A Critical Two Weeks for Our Democracy

Posted on January 4, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, January 4, 2022

As a patriotic American, I don’t know which is more embarrassing, a Senate that is unable to come up with fifty votes to assure that every American is able to vote, thus preserving the main bulwark of democracy, or a former president who is clearly guilty of planning and directing an insurrection against Congress, and still continues to tear the country apart with lies, a year later. As to the latter, I cannot imagine any former president since the Great Depression who would have stooped as low as Trump in his lust to retain power. Even Richard Nixon would not have done so, and more importantly, his Republican majority in the Senate, led by Barry Goldwater, would have stopped him.

Don’t ever let a Trump supporter get away with calling him or herself a Conservative. Real Conservatives know where to draw the line between political self-interest and the interests of the nation. They understand that we have prospered and grown strong over two-and-a-half centuries because of our Constitution, not in spite of it. Trump would tear it up and write a new one designed to create a safe haven for a power-mad, sociopathic emperor.

I’ve been waiting for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to make his move on passing a national voting rights bill that will supersede the efforts by Republican controlled states to rig future elections in their favor. That’s something that cannot be put off until the last minute. Despite the media hype about Trump controlling the Republican Party, I have never lost confidence that in the end, the Senate would get its act together and do the right thing.

Conventional wisdom says Schumer’s biggest challenge will be getting West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin on board to allow a voting rights bill to avoid an endless filibuster. He also needs Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema to agree, but to date, she hasn’t been willing to put herself on the line publicly in a definitive way. The same conventional wisdom suggests she will go along with any deal Manchin makes with Schumer and the President.

My confidence in the Senate is such that I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s another John McCain or Jeff Flake lurking in the weeds, a Republican who is a true Conservative who values principle and the Constitution more than loyalty to Donald Trump. To me, the most important moment in the Trump administration was when McCain gave Trump the proverbial finger and shot down the Republican attempt to kill Obamacare. I think it can happen again and very well might. With the future of democracy in the balance, even Mitch McConnell might see the light, at least enough to allow someone in his caucus to choose voting equality.

Schumer sent a letter to his Senate colleagues informing them that if by January 17th, Republicans still line up unanimously to obstruct a voting rights bill, he will attack the filibuster. That’s a very bold commitment, which was undoubtedly made in consultation with President Biden. Schumer is a skillful enough politician that he’d never box himself in that way if something weren’t happening behind the scenes to make him believe he would succeed. Since the Senate seems uncharacteristically leak-proof on this issue, it could be any number of things. It’s no coincidence that the time period targeted by Schumer begins with the anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Congress and the public hearings that will be conducted by the Special House Committee, and ends with Martin Luther King’s birthday. The symbolism is far from subtle, an indication that Schumer has pulled out all the stops to get the bill passed.

My favorite hypothesis is that Joe Manchin, who is really in a tough spot as a Democratic Senator in a state that went two-thirds for Trump, will ultimately not allow Republicans to retain power indefinitely through lies, gerrymandering, and preventing whole populations from voting. I believe Manchin has the kind of principles John McCain had. He will continue to negotiate down to the wire to get the best possible deal on Biden’s Build Back Better legislation, and that may be the leverage Schumer needs to get him on board with voting rights.

Build Back Better is important. It’s expensive, but unlike the equally expensive Trump tax cut that mostly benefitted billionaires, it is aimed at improving the lives of ordinary people. Important as that is, it pales in significance compared to preserving voting rights for every American. Whatever Schumer and Biden have to give up to reach Manchin’s $1.5 trillion benchmark, it’s a price worth paying to gain his support for suspending the filibuster.

My gut tells me it’s doable, and I think it will happen.

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Goobye to 2021

Posted on December 31, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 31, 2021

A year ago, most of us were saying, “Good riddance” to 2020. Some may say that about 2021, but the two years could hardly have been more different. It’s time to set the record straight.

In 2020, we had a president who denied COVID, because he feared that shutting down our economy pre-emptively would hurt his chances of re-election. He withheld critical information that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if he hadn’t let his self-interest take precedence over his responsibility as president. Someone I trust who spoke with the Moderna development team leader told me the Trump administration authorized the company to begin work on a vaccine three weeks before Trump admitted COVID was a problem. Friends at the Defense Department told me they had been warned that a very dangerous pandemic would be coming and directed to stock up on necessities while they could – two weeks before Christmas in 2019, while Trump was publicly denying the virus existed.

The contractors tasked with finding and testing a vaccine did incredible work, but the Trump administration had no plan for its distribution, leaving states on their own. Contrast that with President Biden’s handling of the pandemic. We had a distribution plan funded by the federal government within weeks of Biden being inaugurated. We had vaccine distribution centers all over the country, in pharmacies, health care facilities and public health offices. But for anti-vax opposition fostered by Trump and his people, which persists a year after he left office, our country would have achieved herd immunity by now. The virus would have been unable to find new hosts and mutate, possibly avoiding the delta and omicron strains entirely.

