My Faith and Hope in Joe Biden

I am counting on Biden. To pull the Nation together. Over the last month,  I  have developed far deeper confidence and faith  in him. In his mind and heart. He is a decent man; a man of character; a man with great experience. I believe he knows what needs to happen. He knows he needs to unite this country. Heal our wounds, bridge our separateness. He has suffered the worst possible personal pain. He has come through it. He has lived his life for this moment. Much as Winton Churchill It is his moment; his responsibility. He knows this. It is why he is running. 

He will be thinking of Beau and a whole lot more that we will never know. He has a loving wife at his side. This was made even more evident by her magnificent reflections during the Democratic Convention.  

Biden's acceptance speech was everything I hoped for.  He was crystal clear on what is at stake in this election—the character or as Biden rightly states "the soul of our Nation", His speech was filled with hope and empathy and the commitment to unify our country. 

 To that end, I hope and pray he includes Cabinet members and other senior advisers who represent diverse views and from across the aisle. Lincoln did that in 1860; Churchill did it too in 1940. 

We have been through worse as a country. We always have depended on great leadership in our most challenging moments. I believe we are about to be graced by such leadership at this critical moment. 

Reflections on Jon Meacham's Biography of Thomas Jefferson

May 21, 2020

JON MEACHAM’S THOMAS JEFFERSON:  THE ART OF POWER

 This magnificent biography ranks among the three or four finest I’ve ever read.  Alongside it I would put Robert Caro’s multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, David McCullough’s biography of Truman and David Blight’s biography of Frederick Douglass.  

I’m going to break my reflections and excerpts from the book into two groups, the first being new insights and the second being personal beliefs strongly reinforced.  

New Insights

1. Jefferson and many of his peers saw a constant threat to the United States still newly acquired freedom from Britain and, to a lesser extent, from France.  This is the context in which we have to view his life starting in 1765 all the way through to 1815 and the Treaty of Ghent, which concluded the War of 1812.  

The controversies with Britain were many:  impressment of U.S. ships seeking British sailors, alliances which Britain made (or was felt to make) with Native Americans, possible encroachment from British-held Canada and more.  

For most of his political career, Jefferson was tightly aligned to France.  He was there as the country’s emissary in the 1880s.  He loved it.  

2. There was unending enmity between the two parties, the Federalists and Republicans, and their leaders, particularly Adams and Hamilton for the Federalists.  

Jefferson greatly feared the tendencies he saw in Adams to want to re-establish the vestiges of monarchy.  He felt Hamilton, quite correctly, was intent on forming a much stronger central government.  Witness the U.S National Bank.  Jefferson was strongly in favor of popular democracy and while at times pragmatically flexible on the point (e.g., his bold decision to carry out the Louisiana Purchase), he favored states’ rights.  His acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase was carried out through executive order, though it was eventually approved by the Senate.  He had considered calling for a constitutional amendment but correctly saw that this could delay the purchase and that Francie might have second thoughts. 

To amplify on the party and personal divisions.  When they were both members of the cabinet, Jefferson wrote that he and Hamilton were now “daily pitted in the Cabinet like two cocks.”  President Washington lamented this:  “How unfortunate and how much it is to be regretted that, whilst we are encompassed on all sides with avowed enemies and insidious friends that internal dissentions should be harrowing and tearing our vitals.”  

Jefferson’s view of the Federalists makes the point:  “their leaders are a hospital of incurables and, as such, entitled to be protected and taken care of as other insane persons are.”

Still, before becoming president, he expressed contemptuousness for politicians who held themselves above party.  “A few individuals of no fixed system at all, governed by the pack or the prowess of the moment, flap as the breeze blows against the Republican or the aristocratic bodies and give to the one or the other a preponderance entirely accidental.”   That changed when he entered the presidency.   He hoped he could achieve political unity.  “Nothing shall be spared on my part to obliterate the traces of party and consolidate the nation, if it can be done without abandonment of principle.”

But a few years later, he had to write:  “The attempted reconciliation was honorably pursued for us for a year or two and spurned by them.”  As Meacham writes, “As Jefferson well knew, in practice the best he could (hope for was a) truce between himself and his opponents, not a permanent peace.  Political divisions were intrinsic; what mattered most was how a president managed these divisions.”

