It Was Not a Waste of Time

 

I am as happy as anyone glad to have Donald Trump out of office. But I’m also glad that the impeachment trial is over. We knew how it was going to end. That said, it was still important.

The House managers created a masterful argument that put most of the pieces of the January 6 Capitol attack together. Unlike the Mueller report, which took forever, the prosecution in this trial had only a couple of weeks to build a case, but they did it. We learned a lot from both of these efforts, even though neither produced a result satisfying to many of us.

Some fault the prosecution for caving on the issue of witnesses, but I agree with the conclusion that presenting them wouldn’t have changed anything – and actually WOULD have been a waste of time.

I also think it’s now a waste to be talking about what may have motivated the senators who voted “not guilty.” Were they afraid of being primaried, losing financial contributions, angering the violent elements of their base, or did they just overdose on Kool-Aid? It doesn’t matter now, the only thing that counted was their vote, and history will be their judges.

While I’m glad that Senator Mitch McConnell put his criticism of Mr. Trump into the record, there was something insulting about it. Before the impeachment trial, whose scheduling was largely in McConnell’s control, the majority of the Senate voted that the trial itself was Constitutional, even though Mr. Trump was out of office -- which meant that McConnell’s vote should have been based on the merits of the case, merits which he seemed to have agreed with.

Perhaps there is a basis for the dispute over the legal meaning of the word “incite” in considering what Trump did, but It all seems to fall under Bill Maher’s popular theme, “I don’t know it for a fact, but I know it’s true.” It WAS sufficiently proven for 57 senators – not enough to convict, but still a pretty good showing. Impeachment is supposed to be difficult. As for legal actions that can still be brought against Trump in Georgia and New York, it looks like he’s caught with smoking guns clearly in his hands.

At least now, the federal government can focus its full attention on still-looming crises. As for smoking guns, though, for those folks out there still interested in Civil War II, I hope President Biden and his team clearly communicate that while they’d rather not fight one, they are ready to defend our republic with any means necessary.

 

Give Me Liberty or Give You Death

There is a really disturbing thread running through our social discourse these days: death threats. Woe betide any of us who happen to pick the wrong side of a hot-button issue and express ourselves. It doesn’t stop with being trolled. We may be warned that it could be fatal.

Many on the left may believe that legislators on the right are crazy or stupid. But some of those legislators may also fear that if they don’t vote the way their base thinks they should, it won’t just be a question of getting primaried in the next election. A wrong-way vote can also be considered betrayal, and those legislators, and their families, can be threatened with death.

Our most prominent infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, reported in a recent interview that he and members of his family have received multiple threats of harm, and on one occasion, Dr. Fauci said, he opened a letter and was dusted with a fine powder, which turned out, after analysis, to be benign, but still!

You don’t even have to be famous. I heard an NPR story about a young mother who consulted others on social media about whether to get routine vaccinations for her children. After struggling with the decision, she finally came down in favor of vaccination. Then the death threats came from some of the anti-vaxers. Death threats, be they from the right or the left, are crimes - federal ones if done over interstate communications platforms.

To be clear, most threateners are cowards. They may be thousands of miles away and wouldn’t consider putting in the effort to travel to the victim’s home and actually carry out what they’re threatening. Their only weapon is their tongue or their keyboard. They go back to their lives while the recipients of the threats are likely losing sleep and maybe wondering whether to go into hiding.

The atmosphere is so poisoned now that some folks openly call for the beheading of their political opponents. Pardon me, but isn’t that ISIS talk?

My hope is that the Justice Department in the new administration takes this stuff seriously. It should be a priority to track down and prosecute, where possible, those who issue death threats. Blood may be running high these days, but there is behavior out there that we should never have to accept as normal.

Don't Be Afraid, Be Ready

Apocalyptic analyses and sweeping historical comparisons dominate the news now. The desecration of the US Capitol is compared with the British burning of the White House in the War of 1812 and the first shot at Fort Sumter, and if you want to go international, the fire at the German Reichstag in the Nazi era. To me, the assault on the Capitol smacked more of the angry mobs of the French and Russian revolutions. Until recently, I used to encounter the word  “sedition” only in history books. Now we’re hearing it a dozen times a day.

There are demands to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the President for inciting the mob or even impeach him. Other heads are already rolling, to use a reference from the aforementioned French Revolution, following an egregious security failure which may even have been deliberate in some respects.

The thing that offends me most about this debacle is that we don’t have the time for any of this right now. There is a pandemic out there killing people and destroying the economy. The angry mob that invaded the Capitol - and some of the legislators doing business inside it - wasted precious time. Those legislators who tried to impede the certification of the November election will pay a political price. The violent invaders who can be identified must be forced to pay theirs. I bet some of them were carrying COVID too. The Capitol building needs disinfecting, physically, politically, and maybe even spiritually.

