Are debate kids ruining America?

 

I've been reading excerpts from the biography of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, and the description of his high school years seems familiar to me. He was interested in politics early, and while I don't know if he was on the debate team, he was oh so surely a debate kid.

I was a debate kid for two years in high school, and I enjoyed the hell out of it -- the only reason I quit was because my dad made me, so that I could have an after-school job that also required me to work on Saturdays, which is when debate tournaments were held. The style of debate we used in Kansas (I don't know if it still works this way) required two-person teams to show up ready to debate either side of an argument. There were a couple of ways to win -- just present so much evidence (basically, in the form of cited articles) that you'd overwhelm the other team, or to present so many arguments that the other team couldn't keep track of them all. We used "flow charts" to track the arguments, and leaving an argument un-argued against -- no matter how absurd the original argument -- risked losing the round.

With the benefit of hindsight, I see now that the format encouraged a couple of things: Fast talkers -- because the more arguments you could cram into your allotted time, the more difficult you made it to counterargue. It also encouraged absurd out-of-left-field types of arguments that had little to do with the topic at hand, because your opponent probably had prepared to respond. What it didn't encourage: Solving problems, or thoughtful, civil real-life debate. The object of the game was to create too much noise for your opponent to handle.

Debate kids are the folks who grow up to be lawyers and leaders, as well as insufferable Ben Shapiro-style "debate me" pundits. And now I wonder if the game of debate didn't encourage a few generations of Americans to decide that the best way to publicly argue over our issues was to create an extraordinary amount of sound and fury that signified nothing.

One of the biggest challenges for me in 2020...

 ...is being properly righteously angry about events while at the same time not letting the anger get away from me so that I become somebody I don't want to be.

I am trying to figure out how to talk to my pro-life friends about Trump

 

A common refrain at this week's Republican National Convention was that Donald Trump "is the most pro-life president we've ever had." No matter where you stand on the topic, I think there's a fair case to be made that's the truth. He has appointed judges who emboldened state legislatures to take a fresh run at knocking down Roe v. Wade. The right to abortion may never be entirely stricken from precedent, given how Chief Justice John Roberts likes to operate, but it seems likely to be greatly narrowed into near-oblivion over the next few years. We'll see.

I grew up in small town Kansas. I attended an evangelical Mennonite Brethren college. A number of people I care about -- and love -- are passionately anti-abortion. This makes things uneasy between us: I don't much love abortion and I think the decision carries moral weight, but I think there are substantial issues of women's freedom and autonomy involved. So I end up on the pro-choice side of the ledger. But I respect why my pro-life friends feel the way they do.

This fall, I suspect many or most of them will be voting for Trump.

I think this is a tremendous mistake. Trump's indifference to life beyond the womb is well-documented by now -- his willingness to separate migrant families at the border, his eagerness to downplay COVID-19 testing that could save lives and prevent outbreaks because he thinks the numbers make him look bad, his gleeful defense and pardon of war criminals. Given his history of infidelity and promiscuity, I feel pretty sure his pro-life position is transactional.

Some of my pro-life friends are aware of this. One told me, a couple of years ago, that he knew Donald Trump was a bad person -- "but I also think maybe I should thank him, you know?"

There is no way this friend will ever vote for Joe Biden. I don't think I could ever persuade him too. If you think abortion is murder, how could you ever vote for a candidate or party that supports keeping it legal?

And yet: I am convinced that four more years of Donald Trump will be disastrous. That democracy will be grievously injured and that Americans, particularly minority Americans, will suffer. I'm honestly not sure that's avoidable at this point, anyway, but it feels more certain to me if we have a president who -- it seems obvious to me -- is intent on sowing division for his own advantage over one who might actually cares about things beside himself.

So I want to make the case to my pro-life friends that they should not vote for Trump.

But I am not sure that I can, or that the outcome is possible. They see the same country, the same man, that we do. They will vote for him anyway, because the thing that matters most to them is saving unborn lives. I get that. But I am worried for all of us who are already here. I feel like I share at least 90 percent of my morality with my pro-life friends. But that last few percentage points, whew. Their morality tells them to vote for Trump. Mine tells me to do anything but. I am not sure there is a meeting place between those two points.

I was thinking today about the Iraq War...

...and there was a lot of discussion, back then, about whether folks in the Middle East were ready for American-style democracy.

These days, I'm not sure America is capable of American-style democracy. 

Anyway, a lot of RNC talk this week about how we're the greatest, most exceptional nation in the world -- and yeah, some good things have happened here. But the chest-thumping is straining and tedious, particularly during a deadly pandemic we can't seem to control, and a way to drown out the sound of people asking for help. I'm worn out by the constant need to assert American greatness. Would love it if we tried a little harder for American goodness. 

The best way for me to do sustained reading these days...

 

...is to deactivate my Twitter account. 

I don't mean log out. I mean deactivate it entirely. It's easy enough to reactivate, so the practical difference between logging out and deactivating probably isn't that great. But, psychologically, it slows down my tendency to check in and then keep scrolling, scrolling.

This afternoon, I deactivated my account and read two chapters of David Blight's biography of Frederick Douglass, and a few chapters of MOBY DICK. My head feels better for slowing down.