Trump’s lies and self-serving behavior put us all at risk for years to come. Biden sacrificed enormous political capital to reverse that threat. Trump would not permit health care experts at NIH and the CDC to speak freely, that is, to tell the truth. Biden has given free rein to Drs. Anthony Fauci and Rochelle Walensky to keep the public informed. A consensus of public health experts have said that of the 823,000 COVID deaths in the United States, at least a half million could have been prevented if Trump not been derelict in his duty.

The economic chaos that resulted from not having a coordinated nationwide response to the virus left our economy in a shambles at the end of 2020. The Biden administration turned that around spectacularly, passing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March of 2021. Almost every dollar spent went straight into the pockets of Americans who needed it to pay their bills and keep their homes. But ARP was not a welfare program. All the money spent went directly back into the consumer economy, stimulating an unprecedented recovery that was further energized by the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed in July. Both laws were passed without the support of a single Republican, at the direction of Donald Trump.

Last week, Matthew Winkler of Bloomberg News tweeted: “U.S. financial markets outperformed world by biggest margin in 21st century as American economy improved more in Biden’s first year than any president during the past 50, notwithstanding contrary media narrative contributing to dour public opinion.” Winkler was reacting to 7% growth, nationally in the current quarter, and more than 6% for all of 2021. He was also reacting to a reduction in unemployment from 6.2% to 4.2%, and the highest average corporate profits since the second world war.

Trump spent four years tearing down international agreements and alliances. Biden has re-engaged with the world, rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, repairing our relationships with NATO and the EU, and calling for a united front against aggressive behavior from Russia and China. He ended the war in Afghanistan, keeping the commitment made by his predecessor, who had unfortunately removed all of our military intelligence assets in Afghanistan before leaving office. Without them, our military leaders could not know that the Taliban had co-opted the Afghan military we trained and paid for. Thus, the Afghan army dissolved during the final evacuation, resulting in confusion and the deaths of thirteen American troops. Despite all of that, the withdrawal was an unprecedented success.

Trump spent the second half of 2020, knowing he would likely lose to Biden in November, plotting to undermine confidence in the election and subvert the Constitution. He continued this effort throughout 2021, starting by engineering the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. With all the real problems his administration faced, Biden has had to fight total obstruction by a Republican Party dominated by Trump, whose goal is to seize power for a minority that can control the country for at least a decade.

President Biden, recognizing that partisan gridlock could destroy the viability of Congress, made a commitment in 2021 to reach out for bipartisan solutions, but the vast majority of Republicans, taking their marching orders from Trump, have made that impossible. Biden now faces a daunting challenge on which the future of the country as we know it depends. Republicans have left him no alternative but to break the filibuster to pass a federal voting rights bill.

Joe Biden has done a marvelous job in his first year as President despite being undermined at every turn by his sociopathic predecessor, who would rather destroy the country than admit defeat. I can sum up 2021 in three words – THANK YOU, JOE!

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Hope For Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 24, 2021

Being neither a Christian nor a fan of organized religion, I’m not fond of Christmas, either. My idea of celebrating is to avoid its associated hypocrisy as much as possible. Growing up in New York City, most people I knew celebrated “Jewish Christmases:” Chinese food and a first run movie on a night when there were no lines. One of my Catholic daughters-in-law called me to say she and my son were planning a Jewish Christmas this year. They found a great Chinese restaurant, but Omicron convinced them to watch a movie at home.

There used to be a lot of signs and bumper stickers saying, “Put Christ Back in Christmas,” though not this year. At least the church hierarchy, corrupt as it is, agrees with me on one thing. Christmas is either a celebration of Christ or it isn’t. Either celebrate it with that in mind, or change what it’s about. Or, my preferred solution: send it to the holiday graveyard along with Columbus Day, where it belongs.

However, when in Rome…I give my grandkids Christmas presents and acknowledge that most people want messages of hope on Christ’s birthday, though apparently, even that was faked by the church, which preferred to celebrate Christianity by co-opting pagan festivals that occur in late December. Most historians believe that if he existed at all, Christ was probably born around 5 B. C. in the Spring. But I digress. On Christmas Eve, I’m hopeful about three things, which is unfortunate, because we currently face more than three existential threats, COVID, for example, which is likely to remain an annual celebration of American ignorance. But on three fronts, there’s a faint light in the distance.

Most Americans are waking up to the reality of climate change. I’m in central Florida today, which expects to see temperatures in the 80s for most of the last week in December. If you live in the Midwest, you’ve noticed that deadly tornadoes are no longer restricted to summertime, and if you live near New Orleans, Galveston, or Tampa, you see the Gulf of Mexico inching closer to your front door every day. We’re buying electric cars, approaching energy sufficiency with a smaller carbon footprint, and building more solar panels and wind turbines. Is it enough? For now, it’s a ray of hope.

