Meanwhile . . . January 14, 2021January 14, 2021 . . . as history scarily unfolds, the future could be so bright. Two recent examples: mRNA Vaccines Could Vanquish Covid Today, Cancer Tomorrow. And other diseases as well. Battery storage is going mainstream, big-time. Which makes solar and wind all the more practical. This is big stuff! Yes, the journalist-murderers have been winning. Putin has brought us to the verge of civil war and potentially controls many of our most important computer networks. Kim can now nuke U.S. cities. MBS dismembered a Washington Post journalist without presidential recrimination. So much damage has been done these past four years. So many Americans are struggling and suffering. (Except the rich, of course.) Yet it’s just possible better days lie ahead. It’s so obvious what we need to do! Vaccinate everyone willing to be protected from Covid. Restore competence and integrity to our federal government. Put millions to work revitalizing our nation’s infrastructure (including highspeed rural broadband). Enact the immigration reform passed 68-32 in 2013 to welcome the talent, energy, and drive of people in search of better lives. Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord. Rejoin our democratic allies. Renew our advocacy of human rights, our opposition to autocracy and corruption. Restore dignity and decency to the Oval Office. Raise the minimum wage (adjusting for geographical cost of living). And more, ranging from depoliticizing the Court . . . to enacting “H.R.1” (its long list of election and ethical reforms well worth your review) . . . to making it easier for moderates to compete successfully in primary elections . . . to allowing the refinancing of student debt . . . to adding 1% to the corporate tax rate if a company’s highest-paid employee gets more than 50 times the pay of its median employee (on up to an extra 5% if the pay differential exceeds 500 times). Let’s find common ground and get to work. Onward and upward. Sure beats hating each other and trying to overthrow the government.
Ronald Reagan Speaks January 13, 2021January 12, 2021 But first . . . Whoever sent this hurtling around social media made, I think, a helpful point: Huge numbers of our population believe in a complete alternate reality. Alternate facts as it were. But just as intensely as I believe they are deluded, they think I am the one who is deluded. Maybe I am. So how can I be confident in my perception? It can be quite difficult. But I have found that in times of political confusion, particularly when emotions are running high and creating tunnel vision, the presence of Nazis can be an extremely helpful indicator. If I am attending a local demonstration or event and I see Nazis . . . neo-Nazis, casual Nazis, master race Nazis, or the latest-whatever-uber-mythology-Nazis, I figure out which side they are on. And if they are on my side of the demonstration? I am on the wrong side. It is tough to argue moral equivalence when I am standing next to a Nazi. Look to my right. Is there a guy wearing a 6MWE (6 million weren’t enough) t-shirt? I am on the wrong side. Look to my left. If that guy is wearing a Camp Auschwitz t-shirt? Wrong side. Wrong side. Team-spirit face paint and hat with animal horns? This is actually an unclear indicator that could mean anything, but safest to keep my distance from that guy anyway, even at a football game. However, I can always, always, always rely on the presence of Nazis as a guiding light through a fog of disinformation. Some things are relative, and politics can absolutely have its opposing sides and grey areas. But evil and good are absolute. So, just look for the Nazis, and make your own decisions. Trump supporters are not all neo-Nazis by any stretch — obviously — any more than all animals are rattlesnakes. But all neo-Nazis are Trump supporters. And proud of it. Another proud Trump supporter: Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, as outlined here. And now . . . Not that Ronald Reagan, his son. Speaking to Conan O’Brien the day after the insurrection. If you have time for a podcast, it’s a good one.
