The Carpentariat

A Webb of wonder

​​​​​On this grim anniversary of Trumpian insanity come to a pinhead, I have chosen to instead feature something uplifting — literally.

That being the Christmas Day launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, a joint project between the United States, Canada and Europe. Then, at 7:20 a.m. ET, this magnificent beast of astrophysical splendor hurled its 13,000 pounds from Earth's obstinate gravity, heading out on a one-month, one-million mile odyssey to an orbit around our little planet's heat lamp. (So far, traveling at one-third of a mile per second, it has completed more than 68% of its flight path, with less than 300,000 miles to go.)

In its five-to-10-year lifespan, Webb will look to the universe's cradle — the Big Bang — with much better eyesight than Hubble's. Its 1990 launch enabled astrophysicists to witness the cosmos' birth after some 400 million years, while Webb will cut the postnatal timespan to 100 million — within Creation's 14-billion-year expanse, less time than a baby's burp.

Along the way, Webb will vastly improve our knowledge of black holes, stars' parturition, the universe's infant galaxies, signs of distant life, and Nature only knows what else. To accomplish all this, astro-engineers had to come up with 10 fresh technologies, much like Issac Newton's on-the-fly conception of calculus as a mathematical steppingstone to comprehending gravity. Webb's mirror, for instance, possesses six-times the image-collecting size of Hubble's, and is 100 times more discerning in its imagery.

Says one of the project's scientists, "Some of the deep field work that Hubble has done, they would look in a particular field for a couple of weeks. Webb can reach that kind of sensitivity limit in seven or eight hours." Thus astrophysicists can come to work in the morning and be done with their cosmic gazing before dinner.

That's just ... awesome — indeed a trifle more "awesome" than a new Taylor Swift recording or Panera's latest soup. It's refreshing to use the adjective in its truest meaning of awe-inspiring reverence. Webb's creation to discover Creation — whose explosive, stellar elements now constitute our physical bodies and your front lawn's geraniums — is a phenomenal testament to humankind's ingenuity, resourcefulness, and childlike sense of wonder. May we never lose it.

We damn near did, when 2011's Tea-Partying U.S. House of Representatives attempted to cancel the Webb Telescope project. Republicans' Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee proposed slashing NASA’s budget to a pre-2008 amount, which a Yale astrophysicist attacked as "kill[ing] U.S. space science for decades." As for Webb's murder, the House committee justified it because of the project's cost overruns, ultimately coming to $10 billion. Contemporaneously, the Defense Department was spending an inclusive $20 billion a year to air-condition its Iraq and Afghanistan tents.

Of course Webb survived the onslaught of anti-scientific Republican puddin' heads. And in a little less than three months from now, it will disgorge its first celestial images. To state that that's exhilarating is a proud understatement.

2022 & '24 should be loaded with Dem messaging of anti-authoritarianism and pro-"conservatism"

“We are losing our democracy day by day, and journalists are individually aware of this, but media outlets are not centering this as the story it should be.” Those critical words — "critical" in both senses — were spoken by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an academic specializing in the history of authoritarianism.

Her words were quoted by Margaret Sullivan, media correspondent for the Washington Post, who framed her last report on precisely what Prof. Ben-Ghiat had encouraged. "[A] new pro-democracy emphasis should be articulated clearly — and fearlessly — to readers and viewers," urged Sullivan, while advocating that such pro-democracy articles on Republicans' anti-democratic intentions should be un-paywalled, the same as many press organs have done with their pandemic coverage.

Yesterday, Sullivan's Post colleague, E.J. Dionne, noted the wider media's woeful responsibility for diluting factual, straightforward coverage of politics. We have a "media ecosystem [that's] divided between a mainstream that takes pride in nonpartisan toughness on incumbents," he wrote, "and a powerful right-wing communications network."

While I agree that too many political journalists still enjoy casting a watertight image of "tough" nonpartisanship, on whole their mainstream keepers have improved on projecting forthrightness about America's vilest enemy: Trumpism. Only five years ago the words "lie" and "lies" lounged unused in that context. Now they're commonplace.

Nevertheless, Dionne rightly, if implicitly, joins Ben-Ghiat and Sullivan on the inescapable importance of more thoroughgoing coverage of the aforementioned hellish goings on. He lays the task at Democrats' feet as well: "Attacking Trump is not enough. Biden and his party need to make democracy itself a central issue, starting now."

I should think that rescuing American democracy from the vulturous talons of Trumpist fascists would essentially define "central issue" as a singular one. Yet Dionne — misguidedly, I think — then shifts his argument to one of everyday politics. Given that the media will do whatever the media will do, "Democrats themselves," he implores, must "shift the broader conversation," And by that he means spend on time on things such as re-rigging the filibuster and re-haggling over Build Back Better, culminating in some sort of amicable resolution. As one bill, fat chance.

