Author: Robert I. Grundfest

I am a teacher, writer, voice-over artist and rationally opinionated observer of American and international society. While my job is to entertain and engage, my purpose is always to start a conversation.

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BLM Coronavirus Featured Racial profiling

Re-imagining the Country Begins With Education

Is this the it’s-about-time-moment? I am working as best I can to make it happen, but it will take sustained effort and pressure on all parts of our society–the economic, political and social systems–to ensure that real, meaningful, practical, and positive change sticks, and becomes the future of this country.

I find it truly amazing that the Black Lives Matter movement went from being associated with the fringe to being the vanguard of the latest move to once again (!) try and convince society that black people have been treated unjustly and have been killed for no good reason, or for no reason at all.

So far, this call seems to be sticking. Protests include faces of all hues, ages, and economic realities, and have continued unabated for almost three weeks. Cities and towns are being forced to recognize that they are supporting systemic racism with their actions, and to account for them. Corporations and sports leagues are, at least for now, professing their shortcomings and are promising to do better.

We have seen this before, but public support seems to truly be behind the movement.

But if we are to make real change to American society, it must begin with education. Education is families. Education is economics. Education is morality. Education is our best defense against those who believe that violence and more guns will solve our problems. And, of course, education is our best chance at bringing political change to this country.

Just as systemic racism has always existed and was uncovered again by the killing of George Floyd, the monstrous inequities in education were also uncovered by the Covid-19 lock-downs and the move to virtual schooling. As always, black students and their parents were the losers. Many schools shut down their school years in March and April, while others maintained educational programs until June.

You did not have to be a researcher, however, to see that students living in less affluent areas of the country could not get an education, which is their right, because of a lack of Internet access, computer hardware, or physical spaces in which they could study. Add the fact that black workers are more likely to physically go to their workplace during the pandemic, thus, leaving children in a situation that did not readily support learning, and you have the double tragedy that demonstrates the ongoing systemic racism in this country.

And then there’s the issue of policing.

It is true that the majority of police officers are good, and true, and committed, and hate bad colleagues. The problem is not what police officers do to earn our respect, like giving their lives in tragedies such as September 11 or Oklahoma City, or during natural disasters. The problem is why. Why do they do these heoric deeds then turn around and tell us that it was “Guiliani time,” or firing 41 shots into someone in an apartment house vestibule armed with nothing more than a wallet, or shooting a black man in the back while they were running away from the officer. And on and on.

 Let me make myself crystal clear: I support a policing department when they do their jobs, support community programs, and, like umpires, are barely visible when they are making sure that citizens follow the law. But I also support the Black Lives Matter movement because too many black people have been killed, maimed, stopped and frisked, and otherwise harassed in numbers and manners that white people are not. We can all do both. In fact, it’s essential that we all do both because this is not a matter of a few isolated bad ones, it’s a culture that must be changed, an attitude that must be eliminated, a racism that must be uprooted.

That’s why we have calls to focus on education, community programs, drug treatment and rehabilitation. If we as a society can help people before they turn, or are forced to turn to crime, then we will have turned a wide corner towards a more civil society.

And it will take money. The problem, as it’s accumulated since the 1980s, is that public agencies and institutions have been made by deliberate political design, to compete against each other for the ever-more-scarce public dollar. Tax cuts that slathered money on the already-affluent while middle and working class incomes remain stagnated, worsened the problem. This must stop. We need a massive redistribution of how we spend public money in this country. On the revenue side, taxes on the wealthy must go up, and the unconscionable blasphemy that is the carried interest rule for hedge funds must be repealed. We have for too long acquiesced in the fiction that corporations or wealthy people can’t be taxed because they will leave their state or move to another country.

Go.

If you are so craven that the prospect of fully funding public institutions to the extent that they can fully meet their mandates and improve our society is prompting you to move, then go. And if you are a corporation that continues to use the tax system to pay no income taxes, then those laws need to be changed too.

