Saturday, December 10, 2022

The Way Ahead

The way leaders of the two political parties seem to interpret the voting public is that we are so deeply divided into two warring camps — red and blue — that we can never be reunited. But there is another way to interpret recent election results and that is that a growing portion of the electorate doesn’t like either party much at all. Particularly the extremes of the two sides.

From this perspective, it is the rhetoric of party leaders themselves, amplified by certain media outlets left and right, that is the main divisive factor here, as opposed to any underlying issues.

In the most competitive races, so much money is spent to create so much divisive advertising that the noise of the politics overwhelms the signal. And all we are left with is a winner-takes-all mentality that reduces the process of conducting public affairs to the likes of a angry horse race.

Meanwhile, there is rarely any substantive policy debate on anything.

Take this week’s headlines. One Democratic senator declares she is really an independent, which sort of reduces her former party’s Senate majority in half, from two to one. Barely a majority at all, with a margin of error of zero should she decide to vote with Republicans on an issue.

And she has a history of trying to reach across the aisle to work with members of the opposing party.

Over in the House, the Republicans are so divided between a small number of moderates and a large number of extremists that they appear likely to be unable to even elect a Speaker without a multi-ballot, knock-down-drag-out fight among themselves.

So now there are whispers — dear God! — that the GOP moderates may have to join forces with the centrist Democrats to identify a Speaker who can carry enough votes to take on the job!

My opinion, clearly a minority view, that these developments may not be a bad thing. The more the two parties are forced to actually work together to forge a bipartisan consensus on the matters at hand, the more likely they might actually do something of value on behalf of the rest of us.

Lately I’ve developed the impression that too many people have fallen for the damaging rhetoric of those whose only goal is to win elections at all cost, so they exaggerate what is at stake to try and motivate “their” voters to get out and actually cast a ballot.

This works to an extent, as voter turnout has been relatively high in recent elections, but a whole lot of people sit on the sidelines as well, disgusted by both parties and not feeling like participating in the anger-fueled electoral process at all.

Sitting mostly (but not completely) above all of this is an aging President whose main political virtue is that he was able to work with members of the other party throughout his long career.

We actually need more people like Joe Biden in public service — people who prefer consensus to division. As I said, he’s not perfect in this matter — on occasion he sinks to demonizing Republicans just like the rest.

But his clear preference is a third way, and now we need that more than ever.

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Friday, December 09, 2022

The Last Defense

One remarkable fact abut the midterms this year is that it was the first time in 88 years that an incumbent President didn’t lose a single Senate seat in a midterm election. You have to go back to 1934 to find the last time this happened — when FDR was in the White House and it was halfway through his first term.

It is also intriguing that this anomaly occurred despite Biden’s low approval ratings, and while one of the normal triggers of voter rebellion— inflation — was high. So the conditions were hardly ideal, and most of the pre-election polls indicated that the Democrats would almost certainly lose control of the Senate.

Instead, they held on and even increased their margin by one seat, although Kyrsten Sinema’s odd announcement today that she will switch to independent status may complicate matters on that front.

Meanwhile, one of the main factors in the Democratic success was the discomfort growing number of voters on all sides feel about Donald Trump. Voters in the middle and the right may not like Biden very much and they may be worried about inflation, but they don’t want to give up their democratic system of government.

And way too many Republican candidates continued to mouth Trump’s baseless allegations that the 2020 election was stolen, when it is patently obvious to any reasonable person that it was not. Trump further made everything worse for himself by forecasting that if he somehow makes it back into office, he intends to rule in a strongman-style, not unlike Putin and the other dictators he admires.

Too many liberals are fond of dismissing the conservatives as idiots, but the overwhelming majority of them do notbelieve in fascism. They have been misled, manipulated and propagandized by conspiracists and there is as yet no end of that in sight.

But one of the bulwarks we will need to continue to depend on to strengthen and preserve our democracy going forward is the innate common sense and patriotism of moderates and conservatives all over the land. That is our best hope.

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Thursday, December 08, 2022

Life As We Know It

The holiday season brings with it the usual flood of lackluster Christmas movies presumably meant to distract us from the orgy of unrestrained consumerism. 

But there is also that exceptional, odd Frank Capra film, "It's a Wonderful Life." Until I read Zachary D. Carter's excellent essay in The Huffington Post (2018), there were many things I didn't know about that film or the Sicilian immigrant who made it.

Hoping to revive a career that had been disrupted by the war, Capra produced the film in 1946, but when it was released just before Christmas it bombed, losing a half million dollars at the box office. Critics panned it and Capra lost the rights and control of the film’s negatives.

His personal fortunes then proceeded to nose-dive, accelerated by the anti-Communist furor of the early 1950s. (His crime — like that of many thoughtful people — was he had briefly flirted with Marxism when he was younger.) 

His decline was such that he eventually reached a hopeless state and attempted suicide on a number of occasions. Rather like George Bailey.

Later, when he looked back on making the film that had helped ruin his career, he said: “I can’t begin to describe my sense of loneliness in making (it), a loneliness that was laced by the fear of failure. I had no one to talk to, or argue with.” 

As an aside, that probably describes what these holidays are like for many people, but for now let’s return to Capra’s story.

The Wonderful Life negatives lay forgotten and unvisited for almost three decades, by which time the film, considered worthless, had slipped into the public domain and was free for the taking. In the mid-1970s, the Public Broadcasting System did just that, becoming the first to air it since 1946. The commercial networks soon followed.

With that, a not-so-instant classic was (re)born. It’s now every bit as much a part of the season as Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.”