Now, to be realistic about this, President Biden and his party cannot consume this year and the two following with unflagging disquisitions on only the raging pro-democracy vs. anti-democracy conflict. Commonsensical it is that focused messaging is always preferable to the scattershot kind, but one and only one campaign importunity would be exactly what importunity means: "persistence, especially to the point of annoyance." Hence Democrats "broader conversation" must include — now this would be novel — a few felicitous remarks on their legislative, economic and pandemic achievements. Just not to the extent Dionne advises.

This plus nearly incessant, podium-pounding warnings about imminent autocracy should attract the very voters Dionne is worried about — a vexation derived from some polling and a study conducted for the Democratic Governors Association. There are "signs that a potentially decisive bloc of middle-of-the-road voters who backed Biden over Trump is drifting away," reported one poll in Dionne's words, while the study, in its own words, found that Glenn Youngkin's swing-state victory came largely from voters who were “disproportionately male, politically independent, middle of the road ideologically, and more likely than average to be college educated."

Those are key, indispensable findings. And, not to beat a dead equine — well, perchance to nag at least once more — where those findings lead me is to what I have counseled for some time now: Democrats, in shifting their "broader conversation," must include in that shift certain intimations that they are the truly conservative party, mostly in the definitional sense of upholding America's proudest traditions. Democracy. Sober governance. Pragmatic progress. 

The target audience for this message could not be more ideal: men who aren't ravingly pro-Trump; middle-of-the-road folks (who engulf both centrists and those who fancy themselves old-fashioned conservatives); and the educated, which suggests they just might listen, and act accordingly on Election Days.

"If democracy isn’t worth fighting for, what is?" asks Dionne. I would add, however, that this bizarre, democratic fight-to-the-death must necessarily envelop some rather radical re-positioning on the Democrats' part. Something very fundamental must change in their campaigning substance. And my money is on the bellowed message of Democrats-cum-Burkean conservatives. Risky, for sure, but so was Inchon.

Assessing Biden's performance to date - and what may lie ahead

I have always admired the writings of Susan Glasser, a vastly experienced, widely traveled journalist now at The New Yorker. She's insightful, engrossing, and fair. I believe her latest piece, however — "Joe Biden’s Year of Hoping Dangerously" — failed in that last quality.

Much of her column is devoted to Biden's promise of Harding's normalcy; a "restoration—of sanity to our national politics, of competence to our governance, and of civility to our public life." Glasser acknowledges that President Biden "has lived up to his personal part of the bargain." He has re-dignified the White House, mostly by slaying his predecessor's indefatigable lying — Trump's average of 21 lies a day for a four-year total of 30,573 "untruths," with 492 of them coming in his first 100 days, and a staggering 503 lies told in just one day.

As for this president's wider-reaching promise to restore sanity, competence and civility to the nation, Glasser writes that "Biden, it is now clear, promised what he couldn’t deliver in a nation divided against itself." That much is a fair, objectively grounded observation. Nearly half of this Christianist nation would reject civility if Jesus himself were in the White House preaching the virtues of human decency.

But here is the Glasser line that sorely aggravated my sphincter: "[Biden] trafficked in hope that was arguably as misleading in its own way as Trump’s lies."

And that, I submit, is as unfair as any line could be. Satan himself couldn't match Trump in the telling of falsehoods; the latter has created his own little hell, since the Devil abhors competition. To then suggest that Biden is in any way comparable to Trump is simply inadmissible.

It should also be remembered that the bulk of Biden's hopes and promises came during his presidential candidacy. What, as a candidate, was he supposed to say? "I promise to keep America as uncivil and divided as Trump had done"?

Add to that the then-unimaginable reality that Trump's demonic influence would persist — even accelerate — after the 6th and 20th of last January. Its miasmic fog needn't be reiterated here; its familiarity is already engrained in much of the nation's aching consciousness. Let it suffice that Trump's malevolent influence is more of a danger now to American democracy than it was when he still gripped his sinister scepter — and that, as said, was once unimaginable. (Glasser's incisive encapsulation: "Did you imagine [on Jan. 7th] a world where it was even possible that Liz Cheney, not Donald Trump, would be the Republican leader purged as a result of the insurrection at the Capitol?")

