Category: Uncategorized

George C. Marshall

Five Star General George Marshall was a quiet American legend.  Unlike most of his “brother” Five Star’s from the Second World War, Marshall did not lead troops into battle, or sail fleets onto the seas.  Marshall was the ultimate administrator.  He first earned his reputation by training the Army for World War I. Then he was the force behind organizing and training the largest military in world history for the Second World War. 

After World War II, Marshall became the Secretary of State, and created the plan to rebuild Europe named for him. The Five Star General was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. He then served as the Secretary of Defense as the nation entered the Korean War.

Marshall didn’t have the “flash” of MacArthur or Eisenhower, nor the dramatic reputation of Admirals Halsey or Nimitz.  But Marshall was the one.  The one who organized the military for war, and the world for the unsettled peace of the Cold War.  

Unlike MacArthur or Eisenhower, Marshall eschewed politics.  He didn’t even register to vote, making the point that the Army should be an apolitical portion of the government.  He served without comment on his Presidents, and became the role model for what the modern military leadership should do while in service.

Trump’s Generals

Current military leaders often cite his example today.  Retired Three Star General HR McMasters served as the National Security Advisor to President Trump as his last assignment.  McMasters recently authored a book about foreign policy in the 21^st Century, Battlegrounds, but intentionally did not write a “tell-all” about his experiences in the Trump Administration.  

He holds Marshall as his example. McMasters isn’t a registered voter, and makes it clear that he doesn’t agree with those retired generals who are openly critical of Trump. By implication, that includes the two retired Four Stars who also served Trump, John Kelly and Jim Mattis. Both of them have made critical statements about the President. But even as McMasters makes the “circuit” of cable news shows to publicize his book, he presents a carefully balanced evaluation of the Mr.Trump.

US Code

There is concern today about what role the military may play in the election of 2020. President Trump has made it clear that he may question any election result that favors his competitor. Trump has shown his willingness to use Federal forces to enforce his will. That includes using Federal police forces in Portland, and Federal military forces to put down civil unrest in Washington, DC. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Four Star General Mark Milley even walked the streets of the Capital in full combat fatigues to gain an understanding of the so called “battle space”. It was only later that he expressed regrets for that action.

The President has the Insurrection Act of 1807 (10 US Code §253) to justify direct Federal military intervention should “civil unrest” occur.  And if he refuses to accept the results of the election, it might take military intervention to control the “righteous might” of the American people rising up to remove him.  

Which all leads back to the question posed by Generals Marshall and McMasters.  If the military is to remain “apolitical”, then how are they to react to a Presidential order to put down civil unrest caused by a disputed election?  Should they refuse his “lawful” order under the Insurrection Act, or should they choose a different section of the US Code to follow:  the “posse comitatus” law (18 US Code §1385)?  This section makes it a Federal crime to use the military to “execute” the laws (though there is an exemption for a declared “insurrection”).  

What Role

In a more “general” (sorry) way, what do we expect of our military leaders?  If all the information about President Trump that we’ve learned is true, what is their obligation? The military is sworn to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.  While the “chain of command” ends at the Commander-in-Chief, at what point will military leaders determine if that Commander has issued an “unlawful order” that they cannot legally obey?

And even more importantly what should we expect of our leaders, both military and political, in the face of what may be a corrupt and incompetent President?  Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats believes that Donald Trump is somehow under the influence of Vladimir Putin. Kelly and Mattis have both made disparaging comments about Trump, as has former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.  And while the Senate of the United States passed a resolution unanimously calling for a peaceful transition after the election, no Republican Senator has spoken out directly against the President’s statements, with the exception of Nebraska’s Senator Ben Sasse who stated, “He says crazy stuff”.

We expect that our leaders will “…preserve protect and defend the Constitution…” but so far, it doesn’t feel like that’s what going to happen. If they continue to accept the new “norms” of the Trump Administration, they may well remain quiet in the face of new attacks after the election, just as they have remained quiet before. Trump has not made an all-out assault on the Constitution. It’s been more of an incremental erosion of Constitutional values. And, like a sandbar just off shore, once it’s all gone, there will be nothing left to stand on. Who will support us then?

Disrespect

At first, I thought it was just a really big mistake.  The remains of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay “in repose” at the Supreme Court.  In our COVID-19 era, the public is not allowed into the building.   Instead, the casket, placed on the Lincoln Sarcophagus, was moved outside under the portico.  The public gathered forty-four steps below to pay their respects.

Someone at the White House thought it would be a “great idea” for the President and First Lady Melania to come out of the Court and stand behind the flag draped remains, “Il Duce like”, to “pay their respects”.  This after Mr. Trump made it clear that he would nominate a legal and political opposite for the Court. And he’d do it even before the late Justice is interred in Arlington National Cemetery this week.  

It doesn’t take a Masters Degree in politics (I only have a Bachelors in the subject) to figure it out. It’s likely the crowd wouldn’t react well to the President’s presence.  Those civilians on the street who came to honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg are by definition not going to be MAGA supporters.  In fact, they’d be the exact opposite. 

So it should have been no surprise that what started out as just general booing, turned into chants of “Vote Him Out”.  And while it’s probably not the appropriate place or time, I’m sure that most felt Justice Ginsburg smiling from above.

Why the Portico?

The President could have waited a day. He could have paid his respects at Statuary Hall in the Capitol building, where the remains were removed to be honored by the Congress.  She is the first woman, and the first Jewish person, to be so recognized.  While there’s not much of a friendly audience for him there either, at least they wouldn’t have booed.

Was it a colossal error by the White House political staff?  At first I thought as much.  They haven’t proven to be particularly deft at messaging over the three and a half years.  Remember – it was that staff that created the term “alternate facts”.  And there were rumors of Trump blowing up when he returned from his excursion .  

But then I thought about his probable appointment to the Court, a fire-breathing conservative woman Judge Amy Coney Barrett.   She’s against Roe v Wade, against the Affordable Care Act, and is being called the “female Scalia”, as if he hadn’t already appointed a “male Scalia” in Justice Gorsuch.  

It’s an election year. Most normal politicians (even those with degrees in Economics) know it’s time to move towards the middle.  The United States, even with the hyperpolarization of today’s politics, is still a nation where elections are decided by the “undecided”.  It’s the eleven or ten (or maybe four or five this year) percent that haven’t made up their minds already who will decide.   So the “standard” move would be for Trump to nominate a Justice that each side could find some value in. That way each side could get behind her candidacy.

Strategy: Trump 2020

But that’s not the Trump 2020 strategy.  His campaign team is determined to “double-down” on the Trump-wing of the Republican Party, believing that by simply getting every possible Trump voter to turn out at the polls, they will “thread the needle” of the Electoral College once again and secure the Presidency without winning the popular vote.

With that strategy, doing everything possible to mobilize the MAGA team is the only goal, even if it means giving away some of those “middling undecided’s” to the Biden camp.  And how to best mobilize your own “team”?

Let’s nominate a Supreme Court Justice who will give them everything they want on every wedge issue:  abortion, LGBTQ rights, Affordable Care Act, Second Amendment cases.  Let’s give them the greatest gift, longevity, and appoint a forty-eight year old who could serve in office, well, four decades (Ginsburg died at eighty-seven). 

And let’s give them some “red meat”. Give them the disrespect of the President and his poster-worthy wife as they pay “honest” respects to the deceased liberal Ginsburg.  “Those liberal, abortion loving, gun hating, Black Lives Matter folks don’t even respect their own dead”. That will be the campaign mantra.  

Anyone who really has respect for Justice Ginsburg knows from whence those “boos” came.  And everyone at the White House knew it was going to happen.  They expected it, and they wanted it.  The “boos” fit right into their political narrative.  It will drive more MAGA voters to the polls.  

Biden’s Mission

And if you are one of those who joined, at least in spirit, with the crowd at the foot of the stairs, don’t feel bad.  You haven’t been played.  The Trump 2020 campaign is desperate; so desperate that they have given up on expanding their voting base.  The President has an approval rating of just forty-five percent.  If he’s depending on that number to win an election he’s in bad shape.

Just make sure you get all of your “booing” friends to the polls on Election Day.  To overcome the natural Republican advantage in the Electoral College, Biden needs to win by five million.  Hillary only won by three.  There are more of us than there are of them – but we need to SHOW UP!

Here’s the next in the “Outside My Window” series, chronicling life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Winter Beer

This year of the pandemic has it’s own rhythm.  It was going to be different anyway, an election year and all.  But with masks and restrictions, there still is a unique kind of isolation than there was in the past.  Sometimes I feel as cutoff as my lonely “Biden” sign in the sea of “Trump” placards here in exurban Ohio.  Not only are we wary of crowds and strangers because of COVID, but also guarded in the conversations we do have.  A loose moment, and down the rabbit hole of political diatribe you go.

And as we move through September, it’s time: time for the “Biden” bumper sticker on the back of the Jeep.  It generates interesting responses.  There’s the random honk of support, the occasional middle finger of outrage, and once and a while, the aggressive tailgate and even dangerous cutoff.  It takes a minute to remember – why is this happening?  Oh yeah, it’s the bumper sticker and the fall.  Folks are expressing their partisan views through their driving.

And after this long hot summer, it’s time to switch to winter beer.  That’s been a thing for me for a couple of decades: Corona with lime to mark the beginnings of summer around Memorial Day, Canadian Labatt’s after Labor Day for the beginning of morning flannel shirt weather.  So the last of the summer beer is gone, and the sad few remaining limes are relegated to the occasional Sunday Bloody Mary.  Still need to be careful in the pandemic; don’t want those Bloody Mary’s to expand throughout the week.  But they do taste good, and I am retired.

Tapped Out

It has been another week of tapped political adrenalin.  We started this week, seven days so long ago, with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  That foreseen tragedy was followed by the outrage of the fight over her still warm seat on the Supreme Court.  President Trump and the First Lady came to pay their respects:  the crowd below the steps chanted, “Vote Him Out”.  No disrespect to the deceased was intended:  I think Justice Ginsburg would understand.

