Day 243 Nat'l Emergency: President-Elect Elation

 Today I feel ...

... Elated. Not yet jubilant. That state of nirvana won’t happen until 12:01 pm January 20. But elation about Joe Biden being elevated Saturday to president-elect is an achievement that gladdens the heart of all who cherish democracy while anguishing over the manner Donald Trump mistreated it over the last four years. 

... Happier than I’ve been in a long time. Somewhat melancholy happiness that we were denied celebrating the ascension of the first female president four years ago. Back then we could only postulate how bad Trump could be. Now that we know he exceeded even our worst nightmares the happiness soothes the disappointment of 2016.

... Thankful that Blacks in Pennsylvania and Georgia, along with Hispanics in Arizona, voted for Joe Biden in sufficient numbers to push those states into the Democratic column.

... Eager for December 14 to arrive so the Electoral College can formally elect Biden as our 46th president.

.... Wondering how long it will take 70 million Trumpsters to see through Donald Trump’s lies and anti-democratic actions.

... Anxious about crazy stuff Trump could do till inauguration day to undermine Biden’s presidency.

... Uncertain that Trumpsters will remain calm and controlled and not initiate or provoke violence to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power that has been the hallmark of our democracy since George Washington voluntarily stepped away from the presidency in 1797.

... Unfulfilled because of ticket splitting which means Biden will not have a majority in the Senate (at least for now) to implement a progressive agenda. Democrats also failed to flip state legislatures.

... Wary about Mitch McConnell’s intentions should he remain Senate majority leader. Will he try to thwart Biden nominations and programs or will he be a statesman and act in a bi-partisan manner to heal our COVID-crushed economy, our pandemic health and our political discourse.

... Grateful to Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, Saturday Night Live, James Cordon and even Jimmy Fallon for helping us get through the last four-plus years.

... Curious if during this pandemic period Biden will countenance a public swearing in ceremony with attendance on the National Mall that would likely dwarf Trump’s inauguration crowd four years ago. Biden avoided large rallies during the campaign but his elevation to the nation’s highest office might soften his disdain for a large public celebration.

Day 241 Nat'l Emergency: Feeling Hopeful Today

 Today I feel ...

Hopeful. Relieved. Cautiously optimistic. Fearful. Realistic. Tense. Wary. Apprehensive. Concerned. Anticipatory. Upbeat. Edgy. Positive. Redeemed. Reflective. Nervous. Reborn. Anxious. Agitated. Like I’m on pins and needles. 

The fat lady hasn’t sung an end to the election. Indeed, the fat man is prolonging the agony of uncertainty by suing to invalidate votes in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. If Biden is confirmed as the winner of those first four states he would have 270 Electoral College votes, the minimum needed to win the election. Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral voted would be the cherry on the victory cake icing.

My confidence in a Joe Biden victory is pummeled by past politicized court decisions. Does the Constitution mean anything to Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts and Barrett?

Even if Trump loses his bid to halt the vote tally in those states he is still primed to make mayhem. He will press Trumpian state legislatures to reject their respective Democratic Electoral College electors and substitute Trumpian slates. The true presidential election, after all, takes place December 14. 

Of course, Trump will never accept defeat. Moreover, he will continue to be president until noon January 20, 2021. He will sow lots of havoc till then without doing anything to quell the spread of the coronavirus pandemic or aid the unemployed and underemployed to weather hunger, poverty and possible eviction from their homes. 

The Supreme Court decision on the legitimacy of the Affordable Care Act will not come out until after Biden would take residence in the White House. If it rejects its constitutionality, Obamacare protections for preexisting conditions, gender neutrality on premiums and coverage for children on their parents’ plan through age 26 will be gone.

Biden has promised a better plan—Bidencare—but with Trumpians in control of the Senate (at this writing) it would be difficult to fulfill that pledge despite repeated claims Trumpians support those three foundational provisions of the ACA.

Aside from his legal and electoral slate challenges, the crybaby-in-chief has another trump card he might play—under never used presidential powers he could declare a national emergency and refuse to vacate the office. Such an extreme, unprecedented move could lead to physical conflict between his supporters and opponents. A doomsday scenario, but one that he has been hinting at for months, touting constitutional powers he says most people are not even aware a president has.

