Every time Veteran’s Day comes rolling around, it brings to mind one of my favorite poems, the profoundly moving “Last of the Light Brigade,” by Rudyard Kipling.
To really understand this one, it helps if you know Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.” I am old enough to be part of a generation that learned that one in grade school. It was not quite as ubiquitous in New Jersey as in the UK, but it was taught here, at least in the 50s. In its own way the Tennyson is also a great poem… but the message of the Kipling resonates much more strongly with me.
Every November 11, we honor those who fell in our wars… even as we forget those who fought them, and survived.
Joe Biden gave a marvelous speech tonight: eloquent, uplifting, stirring, a speech that spoke to all that is best in America, to our hopes and dreams rather than our fears. Time will tell what kind of president he will be, but everything about the campaign he waged confirms the fact that this is a good, decent, and intelligent man.
It brought to my mind the classic Democratic hymn that was FDR’s campaign song, and later used by JFK, LBJ, and many others.
I fear that the next few months will be very hard, the transition the most brutal of my lifetime… but come January 20, it will be over.
The past few days have been hard ones. Like millions of others, I finally went to sleep on Tuesday night — very late, I stayed up as long as I could, watching the election returns trickle in — in a state of near despair. Things did not look good at all. By the time I woke up Wednesday morning, however, the picture had brightened considerably, and it has continued to brighten ever since. A Biden victory now appears all but certain. Arizona and Nevada are trembling on the brink, and Joe has moved ahead in Pennsylvania (which everyone saw coming) and even Georgia (which no one saw coming). It should not be long now before he hits 270, and I can start to breathe again.
Maybe. For a little while.
I have read too much history to be entirely sanguine, however. I get very little reassurance from those who say “it cannot happen here.” It can happen here. It can happen anywhere. Donald Trump has broken all the rules, and plainly he has no regard for democracy, for our traditions, for the rule of law, for anything beyond his own power, his own ego. He is the worst president this country has ever had, and the first to really represent a threat to the Constitution, to the electoral process itself (no president in the past half century has ever floated the idea of a third term, or expressed admiration for the concept of “president for life,” but Trump has). This is not the first close election in American history. It is not even the first “disputed” election — through Trump has absolutely no proof for these absurd claims he is making — but where past candidates like Samuel Tilden, Al Gore, and even Richard Nixon had too much love for their country to risk ripping it apart, Trump loves no one and nothing but himself. I do not expect a gracious concession speech from him, like the one Al Gore gave in 2000. I do not even expect a grudging, sour concession. He may need to be dragged from the White House.
And yet there seem to be millions of Trumpies who will believe any lie he chooses to tell, no matter how outrageous. I mean, insane as it seems, when the new Congress assembles there will be a Q-Anon believer in the House of Representatives. That sound you hear is the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves. Regardless of what Trump may say and do, I can only hope that sanity will prevail in the days and months to come. “Hope,” I said… but I will not pretend to be certain. Not when armed men are being arrested on the way to the Philadelphia convention center, when militants are trying to kidnap the governor of Michigan. I can only hope that these are outliers, a few fringe cases, who do not represent most Americans.
These are… interesting times. And not in a good way.
I do not envy Joe Biden. By the time he is sworn in, the death count from coronavirus may well have reached half a million. Biden wants to unite us, not divide us, but that is easier said than done. Let us hope that he can indeed bind up the nation’s wounds, as Lincoln once urged. It will not be easy.
I descended from my mountain holdfast for a few days this week, to make sure my vote was counted.
Early voting is open in many states.
If you want to vote by mail or with an absentee ballot, there are ways to do that as well. But you have to ACT.
Or you can go to the polls on election day. Masked, I hope. Keeping correct social distance.
However you do it, please VOTE. Covid makes it unusually challenging this year, but the future of our country, the future of democracy itself, is on the line this time around.
I began taking an interest in politics when I was still in grade school. The first presidential election I followed was the race between John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon in 1960. I was twelve years old. It was an historic occasion.
Most of you are probably way younger than me. JFK died before you were born. You may not even remember the day he was shot, let alone the election that won him the presidency, or the debates that played such a big part in that contest. But fortunately you have YouTube. Take a look.
