Politics

“IF YOU’VE EVER WONDERED…….

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

“If you’ve wondered what you would have done if you’d lived in Nazi Germany during Hitler’s rise to power, it’s what you are doing right now.”

That’s not the exact quote, but I heard something like that the other day, and it struck home.  It’s actually  not a new thought: On Twitter I found this version from 2017, substituting “Slavery” or “the Civil Rights Movement” for “Nazi Germany,” but the point remains: What am I doing in this moment of crisis? What are you doing? What else can we do?

Well, here’s something that you can do immediately: Write the presidents of every academic institution you have a connection to and urge them to stand tall in the face of despotism.

Something like: 

Dear President XXXX,

As a proud (College or University) graduate, I urge you to join Harvard and stand firmly against the Trump Administration’s all out assault on the fundamental pillars of American society, including academic freedom. I hope that (college name) and other elite institutions will lead the effort to rebuild our democratic republic.  

I am approaching my XXth birthday and never have I been so afraid for my country.  As someone wisely observed, “If you ever wondered what you would have done if you had lived in Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s, it’s what you are doing right now.”  I believe that is correct. 

Thank you for your leadership, 

The New York Times columnist David Brooks, a lifelong conservative, has other suggestions, and I urge you to read his thoughtful piece.  He makes it clear that it’s not enough to be against Trump and Trumpism; we must also stand with equal fervor and purpose for a just society that provides fair opportunities for all.  And he makes clear that this is not a Democrat, Independent, or Republican issue. This is what all Americans must do to save our country from a power-hungry despot and his enablers.

Should We Be Rooting FOR Catastrophe?

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

More than 100 years ago H.G. Wells observed that “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” Wells was stacking the deck in that binary choice, because no one in their right mind would choose ‘catastrophe‘ over education. That would be unthinkable, particularly just after the end of World War I. 

Wells wrote more than 50 novels, including “The War of the Worlds,” as well as short stories, history and other nonfiction, an autobiography, and social commentary.  Little read today, Wells is best known for that one line, which supporters of public education cite time and again. 

How the tables have turned!  In 2025, education is not one of the binary choices.  Instead, we seem to be in a race between the burgeoning fascism of the Trump Presidency and catastrophe.  And, given that binary choice, it appears that ‘catastrophe’ is now the good guy in the equation, the potential savior of our Democratic Republic.  In other words, we should be rooting for catastrophes–note the plural, because just one castatrophe won’t do it.  We need a critical mass of awful stuff, sufficient to serve as a wake-up call for Americans, so that we are motivated to take action.

That’s how quickly Trump has upended American politics and governance.  The entire Republican party has abdicated its responsibilities, and a surprisingly large percentage of American adults now seem to be pleased that Trump and Elon Musk are ‘draining the swamp’ and ‘driving out the deep state.’   They’re happy now, but how long will that last?

Because Trump-caused catastrophes loom….and some have already arrived. Here’s a partial list: Delayed or missing social security checks, diminished veterans’ medical care, rising prices of food and consumer goods as the impact of tariffs becomes real, actual food shortages, a tanking stock market that bites into retirement security, rising interest rates, cuts in services for children with disabilities, the closing down of museums and libraries, increased financial pressure on farmers, a growing measles epidemic and perhaps bird flu as well, no FEMA help when natural disasters strike, diminished American prestige abroad (with China and others filling the vacuum), weaker relationships with close allies, including our neighbors Canada and Mexico, collapse in consumer confidence, and rising unemployment. 

H.G. Wells’ next two sentences are worth your attention: “Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.”

I hope you are making plans to participate at a Hands Off! Protest on Saturday, April 5th!

“Don’t Blame Me. I Didn’t Vote”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

While pundits and analysts will argue for years about the 2016, 2020, and 2024 election results, left out of the conversation is an astounding fact: Non-voters vastly outnumber those who voted for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris.  Consider 2016, when about 130 million voters went to the polls.   Clinton received 65,844,954 votes to Trump’s 62,979,8790, but more than 100,000,00 Americans of voting age did not cast ballots. In 2024, Trump got 77,301,000 votes, and Harris received 75,017,000 votes, but non-voters won again, because more than 90,000,000 eligible voters didn’t bother to go to the polls or mail in their ballots.

