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Much of this essay was published almost eight years ago, when I first started writing in “Our America”.  But here in Ohio, the question of where transgendered kids are allowed to “pee” is back.  The lame duck State legislature thinks this issue is more important than the myriad of other problems Ohio faces, from drought conditions to road construction to rampant political corruption.  So instead of fixing those, they pick on the kids most likely to be victims.

The facts:  3.3% of high school students identify as transgendered.  In Ohio that means somewhere around 17,000 kids.  That would be about 12 per high school if they all went to school.  And some are in public schools, some in private. But many are “online” or home schooled, so the number per school is less. But, Wednesday, the Ohio State Legislature went out of their way to point those few kids out, and make their life even harder.  Here in Ohio, the bullies are in the State House.

Made-Up Issue

George Takei of “Star Trek” fame, made a statement about transgender kids. .He spoke about their being forced to use a “biological” restroom rather than their “identified” restroom. He said, “This is a made up issue”.

I spent 36 years in public high and middle schools, and had the opportunity to interact with transgender kids.  They are not “a danger to our children”.  First of all, they are “our children”, often children most in need of protection.  Second, they are kids:  kids who have made a most difficult decision.  

They recognize that their brain’s sexual identity and their biological sexual identity are not the same.  It is such a powerful force that they are willing to face all of the barriers that society marshals against them, just as the kids who find they are gay or bisexual do.  It’s not a “choice”, it’s a recognition of who they are.

By the way, no matter how old you are now, they were in your school too.  But, until recently, those kids were forced to live closeted lives, lying to everyone (often including their parents, friends and even themselves) about who they are.  Many still do.  

School Problems

Schools have been aware of this issue for years.  Many schools have quietly taken care of the problem:  transgender girls (biological boys) who dress like girls and act like girls, use the girls restroom and no one is the wiser.  The same is true with transgender boys (they go in the stalls, as do many cisgender boys).

And that argument about locker rooms and showers is from a totally different generation.  Today’s kids don’t “get naked” in school.  Most school shower rooms (other than for wrestling teams, where almost all kids wear some form of swimsuit) have become storerooms.  And the vast majority of kids don’t have a problem with any of this.  They accept the differences of their friends.  It’s the adults who are hung up.

New Frontier

Transgender is the new frontier of identity law.  Our society has reached a general understanding about gay and bisexual people; we have removed most of the laws that discriminated against their conduct.  In public schools the era of “being gay means being bullied” has changed. The school administration is now protecting the victims, rather than enabling the perpetrators (that wasn’t always true, “in the day”).  While incidents still occur, in general, kids accept their friends as they are – or don’t deal with them at all.

Transgender kids (and adults) are not “molesters” sneaking into the opposites sex’s restroom to “catch a peep”.   They are the victims.  As a society, protecting the civil rights of folks is not a state’s rights issue.  The fine old white men in the State House today, argue that states should be able to determine these rights.  But that’s an old argument, a holdover from the Civil War, and it shouldn’t pass legal muster, or have a place in a modern society.  

As the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution and the multiple civil rights acts passed since state:  a citizen of the United States enjoys the rights and protections of all US citizens in every state.  We should not have different rights in Pennsylvania than we have in North Carolina, or Ohio. 

And this should apply to all forms of discrimination, including transgender folks.  We must NOT discriminate against the most fragile members of our society, children who are discovering that their differences are so much greater than their peers.  That’s got to be hard enough, without the government (or the Principal) checking their genitals at the restroom door.

Experts

All of the experts, most of the amateurs, and just a few damned fools; will tell you why Kamala Harris lost the election.  They say, she was too “woke”, or she was too “lib”, or for some, not “lib” enough.  Maybe her greatest mistake was she failed to pay obeisance to Joe Rogan, and spend three hours in Texas with him.   Or she didn’t move far enough away from Biden on the issue of Israel’s destruction of Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon. (Of course, Trump’s election gives Netanyahu free rein to do whatever he wants – so if that was a reason to vote against Harris, it sure backfired).

And then there’s those other things she didn’t do.  She didn’t take enough credit for the Biden Administration’s successes on infrastructure, on industrial development, on jobs and the economy.  And she didn’t give the relatively simple explanations for her change on the “fracking question”, or the more significant questions about inflation.  

Occam’s Razor 

Add all of that together, and maybe it impacts a million voters (if that).  Joe Biden got 81 million votes in 2020.  Harris has 71 million, with perhaps another 4 million still to be counted (most in California).  That still puts her short 6 million votes.  And Trump got basically the same as he did in 2020.  So it’s clearly not a “flop” of Biden to Trump.  It’s simply that 6 million Biden voters stayed home.

The “Occam’s Razor” answer to the Harris turnout is simple, and saddening.  If we look at the last five Presidential elections it seems obvious.  In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama was a Black man who won large victories.   Hillary Clinton in 2016, was a White woman who won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College.  In 2020, Joe Biden was a White man who won the most popular votes in history, and the Electoral College.  And in 2024, Kamala Harris, a Black woman, lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College, to a former President who is a convicted felon.

Misogyny

Is it really that simple?  Is nearly half of America so biased against women, White or Black, that they will literally vote for a twice-impeached, convicted felon, ex-President?  It seems that the “Occam’s Razor” answer is clear:  misogyny wins out.

And while I absolutely hate to give the Trump campaign any credit at all; they did recognize how to exacerbate that misogyny.  Take the entire disgusting but effective transgender campaign: from manly looking women on the basketball courts to the dreaded “girls’ restroom stalker”, to the young adolescent boy in hospital gown waiting to be “reassigned”: it was all about “protecting women”.   And the candidate said the quiet part out loud:  “I will protect women, whether they like it or not”.  He took away their agency, their right to make their own decisions. 

And for a significant portion of the Nation, both male and female, the abortion rights argument also “fed” the “men know better” principle.  Trump’s Party was the Party of “life”, even as Trump himself distanced himself with his line of “letting the states decide”.  That shrewd ideological move wasn’t really all about the “sanctity of life”.  It was about restricting the agency of women.  And the final point:  if women can’t decide about abortion, if women need to be protected from “transgendered stalkers”, then how could a woman possibly be President, the Nation’s “Protector”?

Harbinger

Let me be clear:  I hate the conclusion.  I don’t want “Our America” to be this place.  I truly believe that women in general, and Kamala Harris in particular, are eminently qualified to be President of the United States.  The United States has moved quickly:  it was only twenty years ago that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a national policy for the military.  It was only a decade ago that the Supreme Court allowed for same-sex marriages nationwide.  And it has only been in the past few years that the public discussion of transgendered rights has “come out”.   

Many thought that the whole “woman” issue was settled.  But we need to remember: the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), sent to the states for ratification in 1972, never became part of the Constitution.   That underlying misogyny has never been fully addressed.  Even today, women, on average, make 16% less than men for the same job.  For a significant part of the Nation, women need to “be protected”, not “followed”. 

It isn’t likely that the second Trump Administration will further women’s rights.  But what it will do is sharpen those women who are willing to fight for their agency.  The battles against backward Trumpism will go on; and women will lead the struggle.  Harris, even in losing, ranks fourth (behind Biden, Trump and Trump) in the number of votes gained by a Presidential candidate.  That beats Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and George W Bush.  The margin is narrowing.  And may that’s a harbinger for the future, a “light at the end of the tunnel”.  I hope.

The Good Guys

We will not storm the Capitol on January 6^th.  And we will not spend the next four years claiming that the election was rigged, or that Donald Trump is not the legitimate President of the United States.  It’s important to remember:  we are not using the Trump “playbook”.  We have to play it like the “good guys” (When did the Democratic Party of Joe Kennedy and Richard Daley become “good guys”?).  The old Democratic joke, “vote early and vote often” is, like Bill Cosby’s funniest lines; forbidden.

Last week’s election results felt overwhelming. I  described my reaction to a friend as:  crushed, devastated, infuriated, and traumatized.  But it’s not last week anymore.  So Democrats have to move on.  And there is one important “statistic” to remember:  almost half of Americans wanted Kamala Harris for President.  In the end, once California finally counts all of her votes (the Bear Flag State is more the Sloth Flag when it comes to elections), it’s likely that Trump won the popular vote by less than one percent.  So the “overwhelming, crushing, traumatizing” Red Wave, isn’t the electoral mandate that we thought, and that MAGA Republicans claim.

Friction

And we can certainly hope that the House flips to Democrats.  The votes are in, it’s not a question of action, it’s just a matter of waiting (Sloth Flag and a few others).  However the House shakes out, it’s going to be a razor thin margin of control, a vote or two between Mike Johnson or Hakeem Jeffries.  The House will serve to create “friction” to Trump’s plans.

As “good Americans”, some will want to stand with the new/old President, supporting him out of loyalty to the nation.  But, there is one lesson we can learn from the MAGA Republicans.  Even in the middle of the pandemic, even after the Insurrection (that memory will be buried deep in the next four years), I didn’t see MAGA leaders or followers lining up to support Joe Biden.  As my Mom would say; what’s good for “their Goose”, is fine for “our Gander”.   

We had the right answer in 2017:  RESIST. 

RESIST

I’m not calling for a Revolution, for Harris/Walz’s flags on the Capitol steps.  But we do need to create friction, resistance; to every inhumane or anti-democratic action that the Trump Administration tries to inflict. 

So, if they start rounding up migrants for deportation:  RESIST.  Make the 49.5% of Americans who chose against this feel like they are heard.  As we did with the child-separation program six years ago, shine a light on Trumpian inhumanity.  Make the historic comparisons to other American atrocities:  the Trail of Tears, the Tulsa Riot, Japanese/American Internment, “Operation Wetback”, Child-Separation.  Let Americans and the world see that he does not represent us all.  

If America begins to abandon Ukraine and/or NATO: RESIST.  Stand up for what’s right, regardless of the flawed autocrat-supporting views of MAGA.  “Let the word go forth” that while the leadership of the United States wants to abandon our “Shining City on the Hill”, almost half of Americans do not.

If your local school or library or university is pressured to bow to MAGA-idealism: RESIST.  The Electoral College does not apply to local elections.  Organize what I still believe is the majority of Americans who do not stand for censorship, suppression, or screaming intimidation.  The billionaire sponsored, Steve Bannon plan for overwhelming America starts at the local level.  So can ours. 

And if you’re local sheriff turns out to be a “Constitutional Sheriff”, another focus of the MAGA world,   RESIST.  If he (almost always he) decides to take unilateral action to support MAGA theology, protest.  Call him out for stepping out of his role of protecting local citizens; make  him pay a public and political price for abusing the authorities of his office.  

Be Heard

Don’t worry; they’ll be lots of chances to make your voice heard.   The only “sin” is to remain silent, or small, or to take the “safe” way out, when injustice is clear.  We must make the cost transparent.  As Martin Niemoller wrote from a Nazi concentration camp:

First they came for the Communists.
And I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists.
And I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists.
And I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews.
And I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me.
And there was no one left to speak out for me.

