Category: Uncategorized

The Question

The Republicans screamed their talking point from Sunday’s news shows.  “Joe Biden won’t answer the question!!!! He won’t say if he’ll ‘pack’ the Supreme Court!”  

You can’t blame them for trying to change the conversation.  There’s not a whole lot of good news coming from the Trump camp.  Son Eric had a disastrous interview on ABC, coming across as strident and whiny at the same time.  Daughter-in-law Lara did better on the safer Fox Sunday venue. But neither could come up with straight answers to either the New York Times expose of Trump finances, or the President’s health. 

And the polls look terrible for Trump 2020.  It’s not just the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. It’s Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona, and even Georgia and maybe Texas that are trending to Joe Biden.  So Trump needs to change the subject – and “packing” the Court might help.

Biden has a convoluted answer. The former Vice President said that, “if he answers the question it will make it the lead story,” so he refuses to answer.  Biden wants to keep the focus on the President’s COVID response.  Anything else is “off the subject” as far as Democrats are concerned.  But his ticket needs to come up with a better answer than, “we don’t want to answer that question”.  So here’s a look at Congress, the President and the Court throughout history.

Judges on the Bench

First of all, Congress, not the Courts or the President, establishes the number of judges at all levels of the Federal Court system.  This includes the United States Supreme Court.  The original Supreme Court in 1789 had six Justices.  Eighteen years later that was increased to seven, then thirty years after than to nine.  During the Civil War the number was briefly increased to ten, then right after the war shrunk back to seven. That shrinkage was to prevent President Andrew Johnson from appointing any Justices at all.  With the election of Grant in 1869, Congress placed the number back at nine.

It’s been nine ever since.  In 1937 Franklin Roosevelt proposed to add a Justice for every serving Justice over the age of seventy for a possible total of fifteen Justices.  Congress didn’t go for that, but strangely enough, the existing Justices changed. They began to find the New Deal legislation Constitutional, ones that they were previously ruled unconstitutional.   While no one admitted that Roosevelt’s pressure impacted their decisions, the proof is in the results.

Trying to gain political control of the Courts isn’t just at the Supreme Court level.  The second President of the United States, John Adams, was a Federalist.  He was defeated for a second term in office by Thomas Jefferson, of the opposing Democratic-Republicans.  In the months before Jefferson was inaugurated, Adams made a concerted effort to place as many Federalist into lifetime judicial positions as possible.  One of those Federalist Judges was the Chief Justice John Marshall, but another created the famous Supreme Court case of Marbury v Madison, the last of the “midnight judges”. 

It is Politics

So seeing the Courts as an institution immune to political influence or control is naïve.  It’s been happening since the founding of the Republic.  In recent years, the Federalist Society, an organization of judges, attorneys, law schools and students, has made it their goal to gain a majority on the Supreme Court.  They’ve been working towards that goal since their founding thirty-eight years ago.  Today five members of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts, are Federalist Society adherents.

Say what you want about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Trump: they have had a single-minded focus when it comes to packing the present Judiciary with Federalist Society members.   There are a total of 870 Federal judgeships in the Court System.  In the past three and a half years, Trump and McConnell have appointed 206 judges, almost a quarter of the Judiciary.  That includes 151 District Judges, 53 Appellate Court positions, and, of course two (soon to be three) Supreme Court Justices.  All of those appointments are lifetime positions.

No one is talking about how all of those appointments, and particularly those at the Appellate level, will dramatically alter the Federal Courts interpretation of law.  If Democrats get the opportunity in 2021 to control the Congress and the Presidency, they might look to not only expand the number of Supreme Court Justices, but also the number of Appellate Court positions so they can “level” the field.

Biden’s Answer

So what should the “Biden Court Packing” answer be?  I think he should say the following:

First – Senator McConnell set the rules in 2016 – no Supreme Court appointments in an election year.  Whether that “rule” was good or bad is irrelevant, it’s the rule he set and we should expect him to honor his own rule, and not vote on a Supreme Court nominee until after the inauguration in 2021.

Second – If Senator McConnell decides to flaunt his own rule it’s obvious he has no concerns about the “norms” for judicial appointments.  “Norms” are only fair if both sides follow them, so if McConnell brings a Supreme Court nomination to a vote, then those norms don’t apply.

Third – Everything after that is hypothetical.  What happens next can only be answered after the real actions of Senator McConnell.  So if McConnell doesn’t want a Congress in the future to contemplate expanding the Courts, he should follow the rules that he set in 2016.

Biden and Democrats should place the decision right where it belongs:  with the Republican Senator from Kentucky who is done everything he can to “pack” the Courts with his own ideology.  If McConnell proceeds with the Barrett nomination, then he is opening the door to further politicization of the Court.  Biden isn’t the “Court Packer” (yet), McConnell is.  And if one Party is doing the packing, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the other Party will contemplate it.  

 It’s nothing new.

T.R.

Theodore Roosevelt or “T.R.” as his staff called him, wasn’t the kind of Republican we think of today.  He was a “Progressive” Republican, interested in conservation (he established five national parks) and in reducing the power of the massive business monopolies.  

He was serving as Governor of New York when President McKinley asked him to run for Vice President in 1900. McKinley needed to replace his first Vice President who died of heart failure in 1899. Roosevelt’s nomination also gave New York’s more conservative Republican Party the opportunity to get rid of him. T.R. gave the McKinley campaign the “spark” of youth (he was forty-one) and energy from his Rough Rider background. It helped win the state and nation in a tough election campaign against Populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

The hope of Republican Party leaders was that Roosevelt would disappear in the background like most Vice Presidents. But when anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley in September of 1901, everything changed. The President died a week later, and the Party was stuck with Roosevelt. As Ohioan and National Republican Boss Mark Hanna said: “Now look, that damned cowboy is President of the United States”.

Roosevelt served the remaining three and a half years of McKinley’s term, then earned his own overwhelming re-election in 1904. In 1908 he felt bound by Washington’s precedent of two terms and chose not to run. He threw his support to the Secretary of War, Cincinnati’s William Howard Taft, who defeated Democrat Bryan once again. T.R. soon left on a world tour that included a massive safari of Africa, and didn’t return to the United States for over a year. As Taft’s term progressed, he began to “stray” towards more traditional conservative Republicanism and Roosevelt tried to reorganize the Party to favor more Progressive ideas.

A Progressive Republican

In 1912 he ran against Taft for the Republican nomination.  In spite of Roosevelt’s popularity, Taft had the regular Party support and won the convention vote. T.R. then ran as a third party candidate for the Progressive Party, dubbed the “Bull Moose” Party in Roosevelt’s honor.  It was during that campaign that Teddy Roosevelt was shot.

