Month: November 2022

Warrior Burgers

As many of my former students can tell you – I am NOT a soccer guy.  I coached track and field, and wrestling, and cross country.  I was a sprinter, a wrestler, a swimmer and a tennis player.  But, except for brief excursions in England where I tried to learn the game from my cousins (I did better with cricket), soccer was not my sport.

In fact, soccer became even worse for me when I was part of the high school administration.  The sport for me was Tuesday and Thursday night duty at the soccer games, keeping the students in the stands, and worse, the parents, in control.  I didn’t learn much about soccer during those games, but I did find all sorts of creative ways of saying, “You can’t yell THAT at the (refs, coaches, other team, your kid).”  The saving grace; there was always a “Warrior Burger” out by the pine trees at the half, thanks to the Athletic Boosters.

Don’t get me wrong – I have incredible respect for the athleticism and talent soccer players bring to the field (pitch).  The conditioning required for ninety minutes and more of continual movement, marked by explosive sprints, deft turns, and physical blows, is incredible.  Add that to the learned talent of manipulating a ball with your feet, body, and head; sending it to the right place at the right time, make good soccer players amazing to watch.  It’s not just a place to scout for sprinters, jumpers and half-milers (though that works too). 

Late to the Game

So it’s surprising that I got caught in the US soccer team’s run at the World Cup.  I was late to that as well, drawn in by the match between the young US squad and venerable England.  Everyone expected an English blow-out.  Instead, the shocking Americans earned a 0-0 draw, putting themselves in contention to make the final, sixteen team “knock-out” round.

But the US needed to beat Iran, a win not a tie, to earn the right to the final rounds.  

The World Cup this year is in Qatar, a “modern” nation that still practices Islamic Sharia law.  An early controversy was when, at the last minute, the government banned alcohol from the soccer stadiums. Budweiser, who paid $75 million for the sales rights, was not pleased.  But more importantly, Sharia law views homosexuality as an abomination, possibly punishable by death.  In a modern sports world, being a gay athlete has become as readily accepted as being of a different culture or race.  Several national teams had some form of protest of Qatar’s actions. The German team removed their rainbow armbands, but took their team picture with hands covering their mouths.

And the Iranian team comes from a nation in crisis where women are demanding freedom from an even more restrictive version of the same Sharia Law.  Symbolically the protests focus on chadors, the religious head scarves that the “Morality Police” require women to wear.  But it goes far beyond that.  Thousands have been protesting in the streets for months.  Hundreds have been killed by police, hundreds more arrested, with some facing the death penalty.

Our Captain

The Iranian soccer team has had success.  All they needed was a draw with the US to reach the final sixteen.  And while the team publicly refused to sing the Iranian national anthem at their opening match, the state security apparatus put them “back in line”.  The players were threatened with imprisonment for themselves and their families still in Iran if they made any further protest.  As a coach, I don’t think those kind threats improve play.  Look at Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi team, where losing team members were physically tortured by the secret police.  The promise of torture didn’t make them better, just desperate.

Meanwhile the Iranian press took an opportunity to attack the young American team captain, 23 year-old Tyler Adams.  A reporter took Adams to task for “mispronouncing” Iran (‘eye-ran’ rather than ‘ear-rahn’), then asked, “… (A)re you okay to be representing a country that has so much discrimination against black people in its own borders?” Rather than respond in kind, Adams quietly apologized for the pronunciation, then said:

“There’s discrimination everywhere you go. In the U.S., we’re continuing to make progress every single day…through education, I think it’s super important. Like you just educated me now on the pronunciation of your country. It’s a process. As long as you see progress, that’s the most important thing.”

The Game – and Next

He was thoughtful and clear.  And the next day, the US team took it to the Iranians in a hard fought match.  The US took the lead with a dramatic score near the end of the first half, with twenty-four year old Christian Pulisic colliding with the Iranian goalie after his shot went in.  Pulisic suffered a “pelvic contusion” in the collision (a knee to the groin), and left the match for the hospital at the end of the half.  

The US was able to protect their lead through the second half, in spite of the more than desperate Iranian efforts.  After the seemingly unending “added-time” (time added onto the regulation match) the US team moved onto the round of sixteen.  Meanwhile, fireworks went off an Iran – the protestors celebrating a win by rivals that support their efforts.  And for the Iranian players – they laid on the field, avoiding for a few more minutes their fate.

Politics has always been a part of world sport.  Jesse Owens faced down Nazism in their home stadium in 1936.  Tommie Smith and  John Carlos endured the wrath of the US Olympic Committee for silently making their views clear in 1968. And Tyler Adams, quietly made his point as well – both in the press conference, then on the field.  

The US team plays the Netherlands on Saturday at 10am.  I’ll have to check that out.  I guess American soccer doesn’t like the Dutch either.

55 to 45

Forty-five percent of Ohioans vote for Democrats, but you sure can’t see it in State Government.  Every single executive state-wide office but one is held by a Republican.  The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Attorney General are all elected Republicans.  Even the State Supreme Court is controlled by the GOP, with four Republican Justices and three Democrats.  

Both Houses of the state legislature have “super-majorities” of Republicans, capable of not only passing legislation without the minority Democratic support, but even able to override the Republican Governor’s veto if needed.  In the state Senate, there are only eight Democrats to thirty-three Republicans, less than 20%.  In fact, there is only one statewide Democrat executive left in Ohio, US Senator Sherrod Brown.  He’s up for re-election in 2024.

Blue Wall

This is a state that voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.  Ohio was once part of the “Blue Wall” that collapsed in 2016 to give Trump the Presidential win.  Now national Democrats see Ohio, like Florida, as a pipe-dream and a waste of national campaign money.  2022 Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan is acknowledged to have run the “best” campaign in the nation – and lost to “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance, 47% to 53%.  

Ohio is smug about the “efficiency” of its election process.  The highly gerrymandered districts consistently return their Republican representatives to the State House, where they consistently push the state farther to the right of the political spectrum.  When the Republican State Supreme Court ruled skewed maps unconstitutional, the rest of the state government simply stalled until there was no choice but to use them.  The mapping issue will be back in 2024, but Republicans needn’t worry.  The one vote (a Republican) on the Court that stood against their extremes will retire at the end of this year.  They should have a clear four vote majority now.

Loyal Opposition

What happens when there is no “loyal opposition”?  Sure, Ohio has unlimited “open carry” weapons laws.  There’s no need to have a permit, go get your gun.  Sure, Ohio led the way in abortion restrictions after the Dodds decision.  But all of that isn’t enough for the Republican “super-majority”.  To make sure that doctors “get it”, the President of Ohio Right-to-Life, an attorney and politician, was appointed to the state Medical Board.  

And when the citizens of Ohio surprisingly elected a Democratic majority to the State Board of Education, the State Legislature immediately moved to strip most of the Board’s power over public school policy.  

In fact, it really doesn’t matter what the citizens of Ohio want.  Like many states, Ohio has a “referendum” option.  Citizens can gather signatures and place proposed amendments to the State Constitution up for general vote.  That’s why there was even a question about the highly skewed political maps. But Republicans now in power find that too threatening. The new proposal – amend the Constitution to require a 60% super-majority for any voter-initiated Amendment instead of a simple majority.  

