Rightly Or Wrongly

Saturday, Jan. 20–Honestly thought I had hunkered down beyond reach of reality. Well after dark and long logged-off of the world-wide web and all its local pages, I was watching a closely-contested football game played on the other side of the continent. Deep freeze here, downpour there.

My own split-pea soup hit the spot, and the cheese and garlic croutons just enough to go with it, along with a few Ipswich English-styyled Pale Ales to wash it down and serve as dessert. Yes, when I’m not busy fighting city hall, saving the world, or nitpicking the habits or speech of our hopelessly devolving United States of Algorithims, I’m your stereotypical American guy, never more content than when kicked back watching sports and drinking beer.

And so I was last night, reclining on my bed when the phone rang and I made the mistake of hitting the mute and picking up:

“Hey, John! It’s Chaz!”

He always intros himself as if he’s trying to get my attention from across a very wide street. If he didn’t live in New Hampshire, he might not need a phone. His use of my formal name indicates he’s known me for over 40 years, 55 in his case. Hadn’t talked to him since Christmas Day.

“Just wanted to wish you a Happy Final Year of Constitutional Democracy!”

I laugh: “May well be just that.” He can talk as loud as he wants, he speaks my language.

“If Trump wins, this will be the day a year from now that he becomes president.”

I’ve been hunkered down almost all of four days of a Dakota-like cold spell and tend to lose track of days even when I am not, so I glance at the calendar.

“Oh! Inauguration–“ Television shows a Packer defender dropping a pass right between his numbers with an open field in front of him, and I stifle a groan. ”You think Joe and Jill will attend it?”

“You mean turn themselves in?” He went on to say he knows a lot of people in and around Peterborough–a place that in past elections has been kind to Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders–planning to take Republican ballots and vote for Nikki Haley.

“May be a mistake. I think she has a better chance of beating Biden than Trump.” I then noted how Haley’s ads paint Biden and Trump as the same side of a scale that she has swapped to serve her purpose: Changing young voters’ perception of the election from Republican vs. Democrat or right vs. left to young vs. old. Pretty much a summary of my recent blog.

Chaz’ response was something I had missed: ”Have you noticed how she says that ‘chaos follows Trump rightly or wrongly wherever he goes’?”

“A lot of pundits”–those I hear when there are no football games to be seen–“have noted that phrase. It’s a mealy mouthed attempt not to offend Trump voters.”

“It’s more than that.”

“How so?”

“How can chaos follow anyone or anything rightly? It makes no sense.”

I look at the unexplained chaos on the television, feeling like a defender who dropped a pass put right between my numbers. ”Shit! How did I miss that?”

We commiserate awhile longer, and he entices me with mention of a St. Patrick’s Day gig that his trio, Grove Street, has landed, likely to be joined by a bassoonist that I’ve been craving to hear again since I last was up that way last spring. They play several tunes I know, so it’ll be a quintet for a few green and gold numbers if I make it.

Meanwhile, Green Bay’s green and gold went down the gold-rushing panhandles of the San Francisco 49ers. Had it not been for my friend’s call, this would have upset me. Instead, I’m pre-occupied. Not by the realization that I missed Haley’s double-talking finesse, but by a realization that will never allow me to get entirely beyond the reach of reality no matter how hunkered down I may think I am:

Planning for St. Patrick’s Day in the middle of January is a sign of final years. Not of Constitutional Democracy, and maybe not the final year, but for a guy who has dissed plans and improvised his entire adult life, and who will turn 73 the day after–Hangover Day, as I have long called it–old age can no longer be denied.

And why should it? I ask as I hunker down on this bone-chilling Sunday afternoon, about to inhabit my kitchen where I’ll make a shepherd’s pie before kicking back to watch the Lions host the Buccaneers followed by the Bills–if they have their stadium shoveled out–and the Chiefs.

As another New England joker once wrote, I still believe that I “have miles to go before I sleep.” But along the way, I have a mute button. And it works both ways.

-30-

The shirt has nothing to do with the ale, obviously, but it does serve as a variation on the mute button that is central to the story. Photos by Lenovo.

Boomers v. Generation X

As we begin what promises to be an outright ugly, downright disgraceful, unavoidably demoralizing, and quite possibly violent election year, I find myself nostalgic for friendlier, genial times.

Remember when Ronald Reagan was asked about his age in a debate with Walter Mondale in 1984? In response, Reagan, then 73, showed no irritation, just a broad, genuine smile:

I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.

