Category: Uncategorized

High School Coach

My high school coaching career began and ended with a “beat down”.  What is a “beat down”?   I was a young coach; twenty-five, perhaps too young to be a high school coach in charge of seventy-five young men, some only five years younger than me.  But I didn’t know that.  I just tried to do my job, coach my kids to success, and keep a lid on the craziness that is definitional for adolescent boys. 

 And I think I did a pretty good job.   But then, it was time for my “job evaluation”.  And when I walked into the Athletic Director’s office, it wasn’t just a “man to man” discussion.  There was the AD, and there was the Assistant Principal, and then there was the Principal, all on one side of the AD’s desk, fifty plus years of educational experience. And  there was twenty-five year old me on the other.

For the next two hours, even my successes were cited as failures.   For two hours, whatever I happened to say was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of my three bosses, all talking at once, all disputing my efforts. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I thought I should just get up and leave.  But then it dawned on me – if they were going to fire me, they’d just done that at the beginning.  They just wanted to have their say, their “pound of flesh”, to draw new lines of authority.   They really didn’t want me to change much, they just wanted to be able to say to someone, I don’t know who, that they “Put Marty in his place”.  When it all ended, they handed me a paper evaluation they rated my performance as “good”.  It was crazy.

Woman to Man

Once  I got over the emotion, punched a wall or two, and stopped packing my bags, I realized that I was still the Head Boys Track Coach at Watkins Memorial High School.   My “bosses” could report to whoever they needed to that I was “suitably chastised”.  And life, teaching, my coaching career all could go on, pretty much like it was before.  

That was in 1982.   Thirty-five years later, I retired as the Boys Track Coach at Watkins Memorial.  And a few months after, I was already an “ex-coach”.  Then the Athletic Director and I had a disagreement about some T-Shirts we were selling at the home Cross Country meet.  In the middle of that issue, we had a meeting.  I knew as soon as I came in her office, that this meeting wasn’t to solve anything – it was to be another “beat down”.  The AD, who had no problem criticizing the track program “woman to man” for the past year, now had “backup”.  

This time it was the AD and the Assistant Principal.  And this time, the AD said almost nothing.   It was the Assistant who decided she was “the voice” of the Administration.  And just like that day in June of 1982, there wasn’t any discussion.  There was just a “beat down”.  No one wanted to hear what I had to say.  They just wanted “their view” on the record.  They wanted to tell someone, some boss above them, that “Marty was suitably chastised”.  It didn’t last nearly as long as back in ’82.  There was really nothing on the table.  I was already packed, already gone.  I finished my commitments to Watkins Cross Country, and I was done.

A World-Class Beatdown

I still love Watkins Track and Cross Country, and that AD is long gone.  So I go back, now the old, gray-haired guy, that used to coach here.  It’s changed a lot.  I officiate, and help out the coaches when I can, and realize that “my day” at Watkins is over.

I hadn’t thought about all that for years.   That was, until I heard President Trump and Vice President Vance perform a “beat down” on national TV.  Their target was the President of a sovereign nation, who, until literally weeks ago, was America’s ally.  Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the President of Ukraine, a nation that has done nothing but honor itself in a three year war against the massive Russian Army.  Ukrainians have endured unthinkable assaults, from Russian missiles and drones, from Russian tanks and troops, and on Ukrainian civilians and even children.  Russia captured parts of Ukraine, then “exported” the children to Russia, renaming and reprogramming them to be “good Russian citizens”.

The United States and NATO have been stalwart allies of Ukraine.   We have enforced draconian sanctions on the Russian economy, and spent billions of dollars on Ukrainian defenses.  It has been Ukrainian blood heroically spilled to stop the Russian invasions, but it has been US and NATO weaponry that helped Ukraine hold against the Russian juggernaut.

Who’s in Charge

I guess that’s not what Donald Trump wants.   And so he and Ohio’s “finest”, Vice President JD Vance performed a “beat down” on Zelenskyy today, live on US television.  Trump shouted down Zelenskyy’s objections, and Vance had the unmitigated gall of claiming that President Zelenskyy was disrespecting the US President by not saying “thank you” enough.  As if rivers of Ukrainian blood aren’t enough of a sacrifice.  

In the end, hopefully, a deal will be reached;  access to Ukrainian mineral wealth traded for support, and the US remains a Ukrainian ally.  But you have to wonder:  who did Trump need to show that “Zelenskyy was put in his place”.  Who did Vance need to show that Zelenskyy was “suitably chastised”.  To what “higher boss” must Vance and Trump report to?  It’s not the American people – so what was the point of a world class “beat down” on world TV?

Who’s really in charge — another Vladimir?

The Debt

Let’s get one thing straight up front.  The Government of the United States of America owes $36 Trillion.  That’s a lot of money, and the “blame” for that debt is shared all around.  Republicans and Democrats, Presidents and Congresses, Conservatives, Neo-Conservatives, Moderates and Progressives; all have contributed to the “debt”.  

How big is it?  If every person in the United States “donated” $100,000; it would shrink the debt to $3.5 Trillion.  That’s what it was back in 1990.  And since the vast majority of Americans don’t have a “spare” $100,000 to donate (or pay in tax), that’s not likely to happen.

No Limits

And what does the “debt” do?  Well first, just like that credit card debt we carry month-to-month, owing a debt requires paying interest on it.  The US Government pays about $1 Trillion to “service” the debt annually.  To put that in some perspective, the Government spent a little less than $7 Trillion in the 2024 total budget, so about 14% of that budget goes to the debt.  And while we’re talking about credit cards, there is one big difference between the US Debt and our personal credit debt.  All of our cards have some limit, some top number that “max’s out” the card.  So there is a real limit (a really big limit) to how far in debt we can personally go.   

