Month: October 2020

So here are just a few items off the news wires in the past thirty-six hours. 

Hail the Victor

President Donald Trump has “conquered” COVID-19.  He demonstrated his victory by triumphantly landing in Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday, and marching up a flight of stairs.  He then ripped the “ugly scar” of COVID, the mask, from his face, and stood (heaving for breath) as he saluted the gallant helicopter crew that he exposed to the disease.  

The President then further exposed a video crew and White House personnel to the virus.   He made a statement about how remarkable his recovery was, and how we all need to “learn to live with COVID, and not be afraid”.  Later, in a tweet from the White House residence, he said:

“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with COVID, in most populations far less lethal!!!”

By the way, other than the Flu Pandemic of 1918  (675,000 deaths) the United States has never had a year close to 100,000 deaths.  2014-15, a bad season for flu, was just over 51,000 (CDC).   Currently 215,347 have died from COVID-19 in the past seven months (Corona-Virus).

No Protection, Mother

Yesterday Vice President Pence, himself in close contact with the infected President last week, objected to having a Plexiglas barrier on his side of the stage in his debate with Senator Kamala Harris tonight in Las Vegas.  He doesn’t seem to want to protect from COVID. Knowing how Pence feels about being on stage with a woman, you might think he’d want the extra barrier?

Mother must have had her say.  Last night, Pence withdrew his objections to the double protection.

Stick with the Herd

White House medical advisor Dr. Scott Atlas anticipates that the President: “(he) is a very, very healthy guy, and the overwhelming majority of people, even at his age, do fine with this. He is very healthy, and so I anticipate the same for him”(NY Post).  

Atlas has persuaded the Trump team that the best way to deal with COVID is to let everyone get it.  His concept of “herd immunity” (not mentality) horrifies most other scientists in the field.  It depends on whether getting COVID actually confers a long-term immunity (no one knows if that’s true), but absolutely guarantees that there will be many, many more fatalities.

We Don’t Want to Know

“The White House has decided not to trace the contacts of guests and staff members at the Rose Garden celebration 10 days ago for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, where at least eight people, including the president, may have become infected, according to a White House official familiar with the plans” (NYT).

Why don’t they want to know? If they find out who got infected there, they must accept responsibility for infecting their own staff and leadership.  And while Dr. Atlas might think culling the “herd” is a good idea, the Trump Administration doesn’t want to take the blame when someone dies.

Roll the Dice

There is an old saying:  “if all you have is lemons, make lemonade”.  The Trump 2020 campaign is doing their best to “make lemonade” out of the President’s infection.  Many Americans hoped that if the most protected man in the nation could get COVID-19, then maybe the entire nation would take the disease more seriously.  

But that is the Biden strategy, and would be an unacceptable admission of error by Trump 2020.  So instead they have taken the opposite tack.  Like the boy returning to class from being paddled in the office, they’ve dried their tears and said, “It wasn’t so bad”.  But of course, they really don’t know yet how bad the beating was, and what the prognosis may be for the President.

So it’s time to “roll the dice”.  If the President can make this “miraculous” recovery, then they will go ahead with their strategy of “herd mentality” (I think he really meant immunity).  That’s Dr. Atlas’s plan for everyone to get COVID. Those that don’t make it — well don’t; and the rest might get “immunity” from the disease.  Meanwhile the economy rolls on, key to the Trump re-election strategy, and hopefully there is a vaccine and a strong therapeutic drug combination in the future. 

Wolves at the Door

So it’s OK that the President exposed the Secret Service, the Marines on the helicopter and guarding the White House, and the staff both political and domestic, to COVID.  They’re just part of the “herd” right?  So if a few don’t make it, they just fall back and the good old wolves get ‘em.  

If it sounds heartless, it is.  But isn’t that the Trump definition of “manhood”?  Let’s risk others, though the extremes of medical science are used to protect him.  And for those who die; we all know what the President thinks of losers.  He prefers those that “didn’t die of COVID”. 

This allows the Trump campaign to demand that states remain open throughout the election season, even if the COVID infection rates increase. The Dow Jones Industrial Average can stay up, and Trump 2020 keeps “Making America Great Again”.  Their campaign message is that; “Biden wants to tank the economy, and the market, by closing America down.  He wants to ‘give in’ to COVID.”  

This even goes farther – according to the President, the Congress now “shouldn’t” pass a COVID relief package.  We are doing just fine – right?  So why do we need relief?  Don’t tell the eleven million still out of work because of COVID, or those whose businesses are closed.  They aren’t doing all so “fine”.

