"The Curious Attraction of Donald Trump"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“The Curious Attraction of Donald Trump”

October 14, 2024

 

“‘But he hasn’t got anything on,’ a little child said.”

                                                                                                                The Emperor’s New Clothes, 1837

                                                                                                                Hans Christian Anderson

                                                                                                                Translated by Jean Hersholt, 1952

 

Despite the fact that he is coarse, rude and humorless, Donald Trump is attractive to millions of Americans. Most are religious and believe in their families and communities; they are patriotic, diligent, and endowed with an uncommon level of common sense. But what accounts for this attraction? While I don’t pretend to have all the reasons, simply addressing the question is instructional. He is despised by those who have made service in government their life’s work. He is despised by those who find vulgar his ravaging of the English language. He is despised by those who cannot stand his orange hair and red ties. On the other hand, he is loved by those who represent what Franklin Roosevelt once referred to as the “Forgotten Man” – America’s working men and women at the middle and lower end of the economic scale. His acolytes are those who do not neatly fit into an elitist identity – meaning they are largely white, working class people from fly-over states, those who Barack Obama once derided as clinging “to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” In other words, he is attractive to America’s broad middle class.

 

These people have watched as Democrat-led, Washington’s establishment divided people into identifiable sectors – women, people of color, proponents of LGBTQ, etc. – those seen as victims of white oppressors. His fans, the so-called oppressors regardless of social position or economic status, love that he is nemesis to progressive politicians; to administrative lawyers who feed off government; to university professors and administrators who rely on public grants; to private sector union leaders (but not union members); to school boards who protect predators and approve schools dispensing tampons in boy’s bathrooms; to spoiled college students who want their student loans paid off; to a media enriched by political ads, and to those enthralled with a sense of their own virtue; and to an entertainment industry that lacks any moral sense.

 

Using data from Statista and OpenTheBooks, spending on federal elections (President, Senate and House) compounded annually at roughly 14% between 2000 and 2020, while government spending compounded at about 7.5% over that same time. However, over those same twenty years median household income only compounded at two percent. The consequence is that lower and middle-income families have been left behind, as government bureaucrats, bankers, and media people have grown fat. Has this increased spending helped the middle classes? Last week, The Connecticut Mirror reported that United Way estimates that 40% of Connecticut’s households faced poverty in 2022. Keep in mind, Connecticut ranks eight when states are measured by median household income. Also donors, be they individuals, corporations or unions, expect a return on their investment. Remember Solyndra, the California-based solar panel company that in September 2009 received $535 Million from President Obama’s Energy Department and two years later filed for bankruptcy.

 

But I believe there is more to this. Political Parties are not static entities; they change over time, reflecting changing demographics and their own self-interests. For twenty years – 1932-1952 – the Democrat Party held the White House. Over the next forty years – 1952-1992 – roles were reversed, with Republicans holding the White House twenty-eight years and Democrats twelve. During those sixty years, only one election was close in terms of the popular vote – 1960. The elections of 1948, 1968 and 1992 were affected by third party candidates. But in most contests over those sixty years victors won overwhelmingly. However, in the past thirty-two years – 1992-2024 – Presidential elections, with the exception of 2008, have been close, reflecting a more divided (and less compromising) nation.

 

In the 1960s, Republicans were the Party of East Coast elites, big business and Wall Street. In 1968 they adopted a “Southern Strategy,” a term popularized by political strategist Kevin Phillips. Since 1932, the “Party of Lincoln” had been losing the Black vote to Democrats, so the Southern Strategy involved a plan to go after conservative white southern voters who, since the Civil War, had been Democrats. That, in my opinion, was a mistake – a short term fix to a long term problem. Today, once again the two political parties are undergoing another fundamental change, with Republicans pursuing working people, regardless of race, as Democrats implement a bar-bell approach – wealthy coastal elites, university professionals, media types, etc. on the one hand, offset with immigrants, students, and those who claim victimhood on the other.

 

I do not pretend to be able to predict the outcome of this election. Neither candidate would be my choice, though Mr. Trump’s actual Presidency (2017-2021) was better than his current campaign would suggest – and certainly better than the last four years of Biden-Harris, in terms of the economy, inflation, immigration, and foreign affairs. As for the Democrat alternative, what would we be getting? Ms. Harris’ performance on CBS’s 60 Minutes gave lie to her politics of “joy.” Like the child who viewed the Emperor’s new clothes in the epigraph above, there is little she has provided on which we can judge her. 

 

Donald Trump’s appeal reflects the fact that, even after almost ten years in the political limelight, he remains an outsider. He is an amateur politician in a coliseum of lions. It is as though a high school physics teacher and amateur tennis player stepped onto the courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and won the U.S. Open. He is despised by the establishment because he is not one of them. He promised to “drain the swamp,” which he never did, but he is still seen by Washington insiders as a threat to their comfortable lives. He has been attacked relentlessly. The Mueller investigation (begun in May 2017) into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign found, two years and $30 million later, no evidence of coordination or cooperation with Russia during the campaign. That investigation, like the failed impeachment attempts and the more recent Fani Willis and Jack Smith prosecutions, have only increased his support. Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is real; its amplification by the media feeds his fans.  

 

The “progressive” Left is driven by a self-righteous sense of personal virtue. Think of President Obama telling Black men that if they do not vote for Kamala Harris they are misogynist. His sanctimony did not allow that they have minds of their own. In assuming this mantle, Democrats have abandoned the broad middle class of working voters – most of whom are white – those who once comprised their base. President Trump recognized that failure, which provided an opening. That, in my opinion, is at the heart of his attraction to so many Americans. 

"A Fading Culture"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A Fading Culture”

December 3, 2020

 

“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting that way.”

                                                                                                Bob Dylan (1941-)

                                                                                                “Not Dark, Yet” 1997

 

The word culture stems from the Latin “colere,” to cultivate, nurture and grow. It encompasses many aspects of our lives, like music, art and literature, as well as ethnicities, religion and race. But when I write of culture, I refer to family, traditions like church and patriotism, and qualities like honor, manners, respect, humility, tolerance – universal values, acquired over time and required for civil behavior. They are expressed in axioms like the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and turning the other cheek.