And while we were celebrating her life, the fires still burned through the West, and the rain events threatened the South.  By the way, there have been so many (23) named storms this year that they’ve run out of names to call them.  Now we’re down to using the Greek alphabet. Tropical Storm Beta came ashore last week.

More Outrage

The President outraged much of the nation and changed the subject once again, by declaring that he didn’t feel bound to accept the results of the election.  So we spent a couple of days discussing what would happen if he lost, but refused to go.  The glorious vision of the Secret Service dragging him out of the Oval Office, kicking and screaming and hair all awry was fun to think about. But the more serious matter of a President using all of the levers of power to invalidate an election challenges America’s democratic traditions.

The Attorney General of Kentucky denied access to the Courts to the family of Breonna Taylor, generating another round of protests and some violence over her unnecessary death.  Two police officers in Louisville were shot on the first night of protests.  They’ll survive, and the suspected shooter is in custody.  He will end up in court, and likely in jail.  Those officers have a good chance of getting justice for their pain.  What about Breonna?

And, looming over the entire week, the COVID-19 death toll grew past 200,000.  There was so much happening, that it seemed more than just overlooked.  It felt like it was ignored, a political inconvenience instead of a national tragedy.  Today’s “Butcher’s Bill”:  207,555 dead in the US, with over seven million infected.  It was all this week.  No wonder so many feel exhausted. 

Normalcy

There were a couple of “flashes” of normalcy this week.   I sat around a fire with a few friends one night, and had dinner on the back deck with some alumni athletes on another.  Both events were exciting because they have become so rare since March 15^th when the world flipped.  And subconsciously I must be looking for an “old” normal.  I got hooked on watching the last season of The West Wing that aired in 2006.  It was about a “normal” Presidential election campaign in a “normal” time.  Seems so much better than the “real” campaigns of today.

Besides my nostalgia for the characters of The West Wing it’s remarkable how the issues of fourteen years ago are still current.  Trade issues with China, police shootings, the future of American energy, LGBTQ rights, and the use of the military to keep the world peace:  all were part of the discussion in this 2006 fiction.  It would fit straight into much of today’s debate as well.

It’s thirty-nine days until the Presidential election, a little more than five weeks.  But that obviously won’t be the end of the national controversy.  And if each week is as filled as this past one, we’ve got a very long way to go in the fall of 2020.

Out My Front Window – Part One (4/21/20)

Outside My Window – Part Two (4/23/20)

Outside My Window – Part Three (4/26/20)

Outside My Window – Part Four (5/13/20)

Outside My Window – Part Five (6/3/20)

Outside My Window – Part Six (7/3/20)

Outside My Window – Part Seven (7/31/20)

Outside My Window – Inshallah (8/13/20)

Outside My Window – Part Eight (9/15/20)

Ham Sandwich

Daniel Cameron, the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, made his announcement yesterday.  The Grand Jury brought no charges against the Louisville police officers that shot Breonna Taylor eight times in the hallway of her own apartment.  There will be no trials, no criminal punishments.  The only charge the Commonwealth brought is against an officer who “recklessly endangered” the apartment next door with his wild firing.

The Attorney General made his case in public, the same one he made to the Grand Jury.  He believed a witness who said that the Officers actually knocked and identified themselves before they came through the door.  He discounted other witnesses who said that didn’t occur.  And he said that once they went through the door and Kenneth Walker fired one shot, wounding an Officer, that the Officers were justified in firing sixteen shots in return.

He cited that conflicting evidence, including forensic evidence differences between the Kentucky State Police and the FBI, created “reasonable doubt” preventing criminal charges.   And that’s the case he placed to the Grand Jury.  Essentially, the Attorney General said that Breonna Taylor was “collateral damage”.  She made the mistake of having a boyfriend who fired on the police, and died for it.  

There is an old legal saying:  “A good prosecutor can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich”.  From his public statement, the Attorney General made it clear that the case he made to the Grand Jury was designed to return “no bill”, no charges.  It worked.

Martin and Malcolm

For many people in Louisville who waited six months for legal action, the announcement was both disappointing and expected.  Disappointing, because it’s easy to see a scenario where Kenneth Walker was exercising his right under the “Castle Doctrine” to use a legal gun to defend his home.  Disappointing, because he fired one shot, wounded an Officer, and they fired sixteen shots back at him, all missing him and half of them striking Breonna.  

But expected.  For many in Louisville, it seems that the “Castle Doctrine” only applies to white people.  And expected because the Commonwealth Attorney General Cameron, a Mitch McConnell acolyte, already implied his decision in a speech at the Republican National Convention.  

This has been a summer of protest in Louisville.  While there has been some violence, in general, the nightly marches have been peaceful, in the tradition of Dr. King.  And the city of Louisville responded, making changes to their “no-knock warrant” policies, requiring officers to wear body cameras, and firing the Officer who was ultimately charged.  But when the people of Louisville look to the legal process for justice for Breonna Taylor, there will be none.  For some, the non-violent way of Dr. King isn’t working.  They see violence as the only way to force change. As one protestor said last night, “We did it the Martin way for the entire summer, and it got us nowhere.  Maybe it’s time to do things the Malcolm way (referencing Malcolm X)”.

Process and Procedure

The city of Louisville is doing a lot to try to change the procedures that led to this tragic death.  Almost everyone studying the actions that led those officers to Taylor’s door see it as completely messed up.  Louisville has moved to try to improve this.  But ultimately, Americans look to the legal process as a way to air their grievances, and gain balance for injustices. Yesterday, Daniel Cameron explained that the judicial process was not available to them.  

He stood in the Courthouse doorway, and with the full power of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, blocked access to those demanding some response to this obvious injustice.  If the Courts are denied to them, then why would anyone be surprised that the result will be more than just another peaceful march in Jefferson Square Park.  

This is not to in any way justify the shooting of two police officers in Louisville last night.  As America saw throughout this summer of turmoil, there will always be a few who take advantage of the chaos of protest to commit heinous acts.  But those unacceptable actions should not overshadow the reasonable frustration people have with a system that cannot find a way to assuage their loss or protect them from extreme acts by the authorities.  

Discrimination

It’s been fifty-two years since a white man assassinated Martin Luther King, and fifty-five years since a black man shot down Malcolm X.  Violence is as much an unfortunate part of the movement towards change as are the marches in the streets.  But the real tragedy is that in the fifty plus years since the 1960’s Civil Rights movement, America is still faced with the reality of discrimination.  Skin color still makes a difference in how Americans are treated by their government.  

The frustration won’t end until that changes, and neither will the movement to make Black Lives Matter.

The Election

The upcoming election terrifies me.  

I truly believe that the American people will reject the fear and incompetence of the Trump Administration.  In fact, I think the outcome will be so overwhelming, that all of the worries about Republican maneuvering to somehow “steal” the election will be washed away in the tidal wave. This isn’t going to be an overwhelming election in support of Joe Biden.  It will be an election of rejection of Donald Trump. 

And my belief is not just a “heartfelt” desire to believe.  The poll numbers back up my prediction. Joe Biden is running a couple of points ahead of Trump here in Ohio, and running well ahead in the “Blue Wall” states, and Arizona, and in North Carolina, and is even close in Florida and Georgia.  And before everyone gangs up and says, “well the polls said Hillary would win too,” those polls were never this good.  The final polls in late October showed Hillary winning, but were all close to the margin of error.  The Comey letter nailed the coffin shut.

1984

But we were all burned in 2016, so it’s more than normal to be worried again.  

And even if Biden wins, I am certainly worried about how far the Trump Administration would go to “rig things” in the two months from election to inauguration.  McConnell is already showing the brazenness of pulling a “1984”.  Black is white, yesterday’s enemy is today’s friend, and while Obama couldn’t nominate a Supreme Court Justice ten months before the election, Trump can put one in today even as we vote.  All we need is the Ministry of Truth and the Orwellian nightmare will be completed.  Maybe we already have one too: look at the Centers for Disease Control.

No, my terror comes from the possibility that for my whole life, I may have completely misjudged America.

Compassion

That’s because I believe that Americans are at their base, a people of compassion.  Americans are the ones willing to give when tragedy strikes. And it’s not just money, but food, supplies, labor and time.  They are the folks with boats who showed up in Houston to save thousands flooded out in the hurricane. Americans have been checking on their elderly neighbors throughout the pandemic.  They are the twenty-something’s who never thought about politics, but went into the streets to march and make sure that the lives of their Black friends mattered.  They are people who go out in the middle of the night to find lost dogs.

 But somehow many Americans can’t extend that same compassion to Central Americans whose situations are so bad that they are willing to risk the journey here.  Americans care about their “fellow Americans”.  What they struggle with is the peoples they don’t know, and are now being taught to fear.  The President said Monday that if Joe Biden were elected, people like Senator Cory Booker would be in charge and might come live in the suburbs.  That’s suburban high school football All-American; Stanford University tight end and Senior Class President; Rhoades Scholar, Masters from Oxford, Law Degree from Yale; Cory Booker.   Oh, and yes he’s a Black man.

Most Americans would love to have Stanford University Football Alum next door.  Most Americans would love to have a highly educated and successful man on their block.  And I believe most Americans see well past Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric.  By the way, Cory Booker can live anywhere he wants, but chooses to remain in urban Newark, New Jersey, where he was Mayor.  And it’s not a penthouse suite:  it’s a townhouse in Newark’s Central Ward, just down the street from a drug rehabilitation center.

In Their Heart

So here’s my belief:  most Americans, even those with Trump signs in their front yards, are compassionate.  Some have been taken in by the rhetoric and propaganda. They are scared of the “browning” of America; a nation that looks very different from what they thought and were taught was the past.  Change is always hard, and often creates fear. And America is confronted by change, demographically, economically, and environmentally.  The fires are worse, the droughts are wider, and the floods are deeper.  We can’t ignore them, or pretend they aren’t important because they only happen in “Blue” states.  But they are scary for many Americans, and hiding from those truths is an easy, if ineffective, alternative.  

