Can We Keep It?

According to a well-known account of a conversation occurring at the end of the last day of the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, when the members of the Convention had just finished hammering out the Constitution under which we live today (as amended), one of the grand ladies of Philadelphia society, Elizabeth Willing Powel, asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

According to the legend, Mr. Franklin replied: 

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

By all indications, a Senate deal which would provide both stringent border protections favored by Republicans – controls, indeed, that I have seen reported as being much more rigorous than Republicans will ever secure in the future if in 2024 Democrats retain the White House and regain complete control of Congress — and aid needed by Ukraine to effectively continue its defense against Russia that enjoys bipartisan support, is about to be scuttled because former President Donald Trump has instructed his Republican minions in Congress to kill it.  It appears undisputed – this is the crux — that Mr. Trump doesn’t want our border challenges to be addressed because he wants to be able to blame President Joe Biden for the chaos during the upcoming campaign.  Republican U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney has called Mr. Trump’s action “appalling”; Republican U.S. NC Sen. Thom Tillis has called it “immoral” to reject a border deal to help Mr. Trump politically.  Bowing to Mr. Trump’s bidding, MAGA Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson has declared that the bipartisan Senate arrangement will be “Dead on Arrival” in the House.  After Mr. Biden expressed support for the Senate agreement late last week, Mr. Johnson sharply criticized the President, claiming that Mr. Biden should instead secure the border by executive order.  (The irony here is particularly thick.  Republicans have done nothing but accuse Mr. Biden of executive overreach ever since he took office; at the same time, Mr. Trump’s instructions could well politically backfire on him if Democrats have the savvy to run continuous reels, particularly in our southern border states, of Messrs. Romney, Tillis and their Republican Senate colleagues blaming Mr. Trump for the deal’s failure.)

I admit that I haven’t educated myself on immigration policy and issues over the last several years in the way I have intended; that said, it is clear even from liberal media outlets that — no matter whose fault it is, or what factors contribute to it — we face a human, security and logistical crisis on our southern border.  A large segment of our people are highly exercised about it.  Senate Republicans clearly think that the deal they have struck with their Democratic colleagues will markedly improve our current challenge. (I note that Mr. Romney said that the bipartisan bill would “solve” our border dilemma; I doubt any piece of legislation could do that.)

At the same time, I have for months been painfully aware that Ukrainians are fighting and dying daily to defend their homeland, that they’ve been running out of munitions, and that their ability to withstand any future major Russian onslaught will be extremely compromised without the aid that this bill would provide.  It takes no prescience for anyone who has spent any time over the last 80 years considering U.S. foreign policy to understand that not only Western Europe but America will be less secure if Ukraine falls to Russia.

There is reportedly a solid majority in both Houses of Congress that would approve the Senate deal if it was allowed to come to a vote.  If so, the fate of the suffering people at the border, relief for our fellow citizens whose lives are being disrupted by the onslaught of migrants, and the destiny of a Ukrainian people struggling to defend themselves (and the world’s democracies) against despotism is being hamstrung by the spasms of one old, evil, demented megalomanic.

According to accounts of Congressional Republicans such as Mr. Romney and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney, the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate and most Republicans in the House have nothing but contempt for Mr. Trump.  They nonetheless kowtow to him because they fear losing their hallowed offices.  In addition to rank ambition, a rationale sometimes offered for these Republicans’ shameless obeisance to Mr. Trump is their fear of MAGA physical retribution against themselves and their families.  These are frankly pitiful attempts to rationalize a monstrous dereliction of duty by those who have intentionally sought and won membership in the branch of our federal government that has the Constitutional power to declare war – the power to send our men and women of the armed forces to fight and to die on behalf of America’s interests.  Those in the military and their families don’t get the luxury of ducking their responsibility in order to preserve their positions and their physical safety.  They have to follow whatever these craven blowhards decide is in their own political self interests.

I’m not sure whether I feel greater antagonism toward those MAGA officeholders who want to institute an American Apartheid or for those Republican officials who would support bipartisanship if they did not fear retribution.  Frankly, it doesn’t suffice to call the latter group, “cowards.”  People are fighting and dying for freedom in Ukraine, and they don’t have the guts to stand up.  They are — I know what crass epithet comes to my mind as an apt description; but I leave that one to you.

Meanwhile, last week a jury found the MAGA Messiah before whom these Republicans prostrate themselves liable to E. Jean Carroll for over $83 million dollars for continuing to defame Ms. Carroll after a jury of three women and six men had earlier found that he had sexually abused her.  (If you don’t know and still care to learn what Ms. Carroll testified that the former president did to her before the jury rendered its verdict, the substance of her account is readily available via internet search.)  The New York Times reported that as he left the courtroom last week on the day before the verdict was rendered, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee loudly declared, “This is not America.”

I ironically agree with the former president’s aggrieved declaration – although obviously not with the lies he spews.  The despicable, toxic posturing and pandering now occurring in the United States House of Representatives is not America – my America – a country in which, to use Historian Jon Meacham’s analogy which I particularly like, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan have been figuratively debating our best course over the last 90 years.  The two have certainly had vigorous disagreements, and each in life was a wily politician sensitive to the moods of his people, but each always urged in good faith what he felt was best for our nation, believed that it was in America’s strategic interest to use our power to constrain despotism across the globe, and understood that compromise between divergent views held in good faith was the core of our system.