 

The United States has faults, but its good qualities outshine its bad. As a nation of courageous and independent individuals, we are unafraid to speak of past and present evils, like slavery and bigotry. We should, as well, be as quick to acknowledge our accomplishments: A Constitutional government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” comprised of laws, not men; our system of free-market capitalism, which has done more to eradicate poverty than any system of state redistribution; educational opportunities not available to most of the world – two thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 22 are in college. To believe that race is systemic is to be seduced by accusations of white guilt and to disbelieve facts; a Pew Research survey found that 91% of Americans either shrug off or applaud interracial marriage. We are the most desired nation for migrants, with 21% naming the U.S., in a study done by the World Economic Forum in 2017. (Germany was second with six percent.)

 

As a nation, we are blessed with natural resources and favorable climate, but they alone do not account for our success. The crucible has been a culture that valued aspiration, risk-taking, hard work and self-reliance. It was a culture, based on a Judeo-Christian heritage, enmeshed in the traditional family and traditional values. Our universities were designed to allow the intellectually gifted to expand their minds, explore and debate ideas, to learn the “hows” and “whys” of thinking, not what to think. Students were challenged, not coddled. The concept of “safe places,” or the idea that the classroom was a place to claim victimhood and air grievances were alien to those who saw their role as imparting knowledge, to form better citizens, to help the Country grow and prosper. 

 

Fundamental to the success of our culture has been the nuclear family. Its decline has been accompanied by dysfunction and cultural deterioration. Today, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, 19.7 million American children (25%) grow up in households without a father. For Blacks, the number is 65%. Those children bear a disadvantage. In a recent issue of “First Things,” Mary Eberstadt, essayist and author of How the West Really Lost God, wrote: “Absent fathers predict higher rates of truancy, psychiatric problems, criminality, promiscuity, drug use, rape, domestic violence, and other less optimal outcomes.” Her conclusions are confirmed by sociologists and organizations like the National Fatherhood Initiative. While divorce, at times, is s the right answer, we should promote family values.

 

Immigration is integral to our culture. The United States is largely composed of immigrants, initially from Western Europe, with slaves from Africa brought here against their will. More recently the majority of immigrants have come from Latin America and Asia. Inherent to what is the United States has been the willingness of immigrants to adapt to American “cultural norms.” This does not mean, as some claim, that immigrants are supposed to deny their past. But it does recognize that assimilation is critical to future success. The preference of “woke” progressives is for a segregated, “salad bow” approach, with competing and contrasting identities, rather than a melting pot, with its motto of E Pluribus Unum. To succeed, immigrants must learn our language, culture and customs, while adding their bit to it. Yet, cynical politicians, viewing them as a source of votes, urge them to emphasize victimhood, rather than to encourage the independent spirit that brought them to this Country. To deny them the opportunities the United States offers is demeaning and unfair, as it makes more difficult the climb up the economic ladder, and it is untrue to the culture that has made the United States a success. 

 

In its place, we have developed a “woke” counterculture that idolizes political correctness, eradicates history, cheers white guilt and victimization of minorities; it divides people and discourages heroism. It is a culture seeded in universities, nurtured by mainstream and social media, reaped by “woke” politicians and fed on by organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It is a culture that allows politicians to milk the public purse for private gain. It permitted the Biden family to become rich off of Ukraine and China. It was behind the lies and the subterfuge in the Obama Administration, which weaponized our intelligence agencies to spy on, and attempt to destroy the Trump Administration, beginning in late 2016. It was behind the failed Mueller investigation and the impeachment of Donald Trump. It is a culture that brooks no dissent and allows no debate. Its followers are seductive, articulate and intelligent. But they are ruthless in their self-righteousness and will lie and cheat to achieve their goals. As well, and which may bring their downfall, they have become insufferable, cultural snobs. Is it any surprise that trust in government has collapsed?  Is it a surprise that so many question the outcome of November’s election?

 

At age sixteen, George Washington copied out 110 “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” While many of the rules are dated and have little applicability today, what they have is a consideration for the feelings of others, rather than the self-righteousness that permeates society today. As such, they are intrinsic to our culture. They proclaim our respect for others and, in turn, give us the gift of self-respect and heightened self-esteem. I would not expect young people today to copy those rules, but they should be aware of them and of what prompted the young George Washington to copy them.

 

This cultural slide has been fed by a confederacy of snobs in academia, and in social and mainstream media. Corrupt politicians/bureaucrats and their corporate accomplices have created a government of oligarchs. Mr. Trump is a man whose many flaws are well publicized, but whose virtues – loyalty, directness, tenaciousness – go unreported. Our cultural slide is manifest in attitudes toward him: The hatred for Mr. Trump by Progressives is not based on damage he might inflict on democracy, but fear of what he would uncover in “draining the swamp.” The media does not mock him for the policies he pursued, but because he called them out for the toadies they are. Academia do not dismiss him for his ideas, but because his speech is blunt and coarse. Mr. Trump is not the cause of this cultural decline. He is a consequence. Where is respect for the office? Where is tolerance for a diversity of opinions? Where are the manners that allow us to live civilly? Where is honor? “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting that way.”

"November's Election - None of the Above?"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“November’s Election – None of the Above?”

July 4, 2020

“A wise man makes his own decisions.

An ignorant man follows public opinion.”

                                                                                                Chinese Proverb

On a multiple-choice test “none of the above’ may be a legitimate response. But no matter how tempting that answer may seem to voters sick and tired of politics, such a response on November 3, 2020 is not acceptable. As we celebrate our country’s 244^th birthday, we should consider the critical importance of the election four months out.

While no politician is the paragon of virtue drawn by Parson Weems of an idealized George Washington, character has slipped down the scale of traits we treasure when electing leaders. In 2020, we will be offered a choice between a man whose thin skin exposes a large ego, and a man whose intellectual capacity wanes as his defects wax. Mr. Trump’s flaws are well publicized – orange hair, ungrammatical speech, his volatility and personal insecurity seen in his untempered Tweets and his apparent admiration for dictators. But they are all superficial. No matter his appeasing words about Putin and Xi Jinping, he has been tougher on Russia and China than his predecessors. His dyed hair and manner of speaking may offend those raised in coastal, elitist families, but they are far less damaging to democracy than was the misuse of intelligence services by the Clinton campaign and the Obama Administration in undermining a freely elected President. Charges of corruption against Mr. Trump have been investigated for four years by a zealous press, a partisan House, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a complicit FBI. They came to naught. On the other hand, mainstream media has been largely silent on financial favors sought by Mr. Biden for his son in Ukraine and China and on his alleged sexual assault on a staff member.

