At this moment, it looks as if Joe Biden will win. But no matter who is President when the smoke clears and the votes are all counted–if they are– we learned some things on Tuesday. And the lessons weren’t pleasant.
The most obvious–and ultimately least consequential–is that polling is not nearly as “scientific” as the pollsters think. The effort to figure out what went so wrong will undoubtedly occupy pundits and nerds for a long time.
The far more painful lesson concerns the nature of our fellow-Americans.
I read about the thuggery leading up to the election–the “good old boys” in pickups ramming Biden’s bus, the desecration of a Jewish graveyard in Michigan with “MAGA” and “Trump” spray paint, the consistent, nation-wide efforts to suppress urban and minority voters–but until election night, I’d convinced myself that those responsible represented a very small segment of the population.
I think what I am feeling now is what Germany’s Jews must have felt when they realized the extent of Hitler’s support.
I am not engaging in hyperbole: the research in the wake of 2016 is unambiguous. Trump supporters are overwhelmingly motivated by racial and religious animus and grievance. White nationalist fervor has swept both the U.S. and Europe over the past few years, but it has taken firmer hold here. The QAnon conspiracy has clear roots in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and America’s racism–our original sin–has provided fertile ground for the alt-right sympathizers who defend tearing brown children from their parents, treating both immigrants and citizens of color as disposable, and keeping women in “our place.”
Trump didn’t invent these people, but he has activated them. Indeed, he is one of them.
I thought it was tragic when Trump’s approval ratings forced me to recognize that more than a third of America fell into that category. I find it inconceivable–but inarguable and infinitely depressing–that the actual number is close to half.
Evidently, the America I thought I inhabited never really existed. I’m in mourning for the country I believed was mine.
Another lesson learned was large turn out does not automatically equal blue wave.
Professor-you have read perfectly, the angst in my heart and brain. America’s greatest defeat is that, moving forward, we must acknowledge that a significant percentage of Americans are racists, ant-semites, mis-ogynists people who do not want this country to be a melting pot.
I feel exactly as you do. I am truly appalled at the willingness so many of my fellow citizens seem to have to follow and vote for a blatant Authoritarian.
I am also disgusted with a Trumpican party of so many Congressional Representatives and Senators who seem to embrace Authoritarianism.
I am depressed by the apparent lack of care so many Americans seem to have for our Constitutional Democratic Republic.
I truly believe it goes back to a complete lack of education !!!
We MUST focus on an extensive teaching of American History beginning with the origins of Colonial America and the events leading to the development of our current Constitution !!!
Perhaps if kids did some research in schools on their own family histories and saw how their ancestors were involved in the development of this nation they’d have some personal buy-in.
This could be a muti-pronged educational program.
In my own family we have our family genealogy going back to our European roots and knowledge of the involvement of our ancestors in the Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, etc. It has strengthened our understanding of the struggles and sacrifices our ancestors made so that we can live the lives we have.
This Constitutional Democratic Republic is personal to each and every one of us.
Americans need more of that kind of personal knowledge – IMHO.
When I saw Indiana and Kentucky declare for Trump before polls had even closed; I suddenly felt totally empty and didn’t want to know what was ahead on election night. I watched very little f it; just spot checked MSNBC and CNN. Yesterday and last night with things heating up regarding the undeclared states for the presidency showing Joe Biden leading; it became more interesting.
I also spot checked Fox & Friends a few times; both last night and on Fox 59 local news this morning they are listing Joe Biden with 264 Electoral Votes and Trump with 213. MSNBC and CNN have Joe with 253 EC votes; this is something to watch closely. Could it be a dog whistle call-out to those who are protesting vote counting centers and those Trump told to “Stand back and stand by.”
I recently finished a 2nd reading of 1984. The first was over 50 years ago in high school. The key take away was when the official from the Thought Police revealed to Winston Smith just WHY The Party used such relentless, horrific tactics of hate and violence on the people. His answer was simple: To achieve and retain power for its own sake. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Now I’m reading J.D. Vance’s immensely popular autobiography, Hillbilly Elegy. I’m learning very little about how the economic trends of the last 40 years have decimated white working-class America but it is fascinating to watch it close up through the eyes of a young man from the time of his child hood into full adulthood. And the prose is elegant – like sipping a milkshake. I highly recommend to anyone, and especially those who still don’t understand the enormous swell of white grievances that ushered Trump into power and has damn near kept him there. ☮️
And yet… Fady Quddoura won Indiana’s 30th State Senate seat over an old white male republican. As I understand the first Muslim American in our State House. Amazing. Cheering. A small bit of sunshine.
