Posts Tagged ‘history’

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Good News: Democracy Wins in Hungary

April 12, 2026

I’ve written similar headlines before. Such stories can later turn sour (like in Thailand). But let’s rejoice while we can. Hungary’s Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party, after 16 years in power, were finally decisively beaten in Sunday’s election by Peter Magyar’s new Tisza party.

Orban was the textbook authoritarian, democratically elected at first, then methodically eviscerating democracy. With extreme gerrymandering to disempower urban voters; a political machine fueled by massive crony corruption; suborning and neutering institutions like the courts, universities, and especially the news media. And within the European Union he’s acted as a stinker, as Putin’s ally.

Yet he’s been a MAGA darling — showing just how sick that movement is. Orban sucked them in by posturing as the avatar of traditional Christian cultural values, demonizing anyone outside that realm. Putin too has ensorceled MAGAns, with similar shtick. Both he and Orban crushing the freedom those right-wingers profess to valorize occasions no cognitive dissonance. It’s the allure of the “strong man.” Like masochist perverts aching for the crack of the whip, imagining an all-powerful leader putting things right. They never do.

Trump idolizes strongmen like Orban because he fancies himself one of them. And Orban’s being a nasty corrupt character actually helped. Trump loves bad guys precisely for their badness; identifies with them. A syndrome visible in some of his own voters.

And Trump had talked up Orban as a real friend to America. Deranged nonsense; Orban consistently acted against U.S. interests. By undermining our true allies, to the benefit of Putin. (Come to think of it, that describes Trump himself.)

Unlike for MAGA folks, democracy has always truly been my political North Star, not only morally but pragmatically, because it makes for better, happier, more prosperous populations. But the problem of democracy is that voters too often fail to get this, as shown by their “strong man” susceptibility. People often actually vote to emasculate themselves civically. Look at Turkey, repeatedly falling for Erdogan. Though thankfully, Hungary woke up.

Meantime, not only did Trump lionize Orban, he actually sent Rubio and Vance to Hungary to campaign for Orban. Outrageously meddling in another country’s politics. And Vance in Hungary had the chutzpah to denounce other European countries for supposed election interference. Saying they had cut off EU payments to punish Hungary for merely securing its borders against unwanted migrants. (Thus another familiar MAGA melody.) But Vance lied. The payment suspension was in fact due to the Orban regime’s corruption, with much of that money going into the pockets of its cronies.

However, the migrant issue was also one way Orban’s Hungary was undermining the European Union, not only refusing to cooperate with Europe-wide policies agreed by all the others, but actively blocking adoption of such measures. Including things like aid to Ukraine. EU voting rules can effectively give one country a veto, which Orban exploited to stymie and blackmail the others, especially on Putin’s behalf. (Arguably Hungary should have been expelled, or suspended, from the EU.)

Anyhow, the spectacle of top U.S. officials campaigning for a foreign politician was disgustingly bizarre — especially when it’s such a bad guy who actually serves the interests of a major American adversary. And the kicker irony is that it likely didn’t help Orban. Trump has made himself and America so hated globally that his open support for Orban may have been the kiss of death.

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Posted in history, Politics, World affairs | 1 Comment »

The Coming Illegal Trump Gold Coin

March 27, 2026

At our coin club Christmas party, I mentioned to a buddy that the U.S. Mint is planning a Trump coin.

“No way,” he said. “You’re joshing.”

No, this is real, I replied.

“C’mon. You’re just pulling my leg.”

I wasn’t.

The Coin World newspaper (I’ve subscribed for 63 years) always has extensive coverage of proposed commemorative coins. With much about a series marking our 250th anniversary of independence. But oddly, I saw there just a single article illustrating a design portraying Trump — on both sides, no less. You’d think a U.S. coin issue would have to go through a lot of process. Yet it wasn’t even clear how this was happening.

My friend was so skeptical because he knew it’s illegal to put a living person on a U.S. coin. There’ve been a few strange exceptions — but nothing this blatant.

Two government bodies have a role in coin design — the Commission of Fine Arts (Trump has fired and replaced all its members) and the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (immune from him.)*

Coin World normally steers clear of anything smacking of politics. Recently it reported, deadpan, on a Republican congressman’s filing a bill to award a Congressional gold medal to a 23-year-old right-wing internet provocateur. I sent a letter-to-editor criticizing the article’s failure to note this is controversial. It wasn’t printed.

