Focus or Die

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Duck the Distractions

We now have the worst president in our history. Congress impeached him for abusing his power and obstructing Congress, against a background of what earlier ages would almost certainly have called treason. The Republican majority in our Senate acquitted him of these charges on (except for Mitt Romney) a purely partisan basis. He has completely botched our national response to the most deadly pandemic in a century, throwing us into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. In the process, he has reduced us to quivering national uncertainty on such basic practical precautions as masks, distancing, avoiding crowds and the use and value of treatments and vaccines. Under his über-incompetent “leadership,” we have achieved a “record” for our nation: the demonstrably worst response to the pandemic of any developed nation. Beyond this we have five enormous, long-term problems to address. First is stopping the acceleration of global warming, which threatens stronger and more frequent storms, more devastating droughts and wildfires, the northward march of tropical diseases, and eventually inundation of our coastal cities and diminution of our food supply. Second is managing our fraught relationship with China, as it rises to global power, thereby avoiding what could be a cataclysmic war. Third is preserving and restoring our very own democracy against (a) voter suppression, gerrymandering and other dirty tricks; (b) the politicization of our science, Justice Department and intelligence services; (c) the nearly daily lies and distractions of the most successful demagogue in our history; and (d) explicit threats of our rogue president to ignore, falsify and/or dispute the coming election results. The fourth long-term problem is reducing the greatest economic inequality in our (and perhaps world) history, under which eight individuals own half the world’s wealth, and six of them are Americans. Fifth and final is hastening our slow retreat from institutionalized racism, and eventually overcoming an horrendous four-century (and counting) history of racial and ethnic oppression. Of these problems, the first two are existential for our entire species, and the next two are existential for our own democracy and our way of life. The fifith and final could become existential if not addressed soon. Against these undeniable threats to our future happiness, prosperity and even survival, we face incessant distractions from our supreme demagogue and his party. His stream-of-consciousness Twitter style and his party’s media savvy vomit distractions like chaff behind a Nazi fighter seeking to avoid our radar. Two new distractions have emerged just since last Friday. The first is filling the Supreme Court seat of the late Justice Ginsburg. The second is the effect of the first on the legal precedent of Roe v. Wade and hence the legality of abortion throughout the United States. In the best of times, these would be unwanted distractions. If the Dems win the presidency and the Senate, they can (and should!) undo, by packing the Court, any lame-duck filling of Justice Ginsburg’s now-vacant seat. If the Dems don’t win, the worst president in our history will then fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat (if not filled earlier) and appoint even more extreme so-called “conservatives” as other sitting Justices inevitably retire or die. So who wins this coming election is infinitely more important than who wins any last-minute battle to fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat. As for abortion, it’s an extremely complex issue. It’s use for demagoguery has always worked best for the Republicans, who’ve oversimplified it and exploited it relentlessly. I will go to my grave believing that Dubya became president, in an otherwise close election, by demagoguing the social issues of abortion and homosexual marriage. By engaging on an abstract issue with little practical effect, which in law has little to do with national politics, the Dems may have inadvertently enabled eight years of lousy government and two unnecessary wars. Apparently Trump and the GOP mean to repeat this “success.” By stirring the pot of pro-choice reaction, they hope to provoke extreme positions on Dems’ part and thereby pull the electoral rabbit out of the hat once again. This is a trap that Democrats must avoid to save their chances to take back our country. As hundreds of leading Democrats argued today in a full-page ad in the New York Times (NYT Print Edition, Sunday, Sept. 20 at A9), they can and must do so by remaining open to pro-life candidates and voters. If the party’s most pro-choice contingents respond with alarm—if they alienate potential pro-life supporters or allow themselves to be tagged by Trump and his propagandists as so doing—they could miss the main chance. In the process, they could abet the destruction of American democracy. This they must not do. It’s a trap, folks. Avoid it as you would avoid Covid-19. From now until November 3, the highest need is profound and simple: focus on nothing other than the main chance. Get rid of Trump and take back the Senate. The choice to focus or die has never been clearer.

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