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A head’s up. The punchline for the headline above would be, “At least it wouldn’t be as bad as living in Russia!” That’s the impression I got after starting to read my latest Arkady Renko novel. (Tatiana, one of a series of “life in Russia” novels by Martin Cruz Smith.) There’s more on dealing with a possible second Trump term as president below, but first a word about those Renko novels. They really make me appreciate living in the United States.

I started off years ago reading Gorky Park, the book. Then watched the 1983 film, twice. (With William Hurt as Arkady, along with Lee Marvin and Brian Dennehy). I later bought the DVD and watched it a few more times. (A depressing but fascinating look at life in Russia as it used to be.) The book came out in 1981, the film in 1983, which gives an idea how far back my attachment goes. Some time later I bought the book Polar Star. (Published in 1989.) More on that later.

Then a few days ago, I passed through the Large Print section of a local library. I came across another Renko novel, Tatiana, published in 2013. It tells of Renko having survived “the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find the nation as obsessed with secrecy and brutality as was the old Communist regime.” Apparently things hadn’t changed much.

Which brings us back to a “maybe second Trump:” I must confess – I “do not deny, but confess” – to some sleepless nights about that. Sleepless nights at the thought of him winning the 2024 presidential election. To be sure, that seems far-fetched at this point. Or maybe not. The point is, with a second Trump term America might start looking more like Arkady Renko’s Russia.

Death threats, reporters disappearing, broken legs, riots. At least that’s what some think…

Many Republicans say Trump can’t win, but there are those national polls. Polls showing that even with his baggage and indictments, Trump is running neck and neck with President Biden. And it’s virtually certain he’ll be the Republican nominee. So the choice will be him, or one person running against him. (Not to mention the nightmare possibility of a third-party candidate forcing the election into the House of Representatives.*) And for some reason President Biden remains unpopular. (“Why?”) One recent poll showed him with a 41.2 percent approval rating but a 54.9 percent disapproval rating. All of which means Trump has theoretic 50-50 shot at re-election.

For a bit of comfort, there’s the poll saying 53% of US voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump. (Another poll puts that figure at a whopping 64% of Americans. “53% of Americans said they ‘definitely’ would not support him and another 11% said they ‘probably’ would not support him.) Still, the best policy seems to be hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Which I explored, in a way, in an August 2019 post, On “why it might be better…” (Gasp!)

The “gasp” was for the idea that it might have been better if Trump had won back in 2020. (You know, without inciting the January 6 riot and shredding the Constitution.) For one thing, in the years between 2020 and 2024, if he lost, “he might just wreak more havoc to American democracy than he could as president.” Which has certainly been true. He lost, but still manages to wreak havoc to American democracy. The flip side? Massive Trump Fatigue.

At any rate, I asked – back in August 2019 – if it wouldn’t be “better to get it over with?” To look forward to getting rid of Trump once and for all, in 2024? Then too, if he did get re-elected in 2020, he would immediately become a Lame Duck. Such politicians – not eligible to run again – often “lose their credibility and influence” on fellow politicians. Also, “Projects uncompleted may fall to the wayside as their influence is greatly diminished.” (Like “building a wall?”)

On the other hand, since a lame duck president doesn’t need to worry about being re-elected, he can focus more on leaving a a good legacy. (He doesn’t have to worry about “catering to his wacko base.”) One example from history was Ronald Reagan. When he got elected to a second term he signed an arms control treaty with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “despite his opposition to arms control” during his first term. He changed his hardline stance.

Another example was P.T. Barnum. Famous for saying “there’s a sucker born every minute” – as a circus entrepreneur, if not shyster – he later ran for public office. Surprise of surprises, he became a humane, effective and ethical politician. He served two terms in the Connecticut legislature in 1865, as a Republican. On the subject of slavery and blacks voting…

Barnum spoke before the legislature and said, “A human soul, ‘that God has created and Christ died for,’ is not to be trifled with. It may tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab or a Hottentot – it is still an immortal spirit.”

From there he got elected Mayor of Bridgeport, CT in 1875, and “worked to improve the water supply, bring gas lighting to streets, and enforce liquor and prostitution laws.”  And he was instrumental in starting Bridgeport Hospital in 1878, becoming its first president.

