We Believe, But!

 

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! I said it. I’m as guilty as the next one. I watch what I want to believe and I listen to what I want to believe. Or, do I watch and listen to what I think I should believe, or should think? I suppose a Philosophy 101 professor could make a whole class out of that one question. It’s a bit like debating if the ends justify the means, and it-all-depends isn’t an acceptable answer. Whole civilizations deal with that one!

Since its inception, Fox News reflects a viewpoint more than a little right of center. They proclaim themselves fair and balanced, but we know their true colors. They were so successful at what they did that the left of center liberals had to have their own channel and MSNBC was hatched to be the competitor for American ideas. Both channels made CNN, the patriarch of cable news; seem like a middle of the road milquetoast.

Years beyond the memory of most of today’s population the US had three major TV channels. Some would argue five or six, but the extras were really minor league. NBC, ABC, and CBS ruled the airwaves for a half-hour each evening as the nation sat in front of the new TV and listened to a synopsis of the day’s important events. A fellow by the name of Walter Cronkite attracted the most viewers most evenings. He was the most trusted person in America by most measures. He earned his chops because he read the news well, keyed in on the important, and had no opinions. Perhaps his most outward show of emotion was when he announced the death of JFK; he took off his dark horned-rimmed glasses, and said nothing for a second or two, and then continued reporting the terrible story.

Cable News Network started it all on June 1, 1980. There are days when I find it hard to forgive Ted Turner for doing this to us, but if I want real breaking news I head to CNN. It’s a muscle reflex learned back then when it was at its best, a news channel. When we were in France we listened to CNN. When we were in Italy, we listened to CNN because they broadcast in English. When we were in the UK we listened to CNN because the Brits don’t really speak English, do they? How different that is from today’s news channels where you can’t get away from 24/7/365 news and commentary, mostly commentary in the US, most of it aimed at the preferences of the audience. And to boot, the news that we receive in the US is so benign compared to the way news is presented in other parts of the world.

I’ve been reading about a bit of the tiff going on between the news department and the commentary group at Fox News. Evidently, the news folks think the talking heads are too dedicated to Trump and not the news. How could they ever imagine Hannity and Tucker Carlson leaning toward the right? Horrors! It does seem, though, that when news folks start shilling for their preferred candidate at political rallies it gives away their bias.

Then there is Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC who starts his nightly show with what seems like a ten-minute diatribe about how dumb, stupid, unknowing and loathsome Trump is. He doesn’t even try to be fair and balanced and doesn’t care who knows it. He makes Rachel Maddow seem downright evenhanded, which she sort of is in an anti-Trump sort of way. To be fair, however, MSNBC was as pro-Obama during his two terms as Fox is pro-Trump in his one term.

The dust-up at Fox News has caused Trump to question their loyalty. Because he questions their loyalty, so do 90 million other people who follow his Twitter feed. He is so upset with the network that he is recommending that they watch a fairly new but highly right-wing network called ANN. People are moving their allegiance because they agree that Fox News isn’t pro-Trump enough. I’m sure that it won’t be long before MSNBC watchers find a more pro-Biden station and move their loyalty to another station.

Axios pointed out that the assault on ideology over truth is growing. Not only are Trump supporters leaving Fox News for redder pastures, but also reporters and columnists are leaving the New York Times because it isn’t woke enough.[i] While the conservative tends to be most comfortable with Facebook and the liberal more comfortable with Twitter, except for you know who, that too is changing as the right moves to Parler and Rumble.

And that brings us to the crux of the issue, doesn’t it? We shouldn’t expect news networks to be pro anybody, should we?  Don’t we want to know the truth? Don’t we want to know the unvarnished goings-on in the world? I think we should want neutrality in our news and keep opinions on the opinion page. News shouldn’t be entertainment. Because we live in a globally connected world, we might benefit if we knew what is going on in the rest of the world, where the Kardashian’s new bathing suits aren’t the most important items of the day.

We are still trying to settle the election of a couple of weeks ago. The Ivory Coast had an election recently. To date 85 people are dead in the uprisings over the reelection of their President. Do we want to be like that? Ethiopia is in the midst of a civil war; I didn’t hear about that on the evening news last night, but I did watch a long story about a kid who has written a rap song about the letter “A.” Malaysia, a country of 33 million or so souls just reported its 50,000^th case of Covid-19. It has had 326 deaths from the virus. The US population is 10.15 times larger than Malaysia. If the US Covid-19 death toll was equal to their virus death rate, we would have had only 3,308 deaths from the virus. The media, slanted to one ideology or another doesn’t furnish us with a decent level of real information that we need to be good citizens of the world but encourages our insularity, our political biases, and lack of perspective. One need only go to other industrialized nations to see the difference.

