The End of the Editorial as We Know It

Thanks a lot, Jeff Bezos. Democracy dies in darkness and it seems you’ve turned the lights out.

You got a quarter of a million subscribers to drop the Washington Post by deciding the Post shouldn’t run its already written editorial urging voters to choose Kamala Harris for President. And Bezos is not alone. The Los Angeles Times and the Des Moines Register are joining venerable names in newspaper journalism that have decided not to publish an endorsement editorial in this year’s presidential election.

Are billionaire and corporate newspaper publishers running scared? Or are newspapers returning to their roots? The Post can at least note that 60 years ago it has a tradition of not endorsing presidential candidates, although to cancel a planned editorial via a ruling by your billionaire owner days before an election makes the “we are returning to our roots” explanation a bit thin. However, see excerpt of a Post statement below.

No doubt our politics are becoming more sharply divided. Newspapers have been shedding readers for years, and only a few outlets, such as The New York Times, seem to be getting numbers of online subscribers to compensate for the loss of print readers.

1862 editorial

And online news outlets don’t have the editorial tradition that newspapers have. In 1862, Horace Greeley published “The Prayer of 20 Millions” in The New York Tribune, calling for freeing American slaves during the Civil War. That prompted President Abrahan Lincoln to actually write a letter to the editor in response, arguing his priority was to unite the country, and slavery was not his focus. But months later, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which didn’t actually end slavery everywhere, but nonetheless represented a historic shift in that direction.

Most newspaper editorials aren’t that consequential. But I am a fan of newspapers having an active editorial board that can inject ideas into the marketplace of ideas that are worth considering. To me, if the paper covers national news, that makes a presidential election endorsement almost obligatory. It’s one reason I feel lucky to live in Cedar Rapids, where our daily paper hasn’t yet joined the trend of staying silent on the most obvious public policy question of the day.

The argument against endorsements is that a newspaper’s role is to inform so that voters can decide.

Here is the expert of a statement posted by the Washington Post from William Lewis, publisher and chief executive officer:

“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.
“As our Editorial Board wrote in 1960:
“‘The Washington Post has not ‘endorsed’ either candidate in the presidential campaign. That is in our tradition and accords with our action in five of the last six elections.’”

Fair enough, although it’s a bit lame in the wake of what appeared to be a personal decision by one billionaire rather than a strategy based on traditional journalistic norms. On the contrary, I think expressing clear, sharp opinion informs in a way that merely reporting facts doesn’t. I think thinking an issue through and coming to a conclusion in a public way is part of encouraging civic engagement.

And it can be dicey, especially these days where the social media information system we’re all part of favors quick, over-the-top outrage because the goal is attention, and strong emotion brings more attention.

So, I understand the strategy that there isn’t much to gain by poking the bear and alienating half of your potential readership. However, I disagree with it. Again, I think “traditional” opinion writing, with its careful, rational voice is important.

Gazette, Nov. 1.

See the Gazette’s editorial endorsement of Kamela Harris. I think it’s clear and carefully written. Part of what the Gazette had to say:

“Trump has talked about using the military and Department of Justice to attack ‘the enemy within,’ including his political opponents. Trump has called Inauguration Day ‘Liberation Day’ if he wins. If he doesn’t, he likely won’t accept the outcome. The best way to avoid the shredding of the Constitution is voting for Harris and dealing Trump a loss he can’t come back from.”

It’s a good editorial—and, while readers don’t always understand this, the reporters who report the news are not the editors who opine on behalf of the paper, so this editorial doesn’t mean that the Gazette’s news coverage is skewed for Harris. (It’s skewed for Harris because objective, fair reporting in the fact-based, rational universe doesn’t favor the clearly deteriorating crazy lying old fascist, but that’s another story).

For an even stronger editorial on this topic, see the New York Times endorsement of Harris. Part of what they have to say:

“This unequivocal, dispiriting truth—Donald Trump is not fit to be president—should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.”

Whew. Don’t be shy, NYT, tell us how you feel.

Screenshot of online version of NYT editorial.

Anyway, I would rather see more newspaper endorsements, even if some are for Donald Trump. I don’t think they move voters a lot. But they help sum up ideas, to sharpen and clarify the necessary public debate in a democratic republic. So, Bezos, you’ve turned out the lights, and you’re not alone. The trend is for dozens of newspapers that endorsed in the past to flip the switch and stay silent this year, when silence is particularly painful in one of our most consequential elections. Darkness, indeed.

And that, to me, the lack of courage to speak out on the part of newspaper editorial boards is a shame.

Does it Matter if Donald Trump is a Fascist?

Self-disclosure. Yes, all my yard signs are for Democrats. Republicans this year scare me too much.

Is Donald Trump a fascist? His own former chief of staff kind of did a decent analysis of this question, ticking off the criteria. Hyper nationalism? Check. Racial identity politics? Check. Treating political opponents as “the enemy” and threatening them with prison? Check. Calling for mass roundups into detention camps? Check. Admire Adolph Hitler and “Hitler’s generals?” Check.

Clearly, a fascist. But is that the key question?

Half of America doesn’t see it that way, and we’re only six days away from (knock on wood, it could take longer) seeing if America chooses fanatical fascism or traditional governmental competence. Will we choose the felon or the prosecutor? The jury is still out, and it makes me anxious.

But even the “f” word and f question isn’t the key issue, to me. Whether wanna-be Hitler wins next week or not, we’re at a strange place politically when he’s got a very good chance. And it does, partly, reflect a wholesale breakdown of the troubled relationship between the American public and America’s journalists—we don’t trust our own trustworthy voices in the news anymore.

Because, yes, the New York Times has a strong liberal bias. Yet it works a lot harder to report facts and correct its reporting mistakes than the entire weird alt universe of right-wing disinformation systems that have grown and spread and become many people’s main sources of social media lies wearing fact Halloween costumes.

Oct. 9--Visited Czech and Slovak Museum. One theme there is long-standing thirst for freedom and democracy.

The key question to me is: Is America in 2024 too much like Germany in 1924?

Germany: Had recently lost a cataclysmic war that most people thought it had won until, suddenly and shockingly, it hadn’t. Germans had thus grown cynical and untrusting of a nascent free media and the lies government told them. After all, while Germany was the cradle of the press, it was not the cradle of the free press.

America: We recently experienced a collective trauma, a pandemic (which, by the way, was badly mismanaged by none other than President Donald Trump, although much of the story of that time is being badly rewritten now). We also face challenges abroad, reacting to a bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan and seeing conflict spread in the Middle East and Ukraine. But despite our challenges today, we’re not a defeated power like Germany was in the last century—we just seem to weirdly feel like one.

Germany: A century ago, a young country, around 50 years old, that had, for most of that history, weak democratic institutions, and monarchial rule. By the 1920s, a republic had been established—but it was also seen as the government that betrayed the Fatherland by signing the Treaty of Versailles.

America: The world’s oldest functioning federal democracy, with a strong history of constitutional, lawful government. That history is not perfect, and there are all kinds of issues facing our democracy, including that it seems to be for sale for the likes of shady billionaires like Elon Musk, but for all our faults we can’t validly give our own institutions the kind of side eye Germans cast on the Weimer Republic. And yet, we do. It’s sane and very American for us to be skeptical of our government, but deeply and foolishly cynical to dismiss it altogether.

Germany: In the 1920s and 1930s, riots and political violence became an increasing part of the politics of the day.

America: Yeah, sort of. In 2021, a violent mob (prompted by none other than President Trump) stormed our Capitol and tried to stop the count of the 2020 election results. Granted, riots and violence aren’t exclusively the purview Trump or of the right, but despite a history of sometimes violent civil unrest in these United States, we don’t have a history like that of Germany a hundred years ago. Yet, this one is more of a tossup—our rhetoric has become rougher and more violent, and workers in our democracy such as election volunteers face unprecedented risk from delusional vote second-guessers who threaten and intimidate. So, maybe this is a criterion in which the parallels are a bit valid.

In summary: We aren’t Germany of the 1920s or 1930s. But half of our electorate is ready to give an incompetent strong-man who failed miserably at the job the first time a second chance to remake America in his own sick, twisted image. And Trump himself is quite clear that he’s running as a revenge candidate—he has no positive plans for a better future; he wants retribution for often imagined slights of the past.

And that’s what gets me. That the election is still so close and that we are flirting with decisions as wrongheaded as Germans did in the past. I hope that Trump loses in six days, but it’s even money right now.

In October, my wife and I visited the Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids. Many of the displays recount the struggle for freedom the Czech people endured, from the Soviet crackdown in 1968 to student resistance in the 1980s to the eventual Velvet Revolution that brought democracy to that land.

Student hand-drawn protest poster of the 1980s at Czech and Slovak Museum.

Not sure why mutant Smurf is a symbol of freedom, but another student protest poster.

Not sure why the Czech fashions represent freedom, but to me, they do.

Never fear books. Even a book robot just looks friendly.

Czech out the art protesting lack of freedom in the Communist era.

We Americans constantly talk about the heroes of our past who fought for our democracy. Yet too many Americans today seem to dismiss Trump’s own words as bluster and exaggeration and resent his being classified as a fascist when he loudly and openly threatens attacks on all of the guardrails that keep our democracy functioning.

I’m ashamed of Republicans who won’t call out this anti-democratic strain in their party and its stain on our democratic ideals. Best case: Harris wins by a whisker.

And that’s a true shame. Really, America? I do hope Trump loses—but even if he does, the disfunction in our politics doesn’t go away. Our obsession with competing media universes remains. Trump and Trumpism is a symptom of something dark and enduring. We are badly in need of lots of clear-headed and effective political reforms, even given the best case, and we badly need to rebuild a more respected news media system.

Decades ago, the Czech people took to the streets in a desperate, dangerous call for freedom. We need a similar rebirth of the spirit of freedom here. To me, the election next week is not the end of the story nor the end of the danger.

I don’t have the cure, sadly. But I can see the disease.

Students Say ‘Sure’ and Get the News Reported

 

Home page of MMU Times, thanks to some new students getting involved.

Advising an online student news site has been a journey. The Mount Mercy Times at Mount Mercy University, where I teach, gave up a print newspaper last year.

I’m sure it was the right move. We were throwing away too many printed copies, and finding a newspaper in Iowa with a press to handle our small press run was becoming too difficult—too much cost, too much waste, too much hassle. Thus, now we’re the online Mount Mercy Times.

The biggest disadvantage of that is, even if the printed papers were mostly tossed, they were a visible reminder to the campus that the Times exists, and the need to fill a print edition pushed the students to organize, collaborate and get things done. Sadly, with no print deadline to push us, the Times produced far less journalism last year compared to years before.

It did not disappear, but it hasn’t yet found its legs as an online news source.

Still, today was a hopeful day. Mount Mercy was set to announce a new football program today, a big deal—but one of my few staff students (we’re still building the staff for this year), the sports editor, had class at the same time as the announcement was being made.

However, in a general education communication class I teach, there is a student who had expressed some interest in writing for the MMU Times this semester. The Oral Communication class ended at 11:20 a.m.—would this student be willing to rush over to the Plaster Athletic Complex, take a camera with him, and cover his first story?

He thought about it for a second. He has a science test this afternoon. But, heck, he had a few minutes. “Sure,” he said.

So, Jonas shot a picture of me to get used to the camera, and then took off. But a few minutes after class, he and Lillian, another student from the class, saw me walking across the Rohde Family Plaza, heading for the library. “Professor Sheller!” Lillian yelled. “Where is the ceremony?”

At the Plaster Athletic Complex. A quarter mile from where we stood. In 10 minutes. Jonas looked a little doubtful. “Can you give him a ride?” I asked Lillian. I would have offered, but I ride a bike to work and Jonas would not fit on my bike's front handlebars (besides, I had to meet a student in the library and could not go to the ceremony myself anyway).

She thought for a second. “Sure,” she said.

Sometimes, “sure” is the best thing you can have a student say.

Jonas, chauffeured by Lillian, covered his first news story—a major one, as it turned out, that ended up on the top of the Times home page.

Jonas Gutierrez, MMU students, writes his first story for the MMU Times, I hope he writes many more.

Not all my problems with the story were over, however. As anybody in the news business can tell you, shooting images and writing a story is only the start. Who would edit the story?

As it happened, Keira was in the Times office to take a mid-term exam in a PR writing class. Would she be willing to have me, both her professor and the Times faculty advisor, have her take a brief break to read and copy edit a story Jonas had just finished typing?

“Sure,” she said. Well, I don’t recall if she used that exact word, but it seemed to be the word of the day, and in any case, she agreed and did it so she said “sure” in spirit.

Keira Carper in the MMU Times office, where today she edited her first Times story. In the middle of a mid-term exam.

The ceremony started at 11:30 a.m. I put together a shell of a story based on a statement posted by MMU, so Jonas could have a head start entering his information. When he came to the Times newsroom in the library at about 12:15 p.m., he said “here is the camera, now I have to go take my exam.”

Great—but any chance you could add your quotes and finish the story before your exam? He didn’t exactly say “sure,” but I’m sure he meant it, because, again, he paused for a second, thought about it, and then agreed to do it. The story was drafted by 1. By 1:30, Keira had edited the story. By 2 or so, it was posted to the MMU Times web site.

Cheerleaders at ceremony. One of the images made for MMU Times by Jonas Gutierrez.

Well, reporting news on the same day is one advantage of being an online news source, over being a paper printed twice a month. Nevertheless, it was a roller-coaster of a day for me—would we have a story? Would we have images? Early this morning, it seemed like the stars would not align, but here we were in the afternoon with a news web site updated.

There’s more to come. Another student shot more images at the ceremony, and I’m sure we’ll update the Times web site with a longer photo gallery from this big day as soon as I get my hands on the Times camera that she used. And our sports editor will be collecting campus reaction for a second-day reaction story on the news.

Still, score one for student news media at MMU. They pushed themselves, and scored a sports news touchdown today. And may many more students say “sure” and keep student news alive at Mount Mercy University.

Worst Night for Ohio Dogs Since John Denver

What I see watching the Sept. 10, 2024 presidential debate.

The last time Ohio dogs got so much press was decades ago when singer John Denver rather rudely warbled about how bad his experience in Toledo, Ohio, was, ending his scathing tune with: “And here's to the dogs of Toledo, Ohio/Ladies, we bid you goodbye!”

Ouch. Mean and unfair on many levels. An odd, maybe even weird, insult, given that any town of any size, including Toledo, has a diverse range of women, none of whom deserve to be classified as canines by any shallow man.

And yet, the strange media universe was not yet done with weird men making peculiar mentions of Buckeye bowwows.

I watched the presidential debate Tuesday night. Yikes! What a difference contrasted to the first one. Then, the focus was on how confused and old Joe Biden seemed. To be honest, lost in the reaction to Biden’s poor performance was the fact that Donald Trump spent much of even that night spouting weird nonsense.

Well, how times have changed. In the wake of the first debate, President Biden decided to drop out of the presidential race, and the Democratic Party named Vice President Kamala Harris as its nominee.

And at debate two, delusional Don was back in full force with no slightly older man to hide behind and shield the crazy. Apparently, every country in the world is emptying its mental hospitals and prisons and dumping its criminal or confused people on Uncle Sam. As a result, crime worldwide is down, but dogs in Ohio are worried.

Sound plausible? Really?

ABC fact checked the dog claim—so, so surprising that this story seems to have little basis in the reality most of us inhabit on planet Earth, and yet some weird people, like GOP VP nominee JD (Just Doing the weird) Vance keep repeating the weird anecdote.

Post immigrant barbecue photo from Springfield, Ohio. Or skeleton image of Saint Bernard from a Brazilian vet college's collection, taken from Wikimedia Commons. Do your own research.

As Harris said during the debate, some of Trump’s remarks make a rational person question his ability to understand what is a fact and what isn’t.

Another example of the wacky, weird world of doddering Don: When Harris said foreign leaders don’t like him, Trump’s retort was that Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán thinks he is great. Now, I know that Viktor’s vigorous opposition to both immigration and the LGBTQ+ community have made him a bit of darling on the worst fringes of the right wing—but Orbán is an anti-democratic ruler, an authoritarian. Holding him up as your evidence that “world leaders” like you is, yup, weird.

June 2024, Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy, speaks with Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary. Is V the prominent world leader that would prove you have global popularity? Image from Wikimedia Commons by the European Union.

My wife doesn’t drink, but we had some large chocolate bars, and she decided we would play a non-alcoholic version of a drinking game during the debate. Instead of a shot, we would each break off and eat a small piece of chocolate every time we clearly heard Donald Trump say something inconsistent with reality. In others, one lie equals one munch.

I don’t think the chocolate lasted 20 minutes.

It’s an odd measure of our dysfunctional current politics and the disinformation age we live in, but it’s not likely Trump will lose much of his support despite his being the confused old man in the race. More than confused, Tuesday he was petulant, racist (his anti-immigrant extreme rants are racist dog whistles), even delusional.

Still, Trump’s support is rock solid. But the candidate, despite claiming he and JD are “solid” rather than “weird,” was clearly a bit shaky and unhinged Tuesday. He was unprepared to debate. He also seemed, to those who aren’t caught in his rather shockingly large, weird bubble of popularity, unprepared  and unqualified to be President.

Harris wasn’t perfect in her performance. Like many candidates in many debates, she preferred to deliver canned stump soundbites rather than actually answering the questions that were asked, a habit she started right off the bat with her first non-answer to the first question. Since starting her run, she has been correctly criticized for avoiding reporters and their nagging questions.

Still, she didn’t need to be perfect Tuesday night. The race is still close and Trump still has a clear path to victory, God helps us—but the night was a much better one for sane Kamala than crazy Donald.

Following the debate, Taylor Swift noted on Instagram that she is endorsing Kamala. Swift has endorsed Democrats in the past, and her public pronouncement wasn’t a surprise—but it was partly prompted by Trump, who had posted fake AI-generated Swift endorsements of Trump.

Most famous Instagram post in the immediate post-debate time period. A swift Swift reaction to the crazy.

Passing on those lies, and Trump's poor performance in the debate, seems to have been too much for Miss Swift.

As for me: I’m not single. I’m not childless. I’m not a lady. I have no cats. Even though I think of myself as a bit of a Swiftie in that I enjoy her songs, any political statement from any pop singer, even an intelligent, accomplished woman like Taylor Swift, isn’t going to move my political needle much.

And I concede the reality that I was already firmly in the “never Trump” camp well before Tuesday night anyway.

Still, what the heck. Viktor O’s endorsement? Fake stories of Springfield, Ohio’s endangered animals? Calling Kamala a “Marxist?” Trump is the worst. And the weirdest. The debate Tuesday just made that reality obvious.

A Pair of Cool Summer Films on Life Stages

Magnolia Pictures publicity image for Thelma, June Squibb as titular character, Fred Hechinger as her grandson Danny.

Disney publicity image of Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, from "Inside Out 2."

I don’t go to the movie theater all that often, but twice in recent weeks my wife and I decided to catch a flick at the local cinema. As chance would have it, both movies we saw were, to some extent, ruminations on maturity, on the nature of aging and stages of life. To me, one was good although not great; the other was unexpectedly excellent.

When “Thelma” comes out on DVD, for us dinosaurs who don’t consume all our media from streaming services, you can bet I’ll snatch up a copy. Thelma is the gem.

When “Inside Out 2” hits the bargain bin, I’ll be willing to pick it up, too. It’s re-watchable, a good movie, but the disappointment is that it’s a sequel to a much better film.

“Inside Out 2” continues the adventures of Riley, a girl who has moved from Minnesota to California, where her father is part of a tech startup in San Francisco. The premise of the first movie was to personify key emotions and visually represent the interior working of the brain as Riley struggles with the stress of the move. That first movie was poignant, clever and thought-provoking.

Who thought we could choke up over the fate of an imaginary character who is part cat, part elephant, part dolphin and mostly cotton candy? Bing Bong, Riley may have left you behind, but we won’t ever forget you.

Anyway, that was the first movie. Part of its theme was that sadness is as important as joy, and maturing means learning to acknowledge and live with all of your emotions. At the end of the film, an expanded control panel is installed in brain HQ, with a big warning light labeled “Puberty.”

Which, almost inevitably, sets up “Inside Out 2.” And, of course, the siren sounds, the light flashes and suddenly, puberty hits, signaling a total remodel of HQ, among other things—including new emotions. Anxiety, Ennui and Embarrassment join the club.

The sequel is still clever, and has many good themes and moments. I like the idea of your self-concept being healthier if it is more inclusive of your actual experience and self, and not just what you desire to be rather than what you are. But the new emotions didn’t make as much sense to me. In the first movie, we saw inside HQ of the adult characters, who had the same core set of emotions as the 11-year-old Riley. And while I thought she was amusing to watch, is Ennui an emotion? And isn’t Embarrassment really an Elaboration of Fear?

I also wasn’t in love with all of the new side characters, the popular girls Riley aspired to be with or the current friends she was willing to leave behind. Funny that an imaginary friend from movie one seemed more emotionally “real” than any real friend from movie two. The concept makes sense—puberty is certainly a time of intense anxiety about one’s place in the peer social order, it’s just that the characters and dialogue didn’t resonate all that well with me.

Still, it was a good, watchable film, one I would be willing to see again, but probably wouldn’t do lots of repeated watches as I have with the original "Inside Out."

And then there is “Thelma.” How to describe “Thelma?” Think action move where our hero is a realistic character in her 90s. She has a death-defying trip across a maze—the interior of a cluttered shop—that is as dramatic as any break-into-the vault scene in a thriller, but reflects the limits of mobility of a body as it ages. Thelma has a grandson who looks after her and loves her, but in some many ways, it turns out Thelma is the adventurous, capable one, unfazed by and able to overcome her limits in a way that her grandson isn’t.

I think that’s part of the theme of this movie—so much of what holds us back is ourselves and how we picture ourselves. It’s not only what we can do, but what we allow ourselves to do.

And yet, “Thelma” acknowledges realities of ageing. As her main sidekick, an old man from a nursing home, says, “we are diminished.” A person in their 90s can be emotionally and mentally very sharp, but not quite as quick nor as physically strong as a younger person can be. In one sad scene, Thelma and her sidekick visit an old friend (to “borrow” a gun), and the old friend is obviously well beyond the point where she should be living alone at home. It happens at different rates and different times for different people, but age will eventually diminish any who survive to their golden years.

In a way, both movies are about self-knowledge, about the importance of recognizing who you really are, and what the realities are about your point in the road of life. And both have June Squibb—as a minor character (Nostalgia) in "Inside Out 2," and the main star of "Thelma." In my mind, “Thelma” is a 4.9 and “Inside Out 2” is a 3.9; they’re both worth seeing and thinking about.

And I suppose that’s the best thing one can say about any work of dramatic art—play, novel, TV show or movie. It if makes you more aware of yourself and seems to explore some fundamental realities of this human life, well, that’s a win. Maybe it’s a binge-worthy thing—watch “Inside Out 2” and then “Thelma.” That would seem to be a few hours well spent.

Shooting Attempt on Trump was a Tragedy

Watching the June 27 presidential debate in my family room.

Republicans who call on Democrats to tone down the “danger to democracy” rhetoric have a point.

But, let’s be a bit careful, there, too. Hyperbole has a place in our politics, and if the rhetoric used by the left to describe Donald Trump is sometimes too hot, well, it’s often pretty cool compared to what Trump and Trump supporters state.

But first—to be clear, an attempted assassination of an American political figure (and any political figure in any country that at least approximates democratic governance) is terrible and a tragedy. Even those of us who want Trump defeated should not seek nor call for a violent end to his political ambitions.

Bullets and ballots don’t mix well, and in this country, in all of the democratic countries of the world, violent rhetoric should never be an excuse for literal violence.

Our crazy, overheated, hyperbolic political strife has boiled over thanks to the actions of a man in Pennsylvania. Did he act alone? Did the Secret Service act correctly? I do not want to speculate. I will wait for answers.

But violence has too often invaded our politics of late—from both the right and the left. Let’s not forget that Jan. 6, 2021, represented a violent attempt to overturn an election.

I’m very grateful that the assassination attempt against Donald Trump failed. I hope we don’t see others like it aimed at either Trump or Biden or, for that matter, Nancy Pelosci, Gabby Giffords, Steve Scalise or any other elected public official or candidate.

Fourth of July fireworks (on evening of July 3) in Marion Iowa. The "bombs bursting in air" in our National Anthem were aimed at a foreign power, not at other Americans.As Benjamin Franklin supposedly said, we'll have a republic--if we can keep it.

It's constitutional, we have a legal right and even an ethical obligation to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." And petitions can be a bit loud and rowdy and still be legit. But, please, no more guns for political points.

We established a government of the people and by the people more than 200 years ago and anybody gunning for a candidate, former elected official or elected official is attacking the basis of a government that we all own. Yes, I understand that our country was founded in an armed rebellion against a king—but we are wrong if we think our strident political disagreements of today call for continuing armed rebellion. Against whom? We the people? Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden is King George.

2024 was already a messed-up election year. Like, I suspect, a lot of American voters, I’m not pleased with the choices put forward by either major political party this year (and no, the major third-party alternative this year is not a viable alternative). I do not want another chaotic four years for Trump in office. I worry that Biden is not physically up to another four years. I wish both parties had passed the baton on to newer leaders.

And maybe Joe will still get in his right mind and pull the plug on his ambitions, despite all signs to the contrary. With the assassination attempt and the convention opening today, it is too late, but I almost wish that there had been a grand bargain between both old men—for the good of the country, let’s step aside.

Well, too bad that can't happen (and really, couldn't given the alpha male personas of both men).

I had planned in June to watch the presidential debate and immediately blog about it. But afterwards, I was in such a funk that I had nothing to say. While I think the moderators did OK given the format, the candidates were both different kinds of nightmares.

I am a “never Trump” fellow—his first term and his actions as his term came to close, proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt he should never be in power again. So, it was very discouraging to see old Joe Biden, slack mouthed, verbally struggling in the debate as Trump spouted nonsense and lies. President Biden was never the best of speakers, and the debate alone is not the full story or his presidency, but still, he was there with his flaws for us all to see. And most of us wanted him to realize that his time has passed.

Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who moderated CNN's debate.

Anyway, I think there are deep problems in our democracy, but we must fix this plane while we are flying in it. And one point about that plane that we should agree on—messed up as it is, no one individual has the right to shoot it down. Yes, I want all kind of reforms to make our democracy more effective. No, I don’t think it’s so defective that shooting anybody to “fix” it makes any sense.

Glad you were only injured, and not badly, Mr. Trump. I do sincerely wish to see you defeated. Yet, I sincerely also don’t wish to see you harmed.

And in the meantime, in his own slow, feeble way, Joe Biden was right when he spoke July 14. Violence should have no place in American politics. We need to disagree, yet preserve the capacity to still talk with each other.

On that, I hope, most of use can agree.

Not a Sham Trial, but It’s Still a Sham Shame

Donald Trump speaks in Detroit, Michigan on June 15, 2024. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Gage Skidmore.

On May 30, something historic happened—a New York jury found former President Donald J. Trump guilty as charged on 34 felony charges. And yet this week, an Iowa Poll showed half of Iowa voters are still firmly loyal to Trump.

I can’t say that I’m shocked. Trump, narrowly elected president in 2016 despite losing the popular vote, has always been a unique political figure. He seemed and still seems, to me, to be wildly unqualified to be President, both by experience and temperament, and his chaotic presidency, in my mind, bore that out. A President whose pandemic response includes recommending ingesting or injecting bleach does not represent the kind of leader a democratic country should aspire to have.

Yet, a majority in my state and close to half of the national electorate are firmly in his camp. Since his nomination and election in 2016, and even after his 2020 defeat, Trump has reshaped the Republican Party until, today, the GOP seems to be a weird cult of personality. Trump famously said in 2016 that he could literally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn’t cost him votes—the events of 2024 seems to bear out that he was not that far off the mark.

Image from web site Informed Opinion, link below.

Indeed, a local newspaper columnist, who I rarely agree with on anything, wrote that Trump’s conviction wouldn’t hurt him, while Hunter Biden’s legal troubles would be an ongoing drag for President Joe Biden.

