The Reckless Courage of Youth

 Things became quite busy during the month since my last post. I’ll try to catch up. But I must first add something about what is going on in the US right now.

Since the election, the sitting president has refused to concede after more than a month of failed attempts to overturn the results. For the international community, the perception is generally that America is not the pillar of democracy and respectability that it once was. In short, the longer it drags out, the more pathetic it looks. The electoral college meets next week so that might be the last nail in the coffin of these efforts and allow the country to move forward on the monumental task of repairing itself and its image abroad.

The one sad thing that persists is the resistance in the US to basic pandemic mitigation protocols. Again, looking at the US from the outside, the ignorance and/or selfishness is stunning. The world used to hold the country in high esteem and over the past year it’s really been Make America Embarrassing Again (an acronym not easy to pronounce). Worse than that is led by people who claim to have a faith based on loving your neighbor as yourself. Yet they are willing to allow millions to be sick, hundreds of thousands to die to avoid some temporary inconveniences. History will not be kind to them.

Related to this, Idaho has made the world news for a few things during the pandemic. One is the spike in cases and the overwhelming impact on the healthcare system in many areas. My family has been hit by Covid and I find myself being resentful of people, particularly people of faith, who continue to behave selfishly and in contradiction to their said beliefs. Looking at countries where the population stepped up and didn’t throw tantrums about doing the right thing, many are now going to spend Christmas together and are attending large sporting events. Who knows how many lives have been saved as a result of solid leadership and a population that has a basic respect for one another.

A related story appeared on both the Huffington Post and Washington Post this week regarding an incident in Idaho where minutes into a public health district’s virtual meeting to vote on a local mask mandate, a county commissioner tearfully excused herself after getting a phone call that anti-mask protesters had surrounded her home. She said her 12-year-old son was home alone and there were protesters banging outside the door. She left abruptly to go home and make sure he was okay. The visibly upset commissioner left her colleagues at the meeting stunned. They soon learned that protesters had gathered outside the Central District Health office and one other board member’s residence as well, targeting the public officials who were meeting virtually from their homes and private offices as a precaution amid the worsening pandemic. The protestors are vile human beings.

Earlier the same day, Nazi stickers with the words “we are everywhere” were found on the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise. Even more horrid.

The question is whether this type of evil was always there at this level and people now feel they have a green light to act upon it, or if this is something new-ish. It’s likely a combination of the two. Either way, it’s ugly and the evil is being fostered by leaders at multiple levels. It makes me think of the response by many Americans as Islamist extremism has been on the rise. Many have felt that moderate Muslims don’t speak out enough to condemn the frequent attacks – that by their silence they have been complicit. If they would only speak out, they say, the instigators would be deprived of the support and resources necessary to continue their actions.

Now we’re seeing right-wing conservative extremism on the rise in the US. I’m aware that many, if not most, conservatives don’t agree with the tactics of the more extreme but they maintain this same silence regarding these extremist factions. Is the inability for conservatives to speak out against extremism due to fear of recrimination, similar to the situation of many Muslims? Are they afraid of the hooligans showing up at their doors as they did these county commissioners? Maybe. But they are creating an enabling environment of threats, intimidation, violence, etc. and this is not going to end well.

We’re all familiar with the excellent quotes by MLK and others regarding people who do nothing in the face of evil and are therefore complicit in the evil itself. But it requires the integrity to honestly look at what is going on and decide if what is going on is consistent with what one believes. If not, then what? C.S. Lewis said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” This is undoubtedly a testing point and, though it requires courage from all sides, for those who have woken up and found themselves on a team that has gone off the rails, in my opinion they will have the higher responsibility to either continue to foster the hate or muster the courage to speak out against it.

I am admittedly pessimistic. I’ve seen little evidence of people willing to rise up within the ranks of conservatives to speak out against not only evil within their ranks but tendencies which fly in the face of conservatism itself. There are some but they are few relative to the overall force behind the far right. Politicians, irrespective of their true personal convictions, have made political and/or economic calculations to ride the extreme wave, at least for now. Moderates have been pushed aside. The sheeple continue to adopt what they are told by extreme media and pundits.

Some believe that there will be a tipping point that will sober people up and snap a critical mass out of their hateful stupor. Though the Civil War did not remove the hatred of people that had wrapped their Christianity around slavery, it was a tipping point that resulted in the 13^th Amendment. The Civil Rights Movement was another tipping point that contributed to breaking the pattern of public facilities being segregated by race and achieved the most important breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for African Americans since the Reconstruction period (1865-77), even though hatred and bigotry continued.