Capitalism has its advantages. Rapacious capitalism, while as American as racism, must go. We need to spend money where it will effect the most public good. Not in military hardware for police or walls that shrink our country, or ever more jails to house people who could have a different life if they’d had a chance when they were younger. It’s time that we all thought more about the common good.

As for politics, I know that many black citizens are not thrilled by the choices we have for president, and that Joe Biden’s supported for the 1994 Crime Bill is especially odious. We know, though, what will happen if the president is reelected with a GOP majority in the Senate. More conservative judges and more support for a militarized police force. More racist voices and a backlash against any gains that will have occurred between now and next January. For me, the choice is clear. I hope it will be for you.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Coronavirus Featured Racial profiling

Another Virus Is Spreading

Covid-19 has killed hundreds of thousands.

Racism has killed millions.

Only one of them is presently curable, but it looks like we’re spending more time and money on the one that isn’t, although it’s only been around for a few months. We are now in the middle of both a pandemic and an epidemic, and there’s no national leadership to get us through either one of them.

The death of George Floyd is far more than a reminder of how deeply racism infects the United States. It’s an indictment of how some police officers act when allowed and enabled to abuse their power, and how many citizens express their frustrations and anger. I don’t want to see any violence or rioting, but when the courts, the police, the power structure, the economy and now the virus demonstrate how prejudiced they are against African-Americans, it’s no wonder that many see violence as the only way to get the attention of those who have been willfully and culturally ignorant of their discrimination.

The key will be what happens when the violence ends. Right now it’s easy to focus on the immediate events and the terrible images we see hour by hour, but that will eventually stop. That’s when the real work begins, and if history is any guide, we are in for a long struggle. The president has spoken to the Floyd family, but at the same time he’s sent threatening Twitter messages that hearken back to the bad old days of white resistance to civil rights laws. His past messages and actions have done very little to send a message that he can lead on this issue.

And Joe Biden will need to be more forceful, more specific, and more responsible with his responses and proposed solutions. His record on racial issues is far better than Trump’s, but Biden has to provide workable policies that move beyond community outreach or complaint review boards, which have shown to be effective when they are given the power they need, but otherwise are forgotten after the tempers cool.

But of course the best solution is for all people who oppose the president’s policies to register and vote this November. The first step is to march and let people know that these actions are unacceptable. The second step is to vote. There is no excuse not to.



For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Coronavirus Featured

The Pandemic Schools the US

Reform blackboard - education reform or other. Hand writing REFORM with chalk on black chalkboard.

If only the education system would stand up to it.

Unfortunately, what we have at the national level is a know-very-little president and an Education Secretary who cares not a whit about anything to do with public education, and who made sure that public money is being funneled to private a religious institutions to the detriment of neighborhood schools. I certainly understand that parents should have a choice if they don’t want to send their child to a public school, but it’s their…choice, and public schools should always be the first recipient of public money. Which makes the public school system the next institution that will need significant reform. 

As this article says, the very manner in which we fund and organize public schools needs to change. It’s been true for a great number of years; the pandemic has simply exposed it. We have too many public school districts in this country, and they all compete for scarce dollars. Worse, though, is the inherent inequality that sits in side-by-side communities. There is no reason for this to occur. True, the neighborhood school has been part of American life for more than two centuries, but times have changed and education is a key to future opportunities. To deny anyone a quality education based on artificial lines only serves to exclude children from taking full advantage of what this country has to offer.

What we need to change is the way we distribute funds. In New Jersey, there are over 550 school districts and each one relies on local tax money for its funding. Districts that include wealthy towns can buy more services. Those that don’t have the same resources get less. Many districts get very little. Because of lawsuits aimed at increasing educational equity, many districts receive a great deal of state aid, while others, usually the wealthier ones, have to rely on ever-increasing property taxes for funding. Resentment runs deep when any politician hints at ending this home rule. But to keep it means continued inequities and fewer educational opportunities.

