Surviving Trump -- and Helping the Republic Do So

Friends ask, “If anyone has any advice on how to survive this, please share it.”

This is both familiar territory and not.

In 1952, just five, I wore a sandwich sign urging a vote for Adlai Stevenson. My father, a Stevensonian Democrat, won a minor local office in that election. But General Eisenhower beat Adlai. Both were decent, competent men serving their country.

In 1964. a college freshman, I campaigned for Lyndon Baines Johnson, whom I soon came to loathe as he escalated the inexcusably stupid Viet Nam War.

1968 I cast my first presidential vote – for Black Panther ex-con Eldridge Cleaver. A college dropout, I asked passengers entering my New York City cab, “Which of the three little pigs are you voting for?” Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and segregationist George Wallace all seemed unacceptable -- as some now equate Trump and Harris, because of Palestine. When Chicago police beat antiwar demonstrators outside the Democratic Convention, I listened on radio, late at night, concluding that the only course for a person of conscience was to begin assassinating high U.S. officials, killing as many as possible before being killed. [I didn’t!] Four years later, during Nixon’s re-election, marked by Watergate, I was the kind of young dissenter Nixon wanted to destroy.

In 2000, we elected Al Gore but five supreme court justices gave us George Bush.

I believed Richard Nixon would continue the Viet Nam War [despite his “secret peace plan”] and break laws to punish us; I believed Bush was a wholly unqualified fellow who’d be the tool of right-wingers, and disbelieved his silly excuses for starting two wars. I was right. But Trump is different: he’s not only wrong on policies, he abhors our democracy.

In 2016, in Democrats’ local headquarters on Election Night, we were shocked and dismayed, believing Mr. Trump was an incompetent narcissist, somewhat spiteful and lacking in compassion or judgment, all of which proved true. In 2020, Mr. Biden wasn’t my first choice for nominee, but he was a decent and competent gent who prevailed. If only he’d stuck to his promise to stay one term then let younger folks take over!

For more than five weeks, although a civilized nation re-electing Mr. Trump, who promised to be even worse this time seemed unthinkable, I thought it was probably about to happen. It has.

Two questions: will what we have of democracy survive? And will progressives?

First, Mr. Trump, disgusted that his Attorneys-General, VP Pence, and others chose patriotism over licking Trump’s golf shoes, will appoint worse flunkeys this time. He and his advisors have announced plans to challenge our Democratic system. Smarter folks than Trump have detailed plans. He and allies have weakened a lot of the guard-rails we once relied on; but people of good will acting lawfully and non-violently, might just manage to thwart his effort and save the republic. Stay loyal – but watchful.

Individually, we must face this directly without letting it eat us up inside. As Buddhists say about getting others’ criticism, meanness, or bad acts, they’ve handed you a chalice of poison. You alone decide whether or not you drink it, by choosing to take that anger and hatred inside you. Hating Trump does nothing to control his excesses, but weakens you, when our country might need you. And you’ve a life!

Also, recall that many Trump voters are much better people than he. They’re our neighbors, too.

                                       – 30 --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 10 November, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and will presently appear on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

As far as surviving this personally, try not to let it poison everything! That’s hard, at times; but the better we do at it, the more we enjoy our personal lives and the stronger we are to do what little we can do. We’re all that hummingbird in the old tribal legend: as all the animals flee the huge forest fire, the leopard sees the humming bird repeatedly flying toward the fire, then away again, and asks why. The hummer explains that the forest has sustained it all its life, and, in gratitude, it is flying to the river to drink, then dropping water on the fire; and to the leopard’s comment that the fire is too big to be controlled that way, the hummer says that doing what it can beats the alternatives, and if everyone does what s/he can, who knows?

I’d also recommend a glance at Nicholas Kristof’s Manifesto for Despairing Democrats in the New York Times. One on his list that I work on is: “5. I will try to understand why so many Americans disagree with me. Too many Democrats reflexively assume that any person backing Trump must be a bigot or an idiot. But let’s beware of invidious stereotypes, for finger-wagging condescension alienates centrist voters; it’s difficult to win support from people you’re calling idiots and racists. Many working-class Americans have been left behind economically and have reason to feel angry. And Democrats aren’t going to win elections as long as they seethe at a majority of voters. ”

As far as our democracy, in a previous column [A Grim Direction We Might Take], ’ve made clear how this could go, and why, as best I could within the 570-word Sun-News limit.

Will it?

Mr. Trump’s own actions and words suggest that his Presidency will be an assault on our democracy in the sense that it will further weaken the “guardrails” and be dominated by Mr. Trump’s personal/political interest.

Where will that leave us? Friends who assert the traditional protections will save our democracy are unreasonably optimistic. Friends who say that there’s no chance we can save democracy are too pessimistic. We have some chance. Our greatest hope is Mr. Trump’s own incompetence.

Another factor is Trump’s health. His mind appears to be softening toward dementia – but how fast is anyone’s guess. He’s a fat slob of advanced years, which is not ideal for continuing good health.

Normally, one would figure that if Trump screws up badly or overreaches in obvious ways, popular opinion will punish him politically. However: so far, the conservative sources many people read or watch are doing a great job of presenting inaccuaracies; while some Trump voters aknowledge this but vote for him anyway, others believe and repeat wildly inaccurate facts Neither is a hopeful sign.