But there is no hard limit to the Government debt.  As long as we/they can borrow the money, the can increase the debt.  Last year the United States had a $6.75 Trillion budget, and an income of $4.92 Trillion.  So last year, the National Debt “only” increased by $1.77 Trillion.

And one last factoid:  the only way for the government to “not” increase the debt is to spend less than it brings in.  When politicians today say “we need to cut Federal spending by $2 Trillion”, what they are trying to do is balance the budget.  The last time that happened was in the 2001 budget (though the reality of 2001 was that spending exceeded income – remember 9-11?).  

Priorities

And that’s the point.  Our government makes choices to spend more and create more debt.  Those choices are the priorities of those differing governments.  Donald Trump’s first term as President increased the national debt by around $8 Trillion (that’s the dubious “record”).  A little less than half of that was for Covid relief, to stabilize the American economy.  The majority of the other half was because of Trump’s sponsored tax cut, mostly for the highest tax payers (the rich).  That was his priority.

On the other hand, Joe Biden, increased the debt of $4.3 Trillion.  $2.2 Trillion of that was for Covid relief.  The rest help finance the Infrastructure Act, the Chips Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.  Those were his priorities.

The Budget

So what’s happening with the budget argument in Congress today?  Republicans want to slash the budget, cutting $2 Trillion (the magic number) to balance.  Except for one little issue.  They also want to continue Trump’s tax cut for the highest tax payers (the rich).  So the $2 Trillion cut, will be closely matched by a $2 Trillion loss in government income.  If that happens, then, while the budget will be smaller, it will still contribute to the debt.  They’re “giving away” the savings.  That’s their priority.

A side note:  while there is a huge argument about the relative percentage  the “rich” pay versus the “regular folks”, the reality is that 20% of my income is still a whole lot less than 05% of Warren Buffet’s .  What most Progressive tax reformers argue, is that Buffet ought to pay 20%  equal to me or more.  But he doesn’t, and in Trump World, he will pay even less.

Savings?

And what about Elon Musk and the DOGE boys?  Aren’t they finding millions, even billions of dollars of savings?  If we cut USAID, a lot of our foreign spending, that’s $60 Billion a year, less than 1%.  If we cut the Department of Education, that would “save” $238 Billion a year, 4%. (Of course, a lot of that spending would have to be replaced by state and local money.  So a Federal cut will likely be made up in increased local taxes). If we fired Musk’s SpaceX, that would save another $6 Billion a year.

Add all of that up, and even if the DOGE boys find some real cuts – they are focused more on “re-prioritizing” government rather than saving money.  They are going after the “woke” programs; like USAID (hopefully not because it has letters “AIDS” in it) and Education (because of Title IX and the transgendered).  It’s supposed to be about money, but it’s more about “getting the Libs”.   

Real Money

The real money is in “entitlements”, promises the US Government made to citizens over the years.  The big three are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Medicare costs about $1 Trillion a year.  And yes, Medicare was supposed to be paid by individuals in payments throughout their work careers.  But inflation, and “alternative uses” by Congress, means that fund isn’t near enough to cover the cost.  The same is true about Social Security ($1.5 Trillion).   Medicaid is a little less, about $560 Billion to the US Government. 

And what about the Defense Department?  Well that’s around $1.3 Trillion a year.  So there’s that, ripe for cuts, though Defense is a major “priority” to the Trump Administration.

It’s not an easy conversation.  It’s about balancing priorities.  But one thing needs to be clear.  The President and the Congress right now, are not cutting the debt.  They are simply shifting priorities away from most American citizens, and to the rich.  

Surprised?

Building Alliances

The United States is threatening tariffs on allies like Canada and Mexico (higher than those threatened to our real economic rival, China).  The President demands that the Panama Canal be “returned”.   The Trump Administration seriously proposes that the Gaza Strip be evacuated of ALL Palestinians, bulldozed, rebuilt as the “Gaza Riviera”, and patrolled by the US military.   He’s proposes a “friendly”, or not so “friendly”, takeover of Greenland.

 And he’s made it clear that Ukraine better take whatever “deal” the US negotiates with Russia, or face a total loss of military support.  And, by the way, Ukraine needs to give half of its mineral resources to the US (of course America would pay, maybe?)

There are lots of ways to view world politics.  The United States, since World War II, has tried to build alliances with our friends to offset those of our enemies.  During the Cold War (1948-1992) the US built NATO, an alliance of European nations, CENTO, an alliance of middle Asian nations, SEATO, an alliance of South and East Asian nations, and ANZUS, Australia, New Zealand the US.  Those treaty organizations gave leverage against the Soviet Union and “their” alliance, the Warsaw Pact, and China and the other Communist Asian nations, Vietnam and North Korea.

Cooperation

Building alliances was a “cooperative” effort.  The US asked for assistance, military base locations, support of the other national armed forces, votes in the United Nations, and the literal “weight of the world” against their rivals.  In return, the US offered incentives.  Some were military, as simple as Article 5 of the NATO declaration:  “…an attack on one member Nation is an attack on us all”.  Article 5 has been invoked once, when non-governmental terrorists struck the United States on 9-11.  When the US went to war in Afghanistan, a wide variety of our allies joined us.  

Alliances also offered protection:  the US would use its mighty forces, particularly the Air Force and the Navy, to spread a range of defenses over our “friends”.  When the Soviets pushed the “envelope” over the Arctic, or the Sea of Japan, or in Europe; it was US forces that countered their moves.  And ultimately, it was the US nuclear deterrent that protected the world against the Soviet (and to a lesser extent, Chinese) nuclear threat:  Mutual Assured Destruction.

Our  friends also got favored economic status.  We used our manufacturing might, and also our agricultural abundance, to help our “friends” develop and flourish.  Sure, we might have made a few more “bucks” in other ways, but favors on the economic side led to responses on the military side.  It was a way of sharing prosperity, and building security.  It was a “win-win” proposition.

