Do You Have a Right to Privacy?

 Do You Have a Right to Privacy?  Most Americans would say, Hell yes!  But wait.

William Falk of The Week asked that question in his December 24th editorial and it piqued my interest.  Surprisingly, the US Constitution is mute on the subject.  It wasn’t until I was well into my college years and beyond before the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in with the Griswold, Loving, and Lawrence rulings of 1965, 1967, and 2003 respectively.  Prior to those decisions, individual states could imprison you for using contraception, marrying someone of another race, or engaging in sodomy in your own bedroom.

Warren Court

It was in the 1965 Griswold decision that Justice William O. Douglas wrote that the Bill of Rights created a “zone of privacy” upon which the government could not intrude.  That concept became the foundation for Roe v. Wade in 1973, and five Republican appointees were in the 7-2 majority.  Douglas used the term “penumbra” when describing his implied zone of privacy.  In astronomy, a penumbra is the outer lighted shadow area seen during an eclipse.  Hence it is a partially shaded area.  In its legal form, it is an implied right or implied power guaranteed by the constitution but not specifically referenced therein.

While limited government and “don’t tread on me” have historically been Republican talking points, recent appointees to the SCOTUS are now claiming to be “Constitutional Originalists.”  The term “originalism” references a school of thought where the intended meaning of the original writers of the constitution should be more exacting.  It would discard any more modern interpretations.  To many, it is nothing more than a “dog whistle” for a strict conservative rule.

Dred Scott

Originalism is not new as it goes back to the 1857 Dred Scott case.  Originalists then would hold that citizenship was never intended to be applied to enslaved or even free Black Americans.  Fast forward to the 21st century and we have a rebranded constitutional originalism being used to justify all manner of government power over things like voting rights, abortion rights, and personal freedoms.  For conservatives, it is a means to an end and a justification for them to reinterpret established precedent.

It was the Warren court of 1953-1969, wherein civil rights and civil liberties were expanded as interpretations of implied rights guaranteed by the constitution.  Originalism is seen as a backlash to counter those advancements and recent Trump appointees are using it to justify limiting those advancements.  The notion that SCOTUS appointees would in any way remain neutral to conservative/liberal politics in their findings went out the window long ago.  Trump gained the support of the religious right with his promise to allow the ultra-conservative Federalist Society to approve all SCOTUS appointees.  Trump managed to appoint more federal judges per year in office than any of his predecessors.

Under the originalist thinking of newly appointed judges, privacy rights become a matter for popular opinion at the state level.  If it isn’t guaranteed specifically in the constitution, it’s up for grabs.  If you happen to live in a state with a strong conservative religious contingent, your personal right to privacy could be in jeopardy.  Some of these groups hold that “the pill,” IUDs, and other forms of contraception are “abortifacients” and should be outlawed.  Many don’t believe in same-sex or interracial marriage.

For those conservatives who still believe in limited government but feel it necessary to promote an originalist interpretation of the constitution, how are you going to feel when some powerful group gains popularity within a state and attacks a right that they believe isn’t specifically spelled out in the constitution?  You do remember that semi-automatic weapons aren’t mentioned in the constitution?  Under strict originalist thinking, the right to bear arms could have meant that only bears can own guns.  Or perhaps it was a typo, and they were just approving tank-tops.  I guess that technically it couldn't be a typo.  What would they call it?  Perhaps a quill-pen-o.

The World is a Funny Place

Politicians who formerly told the occasional fib or tall tale, now lie with such regularity that it has become an accepted form of normal behavior. You will note that I said politicians and not Democrats or Republicans. I didn’t use the conservative or liberal labels either. In the age of the “truth isn’t truth” (Rudy Giuliani, Aug. 2018), we are living in a time where mendacity is revered as a new position of logic between the real and unreal and which often encompasses both elements. It is a world that only Rod Serling would understand. 

Rod Serling in the Trump Zone

The tinfoil hat brigade now has a standing army that no longer fears ridicule. They readily walk among us with a newfound sense of acceptance. Crazy loves company and their numbers are staggering. They proudly wear their t-shirts and identifying paraphernalia. They have their own terminology and secret hand signs. Paranoid behavior and the belief in conspiracy theories once thought to be a psychological anomaly, is now more widely accepted. While I personally believe that their numbers haven’t really changed that much, they appear to have grown exponentially. I feel that there is a group of true believers at the core and then there are hangers-on that just crave acceptance or see an opportunity to benefit from the weaknesses of others. 

Tinfoil Hat

Political grifters use such people for their own purposes. Tell a lie, make it so outrageous that it sounds impossible, and you will have a group that will follow you with evangelical fervor. Religious grifters have been doing it for hundreds of years but politicians seem to have just found the utility of steering these people to do their bidding. The Internet and social media have provided an expanded platform that goes far beyond the limits of a tent service or town hall meeting. 

It’s not much of a stretch to convince someone who literally wore a tinfoil hat to prevent mind control to believe that a vaccine might contain nanoparticles that do the same thing. Some in this group who actually got vaccinated are now trying to “un-vaccinate” themselves by cupping to remove the mind-controlling bots. Many scholarly articles theorize that it is a psychological need for acceptance and belonging that drives many to such positions of outlandish behavior. We, as humans, crave attention and social belonging, and some feel that some base need is being fulfilled through such erratic behavior. 

Mind Control

Even when predicted events don’t happen as scheduled, explanations are simple and accepted without challenge. Trump didn’t assume the presidency in August or September and JFK Jr., didn’t show up at Dealey Plaza on November 2nd and didn’t make an appearance later that night at the Rolling Stones concert. While people who might be assumed dead did show up on stage, there was no JFK Jr. appearance. None of this fazes the true believers. All may be easily explained away by a new conspiracy theory. 

