ARI HERZOG

My Personal Blog

4 Things Joe Biden Needs to Do Now

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If I was advising Joe Biden on how to increase engagement with the American people, I’d suggest the following four things be done as soon as possible.

First: Publicly apologize to Anita Hill and indicate policy changes.

Women are upset their only choice to unseat the incumbent is to vote for Joe. They deserve better.

Last April, Hill explained to the New York Times why she was “deeply unsatisfied” by his private apology and what needs to occur.

Here’s the background.

“The focus on an apology to me is one thing. But there needs to be an apology to the other witnesses, and there needs to be an apology to the American public, because we know now how deeply disappointed women all over the country were about what they saw — and not just women. There are women and men now who are just — really have lost confidence in our government to respond to the problem of gender violence…”

“…I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, “I’m sorry for what happened to you.” I will be satisfied when I know that there is real change and real accountability and real purpose to correct the issues that are still there.”

Source: Jezebel, April 27, 2019

Second: Give people hope.

Barack Obama campaigned for President in 2008 under the motto of hope. Remember the Shepard Fairey poster?

Joe needs to be genuine on social media so people can like him.

While older generations know him from years’ past, the youth don’t really know much about him. And, people who are considering third-party voting or on the fence about the incumbent need to swayed to vote Joe.

He should take walks with a selfie stick, showcase his favorite ice creams, share cooking recipes, and show his home so people can see “Uncle Joe” in his natural element.

The recent video with Joe, his wife, and granddaughter is a great step in that direction, but the 60-second video thanking front-line workers is better. It’s already been liked over 50,000 times on Facebook and Twitter. It needs to be everywhere else.

Third: Reach out to people with clout.

His team should be contacting podcasters, YouTube personalities, Twitch creators, and Facebook group owners for daily live videos. His presence doesn’t need to be lengthy, as 5 or 10 minutes is sufficient.

Joe’s appearance on the Desus & Mero late-night talk show was great. I especially enjoyed the bit near the end when they talked about Gatorade flavors.

I think he should contact every zoo and aquarium as most of them are holding daily Facebook Live videos. Imagine if an episode with penguins has Joe on a screen, and the penguins are looking at him. That’s quality (and shareable) TV and it introduces kids and their parents to Joe.

Because Joe’s YouTube channel has 42,000 subscribers, imagine if he’s interviewed by someone such as Jimmy Donaldson with 34 million subscribers. There are many Joes on YouTube but only a handful of Jimmys.

Fourth: Measure everything.

If a particular posting gets more likes, comments, or shares than other postings, that first posting should be reproduced over and over and over.

It’s obvious that people know Joe’s name, like him, trust him, and respect him. But how many people are talking about him? I don’t refer to the media. What percentage of online chatter is positive? Are there common celebrities or brands mentioned positively alongside Joe’s name? Can those brands be approached for a partnership? What tactics are being used to persuade people creating neutral and negative sentiment? How many November voters are seeing Joe reply to their questions in virtual town halls, videoconferences, and Reddit Q&As?

As I wrote the other day about how I consume the news, I want Joe to do something so remarkable that all of my friends are talking about it.

P.S. Thanks to Julia for sparking me to write this. Also, thanks to Michael Stokes for the campaign photograph.

The Magic Number

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I wasn’t old enough to vote in the 1992 presidential election but I remember watching the televised debates and infomercials. I didn’t care about Bush and Clinton. I tuned in for the pie chart education, wit, and Texan drawl of Ross Perot.

He was the independent candidate that year. He wasn’t a celebrity or politician but he had money. And, similar to billionaires Tom Steyer and Mike Bloomberg this year, Perot funneled that money to be a serious contender for the White House.

When the votes were counted, he didn’t receive a single electoral vote but over 19.7 million people filled-in his oval on the ballot — and Perot got 19% of the popular vote!

When I posited the idea of third-party candidates exiting the national stage and supporting Joe Biden, I didn’t think about 1992. I forgot about Perot.

If a third-party candidate in 2016 could have earned a Perot-esque level of popular votes, I’d be gung-ho supporting that person and party today. But four years ago, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson got 3% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 1%.

Nate Silver and his team at FiveThirtyEight suggested three years ago that the only way a third-party candidate could gain significant votes in 2020 is through celebrity status. They picked Dwayne Johnson.

It’s not a silly idea. Look at recent celebs elected to public office: Mayor Clint Eastwood, Congressman Sonny Bono, U.S. Senators Al Franken and Fred Thompson, Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, President Ronald Reagan. The list goes on.

