Obama London

This is my Obama mug.

I bought it almost exactly 8 years ago today. It's an official Obama/Biden Inaugural mug. When I bought it, it had a gold seal on it commemorating the 2008 inauguration. I was in DC with a ticket to the ceremony, and to the Ball. I thought it was cool.

It was cool.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the shiny gold to wear off - someone put it through the dishwasher, and the mug lost it's sparkle. It became just another mug.

But over time, I came to see that it was NOT just another mug. Did you ever buy something and find that it is just... quality? Somehow better made than other items in its category? A wool coat that's just warmer and yet softer and yet more sturdy than others you have owned? A particular pen that just flows its ink more elegantly than any other? This mug was like that.

The mug was heavy in the hand. Thick and pleasant to drink out of. Just the right size for the right amount of coffee. Shorn of its shiny gold trappings, it got on with the job of being a mug and it did so exceptionally well.

It became my favorite mug. I drank from it almost every day of my life, and almost every day of my life it made me subtly happier. I had good days in that time. And I had bad days in that time. The mug didn't solve all my problems. I didn't expect it to.

But, by God it is a good mug.

Fortunately, mugs are not subject to term limits, so hopefully I will be able to drink from my mug for many years to come.

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I don't know about you, but I have not been enjoying 2016 so far. It's been a pretty hard slog for me, personally and professionally. My husband and I have both had some health problems. (Don't worry, we're fine.) My Gramma died. Here in the UK, people voted narrowly to leave the European Union, which actually affects me a fair amount since I've been living here since 1999 under my husband's EU treaty rights.

Senator Sanders likes to talk about a political revolution in this country. I suspect a lot of the folks who aren't supporting him for President still agree that some of these broken systems need root and branch reform, and that we should be bolder about tackling them.

Or maybe that's just me.

Anyway, one of Senator Sanders more avid supporters popped up on Facebook to say that "He said that the "party needs to pay attention to the people and not the other way around." He says that he is feeling less committed to the Party now than ever before - despite being a lifelong Democrat.

I think this person has got it exactly backwards. If Team Sanders wants change, let them stay in and fight for it. In the country at large, they face nearly insurmountable obstacles to realising some of these objectives (although one or more Democratically appointed Supreme Court justice could some of them quite a bit easier). But in the Democratic Party, the door is wide open to them - not only do they have the existing support of a huge swathe of Democratic voters and leaders, they also would have a Clinton campaign team eager to bring those voters with her and willing (I suspect) to find common ground ahead of the general election.

There has never been a better time for a Democratic Socialist to commit himself to the Democratic party.

Which is no doubt the reason why Senator Sanders himself (who is no fool!) just did exactly that.

“If Sen. Sanders is not the nominee, will he stay in the Democratic Party forever now,” Bloomberg Politics’ Mark Halperin asked.
“Well, he is a Democrat. He’s said he’s a Democrat, and he’s gonna be [supporting] the Democratic nominee, whoever that is,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told Bloomberg Politics’ “With All Due Respect.”
“But he’s a member of the Democratic Party now for life?” Halperin pressed.
“Yes, he is,” Weaver said. “Yes, he is.”

Or, as I told my Bern-feeling friend:

That's your prerogative, of course, but it's not an attitude that's likely to win you much support amongst Democratic primary voters. Anyway, I don't understand this false dichotomy you have created here: there is "the people" and then there is "the party"? Nonsense. There is ONLY the people, and some of them - many of them the people who care most passionately about a progressive future - join and work for the party. Some of those people run for office. And if some of the people don't like the things that those people running for office for their Party say and do, they get to make their case - by campaigning or speaking up, or running against them. If those people don't happen to win it's not because "the people" are being shafted by "the party", it's because the people in the party disagree with them. That's the breaks. And Hillary knows that better than anyone, because having lost crushingly after earning a ridiculously large number of votes last time around, she didn't hesitate to throw herself body and soul behind supporting the person who beat her. I expect no less of Bernie if he should lose (as looks likely) and would expect Hillary to do just the same again if she should lose (as is still possible). If your position is that Bernie (for instance) would be winning the race hands down if only Independent voters could vote in this election, then it seems to me the more logical approach is to spend the next 4 years moving heaven and earth to get those Independents INTO the party - because a small shift in party activists can make a huge impact on the party's positions. But if, instead, Bernie supporters are so frustrated with a losing outcome that they leave the party and start running third party bids, then that's certainly their prerogative, but it leaves the Party entirely in the hands of the folks they disagree with and excludes them from power more or less indefinitely. Which is a choice you can make, but it seems contrary to your stated objectives here.

Image result for donald trump violence at ralliesYou may have been noticing lately how Donald Trump's casually violent rhetoric and eager embrace of racism and xenophobia is (surprise, surprise!) inspiring an unseemly amount of casual violence, racism and xenophobia.

That's what makes him almost the worst imaginable person to be a Presidential candidate, let alone his Party's nominee, let alone actually serving as Head of State to the most powerful nation in the world. Just the reality of this man travelling around the country stoking up violence and hatred everywhere he goes is already making his candidacy something pretty close to a security threat.

