Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts

Monday, January 1, 2024

“Ghost of the Future, I fear you more than any spectre I have seen”

 


I borrow from Dickens to express a foreboding, in particular one that will culminate with this year’s Presidential election.

 

The December 5, 2023 New York Times carried a front-page article, “Second Term Could Unleash Darker Trump.”  I fired off a brief letter to the Editor to add my opinion and was surprised it was immediately published online and then in print under the rubric “Trump Unbound: An Autocrat in Waiting?

 

To the Editor:

 

A second Trump presidency not only would be more radical, but also seems inevitable. Donald Trump and his handlers have learned to exploit every weakness in our democratic system of government.

 

Our founders must have assumed that those who gravitate to government service would essentially be people of good faith, and the rotten apples would be winnowed by our system of checks and balances. But here we are less than a year away from the election, and while Mr. Trump’s transgressions have drawn 91 criminal charges, there has been no justice yet.

 

He has proved to have a serpentine instinct to capitalize on weak links ranging from the Electoral College to our justice system, gathering strength every time he flouts the rule of law.

 

Perhaps the Times published my laconic letter as it encapsulates a sad truth: our form of government was never designed for the unthinkable. The greatest existential threat to us is, well, us. 

 

It’s simplistic to blame Trump for all of this, but he taps into popular discontent like none other before.  His brand of anti-intellectualism and affinity for reality TV and social media are in perfect sync with his minions.  Those "attributes," and his ability to exploit the weakness of our justice system, are a perfect storm for 2024.

 

Since I wrote that letter there have been further key developments, with certain States trying to keep him off the primary ballots, citing the 14th amendment (lots of luck with that) and SCOTUS rebuffing special counsel Jack Smith’s request for an expedited ruling on whether Trump can claim presidential immunity from prosecution for crimes “allegedly” committed on January 6.

 


We all saw it -- suggested, aided and abetted by him --  and here it is three years later!  It should not be a presidential immunity issue but one of special presidential culpability.

 

A handful of States will again determine the 2024 Presidential election and Democrats are still making arguments about what has been accomplished, as if that reality will decide the forthcoming election.  President Biden, who has done what he intended, deserves our gratitude, should now be thinking of the greater good, and recognize his age and undeserved lack of popularity should be major factors in deciding whether he should run.  He could be the first incumbent president to substantially win the popular vote but lose the election by a few Electoral College votes (yet another seriously flawed factor in our Democratic system). 

 

Can democracy survive while Justice is further postponed?  Or will Justice be foregone by fiat in 2024?

 

This is not my first New Year’s message of cheer.  It is remarkable to read the New Years’ entries from 2021 and 2022 while we were all mostly COVID bound. It’s like mirrors in mirrors in mirrors: 

 

Saturday, January 9, 2021

The Revoltingly Horrid Year Continues….

 

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

A Ground Hog Day New Year

 

And so, with a little editing, as Tiny Tim observed, “God HELP Us, Every One!”

 

Friday, July 28, 2023

The Continuing Political Piñata of the Pandemic

 


It was one of my better Op-eds, “Freedom” for the Few at the Expense of All (August, 2021)

 

The impetus for writing it almost exactly two years ago was DeSantis’ response to Covid at the time.  It was when he retreated from his original response (which was tempered by some sobering data), and he went rogue for political reasons turning Dr. Fauci into the enemy of the “freedom loving” people of Florida.

 

I walk into restaurants, theaters, or just down the street now and wonder, was it all just a bad dream?  Not really, the dream has morphed into yet another bad dream.  Maybe a worse one?

 

We now have more reliable data, but with the engine of conspiracy theories, abetted by social networking, it filters into the self-serving grab for political power, and we fail to learn from experience. The anti-intellectual vein of the American psyche goes deep, and populists very effectively tap into that.

 

One only has to read the July 22 New York Times article The Steep Cost of Ron DeSantis's Vaccine Turnabout, and then the lead editorial in the July 26 Wall Street Journal, The Real DeSantis COVIDRecord

 

Nowadays, an alternative reality is easy to “prove” and the WSJ does a pretty good job at that.  I’m not going to dissect the two, but my article from two years ago makes some of the same points as the NYT.

 

I will however quote the concluding paragraph of the WSJ article as it is so emblematic of how we can choose to look at this horrible episode in American history: “The lockdown damage continues, but progressives can’t admit they were wrong.  Nor can Mr. Trump.  So they are trying to take down Mr. DeSantis for being right.”

