Trump the hero, defiant and undefeated

Donald Trump survives an assassination attempt.

A photographer is there to take this photo.

The assassination attempt, the wound, and this photo augment and confirm the Trump brand. Trump the hero. Trump the martyr. Trump defiant in the face of his enemies. Trump the survivor who never surrenders. Trump the winner. Trump-the-Christ-figure who survives death.

His fist is high. He is defiant. He rose from the stage chanting "fight," "fight", "fight." Trump is an action hero. It forms a contrast to slow, geriatric, stumbling, tongue-tied "Mr. Magoo" Biden.

It isn't fair. It was just luck. The shot nearly killed him. It didn't. The wound was just enough to make a little blood, the American flag was just behind Trump, and Trump was injured just enough to be angry, not incapacitated.

The event confirms the archetypes that provide a template for how voters make a shortcut decision about the presidential contenders. One's own candidate is the Hero, if possible. One's opponent is either a Knave (strong but evil) or a Fool (weak and incompetent.) This assassination event created indelible images of Trump as the wronged-but-unbowed Hero. It is right there in the photo. Trump was lucky and strong. The contrast highlights the ambiguity voters feel about Biden's fitness and capacity. 

Biden did the right thing, immediately: he said that he disapproved of the violence and said he prayed for Trump. 

Donald Trump Junior, did the cynical thing, also immediately, by issuing a statement implying that Democratic enemies are responsible for the attack: 

I just spoke to my father on the phone and he is in great spirits. He will never stop fighting to save America, no matter what the radical left throws at him.

Democrats hoped to make the election a referendum on Trump, not Biden. As Democrats would have it, Biden would be the experienced and respected Hero; Trump would be the election-overthrowing, lying, con-man, woman-abusing felon and therefore Knave.  Forget that now. 

Now it is the battered but defiant Hero upon whom fortune shines, versus the old man who could not have gotten up from the stage. Again, it isn't fair. It is circumstance. But Democrats must face that.

If Democrats don't change the script with something dramatic I expect a landslide win for Trump in November. But Democrats could change the script. Trump is still a Knave. The question is whether and how Democrats push reset.

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It is corrupt.

Billionaire's gifts undermine the reputation of the Supreme Court.

It looks bad because it IS bad.

Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse call for a Department of Justice special counsel to investigate Clarence Thomas 

Ron Wyden told NPR:

We want to make sure the truth gets out. And the heart of our request for a special counsel is a forgiven loan to Justice Thomas of more than a quarter million dollars to buy a 40-foot luxury motor coach. Our investigators at the Finance Committee found that Justice Thomas never repaid the principal on the loan, only interest. And the fella who gave him the money just stopped collecting payments altogether. This looks like the textbook definition of a forgiven loan.

Gifts and loans need to be reported promptly on ethics reports. Thomas failed to do that.  A forgiven loan is "income" to the recipient. Taxes need to be paid on that income. They weren't. Justices have lifetime tenure during "good behavior." It isn't good behavior to break tax laws. 

There are a diminishing number of American institutions that retain public trust. The public still generally trusts and respects officiating of major sports events, at least sufficiently that a whole array of sports betting takes place on the assumption that the games aren't rigged. Instant replay video of judgement-call decisions on fumbles, ball possession, and pass interference add to the credibility and consistency of decisions. 

Imagine the uproar if it were known that Phil Knight made major private, undisclosed gifts to referees prior to an Oregon Duck football title game against Alabama. And imagine that in the game the referees made startling and controversial pro-Duck calls. The public would be justifiably outraged when news of Knight's gifts became public. A Supreme Court justice has enormous latitude to create a rule or make a distinction that bends the outcome of a case to meet a desired end. The consequences of their decisions are far more important that who gets a trophy and bragging rights. 

I don't observe bi-partisan uproar over the gifts to Thomas. He has his defenders because they like the outcome of his decisions. He is sticking it to the liberals on issues of abortion, contraception, and homosexuality, and he is defending Donald Trump, leader of the GOP. Thomas may be corrupt, but he is THEIR corrupt guy. His GOP supporters who look the other way.  

That is a short-sighted bargain. 

This is another instance in which the real crime -- the real assault on American democracy -- is not prosecuted because it is a political crime, not a precise statutory one. But there is a prosecution sometimes, eventually, and it is on some "little" error. The "little error" is that Clarence Thomas should have paid taxes on a $250,000 forgiven loan that bought him a luxury motor coach. Some people cheat on their taxes and feel proud of themselves for getting away it. Tax cheating doesn't have the same social opprobrium as other crimes. In the great scheme of things, the stolen approximately $80,000 of unpaid taxes is a small thing.