On October 14, 1912, Roosevelt was scheduled to give a speech in Milwaukee. As he left his hotel for the engagement, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank fired a bullet into T.R. It passed through the fifty pages of his address and a steel reinforced eyeglass case before entering the former President’s chest. The assembled crowd grabbed the shooter. Only Roosevelt’s personal intervention prevented a lynching.

Roosevelt knew he was shot.  His staff wanted to transport him immediately to a hospital.  But Roosevelt coughed and realized that there wasn’t blood.  He assumed correctly that the bullet had not penetrated his lung, so demanded to continue with the speech.  

He stood at the podium as his staff waited for him to collapse.  Teddy delivered a new opening line, displaying the tattered speech and blood soaked shirt:

 “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

He then proceeded to deliver the full ninety-minute speech, glaring at his over-attentive assistants.  Afterwards he went to the hospital where they used the newly acquired X-Ray machine to find the bullet lodged in his chest muscle.  It remained there for the rest of his life.

Risking Life

Saturday afternoon President Trump emulated Roosevelt, trying to show that COVID cannot kill a Trump. The problem is, that while Roosevelt was risking his own life on the platform in Milwaukee, President Trump continues to risk the lives of his supporters. More than 2,000 were invited, but only a few hundred, some paid to be there, gathered on the White House lawn to listen to a campaign speech delivered from the Truman Balcony. The one thing the President did prove is that he could maintain his coherence in a twenty-minute campaign oration. That improved on his rant and profanity laced two-hour radio interview with Rush Limbaugh the day before.

But he still gathered a crowd in defiance of COVID protocols, just as he did at the “super-spreader” Supreme Court Justice nomination.  And he also risked his own recovery, trying to prove that he is “a winner” over COVID.  Even those who don’t support the President still hope he recovers.  But he’s less than a week from leaving the hospital, and likely is still infectious.

October Surprise

But Donald Trump is desperate to get back on the campaign trail. And he’s also desperate to keep the spotlight on his candidacy, and not on the drip-drip-drip of news from his tax returns emerging from the New York Times. The “October Surprises” he was counting on seem to be waning. Attorney General Bill Barr says he can’t deliver a “Biden Indictment” from the Durham investigation. And the Johnson Senate Committee investigation of Ukraine and Biden was unable to turn Russian disinformation into any actual charges or evidence in an eighty page report.

Secretary of State Pompeo is now promising Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 lost emails before Election Day. That might have been an effective “surprise”: if Donald Trump was still running against Clinton. Since he isn’t – so what? But in all likelihood Pompeo is spoofing Trump along until after November 3^rd. That way he doesn’t have to endure the criticism that Barr is taking from the President.

Teddy Roosevelt “doubled down” on his image by delivering the Milwaukee speech.  It was exactly what the public expected him to do.  And while it was courageous, and reckless, and probably foolish, it made for great spectacle.  Donald Trump hopes to find that same spectacle in his “courageous” recovery from the COVID “plague”.  His visual of choice:  standing on the Truman Balcony overlooking his “admiring masses”. It has “Mussolini” overtones.  But to his base, he looks courageous and perhaps reckless.  The problem, of course, is to everyone else he not only looks foolish; he looks desperate.  And that’s not a “good” image for re-election. 

Roosevelt lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912.  Taft came in third. Twenty-three days left until we learn of Trump’s fate.

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

Politics

Last May we were at a crucial moment here in the state of Ohio.  We were on the cusp of ending the COVID “shelter in place” orders, and there was a great deal of controversy about what decisions should be made.  The Governor, Mike DeWine, seemed to be moving towards continuing restrictions, but the state legislature was making a lot of noise about restricting his powers and forcing the rules to be lifted.

The end result of the political infighting was that the Governor sacrificed his Director of Public Health, Dr. Amy Acton, to the political wolves.  She started as an icon of science-directed COVID policy, but became a lightening rod for all of the public protests demanding the economy re-open.  DeWine was all-in behind her — until he wasn’t.  She gracefully resigned, and DeWine caved in to the demands for an end to restrictions.  Politics won, science lost.

Argument

In the middle of all that, I ended up in a social media battle over the consequences of ignoring science.  One participant told me that since I was retired, I had no place making any arguments at all.  He told me I was getting my “pension” regardless, so I couldn’t understand the real life impacts the COVID restrictions were having.  

I countered that I too was feeling the economic impact of the restrictions, but also saw the real medical results of COVID sickness and death.  In May, and still today, we couldn’t move forward economically without dealing with the disease.  And besides, I put in my thirty-five and a half years to earn that pension, and I was actually teaching at the time. I had the “right” to my opinions.  The argument got ugly, and ultimately I took the social media equivalent of walking away from the discussion.  I blocked him.

Isolation

But there is one point that he made that was true.  As a retiree, I could insulate a lot of my life away from the social contacts that risk COVID exposure.  I didn’t have to go out that much:  get to the store and to the gas station, and spend any time in public outside.  The substitute teaching I was doing was online. What I mostly “lost” was direct physical contact with my family, travel Jenn and I enjoyed, and all of the Track and Field (Athletics) officiating and advising that I usually did.

So I missed learning one thing that anyone working in this world has experienced.  I haven’t spent a lot of time working with people while wearing a facemask.  

It’s Cross Country season now.  The mega-meets with hundred of teams that dominated the running schedule for the past the thirty years are cancelled, including the McGowan Invitational that I managed at Watkins Memorial High School for decades.  It was one of the three largest meets in Ohio:  but putting 5,000 kids and their coaches, parents and friends all in one place is the definition of a “super-spreader” event today.

So the meets are smaller, maybe eight or ten teams.  And as an official I am working some of those meets.  It’s all outside, spread out over a two or three mile running course, so it’s not too difficult to maintain “social distancing”.  And I am masked from the moment I step out of the Jeep, as are the coaches and most of the spectators.  Even the runners are masked before and after the competition.

Muffled

I have discovered that I feel “insecure” with the mask on. I coached Cross Country and Track for forty years, and I have officiated for a lot of that time, so why am I insecure now? After a lot of thought, I’ve found three reasons why this happens. The first is the obvious one, I feel muffled by the mask. It’s like talking with your hand over your mouth — like you’re not supposed to be loud. And, of course, because you have a mask on you absolutely need to be louder, so it’s finding the appropriate volume level that makes for insecurity. Too quiet, no one understands you. Too loud, you come across as obnoxious. Finding the balance (that was natural without the mask) is a new problem.

The second issue is that I am definitely a “sunglasses” guy.  Bright sunlight is wonderful for everything except my eyes.  But the mask fogs the sunglasses, seemingly no matter what I do.  I’ve tried to wear the mask in different positions and I’ve even bought the “wipes” that prevent fogging.  Neither works, so I have to wear a hat, which really isn’t my thing.

