August 12th, A Notable Day for the Citizenry In Respect to the Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico

It is August 12th, in my mind - although I'm getting reports it's January 8th - Emperor Norton Day:

Norton I., Dea Gratia, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than ten nor less than five years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree. - San Francisco Herald

So while it's sad that Norton I - if he lives in this day and age - may not yet vote for Kamala Harris for the Presidency of the United States due to her status as a Democratic candidate - that he may insist on the imprisonment of any party member, although I have hope the Emperor is a forgiving soul - I am of firm belief that Norton I would never vote for that crazy-ass third-party hack RFK Jr.

I mean, other than the whole emperor business, Joshua Abraham Norton was a reasonably sound and forward-thinking person. And he might not have been wrong about that emperor business anyway.

from The Sandman (1989 series) comic #31
art by Sam Keith, dialog by Neil Gaiman, based on the actual life of Norton I

Remember to pay your .50 tax to the Emperor, kiddos! And name that bridge in honor of his service to the city of San Francisco and the nation at large.

The Republican Dilemma: Adapt or Die

(Update 4/6/21: Thanks again to Batocchio for including this article in Crooks&Liars Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please check out the site, and support your local library during #NationalLibraryWeek ) 

I may have blogged once or twice before about the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Especially in regards to a Republican Party that no longer respected the American Republic.

The Iron Law basically states that any organization - usually political - that starts with broad support across populations will eventually end up with only an elite or specific faction of that organization in charge of it. One of the side elements of this Law is that a moment comes when that group has a choice between upholding their ideals and imploding from the consequent schism, or adapting/corrupting their ideals in order to maintain their broad support.

The modern Republican Party kind of inverts that side rule: They are corrupting themselves to uphold the oligarchs' ideals - tax cuts for the rich, racism and misogyny for everyone else - rather than adapting themselves to maintain any semblance of broad support with Americans.

We've been seeing it as they slide into Minority Party Rule, where they no longer reflect the majority views of the American voting population, yet maintain political control because they've corrupted themselves and the processes by which our political controls get voted on. A corruption of process we see through Gerrymandering at the state level to grant themselves safe Republican districts at the expense of the voters, and their actions in the past decade of pushing for stricter voting regulations to restrict voting rights rather than uphold them.

Leading up to this past month where the Republican-controlled states - lead by Georgia and Texas - are passing or planning to pass voting restrictions so severe they've pretty much brought back the Jim Crow laws from the 1880s-1960s. Consider the damage being done by Georgia (via Zack Beauchamp at Vox):

The bill, known as SB 202, gives state-level officials the authority to usurp the powers of county election boards — allowing the Republican-dominated state government to potentially disqualify voters in Democratic-leaning areas. It criminalizes the provision of food and water to voters waiting in line, in a state where lines are notoriously long in heavily nonwhite precincts. It requires ID for absentee ballots and limits the placement of ballot drop boxes...

Everybody - myself included - jumped on the most sadistic part of that bill, the part where people can get arrested and jailed for providing food and water to people waiting in long lines (lines that tend to form in Black-heavy cities/counties that have had precincts taken away to force those long lines in the first place). But that's not the scariest part, this is: The bit where the state can disqualify county-level election results in case those counties fail to vote the way the Republicans want them to (hint: never FOR the Democratic candidates). This is where the GOP can say "FUCK YOU, Democratic voters, we don't want you winning anywhere" and nullify the choices their own citizens prefer. They're telling these voters to not even bother trying.

There is nothing in the bill specifically attempting to deny the vote to Blacks or Latinos or even Asians - because even the conservative-held courts will balk at that in this day and age - but given the recent attempts by the Georgia Republicans to disenfranchise those particular communities - with reduced precincts in poor (minority) neighborhoods, for example - you can do the math. You don't expect the Republicans to denounce the rich and mostly White counties they'll be winning, do you?