Glasser does concede that under Biden "more than seventy per cent of American adults are vaccinated; there are promising new treatments for covid; unemployment has fallen, wages have risen, the economy has rebounded, and the stock markets have hit record highs that would have had Trump beating his chest." In addition he saw through to passage a $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, a long-belated infrastructure bill, and the confirmations of federal judges aplenty. That unemployment rate? It's down to almost 4 percent. As for the booming stock market, 401(k)s are thriving.

Nevertheless, Glasser asserts that Biden words about "a time to repair, restore, heal, and build" were "stirring" but "impossible words." Let the record show that, in many important ways, they were not. They just weren't.

She goes on write that "the overheated declarations last spring that this President was the progressive reincarnation of F.D.R. or L.B.J. now seem ... dated." I agree, and I preemptively agreed last spring, in that much of what Biden envisioned was less visionary than agonizingly overdue. Especially cringeworthy was that premature "declarations" of political sainthood have an uncanny way of boomeranging on the declarants. Never boast till the game is over. (I learned that lesson in the most painful way — my easy, abundantly written assumptions of a Clinton 2016 victory.)

Still, there have indeed been many a Biden success story, as noted above. His biggest snag, though, may be his own party. Democrats have always been amazingly crappy at messaging. "Have you heard the good word, Brother?" Such words appear to be missing from the Democratic lexicon. To Republicans messaging is a cherished art, performed daily and with the greatest of skill. 

For the Democratic Party, that may be an impossible challenge, given so many of its divergent voices. But with that I'll place some Bidenesque "hope" in the implication of another of Glasser's lines — the implication being, President Biden is on his own: "The oldest President ever elected, Biden at age seventy-nine is not the doddering caricature that Republicans have sought to make him. But he has not yet figured out how to make an effective case for himself and his Presidency."

Hey, he has three years to go.

A little present for you

I little late, but here's my Christmas, Hanukkah, pagan and New Year's gift to you: ThriftBooks.com. Simple as that, a website.

It's a marvelous source for buying used books. Its offerings are massive (I'm rarely unable to find a desired volume) and the books' condition is almost always pristine. Good as new. There are usually several selections of the book you can choose from, with varying illustrated covers, if you're into that artsy sort of thing. Hardbacks and paperbacks, prices will range. 

And get this: With every order of a mere $10 or more, ThiftBooks has free shipping. 

I couldn't begin to calculate the hundreds of dollars I've saved over the years, ordering from this site. Check it out. You won't be sorry. 

(Note: This is not a paid announcement.) 

Political violence and the partisan divide

​​​​​As shocking as the Washington Post's poll results are on the question of whether violence against the government is ever justified, even more shocking is the probability of the results' statistical insignificance — their antique irrelevance — by the years 2024 and 2025.

As recently as 2010, only 16% of Americans endorsed such violence, and no doubt most of them were Tea Partying, chest-beating simians who favored violence in general; the tyrannical imposition of more accessible, more affordable healthcare was but an excuse to lock and load. Today's pro-violence flock — that is, those of the Guy Fawkes mentality of last January — has more than doubled in size, to 34%.

That one of every three Americans you pass on the unmasked streets embraces the now-realistic concept of swarming the Capital Building, murdering policy officers, hunting U.S. legislators and hanging the vice president is, shall we say, a rather dispiriting civic development.

It comes with partisan asymmetry, of course: Nearly twice as many Republicans versus Democrats are somewhat giddy at the prospect of a bloody coup: 40% of "Grand" Old Party members against Democrats' 23%. (Forty-one percent of independents are as violently boisterous as the wool-coated Republican housewife and her tricorned husband, but independents are a curiously schizophrenic group who can never seem to distinguish white hats from black ones.)

As would be expected, the partisan asymmetry is also "gendered," racial, and certifiably nuts. Men (as always) are more prone to beat a D.C. cop half to death with an American flagpole, and while 40% of all red-White-and-blue Americans defend such barbarity, only 18% of the African-American population does. In the poll's follow-up interviews with respondents, among the reasons given for justifiable murder or attempted murder is opposition to mask mandates. Mask mandates!

This swelling, generalized insanity is due to only one human being, so to speak — that singular centrality of voice and incubator of mass dementia. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans are still smitten by Trump's bunco humbuggery about rampant voter fraud, and more than that — 69% — say that President Biden's title is illegitimate. For Christ's sake, even three-fourths of those schizophrenic independents don't swallow the Mar-a-Lago magpie's blatherskite about the 2020 election's "irregularities."

The Post quizzically notes that "Republicans’ rejection of Biden’s victory is not novel. [In its 2017 poll], 67 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Hillary Clinton voters said Trump was not legitimately elected president." In the story's context, however, the citing of those statistics is without relevance or comparability, for there is no subsequent report on January 2017's total absence of Democrats trying to hang Vice President Biden.

One quote from a 39-year-old Michigan mother of two reveals the extent of Trump's once-unthinkable poisoning of so many minds: Said the woman to the Post: "It’s no longer a war against Democrats and Republicans. It’s a war between good and evil." (In her case, the "evil" arose from her suspicion that Biden might someday kick in her door and force a vaccine needle in her arm, although that is somewhat beside the point. The point is that she now envisions the propriety of physical, political violence.)

The woman, one Anthea Ward, was nonetheless partially correct. The intensifying war in which we're engaged entails battles against Trumpian evil, for sure. Yet the war is much less one of good vs. evil than one of merely standard, everyday politics, as practiced by Democrats, vs. the evils of governing indifference, voter suppression and, above all, Republicans' election subversion.

The pros and cons of, say, Build Back Better can be rationally debated. But there can be no rational debate about the pros and cons of Republicans reversing the will of voters. That's just straight-out fascism, as far from any American "good" as any political objective could be.

In that very possible event, political violence against actual usurpers would be justified. But now for the Big Partisan Difference: Democrats, by nature, wouldn't revolt much as Trumpian Republicans did. At least I'm reasonably, depressingly confident they wouldn't. Hence America would simply slip into illegitimate authoritarianism and go on about its business, one of mostly just trying to pay the cable bill.

After all, what's a murdered democracy compared to the frisson of a "Cheers" rerun?

Before Hollywood became unreal

Ginger Rogers, pre-code (roughly 1929 to mid-1934). Gee, I wonder what the big flowery button was supposed to symbolize? 

OK, one big beef before leaving 2021. Maybe 2022 will end it. I hope.

​​​​​"Some of the most open-minded, inclusive people I know struggle with the singular pronoun 'they,'" writes English professor Anne Curzan for the Washington Post. "And while it’s hard to unlearn what we were taught was grammatically 'wrong,' it’s worth doing." Which she thereupon attempts.

To begin she argues that "when we look at the record, we discover the pronoun 'they' has been used as a singular generic pronoun ... for hundreds of years. Shakespeare and Austen both used singular 'they' this way." Curzan provides us no Shakespearean example, and at any rate I would note that Shakespeare wrote in Elizabethan English, which was the transition form from Middle English to Early New English, hence its grammatical rules differed from modern English. But Curzan does supply an example from Austen: "But to expose the former faults of any person," says a character in Pride and Prejudice, "without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable."

You will note, however, that Curzan's Austen example is not an example of using "they." She jumps to "their" instead. "Their" is used most commonly as a plural possessive; otherwise, as a reference to a singular antecedent, which is standard practice when the person's gender is unknown. Curzan herself observes this, though she's impelled to include "they" in the mix as a way to justify her logic: "In many instances, we employ singular 'they' exactly because the gender of the antecedent noun (the person we are referring to) is unknown or irrelevant, as in: 'A serious runner replaces their shoes every few months.'" As noted, when used in reference to an antecedent noun, their is not an example of they. It's only the unknown runner that compels the usage of "their."

Curzan goes on to explain that "they" is "considered wrong only because 200-plus years of grammarians have told us it is wrong, without solidly justifying that judgment." Well, the solid, justified judgment is contained in her denunciation: "They" has been plural in English usage for 200 years — a kind of grammatical stare decisis; precedent takes precedence.

But Curzan isn't through yet. "What is relatively new is the use of singular 'they' to refer to specific people who identify as nonbinary. This leads to a construction such as, 'Alex is spending their senior year in Alaska.'" That could indeed lead to such a construction, but it would be wrong in its plural — and auditory — offense.

Continues The Garbled Grammarian (I love the old "Perry Mason" episode titles): "In the cases where there genuinely is ambiguity about the referent of singular 'they' (e.g., 'I was talking to my mother and her friend, and they said …'), we should rewrite the sentence," since this is "potentially confusing." It is? "They" unambiguously refers to "mother and her friend."

"Third," writes Curzan, "when 'they' is a person’s pronoun, the meaning of the pronoun is not ambiguous: It means the person does not identify within 'he'/'she' binary and identifies as 'they.'" Of course that's what it means in some settings today. But it is ambiguous, and therein lies precisely the bad, disjointed grammar that an English professor should abhor. That, she simply brushes away.

Finally, Curzan chooses to employ the very same imperiousness of which she accuses 200 years of proscriptive grammar: "At least right now, singular nonbinary 'they' has gotten traction, perhaps because it is already established in grammar as a singular pronoun." What of previously "established" grammar? Her assertion implies that established grammar — that which has preceded us — is that of good grammar, yet here it is tossed aside. Curzan may say that singular "they" is established, and even Merriam-Webster may say it's established. That does not mean, however, that it's proper and therefore should filter throughout everyday English.

