A Few, Parting 2022 Thoughts

In past years, when I've come to this point on the calendar, I've usually aimed for big-picture statements about where the U.S. is, where I think it's going, and where I hope to see it go.  Sometimes, I've aimed to be a little more personal, whether it's discussing my wife's immigration law practice, or the medical issues faced by one of my grandchildren.  But for the most part, I've wanted to write about us.  Not me.

But this year's a little different, as it may have an impact on this blog.

Not on its existence.  But on its schedule.  And perhaps in other ways as well.

Over the past several years, I've launched a production company dedicated to producing plays (and perhaps, at some point, films) written by members of historically marginalized communities:  women, Blacks, peoples of color, and LGBQT authors.  I've been working with one playwright over the past few years on a play she wrote and submitted to the Baltimore Playwrights Festival.  I'm a reader for the Festival, which is how I found her play.  I was very deeply impressed by it, and think that it deserves an audience.  With that in mind, I have optioned it, worked with her on re-writes, found a director, and scheduled a reading of it at Theatre West in Los Angeles for next month.  Needless to say, I'm very excited about doing this, even though I obviously can't say how far this venture will go.  That will ultimately be up to audiences to decide.  But I'm very hopeful that this one will be received, and received well.

As for the blog?

Well, depending on how things go, you may find me talking a lot more about my producing efforts, which will cut into my political commentary.  Depending on how things go, I may end up setting up a second blog, so that I can keep the focus here on politics and political issues, while having a separate space for talking about producing.  If that happens, I'll include a link in a post here, so that you can check it out.

But TRH, in any case, is not going away.

I'll still be here.  I'll be with all of you, riding the same crazy ride we're all taking together, especially with a new GQP House that can't even choose who's going to lead it.  (Spoiler alert:  I have a sneaking suspicion Kevin's not going to make it.)

I'll be saying whatever I have to say, to help you make sense of all of it.  And, frankly, to help myself doing the same thing.  To be honest, one of the things that blogging here has done it to help me put the pieces together.  It's made me read more.  It's made me think more.  And it's been an outlet for my passion and anger about what's going on in this country, when I've really needed one.

But, more than anything, I appreciate those of you who read it.  I hope that it's been of at least some value to you.  I wish all of you, and those in your lives, the happiest possible New Year, and I look forward to continuing this journey the same way we've been taking it so far.

Together.

What NFL Stadiums Can Teach Us About The Age Of The Grifter

Professional sports, at their best and their worst, reflect the culture of the people who follow them.  And yet sometimes, when I read stories about professional sports, I still find myself surprised to find details that can teach us something about where we are.  As well as where we need to go.

That happened to me a few weeks ago, when I read this article with a counter-intuitive lead:  after years of new football stadiums being built with ever-increasing capacities, they are now being planned with fewer seats in the stands.  But, in at least one case, the same capacity in the overall structure.

How does this work?  Very simple.

Fewer "nosebleed seats."  More luxury boxes.  And giant sports bar-style lounges, with paid admissions, and giant videos screens that show NFL action from all around the country, with every play-by-play analysis program available, as well as the game in progress elsewhere in the building.  Sort of a Doctor Doom-style man cave.

Hmm, you might say.  Not all that impressive.  You miss the thrill of feeling connected to the action on the field, to being a real part of the live event, to being part of the proverbial "12th man" on the field.  Instead, you get to be part of a glorified version of your club basement.  Plus, you're being charged for the privilege of doing so.  Quite a bit, in fact.

But still not nearly as much as the people in the stands and luxury boxes.  They are being charged a fortune.  More than the original franchise prices of the teams on the field.  And, since the season tickets and boxes are largely being purchased or leased for "business purposes," they're tax deductible by the purchasers and lessees.  You know what the real definition of "tax deductible" is?  It's IRS-speak for the suckers get to pay for it twice.

And by "suckers," just to be clear, I mean folks like you and me.  Oh well, maybe not me.  I won't go to the games, at least not most of them.  I'll only be nicked by the "business purposes" folks.  But that's plenty bad enough, when you consider we're all being nicked badly enough by these people, whose relative life of luxury is being subsidized by the folks choosing between paying the rent and dining on cat food.

Of course, television has long been the primary revenue source keeping the NFL in business.  But that audience numbers in the millions, so that's not so surprising.  Actual seats in the stands, on the other hand, only number in the thousands.  And when there are even fewer of those seats than there were before, as is the case with any scarce commodity, you can jack up the price to exospheric levels, and still get away with charging a fortune to sit in them.  More money, in fact, than you could ever get from the folks who can only afford a seat in front of a TV screen.

I'm talking, of course, about millionaires.  And, even more amazingly, billionaires.  We have literally millions of the former, and hundreds of the latter.  Yet together, they number less than 9% of this country's total population.  Putting it in practical terms--that is to say, in political terms--their dollars exponentially outnumber our votes.  The money they have for entertainment purposes, such as watching professional sports, outnumber our votes.

And therein lies the central problem with our politics.

The central problem, contrary to the excessive media coverage of him, is not Donald Trump, as revolting and destructive as he is.  As others have said, Trump is not the problem.  Trump is a glaring symptom of a much bigger problem than the Trump circus of corruption and criminality.

We live in an age in which four decades of fiscal and monetary con-artistry has conspired to send so much wealth to the already wealthy that they can quite literally buy out the rest of the country.  Even sports, one aspect of our national culture which supposedly exists to bring us all together, now exists to divide us into those who get to savor participating in the actual event, and those who get to "savor" mass-produced, flash-frozen-and-then-thawed buffalo wings.

And when the folks at the top of the financial pyramid use their goldmine to give the rest of us increasingly desperate folks the shaft, guess who really thrives in an age divided between the comfortable and the comfortless?

Con artists.  Because, when work as a path to wealth becomes meaningless, people will become desperate enough to believe anyone.  Even those who make promises they have no intention of keeping.

And so, contrary to what Trump's canyon-sized ego might want to believe, we do not live in the age of The Donald.  We live in the age of the Grifter.  And this year has exposed it more than ever before.

The age of the Grifter is possible only because we live in the age of billionaires, people with so much money that they can buy anything, even the government and a new citizenship to avoid their obligations to anyone but themselves.  Even a pandemic can't stop their explosive growth; if anything, it may have enabled it.  And why not?  The COVID-19 nightmare created levels of desperation in this country that most of us have never seen, or even imagined seeing.  Put yourself in the plutocrat's position.  You've got hundreds of millions of desperate people, and something they need.  What would you do?  (More about that later.)

As a consequence, the sort of lifestyle, the salaries and benefits Americans took for granted in the last century can no longer be taken for granted.  In fact, for some of the nation's hardest working employees, despite being routinely exposed to danger and disease, are forced to beg for the most basic rights in order to cope.  And ultimately be denied those rights.

That's bad enough.  But it gets even worse.  

Most of the billionaires aren't the inventive class of the past.  They are the investing class of the present, with an appetite for wall-to-wall public worship and the means to borrow money (not always honestly) in order to build the illusion of invulnerability.  They buy businesses that are popular, built by those who have real talent, and pretend to be the source of all greatness.  They are not people who were born on first base and think they hit a triple.  They are people who have stolen home plate while pretending they have invented baseball.  And, all too often, the incompetence that comes from a lack of experience merges with the malevolence that comes from being unchallenged, and allows a billionaire with superhuman economic power to buy a popular business and, through incompetence and malevolence, drive it into the ground.

I hope you recognize Elon Musk in all of this.

Especially since Musk has already shown that, in the age of the Grifter, the Grifters have acquired enough economic power and personal will to purposefully silence the voices opposed to them, even the ones who add value to the business owned by the Grifter while he grifts it into nothingness.  Indeed, many of them don't need to be deliberately silenced; if their position in society is marginal enough, even the threat of being silenced is enough to coerce the same effect.

The trend of silencing voices in opposition to the ruling class is really nothing new.  It's been going on since the first presidential term of Ronald Reagan, the marginal B-movie actor who made his real fortune as a spokesperson for General Electric, a company that began with Thomas Edison and ended up splitting itself into pieces to survive.  It survived him into the 1988 presidential campaign, when the focus of the DC press was not on the integrity of Republican campaigning, but on how well they were working.  Thus began the era of horse race coverage of politics, which has now become the era of horse race coverage of everything.  Independent news sources have been replaced by corporate ones, who make more money off of "trends" than anything else.  And who now have the power to manufacture their own "trends."

This is how and why almost everyone feels so disconnected, why so few people seem to know what's going on.  They don't.  And they are not being helped by a media that is increasingly disconnected from reality.

