At some level, they know we're right. It's just too much for them to bear.

The right wing sees its values as vulnerable in a changing world. It's not only that non-white people have gained power, although I believe that that has caused many whites to become dangerously unhinged. But LGBTQ rights have also advanced; more Americans have become less religious; most Americans do not want Roe vs. Wade to be reversed.

In addition, it's plain to anyone who really looks at results that unfettered free-market capitalism does not result in better lives for more than a few people, and that the economy actually prospers when regulations and taxation are applied.

Once upon a time, even Republicans saw a role for the government in helping people who have been victimized by natural disasters. Nowadays, the only spending that is not characterized as socialism (or should I say communism) is the defense budget.

Current Republican behavior in the face of coronavirus and vaccination is certainly bizarre, and the corporate embrace of vaccination mandates has suddenly turned the zealots against their erstwhile natural allies.

As with climate change, I believe that the Republican rebellion against coronavirus vaccination and responsible behavior during a pandemic are motivated more by a fear of big government than anything else. Anti-vaxxers are also attacking "big pharma" for wanting to make money on vaccines. Suddenly, capitalism is evil.

Any recognition that the government can and should help in times of trouble; that the market is a human-invented mechanism that needs human intervention (regulation) to work properly; that science has done more to improve human life and health than prayer; that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice or a sin; that Black people are not parasitic layabouts; that public health measures are not fascism; that there are many perfectly good reasons for abortion is just too big an assault on the conservative world view to be tolerated.

Perhaps they are afraid that we are right, that the "values" they have long held dear are false, that the whole infrastructure supporting their beliefs is crumbling.

Their ideas can no longer prevail on their own merits. They have, as a result, actually given up on democracy, to protect their beliefs from society's rejection.

Getting in and out of wars

 Ken Burns's documentary on Vietnam made it clear that all of the presidents who oversaw that war knew that our efforts were failing. But certain attitudes and habits of thought made it very difficult to get out. The main argument for staying in seemed to be that, by abandoning the war, we would be dishonoring all the Americans soldiers who had died thus far. That attitude led to a long war, unwinnable, and still more American deaths. It was a vicious cycle, but the United States wasn't accustomed to losing in those days.

We should have learned more from that experience, perhaps. Our war in Afghanistan lasted twenty years, and our departure was as chaotic as the one from Vietnam. One thing we need to learn is when long enough is long enough, on the basis of whether the mission has been accomplished, whether it can be accomplished, rather than making the decision based on notions of honor or dishonor.

Joe Biden made the decision to leave now, reasoning that "nation-building" was not possible in Afghanistan's case, and that twenty years was more than long enough to find that out.

Getting out of wars is very hard. Getting in is much too easy. When 9/11 happened, we were keen to punish the terrorists, who were being sheltered in Afghanistan. There was discussion at the time on whether this was a matter of war, or a matter for law enforcement. Since Al Qaeda was not a country, the law enforcement option made sense to me. But George W. Bush sold us on a "global war on terror," which, in fact, was pretty much limited to Afghanistan and Bush's personal obsession, Iraq.

An attitude that needs changing when war decisions are being made, in my opinion, is that once a president declares his attention to take the nation to war, the patriotic thing to do is to get behind him and see it through. But how quickly should that falling in line happen? It seems to me that our politicians were getting behind George W. Bush before a proper discussion on whether or not war was a good idea. And most Democrats were as guilty of this rush to war as anybody else. Republicans have portrayed themselves as national security tough guys, and I fear that Democrats are too often intimidated by the accusation that we are soft in that department.

Not going into all-out war in Afghanistan and Iraq would have spared us all the pain of those wars and the anguish about when and how to get out.

With malice toward all, apparently...

I have noted before that Republicans' dedication to states' rights is contingent: they seem to insist on states' rights only in cases where the state is harming some part of the citizenry. Let a state try to do something to benefit its citizens, and Republican principle vanishes.

We have seen similar behavior lately in the Republican attitude toward the rights of business owners. They have insisted that businesses involved in weddings should be allowed to discriminate against same-sex couples. No cake for you!

But consider what has been happening in Florida. Cruise lines, for the protection of their customers, and of their businesses, want prospective customers to prove that they have been vaccinated for COVID, or that they have a recent negative test for the virus. Suddenly, the Republican pro-business stance is reversed.

It seems to me that one principle overrides any others in these cases. Which choice will harm the most people? Republicans seem intent on spreading misery.

When bloviators ask questions

Recently, John Oliver did a great critique of Tucker Carlson's racist message. I want to call attention to a tiny part of the segment. Often, one hears pleading questions from people who sound like they're seeking answers. Here are some examples from Tucker Carlson:  

"White nationalism. Let's be literal for a minute. What is that, exactly?"

"I don't even know what white nationalist means, and I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole with you now."

