On the National Guardsmen Shooting and Its Aftermath

[Note: “Guardsmen” is considered a gender-neutral term by the military, and will be so used here.]

With all of the recent controversy regarding the Trump Administration’s repeated striking of an allegedly drug-running boat in the South Caribbean Sea on September 2, the shootings of National Guardsmen U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, in Washington, D.C. on the day before Thanksgiving have more or less dropped off the news feeds I see. All are aware that Specialist Beckstrom has died. As this is typed, Sgt. Wolfe is reportedly improving despite grievous wounds.

I haven’t forgotten. These shootings continue to resonate with me with a force that I now generally only feel as deeply – a sad reflection of the desensitization seeping into me in our violence-riven society — when hearing of school shootings.

But I’m not only heartbroken. I’m livid.

Because it was so unnecessary. Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe didn’t have to be there. They could have been home celebrating Thanksgiving with their families.

I consider two men responsible for their deaths: Afghani Refugee Rahmanullah Lakanwal; and President Donald Trump.

Make no mistake: Mr. Lakanwal – given the apparently indisputable evidence that he was the perpetrator — pulled the trigger. It makes no difference that he may have saved American lives through his service in Afghanistan, or that he and some similarly-situated Afghanis may not have received as much federal assimilation assistance upon arrival here as might have been preferable, or that he fell prey to radicalization after arriving in this country, or noting any other explanation some rationalizer might attempt to dream up. He killed Specialist Beckstrom. He irrevocably altered Sgt. Wolfe’s life. Assuming that he is found guilty of the shootings after a fair trial according him all the rights to which he is entitled under the United States Constitution, Mr. Lakanwal deserves whatever sentence he receives; if the death penalty is legally rendered, I won’t lose any sleep over it.

That said, I was surprised to see Administration officials so quickly embrace the phrase, “targeted shooting,” to describe Mr. Lakanwal’s act – not because it wasn’t accurate, but because it so clearly was – and as such, a damning indictment of Mr. Trump. Under any reasonable assessment, National Guardsmen – tragically for them, in the persons of Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe – were Mr. Lakanwal’s targets. Given the President’s ballyhooed deployment of National Guard to our nation’s capital, media reports of the areas they patrolled, and some simple reconnaissance, any unbalanced individual with much less than Mr. Lakanwal’s military background could easily project when and where Guardsmen would be. These two Guardsmen, walking at midday on a highly-traveled city street blocks from the White House with no indication of imminent danger, were no match for someone with Mr. Lakanwal’s training and experience.

Mr. Lakanwal simply shot the targets set up for him by Donald Trump.

Too harsh, you say? Consider the untaken alternatives: Mr. Lakanwal undoubtedly had hundreds of people in sight between the time he set out that day and the time he opened fire on the Guardsmen. One might surmise that at some point before the incident he had one or more D.C. police officers within easy range, who would have been no more prepared for his sudden assault than the Guardsmen were. He passed them all up to target members of the American military — who were only on that street because they were ordered to take part in what the Trump Administration has called “a crackdown on crime” – i.e., to participate in a quintessentially local law enforcement activity outside their traditional mission as part of an Administration public relations stunt which obviously has as its primary purposes the intimidation of its political opponents and scoring propaganda points with its gullible MAGA base.

So, what of this sacrifice of these two young people who had volunteered to serve their country?

Well, that’s Show Biz.

I would wager that in stationing Guardsmen in “Blue Cities” – largely against the wishes of local officials — Mr. Trump has been hoping for an incident in which cameras caught protestors behaving aggressively toward Guardsmen. I do not believe that he wanted or intended as tragic a result as has occurred – any more than a tavern patron who has had too many drinks wants or intends any automobile accident deaths that s/he ultimately causes – but anyone with the sense God gave a goose could anticipate that what did happen, might happen. In fact, on November 26^th,the New York Times quoted a California National Guardsman indicating, “he and his commanders worried that [their assignment to patrol Los Angeles] ‘increased our risk of us shooting civilians or civilians taking shots at us.’” In the same piece, the Times recorded that last August, Guard commanders involved in its Capital deployments issued communications “… warn[ng] that troops were in a ‘heightened threat environment’ … that ‘nefarious threat actors engaging in grievance based violence, and those inspired by foreign terrorist organizations’ might view the mission ‘as a target of opportunity’ … and that the mission ‘presents an opportunity for criminals, violent extremists, issue motivated groups and lone actors to advance their interests.’” The inherent risk was blatantly obvious. The President and his cohort just didn’t, and don’t, give a damn.

In the days after the incident, I saw reports indicating:

Item: Trump Administration claimed that Mr. Lakanwal was never vetted by the Biden Administration before being allowed to enter the country. This has now been debunked by so many sources – including sources that indicate that Mr. Lakanwal’s latest clearance came this spring, from the Trump Administration – that I don’t know if the Regime is still spouting this; of course, anything is possible from an organization that loudly continued to repeat a uniformly-debunked lie about Springfield, OH, Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs.

Item: The Trump Administration has halted the processing of immigration requests from anyone from Afghanistan. It’s not unreasonable to assume that many of these applicants are seeking refuge after aiding our efforts against the Taliban. I have seen reports that since returning to power, the Taliban has brutally persecuted those Afghanis suspected of assisting us. The Trump Administration halt is a monstrous overreaction to the evil act of one radicalized Afghani, which could well have fatal consequences for thousands of our Afghani associates ultimately abandoned as an outcome of a wrongheaded withdrawal agreement negotiated by the first Trump Administration.

Item: The Trump administration vowed to conduct a sweeping re-examination of “every Green Card” held not only by all Afghanis already admitted to our country but also those held by nationals from almost a score of other Middle Eastern, African and South American countries which the Regime has subjected to a travel ban. I know – I’m wasting my typing and your eyesight to point out that there is no logical link between a tragically-radicalized Afghani and thousands of other immigrants from across the world legally here under other programs. Given the “Ready, Fire, Aim,” Nazi Sturmabteilung approach the Regime has taken to immigration enforcement, perhaps thousands of unquestionably innocent people will be caught up in this surge. To state the obvious: if it proceeds with such an examination, the Regime will simply have used this incident as a pretext for indulging its racial, religious, and political biases.