And it therefore should not surprise anyone that, for the billionaires and millionaires, this level of disconnect creates and fosters the illusion of moral superiority.  This, in turn, leads to the absence of any kind of feedback loop.  And that, in turn, leaves the billionaires more and more isolated from the people who ultimately create the wealth through labor, investing, or spending.  In a word, us.  The result is what some of the wealthy's defenders in the chattering classes refer to "bossism," but what should more honestly be described by its original name.  Fascism.  That is, the merger of government and corporate power.  It happened under Mussolini.  It happened under Hitler.  And yes, it can and will happen here.  It nearly happened here in the 1930s.  And there are signs around us that it could easily happen again.  Let's face it:  it almost happened on January 6, 2021.

You know how little the billionaire class cares about you?  They're willing to bet your life that they can use your safety to maximize their bottom line.  Literally.  Take a look at this.  And ask yourself the question:  in an emergency, would you want to be on a plane that had only one pilot?  Would you actually pay to be on a plane that had only one pilot?  And, perhaps key to what I've been discussing here, would you trust a profit-hungry airline to make that decision for you while keeping your safety and that of your fellow passengers uppermost in their thinking?  Particularly after the recent Southwestern fiasco?  I would like to think that no one would answer those questions with a "yes."

It's stories like this one, and, for that matter, the recent cryptocurrency collapse, that expose the fallacy of the libertarian fantasy of a world with no government, which has effectively deluded people into thinking we can give everyone unlimited personal freedom, including the freedom to not only help billionaires build fascism, but even invest in a form of "money" absolutely unconnected to any real value.  Money in any form, whether backed by the full faith and credit of a government, means nothing without a connection to real value.  The value can be in intangibles, such as intellectual property rights and future interests in real estate.  But it must be connected to something that exists.  Cryptocurrencies, to me, have always been a form of digital riverboat gambling.  That's why I've never touched them, and never will.

Libertarianism is every bit as toxic as racism.  Both distort the use and acquisition of power for the benefit of a privileged few, but always in the name of "the people."  This is why we live in an era in which Republicans, having built their political power over four decades with a toxic brew of libertarianism and racism, have as much political clout as they have, a clout that is utterly disproportionate to the results that power has achieved.  A nation crippled with debt and disease, and a people increasingly disenfranchised from the means by which to reverse and recover their fortunes.

It also explains the so-called inflation of the present period, which is in fact price-gouging.  Prices don't need to be tamed by the Fed, whose raising of interest rates may in fact help to trigger not a recession, but a depression, something that may finish everyone off, even the wealthy for whose primary benefit the rates are being raised.  Yes, this is what's being done by the party that denounces "big government."  Small government is exactly what they don't want.  Their dirty little secret is that they use rhetoric opposing "big government" to create exactly that--a big government that serves the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

They have done all of this while operating under the label of "conservatism," a philosophy that, in its classic form counsels heeding the lessons of history and, in the process, being mindful of the limitations that those lessons illustrate.  But so powerful and brazen have they become that they are no longer pretending to be "conservative."  They are openly declaring their true identities as reactionaries, painters of a mythical past that never existed, but which still serves for them as the only justification for their outrageous demands for power.

When the only justification for power is a lie, the justification cannot stand forever because the lie cannot stand forever.  Truth is truth, no matter how much the Trumps of the world pretend that it's Silly Putty.  At some point, it always finds away out of the web of lies woven around it.

When, if ever, will people finally wake up to this?

Perhaps they already are.

Along with the Supreme Court's execrable Dobbs decision, and the rise of a new, more diverse generation of young voters Dobbs decision, it may very well have influenced the better-than-expected (for Democrats) outcome in the recent midterm elections.  The lack of success by GQP election deniers on Trump's behalf would certainly seem to suggest as much. 

Perhaps an even stronger indication of people waking up involves an issue that, in the post-Reagan era of politics, has been something of a third rail for progressives generally:  taxes.

As the clock winds down on two successful years of Democratic control of Washington, the House of Representatives is wrapping up its work not only on its investigation of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, but also on its investigation of Trump's tax returns.  You remember Trump's tax returns.  They were the things people have been demanding since 2016, and that he has lied time and again about his willingness to release them, and the circumstances under which he would do so.  Now he doesn't need to do so, thanks to the persistence of the House Ways and Means Committee in pursuing the release by the IRS of Trump's tax returns.

This is not good news for Republicans who tried to scare people on behalf of Trump by pushing the tax button and complaining about how the release of Trump's tax returns might lead to such "terrible" scenarios as the release of the tax returns for Supreme Court justices.  Given the current makeup and output of the Court, all I could do when I heard that was to mentally respond "Yeah ... how about that?"

I'm deadly serious about that.  I think everyone running for public office, federal, state, and local, should be required to put out six years of tax returns, enough to bring their tax matters within the scrutiny of the Internal Revenue Service under its statute of limitations.  Maybe it would be a check on all of the principle-less con artists who think they can imitate Trump and con their way up the ladder of power.  In the case of the Supreme Court, perhaps that's how we can get back to checking it with what has been historically a check on it:  the court of public opinion.

And, if social media feedback counts for anything, it would appear that a significant number of people agree with me.  I can't be certain, but I would like to think that the real issue with taxes in the U.S. is not tax rates, but whether or not everyone is pulling their weight.  I hope and pray that's the case.  And Trump is all but the poster child for the willingness and resourcefulness of the rich in making sure that everyone else pulls their weight.

We know this now, because we actually have the returns.  And they show that Trump is not only a financial failure, but that he has lied in a desperate attempt to avoid being an even bigger financial failure.  In the process, my hope is that we all learn what a terrible price has been paid to satisfy the political need of the Republicans to make people worship the power of the rich, as well as the popular need to fantasize about how wonderful it would be to be rich.

And to satisfy both needs, we have gone out of our way to let Republicans cripple the IRS, which (like it or not) collects the tax revenue needed to pay the price tax for the civilization we take for granted.  The effect is that the rest of us pay more so that those with the most get to pay less.  You want evidence that the IRS hasn't been allowed to do their job?  Presidental tax returns are supposed to be routinely audited by it.  Guess which president's returns weren't audited?  I'm going to assume you got it right, but here you go anyway.

What must we do?

I've been talking about the need for a more progressive tax system from the time I started this blog nearly 14 years ago.  Not just because we need to honestly pay our bills for the things we both want and need, instead of taking the plutocrat path of financing it through debt and sticking it to everyone else.  But to avoid giving the plutocrats the power to stick it to everyone else.  To force them to put some skin into the game they play with our country and its future.  To remind them that we are all part of the same nation, and that we each have an obligation to its continued existence proportionate to what it has given us and what we are able to contribute.  

And one more thing:  to remind all of us that capitalism is a system that works best when you are forced to use your own money to build the dreams you want to build.  It forces you to think practically, and to work with others in a manner that treats them with respect and enables them to contribute their own ideas as well, and build their own dreams.  That is the difference between democratic capitalism and crony capitalism.  Democratic capitalism is real capitalism:  putting one's money to work.  Not someone else's.  Your own.  We are, in fact, where we are because of crony capitalism.  And, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, the problem with crony capitalism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.

We have gone a very long way down a very bad road.  Is it too late to turn back?

I don't think so.

If I take anything away from the midterms, it's the possibility that the tide may be turning in a way that not even all of the election-related gimmickry of the GQP may be able to stop it.  But that only remains true if all of us, myself included, remain involved.  To whatever degree you can be.  In whatever way you can be.  I know that a lot of you have issues with the corporatism of the Democratic Party in the post-Clinton age.  I do too.  But pay the MAGA hats the compliment of doing what they've done:  change the messaging of the party by burrowing into it.  Get involved in your local branch of it.  Organize your friends.  Blog.  Contribute whatever time, money, and energy you have to contribute.

And, above all, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, VOTE!

It's the only way things are ever going to get any better, without resorting to a full-scale civil war.

And maybe, one day, among other things, we'll all be able to sit together in stadiums again, and cheer for the same team.

It Could Have Been Worse, But Here's How It Could Be Better

I've never had a harder time assessing an election in my entire life.  Perhaps the best way to put it is this:  never in my life have I felt so good saying "Well, it wasn't that bad."

Because it could have been worse.  Much worse.  And it wasn't.  Because of you.  Because of all of you.  Because of us.

Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, which means that it will, over the next two years at least, be a complete waste of taxpayers' money at best or, at worst, a nightmare that pushes back against the progress that has been made since 2020.  No one should take this lightly.  The incoming House majority is composed almost entirely of reactionary GQP fanatics who would rather burn the aisle than reach across it.  They used the first day after the election to essentially declare war against their political opponents, including Joe Biden.  