Coronavirus Diary: Too much, and not enough reading

I realized today that by trying to read every book at the same time, I'm not making a huge amount of progress at any reading. So. Back down to two books or so -- one fiction, one non-fiction -- and try to make a go of it from there.

Losing our past to the coronavirus

 

This place was once my home away from home.

I don't mean that casually. In my late 20s and early 30s, when I was still single, I would often stop by in the morning for a cup of coffee before going to work. I'd grab a quick bite to eat at lunch, then sit here with a book for 20 or 30 minutes with a second cup of coffee. And many evenings, after grabbing a quick supper, I'd sit here in the evening for more reading and another cup. (This was back before I realized that all the caffeine was messing up my sleep.)

This was my Cheers. I knew the names of all the regulars. They knew me. Some of my longest friendships were formed here -- before the pandemic set in, my family was having regular suppers with a woman who was a barista at this shop for more than a decade. When I stopped going to church in the mid-aughts, this was where I spent my Sunday mornings.

La Prima Tazza is still alive. But right now it's not the same, obviously. There is no lingering over a book in the front window, reading and watching the world go buy. You go inside, get your drink, and get outside as efficiently and expeditiously as possible.

I spent some time on the block this morning. Free State Brewery next door is where my friends and I spent a lot of evenings, grabbing a quick beer or having dinner. On the other side, Liberty Hall movie theater changed my moviegoing life. Around the block, Raven Book Store shaped the reader I've become as an adult. And a little further down the block is the old Post Office -- now a Blue Cross office building, but once upon a time the headquarters for the newspaper where I grew up professionally.

The newspaper has moved. The bookstore does delivery, but no browsing for now. Liberty Hall is only open a couple of days a week -- and, well, I'm not ready to sit in a movie theater yet.

The future is uncertain for all of us right now, but one of the things that devastates me about the pandemic is how it threatens the past -- how it threatens not just our lives, but the places and people who gave us life, that shaped who we are ... who I am. I realized this morning that I don't just miss the coffee shop and its people. I miss coffee shop music.

Isn't that weird?

Movie Night: MOONSTRUCK

 

With the exception of some '80s period details, this movie feels like it could've been made during (say) the 1930s. Those early talkies were often plays that were remade into films. That's not the history of MOONSTRUCK, but this is a dialogue-driven film that could easily be performed on the stage.

Opera sits at the core of this film, and that's appropriate, because this is a romantic comedy that is ... operatic. Over the top in its dialogue and emotions, and yet utterly charming even so. Cher is radiant, Nic Cage is Nic Cage, and Olympia Dukakis deserves every bit of the Oscar she got for this movie. A pleasure.

The River is the River

The river

is the river 

is the river.

Always here.

Mostly the same

everyday,

but also a little bit not.

Higher now.

Faster.

Slower now.

The grain elevator

across the river

is my muse -- 

a spire pointing to the rising sun,

Babel's tower

rising on the Plains.

The structure will be gone someday.

The river will still be here.

Mostly the same.

But also a little bit not.

Movie Night: ONCE UPON A TIME ... IN HOLLYWOOD

Some thoughts about ONCE UPON A TIME ... IN HOLLYWOOD, after the trailer:

 I don’t know how to feel about this movie.

For much of its running time, ONCE UPON A TIME … IN HOLLYWOOD is a quiet, even moving meditation on aging and ephemerality. The movie is littered — like so much of Quentin Tarantino’s output — with references to other movies, but this time you don’t really have to be a film buff to get them: There are movie posters and marquees galore, on walls and signs and everywhere, filled with movies and TV shows that all but the hardiest film buffs (again, probably QT) have forgotten. I watch a reasonable number of classic movies, and I was unfamiliar with many of the titles on display. All the money and effort and ego goes into producing creations that mostly have a short shelf life. Look upon my movies, ye mighty, and despair!

Leonardo DiCaprio’s arc as Rick Dalton, a semi-washed up former TV star, is compelling in the same way: He was famous and now he is less so, called upon to give a lift to rising stars instead of rising himself. (Leo, the babyfaced former child star who used to be in Tiger Beat-style magazines, is 45 now. I had no idea.) This is middle age for many of us, realizing that our accomplishments will never be as great as we hoped, that perhaps our best work is done and yet … we still have a life to live. How can we make the most of it?

Also: Margot Robie is fascinating and fantastic as Sharon Tate watching herself on screen, delighting in the audience’s reaction to her, alive with being famous.

On the other hand: There’s all the violence.

(Spoiler) In the end, Leo and Brad Pitt kill the Manson murderers who — in real life — actually killed Tate and her friends. Tarantino has done this “film revenge for real crimes” thing before, notably in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS. It was clever then. Less so now. But mostly it feels A) like a separate movie from what’s come before and B) the violence that Leo and Brad commit is so over-the-top, so horrifyingly explicit. I’m not a prude. Or maybe I am. But the gleeful violence against the bad guys feels like an invitation to feel the same thrill that the real murderers had when committing the real murders.

I don’t believe for one second that watching this makes me more violent. I am smart enough — humans are smart enough, usually — to distinguish between fact and fiction.

