A Prologue: Preaching Unity … and Lancing Sedition

I took a few days to reflect on what we saw Wednesday, and a note entitled as above is scheduled to run Monday.  There are rarely new posts in these pages on the weekend since I consider those days better dedicated to faith and/or enjoyable pursuits than to policy or politics.  I make an exception today because although I do indicate in passing in Monday’s post that I consider Congressional impeachment efforts against President Trump for his part in inciting the storming of the Capitol, while entirely warranted, to be ill advised, it now seems to me to be a point worth emphasizing since such efforts are reportedly gathering steam.

A book I have frequently cited and quoted in these notes is The Righteous Mind, by Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, in which Mr. Haidt explores “Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.”  In his book, Mr. Haidt describes a plethora of studies that he conducted or reviewed that have enabled him to distinguish those who politically lean to the right and to the left by what he calls “foundations” of “intuition.”  He asserts that Loyalty to a group is one such foundation, and that it is a much more prominent intuitive characteristic of those who politically lean to the right.

I would submit that despite the understandable deep antipathy U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats feel about Mr. Trump – sentiments that anyone that has read virtually any of these notes knows that I share – I fear that in initiating impeachment activities, they are missing the forest for the trees.  They claim that they wish to prevent Mr. Trump from wielding the power of the presidency to perform untoward acts between now and January 20.  As I note Monday, Congressional processes are objectively too slow to be effective; if, for example, Mr. Trump elects to declare Martial Law or pardon his entire family and cohort, he will have plenty of time to do so even if both houses of Congress move with greater alacrity than they have shown since declaring war on Japan in 1941 [putting aside the fact that there is zero (that’s zero) chance of such speed in a Senate still controlled by the Republicans].  (I suspect that there has already been a greater informal check placed on Mr. Trump’s ability to deploy our nuclear arsenal than is readily apparent.)  I have heard Democrats declare that they “can’t let [Mr. Trump] get away with it.”  He didn’t “get away with it”; what he most craves is adulation, and how many of those that voted for him would still do so if a new election was held today?  The public relations battle has already been won with all but the most cultish of Mr. Trump’s followers.  Mr. Trump’s most prominent Congressional co-conspirators, U.S. MO Sen. Josh Hawley and U.S. TX Sen. Ted Cruz, today stand humiliated, their presidential aspirations seemingly dashed.  Mr. Trump himself has reportedly retreated into a psychological bunker, cut off from much of social media, chastened and humbled.  Why provoke him?  Haven’t we had enough evidence as to how he reacts when he is attacked?

If one accepts Mr. Haidt’s premises, even the scant likelihood that impeachment proceedings will either be effective or timely, or their possible impact on Mr. Trump’s behavior over the days before January 20, is not the point.  The point is how such will precipitate further churning of our hyper-partisan pot.  I have heard reports that Fox News Hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have already suggested that some other unspecified nefarious forces – certainly not Mr. Trump, despite the blizzard of Trump flags in all pictures of Wednesday’s insurgency – were responsible for the Capitol riot.  I myself heard a brief Fox News segment this morning haranguing about how Facebook and Twitter have locked Mr. Trump’s accounts – intimating such was a reprehensible violation of Mr. Trump’s rights, rather than focusing upon how many of Mr. Trump’s messages have been de facto incitements to violence.  One can only imagine what they might be saying on the even-more-aberrant right wing television, radio, and social media outlets.  The viewers/listeners of these right wing outlets actually believe these broadcasters.

For soon-to-be President Biden, given his need to rally us to begin to coalesce as a nation, the goal at this point is not maintaining the allegiance of those that voted for Mr. Biden; it’s obtaining the acquiescence of as many of our citizens as possible that didn’t.  If a vandal damages the foundation of your house, punishing the vandal is desirable; repairing the foundation is essential.  I would submit that it is wildly counterproductive for the future of our nation to undertake an action with little purpose or prospect of success that seems overwhelmingly likely to elicit the tribal “Loyalty” response in many of those who voted for Mr. Trump but are now, due to Wednesday’s events, more open to overtures from Mr. Biden than they ever would have been otherwise.