Fady was my student and “mentee,” and deserved his victory, but one thing that victory underlined is the HUGE divide between urban and rural voters in this country. Urban areas are virtually all deep blue. Unfortunately, the Electoral College privileges the votes of rural areas, which are very red.
I think I brought some of this out in my 2 years or so posting on Sheila’s site.
It really doesn’t matter who wins, because the disintegration of this country has been set in motion a long time ago.
Just in my lifetime, there has not been a day when it was quiet! The promotion of the gun culture was just a symptom of the disease. The mass shootings every single day in this country which is supposedly enlightened, proves without a doubt that this country is not enlightened at all.
Individuals that have run for positions in government on the promise of change or with the idea of cooperation have died, Assassinated! Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, you can even through Abraham Lincoln in there also, and why not John Lewis!?!
These individuals and many many more, threatened the status quo! The entrenched and powerful would not tolerate an assault on their power and control.
Some on this site call them “Oligarch” but, that’s just a word and not close to explaining what has been in existence since this country’s inception.
Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and the reconstruction of the South never really happening because of his assassination, the Jim Crow laws against the emancipated slaves, to continue the downward pressure of racial inequity and animus towards those that were not White Nationalistic Evangelical Protestants!
How can a country govern or survive when a significant amount of the population Arm themselves to the teeth so they can threaten those superior authorities that bring some sort of stability to everyday life! The message has been received by politicians who might feel the necessity to treat every single human as an equal. It might not be necessary to continue assassinations on a wholesale level as was done in the 60s, and the lynching of citizens from coast-to-coast and from border to border, the message has been received loud and clear!
When law and order is infiltrated by anarchy, infiltrated by unfettered racist conduct, society will never function in a normal fashion. But this country was never normal to begin with, Eugenics, Manifest Destiny, American Romanticism, American Exceptionalism, shows the depth of ensconced hatred and the joie de vi·vre of those individuals who constantly pushed their agenda of unequal and extremely hateful ideals!
There is something driving all of this! And, it’s nothing good! There have been warning signs for a very long period of time. Unfortunately, so many buried their heads in the sand and figured it was sort itself out! But, is that how a cancer functions? Does it go away by itself? Or do you have to work on nutrition and possibly surgically removing a tumor or infected organ to begin recovery? And many times the patient still dies.
This government has destroyed many communities of color in this country. It should never take generations to remove ghetto type living, or, promote construction of production facilities in the vast deserts of the ghettos instead of shipping those facilities out of the country.
The effect of showing Human Dignity, Human Rights, Compassion, Ethical Behavior, Inclusiveness, can change the direction of the impending socio-ethnic anarchical collapse of order, but will never happen because of those who unsurprisingly, staunchly promote undignified and unequal policy towards any unlike themselves. It’s easier to control a society in the throes of anarchy than one of equal and peaceful coexistence.
I mentioned, Eugenics, Manifest Destiny, American Romanticism, and, American Exceptionalism, the Germans learned everything about demonizing and dividing society from the British and Americans! Americans put folks in concentration camps way before the Germans ever thought about it! Of course they were called reservations, and others were plantations, and the Germans called some of these things “Lebensraum” and it was directly related to Manifest Destiny.
Rudyard Kipling so aptly put it, it is the ” White Man’s Burden” to keep all others in subjugation while they run the world! Kipling was excited about his use of the swastika which was introduced to Europe by the British expansion into the Indian Aryan continent. It meant originally, good luck and the Germans eagerly picked it up as a symbol for them. And obviously, by Rudyard Kipling’s own words, he was more representative of Nazi-ism and its future havoc on the world, than he was a compassionate promoter of Human Dignity and Equal Rights. Like I said, read his work the White Man’s Burden. And not just that, but it’s a good start!
This society will never make politics fair, because for that, there would have to be a unified sea change, and the only thing that would make humanity come together for a common goal, would be destruction of his home! Unfortunately, extinction would be the ultimate outcome of that scenario. The Engine is running full steam ahead, heading straight for the bridge across the precipice, all the while, blowing through all of the bridge out signs. If you can’t see that coming, you are probably blind!
Not to salt the wound, but history teaches the next steps on this march…are unspeakable. As I said from the beginning about Trump and Republicans: HE is who THEY are. The only surprise he presented to the party establishment was that someone so nakedly Republican could get elected. Who knew that if they just laid aside all pretense and appearances their real values would sell even better. And have they ever!
In a few weeks, we will acknowledge the 400th anniversary of a life changing country making event that took place at Plymouth Rock. I for one, due to discovery of who we are today as Americans, will be cautious to romanticize the virtues of first colonizers. The DNA of our original sin begins here. Check out King Philip’s War. It was no time for Thanksgiving.