Nevertheless, and despite the impurity of both candidates, the single most important factor in this election has been the hijacking of the Democrat Party by illiberal, so-called “progressives.” Professor Wilfred McClay of the University of Oklahoma described the random and willful destruction of statues, acts condoned by many city mayors: “…these acts of destruction are acts of pure, unmitigated hate…,” hatred not dissimilar in its intensity to that levied against President Trump by the New York Times and the Washington Post. “Unless new leaders come forth,” wrote Heather MacDonald in City Journal this past week, “who understand their duty to maintain the rule of law, the country will not pull back from disaster.”

This wanton destruction reflects George Orwell’s third slogan, “Ignorance is Strength,” that the past is what our leaders tell us it is, not historical facts. Such ignorance ignores the truth in what Thomas Sowell wrote two days ago: “History is what happened, not what we wished had happened.” This nescience reflects abandonment of the humanities by our universities and the life lessons taught therein. The recent anarchy and deaths in Seattle’s Capitol Hill area would not have surprised those familiar with William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and those who had studied Robespierre and his Jacobin Reign of Terror in 1793 Paris. 

Polarization has become the norm, but in an election year it is exaggerated. Common sense about distancing, hygiene and the wearing of masks has given way to political diktats. While mainstream media has been filled with scare stories of rising new infections in states that did not lockdown sufficiently or opened prematurely, they have back-paged declining deaths from the virus across the country. Protesters of draconian lockdown rules have been blamed for infecting fellow citizens, yet those who march mask-less with Black Lives Matter (BLM) are exempted. It is okay to spread the virus if you are marching for “social justice,” but not if you are marching for your rights as a citizen. Despite ominous headlines about the virus, there has been some good news. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Dr. Joseph Ladapo of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine wrote “…there has not been a single confirmed case of reinfection among the 10 million cases of Covid-19 world-wide, according to a May report in the Journal of the American Medical Association” – a positive piece of news, supporting herd immunity, that has largely gone unreported.

The campaigns must deal with the fact that we are in the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression – bad for the President but opportunity for his opponent. The media, urban and suburban elitists – those with little concept of what the recession and closing of schools have done to average families – have greeted the news with schadenfreude-like glee. Most continue to work from home offices, inconvenienced but not economically deprived. History-challenged politicians, university and school heads and business CEOs have agreed to the assertion that the U.S. is systemically racist. Millions of dollars have flowed into the coffers of BLM, which calls for the defunding of police and whose website (since removed) described the U.S. as a “corrupt democracy originally built on indigenous genocide and chattel slavery [that] thrives today on the brutal exploitation of people of color.”  This mob of ignoramuses have no knowledge of history; they ignore failing schools and Black-on-Black killings in inner cities; they have forgotten (or never knew of) advances in civil rights over the past half century and are blind to the economic gains made by Blacks in the last two years of the Trump Administration. “They are,” as Communist expert and author Trevor Loudon wrote about BLM, “following the line of the Chinese Cultural Revolution… that toppled statues and desecrated monuments.” “It’s hard to find precedents for a civilization turning on itself with such fury,” said Heather MacDonald in an interview with The Epoch Times.

And yet, and yet, there may be a reaction to this madness – perhaps an over-reaction. Leaders at BLM may have over-played their hand. Just as Extinction Rebellion’s shutting down of London in October 2019 was an over-reach by extremists in the climate wars, the lack of wisdom shown by officials in Seattle to CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest) may come to signify the height of political idiocy. The London episode led to Michael Shellenberger’s writing Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, a commonsensical look at our changing climate. It is too early to say if some member of the “progressive” Left will, likewise, exchange advocacy and propaganda for reason and facts, as they pertain to the issue of race. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. “Jim Crow” laws were enacted by white, southern Democrats in the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries in excessive response to North-imposed Reconstruction, which provided needed assistance to former slaves but humiliated whites. When a pendulum is moved beyond its usual arc, it does not revert to its normal, central position. It Can’t Happen Here was a satirical play written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935. It was based on the rise of National Socialism in Europe. To believe that America today could not fall victim to authoritarian terrorist groups like BLM and Antifa is to be blind to the fact that schools, universities, media and corporations have already acquiesced to their demands. Democracy shuts down one door at a time.

The election is four months out. With the choice being an undisciplined Mr. Trump or a cognitively impaired Mr. Biden, the temptation may be to check off None of the Above. Such a decision is okay if one is offered a rotten apple or a spoiled banana, but that is never the right verdict in an election. Sometimes we must vote for the least bad candidate but choose we must. This time the choice should be easy. It is the Party, not the candidate. Democrats have become radicalized to a degree unthinkable a few months ago. Daniel Henninger wrote in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal that “this will be a revolutionary election.” Perhaps, but not revolutionary in the spirit of 1776. This time the “revolutionaries” are more interested in destruction than creation. Gone is the land of opportunity; the future they offer is nihilistic.

The Month That Was - May 2019

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

The Month That Was – May 2019

June 1, 2019

“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

                                                                        Williams Shakespeare (1564-1616)

                                                                        “Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer Day?” 1609

Cultural wars are largely bloodless, but that does not render them ineffective. While not perfect, liberal western societies have done more for mankind than any other system yet devised. They have in common a neo-classical heritage, representative government, natural rights, free market economies, rule of law, an understanding of civics and an appreciation for history. These characteristics (which we in the West take for granted but should not) have lifted millions of people out of poverty and brought freedom to even more. Now, politicians and commentators from both sides see these traits under attack. It is the cause that is disputed, and which has been responsible for the social and political divisiveness here and in Europe.

Those on the right see the threat to liberalism stemming from the growing power and influence of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, an absence of a universal moral sense and diminishing virtues, universities intolerant of conservative thought, a myopic media, a facile entertainment industry and a tolerance for the intolerant. Those on the left find blame “far-right populists,” “racists” and “white supremacists.” In an article two weeks ago, in the Wall Street Journal, Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and Stanford professor, supported their view: Citing the fact that we have seen “…twelve years of erosion…,” he dated the start of the decline to 2006. However, he laid blame on a “…new wave of populist authoritarians from Hungary to the Philippines,” but ignored the fact that Viktor Orbán was elected prime minister of Hungary in 2010 and that Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines in 2016. While slavering blame indiscriminately on conservatives, he wrote, “…America’s decay is increasingly advanced. President Donald Trump has insulted U.S. allies, befriended Vladimir Putin, excused a grim list of other dictators, embraced nativist politics and movements…” I believe Professor Diamond is wrong.