But comes now the March 23 issue with a long remarkable article about the CCAC in open revolt against the regime.

Congressional legislation requires CCAC review before any coin design is selected. Looking toward 2026 quarter commemoratives, the CCAC, as the culmination of a lengthy process, sent the Treasury Secretary a set of recommended designs. Which were completely ignored — the mint is moving forward with five totally different ones, never presented to the CCAC as required by law.

The mint seems to justify this glaring illegality by hypothesizing that sometime in the past the CCAC might have had some opportunity to see the new designs. The CCAC rejects this nonsense, and has communicated its outrage to the mint in no uncertain terms.

None of those five quarter designs depicts Trump, and what seems totally bizarre about Coin World’s article is no mention of the separate (gold, naturally) Trump issue. Except, obliquely, once: it quotes the opening statement by CCAC member Donald Scarinci at their February 24 meeting.

He begins by lauding Trump, yet ends with this: “For 250 years since [the Declaration of Independence] was signed, no nation on earth has issued coins with the image of a democratically elected leader during the time of their service. [My emphasis] Only those nations ruled by Kings or dictators display the image of their sitting ruler on the coin of the realm.”

The Mint has now finally made it official that it will issue a Trump gold coin, with a newly revealed facing portrait. While his appointed Fine Arts Commission approved it, the CCAC has refused to consider it. Again, the law requires CCAC review before any new coin design can be used. The Mint is ignoring that, and also invoking some dubious legal theory to evade the prohibition on portraying a living person. Making the coin doubly illegal.

We’ve just learned Trump’s also putting his signature on paper money. All this, we keep hearing, is about his “legacy.” The fool does not see he’s cementing a legacy as one of history’s greatest monsters. We also keep hearing that the American people deserve better. No, we don’t — we voted for this.

Tomorrow there will be the next “No Kings” rallies.

* I’d repeatedly applied for the CCAC, feeling well qualified. In fact I’d been appointed by President Nixon to the 1972 U.S. Assay Commission, tasked with ensuring that coinage met standards. Arguably a bigger deal. That body was soon abolished; and as the youngest of few ex-Commissioners, I have a shot at becoming the last survivor. But I finally gave up on the CCAC.

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Posted in history, Politics, stinking piece of shit | 2 Comments »

The Answer for Long Airport Lines: Abolish TSA

March 25, 2026

Because the regime won’t negotiate reasonable restrictions on its ICE paramilitaries, a partial government shutdown has hit not ICE but TSA air travel security operations. With agents unpaid, many skip work, causing long lines at airports.

The regime’s answer is deploying ICE to airports. Just the thing to reassure travelers! While most ICE guys are standing around there doing nothing.

Here’s a better solution:

Abolish TSA. Or, at least, greatly curtail its role, eliminating security lines and all that X-raying. Like at customs checkpoints — allow travelers to walk right through, with some agents stopping only ones who seem suspicious.

What TSA does instead has been called “security theater,” because rather than providing any actual safety, its true role is to create an illusion of it.

There was always something fundamentally bizarre about this picture. Airplanes are a near-miraculous triumph of human technological rationality. Accompanied by a huge system to keep people from deliberately crashing them. Huh? (As if the latter system did that anyway.)

It’s been a quarter century since 9/11. In all that time, there seemingly hasn’t been a repeat, or threat of one. You might suggest TSA is the reason, making another 9/11 impossible. But surely that’s not so. The TSA system is full of holes. Test runs have shown much gets through, and clever determined terrorists can presumably foil it. Moreover, the idea of hijacking planes seems an archaic chimera today. Hacking into computer systems, or using drones, would be better terrorist options. Making TSA’s security theater all the more irrelevant.

So why does it still exist?

One reason is simple human inertia. Doing what we’ve always done, because we’ve always done it. We’re so accustomed to TSA we just don’t stop to question its continuing logic.

We even still have to remove our shoes because decades ago one pathetic schlub put explosives in his (but couldn’t even manage to detonate them).

We have trouble rationally assessing risks against costs. Life is full of risks. Of course we should do everything reasonable to minimize them; but “reasonable” includes consideration of cost. Would you spend $1000 to avoid a 1% chance of breaking a finger? In fact we do the equivalent all the time.