We as a nation have much to reckon with. And we need not go back 400 years to find truth why so many Americans feel disenchanted. This disenchanent is so deep, they willing to support the king of villains in order that their voice be heard. To call them.out with vitriole only galvanizes the deep divide. It is not always right to be right if we do not pause and listen with our hearts. We will not agree on what they perceive to be outcomes to right their grievances. But we can first acknowledge the root causes of their grievances and agree on some lifelines that provide pathways to new resolutions and agreeable outcomes. The first step is to jettison our judgement of others until we listen with our hearts.
Patrick “…I’m learning very little about how the economic trends of the last 40 years have decimated white working-class America…”
I believe all of us have at one time or another agreed that today we must “Follow the money!” to attempt to understand this country and the government. If you have Netflix and if you can find it, watch the movie “Laundromat” starring Meryl Streep. It is a look at the economic trends, insurance coverage, investment companies and “shell” buyouts which will help understand why we can’t understand how Trump, et al, get away with their carnage. The movie title “Laundromat” is a clue to the content and Meryl is, as always, great in both roles she plays. We are all paying for this system in one way or another no matter our economic situation and it appears to be “too big to fail”, primarily due to the totally convoluted system firmly in place.
Some of us got shattered long before this week. The American Dream was a facade…exceptionalism isn’t even close to being true. Our religion doesn’t look anything like the man who brought it about.
John added a long list above. I prefer oligarch because that’s who underwrote our experiment.
People have been philosophizing the best form of a government for a long time. I think Plato and Einstein have it right. It requires a centralized planning committee comprised of philosopher-kings.
I said that Trump would not be a polished politician to expose the deepest secrets of this country. He cannot put that genie back into the bottle, but it’s more.
Nationalism is part of the whole Ayn Rand objectionism, which began around Reagan. It’s the whole theory of being anti-collectivism or against globalization. However, we are all connected as Einstein, and ALL religions tell us. That is the fundamental truth. We are all interconnected as humans and other beings, along with this planet. There is no us and them. There is a WE.
The problem with objectivism is EACH person gets to define it. If you’re racist, guess who is excluded. And so it goes.
Capitalism, as practiced by the USA, is NOT the best choice for our economy. Other countries see the outcomes it produces (this election, for one thing) and despise the USA military to spread it into their country. I can’t blame them much. We are NOT the pillar of a functioning democracy, and we rank low in happiness and wellness. We have a strong economy, but it only produces for a few.
We are not the envy of the free world. We have profound systemic problems that need fixing.
The reason the polls were so inaccurate is simple. People who are embarrassed to give strangers the impression that they are homophobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic don’t respond to polls honestly. This happened this year and in 2016. But in 2018, when Trump was not running, there was no reason to lie, because few of the candidates running “down ticket” were as repulsive as Trump is. So, someone who agrees with Trump had few reservations about admitting they would vote for Republicans, and the polls were accurate.
Sadly, those were my thoughts too. And those of several friends.
As Marv and I have so often posted here this rise of Trumpism is very much like the rise of Nazism. In both cases the racism/anti-Semitism was already there just needing some “leader” to bring it to the point of dominance.
If my years of studying the European history during the 1930s and 1940s is of any guidance we are in for some horrific violence before it is defeated.
And like you Sheila, I am astounded at how many Trumpers there are among us. Here in Indiana fully seven out of ten of our neighbors are of this ilk.
I think we’ve also learned that the Democrats’ problems don’t come down to not moving far enough left. The “Socialism” label was used as a bludgeon, and successfully. Imagine how bad it would have been had we actually had real socialists all acepth of support for Trumpism is a far bigger problem than even a healthy dose of progressivism is able to fix. Democrats need to decide to become a real political party with a unified message that can appeal to the rural voters who aren’t completely lost, and a coherent electoral strategy that goes all the way down the ballot (what good does it do us to win the presidency and lose everything else? Right now that’s our 21st Century MO).
If the polls were at least right about what the public wants when it comes to key issues, we at least have a start. But, clearly, that’s not enough or we would have seen that blue wave. It’s not maybe so much the party platform that needs to be reformed to meet 21st Century needs, it’s the party organization and strategy.
Another lesson learned is that the counting of the votes must be modified — drastically.
First, the voting must open at 12:01 a.m. on the date specified for the election. If there are hardy souls who want to vote that early, so be it. At the same time, the processing of absentee/mailed ballots begins at that hour, with multiple people opening envelopes and feeding ballots into the counting machine — of course, this is AFTER multiple people have opened the outer envelopes and verified that the ballot has been validly submitted. The polls should stay open to voters until midnight of that day. The day is called ELECTION DAY—the day consists of 24 full hours, so have the polls open for that entire day. Yes, this may call for the need for more poll workers and election supervisors; so be it. The voters are the ones who should be accommodated!!!