I’m looking forward to the day I will feel jubilant. But that won’t happen until Joe Biden takes the uncontested oath of office January 20 from Chief Justice John Roberts and our prolonged national nightmare would be over. For now. 

Day 240 of National Emergency: Feelings of Shame, Anger, Fear

 I feel ...

Ashamed. Depressed. Angry. Forlorn. Tense. Disappointed. Forsaken. Abandoned. Wary. Fearful. Apprehensive. Dumbfounded. Dumbstruck. Amazed. Worried. Flabbergasted. Downcast. Devastated. Disillusioned. Abused. Embarrassed. Concerned. Disenchanted. Fucked. Frightened. Irate. Inconsolable. Lousy. Despondent. Petrified. Rage. Repulsed. Traumatized. Thunderstruck. Threatened. Unwanted.

Donald Trump is an abhorrent human being not worthy of being president. But my emotions are not directed at him. They describe how I feel toward almost half of my fellow voting Americans and how they have drifted away from the ideals upon which our nation was founded and advanced.

Even if Joe Biden ekes out a win, the election means much of what America has meant to me and the rest of the world has been shattered, perhaps beyond repair. Nearly half of our electorate is either too ignorant or bigoted to choose science over a charlatan. Too selfish to embrace the idea of equal opportunity and treatment for all in education, employment, enfranchisement, housing, health care.

From my perch in mostly affluent upscale Westchester I cannot claim to identify with the everyday concerns of voters in Iowa, Michigan or Nevada. I’ve been to almost every state in the Union but have lived in only two, New York and Connecticut.

Still, given a choice between a gentleman and a thug, I cannot comprehend how 67 million chose the latter. Sixty-seven million preferred chaos over calm, repulsiveness over respect, evil over education, grifting over grace, hate over humanity.

I feel ashamed of and for our country. 

Day 234 Nat'l Emergency: Cruz Control of Twitter? No!

 “Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? And why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic Super PAC silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?”

Them were fighting words from bloviator and Texas U.S. senator Ted Cruz during Wednesday’s Senate hearing on the publishing practices of social media companies. Like many conservatives, Cruz was irate that Twitter and Facebook have not published unfounded allegations of corruptions by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter that Donald Trump and his Trumpian party are trying to dispense in a desperate move to tilt the November 3 election in their favor (https://apnews.com/article/Google-Twitter-Facebook-Zuckerberg-1246ed1fe238971bb2509e0a8f76b0a6).

Perhaps Cruz needs a primer on capitalism as it applies to the First Amendment.

In an Oscar-winning performance (okay, maybe just a Fox News star turn) attacking Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, the Trumpian senator impassionately excoriated Dorsey’s provenance for deciding what the public should be able to read. Censorship is what it is, he argued, especially if it limits Trumpian thoughts.

Actually, senator, the capitalist system you so diligently revere provides Twitter, Facebook and other social media the economic wherewithal to publish.

As to what they publish and choose not to publish, that is a right ensconced in the Bill of Rights. First Amendment to the Constitution, you should know.

It’s not censorship to not publish unfounded accusations, just intelligent monitoring of political prose, no different than the decisions newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations perform every day to audiences that choose to patronize them. No one is forced to read or listen to any media. No media is forced to promote a political party’s agenda. 

Any suggestion otherwise would be a capitulation to a totalitarian system of government, be it fascism, communism, socialism, absolute monarchy or just plain dictatorship. It would be an abdication to the type of autocratic government whose leaders Trump likes. You know, people like Putin, Erdogan, Kim Jong-Un.  

As long as Twitter et al do not violate free speech safety standards, social media enjoy the latitude to publish, or not, anything they like. Americans have more than enough  social media choices if they do not like what Twitter provides.

It is troubling that Trumpians want to turn social media into a government mouthpiece.

Now, I know there are issues both Trumpians and Democrats have with practices of social media companies. But shearing off from them rights enjoyed by other forms of media—publicly and privately held—is not a solution anyone who believes in our Constitution should embrace. 

