Blog Archives

1/21/25

1/21/2025

'I was saved by God to make America great again.'

I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
     I don’t want to think about it.
     I don’t want you to talk to me about it, since that makes you have to think about it.
     I don’t want to watch it, hear it, read about it. I don’t want it my home, coming out of my speakers, on my computer and my TV screen. I don’t want it fouling my rubbish bins and poisoning my state’s sold waste landfills.
     The Trump presidency is a pestilence, an affliction and a blasphemy. It spoils our history, corrupts our conscience and stains our souls.
     But we must, at the very least, pay attention. And in paying attention, take the next step, which is to do something.
     But do what?
     I know I'm a day late in talking about the inauguration. The smart people, the brave people, the effective people have already had their say about Inauguration Day, and they’ve and moved on to Day Two, which is going on right now, even as I’m writing this.
     But I’m doing what I can.
     I watched the inauguration, wearing headphones, because my wife is allergic to Trump’s voice. She was not hiding out, but like another hero of our time, Michelle Obama, my wife did not want give to Trump the honor of her presence.
      As for what I took away from what I saw and heard, just a few things, because that's all I can handle. I know there was a lot more, and still more happened today.

“SAVED FOR A REASON”
     Beyond the irony of the ceremony being in the Rotunda that was desecrated by the Jan. 6 insurrection four years ago – when some of the inauguration guests could have been murdered or injured – there was this memorable section from Trump’s triumphant, arrogant address:

      Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history, and I’ve learned a lot along the way.
     Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed, to take my life.
     Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear.
     But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.

     Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist, pinpointed this part of his address as more important perhaps than sending troops to the bordered, proclaiming the U.S. as a two-gender nation and renaming the Gulf of America.
     “That’s the keeper this time around,” Bruni wrote. “Trump’s trademark narcissism and usual grandiosity, along with an unsettling measure of theocracy, in one profoundly disturbing sentence.”
     That one statement took us back centuries, to the divine right of kings. The monarch knows all, can make no mistakes, everything he does and says is a Heavenly mandate.

THE PARDONS
     God, it turns out, has been troubled by the American system of justice.
     On Inauguration Day, Her emissary moved to abolish justice, at least as we’ve come to know it, as a system of laws, impartially and fairly administered by the courts.
     Trump used his Constitutional powers to commute and pardon the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
     As described by the Times:
     Trump, “in one of his first official acts, issued a sweeping grant of clemency on Monday to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, issuing pardons to most of the defendants and commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
     “Mr. Trump’s moves amounted to an extraordinary reversal for rioters accused of both low-level, nonviolent offenses and for those who had assaulted police officers.
     “The pardons will also wipe the slate clean for violent offenders who went after the police on Jan. 6 with baseball bats, two-by-fours and bear spray and are serving prison terms, in some cases of more than a decade.”
     What does this mean for justice overall?
     Does it make sense, any longer, to dial 911?
     Should police arrest bank robbers, rapists, embezzlers and thieves? Should prosecutors bring cases to grand juries? Should citizens sit as jurors? Should judges pronounce sentences according to established guidelines? Should appellate courts review lower court decisions? Why bother, if crime is to be defined as only whatever Donald Trump, speaking on behalf of God, says it is? Or isn't?
     And God help us if the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and other violent, racist groups come after any one of us. Because maybe the president, chosen by the people and by God, wants them to assault our homes and beat and shoot and hang us. It's all for a reason.

THE HAT

      I’ve always found it petty to talk about what First Ladies and other celebrities, especially women, wear to events like inaugurations.
     But, as many people have commented, it was hard to avoid staring at Melenia Trump’s hat – its wide brim hid her eyes and even interfered with her husband’ attempted kisses, which may have been a good or a bad thing.
     But, overall, that hat, which surely was chosen for a reason gave her – and the entire proceedings - a severe, menacing and dangerous look.
     Almost as scary, as Elon Musk’s Nazi-style salutes later in the day.

THAT IS WHY THIS IS SO HARD TO TALK ABOUT.
     Yes, we knew what was coming. But this does not make it less shocking.
     Yes, we knew it would hurt. But this does not take away the hurt or make it hurt less.
     The United States, the people who voted for Trump and the people who voted against him, are going to suffer the coming days and years in so many ways.
     We will be sicker, less safe, more frightened, less apt to get justice. We will be discriminated against, unfairly taxed, defrauded, lied to, detained, assaulted, insulted, and our homes will be destroyed by floods and fires.
     “My life was saved for a reason,” Trump said
     That was an applause line at the inauguration.
     And today, it’s among the many reasons it’s so hard to talk about.