3. The conflict between Jefferson’s notions and ideals of freedom and his continued willingness to live alongside slavery, in his own family and with his own bedmate, are vividly portrayed.  He firmly believed that whites could not live with blacks, not at least as far out as he could see.  He was willing to “kick the can down the road,” so to speak in finding a way, if there was to be found one, where blacks would be free and actually integrate with white society. Prior to his presidency, Jefferson would write:  “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.  Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”

Jefferson’s cohabitating with Sally Hemmings was well known.  He coolly recorded the birth of Hemmings’ children in his farm book along with other details of the lives of his slaves and of the fates of his crops.  “A multi-racial society was beyond Jefferson’s imagination,” Meacham writes, “except it was not beyond his experience, since he had created just such a society at Monticello.  Mixed-race children such as those he had with Sally Hemmings suffered, in his general view, from an intrinsic “degradation” produced by the “amalgamation of white and black.”  How is it possible to explain the disorienting contradiction between his harsh view of “amalgamation” and his own paternity of such children Meacham asks.  He speculates that the human products of “amalgamation,” to use his term, were thought to be sources of chaos in the road behind his own mountain.  

Meacham correctly points out that rendering moral judgments in retrospect can be hazardous.  Yet also correctly he points out that it’s possible to assess a man’s view on a moral issue like slavery by what others in the same age and facing the same realities thought and did.  And there were at this time in the 1790s  some Virginians of Jefferson’s class who recognized that the blight of slavery had to go and they did what was within their power by emancipating their slaves.

4. Somewhat surprising to me was Jefferson’s desire to “avoid conflict at any cost.”  I can identify with this personally.  It has gotten me into trouble at times. 

It showed up in Jefferson’s case on a personal level by his unwillingness to intervene in a conflict between his two sons-in-law.  Meacham’s traces this tendency on Jefferson’s part back to his childhood.  So it is with mine as well.

5. As with so many historical figures, I was struck by how much death occurred in Jefferson’s family.  His wife, Martha, at an early age; four of his six children, three of them in early childhood.  I’m also struck by that Jefferson had that were either improper (for example, with the wife, Betsy Walker, of one of his best friends) or other loves which were not returned. 

6. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, because it’s so human, but I was surprised at how often and how deeply Jefferson felt sorry for himself.  

Early on as president, he wrote:  “I long to be in the midst of the children, and have more pleasure in their little follies than in the wisdom of the wise.”  (I can understand that.)  Here, too, he wrote his wife:  “There is such a mixture of the bad passions of the heart that one feels themselves in enemies’ territory.”  

Maybe that’s less “feeling sorry for yourself” than simple good introspection.  

In a latter part of his second term, he wrote a friend:  “I am tired of an office where I can do no more good than many others who would be glad to be employed in it.  To myself personally, it brings nothing but unceasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.”  (Well, we can have our down moments.  He’s just human.  That’s one of the things that makes this biography and his life so special.)  

Later, now retired from the presidency, but still only 68, he writes:  “I am already sensible of decay and the power of walking, and find my memory not so faithful as it used to be.  This may be partly owing to the incessant current of new matter flowing constantly through it”  (I sure can identify with that today at the age of 81).

7. Another element driving Jefferson’s fear of a return of monarchy was his deep knowledge of the history of the English civil war when a short-lived move to popular rule was turned back and the monarchy returned.

8. Striking and concerning to me was Jefferson’s abandoning his rule as Governor of Virginia in the midst of the British attack in 1881.  Jefferson later defended himself against charges of walking away but they were not persuasive to me.   

9. On religion, Jefferson believed in the existence of a creator God and an afterlife.  On the death of Abigail Adams, a good friend, he wrote to her husband, John Adams:  “Mingling sincerely my tears with yours.  Looking forward to ‘the time not very distant’ when we will ‘ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost and whom we shall still love and never lose again.”  Jefferson expressed far more certainty in the prospect of an afterlife than I hold, but I won’t be particularly surprised if that’s what I find and I will be delighted to find it for the same reasons Jefferson enunciates.  Jefferson had no time for what he described as the “dogmas” of most established religion, including the divinity of Christ and his birth by the Virgin Mary.  But like me, above all, he defended the moral essence of the life and teachings of Jesus.  In fact, he wrote a 46-page worked entitled, The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted from the Account of His Life and Doctrines as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

He carried a well-worn Book of Common Prayer, served as a vestryman and invoked the divine in his public statements.  He fought against the establishment of a religion but understood and appreciated the cultural role faith played in the United States.