Speak out!!  Find that old “RESIST!” t-shirt from 2018 buried in the drawer.  Go buy the poster board and Sharpies to make your signs.  We know what we need to do, and as hard as it is to “do it again”, it must be done.  

Otherwise, who will be left to speak for us?

Fight/Flight

A couple of personal notes before I begin.  Like a lot of Americans this week, I wake up in the middle of the night, and, for a moment, don’t remember Tuesday. But that crushing memory returns quickly.  I used to read the news to go back to sleep.  Now, that’s a path to another sleepless night.  So I read old history articles instead, keeping a distance from the events of today.

When I do confront today’s news, I try to do it on my own terms.  I feel that same distress I have before surgery. I know I have to have the procedure, but there always a strong “fight/flight” urge to jump off of the gurney, and flee down the hall in my open hospital gown.  Now, like that pre-surgery stress, I have to face down the urge to run, and force myself to confront the reality of another “Trump America”.  I know my reaction might get better in weeks or months, but for the moment, it’s almost overwhelming.  And besides, there will be plenty of reality to confront in the next four years.  We all need to take it a piece at a time, not all at once.

Horses with Teeth

I also joined my family in an “election avoidance activity”.  Coincidentally, we planned on a trip to “The Wilds” in eastern Ohio yesterday.  It’s a sanctuary where many endangered animals roam in protected pastures.   So Thursday, instead of “deep diving” into the results, I was in the back of a beat-up pickup truck, getting “up-close and personal” with exotic species.

 We literally fed a rhinoceros in a field, and scratched her back. We dodged ostrich nips, hand-fed lettuce to a giraffe with their amazingly long tongues, and learned from afar about a species of beautiful animals called Przewalski’s Horses.  They cannot be tamed, and while they are gorgeous, almost cuddly, they have a secret weapon.  Unlike other horses-species, these beautiful “ponies” have canine teeth, able to rip and shred.  And they have no compunctions about using them.

The Numbers

So here’s the figures (of figures lie and liars figures).  When the notoriously slow California vote is projected to completion, almost 160 million Americans voted.  (Current prognosticators are ignoring at least seven million votes not yet counted).  That’s about four million more than 2020.  So let’s dispel the first fallacy:  more Americans voted in 2024 than ever before.  Donald Trump got about 4.5 million more votes than in 2020, and Kamala Harris about 1.7 million votes less than Joe Biden.  

And that dispels the second fallacy:  while this was a landslide in the electoral college, it was incredibly narrow when viewed through the prism of that old American principle; “one person, one vote”.   The difference is less than a million, a little over one half of one percent.

To put a finer point on it, Trump really won the election by 247,583 votes.  That the total of the difference in the “Blue Wall” states. And that’s a lot bigger difference than either Biden’s winning or Clinton’s losing result.

Of course, the voting margins don’t matter.  This is a winner take-all deal, just like when the Bengals gambled on a two-point conversion to beat the Ravens last night with 34 seconds left in the game:  score and win by one, fail and lose by one (they failed).  The Electoral College is like that too, no matter how narrow the popular vote, the winner take-all Electoral votes are awarded regardless of the gap.

Babies and Bath Water

My rough estimate:  Trump clearly motivated his voters to the polls.  And there was a “swing” from 2020. While Biden reached more of the white, working class voters, some turned to Trump this go-round.  And Harris performed well in the suburban vote, but didn’t deliver the urban vote the way Biden (or Obama) did.  

We hear all sorts of “Wednesday Morning Quarterbacks” giving advice to the Democrats about what they did wrong.  I have friends who are dead sure they have the answer, and angrily blame the intellectual or moral arrogance of the Democratic Party for the loss.  Others look at misogyny; that like Hillary Clinton, the headwinds for choosing Kamala Harris as President were too strong.  And still others want to blame Joe Biden, for not knowing he was getting too old to run for the job, soon enough.

All of those are true to some extent.  And I do think, that my Democratic friends, need to do exactly what the Republican Party did after the Romney defeat in 2012.  We need to do an “autopsy” of the 2024 election, and make  determinations for changes Democrats need to make.  But keep in mind, it really only comes down to a small sliver of voters in the large scope of things.  It’s no good “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.  We need numbers, we need time, we need, like the pathologist, to make dispassionate decisions about what happened.  And unlike the Republicans in 2012, we need to heed the results.

“Dispassionate” is not the mood of the day.  We are, right now, like the Przewalski’s Horses, ready to rip and shred, both Republicans, and our fellow Democrats.  Instead, we need to face our reality:  Donald Trump is President, and, if we weren’t lying before, our Democracy is in greater danger than any time in our history.   Sure we need to fix what’s broke, but we better be ready to stand together for what we believe.  

It might be our last stand.

It’s the day after the United States of America elected Donald J Trump President, once again.  Fitting; that the sun didn’t come up this morning.  Instead, it was a steady gray rain.  Like many millions of Americans, I can’t process the election results, yet.  But there are some “rules” that might help all of us.

1.  Don’t be embarrassed.  We lost; we lost when we HAD to win, we lost when we believed (and still believe) democracy is on the line.  But it wasn’t from being lazy, and it wasn’t from some failure in the campaigns.   Our brother and sister Americans who voted for Trump absolutely see something completely different than we do.  That’s just what it is.

2.  Hold you head up high.  You did all you could do.

3. Don’t judge.  I’ve heard it already:  it’s because she was a woman, or Progressives had too much to say in policy, or we defended the LGBTQ too much, or Democrats must completely start over.  Most of that is, what the kids call, “BS”.  We are far too close to the “scene of the crime” to have any perspective on what happened.  Wednesday morning “Quarterbacks” aren’t playing on Tuesday night for a reason.

4.  Stop listening to Kornacki.   And don’t hate him either. He is only the messenger.  He just reads the stats, he doesn’t make them.

5.   Don’t leave the country.  You’ll still be an American, whether you live in Costa Rica or Canada or Portugal.  Leaving the country won’t change your heart.  It will just take away your power to make a difference.

6.  Don’t drink to excess. Take it from me, the news is even worse when you’re hungover.

7. Gird yourself for the future.  First, do what you need to do to protect yourself and your family; legally, emotionally and financially.  Start small with that.  More global issues come later.  

8. It’s too soon to “Resist” again, but we can’t wait for a “White Knight” to come to our rescue.  That’s what they do.  Besides, as President Kennedy said: “let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”  

We aren’t leading, yet, but we will again.  Saving Democracy is truly our own task now.

Anyone who was around me as a coach, know that for the “big meets” I always had a score sheet in my back pocket. It was an “itemized” list, event by event; listing, the best we could do and the minimum we “had” to do.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’ve got a score sheet for tonight’s election results. Here it is!!

Here’s a link to a full sized version.

Have a good night – and may the best WOMAN WIN!!!!!

(ah-lee-ah, ack-ta, esst)

Caesar at the Rubicon

We’ve all played boards games, when it comes down to a throw of the dice.  You might need a five, but there’s no controlling that.  No matter how you hold, twist or turn, once the die leaves your hand, there’s no predicting the outcome.  It’s “alea iacta est” in Latin, the die is cast.  Whatever is going to happen, will happen.  

The phrase comes from Julius Caesar.  He was with his Legion, north of the Rubicon River, when the government in Rome ordered him to leave his army there and come home.  If he crossed the Rubicon with his troops, he was in rebellion against the Republic.   Caesar determined to challenge the government, and the Legion crossed the river.  As he crossed, he said, “alea iacta est”.  You probably know the rest of the story, Caesar became dictator of Rome, was assassinated, and ultimately the Republic fell and the Roman Empire began.

Out of My Hands

“Alea Iacta Est” became a traditional phrase for me in my first year at Denison University.  In those days, a half-century ago (oh my gosh), passing most college courses depended on two tests, the mid-term and the final exams.  After three months of attending class, those made all the difference.  So studying was a big deal, with days of preparation for a timed two hours of writing in “blue books” for each class.  My friends and I would spend late nights in vacant classrooms, smoking cigars (it was legal inside back then), reviewing and cramming texts and legal pads full of notes.  

And finally, in the early morning hours when the last questions were answered (and the last cigars put out) we were done.  As we walked back to our dorm at the far end of campus, we stopped outside of the Chapel, looked out over darkened Granville, and tossed pennies into the woods far down the hill, saying “Alea Iacta Est”.  The die was cast; no more studying to do, just a few hours’ sleep and show up in class with sharpened pencils.

Fifty Years

The phrase has followed my life.  After months of political campaigning, through the sleepless nights leading to the Monday before election day, there was a final moment:  nothing more to do – “alea iacta est”.  Then later, as a coach, after months of careful preparation, after the last practice (when rest was as important as prep), again, “alea iacta est”.

So here I am, a half-century later, on the Monday before what seems to me the most important Presidential election in American history.  I am retired; no longer politicking, or teaching, or coaching.  What I do now is write.  I try to describe, persuade and educate.  Yesterday I made my final argument for Kamala Harris (Yes, But What About).

But, as those who know me will recognize, I’ve always have one more thing to say. Here it is:   I believe in America.  I believe in the ultimate wisdom of the American people. As Lincoln (a Republican) said, “… You can’t fool all of the people, all of the time”.  And I believe in the American experiment, the flawed but perfecting Constitution, that survived the Civil War and has, from the beginning, expanded the rights of our citizens.   Even with setbacks and mistakes, we continue to become “…a more perfect union” (Madison, Democratic/Republican).

Believe in America

No matter the outcome, “(T)he American people, in their righteous might, will win through” (FDR, a Democrat).  To use an old coaching expression, “the sun will come up”, no matters who wins on Tuesday (some old coach or campaign manager).  And what we will have to do as Americans to save our “experiment in democracy” depends on the outcome.  Either way, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” (JFK, a Democrat).  If we fail this test, there will be a whole lot to do.  

We’ve had nine years to study, and now it’s time.  Time to take the test and see our grade.  I’ve cast my vote, and this is the last essay before election day.

It’s not the wee hours of the morning, and I’m not throwing pennies at the neighbors.  But “Alea Iacta est”; the die is cast, for me, and for America.  Now we just wait for the results.

Disqualified

It’s almost impossible for me to think about another Trump Presidency.  The Insurrection of January 6^th, 2021 is absolutely disqualifying.  I find it a failure of the Biden Administration and Attorney General Merrick Garland  for not holding  Trump accountable for that, at least, not yet.  Beyond that, a President who openly admires dictators:  Putin, Xi, Kim, Orban, and Erdogan, should tell us exactly what we need to know about his “style” of government.  That’s another automatic disqualification from holding powerful office in the world’s greatest democracy.  

An American leader who routinely, chronically, and habitually lies should not be President. And finally, a man who is clearly an abuser of women, should not be in our highest office.

So for me, it’s tough to get to an “issues” conversation.  Trump is damned far beyond any “favorable” stand on the issues allows.  But I have friends, people who I think of as “good folk”, who will acknowledge all of the above, then say, “Yes, but what about?”  And they then follow with a litany of “issues” where they see Democrats as failing, and Trump as “the answer”.  So let me try to deal with a few of those issues for them.

