New Realities, Real and Imagined

 Comical headline of the week, from Reuters:  “Muslims who voted for Trump upset”

It is a no-brainer that Donald Trump has been pro-Israel, going so far as to suggest Bibi Netanyahu should finish the job quickly in Gaza. Were Palestinian and Arab Americans not listening? 

Sure, they were upset with the Democratic administration for its arming and enabling Israel to basically carpet bomb Gaza. But did they really think Trump would restrain Israel?

Apparently Trump’s picks of Israel-lovers/Palestinian-rights-deniers Marco Rubio to be secretary of state and Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel was too much. 

So, after probably denying Kamala Harris votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states with Arab populations and voters who were upset with Democrats, reality is setting in. Sadly, the rest of the country has to suffer through their naivety.

Disillusionment will not be confined to the anti-Israel crowd. 

When their illegal migrant relatives are rounded up and deported regardless of how many years they have been in America, regardless of their legal American spouse or children, will Hispanics lament their vote for Trump?

When funding for preschool programs and school lunches dries up, will lower income voters accept their disappointment? 

When their health care and pharmaceutical coverage are weakened, will under- and uninsured Americans long for the days of Obamacare? 

When natural disasters become more frequent and more extreme, will the Trump federal government be sufficiently responsive? 

I avoided reading most analyses of the election, though this one from The Forward provided a common sense explanation of what happened November 5 as part of a chain of electoral cataclysms to left-leaning, even centrist, democratic governments the world over. Here’s a link: https://forward.com/opinion/676075/against-interpretation-trump-election-victory/

Politics is a ruthless business. Triumphant politicians are not inclined to give a life line to their defeated counterparts. Rather, if it is in their power, they will exert more pressure on the heel pushing their opponent’s neck into the mud. To the victor goes the spoils. 

I offer no suggestions for surviving Trump 2.0. But, as we confront the prospect of four more years of Trumpism, and at least two of a Republican controlled House and Senate, here are some predictions and thoughts that could make the future even more unsettling:

• If Trump purges civil servants in government departments, how trustworthy will any “official” statements, such as the unemployment rate or GDP rate, be? Trump will be fulfilling George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth paradigm; 
• Joe Biden is a traditionalist, an institutionalist. Trump is anti-establishment. An agent provocateur. A disruptor. Biden would never consider appointing anyone without their having prior experience in the field. Trump favors loyalty over competency. Biden plays by the norms. That’s why I doubt he will act as I and others have proposed to issue pre-emptive pardons to those public and private citizens who have “wronged” Trump. Meanwhile, Trump will pardon most if not all of those guilty of January 6 crimes; 
• Thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump will enjoy immunity from any actions he individually carries out. But immunity, it seems to me, does not extend to his appointees, even if acting on direct orders from a president. Crassly put, if Trump shoots someone, say a suspected illegal migrant, he could claim executive privilege; if he orders an underling to shoot someone, the shooter would be required to show justifiable cause or be charged and tried. In other words, Trump’s sycophants better be certain the actions Trump wants them to carry out are legal; 
• The GOP-controlled Senate will do what Democrats were too pussyfooted to enact, namely, killing the filibuster rule that requires at least 60 votes to pass most legislation. For Republicans, a simple majority vote would suffice; 
• With the aid of the Republican Senate, Trump will expand the number of Supreme Court justices to 15, thus ensuring decades-long conservative majorities on the court;  
• Assuming Trump does not impose himself for perpetuity on America in 2028, do not expect his legacy will be carried forward by JD Vance, his vice president. Rather, as dynasties are familial, not transferable, Trump will advance Donald Trump Jr. as his rightful successor; 
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will use the power of the purse to force communities across America to stop putting fluoride in municipal drinking water or risk losing federal funding for water-related projects; 
• RFK Jr. and the secretary of Education will use the same monetary threat to pressure school systems to remove mandatory vaccinations; 
• Federal funding will be denied any school system that permits participation in girls sports by any transgender student;
• To appease the religious right, Trump will reverse legal distribution of reproductive medications that can terminate pregnancies.