All societies most be wary of attacks, no matter from which direction they come. But, overlooked in Mr. Diamond’s diatribe is that Eastern Europe, after almost six decades of subjection, first to Nazi and then to Soviet rule, is now, understandably, defending its sovereignty. As well, he disregarded the fact President Obama cozied up to Cuba’s Castro’s and to Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, that he bowed to the Saudi king, and paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran for a flawed nuclear deal. The pallets of dollars airlifted to Tehran went to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to help fund Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Mr. Obama failed to prod China into following trade rules, and never confronted Vladimir Putin on his interference in the Middle East. Also omitted was the role played by the Clintons in expediting the sale of Uranium One to Russia. Mr. Trump has imposed the toughest sanctions on Russia of any recent President; he has confronted China for their theft of technology and for their aggression in the South China Sea. He has told allies in Europe – countries which provide generous welfare payments to their citizens – that they should pay two percent of their GDP for their own defense. And that is an insult? 

………………………………………………………………………

Attorney General William Barr has become an anathema to the Left, as he threatens the narrative that Donald Trump is a risk to liberalism, that he is the cause of the divisions that rend our nation. Like students in Winthrop House at Harvard, the Left feels imperiled by the directive issued by President Trump to Mr. Barr, to declassify all documents and files from the CIA, the Justice Department and the National Security Agency that led to the Mueller investigation. Now, Democrats, acting like spoiled Harvard students, seek safety, and hope to find it in the diversionary tactic of bringing articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump. They take their strategy from Fifth Century BC Chinese General Sun Tzu who said the best defense is a good offense. We saw this during the past month, in words and threats from Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and others. We saw it in the Bob Mueller interview and in Nancy Pelosi’s dancing through the raindrops, navigating the Scylla of her neurotic, far-left members and the Charybdis of what impeachment would mean in 2020. Mr. Mueller’s report made clear that no investigation was obstructed. Everyone he chose to interview was interviewed and, while Mr. Trump suggested Mr. Mueller be fired, no one acted on it. Yet, he insisted he had not exonerated the President. But as the Wall Street Journal’s Thursday editorial reminded us: “Since when do prosecutors make it their job to pronounce whether someone they investigate is exonerated? Their job is to indict, or not, and if not, then keep quiet.” Innocence is the default position in this country. As a friend, a retired British judge, recently wrote me: “The judicial process in the U.S. is really weird…If there is no evidence, surely he has actually been exonerated.” Vincent Davis Hanson, in a recent essay on this matter, likened Democrats’ relentless pursuit of Mr. Trump to Captain Ahab’s phobic quest for Moby Dick.

Progressives are not paragons of virtue interested in righting wrongs. They want the power that political office brings. They are concerned with what Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz might find, as he looks into the justification used by the Obama Administration for secret surveillance warrants from U.S. FISA Courts, warrants used to spy on the Trump campaign. They know the probe will consider the “dossier” created by Fusion GPS and British former spy Christopher Steele. They are troubled that Mr. Barr hired John Durham, United State Attorney for the District of Connecticut, to investigate origins of the alleged “Trump-Russian collusion” or conspiracy, when no collusion was found by Robert Mueller.  Questions need be answered. Was the dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, Russian misinformation? Why did the FBI use questionable sources to obtain the FISA warrants to spy on Carter Page, a junior member of the Trump campaign? What was the role played by James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper and even Bob Mueller? Were the Justice Department and the CIA actually spying on the Trump campaign and, if so, who was responsible? Should anyone in the Obama Administration be held accountable? When the door to this dank cellar opens, ill-smelling odors will emerge. A liberal society cannot survive if one side uses government for its own, political purpose? The media appears uninterested in this story, as it does not conform with the tale they have been telling for the past two and a half years. Fashioning a defense is more important than a search for the truth. All of this explains the vicious attacks on the “villainous” Donald Trump, as Nancy Pelosi referred to him. But it is more than that. It is an attack on our form of government – our democratic republic. Democrats never accepted their loss in 2016; they did not accept the findings of Mr. Mueller. They have but one objective: Destroy the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. That end, in their opinion, justifies any means.

…………………………………………………………………

The European Parliament is the only EU political organization directly elected by the people. While it does not have much power – most of that resides in the appointed European Commission – it is reflective of sentiment. That said, last Sunday’s European Parliament election showed centrist parties holding a slim majority of the 751 seats. But the vote was really a victory for parties outside the mainstream. It showed dissatisfaction with the status quo. Nationalist parties like Brexit in England, National Rally in France, Alternative for Germany, and League in Italy garnered about twenty-five percent of the vote. Ivan Krastev wrote in the New York Times: “Of the five individual political parties with the biggest representation in the new European Parliament, four are anti-European Union.” As well, far-Left and Green parties added 60 seats, bringing their total to 176, or twenty-three percent. Europe has a problem, and… it is Europe, which has encouraged dependency and become less free. With the background of a 20^thCentury bloodbath of two wars and a global depression, it is unsurprising that Europe emerged from the Second World War focused on building social welfare states, with the United States providing much of its defense.  As a consequence, they have inhibited economic growth and lost sight of the virtues of Western culture. They are not living up to their potential. With forty percent more people than the U.S., Europe generates a GDP that is thirty percent less. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Josef Joffe noted that while Russia brags of its neo-imperialism, China develops its Belt and Road Initiative and Donald Trump focuses on “America First,” Europe is underperforming, “rudderless and rent by internal divisions.” As for the influx of Muslim migrants, sanctimonious European progressives accept the conventional wisdom that Islam is a religion of peace, while ignoring the fact that it has become an instrument of war.