What are they worried about?  That citizens will place an abortion amendment on the ballot like Kansas and Michigan.  The Secretary of State is leading this campaign, and claims that it will protect the “people” from special interests.  What it will really do is maintain the power of the legislature from any possible check or balance.

Capital of Corruption

And Ohio has the dubious honor of being named one of the most corrupt states in the nation.  First Energy Corporation admitted paying a $61 million bribe to the former Speaker of the House, Republican Larry Householder.  He is still awaiting trial.   The  money was used to pay for Republican campaigns all over the state, and reaches to the Governor himself.  

The private education lobby spent millions of dollars to convince legislators to remove most financial controls from private, online schools.  The largest donor ran an online charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow. They falsified attendance records to maintain public funding.  The now failed operation still owes the state over $100 million dollars.

Nail the Door Shut

And in case Democrats decide to take a stab at regaining some ground, state election officials are taking further steps to make voting harder in the state – all in the name of “election security”.  They aren’t “closing the barn door after the horses got out”.  That door was never open, and the horses never left.  Voter fraud isn’t an issue in Ohio (or in the rest of the US).  Instead, they are nailing it shut tighter, so that fewer voters can make their voice heard.

It’s hard to imagine what it would take for Democrats to regain some influence in the Buckeye State.  Former State Democratic Chairman David Pepper is calling for a grass roots effort to rebuild a party that has only won the four-year Governor’s seat once in the past thirty years.  It sounds next to impossible, but there is one ray of hope – there really are 45% of Ohioans who already are willing to vote Democratic.  A ten percent swing, and the entire state could change.

At least, that’s the pipe-dream.

Classroom – 2050

It’s 2050.  A high school Advanced American History class is studying the “Trump Era” (historians lost the “label” battle – they wanted to call it the “Era of Insurrection”).  Classes still meet in a school building, by the way.  Educators discovered during the 2020 pandemic; “remote computer” education wasn’t the answer to everything that the early 2000’s thought it could be.  Somehow, human direct interaction:  seeing, feeling, hearing and sensing each other in a group, improves educational outcomes. 

But schools still use all sorts of technology.  While the fundamental truth of education is that it works best face to face, technology continues to improve the experience.  This history class is assembled, circling a holographic image of a ninety-four year old man in a straight-backed chair.  He’s a “local”, a retired teacher from bygone days when classes had chalkboards and kids had pencils.  The old man is very much alive, interacting with the class from his home.  At ninety-four, it’s more convenient to use technology than make the great physical effort of getting to the school and into the actual classroom.

Primary Sources

And why is this old teacher talking with the students?  In the “Trump Era” (2015–2030) he already was retired from teaching.  But during that time he wrote thousands of essays about what was going on.  The essays had no pretense of impartiality, the old teacher was clearly against the most controversial figure in American History.  Now some of his essays are used as “primary documents”. The students analyze, criticize, and evaluate them from the distance of twenty years after Trump finally left the scene.  The old man likened it to talking about McCarthyism when he was in high school.

Why Trump

The most significant question the students asked was how did so many Americans seem to blindly follow a man with so few qualifications to be the leader of the “free world”?  The slightly shimmering holograph had a complicated answer.  First, he said, they needed to understand what Americans looked like in 2015.  We were on the cusp of becoming the multi-cultural society we are in 2050, with no one race or religion a majority.  We even elected a Black man as President of the United States in 2008, a result that few thought was possible even two years before.  

And that made a lot of Americans, particularly male, white, Christian Americans, scared.  If a Black man could be President, what other societal changes might impact their lives?  Issues like gays serving in the military or getting married (the military policy was the infamous “Don’t ask – Don’t tell” and marriage was set by individual states), or transgendered folks being accepted into society, or the growing Hispanic population gaining political power; all threatened the cultural, religious and political status quo.

Add to that the growing economic inequality in America.  In 1989, the top 10% of income earners held 61% of the total household wealth, while the bottom 50% held 3.7%.  By 2016, the top 10% held 69%, the bottom 50% only 1.3%.  The phrase “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” was truer than ever, creating a general feeling of frustration.  The economic upheaval of the Great Recession of 2008, when millions of lower income Americans lost their homes, savings, and retirement investments; only made things worse (Wiki).

Insecure Future

So many Americans saw a rapidly changing future and were unsure where their place would be.  They felt insecure financially, morally, and politically.   Add to that a massive change in information sharing.  Until the mid 2000’s, Americans had two mass information platforms:  broadcast and print media.  But with the growth in internet information sources, and the ability to access information individually on a pocket phone, America changed.  

Any and all messages could be seen on the internet.  There were few controls on how things were said, who told the truth and who lied, and what audience was targeted.  Social media found that creating and inflaming controversy generated income.   The billionaire owners like Zuckerberg at Facebook and Instagram and Musk at Twitter, where all about making more money.

History Rhymes 

So three factors:  changing demographics, economic uncertainty, and unlimited access to propaganda led many Americans to seek a mythical earlier time “…when things were better and simpler”.   The holograph smiled, and said “Remember your history.  America was there before.  As Mark Twain might have said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.’”  

The hologram talked about the American South after Reconstruction ended, when most of the hard won rights of the newly free people were taken away by Jim Crow Laws, or the post-World War I era with dramatic media changes (Birth of a Nation), tens of thousands marching in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan, and America solving its social problems with Prohibition.  The racism and cultural unrest of the 1920’s continued throughout the Great Depression.

After all of the social changes of the early 2000’s, and all of the economic upheaval, many Americans were insecure and looking for stability.  In 2015 Donald Trump glided down a literal golden escalator, a mythical billionaire who had “all the answers”.  As Trump himself said, “I alone can fix this”.  And many Americans believed him.

The classroom teacher stepped in: “We are out of time for today, but Mr. Dahlman will be back tomorrow. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to look up the following American political characters:  Woodrow Wilson, Charles Coughlin, and Joe McCarthy.  Briefly explain how they hoped to change America.”

The holograph carefully raised his coffee cup in farewell – and shimmered away.  He’d have said it looked like a Star Trek transporter – but none of the kids would understand.  Star Trek was eighty-five years ago.

This is a “Sunday Story” – even though it’s Black Friday. There are no politics here – just a tale of finding a position to get some sleep!!!!

Old Injuries

I spent a lot of my life as an athlete.   I started baseball at six, swimming at ten, then track and field and wrestling in Junior High.  But it wasn’t a sports injury when I tore cartilage in my knee.  I was in sixth grade, and in a fight  (about what I don’t remember anymore – but I’m sure I was right!), I was on top of a kid, I think the term is “pummeling” him.  His buddy toppled me off, and my knee got trapped under my original opponent.  I just remember all three of us realizing that my body rotated, but my right lower leg did not.  They both backed away – and I waited that second before the pain arrived.

Back then, it was six weeks on crutches and wear an ace bandage.  Then you were “healed”.  I actually didn’t finally get my right knee “repaired” until I was sixty, when my friendly Orthopedic cleaned out the damage.