And the Washington establishment's reoccurring fantasy of the past seven years still has not come true:  Donald Trump has not gone away.  Even though he is, slowly, slowly (dear G-d, it couldn't be any slower if it tried) being backed into a legal corner from which not even he can escape, he's hanging on.  No one should even begin to underestimate his ability to hang on to the edge of the cliff, long after anyone else would have slipped away.

That's the executive summary of the bad news.  And yet, bad is it is, it's far from the whole story.

As I'm writing this, the Democrats not only held on to their Senate majority, including all of their at-risk incumbents, but have the prospect of expanding their majority by 1 seat, which will make judicial and executive nominations far easier to approve, and to do so quickly without endless GQP obstruction.  Democrats also picked up Governors, state legislatures, and wins on ballot initiatives.

And while the next House majority will be Republican, it will not wield its majority power by a large margin.  Right now, with votes still being counted in two congressional races, the GQP will have between 220 and 222 seats, and the Democrats will have 213.  A nine-seat majority, made up in part of a handful of representatives from swing districts.  Whoever the next Speaker will be, he or she may not be able to prevent some members of the majority from working with Democrats on popular issues.

The red wave that was predicted came very close to washing out to sea.  As it was, it was a tiny splash that left a small puddle, one that may prove to be less unsightly and dangerous than the potential consequences that all of us feared

The GQP and its media allies spent, or rather, wasted an inordinate amount of time, money, and media space demagoguing Democrats and their allies on inflation, crime, and immigration, issues that are time-tested winners for them.  But not this time.

 

All of the messaging about inflation fell flat, which should lead all of us to question what voters really think about which party is more effective in managing the economy.  Initially, it appears that independent voters broke for Democrats on this.  Why?  Well, frankly, economic data has shown time and time again that the economic results during Democratic eras are far stronger than they are during Republican ones.  You may not have heard that said very often by media outlets owned by Republicans (which is to say, most of them).  But it is the truth.  It's quite possible that how independents think about inflation, in relationship to other issues, may differ from the "perspective" those outlets offer.

Then again, maybe, just maybe, it's time to come down to brass tacks here.  Republicans have been lying about all three issues all along.  Inflation is really price-gouging.  Crime is in fact worse in red states than in blue ones.  Biden has already deported potential asylees at a record pace.  Even worse, they know they've been lying all along.  They've never wanted anything but power.  This is precisely why they're planning to use their wafer-thin House majority on nothing but investigations.  If you want more proof of this, look at what is actually happening to prices now, in spite of the lack of a GQP plan to address them.  Does it surprise you that the same thing is happening to the crime rate?  It shouldn't.

What was really on the ballot, more than anything else.  Democracy was on the ballot, and democracy won, hands down.  Especially where it had to: at the state level, in state legislatures.  And this happened in spite of unprecedented gerrymandering designed to make Democratic victories impossible at both the state and congressional levels.  Keep this in mind, by the way, in evaluating the Republican House victory.  It literally would not have happened without gerrymandering.  The delicious irony in the results is that Republicans may have gerrymandered themselves out of better election results.

Gerrymandering.  Voting restrictions.  Dark money.  This is all the GQP knows how to do now.  And while it may help them place bodies in seats, it does nothing for them in the marketplace of political ideas.  The left has had tremendous success in the last several election cycles when it comes to ballot initiatives, and this year was no exception.  In Colorado, a formerly purple state that has become increasingly blue, voters for a tax increase to pay for universal free school lunches.  And there was also real if not perfect progress on banning slavery at the state level.

And then, there's the one thing that should give conservatives and their "religious" allies nightmares for decades to come.  This may not have been a red wave, but this was most definitely a Roe wave.  In spite of all the white men on your television screens and elsewhere trying to convince all of us that women were completely on-board with the idea of the government snatching their bodily autonomy away from them, actual women who voted begged to differ.  It isn't just Republicans who need to heed this warning.  It's Democrats as well, every time their "moderate" itch feels like it needs to be scratched.  It's Democrats as well.  The Roe wave, as I have said, kept Democrats within a few seats of House control, and, given the divisions within the House GQP caucus, may allow Democrats to have effective control.  It also helped them hold the Senate, control of which (depending on what happens in Georgia next month) may yet expand.

And if it does expand, thereby allowing executive and judicial nominations to move forward faster than they have in the past two years, Democrats should have no compunctions about doing so.  There's an opportunity here to use Dobbs to build a progressive majority the way the GQP used Roe to build a regressive one.  The so-called Reagan Revolution was largely based and sustained by right-wing outrage over Roe, and that outrage transformed the Republican Party, congressional races and, ultimately, the Supreme Court, which is no longer a court and does not deserve the label "supreme."  Dobbs has already upended the voting habits of America and, so long as it remains the law of the land, there's no reason to doubt that it will go on doing so.  The only appropriate response for Democrats is to use the power voters are prepared to give them.  Democrats must prove, and show, that they are willing to do so.

Why should Democrats believe this?  Because abortion won everywhere it was on the ballot.  Even in deep-red states such as Kentucky and Montana.  Want even bigger news on the subject of abortion?  It now has the potential to flip even evangelical voters.  They may be ready to flip anyway, now that Trump is exposed for the fraud he has always been.  There are already signs that even evangelical voters have finally had enough of Trump.  And not just Trump either, for that matter.  Time well tell.

For now, Democrats should take their success with ballot initiatives seriously, and use that combined with their wins in state races to see how federalism can work for them, by achieving results at the state level and spend less time chasing the Washington merry-go-round.  Especially now that Republicans have gone to war over the ability to put initiatives on the ballot.  And they have good reason to be fearful.  Here's a prominent example of what a ballot initiative can do when it comes to that big GQP super-weapon:  TAXES.

Perhaps above all, Democrats should finally, and once and for all, end the infighting.  It makes Republicans happy and makes media ratings go up, but accomplishes nothing else.  Attacks on the left from so-called "moderate" Democrats may have cost Democrats the House.  They're engaging in the same futile fighting-the-future that their GQP counterparts are pursuing.  What makes this infighting especially foolish is the fact that progressive Democrats made gains in this election, just as they have in the past two elections.  The generational shift that has been predicted in favor of progressive politics is finally happening.  Fighting it is like trying to fill a funnel with water.

No less a Washington and Democratic insider than Nancy Pelosi, along with Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, recognized this fact and stepped down from their leadership positions, thereby giving House Democrats to put into place a new, younger, leadership team.  At the same time, Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn will all remain members of the House, allowing their wisdom and influence to be available to that team.  They will, in fact, be able to wield behind-the-scenes influence as never before, now that they are out of the spotlight.  In this arena, they have no equals among the members of the pathetic Republican caucus.  

And no one, absolutely no one, should think that this was about Pelosi's spine, and the cowardly attack on her husband.  The conservative columnist Cal Thomas once dismissed Pelosi as a "San Francisco Democrat" who would be eaten alive by Republicans.  Wonder what he thinks today?

So-called moderate Democrats need to wake up and understand that they're making a major mistake in fighting the progressive wing of their own party, when what they need to do is less reaching across the aisle and more uniting within their own tent.  More and more, voters are able to see the lack of moderation behind so-called "moderate" policies and the "moderate" politicians that peddle them.  They are, moreover, only too happy to punish Democrats who try to sound like Republicans.  

You know what makes more sense?  Trying to support Democrats like Jessica Piper in Missouri, who's trying to organize despairing rural voters in her state--who she refers to as "Dirt Road Democrats," or at least potential ones--to stop giving Republicans a pass on their dismal economic track record in the state.  As she will tell you, it's hard work, but it's absolutely essential work, because Democrats are never going to be able to win a true governing majority without finding ways to flip red states like Piper's.  Likewise we need to appreciate people like Stacey Abrams, who may have single-handedly started the process of turning Georgia into a blue state, and hope that she runs again.  Because the truth of the matter is that there are lots of Republicans ready to become Democrats.  We need to have faith in our ability to cut through the MAGA distortions in our political discourse, meet people wherever they're at, and talk about what Democrats can do to help them.

Because we can go on pretending that we have a true two-party system, and let the system slide down history's memory hole, or we can face the blindingly obvious fact that being a Republican has been reduced to meaning being a supporter of Donald Trump.  And we can then go about the business of saving Trump's supporters from themselves.  The secret GQP sauce is to lie consistently and brazenly about Democrats and what they have to offer, leading voters to vote against them and, at the same time, vote against their own interests.  

We need to counter the lying 24/7, on not just a state-to-state level but a county-to-county level.  It's especially important, in the post-Dobbs era, to reach out to women, far too many of whom still see their interests as being aligned with those of men.  There may be, in this moment, a major opportunity to break through the communications wall with many potential Democratic voters, given what appears to be the willingness of Trump's major media ally, the loathsome Rupert Murdoch, to dump him.

