We Need To Be The Change We Are Looking For

So it is 2022. Four weekends into it, in fact.  And all I can say for the new year thus far is that any improvement over 2021 is going to take some time. 

As I write this, one major legislative piece of the Biden Administration's agenda, a combination of bills designed to protect and expand voting rights, has just gone down to defeat, while another, the Build Back Better human infrastructure bill, totters on the brink of defeat.  Both of these setbacks are almost entirely because of the intransigence of 4% of the Democratic Senate caucus.  Predictably, this is feeding the Dems-in-disarray meme that passes for mainstream media insight into progressive politics.  

Lost in the process, unfortunately, is the fact that congressional Democrats have shown remarkable unity in supporting a wide range of proposals that, in the not-too-distant past, would have been considered wildly out of the mainstream.  No longer.  But, as I just mentioned, two out of 50 Senate Democrats systemically refuse to get the message.  At times, they appear to be working overtime in order to do so.  Are they being bribed?  Blackmailed?  Does it even matter any more?  This much is clear:  Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are working overtime for something other than the public interest.

And, as a consequence of all of the above, the media chorus predicting a red tide in this year's midterm elections is growing louder and more confident that the tide will not be modest in nature, and may sink progressive politics in the U.S. for decades to come.  And that assumes that it won't also sink the prospect of future free elections and, perhaps, the Constitution itself.

My concerns about the latter prospect, for reasons I'll shortly discuss, are far greater than the are for the former.  Whatever happens this coming November, it will not change the fact that progressives are a growing cohort among Americans, and that the policies they favor, as shown by poll after poll after poll, are popular across the country.  As it stands right now, however, most if not all of those policies are no closer to reality than they were at this time a year ago.

Why?

This much seems clear to me:  over the past four decades, as coverage of national and even local politics has become characterized by profit-driven mergers that reduce the number of outlets, enslave those that survive to the need for compounding profits, and achieve that goal by a who's-up-who's-down focus rather than pursuit of the truth, the inevitable result has been a political dialogue that focuses on personalities rather than, to borrow a phrase from ABC News, issues and answers.  Thanks to Rupert Murdoch, and those who have paid him the complement of imitation, all journalism is tabloid journalism.  

As a consequence, the focus of political journalism, like its cousins in sports and entertainment, is almost exclusively on personalities.  And that focus has the twin benefit for conservatives of simultaneously obscuring the unpopularity of their positions on issues, while driving the level of discussion down to the lowest-common-denominator level of understanding.  Put another way, it reduces much of the discussion to the level of rumor, or, at least, slanders that can not be either clearly or easily disproven.  At that point, all that is needed to win is the ability to throw muck on the wall of public opinion, and hope that enough of it sticks long enough that it can't be completely scraped off.

Unfortunately, and unfairly, this is the fate that seems to have embraced Joe Biden, a man once described by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina as being as good a man as can be found in politics.  Well, that was then, and now is a very different story.  Whether the subject is mental competency, respect for women, or even a willingness to compromise, Biden has been so badly slandered by Republicans and their media allies that he is in the unhappy position of being more unpopular than the policies he has been advocating.  And, speaking of Graham and his latter-day fealty to Donald Trump, this does not even touch the inanity that Biden was not fairly elected to the presidency.  

Moreover, in the run-up to the midterms, it allows the Republicans, whose 2020 political platform went no further than pledging complete and blind loyalty to Trump, to take the position that they will attempt to regain control of Congress with no policy or programmatic agenda whatsoever.  Don't take my word for it; take the word of Mitch McCONnell, who said so publicly in so many words without apology.  The reason for this brazenness seems pretty obvious:  why deal with what is complicated when you have a talent for going right for your opponent's gut?

Especially when you don't have to do the dirty work yourself, because you have millions of anonymous foot soldiers all across the nation more than ready, eager, and willing to do it for you, either by way of the Internet or by way of hand-to-hand combat.  January 6 of last year can no longer be considered an outlier in American behavior, but rather a template that shows how overthrowing constitutional government can be done:  stage a mix of protests and violence, make the mix look ambiguous enough on video that you can more easily lie about it, and then argue that everything was the other side's fault and no one should believe their lying eyes.  Violence, for the right, is the new normal, and what has essentially been a cold civil war for decades is rapidly turning into a hot one.

And I can tell you, from twelve regrettable years of personal experience, that fundamentalist Christianity, which puts a premium on faith over reason, has played a central and indispensable role in making all of this happen.  If you've read enough of my posts, you may be rolling your eyes, because I talk about this so much.  Frankly, I could talk about it on a weekly basis (which I have not done), and still not talk about it too much.  This goes well beyond the scope of my personal experience, the details of which I'm saving for my memoirs, if I ever retire and write them.  Consider, for example, the case of the Ohio pastor who bragged about hunting people, and may very well have done just that; he has been charged with shooting an individual to death.

And no one needs to rely on me for an assessment of how evangelicals have degraded American politics.  If you have not already done so, do yourself a favor and listen to the words of Frank Schaeffer, the son of one of the 20th century's leading evangelical philosophers, who grew out of the cramped world view of the faith as I did, but who can give you an insider's perspective on its perniciousness.

A perniciousness, I would add, that is fueled by its contribution to the vaccine denialism that has thwarted the best effort of Biden's Administration to bring the COVID-19 pandemic to an end, or at least do something like bring it under control.  I never thought I would live to see a day where a deadly virus is effectively displaying a partisan bias, but there can be no doubt that the pandemic is infecting more people and claiming more lives in red states than blue ones.  Why?  Again, drawing from my own experience, evangelical beliefs are a factor here.  Death can look like a very attractive alternative when life on Earth feels miserable and Heaven feels guaranteed.  Never mind the prospect of spreading a deadly disease by refusing to take any precautions against it.  That would require a vision of God's work that reaches beyond one person or family's circumstances.  You would be surprised how rare that can be in evangelical circles.

And so Republicans do nothing to encourage their followers among the faithful to take precautions.  Why, that would make them look oh-so-secular, like those science-loving liberals evangelicals love to castigate.  Better to bet on the prospect that there will be enough surviving voters in November to make up for the losses among their ranks to the virus.  If Democrats are sufficiently discouraged in advance, especially by media coverage that downplays Democratic accomplishments, it's a bet that might very well pay off; Democratic turnout in midterm years, except when Republicans are in power, tends to fall off relative to its Republican counterpart.

To sum up, a combination of profit-driven corporate media, suicidal evangelicals and other Trump cultists, and Republican politicians who quietly allow these forces to enable their re-election and hold onto the only thing they stand for--power.  All at the expense of America, the Constitution, and the values that the nation and its government were created to uphold and advance.

What, if anything, can and should be done?

For starters, the rest of us, from Biden on down to bloggers (me included) need to do what we can to factually change the narrative.  Talk, for example, about how Biden, with the thinnest possible support in Congress, passed two landmark bills in his first year in office:  one to stem and reverse the tide of the pandemic, the other to begin rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure with a focus on attacking climate change, promoting clean energy, and increase public access to broadband.  And it's not like the economy hasn't noticed all of this.  Even an uber-capitalist like Michael Bloomberg has taken notice and called public attention to what Biden has done.  You recall the GOP-promoted narrative that Biden was going to destroy Christmas?  Didn't happen.

And the Republican critique of Biden's handling of the pandemic?  That's meant to deflect attention from their own spread of misinformation about COVID-19 and how to fight it.  And gas prices?  Well, Biden's powers over gas prices is, to put it mildly, limited at best.  Gas prices are the consequence of forces not merely outside of our control, but outside of our borders.  That reality is what led in the first place to the search for alternative sources of energy.  It's not like gas prices under Trump were any picnic.  The GOP and their allies hope you don't remember that.

The gas price attack, of course, is part of the larger critique about inflation in the past twelve months.  This is less about a legitimate concern on conservatives' part about average households, and more about finding a proxy by which to attack their real concern:  an increase in public spending that might remind those households that government isn't always the problem.  Yes, public spending has increased, as it always does in a crisis.  But allowing conservatives to lay the inflation blame at the feet of that spending would be yet another instance of conservatives obscuring the details for self-serving goals.