Dealey Plaza QAnon Believer with JFK Jr Flag

During the Renaissance, art and literature depicted the insane with a sort of reverence as people who might be engaged with mysterious forces and who possibly were addressing reason and unreason. Later in the 17th century, aka the Classical Age, the insane were institutionalized and confined. Now in the 21st century, we just elect them to some public office and act amazed when they lie, cheat, and steal. Perhaps it is time to take the advice of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in their song where they go “running for the shelter of mother’s little helper.”

Republicans Weren’t All Wrong

Yes, those Republicans who claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen were right.  It was stolen by 81,268,924 registered voters who selected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over Donald Trump and Mike Pence.  Republicans were also right in their suspicions that some of those 81,268,924 people didn’t really vote for Joe Biden.  Yes, some of those folks didn’t so much vote for Joe Biden as they were voting to not allow Donald Trump a second opportunity to embarrass America.

Many conservatives were right in claiming the mRNA vaccines were rushed too soon into production.  Yes, messenger RNA strands have only been studied as a drug delivery mechanism since 1987, which represents a mere 30+ years of development.  > Dr. Katalin Karikó and her collaborator Dr. Drew Weissman >published a paper titled "Cationic liposome-mediated RNA transfection in 1989.  "Yup, only three decades of development is a real rush job.  Actually, their research was founded on experiments with liposomes and mRNA that were discovered in the early 1960s, only 59 years ago.

Conservatives who think climate change is a hoax being perpetrated by liberals who falsely believe the earth is round, rotates on its own axis, and travels around the sun, may be right.  The hoax theory has a basis in real science.  First, our earth is not round, it is an oblate spheroid where the North and South Poles are slightly flat, and we have a bit of a bulge at the equator. Don’t we all?  The earth doesn’t properly spin on its axis, it wobbles.  Don’t we all?  Lastly, the earth doesn’t travel around the sun because, as we all know, the sun is a chariot of fire that is driven across the sky by the Sun God Helios.  However, those conservatives who believe that Donald Trump drives that chariot each day from Mar-a-Lago to San Francisco, and the golden rays we attribute to sunlight are just reflections from his blonde mane, are just plain unsalted nuts.  Real legumes.  Donald Trump would never go as far as California to shed light on anything.

Sun God Helios

As to climate change, the earth’s climate is always changing.  We should not be concerned that 17 of the 18 warmest years ever recorded in the earth’s 4.5-billion-year history have happened since 2001.  The suggestion that high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which began during the Industrial Revolution, are anthropogenic (man-made) is open for debate.  Yes, only 98% of actively publishing scientists believe that the earth is getting warmer.  The other 2% have published contrarian studies that nobody has been able to replicate, or which contain obvious errors.

Republicans who believe the January 6, 2021 demonstrations at our nation’s capital were peaceful expressions of free speech are also correct.  From midnight to 9:00 a.m. on January 6th, the attendees were peaceful.  After 9 a.m. however, things began to deteriorate.  That thousands of attendees at Trump’s rally were merely tourists, I must also agree.  The definition of a tourist is a person who is traveling or visiting a place for pleasure.  Many of those folks looked like they were enjoying the hell out of themselves.  They were just like tourists in any other theme park.  They got to try their skills at the climbing wall that used to be part of the outside facade of the capitol building.  They were allowed to pepper spray others at random.  They also got to act like children screaming at the top of their lungs.  They got to throw things and beat up Capitol Police.  I’m sure, many took pleasure in all of this.

The Rock Climbing Event at the Capitol Tourist Attraction

You now have to ask yourselves; would I be a good fit for such a party?  Do I have what it takes to be a good conservative Republican?  To help you answer this nagging question, I have a short one-question quiz.

Which of the following is true?

1. The Covid vaccines contain tracking microchips, the blood of Satan, the DNA of aborted fetuses, and will make you magnetic so you can no longer go near your refrigerator.
2. Donald Trump won the 2020 election, is secretly running a parallel government from Palm Beach, Ron DeSantis is his VP, he is running the Pentagon using a donated Twitter account, and is using his newly formed Space Force to eliminate his enemies with lasers.
3. We only use 10% of our brains, George Washington had wooden teeth, you swallow eight spiders a year while sleeping, a penny dropped from atop the Empire State Building will kill you, Trump’s November 10, 2018, Veterans Day military parade will never be forgotten, and Twinkies have no expiration date so they could save you during a zombie apocalypse.
4. All of the above.

The results are in.  If you took the test above and selected any answer, you may proceed to submit your application to replace Tucker Carlson on Tucker Carlson Tonight.  You may have to change your name.  To clarify a bit from selection #3 above, certain conservatives are the only humans who use but 10% of their brains as they need at least that much to just walk and breathe.  You don’t swallow eight spiders a year, it’s more like fourteen.  Twinkies have a shelf-life of 25 days and if you eat one after the 25th day you will become a zombie and won’t have to worry about your sugar intake.  

If you have already forgotten the Trump military parade of 2018, you are forgiven.  It was postponed to 2019.  If you forgot the 2019 military parade, you are also forgiven as it was canceled and never took place.  As with most things TRUMP, it is all best forgotten.

What Happened to Our Middle Class?

I am a proud American. I was born in a Navy hospital at the end of the last war this country fought and won. I watched as the nation prospered when the soldiers came home with the G.I. bill that helped them buy their first homes. They came home to a post-war economy that had to be rebuilt with American labor for the new peacetime era. Labor unions provided a balance where fair wages were provided for an honest day’s work and corporations still made profits.

I had an “I Like Ike” sticker on my little red wagon. It didn’t matter that my parents were registered Democrats, they liked the Army general who led our nation to victory in WWII. Eisenhower had seen the impressive Reichsautobahn system in Germany during the war. He was but a 28-year-old Lieutenant in 1919 when he was part of a convoy evaluating our existing highway system. That convoy would take 62 days to drive 3,200 miles from Washington, DC to the Presidio in San Francisco. Much of that road trip was spent on, as Eisenhower would describe, “a succession of dust, ruts, pits, and holes. As president, he signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which would build 40,000 miles of divided highways that would link all American cities with a population over 50,000.