Pardons Before Trump's Vile Retribution

In the waning days of any presidency there is a scurry of activities to complete an agenda, most prominently the issuance of pardons. With Donald Trump vowing to exact revenge on his enemies—real and imagined—President Biden has an opportunity to thwart his successor’s evil intent. 

Joe Biden should issue blanket pre-emptive pardons to all those suspected to be in Trump’s and attorney general designate Matt Gaetz’s crosshairs. 

Biden should definitively state there is no reason to believe any of those pardoned did anything illegal, but the need to shield them from an unwarranted and costly assault on their integrity requires him to act presumptively and pre-emptively. 

These pardons should include special counsel Jack Smith and his entire legal team;

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her legal team; 

Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss; 

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; 

New York Attorney General Letitia James;

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg;

New York Judge Juan Merchan;

Attorney General Merrick Garland; 

Retired generals, admirals and cabinet members who criticized Trump, including  John Kelly, Mark A. Milley, James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, Stanley McChrystal, Mark Esper, Mike Mullen, James Stavridis;

Former diplomats, law enforcement and intelligence officials including John Bolton, John Brennan, James Robert Clapper Jr., James Comey, Susan Rice; 

Witnesses against Trump including Cassidy Jacqueline Hutchinson, Alexander Vindman; 

Former Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger;

Former Vice President Dick Cheney;

Senator-elect Adam Schiff; 

Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin; Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton;

Dr. Anthony Fauci;

Former President Barack and Michelle Obama;

Hunter Biden;

James and Francis Biden;

And finally, Himself. 

By selecting Gaetz to be attorney general Trump has confirmed his disdain for the rule of law. By presaging his intention to pardon those convicted of impeding democracy and attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump has dismissed judicial norms and respect for our legal system. 

Will Biden seize the moment? Three times during his half century of service to the country he has failed to. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee he did not exert his power to deny Clarence Thomas a seat on the Supreme Court. As president he did not exert his influence on Attorney General Garland to speedily investigate and prosecute Trump for his actions after the 2020 election. And, he did not fulfill his commitment to be a transitional one-term president, hampering the Democratic Party’s chances in the 2024 election. 

He now has a fourth opportunity to rise to the moment. 

The only way to avoid Russian-style show trials is for Biden to chop off Trump’s vile retribution action before it can poison our nation. 

Memories of Lundy's of Sheepshead Bay

Anyone who ate there during its heyday in the mid-1900s as a landmark seafood emporium along Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay would tell you dining at Lundy’s was a unique and mostly tasty experience. Inside the massive, hulking, Spanish Colonial Revival structure with a red-tile roof and plenty of decorative ironwork throughout its multi-tiered dining hall, patrons would consume buckets of clam chowder, mounds of steamers, bushels of corn on the cob, tons of half lobsters and chicken halves, and plenty upon plenty small buttered biscuits.  

My mouth waters at the memory, for, while the outside of the building has remained intact as a historical landmark, Lundy’s as a restaurant has been closed for 17 years, but really, as the source of my culinary recall, for more than three decades. 

I’m waxing nostalgic because of news that the restaurant will be resurrected, not at its iconic location at the end of Ocean Avenue where it meets Emmons Avenue, but rather in a nondescript corner of Red Hook, a former working class coastal section of Brooklyn that has undergone gentrification over the last decade or more (https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/exclusive-lundys-an-iconic-seafood-restaurant-returns-to-brooklyn-after-17-years).

I grew up on Avenue W between East 18th and 19th streets, directly five city blocks north of Lundy’s. My family did not eat there. My father did not eat shellfish. I didn’t taste lobster until I was 16, in a restaurant in Lake George on a day off from summer camp. Ever since Lobster has been a staple of my out-of-home cuisine. 

My first hand experience inside Lundy’s was slight but memorable. I ate there less than a handful of times. The food was plentiful, affordable ($8 for a shore dinner, equal to a little more than $62 today), but not overly delectable. 

The most memorable aspect of eating at Lundy’s was the simple action of actually being able to to eat there.

