I was against the initial attempt by the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump. I was against it because it was a convenient excuse (a “Pleiku” as I explained). The Democratic Party wanted to impeach the President from the day of his election, and finally settled upon an excuse to do so. It was an ill-fated attempt (one Speaker Pelosi even initially opposed) and one that came to the impotent end it merited.
What is happening today is different. First, let’s remove the emotional aspects of this case. This impeachment is not about removing the President from office. It will barely affect his term. It is also not about the President’s claimed lapse into unreality. He has always believed what he wants, nothing has changed there. Nor is it about his finger on the nuclear trigger. Some may be excused for not knowing this, but Speaker Pelosi does, so she bears responsibility for the hysteria she engendered: there is an entire system involved in nuclear release. It is not a button to be pushed. There are messages, codes, things that must be ascertained and confirmed. The system is designed to allow the President to respond in the case of a surprise nuclear attack. In the absence of indications of inbound missiles, it does not allow the President to launch, willy-nilly.
This NOT how we do it! (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
So what is this about? Since his surprise (to him) election loss, President Trump has been in engaging in a slow-motion autogolpe (tip of the hat to Ken Copeland for reminding me of the word!), which is a Latin American term for when the leader attempts to retain power through non-legal means. The President began his opposition to the election results legally, but after losing lawsuit after lawsuit, he began seeking and supporting other means.
What happened at the Capitol was the culmination of those efforts. First, a legally permissible rally on the Mall followed by march to the Capitol building, which quickly descended into a riot and occupation. I have watched more video of the event that I care to admit, and it resembles every riot I have ever watched. Yes, there are people making specific threats against specific people, but they are screaming out as groups run and wander all about. In the end, all were allowed to leave, and they did so. Some coup. Law enforcement should treat this as the dangerous riot it was, nothing more but nothing less.
But this was no normal Congressional day. The President called for the rally, and spoke at the rally, and incited the rally members toward the Capitol to intimidate the only activity underway there: the counting and certifying of the electoral college results, finalizing the victory of Joe Biden. Did he specifically call for violence? No, but that is irrelevant. He organized the rally, fired up the rally goers, and sought to pressure the electoral certification. While there was very little chance of this scheme working in any real sense, the very act itself was an affront to the notions of the peaceful transfer of power all Americans should hold dear.
This President has routinely broken norms, and rarely if ever acknowledges any limits that should restrict his behavior. But there are norms and then there are rules, and he broke both. For the latter, he should be charged with impeachment by the House of Representatives and found guilty by the Senate. Most importantly, he should be banned from further federal public office, not only making an example of him but also removing the danger of another Trump candidacy. Perhaps the Republican Party can seize the opportunity to rediscover its moral bearings.
One final point: I still strongly oppose invoking the 25th Amendment. That law was introduced to cover the eventuality of an incapacitated President, not the removal of one who has behaved poorly or even illegally. The former is solved by an election; the latter is reserved for impeachment. The discussion of the 25th Amendment is one that should only be conducted in private among the principals involved (the Vice President, the Cabinet) to compare notes about disability, not bandied about by the Speaker of the House. As I have said before: we must avoid setting new, ill-advised precedents in response to the Trump presidency. Mark my words: having just elected a seventy-eight year old man to the presidency, we’ll hear more about invoking the 25th Amendment in the next four years!
“Belated?!?” you ask, “aren’t you a little early?” No, not at all. See, the liturgical year began with start of Advent on November 29th, hence my apology.
“But I’m not Catholic” you might object. Never-mind! God keeps time in His Own Way, and if I had wished you blessings for Diwali or Hanukkah, would you have objected? Of course not!
And who doesn’t want to see 2020 go, even if it means adopting a Catholic calendar for a few weeks? Our Annus Horribilis is one for the record books, and in all the wrong ways. But I don’t want you to focus on that. I want you to focus on something positive: what’s ahead.
Which is Death. Wait, wait, hang on here, I’m absolutely positive we’re all heading toward death. So much so, I’d wager on it, but you (or I) would not be around to pay (or collect) if either of us won (or lost). Not death from the Coronavirus, thanks to Big Pharma, but death nonetheless.
Why be so morbid, during this festive Christmas season, with a vaccine being distributed and the quarantines and masks and restrictions all within sight of the finish line? Well, I ask you, what was the point of 2020? If you believe in God, you’ve got ‘some splainin” to do’ (cue Ricky to Lucy). Divine Punishment? Only He knows. An Act of Man gone awry? Possibly. Poor choices by many? Absolutely. I don’t know what God’s plan in all of this was, but I do know that however it started and spread, He will use it to His Own Ends.
But let’s keep it personal, shall we? Do you know anybody who was unaffected by the pandemic? Me neither. Some harshly, some (like me and my family) only a little, but everybody felt the effects. What was the lesson we were supposed to learn? If this was a once-in-a-lifetime critical event, how should we process it, and what does it mean for how we live?
Many thinkers are producing analyses of how our pandemic experiences will change the world. They often focus on the notion that it will primarily accelerate trends already underway; that is a strong bet, and one I plan to write more about next year. But if the effects of this virus are limited to more screen time, online shopping, work-from-home and telemedicine, or less commuting, fewer handshakes, and no cruise ships, we will lose an opportunity.
We all faced the possibility of serious illness or death for ourselves, those we love, our friends and even casual acquaintances. We lost simple pleasures like eating out or going to events. We were prohibited from traveling, limited to when and where we could shop or gather to pray, forced to mask and rinse and provide our body temperature on demand. What did you learn? What did you miss, and why? How will you live in the future? What will you commit to do differently as a result? We are quick to point out the failings of governments and leaders, and such criticism may be warranted, but will we turn that critical eye on ourselves?