Before and After WWII Highway System

The middle class in America flourished. With a single income, families could expect to own a home, a car, provide a college education for their children, and take vacations each year. In 1956, I took one of those vacations with my family, and we drove on the existing roads before the Interstates would be built. That trip took over a month as we crossed the country through the south, down into Mexico, up the California coast, across the northern plains, up into Canada, back into the U.S. at Niagara Falls, and down the eastern seaboard where I saw our nation’s capital for the first time.

It was a good time to be a middle-class American. I grew up in a G.I. Bill home. It was a two-bedroom, one-bath, 1,175 sq. ft. house (816 sq. ft. living area) with a garage sitting on a 10,200 sq. ft. lot. We had one car and eventually two. My brother and I were able to complete college educations without accumulating any debt. I spent four years in the Navy before beginning a 35-year working career. I am into my 14th year of a comfortable retirement.

Typical GI Bill Home 1940s

My life, as related in the paragraph above, would have been entirely different if I had been born into the “middle-class” decades later. Now, you need two income providers in a family just to make ends meet. Savings are generally too low to cover a loss of income for more than a couple of months. A family of four will typically be facing over $65,000 in student loans with two children in college. The starting salary for those college graduates in 2020 will average $55,260.

When I graduated, I could expect about $47,000 less than that 2020 figure. What I actually made, was considerably less. As an E-3 in the Navy in 1968, my monthly payment was $137.70, which works out to $1,652.40 a year. That of course included “3 hots and a cot.” I also had free medical and dental and a clothing allowance to keep me in uniforms.

So, what happened to America’s middle class over the years. For one, labor unions have been marginalized. College educations have been moved out of reach for many and will involve a burdensome debt for those lucky enough to get one. In a recent article in Vox, they gave the example of a teacher in New Jersey who was married to a carpenter. Between them, they made $160,000 which places them solidly in the “middle-class.” While this may sound like a lot of money, their expenses for things like housing, medical, debt payments, child care, and a $150 monthly contribution to a retirement fund, means their savings account averages only $400 and a family vacation involves juggling credit card debt.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that, while the wealthy are expanding their affluence, the rest of Americans have seen stagnant wages for the past 40 years. Raises seem to be pegged as “cost of living” bumps in income which translate to the status quo. For many, these raises are pegged to inflation but not the actual cost of living. Rent and not homeownership is the norm with 30% of household income going to pay that rent. Now that middle-class membership entails two incomes and childcare for two will run over $25,000 a year, or about 35% of a median family income.

In my many years living in the middle-class, my major debt was only my mortgage. Credit card debt was never seen as an alternative to a higher standard of living. Today, household debt is pegged at around $14.3 trillion with much of that on high-interest credit cards. My generation was able to work hard, save for the future, enjoy a good life, and retire with dignity. Today, that dream has all but evaporated for the new “middle-class.”

When I graduated college in the 60s, after-tax savings were around 11%. In 2007 it had fallen to 3.6%. In 2016, the median debt for someone of retirement age was $31,300. Some of this debt is in a mortgage but some are also in student loan debt for themselves or their children, and credit card debt is common, especially for someone who may have had periods of unemployment. Some mortgage debt is also onerous as any who perhaps refinanced around the time of the housing bubble when home values got over-inflated, and equity was withdrawn.

Income inequality is a harbinger of our nation’s future as a little debt begets even more debt. High levels of income inequality are linked to economic instability, financial crisis, debt, and inflation. For the wealthy, wealth and assets generate more wealth. Access to education and better healthcare aids the wealthy in their pursuit of more wealth. The “non-wealthy” struggle to get an education and the burden of healthcare and childcare make it difficult or impossible for them to even tread water.

Income inequality is no longer the exclusive realm of women, minorities, and immigrants. It is no longer a comparison of the traditional poor compared to all of those above the poverty level. The gap between even the upper middle class and the wealthy has widened to a chasm. Government bailouts of large industries may have saved some big corporations but not much of that largess made it to the average worker.

The social stability inherent in a strong middle class is all but a memory. Most societies with a healthy middle-class have higher levels of social trust in their governments, lower levels of crime, better health, and generally, and they would rate their lives as satisfying. With the loss of our middle-class, we find higher crime rates, declining health, and a severe distrust of government. Recent events with the last election and the pandemic have highlighted the lack of trust many feel with our government.

In 2017, three individuals in America owned half of the net worth of half of the country. In June of 2021, the top 1% in America controlled $41.52 trillion while the bottom 50% controlled only $2.62 trillion.

In their 1975 hit, Rich Get Richer, the O’Jays lament about income inequality and the conflict between the “super-rich” and the “super poor.” They took some inspiration for their lyrics from Ferdinand Lundberg’s book, America’s 60 Families, written in 1937. In his book, Lundberg asserted that 60 interlinked American families controlled mainstream media, the U.S. economy, and had unchecked influence over American political institutions. At that time, his list included the families of Rockefeller, Morgan, Ford, Vanderbilt, Mellon, Guggenheim, Whitney, Du Pont, and Astor. [aside, Lundberg also wrote Imperial Hearst and sued Orson Wells charging that Citizen Kane was an unauthorized adaptation]

Wealth is not inherently evil. Our capitalist society is founded on the acquisition of capital. When all the playing field is level, this is a fair and equitable means of rewarding hard work and enterprise. When, however, the game is rigged in favor of a few, then it is time for a change. I have several friends who claim to be independent in their political thinking, but I find much of what they support is biased in the name of limited government where an unregulated capital free-for-all would be a survival of the fittest. To them, welfare is for a bunch of lazy freeloaders trying to force others to support them. While I will agree that there are those who would take advantage of any government dole, I would not criticize anyone while we are still playing a game rigged in favor of the wealthy few.

