Oh-oh. Mitch McConnell froze again.

"I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad. . ."

The next line in the Beatle song is "well I just had to laugh."  I'm not laughing.

Frozen again.

This is an alarm bell. We can deal with it.

I bring to today's post my perspective as a Financial Advisor, who sometimes included life insurance in financial plans for clients. Life insurance agents acknowledge aging and death. They don't hide from it. They provide a solution to its financial consequences. People feel better when they confront and solve unpleasant problems.

Mitch McConnell froze again. Part of the scene is the care of staff people who were standing beside him. McConnell is propped up by staff people who know full well that the boss is failing. 

One minute YouTube video

Both Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden were born in 1942.  McConnell is 81, Biden turns 81 in November. Democrats are making a giant mistake. They are taking a risk, without having prepared an adequate Plan B. Democrats are hoping that nothing bad happens between now and the November 2024 election, and they are hoping that the lack of health events -- combined with Trump's craziness and criminality -- will cause voters to decide it is safer to choose old-Biden over crazy-Trump for a four year term. The video showing McConnell's aide coming to his side is increasingly part of the story of senior political leaders. They are thought to be figureheads. 

One heart arrhythmia event, one stumble, one frozen moment like the one McConnell had, and all of a sudden voters are choosing between dangerously feeble vs. crazy. Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. Governors Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Jared Polis, and Gavin Newsom are holding back. A half dozen senators who ran in 2020 are staying quiet. Democrats are conceding the nomination to Biden. I think that is a mistake, but since they are taking that approach, let's be smart about it. Plan B means elevating Kamala Harris, and doing so now. 

Some of this needs to be done with physical theater. This will inevitably diminish Biden, and pundits will comment on it. Harris cannot stay near-invisible and she cannot remain in the public mind behind and two steps to the left of Biden, the usual VP position. This isn't the usual situation. Harris stepping in is not a remote, theoretical possibility. Harris taking over is plausible, even likely. 

Kamala Harris is a perfectly competent campaigner. I watched her. She was as good as everyone else in 2020. Better at campaigning than Biden, by far. She lost in 2020 because she was little known and she was one of 20, lost in the scrum. She can move an audience.

Give Kamala Harris some visibility. Give her speaking parts where she announces things that presidents might usually announce. Biden should probably have some good reason not to be there when she does this, for example schedule him doing something else at the same time. Will that make Biden look weak? Yes, probably. But it will also show that he wisely planned for continuity. Airplanes have co-pilots. It isn't an insult to the pilot. It communicates safety and competence for the airline. Wouldn't Kamala Harris be doing some of Biden's job? Darned right she would be. Good for him. Good for her. Good for the USA.

Also put Harris in charge of some do-able policy initiative in the foreign policy sphere, where she won't need the cooperation of Republicans. She won't get cooperation, so don't saddle her with frustration and failure. Let her confront China on trade. And Russia on Ukraine. Let her announce whatever oil deals we make with Middle East petro-states.

Nikki Haley is saying something bold, edgy, and true. She is positing the death or incapacity in office of Biden. Democrats pretend to be shocked at the impertinence. They should not be. They should embrace it. Life insurance agents do it and turn it into a business opportunity. 

Whenever I mention Biden's frailty in this blog I get a burst of objections from Democratic activists. Don't say it, they comment. Some call me ageist. Some call me a closet Republican stabbing Biden in the back. One anonymous woman says I am an angry dry alcoholic with a mean streak that is showing through. Some say that if Democrats don't talk about it, swing voters won't notice. Yes they will. They do.

I see Mitch McConnell's events as a preview and a gift to Democrats. Today Mitch. Tomorrow or soon, Biden. Acknowledge reality. There is no shame in getting old. The shame is in pretending it doesn't happen and not planning for it. Show that Kamala Harris is a co-pilot ready to take over.

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Question for readers.

Imagine yourself as a Georgia GOP presidential elector.

Imagine election officials, the courts, and the governor certified Biden as the 2020 election winner, amid much controversy.

Imagine your candidate and his lawyers ask you to sign a document saying you, not Biden's electors, were "duly elected." 

Question: Would you sign the document?

