"The Great Disruptor - Part II"

It has been more than two weeks since my last TOTD. We have a new Pope and, it would appear, a trade deal with England. The Bank of England cut rates by a quarter of a point, while the Fed stood pat. U.S. 1^st quarter GDP contracted by 0.3% and the DJIA has recovered over 1,000 points of the 2,000 points it lost. I bought a new iPhone and was told there had been no increase in price, because it had been shipped from India. Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and the Palestinians are still at odds. Iran inches closer to a nuclear weapon, while her neighbor Pakistan and India – two nuclear powers – are exchanging blows. At the risk of sounding sexist, I wish we could put Marjorie Taylor Greene in a ring with Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. One against two should offer even odds. Better yet, maybe they would wear one another out!

It is not for a paucity of news that I have been silent, but because I have been working on other projects.

 

In any event, I hope you enjoy this offering.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Great Disruptor – Part II”[1]

May 12, 2025

 

“Influential people are never satisfied with the status quo. They’re the ones who constantly

ask, “What if?’ and ‘Why not?’ They’re not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and 

they don’t disrupt things for the sake of being disruptive; they do it to make things better.”

                                                                                                                                Travis Bradberry, PhD.

                                                                                                                                World Economic Forum

                                                                                                                                April 3, 2017

 

Creative destruction is a school in economics, popularized by Joseph Schumpeter[2], that explains the process by which innovation obsoletes older processes, equipment and products. While disruptive in the short term, it is the driving force for long term economic growth and progress. In Scenes from American Life: Contemporary Short Fiction (1973), Joyce Carol Oates wrote: “It is only through disruption and confusion that we grow, jarred by the collision of someone else’s private world with our own.” On November 5, 2011 in an op-ed in London’s The Guardian, Naomi Wolf noted: “Democracy is disruptive…there is no right in a democratic civil society to be free of disruption.”

 

Disruption is the antidote to complacency, the enemy of innovation, and it is challenging to those of the status quo – those whom we call the “establishment.” However, disruption is not always good. We can think of dozens of instances – a child throwing food at the table; protestors shutting down university classes; strikers blocking the entrance to a grocery store. But throughout history, progress has thrived on disruption. We see the beginnings of such positive disruption in Washington today: addressing the border crisis, eliminating fraud and waste embedded in federal bureaucracies and confronting anti-Semitism on college campuses. On the other hand, we are also witness to negative disruption: the, seemingly random, use of tariffs by President Trump and belittling comments about allies by Vice President Vance. 

 

That President Trump is a disruptive force is a fact universally accepted. The question we and the world face: Is President Trump a disruptive force for good or bad? “There are times,” Karl Zinsmeister, White House chief domestic policy director 2006-2009, wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal, “when some messy political demolition and noisy rebuilding are necessary.” Is this such a time? I believe it is.

 

To many there is much that needs to change: The porous southern border, which has recently been tightened. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability put the number of illegal migrant crossings at 8 million during the Biden years, with 6.7 million crossing along the southwestern border. And those migrants brought in an estimated 50,000 lbs. of fentanyl. Air Traffic Control (ATC), under the purview of Congress, obviously needs fixing. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has promised to revamp the technology. Culturally, a preference for DEI came to dominate schools and colleges; it is divisive in that it emphasizes identity politics, Wokeness, racial discrimination and transgenderism, while de-emphasizing family, church, community, and school choice. Banning books is despicable, no matter one’s politics. Yet books like Gender Queer,prohibited by the Right, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, forbidden by the Left, have been banned by schools and libraries. Federal debt has spiraled from $5.7 trillion in 2000 to $35.5 trillion in 2024. Interest expense last year exceeded defense spending and will continue to do so. Excessive regulation inhibits innovation and productivity. In 2024, the Biden Administration finalized 3,248 new rules, 124 of which will each have an estimated impact on the economy of at least $200 million, a record according to a study by George Washington University. Excluding the military, the federal workforce is approximately three million, a third larger than it was twenty-five years ago, with increased costs and diminished accountability. Our military needs revamping. The U.S. Navy lost more than a third of its fleet between 2000 and 2024, a loss of 172 naval vessels. Today, China’s 370 naval vessels compare to our 296 naval ships. China dominates the western Pacific. That situation needs to change. 

 

Will President Trump and his team shake up Washington in a positive way? Certainly, the opportunity is there for “creative destruction.” But alienating allies, praising dictators and randomly imposing tariffs, and what Karl Zinsmeister called the “flaming hubris and overreach” of the Trump era may prevent that from happening. 