Second, there will be absolutely no allowance of polling of voters outside the polling places. If pollsters want to stand on a sidewalk in downtown Podunk and poll passersby for their voting preferences, that’s just fine, but KEEP THE POLLSTERS AWAY FROM THE POLLING PLACES.
Third, there will be absolutely no allowance for media near the polling places, and they should be barred from being within 1000 yards of any polling place.
Fourth, there should be NO RELEASE OF ANY RESULTS OF ANY VOTE COUNTS UNTIL ALL COUNTING HAS BEEN COMPLETED AND THE NUMBERS CERTIFIED BY THE ELECTION OFFICIALS OF EACH STATE. And no releases of vote counts until a specified hour between 24 and 48 hours after the close of the polls in order to allow the election officials the time to complete their counting of all ballots and resolution of provisional ballots.
An active-duty police officer should be stationed at each polling location to enforce the above rules.
I recently read “Winter of the World,” the second book of Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy. The descriptions of Berlin in the thirties were mind numbingly familiar.
A few days ago this blog talked about the newspapers that had endorsed Biden and the thought that entered my mind was that 45’s supporters would just think that the elitists were only trying to bring down their hero. They are trying to sacrifice our country on the altar of ignorance they have built to worship him.
Sheila, and others, have touched upon my similar feelings. So many words, perhaps we all might want to take a few moments of silence and be with our grief and stark realization before we move into our tomorrows.
Exactly, Patrick!
The Democratic Party is still leading with propaganda and identity politics because it is the party of Wall Street but needs the working class’s support. Many narratives are forming that the percentage of POC voting for Trump actually increased from 2016. Supposedly, the POC votes are the ones who sent Biden skyrocketing past Sanders when the whole “socialism” scare kicked into effect, and all those running bailed and endorsed Biden.
More digging while the propaganda media keeps up with their racehorse analysis…
The longer we persist in lumping those who disagree with us into a monolithic class of cretins the less chance that we make any progress in dealing with the major problems facing us such as income distribution, justice reform, climate change, etc. I live in one of the most Republican areas in the country — southwest Florida. I can assure you that 90% of the Republicans I interact with do not fall within the demon categories where you try to place them. Many of the middle class among them genuinely felt that if Trump had not led them to a level of economic prosperity they had never before experienced, at least he did not screw up the path to prosperity they were experiencing. All the skilled trades people who assist us in keeping our house from falling down around our ears are Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Ecuadorians. For all of them “socialism” brings fear to their hearts. The Dems left that fear unaddressed I our part of the country and paid the price. Younger Cubans are ripe for reopening relations with the country where their grandparents lost everything; but they have to be led to understand how that would play out to their advantage and to that of the land of their ancestors. The Dems did not do it. The rest of the local labor force, mostly Mexicans working in landscaping and restaurants, have yet to mobilized. We Dems here have not figured out how to do it.
Okay there are 5 -10% of Floridians for whom abortion is the issue. Get to know ’em, however, and as often as not they are persons truly
concerned with “life” and persuadable on other life related issues including decent health care and environmental issues. Demonizing them does nothing to bring them on board in solving other major issues. Wealthy republicans in this area who voted Trump on pocket book
issues are the backbone of support for Planned Parenthood.
Sure there are militia members and conspiracy theorists on the other side, but they appear to be (and hopefully will remain) a small minority within the opposition.
I could rave on and on, but characterizing the half of the nation that voted for the most ignorant, lying, self aggrandizing president the country has every had as a monolithic bunch of fools is not the path to resolution of anything. It is, I believe, the same attitude that brought Hillary down. I hope we Dems learn something this time around; but I’m not optimistic.
Regarding polling…Just curious…gotta ask…given Americans ever-growing disdain for anything “corporate”, “elite”, “mainstream media” “science”, “data”, why in (Trump’s) name do they think that folks who voted for Trump and crew would tell them the truth (or go out of their way to say the opposite) just for “fun”? A middle finger answer….
As an American of African descent; the illusion was always apparent. Now that the lie is revealed; I am not hopeful that Trump supporters will change or even see the need to change. Our efforts to contain a virus have not been successful. These Americans would rather see their fellow Americas die that change their behaviors. They are similarly committed to seeing American fail; rather than a change in the status quo or accepting a more broadly defined demographic.
It’s too late to deny the United States is a melting pot – and will continue to be one no matter what the white grievers think and do.