Our presidential election, one of the sacred institutions or our democracy, trampled upon this year with much of the blame laid at the feet of the biased media. The election is settled, unless you change the laws ex-post facto,[ii] as the Trump campaign is trying to do in a couple of states. OK, a candidate has certain legal options if he or she doesn’t think the results are accurate. But the idea that a legislature, after millions of people have voted, would negate the vote and appoint its own Presidential Electors, is kneeling on the neck of our republican experiment in self-government. The President and his media henchmen have convinced a large minority of Americans that the election was rigged, all evidence to the contrary. It’s OK not to want to lose, but at some point, pride has to give way to reality. 

I’m stuck by the words of candidates who lost their bid for President and one in particular who lost a second term:

Mitt Romney: “I have just called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory.”His supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters. This is a time of great challenges for America and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.”

John McCain: “The American people have spoken and they have spoken clearly. A little while ago I had the honor of calling Sen. Barack Obama to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love.”

Al Gore:  “Just moments ago I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States and I promised him that I wouldn’t call him back this time. I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we just passed.”

George H.W. Bush: “Thank you so much. Well, here's the way I see it. Here's the way we see it and the country should see it -- that the people have spoken and we respect the majesty of the democratic system. I just called Governor Clinton over in Little Rock and offered my congratulations. He did run a strong campaign. I wish him well in the White House. And I want the country to know that our entire Administration will work closely with his team to insure the smooth transition of power. There is important work to be done, and America must always come first. So we will get behind this new President and wish him well.

And to all who voted for us, voted for me, here, especially here, but all across the country, thank you for your support. And we have fought the good fight and we've kept the faith and I believe I have upheld the honor of the Presidency of the United States. Now I ask that we stand behind our new President and regardless of our differences, all Americans shared the same purpose: To make this, the world's greatest nation, more safe and more secure and to guarantee every American a shot at the American dream.”

Without biased media stoking the fires of suspicion and descent, that is how our democracy should work. The people speak, fellow-citizens count the votes, the loser concedes and pledges cooperation in the transition, because the country is more important than one person, more important than one party or ideology, or media ad revenue.

 

Democracy is not easy, it's hard and yet so very fragile. It doesn’t take much to break it. 

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[i] Axios, November 20, 2020,

Woke is a political term originating in the United States referring to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice.

[ii] An ex post facto law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law.

It's Over!

 

We did it!

Millions upon millions of people went to the polls on November 3, 2020, to elect the folks that will elect Joe Biden our new President on January 6, 2021. It was a nail biter. The nation is dumbstruck, befuddled, ecstatic, or sad. The people spoke! The states counted! Our democracy works!

I like the Electoral College. My beliefs about it are fervent. I may be a minority of one. This is, of course, the only case in which I think, “we have always done it this way” is a good thing.  I just like the idea that in the United States of America, the States elect the President. The notion that we are a republic resonates with me though I call us a democracy quite often; democratic-republic rears its head often, to cover all the bases.

The AP projected Joe Biden the President-Elect on Saturday morning.[i] Each side wonders what the other side could have been thinking; why did they vote for that man? Within minutes of the announcement, large crowds gathered to celebrate in Times Square, in downtown DC, and in other cities across the nation. Other groups took to social media to condemn the election results, accusing the other side of fraud and threaten armed insurrection. Mitch McConnell has already stated that he would not make Biden’s life easy in the next four years, and they are long-time friends.

The country is sorrowfully divided, and the election results proved it, red and blue, conservative and liberal, coastal and heartland, educated and not so much, blue-collar and white-collar, religious values or none; and fifty other comparisons. We have always been that way, maybe not so much as today, but after an election, we came together to help form a more perfect union.

 Living near the liberal capital of a very liberal state creates a world view for us that seems to differ from The Villages in Florida or the ranchlands of the mid-west, Northern Plains or the rust belt. Each section of the country has its own definition for its values, its aspirations, its demands of its leaders.

I’m one of the dumbstruck. I spend an inordinate amount of time reading newspapers, blogs, and magazines. I make a point of listening to both sides of reality on cable TV. I listen to other people’s views. I like to think I’m reasonably in the know. But, wow!

