Musings …

Category: The Election and Beyond

  • We Can Only Hope?

    ​This is one significant similarity between our moment in time and one of the past.

    In that time and ours, the question on everyone’s mind was, will the elected leader do what everyone should expect them to do based on how they got to be elected? In our time, as I believe it must have been then, the hope of most was that despite what everyone knew about the new leader, the leader would distinguish between how they got to where they were and what they would do going forward. We know what happened then. Do we have any good reason to suppose, pray, that now will be different?

  • How Will the Trump Administration Unfold

    ​Let us propose for the purpose of argument how a Trump administration will proceed if the new President has EVERY intention of being the best president he can be. Let us also credit his idea of being good as being in no significant way different from ours.

    On his first day as President-elect, there was a good start in the ways he handled Hillary’s concession and his meeting with President Obama.

    One the other hand, he later that day issued a  tweet that was discouraging: “Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!”

    Why do this? He realized on his own that some of his voters would be offended by his good behavior and needed to address them, or he already knew they were up in arms.

    The next morning he tweeted what was taken to be a “replacement” tweet by the media: “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!”

    However, it can only be accepted as a replacement tweet if he makes it clear that that is what it was. Otherwise, both meanings stand. So which is it? If we don’t give him the benefit of the doubt, it’s both. He hopes that those assuaged by his first tweet will stay assuaged and those reassured by his second tweet will take it as a replacement for the first. If it is not a replacement. He is trying to “play” both sides.

    The answer remains to be seen. Yesterday, several extreme intentions were walked back and at the moment, although there is speculation that he will make bad appointment choices, we must wait and see.

    If he does make offensive choices – Steve Bannon being the most overtly bad – we can take that as as indicative of our worst expectations or, like the “Very unfair” tweet, meant to assuage supporters suspicious of treachery. If offensive for offensive sake we can give up our assumption that he has good intentions. If to assuage affronted supporters, trying to minimize backlash.

    If he wants to be a good President he must immediately do the right thing, right away, and in every way. And then weather the consequences with those who voted for him expecting bad behavior, who feel betrayed by his good behavior.

    If he doesn’t do the right things, he will alternate between trying to go in the right direction and assuaging his angrier and angrier voters. The result, I expect, will be more chaotic than the consequences of trying to do the right thing from the start.

    We shall see…

  • Unjustified Hatred Fomented Over Decades Killed Hillary

    All this malarkey on why Hillary lost. She didn’t lose. She was killed. And while dead she still got the popular vote.

    30 years of unjustified politically motivated character assassination and every opportunity taken to make insurmountable mountains out of nothing at all, Bengazi, or hardly anything at all, her server and her emails, took its toll. All other legitimate reasons given notwithstanding, individually or all dumped on her like an avalanche, if it were not for the amorally ginned up ugly mob hate, she would have won easily.

    Unjustified hatred fomented over decades killed Hillary Clinton, and incalulably worse, has gone a terrible long way to killing our society along with her. We must hope that we haven’t passed the point of no return.

  • Amoral Republicans Hide Behind Expectation of Trump Loss!

  • Amoral Republicans Hide Behind Expectation of Trump Loss!

    We ask the obvious question: Why don’t the Republican establishment and office holders declare now that they will vote for Hillary when they  know that a Trump presidency will be an unmitigated disaster! They are counting on a Trump loss to shield them from their moral responsibility to go beyond saying they won’t vote for Trump, and declare they will vote for Hillary.
         Imagine that the election was looming and the horror of a Trump presidency was imminent. They would have to declare for Hillary since they would be blamed, and truly be responsible for the impending calamity. But we would not learn that they were patriotic Americans, only that they were amoral Pragmatists. That is, those coincidentally doing the right thing, not because it was the right thing to do, but with no moral scruples whatsoever, to survive.
         Their only way to claim basic decency for themselves would be to declare for Hillary NOW! Fortunately for us, at the moment at least, it looks like we can confirm for ourselves the moral quality of Republicans who don’t declare for Hillary – that they don’t have any – because they will continue to be able to hide behind their hope, and now expectation, that Trump will lose!

  • David Brooks Claims Democrats More Culturally Conservative Than Republicans!

    Too bad my comment on David Brooks’ op-ed in the
    Times missed the boat. It’s one of my best.
     
    He wonders if the conventions give the impression that the Democratic party is now the more patriotic – is now and always has been – and the more conservative – gotta be kidding!!
     ____________
    “If you visited the two conventions this year you would have come away thinking that the Democrats are the more patriotic of the two parties — and the more CULTURALLY CONSERVATIVE.” [caps mine]
     
    I stopped reading here! The absurdity of the Democrats being more culturally conservative! I’m sorry, but culturally conservative, at least the cultural conservatism of the Republican Party constituency, is xenophobic, bigoted, and mean.
     