Our most immediate and dangerous threat is Donald Trump. Many may disagree, but I believe that like most charismatic movements – despicable as he is, Trump is a charismatic leader – his will die the moment its head is cut off. That means when Trump is either indicted for a serious crime or bankrupted by the many lawsuits he’s facing. His hotel empire suffered staggering losses due to the pandemic which his own negligence and malfeasance exacerbated. Ironic justice, or just a sad end to a tragic tale of lies and corruption?

Americans who are accustomed to instant gratification don’t realize that the Special House Committee investigating the events of January 6th is moving inexorably toward a not-too-distant decision about referring Trump to the Justice Department for prosecution over dereliction of duty. There is mounting evidence that he delayed calling off his dogs that day for more than three hours, hoping the insurrection would reverse his election loss to Joe Biden. Who cares if Congress and the Vice President faced their worst physical threats since the War of 1812? Who cares if police died and the nation came very close to a far more serious catastrophe? Clearly, Donald Trump didn’t.

Other actions are moving forward in the courts. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in January over Trump’s claim of Executive Privilege over materials subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee from the National Archives and Records Administration. If the appeals court ruling that his claim is invalid stands, the Committee will be inundated with data incriminating Trump and his closest supporters. Investigations of possible corrupt business practices (money laundering, fraud, racketeering) are proceeding in New York City and Albany. Georgia is investigating whether Trump is guilty of election tampering, and Georgia poll workers filed suit against Rudy Guiliani for libelous accusations of election fraud.

Finally, there’s West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Whether he’s a brilliant negotiator standing off against his more progressive colleagues to protect our deficit or a man drunk on power as the swing vote in the Senate on all of President Biden’s agenda, the United Mine Workers of America got his attention when they came out against his threat to scuttle Biden’s Build Back Better Plan. Whether he was cowed by his need for their support or looking for cover to do the right thing, he now suggests that some version of that bill will make it through the Senate.

That’s a good thing, but far more important, is that it sets the stage for Manchin to go along with a filibuster suspension that will enable Democrats to pass a strong voting rights bill. Make no mistake – that is the most critical task facing Congress. The fate of our Constitution depends on it.

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Pre-Holiday Jitters

Posted on December 20, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 20, 2021

Christmas is five days away, the beginning of 2022 only twelve. It’s normally a joyous time for most people, but the news today is shockingly depressing. I scanned the CNN website this morning as I do most mornings. I also look at the Washington Post and New York Times. It’s hard to trust any media outlet these days, because even those that believe in unbiased reporting can’t escape the financial realities of dependence on sponsors and advertising, but those are the sources I trust most.

What I saw was bleak. There’s so much negative news, it’s hard to know where to begin, but we might as well start with something about which we’re not powerless – COVID. “Dr. Francis Collins, the outgoing director of the National Institutes of Health, [said] on Friday that the Omicron variant could result in as many as a million new cases a day.” The first thing you hear when you repeat that is a chorus of “yes-buts.” Early indications are the Omicron is far more contagious than other COVID variants, but results in many fewer hospitalizations and deaths – for now, at least. Even if that holds true, a million new cases a day? With hospital systems and health care workers already strained to the breaking point, how much more stress can they survive?

The one bit of positive COVID news was that the half-dose booster of the Moderna vaccine increases antibodies against Omicron thirty-seven fold, while the full-dose booster increases them eighty-three fold. Yet, anti-vaccine politics has become a cynical tool of right-wing extremists and Trumpers. The degree to which millions of Americans have been influenced by negative propaganda about vaccines is staggering. Only sixty percent of American adults are fully vaccinated, a level that allows the virus to continue to spread and mutate. Any disease expert will tell you that it’s impossible to predict what the next variant will be like. It could be far deadlier, and the only way to avoid it is to prevent the virus’ spread. Is America truly that ignorant and stupid?

There’s also ominous COVID news from Europe. Cases are spiking in the UK, and other European nations are trying to prevent British travelers from infecting their populations. Germany requires every traveler from the UK to quarantine for fourteen days upon arrival, and France has temporarily banned all travel to and from the UK. The Netherlands has instituted a near total shutdown. Greece and Italy require a negative COVID test for every traveler entering their countries. Denmark has closed all of its public entertainment venues, Norway has a less restrictive but similar policy, and Sweden is requiring proof of vaccination from all travelers from neighboring countries. Does that sound like the pandemic is over and we can all ignore it?