Because maybe, just maybe, we have finally reached the point at which the Fourth Turning has already begun.  If you've never heard of this term, take a look here.  There are, in fact, some signs of it already.  Some members of the religious right are openly advocating violence, as are some members of the secular right.  Murdoch may be willing to dump Trump, but he's still willing to spend money to lie on behalf of conservatism.  Just as Republican state officials are still willing to manipulate voting.  Just as dark money is still a problem.  Ditto illegal gerrymandering.  And do not underestimate the importance to Republicans of gerrymandering:  outcomes in purple states show that fair maps work for Democrats.

Perhaps the biggest lesson for Democrats is the simplest one:  DON'T GIVE UP.  Here's a powerful reason why:  YOUR VOTE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY MATTERS.

And, in the meantime, the Democrats should make maximum use of the remaining weeks of their current governing trifecta.  Here's a good place to start.  Here's an even better one.

We've weathered one storm.  We have it within our power to go beyond weathering the next one, and sailing toward clearer waters.  Let's start getting everyone on board RIGHT NOW.

... AND One Final Point

MAGA Republicans are Trump Republicans.  Whatever they get control of will be used solely for his benefit.  And the only thing he and his followers want to accomplish is to inflict pain on their opponents.

To paraphrase one of his own tag lines:

In reality, he's not for you.  He's against everyone but himself.

The Democrats and their Republican/independent allies are the only thing in the way.

The Case For Midterm Voting (And Whatever Else You Can Do), Part II

And so, now down to hours before the midterms, I come to Part II of this message.  I'm going to operate on the assumption that you have already read Part I.  If not, I encourage you to stop reading here, and not come back until you've read it.  It'll give you useful context for what I have to say here.  In any case, I'll sum up here what I've written in Part I by saying that it gives an overview of the media environment in which politics in the U.S. is practiced now, and how that environment contributes to the existential dilemma democracy in our country now faces.  Fighting that environment, and the damage it has done and continues to do, is one key part of the case I want to make here for making sure that you get out and vote and encourage as many other people as possible to do the same.

This part, however, is equally important, and perhaps is even more disturbing and dangerous.  It's not about the messengers. It's about the message.  In a philosophical sense, it's about the absence of a message, as well as the dangerous political goal that occupies the place where a message should be.

Up until the 1980s, elections in this country, whatever the agendas of the candidates competing in them, were predicated on a fundamental acceptance of the rules of democracy.  Rules for voting in each state applied to everyone eligible to vote.  All votes cast by people following those roles were counted honestly and fairly.  As a consequence, there were winners and losers defined by the rules for elections as well as those of math.  Everyone, even the disappointed losers, accepted and abided by the results.  The winners knew that they would have to face the voters again to stay in power, while the losers knew that they would get another chance to be the winners.

We should all be proud of the fact that it worked that way, and mostly worked well, for a historically long period of time.

We cannot, however, assume that it will work that way this year.  We will be damned lucky if we can get back to the point again.

Let me put it this way.

One of the things that allows the MSM, and other players in our political system, to push for the out-of-power-in-the-White-House party to succeed in midterm elections is that it carries the fairness theme of American elections to a logical point.  In a democracy, even those who do not control the highest office in the land deserve to have some ability to influence the direction of governance in the nation.  If fairness is your political lodestar, the power of that principle can't be denied.  In ordinary times, it shouldn't be.

Again, these are not ordinary times.  But the good news is that, if fairness is your lodestar, there is still a way to pursue it, and make it a reality.

On one side this year, you have what amounts to a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and independents, all of whom accept the basics of government in a democratic republic.  They believe in listening to and respecting each other, working together, and governing their conduct toward one another with fairness and honesty.  In short, you have people who cut across all social, political, and economic boundaries, willing to do what it has traditionally taken to form a more perfect union.  You don't have to take my word for this.  Look at Twitter (before Elon Musk destroys it, that is), and you'll see people from all sides of our political discussion chiming in on the same basic message.  For that matter, look at MSNBC, that notoriously "liberal" cable news network, and you'll see the same thing.

As for the other side?  Well, in fairness to my Republican coalition partners, I won't call it the Republican side, or even a MAGA Republican side.  Since it's essentially a personality cult in any case, let's call it the Trump-DeSantis side.  That should make it clear enough.

And, once again, if fairness is your lodestar, you should do everything in your lawful power to prevent it from gaining even a toehold in Washington.  For all of our sakes.  For your sake.

Why?

I know that your time is precious, and I don't want to do a single thing to stop you from getting yourself and everyone you know to the polls on Tuesday.  So I'm going to give you what in corporate circles the executive summary.  It's still going to be lengthy, because it's as comprehensive as I can make it.  But my hope is to get you and everyone else out the door with everything you need to know.

The Trump-DeSantis party promotes a policy agenda that is recognized elsewhere as being bankrupt.

Even worse, it knows this, and does not care at all, because it doesn't want Congress to make policy decisions on behalf of you and me.  It wants control of Congress for its own sake, to enrich its backers and shaft everyone else.

It is willing to lie about its opponents to get it.  Especially if one or more of the opponents are black.

And the steps they will take?

Sowing division, discord, and chaos to the point of exhausting any possibility of reasoned debate, just as they have been doing for the past two years. 

Making America dependent on a declining resource supplied by bloodthirsty tyrants.

Making it a theocracy where the only right to worship God is to do so as evangelicals do.  Even though evangelicals don't even believe in their own values.  And they certainly are no longer pretending they aren't religious fanatics.

Promoting policies that make their own states more dangerous than blue ones.

And policies that, far from fighting inflation, will actually make the cost of living worse.  Here is one example.  And another.  And yet another.

And, far from giving you more freedom, will give you even less.

In fact, it will enable them to control every aspect of our lives--and yours.

And to deny you any chance of using the right to vote to change any of this once it becomes real.

They are, in fact, actively manipulating the polls to exaggerate not only their popularity, but also the enthusiasm level of their voters.

Even worse, they have taken an assassination attempt on a political leader, one instigated by their own rhetoric, and attempted to turn it into a joke, and perhaps even into a springboard for more violence.

Are you paying attention?  Or are you just skimming through all of this and saying "So what?  Aren't the MAGA politicians going to win the midterms anyway?  Isn't that how this always works?"

Maybe not.  In fact, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, not only about the midterms, but also about what might lie ahead once they are behind us.

Early Dem turnout is massive.  And even the potential "spoiler" vote doesn't seem to be a problem:

And, if you need talking points to encourage others to vote, here are a few.  Recent economic news is better than many had expected, with even the Fed open to slowing down interest rate increases.

And with President Biden using every tool at his disposal to fight inflation, whether that means releasing oil from our strategic reserves or adjusting tax rates.

And with economic growth picking up again.

One final point.

Conservatism in its classical form teaches the virtue of learning from the lessons of history.  A short history lesson here is worth making.  Historians have shown that American politics tends to swing back and forth in arcs of 30-to-40 decades.  If recent trends point in a direction with regard to this, they point to an era to a 40-year era in which we took pluralism and people power off of the American agenda, and put in its place the power of Wall Street, weapons, and a warped view of Christianity that replaces God with Mammon.  And all of us are reaping the disastrous results.

Maybe, just maybe, the course we've been on isn't inevitable.  And, without any doubt, it's not our only choice.  I'm not the only person who feels that way, that our past tells us that this election may have the potential to be a healthy prologue.

How about you?

You have a chance to make a difference on Election Day.  You can help, and encourage others to help, change the deadly course we're on now.  You can do it by joining a truly bipartisan coalition of voters who, even as I type this, are banding together to literally, in the words of the late Senator John McCain, put country first.  Or, by either your actively voting for the Trump-DeSantis cabal, or staying at home and tuning out the civic rubble collecting everyone, you can prove that America was never exceptional in the first place, that it will become one more failed empire clogging up the dust bin of history.

The choice, as always, as I have said before and don't hesitate to say again, is yours.

For the next three days, I will be praying as hard as I can that all of us make the right one.

The Case For Midterm Voting (And Whatever Else You Can Do), Part I

Today, it is eight days before a midterm election perhaps like no other in our nation's history.  I'm sitting here on Halloween, hoping that the spirits being summoned by the electorate are our very best ones, the ones that put freedom and justice ahead of the darker passions that afflict the human soul.

And, honestly speaking, though I'm as sure as I am of anything when it comes to what I think American voters should do, I'm not at all confident that they're going to do it.

