I Watched and Ranked the Best Picture Nominees (Plus a Few Others)

For the first time in my life, I made a concerted effort to watch all of this year’s Best Picture nominees for the Oscars before the awards are given out this Sunday. As a product of hundreds of hours of travel for work, much of it with Delta Studio’s in-flight entertainment, I watched more movies this year than I ever have before.

I tried to avoid any spoilers while still offering a synopsis, but I apologize if I ruin anything about any of these movies for you.

First, a few honorable mentions.  I adored some of the animated films this year: Zootopia and Finding Dory once again proved the universal appeal of good family films, and Sausage Party was far more vulgar and entertaining than I thought it would be. Not normally a superhero movie fan, I enjoyed Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War, and Doctor Strange.  Superhero movies are the most predictable blockbusters in the movie industry today, and I am slowly becoming a fan.

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall my list of top 12 movies from 2016:

12. Hunt for the Wilderpeople

New Zealand’s finest piece of cinema in 2016 comes courtesy of a dickhead kid named Ricky, who bounces from foster home to foster home until he eventually is sent to live with an older married couple in the middle of the mountains, far away from the world Ricky knew.  Thanks to the purest, most loving character in a film this year–Ricky’s foster mum, Bella–Ricky eventually comes around to his new family, although Hec, his foster “uncle”, views him as no more than a distraction.  Finally in the presence of loving family, Ricky opens up and reflects on less than ideal previous homes he had lived in.  The meat of the movie consists of Ricky and Hec voyaging through the mountains together, slowly forging a tight bond. Their adventure is threatened, however, when the media hears of their endless hike and assumes it is a vile kidnapping ploy from Hec, which gains the two of them national notoriety.  Hunt for the Wilderpeople melds the genres of adventure and comedy well, and it had me laughing hard at well-placed references to hip hop culture and Lord of the Rings.

11. Hell or High Water

I saw my friend Tim Collins refer to this as “neo-Western” and I love it.  A story from rural Texas about two brothers who go on a spree of bank robberies, Hell or High Water takes the Western motif and applies it to modern day rural America.  Too many jobs are gone, the bank is screwing you, and nobody is there to help except family.  Jeff Bridges’s role as a near-retirement sheriff tasked with stopping the robberies centers on a work ethic too strong to concede to retirement and, in his eyes, to boredom.  Bridges’s racially insensitive banter with his colleague, played by Gil Birmingham, is unfortunately believable, but the bond the two share is one of absolute devotion to their jobs and to each other.

10. Hacksaw Ridge

Andrew Garfield’s role as Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector turned army medic in this World War II film, deserves the plaudits coming his way.  I had no idea that there were stories of conscientious objectors who still enlisted in the armed forces during World War II, but Garfield portrays Doss, a devout Christian with an unshakable commitment to God and his commandments, in a way that posits Doss’s participation as a logical, ordinary commitment to God and country.  Upon enlisting, Doss refuses to carry a rifle, almost gets discharged from the army because of it, and then saves more lives than should be humanly possible in Okinawa. Doss is a true American hero, and I am glad to now know of his story.  As a film, however, it was distracting to see Vince Vaughn in another serious role (I’m still not over True Detective season 2), and I wish they had given Doss’s wife, Dorothy, more depth, as she appeared one-dimensional throughout the film. Further, the idyllic nostalgia Hacksaw Ridge gives 1940s America is overdone and too patriarchal in my opinion.  All said, though, I understand why it is a Best Picture nominee this year, even if I do not think it has a chance to win.

9. I, Daniel Blake

If there were ever a movie that I was predisposed to love, I, Daniel Blake is that movie.  Set in Newcastle in the UK, Daniel Blake worked as a carpenter making decent money before injuring himself. to the extent that his doctor told him not to work until further notice. Knowing that he needs to make ends meet somehow, he applies for Employment and Support Allowance, one of the many social security (read: welfare) programs in the UK. The movie follows his voyage through the benefits system, where he becomes merely a number in the sea of folks who need a hand up.  The most beautiful and heart-wrenching scenes in the film center on Blake’s unlikely friendship with Katie, a twentysomething single mother who still dreams of attending university.  They battle through hell to find self-worth and dignity, but at every step the benefits system erodes who they think they are.  Faced with impossible choices, Daniel and Katie make decisions they never thought they would have to make.  It is likely that many of you reading this have not heard of this film, but I implore you to watch.  This won Best British Film at the BAFTAs!  Too few people have empathy for those quagmired in poverty, but I hope this movie convinced more to join our ranks in calling for reform to broken welfare systems around the world.

