Stidmatt

The regressive/conservative option:

We fund our social safety net with taxes which disproportionately target the poor and give some of that money back. We eliminate income taxes. We have lower payroll tax rates for the wealthy as opposed to the middle class. Capital gains have a lower rate than other forms of income. Most of that money goes towards military and police, little goes to proven systems which actually make people’s lives better. In order to get assistance people need to fill out their own tax forms using byzantine forms with impossible to remember numbers, with rigorous qualifications and it is on the tax payer to know what they are qualified for.

The moderate position:

If someone makes below a certain amount of money per year they are automatically enrolled in programs which they are qualified for. Nothing else changes.

A slightly liberal option:

While people are automatically enrolled in programs they are qualified for the program phases out instead of having a level which the program is simply turned off. Nothing else changes.

A Bernie Sanders like option:

We finance an expanded social safety net (with Byzantine forms) with progressive taxes, but we keep our regressive taxes.

A progressive option:

People are automatically enrolled in programs they are qualified for, with gradual phase outs for each system. Our tax code has lower taxes on the poor, and finances programs with taxes on the wealthy.

For comparison, someone who makes $20,000 in Washington State today will pay $2,290 in federal taxes (leaving out property, sales, and B&O taxes Washington State will levy) which leaves a tax burden of 11% before accounting for State taxes. Before giving that person $1000 in food stamps we should cut their taxes so they see more of their paycheck because there is a real cost of the government holding their money for them for no interest.

The progressive option is to change our system so that programs which benefit poor people are financed by taxes on rich people. We should eliminate taxes on low income households (because at the end of the day they are counter productive), and increase eligibility for programs which successfully reduce inequality, increase mobility, and increase human capital. We should use science to determine how much funding each program needs to maximize the overall benefit to society by looking at the marginal benefit and marginal cost of each program, maximizing the benefit of society by adding money to whichever program will increase marginal benefit the most in the short run.

That is the progressive stance.

Computers are fantastic machines. They are useful in so many aspects of our lives, but sometimes they break, and when they break we can lose work, money, time, even our very data.

This is a major inconvenience. Fortunately, you can stop any problem on any Linux machine by simply typing the following command:

sudo rm -rf /var/log/*

Don’t worry, those files with be recreated and voila, you have no record of your computer having any problems!

Now, this is fairly obviously a stupid thing to say. Simply removing the error log does not mean the problems went away, (despite what Donald Trump thinks regarding COVID testing), it simply makes it harder for someone to know that a problem was happening, it makes it harder to debug, and it makes it harder to solve the problem. So the obvious answer then is to run the following command:

sudo systemctl disable rsyslog

This simple command disables all error logging on any Linux machine, meaning your system will never have an error again!

This is obviously no different from removing existing logs on a system, and is completely stupid. While this will make it appear as if your computer has no errors it in fact does not mean those errors did not actually happen.

Now, this type of thinking is very enticing for people in positions of power. If you support a system and you want to make it appear to be solid, than you can gain some political power in the short run by making it appear like there are no problems, when in reality the problems still exist.

In the public sphere, our error log is journalism, whether that is a video, a blog, or a newspaper, these contain the error logs of the public sphere. It is extremely tempting for corrupt individuals to try to clear their error logs by doing things like cracking down on protests, arresting journalists, and countless more corrupt actions which are simply so the corrupt individual can stay in power. Ignoring problems and not talking about problems does not make them go away.

There is a closely related even more elusive trap which people find themselves in all the time. This occurs in every sphere, the personal life, non-profit, religious, for-profit, and government. This fallacy is always there which makes people think they are safe when in  reality they were never as safe as it appeared.

Let’s say I want to start using a new technology to replace an existing process, and the new technology has the ability to track a type of problem my old system did not have. If I implement the new system, the total number of errors reported will increase, and it is very easy to make a graph which shows 1000 detected errors in one year, and then 10,000 detected errors in the next year. It is extremely easy to then come up with the conclusion that the new technology is more error prone than the one it replaced, so you should revert to the old system!

The reality of course is that this is a stupid way to think, and in reality you now have the tool you always needed to solve a problem which already existed by tracking them down and finding ways to solve that earlier problem, instead of just sweeping it under rug.

Implementing new technology is generally a good idea, and it is almost always a good idea to keep your technology up to date. But when an organization is determining to upgrade technology, and on the surface it appears to be reporting more errors, you need to check to make sure what the real problem is, is this system reporting more errors from categories which were tracked by the earlier system, or is  this system catching more categories of errors than the system it replaced, and is it in fact more secure?

