Tag Archives: US politics

Thoughts on That Election

For my left-leaning friends losing their minds and blaming all the wrong things and all the wrong people, give a thought to Italy and all the years when Berlusconi kept winning. He kept winning because the Italian left failed to offer an appealing alternative and because he talked about things Italians cared and worried about while the opposing parties talked about luxury beliefs and luxury concerns. Sound familiar? No, it wasn’t misogyny or bigotry that brought Trump to power. I am not saying there aren’t bigots or sexists among his supporters, but he won from a broad coalition of races and backgrounds. Please remember that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. Americans would be happy to elect a woman – just not Kamala Harris.

To her credit, Harris did not make her candidacy about her gender the way that Clinton did. I admired her for that. But she did some dreadful things – among them, throwing Israel under the bus to get Muslim votes in Michigan, the great irony being that Trump won the Muslim vote in Michigan. She also made her candidacy about celebrities (for this Julia Roberts-narrated ad alone the Democrats deserved to lose) and superficial nonsense – joy! – while Trump, for all his many flaws, talked about jobs and the economy and the unfortunate prevalence of woke-ism. And yes, he talked about crazy stuff, too, because that is who he is.

I am glad the victory was decisive, though honestly, were I American I think I would have written in a third name. I worry about Ukraine, given Trump’s comments on the matter, though Harris was not much better. (I have said previously that I feel like no one, regardless of party or affiliation, wants anyone to win a war anymore.) That said, when I saw the pogrom nightmare unfolding in Amsterdam a couple of nights ago I will admit to feeling relief at the election outcome. I will also admit to thinking that, while I am a huge believer in NATO, Trump is absolutely right that Europe needs to start paying their share. Do they even care about their future? One must wonder.

A good discussion on the election outcome over at the Free Press and a good, if massively depressing discussion about Amsterdam at Call Me Back.

Ritchie Torres

We need a Ritchie Torres in Canada. He is a Democratic congressman who is decidedly not silly and is a shining star on the issue of Israel and antisemitism. Part of his recent op-ed (yesterday):

Something is rotten in the state of America. When the institutional leaders in our country cannot condemn the cold-blooded murder of Israeli children and civilians with moral clarity, one must ask: what kind of society are we becoming?  

What does the silence and indifference and cowardice — from these so-called leaders — tell us about the depth of anti-Semitism in America and the reckoning required? 

The time has come to confront not only the symptoms but the disease: a Democratic Socialist industrial complex that indoctrinates young Americans with an anti-Israel hatred so virulent that it renders them indifferent to the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.  

Anti-Israel extremism, which has been given a veneer of mainstream respectability in law schools and legislatures, is aided and abetted by the sheer spinelessness of so-called “leaders”— from public officials to the presidents of colleges and universities.

Days of silence were often followed by words of cowardice, if there were any words at all. 

Northwestern University, for example, said it had no plans to “put out a statement officially stating a University position.” Imagine that: a university that cannot be bothered to take a position on a pogrom against Jews.  Have we learned nothing from the long and ugly history of Anti-Semitism? 

There is nothing accidental about the disregard for Israeli life that revealed itself in the wake of Oct. 7.  The dehumanization of Israeli victims follows inevitably from the hyperbolic and systematic demonization of Israel itself. 

And the same rot exists in Canada. Read the whole column.

I Was a Teenaged Mark Russell Fan

As a nerdy teen, I used to love PBS. Well, I still do, but there are more options now, aren’t there? I enjoyed Brideshead Revisited and I, Claudius and many nature specials, and as a geek with a burgeoning interest in politics – and American politics being of far more interest than Canadian politics to most Canadians (not to mention the world) – I used to enjoy the Mark Russell political comedy/musical shows. If you don’t know who Russell was, he was a satirist who used musical parodies and a piano to mock politicians and headlines. He was very talented and astute and a fun performer, but if you watch this (or look up some other of his clips online) you will really get a sense of how genteel he was and how innocent his commentary could be. I do not mean that as a bad thing – I wish we could dial so much of our nastiness and bite back, and return to this kind of discourse. It’s easy to mock, and many have mocked him (I seem to recall SNL took a rather funny shot at him some years back) and that is fair enough. Still, when I read that he had passed, I felt rather nostalgic for this relative naivete and kindness. (Canuck readers: do we/did we have a Canadian equivalent to this gentleman? I think not.)

