Post No. 999 - Know the Reason Why

 

“All of us -- as readers, as writers, as citizens; we have obligations.” Neil Gaiman

Quite a week, it’s hard to keep it all straight. When I took the dog out for her morning walk I thought it was Saturday, but then saw kids being dropped off by the high school. We were scheduled to be enjoying art and food and a change of atmosphere in Santa Fe, my son and mother-in-law, my wife and I, but on the eve of departure my wife turned her ankle and fractured a bone in her foot. All plans scuttled. 

Spending time with my son is always good for me, he’s funny, and he’s been helping his mother. 

Israel still preparing for a ground invasion, Biden defending freedom on the television, Trump scolded and fined $5K for violating his gag order in his NY fraud case, and down in Georgia, two last minute pleas of guilty by Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro. That’s a lot of political action. As I understand it, neither Powell or Chesebro is off the hook with the federal Special Prosecutor, and they are bound to testify against the other defendants, including the man at the top, Donald “Tiny Hands” Trump. Kingpin white collar criminal of his time. It wouldn’t shock me if we see a succession of plea deals in the coming weeks. Some folks, at least, are starting to understand the cost of doing dirty work for Donald Trump. It’s about damn time. 

In essence, Powell and Chesebro are exchanging lenient sentences for testimony against the other defendants. Powell and Chesebro have tea to spill, names to drop, and we can only guess at what else they can offer the prosecution. This should disrupt the slumber of their co-defendants, including Donald Trump.  

And for a cherry on top,  Jim Jordan of Ohio found out just how much his colleagues despise him. Oh, the many reasons why. For his manifest incompetence; for his being a Grade-A Asshole for nearly twenty years; and for his perverse subservience to Donald Trump. Jordan is a member of the Ass Kissers Hall of Fame. Anyone who has worked in a business or other organization knows one of Jim Jordan’s cousins. Fuckers, every last one. I don’t know what to make of Jordan’s Ohio constituents, some of whom are probably very decent people. Can you explain to me how you’re not embarrassed by this ridiculous man? What does he do for you, as a citizen? How does Jim Jordan make your American life better or richer or more predictable? What do you get out of voting for him? Talk to me, please, I want to listen. 

I’m reading Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both professors of government at Harvard. They write with clarity. They explain the baked-in impediments (Electoral College, US Senate apportionment, lifetime terms for judges, etc) to a more robust democracy that reside in America’s foundational documents and its practices over time. They contrast and compare America’s democracy with democracies in Europe and South America. They show what an overthrow of an elected multiracial government looks like, here on American soil. They offer warnings, but also a number of potential solutions, some of which seem entirely unattainable when judged in the context of our current political situation, but that’s the thing about how social or political change is made: it has to start somewhere, with language and ideas, an understanding that things don’t have to remain the way they are today. Tyranny of the Minority is one of the most important books I’ve read this year. 

I’m also reading Alfred Kazin’s Journals, not quite halfway through it, one of those books you can tuck into at any time and come away with a literary gem. Interesting descriptions of the political scene in the early 1950’s, the era of Joe McCarthy and anti-communist madness; the New York intellectual scene; Brooklyn. 

When Mitch McConnell kicks the bucket and is buried beneath old home Kentucky soil, when a little time passes and the scholars dig into Mitch’s legacy, they’ll note how his actions carry weight beyond his death, and they will see that he is a primary example of the anti-democratic nature of the US Senate. Mitch killed legislation on abortion, gun control, the minimum wage, taxes and other proposals that were supported by majorities of Americans. Mitch gave all of us the finger. He employed the Senate’s arcane rules and the filibuster like Thor’s Hammer, and shepherded the confirmation of dozens of radical judges to the federal benches. McConnell is the consequence of a weak architecture; one man, unaccountable, even to his constituents. 

I see a flock of pigeons wheeling in the morning sunlight.