At this most perilous time, when I see a compromise that could provide vital benefit on multiple fronts sacrificed to ambition and fear, I hearken back to Mr. Franklin’s exchange with Mrs. Powel.

I wonder if we can keep it.

Anointing the MAGA Messiah

This week, I have gotten a pretty continuous stream of good-natured ribbing from family and friends about my oft-stated, years-long, seemingly seriously misguided doubts about Green Bay Packer Quarterback Jordan Love’s ability to be the Green and Gold’s leader of the future.  It’s obviously been easy to take the happy joshing.

I can think of no unequivocal pronouncement I have made or will ever make in these pages for which I more fervently hope to be proven wrong, and to hereafter be derided unmercifully for my lack of perspicacity, than this: 

Former President Donald Trump is going to be the Republican Party’s 2024 Presidential Nominee.

As all who care are aware, Mr. Trump trounced the field in Monday’s Iowa Republican caucuses.  More importantly, in what was an admittedly light turnout due to the extreme weather, the former President’s total (51%), taken together with the totals of Trump-lite Candidates FL Gov. Ron DeSantis (21.2%) and Vivek Ramaswamy (7.7%), meant that the MAGA movement claimed 79.9% of the vote, while former SC Gov. and U.S. UN Amb. Nikki Haley totaled 19.1%. 

In other words, Donald Trump beat Ronald Reagan in Iowa on Monday, 80% – 20%.  One could argue that the margin was actually greater, since it seems fair to assume that a good share of Ms. Haley’s vote was from Independents or Democrats, masquerading as Republicans for a night, who bitterly oppose Mr. Trump.  (Had I been an Iowan, there is no cold I would not have braved to register as a Republican for a night to vote for Ms. Haley, and against Mr. Trump.) 

An NBC poll of caucus goers indicated that 65% would still consider Mr. Trump fit for the presidency if he is convicted of crimes in the coming months; only 31% indicated that they would then consider him unfit.  Only 29% of caucus goers consider President Joe Biden the legitimate president; 66% believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump.  One has to assume that the vast majority of the 31% and 29% were Haley voters, and that a significant percentage of these were faux Republicans.

Although one might assert that my pronouncement is both premature and exaggerated based upon the votes of 100,000 Iowans, I would counter that the Iowa Republican profile doesn’t seem to be different from the profile of the Republican electorate in the vast majority of states. As a political handicapper, I really liked Ms. Haley (I certainly devoted a long enough post to her and her potential prospects 😉 ); but her inability to polish off Mr. DeSantis in Iowa seeming leaves the two squabbling over Mr. Trump’s table scraps, with no state in which either has a realistic hope of defeating the former president (save, perhaps, New Hampshire for Ms. Haley – a state whose Republican demographic deviates markedly from the norm). 

I was struck by a sign I saw wielded by an Iowan Republican at some candidate’s rally which declared, “God over Government.”  MAGAs no longer trust government.  They trust what they believe God wants.   We have heard Evangelicals supporting Donald Trump use the phrase that has become a cliché – “That I wouldn’t vote for him for Pastor, but I will for President.” 

All this is so seemingly absurd that one can’t entirely get rid of the notion that the good people in our rural and remote regions who make up the bulk of Mr. Trump’s support – perhaps frustrated with their situations, or angered at what they see as our mainstream culture’s contempt for their values, or worried about their futures, but not rioters; good neighbors — will suddenly wake up, will snap out of their alternate reality in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed in Star Trek happy endings, will see the former president for who he is.  One doesn’t have to favor progressive policies to realize that Mr. Trump is personally unfit to lead our country. 

It is what it is. Donald Trump is the MAGA Messiah.

There is one part of me that finds the early clarification regarding Mr. Trump’s impending Republican anointment a relief, to be able to dispense with any uncertainty as to what we face.  Since we started with a football reference, let’s end with one:  We know what teams will face off in November.  To preserve democracy, it’s time for both the Biden Campaign and us to strap on our helmets, and start to play. 

We can only hope that winning will be enough; but one step at a time.

Mr. Love’s Next Step:  A Postscript and Preview

In an April post entitled, “The Murphy – Gutekunst – LaFleur Era in Green Bay Truly Begins,” I marked Aaron Rodgers’ departure from Green Bay and ventured that the Packers had “seemed to me to be increasingly floundering during Packer General Manager Brian Gutekunst’s tenure,” and suggested that although I had “no marked criticism of [Packer Head Coach Matt] LaFleur, [given Mr. Rodgers’ presence throughout Mr. LaFleur’s tenure up to that point] I’m not sure he’s any better or perhaps even as good as [former Packer Head Coach Mike] McCarthy was.”  While I didn’t set forth my doubts about Packer Quarterback Jordan Love in that post, I’ve made clear in other notes my deep misgivings about Mr. Love’s ability to take up where his illustrious Packer Quarterback predecessors Brett Favre and Mr. Rodgers had left off, primarily based upon the team’s apparent reluctance to move on earlier from the aging and pricey Mr. Rodgers when it seemingly could have.