Changing borders and district lines makes sense because more students will have access to educational resources. Shared services and shared communities might help break down social barriers. There will be some pain, too. Teachers will lose their jobs and some towns might lose schools. It won’t be free.

Right now, though, we are living through a time when many children do not have computers or reliable internet connections. Many are missing meals. Many are not showing up to school because local or state governments can’t afford to provide remote services. Parents without reliable, or any, health insurance must continue to physically go to work, facing a choice between their money or their lives. This must stop. This country can afford to provide for its children. We need the political will to do that.


For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Featured

Silence On Education

For all of the stories I’ve read about online schooling and how difficult it is to entertain and engage children of all ages while being quarantined in one’s home, I still don’t get the sense that we are talking about education, and how profoundly the system must change in the post-pandemic United States.

What this crisis has uncovered is the dire state of education regarding schooling, infrastructure, funding, practice, equity, and opportunity. We’ve always thought of ourselves as a country whose system of public education reflects the democratic values upon which it was founded. Now we can’t even guarantee that all students are reporting for the daily or weekly Zoom call that forms the basis of their learning. And it wasn’t that before we all went online the education system was running smoothly or meeting the needs of all children. It was not. But now we know that we have gaping holes that will need to be fixed.

The crowd that currently holds power in Washington will say that education is the realm of the states, and constitutionally, they are right. Most states were free to create and maintain their school systems. What that’s done, though, is to create 50 separate systems divided into thousands of county and local school systems who are free to set their policies, to determine what they teach and generally how to teach it. Attempts such as the Common Core Curriculum Standards to tie the states together so they are teaching the same skills and holding students accountable to them received push-back from the right because of the loss of state control, and the left because of the focus on testing to determine student and teacher growth. Common Core is doomed to irrelevance.

Add in the problem of funding, and you see why we are where we are. Wealthier states and districts can afford to give every student a computer, and generally, those towns and suburbs are where the vast majority of homes have an internet connection. Those wealthier areas can also afford to pay teachers more and to provide them, and their students, with more resources and programs. Those towns also have a higher percentage of parents whose jobs have not been destroyed because of lockdowns. They also tend to be whiter.

And so, here we are.

What to do? We need a massive, federal investment in the schools. Every child should be given a computer to use and a reliable internet connection that will enable them to explore the world. Every child should have access to resources such as school trips, enrichment activities, speakers, literacy materials, and safe, sustainable buildings. Teachers should be paid a great deal more than they are now so they don’t have to worry about getting two jobs to support themselves.

And everybody–everybody–should have affordable, high-quality health insurance so they don’t have to worry about making a choice between education or food or housing or entertainment and getting medical care.

States cannot do this on their own because they must balance their budgets. Only the federal government can provide the funding and resources to provide what every child, and every family, needs to succeed. This is not going to happen under this administration or, I suspect, under any Republican presidency. We need a change.

Are you registered to vote?



For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Coronavirus Featured

The Pandemic’s Effects Have Only Just Begun

I’ve been wondering over the past few years about how this new Gilded Age will end, and I think we have the beginnings of the answer. World War I, and a worldwide influenza epidemic you might have read about, ended the first one. Now it seems that another pandemic will end the current one. It is eminently possible that the economy bounces back quickly and by the fall we are well on our way to a full recovery, but my best guess it that this will not happen and that the economic carnage will be wide and deep.

The effects? 

First and foremost is the idea that most American workers are exposed. Without a job, most people don’t have health insurance and most do not have much savings, either for a rainy day or for retirement. Hourly workers are especially vulnerable and those who work for technology-and-app-driven businesses have found that they are expendable. Members of minority groups have not only felt more economic pain than whites, they are also being exposed to Covid-19, and dying, at higher rates. The government did pass huge stimulus bills, but $1,200 isn’t going to pay too many bills and many small businesses were shut out by the lack of money and the big banks that controlled who received loans.