Like I said, surprise of surprises. And it’s possible – though I wouldn’t bet the farm on it – that something like that might happen if Trump gets re-elected. Still, even if he did get re-elected things here will still be better than living in Russia. As shown by those Arkady Renko novels.

The thing that first impressed me about Renko was his ability to survive. For example, in Gorky Park he starts out as a dogged – if not quite respected – Moscow homicide investigator. Respected in a sense as the son of famous World War Two General, Stalin‘s Favorite General celebrated as “The Butcher of Ukraine.” But dogged in the sense that he’s made an enemy of the KGB. He “exposes corruption and dishonesty on the part of influential and well-protected members of the elite, regardless of the consequences.”

One such consequence? His partner is shot to death by members of the KGB, during the investigation into three mutilated bodies, found in the aforementioned Gorky Park. (Like Dirty Harry, whose on-screen partners “were famously short-lived,” it can be fatal to be close to Renko.)

Also in that first novel he gets betrayed by the man he trusts and works for, the powerful prosecutor Iamskoy. Iamskoy is really secretly working with Jack Osborne. (A corrupt and corrupting American played to perfection by Lee Marvin.) Renko ends up killing Iamskoy and Osborne’s henchman, but suffers a near-fatal stomach wound. He “recuperates” – in a KGB-run asylum – where he is regularly interrogated, and given various injections to make him talk. (Or just for the pure pleasure of watching him squirm.) State doctors “diagnose” him with Pathoheterodoxy Syndrome, “a fictional mental illness” symptomized by misguided arrogance. A side note, while the syndrome is fictional, “the incident also alludes to the very real Soviet practice of diagnosing dissidents with ‘sluggish schizophrenia,’ and of forcibly treating them with psychotropic drugs.”

He eventually escapes, miraculously, but is forced to flee ever-eastward, to Siberia, staying just one step ahead of the KGB. (The farther east he goes, the fewer thugs get dispatched to hunt him down). In Polar Star, Renko reaches the end of his rope, literally and metaphorically.

After uncovering corruption in high places (in Gorky Park), Renko is dismissed from his job as a Moscow police investigator and is forced to accept a variety of menial jobs in remote parts of the Soviet Union. [Like Siberia.] Finally, he finds himself gutting fish on a factory ship in the Bering Sea, in part to hide from the KGB, who have tried to kill him. 

Then there’s a murder on board. Renko is forced – reluctantly – to investigate, but his insistence on learning the truth, “rather than allowing her murder to be covered up as a suicide,” earns him more death threats, by the on-board KGB stooge and all but one or two other workers. But like I said, he manages to survive, in very trying circumstances.

Like we might find useful, if there is a second Trump term.

But from Polar Star we move on to Tatiana, which lists some of his miraculous escapes.

[Renko’s doctor had – so far – treated him] for a gunshot wound, a bullet to the brain that should have killed him and would have if the round had not been degraded by time. Instead of plowing a causeway through Arkady’s head, bits had lodged between the skull and the covering of the brain, and caused bleeding enough to justify drilling drain holes and lifting the lid of his head.” Because of all that the doctor had “taken a proprietary interest in his health.”

And that’s not to mention the stabbing-by-ice pick in Gorky Park, in a virtual cesspool of a Moscow fountain that got him taken to the KGB-run “asylum.” Where a series of “treatments” like painful spinal injections got him diagnosed with “Pathoheterodoxy Syndrome.”

But as interesting as the Tatiana novel has been – so far as I’ve gotten – it’s Polar Star that’s been the more interesting. Mostly because in it, Renko’s world has been turned upside down. Like America will be if Trump gets re-elected in 2024.

As a respected Moscow homicide detective, Renko had long been “on top.” And sent many men to prison. In Polar Star, one of them, Karp Korobetz, is now a Top Dog. A highly respected trawl master, and a favorite of the captain and crew alike. And he swears to kill Renko in revenge. “You’ll never get off this ship alive.” Renko on the other hand is now among the onboard lowest of the low. He works on the slime line, in the lowest bowels of the ship. But survive he does, with tricks and techniques we might all need to learn, possibly starting on Election Day, 2024.