Madam Speaker, don’t cause currently-rueful Trump supporters to close ranks behind him.  Leave any repercussions for Mr. Trump to the criminal justice system after he leaves office and tribal allegiances have had additional time to cool. Wall Street Journal Columnist Peggy Noonan, emotionally calling for impeachment in her column today, notes, “I have resisted Nazi comparisons for five years.”  She has; I certainly haven’t.  Even so, I would suggest that for now, given the need of a new Administration, so close at hand, to forge greater comity among our citizens, it is best to let Mr. Trump – as my sainted mother used to say – stew in his own juices.

Thinking Two Moves Ahead

Given the understandable attention paid to the two runoff races for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, to President Trump’s seditious attempt to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to “find” 11,780 votes in order to gain Mr. Trump the victory in the Georgia presidential election, and to Congressional Republicans’ traitorous scheme to keep Mr. Trump in the White House by challenging certain states’ certified Electoral College votes when the College’s Electors’ votes are opened and announced in Congress today, another item has perhaps gotten less heed than in my view it warrants.

On January 3, the ten living former U.S. Secretaries of Defense — Ashton Carter, Richard Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld – published a Letter in the Washington Post entitled, “Involving the Military in Election Disputes Would Cross into Dangerous Territory.”  While Mr. Cheney, as a former U.S. Vice President, was the headliner in some accounts describing the Letter, it seems to me that the two most noteworthy signatories are Messrs. Mattis and Esper, who worked closely with Mr. Trump, and of the ten Secretaries presumably best understand his mental patterns — particularly Mr. Esper, who publicly distanced himself from Mr. Trump’s use of the military in a publicity stunt last June that included the use of chemical agents on peaceful American protestors in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square and, perhaps ominously, was relieved as Secretary only days after the election.  (The most significant aspect of Mr. Cheney’s execution of the letter may stem from the likelihood that he is receiving briefings on the President’s state of mind from his daughter, U.S. WY Rep. Elizabeth “Liz” Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House.)

There is a link to the Letter below.  After observing that “The time for questioning the [presidential election] results has passed,” the Secretaries write, in pertinent part:

“Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic. …

Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates … are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.

We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them. This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country.”

To state the obvious:  no group of Defense Secretaries has ever felt it necessary to publish such a Letter during any other interregnum, at least not during my ever-more-lengthy lifetime.  Think what you will of their politics, these men are accustomed to confronting adversaries, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, who abide by no rules.  They are highly intelligent and skilled at discerning what any enemy’s next move might be in any situation, and determining the most effective countermeasure.  I would suggest that the very fact that these men have published this Letter indicates that they have concluded that President Trump has not only the instincts but perhaps the aspirations of a fascist dictator.  One can infer from the Letter that they are anticipating the next steps Mr. Trump may contemplate if he doesn’t stop his quest to retain the presidency after the Electoral College votes are announced and ultimately accepted by Congress. 

Given the contents of their Letter, it appears tenable to suppose that the Secretaries have focused on a point that I mentioned in these pages some months ago:  although the Proud Boys and other aberrant groups can spread a certain amount of havoc while protesting the President’s departure from office, these kinds of groups are of little use to anyone seeking to overthrow a government as entrenched as ours; a dictator can’t be a dictator without the support of a real army.  Given Mr. Trump’s conduct of the presidency and his willingness to put pressure on Mr. Raffensberger in a blatant, unbalanced, and obviously doomed overture to change the outcome of the Georgia presidential election, it hardly strains credulity to suspect that Mr. Trump has expressed to White House and Congressional intimates the notion of declaring Martial Law when – as it seems it inevitably will be — Mr. Biden’s victory is announced in Congress at the end of today’s proceedings.  The Secretaries obviously considered it advisable to get Mr. Esper’s replacement, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who by statute is in the chain of command between the U.S. military and the President as Commander in Chief, thinking about his duty to the Republic before, rather than after, the Congressional proceedings today – in the event that the President hereafter calls upon him to perform acts that the Secretaries have labeled dangerous, unlawful, and unconstitutional.   

Hopefully, Mr. Miller is savvy and patriotic enough to have quietly had trusted outside counsel advise him as to the circumstances under the Military Code in which a subordinate officer can relieve a commanding officer.

