"Donald Trump - Antihero?"

 If we weren’t so uptight and fearful of offense, one might find humor in today’s politics. A hundred years ago Finley Peter Dunne would have had fun with what our political class has provided. Mark Twain would have enjoyed chronicling John Kerry’s chasing around the globe in his exhaust-spewing private jet warning the multitudes to stay out of the gas-guzzling vehicles they need to get to work. Mel Brooks, in his prime and without the puritans who now dominate our cultural and media institutions looking over his shoulder, could have made us look in the mirror at what we have done to ourselves and our society. But, sadly, the ability to laugh at ourselves has become a lost art.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Donald Trump – Antihero?”

July 28, 2022

 

“Recently, scholars have used antihero archetypes to describe politicians and

explain their effect and affect, including former U.S. President Donald Trump.”

                                                                                                                                Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

                                                                                                                                July 23, 2022

 

Antihero is defined as a character who lacks qualities of a traditional hero – morality, courage, an obeisance to traditional rules of behavior. Wikipedia lists such fictional characters as typifying the antihero: Shakespeare’s Othello, John Milton’s Lucifer, Jane Eyre’s Edward Rochester, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, and George MacDonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman. Do you, as does Wikipedia, see our former President among that group? I leave you to be the judge.

 

No matter one’s opinion, the word ‘antihero’ may make wince the large swath of Americans who see Mr. Trump as a villain – some for his character, which was revealed in his lack of positive response during the afternoon of the January 6 riots; others for his antiestablishment/anti-elitist credentials, which threatened official Washington, including members of January 6 committee. ‘Hero,’ even when preceded by ‘anti’ would not be to their liking. 

 

Yet even those who despise him cannot ignore the fact he was (and is) a hero to his estimated twenty to thirty million die hard supporters, most of whom live in non-elitist communities and work in non-establishment jobs. His supporters, who encompass all genders and races, see big-city and suburban financial and cultural elites as sanctimonious, hypocritical, and uninterested in the social and economic mobility that has characterized the United States. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Joseph Epstein, wrote “My sense is that just as Mr. Trump gave us Joe Biden, liberal culture earlier gave us Mr. Trump.” I agree. Mr. Trump was thrust upon us, in reaction to those who derided American history, patronized minorites and who treated millions of white, working-class Americans as ‘deplorables.’  Those who now reject him most vehemently bear primary responsibility for his political rise. 

 

Donald Trump went to Washington to clean out the “swamp,” and the “swamp” fought back just as Senator Chuck Schumer said it would, when he told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC in January 2017: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you…he’s being really dumb to do this.” Ms. Maddow did not follow up, as a good investigative journalist would have done, on the implication that intelligence services have too much power, that they embody the “swamp.”

 

Had Mr. Trump been born five hundred years earlier, Shakespeare might have found him a candidate for one of his tragedies. He has an outsized ego and lacks principle, but he took on an adversary (the “swamp”) embedded so deeply into our culture that attempts to cleanse it were akin to Hercules’ task of cleaning the Augean Stables. Sadly, unlike Hercules, he failed.

 

Regardless of whether Mr. Trump is an antihero, hero or neither, it is my ardent wish – despite what he achieved: increased employment and incomes for minority workers, the Abraham Accords, restoration of pride in America’s imperfect greatness and more – that he retire from public life and release Republican candidates to battle issues not personalities. However, despite their demonization of him for his moral shortcomings following the 2020 election, Democrats do not want this to happen, for they recognize that their best chance of election success in 2022 and 2024 is to keep his name front and center, which is the fundamental – though unstated – excuse for the January 6 committee. Mr. Trump has become Democrats’ biggest asset and Republicans’ biggest liability. It is why Democrat PACs throw money at Republican fringe candidates supported by Mr. Trump. (Ironically and indicative of our odd state of political affairs, Mr. Biden has become Democrats’ biggest liability and Republicans’ biggest asset.)

