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When it comes to national leadership in times of crisis, few are easier to please than the American public. When scared enough we become very tolerant and willing to grade on a curve, simple as that. After 9/11, even as it was quickly becoming clear he had ignored full throated warnings, and appeared as a deer in the headlights when informed of the second attack on the Twin Towers, W went to the smoldering scene of the crime, grabbed a bullhorn, and was at 80+ percent approval ratings before you could say “we’re going to put a boot up their ass!”

FDR was America’s first disabled President. His intimates feared constantly during the transition leading into his first term that the increasing numbers of destitute citizens would hold his condition against him and begin to lose confidence from the get-go as unemployment figures surged. They needn’t have worried. His “fireside chats” became essential listening. The calm reassurance he offered was enough to rally, if not optimism, at least hope that better days would at some point become visible, and more immediately, that the banking industry would not fail. Voters showed their appreciation every fourth November for the next twelve years.

The power we turn over to those we elect President is immense, and the public is never more willing to permit its deployment than during national emergencies. All we expect is to be kept informed about how it is being dispensed on our behalf, how it is bringing to bear the collective resources required to solve the issue at hand. Wide latitude is provided so long as we are confident White House good faith is available in generous supply, with unity and teamwork embraced as dominant themes. Until very recently that has never been a problem. Now it’s an existential crisis. Even so, many remain willing to provide plenty of slack, even if it kills them….. or at least their neighbors.

It is no mystery why so many are sleepless and disconcerted these days. Sure, there is a dangerous contagion on the loose, unpredictable and fully resistant to cure or even treatment for those unfortunate enough to suffer its worst. Moreover, the economy offers nothing now but debilitating uncertainty and looming hardship. Yet and still, were we all certain our President was appreciative of how enormous his responsibilities have become, and how dependent he is on the best efforts and cooperation of the apparatus he heads, our plight would feel less dire. Alas, if only that was all we weren’t getting. 

When Trump mused over the weekend he was considering the titanic step of ordering New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut quarantined, the subtext wasn’t hard to decipher: I have the power to do this and I will if it suits me; your opinion is neither requested nor appreciated. The same Trump “weighing” whether to essentially impose a state of siege on the nation’s most critical metro area, was less than a week ago holding forth on his vision of overflow churches on Easter, something every epidemiologist agreed would lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths. A sudden epiphany? Of course not. Merely our President tormenting another nemesis who “has never treated me fairly” – in this case Governor Andrew Cuomo – because he can.

It has always been a good idea when assessing Presidential candidates to ask oneself what the world would be like if this person could do anything they wanted, impose their will on the rest of us without modification. Regarding Trump the answer to such a hypothetical was always frightening. Now, within the bowels of perhaps the gravest American crisis since the Civil War, the reality, playing out at roughly 5:00 PM each afternoon grows increasingly unfathomable. It is as bad as it gets, but we can bet with confidence it will get worse still. Nothing should surprise, but it still shocks the senses, and only adds a new layer of worry to our quilt of concerns.

It’s more than noteworthy the White House’s statement outlining how Trump has “Mobilized the Full Resources of the Federal Government to Respond to the Coronavirus” spends more time on steps designed to subsidize both small and large businesses, not to mention predictable tangents like filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with far less in the way of stabilizing the nation’s hospital infrastructure.

The March 13 announcement addresses Covid-19 testing, really the lynchpin to any successful strategy for mitigating short-term loss of life or long-term plans for reviving economic activity. Lots of verbiage about “cutting red tape” and of course “public and private sector partnerships,” but little in the way of details. Two million kits are on the way we are assured, the implication being without Trump’s bold anti-regulation efforts or unique entreaties to fellow business titans, such a promise would not be possible.

Yesterday, 17 days later, Governors Larry Hogan, a Republican from Maryland, and Democrat Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan – deemed “half” Whitmer by L’Enfant Terrible last week for having the temerity to question both his performance and veracity – issued about as pure a bipartisan statement as current times allow, detailing where their states are and what they now need. First and foremost on their minds is testing. Near three weeks after Trump pledged two million test kits, Hogan and Whitmer were clear:

“There simply aren’t enough test kits, medical supplies and other lifesaving equipment to meet the scope of this pandemic…. the federal government must take extraordinary steps to deliver what we need.”

As always, Trump meets such desperate pleas with his unique brand of crisis leadership, expounding on the popularity of his press briefings, which include cameos by top MAGA contributors like “the pillow guy” – who called on Americans to use their time at home as good patriots should and pay homage to grand leader as the second coming – and of course attacking Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. It’s likely pleas for federal help on testing will fall on worse than deaf ears, they will be met with efforts to sabotage the mission.

From the start Trump has equated the number of Covid-19 positives with political liability. Anyone who thinks that calculus has changed isn’t merely inattentive, they are purposely obtuse. More than a month into this crisis, getting a test remains a privilege for the wealthy and connected or the dreadfully sick, when it’s merely a pro forma ritual. Were all states to possess ample testing resources, those yet to be hit full force could develop procedures to make certain the numbers don’t reach the tipping point necessary for exponential growth.

Moreover, sufficient testing is essential to discredit MAGA drivel this is MSM hysteria, which continuing mega church attendance and the reopening of Liberty University, not to mention Florida beaches not yet closed by Trumpie Governor Ron DeSantis, makes clear the wretched core still embraces. None of that is attractive to Trump, who has always viewed accurate information as the enemy of his various schemes, kryptonite to his always false claims. This situation is no different. He’d much rather grudgingly accept epidemiological forecasts with a wink wink nudge nudge to his MAGA faithful. Leave plenty of room for Hannity and Dobbs to redefine things. Keep his options open and the nation hostage to his ever devolving whims.

As to whether the US public’s well documented patience has been exhausted by previously unthinkable Presidential sociopathy, displayed daily in ever increasing doses; there is little to inspire confidence in our current national composition. Tragically, the numbers only confirm how divided we have become, and how slavish Trump’s core supporters, now the full GOP rank and file, are. Fox/AM is responsible for the Trump Presidency and in our darkest hour cultivates support for however horrific his daily 5:00 PM national embarrassment becomes. There isn’t another news provider whose listeners grant the President even a 30% approval rating for his Covid-19 stewardship. Almost two-thirds of Fox viewers think he’s been doing swell. Anybody who doubts the GOP has been consumed by MAGA need only consider 90 + percent of Republicans see leadership in insulting reporters, using ventilators to settle petty political scores and making clear the buck stops anywhere but here.

In the throes of an open ended challenge that will shake this country to its core, we are separated as we were before it, divided into two camps. One now demands more than the less than minimum it’s been receiving. The other is willing to bet their lives on whatever their champion comes up with at any particular moment. Fill the churches for Easter one day, lockdown a major portion of the East Coast another. How he uses the awesome power his office provides is of little concern to them, only that he stays in office to continue wielding it. Like the cultists they are, Trump’s wretched core believes, as they have all along, now is the time for them to support him, not the other way around. Circle the wagons.

Most recently there have been what within our current national surreality pass for hopeful indications. Trump seems to ever so slowly be glimpsing the enormity of what we face. The language he held to yesterday should have been the sentiments he was expressing two months ago, even as he jabbed at the usual suspects. But who knows? How can we trust him for sustained reasonableness? Welcome clarity today may be fully disavowed tomorrow, such is the leadership chaos we suffer at his hands. The chickens of normalizing his Presidency now roost with all of us. His wretched core continues to digest and even celebrate his disassociation as “Trump being Trump.” The rest of us are forced, from our living rooms – while we wonder if that stray cough or itch in our throat is the start of our personal reckoning – to curse him and those whose still enthusiastic acceptance of the worst faith ever to guide Presidential crisis management will survive until they literally go into the dirt. The calamity of ruin. BC

When I was a kid in Evanston, Illinois, I loved to play hockey. Nothing made me happier on cold winter days than going to the “lagoon” several blocks from my house and playing pick up games until dark. By the time I was ten I was set to graduate to organized leagues, with practices and games played at Northwestern University’s rink a couple of miles from my home, and far further afield were one fortunate enough to be chosen to the travel team.