A Grim Direction We Might Take

Here’s some nuts & bolts of why recovering democracy might be tough if a dictatorial president and his associates overstepped traditional boundaries and chose to retain power permanently.

We can’t be sure either constitutional and traditional guardrails or public opposition would save us.

Our democracy is limited: the Senate and the Electoral College give less populous states disproportionate power. If we ever started a Constitutional Convention, the skew would be even worse.

Republicans controlling “swing state” legislatures have been busily changing the rules, purging voter rolls to decrease poor and minority voters, and increasing legislative control over voters’ decisions. There’s even a crazy argument that a legislature could legislate that it, not citizens voting, would choose presidential electors.

We’ve nearly lost the Supreme Court as a principle-based check on presidential power. Trump’s three appointments, Republican senatorial chicanery during Obama’s Presidency, and recent judicial longevity created a nine-member court with five extreme conservatives. And counting.

Thus, executive overreaching, legislative “adjustments” curbing traditional voting rights, and bad corporate conduct would likely all be found “constitutional.” They might even let legislatures usurp citizens’ rights to vote for presidential electors.

Meanwhile, Trumpian legislation would weaken the “non-partisan” civil service. Once, a newly-elected mayor appointed a whole new police department, loyal to him, helping at his rallies and harassing his critics. Presidents appoint top “political” officials but a core civil service has some expertise and non-partisan interest in just collecting the garbage, inspecting drugs or food, etc. A key Trump agenda item is to weaken that protection, letting Trump appoint lackeys, regardless of ability. We’d get non-evidence-based decision-making, elections could disrupt the whole government, and career civil servants who’d developed real skills and expertise could be fired at a presidential whim.

One hopes that abusing immigrants and maybe ethnic minorities, and curbing personal freedoms of speech and choice, would trigger a wave of negative public opinion. Well, look at Brave New World or Putin’s Russia. Citizens don’t stand up to Putin because (a) he’ll kill them and (b) his tight media control few even know the facts.

Large newspapers owned by zillionaires just copped out on editorializing about the Presidency. Newspapers were already in decline. Meanwhile, a Wall-Street Journal study showed that someone signing onto X to discuss chess or basket-weaving, not seeking political discussion, will be buffeted with pro-Trump messages, courtesy of Elon Musk. How might a coalition of reasonable people seeking a return to democracy ever form, and communicate? Musk could buy Facebook, too. After an innocuous post or two, we’d get one saying Kamala was a college prostitute or Trump spent years rescuing dogs. What if Wikipedia were “acquired” by some Trumpist billionaire? What if universities’ scientific research was funded based on companies’ and scientists’ obeisance to right-wing ideology?

What if every federal clerk reviewing your tax or medical issue decides based on your Trump-friendliness? As was surely true in Nazi Germany. Terrible; but with no press left to write about it and no Supreme Court requiring fairness and justice, well, live with it!

It could happen. We don’t wear some magic shield. As in Russia, they perhaps could gain and hold dictatorial power; but (as in Russia) they’d severely weaken the country. When political loyalty trumps merit, your science, your education, your health, and your military security all deteriorate. Look at Russia!

And, as always, the wealthy interests cheating and poisoning us have great ploys to make us blame each other.

                                              – 30 – 

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 3 November, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website, and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[Yeah, the column paints a grim picture, but a sufficiently plausible one that it’s worth some serious effort to avoid. Do I think Donald Trump will be elected President again? This morning, I don’t. But for a month I’ve been pretty pessimistic. I kept thinking, “It’s unthinkable that in the 21^st Century a reasonably educated and successful nation could actually elect this guy again,” but feeling pretty sure that we would do so. Obviously, we very well may.

If we do, resistance to the kind of anti-democratic efforts described in the column would be the order of the day. (It was soberting, and helped generate this column, to read [in a recent New Yorker] some of Alexei Navalny’s writing from prison. He was a good and courageous man and died in prison for opposing dicatorship in Russian – reminding me that even our partial democracy is a hell of a privilege in this world.)]

[However, whatever happens, we need to soften this hyperparisanship. We means “we all” there.” We [progressives, skeptics, people of good faith, humanists – whatever you and I are] have a more specific task: to recognize that alhough, yeah, some of Mr. Trump’s most dedicated supporters are racists and haters, many who will vote for him are NOT. I play pickleball with a bunch of ‘em. Some, including people from ethnic minorities, are not being well served by our system [or feel that they’re not] and dislike politicians generally.

What remains important for each of us to do, I think, is to engage with our neighbors. To understand that they are not demented fucks who idolize that huckster, but decent folks – who pet their dogs and make their children laugh just as we do – who, like us, are being cheated, poisoned, and otherwise mistreated by a corporate economic system that has convinced them that in fact, it’s the asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, the people on welfare, the people whose colors, faiths, language, genders and conduct are different.

Underneath, we are allies: we would all like a saner, safer world in which individuals had more of a chance and more personal freedom.

Whether “we” [progressives] win this election and bask in victory or lose it, and feel we’re in danger, finding common ground with our neighbors is an urgent need.