In fact, if “Not Voting” were looked upon as a choice (candidate), it would have won the popular vote in every Presidential election since at least 1916 because Americans have a bad habit of not voting. 

Who are these non-voters? Should we scorn them for their indifference? Don’t they understand how many of their fellow Americans have died protecting their freedom and their right to vote?  Surely we can agree that their not voting is deplorable behavior?

Not so fast.  I have come to believe that most non-voters are behaving rationally. They do not feel that they have a stake in our government, so why should they vote? They were schooled to see themselves as insignificant, and so, as adults, they keep their heads down, stay uninvolved, and do their best to make ends meet.

Yes, I am holding public schools at least partly responsible for our consistently low voter turnout, because public education is an efficient sorting machine that is undemocratic to its core.  Schools sort young children in two basic groups:  A minority is designated as ‘winners’ who are placed on a track leading to elite colleges, prominence and financial success.  While the rest aren’t labeled ‘losers’ per se, they are largely left to struggle on their own. That experience leaves many angry, frustrated and resentful, not to mention largely unprepared for life in a complex, rapidly changing society.   Why would they become active participants in the political process, an effort led by the now grown up ‘winners’ from their school days?  (It took a candidate who understood their resentment to arouse them….which happened in 2016 and again in 2024.)

Although formal tracking has fallen out of favor, schools have subtle ways of designating winners and losers, often based as much on parental education and income, race, and class as innate ability. By third or fourth grade most kids know, deep down, whether the system sees them as ‘winners’ bound for college or ‘losers’ headed somewhere else.  

Ironically, A Nation at Risk, the 1983 report that warned of “a rising tide of mediocrity,” inadvertently made matters worse.  In response, America put its eggs in the basket of student achievement–-as measured by student test scores.  Believing we were raising academic standards by asking more of students, we were in fact narrowing our expectations—those test scores again.  This practice went into high gear with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. What I call “regurgitation education” became the order of the day. This approach rewards parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education, and citizenship. 

This fundamentally anti-intellectual approach has failed to produce results.  Scores on our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have largely remained flat and have recently gone down.

Reducing kids to test scores has produced generations of graduates whose teachers and curriculum did not help them develop the habit of asking questions, digging deep, or discovering and following their passion. Because of how they were treated in school, many Americans have not grown into curious, socially conscious adults. This is not the fault of their teachers, because decisions about how schools operate are not made in classrooms.  It was school boards, politicians, policy makers, and the general public that created schools that value obedience over just about everything else. 

But the end result is millions of graduates who were rewarded with diplomas but have never participated in the give-and-take of ordinary citizenship—like voting.  Did they graduate from school prepared for life in a democracy, or are they likely to follow blindly the siren song of authoritarians? Can they weigh claims and counterclaims and make decisions based on facts and their family’s best interests, or will they give their support to those who play on their emotions?

During his campaigns, Donald Trump openly welcomed support from those he called ‘the poorly educated,’ but that’s the incorrect term. These men and women are not ‘poorly educated,’ ‘undereducated,’ or ‘uneducated.’ They have been miseducated, an important distinction. Schools have treated them as objects, as empty vessels to pour information into so it can be regurgitated back on tests.

The sorting process used in schools has another result: it produces elitists (in both political parties) who feel superior to the largely invisible ‘losers’ from their school days.  Arguably, those chickens came home to roost when Candidate Clinton called her opponent’s supporters ‘A Bucket of Deplorables,’ a gaffe that may have cost her the election.  But in all likelihood she was speaking her personal truth, because, after all, school had identified her as a ‘winner,‘ one of the elite. It’s perfectly understandable that she would not identify with the people who had been energized by Donald Trump. Most pundits, reporters, pollsters and politicians fell into the same trap.