Athlete/Coach

In high school wrestling there was a knee to the face, putting my nose up against my right cheek.  It was early in the season, and I thought I could “live” with it until wrestling was over.  Maybe I could, but my Mom sure couldn’t.  She screamed when I walked in the door, and we were in a late-hours Ear, Nose and Throat office that night.  Two days later – my nose was fixed.  My clearest memory was laying in the pre-op room, listening to the orderlies talk about the unconscious older man on the next gurney.  They were concerned – he needed several teeth removed, and they pulled them – then realized they pulled the “good” teeth. Only the “bad” teeth were left in his mouth.  At the time I thought – “I’m glad I only have one nose!”

After college track, I started coaching.  As a coach I was always keeping in shape, working out with my track athletes in the off-season, teaching middle schoolers how to wrestle (there was another broken nose) and running with the distance gang in the summer.  So I was pretty much an athlete throughout my forty year coaching career.  There were always some injuries, that damn knee, a couple of “sports” hernias, and an on and off back problem.  But no big deals.

The Odd Shoulder

So when I foolishly managed to roll a lawn tractor on top of myself, I didn’t think much of the odd feeling in my shoulder.  We flipped the tractor back over and went to work.  It wasn’t until a couple of days later that my arm didn’t work right.  When I reached up, all I felt was grinding and pain. Soon I wasn’t reaching up much anymore.  I went back to my Orthopedic, and after some discussion and an MRI, he put his hand on my good shoulder and said, “You won’t be satisfied unless we fix that thing”.  I trust Rod Comisar, and three weeks later I showed up for surgery.

When they said six weeks in a sling, then another five months of rehab, I really didn’t think a lot about it.  The sling was a pain, it’s my left shoulder and I’m left handed.  I couldn’t even type, my preferred means of expression these days.  But I did my twice-daily therapy, looking forward to the words “no sling” and “weight bearing”.  

Here I am, just eight weeks out.  The sling – well I don’t wear it at all in the daytime.  But, oddly, it’s an almost instant pain-killer at night, and I’m still trying to “wean” myself out of its nocturnal comforts.  

More Pain

And about pain:  I didn’t realize shoulder surgery is ALL about pain.  The knee you could isolate and ice, the nose was a couple of day headache, the hernias were a couple of weeks then back in action.  But there is no way around a shoulder.  Every move, every cough, every change of position impacts both shoulders.  So it’s been a pain from the beginning – especially when trying to sleep.  I spent six weeks in a recliner, unable to even lay flat comfortably in bed.  And now, a couple of weeks later, I’m learning how to sleep again, sometimes with the sling and sometimes without.  But there’s always that movement.  I instinctively put my hands behind my head as a sleep – it’s a lousy way to wake up.  No wonder one of the first questions Dr. Comisar asks is “…are you sleeping?”  The answer often is not so much.

Physical therapy takes me back to my weight room days, conditioning and competing with the kids. The battle cry of weights in the 1980’s and 90’s was “NO PAIN, NO GAIN” (and NO steroids).  All of my current physical therapists must have trained in the same rooms.  Pain is NOT  guide to my therapy exercise. Pain, in fact, may mean I’m doing things right.  But who’d have thought:  here I am, lifting a can of corn (one pound) overhead and back for two sets of ten – and not only hurting but finding my arm shaking with exhaustion!! If I’m at one pound now – four more months doesn’t seem long enough to get back to anything that I consider normal.

Turkey Weight 

And Thanksgiving was a true threat to my wellbeing.  If my “weight bearing” is one pound, then how do I get a fifteen pound turkey in and out of the smoker?  (I managed to use my right to get it in, and my son Joe helped get it out.  It was delicious by the way, hickory smoked for six hours and so juicy and tender – even the white meat!!!).  But there was that pan of cheesy potatoes; I didn’t think much about that until my re-attached bicep suggested that I was past my limits.  I quickly switched position, no damage done.  But the day was definitely a workout.

More pain, more gain – that’s the battle cry now.  I depend on the awesome team of physical therapists to set the limits.  And I AM listening to them.  I just want to get back to normal:  lifting up the “Chewy” pet food boxes on the front porch, sleeping on my stomach with my hands under my head, reaching for the top shelf without getting up on my toes (OK, I am short, so that happens anyway).  

There’s a barbell set waiting for me to get to five pounds.  And the stretchy  tubular bands are arriving today (got to be the right age – “and Tubular Bells!!” of Exorcist fame).  And there’s good occupational therapy coming up as well – the outdoor Christmas decorations need to go up!!!!  

Maybe I’ll sleep better tonight.

Pizzagate

It seemed like a bad joke gone wrong.  Back in 2016, when the nation was already shocked by the ascendancy of Donald Trump, Edgar Welch walked into Ping Pong Pizza in Washington, DC with an AR-15.  He fired the gun at a door at the back of the restaurant, blasting open the lock of a closet.  Welch was searching for the stairs to the basement, where he was certain children were being held for trafficking.  There is no basement to the Ping Pong Pizza building.

“Pizzagate” was a joke to most of the nation, a man so steeped in the craziness of the back alleys of the internet, that he truly believed that Hillary Clinton, the nominee for President, led a Democratic cabal of pedophile child traffickers, some hidden in the basement of Ping Pong Pizza.  Part of the “proof” of the conspiracy was “coded” into the Russian hacked emails of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta.  In its most extreme version, the Democrats actually drank the blood of those children to maintain some form of immortality, as well as more “regular” pedophilia.  It was “nuts”, just beyond crazy.  But there was Welch, with an actual AR-15, firing off shots and looking for the basement.

QAnon

A lot of this craziness amalgamated into the QAnon conspiracy theories.  Most normal American citizens shook their head at the lunacy:  John Kennedy Jr. returning from a faked death to lead the nation, the American “secret police” ready to swoop in and return Donald Trump to his rightful place as President.  But Trump, and some of the politicians who aspire to be “Trump 2.0”, continue to “dabble” in QAnon.  You can see it at a Trump rally, the “Q” apparel in the audience, the QAnon “theme song”played in the background, the “Q” salute by many in the crowd.  

There’s a line from QAnon to the current Republican talking points.  And it runs straight through Trump, and right to the shootings at the Q Night Club in Colorado Springs. 

Indoctrination Centers 

I taught in the public schools for thirty-five (and a half) years.  I am a “true believer” that teachers can’t “indoctrinate” kids.  If we could, then schools wouldn’t need my last job, the “discipline guy” at a high school, the Dean of Students.  If we really had that kind of influence, kids would do their homework, and pay attention in class, and not sell drugs in the bathroom or make love on the floor of the auditorium.  But they do.

But some Republican candidates have found a way to energize voters by creating a view of public schools as “Democrat indoctrination centers”.  Good schools look at their students, some of whom are gay, or transgendered, or even “furries” (students who dress like animals).  They try to find a way to reach those students, to make them part of their school community.  But somehow that makes schools “Democrat”.  And since, according to QAnon, Democrats are pedophiles, it all fits a certain crazy sense.  “They are trying to indoctrinate our kids”.  

Energizing the Crazies

Think that’s not real?  Millions of dollars are going into school board candidates throughout the country, from groups like the 1776 project.  Part of their goal is to control curriculum, to end the mythical “Critical Race Theory” they think is taught in schools.  But another part is to attack schools that try to normalize gay and transgendered children.  That “normalization” fits right into the QAnon theories, though those groups would deny any connection.