Reading 

Both of those things seem petty, and they are.  But last night it finally dawned on me what the real problem is.  As a teacher, administrator, coach and official I have always “read” the folks I deal with.  I read their “body language”, and more importantly, their facial expressions.  It was always the joke, that I could tell what kind of day a student was having from the moment they entered the classroom door.  But it wasn’t a joke:  I was able to “read” the kids coming in my door.  It was a part of my success in education.

But “the mask” cuts at least half of that away.  I can read people’s eyes, but not their face.  It cuts away a lot of how I approach interaction with people, and I’m sure I’m not the only one in education, or life, who has this issue.  Masks prevent us from “knowing” each other without words.  And as an educator who had the “privilege” of teaching through March, April and May (great time to take a long-term substitute job!) it makes a lot of sense why “online” teaching was so disconcerting.  Even face-to-face “Zoom” meetings aren’t quite the same, especially with students who chose not to turn the video portion on.  If you can’t read the kids, you can’t reach them.

Interaction

I’m not advocating we get rid of masks.  If I were back in the classroom (that still feels like a super-spreader event) I’m sure I would find a way to adapt, a new way of “reading” kids that would allow for better interaction.  But in an era where we are already pulled away not only by COVID, but by the devices in our pockets that soak up so much of our attention and our lives, it’s one more factor that isolates us from each other.

The “Out My Window” Series

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)

Outside My Window – Part Nine (9/25/20)

Janis Joplin – Me and Bobby McGee

Vice Presidential Debate

I listened intently to the Vice Presidential Debates last night.  Unlike the week before, it was a “traditional” American political debate.  The candidates tried to make their points, pointedly ignored the questions they didn’t want to answer, and interacted only occasionally.  Vice President Pence, as the only man on the dais, was likely to be accused of  “mansplaining” no matter what.  But he consistently ignored moderator Susan Page’s cues that his time was up. And he was quietly condescending to his opponent the Senator from California. That proved the point anyway.  

The “fly” may have been the highlight of the night.  The fact that an insect could land on the Vice President’s head, and stay there for minutes, showed how unanimated the debate really was.  But for those parents who were horrified when their children watched the Presidential debates last week (it was only last week), this was one where the kids could at least hear a coherent difference of opinion.

My summary analysis is that the Vice Presidential debate probably didn’t change many minds.  Mike Pence did his “job” defending the President, and managed to get his “hit” lines out about the “Green New Deal” and Senator Harris’s “liberal” voting record.  And Kamala Harris did her job as well, explaining the Biden/Harris plan clearly, and showing the “gravitas” that the running mate of the seventy-seven year old Biden needs to have.  Just as Pence is a Vice President from “central casting”, so Harris definitely showed she could be the first woman to be next in line for the Presidency.

Super-Spreader

Somewhere buried in the Vice President’s syrupy responses was one regarding the COVID “super-spreader” event at the White House, when President Trump announced the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court.  In the very “traditional” Rose Garden ceremony, chairs were set close together and most attendees eschewed wearing facemasks.  Thirty-four COVID cases have been traced to the White House, with many of them sitting in that close packed crowd in the Rose Garden.

The Vice President said that the ceremony was “outdoors” as government scientists recommended.  He never really responded to the lack of masks, the shoulder-to-shoulder seating, or the casual handshakes, hugs, and head to head conversations that took place. 

But Pence did emphasize that the Administration believes in “freedom”. “We are about freedom and the freedom of the American people,” he said. His point was that Americans have the “freedom to decide” what they want to do about the pandemic, and the “government” shouldn’t regulate their behavior.

Just a Word

This fits completely with the Trump COVID strategy.  The President has spent the last six months undermining America’s faith in scientific findings.  He has forced the doctors “in charge” of the COVID crisis to change their public opinions. He even made them claim they made errors in judgment, in order to fit his theme.  Donald Trump has set a national example of ignoring precautions, including his latest theatrical display of ripping his mask off.  

He gave Governors the “freedom” to decide how to respond to the COVID crisis. But almost immediately began to criticize those Governors that took action to try to stem the spread.  He politicized their efforts, making COVID regulations into “Democrat” and “Republican” responses.  Even today, mask wearing and your choice for President are closely correlated.

And now Mike Pence argues that they are doing all of that for “freedom”.  Americans should be “free” to decide how they individually respond to COVID.  And when the White House held an event that violated all of the “rules”, it was the participants “free” choice to be there.  

Freedom Ends at My Face

The problem is that COVID is not a “free speech” issue.  It isn’t a “choice”.  The virus will do what the virus does:  spread, infect, sicken and in some cases kill.  The President is exercising his “freedom” to ignore quarantine rules, wandering the White House without a mask.  Workers there aren’t “free” to avoid the viral spread and do their jobs. The President is essentially forcing the virus on them.  Someone is going to die, and it’s dying for the “freedom” of Donald Trump.

And that summarizes what the Trump Administration wants America to do.  They want us to “be free” to go to restaurants, crowd into bars, buy the cheap cruise ship tickets. We should “be free”to essentially act as if the COVID pandemic isn’t here.  Like the non-existent Trump Health Care Plan, the President wants us to depend on a still non-existent “cure” and a non-existent vaccine. If we are “free” from the basic rules of pandemic, over a century old, then that will make the short-term economy better. And since short-term gains are the only thing left to get Trump re-elected, he demands that we be “free”.  

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”.  And that’s what the President and Vice President face today:  nothing left to lose in leading America to continuing pandemic disaster.  By using “freedom” as their guidon, their banner, they are leading us to more infection and death.  At least Americans are free to make that choice in November. 

So here are just a few items off the news wires in the past thirty-six hours. 

Hail the Victor

President Donald Trump has “conquered” COVID-19.  He demonstrated his victory by triumphantly landing in Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday, and marching up a flight of stairs.  He then ripped the “ugly scar” of COVID, the mask, from his face, and stood (heaving for breath) as he saluted the gallant helicopter crew that he exposed to the disease.  

The President then further exposed a video crew and White House personnel to the virus.   He made a statement about how remarkable his recovery was, and how we all need to “learn to live with COVID, and not be afraid”.  Later, in a tweet from the White House residence, he said:

“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with COVID, in most populations far less lethal!!!”

By the way, other than the Flu Pandemic of 1918  (675,000 deaths) the United States has never had a year close to 100,000 deaths.  2014-15, a bad season for flu, was just over 51,000 (CDC).   Currently 215,347 have died from COVID-19 in the past seven months (Corona-Virus).

No Protection, Mother

Yesterday Vice President Pence, himself in close contact with the infected President last week, objected to having a Plexiglas barrier on his side of the stage in his debate with Senator Kamala Harris tonight in Las Vegas.  He doesn’t seem to want to protect from COVID. Knowing how Pence feels about being on stage with a woman, you might think he’d want the extra barrier?

Mother must have had her say.  Last night, Pence withdrew his objections to the double protection.