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Well, I did try to link up those Renko novels to how a second Trump terms as president could still be tolerable. Or at least better than living in Russia!

But at this point – still thrashing around more of Arkady’s hair-breadth escapes – I haven’t made much progress. And this post has gone on far too long. I’m still stuck in the middle of Tatiana, but have to confess, I just took a sneak peek at the last chapter. And learned that most of the novel’s good people survive. They too “made it through to the other side.”

Which I guess is as good a metaphor as any to wrap up this post. If we can sneak a look at America, once Trump is out of the way for good – one way or another – we’ll see that things turn out okay as well. There may be a blood bath (hopefully metaphoric) if he gets re-elected. And lots of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. But in the end we’ve gotten through worse, and will again. Then too, since we’ve gone through one Trump term, we’ve built up a certain Herd immunity. An indirect protection; “Once the herd immunity has been reached, disease gradually disappears from a population and may result in eradication or permanent reduction.”

Here’s hoping all that happens without a second Trump term.

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The upper image is courtesy of The Nightmare – Wikipedia. “‘The Nightmare‘ is a 1781 oil painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her, and with a demonic and ape-like incubus crouched on her chest.”

On the Arkady books, see for example Arkady Renko – Book Series In Order. References to “Tatiana” are from the Center Point Large Print edition, Thorndike, Maine, 2014. Page 63 details Arkady’s doctor listing his various bullet wounds. At page 119, Tatiana, speaking on tape, says Russia is and has always been a “drunken bear.” Sometimes, curled in another corner is such a journalist as Tatiana, whose arms and legs have been systematically broken:

The thugs who do such work are meticulous. We don’t have to go to Chechnya to find such men. We recruit them and train them and call them patriots. And when they find an honest journalist, they let the bear loose… Sooner or later, I will be poisoned or nudged off a cliff or shot by a stranger…

Pages 127-129 tells of Renko’s wife Irina, his love-hate interest in Gorky Park, dying trying to get an antibiotic for a minor infection. From a “local polyclinic.” She is highly allergic to penicillin, which is just what she got thanks to an inattentive nurse. And the incompetent doctor could have saved her with a counter-injection of adrenaline, but “snapped off the key to the pharmacy cabinet, sealing her fate.”

Pages 157-58 tell of a thug trying to get Tatiana’s indecipherable notebook. He traps Renko in a barge ballast. A large concrete pad squeezes him, gently at first, as he is “laid out like a canape … in effect, entombed with less room than a coffin.” The thug – Alexi – keeps lowering the concrete ballast and Renko wonders, “what would be crushed first, rib cage or skull?” Then the thug’s pug, a pet dog, discovers Renko “and crawled up his chest to lick his face.” When Alexi reaches in to get the dog, Renko grabs his arm and dislocates Alexi’s shoulder, in desperation.

Like I said, Renko has an uncanny ability to survive.

Re: “Forcing the election into the House of Representatives.” For example, if a third-party candidate got enough Electoral College votes to deny both Trump and Biden the 270 needed to win.

Biden popularity. See How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight, Joe Biden’s approval rating compared to Trump rings alarm bells, or Why Is Joe Biden So Unpopular? – U.S. News & World Report:

On paper, the Biden administration has racked up some impressive achievements: more than 6 million new jobs were created, a single-year record. Unemployment dropped from 6.2% to 3.9%, another single-year first. Childhood poverty and hunger are down while average wages went up. Biden has the first majority non-white Cabinet in history and presides over the most diverse administration in history. He passed a massive COVID-19 relief bill and an expansive infrastructure package many previous presidents tried and failed to achieve.

On the other hand, “A Quinnipiac University poll from August echoed the NBC results, with 34% of registered voters viewing Trump favorably and 57% viewing him unfavorably.” Compare that with Biden’s 41.2 percent approval and “only” 54.9 percent disapproval rating. That gives Biden a 7.2 percent lead in approval and shows that Trump is 2.1 percent “more unpopular.” See Donald Trump is(still) very unpopular | CNN Politics, which added, “Usually, presidents’ poll numbers begin to improve once they leave office – as people tend to remember the good things about their tenure and forget the bad stuff as time passes. That hasn’t happened for Trump,” for reasons including that “January 6 was such a cataclysm that people haven’t forgotten it.” Which may help me not have so many nightmares. See also Trump Is Least Popular President in the History of Gallup, and Trump’s ‘MAGA movement’ widely unpopular, new poll finds.