By the way, I was such a diehard PBS-watcher as a kid and teen that one night, during one of the public broadcaster’s pleading, desperate fundraising drives, I felt compelled to help. I was watching with my brother, who felt equally moved by their plight. Together, we took my dad’s credit card (he was likely sleeping/passed out) and phoned in quite a pledge. Yes, there was hell to pay, but we did get a tote bag.

Samuel Paty: Important Stories Overlooked

Yes, Covid is a defining story. But you know what isn’t? Trump vs. Biden. This too shall pass and America will survive because it is a great country. The anger and the loudness don’t make it “the most important election of our lifetime.” Nope.

Here is something that will have a far greater impact – CRISPR.

And frankly, the tragedy of Samuel Paty should be the headline in every Western country, in every Western newspaper. But it is not. We are cowards. We are blithe. I fear it is too late for Europe (as spot-on as Macron was in this speech, he can’t do it alone), but maybe not for North America. I stress the “maybe.”

After the Charlie Hebdo massacres, someone I had thought to be sane-ish, told me I was wrong to view it as a black-and-white issue. Oh no, she said – there are “nuances” and “shades of grey.” Seriously? Slaughtering people because they mocked your faith and slaughtering people because they are Jews are actions that are nuanced? I referenced this person’s nonsense here (column is from 2015 and links may no longer work).

We need moral leaders. Principled leaders. Trump is not one, but anyone who thinks Biden will be one is deluded, and then some. Where are our moral leaders on Paty? The Pope recently made an exciting and positive comment about gay civil unions. Wonderful, of course, but a week after Paty’s murder he has yet to utter the man’s name and yet to issue a condemnation of the murderer and his motivation. I’m not surprised, though: after Charlie Hebdo, Pope Francis said a remarkably stupid thing about the massacres, apparently excusing the crimes (see my column above).

When the President of France is your greatest hope…

RBG

One of the things I most admired about Ruth Bader-Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia was their enduring friendship and respect for each other. It is shameful that each has become a symbol for an ideology, a talisman, rather than being held up as a symbol or talisman of decency, civil discourse, considered thought and the utter irrelevence of political disagreements to a meaningful relationship.

And, of course, I so admire and am grateful for the work RBG did in the name of gender equality. I rather felt that went without saying, but perhaps it should also be said. Remarkable life, career, woman – tough as nails.

The Upside of the Woke Madness

I meant to post about Bari Weiss’ magnificent resignation letter, and about Andrew Sullivan’s statement later that same week (sheesh -six weeks ago! I’m a bit slow to follow up), but got distracted, likely by something absurd. I will instead make a simple statement: the upside of all the woke madness is that Sullivan is now blogging again. Yay. Reminds of ye olden tymes in the early aughts. He is not charging (yet) – I imagine he will, eventually, and that is justifiable. In the meantime, here’s a snippet of this week’s column:

In the current chaos, I’ve come to appreciate Marcus Aurelius’s maxim that “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” And I have to say I’m horribly conflicted on some issues. I’m supportive of attempts to interrogate the sins of the past, in particular the gruesome legacy of slavery and segregation, and their persistent impact on the present. And in that sense, I’m a supporter of the motives of the good folks involved with the Black Lives Matter movement. But I’m equally repelled by the insistent attempt by BLM and its ideological founders to malign and dismiss the huge progress we’ve made, to re-describe the American experiment in freedom as one utterly defined by racism, and to call the most tolerant country on the planet, with unprecedented demographic diversity, a form of “white supremacy”. I’m tired of hearing Kamala Harris say, as she did yesterday: “The reality is that the life of a black person in America has never been treated as fully human.” This is what Trump has long defended as “truthful hyperbole” — which is a euphemism for a lie.  

But here’s one thing I have absolutely no conflict about. Rioting and lawlessness is evil. And any civil authority that permits, condones or dismisses violence, looting and mayhem in the streets disqualifies itself from any legitimacy. This comes first. If one party supports everything I believe in but doesn’t believe in maintaining law and order all the time and everywhere, I’ll back a party that does. In that sense, I’m a one-issue voter, because without order, there is no room for any other issue. Disorder always and everywhere begets more disorder; the minute the authorities appear to permit such violence, it is destined to grow. And if liberals do not defend order, fascists will.

Emphasis mine. And it can’t be emphasized enough.