    While watching the Republican convention I wondered why all the frequent sympathetic references to LGTBQ people, and others I would have expected to be excoriated by “dog whistle.” And from the convention crowd, for this, why all the enthusiastic approval with wild and abandoned applause, standing and cheering?
     
    The reason: Propaganda to disingenuously fool voters outside the Republican base constituency – decent people who should know better – into believing a lie: that Republicans really care. Like the propaganda of the 1936 Olympics, it was not to show that the Germans were the master race, but to fool the world into believing the opposite of what they were fearing about Nazi Germany – to fool the world into believing that they were an open democratic society, a good citizen of the world.
     
    So too the propaganda of the Republican convention. Shamelessly: Amorally faking sympathy and support for those they despise and harm, in order to give the false impression that they are the opposite of what they are. That is, bigoted, xenophobic, and mean.
    The Democrats Win the Summer, David Brooks, July 28, 2016

  • Wash Me Thoroughly [Sung Thruly] – Skewering Republicans in Classical Style

    Wash Me Thoroughly [Sung Thruly] – Skewering Republicans in Classical Style

    I made this video myself, a Medley of Pictures of Shameless Amoral People set to “Wash Me Thruly,” a duet by Handel. That’s right: “Thruly,” not “Thoroughly.”

  • If You’re Not Scared Enough Already, Read This:

    If You’re Not Scared Enough Already, Read This:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/us/politics/trump-book-tony-schwartz.html

  • A Thought Experiment: Imagining Bill Clinton Did Not Meet the Attorney General on That Plane

    A Thought Experiment: Imagining Bill Clinton Did Not Meet the Attorney General on That Plane

    What would the political world look like if the meeting on the plane between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General, had not happened? Worse, much worse, the worst, for Hillary?

    Simply:

    • The Attorney General would not have had to recuse herself, sort of, at all.
    • She would not have had to punt to the Director of the FBI, James Comey
    • He would not have made any public announcements and would have reported FBI findings to the Justice Department as is usual.
    • The Attorney General would then have had to make the decision about whether or not to indict Hillary.
    • Two possibilities:
      • Not Indict – Loretta Lynch would be the target of Republican wrath, not the FBI director. That’s much worse for Hillary!
      • Indict – Hillary would have to withdraw and any credible Democratic Candidate – Joe Biden is my pick – would be president! Terrible for Hillary! Good for us!!!

  • Comment on Pragmatism that Missed the Boat at the New York Times

    You caught my interest straightaway by calling yourself “Pragmatist” and you fulfill it in saying, “In Trump, they see someone who doesn’t care about religion, but is more likely to support their views if it elects him.” You immediately go on to say,” The moral depravity of this position, of course, is clear to all thinking people.”

    But I don’t think it is at all “clear to all thinking people.” That perhaps because you are the first person I have encountered to have even brought it up.

    My clarity is that this behavior invokes one of the classic formulas for Pragmatism, i.e., “The Ends Justify the Means.” This is a formula for amorality because the selection of the “Ends” is beyond the scope of Pragmatism. Those ends, chosen for the arbitrary convenience of the Pragmatist, justify the means, however heinous!

    [I just realized that this is so even if the means fail! At least in the formula, “If it Works it’s Good,” if it doesn’t work it’s not good.  I never thought I would find something not so bad about Pragmatism!]

    Trump’s religious [sic] supporters are hypocrites as well, but Pragmatism is the unforgivable crime since in a world of amorality, the world of Pragmatism – unfortunately our world it seems – anything goes!

    ______________

    My comment was a reply to a comment by Pragmatist to The Theology of Donald Trump – – The New York Times – Peter Wehner – July 5, 2016.

    Pragmatist’s comment follows.  I address only his opening paragraph since after that, Pragmatism is no longer the subject:

    No person who is a devout Christian could support Trump because of his religious beliefs. The Evangelical right (by which I mean the non-denominational, largely independent evangelical churches) is embracing him as they know Clinton will not support their agenda. It is a political calculation. In Trump, they see someone who doesn’t care about religion, but is more likely to support their views if it elects him. The moral depravity of this position, of course, is clear to all thinking people. Interestingly, I doubt he will feel indebted and will probably ignore them once he is done using them.

    One asks why the Evangelical right does not see the issue Wehner raises, perhaps it is rooted in their notion of belief. Many believe the world is 6000 years old, reject evolution, reject modern cosmology, believe literally in a book that has had substantial “corrections” over the past 50 years due to better translations/older versions of texts, believe gays need to be “fixed,”, etc. This is a group which values belief over fact no matter how preposterous. The problem is an ecumenical one: they are out of sync with educated, mainstream Christian thought and have been acting contrary to Christian values as the author makes clear. It is not that the followers are intentionally unchristian, it is that they are easily led because they have sold out independent thinking and the use of facts in the dialogue.