Look on the Bright Side: Michael Beschloss thinks Biden might do better in the next debate
Also on the bright side: It can be fun to be in the opposition. Not so bright: Women's rights, Jim Crow. But other than that, it is going well. Look at the economy boom . . .
Presidential Scholar, Michael Beschloss, thinks the Democrats can rescue our situation from last night’s implosion at the debate.
Mr. Beschloss reassures us our situation is not new, and that Ronald Reagan tanked in a performance that even puzzled his opponent, the very humane and relatable Walter Mondale. The wisdom at the time was that Reagan was through. But in the next debate, Reagan came back, looking amiable, and joking about his performance at the previous debate. People were more than eager to forgive and forget.
That is Mr. Beschloss’ hope for what could occur.
(Credits: Today’s Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.)
Maybe.
I am more limited in vision.
Friends: Realistically, Last night I think we needed a rottweiler, but what appeared for the fight was a little yipper of a purse dog.
I see us in the opposition and we should concentrate on the House and Senate.
I foresee us living for years in the Resistance.
That is a good place, and empowering choice.
Trump is more a symptom of the problem — right wing movements.
Symptomatic are the Tea Party and similar movements, where Jim Crow has been coming back with rhetoric that brings back my living memories of Lester Maddox and George Wallace.
The right-wing danger is not at all limited to the U.S.
How did the right-wing get there?
The right-wing did the grunt work at the city and county level in uninteresting contests like school superintendent positions, city aldermen, mayor, police chief . . .
And they did not just do it here.
They did the grunt work in Europe. In Sweden, the Netherlands, in France there for years have been strong anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic right-wing, in some few cases, real neo-fascist or neo-Nazi groupings.
As one who is bilingual with German, I know quite well that Germany has been a leader in human rights, in constant and conscious penance for the horrors of the genocidal Third Reich.
Despite of that, there are growing right-wing threats in Germany — Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), in the Netherlands, in Scandinavia, in Italy, in France with Marine Le Pen.
There were recent elections to the European Parliament from the members of the European Union, with growing extreme right-wing representation in Brussels for the 27 nations. Make no mistake, there is plenty of representation for Center, Right-of-Center, and Left of Center parties. But the extreme right has generally gained at the expense of one or the other of those, dependent on the country.
So, the United States has to be taken in context of the world situation.
If we had our January 6th, look at this week’s events in 2021, look at the events this week in Bolivia and not that long ago in Brazil.
Donald Trump already is programming for violence if he loses, but he may be more optimistic after last night.
All stations last night said that Democratic leaders are in a full-fledged panic after last night’s performance. As one who watched some post-debate analysis, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC reflected surprising unity in their presentation of the debate.
It was remarkable to see three stations that usually attack each other unify in their post-debate discussions. The panel at Fox could have mixed with the one at MSNBC, and either with CNN.
This is unique in my recent experience.
For once, all three were one!
We are in a time when the GOP Candidate for President, instead of E pluribus unum, rails the fascist chant that immigrants “poison our blood,” speaking in terms that resonate with the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, white racists who would have spearheaded January 6th with our without the Orange-Diatribe.
A second Trump term is not a new phenomenon, but a rehash of Jim Crow, and also the time when, instead of saving young women, the desperate young pregnant woman would be in the back alley with a needle to self abort, with fatal wounds.
In America, the Resistance is a very good place to be. We work at the local level to get voters registered, to strengthen our representation in the House and Senate, and to win races at the precinct, city, county and state level, to build the next generation of diverse, strong leaders, representative of persons of no faith or of any of the faiths, of all races, nationalities, heritage, of male, female, trans, asexual, the handicapped, the young, the aged.
We need to do good in our families, our neighborhoods, our synagogue, our church, our mosque, our clubs, our towns, our cities, our counties.
We build on the principles that Eleanor Roosevelt — she was the finest Statesman in my living memory — embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. * * *
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. * * *
These are our values.
Make no mistake. We are in the opposition.
Sometimes simple stories are the way we take meaning from events or life. Who doesn’t remember the haughty hare at frolic and play while the lumbering tortoise toddled along but crossed the finish line first? Imagine the little child’s surprise! What? The turtle could win against that rascal, fast rabbit? That story is as ancient as Aesop. Or the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the wondrous new clothes of the Emperor, until a little kid yelled out: The Emperor is naked!
