Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow (Penguin 2004)

Chernow’s biography of the architect of American government is more than 700 pages. I started it on e-book borrowed from the library in mid-October and continued with a borrowed paperback. All in all, it took me about two months to read it. Why now? Well, with the horrible Trump administration as background, I was hoping to read something that would distract my attention from the negativity and back-biting of 21st century American politics. Little did I know that in Alexander Hamilton’s time, negativity, back-biting, lies, slander, libel, nastiness, hatred, greed, incompetence, jealousy, fits of temper, and more make the 18th century more like a precursor of the 21st than a distraction from it. It was the same shit, all over again. The Federalists hated the Republicans; the Republicans hated the Federalists. Hamilton hated Jefferson, who returned the favor. Burr was disliked by pretty much everyone. Adams was similar in many ways to Donald Trump, having frequent temper tantrums and often disappearing to his home in Massachusetts for months at a time, leaving the government to run itself. Only Washington was universally respected. . . until he wasn’t. It’s a mystery to me how our infant nation managed to survive.

The Republican Party at the time, which I realize is not the party of today (now The Trump Party in everything but name), stood for slavery, states’ rights and a very weak federal government (they thought 130 civil servants were too many!), while Hamilton’s Federalist Party, which barely survived Hamilton’s own demise, championed a powerful executive. We are still fighting these battles today.

Hamilton was truly an exceptional man, mostly self-taught, who had a vision for the country before it was a country and somehow managed to build that vision into a viable republic. He invented the banking, commerce, taxation, and many other systems that still characterize the United States today. He wrote constantly, reams upon reams of arguments for (or against) this or that idea or proposal or law or person.

He was scrupulously honest (never embezzled a dime as the first Secretary of the Treasury; worked double time as a lawyer to compensate for his low government salary), a loving husband and father of eight, and capable of prodigious amounts of work.

He had plenty of faults, too, which Chernow does not shy away from. He was unfaithful to his wife. He made some spectacular errors in judgment, particularly in his later years. But Chernow writes that we have Hamilton to thank for over 200 years of American success. He may not have written the Constitution, but he sold it to the American people in his Federalist Papers, and he fought to protect it through the stormy early years.

Stop reading here! End of post __________________________________________________________________________

Some Interesting Quotes from the e-book

CH 4 – The American Revolution was to succeed because it was undertaken by skeptical men who knew that the same passions that toppled tyrannies could be applied to destructive ends.

The selection of Washington was the first of many efforts by the north to please and placate the south.

Hamilton lacked the temperament of a true-blue revolutionary. He saw too clearly that greater freedom could lead to greater disorder and, by a dangerous dialectic, back to a loss of freedom. Hamilton’s lifelong task was to try to straddle the resolve this contradiction and to balance liberty and order.

Chapter 6 – The American revolution had been premised on a tacit bargain that regional conflicts would be subordinated to the need for unity among the states. This understanding dictated that slavery would remain a taboo subject.

…a recurring paradox of Hamilton’s career that he grew enraged when accused of being an outsider and then sounded, in response, very much like the outsider evoked by his critics.

Chapter 7 – Elizabeth Schuyler–whom Hamilton called either Eliza or Betsey–remains invisible in most biographies of her husband and was certainly the most self-effacing “founding mother,” doing everything in her power to focus the spotlight exclusively on her husband.

Ralph Earl portrait of Eliza Hamilton; John Trumbull’s portrait of Angelica Church

Ch 9 – He advocated duties on imported goods as America’s best form of revenue. For a nation still fighting a revolution over unjust duties on tea and other imports, this was, to put it mildly, a loaded topic.

Ch 12 – Hamilton’s besetting fear was that American democracy would be spoiled by demagogues who would mouth populist shibboleths to conceal their despotism. George Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr all came to incarnate that dread for Hamilton.

Ch 13 – Hamilton’s mind always worked with preternatural speed. His collected papers are so stupefying in length that it is hard to believe that one man created them in fewer than five decades. Words were his chief weapons, and his account books are crammed with purchases for thousands of quills, parchments, penknives, slate pencils, reams of foolscap, and wax. His papers show that, Mozart-like, he could transpose complex thoughts onto paper with few revisions. At other times, he tinkered with the prose but generally did not alter the logical progression of his thought. He wrote with the speed of a beautifully organized mind that digested ideas thoroughly, slotted them into appropriate pigeonholes, then regurgitated them at will. To understand Hamilton’s productivity, it is important to note that virtually all of his important work was journalism, prompted by topical issues and written in the midst of controversy. He never wrote as a solitary philosopher for the ages. His friend Nathaniel Pendleton remarked, “His eloquence . . . seemed to require opposition to give it its full force.” But his topical writing has endured because he plumbed the timeless principles behind contemporary events. When in legal briefs or sustained polemics, he wanted to convince people through appeals to their reason. He had an incomparable capacity for work and a metabolism that thrived on conflict. His stupendous output came from the interplay of superhuman stamina and intellect and a fair degree of repetition.

Madison had many reservations about the document (the Constitution), especially the equal representation of states in the Senate, . . .

Federalist number 10, the most influential of all the essays, in which he took issue with Montesquieu’s theory that democracy could survive only in small states. . . .

Madison . . . defended the small, elite Senate against charges that it would grow into “a tyrannical aristocracy”

[Hamilton’s] lifelong effort to balance freedom and order . . .

Ch 14 – That Hamilton could be so sensitive to criticisms of himself and so insensitive to the effect his words had on others was a central mystery of his psyche. (DJT?)

