Back Again

So it's been a very long time, since I've written anything.  I fell off the wagon again, and for a different reason.

I'm working on a unified theory of political grief, but it's not going well.  The stages are clear, but are they universal?  My ability to cope fluctuates - traumatic withdrawal for the first six months; then a tentative return to the world and a guarded attempt to understand and express it, which is this journal.  Then it shifted, for me, at least, again; in January:  it had become a demented kabuki and it just didn't seem worth the effort to write anything rational about it.  If no thought is going into American policy, domestic or foreign, any more, why make the effort to make sense of it?  There really isn't anything useful to say about our President babbling about thousand dollar pens.

Even the war with Iran we suddenly find ourselves in, which is killing real people on all sides, defies rational explanation.  If there is no plan, no policy, no goal, what is there to write about?

Today's No Kings rally was kind of a wake-up call, at least for me.  As noted below, people seemed serious.  It was not a lark.  It was not fun.  We were freezing cold and grimly determined.  We'll see if this translates nationwide:  if there's a sea change, in numbers, in determination, in action.  There are signs, on both sides, of a tectonic shift.  When CPAC cheers impeachment, something is happening.  

So I will continue to pay attention to, and write about what seems worthy of note about, this slowest of trainwrecks.

No Kings Oneonta

The temperatures are in the mid-20s, wind-chill approaching single digits, and after a while it started snowing.  But here we were, bundled up, on a patch of land behind downtown which is owned by the guy who sells Subarus down on Chestnut St.  There were a lot of us; I can't say how many, but it looked to be about the same number as the last time I was here, back in April.  Maybe more.

The sound system was really good; you could hear clearly from anywhere.  Focused, concise speeches, good live music, candidates passing petitions in the back, signs everywhere.  No one really up front, by the stage, because there were a lot of puddles there.  Overcast, and the wind made sign management tricky.

The signs were different this time, I think - a subtle shift.  They were more serious, more pointed, issue-based, assertive.  There were a lot of those in the past, but most of them were like that this time; there were fewer comical signs, fewer signs making fun of Trump & Co.; fewer that you'd laugh at.  We are fed up by now.  Shit is getting serious.  One old guy had a smallish piece of cardboard, a hand-lettered sign that asked, "Is he dead yet?"

We listened to (excellent) speeches, sang, chanted, and then marched up to Main St., where we lined both sides for a long block or so, three or four deep.  Most drivers on Main St. honked their solidarity.  We waved our signs and did democracy.  Then, after a while, in small groups or individually, we headed for home.

Why do we do this, when it won't make a difference?  Abbey's cousin asked that yesterday.  We do it because it's our patriotic duty, our service to country, our job as a citizen of democracy.  The only reason that there were seven million people at the last No Kings protests is because I was there - says everyone who was there.  If I don't show up, no one shows up, and the criminals in power will assume all is well.

All is not well.

No Wonder Fascists Hate Art

This is art that knows what it is about, and has fulfilled its potential.

Full screen, sound on.

"Art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth." 

                                                                                                            — John F. Kennedy

True Things 18: You Can't Make This Stuff Up

I just read, and then confirmed, that the current Secretary of Homeland Security is Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem.

Her initials are KLAN.

Some Hope to Sustain Us

Too overwhelmed with evil and idiocy to write anything sensible.

Have this instead.

True Thing 17: Quiet Part Out Loud

 Yesterday, at a cabinet meeting:

Again, existing housing, people that own their homes, we're going to keep them wealthy, we're going to keep those prices up. We're not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn't work very hard can buy a home.

We're gonna get, we're going to make it easier to buy. We're going to get interest rates down, but I want to protect the people that for the first time in their lives feel good about themselves. They feel like they've, you know, that they're wealthy people, and I want them to understand it.

You know, there's so much talk about, "Oh we're going to drive housing prices down." I don't want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes. And they can be assured that's what's going to happen.

 He wants home ownership to be less available to Americans ("somebody who didn't work very hard") so wealthy people can get wealthier.  He just came out and said it.

So Far So Good

As predicted.  But to be fair, there's been a lot to be distracted by.

Without Comment

“Get it all on record now — get the films — get the witnesses — because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”

          Dwight D. Eisenhower, after visiting liberated concentration camps in April 1945

Governed by Fantasy

How you holding up?

I've been writing pretty regularly, but recently it's all been happening too quickly.  But more than that – none of it seems real or on-purpose.  It reminds me of the kid with a behavioral disorder who just couldn't cope with school that day, for some collection of reasons, and lashed out verbally and physically at a constantly-changing and seemingly-random set of targets.  Greenland?  You need a more restrictive environment and therapy, dude.