These laws, these rebirths of Jim Crow 50 years after the Voting Rights Act enfranchised Americans to vote, are not protecting democracy or the republic. These laws are getting passed on a Big Lie (from the liar trump, who still can't accept the facts he lost), that there's massive voter fraud. The Republicans keep screaming that there's fraud but can never prove it, and yet they're using their own screaming lies to justify restrictions we voters do not need.

Why are Republicans lying like this? Because they can't admit to the truth that they no longer reflect the majority views of the United States. They've slid down a path of ideological purification, seeking more conservative leadership that would stick to Far Right dogma, making it harder for any leadership to shift back towards positions on issues more favorable to more Americans. The Republicans' ideology has become so calcified and broken that in 2020 they refused to establish a platform at all, running instead on their candidates' personalities (in trump's case, a Cult of Personality).

The Republicans know they are no longer in majority control of the country - and even in some of the large Red States they're holding onto with these suppression laws - and they also know that the future will not be kind to them: It's long been an open (non)secret that by 2028 the population demographics are against them. To quote from the Center for American Progress' report on voting trends:

Many analysts suggest that if current voting patterns remain the same as in recent elections, the projected rise of communities of color—Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and others—will favor Democrats as the Republican-leaning white share of the electorate shrinks...

The scenarios in this report suggest that there are paths for both parties to win the Electoral College in 2020 and beyond. For Republicans, future success is tied to mobilizing their strength among whites without college educations—a still-substantial but shrinking portion of the electorate—while attaining gains among at least some growing demographic groups. A narrow Republican reliance on noncollege-educated whites would lead, at best, to continued popular vote losses and ever smaller Electoral College wins, which would eventually peter out...

Republicans could (and in 2016, did) win the Electoral College through relying on their base of non-colleged Whites, but they needed (and still need) a mix of disgruntled voters among the non-White blocs. They pulled that off with surprising numbers from Latinos in some states (Florida, where anti-socialistic views turned enough voters away from Dems) both in 2016 and 2020.

But 2020 demonstrated enough losses from White suburbanites negating that bloc's advantage for Republicans, with little sign they're regaining those voters back for 2024 and beyond. It did not help Republicans that 2020 voter turnout among Blacks - especially in Georgia - went up thanks to the mail-in balloting during the pandemic.

Hence the push now to shut down mail-in options and ballot dropoffs and early voting and a hundred other things that help poor (minority) voters, all because Republicans don't want to make the outreach efforts to those voters to balance with their GOP base.

Republicans don't want to make that outreach because they can't. The party itself has become so beholden to their extremist factions - who are mostly rage-driven, racist, and misogynist - that any attempt to moderate the party's stances on issues would cause that base to implode. 

That side rule about the Iron Law of Oligarchy, where a political party reaches a point where it has to Adapt Or Die: The Republican Party has finally reached that moment, these anti-voting laws the big red flag showing us all they are willing to fight to the bitter end on their racist, greedy ways rather than adapt to survive the coming demographic changes.

There is some irony to this: The Republicans cannot adapt, because the party dies if they do. Thanks to the electoral reality that our elections favor a two-party majority, the Republicans can still exist despite their growing minority status.

Except they can't persist this way, either. At some point - and it's coming no matter how much the Republicans try to cheat now - the GOP will fall into minority status in enough battleground states to where no amount of gerrymandering or voter suppression can save them. More states are set to turn Democratic Blue, maybe not this 2022 or even 2024, but it's coming, and when it does they will lose their political power nationwide.

This is when it will get scary. Having talked themselves into the false belief that only Republicans should rule, they are likely to convince themselves they have nothing else left to lose and will seek ruin for us all instead...

August 12: Emperor Norton Day!

On this day in 1869, Norton I Emperor of the United States and at times Protector of Mexico issued this decree:

Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than 10, nor less than five, years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree.
-- published in San Francisco Herald 13 August 1869

If there was a choice between two failed businessmen in donald trump or Joshua Norton, I'll take the one who's NOT a sociopathic bastard. Long Live Emperor Norton!