Barbara Walter of the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego, has spent thirty years, including four years on a CIA task force studying the causes of insurrection and civil war. The two most important causes are democracies sliding toward autocracy and the use of racial tropes for political advantage. She concludes, after six years of the Trumpism influencing our politics, that both those conditions exist today in the United States. Using the same criteria that our intelligence services apply to evaluate the risk of civil war in other countries, the task force now places the risk here at “approaching very high.” When identical conditions are observed elsewhere, those countries are placed on a high-risk watch list for political unrest, instability, and civil war. We’re going to hear a lot of talk about love and brotherhood in the coming days. Unfortunately, most of it will be complete hypocrisy.

Depressed yet? We’re not done. The Republican caucus in the Senate, using the voice of Chuck Grassley has made it clear that they will block any appointment to the Supreme Court made by President Biden if they win a majority in the 2022 elections, this, after nineteen states controlled by Republican legislatures have spent 2021 attempting to rig all future elections in their favor. How would you describe a situation in which a radical wing of a minority party is able to force its will on an entire nation, and their goal is to undermine democracy for their own political gain? I call it the beginning of a long slide into autocratic Fascism, one that will be unstoppable if it isn’t halted before it gains any more momentum.

The most important thing the Biden administration must accomplish is the passage of a strong voting rights bill that negates states’ attempts to undermine our Constitution. That means that every Senate Democrat must be willing to suspend the filibuster to get it done. Are you listening, Senator Manchin?

Happy holidays, everyone.

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Stress Cracks

Posted on December 18, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 18, 2021

Remember the Mary Maples Dodge story in Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates about the little Dutch boy? He sees a leak in the dike that’s holding back the North Sea from destroying his country, and knowing that one leak can lead to a second and a third, and eventually, if nothing is done, the dike will collapse, he sticks his finger in the hole and keeps it there throughout a frigid night. There are three monuments to his fictional exploits in Haarlem, the Hague, and Harlingen, shown below in the photo by Alamy.

The same thing happens when you’re driving and a rock bounces off your windshield, causing a starburst crack. If you don’t repair it, the crack spreads and eventually, you wind up with the windshield in your face at 70 mph on a freeway. In reality, dikes don’t leak, they just collapse when the stress gets too great, and windshields rarely disintegrate, but the parable is sound, nonetheless.

Despite his bluster and arrogant rhetoric, it is precisely what terrifies Donald Trump most. He would have us believe, with help from his friends at Fox News, Newsmax, and America One News, that his movement to take over the Republican Party and return to power is an ever-growing groundswell that’s virtually unstoppable. That’s why the Seditious Six (Jim Jordan, Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz) Republicans in the House of Representatives continue to make so much noise about it. But don’t be fooled by their distract and mislead tactics. Trumpism is not an unstoppable force, and cracks are already beginning to show.

Neither the North Sea nor a bit of highway debris is malevolent, but Trumpism is. The former two are unfortunate facts of life. Trumpism is an invention composed of lies, bigotry, greed, and power lust that is designed to transform America into something unrecognizable, something that subscribes to the hateful values that have characterized the life of Donald Trump in business and politics. Rather than plugging a hole in a dike, Americans who value the principles of democracy on which our nation was founded should rejoice every time they see a crack in the façade of Trumpism, and they are beginning to appear.

As Republicans who have been cowed by Trump until now begin to break away, I foresee a tsunami of defections that will neutralize Trump’s ability to influence our future. Robert Gonzales, who writes for azcentral.com, the oldest and most-visited local site in Arizona, argues against Republicans throwing in the towel to Trumpism. “The loud voices on the right and accompanying media narrative paint the GOP as the party of Trump, but miss a lot of nuance. We aren’t all election-result-denying, insurrection-endorsing, Trump-supporting extremists.” That’s a very powerful statement that is being echoed more and more by Republicans around the country, although Gonzales wrote, in October, that the Arizona Republican Party had succumbed so much, that it was time to abandon it for something better.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a masterful politician who understands nuance. No one is better at overt obstruction, but he can be subtle, as well. He knows silence can be an effective weapon, and he has often kept mum in the face of Trump’s atrocities when it suited his political ambitions, which makes his comments on Wednesday regarding the Special January 6th House Committee’s investigation extremely significant.

When the insurrection at the Capitol occurred, McConnell was quick to condemn it, albeit in his own twisted style. CBS News reported in February that “after voting to acquit former President Trump in his second impeachment trial, … McConnell gave a scathing address denouncing Mr. Trump’s conduct, saying the January 6th Capitol assault ‘was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet earth.’”

Publicly, McConnell has remained pretty much on the sidelines in the fight to control his party since then, but as the House Committee appeared to be gathering evidence incriminating the former president and his aides, McConnell spoke up this week, cryptically remarking that “it will be interesting to reveal all the participants that were involved [in the insurrection].” There’s never been any love lost between McConnell and Trump. Whether you love or hate him, McConnell is a traditionalist who believes in the two-party system he manipulates so well. His remark is a clear signal to Republicans who have been too afraid to speak out until now. He appears to be taking off the gloves, ready to pounce on those who would wreck his party and his country.