Sorting is inevitable, because students try out for teams and plays, apply to colleges, and eventually seek employment, but let’s postpone sorting for as long as possible. A new approach to schooling must ask a different question about each young child. Let’s stop asking, “How intelligent are you?”  Let’s ask instead, “How are you intelligent?”  That may strike some as a steep hill to climb, but it’s essentially the question that caring parents, teachers, and other adults ask about individual children. They phrase it differently, asking, “What is Susan interested in?” “What gets George excited?” “What motivates Juan?” or “What does Sharese care about?”  Every child has interests, and those can be tapped and nurtured in schools designed to provide opportunities for children to succeed as they pursue paths of their own choosing. Giving children agency over their education—with appropriate guidance and supervision—will produce graduates better equipped to cope with today’s changing world.  And a larger supply of informed voters!

While the country survived four years of Donald Trump, it is again being severely tested. To survive and prosper, our democracy must have public schools that respect and nurture our children. If we don’t change our public schools, we will elect a succession of Donald Trumps, and that will be the end of the American experiment.

AMERICA, BOUGHT AND SOLD

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that your family’s wealth is roughly average, which means that you’re worth about $1 million, a big jump from 2019.  “Both median and average family net worth surged between 2019 and 2022, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Average net worth increased by 23% to $1,063,700, the Fed reported in October 2023, the most recent year it published the data. Median net worth, on the other hand, rose 37% over that same period to $192,900.”

So if you are the average American, you are a millionaire, but before you get too excited, you are worth roughly 1/600,000 of what Elon Musk is worth!

I’m talking about the same Elon Musk who spent $300,000,000 to buy the last presidential election and, as it turns out, to purchase our government.  Three hundred million dollars is a fortune for nearly everyone else, but for Musk it was chump change.

Suppose you ( just barely a millionaire) had spent the same portion of your wealth that Musk did.  $300 million of his estimated worth of $600,000,000,000–SIX HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS– is .0005% 

And .0005% of your fortune is $500!

Maybe you’re richer, worth $3 million.  Well, 5 thousandths of 1 percent of your $3M is $3000.   

Even if you’re really rich–worth $30,000,000–your ‘Musk equivalent cost’ is still chump change, $30,000.

That’s right, we sold our country for a pittance.  And as I see it, those who willingly and wittingly bought into the MAGA line have also sold something–their souls. (Those Trump voters have been misinformed and miseducated by the Fox/right wing media machine for years deserve sympathy, not condemnation.)

Those who sell themselves are, to put it crudely, whores.  And those who sell themselves for .0005% are CHEAP WHORES.

That’s where America is right now, in the hands of greedy megalomaniacs, power-hungry opportunists, and vengeful white Christian nationalists.

How do we escape their grasp and recapture our country?  I suggest at least five courses of action: 1) support the ACLU and other organizations that are filing lawsuits, 2) join forces with anyone who supports local public institutions like schools and libraries, 3) support Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who take public stands against MAGA, 4) support independent journalism wherever you find it, and 5) stand with those the Trump Administration is attacking (which now includes Lutherans and Catholics who are supporting compassionate services for immigrants).

It’s long past time for liberal Democrats to stop focusing on sectional interests like gender, race, and immigrant status and pay attention to the needs of a shrinking middle class suffering from growing income inequality.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sounded the warning back in 2017, when he urged everyone to “understand that absolutely these are very difficult and frightening times. But also understand that in moments of crisis, what has happened, time and time again, is that people have stood up and fought back. So despair is absolutely not an option.”

If we don’t work together, MAGA will eventually come for you, and for me, and all of us!

Democrats Didn’t Lose the November Election in November…..

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Some pundits are blaming Kamala Harris for not doing this or that, and others are blaming Joe Biden for not dropping out earlier, but I am convinced that Democrats lost the Presidential election long before November 5, 2024.  Here are three possible dates that help explain Trump’s victory:  August 24, 2022; December 22, 2020; and July 24, 2009. They represent bad policies and missed opportunities, all of which came back to hurt Kamala Harris.

August 24, 2022 is the day Biden announced that his Administration intended to forgive the debts that hundreds of thousands of (mostly) young people owed to the federal government, loans they had taken out to pay for their college education.  Low income debtors could have as much as $20,000 forgiven; others, $10,000.  The Supreme Court intervened and overturned his original plan, but he persisted. And as Election Day neared, he and Vice President Kamala Harris took pains to remind everyone that his Administration had forgiven about $175 Billion in government loans for about 5 million people. 

