know It, and I Feel Fine

Donald Trump: Political wrecking ball? Or Presidential innovator?
Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/

On January 20, 2017, Donald J Trump will be inaugurated as President of the United States. This very fact has about half the country in hysterics. This reaction is understandable -- Trump represents a substantial shift not just in policy, but in soul.

It's the soul bit that has Democrats (and a lot of independents) freaked out. Trump's soul is one of a victimized over-achiever: "Everyone underestimates me... but I'll show them!" It should not be surprising that a lot of Americans share this sentiment. In fact, Donald Trump is more or less a fantasy for Americans who feel like they're looked down upon by pop culture for not having "progressive" views, and see Trump's ascendancy as a vindication of their struggles.

Trump's soul has barreled through our body politic like a bull in a china shop. He flaunts the "One China" detente, threatens North Korea, dismisses the value of NATO, challenges America's animosity towards Vladimir Putin, attacks civil rights heroes like John Lewis, throws out the White House press corps, consistently says things that are patently false, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

It's Trump's flagrant disregard for political norms that worries the establishment class and those who do not support nor trust him. His style accentuates -- and perhaps exaggerates -- his policy formula for America.

So why do I feel fine?

Let me start by saying that I did not support nor vote for Donald Trump in the primary or general election. I am no Trump supporter. However, as much as I'm not a fan of his personal style or substance, I am a fan of innovation.

Wait -- Trump is an innovator? Well, not in the traditional sense. He's not creating Google or an iPhone for sure. But, he is -- perhaps sloppily and wrongheadedly -- innovating what it means to be an American President, which will have intended and unintended consequences. Put another way, Trump is someone who prefers to break things and then let the pieces reassemble. Inventors create something completely new, but innovators typically replace something old with something new. Trump's supporters voted him in precisely for the purpose to break things and those who oppose him voted, essentially, for the status quo. The problem is that the status quo was tilted toward benefiting those of status. And not enough people -- especially in the Rust Belt -- are part of the status movement anymore.

Even though my friends, family and I would have most likely benefited from the doubling down on the status quo, I can also see how any large, complex system (like the U.S. Government and the global world order) need to be reformed over time. And it's been a long, long time since fundamental political truths have been challenged and reformed. Even though the status quo has treated America well over the last five generations, it's undeniable that modern globalization and technology advancements have substantially shifted the winners and losers in the global economy. These global trends have not been primarily in America's favor.

Trump's bluster, propensity to make stuff up, persistent puffery, and Putin camaraderie should not be normalized and unsurprisingly turn off the majority of Americans. His need to perennially prove that he's not a loser, combined with his insatiable desire to be admired, makes many Americans feel like he's unfit temperamentally to be President, nevertheless Commander-in-Chief. Yet his independent nature combined with his complete disregard for norms, standards, and reverence may actually position him to lead painful-yet-necessary changes in the establishment thinking and institutions that are required to calibrate to the new world order we're facing. This, in essence, is what I mean by unintended innovation. I foresee much-needed innovation occurring during this presidency, even if amongst this innovation there is unnecessary destruction and disassembling of important developments in our civic society.

Or he could be a complete train wreck as President and ruin everything. Heck, he could accidentally send us to war -- or even worse, kick off a nuclear crisis. But it's not like we can undo the election. We are where we are, and I choose to focus on the potential upside. The media should at least be open to this potential upside even if they have their hands full with the abnormalities that defines normal now in Washington.

My fellow Americans: Since we have Donald Trump as President of the United States (yes, I typed that, and yes, I survived), I choose to embrace the possibility that this incredibly unlikely President fixes more things than he breaks (even if unintentionally) as this unique soul challenges our country in ways that we never expected.

Donald Trump Won: Here are the Five Things You Need to Know

Since the presidential election that led to Donald Trump's victory, we've learned that Democrats are apoplectic, establishment Republicans are aghast (but slowly coming around to their new party leader), and millions of Americans are elated that someone from outside the political establishment is going to shake up a broken political system, one way or another. 

The mainstream media will also happily navel gaze and tell you about liberal-elite bubbles that need to be burst and how Middle America is finally getting back at the establishment class for being ignored for decades. And, of course, you can learn all about how petrifying and/or a breath of fresh air President Donald Trump will be (although, you most likely will not hear both sides of this argument, thanks in large part to what is discussed in topic #5 below). 

All of the above are worthy of discussion, but if we only focus on the what's and don't invest in exploring some of the why's, we won't come away with the full understanding of what was behind Donald Trump's stunning victory. If we take the time to understand the why's, perhaps we can be better prepared to be active participants in our own society and future rather than being mere spectators and consumers of news.


1. The Democrats' Empathy Model Has Expired
Social liberals have historically had empathy for minority demographics in America - blacks, latinos, Muslims, Jews, and even Catholics earlier on when they were seen as the most unsavory immigrants. In modern politics, these communities were primarily urban in nature. As a result, the Democratic platform has signaled through rhetoric and symbolism that it is an urban-first party.

Yet, over the last several decades there has been a slow decline of the rural American experience, driven by the loss of jobs due to globalization and the constant churn of technology advancement -- punctuated by an increase in crime, drug abuse and, most importantly a loss of communal self-esteem. One can imagine how annoying it must be for rural voters to be living in increasingly hopeless towns across rural America only to hear Democrats -- the party that's supposed to care the most about the struggling citizen -- talk about economic and social issues primarily focused on urban and suburban voters.

It can be argued that because Clinton received over one million more votes than Trump there wasn't -- and isn't -- anything wrong with the party platform. However, because national elections are tied to the electoral college, Democrats will now be compelled to think about rural issues disproportionately to the population mix. Make no mistake: voters from Rust Belt tilted the balance that led to Donald Trump's legitimate election, ensuring that they become a strategic political block for as long as the current sociodemographics persist.

Further (and this may be controversial, but it must be addressed), Democrats' empathy seems to be completely blind to rural conservative voters. Whenever there are significant progressive social wins in our culture (i.e., gay marriage, transgender civil rights, the rights of the state winning over the rights of religious doctrine), there seems to be absolutely no plan to provide an on-ramp for those less urbane people who are not racists or bigots, but still get freaked out by these evolving values in their country. There is precious little Democratic energy expended in trying to understand and help those who feel like this is "no longer their country." Rather, Democrats, liberals, and progressives dance in the street and celebrate their civil rights wins, throwing salt in the cultural wound of at least 20-30% of the country (if not more). That's a lot of people who may agree with the Democrats' fiscal and government policies (i.e., Social Security, Medicare, environmental security, and foreign policy) who are instead turned off by a disregard for their slower adoption of progressive social values. Instead of helping them along the path of social justice, Democrats are seen as demonizing these people as racists, bigots, and deplorables who just need to get on board with social progress, like it or not. This is lazy, sloppy population management, and almost guarantees a backlash. Perhaps even a big-league backlash!

2. The Republican Fiscal Discipline Orthodoxy Has Expired
The election of Donald Trump is just as much a story of the failure of the Republican party as it is the Democratic party. Let's not forget that Trump bulldozed over sixteen Republican contenders in the primaries. Traditionally, Republicans have stood for fiscal discipline, small government values, a strong military, and pro-gun and pro-life policies. Because they too are in a bubble, they believed that these fundamental legs of their platform all fit nicely together. Turns out their coalition in today's America is actually about jobs, guns, and abortion. The fiscal discipline and small government ideals were just part of the package deal. This is akin to your cable provider bundling ESPN, FoxNews, HGTV, and the Let's Learn Spanish channels together and then proclaiming that the majority of their customers want to learn Spanish!