There was a point in the last few weeks when that reality shifted, and it really did seem like a demented kabuki, some surrealist novel with no meaning or resolution.  More importantly, maybe, was the fact that this shift revealed that there really isn't anything substantial driving all this, other than psychopathology.  Suddenly – and this was weird – I was angry at any journalist or analyst who took anyone or any activity in the Executive Branch seriously.  Taking them seriously assumes there are real, thoughtful answers to serious policy questions, which gives them way more credit than they deserve, because it's all just a hollow flailing-about by children who need some professional supervision.  Treating anything coming out of Washington as serious just fuels their fantasies.  And that's what's happening – we're being governed by fantasy.

So how do you write about all this?  I haven't figured it out yet.  There is nothing important or interesting to say about the Greenland affair because there's nothing rational behind it.  There's nothing to write about ICE in Minnesota because there are no decisions being made that relate even a little bit to the real world or the lives of real human beings.  And the Epstein files are like an alien war fleet which orbits the Earth endlessly without ever actually doing anything.

This respite from constant analysis and 12 dimensional chess has allowed me to take a broader view of Where We Are, including seeing it as history.  If we return to 'normal' (minus all the permanent damage that has been done and will be done in the next three years) then this last decade will, I hope, be seen as a bizarre, low-probability-but-there-it-is unfortunate incident – like Preston Brooks on steroids – and an object lesson in trust.

This horrible decade has given us an interesting perspective into the intellectual and moral context of the Founding Fathers.  When inventing America and the new American form of government, there was a lot to figure out.  Democracy was not a slam dunk.  They considered establishing a monarchy.  They considered giving the Executive a lot more power.  Eventually, separation of powers and checks and balances prevailed.  

But after putting aside the idea of monarchy and a strong Executive, they did just about nothing to prevent it in the future.  What we are seeing in the Executive now is a direct result of the Founding Fathers' trust.  They apparently looked around at each other, assuming all future Presidents would come from this socioeconomic subset (and, indeed, the first five Presidents were Founding Fathers, and the sixth was the son of a Founding Father*), and decided that nothing needed to be done.  After all, they were all gentlemen.  Anyone who got to be President would, naturally, know how to comport himself.  No limits or restrictions on the Executive were necessary, not even consequences for violating the Constitution itself.  And, of course, Trump vs. the US put the last nail in that particular coffin.

So I also hope that history will record that when we all recovered from the degradation of the past ten years (and the coming three), we got to work to make sure it never happened again.  I hope we learn the lesson and use it to forge a more robust Constitution which reflects our need for a certain type of President rather than anyone who can whip up a crowd with lies and felonies.

* - And, ironically perhaps, the seventh President, Andrew Jackson, was by far the most Trump-like of all of them (racism, genocide, corruption, political divisiveness).  To understand the dark side of the American experience, just consider that this man is on the $20 bill.  Harriet Tubman, where are you?  Let's go!

Integrity and Sovereignty

Remember the Treaty of Westphalia?  Of course you do.

In a joint statement yesterday, by President of the European Council António Costa and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, regarding the threatened annexation of Greenland by Donald Trump, we find this phrase:

...[t]erritorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law. They are essential for Europe and for the international community as a whole.

Ah, the echoes of Westphalia lo, these 378 years later.  Recognize it?  Territorial integrity and sovereignty.  

In the very first Chapter of the Charter of the United Nations, Article 2, Clause 4, ratified in 1945, reads:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Still no power, strength or force.

Oh, right - there is some.  Power, strength and force, that is.  From America.  Let's hope the power of history, the strength of strong alliances, and the force of morality can result in better heads prevailing.

Making it Real

Heather Cox Richardson reports today that Nebraska Representative Don Bacon, who is a Republican, said on Thursday:

And just on the weird chance he’s serious about invading Greenland, I want to let him know it will probably be the end of his presidency. Most Republicans know this is immoral and wrong, and we’re going to stand up against it…. I think it would lead to impeachment. Invading an ally…is a high crime and a misdemeanor.”

He also characterized the idea of invading Greenland "utter buffoonery."  

Mitch McConnell called Trump's adventure in the Arctic an "unprecedented act of strategic self-harm."

These are Republicans talking.  It's true that both are retiring from Congress and will never have to get elected again, and it's also true that this is just talk.  But the talk is about how extremely wrong Trump is, and contains the phrases "high crimes and misdemeanors" and "the end of his presidency."