Reality 

Americans saw through this strategy before the President got infected, and they still understand what it means:  many, many more will die.  The fact that the President isn’t one of those is lucky for him, assuming that the disease doesn’t rebound.  His heavy breathing on the “Mussolini Balcony” (sorry Mr. Truman) just underscored how tenuously we understand COVID-19.  

A Biden victory doesn’t depend on the President’s health.  And President Trump, now down 15% or more (CNN/SSRS Oct 1-4) is definitely in “Hail Mary” mode.  So banking his political comeback on recovery is his last shot.   Besides that, all the President can do is hope that there’s some October surprise tanking Biden.  Trump is looking to his “Roy Cohn”, Attorney General Barr for that. But Barr was doing some hugging and shaking at the super-spreader Barrett event too.  At sixty-eight, he may join the “back of the herd” soon.  

The gloves came off a long time ago for the Lincoln Project. If you need a song stuck in your head for a while – Here’s “Covita” 

Again

It happened again, this time in Texas.  A White, small town police officer arrived on the scene of a “possible fight at a gas station”, the Kwik Check.  The fight was over, and an unarmed Black man was there, along with another man and a woman.  The Black man raised his hands and tried to explain what was going on.  When the officer moved to detain him, he started to walk away.  The officer used a Taser on him, and when that didn’t work they way he wanted; he shot him with his service weapon.  The Black man died.

What was going on?  According to witnesses, the Black man, Jonathan Price, intervened inside the gas station when the other man assaulted the woman.  The two men fought, and the struggle moved outside.  Price, 31, a former college football player, was singled out when the officer arrived.  

After a brief investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Wolfe City police officer, 22 year-old Shaun Lucas, was arrested and charged with murder.  The Department noted that Lucas’ actions were “not objectively reasonable”. 

Procedure 

I am not a police officer, but it should be procedure that when an officer arrives on the scene he or she should gain control of the situation.  Without knowing what happened before, the officer would want to make sure that the participants were “safe” from continuing to fight each other, or attacking the officer.  So it would be normal procedure to control both, and then sort out the situation.  And if I were that officer, I would focus on the “biggest” threat, physically, to me.  The former college football player would probably fit that definition.

And when he refused to be “detained”, then that should be a concern to the officer.  But it is from that point, that the DPS felt “reasonable” was lost.  

Many will say that Price should have submitted, and not tried to walk away.  “If he had only followed the lawful orders of the officer, he would still be alive today”.  But that still doesn’t answer the question:  if an unarmed suspect refuses to obey police orders, should deadly force be used?

We haven’t heard Officer Lucas’s side of the story, only from others who witnessed the event.  Did something happen when he Tazed Price that caused Lucas to feel threatened, in fear for his own safety?  It’s the only answer that would make any sense.

Results

But in the end, another unarmed Black man is dead, shot by the police.  And it is in that fact alone that we need to face the issue.  Somehow that’s “baked in” to the system.  Sure, Lucas was a young cop, alone in a small town, facing a situation he was unable to control.  But what were the other possibilities to “defuse” the situation?  Maybe it was just a matter of having more police personnel there.  Or of the officer saying the “right words” to Price, or maybe just letting Price walk now, and Lucas comes back with more officers later.  Any of those would be better choices than shooting Price, better choices for both Price and Officer Lucas, now facing murder charges.

Is this about “funding” the police?   Sure, if two officers were available, perhaps Lucas wouldn’t have felt so threatened that he needed to use his weapon.  Or, if a trained “negotiator/de-escalator” were part of a team, then Price would have been able to tell his story, without the need for Tasers or guns.  

Numbers

But is this a racial thing?  The statistics are clear:  the chances of being killed by the police are much higher if you’re Black, and even higher if you’re a Black man. In the last nine months, 721 civilians have been shot by police, with 142 of them Black.  That’s almost 20% of those killed, while Blacks are 13% of the population in the United States (Statista).  For young Black men, the risk of being killed by police is 1 per 1000 (PNAS).  Black men face a risk of being killed by the police more than three times greater than white men (PAA).

So yes, it is about race.  And it’s about training.  It’s about making a national decision that this isn’t just about the “bad apple” cops.  And no, I am NOT saying that police officers are racists (though there probably are some).  What I am saying is that there is a problem, and we need to address that problem in a forthright manner.  It is “baked in” the system, and it needs to be fixed. 

