Easy Sunday: A look back, a look forward

It is Easy Sunday. Relax. Let's take a moment to open our minds to new possibilities.

I wrote in August, 2019:

"I asked Seth Moulton what he was doing in the race. He said he plans to be president. 

'Watch for me in eight years,' he said."

This blog has an archive of every post I have written going back to 2015. It is at the home base for this blog: https://peterwsage.blogspot.com. There is a search box at the upper right.

Moulton in Iowa, 2019

Readers may have heard of Seth Moulton. He gained national exposure when The New York Times reported on an interview with him: 

"Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” said Moulton.  “I have two little girls,” he continued. “I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

He got the criticism that is an essential pathway to becoming a national leader.  A top aide quit. Local Democrats protested, including the Bay State Stonewall Democrats who represent the LGBTQ community; their leader said Moulton was "100% wrong." No one remembers praise by friends. People do believe a politician is authentic when someone on one's own team criticizes. We look to see if he caves, or if he defends his view. Steel sharpens steel. A leader emerges by saying things that change opinions within one's group. 

Moulton was a three-term representative from Massachusetts when I wrote about him in 2019, in a post titled Seth Moulton is well positioned to defeat Trump. Now it is five terms. He graduated from Harvard College. He served four tours in Afghanistan as a Marine officer. He was awarded a Bronze Star, and left service with the rank of captain. He has a dual Masters from Harvard Business School and its JFK School.

He fits the "manliness" test that Republicans are throwing at Democrats. He looks solid and square-jawed. He broke into national consciousness by taking the role of "protecting females," the archetype role of males.

I wrote six years ago that Moulton would not be the nominee. The scrum of candidates was huge, and Moulton got lost in the crowd. I did say he had potential:

Moulton is Biden, only better, without most of the things people don't like about Biden. Moulton is young, without the gaffes, without the vote for the war in Iraq, without the enemies built up over five decades. . . . He has policy positions that are in the sweet spot of Democratic and national popularity: liberal but not socialist, somewhere between that of Biden and Kamala Harris. He doesn't criticize wealth; he says we should celebrate success and work to be sure everyone has the opportunity to find it.

College classmates from Massachusetts told me then that Moulton had a bit of a "young man in a hurry," reputation and that he came across as too perfect in checking all the boxes to accelerate his presidential ambition. Biden saw to it that there could be no 2024 Iowa caucus or New Hampshire primary for Democrats. A 2028 election will be the eight years.

Is Moulton the next great Democratic leader? Time will tell. But readers should be aware of him. He is doing what candidates do. I get a newsletter update from him every week.

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Oval Office Blowup

Trump: You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now. . . .

Zelenskyy: I’m not playing cards --

Trump: You are playing cards

U.S. President Trump thinks this is a world in which the dominant powers negotiate between themselves to arrange the roles of smaller countries in their region. 

Trump expected a grateful supplicant who knew Ukraine had lost the war, yet was continuing a hopeless fight. Ukraine President Zelenskyy thinks his country is on the front lines, spilling blood to protect Western democracy. 

The meeting was probably a net positive for Trump's popularity, and certainly so with his MAGA base, even as it sent shudders through diplomatic circles around the world. This photo tells the story: a proud JD Vance, who got to deliver his zinger, accusing Zelenskyy of showing disrespect; Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat stone-faced.

Ukraine's problem is that Trump prefers Putin's Russia to Ukraine, and it is bigger than Ukraine. Trump presumes that Ukraine is utterly dependent on U.S. military aid and ought to act accordingly.

Bruce Van Zee is representative of a national wave of angry, indignant opposition to Trump. My in-box is full of analysis and commentary about the meeting, almost all negative about Trump. Bruce Van Zee's is a good example of that opinion. Frustrated Democrats want to DO something about Trump. Boycott somebody. March somewhere. Raise angry questions at town halls held by Republicans. Some Democrats are becoming "content creators" on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Reels, BlueSky, and Twitter/X. For those who prefer to write, there is blogspot, WordPress, and increasingly Substack, where a majority of my readers now get this blog, sent by email.

Bruce Van Zee is a retired physician, a nephrologist. He lives in Medford, Oregon. He calls himself a "Never Trumper." He began sharing his thoughts during this second Trump term in his new blog on Substack. He allowed me to re-publish his post from yesterday. He would welcome new subscribers.

Click here 

Readers wishing to follow him can click above to go to his own Substack site and subscribe.

Guest Post by Bruce Van Zee

I cannot believe what I just saw with my own eyes…..but then I remember feeling the same way on Jan. 6. Today, Trump and Vance berated Zelensky for telling the truth; that Putin does not keep his word and has broken agreements with Ukraine before. Since Trump bears personal malice towards Zelensky because he had the temerity to refuse a meritless investigation into Biden during the 2020 campaign, Trump lashed out and attacked him (again) less than two weeks after falsely calling him a “dictator” and the aggressor in the Russian -Ukrainian war.

Of course, any responsible head of state would be able to put their personal feelings aside in view of the greater importance of the fate of the Ukrainian people, the international order, our record (more or less) of supporting free and oppressed people and opposing thugs and dictatorial regimes over the course of the last 80 years.

No more. Our Narcissist-in-Chief is incapable of separating what he perceives as good for him and what is good for the country. We have seen this movie before. Painfully, too many times. As a further exclamation point as to where Trump’s mind was, his parting shot in the Oval Office was, “This makes for good TV.” No thought as to the disaster in international relations his tirade had caused.

Adding ironic absurdity, he accused Zelensky of “risking WWIII”. But the real risk of widening the war is the instability in the international order his abandonment of Ukraine represents. If I were a resident or government official in, say, Germany, or Poland, or countless other countries that have depending on America’s deterrent, I would not only dramatically scale up my defenses, but seek the ultimate deterrent, nukes. Nuclear proliferation would not be good for the prospects of world peace; I think we can all agree on that.

Zelensky may well now resign, not that he should, because he told the truth. But he is a leader who recognizes that his nation and his people are more important than himself. I dearly wish America had such a leader.

Folks, we need to do something, I wish I knew what, but a single day of boycotting Walmart, Amazon, etc is not enough. Ideas??

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