8. Hidden Figures

Similar to Hacksaw Ridge, man am I glad to have heard this story.  Three kickass African-American women at NASA demonstrate an incredible work ethic and knack for pre-computer mathematics, tearing down barriers left and right as they challenge 1960s conventional wisdom on race and gender’s intersection in the workplace and society.  As a math major myself, I consistently found myself appreciating calculators and computers more and more throughout the film.  Hidden Figures reminds us how recently society viewed separate but equal as a genuine policy, but it confirms the voracity and inevitability of those on the outside earning respect the hard way.  (Side note: I enjoyed seeing Mahershala Ali and Janelle Monae’s performances in both Moonlight and Hidden Figures. It provided continuity of positive role models in both films.)

7. Sing Street

It’s a simple premise: Boy changes schools, boy meets girl, boy creates band to impress her.  Yet Sing Street offers so much more than that.  This movie musical about Irish high school boys starting a band from scratch in 1985, influenced by bands like Duran Duran and The Cure, offers youthful idealism in the face of difficult lives.  The main character, Conor, finds solace with his brother in music while his parents fall into divorce, and his love interest, Raphina, believes in her chance to become a model in spite of living in an orphanage.  The sweet courtship between Conor and Raphina, always via the avenue of music, feels like a junior version of La La Land.  The music written for Sing Street deserves more recognition than it received. As much as I love La La Land, I think one of their Best Song slots should have gone to Sing Street–Drive it Like You Stole It is a Back To The Future-inspired banger.

6. Manchester by the Sea

Tragedy never loses its grip on Manchester by the Sea. Casey Affleck plays Lee Chandler, a Bostonian janitor who grew up in Manchester but who is called back to his hometown–and his past–when his brother passes away.  Suddenly tasked with taking care of his nephew, Lee struggles to find his footing back at home.  Through excruciating memories and interactions with his ex-wife, we learn why Lee left Manchester in the first place, and we begin to understand his tough situation after his brother’s death.  Affleck’s acting is worthy of the Oscar buzz he is receiving, but I hope it goes to Denzel instead.

5. Fences

August Wilson’s screenplay-turned-movie centers on an African-American family in 1950s Pittsburgh.  Denzel Washington plays the father, Troy, a former Negro Leagues baseball player who never got the chance to follow Jackie Robinson into the big leagues and carries a profound distrust of any positive changes in race relations.  Rose, played by Viola Davis, is married to Troy and together they try to raise two sons while battling between the optimism of youth and the pessimism of experience. The strength of Fences comes from its acting. I would love to see Denzel and Viola both win their respective Oscars, as their scenes together produced exasperated dialogue on what it means to be content, to be a man, and to love another person.  I think I am higher on Fences than most, but I walked away viewing it as a stark critique of unrealistic patriarchal expectations on both husbands and wives, both in the 1950s and today.

4. Moonlight

I watched Moonlight expecting a gut punch; instead, what I got was constant claustrophobia, repression, and a fear of threats coming from any direction.  Barry Jenkins’s story puts the viewer in the shoes of Chiron, a gay, African-American child with a drug addict mother and an absent father in a rough area of Miami.  As we watch Chiron grow, we learn to interpret the world as he does: full of unpredictable adults, patriarchal social codes drenched in fake masculinity, and a constant desire to be quiet and unseen.  The scenes with Chiron and Mahershala Ali’s character Juan in Chiron’s elementary days beautifully illustrate the complexity of what it means to be good in areas as rough as their neighborhood in Miami, and Chiron’s Juan-inspired appearance and lifestyle as an adult highlights the impact one good person had on his life.

3. Lion

Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar are my favorite before and after actor pair in a movie that I have seen in ages.  Patel, who I first came to know through his role as a techno-utopian reporter on The Newsroom, and Pawar, the most unbearably cute boy in Hollywood, play the true story of an Indian boy named Saroo who was separated from his family at a young age and then adopted by an Australian couple, going on to live a relatively standard Australian life.  I will not ruin the ending, but Lion excels at portraying the depth and complexity of race, identity, and what it means to be family.  Nicole Kidman plays Saroo’s adoptive mother beautifully and left me admiring the selfless nobility of adoptive parents all around the world.  Of all of the movies I saw this year, Lion moved me the most.

2. Arrival

This sci-fi story centers on a university linguistics professor, played by Amy Adams, who painstakingly starts from scratch to learn how to communicate with aliens who mysteriously appear on Earth in several different locations.  Fully engrossed throughout the whole movie, I loved how the dynamics of global politics, science, and linguistics competed against each other to create a plausible view into what could actually happen if this situation came to pass.  Many sci-fi films cut corners and make assumptions about what would happen if aliens came to Earth, but Arrival focuses on the most basic task needed when aliens arrive: finding a way to communicate with them.  On top of the intriguing plot, Arrival utilizes clever narrative structure and storytelling to create a blindsiding climax that sends your thoughts racing.  As someone who loves movies like Inception, clearly I found Arrival compelling.  Besides, with the discovery of Trappist-1 and its surrounding exoplanets coming to light today, maybe Arrival is more relevant than we thought.