Stick with the Herd

White House medical advisor Dr. Scott Atlas anticipates that the President: “(he) is a very, very healthy guy, and the overwhelming majority of people, even at his age, do fine with this. He is very healthy, and so I anticipate the same for him”(NY Post).  

Atlas has persuaded the Trump team that the best way to deal with COVID is to let everyone get it.  His concept of “herd immunity” (not mentality) horrifies most other scientists in the field.  It depends on whether getting COVID actually confers a long-term immunity (no one knows if that’s true), but absolutely guarantees that there will be many, many more fatalities.

We Don’t Want to Know

“The White House has decided not to trace the contacts of guests and staff members at the Rose Garden celebration 10 days ago for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, where at least eight people, including the president, may have become infected, according to a White House official familiar with the plans” (NYT).

Why don’t they want to know? If they find out who got infected there, they must accept responsibility for infecting their own staff and leadership.  And while Dr. Atlas might think culling the “herd” is a good idea, the Trump Administration doesn’t want to take the blame when someone dies.

Roll the Dice

There is an old saying:  “if all you have is lemons, make lemonade”.  The Trump 2020 campaign is doing their best to “make lemonade” out of the President’s infection.  Many Americans hoped that if the most protected man in the nation could get COVID-19, then maybe the entire nation would take the disease more seriously.  

But that is the Biden strategy, and would be an unacceptable admission of error by Trump 2020.  So instead they have taken the opposite tack.  Like the boy returning to class from being paddled in the office, they’ve dried their tears and said, “It wasn’t so bad”.  But of course, they really don’t know yet how bad the beating was, and what the prognosis may be for the President.

So it’s time to “roll the dice”.  If the President can make this “miraculous” recovery, then they will go ahead with their strategy of “herd mentality” (I think he really meant immunity).  That’s Dr. Atlas’s plan for everyone to get COVID. Those that don’t make it — well don’t; and the rest might get “immunity” from the disease.  Meanwhile the economy rolls on, key to the Trump re-election strategy, and hopefully there is a vaccine and a strong therapeutic drug combination in the future. 

Wolves at the Door

So it’s OK that the President exposed the Secret Service, the Marines on the helicopter and guarding the White House, and the staff both political and domestic, to COVID.  They’re just part of the “herd” right?  So if a few don’t make it, they just fall back and the good old wolves get ‘em.  

If it sounds heartless, it is.  But isn’t that the Trump definition of “manhood”?  Let’s risk others, though the extremes of medical science are used to protect him.  And for those who die; we all know what the President thinks of losers.  He prefers those that “didn’t die of COVID”. 

This allows the Trump campaign to demand that states remain open throughout the election season, even if the COVID infection rates increase. The Dow Jones Industrial Average can stay up, and Trump 2020 keeps “Making America Great Again”.  Their campaign message is that; “Biden wants to tank the economy, and the market, by closing America down.  He wants to ‘give in’ to COVID.”  

This even goes farther – according to the President, the Congress now “shouldn’t” pass a COVID relief package.  We are doing just fine – right?  So why do we need relief?  Don’t tell the eleven million still out of work because of COVID, or those whose businesses are closed.  They aren’t doing all so “fine”.

Reality 

Americans saw through this strategy before the President got infected, and they still understand what it means:  many, many more will die.  The fact that the President isn’t one of those is lucky for him, assuming that the disease doesn’t rebound.  His heavy breathing on the “Mussolini Balcony” (sorry Mr. Truman) just underscored how tenuously we understand COVID-19.  

A Biden victory doesn’t depend on the President’s health.  And President Trump, now down 15% or more (CNN/SSRS Oct 1-4) is definitely in “Hail Mary” mode.  So banking his political comeback on recovery is his last shot.   Besides that, all the President can do is hope that there’s some October surprise tanking Biden.  Trump is looking to his “Roy Cohn”, Attorney General Barr for that. But Barr was doing some hugging and shaking at the super-spreader Barrett event too.  At sixty-eight, he may join the “back of the herd” soon.  

The gloves came off a long time ago for the Lincoln Project. If you need a song stuck in your head for a while – Here’s “Covita” 

Again

It happened again, this time in Texas.  A White, small town police officer arrived on the scene of a “possible fight at a gas station”, the Kwik Check.  The fight was over, and an unarmed Black man was there, along with another man and a woman.  The Black man raised his hands and tried to explain what was going on.  When the officer moved to detain him, he started to walk away.  The officer used a Taser on him, and when that didn’t work they way he wanted; he shot him with his service weapon.  The Black man died.

What was going on?  According to witnesses, the Black man, Jonathan Price, intervened inside the gas station when the other man assaulted the woman.  The two men fought, and the struggle moved outside.  Price, 31, a former college football player, was singled out when the officer arrived.  

After a brief investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Wolfe City police officer, 22 year-old Shaun Lucas, was arrested and charged with murder.  The Department noted that Lucas’ actions were “not objectively reasonable”. 

Procedure 

I am not a police officer, but it should be procedure that when an officer arrives on the scene he or she should gain control of the situation.  Without knowing what happened before, the officer would want to make sure that the participants were “safe” from continuing to fight each other, or attacking the officer.  So it would be normal procedure to control both, and then sort out the situation.  And if I were that officer, I would focus on the “biggest” threat, physically, to me.  The former college football player would probably fit that definition.

And when he refused to be “detained”, then that should be a concern to the officer.  But it is from that point, that the DPS felt “reasonable” was lost.  

Many will say that Price should have submitted, and not tried to walk away.  “If he had only followed the lawful orders of the officer, he would still be alive today”.  But that still doesn’t answer the question:  if an unarmed suspect refuses to obey police orders, should deadly force be used?

We haven’t heard Officer Lucas’s side of the story, only from others who witnessed the event.  Did something happen when he Tazed Price that caused Lucas to feel threatened, in fear for his own safety?  It’s the only answer that would make any sense.

Results

But in the end, another unarmed Black man is dead, shot by the police.  And it is in that fact alone that we need to face the issue.  Somehow that’s “baked in” to the system.  Sure, Lucas was a young cop, alone in a small town, facing a situation he was unable to control.  But what were the other possibilities to “defuse” the situation?  Maybe it was just a matter of having more police personnel there.  Or of the officer saying the “right words” to Price, or maybe just letting Price walk now, and Lucas comes back with more officers later.  Any of those would be better choices than shooting Price, better choices for both Price and Officer Lucas, now facing murder charges.

Is this about “funding” the police?   Sure, if two officers were available, perhaps Lucas wouldn’t have felt so threatened that he needed to use his weapon.  Or, if a trained “negotiator/de-escalator” were part of a team, then Price would have been able to tell his story, without the need for Tasers or guns.  