 

While disruption may be the right prescription to our current polarized political state, any reform should be guided by principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence and in the words of our Constitution. It should take into consideration the inviolable bases for our Republic: the rule of law, the separation of powers, and government that is “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

 

Only history will answer the question as to whether President Trump’s disruptive ways will prove good or bad. There are no Pythia’s on the slopes of a modern day Parnassus. Regardless and in my opinion our government, with its ever-expanding bureaucracy, has strayed from our Founders desire for limited government and a belief in the fundamental rights of the individual. A disruptor is what Washington needs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                

 

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[1] This TOTD is titled “The Great Disruptor – Part II” because it follows a January 20, 2019 TOTD titled “The Great Disruptor.” In that essay, I began with a re-cap of Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” which tells of how a credulous people can be taken in by a false narrative, until truth is revealed in a disruptive manner.

[2] Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction, Thomas McCraw, 2010

"Lighten Up, America"

 Tuesday morning my wife and I will go to the polls at the Essex Town Hall. Afterwards, we will drive to the Griswold Inn, also here in Essex, where my daughter-in-law Beatriz Williams and her two co-authors, Lauren Willig and Karen White, will discuss their latest book, An Author’s Guide to Murder, over lunch. The book is being released that day. The event promises to be good fun – three delightful, smart, articulate and funny ladies, as they take the audience through a rollicking good mystery. Agatha Christie, eat your heart out!

 

On Wednesday we begin a six-day trip to visit two grandchildren in college in Pennsylvania and one in boarding school in Virginia, so your e-mail in-box will be free of my offerings, at least for a few days.

 

God speed, and may your candidate win…though I hope mine does!

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Lighten Up, America”

November 3, 2024

 

“Like a welcome summer rain, humor may

suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.”

                                                                                                                The Book of Negro Humor, 1966

                                                                                                                Langston Hughes (1901-1967)

 

While Kamala Harris began her campaign with a promise of joy, it soon deteriorated into character smears against her opponent, with Ms. Harris calling him “fascist” and a “Hitler,” and with President Biden referring to Mr. Trump’s supporters as “garbage.” What makes the “fascist” label ironic is that, as Victor Davis Hanson wrote in last Thursday’s issue of American Greatness, “…he [Trump] has been the target of fascists machinations from her own party and supporters for nearly a decade.”

 

Mr. Trump has always appeared devoid of humor, except when polls swing his way. Writing in the current UK issue of The Spectator, Kate Andrews noted “…in the past few weeks, something has restored Trump’s humor.” As the audience left a recent rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she quoted a man speaking to his family: “That was better than Netflix.”  Most of us smiled when Mr. Trump, wearing an orange reflector vest (and in response to Mr. Biden’s remark), jumped into a garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump does have a habit of calling his opponents names that would make Gordon Gekko blush. Amidst this war of words, America seems an unhappy place. Last Thursday, The Washington Post editorialized: “…in an increasingly angry nation…incidents of road rage escalate across the country.”  As in 1888 Mudville, there is little joy in the U.S. today.

 

We have, as J.D. Vance recently reminded us, become overly sensitive, unable to distinguish between a comedian’s attempts at humor and the mean-spiritedness of a politician. Nevertheless, as a society, we (if not our politicians) have also become more sensitive to the feelings of others, a good thing. For generations, tasteless ethnic, racial, religious and sexual jokes were common. Perhaps because of that we were told that words could not hurt us. However today, we are told they can. Students and employees are warned against using “harmful” words. One consequence: we may become less of a melting pot than in those pre-and-post-World War II years – that our differences, not our similarities might define us. When my wife grew up in New York City, Little Italy, Chinatown, Germantown and Spanish Harlem were distinct places. While new enclaves have developed with new immigrants, those old boundaries can now be found only in history books. Immigrants of yesteryear, whether from Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Puerto Rico, or Asia, found it more comfortable, initially, to live in neighborhoods with people who spoke their language and understood their customs. Many new immigrants do so today. As time went by, those earlier immigrants added to the quilt that is the American people, and they became indistinct from their neighbors. Let us hope that today’s politics aimed at dividing us will not prevent the natural forces that unify us. Integration into our nation’s culture is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

 

It is important to remember that the build-out of a diversified population over the past half century happened despite an array of tasteless ethnic, religious and racial jokes. Those jokes – common forty-fifty-and-sixty-years ago – did not hinder the intermarriage of immigrants’ children and grandchildren. The Census Bureau reports that White-Hispanic marriages, White-Asian and White-Black marriages have soared over the past few decades. In 2022, 19% of newlyweds in the United States were married to someone of a different race or ethnicity, versus 3% in 1967. Will political correctness, which has led to the compartmentalization of people, cause that trend to slow or reverse? I don’t know. I am not advocating we revert to telling ethnic jokes. What I am saying is that, accompanied by self-deprecation, that form of humor did no lasting damage.