1. La La Land

I watched La La Land first out of all of the Best Picture nominees, and in my mind nothing came close to topping it.  I know it is in vogue to hate on La La Land for overly romanticizing Hollywood, for a boring middle, or for receiving as many Oscar nominations as Titanic, but no movie this year stuck with me more than this one.  On the drive home from the theater, I had to look up the music and blast it in my car.  I listened to the soundtrack nonstop for weeks, and, contrarian opinion here, but I enjoy the first three songs (Another Day Of Sun, Someone In The Crowd, and A Lovely Night) more than the two nominated for Best Song (City of Stars, Audition).

La La Land captivated me. The scenery, the simplicity, the single-colored dresses and outfits that painted the optimistic glamour of Hollywood–all of it led to two hours of pure enjoyment.  I had never really seen Emma Stone in much before this, but her relentless adorableness won me over as soon as she requested Gosling’s character’s band to play I Ran by A Flock of Seagulls. Of course, the simple romance runs into issues as Gosling suspends his jazz piano dream to play in a techno-jazz-funk band, but I thought the ending scene deserves a ton of credit. I will not ruin it for those who have not seen it, but it conjures so many questions of what it means to be successful, happy, and content.

Damien Chazelle brought back the movie musical, and I thank him for it (even if he does seem a bit obsessed with jazz).

Trump’s Russia Problem: Michael Flynn’s Resignation is Only the Beginning

I want to make it clear up front that I didn’t want to have to write about this topic. It’s not that I don’t see it as important, but because there are so many other critical topics to cover that affect our daily lives. I’m a believer in the good of government and the potential positives that can come from Americans willing to give up individual rights and goods, be it income and property taxes or the right of municipal, state, and federal government to own property and administer policy. This belief can be pointed to from the philosophy of social contract theory, a philosophy utilized for since the dawn of time that humans enter into a contract with society in which they give up rights and freedoms in order to gain rights and protection that only society can provide, be it roads and drinking water or an army.

There are important issues on the local, state, and regional level in the Midwest that progressive policy can help address. I care that the Democratic Party has a very real and dangerous problem with connecting with working class and rural voters, particularly in the Midwest and Rust Belt. These are not just voters that were once solid union members. The Iowa Republican Legislature has presented a bill to repeal Act 20, which protects the rights of public employees in the state of Iowa to collectively bargain for healthcare, pension plans, pay, and benefits. The new legislation will bar teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and other state and municipal public employees from voicing opposition to benefits packages.

So I hesitate to cover issues that allow progressives to do the easy thing: point out how bad the GOP is while not solving our own problems that are deep, troubling cracks in the foundation of the Democratic Party. Talking about the latest and greatest Trump scandal and only doing that is essentially painting over the crack or putting a picture in front of it. We may forget about those problems in the short-term but they will return in the not-so-distant future and will only get worse. Having said that, the tidal wave of concerning developments from the Trump administration this past week leaves me no choice.

Some of the stories over the past week have been fairly small when considering what we’ve become numb and accustomed to over the past 20 months. On Thursday, Kellyanne Conway’s decision to pivot from defending Trump’s decision to attack Nordstrom’s for dropping Ivanka Trump’s clothing line was a clear violation of ethics laws. No federal executive branch employee is allowed to endorse a private company product. Kellyanne went on to say she would make this a “free commercial” for Ivanka’s products with the White House seal in the backdrop. The Office of Government Ethics reviewed the incident and recommended discipline for the “clear violation” of ethics laws.

Also on Thursday, the 9^th District federal court ruled to uphold the stay on the Trump administration’s ban of non-citizens from the seven majority Muslim countries, effectively ruling the ban unconstitutional based on the administration’s defense. Minutes after the ruling was announced, Trump tweeted “WE’LL SEE YOU IN COURT”. Over the following days reports noted that the administration has begun efforts to abandon the current executive order. The court’s ruling was clear Madison and Hamilton’s three coequal branches of government allowed for checks and balances for just such an occasion.

On Sunday, White House aide Stephen Miller was the White House spokesperson on the Sunday morning news shows and promptly made some of the most aggressive posturing statements in response to the district court’s ruling of the “Muslim ban”. Miller’s language was autocratic and jingoistic that appears to not be based in a philosophical belief but a situation belief, particularly his assertion that “the President will not and must not be questioned.” If I had a nickel for every time I heard a Republican say from 2009-2017, I would have exactly zero nickels.

Miller’s assertion that the president will not be questioned flies directly in the face of the foundation of our Constitution. Hamilton and Madison set up three coequal branches of government for the precise reason of checks and balances that the district court provided. Disregarding the tone that felt completely out of place in the open discussion of American democracy, Miller’s statements were dead wrong. Trump’s immediate support of Miller via Twitter after the interviews also shows that Trump also has little understanding of the Constitution and Hamilton and Madison’s three coequal branches.

While these stories are all intriguing, they have clear routes that allow them to be addressed by our system of laws and constitutional checks and balances. And then the Michael Flynn story broke.