Millenials, Gen Xers, Gen Zs, play a little of this. The opening statements, at least. The issues and controversies of 1960 are part of history now, and may not seem hugely relevant to us today (though some of them still are)… but it is the TONE of the debate that I want to draw your attention to. This is what a presidential debate is supposed to look and sound like. Two candidates exchanging views and ideas, debating facts, dealing with the issues of the day, all the while treating each other with respect. It was a DEBATE. Lincoln and Douglas would have been proud. Maybe it was not the most exciting television in the world, but it gave us a good view of both candidates, where they agreed, where they differed.
I have seen every subsequent debate as well. Nixon and Kennedy had three more of these, and I watched. I was watching when Ford blew his election against Carter with a gaffe about Eastern Europe. I was watching when Bill Clinton turned the 1992 race in the three-way debate with Bush the Elder and Ross Perot. I saw Ronald Reagan debate Jimmy Carter, and John Anderson, and Walter Mondale. I watched Obama against McCain, and Obama against Romney. I saw all the good moments, and all the bad ones.
I have never seen anything like what I witnessed last night.
It was appalling. Offensive. Disgusting. Donald Trump was bad four years ago in his debates with Hillary Clinton, but last night he set new records for being offensive, obnoxious, and rude. He ranted, he raved, he shouted, he interrupted again and again and again and AGAIN, refusing to let Joe Biden finish a sentence without breaking in. He spoke over Biden, he spoke over the moderator, he ignored the questions, he ignored the rules — rules his own campaign had negotiated and agreed to — he told shocking lies, and doubled down when called on them, he engaged in smears and personal attacks, he tried to discredit the result of the vote before most of America has even voted.
This was not the behavior of a president. This was not the behavior of a presidential candidate.
This was the behavior of a schoolyard bully, an obnoxious child, the tinpot strongman of some third world dictatorship.
Look at the debate from 1960. Can you imagine either Kennedy or Nixon engaging in behavior like this? I am certainly no fan of Nixon, and he did some pretty shady things when he got into the White House (Watergate and all). He said some pretty obnoxious stuff in his private moments as well. So did LBJ. So did other presidents, other candidates. IN PRIVATE. None of them would ever have behaved like Trump did in public.
It is not a question of Democrat v Republican, or Liberal v Conservative. Nixon would not have behaved as Trump did. Ronald Reagan would not have done so. Nor Eisenhower, nor John McCain, nor Barry Goldwater.
Donald Trump disgraced the presidency last night. He took a piss all over democracy.
All other issues aside — and there are hugely important issues being decided this year, from race relations to climate change to the pandemic — last night’s “debate” proved one thing beyond any doubt. Joe Biden is a decent human being, and Donald Trump is not.
Just watched a Netflix documentary about social media called THE SOCIAL DILEMMA that terrified me more than any horror movie I have seen in the past twenty years.
I have never been a fan of Twitter or Facebook or any of the other social apps out there. My Not A Blog remains my main (and really my only) method of interfacing with the internet. The accounts I have elsewhere largely just echo stuff I have already posted here. I do think the social media is having terrible effects on our society… on political discourse, on journalism, on the fabric of our democracy itself. But I do not think I ever realized how bad it was until I saw this doc.
I do hope we can find our way out. But I am pessimistic.
But then, I am pessimistic about a lot of things these days.
Joe Biden is looking for a running mate right now, and he has said he means to nominate a woman. Great, I say.
The Democratic Party is full of terrific, highly qualified women serving in the Senate, House, and various State Houses, many of whom would make terrific candidates, I think. But if Joe were to ask me — which he hasn’t, and won’t — I would urge him to choose the governor of New Mexico, the amazing MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM.
Michelle was a congressman before being elected governor, and New Mexico could not have asked for a better representative. She has been a terrific governor as well, a night and day contrast to her predecessor. And this past year, with Covid-19, she was really put to the test, along with every other governor in the United States. Her handling of the crisis has been exemplary. If only that clown in the White House had done as well…
Michelle is small, but she packs more brains, courage, and determination into that tiny package than half the members of Congress put together.
There are many factors that go into choosing a vice presidential candidate. Balancing the ticket, winning this swing state or that one, appeasing various factions of the party, mobilizing the party workers, swaying one ethnic group or another… all valid, I suppose, and to politicos maybe all important. I am not a politico, however, just a citizen and a voter, and for me there is one factor that outweighs all the others: would the candidate make a good president if something should happen (Seven save us) to the president.
Based on what I’ve seen of her as congresswoman and governor, I think Michelle Lujan Grisham would make a fantastic president.
contemplative
happy
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determined
angry
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quixotic