Fast forwarding to a little over a week ago, in a preview of the Packers’ then-upcoming game against the Chicago Bears, I noted in “Mr. Love’s Next Step” the Packers’ season second-half rise to the brink of the playoffs, and Mr. Love’s strong performance down the stretch.  At the same time, I observed that it seemed to me that Mr. Love had at times appeared shaky in games with broader implications, and indicated that the then-impending contest against the Bears – who had plenty of motivation to play well despite being out of playoff contention, and would field a fine defense – would be a test of whether the Packers “had something” in Mr. Love; whether, without anointing him as the “Third Coming,” he could indeed be “the Guy.”

Time to face the music.  Although blogging is obviously simply spouting – a fact that should nonetheless be explicitly acknowledged even by one with the word, “Noise,” in the title of his blog 😉 —  the Packers have exceeded my wildest expectations this season.  As all who care are aware, they defeated the Bears 17 – 9 on January 7, and in my view, their mastery over the Bears – who did indeed show up to play — was greater than the score indicated.  Mr. Love completed almost 85% of his passes – a feat that commentators indicated had only been done once by a Packer Quarterback (Mr. Rodgers) in the preceding 40 years – and threw for over 300 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions.  It was more than a stellar performance; particularly given the pressure of getting the Packers into the playoffs – which neither of Mr. Love’s predecessors did in their respective first years as starters — it was stunning.  We’ll come back to Mr. Love near the conclusion of this note. 

Given my earlier expressions of doubt about Mr. LaFleur’s capabilities, I’ll also praise his performance:  to get the youngest team in the NFL into the playoffs is a huge coaching achievement.  I’m won’t say he’s a better coach than Mr. McCarthy (I’ve always been a fan of Mr. McCarthy), but will concede that he appears to be as good.

Another necessary acknowledgement:  despite my deep skepticism about Mr. Gutekunst, the team couldn’t have made the playoffs but for the personnel he has selected over the last five years (notwithstanding the notable assistance of a few key players drafted by Mr. Thompson, such as Running Back Aaron Jones and Defensive Lineman Kenny Clark 🙂 ).      

As for this week’s playoff game:

I don’t expect the Packers to stand much of a chance against the Cowboys.  I expect Mr. McCarthy, who now leads Dallas, to make clear to his players that they can lose to a good young team that is playing without expectations, but only if they are both overconfident and fail to take care of the ball.

Although as I type this, I don’t care who wins the Green Bay – Dallas game – this is not the year that the Packers are going to march to the Super Bowl, given the talented and experienced teams in front of them – I expect these feelings of equanimity to dissolve at the game’s opening kickoff, particularly since Green Bay is playing Dallas.  In a word very rarely used in these pages, but appropriate here:  while I retain a residual regard and respect for Mr. McCarthy, I hate the Cowboys 🙂 .  Cowboy Owner Jerry Jones is one of the most repulsive figures in sport.  All the glitz, the ballyhoo, the boasting, the grandstanding, the gloating, the cavorting cheerleaders, and the smug arrogance that are the viscera of the Dallas Cowboys have made me always root against the Cowboys over the last 30 years no matter whom they were playing, including any of the Packers’ NFC North rivals.

Someone whom I suspect most cares that the Packers win:  besieged Packer Defensive Coordinator Joe Barry.  If Mr. Barry’s defense somehow stifles the Cowboys and Green Bay does prevail, it would presumably give Messrs. Gutekunst and LaFleur pause before replacing him.

Two final notes:

First, as to Mr. Love.  After the game, a good friend joshed me in these pages, “It’s time.  This is the Third Coming.”  I am still not willing to go there.  Given my veiled Biblical (and thus, in this context, somewhat blasphemous 😉 ) reference to Mr. Love’s ability to assume the mantle of Messrs. Favre and Rodgers, I believe that Mr. Love needs to win at least one MVP and perhaps a Super Bowl before I would go that far; but for the Packers, he is definitely “the Guy.”  For now, that’s enough.  Although we’ll never meet, as last week’s game wound down I genuinely felt great for the young man to have been able to so effectively shut up his doubters – including me.

Second:  because of my preoccupation with the current state of our civil affairs, even as I watched the game and saw Green Bay doing so well, I envisioned that in homes and taverns across the Wisconsin, family members and friends who bitterly disagree about the best way forward for our nation and will vote in diametrically opposite ways this coming November were high-fiving, hugging, and toasting each other as this Packer team – consisting of young men whom they will never meet – fought their way into the playoffs.  I am no longer certain, as politicians and pundits like to intone, that more unites us than divides us; but at least on this day, at least in this one area, such was indeed the case.  As irrelevant as it was in the scheme of things, it had to be cherished.

My mea culpas are concluded.  My soul, as one would expect for any Irish Catholic, has been refreshed by confessing my mistakes.  Absent an improbable extended Packer playoff run, this is the Noise, signing OUT for the Green and Gold this season. 

On Nikki Haley

[Several preliminary notes: 

A couple of the points made here occurred to me before I saw them offered by media pundits, so I feel free to use them;

From a political handicapping standpoint, I’ve been intrigued by former SC Gov. and U.S. UN Amb. Nikki Haley for some years, and that interest has resulted in this note becoming fairly long; feel free to pass on it; and

Despite my high regard for President Joe Biden’s conduct of the presidency, in the unlikely event that Ms. Haley secures the Republican presidential nomination and runs against him, I am very likely to vote for Ms. Haley – unless she begins to evince undemocratic inclinations, which I have not seen thus far–although I am much closer to the President’s positon on domestic issues.  My rationale is buried below.  😉 ]

Although it currently seems overwhelmingly likely that in November, we will be engaging in another existential battle to preserve American democracy pitting a seemingly increasingly infirm President Joe Biden against the now indisputably fascist former President Donald Trump, I’m posting this because I consider former SC Gov. and U.S. UN Amb. Nikki Haley Haley the only other announced presidential candidate who has a chance to win the White House in 2024.  Indeed, it is a cruel irony – perhaps for the nation and certainly for what respectable vestiges remain of the Republican Party – that if Ms. Haley were to secure the Republican presidential nomination, I think she would defeat Mr. Biden this November pretty easily. 

