November 8, 2018--A Note To Some of My Liberal Friends

I have been hearing from a number of friends that they are disappointed with the results of the midterm election.

That though Democrats regained control of the House and all that that will allow, Stacey Abrams lost the governor's race in Georgia and in Florida not only did Andrew Gillum not win the governorship but also incumbent Democrat senator Bill Nelson failed to be reelected  But to many of my friends, equally disappointing, Beto O'Rourke in Texas failed to unseat Ted Cruz.

Certainly it would have been wonderful if they had come through and thus I share their disappointment. But it concerns me that as a result some friends are disappointed with the overall results.

"I'm spoiled," one friend said, "I'm greedy and want to win everything."

I get it but is the best way to think about the results? 

It would have been exhilarating if they had won, but electoral politics is not about generating exhilaration. It is about electing people who share our values, have the ability to set needed agendas, win, and then (the hard part) are skillful enough to carry them out.

When I heard about this unhappiness I attempted to push back, saying we have to keep our eyes on the prize. In this case the prize is not only diminishing Trump (this week's election has already begun to do that) but to thwart the worst of his plans and (even more important) reduce his 2020 reelection chances.

And now with Jeff Sessions fired and who knows what else Trump will do in a panic to save himself, Democrats controlling the House is even more of an imperative and very good news.

I argue to my friends that politics is the art of the possible, not the perfect, and to be effective one needs to be able to compromise, set longterm goals, be strategic-minded, persist, and accept the reality that almost everything we contribute to accomplishing not only takes too much time to achieve but, even when we do, will never be fully satisfying. It is often frustrating. It's the grinding nature of the process.

My late friend Flash put it this way. He used to say when we saw this tendency among the people with whom we were working (most were progressives), "Though understandable and based on good intentions, when seeking to bring about change it is imperative to avoid the tendency to be satisfied only with the perfect solution. Unfortunately, since we never can achieve that we run the risk of winding up frustrated and ultimately powerless. Feeling pure may make us feel good about ourselves," he would add, "but if we are seeking to make as much a positive difference as possible, being satisfied only with the ideal we run the danger of rendering ourselves ineffectual."

In some circumstances this could feel as if he was calling for compromising in advance (it can have elements of that) but I continue to think at its heart it is true.

Thus, with all the disappointments, Tuesday's election may turn out to be historic. 

Trump had us on the road to an American version of autocracy. If he (yes he) had maintained control of the House, one more essential check built into our constitutional system would have been blunted and an even more emboldened Trump would have felt empowered to chip away at an accelerated pace at the protections thankfully hardwired into our constitutional system.

That we voted successfully to resist this is the headline from Tuesday, not that Beto and the others lost. In fact, looked at it another way he and they might be thought of as actually having won. 

Frequently, in a process that takes years to culminate, blazing trails and coming close is not only essential--it is often the most difficult part--but also can include elements of exhilaration.

The implications and complexity of this are worth more thought. 

May 9, 2107--Jack: Feeling Good While Getting Screwed

"For months I didn't hear from you and now all of a sudden you're calling all the time." It was Jack.

"There's so much going on I can't wait 'til you get here."

"Soon enough. Soon enough. But what is it this time? I only have a few minutes." That was not entirely true. In advance, I was preparing an excuse if I had enough and wanted to get off the line quickly. I wasn't in the mood to hear from Jack about all the things Donald Trump was accomplishing.

"I think this one will interest you."

"Is it about how the spring has reached the Midcoast and that Rona's garden is showing signs of life?" I knew that while we were away quite often Jack would walk over to our cottage and sit on the back porch looking out at the bay. We liked the idea that he was there keeping the house company.

"I can just see some of her early blooming perennials beginning to break through."

"Are you at the house now?"

"Yes. I love being here before any of the seasonal people begin to arrive."

"So you called to talk about Rona's garden?"

"Not really. I wanted to pass along something I heard from one of Trump's supporters. One even you would think is smart. Gerry is his name. He's educated, runs his own successful business, and reads everything."

"I think I met him once or twice. What's up with him?"

"He came out for Trump at about the same time I did. Going on two years now."

"That doesn't speak for his being smart." That just slipped out.

"I'll ignore that," Jack said.

"So what is he saying?"

"He's been trying to figure out why so many people in general, not just Trump people, will put up with their political representatives lying to them, not fulfilling their campaign promises. Including your people who lie to you. Think about Hillary and all her lying and even Obama. He didn't tell the truth about Obamacare. You can keep your doctors and so on. But you forgive them and from what you've said voted for both of them for president. And you don't hold them to the same standard you hold Republican politicians. This is Gerry talking."

"I'm not sure I agree. I voted for Hillary, yes, but knew she was all too comfortbale stretching the truth. And worse. When it came down to the two choices--her and Trump--for me it was an easy choice."