Republican electors in two states, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, hesitated to sign the official certification drafted for them by the Trump campaign. Their certification of election began with "We, the undersigned, on the understanding that it might later be determined that we are the duly elected and qualified Electors for President. . . . " 

These certifications were changed from the language drafted for them by the Trump campaign, which wanted GOP electors in states Trump lost by a close margin to claim flat-out victory. Biden had been certified as the victor in Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, groups of GOP electors in five states signed the documents drafted by the Trump campaign which directly stated they were "duly elected." The Trump campaign hoped that the two competing slates, each claiming to be valid, would cause the Biden ballots not to be counted, since there was an apparent dispute. No one would get 270 electoral votes. This would throw the country into chaos. There might be martial law, there would certainly be riots in the streets, and amid this civil unrest the House of Representatives would settle the matter by electing Trump. A presumably-friendly Supreme Court would consent to this. 

That was the plan.

The plan required GOP state electors to agree to sign a document that began like this, claiming victory:

It concluded with their signatures:

I attempt to put myself in their shoes. They are Republican activists. They wanted Trump to win. Trump was personally calling state officials declaring that he had indeed won. Trump campaign lawyers were telling these electors that this was legal. The dual claims of election might let Trump stay in office. Sign. Or else Biden. The future of America was in their hands.

They signed. 

I would not have signed. If I were a Republican elector I would have happily signed the New Mexico and Pennsylvania certifications, but not this one from Georgia nor the identical ones in other battleground states. 

The document claiming I was duly elected and qualified would have stopped me. At best there was dispute, but in fact Biden's electors were duly elected and courts had investigated evidence and said so. My self-protection alarm bells would be going off. Don't sign false documents. "Duly elected?" No. I could imagine trouble down the road: Fraud. Perjury. Criminal penalties. 

Electors are facing indictments in Michigan and in Georgia. Georgia electors are claiming that they were just following instructions of the president and his attorneys. That is undoubtably true, that they were following instructions, but that is not a legal defense in Georgia, nor is it a moral one. They signed claiming something that simply was not true.

I have asked four former elected officials who held nonpartisan office if they would have signed and they were adamant: No way. 

A local Republican businessman who I consider quite reasonable, a Nikki Haley supporter, took the opposite view. He said if electors thought that Trump had won, or maybe won, even though the vote was counted, re-counted, and certified for Biden, then they had every right to sign it. Moreover, he said the state DAs and Department of Justice should not charge them with anything. There was no crime, he said. They were signing their opinion that they were duly elected. They tried something and it failed, so no harm was done. His frustration is directed at the prosecution. Why are they dividing the country by bringing this up? The DAs and DoJ are just squeezing innocent people into lying to give damning testimony against the higher-ups, he said. 

I invite comments from readers. Try imagining yourself a Biden elector in a battleground state. Imagine Democratic leaders and your favorite cable news sources are saying that Republican operatives had created disturbances at precincts in your state's urban center, a Democratic stronghold, that suppressed the vote there. What happened is unknown and fraud is unproved, but the events on election night are suspicious. Imagine a DCC attorney phoned you to say it was OK to sign calling yourself duly elected because it was just part of the legal process to give Congress a chance to sort out the truth. And if you don't sign then Trump is allowed to steal the election, and in his second term he would end democracy in America.

Would you have signed? 

Write in the comment section, or send me an email directly and I may work your thoughts into a guest post:  peter.w.sage@gmail.com

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Close up: Postal Service Reorganization, continued.

"Please Mister Postman, look and see
Is there a letter, a letter for me
I've been standin' here waitin' Mister Postman
So patiently, for just a card, or just a letter."

Debut single by Marvelettes, 1961. First Motown #1 hit.

The Postal Service is consolidating letter-sorting into large metropolitan centers. The USPS is closing most of the local and regional sorting that takes place in Medford and other secondary cities. Where and how it gets sorted affects the speed and reliability of service. Tam Moore has been trying to get to the bottom of whether service will deteriorate for communities like ours that are losing status as a sorting center. Fact is," Moore told me, "us outsiders can't figure out the impact on local, inter-community mail from the documents the USPS provides." 

Moore has been a TV and print journalist, with a career lasting almost 70 years, so far.

Moore

Guest Post by Tam Moore

In case you are wondering about the U.S. Postal Service reorganization report posted on this blog on August 11, the technocrats clearly won the first round.

At issue is turning sectional processing centers – those regional hubs where machines sort mail and route it to its destination – into “local processing centers” by trucking letters and packages to super sorting centers in more distant locations.

On August 25 USPS posted on its website “Notice of Intent to Proceed” with reorganization of processing centers in Medford and Eugene, Oregon and Macon and Augusta, Georgia. 