Day 233 Nat'l Emergency: Battle of Flodden Field

 Historical dramas, especially melodramas, are long on drama and soft on historical accuracy. That’s not an observation unique to me, but I was reminded of that truism when watching the second episode of season two of “The Spanish Princess” on Starz.

Entitled “Flodden,” the episode portrays events encompassing a decisive September 9, 1513, battle pitting Scottish lords rebelling against their fealty to King Henry VIII of England. As factually depicted in the series, Henry was off fighting the French in France when King James IV of Scotland chose to cross the border river Tweed into Northumberland as part of an alliance with France. 

James had amassed a formidable army. Henry had left his queen, Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish Princess he married in 1509, seven years after she was widowed by the untimely death of Henry’s older brother, Prince Arthur, the heir apparent to the English throne, as regent and commander of the army.

The armies met on Flodden Field, near the village of Branxton, just down the road from Crookham where Gilda and I stayed a year ago with our friends, Dave and Gemma Banks. 

For dramatic effect, “The Spanish Princess” showed Catherine, in full custom-made armor to accommodate her bulging pregnancy, galloping into battle. Historians believe she never made it to Flodden Field from London, though she has been credited with giving rousing speeches in her battle gear along the way encouraging her subjects to take up arms in defense of England. 

The English, according to the cable TV series, were severely outnumbered, with many fighters conscripted from local peasants and farmers armed with pitchforks and other common household implements. In truth, England’s army numbered some 25,000 soldiers. The English vanquished the Scots, killing James and many of his nobility. By some accounts, 17,000 of James’ 30,000 army were killed. Only about 1,500 Englishmen died.

Aside from their mobility being hampered by a muddy, boggy field, the Scots’ weapon of choice—a long lance known as a pike—was ineffective against the shorter, curved-at-the-head weapon—a bill—used by the English. A bill resembles a longer version of a field hockey stick. (Not being a Medieval military expert, I have no idea why a bill would be more effective than a pike.) Though not shown in “The Spanish Princess” battle scene, the English also benefited from lighter, more maneuverable, more accurate cannons. The English also used longbows, said to be “the last effective use of the longbow in English military history.” 

Gilda and I walked Flodden Field with Gemma on a blustery September afternoon a year ago, the wind so biting that we could stand the chill for less than an hour. Our jaunt was a prelude to my attending the annual Flodden 1513 Club dinner commemorating the Scots who perished at the battle more than 500 years go. I was Dave’s guest at the almost exclusively male affair held September 14, 2019, in the Scottish Borders town of Coldstream. Turns out, because of COVID-19 restrictions, it was the last commemoration dinner to be held until the pandemic abates.

One or two of those hundred or so in attendance were women. A similar number of men wore kilts. Bagpipes were played. As befits a gathering of Scots and their border town English mates, plenty of spirits flowed. To my surprise, blended whisky was preferred to single malt scotch, the locals saying single malt was for snobby foreigners.

As much as Americans share a common language with the English, it’s a challenge to comprehend everything a Brit speaks. Anyone who has watched English television broadcasts can attest to that reality. It’s all the more cogent when confronted by Scottish dialect. In other words, I had difficulty deciphering most of the speeches, toasts, songs and other entertainment during the commemoration dinner. 

Just like Gettysburg’s impact on our Civil War, the Battle of Flodden was pivotal in the annals of England and Scotland. English sovereignty over Scotland, though challenged from time to time, never again was in doubt. 

Interestingly, almost a century later, after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, her successor was King James VI of Scotland who became King James I of Great Britain encompassing England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. 

Day 231 Nat'l Emergency: My Fling with Gastonia

 I had another six degrees of separation moment Sunday morning as I lay in bed reading The New York Times online.

In an effort to explain Donald Trump’s desperate rush to hold rallies in suburban locales, The Times featured his trip to Gastonia, NC, the county seat of Gaston County, a suburb about 25 miles southwest of Charlotte.

Gastonia “has become a blue speck in a red county, with a majority Democratic City Council for the first time in recent history. And some said they saw new cracks here in the president’s support,” The Times reported (https://nyti.ms/35unAN3).