Sometime before Trump’s inauguration, reports noted that Flynn had been in communication with the Russian ambassador. While this in itself is not illegal, it had a lingering cloud of suspicion due to one of the greatest oddities of the 2016 election: Trump’s relationship with Russia and Putin. When Flynn was asked if he discussed the current U.S. sanctions on Russia with the ambassador, Flynn said he hadn’t to the media and to members of the administration, including Vice President Pence. Moving forward to this past week, reports emerged that Flynn had in fact discussed the Russian sanctions with the ambassador. This lead Flynn to ultimately tendered his resignation on Monday night.

Flynn’s discussion of sanctions with Russian officials before the Trump administration had taken office is a story but wouldn’t be largely important. Flynn’s discussion of sanctions would be a violation of the Logan Act of 1799 (history strikes again!), a seldom enforced law that disallows any private citizen from conducting foreign policy without permission from the US government. This law has only been enforced once against a Kentucky farmer who wanted to form “a Western America” allied with France. The farmer was indicted but never went to jury.

However, there are a number of layers to this story that leave open the potential for future harm for Flynn and the Trump administration.

First, Flynn lied by initially claiming the Russian sanctions were never discussed in his meeting. Flynn’s lying to Pence, who then went and defended Flynn on various news networks, and others in the administration was the cited reason for Flynn being forced into resignation. There are three important questions that must be answered next.

First, did Flynn lie to the FBI during its investigation? Flynn was interviewed by the FBI days after Trump’s inauguration, during which the New York Times reports found that Flynn was “not totally forthcoming” with addressing the FBI’s questions, which were investigating whether Flynn’s phone call with the Russians was in violation of the Logan Act. While no one has been successfully prosecuted for violation of the Logan Act, perjury is a different story and a very real concern for Flynn. After all, Bill Clinton didn’t break federal law by having an affair, but the US House impeached Clinton for lying about it.

Second, NBCNews reported on Tuesday that Pence’s Press Secretary confirmed that the Vice President had been kept in the dark for two weeks regarding the Justice Department’s warnings that Flynn had lied to the President. The vice president not being kept updated on all government matters is fairly common. For instance, Harry Truman was unaware of the Manhatten Project, the efforts that successfully lead to the development of the first atomic weapon during World War II, until after President Roosevelt had passed away. However, the decision not to inform Pence of the Justice Department’s warning until February 9^th is significant because it was the same day the Trump administration became aware that the Washington Post was about to publish a heavily-sourced story that confirmed Flynn and the Russian ambassador discussed sanctions, despite public denials from Flynn and other incoming administration officials, including Pence. This isn’t just significant because the administration left Pence in the dark after knowing he lied repeatedly on national television. The larger question is why Flynn was allowed to continue in his role as National Security Advisor, which includes being part of the President’s daily briefing, leadership calls, and discussions with foreign leaders. This leads to the conclusion that Trump and his administration ignored the Justice Department’s warning that Flynn lied about his discussion of Russian sanctions and were finally forced to address the issue once the Washington Post was prepared to publish their heavily-sourced story. In effect, Trump hoped the story would go away so he swept it under the rug.

Third, and finally, would Flynn have gone to the Russian ambassador to discuss the Russian sanctions without direct orders from someone above his authority in the administration, such as President Trump? On Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the few Republican senators regularly push back against Trump’s policy with Russia, stated his desire to know “did General Flynn do this by himself or was he directed by someone to do this?” The premise of this question is whether Flynn “went rogue” and contacted the Russian ambassador without direction. This could be of concern as Flynn’s actions, if not ordered, may have been due to Flynn being “somehow compromised” as Senator Graham noted.

If Flynn was contacting the Russian ambassador, however, because he was acting on direct orders from someone else in the then President-elect’s administration, then it begs the question of why Flynn was making potentially illegal contact with the Russian ambassador. Potentially, the communication could have been reassurances to the Russians regarding the intended policies of the future administration

As this post has been compiled and drafted, the New York Times have released a report on Tuesday night (February 14^th) that Trump campaign aides had made repeated contacts with Russian intelligence. The report notes that phone records and intercepted calls showed that members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had made repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials. While the report notes that no collaboration has been made yet between the Trump campaign and the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee server, it notes that Trump officials, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, made phone calls with Russian government and intelligence agents.

So Michael Flynn has resigned after lying about contacting the Russian ambassador regarding Russian sanctions. On Tuesday, Trump’ reacted to Flynn’s resignation by tweeting that “the real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks?” While this in itself is ironic as Trump during the campaign encouraged Russian to finding Hillary’s missing emails and praised the DNC leaks provided by Wikileaks, Trump’s tweet completely ignores Flynn’s lies to the administration and potential perjury. Additionally, Trump’s deflection does little to sooth those worried that Trump’s affection for Russia goes beyond that of his admiration for Putin’s authoritarian governing style.