I declared in these pages last week that unless Mr. Trump acted in a manner before Inauguration Day that constituted a substantive threat to our Republic, I was turning him off.  If these former Secretaries of Defense are sufficiently concerned to publish the Letter they have, I consider it prudent to continue watch.  Paranoid?  Hopefully.  That said, President Richard Nixon reportedly once told Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev that he respected what Mr. Brezhnev said, but made policy based upon what Russia did.  Based upon what Mr. Trump has both said and done, I would submit that we relax our guard at our peril.  It certainly appears that ten former Secretaries of Defense agree.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html

A Dangerous Complacency

The New York Times reported over the weekend that a group of 12 Republican Senators and Senators-elect – U.S. MO Sen. Josh Hawley, and a group reportedly led by U.S. TX Sen. Ted Cruz, including Ron Johnson (WI), James Lankford (OK), Steve Daines (MT), John Kennedy (LA), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Mike Braun (IN), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Roger Marshall (KS), Bill Hagerty (TN), and Tommy Tuberville (AL) – are planning to vote to reject the Electoral College results through which President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump.  The paper further reported that Vice President Mike Pence might lend support to the effort.  Such maneuvers will reportedly be supplemented by a cohort of Republican blackguards in the House of Representatives. 

As has been covered ad nauseam over the last eight weeks, there is not a shred of credible evidence that Mr. Biden’s victory was a result of fraud, a claim rejected by dozens of judges of every political philosophy, denied by state election officials of both parties in multiple states, and debunked by the Trump Administration Attorney General, William Barr.  Yet, these traitors persist in an undertaking with the clear potential to further undermine many Americans’ faith in our democratic processes.

These efforts seem destined to substantively fail; Democrats control the House of Representatives, and it seems highly likely that a significant number of Senate Republicans will vote with Senate Democrats to accept the Electoral College results.  What is so execrable about the scheme is that it is so patently political theater.  These recalcitrant Republicans are presumably well aware that all objective findings indicate that Mr. Biden won the presidency, and do not expect their antics to block Mr. Biden’s assumption of the presidency; indeed, they might perhaps be more reluctant to engage in this pretense if they actually thought that it might be successful.  They have resorted to a stunt akin to House Republicans’ repeatedly voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act between 2010 and 2017, political pandering that they recognized had no chance of success, only to be exposed as having no suitable healthcare replacement when the GOP actually took full control of the federal government.  That said, the Congressional Republicans engaging in this plot are either oblivious to, or so blinded by partisanship that they are disregarding, the poisonous impact that their machinations might have on the long term vitality of our democracy. 

Irony has piled upon irony as this travesty has metastasized.  While the President is undoubtedly thrilled by these lickspittles’ support – any number of observers have noted how simplistically susceptible he is to transparent flattery — I would venture that the three most prominent plotters – Messrs. Pence, Hawley and Cruz – know full well that Mr. Trump’s presidency is over, and in the guise of defending him are actually engaging in a battle for possession of his political carcass. Mr. Cruz’ foray followed and was arguably in response to Mr. Hawley’s announcement that he would vote to contest the Electoral College results; Lyin’ Ted didn’t want Schoolboy Josh to get a leg up on him in the race to secure Trump Cult support for a 2024 presidential run.  Vice President Pantywaist was afraid to be left behind.

Below is a link to Federalist No. 68, written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788 as one of 85 essays that he, James Madison, and John Jay composed under the pseudonym, “Publius,” to persuade Americans to adopt the Constitution propounded by the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  No. 68 isn’t that long, and worth reading in its entirety.  In a mild irony given many commentators’ current criticism of the Constitution’s Electoral College structure, Mr. Hamilton begins the missive by noting, “The mode of appointment [i.e., the Electoral College] of the Chief Magistrate [i.e., the President] of the United States is almost the only part of the system of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from [the Constitution’s] opponents.”

Messrs. Hawley and Cruz are members of the Federalist Society, a prominent association of the conservative bar and its acolytes.  Considering their relationships with the Federalist Society, one would think that these two knaves would have at least read the Federalist.  Given the intrigue they are propagating, a bitter irony emerges from later passages of No. 68, in which Mr. Hamilton extolls the virtues of the Electoral College:

“It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.  This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. …

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. … [The Constitutional Convention delegates] have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America ….”

The Avalon Project : Federalist No 68 (yale.edu)

As noted above, this evil – a word that I have but rarely used in these pages – charade seems destined to fail.  Nonetheless, these events have reminded me of The Lessons of Tragedy, by Hal Brands and Charles Edel.  Messrs. Brands and Edel focus on foreign policy, and the main premise of their book is that 75 years after World War II and 30 years after the Cold War, Americans are risking becoming insensible to the dangers that will arise if America fails to diligently tend to the liberal global order:  “… Americans are serial amnesiacs …. The U.S.-led international order has been so successful, for so long, that Americans have come to take it for granted.”