10. Telling testimony from Jefferson writing to Edward Rutledge as he entered George Washington’s presidency as vice-president:  “You and I have formally seen warm debaters and high political passions.  But gentlemen of different politics used to speak to each other…it is not so now.  Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way lest they should be obliged to touch their hat.”  (What we are experiencing today is not as novel as we sometimes aver, but it is still very undesirable). 

Personal Beliefs Strongly Reinforced

1. Jefferson shares a commitment to service, to good values, to importance of good relations and treating all equally.  To wit:  “There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, a proportion (according to the) bounty which nature and fortune have measured to him.”

Writing to his grandson, Jefferson articulated this understanding of politics and the management of conflicting interests:  “A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence and good honor will go far towards securing  the estimation of the world.”  

And then going on in that letter:  “I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument.  I have seen many…getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another.”

Jefferson believed, Meacham writes, that “socialability was essential to Republicanism.  Men who like and respected and enjoyed one another were more likely to cultivate the virtuous habits that would enable the country’s citizens to engage in ‘the pursuit of happiness.’”

On treating all equally, Meacham writes:  “To Jefferson, each guest who came into his orbit was significant and he had little patience—no patience in fact—with the trappings of rank.”

2. On optimism.  “I’ve often been ‘accused’ of being too optimistic.  I plead guilty.  I have sometimes been too optimistic, not sufficiently attached to a sense of reality.  But far better that than a pessimistic view.”  Jefferson held an optimistic view of life’s possibilities, even as he recognized its imperfections and tragedies.  How could he not, with all the death in his family which surrounded him.  As Meacham writes: “To Jefferson, the imperfections of life and the limits of politics were realities.  So were the wonders and the possibilities of the human mind.”  “I am among those who think well of the human character generally,” Jefferson wrote 21 months before becoming president.  “It is impossible for a man who takes a survey in what is already known, not to see what an immensity in every branch of science yet remains to be discovered.”

I think of this as we contemplate how we will create a lifesaving vaccine for Covid-19.  And how we will create the method and science to be able to predict the next epidemic before it takes its onslaught on people.  

Later in his life, Jefferson struggled to be optimistic.  “I think, with you, that it is a good world on the whole; that it has been framed on a principled benevolence and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us,” Jefferson wrote Adams in 1816.  He took the broadest of views:  “I skewer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.  My hopes indeed sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.”

Future presidents often drew on Jefferson’s thinking.  Here is Truman invoking Jefferson:  “I have a profound faith in the people of this country.  I believe in their common sense.  They love freedom and that love for freedom and justice is not dead.  How our people believe today, as Jefferson did, that men were not born with saddles on their backs to be ridden by the privileged few.  We believe, as Jefferson did, that (the) ‘God who gave us life gave us liberty.’  We will not give up our democratic way to a dictatorship of the left; neither will we give it up to a despotism of special privilege.”

3. Like me, Jefferson saw civility as an important political virtue.  In the main, he practiced what he preached.  He understood, as Meacham writes, that “politics is a kaleidoscope, constantly shifting, and the morning’s flow may well be the afternoon’s friend.”  

On a key issue in dispute, Jefferson confided his faith in a middle course of Madison:  “I think we should leave the matter in such a (position) that we may not be committed absolutely to push the matter to extremities, and yet may be free to push as far as events will render prudent.  A little patience and we shall see their spills dissolved and the people recovering their true sight.”

4. On the importance of taking decisive action, including reversing a prior point of view and taking a bold risk.  This was at play for me and others at P&G when we decided to introduce multiple categories in multiple countries at a time of economic and political uncertainty when Eastern and Central Europe opening up after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Probably the most luminous example for Jefferson was the acquisition of Louisiana in 1803.  He exercised executive power here, foregoing involvement of the states in a way that, under normal circumstances, he would not have countenanced.