I also think most Americans have a strong sense of right and wrong.  And, even with the screen of Fox News, most Americans see that a lot of what Trump has done is wrong.  They excuse it somehow to justify their support, but they still know.  In 1964 Barry Goldwater ran for President under the slogan, “In Your Heart You Know He’s Right”.  He lost in the worst electoral landslide up to that time.  Americans know “in their hearts” that something isn’t right with Donald Trump.  I think most will make that clear in their vote.

Confidently Terrified

So what am I really terrified about?  What if my doom-saying friends are right, and I have misjudged my country so badly.  Is America not exceptional, not the place of compassion and hope I have believed in my entire life?  What if America really is a nation of fear, and hate, and selfishness?

Yeah, I don’t know what to do about that. 

I’m going to do all that I can to get Americans to turn to their “better angels” and choose compassion over hate, acceptance over racism, generosity over selfishness.  And I hope I don’t have to wake up some morning this early November with the realization that I’ve been wrong.  There is nothing worse than seeing clear evidence that your faith has been misplaced. 

I’ll cross that bridge over the River Styx if I come to it.  Right now I am waiting for the “righteous might” of the American people to be felt. And I’m pretty confident I’m going to be right.  So confident – that I can’t sleep.  I’m writing this essay at two in the morning.  But that’s OK. Here’s my challenge to Americans:  come Election Day show me what you’ve got!

Institutions

Back in the early 1960’s there was an enormous faith in American institutions.  Our parents grew up in the Great Depression. They watched President Roosevelt use the government to try to solve the problems of the economy, and to make life better for working Americans.  And then they served in a “just” war.  The men joined or were drafted into a national military.  Women worked in essential jobs supporting the war effort.  Children grew gardens and collected bottles and cans for the “boys”.  

And they won the war, and built the “bomb”, and developed a structure to keep the peace.  There was the “aspirational” side of it, the United Nations.  There was the “practical” structure, the strongest military in the world, enforcing “Pax Americana”.  And there was the balance of “mutual assured destruction” between the US and the Soviet Union they made our “enemy” clear, and the outcome of conflict clearly terrifying. 

That was emphasized by the “CD” (civil defense) shelter signs on the walls, and the drills that put this first grader in the hallway of Bloomfield Village Elementary near Detroit, head between my knees and arms protecting my head.  With pure first-grade logic, I knew that we, the kids, would be OK.  We were protected by the wall and our huddled position.  But all of the teachers – well they were going to “get it” by the bomb.  They were all standing up.

Growing Up

We went to church and joined the Cub Scouts, played little league baseball and rode our bikes until the tires wore out.  And we played in the street and came home when the light grew dim.  The United States could achieve. President Kennedy said we were going to the moon.  We first graders put refrigerator boxes together in the backyard, our Mercury capsules going into space.  I got a haircut like my hero, John Glenn.  I didn’t realize he was going bald.  

With the assassination of President Kennedy, the faith in those institutions took a hit.  The vaunted American “system” couldn’t protect our own President in a city in our own nation.  And while I didn’t notice it as a second grader, many Americans saw the panic in Dallas and that catastrophic failure in protection as a sign that maybe our institutions weren’t quite as omnipotent as we hoped.

The Civil Rights movement held a mirror to the American dream, showing those pushed down and shoved aside.  And like Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson used the government to try to change our nation.  It wasn’t just the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts; it was all of the programs in the “Great Society” that tried to end the poverty that was so much a result of racial injustice.

Cracks in the Foundation

But then there was the Vietnam War.  Our parents didn’t get it at first.  It seemed like just another extension of the “Pax Americana” that they built.  But as more Americans came home and raised questions about whether we were on the side of “good”, protests began and our institutions were again in question.  Johnson’s “Great Society” was lost in the streets as young people chanted, “The whole world is watching”.  And we lost Dr. King, and Bobby Kennedy.  We elected a President who promised a peace plan, but then pushed us even farther into war.

We made it to the Moon.  For a brief moment, the whole world sat in awe of that “one small step for man”.  But then we found the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, used information to coerce government leaders and had an “alternative lifestyle” that belied his white shirt and black tie demeanor.  And there was Watergate.  We all discovered that cheating and corruption was commonplace at least in the Nixon administration.  And in the mid-1970’s we found out that the CIA was overthrowing democracies and replacing them with dictatorships.

We lost trust in our government’s ability to solve our problems.  The “New Deal” faith of our fathers was gone.  

Who to Trust

Today we are taught not to trust the Boy Scouts or the Roman Catholic Church or the Little League because kids were molested.  We look at our government and see our political leaders boldly lying to us, as if we should simply ignore what they said just a few short years ago.  Our era is filled with “alternative facts”. We are teaching our children (and grandchildren) the exact opposite of what our parents taught us.  Institutions are not to be trusted.

No wonder conspiracy theories are rampant.  If everything we “believed in” was a lie, then perhaps QAnon is the truth.  Even the most basic common sense protections to our current epidemic have been filled with doubts.  It should be no surprise that there such nostalgia for the hazy memory of the 1950’s life of the past. Many are willing to ignore all that has come in between.  Life was much easier to understand in “black and white”, at least as long as you weren’t Black.

So here we are.  Our jaded and divided nation faces what perhaps is our greatest crisis.  The one thing we know for sure – we cannot go back.  The challenges of the future will not be solved by the solutions of the past.  And we, as a nation, will need to find some path towards national purpose again.  We need to find faith in something.  We need to trust.

There really is no alternative.  Not if we are to remain the United States of America. 

Congressman Collins

Republican Congressman Doug Collins is famed for his rants and tantrums. We got to see them in the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings. Now he has crossed the moral line.  He’s running for Senate in Georgia. But currently he is polling second to the current Republican Senator Kelly Loefler in a “jungle” election this November.  He hasn’t made the “dent” in the Republican electorate he expected, so he’s taken an extreme view to get attention.  This was his tweet Saturday night after hearing that twenty-seven year veteran Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died:

“RIP to the more than 30 million innocent babies that have been murdered during the decades that Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended pro-abortion laws.  With Donald Trump nominating a replacement that values human life, generations of unborn children have a chance to live”.

Collins hopes to make a further dent in the “right-to-life” (right-to-birth) crowd by dishonoring Ginsburg. Obviously he doesn’t value her “life”.  He’s a class guy – not.

Senate “Principles”

But there is a whole lot more hypocrisy in the Republican Party then just “Preacher” Doug Collins.  The Senate under Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell created an all-new “Senate principle” when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in early 2016.  Then-President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland and sent his name to the Senate. Under McConnell, they refused to have a vote or a hearing to determine whether Judge Garland was qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.  In fact, McConnell and most Republican Senators refused to even give him a meeting.

McConnell made it clear that he thought that a President should not be able to nominate during an election year. He called it the “McConnell Rule”.  He demanded that they wait until the results of the vote in the November election.  His statement was, “Let the people decide”.  And that was ten months before the election.

Power Grab

Now Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died.  Her body hasn’t grown cold, and McConnell is preparing to schedule a vote, perhaps even before the American people decide between Trump and Biden.  And if Biden wins, it’s clear that McConnell will still vote on Trump’s nominee. In four years he’s gone from “let the people decide” to, “we’ve got the power and we’re going to use it”.  And he snickers as he says it.

McConnell is OK with being a hypocrite – it creates more power. And he is able to justify the action by agreeing with Doug Collins – a new Court majority might restrict or end abortion. But Donald Trump and the GOP’s dedication to the “right-to-life” is pretty hypocritical in itself. There is the obvious: the “right-to-life” didn’t extend to the more than 200,000 dead from COVID-19 in the past seven months. And it doesn’t extend to taking care of the health and welfare of children now; much less the 30 million that Doug Collins wish were born.

But the hypocrisy goes even farther than that. 

Republican Leadership

There are folks who truly believe that abortion is taking a human life.  For most of them, it is a matter of their faith.  But for some leaders of the Republican Party, those folks are just fodder to gain power at the Supreme Court. The leadership caters to the Evangelical Christians, convincing them that their religious freedom is infringed by allowing others to exercise their religious beliefs.  Enforcing “Christian” beliefs about abortion on the entire nation is only one of their goals.  The entire litany of “wedge” issues is included:  LGBTQ rights, public education, and even support of racism.

They really don’t give a damn about all that.  It’s all about money and power. The Party is much more concerned about reducing Federal authority over business, income, and government regulations so the rich get richer. They are fixated on lowering taxes on the wealthy and feeding more taxpayer dollars to the military, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and oil industries.  They are making money in private prisons and immigrant detention facilities, and they like it.

So if they have to pay lip service to the “right-to-life” (right-to-birth) crowd, then it’s worth it.  Those folks vote, donate, and are dedicated campaign volunteers.  And while I know many are sincere in their beliefs, they are being taken for a ride.  And that’s the worst kind of hypocrisy.

Donald Trump’s Dream

The election of 2020 is about the competency of Donald Trump in the COVID-19 crisis.  It’s not a pretty picture, 200,000 dead, almost 7 million infected, and a nation divided over the simplest ways to contain the spread.  That’s all at the feet of the President, who knew about the looming threat in January. As we now know from his own words, he intentionally ignored it.  And even after it could no longer be ignored, instead of taking charge in a national crisis, he determined to let the Governors “run” this pandemic in fifty-six different ways, and then attacked their decisions.

It’s as if Franklin Roosevelt let the Governors run World War II, with the Ohio Marines going to Guadalcanal while the New York Navy sailed against the Japanese Fleet at Midway.  It wouldn’t work, and neither did Trump’s “plan”. 

The only thing that can save Trump now is to change the subject.  He must do anything to get American minds off of the pandemic.  A good “old fashioned” political fight in the Senate over the familiar ground of these wedge issues is exactly what Trump 2020 needs.  

We will bury Justice Ginsburg this week. Then we will get buried in the “right-to-life” debate. Let us not forget that 1000 Americans are losing their lives daily from this President’s failure to lead.  

Their deaths are on his hands.