Washington was simply more attuned to Hamilton than he was to Jefferson. . . . Washington willingly served as the political shield that Alexander Hamilton needed as he became America’s most influential and controversial man.

Ch 15 – discrimination (in favor of former debt holders)

Ch 16 – assumption: Hamilton’s plan to have the federal government assume the twenty-five million dollars of state debt

Madison thwarted attempts to enact assumption.

For Hamilton, assumption was his make-or-break issue.

Ch 18 – Hamilton did not create America’s market economy so much as foster the cultural and legal setting in which it flourished. . . . He converted the new Constitution into a flexible instrument for creating the legal framework necessary for economic growth. He did this by activating three still amorphous clauses–the necessary-and-proper clause, the general-welfare clause, and the commerce clause–making them the basis for government activism in economics.

For Jefferson, banks were devices to fleece the poor, oppress farmers, and induce a taste for luxury that would subvert republican simplicity.

For Adams, a banking system was a confidence trick by which the rich exploited the poor.

Hamilton was not the master builder of the Constitution: the laurels surely go to James Madison. He was, however, its foremost interpreter, starting with The Federalist and continuing with his Treasury tenure, when he had to expound constitutional doctrines to accomplish his goals. He lived, in theory and practice, every syllable of the Constitution. For that reason, historian Clinton Rossiter insisted that Hamilton’s “works and words have been more consequential than those of any other American in shaping the Constitution under which we live.”

Some Notes from the Paperback

Ch 19 “City of the Future”: the affair with Maria Reynolds; the SEUM (Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures) and Hamilton’s prescient plan to make America an industrial power; William Duer’s antics and downfall

Ch 20 “Corrupt Squadrons” – enmity between Hamilton/Federalists and Jefferson/Madison/Republicans; the rise of factions/parties; Philip Freneau and the National Gazette, rival to the Gazette of the United States; 18th century “journalism” – more like opinions based on lies.

Ch 21 “Exposure” – Hamilton’s affair unmasked. Quote: “The Reynolds affair was a sad and inexcusable lapse on Hamilton’s part, made only the more reprehensible by his high office, his self-proclaimed morality, his frequently missed chances to end the liaison, and the love and loyalty of his pregnant wife.” My thought: how interesting how the men bent on exposing Hamilton’s corruption backed off immediately when he confessed that his misbehavior was an extra-marital affair, not any official shenanigans. “The small delegation seemed satisfied with Hamilton’s chronicle, if not a little flustered by the awkward situation. They apologized for having invaded his privacy.” This brings to mind how the press ignored Kennedy’s and Bush’s dalliances, and how Democrats were disgusted by Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, but not enough to remove him from office. It is only now that a scandal of this kind can (sometimes) derail a politician’s career. #MeToo

Chapter 22 “Stabbed in the Dark” – The enmity between Jefferson (with Madison on his side) and Hamilton continues. Another adversary was Aaron Burr, “a lone operator, a protean figure who formed alliances for short-term gain”. Hamilton, a man of deep principles, despised Burr’s transactional character. Virginian congressman William Branch Giles and Marylander John Mercer piled on as well.Philip Freneau continues to publish lies about Hamilton, and former Treasury Dept clerk Andrew Fraunces accused Hamilton of wrongdoing. Hamilton was attacked and maligned from all sides, accused to using his office to benefit himself, which he never did. Washington “distraught over his bickering cabinet”. The malicious intent behind the attacks reminds me of the infighting in Congress today, One wonders how the nation survived it.

Chapter 23 “Citizen Genêt” – Jefferson’s Republicans were in love with the French despite the excesses and violence of the aftermath of the Revolution; Washington, Hamilton, and the Federalists were appalled by these excesses and more attracted to England–which the Republicans hated. Edmond Charles Genêt served as minister to the U.S. “Vain, extravagant, and bombastic”, he “did not behave with the subtlety and prudence expected of a diplomat”. Complications as Hamilton and Washington try to keep the US out of the war between France and England and other European countries.

Chapter 24 “A Disagreeable Trade” – An epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia; the Hamiltons both get sick. Shades of 2020. After-effects slow Hamilton down… a little. A break between Washington and Jefferson, who resigns as Secretary of State. The Republicans take over Congress–bad news for Hamilton, who begins to dream of leaving government.

Chapter 25 “Seas of Blood” – England makes trouble. Chief Justice John Jay is sent to negotiate with the British. The violence in France worsens. French refugees come to America.

Chapter 26 “The Wicked Insurgents of the West” – The Whisky Rebellion of Western Pennsylvania was a huge challenge for Hamilton. He persuades Washington to make a show of great force and the tax-hating farmers back down. Hamilton deeply unpopular, leaves government service, needing to earn money to pay off debts, after writing Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit, a plan to pay off the federal debt.

Chapter 27 “Sugar Plums and Toys” – Hamilton returns to work as a lawyer in private practice, spends lots of quality time with Eliza and the children. He works to get John Jay’s very unpopular treaty with England approved. He continues to write voluminously under various pseudonyms.