Yes, when access to higher education is equitable, childcare is affordable, wages for a 40-hour workweek exceed the cost of survival, and healthcare is available for everyone, I would support a rethinking of our welfare system. When the very wealthy start paying taxes on all of their income, perhaps we can afford to provide enough social services to make America great in the first place. Our last president could be the poster child for hiding income, undervaluing property for tax purposes, overvaluing the property for loan purposes, and basically gaming the tax system to better his financial position at the expense of others. It should not be the case that once you accumulate enough wealth to afford to have a team of lawyers on retainer, that you are allowed to pick and choose which laws you will obey.

In an almost complete departure from all of what has been written above, I would recommend that those of you with Netflix consider watching the limited series Maid. While the main theme is about emotional abuse, the young woman protagonist in the story also shows what it is like to need government assistance. The built-in gotchas, government hurdles, and convoluted red tape in our assistance programs are part of the subtext.

Rich Get Rich, The O’Jays, 1975

Some people have more than enough

When you got you got you got people starving

Babies crying

People living just for dollars

That's tough, tough luck, that's what they say man

I know there's got to be a better way

People living in one-room shacks

Sleeping on top of each other's backs

Now that's tough, tough luck

That's what they say

I know, I know there's got to be a better way

The rich, well, the super-rich, lord

The poor, well, the super poor 

A Brighter Future?

Pick up any newspaper (you still do that?), peruse social media, or conduct research on your favorite news Internet sites, and you don’t have to go very far to find bad news.  We see politicians trying to outdo each other as medical czars working to outlaw mask mandates, threatening sanctions for vaccine requirements, or promoting untested medical solutions. We see faux election audits, new voter restrictions designed to disenfranchise specific ethnic groups, and false claims of 2020 election malfeasance.  We would seem to be on the brink of disaster, and perhaps we are.

We watched as a sitting president held rallies that looked more like a visit to the Star Wars Cantina than a gathering of “my fellow Americans.”  We see zombie-like cult-crazed victims of the big lie now trying to justify their actions on January 6th in court trials.  We have politicians supporting the "fraud of election fraud" by joining the new Insurrection Party.   We almost get whiplash with the hard political shift to the right headed toward authoritarian rule being excused as a counter to the horrors of mislabeled “socialism.”  We further see the continuing chaos of a hopefully waning viral pandemic where predicted shortages are set to be the Grinch that steals yet another Christmas.

Star Wars Cantina

Is there light at the end of this tunnel or is it merely the headlight of another train?  I’m hoping for daylight, but I would recommend moving slowly forward to avoid the distinct possibility of another locomotive.  We recently saw what can happen when a barely functioning congress ran head-on into a once-in-a-century killer virus.  It was a time where we desperately needed a well-oiled governing body and had naught but the lumbering rusted hulk of a once-revered democracy.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

We are living in a time of self-inflicted chaos.  We are witness to former friends and neighbors being transformed into ideological enemies at the mercy of false gossip that spreads faster than a tachyonic particle.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with tachyons, they are theoretical faster-than-light particles that defy the laws of physics.  Tachyons are much like honest politicians, we’ve theorized about their existence, but no one has ever seen one.

So, what is there to look forward to?  Is there life post-Trump, post-Covid?  Well, since both are still with us and exist as major sources of irritation, perhaps we need to adjust ourselves and our expectations to the reality that both annoyances will continue into the foreseeable future.  Life continued after the Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu of 1957, and the Hong Kong flu of 1968.  Life will once again settle into some sort of normalcy, but it is doubtful that it will look like 2016; probably more like 1984, and not the year but the book.

The post-pandemic world will be different.  We are already seeing an altered workforce where people are being a bit more discerning about the jobs they will accept.  Supply chain shortages have hit many.  Inflation looms as gas prices climb.  Hopefully, we will see a more global future and will no longer believe that we live on an island where nationalism is its own reward.  This pandemic rocked the entire world and not just some obscure country in Africa.  This time we were forced to pay attention.

Diogenes of Sinope

The direst area of concern will be in the political arena where far too many politicians have abandoned their oath of office in pursuit of power and wealth at the expense of others.  We can only hope that there remain enough individuals of conscience to return us to something resembling normalcy.  That light we see at the end of the tunnel may just be Diogenes of Sinope, the Greek cynic philosopher with his lantern looking for an honest man.

What Could Go Wrong? A Parody.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is attempting to unmask our children in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, wants to further protect our freedoms.  In keeping with his policy of unfettered parental rights, the Florida governor’s office is planning to consider new legislation that would allow parents to decide if their children are mature enough to carry a gun to school.  According to the governor, parents should have the right to decide how mature their child happens to be.  Parents are the ones best equipped to make such decisions.  The government should not stand in the way of a parent's right to arm their child to protect them.

Semi-automatic indicates a 7-12 classroom

This policy has many benefits Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran said, just think of the new active shooter drills where instead of lockdowns they turn into lock-and-load events.  If there is an occasional inevitable accident, parents can take solace in knowing that those classrooms will no longer be so overcrowded.  Mr. Corcoran sends out his heartfelt thoughts and prayers in advance to those who will eventually lose a loved one.  They should know that their child died for our freedoms.

Parent's Rights for Everything

Per an unnamed source in the DeSantis office, “parents who may fear for the safety of their children, have every right to send little Johnny, Suzy, Paco, or Maria to school wearing child-sized body armor.”  They recommend the Sesame Street Dino Shield or the Tyco Ninja Turtle Shell brands for the best protection.  

Guaranteed to Slow Down a Small Caliber Round
Will Probably Protect The Kid Behind This One

The governor’s office did say that they weren’t totally crazy so there would be some minor restrictions.  Grades K-6 would only be allowed to carry revolvers while 7-12 would be allowed semi-automatics but no long guns.  All weapons would have to fit in school lockers at such times as deemed necessary.  Those times would include things such as student trips to the school counselor for anger-management sessions.  School bus drivers would now be shielded from stray bullets by a protective bullet-proof cage that would be installed around the driver’s seat.  Safety first is our motto.