Going to Lundy’s was an occasion, an occasion to be shared with a multitude of people. It was said Lundy’s served an average of 2,000 guests a day, up to 10,000 on Sundays and 15,000 one holidays. 

With so many patrons seeking tables, eating at Lundy’s became an exercise in strategic planning as complicated as any military maneuver. Like Horn & Hardart’s automat of days of yore, no reservations were accepted, there were no hostesses, securing a table was the responsibility of each party. 

Patrons had to carefully analyze which diners were nearing completion of their meals, which were dawdling over coffee or a cigarette, oblivious to the presence of their successors hovering over them, as close as they could get without being too offensive. Khaki-jacketed waiters—all Black men—slid silently among the famished and the stuffed as the cacophony of heavy plates and loud, Jewish, Italian and Irish voices filled the air.

I find it hard to believe a transplanted Lundy’s will find its sea-legs in Red Hook. The ambience won’t be the same. The value? Doubtful. The experience? Don’t expect the same. But then, there are few still living who experienced Lundy’s at its peak. Perhaps the new Lundy’s may succeed. But it can hardly expect to be the same or as memorable as Lundy’s of Sheepshead Bay. 

Finding Some Silver Linings in a Catastrophe

There’s a TV character whose name escapes me for now whose perennial opening line, spoken in Brooklynese, is, “How’re ya doin’?”

“Not great,” would be my reply these days, five days after the catastrophe. 

I studiously avoided reading post-mortems about the election until, just after midnight Friday when I couldn’t sleep, I opened an essay from Heather Cox Richardson, author of the blog “Letters from an American.”

Citing examples from reports (I had chosen not to read), Richardson pointed out that many, many voters were clueless to the truth behind Donald Trump’s positions and those of Kamala Harris. 

“In Salon today,” she wrote, “Amanda Marcotte noted that in states all across the country where voters backed Trump, they also voted for abortion rights, higher minimum wage, paid sick and family leave, and even to ban employers from forcing their employees to sit through right-wing or anti-union meetings. She points out that 12% of voters in Missouri voted both for abortion rights and for Trump.

“Marcotte recalled that Catherine Rampell and Youyou Zhou of the Washington Post showed before the election that voters overwhelmingly preferred Harris’s policies to Trump’s if they didn’t know which candidate proposed them.  An Ipsos/Reuters poll from October showed that voters who were misinformed about immigration, crime, and the economy tended to vote Republican, while those who knew the facts preferred Democrats.” 

Another example of the truism, “Never overestimate the intelligence of the average American.” 

What turned these “useful idiots” into Republican voters was an overwhelming misinformation campaign by social media miscreants and a right-wing media complex led by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. The campaign successfully painted Harris as the extremist.

While Democrats are licking their wounds, many self-inflicted because of far-out progressive positions that Harris could not distance herself from, the aggressive across the board self-flagellation may be unwarranted. Yes, Trump swept all seven battleground states, but consider these grassroots results in key states:

• Pennsylvania Democrats captured enough seats to retain control of the state House; 
• North Carolina elected Democrat Josh Stein as governor. Democrats won enough seats in the State House to break a Republican supermajority, thus restoring to the governor the power of the veto;
• Republican supermajority was broken in Wisconsin’s Senate, while Democrats added seats in the GOP controlled Assembly;
• In a Minnesota special election, Democrats defended their supermajority in the Senate; 
• Abortion rights ballot measures won in seven out of 10 states. 

Trump’s national victory in the Electoral College was not all it has been cracked up to be in the popular vote. For sure, he beat Harris, but his 74,708,910 total was less than half a million more than his 2020 total of 74,223,975. 

Harris received 70,980,381 votes compared to Joe Biden’s 81,283,501.

Trump won because some 10 million voters chose to express their disappointment with the Democratic candidate by not voting. 

What is not explained is that if Trump improved among Black men, Hispanics and women, how is it his vote total did not dramatically go up? Could it be that even some, probably many, Republicans had enough of him and, like their Democratic counterparts, they too just sat home, too disillusioned to trudge down to the polling place or to the mailbox to cast their ballots?

