Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Hope and Fears as I Cast My Ballot

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I’ll be voting a split ticket today, some Rs, some Ds. Historically, I’ve voted straight tickets, but this year I just can’t. I’ll be voting for Harris/Walz on the national scene, but for Dave Reichert for governor of WA and probably for the Republican for attorney general. Reichert is the most normal, reasonable Republican to make it to the general election ballot in years, and I am anxious for a change in Olympia. 

My concerns at the state level are with a too-soft approach to crime and a too-woke approach to education. Not to worry, lefty friends, there is no chance that Reichert will win. I’ll continue to be a lonely centrist in a far left state come January.

The national election is too close to call as of today, October 22, 2024. I am anxious about it. My curious streak wants to see what would happen if Trump were to win. Would our fears be realized? Would the world as we know it vanish before our eyes? I’m not willing to risk it, so I’ll be voting for Harris, but I’m anxious about the future even if she wins. 

I have a wild set of hopes and fears if Harris takes the oath in January. Yes, I’d love to see a capable woman become president! And Harris is good enough for me. The long row of white men who have preceded her in the office have not necessarily been the best men in the country at their time. They’ve succeeded in winning for a variety of reasons. Most of them grew in competence while in office. (I can’t imagine that anyone is ready to assume the job of leader of the free world on Day 1.) Harris will be a fast learner, and her values and goals are fine with me…

…With a couple of concerns: Just how woke is she? Can she support the rights of trans adults while accepting the need to temper the demands of the most extreme trans activists with regard to children? Can she temper the enthusiasm of public schools to denigrate both our history and the legitimate accomplishments of western culture? Can she address concerns about the criminal justice system the way she did in her book, “Smart on Crime,” rather than follow the radicals who ruled in 2020? 

On the international scene, I have hopes that Harris will be more supportive of Ukraine than Biden has been, and by that I mean I hope she will support the goal of winning in Ukraine, not just fighting until everyone is exhausted.Trump would just give the Donbas and Crimea to Putin and wash his hands of it all. At least, if she wins, we won’t be pulling the rug out from under Ukraine immediately. 

As for Israel, I don’t have confidence in either Trump or Harris. No one knows what Trump would do. He has insisted that October 7 would not have happened if he’d been in office, Ukraine would not have been invaded, no bad things at all. BS, in my mind. I don’t think his craziness, which he now cultivates as an asset, will prevent all bad things. So what would he actually do for the Middle East? I’m confident that even he has no idea.

What about Harris? More restraints on Israel? Fewer restraints? Could she find moderate Muslim partners to rebuild Gaza? Two States for Two Peoples! Yada, yada, yada. Create a Palestinian state without a complete change of heart by Palestinian leaders willing to accept Israel vocally, in public, risking assassination by doing so – that would mean two states armed sufficiently to maintain order, but also armed for self defense. Personally, I think it will take at least a generation of calm, perhaps longer, before Israel would again consider two equal states. But a Palestinian “starter state?” We should at least talk about it.

People can change. I’ve seen it. My father’s family was just fine with Jim Crow. Separate drinking fountains? Fine with them. Separate schools, of course. Separate public accommodations, sure. And then? They let it go. They didn’t all accept the equality of black and white, but they let go of Jim Crow, and many black Americans have taken advantage of opportunities afforded to them. Remember, though, that we were not rushing to bomb shelters, within our homes, when rockets were fired at us by the victims of Jim Crow. No one had armed them hoping to obliterate us. Rather, we had a leader who spoke courageously of judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

Palestinians who might have had the potential to become voices for peaceful coexistence have been systematically “taken out” by Hamas and others. Will any surface from the rubble of Gaza? I trust Harris much more than Trump to find them if they are there and work with them. 

Hopes and fears. I have some hopes and many fears as I cast my ballot this year. How about you?

MLK, BLM, Glenn Loury, Donald Trump

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Flawed human beings can do good. 

This morning, I read a moving article by Angel Eduardo on the FAIR website. It made the case that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a saint, but he was the right man at the right time to bring our attention to injustices that we needed to address. King was a powerful orator who made masterful use of non-violent tactics to bring attention to Jim Crow laws in the south and Jim Crow sentiments in the north. Yet he wouldn’t pass muster today with people who expect leaders of both the past and present to have no earthly flaws. 

BLM employs powerful rhetoric and surely has a winning slogan, “Black Lives Matter.” Yet it clamors for justice for individuals who have somehow gotten the message that only “the system” is wrong, that their own actions cannot be scrutinized, that no one needs to obey a cop, that admitting mistakes will fail the cause. Rosa Parks was primed for her role in the fight against racism. A less sympathetic woman was passed over. Yes, the system was unfair to both, but we benefitted from the decision to use Rosa Parks to advance the cause. When individuals can readily be discredited, advancing the cause is more difficult. Knowing this, MLK hid his flaws. And he made sure to focus on people who were undeserving of the ill treatment they received.

Glenn Loury: Flawed. Intelligent. Honest about his struggles. And barely getting the attention he deserves. I look forward to the release of his memoir this spring, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. Glenn posts on Substack, and every other week, he and John McWhorter do a podcast on race issues in which they speak heresy and challenge each other to clarify and justify their thinking. Thomas Sowell might be more famous, but Loury is absolutely the real deal in terms of a flawed person who has overcome many struggles (drugs and infidelity in addition to poverty) accomplished a great deal, and is now sharing his insights and wisdom. Admitting his flaws elevates Loury’s message that individual responsibility is still a vital element in individual achievement.

And then there’s Donald Trump. One thing I learned when I began reaching out to Trump voters is that his supporters are able to overlook his flaws because they like his message. Or they like some of his policies. Or they like the way he stands up to elites. This lesson is why I think it’s vital that we not vilify his supporters if we feel that Trump is dangerous or is too flawed to be President. If someone tells me that MLK was a womanizer, I’m not going to let that fact drown out his important message. 

No. I do not think Trump is of the same stature as Martin Luther King, Jr. No, I do not equate Trump and King in any way. I’m not even sure that Trump has a message for America. To me, he’s all about Trump, and he’s latched onto victim status in a way that true victims can only watch with amazement.

Here, I am just addressing the fact that people who support Trump are able to overlook his character flaws, so we might do better to address issues rather than character flaws when discussing Trump. There are some, you know: No plan for health care; no follow-through on infrastructure; no understanding of America’s role in global trade and global affairs; appointment of cronies to important agencies; insistence on gutting government rather than right-sizing it. 

And lest you think you’re right about everything, here’s a nifty (short) commercial that challenges that idea. From the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression: FIRE commercial