Well, this was predictable. NPR reported that China’s ambassador to the US warned that the US could face a possible âmilitary conflictâ with China over Taiwan:
“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the US, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”
It isnât a coincidence that China raises the specter of war while the US is focused on a possible threat by Russia in Ukraine. This week, 39 Chinese military aircraft flew near Taiwan, including two of China’s most advanced warplanes, their J-16D jets. Military analysts think that the J-16D has capacity to interfere with Taiwan’s defense radar systems and could make a huge difference in combat.
This is more evidence of how strategically fraught Americaâs legacy global policies are in a multi-polar world. Russia is threatening NATO and our Western allies, while simultaneously, China threatens our strategic position in Asia. We havenât fought a two-theater war in 77 years, and haven’t won a war since.
Itâs ironic that neither Taiwan nor Ukraine are formal mutual defense treaty partners with the US, yet US defense hawks think we should defend either or both. On to cartoons.
Surviving is difficult when you live in the wild:
Some voices on the Right support Russia:
Breyer retires, but opinions differ on who owns the right to replace him:
There seems very little Republicans can do to stop Biden from filling this seat, since thereâs no filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. That was taken away by Mitch McConnell, during the nomination of Neil Gorsuch.
Mitch looks for a loophole:
The never-ending Republican hissy fit:
Art Spiegelmanâs Pulitzer Prize winning book, âMAUSâ, is a memoir about the Holocaust. It was banned last week by a school board in Tennessee. In the book, the cats are the Germans while the mice are the Jews:
After an ice storm, Taos NM – January 2022 photo by Bob Benson
âFreedom without consequences is a myth. Our actions always have consequences. The question is: who will bear them?â – Seth Godin
The year 1968 was pivotal. In addition to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., it brought the Tet Offensive, student protests across the country, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the student and police riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention, Black Power salutes at the Olympics, and the triumph of Richard Nixonâs Southern strategy.
MLK, along with others in our churches and a few courageous politicians, came together to support the Big Idea that Separate was not Equal. MLK gave a voice to that Big Idea. His presence, power and persuasiveness drove our political process to an outcome in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that was completely unthinkable in 1954 when Brown vs. Board of Education was decided by the Supreme Court.
Wrongo participated in the Civil Rights movement from 1958 to 1962. He left active participation in the movement believing good ideas and a morally sound position would change our politics. He was wrong.
Legislation has recently passed in eight states that will restrict what students can be taught about our past. This is an effort to segregate certain subjects from our common history. These Republican states want to diminish or exclude the stories that speak to slavery, to Jim Crow, and to other moments in which Americaâs deepest shortcomings around the subject of race in America are told.
Wrongo wishes that this represented a minority of the Republican Party. But when Biden spoke in Atlanta, he said:
âI ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?â
Dr. King had said that stripping the right to vote from Black southerners laid the groundwork for laws that further disadvantaged poor people, even across racial lines. Then as now, Southern legislatures justified limiting the franchise to vote with specious claims about electoral shenanigans.
Bidenâs words set Republican teeth on edge. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that Biden:
“…called millions of Americans his domestic enemies…and that if you disagree with him, youâre George Wallace….If you donât pass the laws he wants, youâre Bull Connor, and if you oppose giving Democrats untrammeled, one-party control of the country, well youâre Jefferson Davis.”
“Now he says disagreeing w/him on voting laws means youâre a segregationist, like George Wallace or Bull Connor. How low can he go?”
The linkage between trying not to teach Americaâs true history with the censorious outrage shown by Republicans over Bidenâs comments is clear. Biden said America needed to be on the side of voting rights.
That was Dr. Kingâs great struggle, and his great success.
But Republicans want to whitewash that history. They also condemn Bidenâs efforts to tie today back to our undemocratic past. As Jelani Cobb says this week in the New Yorker:
âThis holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., sees a nation embroiled in conflicts that would have looked numbingly familiar to him. As school curricula and online discourse threaten to narrow our understanding of both past and future, itâs more important than ever to take stock of our history and its consequences….
Time to wake up America! We are docile sheep heading back to the barn, the place where we will be shorn of our democracy, just as surely as wool is shorn from the sheep. The smoking guns are all around us, and yet, we seem hopelessly divided about what we should do to change course.