Another note: Last May I posted On those slow-grinding wheels of justice, which in turn cited the June 2018 post, “The rope has to tighten SLOWLY.” The 2023 post asked “Did they have to grind this slow?” Citing the May 2023 jury verdict finding him Liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation. But it seems that finally things are heating up for him, and not in a good way.

On Trump fatigue. The link is to No One Wants to Think About Donald Trump Anymore, Experts Say. The article noted that for one thing, the “disinterest in Trump’s recent indictments are part of a broader ‘psychosis’ Americans feel about his overall behavior:”

…people are tired of hearing about Trump’s actions and have been for several years. “A part of the reason Trump lost the 2020 election is people were tired of it,” Carter said, referring to Trump’s continuous scandals. “It’s exhausting, for journalists and the public to be constantly having this guy living in their minds.”

(The “Carter” in question was Jared Carter, Vermont Law and Graduate School law professor.)

I borrowed some P.T. Barnum information from On that OTHER “Teflon Don.” (March 2016.)

Re: Dirty Harry and his partners. See Every Dirty Harry Partner (& Who Survived Their Films).

Re: “Blood bath.” Referring to “a very bad situation in which a lot of harm or damage is caused.” (BLOODBATH | English meaning – Cambridge Dictionary.)

The lower image is courtesy of Hope For The Best Prepare For The Worst – Image Results. See also Benjamin Disraeli – Wikipedia.

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June 25, 2023 – I last posted on May 27, 2023. Partly because I just got back from four days last week on a family stay-cation down in Panama City Beach. (21st floor, Ocean Ritz, very limited parking.) Which was fun, but marred by high winds, high waves and rip tides. For example:

(Panama City Beach has ticketed more than 70 for ignoring beach warnings. Or – if you don’t subscribe to the News-Herald – Men reportedly ignore Panama City Beach red flags: 1 in hospital, the other in jail. I know. I was there.)

But now I’m back home and need a post, quick.

Just my luck, I ran across a copy of George Will‘s 2002 book, With a Happy Eye, But… (Published just after the 9/11 attacks.) I don’t agree with all of George’s politics, but he’s enough of a loose cannon to suit me. For example, one reviewer called him a contrarian, and on November 8, 2016 – another day that may “live in infamy” – I posted Donald Trump made me a Contrarian.

Then too, he’s a Conservative With a Conscience. (These days an endangered species.) His conscience led Will to Confirm Nixon’s Treason. (Nixon scuttled the Paris Peace Talks, designed to end the war in Vietnam. He used secret information passed on from President Johnson, to make sure he – Nixon – got elected in 1968. If the talks had succeeded before the election, Nixon would have lost.)

Will also went head to head with fellow conservatives George W. Bush and – most recently – Donald Trump. (See Enemy of enemy is friend.) But mostly I admire his column-writing.

I fancy myself a columnist, or what columnists have become in this age of weblogs. And About the blog (above) tells about how I remembered some advice George gave years ago: “As I recall,” I wrote, Will “defined a columnist as a writer with three seductive skills: ‘be pleasurable, be concise, and be gifted at changing the subject frequently.'” A side note: I’ve learned to change the subject so frequently that my family says my writing “goes all over the place.” To which I can only respond, “Have you read the Book of Isaiah? That guy ‘goes all over the place!'”

Still, I’m trying to improve my column-writing Unity and Coherence, so back to Happy Eye, But. (The rest of the title: America and the World, 1997–2002.) George published this collection of columns just after the 9/11 attacks. His aim was to show that despite the terror attacks, Americans could look to the future with hope, quoting W.H. Auden‘s poem The Horatians:

We can only

do what seems to us we were made for, look at

this world with a happy eye

but from a sober perspective.

The line-spacing may seem strange – it looked even stranger in Will’s book – but that’s the best I could do. Back to the book: After starting to read it, on a lark I looked up “Trump” in the Index. I only found one reference, on page 257, as part of Will’s May 1998 column, “In Need of Another Moses.” The Other Moses was Robert Moses, “American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century.” The Need had to so with Governors Island, in New York Harbor, some 800 yards south of Manhattan. Will wondered why this “perfectly good island” was going to waste.