Numbers

But is this a racial thing?  The statistics are clear:  the chances of being killed by the police are much higher if you’re Black, and even higher if you’re a Black man. In the last nine months, 721 civilians have been shot by police, with 142 of them Black.  That’s almost 20% of those killed, while Blacks are 13% of the population in the United States (Statista).  For young Black men, the risk of being killed by police is 1 per 1000 (PNAS).  Black men face a risk of being killed by the police more than three times greater than white men (PAA).

So yes, it is about race.  And it’s about training.  It’s about making a national decision that this isn’t just about the “bad apple” cops.  And no, I am NOT saying that police officers are racists (though there probably are some).  What I am saying is that there is a problem, and we need to address that problem in a forthright manner.  It is “baked in” the system, and it needs to be fixed. 

Yusuf-Cat Stevens – and one of my favorites – Peace Train

Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens wrote some of the seminal themes of the 1970’s.  Peace Train may be the best known song, but his entire 1970 fourth album Tea for the Tillerman was his masterpiece.  Where do the Children Play, Father and Son, Wild World, On the Road to Find Out, and Miles from Nowhere became the themes of the end of the “sixties”.

And Stevens himself was on a life mission.  In 1976 he converted to Islam. He changed his name to Yusuf Islam, sold all of his guitars and gave up his music.  For the next thirty years, his songs echoed alone, unsupported by their author.  It wasn’t until 2006 that the man now named Yusuf-Cat Stevens returned to the stage.

His gentle messages were of life as a journey and of hope and peace. They described the dreams of the era of protest, and frustration of little effect on the “real” world.  And his life seemed the same, stepping away from music for his religion, then decades later quietly returning to the strengths of his youth.

The President

Unlike Steven’s Peace Train, the modern Trump Train is a very different thing.  The President has been stricken with COVID-19, and is currently hospitalized at Walter Reed.  It is unclear how serious his disease is, but because of his age and co-morbidities, he is at higher risk.  Not only has he been hospitalized, but he is being treated with powerful experimental treatments.  

It’s made it difficult to govern.  And, as far as the Trump campaign is concerned, it’s made a candidate-centric strategy impossible to continue.  The key events of both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns were the “Trump Rallies”.  Even in this era of COVID, Trump 2020 has continued to hold these big rallies, where the President harangues the crowd for hours at a time.  There has been a great deal of criticism for violating local COVID protocols. But it is the “bread and butter” for Trump, and they aren’t giving it up.

But now, with the President infected, they don’t have a choice. Vice President Pence is doing some major events, but he doesn’t have the draw of the “cult of personality” that surrounds the President himself.  And the Trump family can’t be used. They are allsupposed to be in a fourteen day isolation period, though few think that will last.

Instead, Trump 2020 has rolled out their “MAGA Strategy” to replace the Presidential appearances.  Not only will “surrogates” fan out across the country to stand-in for their leader, but they have also asked Trump supporters to mass across the country to demonstrate their popularity.

Trump Trains

Columbus, Ohio got to see the impact of the “MAGA Strategy” this past weekend.  Trump supporters massed in vehicles, particularly flag waving pickup trucks, and drove slowly down the center lane of the outer-belt highway, I-270.  In addition, other Trump supporters massed on the overpasses, waving flags and cheering on the “parade”.  

In an era of mass protest and Black Lives Matter, it was a “socially distanced” response to support their candidate.  And while it was disruptive of traffic and caused a lot of consternation, the “Trump Train” was a high visibility response and exercise of the First Amendment rights.

“Law and Order” is a founding slogan of Trump 2020.  But the Trump folks discovered that just because a truck is waving a Trump flag, doesn’t mean they are committed to following the law.  There are always those looking for more violent confrontation in any group, and the “Trump Train” was no exception. A gunshot was fired at a semi-truck trying to get around Columbus.  Local police have arrested a “train” participant.

Intimidation

What may be more disturbing than the “official Trump Train” around Columbus was the social media call to “the parade after the parade”.   The flyer calls for a “…peaceful raid into the belly of the Beast”, the wealthy northeast suburb of New Albany.  The flyer describes New Albany as:

“…Wealthy/elitists that fund Biden/Harris, the Democratic Party, ANTIFA, BLM, the Deep State, the police/surveillance state, human trafficking, systemic pedophilia and other evils…”  

A particular target of the “raid” was New Albany’s most famous resident, Les Wexner. He is the founder of L Brands Corporation that included the Limited Stores and Victoria Secrets.  Wexner was a life-long Republican who left the party in 2017 with the election of Trump, and has since supported some Democratic causes (USA Today).  He is also connected to Jeffrey Epstein, though Wexner ultimately broke all connections with Epstein in 2007 (ABC).

New Albany is also home to a new Facebook data center, and the “Train” hoped to disrupt them as well.  As the flyer states:

“…Let’s show these people that we know who they are and where they live, while also showing the decent people who live in their midst that the Trump Train stops everywhere!”

Free speech is just that, free speech.  But at what point does the exercise of the right to “parade” become more of an attempt to intimidate and harass those who don’t agree?  How much of this is the goal of the “MAGA Strategy,” not just to show support for their candidate, but to suppress those who oppose him?   It’s not just the trucks, the black diesel smoke, and the flags.  Their implication is pretty clear:  the Trump base is ready to “fight back” against perceived enemies.  

The “Trump Train” ain’t no “Peace Train”.

Sure you know it!  It’s the 1980’s band REO Speedwagon – Take It on the Run

COVID at the White House

We wouldn’t have known that Presidential aide Hope Hicks tested positive for COVID-19, except a reporter broke the story.  We didn’t know that Hicks was positive, but the President did when he attended a Trump Fundraiser in New Jersey Thursday night.  He had first hand exposure to COVID, but he went to the affair at his Bedminster estate anyway.  And we might not know that Trump and his wife Melania tested positive for COVID-19, except for the “leak” about Hicks.

We “heard it from a friend”, specifically, from Bloomberg News.  We did not hear it from the White House, or the Trump Campaign until after the Hicks story was already out.  But we now realize the President knew that he was directly exposed to an infected person. And yet he continued with his schedule including the fundraiser.  It was only after all of that, in the middle of the night, that he tweeted:

“Tonight, @ FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19.  We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately.  We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Friday the President entered Walter Reed Military Hospital. They have already used two “experimental” therapies on him. Current information states he’s doing well, with “mild” symptoms. We hope that’s true, and wish him a quick recovery. But he is a seventy-four year old man, with co-morbidities, he is in the hospital, and they are using “experimental” therapies. Other “friends” say things might not be as rosy as they seem.

Circle of “Friends”

This is the way the COVID-19 virus spreads, from one circle of people to another.  The song lyrics go, “I heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another you’ve been messing around”.  Or like the old game of “telephone,” except with COVID the message always seems to stay intact.  And no matter how careful you are, any interaction could be the beginning of infection.