My sense is that this will have a profound effect on people’s thinking and votes. The United States does not have nearly the safety net that other countries have, and much of that is based on an ideology that says that if you have government programs, then people will not work. This is simply not true. Consider the debate over the stimulus plan. Democrats wanted to increase the amount of money that people could get for unemployment, while Republicans balked because they thought that giving more money would decrease their incentive to work. But there is no work. People need immediate help. And most people would rather work. Ultimately the Democratic version of the bill passed.

The same is true of health insurance. The work-based system we have now has also been exposed as inadequate and unequal. And the Republicans have no plan to fix it. In fact, the administration is backing a suit that will soon be in front of the Supreme Court to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. What we need is health insurance that is both affordable and portable. A robust public option with low deductibles would fit the bill. Lowering the eligibility age for Medicare to 50 or 55 would also help. If we can pay trillions over the course of a few months to bail out airlines, cruise companies and banks, we can find money to finally give all Americans decent health insurance.

The most shocking aspect of this pandemic, though, has been what it’s uncovered about children in American society. Millions of children do not have access to health care because of their parent’s job, but now it’s no longer possible to ignore the fact that millions do not have access to equal educational programs. They do not have technology in their homes or from their school districts that allows them to learn online. They rely on schools to provide them with a healthy breakfast and/or lunch, and even that is under assault by an administration that wants to relax school nutrition standards. They do not have reliable, fast Internet connections. They live in cities, suburbs, exurbs and rural areas that do not have the money to keep schools open in a pandemic or an economic crisis. And we expect to compete with the rest of the world on standardized tests and economic productivity?

And now we evidently have an administration that is urging on those who would put our health at risk and undermine the safe and orderly reopening that is critical to our country.

This is what the Democrats have to remind the American people about every day for the rest of this campaign. They have to make it personal and immediate and tell people that a rising stock market helps the wealthy, but the rest of the economy is a result of treating workers respectfully and as valued members of their organizations. Health care. Affordable child care. Livable wages. That’s the message that will win.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Coronavirus Featured

Until It’s Safe

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump listens to a question as he meets with former hostage Danny Burch, an oil engineer who was taken hostage in Yemen in September 2017, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo - RC1D9156F7B0

Really easy to remember those three words, no? A few syllables and you’ve spoken volumes. And that’s all the president has to say. Until it’s safe.

How long do we stay in our homes? Until it’s safe.
How long do we have to practice distancing? Until it’s safe.
How long do we have to wait until we can see professional sports, cultural events, friends, go to the movies or museums? Until it’s safe.

Until it’s safe.

Not Easter. Not May 1, Not September when the NFL season is supposed to begin.

Until it’s safe. That’s the only answer.

The president proved to me long ago that he is a unique study in ignorance, selfishness and egomania basting in a gumbo of misinformation, unverifiable opinion, and dangerous myopia. When he says that something is fake, I know that it’s real. When he says it’s a hoax, I know it’s true. When he says he’s doing a great job, I know that he’s doing a terrible job. When he says it’s a witch hunt, then I am reasonably certain that there are, in fact, witches, and that they are a cornerstone of our economy. When he says that the press is an enemy, then I must be a traitor.

When he does all of this for political reasons, I understand his motives and chalk it up to the system we have. But the Covid-19 pandemic is different. Now his ignorance and instincts for political survival are getting more people sick and dead. And he’s sending a message to states that they are on their own for supplies and should stop whining if they don’t have enough. After all, he’s a wartime president, but true to form, this is not a national war coordinated at the national level to stop a national threat. This is a bathtub naval operation being fought by a president without a clue as to how to use the federal government for the benefit of all, and with his greatest weapon being a soap-on-a-rope.