But today’s slate of third-party candidates? The Libertarian front-runner is a former trial attorney who launched an educational foundation; and the Green front-runner co-founded the party. Hardly names that people know.

Perot wasn’t known either. But he used his money to get known. Remember, there was no internet in 1992. Not in the traditional sense of today, anyway. He also didn’t receive an electoral vote.

To be the person who lives in the White House, the magic number is 270. Today’s third-party candidates can’t get that number, so why take votes away from someone who can?

Imagining the Magical

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What if third party candidates dropped out of the presidential race?

I present two pieces of evidence.

First, here is a screenshot of the ideologies of the major candidates who received the most popular votes in 2016. Democrat Hillary Clinton received 48.2%, Republican Donald Trump received 46%, Libertarian Gary Johnson received 3.3%, and Green Jill Stein received 1%. (Johnson and Stein collectively received 5.9 million votes.)

Source: On The Issues

I remove the word “strongly” to reach the following conclusions:

  • Stein and Clinton agreed 16 of 20 times.
  • Stein and Trump agreed 5 of 20.
  • Johnson and Trump agreed 10 of 20.
  • Johnson and Clinton agreed 6 of 20.
  • Stein and Johnson agreed 8 of 20.
  • Clinton and Trump agreed 3 of 20.

I don’t know if the presumptive Green, Libertarian, and Democratic candidates will agree the same way in 2020 as in 2016.

If they do, consider that 1) Stein was more aligned with Clinton than the other two candidates; 2) Johnson disagreed with Trump 50% of the time; and 3) Trump was the only candidate opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage, and legally hiring women and minorities.

Are those enough reasons to come together and defeat the worst president in U.S. history? That link is from 2018, by the way.

Second, remember the 2000 presidential election.

That’s when Al Gore won the popular vote by 543,895 and George W. Bush won the electoral vote by 5. Ralph Nader, the Green candidate, received 2.7% of the popular vote (from 2.8 million people).

There are multiple takeaways on this history lesson but I turn to a letter to the editor from 2015:

“Nader won enough votes in two states — Florida and New Hampshire — to put either of them in Gore’s column. Nader won 97,488 votes in Florida, which easily could have swung the election to give Gore the state’s 25 electoral votes, and there would have been no need for a recount. Even without Florida, adding Nader’s 4 percent of the New Hampshire vote to Gore’s 47 percent would have given Gore a 270 to 267 victory in the electoral college.”

I think it’s fair to assume, given the 2016 comparison of Stein to Clinton, that the majority, if not all, of Nader’s votes would have gone to Gore.

It’s unlikely that third-party candidates will drop out of the 2020 election.

But what if they did?

Looking back four years, what if the majority of Stein’s votes went to Clinton and half of Johnson’s votes also went to Clinton?

What if the Libertarian and Green parties fold their tents and come together to defeat Trump by endorsing Biden?

Their supporters can write-in whatever names they want, as people do anyway. But, if the parties endorsed Biden?

Hmm?

141,900 Blue Boxes

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The United States Postal Service needs about $50 billion to stay open.

Without it, you can say goodbye to 31,322 post offices and 141,900 blue collection boxes before the end of September.

Here’s why:

First, because the pandemic is causing less people to buy stamps and mail letters and packages, USPS mail volume was down 30% in the first week of March. The agency projects being down 50% by the end of June.

Second, the USPS employs over 630,000 workers. Since the coronavirus reached the United States, 500 workers tested positive for COVID-19, 462 are presumptive positive, 19 died from it, and 6,000 are in self-quarantine. These numbers are increasing.

Third, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 requires the USPS to pre-fund future pension obligations for 75 years. There is no other government agency or private corporation that does this. It’s a crazy law.

Imagine the repercussions if the USPS shut down:

  • Grandma’s birthday card would need to be sent by UPS, FedEx, DHL, or another courier service. And, because those couriers probably won’t pick up the card at your home or deliver it to every home in the country, you’ll need to go somewhere to send it and she’ll need to go somewhere to get it.
  • UPS SurePost and FedEx SmartPost would stop, forcing those companies to deliver mail to customer destinations; but since when does UPS or FedEx deliver to the Grand Canyon or remote Alaska?
  • Companies will need to use those couriers to mail bills and customer letters at a higher cost. Catalogs and magazines might end.
  • Small businesses and nonprofits that require low USPS mailing rates would be put out of business.
  • Rural towns that rely on the post office to share gossip and the news would lose their hub of information.
  • 100,000 employed veterans would be furloughed or laid off.
  • Passport processing (for post offices that offer it) would stop.

