He’s got a last name for his first, and a first name for his last.
Any surprise if he has his politics backward?
Tag: Jobs
THAT LONGSTANDING TENUOUS SEAM IN THE GOP
For as long as I can remember, the Republican Party has had two wings that fit uneasily together – one essentially ideological, claiming a conservative label; the other, more pragmatic, meaning liberal. Think Taft versus Eisenhower. Even so, this was still the party of Lincoln, one way or the other.
And then, when the Southern Strategy landed Nixon in the White House, everything shifted. In the ensuing tilt, few pragmatists are left, and none of them would claim a liberal streak.
What now exists is an uneasy alliance of a core of the rich Wall Street contributors and the Tea Party-related corps of voters whose numbers have kept the GOP in office. (Yes, I know the Wall Street label isn’t quite accurate either, knowing how many of the biggest contributors live in Texas.) As the insightful book What’s Wrong With Kansas wonders, this has often meant electing officials whose policies and beliefs hurt the constituents’ own best interests. It’s been big money, in the end, over middle-class working families and voters.
What’s interesting at the moment is the way Donald Trump has taken control of the presidential primary away from the Wall Street establishment and is playing directly to the street-level party members. In the September 24 New York Review of Books, Michael Tomasky denotes two elements the party has been relying on – cultural and racial resentment, combined with spectacle – “the unrelenting push toward a rhetorical style over ever more gladiatorial and ever more outraged …” Or, as he says, “There is a strong tendency, perfected over the years by Fox News, to cover and discuss domestic politics as a combination of war, sport, and entertainment all at once.”
Voila! We have the Donald, who hails from a rival television network – something that has to add to the fury Fox is feeling. (Well, he has turned some of that back on Fox News itself in refusing to be interviewed … which leads to a whole other discussion.)
I’ve long wondered what it would take to split the Republican Party the way, say, abortion rights have weakened the Democrats. Maybe it won’t come down to a particular issue so much as a feeling of betrayal when it comes to a livable income for average American households – which now require two wage-earners, rather than just one as it did when I was growing up. The focus of the war-and-sport outlook just might turn in entertaining ways nobody would have predicted six months ago. Maybe we’ll actually get serious in the aftermath and consider solutions to some very real problems.
Or maybe a long simmering realignment might happen for the parties themselves.
WILL IT BE JEB AFTERALL?
Anyone else fascinated by the post mortems following the collapse of Scott Walker’s presidential campaign Monday? Each one seems to be bringing another facet to light on what was supposed to be one of the leading candidates.
From a newsroom perspective, writing the headlines could have been fun, playing with the surname:
Walker
quits
race
or
Walker
ends
run
for instance, except that officially he’s only suspended his campaign – the technical difference meaning he can still accept financial contributions. So maybe it’s more
End of the road for Walker.
One of the telling strands for me is that the Wisconsin governor spent most of his campaign chest building a national organization rather than concentrating on the face-to-face opportunities of the first-round states. I haven’t heard much about the traditional New Hampshire living room presentations by White House hopefuls so far this round, and after last weekend’s Michigan straw poll, in which the winners were all folks who showed up, unlike the so-called frontrunners, let me return to the importance of building a following one voter at a time rather than by flooding the airwaves with ads.
In other words, this Walker didn’t lose much shoe leather walking from household to household making himself a household name around here. Or, apparently, in Iowa, which borders on his own Wisconsin.
From a campaign finance point of view, it costs peanuts to rent a motel room and move about, if you’re serious about running. Or, for the more committed, renting an apartment.
The national stories, as you may have seen, are raising detailed questions about his integrity, spending, organization, preparation, demeanor, inner character, inability to lead, and so on. One that I’d add spins off from his assertions that God had called him to run – a claim supported by his pastor. From my perspective, that just might violate the Fourth Commandment, taking the name of the LORD in vain. As the New Jerusalem Bible translates the text (Exodus 20:7), “You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished anyone who misuses his name.” (Name meaning power, rather than a word alone.) Admittedly, nobody really expects humility from a campaigner, no matter how much the faithful are supposed to practice it. Still! A dose of it wouldn’t hurt.
Some other interesting examinations are focusing on the failure of big money, meaning the super PACs, to deliver public support thus far in the race. Well, it’s still early. Just wait.
~*~
The other hot development involves the GOP’s two leading candidates at the moment. Surely the Donald didn’t expect to get through this unscathed, did he? Carly Fiorina’s getting traction in her attacks on him, but it comes at a price. As a Washington Post headline put it today: “Trump’s sexism vs. Fiorina’s dishonesty.” A Slate headline, meanwhile, crowed her “days as GOP star are numbered.”
This fight could be riveting, especially if it drags out or others jump in. Want to talk about entertainment value and combative style?
~*~
While things are still relatively quiet here in the Granite State, it does have some of us wondering. Jeb Bush seems to be managing his funds prudently, has significant Establishment connections, and is still plodding away. Is it possible he might be the last man standing when it comes time for the nomination? Or are there other twists in the plot ahead? Someone, say, meeting folks where they live?
EVEN NIGHTMARES OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS
Dreams, even nightmares, carry us far beyond rational thinking and on into realms of deeper perception. Along those free-flowing lines, Big Inca versus a New Pony Express Rider is a trip atop raw forces percolating through high-stakes financial and political power plays here in America and abroad.