But I don’t feel good about having seen this movie. I would give you a different opinion if it had ended, somehow, 15 or 20 minutes earlier than it did. 

The movie that rocketed QT to real fame — PULP FICTION — was renowned for its violence, but it ended with our anti-heroes choosing not to commit an act of violence. And not in a “he’s not worth it” way, but in a way that signaled some hope for the redemption of everybody involved. QT isn’t obligated to stick to that message, of course, to satisfy my latent Mennonite sensibilities. But when you consider the real-life context and facts of Manson family murders against what we see here on screen, the result doesn’t feel like vengeance, even of the fantasy style. It just feels nihilistic.

The fundamental strategic assumption of the Trump campaign is that you, the voter, are stupid

 So:

Of course, millions more jobs were lost before those three months started. And employers hiring back workers isn't exactly job creation so much as it is job recovery -- a process that still has a long way to go.

But honestly, this isn't even a lie, really, because it's so obvious and stupid. I'm not sure why the Trump Administration can't admit that there are big challenges facing the country when there are obviously big challenges facing the country. They're hoping you're too stupid to notice, I guess.

It's better to do too much to battle the Pandemic Depression than do too little. But we're headed toward doing too little.

 Just to follow up on this post: I'm not sure I'm a believer in modern monetary theory, though I'd like to be -- the idea the federal government can just magically pay for everything forever without restraint is tempting! I can't escape the feeling, though, that the theory is ironic foreshadowing for the collapse of American finance. I admit to the possibility of being an economic simpleton. It's not one of my strong suits.

That said: Even if I were a deficit hawk, I would not be one at the present moment -- I am not one at the present moment. America is facing a unique challenge to public health and prosperity. Battling it successfully will be quite expensive. The upside is that if we manage to do it, many lives will be preserved. The downside is that if we fail, many lives will be lost. So why the amount of money that's being thrown at this is huge -- a trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon we'll talk about real money -- it sure seems that this is the moment to risk doing too much. This is no time to be stingy. Let's throw cash at the problem now and figure out how to pay the bills later.

We're facing the biggest threat to American health and prosperity in a century, but we don't want to do *too* much about it.

 My senator:

(Sigh.)

Movie Night: Ann Sheridan in KINGS ROW

A dozen thoughts about Ann Sheridan in KINGS ROW, coming up after the trailer:

 

1. Ann Sheridan is awesome.

2. The first movie I remember seeing her in is ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, which is one of my favorites. She’s the female lead, having to play off Jimmy Cagney’s swaggering gangster. She is tough as nails and gives better than she gets. She is awesome.

3. Tonight, I saw her in KINGS ROW.

4. KINGS ROW is remembered — to the extent that it’s remembered — as a star-making turn for Ronald Reagan. And deservedly so! His line upon discovering that his legs have been amputated — “Where’s the rest of me?” — has been quoted quite a bit over the years. But when the moment comes, it’s full of panic and pathos. It’s genuinely moving.

5. But Ann Sheridan is the rock of this movie.

6. It’s a weird little movie. What is it exactly? Small-town coming of age story? Family drama? Tragic romance? Gothic horror? All of the above? Well. All of the above. I can’t even really sum up the plot line really all that well. Check out the Wikipedia description, but that doesn’t do it justice really. Maybe it’s TWIN PEAKS set around 1900?

7. Sheridan’s character is the only one that never really loses her head in the movie. 

8. Oh, sure, she sheds a few tears. These are the least-believable Ann Sheridan moments.

9. The most-believable: When she steels herself for whatever needs to be done in the moment. She’s nobody’s sidekick — though she tries to play one. “I’m just a woman” she says, pretending not to steer Reagan’s character to a good decision, even though she’s … steering Reagan’s character to a good decision. The audience is not fooled. She’s in control and we know it.

10. There are some good non-Ann Sheridan moments in this movie. One is an implied sex scene early on, in which the lights are turned out and we see the two lovers moving toward each other through the dark only when the room is briefly light by flashes of lightning. Splendid.

11. But Ann Sheridan is the sturdy pillar that makes the movie possible. Without her and her character, Randy, KINGS ROW becomes a bit batshit.

12. Ann Sheridan is awesome.

Movie Night: THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

 Three thoughts about THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, coming up after the trailer...

* This is Orson Welles' follow-up to CITIZEN KANE, and it shares much with its predecessor: The use of shadows, light, and deep-focus shots on the technical front, as well as an obsession with the decline and fall of wealth -- of a single man, in the case of KANE, of a whole family in AMBERSONS. It is beautiful to look at, and I'll want to revisit it again sometime in the near future.

* Welles' narration of this movie reminded me very much of the narration in Martin Scorcese's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, and in a way that makes a whole lot of sense: The source novels for both movies appeared two years apart, and they both document the fine details of wealth -- both the physical setting, as well as the social customs -- in an era just before modernity struck.

* The studio famously stuck a kind-of happy ending onto this otherwise dark picture, and hoo boy, it shows. Everything is depressing until the last 30 seconds. Agnes Moorehead's character, who has been in  a state of near-hysteria for much of the film, ends the story with a smile on her face. It's weird. But there's so much to enjoy in the rest of the movie, and it's not like pretty good movies aren't stuck with bad endings all the time, even now. Still worth another view.

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is currently on Criterion Channel.

Movie Night: 13 thoughts abut Gene Hackman in THE FIRM

13 thoughts about Gene Hackman in THE FIRM (spoilers!) coming up after the trailer.

1. THE FIRM is a pretty decent bit of early 1990s suspense thriller filmmaking — something studios used to do a fair bit of before everything became either a low-budget indie or a massive blockbuster. The cast of this movie is filled with ringers: Gary Busey makes what amounts to a cameo, Holly Hunter is the second female lead, Ed Harris does Ed Harris things and Wilford Brimley is evil. But even among all these stellar actors and movie stars: Gene Hackman stands apart.

2. Gene Hackman plays a character named “Avery Tolar.” This is because John Grisham is terrible at making up character names. See also: F. Denton Voyles, Roy Foltrigg, Clint Von Hooser, Wally Boxx, Gavin Vereek, and Fletcher Coal — names from THE FIRM, THE CLIENT, and THE PELICAN BRIEF, respectively.

3. Tolar has a lot of great lines in THE FIRM. Like this exchange:

Mitch McDeere : What led you to law school?

Avery Tolar : It's so far back I don't think I can remember.

Mitch McDeere : Sure you can, Counsellor.

Avery Tolar : I used to caddy for lawyers and their wives on summer weekends. I looked at those long tan legs and just knew I had to be a lawyer. The wives had long tan legs, too.

He has so many good lines that I told my wife: “Man, they gave Hackman a lot of good lines.” And then I realized the same writers wrote all the characters in the movie. They didn’t necessarily give Hackman good lines. He made them good lines.

4. There is a scene early in the movie where Tolar, having won a small but important victory with a client, does a grinning victory dance on the hotel balcony. Wife and I responded at the same time: “Hackman,” chuckling ruefully.

5. In this movie, Tolar is corrupt. 

6. In this movie, Tolar is skeezy.

7. In this movie, Tolar is sad.

8. In this movie, Tolar has an abandoned underlying decency. This decency is not written all that well, honestly, but it needs an appearance to make the movie work and give it some additional stakes, so here we are.

9. Gene Hackman takes all these varying traits and makes them into a person. And in so doing, we decide to give the writers a pass on the unlikeliness of his decency.

10. That he can do so, with wit and occasional charm, is what makes him an actor and a star.

11. Also: Gene Hackman is a middle-aged man in 1993, and this movie lets him look it: His skin is a bit mottled, and age spots are starting to appear. Today, those imperfections would probably be botoxed and digitally buffed into oblivion. Which is too bad, because they make his character seem more real.

12. It says something that Tom Cruise is the star of this movie, but Hackman, a supporting character, is the one who makes us feel like any of the people we’re watching might have souls.

13. But when he dies, the death — violent — occurs offscreen. The moviemakers didn’t want to bum us out too much.

Movie Night: LUST FOR LIFE

 Three thoughts about LUST FOR LIFE, coming up:

* I love Kirk Douglas. But I went into this movie unsure if he was the right man to play Vincent van Gogh. Douglas is fierce and proud and righteous in movies like SPARTACUS and PATHS OF GLORY, and van Gogh ... isn't those things, and least not in the same way. So give Douglas credit here: He wasn't playing Kirk Douglas with red hair dye. The character is scary and violent at times, heedless of others, self-involved -- and, yes, mentally ill. My favorite scene is when he greets Paul Gaugin, played by Anthony Quinn, and becomes a pure puppy dog -- hunched over (instead of upright) in submission to Gaugin, his face full of joy. The performance isn't subtle, exactly, but it works.

* Vincent's brother Theo is played by John Donald, and the movie makes the unusual decision to have Theo narrate Vincent's letters instead of using Douglas' voice. One thing this does is let us view Vincent through the eyes of somebody who loves him, who is willing to persist with him when others have given up -- and the audience might be ready to do the same.

* Seems appropriate that this movie was directed by Vincent Minnelli, whose own work in Technicolor filmmaking in the 1950s -- AMERICAN IN PARIS, BRIGADOON -- feature a love of color and visuals that please the eye. Minnelli was an artist, and a sympathy for the artist's struggle is deeply felt here.

Is the media making us think we're more racist than we are?

In Tablet, Zach Goldberg documents that major media outlets are using terms "racist" more often. Some initial thoughts about his article.

He writes:

One possible way of explaining these statistics, is that America experienced an explosion of racism over the past decade and white liberals are uniquely reflective of that change. But another possibility, perhaps more likely, is that ascendant progressive notions about race reflected in a steady drumbeat of reporting and editorializing on the subject from leading national media outlets, encouraged white liberals to label a larger number of behaviors and people as racist. In other words, while the world may have stayed more or less the same, elite liberal media and its readership—especially its white liberal readership—underwent a profound change.

Let me offer a third possibility: That there is probably not that much more racism in America than there was 10 years ago, but that racists -- who empowered President Trump and were also empowered by him -- are more vocal and prominent in American life than they were a decade ago: The societal consensus that required racists to be careful and closeted has largely, but not entirely, disappeared. That has led to growing pressure from and within mainstream media outlets to call a thing a thing -- euphemisms like "racially charged" are now widely seen as weak tea, and there's a growing sense that the media doesn't have to be mindreaders to name a racist act a racist act.

