What Brexit portends for the US–Part Three

This is the third post in my blog series on Brexit—Britain’s exit from the European Union, for now scheduled to happen on January 31, 2020.

Britons voted on December 12, and the Conservatives (Tories) had their biggest win since former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1987, with 365 seats in the House of Commons. The Labour party won 203 seats and suffered their biggest loss in decades. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson lost her seat, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will step down however it’s unclear when. With a 39-seat majority, now duly elected Prime Minister Boris Johnson has a free hand to deliver Brexit. Most polls indicated the Tories would win, but not this resoundingly, and not in areas that have been Labour-strongholds for decades, some over a century. The Labour party is in shambles and while it attempts to pick up the pieces, the United Kingdom as a whole will undertake its most significant political decision since the end of the Second World War.

But Brexit, what form it will take (though most likely hard), and the political and economic effects are anything but certain. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) continues to press for a second referendum on Scotland’s independence, saying that [PM] Johnson cannot “bludgeon a nation into accepting your view of the world when it is made very clear that it doesn’t have that view….” She says this after the SNP won 48 out of 59 Scottish seats. To Sturgeon “Scotland showed its opposition to Boris Johnson and the Tories, said no to Brexit, and made very clear that we want the future of Scotland, whatever that turns out to be, to be decided by people who live here.” Johnson told Sturgeon he will not allow a second Scottish referendum, but it’s not that simple. Out of 365 Tory MPs elected, 345 of them come from England, only 6 from Scotland. Scottish Tories ran on opposing an independence referendum and more than half lost their seats. Neither leader backing down sets the stage for a political crisis of nationalism, antagonism and alienation, if Scots feel ignored by a government in Westminster that is out of touch with them yet dragging them into a future, one outside the EU that they neither wanted nor voted for.

Across the British Isles in Northern Ireland, one of the toughest issues to negotiate is the Irish backstop. Under the current Brexit withdrawal agreement, Northern Ireland will still follow EU rules—meaning products from Northern Ireland moving into the rest of the United Kingdom will be checked. A soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is why the peace process has been so successful. Northern Ireland remains culturally tied to Ireland, politically tied to Britain and economically integrated between the two. A hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland ushered in by Brexit threatens to undermine the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. But it also emphasizes the economic ties of the entire island which some believe might make Irish reunification inevitable. Thus, in a few years the United Kingdom may not exist.

In the United States, centrist political pundits couldn’t wait to use Labour’s defeat to emphasize why a centrist Democrat should be on the 2020 ballot. News media headlines say this makes things difficult for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s presidential bids, as the election across the pond is proof that voters will reject far-left policies. Centrist nominee Joe Biden blamed Labour’s loss on its policies being so “far to the left…” Only that wasn’t the reason Labour lost. According to a poll by Opinium, only 12% of British voters cited economic policies as the reason they voted against the Labour party. The bigger issues were leadership and Labour’s stance on Brexit—both linked to Jeremy Corbyn, and the reason why 43% and 17% respectively voters cast Tory or Liberal Democrat ballots instead of Labour. Among Labour defectors to the Tories, only 6% of them cited economic policy as the reason. Almost a third of them cited Labour’s stance on Brexit and nearly half of them cited Labour leadership. In fact, every centrist MP who left the Tory or Labour parties lost their seats.

Over the past decades British party demographics have changed. The United Kingdom is a society ruptured by social class division, and more recently education, much like the United States is fractured by race. Historically the Tory party was the party of the upper-class elite, while Labour was left-wing and more popular with the working classes. But no longer, as immigration sparks fears over a changing British identity, rural, less educated, white working-class voters are now drawn to the Tories, while educated, non-white, metropolitan citizens support Labour. This election was not about voters rejecting Labour policies. Tories ran on increasing public spending and ending austerity (though not as much as Labour.) It was about Brexit and who voters trusted to lead the country. 