I speculated in these pages back as 2018 that if then-President Donald Trump chose not to seek reelection (we all saw how that went 😉 ), Ms. Haley would make a formidable 2020 Republican presidential nominee.  I noted then:  “She’s bright, knowledgeable, articulate, and attractive; she projects both toughness and femininity; she’s had executive experience as a Governor; she’s Indian-American, the child of immigrants; she was born and raised in the South, but as Governor removed the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state grounds; she has established foreign policy bona fides by representing us at the U.N.; she has fiscal policy views that appeal to traditional conservatives; her husband serves in the armed forces, and she has what appears to be a beautiful family; she identifies as Christian, but has a Sikh background.”

I well recall after over 60 years that the only Democrat my father, a rock-ribbed Republican, ever voted for was John F. Kennedy – because he was an Irish Catholic.  I submit that in a race against Mr. Biden, the demographics would all be on Ms. Haley’s side.  To begin, it’s hard to see her losing any of the states Mr. Trump won in 2020.  As a South Carolinian, her candidacy would probably both clinch neighboring North Carolina (the only state Mr. Trump won in 2020 by a narrow margin) and win South Carolina’s neighboring Georgia back from Mr. Biden; her immigrant and Indian background will be effective with a significant segment of minorities, which would both enable her to duplicate Mr. Trump’s 2020 victory in Texas and provide her an excellent opportunity to claim Arizona and Nevada from Mr. Biden; I would venture that she has finessed the abortion issue well enough for a significant segment of women voters to rationalize voting for her to finally place a woman in the White House; her charm and vitality would sway a sufficient number of young voters and moderate swing state Democrats and independents who won’t vote for Mr. Trump but are concerned about Mr. Biden’s age and Vice President Kamala Harris’ competence; and although she would lose some diehard MAGAs as a result of the inevitable attacks upon her by a vengeful Mr. Trump, she would retain the vast share of the Republican tribe.  (I vividly recall two Republican gentlemen who told me separately in early 2016 that they could never support Donald Trump.  Now they are both avid Trumpers – because at bottom, their overriding emotion is antipathy for Democrats.  They may be for Mr. Trump today, but will just as enthusiastically vote for Ms. Haley in November if she is the Republican nominee.)  During gatherings with family and friends this past Holiday season, a number of sure Biden voters against Mr. Trump indicated that they would seriously consider Ms. Haley if she was the President’s opponent, and one sure Biden voter against Mr. Trump declared that he would vote for Ms. Haley if she was the President’s opponent.  Mr. Biden’s candidacy can’t withstand that much erosion.  I would submit that Ms. Haley, if she was the Republican nominee, would have the makings of a landslide victory. 

I suspect that Ms. Haley and her team (and perhaps Mr. Trump as well; an aside on that below 😉 ) realize that two major shoes have to drop in order for her to wrest the Republican nomination from the former president.

The first is by far the easier but as things apparently now stand, not easy.  She has to beat FL Gov. Ron DeSantis in Iowa.  The longer he hangs around, the slimmer Ms. Haley’s already extremely slim chances of securing the nomination become.  Mr. DeSantis a hollow, boring candidate whose presidential effort has dead-ended.  He had every early advantage to present himself as the only credible Republican presidential alternative to Mr. Trump, and he fluffed it.  Now, he can’t get it done but he won’t give it up.  If he didn’t have IA Gov. Kim Reynolds’ support in Iowa, I’m pretty confident that Ms. Haley would have already eclipsed him.  I would suggest that the gaffe about the Civil War Ms. Haley recently made in Iowa – we’ll get to that below – arose not because she was trying to overtake Mr. Trump – although she would certainly like to significantly narrow the seeming yawning polling margin between the former President and herself (a feat which is difficult to envision, given Mr. Trump’s steadfast Evangelical support; after all, the former president has, according to a video we recently saw of an Iowa Evangelical, been treated worse than Jesus) — but to carve off enough of Mr. DeSantis’ support to give her second place and effectively end Mr. DeSantis’ campaign.  A second place Iowa finish will arguably make her the only remaining credible opponent to Mr. Trump in New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina.  If Mr. DeSantis drops out, he will – political pussyfooter that he is – undoubtedly endorse Mr. Trump.  Even so, I would suggest that if a New Hampshire Republican wanted to vote for Mr. Trump, s/he would already be with Mr. Trump.  A recent CNN/University of New Hampshire poll found Ms. Haley, with the support of NH Gov. Chris Sununu (who probably rues his decision not to run himself), to be trailing Mr. Trump by only 7 points among New Hampshire Republicans; if she claimed the majority of the 5% shown in the poll shown to be supporting Mr. DeSantis and a few of the 12% shown in the poll to be supporting former NJ Gov. Chris Christie, there is a credible path for her to beat Mr. Trump in the New Hampshire primary.

