Wei Chi

 

Wei-Chi

Our great experiment in self-government may have saved itself on December 11, 2020, but there are days to go before certainty comes to bear. Too many today, it seems, don’t pay much attention to the daily news because it’s all about politics and politicians who fight among themselves and don’t do anything for the benefit of the country and its people. They have a point, but this week they missed the sausage-making at its worst and at its best. Most people agree that we are a nation in crisis, even if our reasons differ dramatically. The Chinese use two characters for a crisis: Danger and Opportunity, Wei-Chi.

Our democracy was in danger this month, our Constitution ignored by too many who should have known better, and our most prized institution frayed. Some in Pennsylvania tried to have the presidential election results overturned and allow the Legislature to appoint the Electors. The Supreme Court said no.[i] The Attorney General of Texas, joined by several other States Attorney’s General, with an amicus signed by over 100 members of Congress, tried to overthrow the election results of several states. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case because Texas had no standing to bring it in the first place. That decision was interesting because two Justices believed that the case should be heard, but at the same time they said they would not give relief, so it was also a unanimous ruling.[ii] The Electoral College votes today. In early January a joint session of Congress will count the votes and announce who will be our next President and Vice-President. Several members of the House indicated that they plan to challenge the votes of several states. The whip count likely doesn’t support such action, but it could cause a delay in the process.

 

Our democracy is still in danger and our electoral process still on life support because too many people believe that the November election was fraught with fraud. Nearly 70% of Republicans continue to believe that the vote count was irregular, the vote-counting machines were set to turn Trump votes into Biden votes, or that some dead dictator from Venezuela had led a decade’s long conspiracy to bring down the election process. Some meet in coffee shops to discuss how their candidate’s election was stolen while others take to the streets around the country to protest, flags waving and fists raised. The state of Michigan closed all legislative offices today because of the credible threats of violence toward Presidential Electors. All the while, every State certified that there was no fraud; in many states, votes were counted three times, and local, state, and federal courts ruled in nearly sixty cases that the Trump campaign staff presented no evidence to substantiate claims of wrongdoing.

 

Twenty years ago Al Gore, who won a plurality of votes nationwide, lost the presidency when the Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop counting votes, resulting in Bush receiving enough electoral votes to claim victory. Vice-President Gore went on national television: “Let there be no doubt: While I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome…And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. I also accept my responsibility …to honor the new president-elect and … help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends.” That is what a nation expects from its leaders. That is what keeps the nation’s ideals out of danger.

 

The ultra-ultra right-wing reactionary news station Newsmax was beside itself when the Court ruled against Texas, et al. On December 11, 2020, newsreader Emerald Robinson complained, “The president put three Supreme Court justices on the bench… yet none of those … were with the team.” It is dangerous for the country when the Executive branch expects court nominees to be on its team, when in fact the justices take an oath to support and defend the Constitution. But then again, so did the President, the 100 plus members of Congress who signed an amicus brief for the case, and the dozen or more State Attorneys General that joined the Texas case. They put our Democracy at risk. They may have flirted with sedition. The Chair of the GOP in Texas even suggested seceding from the US because SCOTUS would not hear a case that had no standing in law. Power, Party, and Trump, for many people, are more important than the republic and its institutions. The Wei is clear!

 

Danger breeds opportunity to right wrongs. If one were to venture far out on a limb, or even into a sidebar, they might suggest that schools review how they teach Civics, how they teach about the Constitution, how they deal with our history, even the not-so-good parts of it. This isn’t wanting to go back to the good old days, but a search for how we instill a love of the democratic process at an early age, how we bring people to support a political system that requires give and take in discussion and compromise in legislating. It is a quest for an appreciation for our institutions and their fragility.

 

There is an opportunity for all of us to defuse the current crisis by lowering the volume of our side of discussions. There simply is no significant evidence of a stolen election. So let’s stop talking as if there was. Let’s all find a news channel that is more middle-of-the-road than we normally watch. There is an opportunity for all of us to ignore the bad actors on the far left and the far right. There is an opportunity to shut down (at least mentally) White extremists, people like Proud Boys and QAnon. We can all do something, but the one who could make the most of the opportunity is the President.

 

President Trump can defuse the crisis by taking the opportunity to make a peaceful transition, halting the childish machinations to which we are exposed. Many people, 70 million or more, don’t like the fact that Trump lost the election today when the Electoral College gave Biden more than the required 270 votes to become the next president. The nation, its institutions, its democracy, and its image to the world are much more important than one person. President Trump has an opportunity to make things right. If he continues his sociopathic behavior he will damage the nation, his legacy and we will no longer be the shining city on the hill.  