In our current crisis, inflation is almost entirely fueled by a series of pandemic related symptoms:  supply-chain problems caused in part by just-in-time inventory methods, a refusal of workers (particularly in service industries) to return to substandard working conditions, a goods-versus-services imbalance attributable to homebound families increasing their Internet shopping, and, most perniciously of all, corporations trying to recoup their 2020 losses at a faster rate than consumers can afford.  Margaret Thatcher famously said that socialism's weakness was running out of other people's money.  As it turns out, capitalism in the 21st century suffers from the same weakness.  This is why Wall Street should be a bit leery of bragging about its elastic power to raise prices.

Admittedly, it's a phenomenon that doesn't lend itself to a bumper-sticker sized solution.  But, despite that fact, Republicans are trying to make inflation the campaign hobby-horse that they can ride back to the seat of power.  There's just one problem.  What would they do about inflation?

Nothing.  Nothing, that is, but continue talking about it.  They don't have a plan for dealing with it.  They only have plans for exploiting it.  And that's something that can be reduced to bumper stickers, sound bites, blog posts, social media posts, and everything else we can do to point out, once again that Republicans don't care about anything except power.

So, step one:  speak out more.  This is especially important for the President.  By definition, he's the leader of this parade.  And yet, for a very long time, he hasn't been acting like it.  Even his supporters have taken notice of this, and spoken up about it.  That probably goes a long way toward explaining his marathon press conference this past week.  And, while it was good to see him going to the public and making his case, Biden being Biden, it was rhetorically a mixed bag. Not only did he suggest that a small "incursion" by Russia might somehow be acceptable, but he stated that he had no reason to think that Republicans wouldn't negotiate in good faith with him for the sake of the nation. No reason?  Here's one gargantuan one:  he was Barack Obama's Vice President for eight years, and had a bird's-eye view of how badly Obama was treated by many of the same Republicans that are now pushing him around.

Biden, as even Graham was once forced to admit, is a good man. Overall, he's probably done the best that anyone could have done with the biggest mess any President has ever inherited, and limited congressional leverage for dealing with it.  But, as those of us who have observed him for a long time know, his mouth can make him his own worst enemy.  Still, he has the proverbial bully pulpit, and he should speak out, regularly and forcefully.

But the rest of us need to do everything we can to help him.

We can no longer take it for granted that we are the world's leading democracy.  We can, in fact, no longer take it for granted that we are even a democracy.  And, as a nation, regardless of what side of the partisan divide we fall on, we are deeply depressed and fearful for the future.  Not without reason, either.  After all, the Trump syndicate is still out there, waiting for an opportunity to regain power, provided it can remain one step ahead of the law, and continue to intimidate the Republicans whose support it needs to do so.

We may yet get some help even from the media.  There are some signs that even corporate media is beginning to understand that bothsiderism isn't up to the task of taking on the existential crisis we're facing.  You can see some examples here, here, and here.  Perhaps this is the best example:  the suggestion that the press can be a partisan for democracy.  This seems entirely appropriate; after all, the press is essentially empowered by the First Amendment to do exactly that.

But it's still on our shoulders.  Yours, mine, and everyone's.  What are the next steps?

We're in uncharted territory, so making a definitive outline is not really possible at this point,  The outline may have to evolve over time.  But mainly, we have to start by refusing to play by GOP rules.  We have to stop reacting, and start pushing back.  That doesn't mean resorting to violence.  But it does mean asserting ourselves without being afraid of the type of responses we attract.  Let them worry about our responses for a change.

And, speaking of media, one place where we can all start is Fox News.  As any sane person knows, Fox is not really a "news" network; it's infotainment for true believers on the far right.  So why is the fee for Fox bundled into the basic price charged for cable, as is the case with other news networks.  This effectively amounts to liberals and progressives being charged a "Fox tax" for a network they would never watch.  Perhaps we should all petition our cable companies to have this tax revoked.  I sure don't want to help subsidize the cost of Rupert Murdoch's broadcast bilge.

We can not only stand up to the cable companies, but to the yahoos they showcase.  When they try to make fun of Biden with that "Let's Go Brandon" nonsense, let's face it and laugh it off.  Even Biden has learned how to do that.  So effectively, in fact, that the unforgivably racist Trump stooge Stephen Miller complained about it. 

We can and must openly mock the hypocrisy on the right, which manifests itself in so many ways.  Take immigration.  It's offensive and anti-freedom to try locking down the country for COVID, but not for immigrants, who are often refugees from countries being destroyed by climate change.  Ironic, since COVID and climate change are both the products of multinational corporations that have done so much to tear the planet apart while destroying the blue-collar American economy that Trump voters mourn.  Prioritizing profits while being beyond the reach of any one country, they are the culprits behind the abuse of science, who try to reap its benefits without respecting the subsequent social, physical, economic, and moral cost.

And, at the same time, we must be hard on ourselves, and on the politicians who claim our support.  We need those politicians to take and fight for tough stands on fundamental issues, like human rights.  We need to push back on Biden's withdrawal from negotiations to compensate the victims of Trump's inhumane immigration policies.  We need to stop acting afraid of core values.  That's how you address the question "What do Democrats stand for?"

We may not yet have the media our our side.  But we have ourselves.  We need to hang onto that like our democracy, and even our lives, depend on it.  In the short run, it may be what we need to do to keep the Democrats in change.  The party is far from perfect.  But the days of sitting elections out and waiting for it to get better are over.  We don't have the luxury of that kind of time.

We'd better start acting like it.  To paraphrase Obama, we need to be the change we are looking for.

Whither 2022?

It was a year that began with an organized, systematic, and violent effort, organized and encouraged by the then-president of the United States, to overthrow constitutional government in this country, an effort that came much closer to succeeding than many people may realize. It was a year that ended with a billionaire, and not those who defended constitutional government from that attack, declared as the Person of the Year. In between those events, there was a systematic effort by the leaders of one political party, and the more degenerate examples of their followers, to weaponize a deadly virus in an effort to continue that assault on constitutional government.

There is a straight line over four decades from the worship of Ronald Reagan and the exaltation of the wealthy, along with the subsequent demonization of their opponents as traitors, to that assault and that elevation of a man and his self-exaltation at the expense of the workers who put him where he is today. As we go into an election year in which constitutional government itself may very well be on the ballot, we should not lose sight of that fact.

Nor, for that matter should we lose sight of the fact that this was not only an assault on constitutional government, but on the very future of our nation itself, as illustrated not only by the continuing the spread of the pandemic, but also the fact that it is pushing our health system itself to the point that so-called socialized medicine was supposed to create.  That is to say, rationing care, and, with the explosion of pediatric cases, continuing the assault on our posterity that gun violence has already initiated.  All of this, despite the fact that posterity is supposed to be one of the things our Constitution was primarily written to protect.

It’s worth noting at this point the death of Senator Harry Reid, a man who moved from the right to the left over his career because he was fundamentally a fighter and he recognized that fighting spirit, and the shared fundamental values behind it, in the left-leaning members of his party. It may very well be that the need to fight, the willingness to fight, and the ability to fight, is what is really needed to unify everyone in this country, regardless of their political affiliation, who still cares about democracy and is willing to do whatever it takes to protect it.

We enter 2022 with the realization that it could very well be a historic year. That could be true in one of two ways. Either it can be a year in which we the people re-commit ourselves to the values that are expressed in our Constitution's Preamble. Or it can be a year in which the Constitution itself is reduced to little more than four decaying pieces of parchment in an airtight glass case, a case that may protect the parchment, but not the government or the ideals that the words on the parchment are supposed to protect.

The choice, as always, is yours. As someone who turned 65 this year, and who is deepening his appreciation, as he looks at his grandchildren, of the need to promote and protect the future, I beg you with my head and heart, and with my body and soul, to not let this opportunity to save the Republic slip away. It is easy to slip into the comfort of dropping out. It is much harder to rise to the obligation of standing up and staying in the fight. But it has never been more essential to do so.

Whatever you do, this year, honor our Constitution, and the memory of Senator Reid, by being a fighter. Do it to save all of us. And, for that matter, do it to save yourself.

And with that, I wish everyone a happy new year, in the hope and prayer that will end up being one.

One last minute coda.  Thanks, Betty White, for being a consummate professional and an unbelievably decent human being, one whose end-of-the-year exit was as graceful as the life she lived.

Stephen Sondheim, The Broadway Gift That Will Keep On Giving

The day after Thanksgiving this year is one I will never forget.