1 Comment

1/17/25

1/17/2025

2 Comments

IS THIS DEMOCRACY’S LAST WEEKEND?

HERE'S WHAT WE ALL HOPE:
     Democracy will survive the return of Donald Trump.
     Not since the Cold War, with its shadow of nuclear annihilation, and World War II, with Hitler’s campaign of global domination, has the future of the United States been under greater threat.
     Trump is a psychopath, an authoritarian, who has promised to use the power of his office to undermine justice, compassion, innovation and all of the other aspirational hallmarks of the country.
     If Trump is successful, this may be America’s last weekend as a democracy.
     It’s a weekend that I wish we could preserve forever – in our memories and in our prayers - as a reminder of how good our lives have been, and as an inspiration of how fruitful our lives could be again.

THE WEEKEND CONCLUDES at noon, Monday, which will be a day of contrasting dreams, one a nightmare, the other a poem.
     It’s a day on which that Trump will outline his inaugural vision for the next four years, sure to be darker and more divisive than the one he first outlined eight years ago.
     Monday is also a national holiday, celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. and invoking his great “I have a dream” speech in Washington, promising inclusion, caring and hope.
     In a sense, we have a choice about how we think and what we do: Do we let Trump have his way? Or do we continue King’s vision?
     I’ll tell you straight up that I’m struggling to figure out the practical solutions, both personally and as a citizen. I don’t have many answers, and can’t vouch for the ones I do have.
     But I believe we have to try. Here's more ideas about how to do this:

BE A DEMOCRAT.
     I mean the partisan kind, with uppercase “D,” and not just the generic, lowercase “d” democrat.
     It’s not an attractive proposition these days. The Democrat Party doesn't have, at first blush, inspiring national leaders. The party suffers the indignity of being the loser in a hard-fought election. And some Democratic office holders seem unsure of themselves, with many flirting with right-leaning words and actions.
     But democracy depends on a strong, enduring liberal, left-wing and progressive movement, and no more so than when the country’s power center is in the hands of a tyrant.
     Let’s not demand perfection of Democrats, only passion.
     Over the long haul, the Democratic Party has promoted the policies and crusades that have been the best of America: economic equality, civil rights, environmental progress, education and justice.
     And stop with this "I'm an Independent" nonsense. You either agree with the core concerns of the Democrats or you allow the Republicans to degrade the country with policies that are mean, stupid and destructive.
     There’s no middle ground.

CHAMPION WOMEN.
     Next to the restoration of Donald Trump, the most distressing theme of the 2024 election was the Republican war against women.
     You would have thought that the impact of the Supreme Court’s reversal of abortion rights – which introduced unequal medical care for half the nation's population – would have inspired both men and women to take to the streets, and then onward to the voting booth.
     But then came JD Vance’s sneering description of “childless cat ladies,” promoting a diminished role for women, centered on child-bearing, not leadership or success in business, science, the military, athletics and scores of other activities.
     We’re left with an incoming president, who has a history of sexual abuse against women, who has nominated a secretary of defense, who believes women are not fit to be soldiers.
     Men and women alike should stop this backward movement and, instead, promote the full citizenship of women, something you’d have thought had been settled in 1920 with the right to vote.

DON’T QUIT, OPT OUT OR UNSUBSCRIBE.
     Institutions are imperfect, and there’s no better posterchild for a troubled organization than the Washington Post.
     It’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has been shameless in his attempt to get on the good side of Donald Trump, axing an editorial that would have had the paper endorse Kamala Harris and later contributing to Trump’s inauguration.
     Some of the paper’s top staffers are jumping ship, the latest being the excellent columnist, Jennifer Rubin, who has started a new enterprise on Substack, Tens of thousands of subscribers have quit, deepening the paper's financial losses.
     I hope subscribers will reconsider, and continue to support the paper (digital subscriptions are relatively cheap; mine is $60 a year) and that the remaining readers will stick it out – at least for a little longer.
     I was cheered earlier this week at reports (from outside the Post) that 400 staffers had written to Bezos, asking to meet with him about their ideas and hopes to improve and sustain the paper.
     Quitting sounds noble. But once you’ve left, you no longer have a voice, either as a journalist or reader.
     In the Post’s case, I can’t imagine anyone happier to see the newspaper’s best and brightest journalists walk out the door than Donald Trump.
     A continued outflow will have two possible outcomes: hastening the paper’s death; or furthering its diminishment, as the people leaving are replaced with less talented and morally compromised journalists.
     It might be that Bezos’ embrace of Trump has doomed the Post, and it cannot be saved as a journalistic force equal to the New York Times.
     But I believe that our most treasured and irreplaceable institutions need to be defended and sustained. Quitting should be a last – not a first – resort.