Don’t expect me, or anyone, to provide concrete answers. They will be no more accurate than the polls predicting a close election were.

Trumpism will be with us for the next four years, though the 2026 Senate and House races will provide a report card on how successful his programs will be perceived. Recall that in 2018 Democrats were able to recapture a majority in the House.

So, in two years the electorate will decide if the market basket of goods, especially for eggs and gasoline, is lower than in 2024; if the deficit has been reduced, if gross domestic product (GDP) has gone up; what direction unemployment has taken; if interest rates have declined; if the tariffs he has espoused have been effective or have taxed consumers; if the border is more secure; if Trump has deported illegal migrants without incident; if he has supported a national abortion ban; if he has solved the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israeli-Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran war, and no new war has broken out that affects American interests; if he has emasculated NATO; if he has replaced Obamacare without jeopardizing coverage of pre-existing conditions; and, if he exacted revenge on his enemies?  

Learning to Live with a New Reality

We did it once before. We hope we can do it again. 

After all, my retirement portfolio increased the first time. Sure, under Joe Biden’s watch the increase was greater, but that first gain ain’t nothing to sneeze at. 

So I say to myself: Learn to live with the reality. I must repeatedly tell myself—Think of Number One. Don’t dwell on the fallout to democracy, international relations, the environment, the rule of law, immigration, access to reproductive rights and all aspects of health care, equal rights, the separation of church and state. 

You’re 75. As long as the stock market doesn’t crash and missiles don’t rain down on America, how bad can it be? 

Stop thinking globally, or nationally. Think just of yourself. That’s what a majority of Americans just did. They chose to reward personal fulfillment with little or no thought to the consequences they could unleash on America and the world. 

But, I’m not sure I can stop thinking of others. My upbringing—from my parents, my education, my profession, my spouse, my friends, my religion, my spiritual leaders—instilled in me an ethos that transcends “Me.” 

Can I survive the next four years and the potential transformation of a country for decades to come? Physically? For sure. I’ll play more pickleball. Watch more Netflix. Play more poker. Travel more. And when I cannot sleep through the night, play more solitaire. 

Emotionally? I grieve for the future my children and grandchildren will have to persevere through. I have lived in an America Franklin Delano Roosevelt fashioned 80 years ago, an America that strived to shield its citizens from economic and ideological assaults. 

The safety net FDR spun for America and the world is in jeopardy. 

I am 75. I do not speak Yiddish. I know a smattering of Yiddish words. One sums up my, and possibly your, feelings at this moment:

Oy!!! 

Non Deletion from My Nonexistent Bucket List

 I was all set to report on my crossing off an item on my nonexistent bucket list when I was surprised. Instead of prescribing my first overnight stay in a hospital after he removed four bladder stones and shrunk my enlarged prostate through green light laser surgery midday Wednesday, my urologist sent me home with a catheter attached to my left leg. 

When she reads this Gilda will admonish me for TMI (too much information). But I am nothing if not open (Gilda says too open) about all my medical conditions. And let’s be honest, as a journalist I rarely would let social sensibilities get in the way of a good  story (good in my mind, that is. I wouldn’t write about anyone else’s medical issues, but this one is mine and it’s near 4 am and I’ve been lying in bed for more than three hours without falling asleep, probably not as long as New York Yankees players will pass the night in wide awake sorrow over the Los Angeles Dodgers’ ability to capitalize on fifth inning Little League mistakes by Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe and Gerrit Cole that turned a 5-0 lead into a tie game, eventually a World Series championship won by LA).

Getting back to my no revised non-bucket list posting. 

Numerous times during our near 52 years of marriage my business travels domestically and internationally left Gilda alone at night. I cannot tell you how she slept those nights but my slumber during those trips was anything but tranquil. It would take hours before sleep overcame me. Sleep that lasted just for a few hours. Often I would turn on the hotel room TV, hoping to find a movie I could watch. I think one of those times I saw “Mannequin,” a 1987 movie (not worth your time but here’s an IMDB link— https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093493/). 