Trump’s façade is cracking. I’d suggest getting out of the way before it all comes crashing down.

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Trump’s Growing Jeopardy

Posted on December 14, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 14, 2021

Recently, a very smart, insightful cousin chastised me about throwing in the towel too quickly after I began this blog. He was referring to my admittedly reluctant statement, shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated, about giving him a chance to prove he was a decent, capable leader. Many presidents grew into the job, regardless of how they behaved during heated campaigns. In February of 2017, I wouldn’t have expected to be taken seriously if I simply joined the chorus of Trump haters.

My feelings and beliefs concerning Trump were never political. Party affiliation didn’t influence me where Trump was concerned. My intense dislike of the man was based on his lack of moral character, his greed and self-aggrandizement, his complete lack of respect for truth – I could go on, but it’s easier to sum Trump up in one word. He’s a sociopath who has no business holding any public office. I gave Trump a chance to prove himself, and he quickly did. I didn’t lose my objectivity, I recognized Trump for what he was – a despicable pig of a man, who was willing to undermine everything our country stands for, for his own amusement.

So, yes, the gloves started to come off almost immediately as Trump continued his attacks against immigrants, the judiciary, and people of color, just as he did during the 2016 campaign. It was soon clear that persons of great competence could never be successful in his administration. People like that think independently. They don’t sign loyalty oaths, but they take their oaths to uphold the Constitution very seriously. Thus, highly respected people, who already had risen to the top of their professions like James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and John Kelly could only deal with the lies and corruption of the Trump administration for a while before they departed, while incompetent hacks like Rick Perry and Betsy Devos managed to serve for a full four years.

Who did Trump place his trust and the welfare of the country in? His daughter, Ivanka, who was a laughing-stock as “senior advisor” from day one, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was given a portfolio as broad as the entire Cabinet’s and accomplished nothing of significance in four years. Competence and job qualifications were never an issue with Trump’s appointments. Consider Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, two men with no credentials, whose only distinguishing characteristics were that they were almost as sociopathic as their boss.

That trend continued when Trump appointed former NC Congressman Mark Meadows as Chief of Staff for the final year of his term. Meadows was no star, academically, and his resume was average – in other words, he had zero chance of ever influencing the president on matters of substance. He was there to provide political cover and kiss Trump’s ass. As it became clear that Trump was likely to lose the 2020 election, Meadows became a key cog in the effort to invalidate it by any means, as long as Trump won.

Meadows was a loyal servant, but blind loyalty is not the same as political acumen or the ability to steer the president toward doing his job properly. While most Chiefs of Staff are former corporate CEOs, proven military leaders, or respected managers, Meadows was a mediocre real estate developer and the former owner of a sandwich shop, until he signed on to the House Freedom Caucus and demonstrated his undying loyalty to Trump. No law degree, no MBA, no professional credentials except an AA degree for Florida State University. (That’s the same degree you ne’er-do-well nephew got when he knew he would flunk out during his junior year of college.) That isn’t turning out well for the former president, as the Special House Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection placed Meadows right at the heart of Trump’s involvement in the attack on the Capitol and his deliberate refusal to intervene to protect the Congress and the Constitution.

Meadows’ behavior during the House investigation has been bizarre. He turned over the weird Powerpoint presentation that laid out for Trump every possible way to subvert the election and relinquished countless texts and emails that place both Trump and himself directly in the line of fire in the investigation of who was responsible for the insurrection. Only after giving up all that incriminating evidence, he ignored the Committee’s subpoena and is about to be referred to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress. If Trump is ultimately indicted, which I believe he will be, he can probably thank Meadows’ inexplicable decisions.

If our future is to be secured as the Framers of the Constitution intended, the best thing that can happen is for Trump and his sycophants to be painstakingly removed from the political scene by due process before they can do any more damage. That will free the cowards in Congress who choose to look away whenever Trump does something outrageous out of fear of being primaried. It’s a sad day when we have to depend on people like that to preserve our heritage.

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The States’ War on the Federal Government

Posted on December 11, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 11, 2021

As 2021 draws to a close, our country faces a number of critical challenges at the same time. The media seem to like to pose the situation as a challenge to the Biden administration, and it is, but every American should be engaged, now, because every challenge will ultimately affect all our lives. The list would be intimidating for any administration:

  • a belligerent Russia testing its boundaries
  • an expansionist China with its sights on Taiwan and the entire South China Sea
  • climate change and rising sea levels
  • the anti-vax movement which threatens to make new COVID variants an annual event that continues to kill Americans
  • the growing aggressiveness of right-wing extremist groups
  • the danger that Trumpism will metastasize into a cancer that destroys what made America great
  • attempts by states to undermine our Constitution, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment, which empowered the federal government to overturn discriminatory state laws

Once again, I am grateful to historian Heather Richardson’s Letters to an American for focusing my attention on the last item in the list. All of them are important; I’d be hard pressed to rank them. The specific issue in today’s Letter was the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Texas’ new abortion law that makes abortion illegal after six weeks of pregnancy and deputizes every radical whacko in the state to bring such violent criminals to justice.  