Yusuf-Cat Stevens – and one of my favorites – Peace Train

Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens wrote some of the seminal themes of the 1970’s.  Peace Train may be the best known song, but his entire 1970 fourth album Tea for the Tillerman was his masterpiece.  Where do the Children Play, Father and Son, Wild World, On the Road to Find Out, and Miles from Nowhere became the themes of the end of the “sixties”.

And Stevens himself was on a life mission.  In 1976 he converted to Islam. He changed his name to Yusuf Islam, sold all of his guitars and gave up his music.  For the next thirty years, his songs echoed alone, unsupported by their author.  It wasn’t until 2006 that the man now named Yusuf-Cat Stevens returned to the stage.

His gentle messages were of life as a journey and of hope and peace. They described the dreams of the era of protest, and frustration of little effect on the “real” world.  And his life seemed the same, stepping away from music for his religion, then decades later quietly returning to the strengths of his youth.

The President

Unlike Steven’s Peace Train, the modern Trump Train is a very different thing.  The President has been stricken with COVID-19, and is currently hospitalized at Walter Reed.  It is unclear how serious his disease is, but because of his age and co-morbidities, he is at higher risk.  Not only has he been hospitalized, but he is being treated with powerful experimental treatments.  

It’s made it difficult to govern.  And, as far as the Trump campaign is concerned, it’s made a candidate-centric strategy impossible to continue.  The key events of both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns were the “Trump Rallies”.  Even in this era of COVID, Trump 2020 has continued to hold these big rallies, where the President harangues the crowd for hours at a time.  There has been a great deal of criticism for violating local COVID protocols. But it is the “bread and butter” for Trump, and they aren’t giving it up.

But now, with the President infected, they don’t have a choice. Vice President Pence is doing some major events, but he doesn’t have the draw of the “cult of personality” that surrounds the President himself.  And the Trump family can’t be used. They are allsupposed to be in a fourteen day isolation period, though few think that will last.

Instead, Trump 2020 has rolled out their “MAGA Strategy” to replace the Presidential appearances.  Not only will “surrogates” fan out across the country to stand-in for their leader, but they have also asked Trump supporters to mass across the country to demonstrate their popularity.

Trump Trains

Columbus, Ohio got to see the impact of the “MAGA Strategy” this past weekend.  Trump supporters massed in vehicles, particularly flag waving pickup trucks, and drove slowly down the center lane of the outer-belt highway, I-270.  In addition, other Trump supporters massed on the overpasses, waving flags and cheering on the “parade”.  

In an era of mass protest and Black Lives Matter, it was a “socially distanced” response to support their candidate.  And while it was disruptive of traffic and caused a lot of consternation, the “Trump Train” was a high visibility response and exercise of the First Amendment rights.

“Law and Order” is a founding slogan of Trump 2020.  But the Trump folks discovered that just because a truck is waving a Trump flag, doesn’t mean they are committed to following the law.  There are always those looking for more violent confrontation in any group, and the “Trump Train” was no exception. A gunshot was fired at a semi-truck trying to get around Columbus.  Local police have arrested a “train” participant.

Intimidation

What may be more disturbing than the “official Trump Train” around Columbus was the social media call to “the parade after the parade”.   The flyer calls for a “…peaceful raid into the belly of the Beast”, the wealthy northeast suburb of New Albany.  The flyer describes New Albany as:

“…Wealthy/elitists that fund Biden/Harris, the Democratic Party, ANTIFA, BLM, the Deep State, the police/surveillance state, human trafficking, systemic pedophilia and other evils…”  

A particular target of the “raid” was New Albany’s most famous resident, Les Wexner. He is the founder of L Brands Corporation that included the Limited Stores and Victoria Secrets.  Wexner was a life-long Republican who left the party in 2017 with the election of Trump, and has since supported some Democratic causes (USA Today).  He is also connected to Jeffrey Epstein, though Wexner ultimately broke all connections with Epstein in 2007 (ABC).

New Albany is also home to a new Facebook data center, and the “Train” hoped to disrupt them as well.  As the flyer states:

“…Let’s show these people that we know who they are and where they live, while also showing the decent people who live in their midst that the Trump Train stops everywhere!”

Free speech is just that, free speech.  But at what point does the exercise of the right to “parade” become more of an attempt to intimidate and harass those who don’t agree?  How much of this is the goal of the “MAGA Strategy,” not just to show support for their candidate, but to suppress those who oppose him?   It’s not just the trucks, the black diesel smoke, and the flags.  Their implication is pretty clear:  the Trump base is ready to “fight back” against perceived enemies.  