 

It would be nice if we took this opportunity, the interregnum, to smooth a transition to a new four years, a time for unification, for less division, for peaceful activities that will make the world a better place. We have the opportunity to seek our better angels.

 

Wei or Chi, which will it be?

 

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[i] Supreme Court of the United States – Tuesday, December 8, 2020 – Order in Pending Case – Kelly, Mike, ET AL. V. Pennsylvania, ET AL – The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.

[ii] Supreme Court of the United States – Friday, December 11, 2020 – Order in Pending case – Texas V. Pennsylvania, ET AL – The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot. Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U.S. _ (Feb.23, 2020) (Thomas, ]., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.

I Am! … Am I?

 

I’m a liberal-conservative. Or, I might be a conservative-liberal. For context, I grew up in the northeast corner of Vermont when everyone up there professed to be Republican, back when Republicans were Republicans. Generally, Democrats didn’t bother to run for office. I don’t think they wanted people to know they were Democrats. Senator George Aiken, a Republican, got more write-in votes in the Democratic primaries than anyone in that party who actually sought the office, so he ran unopposed in the general election. He served from 1941 and retired as Dean in 1975. (He was replaced by Patrick Leahy, now the Dean of the Senate) He was one of the leaders of the liberal wing of his party and the guiding light for my generation. Even conservative-Republicans were liberal back then compared to the ultra-conservative-Democrats down South. Everyone agrees that our Union needs fixing, they just don’t agree on the fix. Should we take a conservative approach or should we take a liberal approach? The answer is Yes!  

The nation’s economy is near depression levels for most people. The stock market is at all-time highs but nearly 25 million people are still without work. Small businesses are collapsing. The pandemic, responsible for the business downturn, is raging across the country with hardly any national policy or program to mitigate its surge, while large numbers of people still think it is a hoax. The healthcare system is at the breaking point and millions are without insurance due to costs and unemployment. The nation is losing a trade war it started, and our place in the firmament of responsible nations is de minimus. All the while there is a concerted effort to undermine the democratic system by questioning the very process of voting, to the point where nearly a quarter of the people think that the system is rigged, regardless of all evidence to the contrary. We are a nation divided and in trouble.

President-Elect Biden (I hope he’s listening) will feel a tug from all directions, the progressives are already nipping at his heels for being too conservative in his cabinet picks, the moderates think he is too much to the left of center and ethnic and racial groups think that his administration, to date, doesn’t look enough like America. There is a lot to be fixed. He likely knows what needs to be done, but it doesn’t hurt to jog his thinking. As President, he needs to concentrate on the 20% that will fix the 80%. If he allows himself, his cabinet and sub-cabinet to be drawn into daily battle with the tweets of an ex-president that will surely come his way for the next three or four years, he will have wasted his time in office.

Mr. Biden, communicating to the public of a highly divided nation will be difficult. President Trump indicated in the last week that he intends to mount a 2024 campaign, and that he might make it formal during your inauguration. He is very good at controlling the message and creating disruptions. The Democrats may have won the White House but they lost members in the House and, to date, haven’t taken control of the Senate. Communications from the administration must set a new standard for truthfulness, consistency, and relevance.  

Mr. Biden, we can feel it, we can see the results of the economic devastation. We must get the nation working again. Seven-hundred-thousand people apply for unemployment each week. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of families line up each week to receive free food. Children go without food because the schools are closed. Rents and mortgages are due and there is no money in the checking accounts. Millions are without health insurance due to layoffs. Small businesses can’t make payroll. Large corporations seem to be doing well, and highly skilled employees are doing well, but small businesses are stuck in park. Restaurants need to open up again, to employ cooks and waiters, to purchase from local farmers. Barbers need to be able to work, people in manual labor and farm jobs need to work too. Our infrastructure is riddled with potholes, bridges are rusting, our power grid is ancient and subject to hacking, whole segments of the country are without broadband and schools lack the technology needed to teach in the new learning environment. The nation doesn’t need an economic stimulus package as it does an economic lifeboat. Let’s blot out the root cause of the economic decline.

The pandemic is killing people and killing the economy and must be stopped. President Trump made major mistakes in dealing with the pandemic. As a result, a country with 4% of the world’s population has 21.44% of the covid-19 cases and 18.2% of the world’s deaths and climbing.  

Operation WARP SPEED may be an exception to the debacle. Charged with getting an effective vaccine quickly and distributing it quickly, proved what can happen when highly competent people are assigned and allowed to perform without political interference.  Biden needs to convince the nation to follow well-proven public health techniques until the vaccine is widely effective. The quicker he can do that, the quicker we will get folks back to work.