To help you wake up, letâs listen to Wrongoâs favorite MLK song, âSouthernâ by OMD from their 1986 album âThe Pacific Ageâ. On April 3, 1968, in Memphis, King delivered his last speech, which we remember as his âIâve been to the mountaintopâ speech. He was assassinated the next day. OMD samples some of the content of that speech in âSouthernâ:
Although everyone knows the âIâve been to the mountaintopâ part of the speech, Wrongo thinks our focus should be on the following:
I want young men and young women, who are not alive today But who will come into this world, with new privileges And new opportunities I want them to know and see that these new privileges and opportunities Did not come without somebody suffering and sacrificing For freedom is never given to anybody
Why focus on that part of the speech? One day down the road, and it will not be long, young people will have forgotten what MLK meant to America, or how whatever remains of their civil rights, came to be.
Or, how the 13th Amendment ending slavery came about, and why, 100 years later in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, or how 48 years later, in June, 2013, the Roberts Court eviscerated it.
So, take the time to teach a child about why MLK is so important.
A new Quinnipiac University Poll, conducted between January 7 – 10 of a nationwide sample of 1,313 adults shows that Americans are confused about which Party is protecting voting rights:
This is another example of poor messaging by Democrats. Republicans have been trying to suppress voting in many states, and the Republicans in Congress have prevented Democrats from passing legislation to protect the right to vote for all citizens. But only 45% say Democrats are protecting the right to vote and 43% say it’s the Republicans. That’s within the poll’s margin of error of 2.7%, meaning it’s a virtual tie.
There are only three cohorts with more than 50% saying that one Party is better. Women (52%) and Blacks (86%) say itâs the Democrats, while Whites (51%) say itâs the Republicans. It’s also interesting that 12% apparently have no opinion about which Party is better for voting rights. Whatever the reason why this poll is so close, it isnât good for the country. On to cartoons.
Let’s vote our way out:
More GOP inflation:
Sen. Sinema is just not that into him
Are Sen. Manchinâs priorities misplaced?
Supremes reject federal governmentâs right to set rules for public safety:
(The mandate would have covered about 84.2 million Americans. OSHA estimated (before Omicron) that the rule would save 6,500 lives and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations over a six-month period.)
Mount Pierce, with Mt. Washington in background, NH – photo by Eric Duma
On Tuesday, Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick won an election to fill the seat in Floridaâs vacant 20th Congressional District. She will replace the late Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D) who died last April after losing his fight with pancreatic cancer.
Cherfilus-McCormick, a 42-year old health-care company CEO, easily defeated Republican nominee Jason Mariner. The WaPo reports that Mariner had talked openly during the campaign about his past convictions for theft and cocaine possession and his time in jail. Bless his heart!
It wasnât expected to be a competitive contest since Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans in the district. Biden won Florida’s 20th in 2020 with 77% of the vote, while Cherfilus-McCormick won the special election with 79%.
“Now they called the race, I did not win, so they say, but that does not mean…that we lost,”
He had filed a lawsuit before the polls even closed alleging there were problems with the ballots in Palm Beach and Broward Counties.
While we know that winning candidates can take office even without a concession, Republicans are turning into the Party of sore losers. When the 2022 mid-terms roll around, it is abundantly clear that few Republicans will concede in their races.
This makes a lie of what some Democrats (and a few Republicans) have said about the looming problems with vote counting; that if the winning margins are big enough, elections canât be stolen. Margins are rarely as large as Cherfilus-McCormickâs, and her opponent isnât conceding.
The entire point of the GOPâs continuing election lies is to undermine the legitimacy of wins by Democratic candidates. Weâll soon see whether contested mid-term elections won by Democrats will be judged as fraudulent in the many Republican-controlled states.
The broader Republican Party understands that thereâs no such thing as a bad Conservative. Until they arenât. At which point they call them liberals. As Rick Perlstein famously observed, in Conservative circles, âConservatism never fails. It is only failed.â
When Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick takes office, Democrats will again hold 10 more House seats than Republicans. There is currently one vacancy in the House, the empty California seat formerly held by Congressman Devin Nunes (R).