Biggest Kid on the Block

But the “ideology” underlying the current Administration’s policies has a wholly different basis.  Instead of a “win-win” concept, it is based on the “zero-sum game” theory.  They believe there is a limited amount of success, resources, and financial wealth in the world.  When one Nation “wins” another must lose.  And, since the United States is the biggest military and economic power in the world, one nation versus another, the US should ALWAYS “win”.  

“Zero-Sum” theory directly contradicts the “win-win” theory of coalition building, because coalitions make all the nations “winners”.  In the “zero-sum” theory: ” To the biggest, baddest, strongest; goes the spoils”.   So the United States shouldn’t be “good-old Uncle Sam”, trying to make the world a better place.  Instead, we should “biggest kid on the block”, who takes what it wants.

What About?

Why talk about taking over Greenland?  Regardless of what the Administration says about Greenland’s geographic importance as a “military base”, the reality is that as climate change causes the Greenland glacier to melt, it’s revealing mineral resources.  It’s not about a place to put a base, but a place to put a mine.

What about rebuilding Gaza?  It’s surely not about the Palestinians, who would be shoved off somewhere, anywhere else.  Certainly Jordan, Syria, and Egypt don’t want them.  All three nations have bad memories of times when Palestinians were there before.  It’s about securing Israel’s border, and making personal money at the expense of the US government.  Can’t you see  “TRUMP MED HOTEL” on the Gazan coast, towering over the sand beach and rolling waves?

And why is Trump insulting the leader of Canada, calling him “Governor Trudeau”?  What does Trump really want?  In many ways the Canadian economy is an extension of the US economy.  Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, and Honda all build cars in Canada for sale in the United States.  Trump is looking for a new source of revenue to dramatically increase the US government account (why? – that’s a different essay I’m working on).  Tariffs on Canada (and Mexico) could create some of that revenue.  And who would pay for it?  Since tariffs are ultimately passed onto the consumer, it would be the American buyers who would pay the new “hidden” tax.  

Ukraine

And what’s really going on in Ukraine?  It’s personal.  Remember that Trump’s first impeachment was all about the corrupt bargain he was trying to make with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to stop Joe Biden’s candidacy for US President.  Zelenskyy didn’t go along with the deal offered in the “perfect phone call” – payback’s a bitch when it comes to Trump.

Second, Trump wants to trade with Russia, another “zero-sum” where Russia will supply the money now trapped in Russian oligarchs blocked accounts, for investment in the US (and maybe pay off Trump’s personal loans?).  The only way to do that is to clear the sanctions over Ukraine.  End the war, free the cash.  And, by the way, Ukraine has little to “play” in this deal, only their freedom as a democratic nation, something that Trump cares little about.  But there are minerals in Ukraine (just like Greenland) that the US could use – so forcing them into a deal has all sorts of “benefits” in Trump world thinking.

The zero-sum world is one on one, bi-lateral.  That’s because one on one the US should always “win”.  The win-win world shares the wealth, the zero-sum world allows one nation to accumulate wealth.  In the end Trump isn’t crazy, talking about Greenland and Panama.  He’s simply taking his own personal Manhattan real-estate view of economics, and applying it to the world.

The question should be:  is this the kind of world we want?  Is democracy and national sovereignty in Ukraine more important that America’s wallet?  And more importantly, is democracy and national sovereignty in the United States more important than America’s wallet?  

That may be the ultimate choice Americans will make.

Sometimes the weight of life in our “interesting times” seems too much to bear.   So today, it’s time (really, past time) for another “Sunday Story” on Our America.  Today’s topic:  a look at a story of what gets lost, and what gets found.

Origin Story

Part of my “origin story” is my parents’ religious beliefs.   Mom was British, but of Irish ancestry.  So no surprise, she was Roman Catholic.  Dad’s ancestry was Jewish, and so was he.  His grandfather migrated to Cincinnati from Alsace (a province between Germany and France) after the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870’s.  Mom was an “operative” in the British Special Operations Executive during World War II, a “spy” if you will.  Dad was a Warrant Officer in the US Army based in England, assigned to the finance section.  They met on a blind date in London and quickly fell in love.

A Jewish man and a Catholic woman getting married was frowned upon by both religions.   But it was when Mom refused to promise that any children would be raised Catholic, that the local priest actually ex-communicated her from the church.  She was denied the religious sacraments that she grew up with.  But, while Mom could no longer practice Catholicism, the traditions of the Church were still strong within her.  (The story goes, that when the Priest arrived at my grandparents’ house to inform Mom of the ex-communication, my Grandfather hastened his exit by punching him in the nose). 

Episcopalian

We kids were brought up in the Episcopal Church.  The apocryphal story is that it was as close as Mom could get to Catholic without “crossing the line”. As a rule, Episcopalians aren’t worried about the hierarchy of the Saints.  But we Dahlman kids definitely knew two Saints, for sure. 

 The first was St. Anthony, the patron Saint of lost “things”.  Whenever something was lost, Mom was sure to pray to St. Anthony to help return it to the owner.  And the second was Saint Jude.  He was the patron of “impossible causes”.  So if Anthony didn’t come through, perhaps Jude would do “the impossible”. (That mission is why the hospital in Memphis for desperately ill children is named for St. Jude). 

Glasses

In third grade, we discovered that my vision was really, really, bad.   The school lined us kids up in the lunch serving line (really), and had us look down to the other end at an eye-chart on the exit door wall. I discovered that everyone else could read several lines down the page.  Me, it was the big “E”, and maybe a shot at the second line of “F,P”.  The third line “T,O,Z” was really just a guess, and after that, it was a total blur until they let me walk up by the cash registers.  No wonder everyone else knew what was on the “old school” blackboard in the front of the class.

So I soon had glasses with thick, almost “bulletproof” lenses.   Back then, glasses were actual glass, and weighed a lot.  So as a kid I often made the choice to see less, and not have the weight on my face.