Now, my mother had delivered my brother Alex not two years before, and had yet to learn how to drive. It being the Mad Men 60s and Evanston being a classic midwestern small town, such a deficit had yet to seem like a big deal to me. It soon would. My father was a young hot shot Chicago lawyer, who had to “work late” often enough for me to notice my mom’s aggravation when the predictable late afternoon phone call came to again inform her she would be alone with three small children that evening.

I tried out for the house league, which I don’t believe cut anybody, and was satisfied that I was in the upper tier of talent. I wound up on a team anchored by a kid named Johnny O’Brien, generally considered one of if not the best player for his age in the general vicinity. When we broke into our teams to meet our coaches etc., I was flattered the young prodigy seemed to recognize me as his line mate and sort of number two on our squad. Still, I had one serious concern I couldn’t share with anybody because I was ashamed and thought revealing it would open me to ridicule; I had no idea what this thing offsides was! To this day I can’t say why I kept it such a personal secret to suffer senselessly from, but I did.

The rule that an offensive player cannot precede the puck across the opponent’s blue line is, of course, foundational to organized hockey. All strategy and orientation takes place with this restriction in mind. To not understand it makes one unable to participate with any sense of focus, only confused reaction. And so it was my first practice I lurched around, unable to hit my stride, and admonished several times by the coach for either being out of position or violating the fundamental I did not understand. Why he didn’t comprehend my ignorance that night and explain things to me, I cannot say. He waited until the next practice to do so, but by then it would be too late, the damage done.

But for all the confusion and frustration I felt during that initial practice session, it was what occurred after that stays with me to this day. Since Northwestern’s rink was too far to walk, and my mom could not drive me, I was required to take the bus. Again, just as I had digested my mother’s lack of a driver’s license to that point, catching the bus did not initially seem like such a big deal. That changed as I watched every one of my fellow players get escorted to their cars by hockey moms of the day. Suddenly, now I had two things to be ashamed of, only this indignity now dwarfed the other. I cut a solitary and pathetic figure as I trudged alone in the bitter cold toward the bus stop, watching the brake lights of Johnny O’Brien’s family station wagon disappear. No doubt any of the mothers would have been glad to give me a lift. Asking was unthinkable! It was the first time I can remember feeling sorry for myself. It was also the first and very few times I resented my mother.

As it happened, tryouts for the far more prestigious travel team were being held that Saturday in neighboring Northbrook at 0-dark-thirty… some things have always been thus. I had secured my father’s pledge to drive me a couple of weeks before, but he had yet to arrive home as I finally fell asleep that Friday night. How many late nights were actually devoted to work versus downtown Chicago watering holes is a question I never demanded my father answer, mainly because I already knew the answer.

Even so, that Saturday sunrise I felt like I was heading toward my execution. It was one thing to be clueless on a house team; this was the elite, the cream of the crop. How could Johnny O’Brien respect me as a teammate when he found out my ugly secret, which I was certain would spill out for all to see? As we silently drove toward Northbrook, my groggy dad still in his pajama top, my anxiety mounted. I desperately wanted to ask him to explain the rule, but just couldn’t make myself do it!

By the time we arrived I was frozen with doubt. When my father asked what was wrong, I blurted out the whole thing was a mistake and I wanted to go home. My dad seemed more incredulous than empathetic or concerned. He impatiently asked me why. I lied and said I didn’t think I was good enough, and besides, it would take away from basketball at the Y. Of course, not so deep down, I hoped he would be unconvinced by my excuses and gently but firmly nudge me out of the car toward my reckoning. He didn’t. When we arrived back home, my mother asked what had happened. “Ask your son,” my father said as he headed back to bed. I yelled I didn’t want to talk about it and closed my own bedroom door. … and for many years after I didn’t.

These specific vivid memories were foremost in my mind in late 1998 as my wife, Sue, and I discussed family planning. My daughter, Isabelle, was born that January, and after overcoming the initial trepidations of fatherhood, I genuinely felt I was hitting my stride. Things were good. With the Rolls Royce of downtown DC daycares permitting Sue the ability to work while visiting Iz just two blocks away whenever she pleased, we had settled into a very comfortable routine. Two incomes meant financial security, but more importantly to me, it was clear this status quo would fully permit me, like my father before, to compartmentalize parenting. Sue loved every minute with our daughter and seemed to have no real issue with me seeking distance when I needed it. Golf, beers with buddies, ponies and working out… it seemed I could have it all, just like pre-child.

Yet and still, even while luxuriating with the cake I could have and eat too, when my wife directly asked me whether I really wanted the daughter I now treasured to be an only child, the answer was natural. Of course not. My girl would not be alone and ashamed to lack what all of her peers would take for granted! Moreover, she’d always have a ride home from practice by parents, and a brother or sister, there to cheer her on! Whatever accommodations needed to be made for my narcissism would be dealt with on an as needed basis. I could do this for my Issie!

In March of 2000 my son, Luke, was born. About three years later he was diagnosed with pervasive autism, instantly shattering whatever selfish preoccupations I hoped to protect, and finally forcing me into real manhood. My daughter grew up with all the struggles, and self-imposed shames a sibling of a special needs child confronts. As her parents have been forced to divide and conquer responsibilities simply to cope, my wonderful Iz has many times felt solitary and detached from her peers, alone in circumstances they can’t relate to. She has time and again trudged alone to that bus stop.

Now I shelter in place with my wife and the one who changed everything, making me a man of worth and my life a rewarding struggle instead of a predictable dalliance. One by one Sue and I have been gutted as we try yet again to explain why another thing he so relies on has been taken away by “the virus”. Disappointing him has always been painful, never so excruciating as now. Both of us are fearful we could suffer the worst of Covid 19 and leave him at the mercy of this world. Isabelle would then be most all he would have to protect him She knows this and seems resolute as she sits tight hundreds of miles away.

We all have reached together the crossroads of national crisis. Each and every one of us has a tale like mine to tell, pivotal events of our lives that now define us and will prove invaluable during this part of our journey, even as days begin to string together and the dull ache of depression and hopelessness begins to pulse. It’s in us all and will get us through this; we simply need to hold it close. It’s called our humanity. Never forsake it or we are lost. BC

Keeping our mortality in its proper perspective is a uniquely human preoccupation; at least I suppose it is. To date, say, a lion’s views on dying remain a mystery. I work on the assumption they haven’t given it near the amount of consideration I have. It’s doubtful we give the subject more thought than during national crises, when the routines we depend on to distract us from such morbidity are temporarily unavailable. Of course, now we are instructed to do more than merely forsake routine, we are told to literally turn inward, to essentially hibernate for a while, for the sake of ourselves and, more importantly, the most vulnerable among us. It is an acid test of our civic demeanor. Many are failing.

“We are looking at a new war no one has seen before,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo warned Monday. “We have never fought a virus like this with this potential consequence.” On the other coast however, despite both multiplying cases and increasing numbers of death, California GOP Congressman Devin Nunes was all about, er, reassurance. “It’s a great time to go out to a local restaurant,” advised Nunes, directly contradicting the assessments of every responsible health professional. “Let’s not hurt the working people in this country…. go to your local pub.”

It’s a certainty, when we are finally out of the woods with this pandemic, and assuming we are still an ongoing democratic concern, Hollywood will run with the events we are now living. Surely, as is most always the case, writers, directors and various A lot “suits” will be predisposed to embellishing the truth to accentuate drama. They needn’t worry here. The good guys are clearly delineated, the bad guys even more so. Whoever plays Devin Nunes will have to take a lot of showers. Trump’s portrayer may require post-production therapy. As an annoying pest with a taste for the obvious once remarked… “you can’t make this stuff up.”

The Mike Pence Coronavirus response team, whose daily findings and recommendations are emceed – not to mention frequently contradicted – by the President, never seem to offer much more than hype and redundancy. Shout outs to “private industry partners” are frequent, but Anthony Fauci pounds away on the desperate race to “flatten the curve” of the disease’s spread. The clock is ticking.

Perhaps that’s for Trump and his wretched core’s benefit, a continuing effort to counter what they digest from all of their favorite Fox/AM “personalities.” Until earlier this week, most all of the usual suspects continued to ply the virus-as-hoax/political attack feces their loyal listeners will surely refuse to let go of until the bodies start piling up. For his part, Trump has grudgingly embraced the basic facts of the pandemic. Yet and still, one senses his cultists believe it’s a wink wink, nudge nudge situation. Hey, he’s just giving the swamp what it demands, read between the lines. Let’s go have some beers, pandemic my ass.

It should be clear to anyone paying attention to facts they aren’t keen to reframe in support of a Hannity narrative, this pandemic is going to dramatically alter the face of this land. Epidemiologists seem to concur we are going to be forced to confront a choice straight out of Faust. On the one hand we can adopt a prolonged “shelter-in-place” mentality that will reduce the carnage and protect our healthcare resources from being overwhelmed but ruin the economy. Or we can dispense sooner with social distancing and see if we can live with death like we’ve never seen before, fatalities measured in the hundreds of thousands. Any hope this condition is tamer than advertised has been extinguished by testimonials of “healthy” patients sent to ERs by near fatal complications.

To be clear the beginning has just arrived, but already ominous indicators are coming out of New York and Washington state, with patient numbers matching near to the number with Italy’s disastrous track. Cuomo, whose leadership is a reassuring contrast to the President’s indifferent counter- productivity, is doing all the right things while running out of time. He knows he’ll need more space and facilities, more people, more… everything. His pleadings to the White House for resources have fallen on worse than deaf ears, they’ve met up with Trump’s petty vindictiveness. Get your own ventilators, L’Enfant Terrible bellowed on a conference call with Governors, which he later tweeted was great with the exception of Cuomo, who “needs to do more.” Never bet he can’t go lower.

Meanwhile, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the nation, “except millionaires” is about to get Christmas for Easter. Checks up to a cool grand are about to be cut. Even though work missed has yet to exceed a significant snow event, looming economic hardship is already tangible. It appears Mnuchin and his jefe want to get the loose details out of the way before focusing on some serious corporate welfare down the line.

Pay offs are a specific strength in Trump’s skill set, and he seems enthused to start dolling out the goodies… times being what they are. Airlines, cruise ships, the restaurant and hospitality industries – no doubt energy interests are right now deciding how big a bucket to bring – the line is forming, like a Costco with freshly stocked toilet paper shelves. However far $1000 is going to go for now unemployed people already living hand to mouth, most unable to afford a sudden $400 expense in the best of times, you better believe Trump will remind them from here to eternity how lucky they were to receive his largesse. But at the end of the day the same boardroom folks who Trump maxed out the deficit platinum card for two years ago are who will feel the true healing balm of Coronavirus relief. Count on it.

In the meantime we are still a divided nation precisely when we can least afford it. Apparently, in flyover country, plenty MAGA faithful are not about to fall for this one, abandoning Fox as it relents to what passes for reason in its studios, to OAN where conspiracies about the virus as Fauci plot to destroy Trump’s economic miracle are rife. “The lord is my vaccine,” they are declaring as they wait for a table in Kansas. Worse, coddled kids will not be denied their party time. With neither Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, or Gregg Abbot in Texas willing to do their jobs, instead ceding responsibility to local mayors and city councils, beaches have been slow to close, providing critical days of skin to skin bashes. Much good social distancing sacrifice is sure to be undone as the partiers disperse nationwide. Instead of back to school, they will return home to middle aged parents. How many will enforce rigorous quarantine measures? Clown Question.

In New Orleans, where critical cases are beginning to surge right on cue several weeks after Fat Tuesday, pulmonologists have never seen anything like this condition. The devastating speed it inflames the lungs, and the restrictions it places on oxygen intake, bring to their minds victims of toxic gas inhalation. Worse, the comfort that good health and relative youth protects from the condition’s full wrath is fraying as 40 somethings with no preconditions struggle for breath. Those in the most acute stages of Corona’s wrath require ventilators to hold on. With the patient surge just starting, they are already in short supply.

Denial is a powerful outlook. Right now it is held close by millions, stunned by events fundamentally reshaping their nation. Blaming media desires for drama, or lib agendas to bring down Trump, surely will not withstand the images we are all about to see out of virus hotspots, even if the POTUS refuses to accept truth on the ground. The profound danger added to our worry about surging fatalities is a certainty many will digest tragedy as a basis to scapegoat who they are told to blame, and lash out instead of reconciling with reality. Ominously, Trump is already encouraging such impulses with nobody of national stature stepping up to confront him on it. It’s very hard to feel reassured when your President is disintegrating into a hateful mass of lies and recriminations right before your eyes.

So where can we take heart? What can we bank on to provide hope this to will pass? Two weeks ago could anyone have imagined no NCAA tournament? Or NBA or NHL? Masters? Kentucky Derby? Wholesale school closures? The most radical transformation of American life and routine in generations took place with a few fistfights over hand sanitizer. People standing to lose millions did the right thing at first asking. That’s better than a poke in the eye.

Consider that in 1918 the flu pandemic hit in three waves just as a disastrous world war was winding down. What they had to deal with it was far less than what we are blessed with. Yet the world survived to nearly consume itself yet again two decades later. There are far graver sacrifices asked than staying at home and fretting about untimely death. Nobody ever promised us our lives would be free of collective fear and suffering. I told my daughter, sheltering in place in San Francisco, to embrace the moment as history, a tale to tell from the rocker.,So should we all. BC

By:David E. Whiteis

To the Trump voters, a little something I wrote.

A tale of perfect storm of calamity:

Aww, politics is stupid. None of that matters. Hey Trump is running for president, wouldn’t that be funny if he won. Anybody is better than Obama or Hillary!

Ha, that is so hilarious, he did it! We did it! Lol, he is going to drive those libtards crazy!

Man, that stock market is rocking it! I knew that whole climate change thing was all UN bullshit. Cleeeaan coal! Frack it up…. my kids don’t drink groundwater anyway. Nothing but eco-whiners!

Elections bore the hell out of me. It’s all the same swamp! At least Trump isn’t taking a paycheck!

Well, I’m not getting too many hours at the shop lately, they said it is something about Chinese tariffs, but it will pick back up. But it does suck that going to part-time status at work made me lose my health insurance. What are you going to do? At least we aren’t disrespected anymore!

Another record day on Wall Street! My brother in law says he’s going to buy a house in Hawaii! And Trump says he’s got some kind of tax break on the way, but I haven’t seen any of it. He’s the best though! Says everything I’m thinking, without worrying about the PC police. Love him!

Look, I’m not a big fan of the tweets; Sure, sometimes he sounds like an idiot talking by the helicopter. But the reporters love it and are just trying to trap him into saying something stupid. I won’t even watch it anymore. Fake news!

That is some wild shit going on in China. But it’s probably overblown to help the Dems. Trump said it is going to go away in a few days; he’s on it.

*********** The Trump administration fritters away precious days that other countries were using to make preparations. The virus spreads silently in Italy, Spain… and the US.

That science stuff is just crap. I’d rather be back on the assembly line, I want to earn enough so I can mod my truck so it can “roll coal”, that cracks me up. But I gotta go now, I need to take my cousin to her chemo appointment. Let’s hope this round is covered, she’s too sick to work for Medicaid coverage

It looks like many other countries got their coronavirus testing going a while ago, but we still don’t have it happening here. My sister has a bad cough and needs a test, but they didn’t have one available at first, and now it is taking forever for the results. I told you, the federal government sucks…. just like Mark Levin says!

Yeah, Trump kind of blew it on that testing thing, mostly because he always thinks he is right. But he usually IS right. It is the Mexican immigrants that are messing up our country. He stopped the flights from China, didn’t he!

Wow, the number of cases is doubling every day or two. I wish my 401(k) looked like that “confirmed cases” graph! How could it lose 3 years of gains so fast?!

What do you mean? He has great insurance, Grandpa worked for that union for 40 years, his insurance should take care of him. How can they not have a bed? They say his case is not that bad, and he should just stay home unless it gets worse.

I don’t care what the damn fake new media say, I’m going to church and then we’re going out to Denny’s with theguys from the Boston office, we’ve been planning this for weeks.

That scum payroll guy at work said my going bowling was actually going to be helping kill people in nursing homes, what the f**k does that even mean? I ain’t giving up bowling or my line dancing anyways, for some stupid lib fake flu thing. Rush says it’s nothing but a cold!