2020 was the year we want to forget, but the year’s lessons must not be lost as well. So take a few moments as we prepare for a New Year, take stock, and ponder how you will be different after the pandemic. Faced with loss of freedom or even loss of life, what did you learn? There’s a resolution worth keeping!
Another in my (endless) series about the coronavirus.
I still see articles and social media stories about ‘how bad the US is doing with Covid’, complete with graphs designed to set your hair on fire.
Game on! Here’s one such chart:
Big countries all, right? You probably already guessed what’s wrong with this one: it compares a country trying to (and mostly getting) good data–the US–with several similar countries where no one believes their data.
Let’s try that again with “good data” countries:
Hmmmmm, not much better
OMG! We are the worst. I call this stunt “fun with data.” Here’s another version, using data that is displayed on a logarithmic scale, adjusted for population size, comparing the US and EU and ignoring a small island nation no one visits (I’m looking at you, New Zealand. More people cross the US border in two days than visit the Kiwis in a year!):
Well, well, well . . .
What you are witnessing is data convergence, which is the phenomenon that occurs when a natural event plays out over time. In plain English, some (even very large) initial differences gradually disappear over time.
Heard of the unique experiment in Sweden over their policies? Here’s the latest data:
More convergence
Wait, you’ll say, but don’t government policies matter? Yes, but mostly in degree and for a time. Note the similarity between the data tends for deaths in these disparate countries/Unions, despite very different policies/situations:
Complicated, no?
If you want to see something really interesting, look at the data for Japan. They have a large population and were a hub of international travel. They also were one of the first to confront the pandemic based on the cruise ship Diamond Princess which pulled into Yokohama harbor full of coronavirus.
The Japanese government had a big disadvantage: the world’s most elderly and therefore (according to the WHO and CDC) vulnerable population. They also had one huge advantage: a compliant population accustomed to wearing masks. They intensely studied the Diamond Princess affair and concluded airborne transmission was probable even if it was not the main source of spread. They further decided that the main variables in spread were close contact, closed spaces, and crowded places. They initiated an educational campaign called the Three C’s so everyone understood what the problem was, why it was important, and what they (the public) were supposed to do.
They never quarantined their entire society. They did not mandate mask wearing. They do not (still) do mass testing (less than 10% of the testing done in America). Theaters remain open but socially distant. The mass transit system runs full with open windows. Schools reopened in June with staggered schedules. Sports are played with spectators (no cheering, social distancing in the stands). There are no legal limits beyond the governmental and cultural exhortation to avoid the three C’s. How has that worked out?
Despite greater vulnerability, amazing results
Are their lessons universal? No. Are they applicable? Yes. When we blindly close schools, or restaurants, or churches without regard to activity or size, we are not following the data (ie., the science). Likewise, when we ignore social-distancing or mask wearing, we are ignoring obvious answers to the problem. Both are critical. The first because no society can long endure excessive quarantining, loss of income, or loss of human contact. People went out during the great plagues of Medieval Europe, for God’s sake! The second because these are small-but-helpful measures that buy time and mutually protect us, whether they are foolproof or not.
I’m not nearly as tired of the lockdown as I am of the politicized use of data and specious counter-arguments. Yes, you need to wear a mask and stand apart. No, it doesn’t solve everything; only a vaccine does, and yes, the vaccine is safe and effective and you need to take it. No, we could not save hundreds of thousands of people who were vulnerable due to obesity and illness and some genetic combination which Covid uniquely targeted: we could play for time, but given the vaccine took almost a year (under a miraculous scenario which we engineered), we were going to lose them. No, it it is not useful to compare a globally connected, large, heterodox nation like the United States to small islands or geographically-isolated, homogeneous countries. Do I have to explain why?
Here’s a way to reconsider the pandemic by comparing it to another natural phenomenon to put it into perspective: earthquakes. They happen. Actually, they happen almost everywhere. People die. Sometimes they happen somewhere regularly, and people become used to them, and their governments prepare for them. Sometimes the preparations are so good that most quakes don’t kill people or destroy things. But even then, sometimes major earthquakes still happen, things fall down, and people still die. Sometimes earthquakes don’t happen for a long time, then suddenly reappear, and they are catastrophic. Know when/where the largest earthquake was recorded in the continental United States (i.e., lower 48)? New Madrid, Missouri, in 1812. So large it moved the Mississippi river hundreds of meters. That one goes off again? Bad things will happen. Some will blame the government for not being prepared, and maybe more should be done. But really?
Every country has made serious mistakes facing this crisis. No medical entity or public health body has covered itself in glory. Some mistakes were worse than others (personally, not quickly quarantining eldercare facilities was among the worst, and it happened in such diverse places as Germany, Sweden, and New York State) and some were avoidable (the early US debate over wearing masks, for example). Some results were not reproducible: not every nation is a remote island, nor does everybody have Africa’s remarkably young demographics. I’m willing to bet the historical record of Covid-19 will not focus on the spread or mortality (neither of which were impressive by historical standards), nor on government actions (which were all over the place) but rather on the speed of the vaccine development, which broke all records while maintaining necessary safeguards. That was truly remarkable.
*As a footnote, if you EVER want to look at Covid data, you MUST go to the Financial Times website here, which allows you to do the kind of comparisons I made above. It is the best website and most tailor-able data display available.