But I want to go back to that day in August, 2022.  When we heard the news that morning, my wife’s immediate reaction was ‘Bad move.’  Why, I asked?  Because, she said, this is going anger the millions of people who worked hard to pay off their loans, and it’s also going to alienate people who never got the chance to go to college.  

I think she was correct.  I’m guessing the vast majority of those 5 million who benefited from Biden’s move would have voted for a Democrat anyway. He didn’t need to give them preferential treatment, but what about the nearly 40 million adults under the age of 65 who have some college credits but no degree?  And the millions more who borrowed money and paid it back–or who may still be paying those loans off?   Or voters whose gut instinct is to treat everyone fairly?

It’s bad politics to clinch the votes of 5 million people while alienating 50 million or more voters. And it’s also bad public policy to divide an already divided nation.

But Democrats may have lost the 2024 election even earlier, on December 22, 2020 even before Joe Biden was sworn in: That’s the day that President-elect Biden announced his selection of 45-year-old Miguel Cardona to be his Secretary of Education.  On paper, Dr. Cardona sounded perfect, with his inspiring rags-to-riches, “up from bootstraps” story. Dr. Cardona, who was raised in a housing project in Meriden, Connecticut, entered kindergarten speaking only Spanish.  He went through the city’s public schools and earned a college degree before returning to work as a fourth-grade teacher in the district in 1998, rising to principal, then assistant district superintendent and State Superintendent.   Along the way he earned his doctorate, as well as praise for handling the Covid pandemic.  This was, it seemed, The American Dream of social mobility writ large, but it turned out instead to be a missed opportunity to chart a new course for public education to recognize the gifts and interests of all children (and not just their test scores).

The central point of Dr. Cardona’s story is not his remarkable rise but its exceptionality, because, unfortunately, most of our public schools have become rubber stamps for the social, educational, and financial status of the parents.  Schools are much more likely to be barriers, not gateways.  Sure, most schools do a decent job of educating most children, but it’s as rare as snow in July for a child to do what Dr. Cardona did: climb the ladder.  

Social mobility–the idea that anyone who is willing to work can make it–is central to the American story. If social mobility is just a myth,  if children are born into what amounts to a caste system, then the American experiment is doomed.  

Assuming he’s aware of the petrification of the public schools, Dr. Cardona had the opportunity to tell us how embarrassingly and tragically infrequent it is for someone to do what he had done. He could have used the Bully Pulpit of his office to lobby for policies and programs to bring about change.  Unfortunately, he did none of these things.

Which meant that the rigidity and calcification remained, perhaps increased, on his watch.  And the palpable resentment of so many ‘forgotten Americans’ increased, making it more likely that they would vote the incumbents out, first chance they got.

Which they did on November 5th.

Now let’s go back to July 24, 2009.  How can anything that happened more than 15 years before an election determine its outcome, you may be wondering.  Well, that’s when Education Secretary Arne Duncan, armed with $4.35 billion, came to a fork in the road–and quite deliberately took the one that led to more frequent high stakes multiple choice testing, more (largely unregulated) charter schools, the fiasco known as The Common Core, and–eventually–an exodus of teachers, parents, and children from the public schools, as well as a significant backlash against any and all federal involvement in public schools.  

But just as significant–just as tragic–is what the Obama Administration could have done with that unprecedented opportunity.  America was in the throes of ‘The Great Recession,’ the hangover from the Administration of George W. Bush, and Congress had given Secretary Duncan more discretionary money than all previous Education Secretaries combined!  

School districts, desperate for dollars, were willing to do whatever Duncan wanted. He could have “encouraged” (i.e., mandated) 1) all-day kindergarten and pre-school; 2) more art, music and physical education (slashed during Bush’s “No Child Left Behind”); 3) more apprenticeships and vocational-technical education for the roughly 50% of students not interested in attending college; and 4) more opportunities for ambitious high school students to take college classes .  

Instead, he sided with the technocrats and embraced test-based accountability, making it harder for good teachers to do their jobs, and making schools less interesting places for children and adults.

Good public policy ought to bring us together, not just right wrongs or settle grievances.  If Democrats want to win more elections in the future, they must figure out how to welcome disaffected and angry voters into their tent. Unfortunately, too often public policies are treated as a ‘zero sum game’ with winners and losers–like the inmates and guards in a federal prison in Virginia, where I taught English in the late 1960’s. 