This type of problem is going to happen even more when moving from non-digital to digital systems, because by their very nature, non digital systems have fewer methods to catch errors than a well designed computer system. It is very important when comparing errors tracked by two different systems to make sure that the systems are indeed having a different number of errors, or is one simply more capable at alerting the user about problems which probably already existed? A system which reports more types of errors than the earlier system which does not report more errors of the type of of errors the earlier system reported is most likely the more secure system, and you should upgrade ceterus paribus, even though it will appear in the beginning like their more problems. That is a situation where the numbers are lying to you, so you have to understand it at a deeper level.

Be safe.

I am currently seeing someone who lives in Hayward, California. I currently live in Bellingham, Washington. I am planning on visiting them next month after we are both safely vaccinated.

I have family in Munich. My family is originally from Silesia, but after the end of World War II with the redrawing of borders we obviously needed to move, and we chose to move to Munich. I have been to the city and I know it fairly well.

When I am in Munich the total cost for a day pass is 3 Euros for unlimited rides on the S-Bahn. The buses are free.

When I am in Hayward, if I want to travel to San Francisco I need to budget $14 to get to downtown, and at least $5 more if I want to take transit inside of San Francisco. For comparison, the toll for a two axle vehicle to take the San Francisco-Oakland bridge is $6, regardless of the number of passengers.

If it’s just me it costs me $19 to take transit to San Francisco for a day trip. If both of us choose to travel together that cost is now $38. If we are traveling with two other people, who could be two friends or family members, that cost is now $78 for a day trip to San Francisco, inside our metropolitan area. This is 13x more than the cost of the toll bridge from San Francisco to Oakland.

In Munich, the total cost of travel for one person will never be more than 3 Euros per day. If my partner and I want to travel together that cost is now 6 Euros per day, and if we choose to visit family in Munich with two of my cousins, the total cost for unlimited rides on S-Bahn and any bus in the metropolitan area is 12 Euros per day for my family.

Now, if it costs me only $12 per day to go downtown and have a great experience I am almost certainly going to take transit. I can take the train straight to the core of downtown and then take a local bus to anywhere in the city. I don’t have to worry about parking, I do not contribute to traffic, I am not generating more carbon emissions.

But if it is going to cost four people $78 to simply use transit in a metropolitan area, then I am going to consider whether it is worth paying 13 times more than the cost of driving, and the answer is, it probably isn’t.

On top of that, for all day parking lasting from 9 AM to 9 PM it will cost me a grand total of $20 to park my car in San Francisco.

That’s when I reach for my keys along with hundreds of thousands of other people, creating traffic, and most cars on the road are almost certainly going to be powered using internal combustion engines which are the largest contributer to global warming in the United States.

Affordable transit is social justice.

Affordable transit is good urban planning.

Affordable transit is effective environmental policy.

No city should ever charge transit per mile.

Transit must always be cheaper than the cost of driving.

Otherwise you get traffic, you get pollution, and you make it more difficult for people to travel around their city.

You make it harder to get to interviews.

You reduce social mobility.

You increase the costs by paying for fare enforcement, which serve no benefit to society.

Affordable transit is social justice.

Affordable transit is absolutely essential to building a strong town.

I have written about AMTRAK a few times, and made predictions based on where I think AMTRAK should expand based on potential demand for rail service around the United States before.

So when AMTRAK announced that they want to use part of President Biden’s stimulus to expand AMTRAK I was of course excited to see how my predictions lined up with their planned expansions.

Honestly, I did a pretty good job.

The way I calculated demand was pretty simple. I expect that a route will have demand if cities are both relatively close together and larger. These two factors together add up to make a higher demand for a train service.

To estimate the relative demand of transportation between two cities I multiply the populations of both cities together and then divide by distance. This is the potential combinations of people meeting each other over distance.

I then filtered for only focusing on metropolitan areas which have over 100,000 people, because you need to have enough people to use the train in order to justify the investment, I’m looking for at least a distance of 100 KM to justify Federal AMTRAK spending, and I also do not count suburbs.

So how do I do?

Here are my predictions:

• New York – Allentown ✔
• New York – Scranton ✔
• New York – Worcester
• New York – New Bedford
• New York – York (close to two existing stations)
• Chicago – Rockford ✔
• Los Angeles – Bakersfield (California HSR) ✔
• Houston – Bryan/College Station ✔
• Chicago – Madison ✔
• Chicago – Peoria
• Los Angeles – Visalia (California HSR) ✔
• Los Angeles – Las Vegas ✔
• Chicago – Rock Island/Moline/Davenport ✔
• Los Angeles – Fresno (California HSR) ✔
• Cleveland – Detroit ✔
• Chicago – Fort Wayne
• Philadelphia – York (close to two existing stations)
• Philadelphia – Scranton

Of the top 20 predictions which do not currently have train service I have, 13 of them are on either AMTRAK’s expansion plan or part of California HSR. New York to Worcester is probably part of AMTRAK’s expansion as part of a Boston-Springfield-New York line, and I doubt New Bedford is going to get a direct line to New York any time soon. Peoria is halfway between two existing train lines which run through smaller cities, Fort Wayne is close to a train line in Waterloo, leaving the Scranton-Philadelphia as the only city on my list with a high probability of needing more service which does not currently exist.