Neither Boris Johnson nor Jeremy Corbyn were popular as party leaders. But Corbyn was more unpopular, and as I’ve written before, wasn’t consistent in his stance on Brexit because he never supported British membership in the EU but recognized that staying in is preferable to leaving on a Tory-agenda. His promise for a new Brexit referendum left both Labour-Leave and Remain voters unhappy. Accusations of anti-Semitism used by the British media didn’t help either. Johnson, while having a long history of racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia, stuck to basics and said his country simply needed to “get Brexit done.” A message that resonated with areas that traditionally vote Labour, mostly white, working class who voted ‘Leave’ in 2016 and in some cities. 

What happened in the UK is not fated to happen in the US, as despite having a shared history we are two different countries. But there is a lesson for Americans as we head into 2020. American political pundits saying that the British election proves left-wing policies cannot win are not merely wrong but are perilously close to a willful lie. When running against a strongman leader, as both Donald Trump and Johnson are, the opposition must understand who needs to show up for them on Election Day, and offer a simple, consistent message that speaks that voter’s language. Parties must be willing to step outside the box, and draw the appropriate lines no matter who gets upset or how it breaches the “civility” they are used to. Voters’ personal dislike of Corbyn aside, he wasn’t offering anything new that Johnson wasn’t, and didn’t appear like a principled leader, Johnson did. Much like Joe Biden isn’t offering anything new and is priding himself on keeping everything the same. But if the old way of things was so great, we wouldn’t be in the political, economic and social turmoil we are in now.

Moreover, the American voters that the Democratic party needs to turnout come November 3, 2020, Millennials, Generation Z, women, people of color, do not want the same old, same old. We want something new. We want leaders to speak our language as Boris Johnson did to British voters, no matter what feathers are ruffled. Thus, the British election should be read as a rejection of centrism not progressivism. A rejection of leaders who have yet to learn, that when you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

The 2020 Democratic primary is toxic

Every US election since I was old enough to know what elections were, has been billed as ‘the most important election of our time’, and 2020 actually hits the mark. Considering the stakes, it is the most important election of our time, especially for Millennials such as myself, and Generation Z. We have the chance to begin addressing the horrible hand we’ve been dealt in high student loan debt, soaring housing & health care costs, climate change, and others, and to begin the pain-staking task of addressing the long-standing ills facing the entire country. 

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

I’ve long believed that the outcome of the 2020 election will be decided in the primary. The key to Democrats keeping the House, winning the Senate and presidency is high voter turnout, and the Democrats must learn from 2016 by selecting a candidate that gets the base (young people, people of color, especially black women) excited about voting, not merely rely on their candidate not being Mr.Trump. And I’ll add, not trying to ‘win back’ white voters who switched from Obama to Trump in 2016, nor former Republican ‘Never Trumpers’ who do not understand (or want to) the dire straits this country is in. Trump or no Trump, this country is in need of deep, systemic change instead of a nominal modification to the status quo.

However I find that paying consistent, daily attention to the primaries mentally and emotionally exhausting, taxing, and boring. And I’ve refrained from regularly discussing the primary candidates on social media or in real life. That’s not to say I don’t know what’s going on, which candidates I’m leaning towards, or which candidates’ policies I like. But I’m not following the Democratic primary as I have in previous cycles. I’m not on tinder-hooks curiously following what every candidate says. I don’t watch the debates live, if at all, and not in their entirety.

One reason is mainstream media coverage of the candidates. They’re making the same mistakes that they did in 2016. White, moderate male candidates like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and until he dropped out, Beto O’Rourke, are dubbed as the face or future of the party, are given the most frequent and most positive coverage compared to candidates of color and/or women. For candidates of color, those who question white candidates on race, as Senator Kamala Harris and Julian Castro did of Biden during debates are considered ‘too aggressive.’ Senator Bernie Sanders, a white male candidate but not a moderate, does not receive the quantity or quality of coverage that he should given his level of support ranking him in the top tier of candidates. 

The narrative of black support follows that we universally support Biden, even though anecdotal evidence shows that black Millennials are more or less torn between Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. Which brings me to the exclusion of Millennials generally from polls and surveys, which tend to focus on Baby Boomers. Even non-mainstream journalists on Twitter do this, despite Millennials being the largest voting block, Pew reports showing turnout for Millennials/X-ers/Gen Z surpassing that of the Boomers in 2018, and in 2016. The mainstream news media is not providing a truthful picture of the 2020 race.