More to Handle

“God will not give you more than you can handle”.  If you are a believer, then take comfort in that phrase.  The losses of John McCain, Elijah Cummings, John Lewis, and last night Ruth Bader Ginsburg seem overwhelming.  As we approach the critical turning point of the election in forty-five days, our moral leaders are slipping away.  We needed them for this fight, but that’s not to be.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg did everything she could to stay in the fight.  Her position in the Supreme Court was critical. The eighty-seven year old suffered through multiple rounds of cancer, trying to survive until 2021.  She wanted so much to retire in 2016, with the inauguration of the first woman President, Hillary Clinton.  But that too wasn’t to be – so she remained the liberal icon on the Supreme Court, working until the end.  Her last words were intentionally written for the world.  She told her granddaughter that it was her most fervent wish that her replacement be chosen by the next President in 2021.

Respect

Her incredible power as a legal thinker went far beyond her Supreme Court career.  She created whole new theories of the law as it applied to women, and lived the results of those expanded rights.  And she fought for the rights of individuals in the Court itself for over twenty-seven years.  Like her friend, Antonin Scalia, who was the ultimate conservative lion on the bench until his untimely death in 2016, she was a fierce fighter, and an incredibly complex thinker.

Before politics, we should pause at the passing of this tiny woman, this legal giant.  We should honor her lifetime of service to the United States. She was a role model for young women (and men) who saw her example, and wanted to do the same.  The Justice even allowed (and enjoyed) becoming a cultural icon – the “Notorious RBG”.  She was lovingly lampooned on Saturday Night Live – a singular honor for a Supreme Court Justice.

Many are honoring her now, even conservatives, and even the President.  He called Ginsburg a remarkable woman who lived a remarkable life – a rare moment of decency.  But there are already many dancing on her un-dug grave. They are salivating over the opportunity to place a conservative on the Court and cement a far-right legal ideology into the third branch of government.  It’s unseemly, and perhaps un-American, but it’s our political climate today.  This is Mitch McConnell and Bill Barr’s fever dream.  And while I could delete the worst of them from my Facebook post honoring Ginsburg last night, we cannot delete them from our political world today.

Existential Fight

All bets are off.  This is a fight for the near future of the Court and American Law, though perhaps not the decades that doomsayers on both sides proclaim.  It’s simple numbers:  there are now three Justices who would be considered “liberal”, and five Justices, members of the Federalist Society, who are “conservatives”.  If McConnell and Barr get their way, another extreme conservative will go on the Court, cementing their view.  

That result would hamstring whatever a future Democratic President, perhaps Joe Biden next year, would want to accomplish. The Supreme Court would echo the legal thinking of the 1880’s.  Everything from the hard earned LGBTQ rights, the Affordable Care Act, Voting Rights and Re-Districting would be at risk.  But more than anything else, the fight would be about the right of women to control their own their bodies.   The right to choose to have an abortion or not is the issue that makes both conservatives and liberals willing to do whatever it takes to win.

There are lots of political permutations in the competing strategies.  The first moves are already clear:  President Trump will nominate a candidate in the next two weeks.  Mitch McConnell will then have to decide either to try to force the confirmation process before the election, or do it after.  There are political imperatives on both sides:  before the election McConnell has more leverage over the few Republican Senators who really have the power in their hands to determine the result.  Afterwards, if Trump wins, it doesn’t matter.   

Political Maneuvers

But McConnell’s expectation may be that Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States, and perhaps Democrats will win control of the Senate. To secure this seat and control the future, the current Republican Senate MUST confirm the nomination before the end of the year.  After the election, the Republican Senators who might have lost will have little more to lose by voting for a pro-birth nominee.  

And for Democrats, their ultimate test is to gain the help of four Republican Senators, lame duck or remaining in office, to break the McConnell stranglehold.  There already is dissension in the Republican caucus, with twenty holding out against any additional Federal COVID relief.  One Republican Senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has already stated that she wouldn’t vote on a nominee before the election.

If Biden does win, then the pressure on remaining Republican Senators will be even greater.  Do they “ignore the will of the people” as defined by the election results, or do they let down their conservative allies and let the new President Biden make the choice.  Which is more final political suicide?  

We saw an ugly “street fight” over the Kavanaugh nomination two years ago.  The stakes are even higher now, especially in the middle of a Presidential election, and when thirty-five of the Senate seats are up as well.  The Supreme Court nomination will motivate both conservative and liberals to even greater excesses:  as if we needed more excess in this campaign year.

Requiesce in Pace Justice Ginsburg:  rest after a life well lived, and a fight well fought.  

But for us, the living, there will be no rest.

History

The Election of 2020 is an historic turning point in the American story.  It is greater in importance than the Elections of 1800, or 1828, or even 1932, all huge milestones in our past.  It is on a par with the Election of 1860, when Lincoln became President.  That was the pivotal moment when the country found that, as John Brown so prophetically put it:  “I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood”.  The Civil War soon began.

I hope that, whatever the outcome forty-six days from now, bloodshed won’t be the result, though many of my friends believe that blood is already on the streets. But I do feel that there is an existential choice to be made in the American Democracy. I also know we are a nation of two sets of “facts”, and two sets of beliefs on how America should continue.

Alternate Facts

Those alternate sets of facts don’t allow for normal discussion or even debate.  If there is no common place of understanding that both sides can acknowledge is true, then there can be no accommodation, compromise, or acceptance.  We can’t even agree that masks, used to prevent infection for over a century, can benefit our COVID infested nation.  If we can’t agree on that, then what can we possibly find in common?

Michael Steele is the former Chairman of the Republican Party.  He stands against Donald Trump as part of the Lincoln Project, and feels his Party has abandoned its goals.  On the issue of masks, Steele said this:

“I’m exhausted, I’m exasperated … The fact that we have to literally beg people to wear a mask to save their own dumb ass from getting sick? I’m sorry. To me, it is beyond the imagination. And yet 40% of the country looks at it and goes, ‘Yeah, I’m with stupid.’ So, look, America, at this point, you have a stark choice, in the face of everything that is going on. I don’t know what more you can take before you say you’ve had enough. Because my heavens, this is too much for a country to go through.”

Debates

Those opposed to re-electing Donald Trump will not win a “debate” with his supporters. We shouldn’t even try. We should acknowledge that forty percent are “lost” and hope that some day they will find their way back to the American experiment. And we should fight like Hell for those few who still seem to be “unsure”. They are the ones who say they don’t like what Donald Trump says or does but know that their 401-K’s look good. We should hold their feet to the fire of Trump’s immoral actions, and hope that the “better angels” of their conscience are stronger than their greed. Or maybe we should simply ask about the hundreds of thousands lost to the Corona-Virus.

But we all have friends and family members who are far past arguing with.  The simple answer to that is: don’t.  Don’t waste your time and lose you relationships because someone is a Trumpster.  You cannot argue with someone who won’t accept any of the foundations that you used to have in common.  It is a waste of your energy, and creates an even greater rift in your relationship.  

Target Your Passion

Use your passion wisely. Get those that agree with you to the polls. Convince those that don’t seem to care that they should. Realize that many younger people think this is exactly what politics always was, and so perhaps see little difference between Biden and Trump. Don’t attack them for that, but show them the grace of John McCain taking the microphone away from the person who called Barack Obama an Arab, or giving the concession speech praising the first Black American President. It wasn’t so long ago, but it’s beyond many of their memories. Donald Trump wouldn’t do that, but Joe Biden would.

Convince them that politics is always about compromise.  Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren recognize that as they fully support Biden’s candidacy.  While Biden may not offer all that younger voters want in a candidate, he will get them full closer to their goals than Trump, regardless of what Joe Rogan says. (And if you don’t know who Joe Rogan is, you ought to find out).

And for those friends and relations who are fully steeped in Donald Trump: stop arguing with them. Talk about work, or baseball (not professional football!) or anything that doesn’t devolve into a political argument. That will take some doing; somehow everything seems to return to the controversies of politics. But to quote Michael Steele one more time, don’t waste your energy. Let them, as he said, “Go with God”. It’s the best you can do.

DC Native

Robert Redfield was literally born into the medical service of the United States.  Both his parents were scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC.  Redfield stayed close to home, attending Georgetown University undergrad and medical school. He then did his internship and residency at Walter Reed Medical Center, the US Army hospital located in Washington. He became a US Army physician.

Redfield completed his internship in internal medicine, and fellowships in tropical medicine and infectious diseases.  He continued in service with the Army, and developed as a researcher in virology and particularly in AIDS.  He retired from the Army in 1996 as a Colonel.

The Doctor then went to the nearby University of Maryland in the DC suburb of College Park, where he was one of the founders of their Institute of Human Virology.  He continued his research on the virus that caused AIDS, and made important advances in the understanding and treatment of HIV and AIDS.  He was at the University for over twenty years, until he accepted the directorship of the Centers for Disease Control in 2018.

Faces of COVID

Dr. Redfield, along with Fauci and Birx, is one of the medical faces of the US Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  But Fauci and Birx have all but disappeared from the national spotlight.  The White House’s political view of COVID is not their scientific view, and they are muzzled.  Yesterday though, Robert Redfield, Director of the CDC, retired Army Colonel and lifelong resident of our Nation’s capital, testified to the US Senate. And he did something unexpected.  He told the full, unvarnished truth.

Moment of Truth

The White House political stand is that a COVID-19 vaccine is imminent, perhaps arriving even before the “special day”, Election Day.  But in his Senate testimony, Dr. Redfield explained that while the trials for a vaccine may be completed by November, it still wouldn’t be ready for distribution even to the highest priority groups until January.  He added that general distribution to the population wouldn’t be available until the end of the second quarter at the earliest.  That’s the end of June 2021. (note – corrected from March in the original version).

And Dr. Redfield was asked about the efficacy of wearing masks.  The President has returned to his original position on masks – that they are “optional” at best, and not important.  With his eyes firmly closed, Robert Redfield did something a lifelong resident of Washington and military officer absolutely knows will start a firestorm.  He contradicted the President of the United States.

Redfield held up his mask, and said that if every American wore one of these for eight to twelve weeks, we would have the COVID epidemic under control.  He went onto to say that masks might well be more effective in protecting from COVID than the first vaccines.  Those vaccines may have a fifty to seventy percent effectiveness, much like the flu vaccines today.  That means that getting the first vaccines may only reduce your chance of getting COVID, not “guarantee” protection. The masks, worn by everyone, have a much higher probability of protecting everyone.