 

Frankly, I do not care whether Donald Trump is considered an antihero or not. He is (and was) a force of nature that arose to contest an increasingly out-of-touch, entitled, moralizing and self-righteous elitist establishment – composed of people from both political parties – who instinctively disagree with the Chinese proverb that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. While Mr. Trump was (and is) a flawed man, there was good his Administration accomplished. And his Presidency was tragic in that it cost him a fortune, damaged what reputation he had, and the “swamp,” as we know through the ongoing (and unheralded) Durham investigation, survives. That is a tragedy for all Americans.

"A Room with a View," E.M. Forster

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

A Room with a View, E.M. Forster

July 23, 2022

 

“In her heart also there were springing up strange desires.”

                                                                                                                                       E.M. Forster (1879-1970)

                                                                                                                                       A Room with a View, 1908

 

The story opens in Florence, early in the first decade of the 20^th Century. Like today, Florence was then a favorite tourist destination, especially among the English middle classes. It was a room with a view of the Arno that Charlotte Bartlett (“…greatly troubled over things that did not matter...”) and her niece Lucy Honeychurch (“…I do so always hope that people will be nice.”) wanted at the Pension Bartolini. 

 

Their complaint is overheard by one of the pension’s guests, Mr. Emerson (“one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad”) who offers his and his son George’s rooms: “Women like looking at a view, men don’t.” The meeting is fortuitous, as it is the relationship between George and Lucy that concerns the author.

 

Other characters we meet are the Reverend Arthur Beebe, who “…loved to study the maiden ladies; they were his specialty;” the Reverend Cuthbert Eager “who suffered from an over-fluent tongue rather than a resolute will,” and Cecil Vyse: “He was medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders that seemed braced square…, and a head that was tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision.” When we meet him. he is engaged to Lucy. Others we get to know include Lucy’s widowed mother and nineteen-year-old brother, and author Mrs. Lavish whose soon-to-be-published novel will play an unintended role.

 

Forster, most famous for A Passage to India and Howard’s End, writes humorously of the snobbishness and hypocrisy of England’s upper middle classes at the turn of the last century: “An Italian’s ignorance is sometimes more remarkable than his knowledge.” “Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice…” “They that marry do well, but they that refrain do better.” The last quote spoken by the unmarried Mr. Beebe, reflects, perhaps, the never-married Mr. Forster, who was homosexual at a time when such practice was kept secret.             

 

Having moved back to Surrey, the story ends as the reader expects, with Lucy having thrown off Cecil: “The scales fell from Lucy’s eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a moment? He was intolerable.” Convention had prevented Lucy from showing her love for George, though she loved him and he her. Ironically, it was George’s father (her future father-in-law) that shows Lucy the value of love: “He had robbed the body of its taint, the world’s taunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.” 

 

This is a short book, at 168 pages in my edition almost a novelette. While it was written over a hundred years ago by a man who grew up in Victorian England, there is nothing dated about his opining humorously and insightfully on human foibles and sentiments. A wonderful read.                                                                

 

 

"Missing - Trust in Government, Media and in the People"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.b;ogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Missing – Trust in Government, Media and in the People”

July 21, 2022

 

“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers

of the society but the people themselves…”

                                                                                                                                   Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

                                                                                                                                    Letter to William Charles Jarvis

                                                                                                                                     20 September 1820

 

On a sunny but cool day in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four months after the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln gave a four-minute address. In it he reminded the audience: “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.” The freedom we experience in this experiment that is the United States is based upon the individual citizen being the ultimate source of power, expressed through their representatives in municipalities, states and the U.S. Congress. Granted, in times of emergency, presidents, governors and mayors have assumed exceptional powers, as did Lincoln when, in 1863, he signed the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. Nevertheless, fundamental to democracy is trust by government in the people to make the right decisions – that they know best their self-interests. Also fundamental to democracy is trust by the people in the political process. Today, trust is missing.

