We Have a New President But The Nightmare Isn't Over

Photo Credit: Sky News

On Saturday, November 7, just before Noon, four days after Election Day, after Pennsylvania’s votes put him over the 270 mark, the election was finally called by both the AP and CNN : Former Vice President Joe Biden beat out the incumbent, Donald Trump, to become President-Elect Joe Biden.

I don’t have to tell you that I was ecstatic. It appeared all week that this would be the outcome but with every passing day the doubts grew. Not that the count would be wrong but that the Trump regime would figure out a way to delegitimize the people’s choice.

As Ari Berman wrote on Twitter:

They gutted the Voting Rights Act. They sabotaged the Postal Service. They closed polling places, purged voter rolls, attacked mail voting, tried to throw out ballots. And yet voters turned out in record numbers to overcome these barriers & make their voices heard.

So here we are, sure it has happened, but on tenterhooks because the Big Baby in the White House refuses to accept that his tantrums haven’t worked and he’s on a time-out with no end date.

This morning we woke up to the news that Arizona has finally called it for Joe Biden. That puts him at 290 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed for a win. Five million more voters checked the box next to Joe’s name than they did for Trump. Top election officials said yesterday, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history”. Yet Donald Trump refuses to concede and all but a handful of Republican Party leaders are unconscionably silent. If they’ve congratulated Joe Biden at all, they’ve done it secretly, passing the message along to a Democrat who then passes it along to Joe Biden.

The Republicans are miserable cowards, held captive by a man who is wholly unworthy, increasingly unhinged, and a danger to the security of the country. In refusing to acknowledge the inevitable they’ve prevented the Biden team from beginning the all-important transition to the presidency. Biden should be receiving daily intelligence briefings by now. He needs to know before he takes over just what in the world he’ll have to deal with. He’s being shut out and nobody can predict when or even if he’ll be let in.

This is the kind of third-world stuff tin pot dictators try to foist off on their country. We keep saying we’re not that country but where’s the proof? We’re looking more and more like it.

For all intents, Donald Trump has given up all pretense of leadership, wobbly and wacky as it was. He’s holed up in the White House, grieving, no doubt, and, if he has any sense at all, scared out of his mind. In two months he’ll lose the protection of the presidency and become a private citizen. Justice is waiting for him. So are his creditors. There appears to be nothing but ruination ahead. His bombast, his lies, may finally let him down.

He botched the coronavirus pandemic so badly we’re counting deaths in the hundreds of thousands, the cases in the multi-millions. Early in the year he bragged about being in complete control of the virus and he would never let anything bad happen. It happened and he refuses to take the blame.

But we expect this from Trump. He’s incorrigible. He’ll never change. The blame now is on the Republicans. They’ve had the power to control this scourge for the entire four years this obviously unfit pretender has been in office. They have the power to insist on getting intelligence briefings to President-Elect Biden. They have the power to legitimize the election and begin a smooth transition. They have the power to force Trump to concede. They could put into action their notorious unity — to a person — and end this travesty today.

Why won’t they? Is it their fear of losing their power? What good is that power if they refuse to use it for the good of the country? Are they hiding secrets? If so, do they really think they can hide them forever? Are they afraid of Trump’s rabid base? Do they know if they give in to them they become their base? They’ll have to pander to them forever.

Trump’s bad guys with the big guns are rallying at the National Mall in DC tomorrow — armed militias, white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, all gathering to scare the country into believing that their president has been wronged and the illegitimate Democrats are fomenting civil war. This is the climate Trump encourages. He lives for this.

So nobody believes the fairy tale that calm will be upon us on January 20. Nothing magical will happen, even if the Democrats should win the two Senate seats still up in the air in Georgia. The Biden administration, the Democrats, will still be fighting against Trump’s citizen troops, knowing that every win for them will further enrage a massive frothing crowd that will never believe their administration won fair and square.

I’m all for celebrating our victories, but I can’t yet celebrate a return to any kind of normalcy. Biden, et al, will inherit a mess. They know that. WE know that. And while they’re working to get a pandemic under control, to slow nature’s move toward destroying us, to force our weakened courts to practice justice, to create good paying jobs and rebuild a strong middle class, they’ll be fighting against those forces still convinced they can create a theocratic oligarchy, intent on keeping the masses controlled and subservient.

And through it all the specter of Donald Trump will haunt us. He’s not finished with us yet. This is our history now and it’s one for the books

(Cross-posted at Indelible Ink/Medium)

My Years With Joe Biden: I Didn't Vote For Joe but I've Always Loved Him

AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

We’re exactly two weeks away from the election of our lives and I’m getting nervous. I keep thinking I’ve said all I can say to convince everyone to vote for Joe Biden. Apparently I haven’t gotten through yet. Let me give it one more try.

Some of you may remember that I didn’t vote for Joe during the primaries, and wasn’t all that thrilled about him even being in the race. Then Rep. Jim Clyburn gave a speech in South Carolina and I changed my mind.

I’ve known Joe for a while now — not personally, of course, but I’ve been watching him for years. On January 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was inaugurated as our 44th president, I started my political blog, Ramona’s Voices. Over the years I’ve mentioned Joe Biden many times, and even devoted entire posts to him, including one post I wrote in 2012 called, ‘I Love Joe Biden. I Mean It. I LOVE Joe Biden’. (In case you had any doubt.) I wrote it after Joe stood before a group of military families who had lost loved ones and talked to them about the raw pain of grieving. I was crying as I wrote it, and maybe it shows.

Before that, in March, 2011, I wrote about him in my weekly feature, Friday Follies. (Included in case there are those who still think Biden is faking his pro-union stance.):

Did I ever tell you I LOVE Joe Biden? I do. Yes, he can be slightly wacky at times but in a good way. A cute way. He’s fluffy tough and the reason the word “gaffe” was invented. But the other day he spoke to union activists and every word was a keeper. Try parsing THIS, Faux News! Ha!

“You guys built the middle class,” said Biden in a virtual town hall conversation hosted by the AFL-CIO. “I would just emphasize what Hilda [Solis] said and say it slightly different: We don’t see the value of collective bargaining, we see the absolute positive necessity of collective bargaining. Let’s get something straight: The only people who have the capacity — organizational capacity and muscle — to keep, as they say, the barbarians from the gate, is organized labor. And make no mistake about it, the guys on the other team get it. They know if they cripple labor, the gate is open, man. The gate is wide open. And we know that too.”

In ‘Women, Gays, and Obama’s Ear’, Joe got taken to the woodshed for seeming to go against Obama. They called it a ‘gaffe’, of course, but couldn’t make anything stick. I wrote, Note to Joe: It’s far better to be gaffe-prone than to be mean-prone. So far, you’re okay, man. Because I thought what he did was admirable, and Obama could do worse than learn from it.

And in September, 2015, when we were waiting to see who was going to run for president in 2016, I wrote ‘Please, Joe, Don’t Run’. I did it for his own good. I wanted him to take care of himself.

But somewhere between Hillary’s loss to Trump and the beginning of the 2020 Democratic primary season, I lost interest in Joe Biden as president. I wanted a woman in the White House, and, thankfully, there were plenty of good women to choose from. Joe was so far down my list I barely remembered he was there. I voted for Elizabeth Warren and I was devastated when she couldn’t get to that place.

 Now we’re easing into the end of October and I’m thrilled that Joe Biden is the candidate. Yes, thrilled. As Trump spirals out of control, Biden is building the greatest coalition of good guys and experts I’ve ever seen. What it tells me is that if we can pull this election off, barring all roadblocks coming from the other side, we will have a central government that can be trusted to begin the rebuilding after so much destruction. They will work as if our lives depended on it.

‘Of the people, by the people, for the people’ will no longer be quaint wishful thinking, it’ll be the way we are. It wasn’t always the way we were, but if the Trump regime’s bulldozing of our government has taught us anything, it’s that we really don’t want such drastic relief from big government. We need big government, we know that now, but we have to make it better.

Except for a few holdouts, the Democrats are coming together as a formidable bloc, getting behind Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the top jobs and supporting and donating to the Democratic candidates down the ballot. Some of them are raising more campaign funds than they could ever even dream about. Every time Trump and his Republican cohorts do something awful in these final days, the funds roll in for the Democrats.

All signs point to a Biden win, but we Democrats are still shell-shocked over 2016. We tell ourselves we don’t dare jump the gun this time, and there’s some truth to that, but Donald Trump is a known entity now. He’s still a novice, still knows nothing about government, and it shows.

Trump has made some deadly decisions based on nothing more than how they’ll make him look. His mismanagement of the COVID pandemic has raised America’s death tolls to horrific levels not seen anywhere else in the world.

He has alienated everyone the world over, but thinks if he plays to his base everything will be all right. He doesn’t know it yet, but most of America has moved past him. As a leader he’s a disaster; as a chaos agent he thinks he’s not done yet. But the country has grown tired of his antics and Joe Biden looks like the necessary antidote. We’re watching the two of them in public and the differences couldn’t be more stark.

Joe Biden has to win but he has to win in a landslide. The Democrats have to win in a landslide. It looks imminent, but it’ll take each of us working to get out the vote. This may be our last chance to get it right.

(Cross-posted at Medium/Indelible Ink)

Will Trump Get a Sympathy Surge? Or Is America Finally Horrified Enough?

 

Donald Trump has COVID-19. I know you know that. It’s big news. The biggest. We can’t get a break from the drama of Donald Trump having COVID. We watched with some interest as the president’s helicopter, Marine One, eased onto the White House lawn, loaded their precious cargo, and airlifted the president* to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, some 8 1/2 miles away.

Once there, Donald Trump wanted to go home. He at least wanted his visit to seem as unlike a hospital stay as he could. He was at a desk! He was still working! Don’t worry! He recorded two videos, supposedly two days apart, but discovered by the techies to have been filmed within an interval of around a half hour. He was still wearing a suit jacket, still wearing cuff links. How bad could it be?

Outside on the street, within Trump’s view, crowds of his admirers gathered, waving Trump and blue line flags, honking horns, blowing whistles, and the man inside, already high on steroids, it would appear, was elated. His people! He had to get to them, to let them know how happy he was that they were there! Nobody knows yet how it happened, but Trump appeared on camera again, giddy with a happy secret that would be revealed within minutes — so stay tuned, America. And again we were glued.

Then, minutes later, there was real breaking news: The President of the United States, a COVID patient sick enough to have been airlifted to the hospital just two days before, was heading out the door, was getting into a black SUV, was masked but clearly joyful to be out of there, was waving and thumbs-upping to his fans — so, see? If there was a living, breathing Superman Donald Trump was it. What a moment!

And then it was over. The SUV drove through the crowd and headed back to the hospital, where Trump got out on his own, climbed the steps and went back inside. Every medical expert was and is horrified. Trump, an active COVID patient, deliberately, recklessly exposed the Secret Service members inside the hermetically sealed van to possible COVID because he couldn’t stand the thought of being inside, quarantined, away from his beloved cameras.

At this writing, he’s still high on steroids and talking crazy. He’s invincible! He beat it! “Don’t let it dominate you”, Trump tells a country still in the throes of a pandemic.

On his victorious return to the White House, he stood on a balcony, clearly breathless, but, ever the actor, with thumbs up, shoulders back, maskless. Tough guy. He went inside to greet his masked staff, who, if they had any sense about them, must have been terrified. They should have been outfitted in PPP gear, but they weren’t. Their masks were their only defense against that lunging, spewing germ factory.

The thing Donald Trump cared the most about, after his release (clearly against the hospital’s warnings), was the positioning of the cameras. They had to make him look good, the picture of health. His first thought as he entered the White House was to make a video designed to let his public know he was all right. He, Donald Trump, got through this. Everything was going to be all right.

So this morning we woke up to what might be considered his most bizarre video if there hadn’t been so many that came before. (The video is out there. It’s bizarre enough. But here are the words. Donald Trump’s words.)

From CNN:

“We’re going back. We’re going back to work. We’re gonna be out front. As your leader, I had to do that. I knew there’s danger to it but I had to do it,” Trump said in the highly produced video, which he taped after reporters left the South Lawn.

“I stood out front. I led. Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did. I know there’s a risk, there’s a danger. That’s okay. And now I’m better and maybe I’m immune? I don’t know. But don’t let it dominate your lives. Get out there, be careful,” he said in the video, which was filmed within close proximity of White House staffers all without wearing a mask.

Of his battle with Covid-19, Trump said, “I learned so much about coronavirus. And one thing that’s for certain. Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. We’re gonna beat it. We have the best medical equipment, best medicines.”

“I didn’t feel so good. Two days ago- I could have left two days ago. Two days ago, I felt great. Like better than I have in a long time… I said better than 20 years ago. Don’t let it dominate. Don’t let it take over your lives. “

There is nothing normal about what Trump, still under the influence of steroids known to cause mental fog and feelings of invincibility, said there. It was a reckless performance, worrisome enough coming from an ordinary patient, but Donald Trump is, at least until January, 2021, the President of the United States. He must relinquish his hold on the presidency until he is well. But he won’t do it. We know he won’t. Mike Pence, along with members of Congress, are in a position to demand that the president temporarily step down, but they won’t do it, either.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

So it’s up to the people now. Is Trump well enough to assume the duties of the presidency? (Okay, I’ll say it. Elephant in the room: He never was.) Have we had enough of this shit show or is it just too fascinating, too delicious, too crazy to let go of it now?

Trump, as his doctors have warned, is not out of the woods yet. His fans will get louder and more rabid as his illness progresses. The noise will not stop. Will it give him a boost among voters?

Anything can happen between now and November 3, but at this moment, Donald Trump is clearly not able to run this country. Nobody could have predicted that the president would be hopped up on steroids, telling the country to ignore a deadly virus that HE exacerbated, that HE tried to hide, that HE literally worked against fighting, that has infected many millions and has killed an unconscionable number of Americans.

Millions of us, along with the ghosts of more than 210,000 victims, say “enough”. Will it finally be enough?

__________________

(Cross-posted at Indelible Ink/Medium)

As Shitshows Go, Trump's Presidency Tops Them All

But that first debate was right up there.

Source: UPI

I pride myself on not watching political debates — I’ve never seen one yet that was an actual debate and not a choreographed linguistic wrestling match— but I watched Tuesday’s ‘debate’ between Donald Trump and Joe Biden just to see if Trump was going to show the country how presidential he could be when push came to shove.

A day or two before the debate Trump was asked what he was doing to prepare for it. When he said he didn’t have to prep, I knew he was planning to do exactly what he did, which is exactly what he does every time he gets before the cameras. There’s a specific script in his brain and he never deviates. I wrote this on Twitter:

Donald Trump announces he’s not prepping for the debate tonight. And why would he? It’ll be:

Insult Joe — check

Fake news — check

Blue states are bad — check

Great job on COVID — check

Stock mkt booming — check

I’m the greatest — check

I beat Hillary — check

I missed ‘Biden kept me from paying taxes’ and ‘Shout-out to Proud Boys’ — and I really didn’t see ‘Reduce Chris Wallace to frazzled Kindergarten teacher’ coming, but I fully expected Trump to dominate the night by attacking and interrupting and muttering and grimacing, all in place of any real policy discussions — which he clearly, woefully cannot do.

There was a president up on that stage but it wasn’t Donald Trump.

Trump loves the trappings, the power, the attention, the title, but when it comes to actual presidenting, that’s not his thing. (Remember during the campaign when he said he’d be choosing a veep who could run things since he’d be out there being Good Will Ambassador, rallying Americans to, I don’t know, be Americans? He was never going to take the job seriously.)

Joe Biden will make a far better president, and never was that more apparent than on Tuesday, when, for 90 minutes, Donald Trump couldn’t even play one, even after Joe showed him how to do it. Trump’s idea of presidential power is in building up his already gimongous ego, in demanding loyalty, in extracting revenge when he doesn’t get it. He’ll lie and deny and think he aced it. He’ll blame anyone but himself for the bad stuff but take full credit for anything good — even when it happened long before he was ‘president’.