"But if she was elected some part of you would feel good, even be excited."

"That's true. I don't look for ideal or perfect. These people are human beings after all and have many of the weaknesses that pretty much everyone has. But for me there's no comparison between Obama and Hillary and Trump."

"This is all obvious stuff," Jack said, and I couldn't disagree, "But here's what Gerry is into gets a little more interesting. Some of this may surprise you coming from him and me."

"Go on."

"If you promise not to quote me, him and me are pretty disillusioned with Trump."

"Really?" I was totally surprised by this. For many months I've been hearing from Jack nothing but how wonderful and amazing Trump is. How he knows how to get things done. How he's shaking up Washington. How he's figuring out how to deal with North Korea. And of course how he's going to fix healthcare.

"But if you'd listen to the two of us talking about him and if you follow the polls which show that 98 percent of the people who voted for him would do so again, regardless of how they might feel now about his lack of substantial accomplishments, you'd hear people feeling pretty good about how he's doing and how they are thinking about themselves with him as their president."

"I'm sensing that on my own. How people are hanging in with him. And in general feeling good about him. I mean his people. Not people like me. I think he's a disaster. And dangerous."

"Again, nothing much new about this. But now let me tell you what Gerry said," he raced on, "A lot of us who are modest, working people know we're getting screwed by politicians. Pretty much by all politicians. Even ones we voted for and continue to support. In the spirit of the lesser-of-two evils. Let me take that back. We vote for the people we vote for, Trump included, not because they deliver for us--better health care than Obamacare or do things that generate jobs, good jobs, of deal with illegal immigrants or the opioid epidemic, which is out of control up here in Maine--we vote for them because they make us feel good."

"I'm not sure I'm following this," I said. "You know the people you vote for don't tell you the truth and don't deliver for you--that they really represent rich people and big corporations--and yet you keep voting for them because they make you feel good?"

"Yup. It's as simple as that. Like the way we all turn to things that distract us like movies and reading and music and TV and sports and hobbies because they bring us pleasure. Being for Trump is like that. We enjoy him. Even when he does stupid things. Sometimes because he does stupid things and how to us those things are also in their own way entertaining. We just simply like him. Even people watching MSNBC or CNN who are liberals and well educated tuned in to see what he was up to. And not just to find things to criticize."

"Can you give me an example of that? I mean stupid stuff that brings you pleasure."

"Like in the campaign when he came up with nicknames for Hillary--Crooked Hillary--or Little Marco or Lyin' Ted or Pocahontas for Elizabeth Warren. Why do you think record numbers watched the debates? To see Jeb Bush? Or Rand Paul? Trump blurted out how he'd lock up Hillary. That was ridiculous but funny. And it's easy to understand why people enjoyed him-- because he wasn't scripted and was liable to say anything. Some of it disgusting, others of it amusing. A lot of its both."

"I get the primaries. But now? He's our president for God sakes and that's different. It's no longer a reality TV show. And even as you and Gerry are willing to admit he's not doing an effective job, from your perspectives, it's no longer fun and games. This is serious business. Healthcare, war and peace, the environment, our kids' future."

"It runs deeper than mere entertainment. Again, this is Gerry's point. Trump makes us feel good in a deeper way. To feel good about being Americans. Sorry, but we want to be great again. In many ways we were greater in the past. For a lot of aging men, we don't feel good about the fact that since the Korean War we haven't won any of the wars in which we were engaged. That doesn't make people feel good about themselves. Nor has the quality of our lives improved. Economically we and our children are falling further and further behind. We need something to feel good about. Hillary's 12-point plan to fix the schools doesn't do it. All the USA, USA, USA chanting at Trump's rallies should tell you something. I mean about how he makes us feel."

"And for that you're willing to look the other way when among other critical things it comes to health insurance and maybe getting into a shooting war with North Korea?"

"Again, if we're going to get screwed no matter who gets elected it's better to vote for people who make us feel good about ourselves. I'm repeating myself and I know you have to go."

"I do."

"See you soon at the Bristol Diner. We can pick this up over coffee."

"I'm not sure I want to."

Jack just laughed.

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November 17, 2016--Don't Turn Off Your TV

Many of my liberal friends have been telling me that the results of the election and the current state of the transition are so upsetting that they've stopped reading newspapers and watching TV.

Having similar inclinations, I understand this.

In spite of this, I also feel we have to resist the impulse and make sure we're watching a lot of network and cable news, that we're reading all the newspapers and magazines we can tolerate, that we are spending time surfing the internet for political stories and insights, and are pushing ourselves to talk with each other about our frustrations and, much more important, what happened and what to do, to actually do, to make a difference, to recapture the agenda.