 

A Pew Research Center study, Public Trust in Government: 1958-2022, tells a dismal story. Over those years trust in government declined from 73% on December 1, 1958 to 20% on May 1, 2022. While there were modest increases during the Reagan and Clinton years and a spike in the immediate post-9/11 period, the trend has been down for most of those years the study covers. The decline has been across both political parties and among Independents. Interestingly, according to Pew, trust in government is lowest among whites and highest among Asians.

 

Trust in government begins with elections. There are two aspects of the electoral process: Voter registration should be easy, accessible and secure. And registrars should be certain that the candidate is who she or he claims to be and is eligible to vote. Some form of ID should be required, as it is in Connecticut. In general, Democrats claim the registration process is too onerous, and Republicans claim that too many who are not legally eligible are permitted to vote. We can argue as to whether voting is a right or a privilege, but the process should be easy, fair and honest. This should not be difficult to resolve; it simply takes both sides to admit to mutual concerns.

 

The 2020 election, held during the Covid-19 pandemic, manifested the problems of not voting at one’s precinct or by traditional absentee ballot. Complicated rules, the use of ballot drop-boxes (now declared illegal by Wisconsin’s Supreme Court) and ballot harvesting, a questionable practice used by some states, lent credence to those who questioned the 2020 results. As well, early voting, in my opinion, is a mistake. Politicians use the practice to encourage voters to go to the polls after a rousing campaign speech, at a time when emotions, not rationality, dictate decisions. Taking time to consider candidates and their policies is preferable. One should always be able to vote by absentee ballot if circumstances dictate. Nevertheless, if the process of voting is not trusted, people will not trust the politicians elected to office.

 

And they don’t. An ABC/Ipsos Poll conducted In January showed that only 20% of the public say they are confident about our electoral system, down from 37% in 2021, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. While Republicans are less confident of election integrity than Democrats or Independents, only 30% of Democrats and 20% of Independents trust our system of elections – a sad commentary on the world’s oldest democracy. 

 

Politicians, and the media who cover them take no prisoners. There is no civility, no Robert’s Rules of behavior, no “according to Hoyle.” The news we get today on television would be unrecognizable to Lowell Thomas, John Cameron Swayze, Walter Cronkite, or Eric Sevareid. In terms of trust in the media, a Reuters poll from last July found the United States ranked last of 46 countries surveyed. (A Gallup poll released three days ago showed further declines in Americans’ confidence regarding news sources.) This is a self-inflicted wound. For example, hard as it is to believe, but the Washington Post and The New York Times received Pulitzers for their reporting on the alleged “Russian collusion,” which claimed Mr. Trump colluded with Mr. Putin during the 2016 Presidential campaign. When the Mueller investigation found no such collusion, the prizes were not rescinded nor was any apology issued. This was not investigative journalism; it was propaganda. People watch, listen to and read news that supports their opinions. 

 

The nation is divided, a consequence of politicians compartmentalizing the electorate for easier access and abetted by a media that sees extremism as an easier route to profits. The January 6 committee exemplifies the problem. No matter one’s feelings about Donald Trump and the intent of those in the mob that descended on the Capitol, this is not an impartial investigation into the events of that day. It is a one-sided inquisition, without due process. Members of the committee were selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with no input from Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy. Witnesses were not cross examined. The committee is manifestation of why there is so little trust in government.

 

The wide and excessive use of mandates by government in reaction to Covid-19 suggested a lack of trust in people to behave in their own self-interest. It is not that people always decide correctly, but on balance they do, for the instinct to survive is strong. In foreign policy, relations with allies depend on mutual trust. Once lost, trust is hard to retrieve. Think Afghanistan and a failure to follow up on the Abraham Accords.