What I remember most vividly about teaching in prison are intelligent students, determined to keep their minds active, and angry guards, who were furious that ‘common criminals’ were getting the chance to go to college, while they were being left behind.  A few guards did their best to sabotage the program, with some success.  

At the time it didn’t occur to me that my class could have easily been open to guards and inmates. However, years later, when I learned that the Ford Foundation was funding 30 or 40 prison education programs, I urged the program officer, whom I knew personally, to see that at least a few of these experiments were equal opportunity ‘dual enrollment’ programs for inmates and guards alike.  Why not see if that approach–studying together–could bridge the divide between inmates and correctional officers, since nothing else seemed to be working?

My plea was ignored, but I would bet you just about anything that these programs, however deserving they are for giving some people a second or third chance, also created lots of resentment. Resentment  may be an unintended consequence, but it is  also predictable…and avoidable.  In other words, inmate-only prison education as currently practiced is arguably dubious and perhaps even bad public policy, the equivalent of Biden’s loan forgiveness programs.  Both exacerbate the divide, even as they help a chosen few.  

That approach loses elections.

Many Americans know that something’s not working the way it’s supposed to.  Some citizens are losing faith in public schools (and in other public institutions as well). Today’s Republicans act as though education does not have a public purpose. However, it most certainly does, because some of the kids in middle schools anywhere in the United States now may one day be the physician’s assistant monitoring your IV drip, the EMT trying to resuscitate your spouse, the mechanic maintaining the jet you’re flying on, or the fuel company worker seeking to contain that gas leak in your neighborhood.  In other words, it’s in your interest to see that as many children as possible reach their potential.

The new Trump administration seems to be intent on burning bridges. This will create opportunities for Democrats to build bridges.  It’s not ‘us versus them,’ because quite a few of those ‘them’ folks are a lot like us.  

Enough of the hand-wringing about Harris’s campaign, or Biden’s late withdrawal.  That’s not why she lost.  Think about the policies (and attitudes) that need to change, in order to bring us together.  Perhaps it’s national service, more civic education, more apprenticeship opportunities, or fairer tax policies.  Let’s figure out how to work together.

“Project 1897”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Much has been written about “Project 2025,” supposedly a blueprint for a second Trump Presidency.  I have learned that candidate Trump had nothing to do with “Project 2025.”  However, he has been personally involved in another less complex but more ambitious project, named by Trump himself as “Project 1897,” a reference to William McKinley, Trump’s second favorite former president (after himself, doh).  

“Project 1897” has just three major points:

  1. Tariffs (and no income tax)
  2. 2G, with implications for relations between the sexes, and voting privileges
  3. Natural American Zones of Interest, his trade policies

“Project 1897” is written in the first person, although it is not clear whether Mr. Trump actually wrote it, dictated it, or had aides do the writing.

TARIFFS:   “Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 grants me broad power (including the imposition of tariffs) to adjust imports whenever I find them to be a threat to U.S. national security. As your President the first time, I imposed a 45% tariff on Chinese goods, and this time I will immediately impose a 60% tariff on all goods coming to us from China. This will make all of us richer.  And to those doubters who say tariffs cause inflation, believe me when I tell you that the higher the tariff, the more likely it is that foreign companies will come into the United States, and build their factories here so they don’t have to pay the tariffs.  These countries and foreign companies only understand strength, and we are strong. I will make the tariffs so high, so horrible, so obnoxious–maybe 100% or even 200%–that those companies will come here right away. They will build here and hire American workers. 

What’s more, the prosperity tariffs will bring to our great country will allow me to eliminate the federal income tax!  I will abolish the IRS, and put the 90,000 IRS bureaucrats out on the street, just like that.  That’s a savings of $16 billion, just like that. And no more April 15th confusion for millions of Americans.

2G:  “Telephone companies like Verizon and T-Mobile keep trying to confuse us by talking about ‘5G’ and ‘4G,’ which is about how fast the phones work. Don’t be fooled or confused. There’s only TWO G, by which I mean GENDER. There’s men and there’s women, and that’s it.  There’s no ‘3G, or ‘4G’ or ‘5G’ and however many more the left can come up with. I promise to bring back respect for the two genders God made, with separate bathrooms and just two athletic groups.  No more ‘gender transition craziness.’