While nothing is final just yet, three things are increasingly clear: Joe Biden is the President-elect, Mitch McConnell remains Senate Majority Leader with a tiny majority, and Speaker Pelosi lost some Democratic seats in the House. In no particular order, some analytic points about the whole enchilada:
Joe Biden received over seventy-four million votes, the largest number of votes in the history of the United States. This is most amazing, especially considering that in two previous Presidential runs, he never got past “*%” (that is, negligible) support. His support was strongest among non-white voters (especially black women), young and/or first-time voters, the irreligious and voters not employed full time. According to the New York Times exit polls, two-thirds of those voting for Mr. Biden said they were voting primarily “against the other candidate.”
President Trump received over seventy million votes, or the second-highest number in the history of the United States, eclipsing even winning candidate Obama in 2008. Trump won both white men and white women voters (while losing some ground) but registered gains with blacks, Latinos, and LGBT voters (% increase over 2016). Whether you loved or hated him, it’s fair to say he had the worst four years of media coverage in modern American presidential history (deserved or not), and somehow gained over seven million votes!
Mr. Biden has called repeatedly for reconciliation and stated bluntly he will work as hard for those who voted against him as for those who voted for him. These are exactly the right words for our times. The country is deeply divided, and until we stop referring to one another as enemies, Nazis, morons, etc. we cannot move forward. With President Trump out of the White House, the “but Trump” excuse for rudeness or vulgarity has expired. President Biden will have his hands full restoring dignified disagreement.
The exasperated foreign coverage of the election was amusing. Yes, there are many more efficient ways (to have a Presidential decision) than holding fifty state elections. But these are, and will remain, the UNITED STATES of America. The Soviets held very fast, very efficient elections: it was not an improvement. Those Americans calling for a more centralized, national vote have either (1) never worked in Washington, or (2) forgotten their civics lessons. The system is working well, thank you very much, and we’ll keep it. President Trump’s claims notwithstanding, we only started “calling” elections on election night in the 1960’s with the advent of television and polling. There is no reason to consider systemic change because it takes a few days to finish vote counting, or to conduct a recount.
One bright spot was the dog that didn’t bark. Thus far, there has been no government commentary about possible foreign activities to affect the actual voting. If that holds true, it would appear that the United States Cyber Command, Department of Homeland Security, and the Intelligence Community accomplished the mission.
For the second time in as many Presidential elections, pollsters made fools of themselves. Chagrined after their 2016 fiasco, which fostered some of the initial paranoia about President Trump–since after all, he couldn’t have won the election fairly based on what the polls predicted–the pollsters believed the 2018 mid-term results proved they had adjusted and were once again accurate. What they forgot was President Trump was only figuratively on that ballot, and the massive 2020 blue wave the pollsters imagined only demonstrated they were once again looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Citizens of all stripes should remember that polling is roughly akin to fortune telling: you see mostly what you want to see, and that’s not necessarily what will be.
On the other hand, massive kudos to the prognosticators who looked at the demography and changing State voting rules and identified where the “red mirage/blue shift” would happen. In case you missed it, this was the concept that President Trump would hold an advantage in some states at the end of election day, but as the counting went on, that edge would narrow and disappear. To those claiming the constant erosion of support for President Trump in the final state election tallies is evidence of fraud: sorry, that’s not the case. States who counted absentee ballots late demonstrated the effect of greater Democratic Party representation in those votes, that is all.
Progressives and Democrats dancing outside the White House, . . .
Whither Progressivism? I still have friends who say this election was only close because the Democrats ran a moderate, and the result would have been a blue wave with candidates Sanders or Warren. The notion of either of them capturing Pennsylvania or Arizona, let alone Georgia? I’ll leave the last word to Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), a moderate Democrat and former colleague of mine who oh-so-narrowly won re-election. Leaks from the House Democratic conference call on Thursday had her screaming at Speaker Pelosi and others, “We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. . . . We lost good members because of that. If we are classifying Tuesday as a success . . . we will get f—ing torn apart in 2022.” The House Democratic majority may be in the single digits when all the races are decided. And Progressives should avoid looking at State results, where the GOP gained control of several states just prior to redistricting.
The GOP danced in the Statehouses, gaining at least one, holding total control in twenty-three.
This year, as in several past elections, pundits claimed that the Republican Party was doomed because demography is destiny. That is, younger voters skew liberal and Democratic, so they will stay that way in perpetuity. Or minority voters do, and the Unites States will shortly be a non-white majority electorate. So Democrats win. ((Brief aside: population estimates for China all the way through the 1970’s showed accelerating growth. Demographers joked that the modal person on the planet was an eighteen year-old Chinese female, and nothing reproduces itself like an eighteen year-old Chinese female. Demography is destiny. Except the Chinese Communist Party had other ideas, and the will to enforce a draconian one-child policy. They were so successful they halted Chinese population growth, because political demography is not destiny, it’s a variable. People change.)) Young people want free stuff and fewer restrictions. They grow up and get jobs and hate the high taxes. They buy a house and resent the loud music from the bonger next door. Minority groups refuse to act like monoliths, because they are comprised of real people, not stereotypes: for example, Latinos overwhelmingly do not identify as “people of color.” While it is undeniably true the Democrats capture the most minority votes, the GOP has gained an increasing share of the black and Hispanic vote in the last several Presidential elections. Both parties will continue to evolve and compete for all voters. . . for that is what they do.
The Media? Where to start? Major media organizations decided that President Trump was a unique threat to the American experiment and therefor adopted the stance of active resistance to his administration. Will they reclaim any semblance of nonpartisan coverage, let alone objectivity? Unlikely. President Trump was a major boon for the bottom line of these media, and that is at an end with the end of his Presidency. Where do they go for eyeballs, now? Can they possibly resist covering former President Trump?
