We don't really care about democracy,

"You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime you'll find
You get what you need."

          Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. "You Can't Always Get What You Want," 1968

I have my doubts about the "wisdom of crowds."

And I think as far as democracy is concerned, the song has it backwards. It gives us what we want. Not what we need.

To get wisdom from a crowd one needs certain conditions. American voters are diverse, which is one of the conditions to get good results from decisions by crowds. We also have a second condition for good decisions, a way to aggregate and count those opinions, although the electoral college and partisan gerrymandering skew the results.

Democracy fails the requirement of independent decision-making by independent actors. Voters are subject to groupthink and persuasion. Hearts and minds are steered by charismatic orators, preachers, traveling hucksters, entertainers, and more recently, TV ads and viral videos. Rich men have a long history of owning and operating powerful organs of mass persuasion. They have wanted influence.

I suspect historians will look back at this moment and decide we are living in a hinge moment of history. I have some experience with living in such a moment, the year 1968. There was so much going on in 1968: the war in Vietnam; colleges erupting in protest; the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy; the Democratic Convention; the space program, the election, hippies, and of course the greatest music of all time. I was living amid it doing college student things, but aware that the world was in transition.

But my best guess is that historians will define this moment as a profound failure of democracy, coming in the form of consent to Trump's project to remake the Constitution. Our democracy, in its wisdom, chose Trump and we are living with the consequences. There was no secret that he planned to take charge and not wait for Congress to legislate changes. We knew he had immunity from prosecution for any official acts. We knew he planned to pardon the January 6 rioters. He would act. He didn't need permission or a coalition. We chose Trump with our eyes open.

Republican apologists for Trump and the public's decision to elect him observe that Democrats gave the country no good alternative. You forced our hand, they tell me, because Biden was even more unfit for office than Trump. Trump is crazy, sure, but sometimes he made sense, and the Democratic Big Lie was that Biden was competent. And Kamala Harris said she would keep doing the same things American didn't like about Biden.   

Trump was put into office by Constitutional mechanisms, but he has no respect for the Constitution, and we knew that. The Constitution establishes a framework of shared power -- checks and balances, three branches, etc. -- and Trump doesn't want to share power. He insists on exercising it, on his own, his way. Congress has been unable to confront the big issues facing the country -- an immigration program, a health care program, a tax policy that matches revenue with expenses. Somebody needs to lead, and that is Trump. Moreover, Trump has a majority of the Supreme Court that is OK with a unitary executive with strongman power to execute, plus the power to legislate.

Trump has linked the power of government to the power of stupendous wealth. Voters notice, but they don't seem to mind, not yet. 

This is an era when democracy decided that it didn't think it needed democracy. Trump's project of consolidating power is still underway. He has been successful enlisting the power of the money elites, who are also the elites managing the sources of information. The public is getting a taste of elected strongman government, and concluding that the form of government isn't the issue one way or the other. The issue is whether it solves problems or not, whether gasoline and groceries are expensive. Trump is not getting pushback because he is changing our Constitution. He is getting resistance because he is making poor decisions and getting poor results.

Doesn't that mean that the people still rule, that we have a form of republican government? We do. But we are ending the era of a republic. We are becoming an empire, run by serial strongmen. We will have a referendum on the leader every four years. It isn't the Constitution as it used to be, but it may be what the wisdom of the democratic crowd chooses. 

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Trickledown corruption

"You, who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so, become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye
Teach your children well."
          Graham Nash, 1968, "Teach Your Children," released by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, 1970

Corruption corrupts.

I responded to a recent comment to this blog from a Medford-area businessman who had defended our congressman, Cliff Bentz, saying he was a good friend and a great Oregonian. Bentz is a Republican. He has been nearly invisible and undistinguished so far, serving as a quiet yes vote in the Republican majority, which has accepted everything Trump asks of it. That majority offers no check-and-balance, separation-of-powers pushback to Trump, even when he openly flouts Congress' role on tariffs, on going to war, on creating and operating federal agencies, and more.