Letâs move on from this weekâs sad news that we will not see Democrats break the filibuster to pass either the For the People Act or the somewhat more modest Freedom to Vote Act. itâs time for our Saturday Soother!
Here in the Northeast, weâre expecting snow on Martin Luther King Jr. day, although we still have a respectable amount of snow on the Fields of Wrong. Today weâre hosting another gathering of family who were unable to visit when Wrongo inconveniently got Covid on Christmas Eve.
So the time is right to have a Saturday Soother before the house fills up. Letâs start by brewing up a vente cup of Panama Washed Process Gesha ($50/6 oz. That tells you inflation is really out of control!) from Jersey City, NJâs own Modcup roasters.
Now grab a seat by the fireplace and remember Ronnie Spector, who died this week. Spector and the Ronettes were (along with the Shirelles) the essential 1960s girl groups. In 1963, the Ronettes joined forces with Wall of Sound producer, the odious Phil Spector, by cold-calling him.
The Ronettes went on to have nine top-ten hits working with Spector. Ronnie and Phil married in 1968. During the marriage, Spector was violent and abusive, subjecting her to physical and emotional threats, and locking her up in their home. She finally managed to escape, barefoot and with just the clothes on her back.
Now, listen to a 1987 cover of the Ronetteâs original âBe My Babyâ this time featuring Ronnie Spector alongside The E Street Bandâs Clarence Clemons, with backing vocals by Belinda Carlisle, originally of the Go-Goâs, and Grace Slick from the Jefferson Airplane. The song was written by Ellie Greenwich, and was a genuine teen anthem in 1963, it was recorded live at The Latin Quarter, NYC, in February, 1987:
Hopi Buttes, AZ – January 2022 photo by Jon Ray Doc
January 6 should have been a national day of mourning. The president spoke in the very place that symbolized the attempted coup, the Rotunda of the Capitol. From Biden: (parenthesis by Wrongo)
âWe saw with our own eyes: rioters menaced these halls, threatening the life of the Speaker of the House, directing to hang the Vice President of the United States of America. What did we not see? We did not see a former president, (Trump) who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in a private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk, the national Capitol under siege.â
âTop Republicans were nowhere to be found at the Capitol on Thursday as President Biden and members of Congress commemorated the deadliest attack on the building in centuries, reflecting the partyâs reluctance to acknowledge the Jan. 6 riot or confront its own role in stoking it.â
Trump won the argument within the Party over his efforts to nullify the election results. McConnell, McCarthy, and their allies abandoned the thought of considering impeaching Trump over January 6. That instead became a rallying cry for Democrats. When the second impeachment went forward, the Republicans closed ranks behind Trump.
Wrongo argued for the second impeachment. With hindsight, that effort has ended any bipartisan effort to get to the truth about who and what caused Jan. 6. Republicans initially supported a commission to investigate it, but soon abandoned even that.
A bit of history: When Hitler attempted his putsch in 1923, he got off with a slap on the wrist thanks to a sympathetic right-wing judge. A decade later he was chancellor. Thatâs a stark history lesson for AG Merrick Garland.
The attempted putschists who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6 are being prosecuted, but itâs the principal organizers who should now be getting the primary attention of law enforcement. Republicans are hoping that Garland will sweep the potential crimes committed by Trump and his organizers, like Bannon, Meadows, and Navarro, under the rug.
We now find ourselves in a place where whatever the Democrats say Republicans did on Jan. 6 is mirrored: Republicans are saying that itâs the Democrats who are doing those exact things. The Republican Party is trying to end anything resembling democracy in America by relying on the claim that the Democratic Party is trying to end anything resembling democracy in America.
This is the ultimate expression of the rule that every accusation made by the Republicans is in fact a confession. From the AP:
â….since that day, separate versions â one factual, one fanciful â have taken hold. The Capitol riot â the violent culmination of a bid to delegitimize the 2020 election and block its certification â has morphed into a partisan âRashomon,â the classic Japanese film about a slaying told from varying and conflicting points of view.â
Instead of receding into the past, the story of the Capitol riot is yet to be fully written. America needs the DOJ and the House Select Committee to tell the story by criminal referrals.
