Hate!

 I hate America!

I didn’t know that until a few weeks ago. I didn’t come to it on my own, the Speaker of the House told me… I wasn’t singled out, mind you. It runs in the family, all four generations. Lots of my neighbors and nearly eight million others got the message at the same time. Speaker Mike Johnson told us that anyone who participated in a No Kings protest hated America. And you know me; I thought it was the other way around.

I don’t follow AOC on Instagram or Facebook; she is a bit progressive, you know, but she noted recently that calling someone who disagrees with your position on an issue un-American is the very definition of un-American.

On the other side, a young man slain for his beliefs, Charlie Kirk, garners thousands of chapters for his Turning Point organization that, in the name of saving democracy, spews views that are the antithesis of what America should represent.

A lot of what constitutes the new good is the opposite of what has defined America for generations. Affirmative Action is once again considered discrimination against white folks. A good education is no longer considered a worthwhile goal because we need more tradespeople. Why can’t we have both? Evangelical Nationalism, a growing segment of Christianity preaches the opposite of Christianity, calling us to turn to a theocracy instead of our tradition of advocating for the free exercise of any religion.

I’m registered as “No Party Preference.” I can speak out of both sides of my mouth. I’m usually just a bit left of center, but not enough to be called a leftie. I’m worried about our democracy. I’m told I shouldn’t worry about it; it’s what older folks do. Nobody cares, really. Worry about the important things, the pundits say, affordability, the new buzzword.

The recent government shutdown illustrates the dichotomy weaving its way through the country. While millions are worried about the price of health insurance, the lack of healthcare, and the price of food, other millions are worried about maintaining power and crumbling all the institutions that seem to be bothering them: universities, education in general, safety nets for the less fortunate, libraries, science research, gold-standard economic reporting, and even classic architecture. Have you noticed what they have done to desecrate the Oval Office and the White House in general?

The younger members of the Democratic Party are calling for new leadership. Those in their seventies and eighties have lost control of the narrative and ability to lead. They had the wind at their backs during the shutdown and blew it. They fought for affordability and gave in to easier flying schedules. They are a party with no discipline and no cohesive or catchy message aimed at the younger generations, arm wrestling against a supercharged and highly organized party of zealots.

The national movement to return to an affordable but democratic nation has begun. Prodded by young people and supported by folks of all ages, the nation is starting to awaken to the travesty thrust upon them in the last several months.

The first nationwide No Kings rallies a couple of years ago attracted only a few million people. The rallies last June attracted about five million people. The protests in October attracted more than seven million people.

Erica Chenoweth, a distinguished professor at Harvard, has studied the history of anti-authoritarian movements around the globe. She found that movements that achieved their goal usually represented three and a half percent of the population of the country. That is a lot of people. If the trend continues, twelve million Americans protesting against the current regime isn’t hard to imagine.

If you are a pessimist, the chances of success for No Kings are slim to none. An optimist thinks it’s possible with a little effort. It will take a lot of effort, but worth a try. But it will fail if it doesn’t bring forth a highly respected national leader.

Today, it has an organizer, Indivisibles’ Ezra Levin, but no leader. The civil rights movement had MLK. The current effort to restore our democracy needs a national leader who can rally the populists to do what is needed and what is right.

How do we know when we are in trouble?

When a nation sends its army against its own citizens, democracy is lost. When a nation sends masked secret police against its people, democracy fades. When national leaders turn the Department of Justice into a personal law firm to prosecute political enemies, democracy is done. When a nation tries to tell its universities what to teach and how to teach it, democracy is history. America was once the model of a modern democracy. Why did we let it lose its way?

We are told that it is always the economy that drives people’s feelings and their votes. Recent elections around the country tell a mixed story. The people of the State of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Virginia elected Democratic governors. They both ran on an economic agenda, but the President’s agenda was on the ballot as well.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania returned three justices to its Supreme Court despite the opposition of the President. The Vice President’s brother lost an election in the very red State of Ohio.