Because while Donald Trump is an incompetent narcissist, the schism that leads nearly half our country’s “adults” to vote for him is a continuing danger; and even the party we’re supporting is too kind to big corporations, too sluggish about dealing meaningfully with climate change, supportive of what many now call genocide, and resistant to doing the normal stuff other modern democracies do, such as taxing excessive wealth, making health available to everyone, etc. ]

[So, I’d say: vote for Kamala and Tim’ and drive someone to the polls who might not otherwise get there; but, whichever side wins, be a skeptic, a critic, a watchdog. Being a pain in the ass to power is an obligation of all citizens.]

 

 

Please Vote! Here Are Some Thoughts

If you care about nothing else, vote for Harris-Walz at the top of your ballot. Mr. Trump is wholly unqualified: he’s a danger to our country not only in his narcissism but in his incompetence, his dictatorial inclinations, his complete indifference to policy details, and how easily foreign leaders manipulate him. Harris and Walz are interested in government, interested generally in helping average people, and seem to be decent, highly competent human beings who care.

U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich is experienced and highly effective, and speaks of tackling climate change and expanding health care access. Nella Domenici spouts generalized accusations that everything she dislikes in our state is Heinrich’s fault. She’ a privileged, private-equity person from elsewhere who hopes we’ll vote for her because her father was Pete Domenici and she grew up in New Mexico. She ain’t Pete. Oddly enough, he was a friend of mine. And a good and highly competent man, despite our ideological differences. (He once told me that when, as non-partisan mayor of Albuquerque, he considered a Senate run, choosing his party was a close call.) His daughter is further right; her private-equity career means sympathy for our wealthiest citizens; if elected, and if Mr. Trump were President, she’d be in his possible majority in the Senate, helping him do whatever nutty thing enters his head. Pete wouldn’t have been Trump’s puppet. Heinrich will be a strong member of the loyal opposition. That’s important.

Similarly, former Las Cruces City Councilor Gabe Vasquez is a better Congressperson than was Trumpist Yvette Herrell. This campaign has gone way negative: he emphasizes her draconian position on abortion, she stresses some out-of-context remarks he made regarding the police. The reality is that she’d help pave Mr. Trump’s road, while Gabe wouldn’t; and she simply doesn’t get the fact that we should not be effectively murdering young ladies for getting pregnant, whether they were unwise or victims of rape or incest. Their bodies are theirs, not mine or Yvette’s.

Samantha Salopek Barncastle is challenging two-term incumbent NM Senator Carrie Hamblen (D-38). Barncastle has long been attorney for Elephant Butte Irrigation District, which has frequently drawn fire from environmentalists and some small farmers.

The District Attorney race ain’t the easy choice I wish it were. I’ve known Fernando Macias at least slightly for 50 years. He’s highly experienced and has done a lot of good. Some also find him a little grandoise and imperious: “My Way or the Highway!” Some very good friends, Democrats, some holding office here, say they would never vote for him. Michael Cain, while charming and an experienced criminal lawyer, is simply not as strong a candidate as Fernando, although Cain argues that his decades specializing in criminal law outweigh Macias’s wealth of experience as judge, county manager, commissioner, and state legislator. Friends passionately support both. Which would rescue the office? Bottom line: if I thought this race were close, I’d vote for Fernando. If not, I’d wish I could write in Atticus Finch.

I discuss local races in my blog post on http://www.soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/. County Clerk Amanda Lopez Askin, Tara Jaramillo, Bill Soules and Nathan Small, among others, have served us well and deserve re-election. I’d also vote for Sarah Silva if I could.

I think I favor all four proposed constitutional amendments, and the bond issues. Despite strong distaste for our state’s use of the gross receipts tax, I’d approve Las Cruces’s small requested increase.

                                              – 30 --

[This column appeared Sunday, 27 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will be up soon  on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[What else should I note here?

> That our County Clerk, Amanda LopezAskin, is a star in that position. I’ve thought so more and more strongly. And the lady challenging her in this election basically promiss to do stuff Askin is already doing, such as being transparent and outgoing and pro-active about educating voters and increasing registration. So that’s an easy one.

> We had District 3x state representative Tara Jaramillo on our radio show recently, and she was distinctly more impressive than most folks realize. It came through in the depth of her commitment to public service and all that inspired it. Runs deep in her family, and in her. And she’ll be fierce about giving kids he best chance we can, particuarly kids with an extra helping of problems.

> I touched on the state senate race between Carrie Hamblen and Samantha Salopek Barncastle. I’ve run into Barncastle in court, representing right wing interests who didn’t seem to have our community’s best interest at heart, and as EBID’s lawyer, pushing for water issues to come out in ways EBID would prefer; but I haven’t seen her out just doing good for our community. Meanwhile, I think her pals at EBID have lost their taste for her company, or at least for her professional help. By contrast, Hamblen seems a straight-shooter, she’s effectively progressive, and a top conservation group gives her 100% approval for the whole time she’ sbeen in ofice. Hamblen makes sense for the modern and growing community we are. Barncastle pobably doesn’t.