As Meacham writes, “The vibrant, breathing, prevailing politics of the hour reflected the complicated character of the triumphant president.  The America of Jefferson was neither only Federal nor wholly Republican.  It was rather a marbled blend of the two, confected by a practical man of affairs.  The significance of the case of Louisiana in shaping the destinies of the country and in illuminating Jefferson’s political leadership cannot be overstated.  He believed, for instance, in a limited government, except when he thought the nation was best served by a more expansive one.”

This is what has characterized the most momentous decisions of any time, including right now, as Congress and every level of business of government has had to take unorthodox, even draconian, steps to minimize the impact of Covid-19.

At a time in 1805 when the Nation was under threat of war from either France or Spain, some advocated forming a provisional treaty with Britain.  Jefferson said “no.”  He insisted  that neutrality was still the country’s best course.  

A similar decisive action, though in history not highly regarded, was Jefferson’s decision to impose an embargo on all imports and exports in 1807.  “It was a breakthrough bill,” Meacham writes.  “A projection of governmental power that surpassed even the hated Alien and Sedition Acts.”

5. Jefferson’s life affirms what I’ve all believed of all of us, even the most famous, “No man is perfect.  We must judge a person by his whole life:  what he did, what he said, what he stood for, his values.”  As Jefferson wrote to his daughter, Patsy:  “Every human being, my dear, must be viewed according to what it is good for, for none of us, no one, is perfect; and were we to love none who had imperfections, this world would be a desert for our love.”

As Jefferson wrote later:  “All we can do is to make the best of our friends:  love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way of what is bad; but no more think of rejecting them for it than in throwing away a piece of music for a flat passage or two.”

Meacham writes with wisdom as he moves to sum up Jefferson’s life.  “We sense his greatness because we know that perfection in politics is not possible but that Jefferson passed the fundamental test of leadership.  Despite all his shortcomings and all of the inevitable disappointments and mistakes and dreams deferred (surely referring to the abolition of slavery and the treatment accorded to the Native Americans), he left America, and the world, in a better place than it had been when he first entered the arena of public life.”

No one could ask anything more of a human being than that.  

Meacham continues:  “The real Jefferson was like so many of us:  a bundle of contradictions, competing passions, flaws, sins and virtues that can never be neatly smoothed out into a tidy whole.”

With due respect, I think Meacham oversimplifies what anchored the values and purpose of Jefferson’s life.  He writes that, “The closest thing to a constant in his life was his need for power and for control.  He tended to mask these drives effectively.  Henry Adams wrote:  “The leadership he sought was one of sympathy and love, not of command.”

But that was not quite the case, Meacham writes.  “For him, sympathy and love among the members of his political circle were means to an end—and the end was command.”

Yes, I agree.  Command was part of it.  But I think he had a nobler purpose, to make the nation a better place, a safer place, a larger and more vibrant space.  In other words, I believe comand was a means to a nobler end.

What has been the “constant” in my life?  I return to service.  Being all I can be and helping others do the same.  Succeeding.  Leaving people, above all my family, in a better place.  

In a way, Jefferson expressed what he viewed as the constant in his life in his later years, as he reflected on drafting the Declaration of Independence:  “Neither aiming in originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that occasion the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.”

In less grandiose terms, that thought was in my mind, in all of our minds, as we wrote the Purpose, Values and Principles of P&G in 1987, as we celebrated the 150^th anniversary of the company’s founding.

FM_JonMeachamThomasJefferson051520

"The Blame Game"—Stop It

The Trump Administration blames China  for the spread of the virus, implying it may have even been intentional, and threatens higher tariffs or other actions for compensation. Our National Intelligence Agency has been dispatched to carry out the investigation of China.

The Democrats and some Republicans blame Trump for having dismissed the virus a threat for far to long, causing needless deaths as a result.

Republican blame Democrats for politicizing the epidemic to get Trump out of office.

Trump blames Obama for not having stockpiled supplies, even tough he (Trump) had been in office for three years.

Stop it. This is madness.