 

Campaigns, politics and governing are serious endeavors. But perspective is wanted. As the late, legendary ballerina Margot Fonteyn once said: “The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.” In dividing people into groups – ethnic, religious, racial, gender – progressive politicians have focused on our differences rather than our similarities. The poking of fun is no longer allowed. This fear of offending others has ushered in a culture of avoidance, for fear of affronting – widening already existing gaps between political parties, and gender and ethnic groups.

 

In the Essays of Michel Montaigne, the 16^th Century French philosopher wrote: “The highest wisdom is continual cheerfulness; such a state, like the region above the moon, is always clear and serene.” Humor prevents us from taking ourselves too seriously. It helps us find the balance between being sensitive to the needs and wants of others, while being honest about ours, and others, strengths and weaknesses. When the going gets tough, humor greases the skids. Mark Twain is alleged to have once said: “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” 

 

We live in serious – some might say perilous – times. Nevertheless, laughter has long been an antidote to dreariness. In his 1851 novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville wrote: “However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more’s the pity.” It is not mindless ‘joy’ we seek, but respectful and good-humored toleration of our differences, be they racial, gender or political. Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s opening stanza to her 1883 poem, as printed in The New York Sun, lends pertinence:  

 

“Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep and you weep alone:

For the sad old world must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.”

 

…………………………………………………………………………..

 

In two days the tension of the election will be behind us. Half the country will be happy; the other half disappointed, but we will survive. Results of elections are never as good as winners would have us believe, nor as bad as losers claim. My recommendation is to pick up a Wodehouse. Sink back into Edwardian England where the sun always shone, birds flew overhead, bees buzzed about, and Uncle Fred could be found flitting along a garden path, spreading “sweetness and light.” Whether or not your choice for President was successful, a smile will crease your face.

"Desperate Democrats"

 Everyone wants us to vote early. Resist the urge if possible, unless external factors make that your only choice. While there are only eight days to go, much can happen. Besides, there is a sense of community in going to the Polls on election day. Voting is a privilege limited to democracies and a responsibility of all eligible citizens.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Desperate Democrats”

October 28, 2024

 

“When a man has reached a condition in which he believes that a thing must happen because he does

not wish it, and that what he wishes to happen never will be, this is really the state called desperation.”

                                                                                           Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

                                                                                           Studies in Pessimism

                                                                                           Translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders, 1913

 

Polls tell us the election is too close to call, and I am not going to argue with those who make their living predicting what people will do. Nevertheless, Democrats act desperate; they act as though they expect to lose. They know they have played badly the hand they were dealt. That President Biden had been in mental decline was known by all who have watched his appearances over the past few years. Yet Democrats played Sergeant Schultz – “I know nothing” – and re-nominated him anyway. It was only after his disastrous debate with former President Trump on June 27, when his decline could no longer be denied, that he was unceremoniously dumped.

 

That gave Democrats less than two months to consider candidates who would appeal to a majority of delegates at an open convention to be held in Chicago from August 19 to the 24^th. Instead they chose to coronate Vice President Kamala Harris who had only once visited the border for which Mr. Biden had given her responsibility – about her only real responsibility. Previously, she spent four years in the U.S. Senate, where The Hill, based on roll-call votes, placed her as the second most liberal Democratic senator to serve in the U.S. Senate in the 21^st century, second behind Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Prior to the Senate, she had served thirteen years as an Attorney General, first of San Francisco and then of California. 

 

A few weeks of “joy” accompanied her selection, but with her refusal to hold a news conference, to submit to other than “friendly” interviews, or to explain her change of opinions on policies, the bloom of excitement over her selection wilted. 

 

Her campaign has struggled to focus. She has been the Vice President for almost four years, but she cannot defend an economy, which brought the highest inflation since the 1970s. We have had unprecedented border crossings, which brought fentanyl and crime into the country, and that changed the composition of towns across the land. The Biden-Harris foreign policy has given us a revanchist Russia; a destabilizing, militaristic China; a North Korea sending troops to Russia; and an Iran intent on securing a nuclear bomb, while using proxies to eradicate Israel. As well, anti-Semitism has been on the rise on college campuses by students whose loans Mr. Biden would like to forgive – in other words, to have taxpayers assume the burden of repayment. Unsurprisingly, public trust in government is half what it was twenty years ago. Ms. Harris no longer talks about climate change, wind power or EVs, as they are associated with elites, those whom she claims to disdain. The abortion issue (her only issue) has been tempered with reasonable responses from both Trump and Vance. She has been left with bashing Trump as a would-be dictator, a Fascist, even though she does not seem to know the word’s socialist origins. As the Wall Street Journal editorialized last Friday: “But the climb up the rhetorical dictator chain in the final stages of this election looks like a last-ditch Democratic strategy to save Ms. Harris from defeat.” In comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, her handlers are insulting fifty million or so Trump supporters. And, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in his recent Wall Street Journalop-ed, at the same time moderate Democrat Senators Baldwin, Casey, Slotkin, Tester – all up for re-election – have adopted Trump-like positions on energy, tariffs, and U.S. manufacturing. Leaders of the Democratic Party are looking desperate as they attempt to preserve a progressive, out-of-touch candidate, but many of their down-ballot candidates are acting pragmatically.   