Republican conservatives have been adept at keeping in touch with who their people are and their issues and for decades have been organizing themselves to shape the discourse and gain power from the local to national levels.

Progressives? Not so much. Especially when it comes time to move beyond check-writing and self-referential smart-talk.

I'll be frank--what I've been hearing from liberal friends is that they are tuning off the news because dealing with it is making them unhappy. To quote many, "When I turn off the TV, I immediately feel better."

In response I have begun to say that, "With all due respect and affection, this sounds indulgent. Being an engaged citizen is not about feeling good. It's often about feeling bad and in spite of that, because of that seeking ways to become productively activated."

It's gotten to the point that some people I've known for many years don't want to talk with me anymore. Or, if we talk, want only to speak about happy, diverting things.

But unless more of us who opted out even before the election, pretty much having become disenchanted with politics, leaving the protection of our rights to governments, unless we reengage and get mobilized what we have seen recently is what we will likely experience for the rest of our lives.

One friend yesterday, finally exasperated by my unwillingness to stop hectoring him, said, "OK. I hear you. But what should we do? What should I do?"

Here's what I told him--

• Write letters to the editor and op-ed pieces
• Call in to radio talkshows, especially right-wing ones, and take on their demagoguery
• Write to Democratic members of the House demanding they vote to replace Nancy Pelosi as minority leader
• Write to whomever makes the decision about who you prefer to be the next head of the Democratic National Committee
• Support, volunteer for, send checks to organizations such as the ACLU that are dedicated to promulgating and protecting liberal rights and values
• Consider running for public office--school board membership is a good place to start
• Spend vacation time driving the blue highways of America and talk with, listen to people at the lunch counters of local diners
• Keep the TV on and watch not only PBS but Fox News, especially Fox News
• Get started fighting back
• Never give up!

Richard Nixon

September 4, 2014--Fear Itself

Reading Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, the first of Rick Perlstein's monumental trilogy of books about the contemporary conservative movement, there is this about Fred Koch, the Koch Brothers' sire, and his comrades in 1960 when they were working largely out of view to promote the conservative movement. Specifically about the role of fear in American politics:

. . . Conservatism was a conservatism of fear. They harped endlessly on the "communist income tax," how the economy would be decimated by inflation every time a worker got a raise. (Taft Republicans, joked The Nation, feared "only God and inflation.") Their scapegoats were unnamed subversives who were invisibly destroying the system from within: "I am at a lose to understand the current public attitude deflating the inflation psychology," Fred Koch wrote in a self-published pamphlet. "Perhaps it is propaganda, of which we have been fed much of late--pink propaganda, in as much as, in my opinion, Russia's first objective is to destroy our economy through inflation."  

Politically the philosophy lost when it won [my italics]: if you removed the fear of subversion by catching subversives, you ended the fear that brought you to power in the first place--although, of course, you could never catch all the subversives, for the conspiracy was a bottomless murk, a hall of mirrors, a menace that grew greater the more it was flushed out. 'The Communists have infiltrated both the Democrat and Republican Parties for many years," Koch wrote. "If we could only see behind the political scenes, I am sure we would be shocked."

Thinking about this early the other morning, I speculated that there are basically two underlying sources  from which political power derives--

Fear is one force. Real, imagined, and often, by politicians, manipulated. Recall that during the 2008 primary campaign Joe Biden, famously calling Rudy Giuliani out as a fear merchant, said that everything he says is made up of a "noun, verb, and 9/11."

When looking at the social psychological reasons why people, without coercion, will give up their freedom to authoritarian leaders, Erich Fromm in Escape from Freedom, offers evidence that they do so because they either have real things to fear (economic collapse, external military threat, discrimination) or are fear-driven in their orientation. Like the Kochs they see threats all around even when they do not in fact exist.

Progressives, on the other hand, are willing to give up some of their autonomy--freedom, if you will--for the collective good. At least the collective good as they perceive it--that no one should go homeless or hungry or untreated if they are ill. Seeking the greatest good for the greatest number is what drives them politically.

As with conservatives, there is with them also the possibility, and often the reality, of self-delusion. And they have not always been reluctant to embrace their own manipulative methods. What one may claim to be the greatest good for others is not often put to the test--asking those for whom decisions are being made if they perceive them to be in their best interest.

So, in the first instance the instinct for a version of survival drives belief and behavior and in the latter case arrogance can take hold as those with power decide for the rest of us what is supposedly in our best interest.

August 12, 2104--Midcoast: Peggy Pays a Visit

"Don't you find it frustrating to be living here among so many conservative people?" This from a visiting friend who is very progressive and politically-minded.

"Actually, I find it both challenging and interesting." Peggy looked at me skeptically. "Really, the challenging part is obvious. It's always difficult to converse with people with whom you have deep disagreements. But the interesting part is more important."

"Interesting?"