Item: That the Trump Administration is looking into the possibility of deporting Mr. Lakanwal’s family. (Any competent criminal investigation will certainly explore whether others were aware of or complicit in Mr. Lakanwal’s act. If there is evidence of others’ culpability, either within or outside Mr. Lakanwal’s family, those whose guilt can be established should be criminally tried and appropriately sentenced, not deported.) Absent sufficient evidence of culpability of specific members of Mr. Lakanwal’s family members, deporting the innocents as a consequence of this incident is every bit as conceptually constitutionally sound as, say … holding Mr. Trump’s wife and children liable for the $88 million he owes E. Jean Carroll for sexual assault and defamation.

These measures, if carried out, smack of fascism – demonizing “others” for political gain with literally no factual foundation.

Are we done? Not quite yet. Let’s consider a potentially even more dire consequence of the assault upon Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe: that patrolling Guardsmen begin to view those walking around them as potential enemies – an approach necessary in foreign war zones, but frighteningly fraught on American soil (while at the same time seemingly becoming understandable). (If you were a Guardsman, wouldn’t this incident make you view those moving around you with greater suspicion?) Recall that the Times piece cited above quoted a Guardsman observing that the deployments increased the “risk of us shooting civilians.”

Let’s end this overly-long rant with the most idiotic irony: Mr. Trump’s announcement that given the shooting, he intends to deploy an additional 500 National Guardsmen to D.C. One just has to sit back, pause, and blink before continuing. As noted above, the pretext for this Administration grandstand is a “crackdown” on what let’s call, for purposes of this note, “commonplace” crime in D.C. If the shooting of Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe was indeed a shooting targeted at U.S. military – a rare point of agreement between the Noise and the Regime – it wasn’t even the type of “crime” that the deployment was intended to address. Not only that: I have seen reports that prior to embarking on his mission, Mr. Lakanwal was living in Washington state, not D.C. – so he could not conceivably even have been among the D.C. criminal element that Mr. Trump was intending to confront through the deployment. If Guardsmen hadn’t been in D.C., there certainly wouldn’t have been as many or arguably as vulnerable military targets in the city as Mr. Trump’s order provided to Mr. Lakanwal. Because of the President’s order, Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe were in place to be shot while taking part in maneuvers beyond the proper military purview by a malign operator who wasn’t covered by the Regime’s expressed mission. So, explain to me the logic of adding 500 additional targets to an already target-rich environment for deranged individuals in our gun-obsessed environment because of a heinous incident that wasn’t within the mission’s scope committed by somebody who wasn’t from D.C.

On the day they were shot, Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe’s ages averaged to 22 – which, in turn, is only half of the average age of our three children. These two young victims enlisted to serve their country – something I never did. They had their whole lives in front of them. They deserved a Commander in Chief worthy of them. Theirs, and perhaps the lives of thousands of innocent immigrants, have been irrevocably altered — in sacrifice to a propaganda stunt.

There is an episode of The West Wing in which Martin Sheen’s fictional President Bartlet makes a wrong decision, and a number of U.S. service members are killed as a result. The episode – among the most poignant in a series that all who read these notes know that I consider the best television program in history – ends with Mr. Sheen’s Bartlet standing on the tarmac at the military airport where the deceased service members’ bodies have been flown back to the states. Mr. Sheen is a great actor, and even without seeing the episode one can imagine the agony he shows as Bartlet as the caskets, draped in flags, are solemnly marched, one by one, by pristinely-uniformed, white-gloved honor guards, from the aircraft to where the President stands, with a brief pause in front of him, and then moved to a waiting inner chamber.

Mr. Trump is a father. I wonder: Does he ever think about the damage and destruction he has done to so many lives and careers with his deranged, malicious, shock-jock, made-for-TV machinations? In what is probably the most awful suggestion I have ever made about Mr. Trump in all the years I have been posting in these pages: He doesn’t.

I pray that Specialist Beckstrom can rest in peace.

On the Passing of Vice President Richard Cheney

The funeral of former Vice President Dick Cheney is taking place today in the National Cathedral.

Lawyers are loath to say, “Never” or “Always,” but if you would have asked me in early 2009 whether I would declare what follows here, I would have given you 99 – 1 against.

On the most important national challenge of Mr. Cheney’s life, he got it right.

May he Rest in Peace.

Will He Be a Dictator or Music Man?

“That [i.e., President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Great Gatsby-themed party on Halloween as food assistance benefits were cut off for millions, including millions of children] once and for all shows that Donald Trump doesn’t give a f—k about even looking like he gives a f—k. He doesn’t give a f—k – at all.”

Jon Stewart; Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; Emphasis provided by Mr. Stewart’s tone.

You and I know: I will never achieve that level of insight or eloquence.

After over a year of consistently pessimistic notes, let me put forward at least a ray of optimism – at least of a type – at the end of this note.

The chances that our democracy will survive exist in a two-word paradox: Donald Trump.

While those of us who are sufficiently economically secure have been pondering the dangers that the MAGA movement presents to our republic, the vast majority of our fellow citizens continue to confront daily financial pressures. The political ramifications arising from the challenges they face are perhaps best captured in the axiom famously expressed over thirty years ago by former President Bill Clinton’s legendary campaign advisor, James Carville: It’s the Economy, Stupid. For too long, I didn’t viscerally appreciate how the decisive segment of 2024 Trump voters, who had no autocratic sympathies or dominant prejudices while seemingly having an inkling of the danger that Mr. Trump presented to our democracy, could vote for him over “the price of eggs.” Now, belatedly, I get it. (I know – it frequently takes me a while to catch on.) (At the same time, I have noted that the progressive media that was stressing the overall strength of the American economy while President Joe Biden was in office is now focused exclusively on the economic plight of the American majority. 😉)

The painful irony for the current MAGA Administration – of which its cohort is undoubtedly privately well aware — is that the economy is, practically speaking, in exactly the same place as it was during the last half of the Biden Administration: Inflation about 3%; the most-advantaged 20% of Americans ever richer; the other 80% of Americans ever poorer; a “real” unemployment rate that I’ve seen one economist place closer to 25% (due to millions receiving inadequate compensation for less-than-full-time work) than to the federal-government-reported 4% (the latter figure derived from decades-old, arguably no-longer-relevant methodologies); and generally rising stock market indices, driven by a few stocks whose core – the advance of Artificial Intelligence – seems poised to deprive as wide a swath of Americans of jobs as did manufacturing outsourcing during the last half-century. During its first ten months in office, the Trump Administration has done nothing to improve the American majority’s economic struggles. Since it is still relatively early in the term, I would guess that if the Administration had thus far positioned itself differently, a significant segment of our citizens would have been willing to provide Mr. Trump a longer runway on affordability issues, but as Mr. Stewart has noted, the President hasn’t even tried to look like he’s doing anything about the majority’s financial difficulties.