COVID’s Color

It was a moment of truth in a maelstrom of political rhetoric.  The President emphasized his disdain for masks in an ABC News Town Hall the night before.  Joe Biden stated yesterday that he “trusted the vaccine, trusted science, but he didn’t trust Trump”.  The President held a press conference after Dr. Redfield’s testimony, saying that the Director of the CDC “made a mistake” or “didn’t understand the question”.  The President went onto to say that if it weren’t for “Blue” Democratic run states, the United States would have been fine in the COVID pandemic.

Of the top ten states for COVID deaths in the United States, seven are run by Democratic Governors, three by Republicans.  Of course, the size of the state is also related to the number of deaths.  Not surprisingly, eight of the top ten states by population are also in the top ten for COVID deaths.  Only Ohio (Republican Governor) and North Carolina (Democratic Governor) aren’t in the top ten COVID list (COVID Dashboard).  

Much as the President would like, the national response to the COVID pandemic is the responsibility of the national leader, the President of the United States.  Individual governors of states responded in different ways.  Some did a better job:  Whitmer in Michigan, a Democrat, or DeWine in Ohio, a Republican for example.  Some are doing worse.  Looking at the rate of “positivity”, that is, what percentage of COVID tests are positive in their state: the top ten includes nine Republican Governors, and one Democratic Governor (Becker).

Don’t Blink

Redfield closed his eyes and told the unvarnished truth to the Senate.  He knew the President would rapidly rebuke his testimony, but decided not to be “political”.  Don’t be surprised if Dr. Redfield disappears from the public scene as well.  But, in the middle of all of the obfuscation and politics, it was good to see a moment of reality.  If you blinked, you might have missed it.

There is an old saying –“never buy a pig in a poke”.  Of course, to understand the saying, you have to know what a “poke” is.  A “poke” is an Old English term for a kind of bag.  If you buy a pig in a “poke”, you are buying the pig without seeing it.  You trust the seller that the pig lives up to the sales pitch, but if you don’t open the “poke”, you won’t know.

The Biden Plan

While the current Presidential campaign seems high on rhetoric and low on facts, on one issue of particular importance to Americans there is a clear “pig in a poke”.  Joe Biden has put a detailed health care plan “on the table”.  He wants to use the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid as the structure to expand greater health care benefits to Americans.  He wants to use the powers of the Congress to gain control of the cost of pharmaceuticals.  And he has a goal that every American will have access to health care.

Biden makes it clear:  there is no “free” healthcare.  He wants access to good healthcare to be an American “right” rather than a privilege of employment.  The Biden plan includes a “public option”, a Federal insurance program as well as private for-profit plans.  He’s not demanding that Americans give up their private health insurance, but that we recognize that not everyone has access to it, especially in an economy with high unemployment, and our current world of the “gig” economy.

We know where Biden stands on this issue.  The disadvantage of putting out a “plan” is that it is open to analysis, criticism.  Each particular point can be picked apart.  

The Trump Offer

President Trump has promised a comprehensive healthcare plan for years.  In the past few months, he’s promised a “plan in the next couple of weeks”.  But so far, his sole plan is headlined “repeal Obamacare” and then he’ll figure out the rest later.  An internet search for the Trump healthcare plan brings up several attacks on the Affordable Care Act, but when you find an address on the Trump Campaign website dealing with healthcare, you instead are sent to a “lost” page featuring Joe Biden: donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reform.

The President has had four years to develop a comprehensive healthcare plan.  He’s even had three years since the famous John McCain “thumbs down” vote that saved the Affordable Care Act.  Instead, the Trump Administration has continued to look forward to a “great healthcare plan” without ever putting any details in front of the public.

Rhetoric

Many Americans are tired of the rhetoric.  They claim they want to decide their Presidential vote based on “the issues”, not the personalities. “Sure, President Trump Tweets a whole lot of distasteful things, but look what he can accomplish,” we constantly hear.  But here’s the problem:  we don’t know what the Trump healthcare plan is, other than “Not Obamacare”.  So we can’t decide on the issues, because there are no alternative plans.  There’s simply a detailed Biden plan, and “not that one” from Trump.

The President is offering the American people “a pig in a poke”.  If there’s no detailed plan, then there’s no target for criticism.  But what we do know is this: the President constantly saying that he would protect “pre-existing conditions”.  But in fact, the Trump Justice Department is currently in the Supreme Court trying to have the Affordable Care Act ruled unconstitutional.  The net effect of that is to go back to “before” the Affordable Care Act, when those with pre-existing conditions could be charged higher rates for insurance, or denied insurance altogether.

Decide

The first thing to do is get past the rhetoric.  No one is offering “free” healthcare, and no one is saying Americans should “die in the streets”.  What we do have is a relatively detailed plan from the Biden campaign, and no plan at all from the Trump campaign.  And we have that in the middle of a national pandemic, when testing for COVID-19, and ultimately administering a vaccine, is a costly and important healthcare action. 

So examine the Biden plan.  And if you don’t like it, keep in mind that you don’t have the option of knowing what the Trump plan is.  Don’t hold your breath waiting for it either, you’ll just need healthcare from lack of oxygen.  There is no incentive for the Trump Campaign to put out a plan:  it will just become another target.  It’s all a salesman’s pitch:  “trust me, it’ll be a ‘great’ plan”. It’s a “pig in a poke”.  

Here’s another in the “Outside My Window” series, chronicling life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID

The COVID pandemic has changed our lives in innumerable ways.  We can’t go out to restaurants and eat inside.  Going to concerts, out to the movies, or to the ball game is risky behavior.  We can’t “politic” in the normal ways:  going door-to-door is a way to spread the disease.  Even the act of having a campaign rally is a point of controversy.  Mr. Trump has them to prove that we are “over” COVID, even flaunting local and state regulations.  He packs in the crowds with no masks, chanting and cheering and still yelling “lock her up”.  Mr. Biden doesn’t have them, and he consistently wears a mask to show he cares about COVID.  

 Even going to a neighborhood bar to have a drink and catch up on the world is risky, and in fact, perhaps the riskiest behavior.  That’s why the bars are closed early.  It gives less time to stand together at the rail, and less opportunity to consume enough alcohol to forget “the new rules”.  The hardest part of the pandemic is that we are social.  Humans like to be around each other, and of course, that’s how the disease is spread.  COVID has cut us off.  Everyone needs a hug – but can’t have one.

Time

We even have divided “time” based on the pandemic.  There was before, now, and there will be an after.  The bright line is drawn on March 15^th 2020.  It was the day the world turned, everything happened, the craziness started, and that we discovered people are somehow “bad” but the outside was “good”.  In the words of the Revolutionary War marching song, the world turned upside down.

And now COVID is even being blamed for cracking teeth.  

Not making that up.  It was brought to my attention yesterday:  American dentists are finding a dramatic increase in the need to treat patients for cracked and ground down teeth.  The technical term for it is bruxism, when folks grind their teeth, often in their sleep.  Complaints include tooth and mouth pain, sore jaws, headaches, and of course, broken teeth.  Dentists link it to stress:  our world of now is so much more stressful than before.  And I thought my cracked tooth was all about getting old: damn COVID.

Dropped Shoes

So yesterday was my birthday, and my wife and I managed to find a restaurant on a nearby lake with picnic table seating.  We spent a few hours there, eating pizza and drinking some beer.  It felt very normal, very before.  The restaurant staff was happy for us to stay as long as we liked. The tables were “socially distanced”, and it didn’t matter anyway.  Hardly anyone was there.  As the bartender said, we’ll stay open until the end of the month, and then close for the season.   

There will be a lot of places that don’t re-open, until the world turns right side up.

There is another old expression:  waiting for the other shoe to drop.  For those who don’t get it, it comes from living in the downstairs apartment.  When the upstairs neighbors came home they’d take off their shoes.  You’d hear one drop on the floor, then wait for the other one to drop.  

We are waiting for the other shoe to drop in so many ways.  Here in Pataskala, our kids are back in school, fulltime “regular” education.  But when we look at what’s happening on college campuses, COVID infection rates are jumping and thousands of students are quarantined.  Kids (or young adults) are acting like kids:  who’s surprised about that?  How long will it take for similar behavior to get to the high schools, and for local infection rates to jump?  

Getting to After

Isn’t that exactly what we should expect when the COVID “message” is so confused?  Even our national leaders take diametrically opposite views of what should be done. Folks can choose their behavior based on their political beliefs.  

I get it.  We want our world back.  We want to be like before.  And many are willing to forget the realities of now to get it that way.  Which means that now will last a lot longer than it has to, and after is even farther away.  

We all need a hug, and a virtual one just won’t do it.

Just seems appropriate today – When I’m Sixty-Four (the Beatles)

Optimism

As anyone who knows me politically will tell you, I am an optimist.  It’s caught me sometimes, specifically when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton weren’t selected.  I wasn’t wrong about who “won” the popular vote even those times.  But I am a lot more careful today.  I take a closer look at the vagaries of the electoral system, and, frankly, I am much more concerned about disinformation and election tampering by foreign powers than I ever was before.

With all of that, still I am an optimistic Democrat.  I think the United States will elect Joe Biden as President, Kamala Harris as Vice President, and give the Democratic Party a majority in the Senate and House this November.  I think the nation is ready for an end to the turmoil of incessant tweets, hate, and division.  Joe Biden is not everything I asked for in the Democratic candidate, but he is absolutely the candidate of healing.  And that’s what America needs.

Get on the Bus

By the way, for my friends who were ardent supporters of other Democratic candidates, there’s a saying of a good friend of mine that comes to mind:  “you’re either on the bus, or you off the bus”.  You can’t stand on the sidewalk and lean in the door, the bus is leaving, and you need to get on board.   Your choice is now “binary” (that word still gives me flashbacks to Computer Programming 101 in 1974).  If you don’t choose Biden, you essentially support Trump.  Rather have Buttigieg, or Bernie, or Klobuchar or Yang?  Too bad, their bus never showed up.  And by the way, all of them are on the bus for Biden, so get on board too.