The infected Republican leadership list keeps growing: The President and his wife, Senators Mike Lee, Thom Tillis and Ron Johnson, Trump 2020 Campaign Manager Bill Stepian, RNC Chairman Rona McDaniel, former WH Counselor Kellyann Conway, Former Governor Chris Christie.  All are now COVID positive.

The Trump Campaign acts like they are immune to COVID.  At the debate the Trump family and staff scorned wearing masks, even after they were asked to don them by a Cleveland Clinic physician.  At the “outdoor” campaign rallies, social distancing is ignored, some wear masks and some don’t, but all are cheering and clapping.  Most states aren’t allowing crowds at sporting events, or any indoor activities.  But the Trump Campaign seems perfectly willing to risk a “super-spreader” event at every campaign rally, and uses their “FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS” to demand local authorities comply.

Hubris

Precautions aren’t always effective.  Masks aren’t 100% against the COVID infection, but they help.  Social distancing doesn’t guarantee protection, but it also helps.  Hand sanitizer and avoiding physical contact won’t always work, but they aid in limiting spread as well.  Put all of those things together, and risks of transmission are significantly reduced.

To ignore all of these precautions and carry on as if in the “before times” is the height of hubris.  And the actions of the Trump Administration aren’t done from ignorance, but from the need to pursue their political message.  As Senator Rick Scott of Florida said on Fox News Saturday, “…we have to get this economy going again”.  What he didn’t say but is implicit in all of the Trump 2020 messaging are the words “at all costs,” including the cost of COVID-19. 

The first fatal mistake that President Trump made was back in January and February.  As we now know, he was well aware of the dangers of the impending COVID pandemic.  Instead of preparing the United States for that onslaught, Trump chose to assure the American people that it would soon be gone.  He believed re-election depended on the strength of the economy, and he didn’t want Wall Street to reflect a national crisis. 

It’s the Economy 

The Trump 2020 campaign still believes that the economy is their best hope for a second term in the White House.  They act as if the pandemic is “behind us”.  Americans have paid a heavy price for that choice with 210,000 dead.  Scientists estimate that a different course starting with mask wearing and social distancing at the very beginning of the pandemic would have saved more than half of those lives.  

America has also paid a heavy economic price.  The White House trumpets the September employment figures. Jobs have increased by 660,000 jobs last month and unemployment fell to by ½ of a percent to 7.9.  What they fail to mention is that 22 million jobs were lost in March and April, and only about half of those jobs have returned to the economy (Reuters).  The 660,000 jobs in September aren’t new, they are some workers returning to the jobs they lost.  This September report is the last before the November election.

“I heard it from a friend, that heard it from a friend…that the President’s been messing around”.  The choices of this Administration led our nation to further division in our response to this pandemic.  What should have been a “no brainer” response to disease has become a political controversy:  simple decisions to wear a mask and socially distance are now a sign of political affiliation.

The best medical care in the world is available for Donald Trump, and it should be.  But that care can’t heal the divisions he has created.  We can only hope the election can begin that process.

In the middle of the night, the news arrived that the President and the First Lady tested positive for COVID-19. For this moment it’s not about politics, it’s about life. I wish them well.

Brooks Brothers Riot

Back in the “good old days” five years ago, this story might be written, but no one would believe it. 

The Florida election in 2000 was crazy. Lawyers “rioted” in the Palm Beach County Board of Elections (to throw off the re-count). A candidate’s own brother certified Florida’s election results. And even after all of that, we still believed in the integrity of the electoral process.  

But think about that for a minute.  It wasn’t the “butterfly ballots” where Gore votes became Nader votes. And it wasn’t the “hanging chads” where bug-eyed counters analyzed each punch-ballot.  No, it was Governor Jeb Bush, un-recused, who certified that his own brother George won the over six million vote Florida election by five hundred and thirty seven votes.  That’s nine hundredths of a percent.  The Supreme Court, in a partisan five to four vote, agreed.  

And Al Gore gracefully conceded the election, and George W. Bush became the President.  Ah, those were the good old days.

Jeremy’s Nightmare

I just watched former Obama official Jeremy Bash on MSNBC. He was the Chief of Staff at both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Department. He said that no matter how the election results really turn out, he anticipates that we will fight about who becomes President until Inauguration Day in January. It’s almost Churchillian: “We will fight them in the state capitals, we will fight them in the Electoral College, we will fight them in the Court and in the Congress; we will never surrender”: Hoo Boy.

So here is the Bash scenario. On election night, the results are close between Trump and Biden. Because of the COVID pandemic, there are millions of mail-in ballots. Several states require that all ballots be counted after the polls have closed. A few don’t even allow for the mail-in ballots to be certified for count until Election Day itself. That process, verifying of signatures and other technicalities will delay the final count for several days.

Trump gains an Election Night lead and declares himself the winner.  He then moves to invalidate all of the remaining ballots to be counted.  Thousands of Republican lawyers pour into state and federal courts. They demand immediate “cease and desist” orders delivered to the local Boards of Elections to stop the count.  Republican Governors in pivotal states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas step in to stop more counting.  They immediately certify electors to the Electoral College based on the Election Night count only, and the whole issue ends up in a Federal Court system packed full of Trump appointees.  

Democrats Response

Even if Biden were to lose all of those states, the other “swing states”: Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin combined with solidly Democratic states like New York and California, would still be enough to win. All have Democratic Governors. But here’s the problem with that: Republicans control the state legislatures of Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Just as those Democratic Governors had difficulty with regulating COVID, so the legislatures might step in to try to take control of the vote counting process. Just yesterday the Republican Pennsylvania legislature voted to establish a “committee” to “oversee” the election.

Governorships are pivotal to certification of Electoral votes under Federal law. The McConnell plan of stacking the Federal Court system, particularly at the Appellate level and Supreme Court, puts Trump appointed Judges throughout the system. And just to make matters even worse, if there is a tie in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives breaks the tie. But unlike every other vote they take, a Presidential vote is by state, not individual member. So California’s fifty-two Congressmen count for only one vote. And that counts is the same as the single Congressmen from Wyoming and Alaska, and the other five states with only have one Congressional Representative.

Counted that way, the current Congress has twenty-five Republican “states”, twenty-four Democratic states and one state (Pennsylvania) tied. The actual “tiebreaking” vote would be the next Congress not this one, but that unique balance is unlikely to change.

Just a Dream

We are looking at what would be a national nightmare and perhaps the end of the democratic experiment called the United States. What should voters do?

First:  get ready to pressure Republican Governors in those swing states that seem to be wavering to support their own electoral processes.  It may take non-violent protests in the streets to keep the count going.  The Republicans were able to stop the Palm Beach count with the “Brooks Brothers Riot”.  In spite of the COVID pandemic, it may require Americans to protect and continue those counts and our Republic.