Easily the best joke and loudest laughter in the history of presidential debates, and no one laughed harder than Mondale, then 56, a former vice-president, US senator, and Minnesota attorney general. Historians mention it as among the most “iconic” moments in presidential debates. A stand-up comic today would call it a “mic drop.”

The quip has to be my generation’s most vivid memory of the Reagan-Mondale race. Those paying attention at the time will hasten to add that the issue of age was never raised by Mondale or any leading Democrats. They–we–had enough substantive issues with the Hollywood actor-turned-corporate frontman. The issue of age began in the press, and when it gained traction with the public, the press ran with it.

Nimarata Nikki Randhawa was twelve when Reagan cracked his joke. She was called by her middle name from the cradle, and at age 24 she married a commissioned officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard to become Nikki Haley. At 39 she became that state’s governor, and at 47 she was appointed America’s ambassador to the United Nations by a man who now condemns her as “a tool of liberals” and calls her “Nimarata” with the same racist ridicule that four years ago dripped from several Republicans’ pronunciation of “Kamala.”

Tomorrow, Haley will turn 52. As a presidential candidate in this year’s Republican primaries, she hopes to beat a heavy favorite who will turn 78 in June. If she succeeds, she faces an incumbent who is 81. Listen to her ads that have been running in what TV execs call “the Boston market” in these weeks before the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 2, and you might wonder if she thinks her road to the White House is nothing more than a numbers game.

That’s a risky strategy for someone who just 18 months ago, at the chipper age of 50, complained about rising prices for holiday parties by taking the percentage increase over Biden’s first year in office of six items such as soda at 13.2% and ice cream at 9.6% and adding them to decry a whopping, though warped, 67.2% inflation.

Only a youngster could inflate inflation, and if he or she did it in school, any math teacher would quickly correct it. But it’s the younger voters who will likely outnumber those of us who remember Democrats and Republicans laughing at each other’s jokes. In Iowa and New Hamphire they have been telling reporters over and again that they will vote for Haley “because she is young” and “it’s time for a new generation.” They rarely ever cite an issue for a reason, and when asked about one–the environment, gun violence, reproductive rights, Ukraine, Gaza–they shrug and offer something along the lines of, “She’ll listen to all sides” and “she’ll have good advisors.”

In addition to age, she has yet another advantage in drawing younger voters who see and hear only the surface: As several Iowans declared, “It’s time for the first woman president.” That’s quite an accomplishment for a candidate who dog-whistles in every speech, “Let’s face it: A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris.” Nothing about Harris to justify the jab, certainly no mention of Harris’ age, just the image: Harris is African-American.

Young people miss this because they stay on the surface. Ask those same young people voting for her in the early primaries where they stand on most issues–most glaringly, reproductive rights–and Haley’s appeal beyond the initial youthful attraction is impossible to figure. Until you realize that the pictures are all they see, and her folksy twang–not the evasive pretzel-logic of her double-talk–is all they hear.

Haley, who was already spending ample time in the Granite State with its “First in the Nation” primary in mind, may have gained the idea from a mayoral race here on New Hampshire’s border. Yes, right there in Newburyport, which I can see out my window, in 2021 when Haley began making the rounds, an upstart 45-year-old native son announced a campaign that pitted him against a well-seasoned 70-year-old city councillor.

The councillor, as you’d expect, knew the issues in detail and spoke with clarity and precision. The upstart, a la Haley, spoke with excitement that covered a vagueness on the issues about which he kept promising further research. The councillor won the primary by a landslide. Had the upstart taken all the 9.5% votes cast for a third-party crank, a Trumper, the councillor would have won, but there was still a run-off.

Apparently, the upstart knew he needed something new, something that would jolt. Or, perhaps it was just his supporters, or enough of them to harp on his opponent’s age. It worked, albeit just barely. The upstart won by 22 votes. Two years later, we are wondering why the city now lurches from controversy to controvery as experienced public servants are replaced, re-assigned, or pressured to quit because the mayor wants, in his own phrase, “all new people.”

Whether she paid any attention to this Massachusetts seacoast town or not, Haley has put this plan on steroids. Unlike our local upstart, she says it herself in ads that begin with her voice-over, “I’ll just say it, Joe Biden is too old…” Before long, she starts warning us of the prospect of two old men on the November ballot, and the names Biden and Trump are interchangeable, a duo not at all dynamic.

