The reality of American politics is that sometimes your candidates win, and sometimes your candidates lose. Get involved and committed, and the wins are incredible. That same commitment means that the losses are even more devastating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the other reality of American politics is that sometimes we have to compromise, to take less than we want, both in our policies and in our candidates. Bill Clinton was that kind. He was a tremendous disappointment as a Democrat. Sure, he was better than George Bush Sr., or Bob Dole, or Ross \u201cCan I Finish?\u201d Perot. But Bill Clinton was as moderate a Democrat as they come, really Republican-lite. In fact, he helped drive the Republican Party to the \u201cright\u201d, because he absconded with their positions in the center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, of course, Bill Clinton \u201csullied\u201d the Presidency. Impeachment and removal was definitely too much, especially when driven by three Republican leaders: one who cheated on his wife with cancer, another who just cheated on his wife, and a third who molested the boys he coached in wrestling. They were Republicans: ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich, Speaker-elect Bob Livingston who replaced him, and Dennis Hastert, the Speaker who ultimately got the job. They definitely lived in \u201cglass houses\u201d and shouldn\u2019t have thrown stones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Clinton should have resigned. It would have been the honorable thing to do. But he didn\u2019t, and Al Gore, his Vice President and the Democratic candidate in 2000 took \u201cthe heat\u201d from the American public. Gore won the popular vote, but, like Trump in 2016, George W Bush managed to eke out an Electoral College victory. The Supreme Court, in a party line 5 to 4 vote, stopped the count in Florida giving the election to Bush. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So George W Bush became the President of the United States, and perhaps worse, Dick Cheney became the Vice President. What was \u201cRepublican-lite\u201d under Clinton, became hardcore American \u201cmight makes right\u201d under Bush-Cheney. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a Democrat it was all too much to swallow.\u00a0\u00a0The almost panicked, bug-eyed vote counter in Palm Beach County, searching for \u201changing chads\u201d seemed to characterize the whole election.\u00a0\u00a0Bush felt illegitimate, a President by the choice of five Republicans on the Supreme Court, not the American people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there was one saving grace.\u00a0\u00a0If you didn\u2019t like the President in the White House, there was a much better one on TV.\u00a0Martin Sheen played Jed Bartlet, the Democratic President in the\u00a0The West Wing,\u00a0<\/em>and for seven years helped us remember what \u201cbig D\u201d Democracy was all about.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Bush was banning \u201cpartial birth\u201d abortions, giving trillions of dollars to the already rich, and costing senior citizens with the Medicare drug \u201cdonut hole\u201d, the cast of The West Wing <\/em>was pursuing better policies for America. They too had to compromise, and take only a portion of what they hoped to achieve. But they, unlike Dick Cheney, listened to America, even the crazies on \u201cBig Block of Cheese<\/em>\u201d day, and made you feel like the country could be good again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When 9-11 hit, there were the first hours when Bush was shuttled from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska.\u00a0\u00a0Who was in charge?\u00a0\u00a0Dick Cheney seemed to be running things, from the basement of the White House or some undisclosed location.\u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t until that lone plane with fighter escort passed overhead, that the President returned to take command.\u00a0\u00a0And when he spoke at Ground Zero in New York, and then at the Islamic Center in Washington, we started to have some confidence in our leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The West Wing <\/em>helped nursed us through the attack as well. The first show back after the attack, Isaac and Ishmael, <\/em>helped educate the nation about who really attacked us. The simple equation: \u201cIslamic Extremists to Islam = KKK to Christianity,\u201d explained a lot. I used it in class later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So for six of the long years of George W. Bush, including another heartbreaking defeat with John Kerry in 2004,\u00a0The West Wing\u00a0<\/em>helped get me through.\u00a0\u00a0And when\u00a0The West Wing\u00a0<\/em>left us in 2006,\u00a0\u00a0they did so with the first Hispanic President, Matt Santos and a Republican Secretary of State, Arnold Vinick, the close loser in the Presidential race.\u00a0\u00a0The show also left us with real life sorrow, as the venerable Chief of Staff turned Vice Presidential candidate, Leo McGarry, died in real life of a massive heart attack.\u00a0\u00a0And so he did on the show, on election night.\u00a0\u00a0We mourned both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did life imitate art, or art imitate life? Barack Obama, the first African-American President, won in 2008. And while the next eight years had frustrations, both with the President, and more often with the Republican led Congress, there wasn\u2019t the need for a theatrical alternative to the reality of the White House. Yes they compromised, and they made mistakes in the Obama Administration, but like The West Wing, <\/em>the muddled through in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then came the world of Donald Trump, and the ugly, bitter, down in the dirt election of 2016.\u00a0\u00a0Like 2000, the vote was so close.\u00a0\u00a0Hillary won the popular vote, Trump the Electoral College.\u00a0\u00a0But for the thumb of Jim Comey on the scale on October 28th<\/sup>, perhaps we would have had four more years of Democrats.\u00a0\u00a0But Comey did what he did, probably because the investigation would have leaked anyway, and Trump was President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t a TV show that helped me through this political existential crisis.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, it was a Broadway production, a musical of all things, grounded in what American democracy (little \u2018d\u2019) might be.\u00a0\u00a0A \u201chip-hop\u201d version of the life of Alexander Hamilton, with the roles of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the all-white founding fathers played indiscriminately by African-American, Hispanic, or white folks.\u00a0\u00a0When I heard that description originally I thought it was a joke, some kind of farce.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then I heard the songs, and I caught the spirit of the story. In a time when immigrants were being locked up at the border, their children ripped away, Hamilton <\/em>was describing immigrants, \u201cWe get the job done,\u201d helping start America. The Trump Era, when government seemed nothing except a self-serving way to increase the profits of the rich, and most importantly the Trump family, there was the story of the sacrifice \u201cfor the Revolution\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a story of strong women and flawed men. But most importantly, it\u2019s a story of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hope is what I sorely needed for the past three years of Trump.\u00a0\u00a0I saw the touring show of Hamilton<\/em> twice, first in Cleveland, and then later in Columbus.\u00a0\u00a0We were headed back to Cleveland for a third time, when the pandemic changed our plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lin-Manuel Miranda, the author and original lead in the Broadway show, is very much aware of the impact of\u00a0his creation.\u00a0\u00a0It is no surprise then, that in the midst of the pandemic, the original cast Broadway version of the movie was released for the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe West Wing<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Obama<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Trump<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hamilton<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n