elections

This week Honolulu saw the results of the first two scientific polls for local elections this year. The first, a poll on the Honolulu Mayor’s race, was published earlier last week. The other, on Honolulu’s race for Prosecutor, was released this past Friday morning.

In both cases, there is a fairly high number or respondents who hadn’t decided, or indicated they don’t like any of the candidates.

There’s no denying we’ve all be more than a little preoccupied with the impact of COVID-19 on our families and our communities. Rightly so. So while all the candidates will do their best to spin the results, we should keep in mind the current circumstances when viewing the results.

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A Sad, if Not Unexpected, Day

I woke up this morning to sad, if not unexpected, news. My candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, Bernie Sanders, has suspended his campaign.

In response to a friend’s disappoint this morning, I wrote this:

I’m equal parts angry and sad.

I didn’t see a path forward for Bernie, so I’m sad not angry he’s dropped out. But I AM angry at the persistence of a social-political structure that will claim victory and do little more than inch forward.

It seems the liberal-democratic establishment learned little from 2016 and I do fear Trump will wipe the floor with Biden.

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Self-Isolate

It’s been roughly two week since I’ve become even more of a home-body than normal.

While I remain confident that not only do I not have the Coronavirus, I have not interacted with anyone who does. Still, out of a combination of shared self-sacrifice and alternative-lacking, I have spent nearly 24-hours a day in my home for almost every day of the past two weeks.

As an introvert, you might think this time has been like a dream come true for me. Lovely long days spent alone with my thoughts, my work, and small apartment. It is not.

A friend shared on Facebook this article (https://introvertdear.com/news/introvert-but-quarantine-sucks/). Being single and childless, I can’t completely relate, but it does nonetheless hold some “truths” for me.

Being an Introvert Doesn’t Mean Solitude is Preferred

Last year, after a couple of different experiences, I wrote about what it really means to be an introvert. I used to think being an introvert meant we prefer solitude to other people, but that’s not true. Rather, it means that social interactions can be taxing both physically and emotionally. Solitude is necessary for our balance and for “recharging”. That’s definitely true in my case.

This experience has reconfirmed that fact for me. Not being able to go out (except for necessities), not being able to interact with friends and colleagues in the real world. Not being able to visit the Capitol, etc. All these are taking their tole on me.

In fact, I’ve understood for years that being cooped up in my house is a recipe for downward spirals. Under other circumstances, even without any of those things, spending an afternoon in a coffee shop was a welcome respite from the concrete cave that is my apartment.

Years of therapy have taught me this lesson well. So much so, that I’m able to often correct my trajectory so as not to completely lose it. In this way, I feel lucky. I imagine there are lots of people who will experience depression during this period of isolation, not recognize it for what it is, and won’t know how to deal with it.

Introvert or No, This is Hard

In addition to being an introvert, I’m also prone to depressive episodes that can last any where from a few hours to weeks at a time.

More than anything else, what keeps me on an even keel (under normal circumstances) is my work. So long as I feel productive, those depressive episodes are shorter and less frequent.

2020 was supposed to be an action-packed year. A legislative session pushing for advances on progressive issues, a flurry of local candidate campaigns, a presidential campaign, and county, state, and national Democratic Conventions. The Coronavirus has upended all of it and I’m struggling to fill my days. My professional work has all but come to a grinding halt.

Sure, there no end to all the reading I can and should be doing. And of course there’s writing and photography and walking I could undertake to keep myself busy. The trouble is I work best under deadlines. With no end in sight to this way of life, I struggle to get myself motivated to do much of anything.

What’s more, I tend to work and think better when there is some level of background noise and activity around me.

In college as now, quiet work spaces are not for me. Libraries, as much as I love browsing bookshelves, have always been a terrible place for me to get a lick of work done. Some of my best writing and thinking has taken place in bustling coffee shops blanketed with hi-fi headphones and a well-chosen playlist.

A Routine Built on Externalities

Yet another quirk of my brain is the need for at least some structure and routine. For me, entropy is a very real issue. Within a margin, deviation from a routine is jarring to me. It causes stress and can trigger depressive episodes.

So many of my friends are true “self-starters” who are able to find productive things to occupy themselves and their time. This, sadly, is a skill I’ve never been terribly good at developing. I can do it in fits and starts, but it’s always been short-lived.

Maybe I should see this global crisis as an opportunity to improve myself in this area. I am trying, but entropy, the relative quiet, and solitude makes it difficult.