Prime Minister Theresa May, who has been a disaster for Britain, announced her intent to resign on June 7. Her Conservative Party finished the EU Parliamentary elections with less than ten percent of the vote – their worst showing in history. Labour did little better, with less than fifteen percent. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party was the top vote-getter, with thirty-two percent. The future of Brexit, already delayed, remains in doubt. In India, the world’s largest democracy where over six hundred million people voted, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party won re-election by a margin exceeding expectations. President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, won re-election, running against a hardline Muslim opponent – former army general Prabowo Subianto. Scott Morrison, of the center-right Liberal Party, came from behind to win re-election as Prime Minister of Australia. Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the Austrian People’s Party called for a snap election after the country’s Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, of the Freedom Party, resigned over a secretly-filmed video that showed him promising government contracts to a woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch. A new vote will be held in September. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, of the African National Congress, won re-election with an absolute majority, but diminished support. Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government in Israel, leading to a new round of elections in September.

The war of words with Iran intensified. A missile launched by a suspected Iran-backed militia landed within a mile of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Attacks on four Saudi tankers, off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf, were attributed to Iran. A pipeline in Saudi Arabia was attacked. Iran was said to be responsible. Iran maintains a presence in Syria and Yemen and is becoming more involved in Iraq. Their purpose: destabilize the region by weakening the Sunni faction led by Saudi Arabia. The U.S. retaliated. Diplomats in Iraq were withdrawn, and the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike force moved into the Persian Gulf. The White House designated the IRGC a terrorist organization. A game of good-cop, bad-cop was played, with National Security Advisor John Bolton playing the bad cop and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acting as good cop. Sanctions, imposed by the U.S., after withdrawing from the faulty Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by then Secretary of State John Kerry, are hurting their economy. President Trump wants to tighten them further. He wants to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero, by ending all sanction waivers for countries importing Iranian crude. 

……………………………………………………………………….

Stocks traded lower during the month. The S&P 500 was down 6.6% for the month – the first down month of the year – driven lower by slowing global economic growth, an inverted yield curve and trade wars with China and Mexico. The Michigan Consumer Confidence Index for May came in at 100.0, 2.8 points above April but below the 102.0 estimate. The first revision to first quarter U.S. GDP showed the economy grew at 3.1%, modestly below the 3.2% earlier reported. Bonds rallied, and the Ten-year Note ended the month with a yield twenty-one basis points lower than the Three-month Bill. Gold rallied 1.7 percent, while oil (West Texas Intermediate) fell 11.5 percent. Bitcoin, continuing its rally, rose 16.5% to $8525.55.

………………………………………………………………………

In other news, Billionaire Robert Smith, a black technology investor, announced in a graduation speech at Morehouse College that he would pay off all the student loans of graduating seniors, an amount estimated at $40 million. The New York Timeslamented that if only he had paid higher taxes, the government could have done the same thing. Jeff Koon’s “Rabbit,” a stainless-steel copy of a plastic inflatable toy, which is owned by Robert Mnuchin, art dealer and father of the U.S. Treasury Secretary, was sold at auction for $91.1 million – a record for a living artist – proving that a fool and his money are soon parted. The College Board, a non-profit company that owns and administers the SAT, announced they would include a new rating, an “adversity score,” using fifteen subjective factors, leading us further from a merit-based society. President Trump unveiled an immigration plan that would emphasize skills, eliminate the visa lottery and limit family migration to immediate family – spouses and minor children. The government filed a suit against U.S. makers of generic drugs for colluding to raise prices. North Carolina, facing rising healthcare costs, as are most states, voted to end future-retiree healthcare coverage for new workers hired in 2021. The problem is wide-spread. According to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “…pension funds across the country are, by some estimates, $4 trillion short!” Tiger Woods received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Valerie Plame, former CIA operative and infamous for her claim she was “outed” during George W. Bush’s second term, announced she is running for Congress. Less well known are her anti-Semitic tweets, urging followers to read articles like “America’s Jews are Driving America’s Wars” and “Why I Still Dislike Israel.” On the last day of the month, twelve people were killed in a shooting at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center.

Scientists from Cambridge University created a living organism from DNA that is entirely man made. The New York Timesreported, “…perhaps a new form of life, experts said, and a milestone in the field of synthetic biology.” Or, will this be the genesis of a new “master race?” A California jury awarded a California couple $2.055 billion who blamed their cancer on the weed killer Roundup, a product acquired by Bayer from Monsanto last year. There are 13,400 claims against Bayer tying cancer to the herbicide. Roundup was first introduced in 1974. While companies should be liable for faulty and dangerous products, awards of this size, along with class-action suits, threaten scientific research, medical practice and product development. Tort reform is needed. A Great White shark was spotted in Long Island Sound, off the coast of Greenwich, apparently looking for Wall Street brethren.  Jean-Jacques Savin spent 127 days inside a capsule-shaped barrel, as he drifted with currents and wind from the Canary Islands, across the Atlantic, to St. Eustatius in the Caribbean – a 3,125-nautical-mile trip. “I lived my dream,” he said upon landing. (I would have thought a nightmare!) The King of Thailand, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, age 66, was crowned, two years after ascending the throne. The delay was due to years of mourning for his father who had served as King for seven decades. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle welcomed their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. An albino Panda was sighted in Southwestern China. There have been at least ten deaths on Mt. Everest this year, attributed to the large numbers of paying climbers. They were guided up the mountain and then had to wait in line to make the final ascent. One climber said, “It was scary. It was like a zoo.” Julian Assange, who is now being held by British police, awaits extradition to either the U.S. for espionage or to Sweden for rape. Berlin condemned as anti-Semitic the growing international movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, a movement supported by a number of American universities. Ayaan Hirsi Ali described Islamist-driven anti-Semitism as “the reigning anti-Semitism of the day.” The plan to oust Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro appears to have failed.

………………………………………………………………………

Death appeared. Edmund Morris, presidential biographer, died at 78. Former Republican Senator Todd Cochran of Mississippi died at 81. George Kelling, who with James Q. Wilson developed the “broken-window” method of law enforcement, died at 83. Bart Starr, the most valuable player in Super Bowls I and II, died at 85. Richard Lugar, former Republican Senator from Indiana who was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Obama, died at 87. Murray Gell-Mann, the physicist behind the concept of the ‘Quark’ and once married to a neighbor’s (in Old Lyme) daughter, died at 89. Warren Phillips, long-time newsman and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, died at 92. John Lukacs, historian and biographer and who once wrote “knowledge of the past is the very opposite of a burden,” died at 95. Doris Day, a perennial favorite and of whom Oscar Levant once said, “I knew her before she was a virgin,” died at 97. Robert Maxwell, a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, died at 98. I.M. Pei, whose “graceful grids of glass” graced buildings and skylines around the world, died at 102. Herman Wouk, author of “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War,” died at 103. And I lost three friends: Charles Rinaldi, 76 and Jim Dwyer, 77, both of Darien, CT, and Milt Allen, 92, a friend from Old Lyme and neighbor in Essex.