Or, one can learn much from little kids. I was reminiscing about my grandkids. You can learn a lot from little kids. To protect their identities, I will use aliases instead of their real names:
Armando — walking his then second-grade granddaughter, Susan, to the school bus.
Armando: Susan, do you know that you are smart enough, you could grow up to be a Medical Doctor?
Susan: Paw-Paw, I already told you. I am going to be a barista!
Actually, if you had heard the daily talking of little Susan (now she is 17! — How fast they grow!) — her syntax and vocabulary was way ahead of her age. Susan is very gifted verbally, and it is quite understandable that Armando thought she could develop and ultimately study to aspire towards medical school. The second-grader was insistent to correct me! Pretty funny, and even today I am thankful for that memory. Not a day goes by without a chuckle about the young girl’s plans.
To complete the story, as a young admirer of Taylor Swift — Susan had a poster of TS in her bedroom, Susan had told me a couple months before — to my pushing for Medicine — that she was going to be a rock star!
Oh, my! Happy, fun memories.
Here is the last story for an analogy from my grandkids. Sam was seven, Doug was just short of six. The two had played Uno! Sam joyfully pointed his finger to Doug, saying:
Douglas — you lie and you cheat!
Sam’s voice was full of joy and mischief as he revealed the sneaky ways of his little brother at cards. It was so funny to see the exchange between my two little grandkids (now at 19 and 21, they are skinny and taller than I!).
Why these stories?
Because we can pull them together to see where we are today. It is good to look at simple events, in love for other persons, certainly in deep love and nurture of grandkids. Remember the saying a decade or a score of years ago — Everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten?
It is on that logic, that I repeat the stories.
Aesop is simple because a child can understand instinctively. A five-year-old hearing the story for the first time wonders, how does a lumbering tortoise stand a chance against the fleet rabbit?
Or in the case of Hans Christian Andersen, after the Emperor’s iron-fist regime forces people into sycophancy, an innocent little kid says clearly what appears before her eyes: The Emperor is stark naked.
This morning on Mika and Joe, Governor Josh Shapiro delivered hard words about Trump that are the naked truths.
You want to know how we should be running the Democratic campaign.
Look at a surprise winner: Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Here is what his home page looks like, with pictures enticing one to click and find out more with the hyperlinks:
https://www.pa.gov/en/governor.html
We all would have welcomed the strong, clear conviction of Governor Shapiro on the debate stage last night.
Governor Shapiro attacked the Orange-Bottomfeeder. Governor Shapiro was clearheaded, aggressive and yet looked sporty and friendly.
From Governor Shapiro and Bernie Sanders, it is clear that a contrast on the debate stage could overtower and humiliate Orange-Carnivalbarker over the violent breach of the Capitol on January 6th 2021, the racism, the danger to Democracy of election-denial, the catastrophic results of high tariffs, the harsh policies that would only be worse in a second administration, the appointment of more ideological justices to the Supreme Court.
The questions should have been thrown at the Republicans.
Here is only a small beginning of what advocacy would have looked like from the Democratic side of the debate:
How can you possibly defend the contention that immigrants poison our blood?!
How can you possibly defend that, when called upon to denounce neo-fascists you said, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, if you are listening, stand back and stand by?
In light of the well-documented fact that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are on record as saying they would spearhead the breach of the Capitol, and that the Proud Boys planned to come armed?
How can you possibly defend, Hang Mike Pence? — Your own Vice President?!
How can you possibly defend the absurd sight of Rudolf Giuliani at the Four Seasons . . . nursery? Of Rudolf Giuliani streaming hair-dye down his sweaty face defending lies about the election?
How can you possibly defend smearing of millions of innocent, virtuous persons of Islamic faith by doing what George W. Bush had the clear insight to avoid: “W” made a clear distinction between terrorists and the 100s of millions of hardworking, good, decent Muslims. You, Orange-Bloat, smeared Muslims as terrorists.
You, Orange-Boar, smeared Mexicans as rapists and murderers.
You tried to end the availability of medical care to your own core voters who can only afford basic health-care through the Affordable Care Act. Even with a Republican Congress, you failed to accomplish this.
How can you possibly defend endangering our national security and the security of the Western World through exposing in the shower with broken boxes overflowing with protocols full of black-hole State-Secrets with the highest markings ever (“Five Eyes” — that is, only to be viewed by the head of state and her own/his own top security official of the Governments of the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand).