Yes, those being polled were mostly dishonest. How else does one explain that only 29% of white voters in Georgia voted for Biden. Think about that. Brian Kemp has codified abject, 19th century racism in Georgia, and the white people lapped it up like a cat does a bowl of cream. Is Georgia unique? No.
In 2016, Texas border Latinos voted for Hillary to the tune of 29% more than Trump. This time those same districts voted 5% more for Trump. Can someone explain that to me? Socialism? Shit, most of the people who are afraid of it can’t give a cogent definition of the word…while they accept their unemployment checks, their farm subsidies and food stamps. Please.
Yes, 50% of our fellow citizens have circled the drain into fascism, a fascism based on fear of the “other”, just as Hitler fomented it among his followers. The Jews were ALWAYS a European whipping boy ever since the Spanish Inquisition. If you read the history of Yiddish, you will find that it is a conglomerate language from all the countries that kicked their Jews out.
O.K. All this chest beating gets us through today. But what of tomorrow? How do we, who remain rational, go about rebuilding our society? Heck, as Joe Scarborough lectured us this morning, even Washington and Jefferson didn’t expect this nation to survive. And yet, here we still are.
So, what will YOU do tomorrow to heal the gashes caused to our nation beginning in 1981? How will YOU help eradicated the stench of Trump/Republicanism? Jason Johnson was correct when he said that Republicans were the enemy of democracy. I’ve been saying that for two years on this and other blogs. It’s not the media propaganda as some finger-pointers would like us to believe. It’s not the corporate ownership of the Democratic party. That’s just another lame excuse for not having a constructive answer to the problems.
Someone above cited education as the key to our recovery. As a former educator, I couldn’t agree more. But the education should not be limited to the children. The adults who walk around with long guns to offset their own inadequacies elsewhere need educating also. Hate and fear stem from ignorance, so the more someone is afraid or hates, it’s easy to see that they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.
Vern, ?
I’m thinking this will make a really really good riveting book!
There is no good reason for some of the people supporting trump! It shows how gullible people are! Heck, there were quite a few Jewish soldiers in the Nazi army! They were even Jewish commanders IE field marshals!, What happened to most of them? The predominant portion of those individuals ended up executed. Executed by those that they claimed to support! History repeats because humanity is not really that much of an intelligent creature! In actuality, humans are pretty stupid when it compared to the instinctual intellect of the animal kingdom.
Write another book, I’ll read it!
I really enjoyed Meadows and minefields. A definite Ring of Truth!
I can understand the uber wealthy voting for Trump and the GOP. The GOP tax cut, inflated those with large amounts of money either in 401k’s or held as investments in the market.
It is more of a stretch to understand why the rural voters in Hooterville would be so solidly in the pocket of the GOP. I suspect some of it maybe the cultural, religious and social upbringing. Cloistered behind these various walls would be people wanting to fit in. The urban areas have more options to fit in to certain segment of your choosing.
There is a vicious circle. If a person wants to run for political office you need the money to do so. Many, many articles have been written concerning job # 1 for an elected politician is fund raising.
Irma,
I agree wholeheartedly! There is no concern for one’s fellow man, no empathy for their plight! No empathy for their neighbors, only, what they feel in their own head, even against their own best interests!
The lemming comes to mind, one follows the other even to death. I think a more poignant analogy would be the Judas goat. Where the goat will actually lead other goats, sheep, even cows and pigs to the slaughterhouse, usually the goat is not killed, but those that follow it are butchered.
And, let’s face it, there were plenty of Judas goats active over the past several years! This society is not a cohesive one it’s fragile! It doesn’t mesh, therefore, it will not last.
One cannot hate part of what WE are! every single ethnic and religious group is part of societal body. In real terms, there is a disease which attacks the body itself, the body’s own immune system attacks the body. It’s called lupus and, it’s terminal!
Our societal lupus is readily evident for all to see, and the outcome will eventually destroy our civil society!
One interesting aspect of election reporting is that much of the analysis is at the level of counties and those maps show the great divide pretty clearly. The urban areas that actually have an economy and live in the real world tend to be blue. The rural areas like I was brought up in are red and are suffering because they have such tight cultures but have become economically irrelevant and get more so every day. Cultures that haven’t or can’t keep up with the rest of world find it impossible to offer anyone but their other residents work of enough value to support themselves.
The reality is that the pace of economic turnover will continue to increase as technology creates products that come in like a lion and in a decade or less leave like a lamb. If anything the rest of the world needs that high rate of progress in order to feed the wealth redistribution machine which just gets hungrier.
How is it possible to bring the rural areas up to thriving economies when the people in them don’t honor change? In fact they actively resist it.
