National

Impeachment, Etc.: What’s Going On?

Posted on by David Rodeback

People keep taking me aside, literally and virtually, to ask me privately what’s going on in Washington, DC, as the violence of January 6 and Big Tech censorship intersect with a frenzied rush to impeachment, during President Trump’s last two weeks in office.

Here’s what I see. But first, fair warning: This may be too pessimistic for your tastes. And the causes I see for hope and optimism are subjects for another day.

Violence Is Violence

The violence at the Capitol seems to have come, perhaps not equally, from both extremes of our political spectrum. The far-right criminals who participated have more in common with the leftist criminals who joined them than they have in common with Trump voters generally. The vast majority of Trump voters doesn’t approve the violence any more than it approved last summer’s much greater violence by the Left.

(Theoretical tangent: I don’t view the political spectrum as a straight line; I see it as circle. The ends — the extremes — curve back around and meet each other. Far-right and far-left radicals are practically indistinguishable; their body counts and even their ideologies are more alike than different.)

Twitter Doesn’t Like Free Speech. They’re Not Alone.

Posted on by David Rodeback

Twitter’s leftist partisanship has grown more overt in recent months. Likewise YouTube and Google generally, and Facebook. Lately they’ve trumpeted it for all to hear, to the great delight of American leftists, whose commitment to free speech shrinks as their power grows.

(Note: Some leftists’ delight is not complete. They publicly blame the Big Tech leviathans for not suppressing even more political speech they dislike.)

I Don’t Need Twitter (Mostly)

I never followed President Trump on Twitter, and I don’t recall ever seeing one of his tweets in its natural habitat. I’ve only seen them in stories and columns about his tweets. But on Friday afternoon I read Twitter’s absurd justification for banning a President of the United States, and I went home and deleted four of my five Twitter accounts. At the time I didn’t realize I was part of a trend.

On the 2020 Presidential Election and Its Aftermath

Posted on by David Rodeback

In the two months since Election Day I’ve been increasingly intrigued by the certitude I encounter in people on both sides of this question: was the 2020 presidential election stolen? If you’re certain it was or certain it wasn’t, I wonder: why do you think what you think? We’ll talk about this.

I’ve also been thinking that people on both sides are missing something important about the US Supreme Court. This leads to unreasonable expectations and fears about the Court’s possible interventions. We’ll talk about this too.

I have some specific thoughts about what should and shouldn’t happen tomorrow, when Congress meets in joint session to observe the counting of electoral votes, and what should happen thereafter. I’ll mention them as we conclude.

Electing a US President: 3 Things to Remember While the Chips Fall

Posted on by David Rodeback

The possibility of a contested presidential election result this year makes it even more important to understand our process for electing a President of the United States. Add threats of widespread violence and long-standing assertions by both sides that the other side is planning and executing skulduggery. Mix in a predictable avalanche of reporting and commentary, little of which will be objective. I’m betting you’ll want to remember three things — and two of them are dates.

Knowing these things will at least provide some benchmarks for judging how much trouble we’re in, if any, and whether the unfolding process is legitimate.

My November 2020 Election Ballot

Posted on by David Rodeback

I often title this annual post “David’s Handy Little Election Guide.” I thought about swapping “tardy” for “handy” this time, since I hear that more than half of you have voted already. But then I thought, this year’s offering doesn’t rise to the level of a “guide” anyway, because I’m coming late and underinformed to a number of items on the ballot. However, I have my 2020 election ballot in front of me, I’m about to fill it out, and you’re welcome to look over my shoulder for a few minutes, if you like.

Two caveats: I’m only commenting on races and issues I see on my ballot. And I’m not bothering to comment on the races which are (quite regrettably) uncontested. I’m excluding yes/no judicial retention votes too, because I don’t have much of an opinion one way or the other about any of the judges.

What I Read Last Week About Myself (and Other Trump Voters)

Posted on by David Rodeback

In the past few weeks I spent more hours than I want to count, writing a blog post about why I’m one of those Trump voters in 2020, after voting otherwise in 2016. I never imagined my position or explanations would please every reader, and they haven’t.

But most of the people who’ve disagreed with me in their posted comments or back-channel responses have been gentle, saying things like, “You’re overreacting” (won’t that be nice, if true!) and “I’m disappointed; I expected better.” The word “batty” came up. Propaganda was mentioned, and the phrase, “living in another universe” (not that I should, just that I do).

All in all, my friends and readers are far more civil than some folks. The contrast is quite striking just now. Last week, for three days, as I did my usual hour of daily reading, from Left to Right and back again, and scrolled through social media, I kept a list of negative things people said about me — well, me and everyone else who’s voting for President Trump.

