'Cause it's only time you are wasting on ...

For a couple of unrelated reasons in the last couple of days I've re-read some posts of mine here from years ago, some of which were from US presidential primary time in 2012, during which I had some shit (mixed with ... ) to say on or about Rick Santorum, who, holy shit, going in, had a realistic shot to be the Republican nominee (and, um, access to birth control was an issue?) in 2012. And I look at this shit and I think, was that worth my time? (From time to time I think how in 2016 I resented the fact that Donald Trump--who I don't think I ever thought was obviously not going to win (and once he had the nomination, my line always was: he is the nominee of one of the two major parties, so, yes, there is a very good chance he will win), but I certainly always thought (like any rational observer, and also others such as Donald Trump) was probably not going to win--was wasting everyone's time, particularly Howard Adelman's, worrying about what exactly he was and what exactly it meant and why exactly it was terrible.) But, you know, the funny thing about Complete Wastes of Time is it's interesting why you engage in them. (This morning I listened to another new interview with Jericho Brown, in which he says he learned early on that people don't like poets much, that poets are always outsiders, because they're never fully on board with any party line, and I thought, that's just the kind of self-congratulatory thing philosophers like to say about themselves (and in the course of saying which they will inevitably invoke the name of Socrates). It's also not necessarily or even generally true, and insofar as it is true it's not necessarily or even generally good. But it does speak to something of the shared atmosphere of those two neighbouring mountaintops. (I have forgotten why I thought that was going to be relevant here.)) Point being, I don't know if it's worth anyone's time having anything at all to say about the current Iowa Democratic caucus debacle, but I do want to salvage this bit from Nate Silver, on 538's much-extended Iowa Democratic caucus live chat, before it gets away, because it's an interesting idea with wider application that seems so obvious it's amazing I don't think it's ever come to me from anywhere before: "I actually think the sequential nature of the primaries isn’t a problem — in fact, it’s potentially a more robust process. Voters get to react to previous results, and candidates have to show some stamina and endurance. They can’t benefit just by happening to have the whole election conducted in the midst of a favorable news cycle." This is, of course, a really good argument for stretching out elections for anything over ... well ... I mean, why not have perpetual elections? Like, say, for US president: once a month a state or two votes. The president remains president as long as s/he retains a majority in the electoral college (or, if you want to abolish the electoral college, a plurality of the popular vote)--mutatis mutandis for whatever other electoral office wherever. This is obviously a bad idea for all kinds of reasons (including that all other news might perpetually be drowned out, not just for close to a year out of every four) but if your only goal was to promote the democratic legitimacy of the office, you might have to do that, mightn't you?

Speaking of democratic legitimacy: it's been a weird thing, following the whole impeachment show. On one hand I am ... not on Team Trump, so I instinctively root for Team Not Trump. On the other hand, my feeling all along has been along the lines of what Lamar Alexander finally said: he did it, he shouldn't have done it, but it's better to have an election decide whether or not he should still be president. Whatever Lamar Alexander's reasons for saying that (and I assume it's true what you see people say that more or less every Republican Senator would switch out Trump for Pence in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it), it would be a hell of a thing to remove from office a president who, if an election were held today, could very well win. You want to talk constitutional crisis, that's a constitutional crisis--a real constitutional crisis not about what the document means and how to apply it but about whether the document is or is not the actual constitution of the country. It's easy to toss off a line about how the US is, in its conception, "a republic, not a democracy", but you sure don't want that to come down to a practical choice.

And from a different angle: you see how easily, for instance, the Brits can toss prime ministers overboard, with no constitutional crisis or threat of civil war or anything, and it might strike you that this American system of elected monarchy is pretty undesirable.

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Currently under my porch: -2.2. Currently at Crowe Lake: -2.5. High there today: 4.3. The sap is running in earnest, for the time being.