The Economy

By most measures:  the stock markets, current inflation, current employment, even wages; the Biden administration has done a remarkable job.  It’s easy to have a memory gap of the Covid pandemic, but it did wreak havoc on the world’s economy.  Trade came to a near-standstill, unemployment was high, and there were supply shortages from toilet paper to construction lumber.  First Trump, then Biden realized that the government would need to “carry” the economy for a while.  There were all of the PPP business loans, school and government monies, and, of course, the personal government checks for thousands of dollars (first accompanied by a letter with a “huge” Trump signature.)

And that process worked, better than any other country in the world.  But with all of that “government money” pushed out there was an inevitable and foreseeable consequence:  inflation.  The Biden administration first goal was to get Americans back to work.  The Infrastructure Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act which worked on climate issues, the American Rescue Plan which cut child poverty in half, the Chips Act committing America to building modern electronic necessities; all put people to work and made our lives better.

The second Biden goal:  to get control of inflation without the “feast and famine” of a recession.  Many economists said it wasn’t possible, but here we are today.  Yes, prices are higher than in 2019, but so are wages.  Yes, we went through a time when price increases were stunning; but the current inflation rate is under three percent.  Biden “landed” the “boom economy” without a recession.  And all of that happened in the past four years – Covid economic fall, recovery, boom, inflation, control.  There’s been a steady hand on the “tiller”, and Harris will continue that process.

Human Rights

 I firmly believe Americans should have the right to make their own moral choices.  Some of my friends believe in the “right to life”, and I respect their right to do so.  What I don’t respect is the claimed right to tell others how they should believe in that moral issue.  Donald Trump directly led to the stripping away of that intimately personal choice.  And it’s not only with abortion; he represents a Nation where LGBTQ Americans will have to “hide in the closet”.  Our modern science reveals that gender is a complex mix of genetics and biology.  The horrific Republican ads showing young teens sitting on hospital gurneys waiting for a “sex change”, are so opposite reality, it’s amazing that they have any impact at all.  But they do.  

Trump espouses a radical theory that says there is “no distinction/no advantage” in American gender, race, or ethnic identity.  All Americans know that isn’t true.  The Trump administration not only tried to stop programs that advanced equality regardless of differences, they affirmatively defend the right of “white males” to maintain a political and economic advantage.  Those who agree with him, are clinging to a past where America was a “white majority” nation.  The near-future is different, no matter who wins the Presidency.  

We are a nation of many cultures, genders, races, religions and ethnicities; and will become more diverse not less.  It is the duty of the President to pursue “E Pluribus Unum”; out of many, one.  Donald Trump represents division not unity, discrimination, not inclusion, the past, not the future.

Immigration

Could Biden have acted sooner to control the Southern Border?  Yes, but if he did, it would have destroyed any possibility of a legislative agreement for a long-term solution.  And Biden/Harris actually achieved a “global” deal, even with the wide divide between the political parties.  The US Senate voted for a “tough” border deal, and the US House of Representatives was poised to do so as well.

That is, until Donald Trump intervened, demanding that his acolytes in the House “tank” the deal, in order to preserve the issue for his campaign.  And the obedient House members did exactly that.

Afterwards, the Biden/Harris Administration took what executive actions they could, and the situation at the border improved.  But the opportunity to make a long-term solution to the Southern border was destroyed by the political needs of one man:  Donald Trump.  He put his own needs ahead of the Nation, another act that should be disqualifying.

The World

The Biden administration has strengthened American alliances throughout the world.  NATO is stronger than ever before, and helping Ukraine hold a expansionist Russia at bay without committing American forces.  We are checking Chinese expansion, and expanding American influence.  

What about Afghanistan?  Biden followed Trump’s plan, that released thousands of Taliban fighters back into the field.  He made a choice; get out of a decade’s long losing struggle in the country, or redouble our troop forces and efforts.  The US withdrawal was ugly, but the price to be paid for decades of failed US strategy.  Biden “bit the bullet” for the Nation.

What about the Middle East?  The United States is sending mixed messages.  The Administration is defending Israel’s right to respond to the October 7^th attack, and balancing Iranian responses against Israel.  But there is a strong force in our Nation who are telling Netanyahu to do whatever he wants to the Palestinians, without the “check” of American restriction.  That force is Donald Trump and his allies, who told Netanyahu to ignore Biden and wait for Trump’s election.  They have intentionally undermined US strategy.

The Closer

Has the Biden/Harris Administration been perfect?  Of course not.  Do they represent a full embrace of a changing America?  Absolutely.  But the most important fact is that Kamala Harris is committed to the American Democracy, to the US Constitution, and to the freedoms we profess to believe in.  Donald Trump represents an authoritarian threat greater than any the United States has ever faced.  

And that threat “trumps” all of the other issues.  We can come back to argue about economic changes, foreign policy, and how America will handle our future; later.  Right now, we have to defend democracy – and the only way to do that is to send Donald Trump home, and elect Kamala Harris.

Learned from the Best

Pete Nix was my first principal.  He hired me as a teacher, for my first and only teaching job (it only lasted thirty-six years).  Mr. Nix (he wasn’t Pete until much later) was an intimidating man; a son of the South, a Marine, a successful wrestling coach turned administrator, and the Principal hired to bring order to an out-of-control school.  I learned a lot from him: how to control a classroom, the civic responsibility of being a teacher, and to stand up when “Dixie” was played. And Mr. Nix introduced me to many of the “sayings” of the past.  One that still sticks is when I fell through a window in my classroom (while teaching a class – don’t ask); “Ohh, I really wish you hadn’t done that!!”.  

Another phrase that he often used, especially to those younger teachers who hoped to dazzle him with statistics was, “Figures lie, and liars figure”.  I keep that in mind a lot, especially in these days of unlimited access to any figures you need to find – just Google it.

Too Close

I’m awash in figures today, five days before election day, and probably ten days before we know the final results.  All of the figures I’m seeing, polls and polling averages; early voting turnout data, indicate that this is going to be a very close election.  And that’s a bad thing.

First, it’s a bad thing because it might mean that we are headed to another four years of a Donald Trump Presidency.  And that’s not just about Trump himself; he is also a “useful tool” (not idiot) for all sorts of forces, both internal and foreign.  Need an example:  look at the United States Supreme Court today. They are well on the way to a Federalist Society sponsored, once in a century conservative Constitutional shift in American law and life.  It happened in the last term.

Which is another “bad thing” about a narrow election.  Because even if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz win the electoral vote, the Trump Campaign has made it clear they intend to contest the results.  In 2020 that was kind of a “fool’s errand”, losing sixty of sixty-one cases from local to Federal courts.  And the US Supreme Court, wisely, stayed out of the fray, refusing to hear appeals on the issue.

Thumb on the Scale

But Wednesday, the Supreme Court made it clear that they will intervene in the 2024 election.  Six days before this election, the Court ruled that the Commonwealth of Virginia could disqualify as many as 1600 “possible” non-citizens from voting.  The Court rejected the Congressional mandate to ban voting purges within sixty days of elections, and said Virginia’s authority to determination qualifications to vote is “more important”.  (Keep in mind, it has already been demonstrated that many of those 1600 are in fact US Citizens, but they may be disenfranchised anyway).   And, not surprising, the Court decision was the six Republicans to three Democrats.

The whole point:  the Trump Campaign already has undercut confidence in the election process.  They are poised to legally (and perhaps not so legally) attack an outcome not to their liking.  And while Democrats have a “secret weapon”, highly successful attorney Marc Elias and his massive legal firm, we all now know that the Supreme Court is willing to be a part of a post-election charade.  They’re likely to put a thumb on the scale.  They already have.

And then there’s Trump’s “little secret” with Speaker Mike Johnson, likely a ploy to disrupt electoral votes at the state level. That would deny Harris the votes she earned, then try to force the Presidential choice into the House of Representatives for a “tie-breaking” vote.  (Under the Constitution, the House breaks a Presidential tie by a process where each state gets a single vote. Even if Democrats control the House, by-state there is a Republican majority.)  Rather than go into further detail now, if that happens you can be sure I’ll have all of the “nuts and bolts” available.

Figurin’

So that’s all the bad news.  A close election might mean Trump wins, but even if Harris/Walz eke-out a victory, there’s still likely to be a post-vote struggle for the Presidency.  But I’m not so sure that this really is going to be a close election.  Maybe I’m “figurin’” (I’m not intentionally lying); but here’s some of the indicators I look at that make me more hopeful for a wider Harris win.

Let’s start with polling.  Trump won Ohio by eight percent in 2020 and 2016.  The turnout was 66.5% in 2016, and 74% in 2020.   Almost 2 million Ohioans have already voted, with 300,000 absentee ballots still to be returned and four more days of early voting.  That’s likely to top 2020’s three million absentee/early voting by a lot, and would be more than half of the 2020 turnout. A larger turnout benefits the Democrats.  Right now Ohio is polling at six percent for Trump, taken by the noted Republican leaning pollster Trafalgar.  Trump may still win Ohio, but not by as much.  That would be good news for Senator Sherrod Brown who needs to run ahead of Harris. 

Trump won Kansas in 2020 by 15%.  The latest polling today puts him up 5%.   And if the margins are so much closer in Ohio and Kansas, then all of those “narrow” swing states , maybe, aren’t so close after all.

More Figurin’

Women are out voting men, and between gender and abortion, it’s likely more they are voting for Harris. Meanwhile, Trump is doubling and tripling down on the “Bro Vote”, the 18-35 white male vote.  But they are traditionally one of the least dependable voting groups, and often don’t show up.

The 2022 polling failed to “model in” America’s reaction to the Dodd’s’ Decision on abortion.  The expected “Red Wave” ended up being a “Red Trickle” and actually a pretty good day for Democrats.  Not much has changed, and there’s a woman on the ticket.  If that’s not part of current polling models, then all bets are off.

And finally, there’s the intangibles:  here in Trump Country, there are few Trump/Vance signs, where once they were as plentiful as the falling maple leaves.  But get into Harris town, and there’s a ton of signs, banners, and flags.  Democrats are heavily invested in Get Out The Vote, while Republicans aren’t, instead putting their money in “Contesting the Election Results” stuff.  If it really is close, the best GOTV wins.

It’s all variables; but as many of the commentators say; I’d rather be Harris than Trump.  And what can we do about it?  Turnout wins – GOTV!!!  Get others to vote, go out and vote, Get Out the Vote!!!  After all, it is a simple figures game.

Closing Argument

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “This is not the end, but it is the beginning of the end.”  Last night Vice President Kamala Harris gave her “closing argument”, her final attempt to persuade Americans to support her candidacy.  On Sunday, former President Trump did the same, at Madison Square Gardens.  From here on in, it’s the last sprint to the finish; desperately trying to get every single supporter to the polls.  Persuasion falls to the wayside, now it’s all about encouraging, cajoling, and enticing all “their folks” to vote.

