Day 142 Nat'l Emergency: Trump's Dilemmas

What if you hosted a party to celebrate the creation of a COVID-19 vaccine but nobody came?

Having invested so much time disparaging the reality of the pandemic, only to invest billions of taxpayer dollars to develop a vaccine at “warp speed,” Donald Trump will have to confront dilemmas mostly of his own making should a potential cure be discovered.

Having cultivated an image as a disruptor while encouraging similar behavior, including disbelief in government programs and pronouncements, among the legion of his followers, will Trump be able to turn those mavericks into compliant communal-minded sheep? 

What if a coronavirus vaccine is developed but not enough people take the shot to make it effective as a pandemic deterrent?

What if Trump’s past deprecation of science and medical expertise, including support for the anti-vax movement, leaves him with no moral persuasive powers to convince enough people to take the inoculation?

What if he were told by advisors he needed to publicly take the shot to rally the country behind the vaccine. Would Trump roll up his shirtsleeve and do it? Could he trick the public by getting a dummy shot, or would he fear a leak would expose his deception?

Would he have his wife and children and their families publicly inoculated? What about the White House staff and cabinet secretaries? Would he order them to take the shot?

A president is charged with safeguarding the nuclear bomb codes that could destroy the world. As this viral moment in time unfurled a president also had the power to help save the world from a virus that knows no boundaries to its ravaging impact. 

How sad that Trump has squandered opportunities to stem the transmission of the disease. How sad that Trump has championed false remedies. How sad that Trump has set the example that wearing a face mask is not necessary and definitely not mandatory. How sad that Trump has sown doubt about the medical and scientific communities’ integrity. How sad that in almost every public appearance Trump has dispensed lies, fabrications and misinformation. 

How sad that the death toll from the coronavirus in the United States exceeds 152,000 from more than 4.46 million confirmed cases. How sad that those numbers will continue to climb because of Trump’s ineptitude. 

Day 137 of Nat'l Emergency: Praying for Rain

Like the toothache that doesn’t hurt when you get to the dentist we have been stymied to discover if the repairs to our gutters and leaders have been effective.

It’s rained only once since we had the new rainfall channels installed 10 days ago. To be sure, the rain Wednesday night was intense. But we weren’t home to observe how the gutters and leaders performed. We had chosen that night to socially distance a dinner visit with friends.

It sprinkled Friday morning, not enough to even dampen the newspaper thrown onto the driveway. The longterm forecast for the next 10 days suggests sunshine except a 40% chance of rain next Tuesday and the following Monday.

In pre quarantine days we would exult in weather that fit our desire for outdoor activity. But those options are severely limited these days. No Garden Conservancy tours. No trips to the beach. Or to a friend’s pool. No outdoor festivals. Or flea markets. 

With temperatures hovering near and above 90 degrees with a dew point index an uncomfortable 60-plus, walking extensively outdoors, even on a shaded trail, is out of the question.

Confinement is not how Gilda and I anticipated spending this year. Scratched already have been trips to Washington with Shalom Yisrael guests, to Omaha to see our daughter’s family, to Colorado for a first cousins get together, to Massachusetts to see our son’s family, to Switzerland for a car tour with my brother and his wife, to Maryland for their oldest grandchild’s bat mitzvah, to Portugal for a bus tour.

On the local level we’ve missed out on plays from our subscriptions to Playwrights Horizons and Second Stage, countless dinner parties with friends at our home or theirs, hosting the Passover seder, and attendance at synagogue services and programs.

Zoom cannot replace those experiences.

There’s a special heart rending poignancy to crossing those activities out of my paper calendar that cannot be matched by deleting them from an electronic calendar on my iPhone. 

I know. My fatigue and disappointment with coronavirus life is no more extreme than what many or all of you have gone through. No one in my immediate and extended family has been infected.

At least I have this public blog to express my feelings. And for a change I am not ranting about Donald Trump.

Stay healthy. And pray for rain, enough to test our gutters and leaders. But no flooding. 