A Dark Truth About American Partisanship

When Election night happened, one of the arguments about how bad everything was going turned on the fact that the voter turnout seemed LOWER than the 2012 Election. Arguments were made about how UNPOPULAR the candidates were and how it doomed voter turnout to give Trump an Electoral College victory by eke-ing out better turnout in the mid-sized battleground states.

Thing was, it was too soon to make that claim. This election cycle had a ton of voters do so by Absentee ballot and mail-ins, which required hand counting and took longer than expected even after you threw in the time for recounts. As a result, the "low" turnout actually kept ticking upward with more ballots confirmed...

So by now, the weekend before the actual Electoral College does their thing, we do have a realistic accounting of the results for 2016.

Clinton: 65,844,594 votes
Trump: 62,979,616 votes
Other: 8,137,687 votes

Here's the thing about the 2012 turnout:

Obama: 65,915,795 votes
Romney: 60,933,504 votes
Other: 2,236,110 votes

Notice anything? The 2016 turnout kinda matched the 2012 voter turnout. Granted, Trump got about 2 million more voters than Romney did, but Romney also got a slightly higher percentage (47) of actual votes than Trump (45). The real difference was the third-party voter turnout, but that was more to the Libertarians with Johnson getting 4.4 million of those votes with a 3 percent share.

We can nitpick at the numbers and the results, but here's what I'm getting from these comparisons:

Our elections are no longer about the issues, the elections are no longer even about the candidates: the elections are about partisan turnout.

Let's face it. Both major parties had up for nomination two of the most unliked candidates in modern times. NOBODY running for the highest office had these kinds of Unfavorable numbers (polling in the mid to upper 60 percent "hate him/her"). And yet... Hillary did just about as well as the popular and charismatic Obama (who suffered the same amount of mudslinging if not more from the GOP) and the blatantly vulgar Trump did slightly better than Romney (whose biggest sin is his personality being more plastic than a Lego toy store). Trump is still polling under 50 percent on the popularity charts, which is rare for a "winner" heading into the inauguration: Even Bush the Lesser had a Favorable bump from Americans in general wishing him "good luck" at the start of his tenure.

The issues can go sit in a corner and sulk, but the polling showed solid majorities of people wanted immigration reform (that didn't involve mass arrests) and wanted Obamacare and wanted their Medicare and Social Security untouched... and they still voted for the Republicans in large enough numbers to guarantee that party held both Congress and the White House, and to assuredly DESTROY each and every one of those items on the checklist.

No, what's happening here is clear evidence of the political divisions that have polarized our nation. The voters - the citizens who are paying attention to who's doing what in government - are now so set in their voting preferences that nothing - not the issues, not hated candidates - can change their views.

Even with the all-too-obvious clues that Trump was IS a tiny-fingered vulgarian of the highest caliber - his caught-on-tape rant of "Grab Em By the Pussy" should have driven his sorry sexist ass into exile on the furthest island in the South Pacific - a solid number of "Christian" holier-than-thou "clean thoughts chum" Republicans still voted for sexual assaulter to represent them. I've noted before there were clear factions among the GOP base - the ones who cheered Trump on vs. the ones who held their noses and closed their eyes and clapped slowly in the background - and yet when the time came those "clean" and clear-headed Republicans still voted for the vulgarian because they honestly cannot cross the aisle to vote for someone else or even leave their choice blank in protest.

Even with Hillary suffering hit after hit from the media over inflated (and FAKE) "scandals" like her emails, even with her coping against a Far Left Progressive group still pining for Bernie Sanders, even with enough voters thinking to themselves "do we WANT another four years of Clinton culture warfare"... she STILL got as many votes as Obama had in 2012. Granted, she didn't get the voter percentage, but the numbers still prove the solid base of Democratic voters sided with her despite the trepidation and worry. Being hated wasn't the reason why she lost (she lost due to voter suppression in key states, and to minor shifts in voter turnout in others).