Another reason I’m not paying attention to the Democratic primary is because of the length of the election cycle. I’m quite taken with the British election happening on December 12, simply because its happening so quickly—the minimum amount of time for an election in the United Kingdom is five weeks. That’s five weeks for candidates to get their act together, five weeks for political parties to give the public a reason to vote for them, and only five weeks of incessant media coverage to the exclusion of everything else. In the US, media coverage of an election cycle begins as soon as the previous one is over. Considering the multitude of issues that deserve coverage—climate change, fears of a global recession, anti-government protests sparking up all over the world, and others, such prolonged media coverage is superfluous to the point of exhaustion.

The third reason, is the prevalent toxicity in social media discussions about the candidates. Many voters who’ve already made their decision display a deep antipathy for other candidates and their supporters that surely will not end when only one candidate is left standing. Bernie supporters criticize Warren as a ‘fake progressive.’ Some African-American supporters of Kamala Harris question why a black person would support any other candidate aside from her. Black voters who are more critical of her question her blackness on a scale that Barack Obama was not subject to in 2008. A dislike for Buttigieg because of his age, white maleness or even his policies is dubbed as being anti-LGBTQ, especially from the black community. 

Former president Barack Obama has waded into the primary, cautioning the left that bold ideas “have to be rooted in reality” and that “the average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system to remake it.” Considering roughly half of eligible Americans consistently do not vote in elections, I doubt that. If anything, Mr. Trump’s election demonstrated that faith in the system is dangerously low and voters want a candidate who pledges to disrupt the status quo. The desire to blow up the system is why voters were drawn to Mr Trump, it’s why voters are drawn to Bernie Sanders and why Sanders voters either voted for Mr Trump or didn’t vote at all in 2016, after Bernie lost the Democratic primary. The dividing line is what kind of system voters want their candidate to embrace.

Image by Simaah from Pixabay

Other reasons I’m not paying attention to the primary are that it’s too long until the first votes are cast, there are too many candidates running and in the meantime too many other more immediate issues to focus on. Plus, winning the presidency is one thing but who controls the Senate is key. A Democratic president will not be able to do anything of consequence without Senate support, and no the Republicans will not experience ‘enlightenment’ and work with the Democrats should Mr. Trump be out of the Oval Office come January 2021.

American election cycles are too long to be covered so intensely, polls are given too much credence and the level of fear and irrationality among some voters make discussing the candidates more taxing than its worth. As the Iowa Caucus and Super Tuesday get closer this will change but until then I’ll keep my attention on the Democratic primary at minimum, for my own sanity.

PG&E blackouts amidst wildfires: A Product of Late Capitalism or the Beginning of the Apocalypse? Or both?

I was pleasantly surprised when I received a text message last evening that the power at my house was back on. For nearly 48 hours my family was unable to turn on the heat, lights, use the internet, microwave or oven. Like many families, everyone has a cell phone so while we still have a landline, there’s only one and it can’t call long-distance. Thus, not having power means we can’t make phone calls. I wrote most of this blog from a café outside my immediate neighborhood because there was no power in the immediate vicinity save the fire station. The smell of smoke was apparent as soon one steps outside. I cannot recall my neighborhood ever being so pitch black as I drove home Sunday night. The morning commute was more chaotic than usual as the traffic lights were not functioning. Not even a flashing red light.

Image by skeeze from Pixabay 

If you haven’t heard, California is dealing with a series of wildfires in both the Bay Area and Southern California. The fires have caused forced evacuations from homes, including professional basketball player LeBron James. Northern California’s gas and electric utility PG&E has shut off power across the Bay Area for millions of residents and today has announced further blackouts as firefighters struggle to contain multiple wildfires because of strong winds. Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sunday because as state lawmakers debated the future of PG&E, the country’s largest public utility, as it moves through bankruptcy proceedings, which it declared earlier this year, after being ordered to pay at least $30 billion in liability for previous wildfires. Its total debt is over $50 billion. Earlier this month it lost control to make its post-bankruptcy plans. A federal judge ordered the utility to use money originally intended for stockholders’ dividends, to wildfire prevention. Meanwhile, 16 million customers are constantly wondering if or when a blackout will be imposed. This marks the second time this month that PG&E has announced blackouts to reduce fire risk amidst a dry fall season and heavy winds, exacerbated by higher temperatures in climate change. 