Happily, Capra lived long enough to see this all come to pass before he joined the angels himself at the robust age of 94 in 1991. He had always maintained that “Wonderful Life" was the greatest film he ever made.

The main actors in the piece — James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore — are long since gone, of course. But recently, two surviving members among the children cast in the movie confirmed that Capra indeed controlled every detail of the filming down to the slightest detail of their expressions and movements.

The main point of the film — that each life matters — is always worth revisiting at this time of year when for so many, life feels considerably less than wonderful.

Depression is widespread, and suicidal thoughts are no stranger to one who is deeply depressed. But as in the story, there could be hidden value in holding on a little longer, perhaps helped along by an angel or two. 

Of course the inequalities of wealth displayed in the film are worse today in the world than they were in the America of post-World-War-Two, and the only way out of that mess would be a radical redistribution of wealth, a la Marxism perhaps, which certainly isn’t going to be happening around here anytime soon.

So for now this is roughly as wonderful a life as we can make of it, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. And in any event, it wouldn’t be what it is if we were no longer a part of it.

Wit that, bring on Christmas! And maybe listen for someone’s bell to ring out there somewhere. (You can read Carter’s piece here.)

NOTE: I published an earlier version of this essay a year ago in December 2021.

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Wednesday, December 07, 2022

Good News Down South

 Probably the best thing about Democrat Raphael Warnock’s victory over Republican Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate election Tuesday night was that it represents another significant blow against Donald Trump’s chances to stage a political comeback in 2024.

Trump hand-picked Walker, of course, a seriously under-qualified candidate who was wickedly satirized by Kenyan Thompson in an SNL episode last Saturday night. 

In that episode, actors playing Republican leaders including Mitch McConnell ushered Walker into a room with a mirror where he could spend the days leading up to the election out of view from the public. “Hey, I’m already in here,” said Walker as he entered the room and glimpsed himself in the mirror.

***

Trump may be self-destructing with his insane comment in support of suspending the Constitution and the likelihood he will face criminal charges for inciting the January 6th riot. But he remains a living threat to everything that is sacred to anyone who believes in our imperfect democracy.

Now the Georgia results are in, the Democrats control the Senate, 51-49, for the next two years. That means that if the House, where GOP election deniers have proliferated like pig weed, pursues conspiracy theories to impeach Biden, the Senate will send any such vote back where it came from.

Into the room with mirrors.

There was one thing at the end of last night that surprised me and that was Walker’s concession speech, which was surprisingly gracious and notably un-Trump-like. First of all, Walker conceded! Trump would never do that. Secondly, as he thanked his supporters he urged them to continue to believe in the Constitution and to support their elected officials.

I do not know if Walker was taking a direct shot at Trump by saying those things. But he clearly learned something from playing football that Trump never learned. 

Sometimes you lose. If so, be a good sport and move on.

And that was refreshing.

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Tuesday, December 06, 2022

Tuesday news 12.6.22

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Monday, December 05, 2022

Dream States

 

(NASA)

(NASA)

One recent night, I had dinner with two of my granddaughters, aged 8 and 11. There were just the three of us; everyone else was out for the evening. Since it is getting close to the Christmas season, I told them about what it was like this time of year when and where I grew up.

That was Michigan so there was lots of snow. They were interested in hearing about “snow days,” you know, the day we got to stay home from school due to snowstorms.

I explained that it actually snowed quite often so it took a pretty extraordinary snowstorm to cause us to miss school.

They thought about that and our conversation turned to an extraordinary weather day we had out here — the day the sky turned orange from wildfire smoke back in September 2020. They were 6 and 9 at the time and they remember it well.

So do I. Always attentive to an educational opportunity, I told them two words describe that day for me — dystopian and apocalypse. They nodded as I explained my understanding of the definitions of those words.

That somehow led to them talking about the difference between dreams and dreamlike moments. “I remember that day,” said the 11-year-old. The blinds were shut but there was a slit between the blinds and it was orange. And I thought, ‘that’s weird, why is it orange?’ So I figured it was a dream. But when I got up, it wasn’t a dream.”

Then the 8-year-old spoke up. “In a dream I had that day I couldn’t blink my eyes. But when I woke up, I could blink. But when I did, the sky was still orange and that was weird. Then the next day was normal.”

We all agreed you can’t tell whether it’s a dream or not while you are still asleep but you definitely can tell once you’re awake. And that day, we agreed, was definitely not a dream.

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Sunday, December 04, 2022

Sports Heroics

When I was a boy, I did a lot of reading. Our family got books from the library and as soon as I was old enough to choose my own, I did. I read lots of stories about heroic young men in the wilderness or on sports teams, but few of the literary classics.

Luckily, I went to good public schools. There, under the guidance of teachers (all women), I encountered other books, better ones, and slowly I figured out that there was more ways to be a man than as a great hunter or a quarterback on a championship team.

For men of my generation, I suspect I am not unique. We were raised by parents soaked in cultures that generally valued male children over female children. Women had few career options, which led many brilliant women to teaching jobs.

Thanks to an accident of history (World War Two), there were so many of us Baby Boomers that we broke the world we grew up and into. Many things changed, particularly between men and women.

As the systems broke, we considered each other more as equals than as enemies.

Now, as an ancient, when I think back on my upbringing and the stories that shaped us, I wonder about what is left of our childish fantasies.

For men it is sports. In games there is still a chance to be a hero. We are in the season now where the championship games in football are approaching. The media circulate stories about young competitors who overcame obstacles to prevail in the national spotlight.

For many of those young people, books have been replaced by video games and action figures. And at times like these, that shows.

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