Leave the history of the event to historians.
We need to take at least a momentary break from thinking and talking about January 6. Itâs Saturday and time for our Saturday Soother, and boy, we need one today. It snowed quite a bit in New England on Friday morning, with totals between 3â and 15â depending on location. Once again, Wrongoâs repaired snowblower served as an insurance policy against a heavy snowfall. We got a mere 5â, so Wrongo got to exercise his snow shovel instead.
Weâre having a belated Christmas party today. Between Covid and suspected Covid, this is the first time that some of us can occupy the same space. So, before the family descends on the Mansion of Wrong, letâs brew up a strong cup of Conquistador coffee ($18/12 oz.) from San Franciscoâs Henryâs House of Coffee.
Now grab a comfy seat by a window, look out on the winter wonderland and listen to the âTo Kill A Mockingbird Suiteâ written by Elmer Bernstein for the 1962 movie. Bernstein was one of the most prolific composers to emerge in Hollywood in the 1950s. Itâs played here by the Beethoven Academy Orchestra, in Krakow Poland, with Sara Andon on solo flute:
New Yearâs Day, Pike National Forest, near Colorado Springs, CO – January 2022 photo by Daniel Forster
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âIt’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.â â Tom Stoppard
Tomorrow we will observe the anniversary of the attempted coup at the US Capitol. For the most part, in response, America will do nothing. The Atlanticâs Barton Gellman wrote last month,
âTrump and his party have convinced a dauntingly large number of Americans that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response.â
There are tens of millions of Americans who believe that the 2020 election was magically stolen from Trump, and tens of millions who believe violence is the answer to resolving that problem. A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds that 64% of Americans believe US democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing.”
The poll found one-third of Trump voters say the attack on the Capitol was actually carried out by opponents of Donald Trump, including Antifa and government agents, a baseless conspiracy theory that has been promoted by conservative media ever since the attack, even though it has been debunked.
Is the US careening toward a second civil war? Republicans seem to be willing to destroy the Republic to save it.
Stephen Marche published an excerpt from his new book in the Guardian. He points out that the Right has recognized that the American political system is in collapse, and it has a plan: violence and solidarity with far-right factions that want to subvert the vote-counting process.
Marche says that two things are happening at the same time. The American Right has abandoned its faith in government. The American Left has been slower on the uptake, but they are starting to figure out that the American political system which we call a democracy is less deserving of the name as each year passes.
So, the Right is already preparing for a breakdown of law and order. Theyâre preparing because theyâre the ones fomenting the breakdown.
A University of Virginia analysis of census projections shows that by 2040, 30% of the population will control 68% of the Senate, and eight states will contain half of the US population.
The conservative project to achieve permanent minority rule long precedes Trumpâs efforts to nullify the election in 2020. Itâs being further codified into law in states across the country. The Senateâs built-in malapportionment gives advantages overwhelmingly to white, non-college educated voters. The federal system as constituted no longer represents the will of the majority of the American people.
This shouldnât surprise you, since we continually elect people uncommitted to making government work. And surprise, it doesnât. VOXâs Zach Beauchamp observes:
âAmericaâs dysfunction stems, in large part, from an outdated political system that creates incentives for intense partisan conflict and legislative gridlock. That system may well be near the point of collapse. Reform is certainly a possibility. But the most meaningful changes to our system have been won only after bloodshed and struggle, on the fields of Gettysburg and in the streets of Birmingham. It is possible, maybe even likely, that America will not be able to veer from its dangerous path absent more eruptions and upheavals â that things will get worse before they get better.â
Can this be avoided? Unclear. The Democrats have done an excellent job in ensuring they have little bench strength. Who do they have who is capable of succeeding Biden?
The Republicans have lobotomized their talent base. Trump created an environment where any number of lunatics can claim followers that vaguely fit under the Republican banner, while the mainstream Right fails to control either the Party or its narrative.
Itâs still possible for America to implement a modern electoral system, restore the legitimacy of the courts, reform its police forces, and alter its tax code to address inequality. All of these changes are possible.
However, we canât simply hope that everything will work out; it wonât. If democracy is to survive, the US must start over. It must rediscover its revolutionary spirit. But whoâs willing to do that? We seem to feel that itâs futile to expect that we can change anything.