Just a note – 20/20 is “perfect vision”.   I was 20/120 in the left eye, and 20/150 in the right eye, all not good.  My right eye was worse, perhaps because I got a stick in my eye, looking up at a waterfall in the Hocking Hills when I was three. It hurt, and we ended up in what I now know was a shaky hospital in Logan, Ohio.  But I did get to play “pirate” full time with a patch on my eye for six weeks!! 

Oh Canada!!

Our family went on a summer vacation every August.   In those years, we joined several other Cincinnati families in a “retreat” to Hilton Beach, a Canadian village on St. Joseph’s Island between the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the mainland Canadian coast. (And, as the joke went, the location of the only “Hilton Hotel” not in the Hilton chain).  Our mornings always started with a bath in the lake, water from Lake Superior about to reach Lake Huron.  It was always, always, dramatically cold.  But Dad made sure we were all in attendance, with our Cincinnati-made Ivory Soap in hand: it floats!  

Our quick immersion “bath” was soon followed by a warmup  in the “walk-in” fireplace, and a hearty breakfast of eggs, Canadian bacon, and thick white bread.   Then it was onto a day of boating, skiing, hiking; and even some quiet reading time.  I can still remember the musty-fireplace smell of the old couch, as I curled up with some “Landmark Book” about an historic figure.

We often piled in the car to tour around the area; with trips to Lornie’s Restaurant in the village, or to call home from the only pay-phone in town, or to venture across the island to old Fort St Joe.    And some years, we went on the ferry back to the Canadian mainland and to the “big town” of Bruce Mines, for their summer festival.  The “Black Watch” Scottish Highland bagpipers were there, and there were rides for us kids, and other stuff for the adults to look at.

Lost

Since I was eight years-old, I was very much “into” the rides.   My first action was to put my glasses “safely” in my pocket.  It wouldn’t do for them to fly off in the middle of some hairpin turn!!

Finally it was dark, and time to head back to Hilton Beach.  As we reached the car, I put my hand in my pocket to retrieve my glasses.  And, as you might have guessed, they were gone.  I was faced with the rest of the vacation being an actual blur, and I wasn’t happy.  But what was the possibility of finding a pair of glasses, somewhere in Bruce Mines, in the dark of night?  We headed back to the Ferry, across the St. Joseph’s Channel, to Hilton Beach.

Mom, on the other hand, was completely confident.  We’d go back in the morning, and search the high grass by the road for my glasses.  And she’d have a special discussion with St. Anthony, who surely would intercede to return my “bulletproof glasses” to my face.

Minor Miracles

The next morning, after our dip in the lake, we headed back to “the Bruce”.   We pulled up approximately to where we parked the day before, and got out to slowly comb the overgrown weeds for glasses.  As we started our quest, I heard Mom muttering:  

“ St. Anthony, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find Martin’s glasses, which have been lost!”

I wasn’t the only one who thought there wasn’t much of a chance.   Dad and my sisters didn’t seem too impressed with the “power” of St. Anthony either.  But Mom was so sure; and so we searched, head’s down, trying to find a pair of glass lenses bound in the black plastic rims that were “in-style” at the time.

Fifteen minutes into the search, Mom reached down, through the weeds, and pulled my glasses out.  They were intact, ready to go right back on my face.  And she made it clear who to credit for the find:  “Thank you St. Anthony!!!”

Today, I am lapsed from pretty much all forms of religion.   Aside from weddings and funerals, it’s been decades since I’ve been inside of a Church, a Synagogue, or even a Mosque.  But there is one situation when I still mull over the idea of calling for heavenly intercession.  When I lose something, I mean, really lose something, a thing that I cannot replace and I cannot find:  I might still think (though not say aloud) about asking for some help.  I might say a silent prayer to St. Anthony.  He proved his worth!!!!  

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

2025

• Lost and Found – 2/22/25

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.

Knocked Down

I’m doing my best.  I’m trying to let the Trump outrages, from Guantanamo to Kash Patel to halting cancer research; wash over me. It’s like diving under a five foot swell coming into the beach.  But today, right now, he got me.  Sixty-four Americans lost their lives last night in a helicopter/plane crash in Washington, DC.  The investigation is underway.  Many of the bodies are still  strapped in their seats in the ice-cold Potomac.  The ultimate cause of the accident is still unknown.

Except, of course, to President Donald “F-kin’” Trump.  He just spent ten minutes denigrating the Federal Aviation Administration, and blaming “DEI” hires for the accident.  Trump spoke about mentally disabled controllers, and those with physical disabilities from paralysis to dwarfism.  He somehow claimed it was Pete Buttigieg’s fault, or Barack Obama’s fault, or, of course, Joe Biden’s fault.  

He made it clear that he blamed the Air Traffic Controller (whoever that person was) for the crash.  And he made it sound like America has unqualified, handicapped and disabled controllers killing our aircraft passengers, pilots, crew members, and military personnel. 

Then, after all of that reading of FAA hiring practices and the placing blame; Trump said, “Well, we really don’t know what happened”. 

Sycophants 

The new Transportation Secretary, the new Defense Secretary, and even JD Vance, Ohio’s addition to the Vice Presidency; backed Trump’s assertion.  They all paid obeisance to the President: “thank you for your leadership” (may I have another??).   And they all backed his “analysis” of the problem.  None of them gave the final, “Well we really don’t know…” after their statements.

So we now have a President doing his “level best” to tell us what happened in the Washington accident.  It’s as if he has some expertise in Air Traffic Control – which he doesn’t.  It’s as if he has some intelligence on this issue; which he doesn’t.  He’s just “spun” this problem into another Trump “triumph” of changing America.

It’s despicable.  It’s disgusting.  And it’s disrespectful to the living, and the dead.