Day 136 Nat'l Emergency: Person of the Year Choices, Turkey Time Off, Jobs Off, School Time

Five months before Time magazine releases its Person of the Year issue it is safe to say there are three significant candidates whose image could grace the front cover: 

*George Floyd, whose cellphone-recorded death at the knee of a Minneapolis policeman sparked nationwide outrage and galvanized Black Lives Matter protests; 

*Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose calm Dutch uncle counsel on the coronavirus has soothed and informed a frightened and conflicted nation; 

*The embattled frontline healthcare worker, who has selflessly placed themself in danger to heal a sick country and comfort the dying in the absence of quarantined loved ones.

Even if he wins the presidency, Joe Biden would not be elevated to cover boy status. Not this year. 

Similarly, Donald Trump wouldn’t qualify even if he manages a comeback to secure a second term. 

Chief Justice John Roberts has received lots of ink for his high-wire role in shepherding the Supreme Court, but he, too, falls short in overall dominance of the year. 

For sure, the two main stories of 2020 have been the coronavirus with its worldwide impact on health and the economy, as well as international political repercussions, and the outpouring of protest and energy for racial equality after the killings of unarmed Blacks and actions by ordinary white citizens to physically and verbally assault minorities.

It’s About Time: More than a dozen years have passed since I called on retail chains to keep their stores closed on Thanksgiving so employees could spend time with their families instead of aiding in the pursuit of every last disposable dollar. Consumers, as well, would benefit from not running out to the store once dessert has been shoveled down their throat. 

My perch as editor and publisher of Chain Store Age is long gone, but it is pleasing to note that Walmart, the nation’s, nay, the world’s, largest retailer has decided it would not open Thanksgiving. Apparently, Walmart listened to the suggestion advanced by one of its employees in a letter to management.

“We know it’s been a trying year, and you’ve stepped up. We want you to enjoy the day at home with your loved ones,” John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart USA, wrote in a memo to employees. 

Fewer Jobs: Donald Trump promised to bring back manufacturing jobs if elected in 2016. How’s he doing?

Not so great. Though manufacturing jobs increased in the first two years of his presidency, the last two have been not so good. 

Compared to when he took the oath of office there are almost 300,000 fewer manufacturing jobs. Of course, the pandemic is a key factor, an excuse Trump will surely cite if challenged on his record. 

But as The New York Times pointed out, “U.S. factory output declined throughout 2019, as Mr. Trump’s trade war intensified, and it has dropped further this year, suggesting there is no boom in new American factories. Since peaking in mid-2019, corporate investment has  declined for three consecutive quarters. Total foreign direct investment in manufacturing was nearly one-third lower in the first three years of Mr. Trump’s tenure than it was in the final three years of President Barack Obama’s.

“Mr. Trump ostensibly fought his trade war on behalf of American manufacturing. But economists say it has actually been a drag on most U.S. factories, by increasing prices for components and inciting foreign retaliation.  It has also coincided with a plunge in Chinese investment in the United States to $5 billion in 2019, the lowest level since 2009, according to Rhodium Group, a research firm” (https://nyti.ms/2CClSib).

School Time? As part of his reelection strategy Trump is pushing for a September opening of schools. But evidence on the impact of bringing children back to classes where they could become infected, and then sending them home where they could transfer the coronavirus to other family members, is mixed (https://nyti.ms/2ZjbJj5). 

New research has shown that children under 10 years are not as susceptible, but transmission is more prevalent as student age hits double digits. If schools open before the general public has appropriately contained the pandemic, a rebound in cases could occur, as happened in Israel.  

Few dispute the benefit of having children resume classes. But just as most parents believe in inoculations to protect their offspring from childhood illnesses, most also would think twice about placing their children at risk with the added fear they could be exposing themselves and other family members, especially grandparents. 

Day 133 of Nat'l Emergency: Digging Up Dirt Is Dirty Business

The sins of the fathers taint the acts of the sons no matter how noble the latters’ causes may be. Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” showed us that reality with the persecution of the St. Evrémonde family during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Charles Darnay was found guilty of oppressing the populace even though he renounced his family title and the nobles who killed and otherwise exploited the peasants.   