I cited in my response to that comment a mathematical principle I remember from junior high school: the "transitive principle":

If A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, then A must be equal to C. 

The principle allows algebra to work, as one redefines and simplifies terms, but it is an idea that also operates in the messy world of real life. It underlies our moral sense of equality and fairness. It informs our sense of patterns and consequences. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."

Even the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal is offended and troubled by Trump's open grift and self-dealing. The GOP majority that controls Congress could express disapproval of it. But its members do not. 

The grift continues. Yesterday Trump announced that he will give people who pay a fee advance notice of market-moving Trump posts. He isn't fighting the rigged system. He is legitimizing it and making it a profit center for himself.

Trump has a strategy, and it is working brilliantly. Don't hide self-dealing. Don't act guilty or embarrassed. People take their cue on what is wrong by Trump's lack of guilty feelings. Define self-dealing as normal and good and people go along. 

The problem is the transitive property: one thing leads to another. The behavior of a leader trickles down.

The commenter who wrote that he liked Bentz is a car dealer and property owner with a long history of public service and philanthropy. A good guy. 

But on reflection, if I brought a car in for an oil change at one of his dealerships, and was charged a hundred dollars for new oil and a filter, I would have no way of knowing that the service personnel actually drained old oil and put in new oil, and that the filter they put on was in fact new and not my old one wiped clean. The dealership would get away with it. 

Do they do that? I am sure they do not. I trust him and them.

My rational response in a corrupted economic and cultural system is to demand to watch oil be drained and to count and watch cans of fresh branded oil be inserted. Their rational response where corruption is the norm is to presume that any credit card I present is fraudulent, so they demand to see currency before inserting oil, and they count and hold the currency while the transaction is taking place. 

We aren't there yet. Moreover, my assumption is that there has not yet been such thorough corruption of the consumer-protection systems that the National Association of Car Dealers has successfully lobbied Congress and Trump to disallow any lawsuits or consequences, in the event that fake oil change theft takes place in the U.S. I assume some protection of the law.

But the window of acceptable behavior, and selective enforcement of the law, has moved under Trump because he is openly protects people who pay to play. Trump protects his donors and friends. He directs what laws will be enforced and which will not. Currently his executive departments are punishing some news networks and rewarding others; the firms of some lawyers are threatened and others get business; some contractors are rewarded, some not; some protesters are shot and some are pardoned and offered taxpayer money. We see a pattern and he is normalizing it. 

Representative Bentz has failed us by tolerating self-dealing grift from our president. It sets a norm. With a Congress this closely divided, he and two or three other Republicans could put a stop to Trump's behavior by announcing that they would support impeachment if he does not stop. Bentz has power and leverage, if he used it. He isn't doing so.

Good people should not tolerate Bentz doing nothing. Corrupt practices and norms trickle down, as does the responsibility to refuse to accept it as normal and good.

[Note: Democrats, too. Democrats should have told Joe Biden to demand Hunter get off that Burisma board. It is small potatoes compared to what Trump is doing, but it was wrong and it provides permission for Trump to complain about thousands and grift himself billions.]

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Hazing poor Jay Clayton

I almost felt sorry for Jay Clayton, the nominee to be the director of national intelligence.

Clayton looked foolish, but truculent. He was trapped. He was helpless.

Senator Jon Ossoff wouldn't let up. 

Jay Clayton

Jon Ossoff

Senator Jon Ossoff: "Who won the 2020 election?

Nominee Jay Clayton: "Ah, you know, I'm not going to do this with you."

Ossoff: "This is a job interview. We've established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee?"

Clayton: "Yes."

Ossoff: "Who won the 2020 election?

Clayton: "Like I said I'm not going to get into that with you."

Ossoff: "You're not being honest or forthright. It's a simple question, Mr. Clayton. Who won the 2020 election? Answer the question."

Clayton: "I have answered it."

Ossoff: "Answer it."

Clayton: [shrug]

Ossoff: "You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America's intelligence community? Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions? We know. You know. Everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?"

