Month: February 2025

Post-War Suffering

In 1949, Great Britain was still suffering from the terrible effects of World War II.  The damage done by seven years of constant bombings from the Germans was still evident.   The economic effort of waging a seven-year war of survival now required repayment.  And the loss of the “jewels of the British Commonwealth”; India, Pakistan and South Africa; were just beginning to be felt.

My Mom was British, and married an American during the War.   She came to the United States on a “Liberty Ship” in January of 1946, landing in a foot of snow in Portland, Maine.  She then met my father in New York City, and they travelled together to his home in Cincinnati, where they would truly begin their married life.  Mom’s parents came over for a long term visit in 1949, to meet their new grand-daughter.  Still, food was rationed in Great Britain.  

The family story goes that Mom, Dad and my sister drove to New York in a small car to pick them up from the ship. They then drove back across the Pennsylvania Turnpike with my grandmother straddling the “stick shift” in the front seat.  Dad bought a bushel of apples along the way, something that my grandparents hadn’t been able to eat for close to a decade.  They ate the whole bushel on the two-day journey home.

The New Abyss

Meanwhile the world was poised on the edge of a new abyss, the possibility of nuclear war so damaging that civilization might not survive.   After winning the “War to End All Wars”, World War I; then facing totalitarianism in a larger struggle two decades later in World War II; now an even greater threat arose, the Cold War.  It was in this environment in 1949 that George Orwell wrote his seminal fiction novel about totalitarianism, set in the near future.  It was titled 1984.

In the novel, three nations, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, all totalitarian dictatorships, battled each other for world domination.  Orwell’s story is set in Great Britain, part of Oceania.  To control the population, Oceania’s government had a “Ministry of Truth”.  The Ministry constantly fed the people propaganda, systematically designed to keep the population both supportive and passive.  No opposition is allowed, and those that oppose face exile, imprisonment, and becoming an “unperson”.  Their lives are literally stricken from the records. They never existed.

Oceania was constantly shifting alliances between Eurasia and Eastasia, with today’s ally becoming tomorrow’s mortal enemy.   When the alliances changed, the Ministry of Truth rewrote history so that Oceania was always aligned with the new partner, and always hated what, up until the week before, was a “life-long” friend.  

Our Friend

We young political science majors all read 1984 in the 1970’s, carefully comparing Orwell’s scenarios to the very real Soviet Union.   And as we approached the actual year, 1984, we gave a sigh of relief that his dystopian future hadn’t arrived. We sighed too soon.  

For the past three years, the United States has stood firmly beside the nation of Ukraine as it battled against Russian invasion.   We all held our breath as the seventeen mile line of Russian battle tanks, artillery and troop carriers came down the highway from the Russian border to attack Kyiv.  And we all marveled, first at the tremendous courage of the Ukrainians, and also at the gross incompetence of the Russian Generals. They were picked off and killed by homing in on their private cell phone signals.  The Russian fell back, the Ukrainians moved forward.  Millions of mines were sowed into the earth between the lines of the two forces, and a World War I style trench warfare battle dragged on over the next years.

Perhaps the most amazing thing of all was the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.   He went from a comedy star on Ukrainian television, playing the role of President, to election for the actual job.  And he “grew” into the new role as a Ukrainian, and ultimately, a world leader.  President Biden, NATO, and Europe all lined up behind the brave Ukrainian people against the Russian incursion.  

The battle grew old and ugly.  Here’s the Butcher’s Bill today:

• Russia – 300,000 casualties (120,000 dead, 180,000 wounded)
• Ukraine – 190,000 casualties (70,000 dead, 120,000 wounded)
• Civilians – 41,000 casualties (13,000 dead, 38,000 wounded).

Our Foe

But here in the United States, our “Ministry of Truth” (the White House) is busy trying to rewrite history.   This week, President Trump told us that the clear Russian invasion of Ukraine, was started by Ukraine, not Russia.  And that the elected President of Ukraine, Zelenskyy, was an illegitimate leader, who stole the Presidency.  We are in negotiations with the Russians led by a kleptocratic Putin, without even including Ukraine in the conversation.  Mr. Trump has told Ukraine, you better accept what we offer, or we’ll cut you off.

Eurasia is our enemy.   Eastasia is our friend.  It has always been that way.  And if you dare to question this (and are a Republican), Elon Musk will spend millions to make you an “un-person”. 

The Pennsylvania Avenue “Ministry of Truth” is also busy telling us that the United States spent $50 million for condoms in Gaza (a lie) . That Social Security paid benefits for folks that are 150 years old (also not true).  We now believe that tens of thousands of Federal workers are simply un-necessary.  Millions of migrants are criminals. Round them up and deport them. Billionaires know what’s best for us. They can’t be corrupt because they’re so rich.  And the biggest lie of all:  “I alone can fix this”.

Un-Persons

Even a mere MAGA foot-soldier, Republican Congressman Troy Balderson of the Ohio’s 12^th Congressional District, dared to grumble that Trump acted beyond his Constitutional authority.   He better be careful:  “un-personhood” is a sure penalty in MAGA-world.  Ask a list of politicians from Mark Sanford of South Carolina to Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to Rob Portman of Ohio (whoever they were).  Musk’s millions and a loyal MAGA replacement are at the ready.

It’s 2025, but we are on the cusp of Orwell’s 1984. The lies are already over-riding the truth.  Millions of Americans believe what was clearly ridiculous just six months ago.   And all of those who still know the truth are now concerned.  What will be the consequence of saying what we know is true;  exile, imprisonment, un-personhood?  It’s all possible in our new Trumpian World.

Napoleon

Last week, Donald J Trump, 47^th President of the United States, tweeted this on both his own “Truth Social” social media site, and his friend and advisor Elon Musk’s “X”: 

“He who saves his country does not violate any law”. 

To some it makes sense.  It was the premise of the old Fox TV show starring Kiefer Sutherland “24”.  He played Jack Bauer, a Federal Agent who had 24 hours to save the nation from some calamity.   Bauer’s motto was:  sometimes you have to break the law to protect America.  And he did.

But it has a whole different context when the President of the United States, the chief law enforcer of the Nation, the person entrusted with protecting American freedoms, says something like that.  And worse, it’s a direct quote from Napoleon Bonaparte.  

If you missed that part of world history, Napoleon was a general in the French Army. He stepped in to stop the chaos of the French Revolution, then proceeded to crown himself (literally) the Emperor of France and tried to conquer Europe.

Only I

Add to that yesterday’s Presidential Executive Order:

“…(this order) reestablishes the longstanding norm that only the President or the Attorney General can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.”

Only the President can speak for the United States.  And, only the President can state an opinion as to what the law is.  Only the President:  does  Congress, or the Courts have a say?  Only the President: it echoes his campaign phrase from 2016, “Only I can fix this”.  