Donald Trump's candidacy popped the bubble of this Republican "package deal" and showed the nation that many people -- no matter the political party -- want the government to help them when they feel marginalized, hurt, or in need of help. The fiscal discipline philosophy that Republicans are so famous for was not -- and may not be -- the overarching philosophy that wins majorities in elections. The key swing voters in the Rust Belt seemingly want just as much government as Democrats typically want -- they just want it targeted toward them rather than aimed at minority populations in far-flung cities on the coasts.

To wit, Donald Trump's platform sends the national debt skyrocketing, even more than Clinton's plan. Isn't it interesting how few debate questions were debt-focused, especially given how much the national debt was a defining issue during the Obama administration? This election has shown us that the national debt -- and fiscal conservatism in general -- is nothing more than convenient political outrage with no real philosophical conviction when it comes to mainstream voters' values.

The upshot of this realization is that both parties are now aware that they need to play the same ignore-the-debt game: The Republican party can no longer afford to believe that their voters' fiscal responsibility desires are philosophical in nature.

None of this bodes well for our national debt or deficit, but the good news is that it all may be a bit of a red herring anyway.

3. Stories Matter More Than Policies

Candidates that win don't just have a message; they have a story that connects with the issues of the day. Often, presidential campaign stories are built on hope and optimism, latching onto the civic religion that is the American Dream. Candidates like JFK, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama all ran on story platforms designed to connect their policy prescriptions to the future well-being of America.

Donald Trump followed in this tradition but in an unconventional manner. Unlike prior winning campaigns, Trump focused more on the problems the country faced through a lens of victimization and de-emphasized specific policies that would enable a change in the status quo.

Trump convincingly told a story of an America seen through the eyes of people outside of our bustling and thriving top-20 urban centers: a story of an America that used to be strong, proud, wealthy, and durable that had slipped away -- aided and embedded by politicians in Washington and other Big Elite Cities who prioritized their lives over your life. Global trade, costly wars, Wall Street bailouts, outsourcing, and technology automation... all "elite" activities that benefit those at the top, leaving those at the bottom scrambling for scraps; holding their hands open, hoping to catch just a smidge of this new kind of coastal elite trickle-down economics. He summed all of this up with the slogan "Make America Great Again." His slogan succinctly summarized the narrative, which re-enforced the message.

It should be no surprise that many voters saw Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as the two most engaging candidates this season, as their stories had many commonalities when describing the challenges the country faces. While their stories had much in common, their stories' antagonists were quite different, and as follows, their prescriptions for the country were quite divergent. Many in the media were consistently stunned during the primaries when they found voters torn between voting for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Good journalists know the power of stories and they should have known better. Bernie's campaign was stymied, however, by a lack of an effective slogan that telegraphed his story beyond his followers. "A Future To Believe In" is vague and distant, and "A Political Revolution is Coming" could sound overbearing -- if not petrifying -- to a voter that is not politically-minded and is just looking for a better job and maybe some hope for a secure retirement.

Hillary Clinton rode into the nomination primarily on a coronation story -- a story of "I'm smart, experienced, and determined to be the first woman President of the United States."  Well, that story was about her, not them. Her campaign logo even stated "I'm with Her" for crying out loud. What a self-centered story! Her latter campaign slogan became "Stronger Together" as a reaction to Trump's campaign. The story "Stronger Together" broadcast to voters was that Clinton's campaign was going to be more inclusive and empathetic. This is effective to progressives and liberals, but didn't convey a sense of action or progress. Ironically, the candidate that advocated "Stronger Together" was the same candidate that declared that a portion of Trump's voters were deplorables. Not the most effective way to re-enforce the message to a broad audience.

4. Charisma Is The Real Secret Sauce
Not just in politics, but in life, charisma is the most under-examined and under-measured component in effective leadership. You might have the best story in the world, but if you can't deliver it with conviction and in an attractive, engaging manner, your story will never gain legs. Charisma may be the most important ingredient of leadership -- and in winning national elections -- yet it is oddly ignored and unexamined in election and campaign analysis.

[To learn more about charisma, this TEDTalk video describes this skill, and how it can overcome a host of built-in biases, and dramatically increase the perceived value of a leader and storyteller.]

The 2016 election cycle is a perfect case study for the power of charisma:

Donald Trump had the rockiest and most gaffe-driven campaign in modern history, yet he glided by these supposed deadly gaffes and emerged stronger than ever after each. His sixteen Republican rivals all had better resumes, temperaments, relevant experience, and real governing track records to prove to the voters that they should be entrusted with America's future and fate. But if you look at the Republican candidates through the charisma filter, you'll see a yuge gap between all of them and Trump. Trump's charisma is enabled by his well-honed communications skills, combined with a personal conviction he has to the story he was telling. Trump is not traditionally known as a man of conviction, but if you watch coverage of him over the past three decades, you'll see that American Nationalism is something that has always animated him and defines his belief system.

Bernie Sanders came from nowhere politically, with no national awareness, no fundraising machine, and, like Donald Trump, an untraditional political persona. Yet, he commanded national attention within a year while other Democratic candidates fizzled into nothingness (remember Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee?). I think most would agree that it wasn't Sanders' classic good looks or his political identity as a Democratic Socialist that catapulted him into real contention to be the next President of the United States. It was charisma -- powered by decades of unbending belief that the key to American strength and economic prosperity was FDR-style Democratic Socialism.

Conversely, Hillary Clinton was sorely lacking in charisma. It's true that she is known to be personally charming, but that is a different skill, and clearly not transferable onto the big stage. My thesis is that all of the supposed scandals that Hillary was implicated in, including Benghazi, the personal email server, and even her health, were all exaggerated and culturally sticky due to her distinct lack of charisma. With the right amount of charisma, she could have just as easily batted those issues away like Trump deflected issues such as not revealing his taxes, being implicated in fraudulent business practices with Tump University, and even the revelation that he bragged about groping women without their permission. The fact that Clinton's scandals were sticky and Trump's weren't was not a result of so-called media bias or gender bias -- it was directly correlated to charisma and its perception-bending affect on people.

When comparing the three stand-out candidates this season, it becomes clear what creates charisma for national candidates. Right or wrong, Trump and Sanders both believed in something politically philosophical that animated their stories, their passion, and their audience. Clinton, on the other hand, appeared to believe that it was her time, and with her vast experience, we could trust her to do the right thing. This is a process belief, not a philosophical belief.


5. Political Polarization is Now Automated
Political polarization has always existed. Conservative minds and liberal minds perceive the world in fundamentally different ways, and it makes sense for people to seek comfortable company if given the choice. Historically, in order to find political alignment, people had to make some kind of investment. If you were conservative but born in a liberal environment, you needed to go out and find organizations, friends, or groups to affiliate yourself with like-minded people...or perhaps even move to a better-suited community. More recently, politically-oriented news and analysis outlets emerged (i.e., cable news, blogs, websites), which made it far easier to be philosophically comfortable than before, but you still needed to select the channel, go to the website, or subscribe to the specific feed you wanted. You still knew you were making a choice.

