It's That Time of Year!

 Everyone is telling you to be of good cheer. I’m trying. Before I forget, Merry Christmas.

And then there is Bah Humbug all around us. In a national address to the nation the other evening, the President told us that we had never had it so good. He told us we had the best economy in our history, and he implied that he might be a greater president than, well, Abraham Lincoln. And yet.

Our leader is an expert at the big story. It’s a standard strategy for those in power and those seeking power: tell the big lie because they are more likely to believe it than the small stories you could tell. So it is not unreasonable to think that a whole lot of people believe what they hear coming out of the White House.

The White House. Now there is something to be upset about. The home and office of the president are supposed to be simple, not grand like the palaces of Europe. We are a democracy, not a kingdom. Remember?

The Oval Office, that sacred ground of American power and grand simplicity, has been destroyed to the level of heresy. The desecration has reduced it to just another room. The mystic is gone. The symbol of world power looks like a decorator with no taste was let loose. It is gaudy, it is cliché, it is ugly. It proves money doesn’t buy class. It is embarrassing. 

The East Wing brings new fury, ripped from its connection to the White House. For what? For a ballroom bigger than the rest of the building, out of proportion to the rest of the site. It will take months to tear it down, if it ever gets built, after The Don leaves office. Could the place use a ballroom? Sure, but in proportion and without the glitz.

But back to the economy and stuff. If things are as good as we are told, why is the country in such a funk? We know that we have a pretty strong economy, but not the greatest. The polls are pretty much in agreement. The President’s numbers are in the toilet. Poll after poll indicates that the folks don’t think he is doing a good job managing the economy, the European war, the state of manufacturing, and most other issues. He does get reasonable marks for his efforts to reduce illegal immigration and close the border, but people don’t like how he is doing it.

We are not a country that sends masked men to pull people off the street and whisk them away in unmarked cars. We don’t put people on planes and send them to countries that will jail them for no reason. But we are becoming that kind of country.

Christmas letters are supposed to be uplifting, but too much is changing for the worse to be bright and shiny. We are paying too much for food, for gas, for entertainment, for basics like water and home energy. Too many will start the year with health insurance they can’t afford or no insurance at all. That is when the ER becomes the primary care provider, and our rates increase to pay for it.

There are three more years of this craziness before a term limit kicks in. My positive side says we will survive this. We survived the Civil War. We survived Teapot Dome. We survived other threats to democracy. We beat fascism in Europe, and we beat the Empire of Japan’s threat in Asia. We survived McCarthyism.

We can replace the new signs on the Kennedy Center and other buildings in DC. We can, with time, remove the Amazon-grade glitz from the Oval Office and the rest of the White House.

Based on what has happened this year, I shudder to think of what could happen in the next three. But there is hope for a better tomorrow. There has to be.

We still have great universities that are the envy of the world. We have local people trying every day to make their communities better and safer. We have millions of people in the streets across the country protesting the destruction of our institutions. When the people rise up, the people win. People can only wield power when we let them. So there is hope.

Let’s make our hope a positive force to help our democracy survive. Knowing we can do it gives me a much-needed brighter outlook as we end one year and begin another.

 

Happy New Year!!!

 

 

It's Official!

Taylor Swift has spoken. A few minutes after the presidential debate last week. the most famous diva of our time, the headliner of The Eras Tour, posted her endorsement of Harris for President. It included a picture of herself with a cat – The Childless Cat Lady. Thankfully, her tour doesn’t take her to Springfield, Ohio. J.D. Vance says cats and dogs don’t stand a chance in that town. Anyway, it’s official now. The candidates can begin the campaign.

Does Swift’s endorsement really have an effect on the electorate? That depends to whom you speak. She has 284 million followers on X. Four hundred thousand responded positively within one hour of her posting. The November vote count will tell us.

The debate was a runaway win for Harris, but Trump thought it was his best debate. One wonders if it will have any effect on the final vote count. It is possible both candidates made some inroads with the undecided voters of the country, although only a little movement, based on network interviews just after the debate. So why bother?

The 2020 election was decided by less than one hundred thousand votes. Some pundits suggest that it will be even closer this year. That means the election comes down to a few precincts in a few states. All of the polls are within the margin of error.

Pope Francis said recently that we should do two things – vote and vote for the candidate we think is the lesser of two evils. That doesn’t give a lot of people a lot of comfort. He spoke from the point of view of the leader of the world’s largest Christian denomination and as an Argentinian, which gives him a different perspective on U.S. politics. So what are we to do?

