KOKO AND THE VOTERS

It’s hard for the ape to believe he descended from man. ~ H.L. Mencken 

For me the dispiriting reality of our current federal political scene is that the administration’s morally-vacuous, hurtful policies are being countered only with logically-based rejoinders that are wholly inadequate. As we’ve all come to expect, these mostly frail, spiteful but unsystematic policies are founded only on the president’s nanosecond, fact-free demonic impulses, not careful thought. The Republican Congress is wholly complicit in allowing such draconian social and economic plans to stand without reprimand, censure or opposition. The Democrats are guilty of not offering unified alternatives that have a chance of widespread public acceptance. Both parties seem far more interested in medieval jousting rather than crafting solutions for our mounting public issues.

As part of their preparations for the November elections, the Democratic leadership and other critics would do well to remember Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. The protagonist in this novel mentions that he hadn’t understood “how the shameless vanity of utter fools can strongly determine the fate of others.” Neither had most of us on November 9, 2016. But the “fool” is no longer in the closet; he’s in the White House. And he’s successfully playing to many people’s heartfelt fears, not their logic or best interests. The latest Gallup presidential approval ratings show that a formidable 87% of Republicans support the president.

In addition to bemoaning the 18-month tenure of our 45th president and wondering what species he really is, I also mourn the passing of Koko. Koko was a female western lowland gorilla born 46 years ago and died this past week who knew over 2,000 words, and mastered using 1,000 ASL signs. Did she rival our vainglorious president’s vocabulary; we’ll never know. She befriended two of my favorite people, Mr. (Fred) Rodgers and Robin Williams, in addition to large numbers of her followers. The Gorilla Foundation mentioned in Koko’s obituary that she became a renowned icon for interspecies communication. Compared to the political zoo at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, inhabited by a fair number of unknown, perhaps alien species, Koko’s life appeared wonderfully positive and affirmative. Her genuine interspecies communications talents will be sorely missed, especially in Washington D.C.

But back to the political animals vying for elective office in 131 days. As a raft of talking heads has mentioned here and here, the Repubs have been taken over by the gang of Trumpist cronies and the man himself. As usual, progressive and moderate Dems are wrestling among themselves about what path to take for electoral victory and to determine who’s going to assume the mantle of the party this fall.

The Dems continue focusing on identity groups including Hispanics, Blacks, women, immigrant citizens, millennials and the LGBTQIA+ communities. Although Bernie Sanders hasn’t had much success in backing primary election victors so far, he, Elizabeth Warren and other liberals have clearly moved the Dems’ policy and legislative dreams significantly leftward, should they regain actual political power. The Dems’ policy thrusts include single-payer health insurance, sturdy but unfettered immigration, minimum wage based on living costs, universal pre-K and childcare and universal basic income. Each one might be potentially worthy, but will require significant changes, much-expanded government activities and higher taxes.

Whatever messages, tactics and policies the Dems and Repubs each adopts in this fall’s campaigns, getting out the vote on November 6 will be crucial for success, as always. Recently the US Census has made available data describing the composition and participation of people who registered for and voted in the November 2016 presidential election. These data confirm the long-standing challenges of getting younger and minority citizens to actually vote. Midterm election voter turnout has been miserable. Only 36.4% of eligible voters voted in the 2014 midterm elections.  
     The following table summarizes the reported voter participation for the November 2016 election. Overall, just 56% of citizens voted in the last presidential election. The US ranked 26th out of 35 highly-developed, democratic nations in voter turnout. 

Reported Voting Participation in the November 2016 Election

Population Segment		Total Reported Voting
Total Population, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		56.0%
18-24yrs		39.4%
65-74yrs		70.1%
Hispanic, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		32.5%
18-24yrs		27.2%
65-74yrs		47.8%
White Alone, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		58.2%
18-24yrs		41.1%
65-74yrs		72.0%
Black Alone, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		55.9%
18-24yrs		40.2%
65-74yrs		62.1%
Education Level, Both Sexes, 18yrs+older
9th-12th grade, no diploma		29.3%
High School graduate		47.4%
B.A. degree		69.2%
Advanced Degree		73.9%
Source: Current Population Survey, Nov. 2016.
By Segment: Highest voting rate in Bold; Lowest
voting rate in Italics.

As the table shows, young voters (18 to 24 years old) across the US voted only 70% as often as the overall total population (18 years and older). Black voters participated at the same rate as all voters. However Hispanic voters, a key Democrat target, participated only 58% as often as the total voter population. The Dems have yet to figure out how to motivate more young and Hispanic citizens to step inside a voting booth. Expectedly, the more educated a voter is, the higher is his/her voter participation rate. Voters with a B.A. degree participated 24% more often than the total population.