In today's world, thanks to the introduction of the mass-personalization phase of technology, custom-tailored political polarization is now delivered to each of our individual digital doorsteps. Websites like Facebook track our behaviors and automatically deliver customized news feeds and posts that perfectly align with our political preferences. No more need to seek out like-minded people! No more having to pre-select your favorite politically-optimized information sources such as FoxNews or MSNBC! This wonder of technology-meets-content-curation allows us to consume and share politically-optimized content from the comfort of our own smartphones and computers without even having to select a channel.

The result of this automated curation is what's known as a filter bubble, providing each of us just the facts (and, sometimes, non-facts) that support our preferred point of view. This is far different than choosing the information you want to be exposed to. With automated curation, most people will just presume that they are seeing the full gamut of information because they haven't been asked to self-select yet. Further, because of this pre-filtering, hundreds of new "news" companies have popped up to serve this need for self-re-affirming (real and fake) news and analysis. The result? Millions of people are exposed to agenda-based information mixed in with professional news in the same feed, and most people have very little idea how to delineate between the two. Sites like Facebook only benefit from your engagement, not how informed a citizen you become.

If schools acted like Facebook, they would only provide courses that were aligned with each student's interests. For instance, if you didn't like math, you would never get a math class, and you may never meet a student who excelled at math -- heck, you may not even realize that math exists!  That may sound great if you hate math, but do you really think this would be good for preparing you to succeed in the real world?

[To see the filter bubble live in action, check out this side-by-side Facebook feed comparison hosted by the Wall Street Journal.]

OMG, Donald Trump Thinks He's Batman

Why is the Batman franchise so successful? It tells a compelling story of individual heroism versus systemic and environmental evil. The story is told on a backdrop of American society that is bleak, dark and grim; ripe with corruption in law enforcement and general malaise. If you looked at any big, modern American city through a strictly cynical lens, you could see Gotham City.

The narrative then draws us into a story of Bruce Wayne, a super-wealthy "celebrity socialite...who averts suspicion by acting the part of a superficial playboy idly living off his family's fortune, which was amassed through investment in real estate before the city became a bustling metropolis" (source: Wikipedia).

Bruce Wayne then transforms himself into the oft-misunderstood, frequently-scapegoated, and underappreciated-yet-ingenious superhero who is uniquely capable of undermining corruption and villains, saving Gotham City and its people from being unfairly victimized.

While it's true that Bruce Wayne is primarily driven by the murder of his parents in the mythic Batman universe, the rest of the parallels almost perfectly click into place: Donald Trump thinks he's Batman. And he sees America has Gotham City.

"I alone can fix it."

In his nomination acceptance speech in Cleveland, Trump told America he believed that he, alone, can fix the political system, but he also promised the country he would actually put an end to crime and violence.

Trump: "The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon come to an end."

This is not so different from Batman's promise:

Batman: "I made a promise [...] that I would rid this city of the evil."

In terms of campaign promises, Trump's assurance that he will not only fix the political system single-handedly, but also bring crime and violence to an end in America, sounds much more like a platform for a superhero in a mythic universe than a presidential candidate in the real world.

"I am Batman"

In doing research for this article, I stumbled across an amusing story captured by the Washington Post: When asked by a child in his helicopter if he was Batman, Trump answered that, yes, he was Batman. Given the context of this quote, it would be irresponsible to take him too seriously, but it is interesting to consider that -- especially in light of his acceptance speech -- he very well might see himself as some kind of superhero in some way.

In fact, it's not out of bounds to consider the possibility that Trump suffers from hero syndrome. I suggest that you click on the hyperlink to see if you think Trump fits the definition of someone who may suffer from this disorder.

"We need Batman"

In an era where unemployment is at a historically stable 5.5%, indicating that nearly all Americans can get work if they want it, and crime is as low as it has been in 50 years, the statistics belie the feeling that millions of Americans share: their country is not on the right track, and there is no clear path to feeling safer, more at ease, and more comfortable.

Given that America's national politicians appear ill-equipped or unable to change the current dynamic, it's understandable that people have lost their faith in civics and are now looking for new ways to shake up the status quo. A recent article in The Guardian posited that Americans are now looking for superheroes, and have found one in Donald Trump. In what could be an advantage for Trump, it's a good time to think you're Batman when an increasing percentage of people are looking for Batman. And, if he's smart, Trump will not-so-subtly assign The Joker role to Hillary Clinton.

Will Trump Become Batman?

So Donald Trump has been playing Bruce Wayne and is now promising to turn into Batman as President. Can this really happen? While certainly possible, sadly for Trump and his supporters, it's unlikely.

Just as in the Batman universe, America's real Batmen are typically not elected officials. Ask Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean, and even Bernie Sanders: You're unlikely to be a Crusader-in-Chief and still be the Commander-in-Chief in America. These are such diametrically opposed roles that there is no American leadership framework that combines the two. Generally, one is either on the outside crusading, or on the inside administrating. True, there are some exceptions to this rule, such as Adolph Hitler who crusaded while administrating, but this example is precisely the reason why, in America, we don't eagerly accept mixing the two.

As common as it is for people to make our Presidents into superheroes or supervillains, the reality is that Presidents have limited power based on our Constitutional framework and separation of powers.

Batman may have Robin, but the President has Congress and a Supreme Court. You can't do much crusadin' with two branches of government tied to your cape.

Should Trump become a Batman President, it would play out like the "real" Batman needing to get permission from Robin and Commissioner Gordon before he did anything. This would not make for a very compelling Batman story.

P.S. As I was developing this article, David Brooks from the New York Times released an editorial titled The Dark Knight. Perhaps I'm onto something.

Dear David Cameron: Be a Leader, Not a Quitter

Dear David Cameron,

While it's true that Thursday didn't go so well (and let's be honest, Friday went even worse by most things that are measurable), it was very clear from the outset that you've been dealing with this crisis as a dyed-in-the-wool Brit.

From the American point of view, this is meant to be a back-handed compliment.

You gracefully fell on your sword by announcing your resignation when the people spoke and determined -- by a small margin, mind you -- that your vision for the country was not aligned with theirs. This move was novel and oddly dignified from the American perspective. When American political leaders are not aligned with the majority of Americans, they simply believe that cable news, talk radio, and/or the liberal media are to blame for the lack of alignment. They would never blame themselves. In fact, they would become even more determined to bend the beliefs of the country toward their will. 

You see, in American politics, it isn't about quitting -- it's about winning.  

So, David, instead of quitting like a quitter, why not instead act like the professional politician that you claim to be and walk it back like any self-respecting politician would?

With a host of Brexit voters admitting that they really didn't mean it, and a sizeable chunk of citizens suddenly Googling "What is the EU?" after the vote was tallied, it would seem only rational that instead of selling out your own people, you should instead be cutting them some slack and giving them the opportunity to try again.

After all, the last UK referendum was all the way back in 2011 on the decision of "whether to change the voting system for electing MPs to the House of Commons from first past the post to the alternative vote." Riveting stuff. It's no wonder that far less than half of your people participated in that vote. 