 

What will turn the situation around? I don’t know and am not sure it can be turned. We do not get straight news from the press. And the corruption in Washington’s swamp is well known. The number of politicians who have used public office for private gain is legion – the temptation is too great. The highest paid journalists on the right and on the left are those who are most extreme. John Adams wrote to a John Taylor in 1814 that “there has never been a democracy that did not commit suicide.” Man, including those in politics and the media, is an imperfect creature, subject to vanity, pride, selfishness, greed and dishonesty. It is why the Founders insisted on a government with checks and balances.

 

Now, the loss of trust signals our decline. It is sad because trust is instinctive – we are born with it – and it is not limited to humans. A puppy trusts its mother to protect and feed him, as does a new-born foal, or a newly hatched osprey. And a new-born baby trusts its mother to protect and nurture it. Trust is inherent in families, schools, sports, business transactions. “Trust but verify” was a term President Reagan used regarding nuclear disarmament, which showed rationality. But trust goes deeper. It may be an abstraction, but it is the fundamental building block of a democracy. Without it, we revert to anarchy or dictatorship.

"Liberal World Order"

 

Like most of you, I look upon our national politics with dismay. I recognize there are good people out there, but they are swamped by so-called leaders of both parties who do not seem to have any sense of duty or honor. Using the right pronoun is more important than respect for differing opinions, tolerance of those unlike ourselves and civility in comportment. Nevertheless, we must carry on.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Liberal World Order”

July 15, 2022

 

“Isn’t muddle a better breeding ground for kindliness and individuality than a world

order that’s imposed, a world order that may be right today and wrong tomorrow?”

                                                                                                                                         Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

                                                                                                                                         Destination Unknown, 1954

 

War has always been man’s nemesis, combatting his desire for global peace. Unfortunately, war has won, perhaps because the latter is an unrealistic ideal, not possible given man’s imperfections. Nevertheless, just because world peace has never been achieved does not mean the search for it should cease, though any search should be leavened with realism. We live in a world as it is, not as we would wish it to be.

 

Does global peace depend on a governing world order, or does it depend on maintaining a balance of power among sovereign nations having membership in organizations like the UN, the IMF and the WHO? If so, how much authority should each state cede to global authorities? A more basic question: Is lasting peace even possible given the fallibility of humans and with states having myriad views on governance? Limited wars may be unavoidable. What should be paramount is reducing the risk of annihilation by nuclear weapons. Should not nations and societies, instead of attempting a world order, first build cultures of respect, tolerance, civility and decency?

 

In his 2014 book World Order, Henry Kissinger wrote: “No truly ‘global’ world order has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised in Western Europe nearly four centuries ago, at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia.” The Peace of Westphalia concluded the Thirty Years War, and it established modern Europe with sovereign states. Yet their efforts did not prevent Napoleon from trying to unite Europe in the first two decades of the 19^th Century, nor did it stop Hitler from trying to do the same 120 years later. It did not prevent lights from “going out all over Europe” in August 1914. 

 

Ironically, it was less global institutions and more the threat of mutually assured destruction between the Soviet Union and the United States that prevented a holocaust between 1949 and 1991. Since the end of the Cold War, however, concern about a nuclear winter has lessened, while the threat has not. India and Pakistan, long-time foes (both nuclear powers), stand toe to toe. North Korea has the material to produce weapons and appeasement of Iran will only accelerate her becoming a nuclear power. With over 17,000 nuclear weapons, some in the hands of countries with little stake in the status quo, should we not be concerned? 

 

The concept of a “liberal world order” has allure, but are the words, by definition, an oxymoron? There is no question that forums for leaders to meet and debate are important. But a “liberal world order” suggests a supranational organization that would dominate sovereign states, which would require an unlikely consensus of political, economic and cultural beliefs. Absent a dictatorship, that would seem impossible in the real world, where capitalism vies with socialism, where rule of law exists in some countries but not in others, and where a belief in individual freedom is true for some but not for all. There are honorable people who seek a liberal world order, some with unrealistic altruistic expectations; but there are others who see such institutions as means to gain personal power.

