Two Reactions To Reactions

There's a treat at the end

Over the past few days, I’ve been reading and watching and listening to a lot of opinions about the recent election. My friend Mary suggested an episode of Al Franken’s podcast (I met him once at the Uptown Diner in Minneapolis — nice guy) in which he talked with Norm Ornstein. I listened to their conversation and jotted down a few notes.

Ornstein is a 76 year old political scientist from the American Enterprise Institute, just in case you wondered how traditional Republicans are reacting to the reelection of Donald Trump. Al begins the convo by admitting at the start that Joe Biden should not have run for a second term, although he says "that only became apparent" during the debate performance in June. Unfortunately, that can't possibly be true. Biden’s mental state became “apparent” to the world in the debate, but everyone around him must have known about it and the conspiracy of silence probably had a huge effect on the outcome in November.

How did this defeat happen? Al asks. Norm's answer, COVID. Disruptions of supply chains, inflation; all incumbent governments took it on the chin. Al repeats the talking point that the inflation problem wasn’t caused by JUST the huge injection of money into the economy, but by the fact that the money was chasing fewer products due to supply chain issues. This seems to be a talking point; I’ve heard it a lot in the last week. They go on to discuss how the fallout of COVID lockdowns and restrictions seem to have "stuck" more to the Democrats than to Trump, under whose administration many of these problems began.

This is an interesting point and it's worth thinking about for a moment, I think. Although Trump initially elevated Fauci to national prominence, somehow the whole national medical establishment that became so central to the COVID response just seems more Democrat, doesn’t it? Why might that be? Possibly because Trump himself embraced some weird ideas? Although I suspect a lot of this was misstated or misinterpreted by the media to make Trump seem stupid, off-label use of drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin was supported in both medical theory and the experience of several doctors (who were later silenced). And more important, although Trump initiated "Warp Speed", the rollout of the vaccines (which critics will point out are actually experimental gene therapies) really got underway under Biden, as did the suppression of not only dissent but even questions. This may be why Americans feel Democrats are more to "blame" for the insanity surrounding COVID. I don't think it's just "Republicans blowing up Science for their own cynical purposes," as Norm claims.

I think Al is correct in crediting Trump with being a very talented standup orator. Not a standup comic and not an orator like Obama, but something in between. And I think it's useful that Al admits the felony convictions are viewed by the public as a "cheap shot" and meaningless. The fact that the Democrats and their supporters consistently refuse to acknowledge this (HCR began her 11/6 "Letter" by describing Trump as a 78 year old felon) remains a problem for their credibility, I think.

It seems Al really blames Biden for not honoring his pledge to be a "transitional" president and stepping aside. Norm countered that an "open primary" would probably have resulted in the nomination of someone other than Kamala Harris, but he sees this as a potential disaster. Picking a white male (Gavin Newsom) over the "heir apparent" would have "deeply divided" the party, he says. We’ll never know now, of course.

Norm also accused the media of "sane-washing" Trump, which he describes as making the rants Trump would wander off into during campaign speeches seem sane; rather than being (as he believes) signs of serious mental impairment. So once again the thing that couldn't be said when Biden was in the race can now become a critique of Trump. Maybe it's true -- Trump IS 78 after all, so it's not impossible. But his free-associational ramblings have always been pretty bizarre. The opposition seems undecided about whether they’re going to call his ramblings insane or claim he means them all and is going to do everything he promises. Can they have it both ways?

Al says a lot of people died needlessly because of Trump and Norm jumps on that train and says 400,000. This puzzles me a bit. I'm not sure exactly what they're referring to here. Somehow they attribute vaccine hesitancy to Trump, even if it happened during Biden’s tenure. So the COVID deaths that happened under Biden are still Trump's fault?

After claiming that presidential immunity will allow Trump to pardon the Proud Boys and turn them into his own militia, Norm goes on to say that "even if the ruling elites [meaning people like himself] made mistakes, that is far better than letting know-nothings like Robert F. Kennedy Jr." gain any influence. He then makes a lot of predictions about the economic mayhem that could be caused by huge tax cuts for the wealthy and a trade war sparked by tariffs. These are all possibilities I think. But it's interesting that they're assuming Trump means and will be able to implement 100% of his campaign promises. How likely is that?

It's really weird to listen to a guy from the AEI complaining about how disgusting the chicken processing industry is and how we can't afford to let Trump deregulate industry. Wow! Shoe is definitely on a different foot.

And now the treat. A friend of mine, with whom I used to work at Bemidji State University, posted his own analysis. Anton Treuer teaches Ojibwe at BSU, he’s the son of a tribal judge (Mom) and a Holocaust survivor (Dad). He’s well known as a calming voice, and I think he does a good job of that in this video while making some valid points. I think there are a LOT of reasons 15 million people found it impossible to vote blue this time, and while there was probably SOME racism and sexism involved, the two wars, the mismatch between what people are being told about the economy and what they're experiencing, the COVID debacle, the attack on freedom of speech, and a backlash against the "woke" agenda may all have been bigger factors. But I think you’ll like this video: