In Memoriam

Posted on May 31, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, Memorial Day, May 31, 2021

I watched the PBS Memorial Day Concert last night. It was a lot like previous concerts, filled with patriotic tributes to Americans lost defending their country in war, with two noticeable differences. One was that because of COVID, last night’s presentation was a technically adept mix of live and virtual presentations and performances. Another was an emphasis on diversity, including a somewhat whitewashed view of the history of our racially segregated armed forces. But this was a celebration of lost heroes, so the producers can be forgiven for looking only at the positive contributions of African American battalions and ignoring the ugly truths that went along with them.

I understand that Memorial Day was intended to remember and honor our military war dead. Yet, it was impossible to ignore the elephant in the room in 2021. Throughout 2020, we were told we were involved in a deadly war. It wasn’t a military conflict, but most responsible leaders and public health experts described the fight to save lives during the pandemic as war nonetheless. Not a war declared by Congress against other nations, but a very real conflict on two major fronts.

One was medical, the urgent struggle to identify the virus and find a way to combat it, first with treatments for those who were infected, and ultimately for a vaccine. Our pharmaceutical researchers developed vaccines in record time, earning our eternal gratitude. Our frontline health workers and first responders were as heroic as any battlefield soldiers in all our wars, putting their own lives on the line to save others. It may not have been a military action, but it was as deadly a war as any armed conflict we ever fought, in fact as deadly as all the military conflicts in the last century combined.

War……….American Casualties
WW1……………………………..116,516
WW2……………………………..405,399
Korea……………………………….36,516
Vietnam…………………………..58,209
Iraq/Afghanistan……………….7,036
Total………………………….623,676

COVID………………………..591,265

As awful as our wars have been, as much as those who lost their lives defending the rest of us deserved to be honored and revered, it felt odd to me watching tribute after tribute, that no one mentioned the obvious – that invisible elephant – that we lost almost as many innocent Americans to COVID in a single year as soldiers in combat since 1917. Is it fair to talk about all of them in the same context? Perhaps not, but I feel compelled to nevertheless, because those COVID deaths are still very relevant today, and their number is still increasing.

We can argue about whether this or that war was justified or even legal, but the men and women who fought them were only concerned with doing their duty. For me, the most touching moments in last night’s concert were hearing people returning from risking their lives in Vietnam, only to be accosted as if they were criminals by antiwar demonstrators who were unable to distinguish alleged crimes by our political leaders from actions taken in combat by those who were sworn to defend us. That’s also what makes the comparison with the COVID war meaningful.

Had we conducted military operations the way we battled COVID, both our political and military leaders would have left in disgrace. The ugly truth about COVID is that many of our so-called leaders turned their backs on their responsibility to defend innocent American civilians against a scourge from which they couldn’t protect themselves. Politicizing our most recent wars (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq/Afghanistan) divided the country, and in many ways got in the way of achieving our military objectives. But politicizing the war against COVID was an entirely different matter.

Most of the nearly 600,000 Americans who died from COVID didn’t have to. They were condemned to death, and their families to struggle on without them simply because too many of our leaders, starting with Donald Trump and extending down through the ranks at all levels of government had the wrong priorities. Whether it was greed or simple power lust, those who turned common sense public safety measures in to a political football are as guilty as any war criminals of causing civilian deaths.

While it’s understandable that including COVID in our Memorial Day remembrances might have been seen as politically incorrect and in bad taste, excluding those deaths was as disrespectful as ignoring those who died in war. Many people are trying to re-write the history of our war on COVID to suit their own interests, the same ones who are now trying to suppress voting of minority populations. If we ignore the former, we strengthen all the forces trying to undermine our democracy. If that is allowed to continue, we may be mourning the loss of everything we hold dear on some future Memorial Day.

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What Happened to Republican Leadership?

Posted on May 28, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 28, 2021

We could capture all the political problems our country faces today with a single question – where have all the conservative leaders of the past two decades gone? I’m thinking of a select few: George W. Bush, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Jeff Flake. They all have a couple of things in common. When in office, they were viewed as nice guy conservatives with whom the other party could negotiate. Since having left office, they have all been absent from the public scene when the country most needs them.

Boehner is happily hawking marijuana and writing books. When he appears in the media these days, those are the things he talks about. When he’s asked about the split in the Republican Party, he makes jokes about Donald Trump but has no interest in fighting to restore the party to its pre-Trump values.

Paul Ryan, who reluctantly accepted the role of House Speaker when Boehner quit, was a very popular conservative who could have capitalized on his status when Trump began changing the party into a racist, divisive cheering section. But he never had the stomach for the kind of confrontation that required. He knew that with Mitch McConnell’s help, he could achieve his decades-long goal of massive tax cuts for big business and the wealthiest Americans because it was in Trump’s wheel house. Like the others, when his personal objective was met he quit, leaving the rest of us to survive Trump. Unfortunately, almost 600,000 of us didn’t.