Goldberg writes:

In 2011, just 35% of white liberals thought racism in the United States was “a big problem,” according to national polling. By 2015, this figure had ballooned to 61% and further still to 77% in 2017. ... Did white Democrats simply come to know more racists in these years? It’s possible, but if so that would indicate that the media’s increased reporting on racism actually correlated to a marked increase in racists being detected by white Democrats.

In other words, Goldberg's case is that the perception of racism in American life is pretty much a media-driven phenomenon -- manufactured by "woke" elites -- rather than events- or information-driven. But the  rise in the use of the term racism, you'll see in the chart above, starts around 2011. That's when Donald Trump was going around TV promoting birtherism. In 2012, Trayvon Martin was killed. In 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement got started, with events in Ferguson helping spark a wave of protests -- and coverage. In 2015, Tanehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me" came out, giving many readers a sense of what America looks like through African-American eyes. And in 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The period of increased "racism" coverage also coincides pretty much with the rise of viral videos depicting police brutality against black people. A lot of actual racism that was invsible to white liberals became more visible during this time. Alongside that, so did efforts to explain and understand the contours of that issue. "Did white Democrats simply come to know more racists in these years?" Goldberg asks. Unlikely, but it seems possible that white Democrats saw how other whites -- including folks they knew -- responded to events and concluded their circle of acquaintances probably contained more racism then they had previously realized. 

It's also worth noting that Goldberg focuses his examination of the issue through the eyes of white liberals. In 2010, though, most Black Americans -- according to Pew Research -- already thought racism was a "big problem." The figure has only grown in recent years, but a lot of people for whom racism would actually be a big problem already thought it was a problem.

There may be more "wokeness" among media elites. But Goldberg barely entertains the possibility that events have helped create the phenomenon he describes. Instead, he suggests that the real problem is that newspapers started using academic jargon surrounding the issues of race a lot more. "Intentionally or not, by introducing and then constantly repeating a set of key words and concepts, publications like The New York Times have helped normalize among their readership the belief that “color” is the defining attribute of other human beings," he writes. This is similar to the "if we don't test, we won't have cases" logic that President Trump uses with COVID-19. I won't say that elite media efforts to describe the racial landscape of the United States haven't had an effect on that landscape. But the anger over the deaths of people like Breonna Taylor, Phlando Castille, Tamir Rice, George Floyd and all the rest didn't come about because people were reading the New York Times.

DS9 binge-watching

Nerdery ahead...

Like everybody else, we're binge-watching family favorites -- comfort TV -- during the pandemic. We've started watching an episode of DEEP SPACE NINE most nights with supper. It's not the first time we've watched this show together -- I believe this is the best of all the Star Trek shows -- but we're doing it differently now. Last time, we basically confined ourselves to episodes that directly involved the Dominion and the wars that occupied the last few seasons of the show -- which means we mostly skipped over the standalone episodes that constituted the bulk of the first few seasons.

This time, we're watching them all. What else are we going to do? Go to the movies?

What I've discovered is this: The standalone episodes are pretty good, too. I'm not sure I realized that on my previous viewings of the series. Season Two, in particular the show really establishes itself with a three-episode arc involving the villainy of Frank Langella -- DS9 had a pretty impressive roster of guest stars, actually -- and it's off to the races.

Some highlights so far:

* "Progress," where Kira realizes that she has transitioned from being a rebel to being the one rebelled against, with Brian Keith playing an old coot.

* "Necessary Evil," a murder mystery featuring Odo. 

* "Blood Oath," where Jadzia joins old Klingon friends to take vengeance against an enemy.

*  "Past Tense," where Sisko, Jadzia and Julian get transported to dystopian Earth in 2024.

* Any episode featuring Garak.

* Any episode where O'Brien is made to suffer. (There were a lot of those.)

A couple of thoughts on all this:

First, it's really true how much this show differed from its predecessors. In Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, you knew the good guys from the bad guys, and everybody tried to do the right thing all the time. In DS9, the lines aren't always so clear, and the endings are often ambivalent. 

Second: Serialization has become a feature of "prestige" TV, even dramas that aren't so prestigious. DS9 was an early adopter of the trend. But there are pleasures in standalone episodes, too.

Anyway, that's where we are. Going forward, I'll be blogging our binge-watch because ... what else am I going to do? Go to the mall?

John Yoo defends the presidency, not the Constitution

John Yoo, the lawyer best known for authorizing war crimes during the Bush Administration, has a piece up at National Review purporting to explain that "Trump has become a stouter defender of our original governing document than his critics."

Let's take a look. He starts with some stuff about how Democrats are the real abusers of the Constitution, before mounting his defense of Trump as (possibly accidental) defender of the realm:

But Trump’s defense of the constitutional order has gone beyond simply blocking bad ideas. His battle for the Constitution took three basic forms. First, and most importantly, he fought off Robert Mueller’s special-counsel investigation and impeachment. Both challenged the president’s authority to govern the executive branch and to fulfill his constitutional duty to enforce the law.