Grandpa’s in the hospital, but they have him still in the hallway, he has been there for 5 hours, they don’t have a room for him. They say the virus was spreading for weeks, but the US did almost no testing because the Trump Administration said it was all bullshit, and then blew it when they first started ordering tests.

Yeah, he’s been there three days, and he isn’t allowed any visitors, so he has to just lie there in the hallway. I think he is pretty lonely and scared.

The funeral is tomorrow, but we are not allowed to go.

Aunt Susan has a bad cough now. And I’m not feeling that well myself, but you know me, I never even get colds. I’m going to stop by Joe’s bar, I’ll see you in a couple of hours.

I don’t think I can make it in to work today.

I understand, I feel the same way, it is hard. Just drive over with a couple of cans of soup or something if you feel up to it, I don’t have anything left in the house, and I don’t think I can get out of bed.

Man my chest hurts.

Cough.

[a motionless figure in a silent bedroom]

POSTSCRIPT:

————–

Do you know which cities in Italy are as large as New York or L.A.? Trick question, nothing is even close.

“But,” you say, “China has cities much bigger than New York, and they are pulling out of it now” you say…

Do you think Americans will do voluntarily what China forced its cities to do by martial law? Starting two days ago? Because that is what it would take, to avoid what is coming.

————–

Stay home. If one member of your family gets sick, keep the whole household home for two weeks. Wash your hands. Prepare for the long haul, it is going to take months. Look out for your neighbors. 

Next election, let the adults vote. You can just stay home.

————–

Read and understand both of these web sites, all the way through:

Flatten the Curve

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

– David E. Whiteis, 3-17-2020

By all accounts there wasn’t much that frightened Earnest Hemingway. From the front lines of WWI to the chaotic carnage of the Spanish Civil War, and all manner of exploration, fearless was not a misplaced adjective as applied to the literary legend’s disposition. However, one scenario did unnerve him throughout life, to the point of self-imposed worry and distraction. Franco fascists “papa” could deal with, but catching the Spanish Flu or its offspring terrified him.

It really gets down to the most basic of human urges, control of our circumstances. Pandemics exert their will and distribute harm to any and all, nobody gets special dispensation. Rich or poor, smart or stupid, anyone dependent on basic socialization is asking for it. Hemingway, who was born to connect the dots and convey stories based on the consequences of humanity’s struggle for purpose, was simply terrified by the randomness of the flu’s trek , and the purposelessness of its damage. Really, who can’t relate to that?

If the normalization of US history’s ugliest public servant has demonstrated anything at all, it’s that Americans are pathologically committed to our routines. Nothing seems powerful enough to deter that obsession. Veterans returning from any war of the 20th and 21st century struggled with hometowns and loved ones utterly the same as when they waved goodbye. Whatever chaos and hell our boys experienced abroad, when they returned nothing had changed. Clubs, weekly meetings, church pancake breakfasts, high school basketball games, one could still set their watch by each of them. The dichotomy between ceaseless repetition and war’s devastating spontaneity was in itself a trigger to many a troubled transition back to civilian life.

After 9/11, the most traumatic event in American post-war annals, the crusade was to get back to our routines. The Towers were still smoldering and Rudy was in his box seats for the World Series. Everywhere the mantra was “don’t let them win, get yourself to a mall!” Sure we were heading off the cliff of endless war and occupation without markers and plenty of unprecedented ugliness, but Saturday soccer mornings would not be denied! In America the occasion, whatever occasion, must go on. That’s all about to change. The critical question that will literally determine the death toll we suffer, is if we’re capable of changing enough.

Our White House resident infant’s constant idiocy aside, this is a genuine, certified, lose-some-serious-sleep crisis. In Italy, a doctor’s desperate Facebook posts have gone viral, and it’s horrific. Wave after wave of hospital admissions, all diagnosed with the exact same thing… bilateral interstitial pneumonia, Coronavirus’ clinical calling card. Dr. Daniele Macchini, who works in the northern city of Bergamo, provided chilling details of overwhelmed resources and exhausted staff in a “war zone” setting. While youth may spare most, the “target group” elderly in northern Italy are surely dying, only to be replaced by a new group of critical patients…. again and again. The country is now locked down and nobody is worrying about canceled weddings. Deadly serious stuff.

Here, our Executive government has utterly failed us. Trump, a soulless child at his core, has publicly demonstrated over and over he is not up to the task of crisis management. When Hitler turned on Stalin and blitzkrieged Russia, the murderous Bolshevik went into denial and hid from view for several days, leaving his entire realm without any leadership at all. Trump has been no different, instead of a Dacha, it’s Mar-A-Lago and the links of Doral, but the denial is the same. Children have trouble with proportion, to Trump three percent is “a real low number.” Dr. Brian Monahan, physician to Congress and the Supreme Court, believes between 70 to 150 million Americans will get Coronavirus, with a one percent fatality rate. That’s 700,000 to 1.5 million dead, uh yea, a real high number! Anybody witnessing our President’s goofball routine at the CDC had to wonder whether any kind of coordinated response is possible.

Thankfully, seemingly overnight, serious adults are acting with the haste required. A plan now seems to be taking shape, as state and local governments rush to fill the void, taking their cues from the best national and international guidance they can determine. In other words, anybody but Mike Pence and Alex Azar!

The emerging strategy is to try and slow the progress of the virus as much as possible in order to stagger the numbers of seriously ill people taxing the medical infrastructure. This can only be achieved by preventing socialization, particularly events with large crowds. March Madness will be spring silence as the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament will be played with only family and essential personnel in attendance. Whether CBS et al will try to drum up hype by filling up sports bars for viewing frenzies, thus sabotaging the whole point of the effort, remains to be seen. The NBA just suspended its season after a player tested positive for the virus. Now, that is messing with routines.

Yet and still, some routines are more valuable to certain groups than others, and without governmental coercion, it becomes like an honor system; some will act responsibly, others won’t. Some officials will be Roy Scheider in Jaws, some will be Amity’s mayor. The stakes now pertaining to those decisions are very high.

In Panama City, Florida they are raking the sand and preparing for the annual spring break invasion of college kids from every corner of the country. Judging from their civic leaders’ public declarations, with the exception of worthless lip service to following hand washing protocols etc., all systems are go. Few aren’t familiar with how that looks. Thousands of near naked young people doing just about everything one could imagine to spread a contagion… beer bong anybody?

After a week of this annual gropefest, they will then disperse back to countless cities and towns to spread whatever they have received. Being young and in good health, most will suffer minimal symptoms while fully transmitting the virus to all they encounter. Whatever good work has been done to counter the disease’s spread will quickly be undone as typhoid frat boys and girls unknowingly convey illness to those they love. Will Panama City Beach reconsider its plans? Will Governor Ron DeSantis, heretofore a mindless Trump lackey, make the call for them? One example out of thousands, one looming disaster out of thousands of other potential calamities. The movie script writes itself!

It’s the height of irony that, at a time we need national unity most, lockstep cooperation and sacrifice of our most precious touchstone, the routines we follow to the letter, we are as divided as can be. Maybe this desperate exercise in collective discipline will bring us back together and prevent countless deaths. I hope I live to see that.

Many of us have felt alone since January of 2017. Now, many more surely feel the same way, and before this is over many others still may suffer such fears. But we are all in this together, and that must be enough to bind us. We can be confident as things worsen this President will lash out for scapegoats and pursue the division he needs for continued relevance. Only if we ignore him and stick to the plan, while supporting each other, can we get back to the precious routines we measure normalcy by. Our greatest challenge. BC

A very wise man once advised not to “accept assumptions until you are dead certain nothing better is on offer, but once embraced, only the indisputable should force you to release them.” Our current crisis, and the struggle to effectively confront it, has everything to do with the assumptions we have adopted, recently rejected, and are considering taking to heart now. Make no mistake, the fate of the nation and the world rests on this shuffling of intrinsic attitudes.