I see a domestic parallel.  I would submit that the Republicans purportedly seeking to overturn the election – motivated by ambition, hateful partisanship, ignorance, or hysteria – are presuming an invulnerability about American democratic safeguards that the Founding Fathers, who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor when declaring our nation’s independence from a tyrant, or Presidents of both parties such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, who defended us against the existential threats presented by the Nazis and/or the Soviets, never would.  This is why we have never before seen anywhere near this level of such frankly un-American behavior, no matter how bitterly-contested or closely-decided our elections have been.  I fear that we have enjoyed our freedoms for so long that some of those to whom we have entrusted the protection of our republic have, to borrow Messrs. Brands’ and Edel’s phrase, come to take them for granted; we invite tragedy if enough of us cannot abide the lesson that in our system of government, neither winning nor self-interest is paramount.

Turning Off the Trump Show

It has been clear to all rational observers since the end of the first week in November that President Donald J. Trump had lost his bid for re-election.  During these weeks of interregnum – if he had acted in a classy manner, if he had hyped his Administration’s leadership in the development of Coronavirus vaccines instead of wallowing in his own perceived personal misfortunes, if he had pushed recalcitrant Republican members of Congress to boost payments to Americans in need – Mr. Trump could – even if just for his own self-interest, which is obviously all he cares about — have laid pretty credible – if unnerving — groundwork for a comeback.  He has instead roiled the nation in a petulant tantrum that wouldn’t be acceptable from a three-year-old, actively harmed our national security by obstructing the transition to the Biden Administration that all – including him – know is going to occur, ludicrously discounted the unanimous opinion of analysts (including his own Secretary of State) that the recent deep and widespread penetration of our governmental and private systems was perpetrated by Russia, abandoned his post as thousands more Americans succumbed to the pandemic, pardoned mass murderers and those that collaborated with Russians to get him elected in 2016, vetoed the National Defense Appropriations Act, which provides for military pay and funds many strategic defense initiatives, in a fit of pique over Congress’ plans to rename military installations now named for Confederate luminaries and its refusal to remove certain legal protections for internet companies, and most appallingly — perhaps the most “Let them eat cake” moment in American history – held up, while playing golf, in signing the torturously-negotiated Congressional COVID-relief bill, a pause which will reportedly cause a delay in payment of unemployment benefits to millions of Americans on the edge of starvation or eviction.  (Mr. Trump’s call for a sharp increase in benefits for Americans, after the bill had passed, is a transparent populist ploy to spite Republicans whom he considers to have deserted him by acknowledging Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory). 

As I commented once before in these pages, the final irony emerging from these days’ events is Mr. Trump’s evident willingness to do anything to stay in power when contrasted with his equally evident lack of interest in actually doing the job.

I would suggest that the manner in which Mr. Trump has behaved since his defeat indicates that despite any future feints, he has no intent to return in an elected capacity.  I will venture that when the smoke clears, his behavior throughout his term and after the election will reduce him to a niche — albeit impressive — political and media force, which may be all he truly ever wanted when he launched his seemingly quixotic 2016 campaign.  Given the devastatingly effective manner in which he has damaged our institutions and placed doubt in so many Americans’ minds regarding the integrity of our democratic processes, the suspicion that he is a Russian puppet will persist in the mind of anyone that has done any reading regarding the ways and means of Russian President Vladimir Putin (although, as also previously noted in these pages, Bob Woodward reported in his book, Rage, that Trump Administration Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats “… suspected the worst but found nothing that would show Trump was indeed in Putin’s pocket.”) 