There's every reason to think that disaster might be lying in wait for our democracy next week.  As MSM outlets are fond of reminding us all the time, the President's party gets punished in the midterms, meaning the Democrats in this case.  Despite a growing economy, with growing employment, people are anxious about the cost of living, which, for a sizable number of voters, is their leading concern going into Election Day.  And turnout for midterm elections tends to be on the low side, which is never good news for Democrats, always the party needing to rely on millions of votes to cancel out millions of Republican dollars.

And, to tell you the truth, if the mood of the country was calmer and more mutually respectful, it might be the case where I might view what will happen on November 8 as not the end of the world when it comes to what I and other progressives hope for from our politics.  I might, depending on the state of my own life, view things through the prism that so many Americans view our politics:  that of sports and entertainment.  Your team loses the World Series or Super Bowl this year?  It's OK.  Wait until next year.  There'll be another chance.

But what I fear from these midterms is not mere disappointment.  It is existential dread. At times, it comes close to sheer terror when I consider the worst of the possibilities.  Because this time we truly have absolutely no certainty that there will be "another chance."

I try to take comfort in the possibility that the polls, which suggest we're at jump-ball when it comes to who will win and who will lose, are undercounting the number of Democratic voters who would not normally make a point in coming out for midterm elections, who see the current anti-democratic trend in our nation and understand that this is no time to (pardon the cliche) make the perfect the enemy of the good.  And there is some news on the early-voter front that suggests that this possibility may be a reality.

But it's a possibility.  Until the votes are counted, it's an unknown.  It's not the sort of trend that pollsters pay much attention to in part because it's an outlier in voting history.  Pollsters owe their continued existence to being right, and, good corporate entities that most of them are, they take the more conservative approach of guidance via historical norms.

And pollsters do their work hand-in-hand with other good corporate entities which all of us collectively know as the Press.  And, since freedom of the presses belongs to their owners, they likewise tend to take a conservative approach to protecting their property interests.  Indeed, they will go so far as to exaggerate, or even lie about, the results of poll resorts on which they report in a manner that promotes the prospects of Republicans.  Here, for example, is a report from a Florida newspaper suggesting that Democrats should be scared to death about a Republican lead in early voting that amounts to about 1% of the votes cast so far. 

Or even more perniciously, they will pretend that MAGA Republicans are really just "moderate" folk, no more dangerous than the next-door suburban neighbor you meet at your children's soccer matches.  As was the case in Virginia last year, they can sometimes fool enough voters in a purple state with this nonsense so as to get them to vote against their interests.  This may very well happen again this year.

So.  November 8 may be a total disaster.  Or it may not.  And my own estimate of my persuasive powers is far from exaggerated.  But too much is at stake to do nothing.  So I will take my chances.

And I will do so as simply as I can.  By reminding all of you of the reasons why November 8 could be at total disaster.  Especially if the Republicans not only win, but win big.

Let's start with the never-ending, Diogenes-style search for the perfect, reasonable, "moderate" Republican.  All you media folks out there, put down your lanterns.  The search is over.  And the bad news is this:  there aren't any.  If any of these folks were reasonable, well, they stopped being Republicans a while ago.  If anything, the contemporary Republican Party is a 100% poster child for what happens to a party when it heads down the rabbit hole of extremism.  Take, for example, the Federalist Society, those wonderful folks who believe in the nonsense of constitutional "originalism" and have now, with the help of "moderate" Republicans, enshrined that nonsense in our legal system.  They're not going around pretending to be "moderate."  Hell, they're not even going around pretending to be "conservative" anymore.

To that, let's add the reality that pollsters, while operating as slaves to historic trends, in fact are infected with enough corporatism that an increasingly large number of them operate with a bias toward Republican-flavored outcomes.  These polling organizations are used in an attempt not to measure public opinion, but to openly shape it.  Don't have any doubts about the reality of this; it is literally happening right now.

And this should not be surprising, given the plethora of openly right-wing leaning media outlets that have always operated without any pretense of presenting an objective perspective on current events.  Rather, they exist to feed an audience that pretends to want secret truths, but actually wants what even it knows on some level to be bald-faced lies, the better to grease its prejudices and narcissism.  That feeding, it should now be apparent, is a never-ending process, in which each day's red meat has to be redder and meatier than it was the previous day.

The best, choicest, most succulent meat of all?  Racism.  Racism that went beyond the dog-whistle stage a long time ago, and is now served up on television and computer screens everywhere, without pretense of being anything decent.  I could give you multiple examples but, when it comes to this garbage, you can always count on Tucker Carlson to sum it up for you.

Why do Republicans and their MAGA supporters need all of this corrupt help?  Why does all of this meant that, if it actually helps them, November 8 will be a disaster?

Well, I called this post Part I for a reason.  There will be a Part II later on this week.  As they used to say in the days when broadcast programs dominated the news media environment, stay tuned.

The Tragedy Of Gibson's And Oberlin

More than once in the course of posting here, I have written about my undergraduate alma mater, Oberlin College.  As I wrote here, to be a graduate of Oberlin is to be filled with a sense of pride in being part of its combined tradition of strong academics and social justice, while simultaneously being frustrated by its willingness to pursue the logic of the latter tradition almost to the point of self-destruction.  From time to time, the college has torn itself apart over issues that, while real and worthy of debate, do not justify the potential destruction of the institution and its legacy in American society.  Not only is doing so a waste of time, energy, and sometimes money, but it feeds the counter-narrative on the political right that progressivism is a nihilistic search for a "perfect" society that, in the process, threatens to destroy the society we have.

In my day, in the mid-1970s, the biggest debate was over closing a budget gap of significant proportions, and the painful choices need to be made in cutting costs (translation:  laying off faculty and even whole departments) and/or seeking new revenue (translation:  tuition hikes).  What did the students favor?  Taking money out of the endowment.  Never mind the fact that the endowment was the main reason that tuition was not even higher than it already was (or much lower than it is today).  I am sorry to say that the students were driven by the same Boomer optimism that would late drive Reaganomics from the right:  live for today, and tomorrow will take care of itself.  Ultimately, with help from a new president and a major unexpected legacy, Oberlin got through that period, and continued to flourish.

But the debate over the budget crisis underscored the inability to compromise that characterizes many Oberlin students.  Nothing matters except the purity of one's views, and no quarter should be given in the pursuit of those views to their logical conclusion.  Not even if that means harming the legitimate interests of those who disagree.  And now, as it turns out, not even if it means a head-on collision with the truth.  Or if that truth feeds the conservative narrative aimed at destroying the advancement of your views.

I am, of course, talking about the battle between the college and Gibson's Bakery, a local merchant in the town of Oberlin for more than a century, and a popular place to shop for students and residents, especially for fans of whole wheat doughnuts.  It's a battle that has provided both the college and the town with more national coverage than perhaps any other story in recent decades.  The coverage, and the resultant publicity, is of the sort that neither would have wanted or sought.  In the process, in its own way, it has helped to fuel the political polarization that threatens to tear our society completely, and permanently, apart.

Some background:  in 2016, an African-American student attempted to shoplift and use a fake ID card at Gibson's.  He was pursued outside of the store by an employee, who attempted to detain him and was, in the process, assaulted by two other students who were friends of the student being pursued.  The students were later arrested, and accepted a deal in which they plead guilty, made restitution, and admitted that racial profiling was not a factor in the incident.

You might think that this episode, fairly straightforward in its facts, would have ended there.  But you would know nothing about Oberlin if you did so.  Instead, it lead to a student protest and boycott campaign, a campaign which was aided and abetted by employees of the college, and which ultimately led to cancellation by the college of a contract between it and Gibson's for baked goods in student, as well as allegations of personal harassments of the Gibson family by various individuals.  The campaign was spurred on in large part by the allegation that Gibson's had a history of discriminatory practices against Black students, and deserved to be called to account for it.

Ultimately, the Gibson family sued the College for civil damages, and in particular for libel with regard to the allegations that its members had conducted their business in a racially discriminatory manner.  After attempts to settle the matter, the case proceeded to a jury trial, which was followed by a series of appeals, a process that concluded this past August with a decision by the Supreme Court of Ohio to reject the college's appeal of a lower court's decision in favor of the Gibsons.  At that point, Oberlin announced that it would pay the judgment awarded to the family, which by that point (after adjustment for a statutory damage cap and accrued interest), amounted to $36.59 million.  You can read the lower court's opinion here, as well as a broader summary of the facts in the case here.

So, after all has been said and done in this case, stretched out over nearly six years, what's left?