………………………………………………………………………

It is easy to despair for today’s culture’s negative effect on our political systems. It is easy to fear that democracies and free-market capitalist markets are headed for decline. Moral relativism has replaced a sense of universal virtue embedded in our generations-old Judeo-Christian heritage. Political correctness and identity politics have divided us. The concept of service, especially as it applies to national politics, has disappeared. Harry Truman once said about the Presidency: “It belongs to the American people and it is not for sale.” President Clinton showed that it was for sale, taking in millions of dollars for himself and his foundation. George W. Bush, more modest, adhered to the Truman standard. Now, Barack Obama looks to better Bill Clinton, with a multi-million-dollar deal with Netflix, estimated at $125 million, and a $65 million book deal with Penguin Random House. Deals like these attract the wrong people to politics, not driven by a sense of public duty, but as a means to become rich. As well, we have become more dependent, as an editorial during the month in London’s Financial Timesmade clear:The headline: “Jobs are no longer a route out of poverty in the UK.” They cited a report from the United Nations human rights council – a group that includes Venezuela and China, that regularly condemns Israel and from which the U.S., thankfully, withdrew in 2018. The report, endorsed by the FT, condemned the UK for emphasizing individual responsibility instead of compassion:“..relying on employment alone is not enough...precarious employment, low wage growth and expensive housing costs mean a job is not the route out of poverty it once was.”One can only conclude, corruption is rampant in politics and global governmental bodies are moving toward administrative states. An emphasis on equality of outcomes, rather than opportunities, means sidelining the more important goal of encouraging social and economic mobility. In the U.S., the Left caters to teachers’ unions in preventing the spread of charter schools, the competitive alternative to failing public schools in inner cities.  A cynic would conclude that hypocritical progressives want to keep people ignorant and easier to control. Perhaps? We should keep open the gates of mobility and not maintain a status quo where the rich stay rich and the poor remain poor. 

But I go on too long. June is upon us, a month of flowers and sunshine, a month of graduations, reunions and anniversaries. In three weeks, it will be summer. Enjoy the month.

"The Month That Was - April 2019"

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

The Month That Was – April 2019

May 1, 2019

“Elections should be held on April 16 – the day after we pay our income taxes.

That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.”

                                                                                    Thomas Sowell (1930-)

                                                                                    Economist and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institute

It wasn’t so much the release of the Mueller report – that was expected, as were its contents, at least by people like me – it was the reaction of Democrats, and others with TDS (Trump Derangemnt Syndrome), which showed that hatred for the President supersedes concern for liberalism. The report stated that no member of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to sway the 2016 election. The report also said that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges of obstruction against the President. A bill of clean health, presented by a man who was no fan of the President, should have been reason to move onto other issues:immigration, healthcare, defense, taxes and debt, even Socialism, if that’s what the people prefer – issues on which reasonable people disagree and that are of importance to us all, to our democracy. Instead, the left is playing to its extremist base – pursuing any avenue, including impeachment, that can hamper the President, in his quest for re-election. The Mueller investigation was initiated by Democrats, but it is a game on which there are two sides. In the next few weeks, Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to issue his summation of possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by top officials in the Obama Administration, and the role played by the Steele Dossier, which was compiled on behalf of Fusion GPS and paid for by the Clinton Campaign and the DNC. Personal hatred for Mr. Trump has been the driving force and the division it has caused will not soon be remedied.   

That Robert Mueller was a biased investigator could be seen in his gratuitous observation that the special counsel’s report “does not exonerate” Mr. Trump. It is not the function of a prosecutor (or a special investigator) to “exonerate” anyone, or even offer opinions. His investigation was to gather facts and determine whether charges should be brought. If evidence of wrong-doing was there, an indictment from a Grand Jury would have been sought, or the impeachment process would have begun. If not, he should have said nothing. We live in a country under the rule of law, where an accused is innocent until proven guilty. With not enough evidence to charge Mr. Trump with a crime, Mr. Mueller’s job was done. Mr. Trump and his campaign did not collude with the Russians. It is odd that the mainstream media did not revel in the fact that while Russia attempted to interfere in our election, they were unsuccessful. That should have been reason to celebrate. It apparently was not. Calls for impeachment grew louder. The Pandora Box being opened by those like  Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) will reverberate down through the years and will come to haunt those who believe a desired end justifies any means, legal or illegal, ethical or unethical.

……………………………………………………………………

Christians had a tough month. More than 250 people – “Easter worshippers,” as Barack Obama fatuously called them – were killed in Sri Lanka, most while attending Easter services at Catholic churches. ISIS took responsibility, along with a local Islamic militant terrorist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath. Among the dead were four Americans. As a percent of the population, this attack was larger than the ones on 9/11. What made it worse were reports that officials in Sri Lanka had warnings that such an attack was imminent and apparently did nothing. In Egypt, forty Coptic Christians were killed on Palm Sunday. Over 300 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since February, including half a dozen children on Easter. An April 23 article in the Washington Post, put it this way: “Estimates of how many Christians are killed yearly around the world because of their faith vary widely, from thousands to the tens of thousands, but it is certain that at any hour of the day, a Christian somewhere is being martyred. Much of this violence, though, occurs in places the Western media typically overlook.” The French were quick to not blame terrorist groups for the fire in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. Nevertheless, it is ironic that a cathedral that stood for over 800 years was burned in an age when technology has made fire prevention better and response times faster. The question now is how should the cathedral be rebuilt? We live in an age of what Pope Benedict XVI, in 2005, called the “dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive.” We live in a secular age, at least those of us of the Judeo-Christian faith, when cathedrals are no longer symbols of transcendence, but are tourist attractions. As Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote, the contemporary West is one of “…dismantlers. We topple statues by night and rename streets, squares and buildings…to virtue-signal our angst over our postindustrial superiors.” In an age of multiculturalism, religion is seen as naïve and boorish.

