This is the eighth in a series of observations on matters related to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Topics include the January 6th coup attempt, voter suppression, climate change, cancel culture, racism, vaccines, the devolution of the Republican Party, and the future of democracy.
This essay, the seventh in a series on the pandemic, includes, among other subjects, an analysis of the 2020 election and critique of the Trump Voter. It concludes with a William Stafford poem, "A Ritual to Read to Each Other."
One thing seems clear. Trump intends to stay in office indefinitely, no matter what. He will use any means to do so. All his efforts are intended to realize that result. The election is our next, best chance to intervene. My advice is to focus on the election. Focus on voting and on helping other voters vote.
In a quiet professional manner, the psychiatrist bent slightly toward the patient reclined before him and asked the difficult question that promised insight into the man's character and many problems. Would you be willing to reflect on the interesting surmise my secretary has formed as to the source of your maladies? I will, certainly, what... Continue Reading →
Introduction The outcome of the 2016 Presidential election still rankles and puzzles. How did Donald J. Trump get elected? How could anyone vote for him? How could that many people vote for him, the sixty-two or so million people who actually did? I don’t know the answer. Perhaps no one does. Because the times are... Continue Reading →
Introduction The right to vote is the basis and spiritual heart of democracy—precious, hard won, sacred. Yet, ninety million eligible voters didn’t vote in the presidential election of 2016. Sixty-six million people voted for Hillary Clinton and sixty three million for Donald J. Trump, who became President by garnering more than the requisite 270 votes... Continue Reading →
Harpers Magazine included an excerpt in its January 2018 issue from Virginia Eubanks’ book Automating Inequality, just published by St. Martin’s Press. According to Eubanks, government officials, using sophisticated computer technology, are now able to routinely ensnare poor people in the digital equivalent of the poorhouse of yore by tracking them down, monitoring them, stereotyping... Continue Reading →
Preface There is seemingly more babel per second on the public airwaves these days than ever before. The cacophony of white noise exceeds even the evocative power of the biblical story of Babel to penetrate and comprehend it. Given the discharge of daily excreta from Washington, what can anyone fruitfully say or listen to at... Continue Reading →
Dear Sheffield, Thanks for sharing the commentary supposedly written by Ian Duncan and published in The Baltimore Sun. I say supposedly because Ian Duncan, their journalist on intelligence and military issues, didn’t actually write it, and the piece never appeared in The Sun. The real title is “Ten Percent is Not Enough.” It was written... Continue Reading →
The Civil War is, for the American imagination, the great single event of our history. Without too much wrenching, it may, in fact, be said to be American history. Before the Civil War we had no history in the deepest and most inward sense. Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War, 1961 Introduction... Continue Reading →