As most pundits have noted, lumping the two together is Haley’s back-door attempt to appeal to Trump’s base. She appears to be attacking Biden, and only by coincidence is Trump nearly as old. She conflates Trump’s obsession with the last election with a single clip from Biden addressing it to claim that both are living in the past–no matter how many advances Biden has made and continues to make regarding employment, wages, and even the Republican-cherished stock market. This won’t fool anyone in Trump’s cult, nor will it fool anyone who has paid attention all along, but the gambit is working with independent voters just now beginning to consider the choices.

Nikki Haley is rising in the polls because she has turned the Republican primaries into a contest of generations. Hence, she emphasizes term limits with no mention of the founders’ intention to keep that decision in the hands of the public. It’s in the Constitution, a provision called “elections.” But term limits are a way to justify paying less attention to what Congress does. Perhaps without realizing it, young voters are attracted to term limits because it would be a law that does their thinking for them. In their own word, an app.

If she wins the nomination, the race to November will not be political or ideological, but generational. Boomers vs. Generation X.

We Boomers have endured quite a lot of derision, resentment, and ridicule over the last few decades, most notably a few years back during the “OK Boomer!” fad. In November, we may be on the ballot. Will voters see and hear no more of a difference than age? Or will they look and listen long and hard enough to recognize a soulless, humorless, human algorithim programmed to say whatever the focus group in front of her at the time wants to hear?

If it’s the latter, they’ll also be looking at and listening to an old guy with a quick wit, unafraid of jokes, and able to laugh even at himself. Question is, will his–our–generation laugh along with him?

Those were the days, my friend, let’s bring them back again.

-30-

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/meet-the-press/44892828

Ringing a Southern Belle

While many express amazement that a presidential candidate could or would not answer the most basic question about the Civil War, I’m more surprised by them than by her.

Apparently, they missed it when Nikki Haley wanted to prove how guilty Joe Biden was of the inevitable inflation following the Covid shutdown. In her haste to paint Biden as The Grinch Who Stole the 4th, and no doubt inspired by lists turned into social media memes, Haley compiled one halfway into his second year as president.

At first I refused to believe it. Another troll’s trap, like so many that have poisoned American politics since the Russians launched troll factories in 2016. But those with more hi-tech savvy than I noted that it was Haley’s account, and they proved it with a screenshot.

Good thing they acted quickly. She took it down within ten minutes of posting, no doubt tipped off by someone close, likely one of her two twenty-something kids. And her staff dutifully took all blame for it, giving the impression without lying outright that Haley had nothing to do with it.

Her introductory declaration, if you can’t decipher it against the black background in the screenshot:

Remember last summer when Biden bragged about a $0.16 savings on your July 4th cookout? Well, this is what you’re spending on this 4th of July.

Putting aside the impossibility of anyone “bragging” about saving 16 cents, or the probability that Haley confused a $ for a %, there’s a saying that lotteries are for people who are very bad at math. But those who play ignore percentages. What do we say of someone who adds them?

If her brains were gunpowder, they wouldn’t blow her head off.

So answers one hard-right website (link below). But that was six years ago in reference to her statements regarding gas attacks in Syria when she was Trump’s Ambassador to the UN. They said as much of all her predecessors as far back as Madeline Albright, including Republican Colin Powell.

When she was South Carolina’s governor, Haley received a $575 pistol as a Christmas gift from her husband. Apparently, nothing combines “I love you” and Christmas like a Beretta PX4 Storm. She also woowed the NRA by posing all smiles with automatic weapons while calling any and all attempts to regulate guns a “lazy approach” when we should be focussing instead on mental health as a way to stop the nation’s epidemic of mass shootings.

Poor Nikki! Her photo-op with one automatic rifle drew a hail of attacks and ridicule from gun owners who value gun etiquette and rules of safety. A tweet from Marine Veteran and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-New Mexico)–now running to unseat Sen. Kyrsten “Look-at-me!” Sinema (I-Corporado)–was relatively mild:

Poser alert: Why is your finger on the trigger ! 1. Bolt is clear back and there is no Magazine. 2. The linked ammo on the stand you are “shooting” from doesn’t feed into the magazine fed weapon you have. 3. Your stockwell is gonna hurt you when that weapon kickback.

Many asked Gallego’s opening question. Which brings us back to Haley’s failure this week to answer a simple question–or, more to the point, her awkward attempt to dodge it:

She was triggered.