What about President Trump? While it is possible he’ll just walk away from politics, it is very unlikely. Late in the election cycle, former President Obama broke with tradition and campaigned heavily against President Trump; former President Trump won’t even consider staying above the fray. Trump will resume his role as Tweeter-in-Chief, grabbing headlines with outrageous comments and over-sized rallies. Needless to say, any sputtering of the economy or increase in coronavirus cases will yield a Trumpian tweet-storm of ridicule. Nothing would more salve his ego then attempting to oust President Biden, so he’ll remain in the mix.
Trumpism as a movement? It’s future depends on what you think it is. If you view Trumpism as a collection of racist, misogynist, ignorant and hateful ideas, then Trumpism will recede back onto the fringes of the American polity. But Trump’s view of China as a problem, not a partner? Already mainstream in foreign and economic policy circles in DC. President Biden will have nothing good to say about President Putin, but he’ll be hard-pressed to develop a more oppositional Russia policy. The Wall is over, but support for immigration is flagging, and both parties admit immigration reform is essential, or another wave of child refugees is likely. Protecting the working class from the ravages of globalization is now a rare area of bipartisan agreement. Oftentimes, Trump’s extreme words belied mainstream thoughts. If he were at all introspective, he might realize how easily he could have won re-election with a little moderation.
So we’re headed for a period of Divided Government, which has gotten a bad reputation of late. The “Not My President//the other side is Evil” stuff really got started after Bush v. Gore in 2000 and became steadily worse. By the end of the Obama presidency it deteriorated into the Merrick Garland Supreme Court debacle, a preview of most of the Trump presidency as nothing useful could pass both Houses of Congress and be signed by the President. Let me counter all that by stating that divided government is something America traditionally has a genius for, and we should welcome the chance to re-awaken the spirit. Our worst policies happen when one party controls both the executive and legislative branches, as they inevitably overreach. A willingness to compromise among the three branches has previously and can again result in laws and policies that are supported by the vast majority of Americans. Not accepted under force of law, not resented but accommodated, but supported as the best for all.
Finally, the closeness of the election should put to bed some of the more extreme and unwise ideas: dumping the electoral college, conjuring up new states, creating a national election, packing the Supreme Court. The system worked, people: leave it alone. In the end, the Electoral College will reflect the popular vote, and will exaggerate (a positive thing) the size of Mr Biden’s victory. Adding states fixes nothing, nor does adding legislators! Could you imagine the chaos if we were amidst a national recount right now? And the Supreme Court has nine legitimate justices, quite capable of doing the job assigned by the Constitution. There is no constitutional provision they have to be liberal, they just have to be confirmed.* The urge to change the system every time one is unhappy with a candidate, a party, or a policy is immature. As The Beatles put it, “You say you’d change the constitution, welll-llll, you know, we all want to change your head.”
“Don’t you know it’s gonna be . . . alright”
We’re not out of the woods yet. President Trump could still be truculent in the months left in his administration, and his supporters could begin a “lost cause” mythology. Supporters of President Biden must resist the overwhelming urge to use the power of government to persecute former officials of the Trump administration: that is the stuff of banana republics, not our United States. All told, I’m optimistic the country can regain some normalcy and make divided government work again.
* To those who continue to claim the denial of Merrick Garland somehow invalidates the nomination of Justices Gorsuch or Barrett or both, let me put this argument to bed. Yes, it was completely hypocritical of Majority Leader McConnell to claim he was upholding some standard in denying Mr. Garland a vote. But, there would have been no difference in the Supreme Court. McConnell should have simply held the hearing, held the vote, and failed to confirm Mr. Gorsuch. There was ample historical precedent for this, including most recently Mr. Bork's nomination. If he had chosen this path, we would have ended up with the same court as today, but without this silly argument about non-existent precedent.
I write this on the morn of election day, in the Year of Our Lord 2020 (and what a fraught phrase that is!).
These past few weeks, I have noticed increasingly tense private comments and media commentary from those NOB. People cast this election as Good versus Evil. They question any outcome other than the one they want as fixed or fraudulent. They ascribe the worst of intentions to the other side: Racism or Communism, Fascism or Lawlessness, Theocracy or Enforced Atheism. Major media sources have articles about ‘how to survive election day’ or ‘how to prevent an election-induced panic attack’ or ‘how to deal with them,’ the loathsome other.
I don’t see it. First off, hyperbole sells papers (or ratings), so to speak. And people naturally engage in it. But do you really believe it? Imagine this: thirty years from now, your great-great grandchildren ask you: “what did you do in the great battle of good versus evil, Gramps?” You take a deep breath and intone, “Well, I liked a bunch of FaceBook posts, I shared some disparaging pictures on Instagram, I did a mess of re-tweets, and I voted!” Harrumph. No, if you really believe this is a metaphysical contest of Good versus Evil, you would be cleaning your rifle and organizing for battle. But you’re not. Because it isn’t.
I continue to suggest this election is simply, well, another vote. That the trends which led to the Trump Presidency remain in effect, and that President Trump is more a symptom of those trends than the cause (although I admit he contributes, oh, does he contribute!). What are those trends?
The coarsening of our culture. It is now acceptable to use public vulgarity to refer to elected officials. People attack one another not as “wrong” but as racist or anti-American. Those with whom you disagree must be hounded out of restaurants, or off social media, or out of jobs.
The acceptability of violence. Have a traffic dispute? Shoot it out. Police default to escalation, again and again and again. Looting is either promoted or defended as the associated protests are mostly peaceful (a wonderful euphemism, that).
The reliance on emotion or feeling over facts. Masks work, people. The Y chromosome is real, folks. The climate is changing, y’all. Everybody was once an embryo (and vice versa). One can argue with how we put those facts into perspective for public policy, but now we simply choose to ignore the ones we don’t like.
And that’s just off the top of my head. So we’re doomed, right? Nope, not at all. History provides a clue, for those willing to study and learn from it.
The 1864 election looked to be a cliff hanger until Generals Grant and Sherman provided military victories and the resulting enthusiasm carried Abraham Lincoln in a landslide to a second term. You want a Good versus Evil election? Lincoln versus McClellan, who wanted an amicable peace permitting the continuation of slavery in the South. You think it’s violent now? How about an election during a civil war!
What’s the lesson for today? Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is a masterpiece of brevity and grace. In the face of hundreds of thousands dead, facing more violence to come, he spoke only of reconciliation:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln put his policies where his words led, clearly articulating that mercy–not retribution–would be the defining characteristic of the reunited Union. His stand was so powerful that when he was assassinated by the very enemies he welcomed as fellow citizens, his Cabinet continued his merciful policies amidst cries for general vengeance. If Lincoln could forgive the South, how can we claim to be more aggrieved?
So take a few deep breaths and enjoy Fall today. Have a glass of wine or bourbon and go to bed early tonight. Wake up tomorrow to a new day, whoever is President-elect. Make a commitment to be more merciful to those with whom you disagree. It’s a great start.
“For the measure with which you measure shall be measured out to you.”
They are funny things, those words. Anyone who travels to faraway places and has to live by gesturing instantly recognizes how critical they are. Sign language aside, words are critical to communication. It’s one thing to travel to Lithuania and see a sign you can’t quite understand; it’s something else to see a sign whose characters are not of your ken! Words are important. Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote “the pen is mightier than the sword” and we nod, because a man armed with the latter can kill only one at a time, but a man armed with the former can kill en masse.
At the same time, words are so commonplace we take them for granted. Writing well takes time and effort, while writing a lot is easy. The French polymath Blaise Paschal once ended a letter thus: “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” We downplay the effect of words: “Sticks & stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a great children’s rhyme and terrible psychology. “Deeds not words” clearly places the active life as more important. Any police detective (or teacher, or priest, or . . .) can tell you that when we want to dissemble, we become voluble. That is, our lies involve more words than our truths. “Let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no’; anything more is from the Evil One.”–Matthew 5:34.
Modern technology even fills in words for us–mostly wrong ones, to much hilarity. The Internet is a source of unending streams of words, including this blog. Twitter will test whether the natural process of evolution continues. It has reduced communication to cue-less, clueless tweets, where words are replaced by emojis, and emotions are more highly-prized than thoughts. It remains to be seen whether this particular advance in communication will be naturally selected to survive.
The power of words depends upon their meaning. After all, words are just collections of letters representing sounds. If we agree what a word means, we can use that understanding to accomplish much: to barter, to pray, to argue, to convince, to plead, to congratulate, to joke, to love. But only if we understand the words themselves, and they–the words–are not static. I think I first realized I was a conservative of sorts when I felt the keen desire to stand athwart the highway of progress and say “No further!” to ever-worse grammar and usage. The other day, I saw a reference to the enormity of a baseball stadium (“Why, was it Yankee stadium?” I mused). But awful used to mean “worthy of awe” and to fathom was to measure (the distance of one’s arms outstretched).
Some suggest that the hidden power of the English language is its ability to adapt: to change meaning as necessary, to borrow words and phrases from other languages, to make new words easily. I agree. Yet in the end all the flexibility and nuance and versatility must yield to one thing: meaning. And the meaning of words is a two-party action; are you inferring what I’m implying? I have never forgotten the Washington DC story about a guy who lost his District government job for using the word “niggardly” which a co-worker thought was a racial slur. The there’s this New York Times piece (a very interesting one about the Defund the Police effort in Minneapolis) that ends quoting an activist who uses they/their pronouns: as a result, it is impossible to understand what they meant or to whom they were referring!
It goes way beyond simple homonyms or even words with new, changed meanings. We give words meaning based on how we feel about who says them. Check out these quotes:
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
FDR, First Inaugural address
“We are at war, . . . I ask you to be responsible all together and not to give in to any panic”
Emmanuel Macron
“Don’t panic, but don’t think for a moment that he or she doesn’t really matter. No one is expendable. Everyone counts, it takes all our efforts.”
Angela Merkel
“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it.”
Donald Trump
“Don’t Fear the Reaper”
Blue Oyster Cult
Okay the last one was just an excuse for a video, but hey, oddly appropriate, no?
In the cold spacing of text on the page, the quotes are quite similar. But how we interpret those quotes comes through a lens of exactly who said just what and when. The words matter, but just so. When the meaning of words becomes a point of contention, democratic discussion becomes difficult. If we can’t communicate, we can’t argue, we can’t even discuss, and we can’t ever agree.
I noticed this recently in a social media discussion spurred on by the Amy Coney Barrett nomination for the Supreme Court. And it bears on the meaning of the word “handmaid.” Some of my friends knew the word primarily from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and they inferred a negative connotation of feminine submission. Which is accurate IF your point of view stems from Atwood’s dystopian novel. But the word has a historical association which is positive, connoting agency demonstrated by willingness to align one’s will with God’s Will (To be concise, Adams’s sin was to place his will over God’s, while Mary’s fiat reordered mankind’s relationship with God back to what He originally intended). I’m not asking you to believe any of that, but you must acknowledge this other interpretation was the primary understanding of the term handmaid from antiquity until, oh, say 1985. If you hear the word handmaid and recoil, while I hear it and mutter “thanks be to God,” we’ll have trouble discussing it further.