Flake is the heir of Barry Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative movement. In the first two years of Trump’s presidency, he showed some backbone in defense of his values, publishing a scathing book about Trump’s dishonesty and immorality. But in doing so he became an inadvertent role model for other conservatives who saw Trump react by assuring that Flake would lose Arizona’s Republican primary in 2018. Flake could have fought back, but instead he folded his cards and went home to the Barry Goldwater Institute, where he still impotently sits watching Trump destroy his party. After Flake’s principled stand against whitewashing the confirmation of Bret Kavanaugh as Supreme Court Justice, CNN must have thought they had a bonanza when they signed him as a contributor, but his toothless attacks on Trump never got traction.

Given his family heritage, Bush 43 could have played a significant leadership role in his party after leaving office. It was understandable that after ending his term with the worst popularity rating of any modern era president, with anger over his Iraq and Afghanistan misadventures still tangible, he would want to lay low and avoid the spotlight. But six years later, when Trump came on the political scene with his hateful rhetoric and complete disregard for conservative values, even the vicious attacks leveled against the entire Bush family weren’t enough to wake him from his stupor. The sound of silence as these four former leaders sat quietly on the sidelines living their lives and enjoying their wealth was not what Paul Simon had in mind when he wrote about it.

Although he still serves as U. S. Senator, it’s only fair to include Mitt Romney in the group of leaders who might have made a difference if they’d been willing to. Romney has his own base of support in Utah independent of Trump’s, and more money than he can ever spend. Yet, his mild-mannered opposition to Trump’s behavior hasn’t impressed anyone. Instead of working to form a coalition of Republicans willing to fight for their party, he has allowed himself to become a pariah to the other forty-nine Republican Senators.

After hiding out during the worst of Trump’s crimes as president, Ryan could have struck a meaningful blow against Trumpism to kick off the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation’s effort to take back the Republican Party. But his criticisms of Trump, to whom he was not willing refer by name, were diminished by his attacks on President Biden’s political agenda, hardly a way to convince fellow Republicans that their current enemy is Trump. And Trump’s typical response, calling Ryan a curse to the party and a weak, ineffective leader blunted whatever Ryan was attempting to do.

Was Ryan’s speech a one-off or will he finally take on the fight in earnest? Will the Bushes or Boehner or Flake? Or will the enormous vacuum created by their exit continue to be filled by the likes of Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene? I wonder what other world leaders think as they watch the former party of principled statesmen succumb to the vile rhetoric of Trump’s sycophants.

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Returning to Normal

Posted on May 26, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 26, 2021

If you think like I do, you looked at the title and thought – what does that even mean? People remark that we’re returning to normal every day and I want to ask each one: “How do you know?” I don’t because they can’t.

Are we back to normal with respect to generations of families re-uniting? Most people seem to be, but it’s not the same as before. If people have to travel long distances, despite airlines claiming flights are full again, many aren’t ready to get on a plane or a train yet. Many others are behaving as though the pandemic is gone, and too many never changed their behavior even during the lockdowns. We continue to meet via video conferencing, and I doubt that will ever change.

What about vacations? Are you going to be willing to board a cruise ship any time soon? I’m not, but then, I always thought cruise ships were floating petri dishes waiting to explode into a deadly epidemic. Ocean cruising will never return to what it was; river cruising might, as river boats are smaller, almost entirely open air, and if you’re on, say, the Danube, you can’t be quarantined at sea. You can jump off the boat and wade to shore in most places.

And road trips? I took one recently that covered 2,000 miles. It felt comfortable and normal, compared to a year earlier when driving 1,000 miles to get home felt like tiptoeing through a series of minefields. Big chain hotels and restaurants had done a great job of adapting, and fuel costs were still low because of reduced demand earlier in the pandemic. Speaking of which, here’s another sign of returning to normal, albeit an unpleasant one. After the Suez Canal blockage in March, gas prices soared to levels not seen in years due to uncertain supply lines. Two months later, there’s no longer any uncertainty, yet prices are still at their peaks. The oil companies and their distribution networks are as corrupt as ever, reaping every penny of windfall profits they can until someone stops them.

Discussing returning to work again, we must realize that people define normal according to their own circumstances. If your job no longer exists, you run the risk of falling through the cracks as the government begins to report that the economy is roaring again. Unemployment rates and hundreds of thousands of new jobs created each month don’t mean much if you have no prospect of getting one. As the 2022 elections approach, neither major party will want to focus on the millions of Americans left behind.