What you did with the Brexit/Remain vote was truly unfair: it's not like you put the citizens in charge of governing things on a regular basis so that they really understood what their job was on June 23. If we're calling this straight, you set up your people to fail. You expected all of your citizens -- who are already quite busy getting on with their lives -- to be foreign, domestic, and economic policy experts writ large, and gave them one shot to understand all the complexities of EU membership with a single vote, with no facility for a test vote to see how it would go, or any ability for a "Take 2."  Ridiculous. You really just set them up to let everyone down by making their dress rehearsal the only show they'd ever perform.

The good news, David, is that it's never too late to stop quitting and start winning. It's time to start floating some trial balloons to see which mental model can withstand the test of the UK's political will. Some example trial balloons could include:

• "Thursday's vote was indeed historic, but what we're learning after the fact is that too many of our voters didn't vote with their full confidence and conviction. Because there is no law stopping me from calling another "full confidence" vote, I shall be calling for one immediately, to take place in 2017."
• "Based on the feedback we're getting from those who voted "exit" that they would not vote the same way again, we feel it is our obligation as a government to ensure that the true will of the people is heard, not the first try of the people."
• "I must deeply apologize for what I've done to the citizens of the United Kingdom. I gave you all significant amounts of responsibility to decide the future of our kingdom, yet I did not provide you with any kind of training, rehearsal or even official documentation to help ensure that you knew exactly what you were voting for or against. It's clear from the aftermath that I've failed you, and for that, I not only apologize, but I also will be linking my resignation with a call for another referendum vote. But this time, I promise to prepare you with materials that clearly outline what the EU does for the UK, and what the EU would no longer do for the UK if we decide to leave it."

This all must seem quite undignified compared to your super-dignified response to losing the Brexit referendum. But when it's obvious that your citizens are not even trusting themselves to act rationally on their (unrehearsed) opportunity to decide their own future, maybe it's time to treat them as they actually are: amateur, unrehearsed referendum voters that need more than just one chance to understand their role and their responsibilities.

Is holding another vote impracticable? Sure. Is it even a good idea for your political system? Surely not. But that's what makes American politics so dynamic: we don't let things like this stop us from doing what we think needs to be done!

In closing, Mr. Cameron, if you're going to put forth a decision with these kinds of complex consequences in your people's hands. At least from the American political perspective, you have the responsibility to ensure that they are adequately prepared to take on that kind of responsibility. You need to lead, not quit. 

Now that "the cast" understands how their vote plays on the "big stage," it's your duty as a leader to call for another vote -- a vote to confirm that the true will of the people has been heard. Otherwise, you've simply handed over your country's future to a bunch of amateurs who never even got a chance to rehearse.

Yeah, About That Second Amendment

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

While there have been countless debates, tests and judgments that have defined and re-defined how to interpret this amendment, the current prevailing interpretation and belief in America is that individual gun ownership is a constitutional right. As a result, America has seen a steady and consistent stream of deregulation around gun ownership, even as mass shootings appear to be on the rise. As progressives get increasingly concerned about the gun culture in America, as a tactic, they try to make their case by comparing gun ownership to other safety-related, common-sense laws:

While certainly humorous while making a practical point, this tweet burn completely misses the larger point: people don't have a constitutional right to buy Sudafed. You simply cannot compare a constitutional right to anything else not on the fundamental rights playing field. 

This lack of focus on the constitutional argument is where progressives have lost their way. They have been so focused on the practical utility of public policy that they end up losing the larger fights that define America. Constitutional interpretation lends itself to a more strategic (and philosophical) debate platform than arguing the facts and stats on how laws can and should protect people. Constitutional theory the debate platform that conservatives have been playing on for decades while progressives get frustrated and lose ground.

The remarkable irony is that the wording and intent within the Second Amendment is actually on progressive's side. In fact, the Second Amendment is a progressive's dream: the third word in the amendment is "regulated" for heaven's sake.

No matter the interpretation of every other word and phrase after the first three words, the entire context of the amendment is that it will be a regulated right. Through this lens, the Second Amendment is barely even comparable to the First Amendment in terms of what rights it enables. There is simply no language in the First Amendment that regulates the right to free speech... and yet we still regulate speech despite the unassailable strength of the the First Amendment constitutional language.

The upshot? Even in today's hardcore gun rights environment and culture, the Constitution itself provides the guidance -- and mandate -- to not just regulate arms, but to regulate them well.  

How our culture defines "well" can and will certainly evolve over time, but we shouldn't let gun rights ideologues and arms industry special interests continue to convince the public that they're the only ones who have the Constitution on their side in this debate. 

Yes, current Supreme Court interpretation is that every citizen has the right to bear arms. But it's also constitutionally mandated that we regulate these arms well. Seeing as the right to bear arms has been implemented pretty effectively in America, perhaps now it's time to start implementing regulation well too, as the Constitution also mandates.

No, Donald Trump Isn't a Racist

Contrary to popular belief, Donald Trump is not a racist. According to Google, the definition of racist is "a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another."

Trump's charge that Judge Curiel cannot fairly adjudicate the Trump University lawsuit is based on his belief that Curiel's Mexican heritage creates a natural bias against a presidential candidate that wants to build a wall between the judge's born nation and nation of his family ancestry. While the merits of this charge are certainly debatable (they seem to have earned precious little merit in the court of public opinion), there has been no statement from Trump that indicates that he actually feels superior to Judge Curiel based on the judge's Hispanic descent. Rather, its just another example of Trump demonstrating that he is an unapologetic nationalist.

In fact, counter to the racism charge, Trump is actually telegraphing to the nation, through  psychological projection, that he would most likely behave the same way as the judge given the same situation. This is not racism. This is Trump reminding us that his entire life has been defined by winning, at any cost.

But, you may be asking, isn't it racist when he talks about banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and saying that illegal Mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals?  Nope. Why? Because:

• Muslims aren't a race
• Mexico isn't a race

Yes, many of Trumps's statements seem racist, but it's just a plain fact that they're not.

Why does linguistic accuracy matter?  Because there's an actual danger for those who inaccurately impugn someone's character: it can backfire and damage the accuser's credibility. Also, it misdiagnoses the problem many have with Donald Trump as a political candidate. If we misdiagnose our candidates, then we'll be voting for or against them for the wrong reasons.

Imagine if -- after all of the damage he has done to his candidacy by saying what he said about Judge Curiel, Mexican immigrants, and foreign Muslims -- Trump parsed this out himself and turned it all around on his accusers? He would be able to use the rhetorical overreach of racism to re-enforce the point that the political class and the media elite simply can't be trusted, because they just can't help themselves from exaggerating to make a point, and ultimately get the analysis wrong as a result.

That would be a spectacular irony.

Could The Transgender Bathroom Debacle Been Avoided?

Shocks And Aftershocks Rock Politics

The latest shot across the bow in the transgender bathroom access debate was the Obama administration telling schools and colleges nationwide that they must allow transgender students access to bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. This action, while in line with evolving social justice mores, doesn't appear to take into consideration any sense of empathy for those who recently experienced the social equivalent to a natural disaster.

