Yesterday was Day 1474 of Trump and Day 1 of Joe Biden’s Presidency
Last night my wife asked me if I was going to continue to blog about whatever this is I have been blogging about. I didn’t know the answer. I still don’t. I have used this forum to rid myself of all the awfulness that had been foisted upon me by Satan and his band of terriblés. (That’s French, or close to French, typically used in the phrase infant-terriblé with one of those funny French accent marks over an “e”.)
There is some unfinished business with the previous administration that I must address as it comes up. But there is also the question of “What to do?”
What do you do with an intransigent stubborn unwilling stupid in our body politic? Conservative seems to come to mean “unwilling.” I used to think conservative meant to conserve, as in conserve money, or values, or our way of life, or the environment; but it means none of those things in modern political discourse.
It seems to mean being intransigent, stubborn, unwilling, and stupid. It seems to mean hewing to a set of beliefs vaguely tied to some weird dogma, which in turn is tied to racism, religious zealotry tied vaguely to Christianity, and an all-or-nothing approach to life, politics, and culture.
I tried to think back to when this began in our modern political discourse and realized it has always been there, as far as I can see. There are those who “believe!” and if you don’t believe as they believe then in their opinion you are going to hell and you’ve been warned. There is no compromise, no “maybe there’s another way” or another explanation. That’s it, they are done – with you, with the world, with those who don’t believe the way they believe.
I have to say this appears to be a human characteristic or at least a way to gain power over others. It’s a divide and conquer strategy. As in “Well, I didn’t get the whole pie but I got a slice.”
So when did this all start? I asked myself. I thought back:
– To W and Cheney. George W. Bush was a nice if clueless kind of guy. A fellow who never worked too hard and somehow managed to squeeze through, like he did by 372 votes in Florida. (So what if there were irregularities and things that didn’t logically make sense?) He tried. He had an evil henchman as VP. He got us into a war and an overthrow of a government for which we, and the world, are still paying the price. (Let us not forget that the Taliban called the White House three times to hand over bin Laden and the White House did not answer or did not know how to speak in a language that the caller understood. If they had we could have avoided the second war as well.)
– To George H. W. Bush. A man with all the right boxes checked but clueless when he became the chief. One historian (Beschloss? Or was it Meacham?) who described Papa Bush as a man who when he got to The White House really didn’t have any idea what he wanted to accomplish and so he didn’t.
– To Reagan. Again a seemingly nice guy, who had some ideas, but they all pivoted on the idea of screwing the little guy. He took the money from Social Security to balance his budgets. (Johnson was later accused of it, but Johnson combined the Federal budget with the Social Security budget. He didn’t take the money and replace it with Treasury notes, that was Ronnie.) Reagan ended the unions’ strength and the workers in this country have not had a replacement. No one has come up with a better way to negotiate with big business. Not that unions were perfect, they weren’t, but it was better than what we have now. The average person has seen their piece of the American pie get smaller and smaller ever year since he was in office.
– To Nixon. For all the evilness that was Tricky-Dick, he was the last Republican president that actually dealt in reality and tried to make the country better based on facts, than some alternate fantasy. He set up the EPA. He also changed health care. He took it away from the intransigent AMA and gave it to his business buddies who have riden that horse ever since to their benefit and our loss.
– To Johnson. A man who was tough as nails in the Senate and became overwhelmed by the presidency. This was true of Gerald Ford as well. Both men rose to their level of incompetence.
– To Kennedy. The last man to have great vision, until Barrak Obama.
– To Eisenhower. A nice guy who was overseeing a country during a time when we were the only functioning power in the world.
– To Truman and FDR. It was FDR who set the country and the path of the modern era. He was aided greatly by his wife, Eleanor who travelled the country and reported back. Together they fixed problems large and small. In the history of FDR that Ken Burns did, Burns mentioned a letter written to the President, which said, “If you don’t take care of this I’ll write Mrs. Roosevelt…”
– To Hoover. A man who gets a deserved bad rap, but who also did a lot of good, which is forgotten because of his terrible presidency. Before he was president he was a mining engineer. He travelled the world setting up mining operations. He was in London after World War I when the Germans started to invade the Low Countries (The Netherlands, and Belgium). People from his company started leaving there and coming to London. They needed food and shelter. Hoover got it for them. He started sending food to the Netherlands. Lots of food. Being an engineer he became obsessed with counting calories that he was sending there. The ships that he sent were known as Hoover (boats? Ships? I forget.) The Germans sank one of his ships. He went to the German consulate in London and told the ambassador that if another one of his ships was sunk he would stop sending food to the Low Lands and he speculated that the Germans would have a lot harder time keeping the population subdued if they were starving. No other ship was sunk and on this good record he was nominated to be the presidential candidate of his party. History records him as being overwhelmed or not up to the task, but I think it goes to another tenet, that of belief.
Hoover, like Coolidge, believed that “the business of business was business.”
– Coolidge. Silent Cal, as quoted above, was just that. He oversaw the Roaring Twenties and then the crash that came from the unregulated business. Although the Crash of ’29 was terrible; it was the credit squeeze of ’32 that really sank out economy. Let me see if I can explain the credit squeeze of ’32 – bankers refused to loan money.
That’s it in a nutshell. Back in ’32 you could get a mortgage for six months. Every half year the local bankers would get together and decide if they could loan you money for another six months. If not – bye-bye.
FDR set up FNMA to buy mortgages from the banks. He devised the thirty year mortgage. Hailed as socialism at the time.
– Wilson. Well intentioned but lost his mind near the end.
– Teddy Roosevelt. He understood that the monied interests were arrayed against the people, the country, and the government. He took them on and won the day. They’ve been fighting back ever since.
But this is not where it began and I would argue it’s always been with us.
When James Burke finished his series on America, which he did after his wonderful “Connections” series, he finished by quoting de Tocqueville who said that America seemed to be in a race between its vitality and its rotteness. To me that seems to be the predominant theme throughout our history. It certainly is the one present in today’s America.
But there is something else, another two themes or principles that we need to be aware of: The Peter Principle, and the lesson of The 10,000.
The Peter Principle says, “Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” In other words, you keep getting rewarded for doing a good job until you don’t (do a good job). Then you are stuck in this place where you aren’t being effective or very useful.
The lesson of the 10,000 is based on history. I could also call it a John the Baptist moment. Cyrus the Younger attempted to overthrow his brother who was the king of the Persian Empire. He hired 10,000 mercenaries, mainly Greeks, to help him. Cyrus was killed in battle and the Greeks were deep within the Persian Empire. They had to fight their way out. They did, arriving at the Black Sea and trudged home to Greece. This was a generation before Alexander.
Alexander took this example as confirmation that the Persian Empire could be defeated.
What do we say about the events of January 6th ? Is it a harbinger of things to come?
Mr. Biden is willing to work with everyone. That’s great. Are they willing to reciprocate?
Rick I hope you continue to blog. Their are so many that have been brainwashed to believe untruths. We need to educate others about multiculturalism and history. I imagine few of your readers need clarification but maybe.
Keep blogging!