It goes on and on. 

Jay Clayton is forbidden to say that Joe Biden became the U.S. president because he won the election. Those words cannot be uttered and remain in the good graces of the man who had nominated him to be director of national intelligence. It is another iteration of the people in the Hans Christian Anderson story who see what they see, but cannot admit that they see that the emperor is naked.

This was a hazing ritual. It is a loyalty test to be part of a select group, a kind of fraternity: a position in Trump's administration. The fraternity out-sources the humiliation part to the Democrats on a Senate committee, this time the Intelligence Committee. Everyone knows it is coming. The nominees are prepared with their approved language of evasion, the passive voice. "Joe Biden was confirmed." The hazing proves the nominees' loyalty to Trump by forcing them to do something humiliating in front of witnesses and cameras, something that will prove they will suffer any indignity to stay true to the boss. They are forced to claim they are honest and forthright while saying they cannot see that the emperor has no clothes. 

Clayton stood his ground. He maintained a tough "you can't make me" demeanor. He never hung his head. He took the whipping like a man.

Senator Ossoff advanced his presidential chances. He looked cruel enough to be a president. He doesn't have a gravelly voice, and he has not yet grown a beard, and he looks fit but not jacked. Still, he appears to have plenty of testosterone, at least a T-level sufficient to torture a helpless pledge. On the day that the Secretary of Defence (War) Pete Hegseth announced the Department would do testosterone testing and augmentation of the troops with a goal of increasing the fighting spirit of our military, Ossoff displayed the masculine aggression Hegseth admires in a warrior. Ossoff turned the screws of the torture device, forcing Clayton to perform a submission ritual, choosing career advancement over truth and honor.  It is consistent with the Republican brand and expectation for fierceness. American soldiers give no quarter. When someone is down and helpless, they are where we want them. American soldiers don't take prisoners. 

Clayton stuck to the claim of blindness. We know the routine. Boomers recall the TV show Hogan's Heroes and the Sergeant Shultz character.

"I know nothing. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I did not even get up this morning."

If being willing to torture a Republican is proof of ability to command troops into danger or order federal execution of a prisoner, Ossoff passed the test. He is masculine enough.

The job of the national security director is to walk into the Oval Office and tell the president things he doesn't want to hear — that an adversary's capability is real, that the assessment of the sources do not support the policy, that the intelligence says "no." 

The hazing was not a gotcha. It was a litmus test. Clayton passed Trump's test but failed the nation's.

Click below for a six minute video of Clayton answering questions by Senators Ossoff.

Click here

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Political tribes: Take the test and learn your political home base.

Politics is way more complicated than a left-right continuum.

There is a reason you felt bad about being pigeonholed on a left-right line. It didn't describe you. It didn't really fit.

It is more accurate to say there are political "tribes," each with a cluster of values and opinions. 

Answer a few questions. See what tribe you are in.

The appeal of a single left-right liberal-to-conservative line is that it is simple and it is not totally wrong. It somewhat predicts whether a voter would vote for a Democrat or a Republican.

A better understanding of an American voter is to describe tribes, but those are complicated. Here is a map.

From the website: https://echeloninsights.com/tribes

You would probably find yourself fitting pretty comfortably somewhere on this map.

I am an "American Institutionalist." That puts me in the political center, somewhat to the left on social issues like abortion and racial justice, and somewhat more inclined than most to regulate and tax businesses.

It won't surprise regular readers than I am not a member of the "Loyal Left" nor am I am nihilistic tear-it-all-down "Young and Disillusioned" cynic. If I were to run for office as a Democrat I might well face a primary challenge from the left, and I would likely lose.

I am probably distinguished from a similar tribe of pragmatic people who typically vote for Democrats, the "Electability Democrats," because I have belief that most people in America who "work hard and play by the rules," as both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama described it, can achieve life, liberty, and happiness in America.  I recognize that the political and economic system both advantages and disadvantages some people, and there is a lot of luck and circumstance involved, but it is also set up to reward people who put in the effort to take advantage of opportunities. Success is a little bit about the zip code in which one is born, but it is also about personal behavior and effort. I believe upward mobility is possible, even likely, if one puts in the effort.  