Still not convinced?  Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State and a potential Republican candidate for President in 2024 just announced: 

“Who’s the most dangerous person in the world?  Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?  The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten (President of the American Federation of Teachers).  It’s not a close call. Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?  It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids…”

Schools are teaching “acceptance” of those that are different.  But accepting the LGBTQ community flies in the face of  significant portion of the Republican base, who are co-opted by QAnon conspiracy theories.  So if schools accept the LGBTQ, then, like Weingarten, they must be indoctrinating children into being Democrats.

Disaster

Pompeo knows better.  But he’s willing to “dabble”, just as Trump is, in order to reach that part of the Republican base who will vote in the Republican primary.  And that “dabbling” means advocating, “in camera”, for the craziness.

If the LGBTQ community is such a threat to American culture, how hard is it for those on the fringes of our society, already mentally unstable and with ready and easy access to weapons and ammunition, to take “control” of the situation.  Whether it was Welch storming the Ping Pong Pizza store in 2016, or Anderson Lee Aldrich at the Q Night Club last week, they are “getting the message”.  It’s not just from the dark corners of the internet anymore.  It’s from some of the highest office holders in the nation.  

Poll Watcher

I used to be a “poll watcher”.  I knew all of the ins and outs of finding the most recent polls for any specific race.  And I was a poll “believer”.  I thought I had a good understanding of how pollsters reached their conclusions.  But the last few years, and particular the last few weeks, show how wrong I was.

Polls are based on “pre-conceptions” of what the voting public will do.  If the pre-conceptions are wrong, then so are the polling results.  It happened in 2020 (Biden was over-estimated, the rest of the Republican ticket under-estimated) and now again in 2022 (national “models” didn’t work).  So I’m letting go.  I’m not checking the polling “pulse” at Real Clear Politics and 538 anymore.  I trust my own intuition more than a trust theirs.

Bad Leader

I spent the morning listening to “other Republicans” (not Trump) speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas from last weekend.  It was an early look at the Republican 2024 Presidential slate:  DeSantis, Christie, Pompeo, and Pence among then.  And all of them pointed out that Donald Trump wasn’t good for the Republican Party.  They highlighted the poor quality of candidates that Trump foisted on the Party in 2022; folks like Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker.  They never – never said anything about Trump being a threat to the American democracy or the Constitution. He was just a “bad leader” who picked losers. 

And that’s the rub.  My intuition, backed by the polling I no longer trust, says that about 30% of Americans are committed to the personhood of Donald Trump.  That same intuition tells me that about 35% of Americans would vote for the proverbial “Yellow Dog” rather than vote for Trump.  And that leaves the remaining 35% of Americans that I just don’t understand.

The Threat

To me, Donald Trump is an existential threat to America.  He is the man who led an insurrection, one that came perilously close to overthrowing our Constitutional system.  He did that in full public view, exhorting his millions of social media followers to come to Washington, then openly sending them to the Capitol to force the Congress to throw out the confirmed Electoral votes.  There’s a lengthy list of things that Trump did in his Presidency that I disagree with.  Many of them are unforgiveable “mortal sins” in my mind.  But to threaten the Constitution itself should be a “mortal sin” to everyone – and the fact that it’s not makes me crazy.

I hear all of those Republican leaders tell their Party that they should turn from this “bad leader” and electoral “loser”, and chose them (of course).  But there is still the what-if question.  What-if Trump still wins the Party’s nomination?  They all say, from Mitch McConnell and Bill Barr on down, that faced with the choice of a Democrat who supports the Constitution, and a former President who demonstrably does not:  they will vote for the former President.

That raises the question:  what is the existential threat posed by the Democrats, so dangerous that it somehow over-shadows the danger posed by a second Trump Presidency?  Joe Biden is a moderate Democratic President, and it’s likely that if he wasn’t the nominee (he will be), that the next generation of Democrats will moderate as well.  But, to those other Republican leaders, that moderation must be worse than direct, fundamental threats to the Constitution.  

Winning

Or is this something else?  Perhaps “winning, power, money” is more important than our Constitution itself.  Or, to be charitable, perhaps the Pompeo’s and McConnell’s believe that our Constitution is so strong, so based, that it can survive another Trump.  And meanwhile, they can take their power and money literally, “to the bank”. 

I don’t share their faith that our National structure can survive another run of Trumpism.  We were on a knife edge on January 6^th.  Had the mob found Pence or Pelosi or Schumer or the others, the results would have been very different.  Trump would have had the crisis he hoped for, and would have declared a national emergency.  It’s hard to say what would have come from that.

But Republican leadership, and a significant percentage of the undecided 35%, are willing to risk that.  I just don’t get it.

Screaming Foul

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a “Special Counsel” yesterday.  Jack Smith is coming home from prosecuting war crimes at the International Court at the Hague, to take on the biggest issue in the United States, the “elephant in the room” of American politics.  Jack Smith will determine whether the twice impeached former President of the United States, running for the office again, will be charged with crimes.

There’s an old political saying:  if both sides are screaming foul, you must be doing something right.  The right-wing media is howling – how dare the Justice Department even think of prosecuting the former President.  The left-wing media is screaming too – why isn’t Trump already in handcuffs, “perp-walked” through a Federal Court.   

Undodgeable Bullet

And there are those who say that “Old Granny” Merrick Garland is trying to “dodge the bullet”.  By appointing a Special Counsel, he is somehow trying to avoid making the decision of whether a former President of the United States will be tried for crimes.  But, as we learned so clearly in Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, in the end, it is the Attorney General, the head of the Justice Department, who makes the final decision.  As Harry Truman would say, “The buck stops there”.  This is an undodgeable missile.  Charge or “no bill”, it will ultimately be Garland’s decision.

Disingenuous

I think both right and left are being disingenuous.  Even the most “right” of commentators, the diehard Trump supporters, cannot be “OK” with all of those classified documents scattered around Mar-A-Lago like leaves in the wind.  These are the same people who wanted the death penalty for Edward Snowden, and cried treason when President Obama commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence.  Trump had compartmentalized intelligence files, more secret than “Top Secret”, stuffed in the desk drawers at his private supper club next to his will and testament.  Everyone, even his most ardent supporters, deep down must be shocked.

The left-wing commentators, my guys, are smugly saying that the Department of Justice prosecutes politicians all the time.  They cite the case of Senator Bob Menendez and Congressmen Chris Collins, William Jefferson and Rick Renzi, all of whom were indicted while in office.  “Justice didn’t need a ‘special counsel’ for them,” they say – “why should Trump be treated any differently”.  

But that’s just foolish.  Donald Trump is not just some Congressman with money in his freezer from New Orleans, or even a Senator with a rich dentist friend in New Jersey.  The United States has been prosecuting politicians since the nation began.   Even a former Vice President, Aaron Burr, was charged with treason in 1807 for trying to break off the Midwest from the United States and form a separate nation.  But today’s situation is, like it or not, different.

A President

The disgraced former President, who received 74 million votes in the last election, the second most ever in US history, is running for the office again.  To somehow think he’s like Menendez, or Collins, or even Aaron Burr, is just stupid.  Much as “my guys” would like to see an orange man in an orange jump suit, there are other considerations.   In fact the only real precedent was established in 1974 by President Gerald Ford.  Richard Nixon, Ford’s predecessor, resigned to avoid impeachment, but faced a myriad of criminal charges.  Ford pardoned him for everything, ending the Watergate Era and “…our long national nightmare”.  So the fact the Garland is even proceeding with criminal investigations against Trump is new ground.