I was sitting in my law office, engaged in my work, when, suddenly, the voice of my wife broke the train of my thoughts.

"Oh, no!"

"What?"

"Stephen Sondheim died."

Those are words I never wanted to hear.  Over the years, I've mourned the death of a lot of celebrities I've admired or respected, with varying degrees of sadness.  None, however, have devastated me as much as those five words my wife uttered.  I'm sitting here more than three weeks later, and I'm still in something of a state of shock.  I feel the loss of Stephen Joshua Sondheim, the American theater's foremost composer-lyricist, as deeply as I would feel the loss of a family member, or a close friend.

I never had the pleasure of meeting him, or talking with him (although our lives did intersect once; more about that later).  Yet I can honestly say that I have felt his presence, in a variety of ways, at various points in my life.  Going all the way back to close to the beginning of it, in fact.

In writing previously about the passing of my mother, I mentioned the fact that she imbued me with a passionate love for theater.  I remember, as a young boy, sitting in the living room of our suburban Baltimore row house, where she would iron clothes and sing songs from Broadway shows.  One day, I crawled across the floor and started going through the records stacked neatly under our Magnavox stereo.  Among others, I found the original cast album for "West Side Story," read the names on the cover, and was delighted to discover that one of the authors of the show had my first name.

OK, I'll admit, a deeply narcissistic reaction.  In my defense, I was about five years old at the time.  Nevertheless, it launched me on a lifelong love of Sondheim's career and work.  That love really started to percolate in my adolescent and teenage years, as my own interest in theater translated into an interest in acting, including a high school production of "The Music Man," (ironically, the show that beat "West Side Story" for Best Musical at the Tony Awards).  It continued into my young adult years, when I got to see three of Sondheim's shows--"Pacific Overtures," "Sweeney Todd," and "Merrily We Roll Along"--prior to their official Broadway openings.  It picked up again in middle age, as I got involved in efforts to save a Broadway theater, while introducing my wife and stepchildren to my affinity to the history of theater and Sondheim's place in it.  And it has continue long after it became apparent  that Sondheim was unlikely to create new musicals, spending much of his time working on revivals of his existing works.

If you know little or nothing about him, here is a link to the obituary I knew I would have to read someday, and dreaded doing so.

The success story of his life is one that does not fit some popular measures of success.  None of his shows, in their original incarnations, ran as many as 1,000 performances.  And not all of those productions were financial successes, although they were often critical ones; many of them lost some, and in a few cases all, of their initial investments.  And his critics in the press, though they were in the minority, could be utterly brutal, even when they were forced to concede the ingenuity and insight of his lyrics.

The conventional critical rap on Sondheim is that he was the master of ambivalence, his work expressing a view of life as something without clear and painless paths or choices, with pain as an inevitability.  This perspective has been repeated to the point of cliché, albeit a cliché that obscures instead of underscoring (no pun intended) the value of his work.

Sondheim had, by all accounts (including his own), a childhood that was financially privileged yet emotionally scarred.  His parents' marriage ended when he was 10, and his childhood life thereafter was molested, emotionally if not literally, by his mother, who took all of her anger toward her ex-husband and directed it toward her son.  As he himself would admit, this fostered in him a general distrust of human relationships and their reliability.  However, it didn't diminish, and may have to some extent fostered, the analytical side of his thinking, which led in turn to a perspective on life that could honestly appraise all aspects of human experience.  This range of his appreciation for reality, its blessings and its curses, can be seen in the range of the source materials for his work.

And the range of his talent can be seen not only in his Broadway career, but also in his love of other forms of writing, especially puzzles.  Sondheim's Manhattan townhouse was decorated with antique puzzles and games, and was the inspiration for the setting of Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth."  He enjoyed not only solving puzzles, but creating them as well, doing so for the readers of New York magazine before his work on "Company" got in the way.  As is explained in detail here, Sondheim introduced variations on the traditional crossword puzzle to New York's readers.  There's a quote of Sondheim's in the article that poignantly explains the appeal for him:  "One of the great things about crossword puzzles is, there's a solution.  And that's unfortunately not true of all the puzzles in life."

Happily, his passion for puzzles was something he shared not only with two of his creative colleagues, Leonard Bernstein and Burt Shevelove, but even earlier with the man who served as his professional mentor and surrogate father, Oscar Hammerstein.  That is appropriate, in a way, because it was his relationship with Hammerstein and Hammerstein's family, a by-product of his mother's post-divorce decision to move from New York to Pennsylvania, that began to give his life an emotional and professional grounding.

One of my favorite Sondheim stories from this period of his life is the one he told about the time, at the age of 15, when he wrote a musical and asked Hammerstein to evaluate it from the perspective of a professional producer.  Notwithstanding his personal regard for Sondheim, Hammerstein punctured his aspiring protege's dreams of being the first teenage songwriter on Broadway by telling him it was the worst thing he'd ever read--to which he quickly added "Now I didn't say it was untalented.  I merely said it was terrible.  And if you want to know why it's terrible, sit down and let me show you."

Those last seven words are perhaps the most fateful in the history of the American musical theater.  They were the beginning of a mentorship that would run through Sondheim's college days and into his work on his first Broadway hits.  And, as the quote above suggests, Hammerstein was an unsparing teacher.  A little bit of full disclosure here:  I myself, with the help of a musician friend, tried to write a musical during my high school years, without getting as far as Sondheim did.  I have no illusions that dreams of glory would have been ours had there been a Hammerstein in our lives.  But that experience, if nothing else, deepened my own appreciation for what it took to create at the level Sondheim achieved.

Despite the abuse Sondheim experienced at the hands of his mother, the younger songwriter was able to feel the love and respect his mentor showed him not only by holding him to the highest of standards but, simultaneously, ingraining in him the value of writing songs with his own voice, rather than someone else's.  Perhaps it helped to make him his own harshest critic as well, seeing in that harshness the discipline need to create art at the highest levels.

He did not believe his work, having once been produced, deserved to be preserved and admired on some sort of pedestal.  In revivals, he has frequently accepted the revisionist ideas of other, younger theater professionals, as is exemplified by the current Broadway revival of "Company."

And he repaid the debt he owed to Hammerstein handsomely, through his advice and mentorship to a large number of young theatrical professionals, most notably Jonathan Larson, the author of "Rent," and Lin-Manuel Miranda, the author of "Hamilton."  He paid them the same compliment Hammerstein paid to him, by not letting his personal regard for them get in the way of making sure that they did their best work.  In the cases of Larson and Miranda, among others, his mentorship was in-person; in the case of others, it was by way of correspondence (full disclosure, hinted at earlier:  I have one of those coveted hand-typed-and-hand-signed notes from him, in response to a letter I had sent him concerning my work in historic theater preservation).

In the process, he not only repaid his debt to Hammerstein, he perhaps illustrated Hammerstein's own point that a teacher is ultimately taught by his, her, or their students.  Perhaps he also came to understand the extent to which professional fulfillment can also be personal fulfillment as well.  I think, in this context, of Sondheim songs such as "Children Will Listen," and "No One Is Alone," from "Into The Woods."

I like to think that although our interactions were limited to that one exchange of correspondence, I'm one of his children, too.  Although my own interest in theater was nurtured by my parents, my interest in a theater career, notwithstanding my failed attempt to become a lyricist, was nurtured by Sondheim's career and by my desire to make some kind of contribution to theater--if not in his way, and at his level, then to whatever extent I could do it.

I don't think I could have helped form a movement on the Internet to save the Biltmore Theatre from becoming the lobby to a condo building if I didn't have a love for theater history that transcended the bounds of rationality.  (Ask my wife and stepchildren if you don't believe me.)  That crusade, along with my other artistic pursuits as a visual artist, an actor, and a producer, is driven as much as anything by something I think Sondheim and I shared:  a contempt for the mediocracy of modern culture.  For me, it's best summed up in the words of Madame Armfeldt, from "A Little Night Music":

Where is style?

Where is skill?

Where is forethought?

Where's discretion of the heart?

Where's passion in the art?

Where's craft?

No one can doubt that Sondheim valued art above money, a fact reflected in his working right up to the end of his lengthy life, even though he had no financial reason for doing so. It may be, in one sense, deeply premature to bring this up, but I can't help hoping that some of the material from this last incomplete show, "Square One," is performed and recorded.  As much Sondheim as we have, there can't be too much, even if satirists might think otherwise.