The Democrats could have run the Second Coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the voter turnout would have stayed roughly the same. The Republicans could have run the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan and the voter turnout would have stayed roughly the same.

Either party could have run a dead dog as their candidate and the voter turnout would have stayed roughly the same.

Because we're locked in now. There are so few voters who have the willpower to shift their opinions and their choices in any way to affect the outcomes. Nearly everybody has made up their mind and are rooting for THEIR team no matter the circumstances.

There may be generational differences - older voters Republican, younger voters Democrats - but that didn't mean much now and it won't until the demographic shift (I *was* hoping it'd have been now, but it's looking like 2020 or 2024) really finally kicks on. There may be voters who actually care about the issues, but they had no impact on this election cycle as they were drowned out by the partisans who place party above the people. And there's no sign of that changing for the next cycle.

Unless there's a massive economic or natural disaster. Unless the voters - especially the White majority voters - are directly impacted by the destruction of the incoming Legion of Doom. And even then I wouldn't doubt that the voters would stick by their party to the bitter end. And by then we're likely seeing a body count of innocent lives ruined by the failure of our voters to actually step back and realize "HOLY SHIT WE JUST LET A CON ARTIST INTO THE WHITE HOUSE."

We as a nation are no longer capable of choosing our candidates with any rational or sensible guidelines. Because of that, we're not going to get any genuine reforms and policy shifts we need to keep ourselves educated, or employed, or healthy, or improved.

It's no longer the elections than decide our nation's fate. It's the disasters we let happen because we've let the parties make the choices for us.

But That Was Another Country, and Besides That Party Is Dead

Me: Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen, lend me your ears.

Pinku-Sensei: What happened to the ears we lent you last week?

Me: Well I stuck them to my chariot.

Dinthebeast: But why?

Me: 'Cause they're chariot ears.

(much pummeling commences)

Fine, fine, I'll get serious here.

I come to bury the Republican Party, if to praise its worth before the madness struck in 1992 um 1980 okay 1968. It's at the point in our history now that with Trump sinking in the polls with no sign of recovery, and with growing likelihood that the Democrats regain the Senate and may even regain the House, we need to start wondering just what the hell the remnants of the GOP is going to do post-Election Day.

If I can hedge my bets, if Trump does indeed pull of an upset now - unlikely, not enough states will vote for him - the Party is still screwed because the twisted mindset Trump brings to the table would honestly bankrupt the party (and the nation).

If Hillary wins with a solid Republican Congress, the Party is still doomed because their ongoing obstructionist habits can't last (the demographics are finally turning against them).

And a big reason the Republicans are doomed happens because - for what I see of the party today - there is no sound or diverse leadership that can lead the party out of their blind obsessions. Whatever you think of Paul Ryan as Speaker, he's doomed. The same wingnut faction within his own House that ousted Boehner is going to want his scalp for "lack of fealty" to Trump and his failure to bring Obama (or Hillary) before them in handcuffs. And then things get nasty: Who can you picture among the elected leadership in the GOP taking control of this rampaging beast? Trey Gowdy?!

Don't take my word for it. Let's ask Bruce Bartlett at the Washington Post:

I was wrong. I now see that Trump’s candidacy has exacerbated the Republican Party’s weaknesses, alienating minorities, fracturing the base and stunting smart policy development. The party’s structural problems are so severe that reform is impossible. Even if Trump loses and the GOP races to forget him, the party is doomed. And very few of our leaders seem to care.

In the short run, it will be easy for Republicans to convince themselves that nothing needs to change. The establishment believes that Trump is an anomaly, an aberration. GOP leaders think the party’s next nominee will be a more typical politician who knows the issues, has well-developed debating skills and who will appeal to the elite and the Trumpkins. Someone like John Kasich or Marco Rubio...