Suppose TSA did in fact prevent one 9/11 every decade. A 9/11’s costs are certainly large, including the value of lives lost. (Society does implicitly put a dollar value on a life; that’s what the 9/11 victim compensation scheme did.) But what does the prevention cost us? How much taxpayer money? And that’s far from the only cost. Billions of hours of people’s time wasted in lines has a cost too. And missed flights. Et cetera. The total cost of preventing that one episode surely far exceeds what the episode itself would cost us.

If that sounds callous — in fact we blithely accept far greater tragedies. Car crashes are not even a theoretical risk but a certainty. Killing about 38,000 Americans annually (far more than 9/11). There are things we could do to greatly reduce that carnage. Probably a better bargain than TSA security theater. But we don’t do them.

In 1973 I had a blind date to Mexico. I’d previously bought the ticket, with a different name on it; the airline didn’t even care. You just showed the ticket and waltzed onto the plane. No security theater. Remember those days?

Let’s have them back.

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Posted in Economics, history, life, Society | 1 Comment »

The Trump (No) Class Battleship

March 13, 2026

Trump has been trumpeting a Trump Class Battleship — to trump all others — as central to a plan for juicing up our navy, which has languished while China aggressively expands its own.

The Economist calls this part of a “garish proposal” for a “Golden Fleet.” Trump’s love for all things golden (and garish) is evidenced by the White House almost sinking under the weight of all the gold (or is it gilt?) ornamentation he’s larded into it, so he can feel like some potentate. And this new battleship would feed two other Trump cravings — his narcissist lust to have things named for himself — and bigness for bigness’ sake.

It would indeed be a behemoth three to four times larger than our current combat ships. And Trump says (though preposterously as usual) it will be “a hundred times more powerful than any battleship ever built.”

“Fighting the last war” is a cliche, but full of truth, especially in our own time when technology is so changing the face of warfare (as seen in Ukraine, with battlefields dominated by drones). Trump’s immense galleon would not be fighting the last war, but rather ones older still. Not since the 1940s have any ships of this general sort been commissioned.

And how exactly might these be used, in a modern war scenario? Hard to see, actually. The Economist does say the idea would “trade speed and range for armour and firepower.” Seems a lousy tradeoff, with hobbled speed enabling target vessels to elude the firepower. And the stupendous cost of $15 billion each (even without the customary overruns) would mean a further tradeoff, of having fewer vessels rather than many. Putting most of our eggs in this one basket.

It’s been ages since battleships played any real role in war. Not in the current Iran conflict. Conceivably it could happen if China attacks Taiwan; but that will likely come before any Trump Class ships can get built. Anyhow, concentrating our strength in a few monster vessels, rather than an agile dispersed fleet, would be a huge strategic gift to China.

A massive Trump battleship, like a musclebound giant, lumbering slow, would be a sitting duck for China to obliterate, whatever its armor. (As my wife remarked, “How ya gonna hide that thing?”) And losing just one would be a devastating blow, crippling our ability to combat China’s Taiwan assault.

Meantime though, would President TACO — caring nothing for democracy or a rules based world order — even deign to risk those ships to fight for Taiwan, against an authoritarian Chinese ruler he enviously admires?

So why build them? Not vessels of war but of ego.

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Posted in history, stinking piece of shit, World affairs | 2 Comments »

“The Librarians” — Versus Right Wing Culture Vandals

March 9, 2026

“The Librarians” is a 2025 film by Kim Snyder. My ex-librarian wife and I attended a screening, with a panel discussion, by the New York State Writers Institute. It’s about book purgings, with school librarians attacked by right-wing political agitators. Texas and Florida are epicenters.

“Moms for Liberty” is a leading front group. They like to sound grass-roots, but this is part of a well-funded national effort, pouring money into local school board elections. It’s not originating with concerned parents, but rather whipped up by calculating political operators, exploiting this as a wedge issue. Books in libraries were never previously a problem.

While many major societal institutions have crumpled to Trump regime dictates, librarians seem to be a major exception. Heroically bearing up to attacks that aren’t just verbiage. Quite a few have lost their jobs; many threatened with physical violence.

The film portrays mostly the librarians, but the other side gets a fair hearing, in their own words (which don’t do them credit). They want to ban any books about race issues, or having to do with sex or sexuality, especially non-conforming. Labelled “pornography,” with librarians accused of “grooming” children for aberrant sexual abuse.

Thus the mantra of “protecting children,” a constant right-wing trope, across a range of issues. It’s dishonest. They’re sure not protecting kids from ICE’s depredations; many who are U.S. citizens have had parents torn away; in fact many children themselves have been victimized. And while anti-abortion activists like to say they’re protecting the unborn, once born those children are of no concern to these crusaders, supporting policies that impoverish their families.

The whole “grooming” panic is a fraud too. As if kids are forced to read deviant pornography so they’ll be willing pedo victims. Never happened. Librarians may help youngsters by suggesting appropriate books, but don’t shove books at them. And their attackers, mounting moralistic high horses to beat upon the word “pornography,” don’t know what they’re talking about.

The film portrayed one movement activist, Courtney Gore, elected to a Texas school board determined to battle pornography in libraries. But, assiduously investigating, she could find none. Reporting this publicly, she was viciously attacked.

What this movement is trying to “protect” children against is learning about life and reality. About the diversity of human beings.

Another woman was shown, at a public meeting, vehemently invoking the Bible to condemn any portrayal of gays in library books. Then we meet her gay son, who was kicked out of the family. He speaks at another meeting, of how as a child he’d been inculcated with the Bible — a book full of murder, rape, genocide, slavery, and other horrors. His mother was present there too but kept her distance, unrepentant. This seemed very very sad.

This whole book-banning movement is spurred by Christianity and supposed Biblical dictates. Actually much sexual stuff okayed in the Bible would outrage any normal person today — treating women as commodities — while the book hardly even mentions same-sex relations. But these Bible-thumpers latch onto that (while ignoring so much else) because they’re hung up about sex in general and freaked out in particular by gay and transgender people. With whom they can’t relate as fellow humans.

“Hate the sin but love the sinner” is not their mindset. (Not that gayness is sinful in any rational moral sense.) What the film depicts is downright hatred. Showing us yet again that religion, far from promoting morality and goodness, often does the opposite, so scrambling believers’ brains that they can’t tell right from wrong. Their whole moral vision skewed by falsehood.

What they also want to “protect” children from is racial concerns. Thus the effort to ban any books by or about Black people — especially addressing slavery. It’s ironic that folks who screamed that removing Confederate monuments was “erasing history” want to erase slavery’s history — as though the Civil War had nothing to do with that anyway! Now the racist Trump regime is pushing this great cover-up.

They oppose portraying American history as all bad (“bad,bad,bad,bad,” one voice in the film said). But they want to make it all good, zero bad. However, America’s greatness does not lie with a sanitized version of our history — rather, with an honest one, showing that we’ve progressed, faced up to our past failings, and worked fix them. That made me proud of my country.

Those history scrubbers plead against making white kids feel bad about themselves over slavery. Well, slavery was a monstrous crime, which everyone should feel bad about. But that’s not the same as personal guilt. One panelist discussing the film, Roger Green, said the movement underestimates children, who are perfectly capable of understanding this.

It’s actually these white nationalists themselves who are still fixated on slavery and race. Slavery and its reverberations continue looming large in American society today, because they can’t let it go. They’re the ones who cannot put it all behind us and move on. Just like with gay and trans people, they can’t relate to Blacks as just fellow human beings.

As ever, the ugly racist behavior of white supremacists proves them the inferior ones. And that racist hostility toward non-whites is the core ethos of today’s right-wing Republicanism. Everything else is window-dressing.

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Posted in history, life, literature, Politics, Society | 6 Comments »

America’s Political Landscape: No Bullshit

March 5, 2026

Last April I wrote about a wonderful New York City conference run by James (“It’s the Economy, Stupid”) Carville’s “Democracy Matters” organization. My wife Therese and I attended another on March 3, intensively dissecting the political landscape.

Upon arrival, at the luxury Lotte Hotel, we encountered Carville in the elevator, which did not stop at the correct floor. Therese found how to get us all there. (We later learned these were the first working elevators in America!)

I wrote that the previous event had not a single word of bullshit (contrasting with the Republican side). That was true again. And while Democrats then were reeling from the 2024 election, this time the vibe was more upbeat.

We’ve wondered when the MAGA cult fever would break. Today it’s riven by divisions, as Trump’s approval ratings sink, from so much awfulness — tariffs, Epstein, ICE, now the Iran war. And while Democrats were even less popular, that too seems to be changing. So winning the House of Representatives looks highly likely (despite gerrymandering), and Senate prospects brighten. Dems need to gain four seats, and more look in play than previously thought. I’m starting to smell a “wave election.”