He reviewed the island’s history – including that “George Patton played polo there” – and wondered why no one, including the federal government, wanted to own and improve it:

It is passing strange that a congested city with a shortage of housing, green space, and Revolutionary War landmarks cannot find a moneymaking use for an island that is going to waste within hailing distance of the capital of money-making, Wall Street.

Which brings back the one-page reference to “The Donald,” in 367 total pages. (When was the last time we saw that ratio?) On why buyers were scarce, “‘Ferries don’t work,’ says developer Donald Trump.” (He cited the “long struggle toward profitability of Fisher Island in Miami.”)

Trump added that in 1998 Americans were “too antsy to wait on even good ferry service,” and said that even Staten Island didn’t prosper until the ferry-to-Manhattan service “was supplemented by the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge.” Then there was the general business rule of thumb – as he tweaked it – for projects with potential high yields but also high risks. That rule normally: The first investor will go broke, while the “second guy in will make money.” As adjusted in the 1998 Trump-tweak, in the case of Governor’s Island, “The third guy in will make money.”

A big problem, he says, is the government is chock full of blocking mechanisms. Environmentalists are particularly nimble at litigating development to a money-eating standstill.

Observations? 1) Some things never change. 2) “Those darn environmentalists, all concerned with protecting the environment!” And 3) It all depends on whose ox is being gored.

And some side notes. I used Governor’s Island as a secondary objective in June, 2022, when I tried to kayak across New York Harbor, from Statue of Liberty park to Manhattan. (My visit to The Big Apple – June 2022.) And in September 2016 I kayaked across the Verrazzano Narrows from Staten Island to Brooklyn. (Looking back on “the summer of ’16,” and links therein.) Fortunately the tide was just right in September 2016. It neither swept me back into New York Harbor nor swept me out to sea, past Sandy Hook. I didn’t have that luck in June 2022. After an hour’s paddling I got no closer to either Manhattan or Governor’s Island, so I turned back.

But we were talking about looking to the future with both a “happy eye” and sober perspective. Which brings up Donald Trump and his possibly getting a second term on Election Day – 2024. (November 5.) And the fact that to many, the thought of such a second term would be a true nightmare, illustrated below. Thus the question: “Will we still be able to look to the future with a Happy Eye – even if Trump gets elected to a second term in 2024?”

I reflected on such a second term in “Why it might be better…” (Gasp!) That was in August 2019, well before the 2020 election. (I worried a lot, even that long before Election Day.) I thought it might not be too bad, for reasons including that he’d immediately become a political lame duck, and that such lame-duck presidents both lose power but often become more concerned with their legacy. (Like President Reagan signing an arms control treaty with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during his second term, despite opposing such a treaty in his first term.)

I also asked, “Wouldn’t it be better to get it over with? To get rid of Trump once and for all, in 2024?” (Rather than having these two, three or four years of suspense, wondering if there will really be that many stupid Americans? And who knows how he’d handle the crises Biden faced, or what might have happened otherwise.) But on whether we can look to the future with Happy Eye if he does get that second term: Here’s hoping we never get the chance to find out…

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The upper image is courtesy of W. H. Auden – Wikipedia. The caption: “Commemorative plaque at one of Auden’s homes in Brooklyn Heights, New York.”

See the Amazon version of Will’s book at With a Happy Eye, but…: America and the World, 1997–2002. It’s review began: “The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Newsweek columnist takes on the presidents Bush, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, Y2K, 9/11, trickle-down economics, Brooks Brothers suits, the essence of golf, and of course, those damn Yankees.” (Will is a Chicago Cubs fan. On that note he once wrote, in 2001, “It has taken me sixty years to identify the three keys to a happy life… A flourishing family, hearty friends, and a strong bullpen.”)

As noted above, I like his column-writing style, but see WITH A HAPPY EYE BUT… by George F. Will | Kirkus Reviews. It ended: “The gold standard among conservative columnists remains William F. Buckley Jr., who can be enjoyed as literature even if you don’t agree with him; the same cannot be said of Will.” (To which I say, “I beg to differ.”) Also, this review pegged Will as a Contrarian, as in: “Will, however, has always been better as a contrarian than an insider.”