You can already see the problem of leadership: Kasich and Rubio are NOT sound options for future leadership. Kasich doesn't appeal to the base (which is crazy because Kasich is a solid Right Winger) and Rubio's an empty-suit no-show at the job. And Trump is not an anomaly: He fit exactly what the Republican voting base wanted. You can't ignore that fact, not ever...

Back to Bartlett:

Many leaders also assume that Hillary Clinton is an automatic One-Termer. They think she’s incompetent, scandal-ridden and hell-bent on destroying the economy. They know, too, that neither party has held the White House for more than three terms in the post-World War II era.

Incompetent, no. Scandal-ridden, only because the GOP leadership made her so. And despite their differences in ideology, nothing Hillary promises will crash the economy the way the Republicans' Supply Side obsessions have done.

Let's take a serious look at history for a moment: the possibility of Hillary as a One-Termer. That is likely: Historically speaking there's been few back-to-back Two-Termers. However, those back-to-backs happened at a time - Jefferson, Madison, Monroe - when the two-party system died as the Federalists slid from power. And the Federalists died because - as the Republicans are finding out now - they failed to adapt and alienated a majority of voters outside of their regional power-base.

The Republicans came into this election cycle thinking that it was normal for parties to switch control of the White House like clockwork. It's not. Historically, parties retain control of the Presidency due to two things: 1) solid economic growth/stability or 2) terrible opposing parties. The Democrats stayed in control from Jefferson to Jackson thanks to the fall of the Federalists. The Whigs beat Van Buren because of the first major economic Panic caused by Jackson's bank-breaking. Republicans held onto the White House from 1860 to 1884 thanks to the Democrats being associated with treason (except for a stolen 1876 election, which still spoke to a weak Democratic Party unable to fight it out). Republicans retained the White House after Grover Cleveland's interruptions from McKinley to Taft due to the Yukon Gold Rush, Teddy's Progressive movement, and Taft's judicial sensibilities. The Democrats held on through an unheard-of four terms of FDR because the Great Depression was that huge an economic crisis and because of the Second World War, with Truman continuing that control on his own terms only getting kicked out because of a mismanaged Korean War and major recession at the time.

Basically, there's no predictable cycle of party control of the White House. For the Republicans to buy into that myth highlights part of their myopia.

Okay, enough side-track. Back to Bartlett:

But Clinton’s chances of being reelected in 2020 are better than Republicans think. Already, Democrats have a virtual lock on 18 states, giving them an almost automatic 242 electoral votes. States such as Virginia, Colorado and Florida routinely vote Democratic, too.

The Republicans wanted to fight their electoral battles using Demographics and Geography instead of the Issues. Well, now that's killing them. They've done such a wonderful job trying to sell their Southern Strategy to states that can't condone that kind of mindset that the Southern states are the only ones they might have left (and they're losing Georgia either this cycle or the next).

I've pointed out earlier that when it comes to guaranteed, lock-down states the Democratic Party (California, New York, Illinois with 104 EV) has a massive advantage over Republicans (Texas at 38 EV) that by the time you throw in the mid-sized states - Massachusetts (11), Pennsylvania (20), Maryland (10), Washington (12), Virginia (13) and Michigan (16) guaranteed for 72 additional EV to Democrats - that the next guaranteed state for the GOP with Tennessee (11 EV) doesn't help one bit.

There is currently no way for Republicans to break the strangleholds that the Democrats have on those Solid Blue states. The only way to do that is to change their messaging and ideology: The platform the GOP is selling now - anti-Immigrant, anti-women - gets them NOWHERE in California at all. (edit) Conversely, the Democrats can break the stranglehold Republicans have on Texas - their last main Electoral College anchor - simply by waiting for enough Latinos and women voters to ragequit the GOP over the Republicans' terrible ideology. And that can happen now or 2020. It's already just a matter of time...