 

It is not just the choice of a bad candidate, or the fact that Biden’s mental decline was kept hidden. Over the past several years, Democrats have abandoned their middle-class roots, as they adopted a bar-bell approach toward the electorate. On the one hand, the sanctimonious, cultural and economic elites who believe their self-proclaimed moral superiority justifies calling political opponents low-IQ “deplorables” – misogynist, racist, homophobic and xenophobic. On the other end of Democrat supporters are those who feed off government largesse – “green” companies, government employees, university administrators and professors who feed off the government teat, union leaders (but not all union members), indebted students, and illegal immigrants. Independent voters, however, do not vote in blocs. They are individuals. Contrary to President Obama’s harangue, Black men who do not support Ms. Harris are not misogynists. They simply believe her policies are not in their best interests. Progressive Democrats, who control the Party, have no tolerance for those who question why biological men should be able to compete against women in sports. They have little forbearance for those who live by Christian values, or those who support legal immigration but not its illegal cousin. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” is a 500-year-old proverb that is applicable to millions of American voters.  

 

Most Americans are not happy with our choices for President. Most of us believe that the first five Presidents – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, men who helped found this nation – would be appalled that we must choose between Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. But now, Democrats feel that desperate times call for desperate measures. But whether name-calling will work is anyone’s guess. The polls have the race too close to call. But I wonder. Thirty-seven years ago, Random House published Donald Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal. It reached number one on The New York Times best sellers list and stayed there for thirteen weeks. In it he wrote: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.” Will his words prove prophetic? In Walden, Henry David Thoreau offered sensible advice: “It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” In The Art of the Deal, Trump was writing of business deals; nevertheless, his words are applicable in today’s rancorous political environment: Caveat candidatus!

"The Election - Character or Issues?"

 On Tuesday, my wife and I leave for a couple of weeks in New Jersey, where we have been going for over fifty years – my wife for all of her life. We go to the Rumson-Seabright area. While I will have my laptop and printer, I do not plan on spending much time writing. It is not that I don’t enjoy writing essays. I do. But all engines need overhauling, and mine needs a break. You may hear from me, but then again you may not.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Election – Character or Issues?”

August 1, 2024

 

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the

people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.”

                                                                                                                Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

                                                                                                                Letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802

 

While it appears that we Americans don’t agree on a lot, there is general agreement that our political center has been squeezed by extremists at both ends of the political spectrum. Democrats have moved to the left – toward European-style social engineering. Republicans have become more populist, not in an authoritarian way, but in the sense that they represent ordinary people opposed to elitists in government, labor, finance, business and education. At the far-left are those who fly the Palestinian flag, and sick climate-cultists who destroy works of art to bring attention to their agenda. At the far-right are those who fly the Confederate flag, and xenophobes who would deport illegal aliens. Political choice has become more difficult for those inclined toward a politics of consensus and collaboration.

 

An emphasis on character by the media has replaced a focus on issues that affect the electorate. While Kamala Harris may have an edge when it comes to character, she is no paragon of virtue. Both candidates are fodder for the tabloids. The crucial differences between them are not in their character; it is their policy prescriptions. Like most politicians, Ms. Harris is chameleon-like when it comes to where she stands, except on issues like abortion, climate change and Hamas. She was, keep in mind, ranked the most liberal of all U.S. Senators in 2019 by GovTrack.us, a non-partisan Congress tracker. In contrast, Mr. Trump, apart from lacking a sense of humor, being a protectionist on trade, and wanting to make America great again, seems devoid of a consistent political ideology. But he has the advantage of not being a pietistic professional politician.

 

As November draws closer, voters must grapple with multiple issues: the economy/inflation, healthcare, foreign policy/defense, immigration, debt/deficits, abortion, education, climate/environment, entitlements, infrastructure, the Supreme Court, along with myriad concerns regarding the cultural environment, from the role of families, the threat from identity politics, to biological men participating in women’s sports.

