Obama Sends Mixed Messages with Commutation

I’m a bit puzzled by the mixed messages President Obama sent out today with the commutation of the majority of Chelsea (Bradley) Manning’s 35-year court martial sentence. To understand the context, Manning stole data from the U.S. government, specifically videos of two airstrikes and diplomatic cables, and communicated these to WikiLeaks. 

This comes on the heels of President Obama’s strong words and modest actions against Russia after their interference in the 2016 election was released to the public. 

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This seems to continue Obama’s pattern of sending mixed messages to adversaries, both foreign and domestic. Steal our information. We’ll punish you, but we’ll let you off the hook. It certainly defies logic and reason but it also disrespects the military and their process of managing their own affairs, especially those charged with espionage against the United States. 

Of course, the President is the Commander-in-Chief. How would Americans respond to a President Trump pardoning any administration official responsible for giving classified information to the Russians, to WikiLeaks, or to any of our adversaries that harmed our national interests, our national security, and our allies?

I doubt most Democrats nor Republicans would be too pleased with the use of such Executive Powers in such a seemingly cavalier way. 

The Way Forward: Obamacare and Trumpcare

A lot of people completely misunderstand some of the profound disagreements with the ACA/Obamacare. 

For many that do receive tax subsidies to help pay for their premiums, they feel terrible about it. It's just something that makes their skin crawl. I know that might not make much sense to some people, but that’s a fact. You’d be shocked, but there are even some people that become unsettled when they go on Medicare as well. 

Beyond those issues, even when they do have health insurance, they still have to pay extremely high deductibles and co-pays. It’s almost as if they don’t have insurance. 

The idea of health insurance sounds wonderful. Having tax-subsidies to help pay for premiums sounds wonderful. However, labels rarely describe reality.

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In rural areas, these problems are magnified. It’s a set of fairly simple situations that together create a synergy that make the ACA/Obamacare untenable for many. 

#1 - rural areas have higher numbers of employers that employee smaller numbers of people. That means these employers aren’t required by the ACA to offer health insurance. 

#2 - these same areas have predominately lower wages and less benefits than urban areas. That means these workers have less money to put toward health insurance, co-pays, and deductibles. 

#3 - there’s also often less options for health providers in rural areas. This decreases competition which increases costs for consumers. 

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Even with the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, some healthcare providers directed those patients to the ER as opposed to primary care facilities, increasing the cost to state and federal funds. In some cases, this decision was due to a state’s slow response to pay bills. 

The provider’s response is to jack up the bill. The outcome for the consumer is less comprehensive care. Lose-Lose.

Even in areas where Medicaid programs are not encumbered with lack of access, too often these programs are sluggish or unresponsive with the entrenched bureaucratic components. 

Learning how to streamline Medicaid programs without opening these up to fraud and abuse is difficult, however, it is crucial to healthcare providers and consumers to create a more consistent relationship that is built on confidence and expectation. 

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Considering the disparities that exist between urban, suburban, and rural areas with access to healthcare providers and health insurance, the focus of federal and state interventions should be to help build bridges between consumer and provider, making each party more whole. 

The stubbornness of all parties in these policy discussions is discouraging. Both sides tend to argue as if those on the opposing side have no rationale. The most concerning issue with regard to healthcare is that people’s lives, children’s lives, hang in the balance based on choices and votes made in Congress and in the White House.

We can come together and work toward benefiting the American people. Do we have the foresight and courage it takes to find some common ground with those we disagree? Someone’s health may depend upon our capacity to do just that

Ft. Lauderdale Shooting and How to Heal the Divisiveness

The loss of life in Ft. Lauderdale is yet another national tragedy. We will learn much more about this in the weeks to come.

I kid you not, I've already heard people discussing the Ft. Lauderdale shooting as a reason to end gun free zones. 

So, more guns in the hands of civilians at airports is the answer? The logic seems stunningly lacking considering all the arms by security professionals at airports. 

Airports are known to be such a highly secure area and yet numerous civilians were injured and killed today. 

We as a nation must have the calm sense to consider these issues with both logic and data, because the emotional and guttural accusatory approach these Second Amendment issues tend to be discussed by politicians, pundits, and people, both in public and on social media, often yields no beneficial results for anyone but the gun industry and incumbent politicians. 

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Rational, reasonable Americans have every right to their guns. All Americans have every right to living as safe and secure a life as possible.  This does not need to include infringing on those Second Amendment rights. The two are not mutually exclusive. 