Okay, just one more visit to Bartlett:

Eventually, of course, Democrats will become corrupt, will overreach or will bear the blame for things beyond their control, like a recession. They may foolishly nominate someone too far Left for the country, giving a Republican another shot at the White House. A strong leader could change the GOP’s trajectory, like Dwight Eisenhower did after five straight Republican presidential losses from 1932 to 1948. He put the party, as Conservative then as it is today (just read the 1952 platform) on a more Moderate, technocratic path that continued for a quarter-century through Richard Nixon (note: snerk) and Gerald Ford. A leader like Eisenhower might help right the GOP, attracting moderate voters and enhancing the party’s crossover appeal.

Wouldn't it be pretty to think so? That the Republicans could eventually lose their Far Right mindset and find another Eisenhower? If there is a GOP Savior to be had among the pandering Tax-Cut Slashers leading the party today (hint: there isn't)?

It's just not any time soon. Here's blogger PM Carpenter looking at how deluded the "rational" conservative leadership among the bloggers are going to be:

...What, then, is next for the GOP? Fortunate it is that Erick Erickson, formerly of RedState.com, troubles to offer a template. Most unfortunate, however, is that his articulated vision as a fresh model is damn near incomprehensible.

Erickson's vision for his erstwhile party? It's the old Get-Washington-out-of-our-lives trope. "Voters are being held hostage by hollow promises … [that] Washington power will make their lives better," he writes. Washington was never meant "to be the center of all solutions. Republicans need to focus less on Washington and more on fostering local community..."

There's a slight problem with that: The Republicans have been shilling this "End Washington Control" snake-oil for 40 years. There is nothing new here. It's the same bland marketing ploy without even a fresh coat of paint on it.

Okay, back to PM trout-slapping Erickson:

One point he's inarguably missing is that, prior to the federal government's being what it is today, neighbors and churches and communities found themselves abjectly incapable of providing needed help in tough times. Prior to minimum wages, prior to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the entire panoply of federal safety nets, local communities and state governments were far too strapped and overburdened to be of service to the acutely burdened themselves...

All this, Erickson dismisses, probably more from - I'll be charitable - willful blindness than innate fatuity...

Our former RedStater goes on to propose that a new Republicanism be "the party of religious liberty," as though religious Democrats and confirmed atheists aren't all for that...

And of course Erickson throws in the old Republican bugaboo of yet "lower taxes," which would of course would further gut the inarguable effectiveness of all the federal government does, which of course Erickson chooses not to see.

In short, little to none of what Erickson proposes is realistic. It's the same, old, unworkable model of reactionary smallness - the very refusal to cope with modern civilization that has plagued Republicanism for decades...

If Erickson's model for recovery is the only thing the Republicans have to work with, it's going to be the same damn mess that will fall apart again in 2020. No lessons learned, the same mistakes played over and over again expecting better outcomes. And most likely another con artist candidate trying to sell it all.

This is why I've called the Republican Party mad for years. And incompetent to boot.

Infidel753: Well, that wasn't much of a spectacle!

Batocchio: That wasn't even a monocle! Ho-ho-ho-ho!

Just Remember Kids, Emperor Norton Was Kinda Sane

Damn, kick me for the fool that I am, I let this date slide.

August 12, 1869:

Norton I., Dea Gratia, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than ten nor less than five years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree. - San Francisco Herald

Joshua Abraham Norton, once a proud businessman immigrant who came to these shores in the 1850s, property owner and trader who made a foolish attempt to corner the rice market and failed. By 1860, with all the dissension with the upcoming Civil War, Norton decided to take it upon himself to make himself an Emperor of the United States and calm the situation.

Didn't exactly take.

But he kept at being Emperor living on a bare income of "taxing" the local citizenry at 50 cents (and it wasn't annoyingly persistent, he kept a rigorous schedule and issued receipts by all accounts), despite how delusional it made him seem to others. As the years passed, people realized at first he was pretty much harmless about it, and on many topics could be erudite and well-spoken.