According to Mr. Trump; he can decide what the law is, and he can decide whether to “violate” it or not.  Only HE (and, of course, Elon) can decide.  And let’s not forget, the United States Supreme Court has already granted him criminal immunity for anything he might do as part of his “official duties”.  

Shouts

I told you.

It was shouted it from the “mountaintop” (or molehill) of my computer.  I told you in an essay called “History Lesson”, and one called “Who Do You Trust” and another called “Godwin’s Law”, and even one from way back in 2018 called “America First”.   We now face exactly what was predicted, by me and others with much bigger megaphones, including President Biden.   This President of the United States is committed to personal power. And, this President has let loose among the government his own personal “hit team”, “24” style, to go into the structure and destroy it.  

Saving money is not the real reason that Elon Musk’s “DOG-E kids” are ripping the government apart.  The real reason is to destroy any opposition to Trumpian domination.   In the avalanche of government firings (most illegal) are the carefully chosen few, culled out because they might show some dedication not to MAGA’ism, or Trump, but to the US Constitution.  Their removal is covered by the general chaos.

We are living the dream that Steve Bannon preached “long ago”.  I wrote about that in one of my first essays in 2017, “The Bully and Bannon”.  Not only is it the “deconstruction of the administrative state”, but Bannon’s getting his “alliance” of the Northern, White Nations.  Trump is back to kowtowing to Russia’s Putin, and Ukraine will be the sacrificial lamb to the “cause”.  

I told you.

Governing by Fiat

And before MAGA acolytes claim that Trump is showing “leadership” through his executive actions, let me make an historic contrast.  Franklin Roosevelt entered the White House in the middle of the Great Depression.  He knew that he had a mandate for change; that he had the public support to do almost anything to alter the economic path of the Nation.  

But he didn’t do it by himself.  He called Congress into session, and passed 15 major laws in the first 100 days, the opening salvo of New Deal legislation.  FDR led through his negotiating skill to get Congress on board with change.   And while the Supreme Court ultimately held some of those laws as unconstitutional, Roosevelt was that force for change.

But Trump, even though he has a compliant House and Senate, has failed to offer legislation.  Instead, he is “ruling by fiat”.  He pre-empted the legislative process by issuing sixty-six (as of today) Executive Orders, commands that often overrule existing Congressional legislation.  The majorities in Congress have said almost nothing about it.  The Courts have intervened on a few, but also seemed overwhelmed by the avalanche of action.  And, when the Supreme Court finally gets the chance to intervene, there’s no guarantee that they will uphold the Constitution. The majority has already demonstrated their fealty to Trump.

I told you.  

And now, WE have to decide how to stand up for the America WE believe in.  Will WE stand up for our tradition of freedom and yes, even Diversity, Equity and Inclusion?  Because WE are NOT for the America that Donald Trump wants.   And history will judge US for what we do, now. 

Tokyo Bay

August 15, 1945:  the Empire of Japan signed the formal surrender treaty.  The Second World War ended on the deck of the battleship, USS Missouri.   It was a victorious affair for the Allies: the United States, Great Britain and the British Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Burma, India) and the Soviet Union.  Most of the US Pacific Fleet and more were in Tokyo Bay:  ten battleships, six aircraft carriers, five heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, fifty-one destroyers, twelve submarines, and seventy-five smaller war ships.  More than a dozen other aircraft carriers remained outside the Bay, in case the Japanese had a change of heart.  

They were all there to make a point.  The choice for Japan was surrender, or overwhelming defeat and destruction.  Of course, the first two atomic bombs used in world history had already made that clear. The cities of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed.  And there was a second message sent on that day seventy years ago.  Most combatant nations of World War II ended the War devastated.  Germany and Japan were in ruins, with over 5 million German and 2 million Japanese soldiers killed.  But some of the winning nations were little better.  The Soviet Union suffered over 11 million soldiers killed.  The British Commonwealth almost 500,000.  And the United States lost 407,300.  

But it was clear that one nation ended the Second World War much stronger than it began.  The United States, the “arsenal of Democracy”, made that point in Tokyo Bay.  The US was the dominant military power in this world.  The atom bomb, at that time exclusive to America, just underlined the strategic reality.

Cold War

But the Soviet Union, despite their enormous losses, soon made it clear that they would contest the US for world power. They built their own “bomb”.  Within two years, the era we now call the “Cold War” began.  From 1948 until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was a time of the “balance of Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD).   The US and the USSR knew that, no matter what provocation or premeditation, in the end an all-out war between the two meant equal world destruction and the end of civilization as we knew it.  

In spite of the madness of Stalin, the criminality of Nixon, the scale-tipping gambling of Khrushchev, and the relentless pressure of Reagan; the US and the USSR avoided the confrontation that would end the world.  And while there were wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East and Afghanistan (and dozens of smaller “proxy” battles in Africa and Asia), none ended in “super-powers” going head to head and world conflagration.   This era, after the two World Wars in the first half of the twentieth century, is called the “Pax Americana” (American Peace).  

The United States, both before and after the fall of the USSR, led the world to maintain that peace.  It wasn’t just a peace of military force. It was also a peace of benefit.  The United States spent billions of dollars in humanitarian aid as well as weaponry, to keep nations “on their side”.  In the process, America limited world diseases from smallpox to AIDS.   And millions were fed, educated, and given other health care.  Pax Americana was an American obligation to the world, as well as an American benefit.  

World Economy

In the process, the US became the greatest economic power in the world as well.  Americans built so many things, so well, that their standard of living became high enough that it was cheaper and easier to move some industries “off-shore”.  Today, less than one percent of “US shoes” are made in America.  Even the United States Shoe Corporation was bought out by Luxottica (1995), an Italian corporation.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States took a larger role in maintaining world peace.   Even when America “failed”, in Afghanistan for example, it was a failure that did little to impact their world standing.  And when Putin and the exploding Chinese military aggression raised concerns; the US made it clear that the “Pax Americana” still reigned supreme.

Make America Small Again

That was, until the past few weeks.  The new Trump Administration ran on a slogan of “Make America Great Again”.  But their foreign policy is closer to the isolationism of post-World War I America.   For reasons that are beyond understanding, the MAGA theory is that the military problems of Europe and Asia are no longer a United States concern.  They have told the NATO allies, who stood by us after the attack of 9-11 and the war in Afghanistan; that the US is no longer interested in protecting them from Russian aggression.

And Trump made it clear to our ally, Ukraine, that the Trump Administration will deal directly with Russia, behind Ukraine’s back, and make a “separate deal”.  American leaders are meeting today with Russia’s leaders, and without Ukrainian representation.    The implicit threat:  either Ukraine goes along with “whatever” the US decides, or lose all of the military and humanitarian support for their war.  Quite simply, after three years of valiant Ukrainian defense against an “overwhelming” (overwhelmed) Russian military and 80,000 Ukrainian military deaths; the US will leave them high and dry.