(The “birther” controversy that Mr. Trump has just hatched against Ms. Haley is, in my view, some confirmation that the former president agrees with the above analysis.  I would suggest that Mr. Trump is attacking Ms. Haley now, not because he’s worried about losing to her in Iowa, but because he fears that Mr. DeSantis will lose to her in Iowa, and the resulting boost the Haley campaign will receive if Mr. DeSantis withdraws.)  

That’s the easy part.  The hard part:  hanging around long enough in the face of what may be a string of primary victories by Mr. Trump for the occurrence of what is known in English literature as Deus ex machina – literally, in Latin, “God from a machine”; defined in my trusty American Heritage Dictionary as an “improbable … event … suddenly introduced to resolve a situation”:  in this case, an event that will disqualify Mr. Trump from the nomination.  Although the Republican National Committee is stuffed with Trump supporters, the Committee’s Rule 9 expressly provides that the RNC is “authorized and empowered to fill any and all vacancies which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise of the Republican candidate for President of the United States … or … may reconvene the national convention for the purpose of filling any such vacancies. [Emphasis Added]”

I would submit that if the RNC is suddenly looking for a reason to move on from Mr. Trump – for example, if Mr. Trump suffers a obvious health reversal, a significant number of states successfully keep Mr. Trump off the ballot under the 14 Amendment, or Mr. Trump is convicted of an insurrection-related offense this spring — the RNC might deem its nomination “vacant.”  Although a very unlikely scenario, it is perhaps less so if it appears to the RNC that some such factor has made it highly unlikely that Mr. Trump can win.  If the RNC took such a step, it’s hard for me to believe a court would intervene to interpret a political party’s rules contrary to the interpretation of the party’s own ruling body.  Ms. Haley would be the obvious winner in such a scenario.

As to Ms. Haley’s failure to initially list slavery as the cause of the Civil War – “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run; the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do”:  such was obviously disingenuous, a foolish attempt to thread too fine a needle so as to not offend the Trump and DeSantis supporters she is wooing.  That said – in a geeky aside that I at times can’t resist – arguably, she was not necessarily technically incorrect.  While incoming President Abraham Lincoln was viscerally offended by slavery and an implacable adversary of slave states’ attempts to extend slavery into the nation’s territories and newly-formed states, he was foremost a Constitutionalist; he viewed his primary responsibility as president to prevent the slave states from breaking their Constitutional bond by seceding.  In his first inaugural address in March, 1861, Mr. Lincoln declared, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of Slavery in the States where it exists. … One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.  This is the only substantial dispute. [Emphasis Mr. Lincoln’s].”  (Of course, the slave states sought to secede specifically because they considered the extension of slavery, unalterably opposed by Mr. Lincoln, necessary to prevent its ultimate extinction; if Mr. Lincoln privately agreed with their assessment, he was perhaps being a bit disingenuous himself by so apparently innocently proclaiming his intention to protect slave owners’ rights in the states in which they already existed.)  I think Ms. Haley’s gaffe will ultimately fade away.  I think her pledge to pardon Mr. Trump if he is convicted will, if she becomes president, likewise be easily waved away.

Two final points to this long-winded post:

Ms. Haley’s debate against Mr. DeSantis tonight is existential to her candidacy.  She needs to polish him off – which given their respective on-camera skills, is certainly achievable.  At the same time, if advising her, I’d recommend that she polish him off by mostly ignoring him – that she instead use tonight’s debate as the opportunity to take the gloves off against Mr. Trump.  His attempting to create a “birther” controversy – which she will almost certainly be asked about – will give her an opening to point out that if he is going to make such allegations – which are a slap in the face of all children of lawful immigrants, which includes all Americans except Native Americans – he should be man enough to come on stage and do it to her face; to state that those in the military, like her husband, are not suckers and losers as Mr. Trump has said, but our greatest patriots; to declare that it was time for the country to have new, younger leadership; and conclude by noting Mr. Trump’s continual complaining and declare to the Republican crowd, “Americans have never been complainers.  They’re doers.  Do you want to whine, or do you want to win?”

Finally, why would I vote for Ms. Haley (again, provided that I see no hint that she will undertake undemocratic measures if she is elected) against Mr. Biden when I think Mr. Biden has done an extraordinary job and I am closer to him on domestic issues than I am to Ms. Haley?  Two reasons, the less important first:  I am worried about the President’s age and doubt Ms. Harris’ competence.  The vital reason:  if Mr. Biden wins, the alt-right propaganda machine will immediately begin spewing falsehoods against him, perpetuating the toxic conditions under which Mr. Trump may attempt yet another resurrection.  While I am cognizant that voting for Ms. Haley on such ground is arguably placating the right, I would suggest that Ms. Haley’s presidency would give us as a people a chance to quiet down a bit, to take the breather we thought Mr. Biden’s presidency would give us (which it would have, but for Mr. Trump’s malignance).  If Ms. Haley wins, the alt-right silo – since its overriding emotion is hatred of Democrats — will naturally rally to her support.  Mr. Trump will, finally, be politically laid to rest – which is my overriding concern.  The former president would clearly be out of position to effectively challenge a sitting Republican President Haley for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination; by 2032, he’ll be 86.  He’ll be done – although we will need to watch for the next charismatic fascist coming to take his place.