Most voters believe they have an easy decision; nearly fifty percent want Trump again and nearly fifty percent want Harris. Half of the voters will be disappointed with the results. The candidates represent two different views of America. One wants to go back to a time when rural life and conservative values permeated the nation; the other wants to move forward to a more perfect union. One has been remarkably successful as the stormtrooper for those who consider themselves the forgotten, the passed-over, the regular folks. The other is seen as the representative of the coastal elites. Two things are true about those thoughts: only 17 percent of the U.S. population live in non-urban areas so their needs are often forgotten or unrecognized by the 50 percent who live within fifty miles of the coasts and/or the 83 percent who live in urban areas.

So it is going to be a close call. The emotions are high. Because we are a democracy we are subjected to contrary views every day, and that is ok. What I don’t like is the obvious way in which many in the Republican Party are buying into the lies spewed by many of the former president’s surrogates and the conspiracy theories that abound. Millions are convinced that undocumented immigrants are voting in big numbers and they support new laws to keep them from voting. It is illegal in every state for a non-citizen to vote and there is no evidence of undocumented immigrants voting. Some states are creating new procedures for reviewing all votes before the results are certified based on lies about fake votes and illegal voters. It goes on.

The election should be about the character of the candidates. Trump doesn’t meet the high bar required of a president. He didn’t the first time and he doesn’t now. Did I mention that he was a convicted felon awaiting sentencing and trial for another 30-plus felony indictments?

The election should be about policies and programs. Trump’s former staff, hundreds of them, helped the Heritage Fund write Project 2025, a 900-page plan to tear down our democracy and replace it with a strong autocratic form of government. Trump has demonstrated his willingness to favor the rich over the poor in tax codes and safety-net programs. He doesn’t measure up to the needs of the nation.

The election should be about the Constitution. Trump said he would ignore the sacred document on his first day in office. He has said that he would use the military to quell protests, which is against the law. He has demonstrated that he is unwilling to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. He showed that on January 6, 2020. He demonstrated that by his friendship with the dictators of North Korea, Russia, and Hungary to name a few, all known enemies of America or its institutions. He hasn’t met the high bar required of a president.

Kamala Harris has demonstrated a willingness to support the Constitution, to fight for the middle class, to disrupt our trek to oligarchy, and protect our civil rights. She may not be the perfect candidate but she seems to be honest and focused on more than the upper one percent of the population.

What are we to do?

First, we must vote. That is what a democracy is all about. In his book On Tyranny, Yale professor Timothy Snyder references a hero in a David Lodge novel who says that you don’t know when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that. Consider the Germans who elected an autocratic government who then started WW II. Consider the Czechs and Slovaks elected an autocratic Tito, or the Russians who continued to elect an autocratic leader. Even if we are unhappy with our current state of affairs, we must vote to protect our democracy, to prevent the destruction of our institutions. We may not all agree on how to do those things, but we know that those who don’t vote allow bad leaders to win.

But, we have a choice. If we want to keep  America great, if we want to preserve our democracy, if we want to write a new chapter for our country, and if we want to ensure that it is not the last vote, or the next to the last vote, the choice seems easy to make. Vote for Harris.

 

We Have A Choice

 The conventions are over! We have the candidates. In early November we should know who won the election for the most important job in the world. How so? The President of the U.S.A. is the leader of the first democratic country in the world, the most powerful country in the world, and the most relied upon country to help keep the world peace.

The first duty a President assumes, no matter the political party is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is the sacred oath that they take. They don’t take an oath to a god, they don’t take an oath to support a person, but they do take an oath to support the Constitution. It is their job to protect our democracy and in this age to ensure that a democratic form of government delivers for the people.

The nationalist populism movement is afoot across the globe and many in the U.S. have been sucked into its beliefs. Populism contains two primary claims: “True people” are locked into conflict with outsiders, including establishment elites, and nothing should constrain the will of the “true” people.[i] Nationalist movements generally fall into three groups: anti-establishment, socio-economic, and cultural. We see the Nationalism movement led by Viktor Orban in Hungary, Recep Erdogan in Türkiye, Donald Trump’s MAGA movement in the U.S., and Evo Morales in Bolivia, to name a few. Just last June, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party won enough seats in the Parliament to make a coalition government almost impossible. On September 1, the far-right Alternative Fur Deutschland Party won an election in the eastern states, the first time since the Nazis were ousted at the end of WWII. Nationalist Populism is a direct confrontation with our Constitution. But, because it is a worldwide movement and because MAGA has so many adherents in the U.S., we easily could lose our democracy and be subjected to an authoritarian administration that we elected, just as the Germans did in the 1930s. We expect our president to push back on these movements.

The second job of the President is to preserve and defend our alliances designed to keep the world at peace, and to fight against attempts of one country to invade others.