Forty-four years ago I was offered a job as a reporter on the Gastonia Gazette. Gastonia could hardly qualify back then as a blue speck on any electoral map.

How different my life would have been had I accepted that invitation.

After four years as a reporter on The New Haven Register, the last two as one of the paper’s six suburban bureau chiefs, I left to work as a press secretary for a congressional candidate. 

He lost. Badly. No one was surprised. Not that Michael Adanti, the mayor of Ansonia and a dean of Southern Connecticut State University, was a bad candidate. It was just that incumbent Ron Sarasin was an effective two-term congressman. 

With no job after election day, I was fortunate that Gilda was working as a newborn intensive care nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She was willing to relocate anywhere, except back to New York. 

The first paper to invite me for a tryout was the Gastonia Gazette (now called the Gaston Gazette). I flew into Charlotte on a Sunday, drove a rental car down I-85 and, for the first time, took a room in a Motel 6. For the next five days I “enjoyed” the South’s love affair with fast food restaurants. 

At one time a thriving community, Gastonia had suffered with the demise of textile manufacturing. Back in 1976 it had not yet attained status as an attractive suburb of Charlotte which had not yet experienced its growth as a financial industry center. 

To a Brooklyn boy like me, Gaston County was “different.” Miles and miles of two lane stretches with the occasional wooden shack set back from the roadway. It was easy to understand why several of my trial stories involved coverage of automobile accidents. Nothing too memorable or newsworthy happened during my week in Gastonia.

I must have made a favorable impression or the editor was desperate as he offered me a job on Friday. $200 a week. I told him I had left The Register because it paid just $200. He countered that the cost of living in Gastonia was lower than in New Haven. But college expenses for our not yet born children would still be unaffordable, said I. 

He really wanted me so he upped the offer to $250 and membership in a country club (I don’t think he knew I was Jewish, though to be fair, Jews have lived in Gastonia since 1892). There was one catch, however. Instead of the two reporters he hoped to hire, for $250 a week he expected me to do the work of two staffers. I resisted the call of the South.

A few months later, after also passing up a $200 a week salary from the Annapolis Capital Gazette, I answered an ad for a publication in the one city Gilda did not want to relocate to—New York. I got the job, Gilda agreed we could move to Westchester, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

About 25 years ago we traveled to Charlotte to attend a cousin’s wedding. We took a side trip to Gastonia to visualize what might have been. We had no regrets about our decision to come back to New York State.

Day 228 Nat'l Emergency: Biden Opens a Door

 Did Joe Biden’s devotion to talking policy over polemics provide Donald Trump a path to election victory during an otherwise nothing-new debate Thursday night?

Trump pounced on Biden’s admission that his ultimate, though distant, goal for the United Stars is to transition from reliance on oil and other fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy sources. Biden said he would eliminate oil industry subsidies.

Trump seized the moment by noting key states like Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio (states Biden is hoping to win) and Oklahoma are populated by many whose jobs are dependent on oil production. By the time you read this Trump most probably will already have rolled out ads asserting Biden is out to take away their jobs.

Biden’s defense of his position made sense to anyone who carefully listened and, more importantly, cares about global warming and the need to undertake seismic shifts away from carbon gas production. But pitting the planet’s future against the specter of losing one’s job is a hard sell.

Though The New York Times observed that “Significantly, Mr. Biden made no serious error of the sort that could haunt him in the final days of a race in which he’s leading,” I am not so confident. 

Trump will mercilessly exploit the opportunity presented to him. He has to because he failed Thursday night to provide assurance or empathy in his approach to handling the surging coronavirus or his thoughts on how he would unite the country during a second term. Biden did.

The election is 11 days away. Few undecided voters remain. As we saw in 2016, elections via the Electoral College can be won by a sliver of votes in key states, among them Pennsylvania, Ohio and even Texas. 

Biden will be forced to play damage control in those states. He has cast this election as a vote for the soul, character and future of the country. He must hope voters in fossil fuel producing states see beyond their immediate paychecks.