And with a presidential election in November, you can say goodbye to voting by mail. How’s that going to happen? FedEx?

Privatization has its pros and cons.

In one camp is former Postmaster General William Henderson, who served under Presidents G.W. Bush and Clinton. He penned an insightful op-ed in 2001 arguing for privatization.

In another camp is Senator Bernie Sanders. “If the goal of the Postal Service is to make as much money as possible,” he said in 2018, “tens of millions of people, particularly low-income people and people in rural areas, will see a decline in or doing away with basic mail services.”

Let’s have the privatization debate another time.

For now, we need to keep the American institution alive. Buying stamps and mailing letters isn’t enough. We need to insist that the President and Congress save the USPS. If the airlines and large corporations can receive federal stimulus money, then why can’t the postal service?

Oh, right. Because you know who doesn’t like the postal service.

Trump Administration Hires Official Bloggers

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A funny.

In response to the rising tide of fake news and misinformation, senior White House officials are approaching bloggers who may not have necessarily voted for the President to nevertheless work for the administration, counterpunch the naive, and promote verified stories.

Tim DeGolden, a senior advisor to President Trump on new media and citizen journalism, believes this is a positive step.

“Bloggers are influencers,” DeGolden said on Federal Online News Radio this week. “They have existing distributions and social media relationships. It’s irrelevant if someone voted for the President. What’s most important is the person acknowledges that Trump is the President and that there is willingness to serve as a full-time consultant of sorts, but as a W-2 employee. I think it’s a great idea.”

The President is supportive. He’s very familiar with blogging.

It’s unclear who will be hired or whether they’ll be allowed to work remotely. Some of the junior bloggers for The Onion expressed interest. I’m willing. All that’s known as of April 1 is the 45th White House wants to swing back at swingers and accurately represent the online American people.

P.S. April Fools. This is satire. Happy reading.

Alt and Rogue Twitter Accounts are Unofficial But They Are Not Necessarily Fake

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Flags.

Shortly after Inauguration Day, the Trump Administration issued a gag order to federal agencies to cease online communications and other media outreach until transition teams were in place.

The White House is creating national unrest on multiple fronts. President Trump called climate change a “hoax” during his campaign. He signed an executive order eliminating funding to health groups that advise on abortions. He hires advisors who represent far-right conservative movements.

It doesn’t help that the Senate confirmation process is taking a long time. Votes are not yet scheduled for the Secretaries of Energy, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, and Labor; or for the Director of National Intelligence or the U.S. Trade Representative. The delay is causing agency outreach to be restricted if not halted.

Adding to the confusion are public comments by Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Counselor Kellyanne Conway using terms such as “alternative facts” and “fake news.”

Is it a surprise to you that government employees went rogue and created Twitter accounts to share real facts and real news?

This grassroots movement began with the National Park Service and spread to other federal agencies that created their own alt and rogue accounts. To date, I maintain a Twitter list of over 120 alt accounts for you to peruse and follow.

How do you determine if a tweet or an account is real or fake?

NOAA is an acronym for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. With over 136,000 followers, altNOAA’s bio is specific: “The Unofficial ‘Resistance’ team of the NOAA. Account not taxpayer subsidized. The NOAA studies the oceans and the atmosphere to understand our planet.”

Is this account real? Or is it fake? Or is it somewhere in between?

Does authenticity matter if the facts get out?

Why do alt and rogue accounts describe themselves and tweet as they do?

Pressing for more information via private messaging, I received a range of responses. Here’s one:

“What we hoped to accomplish was to support our fellow civil servants who are understandably alarmed about a new administration that does not appear to be operating within the norm. Most of us have gone through transitions and we all know that our role and obligation is to carry out the policies of a new administration subject to our oath to faithfully uphold the laws and Constitution. What we find so worrisome is that this administration appears to think that our role and obligation is to is carry out their policies without regard to the laws and Constitution. That is deeply troubling to anyone who believes in good government and, for that matter, democracy. As far as whether someone can tell we are real we can only say that we are and have no intention other than to encourage exercise of free speech within the bounds of our obligations as federal employees.”

I’m reminded of President Obama’s first inauguration when he promoted public participation and the concept of getting involved in political action.

Time will tell how these alt and rogue accounts change their messaging. For now, they share real facts and publicly-available information. And if something they tweet compels you to take action, that’s a good thing, right?