Not a bad job in my opinion.

View my predictions at gitlab.

 

While thinking about some absolutely horrible events which have happened in my life… without going in too much detail… I have come to a realization. Psychological abuse is abuse. Psychological abuse needs to be treated with the same level of care as physical abuse. Human brains are malleable and with enough time and the right psychological tools, it is very possible to psychologically damage someone gradually in a way so they do not fully understand what is happening. With enough trauma and a large collection of bad events in a short amount of time, it is absolutely possible to take someone who is absolutely mentally healthy and make it difficult for them to make healthy choices in their life.

This is no different from taking a totally able bodied person and shoving them down a cliff, forcing them into a wheelchair and long sessions of physical therapy.

Just as how someone who is shoved off a cliff and survives will need physical therapy, people who are shoved off of a proverbial cliff of emotional damage will absolutely need to have the same level of therapy, but based on helping them reach a higher level of mental and emotional stability. There is no difference.

When someone is put under severe emotional distress for a long enough period of time, it can make it hard for them to make wise decisions. On the outside they might appear to be perfectly healthy, having a stable job, having friends, and appear healthy in other ways, but when you get to know the person at a deeper level you will realize that they are metaphorically bleeding. It can take time to fully realize what is happening and that they might not be capable of realizing themselves what has happened to them, even if the people they are closest to can see it.

This emotional distress can be from a death in their family or any range of distressing events which can harm an individual. What types of events will trigger each person to a point of being unable to make the best choices will be different from person to person. It is incredibly complicated and has to do with that person’s experience in the past and what will drive someone emotionally to the point where they are unable to function at the level they did in the past.

When someone has a traumatic event which distorts their perspective, they can respond in a wide variety of ways. They might push away family, they might start abusing drugs, or a wide range of behaviors which differs from person to person. Sometimes people will make healthy decisions, such as lean into their family and seek human connections, which is obviously the right decision, but sometimes people will make unhealthy decisions which involved disconnection.

In my life, and my personal experience and observations of those people who I love most, I have found that when someone has an emotionally distressing time, it is important for their family to be their for them and with them. The type of support that individual might need to get back to a point of mental, emotional, and spiritual health (all of which are just as important as physical health) will differ person to person depending on the situation, but I have seen in my life that the biggest strength is when people have a strong community which can help that person rebuild their path of spiritual fulfillment, and I have learned in my life that strong communities which support their members who have harm are the strongest and most resilient communities I have ever had.

Part of being a victim of an abusive relationship (relationship could be any connection between any two or more people) is that that person might not realize that what they are in is abusive while they are in it. If they did, they usually would leave. While I do believe that people do need to be the person to ultimately leave abusive situations, that person’s family has an important role to play in helping that person see who truly loves them and help them move towards self-actualization.

I am being deliberately vague about abuse for a reason. Abuse can come in many different forms. It can be denying that person the tools they need for growth. It can be planting ideas in their head which lead them to make bad decisions. It could be hazing, it could be driving family members apart when they have done nothing to harm each other. All of this in my experience qualifies as abuse, and in my life, I have found the most successful times this has happened has not been where someone would walk in randomly on a happy friendship and say “so and so is a terrible human” but is more successful when the person plants ideas into that person’s mind which slowly erode their self-confidence, perception of their self-worth, and ability to keep a clear perspective of what is happening in their life. This is the most seditious and evil form of abuse of them all because it takes time to realize what is really happening, and it tears families apart. The abuse is most successful when that individual is already under significant stress from some other factor in their life, and it can become really difficult to articulate what is really going on. But when someone reports that someone is being abused, they need to be supported and not have their love ignored. The family of the abused needs to ensure that the situation is thoroughly investigated and that if the family member is correct that abuse is happening, they need to respond to the situation to end the abuse.

Part of what makes many forms of abuse so difficult to unravel is that the people who undergo such abuse often do not fully realize what has happened to them either. This is well documented in the literature. Abused people will often become frazzled, and this makes it hard for them to accurately report about what is truly happening.

When someone is undergoing such abuse, the first time someone rings the alarm that something evil is afoot, the easier it is to replenish the situation. When someone rings the bell and it is ignored, the abuse is enabled. The enabling of abuse will make it increase in severity and frequency until the person who is being abused feels isolated and alone.