What Do Adelson and Netanyahu Think? January 12, 2021 “The storming of the Capitol in Washington is a wake-up call for states around the world, writes the mayor of London.” . . . Many around the world have long warned that it could end this way, or worse. Trump followed the playbook of the fascist dictators and strongmen that came to power in the 1930s and 40s. Trump pitted his own citizens against each other. He preyed on genuine economic suffering. He lied to stoke fear of those who are different. He denied basic scientific facts about Covid-19 and refused to act to save lives and jobs. He separated children from their parents. He used people’s religion as a reason to ban them from coming to the US. He gave equivalence to far-right racists and anti-racist protesters. He denigrated women and denied many the right to choose what they do with their body. And he also undermined and delegitimised the fundamental pillars of democracy – equality under the law, the freedom of the press, an independent judicial system and, ultimately, even elections themselves. Tragically, the warnings were deliberately ignored by too many supposedly mainstream politicians, commentators and observers around the world, including here in the UK. Some greedily eyed an opportunity for their own advancement, which they valued more than the long-term health of democracy. Others were simply too scared of the consequences of doing the right thing and challenging the ugly new populist and nativist political movements that Trump spawned. . . . Worth reading in full. As you know, Trump’s dad was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally. Trump himself — not a big reader — kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. And called torch-carriers chanting “Jews will not replace us” “very fine people.” Among the visuals at Trump’s rally last week were Confederate flags and 6MWE sweatshirts. “Go home, we love you, you’re very special,” he later chastised those attempting to overthrow the election and possibly kill the Vice President and Speaker of the House. In case you didn’t know, 6MWE is short for “6 Million Weren’t Enough.” I’m wondering what Trump backers Sheldon Adelson and Benjamin Netanyahu think about that. If you missed Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday, watch. He is a Republican who knows fascism when he sees it — and he is angry Here’s Stephen Colbert’s take from that night, in case you’re not one of the 10 million who have already seen it. He’s angry, too. You know who else is angry? Joy Reid. If you have friends or relatives annoyed with the Black Lives Matter movement — “because all lives matter” — share her two minutes. Just as the 1964 murders of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney and the 1965 brutality televised from the Edmund Pettus Bridge opened the eyes of millions of decent white people to realities it had been more comfortable not to notice, so may the events of January 6 open the eyes of millions of Trump supporters. You don’t have to share Democratic views to hate fascism, dishonesty, indecency, cruelty and treason. Attacking the United States Capitol and threatening the lives of its occupants is treason.
Post Trump, Post Truth January 10, 2021 But first . . . You simply must watch this. It will uplift, make clear, and reassure. Three cheers for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also . . . The “West Wing Reunion” on HBO Max reminds us what America should be. It’s interrupted not by commercials for auto insurance but by exhortations to vote.* Given the level of talent involved — Michelle Obama, Rob Lowe, Lin Manuel Miranda, Allison Janney, Aaron Sorkin, Bradley Whitford, and more — the exhortations are both entertaining and compelling. It was staged as a benefit for When We All Vote. (If you don’t have time to watch, or HBO Max, this story will give you the gist.) If there’s a young child or grandchild in your life, buy her or him one of these Future Voter t-shirts! And now . . . Timothy Snyder in the indispensable New York Times on “The American Abyss“: . . . Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. . . . Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies of the people.” Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008 did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones. The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter. Thanks to technological capacity and personal talent, Donald Trump lied at a pace perhaps unmatched by any other leader in history. For the most part these were small lies, and their main effect was cumulative. To believe in all of them was to accept the authority of a single man, because to believe in all of them was to disbelieve everything else. Once such personal authority was established, the president could treat everyone else as the liars; he even had the power to turn someone from a trusted adviser into a dishonest scoundrel with a single tweet. Yet so long as he was unable to enforce some truly big lie, some fantasy that created an alternative reality where people could live and die, his pre-fascism fell short of the thing itself. Some of his lies were, admittedly, medium-size: that he was a successful businessman; that Russia did not support him in 2016; that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Such medium-size lies were the standard fare of aspiring authoritarians in the 21st century. In Poland the right-wing party built a martyrdom cult around assigning blame to political rivals for an airplane crash that killed the nation’s president. Hungary’s Viktor Orban blames a vanishingly small number of Muslim refugees for his country’s problems. But such claims were not quite big lies; they stretched but did not rend what Hannah Arendt called “the fabric of factuality.” One historical big lie discussed by Arendt is Joseph