On the video, we can see her pause and turn her back on the audience before turning back around to answer–rather, to dodge. We can see the panic on her face as soon as the question ends, and her confusion is palpable. No, the trap is not the question, but the answer–something that Republican primary voters never want to hear. We see a woman in the trap of knowing the truth but unable to say it. Still, she must say something.

Why is anyone surprised?

She’s a Republican. Regarding racism in American history, the entire party has been steeped in denial since Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi–not far from the site where three civil rights workers were murdered by the KKK–with a States’ Rights speech.

Ever since, Republican denials have been endless, but one is most illustrative: Newt Gingrich, Republican Speaker of the House during the Clinton administration, taught an American History class at a junior college in Georgia. The Christian Science Monitor dispatched a reporter to audit the class who found that, despite hours of lecture about the “War of Northern Agression,” slavery was never mentioned.

What Haley eventually stuttered, Gingrich was able to preach in smooth, confident tones: It was all about states’ rights and federal overreach. In 2012, Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) ran in presidential primaries with promises to turn back the clock to before 1965. Both deliberately stated the year without mentioning the reference: The Civil Rights Act which they wanted to undo. Four years later, a huckster skilled in media manipulation would turn it into the more innocent sounding “Make America Great Again.”

In an unforgettable response to one of my columns years ago, one angry Newburyport Daily News reader declared, “Lincoln was a traitor. The KKK was the good guys.” I soon learned that both statements appear on numerous right-wing sites, along with many more in the same vein. As a deceptively more user-friendly and forward-looking version, MAGA is often expressed by people who revere Lincoln and abhor the KKK, including African-American Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina who insists that race has nothing to do with life in the USA today.

Republican Creed holds that America is defined by “rugged individualism.” This covers much more than racial issues, and it explains how people such as Haley, Scott, Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, even Herschel Walker can be right-wing heroes. A gun is loaded, aimed, and fired by an individual; gun regulation is an agreement by a state or city or county population. Private enterprise is based on individual ownership, though a few can team up; public organizations are all-inclusive. And who has yet to hear a Republican call for the end of public libraries on the grounds that bookstores serve the purpose? Nor do they vouch for public education.

Did I say inclusive? Republican Creed does not tolerate the word, or any word that moves us from individual to community. Again, there are examples by the day that go unnoticed, but one nearly ruined Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination in 2010. When Barrack Obama praised her as empathetic, Republican senators howled that she would be soft in decisions regarding where federal funds might go. They demonized the word, and Kagan spent a week explaining to them that the quality had nothing to do with judicial decisions.

Six years later, Republicans would figure out a better way to deny a Supreme Court nominee who might make decisions in the public interest rather than catering to all that is private. Better, because it is based on an objective number (time) rather than on a subjective word.

As soon as anyone says the word “race,” we move away from the individual toward a group, a community. That’s why Republican voters do not want it taught in schools. As a talking point, they’ve demonized an obscure legal term and made it as frightful as “card carrying Communist” was to their parents and grandparents: Critical Race Theory. Haley’s choice that night was not so much if she would answer the question, but if she would commit political suicide.

Perhaps people are surprised because Haley seems the most humane and reasonable of the Republican candidates–and the one with the best chance of taking the nomination away from Donald “Merry-rot-in-Hell-Christmas” Trump. For that reason, their surprise surprises me. By this time, I’d have thought that everyone was onto the Republican Creed.

Maybe adding percentages was just a momentary misstep for Haley. If she learns the lesson, she’ll stick to what has made her Dodger Extrodinaire: Subtracting clarity.

Problem for us is that she’s also the Republican’s best hope to reclaim the White House. Her ads bluntly tell us that Biden is “too old,” a well-documented concern for younger voters. Moreover, if Democrats make the repeal of Roe v. Wade a top issue, Haley has ample experience dodging that one. Just try figuring out her position on reproductive rights based on what she has said since declaring her candidacy.

What makes anyone think she is anything better than anyone else preaching the Republican Creed? The youthful looks? The moderate tone? The voice that reminds us of Dolly Parton? The idea of a first woman president?

Each attraction has its percentages, and together they might just add up.

-30-

https://www.newsncr.com/world/democratic-lawmaker-and-ex-marine-lists-three-mistakes-nikki-haley-is-making-in-her-mandatory-gun-photo/

Nikki Haley: Warmonger Extraordinaire!