This is why I believe that communities should strive towards a policy of we support victims. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything someone says is accepted without question. While it is obviously important to listen to every word, the more severe the abuse, the more likely it is that the abuser will not remember the events accurately when first being recounted, and they probably have not put all the pieces together yet on what is really going on. That is part of the healing process. One method which works is to just engage in dialogue with that person, have them spell out what happens, and if they say something which doesn’t sound right, and is fairly obviously contrary to what is really going on, the person who is clearly being abused deserves to be brought into a situation as quickly as possible which allows them to fully analyze their own situation. People in abusive situations can sometimes suffer memory problems as well, such as misattribution, suggestability, and bias. When those three memory problems occur, it can get very complicated to deal with such situations, and if memory problems are present, the loving act is not necessarily to believe every word at its face value but to listen to every word and build a clear picture of what is happening, not just from the words they are saying but through observation of what is happening in their life. One should start of course with an assumption that what they are saying is true of course, to do otherwise is a form of abuse itself, but when dealing with multi-factored long term abusive situations, things can get very complicated very quickly, and when the person’s recollection and what was observed do not match, it becomes difficult to fully analyze. It becomes even more difficult to understand what you are dealing with when the abuse was in a private space.

The complicated nature of such interactions is why I believe the best way to respond is very simple actually, and this is to offer support. Support can come in a wide variety of ways, going out to dinner, board game nights, dance parties, appointments with trained religious figures or psychologists, and long deep conversations. After someone has been in an abusive situation, the most important thing is to provide them a safe space as soon as possible. Safety obviously includes physical safety, but it also includes emotional, spiritual, and mental safety. A safe space is one where abuse is not tolerated, where people are able to have deep conversations which widen their mind and help with their path to self-actualization, and provides a base of comfort and support which acts as a foundation to their lives. A safe space does not mean one will never be challenged, in fact it generally means quite the option, because the safest spaces I have experience is where growth is fostered. The only way to grow sometimes is to be in a position where you have to think about how your position in the world interacts with others. It’s hard to describe fully, its something that is experienced. It is a place of real love. There is incredible power in being an emotionally healthy environment, which includes the obvious being kind and tolerant to each other, but also having a very clear no tolerance policy towards any form of hate. Such spaces can be hard to find, and hard to maintain over the long term, but when they are found they provide a bastion of growth which allows people to finally reach a state of mental clarity and peace. This is support.

I believe that We Support Victims is a statement which is hard to distort, clear in its meaning, and automatically includes people of all genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and every other aspect of their lives. It is an active verb, which is not passive in any way, shape, or form. It is a promise that when someone enters our sacred space and they are damaged, we will provide support for them so that they will be able to grow in all ways. We will help them reach a state of mental clarity so they can process the abuse they have undergone. As their mental health improves it will definitely feel to them to go up and down over time, but those points where they feel like their mental health is declining will generally be because they finally realized another layer of abuse which they had not been able to fully penetrate before. Just as one cannot learn calculus without understanding algebra, understanding complex emotional situations will require an individual to often get through several layers of emotional distress before they might come to a layer which is very raw. At this point, individuals can appear volatile in their processing, but this is a good thing because it is an absolutely vital step in fully understanding what we have undergone. When you find someone who has gone through a layer of abuse and they realize an aspect of their life is harmed, it is natural and good to become angry. A truly supportive network will provide that person a safe space to vent, rage, and yell (assuming they are not hurting anything or anyone) and be there to listen and talk through the trauma. This is true friendship. This is what I have in my two primary communities and it is the most beautiful thing in my life. The community will be there to welcome that person back and give them a space to process and have good healthy experiences which will allow them to heal. As that person feels better about themselves and have more direction in their life, they will uncover more layers until they finally come to terms with what actually happened, and they will finally be able to make amends where needed and they will heal significantly faster than they would have if they had been forced to go through the motions of emotion they will inevitably undergo by themselves.

This is what supporting victims is like. It is a long term process of connection which involves many hours of bonding and love. When it is done the bonds between the people in the community are strengthened, people are healthier at the end of the day, and they are truly happier than they were before. This allows more spiritual growth, and is what people truly crave. It is the path to self-actualization. the path to self-actualization is not easy, and it can take many turns on the way, but when it is complete there is a deep understanding between those individuals that they will be loved, they will be able to grow, and that the community they have built together will survive the future. It will invite love and repel abuse. It will develop a core community of individuals who believe strongly in their central tenants, whatever those may be, and those individuals will become a rock on which the community is founded. They will draw the circle wide, and more people will come in. As love radiates outward and everyone becomes a better person, the community will thrive and grow. They will continuously improve over time, and be a nexus of love and compassion in their wider area which translates into social justice in the public sphere.

The only way I know to build this is through support, and why I strive to Support Victims.