Curzan concludes on yet another baffling note: "Debates about singular 'they' come from a place of deep caring about language and how it is used. The good news is that we can care about clarity, precision and inclusive pronouns all at the same time."

I certainly care, and care deeply, about language — as do millions of others — which is why I took the time to write this indignant post. The problem with Curzan's conclusion? Clarity and precision are altogether abandoned when language embraces inclusivity through confusing, imprecise, ungrammatical English. If we can say "They is eating," then we can also write that "Pi are 3.14" — and be perfectly grammatical.

"They" can frogmarch me into a reeducation camp, they can torture me, they can starve me and deprive me of water and beat me for days — but they shall never hear me confess they they is right and I is wrong. 

***

P.S.: You want linguistic anarchy? Ponder this potential line from a story: "Andre, Wally, and they discussed their lives at a diner; after dessert, they left." 

Be safe out there. Start 2022 right.

Let's hope 2022 works out better than Buster Keaton's expectations.

Here's to a good (new) beginning, everyone.

Stay safe.

What George Orwell got wrong

In a backhanded appeal to Democrats hoping to brighten a rather grim, midterm election year, George Will recommends that the party's sizable and deeply sincere left wing rehabilitate its sprawling habit of unleashing obscure language on the rest of us. He sensibly observes that "n​​​ormal people, who might want to toss anvils to progressives drowning in their jargon ['wokeness,' 'intersectionality,' 'BIPOC,' 'microaggression' and the like], should modify George Orwell’s axiom that 'the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.'"

Clearly, Mr. Orwell was wrong and Will is right. As the latter explains, in reality "the enemy of clarity is the scary sincerity of progressives who are politically inflamed about everything" — and have since attempted to douse the flames with foul-tasting, aqueous English.

This general insight on the relationship between sincerity and language was more succinctly expressed 130 years ago by Oscar Wilde, who divined that "all bad poetry is sincere." Likewise, progressives are trying to be politically poetic when they toss around their weird, neologistic inventions. (Not to be pedantic, but Wilde actually wrote that "all bad poetry springs from genuine feeling." The shorter version, passed down to us through generations, is catchier, though, and thus has become the standard Wildeism.)

What I wish to alternatively touch on, however, is Orwell's ensuing observation, which was as misguided as his "insincerity" remark was mistaken. Lamented the author in his essay, "Politics and the English Language": "When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms.... [The words quoted here immediately followed his 'insincerity' comment.] In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer."

The difficulty with that passage lies in two of its phrases: "In [his] age," and its generally "bad" political atmosphere. Orwell cast his lamentation in the year of 1946. That one refuge of political scoundrels was "long words and exhausted idioms" was certainly nothing new in the postwar era, as Orwell surely understood. But what of singling out that age as somehow uniquely bad in politics, along with the citizenry's inescapable involvement in it?

Which is another way of asking, Just when has public politics not been nestled in a generally wretched atmosphere? Here at home, even a cursory glance at our history and its politics reveals an uninterrupted flow of — to further condense Orwell's summary — monumental troubles. Each successive era seemed indomitable in its agonies; some, possibly the end of America as its contemporaneous residents knew it:

The embryonic nation's near collapse contained in the raging "war" between Federalists and Anti-Federalists; the antebellum era's immense, sectional tensions; the bloody bridge from tensions to actual civil war; the contentious challenge and then unforgivable shame of Reconstruction; the beastly ferment of the Gilded Age and the Progressive movement's tortured and ultimately disappointing battle against it; the penetrating pain of the Great Depression; two hot global wars; a paranoid Cold War; the oppressive McCarthy era; the embattled age of civil rights; the ominous rise of Reaganism, then its beeline to seemingly endless culture wars — and Trumpism.

Plus a gazillion other agonies amid it all: racism in each of its hideously varied manifestations, second-class womanhood, wage suppression and their combined, inexorable results of widespread socioeconomic inequality and ever-narrowing concentrations of wealth — not to mention harrowing struggles over nativism, nationalism, and imperialism.

None of this is to say, or in any way imply, that today's obscenities of Trumpism and its ghastly dangers to American democracy are to be dismissed as a kind of ho-hum affair. Both present a nearly incomparable gauntlet. But such has been the history of America: just one damn thing after another.

Orwell was misguided in believing that his era — transatlantically — was especially afflicted.

Trumpism and evangelical Christianity: To which circle would Dante have condemned both?