It’s huge progress to have Joe and Kamala trying to solve that problem now but it’s a job that’s somewhere between extremely hard and impossible to do.
Heartbreaking. I’m a 72 and a lifelong educator. I know something like 31% of Americans have a bachelors degree. That needs to be 100%. But I am wondering today if “education,” even including trustworthy, perspective-building journalism, can address the problem. Poverty. Health. It’s complex and complex critical thinkers rarely go into politics. What to do…first. I mean after electing Biden and more democrats in 2022.
What was so disheartening to me was two aspects of the county-by-county (or in MA, town-by-town) details.
In MA, where results are released by town, in the vast bulk of the state, even though Biden carried almost all towns by very strong margins, those strong margins were still mostly in the realm of 2:1, maybe 3:1. Honestly, not a whole lot of change from 2016. 1/4 – 1/3 of my neighbors support fascism and racism.
In a lot of other states, most notably PA, NV, etc, the county-by-county results are striking. Each county is *massively* for one candidate or the other. PA, literally, almost every county is either Trump +30 or more, or Biden +30 or more. It’s not just that the red states and the blue states are completely separate worlds, it’s that the red counties and the blue counties are completely separate worlds.
For those calling for better education, check the trends and voting at the state and local level where education is set:
– More vouchers, including for religious schools
– More private schools, more religious ones
– More resistance to any common curriculum
– Continued emphasis on test scores, preparation for college or technical careers rather than arts, critical thinking, civic education
Dream on…
It’s dire that we get Fairness in Broadcasting re-enacted. The lies and scapegoating other Americans has to be stopped. If Biden wins(Carvel just said he would), then the facts/substance have broken the spell of trump’s image. I remember reading a lot of Mueller Report, and what was extrapolated from it by Barr, trump and Fox News was nothing close to the actual report. To bad Barr got it stopped at the White house doors. I remember the impeachment trial when majority of Senate voted for the evidence to be buried and the president’s guilt covered over. Could it be that voting is the last bastion of facts/Democracy that will be honored? If /When Biden wins the spell will be broken, but changes need to happen to ensure that we can keep our Democracy. Fairness doctrine at top of the list!
Here in Indiana, I live in Indianapolis, Marion County. The counties that border Marion County are urban, yet they vote solidly for the GOP. The why is never explained except in some general way, that would have no verifiable basis.
Susan I Allen; I must take issue with you regarding 100% of Americans needing a Bachelor’s Degree’ A college education is not the answer to all problems and does not guarantee a successful life; without those who work as support staff in government and business offices, those who do manual labor and mechanical work need training on-the-job to keep this country running. Those who are service workers do not need a college degree, nor those who do custodial jobs. A college degree is not needed to do the custodial job my daughter-in-law does every day cleaning and sanitizing a local Catholic Church and School with grades K-8. Her job required hard work and responsibility; it now entails not only cleaning but total sanitizing repeatedly using OSHA rules in the church after all Masses and a 38 page CDC book of full sanitizing instructions for this Pandemic. My grandson and a part-time worker work with her; since this Pandemic began there has not been one staff member or student illness due to their ability to follow instructions to protect lives.
Her husband, my son, is a highly qualified brick mason; no college degree needed to build or renovate buildings, homes, apartment buildings and businesses. What would we do without them? Come to think of it; there are no college courses offered for the vast majority of working Americans.
The vast majority of our government leaders have college degrees and look where we are today; “Facing Reality” where a college degree doesn’t guarantee our survival of the Pandemic or the current government administration.
Lester,
You and I live in different worlds. The trends you cite as being harmful to education, I see as being very good trends. More educational choice and more focus on education being about training people for real world jobs are positive developments. I have never bought into the notion that education, especially college and advanced degrees, should be about “critical thinking.” Education should be about preparing people for employment in the real world. Which is why I very strongly support more emphasis on vocational training. College is not for everyone.
Law is the perfect example. Supposedly law school is about “teaching one to think like a lawyer.” Law school is, frankly, a joke. We all graduated from law school not knowing anything about what it’s like to work as an attorney. I don’t think that serves students well.
Alan Keller – I agree with many of your points. I have many life long friends who are trump supporters. In my opinion, Hillary’s “deplorables” statement did her in, not the revelation of her infamous emails. We have to be careful how we label these folks. It is so hard to understand their support for this despicable man, but we have to look deeper. As many comments have pointed out – some of the reasons are staring us in the face.
What I find most horrifying is that 1/2 of America saw all the horrible stuff Trump has done for the last 4 years and wanted to re-elect him. I could almost understand 2016 in that he was then an unknown quantity. But now he is known.
It was then and still is a cult. How do you break through to those people? I’m not sure. They live in a different world.