The upshot is that people are angry. Many are checking out, no longer caring about what happens. How will we save the American project if we arenât willing to fight for it?
What happens if it no longer matters who is running for president next time around?
Mt. Baker, viewed from Bellingham, WA after 66â of new snow â December 2021 photo by Randy Small photography
Wrongo tested positive for Covid on Christmas Day, despite being vaxxed and boosted. When he asked if it was Omicron or Delta, the hospital didnât know, saying that the test might be selected randomly for further genetic testing. That means itâs highly doubtful any facility in Connecticut can separate Delta and Omicron patients. In fact, most places wouldnât have the resources to do that, even if they wanted to.
So, while recovering here at the Mansion of Wrong, weâve tried to take the required precautions, including cancelling family events, informing those who we had spent time with earlier that week, and masking indoors. One family friend who was with us last week, just texted to say that his 3.5 year old grandson whom he babysat for after seeing us, just tested positive. Itâs rampant.
We are entering year three of Covid, and the pandemic isnât over, even though most of us believed it would be over by now. Instead, for its junior year, Covid is looking like it may shift from a pandemic to an endemic disease, one we will have to live with, possibly forever.
We have effective vaccines, but a political effort is stoking anti-Vaxx feelings in order to keep the pandemic going. Republican leaders are opposing vaccinations, wearing masks, and social distancing (even though they know these things are very effective). And their followers are well — following, by refusing vaccinations, masks, and social distancing.
Despite Covid having a roughly 2% mortality rate, they seem to be more threatened by a vaccine that has a 0.0022% mortality rate. We can ask why GOP politicians are doing this. Most of them are vaccinated. They know that refusing these measures will make people sick and will likely kill quite a few of the unvaccinated, but they don’t seem to care.
They understand that a continuing pandemic could make Biden a one-term president. A continuing pandemic may help Republicans retake the House and Senate in 2022. Nobody likes a loser, and they think the majority of voters will blame Biden for the continuing pandemic.
The numbers are against Biden. Americaâs now at 821,000 dead. Unless we get very lucky, in another 100 days, weâll be somewhere between 920,000 and 1,000,000, because since August, we have averaged more than 1,500 deaths/day. Unless the daily deaths change, weâre headed to a million dead by spring.
Republicans are going to use this fact to attack Biden, saying that heâs handled Covid worse than Trump did, because there are more deaths on his watch.
Republicans have done everything possible to prolong Covid and to slow or prevent the implementation of measures that would have lowered the death toll. Itâs like an arsonist complaining about the fire department not putting out fires fast enough. The idea that Covid vaccinations should be treated as a matter of individual consumer preference is absolutely brain-dead Republican nihilism.
The NYT reports that where people are dying of Covid also has changed since vaccines became widely available: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âDeath rates fell in most counties across the country, and in about one in five counties, the death rate fell by more than half. But in about one in 10 counties, death rates have more than doubled.â
Now, ten percent of counties doesnât equal ten percent of the population. Hereâs the map provided by the Times:
Note the concentration in Kentucky and West Virginia. The latest data from the CDC, based on data from 25 states and cities, shows that the death rate for unvaccinated people is 14 times higher than that for vaccinated people. The article also includes a map where Covid deaths have decreased. You can view it here. In most ways, it fills in the blank areas on the map above with green cones instead of these red cones.
Weâve been at this for two long years. Now starting year three, maddeningly, the issues remain the same: The health care system is running out of resources. People can’t get tested. Some people refuse to help themselves and their neighbors. New variants can emerge in the wild faster than we can develop remedies, particularly when people wonât avail themselves of the remedies we already have.
There will be end of year reports on the good things that happened in 2021. There will be reports on both the good and bad things to come in 2022. One thing that doesnât seem likely to be in any of those reports is a changed reaction to Covid by Americans.
Time to put 2021 in the dumpster.