Where does this leave us and what happens next? Congressional hearings. The GOP-controlled House spent millions of taxpayer dollars holding hearings regarding Hillary Clinton yet have dragged their feet already for potential hearings into the Trump campaign’s potential Russian ties. On Febuary 2^nd, House Intelligence Committee chairman Congressman Jason Chaeffetz (R-CA) publicly spared with Democrats and refused to open investigations into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia. Since Flynn’s resignation, Chaffetz has said his committee would not investigate Flynn. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that a Senate intelligence committee investigation and hearings are “highly likely”.

It is critically important that Republicans throw party politics aside and at least complete intelligence investigations and committee hearings regarding the situation surrounding Michael Flynn and the Trump administration’s relationship with the Russian government so that someone other than the President knows the full story. It seems with every passing day additional information is reported by the press as more information is gather and the clarity of the entire situation. What will we see once the water clears? I think one thing is certain: Michael Flynn did not speak with the Russian ambassador without orders to. Be it blackmail, serving a personal economic self interest, or a childlike obsession with Putin’s authoritarian rule, its becoming clear that this scandal-filled presidency’s most intriguing and dangerous circumstance may not be in an offensive tweet.

And to think, all I wanted to do was write an in depth article about the need for the Democrats to come back to the Midwest and reconnect with Wisconsinites, Iowans, Minnesotans, and the rest with town halls and face-to-face discussions about the most important issues for working-class Midwesterners. Something tells me, though, that the Democratic Party’s problems won’t go away in two weeks and, possibly more importantly, the potential connection between the President and the Russian government is just as important to all Americans.

If there is a connection to Russia that Trump does not want anyone to know, he will deny everything, lie about anything, and create as many distractions as possible. But when something as important as our connections with an authoritarian Putin are at stake, I believe an FDR quote speaks wisdom for any overwhelming, daunting tasks that lie ahead in unearthing the truth: “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

Who Should Democrats Run in 2020?

The 2020 election already appears to be one of the most important elections in the 21st century.  I say this not merely because it is the next one (and thus the focus of our attention in presidential politics) but because it will shape American politics for the next decade in a time where unease has settled into international politics.   Leftist parties across Europe struggle to combat far-right nationalist messaging that focuses on xenophobia and nativism as the answer to economic insecurity.  Post-Brexit UK currently possesses a weak Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn that struggles to mount a successful opposition to the Conservatives, French Socialist President Francois Hollande reached record lows in popularity and will possibly cede the Presidency to far-right Marine Le Pen in April.

We will see how Europe and the rest of the world evolves politically in the next four years, but the U.S. election in 2020 will undoubtedly come at a time where this unrest abroad and at home is still ongoing.  Preventing a second term for President Trump is reason enough to underline the importance of the 2020 election. Speculating about 2020 inevitably summons discussions over who Democrats should run on the ticket to counter Trump. Before getting into a name game of who could or should run, I will do my best to analyze the Hillary campaign and determine what, in my eyes, were some key areas that led to her defeat.

Hillary’s Defeat

Around this time last year I remember watching Morning Joe on MSNBC with Sam, and, putting aside how nauseating Joe Scarborough can be, the show’s namesake made an interesting point: Joe claimed that Trump asked him who he should rather face off against in a general election—Bernie or Hillary—and Joe quickly answered Hillary, because Trump’s success stemmed partially from an ability to attack the political establishment, e.g. Jeb(!) in the primaries, and that Trump would not be able to play the powerful outsider card as effectively against Bernie.

This will not digress into a counterfactual debate over whether Bernie could have beaten Trump, but I do believe that the establishment-focused “you had thirty years to fix this” line of attack successfully stuck to Hillary.  Of course, this attack completely misrepresents how much Hillary actually did achieve in politics during that spell, but it also paints a dishonest picture of how easy it must be to achieve policy goals, especially as a politician not in the Oval Office.  Regardless, Hillary’s detailed resume of political experience, something that should be viewed favorably, worked against her by providing endless fodder of public information about her.  Everyone from Berniecrats to Trumpeters could find things they disliked in her history.  Everyone found reasons not to like her.  Contrastingly, fresh off of a meteoric rise in state politics and a few years in the Senate, Barack Obama had much less of a history to dissect and problematize. Similarly, Trump had no public political record to attack, so voters were left trusting his word in the absence of empirical evidence of his political decision-making.  In this election, the voters went for the devil they didn’t know, and I believe that is a pattern that paradoxically holds true more generally at the moment: the less political experience you have, the better chance you have of getting elected to the Presidency.