As for these people who call themselves ‘trans,’ they will find themselves ‘transported’ to the Siberian desert or maybe the moon!  

The Bible, my favorite book, makes it very clear that God intended husbands to lead, and their wives to follow. We will go back to 1897 and return the responsibility for voting to men, as God intended.  As men, we will safeguard our women and protect them from the indignities of the workplace. I will protect women, whether they want me to or not.” 

3: Natural American Zones of Interest: “For too long other countries have taken advantage of American business, enacting laws that limit our investments. No more!  Capitalism is the wave of the future, and as your President, I will designate certain areas of the world ‘Natural American Zones of Interest” (NAZI) and I will use all the powers granted to me by our beautiful Constitution and our amazing Supreme Court to make sure that American corporations to dominate those regions economically.  

In the next four years (and probably eight), I will expand these ‘Natural American Zones of Interest’ so that, eventually, the entire world is NAZI.”

“Make America HATE Again”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity

W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Are ‘the best’ and ‘the worst’ of Yeats’s poem groups of people, or is he referring to the human condition, the internal struggle that each of us wages daily between our better angels and our lesser impulses and temptations, between good and evil? The latter reading fits the current presidential race: Democrat Kamala Harris’s platform stresses joy and positivity, while Republican Donald J. Trump has been stirring up negative passions among his supporters. And while those red hats do not say “Make America Hate Again,” they might as well, because the former president and his enablers have made it perfectly acceptable to wallow in bigotry, hatred, threats of violence, and–far too often–violence.

Don’t dismiss Trump as a clown, riffing and rambling and ranting in his interminably long rallies.  His off-the-cuff references to sharks, windmills, and Arnold Palmer’s genitalia may amuse his passionate followers, but this ‘bread and circuses’ approach should not be allowed to obscure what’s really going on, “laughing into fascism.”

November 5th–the most significant election of our lifetimes and perhaps in our nation’s history–is around the corner, and one candidate represents a clear and present danger to America and the world.

Early in October the New York Times printed a special section, “30 Days Until the Election,” to contrast and compare the views of Harris and Trump on major issues.  “Here’s what you need to know,” the Times’s subhead declared. Because I spent 41 years reporting on public education, I was disappointed to find not one word about education or schools. 

In fact, the two platforms’ positions on education could not be more different.  Project 2025, the real GOP platform, calls for the virtual abolition of public education.  Schooling becomes a private family matter, flipping centuries of tradition out the window.  More precisely, that would mean vouchers and what are known as ‘Education Savings Accounts.’  An ESA means that parents can direct their share of education funding to a private school or whatever entity the family is using to educate their children–including themselves.  Homeschooling your children?  Keep the money and spend it as you see fit to ‘educate’ your children, including trips to Disneyland and athletic equipment!  

The Democratic party still believes in what the former Republican party once believed in: Free public education with a common purpose:  to give all children the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills,  and tools they need to thrive as individuals and as citizens of our democracy. In short, Democrats believe in the importance of community.   Project 2025 would abolish the U.S. Department of Education completely, while the Democrats would emphasize the federal responsibility for ensuring that all children–particularly those from low income families, those with handicapping conditions, the homeless, and those whose first language is not English–are treated equitably.  Basically, Democrats believe that all kids should have access to the resources they need, regardless of which state they live in and their family, racial, or religious status.   Project 2025 would end any federal oversight and protection.  

I don’t mean to whitewash the record here, because Democrats in Washington have done as much damage to public schools as Republicans in recent years.  Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” was just as destructive as George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind.”  But it seems likely that having a former high school teacher as Vice President will bring some common sense to Washington and end the federal overreach that characterized those two Administrations.

W. B. Yeats’s magnificent poem, “The Second Coming,” is painfully relevant today, because our center has not been holding, and that rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem is an unqualified, self-absorbed would-be dictator and convicted felon with clearly diminished capabilities.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

When Yeats composed ‘The Second Coming,’ the world was in turmoil, ravaged by World War I and a flu pandemic that killed 18,000,000 people. Does that sound eerily familiar?  When we cast our ballots, will our ‘better angels’ win out over our selfish and negative impulses? Do the best of us lack all conviction, while the worst of us are full of passionate intensity?  