It’s also no wonder that the Impeached One is so threatened by Dr. Anthony Fauci. Here’s someone who knows what he’s talking about and is not afraid to say what the president won’t; that we should be in our homes until it’s safe to come out.

And if we’re really afraid of what the pandemic is doing to the economy, then let’s have some real relief. A check for $1,200 isn’t going to cut it for a majority of Americans, and the funds for small business help are actually being given out on a first-come-first-served basis. This is relief? Everybody should get relief that will help them and every business that needs help should get it. You shouldn’t have to rely on a faster Internet connection or being able to get/stay up at 4:00 am simply to survive in the marketplace. Other countries have figured this out. Germany got citizens a payment in three days. Some of us won’t get a payment until September.

As for the election, the president is still underwater in most polls, and Joe Biden and the Democrats haven’t even begun to remind voters that they want to provide everyone with affordable health care, while the president wants to take it away. Or that Democrats want a national program of child care and paid sick days. Or that Democrats want to make sure that corporations can’t use any relief money to buy back stock or pay their CEOs more money. Or that Democrats understand that Covid-19 has uncovered the massive gap in realities in education, earnings, job security and wage equity that exists. This pandemic will change this country in more ways than many people think. We’re not going back to the way things were in 2019.

Have you registered to vote? And have you made sure that you can get a mail-in ballot if polls are closed or compromised by a repeat pandemic in the fall? Do it now.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Coronavirus Featured

Co-(vid) Education

Whither Betsy DeVos?

Here is the Secretary of Education at a crisis point in American education and she is…silent.

Don’t get me wrong; under normal circumstances I would welcome, indeed pay for, silence from Ms. DeVos. Her disdain for, and ignorance of public education, will unfortunately become one of the lasting effects of the Trump Administration and the era of conservatism that seems to be unraveling. I certainly understand that public schools are the purview of the states, but it would be nice to have the Secretary of Education deliver an address or a letter that outlines the objectives that all schools need to meet with online education. I guess if you don’t educate for money, Ms. DeVos doesn’t want to hear from you. This is more than disappointing. It’s malpractice.

Of course, we know that this administration as a whole is educationally-challenged, beginning with the president. His history of undermining and ignoring science has finally caught up to him, and us. In the last few days, he’s even hyped drugs that people with lupus need to live as a possible remedy for Covid-19 (19, 20, whatever it takes). This bit of irresponsibility could cause severe shortages for a medicine that we don’t know will actually address the virus. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that the president says he knew there would be a pandemic, after denying it and blaming the hype on the Democrats. Could they also have White House briefings where people stand six feet apart from each other? Anthony Fauci should know better. I want to see him in a space suit.

And speaking of blaming it on the Democrats (we were and don’t you deny it), along comes this parable about conservative FOX-watching Americans who were sure that Covid-19 was a fake until…wait for it…one of their own contracted it. I sincerely hope that the man who is sick gets better soon and I am not in any way engaging in schadenfreude. What gets me is that people actually believe politicians in times of health emergencies. Or in this case, they believe that the Chinese created this disease for the purpose of unleashing it on their people and Americans in order for the Democrats to subvert the president and undermine his leadership. I just don’t understand that serpentine illogic. The article also tells of how the conservative media saw the Covid threat as overblown, so the people dismissed the warnings and didn’t take the necessary precautions. That’s the danger inherent in an administration that blames and vilifies the media.

Finally, what happens when there’s a shot for Covid-19 and the anti-vaccinators rebel? I don’t have an answer. I just pose the question.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Coronavirus Featured

The Covidian Epoch Begins

Concerns:

What do you think will happen with this company?

If you eat enough matzoh, you won’t need as much toilet paper. I know that it’s not Passover just yet and it’s forbidden to eat the new matzoh before the first Seder, but these are unique and troubling times. If God has anything to do with Covid-19, how much angrier could he get if we rip open the Yehuda and solve a supply and demand problem? You could add some horseradish for flavor, and after three days you will not need to worry about paper shortages.