And it’s the new era of Trump: a tidal wave of idiocy, racism, and hate.  This wave knocked me down; kicked the wind out of me; ground the sandy bottom into my face. But I will get to shore, and gather my wits, and head into the waves again.  

It reminds me:  how much I hate what America is becoming.

Just as every cop is a criminal (whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo)
And all the sinners saints (whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo)
As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer (whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo)
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint (whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo)

The Rolling Stones –Sympathy for the Devil

Criminals

Let’s look at the definition of a criminal.   My Mother’s ultimate source, the Oxford English Dictionary, defines a “crime” as:  “An act or omission constituting an offence (usually a grave one) against an individual or state and punishable by law.”  So a “criminal” is one who commits such an “offence”.  (Mom was British, and so was her spelling, much to my demise in elementary school spelling tests. “That’s the way my MOM spells it!!!”). 

To split hairs just a bit, the key element in the definition is the undefined nature, “usually a grave one”, of crime.   Going 40 in a 35 MPH zone is an “offence”, but not necessarily a “crime”.  It’s not “grave”.  In legal terms they are called “civil” offenses;  violation of regulation (like traffic laws) but not “criminal” law.  The difference:  if I was driving 40 MPH in a 35 zone AND I was drunk was an alcohol level of .15, I’ve committed the civil offense of speeding, but the criminal offense of driving while intoxicated.  

Crossing the United States border illegally can be both a civil offense, and a criminal offense.  That’s a problem when the leaders of the Executive Branch of the United States say: “We are only going to deport criminals.”  Is the single act of crossing the US Border “without papers” (see the  essay from earlier this week) criminal?  Is it still criminal if you’re in a canoe in the border waters along the Minnesota/Canada border?  How about if you walk across the Rio Grande River (it’s pretty shallow in mid-summer) in Big Bend National Park in Texas?  Or finally, what about the Canadian border from Point Roberts, Washington?  Point Roberts is in the US, but its 1200 residents can only be accessed by land from Canada.

ICE Raids

So when the new “Immigration Czar”, Tom Homan, claims that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are “only designed to round-up criminals”, what does he really mean?  Look, pretty much all Americans are in favor of sending “murdering gang members” out of the country.   It’s an easy out:  instead of long trials and paying for prison sentences, just send them back to “where they come from”.  But Homan has made his definition clear:  if someone is undocumented, therefore in the US “illegally”, he considers them a criminal. 

The ICE raids of the last weekend show what he means.  Fully half of the immigrants rounded up were actual criminals, accused or convicted of committing felonies.  But that means that the other half were, in fact, only guilty of the civil offense of crossing the border “without papers”.  But those folks didn’t get a pass.   They too were loaded up on military air transports, and flown out of the country.  It makes the “numbers” look better on TV.

And that’s caused panic in the migrant community.  Many families live in “mixed status” households:  some US citizens, some legal migrants, some without papers.  What happens when a child goes to school, and Mom and Dad are picked up in an “ICE Raid” for being undocumented.  Who will pick the child up?   What if the child is a US citizen, is it still “OK” to deport the parents? 

Jobs 

And what about all of the job categories where the undocumented are employed?  Who will pick the “truck crops” in Florida and California, who will roof the houses damaged by hurricanes or fires, who will clean the hotel rooms, or butcher the chickens?  It’s easy for the Administration to say:  “That’s more jobs for Americans”.  But, to be brutally honest, Americans don’t want those jobs.  Undocumented workers are doing what the newest entries in American life have always done: the tough work, the brutal work in the sun, the bloody work at the processor. It’s the work that longer term Americans found a way to get out of.   

To put it bluntly (as my wife would say) “What about the eggs?”.  Egg prices went up during the post-covid inflation, and became a battle cry for the Trump forces in the 2024 election.  What about the eggs, when the cost of agriculture shoots up because we no longer have the migrant workers?  Forget about who gets sent back to Guatemala – what about the eggs?

It’s not just a problem for the undocumented.  It’s a problem for all Americans.

Uniter-in-Chief

When Joe Biden became the President of the United States, in the middle of the Covid pandemic and just days after an Insurrection led by his predecessor, he made a choice.  He could have appointed an aggressive Department of Justice, led by an avenging Attorney General.  He could have made sure that everyone who dared to contemplate overthrowing the Constitutional process, the world-admired “peaceful transition of power”, were brought to justice.  Joe Biden might have made the prime mission of his Presidency to hold the leaders of that criminal insurrection accountable, to the United States and the world.

He didn’t.  Instead of an avenger, he appointed a “neutral arbiter” as the Attorney General, Appellate Court Justice Merrick Garland.  The Judge was exactly what you’d want in a member of the court  (or a Supreme Court Justice nominee, which he was).  Garland was a dispassionate, apolitical enforcer of the law.  He was appointed to hold the Justice Department above politics, and re-new American’s faith in “blind justice”.

Biden made his choice with both eyes open.  He knew Garland:  who he was and what he believed.  Biden wanted, above all, to return America to “normalcy”.  He believed (believes) that the “job” of the Biden Administration was to restore order, norms, and values in American government, after the “chaos” Trump’s Presidency.  Justice under Trump’s Attorney Generals; Sessions, Whittaker and Barr, became an extension of Trump politics. It was a truly “weaponized” arm of the White House.  Biden saw himself as a “uniter-in-chief”, and could only see one way forward for the Nation.  

Weaponized

Neutrality was so important, the Biden allowed his only surviving son to remain in jeopardy, under investigation by Trump Justice.  Garland kept the Trump appointed US Attorney investigating Hunter on the job and, in fact, raised his status to Special Prosecutor, giving him increased investigatory power.   