And, however adventurous and financially unprofitable some of Sondheim's musicals may have been, the sheer quality of his work found a way to break through and become a part of the larger culture outside not just of Broadway, but theater itself.  Nothing better illustrates that fact than the success of "Send In The Clowns" from "A Little Night Music," the very first Broadway musical that I actually saw on Broadway, during the last week of the original production's run.  Nothing I can say or write can describe the experience of listening to Glynis Johns singing it, or the ovation she received after doing so.

Perhaps, in our deeply divided times, one of Sondheim's greatest accomplishments was his appeal to people on both ends of the political spectrum.  He was not only admired by liberals (like me), but also by conservatives, including prominent media figures such as John Podhoretz and Cal Thomas.

On a related note (again, no pun intended), I think perhaps his greatest lesson to all of us lies in his willingness to adapt.  He started out at the end of the great Tin Pan Alley tradition of 32-bar, AABA melodies, and almost seamlessly transitioned the Broadway mainstream into what has become a long and still unfolding era of experimentation in musical theater.  In the process, he took an institution that was in danger of completely disappearing, and extended its life for at least decades beyond his own lifetime.

I remember what Broadway was like in the early 1970s, about the time that the Sondheim-Hal Prince collaboration emerged as a strong creative force, and my own interest in theater began to peak with my first visit to Broadway (Alan Bates in "Butley," at the now-departed Morosco Theatre) and the aforementioned appearance in my high school's production of "The Music Man."  Broadway, simply put, was dying.  Theaters were being torn down.  Fewer new authors and producers were emerging from the shows that did get on the boards.  In the fall of 1973, on my birthday, there were exactly 12 shows running on the allegedly Great White Way.  Today, even in this COVID-ravaged times, there are more than 40 active Broadway theaters, including historic houses brought back from the dead.  That would not have happened without a handful of dedicated theater professionals keeping Broadway on life support until a new generation could come along to embrace it.

Sondheim, as well as Prince and Joseph Papp, deserve enormous and undiluted credit for the fact that this happened.  And all of these individuals did it by understanding that the world around them was changing, and theater's survival depended on its ability to change with it.  Sondheim, in his relationships with Larson and Miranda, even found the ability to embrace rock and rap music, despite at one point having derided the former as being too dependent on rhythm for the range of emotional expression needed in drama. Perhaps he best expressed the need to survive by adapting here.  (Perhaps I should say "still here" instead.)

The key to the adaptation theater needed, for Sondheim as with many modern artists, lies in deconstructing reality, showing it from multiple perspectives, teaching us about its various facets by showing it from multiple perspectives and multiple points in time.  He could take fragments of one song and combine them with another, a technique he used to perfection in "Merrily We Roll Along," a show that operates with a reverse chronology.  Bits of one song at the show's beginning, or at the "end" of the story, would build to fuller versions later on, or toward the "end" of the story.  If you can find a copy of the original cast album, get it not only for its magnificent score, but also for Sondheim's liner notes, which explain in better detail than I can his thinking about how the music and lyrics are meant to work.

Perhaps its not surprising that one of his own later works, "Sunday In The Park With George," revolves around an Impressionist work of art; like Cezanne and other Impressionists, Sondheim was a master of deconstruction and reconstruction.  Yet it would be unfair to suggest that he did not develop a point of view in his work.  Despite his work's reputation for emotional ambivalence, time and again it would come back to the need for commitment as the only choice that each of us can ultimately make.  Commitment to art, to a person, to something.  The score of "Company" expresses this best for me, in songs like "Sorry-Grateful":

You're always sorry

You're always grateful

You're always wondering

What might have been

Then she walks in

Or, "Being Alive":

Somebody crowd me with love

Somebody force me to care

Somebody let me come through

I'll always be there

As frightened as you 

To help us survive

Being alive

Being alive

Being alive

We should all be not sorry, but deeply grateful, for the fact that in his career, and ultimately in his personal life, he found the ability to make that commitment, while still enjoying and exploring the complexity of life with a candor and commitment that has led some to compare him to Shakespeare.

Mandy Patinkin, who starred in the original production of "Sunday In The Park With George," made the same comparison, while hoping that Sondheim ultimately found the solace that was denied to him during his childhood, and added this:

Patinkin derives comfort from the knowledge that his friend is "the furthest thing from gone.  He left the heart and soul of his existence, his being, what he cared about, what he thought, what he wished for, wishes that he sometimes couldn't realize for himself--that will be here forever."

Perhaps Patinkin, along with the rest of us, can find solace in this evidence that Sondheim did find a measure of that peace, did in fact understand the value of what he would leave behind.  In a "60 Minutes" interview with Diane Sawyer back in the 1980s, in connection with his work on "Into The Woods," Sondheim expressed regret over not having children, but added, with a smile, that art can be a type of child.

Yes, art, as well as the people who follow your lead in creating it.  To me, this is the best way I can sum up my gratitude for the life and career of Stephen Sondheim.  He will continue to inspire creativity in others, through the legacy of his shows and the people he mentored and inspired to follow the trail he blazed.  As one small but powerful example of this, I leave you, thanking you for your indulgence if you've gotten this far in my musings, with a video based on one of my most favorite Sondheim songs from one of my most favorite of his scores, for "Merrily."  You will thank yourself for giving it a look and a listen, even if you are not as moved to the brink of tears as I was.  Among other things, it puts the lie to the accusation that his work was cold and unmelodic.  And it validates Patinkin's view that Sondheim's work gives us Sondheim forever.  It's what makes his loss, and the obituary I never wanted to read, bearable. It's what makes me, and should make all of us, deeply thankful for his life and work.

Thank you, Mr. Sondheim, indeed.  To paraphrase from another "Merrily" song, here's to you.  Who's like you?  Damn few?

Damn fewer than that.

Baruch dayan ha'emet.  And it will be.

Sorry, Charlie, The Second Amendment Is NOT The Most Important One

I write this within days, literally hours, of the jury verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.  Given the level of publicity it has received, you don't need me to tell you why Rittenhouse was on trial in the first place.  Frankly, although it might be good journalism form to do so, I don't feel like I have the time to go through the history of Rittenhouse's time in the limelight.

Because, even though the verdict was the one I and everyone else fully expected, I still have too much outrage over it, and the implications for the rest of us to worry about the form.  The substance of this is killing me, emotionally.  The phenomenon it represents has already killed far too many innocent Americans, literally.  And, unless it can be put to an end, it may kill democracy in the United States.  Also literally, and maybe forever.

But I want to start by going through the reasons why the verdict is outrageous.  I don't want there to be any doubt about where I am, to borrow a phrase from back in the day, "coming from."  If you're reading this, and you think that this is merely the rage of a blindly liberal snowflake who lives to hate people who disagree with them, well, keep reading anyway.  There's always that one-in-a-trillion chance you'll learn something.

Kyle Rittenhouse took, without permission, a gun that did not belong to him.  He took that gun across state lines, into a state where civil unrest was already being countered effectively by the governor of the state in question.  He wandered into the midst of the unrest, already not under color of law, and used deadly force against three people who did not use deadly force against him.  Legally, therefore, he was not acting in self-defense.  Practically, he killed two people, and seriously injured another.  In short, he is every bit as not guilty as Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, Mark Chapman, David Hinckley, and the Son of Sam.  *Please see update below.

But not, as it turns out, in the eyes of twelve allegedly average citizens in the town of Kenosha, Wisconsin.  And so he walks free.  The only thing he has to fear is his conscience.  If he has one.  The rest of us, on the other hand, have to worry about copycat Rittenhouses.  Especially men of color.

That last link is to a New York Times column by Charles Blow, someone well worth reading in any case.  Especially since, in this column, he notes a time when Ronald Reagan and the National Rifle Association joined forces to enact a California law banning open carry of firearms.  Ah, but those were very different circumstances.  The rationale for the law in that case was the appearance of members of the Black Panthers at the California State Legislature, armed in accordance with the Panther ideology that African Americans needed to provide themselves with the protection that white police officers weren't willing to give.