Words matter. They can inspire people to do amazing things, or strike fear into the innocent heart. But only if we know what they mean. “I do” is a memorable phrase only if it means something more than “I do, mostly.” I wonder: is our societal stress caused by misunderstanding (willful or unintentional), or is the lack of agreement over meaning the symptom of that stress?
There was a news item the other day you might have missed, in all the to’ing and fro’ing over the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. By the by, I found the trolling over the death of this great American to be in bad taste. People on both sides immediately began arguing over her Supreme Court seat like greedy relatives clutching at jewelry. How about a moment of silent reflection or a prayer, in place of politics, calls for violence or virtue signalling?
But this is not about that. It’s about the news you missed. Seems they discovered the first automobile ever created. Intact. And still functioning, if by functioning you mean capable of moving its passengers forward under its own power, which was/is not much. Which is pretty amazing for a two-hundred and thirty-one year old piece of equipment.
This is a really old car. Really.
Now most cars don’t last a decade, but back in the day, they built them to last. Its longevity stems from the fact the owning family kept up with the maintenance, periodically making small changes here and there, but mostly because the family still had the original owner’s manual–on parchment!
The car ran on burning logs, but was eventually upgraded to charcoal & steam. There was that time a nephew decided to pour ethanol into the water pipes in a misguided attempt to “supercharge” performance. That explosion precipitated a replacement, gas-powered engine for the car and a trip to reform school for the nephew.
The family likes to tell the story about the odd shaped device near the driver’s seat: it easily held a Big Gulp, so it must be a cup-holder, or so they thought. But upon consulting the manual, they realized it was originally a spitoon which had transformed into an ashtray before settling on its current usage.
Of course the car had to change with the times: pulling into a gas station and asking for fireplace logs is a drag. Replacing the solid tires with inflatable ones was very popular, but then there were those annoying flats. But the family kept returning to the manual to see what was what, and why things were the way they were. And to understand how all the various moving parts worked together to create a functioning . . . car.
When Uncle Rico got a little tipsy and tried to drive it into the lake, claiming it would float, the car did not behave like a boat, because it was a car. The manual helped explain how to dry it out, and if the family had wanted, they could have used the manual to figure out how to seal the undercarriage and make it float. But then it would be a floating car, not a boat.
What’s the point, you ask (if you haven’t been checking the links above)? Well, obviously, it pays to know something about a device, a vehicle, heck even a recipe before changing it. Not just what it says, but what did the people who originally designed it mean when they wrote the manual. If you’ve stayed with me this far, but still haven’t caught on, you just received a brief parable on the judicial concept of originalism.
Why? That goes back to my original lede, about the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When I heard she had lost her battle with cancer, the first thing (after a brief prayer) I thought of was how happy she would be to see her good friend Antonin Scalia again. When I first mentioned their friendship (upon Scalia’s death), I was scolded by some progressive friends saying “the notorious RBG” was only being polite if she did indeed say anything nice about Scalia. Au contraire, they were close friends whose families spent New Year’s Eve together.
Scalia was the chief proponent of originalism, and he was so successful that he changed the nature of the argument over constitutional law. Justice Elena Kagan, no conservative herself, famously said “we are all textualists now” (textualism being almost identical to originalism), not suggesting she agreed with Scalia but that because of the Scalia’s influence, all justices had to contend with this judicial philosophy in the future. And they do. Which is a good reason to understand the concept–even if you don’t agree–and even at the cost of reading my tongue-in-cheek car story. And no, there was no “oldest car” found.
Finally, if there was anybody Justice Ginsburg should have loathed, it was Antonin Scalia. He skewered her opinions and reasoning, and she returned the favor. I imagine their debates in the afterlife would be standing room only, except they must agree on everything now. Few of us can aspire to the greatness of these two figures, but in their personal friendship despite professional differences, we can see a model to emulate, and one sadly in great need today.
We’re told this year’s American election is “the most important in our lifetime” and the electorate is divided like never before. A literal plague stalks the land, ravaging the old, the ill, and the weak. Life’s little pleasures (whether a block party, a child’s birthday, a student’s graduation, or a football game) are cancelled. Unprecedented (ooooh, that word) fires burn out of control in the west, hurricanes hammer the Gulf, and derechos bear down upon the heartland. You aren’t safe at home, but going out means more risk, and no one wants you to visit, anyway. Jobs are uncertain, schools are uncertain, and no one know when certainty will be a thing again. *Sigh*
When you see someone on the corner with a sandwich board proclaiming “The End Is Near” it’s enough to make you say “welcome the the party, pal!”
There are glimmers of hope and moments of grace all around us, if we want to see them.
Organized religion found itself off the list of essential activities, and this most likely accelerated the trend toward fewer faithful in the future. Yet the pandemic presented numerous opportunities for the faithful to witness their vocations and tend to the sick or feed the hungry, even if they could not attend to worship. Churches may be more empty, but for those returning, there is a palpable relief at what was lost and now is found.
America’s endless racial discussion has returned with a vengeance, but at least the current round has focused attention on our police forces: the ridiculous tasks we give them, the cynicism of the courts, the corrosive effects of dealing with mindless violence every day, the inapplicability of military-style solutions. Perhaps when the race-baiting recedes, local leaders will spark the reforms desperately needed.
Everybody I knew in my working life agreed that we all spent too much time and effort at work and not enough at home. My oh my, how that chicken has come home to roost! It might make even a committed atheist wonder about the Lord’s “mysterious ways” when suddenly everybody is forced to “work” from home. And when all the distractions (sports, parties, shopping, etc.) are removed, what we have left are ourselves and our families. What matters most becomes pretty clear, no?