Sell Out

And if the European NATO allies decide to support Ukraine in spite of US decisions, then Trump made it clear that the US will not stand with them either.   Trump, single-handedly and in a few short weeks, is Hell-bent on ending Pax Americana.

That message will not be lost on China.  One of their core goals is to take control of the nation of Taiwan.   That island became the refuge for the Nationalist side of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when the Communists took over the Nation.  Ever since, the Communist Chinese Government lusts for the island, especially as Taiwan is now an economic power, ranked 22^nd in the world.   The US has made it clear that they stand with Taiwan against a Chinese incursion, until now.  After Trump sells out Ukraine, it won’t be so clear.

Jack Boots

The Trump world policy is no longer Pax Americana. It’s America “Vince” (Conquer).   Take all of the seemingly “crazy” statements Trump’s made in the past few weeks:   taking over Greenland, Canada, Panama, and the Gaza Strip.  If Americans can “make a buck”, then the US military can “make it so”. 

MAGA wants the resources of Greenland and Canada, and the “canal back” from Panama.   And Trump envisions the Gaza strip as the next “Riviera”, filled with luxury hotels and beaches.  He’s even demanded half of the mineral resources of Ukraine in return for continued aid.  It’s as if the United States, once the “protector” of the world, now has become the world’s exploiter. Trump is turning our defense into a military “bully”.  It is exactly what the US fought against in World War II, the jack booted aggression for resources of both Germany and Japan.  Now, those jack boots seem to be on American feet.

The Mayor

Eric Adams, Mayor of New York City, was in deep trouble.  The attorneys of the Federal Southern District of New York (SDNY) were after him for corruption.  The case seemed rock-solid:  Adams took money from foreign nations, including Turkey.  He took “gifts”, including free plane tickets.  He put his relatives in charge of contracting for the city, and they paid out to friends.  It was typical, Tammany Hall (also in New York) style city corruption.  

Adams refused to resign, declaiming his innocence.  And, even as the facts piled up against him, he held out hope to his supporters. After all,  we are in a new era of “innocence”.  The Nation just elected a convicted felon as President. (Can’t say the word “felon” at the White House anymore; that’s another Executive Order).  

It doesn’t matter that Adams is a Democrat.  The “Democratic” Biden Justice Department brought the charges in the first place.  And the SDNY was in full pursuit, ready to go to a grand jury with even more charges and issue a superseding indictment.  But there’s a “new sheriff” in town, the Trump Justice Department.  Adam’s negotiated with the highest level of the Department, all the way up to Emil Bove, Deputy Attorney General, second only to the Attorney General herself.   Bove was Trump’s defense attorney for multiple cases, including the January 6^th Federal charges, the multi-million dollar New York civil suit, and the national security documents case.

Sword of Damocles

Bove and the Trump Administration, are understandably sympathetic to politicians under fire.  They could have granted Adams a pardon.  That legally would for forgive him for any criminal acts he might have committed.  And certainly Trump knows his way around the “pardon power” with 1500 pardons issued on his first day in office.  But they didn’t.

Instead, Bove reached an agreement with Adams.  He ordered the SDNY to drop the charges against Adams, with the legal proviso, “without prejudice”.  That simply means that while the charges are dropped now, they could be reinstated at any time.  Adams will have a legal sword of Damocles hanging over his head.  In return, the Mayor agreed to allow ICE to use New York jails to store the undocumented migrants, and ignore the City ordinances making New York a “sanctuary city”.  (New York City limits its cooperation with ICE, as does Chicago, Los Angeles, Columbus, Ohio, and many other US urban areas).  He used his political office to make one more private deal, this time, with the government of the United States: a quid-pro-quo arrangement.

So now, attorneys for the SDNY will have to go before a Federal District Judge and essentially tell him, “never mind”.  It doesn’t matter that the facts overwhelmingly show Adams to be a corrupt politician profiting from his office, with even more charges in the pipeline.  Emil Bove has made a “political” deal with the Mayor.  The facts of crime don’t matter.

Unbiased Justice

Multiple Assistant US Attorneys resigned; unwilling to follow the Deputy’s orders.  Bove himself will have to appear before the Judge, explaining the Government’s new position.  But ultimately, the charges will be dropped, and Adam’s will be a “made man” in MAGA world.  He not only owes the Trump Administration, but, as the Immigration Czar Tom Homan clearly pointed out, the charges can always be reinstated.  Homan said if Adams fails to deliver, he’ll be “right up his butt”.  

The United States used to have a “norm” of an independent Justice Department.  Joe Biden made it clear that his Attorney General, Merrick Garland, was independent of White House control or interference.  Garland allowed a politically motivated investigation of Biden’s son Hunter, to fester for four years.  In fact, many Democrats, including me, were incredibly frustrated by the pace of Garland’s investigation of Trump and the January 6^thInsurrection. (Can I even use that term anymore, or will the DOGE kids crash my website?)  The Federal charges against Trump were too little, too late.  And, as the old adage goes:  “If you strike against a King, you must kill him”.  We all know the outcome of Garland’s belated attempts at getting justice against Trump.

Watergate

But those norms are only fifty years old, a result of the criminal actions of President Richard Nixon.  Before Nixon, the Attorney General’s job was, in large part, to protect the President’s back.  There’s a good reason that John Kennedy appointed his brother, Bobby, to the job.  And Nixon followed suit eight years later, appointing his campaign manager, John Mitchell, as his AG.  Mitchell was “hip-deep” in the Watergate scandal and coverup, and ultimately was convicted of Federal violations and served nineteen months in jail.  (But oddly, despite his criminal record, Mitchell was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  He was a  World War II Navy veteran, and served as Attorney General.  That qualified him regardless of his conviction).

After Nixon, most Attorney Generals have kept a distance from the White House.  Bill Clinton’s AG, Janet Reno stayed “hands-off” the Whitewater investigations that led to Clinton’s impeachment.  And while there was a famous friendship between Barack Obama and his AG, Eric Holder, the Justice Department still maintained an arms-length separation from the White House.

Trump’s Demand

So when Trump’s first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from Department investigations of the Trump Administration, it was in-line with Department guidelines.  But Trump was furious.  He expected more from his AG, and ultimately pressured Sessions to resign.  He then appointed Bill Barr, who made sure to have Trump’s back. The Russiagate investigation was hamstrung, and ultimately discredited regardless of the facts.  

And in his second go-round of the Presidency, Trump placed loyalty first.  Newly minted Attorney General Pam Bondi has been a Trump backer for years, and his personal defense lawyers now play important roles in the Department.  