The thing is, planned blackouts actually don’t reduce the risk of fires, which are normal and natural. I remember wildfires around this time last year and the year before, but no blackouts. In 2018, humans were responsible for 96% of wildfires in California. Shutting power off actually increases the risks of fire, and makes it more difficult for the public and fire departments to respond. If there is an evacuation notice, people in an area under a blackout won’t receive messages to leave. Yesterday a wildfire in Lafayette led to forced evacuations, however some people in those areas didn’t receive notices because of the blackouts. Diverted traffic means more cars in risky areas. Residents without power might use home generators which carry their own fire risk. Blackouts shift responsibility from PG&E to residents and small business owners who cannot operate, costing the state economy billions. 

Still, since 2015 half of the ten most destructive fires in California were linked to PG&E, which says two of the fires ignited in the past couple days could have been because of their power lines. The utility could’ve taken steps before now to reduce the risk of fire that do not involve shutting power off and causing chaos for hundreds of thousands of residents. The main one being to upgrade its power lines. PG&E estimates the mean life expectancy for its transmission towers is 65 years old. The average PG&E transmission tower is 68 years old, as the majority of them were installed between 1921 and 1960. PG&E refused to conduct upgrades, even as employees voiced concerns. From 2000-2010 PG&E’s revenues were $224 million dollars higher than what was authorized, it spent $93 million less than its budget between 1997-2000. Stockholders received two dividend increases within a year’s time between 2016-2017. PG&E asked to raise customers rates in 2020, to which Governor Newsom, a harsh critic of PG&E had stern criticism. In light of recent events he renewed his call for Warren Buffett to buy the utility.

What’s happening here is a clear example of why a billionaire, a for-profit corporation or shareholders should NOT be in charge of a public utility. When making a profit is the objective, that inevitably takes precedence over everything else, including the welfare of its customers. And gas and electricity are too vital to everyday life, in both function and safety to put in profit-seekers’ hands without proper state oversight.

Another layer is California’s housing crisis. California is not alone, many places in the U.S. and around the world face a shortage of affordable homes. But California also faces a crisis in the sheer number of homes available. There is not enough housing to sustain all the people who live here nor enough space to build housing. My native Bay Area is the toughest housing market for first-time buyers. Those of my generation, Millennials are forced to move out if we desire a home to raise a family in, as many of my friends and my significant other’s friends have done. For those who remain we’re caught in the middle of a maelstrom of economic extremes. On the one hand we have new apartment and condominium towers being built everywhere there’s space. But tent cities and homeless encampments are commonplace. It begs the question when will the bottom fall out?

Image by ArtTower from Pixabay 

It is expensive and difficult to obtain permits to build homes in Bay Area, but the only other option is to build housing in hilly areas or close to mountainous areas and forests—most vulnerable to wildfires, again, which are normal and natural. But increasing the population density beyond what nature allows against a backdrop of state governance unable or unwilling to 1) regulate its public utilities, nor 2) deal with a housing crisis effectively, makes the state, the Bay Area and Los Angeles particularly vulnerable. Another reality is the fact that powerful fault lines run through the Bay Area, reaching San Jose and Los Angeles. It’s easy to picture a scenario where damage from an earthquake sparks a fire which causes mass destruction and loss of life. It happened in San Francisco in 1906, causing $8.2 billion worth of damage in today’s dollars and killed 3,000 people.

It’s obvious why the Bay Area is such a draw for people. California is the 5^th largest economy in the world, the Bay Area grows twice as fast as the rest of the country, the state has incredible racial, ethnic, religious and sexual diversity, and state political system is near unanimously opposed to Mr. Trump. But progressive or left-wing politics is not a shield against poor governance. Nor is it a cause. California has deep, long-standing problems not unlike the rest of the country. What’s happening in the Bay Area is a microcosm for what’s happening elsewhere. The beginning of the NBA season saw the opening of the new Chase center in Mission Bay, San Francisco for the Golden State Warriors, which was described to me as ‘having the same feel as the Apple Store.’ Yet only a few blocks away are homeless encampments. In a city where median rent for a one-bedroom apartment reaches $3,700 and the price of a single-family home is $1.7 million, the Chase center is a symbol of the increasing economic polarization throughout the country.