After World War II the U.S. led an effort to create the United Nations and NATO. Both were charged with keeping the world at peace and forming a new world order that included the notion that one country should not invade another. That world order was held until February 2014 when Russia invaded the Crimea. Again, in February of 2022, they pushed troops inland attempting to occupy the rest of Ukraine. Two years later they still hold only a small part of the country. Ukraine is receiving aid from most of the NATO countries even though it is not yet a member because if Ukraine falls, the rest of Europe is at risk of invasion. Article 5 of the NATO Charter states that if one country is invaded all of the other members will come to their aid. They came to the aid of the U.S. on 9/11.

The third job of the President is to uplift the people of the country, to be the adult in the room. They are asked to continue to build a more perfect union. They do that by supporting the institutions that weld the citizenry, which make us who we are. They uplift people by treating them with respect, by providing for the common good. And yet, even today we hear a candidate tout the axioms of the 1920s Klan boast that whites are “of this superior blood”… “upon whom depends the future of civilization.”[ii]

We are supposed to be that shining city on the hill, the beacon that beckons others, the glow from our torch invites even the wretched refuse of teeming shores[iii] to join our trek to a unified set of values. Those whom we welcome do not poison the blood of those currently living here.

If the sacred oath calls for the president to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, they need to do that. They can’t boast that they will be a dictator on their first day in office. They can’t ignore the non-political status of the Department of Justice; they can’t say they will use the armed forces to control the people who disagree with them or march in opposition to a government mandate. If they do any of those things they disqualify themselves from the position.

The U.S. is a traditional leader of the free world. Our treaties, pacts, and behaviors are designed to create a free world order where each nation respects the sovereignty of the other. A president should not say that they will ignore those institutions and encourage an enemy nation to do ”whatever the hell you want” to our allies. A person who would do that is not qualified to be president.

The nation's leader is responsible for at least trying to ensure that we are a united nation rather than trying to separate people, make them unhappy with others, heap scorn on civil servants, and try to upset the peaceful transfer of power and other institutional upheavals. If they can’t encourage us to experience the “joy that comes in the morning,[iv] why bother to run for the job.

We can stipulate that the price of groceries is too high and that gas prices are too high and that that makes making ends meet each month a difficult task. But those strains pale in comparison to what is at stake in this year’s election.

The Greeks taught us centuries ago to reach deep into the soul of our leaders. Socrates would be appalled by the current state of affairs. No candidate is a perfect choice for president, so we have to decide by comparing what we see deep down in the candidates.

One candidate is a convicted felon, found guilty of sexual abuse, accused of trying to overthrow the government, falsifying business and personal information to secure loans as well as interfering with vote counting in the last presidential election. And yet, he has tens of millions of people who support his candidacy. Millions of people are buying into the Populism charade plan, a reflection of the gap in perceived equal treatment in this country, distrust of the “establishment” and dislike of immigrants and minorities. They have heard the same lies so often that they believe them. Nearly half the country is willing to vote against our democratic values and accept the torches of the far-right to better themselves. They are willing to vote for a man who could not pass the background check for a minimum-wage job.

National Populism flies in the face of everything American. We have seen its destructive power that nearly wiped out the “greatest generation.” We have seen how it tore our nation apart years ago in the time of the Robber Barons and in the McCarthy era. We have never in our history had a serious candidate for president who was awaiting sentencing for felonies and awaiting trial for more offenses against our government. 

We have a choice.

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[i] Populists in power around the world, Institute for Global Insights, 11/17/2018

[ii]The Klan of Yesterday and of Today – Proceedings of the Second Imperial Klonvocation Held at Kansas City Missouri 1924, Hiram Wesley Evans

[iii] “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Poem on Statue of Liberty – Emma Lazarus, 1885

[iv] Psalm 35.5

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.

 

 

 

 

 

From Here We Go Where?

 

Try to find a better place but soon it's all the same
What once you thought was a paradise is not just what it seemed
The more I look around, I find, the more I have to fear[i]

 I’m unwilling to live in fear. That is a hard resolution to keep. The last four years mystified me, but the last couple of months were incongruous. I never was afraid of losing our democracy. Sedition was one of those things in The Constitution that you didn’t spend a lot of time studying. Who could have imagined an armed and planned assault on our Capitol by other citizens? Then, we watched it happen. That was nearly two months ago and I’m still writhing.

Months before the election, Trump convinced his followers that the only way he could lose the election was if the process was rigged. He repeated over and over that early voting and vote by mail would be fraudulent. He claimed irregular vote counting and called election officials biased. The fix was in!

Too many people believed him and convinced themselves that he could not lose. He called his base of supporters to Washington to protest the election, and they came. He urged them to march on the Capitol, and they did. He told them that the Vice President could nullify the election, and they believed him.