Just as with all of the other divisive political and cultural issues that we face as a people, we must find more inclusive ways of discussing them with one another without believing others are the enemy. 

It’s this ‘us versus them’ mentality that is dividing our country. It’s not President Obama, President Bush, or President-Elect Trump to blame. It is all of US in America that are responsible for the divisions.

We can do better. We must do better. It matters more who WE are, not who our President is. It matters what WE do, not what our Party is. It matters that WE participate, not that our Candidate wins. 

We will do better. It’s just a matter of when. Why not now?

Moving Forward with Hope and Action

Now that the Electoral College has cast their votes, I think we can at least hope Donald Trump will be a successful President. If he isn't, it's going to be a long couple years that increases the pain and suffering of too many Americans and decreases stability across the globe.

We have to remain vigilant, but we cannot afford to lose the high ground. As First Lady Michelle Obama said, "When they go low, we go high." That's how I intend to approach life with dedicated action in the coming years. 

And, we have to demand that Democrats no long ignore rural and mid-America. Leaving wide swaths of the countryside behind decades ago has been an abysmal failure, both for average Americans and for Democrats chances for state legislatures, gubernatorial offices, Congress, and now the Presidency. 

Reasonable policies have no chance of success if the right people never hear them. 

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How to Win with Progressive Values after 2016

Many people from both parties have voiced concerns over how the country can move forward after such a toxic and divisive campaign. This toxic attitude will only dissipate with effort and action applied over an extended period of time over many election cycles across generations. 

We can't just come into people's lives every 2 or 4 years and expect them to start listening to what we have to say. 

We have to have to have a visible, active, and tangible presence in communities everywhere.

It's more than a 50-state strategy, it's a community by community strategy that gives us the opportunity to put a face and actions behind a message of togetherness and progressive values that all Americans actually share. 

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It's so easy for far right conservatives to demonize liberals and progressive values when those groups don't stand up and speak out for those values when challenged in hostile territory. The same is true for liberals and progressives demonizing conservative and libertarian values and principles in cities.

The absence of rational voices for decades has left a vacuum and allowed one side to ram an intimidation and bully message in both rural and urban areas. Workers and the middle class have suffered as a direct result. 

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Most people's views are capable of being moved, but they're not going to be convinced in one conversation, in a series of conversations, or even in a decade of conversations. People are convinced by actions, by results, and by how they feel.

It takes a concerted effort to engage with Americans where they are, discovering why they feel the way they do, and adjust your own policy approaches and messages accordingly.

The most common liberal and progressive approach I've seen over countless election cycles is that being "right" should win the day. That's simply not how anyone convinces people about a belief or an opinion. 

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We have to truly listen to others, not just tell them what to do and expect them to do it. 

If we can't translate a progressive policy agenda to these people in a way that they can understand and embrace, then we've failed them as well as our positive agenda for the country. 

We should be doing better. We can do better. And, we must do better. 

Who Supported Trump and Why; Where do We Go From Here?

I’ve been talking to a lot of people, before and after the election, as to their support for Trump. 

For some background, I happen to live in Illinois, which went for Hillary, but I live in an area that is so deeply red and went about 60/34 for Trump. And that’s a good result for this area for Hillary, especially considering the heavy turnout in rural precincts.

I worked in a grassroots effort for other Democratic candidates on the ground, and we had one of the largest turnouts in decades here. It was a patchwork quilt of turnout. In some precincts and counties across the area, turnout was way down. But, in many others, the turnout was shockingly high. 

In my opinion, many regular Republican voters didn’t vote, or did so unenthusiastically. From all the poll watchers and election judges I've talked to across the area, people showed up to the polls that hadn’t voted in decades. It was as shocking to them as it was to us on the ground.

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So, to the question as to why people voted or supported Trump. There were a lot of different reasons I’ve discovered. 

One of the top reasons would be Obamacare. People in the rural areas were hit harder by the fines for not having coverage and also weren’t offered health insurance by their employers. Employers were hit hard for the same reasons. This group was seething mad about this issue. If you had children in a divorce, you may have been hit doubly hard, especially if you had to pay for their healthcare out of your own pocket or paycheck that hadn’t grown much in decades.

They ended up not blaming their employers for not raising their wages and not offering healthcare coverage. They didn’t trust or weren’t willing to listen to anyone connected to President Obama that said they would fix the problems with the law. They were over it.

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Other groups of people I talked to were seething mad about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. They just hated her for some conspiracy-laden reasons that weren’t backed up by the facts. If it wasn’t Benghazi it was emails. If it wasn’t Bill Clinton, it was the pack of lies they say she had made over the years. Try and tell them something different about all of those things, they just wouldn’t listen. Try and tell them Trump was far worse, they didn’t care.