Don’t get me wrong.  Nixon was charged with a lot of “personal” crimes:  tax evasion, covering up a felony, bribing other government officials to lie. Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski had the charges all lined up.  Looking back with fifty years of hindsight, maybe he should have been tried.  “All citizens are equal before the law”, was what I cried then.  Maybe, if Nixon was put “in the dock”, it might have set a better precedent.

But Nixon was already disgraced.  We didn’t really need a trial or Nixon in handcuffs to know what he did.  So moving the nation on, past Watergate, was at least a legitimate goal.

Core of Democracy

The issue with Donald Trump is that he struck at the very core of our Constitutional Democracy.  He not only used the Presidency to enrich himself, but he attempted to overthrow the legitimate voice of the people.  He led an insurrection.  What happened on January 6^th is unparalleled in American history, and more important even than the hubris of keeping classified documents on a desktop in a supper club.  Nixon was a crook.  Trump was, and is, a threat to our Democracy.

And for that reason, Americans need to have a “full airing” of what took place.  The only way to achieve that airing, is to have Donald J. Trump on trial.  Let the prosecution lay out its case to the jury, and the American people.  Let the defense make their best effort to show that it wasn’t Trump’s fault, nor his responsibility.  Every effort should be made to ensure due process, and the whole case must be made to the jury, judge and America.

Screaming-frustrated or screaming-resentful:  every step must follow “the form” of fairness – due process.  And that’s why Merrick Garland is right to appoint a Special Counsel to determine whether to bring charges. Then let the courts determine whether a former President of the United States broke the law.  And if he’s found guilty, then let the current President of the United States determine whether we want the spectacle of that former President in jail.

Kitchen Table

Some Republican candidates in the mid-terms had it right.  They weren’t talking about the 2020 election, or the Insurrection, or supposed FBI over-reach.  They made “kitchen table” arguments.  Inflation is too high, it’s eating up gains in income and making living harder.  Urban crime is increasing. In fact, homicides and rapes are down, but armed robberies and assaults are up (USA).  But those facts aren’t the “feelings” of suburban voters, who worry about going “into” the city, or having the city come “out” to them.  

Those were the more successful Republican candidates in the last election.  The election-denying, QAnon echoing candidates were the ones who lost.  And while Democrats might feel good about retaining control of the Senate and several state governorships, in the final result, Republicans eked out control of the House of Representatives.  Speaker Pelosi will have to pass the gavel to, probably, Kevin McCarthy, and take her place as a “back-bench” Democratic member.  

With two years to prove their worth as a governing faction, you’d think House Republicans would be talking about their plans to reduce inflation and crime.  Their “first impression” as a governing Party  should be about the issues that got them elected to office in the first place.  That is the “quid-pro-quo” that voters expect:  you gain the vote by your promises of action, now act.

But that’s not what’s happening.

About Hunter

“Keep it about Hunter Biden.  This is kind of a big deal we think.  If we can keep it about Hunter Biden, that would be great.”  – James Comer (R) of Kentucky (press conference, 11/17/22).

Republican Congressmen Jim Jordan and James Comer held a press conference yesterday.  Jordan expects to be Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Comer Chairman of the House Oversight Committee.   Comer made it clear: the first priority of “his” Committee will be the investigation of Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.  And Jordan also set his priority:  supposed FBI “overreach” in investigating the twice-impeached former President and the January 6^th rioters.

The Republican priorities are crystal clear.  

In 2012, Republicans also controlled the House of Representatives.  They used their committee chairmanships to lead six different investigations into the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya.  The investigations cost Americans more than $6.5 million over the next four years (WAPO).  

The Benghazi hearings were used as a cudgel to beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  And while Secretary Clinton ultimately testified to the committee for eleven hours straight, responding to every question;  an off-shoot of the investigation found that she had a private e-mail server for part of her electronic correspondence.  That became a huge campaign issue in 2016, and the FBI investigation of it undoubtedly cost her the election, and cost America the four year Presidency of Donald Trump.

So while Americans might wish that the Republicans “in charge” would deal with the serious problems of the country; it’s more likely we will be fed a steady diet of Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci, and “how bad” the FBI is.  None of that will “Make America Great (Again)”, but what it will do is further polarize the nation, in hopes that Trump, or one of his indistinguishable substitutes, can get elected President in 2024.  

Democratic Response

What can Democrats do?  They can hope that instead of repeating the history of 2016, Biden and Congressional leadership can replicate the history of 1996.  In 1994 Republicans took over the House of Representatives, and their actions gave Democrats a perfect “foil” to build Bill Clinton’s position to retain the Presidency against Kansas Senator Robert Dole.  Clinton focused on making the House, and particularly Speaker Newt Gingrich, the “bad guy” in the government.   He was able to successfully do that, particularly when Gingrich took credit for shutting the government down for three weeks over a budget issue.

You can be sure that Democrats will be talking about abortion rights and Medicare and Social Security and even budget issues; as Republicans desperately search through Hunter Biden’s laptop for scandal and crime.  It will be up to the American people to determine which is more important.

Winners 

While control of the House of Representatives is still unclear, there are clear winners and losers from the mid-term elections of 2022.  The big winner is Joe Biden, who managed to dodge what all the commentators and pollsters saw as a looming “Red Wave”.   “Sleepy Joe” Biden out-foxed them all, placing democracy and personal rights at the head of the Democratic agenda.  All of the commentators “in the know” knew the election was all about inflation, crime and the border, the Republican talking points.  But they didn’t “know” as much as they thought they did.

Those commentators were  misogynistic and lacked belief in the American people.  The “all knowing ones” thought that women, with new voter registration in record numbers, would forget all about the Dodds abortion decision and instead vote solely on inflation.  And they thought that Americans in general were so short-memoried, that the Insurrection of January 6^th wouldn’t matter. As it turned out, both those issues did.

Losers

The biggest loser of the day was Donald Trump, the twice impeached and disgraced former President of the United States.  With a few exceptions (sadly, one here in Ohio) Trump anointed candidates fell flat.  In Michigan and Arizona, where the full slate of Republican statewide candidates were election deniers, the Trumpers were completely turned away.  

Trump announced his third run for the Presidency last night.  Two weeks ago that probably made some “Trump” sense (if Trump ever makes sense).  Anticipating a “Red Wave” election with his chosen candidates doing well, Trump could strike quickly to retain the leadership of the Republican Party, and demand loyalty in another bid for power.  All of the air would be out of the political room, and other Republican Presidential hopefuls, most notably Ron DeSantis of Florida, would immediately be on the defensive.

But Trump now announced at his point of greatest weakness.  That, of course, still makes “Trump Sense”.  When you’re losing, there’s nothing better than acting like a winner.  He’s creating a whole tale, where he is the “only One” the people trust.  “Only He” can fix the nation’s so-called problems. We’ve heard this song before.  To make the point, he’ll say that as the election results show, there’s no one else that can fill his shoes.