Those same parents are learning what a difficult job teachers have; perhaps they’ll also realize how much parental responsibilities have been shuffled off to schools. Teaching the difference between numerators and denominators is hard enough; make schools responsible for ethics and morals and you’ll get the least common denominator.
Random acts of kindness abound: kids raising money to feed the homeless, landlords telling renters not to worry, parents organizing drive-by birthday parties. There is a great story to be told about how everyday people took action to help each other in the face of a pandemic which stalled our globally-connected economy while politics paralyzed our governments.
Polls suggest political divisiveness will lead to a surge in voting: talk about a silver lining to a storm cloud! I would prefer a surge in voter education about the issues leading to a surge in voting, but let’s keep to the positive side of the equation.
Science and the medical arts have shined. Oh, not for those who forget why it’s called a medical “practice,” or for those who confuse science with scientism (the latter a term for those who believe–note that word–science can explain all things). In the end, the worst predictions will prove exaggerated, and the researchers, doctors and nurses on the front line will be exonerated and honored.
There seems to be a resurgence in interest in healthy lifestyles. Exercise equipment flies off the shelves and people seek ways to shed those few extra pounds that came with enforced inactivity. Perhaps the spectre of obesity as comorbidity can–like the ghost of Christmas future–spur us to change.
Speaking of change, pets are getting unforseen amounts of attention. More people are seeking them and spending time with time; what else is there to do? It is not all good news: my daughter’s dog had a bout of nervous hair-loss resulting from not being alone all day! And animal behaviorists (yes, there are such things) say pets will undergo more stress when schedules return to normal.
But who’s to say what’s normal? Why should we accept the sixty-hour work weeks, the hours-long daily commutes, the absences from home or games or family? As a God-fearing man, I’m always looking for signs of what God’s will for me is. All should consider the challenge: is this all there is? Like a bicycle racer churning up a steep hill, we pedal ever harder and faster, afraid of stalling and sliding back down. This pandemic, this election, these climate events, like all the other “important” things going on right now, are an invitation to just stop . . . and realize we aren’t on a steep hill. We’re on level ground, and it is only our endless list of wants and needs which makes it appear to be an ascent.
Politics will not make you happy. Change will not make you happy. Success will not make you happy. I had to learn long ago that I am not responsible for anyone else’s happiness: just my own. You can be happy. It’s a choice. Need proof? Happiness can be found among the poor, the deprived, even the suddenly afflicted by disease or catastrophe. You can tell those who have learned this lesson: they are the ones smiling.
I don’t recall ever hearing this threat from my parents (correct me if I’m wrong, Dad). But it was commonplace back when, what you’d call a meme today. And I think it’s a good self-admonition, due to the growth and increasing acceptance of polemic language. Polemic language degrades communication, demeans both the speaker and recipient, and generally poisons the atmosphere. You may infer that I don’t like it.
What, you say, is polemic language? Let’s consider a hypothetical example rather than a cold definition. Imagine you’re sitting in a bar and strike up a conversation with the person on the next stool. After a few (too many) drinks, you’re debating religion, and your drinking buddy says “God? Oh, I don’t believe in God.”
As a Christian, this is an opportunity to spread the Good News; there are so many ways the conversation could go! You might ask whether your friend EVER believed, or what do they believe now, or even were they familiar with the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche (an atheist who hasn’t read Nietzsche is like a Christian who hasn’t read the Bible). But imagine the same situation, only this time your drinking buddy says “religion is just the opiate of the masses.” This phrase, which doubtless rings some bells, is a bit of Marxist drivel, and is polemic language. It marks the speaker as someone not interested in discourse, only domination. You can argue religion with an atheist influenced by Nietzsche, but not a Marxist.
What does polemic language do? It replaces thought with slogans, and not only slogans, but slogans designed to enforce an orthodoxy of belief. George Orwell’s 1984 captured the nature of polemic language in slogans like “War is Peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.”
In today’s America, polemic language exists all along the political spectrum. On the right it is superficial and less well-developed, mostly revolving around invoking the terms “deep-state” and “swamp.” Even the latter term is borrowed, as it long predates the Trump administration, and was earlier invoked by Ronald Reagan to identify the cozy relationship between publicly antagonistic Washington politicians, who (along with their families and friends) seemed to thrive despite animosity or even the economic conditions of the country writ large. Progressives originated the term decades earlier as “drain the swamp of capitalism.” Since I previously remonstrated on the deep-state, let’s look at the other side.
Polemic language on the left is far more well-developed, primarily due to decades of work in academia. Theories of race, power, and sex developed into academic studies which generated an alternate language. And as any linguist will tell you, language in turn constrains thought. All this goes back to post-World War II academic debates over post-modernism: the notion that there are no moral certainties — or even truth–and that what we believe to be modern morals or systems are just the remnants of past power struggles. These debates matured into current theories of patriarchy, intersectionality, heteronormativity, anti-racism and the like. Click on the links if you’re unfamiliar, but be warned: like Alice, you may find yourself “through the looking glass.”
So what’s the problem with using such language? Don’t you (I) respect academic theory? Of course, I am a big fan of the theory of gravity, for example, because it has proven itself a useful way to look at how objects behave everywhere and always (except at the quantum level!). But these other theories are not proven, and in some cases are unprovable. Their polemic language blurs the discussion, and that is never good. Let’s take a recent example.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) opined on the statue of Father Damien in the Capitol building, tweeting this is “what patriarchy and white supremacist culture looks [sic] like.” The statue is one of two representing the state of Hawaii (the other is King Kamehameha). Now it is true Father Damien was a Belgian, a man, and a white one to boot. By the theories of patriarchy, colonization, and white supremacy, he is guilty as AOC charged.