I’m confident that President-Elect Biden and his aides already recognize that Mr. Trump will continue to be either a knowing or unwitting Russian corroder of American democracy in his post-presidency.  How to handle Mr. Trump will be one of the most difficult decisions for the incoming President and his team, requiring sensitivity akin to that which will be needed in dealing with the Coronavirus, managing relations with our foreign allies and adversaries, and coming to grips with our exploding debt and burgeoning social benefits obligations.  Any decision by the Biden Administration to prosecute Mr. Trump and his cohort in the name of the rule of law on what will undoubtedly be a myriad of valid grounds will keep Mr. Trump in the spotlight, provide his followers a rallying point, force mainstream Republicans to defend him, and earn him millions in a defense fund, all while offering little chance of a conviction; any decision by the Administration not to pursue him will signal an acquiescence to the disintegration of the rule of law, perhaps serve as an invitation to malefaction for Mr. Trump and others, and leave Mr. Biden open to divisive attack by inflamed and disenchanted progressives.  My current inclination is that the latter course will be marginally less destructive to our nation than the former, but it’s awfully close, and my own view might shift depending upon what might be uncovered after Mr. Trump leaves the White House. 

During the last five years, it cannot be gainsaid that President Trump struck a chord in the American psyche which will continue to reverberate after his term ends, and will need to be addressed if we are to go forth as a cohesive people.  These pages will undoubtedly cite him in the future as a touchstone when considering the evolution of our political environment.  That said, unless Mr. Trump executes machinations before Inauguration Day constituting a substantive threat to our Republic, I’m turning off the Trump Show for now.  In recent days, I’ve actually engaged in the luxury of reading on substantive policy issues – reading for which I found that I had little enthusiasm while the danger of a second Trump term, and what I feared it would mean for American democracy, loomed large.  In Rage, Mr. Woodward reports a comment made by Mr. Trump during their last conversation on July 21, 2020, that I was surprised to see neither Mr. Woodward nor any other reviewer remark upon, they perhaps deeming it innocuous … but to me resonating as the most ominous: 

“‘You don’t understand me,’ [Mr. Trump] said [to Mr. Woodward]. ‘You don’t understand me.  But that’s okay.  You’ll understand me after the election.  But you don’t understand me now.  I don’t think you get it.  And that’s okay.’”  [Emphasis Added]   

Stay safe.  Despite the perils ahead, the prospective departure of a President with fascist instincts and the arrival of Coronavirus vaccines truly offer reasons to be hopeful for a better 2021. 

Happy New Year.

Happy Holidays

[These pages may well address on another day the continuing flagrant – if hardly surprising – depravity we are witnessing as the Trump Administration dissolves.  It seems that the remainder of at least this week is best devoted to what Mr. Lincoln in his first Inaugural Address called, “the better angels of our nature.”]  

Perhaps you believe that God sent His (hopefully all will excuse this note’s use of male pronouns for the Almighty) only Son into the world as the Sacrificial Lamb that redeemed us from our sins.  Perhaps your Faith, proclaimed by the Prophets, holds the promise of a Messiah yet to come.  Perhaps you worship Allah, and abide by the teachings promulgated by his Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad.  Perhaps you devoutly follow one of the great Eastern or other sacred Faiths, of which my own knowledge is embarrassingly inadequate (a gap on my retirement list yet to be addressed).  Perhaps you have placed your trust in the Great Spirit of Native American tradition, or have made your own peace with a Being beyond our comprehension.  I believe that one who lives a life pleasing to the Almighty will be reconciled to Him, no matter by what path one has chosen to reach Him.  After a terribly challenging year on so many levels – including a virus which might be characterized as a plague, by Biblical standards – let us hope that as we take heart from what will be an uncommonly limited level of community with family and friends as this year ends, the Almighty provides us the strength, grace, and wisdom to have greater understanding in the coming year for the justifiable concerns of others, and that we work together so that by the end of next year, life will be at least a little better for at least some of those of our citizens and around the world beset by so many burdens.

Have Happy and Safe Holidays.   

Not in Our Stars

“The President … shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

  • United States Constitution, Article II, Section 4

As indicated in these pages close to a year ago, as soon as I read the word, “Biden,” in the White House Memorandum of the call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, which undisputedly showed an American President pressuring the leader of a vulnerable foreign ally to help him politically against another American, Mr. Trump’s despicable conduct – call it a “high Crime” if you prefer; I considered it Treason — was ample evidence that he was unworthy of the office he holds, and of the American people.  While he was impeached in the House of Representatives, the Republican sycophants in the Senate refused to remove him from office, more concerned about their own careers than about the good of our nation, Congressional responsibility, and our democratic processes.