Trump is a thug. Everything he does is thuggish and ugly. Except for his nail-biting sycophants and his dwindling MAGA followers, the country is sick to death of his antics. He’s done. He’s toast. But dammit, he’s still our problem. What are we going to do about him? It’s a question for justice now. Will he or won’t he get away with it?

As I watched him at what was supposed to pass for a debate, I saw a man who knows he’s already lost, and his performance, sickening as it was, took on new meaning. It was pathetic. A last hurrah. His empire is crumbling, he’s a laughing stock, there’s a chance he has put everyone around him, including his own children, in jeopardy by grabbing at power he never deserved, history will make mincemeat of him, and he’s furious.

That’s what we saw before us. We saw Trump’s raw fury on display, and he’s past caring. I’ve never seen anything like it. And, for the first time in months, I slept well. Come January 20, Donald Trump will no longer be president. He may still be our residual problem, but he’ll no longer have to power to hurt us.

That thought alone gives me peace.

Donald Trump Will Not Win

Insulting America isn't the way you do it, buddy.

I know what you’re thinking: Wasn’t I one of those people who thought Hillary couldn’t lose? Yup, I was. I seriously, sincerely couldn’t see how Donald Trump, that loathsome clown whose life was completely antithetical to the norms of common decency, that shady businessman without an ounce of knowledge about how government works, would EVER become America’s president.

Hahahahahahaha.

That was me. And probably you. And almost four years later we’re still shocked. I can’t go into how it happened. I don’t KNOW how it happened, and neither does anyone else. We’re all just guessing. But here we are, and Trump was, and is, far, far worse than we could ever have imagined. We imagined he would be as stubbornly stupid, as bombastic, as ridiculously full of himself as he turned out to be. What we didn’t count on was the Republican Party’s willing capitulation to a moron and a monster.

Trump, it turns out, was a dream come true for them. He didn’t CARE how they did it before. His job was to make the rich richer (including and especially him), and, by God, he did it.

His job, as he saw it — thanks to some friendly nudging from his pal, former KGB expert and president-for-life, Vladimir Putin — was to sow chaos and create division, and he did that.

His job (and he especially enjoyed this part ) was to bring the media to its knees in order to float above any criminal exposure or criticism — and the press rewarded him with some of the silliest whataboutism I’ve ever seen.

But along the way Trump has made some dreadful blunders. I mean, terrible. He’s a happy despot, momentarily, but he’s alienated every sane military, scientific, medical, social services, and educational expert in the country.

He has his fans and followers, and it’s true they’re louder and more obnoxious than the rest of us, but they’re not the majority. Every legitimate poll shows that far more Americans go against Trump's cockamamie decision than agree with them. Every one.

Pollsters are giving Joe Biden a bigger and bigger edge, and we’re a little more than a month from the election. (Okay. Remind me again about pollsters and Hillary Clinton and how that all went down, but (perfunctory cliché ahead) that was then and this is now.)

More than 200,000 COVID deaths, most of them completely avoidable but for Trump’s stubborn pretense that his giant brain is far superior to every scientist and epidemiologist in the land.

Kids in cages. They’re still crying, their parents are still crying, we’re still crying.

Attacks on women, minorities, the disabled, and the disenfranchised.

Name-calling and childish insults, laughable word-salad adlibs thrown in to speeches written by Stephen Miller, as if despots were still in vogue and this wasn’t America.

And now Trump, always so insanely inappropriate for the highest job in the land, has the chance to select a third Right Wing Supreme Court nominee and get her in place before the election.

And he's not done yet.

To the delight of his followers, and, let’s face it, the press, Trump is impishly pretending he might not leave office if Joe Biden should, by some slim off-chance, win. But he will leave, and we even know the date: January 20, 2021.

Donald Trump will not win this election. Joe Biden will.

Has Joe Biden made mistakes? Uh huh. Will he go on making mistakes? Uh huh. But, when it comes to mistakes, Joe is a piker compared to Donald. Trump holds the world’s record for the most hilarious, the most egregious mistakes ever made by a U.S president. Nobody comes even close. And if we’re lucky, nobody ever will again.