"Why doesn't anyone ever define white supremacy? What is white supremacy? 

"Could somebody tell us in very clear language what a white supremacist is?"

The noticeable thing about these repeated questions (and what accounts for their endless repetition) is that the person asking the question really has no desire for an answer to his question. Otherwise, he'd never need to ask it again.

The way to handle these people is to call attention to that very fact. "You ask that question in a way that makes it apparent that you don't want an answer."

Motes and beams

 The right-wing types who get their information from, or even populate, Fox News, have a predilection and a well-developed ability to interpret the tiniest faults of their political enemies as great monstrosities. Call it making mountains out of molehills, but it's even worse than that.

Did someone send them a Happy Holidays or a Seasons Greetings card at Christmas? That is another salvo in the War on Christmas (and, indeed, on the persecuted Christians).

Did some Democratic politician show up in public without his or her American flag pin? A sure sign of loyalty to some other country or alien political or economic system.

Did Barack and Michelle Obama exchange a celebratory fist bump? No. It was a terrorist fist jab.

Did Barack Obama wear a tan suit? Well, I don't know what the hell that's evidence of. One never heard any complaints about Ronald Reagan's multifaceted wardrobe.

In any case, the reason I rehash all of this is that I wondered whether after four years of Trump's attacks on democracy, women, immigrants (both legal and illegal), and anybody who was disloyal even once; his incitements to political violence; his obvious ignorance, laziness, and incompetence at his job; his incessant lying... and whatever other components of the vomitus he left in the public square that I have not included, Democrats might have gained some immunity from Republican nitpicking.

Well, I didn't really wonder. I knew that this particular bit of right-wing behavior wouldn't change. One reason is that, for all their magnification of perceived imperfections in Democratic behavior, they could not detect in Donald Trump's behavior any flaw at all. Indeed, when I trotted out a dozen or so of Trump's most egregiously offensive statements, a right-wing acquaintance of mine said, basically, Oh, come on! Everybody in public life occasionally says things that put them in a bad light!

A bad light, indeed. I'm afraid that pointing out the orders of magnitude of the difference between Trump's sins and those of just about any other politician from either party is a losing game. Indeed, this magnification of microscopic faults seems to be the only weapon left for a party that has no positive ideas of its own.

At noon today, January 20, 2021, I exhaled.

On the morning of November 9, 2016, I awoke full of dread. I knew that come January 20, 2017, a man who was manifestly unfit for the job would become president of the United States. The knot has remained in my stomach pretty constantly since that morning.

What havoc might the new president wreak on the world stage? How would he respond to natural disasters? What damage might he do to our democracy?

In the following four years, i found out just how mean-spirited he was, how racist, how unprepared for office. He lived down to my expectations in a big way.

There was one thought that kept me going: I knew that, in the world's highest office, in front of literally everyone, he was sure to fail spectacularly.

Unfortunately, to fail spectacularly as president of the United States is to be extremely destructive. His failure at managing the coronavirus epidemic has led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. His failure to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution has led to national unrest and, ultimately, to an attempted coup, as his deluded followers rioted inside the Capitol building, leading to more deaths. So, my joy at seeing him fail on the world stage is tempered by grief.

I might have written this essay in October of last year. The president's positive test for coronavirus gave me hope of a tidy ending to his regime. I am not in the least ashamed that I have checked the news almost every morning since January 20, 2017, hoping to read that he had died. No shame whatsoever.

Unlike in films and television, real world events don't usually have neat, tidy endings. This one certainly has not. Throughout the 2020 election, our hollow president hammered home the lie that mail-in ballots would lead to massive voter fraud. He had his supporters conditioned to believe that, should he lose, it would be because the opposition had rigged the election. So, when it came time for him to concede to Joseph Biden, the clear winner, he claimed that the election had been stolen from him, as he had predicted. And his most ardent supporters believed him.

So, my joy is further tempered by the fact that our ex-president is likely not self-aware enough to realize the magnitude of his failure. And, on top of that, after four years of unmitigated disaster, over 70 million people voted for him in 2020. These people do not realize that their president was a failure.

Who are these people? I think that it is human nature to look for a charismatic leader when politics seems like such a quagmire, so full of red tape and difficult decisions. Our ex-president's supporters fell for him big time. He was certainly utterly different from any politician they (or we) had ever seen. They found the difference so refreshing that they were able to overlook or explain away all of his egregious faults. Was he a flawed man? Well, so was King David. God would make use of this new flawed man. Indeed, to the religious right, he was God's anointed; to some, I think he was nearly God himself.

So many people are so easily fooled. I would never have imagined that so many people from the heartland, the places Sarah Palin would describe as the real America, would become such devout followers of a loudmouthed real estate developer from New York City.

We may be hearing more from some of those followers in the coming days. There may be danger. But I did finally exhale, and I am as relaxed as an inhabitant of this crazy world can manage to be.