Second:  we can still dream that some Republican leaders will stand up for democracy, and against a Trump overthrow of the Republic.  But there are those of us, including me, who have been holding our breath waiting for this for nearly four years now. Let’s hope that’s not our only answer. 

But third and most important: vote.  An overwhelming win for either candidate would be difficult to ignore, even for Republican Governors.  For example, Ohio is likely to have almost all of their votes counted within eight hours of the polls closing, including the absentee ballots.  So a Biden win in Ohio would be difficult to ignore, or overturn.  And if Biden wins Ohio, it puts pressure on all of the other “swing” states to accept a Biden victory.

A landslide Biden win would make all of these undemocratic tactics moot.  For Trump to claim an election night victory, he has to have some point where he has the lead.  Solid Biden wins in the former “blue wall” states would prevent that from happening.  And that might make all of the nightmare scenarios just fantastical stories.  

Let’s hope so. 

Bully

I know some folks that are appalled by Donald Trump’s behavior.  They watched the debate, and recognized a bully when they saw one.  They also know that bullying is simply a way to avoid real discussion, perhaps because the bully is unable to have one.  And yet, they continue to support him for President.

The argument they make is that, “I vote on policies, not personalities”.  And I’m struggling to understand that perspective.  

To me, electing a President of the United States is choosing the leader of this nation.  And how someone leads is in large part about what kind of person he or she is, the “personality”, beyond policy recommendations.  Policy is a “group” project, the President, the White House Staff, the Federal Bureaucracy, Congress, and even the Courts.  Of course what the President wants is important.  But even more important are the people that surround him.  Look at the impact Stephen Miller has on this Presidency and our nation.  He is the man that Donald Trump has chosen to listen to.  Is that about policy, or personality?

Policies

So what do I want in a President?  Well I certainly do want some policy objectives.  I want a President who will help lead us towards improving the climate.  I want a President who has compassion for those who are less fortunate.  And I want a President who cares about the American people:  about how they live and how they die.  It is from there that we can determine what our nation needs to do better.  And I find it difficult to believe that anyone is against those goals.

So is that all policy, or all personality?  

I know there are specific policies that are Presidential issues.  How the pandemic is being handled is policy.  But isn’t it also personality?   Maybe it’s just my perspective, but hasn’t President Trump simply “written off” the dead from COVID?  And even more, hasn’t he failed to take responsibility for our actions against COVID, blaming the Chinese, or the Governors, or his own government agencies rather than saying here’s what happened and here’s what we need to do? Is that “policy”, or is that his personality dodging Presidential responsibility?

The President demands “Law and Order” (Richard Nixon lives!!).  And he pays some lip service to the “right” of peaceful protest.  But has he, in any way, tried to address the underlying concerns that are causing folks to protest?  And it’s not just what’s happening to Black people in the streets today.   What about mass shootings, and in particular school shootings?  What has the President actually DONE about any of those things?  He’s held meetings and banned “bump-stocks”.  Is there anything else?  President Obama at least proposed responses, though those policies were buried in the Congress.  What has President Trump offered?

Compassion

I hear the response right now – Biden is a “liberal bleeding heart”.  The “personality” I’m supporting is one that isn’t hardened to the “realities” of governing.  We don’t want a “compassionate” leader; we want a George Patton, someone who doesn’t give a damn about anything else but achieving “victory”.  But when we look at history, Patton was used by more compassionate men, men like Omar Bradley, and Dwight Eisenhower.  They knew they had to sacrifice soldiers to win victories, but they also cared about the men they lost.  Patton was a tool to be used briefly, then discarded.  And he was.

I don’t think I agreed much with anything that George W. Bush wanted to do.  But he was a leader of compassion, even if his policies weren’t very compassionate.  Ronald Reagan was pretty much the same way.  They cared about the American people.  Isn’t it obvious that Donald Trump doesn’t?

If you are a Black American today (except for Candace Owens), or a Latino American today, or an LGTBQ American today, can you possibly feel compassion from this President?  Or do you feel excluded from the American dream?

Common Goals

A leader finds a way to get those that he’s leading to accept common goals.  That’s about personality, not policy.  A leader brings people together to achieve, not divides to control.  Think of George W. Bush standing at Ground Zero, or Barack Obama standing at the alter in Charleston, or Ronald Reagan telling us to reach out and touch the face of God.  Where is Donald Trump’s moment of national unity?  That’s all about personality, not policy.

I get it:  we have been “made afraid”.  We are told that “they” will burn our towns, destroy our traditions, and force us to change religious beliefs.  We are in an era of division, demonstrating our worst “angels”.  Americans needs to find a way to reunite, to heal, and to work together to improve the nation. And that is exactly about the personality of the next President.

Junkie

I am a political “junkie”.  I’ve watched Presidential debates since before I understood what they meant.  When Kennedy and Nixon squared off in “black and white” in 1960, I was watching.  As a newly turned four-year old, I probably didn’t grasp the finer points of the “missile gap” argument, but I watched.  At twenty I was even more invested in 1976 when Ford and Carter debated.  I was on the lowest rung of the Carter/Mondale paid staff. Watching was part of my job.  And after that, as a teacher, watching debates was also part of my employment.  Discussing the results was on the “lesson plan” for the next day. So I don’t think I’ve missed a Presidential debate in the last sixty years – damn!!

So I was ready last night.  With my legal pad and pen, I was set to write down notes for this essay this morning.  I was prepared for THE Presidential Debate, with the great issues of American life argued by the two people vying to lead our nation through what I consider the existential crisis in American history.

The pad is still blank – I didn’t write a word.

Junkyard Dog

Anyone who reads these essays know I have “a dog in this fight”.  Just yesterday I wrote about the “closing argument” for electing Joe Biden as President of the United States.  Unlike my classroom discussions of previous debates, I don’t take a neutral stance here.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I agree with many of Vice President Biden’s positions, and pretty much everything he was able to get out last night.

And I know President Trump’s history.  I watched him “lurk” behind Hillary Clinton, somehow trying to intimidate her into submission four years ago.  And we all know his shattered relationship with facts, even with fidelity to his own statements.  Whatever he said yesterday means nothing, whatever serves his purpose at the moment is whatever he will say now.  So I didn’t expect a “traditional” debate, where two serious people argue their views.

But what I saw last night was a fifteen-year old boy in a seventy-four year old body, doing everything he could to disrupt and distract.  He’s that kid in the back of the room that would last five minutes in any good teacher’s class – then would be on his way down to the office for discipline.  When I was a high school Dean of Students, responsible for a 1200 kid building, he was that student who was getting the last word, the last insult, even as I handed him his suspension papers.  He was the one yelling as he went out the door, threatening and growling like a junkyard dog.