Elections were held in Ukraine, Israel, Turkey, Slovakia, Finland and Spain, and a military coup occurred in Sudan. Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old actor with no political experience, will become the next president of Ukraine, as he garnered 73% of the vote in an election against incumbent Petro Poroshenko. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu won re-election (his fifth term), with the Likud Party winning the majority of votes in poorer districts. This victory will assure Mr. Netanyahu becomes Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party appeared to have lost local elections in Istanbul, causing the authoritarian Mr. Erdogan to dispute returns. Slovakia elected its first female president, the pro-European Zuzana Čaputová. The election was, according to the Wall Street Journal, “a striking, if isolatedpolitical shift for Central and Eastern Europe.” In Finland, the Centre Party of outgoing Prime Minister Juha Sipilä saw its support decline by a third to 13.8% of the vote. The Social Democratic Party (center-left) scored 17.7% of the vote, while the far-right Finns Party received 17.5%. Chairman of the Finns Party Jussi Halla-aho received the most votes of any candidate for the Eduskunta, Finland’s Parliament. A snap election in Spain saw the Spanish Socialists Workers Party, led by Pedro Sánchez, increase their number of seats to 123 from 85 in the 350-seat parliament; so despite claims to the contrary, Mr. Sánchez will have to form a coalition government. The big loser was the liberal-conservative People’s Party, which lost 71 seats and now has 66. The right-wing Vox Party picked up 24 seats, their first since its founding six years ago. An April 29 article in the Wall Street Journalnoted: “…today’s Europeans feel weak allegiances to any party – coupled with alienation from technocratic political elites.” Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, who had been in office three decades, was forced out by a military coup. Indonesia announced it would move its capital from Jakarta to an, as yet, undetermined city on a less-populated island.

On the last day of the month, Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido called for a military uprising to overthrow Nicolas Maduro’s persistent attempts – with help from Cuba and Russia – to deny his (Senor Guaido’s) legitimacy. President Trump received an invitation from Queen Elizabeth for a State Visit to England. He is expected to arrive on June 3^rdand on June 6 travel to Normandy for the 75^thcommemoration of D-Day. French President Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to abolish the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the elite, postgraduate institution that has provided most of France’s presidents, prime ministers and business executives (and from which he graduated). The school was founded in 1945 to promote “social mixing,” with acceptances based on merit not privilege. However, over the years, applicants have increasingly come from the upper classes. NATO celebrated its 70^thAnniversary on April 4^th. No NATO member, including the U.S., observed the anniversary. President Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, a treaty in effect since 2014 but never ratified by the U.S. Senate. Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization, which it is. April was the 25^thanniversary of the Rwanda genocide, during which militant Hutus killed between 800,000 and a million Tutsis, including some moderate Hutus, over a period of three months. This in a country, then, of just over six million people.

…………………………………………………………………………

Five more Democrats entered the race for President – Pete Buttigieg, Mike Gravel, Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan and Joe Biden. They join fifteen already-announced candidates. Three others, Marianne Williamson, Stacy Abrams and Michael Bennet, have all said they are considering a run. Howard Schultz is said to be giving “serious consideration” to throwing his hat in the ring. Michael Bloomberg said he would not join the circus. As an American who believes in a government of the people, I love the interest. As an avid reader of the news, I look forward to the entertainment. But, as a New Englander who worries about fiscal profligacy, I am staggered that thousands of Americans have already put up $100 million to allow priggish egoists their moment in the sun. While more wannabes may jump into the pond, the next six months should see a winnowing of the field. On the Republican side, Mr. Trump has two challengers: William Weld and Larry Hogan, who both announced in April. John Kasich has not yet made up his mind. The President, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Schumer agreed to pursue a two trillion dollar infrastructure bill.

………………………………………………………………………….

A preliminary report for first quarter GDP showed the U.S. economy grew at 3.2%, considerably above revised-upward estimates. The U.S Labor Department reported on April 24 that, for the third week in a row, unemployment claims were the lowest since September 1969, despite the fact that the workforce is twice what it was fifty years ago. Inflation is running at 1.9 percent. But not all fiscal news is good. The annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report issued during the month showed that costs of the programs will exceed income in 2020 – the first time since 1982. The difference between then and now is that then we were at the bottom of a thirty-seven-year bear market in bonds and a ten-year bear market in stocks. Now we are, arguably, thirty-seven years into a bull market in both stocks and bonds. Can markets go higher? Of course, but we are not in the early stages of a bull run. Public pension funds share a similar fate. The Wall Street Journalreported that, “according to the most recent data from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research,” liabilities of major U.S. public pension funds are up 64% since 2007, while assets are up 30%. If private retirement and healthcare plans had posted those results, the managers would have been accused of “running a Ponzi scheme,” as Dan Mitchell recently wrote in International Liberty.

The DJIA rose 2.6%, not far off its all-time high reached seven months ago. U.S. Treasuries fell slightly, with the yield on the Ten-year rising two basis points. Gold declined $10.00 and the price of Bitcoins continued to recover, rising 28% for the month. Between $400 million and $800 million worth of Bitcoins are sent daily across the network – a lot of money, but about half the daily volume of PayPal. Interest rates remain at artificially low levels. Any pressure put on the Federal Reserve to lower rates by Mr. Trump will only lead to an increase in already-too-much unproductive debt. Modern Monetary Theory argues that countries with fiat currencies – backed by the governments that issue them – can take on as much debt as is necessary to keep their economies humming. Perhaps? I am not an economist, but debt issued must be repaid if the issuer is to maintain its credit rating. The risk to the Treasury investor is not one of default. It is that the principal will be repaid in a devalued currency. Two percent inflation causes a currency to lose half its value every generation. Is the current 2.89% coupon on a Thirty-year U.S. Treasury worth the risk that too much federal debt may push up inflation rates? When we look for extremes in financial markets, we should turn toward debt markets. Encouraging further borrowings is dangerous, at least in my opinion.

…………………………………………………………………….