Hillary did not lose solely due to her lengthy experience, though.  The Presidency is a popularity contest, and Hillary lacked, or was unfairly painted as lacking, two key traits that I believe predict support: honesty and charisma.  Hillary admitted herself that she is not a ‘natural politician’ like her husband and Obama.  This coded language clearly contains gendered implications and assumptions, but it centers on charisma and its influence on likability.   Hillary does not harbor charisma in the way successful Presidential nominees usually do.  Her oratory skills fail to captivate audiences as effectively as she would like, and while Hillary’s Senate campaign in New York laid an early foundation for her insistence on listening to constituents instead of delivering grandiose speeches, unfortunately, society deems charismatic speeches to be more presidential than the ability to listen well. Obama’s oratory ability is legendary; Bill Clinton’s charismatic appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show catapulted him to the White House; Trump’s familiarity with television and his ability to connect with his base stems from a charisma of sorts.  Of course, society views charisma through a gendered lens, and I would argue that society more often attributes charisma to men than women, but this does not mean that no woman is charismatic.

Hillary also failed to convey honesty.  After decades of attacks from Republicans on everything from health care to Benghazi to her damn email server, these countless assaults on her character irreparably damaged the public’s perception of her.  With all issues like this, Hillary cannot be viewed entirely blamelessly, but the GOP created a House committee to further investigate Benghazi with the explicit goal of damaging her polling numbers.  The ability to “tell it like it is” is often mocked in liberal circles, but the ability for a candidate to project honesty and to bluntly tell the American public how they view the world is crucial to a candidate’s success.  If the public believes that you are lying to them or are concocting positions solely to garner their votes, they will coolly reject you at the ballot box—just ask Lyin’ Ted.  Obama had this honesty.  George W Bush had this honesty.  Trump’s honesty and willingness to say the taboo things were part of what set him apart from the 1.5 million other Republicans who ran for President in 2016.

Honesty and charisma work in tandem: without charisma a candidate’s honesty may not be conveyed effectively, and without honesty a candidate’s charisma is viewed as slimy and disingenuous.  Hillary held neither trait, and that led to an inability to connect with the public and thus an inability to address concerns about her honesty.

Looking to 2020

So what does this mean for 2020?  I have claimed that an ideal candidate should be honest, charismatic, and have a small political resume that cannot be hyper-examined.  Before looking into names for 2020, it is worth revisiting 2004 and the fallout from Kerry’s defeat to Bush to see where the Democrats went from there.

On the podcast Pod Save America, some of the hosts worked on the Kerry campaign in 2004 and recounted internal discussions post-defeat.  According to their memories of the aftermath, the Democratic consensus was to groom candidates in a John Edwards mold—Democrats, not necessarily progressives, from red states who could win all over the map.  Today that might look like Jason Kander.  However, this retreat to Bill Clinton, red state Democratic centrism did not occur.  Instead, four years later, Barack Hussein Obama from deep blue Chicago swept through the national spotlight and scored an historic victory to take back the White House.  Discussions like these, in the immediate aftermath of electoral defeat, by definition do not understand the exact political climate that will exist in 2020.  This post could be laughably wrong in four years.  But at the moment, we write with what we know.

Senate Democrats

Any list of potential 2020 frontrunners must start with Democratic Senators.

1. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

The 67 year old first-term Senator from Massachusetts and former Harvard professor of law has only been in Congress since 2013, but there are few names, if any, who carry as much star power as Warren does.  She holds a constant ability to get headlines through attacks on Trump or the GOP at large, and her fervent support of financial reform and progressive causes endeared her to Berniecrats as well as traditional Democrats.  After passing up on running herself in 2016, I believe that 2020 is her only chance to become President, and I sincerely hope she runs.  While I have spoken with Democrats who hesitate to nominate another woman in fear of the glass ceiling being harder to break than we may have thought, I firmly believe that Warren harnesses the charisma, honesty, and progressive pedigree to win the White House.

2. Al Franken (D-MN)

I must admit that I had not seriously considered Franken as a contender for 2020 until I read Chris Cillizza’s column in the Washington Post.  Franken’s history with television helped him cultivate a charisma that he kept under a professional cloak during his first term as a Senator from Minnesota, but now in his second term, he appears to be revealing his comedic self.  If Democrats want to pick a Senator with the know-how to go toe to toe with Trump on television, Franken might be the best candidate we have.

3. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY)

Apart from Matthew Yglesias’s seemingly unending obsession with a Gillibrand run, I have never fully considered Gillibrand to be ready as a possible leader of the Democratic Party.  Running another female from New York may cause folks to tilt their heads, but she has the chance in the next four years to demonstrate a commitment to progressive causes and to enter contention in 2020.

4. Kamala Harris (D-CA)

I have seen Harris’s name thrown around already as a possible contender in 2020, but I believe that is currently a product of progressives projecting their hopes and dreams onto a multiracial woman with a celebrated background in law from a deeply blue state.  She would only have had four years in the Senate before leading the ticket, but if you replace the word “woman” with “man” in the previous sentence you will see the clear similarities between what some Democrats hope Harris will do and with what Barack Obama did.

5. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Do not get me wrong—I love Bernie Sanders.  When I learned that he was running in 2016, I immediately jumped on board the democratic socialist lovefest. But I do not believe he should run again in 2020.  His age (he would be 79 on Election Day) should preclude him from running again, and his role as the leader of an unapologetically progressive movement should be his top focus over the next four years.