And so we now are witnessing the persecution of The New York Times because ancestors of the founding family were slaveholders. Had their coffin draped by the Confederate flag. Were member of the Daughters of the Confederacy (https://nypost.com/2020/07/18/the-family-that-owns-the-new-york-times-were-slaveholders-goodwin/?utm_source=url_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons).

To be sure, The Times has been cast as guilty of a supreme journalistic sin, that of foregoing objectivity, quashing dissenting voices while permitting bullying of any staffer who deviated from the corporate line.

Never mind that today’s Times champions civil rights. By publishing a special report last year on the  400th anniversary of slavery in the British colonies and laying the foundational reason for the break with the king on perpetuation of slavery, The Times is accused of misrepresenting history while ignoring its own involvement in the despicable practice.

The article demanding genetic purity from The Times was written by a former Times staffer of 16 years. It appeared in The New York Post, a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump. Murdoch also owns The Wall Street Journal, arch rival of The Times. Could The Journal benefit from knocking The Times off its lofty perch? No doubt.

That being a real possibility the truth of slaveholding by Times family ancestors is not diminished. But is it damning?

Slavery was part of colonial DNA. It continued into the 19th century even in northern states. New York, for example, did not outlaw all forms of slavery until July 4, 1827. Among northern states only New Jersey permitted slavery longer.

The Ochs family, which bought and reformatted The Times into the preeminent paper in the United States if not the world, had its roots in the Antebellum South. They owned slaves.

I find it increasingly difficult to accept the wholesale tarring of family descendants, especially when one considers how the newspaper over the last 50 years has been a steadfast champion of press freedoms, civil rights and has been a bulwark of defense against abuses of power on local, state and national levels. 

One could surely legitimately argue that The Times has shed some objectivity in its coverage of Donald Trump. That it holds Israel to a higher standard than Palestinians and Arab countries. That its Op-Ed page is mostly a forum for progressive, not conservative, ideas.

Even if guilty on all counts The Times cannot be equated with the symbols of the Confederacy protesters seek to topple. Those statues and the stars and bars flag are symbols of rebellion against our duly elected government. They were traitors unworthy of any reverence or fealty, no matter how valiantly or competently they fought.

My lens of history, of historical perspective, is biased. I admit it. Friends and relatives swear by The Journal as a better newspaper.

Perhaps it is. I don’t read it often enough to make an assessment. Same thing with The Washington Post. They are both owned by tycoons.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has invested heavily in The Post to restore it to its Pentagon Papers/Watergate era prominence.

But in achieving his rank as the richest person in the world Bezos put lots of companies out of business and lots of people out of work. My magazine’s readership included many of those companies and people affected. I derive only some comfort from his resuscitation of The Post.

From Rupert Murdoch I take absolutely no comfort. Anchored by Fox News, his media empire is largely responsible for the distrust many Americans feel toward their country and the resultant emergence of Donald Trump as an avatar of transformation based on misinformation, conspiracy theories and outright lies.

The Times is not pitch perfect. But it still retains a voice that is noteworthy and dedicated to the improvement of our country, despite the less than perfect history of its founding family’s members. 

Day 132 of Nat'l Emergency: Lawn Sign for Justice, Petty President, Will Trump Take a Shot

We have proudly joined the woke lawn sign brigade. Designed by Gilda, our sign displays an illustration of eight children of various ethnicities next to a Martin Luther King Jr. saying, “Injustice Anywhere Is a threat to Justice Everywhere.”

Presidential adviser and not-too-secret white supremacist Stephen Miller notwithstanding, Jews have been at the forefront of civil rights activism. We believe in the legitimacy behind the Black Lives Matter movement but have been repulsed by the open antisemitism and anti-Israel stances of some of its leaders and followers, made all the more reprehensible by the organization’s failure to call out repression and discrimination common in Arab Moslem lands. 