Also re my being a Contrarian. My full post title, ‘Mi Dulce’ – and Donald Trump – made me a Contrarian (or actually an Independent). I dated and/or kept up with “Mi Dulce” for ten years, from 2013 on. But in quite a surprise, she died this past year. (I figured she’d hang around way longer.) I never knew her age, but it turns out she was 76. I turn 72 in July, so “76” is not that far away. See also Another “deja vu all over again?” Also, Re: Nixon’s treason, see “Point of order,” Pat Buchanan.

About Will’s going head to head with fellow conservatives. From Wikipedia, “In later years, he became known for his prominent criticism of Republican politicians, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump. Will’s disapproval of Trump’s presidential campaign led him to become an independent in 2016, and he subsequently voted for Joe Biden in 2020.”

Re: Whose ox is gored. The link is to It all depends on whose ox is gored – The Jerusalem Post. See also The Goring Ox | Wisdom-Laws: A Study, which began, “The goring ox must count as the most celebrated animal in legal history.” Referring to Exodus 21:28-29.

The lower image is courtesy of The Nightmare – Wikipedia. “‘The Nightmare‘ is a 1781 oil painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her, and with a demonic and ape-like incubus crouched on her chest.”

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Chris Matthews did “abruptly resign,” but his truth still remains: “Great politicians sell hope…”

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I just got back from a lightning, one-week mini-vacation. First to Rockville Maryland for my grandson’s wedding, then to Pigeon Forge Tennessee for a family get-together. (Including a day-visit to Dollywood, illustrated at left.) I got back home late last Thursday (6/10/21), and over the course of a Recuperation Weekend, checked on my blogs. My last post on this blog – “(Some of) the music of my life” – happened back on May 20, 2021. So another blog-post is long overdue.

Looking for an easy past-post to review, I went back to June, 2015. There I found “Great politicians sell hope,” a post based on a 2007 Chris Matthews book, Life’s a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success.

Unfortunately, Chris himself has run into some hard times since then. Some of the gory details are in the notes, but suffice it to say that even though he had to resign under a cloud, what he said in his 2007 book still rings true. The truly great politicians still sell hope…

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Now, about that idea that “Great Politicians Sell Hope:” When I first heard Matthews make that claim – back in 2015 – I thought, “What rock have you been living under?“ But in his book Chris noted that our best presidents – including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan – were able to “sell themselves” by giving Americans a sense of hope for the future.

So back In 2015 I asked, “What happened? What happened to those presidents who gave Americans a sense of hope for the future?” But since then one big thing happened. (And maybe two or three.) After four tumultuous years of Trump, Joe Biden’s election seemed to offer a glimmer of that hope. And despite ongoing conservative guilt by insinuation TV ads – that they were Socialists, creeping or otherwise – Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock painted Georgia blue.

But we digress. Back to the Chris Matthews book. The 2015 post told how I reviewed it, which led me to think this: “Maybe today’s politicians seem especially nasty because so many voters they’re trying to woo are turning nasty.” Maybe today’s politicians just reflect the “nastiness that seems to have taken hold of a large part of our population.” Then came this quote:

C. P. Snow believes that Western society has become an argument culture (The Two Cultures). In The Argument Culture (1998), Deborah Tannen suggests that the dialogue of Western culture is characterized by a warlike atmosphere in which the winning side has truth (like a trophy). Such a dialogue virtually ignores the middle alternatives.

That quote came from a link in the post, and seems as good an explanation as any, and especially the part about ignoring “middle alternatives.” Today’s politics do seem to trend to the extreme, and in the process avoid any middle or compromise alternatives. On that note, the Amazon blurb for Tannen’s book said “in the argument culture, war metaphors pervade our talk and influence our thinking. We approach anything we need to accomplish as a fight between two opposing sides.” Rather than the traditional American spirit of compromise…

However, not that long ago even great political arch-enemies Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan – at right – could meet over a drink when the day’s battles were over. And Ted Kennedy could do the same. Even though the two were political arch-enemies, Kennedy admired the fact that Reagan “knew how to manipulate symbols for his causes yet could sup with his enemies:”

He’s absolutely professional. When the sun goes down, the battles of the day are really gone.  He gave the Robert Kennedy Medal, which President Carter refused to do… He’s very sure of himself, and I think that people sense that he’s comfortable with himself… He had a philosophy and he’s fought for it. There’s a consistency and continuity at a time when many others are flopping back and forth. And that’s an important and instructive lesson for politicians, that people admire that.