From a purely political handicapping perspective, I have frankly been shocked by the scope and breadth of Mr. Trump’s political blunders during his second term (here let’s put aside the more important perspectives, such as humanity, morality, and the rule of law). While his ICE agents’ Nazi Sturmabteilung-like activities, his stationing National Guard and active duty military in American cities whose local officials didn’t want them, his aggressive tariff policies, and his blowing up small boats in international waters without due process might sit equably with his most ardent and ill-informed supporters, they have clearly offended a larger swath of Americans; and it certainly appears that he has touched nerves across the political spectrum by literally ripping down part of the White House to build what wags are aptly calling a “Marie Antoinette” ballroom, staging a Great Gatsby party as his Administration was denying food assistance to millions of children and adults (including Trump supporters); ramrodding through the law extending tax breaks for the wealthy while cutting health care assistance to millions (including Trump supporters); and aiding a right-wing Argentinian government to the detriment of overwhelmingly Trump-supporting western cattle ranchers. These are the kinds of oblivious botches that a first-time Town Council candidate would know enough to avoid. The President’s missteps have been particularly stunning given his heretofore impeccable political instincts. It has seemed as if he wants to antagonize as many Americans as he can.

The resoundingly anti-Trump voting results occurring in early November – buttressed by many Trump Latino voters’ evident recognition and repudiation of the Regime’s fascist designs – indicate that the majority of Americans are deeply distressed by one or more Trump actions. I recall a report on Americans’ political preferences from not so long ago that our citizens now currently divide themselves into thirds: about 33% Democrat, 33% Republican, and 34% Independent. There has been a widely reported recent poll that placed Mr. Trump’s approval rating around 37%. If those respective reports are reasonably accurate, even I can do the math: as of right now – a key qualifier — Mr. Trump has lost the support of roughly 90% of independents. I will venture further: as election analysts decided in retrospect that they underestimated Mr. Trump’s popularity in 2016 because many poll respondents were embarrassed to admit that they were going to vote for him, I sense that a percentage of those respondents who today tell pollsters that they approve of Mr. Trump’s presidency are unwilling to admit publicly that their support is wavering. The President is arguably teetering on becoming a lame duck – at least under the patterns of traditional American democracy — less than a year into his term. The issue is how Mr. Trump proceeds from here – both tactically and substantively.

This is where the paradoxes begin. If Mr. Trump still cares what his supporters (if not the majority of Americans) think, he may want to do something to satisfy them – and given his past political track record, one cannot count him out — but I would submit that it is not within his compass to actually help them. All along, his rank-and-file MAGA supporters have believed that because Mr. Trump hates the same people and movements they hate, that he cares about them. He doesn’t. This may — finally – be starting to dawn on them.

The Administration is accordingly attempting to run plays from the old play book – falsehood, distraction, and denial.

“It was a con job. It was a con job – affordability they call it – was a con job by the Democrats. … The reason I don’t wat to talk about affordability is because everybody knows that it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden. And the prices are way down.”

Mr. Trump; November 7, 2025

They’re not.

I understand that Vice President J.D. Vance has recently blamed rising real estate prices on illegal immigrants, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has blamed rising beef prices on mass migration. Mr. Trump has ordered his Justice Department to investigate Mr. Clinton’s ties to Child Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

I don’t think it’s going to fly. When you’re in charge, and your supporters are still struggling, trying to satisfy them by inciting old prejudices will only work on the most gullible. Mr. Clinton has been out of office 25 years, and I seriously doubt that the vast majority of Americans care what any DOJ investigation uncovers about him. They will certainly not be deterred by any revelations regarding Mr. Clinton from thoroughly exploring Mr. Epstein’s ties to Mr. Trump, who’s still here.

In a couple of posts over the last year, I have noted TLOML’s observation, based upon her years providing therapy to seniors, that one’s core characteristics do not soften with age, but instead become more evident while one’s capacity to temper regrettable tendencies diminishes. This will be even more pronounced in Mr. Trump, who has arguably never attempted to temper his distasteful characteristics. Throughout his life, he has been obsessed with appearance, prestige, and riches. He’s going to be 80. He’s reverting to his unvarnished core – the gilded Oval Office, his love as a builder of ostentatious renovation (the ballroom, posting pictures of the gold fixtures in the Lincoln Bedroom), grand parties with himself as the guest of honor. Our experience over the last 45 years seemingly indicates that he cannot improve the economic fortunes of struggling Americans without significantly altering the current American economic and tax structure favoring our well off. He won’t.

If Mr. Trump’s apparent current unpopularity continues and/or increases, he will perhaps soon be left with one of two choices: to become a Dictator, or a Music Man. Either fits within his visceral profile.

The first option is obvious, and has been described here in numbing detail in past posts: The President clearly believes that everyone who opposes him, no matter how loyal in the past, is his enemy; he declared at the memorial service of MAGA Activist Charlie Kirk that he hates his opponents; he strikes back at, and seeks to destroy, his enemies. Under this scenario, Mr. Trump will seek to install a de facto autocracy by fabricating an emergency and usurping greater power to himself than he already has, manipulate election laws and procedures, put more military on the streets of “Blue Cities,” intimidate opponents, limit his adversaries’ access to the ballot box in the upcoming midterm elections, perhaps invoke Martial Law and/or suspend elections.

My response to anyone who considers this option unthinkable: You’ve been asleep for the last decade.

On the other hand, there is a rosier scenario, which I would submit is also in keeping with Mr. Trump’s psyche: that in the last analysis, he was simply the Music Man.