Assuming you still have a job or found a new one, is work like it was before the pandemic? Employers learned that working from home and substituting video conferencing for in-person interaction can save a ton of administrative costs, though some have concerns about monitoring productivity. For many people, like single parents juggling job, school, and day care, working from home is a huge benefit – no hours wasted commuting, minimal wardrobe concerns, and more quality time with kids are hard to give up. People who used to spend weeks and months in business travel have realized how useless most of that travel is. Now that they see how productive they can be sitting in front of a computer screen, most won’t want to pack their suitcases again.

Most school systems concluded that returning to normal means all students attending in-person classes, and the majority will not be offering virtual learning in the fall. But teachers know that while most children need to be in school to learn, there are many who do better in virtual settings. Let’s hope alternative learning platforms don’t completely disappear.

I left government for last because it’s so profoundly depressing. In previous pandemics, our government put partisanship aside for the public good. But this time, the government was dominated by a craven president who cared about television ratings and stock market indexes more than human lives. Four months into Joe Biden’s presidency, Republican lawmakers’ preoccupation with currying favor from Trump, regaining control of the Congress, and suppressing the votes of minorities, are allowing partisanship to continue unabated. The destructive politics of Trumpism continues to eat away at our national soul.

Racist, divisive voices like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s have always been a fact of life in American politics. But with Trump continuing to dominate his party and threatening ruin to all who oppose him, our government is running on fumes and hypocrisy. Trump didn’t create spineless leaders like Kevin McCarthy, but he knew an ambitious politician who would sell his soul to be House Speaker when he saw one, and he was only too happy to draft a bill of sale.

Despite President Biden’s effort to achieve a measure of bipartisan cooperation, it’s not going to happen. The single exception may be the police reform bill thanks to South Carolina’s Tim Scott. Scott has a conscience, and even if he didn’t, he knows his political future depends on African American voters believing he cares about racial justice more than receiving an endorsement from Donald Trump.

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An Insurrection Fable

Posted on May 21, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 21, 2021

The following is fiction. Any similarity between what is written below and actual events is entirely intentional. No names have been changed to protect the innocent because every one of these miscreants is as guilty as sin.

The producers think long and hard about the leading role. They need someone who’s tough as nails and virtually emotionless, a stone-faced actor who never smiles, who speaks in a monotone, like Jack Webb as Sergeant Friday – someone like Keanu Reeves. But it isn’t that easy. Keanu is known for taking his roles seriously.

After his first reading of the script he calls the Executive Producer: “Now I know why Damon and Krasinski turned this down. You thought I wouldn’t find out? This is crap. The audience will never buy it.” The EP reminds Keanu that truth is often stranger than fiction, to which Keanu replies, recalling his role as the alien Klaaatu, sent to Earth to decide if it deserves to be destroyed, “These characters are depraved degenerates, a textbook case of natural selection failing to improve the species. I can only accept this role if I get to blow them all up at the end.”

Alas, after not being able to work during the pandemic, his feelings are assuaged by the addition of another few pieces of silver. The movie begins with thousands of ignorant, racist losers armed with everything from fireplace pokers to AR-47s demonstrating outside the White House. The scene evokes cliches about tinderboxes and smoking volcanos. The audience can actually feel the Earth tremble and Keanu is in his element, feeling like he is embarking on another Excellent Adventure. Surely, some of the thirty plus police agencies in Washington are about to swoop in to protect the president, whom the Secret Service must have locked down in the nuclear-proof bunker beneath the White House by now.

But no, here comes the president, approaching a podium with a microphone, accompanied by his personal lawyer, a once prominent mayor and prosecutor who has sadly lost his mind. They’re flanked by a few people from the House and Senate who are egging the mob on to violence. Then, with the entire country and much of the world watching, the president ratchets the volume even higher, suggesting that the mob march to the Capitol and lynch the Vice President.

I know what you’re thinking – no wonder Keanu wanted to toss the script in the trash, but the scene has actually energized him. As people in Congress and the Cabinet demand a bipartisan investigation into the ransacking of the Capitol, the deaths of five police officers, the injuries to hundreds more, and the obvious connections between certain members of Congress and the insurrectionists, the role of hard-nosed, no-compromise chief investigator has him psyched. The majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate are all furious with the president, the first time they’ve acted in unison since John McCain was laid to rest – well, almost, as the president took that opportunity to remind Americans that Prisoners of War aren’t heroes.

Truth be told, Keanu had never finished reading the script. He’d stopped when it became obvious that he was going to have a great time beating the heads of White Supremacists and disaffected survivalists. His crowning moment would be testifying in Federal Court about the actions of everyone in the government who was complicit in the insurrection, as a grateful nation tearfully watched. It was time to read the final act.