What he did noteworthy was issue decrees, proclamations like the one above that the local newspapers - hungry for anything to fill the page - would print. They noticed that readership picked up if a decree was on the front page, so the competing papers of San Francisco would curry favor for official ones from Norton or otherwise fake their own.

Historians can recognize the fakes because the newspapermen were lousy at spelling and grammar (one editor was obsessed with the recent Alice in Wonderland stories and used "off with his head" waaaaaay too much), and Norton had a proper education thank you. His decrees were also practical and focused on such things as public works: he would include from time to time reminders that the government needed to respect his authority, but he never pushed further than issuing more decrees.

Thing was, the decrees spread to other papers to where Norton became a public figure coast to coast. When train travel proved affordable, Americans traveled West and one of the things they did was seek out the Emperor for one of his fake scrips (self-printed money that the local stores exchanged as normal currency). He was, in some ways, the first celebrity tourist attraction.

As Emperor, he wrote letters to politicians and European royalty about matters of the day. Abraham Lincoln reportedly wrote back. When foreign dignitaries visited San Francisco (as a major Pacific port of the 19th century), stories abounded about how they would actually meet Norton I as though he were a peer.

Norton kept an ear open on local affairs. His proclamations would include encouragements to invest in local inventions that had merit, or promote a service to the citizenry. He decreed often that a bridge - suspension or fixed - be built between San Francisco and rival city Oakland to improve transportation, local trade, and community harmony.

San Francisco, being on the Pacific, was the entry point for the massive wave of Chinese immigration of the 19th Century. As such, there was a lot of violent anti-immigrant riots that decimated the local Chinatown. When a mob charged towards that part of town one night, Norton stood in their path and merely recited the Lord's Prayer until the mob turned away in shame.

Legend has it the California State Assembly allowed him to sit at various sessions. He rarely spoke, but reportedly during a harsh argument over which of two men would get a key appointment he did speak up for the one man he could vouch for personally, who ended up getting the job.

A local patrolman working for a hotel - not an actual policeman, in San Francisco private businesses can hire their own police - in 1867 arrested Norton for vagrancy, not knowing who he was. When Norton could demonstrate to the real law enforcement that he had 1) a residence and 2) money in his pocket to afford a reasonable one-night stay at that hotel, the patrolman decided to change the charge to Norton having a mental disorder. The public outrage was swift, and the patrolman dropped the charge. The chief of police let Norton go with an apology and said "Mister Norton had shed no blood, robbed no one, and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in the king line."

Norton I, Emperor of the United States, died in the streets of San Francisco during a storm on January 8th, 1880. It made national news the next day. Mark Twain - who knew Norton back in the early days - admitted his regret never getting a chance to write the man's biography. His funeral train was reportedly 20,000 people and stretched two miles. It took place during a solar eclipse.

Compared to Donald Trump, Joshua Abraham Norton was sane, and desirous for what was best for the citizens of San Francisco and the United States. He may have been playing a con perhaps, pretending to be mad to gain sympathy from his neighbors and later on an entire city and state. But he never ripped anyone off, never went out of his way to cause real damage, never called on violence - his real decrees called for arrests, not executions - and never put himself on a golden throne - a comfortable chair at best - at the expense of others. At worst, he'd tax you 50 cents and give you a receipt for it.

And he seemed to believe. The whole time from his first decree onward, everyone who saw and commented on him noted he really did believe he was Emperor of the United States. And behaved accordingly to his role.

His madness kept him sane - Neil Gaiman, speaking on behalf of Delirium

If We Get Through the 2016 Election Alive

Preach it, Fred Thompson.

This election cycle has come about through a perfect storm of unregulated campaign practices, bad choices, worse choices, weak candidates, ratings-hungry media networks, out-of-control narratives, epistemic closure, and not enough donuts.

Right now, the best our nation - and the world - can do is ride out this storm to its ugly conclusion, and make an honest assessment of just what the hell went wrong and what can be done to prevent this debacle from ever happening again.