Even after its expected collection of the damages, the bakery is reportedly a shell of its former self, as the boycott against it by the students is still ongoing.  The college has suffered a substantial hit to its reputation and its pocketbook, although I suspect that insurance and the school's overall financial position will ease the latter deficit.  The town and its residents, which includes a significant Black population, has even more reason to resent the intrusion of the college in its day-to-day affairs.  The students' concerns about racial profiling, so far as I can tell, have not been addressed in any constructive way.  

And, outside of the college and town, the chattering classes in the more reactionary corners of the media have another target for use in distracting attention from their own hypocrisies.  In other words, the worst people are the only winners.

How could it have been different?  The first conviction that I have about all of this is that it should have been absolutely, positively as different, as better than this, as possible.

To begin with, the college should never, ever, have permitted any of its employees or other agents to participate in the protests organized by the students.  Even the lawyers representing the Gibsons stated publicly that the students' First Amendment right to protest was not an issue for their clients.  But the willingness of the campus administration to not only advocate against the Gibsons, but provide direct aid to the student protests, and to do so with being in possession of the facts, put the college on a collision course not only with the bakery, but with the town and the many other businesses in it with which the college has both direct and indirect dealings, whether buying goods directly or by supplying a market of customers (students and faculty).  

Town-and-gown relationships are inherently sensitive in nature and, while they can be mutually beneficial, they require a mutual need to recognize that the maintenance of those benefits requires an ongoing dialogue about potential sources of friction, and an established process for having that dialogue.  If the college and the town had such a process in place, that might have provided a means for discussing and debating the incident at Gibson's, and the issues spinning off of it.  What seems clear in any case, from the way this dispute unfolded, is that no such process exists here.  Had that been otherwise, it might have given everyone an off-ramp for dealing with the debate in a way that addressed merchants' concerns about crime and students' concerns about prejudice.

Second, and perhaps above all, the college should never, ever, have allowed this case to go to a jury trial, under any circumstances.  It's an irony of Oberlin's geographic location that one of the most politically and culturally progressive colleges in the nation lies not only in one of the nation's reddest states, but also in one of the reddest districts in that state, a district that could practically be the political poster child for corporate disinvestment in American manufacturing.  

I can sum up the reality of that in two words:  the name of the district's current representative in Congress, Jim Jordan.  Voters for Jim Jordan.  That was the jury pool for the trial.  Even if the college had a plausible defense for inserting itself into the debate over the incident at Gibson's, there was no chance of getting a jury that would be willing to hear it.  To the contrary, it was guaranteed to get a jury that would salivate at the chance to strike a perceived blow against "political correctness."  Gibson's lawyers, if (as I would suspect) they were experienced trial lawyers, knew that fact, and I suspect, would only have settled for a deal that treated their client very generously.  I would like to think well enough of the college's counsel that they recommended such a settlement, because they were experienced enough to know that their client was going to get clocked in court.  

In that case, and ruling out the possibility of malpractice, we're left to accept the likelihood that the college was willing to go to trial simply in an attempt to pacify an angry student population, hoping that the appeals process would go on long enough to position it financially for a settlement they knew in advance would be punishing.

If that is the case, and I am being fair and reasonable (as an attorney myself) in giving counsel on both sides the benefit of the professional doubt, what we are left with is the reality that Oberlin failed in what is perhaps its most fundamental obligation as an institution of higher learning:  to act in the best interests of its students.  Acting in that interest means not only ensuring the right and ability of students to engage in the most vigorous forms of debate, but to do so in a manner that does not, arbitrarily or otherwise, put an institutional thumb on the scale of civil discourse or, ultimately, the ability to render justice.

The fight for racial justice, as I have myself noted in this space, is built into Oberlin's DNA.  It was, is, and should always be a source of pride for the college and for those who have graduated from it.  In a time in which the level of racism in American society is exposed to a degree that we can no longer deny its pernicious effects, from our early history to the present day, Oberlin should absolutely be at the forefront of efforts to redress those effects and accelerate the process of our nation becoming a more perfect union.  Unfortunately, I believe that it can not do so unless it starts, in a meaningful and uncompromising way, to do so in its own back yard.

Since the announcement by the college that it will pay the court's judgment against it in full, I have found myself, from time to time, visiting its Web site and reading alumni publications in the hope of finding some sign, even the smallest indication that there exists an institutional recognition of the damage that has been done by the tragedy of its relationship with Gibson's, and the need to repair that damage and find a positive path forward for all of the stakeholders.  What I have seen so far is the digital and print equivalent of crickets.

Well, with one small exception.

The most recent edition of the Oberlin alumni magazine arrived at my house several days ago.  In vain, I searched through its nearly 60 pages for some reference, any reference, to the Gibson case.  Nada.  Until I came to the very last page, entitled "Endquotes," a collection of quotes from various individuals in the media (social and otherwise) regarding various aspects of Oberlin life.  In the middle of the first column was the following gem, a reprint of a posting on Twitter:

When fascism comes to America, never forget that the elite press spent years hollering about the threat posed by utterly powerless Oberlin College sophomores rather than the threat posed by these people.

By "these people," the person making the post was referencing a video of a crowed reciting the Watchmen Decree, a white-nationalist creed.  For the record, I take a back seat to no one when it comes to condemning, or fighting, white nationalism in any form.  And I consider it to be the greatest menace our democracy has faced.

But, in the immediate moment of reading this, I could only think of one thing.

Well played, Oberlin.  Bloody well played.

I meant that sardonically.  Here is a fuller description of what I felt.  Oberlin has spent years (save for the occasional e-mail) pretending that the whole Gibson controversy never happened, that life at the school has largely been unfolding with first-rate scholarship, exciting student projects, and adventuresome partnerships with various organizations.  And finally, now that the lawsuit is over, it sneaks in a subtlety dissenting voice about it on the very last page.  It gets the benefits of innocence and retaliation all at once.  How about that?  I really did go to a school run by clever people.

Clever up to a point, anyway.

Because what the tweet overlooks is a simple fact.  Whatever is true about Oberlin students in this whole sorry affair, they were anything but powerless.  They brought one of the most celebrated and influential colleges in the United States to its institutional knees.  They perpetrated a fraud on one of the best-known and best-loved businesses in the college's home town, blurring the line between institutional racism (a legitimate concern) over the reality of an actual crime which took place.  They exacerbated the town-gown relationship to the point at which it may never be repaired, creating problems for the college's business needs going forward.  

Perhaps worst of all, they handed a handy talking point to right-wing trolls who don't deserve to have it.  Oberlin at its very best is and should be untouchable by people who live in search of distractions from their own sins.  There are and will be times when moments they can turn into distractions are unavoidable.  So be it.  All the more reason to not, in the immortal formulation of Richard Nixon, hand them a sword.  But that's what Oberlin students have done.

I understand that I'm wading into a situation where feelings on both sides are very raw.  But that's why I'm wading into it.  We live in a society where people who care only about wealth and power use the raw feelings of others as raw material to create distractions from the larger forces that are threatening our democracy.  They may be a lot closer to success than many of us think.  Those of us who care about creating a just and prosperous society for everyone don't have the time, or otherwise the luxury, for internal conflict.  To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, the fierce urgency of now has never been fiercer.  Or more urgent.

So, if you've made it this far, just hear me out for a little while longer.

What I am pleading for is an effort by Oberlin's administration, Oberlin's students, and Oberlin's business community to come together in a highly visible way, with candor, with humility, and above all with a total commitment to hearing each other, understanding each other, to meeting each other's needs without compromising anyone's legitimate concerns, and to finding ways forward that will prevent a repeat of this tragedy from ever happening again.  And this effort, as well as all aspects of it, should be as publicly visible and accessible as possible.

This will require creativity.  It will require transparency.  And it will require more good will than probably exists among the various stakeholders at this point.  But it is utterly essential that it happen.  Not just for the future of Oberlin--the college, and the town that has been its home for nearly two centuries--but for the larger example of how all of us should live that Oberlin represents at its best.  For whatever it is worth, I would be proud to be a part of any such effort, in any way that I can.

Because I know it can work.  As I have documented elsewhere in this space, I've seen it work at Oberlin previously.

And I believe it can work again.  For all of our sakes, it has to.

Banned Books, Corrie Ten Boom, And "Christian" Hypocrisy

In an age in which technology has made the spread of information and culture easier and wider than ever before, it would be difficult to imagine a more futile tactic to control political debate and thought than the banning of books in schools.  Almost every student, including many of very limited means, has access to a smart phone and/or a laptop, as well as Wi-Fi.  Any book that book-banners want to target, especially older ones that are more likely to be in the public domain, is available on the Internet.  That fact, combined with the reality that banning children from doing anything is the proverbial red cape in front of a bull, all but guarantees that the act of banning a book is perhaps one of the best ways to market it.