> This morning I looked again at a seven-minute black&white film about the passionately Nazi American Patriots rally that drew 20,000 to New York’s Madison Square Garden in February 1939, about when Hitler was completing construction on his 5th or 6^th concentration camp. It doesn’t answer any questions. Just documents that they were there, listening to an orator and finding some way to mix love of Hitler with love of George Washington, who maybe they didn’t know turned town office a few times, including after serving two terms as our president. Shows ‘em sincere as hell, conflating our democratic tradition with hatred and prejudice. I alwas wondered how. We might be finding out, the next few years. ]

On Following its own Ordinances, Let's Give the City an Incomplete for Now

After a 2018 scandal, which some Las Cruces city councilors thought might trigger criminal charges, the City followed an independent investigator’s recommendations to keep a keener eye on handling of public funds. A 2019 Ordinance created an Oversight Committee and an Inspector-General position to be filled with Oversight Committee approval. Another ordinance created a Public Safety Select Committee. (“PSSC”).

Then-City Manager Ifo Pili didn’t like oversight. The IG position sat unfilled for years, violating the ordinance. The oversight committee did some good work we’ll never know the details of. (The Ordinance required publication of Committee findings; but that mostly didn’t happen.)

In 2023, the City hired an IG, but he reportedly clashed with Pili and left. Then Pili [without required Committee approval] appointed as IG an oversight committee member whom Pili reportedly didn’t consider a threat. Mandatory committee meetings stopped in 2023. The committee dwindled to one voting member, former City Councilor Jack Eakman. I was told the problem was filling committee positions that required folks with solid experience in Business (Eakman), Auditing, and Law. Eakman kept urging action. In April he served an IPRA Request. The City denied him 33 documents on dubious attorney-client privilege claims.

When some some councilors seemed quite interested in a proposal for citizens’ police oversight, Mayor Ken Miyagashima, who opposed it, referred the proposal to the PSSC to die. The PSSC never even invited further discussion!

The PSSC looked like an improper “executive committee.” It was supposed to report information to the full council, but no one saw that happening. It appeared that the committee either wasn’t doing its job or was possibly violating the Open Meetings Act.

In June 2023, citizen Michael Hays requested documents concerning the PSSC. The City stiffed him, violating IPRA so blatantly that settling the lawsuit cost the City nearly $200,000 plus paying its own lawyers. [Full disclosure: I represented Mr. Hays.] I hope the new city manager and city attorney are improving things. When Eakman re-submitted his document request, the City gave him all the documents it had wrongly denied him. The documents showed that by late 2023 a professional auditor and three apparently qualified attorneys had volunteered to serve on the Oversight Committee and been vetted.

Violating the Ordinance, the City delayed appointments, saying staff needed to amend the Ordinance. Recently the City Council adopted amendments that somewhat weaken the Oversight Committee and have it report to the city manager. (The amendments don’t seem so urgent that we needed more than a year with NO oversight committee.) The ordinance is silent on handling misconduct allegations against the city manager, but I’m told that the city clerk would appoint an “Ethics Committee” from among citizens serving on boards. Not ideal.

A simple plan – to have three qualified citizens use their expertise to investigate city affairs that seemed to need that – seems less promising now. I hope good people take this on and prove me wrong.

Citizens have asked whether those committees still exist, or still function. No straight answer was available, probably because city officials were trying to figure out the right course of action. But that wasn’t a good look.

I asked again recently. The City hopes to appoint a new oversight committee ASAP. The PSSC? High city officials couldn’t really answer that yet.

I’m glad we have a new city manager and attorney, but doubt the long wait and the amendments have helped curb official misconduct.

                                                           – 30 –

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 13 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and on the newspaper's website and will shortly be up on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[This was a harder column to write than some are. I wanted to be neither too critical of the city nor insufficiently critical. Opinions vary on whether or not, or by how much, the amendments mentioned actually weaken the committee. Further, how strongly should one factor in positive expectations of Ikani Taumoepeau and Brad Douglas? Certainly our experience of Douglas’s predecessor made her departure likely to be an improvement. I hope we can discuss all this on a radio show soon, hopefully with divergent points of view represented.]

[Vote! I’m feeling extremely pessimistic about the national election. These are demented and dangerous times. What can we do when climate-change-charged storms are killing folks in Florida and pushing most to vote for a climate-change-denier who’ll do nothing, when unions in Pennsylvania are leaning more and more toward voting for a man who loathes unions, and that voters worry Kamala Harris “can’t handle Putin” while her opponent is a Putin-admirer and such a Putin toadie he sent Putin hard-to-get COVID tests when in office. Of course, he has denied that, and accused reported Bob Woodward of having “lost his marbles” for reporting such a thing, but the Kremlin has now confirmed Woodward on that point. I’d hate to have to explain all this to Dwight Eisenhower.

The local and state situation is not so discouraging.]

                --  30  --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 13 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and  on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version aired during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .   APOLOGIES for not getting this one posted here until now AND for not doing a column at all this week. ]

[This was a harder column to write than some are. I wanted to be neither too critical of the city nor insufficiently critical. Opinions vary on whether or not, or by how much, the amendments mentioned actually weaken the committee. Further, how strongly should one factor in positive expectations of Ikani Taumoepeau and Brad Douglas? Certainly our experience of Douglas’s predecessor made her departure likely to be an improvement. I hope we can discuss all this on a radio show soon, hopefully with divergent points of view represented.]