Our most dramatic scenarios now include a possible second Civil War. While I don’t think our President-elect needs to address that out loud, I do think he has to be prepared for it. Most important, he has to communicate through his demeanor and tone that he is not afraid of it and that he will respond if necessary, swiftly and effectively.

If there are folks out there who really are thinking about mounting a new Civil War, I would suggest that they be careful what they wish for. They would do well to open their own history books and consider how the last one came out.

The Ones We Didn't Get

With all the suffering, pain, grief, and yes, inconvenience that COVID has caused us, it’s only because we haven’t built it in to our experience as humans, especially those of us in the First World. I’m reminded of scourges just as bad or even worse that just don’t happen to us anymore. Take polio, for instance. Parents in the 1950s were scared to death of it. They wouldn’t let their children swim in public pools, or even mix too much with strangers. But the Salk and Sabin vaccines made it go away. It’s almost gone from the Earth, or we’re just immune to it now.

How often do we hear about someone getting tuberculosis? Or smallpox? If it weren’t for the Bible, most of us wouldn’t know what leprosy is, and the bubonic plague, which wiped out hundreds of thousands in medieval and later times, is now found mostly in squirrels. These things have been defeated by old-fashioned herd immunity, and more recently by public health and pharmaceutical research. Our batting average is pretty good, but COVID got past us. What we need to remember, of course, is that these plagues are part of human history and happen periodically, and we need the machinery in place to deal with them when they come along.

This year, we needed a miracle, and we have the next best thing: a vaccine – actually a family of them – produced with astounding speed and equally astounding reported effectiveness. Now, we need to get this stuff into people. Beyond facing those folks who are resistant to getting shots, there will undoubtedly be some logistical glitches. The vaccines are supposed to be administered equitably, but I think a few billionaires, celebrities, athletes, and politicians will somehow find their way to the head of the line. I’m OK with being a ways down the list. I can sit back and see how the first recipients do, as there will be side effects.

The light at the end of this particular tunnel may seem a little dim at the moment -- so close, and yet so far away, but we have been through long tunnels before. They say that when the great plague of centuries ago finally came to an end, the population celebrated with wine and orgies. I don’t know about the latter, but it might not be too soon right now to raise a glass of something good. 

Two Thanksgivings in 2021?

 I’ve never been a big one for Thanksgiving, because I always found myself giving thanks that things could have been worse for me, but I dodged the bullet. Others, of course, were not so lucky. This year, though, I’m giving thanks for another reason: Things are going to get better.

We are still in the middle of one of the worst disasters of our lifetime, the coronavirus pandemic. While I am safe at home typing this, there are thousands of overworked health care professionals trying to keep formerly healthy people alive, and there are many smaller Thanksgiving tables with empty chairs, and many of the survivors of the lost are getting their holiday meal fixings from a food bank or having it served to them at a soup kitchen.

Shocking as it may sound, I firmly believe we have the coronavirus to thank for protecting us as a country from something worse: four more years of what we are already seeing shrink in our rear-view mirrors. Many other things may have been overlooked or even forgiven by much of the electorate, but the failure of the current administration to deal effectively with the pandemic was what tipped the scale, at least in my opinion.

This is America, so we somehow manage to get the leadership and the scientific breakthroughs we need just before it all falls apart. There is no question that the storm isn’t over; the waves will be just as high when a new captain and crew take charge of the vessel. The good news is, they don’t have to learn seamanship from the ground, or in this case, the surface, up. If anyone can sail us back into the calm, they can.

As for Thanksgiving, I like what Dr. Leana Wen, a frequent TV commentator on COVID, said this week -- words to the effect of, “If you really want to celebrate Thanksgiving with your family and friends in person, do it next July, when we should all be in an entirely different place.” If she’s right, and 2021 is the year we observe TWO Thanksgivings, after what we will have been through, we may just be in the mood.

Elections and Soul-Saving

Many Democrats believed that the November 3 election could be the one that saved America’s soul, but it fell just a little short. It’s true that, barring some very unlikely event, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take office as President and Vice President on January 20. But the soul may be only half-saved, as the two runoffs for US Senate seats in Georgia at the beginning of January seem to be necessary to seal the Democratic deal. It’s a long shot: the Democrats would have to win both seats to hold the absolute thinnest majority. Even then, the Senate would basically be split down the middle.

Should the Democrats not win both, is it the end of the world? In practical terms, the instances in which all Republicans vote one way and all Democrats the other are relatively rare – or  at least, used to be. One or two Republicans typically peel off, and there is no guarantee that all Democrats will vote the party line all the time.