And perhaps that's a source of comfort in contemplating, as we unfortunately must, the current wave of efforts to do exactly that.  If book-banning is the worst thing they can throw at the rest of us, maybe democracy is in better shape than we think.  Perhaps there's a silver lining in this particular crowd:  by advocating the banning of books, they forfeit the moral authority to complain about what they decry as "cancel culture" coming from the left.  After all, lacking that authority won't stop them from whining about it.

But, in a way, that's the problem.  It's not the tactics they put into practice.  It's the sheer stupidity that lies behind their world view AND permeates the way they act on it.

What made me reflect on this just now was a Twitter post I saw several weeks back that contained a photograph of a newspaper clipping.  The clipping showed part of an article that listed books currently being targeted for school bans.  The usual suspects can be found on it:  "Of Mice And Men," "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings," and that legendary target of targets, "To Kill A Mockingbird."  The reference to the latter, however predictable, was at least punctuated with a ludicrous misspelling of its author's name as "Lee Harper."  Isn't it nice when your opponents go out of their way to advertise their lack of credentials?

But that's not even the worst of it.  At the bottom of the list, at least what I could see of it from the posted photograph, was the title and author's name of a book I could not ever have imagined being on anyone's list for banning.

"The Hiding Place," by Corrie ten Boom.

If you are not a fundamentalist Christian, as I was in a former life, the odds are that you have never heard of this book, or the film version of it what was made by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in the 1970s.  Nor is it likely that you have ever heard of Corrie ten Boom, or know anything about the remarkable life that she lived, or read any of the other books that she wrote.

But dwell on this thought for a moment:  most if not all of the folks behind these bans are fundamentalist Christians.  If they are at all like the ones I was associated with during the decade or so that I spent in that corner of reality, it is literally impossible for them to not know about the life of Corrie ten Boom, and especially the chapter in that life memorialized in "The Hiding Place."  Even if they had never read the book.  And in that world, the folks I know would have wanted to brag about reading it as much as they would brag about the time they spent reading their Bibles.

In "The Hiding Place," Ms. ten Boom relates the story of how she, her sister, and her father used space hidden by their father's timepiece shop to hide Jews in Holland fleeing persecution from the Nazis.  In the process of doing so, they saved many lives, but that effort came at a cost to the ten Boom family.  They were eventually discovered and taken to a German work camp, where Corrie's father and sister died.  She herself only survived as a result of a clerical error made by one of the camp's staff members.

As a record of one of the darkest chapters in human history, "The Hiding Place" contains some passages that might make for rough reading for teenagers, and perhaps a few adults.  But it is both morally and intellectually outrageous to suggest that the contents of the book are such that schools and students should somehow be "protected" from them.  All the more so because the book is, and was intended to be, a tribute to the core, sacrificial spirit of true Christianity.  For a believer to walk in Jesus' steps, that should include a willingness to include the willingness to walk in all of those steps, even the ones that require acting against our interests to give unto others.

Or so I was told, back in the day.

Maybe fundamentalist Christianity isn't what it used to be.  Or rather, what it used to aspire to.  As it has morphed from a faith based on the Bible to one that is based increasingly on white supremacy, maybe making sacrifices for people "not like you" is a message that frightens fundamentalists.

Maybe they have decided that the ten Booms were out of step with G-d.  Somehow, up in Heaven, I think the ten Booms, and the people they sacrificed to saved, are having the last laugh on that point.

But the rank hypocrisy of their fundamentalists that this exposes, combined with the racism that has infected the faith they claim to follow, just adds two more reasons to the list that all of us ought to have:  the list of reasons to fight the banning of books, and the attack on the human spirit that these bans represent.

No, We Don't Have Open Borders But Yes, We Need AND Can Handle More Immigrants

One billion Americans.  To listen to the conservative chattering classes, you'd think that's a landmark we've already reached.

Well, we're not even close to it.  We're only about one-third of the way there, in fact.  And yet, if you listen to the Rupert Murdochs and Alex Joneses of the world, America is being "invaded" on a daily basis by a criminal class of migrants who want nothing more than to take your jobs, assault your families, and generally live off of your hard-earned tax dollars.

But what if I told you that we don't have enough people here?

What if I told you that their are two nations in the world that are already at one billion people living within their borders?  Both of which are two of the oldest civilizations on the planet, in fact? 

And what if I told you that, while both nations have struggled with issues relative to population growth, both of them have been catapulted into the top ranks of the world's economies over the past several decades?

And what if I told you that, in order for the United States to maintain its current ranking among those economies as the largest, we might need to get bigger in a hurry?  And that the fastest way to do it would involve implementing an immigration system that welcomed people from all around the world at an accelerated rate?  Maybe we wouldn't reach a population level comparable to China and India, the two nations I was referencing, but we might be surprised by our ability to quickly expand the current population by as much as 50%.

And what if I added that, because of the hollowing-out of cities in every state of the Union, especially in the central states, there was already more than enough room to house these people?  Furthermore, what if I pointed out what should be an obvious fact to everyone:  people are an economic resource, with talent and financial resources?  The initial cost of welcoming hundreds of millions of new Americans would be more than repaid by the value of the goods and services these new arrivals would provide, not only to their neighbors but to family and business members overseas, who would now have a way to participate in the American economy.  It's been said by some that immigration is the most effective foreign policy the U.S has ever established.  It's been said, because it's the truth.

And, finally, what if I made the point that, in order for America to stay on top of the international economic pyramid, it needed to become bigger, perhaps even as big as China or India, in order to not merely stay on top but also to stay relevant to global commerce?

Well, it turns out I may not have to do any of this, because Matthew Iglesias beat me to it some time ago.  To be precise, 2020.

That was the year in which his book, "One Billion Americans," was published.  I bought a copy a while ago, and it has not yet risen to the top part of my reading pile that it deserves to have.  But it will get there.  In any case, I have practiced immigration law for more than twenty years with my wife, and both of us can speak to the truth of what Iglesias writes about in his book.

You can find a summary of its contents here, along with excerpted criticism (positive and negative) of those contents.  Essentially, he makes the points about the advantages of expanded immigration that I've already outlined.

Unsurprisingly, and despite the current polarization in American politics (on this issue especially), this book has, after a flurry of initial publicity, largely sank from sight.  Or, at least, it did not move to the central place in the immigration debate that its provocative thesis might suggest it should.  For my part, I think that this is an example of how our current polarization prevents us from having anything like a reasoned discussion of ideas, their merits, and the feasibility of translating them into policy.  

After all--and yes, this is not the first time I've made this point, but I'll keep making it until it sinks into enough heads that I can finally think about retiring--thinking about, debating, and translating ideas into reality is actual, honest-to-goodness work.  And work is something we've all become a bit allergic to in the age of ultimate personal convenience.  Far better to lie back and take potshots at each other.  Less wear and tear on brains we don't want to use anyway, and more visceral fun in our increasingly sensual, visceral world.

Immigration could, in fact, go a long way toward filling the empty neighborhoods that are the hallmark of far too many metropolises, suburbs, exurbs, regional centers, and small towns.  At a time when we seem finally, however reluctantly, ready to fix our crumbling infrastructure and modernize it for a digital age, we could put actual people into those spaces and set them free to live their lives and generate new wealth.  In my home town of Baltimore, the population has shrunk over 70 years from a peak of just under a million to its current level of just over 600,000.  Right there, room enough for more than 300,000, perhaps even more.

We could, if we wished, have a national debate about both the feasibility and the desirability of implementing a vision like the one Matthew Iglesias outlines.  But that would require a minimum of two major political parties with a commitment to issues and their resolution, and, above all, an overriding commitment to the national interest that was greater than the pursuit of political and/or personal gain.  It would, in short, require the pursuit of what we all have long taken for granted to be the American Way.

But the American Way can no longer be taken for granted.  We have only the two political parties that have domination the national landscape for the past 160 years.  And one of those parties, the Republican Party, is no longer a party of ideas.  This is so transparently obvious that it is no longer a partisan statement to make.  Even many longstanding members of the party, and its supporters in the larger conservative movement, many of them priding themselves on being people of ideas, will affirm that point.  It is a cult.  

It is a cult that worships Donald Trump not simply as a political leader, but as a quasi-religious (maybe not even quasi-) leader chosen by G-d to make America "great" again.  By which they mean "white, male, straight, and Christian."  This cult has been a key part of the Republican coalition for at least 75 years but, for most of that time, it has been suppressed and manipulated by conservatives whose politics runs to the protection of American business and military interests.  Those conservatives, in a world following two financial meltdowns and two disastrous wars of choice, no longer hold sway.  The bigoted bullies run the Republican playground, and all their games are ones of prejudice.

