Biden's Flawed Campaign

On her afternoon show this week, Nicole Wallace asked one of her Progressive guests why Democrats (especially) have such extreme anxiety over the possibility of a Trump victory. He then waxed on about misleading polling in 2016 and facing a political déjà vu. He was wrong, or at best grossly incomplete.

Despite the jaw dropping, stomach twisting experience many felt (including me) in November 2016, what we are feeling today is quite different. Although it had seemed unbelievable that a comically excessive, reality TV host had won the Presidency there was still an unknown factor. What kind of President would Trump become?  He had been almost everything during his life, Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, pro-choice, pro-life and so on. No one, not even Republicans, were comfortable speculating.

I for one have always believed that the weight of the office always sculpted the holder into something new, something better. I don’t believe that anymore. Trump took his buffoonery and manic desire for adoration to the White House and never let go.

This time around we don’t need to or have the luxury of speculating on what kind of President Trump would be over the next four years. We know precisely and that realization is devastating and truly frightening. We know not because we are in a mishandled pandemic, we know from nearly four years of grueling incompetence, self-dealing, and absolutely shameful displays of crass authoritarianism. (see my 8/22/20 post “Lest We Forget”)

However, the utter exhaustion from Trump’s Presidency seems to have been lost on the Biden Campaign and I fear there are consequences to be had, even if Biden wins.

The brain trust at the Biden Camp, whoever that may be, decided months ago to wage their war primarily on a single issue: Covid-19. A single issue? Think about it. Here you have our National leader so defective that he feels comfortable saying and doing virtually anything that comes into his head. Since 2017 he has acted no differently than if he were on the set of The Apprentice, only without producers or a director. Yet the focus of his opponent is on one issue.

The Biden strategy may be a winning strategy. Given the clown car incompetence Trump applied to the Pandemic, it likely will be. But it creates this question: might Trump have been the logical winner on election night 2020 had the Pandemic not occurred?

That question should not even be contemplated. Trump has been the worst President in modern American history and probably competes with James Buchanan for the top spot overall.

However, when Biden takes over many of the arguments the Trump devotees have made in the Fox News echo chamber may actually come to pass, at least in part. The pandemic will not go away, the extent of the contagion will still be out of control, total compliance to mask wearing will not be achieved, and social distancing and isolation will erode We will find ourselves with many more months of “living with” the virus, partially offset by therapeutics, until an accepted vaccine takes hold.

Biden will be faced with a sick nation, frustrated and not caring about who did what when. The economic problems and pandemic fatigue may make it impossible to initiate reforms in health care, immigration, foreign relations, infrastructure, climate change, and inequality (social and economic). Even worse it might result in the loss of Congress, House and Senate, in 2022. Republicans will be assembling in back rooms in January 2020 on these very points.

One thing for sure, it will be too late to try and resurrect the reality that there were a hundred reasons not to re-elect Trump before Covid, with every supporter held accountable. The Fox News crowd (plus the new network: Trump News) may be perfectly positioned to rewrite history, never having to defend it before an election, and ask the Nation to Make America Great Again.

Just enough people may listen.

Jesus Take the Bench

During the introductory statements in the Senate hearings to install Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court the new junior Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, lingered on the Constitution. Like other Republicans in the hearing, he was laser focused on religion. They were obviously trying to preempt any Democratic review of Barrett’s religious history.

What made that even more obvious was the fact that none of the Committee’s Democrats brought up religion as an issue. It appears the Democrats have essentially given up on fighting or delaying the confirmation of Barrett. Instead, it would seem, they feel the time is better spent on the coming election. So instead they focused lock-step on healthcare. Their communication is to make this nomination appear to be another attempt by Republicans to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

It’s understandable, but I also feel disappointed since the debate on the wholesale infusion of religious extremism in Government is worth the time spent.

Hawley referenced Article 6 of the US Constitution, seeming to give more gravitas to it being an Article as opposed to an Amendment (as if they would be weighted differently). Article 6 is short and mostly requires an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and laws of the Country if one is to hold office in the three branches of Federal and State Governments. At the end of the Article is single line that states:

 …but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Hawley excitedly argued that this was foundational proof that Barrett’s religious philosophy was out-of-bounds for any questioning by the members of the Committee. The only serious proof he was making was that no test of intelligence was required to become a Senator.

Prior to the forming of what is fondly referred to as the Great American Experiment in Democracy, Europe had spent centuries using religion to shore up the power of autocratic governments, mostly monarchies. In defining what this new American Democracy would be, one truly foundational aspect was that a government of the people would be secular.

