PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Depending on your perspective, we stand today either on the precipice or the mountain top of new year, not to mention a “new decade.”

The passage of one decade into another is a bit of an artificial milestone. Still, various media outlets – yes, there are few credible ones left that don’t just pander to one conspiracy theory or another — are chronicling what happened between 2010 and 2020 and even adding notions about what may happen in 2020 and beyond.

The New York Times, in a “decade in review” piece, called the last 10 years “A Decade of Distrust.” Too negative? Perhaps.

In the Washington Post, Dave Barry wrote his annual look back at the last year (2019), not the last 10 years, and his piece was its usual hilarious read as, time and again he wondered what has made Brexit so important, not to mention so hard to define.

Donald Trump also came in for substantial criticism from Barry, as did Congress, which in Barry’s words, “resumed spending insane amounts of money that the nation does not have.”

I am not nearly as incisive as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post as they review the past decade, nor as witty as Barry, but, in this blog, I will list a few aspects of life in the last 10 years, as well as presume to propose actions for 2020 and beyond.

Too presumptuous? Yes. Still, for me, a useful exercise.

Reflection #1: The definition of family has changed. New York Times writers have reported that “an increasingly diverse array of arrangements has replaced “married-with-children paradigm” that most of us experienced as we grew up.

More from the Times: “Marriage is playing a smaller role within families, although one exception is same-sex couples, who are marrying at higher rates after winning the nationwide right to do so in 2015. Separately, multi-generational households are becoming more prevalent.”

Comment: The changing definition of family is not all bad and all of must remember to retain respect for all peoples, not just ones like us. But, if the changes mean the disintegration of family life, even amidst the still-emerging definition of family, that will be a foreboding development.

I do not mean here to criticize same-sex marriage, though I could. What I mean is that family, by whatever definition, should be a critical part of our future.

Reflection #2: Also according to the Times, institutional religion’s role is declining.   “More than one in four adults say they don’t identify with any religious group.”

Comment: I can understand that if you note that “organized religion” has become disorganized, if not passé, in its approach to the masses. But, if the fact that the role of religion is on the decline means that people ignore the reality of God, that is foreboding. For all of us should recognize God’s role in all of creation, including us.

Reflection #3: The people arriving in the U.S. are changing, too. The number of illegal immigrants from Mexico has declined significantly, and in their place have come families and children traveling alone, most from Central America. Still, to Trump and many of his ilk, immigrants are dirty people no matter where they live and want to come to the United States.

Comment: What Trump has done, over his three years in the Oval Office, is to define ALL immigrants as enemies. Surely there are scofflaws among immigrants, but to impugn the character of all them illustrates troubling realties: Many Americans don’t recognize the inherent value of most immigrants and they, too – the Americans — are either immigrants themselves or descended from immigrants who were looking for a better way of life.

They found it in the U.S. and here’s hoping that others will, too, so we, as a country, can continue to benefit from the melting pot.

Beyond just the immigrant issue, I was struck by the way New York Times writer Paul Waldman put it recently in an analysis of Trump.

“One of the central challenges that Donald Trump has faced over the course of his presidency,” Waldman writes, “is the need to keep supporters in a state of constant agitation. It’s an unending task, because, while you can get people angry enough to stomp to the polls to express their outrage, once you’ve won, it becomes hard to maintain that energy. The last thing you want is for them to feel satisfied, which could lead to complacency.

“Which is why Trump weaves a narrative of constant victimhood, telling his supporters not only that they are besieged and brutalized, but also that no one is more a victim than him. There has surely never been a president who spent so much time complaining — the media aren’t good enough to me, I’m not getting the credit I deserve, the Democrats don’t give me due process, my toilet isn’t powerful enough, it’s unfair, it’s unfair, it’s unfair.”

I appreciate Waldman’s words, which, for me, underscore what
Trump has done to vilify immigrants. Every day, we, as Americans, are subjected to scurrilous acts by the worst president in U.S. history who is not worthy to hold the nation’s highest office.

Reflection #4: Divisions in both American society and its political system have widened and hardened, much of the widening and hardening due to Trump who sets out to sow dissension, then capitalize on it.

The past decade has produced a more barren political landscape than at nearly any time in the recent past.   The parallel rise of populist and nationalist sentiment on the right and socialist sentiment on the left has left the political and social center smaller than ever.

Comment: As a veteran of political processes over more than 40 years, there is almost nothing more troubling in politics than Trump’s excesses, an element of which is the “barren center.” The center is where I try to reside, given the inherent complexity of the issues we face. They don’t lend themselves to simple “left” or “right” solutions, which are the ones that tend to be used by officials who say they represent us.

So, in the face of developments such as these, I propose several notions, which do not add up to some kind of automatic panacea, but are important – even as 2020 is a day away.

• We need to see people as people, not as some kind of threat to our own existence, as is the case with Trump.
• We need to avoid hating people with whom we happen to disagree, which is the exact opposite of Trump.  [One of my approaches will be continued in the coming year — I will set out to thank someone every day for their acts or attitudes that have benefited me.]
• We need to return to the notion of politics as the “art of compromise,” which is anathema to Trump and many others involved in politics these days, including those on the far left.
• We need to recognize the important role of individual effort as long as that effort does not trample on the rights of others – and that individual effort should be in sync with what I call “enlightened capitalism,” rather than the far-left-leaning version of socialism as advocated by many of those running for the Democrat nomination to be president.
• We need to consider the role of God in everyone’s life, recognizing what Christ has done to provide a path to life with God, if you choose that path – and, make no mistake, it is a

Will such values as these solve all of the problems we face? Of course not. But, at the same time, they will be a way to a more rational existence as we anticipate a new year and a new decade.