In nature, tectonic plates generally move slowly and steadily, with little noticeable effect on their surroundings. Yet, when the shift on a fault line suddenly moves faster than expected, there are a myriad of effects including a violent disruption in the foundation and status quo -- an earthquake. If you happen to be close to that fault line, earthquakes can be incredibly scary situations: the ground that you once found safe and secure is suddenly moving right underneath you. And, as nature tries to settle in with the new normal, aftershocks follow as the fault line continues to adjust.

The recent spat consisting of laws and ensuing lawsuits over transgender people's access to public bathrooms in North Carolina is clearly an aftershock from the political earthquake created when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015. This Supreme Court ruling was an unexpectedly robust achievement for the marriage equality movement. The speed of which gay Americans gained this right was nothing short of astonishing to all observers, detractors and advocates alike.

While progressives cheered and celebrated this sudden and abrupt social justice win, there seemed to be precious little concern -- nevertheless empathy -- in the progressive community for people who happen to live on that fault line who were shocked by the sudden societal shift. For these people, the ground under them shook hard, and the ideals they built up upon that fault line abruptly came crashing down around them. Yes, those on the losing side of the fault line did treat gay Americans like second class citizens with regards to marriage, but that doesn't change how it feels when a belief system -- wrong-headed as many may feel it is -- is overruled by sudden and clear national mandate.

Yet no one from the winning side of this social debate came to help calm fears or help make sense of the change for those whose foundations were rocked by this earthquake. Yes, in the arc of social justice, these people were inevitably going to feel the shock of social progress (they almost always do), but that doesn't change the real anxiety, fear and even anger that occurs when a foundation you've lived on has suddenly been so disrupted.

So it should be of no surprise that there are now aftershocks coming from those who experienced the earthquake. The transgender bathroom laws are just one of many aftershocks that will be felt in response to the initial quake.

In cases like this where social earthquakes occur, wouldn't it behoove the people on the winning side of the fault line to show some compassion and empathy to the losing side that took on the sudden and unexpected collateral damage? While it is understandable that the social progressives may not have much compassion for the views of social conservatives, shouldn't progressives at least feel compelled to have empathy for how these conservatives must feel now that they've lost a sudden, crushing defeat? Or is it all warfare now, where everyone's a soldier?

Would all of these LGBT-related laws and lawsuits transpired if more empathy and care were directed toward the social conservatives who were shocked and shaken by the gay marriage ruling? Probably. But if proper concern were given to the losers of this debate, the aftershocks may have been just a bit more muted, and the rationale slightly less justifiable.

No, That Anti-Trump Ad Is Not Brutal

Donald Gets Campaigns. Does Hillary?

Mother Jones recently posted an article entitled "Clinton Releases a Brutal Anti-Trump Ad." Take a look:

I can just imagine the ear-to-ear grins in the Clinton camp when they saw the Mother Jones headline, thinking, "yeah, we nailed it."

The problem, for Mother Jones and the Clinton campaign, is that the ad isn't the slightest bit brutal. Sure, Democrats who demonize Trump instead of studying him may get a thrill out of this and other similar negative ads, but a clear-headed perspective will lead to the real truth:

Hillary is not going to be able beat Donald Trump by attacking his weaknesses. She will only be able to beat Donald Trump by converting his strengths into questions and concerns. 

This is harder to do than it sounds, but it's the necessary work that needs to be done if the Clinton campaign is serious about winning the Presidential race.

This ad -- and the Mother Jones headline -- represents a microcosm of the challenge the Clinton camp is going to have running against Donald Trump in the general election: Mainstream media outlets like Mother Jones continue to see things through the blurry-cam lens of Washington establishment thinking, which re-enforces outdated thinking in the Clinton campaign -- the thinking that Donald Trump is anything resembling a typical candidate.

Let's be clear: If Donald Trump were a regular candidate, this ad would have indeed been "brutal." But the very fact that Donald Trump has said the things he has said -- and yet is the presumptive Republican nominee -- is a clear indicator that this particular candidate runs on charisma and cult of personality. With Trump, there is a relationship deal he makes with everyone he speaks to: "If you like what I say, then I meant it. If you don't like what I say, then don't worry, I didn't really mean it." This implicit "deal" may be a deal-breaker for some, but for many, it makes them feel special -- like they are in on the grand plan.  It's interactive, and, as we've seen, it can be contagious.

If the Clinton campaign doesn't soon come to grips with the fact that they need to first decipher Trump's appeal before using their (suddenly outdated) political instincts, they may be just as culpable as the 16 Republican presidential candidates in letting Trump waltz into the Oval Office, essentially unchallenged.

Yes, the primaries are rigged, but they can be rigged better

Swing States, USA

There has been much scuttlebutt this election season about how the primary process isn't democratic enough and how it's "rigged" to benefit establishment figures over insurgents. Here's the hard truth:

Primaries are rigged by design.

They are setup this way because the only objective of a political party is to have their nominee win the national election, full stop. As a result, the major national parties do leverage some democracy to make the process somewhat representative, but ultimately, primaries on both sides are setup to empower state delegates to nominate candidates.

Introducing Swing State Super-Weighting 

Given that the parties' primaries are designed exclusively to find the strongest general election candidate, it is arguable that the political parties should take this to its logical end and further rig the primary process to add additional delegate weight to the electoral college swing states (i.e., FL, NC, VA, OH, etc.). Implementing swing state super-weighting would help ensure that a party's nominee has proven to perform the best in the most important states in the general election.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Is a Democrat winning Oklahoma over other Democrats in the primary really going to help predict general election performance? 
• Will a Republican winning a California primary over other Republican candidates show any kind of real general election strength? 

Looking at this through a strictly analytical (and non-democratic) lens, primary performance in "base states" for each respective party seems trivial at best, and a distraction at worst. Case in point: Donald Trump's recent clobbering of his opponents in New York seems to have re-invigorated his campaign, yet practically, Trump will not win New York in the general election, so it should have much less bearing on the Republican nomination process.

Replacing Bad Rigging with Better Rigging

As a result of the historic success of Bernie Sanders' insurgent candidacy, the Democratic Party has been put on the defensive with regards to superdelegates because these insider delegates symbolize the least representative aspect of their primary system. The Democrats would benefit far greater (from both a primary effectiveness and PR perspective) by replacing superdelegates with swing state super-weighting of delegates. Instead of party insiders picking the winner before the primary process even begins, candidates would earn additional party support based on how they actually performed on the most important states in the primary process.

Republicans do not have superdelegates (although it's a safe bet that a lot of party managers wish they had them now!), but they have all sorts of other non-democratic systems to help ensure that their candidate is the most likely to win the general election: winner-takes-all state primaries, state conventions, post-election horse trading, and more. These all reek of thumb-on-the-scale maneuvers that Donald Trump has exploited and as a result has tarnished the Republican party brand. Changing to swing state super-weighting would have the same positive effect it would have for the Democrats: it would better identify the candidate most likely to win the general election while being more transparent and obvious as to why and how the system is undemocratically rigged.

Replacing Rigging with Democracy Introduces New Problems

Another school of thought is that primaries should be more democratic and less driven by party managers tipping the scales in favor of electability. This approach could work as well, but it would require heavy regulations applied to the national parties, ensuring that they play by the same rules so that the process were truly democratic. For example, currently, primaries happen in a sequence, state by state, giving certain states more voting weight than others. This is not democratic at all, yet we accept it because we're used to it, but we've also bought into the idea that limiting voting to a small set of early states helps ensure that candidates of all levels of financial resources can afford to get their message out to the people, and fairly compete with candidates with much larger resources.