“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

  • United States Constitution, Amendment XXV, Section 4

A number of trustworthy news outlets have recently reported that during the past week, President Trump inquired about the feasibility of a scheme, offered on a conservative media outlet by his convicted and now pardoned former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, that Mr. Trump impose martial law in the swing states won by President-Elect Joe Biden and have the military redo the presidential election in those states.  It has also been credibly reported that Mr. Trump has suggested that the Department of Homeland Security should seize voting machines in swing states in order to investigate baseless claims of election fraud thrown out across the country by judges of every judicial philosophy.  If the reporting is accurate, these and other far-fetched strategies have been, thus far, shut down by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who have been two of the President’s staunchest loyalists – hardly pillars that give one confidence that our Constitutional safeguards will hold.

We have no idea at this point whether Mr. Trump actually believes the lies regarding election fraud that he has so perniciously spread over the last six weeks.  His niece, Dr. Mary Trump, stated in her book, Too Much and Never Enough, “The people with access to [Mr. Trump] are weaker than Donald is, more craven, but just as desperate.  Their futures are directly dependent on his success and favor. … His pathologies have rendered him so simple-minded than it takes nothing more than repeating to him the things he says to and about himself … to get him to do whatever they want …” 

Most charitably, the President has come to believe his own fantasies, and is now dangerously unbalanced.  More malevolently, he knows his claims are lies and simply seeks to hold on to power at any cost.  (Although such intent would constitute treason, there is no longer time for Congressional impeachment and removal proceedings, even if such had any prospect of success.)  In either event, Mr. Trump is manifestly “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”  (For as steadfast a defender of the President, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, to stage as abrupt a reversal as he has in recent weeks – first indicating that there was insufficient evidence of fraud to affect the outcome of the presidential election, more recently declaring, despite the President’s protestations, that Russia was responsible for the recent deep and widespread hack of federal government systems and adding that there was no ground for the federal government to seize swing state voting machines or for a special prosecutor to investigate Hunter Biden or the election – makes one ponder whether Mr. Barr has noted something increasingly disquieting in Mr. Trump’s conduct since the election.)  Despite all of this, can we have any hope that Vice President Mike Pence and a majority of Cabinet officers will have the courage to institute proceedings under Amendment XXV to protect our nation?  To ask the question is to answer it.

I am tired of Donald Trump.  I am tired of writing about Donald Trump.  (Something of which the President himself is only too well aware:  he shrinks without a spotlight.)  This should be the time focus on the myriad of daunting substantive domestic and foreign policy concerns that will confront us upon Mr. Biden’s inauguration.  That said, we may still be facing the most perilous 30 days that our nation has seen since the darkest days of World War II, or perhaps the Cuban Missile Crisis – brought upon us not only by Mr. Trump’s deformed psyche and his enablers, but by the rank cowardice of so many Republican office holders that could – as a group, if not singly — have stood in the breach and defended our nation, but have not.

“Cassius: 

‘Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus; and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’”

  • William Shakespeare:  Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II

The True Trump Derangement Syndrome

All who care have heard of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”:  a label applied by those who have excused or discounted President Trump’s abhorrent nature over the years to those (which would certainly include me) who considered Mr. Trump’s malevolent conduct a portent of … well, of the fascism that it has indeed proven to be.

I’ve become resigned to the craven actions of those politicians who refuse cross Mr. Trump for fear of incurring his wrath, losing the favor of his avid base, and thus having their butts ripped from what used to be hallowed and are now but hollowed Congressional seats.  Those that do surprise me are those Republican politicians continuing to carry on Mr. Trump’s seditious crusade who are reportedly motivated by the desire to curry and maintain Mr. Trump’s support for their own presidential ambitions:  among others, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, U.S. AK Sen. Tom Cotton, U.S. MO Sen. Josh Hawley, perhaps Donald Trump, Jr., and of course, our perennial favorite, U.S. TX Sen. “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz [one does have to give the President credit for that one  ;)].  Even aside from the fundamental reason why none of the Trump Wannabes should be president – that their priority of power over patriotism makes them a genuine threat to the future of our democracy – there is another, itself weighty:  they’re obviously not savvy enough to be president.  None will be able to claim the Trump Sect on his own – they all lack the President’s animal magnetism – and given the manner in which Mr. Trump has promiscuously used those who loyally served him to their own detriment and then discarded when they displeased him (his book-ended Attorneys General, Jeff Sessions and William Barr, being the readiest examples), anyone who believes that Mr. Trump will ever use his cult capital to benefit anybody – including his own son — but himself, is … dumber than a rock.  This is the True Trump Derangement Syndrome.  These pathetic knaves should form their own political organization:  The Charlie Party. 