To your credit, during your administration the medical community pooled together and quickly developed vaccines against Covid. But how can you possibly justify joking with Dr. Deborah Birx that bleach could be ingested as a remedy. Do you know that joke resulted in the death of one of your followers in Phoenix? How can you justify your cult status?
How can you justify that, under your administration, two American hostages — Otto Warmbier and Jamal Khashoggi (Washington Post, resident immigrant — were brutally murdered by bloodthirsty dictators you warmed to?
How can you justify that you praise Narendra Modi whose Hindu nationalism persecutes minority religions; Rodrigo Duterte who ran a bloodthirsty reign resulting in outright murder of thousands of citizens; of Kim Jong Un who bloodied and tortured Otto Warmbier into coma and who executed his own uncle with a missile!
How can you justify having ended the annual joint-force, South Korea and American naval amphibious exercises (which Armando took part in in 1977 as a judge advocate in the Marines)? You got nothing in return from your bromance with Kim Jong Un, and it was Joe Biden who restored those exercises with the annual show of force.
In the face of your constant praise of bloody Vladimir Putin and the other aforesaid bloody dictators, how do you justify Orange-Porkbelly’s treatment of our staunchest ally, Germany, through your insults of our ally Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel?
And not least, how can Orange-Puke justify cowardly skipping the 100th Anniversary of one of the proudest battles of the United States Marine Corps (Armando: 1975-1978) at Belleau Wood, which Joe Biden is fresh from himself having visited?
Friends, this is only the beginning. Come on! How hard is it?!
Governor Shapiro is only an example of strong leaders we have to nurture and develop for the future.
We have a lot of young talent and we are diverse.
We are in the Resistance.
That is a position of strength.
NATO has been preparing for an era post-Biden. The NATO members have been aware that succeeding administrations create jarring shifts in American focus. So, NATO members have strongly increased their defense budgets. France alone has promised to send up to 60,000 ground troops in Ukraine to defend Democracy in Europe.
Japan and South Korea are strengthening their alliance against North Korea and China.
We are in a strong world position with our alliances thanks to the foreign policy of this administration.
NATO has expanded to sound strategic depth. Russia is totally surrounded by NATO member countries: Sweden, Finland, the Baltic (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania).
NATO under Jens Stoltenberg has made itself consciously Trump-proof. This was a conscious decision.
This decision was made not just because of the shaky American voter. Do not ever think that.
The American voter is generally solid.
But the American voter reacts instinctively to image and good TV.
Born in the late ‘40s, Armando watched as a 12-year-old (soon to be thirteen) the Kennedy-Nixon debates.
Nixon looked well-reasoned and substantive. Before the Watergate scandal twelve years later, it was reasonable for the American viewer to view Nixon as a statesman. I personally had the little black-and-white TV images of Nixon as he represented America in Caracas, Venezuela (when Armando was ten), where the anti-US crowds rocked and spat upon Nixon’s car. Nixon stood bravely up to the crowd. Nixon’s performance at the debate was in keeping with his comprehensive knowledge of statecraft.
But Kennedy.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy had the story of PT-109 and his heroic rescue of his mate as a young naval officer in the Pacific.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was represented by that force of nature, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, a person of high culture, who could speak to General De Gaulle in his native language, who brought chamber music to the White House. It was impossible not to be drawn in by the magnetism that was Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy — you could hear Harvard breeding in his speech, which reminded the soon-to-be 13-year-old Armando of the grand elocution of my admired Abraham Lincoln and matched the majesty of another great orator of my time (whose policies I detest, but oh, he was a grand speaker): General Douglas MacArthur, who could even make the motto of West Point sound grand: Faith, Honor, Country, and who made it seem grand when in hushed tones the General posited: Old soldiers never die, they just fade away. The General’s voice was hushed and one could hear a pin drop.
And on the stage with Nixon, JFK looked the part of a new generation with hope for leadership in the Free World.
Make no mistake. We have those leaders today. No, they don’t have the colorful background of having piloted PT-109 and a self-sacrificing long swim rescue of a fellow sailor.
But they are women. They are Black. They are Latino. They are LGBTQ. They are civil rights leaders, mayors, Governors, even business persons.
We had President Barack Obama, who shortly in his administration passed the Affordable Care Act, a remarkable feat through cooperation with the great Nancy Pelosi.
But the Obama Administration was a time when, through Republican groundwork in the opposition, the other party accumulated seats at the city, county, state, House of Representatives, Senate levels that cost the Democrats about 1000 seats!
Now it looks like it is our turn.
Why do we have a rightward Supreme Court?