At first he’s confused. He must have picked up the wrong script. What had been a unanimous commitment to get to the bottom of what happened on January sixth has become another partisan football. Suddenly, the two minority leaders, who had been only too happy to throw off the yoke of a narcissistic madman realize that they and their colleagues lack the courage and integrity to stand up to the former president. They have all resumed the roles of sycophants, despite the transparency of their changes of heart. Did not the entire world see and hear them on January seventh and eighth?

It is at this point that Keanu finally says No. “I’m sorry guys, but no one will ever believe that the Congress of the United States of America could be that craven and impotent. Maybe in Paraguay or Myanmar, but not here. I won’t destroy my reputation by being a part of this.”

So there you have it. Thanks to Keanu Reeves, who isn’t even an American, being willing to tear up his paycheck to do the right thing, the country and the world will never have to bear witness to the world’s best hope for democracy degenerating into a pathetic parody of a nation.

Thanks, Keanu. (And please accept my sincere apology.)

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Life After COVID

Posted on May 18, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 18, 2021

When we consider what life will look like after COVID, the biggest unknown is how many of us will have been vaccinated. The anti-vax movement has been around for two hundred years, even when small pox ravaged the country in the early 1800s. The basic reasons for mistrust of vaccines have remained the same in all that time, but there’s a different twist this time. People cite religious convictions, dislike of science, fear of government control, and suspicion of the pharmaceutical industry. Those generalities haven’t changed, but the details have.

A number of religious sects consider vaccinations an affront to God. We may disagree with that point of view, but the courts have consistently excepted religious orthodoxy from complying with social and health regulations that violated their dogma. Religious objection to the COVID vaccines is a lot more complicated, however.

Particularly in red states, many churches have been caught up in local politics. Ministers who cannot cite religious objections, and who are not remotely qualified to assess the safety and efficacy of vaccines have been politicized by the populist movement of Donald Trump. Trump’s entirely disingenuous opposition to a woman’s right to control her own body, his constant disrespect for science, and his nonstop war with the CDC and the public health experts on his COVID task force made it easy for politically corrupt churches to sow mistrust of the vaccine.

Another aspect of the Trump movement was spreading distrust of the government. There has always been a segment of the population that hated the authority of the federal government, but Trump cultivated it as an art form. Trump’s characterization of the “government swamp,” echoed and amplified by thousands of sycophants, fed that hatred and exacerbated it. The fact that the Trump administration corrupted values and had no respect for truth or facts didn’t prevent it from widening and capitalizing on anti-government sentiment, no matter that Trump’s version of government trampled all over democracy.

The last administration and the Republican Party in the deeply red states made it crystal clear in 2020 that protecting the lives of Americans from COVID ranked far behind craven self-interest, lust for power, and pressure from financial interests that stood to profit from preventing a locked down economy. That has continued into the Biden administration, as the Republican establishment would rather frustrate President Biden’s efforts to save lives than eradicate the pandemic.

With respect to the COVID vaccines, the unfortunate truth is that there are a lot of unscrupulous politicians who lack the courage to take on the Trumpers and dispel their lies. Even worse is the enormous number of Americans who are either too ignorant, too stupid, or simply too lazy to take the trouble to understand. And that raises some critical questions about how we will proceed when the worst of the pandemic is behind us.

It’s important to keep in mind that if a vaccine is 95% effective, even in a crowd of vaccinated people one in twenty are likely to be infected if they are exposed to the virus, and that number could be higher with the more deadly strains. If a sizable number of people eschew the vaccines and refuse to wear masks, those individuals will remain a threat to everyone else.

Let’s talk about mass transportation – buses, planes, and all variety of rail travel, from crowded commuter lines to overnight long-distance trains. Should people who have refused to be vaccinated be allowed to jeopardize the health of millions of others, or should we require proof of vaccination before they can purchase tickets? Should employers have the right to refuse to allow workers back into cleansed facilities without proof of vaccination? And what about indoor sports venues and high-density retailers like box stores and super markets? Should people who frequent dating websites have to reveal their vaccination status?

Consider one example. A quarter of a million passengers, mostly seniors, ride the auto train between Virginia and Florida every year. The trip averages 18-20 hours each way, and AMTRAK currently requires passengers to wear masks for the entire trip including an additional several hours prior to departure and waiting for their cars to be debarked when they arrive. Call it twenty-two hours in a mask, which most people would consider intolerable. If a fourth of the population refused to be vaccinated, AMTRAK would only have two options: continue the mask requirement indefinitely, or restrict ticket sales only to people who can prove they received one.

