Good morning,
Tomorrow is election day. It is, in my opinion, the most important in my lifetime. Many of us already have mailed in our ballots or dropped them off—indeed, over 70 million already. I’ll be here in Clark County, Nevada, trying to ensure people have access to their polling place, are permitted to vote, and are not harassed in exercising their right of franchise.
Today and tomorrow my Musings are longer than usual, befitting an event of great importance. Today, some closing thoughts and tomorrow some predictions. I hope you’ll read along…
CORRECTING A CORRECTION
In response to the claim yesterday that the left uses inflammatory language against the right, somehow equivalent to Trumpist language, a reader suggests:
“The distortion among defenders or apologists for the current Republican Party is the attempt to create equivalency between the fringes of the left and their truly intolerant and inflammatory language and what has become mainstream for the republicans. To declare that one statement by Biden crossed the line and somehow rises to the level of the fusillade of invective streaming from Trump’s mouth and echoed by his supporters is a false equivalency. Yes, were should condemn inflammatory language whenever it occurs, so where are the republican condemnations of Trump?”
THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION
The real issues in this election should be the economy, the border, human rights, and world stability. One can dispute that Biden’s actions post-COVID caused inflation to go up more than was necessary (though Trump’s spending and tax cuts contributed significantly to rising inflation and the budget deficit, and our inflation was lower than that worldwide and is now down without resulting in a recession). One can argue, rightly, that, in an effort to reverse the immoral Trump border enforcement, Biden went too far (but now that’s been fixed—take a look at the numbers). Women’s rights, Gay rights, and public safety are at risk under Trump. Regardless of what the Trumpists will say, Trump is a danger to world security, as repeatedly pointed out by members of his own administration, political scientists, and members of the security establishment.
Notwithstanding the onslaught of TV ads during the baseball playoffs, the election certainly ought not be decided by whether Kamala Harris favors gender changing surgeries to prison inmates (of which I am confident there are very few). And it’s not about her giggle, or her gaffes, or her “word salad” (if that’s what you think). Certainly, she is light years more articulate than Donald Trump.
The Republican party is not without principled arguments for how things might be done differently. But few among the leadership really believe “mass deportation” is morally, practically, or economically feasible, nor that blanket and excessive tariffs are good for American trade or the American consumer. And I suspect few are impressed with Mr. Trump’s continual rejection of free and fair elections, flaunting of the law, or his politics of grievance. More than a few will no doubt rejoice at the purging of Mr. Trump, should he lose.
To support Kamala Harris is not to suggest the excesses of the left are justified. It is not to suggest that the preoccupation with pronouns and political correctness aren’t overdone. And it’s not to suggest that political rhetoric from the left hasn’t been harsh from time to time. It is about love of democracy, the retention and expansion of basic freedoms, the value of government experts, and love of country. The fundamental question in this election is whether an unhinged, vile, self-interested person should be accorded the highest office in the land, despite the warnings of many closest to him. His best claim is that hard-working Americans deserve a voice. And while he claims to be for the working Americans, people are hard-pressed to offer examples of any actions of his that furthers this lofty claim—certainly not in his giveaways to his friends and fellow plutocrats. He is a danger, pure and simple—to our democracy, our society, and the world.
FINAL THOUGHTS
On the eve of this important day, one that will amplify the divisions in our country and an anti-immigrant fervor not seen in generations, I am drawn to poetry, Abraham Lincoln, and Mad Magazine. May we survive this election day and, if the worst fears of many of us are realized, may some remnants of the democratic traditions, integrity, and moral compass that has governed our nation to this point remain somewhat intact.
PITY THE NATION
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 2007
(After Khalil Gibran)
Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerers
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!
LINCOLN’S 1838 SPEECH TO THE YOUNG MEN’S LYCEUM OF SPRINGFIELD
“…We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them—they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ‘tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader . . . This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
How then shall we perform it?—At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?—Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!—All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
SEE THE SUPER PATRIOT
This appeared in Mad Magazine in 1968. Quite prescient. It might well have been written this week:
“See the Super Patriot.
Hear him preach how he loves his country.
Hear him preach how he hates "Liberals"
And "Moderates"... and "Intellectuals".
And "Activists"... and "Pacifists".
And "Minority Groups"... and "Aliens"
And "Unions"... and "Teenagers"...
And the "Very Rich"... and the "Very Poor".
And "People With Foreign-Sounding Names
Now you know what a Super Patriot is.
He's someone who loves his country
While hating 93% of the people who live in it.”
May our era be judged more charitably than I suspect we will deserve.
Have a good day,
Glenn
Thanks for putting in the work in NV!!