There will be a time and the need for throughly examining the causes of this epidemic: what could and should have been done differently to lessen its impact and the learning for the future. But now the focus needs to be like  a laser  on everyone's working cooly and as wisely as possible, protecting lives while getting people and the Nation back to work.

Political leaders and the media need to stop the blame game now and focus on what matters now.

The Future Global Order—A Fork in the Road

Richard Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has written an important article in the April 7th issue of Foreign Affairs.  The headline of the article summarizes Haas's conclusion: "The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than  Reshape It". 

    . 

Haas  is a realist. He is deeply informed. I respect him. But in this judgement, I hope he is wrong. 

No doubt, , the future following Covid-19 which he predicts— an acceleration of  the populist, nationally-centric policies which we are increasingly  seeing today-- would rightly be deemed the "most likely"one  based on the evidence in hand. 

It is, however, for me, a very dangerous one. It would certainly spell a lost major opportunity--for if there is one thing Covid-19 is doing more than any other in my adult life time is giving teeth to the well-worn mantra that we really are all in this together and that we will not resolve the major challenges we face in the world successfully without strong International  coordination. 

We are seeing that the response to Covid-19 is requiring complete unity and coordination—public, private, government at every level, nationally and globally, hospitals, healthcare workers, and every one of us no matter who we are. 

Covid-19 presents two driving dynamics: 1) those forces which underscore how connected we are in this world (e.g.witness how the disease travels) and the opportunities this offers and demands (e.g. sharing medical discoveries, learning, organized immigration policy, border control etc.); and 2) other competing forces which accelerate the drive for national separation (e.g restricting immigration; securing national not imported supplies).

It is a fact  that prior to Covid-19, leadership in much of the world, including the United States, has been moving increasingly toward a more exclusive national focus and away from multi-national agreements.. There have been many forces driving this, including increased pressure of  immigration, futile and costly involvement by the U.S. in the Middle East, weakness in European common market and U.N. leadership, adversarial U.S. relations with China and Russia ( powers which must work together if we are to achieve global effort against the existential threats of climate change and nuclear proliferation) and the U.S.'s abandonment of the Paris accord and TPP, and other multi-national agreements. 

I had hoped, and I still hope, that  the Covid-19 crisis will compel us to see the need to work together, to strengthen institutions like WHO and the U.N .and the EEC. To date, there is no sign of that happening. I see very little chance of its happening  under under a Trump administration.  As Richard Haas points out, it will also be extremely difficult for Biden, assuming his election.

Nevertheless, several things keep my hope alive.

The first is that we are and will remain a global economy for good economic reasons, quite beyond any ideological motivation.

Second, beyond the threat of a future pandemic, we face two undeniable existential threats to the very existence of  life on this planet as we know it today: 1) environmental deterioration and 2) nuclear disaster and war. Neither of these threats can be overcome without effective global organization and agreements. The question in my mind has always been: how much pain we will have to suffer (akin if you like to the devastation wrought by WWII and WWI before it) before we finally recognize and act on this need for global agreements and policies on these undeniable existential threats.   

I hope that Covid-19 will begin to tip the scales. It is presenting powerful evidence of the need to work globally on key issues including sharing knowledge and expertise and resources among the medical and scientific community. As just one example,  on a recent conference call with the Heads of the Schools of Public Health and Nursing at Yale, we learned that the Nursing Association in China is sharing protocols on their learning in combating the virus in China and having them translated into English.  Sharing like this will come naturally for the scientific community provided it is supported by the leadership of  the principal nations and a strengthened WHO. 

I believe that if Joe Biden is elected President, the United States will take practical steps in the right direction, rejoining the Paris accord and helping lead effective global action on climate control. He can also bring back the Iran treaty  on nuclear capability  I believe it should be possible even if difficult to update the START treaty and reach agreement with China and Russia on nuclear proliferation. Remember, we reached agreement with Russia on nuclear weapons controls when it was still part of the Soviet Union. 

Development of immigration polices which reflect a collective multi-national and not solely individual country perspective is critically important—and will be extremely challenging. However, we and other countries must try. Failure to do so up until now is a big reason explaining the rise of populist national leaders like Hungary's Orban and our own President and it is influencing the political dynamics in almost every country. Beyond that and most painfully,  it is resulting in the greatest refugee crisis in modern history.