Yes, the "free market" system that the political parties enjoy now does favor establishment candidates, but a fair and completely democratic national primary process would have, for example, enabled only Donald Trump and Jeb Bush to be viable Republican candidates, and would have completely shut out a viable Bernie Sanders candidacy. In addition, any kind of regulation applied to political parties may unintentionally lock out new political parties looking to gain a foothold in our body politic.

Repeal and Replace the Rigging

Despite how rigged the current process is, it has some under-appreciated features that many critics take for granted. But that doesn't mean we can't rig it better. Both parties should consider scrapping their existing sloppy and parochial rigging systems and replace them with a more effective, transparent and easier-to-justify system like the swing state super-weighting approach..

There is no perfect system, but a rigged primary system that favors swing state performance will make more sense to voters -- and it will actually work better for political parties -- than the current rigged system. This win/win prescription may be just what the doctor ordered for angry voters and struggling political parties.

New York Democrats: Why You Should/Shouldn't Vote for Bernie Sanders

source: Donkey Hotey

New York Democrats,

You are in the enviable position to help determine the trajectory of the Democratic nomination process (Trump appears to have the Republican race in NY locked-up, so no drama there). If Bernie wins, he gains significant momentum and energy, even if he still doesn't have the math to technically win enough delegates. But momentum and energy do matter, because with enough of a surge, those undemocratic super-delegates could bow to pressure to switch sides.

Bernie and Hillary represent two different versions of the same Democratic philosophy: economic protectionism combined with social liberalism. As outlined in a prior article, Hillary is a 1990's Democrat (or, New Democrat as they called it back then), which had her starting out her candidacy as a neo-libertarian candidate, combining moderate economic liberalism with moderate social liberalism.

Hillary is a moderate at heart, primarily because she grew up in politics at a time when Democrats were still licking their wounds from the Reagan rout in the 1980's. Bernie is a true Democrat at heart, bringing the verve and moral justice argument back from the dead and showing "New Democrats" that they don't have to continue to bow down to the alter of the Reagan Revolution anymore.

Which version of Democrat makes sense in a post-Reagan, post-Bush, and post-Obama world? Let's break it down into pros and cons for the iconoclastic insurgent Bernie Sanders:

Reasons to vote for Bernie:

• Authenticity: He truly believes in his message and does not appear to be a traditional, modern politician that bobs and weaves to make voters like him.
• Problem identification: He has shown an ability to identify problems that people feel need to be addressed urgently.
• Empathy: He appears to have a lifestyle much more like the average American.
• Leadership: He does not self-identify as a natural people leader, which could mean he's actually a highly-effective leader.
• Accessibility: His language and framing of issues speak to citizens of all educational backgrounds.
• Honesty: Bernie has shown an penchant for straight-talk. Compared to his competition in the race, this provides him with a significant political advantage.
• Government-based solutions: For people who have lost all trust in non-Government institutions (Wall Street, Corporate America, lobbying firms, SuperPACs), Bernie's prescriptions rely heavily on government to ensure a more fair and equitable environment for citizens from all walks of life. 

Reasons not to vote for Bernie:

• Problem-solving: He has not shown an ability to define solutions that will work in a non-idealistic political universe. "Breaking up the banks," "Free college tuition," and "Single-payer healthcare" solutions are the policy equivalent to cotton candy as a prescription for the flu. 
• Navigating complexity: His simplified versions of the problems and solutions speak to a lack of interest in things like differences in opinions and unintended consequences of policy decisions.
• Integrity: While most Bernie supporters feel he is brimming with integrity, I would suggest that his battle-cry of "How can Hillary take money from Wall Street and not be beholden to Wall Street?" rings hollow. Case in point: President Obama took money from Wall Street in both of his campaigns, and yet he pushed incredibly hard to enable Wall Street reform. If you recall, Dodd-Frank was passed under Obama's leadership, and Dodd-Frank was significantly watered down by Congress. Wall-Street-funded Obama wanted the reforms to go much deeper. 
• Over-reliance on government: The vast majority of Americans do not think the government is competent enough to manage large programs. To suddenly trust government with even more responsibility may not pass the sniff test for a general electorate if Bernie makes it into the general election. It's a real toss-up, though: plenty of Americans also do not trust non-governmental institutions either. But the benefit of non-government institutions is that there are a diversity of them, and they can change over time. Once the government manages something, it's historically practically unheard of to change ownership to another non-governmental entity. 

Bernie Sanders is an incredibly disciplined candidate. His message discipline enables him to connect with voters who share his concerns about the problems our nation faces. But for every benefit in a candidate, there is usually an equal and opposite drawback.

Knowing this, New York Democrats, you should not base your vote purely on your feelings from the last rally or television commercial -- your vote should take into account the real pros and the true cons of your preferred candidate.

The 2016 election: Why it's so different

The 2016 election cycle in America has been unique, even by American standards. We are all witnessing the fascinating results of this unique political dynamic: a 74-year-old democratic socialist that is killing it with young voters, and a 69-year-old nationalist "billionaire" who poor and under-educated people trust to represent them the best in Washington.

Further, while Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump certainly have their differences, there are a few similarities that are so important to voters that, when in open primaries, many voters were deciding between these two candidates, regardless of party affiliation.

Since nobody paying attention could ever confuse Bernie with The Donald, this dynamic needs to be unpacked.

We've been led to believe that our two main national parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- create political platforms, and run and support candidates that they believe best represent their specific constituency of voters in the nation. In broad strokes, the Democrats have traditionally run on a platform of social liberalism and economic protectionism and the Republicans have run on social protectionism and economic liberalism.

These at-odds platforms, in theory, should cover most voters enough to suffice and ensure a representative governing body, right?

Wrong, of course.

In math class, I learned about something called combinatorics. It sounds fancy, but it's pretty straight-forward: it's a branch of mathematics focusing on countable discrete structures. In layman's terms, it's about figuring out how many variations can exist in a given system. Who would have thunk that combinatorics of all things can help us see what's missing in our mainstream political discourse?

Well, it can.

If we look at the existing two-party political system, we have, in broad strokes:

• Economic liberalism & social protectionism (Republicans)
• Economic protectionism & social liberalism (Democrats)

Based on a combinatorics calculation, the combination of 2 items in a group of size 2, there are 4 possible permutations**. As a result, there are 2 combinations that are not addressed by existing political containers:

• Economic liberalism & social liberalism (Libertarians)
• Economic protectionism & social protectionism (Populists)

** For the sake of brevity and focus, we can't explore all the 16 permutations there would be if "moderate" was added as a dimension for each political dimension.

Now, let's map these political systems to the remaining candidates in the race:

• Hillary Clinton is, at heart, an 80's/90's Democrat, which is defined as a moderate economic liberal & social liberal ("Libertarian-lite"), but has been coerced (by Bernie's success) to run as an economic protectionist and social liberal -- a traditional Democrat.
• Bernie Sanders is an economic protectionist & social liberal - placing him straight in the Democratic party camp.
• Ted Cruz and John Kasich are economic liberals & social protectionists, placing both of them clearly in the Republicans camp.
• Donald Trump is, at heart, a deal-maker with very little political "true north." However, as a practical matter, he is officially running as an economic protectionist & social protectionist -- a Populist. 