Thomas' real crime -- the big thing -- is to have flouted the idea of equal justice and corrupted the Supreme Court. And then he corrupted the people who tolerate and minimize corruption because they value the direction of his decisions more than they value a court that dispenses equal justice, blind to the persons appearing before it. Double corruption: first the courts, then the people.

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Less is more. Thoughts about abortion, part two.

I am busy pruning grape vines. 

Cutting. Eliminating, Choosing one among two or three equal canes. You build a grape vine by what you take away.

I do this task in a mood of care and creation, not destruction. 

Before

After

Like much farm work, the job is tedious and I am alone in my thoughts. My mind wanders. I recall the words of Herb Rothschild, yesterday's guest post author: "God is the great abortionist. The number of fertilized eggs that in the course of nature never come to term far exceeds those that do." 

It wanders, too, to the large centerpiece image in front of the congregation at the church where I grew up, the Methodist church on West Main Street in Medford. There is an image of a kind-looking Jesus, holding a lamb. In my boyhood, I saw a nurturing parent. In my adulthood, now with hands busy cutting two out of every three leaves and canes, I reflect that Jesus was in a pastoral society that raised sheep and goats. Sheep are not pets. The sheep had their tails cut off, most males were castrated, the sheep were protected until they were slaughtered and eaten. He wasn't holding a baby. He was holding future food.

The insight in Rothschild's post yesterday is that the absolutist and ideological position of those who see a fertilized egg as uniquely precious -- an immortal soul --  misunderstand God's practice, if not His unfathomable will. Miscarriages are frequent, likely taking place silently and unknown to the woman. Defining abortion as a battle of competing rights -- the right of the fetus to live versus the right of the mother to control what takes place inside her body -- is a frame that leads to uncompromisable conflict. A better frame is one that emphasizes care and avoids cruelty. In that frame, compromise is possible. Sometimes what appears to be cruel is in fact kind.

Local wine-grower Mark Wisnovsky, proprietor of Valley View Winery, gave me a bit of advice about the need for spacing and pruning. "Every cane needs is own space to grow. Sort of like children. Each need their own bed. Each need attention from their parents." 

The canes compete for light and space. The climbing tendrils attach to wires, which is good, but also to each other, when the competition becomes vicious and deadly. The tendrils bend back and strangle the growing leader of their sister canes. I have to stop the deadly competition. One must be removed so that one can thrive.

There is a phrase I hear women's rights organizations use now: "abortion care." It sounded strange to me at first, but now it is familiar and it makes sense.

Meanwhile, today is another morning of plant care and I will be at the farm at 6 a.m. I am pruning with the help of Liam Flenniken, my 16-year-old nephew. I have gotten old somehow. He is young. He is stronger than I am and can work faster. He has a great attitude and work ethic. He says his back does not hurt him when he gets up from one plant to go to the next.

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Cruel to be kind: Part one of two.

"You gotta be
Cruel to be kind in the right measure
Cruel to be kind it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind means that I love you
Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind."

       Nick Lowe, "Cruel to be Kind," 1979

Today's guest post by Herb Rothschild includes the words:

"God is the great abortionist. The number of fertilized eggs that in the course of nature never come to term far exceeds those that do."

I am in a busy period with my new vineyard project. I am doing important but tedious and repetitive work, putting grape vines into workable form, and it gives me time to reflect on bigger issues.  

Herb Rothschild writes a local newspaper column. He has returned to the theme of abortion several times, here making the point that we should not frame the abortion issue as an ideological matter of rights. Instead, we should think more humanely about it, thinking of it as a matter of care. We want to be kind, not cruel.  How best to do that?    

Today's post is part one. I am quick to see analogies and metaphors. I am pruning grape vines, cutting weak canes so that the plant puts energy into stronger ones. I am cutting strong canes where there are three of them, because only one can survive. More about that tomorrow.

Rothschild has a B.A. from Yale, and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He taught English Literature at Louisiana State University. He is the author of The Bad Old Days, a memoir of his years as a Civil Rights activist in Louisiana. He lives in Talent, Oregon.  A version of this guest post was published in the Ashland Daily Tidings. After the Tidings shut down, the nonprofit Ashland.news rose in its place, and Rothschild has a weekly column there.

Amazon

           

Guest Post by Herb Rothschild

We have framed abortion as a rights issue—Right to Life versus Right to Choose. The former “right” logically dehumanizes the mother, dismissing almost all regard for her physical and mental well-being. She becomes an incubator. The latter “right” logically dehumanizes the unborn up until the moment of birth, including those last weeks (ever-increasing) when the process of abortion may result in a live birth unless the foetus is deliberately destroyed.

This zero-sum conceptual approach has had dreadful consequences. It has pitted Americans against each other in an ideological and political contest with no end in sight. And it has obscured, even from ourselves, what the great majority of us in reality feel about abortion. We do care about mothers, and we begin caring about the unborn as they develop toward maturity.

Careful polling reveals areas of significant consensus. Few of us want to force a woman to carry to term the product of rape or incest. And few of us sympathize with women (there aren’t many in this country) who use abortion as their birth control method of choice. Few of us care what happens to a zygote, whether it fails to attach to the uterine wall thanks to an IUD or never gets into a uterus because of in vitro fertilization. And few of us would be emotionally easy with the surgical killing of an eight-month foetus before it is expelled. Our practice reflects these feelings more accurately than do our debates.

In sum, once we move from rights to care, from the isolated individual to the connected community, areas of agreement and possibilities of resolution open to us.

We might begin by acknowledging that God is the great abortionist. The number of fertilized eggs that in the course of nature never come to term far exceeds those that do. Thus, there is no basis in reality for humans to legislate that they must. That acknowledgement should allow us to view the “morning-after pill” as a huge asset in avoiding a journey across what is an inherently difficult terrain. Along with more vigorous promotion of contraceptive technology, we should make the morning-after pill readily available and promote its use when circumstances indicate.

Framing abortion as a rights issue tends to convince each ideological camp that it has a monopoly on care. Right to Lifers brandish photos of late-term fetuses. Right to Choosers brandish coat-hangers. It’s not their care that’s the problem; all care is commendable. It’s their pride. You’d think we would experience humility before the immense joys and sorrows of life and death, and therein affirm our common humanity.

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Trump's casting couch

First of all, let's note that Donald Trump says he did not have sex with Stormy Daniels.

Trump lies to us. 

Trump is a Hugh Hefner-style libertine. It is part of his brand, the rule-breaking, winner-take-all man of action. Better to be a predator than prey.  He represents a version of American greatness. We're number one. The winner. Trump is a walking, talking metaphor. He will do to NATO or Mexico or anyone else who gets in America's way what he did to Stormy Daniels. He will take what he wants. 

The strong do as they will; the weak suffer as they must. 

Today's guest post looks at the encounter between Trump and Stormy Daniels, with empathy for Daniels. 

Rick Millward is a songwriter, musician, and music producer. He worked in Silicon Valley and then moved to Nashville for a decade, and then moved to Southern Oregon. His most recent production is Loveland, a collection of songs on themes of romantic love. He performs frequently at local wine venues.

Guest Post by Rick Millward

Millward

When You’re A Star 

Consider this: When they met in 2006 Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump were in the same industry; TV and Film. Trump had a network reality TV show; Stormy acted in adult films. In that sense they were peers. Both were successful, but Trump was much, much more so, and when they crossed paths it was an encounter that wouldn’t have happened in the normal course of events. To put it mildly, they didn’t run in the same circles. There was also a generational divide. 

Trump is a Boomer, and a pretty square one, more Hugh Hefner than Mick Jagger. Stormy is Gen X, 33 years younger, 27 when he was 60. Trump might have appeared as someone she would look up to, even fatherly. Certainly as an aspiring actress and director, his wealth and celebrity he would have been admirable to her. When he showed an interest in her, she might have been put off guard, believing it was due to him taking notice of her talent and ambition. So when she was invited to his room, Stormy might have felt she was on the cusp of a great opportunity. At the very least, she would have a rich and famous acquaintance, but maybe something more, something life changing. Even so, in the trial testimony she said she didn’t initially want to go, but her publicist encouraged her:

“He said I think you should go. It will make for a great story. He is a business guy. Like, what could possibly go wrong?”

Stormy wanted to move away from adult films. However, getting into the mainstream was challenging if not impossible. Few had ever made the transition. One way might be through someone like Donald Trump. I can imagine the hope she might have felt at this possibility by the time she got to the hotel. They talked:

"And it was at that point he got really quiet, and he was thinking, and he told me he had an idea, that I should go on his television show. 

Q: Was it The Apprentice?

I don't remember the TV show. The Apprentice, I assume it's Celebrity Apprentice. And I said there is no way that they would ever let. . . there is no way NBC would ever let an adult actress on television. And I said, even you don't have that much power. 

And he said that he did."

I can also imagine how she felt when she left. It’s in her testimony, which everyone should read.

Her testimony tells what happened, in such detail that the judge had to admonish her not to expand on her answers. From her story it was clear the encounter went from a business interview to something else, and that the questions and conversation was just a cover for the real intent of the meeting, and at some point it dawned on her, probably with a sinking revelation and perhaps some disbelief; oh, it’s that. . . And yet, she wasn’t completely crushed. There was a promise; “call my office.”.But as time went on, for some months after, it became obvious that nothing was going to happen. 

He didn’t have the power, after all.

The pervasive depiction of “Stormy Daniels,” Stephanie Clifford, is a caricature. Some of this is her doing, but a lot of it is how the media portrays her, and it’s largely one-dimensional. Aside from how she makes her living, we all would find her treatment despicable.

Stephanie is an artist and performer. Rejection and disappointment are part of the game. It’s a roller coaster of emotions that all artists ride, and success demands being able to handle the ups and downs, and hang on through it all.

Despite this, “When you’re a star, they let you do anything” would have been infuriating, humiliating.

As I was writing this, Stormy did an interview with Rachel Maddow that adds even more detail. In it she refutes the “she knew what she was getting into” narrative, among other things, which reinforces both the understanding of why other women have been reticent to come forward as well as her courage.

Anyway, Stormy certainly doesn’t need me to defend her, but I don’t think this aspect of the story has gotten the attention it deserves. It’s been all “sex, tabloids, payoffs, records,” and not as much about the casual cruelty she suffered at the hands the Republican nominee/felon. I’m left wondering how many Stephanies are out there watching this unfold, looking at their NDAs and remembering.

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There is more than one way to have a democracy

A Canadian political scientist says:

      "Better a Prime Minister than a President."

Headlines

January, 2024: Majority of voters don't want Biden-Trump rematch.

March, 2024: Pew poll reveal voters dissatisfied with choices.

July, 2024: The election matchup voters dreaded.

Some of the problems and complications in our presidential election are unique to a "presidential system." Today's guest post describes the differences between a parliamentary system and the presidential system we have. 

Sandford Borins is a college classmate. He was a "foreign student," in our college years, although Canadians barely register as foreign to Americans, who think of Canada -- when they think of it at all -- as just a friendly tier of states we don't hear about much for some reason. Canada has a parliamentary system. Borins is Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto, having retired in July 2020 after a 45-year academic career.

He maintains a website, https://sandfordborins.com, where he writes about politics -- mostly Canadian politics -- and whatever else is on his mind. This guest post was published there on July 5.

Borins

Guest Post by Sandford Borins


President Biden’s disastrous debate performance has sparked agonized discussions among Democratic Party insiders and the American public at large about whether he should contest the election. Beyond that, it should raise questions about the institutional design of the presidency. How is it that a president whose mental acuity is failing can stay in office and indeed run for re-election without being challenged by his own party?

My thesis is that the dysfunction we are now witnessing in Washington would be unlikely to happen in a parliamentary democracy with a prime minister. I’ll begin with the systemic differences between presidents and prime ministers.

The Essential Differences

In a presidential system, the president is elected for a fixed term of office, is not a member of the legislature, and is both head of state and head of government. Examples of countries with presidential systems are the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, France, Turkey, and Russia (at least formally).

In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is a member of the legislature and does not have a fixed term of office. The prime minister stays in office as long as their supporters control a majority of the seats in the legislature and as long as they retain the support of their own political party. (I will refer to the prime minister in the plural.) The head of state is either a hereditary monarch or someone chosen independently of the prime minister. The head of state’s responsibilities involve mainly performing ceremonial functions, but also includes the critical role of choosing a prime minister from the party leaders in the legislature. Examples of parliamentary democracies include Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Japan, and Australia.

Piercing the Bubble

Presidential systems enable the president to work in their office without being required to regularly meet adversaries and critics. Having press conferences is not a requirement, and Biden has had fewer and fewer. The president delivers speeches, assisted by a teleprompter and without being expected to take questions afterwards. Biden’s discomfiture occurred in a setting his handlers could not control, a formal debate.

Parliamentary democracy requires prime ministers regularly to appear in two key political settings, parliamentary debates and cabinet meetings. Parliamentary debates provide opportunities for the opposition to challenge and embarrass the government. Parliaments include what in Canada is called “question period” and in the UK “question time.” The questions are not informational, but rhetorical, intended to embarrass the Government. An effective prime minister has a command of the facts and the mental agility to sidestep or refute the questions. If a prime minister is losing it, it would become increasingly evident in their performances in question period.

Cabinet meetings are an essential executive function of parliamentary democracy. Some decisions are made by cabinet; in other cases, cabinet decides on proposals that will be presented to the legislature. (Presidents have cabinets, but they do not have formal functions and are not required to meet.) The prime minister chairs the cabinet, a role that also requires a command of the facts and mental acuity. Cabinet meetings, unlike parliamentary debates, are held in secret. If a prime minister is losing it, it would become apparent to the prime minister’s colleagues, who are their supporters, but a few of whom are also their rivals.