Now we are back to the “good old days”.  A lot of what the MAGA “philosophy” preaches is that America was at “it’s best” in the 1950’s, the heady post-World War II days.  That fake memory ignores the fact that it was a time of racial discrimination, political McCarthyism, and environmental ignorance.  But it doesn’t matter.  The Department of Justice was an arm of the White House then, the FBI fully dominated by J. Edgar Hoover.  It’s what Nixon tried to replicate in his own Administration that came crashing down in  Watergate.  And now, the direct descendants of the Watergate failure are back in power again.

This time they want to “do it right”.

Old Days

I was born in 1956, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  We lived in a residential section of the city called Clifton, just north of the University and near the Zoo.  Clifton had (and still has) a small business section, from the corner of Clifton and Ludlow.  Mom didn’t drive, so we walked a lot; to the movie theatre on Ludlow (with air conditioning) the Graeter’s Ice Cream next door, and the IGA grocery across the street.  And when I got old enough, I’d follow my sisters to Clifton School, a couple of blocks up Clifton Avenue.  It was “old” even then, with a beautiful fountain in front of the building, originally designed for the tram horses, dogs and people to get water back in 1887.  It’s still there today.

I went to kindergarten at the Clifton School “annex” in 1960.  To get to school we had to pass The Annunciation Roman Catholic Church.  Kids went to school there too. I remember wondering why they weren’t “good enough” to go to Clifton was us.  And while we moved to Michigan for my first grade year, by second grade we were back, in 1962.  

The Lord’s Prayer

All of that time, it wasn’t unusual for my teachers to tell Bible stories, or even start the day with the Lord’s Prayer.  It didn’t seem odd or different to me; they were the same prayers and stories I heard right down the street at Calvary Episcopal Church on Sundays, as I squirmed in the pew and Dad struggled, and usually failed, to stay awake. (Now that I’m older, I appreciate his struggle so much more!!).

What I didn’t know then, was that the Supreme Court was already in the process of ending teacher led “religious instruction” in schools. In 1962 and ’63, there were a series of cases where the Court found that prayer and Bible stories were in violation of the First Amendment religious freedom clause.  It was actually simple reasoning:  my second grade teacher, Mrs. Meyer, was employed by the Cincinnati Public Schools, the “government”.  And when she led us in the Lord’s Prayer, she was, in fact, the “government” teaching a specific religious belief, something that the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment prohibited.  

So by 1963 teachers no longer told Bible parables, and no longer began their classes in prayer. But, for the next couple of years, they did allow some students to leave, once a week, for an hour of religious instruction.  We’d walk past the fountain up Clifton Avenue, make the hazardous crossing over to Calvary Church, and spend an hour in the basement learning about religion.  I don’t know if kids went to other churches, or synagogues, then as well.  My friends mostly went to Calvary, or they stayed at school.  But that ended as well.  Courts ruled that the school was still “establishing” religion by allowing “school time” for specific religious instruction.

Pray in School

It stayed that way for my public education.  We moved to Kettering near Dayton, and then back to the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming.  Religious instruction by the school was banned.  But that didn’t mean we didn’t learn about religion.  

There was a lot of student-to-student instruction.  And, in a highly academic school like Wyoming there were lots of choices.  The early 1970’s was an era of Christian evangelism, and there were lunchroom discussions of who was going to Hell.  There were also Jewish kids, who seemed to know more about the Old Testament Bible than anyone else.  Then there were the “new age” kids, those that fell into the Hare Krishna’s or the Moonies or the other cult religions of the early 70’s. And there were a lot of kids (me included) who were skeptical about the whole concept of religion.  We were often the targets of all of the others evangelistic ideas.

So there was always religion in school, and prayer in school as well.  The old saying is; “As long as there are tests there will be prayer in school”.  And that’s true.  Kids could pray, kids could talk, kids could even instruct.  But the institution, the government, wasn’t allowed to have “a hand” in the game.  Schools were the government, and had to be neutral on religion.

Government Employee

When I became a public school teacher and coach, I was very aware of the boundaries of the “establishment clause”.  I taught about it to my senior government students.  My “daring” lesson plan opened with a recitation of a prayer: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare, Hare, Krishna, Krishna”.  Students in those days at my school, Watkins Memorial in Pataskala, didn’t recognize what religion that represented. (Today there is a strong minority of West Asian students who know their own religions well).  And almost every time, some kid would finally say “You can’t do that!!”.  So the lesson would begin.

And as a coach, I often had athletes want to pray before a competition.  That was always their choice, but my coaches and I stayed out of that “huddle”.  We had a full-team huddle were I did my best to inspire and prepare them for the contest (followed by “1-2-3, KSA”), but any religious gathering was on their own.  They could pray if they wanted; we, the “government” (employed by the school) could not “establish” religion.

Taking a Side

Today, I’m saddened to see that the government is now “taking a hand”.  Our divisive politics are blended with religious extremism, so much so that, for many, their political view includes “not discriminating” against  their accepted religion.  So the majority in many areas determined that schools should be “free” to teach their religion, or at least, make at convenient for their particular religious ideas to be taught.

No, teachers aren’t starting the school day in prayer, yet.  But our community, state, and nation, are starting down the slippery slope of “establishment”.  The Supreme Court now allows a coach to kneel in the middle of the football field in prayer at the end of the game, full lights on and the band playing.  Sure, he’s practicing his own religion, but he’s teaching by example with the full regalia of “the government” on his side.  His players join him, some from sincere belief, some going along with the crowd, some in hopes of getting in the starting lineup next week.

Cool Kid Time

And here in Ohio (and other states), an Evangelical Christian group has persuaded the Governor and state legislature to require school districts to allow them to “voluntarily” take kids out of school for religious instruction, much as I did back in the mid-1960’s.  The school is giving up its time to a religion, a mere step away from endorsement, establishment, of religion.  And from a kid’s standpoint, if the school says it’s OK, doesn’t it mean that it’s OK? Is that same school district going to allow the Church of Satanism to do the same – pull up in a bright red bus, to take kids away for “instruction”?  And if they aren’t – well – what is “established” then?

Of course, the Christian group wants to make their “pullout” a “cool time” for kids. They are, after all, evangelistic, wanting to spread the “good word” of their belief to the world.  Why wouldn’t any third grader want to be one of the “cool kids” who get out of school.  And that’s all well and good, except, they are doing it on public school time, and with the actual “blessing” of the school district, the government.

Sacred Trust

What’s the problem?  What about all of those Jewish and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Agnostics and Atheists in the public schools here in Pataskala.  The district has “blessed” one group, giving them the sacred trust of custody of children during the school day.  What does that say to the other kids of other religions?   Not only has the local government “taken a side”, but the State legislature and even the new Lieutenant Governor have “put a thumb” on the scale of government and religion.  