That hypocrisy, and the racism behind it, has remained evergreen half a century later.  Conservatives aren't opposed to regulating the use of guns.  They are only opposed to regulations that limit their use of guns.  You have only to look at this piece of claptrap from Lois Weiss of the Murdoch-owned New York Post, one that mercilessly exploits a workplace tragedy involving a celebrity nemesis of Donald Trump, to realize that the right would be thrilled to bits by any regulation of guns by people they hate.  (Full disclosure:  as an actor, I have been on sets where guns were used in accordance with effective gun protocols, and I fully support this kind of common-sense regulation of firearms, as I support it in other settings as well.)

The hypocrisy, of course, has not emerged in a vacuum.  If anything, it illustrates the need for a full discussion of critical race theory, which is nothng more (or less) than an examination of the multiple ways in which racism has been, and continues to be, embedded in the structure of American culture, society, economy, and government.  Conservatives have responded to the emergence of CRT by decrying it as a strategy designed to make white people feel guilty.  Wrong.  It's the start of a process to remove the legacy of racism that is baked into the structure of the country.  If that makes you feel "guilty," well, that's strictly on you.

But the hypocrisy should not obscure the role that the conservative fetishization of the Second Amendment played not only in the Rittenhouse nightmare, but in similar nightmares that reoccur over and over again.  And that's why I need to digress into a discussion of Charlton Heston.

If you are of a certain age, like me, you remember Heston as the physically chiseled, emotionally stony leading man from historical epics in the 1950s like "The Ten Commandments," as well as sci-fi epics from the 1960s and 1970s such as "Planet of the Apes" and "Soylent Green."  On the other hand, if you are an adult of any age at this point, you will also remember him as a long-time member, and president of, the NRA.  It may not in fact be stretching a point to say that Heston did more that anyone else to turn the NRA into one of the most lethally powerful political forces in America.  He's probably best remembered for popularizing the slogan "I'll give up my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands."

Catchy.  But there's a far more dangerous thought that Heston did more to promote, and embed in the minds of Americans, that that one.  It's the misbegotten notion that the Second Amendment is more important than any other part of the Constitution, because it gives citizens the power to resist tyranny from its own government.

Let's leave aside the obvious point that a government with the nuclear power to level the planet several times over really doesn't have a lot to fear from men who are spending all of their money on firearms instead of paying their back child support.  Instead, let's back up one Amendment, and talk a little about the First one.

The First Amendment (and this will be news to Amy Comey Bennett, who drew a blank on its provisions at her confirmation hearings) guarantee four basic rights:  the right to speak freely, the right to worship the religion of one's choice, the right to publish freely, and the right to peaceably assemble to protest injustice.  Four separate rights.  But all undergirded by one basic, utterly essential freedom:  freedom to think.  To perceive, to learn, to understand, and to ultimately shaped by the power of the human mind to experience reality and understand how it works.  Ultimately, to learn the truth, about oneself, and about everything else.

Without that freedom, the right to own and use a gun becomes the right to be a menace.  And, carried to an unfettered conclusion, the right not to fight tyrants, but to become one.  Or to become subject to one.

This is not a purely academic analysis.  Far from it.  This is a description of American society in the Rittenhouse moment.  We are now a country in which the right to own a book, or even to discuss its contents, is less important than Kyle Rittenhouse's apparent right to play weekend soldier at the expense of other people's right not only to protest injustice, but even to live.

This was true even before the verdict.  In death threats against a news anchor on a conservative network urging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.  In a conservative opinion maker being publicly asked when it will be permissible to use guns.  In displays of Confederate symbols at schools.  In the unwillingness of our own national law enforcement bureau to respond to advance tips about the January 6 assault on the Capitol.  In the willingness of Republican Members of Congress to advocate violence against their political opponents.  And in the related willingness of those members to spread social media posts depicting the murders of the President and a Congresswoman.

In the short time since Rittenhouse's acquittal, has it gotten any better?  I guess, at this point, that should be purely a rhetorical question.  We've got Marjorie QAnon Green, yet another gun-loving Republican, saying she's not in favor of a civil war, but, what the hell, bring it on anyway.  We've got Madison Cawthorn, referenced above, pouring more fuel on the fire.  And we've got people arrested for writing their opinions of the judge in the Rittenhouse case on the steps of the courthouse.  Like I said, in contemporary America, guns effectively have more freedom than thoughts do.

If ever there was a trial that demands the full pushback efforts of every American who really understands what the Constitution is all about, it's this one.  We can start with the judge, whose behavior during this trial was almost a clinic on what every member of the bench should avoid doing, and who, as it turns out, has a rather checkered history.  Judges are not above the law, or the power of either the government or the people to remove them from their position when doing so, as here, is warranted.  You can take a look here at how this works in each state, including Wisconsin.  And, whether or not you live in Wisconsin, if you care about civic decency, file a complaint with the Badger State authorities.

But what we really need to to even more urgently is to reclaim the power of the First Amendment over the Second.  Without the freedom to think, and the freedoms the First Amendment guarantees relative to that freedom, we will be overwhelmed by the power of guns to destroy us all--not only those in front of them, but those behind them as well.  Without that freedom, we have anarchy, and death.  Death not just of individuals, but of a Republic built on the belief that a free people, armed first and foremost with the truth, are stronger than any tyrant, even one with all the arms in the world.  We can start with critical race theory, and we can start there by refusing to be intimidated by those who would slime it in the same way that conservatives of a different era slimed liberals as Communist sympathizers.

And we cannot--we must not--be afraid of their guns.  If the day comes when we need to arm ourselves in self-defense, we will.  They would be mistaken to think that we would not be willing to do that.  I would be willing to do that.  If we act now, and put the First Amendment back in first place, it may not come to that.  I pray that it will not come to that.

So, sorry Charlie.  The Second Amendment is NOT the most important one.

And I have this piece of food for thought for CongresswQman Marjorie.

I don't want a civil war either.

But I'm not afraid of one.  Neither are millions of people on my side of the ideological divide your side has created.

And all of the bullets in the world mean nothing to people who are not afraid of the truth.  Or of acting upon it.

*UPDATE:  November 21, 2021

I have to apologize for two errors in my description of the events that led to the Rittenhouse trial.  He did not take another person's firearm across state lines.  The truth isn't much better, however: he sent money to a friend to buy the gnn for him and store it until Rittenhouse's 18th birthday--which had not taken place at the time of the protests.  The "straw person" transaction may have been illegal, and Rittenhouse should not have possessed the gun in any case.

Also, the surviving victim did admit to pointing a gun at Rittenhouse.  But again, Rittenhouse was not present under color of law to keep the peace.  How was the survivor to know what Rittenhouse's motives were?  This is the whole problem with the theory that good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns.  How do we know who the good and bad guys are?  That's why police uniforms exist in the first place.  And, if your answer here is that the good guys are white, I'll thank you for having the decency to be honest, but that's all.

Finally, a word about so-called "stand your ground" laws.  As noted here, the wording of the Wisconsin statute is vague (perhaps deliberately so, especially given the nature of Wisconsin's Republican legislature) and may have been influenced by the judge's own instructions.  I've already said enough about the judge in this case.  Otherwise, whether or not you're an attorney, I think we're all free to ask whether this was truly a case of "self-defense."  Frankly, the facts here reinforce my view that "stand your ground" laws, as applied, are licenses to hunt humans.  We have no evidence of Kyle Rittenhouse's motives in going to Kenosha other than his words.  And, given the results, that's not good enough for me.

************************************

I'll be taking off until the first weekend in December.  Until then, please have a safe, healthy, and happy Thanksgiving with those you love.

The Democratic Party Is A Party Of Color (And Women)

Yes, as you might expect, this is a post about last week's elections, and the almost predictable Chicken Little response from the MSM about the future of the Democratic Party, the same sadly inaccurate response it always makes when Democrats lose any election.  The one about crafting a better message, reaching across the aisle more, and, above all, working harder at chasing "suburban" (translation:  white) voters because they're the only ones that matter, because they just so gosh darn swingy.  Spreading this message for a living would surely be a sweet, low-stress gig, if you overlook the part about selling your soul and sending the future of your country down the river.

But, once again, I digress.  Let's go back in time a little bit, say, back to the election last year that put Democrats in charge of the federal government, however tenuously.