 

There are too many issues to comment on all, but allow me to make remarks regarding a few. A report from Statista.com published on July 5^th polled voters’ concerns: “government/poor leadership” (21%), “immigration” (18%), the “economy in general” (17%), and “the high cost of living/inflation” (12%). Biden of course will be gone in just over five months and with him the “poor leadership” that has been a hallmark of his Presidency. The other issues, however, remain. Open borders, both south and north, have let in millions of undocumented illegal immigrants who, with help from the federal government, have spread throughout our nation. Rounding up and deporting them will be impossible, even those with criminal records. In my opinion the number of permanent immigrant visas should be increased, but in the meantime borders should be sealed preventing anymore from arriving illegally. As for the economy, over the past seventy years GDP growth, despite productivity gains of about 300%, has been in gradual decline, from the four percent plus range in the first three decades after World War II, to around three percent plus in the last two decades of the 20^th Century, to under three percent thus far in 21^st Century.

 

During the past seventy years there have been recessions and spurts of higher growth, but under leadership from both Republicans and Democrats the gradual decline in GDP growth has been manifest. Regulation, taxes, government spending, dependency, a lack of personal responsibility and accountability, and the negative consequences of a DEI strategy have all had their effects. For example, a report from the House Budget Committee Chair, Jodey Arrington (R-TX), on April 4, 2023 cited the growth in transfer payments: In 2022 the federal government paid $4.1 trillion in transfer payments to individuals, 65% of the entire budget. The growth in transfer payments has been persistent and seemingly inexorable, from 1.5% of the budget in 1945, to 26% in 1969, to 50% in 1994. No politician from either Party wants to take away benefits, and in fact The Biden-Harris proposals of free community college, student loan forgiveness, increasing food stamp benefits and expanding Medicaid eligibility will add to what is fast approaching an intolerable burden for taxpayers. Voters must ask: which Party is more likely to address threats from the Charybdis of increased individual dependency and the Scylla of unaffordable government?

 

The world has grown more dangerous over the last three and a half years. In taking office, Mr. Biden reversed Mr. Trump’s policies toward Iran, re-engaging the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, which emboldened the world’s greatest exporter of terrorism. He forsook the Abraham Accords. In August 2021, Mr. Biden abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban, leaving behind billions of dollars in military equipment and bases. In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, initiating Europe’s longest-running war since World War II. In the past three years China’s naval fleet has surpassed that of the United States. During Mr. Biden’s Presidency another dozen countries joined China’s Belt & Road initiatives, which now includes 150 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America. While Mr. Biden was an ardent supporter of Israel immediately following the Hamas-directed October 7 slaughter, he now urges restraint.

 

On education, Democrats are against choice; they favor subsidies to buyers of electric vehicles, and they would like Congress to pass an Amendment that would term-limit Supreme Court Justices and subject them to Congressional oversight. At the Kentland Community Center on June 7 in Landover, Maryland, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that “the right to be safe is a civil right.” Is that what we want? Students are told that their colleges provide safe spaces, where one can hide from offensive words. Books, such as Huckleberry Finn are banned because readers might find them hurtful. Is that what we should strive for – a nation of Milquetoasts? America was discovered and settled by those who braved the elements and risked their lives. In like manner, daring astronauts took to space sixty years ago. Men and women have bet their fortunes on inventions, many of which have vastly improved lives. If we are to believe that to be safe is a civil right, what will come of risk takers, of innovation? If the nation needs defending, will anyone risk their life? In the August issue of The Spectator, the editors wrote of the adverse consequences of a society consumed with safetyism: “…a zeal for safe spaces begets academic stagnation and persecution; and avoiding the emotional risk of commitment brings with it collapsing birth rates and loneliness.” 

 

We live in a time when individual freedom confronts state supremacy. We need government to care for those unable to care for themselves, but government should be, as was originally intended, limited and constrained. It was established to guarantee are basic rights. Individually, the ingredients for a fulfilled life include independence, self-reliance, curiosity, aspiration, and a willingness to work hard and take risk. Despite the illusion of progressives, none of us are equal, something obvious to those who watch the Olympics, but we are each gifted with unique qualities. It is those we must focus on. Given the candidates in this election, Democrats and the media will speak endlessly of “threats to democracy” and will attack Mr. Trump for being Trump. Republicans, however, should stick to issues.

"The Debate - Some Quick Reactions"

 This is short – just over 500 words – and it was done quickly, so there are bound to be errors, in facts along with grammar and syntax. Please excuse them.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Debate – Some Quick Reactions”

June 28, 2024

 

“I really don’t know what he said. I don’t think he knows what he said.”