At my most optimistic, I tend to think it will be more of a slow, methodical erosion of untenable positions, possibly cultivated by a youth that is tired of their parents’ BS. When I look at the Civil Rights Movement and the youth that were fed up with the fact that their parents had morally fallen asleep at the wheel, I could imagine another imperfect movement to reel in the sins of parents who again mistakenly feel that they are on the right side of history. Though many older and wiser people will continue to do their part, it could be the reckless courage of youth that will need to come save the day. Godspeed.

The Election Ends (sort of)

The election is finally over. Or mostly. There are still some states counting votes. A slew of lawsuits are being launched, up to ten I read. Should be an interesting transition.

We had some friends over for drinks/snacks on Saturday afternoon – people that live a floor above us and are part of our little Covid bubble. They have children so we had the TV on in the background while the children played in the other room. I normally wouldn’t have the TV on but we were following the election coverage and I thought there was a chance that they might announce something important. At 7:25pm local time they announced that Biden was going to be the 46^th president of the US.

It was a relief that the call was made, even for many Republicans. There was no question, even before the announcement, that the Trump was not going to follow it up with a concession speech. It’s likely he never will. Though he refrains from presenting any evidence of fraud, he will likely go to his grave insisting that there was, at least publicly. I saw one of the president’s team on the BBC this morning admitting that they don’t have any substantive evidence, at this point, that could possibly be substantial enough to overturn the election results. But, he said, the president has a constitutional right to move forward with investigations (and delays). When asked whether exercising this legal right was good for America or even the Republican party, he simply referred back to it being allowed under the constitution.

His niece, Mary, feels that Trump’s father put a high value on winning during his childhood, so much that losing anything was considered shameful. As such, he wasn’t taught how to do it. It breeds a certain insecurity in someone. Obviously no one likes to lose. I would say that most of my youth I was a terrible loser. But, with age, people can mature and not be so full of themselves – accepting that it’s not the end of the world. Some are able to do this with more grace than others. We’ll see if the president can muster up the courage to do what most feel he won’t.

I read yesterday that he plans on hitting the road again to do some more rallies, supposedly to generate public support for his legal cases. He’s even raising money (50% going to campaign debt). You can tell that the rallies have been the highlight of his political career, maybe even his whole life. He can’t get enough of the adoring crowds. I’m not an extrovert but I suppose I can imagine the appeal for someone who is. But I’m not sure how that will help. I suspect it is more to take advantage of the dwindling opportunity to be in front of crowds as a standing president. He’ll likely continue some sort of rallies post-presidency but it won’t ever be quite the same.  In any case, the White House will increasingly be an uncomfortable place to hang out once the transition teams start doing their thing.

Also between now and the end of the year, Mary Trump said he’ll likely break everything he can (pardoning inappropriately and signing a ridiculous number of executive orders). He might, but almost everyone who has been fired from his/her job tends to not work that hard between notification and end of contract.  Whether or not he’ll let Ms. Biden in to measure for curtains remains to be seen. His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, seems to think he’ll just head to his place in Florida for the holidays and never return. Protocols be damned.

The question then is, what will he do thereafter? Speculation abounds. Cohen suggests he’ll start his own media company and spend almost all of his energy blasting Biden and his administration, continuing is tirades on Hillary and Obama. The cult-like following he has will provide him the backing necessary to keep it alive though it’s likely to diminish over time. All the while his legal counsel will be busy initiating and fending off lawsuits regarding his personal affairs. Not how I would want to spend my retirement.

There are not-so-subtle hints that Don Jr. is laying the foundation to throw his hat into the ring next election. Even though his dad was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was crass and plain-spoken in a way that somehow appealed to his constituents. Don Jr., at least so far, seems to lack any charisma and plays mostly the privileged white kid that Trump supporters would have beaten up in high school. Will they nonetheless hitch their wagon to him in the cherished legacy of his father?  It will be interesting. We know Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney and others are likely to throw their names in the hat as well. Rubio? Cruz should know better by now.