The most interesting election to me was California’s Proposition 50, which reconfigures its congressional districts to offset the redistricting efforts in Texas. Not one person was on the ballot, and economics wasn’t on the ballot; it was all about the future of democracy. It garnered sixty-four percent approval from the voters. That is what a mandate looks like. Why did millions turn out to vote on one issue? Because the President had asked the State of Texas to Gerrymander their congressional district to make it easier to elect five more Republicans to Congress. When California retaliated by designing districts that would likely elect five more Democrats to Congress, the President instructed the Department of Justice to sue the state because it was an unfair tampering with the system; audacious is an understatement.

One must ask if a few elections in blue states equate to a national repudiation of the current administration’s efforts to undo our democratic processes. Maybe not. But all long marches begin with the first step.

It could also be a wake-up call for the administration. It might just let them know that their methods for achieving their economic and cultural objectives are just too severe, or just not the way we customarily do things. Masked men whisking people off the streets into unmarked cars is not the American way. It is the way of Russia and Hungary, or earlier, Chile, or Argentina. We have an annoying history of insisting on due process, even for hardened criminals.

It could be a reminder that government officials who take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution ought to follow its provisions.

But we know that this administration has no intention of protecting and defending the Constitution. They told us during the campaign that they would implement the Project 25 programs. It was a nine-hundred-page outline for changing the country from three equal branches of government to a country with a strong executive branch. It was a plan for increasing the power of oligarchs and moving us toward autocracy with a strong military dispersed among the citizenry. If it succeeds, the country is lost. If it succeeds even a little, we will not see our greatness again.

 

I don’t hate America, but I am concerned about the current state of affairs. Nobody runs for office with the promise to change nothing,  but change must be done within the norms of our longstanding institutions and culture. But people should not live in fear. Parents should not be afraid that when they send their kids to school, they may never see them again. People who follow the rules and go to the immigration office as scheduled should not be deported for following the law. Our police services, who pride themselves on serving and protecting themselves should not be forced to wear masks and walk the streets with weapons of war. Members of Congress should not be prevented from performing their oversight duties at detention centers. I don’t hate America; I just want it to be America again.

 

Taking Back!

 Someone once said that writing is easy; finding the right words is hard. I’ve struggled with that most of this year.

I’ve written a lot of first paragraphs. Then something else sets me off. I write a new first paragraph on a different subject, and something else sets me off. I seldom get to the second paragraph.

If you can’t guess what and who is setting me off, you haven’t been paying attention.

Project 2025 called for as many massive disruptions to the government as possible, as quickly as possible. The strategy was to overwhelm the legislature, the press, citizens, and foreign allies. It is working, and that isn’t a good thing for the country, its citizens, or the world.

Where to start? 

My current lament is with three interknitted areas: Democracy, Government, and the Presidency.

We have done a reasonable job of being a democratic republic for nearly twenty-five decades. There were some not-so-good times, but we try to make the Union more perfect, even if it often takes too long to right the wrongs.

Democracies, by their nature, are not efficient forms of government; they are meant to be messy. They require constant discussion, forever disagreements, and the best-for-now compromises. The current administration doesn’t believe that axiom, and I’m not sure the out-party does either.

The current poohbah thinks he has the right to govern by fiat, executive decree. His minions do whatever they can to strengthen the role of the executive to the detriment of the legislative and judicial branches.

The Founders were afraid of such a strong leader. After all, they had just won a revolution that ousted a king. They didn’t want another one. We go back once again to Madison, who tells us in The Federalist, No. 47, that “ The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” 

Let us consider the purpose of our government. We all learned and maybe memorized the words, “…to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity …” To accomplish these great aims, Article I of the Constitution gives  the power to make laws and the power of the purse strings to the legislature. Article II instructed the President to execute those laws and spend the money as instructed. With few exceptions, a president doesn’t have the authority to spend money as s/he wishes or make laws by decree. S/He doesn’t have the power to dissolve government departments established by Congress.