So I rest my case. Donald Trump should not, cannot, will not win this election. We’re going to make sure he doesn’t. Joe Biden will win in a landslide, the likes of which we’ve never seen. (Yes, I stole that from Donald.)

He will not steal our pride, our legacy, our heritage, our privileges, our rights.

He will not.

How to Write Opinions When You're At Your Wit's End

 Political writers are America’s witnesses to history. It’s up to us to tell this story

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

I don’t have to tell you we’re at a level of chaos most of us have never seen in our lifetimes. Every day it’s something new and dire and dangerous, and every day we have to set aside yesterday’s news to try and process this new thing that sickens us and scares us and makes us want to take to our beds.

Every day we watch people give up. They can’t take it anymore. They concede we’re doomed and that’s just the way it is. And who can blame them? It feels doom-like out there. Everything is going against us.

Here in the United States we’ve passed the 200,000 mark in deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, with no end in sight.

The earth is roiling, showing her irritation at our recklessness, and she’s threatening to destroy humanity before we can do any more damage.

And, for the first time in America’s history, we’re dealing with a rogue government run by a demagogic flim-flam man who sees the presidency as the authoritarian power trip of his dreams, and is already threatening not to give it up.

And there’s more. Much, much more.

This is where the writers come in. We are the witnesses, the trained observers. We watch, we listen, we analyze, we record. It’s what we do. Those of us who write opinions knew going in we would never convince everyone. Our opinions aren’t necessarily everyone’s opinions, so — you might have noticed — we have a tendency to piss some people off.

But we slog on.

It’s our hearts that spur us on, and, because our hearts are flopping around on the outside for everyone to see, we make ourselves vulnerable. Deliberately. Why? Because we care so deeply about what we believe in we can’t keep it to ourselves. We see it as a duty to try and make readers understand. And we wonder why everyone doesn’t do it.

That’s where you come in, you writers out there who feel that same anxiety and don’t know how to express it. Do I need to say, ‘there’s nothing to fear but fear itself’? What are you afraid of, really? That your feelings will be hurt? They will be. That someone will make fun of you? Someone will. That you won’t get it right and might have to reassess? That could happen. But we need courage now, and before you can advocate for it, you have to feel it.

Our country needs us — every one of us — and our voices together will make a formidable blockade to the lies and propaganda threatening to destroy our message. We have the tools and the talent to make a difference in these next weeks before the election, but we have to get serious NOW.

Whatever you have to say doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be honest. Write from your heart and let your heart guide you. The country needs to know how we feel about the events unfolding before us. We’re not writing for the critics, we’re writing for the people.

As the owner/editor of Indelible Ink, I’ve taken steps to convert my creative non-fiction publication to all politics, all the time — at least until this all-important election is over. I’m looking for writers and I want you to consider getting your equally all-important voice out there. I’ll help you.

As I say in our Submission Guidelines:

We’ll be a political publication practicing the politics of hope, but with our eyes wide open. Be honest about your fears, your hopes, your ideas for a better future. Challenge us with your thoughts about better governing. Name names.

Talk about your own life, your childhood, your parents and your grandparents, if you’d like. Whatever is on your mind, whatever is keeping you awake at night, whatever is needing an outlet so you’re not screaming into pillows all day and all night.

Let’s build a fortress here made up of the ghosts of America’s past. Who are we? Where did we come from? How did we get to this place?

But you don't have to write for me. Writers everywhere are gathering in war rooms, ready to do battle. We can do it, we can spread the word, we can build a community and we can help each other.

We’re almost out of time. November is looming. We’re sending the call out to writers with the skills to help us witness, to chronicle not just the events but the feelings. We’ve never been here before. With Hera’s help we’ll never be here again.

This is a time like no other, and the noisemakers are winning. Our voices won’t get lost if there are enough of us sounding alarms, reminding Americans of our heritage, defending our need to build a country that reflects all of us, and not just some of us.

Opinion writing isn’t for everyone, but if you feel the calling, go with it. The need is great right now. If you have something to say, say it. As Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, used to say: Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.