We will find out on November 5th.

A Modest Proposal (that shouldn’t be read aloud around children)

John Merrow Uncategorized

Juliet’s question to Romeo, “What’s in a name?” is intended to be rhetorical because, as she notes, “That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”

But what does the name Republican convey ?  What on earth does “Republican” even mean in the time of Trump?  Perhaps “Trump Republican” is an oxymoron, given that he and his party are both rife with contradictions and also very far removed from the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower. Republicans once supported free trade; under Trump, they’re pro-tariff. Republicans once were fiercely anti-communist; under Trump, they’re good buddies with Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-un. And so on….

I suggest it’s time to rename Republican politicians like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jim Jordan, Marsha Blackburn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Josh Hawley.  They are no longer Republicans. Instead think of them as “Formerly Known as Republican, or “FKRs.” 

Other FKRs include Mitch McConnell, Lauren Boebert, Mike Johnson, and–of course–the shape-shifting JD Vance.  

I almost forgot Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and Representative Matt Gaetz, both FKRs of the first order.

You can make your own list of FKRs.

Former President Donald J. Trump is in a special category.  He is certainly a FKR, but because he was once Formerly Known as a Democrat, he’s FKD. And because he also is ‘The Felon Known as Donald,’ also FKD,  one could conclude that the FKR is double-FKD.  

Or that he’s the mother of all FKRs.

A reminder: please don’t read this aloud in the presence of children.

(This piece may remind you of the joke about the Swedish war hero who shot down dozens of Nazi planes during WWII. In a talk to the ladies of the Garden Society of Greenwich, he was telling the audience about shooting down “one fokker after another.”  The hostess interrupted to assure the shocked ladies that Fokker was the name of a German airplane.  To which he responded, “No, ma’am, those fokkers were Messerschmitts.”)

Dear Mr. President

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

July 11, 2024

Dear President Biden,

You have been the most consequential and effective American president since FDR, and I believe that you will eventually be ranked among the three or four greatest US Presidents ever.

However, I also believe that your continuing to seek re-election this fall not only threatens your legacy but also virtually guarantees a Trump victory.  Given the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Presidential immunity, an unfettered Trump will put the USA on a downward path into fascism. Should we also lose the House and Senate, Project 2025 will be put in place, probably ending the American experiment for all time.

Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg provides a cautionary tale. If she had stepped aside gracefully and allowed the Obama/Biden Administration to choose her replacement, her reputation and legacy would be unblemished, and she would be ranked among the most consequential Justices in our history.  However, she stubbornly hung on and, when she died, was replaced by a right-wing Justice, Amy Coney Barrett.  Despite RBG’s accomplishments, she will be remembered as “the Justice whose refusal to accept reality gave us an activist hard-right Supreme Court”

Age is not just a number, and I know whereof I speak. I recently turned 83, and, although I have managed to ‘bike my age’ on my birthday for the past 14 years, this year’s 83-mile ride took much longer and also required about two days of recovery time.   Next year will be even more difficult, but I can take my time.  As President, however, you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, 24/7.  Although you’ve surrounded yourself with extremely competent people and clearly have the support of a loving family, that is not sufficient reason for many Americans (including me) to pull the lever for you in November.  We want and need strong, vigorous, effective leadership, the kind you have provided for years.  

If you choose to step aside, you won’t be ‘quitting.’  Instead, you will be putting the United States of America ahead of your own strong desires to stay in office and  ‘finish the job.’  

I, my wife, and dozens of  our friends hope you will recognize the reality of aging and step aside gracefully so that Vice President Harris (or some other Democrat) can ‘finish the job’ that you have provided a blueprint for. 

With great admiration, gratitude, and respect,

John Merrow

Edgartown, Massachusetts 

(SENT ELECTRONICALLY AND BY U.S. MAIL TO THE WHITE HOUSE JULY 11TH)

This Is Not a Drill!