Happy New Year! Thanks for riding with Wrongo for another year. Raise a glass, knowing that we will try our damnedest to make sense of it all again in 2022. Letâs close with âAuld Lang Syneâ performed by The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin: (hat tip to Monty)
Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley NP, photo by Ed Kendall
(This week’s Sunday Cartoons will appear on Monday)
Wrongo understands that the Jan. 6 investigations are looking in depth at who was behind the attempted coup. But heâs very unhappy with the Democratsâ inability to keep the issue alive, fresh and in front of the American people.
Apparently, communication with the public is too difficult for Democrats.
There are two investigative efforts underway, one by the DOJ, and another by the House of Representatives. Here is the current state of play: DOJ has arrested close to 700 people (possibly more, once you consider cases that havenât yet been unsealed).
The House Select Committee has already met with about 300 witnesses. They have litigated and won a case against Trumpâs assertion of executive privilege. A federal appeals court rejected Trump’s request to block the Jan. 6 Select Committee from obtaining executive branch records. Trumpâs path now is to go to the Supreme Court before New Yearâs.
The truth will ultimately come out. The question is if anyone will care.
Itâs been obvious that Trumpâs Big Lie would be the organizing principle of the GOP ever since January 6. It was a delusion to think that the GOP would sober up and fly right, and itâs now clear that they are going to continue to drink the Trump-spiked Kool-Aid for the foreseeable future. Itâs highly unlikely that Trumpâs followers will allow any Republican candidates to hedge on the Big Lie or pretend to distance themselves from Dear Leader.
The Atlanticâs Barton Gellman wrote a major piece about how the GOP plans to steal the 2022 mid-terms and the 2024 general election. He makes a compelling case that Trump and his cronies are laying the groundwork for a coup in 2024 using the tactics they attempted leading up to and on Jan. 6.
The Congressional investigation is proceeding âtop downâ and unlike the DOJ, itâs without the constraint of needing near-certainty of a conviction before going public.
The DOJ is proceeding âbottom upâ albeit with vast investigative resources, and (hopefully) with a keen sense of what NOT to say prematurely lest it compromise their investigations. The DOJ investigation starts at the Capitol crime scene, building from the useful idiots and militia foot soldiers towards the inciters and commanders.
Congress OTOH, can focus directly on mid-to-upper-level conspirators, like Bannon and Meadows. In a way, both groups are building a bridge from opposite banks of the river. Maybe, someday the two spans will meet. We have to pray it works out that way.
Republicans are rewriting January 6th and are trying to flush it down the memory hole. Itâs certain to work on at least 40% of the country. The issue is whether they can convince another 10% of voters to think there might be nothing to it.
Enough of politics for this week. Itâs time for our Saturday Soother!
The weather in Connecticut is unseasonably warm and dry. On the fields of Wrong, itâs time to put up the temporary fencing that keeps the deer from nibbling on leaves and bark. That constitutes much of their winter diets.
Then take a few minutes to brew up a vente cup of True Grit Peaberry coffee ($14.00/12oz.) from Nguyen Coffee Supply, a Brooklyn, NY based roaster that is the first specialty Vietnamese coffee company in the US.
Now grab a seat by a window, settle back in your comfy chair. Watch and listen to George Gershwinâs âRhapsody in Blueâ, played by the Cellista Cello Ensemble from Korea. Here it is played by 12 cellos in an arrangement by Sung-Min Ahn:
The iconic opening riff is usually played on clarinet. But here, it sounds great on the cello.
San Miguel Peaks, Uncompahgre National Forest, CO – November 2021 photo by Tad Bowman
Wrongoâs column on how we need to rehabilitate our Constitution drew several comments saying that it was a foolâs game to even try to change it, given our political dysfunction.
One reader, David P. asked how we might accomplish such a heavy lift. It is only possible if people get more involved in the political process. That got Wrongo thinking about why so few individuals really actively participate in the political process today. From Ezra Klein:
âObsessively following the daily political news feels like an act of politics, or at least an act of civics. But what if, for many of us, itâs a replacement for politics â and one thatâs actually hurting the country?â
Klein interviewed Eitan Hersh of Tufts University on his podcast. Hersh talked about âpolitical hobbyismâ, by which he means following politics as a form of entertainment and/or an expression of self-identity. He differentiates it from the actual work of politics.
Hershâs research shows that a lot of people who believe they are politically engaged are really only passively following it. He also thinks that their following it passively has played a key role in making our politics worse.