Both candidates carefully chose their venues.  Trump picked Madison Square Gardens in New York City.  It’s an “all-Trump” venue, one of the most venerable and well-known in the world.  For a man who “made his bones” in Manhattan, filling the Garden is a goal in and of itself. While many “knowing commentators” questioned why Trump would come to the center of Democratic New York to make his plea, Trump knew well that “MSG” is a national setting.  And besides, filling it to capacity with “MAGA” loyalists (a little less than 20,000) in the heart of New York City sent his message:  “no blue territory is safe”.

On the other hand, Harris chose the Ellipse, in sight of the White House Oval Office, and where Trump gave his fateful speech sending the mob to  march on the Capitol on January 6^th.   It too is a “national” venue, even though the District is fully Democratic.  Her site choice underlined the decision Harris is asking America to make:  Trump represents the upheavals of the past, Harris the promise of the future.  And it also allowed the Harris campaign another subliminal “size” dig.  Trump had 50,000 on January 6^th for “it’s going to be wild”.  Harris’s crowd numbered near 75,000 last night.

Into the Darkness

So what did the former President offer Americans in closing?  Like his first inaugural address, Trump presents a dark view of a failing America, full of illegal immigrants taking “American” jobs and committing crimes.  And he told Americans to be afraid:  of the “brown person” down the block, for their child going to school (they might come back a different gender), of the coming multi-cultural America.  Instead, Trump offered the “safety” of America that looks like the 1950’s.  It was his original message back in 2016, and little has changed (one of my first essays from 2017, Trump World and the Beaver).  It’s just darker, more desperate, and more violent.

How does Trump see the Democrats?  They are “the enemy within”; subject to every crude and profane insult imaginable.  Their leaders should be in jail:  “Lock them up!!!”.  There is no unity in the Trump message.  It’s we win; you lose, and we take what we want. It’s difficult to see the entire extravaganza at Madison Square Garden as “persuasive”.  The message is the same as the one he gave on the Ellipse that fateful morning of the Insurrection:  “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”  It was a call to arms for his supporters, not an outreach to those unsure Republicans how might still be persuaded (Oh Lindsey, We Thought We Knew Ye).

The Big Tent

On the Ellipse last night, Harris started by holding a mirror up to the Trump Campaign.  She presented Americans with a vision:  one of the two candidates would, in ninety days, be sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office over her shoulder.  She highlighted the chaos of the past, and the dark future, what a Trump authoritarian consolidation of power for four more years might mean.

Then she went on to explain her vision for America. She finally made a clear difference between the Biden Presidency and a Harris Administration.  Harris explained that it was a matter of “missions”.  The Biden/Harris mission was to recover from the pandemic, revive the economy, and then “land” it from a looming recession (mission accomplished).  The Harris/Walz mission is different:  it’s to enhance the life of working and middle class Americans.  Harris offers an array of changes from tax cuts to child benefits to housing incentives.  And she has plans to deal with the many problems America set aside as we’ve centered on our internal conflicts.

She offers an America of diversity, where folks can make their own decisions, about their bodies, their sexuality, and  their political views.  Harris promises to be a President that can listen to all sides; not just “her supporters”.   Her candidacy is a “big tent”, from Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez to Liz Cheney, Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney.  Her final message was: join us for a future together.

There are six days until election day.  Fifty million Americans, including Jenn and I, have already cast our votes.  There are nearly 170 million registered (out of 244 million who could vote).  In 2020, over 158 million voted, the most ever.  We are racing to the “finish line” that vague deadline when, finally, all the ballots are counted. That will be sometime in the next few weeks.   And then…we will see.

Living in DC

It was mid-January of 1977.  After a fall of campaigning for Jimmy Carter, I went to Washington, DC to celebrate the Presidential Inauguration with friends from the campaign staff.  There was the actual swearing-in on one of the coldest ceremonies in history, the parade (I think I was in a local bar), the inaugural ball with the Charlie Daniels Band and Jimmy and Roselyn dancing on the stage, and fireworks over the Mall watched from a warm apartment in Arlington.  

But I wasn’t there to take a job in the Carter Administration.  The next day I became an actual resident in the District. I moved with three other guys into “double” dorm room at American University.  I got a top bunk. And I was still enrolled at Denison University.  But this second semester I was in the Washington Semester program; an intense study of American politics with students from all over the Nation.  

Washington Life

We did hands-on work:  seminars with Supreme Court Justices  (Justice Rehnquist wore Hush Puppies), and leading members of Congress and executive branch officials.  We also found  internships in politics or government.  I used my personal campaign connections to work as a legislative intern in Congressman Tom Luken’s (D- Cincinnati) office on Capitol Hill.

Living in the District was a very different experience.  In Cincinnati, if you were with a bunch of strangers, you could always strike up a conversation about the Reds or the Bengals. Now here in Columbus, it’s almost mandatory to have a working knowledge of Ohio State Football.  But in Washington, the general “topic of conversation” was government and politics.  You could sit on the bus and bring up the latest controversial bill on the floor of the House, or which foreign policy issue was critical, and even the guys in the back had an opinion.

At the Center

And at the center of all of those discussions was the Washington Post.  It was the “paper of record” for the Federal government. And it was the home of Woodward and Bernstein, the men who brought Nixon’s felonies to light.  Even before that, it was the Post (and the New York Times) who went to the Supreme Court to publish the Pentagon Papers. They revealed a concerted Defense Department plot to lie to the American people about the Vietnam War.  

I went to see All the President’s Men, the Redford and Hoffman movie about Woodward and Bernstein.  After the movie, even I was looking over my shoulder in parking garages, waiting for Deep Throat.   The Post covered government and politics like local sports.  It was mandatory reading on the commute to Capitol Hill.

When I left Washington in the spring, I still was able to get the Post in the Cincinnati Congressional office.  But come fall when I went back to Denison to finish my college education. I had to say goodbye to my daily “fix” of the paper.

It was always a great joy when I went back to Washington, able to wake up to the Washington Post.  And while the New York Times became available for delivery here in Pataskala, it was never the same.  The Times is like a textbook assignment, 15,000 words of every arcane detail.  The Post is like a giant “sports page” of politics and current events;  scores, highlights, and projections for the next “game”.  

The Post Today

Finally, I was able to get the Washington Post  app on my phone.  It’s not the same as getting “ink on my fingers”, but I can get some of the old feel.  So Saturday, it was with great dismay that I read that the “newspaper of record”, the one with a masthead reading, “democracy dies in the darkness”, determined not to endorse a Presidential candidate.  

That was a shock: the Post, as usual, has been out-front in exposing the flaws and failures of Donald Trump.  Later “reporting” on the Post itself revealed that the Editorial Board was prepared to endorse Kamala Harris for President.  It was the owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame, who stepped in to stifle his flagship media outlet. 

It would be easy to join with thousands of Americans who cancelled their Post subscriptions.  And I did join the hundreds who wrote scathing letters to the Editor (mine not published so far).  I was specific, calling out the cowardice of Bezos, the second wealthiest man in the world.  Hard to imagine that Bezos is afraid of losing government business, as if a couple of billion dollars in sales might “hurt” a man worth $211 billion.  But there it is.

Fear Itself

I’ve already written about the dangers of Trump authoritarianism (History Lesson).  We can worry about mass deportations, criminal prosecutions, and government restructuring if Trump is elected.  But the less discussed consequence is the aura of fear authoritarians create.  It’s not just the affirmative action Trump might take, but the possibility of that action that causes others not to act.  

We know what intimidation is.  It’s the whispered conversation in the restaurant, afraid of being overheard.  It’s the lack of Harris signs or bumper stickers in rural communities, afraid of property damage.  That’s an authoritarian lesson too:  disagree and face the consequence.  It’s just too bad that Jeff Bezos, with all of his billions, his rockets to space and Amazon fulfillment centers scattered like leaves in the fall all over the nation; is intimidated as well.

I’ve expressed my huge disappointment to the Post, but I’ll keep my subscription.  The newsroom hasn’t been cowed yet.  No matter how the election turns out, there still needs to be some light in the darkness.  I hope that fear of retribution won’t snuff out that flame of truth. It’s already sputtering.

Senator from South Carolina

Lindsey Graham must be tired of being a Senator from South Carolina.  In the last two weeks, Lindsey has “come out” as Donald Trump’s biggest supporter.  He’s been on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He’s been on Meet the Press. I missed him on CNN, but I bet he was there too.  Lindsey is trading on his friendships with the deceased Senator McCain and the very alive President Biden, to bolster his former reputation as a bipartisan “straight shooter”. He’s reaching out on “Mainstream Media” to those Republicans who can’t stomach Trump.  He’s trying to create (the magic word) a “permission structure” to let them come back to Trumpism.

And how is he doing it?  Air Force Reserve Colonel Graham (retired) is disparaging Four-Star Generals (retired) Mattis, Kelly and Milley.  All  have made strong statements against another Trump term in office.  Kelly has gone so far as to say that Trump matches “the definition of Fascism”.  But Graham’s trashed their reputations, saying they “failed” to stand-up armies in Iraq and Afghanistan when the US withdrew from those nations.  Of course, he takes no blame for those failures himself as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, nor does he allow any of the blame to fall on the former Commander-in-Chief, Trump.

Final Act

What does Lindsey want?  My guess; he sees himself as the next Secretary of Defense in the Trump Administration; a suitable “final act” for the sixty-nine year old retired Air Force Reservist.  Graham would probably be seen as the “solid-establishment guardrail” in a sycophantic second Trump Cabinet, a figure like Leon Panetta on the Democratic side.   Of course, he’s not.  Lindsey told us himself the week after John McCain died; “I’m no John McCain”.  And then he completed his about-face from a Trump opponent to his best golf buddy.  

He did falter in his loyalty on January 6^th.  He told Trump, and the world, “It’s been a good ride… but count me out ”.  But when he saw the Trump could shed all responsibility for the Insurrection, Graham was right back on the MAGA bandwagon.  And that’s where he really stands today.

Of course, there’s more self-interest in his statements than just a possible future cabinet position.  Even if Trump’s loses, Graham hopes that the race is close enough that it brings the Senate “over the threshold” and Republicans regain control.  Sure, it won’t be the “kinder-gentler” Senate of Mitch McConnell.  If the Republicans are in control, they’re likely to be dominated by MAGA forces, guys like Ted Cruz (GO COLIN ALLRED!!) and Josh Hawley.  

So again, Graham can play on his image as a “moderate” (much like McConnell’s false image of moderation) to regain his Chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee.   If he’s Chairman again, he’ll move ahead with the Federalist Society plan to radicalize the Judiciary in the style of Justices Alito and Thomas, and Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida. 

Disappointment

So why am I “picking” on Lindsey Graham?  After all, there are a whole plethora of disappointing Republican Senators; Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John  Kennedy of Louisiana and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to name a few.  All were “reasonable” Republicans until Donald Trump came along.  All abandoned their “reasonableness” to jump on the MAGA bandwagon.  Graham is just one of many.

No, my “bone to pick” with Graham is a bit more personal.  Graham had too older “mentors” in the United States Senate, both men I highly respect.  One was John McCain, the “maverick” Republican Senator from Arizona and 2008 Republican candidate for President of the United States.  McCain was a conservative Republican, but one who was willing to visibly break with his party in order to follow his convictions.  