Honorable mentions: Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Chris Murphy (D-CT)

Outside the Senate

The Democrats lack a strong bench, according to standard political punditry, and outside the Senate there are few candidates that could make a push in 2020.  Some folks want Biden or Michelle Obama to run, but I fear that is a reactionary response to losing President Obama.  I love both of them as politicians and people, but I hesitate to continue to think so completely in the box.  A few governors seem interested in running, e.g. Cuomo (D-NY) and Hickenlooper (D-CO), but again, I challenge Democrats to think outside the box.

Trump proved that candidates do not need political experience to garner mass support.  Republicans have claimed victories with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Real World cast member Sean Duffy, Ronald Reagan, and now Donald Trump. Celebrity is not a hindrance in running for office.  In fact, it helps.

I have said for years that if Peyton Manning held political ambitions he could win any office he wanted.  In an era when perceptions of honesty and charisma are clearly shaping who people vote for, it is time for Democrats to start running celebrities.  Hollywood already leans left, so it should not be that tough to find politically minded celebrities who could be swayed to run.

Alec Baldwin flirted with running for New York City Mayor, Oprah seemingly has political ambitions, Matt Damon fervently defended public school teacher tenure on camera, and countless other celebrities have shown a willingness to speak out on politics.  Imagine Tom Hanks debating Donald Trump in a presidential debate.  Celebrities who walk into a race with previously earned respect and affirmation from the public can use that to propel Democrats back into the White House in 2020.

I have not narrowed the list of possible Democratic nominees in 2020, but I do hope that we reform the Democratic Party’s stale thinking and consider all possible routes to success.  If Elizabeth Warren runs in 2020, I will likely support her, but imagine how hard-fought a primary would be between Warren, Harris, Franken, Cuomo, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Who better to win a popularity contest of enormous consequence than Jack from Titanic?

Senate Democrats and the Trump Cabinet: Empirical Resistance and Moderate Tolerance

Partisan gridlock is not a new issue in American politics. Anyone who tries to claim that we are in the most partisan time in our history will be met with a fervent rebuttal and references to the Revolutionary era, the elections of 1800, 1824, 1860, the lead up and playing out of the Civil War, Reconstruction and the election of 1876, the Cross of Gold speech and the election of 1896. And that doesn’t include the past 100 years. I could go on but PSP is not all about deep American history, at least not in this post.

As for modern American history, we have hit a low level of bipartisanship that is filled with hypocrisy by the minority once they take control of a branch of government and by the majority once they find themselves holding the short end of the stick rather than committee chairmanship gavels. The results of the 2016 election has led the Democratic Party to contemplate the best approach moving forward regarding how to reshape, restructure, renew, and restore the party back into power. Democrats are in the minority across the all federal branches, in control of only 16 governor’s mansions, and only have control of the governorship and state legislature in four states. The high times of 2008 are long gone. Contrast that to the Republican Party: control of the White House, the U.S. House and Senate, 34 governor’s mansions, and control of the governorship and state legislature in 25 states. While the GOP had the ability to have broad and complete resistance across the country to the Obama administration, the Democrats cannot say the same as we enter 2017 and must come to terms with the current political geography.

Overall, there are two approaches available to those within and leading the Democratic Party: stubborn, consistent resistance or a more flexible bipartisanship that’s willing to reach across the aisle to find compromise to enact as much progressive policy as possible. While the approaches could be debated in depth and in theory-based speculation and analysis, the presidential cabinet nomination process has provided the first trial run for both strategies on the national stage.

With the filibuster gone for Cabinet nominations, the question is whether Democrats will oppose Trump’s picks across the board or if they will pick and choose the most unqualified and most extreme, partisan picks in the Senate confirmation vote. With either choice, Democrats will either need one Republican to join their ranks in Senate committee votes or three Republicans to join their ranks on the Senate floor. While many within the deep blue liberal base want there to be nothing but #Resist coming from Democrats, this approach is both the least effective politically and shrouded in the appearance of flying in the face of empirical evidence of candidates’ policy positions. Republicans and moderates will see through any justification that is presented if resistance is given for all nominees. This would delegitimize completely genuine fears of incompetent candidates, such as DeVos, and extreme candidates, such as Puzder and Pruitt, while casting Senate Democrats, the Democratic Party, and progressive values as hyperpartisan.

Among the remaining major Cabinet nominations, there are a number of nominees that should and have to be opposed in their committee hearings and on the Senate floor. Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., is a threat to labor unions and worker’s right. Puzder is a critic of the federal minimum wage, argued against the Obama administration’s expansion of eligibility for overtime pay, and criticized federal paid sick leave policies. Puzder has additionally claimed that his companies hire the “best of the worst” and has said increased automation is a welcome development because machines are “always polite, they always up sell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall or have an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”

Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has been an advocate for public education reform her whole adult life, fighting for increased funding to charter schools, allowing parents to send their children to whichever school they choose with little oversight, and was unable to answer basic questions regarding differing approaches to education that have been the center of education policy since 2001 with No Child Left Behind.