Other Reasons

But Trump has two more pressing reasons to begin a Presidential campaign, right now.  The first is money.  The disgraced former President is facing enormous legal fees, defending against two Federal investigations, two state investigations, and several civil suits.  The Republican National Committee is finally refusing to pay for Trump’s legal bills, and he needs a ready source of money to defend himself.  There’s no easier way to raise money than to offer to his assembled masses the opportunity to “Make America Great Again” by contributing to the Trump Legal Defense Fund, the Trump 2024 Campaign Fund.

Department of Justice

And by declaring for President now, Trump puts added pressure on the Department of Justice.  No American President has ever been indicted for a crime after he left office.  Nixon was set for indictment, but his successor President Ford pardoned him before charges could be brought.  And while some considered indicting George W Bush for allowing torturing of captured terrorists, President Obama nixed that idea.  

Attorney General Merrick Garland is a man of precedent.  He would have made a solid “middle” in the US Supreme Court, a “leftier” John Roberts (but Mitch McConnell never let him be considered).   There is no precedent for indicting a former President.  So it will take a mountain of evidence, an irresistible force of material, to push Garland to indict Trump.  

By declaring for President now, Trump will add more friction to that decision.  Garland is loath to interfere in domestic politics.  Department of Justice policy discourages bringing charges within sixty days of an election, and even though the 2024 election is more like sixty hundred and fifty days away; Garland will have to consider that factor as well – and Trump knows it.

Cover Their Base

Meanwhile other Republican leaders are busy “covering their bases”.  Potential candidate Ted Cruz suggests other candidates, including himself, before Trump.  But he would support Trump if nominated, and John Cornyn says the same.  Lindsay Graham is already singing the praises of Trump’s dark message of American carnage.

And speaking out for the first time is former Vice President Mike Pence.  In an interview with ABC news, he made it clear that he blames Trump for putting him and his family at risk on January 6^th.  He hasn’t been willing to tell his story in the almost two years since the insurrection.  Now, after the mid-term election results are clear, Pence grew the – courage – to tell the American people the truth of the Insurrection.   We can view that as his opening “bid” in the Republican Presidential primary.

When Gerald Ford replaced Richard Nixon as President in 1974, he told America that “…our long national nightmare is over.”  The nightmare of Donald Trump truly began in November of 2016.  We hoped it was finally over on Election Day of 2020.  But like Napoleon Bonaparte, or the Terminator, Trump seems to keep coming back again and again.  And like those two figures, we can’t count Trump out.

Voting

Election Day – that’s an antiquated phrase.  In many jurisdictions counties are still counting votes, here a full week after “election day”.  Voting began a month before the “day” with early “in person” voting, and what we used to call “absentee, now mail-in ballots.  They can actually be mailed in, like, through the US Post Office mail.  Or the voter can find a local drop box to drop the ballot in.  

When I first started voting, back in the “dark ages” of the 1970’s, there were only two ways to vote here in Ohio.  Either you voted on election day, or you voted “absentee”, meeting the strict legal requirements to be “absent” from the actual polling place.  I even remember one May primary election when I forgot to get an absentee ballot. I drove home to Cincinnati from college in Granville in order to cast my “election day” in-person vote.

Ohio Pride

Here in Ohio there’s a certain smugness about the election.  Ohio prides itself on elections called on Election Day (or early in the morning of the next day).  Congressman Jim Jordan, the proud representative of a gerrymandered Ohio district that wiggles across much of the state, has been tweeting over and over again:  “It’s Election Day, not Election Month”.

Arizona and Nevada are still counting ballots, a week after the election.  They will be mostly done by the end of this week.  California, on the other hand, will still be counting on into the Thanksgiving weekend, and maybe beyond.  

If you are over forty, you might remember that crazy November of 2000, as we watched day after day the counters in Florida desperately trying to sort out a 597 vote difference out of six million cast for Bush and Gore (and Nader).  That’s less than 1/100^th of a percent difference, well within the “margin of error”. With six million votes to count, no matter what, there’s going to be some unavoidable errors.  1/100^th of a percent is beyond absolute certainty, regardless of how many times that votes are counted.

Fewer Votes

Here in Ohio, we didn’t have those problems.  Sure, we knew that Cincinnati, and even more Cleveland, were going to be the last tallies in, but it was going to happen before the counters went to bed after election day.

But Ohio needs to get over itself.  We get our results quicker, because we have fewer people voting.  Last week, only 51% of Ohio registered voters came to the polls.  That’s fewer voters than in 2018, and just barely more than in 2010.  Ohio’s high turnout was in the 2020 election – just under six million voted, 74% of those registered.

So in last week’s election, almost half of registered voters (and another 500,000 or so not registered at all) didn’t vote.  Less than half of Ohio citizens made the decisions about who are leaders are – like Jim Jordan and JD Vance.  Ohio has made voting cumbersome, difficult, and inconvenient.  And we’ve done it on purpose – because the Republican legislature doesn’t want “the other half” to vote.  They know that those non-voters wouldn’t choose them.

Voter Suppression

Voter suppression in Ohio is more insidious than it is in Georgia.  We’ll let you hand out cookies and water in a long voter line.  Of course, if you vote in an urban area, you can expect that there will be a long wait to cast your ballot. And yes, you can register to vote online.  If you have an Ohio state ID or driver’s license. Otherwise you need to print a PDF form, fill it out, and send it to your local board of elections.  Let’s think that part over.

What if you recently moved to Ohio (obeying the 30 day residence requirement) but haven’t changed your ID’s over?  What if you don’t drive and don’t have a State ID?  How about if you don’t have a printer?  What if you’re using a public computer that won’t let you print?  What if you don’t know where your county “seat” is, much less the Board of Elections?  

Yep, Ohio online registration is easy.  Your signature from you driver’s license (or State ID) is transferred to the Board of Elections for a “signature match”.  But if you don’t have those, then registering to vote is burdensome and difficult.

Purge

Here in Ohio, there is an annual “cleansing” of the voting rolls.  Miss four years, and they send out a “form”. Miss the form and another two years, and you’re “purged” from the list.  Infrequent voters find themselves unable to vote, even though they live at the same address.

Here in Ohio, we used to have a “golden week”, when voters could register and vote in the upcoming election on the same day.  That week was dropped.  Here in Ohio, every registered voter was sent an application for an absentee ballot (vote by mail).  Now,you must request that application.  And here in Ohio, we used to have drop boxes for absentee/mail ballots throughout the county.  Now – there’s one drop box, at the County Seat.

So, “efficient” Ohio is really voter suppressed Ohio.  What would happen if another 500,000 Ohioans voted? Maybe it would take longer to get election results.  And the outcome of those results might be very different.  Meanwhile, we have the “smoothest” election process available. 

 It’s easy, as long as people don’t vote.

The Russian Army abandoned Kherson this weekend.  Kherson is a Ukrainian city located where the Dnieper River enters the Black Sea.  It is not just a key port, but more importantly, located close to the Crimean Peninsula.  Crimea was taken from Ukraine by Russia in 2014.  Just two hundred-twenty miles south of Kherson is Sevastopol, the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.  The Russian military bases there are critical to Russia’s presence on the Black Sea, and into the Mediterranean.  

Ukraine re-possessing Kherson is a huge victory for the Ukrainian forces.  But the cost is tremendous.  The city that once had a quarter-million people is down to thirty to sixty thousand.  There is no power, no water, no police and the streets were mined and booby-trapped by the retreating Russians.  The rest of the civilian population was forcibly evacuated from the city, taken further into Russian held territory, or even into Russia itself.