We shouldn’t be arguing about vaccines. And we shouldn’t allow a bunch of irresponsible morons to dictate how the rest of us live in the future. If it were up to me, proof of vaccination would be required to register to vote. I bet the Trumpers would love that.

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The American Renewal Project

Posted on May 14, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 14, 2021

Dystopian futures fascinate us. Whether it’s an alien invasion, a zombie apocalypse or a nuclear holocaust, we are irresistibly drawn to tales describing how our country or our world might be destroyed. As early as 1897, H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds told us how Martians might appear in our skies and inexplicably but unstoppably destroy everything in their path. In 1938, Orson Welles moved the Martian attack from London to New Jersey and terrified the nation with a radio play. We really love that stuff; the story has made it into at least five film versions.

In 1932, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World showed how specialized genetic breeding could destroy us, and in 1949, the experience of autocrats like Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin brought us George Orwell’s 1984, a reminder of how fragile democratic society is and how easily it might be overthrown. In 1957, Neville Shute horrified us with his story of nuclear war and radioactive fallout destroying humanity. In 1985, Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, told of a crisis resulting from environmental irresponsibility turning America into a religious dictatorship in a mere fifteen years, a future that’s no less terrifying because it makes no sense, whereas the 2014 film Interstellar realistically portrays a dying Earth becoming toxic to human life.

Those stories got our attention despite frequently failing to plausibly explain how we got from here to whatever dystopian future they proposed. The most chilling one I’ve read, because it offers a detailed, realistic timeline of events rooted in today’s world leading to total domination by China, was David Wingrove’s marvelously believable Chung Kuo novels of the 1990s. They’re relevant because Wingrove’s dystopia grew out of extreme nationalism, isolationism, and failure to recognize obvious, growing threats until it was too late – an apt metaphor for the direction Trumpism is taking us.

Donald Trump’s vision of the future is naïve and sophomoric. It focuses only on Donald Trump, not what America needs to remain viable. It trashes our alliances, is averse to confronting autocratic adversaries, and is tearing America apart from within.

Our republic was in serious jeopardy from rank partisanship and the fight to prevent a massive transfer of wealth to nonwhite Americans long before Trump was a political force. Before the formation of the Tea Party, the Republican Party was rooted in conservative principles and adherence to the Constitution. There were sharp ideological differences, but political leaders managed to disagree without losing sight of the real goal. Somehow, what was best for the country came first when it was most important.

But today, soulless politicians like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who like Trump, care only about their own political power, are an existential threat, supporting Trump’s alternate reality that ignores facts and in which recent history is rewritten daily. Former Trump Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney had the chutzbah to tell a televised press conference that truth is whatever the victors say it is after the fact. The Republican Party has fallen down the Trump rabbit hole. Its recent actions may destroy not only the party but the ability of the government to function at all.

The passive protagonists of our dystopian fantasies were always unable to see impending disaster until it was upon them. Misguided Republicans led by McCarthy are likewise leading themselves and the rest of us down a path to ruin. One group of Republicans, however, has decided to fight back. More than 100 prominent former elected officials and the people behind the Lincoln Project that helped defeat Trump in 2020 created A Call For American Renewal. Its mission statement is simple:

[W]hen in our democratic republic, forces of conspiracy, division, and despotism arise, it is the patriotic duty of citizens to act collectively in defense of liberty and justice. We, therefore, declare our intent to catalyze an American renewal, and to either reimagine a party dedicated to our founding ideals or else hasten the creation of such an alternative.

They are committed to taking their party back from Trump, and failing that to form a third party based on conservative values, but one that is centrist and willing to negotiate, rather then being extreme and obstructionist. They understand that failure to act would be disastrous.

The American Renewal project would prefer to throw the Trumpers out of their party, a prospect that seems unlikely in the immediate future, but I believe it would be best for our future if they proceed with the creation of a powerful third party. Trumpism aside, there is no other way to break the partisan gridlock, which will surely destroy us one day. A third party will marginalize extremists and create a new platform for centrists and constitutional conservatives of conscience.

A viable third party will end Trump’s reign of terror in primary elections. More importantly, it will break the stalemate of extremists on both side of the aisle by creating a third side with whom both the right and left will have to negotiate to govern. Coalition governments have their own risks, but the rest of the world has shown that they work where gridlocked governments fail. Regardless of which side you’re on, politically, supporting the American Renewal is in everyone’s interest.

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Saving Our Democracy

Posted on May 9, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 9, 2021

Sometimes, it’s necessary to get out of the weeds and adjust our perspective. Context is everything. That’s truer for the current struggle for control of the Republican Party than anything else happening in America. Suppressing the pandemic and repairing our economy suck up most media time these days, but while most Americans find that preferable to beginning each day with a fresh batch of hateful tweets and Facebook postings by Donald Trump, there’s a downside to his being banned from the two major social media platforms.