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I Am That Liberal You Think You Know

I’m a Liberal Democrat, capital L, capital D. I’ve been a Liberal Democrat my entire adult life. I’ve never been ashamed of being either one. Why would I be? We Liberal Democrats have a long history of public service in the best sense of the words. We’ve been the caretakers while the Republicans have traditionally fought against any thought of taking care of all citizens. Emphasis on ALL citizens.

We work at being inclusive while the Republicans pride themselves on their exclusivity. While we’re trying to build a country they’re building a club.

So here’s a radical thought: Let the Liberals do it. Give us a chance to show how it could be done.

 Liberals, you like to remind us, are the classic political nerds, not good for anything but maybe wedgies or noogies. Quaint naïve little do-gooders lost in a world of ruthless cruelty without weapons adequate enough to bruise a flea.

 In the 1980s, around about the time the actor Ronald Reagan, friendly Midwestern Liberal turned hard-hearted California conservative, was enshrined as The Teflon POTUS, the word went out that Liberals — those ridiculous “for the people” gadflies — were ruining the country by helping too many undeserving and impoverished leeches, by welcoming foreigners, by insisting that workers be represented by hard-nosed unions, by pushing the toxic notion that health care shouldn’t be for-profit, and by tightening, enforcing, or inventing regulations that were or would be anathema to the gold-plated entities they targeted.

It wasn’t hard to convince the many millions that health, wealth, and happiness could only come from a government without teeth, from the benevolence of ridiculously powerful corporations, and, if all else failed, from that venerable standby, Old Testament God.

 All that stood in the way were those insufferable Liberals.

 Liberals became such pariahs an entire bloc jumped ship and took on a new name: Progressives. (I would describe them for you here, but I admit I don’t know the difference. So far they’ve been relatively friendly. Don’t look to me to rock that boat.)

 But what we Liberals are known for are hearts that gush blood whenever injustice rears its massive, ugly head. We see a bleeding heart as a badge of honor. The same with tears. We cry when things move us, and we don’t hide from our emotions. Our anger stems from compassion, our outrage roars at cruelty. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and it’s not meant as a fashion statement.

 Liberals have a long history of getting things done. We pulled the entire country out of a great depression by hiring our citizens to do meaningful busy-work, by using our charitable might, by giving dignity and hope back to a country mired in poverty and hopelessness.

 We built the unions and gave workers a voice. We put an end to child labor. We fought to give every adult citizen the right to vote, no matter their gender or color. We helped the poor and the elderly by creating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Clean Air act, and the Clean Water Act. We ended a recession that nearly destroyed the middle class.

 We did all that and more against the wishes — and the might — of fat cats and right wingers who sorely wanted what we’re heading for today: a country ruled by non-contributing despots whose only interests are power, greed, and self-preservation.

 We are not that country and we never will be. The Trump phenomenon is an anomaly, destined as a vivid warning in our history books, a long chapter on how close we came to letting our democracy die. We’re still a majority of the good and, thankfully, most of us aren’t ashamed to show it. It’s our time now and there’s much to do. They’re out there waiting for us and they have heavy weapons. 

The truth-tellers are under barrage and the liars appear to be winning. Not in any honest way — that’s not their MO — but they’ve built a formidable army with thugs in both the House and the Senate, corrupt judges with life-long positions and no former experience, rules and laws that favor the wealthy and crush the poor, shady dealings with foreign dictators, and, if all else fails, voting machines spewing out questionable tallies.

We can’t afford to get it wrong this time. We are a country on the brink and this is no time to dismiss anyone working to change this mess. Do we need labels to tell us apart? Not as much as we might think. It’s enough that we’re on the same team. Not everyone on the team comes from the same background, but everyone should have the same goal. To win.

Come November, 2020, we have to win. There is no other acceptable outcome. So I’ll be That Liberal and you be…you. But let’s work at winning together. It's only our entire country that's at stake.

(A version of this appears at Medium)

A Government Of the Women, By the Women, For the People

Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash

I want women in the highest offices in the land. It’s long past time.

Note: When I started this essay, Kamala Harris was still one of the three candidates figuring into my story about wanting a woman in the White House. Now I have to revise this, because yesterday afternoon word came that she was dropping out. The money just wasn’t there. She might have had the support but without the money she couldn’t go on. (Meanwhile, two male billionaires will be able to stay in as long as they want, never mind that neither of them has a chance in hell of winning the nomination.To say our election process is kerflooey is an understatement.)

