Kasich Is All Cuddly But at Heart a Conservative

You have to hand it to John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, who failed in his attempt to secure the Republican Party presidential nomination but who continues to try to present himself as a reasonable, humane, thoughtful, non divisive alternative to Donald Trump should there be a vacancy, for any reason, at the top of the 2020 GOP ticket. 

Kasich appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers a day before Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday. He sounded soooo normal. And Meyers, usually a sharp observer of the political landscape, fell into the trap Kasich set. 

You see, Kasich is a conservative. His tone might be different, more pleasing, than Trump’s, but his substance, the outcome of his actions, were he to inhabit the White House, would not be materially different.

Like an old sweater one wears around the house, Meyers felt comfortable talking kumbaya with Kasich. (Here are two clips encompassing the totality of the interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ4sZY_RowM

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnd-dyL5SIE) 

But Meyers never asked him any nitty gritty questions about what the Trump administration has done and if he would have done the same or acted differently.

What, for example, is Kasich’s position on coal? Is he in favor of softening environmental regulations on coal mining and burning? What’s his position on alternative energy sources? Would he permit oil and gas exploration along our coastlines?

Would he have nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court? In general, what criteria would he use in selecting federal judges?

How would he have fixed Obamacare? 

What are his beliefs on abortion and funding of Planned Parenthood for non abortion related activity?

What are his positions on NAFTA, the Paris climate accords, NATO, the Keystone Pipeline, the Trans Pacific Trade Pact, the United Nations, Jerusalem as the location of our embassy in Israel, the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the Iran nuclear deal?

How would he resolve differing views on the Dreamers? Would he build a southern border wall? What, if any, changes would he like to see in our immigration policy?

Does he believe Russia interfered in our 2016 election? 

Is he comfortable with the influence the religious right is having on government? 

Is the new tax plan acceptable to him?

Many of these questions can be answered by looking at Kasich’s Web site (https://www.johnkasich.com). For example, Kasich champions his opposition to abortion and funding of Planned Parenthood. 

We live today in a sound bite world. For Meyers (and, to be honest, lots of other TV hosts) to give Kasich and other politicians a soapbox to sound statesmanlike without providing specifics would result in saddling us with another Trump, albeit with a more teddy bear demeanor.

We would be shaking our heads and wondering how we got duped again. Meyers is an entertainer. I get that. But he has injected himself five nights a week into the political dialogue so he needs to step up from one dimensional attacks on Trump’s behavior to offer constructive alternatives. 

Have more respect for, and confidence in, his audience, that viewers want not just jokes but hard information when interviewing Kasich et al, as he has done with his Closer Look segments. 

Alternative Universe: What alternative universe does Donald Trump live in? Prior to delivering his State of the Union speech he said his goal would be to end the divisiveness that has existed in the country for many years. 

It’s a laudable objective but does he not recognize that he is a prime reason we are a polarized society? 

From his despicable advocacy of the birther movement questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency to his abusive comments, delivered live and in tweets, mostly about women but also about anyone who disagrees with him, to his embrace of neo-Nazi and alt-right leaders and members, to his denigration of national organizations such as the FBI and the CIA, Trump has done more to divide our country than any president of the last century. 

It’s no wonder that Kasich thinks being a “good guy” might be enough to propel him forward. 

Time for a Few Good Reads

Today’s a day for some interesting reads. 

Donald Trump made himself into a champion of the coal industry. But his proposed tax reform bill might have a devastating impact on the fossil fuel segment, according to a coal company executive who has been one of his biggest supporters: 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/06/investing/coal-tax-cuts-robert-murray-trump/index.html

There is a romantic view we have of America before World War II. The 1930s was a time of Andy Hardy movies depicting idyllic life in small towns. Racism and anti-Semitism were never mentioned. Shirley Temple could dance up and down a grand staircase with Bojangles. The Marx Brothers were zany. 

Across the Atlantic, however, America was seen as a template for what turned out to be the greatest evil the world has seen. Hitler and his henchmen fashioned their repressive society on American laws:  

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/227396/was-nazi-germany-made-in-america?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=6184106ae5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-6184106ae5-207614353

Just as neo-Nazis have resurrected the culture of oppression, the Ku Klux Klan has experienced its own reincarnation, twice in fact, as described by this book review: https://nyti.ms/2khhHPk

As Republicans in Congress push federal legislation to allow concealed weapons to be carried legally across state lines, thereby undermining the state’s rights issue they have long championed, here’s a graphic that puts in context the carnage wrought by our inadequate gun control laws: 

whiteplainsjournal.ny.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=501ed282c

Not every conservative shares the xenophobic attitudes of Trump and his ignorant supporters. Consider Bret Stephens. From a speech he recently delivered on “American Greatness,” here are some facts about immigration into the United States: 

“Did you know that immigrants account for 35 percent of all U.S. Nobel Prize winners? Did you know that 83 percent of the finalists in the 2016 Intel Science Talent search—widely known as the junior Nobel—are the children of immigrants? Did you know that 40 percent of all Fortune 500 companies—accounting for $4.8 trillion in revenues and 19 million employees—had founders who were immigrants or the children of immigrants? Did you know that immigrants start businesses at about twice the rate of other Americans? Did you know that without immigrants we would have had no population growth whatsoever since 1970, putting us on a path to a Japanese-style demographic death spiral?