Perhaps the 2018 midterm elections will be different than 2016; they’ll need to be. For Dems, encouraging information about this year’s primary elections is that their supporters have been turning out and voting in record numbers. If that also happens in November, Democrats in the Congress may be celebrating the beginnings of a really super-divided federal government. Oh yeah. And it’s a l o n g road before that may happen. The primary season doesn’t actually end until November 6, when Louisiana holds its primary for all parties on the same day the rest of the country holds the general election. Go figure.

In the meantime I’m going to pause for several moments each day to remember Koko and her extra-ordinary accomplishments that aided humans in a purely positive fashion. We need more Koko’s and far fewer kooks inside the DC Beltway and beyond.

DOWN AND DIRTY IN BECKLEY, BEREA AND BITTER CREEK

People don’t slip. Time catches up with them. ~ Nat King Cole 

Has time caught up with our utterly ungreen president? Democrats avoided potential calamity in Tuesday’s primary elections – overblown by the media – by voting for “electable” candidates to run in November’s general elections. Bernie Sanders’ favs, once again, weren’t that successful. Perhaps the Dems success will be an omen for the president. Can we expect the November election results will verify that Nat King Cole’s adage applies to the president and his chaos? Here’s hoping.

And speaking of king coal, the president and his con-men minions are continuing to create environmental havoc for Beckley, West Virginia; Berea, Kentucky; Bitter Creek, Wyoming and everywhere else. Last week President Trump ordered the Department of Energy (DOE), with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) compliance, to change their policies and extend the lifetimes of aged coal-fired and nuclear power plants. He wants to feed the gorilla of global warming. Specifically, the president instructed his fossil-focused Energy Secretary Rick Perry to “prepare immediate steps” to stop mothballing unprofitable, older coal and nuclear plants around the country. This policy change will reverse the greening of electric power and will reward his lumps of carbon (aka, coal) loving men who provided significant financial support to his campaign. This change will provide the rest of us with darker and dirtier air and water.

I specifically mention Beckley, Berea and Bitter Creek because they are cities located in the three states that are most dependent on coal for producing electric power. West Virginia produces 95.6% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants; Kentucky kWh's have a 92% coal dependency; and Wyoming has 87.3% coal-centric electricity. These states aren’t typical; but at least 10 states have coal-powered electricity greater than 60%. Nationally, the share of electricity produced from coal has steadily declined for the past 30 years. Over 90% of the coal consumed in the US is used to generate electricity. In 2014 39% of US power generation was coal-fired, by 2017 dirty coal’s share dropped to 30.1%. Electricity generated from-renewable sources now represents 17.1% of all kWh generated.
It's been a very long time - since Ronald Reagan was president - that old king coal was merry. Thus when Donald Trump vowed to end the misnamed “war on coal” coal barons rallied to his side with bucket-fulls of cash. Trump’s campaign received at least $240,000 from employees or PACs of coal companies. The president and his grifter-infested administration have been attempting to pay them back for their fiscal largesse ever since.

In September 2017 Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that regulates the electricity industry to adopt a new policy that would bail out the coal and nuclear industries at the expense of increasing the cost of electricity for all customers. The FERC wisely rejected this costly “lame idea” subsidy in January. But the President came back last week with a second attempt to reward his coal baron friends. As mentioned above, this time he ordered Sec. Perry to keep aging coal and nuclear plants running. The proposed plan would require operators of the nation’s electricity grid to continue buying power or generating capacity from unprofitable coal and nuclear plants that are now scheduled to be retired. Who would pay the extra expense? Every electric utility customer in the US.

Under the guise of “national security” these plants would allegedly ensure in the president’s mistaken view that domestic power plants are available if a national emergency happens. But “national security” is simply an unconvincing pretext for offering fiscal largesse to his brown power buddies. The Trump administration seems fixated on using “national security” to justify taxpayer/consumer payments to the president’s chums. It’s a recurrent motif of this administration to weakly disguise their ultimate motive, this time to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants through non-market, administrative means and put our money in coal barons’ pockets. As you may recall, Trump also used national security to contemptibly justify increased tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from our allies. OMG.

This scheme to keep Beckley’s (and many other communities’) air and water polluted by old coal-fired power facilities is both misbegotten and ill-conceived. As King Coal should be biting the dust, wannabe king Donald bites the DOE and EPA to our detriment.