For Hersh, the real work in our politics involves some sort of local engagement and/or organizing. His point is that voting and contributing money have their place, but these are fundamentally low engagement activities, especially if youâre not wealthy enough to impact policy.
According to Hersh, if you contribute money to a candidate because that candidate said something that made you feel good, thatâs less real political engagement than it is a kind of consumerism: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âA lot of whatâs happening in small-dollar donations….youâre watching a…politician grandstand and make some speech. And because they grandstand in a way that you liked, you react by giving a $5 donation….So, whatâs really going on is you have no goals except to reward a politician for saying something that feels great in the moment. I think that makes politics worse rather than better. And you are doing it more for yourself â for your own kind of emotional…ends â rather than to move politics in a direction….â
More from Hersh: (brackets by Wrongo)
âIf you look at the number of people who are spending time on politics, thereâs about a third of the country that says theyâre spending about two hours a day in news consumption….Almost none of [this time]…letâs say 2%, is real community or volunteer engagement. The rest is mostly news consumption and sharing, talking, and debating online.â
Hersh makes the point that the people who spend the most time on any political engagement are White men, particularly college-educated White men. They know more facts, but they are not the group thatâs working with their Parties on organized politics. That would be women. Racial minorities, particularly Blacks, but also to some extent Latinos, spend less overall time on following the news, but more of their time is spent in actual political activities.
Wrongo does precisely what Hersh says is indulgent consumerist behavior. He reads about politics and writes this silly blog. He contributes to candidates he likes/admires. Wrongo also volunteers on a couple of committees in his town, but heâs invisible in local politics.
Reader David P. does much more. Once a week he goes to an office of his local Democratic Party and makes canvass calls. His is a life-long arc of true political engagement. Working on campaigns, attending rallies, and yes, donating money, and commenting on blogs.
It shouldnât surprise anyone that Wrongo thinks that offering opinions and informing the public via blogs is important. Blogs that are done well inform people, and they spread information. Thatâs the mission, because god knows, people are totally misinformed by both politicians, and the mainstream media.
In âThe Cause, The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783â by Joseph Ellis, he says that before the revolution, colonists didnât think of themselves as Americans. They described their fight for independence as âThe Causeâ. An ambiguous term that covered diverse ideas and multiple viewpoints. Unlike in England at the time, even working class colonists were literate. And they were fully engaged in the process through word and deed.
Most Americans today are literate, but what will it take to get them off the couch? What will it take to get Democrats to put themselves on the line for an idea, or for a candidate?
We say, âhow can we lose to these guys?â When we see that Republicans have left our Americaâs democratic values behind, when we know that they actively intend to undermine the integrity of our elections.
How dangerous does the threat to our democracy have to be for people to get involved?
Or have we so totally surrendered to reading social media on our phones that weâre no longer capable of putting ourselves on the line for what we say we believe in?
The Rittenhouse verdict is in. The jury has spoken, and in our system, regardless of who agrees or disagrees with it, it’s decided, and we move on.
Whether justice was done by a “not guilty on all counts” verdict is a question that can will never be fully answered, but he WAS found innocent, and there’s no appeal. That says more about us than it says about him. The problem isn’t our laws, either about gun ownership, or self-defense, although Wisconsin’s self-defense law could be better. Not so long ago, we had exactly the same laws and we lived in a (mostly) decent society that wasn’t armed to the teeth.
But we no longer live in that society now. We now live in an angry society where vigilantes are praised. The Republican Party has turned this little son of a bitch into a murderer and then, into their little pet hero.
Rittenhouse is a hero to the entire American Right Wing, which is represented politically by the Republican Party. Doubt that? Consider this tweet from Rep. Anthony Sabatini, Republican representing Floridaâs 7th Congressional district:
On to cartoons. The Rittenhouse trial checked all the boxes:
Wrongo heard a pundit on NPR say the Rittenhouse verdict was a win for Constitutional rights. Wrong! It had nothing to do with the Constitution:
Rep. Gosarâs murder tweet didnât even register with the elephant:
The difference between the Parties:
Bannon plans to make his taking of the 5th Amendment a long slimy road:
