FANTASY HIGHS AND LOWS. To the Moon and the Deep Blue Sea.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. ~ The Buddha 

I have thought Bernie’s political programs are unalloyed fantasy. Two recent ideas put his plans to shame on the fantasy front. In one sense, they might now serve as useful antidotes for those of us who are way too immersed in mere temporal topics like, Will Bernie beat everyone on Super Tuesday?

These two notions describe a future that, in their believers’ eyes, is not only probable but eminently worthy, even necessary. And, like Bernie’s magical myth-making proposals, they aren’t blemished by their financial requirements for success nor worry about their potential adverse consequences.

Interestingly, they both share a focus on a modern-day solution to the age-old problem of how to satisfy humanity’s increasing needs for resources, despite these resources’ scarcity. They both require technology that doesn’t yet exist.

So let’s first escape to the fantasy high of moon mining. Yup, commercially extracting ore from our next-door astronomical object a mere 238,900 miles away from home. Homer Hickam’s tale, “Let the Moon Rush Begin,“ summarizes his high-flying, fervent belief in needful digging on the moon.

Homer believes the US should now start considering the moon as our “eighth continent and potentially a new source of wealth for the people of Earth. Our previous human and robotic missions discovered that the moon has abundant water and oxygen, as well as helium, platinum, thorium, rare earth metals and other minerals that may well be worth digging up and transporting back for use in thousands of earthly products.” He goes on to say, once electricians, plumbers, miners and construction workers start going to the moon, and the middle class starts using products made with lunar minerals, the US will become a true spacefaring nation.

Homer seems unable to turn off his brain’s mental screen that’s continuously projecting either old Star Trek movies or The Expanse. A spacefaring nation with far-away lunar plumbers? How about just getting one to come within three days to fix your leaking disposal.

Homer’s opinion that there’s “abundant water” on the moon requires a huge definitional stretch of the term abundant. No one now knows how much water, if any, exists on the Moon. According to NASA, the moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but water might exist in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface may hold about 32 ounces of water, the size of a Big Gulp soda. The rocks that Apollo astronauts gathered on the Moon’s surface came up “dry.” The supposed Moon water is more likely to be in its south pole craters, the globe’s very chilliest spots (-387°F). Several post-Apollo moon probes have detected wavelengths of light reflected off the craters’ surface indicating the chemical bond between hydrogen and oxygen — a signature, but indirect, indicator of either water or hydroxyl. Nevertheless, these analyses provided no estimates for how abundant the water/hydroxyl might be.

Let’s examine thorium and platinum from his mentioned lunar-sourced ores that the spacefaring US would ship back to Earth. Does his fantasy make any sense, and cents? Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic element widely available in the Earth’s crust. There are between 2.6 to 2.8 million tons of thorium here on mother earth. It’s about as ordinary as lead, which is to say commonplace. The US enjoys having about 15% of the world’s thorium resources.

A small group of fervent scientists believe thorium could be the “fuel of the future” when it’s used in liquid fluoride thorium reactors to generate electricity. Such reactors don’t now exist and would require substantial government R&D funding to become commercially-available. That’s very unlikely, mostly due to the public’s continuing revulsion of all things having to do with nuclear electric power.

So Homer’s idea of somehow competitively transporting thorium from the moon to earth fails for two reasons: it’s abundant on Earth; and no one is interested in its principal use.

What about lunar platinum? Unlike thorium, platinum is a very rare metal. Only a few hundred tons are produced annually. Its scarcity is reflected in its price, that has increased from $448 ten years ago to $2,225 per troy oz. currently. It has a number of crucial uses; including in computer drives, anti-cancer drugs, catalytic converters and gasoline. Columbia remains a source of platinum, as well as the Ural Mountains in Russia. Could the colossal costs of developing lunar mining and transport technologies of the now-unknown deposits of lunar platinum allow it to compete with “local” platinum? No one knows, but at best it would likely be a loooong time before these lunar technologies, as well as the need for lunar plumbers, would be something other science fiction.

Based on the above information, I’d say for the foreseeable future moon mining remains illusory. Sorry Homer, we can continue to gaze at the man in the moon without concerns that his “skin” will be ravaged by your hoped-for excavations.

Next, instead of looking upward into the heavens for inorganic salvation, let’s head way downward to exhume the ocean sea floor. And not just any sea floor, but the deep depths of the “hadal zone,” a reference to Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. This region is the absolute lowest of the Earth’s oceans which comprise 71% of its surface and 99% of our planet’s living space.

The hadal zone begins in water that is at least 20,000 feet (more than three nautical miles) beneath the sea’s waves and can extend to 36,000 feet. At these depths water pressure is unimaginably high, between 1.45 and 1.92 million pounds of pressure per square foot, that’s almost 700 to over 900 times surface pressure. To say this little-known environment is hostile is profound understatement.

Astonishingly, there is life that inhabits the hadal zone, including strange creatures like the snailfish (below), bristle worms, sea cucumber, jelly fish, bivalves, sea anemones and amphipods. Only three human expeditions have ever reached the seabed of the hadal zone’s Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth. A dozen NASA astronauts have walked on our orbiting moon, which is more than the number of folks who have dived to the very bottom of our Earth.

Swire’s snailfish

Wil Hylton’s “20,000 feet under the Sea” account describes the challenges as well as possible rewards and consequences of digging on the ocean’s densely dark depths. The prize for undersea miners is polymetallic nodules found on deep-water plains. These nodules, first discovered at the end of the 19th century, are rich in copper, cobalt, nickel and manganese; minerals crucial for battery-making. They have been found in practically every ocean. They can be as large as a grapefruit and appear abundant in the Eastern Central Pacific Ocean, specifically in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), the main area of worldwide interest for minable polymetallic nodules. The CCZ runs East-West roughly between Southern Baja Mexico and Hawaii, covering 1.7 million square miles of ocean.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN-based organization that administers the CCZ and other seabeds, believes there are over 21 billion tons of nodules in the zone. The ISA and its members have been slowly developing for over a decade its Mining Code, the rules and regulations for world-wide undersea mining. Because the US has not yet indorsed the UN’s 1994 Law of the Sea Convention, it is not a member of the ISA.

The ISA hopes to have its Mining Code ratified this year, which would legally allow deep-sea mining to commence in the dozens of CCZ permitted areas and elsewhere. What’s first needed is development of proven, reliable and environmentally-sustainable technologies for gathering deep-sea minerals at costs competitive with land-based mines. This has not stopped organizations from Russia, Korea, China, Japan, France, Germany, Nauru and Tonga from agreeing to contracts with the ISA to explore (but not mine) for polymetallic nodules. These organizations are betting the benefits they’ll receive once the Code is in force – the significant amounts of metallic treasure – will pay for the hefty expenses they’ve been incurring.

Aside from economics, there are plenty of concerns about deep-sea mining, principally environmental. Large, industrial-scale vessels will use robot-guided vacuum hoses to suck up nodules and sediment from the seafloor. The nodules will be kept in the ship, the rest will be dumped back into the ocean. The huge plumes of discarded slurry will be carried by ever-changing ocean currents at different speeds in different directions. The ISA’s current draft of its Mining Code, which many observers believe is pro-mining, does not specify the depth of the ships’ discharges, but is based on the large, untested assumption that it won’t be carried more than 62 miles from the release point.

Sometime in the future when these organizations begin operating at full capacity, they expect to suck up thousands of square miles of sea-floor each year. A Swedish study foresees that each ship will release at least two million cubic feet of discharge per day as they hoover the abyssal sea-plains.

Is that an outcome worthy of more electric vehicle batteries? I think not. But because such deep-sea devastation will be completely unwitnessed and snailfish can’t protest the contamination of their home territory, the best response won’t be coming from the oceans’ depths. It’s too bad we can’t vote in favor of the snailfish, who I expect are predominantly Democrats, and for preserving their neighborhood on Super Tuesday.

BEAN THERE, DOING THAT. A short pull on coffee.

I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte 

Adam did not have an espresso before he ate his apple, but his descendants have drunk coffee for centuries. Last year, world coffee production was 10.26 million tonnes, the most ever. That’s a lot of Ristrettos, Macchiatos and Cappuccinos, with or without apples.

The genus Coffea is native to tropical Eastern Africa (Ethiopia and Sudan) and the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, the Comoros, Mauritius and Reunion. It’s travelled way beyond its botanical homeland. The two most commonly grown coffee plants are C. arabica and C. robusta, which are now grown in more than 70 nations. Since 2018, Brazil has been the world’s leading grower and exporter of coffee, followed by Viet Nam (who’d of guessed), Columbia and Indonesia. Hawaii produces the only commercially-grown coffee in the US, principally its well-known Kona variety. It produces just 3,900 tonnes per year according to the latest information.

Coffee has a mysterious dark color, it’s slightly bitter, and has a stimulating effect in most people, primarily due to its caffeine content. Caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive drug, thanks in large part to coffee and tea consumption. Black tea has roughly one-half the caffeine as coffee. Unlike many other psychoactive substances, it’s legal. Hoorah.

Caffeine is classified by the US Food and Drug Administration as “generally recognized as safe.” Espresso has almost three times the caffeine as a drip-prepared coffee per ounce, and almost four times as much as a brewed coffee. Medical specialists think the half-life of caffeine’s effect in an adult body is 5-6 hours.

It can be toxic, however. Toxic doses of caffeine begin when consuming over 10 grams per day. Typical caffeine levels in coffee range from 80 to as high as 175mg, based on what beans are used and how it’s prepared. Reaching that toxic level would require daily consumption of roughly 50 to 100 cups of coffee. Whoa, Nellie. If you consume anywhere near this amount of coffee, you very likely have “other issues.” Let’s get back to coffee.

Early on, coffee seeds (what we call beans) were taken from its native soils to Yemen via traders. By the middle of the 15th century Yemeni Sufis were drinking coffee, more or less as we know it today, to stay awake during their religious rituals. By the 16th century, the drink had reached Persia, Turkey and North Africa – then all part of the Ottoman Empire. Soon afterwards it spread to Europe and beyond.

Historically, coffee-drinking has been banned for a time in several places, sometimes on religious grounds (no pun intended, honestly). Religious authorities in Mecca forbad coffee in 1511, saying it stimulated nasty radical thinking. In 16th century Italy Catholic clergy pressed the Pope to ban it as a “Muslim drink” and have it labelled “Satanic.” It wasn’t to be: After tasting the new beverage, Pope Clement VIII pronounced it delicious. Based on this papal sanctification, coffeehouses sprang up throughout Italy. Sweden’s King Gustav III prohibited coffee-drinking and banned “coffee paraphernalia” (cups and dishes) in 1746. Apparently, Swedes had their cups of Joe on the sly anyway. Coffee was simply stronger than Kings, religion and other coffee-fearing authorities.

Coffeehouses were established and soon became a popular part of a town’s culture. The first coffeehouse in Constantinople – then the capitol of the Ottoman Empire – was opened in 1475 by traders from Damascus. Coffee was introduced in Italy by 1600, via the long-flourishing trade between Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The first Venetian (and European) coffeehouse opened its doors in 1645.

From Venice coffee rapidly seeped into the rest of Europe and eventually the Americas and beyond. The first coffeehouse in England was established in Oxford in 1650, and in America in Boston in 1676. British coffeehouses were called “penny universities,” where a patron with a single penny could buy a coffee and often enjoy participating in stimulating, educational(?) conversations. One such coffeehouse, the Green Dragon in Boston, was where John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere planned their American rebellion. Such coffeehouses usually were more than mere arabica, they also served tea and beer.

The chart below shows how consumers in the 14 listed countries choose between purchasing and drinking coffee or tea. The share of “coffee folk” is highest in Brazil and Ecuador – an impressive 94.7% – which are two of the largest coffee bean producers. Unsurprisingly, the United Kingdom (UK) and its now long-ago colony India have the highest shares of tea-sipping customers of these nations. India is the second-largest tea producer in the world, behind China. US consumers prefer coffee to tea by a three-to-one margin; in Italy coffee preference is closer to four-to-one. Italians consume an estimated 14 billion morning espressos each year, about 275 per adult. Canadian and Australian consumers’ coffee-to-tea preference is much more balanced. 

Consumers’ Preference by Country

Country	Coffee Folk	Tea Sippers
Brazil	94.7%	5.3%
Ecuador	94.7%	5.3%
Denmark	92.2%	7.8%
Mexico	89.7%	10.3%
Finland	88.8%	11.2%
Italy	78.4%	21.6%
United States	75.4%	24.6%
Switzerland	69.7%	30.3%
Canada	57.7%	42.3%
Australia	49.7%	50.3%
Japan	37.4%	62.6%
Chile	35.3%	64.7%
UK	29.1%	70.9%
India	11.0%	89.0%
Source:	CafeDeColumbia

Which country drinks the utmost coffee? On a per-capita basis, Nordic nations consume the most perhaps due to those very long, very cold, dark winter nights. These countries account for five of the top 10 per-capita coffee-consuming countries. Finland, at 26 lb. per person per year, is the largest consumer (double that of Brazil, nearly 3x the US), closely followed by Norway, Iceland and then Sweden. The US ranks 25th (9¼ lb.); Canada is 10th highest.

Onward to Espresso. Espresso is a method of brewing coffee, by which pressurized water is passed through a compacted "puck" of fine coffee grounds. It doesn’t refer to any specific bean type. Many different coffee blends – like Italian Roast, Espresso Forte, Arabian Mocha-Java and Big Bang – can be used to make a fine cup of espresso.

An espresso machine heats the water to just-below boiling (195°F - 205°F), pressurizes it to 9-10 atmospheres and pushes the water through the grounds. The coffee grind should allow the brew time to be 20-30 seconds. When finished, your cup of espresso should look something like the picture here. Notice the crema, the bubbly foam at the top of the coffee. If it’s the crema de la crema, it should be no more than ten percent of the espresso shot. Espresso should be drunk swiftly, before its aromatic elements disperse into the ether.

Espresso is a relatively recent innovation in coffee-making. After all, people have been drinking coffee for over 500 years. The first machine for making espresso was built in 1884 by Angelo Moriondo of Turin, Italy. But for some time the espresso-making process remained laborious and finicky, hence not much was really drunk. The initial, modern steam-less espresso machine was created in 1938 by Achille Gaggia, an Italian barista. This machine is a direct predecessor of today’s espresso machines. In 1945 Gaggia refined his original design with a manual espresso-maker that used a lever, pulled down by the operator, to pressurize the hot water and push it through the grounds. This machine is where “pulling a shot” originated. The increased pressure facilitated by his design gave the espresso world its crema. Thank you, Achille.

If espresso is at one end of the coffee scale, the other end is unlamented instant coffee. Instant coffee was invented in 1907. Because of the ease of making it – all it took was a spoon, heated water and a cup – instant coffee rapidly gained in popularity in the post-WWWI period. Nescafé was the instant coffee market leader. My parents both drank Nescafé at breakfast when I was young. I remember the jar of instant coffee next to the stove in our kitchen. I don’t remember any real coffee aroma.

The picture below shows a magnificent, early, non-automated, steam espresso machine. This device is a 1910 two group tipo Extra Model from Turin, Italy. It’s part of the Collezione Enrico Maltoni, near Milan, which has the world’s largest collection of impressive, vintage espresso machines. They don’t make them like that anymore.

     After the end of WWII, an espresso-craze unfolded across Europe and the US. In the Italian-intense North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco the Caffè Trieste opened in 1956. Beat Generation writers including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac, along with non-bards, have enjoyed the Trieste’s espresso bar. It became the cognoscenti’s place to be; the espresso gave it an international flavor. Soon espresso and its relatives like macchiatos, cappuccinos, lattés and an occasional sospeso began dotting urban country sides across the US. 

The first Peet's Coffee & Tea store opened in 1966 in Berkeley, right where I regularly buy their #4 grind Italian Roast for my Gaggia. Peets founder Alfred Peet concentrated on roasting coffee with fresher, higher-quality C. arabica beans than was usual. Peets was the original “craft coffeeshop.” Peets roasts over one million pounds of coffee a week. He was a trainer and initial supplier to the founders of Starbucks. Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle in 1971. Fifteen years later Starbucks added an espresso bar to one of its stores. It now has 25,000 stores in 75 nations, including Italy.

Berkeley and places beyond are imbued with quality coffee culture. Peets, Starbucks and now other craft coffeehouses are a prominent reason for this culinary facet of modern culture. Edward Abbey clearly never had the pleasure of drinking Peets coffee. That was his misfortune; because otherwise he wouldn’t have stated, “Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.” Che peccato.

  

WIN WITH A ROOMIER MIDDLE, DITCH SOCIALISM

If anyone says American socialism isn’t possible, point them toward the bowling shoe. ~ Hari Nef   

It seems Thomas Hobson could become a choice in the Dems’ presidential election candidate sweepstakes. It’s not a happy feeling because like most people I’ve never liked having to make a Hobson’s choice, aka my way or the highway.

Now that the chimera of impeachment has evaporated, the only way to get rid of this thoroughly hazardous president is by tried-and-true-blue voting him out of office – and assuming he’ll thereby vacate the White House.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ steady advance in New Hampshire’s polls together with his virtual first-place tie with Pete Buttigieg in Iowa has me concerned. Why? Because Bernie is #45’s best hope for an opponent in November.

A presidential ballot choice between Bernie and #45 seems all too Hobson for me. I’d vote for Bernie if it comes to that, but it will seem feckless – socialism v. egoism.

We’re a long way from choosing a candidate that can beat #45. Although it’s not obvious when listening to the media, which has been in “today’s the day that will influence everything” status for all too long. It’s about five months until the Dems’ National Convention. Nevertheless, the Dems’ now not-so-latent schizophrenia between selecting a radical progressive versus a moderate is becoming ever-more palpable. Alas, Thorazine isn’t appropriate for treating alleged widespread and early-stage political psychosis.

Hence, the primaries must appropriately provide a voter-based choice. I expect that the media’s relentless focus on the utterly squishy concept of ex ante “electability” will thankfully dissipate. Electability will be determined ipso facto from the actual primary election results of real voters, not by confused, inconsistent polls.

We’ve just witnessed the first of the 57 rounds (that’s right, 57) of Dem primaries and caucuses. This initial round in the farmy, app-seizured state of Iowa was unexpectedly exasperating. Under 9% of voting-age Iowans attended the 1,681 Democratic caucuses last Monday. So much for participatory democracy and Bernie’s mantra of bringing more voters to his and the Dems’ table. Pete Buttigieg unexpectedly eked out an ever-so-slender win over Bernie in terms of the Iowans’ obscurely-determined state delegate equivalents (SDEs). So slender that Pete and Bernie are now uneasy co-winners. Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in a distant third and Joe Biden badly batted clean-up.

The quadrennial political spotlight shone brightly on Iowa and its caucuses, at least before they actually occurred. As we now know, the Iowa Democratic Party failed to provide timely, accurate results of their convoluted caucus process.

During the past months we once again learned a smidgen about Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and even Muscatine. Due to the media’s obsessions, we’ve heard about all manner of things Iowan for close to a political eternity – even about the alleged “predictive power of Indian food.”

Yup, this story in the New York Times posited how Iowans’ apparent preferences for Indian food, say tasty tandoori tofu, can predict their political choice, specifically people who’ll vote for Bernie in the caucuses. This is another fine example of copy-desperate journalists falling on their cum hoc ergo propter hoc swords. According to this story, 71% of Bernie backers have eaten at an Indian restaurant (in the last decade!), as contrasted with only 40% of people who support Joe Biden. So all one had to do is ask folks going to the caucuses if they’ve eaten Indian food within the last 10 years to determine who won the caucuses. OMG, please stop; tandoori tofu won’t help you on any campaign trail, including Iowa’s.

I offer congratulations to Pete and Bernie. They managed to physically traverse not only most of Iowa’s 99 counties, but the intricacies of its byzantine, opaque caucus system. It’s a system that next to no one beyond Iowa’s border understands, or cares to. To confuse things even more, the Iowa Democratic Party provides three different sets of results for their caucuses: state delegate equivalents, the final caucus vote total and the initial caucus vote total. It’s so complicated we waited for four days to get complete, hand-on-Bible/Torah/Koran-accurate results. As one Iowa caucus secretary said, “It’s just so absurd.” Exactly.

What happened to simple, straightforward voting with a private ballot? Fortunately, that’s what the New Hampshire primary offers. It’s even smaller and whiter than Iowa – referring to both its people and its snow-covered ground. Oh well. Taking a thoroughly non-electronic, time-tested approach to voting, the Granite State's procedure uses no apps or machines; just paper ballots and pencils. Onward in lead-based security. 

Hawkeye State denizens are now back in their usual non-media-fixated political penumbra, without non-stop political ads. Ah, what a relief it is.  Meanwhile the Iowa Democratic Party attempts to cure its critically-wounded system for next time(?), while weathering much-deserved criticism.

The New Hampshire primary vote is tomorrow. At this point, according to the polls, the semi-native son Bernie is 6 points ahead of Pete Buttigieg, with Joe Biden nipping a bit at Pete’s heels. Unfortunately semi-native daughter Sen. Elizabeth Warren hasn’t fared as well. But not to worry Liz or Joe or Amy or Andrew. South Carolina’s Dem primary is just three weeks away, on leap-year day, a much-shortened eternity you all have been preparing for, right? Four days after that there’s the 15-state, Super Tuesday Armageddon – March 3.

The chart below provides several characteristics of the first three states where the Dems’ primaries-caucuses are being held, plus California the largest state in the Super Tuesday marathon. I haven’t mentioned here Nevada’s caucuses on our first president’s birthday; I’m caucused out.

PRIMARY STATES’ CHARACTERISTICS

Characteristic\State	US	Iowa	New Hampshire	South Carolina	Calif-ornia
Population (1000s)	328,240	3,155	1,360	5,149	39,572
Population Growth	6.3%	3.6%	3.3%	11.3%	6.1%
Percent of US Population		1.0%	0.4%	1.6%	12.1%
Median Age (years)	37.8	38.1	42.7	39.0	36.1
Persons under 18 years	22.4%	23.2%	19.0%	21.8%	22.7%
Persons 65+ years	16.0%	17.1%	18.1%	17.7%	14.3%
White	76.5%	90.7%	93.2%	68.5%	72.1%
Black/African American	13.4%	4.0%	1.7%	27.1%	6.5%
Hispanic/Latino	18.3%	6.2%	3.9%	5.8%	39.3%
BA or higher degree	31.5%	28.2%	36.5%	27.4%	33.3%
Median Household Income	$60,293	$58,580	$74,057	$51,015	$71,228
Persons in Poverty	11.8%	11.2%	7.6%	15.3%	12.8%

Iowa and New Hampshire have much whiter, less ethnically diverse populations. South Carolina and California have the most ethnically diverse populations of the four. California’s Hispanic/Latino population is more than twice the US average. New Hampshire represents well under one percent of the US population, and it’s much older having the highest median age of these states. New Hampshire has fewer people living in poverty and under 18 years old, and a higher share of folks who’ve gotten at least a college degree. Granite Staters also have the highest median household income, over 20% more than the US average. South Carolina has the fastest growing population during the past decade of any of these states, growing almost twice as fast as the nation.  
As seen in the chart and unsurprisingly, no individual state exactly compares to the nation, despite journalists’ superficial attempts every four years to plug their favorite substitute for Iowa or New Hampshire. Nevertheless, using the characteristics shown in the chart, California is overall the most “similar” of these states to the US characteristics.

Bernie’s (and Liz’s) “Big Structural Changes” that they advocate will not be incremental, by design. He has been consistent and clear about this for a long time; which means he’s “authentic,” an attribute the media believes 2020 Dem voters may place key importance on. There is nothing incremental, or inexpensive, about Bernie’s goals, including Medicare for All [that will provide free, government healthcare to everyone (near and dear to Dems), including illegal immigrants (not so near and dear)], eliminating all student debt, providing free tuition for public college education, or implementing the Green New Deal.

Bernie’s program appeals to big-time progressives, folks who want big-time change and those who are less concerned about how these fantasy goals (see here) could be achieved in the actual world of political and fiscal limitations. They’re not troubled about significantly expanding government that will be required to implement his vision. Bernie’s stated goals will create a form of democratic socialism that will be broader in many ways than any Nordic or European nation –encompassing over 50% of the nation’s GDP and doubling government employment. In the US, all levels of government account for about 38% of GDP. About 15% of the US labor force now works in government.

Nor are his acolytes fretful about his programs’ sizeable costs, because they haven’t read the fine, fiscal print or considered the nation’s existing financial condition, which will make his vision’s high costs a barrier to implementation. Bernie’s progressive devotees believe his political dream has got to be better than what’s happening now. These progressive stalwarts have a very low threshold for fury when anyone proposes some less than a 100% Bernie-true programmatic idea; witness Liz’s demise in polling. I strongly doubt general election voters will see Bernie’s ideas the same way as his puritanical followers do.

The president has already characterized any Democrat running for office as a “socialist” in honor of Bernie’s inescapable affiliation. More to the point, #45 and his cronies are discharging to the public that if elected, the Dems will take away your choices (e.g., private health insurance) and increase your taxes. That’s certainly a possibility if Bernie occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Our economy continues its decade-long growth cycle with unemployment very, very low (3.6%) and workers’ real wages finally edging upward. That’s wonderful news. Unfortunately, if they continue such macroeconomic advantages have favored the incumbent president in the past rather than his challenger, especially if the challenger’s support is not broadly-based.