But that's not even the most fundamental reason why Donald Trump would be a unprecedentedly terrible President.

The most fundamental reason is that he has no interest in, capacity for, or understanding of any of the elements of actual job description for "President of the United States".

You can get an early glimpse of how profoundly true this is, by reflecting on this fact:

His team are losing delegates because the don't understand how the delegate selection process works.

In a number of states, and in a number of different critical ways, Team Trump has been spectacularly behind the ball on actually securing delegates. For background - you need to know that winning a state primary or caucus is only step 1 of the Democratic Delegate selection process. Step 2 is getting your supporters elected to fill those pledged delegate seats in state party conventions.

But Trump has not got his eye on this ball.

In Colorado, they forgot to tell their supporters which delegate candidates to vote for, and it cost him delegates.

In Illinois and Texas, Trump supporters refused to vote for Trump-supporting delegate candidates with minority names, costing him delegates.

And in many other states, Team Trump doesn't seem to have showed up to the party conventions, leaving supporters of other candidates to be elected as delegates - which matters enormously because although they are pledged to vote as per the statewide vote on the 1st ballot, they can do whatever they like on the 2nd. It will cost him delegates.

To be fair, the Democratic Party Delegate Selection process is hard work. It's a byzantine, complicated process rife with insider-y rules and obscure pitfalls.

But you know what? So is the Presidency. In fact, that's MOSTLY what the Presidency is. Most of that job is about appointing a Deputy Secretary of Agriculture who will submit annual reports in compliance with Congressional Mandates. It's on very rare occasions about taking bold moves to shake up the international system, but far more often it's about carefully calibrating your foreign policy organisation to not pointlessly offend an ally or unintentionally trigger tariffs against our imports. On a good day, it might mean opening up markets to more of our goods, or moving forward a piece of legislation that furthers your agenda.

But most of the job is... a JOB. A management task, that requires leadership of a detailed, highly constrained, limited organisation (the US Federal Government) that operates in this way precisely because it is massive, because every action it takes has huge consequences, and because the many many stakeholders involved have diverting, often diametrically opposing interests.

Does that sound like something that Donald Trump, given what we know of him, would be any any way minimally competent at doing?

Of course not. So, although we must keep pointing out that this man is a dangerous xenophobe whose contribution to the national debate has been almost entirely defined by being spectacularly wrong (ahem: remember that Trump got into politics in the first place to demand the President's birth certificate - because he never met a loopy conspiracy theory he didn't like) it's also worth noting that he transparently has none of the minimal qualifications of the job. Including, apparently, even a basic understanding of how it works.

Note: As you may have seen in my previous post, I recently declared my intention to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary. I feel good about that decision, but I know a lot of people that I like and respect wound up coming to a different conclusion. One such person is my former Obama London co-chair Rob Carolina, who became Chair of Democrats Abroad during my second term as Vice-Chair of that organisation. Rob is not only a very smart guy but also a good friend. For that reason I wanted to give him the opportunity of representing the many thoughtful and dedicated Democrats I've spoken to this year who are Feeling the Bern.

Tragically, America has just suffered another mass shooting leaving more of our fellow citizens grieving lost family members. Even more tragically, that sentence could stand unaltered for every week of President Obama’s second term to date. The President is visibly, understandably, commendably outraged about this, and unwilling to pretend this violence is merely coincidental or beyond our control.

It has been widely reported already in the US that Mitt Romney's first foreign trip as a US Presidential candidate... did not go well.

But my suspicion is that a lot of my friends in America who are accustomed to "he said, she said" news coverage might suspect that this disaster is being blown out of proportion by the schadenfreude of delighted Obama supporters.

As your woman on the ground here in the UK, I want to assure you: IT REALLY IS THAT BAD. Here below are the Romney headlines in every British Newspaper this morning.

Firstly, here's the cover of the Independent:


In case you can't read it, that says: "Ready. set. go! (Whatever Mitt Says)"

And here's the article inside the paper:



"Romneyshambles: Mitt begins his trip with a swipe at London"

Here's the Daily Mirror:


"You're Rom, Mitt! PM Hits Back at Games Doubter"

Here's the Guardian:


Brutally reading: "Mitt falls at the first hurdle"

And here's the Sun (just a few pages in from the traditional topless women - I know... classy):


It says: "Mitt the Twit: Wannabe President in Games Insult"

And here we have the Times:


"Romney loses his way with gaff about the Games"

If you have been avoiding all news sources for the past week, you may have missed the moment when President Obama came out and expressed his personal support for allowing same sex couples to marry.
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As it happens, the President made this statement while I was attending a reception for US citizens at the American Embassy. We were required to surrender all electronic devices before going in, so I walked in knowing that the President was expected to make some sort of statement about this issue, then walked out an hour later, checked the news and had the uncanny sensation that the world had changed while I was inside.