 

There was no “right” or “wrong” when we went through the dark Covid tunnel.  There was scientific advice about responding to the rapidly moving target of the pandemic, and that advice was based on informed experience. However, I don’t recall anyone claiming that it was a hard and fast “truth.” It was thought to be the best advice at the time.  Who was closer to the “truth”, Dr. Fauci or Dr. MyPillowGuy?

 

Trump’s “Evita moment,” ripping off his mask, after climbing the steps to the White House balcony (gasping for air), following his Covid treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, was clearly a high point of his political narcissism.  Look at me!  Look at me! Mr. Tough Guy!  But he received the experimental monoclonal antibody treatment not available to most of his fellow Americans who were dying from Covid.  He did not opt for the "miracle cures" he advocated (and probably killed some of his cult supplicants) such as hydroxychloroquine or injecting disinfectants.  No, he listened to health experts.

 

So would have DeSantis with his own life on the line. Instead, he surrounded himself with hand-picked health advisors who supported his views, all calculated to put him in the White House in 2024.  Lots of luck with that Governor; you didn’t count on the increasing popularity of your indicted adversary.  Trump or DeSantis: demagoguery is their commonality.

Friday, August 19, 2022

More Terminal Velocity

 

Tim Kreider’s, “Terminal Lucidity” taps into the relief many people first felt when Biden was elected but goes on to analyze the converging forces that could (probably?) result in the complete despoliation our democracy.  Trumpism acted as an accelerator, and since Kreider’s essay was written, let’s add increased tensions with China, Polio being added to the mix of Covid and Monkeypox, the FBI “Gestapo raid” on enchanted Mar-a-Lago, Liz Cheney being punished by WY, as well as the rise of “Foxy” deep-thinking media ladies Sarah Palin and Kari Lake.  Oh, let’s not forget recession or inflation (the Market cannot decide which), raging forest fires or floods or a water crisis here and in Europe, or to quote directly from Kreider: “It rained on the ice cap of Greenland for the first time in recorded history, and a chunk of Antarctica the size of Manhattan fell into the sea.  I’m probably forgetting something. Any one of these crises would take fortitude to contemplate; together, they amount to a demoralizing apocalyptic combo: impossible to ignore, impossible to face.”

 

Kreider notes that Democracy is the exception rather than the rule in human history, and its fragility must be guarded.  However, Trump’s influence on the American Zeitgeist did not end with his term as President. Conservative judges were appointed to the Supreme Court as well as at local levels, and state legislatures continue to Gerrymander and appoint obedient Electors to participate in the outmoded Electoral College. His toxicity will be felt long after he is gone.

 

We feel helpless in the face of the multiplicity of these crises.  As Kreider amusingly says: “writing your elected representative feels as effective as writing to Santa, and protest as potent a ritual as sacrificing a goat.”  And to think our threat comes from within, not from a foreign adversary, makes it more terrifying.

 

Liz Cheney’s defeat is highly symbolic as she stood for principle over Party.  Of course she was taken to the proverbial woodshed in a highly partisan State, but it shows the glaring weakness of our political system which the Trumpublicans (and let’s face it, there is no longer a Republican Party) are successfully exploiting.  To think that a State like WY which has a population not much more than Borough of Staten Island can have two senators and such disproportionate representation (along with many other States like ND, SD) is part of the weak link, not to mention the Electoral College and now the Supreme Court as well. (Perhaps States in which the buffalo roam should be demoted to territories?)

 

The Trumpublicans have already vowed swift retribution “when” they take control of both the House and Senate, punishing the opposition, having Hearings to look into the J6 Hearings, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Hillary’s Emails, the FBI (which the Republicans used to love), and who knows, human trafficking out of Washington pizza parlors, UFO’s, etc.

 

Anecdotally, someone I know has a young adult granddaughter who does not seem to be concerned about what is happening.  (She feels that she will be taken care of like she has all her life.)  And perhaps that is my greatest concern: those who will inherit the earth complacently think the “bad guys” will be negated by “goodness” as in some nice neat morality play (the macro version of a “good guy with a gun” protecting us from an active shooter in a school or mall). Kreider prophetically concludes his essay with “Once all the grownups are gone, it forces you to realize that you’re the grownups now.  You’re the ones in charge. And what happens next is up to you.”