But prejudice is a pursuit that always wears a series of disguises.  In the 1960s, it cloaked itself in the mantle of "states' rights," and, in this guise, ran reverse Freedom Marches in which Black Americans were bused to northern cities, based on dishonesty and manipulation, in an effort to demonstrate to the liberal northerners that "these people" were nothing but trouble, and Northerners were rank hypocrites for advocating on their behalf.

And, just as they were afraid of people of color "ruining" their "American" way of life, so they are now afraid of Latin American people of color "invading" the sovereign territory of a nation that began when their white ancestors invaded this continent.  And so deprived are they of anything that could be called creative that they are, to act on their fears, compelled to trot out old tricks.

I am, of course, talking about the recent publicity stunts pulled by Republican governors in Texas and Florida to ship immigrants to northern states, again using fraudulent means to do so, including the use of money to pay for the needs of these people in their arrival states, and shipping them to blue states in the north where they expect liberals to be shocked, horrified, and otherwise expose the rank hypocrisy that wingers are convinced liberals possess in unspeakable volumes.

Indeed, the Murdoch press was so confident that this obscene use of human beings as political props was such a political winner for them that it openly bragged about the "success" of these efforts in Murdoch's first media purchase in this country, the perpetually money-losing New York Post.  Oh, did I mention that Murdoch was an immigrant?  Indeed he is; the sort of white, male, straight immigrant that Trumpers wish they could be.

When it comes to immigration, he's only too happy to use his sob sisters to billboard his hypocrisy.  This one is utterly laughable, especially the cheap shot at the not-so-cheap cost of housing on Martha's Vineyard.  As if a man who can afford as many wives as Murdoch has had can afford to sound like a Bolshevik on the subject of housing.  (And what does the last sentence even mean, anyway?)  On the other hand, this one is even worse, as though the author was on drugs.  It goes so far as to admit several of the criticisms of Republican governors--e.g., treating the migrants "like cattle," and not even telling anyone, including the migrants, where they were going--and basically says "SO WHAT!  WHO CARES?  IT'S ALL ABOUT OWNING THE LIBS, THEIR WEALTH, AND THEIR VIRTUE-SIGNALLING!"

See how easy it is to be a Murdoch employee?  I just gave you a one-sentence taste of the content, so you want have to drown in the sludge of reading, unless you're a gluttons for punishment.  I guess the idea is that, if you keep screaming about "the libs" over and over again, you can still make money by overlooking the facts.  Which, in Murdoch-world, is a cherished way of life.  No one earns money working for Murdoch; they just help him steal it.

Because here's what really happened on Martha's Vineyard.

Despite the effort to blindside them, the people on the island organized quickly to get their unexpected visitors oriented, welcome, and provided with what they needed in supplies and information.  Which, all by itself, is quite a bit more than they got from the supposedly "Christian" folks in the states from which they came.  You can find out more about the specifics of that effort here.  I think you'll find it to be more inspirational and, in any case, more real than anything you'll get from the New York Post.

Including this little tidbit:  part of the reason the effort on Martha's Vineyard was so spontaneous and so lacking in friction is the fact that the island, despite being synonymous with wealth, has a homeless population that it works to serve on a regular basis.  So much for clueless, out-of-touch "libs."  If they were "triggered" by anything, they were "triggered" by compassion, by understanding the needs of people from different backgrounds, by a willingness to use their own resources to make a difference in the lives of others, and by all of the above without regard to race, creed, or color.  Those are the things that makes liberals what they are.  Including me.  Murdoch and his "minions" are welcome to get over it.

Instead of doing that, however, when the facts blew up their coverage of their sadistic publicity stunt, they had the colossal gall to complain about the coverage of the detonation from other media outlets.  Priceless example:  Brian Kilmeade, Fox's media critic, going on "Fox and Friends" to complain (in his words that "[t]hey're not covering it the right way."  In other words, not the way Fox wants.

In fact, it is Fox, and the Murdoch empire in general, that isn't covering it the right way.  And that failure is by no means limited to the tone of the reception the migrants received at Martha's Vineyard.

It's also limited to the circumstances of the migrants themselves.

These are people fleeing political persecution, including persecution from Communist governments, like Venezuela and Cuba.  On foot, no less.  If they are not coming from there, they are coming from nations suffering from extreme poverty due to a combination of climate change and political/economic meddling by American conservatives.  In any case, I thought the good Republican thing to do with people fleeing Communist governments was to welcome them with open arms, and only then treat them like political props.  Why were these people shipped from, in some cases, Florida?  Why not transport them to Miami, where there is a prosperous Cuban exile community that should be ready, willing, and eager to welcome these people with open arms?  Or have I touched a third rail there that no one in the Republican Party wants to touch?  It's not as if the Republican Party is full of stand-up people who put their constituents first.  I'm talking about, among others, you, Ted Cruz.

And worst of all:  these people were systematically lied to.  By the Republicans packing them into the buses and the planes.  They were told that there would be jobs awaiting them.  And they were being systematically being given false information about who to contact regarding their change in venue.  This included people who were expected to appear before immigration officials the following week.  These were people doing exactly what so many immigration restrictionists claim they want immigrants to do:  work within the system.  Except for the fact that restrictionists only want to use the system to prevent people from navigating it.

There is no such thing as an "illegal" person, but the victims of this shameful political stunt are especially not so.  They are asylees. They are entering the United States under color of law.  Asylum is one of the most ancient forms of lawfully permitted immigration, recognized in international law which, like it or not, is recognized in American law.

And borders, for better or for worse, are not open.  Attempts by would-be migrants to enter the U.S. without inspection are actually being repelled at a higher rate under Joe Biden then they were under the crook that preceded him in office.  Take a look.  Don't believe it?  Here it is from someone living on the border.  Here it is from a real news outlet, one that doesn't engage in the kind of sucking-up that Murdoch does.  Like the meme says, literally the opposite of "open borders."  This is why Biden's words on the subject of immigration, and the Martha's Vineyard fiasco, should be heeded rather than derided.  He is doing a far better job than he is credited with doing.  And, in doing so, he is underscored an important truth ahead of the midterm elections:  Democrats work lawfully to solve problems, while Republicans work unlawfully to exploit them.

It's precisely because of that exploitation that more needs to be done, not only by Biden, but by Congress, which has for decades abdicated its constitutional responsibility to provide a fully resourced, safe, and orderly immigration systems that meets the needs of our nation AND fulfills the American dreams and hopes of millions of people around the worlds

And Democrats need to get out of their perpetual defensive crouch of this issue and help him.  Our obligation to that law, the traditions that lie behind it, the nations with which we mutually rely, and to the better parts of our own national history as a Republic that developed out of our status as a refuge for others, demands of both political parties that they make safe, lawful immigration for honest, hard-working future citizens not just a political priority, but a national reality that can renew thousands of empty communities all over America, while affirming our commitment to expanding the reach of freedom and justice for all.

Maybe the backfiring of the Abbott-DeSantis stunt will help.

Maybe we should take the money we give their states to help immigrants, and give it to the states that acutally help them.  Let's see them try to balance their budgets after that.  Guess they'll have to steal more from that pot of "welfare reform" money that they get every year.  But more on that later.

You want us to take your migrants?  Sure.  We’ll take your migrants.  And we won't stop there.

We’ll take your rape and incest victims, the ones that your draconian new abortion laws.  And the LGBQT kids you want to pretend don't exist.  We'll take all of the businesses you think are too "woke," (which, deep dark secret, is the overwhelming majority of them).  We'll take all of the educated people who will welcome the opportunity to not have to pretend anymore to be dumb.  We'll take all of the creative people whose work and points of view terrify you to death.  Best of all, perhaps, we'll take all of the jobs that come with all of these people.

We’ll take the people you seen as problems.  Because we see them as people.  Because that’s the American dream.  To see people as a source of promise, not problems.  And to put them, and not money, in charge of our future.

Personally, my hope is that, when Wes Moore is elected governor of Maryland, and this state once again finally has a real governor, he'll make a point of working with Biden to make Baltimore the biggest, best, most diverse, most prosperous sanctuary city in the nation.  As I have said, we've easily got room enough for at least 300,000.  At least.  And I'll bet we have room enough to welcome even more than that.  Just in time for the Orioles to become a decent team again!  Think of all the new types of ballpark food we'll be able to enjoy.

No, we don't have open borders.  But we do need to open up our system, our country, and our lives to the people who are ready, eager, and willing to help us build an even bigger, better America that we've ever had in the past.  And we need to do it before some other, less deserving and more politically nimble nation reads Matthew Iglesias' book, and takes his vision as seriously as we should.