Chapter 28 “Spare Cassius” – (I gave up taking notes here)

Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park

by Marie Winn (Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc. 1998)

In the 1990s, or maybe in the 1980s, a distinctive-looking young male red-tailed hawk was seen by birdwatchers in New York’s Central Park. Although too young to breed, he wooed and won a female. They built a nest and tried to raise a family, but were unsuccessful. Then both hawks were injured, and as a consequence the male (nicknamed Pale Male because of his subdued coloring) was without a mate. The following year, he returned with a new mate. Breeding failed again. Finally, the third year, with a little help from the birdwatchers, Pale Male and his mate succeeded in raising three healthy chicks; then tragedy strikes when the female is killed by a car. Pale Male finds another mate. . . . or wait a minute–can it be? His First Love come back to him? Sadly, this mate too dies when she ingests a poisoned pigeon. Undaunted, Pale Male takes up with a third female, “Blue”. That’s as far as the book goes, but his serial relationships over many years are documented in this Wikipedia article.

Marie Winn is one of those Central Park birdwatchers, as well as a writer. She tells the story of the hawks, the other birds and wildlife in the Park, and the people who make it their business to observe, advocate for, feed, and protect them. It’s an enchanting story, complete with hawk romance, loss, and parenting, as well as vignettes of the brother-and-sisterhood of bird lovers that forms around the hawks. These human park visitors take care of one another and learn from one another. To read this book was like breathing fresh air after being down in a coal mine reading about Donald Trump, racism, and artificial intelligence making human beings obsolete. If those hawks could raise a family in the middle of New York City, perhaps we can take our country back from the clutches of this president and his goon squad.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

by Yuval Noah Harari (Harper Collins 2016)

Although he insists that his vision of the future is only “possibilities”, rather than predictions, Yuval Noah Harari’s ideas of the future of the Earth and its species are pretty bleak, and I found this book really depressing and hard to get through. Harari is essentially saying that my humanist values will become extinct, along with my species, as the world becomes a giant data processor. While I am not likely to live to see this dystopian world, it is frightening to think of my daughter, my nieces and nephews, and their children having to live in it. And a mere four years after Harari published Homo Deus, some of those possibilities seem to be on the verge of becoming probabilities… or realities.

Chapter 1, “The New Human Agenda” serves as an introduction to the book. Briefly, the agenda is (1) immortality (overcoming aging, disease, death); (2) bliss (the pursuit of happiness); and (3) divinity (reimagining Homo Sapiens as godlike cyber-beings with special powers. (We already have powers that eclipse those of the gods of the ancient world: think of advancements in medicine, transportation, and communication for starters.)

Part One: Homo Sapiens Conquers the World

Chapter 2, “The Anthropocene” describes how our species has conquered all other species (BUT mosquitoes? rats? viruses? bacteria?) and changed the planet’s ecology. We are as gods relative to other species with whom we “share” the planet. First, there was animism, the idea that all things are imbued with a spirit of their own and are in that sense equal to each other. (I like to think I am an animist by nature.) The humans of that time, hunter-gatherers, were just another species among many, and all were holy and had value. Animism was succeeded by the theist religions which developed after the Agricultural Revolution; they taught that human beings are unique in the world and deserving of special treatment; the needs and feelings of other species were deemed unworthy of consideration. Only man was “sanctified”, and a farm was the model for new societies, complete with masters, inferior races to exploit, wild animals to exterminate, and God to sanction everything.

It is in this chapter that Harari defines an algorithm as “a methodical set of steps. . . used to make calculations, resolve problems, and reach decisions.” Examples are math problems, recipes, and beverage vending machines, and include sensations, emotions, and desires. He will later claim that we are in the process of reducing everything in the world to algorithms–including life and human experience; it is a critical concept.

Chapter 3, “The Human Spark” asks whether Homo Sapiens is unique or not. Are we superior to other life forms? Monotheistic religions all claim that human beings have an immortal soul in addition to our temporary physical form, yet science cannot show the existence of the soul. Even the mind (“a flow of subjective experiences. . . made of interlinked sensations, emotions, and thoughts, which flash for a brief moment, and immediately disappear”) cannot to proven to exist in a physical sense. Consciousness arises from the mind; they are distinct from the physical brain and neural network. Is the mind created by electrochemical reactions in the brain? (If so, we don’t know how.) We cannot deny our subjective experiences, e.g., pain, yet sciences has been unable to show that human consciousness rises above that of other animals. We are able to control other species because we have the ability to collaborate flexibly in large communities, using shared stories (e.g., holy scriptures) to create a community of strangers. Intersubjective entities are human constructs such as money, nations, gods, and laws, in which people believe. . . until they don’t. “Sapiens rule the world because only they can weave an intersubjective web of meaning: a web of laws, forces, entities and places that exist purely in their common imagination.”

Part Two: Homo Sapiens Gives Meaning to the World

Chapter 4, “The Story Tellers” focuses on the Cognitive Revolution, when humans developed language to give voice to their thoughts, which strengthened the intersubjective networks of the human brain, enabling such activities as collecting taxes and organizing complex bureaucracies. The powerful forced their fictions such as money and holy writings on others. These stories are tools in the quest for power over reality.

Chapter 5, “The Odd Couple” refers to science, which seeks power, and religion, which seeks order. Science can change reality, and religion can confer legitimacy on human laws, norms, values, and social structures. All human societies believe in some system of moral law not invented by people, and followers of each religion believe theirs to be the only true religion. Religion is different from spirituality, and the quest for truth is a spiritual journey. Science needs religion to create institutions. (“God hides in the fine print of factual statements.”) Humanism is also a religion in which humans are the beings that are worshipped.