 

A preview of how a “liberal world order” might morph into autocratic governance can be seen in the expansion of the administrative state in the U.S. Agencies like the FTC, EPA, DOE and CDC, established by Congress for specific purposes have expanded beyond their mandates through legal loopholes. They have imposed laws, passed judgements and implemented policies never originally intended. It is natural for unaccountable bureaucrats to want to increase their influence and power, just as it is natural for accountable legislators to choose to avoid tough decisions by “passing the buck” onto an agency. Fortunately, for freedom loving Americans, the Supreme Court has recently and successfully challenged many of those expansions. But would that be possible with a supranational governing body?

 

In my opinion, a “liberal world order” is not axiomatic. Despite the desires of the Davos set, it is not inevitable. It assumes all states would willingly give up sovereignty. It assumes those in charge would always operate in the interest of their subjects. It assumes a goodness on the part of politicians and bureaucrats that experience tells us is unwarranted. It assumes an obedience of citizens to rules that may be alien to those to whom freedom is sacrosanct. In a sea of self-important global grandees, the simplicity in Agatha Christie’s quote, in the rubric above, reflects greater wisdom. It recognizes the importance of individuality and the need for kindliness, which are values learned through a good education, religion, a caring community, and strong families. Like the quest for the Holy Grail or Stuart Little’s search for Margalo, a liberal world order is illusive. It may never be found. In fact, and in my opinion, the world is better off if it never is. But that does not mean a pursuit should be suspended, for the crusade and the questions raised have value.

"The Great Passion," James Runcie

You may have noticed my dereliction in writing and sending out TOTDs. It is not because of a lack of interest. It is because of editing a manuscript to be published in October, Essays from Essex: Nature - its Miracles and Mysteries. As well, One Man’s Family: Growing Up in Peterborough is expected to be re-printed, and a check of typos, etc. was deemed wise.

 

Your forbearance is appreciated. Have a good weekend, Sydney

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

The Great Passion, James Runcie

July 9, 2022

 

“I think that all passions are a form of belief.”

                                                                                                                                Johann Sebastian Bach speaking

                                                                                                                                James Runcie (1959-)

                                                                                                                                The Great Passion, 2022

 

This novel by British writer and film maker James Runcie tells two tales: It is a bildungsroman or a coming-of-age story. It is also a fictionalized sketch of one year in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer. Music is the common theme. We first meet Stefan Silbermann in 1750 in his shop in Freiberg where he builds organs. Bach has just died, and Stefan thinks back twenty-four years.

 

He is fourteen, with an exceptional, unchanged alto voice, in April 1726. His mother has recently died; his father, an organ maker, sends him for a year’s study at St. Thomas School where Bach is Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. He and his father meet with Bach: “All we ask, Monsieur Silberman, is that your son is studious, neat, clean and obedient. Do you think he can manage that?” His father assures him he can. “Obedience is the only way to virtue, and virtue the only path to happiness,” says Bach

 

Jordan Peterson once said: “Great art dances on the edge between order and chaos in a virtuosic manner that lifts audiences…with a joy that transforms...” That defines Johann Sebastian Bach and his music. “You need to play with your whole body,” Bach tells Stefan regarding the harpsichord. “The instrument may be your friend, but it is also your servant. You must learn to command it. Be confident.”

 

As a new and talented youngster, Stefan, early on, is bullied by other boys. Once, his bed was upended with him asleep. But he also experiences young love with the Cantor’s daughter Catherine, two or three years his senior. He “dreamed of Catherine and of the summer, a country lane; and, as I thought of her, I tried to put away all the shameful desires the school was continually telling us to avoid.”  There are times when he feels estranged from his childhood, as “no longer a boy and not yet a man.”

 

In preparing for a presentation of one of Picander’s cantatas, for which he had composed the music, Bach speaks to Stefan: “In your aria, Monsieur Silbermann, you need to imagine the oboes are indeed the angels…If angels travel with our bodies in life and our souls in death, then the music must do that as well.” 