Because right-wingers, who have oppressive, worthless beliefs, believe in the perverted values with such religious force as to do the grunt-work, the hard work of Democracy at the precinct level, taking over at the local, state, and ultimately regional level.
One damning result of the trends since 1980 has been the destruction of unions that Armando grew up with in heavily industrialized, unionized Southern California in the 1950s.
Unions were a mixed blessing and there was violence.
But in 1960, Armando, politically engaged, could easily rattle off the leaders who spearheaded labor rights: Walther Reuther, Joe Meany, Jimmy Hoffa.
An illustration of the anti-worker motivation of the other side was the diligent work of the Honorable Scott Walker, then Governor of Wisconsin, to cripple unions.
The unions in the ‘50s were rough. Watch the masterful On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger. Just the scene with Marlon Brando in the car with Rod Steiger brandishing the pistol is enough to put you in awe with the acting.
But On the Waterfront pulled no punches.
Unions could be violent.
But the workers had bargained due process rights — and do not underestimate the importance of labor hearings in the face of the traditional common-law doctrine of “fire at will”.
The workers had wages that could at least feed the family, fuel the vehicle, and pay the rent of the apartment.
Maybe more.
But at least the daily needs.
And the worker slowly accumulated a pension and had very basic medical benefits. Bare. But minimal and survivable.
In 2005, George F. Will wrote an Opinion for the Washington Post that shocked me in its protection of finances for the investor but which strips of safeguards of pension and medical care for the retiree who had been the worker, the laborer, the career woman or man who put all into the company. George Will did not see human beings who sacrificed thirty years to build the company. Who does George Will think builds Boeing or other great Companies. The overpaid executives? Sure, they give strategy and direction and are essential for prudent navigation of the ship of state. That is everything. But that ship sinks without the constant maintenance, scrubbing and painting by the sailors, the crew. The workers of America. And George Will, applying the economics allied to Milton Friedman wanted to save “legacy costs” off the back of those who build the company structure from the bottom up!
Although the Opinion was in the Post, here is where I easily located it now:
Oh, and this article is no fluke. Here is another similar one by George F. Will, originally published in 2016 in the Washington Post, but is reprinted here:
Our Party is young. Look at the vigor of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Our Party should be able to make the Fundamentalist Cultist Michael Johnson blush — as that innocent boy often does — but this time to blush in shame for: (1) Abandoning border security altogether; and (2) Holding out on lifeblood support for war torn Ukraine, defending Western Democracy against the war crimes of Vladimir Putin.
Does our future look more like this?
U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., leaves a House Republican conference meeting in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Oct. 24, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
From a good article here about the touch-and-go process of electing Speaker Johnson, that I recommend reading: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/10/25/mike-johnson-of-louisiana-picked-as-newest-gop-nominee-for-u-s-house-speaker/
That is the man that wants to control women’s bodies — kinda creepy, to think about it that way.
And that is the man who blockaded aid to Ukraine.
Or does our future, realistically, look more diverse, representative of all the people like:
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES
Credit: The picture comes from a good article I recommend on voters the “Squad” attracts: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-squad-tells-us-about-progressives-ability-to-win-voters-of-color/
Excellent article, showing our strength among minorities, who have been unrepresented.
The Orange-Fartblaster wants to name two to three more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The right-wing, ideological Supreme Court, carefully built up over the years through the groundwork of Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, is the chief benefit the radical right gets from Donald J. Trump, and the rulings against abortion and against regulatory and environmental agencies are their chief wins.
And that is why Trump has their support.
Now, we have to roll up our sleeves and counter with candidates at school elections, city hall, the county, the state, the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
That is slow, you say?!
It is.
The GOP has worked on this slogging project, from my own personal knowledge, since before 1964 and now, with a minority of the population, through the Supreme Court and gerrymandered Congressional Districts, the right wing has an outsize influence on the official policy of the United States.
If there is another debate, Biden should memorize a laundry list of Trumps lies and begin saying them until the moderator shuts him off, but hen after the next question continue with the list for as many questions as it takes. Bonus: it shows he still has a good memory.
Watching the debate, my impression is that Trump is loosing his memory, and he believes many of the lies he tells. He clung to the direction someone had given him to bring up illegal aliens every time he opened his mouth. This caused him to not answer some questions, and managed to annoy the female moderator enough that she tried to rein him in, which was too little too late, and just gave another example to all who watched why the man is incapable of doing the President’s job.