Should Mitch McConnell retain the title of Majority Leader, is that the end of the Biden administration’s chances to get its program through? Mr. McConnell’s big thing has been putting conservative judges on federal courts, a goal which he has pretty much achieved. Also, Joe Biden was once a Senate colleague of McConnell’s – and I have heard more than one observer say that McConnell was one of the more reasonable members of the Senate once, though we may have to go back quite a ways for that.

President Trump may think of himself as a great negotiator and dealmaker, but is he? It seems to me that he either gets his way or threatens to pull the plug. I think of negotiating as a technique used by both sides in a dispute to get the best deal for themselves in a situation that ends in a compromise. Mr. Biden seems more suited to that process.

For Democrats, the election may have solved one problem with the expected removal of Donald Trump from office, but little else has changed. Very close to half the electorate voted for him, and those people are still out there and resistant to being dissed and flown over. Maybe that split down the middle will teach both sides the art of the deal. The other way is not an option now.

Surgical Strike

Let me start by saying how thrilled I am about Joe Biden becoming President-elect. For me, it signals the United States rejoining the world, and the end of my having to be ashamed of the leader representing us. There are so many global challenges that we can’t deal with strictly by ourselves, and it will be nice for our allies to know they have a friend in us, the US, again.

But let’s be clear about something else: there has been no “blue wave.” The Democrats did not flip the Senate, and they lost seats in the House. The Presidential election was close enough to shorten a lot of fingernails.

What has happened is like finely targeted surgery. President Trump has been an abnormal cell in an ailing Republican Party that grew large enough to take it over. Removing it has required a mighty effort, and recovering from the procedure will take time. But I dare say there are more than a few Republicans who are just as relieved as the Democrats about the apparent outcome of the election, though they may not show it.

While many Americans wanted to try an outsider as President, I’m just as happy we will have an insider like Biden again, who knows how the system works, as does Senator Kamala Harris, now the first female Vice President-elect. Joe Biden has had solid relationships for decades with those on the other side of the aisle.

Indeed, you’d think the Republicans would feel better about having Joe Biden to deal with. Instead of viewing him as a Trojan horse who will allow the more left-leaning members of his party to run things, maybe Mr. Biden’s moderate views and experience in government will actually make him a buffer against that element. And the right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists at least will receive no further nourishment, perceived or otherwise, from the White House.

I don’t mind the idea that some depth might be coming back to the state again, starting with a real coronavirus task force, a structure for dealing with future epidemics, and perhaps a rehabilitated CDC. Reviving the State Department would allow us to start clawing back our standing in the world. There will be a new Cabinet with secretaries who actually care about the departments they’re in charge of.

We still have some rapids to paddle through, but we will move into calmer waters, when something resembling normalcy returns. Things may actually get just a little boring. Sounds pretty good to me!

 

We Go to the Scorecards

Those of you who have watched championship boxing on TV will recognize that expression, which is what they say when, after a fierce battle in which both fighters land devastating blows on each other, neither goes down. With no knockout, the determination of a winner is made by a panel of three judges, whose individual scores are combined to determine the winner. When the fight is especially tough to score, that process can take a long time. And usually, the result is unsatisfying to a big portion of the fans.

Joe Biden was never the strongest of candidates. His nomination came not on the strength of primary debate performances but largely through the backing of a single influential Black congressman. His speeches came from the heart but lacked the engagement value of those of President Trump, though the latter’s often never made much sense. Biden’s main attraction as a candidate has been that he is not Donald Trump, and though it may be insensitive of me to say this, one of Biden’s biggest allies – whose help he certainly did not seek – has been the coronavirus. COVID was the supreme test of leadership, which Mr. Trump appears to have failed.

Most analogies fail too. My comparison of this election to a boxing match fails, of course, because we voters are the judges who have made our decisions. If there has been any suspense, it’s a little false, caused by our screwball method of arriving at a result.

The biggest losers are neither of the candidates but the pollsters. This is the same industry that forecast a knockout for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Polling is largely misunderstood and certainly misused. A poll is a snapshot, It’s about forecasting, and forecasting is the attempt to apply science to speculation. We can eliminate polling, but I think we will always have speculation, our constant human need to give ourselves a feeling of control over the future.

As many observers have noted, it’s a great thing that so many of us turned out for this event, mailing or dropping off our ballots or standing in those long lines. Would that there would always be such involvement  in the political process here, as there is in many other countries around the world.

But the same divisions in our United States remain: the racial ones, the economic ones, the social ones, and the philosophical ones. An election by itself doesn’t instantly heal those divides - certainly not this one.