[Vote! I’m feeling extremely pessimistic about the national election. These are demented and dangerous times. What can we do when climate-change-charged storms are killing folks in Florida and pushing most to vote for a climate-change-denier who’ll do nothing, when unions in Pennsylvania are leaning more and more toward voting for a man who loathes unions, and that voters worry Kamala Harris “can’t handle Putin” while her opponent is a Putin-admirer and such a Putin toadie he sent Putin hard-to-get COVID tests when in office. Of course, he has denied that, and accused reported Bob Woodward of having “lost his marbles” for reporting such a thing, but the Kremlin has now confirmed Woodward on that point. I’d hate to have to explain all this to Dwight Eisenhower.

The local and state situation is not so discouraging.]

Remembering Anne Frank in Challenging Times

It’s an odd time to see a very moving, thought-provoking play about antisemitism, the LCCT’s excellent production of The Diary of Anne Frank (Oct. 4-20 at 313 North Main). The original version won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize plus Tony and Drama Critics award as best play.

These times display both renewed antisemitism and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s human rights abuses against Arabs. The antisemitism comes from not only the usual right-wing “Nationalists,” such as Nick Fuentes, but also apolitical or leftist folks appalled both by Hamas’s October 7 massacre and by Israel’s predictable overreaction, which Hamas had hoped to trigger.

In such times, maintaining fairness, tolerance, and human decency is both harder and more urgent. We should not punish or discriminate against Muslims or Jews in this country based on what other countries and groups are doing elsewhere. All ethnic prejudice, against Jews, Christians or Muslims, Blacks or Hispanics, Irish or Italians, or gays or political opponents, is stupid, hurtful, and wrong. Hamas leaders and Netanyahu are bad actors with understandable reasons. Protesting either’s conduct shouldn’t cause harassment of Jews or Palestinians. But sometimes it does.

Soon after Trump invited Fuentes for supper, Trump ally Tucker Carlson gave a holocaust denying anti-Semite a two-hour platform. As a journalist I might talk with a Nazi apologist, but I’d ask tough questions and sure wouldn’t call him “the best and most honest popular historian in the U.S.” That Carlson thinks that, and J.D. Vance holds a campaign rally with Carlson, sure says something about whom Mr. Vance hopes to appeal to.

Less obviously dangerous are Mr. Trump’s recent statements that a Trump defeat will be “on the Jews,” or “the fault of the Jews.” He shouldn’t lump all Jews together. In a world where Trump’s words were followed by an invasion of the Capitol, and his lies about election chicanery led to threats and harassment of election workers, it should occur to him that some follower might attack Jews for costing Trump the election – even if, as I assume, Trump doesn’t intend that Jews be harmed or harassed. (Followers are threatening Springfield schools with shootings and bombs because Trump claims Springfield residents from Haiti eat people’s pets)

“The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.” As their “betrayal” cost Germany World War I? Until decades after Hitler, the Catholic Church still taught that the Jews were responsible for killing Jesus.

This ain’t important just for Jews. History teaches that if you let governments unlawfully mistreat segments of the population, those governments will use the same illegal means to persecute others, or just eliminate political opponents or persons of conscience who stand up for fairness and justice.

I applaud director Norman Lewis for spraying this excellent show on the “dormant noxious weed [antisemitism] needing only a drop of encouragement to burst into full bloom.”

Watching is tough, at times. As we leave the theater, I feel grateful for the experience, impressed by the production – and troubled by vicious ethnic abuse surrounding us. Folks should see it. This production is well-crafted and more than moving. ([For info and tickets: https://www.lcctnm.org/ .) Like any good play, it takes you out of your life into another world; but this world contains important information we all ought to have, maybe an inoculation against ethnic hatred. An election-season reminder of where that can lead, and that some political conduct is just not even decent.

                              – 30 –

 

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 6 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and on the newspaper's website and will shortly be up on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[It’s a good play, well done. And timely. (Five years ago, we got to meet in Las Cruces Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, a childhood friend of Anne’s in Amsterdam, right before the events depicted in the play.) Let me stress that by point out the antisemitism of Trump’s allies and himself I do NOT mean to equate Mr. Trump with Adolph Hitler. Trump has no such sense of mission, little concern with government policy, and lacks Hitler’s drive, and, so far as I can tell, harbors no desire to destroy any ethnic group. He’s a garden-variety somewhat racist and antisemitic product of our times. (He was born in 1946, almost six months before I was, and in Queens rather than Brooklyn.)  Managers of his casino used to have to try to get black dealers off the floor when he visited; and his comment on Jews, that he liked his accountants to be Jewish, while antisemitic, isn’t vicious. He grew up liking money and with a deeper need than most of us to keep proving he’s okay. And now political convenience has aligned him with folks who are more actively antisemitic and racist.) So he’s no Hitler. But his lack of compassion for those who are different from him is concerning. And since he’s demonstrated that callousness with regard to Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims, U.S. veterans and prisoners-of-war, handicapped journalists, and quite a few others, maybe in that previous sentence I shouldn’t have limited the statement with the words “those who are different from him. Shit, he ain’t even compassionate toward his wives.]