While Washington D.C. stands on a political precipice as the acrimony over Mr. Trump’s impeachment rises, California and the Bay Area is on an economic precipice on a collision course with nature, both of capitalism and the natural environment. The stage is set for potentially mass devastation. As someone close to me shared: “as goes California, so goes the nation.”

Falsely Blaming Millennials for Economic Troubles Prevents Us From Having a Much Needed National Discussion

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

As a Millennial I’m used to seeing articles about how we’re destroying everything—from marriage, to canned tuna, homeownership, department stores, cruises, the list goes on. But an article published yesterday on CNBC theorizing that we’re to blame for the ‘sluggish U.S. economy’ takes the cake. According to investment banking company Raymond James, Millennials are saving as opposed to spending the way our parents did and it’s causing an “economic imbalance” because of the laws of supply and demand. If people are saving, they’re not spending, and this creates an oversupply in the market which drags down the economy. The article cites the St. Louis Federal Reserve, which said the personal savings rate was at 8.1% as of this past August. In 1996 it was 5.7%. Raymond James’ analysts blame Millennials because we are the largest spending generation.

Let’s be clear who we’re talking about when we say Millennials, also known as Generation Y. Millennials, were born between 1981 and 1996. We are currently between the ages of 23 and 38. Let’s go back a decade, to 2009 when the world was reeling from the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. How old were Millennials then? Between 13 and 28. More than half of us were over 18 and whether we went to college or not, were facing a job market where getting hired was infinitely more challenging than it was for our parents. If we did get hired, the odds were, we weren’t paid enough to live on. And even today, many Millennials still rely on our parents for financial support. For those of us who went to college like were told, we have the additional burden of paying back our student loans.

Younger Millennials who weren’t in college at the time entered the same economically austere environment we did. Perhaps they, along with Generation Z have the benefit of not being caught off guard but given that the costs of a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle are increasing but wages haven’t been commensurate since the late 1970s, it’s safe to say they have the same economic challenges we do.

Image by Maklay62 from Pixabay 

What it ultimately comes to is, my generation literally does not have the same amount of money that our parents, mostly Baby Boomers did when they were our age. This has been documented by the Federal Reserve. Our coming of age was marked by the financial crash. You might call it our generational trauma. It’s foreseeable then, that our response was to save what little money we can, and take fewer financial risks. And we are. In an age of historic economic inequality in the U.S., Millennials are saving at twice the rate of Boomers, especially if we’re married with children and even if it means cutting back on other things, like eating out, entertainment and vacations.

I get that CNBC went with a title they thought would get people to click on the article and it worked because I clicked on it, and now I’m writing about it. But “blaming” Millennials for something continues a narrative in the news media that I am beyond tired of. One reason being, it’s not the truth, and framing a situation so inaccurately keeps a false narrative going, and prevents us from having the truthful conversations we need to have about the system, and our problems. Millennials are not responsible for the current economic troubles. We’re victims of the economy, and a system that made promises to our generation. And the system has not only failed to deliver but punishes us. As the title for an article Derek Thompson wrote for The Atlantic goes, “Millennials didn’t kill the economy. The economy killed Millennials.”

Impeachment isn’t just about holding Donald Trump accountable, but allowing the public to hold our government accountable

photo by Gage Skidmore

Thanks to a whistleblower complaint about a phone call between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in July, when Mr. Trump allegedly pressured President Zelensky to investigate the Biden family in Ukraine, for information that Mr. Trump could use against former Vice President Joe Biden in our upcoming election, last Wednesday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry against Mr. Trump. 

I must admit, I never thought Speaker Pelosi would pull the trigger.

