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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”
This blog is modeled on the Carolina Israelite. That was an old-time newspaper – more like a personal newsletter – written and published by Harry Golden. Back in the 1950s, people called Harry a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.” (For his work on the Israelite.)
That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”
For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.
In the meantime:
January 21, 2025 – I’m trying to take the high road. Trying to think that maybe – just maybe – in their collective wisdom the Sovereign People made a good choice last November. In the alternative I’m just hoping the next four years won’t be as bad as lots of people think. I’m writing this so I can check back on January 20, 2029, and see whose prognostications proved correct. (And to the extent possible I’ll try to stay out of the crossfire.) But it’s tough.
Robert Reich for one doesn’t hold out much hope, as I discovered this past week when I ran across his video, Why Trump Won … YouTube. (He said basically that Trump won by expressing the anger and frustration of the vast-majority of working class Americans, while at the same time planning policies to increase things like corporate welfare, meaning most of those who voted for Trump will be in the same position, if not worse off, four years from now.)
After that I did some lateral reading. That led me to these other posts: Economist Robert Reich ‘goes back 4 decades’ to explain why Trump ‘isn’t the cause’ of US dysfunction, and Robert B. Reich: Will Trump get credit for Biden’s successes? (I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.) Next – from a hot tip – I Googled “shove the presidency down trump’s throat,” and found these posts: Shove the Presidency Down Trump’s Throat – Yahoo News, and a review of that post, ‘Real job stress’: Democrats handed fresh advice. Finally I found this from Rolling Stone magazine, American Authoritarianism. How Bad Will It Get Under Trump?
One thing Rolling Stone said was that despite the Constitution’s two-term limit – the 22nd Amendment – Trump will try to stay in office “for life.” On the other hand (they said), America’s system of federalism offers hope: “Many things are going to be terrible. But controlling the federal government doesn’t mean you’re controlling everything.” Author Tim Dickinson exhorted Americans to support local institutions that uphold democratic norms and strengthen them.
Defending those institutions will give proponents of America’s democratic experiment their best shot at recovery, when the MAGA movement stumbles. Here, Trump’s age and lack of a clear successor offers some hope. “He’s old, so at some point, age is going to make a difference… There will be a power struggle. The next opportunity will be when he dies in office.”
Then too I recently started reading Stephanie Grisham’s book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now (“What I saw at the Trump White House”), for clues about what to expect coming up in “Trump 2.” (Page 7 talked about Trump’s appeal to voters, page 36 talked about the revolving-door chiefs of staff, and page 22 talked about Mitt Romney’s experience: “I don’t know how aware he was at that point about Trump’s slow, deliberate torture of him or if he was a particularly vengeful man. But in the years to come he would find ways to get back at Trump.” Hmmm…)
Meanwhile, I have a few thoughts of my own. Some I expressed in past posts, like April 2019’s On “why I don’t like Donald Trump.” Also, August 2019’s On “why it might be better…” (Gasp!) As in, why it might have been better if Trump had been reelected in 2020. (Legitimately that is. For one thing, he would have been leaving office on 1/20/25.) Then too, as things started looking more bleak (for many Americans), this from August 2023, On a second Trump term.
I’ll be checking and re-checking those in the months and years to come.
Other thoughts: Like, that Trump will have a Honeymoon Period, the “period of popularity enjoyed by a new leader,” but that period is getting shorter; recently down to seven months, “from an average of 26 months earlier in American history.” For another thing, there’s the Paradox of Leadership: Why We Build Up Only to Tear Down: As soon as Americans elevate a new leader to high office, “we seem equally driven to bring them down… The fall from grace, then, is almost inevitable.” Third, in my view the Sovereign People hired Trump to do one thing: Fix the economy. Bring prices down, make it easier – or even possible – for today’s young people to buy a home of their own, and pay reasonable prices for food, housing and gas.
To the extent he can do that, he’ll succeed. Otherwise, there will be a day of reckoning…
In the meantime, on to more pleasant things. Like, this August I’ll be hiking the Canterbury Trail in England, more formally known as the Pilgrims’ Way. My companions and I will start the 120-miles-or-so hike in Winchester. (And on to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury in Kent.) Along the way and while in London I’ll wear my Dodger hat with the prominent “LA.” But to ward off rude remarks and puzzled questions. I’ll also wear this button. (But hidden, maybe under a lapel, ready to flash, “just in case.”) It’ll pay to be careful in the upcoming months and years…
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The upper image is courtesy of Fortune Teller Image – Image Results. See also Prediction, Forecasting, and Nostradamus, all from Wikipedia. Here’s another interesting post – maybe to review in four years – How Donald Trump Won the 2024 Election | TIME, for comparison purposes.
About that word in the title: The verb “reckoning” means the action or process of calculating or estimating something, as in something coming up in the future? See Collins English Dictionary for variable and countable nouns, and synonyms. Also Merriam-Webster, about a settling of accounts or calculating a ship’s position.
Re: “Crossfire.” The actual idiom is Caught in the crossfire – Idioms by The Free Dictionary. Literally it means to be caught “in the middle of an exchange of gunfire.” Or affected by or made to be involved in a conflict “one is not a part of,” but of course, as an American citizen and thus part of the Sovereign People, I’ll be very much involved in the upcoming events.
Re: The economy. The Reich YouTube video included a graph showing the economy (80%) as second only to immigration (90%) as the top issues that mattered most to voters.
Re: Lateral reading. The link, Best media literacy tip to vet credible sources from the Poynter Institute.
Re: “Honeymoon.” I Googled “Biden’s honeymoon period” and got links like How Joe Biden’s approval ratings looked across four years, Biden Honeymoon Unlikely Despite Early Challenges – U.S. News, and The president’s “first 100 days” is a myth — Biden included | Vox. There’s some interesting reading there; I’ll be checking them in the coming months and years.
Also re: Checking and re-checking. I’ll also do that for things like the Consumer Price Index, the rate of inflation and the prices of gas and a dozen eggs. See News Releases, from January 15, 2015 (CPI), AAA Fuel Prices, from 1/21/25 ($3.12 on average), Is there an egg shortage? Here’s why prices are up, from 1/9/25 (“up to $3.65 in November versus $3.37 in October and $2.14 in November 2023”), and What is the current inflation rate in the US? – USAFacts. (2.7 percent as of November 2024).
The lower image is courtesy of Dont Blame Me I Voted for Kamala 1.25 Button. ($2.25, plus shipping. There’s also one for $6.99, A stylized “Vote,” followed by “Don’t look at me. I didn’t vote for him.” See also Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Harris | www.splicetoday.com.
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Re: The Israelite. Harry Golden grew up in the Jewish ghetto of New York City, but eventually moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Thus the “Carolina Israelite.” I on the other hand am a “classic 73-year-old “WASP” – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – and live in north Georgia. Thus the “Georgia Wasp.”
Anyway, in North Carolina Harry wrote and published the “israelite” from the 1940s through the 1960s. He was a “cigar-smoking, bourbon-loving raconteur.” (He told good stories.) That also means if he was around today, the “Israelite would be done as a blog.” But what made Harry special was his positive outlook on life. As he got older but didn’t turn sour, like many do today. He still got a kick out of life. For more on the blog-name connection, see “Wasp” and/or The blog.
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