Polycarbonate Protective Cage for School Bus Driver

Teachers will be instructed to not use corporal punishment when students get into fights and are prohibited from shooting students except in self-defense.  Teachers will be encouraged to shoot to-wound whenever possible.  Teachers will be held to the same carry standards as their students.  This will mean that K-6 teachers may only carry revolvers where 7-12 teachers can carry semi-automatics.  This will level the playing field and mean that everyone will have a fair chance at a good education.   As an added safety measure, all classrooms will be equipped with advanced trauma kits.

School shootings can be used as a teaching tool

Driver’s education classes could now teach responsible drive-by shooting safety.  Far too many innocent bystanders are being killed in Florida by irresponsible and poorly trained drive-by shooters who intended to kill someone else.  There have even been incidents when others in the shooter's car have been injured due to carelessness.  Florida wants to minimize such unnecessary violence.  Keep the deaths among the gang-bangers where they belong.

Drive-by Safety

If all of this sounds a bit demented, it is.  It is just as demented as allowing parents to individually decide that their child doesn’t have to wear a mask thereby placing all within the school at risk of losing a life.

The Elephant in the Room

 Both liberal and conservative news media will cover anything Trump like it was another hurricane approaching New Orleans.  Our obsession with Donald John Trump has obfuscated the other elephant in the room, the fertile plain where he went to play.  Since he left office, we have been inundated with books about the scary behind-the-scenes activities within the Trump administration and his family.  This one ninnyhammer has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and left us and any free-range pachyderms dizzy with his antics.  He has become the blinding light that has hidden reality from view.

The situation that allowed Trump to rise to prominence is the real culprit here, not the man who took advantage of the circumstance.  While it is said that politics makes for strange bedfellows, no one was expecting a septuagenarian satyromaniac with a short fuse.  Donald Trump represents the epitome of the urban elite, yet he somehow appealed to rural America by declaring himself an outsider.  

The folks with calloused hands and blue collars, desperate for acknowledgment of their plight, tuned into his rhetoric that promised relief and change.  Somehow the godless heathens inside the beltway, immigrants, welfare recipients, and Muslims became the target for their ire at the direction of their new ringmaster.  Trump became a nationalist leader who showed up during an economy that, while fine for Wall Street, was not being realized on Main Street.  Trump blamed foreigners for their ills and promised to restore them to greatness.

Wall Street vs Main Street

During Trump’s reign as the anointed one, we saw a failure of normal constitutional checks that would have kept him coloring between the lines.  Our judiciary and congress adhered strictly to partisan allegiances and Trump's appointees in key executive-branch positions either became sycophants or got fired.  Trump became the first president to truly embrace social media and began his rule-by-tweet agenda.  He could spread misinformation at the speed of a Kardashian selfie, whoever they are.  A 2018 MIT study found that fake or misleading tweets were 70% more likely to be repeated than truthful information.  

A Kardashian (?) taking a selfie, don't ask me who.

Trump was the master of absurd falsehoods and could utter such nonsense on a 40-second walk to a waiting helicopter and then tweet something contrary during his lift off from the White House lawn.  It would all be subject to interpretation by the “official pundits” who get the totality of their information from their cellphones.  George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth was now in the hands of the plebian hoards and its’ doublethink was now subject to exponential rounds of distortion.  The acceptance of two or more contradictory beliefs as truth defied all analysis or explanation.  How do you debate what isn’t clear in the first place?

George Orwell's 1984-Doublespeak

All of this is to say that America was ready willing and able to fall for the ramblings of an accomplished snake oil salesman with an oversized ego whose magic elixir cured all ills.  When warts remained after they bought into the snake oil cure, they also accepted his explanations and excuses.  This was far easier to believe than that they had made a mistake in their choice of messiahs.  

Trump with his magic elixir

Racial unrest and the substantial gap between the haves and have-nots were all part of the landscape long before Trump rode down his golden escalator.  Distrust with the government was also embedded in the American psyche for decades.  Not since the Nixon presidency of 1968 had the GOP risen to power using an appeal to whites’ racial grievances.  Nixon’s so-called Southern Strategy could have been a blueprint for Trump, but I don’t think he is clever enough to have devised such a course without the help of Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller.  Of course, the anti-civil rights agenda would now be updated and wrapped in a blanket of xenophobia, anti-immigration, and anti-Muslim rhetoric to create a revised boogeyman.

Nixon in 1968 promoting his Southern Strategy in Georgia

Trump was able to appeal to both the Wall Street crowd as a pro-business tax-cut champion and to the folks in the fly-over states as a bigot who could rally the likes of Nazis, racists, right-wing conspiracy groups, and others from America’s fringe.  Much of our Southeast and Midwest are core red-state bastions of many of these hate groups.  This same geographic area is also known for its religiosity and political attitudes in closer values than would be predicted by chance.  A quick look at almost any political map shows the extent of the significant disparity of acreage assigned to GOP strongholds which in turn influences the Senate where land has more value than population.  The current state count in the red/blue struggle might be indicated in each state’s choice for governor.  That is where we see 23 states with Democrats residing in their respective statehouse and 27 governor mansions with Republican occupants.

The Results of 2020 Presidential Race

What is the future of the GOP?  Can it survive with a diminishing white base?  Can it reinvent itself to widen its appeal?  So far, the strategy seems to be to use gerrymandering and voting restrictions to maintain dominance even with reduced numbers.  A 2021 poll showed that Republicans and right-leaning independents represent 40% of the total population.  On the Democratic side with left-leaning independents, the total is 49%.  The remaining 11% are independents with no claimed bias.

The GOP now stands for Geriatric Old Pachyderms.   They include any of various nonruminant mammals that have hooves or nails resembling hooves and unusually thick skin.  Pachyderm in Greek means literally "having thick skin," with the inference of being dull, stupid, callous, or insensitive.  These animals digest only half of what they take in for food and leave behind large uniform piles of nutrient-rich dung.  This is believed to be the basis for "trickle-down" economics.