And McCain and Joe Biden were friends back from when McCain was a Naval Aviator assigned as a military advisor to the Senate.  Even though Biden and McCain often differed on domestic policy, they were aligned on most foreign policy, and good friends.  And they brought Graham into their relationships, becoming “the three amigos”.   My “beef” with Graham is not only did he break from both of his old “amigos”, but he continues to use his former relationship to further his own political fortune, even though he doesn’t honor their bipartisanship.

He’s been two-faced for a long time.  If he needs to be a Trump apologist, that’s his mistake.  But he shouldn’t be using his image as an “amigo” to help him do it.  It surely must disappoint Biden. Make no mistake, Graham was completely correct when he said: “I’m no John McCain”. That’s too bad for America. We could use him.

Expertise

It’s been a few years, but one of my history teacher areas of “expertise” was the Second World War.  That shouldn’t be a surprise.  Probably the reason I became a history teacher was growing up in a household where both parents fought in that War.  In fact, but for the Second World War, my parents would never have met.  So World War II is a “founding” pillar of my family, and my existence.

World War II was a “simple” war.  There were the “bad guys”, the Fascist dictatorships that were trying to conquer much of the world: Germany, Italy, and Japan.  And there were the nations trying to stop that conquest, the “good guys”.  All that was left of them after the first waves of conquest was the United Kingdom (and all of the British Commonwealth, from Canada to India to Australia); the Soviet Union (even though it too was an authoritarian dictatorship). And ultimately, two years after the war in Europe began, the United States joined the fight.

Both my parents responded to their Nation’s call to arms. Dad went to the US Army and Mom to the British Special Operations Executive.  Like the rest of the “Greatest Generation”, they were willing to sacrifice everything to stand for freedom.

The Treaty

My parents were born in 1918, the year that the “the war to end all wars”, World War I, ended.  It took a couple more years to hammer out the tough peace treaty with Germany.   The “agreement” at Versailles left Germany with a new democratic form of government. It was saddled with its own huge war debt, plus reparations to pay to the victors.  It put Germany in an economic crisis; one that the government tried to solve by just printing money.  Inflation soon wracked the nation, with literal suitcases of cash exchanged for a small bag of groceries.

By 1932 Germans were desperate, and faced with a choice in government.  There were the moderate, liberal, and Marxists parties, or there was the NSDAP, the Nazi Party.  In 1932 there more than a million members of the Nazi Party, in a German electorate of over 27 million.  So it wasn’t like the Nazis controlled everything;  they didn’t.  But they did offer a choice.  

It was simple:  give up freedoms, choose our single leader, and he will solve all of the economic problems.   Keep your freedoms, choose a democracy; and you will have to do the work. 

The Choice

The Nazis allied themselves with the major German manufacturers, who provided financing for their political efforts.  They offered industry a “controlled economy”, and military spending unencumbered by Treaty restrictions. And the Nazis gave the people simple answers to complex problems.  They created all kinds of scapegoats for Germany’s failings. It was the Communists or the handicapped or what today we would call LGBTQ folks.  And the Nazis created cultural/racial scapegoats. It was Black people or the Roma. But most significantly, they used the age-old European scapegoat:  it was the Jews.   

The German Constitutional Democracy had a parliamentary form of government, so the vote was for which party would have the most seats in the Reichstag, their parliament.  The Nazi’s got 37% of the vote, the moderate parties got 22%, and the Communist Party got 14%.  Minor parties got the rest.   The Nazis made deals with some minor parties, and gained control of the parliament.  Within a year, Adolph Hitler created a “fake crisis”. He burnt down the actual Reichstag building, and took control of both the Reichstag and the Presidency.  He declared himself  “Der Fuhrer” (the leader) of all Germany, and over the next few years, consolidated total control.  

The Consequences

So when the argument is made that Germans “elected” Hitler, it’s somewhat right.  But he never had a majority of the Nation behind him, that is, until he gained total control of media, industry, education, military and law enforcement.  Once that happened, there was no going back, and World War II, the Holocaust, and the near-total destruction of Germany was inevitable.   

When we ask how a civilized people like the Germans could fall into a Fascist dictatorship and the depravity of the Holocaust, this is the answer.  They lost faith in their democracy, and turned to the “easy” choice of a single leader who said he had “all” of the answers.

I Alone

Maya Angelou famously wrote:  “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”.  

When Donald Trump came down the “golden escalator” June 15, 2015 he said in part: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

On July 21, 2016, Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for President.  In his acceptance speech he said:  “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it”.  

He has his scapegoat, migrants, that he simply will not let go of. From Springfield to Aurora, he continues to create crises that don’t actually exist.  He also clearly believes, even after four years as President including a world pandemic, that “he alone can fix it”.   He has already told us that he will prosecute his enemies, scour the country for migrants to deport, lower taxes for his friends, and raise costs for everyone else with economy wrecking tariffs.

Trump already tried to burn his “Reichstag”, when he set a crowd of supporters on the US Capitol on January 6^th.  He hoped that they would be successful, so that he could call out the military to “put down” the insurrection,  and delay the transfer of power until he could alter the result of the 2020 election.  The fact that he tried and failed should  disqualify him, but the desire of both Democrats and Republicans to “return to normalcy” ultimately gave him a “pass”. 

Who He Is

We have heard story after story from the folks who were closest to the first Trump Presidency.  He constantly wanted to take singular action, only to be “calmed down” by those around him.  General Kelly, General Milley, General Mattis, Ambassador Bolton, are only a few that are on-record warning us of Trump’s reach for authoritarianism.  But this time, instead of those serving as guardrails, there will be nothing but enablers, a “murder of Stephen Millers”,  willing to do all of Trump’s bidding.  

When they ask how a civilized people like the Americans could fall into a Fascist dictatorship and the depravity of millions deported, this is the answer.  We lost faith in democracy, and turned to the “easy” choice of a single leader who said he had “all” of the answers.

At the Crossroads

America is at a crossroads, a tipping point.  It’s so serious that Liz Cheney and many other “regular conservative Republicans” are swallowing their policy differences for the single principle of American democracy.  Policy is one thing, an existential threat to our Constitutional system is another.  They stand against Trump.  

Winston Churchill once said:  “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.    Democracy is hard work; it seems easier to let a single person, “I alone”, fix our problems.  In our current polarized times, it is difficult to work together, to find the “middle ground” where we can all move forward.  But it would be foolish to assume that one man can solve our problems.  Like Cheney and the rest, we need to stand for principle above policy and politics.    

When someday they ask how Americans responded to Fascism, our answer must be the same as my parents’ response.  We need to fight with all our being to protect democracy.  We can do all that, with one single action:  we can vote, and make sure Trump is defeated.

Electoral Process

Read the polls:  this might be the closest election in American history.  And, if you’re a normal Democrat, you are, how do you say:  freaking out.  That’s understandable.  We all woke up on Wednesday, November 9^th, 2016.  The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is real!  No Democrat ever wants to go through that again. And, I’m not here to allay your fears.  But I am here to show you the facts of this election process, and while your fears may be real, they aren’t as real as the fears the “other side” should have.

It would be so much easier if our electoral process was a simple democracy; a system where Americans vote, and the most votes win.  That way, “land” doesn’t hold sway over a portion of our process, as opposed to people.  But our Founding Fathers had their reasons. Some were practical, like getting the smaller states to sign onto the Constitution.  And some were nefarious, like using the Constitution to prop-up enslavement. Regardless, the Electoral College is our process, and it is very, very, very unlikely to change. Why?  Change would require multiple small states to vote against their own self-interest.   So the magic number isn’t 80 million votes ,or so, it’s 270 electoral votes.

As Ohio Goes

One sad part of our Electoral College system, is that minority votes in the Presidential election in each state are ignored.  Here in Ohio, there are millions of proud Democrats who will cast their vote for Vice President Harris.  Ohio used to be a “bell weather state” – now called a swing state.  As recently as twelve years ago, Ohio voted for President Obama’s re-election.  

But then the state went hard for Trump in 2016, and while 2020 was closer, it seems our “bell” is ringing Red for now, as least as far as Donald Trump is concerned.  (There are still Ohioans who think differently.  They hope that an overwhelming urban turnout combined with the gradually “purpling” suburbs might reverse the trend.  I hope so, and I’ll vote so. But, I’m definitely not holding my breath).  

So if trends continue, Ohio, is a “Red” state, and will vote for Trump. Hopefully those Ohio Democratic votes will make the difference for Sherrod Brown, the Democratic Ohio Supreme Court Justices and State Issue One.  But in all probability, all fifteen of Ohio’s electoral votes will go for Trump, regardless of how close the popular vote is in the state.   

Nothing we can do about that now.

So let’s take the Electoral College, and look at the “sure things”, Red and Blue.  

Red, Blue and Swing

So here’s the list:

Red:  Alaska, Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska (-1), Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah (24 States, 218 Electoral Votes).

Blue: Maine (+/-1), New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Wash. DC, Virginia, Illinois, New Mexico, Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, California (20 States, 226 Electoral Votes).

Those are pretty much set in stone.  If those “break away”, then all bets are off.

That leaves the following “swing” states as toss-ups.

Swing:  Pennsylvania (19), North Carolina (16) , Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Wisconsin (10), Arizona (11), Nevada (6).

In the election of 2000, Tim Russert of NBC News laid out the election as, “Florida, Florida, Florida”.  Then in the election of 2004, the saying went:  “As Ohio goes, so goes the Nation”. This election in 2024 boils down to one critical state:  “It’s all about Pennsylvania”. 

So there’s a mathematical “word problem”.   Harris needs 44 more Electoral votes to win.  Trump needs 52.  What combinations of swing states would “guarantee” their win?

The Blue Wall

The minimal basic Democratic strategy to the Presidency is called the “Blue Wall”.  Harris needs to win Pennsylvania (19), Michigan (15) and Wisconsin (10) – 44 Electoral votes.  She doesn’t need any more than that.  If you wondering why Harris is spending most of her time in those three states, particularly Pennsylvania (it would take two states to make-up the loss); that’s why.

But what if she were to lose one of those?  Then Harris has to look to the “Southern Strategy” to balance the loss, and win in North Carolina (16), Georgia (16), Arizona (11) or Nevada (6).  So, when you’re watching the election returns on Tuesday night (and maybe on into Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) if you see the Blue Wall “holding” for Harris – get some sleep.  And if you see the “Southern Strategy” also going to Harris, it’s time to “Raise a Glass!!”

Run the Table

On the other hand, how does Trump win?  He has to “run the table”, the same way he did in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton.   First he has to break the “Blue Wall”, at least by winning one (most likely) Pennsylvania.  Then he has to win most of the Southern Strategy states.  The minimum for Trump:  Pennsylvania (19), North Carolina (16), Georgia (16) and Nevada (6).  That puts him at 275, and only the second President to serve “split terms”.  But here’s the rub:  If he doesn’t win Pennsylvania (19), but say, wins Michigan or Wisconsin, it’s still difficult to see a path that leads to his victory.   