                                                                                                                                 Donald Trump

                                                                                                                                 CNN Debate

June 27, 2024

 

Is this the best we can do? We are a nation that produced the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Marshall Plan. As a country with not much more than one hundredth of today’s population we elected Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison as President. With one tenth of the population, we nominated and elected Lincoln. More recently, but with still a smaller population than today, men like Roosevelt, Truman Eisenhower and Reagan campaigned and were elected to the nation’s highest office. And today – despite our history, diverse population, educational systems, free press, inventiveness, and role in the world – we look to re-nominate Joe Biden and Donald Trump? How has such a great nation fallen so far? 

 

The moderators, while colorless and humorless, pretty much stuck to their program. They asked questions about Ukraine and Israel, abortion, January 6, climate, the border, their age and fitness, the opioid crisis, and childcare. Trump was asked if he would accept the election results regardless of the outcome. He finally answered yes, so long as the election was fair and above board. Biden was asked about his fitness. His slurred and hesitant response, when he wasn’t searching for words, and his vacant stare seemed to answer the question. A low point came when both men argued about their golf handicaps – each claiming a number in the mid-single digits. Silly me, I had assumed they were too busy to spend time on the golf course.

 

Nevertheless, the two contestants acceded to expectations. Neither expressed a lightness of touch, a sense of empathy, or even a connection with the televised audience. Neither offered a vision for the America they would like to see. Trump came across as angry – though more controlled than he has been – but reminding one of the schoolyard bully who, after taunting his classmates during recess, tells the teacher of all the positive things he has done. Biden’s speech was confused and hoarse – we were told (after the fact) that he had a cold – hesitant and wandering. His eyes suggested that nobody was home. His non sequitur, “Look, we finally beat Medicare,” was telling. Trump’s quote in the rubric above is something many of is felt.

 

My initial reactions: Embarrassment, for our nation in the eyes of the world that these two men represent the finest we have. Anger, at Biden’s advisors and family for allowing him (or encouraging him?) to pursue a second term. Disappointment, at mainstream media for refusing to disclose Mr. Biden’s cognitive deterioration, something many have suspected, but which remained hidden to their viewers and readers.

 

At this point it is unknown how many people watched the debate or what the consequences will be. As for Mr. Biden, instead of dispelling concerns regarding his fitness to be President, the debate accentuated them. I suspect the biggest takeaway will be that Democrats will re-think their choice for nominee.

"Watch What They Do"

 What sort of a moral sense inhabits the souls of presidents and trustees of some of the nation’s most elite colleges and universities where anti-Semitic student protestors have been allowed to terrify and physically harm Jewish students, block entrances to university buildings, and chant for the annihilation of Israel? These people head institutions that are supposed to help form future leaders. God help us if they do not uphold the values for which they claim to stand.

 

On the other hand, my normal cynicism toward Washington politicians was tempered this past weekend, when the House, under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed three separate bills to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and a fourth bill that would seize frozen Russian assets and force a sale of Chinese-owned TikTok. Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) deserves congratulations for his help in this bi-partisan show of support for these important pieces of legislation. The United States has been singularly positioned as the leader of the free world for more than a century. With size comes responsibility – not to impose our way of life on others, but to provide a vision of what is possible when the individual is the basis of a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” If we relinquish that role, the world will be worse off.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Watch What They Do”

April 24, 2024

 

“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.”

                                                                                                                Think Like a Freak, 2014

                                                                                                                Steven D. Levitt (1967-)

                                                                                                                Stephen J. Dubner (1963-)

 

It is said that Diogenes, an obviously odd but intelligent man who lived around 400BC, went about Athens’ marketplace with a lamp during the daytime. He claimed to be looking for an honest man. Apparently, he had little luck. We might well assume that a similarly futile search could be made in the nation’s Capital at any time of day. Politicians lie. So it is what they do that should galvanize our attention.

 

Lying is endemic and not limited to politicians. We all tell lies, or “white” lies as we euphemistically call them. Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf warned that when persistent liars do tell the truth, no one believes them – a lesson that politicians, reporters and others should learn. In the 19^th Century, Carlo Collodi of Florence, the pen name for Carlo Lorenzini, gave us the story of the sentient wooden puppet Pinocchio whose nose grew longer when he lied. Sadly, lying noses do not lengthen among those in Washington today. Rather, they believe Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister who said that if a lie is repeated often enough it is perceived as truth – like telling the public that only adherence to a Democrat-led agenda will save the planet from destruction. Climate change is a fact. The planet’s climate has changed thousands of times over millions of years. It will continue to do so. But people’s behavior is just one cause. 