I COULD BE WRONG.
     Maybe the Democratic Party will do just fine without any extra commitment. Or that its shortcomings mean that it should atrophy.
     It could be that a homegrown Taliban isn't coming for American women after all.
     Perhaps it’s naïve to ask journalists and others to reform their institutions from the inside rather than voting with their feet.
     On this final weekend, we don’t know what the Trump nightmare will be like.
     The only certainty is that it will be crueler, more harmful and far more extensive than we imagine today.
     Just as unclear is what to do during the next four years, except that we have little choice to do everything we can.
     We must limit the harm, care for the victims and most of all, to survive, both as individuals and citizens.
     Meanwhile, here’s wishing you a nice weekend.

2 Comments

1/3/25

1/3/2025

3 Comments

COUNTERING THE TRUMP CATASTROPHE
Three good ideas

HERE ARE THREE EXCELLENT IDEAS – the kind of imaginative thinking that's needed to counter the Trump catastrophe.

FREE-PRESS DEFENSE SUPERFUND – A massive fund to combat news censorship and intimidation, taking the financial and strategic burden off the shoulders individuals and organizations targeted by Trump.
WASHINGTON POST RESCUE – In which the country’s troubled, second-best news organization would be converted to non-profit status, and hopefully endure as a major source of reliable information.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY MESSAGING “WAR MACHINE” - The Democratic Party would create an aggressive communications effort to target destructive Trump policies, contrasting them with Democratic alternatives.

    These three ideas are just small steps in confronting the horror that already is unfolding as a result of last year's election.
     They may be impractical.
     But they represent the kind of imaginative, concrete steps that are needed to prevent or mitigate the barbaric political and cultural consequences of the election.
     The sweeping nature of Trump’s victory – a clear win of his own, plus MAGA’s takeover of Congress, in addition to an already captive Supreme Court – has left millions of Americans without obvious defenses.
     I, for one, remained shocked by the breadth of the election’s outcome, unsure how to proceed in the coming years, and frankly uncertain whether destruction of America can be prevented.
     But we have to try. The United States is too great, both as a democracy and as a philosophical concept, to give into despair and bewilderment.
     The appropriate cliché, derived from both underdog sports teams and long-shot lottery players, is especially important now:
     “You can’t win if you don’t play.”
     I wish I was an idea factory. I'm not. But I admire people who try , and I think we should celebrate everyone who makes a good-faith effort to invent what's possible.
     In that spirit, these three good ideas.
     All have this in common: information. Information will attacked by Trump, because it’s the key to countering his abuses and to reform and recovery.

FREE-PRESS DEFENSE SUPERFUND
     One Trump tactic will be to attack the press through lawsuits and government actions intended to crush writers and organizations, not just with the outcomes, but the sheer expense and strain involved in fighting them.
     To counter this, Josh Marshall, founder and editor-in-chief of the “Talking Points Memo” website, has written about one possible counter offense.
      He notes that there's been discussion about “creation of an organization or fund which would take on the job of defending the various lawsuits, prosecutions and generalized legal harassment Trump will bring to the table in the next four years.”
      The effort would require a massive mountain of money and an army of lawyers and other expert staffers.
     Whenever a media outlet would be threatened, the Superfund would step in to shoulder the expense and determine the tactics to defend the attack, fighting fire with fire, punishing the perpetrators legally and financially.
     It would require both philanthropy by billionaires as well as small-fry contributions from thousands of individuals.
     The Superfund would help big outfits, like national newspapers and TV networks, as well as lone bloggers and small outlets like Marshall’s.
     “Trump’s retribution may focus on individuals,” Marshall writes. “But it’s a collective harm. So it makes sense to spread the cost of dealing with it.”
         Here's the link to how Marshall discussed the idea in one of his columns.
         As far as I know, no Free-Press Superfund has materialized.