When I use the word family I am not only talking about those people who are related to blood. I am also referring to an individuals support network of their closest friends, faith communities, or other communities which provide emotional health.

Right now is a very exciting time in American history. We are currently in the third Democratic Trifecta over the last 40 years, we just saw congress pass the largest stimulus the United States has seen over the last 70 years, and we have several very exciting bills which have passed the House which need to go through the Senate.

This is where we are hitting a road block because the filibuster of course is still in effect, and everything the Democrats want to pass has a 100% guarantee of being filibustered by Mitch McConnell as long as the filibuster remains.

The filibuster right now is the biggest issue in the United States. It doesn’t matter what issue you care about… racial justice, voting rights, gender equality, LGBT rights, environmental justice, gun laws, economic issues of any type, judicial appointments… it doesn’t matter. The only way to get meaningful long lasting reform which will survive even if Democrats lose the Presidency is to make sure that we can pass legislation through the Senate. This is why the filibuster is the biggest issue in American politics, and it is going to remain the biggest issue in American politics until either the Democrats control 60 seats in the Senate or we eliminate it completely.

Scenario 1: We do not blow up the filibuster

This means we are going to enter speculation time. If we do not pass the filibuster we will not get any more laws passed this session, and probably for the foreseeable future. This is all but guaranteed.

This is going to impact elections severely. Republican controlled state legislatures are currently working on passing voter suppression in many states, but most importantly in Georgia. If these laws pass and stand, Democrats are definitely going to lose a Senate seat in Georgia, and Democrats will lose the Senate seat in Arizona. This is because these states will continue to pass voter disenfranchisement laws through their Republican trifectas, and our existing voting rights laws do not fully protect against modern voter discrimination.

If Democrats fail to pick up a seat in either Wisconsin or Pennsylvania with that guarantee (assuming we don’t kill the filibuster and HR1 fails) then we will have a Republican Senate. This is as guaranteed as anything I can project.

A favorable 2022 Senate map for the Democrats looks like this:

Scenario 2: We blow up the filibuster

The other path forward involves Democrats choosing the nuclear option. If we eliminate the filibuster we can pressure Sinema and Manchin to vote for HR1. They talk a lot of shit (pardon my technical terms) but at the end of the day they do vote with the Democratic Party more often then not. They do not want  to go down in history as the Democrats who voted against the largest expansion of voting rights in over half a century. That is not going to happen. If we do the nuclear option on the filibuster then HR1 is going to be the law of the land. This is a fact.

If we pass HR1 then next year the Federal government will have all the tools it needs to enforce vote by mail in every congressional election in every state. The modern voter disenfranchisement which is being pushed forward right now in Georgia among other states is going to be in violation of Federal Law which is currently pending in the Senate, pending nothing less than the nuclear option.

If we blow up the filibuster, African Americans will be able to vote in Georgia and North Carolina. Hispanic Americans will be able to vote in Arizona. Missouri has Cori Bush who has the ability to motivate voters to vote in Missouri, bringing Missouri into play. With mail in voting in Pennsylvania, the large African American voting bloc in Greater Philadelphia will have increased turnout. Florida has some of the most severe voter discrimination laws in the country which are in violation of HR1. North Carolina has similar laws which have prevented eligible voters from voting for no other reason but to prevent Democratic wins in that state.

A 2022 Senate map with HR1 on the books looks like this with a pro-Republican bias:

HR1 is the difference between Republicans almost certainly taking the Senate in 2022 and the Senate being a competitive map.

The only way to pass HR1 is to destroy the filibuster.

The only way to accomplish anything else in this congressional session is to abolish the filibuster.

If you believe that the Republicans will keep the filibuster in 2025 if they have a trifecta and 50 seats, than you are naive.

If we do not pass HR1, Arizona is going to pass voter disenfranchisement laws. Kristen Sinema is going to lose her seat. Joe Manchin is going to face the wrath of practically every other Democrat in congress and if he ever truly cared about anything he said about being pro-choice, and he will come on board. He has a pattern of taking the limelight as much as he can when whenever he can, but at the end of the day, he is a Democrat, and he will vote with his party.

That is 50 votes plus the Vice President. That is all we need to pass the nuclear option.

The year was 1815, and my great-great-great-great-great grandfather Pierre Henry landed in his new home in Prussia. He was one soldier in the French Army which was part of Napoleon’s failed Russia campaign, and he was one of thousands of soldiers who did not make it back to France. He did not die as a result of the war, he died in 1848. He married Susanna Juliana Hoffman and had at least one son, Melidor Henry. Melidor would go on to have at least one son Eugen, who would have three children. Eugen’s son Karl died in 1949, and Karl’s daughter Ursula was my great-grandmother who I remember.

