Philly Bucket List: The Philly Orchestra

We’ll be leaving Philadelphia to return to Kansas this summer: “Philadelphia Bucket List” is an occasional series of posts about what we’ll miss about this great city.

The first time I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra was in September 2008, on Dilworth Plaza — now Dilworth Park — at City Hall. My son had been born weeks earlier and we were crazed with a lack of sleep; an outdoor concert seemed an appropriate way to allow us to have a cultural experience in our new city where an infant would be appropriate.

My son at his first orchestra concert, September 2008.

I remember a couple of things about that night. First: It was kind of chilly. Second: An officer had been killed in the line of duty that day. Mayor Nutter took the stage and said the death nearly caused him to cancel the concert. Instead, the orchestra opened with addition to the evening’s program: Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.”

An affirmative reason for voting for Hillary.

I don't mean to be ostentatiously ambivalent, here. I'm trying to work this out, and doing some thinking by writing.

But my reasons for voting for Hillary tend to be defensive: I think she's better-positioned to beat a Republican candidate and has a better temperament for leading despite the obstacles of a Republican Congress than does Bernie.

That raises a question, though: Is there a good, affirmative reason to vote for Hillary?

I thought about it. Started a  list. But most of the reasons I'd affirmatively vote for Hillary Clinton could be applied to any generic Democrat. (I.E. Supreme Court appointments.) But affirmative reason to vote for Hillary over Bernie?

This is what I came up with:

• She'd be the first woman president: It's not the only thing. It's not even, from my perspective, the most important thing. But it's important. How amazing would it be to get my 7-year-old son, born two months before Obama's election, to the age of 16 — almost voting age — with no memory of a white guy ever running this country? And how might that shape his view of what's possible for himself and for others in the future?

That's about it. Like I said, the rest of the reasons I came up with were generic and could apply to any Democrat. It's why Bernie's still in play for me

Is Bernie More Electable?

From the comments:

The polls I've seen show Trump doing better against Clinton than Sanders. Said another way, people seem to be willing to vote for Sanders over Trump to a greater extent than they are to vote for Clinton over Trump. So in terms of who can win the general, it seems the better choice is Sanders.

I've heard this several times. I'm skeptical.

I think, quite simply, that the GOP has been so hung up on its internal battles that it hasn't turned its attention to Bernie yet. But when it does, I fully expect the full extent of the GOP's "turn the Dem candidate into an America-hating demon" forces against him. It's possible Sanders could still win the election — Obama and Bill Clinton both survived the process and won the presidency. But I'm not sure he'll be much more electable once Republicans decide to target him in earnest.

Sanders could possibly beat Trump more easily than Clinton could today; will that still be the case in November? A lot rides on the answer to that question.

It could be worse. It's not 1968.

A friend posted this at Facebook this morning:

It's is a good reminder to take a deep breath and remind ourselves that as batshit insane as this particular election season seems, this is not 1968, with the country seemingly spinning out of control and major public figures being assassinated. Trump is a threat to good order, but we haven't reached those heights.

Yet.

Is it cynical to support Hillary in the primary?

Yesterday, I wrote why I am - begrudgingly - leaning toward Hillary over Bernie in the primary. A Facebook friend admonishes me:

We throw around this label "hawk" without much thought for what it means - it's a vaguely distasteful moniker. What kind of body count do you imagine is tied to Clinton's particular "foreign policy experience"? How much suffering? And to what end? Whose ends?  

You usually write as a sort of demonstration of the conscience of the center-left. But in this piece you devolve into the sort of nervous gamesmanship that has for decades undermined progress on issues you obviously care about. 

The suggestion - and lots of Bernie fans are making it - is that Hillary essentially disqualified herself with support for the Iraq War. I'm ... sympathetic to that argument. And I'm even sympathetic to the "nervous gamesmanship" allegation my friend lobs at me.

But I don't think nervous gamesmanship is necessarily a bad thing. A Trump Supreme Court pick really would be an awful thing, one that might not be undone for a generation.

So maybe I'm wrong, but I do think a central question of the campaign is this: Would the primary task of a Democratic president be to defend some gains that have been made over the last eight years, and defend against a Republican agenda? Or is there a chance to go on offense, as it were, and create progress on issues I care about?

If I think we're on offense, I'm more likely to go with Bernie. But I think Dems will be on defense. Perhaps there's a path to Dems regaining control of Congress this election, but I don't see it. And without Congress, a president's agenda will be a limited thing. That's not a dynamic made for Bernie.

On the other hand: Hillary's hawkishness really is a problem for me, and not an abstract one. The Iraq War was avoidable foolishness, the worst foreign policy mistake of my lifetime, and the rest of my lifetime is going to be spent witnessing the fallout from that. It's why I was an enthusiastic Obama cheerleader in '08.

I'm not enthusiastic about Hillary. But on occasion, it can be wise to vote your fears. This seems like one of them.

I'm thinking Hillary over Bernie. Here's why.

I haven't finalized my voting decision yet — I'm still in play — but with about three weeks to go before the Pennsylvania primary, I find myself leaning towards support for Hillary.

It's a close call. Hillary Clinton voted to invade Iraq. And her performance as secretary of state suggests that she's altogether more hawkish than I would prefer. I used to think that her hawkishness was a political pose — meant more to disarm Republicans than as a guide to actual policy. I don't believe that anymore, or at any rate I don't think it matters anymore: She functions as a hawk, therefore her internal beliefs don't matter all that much.

I've said before my heart remains closer to Bernie Sanders, and that remains true. America, I think, is headed for an economic reckoning — the problem of economic inequality is probably the problem of our time, and he's the candidate who seems to take it most seriously.

So why the lean to Hillary?

It's Time to Listen To and Evangelize Trump Voters

Remember this? (Caution: Not safe for work.)

 

I've been thinking about this a lot because, after Super Tuesday, it seems likely that Donald Trump will be the de facto Republican nominee for president. And even a lot of Republicans agree that this is bad. It's even worse if Trump ends up president. So how do we stop him? How do we stop a candidate when every attack on him seems only to make him stronger?

Maybe we think evangelically.

I'm not saying this in the religious sense. I am saying this in the sense that we non-Trump-loving Americans do something that's not tried all that often anymore: We should make a concerted, respectful effort not just to turn our own voters to the polls, but to convince our fellow citizens that a vote for Trump is wrong — not just from our worldview, but from theirs.