Replacing the Prime Minister

If a prime minister’s performance is faltering or if their public support is waning, parliamentary democracy can offer a swift correction. Their parliamentary colleagues can hold an internal vote of confidence and replace them with another member of their party. Different countries with parliamentary systems permit varying levels of engagement by rank-and-file party members in the choice of a leader. The British Conservative Party provides numerous examples of leaders unseated by caucus, including three of its five prime ministers in the fourteen years it held power until yesterday’s election. In 1990 Margaret Thatcher, despite having won three successive elections, was unseated by her colleagues because of her declining popularity.

If the U.S. were a parliamentary democracy, Biden’s diminishing cognitive abilities would have been noticed sooner, and his party would have forced him to step down long before attempting to win re-election, rather than attempting to persuade him to step down in the middle of the campaign. The U.S. is not a parliamentary democracy and is never going to become one. But the counterexample of how things are done in a parliamentary democracy might encourage Americans to think about ways the president’s ability to perform the job could be tested on a demanding – requiring extemporaneity and response to criticism – and an ongoing basis.

Independence Day reminds us that the framers of the American Constitution modeled their leader after a monarch, but with the important constraint of having to be elected. Parliamentary democracy evolved to empower the monarch’s chief adviser, but never confused the prime minister with the monarch.

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"The West Wing" not "Succession."

Life follows fiction. 

We have seen this before. 

I loved "The West Wing." It was government by intelligent, honorable people.

In the second season of The West Wing we learned that President Josiah Bartlett has a progressive disease, described as "relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis." It was diagnosed by his wife, a medical doctor, before he first ran for president. He and his wife hid it from the public, including his west wing staff . The show presented it as a major betrayal of trust when he announced the diagnosis to the public. Bartlett's health seemed OK now, but it might worsen during a second term.

The cliffhanger to end season two was question of whether President Bartlett would run for re-election now that the diagnosis was revealed. In season three we watch him face harsh criticism for hiding his diagnosis, but he wins re-election anyway. Bartlett emerged from the controversy still popular, but his wife paid a price for enabling the deception. Bartlett's wife was forced to give up the private practice she had while serving as First Lady because of the ethics issues involved. 

The similarities are striking. 

There are two big differences from our current situation. The fictional President Bartlett seemed absolutely competent to govern. He was vigorous and articulate. He had Aaron Sorkin writing the script, so of course he sounded articulate.

Biden, however, does not present as absolutely competent. He told George Stephanopoulos  that he did not need a cognitive test because he took one every day being president. Alas, that is right. We saw a very public test at the debate.

A second difference is Biden’s staff. On The West Wing characters Toby Ziegler, C.J. Craigg, Josh Lyman and the others were lied to, up until the public announcement. In real life, the people who surround President Biden facilitate the cover up of Biden's decline. They are doing their jobs, helping Biden do and look his best. They "spin," saying that he was still jet-lagged from a trip ten days prior. I suppose I was an inadvertent part of the coverup. In 2019 and 2020 I got close up and took photos and videos. But when I saw Biden in Portland last year we were forbidden to record him or photograph him. In hindsight, the real story wasn't his support for infrastructure in Oregon last year. It was his heartfelt but rambling speech we couldn't record.

Biden is fully competent to be the head of state, a role Queen Elizabeth did for decades as a frail, elderly woman. Biden leads a staff. After the debate American voters and the leaders around the world are re-calibrating what a Biden presidency means. It refocuses attention on to the administration and less on Biden himself. Biden is more a head of state than an operational manager, now more than ever.

There is another TV show that sheds light on this, Succession. Biden is still credible as a chairman of a board or the controlling owner of a large enterprise. Biden's primary task is to see to an orderly succession and avoid an ugly fight that destroys the business and turns customers over to the competition. 

Biden can avoid a Succession scenario. The Constitution has a plan in place. We have a vice president. She is a former district attorney, former state attorney general, former U.S. senator, and someone elected on a national ticket by the American people. Maybe Biden's incapacity is less of a problem than I feared, if Democrats embrace it rather than cover it up and deny it. Yes, he is frail and in decline, but he will be leaving soon. Don't talk about serving out a four-year term. No one believes it. As Nikki Haley said, "A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris." Don't fight it. Acknowledge it. Make it a virtue. 

Kamala Harris represented  the "law-and-order" lane within the crowded scrum of Democratic candidates in 2019. That was out of fashion then, but that position has aged well, and it makes a good contrast with Trump. 

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