Issues

President Trump didn’t want to talk about any issues, other than the Russian disinformation about Hunter Biden swallowed whole by Senator Ron Johnson.  His goal was simply to intimidate Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace.  He didn’t have facts; he had insults.  His plans; for the pandemic, for healthcare, for the economy, were whatever Joe Biden didn’t want.  He was willing to support white supremacists, and spit on American norms.  He was a bully and a jerk.  “A**hole” is the only word that really describes his behavior.

Biden responded by defending himself, and demanding of the moderator some modicum of fairness and following of the agreed rules.  He didn’t get it.

Biden insulted “the President”.  He told him to “shut-up”, said he was the “worst President in history”, and called him a “clown”.  There will be commentators this morning who will say that Biden “fell” for Trump’s plan, and lowered himself to Trump’s level.  But it seems to me that Biden showed more patience than was humanly possible.  And he often did exactly what he needed to do:  he turned from the nonsense, and spoke directly to the American people about what he hopes to do to solve our problems.

America’s Problem

But last night made it clear what the ultimate problem is in America.  It’s the petulant man who stood at the other podium, acting like a teenaged child.

What did Donald Trump gain from this strategy?  He certainly didn’t “sway” any undecided voters.  By the numbers, Donald Trump is six to ten points behind in the critical states he needs to carry.  Last night’s performance did not move anyone to his side.  And while maybe he hoped to motivate some of his Trump Base to “get excited” and go vote, social media indicates that didn’t work.  No Trumper “switched” to Biden, but a whole lot of them were writing about “how bad they both were”.  Even the MAGA hat supporters were talking about microphone switches and shock collars. 

And if Trump’s strategy was to rattle Biden so badly that he either couldn’t talk (see – I made him stutter) or would lose his temper – that didn’t work either.  If fitness to run the United States of America under pressure was the test, only one of those two failed miserably:  Donald Trump.  

My recommendation to Vice President Biden – make that the last debate.  No one, even Trump supporters, wants to watch that spectacle again.  It is the Trump campaign that has everything to gain and nothing to lose in debates.  But that’s too bad for them.  His behavior has earned him an “expulsion” from the podium.

Lucky

Donald Trump has failed as President.  We Americans were lucky that we didn’t have a “serious” crisis for the first three years of his Administration.  By the way, don’t tell hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico there wasn’t a serious crisis. Or the folks who live in the burning forests of California.  And please don’t tell our “allies” the Kurds that it wasn’t serious. We pulled out and left them to face the Russians and Syrians all by themselves.

But as most Americans aren’t Puerto Rican (though all Puerto Ricans are Americans), and California is a “Democrat” (sic) state anyway, and the Kurds – well to Trump they are just Kurds; it didn’t matter.  It wasn’t until a national crisis that impacted us all, the COVID-19 crisis that has taken 210,000 lives in seven months, that we found out how impotent the President really is.

Liar

We already knew he was a liar. He lied to America about COVID, and now we know he lied about his finances.  The New York Times revealed his financial position to the world Sunday.  He’s paid less in Federal income taxes that almost any American in the past ten years.  Two of those years he paid $750.  Several more he paid none, zero, nothing.  And before someone says, “well he was just a smart finance guy”, that’s Bull.  We know from others that he consistently has lied about the value of his properties, higher when he wants them for collateral, lower when he has to pay taxes on them.  And that tax audit he keeps talking about?  He may have cheated to get $72 million in tax refunds.  He seems to be the tax-cheat-in-chief.

Trump not only lied to the American people about the seriousness of COVID in the beginning. He intentionally misled us to protect Wall Street from financial impact and himself from the political repercussions.   He refused to take responsibility, passing the “buck” to the state Governors. Then almost immediately he began to publicly undercut those same Governors’ efforts.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that Governors who listened to Trump instead of the science, have some of the highest infection rates in their states today.

Incompetent

The closing argument is that Donald Trump failed Americans as President, and should be replaced.  It seems more than obvious, a real political “no-brainer”.  He is incompetent.  So why are there still so many Trump signs out along the roads, so many banners waving from the back of pickup trucks, and so many lining up to participate in Trump (super-spreader) rallies?

Well, there is the obvious “flaw” of our times.  There is an entire cable news network that spends twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week trying to convince America that Trump is great.  And there is social media, so penetrated with doubt and false stories that people are struggling to decide between truth and falsehood.  But I don’t think Fox, or Breitbart, or the false memes on Facebook fools most Trump supporters.  

The Past

I think there are two reasons why Trump continues to get the support of some forty percent of Americans.  The first is that he offers them an outlet for the fear and anguish they already feel about the changes in our nation.  In less than twenty years we went from banning gay marriage to enshrining it in law.  We went from a nation that struggled to consider a Black person as a corporate CEO or an NFL head coach, to one that elected Barack Obama as President.  And we went from a nation that put marijuana users in jail, to one where only eight states still make it fully illegal. (In nine states it’s fully legal, thirty-three have some mix of medicinal use and/or decriminalization).

We have changed as a nation, and we’ve done it fast.  There are many who feel “left behind”, and Donald Trump has given full voice to their internal worries.   Some of those voices include racist and fascist views as well, something that Donald Trump has intentionally and repeatedly refused to condemn.

But the biggest lie of all is that Donald Trump is somehow protecting “your” retirement.  The argument that Donald Trump is the “only” one who has kept pension funds and 401-k’s “up” is simply not true.  When Barack Obama took office the Dow Jones Industrial average was at 7000.  When he left office it was just under 20000, almost a 200% increase.  Under Donald Trump, the Dow Jones went from 20000, up to 28000, or a gain of about 40%.  Which one was better for your money?

The Future

And if you look into a future of even more changes, particularly climate changes, the best protection for our investments is to make our nation a leader in the technology to improve the environment.   Donald Trump is looking backwards on that issue, talking about “clean coal” (whatever that is) and oil independence.   That won’t move the nation or the world forward, and it won’t protect our investments.

As we discovered (again) Sunday, Donald Trump is a fraud.  He’s an actor, a “brand”.  Like the fake-doctor on the commercial who “plays one on TV”, Donald Trump has finagled enough money to “look like a billionaire”.  He can’t even fire his own employees; he has to get someone else to do it.  Trump deducted $70000 in one year for getting his hair-styled.  And he paid his children a salary, then paid them for the same work again and called it “consulting” so he could deduct more money from his taxes.  He has to re-finance or pay over $400,000,000 in loans in the next couple of years.  He is financially “compromised” and vulnerable, not just to bankers, but also to foreign intelligence agencies.

Let him go.  Let him find a way to “cash-in” as the ex-President.  It’s time for America to move forward, into the Twenty-First Century, rather than wishing for the “good old days” that weren’t so great in the Twentieth Century.  Tell Donald Trump the words he could only “act” on TV – YOU’RE FIRED!  

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.