Which is another way of saying O’Neill, Reagan, and Kennedy all personified that traditional American spirit of compromise: “If politics is the art of the possible, compromise is the artistry of democracy… In a democracy, the spirit of the laws depends on the spirit of compromise.”

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Which brings us back to that 2015 “hope” post. It went way long – almost 2,000 words – and talked about things like George Wallace repenting his racism, and how Harry Golden handled the troubled years between 1942 and 1968. (Years which included McCarthyism,  Vietnam War protests, and the Civil Rights Movement.) And how through it all, Golden “kept a sense of hope and a sense of humor.” And how Carl Sandburg once wrote that it must have been someone like Golden who was “in the mind of the Yankee, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote:  “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” (Words that I try to live by…)

And finally, that 2015 “hope” post started and ended with the wisdom noted in the cartoon below, that in “bad times or hopelessness, it is more worthwhile to do some good, however small, in response than to complain about the situation.” And to the article, Better to light a single candle. And that great bloggers – like great politicians – should also work harder on “selling hope.”

Which is just what I’ll keep trying to do…

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The upper image is courtesy of Chris Matthews abruptly resigns from MSNBC following controversial comments, with the subhed, “The anchor apologized for sexist remarks before unexpectedly signing off.” See also Chris Matthews resigns from ‘Hardball,’ apologies for inappropriate comments. (Both from March 2020.) The gist of story is summarized in the Wikipedia article, including:

In October 2016, political journalist Laura Bassett appeared on Matthew’s program to comment on sexual assault allegations against then candidate Donald Trump. In February 2020, Bassett alleged that prior to that program, Matthews made inappropriate remarks about her makeup, clothing, and dating life. As she was having her television studio makeup applied, Matthews purportedly asked her: “Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?” Bassett claims that when she laughed nervously and said nothing, Matthews followed up to the makeup artist with: “Keep putting makeup on her, I’ll fall in love with her.” 

All of which seems pretty tame these “A.T.” days (After Trump), compared to both comments and actions by recent politicians. (And tame as well to some comments I used to make when I was young and obnoxious.) The article added, “Following his resignation, Matthews garnered well-wishes from professional colleagues in the news media and others, including from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who noted Matthews’s willingness to “criticize the neocon pro-war agenda.”

Another note: In researching this post I temporarily got Chris Wallace mixed up with the Chris Matthews, the actual author of “Great politicians sell hope.” In the process I discovered recent stories about Chris Wallace, including Fox News’ Chris Wallace Confronts Mike Pompeo on Trump Admin Not Being Tough on Russia, and Chris Wallace Challenges Pompeo: You ‘Had Almost a Year’ to Prove Lab Leak Theory. Which means I may be doing a new post on Wallace himself…

Re: “argument culture.” The full title of Deborah Tannen‘s book is The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words. Tannen wrote an earlier book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990). According to Amazon, in that earlier book “Tannen showed why talking to someone of the opposite sex can be like talking to someone from another world.”

The lower – “stupid darkness” – cartoon image is courtesy of You Stupid Darkness! | Kurtis Scaletta’s Site, with links to comics.com/peanuts, “one of the most amazing but little-known Internet resources.”  See also lightasinglecandle.wordpress.com, and The 5 Greatest (newspaper) Comic Strips Of All Time.

See also Better to Light a Candle Than to Curse the Darkness – Quote, and Better to Light a Candle Than Curse the Darkness | Psychology Today. The former noted the saying may be attributed to numerous sources, including – but not limited to – Eleanor Roosevelt, Confucius, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, and/or Charles Schulz. The latter offered three ways to overcome anxiety and find greater hope: “As we face the COVID pandemic, political unrest, economic challenges, and multiple crises, many of us are feeling anxious, uncertain, lost in darkness.”