Trickle-Down Economics Explained

In place today, we have a president trying to clean up the mess left behind by the untidy previous occupant.  A literal dung heap.  Biden inherited a war exit strategy that had a deadline but no plan, a pandemic running rampant with a potential vaccine solution that had no plan for distribution, and an immigration problem that was being addressed with an unfinished wall and, again, no plan.  Even with ideas for solutions, the rebellious nature of the still powerful GOP intent on blocking all means of progress in the name of party loyalty means that any advances will be hard-fought.

The days of bipartisan compromise have ended, and we enter the current era of rule by executive order or budget reconciliation end runs.  This parliamentary procedure is however good only for areas that involve spending, revenue, and the federal debt limit with only one bill per year for each subject.  That’s a total of three possible such bills per year with the reality being more like one.  With a 50-50 split in the Senate, at least one minority party (GOP) member would have to cross over.  So far for this president, only the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 has passed.

We have now replaced a Donald for a Joe, but not much of the political landscape has changed.  Progress will be glacial.  Spending will advance our indebtedness, and the shrinking middle class will continue to suffer the pangs of high taxes while many of the wealthy reap the benefits of the Trump-led tax cuts.  This group of self-serving elites still get to enrich themselves while the burden is borne by the working class and those same red-state rural folks.

Despite promises by Trump to drain the swamp, Washington still rivals the Florida Everglades for its alligators and snakes.  How 70 million people voted for Trump in 2020, and why a small group of fanatical supporters still want to count the votes from that election, can only be explained by the fact that their problems still exist and they are desperate for answers, even the wrong answer.  

The Swamp is Still Full

The elephant has not left the building.

When Science, Politics, Business, and Public Health Collide

We have been living with the threat of SARS CoV-2 for over a year and a half.  Republican leaders have always espoused a strong affinity for business interests over all else.  With that in mind, this pandemic is bad for the economy, and they have a strong desire to rush back to business as usual.  With most things rushed, things didn’t go as planned.  Ignoring preliminary threat levels back in early 2020, Republican leaders made some poor choices.  Their president thought that, if he pretended really, really hard, it would just go away and not threaten his chances for reelection.  He was wrong.

From here in the cheap seats, it is easy to see the mounting damage in this demolition derby we are calling the Covid-19 pandemic.  The virus not only didn’t “go away with the heat of summer” in 2020, but it also came back with a vengeance and brought with it some of its mutant friends.  

President Trump managed to get one thing right as they say about the blind squirrel eventually finding an acorn.  He streamlined the vaccine approval process and promised developers of a successful vaccine a cash bonanza in the end.  Where he seriously dropped the ball was in vaccine distribution.  Managing complex problems was not his strong suit.  With him, you just hit everything with a sledgehammer and ignore the collateral damage.

Blind squirrel finds an acorn

The scientific community, who had been working on a new approach to vaccine development for many years, had an mRNA vaccine ready for trials within a matter of weeks.  Fast-track testing and a pandemic full of test subjects enabled two successful vaccines to be approved on an emergency basis in early 2021.  Luckily, Trump didn’t stay in office and Joe Biden was able to fix the vaccine distribution mess.

By March and April of 2021, the vaccine distribution wrinkles were worked out and people were waiting in lines to get vaccinated.  All went well and everybody who wanted a vaccine got immunized.  Then a combination of Republican politics, misinformation, fear of government, fear of needles, and a plethora of unfounded rumors brought the vaccine program to a halt.  We were far short of our goal of herd immunity.

We had Republican leaders fighting the medical community, which provided fodder for the fringe antivaccine anti-masking crowd.  This included that strange group of folks who seem to show up in Walmart at 3 a.m. and at Burning Man festivals, who now had a new cause to make them feel special.  With a rush to return things to normal so businesses could get back up and running, Republican governors challenged the ever-changing advice of the scientific community and championed the cause of false freedoms within the Don’t Tread on Me crowd.

Examples of the American Fringe
The New Republican Party Support Group

With a world not yet vaccinated, and an under-vaccinated America, a vaccine mutant would come in and become the new enemy.  This Delta variant would be born in India and would find its way to our too-soon-opened and rushed back-to-normal homeland.  Infections would rise, more would die, and younger people would now feel the effects.  Republican governors like Ron DeSantis would do a victory lap because fewer people were dying.  This would have nothing to do with his actions and everything to do with science learning how to better treat the disease.

Fewer people were dying but more were getting sick, including many younger people ending up in hospitals.  They say that hindsight is 20/20 but it’s probably more like 20/30 because, while we can look back at what happened, we don’t know what would have happened if we had acted differently.

Our current hurdle is the 22% of Americans who actively identify with the anti-vaxxers.  A recent paper found that 8% were true hardcore within this group and 14% were less committed.  Within the anti-vaxxer group, almost half were Republican men, 34% Republican women, 14% Democratic women, and 6% Democratic men.  Of this entire group, 38% were white evangelicals.  Much of this pre-pandemic anti-vax movement was based on a 1998 paper published in the British medical journal, The Lancet linking autism with the measles vaccine.  Since that time, 10 of the 12 original authors retracted their support for the thesis, and the main author, Andrew Wakefield, lost his medical license for ethics violations.  It seems he had an undisclosed financial interest in the debunked claim and stood to earn up to $43 million per year selling specialized test kits.  The damage was done.  The anti-vax ball was already rolling and claiming victims.

So, where are we now?  We have a Republican party claiming to support personal freedoms, even when they violate the freedoms of others.  This same party claims to support business and all things that will help that economic engine run smoothly.  My mother’s expression that covers their response so far is, “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”  In my childhood, I didn’t understand the saying except in the context where she used it.  It would be later in life that I would learn the saying had its foundation with our British origins and the pound was currency and not weight.  The explanation is that someone is closely watching the minutia but missing the big picture.