I felt easy in my mind about the presidential race, not only because I was convinced that the majority of Americans were fed up with Donald Trump, but because Joe Biden had been smart enough to put Kamala Harris on the ticket.  He didn't fall into the trap most white male Democrats fall into of thinking that his party needed lots of while maleness to neutralize the white maleness that is the Republican reason for existing.  Rather, he looked at his party and saw it for what it has in fact been for decades:  a coalition of races, genders, occupations, faiths, and orientations generally.  He picked a running mate that reflected that reality perhaps better than anyone else could.  And, wonder of wonders, it worked.

At the risk of electronically patting myself on the back, I knew that it would.  This is why I felt a sigh of relief when Biden selected Harris.

And it is precisely why, when I learned that Terry McAuliffe had once again won the Democratic nomination to be governor of Virginia, I had a very different reaction.  Something along the lines of "uh-oh."

McAuliffe first rose to prominence in politics as a prolific fundraiser for the Clintons, and then parlayed that success into a term as Virginia's governor from 2014 to 2017, a credential he used to great effect in being nominated a second time, with the backing of the Democratic establishment in the state.  Virginia's election laws prevented him from serving consecutive terms, but not from running again.  You can read more about the primary here.

In short, McAuliffe is fundamentally a money bundler for the establishment.  He was able to make that work for him in part because, when he ran for the first time, Clinton Democrats were still firmly in charge of the party and its selection of candidates.   But it is a much different story in a post-Barack Obama, post-Trump Democratic Party.  Proof of that fact is that, this time, in the Democratic primary, McAuliffe faced no fewer than three African-American candidates, including the incumbent lieutenant governor.  None of those three candidates could cement a hold on the voters, and McAuliffe won.

So the fall races for the three top executive jobs in Virginia featured the following:  two white men running for governor and attorney general (with a Democratic incumbent), and two women of color running for lieutenant governor.  Result:  Two white male Republicans were elected, along with a female African-American Republican in the third race.  (And good luck to Winsome Sears:  as an African-American Trump supporter, she is certainly an anomaly, but one that bodes well for the future of African-American candidates in the Old Dominion State.)

And that's precisely the point.

African-American voters saw their loyalty to the Democratic Party unrewarded by the results of the primary elections, and stayed home.  And, even in spite of that, McAuliffe, as well as Mark Herring, the current attorney general, lost by razor-thin margins, as did Hala Ayala, the lieutenant gubernatorial candidate, who might very well have won with more voter support, given Sears' identification with Trump.  And, with respect to overall turnout by Virginia voters, this was the result.

And then, let's not forget this.  I am 100% convinced that this played a key role in depressing African-American turnout, and I am shocked beyond words that I am almost the only person mentioning this on the Internet or anywhere else.  That more media outlets haven't addressed this point is journalistic malpractice.

And then, there was McAuliffe's political malpractice, which manifested itself on several levels, and did not stop at failing to properly promote progressive accomplishments in Virginia. He failed to make any meaningful outreach to African-American voters, especially young ones, until his standing in the polls began to slip, thus reinforcing the view that Democrats only show up for voters of color when they're absolutely desperate.  He let his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, get away with his I-can’t-tell-you-about-my-abortion-position-until-after-the-election, which offered a road to impugning Youngkin's character and bringing up Trump without bringing up Trump.  And he told parents of school-age children to go to hell when it comes to their education concerns. I'm as far away as you can be from being a book-burner, but public education would not exist without the support of parents, who do have a right to ask questions about what their children are being taught.  In typing this litany, it's almost impossible to believe that McAuliffe managed to get elected the first time; he seems to have the political instincts of a pet rock.

And, finally, there is what lazy journalists always like to go for:  the weight-of-history argument.  To repeat it, in case you somehow haven't heard it, since the election of Jimmy Carter, way back in my college days, a new President from one party is promptly followed by new Virginia and New Jersey governors from the other party.  

Except that there's a significant difference here.  In 1993 and 2009, years after which Democrats replaced Republicans in the White House, Republicans picked up the governor’s mansions in Virginia by nearly 20 points, and in New Jersey by a smaller margin. This time, they lost New Jersey, and won by a squeaker in Virginia. Hard to see how that isn’t a major shift.   Moreover, a split like this hasn't happened since Ronald Reagan's presidency.  If facts are the foundation of our opinions, doesn't this make Biden the new Reagan?

Ah, but then I shouldn't have said finally.  There is the issue of Mr. T, and I don't mean Sylvester Stallone's opponent in "Rocky III."  We are now being told, again by the MSM, that Trump is no longer a factor.  Youngkin has proved that you can win by being Trump without Trump, and that we can all sigh a deep collective breath.

Ahem.

Youngkin was shielded by Republicans who nominated him through a convention process rather than a primary system.  This cut Trump and his cronies out of the action.  I guarantee you that this will not work in all 50 states, especially once the not-too-stupid-to-be-corrupt Trumpies figure out how this can be used against them nationwide.    

And the Big Lie strategy is still moving forward; it's now being utilized by Phil Murphy's opponent in New Jersey.

And skip the media focus on Virginia and New Jersey for a moment, and take a look at what just happened in what has hitherto been a very red state, but one which Democrats were able to flip and take control of the Senate.  In fact, there's a whole slew of Democratic successes in local elections.  And socialist successes as well, for those who need a post-Hallow scare (just kidding).

Call me crazy, biased, or a snowflake if you want, but anyone who thinks this shows the Republicans as being out of the political woods is, in my opinion, very much of an optimist. It’ll be interesting to see if Youngkin can keep Trump at bay for four years (spoiler alert: he won’t).  As for Youngkin?  He may not be able to keep Trump politics out of Virginia for long.  If the Republicans end up taking control of the House of Delegates, as now seems likely, whatever "moderate" instincts he may have may not prevail for very long.  

In one sense, the implication of last week's elections is less than what you’re hearing.  I will, however, concede that, in another sense, it is more.  Despite the foregoing thoughts, I will say that there are things for Democrats to take away from recent events.

First, there is the role of moderate-to-conservative Democrats in sabotaging their own party.  Predictably, some of those folks have been out and about wringing their hands about the failure to have finalized the so-called bipartisan infrastructure before voters went to the polls.  I agree with commentators who have said that doing so may have made no difference at all.  But here's a related thought; how about having finalized the infrastructure bill AND Biden's Build Back Better social infrastructure bill?  How about Joe Manchin's and Kyrsten Sinema's middle-of-the-road colleagues pressuring them (or buying them out, even) to help get both bills over the finish line?    How about working as hard with members of your own party as you love to do with Republicans?  As it is, I think that, if we can get both bills over the finish line, it will be a rising tide that lifts the boats of both the President and congressional Democrats of both stripes.

And Democrats need to counter Republican arguments about education, by conceding the role of parents in public education but also speaking out against the violence and racism that Trump supporters have used against school officials.  Likewise, they need to counter Republican arguments about inflation and supply chains, by emphasizing the need to get everyone vaccinated, not just in the United States but all around the world as well.  That is at the heart of current economic disruptions.  And it is the only way to solve it.  I am convinced that, if Democrats and their allies in the media go out and make that argument on a regular basis, it will carry the day and people will stop talking about mandates.  They'll realize that the true mandate is to get American going by getting vaccinated.

But, other than these things, panic is the worst thing that could happen to Democrats.  Panic can be just as deadly (if not worse) than staying the course.  That worked for Reagan, why shouldn't it work for Democrats?  More importantly, for all of us?

The Democratic Party, its leaders, and its elected officials, need to stop being afraid of power, and to start using it.  Right now.  If they do that, we'll all be fine.  If not, next year, the election outcome will be many more Virginias.

Most of all, they need to stop being nostalgic for a white past.  Today's Democratic Party is a party that transcends color and gender.  Get over it, and get going.

A Modest Proposal For How You Can Help Stop The REAL Steal

In my last post, I exhorted everyone to vote in every election, whether the outlook was good or not.  Simply put, it's the only way to build any political muscle.  And, given that the right to vote in this country is now hanging by a fraying thread, there is literally no time like 2022 to start.  Except in Virginia and New Jersey, where next week would be an excellent place to start, if you live in either state and you have not done so already.  There are also a handful of special elections between now and the midterms as well.

But I would like all of you to do more than vote.  I'd like to to get as actively involved as possible, as much as your time and treasure will permit you.  I feel strongly enough about this that, for the first time, I just got involved with an organization that I highly recommend, and with which I have no connection other than as a volunteer.  If you want to be able to encourage voters in swing states, and don't live in one, or you aren't able to get out and about, or you're just people-shy, which is no disgrace (or confrontation-shy, which, in this day and age, I absolutely understand), and you don't mind getting a small case of writer's cramp, this may be just the thing for you.