MAGA’s destructiveness comes directly from a zero-sum relationship with so many established premises our country’s experience has validated. Like the absurd basis of its Sauronesque master, Fox/AM, Trumpism rises and falls on how many it can convince to shed fealty to the basic assumptions it slanders 24/7. On every meaningful issue of our time, climate change to Civil Rights, public education to tax policy, gun ownership to NATO, the MAGA gospel is no different from any Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity installment from yesterday or ten years ago. Whatever the deceitful mainstream media beguiled you to believe is a lie.

Relentlessly shrill Mark Levin, perhaps the most volcanically unhinged of the entire nihilist echo chamber, has a tried and true way of introducing pathogens into his ugly monologues. He’ll shriek some heretofore off limits absurdity, some libelous attack on a person or common assumption, and then declare “there, I said it!.” Something like: “Obama was a pothead. How the hell did he get into Harvard?! … there, I said it!” His wretched implication is twofold: first, Levin is the utter profile in courage for saying this publicly; and second, listeners should thank God a hero like him has liberated them to repeat this previously repressed controversy.

When Limbaugh prattles about climate change, he never presents it in terms other than “the drive by media wants you to believe this.” Of course, “this” is the entirety of decades of scientific research, thousands and thousands of hours devoted to developing accepted consensus… an assumption we could rely on for solving the problem. It works the same way for virtually everything else. NATO didn’t keep the peace, it merely fleeced us and eroded our sovereignty. Food stamps aren’t a critical safety net for the most needy, a tiny sliver of domestic spending; they are a scam for cheats and bankrupting the nation while forcing a veteran to go without.

A close friend of mine, who would go full Trump if he wasn’t such an otherwise decent person, seems always looking for examples to justify unabashed MAGA sympathies. The latest is a story he heard from a friend about a family who drove up in a luxury automobile and paid for a dozen jumbo jimmy Maryland crabs with food stamps, thus proving beyond dispute both the rottenness of the program and the multitudes out to soak taxpayers. Skin color was never mentioned; sadly, it didn’t need to be. To my friend, the tale formed an unarguable basis for a set of assumptions sufficient to indict do-nothing freeloaders specifically and “libs” in general. Moreover, in the binary choice between Trump and the alternative, what else could he do?! When I trashed the imbecility of such conclusions and expressed my disappointment in his inane reasoning, he suggested I “get a hobby.” Another beautiful relationship sullied at the crossroads of Trumpism.

Yet and still, if MAGA is an existential emergency created by the destruction of previously accepted propositions, what of the assumptions relied on by its opponents, sanity’s deliverers? Tuesday dramatically narrowed the options of who will wear the mantle and do battle with ruinous Trumpist despicability. At heart, what really differentiates Bernie Sanders from Joe Biden is the basic assumption his campaign holds to vis a vis what has befallen us since 2016. Trump as merely the corollary of a broken system, or an unprecedented pox that renders any ambitions beside his removal meaningless. The crux of the choice facing us.

A “Berner” I know very well speaks for most of his fellow travelers when he condemns the Democratic National Committee with near the same visceral exclamation as the GOP. To his eyes Hillary, and presumably those who supported her, got what they deserved in 2016. It’s unfortunate the alternative turned out to be so particularly bad, but a Clinton Presidency would have been near as intolerable. The current feeling among the Sanders faithful holds DNC Chairman Tom Perez with as much disdain as his GOP counterpart Ronna McDaniel, a Trump door mat. The memes they toss around originate from the very Russian troll operations as those posted by the wretched core; indeed, many are the same. Surely, things will only deteriorate if Super Tuesday’s results are any indicator. A candidate is responsible for his supporters. Sanders seems increasingly disinterested in providing light between himself and those amplifying his rhetoric.

The notion of MAGA as nothing more than a concurrent symptom of our systemic corruption is fully at odds with what has transpired since Trump took office with only the agenda of pandering to his base’s subterranean sensibilities. To accept it requires a skewed set of priorities that issues grossly insufficient importance to L’Enfant’s habitual lies and relentless divisiveness, not to mention dangerous incompetence. Really, at the bone’s marrow, it embraces Fox/AM’s broad strokes… the nadir existed before Trump was sworn in. Trumpies will tell you that means anything else is an improvement. Berners will contend the differences aren’t important enough to distract from the opportunities at hand. That’s called six of one, half dozen of another and, at least to me, it’s a disqualifying premise.

As for Biden, why wouldn’t we want an experienced West Wing hand taking the reins after government by Sean Hannity? Eight years at the side of quiet competence seems just the type of bullet point on a resume we should be looking for right about now. The true disaster of Trumpism is the wasteland of talent it creates in the executive branch. There is zero doubt a Biden Administration will attract the best and brightest for the daunting mission of repairing our government infrastructure and the war now unleashed on the very mission statements of its departments. If MAGA has proven anything it’s how destructive pandering to the notion federal services are the enemy can be. Biden has been clear from the start about his intention to reset, something wholly at odds with Sanders’ titanic pledges.

Four years of Trump demands remediation and repair before ambitions can be pursued. Moving forward on the assumption this political framework we now suffer is capable of “a revolution” after enduring a riot is not idealist, it’s at best delusional, at worst disingenuous. I wish that weren’t so, but it is; and if I’m not buying, it’s a certainty the legions of far more skittish voters aren’t either. There is little doubt few could chew Trump up like Sanders; not many demand accountability like he can. Nonetheless, the baggage of his brand, and the assumptions its agenda requires, creates too much background noise for his best work to be effective.

Finally, the elephant in the room, the specter still rarely discussed, is the promise Trump and his wretched core are not going to cede authority in a constructive, perhaps even peaceful manner. The rabid frothing of Trump’s rally incoherence will only magnify as the election nears, particularly if his prospects diminish. There is every chance the one who evicts him will be forced to spend the transition prying the office from Trump’s cold tiny hands. Biden’s relationships run deep throughout the institutions responsible for peaceful transference of power, the military included.

All hands will need to be on deck when it’s time to swab the vestiges of nihilism’s term in office. Mobilizing such an effort will be far more difficult in the face of “the socialists are coming” hysteria Trump and his Murdoch megaphone will be ceaselessly screeching after a Sanders victory. The unprecedented measures that may be necessary will be perceived quite differently from Biden than from Sanders. One narrative will focus the spotlight on an authoritarian refusing to cede power. The other will be addled by the false sidebar of a socialist seizing office.

Last night the President of the United States mused that “his gut” told him official fatality rates of a burgeoning global pandemic were too high, and the actual numbers were less than one percent. He also declared most cases of the Coronavirus would be mild enough to suffer through at the workplace. Think about that, a shot of DayQuil and nose to the grindstone; after all, we have my four-year plan to meet, right?

If there is a central lesson one hopes this Presidency confers, it’s that no matter how many times a lie is told it never blossoms into the truth. However, the opposite is also correct; just because a fact becomes common wisdom, and is repeated time and again, doesn’t render it less true. Four more years of Trump is ruinous to our nation and the world. Moreover, the damage already done can not simply be ignored and built upon; it needs to be rectified, new safeguards installed so it never happens again. A Presidency dedicated first and foremost to those bare essentials is fine by me. And make no mistake, where that leaves student loan forgiveness and medicare for all is one hell of a lot closer than if MAGA stays in office. That’s an assumption nobody can dispute! BC

In 1994, on Martin Luther King’s birthday weekend, the DC area was hit with a savage ice storm. Residents awoke on Monday morning to a skating rink. As I gazed outside from our Arlington townhouse, I pondered a dilemma. Our Washington Post carrier had demonstrated stellar commitment to his job and delivered my paper on time; there it was on the ground just down the two jagged concrete steps at our iron gate. But the going was clearly treacherous, a perilous 10-12 footsteps to pay dirt. I could go rummage out back for some ice salt, but my coffee was hot and I needed that paper now for the world to be right!

And so out I ventured in only my skivvies and slippers, on a dangerous quest for data! Slowly I slid along the sheen, employing an effective side sidle. At the gate all was good, but the steps would be tricky, I knew. As I opened the gate, resplendent in a quarter-inch coat of frozen precipitation, I mometarily let go and slightly pivoted…. everything from that point is regret. In an airborne calamity only Dick Van Dyke or Seinfeld’s Kramer could perform on purpose, I levitated and landed on the edge of the cruelly unforgiving concrete. If I’m ever unfortunate enough to be knifed in the back, I’m certain it won’t exceed the preposterous agony of that moment.