Some of the writers are prominent voices in major publications; others are from small publications or simply my acquaintances on social media. I’m democratic that way.

By the way, that blog post I mentioned went live this week, so responses to it didn’t make the list, not that most of them would have anyway.

Why I’m Voting for President Trump

Posted on by David Rodeback

I recently urged those of us who can to tell others how we’re voting for president this year. I promised to do the same. I’ll be voting for President Trump.

I’m not saying you should cast the same vote. I’ve made the choice I think is best for the long-term freedom and welfare of our nation and my family. You could do the same, and vote differently.

If your vote differs from mine, I’ll still respect you as a person, and I won’t accuse you of being more loyal to your ideology than to your loved ones, or valuing politics more than you value truth itself.

If we vote differently and your guy wins, I’ll pray with all my American heart that you were right. If my guy wins, I’ll pray I wasn’t wrong.

I wonder what we’ll think of this moment two years from now, or five or ten.

Meanwhile, I’m not here to convince undecided voters or change anyone’s mind. So I won’t be explaining every point to my own satisfaction — or yours, probably. My first draft included what felt like a bare minimum of explanation. Then I cut it in half.

Everything You Like Is (Not!) Socialism

Posted on by David Rodeback

A small fraction of conservatives view almost any taxpayer-funded service provided by government as socialism, and anything that smacks of community as communism.

It’s not just the obviously redistributive programs like progressive income tax, earned income credit, housing subsidies, etc. They denounce the basics too: public roads, public libraries, water and sewer systems. You can hear just about anything government proposes denounced as socialism, if it involves spending, hiring, or making new law or regulations.

This faction has its own wing nut fringe. We heard from them in 2018, when Hurricane Florence hit. A Chick-fil-A in North Carolina opened on Sunday (which they almost never do) to provide free food to refugees in three local refugee shelters. Crazy as it sounds, these fringe conservatives said a business’s voluntary donation of free chicken sandwiches to hungry travelers was socialism. (Some on the left were unhappy for other reasons.)

Strange Bedfellows

In a bizarre turn worthy of 2020, now some on the left make the same claim: any service government provides is socialism.

Cloth Masks and the Death of Nuance – Part 2 of 2

Posted on by David Rodeback

This is the second half of an essay on cloth masks — on their own merits and as a symbol of our loss of nuance in the public square. If you haven’t read Part 1, it’s a good place to start. It focuses mostly on masks and their effectiveness. Here I’ll summarize several facets of mask-related nuance, then turn to more general questions: why losing our sense of nuance matters, how it may have happened, and a few things we might do about it.

I Wear a Cloth Mask, But …

For me, wearing a cloth mask to slow the spread of COVID-19 is not a one-sided question. There’s nuance here. Allow me to illustrate.

I wear a cloth mask at church, at stores, and at work right now, even sometimes when it’s not required. I don’t mind that my mask protects you a lot more than it protects me. And I can accept a cloth mask’s usefulness even when I know it’s far less than 100% effective in stopping the spread of COVID-19. (See Part 1.)

I wear a mask, but I agree that elected and unelected officials have confused the issue by saying one thing, then another. I agree that their recommendations may be influenced by their own goals, especially as regards the November 2020 election.

I wear a mask, but I acknowledge that the pandemic itself has been politicized, with deadly effect. Even the science has been politicized — corrupted — also with deadly effect. Yet I don’t simply reject science or politics; each has its place.

Cloth Masks and the Death of Nuance – Part 1 of 2

Posted on by David Rodeback

To mask or not to mask? Cloth masks, I mean. The nature of the debate suggests a larger problem.

Some people’s views of cloth masks are reasoned and nuanced, but extreme responses on both sides are frequent. Even dwelling on the question may seem extreme, when … but you don’t need me to list the world’s or a nation’s troubles. Do we really have time and mental energy to spare for a sustained quarrel over cloth masks?

Beyond health considerations, the cloth mask has come to symbolize for me the death of nuance in our thought and discourse. We’ve lost our taste for complexity, for seeing more than one side of a question, for reserving judgment and forming a balanced view. From our family dinner tables to our national politics, we reject depth and perspective, and weaponize the shallowest version of everything against our political enemies … er, opponents.

We’ve downed those trendy cocktails of fear and anger until we may be too drunk to self-govern. Perhaps we’re drunk on trivia too, in Mark Steyn’s phrase. The almost-ubiquitous cloth mask is a tangible talisman of our inflamed, intemperate time.

I’ll try to explain. And before this two-parter is done, I’ll discuss some remedies — or at least muse on some things we could do that might help. (I don’t want to oversell.)