To Do’s

While I’ve learned not to commit to something I’m not fully prepared to do, I leave here both for posterity and motivation a list of tasks and activities, at least some of which I hope to undertake as this global health crisis and necessary isolation persists:

  • Do more photography
  • Do more writing
  • Restart video blogging
  • Learn the ukulele
  • Take walks
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Goodbye 2019. Welcome 2020.

So. I’ve never actually written a year-in-review type post before. At least, not that I can find. The closest I can come is this post from the beginning of 2018. It’s not a year-in-review so much as a forward-looking post at 2018 in front of me. As that post says, I’m not much for New Years’ Resolutions. Though I am all about reflection, so this revelation is actually a bit surprising to me.

Or, maybe because I’m so contemplative on a regular basis it’s never really seemed worth the effort to write an end-of-year summary. That streak ends today, as I look back on 2019 (and a bit at 2018). There’s no doubt the last year or two have been some of the most interesting and challenging of my life.

2018: A Quick Look

The year started off normal enough; school, work, politics. I had no idea what was in front of me.

Taking a night dive into uncharted waters, in March of that year, I left my job in the Governor’s Office to take a position as the Campaign Manager for Kim Coco Iwamoto in her bid to be Hawaii’s next Lieutenant Governor. I left the stability and safety of a dead-end job for an exciting new one which I didn’t know where it would lead. Or what would come next.

Finishing a disappointing fourth place, it was nonetheless a tremendous experience I’m glad I had. Not understanding how hard things would get financially, I took the remainder of the year to try to stand up my own consulting business and finish my Master’s Degree at GW.

2019 Began with Hope and Energy

2019 saw me graduate from George Washington University, my first official consulting client, and travel for work.

By the time January came around, my bank account had dwindled to pennies and my credit card debt had exploded. But I was hopeful because I also was making better-than-decent money consulting.

I was doing the work I loved on causes I genuinely cared about. Things were great. My business was taking off and I thought I was on my way.

But then the dumpster fired of a legislative session came to an end. And so did my contracts. At the time, in early June, I was still somewhat hopeful that it would only be a matter of time before the next gig came around.

Then, Reality Kicked Me in the Head

Again my bank balances dwindled, credit balances continued to rise and I didn’t actually find any other work until the end of October.

Being self-employed can be great. Freeing. Fulfilling. For me, there’s not much better than sitting down at my desk with freshly made coffee still in sleep attire. No shoes or pants required.

It can also be incredibly difficult and lonely. I went from working in an office full of other people to spending more than a few days working from home. It’s not an exaggeration that I am not social. Even in the office, I’d rarely talk story with my co-workers. Except when I did.

Having the choice was something I didn’t think I’d miss. But now I can easily spend a few days not leaving home except to venture out for meals or smokes. Being alone with my thoughts can take a depressing turn at any moment. Staying focused can be challenging.

I started to think maybe I had made a terrible mistake risking stability and comfort to venture out on my own. I applied and interviewed for a few full-time jobs back with the State, though none went anywhere. Had it not been for the love and support of my parents, it’s likely I would have been forced to pack up and move back as a failure to my high school bedroom to start anew.

I’m an Odd Mix of Hope and Brutal Reality

My life in Hawaii hasn’t been without challenges. From long bouts of unemployment to a chronic illness diagnosis and major surgery, my 17-plus years in the special place has molded who I am as an adult. Despite these challenges, I’ve always managed to land on my feet. Sooner or later.

So, while I continued to struggle toward the end of 2019 I started to think, again, about packing it in. Then, I received a call for a job that sent me to Mississippi for two weeks of work. It couldn’t have come at a better time. It was a great experience I’d happily take up again. And it kept me solvent for another month or two.

Strangely, when it comes to my personal life, I have long since given up on the possibility of “meeting someone”. Instead, I’ve chosen to focus on other parts of my life. Professionally though, I’ve always managed to stay mostly positive. Despite struggles and financial ruin (at least twice now), I continue to hold out hope that it’ll work out in the end and that I’ll be successful. Eventually.

Looking Toward a New Start in 2020

While I contemplate how best to deal with the crippling debt I’ve acquired over the last few years, new professional opportunities present themselves.

The 2020 Legislative Session begins in just a few weeks. And it won’t be long before the election season kicks into high gear. It will no doubt be a busy, stressful, and challenging year. As I sit here with my morning coffee on January 2nd, I am hopeful. Hopeful that income will begin pouring in. Hopeful that at least some of the projects on which I’m working will be successful. Hopeful that 2020 will see my business grow.

Here’s hoping. And here’s hoping 2020 will be a positive year for all of you.

Time to get to it.