It’s the job, more importantly, it’s the duty, of the schools to protect the First Amendment right of ALL of the children (and parents and taxpayers like me) in a community.  It is the sacred trust of the schools to teach religious freedom, not a religious belief.  Where does our fall down the slippery slope end?  It must be with a “special class” of kids who are “right”, and a second class set of kids who aren’t.  

That’s not what schools are about.  But it is what our schools are becoming.

Make Americans Grotesque Again

Elections have consequences.  We are now living the result of the narrow triumph of Donald Trump and his MAGA philosophy in the 2024 election.  And that result is, what Trump describes as a war on “woke”.  Now what does “woke” mean?  It’s an attack on a laundry list of alphabet soup acronyms:  from LGBGTQ rights to DEI hiring to CRT teaching.  And it’s granular:  a Presidential executive order against the ten collegiate and (maybe as many as) a hundred high school athletes who are transgendered women.  Think of that; the President writing an order against 110 Americans out of 335 million ( that’s .00000328%).

And sometimes it’s just silly.  Defense Secretary Hegseth, with all of the issues of US Defense in the world, spent time to “re-name” Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, and then blithely commented that it wasn’t after Confederate General Braxton Bragg, but World War II Silver Star Medal winner Roland Bragg.  Another “win” in the war on “woke”:  Pete Hegseth really “got the libs” that time.  And I won’t even get into mis-naming of Denali back to McKinley, or re-naming the Gulf of Mexico.  

Make Americans Greedy Again

We can rewrite the signs at the gate, or the labels on the map.  All that does is grate against the “libs”. And it does.  It’s the old taunt of kids in backyard football:  “winners talk, losers walk”.   But there are much sadder consequences, deadly consequences, of Trump’s war on “woke”.  Because MAGA believes that America isn’t strong enough, isn’t compassionate enough, to help other folks in need.  And one of the alphabetical targets of Make America Greedy Again, is the USAID program.

So let’s get something clear:  USAID had a budget of $63 Billion.  That’s a lot of money, but, out of a total US annual budget of $6.75 Trillion, it’s LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.  So for less than one percent of the US government spending each year, America had a tremendous impact on the world.  We saved millions of Africans from dying of AIDS, we fed starving people, starving kids, in countries all over the world suffering from droughts and wars.  We brought medical care to folks who never had it before, and shelter to those made homeless by nature and man.  

Make Americans Gross Again

USAID supported Ukraine with food assistance.  And it supported US farmers by buying grains here, and taking it there.  Right now, almost $500 million worth of food is rotting on the docks, because USAID is stopped.  And right now, folks are dead, because Trump wants to wage a war on “woke”.   He directly intervened to prevent them from getting lifesaving help.  He killed them.

MAGA has convinced many Americans that the money would be “better spent here”.  But, of course, that money isn’t coming back to “regular Americans”.  What will happen to the less than one percent saved by letting folks die?  It will go into Trump’s proposed tax cut for the top one percent of Americans, just like last time.  So when MAGA folks admire Elon Musk for the “sacrifices” he’s made to “Make America Gross Again”, realize this. He paid $277 million for Trump’s election to gain access to power, and he’ll make billions back in the resulting tax cut.  He’s all sorts of things, but he’s not stupid.

Make Americans Gutless Again

The saddest part of Trump’s war on woke, is that it is based on the premise of victimhood.  Trump wants Americans to feel that they are victims of the “woke” philosophy, victims of attempts to make America a place where “All men are created equal”.   Trump’s vastly white following feels that they have lost something, and they want it back.  He has convinced them that they “deserve” the advantage.  Why else would MAGA wage a war against the true story of America, white-washing it into some fairy tale where African-Americans and Native Americans were treated fairly?

He is calling on Americans to say that we don’t have the “guts” to live up to “created equal”.  Instead, we need to take the advantage, white over minority, American over the world, and be the “winner”, and make them the loser.  Because MAGA sees only a “zero sum” game; to win someone else must lose.  And if you’re winning, then don’t dare show strength and magnanimity to help others.  You simply rejoice in your winningness, and take advantage of their loss.

Make Americans Grovel Again

MAGA is based in fear.  And now, the “war on woke” is trying to generate fear in “the libs”.  They are rejoicing in their winningness, and literally rubbing dirt in the face of the “losers”: me, you; all of us who don’t want to be victims.  So we can decide.  We can be overwhelmed by MAGA, or we can fight back.  We can fall to the hurricane onslaught of Trump depredations, or we can stand firm for the America we believe in.  Americans who truly believe America is Reagan’s “shining city on the hill” know that if we slam the gates shut and ignore the world suffering around us, eventually that world will come for us.  Trump is slamming the gates shut in fear: fear of change, fear of difference, fear of the unknown.  

Be not afraid.  Instead, act, in one way or another, to demonstrate belief in America.  Dan Rather said it best when he used one word to close his nightly newscast.  He told Americans what they needed then, and now. 

It was this word — Courage.

Back to School

My Democratic friends have all said it: “Isn’t what Musk’s doing illegal?   Why don’t they just arrest him!” And they’re not altogether wrong.  So here’s the answer they’ve been waiting for:  DOGE and their actions might be illegal, or maybe not.  And there’s a second issue, that sounds like a Buddhist meditation question. If a crime is committed and nobody cares, is it really a crime?

Let’s go back to “Schoolhouse Rock” government.  The vast Madisonian Plan for American Democracy was based on balancing alternate ambitions and powers within the government.   There are the powers of the states versus the powers of the federal government.  There are the powers of the legislature, the Congress, balanced against the power of the Judiciary (Courts) and the power of the Executive (the President).  There’s the internal balance of the House and the Senate.  And, finally, there is the seldom mentioned Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  

It’s that old Sixty’s line:  power to the people!!!!

Madison saw the people as the ultimate check and balance on American governments.

Nuts and Bolts

More specifically, Article I of the Constitution grants all the legislative powers, the power to do things, to the US Congress.  Section 8 list a vast array where Congress is given authority to legislate. That includes number 18, the “elastic clause”.  It states that Congress shall have the power to pass laws “necessary and proper” to enforce the other powers.

If you ask a highly motivated eighth grader, they will tell you the Congress has the most power in the US Government.   The document grants most of the powers to Congress. And perhaps even more importantly, it gives Congress the ultimate power:  the “power of the purse”.  Congress not only  needs to pass a law to do something, but it has to pass a second law to fund the first law.

Dam Bill

I used to give a lecture called the “Dam Bill”. (It caught the kids attention right away, they got to say “Dam” over and over again!)    There’s a river that needs a dam; how does Congress address that concern?  Well, a member introduces a bill into Congress, the Dam Bill.  Congress investigates what needs to be done, how to do it, and how much it will cost; by holding Dam hearings in  Dam committees.  Then after all of that, the Dam Bill comes on the floor of the Congress (House/Senate) for a Dam debate.  And, if a majority agrees, the Dam Bill is sent to the President.  When he signs it, it becomes a Dam law.