It is a simple concept - the government is designed to provide services to the people. Providing for the general welfare includes having a strong public health component. It is responsible for the military to protect the nation. It should bolster the educational strength of the nation, preserve our natural resources and national parks for the pleasure of its citizens. It ensures a wide separation between religions and the state. It encourages basic scientific research, supports the arts. It encourages these institutions. It doesn’t tear them down or tear them apart. The current administration doesn’t believe that axiom.

Many of the Founders warned against strong political parties. But those that governed from the middle have been a strength for our democracy. They generally limit the ambitions of those who want to lead from the edge of the ideological wings. Calvin Coolidge told us that “It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man.” We miss that humility today and suffer the consequences.

While I tend to lean just a tad to the left of center, I’m registered as “No Party Preference,” but I’m wondering if that designation really fits my mood today. I might be a Libertarian for all I know, or even an Independent. The lack of a party affiliation allows me to put “a plague on both their houses,” without guilt.

The Republican Party began its takeover of the nation decades ago, mostly under the radar. They built strong alliances at the county and state levels, where election districts are formed and local laws enacted.

Donald Trump used the party to gain his first term, took over the party with threats of primary challenges for those who didn’t agree with him, accumulated successful oligarchs willing to bend a knee to change power structures in their favor, and smartly identified the angst of the middle class in the heartland who disliked the changing culture and that of the skilled tradesperson who had lost their jobs to other countries. He expertly attracted those who feared their white advantage was ebbing, to the point of carrying guns to a Capitol incursion.

All the while, the Democrat Party smothered its best and brightest in ideological quagmires that required fidelity to positions that never became vote-getting messages. They became the party of the university faculty lounge, the city elites, and the tech workforce. They forgot the farmer, the small business owner, the ones losing jobs to higher-skilled young people. They ran on issues the populist didn’t think affected them, and didn’t raise up the issues that did. The degree of loss at the Electoral College level devastated them to the point that five months later, they still couldn’t identify a leader or a message to take to the voters. They have cowered at meeting constituents in public; too scary for them.

So we are living in a dystopian era governed by a near cultlike group that tears at the strings of our institutions to unravel the very fabric of the nation only to be countered by a floundering opposition party that doesn’t know what to make of itself, whose ancient leaders won’t invite the younger crowd to the table or knows how to reclaim a vestige of recognition among the electorate.

So what are we going to do?

The saving grace seems to be the millions of people who are taking to the streets to protest the tearing apart of the government that they witness daily. It seems there is a big difference between voting for change and seeing destruction. The rise is an effort to remind those who support autocratic and oligarchic style government that, in the end, this is a country of and for We The People.

The Democrats don’t control any branch of the government, so they must rely on the people to rise up and for the judiciary to do its job. The opposition is filing one case after another each day that questions the legal authority of the president’s actions. They are winning most of them. Many cases are already at the appellate level. From there, they will move to the Supreme Court for final determination. Many of the administration’s actions are designed specifically to evaluate the limits of presidential power and seem to assume that SCOTUS will validate their efforts.

But we have this annoying thing called the Constitution, designed to rein in the bad actors in the executive branch and bad laws drawn in the legislative branch. Marbury v. Madison told us that the Constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says. Its power is derived from the willingness of the people to follow its rulings. It doesn’t have an army. But …

If SCOTUS hands down a decision and the executive branch doesn’t obey it, we will have lost our democracy for sure and may never reclaim it. That is a bridge too far, but the first months of the current administration have caused an upheaval unlike any since the days of Andrew Jackson or the Civil War. They want to test the limits of presidential power.

For the generations who lived with the notion that you get up in the morning to face the world and make it better, their ideals are being destroyed before their eyes. 

Where to start?

 Lawmakers listen to their constituents. Let’s make sure that we are heard. They will listen –

·         Especially if they are in the streets. That’s how the civil rights movement succeeded. That is how we can save our democracy.