In this case, Republicans are looking for a quick reset from restrictions that put a damper on the economy.  They want to ignore the big picture of an under-vaccinated nation facing a new mutated virus foe, in deference to opening the economy with the removal of mask mandates.  They are promoting no vaccine requirements, no masking restrictions, and even issuing executive orders preventing private businesses, school districts, and local municipalities from making such adjustments as needed.  This political polarization of the pandemic has exacerbated the economic harm it has already caused.

Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana have seen nearly 40% of all U.S. hospitalizations, and nationwide hospitalizations have tripled over the past month.  We are back to levels not seen since last February.  The seven states of Florida, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation and account for half the new cases and hospitalizations.  Florida set an all-time pandemic record on August 7, 2021, with 24,000 new cases.  Louisiana has the highest number of new cases per capita with 693 per 100,000, followed closely by Florida with 627 and Arkansas with 502.  If Louisiana were a country, it would be #2 in the world in cases per capita, right behind Fiji.

The green line is Louisiana and the Orange line is Florida

Economic impact?  Louisiana just canceled their Heritage Jazzfest for the fourth time since the start of the pandemic.  This festival is a major revenue engine for the entire economy of Louisiana.  I had my airline reservations for the festival but now must cancel.

It has only been recently that a few Republicans and even some conservative news figures have changed their minds.  Faced almost daily with news videos of gasping hospital patients who had gone unvaccinated pleading with others to take this pandemic seriously, the tide may be turning.  It’s too bad they couldn’t have seen the light before now.  It is now apparent that you can’t see when you are wearing political blinders.  The facts and information are readily available for those willing to open their eyes.  It is time to take a long-term approach to business and realize that short-term investments (vaccination and mask-wearing requirements) can pay long-term dividends.  To paraphrase President Joe Biden, be part of the solution, don’t become the problem.  In short, lead, or get out of the way.  Hopefully, Republicans like Ron DeSantis will listen, if not to the suffering, at least to the threat to their political careers.

They'll Never Learn

We can learn a great deal from our recent horrifying experience with a global pandemic, but we won’t.  If history is any judge, when the major SARS-CoV-2 infection rate and crisis wanes, so will our interest in preventing another pandemic from getting out of control.  We should have learned valuable lessons from the 1919 influenza pandemic, but that information faded with time.  Likewise, our responses to Smallpox, Yellow fever, Cholera, Scarlet fever, Diptheria, Polio, H2N2, Measles, Crypto, 2009 H1N1(swine flu), Whooping cough, HIV, and Ebola, should have prepared us better for Covid-19.

Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 Hospital Ward

Like even our major financial crises, we tend to marginalize our experiences once things improve.  The Great Depression, the energy crisis of the 2000s, the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007, the housing bubble of 2003, and the Covid-19 recession are, even now, minor annoyances.

From the pandemic experience throughout 2020 and 2021, we have been provided with a great deal of information.  Science worked miracles and had vaccine candidates in trials within weeks of being provided with the genetic sequence of the virus.  Vaccine testing and approval were put on the fast track.  All good things.  Now, seven months since we have had working vaccines, we are seeing a surge in infections due to a viral variant and vaccine hesitancy.  The vaccines work against the new variant, but people aren’t getting vaccinated, at least in sufficient numbers.

Why is this happening?  What could we have done better?  What can we learn in the future?  Answering the first question is easy, people don’t trust the government, so they don’t trust the vaccine.  What could we have done better?  Also, easy to answer but difficult to implement.  Many people in the rural south and other rural areas have a poorly functioning or non-existent medical system.  Our medical business model is just that, a business where profit is paramount.  There is little money to be made in rural communities, so these people rely on clinics and substandard healthcare.  Many just turn to their religious leaders and prayer.

What if we had provided a healthcare system that serviced all our citizens, regardless of profit?  Perhaps these people would have a place of trust to turn to and wouldn’t have to rely on rumors, misinformation, social media, and word of mouth.  Build up a level of trust by treating everyday medical problems.  That way, when a pandemic strikes in the future, people in these underserved communities would have someone they could turn to for good medical advice.  More people would get vaccinated, and we would all benefit from earlier herd immunity.

Will this happen?  Doubtful.  We are a nation of the here and now.  We look for financial rewards that provide gratification today, not at some point in the future.  We will have other “fish to fry” once this pandemic is on the mend.  We spent billions, perhaps trillions of dollars solving this problem and have paid dearly for the lessons that should have been learned.

As Scotty Beckett said in For Pete’s Sake, Little Rascals 1934, “They’ll never learn.” 

It's All About the Deaths

While Florida leads the nation in new Covid infections and hospitalizations, the governor is not concerned.  He is only concerned with the death rate, not infections.  People who get sick, hospitalized, intubated, suffer long-term debilitating effects from the infection are of no consequence.  These sick patients are occupying hospital beds, overworking hospital personnel, and perhaps preventing others from getting proper treatment for some other ailment.  DeSantis doesn’t care.  He only cares for his poll numbers and making things easy for his Republican followers who may be of a similar mindset.  Hospitals and doctors have gotten better at not allowing people to die from the virus so DeSantis considers that he can take a victory lap.  As long as the death rate is down, all is well.

There are now (August 4, 2021) 11,863 Covid patients hospitalized in Florida, according to data the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released on Tuesday, a jump of more than a thousand patients from the old record of 10,389 reported on Monday.

Florida added an all-time daily record of 21,683 cases on Saturday, the most recent day cases were reported.

DeSantis is now trying to blame the Florida infection rate surge on immigrants crossing our southern border.  It is Biden's problem, not his.  Someone buy the man a map, Florida doesn't share a border with Mexico.

What's With This Delta Variant?

In a posted study from China, the Delta variant was detectable after only 4 days while the original Alpha strain took 6 days.  This indicates the Delta variant replicates faster within the body.