Sidewalk of our Times

 


Wednesday, July 6, 2022

July 4 Ignominy

 

When I started writing this entry, the Highland Park parade shooting was just being reported.  Highland Park, Parkland, Any Place, USA, a land of gun culture.  In the absence of real gun control, our feckless representatives are accessories to the next mass shooting already brewing in America Land.  We fought wars to live safely and freely and now the cancer from within society is our greatest enemy.  This is central to the pieces I read during the “holiday.”

 

Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer for the New York Times wrote an interesting article for the July 4 holiday, The American Flag Belongs to Me, Too, and This Year I’m Taking It Back

 


Essentially it recounts a dilemma I have felt – our flag seems to have been purloined by the MAGA crowd.  But she had an experience which led her to hang “the American flag again for the first time in years. It’s right next to the front door, and it does not symbolize MAGA lies or MAGA tyranny. We are flying it proudly in honor of our fellow Americans who are fighting for justice of every kind.”

 

To me it is merely an inspirational piece.  Our partisan SCOTUS is just beginning to show its clout.  And the J6 Hearings clearly show Trump’s role in that attempt to overthrow the peaceful transition of power. Where is justice ask the following pieces?

 

Jim Wright’s Stonekettle Station’s wonders where Merrick Garland is in When Good Men Do Nothing,  He used to write these hard-hitting progressive pieces on a regular basis before migrating to Twitter.  Still he writes a monthly wrap-up.  Essentially his piece can be summarized by “Why should I have any faith in the Department of Justice?”   


Another weekender was John Pavlovitz’s When the Law Fails You, Where Do You Go?  He approaches the same topic but from the viewpoint of a humanistic pastor (which he is).  These articles are there for anyone to read, so no further comment on them from me.

 

I’ll add a piece I wrote eight years ago Independence Day Reverie Hard to believe, eight years.  I was startled coming across this as it proves the old adage, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  I was writing about the same issues as today, and this is pre-Trump.  He is merely an accelerant on our national nightmare.

 

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

A Ground Hog Day New Year

Happy New Year. One feels apologetic after addressing someone with that greeting, now needing to qualify it, saying this New Year has to be better than the last.  In the spirit of self analysis, or criticism, I once again look at my writings over the past years.  I’ve always said that writing this blog is not an act of self promotion, there is no advertising, no dialogue invitation (other than my email address if one wants to write me).  It is an exercise in accountability and remembrance.  I’ve joked with friends that it provides an alternative memory bank, particularly when it comes to books, cultural events, and travel destinations, the details of which are too easily forgotten as time inextricably moves on.  

We all have our opinions and our passions.  For nearly 15 years I’ve guardedly worn my heart and mind on my sleeve, and while looking back there are things I regret saying, but for the most part I’m satisfied.  Sometimes, I’ve even been prophetic, and now I’m alarmed by some of the things I write and think, those going to a dark, dark place.  Perhaps that direction is to be expected as I age, and feel its physical and psychological impact. 

However, most of all I fear that the “American Experiment” is beginning to look like the creation of Victor Frankenstein as we slip from democracy, to anacrocy, to oligarchy, destination autocracy.  We have abandoned the concept of “the common good” and are in a civil war, the polarization of just about every major issue.  This has been mostly played out in a grand political charade but incidents such as Charlottesville, and the attack on Congress last January 6 foreshadows where this might go as a hot war.  The proliferation of guns almost ensures some kind of armed conflict, most likely that very kind of guerrilla warfare.

We can’t even see eye to eye about COVID, extremists exploiting the issue as one of individual freedom.  I have written about this and our ex-President; the thought of his being the leader of our country could have been the punch line of a joke not very long ago.  His popular support ironically is not what he’s done for his followers but instead his giving voice to his follower’s hatred of the virtues of where we thought we were moving, into a more tolerant, ethnically diverse, educated society. 

It is bad enough if we only had to be concerned about the Trumpublicans mastery of propaganda and Gaslighting.  The liberal press writes much about the evils of Gerrymandering and I agree.  But, worse than Gerrymandering is the recent attempts to appoint local election officials, or representatives to the out dated, unnecessary, democracy-threatening Electoral College who are “sympathetic” to Trumpublican causes.

This sets up the real possibility that fair elections can be overturned as being illegitimate.  Then we will be a banana republic.  If election fraud does not work there are always guns.  Is it no wonder I am in a dark place?

At least a cultural light was on in this blog for a long time, but with COVID, many of the theatre and the musical performances which we used to attend in the past, and I enthusiastically wrote about, have been discontinued or migrated to Zoom (not the same).