It never occurred to me that so many people would cast a vote for the sitting President.  How could they? His policies destroyed our role as the global leader, he started a tariff war with China that increased the price of nearly imported goods and lied to the people when he said China would pay the tariffs.  His administration tore babies from the arms of their mothers when they asked for political and economic asylum and then lost them. His daily tweets were daily lies, claiming that covid-19 would go away quickly, or that the reason we had 25% of the world’s cases was that we tested more people. He promised to reduce the debt but increased it to record highs. He promised to drain the DC swamp but filled it with incompetents and campaign workers who went to jail for corruption.  More serious, perhaps, was his constant denigration of our institutions. The litany goes on. The election was a personal repudiation of Trump.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, was able to grow its membership in the House of Representatives, and perhaps keep control of the Senate. It grew control of legislatures and governorships in a majority of the states. That will help them keep control of the Congress for the next ten years, as they gerrymander their districts based on the current census.  

The red-blue map tells a story that the left needs to hear, and understand.  An old adage says that you run to your party’s extremes in the primaries but run to the middle in the general election. Even in the middle of a hundred-year pandemic, half the nation’s voters were willing to stay with the incumbent whose administration fumbled the fight to eradicate the virus. Given a choice between healthcare and economic health they chose economics. The President won 64% of the white working-class men, a traditional Democratic stronghold.[ii] In California, the voters turned down or reversed significant laws passed by the very liberal legislature. Even on the left coast, moderation is a valued value.

Back in 2017, a survey indicated that a lot of people were not in favor of Obama Care, but they liked the Affordable Care Act. How you say things matters. Labels can stop a movement in its tracks; new-green-deal, defund police, Medicare for all, socialism, to name a few. The left-wing progressives who fought for Biden will want to extract their due, and their ideas may be worthy of enactment, but how they are communicated will determine if the people will agree with them.

The most important objective for the new administration will be to restore a country that now considers opposing views to be evil, where members of both sides of the aisle won’t talk to each other, where governing is considered a zero-sum game, and where ideology is more important than striving for a more perfect union. It will take compromise.

 I’m ready for someone to lead us, not bully us. I’m ready for someone at the helm with character rather than sociopathic tendencies; I’m ready for someone who cares about the country and its role in the world rather than himself. I’m tired and I want an end to the chaos.

I’m ready for limits on Presidential Tweets; one per month and make it worth reading.

 I wonder what it is like to go from “Hey Joe” to “Yes, Mr. President?”

 

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[i] The Associated Press is an independent nonprofit news organization that is the gold standard when it comes to projecting election winners and losers.

[ii] Caledonian Record – November 7, 2020

Making Sausage

By the day before Election Day, 2020, over 100 million Americans had voted. In some states, Texas, for example, more people voted early than the total votes in the last election. From the start, this would be an unusual election. This was the first time an impeached president has run for reelection. It is the first major election during a worsening pandemic. Even the campaigning was different.

They say, you know who they are don’t you, that you never want to see the inside of a sausage factory. This election has many of the same characteristics. The President, who had contracted the virus himself, continued denying its seriousness, even to the point of mocking those who followed the health guidelines. He held large rallies across the country. His supporters enthusiastically attended, standing elbow to elbow without masks, shouting their approval of his platform and his behavior. Stanford University estimated that the people who attended his rallies accounted for 30,000 cases of the virus and over 700 deaths because they caught the virus and unknowingly spread it to family, friends, and co-workers.

Former Vice President Biden spent most of his campaign time broadcasting from the basement of his home, holding Zoom meetings, and issuing podcast messages. In the last few weeks leading up to today, Election Day, he and Kamala Harris spent more time in the field drumming up votes. His rallies were small and included rallies where people, wearing masks, stayed in their cars and tooted their approval of his stump speech.

The Republican Party spent a lot of time and effort trying to make it difficult for people to vote or to submit their votes in a timely fashion. There is no other way to describe it than serious cases of voter suppression. It was unseemly at best.

The President is calling for victory to be announced tonight and to ignore all of the votes that have not been counted as of midnight. There are reports that he will declare victory from the White House very early in the evening.

Nobody has any idea as of this morning who will eventually win the election or when all the votes will be counted. It may take weeks to count them all. Stay calm.  Each state has its own rules about how many days it can take to count the votes. It is seldom that all votes are counted on election day.

The election is so contentious that stores in cities around the country are boarding up their window for an expected rash of riots, marches by armed vigilantes, and general unrest. America is supposed to be the beacon on the hill for those who yearn to live free. Let us hope that at the end of the day we will live up to our dream, that the voting process will be calm and that the vote counting will be efficient. Let us hope that the two candidates can accept the will of the people in a gracious manner.