Practically, at this moment,  we must  look to new Presidential  leadership in the United States to take concrete steps toward achieving collective action, both domestically (for example,  Covid-19 reveals deep racial inequities in health care)  and globally, against our key existential threats of epidemics like Covid-19, climate change and nuclear proliferation 

 It will be vital to identify Congressional leaders from both parties that see these imperatives and are prepared to guide and  support the President on these policies. We will also need media to shape public opinion to see the realty of the need to work together across the globe on specific key issues and trumpet the benefits of doing so. 

This will be very difficult. It will not be the task of a single administration. It will take many years. We stand at a crossroads, as Yaroslav Trofimov writes is an essay in the "Wall Street Journal". Will the route we take to tackle the pandemic and its economic fallout follow the route of national grievances and finger pointing  and protectionism which country after country embraced after WWI with its disastrous outcome? Or will the pandemic, with it lessons, spur a renewed commitment for cooperation and shared solutions as happened after WWII—though this time, unlike post-WWII, on a global basis?  

History offers hope. As Winston Churchill once remarked, "the future is unknowable but the past should give us hope"—the hope, as Jon Meacham brilliantly offers, that human ingenuity, reason and character can combine to save us from the abyss and keep us on a path, in another phrase of Churchill's, to a broad sunlit road.  

We must hold to our vision, mindful of the current realities and challenges, but not flinching from them. Richard Haas is right in saying that Covid-19, in and of itself, is not going to lead to a dramatic shift in the recent populist direction of global and national polices. In fact, as we have seen,  it will reinforce some of them. Crises like Covid-19 expose problems, often painfully,  but they do not supply alternatives, let alone the political will to make the changes happen. 

The change we need  will require fresh ideas and strong leadership. I believe that providing these ideas and the leadership to make them happen is the overriding responsibility of our generation. May those who look back a century from now be able to say that our generation seized the lessons coming from the Covid-19 epidemic as well as they could. They chose the right path. They mustered the fresh ideas and the political will to reengage strong international coordination on the most important challenges the world faced. I hope and pray that is what they will be able to say, for the very future of our country and our planet  depends on it.  

Timeless Truths: Timeless Life-Changing Experiences

I’m reading a book of literary criticism, written by George Steiner, a long-term columnist of The New Yorker.  In introducing his book,   Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, which was published in 1959, Steiner sheds light on the rewards and requirements of literary criticism.  

 

In reading this introduction, I find a great deal that brings me back to the importance of never forgetting those foundational kernels of truth and principles of living which emerge from our most life-changing experiences.

 

There are more than 100 great books, more than 1,000, Steiner tells us.  But their number is not inexhaustible.  The same comment applies to the principles of living and truths.  There are a lot of them.  But the number is not inexhaustible.  And the most important are ones we must always cling to, including the commitment to excellence, to truth and integrity, to never giving up in the pursuit of what is right,  and to respect for one another.  

 

Steiner points out, correctly, that in today’s world a more diffident view of what is timeless prevails.  “With the decline of Europe from the pivot of history, we have become less certain that the classical and Western tradition is preeminent.  Our minds are shadowed by the wars and bestialities of the 20^th century.  We grow weary of our inheritance.  But we must not yield too far.  In excess of relativism lie the germs of anarchy.”  

 

The “ancient recognition and habits of understanding run deeper than the rigors of time.  Tradition and the long ground-swell of unity are no less real than that sense of disorder and vertigo which the new dark ages have loosed upon us.”  (Steiner wrote this in the 1950s.  The shadow of World War II still lingered.  I feel certain that his thoughts would be no different in today’s troubled world.)

 

Even as we know that change is unending, that circumstances change, and that new opportunities and challenges arise, we must hold fast to those truths and learnings which have come down through time and which we believe in our hearts represent guides to our doing the best we can in the world we live in today.

 

Steiner’s subject is the challenge of literary criticism returning “with passion and awe and a sense of life renewed.   At present, there is grievous need of such return,” Steiner writes.  “All about us flourishes a new illiteracy, the illiteracy of those who can read short words, words of hatred and tawdriness, but cannot grasp the meaning of language when it is in a condition of beauty or truth.”  