The term "viral load" is used as a measure of the density of viral particles in the body.  The Delta variant had viral loads up to 1,260 times higher than those measured in Alpha infected patients.

While the Delta variant was first detected in India, it now represents over 80% of new cases in the U.S.

With unvaccinated individuals in a maskless environment, one individual with the original Alpha strain would be expected to infect 2.5 people.  In that same environment, Delta would infect 3.5 to 4 people.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are very effective at preventing serious infection or death.  Breakthrough cases of vaccinated individuals with the Delta variant represent well below 1% of the total infections and virtually 0% of the deaths.

Summary:  Mask up, get vaccinated. 

What Could Go Wrong?

DeSantis's dreams of becoming the next president of the U.S. are fading.  I believe that by late September or early October this should be clear even to him.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Aspiring Presidential Candidate

On June 29, the seven-day average of new cases for Florida kids under 12 was 205. By July 29, that number had increased more than sevenfold to 1,544.  The increase in infections for the under-12 group is now higher than among 60-64-year-olds.

The number of patients presenting at Memorial Health and Joe DiMaggio Children’s emergency rooms with COVID also has exploded, from 23 in June to 240 in July, a nearly 1,000% increase.

The Delta variant is up to 1,000 times more virulent.  Symptoms will appear in under a week in most cases.  Florida's juvenile Covid infection rate is second only to Texas.

Schools open in a couple of weeks.  Children will be crowding into classrooms, busses, and cafeterias.  Florida's governor Ron DeSantis has ruled by executive order 21-175 that funding may be withheld from public schools if they mandate masks.  The handwriting is on the chalkboard.  Infections will rise among our children, teachers, and school staff, most will survive, some will suffer long-term effects, and some will die.  Mandatory mask-wearing and required vaccinations would have prevented up to 90% of the spread of the disease but our governor says, no.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

 In January of this year, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  Vaccines were being approved that could end the nightmare of Covid.  At first, we struggled with short supplies and cryptic announcements of vaccine availability.  Age brackets and occupations were prioritized.  Everyone was clamoring to get vaccinated.  By April, weeks after receiving my second vaccine, we ventured out, cautiously.  We made a driving trip north to spend time at a resort in Vero Beach, Florida.  We felt safe.  Life was slowly looking more normal.

By July, that light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be the headlamp of the Delta Variant Train with hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated on board.  It was the re-release of Alice Cooper’s first solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare.  We were facing a multi-pronged attack of unvaccinated zombies living in the parallel reality of fear and conspiracy theories, being supported by Republican politicians who saw this as an opportunity to score political points.

Now, without some change in the status quo by way of vaccine mandates or highly incentivized vaccine coercion, we will face cycles of viral infection, illness, death, hospital crowding, and mask-wearing.  This will be our future.  It is truly sad that our national medical problem will require a political solution, if not through sound leadership, through the ballot box.

Donald Trump: The Most Dangerous Individual of Our Time

Smart caring people from both sides of the political aisle must have at least some degree of foreboding after the events of the previous 4-year presidential administration.  We should all realize that the riots of January 6, 2021, were but the culmination of a series of events that led to near disaster.  Those of us who are old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis knew we were in trouble in real-time, but the real gravity of that series of events took time to sink in.  We later learned how close we came to a true nuclear holocaust.

Will this time be painted with a similar brush of pending doom by future historians?  Well, it is clear by the dump of new book titles that, while opinions vary a bit, we were in serious trouble.  Most depict a president “consumed by personal hatred” with an out-of-control violent temper exacerbated by his election defeat.  In Michael Bender’s book, Frankly, We Did Win This Election, he tells us that Trump wanted whoever was responsible for telling the world that he hid in the White House Bunker during the Black Lives Matter protests, executed.  Yes, executed, as in killed.

In Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s book, I Alone Can Fix It, they point out that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley was so worried that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act, that he compared the lies of the stolen election to Hitler’s Reichstag fire that Hitler used to seize control of Germany.  His concern was such that he developed contingency plans to prevent Trump from calling out the military to stage a coup.

Michael Wolff’s book Landslide tells us that Trump aides thought he was “off his rocker” and they made vain attempts to appease him while ignoring his demands.  Wolff goes on to assure us that we were never in real danger.  He arrives at this, not because Trump wasn’t a delusional tyrant, but because he was so disorganized and incompetent that he had no chance of success.

There was also talk of Trump getting the support of a few Iran hawks in the administration to launch a strike on Iran just before he left office.  Trump raised this possibility with Milley as late as January 3rd but was finally persuaded to drop it.  By all accounts, Trump, who was and is the GOP leader, was unhinged and viewed laws, rules, and norms as minor inconveniences.

Of course, Trump loyalists and members of his cult don’t read such books.  They get all they need to know from the only true source of good information, Q.  Yes, Q, better known as Jim Watkins (and his son Ron), is/are probably the man/men behind the curtain telling the Trump minions all they need to know.  Q of course is the Wizard behind the QAnon conspiracy cabal. 

Who is James Arthur Watkins?  Well, he started a company called N.T. Technology in the 90s while he was in the US Army.  The site was built to support a Japanese porn site called Asian Bikini Bar to circumvent strict Japanese censors.  It later hosted other Japanese porn distributors many of which had names suggesting links to child pornography.  You can see why such a man would be in a position to suggest that Hillary Clinton and other members of “the elite” ran a child sex slave shop out of a pizza parlor.  He was an actual expert in the field.

So, with Donald Trump still in charge of the GOP, and people like Jim Watkins serving the Kool-Aid to a large contingent of followers, and folks like Jim Jordan still beating the Trump drum in Congress, and the great legal mind of Rudy Giuliani to steer them out of trouble, will the good ship Trumptanic avoid the icebergs ahead?  I can see Donald and Melania on the bow now, and him yelling I’m King of the world.