Do you still know somebody who denies that the virus is real? Here’s a handy guide to articles that you can use to answer them, if indeed you are still on speaking terms with them. I know that it must hurt some people’s brains to hear the president and others say that the virus is a foreign weapon or an impeachment grade left-wing terrorist plot one day, then say that it is indeed real and that the president actually had dinner with it last week (as with most things related to Trump, it came back negative). I guess anything can get into Mar-a-Lago if it knows somebody. The worst part, though, is that Brazillians of people could now be exposed. And will the president pass his test? Film at 11.

Not to sound too imperious, intelligent and superior, but this blogger began stocking up on necessities three weeks ago. I bought canned goods, pasta, Tastykakes (Juniors and Kandykakes, peanut butter and chocolate), chicken and paper goods at the warehouse boutique, and filled up the mower gas tank just in case the Russians and/or Saudis got frisky with the world supply. Turns out I overpaid on early gasoline, but the interest on my equity loan is now less than a whole number, so I’m going to let x equal whatever it wants for a while.

And a while it will be before the students and I traipse back through the schoolhouse gate. It’s Zoom and Skype and Google Meet and sharing documents across the divide for at least two weeks while we flush out the bad humors from the tony woods of Somerset and Morris Counties. We are still running a timed schedule and do have to meet with our students over the interweb, so it will be an adventure for a while. Of course, if you have younger children in grade school, I’m not sure how that will work. Nap time will now be graded.

If you like good news, you can always take a gander at the daily polls, which, and I know it’s early, show that there seem to be more and more citizens out there who don’t want the president around the White House after January 20. Even Arizona looks a bit wobbly for the Republicans at this juncture. If the market rebounds and the virus doesn’t approach doomsday predictions, the president could make a comeback, but it seems like every time he has what’s called a good week, he steps on it with statements or actions that clearly show that he’s broken up with facts and science. If they were ever seeing each other.

Stay safe. No high-fives. Six feet apart. Read a book.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Featured

M-M-M-My Corona

FILE - This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January 2020 shows the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The coronavirus outbreak has exposed a seeming disconnect between the financial markets and science. Health experts are uncertain how far the virus out of China will spread and how bad the crisis will get, yet stock markets are rallying as if they’re not expecting more than a modest hit to the global economy. (CDC via AP, File)

When you’ve been anti-science for most of your administration, then science is going to eventually catch up to you. And when you’ve based your entire agenda on tweets that say things are great, then when things get not so great, it will catch up to you.

And it has.

The president and his allies have politicized the Coronavirus to the point that he now owns everything about it, including our health, its effect on the stock market, consumer confidence, and his administration’s emergency response abilities. So far, the virus has not spread beyond a few cases, but viruses don’t belong to political parties, nor are they Democratic Socialists. What is true today could be entirely different tomorrow. I hope that means that things will get better, but like most of the president’s efforts, I can’t say that I am confident in  his abilities to manage a volatile situation. He creates one heck of a volatile situation, but managing? Prove me wrong.

I can’t say that I’m any more secure in the knowledge that Mike Pence is in charge of the anti-virus efforts. Here’s a man who, as Governor of Indiana, had to pray for two days before approving a needle exchange program to curb the spread of HIV. Say what you want about my lack of religious faith, but when it comes to saving lives, especially of those who can spread deadly diseases, I don’t need more than a few minutes to make my decision. It’s part of my heathen charm.

And this is why I’m suspicious of the anti-science, religious crowd. I understand that Pence didn’t approve of drug users, but essentially thinking about letting some die because they were leading immoral lives is unacceptable. Remember that even the patron saint of the GOP, Ronald Reagan, waited five years before acknowledging AIDS. Millions of people died while he dithered and refused to listen to his science guy, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, and ignored warnings that this could spread to other populations aside form gay men. And it did.