When Pence announced that the constitution didn’t allow him to change the election, they called him a traitor. They raised a gallows in front of the Capitol. Their insurrection rose to the level of sedition, in the name of democracy. Hundreds of people were injured, many died, still, others committed suicide. Culprits are still being identified and rounded up for prosecution.

The House of Representatives impeached the President a second time. The Senate acquitted him a second time. Then some senators who had just voted to acquit talked about how guilty the President was, how he had encouraged the armed insurrection, how he continued to relish the actions of his followers. They knew he was guilty; they voted “not guilty.”

State Party leaders censured Republican Representatives who voted to impeach and Senators who voted “guilty.” Pennsylvania Senator Toomey voted to convict Trump, which he described as “doing the right thing.” It resulted in quick censure from county party leaders. One, Dave Ball, went so far as to state on television, “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing … We sent him there to represent us.” The implication was that the party sent the Senator to Washington to represent the party, not the people.

James Madison noted, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.[ii] There can be no illusions that there was goodness in the storming of the Capitol in an effort to overturn an election. It was a planned abuse of liberty in a free country. What is unfathomable is that so many consider it “no big deal.” The divide is wide, the divide deep. The rot drains oxygen from the soul of the nation. Our freedom to vote and for our vote to matter is under attack.

We never know when something will be the last.[iii] We never know when our last vote will be our last one; ask the people of Germany, Italy, and Spain if they thought their last vote was their last one. Is last November the last time we voted in a free and open election? Will it be the next one, or the one after that?

This year legislators in 43 states introduced 253 bills to reduce voting access.[iv] One state has a bill that allows the legislature to pick the Presidential Electors irrespective of the vote of the people.[v] Others plan increased Gerrymandering to control voter results. Still others have bills to reduce voting hours, early voting, voting locations, and drop boxes for ballot return. Many are considering eliminating votes by mail except for serious health conditions. All of the voter suppression bills were introduced, supposedly, to help ensure that citizens believe that a valid election took place. Too many people ignore these efforts to abuse liberty.

Will state legislatures gerrymander the voting districts so that elections aren’t the free expressions of voter will? We don’t know. Will state legislatures squelch easy voter registration, eliminate vote by mail, the convenience of voting in a neighborhood precinct? Voting, the most sacred act of a free people is on the brink of destruction by people who fear the loss of power. “The evil men do lives after them; the good is interred with their bones.”[vi] 

We now know that the insurrection and storming of the Capital was not a simple case of protesters with an unexpected surge of adrenalin. There was collusion among Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Neo-Nazi cells, and other groups dedicated to the overthrow of the democratic process. It was a planned insurrection, it was an armed insurrection, and it swept others in its path. It was sedition.

How do we protect the vote? In nearly half the states voter suppression is an active movement, especially if the legislature holds veto-proof power. The only way to ensure that voters can vote freely is to insist that the process be open to all. Let’s start with the notion that all men are created equal. In our country, that means that anyone over the age of 18 should be able to vote, with very few exceptions. What does free and open voting look like?

Registering to vote should be easy. When a 16-year-old person applies for a driver’s license they should automatically be registered to vote after their 18^th birthday. If a person hasn’t registered to vote but wants to vote, they should be allowed to register on Election Day.

Securing a ballot should be easy. Every state should send every registered voter a ballot one month before Election Day.

Voting should be easy. Voters should be able to return their ballots to a nearby dropbox, to the election office, or to the polls when they are open. Those who wish to vote in person should have that opportunity. Many states have had vote-by-mail for many years, so we know the process works.

Voting districts should be rational. Each district should be fairly divided between party affiliation, races, age groups, etc. Some states already have bipartisan panels of unelected officials who draw the district boundaries. This reduces the likelihood of obscene Gerrymandering.

Write your state representative or state senator and tell them to ensure that freedom to vote must be preserved for all people. Talk to your friends about the un-American activity that some legislatures are using to reduce voter turnout, to control vote results. Support campaigns against legislators who vote to increase voter suppression; vote for their opponents.

Voting in America is controlled at the local level, for the most part. County election officials and state election officials administer the laws enacted by the state legislatures. It is at the local levels that voter suppression is taking place, under the national radar, and that is where it must be preserved.

 

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[i] Where Do We Go From Here – Chicago – 1969 Recording

[ii] James Madison – The Federalist, No. 63, 1787

[iii] Timothy Snyder – On Tyranny – Tim Duggan Books, 2017

[iv] Brennan Center for Justice, New York University – January 26, 2021

[v] The Constitution allows state legislatures to determine how Electors are chosen. It does not assume that that would happen after an election.

[vi] William Shakespeare – Julius Caesar – Act 3 Sc 2