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FDR for President - socialist government programs

The word “progressive” carries a lot of baggage. On the right, conservatives bandy about the term as an insult, a term of derision meant to signal an opposition to “traditional values,” military weakness or cowardice, or an “Un-American” approach to economics. For many conservatives, “progressives” are really anyone to their left on the political spectrum, which isn’t hard to do these days.

Among Democrats, it is an identity many elected officials and candidates covet. During the primaries, it seems every Democrat is a “progressive.” Whether they really are or not is open to debate. As a self-described progressive myself, I certainly have my own ideas about what the word means and when the title is appropriately employed. But for our immediate purposes here, I will attempt to lay out an objective working definition.

Definitions

Starting with the basics, the Oxford English Dictionary defines progressive in a number of contexts, but for our purposes here’s a couple that are relevant:

(Of a person or idea) favoring social reform ‘a relatively progressive Minister of Education’. Or favouring change or innovation.

Beyond this technical definition which may or may not be applied to current national political dynamics, I went in search of more satisfying definitions that might better inform the underlying point of this post; what does it mean to be “progressive” in today’s political climate.

I came across an article in The New Republic aptly titled, “Are You Progressive?”. The author ultimately provides two definitions that contradict one another:

In a recent issue of the journal Democracy, the historian Sean Wilentz addressed it head-on: Liberals, he argues, recognize the flaws of capitalism, are dedicated to remedying them, and have great achievements to their credit in that regard, notably those of the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. Progressives are meanwhile “emphatically anti-liberal”—because they are hostile to capitalism and, “deep down, harbor the hope that one day, perhaps through some catastrophic event, American capitalism will indeed be replaced by socialism.”

He goes on:

In practice, however, Wilentz’s theory doesn’t really apply: Progressive and liberal are precisely synonyms in American political life—and have been since the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan succeeded in making liberals feel ashamed of the word and fearful of associating with it, and they started calling themselves progressives instead. This wasn’t the introduction of a new politics; it was the rebranding of an existing one.

While I tend to agree with the conclusion drawn by McCormack in the New Republic article, I don’t intend to debate here the difference between “liberal” and “progressive,” rather provide some context. Feeling that I’ve done that, I’m moving on.

Recent Uses

I’ve seen articles recently, more than one in fact, that claim the “progressive” agenda isn’t so much “progressive,” but rather a reclaiming of New Deal policies and a “realigning” of the Democratic Party.

As we can begin to see above, this approach does more to muddy the definitional waters than to clarify them. Without delving into the political connections and relationships of these journalists, I believe this is little more than an ongoing and continuous effort by the Democratic Party establishment and its supporters to appropriate the term for their own purposes. As so many Democratic elected officials, both here in the islands and across the country, aim to do.

Yes, I would imagine that most true progressives (I’ll come to my own definition a bit later) support the policies of the New Deal, but its agenda I think falls short of what we should today call “progressive.” For starters, during the era of Roosevelt there was little consciousness or understanding of the impacts human society has on the environment around us. And any “progressive” agenda today should include a strong environmental protection stance.

In addition to a strong stance on environmental protections, defense and support of strong labor organizing components, and social justice as opposition to treating immigrants, people of color, or women as anything less than equal should be at the core of “progressive” values.

Organized Labor

Anyone considering themselves “progressive” should be a staunch and vocal supporter of labor unions and the unfettered right of workers to collectively organize.

During the last 40 years or so, Democratic and Republican politicians alike have worked, actively or otherwise, to chip away at union membership and the influence of organized labor on our political and economic systems. Sure, Republicans have largely led the charge, but sadly far too many Democratic politicians have been complicit.

Organized labor, history shows us, has had substantial impacts on our society and economy by fighting for fairness. Again, not equality, but fairness. Only as the strength and influence of labor unions has wained over the last few decades have wages stagnated, have corporate profits and influence exploded, and the quality of life of the average worker suffered.

Social Justice

In the age of Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements, any examination of what it means to be progressive must include some consideration of social justice.

Indigenous rights, here in Hawaii, might be the most pronounced example of what I mean. Court rulings and protest movements have shown us that Native Hawaiian rights are given consideration only when it serves the purposes of political politeness, or tourist industry pandering. Government mechanisms constitutionally mandated to benefit Native Hawaiian communities are paid little more than lip service.

Even today, we need look no farther than the stand-off over the TMT on Mauna Kea, or the underfunding of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) or Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL).

Beyond the shores of Hawaii, groups are under assault across the country, from immigrants forced into illegal camps reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps or the Japanese interment camps in the U.S. to a growing violence toward anyone non-white and/or non-American.

For any self-described “progressive,” these developments should enrage and terrify you.