But there needs to be a whole second dam debate and vote in Congress, because to build a dam, you need dam money.   So there’s a process to pass a Dam Money Bill, that also is investigated, debated, voted on and sent to the President.  In the end there’s a Dam Law, and a Dam Money Law.  That’s the whole Dam story!

Dam Builder

But once the laws are passed, who builds the dam?  It is the job, the Constitutional Article II  authority of the President to carry out the laws. So he/she has to arrange to get the dam job done.  Theoretically the President will follow the wishes of Congress; the Dam Law, and spend the Dam money they way that Congress intended.  But what if he doesn’t?  What if the President chooses not to build a dam, or wants to spend the dam money to build a Wall (somewhere) instead of the dam?

Congress addressed that issue in a law called the “Impoundment Act of 1974”. It requires the President to report “impoundments” (sounds like a dam thing, right?) of money authorized by Congress and abide by Congressional decisions.  Basically it calls on the President to spend the way Congress intended. But there’s a lot of loopholes (holes in the dam) that give the President greater authority than you’d think the Founding Fathers intended.

Ok, enough of the dam stuff.   But here’s the point:  the President can usually do only what Congress passed by law.  And if the President goes against Congressional wishes, then Congress has a couple of alternatives.

Balances

First, they can go to the third branch, the Courts, to order the President to obey the (dam) law.   The judiciary was always considered the impartial “arbiter” of the Constitution and the law.  And recently, the US Supreme Court has pushed back against Presidential actions that go beyond Congressional law.  Joe Biden was stymied on environmental regulations and student loan relief when the Court decided that Congress’s laws didn’t grant him the authority to do what he wanted to do.  

And the Courts have even gone farther, suggesting that Congress has granted the President too much authority to create “regulations”, specific rules like loan repayments and voting regulations.   The Court told Congress to pass the specific regulations themselves.

So the Madisonian “checks and balances” worked fine (I guess) against the Biden Presidency.   Not only was their “checks”, but there was a balance of political philosophy; the Congress (and Court) on one side, and the Presidency on the other.

Congress

And, of course, Congress has the ultimate authority, the ability to remove the President from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors”.   Certainly refusing to abide by the laws passed by Congress, or ignoring judgments of the US Courts would be considered a “crime” (breaking the law, literally) and fall under the “impeach and convict” power.  The problem with that:  a majority of the House has to agree to impeach (indict) the President to the Senate. Then,  a two-thirds majority of the Senate is required to convict and remove him from office. 

 As we saw in the first Trump Administration and the two impeachment trials, there’s not much that two-thirds of the US Senate agree on. Even while a majority of Senators wanted to convict Trump, it never got close to the overwhelming majority required to remove him from office.

And one last concern:  if the Courts ordered the President to do something, how could they make him do it?  There is no “judicial police” in America, no “Court Army”.  All of those enforcement mechanisms are in the executive branch, theoretically at the order and control of the President.  And with the “unitary President” theory of the MAGA-Republicans, there is no “independent Justice Department” (unlike Biden’s view of Merrick Garland).  No Trump-era FBI agent is going to the White House (or Mar-A-Lago) door and putting handcuffs on him.  

Unitary President

The Trump MAGA-theorists see the President as the direct “commander” of all members of the executive branch of government.   So if the President brings in a group to “takeover” an agency of government, say the USAID or the Consumer Protection Bureau or the Department of Education, they can “do what they want”.  This theory would say that the illegitimate DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency, not ever passed by Congress in a “damn” law), is simply an extension of the authority of the President to run his “branch”.   As Vice President JD Vance said this weekend:  “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”. 

So, ignoring the whole “Department of thing”, Trump could claim the Elon Musk and his band of whiz-kids are an extension of the “management duty” of the executive, a legitimate power.   DOGE is simply a part of the existing Office of Management and Budget, already created by law.  

Standing Up

Can Congress stand up to the President?  Sure they can, but it requires a majority of House and the Senate to do so. Clearly the Republican-MAGA party is just as subordinate to Donald Trump as the those red-hatted Trump rally attendees.  Since Republicans hold narrow majorities in both Houses, it isn’t going to happen there.

Can the Courts stand up to the President?   Sure they can, and some already are.  But there are two “provisos”.  First, if a case is brought before a District Federal Court, that decision can go all the way to the US Supreme Court.  That’s the same Court that granted the President blanket criminal immunity from any “official” act he takes as President.  So it’s an open question if the Supreme Court would stand up to Donald Trump’s firehose of questionable power grabs.  

And even if they did, would Trump follow their decision?   The current President is well-known for his admiration of President Andrew Jackson. He’s the one that executed the Indian Removal Act, and pushed the eastern tribes into Oklahoma and the West.  The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Marshall, ordered him to stop moving the Cherokee out of Georgia and Tennessee, in what we now call the “Trail of Tears”.  Jackson responded:  “Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it”, and continued the removal.

Bottom Line

If Congress won’t stand up for its own power, the Supreme Court may not either.  And even if the Supreme Court does, there’s no assurance that the Trump Administration would obey.  Which returns us to the 10^th Amendment:  the ultimate power of American Democracy isn’t in the Madisonian Democracy.  It’s with the people.  

We, collectively, will make the decision what our Government looks like.   We, collectively, already allowed this MAGA-Republican philosophy to gain control.  So we, collectively, may be required to change our minds.  It’s up to us.

Power to the People.  And, as Madison might add, may they use it wisely.

Unbalanced Power

It’s week three of the Administration of the 47^th President of the United States.  For both sides of the Great American Political Divide, the amount of “Executive” activity has been…dizzying, overwhelming, invigorating, terrifying, satisfying, and threatening.   The dust hasn’t settled.  But there does seems to be a slight delay in the juggernaut of executive action today.  The White House has agreed to limit access to the Treasury Department’s computerized spending programs.   The “boys” from DOGE, are now blocked from ravaging through that particular dataset.

It’s a moment where we can step back to look at what the authority of the “most powerful office in the world” really is.  

The Constitution of the United States carefully divided the powers of the Federal Government.   Many remember their Eighth Grade American History class, where the three branches were outlined:  legislative (Congress) wrote the laws; executive (President) enforced those laws, judicial (Federal Courts) interpreted both the laws and the Constitution itself.  My eighth grade teacher extolled the brilliance of “Madisonian Democracy”, the intricate intertwining of “checks and balances”.  No one branch could act without cooperation of the other, at least in principal.  And the Courts, thanks to John Marshall’s early assertions, became the impartial arbiter of power.