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

With the presidential election less than 8 months away, the mainstream media is still treating it as a horse race, scrutinizing polls and interviewing so-called experts about Biden’s age and Trump’s rambling instead of contrasting the candidate’s positions on important issues. The success of the President’s State of the Union speech may change the narrative, but odds are the press will soon revert to its superficial coverage, sadly.

I want to call your attention to one issue that the ‘horse race’ approach misses: the 80 million or so eligible adults who did NOT vote in 2020.    Even though voter turnout in 2020 was the highest since 1900, roughly one-third of those who were eligible to vote did not.  

Think of it this way:  That group (call it Did Not Vote, or “DNV”) would have finished a close second in 2020:  In First Place, Joe Biden, 81,000,000, followed by DNV with 80,000,000 votes. And in third place, Donald Trump, with 74,000,000 votes.

Who knows the reasons? Perhaps people who make up the DNV weren’t registered, perhaps they were indifferent or too busy, or perhaps obstacles were placed in their way. 

While both political parties are reaching out to those in the DNV in hopes of garnering their support, you can get involved from your home, writing postcards or making phone calls.  It’s easy to connect with organizations that do this regularly, like Postcards to Voters.  The single best source of information for people who want to get involved is the Chop Wood, Carry Water blog, written by a human dynamo named Jessica Craven.  I am in awe of her, to be honest.

I have one other suggestion:  Because the votes of young Americans are likely to decide who wins in November, Consider writing to the young people in your own world.  I’ve been doing that, and below is the template of the letter I’ve sent out.  Feel free to copy/change/write your own, but please act now.

Dear xxx

May I bend your ear about politics?  I gather from our occasional conversations that you are pretty down on our 2-party system and our economic system generally. I understand your being dissatisfied with our economic system, because it so clearly favors the rich and punishes those without money and inherited social status.  Recent headlines reinforce the point once again: Black women in New York City are nine times more likely to die in childbirth as white female New Yorkers, and that’s largely because of their socio-economic status, which is unfortunately closely correlated with race.  Systems that are weighted against non-white and non-wealthy can be found in other countries, but ours seems wildly out of whack.  

The American 2-party system is a different issue, in my view.  We’ve often flirted with third party candidates, usually with unfortunate results.  For example, in 2000 about 90,000 voters in Florida voted for the third-party candidate Ralph Nader, and George W. Bush ended up winning Florida (and therefore the Presidency) by 570 votes!  There’s no doubt that most of those 90,000 Nader voters were Democrats, meaning their decision to vote for Nader cost Al Gore the Presidency.  Because we got Bush instead of Gore, we ended up in a disastrous war in Iraq, tax breaks for the rich, a ‘War on Terror’ that actually created more enemies for the US, truly horrible policies in education, and more.  Those voters who chose Nader to protest their dissatisfaction with Democrats and Republicans may have felt virtuous, but they did immeasurable damage to the country.

Today there are a bunch of third-party candidates, including RFK, Jr, an anti-vaxxer who apparently would also end support for Ukraine; Cornel West; Jill Stein, and some others. While none of these candidates will become President, their voters may put Donald Trump back in the White House.  If he wins, 2024 may be our last free election, because Trump led an insurrection to keep himself in power in 2020, strong evidence that, in the future, he will do whatever is necessary to stay in power forever.

Perhaps you and some of your friends are considering NOT voting as a way of protesting against our system. Perhaps you and your friends feel that not voting is ‘a courageous statement,’  ‘a brave moral stance,’ or  ‘a strong message to a corrupt system.’  I would argue to the contrary: By not voting you would be rendering yourself invisible; you would be silencing your own voice, a form of self-marginalization. Basically, you would be allowing your future to be determined by other people.  

So please consider these three actions:  1) Register to vote if you haven’t already done so; 2) Urge at least 10 of your friends to register to vote; and 3) Please don’t sit out this election. Vote in November!  

I am NOT asking you to vote for Democrats, but to vote for candidates who support the issues you care about.  I hope you will look at the records of the men and women running for office.  Do they support a woman’s right to choose? Do they support higher taxes on the rich? Measures that will reduce the impact of climate change? Universal health care?  More support for public transportation and public education? A sensible policy on immigration?  And so on.   

Love, 

(Uncle/Grandpa/Neighbor) John