 

This may sound too highfalutin, too detached from the rigors of everyday life, but I don’t think it is.    I think it calls upon us to honor those truths gained from our experience and learning which, put simply, helps us be our best selves.

 

 

Why We're Polarized and What We Can Do About It

The newly published book Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein underscores what I and all of us have come to see as a reality and does so with very compelling statistics.  Most of all, it shows how a number of reinforcing systemic changes have led to where we are today.  It’s going to be very difficult to change.  

The degree of cross-party voting has gone way down. As one indicator of this: from 1972-1980, the correlation between the Democratic share of the House vote and Presidential vote was only .54. In other words not very tight, indicating a lot of ticket splitting. By 1982-1990, the correlation had increased to .65 and by 2018 it had soared to .97, indicating almost no ticket splitting. 

Access to media is increasingly selected to support one’s current views. For example, self-identified conservative Republicans say they get 47% of their news from FOX; liberal Democrats have a greater variety of sources, but they line up with their ideological bent to CNN, MSNBC, NY Times and NPR.  

While not specifically cited in Klein's book, but of greatest importance as far as I am concerned, 
several key policy issues have morphed from policy differences to absolute moral judgments. These are inherently more irreconcilable.  The most important are race relations, immigration, women’s rights (abortion) and gun control.  

Gerrymandering has resulted in districts intentionally being drawn to ensure an easy win for one party or the other. In recent years this has tended to favor Republicans, but both parties have participated.  As a result, many if not most primary elections determine the outcome of the General Election designed to favor one party. As a result, primaries in which a relatively small number of voters show up (averagely 30%) bring out the most-intense voters.  That’s pushing candidates in both parties further to the right or to the left.

At the same time, the number of truly independent voters has plummeted in recent elections, going from, in analyst's Matthew Dowd's calculations, about 22% to 7%.  A result of this is that candidates are putting more of their effort against getting out their base and pummeling the other side rather than persuading a small number of undecideds. 

Composition of the parties by race has changed dramatically.  In 1952, 6% of Democrats and 2% of Republicans were self-identified as non-white.  By 2012, those numbers changed to 43% Democrats and only 9% Republicans self-identifying as non-whites.  

Attitudes toward the importance of racial discrimination, not surprisingly, varied correspondingly.  In 1994, 39% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans said that discrimination was the main reason "black people can't get ahead these days.”  By 2017, 64% of Democrats believed that, but only 14% of Republicans. To note, much of this trend has been driven by white liberals who, one research study shows, have moved further left on this issue than the typical black voter. 

No statistic more clearly documents the increased polarization of the two parties than this one.  In 1960, 5% of Republicans and 4% of Democrats indicated they would be concerned about their child marrying a person of another party.  By 2010, 49% of Republicans and 33% of Democrats said they would be concerned if their child was to marry a person of the other party.  

As Klein indicates, he is a lot better at analyzing the reality of the polarization and its causes than what to do to narrow it.  Some of his suggestions are sound conceptually but impractical, e.g., eliminate the Electoral College.  The actions I believe are most practical are:

1.     End gerrymandering.  Construct districts which have intentionally a good balance of Republican and Democratic voters. 

2.     Run open primaries; that is, allow people from either party to choose to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary.  That will presumably result in candidates who have paid attention the views of the other party.  

3.     Make access to voting easily available to all.  Make voter registration automatic as one gets their driver’s license, for example. 

4.     Personally, learn the full stories from individuals who have a different policy point of view than we do.  A striking example for me was gun control regulation.  A blog I wrote on this, advocating universal background checks and banning of automatic weapons, drew a sharp response from a number of people.  I invited them to have breakfast with me to discuss the issue.  Two people did.  One breakfast proved particularly productive.  Why?  We came to understand each other’s stories and what led us to our current beliefs, on gun control and other matters.  We came away finding we agreed on much more than I expected.  I learned some things about the challenge of legislation on automatic weapons.  My friend, I hope, learned something from me.  We don’t spend enough time understanding each other’s stories when it comes to genuine policy disagreements.  