·         We can pressure the legislature and the administration to change their methods. That involves demanding change and attending town hall meetings with Members of Congress.

·         We can pressure our aged leaders to give the reins to those who can relate to the younger generation’s needs.

·         We can demand that leaders are active on the social media that younger folks use.

·         We can insist that members of Congress hold live Town Halls.

·         We can fill the Letters section of newspapers, digital or pulp, with information about our aims.

·         We can attend opposition rallies.

·         We can  gather in small groups to keep like-minded folks informed and to gin up enthusiasm for action.

 

We the people haven’t been in the streets since the sixties and seventies. Most have forgotten how to do it, and at least two generations have never experienced rising up to demand better from our government for our nation. It will be a steep learning curve, but we can’t let the destruction continue much longer. Nor can we allow the destruction of our economy and the world order to continue.

 

 

 

Counting Votes!

 Conundrums present themselves when you least want them. The unexpected ones are the worst. Even worse are those whose answers are an enigma. It is frustrating to hear arguments against something when there shouldn’t be arguments against it.

Last week we saw Exhibit One of this thinking when the U.S. Senate voted against a bill to halt the destruction of voting rights that is sweeping the country. Free and fair elections are no longer the hallmark of the “greatest democracy on Earth.” Senators actually debated the idea and decided that we don’t need them anymore.

In States across the country, state legislatures are enacting laws to dampen the ability of citizens to cast their votes in an easy and orderly fashion. The argument goes something like this: the 2020 presidential election was stolen from the rightful winner for reasons unsupported by facts. In many states the “powers that be” adjusted voting practices to accommodate the vagaries of the COVID pandemic. Voting by mail was encouraged, early voting was encouraged, and ballot drop boxes were added to make voting easier. Even before voting began there was a drumbeat from the White House that voting by mail was a way to steal the election and that the only way the President could lose was if the voting system was rigged.

Some states counted their ballots as many as three times. State legislatures appointed partisan investigators (Cyber Ninja was one) to recount the ballots, to ensure that the voting machines were operating properly and that no foreign government was interfering with the voting process.

No voter fraud was identified, the ballot counting had been accurate, the machines operated properly, and foreign governments didn’t interfere with the elections. So, state legislatures are passing bills to ensure that what never happened never happens again. In addition, some states are enacting laws that let the legislature change the election results if they have the slightest inkling that there was a “steal.”

The belief in a stolen election ignited the fuse that rocketed people up the stairs of our temple of democracy on January 6, 2021. The percentage of Republicans who believe that the election was stolen is higher today than a year ago, 70%. The “Big Lie” has traction.

“That in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility: because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily, and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie … It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have  the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”[i]

There was some fraud after the election, however. In five states people posing as Electors signed nearly identical certificates of election, naming Trump and Pence as the winners in their states and sent them to the national archives, insisting that they be counted by the Congress. Some senators even objected to counting the real certificates. The Vice President had to change the usual words of acceptance to ensure that the real certificates were counted.

Democracy, unlike other forms of government, relies on people believing in the concept and supporting the institutions that bind us. The concept of fair elections was a given, we took it for granted that it would always be there, that it is in our DNA. Maybe not so much anymore.

A wide divide between political parties is a risk to our way of life. When average citizens express a strong belief that the voting system is corrupt, we are on the verge of serious disunity and even breakup. There are a number of actions in the political arena that we can disagree about, some serious and some, well, just political. The one thing that bound us for more than two centuries was our belief that we could vote and that our vote would be counted and that would determine the winners and losers.

The idea of rigged elections is now a major strategy for creating doubt about the election process. In a mid-January special election in the Palm Beach, FL district, Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick, a Democrat, won 78% of the votes. The Republican candidate refused to concede because the vote may have been tainted.

Voting should be an easy four-step process: registration, voting, counting the votes and declaring a winner. Each of those steps should be easy steps. In our state, when a teenager applies for a driver's license they are automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 years old. When there is an election, each registered voter receives a ballot in the mail. When they have voted, they mail it back or drop it off at secure locations. On Election Day the votes are counted, the winners jubilate and the losers congratulate. Done.