No news release to local media. “There is no news release,” emailed Kim Frum, the Seattle-based USPS spokesperson for the Pacific Northwest. “The information is available on our website…”

No response to questions asked at public briefings on the reorganization. Just a one page summary of the public meeting. 

And a workbook (format identical for all four reorganization studies) full of numbers and technical jargon. Clearly missing is an answer to the citizen question asked in Medford about a “map” or chart showing where a letter might go from its point of deposit in the mail system to delivery. Are our letters destined for a neighbor across town really going to be trucked to Portland (the designated super sorting center) for sorting, then trucked back to Medford for a hand-off for delivery by a local letter carrier?

By Post Office computations in the decision workbook, it is 280 miles one-way from the Medford processing center to the super center near Portland International Airport. Calculated at four hours 28 minutes on the Interstate. There is no mention in the 16-page workbook of whose trucks will get the job of all of those round trips to Portland, nor of whether more trucks will be needed on the route. The workbook does list 30 Highway Carrier Route contracts which will be eliminated, at an expected annual savings of about $6 million. Again no computation on the cost or method of assuring customers on those highway routes continue to get mail delivery. 

Here's what’s going away from the Medford processing facility which now sorts mail for four Southern Oregon counties: 

1 package sorting machine

4 letter-sorting and bar code reading machines  

1 universal sorting machine for parcels and non-machinable mail

Depending on where you look in the workbook, up to 37 postal workers either face layoffs or transfer to another facility in implementation of the Medford reorganization.

 

Not every July reorganization study produced similar results. For example, under the August 28 decision, Eugene, serving a larger number of mail patrons, is supposed to get six more digital bar code reader machines, for 12 total. Augusta, Georgia will remove only two letter-sorting machines. It’s 167 miles from Augusta to the brand new Atlanta supersized mail processing center. 

 

It was the home-folks versus the technocrats at Medford’s July public meeting. For this round, the technocrats are winning. Citizens used to bureaucrats thoughtfully addressing every public comment in federal agency decisions governed by the Administrative Procedures Act would be amazed at the lack of transparency shown by the U.S. Postal Service in their latest round of reorganization. It is even more difficult because the Post Office culture is strewn with anachronisms. An internet search leads one to a dictionary of 722 abbreviations used by USPS. One of the equipment abbreviations used in the Medford workbook -- LCUS -- isn’t found in that dictionary, but Kim Frum told me it was a "low cost universal sorting system."

 

The next round promises to include both unfair labor practice complaints from postal worker unions and probing questions from at least two of Oregon’s federal lawmakers. 

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Body Language Only. No Sound.

Watching politicians with the sound off.

One of the insights I got from watching about 100 presidential events live and up close is that I am watching a performance. 

Candidate events are a form of concert, a one-person stage play, or a stand-up comedy act. The words said by a candidate are intended to look spontaneous, and there will be new material, perhaps, but what audiences see is about an hour of well-scripted and practiced material. I think the biggest thing a person takes away from candidate events can be expressed in a few words, and it focuses on manner not denoted content.

Beto O'Rourke: Animated. Enthusiastic. 

 

Eric Swalwell: Sincere. Unguarded. 

Tulsi Gabbard: Controlled. Guarded. Intense.

There is a school of thought that candidate performances, and especially "debates," should be viewed by audiences without sound. The body language alone reveals whatever iimportant interaction happened. Watched without sound would have focused attention on the strange moment in 2000 when Al Gore walked up to within ten inches of George W. Bush while Bush was talking. It was so strange, so mannered, so clearly a device, that I had the impression some advisor had instructed Gore to do a body-space invasion to look alpha-male tough. Bush looked at him like he was weird. That defined the main take-away of the event: Weird artificial Gore. Soundlessly watching Trump lurking over Hillary in 2016 confirmed him as a bully and woman abuser, but a great many people welcomed it.  Apparently, there was a lot of hostility toward Hillary.

In non-debate settings viewers pay attention to politicians when they give a sloppy salute getting off Marine One, when they stumble over sandbags, when they sip water while protecting a silk tie, when they stand on a balcony and whip off a mask.

Michael Trigoboff is a now-retired professor of computer science. His long-time career focused on the exacting and rigorous work of writing code that isn't buggy. He expresses to me frustration with fuzzy-thinking progressives who look for societal reasons -- excuses -- for crime, for poverty -- and top of mind for him --  bad computer code, and then want to shield those people from the consequences of their actions.