The eighteen-month long Trump Blitzkrieg of the 2016 election cycle caught the Republican Party by surprise. The country hadn’t seen a populist movement like Trump’s in almost a century when organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the German-American Bund (the American annex of Hitler’s Nazi Party) were allowed to spread their toxic propaganda for decades, until the government perceived them as a major threat to national security.

Trumpism is different from those earlier movements and far more dangerous to our democracy. Trumpism is based on a philosophy (if, in fact, it has one) that’s only subtly different from the hateful rhetoric of the past, its similarities much more striking than its differences. Like predecessor movements, it is based on an appeal to our basest instincts, our centuries of xenophobic conditioning that we can only trust people “like us.” Everyone else is simply out to take what’s ours, whether it’s our land, our wealth, or our women.

Trumpism is a bigoted, elitist, misogynistic view of America that we thought we had largely outgrown, but Trump proved that it had simply gone underground, awaiting the arrival of a spiritual leader to set it free. In a very real but horribly distorted way, they see him as the Second Coming, although a more fitting description might be the Antichrist. If Trump’s hateful, divisive brand of governing is allowed to dominate the Republican Party, it can only damage our future.

We’ve always had political differences. Our system of government, like our judicial system, was designed to be adversarial. The idea of free speech and democratically elected leaders was an attempt to assure that competing views and philosophies would be debated before major decisions were made. Our founders knew about monarchies and the evils of autocratic rule, but they had no concept of the kind of modern-day fascism after which Trumpism modeled itself.

Thus, the fifteen other Republican candidates for President in 2016 were unprepared for Trump’s Storm Trooper tactics. Either they didn’t realize that allowing their individual ambitions to guide their decisions would allow Trump to divide and conquer them, picking them off one at a time like a lion going after a herd of elands in the savannah, or they were too self-absorbed to put aside their egos and organize to stop him.

As a result, we had four years in which America took steps backward in every aspect of American life. We saw the result of a president and a bunch of sycophant politicians who valued their individual power more than human life, and we found ourselves isolated from our allies as a bumbling administration did everything possible to help our enemies flourish. We saw centrists marginalized and forced out of government, replaced by people like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, Mo Brooks, and Ted Cruz.

Consider a future in which these people, in the name of Donald Trump, are allowed to take over the Republican Party, and they are successful in implementing the voter suppression laws we have already seen passed in four states. If those laws are allowed to dominate future elections, we will have replaced a two-party system designed to address differences with debate and negotiation with a fascist style of leadership that brooks no opposition.

We’re all exhausted from the pandemic and the fifteen-month disruption in our lives. We’re adjusting to lost love ones, unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the sheer madness of anti-vaxxer propaganda. Trump is taking full advantage of this national ennui, operating under the radar as he undermines what’s left of the traditional Republican Party one state at a time. He’s counting on the fact that like his 2016 opponents, Americans won’t wake to the danger until it’s too late.

Today, this very minute, Americans who care about the future of our country are faced with two questions. Are we willing to trade the admittedly imperfect, inefficient system designed by our founders for one in which those in power have no respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, or basic human rights? And if not, what are we willing to do to prevent them from taking over? If you’re not terrified yet, you should be.

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The Enemy of My Enemy

Posted on May 6, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 6, 2021

As the Biden administration moves to get COVID under control and counter the stupidity of anti-vaxxers, Americans are responding positively. He has consistently polled better than his predecessor since the day he took office. There’s no doubt that the majority of Americans approve of the way Biden is leading the country, and that only a relatively small minority (I estimate it as less than 30%) support Trump and his Big Lie that the election was stolen. Despite those impressive and unusually consistent numbers, the two most important political issues in our country today are partisan gridlock and who controls the Republican party.

For people who believe, as I do, that Biden’s fight for the soul of our nation is critical to our future, there’s a bitter irony in that observation. Two decades ago, Dick Cheney, as Secretary of Defense and Vice President under George W. Bush, drew the ire of the country as the evil genius who pushed President Bush into the twenty-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan, based on false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and considerable financial self-interest. His politics were considered extreme, Reaganism on steroids. The positions Cheney convinced Bush 43 to take were largely responsible for his presidency ending with one of the lowest approval ratings in our history.