Anything more complicated than that is an infringement on the democratic process.

 

 

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[i] Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925

Not Only in Denmark

Oh, that we had a modern-day Marcellus who could tell a modern-day Horatio that there is something rotten, but not only in the State of Denmark![i]  Following the ghost of a democracy that once was is not farfetched. It is happening across the globe, but frankly, I’m most concerned about our own experiment with a republic. Too pessimistic some might say; it isn’t as bad as you are making it out to be. Maybe my glass is half empty but it was at least half full not too long ago.

It is often said, and I’ve said it often, that democracy is fragile. It relies on faith in its institutions. They are what bind people together, they create an ethos, which says what we are about. Tear down the institutions that sustain us and you lay siege to the democracy.  

So what creates the dither, the doom, and gloom? It doesn’t start with the last election, but that is a good place to start. Think about a normal election cycle: candidates campaign, voters vote, civil servants count the ballots and announce the results; The loser concedes and pledges to help the winner make a go of it; The winner thanks the opponent for running a hard campaign. Then voters go about their lives until the next election. They have faith in one of our most sacred institutions.

A recent CNN poll, reported in Forbes,[ii] noted that 46% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans believe that our democracy is under attack. The drawback to a counterattack is that they can only agree that it is the other party’s fault. One party will tell you that they are doing their level best to ensure that future elections are fraud-free. The other party will tell you that all of the fixes will reduce voter turnout and make it difficult for anyone to vote: a power grab. More importantly, it is an ongoing effort to reduce people’s faith in the voting process, the institution.

I can’t get all worked up about voters needing a photo ID when they vote. When politicians tell you that people should not have to show that they can legally vote, they too are creating distrust in the electoral process. What I do get worked up about, however, are bills working their way through state legislatures that give them the power to overturn, invalidate, voting results that they don’t like. Over 50% of voters believe they will live to see a free election reversed by a state legislature. [iii] The rot grows.

Today, regardless of the facts, the majority of Republicans believe Trump won the election and that Biden is not the legitimate president. The divide is so wide and deep that thousands of followers gathered in Dallas a couple of weeks ago, flags waving and placards raised, waiting for the arrival of JFK Jr. (in hiding for the last twenty-plus years, not dead from an airplane crash in the ocean?) to help Trump take back the White House. He didn’t arrive. Last week they gathered once again to experience disappointment. The rot grows.

We and the rest of the world are experiencing a serious virus with new mutations coming quickly. Over 775,000 Americans have died from the Covid virus and the number grows each day. The previous administration’s program, Warp Speed, allowed for big Pharma to complete research, test, and bring to market very effective vaccines to mitigate the virus. The nation called on its citizens to follow well-tested and proven health care practices to reduce the spread. Simple things were suggested, wash our hands often, don’t get too close to others, wear a mask. Then when the vaccines became available, they urged us to get vaccinated. This is not rocket science, and it isn’t politics. It’s called doing our duty as citizens.  But too many resisted the call for national unity, for any number of reasons, and the virus rolls on, killing more and more each week. Many leaders encouraged people to get the vaccine but other influencers mounted campaigns to convince people that the vaccines contained microchips that would allow the government to track your every move or change your personality. People believed them. The rot grows.

A friend, in a recent sermon, referenced Pope Francis who wrote that we are experiencing a loss of “Common.”[iv] We have become a nation of “Me.” The virus crisis brought that to bear as people repulsed normal health practices by claiming that it was their right to decide if they wanted a vaccine and not the government’s role to mandate it. That makes good sound bites for the evening news, but it is not good public health practice. I hurried to get vaccinated as soon as it was available. But I confess that I got it to prevent me from getting the virus, without once thinking that I should get the “jab” so that I could protect other people. I too had forgotten the “Common.” The loss of “Common” is so widespread that the rot grows exponentially.