Atlantic contributor and Never Trumper Peter Wehner takes note of a Christianity-shattering occurrence of late: Donald Trump Jr.'s Dec. 19th address to a congregation of Turning Point USA members, which is the same as saying, Trump supporters. One portion of Jr.'s speech was truly extraordinary in its implications for evangelical Christianity.

Wehner concedes that the erratic thoughts of Don Jr. are rarely worth a bother; nevertheless, the son "has been his father’s chief emissary to MAGA world." On occasion, then, what he says is worth a listen. And what he said at Turning Point USA's gathering went far beyond the organization's principal mission, that of hardcore pseudoconservative "enlightenment" for the young. (The Chronicle of Higher Education has written that TPUSA "is now the dominant force in campus conservatism.")

After further noting that Don Jr.'s speech "displayed seething, nearly pathological resentments; playground insults...; tough guy/average Joe shtick; and a pulsating sense of aggrieved victimhood and persecution," Wehner, himself an evangelical Christian, gets to the crux of the son's delivery:

"If we get together, they cannot cancel us all. Okay? They won’t. And this will be contrary to a lot of our beliefs because — I’d love not to have to participate in cancel culture. I’d love that it didn’t exist. But as long as it does, folks, we better be playing the same game. Okay? We’ve been playing T-ball for half a century while they’re playing hardball and cheating. Right? We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing. Okay? It’s gotten us nothing." (You gotta love his "sort of" understanding the biblical reference.)

Wehner perfectly summarizes Don Jr.'s spiel: To "tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP," his message was that "the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers." Continued Wehner: "It’s worse than that.... If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go."

I'm delighted that Wehner cites the ethic of Jesus instead of "morality," which is imposed on populations, is variegated from culture to culture, and thus produces ambiguity and contradictions to an endpoint of meaninglessness. Ethics come from within; there exist certain a priori, universal tenets of human decency (otherwise human society could never have come about). One needn't believe in the divinity of Jesus or some externally dictated morality to appreciate his "natural" ethical teachings, which resemble those of every major religion, each of which sprang from intrinsic concepts of goodness. (The sensible alternative — a shortcut, really — to reading the intimidating mounds of world religions' ethics is simply to read the more compact entirety of Shakespeare, who, in less than 40 mesmerizing plays, said it all.)

There I digressed. For what I wished to note with more urgency is that one of Turning Point's subsidiaries, so to speak, is named Turning Point Faith Ministries. Among its unswerving guidelines is this: "The Bible is God’s word to all men. It was written by human authors, under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is the supreme source of truth for Christian beliefs and living. Because it is inspired by God, it is truth without any mixture of error."

Yet there stood Don Jr. before an adoring, enraptured crowd of Turning Point's adherents cheering him on as he excoriated at least one biblical error and preached what is explicitly "contrary to a lot of our beliefs" — namely, that of ceasing Jesus' cheek turning. Because such turnings — assuming one has ever occurred — have "gotten us nothing. Okay? It’s gotten us nothing." Thus, to so many of today's evangelicals, Trumpian Christianity is as transactional as Trumpian politics — and abysmally, profoundly emblematic of Molière.

I probably should have omitted that I had digressed when distinguishing morality from ethics, inasmuch as my survey was not, in fact, much of a digression. For a new "morality" is being imposed, from above, on evangelical Christians, who stand overwhelmingly in Trump's corner. They are now to follow the earthly teachings of the Donald, Don Jr., and any other secular brute who worships at the shrine of holy Trumpism.

Can Wehner's once-beloved evangelical Christianity survive such a pragmatic beating? Hell I don't know, can't say. I will however venture that should it survive, it will do so as a permanent cripple. And that, pace Wehner, I see as a sainted upside to Don Jr.'s sermon. After its full embrace of Trump Sr., evangelical Christianity doesn't deserve to live, much less thrive.

Trump's pro-vaccine remarks? They're merely pro-Trump.

Many of the left's pom-poming stories about Trump's recent vaccination crusade strike me as hyperbolic, such as Salon's, which opens: "Devoted far-right followers of former President Donald Trump are finally turning on him." That's a broad statement — an assertion enveloping millions of Americans, effectively stripping the former president of his base.

All this speculative hoo-ha began, as you know, when Trump appeared on stage with Bill O'Reilly a few days ago, whereupon the woebegone despot proudly announced that he had gotten a covid booster shot. To this, the audience responded with boos, which, retorted Trump, erupted from only "a very tiny group" among the assembled. Shortly after that embarrassment, Trump then told far-right activist Candace Owens in an interview that "some people aren't taking [the vaccine]. The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take their vaccine.... People aren't dying when they take their vaccine."