This treats the investigation and impeachment of Trump as though they were merely challenges to his authority, instead of legitimate inquiries into corruption to acquire power and abusing that power to keep it. It's a false distinction. Congress challenges the authority of presidents all the time. It is rare that those challenges rise to the level of special counsel investigations or impeachment. Yoo seems to conceds the legitimacy of the inquiries in the very next paragraph.

Trump didn’t win acquittal based on innocence, however, but because the Constitution gave him a built-in advantage.

That's ... not a great defense of the Constitution, is it?

With 53 Republicans holding the Senate majority, the House had to persuade 20 Republicans to vote to convict. They convinced only one, Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah). The Founders didn’t impose the two-thirds vote requirement in the Senate to protect Trump. They did it to defend the institution of the presidency. The Framers rejected a parliamentary system in which Congress selects a prime minister who both leads the legislative majority and heads the executive branch. Their great experiment with a separation of powers required a presidency independently chosen by the people and vested with its own unique powers and responsibilities.

This is a great spot to note that Trump wasn't chosen by the people. Won the right states to win the Electoral College, but Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Common use of "the people" would generally suggest that the vote loser is not the person who represents them.

The Framers feared that impeachment and removal by simple majority vote would render the president dependent on Congress, and thus deprive it of the energy, speed, and decisiveness needed for good government. The two-thirds vote requirement ensured that Democrats could not remove Trump due to partisanship, or even policy disputes. The Constitution became Trump’s great shield, and in winning the impeachment battle, Trump repaid the favor by reinforcing the independence of the executive.

Again, this fogs the actual issues. Democrats didn't try to remove Trump because of "policy disputes," but because he used the power of his office to try to solicit foreign interference in the election. The Constitution didn't shield the executive's ability to act with energy in this case -- it shielded corruption. Yoo's argument here depends on conflating legitimate authority with abuse of power.

Second, Trump defended traditional executive primacy in foreign affairs and war. Trump has used his executive control over foreign affairs to achieve what may prove to be his most lasting effect on American policy — shifting America’s strategic focus onto China and away from the Middle East. He has used power given to him by Congress to ratchet up economic sanctions on Beijing, and exercised his constitutional powers to terminate arms-control agreements that restrained the U.S. but not China. 

It's important to note the arms control agreements that Trump terminated were with Russia, not China. The result is that China is still not restrained -- and, now, neither are the U.S. and Russia. But that's not really a question of his Constitutional prerogatives, but of his wisdom. (Maybe it should be: I'm not really sure why the Constitution requires a president to get Senate approval for a treaty, but presidents are seemingly free to withdraw from treaties without any kind of Congressional backing. Treaties are, Constitutionally speaking, the law of the land. Presidents generally don't get to repeal laws willy-nilly.)

Trump used his power as commander-in-chief to contain Tehran, as in the drone killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani...

That was an act of war against Iran. Congress has the power to declare war. Trump didn't even notify Congressional leaders ahead of time. Lauding this use of "his power as commander-in-chief" is to suggest Congress has no real role in warmaking or foreign policy. That's not what the Constitution says.

...while reducing U.S. troop levels in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Congressional opponents sought to block Trump by narrowing his war powers and control over foreign affairs, but so far with little result. While Congress may seek to advance different policies through spending or legislation, the Constitution designed the executive branch specifically so that it could quickly and effectively protect national security and pursue our interests abroad.

Again: The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. In reality, it has mostly ceded that responsibility to the president in recent decades, but that reality doesn't make it any less Constitutionally suspect.

Third, Trump appointed a Supreme Court that could return the Constitution to its original understanding on questions ranging from federalism to individual liberties. He nominated Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, conservative judges with eminent qualifications, to the Supreme Court, and has filled more than a quarter of the lower courts with young, bright, conservative intellects. Liberals rightly worry that these appointments augur a sea change in constitutional law that could threaten the vast administrative state, the creeping control of Washington, D.C., over everyday life, and even Roe v. Wade’s protections for abortion. Progressives responded by attacking the Supreme Court. During the Democratic presidential primaries, senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, among others, called for expanding the Supreme Court from nine to 15 justices so that the next Democratic president could pack it with liberals. 

I'm no fan of court-packing. But changing the number of justices wouldn't be against the Constitution: "The Constitution does not stipulate the number of Supreme Court Justices; the number is set instead by Congress. There have been as few as six, but since 1869 there have been nine Justices, including one Chief Justice." It has happened before. It might happen again. 

Democrats have attacked the personal records of judicial nominees and have even threatened to impeach Kavanaugh for sexual-harassment claims that the Senate fully aired during his confirmation. 

No they didn't.

All of these attacks leave Trump in the position of defending the Supreme Court and the institution of judicial independence.

This seems pretty clearly to be BS. Trump is no more interested in "judicial independence" than he is in the Bible he held aloft at Lafayette Square. As Noah Feldman notes:

In nearly four years in office, President Donald Trump has challenged the independence of the judicial branch more than any other president. He’s accused judges of being “Obama judges” or “Mexican judges.” When he’s been investigated for corruption or obstruction of justice, he’s routinely portrayed himself as above the law. He’s directed his administration to issue a spate of unlawful executive orders. With the November election looming, it’s a good time to ask: Can the legitimacy of the federal judiciary survive another four years of this president?