A team of doctors and scientists in Israel created a human heart using a 3D printer. While the heart was made with actual human biological material, it is only about the size of a rabbit’s heart. Nevertheless, this is a step forward in the field of organ transplants. Poland announced it is considering buying Israeli gas and reduce purchases from Russia. Japan’s Emperor Akihito, the son of war time Emperor Hirohito, abdicated in favor of his son, Crown Prince Naruhito. A handful of fossilized teeth and bones were discovered in the Philippines, evidence of a previously unknown human species. A direct image of a supermassive black hole 54 million light years away was photographed for the first time, using the International Event Horizon Telescope, a consortium that has radio telescopes around the world from the U.S. to Mexico to Chile to the South Pole. Extinction Rebellion, an environmental group (composed of, according to the London Telegraph, “well-heeled social parasites”) smashed the entrance to Dutch Shell’s headquarters, stripped naked in Parliament and generally messed up traffic and train service in London. On a visit to Beijing, Philip Hammond, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, praised China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Mr. Hammond also suggested the UK would scale back criticism of China’s expansion in the South China Sea. In a controversial move, the UK opened their 5G data network to the Chinese telecom group Huawei, the largest manufacturer of telecom equipment in the world. China’s BRI strategy, which now owns stakes in a dozen European ports, combined with Huawei’s mysterious ties to the Communist leadership in Beijing, represent a threat to America’s global hegemony and, thus, world peace. The cartoon published in the European edition of the New York Times, which showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog leading a blind President Trump was despicable. Editors of the Times would never have allowed a Muslim or the leader of any other ethnic group, with the possible exception of Christians, to be portrayed as a dog. It was the dehumanizing of Jews in the 1930s that served as prelude to pogroms in Nazi Germany. 

Brexit remains on its tortuous path, a consequence of ineptness on the part of Prime Minister Theresa May and hindered by the nastiness of bureaucrats in Brussels. “Something profoundly unpleasant has happened in Britain over the past three years,” wrote Andrew Roberts in an April 13^thop-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “It can be summed up as a barely concealed dislike of democracy on the part of a considerable subsection of the elite, those who lost the referendum.” In response to Britain’s nightmare, Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party, launched the Brexit Party. Julian Assange, after seven years, was asked to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He was, then, arrested by British police. The U.S. is seeking extradition for the 2010 Wikileaks release of classified documents he had received from Army Private Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning in early 2010. Far-left British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said the extradition of Julian Assange to the U.S. “should be opposed by the British government.” The Trump foreign policy team scored a win in the Hague: The International Criminal Court (ICC) dropped a decade-long inquiry into alleged crimes by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. The U.S. has never accepted the Court’s jurisdiction. While the Bush and the Obama Administrations opposed the ICC’s prosecuting of U.S. nationals, the Trump Administration took definitive steps.

……………………………………………………………………………

Kirsten Nielson resigned as Homeland Security Secretary. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein submitted his resignation to be effective May 11. Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor of Chicago. Brian Hagedorn, a conservative judge won election to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. New York City, which saw a population resurgence in the aftermath of 9/11, lost 39,523 residents in 2018, on top of 37,705 in 2017 – the first such losses in over a decade. While Yale and Middlebury, among other colleges, were denying the right of conservatives to speak, Brigham Young University was contending with students upset over an honor code that tries to balance church doctrine with the more mainstream views of their undergraduates. Two students at UNC in Charlotte, NC were shot and killed, while four were wounded, three critically. A suspect, 22-year-old Trystan Andrew Terrell, was taken into custody. While Jussie Smollett was in Hawaii celebrating his release from charges that he fabricated a racist attack, the perpetrators of that attack, the Osundairo brothers, sued him for character defamation. The Supreme Court heard a case in which no one dared utter the word at the heart of the dispute. It involved a clothing line, FUCT, which the owner said stood for Friends U Can’t Trust. Malcolm Stewart, a lawyer for the federal government, called the word, “the equivalent of the past participle of the paradigmatic profane word in our culture.” A Chinese woman, with a cache of electronic devices, was arrested trying to enter President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.  

A woman was shot and killed, and three people wounded at Congregation Chabad, a synagogue in Poway, California. The shooter was identified as 19-year old John Earnest, a student at California State University San Marcos. Donald Trump, playing to Democrats’ sense of inflated self-righteousness, offered sanctuary cities an unlimited supply of illegal (“unauthorized,” as the NY Times euphemistically calls them) immigrants. An American flag logo on the side of police cars in Laguna Beach, CA, divided the coastal city. “It feels very aggressive,” said one dopey, sanctimonious resident. The City Council decided to let the logo stand. Baylor won the women’s NCAA championship, while Virginia won the men’s. In a remarkable comeback, Tiger Woods won the Masters, his 15^thmajor title and his first since 2008, Lawrence Cherono of Kenya won the 123^rdBoston Marathon in 2:07:27, beating Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia by two seconds. Worknesh Defefa of Ethiopa won the women’s in 2:23:30.

……………………………………………………………………….

Lyra McKee, a 29-year old freelance journalist and editor of news aggregator Mediagazer, was killed in Londonderry, Northern Ireland while covering unrest in the neighborhood of Creggan. Former U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) died at age 87. Charles Van Doren, infamous for his role in a cheating scandal on NBC’s 1950s game show “Twenty-One,” died at 93. Richard Cole, last survivor of the famed Doolittle raid over Tokyo in April 1942 and a member of the “Greatest Generation,” died at 103.

…………………………………………………………………………..

President Trump does not fit the ideal I would prefer in a President. He is not articulate. His speech is littered with malapropisms. He appeals to emotions rather than reason. I am not a fan of his Tweets. However, I do like his policies, which have boosted the economy and especially helped minorities and working-class Americans. Sixty-five percent of Americans paid less taxes in 2018 than 2017. And I like that he has tracked entitled political establishment types to their Washington lairs and called out the media for their advocacy at the expense of unbiased reporting. Too many progressives speak in dulcet tones about opening borders to any and all and then disappear behind gated communities and homes. They promise health care for all and free tuition, without regard to costs, and they push for a guaranteed basic income without recognizing it will become a floor, not a ceiling. They recommended the ACA, which had no impact on their lives. They ignore the inevitable blowup of Social Security and Medicare, because they are not subject to their provisions. They offer policies that provide temporary relief at a cost of increased dependency. They back teachers’ unions but not school choice, and they ignore the plight of inner-city children who are ill-prepared upon graduation. Mr. Trump’s proposals are more realistic (and he, too, disappears behind the gates of Mar-a-Lago or the safety of the White House), but they align with the Chinese adage of teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish.

Most important, Donald Trump’s Presidency, perhaps unwittingly, has helped expose those like James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, high government officials who abused their positions of trust to help affect a national election. Had they been successful, their unethical behavior might never have become known. My advice as we head into the next eighteen months:patience, be skeptical, keep an open mind, listen and maintain a sense of humor; for this time of polarization, too, shall, at some point, pass.

Welcome to May.