All will well recall Professor Harold Hill, made immortal by the late Robert Preston (and if you don’t, your time will be better spent watching the film, The Music Man, than reading this note 😊), who enters River City, Iowa (of course, “Eye-oh-way”) and persuades its worthy citizens that its pool hall will lead its youth astray – that the pool hall means Trouble — right there in River City – Trouble with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for “Pool.” Prof. Hill persuades the River City residents to pay for instruments and uniforms to start a youth band, which will keep them on the straight and narrow. He declares that the youth will learn to play their instruments through his revolutionary “Think Method.” His plan – without giving away the plot for the one person continuing to read this who doesn’t know the story – is to leave town on the last train after he collects the money for the uniforms and instruments before the River City citizens realize … that the kids can’t play.

Mr. Stewart’s observation brought me back to what I believed about Mr. Trump back in 2015 and early 2016: that he launched his presidential campaign as a branding exercise; that his campaign was a con all along; that he neither expected nor wanted to win. His 2020 campaign was about fragile ego; he mustn’t lose. His 2024 campaign was about avoiding jail, making money, and retribution. Maybe he doesn’t want to be a dictator. Under this interpretation, although Mr. Trump shares the sentiments of true MAGA believers like Stephen Bannon, he doesn’t care about policy, or about the tens of millions he has scammed into believing in him, or about the Republican officeholders and officials whose party he has hijacked and careers he has ruined, or about what happens when he’s departed to his rabid disciples such as White House Deputy Chief of Staff (and de facto Anti-Brown-Immigration Czar) Stephen Miller, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, or to the truly hapless lickspittles he’s kept around for amusement such as Mr. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. His Supreme Court has rendered him almost immune from any action he takes while in office. His first two impeachment proceedings have proven that there will never be 67 Senate votes to remove him from office no matter what he does. When he takes Marine One out of Washington, D.C. in January, 2029, he’ll have Secret Service protection and health care for the rest of his life, a taxpayer-funded bunkerlike Mar-a Lago to live in, friends from Saudi Arabia to Moscow, and the riches he has always claimed but didn’t have.

Not a bad result for a branding exercise.

This is my Rosy Scenario, you say? Really?

I do. I am terribly concerned about what Mr. Trump and his cohort have already wrought for the generations of our children and grandchildren – irretrievable loss to American global standing and influence, a majority of our people remaining terribly economically challenged, a worsening environment, the AI challenge, lost intellectual capital, a spiraling deficit, the enhanced danger to democracies across the world, etc., etc., etc. Even if Mr. Trump doesn’t attempt to install an autocracy, another three years of his generally retrogressive policies will place our future in even greater peril than it already is. That said, if we emerge from this nightmare with our democracy intact, perhaps with the most strident segments of our citizenry on both ends of the political spectrum a bit chastened, focusing on issues of equality and economic prosperity for our citizens, we’ll still be the United States of America, and we’ll still have a better chance of righting ourselves than any nation in the history of the world. We can always scrape the garish gilt off the walls of the Oval Office.

I concede that you may well have concluded that I have succumbed to Prof. Hill’s Think Method 😉. Even if so, the notion that Mr. Trump might simply take the money and run provides me with some solace. In any event, perhaps this note’s reference to a classic American film has brought you a smile – and made you register a mental note to enjoy it again in the near future. 😊

The Canary in New Jersey

As all who care are aware, there are three elections of national interest occurring tomorrow: the mayoralty race in New York City and the gubernatorial contests taking place in the states of Virginia and New Jersey.

Unless pollsters are wildly inaccurate – manifestly not an uncommon occurrence – the outcomes of two of these races are foregone conclusions: NY State Rep. Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, will become New York mayor and former U.S. VA Rep. Abigail Spanberger will become Governor of Virginia. From a purely political handicapping perspective, liberal New York is obviously becoming ever more so in the Trump Era, giving Mr. Mamdani his opportunity, and although Ms. Spanberger is an impressive public servant, either you or I could win the state’s governorship as the Democratic nominee given the Trump Administration’s layoff of so many Virginia-based federal workers.

I would submit that the key race is in New Jersey. That said, I don’t consider the election’s outcome its most important factor from a national perspective, although MAGAs will trumpet any upset victory by Republican MAGA Trump-Sound-Alike Jack Ciattarelli, who is trailing his Democratic opponent, U.S. NJ Rep. Mikie Sherrill, in most polls. (I’ve heard liberal-leaning pundits opine that Ms. Sherrill hasn’t run a very effective campaign.)

It’s about the Latino vote. I’m going to be at least as interested in the relative percentage of NJ Latino citizens that vote, compared to Latino turnouts in recent NJ statewide elections, as in how they vote.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I engage in a volunteer activity that involves mostly immigrants at a facility in Madison, WI. Over the years that I have been involved, about half of the participants have been from Latin America. Since the early months of the Trump Administration, attendance has been WAY, WAY down. It is easy to see why; the activity I volunteer for isn’t life-sustaining, like a food bank. Although no immigrant participant has said so – they have just stopped showing up – it’s hard not to conclude that given the indiscriminate Trump Administration ICE activity, many have decided that no matter how legal their status, it’s simply not worth the risk of being swept up in an ICE raid to engage in a nonessential exercise. I can’t say that I blame them. Based upon my anecdotal understanding, many Latino citizens fear being swept up in an ICE raid.

For each citizen, voting is obviously a nonessential exercise.

By this time, one might suppose that a significant segment of Latino Trump voters who believed the President’s claims that he would only deport illegal immigrants if they were guilty of additional crimes have realized that they were had – that the entire Latino community is under attack simply for its hue and its accent. (If they don’t get it by now, they are seemingly beyond persuasion.) If Latino voter participation is significantly depressed in the New Jersey gubernatorial race – almost without regard to how Mr. Ciattarelli fares amongst the Latinos who do vote – Democrats nationwide had better recognize that the depressed turnout is the canary in the coalmine for the 2026 and 2028 elections (the 2026 midterms are exactly one year from today), and develop strategies to both encourage Latino citizens to turn out in the next federal elections and – equally important – to combat the overwhelming likelihood that ICE will establish a presence in the vicinity of heavily Latino polling places, purportedly to catch “illegals” seeking to commit voter fraud, but in reality to intimidate Latino citizens from casting ballots.