These days, more than 25 years later, that ridiculous decision, coupled with being hit by a car as a teenager, not to mention the numerous indignities skateboarding “vert” inflicted, haunt my spinal column most every morning. Approaching the ugly 6 0 is bad enough without the torment of chronic pain, but what are you going to do? Yet and still, whatever physiological underpinnings exist for my discomfort, it’s a sure bet outrageous events of the day are fully capable of triggering spasm. And it’s a lock I’m not an outlier. No doubt Trumpism and it’s accompanying chaotic absurdity is good business for chiropractors and chronic pain specialists. Sadly, those we now depend on for deliverance, our resistance superstars, are not much helping matters.

If I had my way, the Democrats would head to some warm retreat and not emerge until a national unity ticket informed by only the objective of trouncing Trump was hammered out. It appears the Administration’s slapstick handling of the Coronavirus situation is forcing many out of their self-induced catatonia. When things are bad enough that a developing pandemic provides some silver lining, it’s darkness at noon time! However, the Democratic Presidential field does not seem affected, most all exhibiting unbridled devotion to personal ambition, which by definition only increases L’Enfant Terrible’s re-election odds.

Dana Milbank, the Washington Post’s Trumpism-centric critic, was spot on when, bemoaning the South Carolina Jerry Springerfest debate, he harkened back to the dark GOP primary days four years ago, as those with brain activity and some interest in responsibility to the job they sought were nonetheless too craven to sacrifice a sliver of personal ambition toward protecting the nation from calamitous nihilist populism. But while Milbank views a Bernie Sanders nomination as similarly apocalyptic to Trump’s dismantling of the Republican 2016 field, it’s only equivalent in so much as Sanders’ march to victory illuminates this group’s collective incognizance, or worse, deliberate indifference, to the national ruin another Trump term ensures.

First, let’s be crystal clear: only the Fox/AM set should be dense enough to equate Sanders to Trump, or his brand of populism to MAGA. Michael Gerson, who has previously distinguished himself as a neo- conservative willing to call out Trump for the menace he is, exuded his own limitations damning Sanders with the faintest praise by “not contending the moral character of the two men is comparable.” While “Sanders’s is clearly superior,” Gerson acknowledged, that’s only “clearing an ankle-high bar.” Really?

A guy who risked his life for African-American civil rights and consistently swam upstream against legislative groupthink follies like The Patriot Act and Iraq War is morally wanting? A youngster in Indiana was once so impressed by Sanders’ courage he penned an award-winning essay about him. Inspiring future Presidential contenders doesn’t strike me as bottom feeding in the morals department. Any comparison of Sanders to Trump on that subject is ugly slander, but no more than equating Sanders’ bloc of partisans to the MAGA wretched core. While both groups share a disdain for reasonable compromise, only one’s bigotry and incredible ignorance spawned our current pestilence.

Sanders has come to his formidable position atop the Democratic heap as honestly as one could expect. He’s done the work and created a genuine grass roots base of support. That his nomination – really in the works since 2016 – suddenly horrifies the party establishment speaks to their lazy delusions more than any sudden populist wave his candidacy is riding. He is saying nothing now he wasn’t holding forth on in 2016. Mayor Pete wrote eloquently as a lad about his hero’s disregard for conventional rigidity. Now, two decades later, within the throes of 1600 Penn. fever, Sanders’ past support of the Sandinistas, and abidance of Castro, is on a par with Trump’s disgusting embrace of MBS and Erdogan? News flash mayor, back in the early 80’s, if you had a major problem with overthrowing Somoza in Nicaragua, your running buddies were Bill Casey and Ollie North!

Whatever one thinks of Sanders’ chances in November, he is getting the votes right now. Acknowledging that reality means the other candidates have two options…. that is if they care about defeating Trump. The first is to get their minds around a Sanders nomination and work with him on broadening his message to reassure jittery centrists. Rather than a revolutionary, get him to adopt the “classic FDR Democrat“ brand. While focusing the message on economic fairness and a stronger government role guaranteeing it, stop with the scorched earth attacks on the upper brackets. Above all, present a united front, a team of rivals confronting the greatest threat to America since the Civil War.

The other course of action, adopted in the belief a Sanders-led ticket will be disastrous, is to take one for the team and coalesce around one moderate capable of denying Sanders enough delegates to discredit any argument a wide open convention reflects a rigged primary process. Whether or not the Berners will support anybody else isn’t near as important as whether the process overtly justifies their worst suspicions; that will fracture the party. Should he come into the summer considerably short of the magic number, only zealots can claim the issue has already been decided.

So will it be plan A or B? Incredibly, it’s a resounding “neither” for the foreseeable future. Just like Kasich, Rubio, Cruz and company, the current group reserves the right to indulge their own delusions of grandeur. Elizabeth Warren – she of the lowering single digits – would rather throw haymakers and interrupt at will than move in either direction. When asked whether she’d consider throwing in the towel to strengthen somebody else, Amy Klobuchar literally sneered at the suggestion. And Buttigieg? He’s still contesting Iowa while claiming Nevada was rigged. Son, 25 plus points is a lot of rigging.

Bloomberg can do what he wants because money isn’t a concern. Trending in South Carolina, Joe Biden will surely claim to be the comeback kid with a Palmetto state victory. Point is absolutely nobody is considering anything but the latest polling data and ad buys. The future of the nation? Uh, yea… sure thing. Meanwhile, don’t start praying for St. Bernie just yet. Faced with fierce and some downright scurrilous attacks, with claims his crusade resembles a different shade of destructive populism, Sanders has responded by….. beginning to resemble a destructive populist. Instead of “fake news” it’s “the media establishment.” Rather than “liberal elites,” it’s the “corporate interests.” Instead of just “us,” it’s “us versus them.” Sanders is sounding increasingly disinterested in unifying much of anything, least of all the party he’ll desperately need in November.

A year ago the grave consensus among Democrats was 2020 would be unlike any election in American history. Since that time we’ve witnessed a disintegration of responsible US government at the whim of an unhinged maniac. But something funny happened on the way to the convention; our prospective saviors forgot about their duty. Like Frodo, who when he finally reaches the ledge over the molten abyss, and prepares to toss the ring into its hellish depths, suddenly forgets his purpose while entranced by the lure of its power, these pols seem to have forgotten why they’re here. They better remember soon or ruin is nigh. Pass me a perc; my back is killing me! BC

My father was always loath to give me praise. I never really understood the reasons, but settled on the notion he simply never wanted me to get too big for my britches. Since his reticence to offer compliments forced me to generally talk up my achievements as a coping strategy, a convenient circular process was established. I boasted to him hoping for more of his favor, which he then withheld so I wouldn’t crow as much. Nice.

Anyway, once when I presented him with a near flawless report card from UNH, figuring he couldn’t possibly find anything to stifle at least a mini proper, he shook his head and chuckled. Uh oh. Why would I need all of these classes on authoritarians, he wondered aloud. “Hmmm, totalitarian political thought. Jeez, Willie, you live in the US. What the hell do you have to worry about?” Indeed.

If Wednesday’s Democratic Presidential debate achieved anything, and believe me that’s a reach one has to think on, it confirmed beyond reasonable doubt government by Chuck Todd would reflect only marginal improvement over the Hannity Presidency we now suffer. Make no mistake, whatever notes NBC has been taking as to the media’s rightful responsibilities, or the precarious balance between abiding truth and searching out news in the MAGA era, Todd and company clarified it has absorbed all the wrong lessons.

That this was the first debate since PBS legend Jim Lehrer’s death proves God does provide bread crumbs along our wayward path; what we do with them is up to us. Or, perhaps as the great journalist H.L. Mencken observed: “God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.“ At least we are all spared the worry of ever mistaking Chuck Todd for his predecessor Tim Russert. After Wednesday’s performance Todd is more toward calling Jerry Springer a peer.