In computer code, "pretty good" is bad and subjective impressionism is worthless. Objective denoted code is what matters. I see things differently. In my view of politics, the denoted words are relevant but secondary. I think people generally, and voters especially, base their decisions on gut feel and intuition. 

We have been advised to take Trump's words seriously, but not literally. Trigoboff is all about the literal. I wanted to see what a literal thinker observed about the GOP debate on Wednesday, having viewed it with the sound off.

Trigoboff

Guest Post by Michael Trigoboff.

Here’s what the candidates at the Republican debate looked like to me with the sound turned off:

Mike Pence was dignified, massive, and presidential. By “massive”, I mean that Pence did not allow the actions of any of the other candidates to have a visible effect on his composure. You could see that he expected them to react to him, and not the other way around.

Nikki Haley spent a lot of her time looking indignant. She did not project the massiveness I mentioned about Pence. Occasionally she looked really happy, which was probably a good thing for her image, and was a lot more appealing than the indignance.

Tim Scott projected a very positive and happy image. It looked like it would be very nice to be around him. But he leaned back a lot, and did not ever seem to project himself forward, which made him seem uncertain and passive.

Ron DeSantis never smiled, except one time briefly at the end of the debate. He looked grumpy and dour, and had zero charisma. You would not want to be around him.

Vivek Ramaswamy was like a noisy little yapping dog; I wanted to take him right back to the pound. His fake teeth-whitened grin was in additional irritant. He looked like an arrogant lightweight.

Doug Burgum came across as a nice guy, but there was no force behind him. He looked tentative and unsure of himself.

Chris Christie looked like he had accidentally wandered in off the set of the Sopranos. He had the kind of massive presence that Pence did, but the flavor was menacing, as opposed to Pence’s more positive version.

Asa Hutchinson with his tentative smile just basically disappeared into the background. It was like no one was really there.

 

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Easy Sunday: A flash of body language

It looked bad for Ron DeSantis.

It looked timid. Like he wanted the assurance of others.  

At the Wednesday debate Fox host Bret Baier asked a direct question:

"If former president Trump is convicted in a court of law would you still support him as your party's choice. Please raise your hand if you would."

The eight candidates looked like this as the question was asked. The candidates were facing the hosts.

What happened next took place in two seconds. Vivek Ramaswamy immediately raised his hand and held it over his head. Ron DeSantis turned his head to his right -- our left. We saw him looking at Pence, Christie, and Hutchinson. They had not yet raised their hands. Pence later would.

Then DeSantis turned to his left and saw Ramaswami, Haley, Scott, and Burgum. Their hands were up.

We saw DeSantis jerk his hand up. It looked like he was seeking the safety of a crowd, found it, and only then raised his hand. 

It is an uncharitable view, but that is what it looked like to me. It is certainly how the Trump campaign saw it. They tweeted this:

DeSantis' side-to-side glance provides a body language insight into DeSantis' character: He is inauthentic. This is jumping to conclusions on my part, but our impressions on the unguarded actions of others is a big part of how we frame our opinions. I have been writing about the body language of politics in this blog for eight years. It is why my seeing events live and up close is so useful. I can observe what the candidate is doing before and after the camera is on and their performance is underway.  We understand that people attempt to construct a useful presentation of themselves. It is conscious and therefore artificial. But sometimes our bodies betray us. While DeSantis' mind was racing and deciding how to sound like a decisive leader, his body was revealing an inner truth. At least, that is what it looks like.

A Politico article makes this point, too. It shows live video of the moment. 

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Mug Shot

Trump Glowers.

He had time to think about how he wanted to look. 

Serious. Defiant. Angry. His head slightly down as if in a boxer's stance, protecting his chin, ready to take a punch and return the blow.

He has a a look of menace. After all, he plans retribution. 

Trump must have considered a head-up-and-smiling pose. It was an option. It might have communicated a "I'm not afraid of you" stance. It is nonchalance in the face of one's enemies. 

Tom Delay

It is how Tom Delay handled it when he was arrested and charged with money laundering. Imperviousness demonstrates strength. Trump has slapped away opponents with a dismissive insults in the past: "Little Marco," "Sleepy Joe." 

Trump went the other way. Trump is not dismissing opposition this time. He plans to crush it. Democrats aren't sleepy anymore. Trump says Democrats are powerful and at war, fighting dirty, doing election interference. Trump says that Biden and his allies including George Soros, the media, federal employees, the Deep State, the Department of Justice, RINOS like his former Attorney Generals, his former Secretaries of State, his former Defense Secretaries, his former National Security Advisor, his former Chiefs of Staff, his former Army generals, his former Vice President, current state and local prosecutors, the current Senate Minority leader -- heck, nearly everyone -- are tyrants out to get him.  

And he won't surrender to them. I got seven fundraising letters from him on Thursday, the day he was arraigned. These tee shirts were on sale Friday.

Trump is good at this. Democrats have consistently underestimated Trump, especially in the arena of political body language. Democrats avert their eyes from the body language of Biden's age. Old men can embody and communicate wisdom and continuity, but not a bright new future. No matter how talented the actor, he cannot be cast as Shakespeare's Juliet. Nothing Biden says -- no Chip Act, no Bidenomics --  communicates a first-glance brand of new-and-improved. At best, the Biden brand means continuity. Repair, perhaps, but not new.

Democrats call Trump's lawlessness criminal. Trump is selling it as breaking the chains of a corrupt status quo. After all, Americans are deeply skeptical of their institutions. Trump says the institutions of media, all three branches of government, the CDC, so-called experts, and federal law enforcement are all corrupt and out to get him. Trump represents a new deal, hope and change. Trump has stolen the Democratic message.

Trump looks like he is going to fight for change, not just tinker and dither, so of course the oppressors are out to get him.

We will see more of this photo. If the 2024 election plays out as seems increasingly likely, I suspect Trump will present two photos to encapsulate the choice facing America. Democrats will complain that it is unfair and over-simple and false, which, of course, it is. But it is the Trump case to advocate and he will do so:

Trump's frame:

"Trump: fighting the corrupt institutions of the status quo."

   
Versus  

"Joe and Hunter Biden."

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In praise of parody.

"Content creator."

It became "a thing" about 25 years ago. First with "blogs" like this one in the late 1990s. Then people began uploading videos to YouTube beginning in about 2005. Content creation really took off. 

YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and many other sites provide a platform for talented people to find audiences using music and video. A very typical format is a video of a couple of minutes -- a format that works well for short bits of social and political commentary, including parody songs. Re-worked, re-worded songs make a strong impression. The music and overall "sound" is familiar  which makes the replacement words particularly memorable since they fit into the mind-space already established by the original. They can be clever. And funny.

My explorations amid humorous commentary is a continuation of my effort to lighten up my political immersion. (Yesterday it was the GOP debate. Tomorrow, the body language message of Trump's mugshot. I need what the Greek dramatists called "comic relief.")  This brings me to Dale Borman Fink's YouTube channel. Fink is a college classmate with a distinguished career in early childhood education.  

Take time to sample his links, found below. I think they are fun.

Guest Post by Dale Borman Fink

Animated by other Trump song parodies in the early months of the pandemic, I decided to write one of my own. When I finished my song "Mean Don," based on “Big John," by the great Jimmy Dean. I found out the best way to make it available was to start a YouTube channel. That’s how my channel began. 

 

Now that I was a retired guy with a YouTube channel, I realized it could be a great place to share other songs I had created over several decades. The earliest ones dated from my participation in the Harvard-Radcliffe SDS Radical Arts Troupe in 1969 to 1971. We used to write and perform amusing skits related to the issues of the day. My major contribution to the troupe’s repertoire was to write song parodies. I have now recorded ten songs from those days and am in the process of turning them into videos with my creative collaborator, Shannon Dean, who has done all the video and graphics.   

 

Back in 1991, I had released an audiocassette of “Help Me Saddam,” a song about the first George Bush and the Persian Gulf War. I had also made audio versions of three "latchkey songs" that I wrote and performed when I was on the speaking circuit, working at the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, on behalf of after-school programs for school-age kids.

I began writing a poem about my sports-hero, Roberto Clemente, the day after he died on New Years’ Day, 1973. I continued reciting it and revising it for most of my adult life. In 2021 I found the perfect voice actor to record it: Daniel Corretjer played baseball and grew up in Puerto Rico. It is a tribute I had to finish before I leave this earth. (My words here are a deliberate callback to one of Roberto’s great quotations.)