Begala

Paul Begala, former Bill Clinton advisor and legendary political strategist, did many interviews. First with Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, participant in the famous video reminding military folks not to obey illegal orders. Crow now heads the Democrats’ congressional campaign; seems doing a great job recruiting electable candidates, many from outside politics who’ve really done something. And he said many who’d voted Trump now realize he’s stabbed them in the back.

Polling expert Molly Murphy said many 2024 voters thought the economy had been better under Trump; but it’s not now; and they’re not buying his blaming Biden. Twenty percent of Trump voters say they regret that vote (something quite unusual).

Carville quoted Texas senate candidate Jasmine Crockett saying non-white Trump voters showed a “slave mentality.” Not the way to win their hearts! He opined that Harris lost not because she’s a Black woman but because voters wanted a change, and she wasn’t offering that.

Much discussion focused on working class voters and young men in particular. Today’s big electoral dividing line is educational level; and while most highly educated voters back Democrats, they’re a minority. High percentages of young men feel very stressed, unable to meet societal expectations to be family providers and protectors. Needing multiple jobs to keep heads above water. Vulnerable to homelessness. Only a quarter think Trump is delivering.

Another panel addressing these matters included former DNC Chair and Labor Secretary Tom Perez, and ex-Governor Steve Bullock of Montana. Arguing that one’s politics are often shaped by culture. There’s much feeling that flush educated elites exploit the rest; student loan forgiveness, for example, seen as unfairly benefiting better-off people at the expense of ones worse off.

Former MSNBC host Katie Phang discussed how the right gained media dominance — with extreme voices to the fore. Creeps like Nick Fuentes; Andrew Tate; and Nick Shirley, whose very dubious video alleging Minneapolis day care fraud sparked much of the mayhem there. One I’d never even heard of, “Clavicular,” just turned twenty, is a big if weird thing online. Fuentes says Trump is not Nazi enough. This crap is disgracefully pushed at people by Social media algorithms.

But MAGA cultists are not just insane. Their main attractor is being part of a group or community, their new families. (Such is the vibe at Trump rallies.) Providing a sense of validation and power which they otherwise feel the culture denies them.

Phang pointed to the “election fraud” nonsense as a “through-line,” resulting in Trump elevating really sketchy people, and feeding into the war on immigrants. Looking to deploy ICE and other armed forces during voting. Assaulting freedom of information, as with the arrests of journalists like Don Lemon. While “mainstream media” is often intimidated, neutered, and even taken over outright by powerful pro-Trump operators.

Begala interviewed noted historian Heather Cox Richardson. Who opined we’re actually on the cusp of a new progressive era, a reaction against widespread feelings of societal unfairness. Trump was supported as an antidote, the radical right’s fantasy president. But they increasingly realize he’s a wrecker (epitomized again by the Iran war). Richardson noted that in polls, an extraordinary 51% now strongly disapprove of him. But it’s hard for cultists to face that they’ve lived a lie for so long. The crazier your beliefs, the more you have to believe them.

Richardson said ideas change the world. And the “heteronormative” nuclear family has never truly reigned in America; a better policy orientation for Democrats would center upon children. Globally, the post-WWII world order is falling apart, replaced by a “variable geometry,” with groups of nations working together and separately at the same time. (Trump’s horrible alternative is a world ruled by three giant spheres of influence.)

There was mention of Vance’s presidential prospects. In the Q&A, I asked why Donald Junior wouldn’t run? And win the nomination? (Just based on his name.) But he was dismissed as lacking the capability. More likely: Tucker Carlson.

Yikes.

Okay, not entirely uplifting. But the evening sessions were. Begala interviewed two terrific gubernatorial candidates. Florida’s David Jolly was a Republican Congressman (2014-17) who switched. He explained he’d had three basic values: an economy working for everyone; government improving our lives; and everyone’s rights protected and dignity respected. Like me, he left the Republican party when its ethos became perverted against those values. (How sad that so few Republicans have done likewise.)

Iowa’s Rob Small was all about connecting with people on a personal level; making it inclusive, not exclusionary (like Republicans do). Partisan invective doesn’t help. He said people vote their values, not necessarily their economic interests (something I’ve long said when left-wingers whine that voters betray their economic interests).