Chapter 6, “The Modern Covenant” turns its attention to modern societies, which have relinquished the meaning conferred on the world by theism in order to acquire power. Here society is fueled by scientific progress and economic growth, which is seen as the answer to everything. We believe that when we produce more, we can consume more, and consumption leads to happiness. Also, when populations increase, we must produce more just to stay the same. Lack of growth leads to redistribution of wealth (terrible!), so everything else can be sacrificed for growth. But infinite growth requires infinite resources, leading to an impossible situation: ecological collapse. For example, the only way to stop climate change is to cease growth, but this is not in human nature, which is greedy, always wanting more stuff. Free market capitalism has brought us many positive outcomes (it has to a large extent overcome famine, plague, and war), but we have paid for these gains with a loss of meaning.

Chapter 7, “The Humanist Revolution” discusses this new religion which attempts to create meaning in a world devoid of meaning. The highest authority is no longer God, but our free will. That which causes suffering is bad. Life is seen as a gradual process of inner change; life experiences lead us from ignorance to enlightenment. Science’s yang (power, reason, laboratories, factories) contrasts with humanism’s yin (ethics, emotion, museums and supermarkets), and we believe that we should follow our feelings and do what feels good. Orthodox humanism (liberalism) is contrasted with socialist humanism (communism) and evolutionary humanism (fascism, Nazism).

Part Three: Homo Sapiens Loses Control

Chapter 8, “The Time Bomb in the Laboratory” concerns scientific advancements which establish the lack of an immortal soul or even a stable self. We are just a collection of electrical impulses, with no power over our own thoughts.

Chapter 9, “The Great Decoupling” of intelligence from consciousness will (or might) bring about the end of the liberal philosophy. Humans will no longer be relevant or required to make the economy run or win wars; value will be in the collective but not in individuals; valued individuals will belong to a new class of superhumans. Non-conscious intelligence (i.e., AI) uses algorithms to recognize patterns in everything, enabling it to outperform humans in many areas, leading to a loss of jobs for working people. Jobs already in danger include stockbrokers, truck drivers, lawyers, teachers, doctors, and pharmacists. People will become unemployable and irrelevant. (The Republican lack of concern for working people’s access to healthcare, adequate housing, and a living wage perhaps stems from their view of people as dispensable and disposable.) Favorite quote: “In the Twenty-first Century our personal data is probably the most valuable resource most humans still have to offer, and we are giving it to the tech giants in exchange for email services and funny cat videos.”

Chapter 10, “The Ocean of Consciousness” considers “techno-humanism”, a new religion that sees humans as the apex of everything (Homo Deus). Humanism commands us to know ourselves and to follow our dreams, and techno-humanism provides the chemical (pharmaceutical) tools to do that.

Chapter 11, “The Data Religion” is probably the scariest chapter. Dataism is the name Harari gives to the belief that the universe consists of data flows. The life sciences’ biochemical algorithms and computer science’s electronic algorithms combine to turn everything into data, and all systems into data processing systems. These can be distributed (capitalism) or centralized (communism). This Technical Revolution moves faster than political processes. Favorite quote: “The government tortoise cannot keep up with the technological hare. It is overwhelmed by data.” Everyone is overwhelmed by data, and power belongs to anyone or anything that can handle it. Governments become mere managers of nations. No one knows where the power has gone. The rich can make more profits for themselves, but they can’t stop climate change or eliminate inequality. In the short run, dataism can help (some?) people acquire health, happiness, and power, but in the long run it can make us obsolete.

Three key questions:

(1) Are organism really just algorithms? Is life really just data processing?

(2) Which is more valuable: intelligence or consciousness?

(3) What will happen when nonconscious algorithms know us better than we know ourselves (which is sort of true already)?

It all reminds me of the possibly apocryphal Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon Press 2018)

Robin DiAngelo works to help white Americans understand their inevitable racism. Racism is inevitable because we have been raised in a racist society, but we are taught not to talk about it, and we learn to ignore it. Black people can’t ignore racism; their very survival depends on their ability to read us. But we have decided that being racist makes us bad people, and since we don’t see ourselves as bad, we must not be racists. DiAngelo says it is normal for humans to have prejudice. Despite our best intentions, there will be times when we discriminate against or stereotype people. She urges us to struggle against this learned racism, to seek out and not be offended by honest feedback. We can use our white privilege to fight institutional racism in ways that people of color cannot. But we should not expect them to do our work for us. It is up to us to educate ourselves about the problem. Once we have a better understanding of how racism weighs unfairly on people of color in our society, it is our responsibility to change it. We need to be willing to feel uncomfortable. It’s hard to accept some things, but our inability to see ourselves clearly is what makes us “fragile” and causes us to avoid discussions about race and to deny that we have benefited from racism.

An example of how our world view is fundamentally racist is the popular film The Blind Side. This film plays constantly on one of our local channels; I have seen it, or parts of it, numerous times. It tells the story of professional football player Michael Oher, who was taken in and eventually adopted by a wealthy white family in Tennessee. It’s a “feel-good” movie (for me). The characters are likable, and there’s a happy ending. I did realize that the movie seems to be more about Leigh Anne Tuohy, played by Sandra Bullock, than it is about Michael Oher, played by Quinton Aron; Leigh Anne is Michael’s rescuer in many ways. But DiAngelo made me see how the movie feeds into many white stereotypes about black people: that they are either childlike and not very smart, or dangerous criminals. Michael succeeds only because he is rescued from poverty and homelessness by the Tuohys. Even the youngest Tuohy, little SJ, understands football better than Michael does. Thanks to this book, I will never see The Blind Side in quite the same way again.