Just as often I would wake up around 3 am because hotels apparently try to save money by cutting off their HVAC when they believe most people would sleep through the discomfort. I rarely did. 

It’s 6:22 am Thursday. Slept for a little more than two hours. Good thing I was awakened. The catheter bag was near full. In a few minutes I’ll try to return to sleep. 

Some of you may have scratched your head wondering why I have been so open with my “condition.” Think of it as the equivalent of retail therapy, shopping as a means of bolstering one’s feelings during hard times. I’ve done that. Some people drink. Or do drugs. I don’t do either. 

For me, writing has been my primary escape mechanism, whether it be from melancholy recalling relatives or friends that have passed, significant losses by sports teams I follow, or the depression and anxiety of our public discourse. 

This is my third time having stones removed from my bladder. 2016. 2020. 2024. Presidential election years. Years Trump spit his bile. I quiver wondering my state of mind after November 5. 

 

(Thursday afternoon update: Doc removed the catheter. No pickleball for a fortnight.)

Thoughts on the Election and Baseball

Speaking with more than a slight degree of immodesty, you might have noticed I have been surprisingly silent of late, what with the election just days away, the New York Yankees in pursuit of their 28th World Series title, the New York Football Giants demonstrating annual futility, and Israel seemingly taking on the entire Mideast. 

Did you really need me to tell you the presidential race is a cliffhanger? That every vote counts? That control of the House and Senate are up for grabs, as well? That if a certain elephant in the room sweeps into power this great country will be diminished by the resulting extremism? 

If you did, then you obviously are the reality incarnation of Rip Van Winkle. 

I admit to being disillusioned about the American people. How easy it appears to be able to con them. That half of the country believes Donald Grump (that’s not a typo, though when I wrote it I too thought it was a typo until I liked how it looked and sounded) cares about them—and not just about himself—is mind boggling. 

I don’t spend my days or evenings riveted to the screen watching CNN, MSNBC, Fox, or reading news, analysis and opinion pieces parsing who and why is ahead or behind in the race to be the most powerful 

person in the world. 

I do watch Bill Maher on HBO and last Friday Van Jones, a CNN commentator, chided black men for allowing themselves to be conned by Trump. 

While others try to link Trump to Project 2025, which Trump claims (falsely, in my opinion) he knows nothing about, Jones cited Agenda 47 which is part of Trump’s web site. 

According to Jones, Agenda 47 would require local law enforcement to do “stop and frisk,” which targets 80% black people, he said; instruct the Department of Justice to dismantle street gangs which Jones said means the Feds would be in black neighborhoods to figure out which one of their kids should go to federal prison; and Trump would indemnify all cops, so you can’t sue cops.  

Jones asserted, “Basically, black men are about to be conned, those who support Trump, by someone who says he will lift you up but really will lock you up. He’s going to lock you up for the stuff Kamala Harris is trying to decriminalize, he is trying to recriminalize.”

If, like me, you donated to any candidate, your email mailbox has become prime destination for any and all politicians and their fundraisers. Clicking the Unsubscribe link does no good. At least one can hope that after November 5 there will be a respite. 

Except, with challenges to the results expected from both sides, requests to fund or defend these challenges will clutter your inbox. 

And, on the subject of vote challenges, if Trump is ahead at any time next Tuesday night, expect him to declare victory as he did four years ago. Only this time if he cries victory his minions will be ready to confront election officials and interfere with the full counting of all ballots, particularly absentee ballots. Mayhem will ensue, all in the name of discrediting votes for Kamala Harris.  

Okay, enough politics. Time to watch the Yankees try to make a series out of this battle with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yes, the Yanks lost the first two games in Los Angeles, but I am reminded of the 1996 World Series against the Atlanta Braves. The Bronx Bombers lost the first two games in Atlanta but came back to win the next four (three at Yankee Stadium, then the clincher back in Atlanta) for their first championship in 16 years. Stealing a line from the NY Mets of yore, “Ya Gotta Believe.”