The Progressive Turnout Project operates a program called Postcards to Swing States.  If you volunteer to participate, it mails you a supply of postcards, a list of names and addresses of swing-state voters, and instructions on how to fill out the postcards with a message encouraging each recipient to vote.  As a volunteer, you supply the postage and the labor in filling out and mailing the postcards.  My wife and I recently sent 500 postcards to first-time voters in Colorado.  That's a lot of postcards.  On the other hand, you can make a social event, or a series of social events, and get your friends involved in filling out the postcards and sharing the cost of the postage.  And, in the process, generate some positive election energy that may spill over into other activities.

You can learn more about it here.

So, what are you waiting for?

Unpacking A Solution To The Supreme Court

In the whole 36-year arc of my legal career, first as a paralegal, then a law student, then a law clerk, and finally as an attorney for nearly three decades, I have always tried to have, and always wanted to have, tremendous respect for judges, and especially for appellate court justices.  In our system of justice, the law that governs all of us, both its content and enforcement, is very much in their hands.  In the bedrock case on American judicial review, the Supreme Court's ruling in Marbury v. Madison, John Marshall, the Supreme Court's first Chief Justice, prefaced his ruling by citing the principle that "[i]t is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is."  

Unfortunately, those nearly three decades of experience on my part has seen an erosion in the quality of the personnel on the benches of our justice system, as political considerations have increasingly factored into the selection and approval process.  This is not to say that their are not many fine jurists serving the interests of those who appear before them, and the nation as a whole.  One need look no further than the ruling by Robert L. Pitman, a federal district court judge in Texas, pausing the recent and utterly cruel Texas law establishing vigilante rights against abortion seekers, to see an example of this.  This, however did not stop a federal appeals court from promptly undoing his work.  Nor does it forestall the likelihood that the current Supreme Court will use this case to partially or even completely undo the constitutional right to request an abortion prior to fetal viability that the Court recognized in Roe v. Wade, and has subsequently upheld several times over the past five decades.

The current Supreme Court.  As packed by George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and especially Mitch McCONnell.  With a significant amount of aid, of course, from dozens of pathetically supple Republicans in Congress, in turn supported by the wealth of the 1% and the votes of religious fanatics.  Sadly, but perhaps appropriately, there is no clearer and more powerful symbol of the systemic politicization of our nation's judicial system than its highest court.  

Its current supermajority of six Republican appointees includes two men likely to have committed sexual abuse, a political legacy from a Reagan appointee, and a former law professor who, at her express-checkout-speed confirmation hearing, could not identify the contents of the First Amendment.  To say nothing of a Chief Justice who promised he would only call balls and strikes, and has instead put considerable effort into re-writing the rule book on the fly.  You need only look at his masterpieces of constitutional perfidy, the Citizens United and Shelby County cases, in which money became speech, corporations become people, and African-Americans lost the right to vote. to know the extent to which that statement is true.

And, like a fish that rots from the head down, the entire federal bench has felt the effects of the poisonous extent to which our entire system of government has been bought out by the wealthy.  It shouldn't shock anyone that legislators with inside-the-market dealings are more than happy to approve federal judges with exactly the same problem.

Nor should it shock anyone that the Supreme Court's corrupt composition has finally caught the attention of the public, and the public has weighed in.  And the public is giving the Court a big thumbs-down.  Even the business press is doing so.  Hell, even high-ranking Republicans are doing so.

Indeed, Joe Biden was elected President in no small part because he promised to be responsive to the demands of progressives to clean up the mess the Republicans have made of our judiciary.  Among other things, those demands included expanding the number of justices on the Court so that Biden could then create a supermajority of liberal court justices.  Biden, whose political plate was fairly full when he came to office, decided to do what many politicians before him have done:  refer the matter to a committee, empowered to make recommendations (preferably, politically palatable ones).

In this case, however, it's looking like Biden's kick-the-can solution to this crisis isn't going to give progressives their preferred solution.  Early reports indicate that the commission he appointed is not going to green-light the court-packing option, preferring instead to consider a range of possibilities that might attract broader support, such as limiting the terms of justices.  That latter option, however, almost certainly would require an amendment to the Constitution, which, I'll remind you, requires for its approval a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress AND three-fourths of the state legislatures.  Yeah.  Good luck with that happening.

And, progressive as I am, I have never been a big fan of the whole court-packing concept.  The historical precedent on this subject is not encouraging.  And, even if that was not the case, the potential for political retaliation is all too obvious.  We could eventually have a Supreme Court bench that would require an entire state to house it.  And, otherwise, perhaps be no better off than we are now.  There is, of course, the possibility of legislation to control the court's docket, taking off of it cases relating to fundamental rights, such as abortion and voting.  But, there again, the potential for political retaliation exists.  And, even if it didn't, have we really considered the downside of doing something like that?  Is it really that difficult to imagine a situation in which we might need the availability of the Court to rule in such a case?

You can, I think, considering all of this, scarcely blame Biden's committee for punting, if in fact that's what it has chosen to do.  So what should we do?

Before we discuss the answer to that question, it's time for progressives to take a hard look at what many of them didn't do when it absolutely, positively, could have made a gargantuan difference.

Vote.

I'm thinking in particular about two elections in which many progressives didn't do that.  Or worse, cast a vote for a third-party candidate that was destined to do no more than salve the softer side of their conscience.

2000.  And 2016.

A combination of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton presidencies would have given us a liberal Court that would have been impervious to the worst attempts of the right wing to destroy our democracy.  And even one of them might have been enough to do that.

Fellow progressives, do you want to know why the right wing is, frankly, beating the living daylights out of us?  It's very simple.  They play the long game.  They're willing to take the thousands of steps they need over decades to get where they want to go.  They understand the value of taking a path that lessens the obviousness of their intentions, and increases the probability of reaching their destination.  They are people who believe, rather than think, which makes it easier to follow orders and march.  They are not people who want to solve problems; they see themselves and their beliefs as the solutions to all problems.  All they want to do is obey.  And, unfortunately, there are nefarious, well-resourced individuals who are willing to take advantage of that kind of faith.

So they organize.  And donate.  And knock on doors.  Year in, and year out.  And you know something else they do year in and year out?  Vote.

This is why the Court's building on Maryland Avenue in D.C. is now the High Temple of Gilead.  This is why the Court is slowly but surely turning the First Amendment's freedom of religion protects into freedom for only one, clearly preferred religion--and, especially, the freedom for that religion to stomp all others out of the marketplace of ideas and the American way of life.  This is perhaps the most significant reason behind the transformation of the United States government into one that is run of, by, and for the multinational corporations that have been declared to be people, at the expense of the needs and concerns of actual people.

Sit at home in 2022, nurse your bothsiderisms with respect to our political choices, and watch the power of choice disappear.  By then, it will be too late to reflect on the fact that even a compromised choice is better than none at all.  And we are perilously close to none at all. And the only option after that is civil war.

As Walt Kelly once put it, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

"But it's too late," you might say.  "The Court is packed and it would take years to unpack it."  It might.  Clarence Thomas has been on the Court for nearly 30 years.  He's unlikely to be around much longer.  And, in any case, Stephen Breyer will probably be ready to retire in a few years.  Do we want to see a six-Justice conservative majority turn into a seven-Justice majority?

There is no excuse for not getting out in every election, getting out every like-minded voter that you can, and together voting every single solitary person with an R after his/her/their name out of office.  You want to unpack the Court?  That's how you unpack it.

More to say about voting and the need to do it next time.  As they used to say in the heyday of broadcast TV and radio, stay tuned.

The Bullies In The Democratic Senate Caucus

I've written a great deal recently about the decline and fall of mainstream media, specifically, about how corporate media monopoly power, the drive for profits at the expense of everything else (including the truth), the relentless hectoring from right-wing hacks, and, finally, the chasing of clicks in an all-digital world have led the American political press to abandon the role that the framers of the Constitution foresaw for it, thus enabling business interests to slowly turn the United States first into a plutocracy (rule by the rich), and then into a kleptocracy (rule by the rich who have turned to theft to become richer).  