Our sign already has won approval from neighbors. We’re at the end of a cul de sac so the sign will get limited exposure. But it’s the sentiment that counts, not the number of eyeballs that see it.

Petty President: The pettiness, the mean-spiritness of Donald Trump continues to know no bounds as it continues to amaze. His latest denigration of the office of the president involves the removal of the official portraits of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from a public viewing area and their placement in a non public room of the White House.

He couldn’t remove Barack Obama’s portrait because it has not been officially unveiled in deference to the longstanding animosity Trump has toward his immediate predecessor.

One has to wonder how Trump will be treated by his successor, an especially trenchant thought if it is Joe Biden in 2021 or a different Democrat in 2025. Will he be invited to ceremonial functions? Will he be shunned by the members of the exclusive Past Presidents club? 

Will foreign governments welcome him, not that he was an avid jet-setter before his election? As he was not overly complimentary to most foreign leaders while in office, his options for frequent flyer points are limited. Okay, he could visit Turkey, Russia, Brazil. And Israel. Perhaps his good buddy Kim Jong-un will invite him to a deeper visit inside North Korea. Or Xi Jinping might want to show him China’s biological warfare labs that Trump is always talking about.  

Will He Take the Shot? Should an anti COVID-19 vaccine be introduced while he is still in office, will Trump display presidential leadership by publicly taking the shot, or will he punk out and reinforce the cautionary call of the anti-vax brigade that rejects all types of inoculations? Perhaps he will claim an exemption to the injection because of a flareup of his bone spurs.

The current fight over wearing a mask to contain the pandemic’s spread will be child’s play compared to the opposition anti-vaxers will wage, especially if anyone administered the vaccine becomes infected (https://nyti.ms/2OAxMM1). 

It is truly a sad time when the health care system once touted as the best in the world has become a shell of its former prominence. 

Feds vs. States: Where does federal vs. state responsibility begin? States’ rights vs. federal authority. 

During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has chosen to push responsibility for containment of the virus to governors, except when he sees political gain advocating opening up the economy and schools. He is trying to strongarm states to do his bidding even as case numbers and deaths rise. But his bottom line is that states, not he, are responsible for the pain the country is experiencing.

On the other hand, having clearly lost his bid to be a successful wartime general in the battle to beat COVID-19, Trump has shifted gears to be the law and order president by sending in federal troops to Portland, OR, to arrest and control Black Lives Matter and related protesters. No state or local official asked for federal troop assistance. Indeed, they have vociferously rejected their presence.

But Trump doesn’t care because this narrative fits the image he wants to project to his base and to voters who might feel threatened by the protesters. 

Day 128 Nat'l Emergency: Is the Political Pendulum Swinging?

With just under four months till the election the pendulum has given signs it is ready to swing backward.

After more than four months of jabs and haymakers that have left his administration reeling, Donald Trump appears to have regained some energy. 

Conservative voices are saying woke movements have gone too far. A federal judge has strongly questioned the sexual harassment and abuse settlement against Harvey Weinstein. Conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan is leaving New York Magazine. Bari Weiss is leaving The New York Times because she claims a bullying atmosphere that attacks non liberal stances is tolerated by management. Federal executions have begun anew with Trump threatening more. Trump is further threatening to send in federal forces to cities run by liberal mayors he says cannot control violence. He also is said to be supportive of a Missouri couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters. The CDC director is blaming visiting Northerners for the pandemic outbreak in the South. Trump administration lackeys are degrading the expertise of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Though Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania polls is double digits pollsters say a majority believe there is a “secret” number of Trump voters who could keep the Keystone State red.

Trump is betting his base enjoys their White privilege even as fence-sitting voters will be repulsed by excesses of ultra-progressive woke groups. Their combined ballots will keep him in the White House for another four years

Trump is like that Philadelphia icon—Rocky. It is hard to knock him down. To keep him down.

Biden so far has played a version of Muhammed Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy against George Forman, keeping mostly to himself. He is letting Trump tire himself and the public out with outlandish tweets on all manner of national affairs alongside public displays of indifference to the personal, human losses from COVID-19, now totaling more than 138,000 lives from more than 3.48 million confirmed cases. Even now that he is wearing a mask in public the glower beneath it comes through.