Congress recently passed an infrastructure bill, but along party lines for the most part. Those few Republican senators who voted for the bill were vilified by the party base because they allowed the other party a win; a win that was virtually the same as they had proposed when they controlled the Senate. Party loyalty is more important than the common good.

It is trite, I suppose, to quote Franklin continually, but he did say that we have a republic if we can keep it. It is also trite, I suppose, to cite the fall of Rome, a democracy that couldn’t keep itself on track after only 200 years or so.[v] Volumes of tomes tell about the city’s huge expenditures on the military, political intrigue, and ineffective government structure, and a rise in populism.  They too had rot.

Alexander Tytler, a Scottish historian, is an oft-referenced commentator about democracy. He proffered that democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. He suggested that democracies go through five stages: bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence to bondage.[vi] His writings, though written while the U.S. was being formed, were more accurate than we might want them to be. Projections, while usually wild guesses, sometimes prove accurate. Tytler said that democracy can only “exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury … the result is that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, followed by a dictatorship.”

 

Too much similarity to today’s America? Are we working our way from apathy to dependence or dependence to bondage?  It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? We experience armed civilians storming the streets and the capitol at the same time that members of Congress try to pass a bill that shovels money, largess, to everyone who might be in need. Somewhere in the mix, one can conclude that there will be too much rot.

 

Dear Marcellus, it’s not just in the State of Denmark!

   

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[i] W. Shakespeare – Hamlet, Act I, Scene iv -  “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark”

[ii] Andrew Solender – Forbes – September 15, 2021

[iii] Ibid                                            

[iv] Francis – Laudato Si, May 24, 2015

[v] Edward Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, 6 volumes, 1776-1789, Strahand & Cadell, London. While I would not claim to have read Gibbon’s six volumes, it is hard to get through much history without at least a glance at the library shelf and references in other history books.

[vi] Alexander Fraser Tytler, 1747-1813 – Universal History, Vol II – Tytler was a

 

Cognition?

I don’t know Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, but I’ve seen him on television news programs and Sunday-morning talk shows. He seems like a nice enough guy, but I seldom agree with his positions, on any subject. In a recent interview, however, he suggested that all older people in government leadership positions should submit to annual cognitive tests. The Senator is a medical doctor so that gives him some street cred. He is a gastroenterologist, which makes his gut feelings more valid than his musings about brain drain. But I think he is on to something. 

The Senator pointed out that we are a country led by old people. The President is 78 years old and the former President is 75 years old. The Speaker is 81 years old; the Senate Minority Leader is 79 years old, the Majority Leader is70 years old. Only 30 senators are under 60 years of age, only one is under 40 years of age. This is the oldest Senate in the history of the country. In the House 109 members are under 50 years of age; 30 are under 40 years of age. Depending on one’s party of choice, I suppose, the former president and/or the current president both exhibit cognitive problems.   

Just for comparison purposes, consider the following: in 1776 Jefferson was 33 years old, James Madison 25, Hamilton 21, Aaron Burr 20, and John Jay 29 years old. They go things done. They were on to something! 

The census bureau tells us that the average American is 38.5 years old. Why is a country of relatively young people led by septuagenarians and octogenarians? Where are the young leaders who can revive the national spirit? Where are the dreamers who see another Camelot as a real possibility? It’s been done before, so why not now? 

Teddy Roosevelt was 42 years old when he became President. John Kennedy was 43 years old on his Inauguration Day. A president is typically 55 years old upon taking office. I often suggested, in jest, that no one over the age of 45 should run for office. Now, I think I’m on to something. 

What if we amend the Constitution so that no one may run for president who will be over 45 years old on day one! I know, I know, constitutional amendments are hard to come by, so let’s just institutionalize it, make it part of our “American Way of Life.” 