A Day of Deeply Conflicting Emotions

Yesterday, the Electoral College cast its votes for president.  Despite the apparently inevitable Trump Conspiracy histrionics that will continue until Congress counts the Electoral College votes on January 6, and the likelihood of partisan Republican obstructive tactics during that Congressional proceeding, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.’s election to the presidency will then and there be formally acknowledged. 

For those of us who feared America’s descent into fascism had President Trump been re-elected, the Electoral College’s official rendering provided a significant sense of relief; but my overall reaction to yesterday’s news was bittersweet. Even as the Electoral College results arrived and the trucks carrying vaccines rolled, we reached 300,000 American Coronavirus deaths — many of which seem indisputably a result of the President’s abject incompetence.  Notwithstanding Mr. Trump’s manifestly undemocratic conduct of office throughout his entire term, my suspicion persists that his gross mishandling of our COVID response was the primary factor in his narrow loss of the combined 37 Electoral College votes of the pivotal states of Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.  If such was indeed the case, let us pray that despite the fringe elements, we can move ahead as a nation – that the avoidable virus deaths we have suffered across our land, and those tragically to come, will not be entirely in vain.

Fifty Years Ago

Fifty years ago tomorrow – December 12, 1970, also a Saturday – at a about 4 in the afternoon, I left my Marquette University dormitory, McCormick Hall at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and 16th Street in Milwaukee, and walked 12 blocks east to the bus stop at 4th and Wisconsin, outside the side entrance to Boston Store, in order to catch the westbound 57 Center bus.  The University’s semester class schedule had just concluded; final exams were to begin the following Monday.  I was (hopefully) bound for the home of my date, in Wauwatosa, WI, a bedroom community immediately adjoining the city.  I was significantly weighted down; the bus fare was 40 cents, and I was carrying 24 dimes – four to get me to my companion’s house, eight to get us both back downtown, eight to subsequently get us back to her house, and four to get me back downtown at the end of the night.  Our evening’s primary activity was to be watching Coach Al McGuire’s national powerhouse Marquette Warriors host the Nevada Wolf Pack at the Milwaukee Arena; I had secured her ticket to the game from a dorm mate who had opted to spend the night studying for his upcoming finals. 

I had met my evening’s companion the preceding August, before the start of my very first Marquette class.  I had signed up for 8AM Spanish – incredibly naïve and stupid scheduling for a college student lifestyle; I never took another 8AM class – and when I reached the classroom door, I surveyed the scene, went and sat down next to the best-looking girl in the room – sparkling dark eyes, stunning very curly dark brown, almost black, hair, bright smile – and started talking.

Spanish class met four days a week, and we ended up talking much of the time.  She was a townie – living in Wauwatosa (“The next city over,” she had to enlighten my Chicagoland consciousness).  Both of us had a free hour after Spanish, and ever more as the semester went on, I walked her from Spanish to Marquette’s Union, frequently staying to visit further before we separated for the day.  Sometimes, because I couldn’t study in the racket that is any men’s college dorm, I would run into her at the end of the day in the lobby of the Marquette Library, and wait with her until her brother came to pick her up.

Shyness around women has never been one of my prevailing traits, and I liked this girl.  At the same time, she was — as my dorm mates frequently noted – a townie.  They pointed out that there were literally hundreds of coeds living on campus within a five minute walk from our dorm.  Half the people in my classes were women, and – at a point when Wisconsin’s legal drinking age was 18 – the campus bars teemed on the weekends.  I obviously had no car, and those that know me won’t be a bit surprised that my male dignity, however inapposite, would never allow for the suggestion that my Spanish classmate could drive us on a date.  Heeding my dorm mates’ advice, I ventured out with several charming Marquette women during the semester; although those outings were fun, I was in Spanish four days a week, and couldn’t escape the fact that I really liked … this girl.  While we had gotten well acquainted, she had never indicated whether she was dating anyone (although one conversation made clear that she had had to sequence a series of prom dates the preceding Spring – not exactly a boost for a young man’s morale  ;)], or dropped any veiled hint that I should ask her out.