The race for the presidency is a like a 15-round championship boxing match, not a three-round amateur bout. Polling can be illusory. Hillary learned that lesson four years ago.

Barring an international emergency or another vacancy on the Supreme Court, the election will be settled by three intertwined events: the status of the pandemic, the state of the economy, and the success, or lack of, school reopenings.

The pendulum might be swinging a little more in Trump’s direction but there is plenty time for it to swing back to Biden’s corner. 

Day 116 of Nat'l Emergency: Reading, Shopping, Fixing and Trump's Bucket List

What 10 years of retirement couldn’t accomplish the coronavirus did in less than three months. I’m finally reading books. 

A disappointment of my retirement is that, with rare exceptions as for a course I might be taking, I never engaged in reading novels or non fiction books. Shameful. I know. 

In the four months since quarantine began, however, I am averaging a book a month, spurred on, I readily admit, by Gilda’s voracious reading appetite. 

I used to explain my lack of reading by saying reading put me to sleep. Part of my apnea condition.

Now, when I first lay down in bed, or when I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot readily fall back to sleep, I wind up reading 45 to 90 minutes. As there’s no rush to wake up early the next morning, I simply tack on extra hours before rising from bed. 

I’m still ashamed, but less so.

Gilda Is No Golda: As in “Fiddler on the Roof.” She doesn’t want to hear, much less interpret, my dreams.  

Must be because I’m no Tevye. 

Trader Joe’s has it in for me. I shop very selectively at Trader Joe’s. I’m only interested in dark chocolate mint candies and dark chocolate mint cookies, the key being dark chocolate is better for you than milk chocolate. 

Twice in the last few months, however, the specialty grocer has discontinued two dark chocolate mint cookies I found irresistible.

After a futile Internet search for comparably priced cookies I stumbled across a slightly higher priced alternative at our local Stop & Shop. 

For now the mint candies are still being sold, but I am wary Trader Joe’s does not realize a third strike would end my patronage.

Rain Man: It’s about to thunderstorm outside as I write this note Friday afternoon. Rumbles already have presaged the downpour. But as anyone who has recently driven past the Grassy Sprain reservoir can attest, the water level is the lowest in years, if not decades. Since we’ve had few drenching rain days this year I wondered if we were subject to drought conditions made all the more severe by our constant hand washing.

Mind you, I’m not complaining about sunshine filled days. Our solar panels are offsetting all or most of the cost of electricity to run the air conditioning. But upon returning home the other day after seeing the reservoir for the first time this year I googled an inquiry.

Apparently, regular maintenance on the spillway and gatehouse gates began in January that necessitated draining most of the reservoir to a level that would allow work but not kill any of the fish in the lake. It will take at least half a year for nature to refill the reservoir.

Just thought you’d like to know.

Home Improvement Tip of the Day: After doing two loads of wash and putting in towels for a third our 10-year-old Kenmore washing machine wouldn’t start. I called Sears Home Services and set up an appointment.

There was a glitch in the electronic ignition. I anticipated a costly repair bill or, more probable, purchase of a new washing machine.

The repairman said he’d try a trick to restart the machine. By simultaneously replugging the washer into a socket while pushing repeatedly on the power button the machine might start. It did! 

Thank you repairman. Thank you Sears. Coincidentally, a week later Reuters reported that Sears is considering selling its repair and home improvement business (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sears-homeservices-exclusive/exclusive-sears-exploring-sale-of-home-improvement-business-idUSKBN242780).

Stockpiling Over?: Here’s another news flash: At least in Westchester County, coronavirus-inspired hoarding seems to be a condition of the past. 

During recent trips to Costco and Stop & Shop there were no lines to get in, checkout was hassle free and products, even toilet paper, were plentiful. More importantly, everyone was wearing a mask.