I suspect one of the reasons I am so offended by Trump's election-denial and the January 6 Capitol riot is that it breaks a rule of fair play. I am OK with competition and there being winners and losers. I don't want to give an "A" grade to everyone who takes a test. I like merit hiring. I dislike sore losers who claim "rigged" when there is no evidence of it.  

I shared a political opinion with both U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, coincident when I had just told them I would happily donate money, and therefore when they were likely to think my political instincts were reasonable. I told them that I thought Democrats were screwing up on the trans-in-sports issue. I said I was absolutely OK with trans people attempting to live their best lives. Live and let live. But I said that women's leagues in sports are a good thing, and fairness is an important value. I said it is OK for Democratic politicians to value "fair competition" as a value over "inclusion." An athlete who goes through male puberty has an unfair advantage, I said, and a biological female who loses to a trans athlete who had that advantage has a legitimate gripe. The situation is similar to the use of steroids. We don't allow it ruin the competition. We need to preserve the sense of fair play and a level playing field.

I make the point -- persuasive, I hope, given that I had just told them that I would be happily contributing to their campaigns -- that I was speaking as a fellow Democrat, and that this opinion was a legitimate opinion from the Democratic tent, not a heresy infection from the political right, based on prejudice against trans people. 

I was an American Institutionalist at work, trying to define Democratic policy in a way that wrests it toward fair play and away from the inclusion-in-every-case advocated by the partisans of the Loyal Left, who generally define Democratic positioning.

Readers will be intrigued by this website, which defines the attributes of the tribes. I urge readers to set aside 10 minutes, now or in the future, to take the on-line test of their opinions and to get a report back instantly on their likely tribe. There is no signing-up, no subscription, no commercialization, no strings. Just enter your opinions and get a read-out.

https://echeloninsights.com/tribes

Here is a description of the various political tribes. On the left the chart shows what percentage of Americans are in your tribe. On the right, it shows the movement between 2024 and 2025 in opinion.

Go to the site. Take the test. Report back here in the comments, if you like.

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Field Report: Chris Beck fundraiser

Chris Beck is the Democratic candidate for Oregon's Second Congressional District. It is a bright-red district.

Beck is out meeting voters, telling his story, and raising money.

He did a good job at a Saturday event.

Beck's uphill battle is not uncommon. There are 131 districts with a Republican skew of 10 points or greater; this district is given an R+14 rating by the Cook Political Report.

Disclosure: I attended the fundraiser both as a voter and as an opinion journalist expecting to write a report on the event. I expect to vote for Beck in November. Moreover, we talked by phone after the meeting when I—in my role as an opinionated campaign know-it-all—gave him observations on what I thought he did right and what he should change. I am not impartial; I donated $500.

The event took place on the lovely patio of a couple in an East Medford neighborhood. About 35 people attended. Most attendees were about my age (in their 70s). That is not surprising for an invitation-only RSVP event hosted by people also in their 70s, as people naturally invite their own network of friends.

Beck began by establishing his bona fides as a politically-engaged person going back to his childhood. His parents knew former governor Tom McCall well. Beck grew up in Portland and was a three-term state representative representing a Portland district, so within one minute of speaking, he began establishing his in-district connections. He now lives in the Second Congressional District. His father was from Central Oregon, and they vacationed, hunted, fished, and spent time "east of the mountains"—the part of the district that is Mountain-West in geography and politics, rather than "west of the mountains," which is wetter, more urbanized, and more Democratic.

Because this was a Democratic group, he described his six years working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as time he "worked in the Obama administration."

Then he delivered what I think is his simple value proposition—one that gives him a small but real shot at winning in this district. He would be a Democratic check on President Trump. He may have read and absorbed what I wrote two weeks ago, that winning a campaign like this requires self-discipline from the candidate to keep the focus on the main thing: Donald Trump. 