One decade ago, with Dick Cheney out of politics, his daughter Liz took up the baton for her father’s brand of conservatism and became a loud voice for Republicans in Congress. In our naivete, those of us who believed the country needed to change direction from war and the financial dangers caused by an unregulated and irresponsible banking system saw Liz Cheney as the enemy, and not without good reason. New York Times columnist Charles Blow reminded us why, yesterday:

• In 2009, she refused to speak out against the birther movement that claimed Barack Obama was not eligible to be president
• In 2010, she labeled Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) the Department of Jihad, because of Obama’s alleged support for radical Islam
• In 2016, when the infamous Access Hollywood tapes showed Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, she said that wouldn’t stop her from supporting him
• In 2017, she reiterated her father’s controversial support for torturing prisoners captured in the war against Al Qaeda

So yes, it was reasonable, until recently, to view Liz Cheney as the enemy if your political beliefs were anywhere to the left of the Tea Party’s. And then, much like her fellow Conservative Jeff Flake did, a few years earlier, she took a courageous stand against Trump’s lies and willingness to subvert the Constitution for his own benefit. It was courageous because it was an almost lone voice among traditional Republicans arguing for principle, and it put her political future in serious jeopardy. She drew a line between politics and the Trump philosophy of winning at all costs. She denied Trump’s Big Lie and stood tall against the wave of Trumpism attempting to retain leadership of her party.

For me, this is another Flake moment, and a far more important one. Senator Flake made me realize that political opposition is a very different thing from undermining the basis of our democracy. Unfortunately, Flake lacked either the courage or the stamina to fight back against his primary challenge in Arizona, and he faded into relative obscurity after the 2018 election. I admired Flake for speaking out against Trump’s abuses and for arguing that Conservatism, as the polar opposite of Progressivism, was a necessary component of a two-party system of government, whereas Trumpism was about the loss of morality and common decency. But where Flake just quit the fight, Liz Cheney is willing to stand alone even it ends her career.

As Charles Blow said, fighting for truth over dangerous lies is a pretty low bar for defining heroism, but I’m not picky. I choose my allies where I find them, and right now, anyone willing to stand up to Trump has my support. Liz Cheney’s politics, like Flake’s, are completely opposite to mine. But integrity is a whole different thing. Without it, our government and our Constitution cannot long survive. I will cheer for Liz Cheney in her attempt to get the Republican Party back on track. I’ll do whatever I can to help her win, and when she does, I’ll fight like hell against her reactionary politics and in favor of Biden’s centrist progressive leadership.

I will likely oppose Cheney’s political philosophy at every turn, but I will thank her for reminding us that democracy only survives when both sides are free to fight for what they believe, if what they believe in is the future of our country.

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Irreconcilable Differences

Posted on May 5, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 5, 2021

Marriages break up for various reasons, the most common of which is “irreconcilable differences.” That’s another way of saying that in the absence of flagrant adultery or spousal abuse, couples drift apart, and rather than attempt to resolve their differences, they often let them grow and fester.

Differences exist in all relationships. They can be a source of growth, strengthening the bond, or they can be destructive and divisive. With open communication and a mutual willingness to invest the requisite time and energy, they can be bridged, but when they become extreme, it can be impossible to find common ground. When that happens there is no recourse but divorce.

All relationships are fragile. They require care and nurturing, and that’s equally true in the politics of a two-party democracy. Differences between Republicans and Democrats have always existed, but in the past, people of good will have found ways to come together and overcome them. Our system has endured until now because no matter how sharp our differences, there always came a time when responsible people put country ahead of personal gain and ideology. Our republican form of government survived wars and economic disasters but there is no guarantee that it will survive internal pressures tearing it apart.

In the decades since Ronald Reagan declared that the government was more a source of problems than solutions, and Republicans realized that if they continued to depend on white, working class voters to retain power, we’ve seen an erosion of the basic notion that the Constitution and the general welfare of all Americans must always be our guiding principles. In the face of population shifts in diversity and education which would inevitably relegate their traditional base to minority status, Republicans had an existential choice – expand their tent or rely on lies and restrict voting rights for people who typically voted Democratic.

Despite calls by Republicans who remember what their party was based on, systemic racism, misogyny, and elitism caused the party to drift to the extreme right. Differences and prejudices were exacerbated rather than negotiated, and the result has been the worsening gridlock that dominates Congress and many state legislatures. And that has revealed a glaring weakness in our democracy, an oversight by our founders which may ultimately destroy it if we do not rethink our priorities.

The founders assumed that when push came to shove, patriotism and the Constitution would prevail. They never anticipated that someone like Donald Trump would be willing and able to come to power based on an alternate reality that ignored facts, or that Americans would be gullible enough to be manipulated into thinking that anyone who believed differently was their enemy. The strength of our democracy depends on a loyal opposition. When each side views the opposition only as something to be put down and defeated, we are in serious trouble.

That is the real legacy of Donald Trump whose entire governing philosophy is creating chaos and destroying anyone who is not one hundred percent loyal to him, and for whom nothing matters but his own power and wealth. Rather than heal, Trump prefers to inflame. Since his only real talent is a lynch mob kind of charismatic appeal, and he is completely without scruples, we are being driven to the same end as all those couples who allowed their relationships to erode until there was nothing left to save. Make no mistake – perpetuating the Big Lie that the election was stolen will destroy our country if we allow it to continue.

I just returned from two months in Florida. At the hundred-day mark of the Biden administration, I saw signs everywhere that read, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Trump.” The anger and vitriol of Trump supporters is real and tangible, notwithstanding that they’re based on a deliberate campaign of lies and misinformation promoted by the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate.

That’s why Facebook announced today that it will continue to ban Donald Trump from its platform, and Twitter has shown no inclination to reinstate Trump’s account. Those are the only signs I’ve seen that there is hope for our future. We should be thankful that the two most powerful (and unregulated) social media platforms recognize that truth is more important than profit and popularity.

If only our elected representatives believed that, if they demanded that voices like Liz Cheney’s be heard instead of demonizing her, we might actually emerge from the Trump era stronger than we were. If they don’t, I fear that the American experiment with democracy is doomed.

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Children and Politics

Posted on April 28, 2021 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, April 28, 2021

The Trump administration shamelessly used children as political pawns in its war against all forms of immigration. The scenes of kids incarcerated at the border and separated from their parents were among the most cringe worthy in an administration that used shock and awe as an everyday propaganda tool. And it didn’t stop there. With public school systems around the country desperate for funds, and many unable to provide badly needed nutrition for kids in poverty in the form of school lunches, the basics of education, and a safe learning environment, Trump’s Secretary of Education made things worse.

With millions of children from underfunded public school systems in urban ghettos and rural America entering high school barely able to read and lacking even the most basic math skills, Betsy Devos used her office to advance the cause of charter and private schools while starving public school systems’ budgets. This, despite fifteen years of promoting charter schools in Michigan, an effort which left that state ‘near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on … the “Nation’s Report Card.”’

In the post-Trump era, with the death of Rush Limbaugh and the falling star of whacko Alex Jones leaving a vacuum in the world of opportunistic charlatans, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson has markedly upped his game of spreading lies and confusion. This week he brought American children into his political orbit, demanding that his followers call police or child services whenever they see a child wearing a medical mask. Carlson claims putting masks on our children to protect them and those they interact with from COVID is child abuse. (No, he’s not a moron. He’s just a cynical, immoral shill for right wing political causes.)

The fate of children living in poverty or in working class families that cannot afford private schools has been declining for decades. It’s part of the culture war started in the Reagan years that masqueraded as concerns over government growing and devouring tax dollars. The reality was that Republicans never objected when billions (even trillions) of tax dollars enriched the wealthiest Americans through loopholes and rate cuts. But every attempt to uplift children in need was met concerns about increasing the deficit. The problem, of course, is that investing in the futures of children in poverty largely uses tax dollars to help minorities.

Enter Joe and Jill Biden, whose commitment to our nation’s children is beyond question. President Biden will present his American Families Plan to a joint session of Congress tonight. It’s a bold move that would invest almost two trillion dollars over several years. Its programs will be funded by increasing the tax rate on everyone earning over a million dollars a year, and IRS seriously attacking tax fraud among the wealthiest filers.

The proposed legislation won’t be passed into law in its present form, but it’s a great starting point for negotiation. As summarized in today’s Washington Post, more than half of the proposed $1.9 trillion price tag would go toward “dramatically expanding access to education and safety-net programs for families.”
$200 billion would be invested in pre-K education for all three and four-year-olds, with states chipping in 50% of the cost. $109 billion would fund community college educations for all high school graduates who want one, with states paying 25%. The president also wants to subsidize “tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled at historically Black institutions, tribal colleges and other minority-serving institutions for two years.” Imagine how that will play with the far right.

But Biden doesn’t stop there. He wants “225 billion in child-care funding; $225 billion for paid family and medical leave; and $200 billion to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies” largely aimed at families at children, and a four-year extension of the robust child tax credit that was part of the two COVID stimulus programs. That all adds up to more than one trillion dollars invested in strengthening the financial status of American families.

The American Families Plan is anathema to the Trump wing of the Republican Party, but it will likely poll very well among voters from both parties. Like the Biden stimulus plan and the proposed jobs and infrastructure act, the AFP is expected to earn the approval of at least two of every three Americans. The truth is, that without the long-term agenda of wealthy white racists fighting against a transfer of wealth to people of color and those in poverty, the is no moral or logical reason to oppose it. Once again, it’s up to the voters to make their voices heard in Congress. If you care about the next generation, you have no choice but to speak up.

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