November 5, 2018--What Are We So Afraid Of?

It is not inappropriate, the day before the most consequential midterm election in memory--perhaps in all of American history--to explore the power of the defining political issue--Fear.

This time around, we really do have nothing but fear itself to fear.

Fear is the central theme, the emotion being evoked by the defining presence in the campaign--Donald Trump, who has nationalized the process. 

Rather than this election being about Congress, which by definition is what midterm elections are--they occur midway through a president's term of office, usually his first term, by its nature it is about 435 separate House of Representatives and this year 35 separate Senate contests--Trump has turned it into something different, something unprecedented. 

Because of Trump's behavior--daily or twice daily rallies, endless political tweets and interviews--this midterm is a version of a presidential reelection campaign. In this case, Trump is seeking something resembling reelection (or minimally a vote of confidence) after fewer than two years in office. 

He has absconded with the electoral process and has tried to make it all about him. 

I suspect he has succeeded. 

Instead of the Democrats having an outside chance to pick up two or three Senate seats (and thus regain the majority), as a result of Trump's endless campaigning the Republicans are likely to flip a couple of seats and thus hold onto the majority, and rather than a Blue Wave that would see Democrats flipping 50 seats in the House, it looks as if 30 is more likely (which thankfully is just enough to regain the speakership).

This is the conventual wisdom. But I worry since this also feels like deja-vu all over again, Remember how "everyone" thought Hillary would easily defeat Trump in 2016? 

Retrospectively we know that fear then was also something Trump was perversely skilled at stoking.

This time, he has focused on the alleged threat represented by a so-called "caravan" of Central Americans heading north through Mexico toward the U.S. border. Taking his talking points from Fox News, Trump, without foundation, tells those attending his rallies that not only do the marchers include "very tough people, "M-13 gang members, but also how many are infected with exotic diseases, including leprosy (which though not easily contagious sounds very frightening and, for the Evangelicals in his base, is the disease most frequently mentioned in the Bible).

Caravans of asylum-seekers are not new. There have been any number of them over the years. Most recently, in April, on Trump's watch, 1,500 headed toward San Diego. About 300 made it. Only 14 were arrested. Almost all others were mothers with young children. Objectively not much of a threat but rich fodder for demonologizing.

The current caravan is estimated to be larger. Still 800 miles from the border, based on the April numbers perhaps 700-800 will reach U.S. Customs at about Christmas time. Impartial observers report that as in the past most are mothers with children.

Nonetheless, this minimalist threat is enough to incite Trump's most fervent followers. His order to send up to 15,000 U.S. troops to join the 20,000 border patrol agents in defense of the border (which is illegal for the military to do) is a fearful over-deployment of resources. But it does contribute to fear about the magnitude of the threat. It is thus more a political than a tactical move. After Tuesday, no matter the results, expect this military ploy to evaporate from the headlines.

More disturbing, what has happened to us? To Americans? Why have we become so fearful? How can it be that this caravan of women and children is enough to paralyze more than a third of the population?

Have Americans who responded so bravely to real threats such as the attack on Pearl Harbor and on 9/11 the World Trade Center, become such wusses that we need the Army to protect us from women and children in flip-flops marching 1,000 miles to seek asylum?

For a depressing number of Americans the answer appears to be yes.

June 28, 2018--KinderTransport

How fitting it is that on what would have been my mother's 110th birthday I would be writing about children being sent to safe havens by parents who know it is unlikely they will ever again see them. The ultimate act of sacrificial parental love. My mother's and many mothers' specialty! 

I am thinking about young children being sent north to safety in the United States from Central American where their lives are in peril. Fleeing gang-infested Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

And I am also thinking about other children sent to refuge by their parents. Those from Germany and other Eastern European countries overrun by the Nazis where just being Jewish put their lives at risk.

In regard to the latter, I am thinking about my ex-wife Lisa's aunt Mimi Schleissner, who was born in 1927 in Sudetenland, and who, in 1939, at age12 was sent from Czechoslovakia to sanctuary in England via the KinderTranport ("Children's Transport"), an organization that came into being soon after Kristallnacht, to rescue children. In less than a year, 10,000 had been saved by the English who served as foster families.

The KinderTransport

After the Nazis occupied her town, Mimi and her family fled to the country and then on to Kolin where she was hidden by a Christian family and then subsequently transferred to safety in England, through the KinderTransport, to live initially with an uncle in London and then, during the Blitz, to Cheltenham in the Midlands, on the edge of the Cotswolds. 

And how, when there, she met and fell in love with a Newark-born American GI, Eddie Ormond, who played the violin in an army musical group. He was 24, she 17. Her parents didn't approve but still they married, came to America, had three girls, and settled in Cleveland where he was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra.

On the Left--Eddie Ormond

Unlike so many, most of Mimi's immediate family survived, having escaped to Palestine through Italy.

We are seeing a version of the same thing right now, today, along our border with Mexico where there has been and is a steam of unaccompanied young people, some just 10 and 11, sent north by their parents, on their own, to live, if they are fortunate, in the shadows, without the support of organized groups such as the KinderTransport's sponsor, the Jewish Agency. 

They are not murderers and rapists. And their's are not heartless parents. Heartlessness resides elsewhere.

Mimi Schleissner On the Right