When you look at the numbers involved, it is surprising how few Republicans agreeing with these Republicans it would take to make impeachment real.  

UPDATE:  

All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.

                                                                                       - G. Elliot Morris on Bluesky 

The Rubicon, but He Won't Cross

Remember the Rubicon?  The point where he does something which "drags the unwilling American people past the point of no return?"

Both the demented salivating over Greenland and the misguided impulse to Vietnam-ize Iran could be a turning point, because either action will probably result in all hell breaking loose.  So either could be the Rubicon.  

My prediction:  neither.  As noted earlier, Trump will "see the river, stride cockily up to its banks, strike its surface with his staff, and declare himself the master of the river and promise that he will lay waste to the other side.  Then he'll turn around, wander off and do something else."

You heard it here first.

I Feel Like We're Still Spectators. What's the Plan?

                                              “Is this the series finale of America, 

                                   or do you think they’ll release another episode?”

                                                                                                The New Yorker, today

Oh, people, look around you

The signs are everywhere

You've left it for somebody other than you

To be the one to care

You're lost inside your houses

There's no time to find you now

While your walls are burning and your towers are turning

I'm gonna leave you here and try to get down to the sea somehow...

                                                                                Jackson Browne "Rock Me on the Water"

History is their Enemy

Mark Drnek was, until January 1, Mayor of Oneonta, and owns a business that welcomed our son as an intern in high school, and as an employee afterwards.  Our son has moved on, but Mark still speaks well of him.  

Mark spoke at the rally and march in Cooperstown on Saturday.  I thought that what he said was important enough to reprint here, and maybe spread around a little.

On behalf of everyone who shares our American values and subscribes to the notion that all men and women are created equal, and due the respect that we would expect for ourselves…

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you for standing up for what’s right.

There has never been an arc taken to dictatorship that has been so transparent or so easily compared to historical precedent as this.  And there can be no mistake… Fascism is the path Donald Trump has chosen.

History is their enemy, and they can’t erase it.  They’re trying. But they can’t succeed.  And the parallels are clear.  We’re on a trajectory that will carry us to a place that’s inescapably dark and a perversion of what it means to be an American.

This is not hyperbole.

We’re repeating history.  We can see where this is going.  We need to abort.  We need to shut this down. Now.

In April 1933, Goering rebranded the Prussian Police and turned its focus to the suppression of political opposition.  Just as Homeland Security and immigration and Customs Enforcement has been commandeered by the Trump administration, and specifically by the likes of Stephen Miller.  Career servants have been pushed out or enlisted to actions they never signed up for.  Whatever you may have considered ICE to be, that’s been irreparably corrupted.

ICE needs to be defunded.  And disbanded.  And our congress needs to rise to this occasion and show the backbone needed to meet this unprecedented challenge to the rule of law.

Trump is looking for the same excuse Hitler took to suspend civil liberties, make arrest without charge, sideline the courts, and label his perceived political opponents as “enemies of the state.”  We’re doing our best not to give him the excuse, but guess what?  He’s already doing that, and if that makes us enemies of the state… If that makes us enemies of Trump, and Vance, and Miller, and Noem, and Hegseth, and Patel…. I say that’s a badge of honor I’m proud to wear.

In 1934, Himmler seized control of the Gestapo and placed it under the SS.  And shortly after, they passed this law:

“The orders and affairs of the Gestapo are not subject to review by the administrative courts.”

That’s chilling.  No oversight, no legal appeal, and no accountability. It was the Gestapo that decided who was sent to concentration camps. In this moment, we have camps being constructed in America.

 I know that this may seem hysterical, and beyond possibility in the America we grew up in.  In the country we love.  But… we are witnessing the violence, the abuse, and the murder of those exercising their constitutional rights.  Bullies in masks and camouflage are terrorizing whole populations of Americans.  It’s happening now.  We are skidding down that bloody slope and there’s just one thing that can stop it.

We need courts and congress to act.

We need to shout it from the rooftops.

Defund ICE.  Disband ICE.  Defund ICE.  Disband ICE (crowd joins chant).

Thanks, Mark.  It's vital, I think, to understand how history works.  There is very clear evidence now that history is rhyming.*

Pay attention.