The finale was Begala with Kentucky Governor (and presidential possibility) Andy Beshear. He said people are not as political as we think (echoing previous points about culture’s salience). They’re most concerned with life issues. We mustn’t mistake kindness for weakness. And Democrats must talk like normal human beings — like, saying “hunger” rather than “food insecurity.”

As the program and dinner were ending, Texas senate primary votes were being reported, with the moderate (more electable) Democrat, James Talarico, beating Crockett. Carville stood up, got the room’s attention, and shouted, “We’re gonna win the fuckin’ Senate!”

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Posted in history, life, Politics, Society | 2 Comments »

“America’s Greatness” — a Guest Commentary

February 27, 2026

Back in June, Albany’s Times-Union had a commentary by footballer Jay Paterno. That was even before Minneapolis was hit by what was like a foreign invading army. But I still think the essay worth sharing. I’ve condensed it for brevity:

What does “America First” and its greatness look like?

Not found at the end of a baton swung by an officer in riot gear attacking peaceful protesters. Not in deploying our military to the streets to provide a sideshow for political gain.

The greatness of America was found in the bravery of women and men as fire hoses and attack dogs were set loose in Selma. In marches for women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, voting rights. Part of the soul, the strength of America.

We cede part of our soul when petty people remove the names of past leaders from ships because they supposedly represent “DEI” they find offensive. When we name military bases for men who took arms against the Union. Dishonor freedom when we whitewash unpleasant truths and history.

The greatness of America is not a nation retreating from loyal allies but found in unity with those allies who stood with us after 9/11, and against the aggression of the USSR, or ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

Our greatness is a nation confident in ourselves as a true land of opportunity open to all, no matter where they come from, who they choose to be, or who to love. The greatness is in leaders who welcome freedom of speech and being challenged in the marketplace of ideas.

But we are seeing masked agents raiding and disappearing people. Free speech stifled on campus, in our streets, and on social media. Retreat from leadership in education, research, and science. From fighting hunger and disease around the world. Closing its doors to the world, including trade and international student enrollment.

American greatness came in moments like the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, the international AIDS initiatives of George W Bush, and the response to the Ebola outbreak, saving countless lives.

Attempts to curb freedom to voice dissent, or the rule of law, come from those lacking bravery. Spewing venom, and using power to browbeat anyone opposing their agenda.

We all want to live in a great nation, standing as a beacon of hope and stability as the shining city on the hill that Reagan spoke about. He believed in one of our most powerful symbols, the Statue of Liberty. Holding high her lamp, lighting the way for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the embodiment of America’s aspirational and inspirational example to the world.

That image of Lady Liberty rings hollow now. Armed thugs bully people on the orders of wannabe tough guys retreating into hate and xenophobia.

America has been governed by confident people who could defend the rule of law and support the Constitution and our nation’s values. The leader who imagines he is uniquely more intelligent or more important than all who came before is certain to fail.

With the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we set an example for the world. Now the world sees us backing away from our founding principles.

Right now, many live in fear of our government. Those who govern by fear reveal far more about their own insecurities and failings than they do about our nation.

Until we can all aspire to our founding principles, we are not first in anything, and we fall short of the standards set for us by founders so visionary that their blueprints for our nation have lasted for centuries.

[FSR afterword: How can any decent person still support this vile, vulgar, corrupt, crooked, crass, cruel, lawless, dishonest, destructive, hate-filled, sick racist regime?]

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Posted in history, Philosophy, Politics, Society, stinking piece of shit | 5 Comments »

Honoring Lincoln on President’s Day: Character Matters

February 16, 2026

Here is a commentary, from August, by former White House correspondent Christi Parsons; condensed by me:

They might seem like a president’s performative gestures: A quiet visit with a wounded soldier’s wife. A conversation with a battlefield nurse or a kitchen worker. A hand extended to a Black woman who had been enslaved.

Abraham Lincoln didn’t publicize these moments. Even as he held the Union together with the force of his will — even as he buried his own child and bore the weight of a nation at war — he made time for mercy. He listened to the voices of those without power, a practice that steeled him for wielding his own.

Empathy is getting a bad rap these days. Elon Musk declared it the “fundamental weakness” of Western civilization, summing up the ethos of the administration. Even those who defend empathy speak of it mainly as a private virtue.