With regards to the Republican Party - where most of the damage is self-inflicted but reaching out now for innocent bystanders - these are the points they have to address:

• They allowed an inexperienced, uncontrollable amateur to take the lead of the primaries race, overtaking seasoned veteran politicians with years of legislative or executive experience. Worse, this amateur is a flat-out con artist with little love for the party or the nation's well-being who is only in it for himself.
• They allowed the campaign field itself to become cluttered by too many candidates, which weakened the chances of their preferred "Establishment" candidates to forge an identity with their voting base.
• They lost control of the party Narrative by allowing themselves to play to - and get played by - their media cohorts, who are more obsessed with maintaining anger and outrage to boost ratings than keeping the voters genuinely informed.

So if the Republican Party survives any of this, the party leadership needs to do at least these three things:

1) Stop lying. Not only lying to Americans about the issues but they need to stop lying to themselves about what's really going on in the Real World. This epistemic closure they're in had convinced themselves A) their candidate field was top-quality (nope), B) they understood their voters' interests (nope), and C) they could control the situation (aheh, nope).

2) Establish one simple rule about running for President on the Republican ticket: whomever puts in for the Presidency has to have served one elected term of office as either a Congressperson, Senator, or Governor. This weeds out the unqualified candidates - like Trump - right off the bat. This rule would have forced Trump to have made a try at an earlier job like Governor of New York... which would have exposed how inexperienced (and vulgar) he is at politics and soured his fanbase.

Sure it may hurt the party to block their business CEO elites from running, but let us be honest: being President requires the right kind of experience, and for all the Republican bluster about "running things like a business" the public sector really shouldn't. This may block qualified persons who have served only as members of a Cabinet, but usually your Cabinet members have already been elected officials at some point before getting tabbed for those jobs (it's rare for a Secretary of State or Treasury or Other to have been only for nominated government positions). And a good Cabinet member with a solid record ought to be able to find a safe district back home to earn his/her dues as an elected US House official before tossing his/her hat in the Presidential ring.

While the Constitution does not have experience as a qualifier - only age (35), birth (as a citizen), and residency (14 or more years in the US) - political parties CAN set their own requirements and can filter out prospective candidates this way.

This is something Democrats can do as well. Onward...

3) Admit that unregulated campaign financing with outside SuperPAC groups was a bad idea.

Thanks to the Citizens United decision, the party deep-pockets no longer had to "pay" into the party system to donate for their preferred candidates. They could just pay directly to those candidates. This weakened the power the party could wield as a means of controlling the Narrative and controlling who ran for the Presidential nomination.

As a result, a lot of candidates jumped into the ring on the hope and promise of a deep-pocket sugar daddy paying the bills (indirectly) for them until the cows came home. Problem became that too many of them did: the Establishment couldn't even determine who among their own - Jeb, Walker, Rubio - they could back early and often. It didn't help that the one who could fund-raise the best - Jeb Bush - only did so because of his name and family's prominence and not on his own qualities that turned out to be terrible on the national stage.

Another result has been the lack of accountability in all that SuperPAC money going in and yet little sign of that money going out to genuine GOTV efforts and voter enthusiasm. Reports about some of the campaigns - hi, Ben Carson - turning into rip-offs popped up during this election cycle.

You're going to have to get your Congresspersons to get together and craft some legislation to curb the campaign finance abuses you unleashed with the Citizen United deal. Otherwise the ones getting hurt by it will be your own Party.

And with regards to the Democratic Party...

1) You need to fix your system of caucuses vs. primaries. Caucuses are too confusing and aren't very representative of voter turnout compared to the results you get from primaries.

2) You need to justify this whole SuperDelegate thing. It's questionably undemocratic and unreliable.

3) You need to run candidates in every possible election. There are reports you don't have enough names on ballots for US House and state legislative races. That's insane: in this particular election cycle, the Republicans are vulnerable...

Did I miss anything?