 

While the media has been filled with Donald Trump’s lies, exaggerations and transgressions – and, certainly, Trump is a notorious liar – lying comes naturally to most of those who become politicians. It was Joe Biden who told the world he was arrested when visiting a jailed Nelson Mandela, that his uncle was eaten by cannibals in the Pacific during the Second World War, that he visited “Ground Zero” on September 12, 2001, and, to a Teamsters meeting, that he once drove tractor trailers. Mr. Biden, of course, has the excuse that he is “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

 

There have been other colorful examples: Nine months before he resigned on August 7, 1974 over the Watergate break-in, President Nixon told a group of reporters: “I am not a crook.” President Clinton on January 26, 1998, referring to White House intern Monica Lewinsky, declared: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” On September 5, 2002, President Bush told the American people that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” And President Obama, on June 6, 2009, said, referring to his proposed federal takeover of healthcare: “If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor too. The only change you’ll see are falling costs as reforms take hold.” 

 

But consider some of what they did: One of the five “plumbers” (James W. McCord) who broke into the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972 was a member of Nixon’s Committee to Reelect the President. Stains on the blue dress worn by Ms. Lewinsky suggested a definitional difference in the words “sexual relations.” Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. And, according to the Peterson Center on Healthcare, the cost for medical care services has risen 49.6% since June 2009, double the rate of consumer prices.

 

Today, we are told that the southern border is secure, yet according to The Washington Post “illegal border crossings have averaged 2 million per year since 2021, the highest level ever.” We are told of extraordinary job creations in the past three years, yet part of the rise has been an increase in part-time employment, as the ratio between full-time and part-time has narrowed since mid-2023. As well, part of the job increases are due to growth in government jobs. J.P. Morgan reported that government jobs gained 56,000 per month in 2023, more than double the monthly gain of 23,000 in 2022. On April 10, President Biden was quoted: “…inflation has fallen more than 60% from its peak…” While that was true, it is also true that in March of this year, the CPI came in at 0.4%, double the Federal Reserve’s benchmark.

 

On September 29, 2023, speaking at the Atlantic Festival in Washington, D.C., Jake Sullivan, America’s National Security Advisor, rattled off a list of positive developments in the Middle East, a result of Biden’s policies: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Eight days later Iran’s proxy Hamas, headquartered in Gaza, launched an unprovoked attack on Israeli citizens, raping, mutilating and killing 1,200 civilians. Mr. Sullivan, in his comments, conveniently ignored the devastating withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the pursuit of Obama’s Iran Deal, which has allowed Iran to pursue their atomic program, and the reluctance to pursue the Abraham Accords, which had been leading to Sunni Muslims’ recognition of Israel.  

 

We are told that democracy is at risk, if the despised Donald Trump is re-elected. No one doubts that the continuation of our democratic republic is vital to all Americans. But does the much-watched Trump represent the sole risk to democracy? Is there not a risk from those who have gradually (and insidiously) strengthened the Executive branch, especially from those who believe that government knows best? Democracy has proven to be the most equitable political system ever contrived, largely because it incorporates free market capitalism, which provides the economic growth necessary for a nation’s operations, defense, and its social welfare programs. But markets work most efficiently when regulations do not impede innovation and when taxes do not limit investment. Consider what has been done and what is proposed: Forbes reported on December 29 that 2023 that the Federal Register, the daily depository of rules and regulations, wrapped up 2023 with 90,402 pages, “…the second highest tally of all time.” On March 11, President Biden sent Congress his proposed 2025 budget, which calls for a $5 trillion increase in taxes, to come from corporations and individuals making over $400,000 per annum. Barriers to economic growth, whether from regulations or taxes, have unfavorable consequences for all citizens.

 

Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that lies are sometimes necessary. For example, in time of war lies can deceive the enemy, or they can be used to withhold the truth from those near death and who are emotionally fragile. It may be more ethical to lie to help a friend save face in public; and secrets, whether corporate, institutional or government, to remain secret may involve fabrications or even, God forbid, fake news. There have been times when Presidents have had to lie to the public in the interest of national security.

 

But none of these examples exonerate politicians who lie to curry favor, to harvest votes, to further political careers, or to those in the media who aid their ignoble political friends by obscuring facts. Hannah Arendt, a refugee from the deadliest of European lies, once wrote that perhaps political deception is the greatest threat. In a recent Wall Street Journal review of Richard Sennett’s new book, The Performer, Barton Swaim quoted from Yuval Levin’s 2020 book, A Time to Build: “…the presidency and Congress are just stages for political performance art; when a university becomes a venue for vain virtue signaling, when journalism is indistinguishable from activism – they become harder to trust. They aren’t really asking for our confidence, just for our attention.” Sadly, that seems to be true.

 

In 1969, Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell said: “Watch what we do, not what we say.” We did. You know the rest.

"Are Things as Bad as They Seem?"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Are Things as Bad as They Seem?”

March 11, 2024

 

“Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, you find out that they’ve

always been a lot worse than you thought they were. And then they get worse.”