So instead of the three women I thought I could highlight, I’m now down to two. But I’ll go on:

Until now I’ve been on the fence about Democratic presidential candidates, but a couple of nights ago, in the wee hours, it came to me that what I really want is for a woman to win. I’m down now to either Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar.

I want a woman in the White House, I want female majorities in the House, in the Senate, and, if we could ever pull it off, in the Supreme Court. I want those women to be Democrats, but I’d give Independents a hard look. I can’t think of a single female Republican I would trust with those jobs, and if that sounds harsh, too bad. They’ve brought it on themselves.

But back to my two:

Photo: Kathleen Gilligan — Detroit Free Press

Both women are smart, qualified, and are working on plans as we speak. Neither of them are novices. They’re seasoned politicos who know the system. They might look for compromise, even when compromise is seen as weak and namby-pamby (and kind of girly), but they’re both strong enough (and seasoned enough) to see past the BS and get what they want.

They’d both work well with Nancy Pelosi.

They’re tough cookies you never have to be afraid of — unless you’re on the other side. Their own unique assets are their weapons, but they never have to hit below the belt. They’re not hiding anything. They don’t think they’re God’s gift to humankind.

They’re not men.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is from academia and is smart about a whole lot of things, but her strongest asset is that Wall Street sees her as their most formidable enemy. They’ll do everything they can to make sure she doesn’t win because they know she’ll be working even harder to take away their power. They’ve had run-ins with her before. A sorry spectacle.

She exudes a kind of scholarly wisdom, but in a way that’s sort of down-home friendly. She doesn’t brag, she doesn’t talk down, she gets up close and personal. She’s savvy enough to to know how to get under Trump’s skin, and she’ll always come out on top. When he resorts to silly name-calling, she’ll resort to plain facts. And she won’t let up. She won’t back down.

Amy Klobuchar is a rock-solid Midwesterner with a blue-collar background. She’s a former prosecutor and a senator who announced her campaign entry while standing outside in a raging blizzard. She’s no white-bread sissy, so you can get that out of your head. I wrote about Amy a while back — musing about my own need for her kind of strength and comfort — and she’s still growing on me. I could see her dealing with our adversaries, both at home and abroad, and coming out smiling. Nothing seems to trigger her. She’s unflappable.

And now a word about Kamala Harris. I’m sorry she had to drop out. I know her campaign had problems, and maybe she didn’t strike that chord — whatever that chord is — but there’s no doubt she could have done the job. If she had won the primary I would have worked hard for her. She would have brought a refreshing take-no-prisoners toughness to the White House while caring deeply for children and the underclass. But she’s still a senator and a damned good one. Her time will come. I have no doubt.

I want a woman to be president in 2020. My choices now are either Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar. I don’t care about their histories, their ancestry, their flaws, or their “likability”. I care about their hearts, their minds, their vision, and their ability to do the job.

I know for a fact that each of them would choose cabinets reflecting the needs of a country battered and exhausted by an authoritarian regime bent on creating America’s first dictator. When Donald Trump is gone, when the Republican cowards who enabled him are gone, I want a leader who can start the healing process and bring us back to that place where we don’t have to hide in shame. I want a leader who is a government insider who understands the constitution and the rule of law. I want a leader who sees no problem with nurturing the sick, the poor, and the miserable. I want the next president to be a woman.

We formed the presidency in 1787. That’s 232 years without a single woman as president. It’s time. It’s long past time. And if it doesn’t happen in 2020, it’ll be because of a concerted effort to makes sure it’s always men in charge. It won’t be because the female candidate wasn’t worthy. That’s not going to wash this time.

(My apologies to Julián Castro. If it wasn’t for my very real need for a woman in the White House this time, you would be right up there on the list. I really am sorry. You’re one of the good guys and it’s a shame, but even you have to admit a country having been established for more than two centuries without once electing a female president is really pretty ridiculous.)

(Update: Michigan's primary is on March 10. I've cast my absentee ballot for Elizabeth Warren.)