In the novel’s three-year course, daily encoded messages between Bill in the field and his boss in corporate HQ – plus two colleagues who flit in and flit out – sketch a covert gamble centered on restoring historic but decrepit riverfront mills for secret technological manufacturing.
So what do you do for a living? And how does it make a difference?
At least Bill’s not flipping hamburgers. Or selling video games.
He could be grateful. At least until Big Inca starts flexing muscle, in the background.
And then it’s a race for his life.
The Inca have a brutal history to be reckoned with, after all. As Bill discovers, history’s far from finished. Pay attention when the Third World comes calling.
~*~
The novel is available here.
WHERE ARE THE SIGNS OF SUPPORT?
As the presidential gears up here in New Hampshire before the primary, along with the Iowa caucuses, I’m looking at something other than survey numbers. How about some evidence of real energy around a candidate?
On the Republican side, for all of the Donald’s flutter, I’ve seen only one property with Trump signs on the lawn. Just one. And, for that matter, not a single bumper sticker. Does he even have them? As for the others in the race? I’m waiting. (If I didn’t have a schedule conflict a few nights ago, I’d have attended the Donald’s appearance just up the road – but a rally’s not the same as a meet-and-greet, question-and-answer session where we get to size up a candidate. It’s only a special guest appearance.)
Where I do see the grassroots energy is almost entirely with Bernie. Bumper stickers, lawn signs, lapel pins, face-to-face events, canvassers ringing doorbells. All combined with a smoothly functioning organization. At the moment, his camp feels like a party, in fact. Along with the oft-repeated quip, “He’s the one who’s really telling it like it is.”
FRESH OUT OF COLLEGE
Bill’s just a generalist fresh out of college when he’s tapped by an international conglomerate to scope out some historic riverside mills and the down-at-the-heels town that surrounds them. A job’s just a job after all, isn’t it? Even when he’s expected to work under cover? Isn’t it what any good anthropologist would do?
As his reports find favor at corporate headquarters, he’s instructed in the machinations to covertly buy up the decrepit millyard under the pretext of restoration. In the process, Bill slowly recognizes his real mission is far more complex, challenging, perhaps even sinister – and lucrative – than he’d entertained. It’s a mindboggling brew.
Even before moody Big Inca shows up in the background.
~*~
The novel is available here.
WELCOME TO THE PARTY
Remember the axiom about casinos, “The house always wins”?
Think about that when it comes to the Donald versus the GOP Establishment – the one that’s often seemed to be the House of Rove, Rumsfeld, and Cheney.
It’s a high-stakes game, indeed, and a lot of high rollers and table proprietors are getting really nervous. When do they call in Security? Or who’s about to lose a proverbial shirt or more?
Let’s watch as the adrenaline kick in and the poker faces crack open. It’s been too dull up till now. Let’s see who can put how much on the line …
WATCHING THE REPUBLICAN CIRCUS
Still waiting to hear something new.
HARD-HEADED RESOLVE IN THIS MATTER OF DIVERSITY
As I said at the time …
May I plead for some hard-headed Friends in our midst? We’ve been blessed with many compassionate, sensitive, open-hearted individuals. (Not that we wouldn’t welcome many, many more to join in our circle.) But in our emotions and good intentions, we can also be easily swept up in more than we can handle as a faith community.
There are many reasons to value the Friend who asks the hard or even embarrassing question in the midst of our business discussions, even if we find ourselves momentarily annoyed. The one who keeps asking, How will we pay for this? Who will do it? What are the long-term consequences? Where’s the documentation? Sometimes it’s someone who sees needed repairs and sets about getting them done. The legal issues and nagging details, too. Often, it seems like throwing a wet blanket over our enthusiasm, but I’d rather have that happen before we set out on a venture than have us break down in discouragement when unexpected difficulties arise once the project is in motion or we find we lack the time and commitment to follow through.
For all of our talk of diversity, we do tend to be largely a self-selected group – like attracted to like – and this can leave us with some large gaps in our skills and outlooks. Any auto mechanics or accountants, for instance? Or, as the French novelist Andre Gide once asked, Where are the shoemakers and cobblers in the Society of Friends these days? Which is another way of saying, the people who help us keep our feet on the ground when we’re caught up in the Spirit.
WITHDRAWAL AND INTEREST
As I wrote at the time …
Remember when all the banks were centralizing? This was bad news for most cities, taking our money someplace else. You could see it in the way they put the screws to us. Overdrawn? Need to talk to a teller about your account? A safe deposit box? Here are our new fees, and they’re going up sharply. Pure economic theory pointing toward monoply. What happens as competition diminishes. Nobody’s explained why this had to happen. The legislators should have known better. They owned too many shares to be disinterested.
The insurance companies, too. When juries began handing out awards that few individuals could afford to pay, the insurance companies must have been gladdened, for it meant none of us could afford to be without their policies. Now, however, none of us can afford their policies, either. And they dare cry out for relief from a problem they encouraged for so long?
Where does that leave us? My auto insurance costs more than the car. Back in Maryland, a friend tried calling her company after it cancelled her auto policy when it refused her check and then, in cahoots with the state bureaucracy, she was being told to return her auto tags; the bastards at the insurance company were all snippy, even the operator; they wouldn’t even return the inquiries of her agent.
Just sign on the line. “But I refuse to swear or affirm. It’s against my religion. See Matthew.”
“Look, don’t make waves. Just sign it, OK?” So they want me to sign something that says I live up to my word, but for me to do that means I have to violate my principles.
My Bible has a story about Goliath …
Jnana's Red Barn 