So once Joe wins the election, we will have more “fun and games” as we hold our breath for whatever “last stand in the Reichstag” McConnell and Trump will pull in December.  You hope that both would have lost their taste for action, that Trump will “retire” to Mara Lago early and play golf, and the McConnell will just go into his shell.  But it’s just as likely that they will try to pull every “shenanigan” they can to push forward their agenda, particularly in the Courts where they have full power and sway.  

January 20th

But come January the new Senate will end McConnell’s court packing project, and Inauguration Day will see Donald Trump removed from the White House.  I still bet he doesn’t even stick around for the ceremony.  That’s not unprecedented.  John and Abigail Adams were in a carriage on the way out of town when Thomas Jefferson swore the oath of office.  “Don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out”.  I bet Biden will even lend Trump the plane to leave.

Once Biden is in office he will have an enormous number of things to do, and perhaps just as importantly, undo.  But first things first:  here are the first three issues of the Biden Presidency.

On Day One

Number One:  he must address the COVID-19 pandemic.  He must have a national strategy, ready to go before he even gets to the first inaugural ball.  Whether there’s a functional vaccine or not, President Biden must present America with a plan that starts with, “Americans must work together to control and defeat this virus” and ends with “…we will overcome this crisis just as we have done with so many others, as Americans united in our ‘righteous might’ to act together”.

Number Two:  he must also have an economic plan for Congress to address the impact of COVID-19.  That includes the financial impact on the wages of workers, assistance for the unemployed, and helping small businesses survive.  And it also needs to include a re-evaluation of our healthcare system so that no one is left out, and no one is financially broken by injury or disease.

Number Three:  he must address the United States’ role in improving the environment.  As I write today, the West is on fire, fierce hurricanes are commonplace, and floods and droughts are numerous.  We have changed the world with our pollution.  It is our responsibility to repair that damage, and it’s just as much in our own self-interest as it is the worlds.  We have lost four more years of recovery in the Trump Administration, and in fact gone in “reverse”.  Day one – Biden must put us “in drive” again.

And that’s on day one: one thousand, four hundred-sixty to go.

Battle Lines

Anyone who knows me well enough to hear the music in the background while I write these essays probably can hear the harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young playing.  They are my “standard”; they have been since the early 1970’s when I wore out two complete vinyl versions of their live album, Four Way Street.   But recently I have spent some time listening to their predecessor bands:  The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield (sorry Graham not so much the Hollies).   

They evolved from the “pop” music, “…I lost my girl” sound of the mid-1960’s, to the psychedelic California valley sound of the later protest generation.  Into their music crept the crises of their time, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement.  And while amazing songs came from their efforts:  Four Dead in Ohio, Find the Cost of Freedom, Almost Cut My Hair, Wooden Ships and more; one song shot through from Buffalo Springfield, to CSNY, and even to last month’s Democratic Convention. Stephen Stills wrote For What It’s Worth, best known for it’s opening line, “There’s something’s happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear”.

What is clear to me is that the battle lines we are drawing today are as stark as those that I remember from the sixties.  As an historian, today seems as divisive and polarized as any in our nations’ past, perhaps even the pre-Civil War era.  As Stills explained:  “…Battle lines are being drawn, nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong”.  

What’s Going Down

Many of us have considered ourselves part of “the Resistance” to the Trump Administration from the very beginning.  Some marched in Washington the day after the inauguration, many protested against the “Muslim Ban” and “Fine people on both sides” at Charlottesville.  The streets filled with demands to stop child separation at the border, and the deaths of Black people at the hands of the authorities. 

We look with almost frantic despair at the United States’ failure to address the environment:  today the West burns and another hurricane gains strength in the Gulf of Mexico.  The “one hundred year weather event” seems to be happening with annual frequency in all parts of our nation.  Who ever heard of a “derecho” until this decade?

And we do all this in the midst of a national pandemic crisis.  This morning’s “butcher’s bill”:  198,150 Americans dead, over twenty percent of the world’s total.  One side says we must regroup and deal with the disease, the other says it’s all “good”, and the death toll is the price we must pay to protect Wall Street and suburban jobs.  It has turned into a form of class warfare:  if you can afford it, you can avoid COVID-19.  If you can’t, you are an “essential worker” who must take “essential risks”.

We are in an existential crisis:  the very fate of the American experiment seems on the line.  Fifty days from now, we will begin the process of counting the votes to decide who will lead America.  And even that process has been brought into doubt:  one side is doing everything it can to make Americans question the veracity of the election outcome, if Donald Trump is not re-elected.

Everybody’s Wrong

But, my fellow Resistance members, my fellow Democrats, we should never forget this one thing.  We are fighting for the United States of America that WE believe in.  Do not let the “others” abscond with our nation, our symbols, and America’s virtue.  WE are the Patriots, working to fulfill the American dream.

There is an outcry against the idea of “American Exceptionalism”, pointing out the flaws and failures of our past to say that, “there’s nothing exceptional here”.  But the exceptional part of our history is the dream, even though many have tried to subvert that Dream for their own personal gain.  The Dream is the “arc” described by Dr. King, bending inexorably forward towards justice.

America is a nation founded on exceptional goals.  Yes, our founding fathers were full of flaws, the men of their times.  Do not let those flaws blind us to their dreams, and the extensions of those dreams to all peoples.  The American Dream includes Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, gender equality, welcoming immigrants, and it includes saving the world from our own environmental transgressions. 

The American Flag is our flag.  Do not let it, or our national history and patriotism get subverted to some right-wing talking point.  We are fighting for the heart and soul of America, those exceptional goals represented by the Stars and Stripes.  And whether we stand to honor or kneel to demand it changes, it is symbolic of what we can be. 

What’s That Sound?

Fifty days to save America.   The choice is stark.  We have the opportunity to move towards a “more perfect union” (Mr. Madison, I so love that phrase) or continue towards more division and destruction.  Fifty days:  to determine what the reality of the American experiment will be: forward towards our “exceptional” dreams, or backwards towards our troubled past.  

For what it’s worth – sing songs, carry signs, and march with the flag towards justice:  OUR flag.

There’s so much happening in America. Today’s essay is not about the nineteenth anniversary of 9-11, it’s about a much more recent tragedy. But 9-11 remains important – here’s what I wrote a year ago Eighteen Years Ago. And this is one of my favorite posts from over three years ago – Shanksville.

Mom

My mother was British, born during some of the worst days of World War I and raised in the suburbs of London.  She was educated in the best English traditions, sent to boarding school near home and then to Belgium for “finishing school”.  When she returned to England (and for her, it was always England) she enrolled in the University of London to study British Literature.

Her twenty-first birthday party was in June of 1939, two months before World War II began.  Of the twenty boys who attended that party, all would be dead within two years:  most killed fighting in the Battle of Britain.  My mom, fluent in French from her Belgian schooling, looked to avenge their loss.  She joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s private spy organization.  She spent much of World War II behind enemy lines, taking the battle to Nazi-occupied Europe (More on her story – Mom’s War).

Mom was lucky.  Most members of the SOE didn’t survive the war.  Of the ninety in her particular unit, only six made it through to the end.  

The Table

While Mom married my Dad, a US Army Warrant Officer stationed in London, and came with him to the United States; she never gave up her British citizenship.  And at our dinner table, where discussions were wide ranging and invigorating, there were two topics not open for discussion.  One was religion:  Mom was an ex-communicated Catholic (for marrying my Jewish father) but still maintained her faith.  Others at the table could believe what they wanted, but it wasn’t a “topic” for debate. 

The other was the Royal Family of Great Britain.  Mom looked to King George VI for his solid leadership in World War II.  The Royal Family was as an example for all of the English people during the War, serving the nation with honor and sacrifice.  Perhaps it was made even more poignant, as King George was never supposed to be on the throne.  His brother, the popular Edward VIII, quit the job in 1936 to marry “the woman he loved”, a divorced American.  George was a man “buggering through” the greatest crisis his nation faced.  He, and his family, especially his daughter Queen Elizabeth II, weren’t open to criticism at our table.

Looking back, there was a third topic that no one even thought to broach.  Prime Minister Winston Churchill was only spoken of in revered tones.   Mom actually knew him, spent time in his War Rooms as part of her service.  While the Royal Family was an example of service and strength during the War, it was Churchill who was the glue that held Great Britain together.  

Leadership

Great leaders find a way to reach their followers.  While Franklin Roosevelt was born and raised in privilege, the tragedy of his paralysis to polio, and the courage of his return to national prominence, gave him empathy towards others who struggled.  That empathy came through during the Great Depression and onto the struggle of World War II.

Churchill was also the son of privilege.  And Churchill had tasted early success, and dramatic failures.  He was outcast from the government for almost a decade before World War II, another “failed” leader of the First World War.  So when he returned after the start of the Second War, it was a man who understood failure, and success.  He knew England was going to suffer.  Bombs would rain down, casualty lists mount, and invasion seemed inevitable.  He did not sugarcoat the danger, and after the miracle of the Dunkirk evacuation he spoke to the British people.  He told them the truth:

“…We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

And after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ long awaited entry into the War, Churchill didn’t tell his staff to “stay calm”.  That was a poster on the wall.  What Churchill did say was “keep buggering on”.  And that’s what they all did, to the end of the war and final victory.

After the War the British wanted to move onto peace, and Churchill was dramatically voted out of office.  A few years later he returned to leadership once again, serving as Prime Minister in the early 1950’s.  But his service of leadership during World War II would be his “shining” moment; never forgotten.

Failure

Yesterday, President of the United States Donald Trump invoked Churchill and Roosevelt to defend his own lying to the American people about the danger of the COVID pandemic.  Mr. Trump said:

“As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ We’re doing very well. As the British government advised the British people in the face of World War II, ‘Keep calm and carry on.’ That’s what I did…When Hitler was bombing London, Churchill, a great leader, would oftentimes go to a roof in London and speak. And he always spoke with calmness. He said we have to show calmness. No, we did it the right way. We’ve done a job like nobody.”