Father Damien seems unconcerned about the controversy
Unfortunately for the theories, the Hawaiian people chose to put his statue there, because this white, Belgian, Catholic priest chose to come to minister to the Hawaiian lepers in their colony on Molokai. He lived among them, cared for them, caught their (then) incurable disease and died among them. To Hawaiians, he was more Hawaiian than Haole.
AOC later amended her complaint to say she objected to the fact that Hawaii has no female memorialized in Capitol statuary. Assuming this is what she originally meant, she is correct. But that is not what she said. She used polemic language that was inaccurate and unfortunate. Had she tweeted, rather, “why doesn’t Hawaii have Queen Lili’uokalani as one of its statues in DC?” she might have initiated an interesting debate.
Now, if I were a Hawaiian, I might thank the Representative for her interest in Hawaiian affairs, and point out her own great state of New York has two dead white males (Robert Livingston and George Clinton) as its statuary representatives, and suggest she should perhaps turn her attention to getting her own house in order, so to speak.
But I am not Hawaiian. And this is not about statues.
If you see famous people using polemic language, beware. Don’t use it. If you think there are not enough statues of women, say so. Or that police stop too many African-americans. Or that television doesn’t show enough same-sex relationships. Those are arguments to be made. Slipping into polemic language doesn’t help. It marks the speaker as uninterested in the truth. Or maybe just as uninteresting.
And it gives credence to academic theories of little weight.
I haven’t been writing much about the coronavirus or Covid19 lately, as there is not much new to say.
What about the upsurge in cases in the US? Predictable, and in fact predicted by all the relevant authorities. Remember that the lockdown was designed to flatten the curve, meaning everybody is eventually exposed, just not at the same time. It worked, but that didn’t mean there would not be a continuing series of local outbreaks as the virus continued its unrelenting spread.
No breakthrough on a treatment or vaccine? Plasma is the latest hope, but it is likely not a miracle treatment. And a vaccine will come in due time, if at all. Yes, a nation like Russia can rush to announce a vaccine, but that doesn’t make it so. The world record time for vaccine development (for mumps) was four years; we’ll break that if (big if) we find one for the coronavirus.
Immunity remains unproven but real. A recent report from Hong Kong apparently confirmed the first case of re-infection. So while we don’t understand the virus very well, the millions of infected and recovered and the highly infectious nature of the virus point to only one conclusion: there is sustained immunity.
Media continue to play the “which nation is doing better or worse” game. Partisan media only grab select stories and feed them like red meat to the gullible. The EU is currently trending worse, the US better, and their lines will probably soon cross. South Korea has another outbreak, as does New Zealand. Germany restarted schools and is stopping them as each new outbreak occurs. France is on the edge, again. It’s a pandemic people, without significant treatment or a vaccine. It will continue to spread, until everyone has had it or is vaccinated. Those are the only two outcomes.
The latest from the Financial Times
So really not much new here, despite all the breathless news coverage. After my recent visit to the States, I will go out on a limb and make one prediction. When the history of this event is written, historians will point out how uniquely suited this virus was to attack the United States. Now put down your tinfoil hats; I am making no conspiracy argument here, just an observation. Based on . . .
This virus leaves most healthy people unscathed, but ravages vulnerable populations. According to the best data, eighty percent of Americans who contract Covid19 will suffer no symptoms (forty percent) or flu-like (another forty percent) symptoms. The elderly and overweight and otherwise sickly are endangered; the healthy and young not so much. This strikes directly at America’s libertarian streak, meaning we were never going to keep people locked down or under quarantine or even wearing masks for very long. With predictable results.
America is a world leader in the comorbidities which lead to death from the coronavirus. Not to mention, our fragmented healthcare system meant those with the worst or no care–and no paid sick leave–were most likely to have to work, either to put food on the table, avoid being fired, or because they were essential to the rest.
As a nation, we are more likely to place our elderly or infirm in institutional settings (whether old-age homes, nursing homes, or continuing-care facilities). Yet the staff work at multiple locations for profit-seeking firms unwilling to spend on personal protective gear, meaning we built giant petri dishes of infection for the most vulnerable.
Our politics were already so poisoned that simple health matters became political red lines. Some people take pride in not wearing a mask, others try to excuse participation in large protests. Expert medical opinion is solicited or rejected based on how it comports with previous political positions. Early on, the virus hit blue states on both coasts, and you didn’t need to search hard to find people blaming it on their politics. When the virus moved to the red state heartland, it was just as easy to find the reverse. AND . . .
Our constitutional republic meant persuading states to behave in a coordinated fashion, which wasn’t going to happen as long as political leaders treated this as another red/blue state issue. Democratic nominee Joe Biden just said if he is President and the virus breaks out again, he will “shut the country down.” Amazingly, the press didn’t ask how he would do that or with what authority. Were that it was so easy. BUT . . .
President Trump bears special responsibility for the debacle that is national messaging during this crisis. One role for the President in such events is to be reassuring, calm, consistent, and authoritative. He was 0 for 4 in that regard.
Despite good messaging, a quick response, and bipartisan support, the US experienced the greatest number of deaths (worldwide) during the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic. We didn’t do very well during the 1918 Spanish flu, either. Maybe some things never change. We appear to be somewhat more vulnerable-as a society and polity–than other nations. And the coronavirus hit the sweet spot.