So you’ll excuse me if I do not ultimately trust the instincts of the even-more religious people in the presidents orbit. This is not divine retribution. It’s a virus. By all means, pray for its demise and for the health of humans everywhere, but I don’t want to hear that Mike Pence or Mick Mulvaney or Mike Pompeo are using anything but science to defeat it.

As for the economy, the stock market is reflecting the seriousness of the outbreak on the global supply chain and corporate profits, but the real story is Mick Mulvaney’s plea for more immigrants. It’s one thing to control the border; it’s quite another to ignore decades of data that shows how much the United States depends upon immigrant labor for the growth of our economy. In many parts of the country, including New York, immigrants have provided the only growth in the population. The president’s immigration policies, but more significantly, his rhetoric about the evils of immigration will be his, and our, undoing. The economy is creating jobs, but if there aren’t enough employees, then all kinds of nasty things will happen including an inflationary spiral as dollars chase a limited supply of workers.

Economics is a science, no? And we know how this administration loves science.

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Featured

Beg Your Pardon?

And it’s only February.

But the Russians are all in for Bernie because they too see him as the perfect foil for the president. And if anyone should know socialism, it’s the Russians. 

Vladimir Putin knows how to play our president perfectly. All he needs to do is flatter, feign some morality, play hardball with the satellite countries, continue to tell the president that, no, he didn’t meddle in the 2016 election, and be the bestest autocrat he can be. Oh, and Putin continues to use social media to disrupt a disruptible president, by continuing the story that it was the meddling Ukrainians in 2016. But that’s only if you believe that some country actually interfered in the election, which our president doesn’t, because Trump is convinced that lending any credence to that theory undercuts what he believes to be a false narrative that he didn’t actually win the popular vote. And besides; Putin said it didn’t happen. So it must not have happened, right?

Yes, I really typed those words. Such times we live in.

Now that said president is feeling much better after being roasted by the Mueller Report and impeached, he’s turning on the charm by invoking the constitution – not the United States Constitution of course – and stating that he can pretty much do whatever he wants and can’t be touched legally. The Supreme Court will have a decision about this in June. It will be a key test of the separation of powers. And mark my words: When the court rules against the president in any of the cases, he will angrily question why “his Judges” are against him.

As for the pardons, yes, they are within his power and given that other presidents have pardoned some single celled creatures in the past, I’m not going to argue with the power to pardon. The problem is that the president has made this a personal issue. He’s pardoning people because they are pretty good people (despite being crooks) and because they were prosecuted by the Justice Department, which the president believes to be full of people who don’t like him, or they have ties to the people who looked at evidence and decided that Donald Trump needed to face some consequences. And everybody knows that people who cite Roy Cohn as their guiding star don’t ever need to face no stinkin’ consequences.

And the campaign? I’m going to reserve any judgments or predictions until after Super Tuesday. Right now, the press is anointing Bernie as the nominee, but we have many more states to go and we’ll have some candidates dropping out of the race. The big question is where do their supporters go? Do the lefties all go to Sanders? Do the moderates all go to Klubichar or Biden? Has Bloomberg convinced the voters that despite his record on crime and women, that he is the best to run against the president (who seems to be more frightened of Bloomberg than anyone else)? It’s messy. but remember that primary campaigns are usually messy.

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Building for a Smaller Future

Is it really a good week for the president when the highlight is that he’s been acquitted by the Senate on an impeachment charge?  And then he does his best impression of the Night of the Long Knives on Friday, purging the members of his administration who saw what he was doing with Ukraine and though it wrong.

The bar is lying on the ground, my friends.

But just in case you thought that the president could rise above the petty politics he practices and appeal to a wider swath of Americans, along comes a proposal that is truly frightening and perhaps more devastating to our way of life. That’s right; I’m talking about the proposed Executive Order that would establish a classical architectural style as the default for all new government buildings. Inspired by Greek and Roman styles, these buildings would not just be confined to Washington, but would apply to federal buildings throughout the country.