Please Just Listen To Trump's own Words and Judge him by Them.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said this before. So we do these rallies. They’re massive rallies. Everybody loves, everybody stays till the end. By the way, you know, when she said that, well, your rallies people leave. Honestly, nobody does. And if I saw them leaving, I’d say, ladies and gentlemen make America great again and I’d get the hell out, ok? Because I don’t want people leaving. But I do have to say so I give these long sometimes very complex sentences and paragraphs but they all come together. I do it a lot. I do it with raising cane. That story. I do it with the story on the catapults on the aircraft carriers. I do it with a lot of different stories. When I mentioned Doctor Hannibal Lecter, I’m using that as an example of people that are coming in from Silence of the Lambs. I use it. They say it’s terrible. So they say so I’ll give this long complex area for instance that I talked about a lot of different territory . . . You know, for a town hall, there’s not a lot of people, but the fake news likes to say, the false news likes to say, oh, he was rambling. No, no, that’s not rambling. That’s genius. When you can connect the dots. Now, now, Sarah, if you couldn’t connect the dots, you got a problem. But every dot was connected and many stories were told in that paragraph.”

What does that mean?

Maybe it means, “I sometimes communicate in a long, intricate paragraph that seems rambling and disconnected but is actually quite clear, even eloquent.” If so, Donald Trump could say that, or give us a powerful example.

Trump tries to explain his frequent mentions of Hannibal Lecter. If he succeeded, please translate. Does that 247-word passage “connect all the dots,” such that you get what he’s trying to say?

If your spouse, kid, or boss complains of not being able to follow a communication, don’t you try to communicate the point more clearly? If that’s Trump’s effort to communicate more clearly, it’s a miserable failure. Mr. Trump asserts that he speaks coherently and holds wonderful rallies no one leaves before the end. He doesn’t show us his coherence.

Similarly, if co-workers criticized you, would answer, “I’m a genius?” If, as Trump was, you were making a public appearance in aid of getting a job you really wanted, would you assert “I’m a genius” – like a nine-year-old?

We’ve all known people who brag, at work or on social occasions, about their mental acuity and other virtues and accomplishments. Unless they do so with particular brilliance or humor, or you have no choice, do you seek ‘em out to hear more? Do you even tend to believe them? When someone repeatedly claims wit, wisdom, or beauty, my first guess is that the speaker has serious doubts that s/he measures up. Like a guy who keeps telling you how much all women love him, when you hadn’t really asked. Guys on street corners tell you how great they play ball, but Steph Curry can just say, “Yeah, I’ve been known to hoop a little.”

Reread the opening paragraph. Imagine you don’t know who said it. Is your first guess that this is a wise and articulate speaker or someone whose brains are shot from booze, drugs, or old age. Be honest.

                                    – 30 --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 22 September, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and will presently appear on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[Not a lot more to say. There are folks who are inclined to vote for Mr. Trump, because voting Republican is a habit and/or they feel Democrats are too progressive. Unfortunately, aside from whether or not he’s a racist or a felon, or unfairly attacked at times, his own words make it hard to maintain the illusion that he’s even borderline competent to deal with the pressures and problems of the Presidency. All I ask of people of good will who have voted for Trump in the past or are considering voting for him is to read his own words as you would the words of someone applying for an important job with your company or as your high school kid’s words in a time measure, and be honest with yourself about how they stack up. ]

Monday the San Francisco 49ers beat the New York Jets 32-19, and Tuesday Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump more soundly.

Skilled and well-prepared, the ‘Niners scored on eight consecutive drives, although too often they settled for 3-point field goals, not touchdowns. With football’s best running back injured, a young, unknown 49er ran all over the field.

Harris was skilled and well-prepared, with facts, Donald Trump’s own past words, and a few special plays. She won soundly on content and in the optics. She got under his skin, helping him forget his best plays and rant about his greatness instead. He resembled a football player so frustrated by a broken tackle that he just loses his temper and earns a 15-yard personal-foul penalty.

Harris, too, sometimes settled for field goals, and she evaded some questions. Her answer on tariffs could have pointed out that his more extensive tariff plans to “punish China” would punish U.S. consumers. When he completely refused to answer a simple question, she could have used her rebuttal minute well by saying, “You asked Mr. Trump whether he regretted anything he did on January 6 [or, Why he sabotaged the bipartisan border bill?], and he refused to answer, so let me yield him my minute, so he can answer your question.”

But she prosecuted him ably. On split-screen, her facial expressions and body language commented eloquently on Trump’s stupid lies and disconnections.

Then wildly popular singer Taylor Swift, who’d rooted her boyfriend’s team to a Super Bowl victory over the ‘Niners, endorsed Harris, in a well-composed post saying Harris fought ably for causes Swift thought “needed a warrior” championing them. Swift stressed her research, urged others to do research, and provided a link to vote.gov – which 330,000 used within hours. (The post quickly had 10 million “likes.”) Celebrity endorsements shouldn’t matter so much; but this one could. She has 283 million Instagram “followers.”

When Biden withdrew, I said that Trump should duck a debate with Harris. Trump, leading, should let folks remember Biden’s poor debate performance and Trump’s superficial strength. Treat Harris like the interloper Trump now calls her. But an overconfident Trump wouldn’t have listened. He knows he can do anything better than anyone.

Tuesday night, I hoped for no further debate. Harris would likely win again; but why not let this fine evening be folks’ vision of Harris and Trump? The Chiefs didn’t offer the ‘Niners a rematch just for fun.