DiAngelo writes, We can interrupt our white fragility and build our capacity to sustain cross-racial honesty. . . . We can challenge our own racial reality. . . . We can attempt to understand the racial realities of people of color through authentic interaction . . . . We can take action to address . . . racism. . . .We can educate ourselves about the history of race relations in our country. We can follow the leadership on antiracism from people of color. . . . We can get involved in organizations working for racial justice. And most important, we must break the silence about race and racism with other white people. It’s a lot to ask. But how can we refuse? We have benefited from racism for too long.

Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump–and Democrats from Themselves

by Rick Wilson (Crown Forum/Random House 2020)

In this book, Wilson tells the Democratic Party and its as-yet-unknown nominee how to defeat Donald Trump in November 2020. The two most salient takeaways:

1. Make the election a referendum about Trump. Period.
2. Put all your money and effort into 15 Electoral College swing states.

In addition, don’t scare off unhappy Trump voters and independents with a too-progressive agenda. Recognize that middle America is not New York or Boston or San Francisco.

What’s eerily interesting is that when Wilson was writing the book, there was no pandemic; there was no economic shutdown; there was no presumptive Democratic nominee. He assumed that Trump would be running on a strong economy. But sometimes he seems prescient (“the sweeping crisis… or financial meltdown…”).

I hope those in charge of directing Biden’s campaign have read Wilson’s book and are paying attention to it, even if they don’t follow his advice to the letter. He’s like the spy come in from the cold, and we had better take advantage of what he knows.

Contents:

1. Part I: The Case Against Trump, or Four More Years in Hell
   1. Four More Years in Hell (Make this election a referendum on Trump.)
   2. American Swamp (A look at the “lavish and obvious” corruption of this man and this administration. And if you think the last four years were bad, the next four will be exponentially worse.)
   3. The Crazy Racist Uncle Act…Isn’t an Act (Yes, he really is as bad as he seems. And aging is not improving him.)
   4. Cruelty as Statecraft (This administration’s cruelty to immigrant children can be used against it.)
   5. Trump’s Economic Bullshit Machine (Trump lied to middle-class voters with his Tax Scam.)
   6. Generalissimo Trump and Pillow Fortress America (How Trump’s America is at a disadvantage in the world.)
   7. All Rise: President McConnell’s Courts (How McConnell has taken advantage of Harry Reid’s undoing of the judicial filibuster to pack the federal courts with young conservative judges “who will have a profound effect on the legal landscape of this country”)
   8. The Environment (Expect the worst if Trump wins in 2020.)
   9. Imperial Trumps (After the Donald, The Large Adult Sons, “creepy automaton Jared Kushner” and Ivanka)
   10. Our National Soul (The next generation will emulate Trump, devoid of compassion, ready to mock others; they will think it’s OK bully, lie, and cheat. “Trump is a complete package of the Founders’ greatest fears…”)
   11. The Mission (Defeat Trump, in spite of yourselves.)
2. Part 2: The Myths of 2020
   1. It’s a National Election (Keep your eyes on the prize: the Electoral College. A major theme.)
   2. The Policy Delusion (Democrats are addicted to policy, but average voters make choices based on emotions, language, presentation, charisma. The Democratic base “will crawl over broken glass to vote against him.” Target the rest: make the election about Trump.)
   3. America Is So Woke (Social-media Dems vs. actual Dems. Candidates should not get too far out in front of the voters. The Hidden Tribes’ five categories of Dem voters. Basically: not as woke as we Progressive Activists think.)
   4. Kumbaya (Wilson’s plea that the Democratics winnow the field and get down to the business of running against Trump)
   5. You’ll Get Obama’s Minority Turnout (Don’t assume anything. Enlist the wildly popular Obamas to turn them out.)
   6. Muh Youth Vote (Don’t count on young voters to turn out in their masses to defeat him. “Old people vote…. [and] in the swing states… really old people.”)
3. Part 3: Army of Darkness: Trump’s War Machine
   1. The Trump 2020 War Machine (the GOP, Fox News, “earned media propelled by social media”, Data Propria [fka Cambridge Analytica], paid TV ads, mammoth fundraising, field organizing, opposition research, Russian help)
   2. Never Underestimate Incumbency (presidential whims, unilateral actions, surprises…)
   3. Trump’s Messages and Strategies (“grievance culture”, Trump as hero, instill fear in voters)
   4. No Heroes in the GOP (Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Congressional Republicans terrified of Trump’s anger and his “mob”)
   5. His Fucking Twitter Feed, Fakebook, and Fox Agitporn (Fox News is “an unmatched weapon in Trump’s arsenal”; “[Trump’s] Twitter feed is the very maw of hell.” Fact-checking is useless and makes the base believe the lies all the more.
   6. The Mainstream Media (They can’t stop reporting on Trump’s antics. Democrats must attack; they must push out their own messages, not just push back on Trump’s lies.)
   7. Deepfake Nation (Doctored video clips pushing out lies: “an existential threat to the Democratic nominee”)
   8. You Have No Secrets (You can’t hide, so assume every secret will out; think how it can be turned into an attack; the best way to counter attacks is “an endless, chainsaw offense.”)
   9. The Death of Truth (You can’t persuade Trump voters with facts. Instead, discredit the liar.)
4. Part 4: How to Lose
   1. Flying by the Seat of Your Pants (Democrats are terrible at politics.)
   2. Playing the Campaign, Losing the Reality Show (Use TV to your advantage; debates are crucial; attack Trump’s ego and story.)
   3. Asking the Wrong Polling Questions (Beware the Socially Desirable Response; court shy Trump voters, shy Democrats, and Never Trump Republicans.)
   4. Magical Thinking (Democrats want to believe the best of people. It won’t work. Don’t believe national polls; they tell you about the popular vote only. Don’t depend on voters  to think through complicated policies. The base is not enough. Organize, plan, be disciplined, depend on data, metrics, and accountability.)
   5. The Culture War: Where Democrats Go to Die (“Democrats who get lured into playing the Social Justice Olympics of Political Correctness are going to lose forty-plus states.” E.g., (3rd trimester) abortion, which more voters oppose than progressives suppose.)
   6. Reviving the Clintons (Keep them out of it.)
   7. The Danger of Democratic Trumps (Ambitious Democrats looking beyond 2020)
   8. Taking the Infrastructure Week Bait (You can’t make a deal with Trump, so stop trying.)
   9. Externalities Are a Bitch (October surprises can be engineered or “external”. Our external events are the novel coronavirus and the economic collapse, but Wilson could not have predicted those specifically; he says only, “the sweeping crisis, international incident, or financial meltdown that no one plans for….” And of course, they didn’t come in October, so maybe we will confront still more weirdnesses before the election. In 2016, it was Comey and the renewed review of Clinton’s emails. Anyway, expect a load of lies. Be prepared to respond, and laugh down the accuser.)
5. Part 5: How to Win
   1. Only Fight the Electoral College Map (You will never make a dent in deep-red states; the deep-blue ones take care of themselves. “The election is already over in roughly thirty-five states.”) Based on a Cook Partisan Voting Index of fewer than 10 points either way, the battleground states are Florida (29 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Georgia (16), Michigan (16), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Arizona (11), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), Maine (4), and New Hampshire (4). Wilson devotes a paragraph to each.)
   2. Speaking American (How to communicate with the masses: different words for different folks. Specific examples are given. “I’m teaching you to lie.” Tell voters they matter.)
   3. The First Rule of Trump Fight Club (“Once you attack, you must press on.” “Decency is your enemy.” Attack Trump personally, in ways that will upset him most.)
   4. Start Early (Obvious)
   5. Start Advertising. Now. (Same)
   6. No More Potemkin Campaigns (An empirical campaign, driven by data. Forget ideology. Hire the right people, not your friends or also-rans. Register new voters. Capitalize early voting, mail-in ballots [Yes! He says this.], and field operations.)
   7. Make the Worst of Trump’s Base His Running Mate (Bannon, Gorka, Stephen Miller, Richard Spencer, David Duke, etc. Make Trump own them.)
   8. Reaching Trump Voters, If You Must–and Sadly, You Must (Find a way to accepting disillusioned Trump supporters into the fold. “Turn regret and remorse into votes….” Trump’s Republican support is high because many Republicans don’t identify as Republicans in polls. J. D. Vance notwithstanding, “The tribal nature of Trumpism is seated in a host of racial and ethnic hatreds.”  Ignore the evangelicals; they are a lost cause.)
   9. Be the Party of Markets, Families, and Security (Democrats have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take over traditionally Republican brands which have been abandoned by Trump. Focus on the pre-existing conditions issue in healthcare.)
   10. Third Parties and Spoilers (Did you know Republicans are responsible for many of the third-party candidates that have split the Democratic vote in past elections? Wilson recommends Democrats turn the tables and use this same tactic. Get billionaire Democratic donors to support “real and fake third-party options” like the Libertarian Party [but he predicts the national and state GOP will fight hard to discourage challengers–which they did.] And winnow down your field quickly. Well, we are past that, and it kind of worked out that way–thanks to the pandemic.)
   11. Investigate + Interrogate > Impeach (Wilson warns against impeachment unless removal follows. “Trump cannot be shamed. Ever.”)
   12. The Target List (Attack Trump enablers and consultants, like those with scam PACs, David Bossie, Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone (too late!)
6. Part 6: Epilogue
   1. Election Night, November 3, 2020 (Fantasizing how it might go if Democrats follow Wilson’s advice)

 

Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever

by Rick Wilson (Simon and Schuster 2018)

Rick Wilson, one of the founders of The Lincoln Project, is a staunch Never-Trumper. I think this is his first book about Trump; the second is Running Against the Devil, which I have begun but not yet finished. I read a review of ETTD in which the reviewer wonders who the target audience is; I was wondering the same thing, because Trump supporters won’t read it, and Democrats and others opposed to Trump already know pretty much everything he writes. I was not surprised by his claims, but I was sometimes put off by the vehement, nasty tone–it seems Wilson almost never has anything good to say about anybody, and uses lots of obscenity, just to make sure the reader knows how he feels. For example, in Chapter 1, he addresses Trump supporters, defining a word he assumes they won’t know and adding nastily, “I know you’re in an oxy stupor much of the time, so I’ll try to move slowly and not use big words.” Wilson has seen the light and recognized Donald Trump for what he is, and he has no patience for anyone who hasn’t. (Well, me too.)

Wilson also has advice for us Democrats (which he will no doubt expand upon in Running Against the Devil): like don’t insist on a set of national standards because regions are different. For example, we should not insist on our candidates’ supporting reproductive rights. Similarly, Democrats’ position on gun control turns off “almost every white male in the country over the age of 35.” (The same could be said for Republicans. How well do they tolerate pro-choice and pro-gun-control candidates?)