Churchill and Roosevelt were honest with their people.  Both spoke frankly about the dangers they faced.  They did not “pretend” that the Depression or the War would “go away”.  And they did not sow dissension in their own peoples:  they both worked to unify their nations in a common cause of sacrifice and purpose.  

Donald Trump knew that the pandemic would be “the greatest crisis of his Administration” in January of 2020.  He spent the next six weeks telling the American people that there wasn’t a problem.  It wasn’t a Churchillian “keep buggering on”, or even a poster slogan “keep calm”. And it wasn’t FDR’s “only thing to fear”.  It was pretend: pretend that the nation wasn’t facing an existential crisis.  That pretense cost thousands of American lives.

Mom and Dad

Leadership is not hiding problems, or pretending they will go away.  Leadership is preparing for the challenge, and raising the nation to respond to crisis.  It is exactly what Churchill and Roosevelt did.  And precisely what Donald Trump failed to do.

Mom and Dad passed away a few years ago.  But if we were all around the dining room table once again, with Dad at one end and Mom at the other, we would absolutely be discussing our national crisis.  But no one would dare put Winston Churchill and Donald Trump on the same level.  

If they did, the SOE Agent might rise up and strike again.

Bill Murray leads the chant in Meatballs – It Just Doesn’t Matter

This Week

Yesterday we heard tapes of Donald Trump talking to Washington Post columnist Bob Woodward. Back in January and February, we heard him tell Woodward how dangerous and contagious the COVID-19 virus was.  He understood how bad it would be, but he took no action.  He told the American people that it wasn’t a big deal.  And more importantly, he didn’t take scientific advise to get control of the virus.  He wanted to “play it down” so he didn’t “create a panic” (NBC).  

He let the pandemic get hold in America when he could have slowed it. How many folks died? Studies demonstrate that had we closed two weeks earlier, 54,000 fewer would have died. And that was in May, just as we reached 100,000 deaths. We will hit 200,000 deaths this week (NPR).

This week The Atlantic magazine ran an article outlining President Trump’s view of American soldiers as “losers and suckers”.  It was confirmed by multiple sources, now checked by several other media outlets including Fox News.  He was quoted as saying he didn’t want disabled veterans in a parade, “…no one wants to see that”.  And he stood with General John Kelly at Kelly’s own son’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery, and asked the grieving father, “I just don’t get it.  What was in it for him?”

Oh, and we also found out yesterday that the Attorney General of the United States is using the Justice Department to step into a lawsuit against the President, filed by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her in 1996.  If Bill Barr is successful, the United States will pay for the President’s legal fees, and if he loses the civil suit, the United States will pay his penalties (NPR).

It just doesn’t matter.

Protests and Elections

When the President was frightened and scurried down to the Situation Room because of protests near the White House, he called out the National Guard.  And when he wanted to do a “photo op” outside of St. John’s Church on the other side of Lafayette Park a few days later, he sent those federal forces to “put down” a legal and peaceful protest with chemical weapons and horses.  

The President has stated that voting by mail will benefit his opponent in the 2020 election.  Therefore he is constantly, without any evidence, claiming that voting by mail will be fraudulent.  He is allowing his Postmaster General (who has his own ethical issues) to slow the mail, so that many Americans lose faith in the Postal Service.  And finally he is undermining American’s trust in an electoral result that isn’t “final” the night of the election. He knows that mail-in ballots will take longer than one night to count. 

We read the President’s words telling the President of Ukraine that he could have government aid, if Ukraine investigated the President’s likely opponent in the 2020 election.  It was in the transcript the White House itself issued. We didn’t even need Colonel Vindman:  the President’s own words said he did it.

It just doesn’t matter.

Threats

American constantly watched the President denigrate the American Intelligence agencies, even taking the “word” of Russian President Vladimir Putin over his own advisors.  When presented with evidence that Russian troops were paying bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan for American deaths, Trump simply denied that it happened.  And when the Department of Homeland Security wanted to issue a report saying that Russia was the biggest foreign threat to the integrity American elections, the report was mysteriously “held” by the White House.

His administration made the conscious policy decision to take children from their parents at the border for the purpose of “deterring” future migrants. They then “lost” children in the bureaucracy of the American Government. Trump lied about it for months, and then reversed and allowed that it was the wrong thing to do.  But it didn’t end, and he asked to re-invigorate the program again.  One reason the United States is sanctioning members of the World Court in The Hague today, is that they may be considering charging the Administration with crimes against humanity.

It just doesn’t matter.

Laws and Lies

The President has lied to the American people more than 20,000 times (WAPO).  He and his children are profiting from the taxpayers, charging exorbitant fees to the government for the President’s own security.  The Secret Service has paid Trump properties more than $760000 in golf cart rental alone (Golfnewsnet.com).

His daughter and his son-in-law were unable to pass the security measures put in place to gain Top Secret access.  His own staff told him they shouldn’t get the clearances.  But the President ordered them to be granted access, against advice, and the Chief of Staff and the White House Counsel both wrote memos noting their objections (Atlantic).

And when the President decided to use the White House and the Rose Garden as part of the Republican National Convention, defying the Hatch Act, the law that forbids using government funds and property for political purposes, he did it anyway.

Guess what:  it just doesn’t matter.

Shooting on 5^th Avenue

It just doesn’t matter – Trump voters are going to vote for Trump no matter what he may do or say.  Then-candidate Trump was right:  he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and no one would care.  Well, at least partially right: his supporters wouldn’t care.  

Even today, after the Bob Woodward revelations and listening to Trump’s own voice acknowledging the lies he was telling the American people, I heard a former Republican Congressman intone that, “this might be the thing that shocks people into waking up and turning on the President”.  

Are you kidding?  They’ll listen to his voice, and still say it’s a lie. 

It just doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is that everyone else goes out and votes against Trump in November.  Then the United States will have a new President.

And what Trump thinks of that, well:

It just doesn’t matter.

Add to the List

It was just another ugly story of American politics.  Last year, E. Jean Carroll, a newspaper columnist and book author, accused Donald J. Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in 1996.  She took her place in line with the other twenty-five women who have accused him of sexual misconduct (Business Insider).

The statute of limitations for sexual assault in the state of New York is twenty years.  That’s put’s criminal charges off the table, and Carroll knew that when she revealed the incident in 2019 as part of her book on women in America.  As the New York Times noted at the time:

“She also thought of the women she had advised over the years to buck up, to speak up, to go to the police or “move everything out when he’s at work”.  “I felt like a fraud,” she said, because she had taken no such action herself. By the time she submitted her book proposal, in May 2018, she’d rethought it as part memoir, with the Trump allegation included.”

President Trump responded to her accusation in typical fashion.

I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Trump told the news outlet. When asked if he thought Carroll was lying, the president said she “totally” was. “I don’t know anything about her. I know nothing about this woman…She is—it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that” (Daily Beast).

Defamation

With criminal charges unavailable, Ms. Carroll sued Mr. Trump for defamation of character because he called her a liar.  She showed real damage caused by the accusation, as she was fired from her job at Elle Magazine soon after.  She said when the case was filed November of 2019:

“I am filing this on behalf of every woman who has ever been harassed, assaulted, silenced, or spoken up only to be shamed, fired, ridiculed and belittled,” Carroll said in a statement. “No person in this country should be above the law — including the president”(WAPO).

The lawsuit was brought in New York State Courts.

Mr. Trump used his position as President to try to avoid the case. He claimed, as he has in the ongoing Manhattan District Attorney’s investigation, that he is immune from prosecution or civil suit while he remains President.  However, the United States Supreme Court recently reaffirmed their decision in Clinton v Jones that the President can still be sued in civil court and investigated while in office.

Federal Case

So Mr. Trump might have to answer in New York Court for calling Ms. Carroll a liar.  But there’s a new twist in the case. The United States Department of Justice filed to move the case to Federal Court, and to replace defendant Donald Trump with the United States of America.  You read that right, instead of a state case of Carroll v Trump, if the Justice Department is successful, the case will become a federal case of Carroll v United States.

The basis of the Justice argument is that the President was “acting in his official capacity” when he called her a liar. That makes the lawsuit against the President and the United States, rather than the individual Donald Trump.  If the Justice filing is successful it will make Carroll’s task near impossible, as the Federal Government is generally immune from defamation cases.  

And since the Department of Justice defends the United States in Court, the American taxpayer will foot the bill for the Defense, and even pay the fine if they lose. Not only would Donald Trump be “off the hook” legally, he’d be in the clear financially.

The Arguments

The “cold hand” of Attorney General Bill Barr is evident in the Justice Department move, acting again in his “unofficial capacity” as the President’s lawyer and defender.  The Federal reasoning is based on three issues.  First, since Donald Trump was in fact President when he called her a liar, it is an “act” of the United States.  On that basis, then when Clinton got together with Monica Lewinsky, the whole United States got…well, you get the drift.

The second “pillar”, and perhaps more realistic, is that but for being the President of the United States, Donald Trump wouldn’t be facing this lawsuit.  But Trump was sued many times before he ran for President.  In fact, Trump and his business has been sued more than 3,500 times.  Lawsuits are nothing new to the Trump’s, whether he’s the President or not.

And the third is another variation on the Constitutional question of whether a state lawsuit puts an “undue burden” on the President, preventing him from doing his job.  While this issue has been addressed by the Supreme Court now three times (Nixon v United States, Clinton v Jones, Trump v Vance), this variation is just different enough that the Justice Department will try, try again.

The Fixer

And there is a fourth, and perhaps most important result of the Justice filing.  With the entry of the Federal government in the case, all of these issues must be resolved in the Federal Court of the Southern District of New York before the case can proceed in the New York State Courts.  And of course, whatever SDNY decides can be appealed.  

So what Bill Barr provides his “client” the President is time.  Time to get past the election, and putting the burden of time and money on his accuser.  

It’s just another “fix” from the ultimate “fixer”, our Attorney General of the United States, Bill Barr.

I cannot write about Donald Trump today.  After his Labor Day “press conference” turned rant, there is nothing really new I can say.  If after watching him there, folks can still support him, then there is no persuading them.

But I can write about denial. 

