People may not have the right to know about your personal, private life or any detail about any potentially embarrassing photo, but they do have the right to know whether you are honest, candid and forthcoming.
Once we accept our own basic worthiness we cannot help but see the basic worthiness of every other human.
For a while under Donald Trump, it was possible to believe that we could go back to a more functional, less rancorous time. This desire was expressed most eloquently at John McCain's funeral services.
Conversely, conservatives assume that humans are fundamentally lazy and prone to immorality. In this view, the entitlement system coddles and rewards laziness. This cynicism spills over into their view of government and government 'bureaucrats.' It also spills over into their political tactics.
But the truth is the meritocracy is a lie. Those born into wealth and privilege will always be able to game the system for their own benefit and their children's own benefit.
Being a host or a guest or a pundit, you really want to say something that's interesting and potentially provocative, that's going to stick with people. The last thing you want to say when you're a politician is something provocative.
Most of you probably already know this but for those who don't, I was a bit of a trailblazer in the field of salacious photos released without consent.
Kentucky has long been Democratic at the state level but that trend had completely reversed in the Trump era.
There's no dignity in hiding from an undignified story. You don't want to die the death of 1000 cuts. Just get the whole thing out… the entire thing, every detail, answer the questions and move on.
The Trump administration has been quietly moving to systematically undermine health care putting lives at risk and offering no alternative solution.
It can be really lonely running for office, especially if you've never done it before and especially when all the normal channels of power are basically closed to you.
And if you are going to truly stand with workers, it also means embracing solidarity, not attempting through lame talking points to pit union workers against non-union workers.
Maintaining an employer model of healthcare means handing bosses another weapon they can use against their workers. One more way they can drain union strike funds. One more way that the power dynamic is asymmetric.
If you want to understand why something is happening in America just follow the money.
If you hang around political talkers or strategists much, you're likely to hear a lot about authenticity. This is supposed to be the golden currency which we all look for in our leaders.
I know that we are supposed to believe that once voters learn the truth about medicare for all they are going to suddenly turn on it but it's not like the scary industry talking points are a secret.
After all, chamber of commerce type conservatives love nothing more than to opine on the great virtues of Texas. The low taxes, the low regulation, delightfully paired with a low investment in education, health care and really anything else that might be of use to their working-class citizens.
Serious concerns about worker safety and fair treatment have been reported at Amazon warehouses. Workers have fallen ill from extreme heat, had to urinate in bottles because they don't have enough time to use facilities, and been unfairly terminated.
In politics, you're safest when you're saying as little as possible. You're safest when you've got your talking points and you stick to them like glue, even if it means repeating yourself over and over.
So when you hear these lies about how we can't possibly change our health care system because it would be electoral disaster, kindly remind people that we already have a moral and ethical disaster on our hands.