Trump's remarks, at long last, contained something shockingly responsible — and that, of course, inflicted immense agony on some or much of his base. But there's a huge difference between some and much, which renders Salon's stirring lede — that his "devoted far-right followers ... are finally turning on him" — in doubt.

Salon notes that Trump's comments sent "alternative social media networks like Telegram and Gab into a frenzy," which, doubtless, is true. But what does that mean, in terms of numbers of users? Social media is ignored by most Americans, hence "alternative" social media is surely but a gnat on the butt of the Trumpian booboisie.

Numberswise, Salon offers up only Infowar's Alex Jones and "Stop the Steal" agitator Ali Alexander as once-devoted far-right followers of Trump. Jones said "everybody I know that used to support Trump is really mad at him." How many voters does Jones know? I've no idea, nor does Salon. Said Mr. Alexander: "Trump, stop. Just stop." That's an entreaty, not a full-scale condemnation. Last week I also posted a short video of "MAGA activist" Alison Steinberg denouncing Trump. Yet Alison's MAGA influence is as unknown as she is.

Here, though, is where we come to the interesting part. Notes Salon: "The simmering TrumpWorld civil war [another bit of hyperbole] has also had a similar effect on the community of people who subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory — leaving them unsure whether Trump has abandoned the anti-vaccine movement, or is simply following a plan so complicated and secret that they cannot comprehend its inner workings." We might add that Trump's committed "QAnon community" could be even smaller than the number of "alternative social media" users.

Still, there is more, and it is fascinating. Former Trump lawyer Lin Wood, who's every bit as crazy as the most devoted QAnon disciple, has benevolently signed on to the "secret," "inner workings" theory. Observed Wood on the social-media site Telegram: "I believe We The People should wait until ALL the facts are known before passing judgment on the President's wartime strategy and the tactics designed to achieve victory." Since Mr. Wood is nuts — he additionally reveals Trump as the current "Commander in Chief" — we need not linger over the inner workings of his forgiving speculation.

We also need not "wait until ALL the facts are known" about Trump's "wartime strategy." Because it's staring us in the face: It's a general election strategy.

Sure, in the primaries he'll lose some votes from the Infowars baptized, devout anti-vaxxers, and the yet-institutionalized. Trump, however, is at least smart enough to appreciate that he simply cannot credibly vie for a general-election victory on a pro-covid platform. He must begin now to abandon the craziest of the freedom-loving vaccine loathers; it's that, or no chance of ending his woebegone despotic days. Even some of the genuinely pissed off will still vote for him in both primary and general, since so many of that crowd love Trumpian authoritarianism even more than they hate Moderna.

So Trump finally said a few things that were shockingly responsible. His words, though, were typically only for his own good.

Is Omicron a good thing?

There is a certain irony, or paradox, hovering over the rapid spread of the Omicron variant in the U.S. — or so it seems to me.

The facts: The number of coronavirus cases is now higher than even that of last winter. At last week's end, confirmed cases reached nearly 200,000 daily, and that represented a staggering 65% increase over just the prior two weeks. Hospitalizations have also increased, although their statistical rise has not matched the rise in cases. This suggests the lesser severity of Omicron.

Another fact, however, is that deaths were up by 3% throughout the above period, averaging more than 1,300 a day. It would be natural to assume that the rise in deaths has corresponded to the rise of Omicron, especially since, as the Times reports, "experts warn that the surge of infections, combined with the fact that tens of millions of Americans remain unvaccinated, could still create a severe strain on the U.S. health system and lead to many more deaths."

It should be observed, however, that the variant cause of these potential deaths is not identified in the Times article; nor anywhere, that I know of, in the major press.

Which leads us to another fact, as reported by WebMD.com: The first case of the Omicron variant leading to death occurred only on Christmas Eve. And it came with its own peculiar circumstances: "The man, who was in his 50s and lived in Harris County, Texas, was unvaccinated and had previously been infected with COVID-19. He recently contracted the virus again, and it was confirmed as the Omicron variant."

In short, the 50-something man had recklessly tried to dodge covid-19 twice, and he lost. But he also had "underlying health conditions" — plus who knows the aftereffects of his first infection — which almost certainly contributed to the severity of his Omicron case. At any rate, as of last Friday there had been only one Death by Omicron.

In other words — and, I should add, so far — virtually everyone infected by Omicron, whether vaccinated or not, is undergoing less severity, which is reflected in the number of hospitalizations lagging behind confirmed cases. Meanwhile, unvaccinated Omicron-infected patients are acquiring some level — perhaps a significant level — of immunity to covid-19.

