There is an assumption that everyone \u201cknows\u201d the common acronyms and sayings in the world.\u00a0\u00a0But, use one of those \u201cknown\u201d sayings, the \u201cassumes\u201d acronym: making an \u201cass of you and me\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0That was me when I was twenty, and on the staff of a US Congressman in Cincinnati.\u00a0\u00a0He was famous for his incredibly bad temper, a Marine who often indulged in alcohol, and abuse of his staff.\u00a0\u00a0As a young Democratic \u201coperative\u201d, it was a\u00a0Cincinnati \u201crite of passage\u201d to work for him and absorb his tirades.\u00a0\u00a0I got fired seven times in one summer, the second least on the Cincinnati staff.\u00a0\u00a0And one of the times I got in \u201cbig trouble\u201d, was when I ignored the letters, \u201cASAP\u201d on the top of a memo from him.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had no clue what \u201cASAP\u201d meant, so I ignored it and rotated the task to the bottom of my \u201cto do list\u201d. There was a lot going. I was responsible for scheduling minute-to-minute all of the events and duties the Congressman \u201chad\u201d to do while back in Cincinnati. But, he soon roared back to me, and taught in a profanity laced, Marine Drill Instructor form, that an \u201cASAP\u201d from him meant, RIGHT NOW (not just As Soon As Possible).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next year I was a first-year teacher.\u00a0\u00a0My principal was a guy named Pete Nix.\u00a0\u00a0He seemed \u201cold\u201d to me, though looking back he was only forty-two.\u00a0\u00a0And he was definitely intimidating, another Marine, a wrestling coach, and a \u201cman of the South\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He was the perfect mentor to a \u201clong haired\u201d twenty-one year old, fresh out of Denison University.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t ever remember him yelling or being abusive; he was the kind of man who didn\u2019t need to.\u00a0\u00a0A shake of his head, drawling \u201cI wish you hadn\u2019t done that\u201d, was enough to correct almost any flaw.\u00a0\u00a0And of course, if you were a student, the paddle he kept behind his deck, well-worn from use on the \u201cseats\u201d of high school student\u2019s bodies, was always a threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pete knew all of the common \u201csayings\u201d plus dozens of others from his Southern upbringing.\u00a0\u00a0One he introduced me to still has validity today:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cFigures lie, and liars figure\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0In education there is a lot of \u201cdata\u201d gathered; attendance, grades, standardized test scores, teacher recommendations.\u00a0\u00a0But that \u201cdata\u201d is all subject to manipulation, emphasizing one over the other.\u00a0\u00a0Pete was a master at\u00a0\u00a0cutting to the chase, and throwing out the \u201cfluff\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0If you wanted permission to do something, you needed to make a solid, clear, and precise argument.\u00a0\u00a0Otherwise, he\u2019d tell you, \u201cYou\u2019re just figurin\u2019\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And you knew what that meant \u2013 you never wanted him to think you were manipulating\u00a0\u00a0either the data, or him.\u00a0\u00a0That was just plain \u201clying\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So one of the banners on this morning\u2019s political news, was the results of a\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0<\/em>poll.\u00a0\u00a0This headline summed it up best: \u201c6 in 10 voters view Democrats Negatively:\u00a0\u00a0WSJ Poll\u201d (The Hill).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And various commentators bemoaned \u201cwhat has become\u201d of Democrats?\u00a0\u00a0How could Trump, with all of his baggage of confusing tariffs, cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, starving Palestinians, a Defense Secretary leaking classified information, and, of course, the EPSTEIN FILES; still have more of America\u2019s confidence than the Democrats?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s wrong with the Democrats?\u00a0\u00a0 Commentators, left and right, demand that Democrats need a \u201ctotal rebuild\u201d. And the far-right was convinced that the Democratic Party is going the way of the Whigs and the Federalists into historic oblivion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s another \u201ccommon phrase\u201d, coined by 19th<\/sup> century author Mark Twain: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”. So too, are the reports of the \u201cend\u201d of the Democratic Party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First of all, remember the source.\u00a0\u00a0The Wall Street Journal\u00a0<\/em>is ultimately owned by Rupert Murdock of\u00a0Fox News\u00a0<\/em>fame.\u00a0\u00a0So an \u201cunbiased poll\u201d from them, is as unlikely as Pam Bondi telling you that \u201cthere\u2019s nothing to see in the Epstein Files\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And let\u2019s look at some of the other results of that same poll.\u00a0\u00a0 Democrats led Republicans in \u201cGeneric Congressional Vote\u201d by three percent.\u00a0\u00a0So while \u201c6 in 10 voters view Democrats Negatively\u201d, the majority would still pick a Democratic Congress; go figure.\u00a0\u00a0And that same poll also finds that the United States, with a Republican President, House, Senate, and Supreme Court; is on the \u201cwrong track\u201d, 55% to 39%.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, just a reality check. Democrats lost the Presidency, and the Senate last year. They went from the empowered party to a party with no power at all. In addition, the leadership of the Democratic Party is in total flux, as it should be. Joe Biden is done, Kamala Harris does not appear to be the \u201cheir apparent\u201d anymore, and there will be a marvelous struggle to see who can win the Democratic leadership come 2028. But that three years away, a lifetime of political changes from today. Meanwhile, there\u2019s no single place for Democrats to \u201clead from\u201d, at least until 2026. The Party looks helpless, because it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t that different back in 2017.\u00a0\u00a0Democrats were in shock that Trump won (and Hillary lost) and had neither the House nor the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe Resistance\u201d then, seemed unable to stop all of Trump\u2019s craziness.\u00a0\u00a0But they came roaring back in 2018, with the House switching to Democratic power, and Nancy Pelosi leading to an even stronger showing in 2020.\u00a0\u00a0It can all happen again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n MAGA wants a target, to take the pressure off of themselves.\u00a0\u00a0The old \u201cBernie and OAC\u201d attacks don\u2019t seem to be making headway.\u00a0 So they want Democrats to look and feel “lost”. \u00a0And meanwhile, they are shooting themselves in the foot with all of the current crises, mostly of their own creation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nMore Figures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Roaring Back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n