And if he doesn’t win North Carolina or Georgia, there isn’t a likely path either, unless the entire map is flipped on its head.

Final Stretch

So if all things are really equal (I don’t think they are, the “mainstream” polling averages like Real Clear and 538 are slanted to Republican pollsters) then who’s got the advantage on the final stretch?

Republicans eschewed spending for get out the vote operations, instead putting their money into legal challenges of the voting outcome.  There are fewer Republican operatives on “the ground” in swing states, fewer offices, fewer volunteer operations, fewer people making phone calls or knocking on doors.  

On the other hand, Democrats have put massive funding into their “ground game”.  There are offices and staff in most counties in the swing states, and lots of volunteers to rally Dems to the polls.  And it seems like that energy is already making a difference; early voting is breaking records in many states, including here in Ohio, where almost a million people have already cast their ballots.  As Joe Biden discovered in 2020, bigger turnout favors Democrats.  Remember, Trump had the most votes for President of any candidate in history  in 2020, except for Joe Biden!!

Help the Cause

By the way, if you want to help Democrats, vote early.  Campaigns know that you’ve cast your ballot, and won’t spend money or effort to get you to – you already have!! (No, they don’t know who you voted for, just the fact you’ve already “made your bet” and can’t change it).  

And don’t worry Dems, we’ve got the “shenanigans” after the election covered too.  Marc Elias, election lawyer extraordinaire, has built a broad team to defend Democrats state by state and federally as well.  

President Obama says it best.  In rallies when he mentions Trump, at least for the first time, there are general “boos” from the audience.  Obama pauses, holds up a finger, then firmly states:  “Don’t Boo, VOTE!!”  If worrying would elect the President, we’d be fine.  But that doesn’t help, so “Don’t Worry, VOTE!!” then find a way to help. Persuade someone to support Harris, or make sure a supporter gets to cast their vote.

Do something – it’s the surest path to victory.

So this is a “Sunday Story”, on a Tuesday. There’s no politics today – just a story about cross country running, and a walk in the woods.

Championship Season

It’s October, and for me, a month of officiating cross country meets.   It’s a great month to be out in the “world”.  The leaves are turning, the temperatures are moderating, and the kids and coaches and crowds are “amped”.  October is “championship season” in cross country, when all the work, all the miles, all the “blood, sweat and tears” of months and even years of preparation comes to an end.  

There is no “bye” to the championships in cross country running.  Either you make the place, as a team or individual, or you don’t.  The “subjective” no longer matters; work, talent, sportsmanship, leadership, how fast you ran last week:  those are all great attributes.  But cross country in October is a cold, hard, objective sport.  The top teams and individuals go onto the next meet; the rest don’t.  It’s not even about “time”, it’s all about place in the race.

Stomping Ground 

Cross country doesn’t usually require a whole lot of officials.  To do a track meet in the spring, it requires at least five officials, and often fourteen to cover all the events.  In cross, most meets have three or four.  There are clerks to check-in the runners, starters to fire the gun, and a referee to make final judgments.  Once the gun goes off, the athletes are virtually unsupervised for most races.  But come October there are “umpires” stationed throughout the course, usually every few hundred yards.  So while officiating jobs are hard to come by in September, come October there’s a lot more to do. 

So this was my fifth meet in October, and my third meet in a row. Saturday was the High School District meet, and Sunday the Middle School State Invitational. But yesterday I officiated a “junior varsity” meet at my old stomping grounds, Watkins Memorial High School.  

This is the last meet for these athletes. They didn’t make the top seven varsity positions on their teams. But,  it’s one more opportunity to run, to set a personal best, and to end their cross country season on a high note.   And it’s on the unique running course at Watkins.  Of the three mile race, two miles are run on woods trails.   It’s beautiful:  the leaves are turning, the course is dry and fast, and unlike most cross country courses today that run around athletic fields; competition is in the forest and the pine trees.  

The Course

I’ve spent forty-six years helping to prepare those trails for runners.  There’s lots of folks that can claim a “piece” of Watkins, including years of Watkins cross country teams; coaches and parents who have raked and hauled lumber and gravel and mulch.  For me, my role is now the “roots”, carefully painted white to contrast to the dirt floor.   Kids still occasionally trip on the them, but it’s not because the roots were hidden.  “Did you see the root you tripped on?  Why yes, it was painted white, but I tripped anyway,” is a conversation I have on the finish line.

So I arrived early at Watkins, to take a walk in the woods before the buses pull in and the “Last Chance, Fast Chance” meet begins.  

My Walk

When I was the Dean of Students, the “discipline guy” of the high school; there were times when my dual role as Dean and Cross Country Coach intertwined.  While the woods are great for running, and for studying flora and fauna, they are also an attraction for students to do less esoteric activities.  I found kids smoking cigarettes or marijuana. I broke up fights that were planned over lunch in the cafeteria. And I really got mad at the kids who decided that the Watkins trails were a great place to “four-wheel” and tear things up.  

Bob Seger wrote a song called “Night Moves”, about sex in high school.  One line is; “Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy…”.   The Watkins woods are equidistant between the high school and middle school, that’s 2700 “hormonally challenged” kids.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that while they probably don’t know Bob Seger or his song, some choose to go “out past the school road where the woods got heavy,” to work on their “Night Moves”, or more literally, their “Afternoon delights”.   

I wasn’t sneaking around the woods yesterday, I was just taking a walk on the familiar path, letting the fall changes soak in.  With the new high school and new school road, the “back” of the course is a lot more accessible than it used to be.  I ran into a few of the Watkins runners, commuting from the high school to get ready for the race.  Then I made the turn on the back trail, and headed towards the “boards” that were built to get over the swampy area just before the mile-mark.

Official-Official

I saw a young man sitting on a log, smoking a cigarette.  He looked up, aghast that there was some adult approaching his space.  Then I saw a young lady sitting on the dirt at his feet.  At first I just thought they came to enjoy an elicit smoke, and said; “You’re not my problem, I don’t work here anymore”.  Then I realized, the young lady didn’t have pants on.

It’s still not my problem, not part of my “officiating contract”, but soon hundreds of kids will be running the course, first checking out the path, then competing in the races.   It’s not the “hidden haven” this young couple was looking for.  My suggestion: time for them to get dressed and move along.  They answered in unison, “Oh Sh*t”, and I agreed, “Oh Sh*t, it’s time for you to go!!”.  Their afternoon delight was over.

Then I got my officiating gear on, loaded up my starter’s pistol, and went to work.  There were 200 some athletes competing in the “Fast Chance” invitational, a girls race and a boys race.  A parent from one of the schools actually thanked me for officiating.  I appreciate that; officiating can have its difficulties and parents can be less than friendly.  But as usual at Watkins, the races went flawlessly.  There was nothing to complain about.  The kids focused on making their last race the best – and from their expressions at the finish line, many of them did.

It was a perfect October day for a run in the woods.  

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

Accepting a Bribe

This story is as old as the Two Dollar Bill.  By the way, Two Dollar Bills, with Thomas Jefferson on the front and Monticello on the back, still show up occasionally.  In fact, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing still prints them, millions of them each year (BEM).

I know, I know; most of you are thinking that you haven’t even seen a One Dollar Bill recently.  My wallet, which always used to have “emergency cash”, is now filled in with plastic.  The local Kentucky Fried Chicken store recently gained notoriety as the first in Pataskala that doesn’t accept cash. That’s legal, by the way, (Federal Reserve). Cash is seldom a part of my life anymore.  But even when it is, it doesn’t often include a Two Dollar Bill.

Why not?  Why are Two Dollar Bills, “odd”?  The answer goes back to the late 1800’s.  Politics then was dominated by big city “Machines”, the most famous one called Tammany Hall in New York .  Government services were “transactional”; if a voter wanted fire service, or police protection, or the holes in the road fixed; they needed to demonstrate “support” for Tammany candidates.  In fact, it was an implicit contractual deal:  vote for Tammany, or don’t call the fire department.  In those days, the “contract” was sealed with a Two Dollar Bill (today worth the equivalent of Seventy Dollars).  But even in those “bad-old-days”, selling the vote was illegal, tantamount to accepting a bribe for an “official” act.

Everyone Knows

That particular denomination became symbolic for a crime, selling the vote.  When a consumer spent a Two Dollar Bill, “everyone knew” (to use a current Republican talking point) that they gave up that American privilege for cash.  So using the bill went “out of style”, so much so that in the mid-1960’s production was stopped for a while.  And today, many Americans see Two Dollar Bills as “rare” (really not) and hoard them right beside their can, or in my case, small barrel, of pennies.

Which brings us to Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world.  Here’s his newest “deal”.  It only applies to registered voters in the swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin.  If they agree to sign his “First and Second Amendment” petition, supporting “freedom”, and implicitly, Donald Trump; they are entered in the daily drawing for One Million Dollars.  

What’s the point?  To be eligible, you must be a registered voter in a swing state, willing to support Trump (New York Post).  The “contract” is the signature on the petition, making you eligible to win One Million Dollars, awarded every-single-day until the election. 

Buying Votes 

Elon Musk has a net worth just shy of Two Hundred Seventy Billion dollars (Investopedia).  So giving away sixteen million just isn’t a big deal to him, less than one percent of his total wealth.  But most of us would agree, that a million dollars would be a transformative amount to “win”.  The question is, just like the Two Dollar Bills of yore; is this legal, or is he literally, buying votes?  In order to be eligible to win you must be a registered voter in a swing state.  Musk trying to “buy” votes, getting them to register and agree for the purpose of “winning” a million dollars.  So the answer to that question is, of course he is. 

 Musk points out: “I think this is kind of fun, and you know, it seems like a good use of money basically” (CNBC).  But it’s against federal law to bribe folks to vote or register to vote (USC §18, 597).  And, unlike a current Two Dollar Bill, a million dollars is a serious bribe.

Blurry Lines

We are in an era where the lines between legal and illegal campaign activities are blurred.  It used to be “allowed” to protest election results in Court, but “unacceptable” to lead protests and use violence to try to overturn the election.  That has gradually changed; in modern times starting with the “Brooks Brothers Riot” in 2000, when Republican operatives disrupted ballot counting in Florida in order to try to gain election for George W Bush. 

Literally billions of dollars will be spent on this year’s Presidential election, over $30 per vote for 150 million voters.  The “cash line” is blurred.   What was the stigma of the Two Dollar Bill, now becomes the privilege of using a vote to win a million.  It’s unlikely that Elon Musk will ever be held accountable for a crime; he can afford the lawyers to keep litigation going for years.  And if he is held accountable, maybe he’ll be fined a few hundred thousand dollars, “chump-change” to him.

But all that misses the point.  Our votes are supposed to be our “best judgment” for what’s good for us, and the Nation.  They shouldn’t be for sale, not for a million; and not even for a Two Dollar Bill.

Vote Early

Jenn and I voted early.  It’s not that we are worried about ballots being manipulated or lost.   And it’s not because we’re concerned about long lines at the polling place.  Here in Pataskala, our polling place is very efficient.  And for me, being “at the polls” is exciting, taking me back to my campaign days when election day meant months of intense work was, finally, on the line.  