What the Court ruled on was the federal government, specifically the Justice Department’s right to file suit with the Court when it finds a state law to be discriminatory or depriving individuals of their basic civil rights, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Court permitted the suit to go forward, but not with respect to the part of law that abridges a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. Virtually every physician critical of the law cited the fact the most women do not know they’re pregnant until after six weeks.

This is an important issue, but the broader implications of the Court ruling are absolutely critical to our future. First, the decision tells us that all three justices appointed by Donald Trump either lied to the Congress or deliberately misled them during their confirmation hearings. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, for example, specifically testified that she considered Rowe v Wade established legal precedent. Yet, in supporting the most restrictive part of Texas’ new law, she completely undermined Rowe. This has massive impact. If we cannot trust the integrity of judges vying to be Supreme Court Justices, or more to the point, if we cannot trust the Senate to honestly, aggressively, vet candidates instead of rubber-stamping anyone who fits the current ideology of an obstructive minority, we might as well adopt Valdimir Putin’s version of justice.

If prospective Justices can deliberately deceive the country by lying about their intent, nothing is safe. If a fifty-year precedent guaranteeing a woman’s right to control her own body can be overturned by simple political pressure and deceit, what else can be easy so easily erased? States controlled by right-wing extremists under the thumb of Trump will be encouraged and enabled by yesterday’s ruling to appeal to the Court to eliminate the federal government from every decision regarding public health concerns, (policies on vaccination, masks, and mandates in general,) mitigating climate change, allowing the NRA to set national gun rights policy, and undoubtedly most important in the coming months, voting rights.

The future of our republic literally hangs in the balance, and as is the case in many other areas, passivity on the part of “we the people” will only make matters worse. You may reasonably ask how individual citizens can influence the Supreme Court, where Justices are appointed for life and can only be impeached if the Senate believes them guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, which totally politicizes the Court in direct violation of the Constitution. The truth is that the Court can be influenced by public opinion if it is loud, constant, and focused. The abortion issue is clearly one in which we have a voice, as more than sixty percent of Americans have supported Roe v Wade since that ruling was issued.

Chief Justice John Roberts has always considered the broader impact of his decisions on all of us, rather than engaging in politically motivated activism. Yesterday, he joined the liberal minority on the Court, warning his colleagues that the “clear purpose and actual effect” of the Texas law was “to nullify this Court’s rulings.” That, he said, undermines the Constitution and the fundamental role of the Supreme Court and the court system as a whole.

It only took Adolf Hitler three months to co-opt the Judiciary in the Weimar Republic. The process we are witnessing today is slower and more excruciating, but equally as dangerous.

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Our House is On Fire

Posted on December 6, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 6, 2021

Imagine if you will that you’re sitting at home one evening. It’s been hot, and there’s a huge storm forecast. Leaves and twigs are already blowing everywhere, and there have been tornado watches all day. You look out your window at the 150-foot hickory and maple trees swaying and moaning in the wind, and you notice that a neighbor’s house is on fire. You see flames dancing in the top floor master bedroom – the fire must have started up there, and the family are all down in their finished basement, three levels lower. They have no idea the house is afire.

I experienced something like that a few years ago. We tried calling the neighbor’s land line and mobile phones to no avail. We would have run through our yard to their back door a hundred yards away, but it was very dangerous out there. After wasting valuable time trying to get their attention, we finally just dialed 911. It turned out we weren’t the only ones who saw the fire. Three other neighbors did exactly what we did, but we each thought we were the only ones. One, who lived next door, actually ran over and rang the doorbell of the burning house, but with the wind howling, no one heard it. Would it have helped if we’d been able to work together? (No one was hurt, but it was damned frustrating.)

What are we, who can clearly see our own house on fire, to do to get the attention of those who either can’t see it themselves, don’t care, or think burning it down is a good idea? Good question. Some Americans are old enough to remember the twelve-year run of the original version of this play in Europe eight decades ago. There were many who shouted warnings, but only fifteen years after the end of the Great War, and in the clutches of a world-wide economic Depression, it’s understandable that leaders who might have reacted had other problems to deal with.