Denial, Ohio

There is a great commercial about illegal drug use.  It features the town of “Denial, Ohio” where the kids would never surf the medicine cabinets for pharmaceuticals, or get high.  They are too “busy” doing “good things”.  The tag line is, don’t live in Denial.

America is now not just a land of two political parties, but of two sets of basic facts.  We cannot even agree on how many people have died from COVID-19.  There are a significant number of our citizens who believe that it is all a “hoax”; just as they believe that Trump’s cooperation with Russia was a “hoax”, and his recent comments about the military is a “hoax”.  

We can’t even agree (anymore) about the cause of the Civil War. A war that ended one hundred and fifty-five years ago is now an object of controversy.  Some now seem to believe that slavery wasn’t the issue.  They live in Denial.

Negotiate

As a local teacher’s union President, I learned about negotiations.  After months of talking, with neither side moving an inch, both sides would share the cost of hiring mediators.  These are professionals who would come in and take both negotiating “teams” through a series of exercises.  If they were good at their job, the “teams” would re-discover the many areas where they actually had common goals.  The mediators would work through those commonalities to reach small agreements.  They would build on those successes to finally deal with the “big” issues, usually time and money.

Sometimes it worked, and we would mediate our way to a contract.  Sometimes the battles prevented even those small agreements, and negotiations broke down.  Then a combination of factors broke the stalemate. Community pressure on one side and teacher concern for their jobs on the other would ultimately result in some kind of deal.  While there were times when we cleared our classrooms out and picketed the School Board, our local union never had to actually “go out” on strike.  

We are still a nation of commonalities that, for the moment, we are refusing to recognize.  Neither Red nor Blue has a monopoly on supporting the military, or even first responders.  But somehow one side has claimed it all for themselves, and the other side has allowed itself to be maneuvered into saying that the police are all bad?  No one on either side can reasonably believe those absolutes:  that all military is good no matter what, and all police are bad no matter what.  That’s just stupid.  But here we are.

We are a nation in need of mediation.  

Extremists

But back when I was in the local union leadership, I also understood that there would always be those who couldn’t be happy.  No matter how “good” a contract we managed to get, there was always the “rump caucus” of teachers who felt like the negotiating team “gave away” too much.  And there were also community members who felt that teachers were always “overpaid” and “under-worked”.  Those vocal extremes could make life miserable, but seldom contributed to solving problems.

And America is the same way.  There is a significant number of Americans, perhaps as much as twenty-percent, who have embraced a set of facts so far outside the norm that there is no commonality to work towards.  They will never be satisfied, and should Donald Trump lose, they will continue to make life miserable.

And on the other side, there are a significant number of Americans, many of them younger folks, who don’t believe that anyone working in “the political system” is honest, or acting in good faith.  They have no belief in the goodness of America, and don’t see the similarities that all Americans share.

Things in Common

So who are the mediators in a world in Denial?

Red or Blue, Trumper or Never, there is a commonality of Americans.  We want a good life, and a better life for our children.  A better life includes a climate that’s safe, a government that protects, and a wage that allows for more than just work.   We all want to worship, or not, as we choose, and not have someone else’s beliefs forced upon us.  Isn’t that a funny thought:  everyone wants religious freedom, but many want others to live by the tenets of “their” beliefs.

We need to leave “Denial” and get into mediation.  It’s the only way that America survives.  But that’s not happening until after November – so in the meantime, try to find the little successes in your circle of life.  Believe it or not, we all share some things in common; whether we wear a “MAGA” hat, or a “Resist” t-shirt.  

Don’t live in Denial.

Math Block

I was a social studies teacher, not a math teacher.  And, to be honest, math was never my strongest subject anyway.  I might blame my teachers – Mrs. Hibberd at Van Buren Junior High, who shoved me up against a locker for reading in her math class instead of doing homework, or that fateful junior year at Wyoming High School when the Algebra II teacher had a breakdown, and a series of substitutes left me with a ‘C’ in class and bereft of skills.  But really, I just wasn’t a math guy. 

So when I start calculating, it always deserves intense scrutiny and some skepticism.  There’s the fair warning.  But I have found some disturbing numbers, that don’t require skill in calculus to understand.  In our current era of fake news and obfuscations, statistics are being used to cloud a whole range of issues.  

Foggy Math

For example, the White House claims to have created the greatest number of jobs in American history.  And it might well be true.  In January of 2020, 132 million Americans had full-time employment.  In April during the “shutdown”, that number dipped to 114 million, a loss of 18 million jobs.  By August, 123 million Americans had full time jobs (Trading Economics).  So the White House can claim that nine million jobs have been “created” in just the past few months.  That’s as long as they don’t take any blame for the eighteen million lost.

But jobs numbers are always tricky; full time, part time, gig work, folks not working but still receiving pay, and on and on.  While figures may not be lying, they certainly can be twisted and misleading.

Butcher’s Bill

COVID numbers are also not as simple as they appear.  Today’s “butcher’s bill”:  6.46 million positive tests in the United States, and 193,253 deaths (Corona-Virus).  Just on that number alone, three percent of those diagnosed with COVID-19 die.

But we know that testing figures are low, and that the rate of infection is probably much higher.  So here’s where the “figuring and lying” comes in – but I think it still has validity.

Let’s say that the testing figure is off by an order of 3, meaning that at least 20 million Americans have been infected with COVID.  And while it’s likely that many more people have died of COVID than just the 193000 listed, let’s simplify that figure.  20 million infected to 200000 dead – or 1% of those infected have died.

Herd immunity is when enough of the population has been infected or immunized with a disease that it no longer spreads from person to person.  It assumes that you can get a disease once and then have immunity from that disease for a long time.  While full “herd immunity” is in the ninety percent plus range, generally gaining “herd immunity” for the COVID-19 virus is considered to be around sixty percent of the US population.  That’s roughly 200 million folks infected (or vaccinated if and when a vaccine arrives). 

If the policy of the United States of America is to get to “herd immunity”without a vaccine, then we have to let at least 200 million people become infected.  If the death rate remains at 1%, that means 2 million people will die from COVID-19.

Debate

As we approach 200,000 deaths in the next week or so, we need to have a discussion about what America wants to do.  We can “go back” to the “good old days” of just eight months ago, let COVID spread quickly, and suffer the consequences.  Or we can try to maintain control of the spread and hope that a vaccine will allow for a less fatal way of reaching some kind of “herd immunity”. 

It’s not just an academic debate topic. What the US should do about COVID is a real life decision, with moral and real life consequences.  It’s one that needs to be discussed in “the clear”, not quietly decided by a few advisors in the White House.  And it certainly shouldn’t be a result of incompetent governing.  If the US is going to allow the deaths of millions of its citizens, at least we ought to know it’s going to happen.

Track Coach

If you’ve read Trump World very often, you’ve read about the experiences of my life.  One of the great adventures and honors of my career was to be a high school track and cross country coach for forty years.  It’s not an unusual thing.  There are thousands of high schools, and thousands of coaches at those schools.  And I didn’t coach by myself.  I always worked alongside other wonderful coaches.  As coaches of young people, all of us took on a responsibility of leadership.

Our athletes looked to us to develop their abilities.  Sure they wanted to run faster, jump higher, and throw farther (citius, altius, fortius).  We had a duty to train them physically, and give them the physical and technical abilities to perform.  But that was just the basics.  As a coach, if you couldn’t do those things, the “Dummy’s Guide to Coaching” stuff, then you shouldn’t be out there.

Listen to Lead

But our athletes also looked to us to show them how to handle the much more difficult mental aspects of the sport.   It was the pole vaulter who lost his confidence, or the distance runner who wouldn’t risk winning.  Those were the athletes who needed more than just a workout or a technique guide:  they needed coaches to teach them about themselves.

It was knowing when to get a sprinter to relax (you run so much faster “loose” rather than “tight”) or how to fire up a shot putter to explode through the ball.  We had to listen to our charges, to hear what they were thinking and what they needed.  And the athletes would follow our lead.  If I lost my cool, they would lose theirs.  If I hung my head in defeat, they were done.  But if I took adversity in stride, and moved onto the next event, so would they. 

Leadership in our little world of coaching was apparent.  The coaches of other teams that were constantly looking to place blame, had teams that blamed each other.  And the coaches who asked their teams to sacrifice for each other, had teams that performed far above their “abilities”.   

Divide or Unite

The United States isn’t a high school track team.  But a lot of the same principles apply. The President of the United States has certain tasks that are basic to the job.  Upholding the Constitution, defending the nation, honoring those that have sacrificed:  are all part of the “Dummy’s Guide to the Presidency” stuff.  It is the level of basic competency, if the President cannot do that, then they shouldn’t be in office.

And the President, like that high school coach, leads by example.  When the President devalues a class of people, then those that follow him do the same.  And when he sees the nation as “his” country and “the other” country, he divides people so that there is no common purpose.  

Kenosha

President Trump went to Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday. He emphasized his support for law enforcement, and his sympathy for those who lost their businesses.  Then he attacked protestors, making little distinction between those that protest and those that riot.  And he built a “strawman” argument of nefarious groups, financed by shadowy sources, who come in to create turmoil.   He ignored the reason why folks are protesting or rioting:  he failed to communicate with “that side” of the issue.

Joe Biden went to Kenosha on Thursday.  He spent most of his day listening rather than speaking.  Biden listened to victims and protestors.  He listened to business owners and government officials.  And he listened to law enforcement.  When he spoke, he talked about how they could get past this moment, and find ways to work together to begin to solve the core problems.

He made it clear he was against rioting, looting and destruction.  But he also recognized that the destruction was an outgrowth of racial inequities.  Begin to solve the inequalities, and the riots and looting will also be solved.

Which Team?

Just like those two high school track teams on the field, we have two examples of national leadership.  One “coach” is exhorting his team, telling them to beat the other team, and saying that the distance runners are weak and the sprinters are strong.  The other “coach” is challenging his team to perform their best, and asking the sprinters to cheer on the distance runners as they circle the track.  One “coach” is dividing his squad, playing favorites and creating scapegoats. The other is uniting all of his athletes to achieve greater goals for themselves, and the team. 

Which team do you want to be on?