If I correctly assess Ms. Haley as an American who respects our democratic processes, there will always be another election in 2028, no matter what she does after assuming the presidency.  We can chart a more progressive course as a country with a different president in a future election if we so choose – provided that our way of life has been preserved.

If you got this far, you must be exhausted  😉 .  You can’t say I didn’t warn you 🙂 .

Adolf Hitler and Thomas Paine on Perception of the January 6th Insurrection

As all are aware, today is the third anniversary of the assault on our nation’s Capitol by followers of former President Donald Trump, provoked by former President Donald Trump.

Earlier this week, MSNBC’s Morning Joe cited a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll which indicated that in 2021, 60% of adult Americans thought Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the riot; now, only 53% do.  Of that total, in 2021 27% of Republicans, 57% of Independents, and 92% of Democrats thought Mr. Trump had culpability; now, only 14% of Republicans, 56% of Independents, and – the diminution most surprising to me – only (relatively speaking) 86% of Democrats think he was responsible.

The Morning Joe panel professed to be reassured by the fact that a majority of Americans believe Mr. Trump bears responsibility for the Capitol riot.

I was appalled. We no longer live in an era in which we had to absorb our news through print media, with little if any benefit of pictures, an age in which written accounts would necessarily shift over time and any mental images they evoked in readers, no matter how initially vivid, would necessarily fade over time.  Now, we have the video of Mr. Trump speaking on January 6, 2021 – a record the accuracy of which no one disputes – urging his adherents, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”  Then, his followers stormed the Capitol.   

Over the last three years, given the information now in the public domain that wasn’t available in 2021 — the facts uncovered by the U.S. House of Representatives’ “January 6th Committee,” the number of convicted January 6th rioters who have said their actions were incited by Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, the guilty pleas by Trump lawyers to election interference-related charges, the almost-billion dollar defamation settlement paid by Fox News to Dominion Systems, the $148 million defamation award against Trump co-conspirator Rudy Giuliani to two Georgia election workers, the wide number of statements made by Trump White House staffers implicating Mr. Trump in various ways, to name just a few — the number of Americans believing that Mr. Trump bears responsibility for the Capitol riot should logically be significantly higher than it was in 2021, not lower.  Yet today apparently only a bare majority of our people believe Mr. Trump bears responsibility.

I suppose I should be heartened that we have the video of Mr. Trump’s speech and the ensuing actions of the rioters; it is alarming to contemplate how low a percentage of Americans would still consider Mr. Trump culpable for inciting the assault if the visual evidence didn’t exist.

When confronted with the effect that Mr. Trump’s repeated lies have had upon our people, I often consult his de facto handbook [which, even if (as he claims) he hasn’t read, he has absorbed]:  Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.  What follows are Hitler’s own words about propaganda, published almost exactly a century ago; I leave it to you to decide how relevant they are to what we confront today: 

“… [P]ropaganda is no more than a weapon, though a frightful one in the hands of an expert.

… It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses.

… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses’ attention to certain facts … whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.

The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real … its function … consists in attracting the attention of the crowd … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect.

All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to.  Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. … [W]e must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be exerted in this direction.

The more modest [propaganda’s] intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be.

The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses.

… The receptivity of the great masses is limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous.  In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan [Emphasis added].

… [Those who believe everything they read are] the great mass of the people and … the simplest-minded part of the nation. … To it belong all those who have neither been born or trained to think independently, and who partly from incapacity and partly from incompetence believe everything that is set before them in black and white. … [T]he influence of the press will be enormous.  [The great mass of people] are not able or willing themselves to examine what is set before them, and as a result their whole attitude toward all the problems of the day can be reduced almost exclusively to the outside influence of others.  This can be advantageous when their enlightenment is provided by a serious and truth-loving party, but it is catastrophic when scoundrels and liars provide it.  [Emphasis Added; included here for the irony.]

… The nationalization of the broad masses can … be … achieved only by a ruthless and fanatically one-sided orientation toward the goal to be achieved.

… The broad masses of a people consist neither of professors nor of diplomats.  The scantiness of the abstract knowledge they possess directs their sentiments more to the world of feeling.  That is where their positive or negative attitude lies.  It is receptive only to an expression of force in one of these two directions and never to a half-measure hovering between the two.  Their emotional attitude at the same time conditions their extraordinary stability.  Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in the fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward [Emphasis Added]. 

Anyone who wants to win the broad masses must know the key that opens the door to their heart.  Its name is not objectivity (read weakness) but will and power.

… The broad masses are only a piece of Nature and their sentiment does not understand the mutual handshake of people who claim that they want opposite things.  What they desire is victory of the stronger and the destruction of the weak or his unconditional subjection.  [Emphasis Added]”

This is what we are up against.  Propaganda is, as Hitler observed, a frightful weapon in the hands of an expert.  Mr. Trump’s support is, as Hitler would have predicted, extraordinarily stable.  Thomas Paine once declared, “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”  That said, in addition to concentrating on turning out the currently uncertain, disappointed, and disaffected who will, if in the ballot box, vote for Mr. Biden, the President’s team also needs to message effectively to reclaim as many as possible of the distracted 7% of Americans who in 2021 recognized that Mr. Trump was accountable for arguably the darkest day in our nation’s history, but reportedly do no longer. 