All of which suggests, to this layman, that Omicron could be the best thing to happen yet throughout this godawful plague. The rapidly spreading variant has the entire nation even closer on edge than it was a year ago, but it could be that Omicron will prove to be the killer of covid-19 itself.

As the recklessly unvaccinated acquire and overcome Omicron, immunity sets in and thus broader infectiousness diminishes and ultimately disappears.

I have not read of this possible upside anywhere. If it is an upside, epidemiologists would be enormously reluctant to note it publicly, since that would only unleash even more recklessness, more cases, more burdensome hospitalizations and, likely, more deaths, as in the case of the 50-something Texas man.

Of course I'm not an epidemiologist myself, so my theoretical thesis could be all wet. But the logic works. And if it shows to be true ... well, what irony: the virus killed itself. 

***

Update, 29 Dec.: At last, some reporting on this: "Omicron is undoubtedly becoming the dominant variant, and that could be good news: A new laboratory study carried out by South African scientists showed that people who had recovered from an infection with the variant might be able to fend off later infections from Delta." (NYT)

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas and ...

Remember, today is also Humphrey Bogart's birthday (1899) — and there really is a Rick's in Casablanca. 

Best to all, and here's lookin' at you, kid. 

P.S.: Between readings of articles on Omicron, ant-vax morons and an overwhelmed hospital system, I'm watching Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). I'm worried about how everything will turn out. That's the magic of film. 

A rather pissed-off MAGA activist

I don't know who Alison Steinberg really is — a Google search furnished one who's in "global marketing," from Syracuse University, so that can't be she; and another, but with two els, plus she's at the ACLU, so that sure as hell isn't she — but perhaps Alison is, in fact, a major influence as a "MAGA activist." 

Alex Jones had MAGA activist Alison Steinberg on to trash Trump over the vaccine: “If you go to his hotel in NY, you have to show proof of papers. So how can you continue to blindly defend this man? .. There’s no denying what he’s doing is evil.” pic.twitter.com/AytmkN3ggh

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 24, 2021

Should we hope that Alison is a big-time influence at the MAGA asylum? It's a difficult, even impossible question to answer with any real certainty. Trump could be the end of the American Experiment — U.S.A., 2025, R.I.P. — or he could be the best thing that ever happened to American democracy. That is to say, he could be so obviously, so indisputably, so innumerably annihilated in the presidential election, not even the GOP's ham-handed machinations in swing states could save his sorry ass. From there, the Republican Party would be left with no option but to reform.  

Indeed it could be, it just could be, that Ms. Steinberg is ahead of the curve — in the weirdest kind of way.   

***

It seems that Mr. Jones added: "Everybody I know that used to support Trump is really mad at him. He’s ... committing political suicide."

Garland, Trump, and time

Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe is still at it, doggedly urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to do something about Trump's attempt at a 2020 presidential coup — and to do it quickly. His latest urging is cowritten with former federal prosecutors Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut, for the NY Times. For those of you without a Times subscription and would like to read the gist of Tribe et al.'s op-ed, I give you this:

Almost a year after the insurrection, we have yet to see any clear indicators that [a Trump] investigation is underway, raising the alarming possibility that this administration may never bring charges against those ultimately responsible for the attack....

The legal path to investigate the leaders of the coup attempt is clear. The criminal code prohibits inciting an insurrection or 'giving aid or comfort' to those who do, as well as conspiracy to forcibly 'prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States.' The code also makes it a crime to corruptly impede any official proceeding....

The president himself sat back for three hours while his chief of staff was barraged with messages from members of Congress and Fox News hosts pleading with him to have Mr. Trump call off the armed mob whose violent passion he had inflamed. That evidence ... is certainly enough to require a criminal investigation.

And yet there are no signs, at least in media reports, that the attorney general is building a case against these individuals — no interviews with top administration officials, no reports of attempts to persuade the foot soldiers to turn on the people who incited them to violence....

Even our proud tradition of not mimicking banana republics by allowing political winners to retaliate against losers must give way in the wake of violence perpetrated to thwart the peaceful transition of power.... Without forceful action to hold the wrongdoers to account, we will likely not resist what some retired generals see as a march to another insurrection in 2024 if Mr. Trump or another demagogue loses.

Tribe and his co-writers concede that Garland may be investigating "behind closed doors. Justice Department policy does not permit announcing investigations, absent exceptional circumstances." If this isn't one, I don't know what is. At any rate, the authors also note that if such an investigation were indeed in progress, there almost certainly would have been leaks to the media by now.

Yet, we hear of nothing. Meanwhile, it seems that time is slipping away — and wasted time is Mr. Trump's most powerful ally.