California voter guide supports Hoosier view that state is weird

Appearing below is one more contribution to LeftWingCapitalist from my good friend Guy Heston.  With wit and empathy, Guy is a keen observer of the human condition.  I hope you enjoy his article on California's election eccentricities.

Our friend Michael from the great state of Indiana visited us here in California recently. While discussing world affairs over breakfast coffee he informed us that many Hoosiers (who after all elected the ultra conservative and now Vice President Mike Pence as their state’s governor) view California as some sort of strange planet where heaven knows what goes on—a truly foreign republic right out of Star Wars.

I must confess in some ways I can’t fault the more conservative Hoosiers. Let’s face it, and I say this as a native of The Golden State, California can be a bit out there. Just take a look at our recently released voter guide for the upcoming California primary election.

We have 27 candidates for governor. I am not kidding. There are the usual candidates, including the current lieutenant governor, the state treasurer, a state assemblyman, a self-described taxpayer advocate who is not surprisingly a Republican, and a self-described public policy advisor, which is California election talk for a Democratic politician who has been termed out from his previous spot. But that is just the beginning of our out there election fun.

Also among the gubernatorial candidates is a puppeteer, a virtual reality manager and a marketplace minister. I do know what a puppeteer does but must confess the other occupations are a bit of a mystery to me.

Moving down the ballot, the race for lieutenant governor is boring by comparison, with the candidates list including an attorney, economist, entrepreneur and retired business owner. And the race for Secretary of State gets even more boring as the incumbent is widely considered a shoe-in. He has not been challenged by a virtual reality manager.

Next we have the race for California Senator, which is where the best fun is found. Here we have 32 candidates, including long time incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein. To win she is going to have to beat a paratransit operator, a bus driver, a constitutional solutions advocate, a wireless safety advocate and 27 other Californians. Having worked in public transit I have the highest respect for paratransit operators and bus drivers. And do you know anyone who is not a wireless safety advocate? I’m not quite sure about what the job description of a constitutional solutions advocate includes but confess it sounds intriguing.

In our California Official Voter Information Guide, each candidate for statewide office has the opportunity to submit a statement of qualifications, so with this great number of candidates you can appreciate why the guide has the heft of an old-fashioned phone book. The statements of previously elected officials are run of the mill, although this time I didn’t spot anyone referencing motherhood and apple pie. But the statements of what might be called fringe candidates make for great reading. One candidate for U.S. Senator is running on a platform of nullifying the 2016 presidential election. I’m not even going to go there. Another wants to get the government out of our wallets, although he doesn’t specify how he would propose to pay for police, fire and all that.

But far and away the best statements of qualifications come from the candidates for governor. One candidate’s platform consists primarily of teaching your children calculus. Who could argue with that unless your child is an artist. And my personal favorite is from a candidate whose platform consists of two words, “Why not!” I honestly can’t say why not. Maybe he’s on to something.

Yes, California can be a bit strange, yet we are once again the world’s 5th largest economy that provides you with so many goodies like Google, Apple, Hollywood, and all that Walmart stuff that comes through our ports. So come on, Indiana, what’s not to like? Like you we are just one of the 50 states doing our best, even if a bit weirdly from time to time. And by the way, I’ve been to Indiana and like it!

Now is the time to punish Putin for messing with U.S. elections. It's not happening, and that's only part of the problem.

 . . .government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.  -- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address.

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget -  -- Eagles, "Hotel California."

43rd president George W. Bush never caused me to doubt his commitment to democracy, even as his policies and actions gave me heartburn.  His single-minded pursuit of "regime change" made for poor policy and, eventually, disastrous consequences -- for both the United States and Iraq as it fueled continuing suffering for millions of Iraqis, provided a fertile environment for the growth of al Queda, Islamic State and their fellow-travelers, and enabled the westward expansion of Iranian state influence -- because successful democratic institutions are the product of indigenous demand, not foreign imposition.

Despite poorly-conceived  and faulty actions, Bush understood the value of protecting and promoting democracy world-wide.

All presidents have their failings.  But, like the 43rd, every other president since the time of World War II has confronted an assault on democracy with actions to protect, and then to promote, democratic institutions and values.  Abraham Lincoln might have been a few decades ahead of his time with his national vision, but his modern-era successors have consistently acted to protect and promote that vision.

Until now.

The president of the United States is Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief.  The world's economic order -- based on stability in trade rules, laws and democratic values -- is in large part the product of those two roles being used effectively to protect, promote and defend democracy.  The rules-based international order championed by the global alliance of democratic nations, with the United States as its leader, has been the foundation for prosperity.

Alarmed by this success, democracy and international stability are under attack by those whose power would ultimately be undone by further expansion of democratic governance.  Russia's president Vladimir Putin is the leader of this pack.

Autocratic rule is making gains in nations that are populous, prominent, powerful and growing:  Russia, China, Turkey, Philippines, Poland, Egypt and others.  Official, state-sponsored Russian undercover operations have acted to interfere in, and influence the outcome of, American elections in 2016 and 2018; United States intelligence agencies are unanimous in this conclusion.  Special Counsel Mueller's investigations have indicted 13 Russian individuals and three Russian organizations for illegal election tampering.  British law enforcement and intelligence agencies have openly stated their investigative conclusions that Russian covert activities have conducted assassinations on U.K. soil.  European governments are recognizing the same tampering in their elections and working to counteract it.

The measure of the success of this interference is the growth in popular distrust of democratic governing institutions in the targeted nations.  Distrust yields chaotic and inconsistent governance.  This feeds Putin's narrative of hostility to western democratic institutions and supports his confrontational posture against what he describes as western (especially American) persecution of Russian values and national integrity.

If history is any guide -- and we know that it is -- we expect the American Commander-in-Chief to act to punish outside interference in U.S. elections.  We expect the American Chief Executive to publicly and energetically support an American ally in its efforts to counter state-sponsored murder within its own borders.  We expect the Chief Executive to offer up loudest praise first to democratic governing successes, and only later express measured and subdued recognition of those achievements that can be attributed to autocratic governing regimes.

Instead, we have a Commander-in-Chief who does not coordinate the considerable resources at his command to administer proportional punishment, and a Chief Executive who is lukewarm and unreliable in supporting democratic allies, and fulsome in praising governing autocrats, prominently including Putin.

Political policy and practice that praises autocrats -- especially when done in preference over a vigorous defense of democracy -- ends up being a grueling dance that does not end well for those with democratic values.  The British experience with Germany's Hitler, the American experiences with Central American and South Vietnamese autocrats (a long-running case of the ". . .he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but at least he's our son-of-a-bitch. . ." syndrome) provide graphic and lasting evidence of how dancing with the wrong partner ends poorly.

We have a president who dances with autocrats, and forgets how that dance always ends.  We have a president who has forgotten -- or does not understand -- that any successful international alliance requires leadership that is reliable, visible and consistent.

If the question Who will defend democracy? had been asked in the past, the clear and immediate answer would always have been The United States of America. 

The answer to that question is no longer so clear, nor is it timely.

We have never seen anything like this before.

The sooner that this ends, the better that it will be for all.