Mandate or Division

We are in a new era of American politics.   The people are divided, as Mr. Trump might say, “like never before” (well, there was that time around the Civil War).  But, by incredibly slim margins, the Government itself is of one mind.  Mr. Trump declares that his electoral comeback is an unfettered mandate for action, despite getting less than half of the Presidential votes.  The House of Representatives are Republican by three seats (out of 433).  The Senate is Republican by four seats (out of 100).  And the newly partisan Supreme Court also now has “a side”, six aligned with the Republican agenda, and three aligned with the Democratic side.

MAGA-Republican control of all three branches of Government has “greased the rails” for Mr. Trump, and he knows it.   He has the “carrot”; achieving the his MAGA goals.  And he has the “stick” of his MAGA base, willing to throw aside any Republican who might stand up against the onslaught.  Add to that, Trump also has the power; billions of dollars supplied by one of the richest men in the world, to back down any internal opposition.  

The stars are aligned to allow Trump to do almost anything.   What all of those Democrats warned about:  the authoritarian streak in the Trump ideology and the clear desire for vengeance against his enemies; is now apparent.  And the danger represented to world peace by a man who says; we’ll just take over the Gaza Strip ourselves, along with Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal, is obvious.

Who Rules

So is Trump the nightmare Presidency, the end of the Republic, the beginning of a Fascist regime that everyone, from Joe Biden on down, warned about?   He might be.  And if he is, it’s because Congress and the Supreme Court determines not to defend their own Constitutional powers.

If Congress “makes the laws”, than a President cannot create a Department of the government without a “law” passed by Congress.   So what is DOGE, the “Department of Government Efficiency”.  For sure, currently, it is NOT a Department of the US Government.  I’m not even sure it can operate as an “arm” of the Office of Management and Budget.  But the President, and his Henchman-in-Chief, Elon Musk, simply have asserted authority.  And Congress is not standing against it (at least the majority of Congress, the Democratic minorities are screaming from the rooftops!).

The Trump Administration issued hundreds of executive orders.   Some of those are “just” edicts:  what the President would like to do, but doesn’t have the authority to do so.  Dissolving the Department of Education is one of those.  Sure, that’s been a Republican bug-a-boo for decades; but what Congress “giveth”, only Congress can “taketh away”.  So Trump’s order is nothing more than an announcement of his intent.  It’s Congress’s intent that makes the difference.

Another is the “birthright citizenship” edict, changing American Constitutional law of almost a century and a half.   The President doesn’t have the power to “interpret” the Constitution, at least he didn’t have it until now.  By the current “rules”, that’s not his call.  Will see what the Courts say to that.

Immunity

By the way, there’s a method to the madness of the flurry of paper orders coming from the White House.   The Supreme Court has charted a path.  The President is “immune” from criminal liability for anything within his “official duties”.  So, whatever is on an “executive order” is official.  You can hear the Trump lawyers brains clicking away – they’ve got a prima-facie case of immunity should he (or they) are ever be held accountable, again.

Can the Executive fire hundreds, maybe thousands of Federal employees?  The answer to that is  a no as well.   There are a series of laws, (passed by Congress), establishing a civil service outside of the political realm of White House control.  Trump alone cannot violate civil service, even if he writes an order, or even if he devolves the authority to fire to a subordinate, like Elon Musk and the “DOGE” boys.  And, by the way, they can’t offer a retirement buyout unilaterally either:

Federal employees beware.

Tradition

There is an ultimate “exception” to all of this.   While Congress may decide not to defend their own powers, the “last, best resort” are the Federal Courts.  And while there are plenty of Federal Judges at the District and Appellate levels who will rule against Trump’s usurpations, when it finally reach the Supreme Court the outcome might not be so obvious.  After all, six of the Justices granted Trump unprecedented immunity from prosecution.  Who knows how far they might be willing to let him go with his “executive actions”. 

First we depended on tradition, but this President didn’t respect tradition.   Then we depended on “norms”, but this one didn’t care about rules.  Then we depended on process, but Congress failed to check extreme Presidential actions.  Finally we depended on “the people”, but the people were “fooled again”.  Can we depend on the Supreme Court to maintain Madisonian Democracy?

And if the Court does restrain the President, can we expect Donald Trump to abide by their ruling?   Or will he echo his hero, Andrew Jackson.  When Jackson determined, on his own, to move the Native American tribes across the Mississippi River and into Oklahoma, the Supreme Court said no.  Jackson famously said:  “John Marshall made his decision, let him enforce it”, and continued the “Indian Removal”, including the Trail of Tears.  He ignored the Supreme Court.  Nothing happened to Jackson.  Would Trump be held accountable?

I’m not so sure.

Lincoln

In 1983, one of my pole vaulters qualified to the National Junior Olympic track meet.  The meet was on the campus of the University of Nebraska, located in Lincoln.  We strapped poles to the side of the car, and headed out across the Great Plains of Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.  After a thousand miles, we arrived in one of the hottest spots in the Nation.  Really, Lincoln, Nebraska at the end of July bakes in the summer sun, surrounded by hundreds of miles of corn fields.  That raises the humidity, making it a “perfect storm” of heat.

The meet didn’t go well competitively.   But we did manage to find a great steakhouse, and catch a first run movie in the local theater.  The movie was “WarGames” starring then-young Matthew Broderick.  He was a teenaged computer hacker (by phone modem from his bedroom), in search of the best gaming computer to challenge.  Without giving the whole movie away, Broderick manages to find a back door into the National Missile Defense computer.  The “Game” Broderick is playing, is a nuclear attack simulation. 

The problem, of course, is that the computer didn’t know it was a game, and the nuclear defense system went on full alert.  As the “game” missiles descended on the Nation, a real nuclear response was about to be launched against a very real enemy.   A child hacker was about to start World War III.  You’ll have to watch the movie for the rest.

Kids in the DOGE

Lincoln, Nebraska; it was also the home to one of the “kids” who are the point of the spear of “DOGE”.   That’s the illegitimate government “department” created by Donald Trump using an Executive Order.  “DOGE”, the Department of Government Efficiency, is neither a Department nor a legal part of the government.  But it is ruthlessly efficient. (OK, you have to be old enough to have attended the 1983 JO Nationals to know that the really ruthlessly efficient “department” is Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition, with a fanatical devotion to Elon Musk).  

Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, heads “DOGE” (there wasn’t enough room at the top for Vivek Ramaswamy to stay).   And he’s brought in a “crack team” of computer “whiz kids” to extract information from government computers.  One of those “kids” dropped out of the University of Nebraska.  Another just got out of high school, and was enrolled in Northeastern University.  Like the teenaged gamer of “War Games”, these are the premier computer “hackers” of our time. 