Wilson acknowledges that today’s Republicans have ceded the high ground on fiscal discipline, so he suggests that Democrats could make this issue their own (not likely).”The reality of the Trump-Ryan tax cut,” he writes, “is that it is a spectacular, budget-busting payday for Wall Street. Full stop.” He denies sounding like a Democrat; instead, he claims to be “a fiscal conservative who believes in a tax system that is broad and simple and treats every American equally.” But when fighting the Tax Scam, as we called it, we said the same thing, and have been criticizing it ever since.

He notes that most Americans do not trust the federal government (no surprise there, and thanks to the Republicans!). Trumpism, Wilson writes, is fundamentally pessimistic; “a central tenet of Trumpism is to run down the people of this country and describe a nation so weak and lost it requires an authoritarian strongman.” (True: remember “American carnage” at his inauguration?)

Wilson places much of the blame for Trump’s excesses on Fox News, which “actively elected to elide Trump’s endless catalogue of ideological sins, thinly veiled racism, moral shortcomings, mob ties, Russian money men, personal weirdness, endemic cheating, trophy wives, serial bankruptcies, persistent tax shenanigans, low-grade intellect, conspiracy email-forwarding kooky grandpa affect and disregard for American values and standards.” I don’t think he misses much. And we’ve certainly heard it before from our side. Of Fox, he writes that it presents “counterfactual conspiracy nonsense, yahooism, . . . jingoism, deep and overt bias. . . , and out-of-context smears.” He is horrified by Trump’s ” war on the press.” So yes, he does kind of sound like a Democrat sometimes!

Wilson claims not to like us Democrats, despite agreeing with us on a lot of issues, and he doesn’t have any faith that we can beat Trump in the coming election. In Running Against the Devil, he will attempt to explain to us how to do it. In the Epilogue, he writes, “Everything about Donald Trump’s presidency is a disaster for America. The victories Republicans think they have achieved are transitory and ephemeral and come at the cost of their principles and, probably, their immortal souls. He is a stain on the party, on conservatism, and on this country that won’t easily wash out.”

What he said. But I’m still not sure who the audience is supposed to be, because I already knew that.

Animals as Teachers and Healers: True Stories and Reflections

by Susan Chernak McElroy (New Sage Press 1996)

The author collected stories of amazing animal behavior and shared them in this book. Cats and dogs show special empathy for their human companions. A therapy dog succeeds reaches a reserved girl in the hospital for cancer treatment. An abused horse gives her owner the courage to leave an abusive relationship. A woman comes to term with childhood incest by swimming with dolphins. A skunk magically appears to help a woman see her ex-boyfriend clearly. The author explores our fascination with and hatred for wolves. Why do we hate them so much that we attribute to them every evil desire and habit, when we are by far the worst predators? Lots more. Do you have a story of a special relationship you had with an animal?

One Man’s Owl

by Bernd Heinrich (Princeton University Press 1987)

I picked this up at Wonder Book in Rockville because it reminded me of Wesley the Owl, which I loved. One Man’s Owl is more academic than Wesley; Heinrich is a zoologist at the University of Vermont. But the relationship between Heinrich and “his” owl Bubo is not terribly different from the relationship of Wesley and his “girl”, except that in that case, the owl clearly came to see his rescuer as his mate, whereas that is not clear in the case of Heinrich and Bubo (whom Heinrich never definitively sexes despite his use of masculine pronouns).

Heinrich is pretty obsessive about recording all the birds, insects, small mammals and other tidbits he finds dead on the road, killed by his wife’s cat, or captures alive and offers to Bubo. A Great Horned Owl is a master predator and a carnivore, so if you are raising an owl, you have to keep it fed. Still, I could have done without the details of furry little mammals and songbirds eaten by Bubo.

Heinrich illustrated the book himself with really beautiful pen-and-ink drawings of amazing detail, of Bubo and of other species.

Both books make clear that living with an owl is all-consuming. Not a part-time occupation!

Empty Cradles

by Margaret Humphreys (Doubleday 1994, Corgi 1995)

Back in November, I watched the 2010 Jim Loach film Oranges and Sunshine on kanopy.com. I vaguely remembered hearing about a scandal concerning British children being sent to Australia and was curious to know more. After watching the film, I wanted to read the book on which it was based, but it was really difficult to find. I put in a request on global library cooperative OCLC, and after months of waiting, finally received a copy from Bard College Library.

Not surprisingly, the book is more inclusive than the film; in fact, British children were deported to many different parts of the Empire, not only Australia. Humphreys mentions visiting Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) and Canada and says that child migrants were also sent to New Zealand and South Africa. (Wikipedia’s article about the “scheme” can be read here.) But Humphreys’ work seems to have been concentrated on child migrants in Australia. Humphreys was a social worker in Nottingham when she stumbled on the first case of an Australian adult searching for her birth family and identity; initially, she did not believe that the woman could have been sent 12,000 miles from her birthplace as a young child. She soon discovered that that woman was the tip of a very big iceberg. As many as 150,000 British “orphans” (living in institutions, but many, if not most, with living parents who never authorized their deportation) were emigrated (the first time I have ever seen emigrate used as a transitive verb) between the 17th and 20th centuries, finally ending in 1967. Some of the earliest ones were part of the settlement of the Virginia colony. Rather than being adopted or fostered in families, the vast majority of these kids grew up in institutions, some of which exploited them cruelly, preventing normal development and causing emotional scars lasting a lifetime.