Yoo's notion that Trump is a defender of the Constitution requires believing two things: A) Trump is honest. B) That Congress doesn't have Constitutional prerogatives of its own worth defending. As ever, John Yoo is defending the presidency, not the Constition. As ever, he is doing it to dangerous ends.

No, teachers are not the same as nurses (Or: Let's talk about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs)

Kristen McConnell writes at The Atlantic this morning that schools should reopen, because, well ... the title says it all: "I’m a Nurse in New York. Teachers Should Do Their Jobs, Just Like I Did."

What I don’t support is preemptively threatening “safety strikes,” as the American Federation of Teachers did in late July. These threats run counter to the fact that, by and large, school districts are already fine-tuning social-distancing measures and mandating mask-wearing. Teachers are not being asked to work without precautions, but some overlook this: the politics of mask-wearing have gotten so ridiculous that many seem to believe masks only protect other people, or are largely symbolic. They’re not. Nurses and doctors know that masks do a lot to keep us safe, and that other basics such as hand-washing and social distancing are effective at preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

Instead of taking the summer to hone arguments against returning to the classroom, administrators and teachers should be thinking about how they can best support children and their families through a turbulent time. Schools are essential to the functioning of our society, and that makes teachers essential workers. They should rise to the occasion even if it makes them nervous, just like health-care workers have.

She adds: "I can understand that teachers are nervous about returning to school. But they should take a cue from their fellow essential workers and do their job. Even people who think there’s a fundamental difference between a nurse and a teacher in a pandemic must realize that there isn’t one between a grocery-store worker and a teacher, in terms of obligation. "

But of course there's a difference. Let's turn back to our high school psychology class, and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, to understand why. Wikipedia explains the fundamental concept pretty well:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization and transcendence at the top. In other words, the theory is that individuals' most basic needs must be met before they become motivated to achieve higher level needs.

Right. 

So. The very act of staying alive today is the most elemental consideration that humans have. Doctors and nurses do the job of keeping sick people alive today. If they don't do their jobs, all other considerations are moot. Similarly, the act of staying alive today and beyond today is pretty elemental: If grocery store workers -- and my wife is one, and it makes me nervous as hell -- don't do their jobs, people will starve. (Protections for those workers should be as stringent as possible, obviously.) Without nurses and food producers continuing their work, many of us die. It's that simple. We shouldn't take those folks for granted. They're keeping us alive.

Teachers are important. But their work takes place on a somewhat higher level of need. If a kid isn't schooled today, that kid will live. But if a kid goes to school today ...well, the kid will probably live. But we're not quite as sure about their parents or teachers. Just this morning, I've read about a school district in Georgia that has had to quarantine 260 employees while it tries to reopen. Closer to my home, Kansas educators who went on a leadership retreat to plan for reopening ended up spreading the virus among themselves -- and one of them is in an ICU.

So maybe, as McConnell says, districts are "fine-tuning social distancing measures," but there's a growing amount of anecdotal evidence they're not succeeding. 

McConnell writes: "What do teachers think will happen if working parents cannot send their children to school? Life as we know it simply will not go on." That's an important consideration. But guess what? Life as we know it simply isn't going on right now, and probably won't for awhile -- if ever. We have to adjust to that, not wish it away -- particularly if it means harming more people as a result. 

Why Axios got a good Trump interview and cable news (mostly) can't

A lot of talk this morning about President Trump's disastrous interview with Axios' Jonathan Swan. Here is one piece of feedback I found intriguing.

I think Laswell put her finger on why you don't see these kind of interviews* with Trump more often, despite the fact the president does a fair number of TV interviews: It's hard to watch. 

I don't enjoy watching combative TV interviews -- would rather read a transcript afterwards. For all the shouting of my opinion that I do, I'm not big on real life interpersonal conflict. So perhaps I'm projecting here, but I suspect a lot of people feel the same way. (A lot of other people clearly don't, for what it's worth.)

Why does this matter to the Trump situation? Because -- as always -- TV news tends to be more about TV than news. Ariana Pekary, who just quit her job at MSNBC, explains this: 

It’s possible that I’m more sensitive to the editorial process due to my background in public radio, where no decision I ever witnessed was predicated on how a topic or guest would “rate.” The longer I was at MSNBC, the more I saw such choices — it’s practically baked in to the editorial process – and those decisions affect news content every day. Likewise, it’s taboo to discuss how the ratings scheme distorts content, or it’s simply taken for granted, because everyone in the commercial broadcast news industry is doing the exact same thing.

Cable news decisions are driven as much by what executives think audiences will watch as what is actually news. And this gets us back to why Trump doesn't often face challenging TV questions: Executives want to make you feel a lot of extreme emotions that will keep you tuned to their channel -- but they don't want to be hard to watch.  

Chris Wallace has proven a recent exception. And it's true that Trump very frequently gives his interviews to friendly outlets. But I don't think it's a coincidence that Swan is largely a "print" journalist. (These distinctions are blurrier in the digital age.) Print journalists aren't above clickability considerations these days, obviously, but I think there's a stronger culture of "getting the news" in print than in TV -- where, again, the point is to put on a show. 

