ON AMERICAN POLITICS
Just a day before Super Tuesday, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg (both Moderates) dropped out of the 2020 race to throw their support behind the main establishment candidate, Joe Biden. It's blatantly obvious that the Democratic National Commitee (DNC) is doing everything in its power to prevent Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee, and its efforts yielded the results it so desired on Super Tuesday.
Here are some takeaways from Super Tuesday:
(1) Biden performed exceedingly well, winning in states that he hardly invested in during his campaign trail.
(2) One big surprise was Biden winning the State of Massachusetts which is Elizabeth Warren's home state. Warren ended up in third place here, which is a huge slap to her face, considering how well she was doing in the polls when she first began campaigning.
(3) Despite Biden doing really well overall, Bernie is projected to win California, a state which gives its winner a huge amount of delegates.
(4) One state that everyone had their eyes peeled on during Super Tuesday was Texas. As Kristin Tate argues, a demographic shift is occurring across the United States as we speak and what were once traditionally "Red" states are turning "Blue" due to interstate migration, especially Texas. This was also evident in the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas when Beto O'Rourke came pretty close to defeating Ted Cruz trailing him by just 2 points. As such, Bernie was hoping to clinch a slightly more progressive Texas to put him in the lead or at least closely behind Biden. However, Biden took Texas which indicates that while Texas is more "Blue" now, it isn't that radical yet. Beto throwing his support behind Biden probably also had something to do with it.
(5) Bloomberg investing $500+ million in his campaign just to win American Samoa was truly the highlight of Super Tuesday. As Nigel Farage succinctly put it in on Twitter: "Bloomberg has more money than sense. Only ideas and personality win in politics." Bloomberg has since dropped out, and his very short run puts a dent in the arguments of those that believe one of the main factors contributing to Trump's 2016 victory was his wealth. Myth busted.
(6) In order to be nominee, a candidate has to get at least 1,991 delegates (majority of delegates). Super Tuesday is just a fraction of that. The primaries continue in June.
(7) Will a brokered convention occur? Some pundits are saying that Bernie is likely to win more states in the primaries and caucuses scheduled to be held throughout the second week of June, and it could certainly be the case that Biden and Bernie's delegate counts are so close to each other that neither are able to obtain the necessary 1,991 delegates to officially become the 2020 nominee. If this happens, a brokered convention could take place which would allow superdelegates to be brought into the fold. Superdelegates are essentially unpledged delegates that consist of party leaders and elected officials and are free to support any candidate for the presidential nomination as opposed to pledged delegates. Bernie has argued that this is undemocratic, proposing instead that a candidate with a plurality of delegates (the most number of delegates despite not reaching the 1,991 threshold) should automatically be awarded the nomination. As far as I'm aware, the rest of the candidates are in favour of having a majority of delegates (whomever reaches 1,991 delegates) in order to be awarded the nomination.
Bernie is not in favour of a brokered convention for one simple reason - he's not part of the Establishment. The more deeply one is entrenched within the Democratic Establishment by virtue of having close links with the DNC, the more likely one is able to win in a brokered convention based on having Superdelegates (Party insiders) vote for him/her. This was somewhat the case in the 1984 Democratic primary when Walter Mondale and Gary Hart were toe to toe with neither being able to reach the majority of delegates threshold. Though no brokered convention took place, the usage of superdelegates was invoked with Mondale making "50 calls in three hours to nail down an additional 40 superdelegates" and then going on to win the first ballot as a result.
Last I read, Warren is reassessing her run for 2020 after her atrocious performance on Super Tuesday, but in the (unlikely) event that she stays on - she would definitely be hoping for a brokered convention to happen so that she can have another fighting chance at being nominated.
On point (1), there's a plethora of reasons why Biden was able to win in states that he hardly invested in. Either Buttigieg and Klobuchar supporters that flocked to him made a huge difference, or the majority of Americans in those Super Tuesday states aren't ready for Bernie's radical policies, or that those states that Biden won in (Arkansas, Alabama, etc.) generally tend to have older people that are less inclined to vote for Bernie and also more African-Americans, or a combination of all these various factors. It's an unspoken fact that white millennial voters tend to lean towards Bernie while older and African-American voters tend to lean more towards Biden. Either way, the DNC is coalescing behind Biden and doing everything it can to slow Bernie down and Super Tuesday has shown that it has been successful so far.
Only time will tell if the DNC continues to get its way.
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ON CORONACHAN
Coronachan doesn't seem to be letting up. It's evidently getting worse, with schools across Italy being shut down, Australians fighting over toilet paper with knives, 54,000 prisoners in Iran being temporarily released to prevent further infections, Masses in Singapore being suspended (an unprecedented move by the Archdiocese) and also Slipknot postponing their concert here. Despite this, the naysayers are telling us not to worry. This post may age really badly, or not, but for the sake of the world - I sincerely hope it's the former and that I'm wrong about this.