Strategic Failure

The fall of Kherson signals another major failure in Russian strategy.  At the beginning of the invasion in March, Russia launched a “decapitation” attack at the capital Kyiv.  That was the seventeen mile convoy, stalled for weeks along the roads north of the capital.  Ukrainians fought back against the attack, with some of the fighting in the suburbs of Kyiv itself.  Ultimately the Russians were forced to abandon that strategy.

The second failure took place in the eastern provinces, near the city of Kharkiv.  Russian already occupied some of the eastern sector, the result of the 2014 invasion.  And they leveled the city of Mariupol on the coast in order to “capture” it.   But they were unable to conquer Kharkiv, only twenty-five miles from the Russian border.  While they did make big advances to the south of the city, Ukrainian forces are now forcing them back towards the original 2014 line.

And the third failure was the Russian attempt to cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea, and ultimately to conquer the port city of Odesa.  After taking Kherson, the Russians were poised to press on along the coastline, cutting off Odesa and linking with their forces in Transnistria, the Russian supported breakaway province of neighboring Moldova.  But that line of attack failed as well, and losing Kherson means that Russia must look to defend Crimea rather than conquering territory.

War on Civilians

The one strategy that Russia seems dead set to continue, is waging war on the civilians of Ukraine.  For months, Russian missiles, bombs, and “kamikaze drones” rained down on the cities of Ukraine, taking out the power infra-structure.  Ukraine is on the same latitude line as Winnipeg, Canada.  Winter is coming, and while it’s likely that battlefield maneuvers will slow; Russia is making sure that the civilians of Ukraine are facing a long, cold season.  

And as the Russian forces withdrew across the country, they left behind the bodies of civilians and captured Ukrainian forces; tortured, mutilated, and executed.  The price of resistance to the Russian Armies is high and the people of Ukraine are paying the price.

History shows that bombing civilians doesn’t win wars.  The German bombing of Great Britain during World War II, and the American bombing of North Vietnam in the 1960’s both demonstrate that no matter how many houses are destroyed, or how much non-military damage is done:  attacking civilians unifies them against the enemy.  Civilians in history stiffen against attacks, particularly when they are directed against them, not military targets.

Russian attacks on civilians seems a lot more like vengeance rather than some military purpose.  Putin is sending a message to the world – stand against Russia, and face personal danger and destruction.  And the people of Ukraine and saying the same thing they’ve said since the Russian forces first crossed the border:  do your worst, we will fight for our country.

Ukraine Crisis

• Kherson – 11/14/22
• When Winter Calls – 9/12/22
• A Full Plate – 7/26/22
• Ukrainian Independence – 6/30/22
• No Victory Day – 5/10/22
• Desperate Moves – 4/27/22
• This is the Time – 4/20/22
• The Winning Message – 4/18/22
• Victory Day – 4/12/22
• Chapter Two – 4/11/22
• Zelenskyy’s Choice – 3/31/22
• The Gaffe – 3/28/22
• Putin’s Choice – 3/27/22
• Far Away From the Front – 3/20/22
• The Next Step – 3/17/22
• Thinking the Unthinkable – 3/14/22
• Russian Oil – 3/11/22
• Kyiv’s Choice – 3/8/22
• The Logic of Madness – 3/7/22
• Lights Out – 3/6/22
• Ante Up – 3/3/22
• State of the Union  3/2/22
• The Guns of March 3/1/22
• Sanctions 2/26/22
• What Happens Next 2/24/22
• The Games Begin  2/22/22
• Talking with a Friend 2/18/22
• Trip Wire 2/2/22
• On the Brink 1/23/22
• The Ukrainian Dilemma 12/5/19

Giddy

It’s the only word to describe how the National Democrats feel this week.  They are “giddy”; and “giggly”, “gleeful”  almost “goofy”, and any other “g” word you’d like to use.   They (we) were set up by National pollsters, the prognosticators at places like 538, Real Clear Politics, and The Cook Political Report.  Dems foresaw disaster.  They anticipated that middle of the night election 2016 feeling, when the world stopped, the pit in our stomachs grew deeper than the fabled “Blue Hole”, and the glass ceiling of the Javit’s Center remained completely intact.  

But it didn’t happen this time.  Democrats will probably maintain control of the Senate, albeit by a single vote.  That’s important though.  As we’ve seen aplenty, control of the Senate means control of Federal Court appointments.  In two years, President Biden already appointed a record number of Federal judges, including one Supreme Court Justice.  If Dems continue to control the Senate, that pace can continue, countering  McConnell and Federalist Society’s Court Packing of the Trump Administration.  

What’s the difference?  Trump appointed judges are doing the Federalist Society’s bidding throughout the nation.   Look at Judge Cannon in Fort Pierce, running interference for the Trump legal team in the classified documents case, or Judge Pittman in Fort Worth, blocking the student loan forgiveness program.  It’s not just about Supreme Court Justices; there’s a lot of “undoing” throughout the system that’s required to regain balance.  President Biden and Leader Schumer are on that task.

The House

It does look like Democrats will lose control of the House, though that’s not certain.  It takes 218 members to control; those self-same prognosticators estimate that Republicans will have between 213 and 227, and Democrats will have between 208 and 222 seats.  The odds favor Republicans, though I’m hoping for the error of the “Red Tsunami” that never came.  Since it will ultimately depend on the California election results, we may not even know until December.  But Democratic control would allow for two more years of trying to preserve the Voting Rights Act and putting Roe v Wade into Federal law; things that the last Congress failed to do.

If Republicans do take charge by the narrowest of margins, it looks like they’ll do everything they can to get “pay backs” for the last two years of the Trump Administration.  We can expect show-trial hearings on Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and possibly even a move to impeach the President himself.  And while all of that will be anguished and futile, fodder to the MAGA base, it will serve an important purpose.

The Republican Congress of “Getting Even” will create a contrast to the American people.  The Democrats in the past two years passed law after law, improving the infra-structure, creating jobs, helping more Americans enjoy the economic successes of the nation.  Some of those laws were almost universally acclaimed, others broke on strictly partisan lines.  But one thing we can say about Speaker Pelosi’s 117^th Congress – another “G” word.  They tried to govern.  Sure there was the January 6^th Committee hearings – but Democrats definitely “walked and chewed gum” at the same time.  And isn’t that why we send Congressmen to Washington?

Crazy

So Democrats might take solace that, if Speaker McCarthy (shudder) has the gavel, we will see Benghazi Hearings on steroids.  We will get Jim Jordan’s snark and Marjorie Taylor (Green’s) babble, Paul Gosar’s ramblings and, just by a whisker, Lauren Bobert’s craziness.  McCarthy will be forced to submit to their whims.  His margin will be so narrow, that the “crazies” will have ultimate authority.  If Republicans thought that AOC and “the Squad” had influence, just wait and see what the MAGA gang will do.

All of that will be uncomfortable and unfair, and incredibly frustrating.  But it will also set up the 2024 campaign.  If there’s one message that’s loud and clear from the 2022 election results, it’s the national repudiation of crazy.  And what seems inevitable is that a Republican run 118^th House of Representatives will be nothing but that – crazy.