 

The “Great Passion” in the title is, of course, the Passion According to St. Matthew, written in 1727 by Bach for Easter service at St. Thomas. It comes near the end of Silbermann’s year of study and is the final chapter of this short (260 pages) book. Tensions are high during rehearsals. The work is hard, Bach is a task master, and everyone has doubts. Anna Magdalena, Bach’s wife, helps Stefan: “’My Saviour will die out of love. This is the meaning of the Passion, and you are the person to tell us, Monsieur Silbermann.” He did. Today, Bach’s oratorio is considered one of the masterpieces of the Baroque period’s sacred music.

 

This book, a gift from a friend, was a wonderful surprise. The story is an insightful glimpse into the mind and actions of one of the world’s great composers, as seen through the eyes of a talented boy, who is experiencing the never-changing joys and pains of growing up.

"Hollywood's Golden Age"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Essays from Essex

“Hollywood’s Golden Age”

July 2, 2022

 

“One time I was bemoaning the end of the Golden Age of pictures. Welles laughed and said:

‘Well, come on. What did you expect? Even the height of the Renaissance only lasted 60 years’”

                                                                                                                                     Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022)

 

Admittedly, I have a juvenile sense of humor. Among my favorite movies are those that distinctly did not come from Hollywood’s “Golden Age:” Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Animal House (1978) and Caddy Shack (1980). Lest there be any confusion, my wife does not share these likes. However, I like her, am also drawn to classics like Top Hat (1935), Jezebel (1938), Casablanca (1942) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

 

Golden Age movies highlighted stars like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Charles Laughton, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant, and the creativity of directors like Frank Capra, Billy Wilder and Orson Welles. There were no special effects, so plot and dialogue were critical. Reflecting their time, they are often politically incorrect to today’s more sensitive eyes and ears. We cannot dance like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers, or sing like Judy Garland or Bing Crosby, but we admire their talent, and we empathize with the ageless, fallible human sentiments that endow their characters

 

Most commentators agree that the Golden Age of Hollywood began in the mid 1930s. As to when it ended, there is less accord. Some claim the end came with the spectacular year of 1939. Others argue it ended in the early 1960s. I believe the Age ended around 1950, when televisions became common. In 1946, there were 6,000 televisions in the U.S. By 1955 half of all U.S. households had a television. In the 1930s, with the Country mired in Depression, movies provided a means to escape, for a few hours, the hardships of real life. Encyclopedia.com estimates that 65% of the population – 85 million people – went to the movies once a week during that decade. The small town where I grew up – Peterborough, NH – had a theater where movies were changed three times a week. During the War, news reels were shown before the main feature, with clips from the fronts in Europe, the Pacific, North Africa and the Middle East.

 

Accusations of racism are made of movies from that period, and that would be correct – American Indians were almost always the bad guys and blacks were usually given stereo-typical roles. But values change, as do people. Nevertheless, in any age, respect for talent is eternal. Remember the “stair dance” Bill Robinson performed with Shirley Temple in the 1935 film The Little Colonel? Or the Oscar-winning performance by Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in the 1939 movie Gone with the Wind? Has anyone ever sung “Ol’ Man River” with more feeling than did Paul Robeson in the 1936 version of Showboat? Can anyone who has heard it forget the rendition of “Stormy Weather” by Lena Horne in the eponymous 1943 movie?

 

For centuries, books, pamphlets and conversation provided amusement. In the early 20^th Century movies offered shared entertainment, and in 1927 Warner Brothers released the first movie with sound, The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson. The Golden Age of movies was a remarkable period of innovation and innocence. With theater lights dimmed and the audience sitting quietly, people gathered for a common experience, so different from today when isolated people communicate by Snapchat and Instagram. Movies from that age are dated, but the messages they convey – of human relationships, of loves and hates – are forever.