* One-on-one interviews are a different setting than briefings, where every reporter may only get one question and possibly not a follow-up.

Destroying the Post Office means destroying rural America

I grew up in a small town of about 3,000 people. I don't want to live there anymore, but I also don't want to see it disappear. I suspect a lot of Americans are like me.

So it alarms me that President Trump seems hellbent on destroying the effectiveness of the Post Office. (In this, he has been aided by years of work from Congressional Republicans.) That will hurt the small, rural towns that provide so much of the president's support. Vox reported on this in April:

The USPS is legally required to deliver all mail, to all postal addresses in all regions, at a flat rate, no matter how far it may have to travel. The service’s accessibility and affordability are especially important to rural communities that live in poverty and to people with disabilities, who can’t afford the cost of a private business to deliver their daily necessities. (In 2017, the rural poverty rate was 16.4 percent, compared with 12.9 percent for urban areas.)

And while some may argue that the USPS is becoming more obsolete as an increasing number of services are becoming digitalized, there’s still a large chunk of people who rely on mail because they have poor (or no) internet service. (The Federal Communications Commission estimates that 14.5 million people in rural areas lack access to broadband.) In fact, 18 percent of Americans still pay their bills by mail, according to an ACI Worldwide report; meanwhile, 20 percent of adults over 40 who take medication for a chronic condition get those pills by mail order, according to a survey by the National Community Pharmacists Association.

Neither Democrats or Republicans are actually all that good at serving rural interests, even though rural red states have disproportionate power. That usually translates into generous farm bills, and occasionally preserving railroad service to small towns. But letting the Post Office go to hell will hurt small towns. If only for their political survival, I don't know why Republicans would let this happen.

More Kris Kobach election news

Politico reports that Republicans are worried they'll lose their Senate majority because Democrats are throwing money into the Kansas race in support of Kris Kobach winning the nomination. “The Senate majority runs through Kansas,” we're told.

I've already suggested that Democrats are playing with fire. Some of my Democratic friends tell me he's not actually all that much worse than Roger Marshall, the GOP establishment pick for the nomination, so it's a wash if he wins. But it seems to me that notion is belied by the fact that Dems are trying to get him nominated -- the things they perceive as making him more obviously politically poisonous will be poisonous if he somehow parlays that Democratic cash into a US Senate seat.

Even Republicans don't believe that can happen, apparently. But I don't love this kind of political maneuvering -- call me naive if you want. At the very least, I'm a Kansas voter -- and I don't want Kobach occupying any of my mental space over the next few months.

Movie Night: WEREWOLF OF LONDON

Ow-OOOOOOOOOH:

* This is a movie from 1935, when Hollywood was still getting used to making "talkies," and the influence of silent moviemaking is apparent here -- in the exaggerated physicality of some of the acting, in the closeups of the wolfman's face. One of the real fun parts of old movies like this is looking at the IMDB pages of the actors and realizing some of them were born around the time of the Civil War. Those folks witnessed a lot of change in their lives.

* It's funny how ancient some of our tropes are. Does the promiscuous young woman get killed by the werewolf after seducing a young security guard into infidelity? Damn straight.

* That said, this is one of Universal's early monster movies, and while it's enjoyable enough, it lacks some of the artistry you find in, say, James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN movies, or even THE WOLF MAN. Sometimes you have the touch. Sometimes you don't.

Coronavirus Diary: Reading in a Pandemic

A lot of people have been in "comfort food" reading mode since the pandemic started, and I can't blame them. On the TV front, I've rewatched COMMUNITY already, as well as -- God help me -- COUGAR TOWN. Which is bad. Really bad. And yet.

On the book front, though, it's a different story. I feel like, suddenly, I am running out of reading time and so I am trying to cram in every great book I've ever wanted to read. I don't have patience for the sci-fi pulp I was reading as recently as January. I want books I suspect will enrich me, challenge me, or teach me something. And I panic at the thought of all the reading I want to do that is, as yet -- and might well forever be -- unfinished.

Right now, I am juggling four books -- trying to get a chapter a day or more out of each.

LETTERS FROM A STOIC, by Seneca

MOBY DICK, by Herman Melville

THE REACTIONARY MIND, by Corey Robin

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: PROPHET OF FREEDOM by David Blight.

I've also, in the last few months, read and finished nonfiction books about Kurt Vonnegut's writing philosophy, American history, Fred Phelps' family, homebuilding and, well, THE JORDAN RULES. (My bit of comfort reading, perhaps.) I've also read Toni Morrison's BELOVED. When I finish MOBY DICK, I hope to turn to THE TIN DRUM, by Gunter Grass.

I do wonder from time to time what the purpose of all this is: If it is true that time is running short, what's the point? All the reading I have done will die with me, right? I can only hope that some of what I am absorbing translates into me writing better, more thoughtfully, and with more perspectives and more information in mind. And hopefully, too, it translates into me acting in real life with some greater empathy and wisdom. 

But who really knows? All I know is that I am a reader. Or, at least, I want to be a reader, because the people I want to be like are readers. I guess that will have to be good enough.