An old axiom says that the military always trains for the last war. Politicians, it seems to me, want to take us back to the last three or four decades, to bygone eras. “Make America Great Again” and “Build Back Better” are just two examples. Why don’t we elect people who reach for the brass ring, and who want to take the speed governor off the merry-go-round of life? The 88-year-old senator from Iowa just announced that he will seek another six-year term. Why do we continue to elect people who can’t be effective anymore? The old-people cohort continues to grow each year and doesn’t seem to want any change, with a few notable exceptions. What if we elected young visionaries?  What if we, WE, wanted new? 

David Gergen served four presidents: Nixon, Ford, Bush, and Clinton. He knows what it takes to run a government, to motivate a populace, to inspire. In his new book Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made, he suggests that “One of America’s best hopes for the future is to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders – young people with fresh vision, a passion for change and a fierce dedication to progress.” I think he is on to something! 

Change doesn’t come easily to a nation as insular as ours is. Our institutions give credence and power to our elders. We characterize young movers and shakers as progressive, in a pejorative way. We put too much credence in the notion that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I think it was Tom Peters who advises that if it works it’s obsolete.  NASA isn’t reaching for the stars anymore. They leave it to younger entrepreneurs who take people on joy rides into space. The old folks aren’t pushing for improved transportation systems. China has 23,000 miles of track for trains that travel at almost 300 miles an hour. France has 1,675 miles of track for the TGV, Italy 1,467 miles of track for the Alta Volocita. The US has 33 miles of track on which the engines might get up to 150 miles an hour. Why aren’t we building a train system that can cross the country at 300 miles per hour? Is it possible that our elders have turned us into a country that doesn’t dream anymore, that doesn’t risk greatness, that can’t even agree to fix the roads and bridges; that won’t support basic health care for everyone or that won’t even save itself from a killer pandemic? We aren’t third-world, but we may be slipping out of first-world. We can’t let that happen. 

I’ve heard said that the country is safest when Congress isn’t in session. I suppose that applies to city councils, county supervisors, school boards, and library trustees as well. All of these ruling bodies are, stereotypically, warm seats for the older folks who run for office year after eons of years. It makes a strong argument for term limits. 

Looking in the rearview mirror sometimes points to the failures of an electoral system populated by people on their way to octogenarian status. They fight so hard to stay in office that they don’t govern. Half the population devotes itself to keeping the other half from winning, frustration builds and people elect other old people who are afraid to govern. Are we really afraid of change? We could use some new blood in the Halls. 

Being in your 70s and 80s is hard work, in and of itself. Ask me! Adding the burden of governing in a world whose technology is moving so quickly that it is hard to understand is asking too much of older people. It does, however, make good fodder for SNL each weekend. The younger generation gets it. 

Try to pawn off a file cabinet to 20-year-olds and watch their reactions – why would anyone need a file cabinet, there is a cloud you know. Even the FED can’t figure out how to regulate cryptocurrency in a period when other countries are planning to stop using currency altogether. altogether. 

The younger generations are asking for good healthcare, family care, better and less expensive education, and good working conditions. They learned in the pandemic, the lucky ones at least, that work doesn’t have to be what it was; why commute to an office to work on a computer when you can work on a computer at home. Essential workers are demanding better pay and an end to overbearing production quotas. Young people want to invest in the planet, to be less militaristic in our approach to world affairs, to be congenial with our allies, and at least polite to our adversaries. They want the country they know it can be. They aren’t naïve, and I think they are on to something! 

America needs a revolution, not a violent one, but one that returns us to be the dreamers we once were, to a willingness to strive for common values, and to be repulsed by hate and division. Is that hoping for a return to what was? Maybe, but for the young people who should be yearning to lead us, that would be new. They have lived through the result of old people leading them and it is time for a change. 

It is hard to imagine, but I find myself agreeing with an ultra-conservative senator from an ultra-conservative state; just this once mind you. So yes, if you are over 55 years old please don’t run for office, but if you do, be willing to submit to an annual cognition test. We are really on to something! 

Written at age 82 years, a bunch of months, a few days, and … heck, I can’t remember.