"Well, I learn new things if I can manage to keep my mouth shut and listen. And in spite of what you might think, not all conservatives are ill-informed or rigid. That is, no more rigid that you or I." I winked at her.

"But don't you find that when talking about, say, food stamps, you immediately run right smack into a brick wall--they're dead set against it while you'd like to expand it?"

"Maybe. Or at least that may be where we start--with them (usually a him) wanting to eliminate it while, you're right, I'd probably put more money into funding it."

"And so? That's it, right? Dead end?"

"Well, no."

"No what?"

"No, that doesn't always end the conversation." She continued to look at me out of the corner of her eye. "And that's half the point."

"What is?"

"That it's a conversation--at least we try to make it one. Not a shouting match or a series of pronouncements that go over each other's head."

"I'd believe that when I see it."

"You'll have to trust me." She folded her arms across her chest and took a deep breath. "But let me give you an example from last week. It just happened to be about food stamps. This friend, Willy, was going on and on about how he was at the checkout counter in Hanneford's and ahead of him was this guy who was paying with a SNAP card. Willy said, 'I know him. He lives in a $500,000 house and drives a BMW that must have cost at least $60,000. He shouldn't be getting food stamps.'

"I said, 'If that's true, I agree with you.'"

"'You do?'

"'Absolutely. I'm against anyone ripping off any government program, be it food stamps or Medicare.'

"Surprised at that, he said, 'But I thought all you liberals want to give everyone a free ride--food stamps, housing vouchers, disability, heating oil, the whole works.'

"I said, 'I don't know about others, but I'm pretty progressive and don't want to do any of that. I'd like to see more money in some of those programs, true, but I'd put in jail anyone who rips them off.'"

"You said that?" Peggy said, "You believe that?"

"Indeed I do. Shouldn't we liberals be the first ones to call for the end to waste and abuse in our favorite programs? If we believe in them and want to see them continued, we should be in the forefront of critiquing them and cleaning them up when they go off the rails and not let the conservatives have a field day, attacking them like Willy, based on a few bad examples. We should protect what we believe in by being extra vigilant and out front about problems."

"So that did the trick? You agreed with him about the guy with the BMW and now Willy's in favor of food stamps?" She was mocking me.

"Not exactly."

"What happened next?"

"I said, 'Let's try to narrow our differences.' Willy nodded, indicating he was OK with that. We had tried to do that before about other issues with occasional success. So I asked him how he feels about children not being properly fed. He said no child should go to bed hungry or to school without breakfast. I said that I agree with that but asked how we should make sure kids get food if their parents either can't afford it or are irresponsible.

"He at first didn't have an answer to that. Then he said, 'We have this Caring for Kids program here. Local people contribute money to it so students can have healthy snacks during the school year; and during the summer, when they can't get lunch in school, they provide it at no cost.'

"'That's a good example,' I conceded, 'of how people, not the government, can help those with needs. But,' I pressed, 'I know about the program, which is very good--I contribute to it--but it's reach is limited and they can't provide other meals to kids. Dinner, for example. Or during weekends. For that, I think, we have to have something like food stamps because the need is so great and only government can cover the costs. The whole program costs $75 billion a year.'

"He said, 'For that I'm all right with a government program. To make sure children are taken care of. It's not their fault if there isn't enough charitable money for that.'

"'I'll tell you what I'll do,' I offered, 'Neither one of us, of course, has a smart phone . . .' 'Another thing we agree about,' he said. 'Touché,' I said 'But let me check on the Internet later today to see how the food stamp money is distributed. How much of it goes to children. Than we'll see where things stand.' He reached across the table to shake my hand in agreement."

"So what did you discover?" Peggy asked.

"It took me just a few minutes to learn that there are about 22 million kids who receive food stamps and that this represents 48.7 percent of all food stamp recipients. Nearly half. More than I had thought."

"What happened next?"

"Well, Willy was waiting for me at the diner the next morning and without ado I told him what I learned."

"And what did he say when you told him this?"

"'I trust you and . . .' and then he got quiet.

"'And?' I probed.

"'And, so I suppose about this we're in 48.7 percent agreement.'

"'Let's work on the rest,' I said. 'Disabled elderly people, for example, get about 8 percent of the food stamp money. Are you OK with that?'

"He said he was. 'And about 19.8 percent are seriously disabled adults. He said he was OK with that too.

"'If I know my arithmetic,' I said, 'this means that maybe in regard to food stamps, we're in more than 75 percent agreement.'

"'76.5 percent,' he said with an exaggerated wink.

"So there you have it," I said to Peggy. "How up here we try to talk about even controversial things and at times manage to find some common ground."

I think Peggy was impressed. "I want to meet this Willy character," she said.

"Only if you promise to play nice."

"I'll think about it," she smiled.