Stalin’s explanation of starvation in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33. The state had collectivized agriculture, then applied a series of punitive measures to Ukraine that ensured millions would die. Yet the official line was that the starving were provocateurs, agents of Western powers who hated socialism so much they were killing themselves. A still grander fiction, in Arendt’s account, is Hitlerian anti-Semitism: the claims that Jews ran the world, Jews were responsible for ideas that poisoned German minds, Jews stabbed Germany in the back during the First World War. Intriguingly, Arendt thought big lies work only in lonely minds; their coherence substitutes for experience and companionship. In November 2020, reaching millions of lonely minds through social media, Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run the world,” but big enough. The significance of the matter at hand was great: the right to rule the most powerful country in the world and the efficacy and trustworthiness of its succession procedures. The level of mendacity was profound. The claim was not only wrong, but it was also made in bad faith, amid unreliable sources. It challenged not just evidence but logic: Just how could (and why would) an election have been rigged against a Republican president but not against Republican senators and representatives? Trump had to speak, absurdly, of a “Rigged (for President) Election.” . . . The full essay — with photographs — is worth your time. Friday’s reference to abortion troubled some of you. I updated it with a footnote that I hope shows respect for those concerns. *”You ask a kid why they didn’t vote and they’ll tell you: they don’t care about politics. All politicians are the same, and they’re above it. So let’s run down a quick list. Do you hope to have a job one day? You care about politics. Do you have a student loan or credit card debt? You care about politics…”
Mark Twain Weighs In January 8, 2021January 10, 2021 “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.” — Mark Twain Ain’t it the truth. The people who stormed the Capitol thought they were doing a good thing. It’s not they who bear most of the blame; it’s those who fooled them. If following the wishes of your country’s elected leader isn’t the right and patriotic thing to do (many Germans must have felt) — what is? Likewise . . . if inciting insurrection against your own country isn’t an impeachable offense — what is? I’ve been noting for five years that Trump — not a big reader — kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. There’s nothing illegal about that; or, for that matter, about admiring Hitler, as some Americans do. There is nothing illegal about Trump’s affinity for autocrats. Or about his holding rallies denouncing the free press as “enemies of the people” and wishing he could “punch [people] in the face.” But I do think it’s illegal to incite insurrection. The second of these four Lincoln Project ads released yesterday is particularly good: Terrorist Biden Speech Abe sees you @HawleyMO Jim Crow Caucus We have to get past demonizing each other. Can’t we come together to demonize . . . or at least criticize . . . Trump instead? Even the New York Post and Wall Street Journal have begun to do that. One can be for favoring the rich and forcing women to carry their rapists’ babies* — yet still oppose dishonesty, incompetence, corruption, sociopathy, and malignant narcissism. No? On most issues, isn’t there a sensible center in which to meet? > Honor Thomas Jefferson with a statue for declaring the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal,” even though he himself owned slaves — while removing statues that honor those who fought against the United States to preserve slavery? > Work to make abortion rare — while keeping it safe and legal? > Respect the Second Amendment — while enacting gun safety laws that even a wide majority of NRA members support? Focus on the many places we agree? (Infrastructure!) GLDD: I sold most of mine at $14.72 yesterday. For the patient — check out this post from 14 years ago — it has worked out well. With infrastructure likely at last to receive major appropriations, the nation’s leading dredging company seems finally to have caught investors’ fancy. Sometimes that’s a good time to exit — though I wouldn’t be amazed to see the stock continue to rise. Have a great weekend. *[UPDATE] Some of you felt this language was over the top. But quite a few of our fellow citizens — including some in Congress — earnestly believe that human life begins at conception and that to take that life — no matter who fathered it or how — is murder. So I don’t think it’s a strawman. Either way, my point is simply that we can have passionate deep disagreement on some things . . . yet agree unanimously that honesty, kindness, competence and sanity beat their alternatives. And that we can find common ground and compromise on at least some things. And that we should try.
Imagine . . . January 7, 2021January 7, 2021 . . . what a second term might have been like. . . . how massive and brutal yesterday’s response would have been if the insurrectionists had been black. . . . that Congress impeaches, convicts, and removes Trump this morning before he can invoke the Insurrection Act or God knows what else. Can they possibly believe he is honoring his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution? . . . a president and administration marked by dignity, decency, competence, experience, integrity, and a profound desire to make the world better for those less fortunate than they. That’s what we will shortly have, especially now that Democrats will chair the confirmation hearings. It is epic good news for the country and the world. Thanks to so many of you who helped make it happen. We just have to get through the next 13 days.
