Author: Diane Griffin

Diane is a writer of Fantasy, an intermittent blogger, and a generator of nonsense.

More Tulsi Thoughts

Tulsi is about service.

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I started out this cycle liking her more than Bernie Sanders, but over the last couple of months, I’ve gotten more disenchanted with her. She has some right-wing opinions, but in the main she is progressive, and she doesn’t take corporate money.

I trust her. She is something that many of the people running for president right now aren’t. She’s principled. I can imagine very few of her opponents in the current primary dropping out of the race for two weeks for National Guard duty, but she did, for the whole two weeks right before the third debate. Would Kamala Harris do that? Would Cory Booker? I have my doubts that even Mayo Pete would do it.

Though she missed the third debate (largely because she was unable to campaign) she found her way back onto the stage for the fourth debate, even though the DNC hates, hates, hates her*. While I don’t think she had the best night (it was the weakest of her three debate performances so far, in my opinion) she was still the #1 google search the night of the debate, as she has been for each debate she’s appeared in.

She may have been weak on that debate stage because she considered boycotting it. Her numbers went up in the weeks after that third debate she missed, so it seems less crucial for her to be on that stage. With the Russian bot accusation, her numbers are going up again in Iowa. She got the Hillary Hates Her bump!

Because the DNC has been so rotten to her, and because she can’t turn away from a fight, she’s been turning up on right wing media, such as the Tucker Carlson show on Fox. Because of that, she’s doing something virtually no other Democrat has managed in a long time: she’s building a profile among conservatives and independants. Because the DNC has forced her to be an outsider, she has embraced the role and is building strength in what conventional wisdom (read: the DNC) would tell us is an impossible demographic.

Considering that she’s never going to be popular with centrist Democrats, I do wonder how she plans to win enough support to prevail in the Democratic primary, but I speculate that this may not be a reason to step out of the race. She could conceivably be a strong running mate for the most progressive-left candidate in the primary, should that candidate survive. Winning influence among conservative and independent voters might make her a strong addition to a Bernie Sanders ticket.

*Another reason I like her!

A Byzantine Reflection

The medieval Roman Empire is all around us. The more that I study, the more I realize that this is so.

Today I learned about Erasmus, a Dutch scholar, who created the New Testament, compiling over 2,000 Byzantine manuscripts into a single document. The King James Bible’s New Testament is a straight up translation of his Novum Instrumentum the Latin translation of his original Greek manuscript, also by Erasmus. The Gutenberg Bible also printed his New Testament. Martin Luther based his faith on it.

There are many ways that the Byzantines are still with us, but there are few as profound and important as the New Testament.

Tulsi Gabbard is a Fighter: She Could Be Just What This Country Needs Right Now

Tulsi Gabbard found out yesterday that she will not be included in the third Democratic Presidential Debate, having met the fundraising requirement to be included — at least 130,000 unique donors to her campaign — but failed to meed the polling requirement of at least 2% support in four qualifying polls, only one poll from each polling entity can count: the polls must either be national polls, or they must be from one of the first four “early” states — Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, or South Carolina.

On Five Thirty Eight blog, where they aggregate polls, I counted 8 national polls and 7 polls in early states where Tulsi scored 2% or higher. The question is, why don’t more of these polls count? What criteria did the DNC use to select which polls they would use to qualify candidates? Looking at the list there are certainly some polls that are more reputable than others, certainly, but why didn’t the Emerson College poll count, for example? No one outside of the DNC inner circle knows.

Where other candidates may have used not meeting the criteria established by the DNC as a reason to drop out of the race, Gabbard seems to have only gotten more determined. She went on Fox News and spoke to Tucker Carlson about the need for transparency the same day that the debate participants were announced (yesterday, as of this writing). While some may look sideways at her choice of venue, it is clear to those of us who are watching her campaign at all closely that she would not have been able to get on MSNBC to discuss this issue. If she’d been brought on at all, the topic of conversation would likely have been “Assad apologist” beginning to end. MSNBC is not known to be particularly supportive of progressives.

Below is a clip from her appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show.

A Few Thoughts on the 2020 Presidential Race: August 27, 2019

The recent Monmouth University poll showing Bernie Sanders (20%), Elizabeth Warren (20%) and Joe Biden (19%) in a statistical dead heat would seem to be an outlier. The other polls that have come out recently show Biden as the frontrunner, Bernie Sanders in second place, and Elizabeth Warren running about 2-5% behind Bernie. I wonder what difference in methodology produced this poll’s results, which I believe to be more accurate than most current polling.

As of now, it appears to me as if this is a three-way race. All of the others with hats still in the ring are markedly behind, and barring some surprise, will stay that way. Of the three, my preference is definitely Bernie, but I could see myself holding my nose and accepting EW as a compromise. There is no way in hell I will be voting for Joe Biden. If Biden becomes the nominee, I’ll be voting Green.

Just so we’re clear.

Biden is unacceptable to me for the following reasons: first and foremost, I believe Anita Hill. Biden was the chair of the judiciary committee for the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, and his performance in that instance was abysmal. Second, Biden has told us already that if he becomes President, nothing will change. He’s clearly beholden to the corporate interests who are funding his campaign, who have funded virtually all of his campaigns, and that is who he will answer to as president. I also perceive him to be a white liberal-style racist, regardless of the fact that he was Obama’s veep.

Elizabeth Warren does not thrill me. There are things I like about her, but I see her playing footsie with the Oligarchs. I think that’s her lane. She is pretty far on the left end of the spectrum (which is actually pretty moderate in comparison the rest of the world’s politics), but she has very carefully positioned herself just to the right of Bernie Sanders. That, in combination with her efforts to show herself to be willing to work with the Old Boys, is smart strategy. I definitely see her path to the nomination, and it’s crafty of her to find it and hew it out for herself. The real question with Warren is, how beholden will she be to those corporate interests? How much of her carefully-thought-out agenda will she be able to accomplish?

Bernie, on the other hand, is a well-known quantity. He’s had the same belief system since the 60s. He’s not inflexible, but you always know where Bernie’s coming from. He’s a classic New Dealer. He also has an uncanny gift for being right on the issues. Remember that internet meme, “For every mistake this country has made, there’s a video of Bernie Sanders trying to stop it”? That’s who he is. It shouldn’t be a rare thing, to live your life with conviction the way Bernie has, but in this world, at this time, it is. His positions come from that deep moral conviction, and he has backbone.

He’s 77 years old, a year and two months older than Joe Biden. But where Biden appears to be suffering some cognitive decline (face it, he is!) Bernie is as lucid and quick as a president should be. I think he’ll be that way if he lives to be 100. There is no evidence of old brain that I can see, and he’s also healthy and physically active. I honestly believe he could do two terms.

The question is, can he convince the country that he could withstand the vicissitudes of office? That’s a heavier lift. Possibly too heavy. The other hard sell in this country is to get people to understand that his policies will work. This is one way that Warren is beating Bernie right now. She is making the case for her competency to do the things she has laid out.

Bernie has that competency, but can he get the public to see that? He has to, if he’s to win.

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