And that’s why Democrats are giddy.  If by some minor miracle  they retain control of the House, there’s plenty of work to do.  Whether Speaker Pelosi remains, or the transition to the “next generation” finally begins, Democrats will continue to govern.  That would be a “win”.  But if the Republicans control the House, there’s a “win” there too.  And that will be a “win” in 2024. 

Bloodless Moon

Maybe the “Bloodless-Blood Moon”  really was a sign early on election day morning.  What was supposed to be a red moon from the refraction of the earth’s atmosphere was merely a lighter image in a dark night sky. No red, or blue at all – just a slightly lighter shade of gray.  After pre-election day predictions of the great “Red Tsunami of 2022” by the national polling averages; the results show that America is exactly where it was. We are on a knife edge of division; 40% one way, 40% another, and a slim 20% sliced in the middle and deciding our direction.  

It looks like that the broad “consequences” of the election of 2022 is this:  lots of folks want change, even drastic change; but there is no consensus on which way to go.  So we sit on the same knife edge of government we’ve “enjoyed” for the past six years.  The Senate will likely be exactly as it is now, a legislative tie with a Vice Presidential tiebreaker determining the final fate of legislation.  The House may be Republican, but if so, by less than a handful of votes.  Sure, they are likely to make a lot of noise, about the “major issues of their time”:  Hunter Biden, the FBI, Anthony Fauci.  But even if the Senate were one vote to the Republicans, nothing will get passed by the Democratic President.  

Effective Government

Perhaps Americans are assured that divided government in a lot of ways equals no government at all. Certainly that’s what floundering Twitter owner Elon Musk thinks. That appeals to our Libertarian streak; we can “do what we want” without undue interference.  But if we want government to actually solve problems, a knife edge of decision-making isn’t really an effective solution.

And for the Democrats, well, they’ve managed expectations.  They turned losing a little into winning.  Joe Biden will claim a “mandate” because the American people didn’t send the Red wave crashing through the White House, though I’m sure Jim Jordan and Josh Hawley will claim the wave really did hit.  We are living in a post-truth era, when black can be white, and the story is whatever people are willing to believe.  Facts are malleable and dispensable.  To paraphrase yellow journalist William Randolph Heart’s note to his illustrator sent to Cuba but unable to find the war that he was supposed to draw:  “you provide the pictures, and I’ll provide the war.”   Jordan, and his friends are willing to provide both pictures and war.

Casualties

Both sides lost casualties in the stalemate of 2022.  On the Democratic side Tim Ryan, Beto O’Rourke, Val Demings, Stacy Abrams, Tom Malinowski and Sean Patrick Maloney are temporarily lost to us due to electoral defeat.  And on the Republican end; Lauren Bobert and Sarah Palin fell short, as did Lee Zeldin and a long list of election deniers.  Some of them will be back, but others, like former Senator Al Franken, will find a new way to make a living, out of the heat of the political spotlight.  I’ll miss the Dems; I hope we will see Tim Ryan again back here in Ohio.  He feels the coursing “red” pulse of our state. If he could match his efforts with a more amenable time, I’m sure he would find success.

Stress Test

In a larger sense, our Democracy has survived a stress test.  There are no marches on the state capitols, no real demands that the votes were somehow altered.  In spite of our differences, and the broad shadow of January 6^th spread across the land; we still held a reasonably fair election.  We weren’t sure that would be true, not sure that this election wouldn’t be settled at the end of a flag pole, or bear spray, or the sharp report of an AR- 15.  But we “faked it” just like it was a “regular” election.  

And maybe that’s the way out of our national dilemma, our seat on the knife-edge of disunion.  Maybe we just need to “fake it”, act like it’s working, respect the questionable institutions, and work toward a more common good.  We need to follow Stacy Abrams lead.  In 2018, faced with clear election manipulation by her opponent Brian Kemp, she refused to concede the Georgia governor election.  But this week, losing by an even greater margin, and faced with even greater voter suppression, she conceded right away.  Belief, even modified belief, in our electoral process is so much more important in 2022.

If we can “fake it” long enough, perhaps we can make it back to “…the more perfect union” we’ve sought for two-hundred and thirty-six years.  Let’s hope.

Six weeks after shoulder surgery put my dominant arm in a sling, my surgeon “freed” me yesterday.  So today, I’ve got two hands on the keyboard.  I’m not sure how long I’ll last – but here goes.  Welcome back to “Our America”.

Pre-Dawn

The alarm went off at 430am, the “klaxon” alarm of “red alert” on Star Trek.  I worked my way out of bed, the first time in bed after six weeks sleeping in a recliner.  It was supposed to be a restful night, but I think I wrestled all night to find a place where my re-designed shoulder could relax.

But 4:30am it was – the pre-dawn hours of the “Blood Moon”.  It’s Election Day in the United States, the next in the “critical” decisions as America flirts with something other than democracy.  We made the “right” choice two years ago; who knows what direction our Nation will take today.  But there still is the “Blood Moon”.  

A total lunar eclipse, when the planet earth directly aligns between the sun and the moon.  I sat in the dark on the back deck with the dogs, hot coffee cup carefully clutched in my “good” hand.  The moon went from full and bright, to half, to sliver, to gone.  But there still was a dim orb to see.  I used to think that dim “blood moon” was a reflection of the earth, but of course, that’s not true.  The side of the earth facing the moon is in darkness, no light to reflect.  But the sun, directly in line on the daylight side of the planet, shines through the atmosphere around the edges.  And it is that refracted light that reflects from the moon, supposedly in the red range.

Brother ‘O’

The “blood moon” wasn’t very “bloody”.  Maybe it was the light haze of cloud cover that dimmed the reflection.  But it didn’t dim the stars.  My old early morning running companion was out, the constellation Orion, and grew brighter as the moon was covered.   Orion, as always, was proud of his place in the pre-dawn sky.  It was good to see “brother ‘O’” again.

The dogs got restless – it’s not often that I stand in the dark on the deck staring into the distance for an hour.  They wanted to play, or eat breakfast, or go back to the warmth of the fireplace.  But, since I was up, it was time for us to start the day…even in the darkness.  I waited for the “blood” moon, but all I saw was a grayed-out moon, barely visible.

Precedence

It’s Election Day.  I’ve been silently railing at the polls and predictions for the past month.  Polls are based on history, and I believe we are in an “a-historic” time.  The precedents of the past:  Presidential approval ratings, uncounted Republican voters, “the party in power always loses”, may not apply to our world today.  I take solace in the voting turnout, over forty million Americans have already voted.  Jenn and I are among them, as are more women that have ever voted before.  It’s hard to imagine all of them are coming out just to vote against inflation, when control of their own bodies is at stake.

So we will see, tonight, and probably on into the rest of the week.  I believe the “red wave” of September will be like the “blood moon”– not all it’s cracked up to be.  I take solace in what Lincoln said:  you can’t fool all of the people, all of the time.  And I hope George W Bush’s agglomeration of that expression remains true today: we won’t get fooled again.  I remain hopeful in the basic sense of the American electorate.  

I’ve been wrong before – so I have to hedge this bet just a bit.  And, just like getting up for the “Blood Moon” this morning, I’ll be watching the results as they tell us the direction of America’s future in the next few days.

And, I’ll be able to write about it.