A product that might be in short supply in apparel stores, depending on your neighborhood, are Hawaiian shirts. Seems the flowery, loose fitting tops are a must-have for creatures of the dark side of heavily armed right wing extremism (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/style/boogaloo-hawaiian-shirt.html?referringSource=articleShare).

Who knew a symbol of paradise could be turned into a symbol of hate?

Bucket List: There’s a simple explanation why Donald Trump is proceeding with an extravaganza at Mount Rushmore to commemorate Independence Day despite state and national officials warning it is unwise to have a fireworks display over parched land witnessed by thousands of unmasked, not socially distanced, attendees. 

The ego-boosting celebration is on his bucket list.

Unless he wins reelection, tonight’s big show under the stoney eyes of four presidents, none of whom Trump considers greater than himself, would be his last chance to display presidential upsmanship.

I wonder how many Hawaiian shirts will be worn by the 7,500 expected attendees?

Day 115 Nat'l Emergency: Four More Years

How relentlessly depressing it must be to be a political reporter these days. Sure, election coverage is supposed to be exhilarating, but in the Age of Trump it cannot be anything but depressing, at least if you are a thinking woman or man.

It is not policy differences that traumatize. After all, one can disagree on the best course for the economy or foreign relations. Republicans and Democrats have been at odds for generations.

But if one has even half a brain it is cruel and unusual punishment to be a reporter required to listen to continual degradation of science and medical precautions in the wake of a pandemic that already has snuffed out the lives of 125,000 Americans. The sad tally will rise countless thousands more because Republican administrations in Washington, DC, and numerous states refuse to listen to healthcare experts. 

I don’t listen to Trump’s rally speeches, other than snippets national news programs air. I don’t follow his tweets or Facebook rantings. I am convinced from news reports and, regrettably, from the few friends I know who are Trumpsters, that the Trump-converted cannot be enlightened that he is a danger physically and metaphysically to the health and welfare of the United States. 

Responding to a middle-of-the-road friend’s inquiry as to who would be blamed if Joe Biden fails to defeat Trump, I responded, “The basket of deplorables—not the Trump voters but the deplorables who chose not to vote.” 

Political punsters opine that it is up to Biden to sufficiently enthuse the electorate to unseat Trump. Yes, Biden needs to sell a vision for America. But it is equally important that everyday Americans come to grips with what Trump has stripped from our nation’s ideals and values. They must want to return to civility, to respect, to a position admired, not pitied or flabbergasted, by the rest of the world.

Trump won in 2016 because anti-Hillary voters in key swing states thought Trump would be a lesser evil than Clinton. Some Never Trumpers and disaffected Bernie Bros sat out the election rather than cast their votes for Hillary. Or they voted for third party candidates. Many more, millions across the country, just didn’t vote because. No real reason. Just because. 

All those voters that didn’t go against Trump now have an inflection point decision to make. They’ve seen what Trump can and cannot do as manager of our country. They must decide if the country can survive or thrive four more years of his (mis)management. 

Recent Supreme Court decisions protecting abortion rights in Louisiana, LGBTQ rights nationwide and Dreamers from deportation provide Trump a red-meat platform to stir up his base and possibly others who want a more conservative court. Having delivered two Supreme Court justices and 198 lower court judges, Trump will argue his work to overhaul the judicial system is not complete. 

Of course, that argument also works as a counterbalance to pump up Democratic opposition.

Unlike four years ago, Trump must run on his record. He likes being the center of attention, but that spotlight comes with liabilities. 

He clearly has an attention span problem. He doesn’t hear what others tell him or what is contained in Internet files he retweets. He doesn’t hear himself. His staff is forever reclassifying what he willingly reveals in public. He plays with his smartphone during meetings of his economic advisors. 

He is what we would call a gifted child, only in his case it refers not to his brain power but to the millions in cash father Fred Sr. gifted him.

As his polling numbers turn south—an otherwise favorite geographic area for Trump (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun)—some are wondering if he will decide he’s had enough abuse and just abandon the reelection effort. 

It will never happen! His ego would not permit him to walk away. He sees his rabid fans as sufficient to secure a second term. If he were to abandon them they would abandon his post-presidential role as a TV talking head. 