Who Chris Beck is is secondary. If anything, the unique qualities of a Democratic candidate in a bright-red district is a distraction from the main point. This election must not be a head-to-head comparison of personalities. The question is whether to elect a Republican, who will vote to let Trump have his way on everything, no matter how corrupt and dangerous, or whether one will be part of a majority that says NO to Trump. The Democrat would restore checks and balances. Just be a reasonable, acceptable person—and Beck is.

Trump supporters will vote for Cliff Bentz, the Republican incumbent. Beck's campaign goal is to give a simple clear choice to people who want a change from the status quo because they think Trump is on the wrong track. There is a majority there.

Beck spent just the right amount of time—maybe three minutes—establishing himself as an intelligent, well-spoken, competent adult with a qualifying backstory. Then he began listing the things that a majority of Americans find uncomfortable or dangerous about Trump. Cliff Bentz is a cipher who votes with the GOP majority to enable Trump. He brings nothing interesting to the table to engage voter interest. He is a red dot on the graph.

Beck listed the things Trump did that make him unpopular and Bentz complicit:

--  Trying to overturn the 2020 election

--  Supporting the health insurance changes that make coverage unaffordable for many working people, which could bankrupt district hospitals due to uncollectible bills

--  Purging federal agencies

--  Attacking vote-by-mail systems

--  Disregarding the problem of affordable housing

--  Overseeing inflation and high gasoline prices

--  Iran. Beck said, "The Iran War we just lost. We are pretending we didn't, but we did."

--  Covering up the Epstein scandal

Beck then executed an essential element of every fundraising event: He explained his strategy and mechanism to win, giving hope to donors that their contributions have a purpose. Democrats are energized, he said, and non-affiliated voters are unhappy with the status quo. He will have social media. He will have field workers. He will knock on doors and remind Democratic-leaning voters to turn out. 

The candidate's speech and Q&A lasted about an hour and a quarter, after which the event segued into one-on-one visits with attendees.

I have attended or hosted well over a hundred events of this kind in the past 55 years. The Anna Karenina rule is in effect: All happy fundraisers are alike; every unhappy fundraiser is unhappy in its own way. This was a happy one. This is how they look when the candidate does well.

Can Beck win? If Trump continues to frighten and offend people with his corruption and a deteriorating economy, and the public's restless desire for change persists, then yes he can.

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Weathervane

My sister bought this garden art weathervane and named it "Lindsey Graham."

Maxim de mortuis nil nisi bonum. (Of the dead, say nothing but good.)

Maybe Graham was a master manipulator playing the long game.

Lindsey Graham humiliated himself in his final decade of life. He gave support and legitimacy to Donald Trump. He is getting remembered in many other venues with comments like this:

Lindsey Graham was a spineless sellout, a treasonous political hack, a consummate conscienceless opportunist, a prime architect of the revolting thing that the Republican Party has rolled over and become.

This is harsh, but it isn't wrong, based on the public record. Graham could have used his reputation, and the memory of his friendship with John McCain, to be a public rebuke of Trump. Graham could have been a symbol of resistance to the GOP abandoning honorable character as an essential virtue for a leader. Graham went the other way. He became famous as a weathervane who switched to become a sycophant of Trump. He became a prime example of a hypocritical, unprincipled Trump enabler.

I am trying to think if there is any shred of good in this. Maybe there is. 

I suspect Graham had contempt for Trump. I suspect Graham saw himself as an undercover agent working covertly, an inside-man steering Trump away from his worst instincts. In this view of Graham, this was self-sacrifice and honor, worthy of a true friend of John McCain. Graham knew he was damaging his own legacy, becoming the butt of jokes, but did it anyway. He did it for his country. John McCain would be proud of him.

I watched Lindsey Graham for three decades. First as a senator who was a frequent guest on the Sunday shows, then up close as a presidential candidate campaigning in New Hampshire and South Carolina in 2015. Graham displayed hero-worship of McCain. It was a bit silly, like puppy love, but McCain had a heroic past as a prisoner of war who refused early release from confinement and torture out of solidarity with other Americans. It isn't silly to look up to a man of high character.

