The Potential Purple Majority

February 23, 2017 By Aziz Poonawalla

The outcome of the 2016 election was a coin-toss, dictated by margins of only 10,000 votes in a handful of counties in a few rust belt states, despite a historically-high margin of victory in the popular vote. I am no proponent of the National Popular Vote or abolishing the electoral college entirely, because these solutions are still first-past-the-post. However, electoral strategy, not electoral mechanics, are more important. What is necessary for the sake of our democracy and our nation is... Read more

Primary colors, not purple politics: part 2

February 21, 2017 By Aziz Poonawalla

This is a guest post by Mozi. Scond post in a series. A quick thought on normalcy and the moment: I still believe in polls and data, but done right and properly contextualized. Those things ought to inform action, not dictate it. To put it in relatable terms, Bill Clinton’s instincts in the final stretch of the 2016 — counseling to no effect that HRC needed to pay attention to working-class whites, and fast — were a lot better than... Read more

Primary colors, not purple politics: part 1

February 17, 2017 By Aziz Poonawalla

This is a guest post by a writer who will go by Mozi. This is the first post in a series. Source: national survey by Pew Research Center conducted Feb. 7-12 among 1,503 adults – Summary; PDF There’s a lot to dig into here, but the first chart (see: right) is likely the most important. Note that the partisans of the President in power tend to like that President pretty well, and pretty consistently — from Reagan to Trump, an... Read more

this doesn’t stop here

January 22, 2017 By Aziz Poonawalla

3 Million people marched yesterday. That is the same margin by which Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the popular vote. It is a resounding repudiation of any mandate that Trump will falsely claim. Trump didn’t even pretend he speaks for the nation in his inauguration speech; now the nation has spoken for itself. The real nation, all of it, not just the strategic pockets of demographics that gave Trump his narrow EC edge. The Right doesn’t understand what happened... Read more

the Liar in Chief

January 21, 2017 By Aziz Poonawalla

This article by the Washington Post is a beautiful example of how the press has decided not to indulge a President who has as much grasp of reality and truth as a five year old. If you have access, read the whole thing, but here are the remarkable parts: Trump claimed falsely that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totaled more than 1 million people. It did not. “It looked like... Read more

Now arrives the hour of action…

January 20, 2017 By Aziz Poonawalla

…and the time for empty talk is over. That is a direct line from President Trump’s inaugural address (here, deconstructed and compared to all previous such). The line echoes his criticism against civil rights hero John Lewis – but now will be turned against Trump himself. Will Trump govern as he campaigned? His address to the nation as President had only brief nods to inclusion. The greatest President who ever served said in his Address, We are not enemies, but... Read more

MLK: A weekend of insult and tragedy

January 14, 2017 By Aziz Poonawalla

This morning, (January 14, 2017) the Islamic Center of Eastside in Bellevue, Washington was burned to the ground by vandals. There’s a fundraising campaign at Launchgood.com/Bell to help raise funds to rebuild. Please keep the community in Bellevue in your prayers this weekend. It’s no coincidence that this tragedy happened on MLK weekend. How did our president-elect choose to behave on this weekend? Donald J. Trump engaged in a petty and laughably uninformed smear against civil rights icon, US Rep.... Read more

unpresidented

December 17, 2016 By Aziz Poonawalla

The real-world consequences of a president-elect exacerbating via Twitter a diplomatic crisis with China that he initiated by ignoring decades of bipartisan policy with respect to Taiwan aside, this is pretty funny. We would do well not to misunderestimate the damage Trump can do with Twitter. Read more

elections have consequences

November 9, 2016 By Aziz Poonawalla

I had predicted a 300 EV win for Hillary Clinton. The final results are not yet in as of 2:00 AM EST, but I’m going to bed as Podesta suggested, and projecting a 290-248 victory for Trump, unless I wake up in the morning to find Clinton somehow swept MI, WI, and PA, all three of which she needs to win as things stand. My final map: Why was I so confident of a Clinton victory? Simply, because I thought... Read more

Democracy Savings Time

November 5, 2016 By Aziz Poonawalla

It is early November, and that means we need to choose. Do we set our clocks forward (Hillary), or backwards (Trump)? The debate over Daylight Savings Time is simple: everyone hates it, but we do it anyway. Honestly, I hate it as much as anyone else, but I still grudgingly accept the necessity now, because there are two alternatives, both of which are worse: 1. We abolish DST entirely. This means that in summer, when the kids are off school,... Read more