Since January 6th cannot be undone, let its reminder be a tool to help us save our democracy.

Mr. Love’s Next Step

In early December, in the flush of the Packers’ victory over the World Champion Kansas City Chiefs, I conceded that despite my years-long skepticism about Green Bay Quarterback Jordan Love’s potential to be a worthy successor to Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, “maybe – just maybe” — the Green and Gold had something in Mr. Love.

We are a long way from hailing Mr. Love as the Third Coming.  At the same time, he has unquestionably performed beyond at least my most optimistic expectations.  Operating an offense with accomplished but gimpy running backs and a receiver corps that has literally watched less NFL action than you have, he has Green Bay within one game of the NFL playoffs, he’s 10th in NFL Total Quarterback Rating, and is one of only three QBs with 30 touchdown passes.  It could be argued that if the Packers’ defense had consistently played this season up to the standard one would expect from a unit brimming with high draft picks, Green Bay would already have clinched a playoff spot.  The season started with the Packer Faithful wondering whether the team would be in the market for a starting quarterback this offseason; it’s ending with the impression that Mr. Love has earned a hefty contract extension.

And yet.  Although Green Bay and the Minnesota Vikings entered last Sunday’s game with identical records, I would suggest that the Pack’s dominant effort against the Vikings needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  Mr. Love’s bravura performance was against a Viking secondary whose members didn’t look like they’d ever been introduced to one another.  Green Bay’s defense held down a Minnesota offense playing backup quarterbacks and without one of its two best receivers.

I would submit that this weekend will be the season’s ultimate test for this year’s Packers.  If the Packers win, they make the playoffs.  If they don’t, they probably don’t.  Although besieged Packer Defensive Coordinator Joe Barry is probably going to lose his job in any event, any shred of a chance he has to retain it will in all likelihood depend upon how the defense performs.  The Packers get home field advantage against a Chicago Bear team out of playoff contention. 

That said, while the Bears have performed below pre-season expectations overall, they, like Green Bay, have played very well in the team’s last few games under Quarterback Justin Fields.  Chicago seems to me to have a subplot every bit as intriguing as the Packers’ playoff quest.  The Bears have the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NFL draft.  The team’s front office is reportedly (and if so, understandably) weighing whether Mr. Fields – himself their first round pick in 2021, who has been sometimes injured and mixed brilliance with inconsistency – is their long-term quarterback, or if they should draft the best quarterback prospect available next spring.  This weekend, Mr. Fields may well be playing for his job, at least in Chicago.  In his college career at Georgia and Ohio State, he played in a lot of high-pressure games.  His teammates are apparently behind him, and if they are, they will play hard for him.  They undoubtedly also remain stung by their unexpected opening week loss to Green Bay, which began the team’s disappointing 2023 downward spiral.

[I have no idea what Mr. Barry will do to defend against Mr. Fields; I’d be tempted to have Packer Inside Linebacker Quay Walker “shadow” Mr. Fields (who is as explosive a runner as he is a passer), and make it explicitly clear to Cornerback Jaire Alexander that Mr. Alexander’s performance this season hasn’t always measured up to his reputation or salary.]

Last year, in Mr. Rodgers’ last game at the helm, to make the playoffs the Packers only needed to win a game at home against another NFC North rival, a Detroit Lions team that was hungry but already out of playoff contention.  Detroit won.  The Packers were eliminated.  Mr. Rodgers departed.

Here we are again.

I expect Sunday’s game to have playoff intensity.  Not only is it the Packers and the Bears; it will be one of the few between Green Bay and Chicago since Mr. Favre took the field in 1992 that has clear major ramifications for both teams.  This season, Mr. Love has indisputably successfully shouldered the pressure of the comparison to his storied predecessors – neither of whom made the playoffs in their respective first years as starters — but has seemed at least to me to be a little shaky in games carrying obvious ramifications.  It doesn’t matter what happens after Sunday; if Green Bay does make the playoffs, it will in all probability be easily dispatched by whatever higher playoff seed it draws.  Given Green Bay’s uncertain defense, for me the key factor this week will be how Mr. Love plays – i.e., no matter the outcome, did Mr. Love play well enough to win? 

Some memories get rosier over time.  Mr. Favre was not BRETT FAVRE in his first year; despite his legendary arm strength, Mr. Favre occasionally underthrew open receivers.  Mr. Rodgers was not AARON RODGERS in his first year; despite his renowned accuracy, he occasionally missed open receivers.  I would nonetheless submit that Sunday evening, Packer fans will have a clearer idea whether Mr. Love has the makings of a worthy successor to Messrs. Favre and Rodgers. 

In other words, in a nutshell:  Can he be … the Guy?

To the Decisive Year Ahead

“You must not weaken in any way in your alert and vigilant frame of mind.  Though holiday rejoicing is necessary to the human spirit, yet it must add to the strength and resilience with which every man and woman turns again to the work they have to do, and also to the outlook and watch they have to keep on public affairs. …

[W]e have yet to make sure … that the words, ‘freedom,’ [and] ‘democracy’ … are not distorted from their true meaning as we have understood them.  There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites for their crimes if law and justice did not rule, and if totalitarian or police governments were to take [their] place ….”