Graham's presidential campaign fizzled. He could only find a crowd if he joined one by stepping into a busy ice cream shop.

Lindsey Graham was a sincere foreign policy hawk. He was a proud member of the Army Reserves. The military is his tribe and identity. He wanted an America that engaged with European allies. He opposes Russia's effort to expand into Europe. He wants a military staffed by professions promoted by merit, and motivated by non-partisn, non-political patriotism. 

Trump's instincts were the opposite, and Graham knew that. Trump believes large powers have every right and need to dominate their sphere of influence. That means Russia absorbs Ukraine.

Graham died having returned from Ukraine where he met with Ukraine President Vladimir Zelenskyy. Graham understood that the mechanism for having any influence on Trump was to present himself as an unwavering Trump supporter. Every Democrat who sneered at Graham was proof for Trump to see that Graham would give up every shred of dignity for Trump. Trump loves a loyal flatterer. That is the ticket to being able to tell Trump that the route to popularity at home was to support Zelenskyy, not Putin.

Does Trump listen? Maybe a little. Maybe it created the muddle of our on-again-off-again policy toward Russia and Ukraine, a muddle that would not have existed if Trump followed his own instincts. I want Ukraine to survive. Maybe Graham did some good. After all, Trump has not openly announced that he wants Russia to crush Ukraine, and then Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Then Poland. 

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Easy Sunday: I am trying to grow great grapes.

You may want to skip this post. It is about my vineyard, not politics.

And it is about something pretty mundane: pulling grape leaves off of vines to expose grapes to the sun. 

The task is for a good purpose: to make superior grapes.

On Saturday my nephew and I got updated vine management advice from Adelberto Paz from Valley View Vineyards. We were plugging away at the job of removing selected leaves from the east side of Pinot Noir plants. He said we needed to pick up the pace and start on the Cabernet Sauvignons soon. 

I am hoping Valley View Vineyards will buy my grapes this year, the first real harvest year at scale. I am growing them under their advice to meet their standards, but they are under no obligation to buy them. And given the hazards and uncertainties of farming, I cannot guarantee that I will have them to sell. There is a wine-grape crisis underway. Tariffs have badly damaged our export markets, and there has been a downturn in domestic wine consumption. Alcohol suddenly became less popular. Instead of being, maybe, a little bit good for you, people have decided that red wine is, maybe, a little bit bad for you. Markets change. Then sometimes they change back. People have been drinking wine for thousands of years, and people like how it makes them feel and how it lubricates sociability: cheers! Supply and demand will balance out, but maybe not this year.

My best shot at selling my grapes is to grow spectacularly good ones.

Last year the Cabernets were the weakest of the three varieties. Still small plants. Few grapes. The Cabernets are the  most commercially viable of the three varieties this year: I have a heavy set of good-looking grape clusters. Cabernet Sauvignon vines blossom, ripen, and are picked later in the year than Malbecs and Pinot Noir grapes. My Cabernets hadn't blossomed yet when the April frost came that hurt the earlier varieties in my and many other local vineyards.  

The rows are in a north-south direction. Leaves that cover the grapes on the east side of the plants get pulled off so that they are exposed to the morning sun. Leaf-pulling reduces the chance of mildew that might grow from dew that lingers on grapes amidst dense foliage. Exposed grapes also means that the spray program against powdery mildew is more effective. The sun also sweetens grapes and improves flavor. We let the leaves grow on the west side of the plant where they would otherwise get the hot afternoon sun in the hot dry summer days of the Medford-area climate. Direct sun is a mixed blessing. 

Here is what the Cabernet vines look like before the leaf-pulling job that we are starting now:

Here is what that vine looks like after those leaves are removed:

Take 14 seconds to view this video to see how an experienced vineyard worker pulls leaves. He is amazingly fast. He won't be replaced by artificial intelligence anytime soon.

Click here: https://youtu.be/QHwpfQ99x-A

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