Yes, one hell of a lesson!
I have recognized that one of the valuable (?) things Trump’s presence on the political scene has taught us is how widespread bigotry is in this country. And, like others, I’d though that the large number of early voters was a sign of a blue wave…alas!
AOC, and her buddies each won re-election, a good sign among the bad. I’m no longer in New York city, and do not know how much the rancid GOP fought to take her seat, but imagine that they spared no expense. If so, good, more of their money wasted!
I tis hard to imagine that even the bigots could not recognize how incompetent their fuhrer is, or seeing it, it did not matter compared to their agenda.
In the not too distant future the white folk (me included) in the U.S. will literally be a minority, even without the brown hoards from the south pouring in in their purported billions. But, heck, the GOP likes the idea of minority control, don’t they?
Sheila,
Two of my deepest concerns are that (1) Biden and company will be too occupied to understand and deal with the point you make: Trump supporters are overwhelmingly motivated by racial and religious animus and grievance. Besides the pandemic and the incalculable economic damage it will do before epidemiologists and public health officials are given a green light to fix the problem, Biden must deal with climate change and the Trump/Icahn regulation reversals. Will he have the time to put racial animosity on the agenda and then the talent do something about it?
(2) It seems likely to me that Trump will come out of this election with such a huge amount of momentum (almost a referendum even if he loses) that he and his ilk will be unstoppable in the 2024 election (he’s eligible to run again). Republicans will dedicate the next four years to obstructing anything that Biden does that might be interpreted as progress, so his tenure may not achieve any more that Obama in his second term. Harris is likely to be the 2024 Democratic nominee, and the 2020 election reveals how hard her road will be.
Finally, we may have misread history, or failed to notice when it veered in an ugly direction. Perhaps all of the historical people you and I respect were anomalies, and in reality the human race is as deplorable as this election seems to suggest. I hope not, but Trump may have touched the nerve that turns reasonable people into passionate haters (or brings them out of the closet) and purges consideration of compromise from their neurons. I would be delighted to meet just one of the Republicans Alan Keller says don’t fall into the demon category. Some of my Republican neighbors are the sweetest people you’d ever care to meet. They lend any kind of help needed in the blink of an eye. But if you value their friendship, don’t you dare bring up any of the scores of Trump’s words, deeds and policies that are a threat to democracy. They re not offended when the president refers to our military as losers or fails to respond to bounties on them, or demands that election officials stop counting votes. If this is not some form of incurable stupidity (a phrase I’m not fond of), I’d like to know what else to call it. Not understanding or appreciating democracy creates as many problems as opposing it.
John,
You made my day. The sequel to “Meadows and Minefields” is in final edit as we write these notices. Its title is “A Hero’s Journey” and I think you will find it even more interesting and engrossing. I will, of course, let everyone know when it comes out.
Meanwhile, have a look at my Sonya Keller series. They take place in Indiana. Check ’em out on http://www.vernturner.com. They’re very different books from “Meadows”, and feature a very powerful female character.
The book I’ve 2/3 of the way finished is titled “The Immigrant’s Grandson”. It begins with an illiterate Ukrainian peasant with the strong desire to see the world. He ends up in Cleveland, Ohio in 1909, raises a great son who, in turn, helps produce an exceptional offspring, born in 1932. The family suffers through the vagaries of the Great Depression and WW II. The grandson will eventually become part of the Mission Control team for the Apollo program. It’s a pure American story that most of us can identify with as we are all part of the “melting pot”.
Thanks for being a fan. As my publisher and website designer often say, “I’m back to ‘beavering’ away to finish my task.”
Nancy Laird spoke of revising the election process. Yes! I’m in favor of making election day into a three-day holiday…and keeping the bars open round the clock, so people can get good and drunk before having to go vote for the lesser of two stinking evils.
Allen Keller:
“The longer we persist in lumping those who disagree with us into a monolithic class of cretins the less chance that we make any progress in dealing with the major problems facing us such as income distribution, justice reform, climate change, etc.”
Perhaps, you are right…insofar as those who merely disagree with us. But…
But for those 60 million or so who lump themselves into a monolithic class of cretins there is nothing more or less to do than call them what they are. Unless we preceed the word ‘cretins’ with ‘enemy’ or ‘traitor’.
As a Jew, with family members decimated in Hitler’s Germany, due to the support of his followers, your comment, “I think what I am feeling now is what Germany’s Jews must have felt when they realized the extent of Hitler’s support”, is extreme. As a nation, we are certainly feeling the pugnacious abuse of some of Trump’s ardent supporters, which is disheartening and troubling. And I mean no disrespect to you on what and how you are feeling, but as a Jew in Hitler’s Germany, there was no way to extricate oneself from the violence that ensued and affected ALL Jews.