Joe Biden thought he could heal the America’s political divide.  His Justice Department didn’t give the Insurrectionists a “pass”, but they did have a very, very, deliberate process.  It took years to start, and it took the Democratic House of Representatives and the January 6^th Committee hearings to approach the actual Insurrectionist leaders.  Maybe, Biden didn’t really want to have all that in the open, a clear public wedge against the MAGA world.  But he put Garland in charge, without a political check.  And it became, like many things involving Trump, “If we do something wrong, we’ll accuse you of the same thing”. The “MAGA mantra” was that the Biden “Democrat” (sic) Justice Department was politically “weaponized”, not theirs.

Biden’s good intentions were for naught.  By a slim margin (really, about 255,000 in the swing states) out of 152 million votes, Trump returned as President.  Not surprisingly, he returns with vengeance in mind.  He is creating a truly “weaponized” Justice Department, to be led by a truly partisan Attorney General, Pam Bondi.  The “point of the Justice spear”, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is to be headed by Kash Patel, and avowed partisan who has published an actual “hit list” of enemies to be prosecuted.  Already the axe is falling:  several Justice lawyers, non-partisan civil servants, were fired yesterday, for being a part of legal teams investigating Insurrectionists.   

Hindsight

One of Trump’s first acts as President, was to pardon nearly 1500 people convicted of crimes in the Insurrection.  His first order was to erase history, and re-write the narrative.  There wasn’t an “insurrection”, it was a peaceful protest with a few that got out of hand, provoked to violence by the police response.  They are all free now.

Of course, hindsight is perfect.  Looking back, Biden should have appointed a “Pam Bondi” and a “Kash Patel”.  He should have allowed for Justice to be done to all those in the Insurrection, from day one of his Presidency.  Of course it would have furthered the National abyss that is our political divide.  But what would be the difference; we are just as divided as ever today.

And Americans would not be facing the daily outrage of Trump on almost every front:  from migrants round-ups to grave threats to public health (Robert Kennedy Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services), to a MAGA-Justice Department seeking vengeance.  

Joe Biden was the right man, with the right idea.  

Unfortunately it was at the wrong time in American history.

For those who read these essays regularly, I have an apology.  It’s been a few days since I published, and some asked me if I’ve taken a “sabbatical” from our political world. Like many of us, I’m trying to adjust to the deluge of Trump’s actions, almost all abhorrent to what I believe America is about.  Every essay can’t just be a rant against Trump. (Well, it could but that would quickly get old).  So I am trying to pick my battles, as we all will be required to do.  

At the same time it’s the heart of indoor track season.  While I am no longer coaching, I am officiating track a lot.  This weekend, it was a clinic for officials on Friday, a clinic for coaches on Saturday morning, a collegiate pole vault competition on Saturday afternoon, and a high school shot competition on Sunday morning. (Why does everything in Indoor Track start at eight in the morning?) Oh, and there was a total of 320 miles of driving in between.  So that was a big part of my absence from “Our America” the past few days.  But it’s Monday morning, and here we go! 

SOE

My Mom was a spy for the British during World War II, a member of the “Special Operations Executive”, Churchill’s personal spy organization.  Mom was lucky:  the fatality rate in her unit was beyond 100% (not everyone died, but most did, and so did a lot of their replacements).   Mom survived, even though she was in and out of Nazi-occupied Europe; France, Belgium, and even Yugoslavia.  

SOE did everything they could to protect their agents.  The details mattered:  making sure the clothes were made in Paris factories, down to the underwear.  The cigarettes had to be local, and so did the accent.  Mom was successful in part, because of her years of “finishing school” at the Sacred Heart Convent in Liege, Belgium.  He French wasn’t “French”, it was “Belgian”, and so were her clothes.  That gave her some leeway in the inevitable interactions with authorities.

Papers

But most important was the “quality” of her forged documents.  Authoritarian governments remain in power, in part, by controlling the movements of citizens.  They do that through a series of documents that every citizen is required to carry.  Sure there were the “standard” identity documents; proof of birth, age, height, weight, nationality, religious belief, work status.  In addition, she needed “permissions”, identifying that she was allowed to “move” throughout the country:  “passes” prepared by local authorities allowing travel.  

Each document was on “special” paper, signed and stamped by the proper person.  Regular cops and the secret police didn’t need to ferret out differences in clothing or accent; they simply had to find an error in the documents.  That was enough to trigger detention, investigation, and for many members of the SOE, death.

Watch any World War II spy or escape movie.  For the undercover operative, the scariest time was when some low-level authority made the demand: “Your Papers!!”.  

Black Shirts

One of the hallmarks of a free society is the ability to move about without permission.  We don’t need “passes” to drive from town to town officiating track meets (though we do, reasonably, need a license to operate a car).  No one has to give us “permission” before we leave.  And while authorities can demand identity, they are required to have some “reason”, some probable cause of a criminal action, to move onto further detention or investigation. If you’re not driving your car at ninety miles an hour trying to make the warmup start of the college men’s pole vault, you can travel unencumbered by authority demanding “Your Papers Please”. Sometimes you can even drive that fast as well.

But those liberties are changing under the new administration.  Today it isn’t whether your cigarettes were made in North Carolina or your sweatshirt by the “Champion” company.  No, today, some of the American authorities, dressed in the black shirts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), are looking at one characteristic; skin.  Ask the Puerto Ricans taken in a Newark, New Jersey ICE “raid” of a workplace.  They were arrested by ICE as “undocumented migrants” because they looked Hispanic.  

Swept Up

Check out your own driver’s license.  It doesn’t list a citizenship status.  It doesn’t note that since some were born in Puerto Rico, they are AMERICAN CITIZENS, even eligible to vote for the President if they are residing in New Jersey (Puerto Rican residents cannot vote for President).  They just get swept up in the crowd, some legal, some not, all scrambling to give the ICE agents their “papers”.

If you drive south of Tucson, Arizona, there are checkpoints along I-19 approaching the border with Mexico. That’s one of the places where ICE Agents are stopping cars and demanding “Your Papers”.  Whether you’re an American citizen or legal resident, or a migrant “with out papers”, you must prove yourself.  And for those without, even those citizens without, there is a high risk of detention, and possible deportation to some country where you might not have even been.