The “Trump Train” ain’t no “Peace Train”.

Sure you know it!  It’s the 1980’s band REO Speedwagon – Take It on the Run

COVID at the White House

We wouldn’t have known that Presidential aide Hope Hicks tested positive for COVID-19, except a reporter broke the story.  We didn’t know that Hicks was positive, but the President did when he attended a Trump Fundraiser in New Jersey Thursday night.  He had first hand exposure to COVID, but he went to the affair at his Bedminster estate anyway.  And we might not know that Trump and his wife Melania tested positive for COVID-19, except for the “leak” about Hicks.

We “heard it from a friend”, specifically, from Bloomberg News.  We did not hear it from the White House, or the Trump Campaign until after the Hicks story was already out.  But we now realize the President knew that he was directly exposed to an infected person. And yet he continued with his schedule including the fundraiser.  It was only after all of that, in the middle of the night, that he tweeted:

“Tonight, @ FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19.  We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately.  We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Friday the President entered Walter Reed Military Hospital. They have already used two “experimental” therapies on him. Current information states he’s doing well, with “mild” symptoms. We hope that’s true, and wish him a quick recovery. But he is a seventy-four year old man, with co-morbidities, he is in the hospital, and they are using “experimental” therapies. Other “friends” say things might not be as rosy as they seem.

Circle of “Friends”

This is the way the COVID-19 virus spreads, from one circle of people to another.  The song lyrics go, “I heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another you’ve been messing around”.  Or like the old game of “telephone,” except with COVID the message always seems to stay intact.  And no matter how careful you are, any interaction could be the beginning of infection.

The infected Republican leadership list keeps growing: The President and his wife, Senators Mike Lee, Thom Tillis and Ron Johnson, Trump 2020 Campaign Manager Bill Stepian, RNC Chairman Rona McDaniel, former WH Counselor Kellyann Conway, Former Governor Chris Christie.  All are now COVID positive.

The Trump Campaign acts like they are immune to COVID.  At the debate the Trump family and staff scorned wearing masks, even after they were asked to don them by a Cleveland Clinic physician.  At the “outdoor” campaign rallies, social distancing is ignored, some wear masks and some don’t, but all are cheering and clapping.  Most states aren’t allowing crowds at sporting events, or any indoor activities.  But the Trump Campaign seems perfectly willing to risk a “super-spreader” event at every campaign rally, and uses their “FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS” to demand local authorities comply.

Hubris

Precautions aren’t always effective.  Masks aren’t 100% against the COVID infection, but they help.  Social distancing doesn’t guarantee protection, but it also helps.  Hand sanitizer and avoiding physical contact won’t always work, but they aid in limiting spread as well.  Put all of those things together, and risks of transmission are significantly reduced.

To ignore all of these precautions and carry on as if in the “before times” is the height of hubris.  And the actions of the Trump Administration aren’t done from ignorance, but from the need to pursue their political message.  As Senator Rick Scott of Florida said on Fox News Saturday, “…we have to get this economy going again”.  What he didn’t say but is implicit in all of the Trump 2020 messaging are the words “at all costs,” including the cost of COVID-19. 

The first fatal mistake that President Trump made was back in January and February.  As we now know, he was well aware of the dangers of the impending COVID pandemic.  Instead of preparing the United States for that onslaught, Trump chose to assure the American people that it would soon be gone.  He believed re-election depended on the strength of the economy, and he didn’t want Wall Street to reflect a national crisis. 

It’s the Economy 

The Trump 2020 campaign still believes that the economy is their best hope for a second term in the White House.  They act as if the pandemic is “behind us”.  Americans have paid a heavy price for that choice with 210,000 dead.  Scientists estimate that a different course starting with mask wearing and social distancing at the very beginning of the pandemic would have saved more than half of those lives.  

America has also paid a heavy economic price.  The White House trumpets the September employment figures. Jobs have increased by 660,000 jobs last month and unemployment fell to by ½ of a percent to 7.9.  What they fail to mention is that 22 million jobs were lost in March and April, and only about half of those jobs have returned to the economy (Reuters).  The 660,000 jobs in September aren’t new, they are some workers returning to the jobs they lost.  This September report is the last before the November election.