But in the hands of a great leader, empathy can become a powerful political force. Whenever America has begun to fray — during war, depression, civil upheaval — the country has rallied behind a president who focused on the disenfranchised. If we’re to survive our current crisis of division, our civic leaders need to do the same. And, as citizens, so do we.

How did Lincoln cultivate the trait of empathy? Partly by surrounding himself with compassionate people. That’s according to “Loving Lincoln,” a new biography examining his story through the lives of women who were his key influencers. Which, historian Stacy Lynn writes, “offer evidence of Lincoln’s kindness and sensitivity, his patience, his moral center, his social and political virtues, the breadth of his compassion, and his inspirational legacy.” His White House became a place of mercy and goodwill.

President Lincoln welcomed Black people there. Urged to visit camps where newly freed families lived, he went. To meet the gaze of all these people, to shake their hands, to give them audience — these were not symbolic gestures. They were radical acts of inclusion. Meaningful for us today, in our moment of deep national division.

Lincoln spoke publicly of the need for love and compassion. He surrounded himself with confidantes who embraced it. And he took action on it, emancipating millions from bondage.

In the grand scheme of things, it was just a few years ago that Lincoln led our country through something much worse than what we’re now experiencing. Then he spoke of binding up our wounds, “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” How powerfully his words land in our hearts today.

* * *

This commentary, predating Trump’s vile response to the Reiner murder, and Minneapolis atrocities, so aptly highlights how we’ve gone off the rails. The stark contrast between Lincoln and Trump shows how character matters. All human history can be seen as the story of how we view and treat each other. This is my humanism speaking: feeling myself part of a great striving to lift ourselves up. All of us.

This was Lincoln’s ethos. I had believed it was, most fundamentally, America’s. But while Lincoln remains a plaster icon, few Americans today understand what he truly represented. We’ve turned our backs on it by empowering his total antithesis. Summoning not “the better angels of our nature,” but our demons.

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Posted in history, life, Philosophy, Politics, Society, stinking piece of shit | 6 Comments »

Justice, Accountability, Reckoning — Or Forgiveness?

February 8, 2026

A periodic gathering of old friends was discussing — inevitably these days — our nation’s “situation.” How it’s unfolded, and what’s the way forward?

Why did half of Americans choose as they did? Their grievances understandable, yet so ill-served by who they entrusted. But, one asserted, “they hate Democrats more.” True, Democrats have often seemed waylaid, by other (sometimes misguided) concerns, from their core of seeking a better deal for struggling everyday Americans. But at least their hearts are still in that right place. Whereas Republicans pay it lip service while cynically betraying it.

“I am your retribution,” Trump told those aggrieved folks. Never mind that what they (should have) wanted was help, not vengeance. And it was his own he really craved, not theirs. A man handed everything in life, going from (undeserved) triumph to triumph, the world kissing his ass, nevertheless so consumed by resentments. “Treated very unfairly” an obsessive mantra. (Recently saying it about whites vis-a-vis Blacks. Though I don’t recall many whites lynched by Black mobs.)

But back to retribution — central in that friends’ conversation was a felt need for justice and accountability, regarding this regime’s criminal outrages. Hoping the next one provides a proper reckoning and reset.

A thirst for justice is deeply embedded in human nature. Programmed by evolution into our early forebears, living in small bands in tough circumstances, social solidarity was vital for survival, so violations of it could not be tolerated. Hence our hunger to see them punished. (This is why Hell was invented. People frustrated by imperfect justice on earth were consoled by imagining evildoers punished later.)

I have this justice lust myself, in spades. (Maybe part of why I became a lawyer.) Further, the concept of accountability is integral to democracy. The idea that rulers are not free to do as they please; only if they are not can the citizenry be free. Thus the principle, “no one is above the law.” Everyone accountable.

But life is not so simple. And while I shared the group’s zeal to mete out justice for this regime’s transgressions, I found myself doubting that’s what we need most. This nation does need help more than retribution.

Trump and Republicans made great political hay with cries that machineries of justice were improperly “weaponized” against them. Yet Trump in particular was guilty of real and serious crimes, and the true perversion of justice was his escaping penalties. That’s what Democrats may really be faulted for, not playing hardball like Republicans. Who now themselves show us how “weaponization” of justice is done, persecuting political targets with phony legal cases.

This escalating cycle of political recrimination must stop. It’s tearing apart America’s social fabric.* And we can’t expect relief to come from Republicans, the primary culprits.