No, we voted early this year because it takes a little bit of the pressure off.  There is so much at stake nationally, America is at such an inflection point; that it was just good to “do our part” as soon as we could. There are still things we can and will do to help our candidates, but the most important thing is done: we voted.  And voting early allows the candidates that we support to “take us off the list”.  Voting lists are constantly updated, so candidates know that there’s no reason to spend time or money on our house.  We’re in.

For President

I’ve spent years writing about the top of this ballot; the Presidential election.  For every reason I can think of, voting for Harris/Walz is a “no-brainer”.  I would have said the same about Biden/Harris, though I too had concerns about Joe Biden’s age.  So when the great “change” came, I was relieved:  both that Biden wouldn’t be an 86 year-old President, and that the Democratic Party found a way not to be “Democrats”, and tear themselves apart in the process of nominating Harris.  We did it right, from Biden’s grace to Michelle Obama’s speech, and Harris has been on a roll ever since.  

Harris is better for America: from the economy (Vote Your Pocketbook) to foreign policy, to the Supreme Court.  But most importantly, Harris is the choice that will allow the United States to continue the “Great Experiment” of our representative democracy (or Constitutional Republic).  I’ve written a whole lot about that issue, including We Need to Play  and Strange Bedfellows.

But what about the races “down ballot”?

Down Ballot

I voted Sherrod Brown for US Senate.  He’s a very special kind of politician, one whose core belief is in the working folks he represents.  Sherrod’s demonstrated that belief over and over again in his years in office, and has earned the votes of Ohioans with almost every action.  He’s a rarity; like his Montana friend John Tester, he’s actually cares.  As Sherrod states:  he’s concerned about working folks; both the ones who take a shower before work, and the ones who take one after.   His opponent is another rich guy who wants what his money can buy; power.  That’s something we’ve seen way too much of already.

And for Congress, I voted for Jerrad Christian.  Ohio is one of the most gerrymandered states in the Nation, and Christian has a long, long way to go to be competitive.  But his opponent, incumbent Troy Balderson, is a “foot soldier” for the Republican leadership, first Kevin McCarthy and now Mike Johnson.  He’s a “pawn” to be moved in the great Congressional power struggle, and done little to help the folks in the 12^thCongressional District.  Christian would be a fresh new face, though I’m not holding my breath for his victory.

State Legislature

For State Senate and State Representative I voted for the Democrats, Hubbell and Smith.  The gerrymandered districts means that my vote doesn’t really matter in these races, but I still want my voice heard.  However, I did pause on the Representative choice. A month ago, I followed the example of my old friend and boss Harry Gardner.  I wrote an actual, “snail-mail” letter to the government leaders about the chaos in the State Teacher Retirement System.  At best, I expected form letters in return, but heard only silence from the folks that represent me.  

That is, except for Republican Representative  Thad Claggett, who actually called and talked to me about it.   I was impressed, almost enough to change my vote.  But the Retirement System failures are huge, and I need more than just a conversation to earn my support.  I hope I will have a reason to vote “across the aisle” for him soon. (Yes, I have voted for Republicans, once in a “blue moon”.  I voted for those who earned it).

Gerrymandered

Ohio’s government is corrupted, our leaders concerned mainly with maintaining power and money.  That’s because Ohio is so gerrymandered, that most district race outcomes are predetermined before the candidates are even nominated.  Ohioans have tried to change that process again and again.  We thought we succeeded, but the politicians and the courts have found a way to alter or ignore the changes.  We are stuck with our current government, confirmed by ironclad district lines designed to enhance personal wealth and control.

So my votes for the Ohio Supreme Court and State Issue 1 (redistricting reform) are all bundled together.  State Issue 1 is the latest attempt to fix redistricting.  It’s a complex effort to keep the vested politicians out of the deal, and I’m not sure it will work.  But it’s definitely worth a try; anything is better than what we have now. It’s sponsored by the retired Republican Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Maureen O’Connor.  She stood against her own party again and again to control redistricting while on the Court.  Now she’s put her prestige on the line with this reform measure.

And for that Issue to work, there needs to be a majority of the State Supreme Court that isn’t vested in the current system.  So I voted for three Democrats for Justice.  And more importantly, I voted against Republican Joe Deters, the former Hamilton County Prosecutor, appointed by Governor DeWine to the Court mostly because he was the best friend of the Governor’s son, Pat DeWine, himself a Supreme Court Justice.  It’s nepotism at its finest.

No Votes

And then were a series of “under-votes” where I chose not to vote at all.  Most were uncontested seats, where I didn’t have a positive reason to vote for the candidate.  I’m not just checking the box because it’s there, so I left those races unvoted.

The one exception was the uncontested candidate for State Board of Education.  Governor DeWine gutted most of the power of the Board last year, one more “brick in the wall” of corruption.   But candidate Karen Lloyd is a long-time retired teacher, willing to return to public service and try to help education.  Her service earned her the chance to make a difference, and my vote.

Local Issues

Judge David Branstool is running for re-election for Common Pleas Court.  He’s been a steady hand in Licking County for decades.  We need his solid service on the Bench as our County develops and expands.  And he’s a good guy, I’ve known him for years.  Voting for Branstool was a “no-brainer” too.

Then there’s a fire levy on:  who thinks it’s OK to vote against the fire department?  When you dial 9-11 you need them, right now.  In our growing community the department needs to grow to.  I wrote a whole essay on that this week, (A Local Thing).  And you just have to be cruel to vote against a tax for Senior Citizens (hey – that’s me; not cruel, but a Senior!!).

So that’s my ballot.  After all the essays, and all the conversations, I figured I need to “put my money where my mouth is”.  So here’s the payoff – my votes.  

My Ballot

• For President and Vice President – Kamala Harris/Tim Walz
• For US Senate – Sherrod Brown (Bernie Moreno)
• For US Congress – Jerrad Christian (Troy Balderson)
• For State Senator – Nick Hubbell
• For State Representative – Michael Smith (Thad Claggett)
• For Justice of Ohio Supreme Court – Michael Donnelly
• For Justice of Ohio Supreme Court – Melody Stewart  (Joe Deters)
• For Justice of Ohio Supreme Court – Lisa Forbes
• For Judge of the Court of Appeals – NO VOTE
• For Judge of the Court of Appeals – NO VOTE
• For Judge of the Court of Appeals – NO VOTE
• For County Commissioner – James Snedden
• For County Commissioner – Bryn Bird
• For Prosecuting Attorney – NO VOTE
• For Clerk of Court for Common Pleas – NO VOTE
• For Sheriff – NO VOTE
• For County Recorder – NO VOTE
• For County Treasurer – NO VOTE
• For County Engineer – NO VOTE
• For Coroner – NO VOTE
• For State Board of Education – Karen Lloyd (Eastern Ohio Teacher)
• For Judge of Court of Common Pleas – David Branstool 
• Issue 1 (Re-Districting Reform) – YES
• West Licking Joint Fire Tax – YES
• Senior Citizens Tax Renewal – YES

Taxes

2024:  many commentators believe this year is the critical turning point in American history.  It’s either the confirmation of the Trump Era, cementing his values into our national conscience, or the end of it.  So with all of that swirling above us, like a tornado that hasn’t quite touched down, yet; there are still other things to talk about on the 2024 ballot.  

Here in Pataskala (and much of Western Licking County) there’s an issue on the ballot that, if passed, will raise our taxes.  Like any tax increase, there’s lots of “friction” in the community.  There’s a good reason that most successful politicians don’t run on the platform of “more taxes”.  No one wants to pay more, especially the year after the County increased the appraised  property values for taxation.  My property tax bill already went up twenty-seven percent.  For some, it’s easiest to quote President George HW Bush:  “Read my lips, no new taxes”. That’s a statement he came to not only regret, but reverse.  

West Licking

Western Licking County is within twenty miles of downtown Columbus.  It was definitely “the country” when I moved “out here”, forty-six years ago, with a grain silo next to the railroad tracks, and a farm implement store along the main road.  But there was already harbingers of the future:  while the local high school was next to a corn field, a new suburban development was built across the street.  

Today, West Licking is suburbs and industry.  Along the National Road corridor, what once was alternating soybeans and corn, is now alternating distribution centers and factories.  The farmers along State Route 310 gave way to one suburban development after another, with three hundred more homes scheduled in the next decade, and multiple apartment buildings going up even as I write this morning.  

When Ohio’s political leaders talk about the new “Tech Corridor” here in Ohio, we are part of it.  Not only is the “Chip Act” Intel manufacturing plant being built just a few miles away, but all of the accompanying industry to support it is going up too.  One of the major solar panel production plants in the Nation is right down the street from my house.  And only about half of the “developable” land in our area is used, that means there’s a lot more growth to go.

Fire Department

When I first came to Pataskala, it had a volunteer fire department.  Every few days, a siren would go off, and the barber and the hardware store clerk and even some of the high school students would jump up, race to their cars, and report to the emergency.  They had a station in “downtown” Pataskala, behind the city hall, and a station in Kirkersville.  But with the exploding growth of our community, came an increasing need for a professional fire department, on duty for all emergencies.  Now, West Licking Fire has six stations, each staffed full-time (WLFD).  

Back in 1978, the fire department mostly dealt with house and barn fires, car wrecks, and personal emergencies.  Now, there’s still all that, but there’s industrial fires, and thousands of suburban homes in the back of complex developments.  What a few intrepid volunteers handled back then, now requires well-trained and professional firefighters.  And what might have been a few “runs” a day, I can tell you from direct experience is now full-time, with multiple squad runs, more fire runs, and other emergency runs from each of the six stations.  We live within “throwing distance” of a main road, State Route 16.  We hear the good folks of West Licking Fire, rushing to help, multiple times a day and night.

Expanding Needs

In any community, when you dial 9-11, you want an immediate response.  When we had a health emergency here, the squad arrived in five minutes, and saved a life.  We happen to be only a mile or so from “Station One”.  But part of great emergency service is having the whole community within “a mile or so” from responders.  So as the community continues to explode in development, the fire department needs to expand as well.  

Expansion, development, more people, more industry, more emergencies; it’s not something you want your Fire Department to “fall behind”.  There are some areas where public services often lag:  road development and public schools are two where expanding communities traditionally play catch-up.   That means that the areas are willing to be inconvenienced by over-crowded schools and traffic snarls until the “new folks” get to pay new taxes.  Even if you know that you’ll need a 2000 kid high school in a decade, the cost of building it is too high for the “1400 kid high school community” that’s here right now.  

Can’t Wait

But fire and emergency services can’t wait.  “Catching-up” means that people and property are in increased danger.  The price of waiting isn’t worth the cost in tax savings.  And it certainly isn’t worth the probable cost in lives.

West Licking is asking for a 4 mill increase in property taxes, that will raise an additional nine million dollars.  It will go to staffing and equipment, getting better ready to respond to the “next” emergency.  Like most Ohio property tax issues, it will never raise more than the dollar amount.  As more folks come into the community, that cost will be spread among them too.  So what costs $140 per $100,000 in property valuation this year, will decrease as the cost is “spread out” over more homes.  