“I heard it from a friend, that heard it from a friend…that the President’s been messing around”.  The choices of this Administration led our nation to further division in our response to this pandemic.  What should have been a “no brainer” response to disease has become a political controversy:  simple decisions to wear a mask and socially distance are now a sign of political affiliation.

The best medical care in the world is available for Donald Trump, and it should be.  But that care can’t heal the divisions he has created.  We can only hope the election can begin that process.

In the middle of the night, the news arrived that the President and the First Lady tested positive for COVID-19. For this moment it’s not about politics, it’s about life. I wish them well.

Brooks Brothers Riot

Back in the “good old days” five years ago, this story might be written, but no one would believe it. 

The Florida election in 2000 was crazy. Lawyers “rioted” in the Palm Beach County Board of Elections (to throw off the re-count). A candidate’s own brother certified Florida’s election results. And even after all of that, we still believed in the integrity of the electoral process.  

But think about that for a minute.  It wasn’t the “butterfly ballots” where Gore votes became Nader votes. And it wasn’t the “hanging chads” where bug-eyed counters analyzed each punch-ballot.  No, it was Governor Jeb Bush, un-recused, who certified that his own brother George won the over six million vote Florida election by five hundred and thirty seven votes.  That’s nine hundredths of a percent.  The Supreme Court, in a partisan five to four vote, agreed.  

And Al Gore gracefully conceded the election, and George W. Bush became the President.  Ah, those were the good old days.

Jeremy’s Nightmare

I just watched former Obama official Jeremy Bash on MSNBC. He was the Chief of Staff at both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Department. He said that no matter how the election results really turn out, he anticipates that we will fight about who becomes President until Inauguration Day in January. It’s almost Churchillian: “We will fight them in the state capitals, we will fight them in the Electoral College, we will fight them in the Court and in the Congress; we will never surrender”: Hoo Boy.

So here is the Bash scenario. On election night, the results are close between Trump and Biden. Because of the COVID pandemic, there are millions of mail-in ballots. Several states require that all ballots be counted after the polls have closed. A few don’t even allow for the mail-in ballots to be certified for count until Election Day itself. That process, verifying of signatures and other technicalities will delay the final count for several days.

Trump gains an Election Night lead and declares himself the winner.  He then moves to invalidate all of the remaining ballots to be counted.  Thousands of Republican lawyers pour into state and federal courts. They demand immediate “cease and desist” orders delivered to the local Boards of Elections to stop the count.  Republican Governors in pivotal states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas step in to stop more counting.  They immediately certify electors to the Electoral College based on the Election Night count only, and the whole issue ends up in a Federal Court system packed full of Trump appointees.  

Democrats Response

Even if Biden were to lose all of those states, the other “swing states”: Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin combined with solidly Democratic states like New York and California, would still be enough to win. All have Democratic Governors. But here’s the problem with that: Republicans control the state legislatures of Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Just as those Democratic Governors had difficulty with regulating COVID, so the legislatures might step in to try to take control of the vote counting process. Just yesterday the Republican Pennsylvania legislature voted to establish a “committee” to “oversee” the election.

Governorships are pivotal to certification of Electoral votes under Federal law. The McConnell plan of stacking the Federal Court system, particularly at the Appellate level and Supreme Court, puts Trump appointed Judges throughout the system. And just to make matters even worse, if there is a tie in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives breaks the tie. But unlike every other vote they take, a Presidential vote is by state, not individual member. So California’s fifty-two Congressmen count for only one vote. And that counts is the same as the single Congressmen from Wyoming and Alaska, and the other five states with only have one Congressional Representative.

Counted that way, the current Congress has twenty-five Republican “states”, twenty-four Democratic states and one state (Pennsylvania) tied. The actual “tiebreaking” vote would be the next Congress not this one, but that unique balance is unlikely to change.

Just a Dream

We are looking at what would be a national nightmare and perhaps the end of the democratic experiment called the United States. What should voters do?

First:  get ready to pressure Republican Governors in those swing states that seem to be wavering to support their own electoral processes.  It may take non-violent protests in the streets to keep the count going.  The Republicans were able to stop the Palm Beach count with the “Brooks Brothers Riot”.  In spite of the COVID pandemic, it may require Americans to protect and continue those counts and our Republic.

Second:  we can still dream that some Republican leaders will stand up for democracy, and against a Trump overthrow of the Republic.  But there are those of us, including me, who have been holding our breath waiting for this for nearly four years now. Let’s hope that’s not our only answer. 