EPA Administrator nominee Scott Pruitt has made a career attacking the EPA as attorney general of Oklahoma. Pruitt has sent a recommendation for decreasing hydraulic fracking regulations that was a boilerplate letter drafted by one of the biggest fracking companies in his state. During his nomination hearing Pruitt stated his personal belief whether climate change is human caused is immaterial. Pruitt has continuously fought to reduce the scope of the EPA and sued it for “unwarranted regulations”.

These three nominees have serious flaws. In regards to Pruitt and DeVos, their hearings did not allow Democrats to ask beyond five minutes of questions each. Additionally, in many cases, Pruitt and DeVos had not completed the full disclosure and ethics documentation necessary for each nominee, not allowing senators to know whether any conflicts of interests have or continue to exist. These flaws warrant resistance in committee not just from Democrats but also from Republicans. This strategy has gained ground in regards to DeVos, as two Republican senators have said they cannot support her nomination, meaning the Democrats need just one more GOP senator to oppose DeVos.

While these nominees may demand further questioning and resistance, Interior Secretary nominee Ryan Zinke is the example of a nominee that Democrats must fully vet but should fully support after the results of his committee hearing. Zinke, Montana’s member of the House of Representatives and retired Navy SEAL, is a self-proclaimed and unapologetic Teddy Roosevelt-Republican entering his second term in the House. During his confirmation hearings, Zinke informed senators that he does not believe in the selling off of federally owned land and that he believes in the importance of public access. This isn’t a new position that he has taken as his own once he was nominated. He believes in both the Muir preservation of land model and Pinchot land conservation model of consciously utilizing resources with the assistance of scientific observation and empirical data. Zinke made no promises to the “drill, baby, drill” Republicans, rather steering back to his message that his core beliefs for managing the Department of the Interior to be based on our current model that emphasizes the management of lands by the federal government that allows all Americans to camp, hike, hunt, fish, and enjoy America’s natural resources in every way possible. Zinke noted his goals are to restore trust in federal management policies and working with local communities and states, prioritizing $12.5 billion in backlog in maintenance projects in national parks and land, a problem that is rarely addressed by budget-cutting GOP congressional caucus. Oh, and Zinke is an elected congressional Republican who openly believes in the existence of human-caused climate change.

Zinke is not the perfect nominee that I would be clambering for if Hillary had won; he is not opposed to leasing federal land to oil companies for energy development. But supporting Zinke and moderate conservatives like him is important for Senate Democrats and progressives across the country. First, it must be understood that after losing the presidential election we have to be realistic of what we can expect for new executive branch nominees. Trump was never going to keep Obama nominee Sally Jewell in as Secretary of the Interior. Second, we must understand what the alternative to these nominees will be. For instance, before Zinke was nominated, speculation was that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), would be the Interior nominee. McMorris Rodgers is a supporter of the selling off of federal public land either back to the states or to the private sector and more closely aligns with “drill, baby, drill” Republicans. Democrats need to see the whole picture, focusing on their immediate surrounding as well as the periphery. Lastly, Zinke is a moderate, Teddy Roosevelt Republican who has served as a Navy SEAL in Iraq. From what the public has seen from Trump, some of the only people that he automatically respects and gives the benefit of the doubt when challenging his beliefs are those who have served in the armed forces. Zinke’s belief in the principle of federal ownership and conservation management of federal land will be necessary to push back Trump’s worst instincts for developing federal land.

We will continue to see what strategy Democrats utilize with the remaining Trump cabinet members. In addition to the cabinet, and perhaps more important, Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court will generate internal debate from Senate Democrats down to the grassroots, who will likely let their senators know how they feel via phone, email, Facebook, and demonstrations. While I haven’t fully deciphered how I think Democrats should address Gorsuch, blind and straightforward resistance is not the answer. The nomination is greatly complicated from the GOP’s unprecedented obstructionism for the Merrick Garland nomination. Unfortunately for Democrats, the Republican gamble paid off with Trump’s victory, no matter how many more votes Hillary received. Democrats would do well to remember that the next 2-4 years are a long slog and its important to keep there eyes not just on the immediate surroundings and the horizon: how would the American public view blind Democratic obstructionism, would Republicans invoke the nuclear option, would it prevent the nomination of Gorsuch, and, if so, would Trump nominate someone more moderate or conservative? And how will the 2018 midterm elections play out? Democrats need to pick up three seats while defending 23 seats in the Senate while flipping 24 seats in the House.

In the meantime, all focus should be on the Cabinet nominees and soon the Supreme Court: stop DeVos, Pruitt, and Puzner; study the Supreme Court nomination of Gorsuch and his alternatives before crying for filibuster; support Zinke and others like him. After all, Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive.