Well, that time is rolling around once again. I originally posted some of this in 2020, before the general election that either was legitimate or “stolen”. We have to ask ourselves if we’ve moved forward, backward, or just have been treading water. Democrats want to move on, to make changes, to adapt. Republicans want to step back, because what worked for years surely must still be of value. Fingers are pointing, blame is laid. Two presidential candidates – one a former prosecutor, the other convicted. An interesting choice. So, here we go again.
As I have said before, I grew up in a Republican home. My parents, though, to give them credit, tended to support moderate Republican candidates. FDR was someone we didn’t discuss, nor was Harry Truman. George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy, if they were spoken of at all, were bound to turn the country over to the radical left, and hence, destroy it. The Democrats were mostly Bolsheviks, even though their best friends and my sister’s godparents were card-carrying Democrats. My mother went to her grave thinking, no, fully certain that Richard Nixon’s reputation would be restored to greatness, despite his tribulations. By then, my brother, sister, and I weren’t really listening. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been much movement on that front. We could safely call my parents Eisenhower Republicans, possibly Gerald Ford or Bush Republicans, and that shaped many of my early political beliefs. But my perspectives have changed.
As I grew, I realized that there were multiple perspectives. Times were changing, and I was changing with them. I saw the benefits, and the fairness, of civil rights legislation. As a teacher, I saw my students as multifaceted individuals – they had different cultural backgrounds and family expectations, espoused and shared different ideas, they dressed differently, they looked different from each other or me and spoke different languages. I think it was the publication of Hillary Clinton’s book, “It Takes a Village”, that title connected many of the dots for me. It planted notions of the common good rather than the benefit of some income levels over others, and it started to resonate. I’ll admit that I didn’t read the book, I just learned something important from the title, which I understand is African in origin. On most issues of social conscience, I tend to lean left. I believe that nobody can handle all of what life hands them alone, and that at some point, every one of us will need a helping hand. That public assistance – welfare or food stamps – were not bad things to be feared like cancers, as my parents and many conservatives would have us believe. Years ago, I was deeply bothered by the cost of my health insurance premiums because the cost exceeded the returns, but now that Herself and I are older and in need of it, it was money well spent. Our pensions do nicely, but Social Security and Medicare have become vital necessities to older Americans, not luxuries. Thank you, Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Truman, and Mr. Johnson for having the forward outlook and foresight to promote and enact benefits to older Americans. In fact, their entire broad social vision, with its multitude of programs and investments, brought so much relief to so many by creating jobs and protecting people. FDR said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” While I won’t say that Democrats have all the answers, I will acknowledge that when it comes of providing for the general population, protecting them from abuses by the powerful, and seeking to equalize the status of all Americans, the far larger record of achievement lies with Democrats. From Woodrow Wilson’s “New Freedom” of social justice, they’ve given us FDR’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the War on Poverty. From the Republicans, really all America got is “trickle down” and “deregulate”. No, Republicans really can’t claim much by way of a forward social agenda since Abraham Lincoln freed slaves. They can, however, lay claim in recent years to gerrymandering to protect their power, appointing judges for their politics rather than their judicial experience, and restricting voting rights of those likely to disagree with their core beliefs. Judges Samuel Alito writing his conservative rhetoric and Clarence Thomas taking luxury vacations from wealthy conservative supporters. As Garrison Keillor once said, “The last Republican president able to stir the nation’s progressive, collective conscience was Theodore Roosevelt.”
Someone wise once said that with age comes wisdom. For many, though, the current political climate shows that with age often comes fear and ignorance. I’m not entirely sure if age brings a more global perspective embracing everyone’s needs, or simply a desire to protect what each individual has accumulated. I was reading a letter to the editor some time back in which a frequent Republican writer extolled the mystique of “individual initiative”. On a purely philosophical level, that sounds great, and to a point, I might agree. I tried to instill that value in my students for more years than I can count, but in practicality, there will always be some folks that more than their own initiative to survive. Some would excel, while others would merely tread water. And still others will sink. Many Americans can’t survive on their own, whether their needs or disabilities are physical, emotional, social, or economic. We can’t all be captains of industry because there won’t be any people left to do the actual work. We can’t all be lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, scientists, professionals. One of the key things I’ve learned over the years is that we’ll always need people to fulfill spots in all segments of society, and we can’t stigmatize anyone by denying them the means to live comfortably. In an ironic touch a few years ago, President Trump expressed the view that the people of Puerto Rico “couldn’t expect to be taken care of” long term after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Some enterprising newspaper publisher featured that quote and an accompanying article. But right below it was a formal picture of the Trump family at Mar-A-Lago, surrounded by the staff and servants that “took care” of them – looked like about twenty.
