What Kamala Harris can learn from watching Madam Secretary
by Spocko
In the last week Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Tulsi Gabbard announced 2020 presidential runs. Tonight Harris will be on the Rachel Maddow Show to talk about what she wants to accomplish.
Right now all the candidates are putting out their messages. As Michael Brooks of The Majority Report put it, they are “cutting a lane for themselves” in the primary. (We used to call it their core brand proposition, but that’s so 2000 and late.)
Here’s a New York Times summary story on who has announced they will run and who might run.
The Times summary has the conventional wisdom on each candidate and their signature issues. For example: Warren, middle class under attack from big corporations and Wall Street’s influence on politics; Sanders, “Medicare for All,” and free college tuition.
But what I didn’t see in any summaries or signature issues were candidates’ views on National Security. This issue is critical and must be addressed because the United States spends an estimated $1.2 trillion per year on defense.
Pentagon spending now consumes nearly 70 percent of the discretionary federal budget.
Even if we just count direct US military spending, the figures are enormous. At $610 billion in 2017, US military spending accounted for more than a third of the world total. This dwarfs the $294 billion spent by our potential adversaries—Russia spent $66 billion; China, $228 billion.
From Progressives Need a New Way to Talk About National Security , by Joe Cirincione and Guy T. Saperstein
Now is the time for democratic candidates to get this and start talking about better ways for the country to use that money. Will Harris talk about this? Gillibrand and Gabbard didn’t. Maybe someone like Washington Governor Jay Inslee will bring it up.
What all Democratic candidates need to know is that the polling shows that the voters would rather money go to infrastructure and social programs than policing the world.
But of course the Military Industrial Complex won’t let go of any money without a fight. Last week’s Madam Secretary, Strategic Ambiguity, was a great illustration of how defense contractors will lie, cheat, steal, threaten and scare people into voting for weapon systems that are inadequate, aren’t wanted or needed, and make us less safe.
My favorite scene from the episode is this short clip.
The Madam Secretary writers, Barbara Hall and Matt Ward, explain the issue and put Presidential Candidate Elisabeth McCord in the position of pointing out the problems with the whole system while the Secretary of Defense and the President explain that yes, a defense contractor can “shake them down.”
My favorite line in the clip is when the secretary of defense defends the fighter jet and the shakedown for more money by saying, “Cost overruns are a feature of defense contracts.”
In this next clip the head of the group within the state department who works with the military on allocation for defense spending explains how untrammeled corporate greed distorts our foreign policy.
Show Me The Brightest Timeline
Madam Secretary shows viewers possible solutions and what the characters are up against. If Elizabeth is going to fight the Military Industrial Complex when she is President, she needs to realize she will be attacked, both behind the scenes and in public.
If President McCord cuts funds for a jet fighter 200 people making the wing fluid delivery system for the jets in a congressional district in North Dakota are going to need jobs. What can they do instead? Fluid delivery systems for commercial jets? High speed rail? Solar heating and cooling systems?
President Elisabeth McCord needs to have a vision that acknowledges the current national security budget and a way to redirect it to positive things.
Maybe she makes a Climate Change Service Corp to deal with emergencies and a cabinet post to prepare and manage climate disasters.
The Madam Secretary writers showed that Eisenhower predicted and understood the problem. The interstate highway system had long straight stretches so that the military could land a bomber on them if necessary. Probably not going to happen, but it helped justify the money for the interstate under “National Security”.
The Climate Race Is Like The Space Race
Johnson split up jobs for the space program for political power. The “Space Race” against the Russians provided an urgency that going to the moon for scientific and exploration purposes didn’t.
We need infrastructure hardening and replacement in communities around the country right now.
Maybe President McCord rebuilds the Civil Defense system. Our enemy is Severe Weather. Having severe weather as the enemy helps deal with the issue of climate change and could provide the kind of jobs that defense contractors have now.
President McCord could SAY we must prepare cities in case they will be being hit by a nuke from Russia or North Korea. That is probably not going to happen, but it is an excuse to prepare us for being hit by the equivalent of 10,000 nuclear bombs from a hurricane. (Link Scientific America article on the power of hurricanes.)
President McCord could SAY she is worried about Terrorists bombing our nuclear power plants and chemical plants, so we need to harden them. That is possible but a rare event, however it is an excuse to prepare them for the more likely events, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes.
She would need people to design, develop and implement emergency power grids and communications systems. Remember Puerto Rico? We needed this last year. Coastal communities need hardened seawalls, inland cities need strengthened levees.
President McCord could SAY we don’t want hackers from China or Russia to take down our power grid and communication systems, so we must spend money creating distributed and redundant systems. That work prepares us for what really takes down our power grids and communications systems, severe weather.
The reality in America today is that all communities could benefit from better power grids and communication systems in the event of emergencies, it doesn’t just have to help the “coastal elites.”
In our current political situation when you say, “National Security” the money is allocated with no questions asked, no audits demanded. That should change. Until then President McCord could still use that model to get money. She just needs to change what national security includes.
Fiction has the power to show us what is possible. In the end the President fought the defense contractor to a draw, but Secretary McCord vowed to do better when she is President McCord.
I think she will. Elisabeth McCord 2020