Pierre was born in France, and his father was Louis Marie Henry, born in 1762 in Versailles. He lived through the French Revolution. He died in 1828.

I do not know the names of Pierre’s sibilngs, but I’m certain he had some. Somewhere in France I am certain I still have some cousins because my great-great grandfather was still in contact with at least one cousin in France in the early 20th century. If you are one of them, please contact me.

OK, family history aside I want to make it abundantly clear that what I am discussing is a personal topic to me, as much as any event which happened over 200 years ago can be. While my writings based off of the Soviet Union are based on discussions with people who saw their mentors being dragged away by the secret police, this article is about my personal family history.

The story begins with the end of the Carolingian/Capetian Dynasty. This corrupt dynasty was overthrown in 1792 by a revolution. Many people were killed by the guillotine and the First Republic was founded in 1792. 7 years after its formation Napoleon Bonaparte came to power and ended any form of democracy in France. During the French First Republic there was first the National Convention which lasted for 3 full years upon the death of King Louis XVI. 3 years later power was stripped from the Legislative Body into the Directoire which lasted for 4 years. The Directoire was a counsel of 5 members who governed France. It was a time of economic stagnation and ending the Reign of Terror. In 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte took advantage of the weaknesses which were present and became the dictator of France.

There is little which needs to be explained about Napoleon. He was essentially a monarch, and he established the First French Empire. His rule ended in 1814 and then there was a Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after Napoleon’s death. It was a constitutional monarchy, but unlike the United Kingdom or Canada, Louis XVIII was the supreme head of state who had real power which he used. Only the richest one percent of the French had the right to vote during the July Monarchy.

The Restoration was succeeded by yet another monarchy (the July Monarchy) which lasted until 1848. 60 years after the French Revolution had been the abolition of Kings, only 10 years were not under a sole monarch.

1848 was a revolutionary year for Western Europe and France was no exception. The Second Republic lasted a full 3 years until President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor. He remained the emperor until 1870. The Second Republic had universal suffrage, but this was practically meaningless because the laws had to originate with Emperor Napoleon III.

Napoleon III was the last Emperor of France. During his time he continuously saw his power diminish, but he remained the monarch with real power through his entire reign. He was dethroned not by a popular revolution but the end of the Franco-Prussian War. The Paris Commune controlled Paris for a full two months before the French Army under the Government of National Defense suppressed the Commune and took full control. Cabinet Dufaure I was the first meaningful democratic government of France under a constitution which would last for more than 5 years. The Third Republic continued to rule France as a Unitary Parliamentary Republic until Hitler invaded France in 1940.

The big question remains… how did the Third French Republic come to be? Essentially it appeared in a similar way that the United Kingdom evolved from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy over the 18th and 19th centuries. It was the assertion of power over the country by the mostly powerless Parliament after the Emperor had been captured by the Prussians. After Napoleon’s capture the Parliament declared itself to be the legitimate government of France and instead of having another megalomaniac come to power and declare himself emperor, the structure was stronger than previous governments in French history.

France did not become a Republic overnight from sending the bourgeois to the guillotines. France became a Republic very gradually over 81 years. France did not become a true democracy simply from a bloody revolution by the people. It reached its first stable form after the parliament declared itself to be more than just a meaningless institution but to be the legitimate government of France because of the lack of an Emperor. France did not become a true Republic overnight with the beheading of the aristocracy. If you actually look at French history it didn’t become a true Republic until 1870, and that was the conclusion of 20 years of reforms under Napoleon III. That form of government became stable, and did not require the execution without trial of tens of thousands of people.

That is how France became a democracy.

Over my life, especially since I came to political awareness during the Bush administration, I have often thought about whether it would be worth leaving the United States. The United States has a lot of issues, until 2014 people like me had no guarantee of health insurance, college education is very expensive in this country, and racism is very much alive which can be seen all over American culture. With that being said… is there another country I would choose to live in? Is there anywhere else in the world I would rather live?

Prince Harry and Megan made a stunning interview with Oprah today about racism in the royal family, and all of the problems they have. While I love visiting Canada, they are still a monarchy, and I like how my head of state is elected by the people (even though I want to destroy the Electoral College).

I also do not wish to live in a country with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. In a split election like happened in Germany in 1933 Parliamentary systems can be horribly unstable. It is very easy to pass such legislation in such systems which is a double edged sword.

I want to live in a country with a high freedom of the press, and low corruption.

If you filter all of the countries in the world which have a low corruption score (greater than 70), a high Freedom of the Press, have a presidential system, a high democracy score (greater than 7 using the Economist Intelligence Unit) and no monarchy, only two countries are left on the list:

The United States and Uruguay.

When determining a difference between the two, we have similar corruption perceptions index scores, similar press freedom scores, and America is significantly better on the Ease of Doing Business Index. The United States is significantly richer than Uruguay. America’s Democracy Score is slightly below that of Uruguay.