And who would be one of the arbiters? Mr. Architecture himself, the president.

It’s bad enough that he uses vile language and demeans people with offensive nicknames. Now he wants the Trump aesthetic to be the defining artistic movement of the 2020s. Can you say shortsighted with a straight face? I’m sure we all know about regimes that attempt to define what is art and language and who belongs to appropriate ethnicities and how to think and what to write. Are we headed in that direction?

We’re already in the car and on the road.

I can understand that many people in the United States have trouble with some modern art because some of it is not outwardly aesthetically pleasing. It’s there to make us think. To consider our definitions of beauty and form and structure and why we would use certain materials to express ourselves. But to say that it’s all ugly and confusing and that a nice Roman or Greek column would look better in front of every government building is the very definition of small-mindedness, anti-intellectualism, ethnocentrism, and fear of the unknown.

Yes, we have more pressing problems, but this is one that can grow into something far bigger.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Please Excuse Our Appearance While We Renovate Our Democracy

I’m sure you caught Alan Dershowitz eviscerating the constitution last Wednesday, but in case you missed it, here’s the money shot:

“Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” Mr. Dershowitz, a celebrity defense attorney and member of Mr. Trump’s legal team, said on the floor of the Senate. He added: “And if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

I hope Mr. Dershowitz has a towel absorbent enough to get all the junk off his face.

We knew that the Republicans would do anything to move this trial along, and quite honestly, the Democrats in the House did not help themselves or the case against the president by punting on issuing subpoenas and fighting the denials in the courts. This gave the Senate majority the excuse to consider only the narrow evidence from the House and to reject new witnesses.  John Bolton could have testified in the House but decided to get cute, or maybe stall until his manuscript was safely in the White House on December 30, so his offer to spill it all in the Senate rings a bit hollow. Not that I agree with much of anything John Bolton believes, including taking the US out of the UN, but it seems that he has a few vertebrae which set him apart from the slithery amphibians who inhabit the New Swamp.

And Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is the first runner up to Dershowitz, saying that the president was guilty of what the House charged him with but, well, we can’t throw him out because that would be too, you know, incendiary. And besides, we have an election coming up so we’ll let the people decide. This kind of reasoning makes Mitt Romney, who did have the backbone to vote to hear witnesses, the conscience of the Republican Party. 

Strange days indeed.

For a political organization that’s won the national popular vote ONCE since 1992, the Republicans sure like to throw the dice on elections, once for a Supreme Court seat in 2016 and the other this fall. They won the first. Let’s hope they lose the bet this November.

And speaking of, with Iowans caucusing and generally making mayhem on Monday night, I certainly hope that the more moderate candidates win or hang in the top three until more representative states can vote in their primaries. I am not a fan of Bernie Sanders and believe that he is a McGovern/Mondale landslide waiting to happen. I like Elizabeth Warren a bit more, but again, I don’t see her ideas winning the states she would need to defeat the president.

I’m going to nail my tent spikes for any of Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar or Mayor Pete because I truly believe that they can win in November. We are deep in a conservative era now and absent an economic disaster, which I certainly don’t want to happen, I don’t see the country swinging back to the farther left in a few months. 

What the Democrats need to do is give those people who voted for Obama, then Trump, a reason to come back. The focus should be on health care, jobs, the environment and a more common-sense approach to immigration and foreign policy. These are the winning issues. I have no doubt that more will come out about the president’s destructive policies in Ukraine and other spots around the world, so even without an impeachment inquiry, he is eminently vulnerable to someone who can make the argument that we need a more practical approach to policy. 

I could be wrong, but I think that beneath the seeming intransigence of people’s political views, or at least what the media is telling us about that, is a recognition among many Americans that we can do better than the minute-to-minute tweetfest that we’re currently engaged in, and that we can elect a chief executive who can speak about our aspirations and promise rather than appeal to our darkest fears.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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