To make clear, impeachment is the formal process of a public official being charged with misconduct. It can result in the official, in this case the president of the United States, being removed from office. The first step is an impeachment inquiry where the relevant House committees gather evidence for the Judiciary Committee. If the Judiciary committee believes there is evidence of impeachable offenses, articles of impeachment are sent to the full House of Representatives for a vote. If a majority vote in favor of impeachment, the articles move to the Senate. Presuming the Senate does not vote to dismiss the articles outright, the Senate holds a trial, with senators acting as a jury, and the SCOTUS Chief Justice as the judge. If at least two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict the president, then Mr. Trump would be removed from office.

Impeachment originates from the British, as a way for Parliament to hold the king’s ministers accountable to the public. It’s inclusion in the U.S. constitution makes sense when you consider that the country was created out of a war to fight off the perceived tyranny of the British crown. The Framers had every reason to prevent such a situation from happening again. And yet when writing the constitution, the Framers disagreed much like our leaders today do, or did. Should elections be the sole way to punish the leader of the country? Does allowing the legislative branch to adjudicate the chief executive damage the separation of powers? In the end the Framers said it didn’t. 

With a vocal minority of exceptions, until now Democrats have viewed impeachment like opening Pandora’s Box, and insisted the way to defeat Mr. Trump is in an election. If we didn’t have a special counsel investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, investigate whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice to that end, who warned that Russia will likely interfere in our next election, and if a major party was not actively using voter-suppression to implement minority-rule, dealing with Mr. Trump that way might make sense. But that’s not the case. Don’t get me wrong, everyone especially Millennials and Generation Z needs to vote in 2020. But Democratic leadership has long disappointed voters, myself included with their tepid opppostion to Mr. Trump. 

One of the themes of 21^st century governance is citizens’ desire for those in power to be held accountable. That is why mass protests are occurring all over the world, whether in the United Kingdom over Brexit, yellow vests in France, weekend protests in Hong Kong, protests in India over Kashmir, in Egypt for the removal of el-Sisi, or against dictatorship in Sudan, just to name a few. Given the cruelty, greed, violence and damage happening under the Trump Administration, putting all my hopes a fragile election to excise one of the most malignant tumors from the country seems like putting all my eggs in one basket, nor is it working smart. The longer Mr. Trump goes without being held accountable for his actions, the more enabled and emboldened he’ll be and the more damage he’ll cause.

Impeachment actually removing Mr. Trump from office is not the point. It’s about bringing to light what is going on, (what would happen in the House) and forcing every member of Congress to go on the record and say if he/she is okay with it. The fact that former Republican senator Jeff Flake and former Republican strategist Mike Murphy have both said if impeachment votes were secret, between 30-35 Republican senators would vote to impeach Mr. Trump is telling. Republicans have been able to distance themselves from Mr. Trump yet endorse his actions by staying silent. An impeachment trial in the senate would remove that, which is what we need. In that sense, impeachment proceedings would hold allow the public to hold Congress responsible as much as Mr. Trump.

I still see posts on social media saying impeachment proceedings are pointless, will hurt the Democrats in 2020 and divide the country more. #CancelNYT was trending late last week when the New York Times revealed personal information about the whistleblower, who Mr. Trump hinted should be executed as a spy. Last night Mr. Trump threatened civil war if he’s impeached, and this morning suggested the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) should be arrested for treason. While we may not officially be in a “hot” open conflict, we are already at war with each other. But for someone who claims he is innocent of wrongdoing, Mr. Trump seems very scared. Moreover, impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one. If he is convicted by the Senate, the most that will happen to Mr. Trump is his removal from the presidency. Even if a Democrat wins the presidential election next year, there are fears Mr. Trump will not leave office. And why would he? Other than the democratic norms that Mr. Trump has already shown contempt for, what reason does he have to defer when he hasn’t to this point? And what are Democrats prepared to do if he doesn’t? What are we as the American people prepared to do? 

The reason I support impeachment is because it’s the constitutional tool the Democrats have to show Mr. Trump they are not playing around and this is serious business beyond a mere censure or condemnation. Democrats and Republicans have been locked in political deadlock in the name of “civility” while our problems mount, and lawmakers do everything except what they were elected to do—serve the people. Maybe this will be what breaks it.