By the way, Democrats have a plausible path to winning control of the Senate. Georgia will have a special election with its two Senate seats up on January 5th. If they win both, Senate is tied and VP and President of the Senate Kamala Harris breaks the tie. Assuming Biden continues on to win the Presidency, of course.
Of course with the Senate 50-50, not much gets done. But then again, not much got done before anyway.
I’ve been trying to understand the people interviewed on tv who say they vote for Trump because he protects the economy. I’m thinking a lot about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The poor in some countries would cut down the last tree to turn it into charcoal if they see no other way to keep their family from starving. Given the dilemma of selling the ox that plows their field in order to buy medicine for a sick child, they may sorrowfully let the child die to keep the ox, whose work keeps the whole family fed. Or desperate farmers cut down the Brazilian rain forest to make short lived farms on unsuitable farms. So in the U.S. is the fear of losing a small business or a job so great that you can embrace a monster like Trump because he bellows so often that only he can save your job? And has the pandemic amplified that?
Add to that the next step up in needs beyond survival: the need to belong. Trump knows how to play that one.
I also think a lot about malnutrition, lead paint, and brain development. A very tired, very discouraged teacher spoke to a class on adult literacy in Bloomington. He had come to the unhappy conclusion that exposure to lead paint in childhood had left some prison inmates too damaged to ever learn to read with any success. In the UN we used to hear warnings that developed countries should realize that reducing aid to poorer countries would bring disaster to our door. Generations of severely malnourished children risked brain damage that would make them easily led.
And then I think about greed. Dr. Seuss and the Lorax. Cut down the last tree, not to feed your family, but to make a profit.
Any hope left? If this nail biter of an election turns out in favor of Joe Biden, I still hope. Change does happen. We slip backward, then we move forward again. I’m 79 and I’m not giving up yet. Or we could all move to Denmark. But if Trump continues destroying the environment, even there we wouldn’t escape him.
Todd,
I agree with your comments and I was not trying to disparage the term “oligarch” and I absolutely agree that that particular moniker invokes unfettered evil in my opinion.
Putin uses oligarchs to assassinate and interfere in elections and blackmail outside of Russia’s borders. So yes, oligarch is definitely an incantation of everything wrong in society today! It promotes unequal and undignified behavior.
I apologize for not being on during this interesting time, but my daughter is a Frontline manager at the VA here in great lakes, and she contracted Covid from one of the veterans. And, half of her coworkers have it also. We’ve already lost two family members to Covid, and now my wife and daughter are sick, it’s very frustrating listening to these idiots claiming that they need to open everything up because the country is more important than people.
They kind of forget that the country is the people, without people there would be no country. Without people there would be no economy, if everything exists except the people, then you have the movie, Omega man!
And, I think you’re right about religion! If one would happen to be a student of scripture and you really know it, then you would know, and I’m not talking about you in particular, just in general, Jesus Christ was a socialist!
Too bad people don’t really know what socialism is, because social security is socialism Medicare is socialism Medicaid is socialism food assistance is socialism housing assistance is socialism, even our tax structure is socialism. And I’m talking about donor States and welfare states. So, people have no clue as to what socialism really is. They just freak out when someone mentions it. Kind of like there’s a boogeyman in the closet or under your bed. You’re afraid of it, especially if you’re a kid or someone with extremely limited intellect ? That being said, there is no Boogeyman in the closet or under the bed.
That’s why your oligarch class wants to keep the educational process completely dumbed down, because a dumb population is easily manipulated.
John……………………
“History repeats because humanity is not really that much of an intelligent creature!”
@#$#^%&*{!!!}
History repeats itself because history repeats itself; history is an unstoppable tide, in and out, over and over; repetitive history is an insuppressible cycle. If mankind were in its entirety a cross between Einstein and Churchill, history would still repeat itself. Our intellect is badly aimed if focused on stopping history from repeating, but it is zeroed-in when concentrated on adapting to the cycles of history.
Paul, there is plenty of money being spent on “vocational education”, What is needed there is money targeted for work roles dealing with climate change – reforestation, insulation, solar installation, shore abatement, infrastructure abatement, etc.
Are you advocating for K-12 classes in “shop”, “home economics”?
Terry; at 12:01 on January 20, 2021, IF Biden is elected, Trump will be beyond the protection of the presidency and there are those numerous suits against him in NYSD plus he is an unindicted defendant in the full Mueller Report. His taxes and financial records will no longer be protected so he is fighting for his physical freedom and his personal wealth using this current team of lawyers to stop the vote count to protect himself.