The United States can be reformed. I have seen it myself. Washington State now has a public option for health insurance, there is a major bill moving its way through Congress now which will expand voting rights, and America is drifting to the left on social issues very quickly. President Biden announced his support for HR1 today, COVID cases are diminishing rapidly, the vaccine is being distributed and most Americans should be vaccinated by June.

Donald Trump was a terrible president who killed many people, but despite his numerous attacks on our democracy, we still had a transfer of power, and America is moving forward.

America has one of the highest Ease of Doing Business indexes in the world. America has a high standard of living, and things are improving in our country.

We have many challenges we are facing as a country. We must  tackle the challenge of global warming through legislation like Washington Strong. We must ensure that the health care reform Washington State passed last year is expanded on here in my home state and expanded nationwide as soon as possible. We should bring back the WPA, and use easy access public employment as a tool to fight the systemic racism which plagues our country.

I am under no false idea that America is perfect. We have many warts, our country was founded with protecting slavery, and some of the protections for that evil institution, such as the Electoral College still exist today. We must continuously improve our country. We need to make senior care more affordable, and improve access to stable retirement in ways which fights systemic racism.

But there is one thing that the United States is very very very good at… and that is we don’t go backwards over a long period of  time. We have a legal system and cultures which is seemingly impervious to long term degradation. When fascists like Donald Trump have come to power in parliamentary systems around the world their countries have rapidly fell. Despite all of Donald Trump’s attempts to rig our elections to preserve his power, he failed. He was unable to stop the 2020 election, and his failed reenactment of the Reichstagfeuer in January failed miserably. He failed to kill a single member of congress. We still have the PATRIOT ACT and mass surveillance (like almost every country in the world TBH) and someday I expect we will remove that unconstitutional legislation.

Parliamentary systems like Britain are susceptible to degradation, just look at Brexit. The thing about the United States is that even though the Republicans have been trying to undo the Voting Rights Act for literally 50 years and all they could do is make it so congress has to reanalyze which states need pre-clearance. Pre-clearance is completely legal according to the Supreme Court, it just needs to be updated periodically to reflect the current situation in our country, which is not a wholly unreasonable requirement. Despite throwing all their energy to undo the Voting Rights Act they were unable to secure even one Senate seat in Georgia after over a half a century of working to destroy our election system and go back to Jim Crow.

This is at the same time that Brexit is occurring.

When Americans make progress, our progress sticks around. As someone whose great-great grandparents lived through a fascist regime, I highly value that type of politically stability, and this is why I absolutely love the United States, and as a member of a family which has been fighting for Civil Rights in this country since before our country was founded, I continue our sacred tradition because I know that when my family succeeds at making progress in this country, our progress will stick around for centuries to come because of the stability in the American system.

This is why I will never permanently move away from the United States of America and will continue to fight to make this country a more perfect union as much as I possibly can.

The last time a Democratic President was succeeded by another Democrat through an election since the parties realigned was never. It has simply never happened. I’m only going to focus on the last 100 years.

The last time we ran a progressive Democrat after a retiring Democratic President was in 1952 when we ran Adlai Stevenson against Dwight David Eisenhower, the man who literally freed the Jews from Auschwitz. Eisenhower was unbeatable.

In 1968 the would-be nominee Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, and Humphrey suffered from opposition to the Vietnam War.

In 1972 we ran the moderate George McGovern who blamed the stagflation of the 1970s on the Great Society. He was running against both Republicans and Democrats and he was utterly destroyed by a crook during a recession.

In 2000 we ran the Vice President of a very moderate administration which failed to pass most of their proposals. Al Gore was burdened by how the Clinton administration did not embrace Democratic policies. This opened room for Ralph Nader to walk in and claim that both parties are the same. After Wall Street Deregulation, the Defense of Marriage Act, and an escalation of War on Drugs, it is easy to understand why people agreed with his message.

In 2016 we ran a candidate who had a decent platform but spent all of her speaking time alienating the progressive base of the Democratic Party.

If Biden was telling the truth about being an “interim president” then we need to try a different approach. We need someone who does not blame all of America’s woes on Democratic policies. We need someone who wants to decriminalize drugs and supports the Democratic Party platform. We need someone who will then go forward when she is President and actually enact popular Democratic proposals, so she has a chance of winning reelection. If she chooses to not run for reelection, we need to make sure the candidate who we run after her will be unapologetically Democratic.

If we look at the Democrats who succeeded Republican candidates:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a strong platform behind him and was running against the Great Recession advocating for the latest economic theory.

John F. Kennedy was literally running against Richard Nixon and had LBJ behind his back. What more needs to be said?

