Left Jabs

Who knew the Constitution was so fragile? Who knew it could be so easily eviscerated in just three years? Who knew all it would take was a single media-savvy sociopath happy to run roughshod over any law, norm, institution, or value? Of course, no single sociopath could pull this off alone. He needed a rogue political party willingly enabling him, gorging on his corruption, happy to trade the country’s future for their donors’ present. Could the Founders have anticipated this? That a Trump could take over the entire party in a sort of slow-motion putsch ? That he could have them jumping through hoops of gaslight and fraud, blackmailing them into doing his bidding? All for fear of triggering a tweet attack? I’m generally an admirer of the Founders, but it’s hard to deny that they got a few things wrong, things that have gone largely unexposed until now. I’m not referring to the electoral college, which continues to be a bad idea gone wrong. Nor am I referring to the composition of the S...

Richard Nixon was the first in a long line of Republican presidents I have loathed. Partly because I was young and in college at a fraught time in our history, and partly because the man himself was an ass, I and everyone I knew hated him with rare gusto. It was an eastern-megalopolis, out-of-touch-with-Main-Street sort of hatred, but heartfelt nonetheless. History remembers “Tricky Dick” mostly for the Watergate scandal that brought him down. But his long and cynical prolonging of the Vietnam War — as well as his catastrophic expansion of that war into Cambodia — was the first of many messes made by Republicans that Democrats subsequently had to clean up. History has also shined a more benign light on some of his accomplishments, which were admittedly significant. He signed off on the creation of the EPA and OSHA. He propped up social security, expanded the food stamp program, extended health insurance for low-income families, and other stuff that today would put him somewhere to the ...

A new class divide is making itself known. Labor vs. Management. Yes, we’ve seen this movie before. An old fight, to be sure, and one we thought management had won hands down. Which is a shame. Because the long, sad neutering of the labor movement has had a warping effect on our economy, our politics, and our entire way of life. We used to have respect for unions, for collective bargaining, for the rights of workers to resist exploitation. It was part of being a citizen. We didn’t even think about it. But that was before Reagan fired the entire flight controllers’ union, and it was downhill from there. Since then, the Republican assault on unions, and on collective bargaining itself, has been relentless. Most of us no longer make the connection between strong unions and a strong country. We forget how bitterly people fought for collective bargaining. How people died, in vicious strikes, for the things they bargained for: forty-hour week, paid vacation, overtime pay, health insurance. T...

They aren’t even pretending any more. Trump and his whole kleptocracy clearly intend to grift their way through this whole pandemic, damage be damned. If he somehow wins re-election, the American Experiment will not be continued. We will face dark times, both as a nation and a species. The planet simply cannot sustain four more years of Trump. So I need instead to engage in wishful thinking. I need to look past him. I need to imagine, as I’ve done before, a Trump thrashing this November. And by thrashing I mean Democrats don’t just beat him, they overwhelm the Senate as they did the House in 2018. As I said, wishful thinking. I will ignore the two months between election and inauguration, which could be the most dangerous two months in the history of the republic. If Trump loses, he knows he’ll be indicted on more counts than we can count. So he’ll spend that “transition” time trying anything and everything to save his own neck. As there is no bottom to his villainy, the question will ...

Berkley MI Tuesday   Once again, it is Doug from Ontario who has set me off. He is concerned about how we can bring Trump voters back into the fold after an election in which (in our dreams) Trump gets trounced and Congress replaced. How do we help these misguided souls climb down from their grievous mistake without losing too much face? I’ll start by telling Doug that much of Trump’s core base is unreachable. Their reptilian instincts have been given free rein, and they are simply too racist, sexist, xenophobic, and brainwashed to be responsible citizens. Deplorable indeed, we should just let them stew. There aren’t that many of them. They are mostly old white guys with bad habits. They are subject to actuarial issues that could soon render them demographically moot. And their attitude towards the virus is, shall we say, unhealthy. But Doug is right. Beyond this core base of true believers are a much larger group of Trump voters, and we mustn’t write them off. Most are, or can be,...

Berkley MI Tuesday   I am the last one who should be explaining economics to anyone, and my apologies to readers who know this stuff better than I. Which is not a high bar. But as one of those rare Americans who actually received a basic, barely adequate education in the subject, I feel obliged to bring up two common misconceptions that simply will not go away. Or rather, they will not be allowed to go away, since they have historically dovetailed quite nicely with the long-term aims of the Republican party. Who never met a misconception they didn’t like. The first is that a balanced budget is always a good thing. It’s not, though we’re brought up to think otherwise. It’s intuitive to us that we all need to balance our personal budgets, and that towns, counties, and states need to balance theirs as well. And Republicans are thrilled to have you think that way. Because they never tell you that the federal government doesn’t need a balanced budget, and that it should not be forced in...

Berkley MI Friday Hypocrisy is a funny thing. We are all hypocrites in our own way, and part of being a grownup is coming to terms with how we fail to measure up to our own best image of ourselves. Few of us are as good as we’d like to be (some are, but they tend to be insufferable), and understanding our own inner hypocrite can be a healthy thing. But out in the public forum, where its repercussions can be brutal, where professing one thing and doing another can hurt people, often intentionally, hypocrisy is not healthy at all. And if hypocrisy can be measured by the direness of its consequences, then today’s Republican party has ushered in its golden age. None of the traditional pillars of Republican orthodoxy have survived the Trump era. Small government, free trade, strong alliances, containment of Russia, low deficits, balanced budgets, the list goes on. All have fallen with a thud, accompanied by jaw-dropping hypocrisy. Yes, their worship of tax cuts and deregulation r...

Berkley MI Tuesday Let’s be clear. America will reopen when the virus says so. Not before. And there’s not a single thing Trump or Bill Barr or those murderous red-state governors can do about it. The virus will be the dictator Trump wishes he could be. The virus will dictate when we can come out of our houses. When we can go back to work. When we can go to school, get a haircut, watch football. The virus will set the schedule and determine the rules. Punishment for non-compliance will be swift and painful. Not necessarily capital punishment, though there will be plenty of that. And not necessarily our punishment, either — others could suffer for our dissent. The virus is a natural Stalinist. So here's the big question we, as a failing nation, now face:  Do we want to do this the hard way or the harder way? The hard way is what most of us are doing right now. Sucking it up and staying home. Riding it out as best we can. Understanding that what we do affects those a...

Berkley MI Friday The phrase “tax-and-spend liberal” has always been a pejorative. It’s meant to be said with a sneer. With an implied middle finger. Ever since Bush 41, it’s been spit at anyone who thinks government might have an actual purpose beyond cutting taxes, eliminating regulation, and eviscerating the social safety net — the time-honored Republican agenda. But I have personally adopted “tax-and-spend liberal” as a badge of honor. I actually believe in the potential of big government, as well as in paying my fair share towards its upkeep. I am not oblivious to its shortcomings and disappointments — if anything I expect them. But I get incensed when I see people in government who clearly don’t believe in government. Especially when they ruin it for the rest of us. And damn, this is the moment where government should have shined. This pandemic is exactly what government is made for. This is why we pay our taxes. This is why we elect public servants in, presumably, goo...