We’ll see what happens.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I know; a hardly original post title. Also, that you’ve heard plenty from me lately. Even so, a short one I can’t resist.

Earlier today, I saw a picture of the destruction of part of the outside edifice of the White House, apparently part of President Donald Trump’s plan to alter the structure. I had been vaguely aware that Mr. Trump had announced White House remodeling plans, but have been so focused on his authoritarian actions that although the notion of his refashioning the structure rankled – in the same manner in which I’m offended that he’s turned the Oval Office into a gold-trinketed stage – it hadn’t really registered with me. (As to the Oval Office, every new president decorates it a bit differently; I had expected Mr. Trump’s successor – if there was one – to simply get rid of the inappropriate, garish gold).

A picture of the President’s ripping at the outside of the White House – literally, destroying part of the structure – was viscerally jarring to me. I would submit that it will be instinctively repulsive to a wide swath of Americans, even striking a chord with part of the MAGA base.

If Democrats don’t start running ads displaying pictures of the destruction of the White House edifice with captions such as, “Look at What He’s Doing,” using those as the symbol of authoritarian takeover now being undertaken by Mr. Trump and his minions, they’re even more politically inept than I thought.

NO KINGS DAY: Signs and Omens

We attended the NO KINGS Capitol rally in downtown Madison, WI, this past Saturday. It was a large, enthusiastic crowd; media estimates place its participants at around 15,000. With attendant rallies across outlying Madison areas – a close friend at a rally in nearby Stoughton, WI (population 13,000), estimated the crowd there at 500 – the total turnout in our environs probably approximated 20,000. Probably not enough in our Congressional district to shake the White House, but we’ll get back to that.

There were almost as many clever signs as there were marchers. A favorite: a picture of President Donald Trump on a placard bearing the inscription, “Does this ass make my sign look big?” Another sign with a complementary theme, more poignant: a picture of Mr. Trump on a placard bearing the inscription, “Does this ass make my country look small?”

There were a number of signs mocking MAGA’s fear and loathing of “Antifa.” I’m aware that there is a debate as to whether there is or is not an actual “Antifa” organization – Mr. Trump says there is, and has sought to declare it a terrorist organization, while I understand that former FBI Director Christopher Wray has formerly characterized it as more an ideology than an organization – but I believe that the word, “Antifa,” itself, is simply shorthand for “anti-fascist.” Although no one on any part of the political spectrum should ever resort to violence, or be part of any group that is willing to resort to violence, since the arguably most evil regime in the history of the modern world – responsible for the murder of millions, including millions of Jews – was proudly fascist, these signs seemed to be asking: What is wrong with being anti-fascist? Call me dense, but aren’t we still free because Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill led their nations in a world war against the fascist creed? (Clearly, I’m not consuming enough alt-right media to understand the MAGA angst.)

On to the omens. A sign I saw during the march that I considered particularly telling and potentially counterproductive (clearly unintended by the wielder): “Too Many Issues; Not Enough Signs.” If you’ve read many of these pages, you realize that in the context in which we’re speaking, I’m a one-issue guy: preservation of our democracy. I consider all other policy issues we face, no matter how important, subordinate to protecting our way of life. We heard several speakers and chants yesterday whose point I – and I suspect other moderates — might under other circumstances question or seek to qualify. I consider NO KINGS to be brilliant branding because it brings all of those who oppose the autocratic inclinations of the Trump Regime under one roof. To save our way of life they must stay together. They cannot allow themselves to be divided or distracted by “too many issues.”

Finally, an encouraging omen that I would consider dangerously ominous if I were a MAGA: the reported 1,000 NO KINGS marchers reported to have demonstrated in Janesville, WI. Janesville has about 66,000 residents, meaning that about a percent and a half of its people stopped what they were doing on a beautiful Wisconsin autumn Saturday to demonstrate. I pick Janesville for two reasons: TLOML and I know it – we lived there for three years when early married – and because it is former U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s hometown and in the WI First Congressional District he represented in Congress. There were reportedly other significant NO KINGS demonstrations in other Wisconsin First cities. The Wisconsin First is now represented by Republican U.S. WI Rep. Brian Steil, also from Janesville. Mr. Steil held his seat by 2 points in 2024. There were also reportedly notable NO KINGS marches in the Wisconsin Third, currently represented by Republican U.S. WI Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who won his seat in 2024 by 3 points.

Referring back to my observation above, I truly doubt that the Regime cares about the Madison NO KINGS turnout; if there were only 50 Democratic seats remaining in the U.S. House of Representatives, Madison’s would be one. At the same time, I am confident that the Regime does care about holding the Wisconsin First and Third Districts in 2026. I don’t know whether political voter science has yet evolved to the point that analysts can project a candidate’s or issue’s overall popularity – or unpopularity – based upon the numbers of citizens who turn out at a rally, but clearly for every demonstrator who turns out at a rally, there are “X” more who don’t turn out but agree with – and will vote in accord with — the demonstrator. If I were Mr. Steil or Mr. Van Orden – or any other MAGA member of the House of Representatives across the country who won his/her office in 2024 by less than 5 points in a district where there were notable NO KINGS rallies last Saturday – I’d be feeling a wee bit insecure in my seat today.

On we march (figuratively as well as literally 😊).

Disparate Impressions

First, something I should have added to the recent post relating to the passing of former Wall Street Journal Personal Financial Columnist Jonathan Clements: although Vanguard founder John Bogle, legendary investor Warren Buffett, and Mr. Clements all believe/ed that the American stock market would rise and individuals would reap satisfactory returns over the long run by investing in no-load, low-cost index funds tracking the markets, Mr. Buffett has famously said that he has no idea what the stock market will do tomorrow, and Messrs. Bogle and Clements would have undoubtedly agreed. Accordingly, any funds one requires for an impending purchase should be safely harbored until spent in a federally-insured cash account. There – my Irish Catholic conscience is clear (at least on this score 😉).