Maturity

The “point” kids are between 19 and 24.   And they have names: Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Straotran.  Ethan was a “hackathon” contest” runner-up.  Akash went to Cal-Berkley, and was an engineering “intern”.  Edward just graduated from high school, but he was an intern at Musk’s own Neuralink last summer.  Luke dropped out of Nebraska, but he was an intern at Space-X, another Musk company.  Gavin attended Cal-Berkley, but more recently worked for an AI company called Databricks.  Killian (he goes by his last name) was an engineer at Jump Trading, specializing in algorithmic high frequency financial trades (Wired).

These are the guys sent into the Treasury Department to access the US payment system.   What’s in that system:  tax data, Medicare and Medicaid data; tens of millions of US citizens addresses and financial information.  We don’t necessarily know why they need that data.  Don’t worry – right?  It’s only DOGE.

These “whiz kids” are also analyzing the US Office of Personnel Management (the office that controls government payrolls) and the General Services Administration (controls government property).   Don’t be surprised if they are cross-referencing the millions of names and financial figures against political records publicly available – like voter registration and political campaign donations. 

Don’t Play

What could possibly go wrong?   Why is it a concern that six, brilliant and obviously talented young men, all with direct links to Musk or conservative billionaire Peter Thiel (the Vice President’s mentor) should all of a sudden gain this unfettered access and power over the US Government agencies?  In a Nation founded on the concept of checks and balances, the guys (and it’s all guys – Bro) have the ultimate power; the power of information, and no checks at all.

They have my information.   They have your information.  The “kids” can match tax information to political information to employment information.  And they are loyal, to the “master Bro”, Elon.

Not to be crass, but acne is still a concern.  Who knows what the outcome will be, but an old (very old to these kids) movie form 1983 might be instructive.  As Joshua, the computer in “WarGames” said:  “Strange Game.  The only winning move is not to play”.  

Melting Pot

 America was built on the backs of migrants.   Our essential “origin stories”: from Jamestown and Plymouth to Promontory Point and Pittsburgh (the transcontinental railroad and the coal and steel industry) are migrant tales.  America’s history is replete with what migrants did to Make America Great.  The desperate battles of the Civil War had Irish and German brigades, taking orders in their own language, on both sides.  But, the largely untold story of that War, was the great sacrifices made by Free Black men.  Nearly 180,000 served the Union Army, and near 40,000 paid the ultimate sacrifice.  That’s over twenty percent killed.

Our public education system still teaches that America is a “vast stew” of immigrants.  In the 1970’s, young students even watched cartoons about the “Great American Melting Pot”.

You simply melt right in,
It doesn’t matter what your skin.
It doesn’t matter where you’re from,
Or your religion, you jump right in
To the great American melting pot.
The great American melting pot.
Ooh, what a stew, red, white, and blue.

Of course, it wasn’t true then, and it certainly isn’t true today.

Insufficient Funds

I graduated from high school in 1974.  It was eleven years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The reality King described in that address is today over-shadowed by his description of “The Dream”. But in the speech, King referred to the sacred obligation of the Declaration of Independence’s “All Men are created equal”, and the Constitutional amendments ending slavery and granting citizenship and the vote.  He called them all a “bad check”. 

“…Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

That was the “real” message, the “bad check”. It’s far more important than, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

King called for America to make the “check good”, before we judged everyone “equal” in character.

Segregation

And, it was only a decade before my graduation, that legal school segregation was the law in much of the Nation.  Black kids weren’t allowed in white schools (or theaters, restaurants, public bathrooms or swimming pools).  The demonstrations, marches and protests of the Civil Rights movement managed to alter the legal framework of segregation.  But, when public schools were integrated and black and white students learned together; many white parents took their kids out.  

That was both the beginning of “white-flight” to the suburbs, and to the growth of “private schools” where kids could get a segregated education.  It was also the beginning of state governments seeking to direct more public monies to private schools, a problem still growing today.  Here in Ohio we spend more than $13 billion on public education where 90% of kids go to school.  Almost $1 billion of that amount, and growing, is directed to private schools, where the state has no say in what is taught or learned.

The Pool

I learned about all of this from personal experience.  In the 1960’s, the best colleges in the nation took mostly white men.  The “applicant pool” didn’t include many minorities or women.  So the standards were not “the top students”, but the “top white, male students”, a much easier threshold to crack.  By the early 1970’s things were beginning to change.  Minorities and women were “jumping right in” to the pool, making it bigger and more difficult.  

Most colleges recognized that there was an inherent bias in education against minorities and women (there still is).  After all, a black student applying for college, wasn’t likely to have access to as good an education as a white student.  It just the way it was, and frankly, still is.

So colleges began to broaden the way they chose students.  It wasn’t about “weakening the standards”. It was about making the standards reflect what it took to be a minority or woman and achieve in a biased academic world.  They had to overcome literal centuries of discrimination and lack of educational access.  Their intelligence and effort to become competitive was, in and of itself, a mark of success.  

More Qualified

 I was a white, male, high school student with above average grades, good (to great) standardized test scores, and lots of activities.  A black student with the same grades, scores and activities might be “equal” by the numbers, but likely had to overcome more to achieve it.  Which was the better candidate for college?  

I was actually a “case in point”. I was put on the waiting list for an elite college. A nearly identical black student in my school was admitted. In the 1960’s he wouldn’t have had a shot, and I would have gotten in.  But I knew, then, and still believe, that the college was right in 1974. He was “more qualified”. 

Alphabet Soup

That common sense, make the “bad check”, good; might seem reasonable.  But today, fifty-one years later, teaching that in school is teaching “CRT” (critical race theory).  The current MAGA extremists might have the teacher “ridden out on a rail”. (That’s an historic reference to being tarred and feathered, strapped to a railroad tie, and expelled from town).   

The extremist majority on the US Supreme Court ordered any college that accepts Federal money (including scientific research grants and the like) must remove “affirmative action” from their admissions policy in 2023’s decision, Students for Fair Admission v Harvard (USSC).   In fact, the whole process of broadening standards beyond “the numbers” in college admissions, and in hiring in this country, is now branded “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion).  

Somehow, DEI is a “bad” thing.   But what’s really happened is that white men are defending their status of privilege; one that’s been gradually eroded since I graduated high school.  They are led by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roberts, President Trump, his “Presidential friend” Musk, and the MAGA movement.  They found political “energy” in trying to turn the clock back, before the 1970’s. MAGA wants the “pool” to be smaller. And they want to make sure Dr. King’s check remains marked “insufficient funds”.

It’s about power, politics, and “grievance”.  It’s also about getting votes:  in 2024 Trump get 60% of white male votes, the critical block in winning his narrow victory over Harris (Navigator).  So in 2025, it is incumbent upon Trump to “pay them back”.  

He’s doing it. Trump canceled the promissory note, the “check” written to Americans of color.  He’s handing them another bad check.  And he’s taking the balance of their account, and giving it to his supporters.