That probably seems melodramatic. After all, in terms of policy - the President's statement changes little. Perhaps nothing. President Obama has long been on the record stating that believes there should be no difference whatsoever in the law between committed same sex couples and married straight couples. He favoured a version of civil unions that would offer full legal protection to these couples. But, of course, the president's views on this are not especially relevant since decisions about the issuance of marriage license are made at a state level - and although some states (including most recently New York) have recently allowed gay couples to marry, others are moving in the opposite direction. Including, of course, North Carolina - which only the day before the President's statement had overwhelmingly voted in favour of a referendum that would add a prohibition against both civil unions and gay marriage directly into the state constitution. (It has been noted that the last time North Carolina amended their state constitution, it was to ban interracial marriage. Plus ca change...)

So why, then, this sense that the world was in some way fundamentally different now?

I think back to my first year of college - in 1992. That was the year Bill Clinton became President. It was the year I turned 18, and voted for the first time, and lived on my own for the first time. It was also the first time I met anyone who was openly gay. Actually, I met a lot of people who were openly gay or bisexual that year. And thank goodness I did, because it instantly cured me of the embarrassing crime of being unreflectively homophobic. And I do mean instantly. I grew up in a small town at a time when no one of high school age was openly gay (although I now know, several of the people I knew well in high school were closeted gay. Oops.) so I never had the opportunity of getting to know anyone who identified as a sexual minority. But the very instant that I realised some of my new friends were gay or bisexual, I flipped - like a coin toss. These people were great! Funny, and kind. Smart and interesting. Mature sometimes, ridiculously silly others. They were the sort of friends I'd been searching for all my awkward teenage years.

In the Spring of that year, I marched in a huge gay rights parade in Washington, DC, on a beautiful sunny day. I remember that Ellen DeGeneres, who at that point was a relatively minor stand up comic, gave a speech referencing her own lesbianism so openly that several years later when she officially came out of the closet I was really confused ("I thought we all knew that?").

But even in the sunniest mood on that sunny day, I never would have imagined that just 20 years legalised gay marriage would be the mainstream and reasonable position of a popular and centrist US President. At that time homosexual acts were still illegal in many states (this was before the Supreme Court Deciaion in Lawrence V Texas that protected the right to private sexual acts). Employment discrimination was relatively routine against gays and lesbians. A teacher at my high school who I only later on realised must have been gay was so fiercely closeted that he visibly panicked when I ran into him with a male friend at an out of town theater. Goodness. He must have been terrified - it wasn't that uncommon then for teachers to be fired or "encouraged" to resign if they were found to be gay.

We were just coming off the worst years of the AIDS crisis, and I remember that the AIDS quilt was brought to the Capitol and spread out in the Mall between the Washington and Lincolm memorial.

The goals of the gay rights movement then seemed on the one hand so modest, and on the other so unreachable - essentially... to be left alone. "Please don't discriminate against us." "Please allow us to serve in the military."

The idea of the government providing formal legal protection to gay couples in the form of civil unions was at that time considered pretty extreme. And there were many on the left who opposed the idea of gay marriage at all. Because, in their view, marriage was an elite bourgeois institution perpetuating gender stereotypes and unrealistic ideas of lifelong monogamy. Or some such nonsense.

Basically, both the left and the right agreed about one thing - being gay would never be "normal". Gay people would never settle down in suburbs and raise children. They would never marry in a church. They would never file a joint tax return. They would be cursed (in the right's view) or privileged (in the left's view) with a perpetual existence of lifestyle nonconformity.

Now, there's nothing wrong with living a transgressive life. If you want to enact in your life a non-monogomous relationship model, or if permanent commitment isn't for you, or if you just don't buy into any of the prevailing norms about family formation - good for you. Go forth, be free - live your life and best wishes.

But at the time, I think most of the people at that DC march believed that so-called normality would never be an option for them. That whatever their own inclinations may be, the best gay people could hope for was to be tolerated.

But today, we have come so far as a country that the President of the United States - in an election year - can come out and say gay people should have the option of being celebrated and honoured for their commitment. Because, putting aside all the legalities - that's the function of marriage. It is for society to affirmatively honour, respect and support the commitment of two people to each other. That's why so many marriage ceremonies include a moment when the priest asks the congregation to make vows to the couple. Because, to steal a phrase from Hillary Clinton, it takes a village to enact a marriage.

Famously, around the same time that I was marching in Washington for gay rights, President Clinton was agreeing a "compromise" that would allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military - so long as they lied about who they were. A couple years later, under duress, he signed the so called "Defence of Marriage Act" which has the perverse effect now of preventing couples who are legally married in some states from having their marriages recognised elsewhere.

What President Obama did this week was historic - not because it was radical, but because it was... normal.

He made both a common sense and a compassionate argument. How could he, a man whose parents' marriage would have been illegal in many states of the Union at the time he was born, explain to his daughter why the parents of their friends should not be allowed to marry? He couldn't. Of course he couldn't. The more you think about it, the more it makes sense.

Mitt Romney says he not only won't support same sex marriage - he won't support civil unions (which even President Bush said he could support).

Mitt is living in a different America than the President is. An America that looks a lot like that closeted small town I grew up in. It's a worse America. I am so glad that I moved out of that place in my mind so many years ago, and I'm so glad to move forward with the President into a new America where equality can be real and meaningful.