It appears that President Donald Trump is brokering an end to the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Whether any settlement will last – at the time this is typed, the shooting reportedly continues, and Middle Easterners have been warring for as close to forever as you can get in this finite existence – Mr. Trump may be achieving what I consider the most important immediate priority relating to the conflict: ending the brutal slaughter of Palestinians, particularly children. Although Israel’s activities were obviously precipitated by the Hamas attack, its response has been savagely disproportionate. This is no reflection on the Israeli people, but on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who should be in an international jail for life. Although I am not the first to say this, I acknowledge that Mr. Trump’s intervention was pivotal. The “only Nixon could go to China” analogy is grossly overused, but it is accurate here. The leaders of the cooperating Arab nations trust him because he thinks like they do. Although the objective terms of the announced pact overwhelmingly favor Israel, Mr. Netanyahu could have suspended his military operation in Gaza long ago had he wished to do so. When Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Netanyahu, as he reportedly did, to cease his military assault, Mr. Netanyahu was undoubtedly mindful that Mr. Trump was the only American president since the founding of Israel who could if he chose cut off aid to Israel and get away with it politically.

Putting aside the moral dimensions and looking at the assassination of MAGA Activist Charlie Kirk in cold political terms, it is arguable that the only things that the deranged young man who assassinated Mr. Kirk achieved through his heinous act was to drive all reference to Mr. Trump’s relationship with convicted Child Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein – the one area in which Mr. Trump had seemingly been vulnerable with his MAGA base – out of the media consciousness, and to provide Mr. Trump and his MAGA minions a pretext upon which to more aggressively harass and stifle the free speech of Mr. Trump’s critics.

With the return of the NFL season, I have been spending more time with sports media. This may just now be registering with me, but growing up in a family plagued by addiction – albeit a different one — I am appalled at the emphasis placed on gambling in these telecasts. I have noted repeated ads by FanDuel, by DraftKings, by BetMGM, am aware that there are many other online betting organizations, and hear plenty of betting talk among the commentators. So let’s take a bunch of immature, unmoored, desperate, mostly impecunious, mostly male young Americans and constantly wave the temptation to bet in their faces, make it easy to bet, make it look easy to win, and see what happens. I have not read the 2018 Supreme Court decision that enabled widespread online sports gambling and concede that this decision is not the most injurious to the American way of life that the Court has or will issue, but that doesn’t mean that easy-does-it online sports betting hasn’t and won’t lead to the ruination of quite a few (disproportionately young) lives.

I am disgusted with justifications frequently put forth to defend those Congressional Republicans who allegedly deplore Mr. Trump’s policies – and him – behind closed doors, but through their subservience enable Administration activities. Those seeking to rationalize these Republicans’ behaviors note that these officeholders fear being “primaried” by other MAGAs professing greater fealty to Mr. Trump, and/or that they fear literal physical retribution against themselves or their families if they don’t adhere to the MAGA line. I don’t buy it. These Republicans — if such do exist — are in the Congress of the United States. Nobody made them run for Congress. Under the Constitution, they each get a vote as to whether the United States should declare war on another nation – and if they so vote, thousands of military families, whether or not they agree with the declaration, will find loved ones in harm’s way. So these gutless Republicans fear losing a seat in Congress? As to the fear of physical retribution, they should, given the responsibility they have voluntarily chosen, be placing their own physical safety below that which they consider good for the nation and their constituents. While all can sympathize with a member’s concern for the wellbeing of his/her family, my reaction here is: send your family to live where they cannot be easily located by MAGA zealots while you finish out your term, announce that you are stepping down at the end of your term, and then do what you believe is right during the remainder of your term. If you can’t do that, take the simpler approach, and resign right now. Grow a … er … spine. You’re not in high school, the frat, or the sorority any more.

Enough impressions for one note. Nationwide NO KINGS rallies are scheduled for Saturday, October 18. Judging by the national website, there will be one near you, no matter where you are. If you plan to participate, anticipate that ICE or other Administration agents will establish a presence. STAY PEACEFUL. NEITHER PROVOKE, NOR BE PROVOKED. In the meantime, enjoy the fall weekend upon us.

On a Prospective Government Shutdown; the Comey Indictment

As all who care are aware, the federal government will shut down on October 1 unless Congress passes the appropriate funding measures. The first time the government faced such a deadline during President Donald Trump’s second term, a sufficient number of Democratic Senators, led by Senate Minority Leader U.S. NY Sen. Chuck Schumer – to the extreme irritation of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party — supported Republican, Administration-supported measures to keep the government open. (I agreed with Sen. Schumer.) Now, understandably even further inflamed by Administration policies that are increasingly autocratic and clearly favor the interests of the well-to-do over the impoverished, and frustrated with their own glaring political impotence, many on the left are urging that unless the Administration provides certain concessions to Democrats (which I understand primarily involve ensuring against the loss or maintaining the continued affordability of health care for millions of Americans of lesser means), Senate Democrats should withhold the votes needed to continue to fund the government, thus forcing a shutdown.

All who read any of these notes are well aware that I am appalled by the Administration’s priorities and terrified by the direction our country is heading. While I acknowledge that Democrats’ choice has moral as well as policy dimensions, I nevertheless submit that causing a government stoppage would be an egregious political blunder for Democrats. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but the next time that Americans ultimately blame a government shutdown on the party in power … will be the first time. In these sorts of conflicts, the MAGAs have proven to be as savvy as they are ruthless. They don’t care if the government shuts down. One can easily anticipate that the Trump Administration will continue to pay federal debts, military defense costs, and immigration enforcement expenses, while laying off federal workers, trimming support for state services, Social Security benefits, Medicare reimbursements, and FEMA (remember, we’re in hurricane season). Timing is everything. The dangers to Americans’ health care costs that Democrats are seeking to avoid won’t meaningfully occur for months. On the other hand, how long will it take for those being laid off or on Mainstreet America to decide that Democrats are to blame for the jobs, benefits and services they’re losing now?