When America sinks, who will be on a lifeboat?

RMS Titanic Sea Trials on April 2, 1912/painted by Karl Beutel
Creative Commons license

Being American today feels like being on the famous doomed ship Titanic and we have the 1997 movie, as a visual. Viewers watched the characters, knowing tragedy looms when the ocean liner sinks on its maiden voyage, and the majority of passengers die. The largest ship at the time it left Southampton, England for New York City on April 10, 1912, Titanic’s owner J. Bruce Ismay intended it to be the most luxurious, and the quickest of all ships. He was trying to keep White Star Line from insolvency, and above its rival Cunard. Ismay desperately needed Titanic to be a success, and took short cuts in its construction, for which over two thousand people suffered.

In 2019, being American feels like we’re headed toward that moment in the movie, when despair and chaos engulfs everyone as the few lifeboats disappear, and the ship slips into the frigid Atlantic Ocean. Just like Ismay cut corners and innocent passengers died, the American government has cut corners since its inception, and the entire country is hurting as a result. Leaving my generation, Millennials, and Generation Z to bear the consequences. The dream of what the United States could be, is not the U.S. that is. We face deep crises: widening economic inequality, fears about changing racial demographics, fights over gun legislation and health care, and others can easily boil over. All we need is the iceberg, or catalyst. 

But who will be on a lifeboat? It’s easy to say the 1%, but I disagree. In the movie and real-life event, both third-class passengers and nearly 40% of the Edwardian elite onboard died. Money and status weren’t guarantees of survival. Nor will they be here. If/when the Titanic, I mean the U.S. begins to go under, there will be survivors. Lifeboats are awareness, knowledge and the willingness to think outside the box. Those who acknowledge that the dire straits we are in did not appear out of nowhere, who can accept that this country has committed indefensible wrongs, including deception, and those who are willing to question what we’ve been told to this point, will be on a lifeboat. 

And we will survive.

Millennials are a misunderstood generation. This needs to change for the future of the country.

Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

Ever since I was a child and halfway able to understand politics, the media has, without fail dubbed every presidential election “the most important election of our time.” The election of 2020 is one that is actually worthy of that distinction. It goes without saying that Donald Trump and the Republicans have done considerable damage to the American political and economic system, they’ve undermined United States’ alliances as China’s influence rises, and they’ve exposed and capitalized on deep, systemic flaws already present. Democrats, Independents and many Republicans are desperate to remove him either to preserve what’s left of the Republic, and/or the Republican party. The presumption is that things cannot get worse than they are presently under Donald Trump, and while that is very tempting to believe, I disagree.

For one, Donald Trump is not the root problem. He’s the most obvious symptom. Thus, it will take more than his removal to even begin to make things right. It will take a leader who understands how deep our problems go–climate change, health care, infrastructure, racial inequality, economic inequality, and generational inequality. It’s an unfamiliar term. Some don’t believe it’s a real thing. But as student loan debt, rising housing and costs of living take their toll on everyone, younger generations–Millennials, Generation Z and even some in Generation X, face significant challenges to sustaining a middle class lifestyle. This is not just an issue for American Millennials but Millennials across the West, from Canada, to Spain and Australia. Jobs requiring a mid- or high-skill level are no longer guarantees of salaries that pay commensurately. The costs of living are beyond what many jobs in the 21st century can provide, and unlike Baby Boomers who have  pensions and social security to rely on, Millennials and Generation Z are not counting on having those things when we reach retirement age. Either because the funds that provide them will run out, or we anticipate not being able to retire.

Not to mention climate change will affect our generation and that of our children (those of us who are having them) more than older generations. If Democratic candidates want to put together a winning coalition to take the White House, Millennials need to be at the forefront of any political strategy. Millennials are officially the largest voting bloc, and together with Generations X and Z we made up a greater percentage of votes cast in the midterm elections than Baby Boomers. While American voter turn out is abysmal in general, younger voters is especially low. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have released plans to forgive student loan debt. Warren and Senator Kamala Harris announced their plans to close the gender/racial wage gap between white men and black, Latina and Native women. People of color make up 45% and 50% of Generations Y and Z respectively, and black women are the most educated group in the country. These are necessary steps.

