Today’s political climate feels (and objectively is, in many ways) far more hostile than it was earlier in my lifetime. I’ve often wondered if things would feel as tumultuous to me now if I had lived through the mid and late 60s. The world must have felt heated up with the Cold War in full force. Trouble was brewing in Vietnam. A liberal icon, JFK, gets elected, which must feel like a win for the liberal cause. Then Johnson, sends U.S. combat troops to Vietnam, getting drafted becomes a real thing for people to worry about. Society splits into pro-war (or at least still loyal to the country and our military) and anti-war sides. Anti-war and pro-civil rights seemed to go hand-in-hand, and all were brewing and the fuel for protests. Malcom X is killed in the midst of it, which was likely more meaningful for the civil rights liberals. A few years later, King was killed followed shortly after by the killing of Bobby Kennedy. The 1968 election season was in full swing. Kennedy and McCarthy were vying for the anti-war vote in the democratic primary, and on the heels of meaningful wins, Kennedy was killed. For a liberal, it might have felt like it was all over and the direction of the country was set. Nixon went on to win the White House, twice, and the Democratic Party was in shambles.
Continue reading “Arcs of History”Tag: history
A tale of two presidents (and pitches)
(Photo and story from https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/obama-standing-ovation-toronto)
Barack Obama was not the most popular president the country has seen. His overall average approval was 48%, hitting lows at 40% couple of times in his first and second terms. He came into office with a 67% approval and never quite hit that level again, coming closest in the final polling of his presidency when he reached 59% (these numbers are from the Gallup presidential approval center, other numbers may vary slightly). A notable difference between our current and former presidents is their willingness to go into mixed crowds.
And we wait…for Kavanagh
The cloture vote is coming, and I suspect that Kavanaugh will be confirmed sometime tomorrow.
That makes me sad for a few reasons. This is one of those days I will use this as a diary, and diaries are where people write stuff when they’re sad, so here goes.
When our heroes fall
People aren’t perfect. We’re relatively safe when we idolize fictional characters, because they’re less likely to let us down, but when we idolize real people, we run the risk of being let down by their inevitable imperfection. From Bill O’Reilly to Christopher Columbus to Thomas Jefferson, people do unforgivable things, and we’re stuck trying to balance the good with the bad. What interests me is how people react when it happens.
Will we have our fourth “illegitimate” president in a row?
I’m not a historian, and I don’t know one well enough to ask, but it seems like the illegitimate president is a modern trend. Even if we’ve had one or two before, my guess is that we haven’t had three, could be four, in a row. What do I mean by an illegitimate president? A president who a large swath of Americans reject as the legitimate president because of one thing or another. Clinton, failed to get a majority of the vote. Bush, had a presidency that was decided by a Supreme Court case (which, in my non-legal expert opinion, was decided against the ideology of every single Justice on the bench). Obama’s citizenship, or fraudulent citizenship, made him illegitimate, and now, the election is rigged, so if Clinton wins, her presidency will have the illegitimate label also. Let’s look at each of these in a rational manner.
Continue reading “Will we have our fourth “illegitimate” president in a row?”
Hitting Bregma 