Initially, the fatality rate of Coronachan was estimated to be 2% globally. Two days ago, however, WHO announced that the death rate is actually 3.4%. Still, not many people are taking it very seriously, with many comparing it to the common flu (never mind that the fatality rate of the common flu is only 1%.) The 3.4% fatality rate is still not as bad as the fatality rate of SARS (10%), and for this reason - many are saying that Coronachan is only a real threat to the seriously ill and those with pre-existing conditions. While this is a factual statement, Coronachan's infection rate is much higher than SARs - something which should not be taken lightly.
The thing is, the 3.4% fatality rate is contingent on unfettered access to adequate medical facilities (i.e. ICU). At the rate the infection is spreading, how long it would take before most of these medical facilities and healthcare services are overwhelmed and maxed out is anyone's guess, but when that happens, access to such facilities will start to decrease drastically, with ICU beds being filled up at an extremely quick rate (just like in Wuhan when the outbreak first began and what's happening in Italy as I'm typing this.) Furthermore, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the 'Black Swan', has also pointed out, once medical facilities are overwhelmed with those infected with Coronachan, patients with primary care issues and needs (Diabetes, etc.) will suffer due to lack of medical attention, and the fatality rate (not just from Coronachan) but from other issues DUE to the spread of Coronachan handicapping medical services will also increase.
Let us also not forget that because Coronachan is spreading rapidly throughout the world, the likelihood of a global pandemic being declared is becoming more and more of a reality with each passing day. If a pandemic is declared (it already is somewhat of a de facto pandemic, just that it isn't being announced), global supply chains will be disrupted and countries that rely on imports will be hit pretty badly.
This is why it isn't ridiculous to stock up on essentials (such as non-perishable foods, medication, etc.) right now so that in the event of a supply chain disruption (lasting not more than 2 weeks one hopes), everyone would have enough to get by in the interim. Everyone ought to read Australian virologist Ian McKay's article on how to prepare and what you should get in case shit hits the fan. He's also telling people not to hoard, and to buy a few things each time you do your weekly grocery shopping as opposed to emptying shelves at one go. To the naysayers: prepping is risk-management, not paranoia.
I'm not going to lie, this whole Coronachan sitch is making me reassess my views on Libertarianism with regards to free trade. I am ordinarily in favour of free trade (when it doesn't involve one-sided and heavily-managed treaties like NAFTA) and I generally dislike economic nationalism. I've always been of the view that economic nationalism gives the shaft to consumers as it raises prices just to protect domestic markets. However, unfettered free trade has resulted in the United States and many other countries being totally reliant on China for manufacturing.
Contracts with Chinese companies to procure plastic gloves and masks for instance, have apparently been dishonoured due to the priority the Chinese are placing on its own citizens. The Chinese aren't necessarily wrong for doing this. It's normal to want to protect your own citizens first, even if it meaning dishonouring contractual obligations, but being wholly reliant on the Chinese with regards to manufacturing makes the world much more unstable when a pandemic of this sort hits.
No, libertarians, I'm not saying the solution is bigger government or a one-world Government. I despise globalism. I'm just wondering if smaller government solutions of a localist stripe (such as sealing the borders and imposing isolationism in cases such as these and some form of economic nationalism) would help. Let us not forget that the 1918 flu (otherwise known as the Spanish flu) which decimated 1% of the world's population was non-existent in American Samoa thanks to Governor John Martin Poyer's decision to isolate American Samoa from the rest of the world once the pandemic broke out. What I'm essentially saying is that economic nationalism may not necessarily be such a bad thing after all. It may raise prices, sure, but at least goods are accessible. I haven't thought this through enough yet, and I'm open to libertarians convincing me otherwise.
With regards to the consequences of Coronachan, I came across two tweets: one by Pete Suderman and the other by Mike Cernovich.
Wow.
— Peter Suderman (@petersuderman) March 4, 2020
If Coronavirus really keeps people out of theaters for any extended period of time, you have to wonder which studio will be the first to release a major tentpole direct to streaming. https://t.co/zmMYQZVhJz
One unintended consequence of coronavirus will be to further normalize remote working.
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 3, 2020
---Or---
Companies will find out that remote work is a poor fit for them.
---Either way---
A massive real-time experiment is ongoing.
These tweets had me wondering whether this Coronachan situation is helping to accelerate society's transition towards a more cybernetically-enhanced and Transhumanist world with increasingly minimal need for physical interaction.
I mean, aren't we already sort of Transhumanists in the sense that our smart phones can't be pried away from our hands for more than 10 minutes? Is Coronachan just speeding up our move towards 'Ready Player One'?
Who knows?! But it's certainly something to think about, and as Cernovich rightly points out, a massive real-time experiment is definitely taking place.
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