Should we be wishing for a significant recessionary trend to materialize to “help” the Dems? No. But regrettably, the Dems have yet to broadcast clear-cut, convincing, economics-based arguments that voters can adopt in choosing the Dem candidates to continue and increase our economic growth. The Dems‘ focus is on how it is divided, not enlarging the pie. They have to own our decade-long success. The Dems simply aren’t talking about it. That’s a large mistake.

The Dems’ political prospects will likely change again, after New Hampshire and South Carolina hold their primaries. And then change again after Super Tuesday. But no matter which Dem hopeful ends in the lead after Super Tuesday and ultimately the convention, he or she will need to swiftly consolidate their support to be as broad, roomy and inviting as possible to win in November. That’s assuming there will soon be a unique multi-primary winner, which at the moment seems a large-ish assumption. That consolidation will be most difficult for Bernie, in no small part because of how narrowly he’s defined his authenticity and how he behaved after he lost the 2016 Dem presidential candidacy.

I’m not a purist or a puritan. I consider myself a realist. My over-riding goal is for the Dems to beat #45 as decisively as possible. There aren’t enough socialists, even democratic ones, in our voting public for Bernie to win. That will happen with a roomier, centered candidate, perhaps even an “extreme moderate.” Here’s hoping… 

Here are my post-NH primary observations (2/12/2020).

Bernie did as expected in New Hampshire yesterday. He won his next-door primary besting Pete, but without the anticipated margin of victory, which was an ever-so-slender 1.3% of the total vote. Both of them were awarded the grand sum of nine delegates, meaning Bernie only needs an additional 1,969 to secure his nomination. And like the fractured Iowa caucuses, Bernie did not induce hordes more voters to the polls. On that note, his goal of persuading many more “disaffected” and young voters to the polls has yet to be realized. Maybe his third try, in Nevada, will be a charm. The surprise that this hasn’t happened is itself a surprise.

Perhaps Bernie’s lean victory happened because of the plethora of names on the ballot. Amazingly, 33 different Dems were listed on the New Hampshire primary ballot; including many who have already dropped out but nevertheless received a smattering of votes.

Oh well, the media now sees Bernie as the Dem (oops, Democratic Socialist) to beat at this very early point in the primary season. He’s king for more than a day; indeed for 10 days, until the Nevada caucuses end. The big media play now is Amy’s unexpected “win” (actually her third-place finish) in tiny New Hampshire. As if primaries are a horseshoe game where near-enough to the winning stake actually counts. I guess it does, Amy now has six delegates.

The Dems’ quandary – who can actually beat #45 – remains, and will continue until the number of moderates, I’ll call them the “Mod Squad” [Pete, Amy, Joe, Tulsi, Deval (Patrick), Tom (Steyer) and Michael], slims way, way down so their votes don’t get spread around to as many folks as they do now. Even though 19 Dems have already dropped out of the race, at this point (Michael Bennett and Andrew Yang departed yesterday), nine still remain. Seven of these nine are members of the Mod Squad.

Having nine candidates in the Dems’ primaries is as confusing as the famous John Lennon song, Revolution 9 on the White Album, that entirely consists of strange, continuous loops. It’s too many loops, and candidates.

The too-large number of Mod Squaders predictably makes it easier for Bernie to win with a minor plurality, now that Liz’s star continues to fade. As the media has now continuously reminded us, Bernie’s tiny winning margin and his 25.7% share of the New Hampshire vote is the smallest in decades, and way below his winning 22% margin (and 60% share) against Hillary in 2016. Those were different times, principally because there were only two Dem candidates.

Unfortunately, winnowing down the Dem field of dreaming candidates will not happen soon. The lagging Mod Squad members, say Tulsi and Deval and likely Amy and (OMG) Joe, understandably aren’t willing to simply draw straws to see who departs now. Although the “weakest” of them might succumb before South Carolina, my bet is we’ll have to wait for nearly another month, after the March 3 Super Tuesday marathon.

The fiscal and logistical requirements for winning the 17 contests between now and Super Tuesday is staggering and will precipitate drop-outs. Other than the leaders, very few Dem candidates now have money in their political wallets or the field staff for this 17-ring circus. Will that be soon enough for the numbers-diminished Mod Squad to rally vote-wise against Bernie? I hope so. Many Dems, including me, are nervous about this answer.