It has been almost six weeks since I posted anything, one of the longest stretches in 11 years without a post. There is much going on of which many of you are aware. I'm in the endest of end-stage renal failure, now with multiple symptoms. Repeat transplant is scheduled on the 21st, just 11 days from now. The rioting and recent social upheaval has caused me substantial intellectual upset as well as worse emotional pain and familial disruption. I'm so upset over these things that I can't write about them, but they all have come together in watching The West Wing.
I continue to call myself a non-watcher of television, but that claim is weakening. My wife watched an episode and recommended it to me, and we both love it. Whoever wrote the show writes beautiful and emotionally compelling prose. Martin Sheen plays a president whose manner and program I would vote for instantly. As Josiah Bartlett, Sheen portrays exactly what I want from a leader. He is intellectual (an economics professor), articulate, funny, compassionate, and also vindictive, decisive, and aggressive.
As I watched him make informed, rational decisions that are presented cogently, I became acutely aware of the profound lack of leadership in the United States. Our president is none of these things. He is ill-informed, rude, communicates poorly, appears arbitrary, and seems to have little grasp of political process. His failure to articulate any kind of cogent plan in the face of covid19 has not directly killed anyone (a specious claim) but it has led to confusion and local conflicts. His failure to coordinate a coherent message with the CDC and his spokesmen have contributed to this. We are left with a spectrum of local responses that ranges from cowering indoors to running around maskless coughing on people.
There is a similar lack of articulated policy on the recent riots. In the absence of a guiding voice there is a cacophony from Left and Right that ranges from defund all police to increased police militarism in the face of rioting. Bluster and threats of federal action have replaced forceful but measured verbal responses. Trump of course is not responsible for the rioting. He didn't cause it, and he has deplored it, as he has also deplored the senseless death of a man in custody. He has, however, done this via tweets rather than a serious speech and a coordinated policy response.
I utterly despise our media. They are manipulative, ask nothing but gotcha questions, tell half-truths, innuendo, and overt lies, and pander shamelessly to the Left. Instead of facing these animals directly, and rationally addressing them, Trump seems to have taken all this personally, responding with what amounts to a presidential temper tantrum. "You're mean so I won't play with you" is not the response of a leader. Arthur Balfour, when Minister for Ireland, endured daily screaming invective from Irish MPs for two years and never snapped back. Letting his policies and actions speak, as they should. Trump should do half as well.
Trump, however, is running for re-election, a man I dismissed in 2016 as a vanity candidate. He should have lost in 2016, except the Democrats ran a sleazy, evasive, foul-mouthed, narcissistic criminal. This time they're doing it differently but not better. Joe Biden is not a criminal. He is instead in obvious intellectual decline, often embarrassingly confused, literally lost for words, abruptly belligerent when challenged, and inappropriate, with a legislative resume as thin as a file folder despite a lifetime in government. Last time it was thug vs. criminal, and the thug won. This time it's thug vs senile career political hack.
Why can't we do better than this? Where is Josiah Bartlett? Where is a man of principle, force, and compassion? Where is a president who will pull majority and minority leaders in the Senate into his office, and tell them to compromise in the service of the American People? Who will put principle and people ahead of party, who will consider the poor as well as the rich without pandering to either? I long for a leader who will rise above the disgusting tactics of our press and political parties to say something of substance. Obama was a master of the eloquent delivery of meaningless platitudes. Trump has at least fought against the lying, parasitic pack of media wolves, but in language and manner that has only further degraded our political system.
This is a program I could vote for happily-
-15.00 minimum wage
-trade protections to end competition against foreign slave labor
-border enforcement
-amnesty for illegals here and gainfully employed, with a path to citizenship
-sanctions against China
-universal basic healthcare (see prior blogs on ready affordability) including abortion, anding the abortion debate at last
-low corporate tax rates
-better gun regulation enforcement
-reduced and simplified environmental regulation to facilitate US independence in energy and industry
-infrastructural reconstruction and maintenance for roads and airports
70-80% of Americans support positions like this. Where is the candidate who will do what Americans want done? It sounds to me like a Unionist ticket, or maybe just a compromise where no one gets everything but everyone gets something, and America gets things it sorely, sorely needs. Whatever it is, and whoever would enact it, I don't care whether they're a Republican or a Democrat. I just know the insane lack of direction has to end, and once again we are being presented with a horrible choice of presidents. I don't know who's going to win, I only know that whoever it is I wish it were someone else.
Ted
I continue to call myself a non-watcher of television, but that claim is weakening. My wife watched an episode and recommended it to me, and we both love it. Whoever wrote the show writes beautiful and emotionally compelling prose. Martin Sheen plays a president whose manner and program I would vote for instantly. As Josiah Bartlett, Sheen portrays exactly what I want from a leader. He is intellectual (an economics professor), articulate, funny, compassionate, and also vindictive, decisive, and aggressive.
As I watched him make informed, rational decisions that are presented cogently, I became acutely aware of the profound lack of leadership in the United States. Our president is none of these things. He is ill-informed, rude, communicates poorly, appears arbitrary, and seems to have little grasp of political process. His failure to articulate any kind of cogent plan in the face of covid19 has not directly killed anyone (a specious claim) but it has led to confusion and local conflicts. His failure to coordinate a coherent message with the CDC and his spokesmen have contributed to this. We are left with a spectrum of local responses that ranges from cowering indoors to running around maskless coughing on people.
There is a similar lack of articulated policy on the recent riots. In the absence of a guiding voice there is a cacophony from Left and Right that ranges from defund all police to increased police militarism in the face of rioting. Bluster and threats of federal action have replaced forceful but measured verbal responses. Trump of course is not responsible for the rioting. He didn't cause it, and he has deplored it, as he has also deplored the senseless death of a man in custody. He has, however, done this via tweets rather than a serious speech and a coordinated policy response.
I utterly despise our media. They are manipulative, ask nothing but gotcha questions, tell half-truths, innuendo, and overt lies, and pander shamelessly to the Left. Instead of facing these animals directly, and rationally addressing them, Trump seems to have taken all this personally, responding with what amounts to a presidential temper tantrum. "You're mean so I won't play with you" is not the response of a leader. Arthur Balfour, when Minister for Ireland, endured daily screaming invective from Irish MPs for two years and never snapped back. Letting his policies and actions speak, as they should. Trump should do half as well.
Trump, however, is running for re-election, a man I dismissed in 2016 as a vanity candidate. He should have lost in 2016, except the Democrats ran a sleazy, evasive, foul-mouthed, narcissistic criminal. This time they're doing it differently but not better. Joe Biden is not a criminal. He is instead in obvious intellectual decline, often embarrassingly confused, literally lost for words, abruptly belligerent when challenged, and inappropriate, with a legislative resume as thin as a file folder despite a lifetime in government. Last time it was thug vs. criminal, and the thug won. This time it's thug vs senile career political hack.
Why can't we do better than this? Where is Josiah Bartlett? Where is a man of principle, force, and compassion? Where is a president who will pull majority and minority leaders in the Senate into his office, and tell them to compromise in the service of the American People? Who will put principle and people ahead of party, who will consider the poor as well as the rich without pandering to either? I long for a leader who will rise above the disgusting tactics of our press and political parties to say something of substance. Obama was a master of the eloquent delivery of meaningless platitudes. Trump has at least fought against the lying, parasitic pack of media wolves, but in language and manner that has only further degraded our political system.
This is a program I could vote for happily-
-15.00 minimum wage
-trade protections to end competition against foreign slave labor
-border enforcement
-amnesty for illegals here and gainfully employed, with a path to citizenship
-sanctions against China
-universal basic healthcare (see prior blogs on ready affordability) including abortion, anding the abortion debate at last
-low corporate tax rates
-better gun regulation enforcement
-reduced and simplified environmental regulation to facilitate US independence in energy and industry
-infrastructural reconstruction and maintenance for roads and airports
70-80% of Americans support positions like this. Where is the candidate who will do what Americans want done? It sounds to me like a Unionist ticket, or maybe just a compromise where no one gets everything but everyone gets something, and America gets things it sorely, sorely needs. Whatever it is, and whoever would enact it, I don't care whether they're a Republican or a Democrat. I just know the insane lack of direction has to end, and once again we are being presented with a horrible choice of presidents. I don't know who's going to win, I only know that whoever it is I wish it were someone else.
Ted
I enjoyed this read, pops. It always interests me how similar our political views are on some of these core issues, because it often feels like we don’t see eye-to-eye. I feel so paralyzed about what to do in the upcoming election, which is exactly how I felt in 2016. What a nightmare dumpster fire we’re stuck in.
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking yesterday that Jimmy Carter was such a president. And no one wanted it once they had it. A decent man wasn't good enough.
ReplyDeleteI suppose another way to end this is to say, "I don't know who is going to win, I only know who is going to lose: the American republic."
ReplyDeleteIn addition to health care coverage, I would also like to see educational reform, from Kindergarten through university (easy to mention, so complex in trying to mend).
Welfare reform is also a big item that needs to be addressed by future congress/executive branches.
The items of lower corporate taxes, sanctions against China, and increase in minimum wage (currently $7.25 in Virginia) would have to be heavily discussed to see if the positive ramifications would outweigh the negative.
But, of course, someone with a clear and definite agenda at least gives topics for debate, and that, too, is something we need in a chief executive.
Like you (and perhaps most voting Americans?) I didn't like the main U.S. presidential choices in 2016 and I don't like them in 2020. That only leaves independents and write-in candidates (which worked for Lisa Murkowski in 2010 and Strom Thurmond in 1954 to get them into the Senate).
-D-
Why don't