As a logical outcome, that’s BS. But I think she has an interesting point—politics is always as much about emotions and feelings as it is about rationality, and the Trump has an amazing ability to play on the emotions of his followers. He’s a fighter who will always punches back and never acts as if a blow has landed, an attribute his supporters love. Also, as commentators Shari Gradon and Sarah Neville noted on the web site “Informed Opinion” back in 2016, Trump was and is a master at the art of selling—keeping his message simple, repeating outrageous and memorable points to draw attention, speaking directly with his audience, avoiding any complex ideas.

Fair enough, but I think he’s not just a master seller, he’s something darker.

But first, an aside. Hunter Biden is not running for any public office. He is a drug addict with a complicated, messed up life. His being a convicted felon based on gun charges related to his drug convictions doesn’t put him in the same category of crime boss as Donald Trump, who has a history of running both his companies and his political campaigns with zero regard for conventions of behavior, regular political practice or the rule of law.

And Hunter Biden’s legal entanglements, to my mind, probably do disqualify him for higher office, as Trump’s criminal convictions and indictment should disqualify him—“disqualify” in this case not being a legal status, but just how sane public opinion should work. But, again, Hunter isn’t Joe. The sins of Hunter Biden and the sins of Donald Trump are not equivalent.

On Jan. 12, 2017, President Barack Obama gave Vice President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. An emotional Joe walks back to his family, including his son Hunter, at the ceremony. Image from Wikimedia Commons, official White House picture by Pete Souza.

Back to my main point—which is my worry about Trump’s popularity and what it means. We are on a knife’s edge in 2024. The petulant un-penitent convicted criminal who the GOP is hell bent on renominating for the highest office in the country is running a campaign of grievance and revenge, based on many sham points.

The horse won’t just be loose in the hospital—we already have seen this show before and we shouldn’t have to suffer through a sequel.

Why is Trump so popular? Well, I don’t pretend to fully know, but I think it’s partly because his fans feel the same kinds of pain, in some ways, that fuel the Trump rage. The GOP has become the party of anti-modernity, of anti-science, of an imagined ideal past that “enemies” of “America” have destroyed. Trump skillfully manipulates and amplifies his audience’s fears.

I saw a meme in June on Facebook from a Trump fan that said something like: “Jesus was convicted in a sham trial, too, and I still follow Him.” Well, Trump was convicted in a rather dull, normal trial using regular legal checks and balances. Trump was found guilty by a jury of citizens in the city where he committed his crimes. That he would pay off a porn star and then illegally lie about the payments seems so mundane, so unsurprising, so Trumpy, that calling that conviction a “sham” is itself rather shameful (sham-ful?). The trial of Jesus didn’t have a jury, Christ didn’t hire an expensive team of lawyers. Jesus didn’t commit financial fraud and didn’t run his enterprise for years as a profit-seeking criminal cartel.

It's weird to have to say it, but Trump and Jesus are not comparable figures, nor were their trials comparable events. Saying so is even more of a sham than equating Hunter and Donald.

Yet, Trump persists and is persistently popular. He uses fear the way a rock star uses a sick bass line or catchy guitar riff. His main talent is a twisted yet effective genre of communication.

It is the style of communication that a particular kind of leader has used in the past. See what this YouTube PBS commentator says:

Dr. Erica Brozovsky never mentions Donald Trump and isn’t engaging in political commentary. And the destructive “us” vs. “them” discourse she refers to in the video isn’t the sole property of the political right. The left, too, can play on fear and create an us vs them echo chamber. But still, when I watched her video this week, I was struck at how well this analysis helps me to try to understand an aspect of Trump’s communication.

To me, clearly, he is a cult leader.

And my representative in Congress, my two senators, my governor—they’re thoroughly in the cult. Even the attorney general of Iowa shamed herself and her office by flying to New York to join the sham chorus of Trump supporters decrying Trump’s prosecution.

In an era where we want warning labels on social media for young people (because teens care so much about warnings from adults), we as a culture need a warning about our information sources and our politics.

Wake up, America. It’s not the Trump trial that was a sham. Trump himself is the sham, a wizard behind the curtain performing for the masses. We have met the enemy, and he-she is us when we allow ourselves to join the True Believers. You, half of the body politic, are in some weird fevered dream, listening to the Dear Leader, taking leave of your senses.

The weird orange wizard of wrathful words is a fake, a sham. And to those people who aren’t in it, a cult typically seems like a scary thing. I’m a bit afraid.