They didn’t try to deny or renounce beliefs in a deity, but they understood that the organizational aspects of religion (i.e. churches), if allowed into the governance of the Country would only lead to conflict, discrimination, and ultimately victory for a single controlling sect. Someone entered that line into the US Constitution in 1787 not to protect Judge Barrett’s religious philosophy from disclosure; rather it was to restrict the Government from imposing any religious philosophy on her.

To hear nominees for the Supreme Court (the only ones we get to hear) say or infer that their job is to be a purely objective jurist to the laws of the land and that their personal beliefs or philosophy will not impact on their decisions is a kabuki dance I’m sick of observing. It’s ridiculous…just stop it! Were it true the Court would only have unanimous decisions. Ask why the adjectives of Liberal or Conservative are universally added to their names!

If a passionately Christian Democrat nominee belongs to a church that used snake handling to ward off bad spirits or ill health do you think ol’Josh wouldn’t bring it up? Nothing illegal about it, but Hawley would be spitting fire…and he should. Do you think Republican Senators would ever vote for a Muslim to be on the Supreme Court?

The background for Barrett, with her long family membership in the religious organization People of Praise should have a big fat spotlight on it. It characterizes the rigidness of her “faith” and that is precisely the antithesis of objectivity. It’s defining of women (Handmaidens) alone clouds a myriad of future opinions regarding women and defiles the history of the woman she’s replacing. People of Praise’s reactionary views on sexual orientation are even more frightening.

Amy Coney Barrett is obviously bright and educated in the field of law. That easily makes her qualified to walk into the Senate Committee hearing. It is also impossible to prove in advance that she would act on her personal faith and philosophy in rendering opinions, as we know judges do. However, it is more than reasonable to question her ability to dismiss beliefs she holds infallible.

My reading of her personal religious history disqualifies her outright. People of Praise, as with many other evangelical Christian sects, is on the extremist fringe of Christian churches. No one is denying them their freedom to worship as they like, like any other legitimate religious organization, but don’t tell me to ignore them either. We ignored Trump’s religion – Money – and look where that got us.

The Senate has the responsibility to choose for us the best qualified individual for such an important lifetime position. Amy Coney Barrett cannot be at the top of the list, except perhaps for those who are attracted by the very rigidness that makes her unqualified.

A Single Flake from Distant Clouds?

I have a neighbor who lives just around the block.  I don’t know him, yet I have judged him…because that’s the world we’re in. I have seen him on occasions working in his well maintained yard with the time retirement provides to do so. I assume he’s married based on the cars in the driveway, although I’ve never seen his wife.

I have also assumed he is an ardent Christian Conservative and expressively Republican.  I do based on his desire to convey his (and perhaps his wife’s) political viewpoints by the signs that show up in his yard and bumper stickers on his cars, usually very early in the election season.

He also has an American flag permanently displayed on a pole affixed to a large tree in the middle of his front yard. It is a sad testimony that people, like me, who have found their political identities aligned with Progressives or Liberals, have too often surrendered the American flag as a symbol of political bias.

Early in the year, as I suspected, his ‘TRUMP 2020 Keep America Great’ sign showed up proudly on his front lawn and soon after there were a similar stickers on each car.  Later and much closer to election time other signs appeared showing support for the Republican candidates running for both the Senate and House seats.

So beyond a wave and a “good morning” I have more than kept my distance. I have categorized him as someone who has lost touch with reality, within this dark comedy we all have lived through for the past four years. Still, for the most part, I am unapologetic.

Then just today, two days after the display we can only jokingly call a Presidential Debate, I walked by his house and the Trump sign was gone, after 8 months at least. Gone!

Is it possible? Add to that the Trump bumper sticker on the one car in the driveway was also gone. Have we reached a tipping point? Maybe not…but maybe. Was that shameful display of adolescent authoritarianism enough to turn on the lights?

 It is one thing to watch or listen to news reports covering disclosures about his reflections on military service, his candid recordings of what he knew about the Corona virus while proclaiming something different, his ability to avoid Federal income tax, and (most disturbingly) his ongoing debt in enormous numbers. Combine that with pundits who oppose Trump and their prognostications of a pending constitutional crisis. It’s another thing to actual experience the impact of those revelations.

It is as if all this news is being presented like a weather report on a pending blizzard about to bury Trump in hard packed snow right up to his nose. Yet you go out and look up at the sky again and again and see only thin clouds.

Then there’s that first single flake that floats down into your vision letting you know the coming storm is real. Perhaps it’s just like that first lawn sign that suddenly disappears.