5.     Recognize the hole we have dug ourselves into.  Sharing this knowledge broadly will hopefully result in more voters selecting candidates of their party who can work across the aisle.  

Why would they do this? Because they have come to recognize that this is the only way we’re going to get effective legislation on the key issues in front of us accomplished.  The failure in the last several years to achieve sensible gun control or immigration legislation shows the sad outcome of being so polarized.

WhyWe’rePolarized021220

The Perilous Assault on Ethical Standards and Integrity—At Least Vote to Formally Censure The President's Conduct

The Perilous Assault on Ethical Standards and Integrity—At Least Vote to Formally Censure The President's Conduct

February 4, 2020

(This is an update on my post of 1/31)

The Trump trial has been draining.

It has now become depressing as I witness the abandonment of integrity.

Why do I say this?  Because all the Republican Senators , excepting Mitt Romney and Susan Collins, voted "no" on having witnesses. Several Senators including Rob Portman and Lamar Alexander, explain that they  arrive at this decision even though they acknowledge that the President did indeed use the power of his office to hold up duly authorized aid in order to try to get the President of Ukraine to announce an investigation of his principal opponent, Joe Biden.

Trump has repeatedly denied this charge.  In other words, These and other Senators acknowledge he has lied in addition to having  done what the Impeachment charge states.

 And beyond all that he has sought to cover it up.

These  Senators explain their decision to vote "no" by in essence saying the evidence of his guilt is so clear to them that witnesses  would not add anything to it even if they confirm what has been alleged.

They assert that while the President's actions were "inappropriate",  they do not rise to the level of being an impeachable offense.

For me this is impossible to accept.  If  pressuring a foreign nation to stain the reputation of a leading opposing candidate seeking to unseat him as President isn't an impeachable "abuse of power", what is?

I search for an analogue in Corporate life which presents an example of the abuse of power for personal benefit--and contrary to that of the institution.

Imagine a CEO of a company learns that a subordinate employee is poised to disclose an act of serious sexual impropriety on his part. The CEO goes to the employee promising a big promotion in return for his not making the disclosure.

The Board of Directors learns of this. The CEO vehemently denies it happened. Do you think any Board Member determining the allegation was true would describe this as "inappropriate" and stop there? No, that CEO would be summarily  fired.

But what if some board members were uncertain of the truth of the allegation?  After all the CEO (like President Trump) is denying he made this proposition. Now,  however, the Board learns there were two first hand witnesses to the CEO's conversation with the employee. One of the witnesses has said they are ready to talk to the board. Do you think the Board would decline to hear from these witnesses?  Of course they wouldn't. They would demand that all the facts be  put on the table. 

The  positions of these Senators  fly in the face of all I have learned, believe and tried to honor when it comes to ethical behavior.

 At a minimum, they should have sought first hand witnesses to confirm or deny the charges forwarded by the House of Representatives. The Senate should have taken every step to allow the "truth" of the matter to fully emerge. They owed that to the American public so they could  better assess the merits or de-merits of  candidates in the next election. They owed that to history. They owed that to the reputation of the Senate as an independent body. They owed it to their personal legacies.

Last week,, I read something Teddy Roosevelt said in response to sharp criticism he  received for having asked Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House in October, 1901. He was affirming his conviction that he did the right thing.

"I say that I am 'sure' this is the right solution. Of course I know that we see through a glass dimly and, after all, I may be wrong; but if I am then all my thoughts and beliefs are wrong, and my whole way of looking at life is wrong. At any rate, as long as I am in public life, however short a time  that may be, I am in honor bound to act up to my beliefs and convictions".

Roosevelt speaks for me. 

If as appears virtually certain, the Senate will not vote to remove Trump from office, it should at least hold a formal vote on censuring the President's conduct.

 Let history not be silent on how his conduct was viewed. Let history not be silent on his failure to act in good faith and in line with the values that  have made this Nation what it aspires to be.

Make no mistake: if the Senate's record remains silent or ambiguous,  there will be many, likely including the President, who will assert he did nothing wrong. That will result in a devastating crippling of the standards of ethical behavior. And that would present a grave risk to our Nation's future. A vote should be taken on censoring the President's conduct.