  • British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, May 13, 1945

Before our last 4th of July holiday, I quoted these remarks by Mr. Churchill in these pages – which he delivered to the British people on a date after the fall of Nazi Germany but before the defeat of Imperial Japan, and as the indications of Soviet Russia’s designs for eastward European territorial domination were first appearing – and there’s at least an even chance I’ll cite them at least once more before another of our 2024 national holidays.  There has not been a time in over 75 years in which they have been as relevant as they are today, as former President Donald Trump, unabashedly using rhetoric that is often a direct lift from Adolf Hitler, seems poised to win the presidential nomination of a major American political party whose adherents now consist of the fascist, the poisonously tribal, the cowardly, or the blind.

For most of my lifetime, presidential elections have been won by the candidate that was most effective at obtaining the votes of those in the political middle of our electorate.  More recently, given a closely-divided, hyper-polarized polity in which virtually all of our citizens have hardened leanings either right or left, winning has involved turnout – i.e., which side is better able to squeeze more votes out of its supporters.

This year, if democracy is to be preserved – assuming that Mr. Trump does win the Republican nomination – the supporters of the Democrat opposing him – overwhelmingly likely to be President Joe Biden – will need to be good at both.  Democrats will need to persuade enough of the disaffected and disappointed – particularly among minorities and the young – that it does matter for their futures to go to the polls to vote against Mr. Trump.  At the same time, Democrats will need to convince enough older voters who would in normal times lean toward a traditional Republican candidate that what matters in 2024 is preserving democracy — that there will always be another election in 2028 if Mr. Biden is reelected, no matter what he does.

It must be faced:  Mr. Trump’s cultish supporters will not leave him, and will show up on Election Day.  Mr. Biden’s seemingly increasing physical infirmity and what certainly appears to be a mishandled situation at our southern border clearly hurt his prospects.  The animating issue of abortion, together with what increasingly appears will be a soft economic landing and Mr. Trump’s chilling fascist rhetoric, are obviously powerful political assets to help Democrats persuade the open-minded.  Foreign policy (our apparently waning willingness to continue to support Ukraine, and our clearly dwindling patience with Israel’s manifestly indiscriminate destruction of Gaza) and the outcomes of Mr. Trump’s criminal and civil court proceedings are political wildcards.

It’s going to be that close.       

So as we celebrate the dawn of another year that has been given us, and amid whatever other New Year’s resolutions you may be contemplating, let me offer this:  consider how you might, as Mr. Churchill suggested over 75 years ago, apply your strength and resilience in the coming year to the work we have to do to preserve our democratic way of life. Don’t let exhaustion win.

Thank you for the honor of allowing me to share these posts with you again in 2023.

May you, your family and friends have a Happy and Healthy New Year.

A Letter to the Editor

[Today, I emailed the following letter to the Wall Street Journal.  I have no expectation it will be published; my letters to the Journal never are.  😉 ]

In your editorial, “The Supreme Court Spurns Jack Smith,” and Peggy Noonan’s column, “National Unity and the Colorado Supreme Court,” both published shortly before Christmas, the Editorial Board and Ms. Noonan set forth an approving perspective of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices which I do not share. 

In your editorial, you applaud the Court’s recent refusal to provide an expedited ruling sought by Special Counsel Jack Smith on Mr. Trump’s claimed immunity defense, declaring, “[Mr. Smith’s] plea was purely political so he could meet his opening trial date … and get a conviction of Mr. Trump before Election Day in 2024.”  To the contrary, I find the Court’s declination to be a despicable dereliction of its duty.  The charges against Mr. Trump are credible and of the utmost import.  (In her piece, Ms. Noonan observed, “I believe that in the court cases [Mr. Trump] faces he will be found guilty of many charges.”  One can infer from the Editorial Board’s criticism of Mr. Smith that it expects that if Mr. Smith does get Mr. Trump to trial, Mr. Trump will be found guilty.  It is seemingly fair to assume that if Mr. Trump was himself confident that he would be found innocent, he would be seeking the earliest possible trial date.)  It is not “political,” in the partisan sense, for the Special Counsel to seek the earliest possible trial date to enable our citizenry to learn whether a leading candidate for the presidency is guilty of crimes against the country he wishes to lead and the Constitution he had sworn to uphold.  Does anyone doubt that the Supreme Court won’t ultimately have to rule on Mr. Trump’s immunity claim – while its unwillingness to proceed at this juncture might well delay the trial to the point that Mr. Trump’s Republican presidential nomination is a fait accompli notwithstanding any guilty verdict?

The Editorial Board’s editorial’s sub-head declared that the Supreme Court Justices “wisely” refused to grant Mr. Smith’s motion for an expedited hearing.  In her column, Mr. Noonan stated, “… I respect [the Supreme Court Justices], not only as an institution but individually, as serious human beings.”  I would submit that by denying Mr. Smith’s motion, at least six Justices have shown themselves to be neither wise nor serious, but merely political partisans, hiding behind their robes.

[Final note:  despite my disdain for the Supreme Court’s refusal to grant Mr. Smith’s motion of an expedited hearing on the presidential immunity issue, I actually agree with the main point Ms. Noonan was making in her column:  that the Colorado Supreme Court’s recent holding, barring former President Donald Trump from being on the Colorado presidential ballot under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, should not stand.  No matter how strong the legal reasoning might be, the former president hasn’t yet been convicted of anything; removing him from the ballot by judicial fiat smacks of political persecution and invites civil unrest.]