This debate revealed important realities: Donald Trump is a petulant old man with a few fixed ideas he yammers loudly and often, without compassion and lacking patience for honest engagement. Harris was younger, sharp-witted, disciplined enough to stay on-script, and seemed genuine. A less unsettled Trump could have landed some blows. He could have calmly noted her vice-presidency and ask why, if X and Y were such good ideas, she and Joe hadn’t done ‘em. Trump’s mental acuity has long been suspect. How many Republicans now wish they could do as the Democrats did? They can’t, partly ‘cause Trump ain’t walking away. Biden cared.

Harris replacing Biden equalized polling numbers, and gave her momentum. Recent signs suggested momentum was stalling. Folks watching clips from this debate and hearing Republicans bemoan Trump’s poor performance could refuel momentum.

Harris remains the underdog. But will some politically aggrieved folks who liked Trump’s anger see that Trump’s personal anger is irrelevant to their problems? Will Swifties swiftly rescue us?

                                                         – 30 –

The City Puts the Hospital on Notice

What’s it mean that Las Cruces has written Memorial Medical Center (“MMC”) demanding compliance with MMC’s contractual obligations – mostly reporting more fully and providing “Expanded Care,” which includes medical care for indigents?

There’s no established breach; but this is official notice that the City has good reason to believe breaches have occurred. Theoretically, if MMC ignored this, the city and county could take steps to evict MMC and its ultimate owner, the private equity firm Apollo Global.

This is a great first step we should neither take too lightly not applaud too loudly.

Much will depend on the reaction of Apollo/MMC and on the City’s intestinal fortitude.

It’s a fair question whether the private-equity firm will make significant improvements. If we were starting a hospital we’d not seek Apollo to run it. But Apollo owns it. Apollo won’t just return it to us, because it’s one of the chain’s most profitable hospitals. (Litigation to evict Apollo would be costly and rancorous.) But Apollo, through MMC’s new CEO, will respond, and will deal with its landlords. How reasonably? Guess we’ll find out.

But there’s no improvement without the City standing up. Yoli Diaz and I can kvetch ‘til the cows come home.

We should thank Yoli – and Gretchen.  Yoli took people with cancer to MMC and pushed for their admission. She criticized city, county, and hospital, and screamed ‘til she was blue in the face at meetings – and talked folks’ ears off outside meetings.

She’d have gotten nowhere without her accidental megaphone, Gretchen Morgenson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Gretchen was discussing her newest book [These Are the Plunderers] about Apollo and other private-equity groups plundering health care entities. Las Cruces ain’t a big media center, but it’s home to one of Gretchen’s closest friends, Charlotte Lipson, whom she likes visiting; and Gretchen had heard of MMC’s problems.

So Gretchen gets to visit with Yoli at length and this becomes a national story. State Attorney-General Raul Torrez jumps in to investigate. Thanks, Raul! Others of us urge the city and county to enforce their contractual rights. The City’s letter to MMC cites Morgenson’s report.

As I was thinking and Mayor Pro Tem Johana Bencomo said, we also needed two other pieces. A new city manager, Ikani Taumoepeau, and a City Attorney, Brad Douglas, who would stand up and agree that the City had rights here. Former City Manager Ifo Pili and former County Manager Fernando Macias sat on MMC’s board. Were they watchdogs who didn’t bark? Or were ignored? I never heard ‘em.

Now we wait. Global/MMC is legally obligated to provide full information and start to remedy the breach, if it is one. They owe the City (legally) and the community (ethically) a lot of information. Lease section 4.9 requires an annual report describing the hospital’s fulfillment of its legal obligations. The City has [finally] requested such a report by September 30, so I hope we see it in October. It’s important that the City stick to its guns and require MMC to perform – but be fair in giving MMC time to do so. I may have my doubts about Apollo Global; but those aren’t evidence.

As I left the City’s press conference, outside, a Juarez news outfit was interviewing Yoli in Spanish, under the bright New Mexico sun. A citizen who’s done what citizens should do: be a complete pain in the posterior until leaders listen.

                                      – 30 –

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 8 September, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and on the newspaper's website, and will presently be up on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[I’m not a pure bystander in this one. I’ve been writing about problems at MMC and the public landlords’ obligation to use their contractual powers to improve healthcare here by insisting on contractual compliance. ]

[I also urge City and County to investigate what their options would be if Apollo said “Take back your hospital, you’re too much of an annoyance” or Apollo largely stiffed the City on improvements and full reporting and the City got a court to say “Sayonara!” to Apollo. Neither is likely. As mentioned, this is one of Apollo’s more profitable hospitals, and Apollo is unlikely to hand it back. Litigation is expensive, time-consuming, distracting, and often rancorous, and should be only a last resort.

But we should know what our best options would be. First of all, we’d not want suddenly to be in that situation and start then to figure things out. Secondly, the more informed you are about such things, the better negotiator you are. I’m not suggesting city or county do anything untoward contractually, but merely that they should inform themselves on the “What ifs,” just in case.]

 

Getting to Write Thirteen Years of Sunday Columns -- Thanks, Ray!

This one’s for Ray Bernal and ‘cause it’s August.

I met Ray playing basketball at Meerscheidt, fifty years ago. He was a native Las Crucen and city official. I was a reporter. We became friends and stayed that way. He died recently.

When I returned to live here, Ray thought I should be writing a Sunday column. He introduced me to Jim Lawitz, then the Sun-News editor, who asked for a couple of writing samples and hired me. (I say “hired,” but the money was trivial, and was never the point.” My first column was dated 21 August 2011.