Looking at the last few years, I’m seeing with alarm where we’ve been headed. A rapidly expanding income gap, followed by a new tax code that benefits primarily the wealthy, while major corporations are already finding tax loopholes and avoidance methods. This now former president, over the last twenty plus years, has paid much less in income taxes than a middle- income worker. He’s been reducing regulations that were designed to protect the environment along with our health and safety. He’s denied and misinformed rather than protected, particularly in the pandemic. He’s failed to listen to experts or read reports given to him, like his military experts and intelligence services, and as chief executive, has appointed all manner of people who are well outside of their areas of understanding and ability. Least forgivable, he’s created a culture where truth and honesty are called into question. He’s made our allies question our loyalty, and that he favors dictators and authoritarian regimes. His style is confrontational and bullying, somehow leading many of his supporters to conclude that confronting and bullying are virtuous, and are signs of strength. Civility is out of fashion, while name-calling has become the norm.
The Black Plague of the 14th century flourished because of a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding of how infectious disease works and spreads, and we’d progressed a bit but not enough during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. Somehow, we can’t blame folks in those times for that. Today, however, when we know what will slow down infectious diseases and how to respond to it effectively – particularly vaccines, denial from our leaders and spokespeople – those that should know better, is inexcusable. New diseases will always engulf us from time to time, and they will be our challenges, testing of our abilities to adapt and respond that will determine how we survive.
We’re watching polar ice caps melting, parts of our country engulfed in flames while other parts are flooding. Storms are getting fiercer, to the point where we’re running out of names for hurricanes. We’ve known what causes all of this, yet we can’t seem to muster the willpower to do something about it. In the 19th century, the British Government sat on its collective hands and watched Ireland starve. It didn’t do much to prevent pollution from the Industrial Revolution until late in the 20th century. We’ve even invented terms like “smog” and “acid rain” to explain conditions that we humans have created or let happen because corporate interests, and profits, are more important than prevention methods. And still, there are those that, despite warnings for most of the world’s scientists, that will boldly tell us this isn’t happening, the oceans aren’t warming and rising, and that humans haven’t played a part in all of this. Denial is a powerful and destructive reaction.
Here in New England, we had textile mills on most every river. Up in the northern counties, paper mills abounded. Now, most are gone, victims of outdated technologies, dwindling raw materials, and cheaper production elsewhere. I won’t vote for a leader that tells us that the textile mills are going to make a comeback, any more than I would vote for someone that tells the coal miners of West Virginia that their jobs will come back if they’re just patient. The longshoreman’s union just went on strike in part to stop the use of mechanization and new technologies. Our leaders need to show them how to adapt, because technology isn’t going away. I can’t support a candidate that “panders to their base”, or places the needs of one constituency over another. The new leaders of the future will talk about new and sustainable energy sources to produce advanced technologies, new jobs with livable wages and benefits. They’ll be talking about ways to fix “food insecurity” and “food deserts”, access to affordable health care, and education that produces thinkers and innovators. They won’t talk about “cutting taxes”, but rather making taxes equitable and proportional. Ways for our society to provide affordable housing without moving to a lower priced flood zone. I believe that we need immigrants in this country as much as they need us. Going further, our leaders should even promote and circulate the notion that “taxes”, with everything negative that contains, should be replaced with a more acceptable term like “social investments”. Because that’s what taxes are and should be doing – investing in ourselves, our children and our children’s children, and our planet. A “tax fighter” might be less noble, less concerned with the common good and more with preserving prosperity, both individual and collective. He or she will be unmasked as obsessed with moving backward to some “golden age” that never really existed. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in life, and carry with me when I enter the voting booth (or when I mail in my ballot) is that there is nothing wrong with making money. But making that a primary, often sole objective, an end-run around or contrary to fairness, is what pits people against each other. And that’s just wrong.
We can’t pretend that politics, or governance for that matter, is a big happy family of voters. It isn’t. But we can at least pretend that politics isn’t about attaining and holding on to power, to the exclusion of civil discourse, diversity of ideas, and at some point, working together, to make all lives, all colors and all genders, matter.
Bless you all, and happy voting!
I'm Thinking...No! 