Category Archives: Politics & Government

Down-and-out and lonely

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“It’s [hard] to get a man to understand something, when his community and identity depends on his not understanding it. […] Instead of tie-dyed shirts, they donned red “MAGA” hats. Instead of being young adventurers running away from their parents, these “front-row Joes” (as he calls them) tended to be people who were “retired or close to it” and “estranged from their families or otherwise without children”; they also had “plenty of time on their hands.” What they found was that “Trump had, in a surprising way, made their lives richer.” His rallies gave them a “reason to travel the country, staying at one another’s homes, sharing hotel rooms and carpooling. Two had married—and later divorced—by Trump’s second year in office. […] Trump’s status as both a “rock star” and, simultaneously, a persecuted victim made him an attractive leader for this kind of movement.”

How Trumpists Prey on Loneliness, and Loneliness Preys on Trumpists

“It’s too late”

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Dr. Brytney Cobia said all but one of her COVID patients in Alabama did not receive the vaccine. The vaccinated patient, she said, just needed a little oxygen and is expected to fully recover. Some of the others are dying. In Alabama, state officials report 94% of COVID hospital patients and 96% of Alabamians who have died of COVID since April were not fully vaccinated.

“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”

“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

Landslide

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Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency by Michael Wolff

To say that I “couldn’t put this book down,” is a time-worn cliche. And let’s face it, I can put just about any non-fiction book down. But I read this book in 24 hours which is really fast for me. I picked this book because I like the way Michael Wolff writes. I’ll let others judge his reporting, but the man knows how to tell a story. In Landslide, he comes as close as anyone could to making sense of the chaos and madness of Donald Trump’s final days. This book reads like a thriller (or a horror story).

The first book I read by Mr. Wolff was Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet (1998).

“The Christian Right Is in Decline”

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New York Times: “P.R.R.I.’s 2020 Census of American Religion, based on a survey of nearly half a million people, shows a precipitous decline in the share of the population identifying as white evangelical, from 23 percent in 2006 to 14.5 percent last year. […] In 2020, as in every year since 2013, the largest religious group in the United States was the religiously unaffiliated.” […] “In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56.” […] “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles. The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.” […] “If they can’t own the country, they’re ready to defile it.”

 

The Upswing

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The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

“In a sweeping overview of more than a century of history, drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an “I” society to a “We” society and then back again.” (Amazon)

I’m only a few chapters into this book and remain skeptical America can ever be a “We” society again. Perhaps the authors can convince me before I’m done. I’ll post a few excerpts without comment because… I wouldn’t know what to say.

“Buoyed by his landslide victory in 1964, LBJ moved to the left on issues of race and inequality, beginning to open an ideological divide that would widen steadily for the next half century. Nevertheless, across LBJ’s far-reaching Great Society initiatives (the War on Poverty, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Medicare/Medicaid, federal aid to education, and immigration reform—the very issues at the core of intense party polarization in our own period, a half century later), all major bills were supported by majorities or substantial minorities within both parties. On average, these bills were supported by 74 percent of congressional Democrats and 63 percent of congressional Republicans, a fact forgotten by later Republicans who would rail against the leftist extremism of the Great Society programs.”

“This increasing affective polarization has influenced even attitudes to intermarriage. Between 1960 and 2010 opposition to one’s offspring marrying an out-partisan rose from 4 percent to 33 percent among Democrats and from 5 percent to 49 percent among Republicans. This partisan prejudice shows up both in online dating and in actual marriages, as people are increasingly choosing their partners on the basis of political affiliation, even more than on the basis of education or religious orientation. Over the last half century marriage across racial and religious lines has become much more common than either used to be, whereas marriage across party lines has become much less common. This increasing agreement between husband and wife about politics in turn strengthens the inheritance of party identity by the next generation, since we know that children are more likely to inherit party identity when both parents agree politically. In this very intimate way, over the last half century partisanship has gradually replaced religion as the main basis of “tribal” affiliation in America.” (Emphasis mine)