It’s been a hell of a ride! I figured to write folksy old-man columns, maybe goofy human-interest stuff. But old friends and enemies, recalling me as the young firebrand publishing what I thought was right, plus new friends presenting me with injustices and problems, torpedoed that idea.

Some columns have been controversial. Some even led friends to worry about our safety. Two successive county sheriffs got so enamored of the wrong people that they made deputies’ lives miserable. People bravely told me their stories, and we shined enough light into dark corners to help facilitate change.

It’s incredibly rewarding to hear a powerless person who’s been abused, or sees a wrong being done by our political representatives, investigate, listening to all sides, and write the fairest, truest column I can on something the public should know.

Meanwhile, I’ve tried to advocate on issues, but more to articulate a feeling: that men, including me, are too damned self-absorbed; that nature, poor folks, underlings, and ethnic minorities get unfairly short shrift; that discussing stuff collegially – speaking frankly but listening closely – often actually works. Also that none of us – surely not I! – knows the whole truth. And that, even in tough times, we’re all just folks, with more in common than we realize. 

 

Particularly during the first several years, some folks showered me with the vilest possible insults. Others liked the column. Strangers sometimes called me up or approached me in public to agree or disagree, or to thank me for putting into words stuff they were thinking. Sometimes what they said, or their tone, moves me deeply. If not for those heartfelt thanks, I’d have given up the column long ago.

A gentleman in the Farmers Market said he owed me a big debt of gratitude. How come? “Well, when my son was younger, he was turning really rightist. He lived with his mother’s family, who are more conservative. When we’d hear you on the radio, he’d say, ‘That guy is completely full of ____!’ He took your name in vain a lot. But then he’d research what you were talking about, and say later, ‘You know, that guy was actually right.’”

I ran into a man at a City Council meeting. He asked if I recognized him. I didn’t. He was a man who’d been wrongly accused, years earlier, of a particularly vile crime. After investigating, I’d concluded the charge was bogus, and wrote why. The police soon reached the same conclusion. Whole incident was tragic. No one ever fully recovers from such a situation. It gave me joy to find him working again, doing good again, and still with his loyal family.

So, thanks, Ray. Thanks for the platform, Sun-News. Thanks to friends and strangers who’ve read these columns and reflected on them. Thanks, Las Cruces!

I love this place.

                                                 – 30 --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 1 September, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website, and will presently be up on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[Like anything you start, then continue, the columns have taken on a life of their own. There’s a passel of Sundays between August 2011 and this morning. Because the spoken versions air each week, I’ll have folks recognize my voice and approach me in the oddest of situations. I also receive heartfelt thanks from people who’ve clearly enjoyed some of the columns. That’s moving, humbling, and a great discouragement to giving them up!]

[Idly, just now, I searched the blog posts for “Controversy.” The first listed was a 2012 post on the City giving an award to a prade float that included the Confederate flag:

The Great Confederate Flag Float Controversy? What’s sad is that the Tea Party is too cowardly to be candid. What’s important is not to let this nonsense lure us into an overreaction that would intimidate free speech.

I know that flag. I saw it on cars driven by people who threatened me and chased me back out onto the dirt roads (where the colored stayed), when I was a civil rights worker in the South in 1965.

It was the flag of a "nation" created to defend slavery.

Next came a 2015 meditation on the books Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Looking Backward, then a comment this year on book-banning, a column on the 2014 Soil and Water Commission election, then a post-Dobbs outcry (headed “Supreme Court on a Rampage – Wake Me when we Get Back to the Inquisition” that starts:

It feels rotten to be a U.S. citizen.

I recall pre-Roe times. Although abortion’s normally a safe, simple procedure, I watched a female relative endure a life-threatening situation because abortions were illegal and hers couldn’t be done in a hospital. That sticks in your mind.

Last week’s supreme court decision is horrendous for many reasons. It will mean some people will die or be jailed for family-planning, it signifies, in itself and in the court’s unnecessarily broad language, a serious eclipse of personal freedoms.

These justices did this with glee, writing the decision the way someone walking off with your wallet might unnecessarily stick his finger in your eye as he left.

[There’s no shortage of contorversies: but I can also search “Community” and “Gratitude” [“Desert”] and find more cheerful or reflective columns. Searching “harmony” yields 2019 reflections on Jesus and Patrul Rinpoche sparked by an encounter with two Catholics in the farmers market, thanks to the County Commission for voting to support Lynn Ellins’s 2013 decision that our constitution gave him no right to deny marriage to same-sex couples, and a couple on spring in the desert. It’s kind of like looking through a photo album – the sudden clear memory of a moment you’d forgotten, and then a bit of gratitude that, somehow, someone gave you a camera way back when, or offered you a weekly space to say what you thought.]

[Some of those columns I wrote rapidly, almost in feverishly; others followed many interviews, some secret, and careful hours of research; still others were spawned by a moment I loved, such as "Bicycling to the Gratitude Cafe" (2018) and its 2024 sequel Some I wrote after an hour or two of relecting on controversies I wasn’t ready to opine on, and wondering what kind of humongous ego is required to muster the assumption that I have anything to say that might interest or inform anyone else.]