Looking at this mapping, we have some seriously bizarre dynamics at play: 

• We have three distinct political systems in the race: Democrat, Populist and Republican. 
• Both leading candidates -- Donald and Hillary -- are running on platforms that they aren't truly aligned with in their hearts, despite the fact that one of them is considered to be a "straight shooter." 
• The leading candidates aren't a Democrat and a Republican; rather, they are an unwillfully coerced Democrat and a willfully-coerced Populist. 
• Bernie, the self-described "Democratic Socialist" in the race, is actually running on a traditional Democratic platform, which shows you just how moderate mainstream Democrats have become since the 1980's, forced into moderation largely by the political tide of Reagan.

This helps explain what makes this race so unique: Officially, we have two parties running against each other, but in reality, we have three distinct parties competing with each other (and if Rand Paul were still in the race, then we'd have all four political combinatoric parties in the race!).

Trump and Sanders have become iconoclastic and share so many swing voters because they are both representing economic protectionism in their platforms. This tells us that there is a real hunger for economic protectionism, which, interestingly, is not where either the modern Democrat or Republican party is right now at the national level. This represents a crisis for the political elite who believe that long-term gain in free trade and unfettered capitalism outstrips the short-term pain. 

The Trump and Sanders parallel phenomenons point to the reality that our major national parties aren't offering up enough diversity to satiate a significant proportion of the electorate. Bernie and Trump are live-action lessons for a free democracy: Where there's a political itch, a candidate will eventually come along to scratch it. And if that candidate wins, it can bring the party with them.

With Donald Trump, deal-making drives policy

In The Trump Diagnostic, I determined that deal-making is at the core of Donald Trump's value system. Unlike most candidates running for public office, Donald Trump doesn't have a political ideology that translates into policy; rather, it's a deal-making ideology that translates into policy.

In a recent interview he gave at the New York Times, Trump solidified just how much deal-making is at the core of his value system, and how it would inform his policies. It's remarkable how cohesive and consistent his policies are once you identify what's at the core.

It's also a fascinating study on how a Populist candidate can tie the political analysis class into knots. There truly is no left/right dimension to his slew of proposals, yet there is certainly an element of innovation to most of them. He essentially wants to re-negotiate almost all treaties, including those with Japan, South Korea, and even NATO. And, with typical Art of The Deal bluster, he of course threatens to abandon treaties that are no longer in America's favor.

In this interview, we also learn that he prefers to get foreign policy information from former generals, and not foreign policy experts. This fits neatly into his authoritarian style, and re-enforces the notion that he thinks very highly of his own ability to determine the appropriate tactics, coupled with a mistrust of any kind of establishment that reeks of elitism or political correctness. He does not want to hear "You just can't say that to the Saudi's." If anything, that's just ammo for him to go guns blazing with a snappy retort like "Oh yeah? Watch me." Some Americans will see this kind of response as a breath of fresh air when it comes to leadership because it reflects a belief that all the existing social morays are just there to sustain a status quo that is no longer acceptable. It almost has an action movie protagonist quality to it - where quick-wittedness and absolute strength break down oppressive systems and the world is saved in between 90 and 120 minutes. Others, of course, see this kind of person as an overconfident and under informed blowhard who is so full of himself that he can't get out of his own way, and will end up blowing up the planet as a result.

Which is to say that, despite all of Trump's clear shortcomings as a presidential candidate (oh, can  people count the ways), it would be wise to pick apart and disassemble some of the novel and politically innovative ideas he's advancing. Should we break away from NATO? Of course not. But should NATO be significantly reformed to address the new challenges the West is facing? Absolutely. The thing is, nobody was even talking about re-thinking treaties at all until Trump arrived.

The Trump Diagnostic

"Trump is a bully!" "Trump is an outsider" "Trump is an authoritarian!"  "Trump can't be bought and sold!" "Trump is a racist!" "Trump is authentic!" "Trump is a con artist!" "Trump is Hitler!"

There is no shortage of blistering critiques and hopeful opinions of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. But what there is a shortage of is a diagnostic of Trump Dynamics - analyzing the way he operates so that we can best understand why he has run his campaign the way he has so far, and, more importantly, how we should interpret him so that we can best assess how Donald Trump could be as President of the United States.

Many readers likely just squinted, squirmed or winced when reading "how Donald Trump could be as a President..." for good reason: Donald Trump doesn't fit too neatly into our mental model of what a President says, does, or sounds like.

Yet, here we are in the Spring of 2016, and it now appears that there is a real chance that Donald Trump could not only win the Republican nomination, but also win the Presidential race. Even if he doesn't win either race, his candidacy has not only made waves in mainstream political thinking, but has exposed rifts within the Republican party and many traditional voting blocks around the country.

For these reasons, it's worth deep-diving into what makes Donald Trump tick, because even if he doesn't ultimately succeed in his bid to run the country, he has already created a ready-made template for future candidates to utilize.

Note to readers: Before we dive in, bear in mind that this article will neither condone nor assail Trump's character, character flaws, or unique character attributes. As stated above, this is a diagnostic, not a review. If you are looking for an opinion on Trump as a person or as a candidate that either challenges or reinforces your beliefs about him, there are plenty of hot takes you can feast upon on the interwebs. 

This Trump Diagnostic will be broken out into three dimensions: Communications, Politics, and Values.

Trump Communications

Trump's primary communication style is sales (or as Scott Adams puts it, persuasion). Persuader, salesman... these are different words for the same style and same purpose: The sole objective of all Trump communications is to get you to see things the way he sees them. Once he has done that, then you are drawn to him. He no longer needs to do any work. It's hard work on the front-end, and very efficient on the back-end. Just like in sales, the first contract is hard, and the renewals are far easier.

A politician as salesman seems to make a lot of sense since politicians need to campaign in order to get elected. However, it's actually not a common communication type. Most politicians are evangelists: They hold a set of philosophical and/or political beliefs that guide their reason for running for office. They then share their beliefs with people during a campaign in an effort to convince voters that what they stand for is what would work best for voters.

You can boil this down to the following: Sales communications is predicated on moving inventory and making the deal. Evangelism is about aligning beliefs around problems and solutions.

The advantages of sales communications over evangelist communications include:

• Evangelism can draw but also repel people; whereas sales is a connection approach, not a selection approach.
• Sales messages don't scare people; evangelist communications can scare those who don't believe in the message.
• Evangelism requires a constant stream of convincing to keep the problem and solution frame in focus. Sales requires up-front convincing, but once the connection is made, it's harder to disengage.

Trump also employs other strategic communications devices that serve him quite well as a candidate, including:

• An expressive face, which conveys to the viewer that he's fully involved in what he's saying, and does not often say things that other people think for him.
• A passionate style, which indicates that he firmly believes in what he is saying.
• A simple, clear and basic message that underpins any complex thoughts. He may be a "very smart man" as he claims he is, but he rarely lets his smarts allow him to delve into the depths of complexity. This device serves him particularly well as a populist candidate, a style of candidacy where simplicity and clarity are valued over complexity and nuance.