Will On Pence January 6, 2021January 6, 2021 George Will does not write at an eight-grade level (my favorite level — Tom Sawyer! Robinson Crusoe! To Kill A Mockingbird!) but his columns are always worth the effort. Halfway through this one, he offers a 20-second video of the Vice President’s “canine devotion” to Trump that, Will archly notes, “is a sufficient Pence biography.” It is 20 seconds long only because it repeats the 10-seconds. Tomorrow, Will concludes, “the members of the Hawley-Cruz cohort will violate the oath of office in which they swore to defend the Constitution from enemies ‘foreign and domestic.’ They are its most dangerous domestic enemies.” Mike Watts: “Jimmy Carter: Rock And Roll President re-airs on CNN at 10 PM (EST) this Saturday — FREE!” “Set your VCR,” as we used to say. If you like Dylan and the Allman Brothers, John Wayne, Aretha Franklin, Dolly, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffett and a story of good old-fashioned church-going Georgia values, you’ll enjoy it. Thanks, CNN. Has Georgia broken Washington’s gridlock so we have a chance of coming together to do things most Republicans and Democrats want? Like putting millions of Americans to work at good jobs revitalizing our infrastructure? Allowing millions to refinance their federal student loans at today’s low interest rates? Enacting sensible gun safety measures? (Even NRA members strongly favor those!) As we wait to see, read George Will — and set your VCR.
I Owe You $5 January 5, 2021January 5, 2021 If you failed to click yesterday’s “widely despised” Ted Cruz link and feel you deserve a little good old-fashioned Tuesday morning fun, click it now. I owe you $5 because I failed to alert you to Jimmy Carter: Rock And Roll President that aired free on CNN Sunday night. And now I want you to rent it for $4.99. As all eyes are on Georgia today, it was particularly apt: a peanut farmer from Plains who grew up without indoor plumbing or electricity and went on to become a moral beacon to the world. Whose pals and admirers included Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Gregg Allman, Dolly Parton, Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin — even John Wayne makes an appearance. The film reminds us — as listening to Barack Obama’s A Promised Land does or as listening to Bill Clinton’s or Al Gore’s or Hillary’s and now Joe’s speeches do — just how extraordinary those who’ve won the popular vote to be our president can be. All of them sharing a deep concern for mankind. Can we say the same of Mitch McConnell? Sorry about the $5.
Losing By 10 Million Votes January 4, 2021January 4, 2021 But first we fly to Otpusk.* Remember flying? Fourteen seconds. https://andrewtobias.com/wp-content/uploads/flying-to-Otpusk.mp4 *Otpusk is not a place; it’s Russian for “vacation.” Next we answer 10 questions about the vaccines. You already know most of this, but I found it to be worth the four minutes. Allen B.: “It’s possibly worth noting that Trump lost the popular vote not by 7 million, but by 10 million. Of the 158 million votes cast, 74 million were for Trump, 84 million against. (Mostly for Biden, but also a few others.)” Trump says he won Georgia by “half a million votes.” Georgia’s top Republicans — not above suppressing the black vote when they can! — insist he lost by 11,000. The widely despised Ted Cruz, whose wife is ugly and whose dad was in on the Kennedy assassination (Trump’s insinuations, not mine), called Trump a pathological liar thousands of lies ago and now leads the charge for Trump. To call all this a circus would fail to acknowledge (circuses being designed to delight children) how many have died on his watch, how many are unemployed and face eviction; how he damaged our reputation around the world, advanced the fortunes of autocrats, advocated torture, coarsened the public discourse, caged children, allowed our infrastructure to decay, and encouraged racism, conspiracy theories, and division. How he allowed North Korea to reach our cities with nuclear weapons, Russia to control our computer systems, and our National Debt to balloon even before Covid, during good economic times. He can’t believe with a record like that he could have lost. Happy New Year!