It used to be, like two weeks ago, that there was a presumption that citizens could travel freely, even close to the Southern (and now Northern) borders.  Now, even in church, or in school, or in the hospital; there might well be the demand of  “your papers”. 

That’s the new reality in Our America.

For those of you not familiar with horse racing, the audience participation is based on gambling.  There are many ways to bet the horses, including pick the winner, or pick a horse to “win, place (2^nd) or show (3^rd). There are also all sorts of groupings of horses, some over multiple races.  All to attract the “gambler’s dollar”, where the real money is in the racing industry.

100 Days

The tradition started with Franklin Roosevelt.  Elected in 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the nation wanted action.  About a quarter of the Nation’s citizens were out of work, desperately struggling to find the next meal for themselves and their families.  After FDR told the country there was, “Nothing to Fear, but Fear Itself”, he entered the White House with a mandate to get something, anything, done.

In his first 100 days in office, fifteen major bills passed Congress to try to alleviate the impact of the Depression.  On the list were many laws Americans are familiar with as the “alphabet soup” legislation:

• Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA)
• Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
• Glass-Steagall Act (established the FDIC)
• National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA).

It wasn’t just that FDR was making major changes in the American economy.  He was putting the American Government into action.  His predecessor waited for the economy to correct itself (laissez-faire economics), but it didn’t happen.  There was less to fear, because there was a President taking direct action to make things better.

Tradition

That began the American Presidential tradition of “the first 100 days”.  What used to be a time when the new President “eased into the job”, is now a flurry of activity.  It also made sense; it is the  time (other than when America is under military attack) that a President has the most political power.  Every President, from Roosevelt’s landslide victory to George W Bush’s Supreme Court triggered win, claimed a “mandate” from the American people.  Congress, fresh off elections themselves, wants to get things done as well.  And the President gets a “honeymoon” from the press and the people.  It’s the perfect time to exercise the powers of the executive office.

More recently, Presidents enter office with a whole range of “Executive Orders”.  Instead of introducing a plan for the Congress to enact into law, like the New Deal, they use their singular power to make all of the changes they can.  Trump, Biden, and now Trump again were well prepared on “Day ONE”, and part of Inauguration Day tradition has become the signing of a flurry of orders trying to redirect the executive branch. 

Project 2025

During the runup to the 2024 election, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, released their “Project 2025” document.  It was over 900 pages of changes that they saw as needed to alter the American government and align it with their own conservative views.  Many of those proposals outraged less ideologically inclined citizens, and the Trump campaign distanced itself from the plan.  Ultimately, Democratic warnings about Project 2025 fell on deaf ears when it came to the voters.  The Trump Administration is now using Project 2025 as their blueprint.

Part of the “Project” was a series of executive orders to be signed by an incoming Trump Presidency.  They were nicknamed “Shock and Awe”, after the US military strategy of the early 2000’s.  That was massive bombing attacks to obliterate enemy defensive positions.  Then Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld used the term over and over again at the beginning of the Second Persian Gulf War, as we watched the combat video from American warplanes.

Donald Trump was sworn (hand on the Bible or not) on Monday.  It’s Wednesday morning, and there’s been an avalanche of executive orders released, many signed in front of 20,000 fans at the Capital Center on Inauguration Night.  They encompass changes to the Federal government, alterations to the US Constitution, and, most importantly, the Project 2025 determination to wipe out anything that the Biden Administration did in four years in office.

Winners

Some of these orders are serious, with serious consequences.  Like them or not, they are within the power of the President to act “alone” (remember Trump told us “I alone can fix this”).  Those are the “winners” for Project 2025 and their MAGA followers.  Others are “placers”, Trump can say it, but it will take a lot more than just his “say” to get them done.  And others are a flat “no”.  They are not within the power of the President to decide, and are simply smoke; part of the “shock and awe” strategy to overwhelm Democrats before the “loyal (or not so loyal) opposition” can get organized.

”Winners”:  most of  the Immigration changes that Trump is making, including closing the border, ending remote requests for asylum, and “rounding up” undocumented migrants, are fully within his power.   While there’s going to be lots of attempts at Judicial intervention, the Supreme Court has already placed most of those powers in the sole hand of the President, (absent an actual immigration law passed by Congress).  It’s one of his greatest powers, and one of the reasons he ordered the immigration proposal tanked by Republicans in Congress last year.  

More Winners

Another “winner”:  Trump rescinded Biden’s Executive Orders advancing racial equity, not asking for citizenship status on the census, combatting Covid, preventing discrimination based on gender identity, and requiring executive personnel to commit to an ethics agreement.  Trump also removed environmental protections, worker protections, including the right of Federal workers to organize in unions,  and eliminating privately run prisons. And Trump ended the taskforce to reunify families that his first Administration separated at the border.  Whatever Biden did by Executive Order, Trump can undo.  And he’s doing it.

And the saddest “winner”:  Trump pardoned 1600 some convicted felons from the January 6^th Insurrection, including those who physically attacked and injured policemen, and the organizers of much of the violence. 

Placers and No

A “Placer”:  Trump ordered all Federal employees to return to “work”.  He ordered the end of remote work from home.  And for those Federal employees at the management level, who are not under a union negotiated contract, they are going back to their offices.  But for the vast majority of Federal workers their contract protects them from the arbitrary whims of the President, and would require re-negotiation.

And, much to Trump’s and Project 2025’s dismay, the President of the United States cannot re-write the laws of Congress.  Trump wants to end the Affordable Care Act, but he can’t, even though he signed an Executive Order trying to do that.  He also wants to remove the $35 cap on insulin, also passed into law by Congress (as well as much of the Inflation Reduction Act, another Congressional Law).   And he wants to “impound” the money already allocated in the Infrastructure Law, perhaps to use to “build the Wall”.  That’s not within his power either.