The pandemic blew up our comfortable credence about so many things: our ability to fight pestilence itself, equality across races, economic strength, and the best healthcare system in the world. We weren’t ready or willing! When asked to sacrifice for the good of the whole, nearly half the people led by nearly half the governors said “No.” They were not willing to shelter in place, wear masks, or change life’s patterns. People didn’t trust their government, they were told that the virus was a plot to weaken the President, they were told to ignore science, and too many ignored good advice. Time at the beach and at close quarters in bars was more important than self-sacrifice. The surge continues. Government officials ignored good health practices and citizens wondered why they should bother to alter life’s cadence.  

Mr. Biden, we need to deal with the political division in the country. My liberal side says we ought to get a little conservative about this effort. The Democrats made a mess with their messaging during the campaign and the Republicans took advantage of the flaw. Change is difficult in and of itself, but, when congressional leadership is the poster child for the geriatric set, not much is in the offing.  People sixty years old or older represent only16% of the population, yet septuagenarians- plus rule the Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court.  Fifty-one percent of us are under 40 years old, yet that cohort commands little real power in DC.

 A squad of four thirty-something first term women members of Congress scared the hell out of the leadership of both parties. They became the Republican’s favorite bugaboo for convincing folks that these women would lead the country toward socialism. The young voters of the country, a growing number of new voters, by the way, don’t consider most of the progressive ideas very controversial or even that progressive. Healing a divided nation is all the more difficult when a soon to be ex-president has spent a lifetime demonizing people and creating division among people, even to the point of mocking democracy itself, by denying the validity of the voting process, ignoring traditional institutions, and refusing to concede a lost election. Howard Dean opined, “What’s going on is just shocking. We’re in serious trouble when you abandon the rule of law as a democracy, your democracy is gone. And it’s going to be gone before people realize it if we don’t turn this thing around.”[i] This is the opinion of a liberal politician, but a conservative politician could say the same thing and be correct. Though difficult to do, but not impossible, we need to bring both conversations together into a dialogue aimed a bettering the country and fixing its political ills. Both groups need to fix our democracy which has been torn asunder.

Mr. Biden, we need to fix the healthcare system. The pandemic illustrates vividly the different levels of care available to Americans. Unlike most of the industrialized world, the quality of our healthcare depends on our economic status. It is inhumane for anyone to be denied good medical care because of the size of his or her W2. The administration has to find a way to communicate that healthcare and health insurance are two different things. If they all agree that everyone, everyone, should have good basic healthcare, we can find a way to pay for it. Other countries can do it, why can’t we?

The national stockpile of protective equipment and medical supply requirements was underfunded by several past administrations. Let’s not blame Trump for that. When we needed it, it wasn’t there. As a result, at the start of the pandemic, states had to compete with each other, the federal government, and the rest of the world for basic face masks and other PPEs and ventilators to keep people alive. There is no excuse for the richest nation on earth not to have enough supplies spread across the continent for easy access. Most PPE is manufactured in other countries who want to keep the products for their own people when emergencies arise. The new administration must ensure that we manufacture emergency goods in the US using US companies.

Mr. Biden, we need to repair our standing in the international arena. The “America First” dogma wreaked havoc with our standing in the firmament of nations. Technology made the world smaller and more interdependent. Most nations want trusted allies. When there is an absence of trust[ii] among nations, they like any organization or group will begin to ignore former allies and not include them in group decision-making. We have seen this happen in the last few years, where Europe and China have new trade deals, where European countries are working closely together to squelch the Russian appetite for dominance and renewed hegemony over its previous empire. Our Constitution tells us that the supreme law of the land is our constitution, our laws, and our treaties. When we enter into a treaty with other countries, it is not an individual president who is making the agreement, but our country. When approved by two-thirds of the members of congress, the treaty has the same weight as any other law. We must renew our support for major treaties to which we have agreed. We need to support NATO, we need to support the Paris agreement on climate and we need to stop the tariff war which is raising prices in our stores and losing markets for our own manufacturers and farmers.

Mr. Biden, you can renew the nation if you concentrate on the important issues. Bring back our economy by ending the pandemic. Bring back our standing in the world by renewing our Democracy and rejoining the allied nations of the world. Bring back a united nation; make us one from many, Let ideas percolate and ideologies wither. Bring back decisions based on facts and science and not personal aggrandizement. If you do these things it won’t matter if you are a conservative-liberal or a liberal-conservative. We will be America again.

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[i] Howard Dean, VTDigger podcast: The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman, November 2020

[ii] Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of Teams, Jossey-Bass, NYC 2002