Anyway, back to patriarch of Trumpism. I was thinking that he should initiate a reality show. His family and entourage might be rather entertaining to follow, now that the Kardashians have stopped whatever it was they were doing. I’m only partially joking. I honestly think both they and their fans would love it. Even their enemies. In fact it seems like we’ve all been watching a reality show over these past four years. The media has sort of made caricatures of the gang at the White House. Everyone seems to be unable to talk about much else. As much as people say they’ve had enough, and can’t wait to not talk/think about them, my guess is that many would get sucked right back in. And it may be a better fit for them than ruling the free world. The harmful consequences on the poor would be much less – would cost them just a few hours staring at their TVs rather than their healthcare.

And then there’s the presidential library. He won’t allow an opportunity to put his name on a building pass him by.  After seeing his place in NY, I doubt that the library will be very tasteful. For someone who is not so keen on books, it may be that the sign out front will need to have the word “library” in quotes. But he will definitely want a monument to himself.

However Trump decides to spend his time, much to the chagrin of his enemies, and many of his fellow Republicans, he likely won’t go away. He’ll need to be relevant. His people, who seem to accept anything he says or does without question, will give him that relevance. He can talk about his celebrity power in groping women. He can insult an American hero like John McCain. He can publicly mock a disabled man. He can call immigrants rapists. He can call racists good people and foster division in American in a way that no president has ever done. He can brazenly fail to come up with, or execute, a plan to manage the pandemic that has killed thousands. Etc. And nearly half of the US are somehow okay with this – particularly Christians who are supposed to have some sort of moral compass. It boggles the mind. God help American and God help the new president as the new chapter begins.

Election Day...Three

We’re in day three of the elections. It was predicted that the count would last several days. While we all knew it was coming, I think the assumption was that it wouldn’t be as painful as what we’re experiencing – that we’d have a better idea of the direction in which things were going. At the time I’m writing this, the result is still anyone’s guess. I read on Twitter this morning a woman bragged that she grew up in Brazil where they could know the results of the elections within a few hours after the polls closed. Another woman responded by saying, “I grew up in Lebanon. We knew the results even before the polls opened.”

I suppose this would all be a lot more fun if the stakes were not so high. There’s a feeling that whichever side you’re on, your world (particularly in the US but not exclusively) will change in fundamentally different ways. I called my mom last night and she said that on election day she went to buy some groceries. The woman at the check-out said that they were inundated with shoppers earlier in the day loading up on supplies in the case that Biden would win the election. They had heard on social media that there would be chaos if Democrats took the White House.

It would be easy to poke fun at people that are so easily manipulated by conspiracies but there is obviously a dangerous element to this. I have some experience in managing situations where there are angry people with weapons. It usually doesn’t end well. I used to say, if you think lots of guns and small government are the best way to run a society, come to Burundi and you’ll change your mind. I’m not necessarily a fan of big government but I do believe that the lower tiers of society need to be adequately cared for, particularly in the areas of health care and education. And no, that’s not socialism. It's agonizing to hear politicians throwing that word around without having an understanding of what it is.

“Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.” -Earl Warren, former Chief Justice, US Supreme Court (1891-1974)

And it’s not a concept that should be embedded in any specific political party platform. It’s simply what a society should do for its citizens, like the fire department or the police department, and politics should be focused on other things.

“To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.” -Norman Mailer, author (1923-2007)

I’m still stunned that Christians in America, the bulk of the president’s supporters, seem to disregard Christ’s teaching on advocating for the poor or the refugee: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

I do believe leaders will be held accountable for misleading their constituents but I also believe people are responsible for their own actions. Many of the poor and disadvantaged in the US are supporting a president that is actively harming their own well being. It boggles the mind. Jesus never mentioned gay marriage or abortion. He said blessed are the peacemakers. This afternoon I’m hearing about Trump supporters threatening violence against polling stations, including the Pennsylvania Convention Center where election votes are being cast. Christians are either among those who are doing the threatening or they are silent. It’s an abomination.

“When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.” -Sarah Kendzior, journalist and author (b. 1978) 

Regardless of how this comes out, it will be a tough road ahead. The president has gone full African dictator and the sheeple in Congress and supporters around the country seem unwilling to denounce anything he says or does. The psychological grip he has on supporters is surreal. Will the elections be the snap of the fingers that awakens people from the hypnosis? Will people muster the integrity to critically evaluate the actions of even the leaders they support? Will people recognize the cognitive dissonance between what they say they believe and what they do in practice? Sadly, most will not. But if enough people with integrity rise up, maybe, just maybe, the country can regain its footing. Regardless, it will be a bumpy ride ahead.