He will not be restricted by tradition, as past presidents have been, to standing by without commenting in the extreme about his successor’s actions. He has no compunction about destroying tradition or national heritage.

Trump is a tumulter through and through. That’s why if he loses the election he will keep his public profile high through TV work as a commentator on the ultra-conservative One America News Network with an eye to running again in 2024. 

He will use that as a springboard to launch a new campaign because in his mind he MUST avenge his humiliating defeat in 2020, much the way he decided to run in 2016 to avenge his humiliation at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2011.

Political reporters will have no respite from Trump for at least the next four years, whether he wins or not. And neither will the rest of us. 

Day 105 Nat'l Emergency: Extremism Reigns

Back in 1964, in accepting the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater said, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” 

It should be obvious to any thoughtful citizen that we are in the midst of extremism from the right and left. Destroying statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ulysses S. Grant were not acts of excessive exuberance in support of Black Lives Matter but rather acts of excessive ignorance and intolerance. 

The very public displays of white supremacists bearing neo-Nazi and Confederate flags, coupled with the reluctance of Donald Trump and other Republicans to unequivocally denounce such actions, chills hope that right wing extremism can be tamped down to the fringe corners of society.

Grant’s statue was toppled, despite his being the Union general most responsible for destroying the Confederacy and slavery, because at one time he owned a slave. One slave. Without any compensation Grant freed William Jones two years prior to the Civil War, an act of courage uncommon where he lived around St. Louis, MO. 

Out of their mind protesters acted like an unruly mob absent any knowledge or context. Ridding public spaces of memorials to traitors who fought the Union or politicos who defended slavery or held beliefs counter to the nation’s creed of equality, however elusive its attainment has been, is not in itself a contemptible act. 

While Confederate generals and office holders are part of the country’s heritage, there is merit in denying them a public place of honor for actions that were not honorable and not sustainable on the battlefield. Nor should they be rewarded for the back door tributes they secured from Jim Crow laws and a media-manufactured retelling of the antebellum South. 

But tearing them down, acting like a lynch mob, besmirched the cause the protesters espouse (unless the protesters were anarchists acting under the cover of legitimate protest). 

Those who are seeking perfection in our national heroes past and present will be sorely disappointed. They come adorned with character warts we at present would find not just discrediting but also disqualifying for elective office or reverence. Martin Luther King was no saint. Neither was Malcolm X. Nor JFK. Nor FDR. Nor Barack Obama. 

What can be said of our icons is that despite their flaws they advanced the dignity of our country, they fought and sometimes died for the expansion of rights and freedoms. 

They were better than the prevailing mores of their times. They weren’t perfect. We should not judge them solely by 2020 standards. 

Perhaps it is a good moment for a collective time out to look at the Bible. Not the New Testament, not because I am not Christian, rather because Jesus seems to be beyond reproach with no flaws.

Look to the Old Testament for leader upon leader, patriarch after patriarch, who is imperfect. King David was an adulterer and conspired to have his consort Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle. He was not a great father. He turned a blind eye as his henchmen assassinated his foes. Yet, he is venerated as Israel’s greatest monarch. 

Jacob was a trickster, on multiple occasions. Samson married a pagan. Saul failed to follow God’s command to kill all of the Amalekites and destroy their possessions. 

Even wise King Solomon, who should have known better, succumbed to excess—excessive taxes, excessive marriages to pagan women and excessive construction of temples to his wives’ gods to whom in his old age he followed. 

Despite his shortcomings, Solomon is lionized. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is a figure’s place in history must be measured by his entire resume, not just a smudge on the page. 

At the 2015 funeral of one of the nine martyred at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, Obama concluded his eulogy by singing “Amazing Grace.” It was a stirring moment. 

But that haunting hymnal was written by a one-time slave trader, John Newton. By today’s ethos of puritanical extremism, should “Amazing Grace” be stricken from the roster of messages of consolation, forgiveness and redemption because of its originator? 

I think not.