When you dial 9-11, West Licking Fire doesn’t ask if you voted for the levy or not. They just come to put out your fire, or save your life.  And your own expectations don’t change either:  you call and expect them to show up, fast.  In our growing community, we want to make sure that continues to happen.  No matter who you choose at the top of the ballot this fall, vote YES for the West Licking Fire levy.

Run for the Roses

Horse racing isn’t simple, but the goal of horse racing is: to win the race.  There are all sorts of tactics to achieve that goal. I don’t know a lot about horse racing, though as a track coach, I do know about tactics.  Like horses, different athletes bring different strengths to the race; fast at the beginning, strong at the end, courageous from the back, comfortable in the lead.  And athletes, and horses, can get distracted in a race and lose focus on the goal: to win.  

With athletes I often give them “checkmarks”, points along the way where they need to re-check their tactics and their focus, and make sure they’re “mind’s right”.  With horses it’s not quite so easy; the jockey has to control the distractions along the way, and determine when it’s time to “go” for the finish (as the old Dan Fogelberg song goes:  Run for the Roses!). 

Eyes on the Prize

 One way to control the distractions for a horse, is to put blinders on them.  Blinders restrict their vision only to the front.  There’s an obscure car racing movie, Gumball Rally, that had only one famous line:  “The first rule of Italian driving, what’s behind me is not important”.  So too for the horses in the final stretch: make sure they’re not distracted.  Put blinders on them.

I was in a social media discussion the other day, and one of the participants stated that I had blinders on.  It  wasn’t meant as a compliment, but I took it that way.  Because we need blinders right now as we enter the last three weeks of the American Presidential campaign.  There are so many things to distract us, to waste energy and time on, to “lose our minds” about.  As the old civil rights slogan goes, we need to “keep our eyes on the prize”.  So put your blinders on.

Polls

I swore after 2016 I wouldn’t get sucked back into daily political polls.  2016 polling was just wrong:  understandably, I guess, Trump voters didn’t want to tell anybody.  But they did vote, and so what looked like an easy Clinton win, became a shocking Trump victory. 

And I did a pretty good job of ignoring polls in 2020.  The Covid Presidential election was truly unreadable; who would vote, what impact did Biden following Covid protocols versus Trump himself getting Covid then ripping his mask off (he almost wore a Superman shirt) on the White House terrace have on voters.  It turned out to be the same kind of “squeaker” as 2016, with Biden coming out on top.

But in 2022 the polls predicted a “Red Wave”.  The pollsters underestimated the power of women and reaction to the Supreme Court decision ending Roe v Wade.  But for the internal Democratic fight in New York state, Democrats would have kept the House and the Senate.  In spite of New York, instead of an overwhelming Republican victory, Democrats kept the Senate and barely, by five votes, lost the House.  

Margin of Error

So here we are in 2024.  And I got sucked back into the polls again, just like I did in 2016.  The polling is showing, right now, that this election is even narrower than 2016 and 2020.  It could go either way, inconceivable as it is to me that we could return to Trump after the January 6^th Insurrection.  I’ve written a lot about polling, and the dangers of “living and dying” on a one percent change in polls that have a four percent margin of error.  In the end, Trump up one percent, Harris up two percent; it’s meaningless.  It’s just crazy, crazy close.

Are the pollsters under estimating the power of women, again?  Is the model over-compensating for the Trump voters they missed in 2016?  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  It just doesn’t matter:  put your blinders on, and get to work.  There’s three weeks to go, it’s time for a “stretch run”.  

Post-Elections Shenanigans

So, say that Kamala Harris wins both elections, the popular vote and the electoral college.  Will there be a second Insurrection, this time better conceived, planned and executed?  Will “the will” of the people be served, or will the dark MAGA forces rise up and try to wrest the Presidency by “hook or by crook”?  

We all know, it might happen.  And worse, we can’t be sure that the US Supreme Court will do the right thing. They’ve already put their judicial thumb on the scales of Justice, granting Trump unheard of immunity for actions he took as President.  Things could get incredibly ugly between November 5^th and January 20^th.  But, for right now, there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.  It’s like worrying about the final race when you haven’t finished the prelims yet.  Put your blinders on, we’ve got to get through this finish line first, then we can deal with the next issue.

Vote Against Themselves

So what about the Black men who might vote for Trump, or the Hispanic vote that seems to be leaking towards him, or the Muslim vote that might sit out the election in protest to Biden?  There’s an old political “saw”:  in the end, voters will come home.  87% of Black men voted for Joe Biden.  There may be a vocal few who switch to Trump, but the reality is that Harris is likely to draw at least that much.  

59% of Hispanic voters (men and women) chose Biden over Trump.  Sure it might be a little closer this time around, but there’s no “mass movement” of Hispanic voters to Trump.  That shouldn’t be a surprise, Trump is denigrating Hispanics almost daily in his rallies.  And what about Muslim voters, particularly in the swing state of Michigan?  They aren’t going to vote for Trump, but will they turn out for Harris? Do you think they’ll vote for a Jewish lady from Chicago, Jill Stein? In the end, Muslims represent less than 3% of the Michigan vote.  While they are important, their vote is a very small slice of a much bigger pie.  It’s hard to say what they will do, (other than they won’t vote for Trump) but unless you have a way to impact them directly, there’s not much you can do about it. 

Trump Voters

And what about white men, and the “hidden” misogynistic, “I won’t vote for a woman” vote?  It’s the same vote that ultimately cost Hillary the White House.  Hopefully eight years has changed many Americans’ views, and certainly the younger generation is less burdened by prejudice than their elders.  But the bottom line:  if being a woman disqualifies Harris from a man’s vote, he probably wasn’t going to vote for a Democrat anyway.  Put your blinders on, and keep your “eyes on the prize”.  

And just an aside, how can folks vote for a man who held a rally in the desert this weekend, and required everyone to park five miles away and bus in.  Then, he didn’t pay for the buses to take them back, and abandoned his crowd to hike the miles back to their cars.  It was a strategy to make sure no one left early, and it demonstrates Trump’s “concern” for his MAGA crowd – none.  But don’t get distracted, the walkers are still voting for him anyway.  They’ve got blinders too.

The Race

You can’t change the polls, and you can’t pick up people from the rally.  But you can still impact the Presidential race.  You can call the campaign and volunteer; to make calls, knock on doors. And you can try to influence folks who listen to you (and write essays too).  You can donate money, in an era where it takes billions of dollars to run for President.  But most importantly:  you can put your blinders on, and you can make sure that you, and your like-minded friends and family, vote.  That’s keeping your eyes on the prize.

The List

• Roman Catholic Church – child molesters
• Boy Scouts of America –  more child molesters
• Youth Sports – still more child molesters
• Olympic Sports – molesters,  and performance enhancing drugs
• National Football League – rigged by the NY office, “woke and un-American” (see NASCAR)
• Federal Court System – biased judges
• State Court Systems –really biased judges
• US Congress – bought by lobbyists
• State Legislatures – owned by lobbyists
• Public Education – Indoctrinating Children into DEI, LGBTQ, CRT, and other initialisms
• US Presidency – Joe Biden is old and demented, and brilliantly corrupt and criminal
• Elections – ALL are corrupted, unless you win (never concede)
• FBI – politically weaponized against “us”
• Centers for Disease Control – faked the pandemic
• National Institutes of Health – in the pocket of big pharma, experimenting on Americans
• FEMA – seizing land for mining, giving money to illegal migrants
• Mainstream News – political weapon supporting liberal politicians and Big Business
• Immigrants – rapists and murderers, invading our nation
• US Colleges – Liberal bastions (because they teach Liberal Arts)
• Climate Change – fake news (see Mainstream Media and US colleges)
• US Military – weakened by Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; not a “man’s” Army anymore
• Asylum –crazy criminals from other countries are sent to the US, see “served with feta beans and a nice chianti” and Hannibal Lector
• Stock Markets – ignore the fact they’re setting record highs
• Donald Trump – “Only I can fix this”.

Institutions

Who can you trust?  So many of our institutions, the foundations of our society, are challenged today.  And there’s just enough truth in some of the “challenges” for some to try to paint all of those institutions as failures.  Look at the Church, Scouts, and youth sports.  They all had a problem with adults abusing children.  As someone who works with youth, I now have to pass a criminal background check, and take classes in how to avoid even the hint of impropriety to maintain my credentials.   And since I still hold a teaching license as well as a sports official license, I have to do them all twice.

And lobbyists and private interests do have an outsized role in the legislative process in America. I live in Ohio, with perhaps the most corrupted state government in the Nation (whoopee, OH-IO!!).  Private interests control a lot of what goes on in our state, from energy companies paying open bribes ($60 million from Direct Energy to politicians) to the subtle influence of private investors on our public retirement systems.  

There’s an old saying, “Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile”.  And since there is a kernel of truth, an “inch” of veracity to some of the claims, the MAGA movement is taking “the mile” for their own political purposes.   So if every government and private institution are “corrupted”, then only MAGA is still “pure”.  And only they have the answer:  elect Donald Trump, because, as he said, “Only I can fix it”.  

Loaded Terms

There are “loaded” political science terms that describe when a single person, an “Only I” is empowered to alter government:  Authoritarian, Tyranny, Fascism, Autocracy, Absolutism, Caesarism, Monocracy, One-man rule, and Shogunate (thanks Google AI!!).   These are the terms that our traditional American social studies education use to describe the “bad leaders” of the past.  Because of that, I won’t use them to describe MAGA and Donald Trump, but, as  Dad would say; “If the shoe fits…wear it”.  

But the only way a single person can “rule”, is for all of the other institutions to fail (or be seen as failing).  And that’s what the Trump Campaign is doing now, describing all of our institutions as biased and corrupted.  As Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance describes, they base their “facts” on the statement that “many people think” or “everybody knows” they are failing.  And that vague “many or everybody” becomes their factual basis for the failure of America.  It’s circular logic, MAGA tells people something, some believe it and respond, and therefore it’s true.  It can be applied to false FEMA  “failings” in North Carolina, mythical pets missing in Springfield, non-existent non-citizens altering the results of elections, or phantom whole cities overtaken by Mexican gangs.  

8th Grade History

It’s not an accident.  The only way to change the “whole world” of American government, is to make the “whole thing” rotten.  It’s in the autocrat “playbook” (OK, I had to use one of those loaded terms).   And, it’s in everything that Trump does, all of the crazy stories he “weaves” in his rallies, and throughout the deadly seriousness of Project 2025.  

Like your eighth grade history teacher warned you:  a leader that says “Give me all the power and I’ll fix it”, doesn’t work out well for democracy.  It is why George Washington was a real success. He knew when it was time to walk away.  And it’s why Richard Nixon was a real failure. He committed crimes and abused his powers to maintain the Presidency.   

What will be the lesson for the kids born this year, the eighth grade class of 2038 – or – will teachers be allowed to discuss it at all?

We are making the choice, right now.