* - "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."  Mark Twain

Cooperstown, NY 1/10/26

 

My sign

See You In the Streets

 

In Which I Am Kinder to Stephen Miller Than He Deserves

Asked by Jake Tapper yesterday about the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnap of its President and his wife, White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said, "“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power... These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

No, you Nazi piece of lying shit, strength, force and power have not been the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.  Diplomacy has been used consistently for millennia, and especially since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.  Even Google AI is smarter than you, Stephen, you ignorant barbarian; the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War*, 

establishing the modern system of sovereign states by recognizing each state's right to govern its territory without outside interference, solidifying the nation-state, and granting religious freedom for Catholics and Protestants within the Holy Roman Empire. It formalized state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and mutual recognition, making it a cornerstone of international law...

The Thirty Years war was one of the most brutal and destructive wars in human history.  It ended partly because Europe was exhausted; strength, power and force wasn't working.  They tried cooperative problem solving, and the world was a different place.

The Cold War** lasted half my (long) lifetime, but it was called the Cold War because, in over forty years, no battles were fought, no missiles flew, no populations of civilians were destroyed.  No one kidnapped a sitting President.  In the end, it was economics and Gorbachev's reform policies which ended the Cold War.  Not power, strength and force.

No, Stephen, the real world is not the result of power, force and strength, it is the result of those things heavily moderated and, for the most part, kept in check, by diplomacy, calculation of mutual advantage, and an unwillingness to violate state sovereignty.  Sometimes that moderation has worked, sometimes it hasn't.

Grow up and read a book, you worthless, slobbering maniac.

* - I've underlined the important parts, which you might have missed while you were beating up little kids in the boy's bathroom instead of learning history.

** - Which ended before you were in Kindergarten, Stephen, but you could always look it up.  Obviously, not.

34? 6-7

 In what feels like a coordinated attack by Republicans and the media on the state of Minnesota and its Democratic governor, Tim Walz, lately the Democratic candidate for Vice President, various programs and departments, and lately the agency which oversees child care centers, are being accused of fraud, without, apparently, any evidence.  Walz has been accused of being “a hands-off leader when it comes to seeking accountability for episodes of fraud and mismanagement on his watch.”  Walz had ended his re-election campaign in response to the accusations.

Let's put aside the question of whether this would have happened if Walz hadn't run as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate.  Let's put aside whether there are any other states (Texas?  The deep south, especially Louisiana?) where this kind of case can be made, and which would benefit from this kind of attention.

Let's even assume it's true, which is a position we're a long way from arriving at.  Hurrah!  In a year,  Minnesota will no longer have a Governor whose hand-off leadership style might have allowed fraud to flourish.

But a year from now, we'll still have a President who was convicted in court of 34 counts of felony fraud, and who has experienced exactly no consequences.

Apparently, the penalties for fraud are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Trump's Rubicon, At Least for Us

Turns out that the invasion of Argentina and kidnapping of their elected leader and his wife is Trump's Rubicon. At least for us. As soon as our schedule clears up this late winter/early spring, we're booking a relocation tour in Costa Rica.

Too Old

In January of 2025 Donald Trump became, among other things, the oldest person to take the oath of office of President of the United States, ever.  Since then, he has been exhibiting, in public, many of the symptoms of aging.  This has, as I'm sure you know, been a high-profile topic for news reports and analysts.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal published an article called "As Signs of Aging Emerge, Trump Responds With Defiance."  The signs of aging have been emerging for a long time, so the headline is a bit timid, but points to the WSJ for bringing it out into the public forum.

The article is balanced - too balanced, in fact, since statements from Trump and those around him are taken at face value.  It does not provide much illumination regarding Trump's behavior, which we have all witnessed, during the last year.  He and his doctor (whose name, I must report, in a brief fit of adolescent snark, is Barbarella) report that everything is fine.  Trump has a story for every symptom, most of which boil down to "It's fine, I'm the healthiest of all Presidents."  He doesn't like to take his doctor's advice, he says, because it's inconvenient or uncomfortable.  There is more evidence - without comment - that his diet involves a lot of McDonald's products.

Dr. Oz, who has drawn significant criticism throughout his career for promoting pseudoscience and unproven remedies, says "He is just with it on some fairly complex topics... I can’t even think of a single time where he said something where I don’t think he understands the issue here.”  This is reported without comment or follow-up.

Regardless of what you think of the WSJ's incisive investigative journalism, it must be said that it is another piece of evidence that Trump's age - and its visible effects on his ability to function as the President - are a major issue for Americans only a year into his term.

And why exactly was it that we decided that Joe Biden couldn't run for a second term?  I've forgotten... I am an old guy, after all...

No I haven't forgotten.  The reason he couldn't run was because he was "too old."

We all thought he was too old.  Well.  Welcome to the Dementia Presidency.