Yet, while sales is his primary communication style, he tag-teams with another style when he feels threatened or under assault: antagonism. This aspect of Trump's communication style is often misdiagnosed as bullying, and reflects his preference to convey power so that he can win. He has learned that by appearing to be the alpha dog, he can easily gain the upper hand in a confrontation or deal when he is actively belittling and disarming his adversary.

It's important to delineate antagonism from bullying, because behind each is a different purpose. Based on people who know Trump, his primary rationale for antagonizing people is to win, not because he has a deep-seated hatred or disdain for people. In fact, he has demonstrated many times that an "enemy" or "bad guy" can instantly become a "good guy" and a "friend" based on the immediate circumstances surrounding their relationship. If you're benefiting Trump, then you're a "good guy." If you are causing him problems, then you're a "bad guy." It's entirely situational.

Trump Politics

A typical American political axis is on the "Progressive/Liberal—Conservative/Libertarian" scale on any given issue. Most successful American political figures amass most of their issues on one side or the other on this axis in order to get the political party and funding apparatus behind them.

If there is any one thing that most people seem to get wrong about Trump, it is trying to pinpoint where he is on the Progressive — Conservative scale because he doesn't operate on the this traditional political axis. Instead, his positions traverse the "Nationalist—Fascist" political axis.

Nationalism and Fascism are loaded words in our political language, and as a result they seem wrong, and for good reason. However, these political philosophies can be quite attractive if not labeled as such.

For instance, Nationalism can be compelling if you feel like your country is being infiltrated or weakened because nationalists put "you" (the citizen) first. Who doesn't like coming first? And, with America being culturally and racially a dominant neo-European nation in its past, many will presume and infer that nationalist ideas will also protect the eroding power of the existing ruling class. Similarly, Fascism is typically seen as the "third way" between capitalism and socialism, putting the profit motive at the heart of the philosophy (like Capitalism) but also happily offers national support systems like welfare, healthcare and other benefits that "you, the citizen" deserve since you are #1!

This political orientation makes policies — building a wall (Nationalism), not reforming Social Security (Fascism), barring all Muslims (Nationalism), ensuring people "aren't dying in the streets" (Fascism) — to seem like a grab bag of progressive and conservative positions. But looking at it through the Nationalist/Fascist lens, it makes a lot more sense.

When Nationalism and Fascism get expressed through his sales and antagonistic communications styles, we start to see uncharacteristic behaviors for a national political figure in America. This mixture has led to the recent spate of aggressive posturing and violence-baiting that have started to alienate followers who had been focused on his unique story as a self-funded outsider, while further solidifying those who are looking for a more hard-core tone and approach as a way to blow up the political status quo in Washington.

Trump Values

Donald Trump's values are so simple yet are still widely misunderstood. Trump's core value is making a deal. Or, as he artfully puts it, The Art of the Deal. It should be of no surprise that his seminal book reflects his core value. Springing from this core value are supporting values, including fairness, strength & power, and simplicity & clarity, and, of course, winning.

A quick assessment of Trump's supporting values:

• Fairness is always in the eye of the beholder, and Trump sees himself as a "fair dude" and readily weaponizes fairness in order to hold others accountable to what he considers to be fair. He believes that when he does deals, he's always "fair," and often accuses people who try to one-up him to be "unfair." One salient example of Trump's core value of fairness is his golden rule of being "hit": he will not attack until he is attacked. But when he's attacked, he goes for the jugular. He considers this to be "fair" because he is just defending himself and also protecting himself from future "hits."
• His strength and power are often misconstrued as outing him as an authoritarian. The thing is, he can't be a real authoritarian because his core value is not to tell everyone what to do. His core value is to make the deal. As a result, what we're seeing looks like authoritarianism, but what it really is is posturing in order to try to be in a stronger negotiation position.
• His capacity for complexity may be limited, or he may strategically employ simplicity and clarity. Either way, the result is that when times are tough (which is what many Americans feel, rightly or wrongly), leaders who value clarity and simplicity tend to be the most attractive because they offer the most expedient result.
• His penchant for winning has actually been a platform of his candidacy, which is obviously much more appealing to voters who feel like America is losing its edge. Winning is not a typical value, but it seems so fundamental to his core value of deal-making that it needs to be identified as a supporting value.

Unlike most other politicians who actively lobby the voters and colleagues to believe in their prescriptions for shared success, Trump spends all of his time in the moment and getting the best deal possible based on the situation immediately at hand.

Navigating Trump

Based on this diagnostic, some of the negative accusations made toward Donald Trump align with his politics (nationalism/fascism), yet most do not align appear to align with his values. This may help explain the divergence and dissonance in feelings with regards to Trump. We are left wondering, at any given time, which is more core to Trump: his politics, his communications, or his values.

Assuming that Trump's hierarchy of psyche follows the traditional pattern, then we are left with his values informing his politics, and with his communication style being in service to both. With this assumption, we will now be able to discern Trump's values rhetoric (which is core and unmovable) from his political rhetoric (which is transient, varies based on the situation -- and often exposes him to either making things up or just downright lying).

This analysis provides us with a handy tool and guide for putting Trump's statements into the proper context. Let's briefly explore how this works.

Positions that are political, and are therefore subject to change in order to make a deal:

• Ban Muslims until we "figure out what's going on"
• Build a wall against the Mexican border
• De-fund Planned Parenthood (unless they stop doing abortions)
• Tax cuts for corporations and tax increases for hedge fund managers
• Repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act
• Address corporate inversions to bring companies back to the U.S.
• Accept Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage
• Cut the Dept. of Education, esp. with regards to Common Core
• Cut funding to the EPA
• Deny entrance for Syrian refugees
• Remove gun control regulations
• No national minimum wage raise

Positions that are based on his core values, and are therefore fundamental to his candidacy and persona:

• Make Mexico pay for the wall
• Reduce trade deficits with China, Mexico and Japan
• Politicians are stupid, and make bad deals
• Challenge the current "free trade" ideology in Washington

This sample set of Trump statements and policy proposals clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of what Trump says are not based on his values, and therefore are to be taken with a yuuuuge grain of salt. Yes, many of us already know this about Trump, but with this analysis, perhaps we may now know precisely why, where and how he may change his tune. A President Trump would likely surprise people on both sides of the aisle when his deal-making ends up overriding most proposals he has put forth to-date.

Importantly, we can also discern from this diagnostic that most of the rhetoric that sounds like race-baiting, authoritarianism, thuggery and bullying reflects his politics and communication style; not his values. Meaning, most of the statements and positions that many detractors find troubling are nothing more than transient tactics designed to fulfill his core objective - to make the deal. Does that excuse the rhetoric and its affect on people? Nope. But it arguably could delineate Trump from truly dangerous and "terrifying" world leaders that his detractors compare him to.

Summary/TL;DR

If we can agree — based on 30+ years of history in the public eye and parsing his statements as a candidate carefully — that Trump's core value is making a deal and everything else he does is in service to this, then it begins to make sense why so much of what he says is throw-away rhetoric with very little enduring value. In fact, this helps explain why Trump himself puts such little stock into being accurate in his own statements!

Only when we can effectively delineate Trump's values-driven statements and policies from his tactical, political rhetoric will we be able to identify the true Trump vs. the one that is so expertly dominating the media, the zeitgeist, and the national conversation.