I’ll take this one: Democrats might be able to hold favorable public sentiment for about a week if they were skillful publicists. Unfortunately, Mr. Schumer and House Minority Leader U.S. NY Rep. Hakeem Jeffries couldn’t rally a class of kindergarteners to an ice cream stand. Democrats are seemingly expecting centrist voters, some of whom clearly either couldn’t discern or forgot that Mr. Trump incited an insurrection, ignored Mr. Trump’s 34 felony convictions, presumably believed that Mr. Trump would lower inflation while imposing tariffs, and were apparently confident that Mr. Trump would conclude the Russian/Ukrainian and Israeli/Hamas conflicts in one day, to look beyond the ends of their noses and grasp Democrats’ nuanced justification for bringing about a shutdown. I give the Democrats three days before they are publicly overrun by MAGA propaganda. The fact that Mr. Trump and Republican Congressional Leadership cancelled a negotiation session with Congressional Democrats scheduled for this week indicates that they agree with me.

I consider the October, 1974 Heavyweight Championship Title Bout between Champion George Foreman and Challenger Muhammad Ali to aptly fit the Democrats’ current situation. In the fight’s early rounds, Mr. Ali, the heavy underdog then well past his prime, let the younger, at that point stronger and more able Mr. Foreman punch himself out in the African heat before coming back to knock Mr. Foreman out. Mr. Ali understood that he had to absorb the punishment until the time was right to respond. If Mr. Ali had come out swinging too early, he would have lost.

The only way to win back America is to win at the ballot box. With all the obstructions I expect that MAGAs will institute to free and fair voting in 2026 and 2028, achieving electoral victory is going to be hard enough. Although it may be natural to focus on the 2028 presidential election, the Administration has moved so quickly to install an American Apartheid that the democratic aspirations of those who oppose its efforts may rest on Democrats’ ability to secure control of Congress in 2026. While premature gallant gestures will make some feel good, I would submit that Democrats cannot provide MAGAs with any pretexts that will enable them to shift blame for Americans’ difficulties elsewhere. I fear that progressives and liberals are living in their own delusional bubble as to how “the people” will ultimately attribute responsibility for the impending government stoppage. The time still isn’t right for a showdown. The one positive that could result from millions of Americans being callously deprived of their health care in 2026 is that no one – not even MAGAs – will blame Democrats. Democrats are so viscerally associated, across the political spectrum, with efforts to expand American health care that the coverage losses and degradations credibly predicted to occur in 2026 will be rightly blamed on the Trump Administration. If Democrats prematurely distract and inflame members of potentially decisive voter segments who may be having qualms about Mr. Trump’s leadership by forcing a government shutdown now, they may make their path to a 2026 electoral victory even harder than it already will be.

But what about the Comey indictment, you ask? I just added this reference to former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment yesterday to this previously-scheduled note to show you that I was still awake. While it remains important to note that the Administration was able to obtain an indictment from a panel of citizens who believed that there was probable cause, based upon the evidence presented to them by the Administration, that Mr. Comey had committed the crime for which he is charged, it is beyond any doubt that the United States Department of Justice is prosecuting Mr. Comey at President Donald Trump’s instruction because Mr. Trump hates him. The Administration’s action provides as clear a basis as we’ve had to date for the autocratic dangers I alluded to above. Frankly, although you have enough to worry about with your own psyche without hearing about mine, what surprised me most about the news of Mr. Comey’s indictment was that I received it with such equanimity. Then, I understood: the day this man was reelected, I knew what was going to happen. I already knew.

On California Legislative Redistricting

As all who care are aware, the MAGA-controlled Texas legislature recently enacted legislation redrawing Texas’ legislative districts in a manner that could net Republicans an additional five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 Congressional elections, and the Democrat-controlled California legislature has responded with measures which, if approved by California voters, will redraw the state’s Congressional districts through 2030 in a manner intended to cancel out Republicans’ projected gains in Texas. Other states may join the fray. Commentators indicate that on the whole, these machinations favor Republicans.

Obviously, gerrymandering legislative districts at congressional and state office levels by both parties is nothing new, although computer analysis now enables unscrupulous legislators to eke out advantages previously unattainable. At the same time, as all who care are also aware, until this latest exchange by Texas and California, mid-cycle redistricting (i.e., between decennial censuses) has been uncommon.

I would suggest that it is difficult for any analyst to predict the final result of these maneuvers. Redrawing legislative boundaries seemingly narrows the controlling party’s advantage in previously “safe” seats, and Republicans could be running under fairly adverse political conditions as the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” take hold and if his tariffs reignite inflation as many economists predict. Republicans currently hold a 7-seat advantage in the House of Representatives. Since World War II, the average midterm loss for the party in the White House is 25 seats. Democrats lost 50 seats in 2010 under President Barack Obama. Republicans lost 40 seats in 2018, the last time Mr. Trump was mid-term. If Mr. Trump’s initiatives sufficiently irritate the weakest segments of his 2024 electoral support, the Democrats may reclaim the House even if the California initiative loses.

I have seen different credible philosophical arguments about ethical redistricting. Wisconsin is a prime example: the state, with 8 House seats, has a citizenry divided almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans, but the vast majority of Democrat-leaners are heavily concentrated in the Milwaukee and Dane (Madison) County metro areas. While one can argue that congressional districts should be drawn to reflect the state’s even political divide, one can also argue that given the geographic confines of the Democratic strongholds, a 6/2 Republican/Democrat split – the current Wisconsin House composition – is not unreasonable.

That said, there is no philosophical underpinning to what the Texas Republicans have done. They have redrawn their state’s Congressional district boundaries because they perceive it to be to their political advantage, and because they can. It is a pure power grab.

Long prelude to a simple point: I support the California Democrats’ redistricting efforts. In the past, I wouldn’t have. I have generally been of the mind that if one stoops to the MAGA level, it’s hard to determine who the scoundrels are. But it has become glaringly apparent that in the struggle to maintain our democracy, there are few holds barred. I’m putting my scruples aside. If the California Democrats’ effort passes, it will be smarmy, but no smarmier than the Texas effort, or any other state legislature’s partisan mid-cycle redistricting efforts. All of these measures are apparently lawful, if unprincipled.

In the summer of 1941, as Great Britain finalized an alliance with Communist Russia after Nazi Germany invaded Russia, Prime Minister Winston Churchill – always a strident critic of Communism – defended the pact in part with the observation, “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” Less elegantly, Baseball Hall of Fame Manager Leo Durocher is by legend reported to have declared, “Nice guys finish last.”