Humphreys’ goal was straightforward: to reunite adult Australian migrants with living parents or other relatives in the U.K., and to provide counseling services to those who needed them. Many of the migrant children were used as slave labor by the charitable institutions (for example the Christian Brothers) who took them in. Horrific physical and sexual abuse of even the very young (toddlers!) was not uncommon, to say nothing of unhealthy living conditions (inadequate or spoiled food, dirty quarters [e.g., urine-soaked mattresses and bedding], no shoes, no underwear, and on and on). But apparently the worst thing for these children was the denial of love and affection. One man, for example, described pretending to almost fall out of bed so that someone would pick him up and hold him. (It didn’t work.) The other “worst thing” was not knowing who they were. Names were changed, ages were changed, and even after they grew up and had the audacity to ask for their records, they were refused. They were told that their parents had died or had abandoned them when this was not true. Back in Britain, parents (some of whom had specified that as soon as they were able, they planned to take their children back) were told that the children had been adopted or had died. Virtually no one was told that their children had been deported to Australia or other corners of the far-flung Empire. The goal of all this was two-fold: to clear out British orphanages and institutions of poor or otherwise undesirable children, and to add to the white populations of the colonies.

In order to perpetrate this injustice, the governments of the U.K., Australia, and the other then-colonies had to participate in it; the British Home Secretary, for example, had to sign off on the deportations, since the parents were never asked. Humphreys made it part of her mission to get those governments to admit that they were part of the problem, to apologize for the human damage they had sanctioned, and to fund the organization she created to help their victims, some of whom were already elderly–the Child Migrants Trust. It was an uphill battle which took years. By the time she wrote the book, the Australians had apologized (2009), and the British P.M. (Gordon) had apologized to the children’s families (2010). Restitution in the form of funding the Trust’s activities or other organizations trying to help the former migrants has been slow in coming.

This is a shocking true story of the exploitation of over 100,000 innocent children. Everyone should read the book or see one of the films made about it:

• Oranges and Sunshine (2010; link above)
• The Leaving of Liverpool (1992 TV mini-series), which can be viewed in its entirety at the link below
• Lost Children of the Empire by Philip Bean and Joy Melville (1989 book)
• many amateur and professional videos on YouTube

 

 

The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World

by Michael Pollan ( Random House 2001, 2002)

I have really enjoyed Michael Pollan’s books about eating, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food , and I try to follow his food rules: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants, with their corollaries such as Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients. (See the post for In Defense of Food for all the details.) I’ve been intending to read this one for years, and I got my chance when my sister gave it to me for Christmas. Thanks, Sis!

Like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which is divided into four parts, each of which corresponds to a meal, The Botany of Desire‘s four chapters focus on four human desires (sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control) and four plants which fulfill them (the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato). The over-arching idea echoes a concept Pollan expressed in The Omnivore’s Dilemma–that plants use people, like bees, to spread their genes. In that book, it was corn that has somehow gotten humans to rid most of the American Midwest of all other competing species to its own advantage, with the result that we grow so much of it that we are forced to invent new markets for it (ubiquitous sweetener of other foods, automotive fuel…). In the present book, Pollan describes how apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes have taken over whole landscapes far from their places of origin. In so doing, he educates the reader with interesting facts. For instance, all commercially available apples are grafted clones; apples do not come true from seed. In fact, tulips are similar in this respect: “Tulips are prone to . . . chance mutations, color breaks,  and instances of ‘thievery’ (the tendency of certain flowers to revert to their parents’ appearance).” and “A tulip that falls out of favor soon goes extinct, since the bulbs don’t reliably come back every year. . . . Tulips, in other words, are mortal.” And the apples planted by John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman were used not for eating but for making (hard) cider, which stood in for most other alcoholic beverages in the American Midwest.  of his time.

Throughout, Pollan ruminates on the contrasting myths of Apollo (analytical, linear, controlling, rational. . .) and Dionysus (natural, chaotic, untamed, violent, sexual. . .):  “Johnny Appleseed”, a kind of gentle Dionysus. . . .  Marijuana, providing a Dionysian intoxication (“nature overpowering mind”). . . . “Great art is born when Apollonian form and Dionysian ecstasy are held in balance, when our dreams of order and abandon come together.” This occasionally seems a little far-fetched, but adds an intriguing perspective.

In the final chapter, Pollan shines a bright light on the issues raised by genetic engineering, such as the inadvertent spreading of the doctored genes through the natural dispersal of pollen; the privatization of natural resources such as the natural insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt); the evolution of pests to resist Bt and other insecticides (a question not of if, but of when); and the control of farmers by agribusinesses such as Monsanto. He describes the dead soil in which most of our food grows, compared to the living multi-cultural living soil on organic farms: “. . . the typical potato grower stands in the middle of a bright green circle of plants that have been doused with so much pesticide that their leaves wear a dull white chemical bloom and the soil they’re rooted in is a lifeless gray powder. Farmers call this a ‘clean field,’ since, ideally, it has been cleansed of all weeds and insects and disease–of all life, that is, with the sole exception of the potato plant.” In contrast, the organic farmer’s soil “looked completely different from the other Magic Valley soils I’d fingered that day: instead of the uniform grayish powder I’d assumed was normal for the area, Heath’s soil was dark brown and crumbly. The difference . . . was that this soil was alive.” For the first time, I understood deeply why we should prefer organic produce over the cheaper alternative.

As always, Pollan does not disappoint.