“It is, of course, true that immigrants put strains on their host societies. It is also true that in any immigrant population there will be thieves, rapists, killers, scallywags and layabouts—though, by the way, did you also know that the incarceration rate of illegal immigrants is nearly half that of U.S. citizens?” (For a full read of his remarks, click https://nyti.ms/2AW9VBp.)

As the Supreme Court mulls whether a Colorado baker can withhold his services from a gay couple seeking a wedding cake, it might be illuminating to think about what our world would be like without the contributions of confirmed, not rumored, famous people who were or are gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to Wikipedia. Here’s a partial alphabetical list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_A

Hypocrisy in Action: My friend Arthur sent along a cartoon (which I can’t reproduce because of my limited tech capabilities). The illustration shows 10 Republican senators sitting at a conference table. The chairman says, “Before we discuss raising taxes on the poor & middle class, adding $1 trillion to the deficit, taking health insurance away from 13 million, raising premiums by 10%, defending treason and swearing in a pedophile, let’s begin with a prayer.”

To Make America Great Again, Understand What Made It Great

As the Trumpster hurried out of Dodge Friday on his first global journey to Make America Great Again and to escape his administration’s mounting scandals, perhaps it would be instructive to review and agree upon a time when America was great in the first place.

Does the would-be-bomber-in-chief want to go back to a time when schoolchildren hid under their desks during nuclear attack drills while fathers built bomb shelters in the back yard? Well, we now know hiding under oak desks won’t shield young lives, but underground vaults are in vogue again as Trump has ratcheted up fears of a nuclear conflagration with North Korea.

Does the six-time-bankruptcy-petitioner-in-chief want to go back to a time when American industry ruled the world? A worthy objective, but that was when unions provided safeguards for workers and assured them middle-class incomes and company paid medical benefits. It was a time when the individual tax rate was as high as 90%, when the differential between average compensation for Fortune 500 chief executives and their average workers was 20-to-1 in 1950, just 42-to-1 in 1980, but is now a whopping 204-to-1, according to Bloomberg.

Does the fence-builder-in-chief want to take us go back to a time when our borders were mostly sealed to Eastern European Jews, resulting in their inability to find refuge from Nazi Germany? It was a time when racist, anti-Semitic bigotry flowed over the airwaves through Father Coughlin’s radio diatribes and was disseminated in print by Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent newspaper. Sadly, Trump’s candidacy and victory have unleashed parallel restraints on immigration of oppressed people while opening the microphone to alt-right extremists whose mantra resembles the worst tenets of the Third Reich.

Does the climate-change-denier-in-chief want to go back to a time when America’s rivers were too polluted to swim in, when the air from coal plants and car exhausts made breathing difficult?

Does the would-be-autocrat-in-chief long for the days when America supported every despot who promised to fight Communism regardless of his repression of human rights? Substitute ISIS or Radical Islamic Terrorism or Drug Traffickers for Communism and Trump’s foreign policy doctrine (in places like Turkey, Syria and The Philippines) becomes clearer. 

Does the discriminator-in-chief want to return to the time when housing could be denied based on the color of one’s skin or one’s religion? Should we return to a time when every day but Sunday meant shopping in small town, Main Street America at manufacturers suggested retail prices?

Does the self-proclaimed healthcare-expert-in-chief want to go back to a time when medical bills could bankrupt a family, when pre-existing conditions allowed insurers to deny insurance coverage or to charge exorbitant fees, when women’s health issues were not covered? 

Does the vote-counter-in-chief want to go back in time to when Afro-Americans were denied the right or ability to vote? 

Does the fear-monger-in-chief want to return America to a time when citizenship offered no protection of constitutional rights, to a time when Mexican-Americans were deported, the loyalty of citizens with German or Japanese heritage was suspect, when they were attacked and placed in internment camps?  

Okay, enough with the sarcasm. Let’s agree on what made America great. 

The United States was a land of opportunity, especially when compared to the rest of the world. Still is, as evidenced by the desire of people the world over to emigrate to our shores rather than anywhere else.

We are a nation of immigrants, save for Native Americans. Immigrants enriched our culture imbuing us with a desire to get better. We absorbed the men, women and children of other nationalities who had the courage to start life anew in a country where customs, language and laws were different than their native lands, where they knew scant few, where they shed Old World hatreds and feuds to forge a pluralistic society based on the rule of law, not bound or restricted by a state religion. 

Our country encouraged education plus development of the arts and sciences. After a fitful start, unions harbored the working class, affording its members the opportunity to live a middle-class life. Capitalism was encouraged, but when poverty and unemployment overwhelmed the economy’s ability to support vast numbers, the government stepped in with progressive programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start, as well as infrastructure projects that transformed America, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, the interstate highway system, a series of dams and the Internet. 

Above all else, America amalgamated all the above to become a beacon not burdened by discrimination (though, in reality, it exists even to this day), a land where, yes, the sons of millionaires become president but so do the offspring of hardscrapple or broken homes. 

What made America great is our diversity—diversity of ethnicities, diversity of opinions, diversity of languages, of religions, of culinary tastes, of histories, of cultures that thrown together accepted the rights of others and, at its best, practiced a creed of tolerance and understanding. 

Our nation became great through a cult of optimism. Under Donald Trump, too many have replaced optimism with fear, with envy, with bigotry. We are already a great country. We can improve, but only if our leaders, especially our president, preaches hope not despair, unity not division, equality not discrimination.