Here is a sample of Fink's work: 

Click: The Ballad of Big John

Click: I Want to Hold Your Hand

  

Click: Help me, Rhonda

Click: A Hard Day's Night

Click: King of the Road

Click: The Ballad of Roberto Clemente

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Quick takes on the GOP Debate

I watched it all. 

Probably none of this matters. 

Judging from the audience reactions, a huge share of GOP voters like Trump and nothing but Trump. That is my big take-away. 

No one so fully distinguished him or her self to become the obvious alternative to Trump. The nomination pits Trump against a pack of aspirants, each with a different agenda, all more-or-less qualified, which sets the frame for the GOP nomination. Trump versus nothing-much. 

Vivek Ramaswamy burst onto the scene. Smiling. Articulate. He was a know-it-all newcomer bully, dripping with hubris and put-downs of the others. He interrupted constantly, grabbed extra time, talked over others. He was Mr. Dominant, Mr. Bully. On policy after policy, he said he was right and everyone else was clueless. And old. And corrupt. They had bad motives, looking for a job on MSNBC. 

Wasn't he being a jerk? Who would introduce himself to a national audience this way? Trump did. Republican voters liked it in 2015 and still do. Trump voters have developed a taste for a contemptuous fighter. The audience last night seemed to like it.

I credit the debate moderators. They inquired about the elephant in the room. They asked candidates if Michael Pence did the right thing on January 6, in refusing to count electoral votes cast for Biden. The question was artful. It didn't ask if Biden won, a question that would have allowed meandering answers about  the GOP primary electorate's lingering doubts about the election. The question was binary: Did Pence do the right thing? With Chris Christie's help, Michael Pence re-positioned the acceptable GOP position on reversing the election result. Pence said it. He was right and Trump was wrong.  

That is huge.

Chris Christie made a straight, sincere statement of support for what Pence did. That  praise for a rival seemed to have broken a spell. The heresy was voiced in front of Republicans, and the earth still spun. Asa Hutchison agreed. So did Haley and Tim Scott. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum said, "of course." It was safe to come out of hiding. Ramaswamy tried to evade by saying the important thing was the immediate pardon he would give Trump, but buried in his evasion was a yes, Pence was right. 

Ron DeSantis looked at his very worst here. Desantis appears a bit elf-like. Now he looked timid, too, in his effort to evade a clear answer. I already addressed this, he said. The debate hosts pressed him, saying he wasn't answering here and now. Was Pence right? DeSantis pivoted to "weaponization" of law enforcement. The hosts did not let go. Was Pence correct? DeSantis said, "Mike did his duty. I have no beef with him." It wasn't a "yes," but it meant yes. "No beef," will serve. DeSantis had crossed the Rubicon.

Amid the candidate agita and audience noise in this section of the debate, Mike Pence turned out to be last to make a statement on the question about himself. Pence was at his most solemn. He put on a face of Mr. Rectitude, Mr. Christian, Mr. Do-One's-Duty, so help me God. He said he had put his hand on Reagan's Bible, that he swore an oath to the American people and to God, and that what Trump asked him to do was wrong and forbidden by the Constitution. That, too, crossed the Rubicon. He was not saying that what Trump wanted was a good thing to do in concept, were it possible and not technically illegal. That has been the standard GOP formulation, and Pence's way of describing it. He would sound like he regretted he had to do his duty. Not anymore. Pence said that Trump was morally wrong to have demanded it. It was selfish and dishonest.  

All the candidates are on record now defying Trump's claim that Pence should have thrown the election to him. Ernest Hemingway's formulation of bankruptcy -- gradually, then suddenly -- may be at work here. One tiny snowflake finally triggers an unstable snowbank into an avalanche. Eight candidates said Pence was right to deny Trump. Might Lindsay Graham say it? Might Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and Marco Rubio? There is a moral conclusion imbedded in the question of whether Mike Pence was right. If Pence was right, then Trump was not just wrong to have urged Pence do it. It would mean Trump made a request that threatened democracy, and that good Republicans had a responsibility to stop him, not accommodate him. That means the indictments target genuine misbehavior.

I doubt there will be an avalanche. There is a convenient moral escape. Ramaswamy said it, when he said that Trump was the best president of the 21st Century and that he favored an immediate pardon. Trump's errors are irrelevant. Dismiss them. Pardon them. Trump's actions against democracy -- maybe they are crimes, maybe just misunderstandings -- don't matter, not in the face of how wonderful Trump was otherwise. What really matters is that the Department of Justice is making a fuss over things that don't matter. That makes the legal system the bad guy, so move on and investigate something important. Investigate Hunter Biden.