What’s our excuse? We’re emerging from the COVID pandemic, our economy is booming, and we’re not presently involved in armed warfare (except on our own streets.) Why can’t people see it, and if they do, why don’t they care enough to fight back? Why are millions of Americans not enraged by the attempts of a soulless, angry minority to sabotage our elections and assure that right-wing extremists gain control of our government and keep it? Why are we all not enraged by the re-emergence and public acceptance of xenophobia and racism? Why are we not angry and terrified about corrupt political and religious leaders who undermine science, who ignore the effects of climate change, and invent lies about protecting ourselves from disease? What has to happen before we come to our senses?

Last Saturday, speaking in Athens, Greece, the birthplace of democracy, Pope Francis, the same one who described Donald Trump as un-Christian in 2016, addressed our burning house. He warned that “democracy has deteriorated dangerously as discontented people are lured by the ‘siren songs’ of populist politicians who promise easy but unrealistic solutions.” Will that help? Previous Popes have spoken out against heinous crimes and impending disasters. In the 1933 version of this play, then Pope Pius XII was accused by many of supporting Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazism, and ignoring the Holocaust. Had Francis been Pope then, would it have changed anything?

We’ll never know, but it’s clear that if we repeat the mistakes of our great-grandparents, America will be the next empire to be the subject of ‘Rise and Fall” documentaries. With hyper-partisanism gridlocking our Congress, a rogue ex-President continuing to feed the cause of insurrection with lies, and with two of our largest states acting as if federal authority no longer exists, it’s hard to see a path forward on which democracy is intact for the next generation.

But here’s the thing. The trend toward authoritarianism is not some giant unstoppable monolith. It’s just a bunch of noise being made by a few well-funded politicians, political activists, and media executives whose influence on national policy far outstrips the size of the minority they represent.

I was struck by a recent statement by Laura Thornton, director and senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund. Reacting to Wisconsin Republicans’ attempt to enact a law that would allow political control of future elections, she said, “it is up to us, the people. No party or leader will save us here. No foreign savior will shake us out of our stupor. Americans need to start caring about democracy enough to act on it…. Apathy is how democracies die. I’ve seen it.”

Ms. Thornton is right.

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States’ Rights and the Future of Our Democracy

Posted on December 3, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 3, 2021

When we studied the fifteen years between the American revolution and the adoption of our Constitution, our teachers presented the debate over how the new republic’s government should look as a done deal. In the late 1780s, the chief antagonists arguing over the form of our government were Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton favored a strong federal government because he distrusted the motivations of individual states and the people who governed them. Jefferson wanted states to be able to legislate as they wished, without interference from the federal government, except in matters of national security.

The Constitution ratified in 1788, and modified by the Tenth Amendment, spelled out the roles of the federal and state governments. The power to raise revenue through various forms of taxation, to raise an army and navy, and to declare war were explicitly given to the Congress. Virtually everything else not specifically prohibited by the Constitution was to be administered by the states. The federal government could also enact laws that superseded state statutes, as was made clear in the federal supremacy clause.

That all sounds like a neat package until you dig down to the details. It turns out there aren’t any. The Constitution’s provisions are general in nature, and they fail to address many specific issues, which have been disputed in the more than two hundred thirty years since. Thus, we had landmark Supreme Court decisions throughout the second half of the last century. The high court upheld the federal government’s right to overrule states that overtly practiced racial segregation in schools, to assure that every citizen’s voting rights were equal regardless of state restrictions, to protect a woman’s right to control her own health and body, and to assure that states offered basic medical, welfare, and nutrition services to everyone who needed them.

But the movement catalyzed by Donald Trump to dismantle the powers of the federal government and strengthen the states’ ability to pass laws unfettered by central authority has created a state of outright war between federalism and states’ rights. Enabled by then Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, Trump was allowed to appoint three extremely conservative justices to the Supreme Court in a single term, with the express intent of reversing many decisions that Trumpers consider too progressive. Trump and his allies see this as the end game of a nearly ninety-year battle against Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

What this is all really about is putting an end to the massive transfer of wealth from the fraction of one percent of Americans who own ninety percent of the nation’s assets to programs designed to benefit all Americans. The Constitution is silent on a number of critical issues, like whether basic health care is an inalienable right; that is, whether the Preamble to the Constitution’s assurance of every citizen’s right to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” includes the right to good health and medical care. The simple truth is that no real medical care existed, and little was known about general health and nutrition in the eighteenth century. There’s no doubt that had they existed, medical care and good health would have been included among the First Amendment rights and freedoms.

The Supreme Court is now debating the future of Roe v Wade, which legalized a woman’s right to have an abortion and is supported by a strong majority of Americans. In the forty-eight years since that decision, right-wing states have continually pecked away at a woman’s right to choose, until this year, emboldened by Trump’s control of the Republican Party, Texas and Mississippi passed laws that directly undermine the Court’s ruling. Today’s Supreme Court is almost the political opposite of the one that issued Roe v Wade. Apparently, two generations of precedent don’t matter when the forces of reactionary politics are in control.

