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No more happy talk

Activists within the Democratic party have shown energy, staging demonstrations such as “no kings” to “workers over billionaires.” Moreover, California Governor Gavin Newsom has pushed back against the Texas redistricting scheme and President Donald Trump’s attempt to take over American municipalities. Also, Democrats won a special election in Iowa for the state senate. You could say they have enjoyed a good summer. As Lee Corso says, “Not so fast, my friend.” Despite the activist energy and successes, the Democratic National Committee has managed to impede any sense ...

Wanting it both ways

If there is a drawback to Donald Trump’s foreign policy, it is that he wants it both ways. For example, his approach to Ukraine resembles the reaction many Americans had to Vietnam in the late sixties. Surveys in 1969 found that one response was “I want peace, but I don’t want to lose.” Currently, Trump seems to be in that lane. Vladimir Putin’s summer offensive appears to have enjoyed a measure of success. The defense network of hedgehog fortresses with complicated trenches and interlocking lines so assiduously built up by the Ukrainian military has become frail. Any ...

Avoiding the malaise

Herbert Hoover was well-liked in his day, praised for his engineering prowess which he used to tackle major worldwide problems following World War I. He was a natural choice for president in 1928. But then the 1929 stock market crash happened, followed by the Great Depression. None of these things were exclusively the fault of Hoover, and frankly most of what his successor —Franklin Roosevelt — did to end the Great Depression worked until World War II broke out and we flexed our production muscles. But Roosevelt is remembered for ending the Great Depression and Hoover is ...

Governance by threat, not constitutional order

The Constitution of the United States lays out a complex scheme of governance that has mostly worked for the 237 years since it became effective with the ratification of the ninth state, New Hampshire, in 1788. There have been exceptions, of course. Abraham Lincoln took extraordinary steps to quell the rebellion of 11 Southern states. Franklin Roosevelt disregarded judicial precedent and daily reset the price of gold by whim. President Donald Trump, in his second term, has been doing something like the same thing by employing threats of actions outside traditional norms to get others ...

Dems’ flaws on display

More than 400 elected Democrat Party officials from all 50 states and seven territories huddled in Minneapolis this week before the horrible mass shooting at nearby Annunciation Catholic Church. The proceedings demonstrated a party in the wilderness, and the Democrats in the national media mostly steered clear. For starters, losing vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was on his usual bender that Kamala Harris “would have been a fantastic president,” and that if she had won, “we would wake up to an adult with compassion and dignity and leadership doing the work, ...

Grit is definitely important, but has it been overrated?

Never, never, never give up. This quote is associated with Winston Churchill, based on his famous speech delivered during World War II. It is often used to inspire people to persevere, to hold the line, to refuse to quit no matter what—in other words, to display grit. It is a great quote. But when I started digging deeper, I found it’s actually a shortened version of what Churchill really said: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.” The complete ...