But third and most important: vote.  An overwhelming win for either candidate would be difficult to ignore, even for Republican Governors.  For example, Ohio is likely to have almost all of their votes counted within eight hours of the polls closing, including the absentee ballots.  So a Biden win in Ohio would be difficult to ignore, or overturn.  And if Biden wins Ohio, it puts pressure on all of the other “swing” states to accept a Biden victory.

A landslide Biden win would make all of these undemocratic tactics moot.  For Trump to claim an election night victory, he has to have some point where he has the lead.  Solid Biden wins in the former “blue wall” states would prevent that from happening.  And that might make all of the nightmare scenarios just fantastical stories.  

Let’s hope so. 

Bully

I know some folks that are appalled by Donald Trump’s behavior.  They watched the debate, and recognized a bully when they saw one.  They also know that bullying is simply a way to avoid real discussion, perhaps because the bully is unable to have one.  And yet, they continue to support him for President.

The argument they make is that, “I vote on policies, not personalities”.  And I’m struggling to understand that perspective.  

To me, electing a President of the United States is choosing the leader of this nation.  And how someone leads is in large part about what kind of person he or she is, the “personality”, beyond policy recommendations.  Policy is a “group” project, the President, the White House Staff, the Federal Bureaucracy, Congress, and even the Courts.  Of course what the President wants is important.  But even more important are the people that surround him.  Look at the impact Stephen Miller has on this Presidency and our nation.  He is the man that Donald Trump has chosen to listen to.  Is that about policy, or personality?

Policies

So what do I want in a President?  Well I certainly do want some policy objectives.  I want a President who will help lead us towards improving the climate.  I want a President who has compassion for those who are less fortunate.  And I want a President who cares about the American people:  about how they live and how they die.  It is from there that we can determine what our nation needs to do better.  And I find it difficult to believe that anyone is against those goals.

So is that all policy, or all personality?  

I know there are specific policies that are Presidential issues.  How the pandemic is being handled is policy.  But isn’t it also personality?   Maybe it’s just my perspective, but hasn’t President Trump simply “written off” the dead from COVID?  And even more, hasn’t he failed to take responsibility for our actions against COVID, blaming the Chinese, or the Governors, or his own government agencies rather than saying here’s what happened and here’s what we need to do? Is that “policy”, or is that his personality dodging Presidential responsibility?

The President demands “Law and Order” (Richard Nixon lives!!).  And he pays some lip service to the “right” of peaceful protest.  But has he, in any way, tried to address the underlying concerns that are causing folks to protest?  And it’s not just what’s happening to Black people in the streets today.   What about mass shootings, and in particular school shootings?  What has the President actually DONE about any of those things?  He’s held meetings and banned “bump-stocks”.  Is there anything else?  President Obama at least proposed responses, though those policies were buried in the Congress.  What has President Trump offered?

Compassion

I hear the response right now – Biden is a “liberal bleeding heart”.  The “personality” I’m supporting is one that isn’t hardened to the “realities” of governing.  We don’t want a “compassionate” leader; we want a George Patton, someone who doesn’t give a damn about anything else but achieving “victory”.  But when we look at history, Patton was used by more compassionate men, men like Omar Bradley, and Dwight Eisenhower.  They knew they had to sacrifice soldiers to win victories, but they also cared about the men they lost.  Patton was a tool to be used briefly, then discarded.  And he was.

I don’t think I agreed much with anything that George W. Bush wanted to do.  But he was a leader of compassion, even if his policies weren’t very compassionate.  Ronald Reagan was pretty much the same way.  They cared about the American people.  Isn’t it obvious that Donald Trump doesn’t?

If you are a Black American today (except for Candace Owens), or a Latino American today, or an LGTBQ American today, can you possibly feel compassion from this President?  Or do you feel excluded from the American dream?

Common Goals

A leader finds a way to get those that he’s leading to accept common goals.  That’s about personality, not policy.  A leader brings people together to achieve, not divides to control.  Think of George W. Bush standing at Ground Zero, or Barack Obama standing at the alter in Charleston, or Ronald Reagan telling us to reach out and touch the face of God.  Where is Donald Trump’s moment of national unity?  That’s all about personality, not policy.

I get it:  we have been “made afraid”.  We are told that “they” will burn our towns, destroy our traditions, and force us to change religious beliefs.  We are in an era of division, demonstrating our worst “angels”.  Americans needs to find a way to reunite, to heal, and to work together to improve the nation. And that is exactly about the personality of the next President.