Trump signed an Executive order changing the Constitutional mandate to grant citizenship to those born on US soil.  That’s Black Letter Law in the 14^th Amendment to the US Constitution, and clearly is NOT in the purview of the President’s executive discretion.  Even with a Trump 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, it’s unlikely that will fly.  Rewriting the Constitution is a “hard NO”.

Shock and Awe

So many orders, so much paper, all of the headlines:  it looks like a President jumping into action.  But a lot of the paper is just that, paper without substance.  Americans need to weather the storm, and not be overwhelmed by the swirl of Project 2025 propaganda.  

There are real things that Donald Trump is doing; including providing cover for his flawed nominee for Defense Secretary.  But there is only so much outrage, and action, the “loyal opposition” can take.  And there is very real damage that Trump can do to America.  That’s where Democrats need to focus their opposition.  Let the noise, the flash, the nonsense, go by.  Democrats need to focus on defending the core essentials of the American Republic.  If it sounds like a war, it is, a political war to determine what kind of America we will have.  Like George Washington’s Army, Democrats lost a crucial battle in November. 

But the struggle goes on.

Trump Era

When High School American history teachers in thirty years (assuming we have high schools, and, assuming we still have teachers) look back, they will call this the “Trump Era”.  Right or wrong, he earned the distinction of having his name attached to a time in American history, just as much as the Roosevelts, or Jackson, or even Washington.  And, assuming those future teachers (I kind of have a “Jetson’s” image of the thing) are somewhat truthful, they will talk about the awful polarization of our time.  

We do that now when we teach about the Pre-Civil War period of the United States.  Starting with the aging “Great Compromisers” of the 1850’s Congress, the country found less to agree upon, and more to rail against.  By 1856, the compromising was over, and in five years the chasm over the issue of slavery drove us to Civil War.  When Lincoln intoned that a nation could not live “Half slave and half free,” he wasn’t saying something new.  He was just recognizing that all the other methods of conflict resolution had failed.

I’m not prophesizing a civil war now, but I am saying that most of our methods of conflict resolution have failed as well.  We used to depend on the Courts to balance our partisan conflicts.  But that is seldom the case anymore.  

North Carolina

Look at the current North Carolina Supreme Court election, where a majority of Republicans on the Court are still refusing to acknowledge the narrow victory of a Democrat, Allison Riggs for one of their seats.  After the original vote count, the Democrat won by 700 or so votes out of 5.5 million.  The Republican candidate, Jefferson Griffin, rightfully demanded a recount. And when that count didn’t change the outcome, he asked for a second hand recount.  Riggs gained a few votes, to a winning margin of 734.

Then, after all of that, Griffin went to court to demand that 60,000 ballots be thrown out due to “ineligibility”.  This is after the state ruled them eligible and allowed them to vote, an ex-post-facto argument.  And who will determine whether Griffin or Riggs will be on the North Carolina Supreme Court based on this “after the fact” eligibility decision?  Well, the Republican majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court. 

It used to be that we would still trust “the Court” to do the right thing.  Today, no one will be surprised if North Carolina’s highest judicial body does the “political” thing, and puts another Republican on the bench.  It would just be another “marker” in our age of division.

Enemies List

Much as some would tell us to deny “our lying ears”, we know that Donald Trump and his MAGA minions declared the intent to “punish” those who tried to hold them accountable for trying to steal the 2020 election and the Insurrection of January 6^th.  Those to be punished are literally on an “enemies list”, published by Trump’s candidate for FBI Director, Kash Patel.  

And they are ingrained in statement after statement, in public and on social media, made by the candidate himself as he ran for President in 2024.  The “LOCK HER UP” chant against Hillary Clinton in 2016, became “LOCK THEM UP”, to include the January 6^th Congressional Committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Jack Smith of the Justice Department, General Milley, and others.  In fact, Trump thought that Milley ought to be executed for treason.

What They Think

It would be easy to say that it was all “rhetoric”, and that no one would use the Justice Department to exact some form of revenge against an “enemies list”.  But there’s one thing this “Trump Era” taught us.  From the early “Muslim Ban” to child separation at the border: if they can think it, they can do it.  No one should be surprised if members of the list; from Liz Cheney to Adam Kinzinger to Dr. Fauci to the good General; find themselves under criminal investigation. 

I guess we could hope that the “norms” hold, and that the Courts would toss such investigations out.  But there’s little we’ve seen in the American Court system, especially the United States Supreme Court, that should give us comfort.  The Supreme Court has gone so far as created a blanket immunity for the President of the United States for “official” criminal wrong-doing, taking the ancient concept of “sovereign immunity” and applying it to the Presidency as if he was what George Washington refused to be, a King.  

Injustice

Joe Biden, in the last morning of his Presidency, recognized that we live in “different” times.  He issued a Presidential pardon to the members of the January 6^th Congressional Committee, to those who testified before that Committee, to Dr. Anthony Fauci, and to General Milley.  They are pardoned for any “crime” they might have committed in that time. And, they are now immune from investigation and prosecution.  General Milley, now retired,  was “deeply grateful” for the pardon, stating:

“After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights. I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”

There will be some, even some Democrats, who criticize President Biden.  They say that granting a pardon is conceding that there was in fact a “crime”, that needed pardoning.  Some will say that even if Patel’s FBI (if he gets appointed) did investigate, the Courts would protect justice and prove them innocent.

But we don’t live in a time of “innocence”.  We live in the Trump Era, where, injustice is not only possible, it’s likely.  It’s Inauguration Day, and dozens of Executive Orders will be issued this afternoon.  Many of them will highlight the injustice of our new leaders.  So for one last time, thank you Joe Biden, for everything you did, and for what you did today.  It was just.

I hope you don’t represent the end of justice in our Nation.