If you're reading this, and you're under the age of, let's say, 50, you may have a hard time understanding how American political discourse could have looked any different.  And, if that's the case, I can't say that I blame you a bit.  For me, it may, in fact, be one of the relatively few advantages of having just turned 65 (along with signing up for Medicare).

Let me put it another way, then.  Once upon a time, and no kidding, political media in this country had the capability of producing stories that discussed not merely personalities, but issues.  Actual challenges confronting the country as a whole, regardless of location or partisan affiliation.  They did so in a way that discussed the dimensions and the details of one or more issues in something like real depth, as well as potential solutions around which the nation and its leader could rally and enact into law--or, at least, into public policy.  By way of an example, and relevant to an issue urgently facing us in the present moment, they routinely produced articles like this.  

USA TODAY may not get a lot of respect from its media peers, but here at least is a prime example of how those peers used not only used to routinely discuss major political issues, but make connections among them that help us to understand how interrelated both the challenges we face and the available solutions are.  In this case, infrastructure and climate change.  We need to address the needs of the former not only to address the current economic needs of people and businesses, but also the challenges of adapting to a changing world, one whose changes are in fact the by-product of how we meet our economic needs.  As a partner in an immigration practice, I look forward to the day when we can go beyond the first tentative steps we've taken to publicly discuss the links among climate change, infrastructure, and immigration, i.e., how climate change is driving workers toward us who have the skills we need to address the change in the first place.  A topic for another day.

In the short run, my point is this:  where are the other similar articles that should be making these same connections?  For that matter, where are the articles discussion either issue in isolation, which would be better than nothing.  Maybe they're out there, but they certainly aren't prominent and, as a voracious consumer of political news and commentary, I'd like to think that I could see more of them.

Instead, what we get are discussions not of the issues, but of the partisan horse-racing connected to them, and the personalities that shape the races.  Everything is play-by-play, and little real analysis (and even less that would challenge the status quo) is produced

So, what we end up getting, instead of what we need, is this.  Not a discussion of the need to address climate change and infrastructure needs, but a discussion of a full-scale "panic" among Senate Democrats over the fate of a budget reconciliation bill designed to address both issues.  A full-scale "panic," mind you, that is supported by a handful of actual quotes in the article itself.  And this is from a media source that is friendly to the interests of progressives.  You can imagine what people on the other side of the ideological fence are saying.  (In fact, you don't have to:  you can just take a look here.)

And how connected is the reality?  Maybe, just maybe, not so very much.  When the content of the reconciliation bill is discussed, it polls rather well.  It certainly does so among Democrats.  And, in fact, if Joe Biden is to be believed, it's fully supported by 48 out of 50 Democrats.  More about the exceptions in a little bit.

What has been surprising about all of this is that a significant number of moderate, even corporate-allied Democrats, including Biden himself, have moved closer to the progressive perspective on the issues addressed by the reconciliation bill, even its provisions related to paying for the bill's expenses by raising taxes on the wealthy.  All by itself, that's a news story, although (again) it's not a story that has earned coverage equal to its magnitude.  For one thing, it reflects the extent to which the center of political gravity in the U.S. has gravitated to the left for the first time since before 1980.  Moderates like Biden recognize this.  It doesn't hurt, of course, that progressives have themselves finally recognized the need for flexibility and consensus-building in advancing their goals, a need that leaders like Pramila Jayapal has recognized and successfully strived to address.

As a consequence, it's the progressive size of the political debate that is on the march, and that should be reflected in news coverage that has any moral and professional integrity.

What do we get instead?

We get a focus on the fanatics.  Not just on the rumors and lies spread by the personality cult that calls itself the Republican Party, but on the two Senate Democrats that are doing everything they can to stall the reconciliation bill (among others) to death.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

When a legislator is asked to consider supporting a bill, he/she/they can do one of three things.  They can support it as is, supported with changes that are requested or negotiated, or refuse to support it.  To be sure, they can pretend that they are doing or not doing one of those things, but there's always the availability of the James Baldwin test to shine the light on the make believe.  To paraphrase Baldwin, don't believe what they say if it doesn't match up with what they do.

And, in the case of Manchin and Sinema, it doesn't.  True, they initially voted to authorize the drafting of the bill, along with their colleagues, at a dollar amount ($3.5 trillion) requested by Biden.  True also, they agreed, along with their colleagues, to tie a vote on the final bill to a vote on a supposedly "bipartisan" bill on physical infrastructure, as opposed to the human infrastructure and green economic provisions to be included in the reconciliation bill.  But that was literally months ago.  And, since then, both senators have been running away from their votes and their words.

In the case of Sinema, the "running away" has been quite literal.  Not only has she refused to meet with her own constituents to discuss provisions of the reconciliation bill, she has refused to engage with them even when they have attempted to do so in public places, even when they have gone so far as to follow her into a restroom (a move I would not had made; I would have let her go in by herself and then tried to engage her when she came out).  On the handful of occasions when she has specifically criticized the bill, she has reversed positions she has held in the past, such as allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of covered drugs.  If anything, she has spent more time on fundraising than she has in addressing any concerns she might have about the bill, even going so far as to teach a course on the subject.

Sinema, unlike Manchin, is a bit of a rookie politician, which may explain why some of her publicity stunts (e.g., curtseying when she voted against a minimum wage increase) have something of a Barnum quality that does nothing to enhance her political reputation.  Her inexperience, combined with her donor obsession, can only lead one to conclude that her non-stop opposition to the bill without any counter-proposals makes it clear that she will not vote for any version of the bill, and is hoping to run out the political and procedural clock on it in order to keep her corporate sponsors happy.

And Manchin?  Well, it's no secret that he has had deep corporate connection for years, especially connections with the fossil fuel industry, which is hardly surprising for a West Virginia politician.  But this simply means, as he has demonstrated amply, that he understands the need to play the game with a degree of polish and finesse that Sinema has not yet demonstrated she might possess.  The two differ on style rather than substance.   The problem with Manchin is not that he's said little or nothing about the bill, it's rather that he's been all over the place publicly with his comments on it, whether it's the dollar amount, or its potential fiscal impact, or its green economic provisions, or how many of its family-values provisions should actually be enacted.  What he hasn't done, like Sinema, is identify a version of the bill that would earn his vote.

If we apply the Baldwin test, this can only lead us to one conclusion:  neither Manchin nor Sinema, cowed by the debt they owe to their corporate donors, and unwilling to consider employment outside of the U.S. Senate, will support any version of the reconciliation bill, anytime, and are hoping that they can stall the whole process long enough to let intervening events prevent it from ever seeing the light of day on Biden's desk.  No doubt, a key part of their calculation has been the view that progressive politicians would fold, as they have in the past (as they did, in fact, during the debate over the ACA).  In making that calculation, they failed to anticipate both the superior numbers and consensus among those politicians, as well as Biden's sympathy to them concerns.  But this has not discouraged either of them, or motivated them to change course.  They are willing to sacrifice not only the interests of the nation, but specifically the interests of voters in their own state, so that they can stay in Congress a while longer and eventually join the permanent lobbyist class.

So, the bill is effectively dead, as some unnamed Senate Democrats allegedly are thinking, right?

Well, that depends on how frightened Democrats in both houses are of the media's balls-and-strikes approach to doing their job.

But, since Manchin and Sinema are hell-bent on trying to run out the clock, there seems to me to be only one logical response:  take control of the clock.

Schedule votes on the caucus' preferred version of the bill.  Every month.  Every week, if the Senate rules and calendar make that possible.  No matter how many times that it attracts only the votes of 48 Democrats in the Senate.  Keep doing this, right up to Election Day.  Make it an issue, along with the other issues the Republicans are handing them on a daily basis (abortion bans, restrictions on voting rights, the efforts of anti-vaccine imbeciles to infect us all, etc.).  And, in the run-up to Election Day, remind voters of all the good thing that are NOT happening because of the Republicans that the voters need to take out of office.

And, in the process, dare Manchin and Sinema to either come out in the open about their motives, and risk the wrath of voters, or vote to do the right thing, and risk the wrath of their donors.  Or, cut a deal to avoid the wrath of both.

I have said this many times, and will believe it until the day I die:  the only effective response to bullying is to bully back.  Manchin and Sinema are effectively acting like bullies.  Time to think outside the box, and give them the response they deserve.

Who knows?  If nothing else, it may remind our political media what their job should be.  As well as the need to start doing it.