                                                                                                                                Philip Kerr (1956-2018)

                                                                                                                                The Pale Criminal, 1990

 

Debt, including unfunded liabilities, threatens to bankrupt us. The southern border has become a porous venue for a record number of illegals and the drugs many bring into this country. An epidemic of crime has transformed our cities. Democrats have weaponized the criminal justice department to go after political opponents. Republicans, in a rush to isolationism, have abandoned global responsibilities – underestimating threats to democratic institutions posed by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Iran’s Mullahs. Color-blind meritocracy and biological sex have given way to harmful fantasies, with preferential treatment for some groups and favored pronouns for others. A desire for clean energy is countered by demand for clean-technology factories and electricity-hungry data centers, “leaving,” as Evan Halper wrote last week in The Washington Post, “utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.” Biden’s mandate that two thirds of all new cars be electric by 2032 will increase the demand for electricity. One asks: is the country witnessing the death of common sense and entering a death spiral? 

 

I suspect everyone, no matter their political preferences, agrees that we live in contentious times – politically, technologically, and culturally. Of the two Presidential candidates, one is visibly senescent and the other is “the crudest trash-talker in politics,” as Barton Swaim wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. AI threatens to disrupt our lives in unknown ways. DEI, CRT, gender neutral bathrooms and gendered-altered athletes have turned high schools and universities into places alien to parents and alumni.

 

Perhaps we should step back. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” is an aphorism usually attributed to Mark Twain. It suggests that while each era is different, there are recurring themes. And as George Santayana observed, we are disadvantaged regarding the present and the future when we ignore the past. And, while our current situation is unique, the United States has survived bigger schisms – the biggest being the Civil War when eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. That Lincoln was able to prevent England and France from recognizing the Confederacy and keep the Union intact, while abolishing slavery, is something for which every American should be grateful. 

 

While the Civil War created chaos, the two-and-a-half decades leading up to it were unsettled, and not just because of slavery. In the twenty-four years before Abraham Lincoln was elected in a four-way race in 1860, eight men served as President. The three decades leading to the Civil War saw the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, an event that raised living standards, but that also created winners and losers: Railroads and steamships disrupted traditional means of travel, and the telegraph radicalized the way people communicated. The McCormack reaper increased the value of large Pennsylvania and Ohio farms, while lowering the value of smaller New England farms. The Singer sewing machine revolutionized the clothing industry. All were examples of Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative disruption.” More than a third of the nation’s population increase over the thirty years prior to the Civil War was due to immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany. Growth spurts are usually accompanied by hiccups. 

 

Turbulent times continued: Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, and over the next thirty-six years two more Presidents would be assassinated – James Garfield in 1861 and William McKinley in 1901. Native Americans continued to be attacked, captured, and placed on reservations. Black Americans continued to experience bigotry and segregation, and the late 19^th Century saw the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. The Industrial Revolution continued, with electricity, autos, and telephones being introduced, creating dislocations for carriage makers and purveyors of gas lamps, but positively affecting living standards.

 

Once again, we live in politically rancorous times, with cultural appropriation in schools, universities, and businesses and disruptive technologies like social media and artificial intelligence. Democrats have what they want in Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, and Republicans have what they want with Democrats sticking with Joe Biden. Both parties are more interested in attacking their opponent than in promoting their candidate. Neither candidate shows any interest in reconciliation. Trump, in a statement that showed how unhinged he is from reality, claimed to have no need of Nikki Haley’s supporters, Independents, or disgruntled Democrats. In his State of the Union, Biden made no effort to appease Republicans unhappy with Trump. Instead, the speech was, as Ben Domenech wrote in The Spectator, “unhinged…spewing invective at half the country.” – the campaign speech of an angry old man, which served as a preview of the road to November.

 

Unless, unless something changes. Last Friday, No Labels held a virtual 800-delegate meeting, and the members voted, “near unanimously” as NBC put it, to move forward with the process of forming a presidential ticket to run in the 2024 election against Joe Biden and Donald Trump. An official ticket was not put forward, but one is expected. Regardless, given the ages of Biden and Trump and should Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Harvard professor and civil rights activist Cornel West persist in their presidential bids, conventions this summer may be wide-open affairs. 

 

And yet, are things as bad as they seem? No one can see into the future. Classicists remind us that empires end, and so might the United States, a nation that has stood as a defender of freedom for the world’s democracies, and a country that provides hope for the world’s oppressed. But is now that moment? I recall the late 1960s and ‘70s when society was frayed and politics were in disarray, yet we survived. It is possible that the last stanza of Edgar Guest’s (1881-1959) poem published in the March 4, 1921 issue of the Detroit Free Press will prove prescient for today’s over-whelmed American voter:

 

“And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit – 

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.”