As the semester drew down, I was torn:  I was running out of weekends in the semester.  There was really no longer time for dating; I needed to study to do well in finals.  There was always next semester to ask her out.  I certainly did not relish taking a Milwaukee city bus for the first time for what I was pretty sure wouldn’t be a short ride over dark and cold (Milwaukee gets cold in winter) unfamiliar night terrain.  And yet … I liked this girl. Even then, I understood that Marquette was big; we didn’t share a major, and our paths had only crossed because we had happened to take the same general language elective during the same idiotic early morning slot.

At the beginning of the last week of class, I made up my mind, and made the leap:  I asked if she’d like to go with me to the Marquette game that Saturday night.  She immediately said yes.  She offered to drive (I found out later that she had gone on dates during the semester in which she had picked the guys up at the dorm).  I said that I preferred that we take the bus; how did we do that?  I could tell:  she liked that.   She told me what the fare was – that they only accepted exact change — where the bus stop was, where I could get a schedule, and that it was going to be about a 45-minute ride.  She gave me her address in Wauwatosa, told me what stop to get off, and the directions to her house from the stop.  We were on.

The memory of the evening itself is a warm glow.  The bus was on time; the fare was right; I got off at the right stop; I found the house.  In a sense more a high school date setting than a college meet, I met her parents.  (I found out later that her father, who I came to revere before he left us too soon, liked me immediately because I insisted on taking the bus.)  On that Saturday evening, she was every bit as open, dark and exciting, as I had come to know her, but a bit more mysterious.  We took the bus downtown, saw the game (it was a blowout), had dinner at a nondescript place afterward that had looked better through the window in early reconnaissance than it was in reality (she didn’t seem to mind), got back on the bus and to her home at the right time.  It appeared … that she had enjoyed herself (a lady, I came to find out later, never lets a gentleman know all of what she is thinking).  She agreed to go out with me again after finals before I went home.  I was … on top of the world.  Finals starting Monday?  No worries.  What brought me back to earth:  standing on a bus stop in Wauwatosa, WI, at 1AM in the dark of December in a whipping wind waiting for the last bus downtown.  I pulled out a dorm mate’s stocking cap that he had insisted I take – I never wore a hat in those hirsute days – clamped it on, and held on until the bus arrived.

McCormick Hall has been demolished.  The Marquette Union has been replaced, the Marquette Library has been expanded beyond recognition.  The Marquette Warriors became the Marquette Golden Eagles a quarter of a century ago.  Al McGuire, on that December 1970 night still years away from his 1977 NCAA Championship, will be dead twenty years this January.  The Marquette basketball team vacated the Milwaukee Arena (now the Milwaukee Mecca) for the Bradley Center “eons ago,” as Coach McGuire would say – and has now moved on again, to the Fiserv Forum.  The Boston Store, long a city fixture, is physically gone, now merely an online brand of bailout owners. The unremarkable restaurant in which we dined that night has disappeared.  She and I never had another class together, and even after she moved to campus starting our sophomore year, we didn’t coincidentally run into each other on the street more than a few times during our remaining years at Marquette.  There is still a bus route from downtown Milwaukee to Wauwatosa, but it is no longer the 57 Center.

I still have the notes I jotted down of her directions to the bus and her house. Those sparkling dark eyes now sometimes look up at me over the brightly-colored frames of her reading glasses, as she lifts her gaze from her iPad galleries of our children and grandchildren.

We have all attended many weddings, and heard many a groom describe the nervousness he felt as he prepared to propose to his bride.  When it came time for me to propose to her, on a December night five years after our first bus ride, a delay born of the extended education regimes we undertook as part of our life’s plan, I felt no apprehension [as a matter of fact, on the night I formally proposed, I think she kinda expected it, as I kinda expected that she would say yes ;)].  The hard decision wasn’t to ask her to marry me; the hard decision – the most important of my life – had come when I decided that I liked this girl enough to risk taking the 57 Center bus.

The Resentment That Never Sleeps

Someone very close to us forwarded me a link to the attached enlightening and disquieting December 9, 2020, piece by New York Times Columnist Thomas B. Edsall.  Mr. Edsall cites authorities that assert that “‘social status is one of the most important motivators of human behavior,’” and he observes, “[I]n politics, status competition has … [prompted] a collection of emotions including envy, jealousy and resentment that have spurred ever more intractable conflicts between left and right, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives.”   

Hopefully, all reviewing this note that wish to access Mr. Edsall’s column have the means to do so.  It is compelling, if not pleasant, reading.