WASHINGTON POST RESCUE
      News organizations on the scale of a major newspaper are still the most important source of reliable, in-depth information, even as the industry itself has withered.
     The “paper” part isn’t important. What counts is the hefty "news" resources of a New York Times and a Washington Post.
     What has distinguished newspapers in the past has been their enormous newsrooms – staffed with hundreds of reporters, plus editors, photographers, artists, technologists.
      And it’s not enough to have just one.
     The New York Times appears now to be financially successful, and it IS a great paper. But it has both massive and minuscule faults for the simple reason that it's run by humans. It needs competition.
      When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos brought the Post years ago, it seemed that the Times had a needed counter-balance, and, indeed, the Post flourished during Trump’s first term.

ANN TELNAES' cartoon

But it’s fallen on difficult times and is losing money. Bezos shouldn’t be required to subsidize the paper indefinitely - and he won't.
     Further, he’s shown himself to be an increasingly flawed owner, quashing the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just days before the election and shamelessly sucking up to Donald Trump.
     Recently, some top reporters have jumped ship to work for The Atlantic magazine, and the Post's top cartoonist, Ann Telnaes quit, when the paper killed a cartoon mocking Bezos' and other billionaires' seeming to buy Trump's favor.

     Press critic Dan Froomkin suggests that Bezos turn the Post into a non-profit organization, guaranteeing its independence.
      Here's how he put it:
     "The good news is that there is a way out of this mess – a way out that would restore the Post’s grand tradition of independence and speaking the unvarnished truth to power.
    "It would also reestablish Bezos’s reputation as a great philanthropist.
Bezos must relinquish ownership of the Post to a nonprofit organization, devoted to journalistic independence."
     Froomkin suggests that Bezos could get a big tax benefit in the process. I wonder whether Bezos might fund the non-profit with a huge endowment, parting with just a fraction of his Amazon billions.
     “We need the Washington Post,” Froomkin writes. “The only way to save it, Jeff Bezos, is to let it go.”
     Here's the link to Froomkin's column.
     I'm not suggesting we hold our breath for Bezos to adopt the idea.
     Which doesn’t mean its not an inspired proposal.

DEMOCRATS’ MESSAGING “WAR MACHINE”
     The cruelty, stupidity and impracticality of the coming Trump administration will offer an easy target for critics, especially the Democratic Party.
     But so far, Democrats have failed to speak with a strong, persuasive and unified voice.
      Indeed, the party’s several factions have seemed more interested in either fighting among themselves over the election loss or finding common ground with Republicans.
     U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of my home state – Rhode Island – is having none of that.

U.S. SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE

Instead, Whitehouse wants the party to come up with a communications “war machine” that will attack Republicans.
Whitehouse made the proposal in a letter to chairpersons of state Democratic parties, a letter reported by Politico, the online news outlet. Politico wrote:
"Whitehouse argued that Democrats have no institutional and centralized setup to attack the GOP, writing (that) Republicans 'rapidly and effectively deploy false narratives, while we struggle to bring true ones to bear.' "

      “We in Congress customarily say we’re ‘fighting’ for things when we really mean working or toiling,” Whitehouse said. “A fight means a defined adversary, a battle strategy, and actual punches thrown. Done well, it involves exposing and degrading your adversary’s machinery of warfare.”
     I think Whitehouse is on to something. The Democrats’ best hope isn’t to get along with Republicans or imitate them or to abandon long-held ideals, but to present Democrats as an attractive, convincing and inspired alternative to Trump and his acolytes.
     Here's the link to the Politico story.
     I wasn’t able to find the text of the letter itself – it was written in advance of the national party’s selection of a chairperson on Feb. 1. Nor have I heard whether anyone in the party has seconded Whitehouse’s suggestion.
     But it sure sounds like a good approach.
                                                        * * *
     As I've noted, none of these ideas will bring down the Trump administration.
     In fact, none are likely to happen.
     But what they have in common is the kind of thinking that is needed to slow, stop and reverse the evil that Trump will unleash when he's sworn in Jan. 20.
      Fresh, imaginative, practical ideas - lots of them - are the key to unlocking the puzzle created by the election. It's a puzzle which only seems impossible until it's solved.