My reading life has been disrupted by the chaos of our times and although I still try to escape in reading, I find myself less motivated to write about what I read.   Similarly, the piano: still working on improving my skills, but writing about it right now is a different matter.  (Stephen Sondheim’s death in 2021 was a shock and I will write about Sondheim eventually; what he has meant to me musically and personally).

Travel has been shut down, or dangerous, as the civil war plays out, the unvaccinated, the unmasked, claiming their “freedom” transcends everyone else’s. Thus trips I might have written about are no longer to be experienced.

As a society we’ve politicized everything and consequently progress with managing COVID has been disrupted. Years ago we were able to eliminate most smoking in public places which is clearly a danger to the non-smoker, but that took decades for “freedom-loving” smokers to accept, and the Covid issue is even more volatile and equally consequential. 

They accept the licensing of motor vehicles, but not of guns, again equally dangerous if in the wrong hands, or being military grade. I have written more than 30 entries over the years on the need for sensible control of automatic weapons, and covering incidents such as the recent Kyle Rittenhouse murders as examples of the consequences of no congressional action.  Even since the horror of murders of children at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT, now almost ten years ago, we’ve done nothing other than recite the hollow words, “thoughts and prayers.”

It’s open shooting season on the soil of our once sacred nation, each and every one of them intolerable, destroying spirit.  I’ve written to our so called elected representatives who answer with form letters or emails extolling “freedom and the sacredness of the 2nd amendment” as if it was handed down from heaven.

I am getting to my point.  Every year I seem to write less.  The definition of “banging one’s head against the wall” is “to attempt continuously and fruitlessly to accomplish some task or achieve some goal that is or seems ultimately hopeless.”  Yes that is where I am at with “freedom lovers” be they of guns, ignoring science, pursuing conspiracy theories, or undermining the very essence of our laws.

Ah, laws.  Another bête noire.  Here we are at the 1st anniversary of one of the ugliest days in American history, and our Justice System moves in glacial slow motion.  Of course we must be thorough, but at the expense of never bringing the masterminds who are responsible to Justice? 

When I wrote my 100th entry in this blog I posted a playful entry “How is my driving?”  Now that I;m posting my 726th entry, I no longer ask that question.  A better one would be, “why am I driving?” I am struck by my first entry from last year ironically beginning “Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?”  Talk about déjà vous.  I include that entry below as the same themes reverberate:

Saturday, January 9, 2021

The Revoltingly Horrid Year Continues….

 

Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?

 

A quote President unquote, whose name I cannot even speak, continues behaving like an unhinged mobster boss.  His attempts to coerce the Georgia Secretary of State to throw their lawful election is just one more manifestation of his never-ending quest not to be labeled a loser, which he is and has always been.  His behavior then was criminal, impeachable.

 

But wait, that has been forgotten now as this deranged man stood safely behind a bullet proof shield and urged his slavish rabble to storm Congress just as it was ratifying the Electoral College Vote to name Joseph Biden the next President.  He yelled, Stop the Steal!  He promised he’ll be there with them every step along the way.  He didn’t clarify that he meant that metaphorically, as neither he nor his followers know the meaning of the word.  Instead he retired to the security of his White House Media Room with family members and sycophants to enjoy the siege of his insurrectionists in what we would consider a coup attempt if we were watching a 3rd world government.  It was like a Super Bowl party to them as they watched his minions do his dirty work.

 

Criminal, inciting sedition.  This by a sitting President.  Unthinkable.  Punishable, impeachable,

 

So his job of demolishing the last vestiges of democracy and decency is complete.  He is a deluded anarchist and by pandering to that base he has created a populist persona with a dedicated following, ready to die for him.  It could have been a greater loss of life during the siege had those pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails been detonated.  Perhaps the deep rumble of explosions and their accompanying terrifying bright lights was what he was waiting for.

 

We’ve all seen this coming and with every despicable act we (and many elected representatives) have given him more and more latitude.  After all it has been reasoned, he doesn’t understand the consequences.  He doesn’t understand how government really works….

 

How easily the behavior of one tragically flawed person can obfuscate so many serious issues which are tossed by the wayside, the pandemic and distribution of the vaccines, the climate, racial issues, gun control, voter suppression, and a national debt from which the nation might not recover.  Meanwhile Bitcoins and the stock market rage on while the nation burns, and we wake up each morning, fearing the next disaster du jour.

 

Good riddance to our Mobster President who, unfortunately, will still be part of the cancer that erodes our society from within, no matter the degree of his exile.  Mar a Lago may be his Elba.