I do believe this second group of people were never going to vote for a woman, were never going to vote for a Democrat this year, and just had a pack of excuses to scapegoat their choice. If Bernie had been the nominee, the outcome would have been far worse, IMO. I could be wrong, and I’m sure about every Bernie supporter would strongly disagree with that assertion. If Bernie had been the nominee, those other Republican voters who stayed home would have came out in force for any Republican, including Trump. 

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And, there absolutely were a number of people that were driven to support Trump by his divisive, conspiracy-ridden, misogynistic, bigoted, and xenophobic rhetoric. These people range in ages, which would be a surprise to many. 

Yes, there are many young people growing up with an array of troubling and troubled views of others that aren’t like them. There are many of these types of children and adolescents being raised to be this way throughout rural America. If the Democratic Party really think this problem will die off, they’re dead wrong. (That’s why I strongly urge Democrats to get busy and engaged in rural areas. Stop relying on urban and suburban areas to carry general elections. It’s not a winning strategy.)

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However, the support of Trump because of these extreme views is not what won him the Electoral College, and thus, the Presidency. These are definitely some of the loudest voices on social media that were part of the Trump base, that includes gays and women that supported Trump. However, I just don’t buy into the narratives that these won him the White House. 

People want to group everyone together into these monolithic, homogenous groups that just aren’t based in reality. The violence at peaceful protests don’t have anything to do with one another. The vast majority of these protesters are just exercising their right to peaceably assemble to right to free speech. 

The same can be said of all those who voted for Trump in this election. They don’t condone all of his hateful, divisive rhetoric, nor do they support the real violence that continues to take place against minorities, women, and the LGBT community across the country. Of course President-elect Trump doesn’t want violence done against others in his name.

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If you believe he would condone such violence, then you would also allow others to believe similarly about those who are committing violence on Trump supporters being condoned by President Obama, right? 

Basically, both parties have left rural America behind. Trump was the perfect vessel for their vengeance on Republicans and Democrats. Try running as a Democrat in rural America with or without support from the state or national parties. The groundwork and foundation simply isn’t there and there also hasn’t been a relevant, rational, public discourse about ideas in these areas for decades.

If both parties continue their strategy of disinterest and “couldn’t care less” philosophy, there will always be a place for a disruptive, caustic character such as Trump to take advantage. I wish I had some answers as to how to bridge the divides. I’m working to understand what just happened instead of just rage against those who disagreed with me. I think that’s a better place to begin a conversation.

Congrats, President-Elect . . . Looking Back on A Tough Race

I wanted to give a word of congratulations to Donald Trump, who had a surprising turnout across the Rust Belt today. Simply stunning.

I do hope that despite the lack of decency and the lack of understanding of the issues that he often displayed that he and others will somehow he cobbles together a successful administration that benefits everyone, not just those at the top. 

That might come as a surprise to many people. I believe that we have to strive to work together, whomever is elected. We can’t afford to use divisive, poisonous rhetoric. We can’t become histrionic and threaten throwing a fit, leaving the country, and not participating in this great democracy that is America. 

I do believe in the coming days the autopsy of this race will find a couple of key ingredients in Trump’s win. 

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The 5 to 8 percent of the vote that went to Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in states like Wisconsin and Michigan were the difference between winning and losing. It was 2 to 3 percent of the vote and the difference in Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina. 

And, that’s how you elect someone else by voting for someone who has no chance.

The Comey letter to Congress regarding Clinton’s email server and subsequent secondary letter that declared ‘nothing new here’ gave rise to a buoyed Trump campaign in the last two weeks.

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And lastly, the women, millennials, and minorities simply did not show up in as big of numbers as they needed to in order to protect the legacy of President Obama and to promote their own agenda.

It will now all be in the hands of President-Elect Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress. 

You sometimes get what you want. Other times, not so much. That’s what democracy is all about. And, I at least have a clean conscience for doing what I could during this election. 

Here in Coles County we were successful in at least passing a 1% sales tax for our community schools. That is at least something. And, I was thrilled to meet, work, and help support an amazing network of such motivated, inspired, and hardworking people in this community.

I do hope that we all do come together, that somehow the Congress, the President-elect, and the States can work together to actually raise wages, rebuild the middle class, promote opportunity, and protect those in need. 

They certainly cannot do it on their own. I do hope that they hold them to the same high standards as they have held others.