To be fair from the outset, there are no easy answers for navigating the uncharted territory this Presidency carves out. American journalism as an institution, its foundations and traditions, now faces dilemmas only authoritarians can confer. It has had zero practice confronting such existential concerns here at home. Whatever it learned covering the same abroad surely loses something in the translation. Balancing “the story” and a dedication to truth, even as a President and vast legions of propagandists subservient to him lie at will, is like treating cancer; there is going to be trial and error involved, mistakes along the way…. and side effects. Yet and still, refusing to acknowledge the challenge even exists, and planning formats for events as important as Wednesday’s, in line with such willful obtuseness is flat out malpractice.

It’s hard to imagine exactly how Todd and his fellow panelists envisioned their role, or what they felt was to be achieved, following the format all employed and line of questioning they pursued. One thing is certain, Mr. Meet The Press in particular was wholly unconcerned with applying the differences between candidates he questioned in Nevada to the constant stream of unprecedented chaos originating in the White House. The only context he cared about was whatever grudge matches he could stir up on stage.

As Democrats squared off with the fate of American democracy at stake, the notion of perhaps exploring whether unity may be important to unseating an incumbent who will surely spin his 20,000th fabrication by Election Day was never entertained by the moderators, Todd least of all. The idea of asking whether finding common ground now may actually aid one of them in November was obviously given not even a passing thought. Instead, the bent they sought to create was that of a reality show, ambitious policy nerds ready to put the knife in if ambition called for it. Really not much different from The Apprentice boardroom of past NBC prime time glory. Desperate survivors trying to stay on the island by casting doubt about those currently holding sway. Lord of the Flies comes to Vegas!

The impression the debate left was, not comical, but not serious either. A bunch of squabbling about policy details that go back to the beginning of this slog, peppered with settling of scores and introducing a neophyte to his limitations as a savior. When Todd wasn’t losing control of the proceedings, he was luxuriating in the inanity of it all. Presidential politics as sport, or pro wrestling…. right up his alley.

But yet again, to be as fair as one can be, the candidates required precious little prodding to get started on one another. In fact, it’s doubtful, had one asked Elizabeth Warren whether the sun comes up in the East, as Mayor Pete suggested, she wouldn’t have poo pooed the assertion as just more consultantspeak. She certainly wasn’t interested in talking about Trumpian pestilence, other than as a pro forma intro or afterthought. After all, she had a campaign to rescue!

But, in a time of crisis, Todd’s propensity to ask questions like he already knows the answer has never been more annoying. Broader implications past polling and recent sound bites never interested him much. Wednesday’s performance mirrored that vacuum he and the entire NBC team seem to feel should always consume inquiries. In other words, what does pardoning white collar felons willy nilly have to do with the price of copays. Or wholesale purges within the foreign policy and intelligence communities? An unhinged President without advisors. Not worth a mention? Nothing to see there? At least nothing worth shaving time from cat fights or brawls over convention rules.

In a time of national crisis three paramount concerns seem exceedingly reasonable: 1) our leaders recognize the emergency exists; 2) they make some effort to place the national interest ahead of personal ambitions, sacrificing the latter in service to the former; and 3) they actually lead and tell things straight. even if it’s not what their constituents want to hear. Should they stray from such parameters, well, that’s where a robust media is supposed to ask for explanations as to why they are doing so.

Wednesday evening the Democratic Presidential candidates utterly failed to meet that basic criteria. Worse, their wanton disregard was, not merely encouraged by those we rely on to hold them to account, it was demanded! Fox/AM has always fallen back on false equivalence when it’s most egregious sins are brought to light. That is, so maybe we did it, the mainstream media does it all the time. Ditto now for Trump and his GOP’s most indefensible outrages – what about Obama?! The degree to which Democrats and/or, say NBC debate moderators, help to donate credibility to such tropes mirrors our descent into the authoritarian abyss. Wednesday night’s debacle was ugly confirmation of that observation. The codependency of ruin. BC

“There’s always another war coming. All we get to decide is whether to fight in it.”

Murtagh Fitzgibbons

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we are enjoying the golden age of dramatic television. Never before, since the first grainy images were put forth in black and white, have the creative jewels of storytelling been laced together in such a marvelous tableau every bit as powerful and relevant as history’s great authors convey. Incredible series, beginning with The Sopranos and evolving through masterpieces such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and more recently The Crown, have given us anti-heroes we can embrace despite all of our previous inclinations. Their stories resonate with force and tie together the patches of our culture and society in a search for some redemption for sins life renders inevitable.

Add to this list of great works Outlander, a sweeping tale spun directly from the pages of a series of novels Diana Gabaldon began penning in the late 1980s. But rather than Don Draper, think Game of Throne’s John Snow when imagining the series’ heart and soul, James Fraser. We need no time to warm to this dashing Scot, no episodes spent tolerating his foibles as terms for endearment. He is true from the start. By season 5, which premieres on STARZ this weekend, his love affair with the story’s central figure, Claire, and the adventures their circumstances have forced upon them, has honed him into a legendary figure, a hero for the ages.

Without spoiling plot arcs of the story, Outlander is a time travel fantasy set following World War II in Scotland. A British woman, series heroine Claire Randall, happens on some “stones” with mystical Gaelic qualities that send her back in time two centuries, where she encounters James Fraser. Their love affair, and the march of history it inhabits, defines the storylines and endows the characters. The magnificent authenticity of the dialect and settings elevates Outlander to lofty heights.

Yet and still, it’s the development of Jamie as a hero fit to match our highest expectations that truly distinguishes the production. Not since Lonesome Dove has a character been so successfully translated from page to screen. Informed of history’s secrets, and humbled by unspeakable trauma, James Fraser matures into a towering leader without peer. Never asking what he won’t give, or expecting what he can’t do, he is a veteran of war’s worst and becomes a constant example of man’s best. To follow his lead becomes a righteous endeavor.

We hope in this nation our leaders can approach a discernible degree of such majesty. They seldom do. The shocking phenomenon of so many now pledging fealty to one utterly barren of worthiness highlights a terrible illness in our body politic. That said, it’s too late to worry about where it started or why it spread because something’s coming of it; time is not our ally. History’s sweep is upon us, building bit by inane bit, one ridiculous tweet at a time. Nothing but the worst has been realized in this Presidency, and far worse still seems a good futures wager.

Several days ago, after nationally televised overt corruption by the GOP Senate contingent, the DR beseeched Barack Obama and/or any who have distinguished themselves before in service to their nation come forward and be heard. Far too few yet seem interested. Meanwhile, Trump minions transition without opposition from comical toadies to instruments of coming repression that, once underway, will only pick up steam and render grotesque MAGA rhetoric reality.

Examples are agonizingly easy to find. Right now ICE readies operations to begin round ups of DACA kids and families, even as thousands remain detained in southern border hellholes. Trump henchman cum Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gaslights Trump’s destruction of NATO to European leaders, even as its membership makes clear US leadership is not desirable in its current incarnation and readies for the break four more years will make a certainty. Roger Stone, a self-described scum bucket, now enjoys a campaign by Fox/AM and the GOP to be redefined as a martyr of deep state persecution.

Voltaire called it correctly when he observed those who can convince one to believe absurdity can also impel him to commit atrocity. The wretched core is chomping at that bit, itching for lines of decency to be obliterated. After all, it made clear long ago sinking to totalitarianism’s deepest depths was not something to lose sleep over.

We remain as good as our electoral system. For all of Trump’s many outrages, the standard rituals of Decision 2020’ remain in place and proceed apace, even as Moscow Mitch sends any and all election security legislation to oblivion.Nobody wants to buy trouble, and if elections can successfully stop the bleeding of a thousand MAGA cuts, all the better. Of course, that proposition appears more wishful thinking than viable hope with each passing Trumpist abasement. The hell of it only pollyannas can deny is anybody who listens can recognize sedition when they hear it. Anybody with eyes can discern corrupt injustice when they see it. And anybody with any sense of intuition for the flow current events creates can feel something very bad building to a crest. Between now and November this chapter is going to close one way or another. We must be ready for either.