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High Noon and the Magnificent Seven

This is not a post about tonight's GOP debate.

Seven of them aren't heroes. 

I am posting about the values and ethics in two movies from the Cold War era.

Gary Cooper in High Noon

The old "Westerns" of the 1950s and 1960s were moral dramas that retold the central geo-political dramas of the previous decades. On the surface the shows were about sheriffs and outlaws, with the resolution settled by gunfights. They were metaphors. The shows were re-enactments of the decision to confront aggression in WWII and the ongoing Cold War with the USSR.

I gave myself a respite from the current burst of media hype of tonight's GOP debate by re-watching two old movies, High Noon and The Magnificent Seven. I didn't escape the news. I saw commentary on it. Both movies are stories about people having the courage to do the right thing, the honorable thing, the thing that protected civilized order. 

In High Noon the sheriff, Will Kane, played by Gary Cooper, had just married. He was planning to leave town with his new wife, a Quaker who objected to violence. The new sheriff would arrive in two days. But in that interim a man Kane had put in prison announced he was returning to town with three relatives to kill Kane, arriving on the noon train. Kane had every right to avoid the confrontation and enjoy his new domestic life. He had resigned. He refused to go. It would expose the town to lawlessness. Kane looked for backup and a posse among the townspeople. The townspeople found excuses. The sheriff stood firm. In the end he prevailed with help from his Quaker wife.

In The Magnificent Seven a group of men agreed to help a Mexican village defend themselves from a gang of thieves. Midway in the defense of the village the villagers lost confidence and agreed to submit to the gang. The leader, Chris, played by Yul Brenner, had this bit of dialog with his chief ally, Vin, played by Steve McQueen, as they considered whether to abandon the town.

Chris: "We took a contract."
Vin: "It's not the kind any court would enforce."
Chris: "That's just the kind you've got to keep."

The seven eventually stay to fight.

Both of these movies are about moral courage, physical courage, and the pairing of virtue and the law. In each the heroes defended order even when there was an arguable pretense or loophole to evade confrontation. It would be expedient. It is what a "winner," a "smart person," would do. 

In tonight's debate most of the aspirants to replace Trump as GOP party leader will make excuses for him. They will divert and distract and blame the sheriff for making trouble, just like in these movies. The candidates will pretend Trump's actions to stay in office have an arguable basis for not being provably criminal. He proudly did wrong things, sure, but he believed his "crackpot lawyers." He made mistakes, but they aren't necessarily criminal beyond a reasonable doubt, so the supposed hero with the badge is the actual troublemaker. Blame him.

Chris Christie and Asa Hutchison aside, the GOP debate tonight is a group of citizens -- the Mexican villagers and Kansas townspeople -- who are unworthy of peace and order. In the movies they willfully accept the lawless gang of thieves or the murderer arriving on the noon train. The GOP candidates are not blind to who Trump is and what he has done. Possibly they feel bad about their hypocrisy -- the villagers and townspeople do -- but they are being expedient. Two characters briefly try out excuses in the scene above in The Magnificent Seven: "Sometimes you bend with the wind or you break" and "there comes a time to turn mother's picture to the wall and get out." Six of the candidates tonight are taking that path. 

Both movies celebrate the heroes who uphold law and order. They are the good guys. The movies of that era celebrated virtue, not irony. Not expediency. But both movies end with the same note, the one that I expect to be the conclusion tonight. Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen ride off with the recognition that they did the right thing, but lost. The winners are the farmers who benefited from their courage, but return to their lives. The Gary Cooper character throws his gun and badge on the table and leaves for the train out of town. He has the consolation of leaving with a wife played by Grace Kelley, 30-years his junior, but the townspeople don't beg him to stay. Nor did the Mexican villagers. Heroes are an embarrassment to the townspeople. They shame them by their presence.

Liz Cheney shames Republicans. It is too late for Chris Christie and Asa Hutchison, but now they also shame them. Pence wants it both ways, so his reward is boos and 2% in the polls.

They don't make movies like The Magnificent Seven and High Noon anymore. Tastes have changed. The best characters now are anti-heroes. The smart money sticks with the townspeople. Don't offend the GOP primary base.

We get the democracy we deserve.

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