Jesus may not have been a real person but his preachings in the Bible are salient here. Rejecting “eye for an eye” mores in favor of “turning the other cheek.” The latter may be a bridge too far, but not humility, mercy and forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a difficult concept. It does not require blinding oneself to wrongs done, as though they never happened. Rather, it means choosing to put that aside, closing the book on it, and going forward afresh. Because that serves us better than does recrimination. It is not justice; but justice is not the sole paradigm for living our lives.

This might seem like Democrats again playing nice while Republicans play rough; and they may well take advantage, pocketing the forbearance and showing none in return. But we can only be responsible for our own behavior, not that of others. Doing what we deem right and good, even if they do not reciprocate.

The forthcoming Democratic House of Representatives should refrain from impeachments — however merited — but futile since a two-thirds Senate conviction is unattainable. And while Trump has pardoned many bad people for bad, even corrupt reasons, Democrats should make clear their administration will forego at least some prosecutions, not because that’s just, but to help heal the nation. Like when Ford pardoned Nixon.

This seems the only pragmatically hopeful path forward for this nation, out of the ugly morass into which we’ve fallen. It’s a war neither side can win; neither can be beaten into submission. One side at least must come to grips with that reality.

* A mainstay in a hobby club just told me he’s quitting because its president made a pro-Trump remark.

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Posted in history, life, Politics, Society | 3 Comments »

Jack Smith in Bizzarroland

January 27, 2026

How fitting if in the end the only person criminalized for January 6 is . . . Jack Smith. The special prosecutor.

Of course some 1500 people were convicted for violent crimes committed that day. But Trump’s pardons voided those verdicts. Trump himself was initially charged as the center of the conspiracy to steal the presidency. Also for his stealing classified documents. He curses out Jack Smith, the prosecutor, as “deranged” and a “criminal” who should himself be prosecuted. Trump’s Department of “Justice” will no doubt cook up a case.

Laying the groundwork, the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jim Jordan, called Smith to testify. “Our investigation,” Smith stated there, “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity.” And tried to silence and intimidate potential witnesses against him. Much of the evidence actually came from Republicans who’d voted for Trump.

But every Republican in that hearing lambasted Smith as some rogue prosecutor acting improperly for partisan motives, as “election interference.” They’ve long been screaming about “weaponization” of the machineries of justice. Trump now deems this the worst such case in all history!

Reality: the Biden Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, desperate to avoid any whiff of politics, dithered for two years before belatedly appointing the special prosecutor. That inexcusable delay was the true miscarriage of justice here, enabling Trump to get off the hook; the cases had to be abandoned when he was elected again, due to a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president (something not in the Constitution). Had the cases gone to trial, conviction would have been highly likely.

Also reality: Trump lost the 2020 election (for obvious reasons). Even his toady Attorney General Barr said so. Every lawsuit seeking to overturn the results was thrown out of court. An Arizona audit, conducted by Republican partisan hacks, ended by finding more Biden votes. Trump made up the “stolen election” lie from nothing only because his damaged psyche couldn’t face being a loser.*

Yet not only have Republicans made that lie gospel, but after it sparked the violence of January 6, they adopted a further gospel that that event was something innocent, not at all what we saw with our own eyes.

They even say the real criminals were those involved in the January 6 prosecutions. All have been fired. And despite Republican blather about “weaponizing” justice, it’s they who, with no sense of irony, now so blatantly weaponize it against Jack Smith and other people Trump hates. That Congressional hearing itself a perversely prime example.

Politics properly involves disagreements over principles and policy, and even differing interpretations of facts. But what we have here is something else entirely: war upon reality. Untruth has indeed become a 1984-ish core principle of this Republican regime, seen in its gaslighting about the Good and Pretti murders in Minneapolis.** Shoving those obvious lies down our throats, just to flaunt their power. This is today’s deeply sick Bizzarro Republican cult.

* Another big GOP lie was the “Russia hoax.” Russia did help Trump in the 2016 election. So did the FBI — publicizing its investigation of Clinton’s emails, but not of Trump’s Russia ties. Reopening the Clinton probe right before the election killed her candidacy.

** Calling them “domestic terrorists,” when it’s obvious the domestic terrorists are the ICE thugs.

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Posted in history, Politics, stinking piece of shit | 4 Comments »

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