Jimmy Carter was running against the Watergate Scandal.

Bill Clinton won with a massive spoiler caused by Ross Perot.

Obama ran on a campaign of hope and change during a massive recession.

Joe Biden was literally running against an epidemic.

On top of this, the list of Democrats in the last 100 years who have won a majority of the popular vote twice are Barack Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That’s it.

If we look at the Republican candidates over the last century who were not running against an incumbent, most are not very impressive.

• 1928/1932: Herbert Hoover was a career civil servant, unfortunately he was not a skilled politician and failed to pass any significant legislation. He was unwilling to fight for civil rights, and failed to grapple with the Great Depression.
• 1952: Dwight David Eisenhower was the best man the Republicans have run for the Presidency in the last 100 years.
• 1960: What do I need to say about Richard Nixon?
• 1968: Come on, it was Richard Nixon, he literally worked with North Vietnam to keep the war going.
• 1976: Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, making him no less guilty than the crook who he succeeded.
• 1980: Ronald Reagan literally negotiated with the Iranians to keep Americans hostage, which I consider to be treason.
• 1988: George H. W. Bush was complicit and involved in all of the Reagan Administration’s crimes, such as the Iran Contra Affair.
• 2000: George W. Bush had a mixed record as the governor of Texas leading on wind energy, but also being a supporter of the death penalty and violated the Establishment clause.
• 2008: John McCain was a highly respected relatively moderate Republican senator in the eyes of many.
• 2016: Donald Trump was the least qualified major Presidential candidate in the history of the United States, and has countless rape allegations against him.

Eisenhower, and arguably McCain were the only truly decent Republican Presidential candidates over the last century. The caliber of Republican Presidential candidates has been criminal or unconstitutional, and almost all have been of poor character.

Democratic candidates on  the other hand have generally been either unwilling to embrace the Democratic platform, or unwilling to really challenge the Republican orthodoxy of the last 100 years. With the exception of Adlai Stevenson, the candidates who did not do that go by the title President.

There are three types of major Democratic Party candidates:

• Failed to embrace or downright blamed Democratic policies for America’s woes, or angered the progressive base with their appeal to the center strategy:
  • George McGovern
  • Hillary Clinton
• Got lucky with a third party spoiler or ran against a severe crisis:
  • Jimmy Carter
  • Bill Clinton
  • Joe Biden
• Ran a truly progressive campaign:
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • John F. Kennedy
  • Lyndon Baines Johnson
  • Barack Obama
• Tried to succeeded a very moderate Democrat who enacted many Republican policies
  • Al Gore
• The presumptive nominee was assassinated
  • Hubert Humphrey
• Ran against a literal war hero
  • Adlai Stevenson

Only one incumbent Democrat was defeated in the last century, and that of course was Jimmy Carter.

There has only been one time we ran a progressive Democrat to succeed an incumbent Democrat, and that year was 1952. We almost ran progressive Bobby Kennedy in 1968, a truly insane year with multiple high profile assassinations, including our presumptive nominee, and the nation was reeling from an ongoing conflict and spinning out of control. In 1952 Adlai Stevenson ran against General Eisenhower, who had sky high popularity due to his service in World War II.

I believe that in 2024 we should try running a progressive. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton both failed, and neither are truly progressive candidates. Barring a war hero running on the Republican ticket or our candidate getting assassinated, given the popularity of progressive proposals, I think a pragmatic progressive would be the right choice to lead a winning ticket. We of course need to ensure Democrats do as well as possible down ballot, getting as many progressives as possible to run and win in districts across the country, and that will enable the Democratic President not just to win but also to succeed in passing legislation. Another reality is that with only two exceptions every Democratic President has won fewer votes in their reelection than their initial election. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a larger percentage in 1936 as opposed to 1932, and Clinton won a larger percentage of the vote in 1996. In order to make sure our next President can hopefully run for two terms, we need someone who can really rally the voters out in 2024 with coattails which extend to every state legislature in the country. We will do this by speaking to issues which face real Americans day after day, and that will get people out to vote. Jaime Harrison supports the 50 state strategy, the same strategy which was used by President Obama in 2008, and if we use that then we should be able to keep the Presidency until 2032 at the earliest. If we have a trifecta in 2025 and the President and congress are willing and able to use their power to pass legislation to solve the problems facing America, lack of access to college, and other problems which face our country on a day to day basis, the message will be that the Democrats saved America from the 2008 recession, Democrats rescued America from the COVID epidemic, and went forward and did more than the bare minimum. It will be easier to recruit volunteers, easier to get people to vote, and as long as the Democratic National Committee supports local candidates and builds leadership from the ground up, and congress makes America more equal, more free, and better all around, there is absolutely no reason why the Democrats cannot keep government for the foreseeable future.