We have descended to the lowest defensible denominator. I feel that I no longer have the luxury of being fastidious.

The Triumph of Politics

The title of this post is drawn from a 1986 book of the same name by David Stockman, most of which I’ve reread during the months since President Donald Trump began pushing the passage of his now-enacted “Big Beautiful Bill” (sometimes referred to as the “BBB”). For those with shorter memories, Mr. Stockman was the Reagan Administration’s first Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and probably the most responsible Executive Branch official, aside from President Ronald Reagan himself, for Americans’ initial plunge into our current escalating deficit-financed maelstrom. The tag line to Mr. Stockman’s The Triumph of Politics was, “Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.” I expect to refer to Mr. Stockman’s book in future posts; although the federal budget numbers and the ratio of budget deficit to GNP with which he was dealing over 40 years ago are incredibly small compared to those we now face, his book is a useful primer on the innards of the federal budget (with one exception: Medicare is now a much larger percentage of federal spending than it was in the early ‘80s). In 1981, the newly-elected Reagan Administration got its tax cut – those with the lowest incomes received a 14% rate reduction, those with the highest incomes as much as a 28% rate reduction — in large part because Mr. Reagan put all of his political weight (at its zenith, given his then-recent survival of an assassination attempt) behind the cut, since he believed, based upon his years in the movie industry, that the tax rates existing when he took office were an impediment to productivity.

Interestingly, in his initial chapters Mr. Stockman described how intense a political struggle it was to get the tax cut through Congress. Members of Congress of both parties initially opposed the drastic revenue reduction; they didn’t believe (as it turned out, obviously correctly) the claims of some Reagan Administration economists that the tax cuts would “pay for themselves” through increased economic growth. Mr. Stockman related that he himself never believed that the tax cuts would pay for themselves; his conception of the “Reagan Revolution” included tax cuts and a corresponding reduction in federal spending. His mistake, as he ruefully acknowledged in the book’s concluding chapters, was that he didn’t realize until too late in the process that members of Congress didn’t have the political stomach for spending cuts, so Mr. Stockman’s envisioned complete overhaul of the New Deal federal funding framework was left to drown in red ink. (Even Mr. Reagan, despite his rhetoric, was never as committed to spending cuts as he was to tax cuts.) It was … the triumph of politics.

Let’s move to the BBB. (I have it on highly credible authority that Brazilians following American political affairs were confusing the bill with an apparently-oft-performed Brazilian surgical procedure, the “Brazilian Butt Lift,” commonly referred to as, the “BBL.” Perhaps they think Americans will apply whatever tax relief they receive from the law to the adjustment of our … er … booties. 😉 ) All who care are already aware of the law’s primary components; it is generally undisputed that the law will increase our burgeoning federal debt by trillions due to its extension of Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately favor the well-to-do, while at the same time it cuts about 1 trillion dollars in Medicaid and other food and health care benefits for millions of impoverished. There are certainly circumstances that warrant affirmatively increasing our deficit spending – COVID a recent example – but we are not currently facing such a challenge. (To be fair, until we have the opportunity to right-size our taxing scheme – perhaps, I say Pollyannishly, under our next president — I would have favored extending the Trump tax rates for the first $100,000 of household income, which as far as I can determine through clumsy internet searching, would completely cover the majority of American households but affect less than 20% of overall U.S. income tax revenue.) The law is cruel and stupid. It is clear that a substantial majority of Congressional legislators knows it. Many Medicaid recipients projected to be adversely affected voted for Mr. Trump. The increasing deficits will seemingly ultimately result in higher U.S. treasury interest rates that impede our real estate sector and overall economy and perhaps hasten the need to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits beloved by seniors, the majority of whom voted for Mr. Trump in 2024. Any such accelerated permanent reduction in these benefits could in retrospect make many voters’ extended tax breaks a painfully poor exchange.

The BBB’s passage was, as in 1981, the triumph of politics; what I find intriguing is the shift in political dynamic over the last 40+ years.

In 1981, the Reagan Administration couldn’t get its spending cuts through Congress because legislators wouldn’t risk invoking the wrath of their constituents by depriving them of cherished programs. This month, the Trump Administration was able to obtain passage of its welfare cuts – although they will adversely affect a significant segment of Mr. Trump’s 2024 voters – because Congressional Republicans feared invoking the wrath of Mr. Trump. Put another way: their constituents now follow and accept what Mr. Trump wants – i.e., tells them what is good, what is in their interest, whom they should vote for, whom they should not vote for – without critical assessment. In 1981, Reagan voters supported the President, but members of Congress understood that these citizens would still independently determine whether a law was in their best interest; in 2025, members of Congress have come to understand that a significant segment, perhaps a significant majority, of Trump voters have outsourced their thinking to Mr. Trump and alt-right media. It is a stunning demonstration of the power of decades of propaganda. Arguably the most insightful assessment of the Republican – now, very largely MAGA – base was a comment reportedly made by former Republican Senate Majority Leader U.S. KY Sen. Mitch McConnell in reassuring his Republican Senate colleagues concerned that Medicaid cuts would outrage their supporters: “They’ll get over it.”

They will. By the time the BBB’s provisions adversely impact the MAGA base, they will be convinced by alt-right media either that the losses they are feeling are caused by something former President Barack Obama did in 2010, or they’ll be distracted by some provocative fable about immigrants. At the time this is typed, I understand that many MAGAs are incensed at the Trump Administration for declaring that it has no client list of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier child sex trafficker, after being told for years in their media silo that the government was staging a cover-up to protect Epstein’s powerful (whom they presumably believe to be left-wing) clients. Although in recent days I’ve developed a better understanding why MAGALand is so obsessed with the Epstein case, I still consider it ironic that while MAGAs bellow about Epstein – a matter which, no matter how evil the truth, has absolutely no bearing on their wellbeing – and revel in the Administration’s implied if not explicit promotion of their “freedom” to disdain vaccines and fluoride, they utter not a murmur of protest about the BBB’s Medicaid cuts that will hinder or preclude their access to health care — including that they’ll need to treat the diseases and cavities inevitably resulting from the exercise of their “freedom.”

As legendary CBS Anchor Walter Cronkite used to say: That’s the way it is.