My concern is the media’s role. They didn’t give Bernie Sanders fair coverage in the 2016 primary, predicted Hillary Clinton would win in a landslide (we see how that turned out) and cannot stop talking about Biden at the top of the polls. They’ve assumed Biden has a quality of electability where others do not that threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophecy when the primaries start. And when it comes to the black vote especially the tagline is that Biden has the black vote on lock.

Maybe with older Black Baby Boomers who have already made up their minds. Polls indicate 45-50% of black voters are undecided. But younger black voters are more drawn to Bernie, Warren and Harris. Yet when you look at the demographics of most polls, Boomers predominate. We need to start doing polls, surveys and large scale focus groups on Millennials and Generation Z, especially those of color to find out which candidates the generation is drawn to and which policies my generation likes. Not just for 2020 but the long-term future of the country. As for 2020, Democrat presidential victories depend on large turnout. Obama knew that in 2008. Whoever becomes the nominee should know this and if they don’t, it’s up to the media to remind them.

Midterm Elections in America–the Morning After

Yesterday was midterm election day in the United States. Just as many analysts predicted, the Republicans picked up enough seats to gain control of the Senate and retained their hold on the House of Representatives. It is a well known fact that when voter turn out is high, Democrats tend to win. But when voter turnout is low, Republicans are successful. Preventing the loss of the Senate depended on Democrats’ ability to motivate voting blocs that tend to vote Democrat to “get out the vote.”

Herein lies the problem. Midterm elections never produce as high voter turnout as in presidential elections. In his speech this morning President Obama revealed only one-third of the electorate voted yesterday. Unfortunately for the president, the groups that he needed to get to the polls, African-Americans, Latinos, Millennials and women, likely either did not cast a ballot or in the case of women, voted for the GOP; prioritizing a lackluster economy over reproductive issues. After Obama announced he would not use executive action to pass immigration reform until after the midterms, many Latinos were understandably angry at a leader they helped elect precisely because he promised immigration reform. Final numbers have yet to come in but analysts predicted many Latinos would not vote, fed up with Republicans and disappointed in Obama.

African-Americans’ lack of a presence at the polls, is less explainable. Although this morning my social media is full of discussions questioning how African-Americans could not vote, given how our grandparents and great-grandparents fought and died for the right. Others point out it is our civic duty to vote. My philosophy is that individuals who make a conscious decision not to vote lose the right to complain when they are unhappy with the results. If citizens want change they must use their voice. However for many African-Americans, the political system is broken and many contend that it was never intended to benefit us as a group in the first place. I do not dispute that. If it is proven that Latino voters refrained from voting because of Obama’s broken promise on immigration, it would seem that they have realized this too.

Yesterday a former professor of mine, a registered Independent who admits Democrats are in many ways no better than the Republicans, implored people to vote Democrat because two years of congressional control by the former, would be much worse than the latter. In this scenario the Democrats are the lesser of two evils. But from talking to Americans of all races, many are tired of having to always choose between the lesser of two evils because the line between them rapidly diminishing. The political situation in the United States today is one of anger, frustration and disappointment, transforming into apathy, indifference and pessimism. Voting for one party to prevent the other party from gaining power is no longer enough to motivate voters to show up at the polls.

And as much as I believe that citizens have a duty to use their voice, I also believe that citizens have a right not to participate in a political system that only benefits those in power, rather than the people they serve.

As much as Americans are disillusioned by the president, the Republicans do not fare much better. When the race for 2016 begins, they will have a much bigger battle to fight if they want to take the White House. The Republicans cannot continue as a major political party without expanding their base beyond older white men. Some Republicans like Rand Paul and unsuccessful California gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari are reaching out to African-Americans and Latinos, keenly aware of this fact. But whether these efforts will translate into presidential votes remains to be seen.

ETA: On CNN this afternoon, John King highlighted that the Republicans’ victory yesterday does not mean the country ‘loves’ them. Majorities of Republicans in GOP controlled states want a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants and a higher minimum wage unlike many GOP lawmakers.