What is a “Progressive” to Me?

What I think drives my progressive-ness more than anything else is a strong sense of fairness. I want to be clear here. Fairness in my mind is not the same as equality, or equality of access.

For example, our criminal justice system is built on the notion of “equal protection” under the law, but that does not mean the system is fair. There are any number of laws and mechanisms within our criminal justice system that are simply unfair. From mandatory minimums that disproportionately impact minority and poor populations, to the ability to hire an experienced attorney, the system is far from fair.

More broadly, the American notion of “pulling yourself up by your boot-straps” is also based on the idea of equal access, but not of fairness. Countless studies have shown us that it matters far less how smart or hard working you are. If your family has money you’re more likely to succeed than those who don’t.

Systems and policies built on fairness, rather than equality of access, are what I’m interested in. If you’re making $500 million a year, you should be required to pay a very high tax rate. Providing public schools (and public school teachers) with virtually unlimited funds to ensure our schools are providing children with anything and everything they need to succeed should be the standard. Not vouchers. And no tax breaks for those who send their kids to private schools (I’m not sure this is a thing now, but it certainly shouldn’t be).

Citizens United has guaranteed those with money have louder voices than those without. A political system driven by the notion that “money is speech” might be perceived to be equal, but it is by no reasonable standard fair. Progressives should support publicly funded elections, stringent reporting laws, and strict spending limits.

Ultimately for me fairness should be the standard applied and not “equal access.”

In terms of environmental justice, fairness might be harder to quantify. And as someone who is not very well versed in the wide range of environmental issues facing humanity, it is trickier for me to cobble together a definition that distinguishes “fairness” from “equality of access.”

In the broadest terms, I’d say it comes down to this: we all have one world. Environmental protections and regulatory mechanisms should, first and foremost, seek to protect our natural environment and the health and safety of humanity. Concerns about impacts on “industry” or economy should rank a distant second.

True Believers & Practical Progressives

Further, I breakdown “progressives” into two groups: True Believers and Practical Progressives.

The first group I call the “true believer progressives.” Young and old, “progressives” in this group are, as the name suggests, those who believe right is right and anything else than that is to compromise their principles. They occupy the high ground and may be inclined to toss overboard anyone who is willing to settle for less rather than get nothing at all.

For these folks, to accept anything less than a truly living wage, for example, rather than any increase to the Minimum Wage is to sell-out to moderates and corporatists. Or those who were unwilling to settle for Civil Unions rather than full Marriage Equality for same-sex couples. Pick any issue of importance facing our country (or the world) today and you’ll find the “true believers” occupying the far-left flank prepared to hurl barbs at those who are willing to compromise to move the needle even a little bit.

This brings me to the second group, which I would call “practical progressives.” I consider myself falling into this group. There was a time, when I was younger, that I was undeniably a “true believer.” But having worked in politics as either an activist or professional operative for more than a decade, I’ve developed an understanding that politics is as much about compromise as it is holding firm to your principles.

Should minimum wage workers who haven’t received a raise in years and years be forced to wait longer while we battle for a living wage? Or should we work to get the biggest raise we can and then keep fighting to push that wage up? Should we have waited for politicians to be “ready” for full Marriage Equality while families needed protections and benefits provided under a Civil Union legal structure?

While “practical progressives” and “true believers” may be, at times, at odds with each other, I believe a necessary partnership exists between these two groups. “True believers” give strength and sense of purpose to us “practical” folks. Conversely, “practical progressives” can lend legitimacy and forward momentum to positions coveted by the “true believers.” In either case, I believe one does not much succeed without the other.

While I hope this has been an interesting and educational read, I expect there will be some who are critical of my analysis and definitions as I’ve laid them out here. That’s ok. A conversation about what it means to be “progressive” could be a useful one.

Some Interesting Reading

While researching this post, I came across a number of interesting articles from various sources which I thought were worth sharing….

McCormack, Win. April 20, 2018. “Are You Progressive?” The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/147825/progressive-vital-term-us-political-life-lost-significance

Wilentz, Sean. Spring 2018. “Fighting Words.” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/48/fighting-words/

Saval, Nikil. July 5, 2017. “Hated by the Right. Mocked by the Left. Who Wants to be ‘Liberal’ Anymore?” The New York Times Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/magazine/hated-by-the-right-mocked-by-the-left-who-wants-to-be-liberal-anymore.html

Wenar, Leif and Hong, Chong-Min. 1996. “On Republicanism and Liberalism.” The Harvard Review of Philosophy. http://www.harvardphilosophy.com/issues/1996/Sandel.pdf

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