Regardless of how the Court decides the future of a woman’s right to control her body, that’s only the opening act of what could be the critical final battle over states’ rights. Today, Texas’ new law severely limiting voting rights, which is clearly aimed at reducing the votes of Democrats, specifically those of non-white Americans and recent immigrants, went into effect. Other states that recently passed similar laws, like Wisconsin, are already gerrymanding the next ten years of elections (until the 2030 census) at an unprecedented level to assure that right-wing extremists remain in power indefinitely.

The bottom line is whether we will permit big money and autocratic state leaders to undermine the basic principles of our democracy. It is essential that the Biden administration do whatever is necessary to pass a federal voting rights act before the 2022 elections. If not, there will be no stopgap, even in the United States, to resist the worldwide trend to end democracy wherever it presently flourishes.

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After Giving Thanks, It’s Time to Save America

Posted on November 28, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, November 28, 2021

This was what my Thanksgiving was all about, ten children ranging from six months to almost nine years old, all grandchildren of me and my family members. They represent our futures, and they mean everything to us.

What a wonderful day it was, seeing these kids, cousins who live in Oregon, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania bonding together and learning how important it is to have family. We’ll do this more often if we are ever fully rid of COVID, because nothing matters more than they do.

It will take time for the glow to fade, but reality has already taken hold. I spent time with some very smart, well-informed people this week. As close as we are, as individuals we’re quite diverse. Despite our diversity, we all tend to be optimists, yet we agreed that our country is at a critical crossroads, and we’re concerned about the world those kids will grow up in.

No one could have expressed the reasons for our concern better than Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson, whose daily newsletter, Letters from an American, jumpstarts my mornings. Today, she discussed something that has irked me since President Biden took office. People at both political extremes have been accusing media outlets they disagree with of spreading lies and fake news ever since our insurrectionist former president started his campaign to discredit truth and responsible journalism, six years ago. In itself, that’s a seriously troubling development, but perhaps more so, is the subtle bias that every media platform has.

They all depend on ratings, subscriber involvement, and good relationships with sponsors, whose self-interest may not align with objective reporting. While the far the right have accused them of having a liberal bias for decades, we see their true colors this year. With the country in crisis over COVID and a damaged economy, our democracy principles under attack as never before, and most people simply wishing for a return to normalcy, the media have largely focused on sensationalism to increase ratings.

Instead of informing Americans who never paid attention to history or civics in school that entities as large as the United States evolve very slowly, and responsible governing requires slow, grinding deliberation, they describe the struggles to pass major legislation as chaos and disarray. Instead of addressing the way President Biden has shifted the focus of the presidency to the needs of people and restoring our commitment to allies and protecting our future, they dwell on the antics of far-right extremists. This week we witnessed the travesty of Donald Trump, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene lauding Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted by a Wisconsin jury of responsibility for murdering two people and injuring a third as a national hero.

They repeat the false accusation that our President suffers from dementia and is not up to the challenges of his job, when it’s clear to people who really understand that the minor verbal lapses Mr. Biden has always exhibited are the symptoms of a lifetime fight against stuttering. I’ve watched him critically every time he addressed something of great consequence, and I see a seventy-nine-year-old man who has lost none of the sharpness and command of subjects from the economy to foreign policy, to protecting us from climate change we require of him. Compare that to his predecessor who could barely construct an English sentence and who has the vocabulary of a twelve-year-old.

Isn’t it interesting that while two-thirds of Americans strongly support Biden’s legislative goals, our economy has boomed as a result of his $1.9 trillion stimulus package, and new jobless claims are the lowest they’ve been in fifty-two years, Biden’s approval ratings are around 45 percent? I blame the media’s quest for ratings for that. It’s a lot sexier to focus on growing insurrections and posturing a president on the verge of collapse than telling the truth.

Truth: our withdrawal from Afghanistan looked awful because Trump had already withdrawn most of our intelligence operatives, so we were unaware that the Afghan armed forces were secretly negotiating their surrender to the Taliban. Yet, despite the chaotic appearance, we executed the largest evacuation in the history of the world, and had Taliban security forces not allowed one suicide bomber to slip past them, killing thirteen American soldiers, the whole operation would have looked like a miracle.

Truth: Biden’s patience and respect for his colleagues has breathed life back into bipartisanship, without which our Congress cannot function. They still might fail, but it would be best for everyone if the media presented the issue honestly. Instead, they imply that Biden’s accomplishments, which include restoring our roles in keeping Iran non-nuclear and mitigating the effects of climate change somehow occurred despite his doddering, failing presence.

In fact, these things happened because Biden has not lost focus on what is best for America. He suppressed his own ego and sucked up the criticism while guiding our slowly moving ship of state with a steady hand. Above all, he has restored moral leadership to a nation that had lost its self-respect and that of its allies thanks to the actions of Donald Trump.

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