Trumpism is a community destroyer, feeding on the alienation fear, resentment and grievance provide with a surplus. That millions of our countrymen and women are squarely on the wrong side of a breach capable of ruining all we hold dear is a tragedy, maybe a sorrow for all time. But the interval for reasoning has expired, at least for now they are lost to us as peers. MAGA is a burgeoning evil that will consume our national greatness, extinguish centuries of lessons and the cumulative empathy their teaching imparted. It will kill the mission statement our country’s existence has until 2017 embodied and leave us reviled by the world, a pariah instead of a beacon, a crisis instead of a solution…. a soulless wretch among countries of this Earth.

As the season 5 premiere of Outlander winds down, James Fraser, cognizant of a coming war, moves to galvanize the future support of his neighbors. Summoning the example of Highland Scottish clan chieftains, he relates how when battle was to come, they would use a fiery cross to alert their followers to prepare for conflict. He then calls on his people to swear allegiance to their kinship and promises he will stand with them whatever the future holds, always giving sway to the bond they share. Much of our current angst lies with our uncertainty as to who stands where and how much faith we can have in those still unfamiliar with the threat of authoritarian encroachment. Perhaps between now and November we need to become certain who we can count on, who cannot pursue routines under MAGA. Who can we call with confidence a brother or sister in arms?! Who, to quote James Fraser, will “stand by my hand?!” BC

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
Simon and Garfunkel

For most, learning to read was like learning to speak or tell time, it simply happened and that was that. Personally, I don’t recollect struggling with “Dick and Jane” or “Spot.” I do, however, remember the first paperback given to me by my mom -The Book Of US Presidents! How many times I read and reread it, I can’t begin to calculate, but I loved every page. It consisted of short biographies of each President, from Washington to the current White House occupant at the time of its publication, JFK. Standard, less impactful Presidents received two pages within the larger-font, single-spaced format, the more pivotal Chief Executives perhaps twice that. I savored every one. Polk to Grant, Wilson to Ike, I loved them all.

In many ways the Presidency possesses a regal air about it. We are, after all, a nation descended from monarchy. We don’t view the highest office in our land as the purview of faceless technocrats or policy wonks. Each of us appreciates, or condemns I suppose, the POTUS in our own way. Who we remember has as much to do with presidential comportment than policy agenda. When Ronald Reagan’s name comes up, few imagine the thousand-page tax reduction plan he was responsible for, its legacy still addling our national balance sheet. Instead, we remember the guy joking with surgeons after he was shot, or demanding Gorbachev “tear down this wall.”

I make no apologies for my fondness of Barack Obama. He inherited what nobody in their right mind would want to shoulder. Despite united opposition from a GOP with only his political destruction a priority, Obama slogged through the economic nadir his predecessor bequeathed and by the end of his second term full employment had been restored. While his foreign policy legacy was mixed, many quagmires he confronted, like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq were crap sandwiches no amount of seasoning could make edible. Moreover, Obama repaired our global network of alliances, frayed by the impulsive hubris of post-9/11 overreach.

Yet and still, what made Obama special, and fully worth extra pages were he to be part of an updated US Presidents reader, was his style and grace, his incredible cool under fire. More than perhaps any predecessor, he strove for much more than talking points and redundant proclamations. He thought on his feet, and took questions as they came, addressing each with original thoughts and insights, a determination to answer what was asked rather than evade. Both refreshing candor and intellectual rigor, more than welcome after W, who had some of the former and absolutely none of the latter.

Although Obama represented America’s triumph as its first black President, only ditto heads and more unabashed racists made anything of it; the rest of us saw but a Chief Executive we could praise or criticize without a thought to complexion. To me, he was a giant, well up to the historic task he embraced, who performed his job with the hope and good faith he campaigned on to obtain it. That he was rewarded a second term at the expense of a millionaire with every advantage the emergent Fox/AM juggernaut could impart confirmed his ascension was no fluke, and at least momentarily solidified America’s best nature and ability to prosper from lessons its past mistakes offered.

After Mitt Romney was dispatched handily by Obama in 2012 most assumed that was the end of line as far as his ambitions for public office were concerned. After all, not since Richard Nixon had a vanquished Presidential candidate started from scratch to run again for a seat he hadn’t already occupied. Moreover, Fox/AM, aided by cheap seat Monday morning QBing from loudmouth Donald Trump, was intent to blame another Obama term on Romney’s feckless moderation and the weakness they equated his civility with. Safe to say, few saw Romney as much more than a footnote in history, Obama’s Wendell Willkie.

Anyone who doubts the gap between the GOP activist base and general population need only study Utah’s 2018 Senate election to replace the retiring Orrin Hatch. At the state convention Mitt Romney, the Republican national standard bearer only six years earlier, could not beat Trumpie state senator Mike Kelly. Kelly, who would fit nicely into A Handmaid’s Tale and believes limits on possession of bazookas a constitutional outrage, edged Romney in the convention’s delegate count. Lucky for Romney, he was competitive enough to force a run off at the polls, where he demolished Kelly with 71% of the vote.

Although a nice comeback from his walk in the desert, Romney’s narrative as a freshman Senator was not particularly compelling. Indeed, one could have been forgiven for wondering why, apart from the personal restlessness forced retirement imposes, he even bothered. Nobody within Trump’s GOP had the least bit of use for a moderate Mormon most personally blamed for four additional years of “hope and change.” Fewer still were prepared to abide any dissent regarding the Godzilla trampling anything resembling, forget 21st century progress, but any reform after Eisenhower as well. Indeed, it was very hard to see what difference Romney could make even if he had a mind to. Last week changed everything and cemented a legacy history will notice.

It is understandable to relegate the adulation of Romney’s singular act of conscience to little more than commentary on how far we have fallen in three short years. In the short-term it resulted in nothing. Not 24 hours later Trump was declaring victory in the White House, spewing his typical megalomaniacal gibberish to glassy-eyed sycophants, a number of whom now constitute the House GOP leadership.

Of course, Romney has been signaled out for ridicule, but not much more than any other of the President’s enemies du jour. What makes the Mittster’s “guilty” worth grasping on to is why he decided to stand alone, what he recognizes is at stake, and how the costs of becoming an outlier outweigh any benefit conformity conveys. How easy it would be to join the crowd was what gnawed at Romney. Perhaps it really was simply his faith, or maybe, as one who got close enough to the big seat he could taste it, abiding Trump’s overt narcissism and stupidity in the face of the air-tight case House Managers put forth became a bridge to far. Whatever. Finally an adult has entered the room. More must follow.

But what have they done with Barack Obama, who appears to be enjoying retirement every bit as much as his old rival seemed to loathe it? Some months before Obama’s second term expired I engaged in a lively “discussion” with an FB friend who, sadly, has since passed on. He was a black progressive from St. Louis and had little use for Obama, who he felt sold out to corporate and military interests. Somehow the topic of what the President would do in retirement arose. Daryl predicted with confidence Obama would act no differently than W or Clinton and move toward the money. I heartily disagreed and was certain my hero would focus primarily on teaching, charity and community pursuits with no interest in corporate invitations. A wager was made. I still owe Daryl a French dinner.

During several weak moments since Decision 16’ – the turgid backwash created by the American electorate’s temerity in 2008 and 2012 – I have pondered whether it would have been for the best had Romney prevailed. Perhaps eight years of “moderation” at the head of the GOP would have marginalized its extremists and strangled MAGA in its cradle. Then I come to my senses and understand that Fox/AM and its wretched viewer and listener base was exactly why Romney never stood a chance; the party was already lost to him, even as he secured its nomination. That die was cast when John McCain conceded, his running mate already preening for the nihilists.

Broad coalitions win elections, not feuding campaigns that produce sour grapes. I suppose it’s a lot to expect Presidential candidates to check their ambitions for the sake of national survival. Just as it’s a tall order to call on a retired President, who spent many a thankless day taking relentless fire from both sides of the aisle, to quit enjoying post-high office life and again put a big fat target on his back.

That said, as Bernie Sanders seeks to contest a razor thin loss in Iowa, that may or may not owe to a bad app and nefarious GOP efforts to gum up the works, and the Buttigieg campaign starts to go full Machiavelli, the specter of four more years of MAGA has never seemed more possible. The off-season is over. The natural leader of this resistance needs to get back in this game; losing is not an option. Mr. President, the war effort needs you. It’s time for some heroes. After all, if Mitt Romney can do it, so should you. It’s the adult thing to do. BC