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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

12.

Or, some of us are rooting for fewer.

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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The clock is ticking.

In 12 days, Donald Trump won’t be president and, I hope, we can get on with life, albeit amidst the pandemic.

I was going to write this morning about ways to get rid of Trump sooner than 12 days – invoke the 25^th amendment, begin impeachment, charge him under criminal law with sedition (conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state), or vote in Congress for censure (though that won’t kick him out of office). 

But, then, no surprise, Peggy Noonan beat me to it in her column in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

Note what she wrote in one of the last paragraphs, comparing Trump to Hitler and suggesting that both “were in bunkers.”  The Hitler comparison has struck me for several years, so I am glad that Noonan raised it.

Beyond that, the former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan has a way with words using the backdrop of her long experience in and around politics.

So, I choose to reprint her column in this blog.  I agree with every word she wrote, including with respect to Hitler.

**********

Bring the Insurrectionists to Justice

The politicians who egged them on should also be made to pay a heavy price.

How do we deal with all that has happened?

We remember who we are. We are a great nation and a strong one; we have, since our beginning, been a miracle in the political history of man. We have brought much good. We are also in trouble, no point not admitting it.

We regain our confidence. We’ve got through trouble before. We love this place and will keep it. We have a Constitution that’s gotten us this far and will get us further.

We lower the boom. No civilized country can accept or allow what we saw Wednesday with the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. This was an attack on democracy itself. That is not just a phrase. Rule by the people relies on adherence to law and process. The assault and siege was an attempt to stop the work of democracy by halting the peaceful transfer of presidential power, our crowning glory for more than two centuries.

This was a sin against history.

When something like this happens it tends to be repeated. It is our job to make sure it is not.

And so we should come down like a hammer on all those responsible, moving with brute dispatch against members of the mob and their instigators.

On the rioters: Find them, drag them out of their basements, and bring them to justice. Use all resources, whatever it takes, with focus and speed. We have pictures of half of them; they like to pose. They larked about taking selfies and smiling unashamed smiles as one strolled out with a House podium. They were so arrogant they were quoted by name in news reports. It is our good luck they are idiots. Capitalize on that luck.

Throw the book at them. Make it a book of commentaries on the Constitution. Throw it hard.

They have shamed and embarrassed their country in the eyes of the world, which is not only a painful fact but a dangerous one. The world, and the young—all of us—need to see them pay the price.

Now to the devil and his apprentices.

As for the chief instigator, the president of the United States, he should be removed from office by the 25th Amendment or impeachment, whichever is faster. This, with only a week and a half to go, would be a most extraordinary action, but this has been an extraordinary time. Mike Pence is a normal American political figure; he will not have to mount a new government; he appears to be sane; he will in this brief, strange interlude do fine.

The president should be removed for reasons of justice—he urged a crowd to march on Congress, and, when it turned violent, had to be dragged into telling them, equivocally, to go home—and prudence. Mitt Romney had it exactly right: “What happened here . . . was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States.” As for prudence, Mr. Trump is a sick, bad man and therefore, as president, a dangerous one. He has grown casually bloody-minded, nattering on about force and denouncing even his own vice president as a coward for not supporting unconstitutional measures. No one seems to be certain how Mr. Trump spends his days. He doesn’t bother to do his job. The White House is in meltdown. The only thing that captures his interest is the fact that he lost, which fills him with thoughts of vengeance.

Removing him would go some distance to restoring our reputation, reinforcing our standards, and clarifying constitutional boundaries for future presidents who might need it.

As for his appointees and staff, the garbage they talk to rationalize their staying is no longer acceptable to anyone. “But my career.” Your career, in the great scheme of things, is nothing. “But my future in politics.” Your future, even if your wildest schemes are fulfilled, is a footnote to a footnote. There are ways to be a footnote honorably. “But my kids.” When they are 20 they will read the history. You want them proud of your role, not petitioning the court for a name change.

It was honorable to arrive with high hopes and idealistic commitments. It is not honorable to stay.

As for the other instigators, a side note.

True conservatives tend to have a particular understanding of the fragility of things. They understand that every human institution is, in its way, built on sand. It’s all so frail. They see how thin the veil is between civilization and chaos, and understand that we have to go through every day, each in our way, trying to make the veil thicker. And so we value the things in the phrase that others use to disparage us, “law and order.” Yes, always, the rule of law, and order so that the people of a great nation can move freely on the streets and do their work and pursue their lives.

To the devil’s apprentices, Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. They are clever men, highly educated, well-credentialed, endlessly articulate. They see themselves as leading conservative lights, but in this drama they have proved themselves punks practicing punk politics. They are like people who know the value of nothing, who see no frailty around them, who inherited a great deal—an estate built by the work and wealth of others—and feel no responsibility for maintaining the foundation because pop gave them a strong house, right? They are careless inheritors of a nation, an institution, a party that previous generations built at some cost.

They backed a lie and held out the chimera of some possible Trump victory that couldn’t happen, and hid behind the pretense that they were just trying to be fair to all parties and investigate any suspicions of vote fraud, when what they were really doing was playing—coolly, with lawyerly sophistication—not to the base but to the sickness within the base. They should have stood up and told the truth, that democracy moves forward, that the election was imperfect as all elections are, and more so because of the pandemic rules, which need to be changed, but the fact is the voters of America chose Biden-Harris, not Trump-Pence.

Here’s to you, boys. Did you see the broken glass, the crowd roaming the halls like vandals in late Rome, the staff cowering in locked closets and barricading offices? Look on your mighty works and despair.

The price they will pay is up to their states. But the reputational cost should be harsh and high.

Again, on the president: There have been leaders before who, facing imminent downfall, decide to tear everything down with them. They want to go out surrounded by flames. Hitler, at the end, wanted to blow up Germany, its buildings and bridges. His people had let him down. Now he hated them. They must suffer.

I have resisted Nazi comparisons for five years, for the most part easily. But that is like what is happening here, the same kind of spirit, as the president departs, as he angrily channel-surfs in his bunker.

He is a bad man and not a stable one and he is dangerous. America is not safe in his hands.

It is not too late. Removal of the president would be the prudent move, not the wild one. Get rid of him. Now.

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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

13.

That’s the number of days Donald Trump has remaining in his presidency…if his Cabinet does not enact the 25^th amendment and take him out of office.  Which, I add, would be hard to achieve in just 13 days with the clock ticking.  Hard, but warranted.

The question for all of us:  Will we survive those 13 days?

Even after having a few hours to reflect on what happened yesterday, I suspect January 6, 2021 will be a day that will live in infamy.  We’ll remember that day much as we remember other fateful days in U.S. history, fateful days such as Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

Who knows what Trump and his minions will do to wreak further havoc on this country.  Every time he does something, he tops his previous most devious act. 

Various lawmakers – including Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Oregon Representative Peter DeDazio – called the protest an attempted coup.  Senator Chuck Schumer, who soon will be majority leader in the new Senate, called for using the 25^th amendment to remove Trump from office.

Here is how the Washington Post described the situation yesterday: 

“The world watched with dismay as a surreal scene at the U.S. Capitol, like little else seen in its history, unfolded on Wednesday.

“Many foreign observers, already glued to news of the final chapters of the election saga, reacted with alarm and even grief, especially in allied countries that have looked to U.S. democracy for inspiration.”

In Trump’s attempted coup, he is aided and abetted by some Republicans in the Senate and the House who still are bowing at the altar of Trump as they seek to reverse his election loss.

In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Gerald Seib labeled one of those  correctly when he wrote:  “Senator Cruz laments the fire as he wields a flamethrower.”

Incoming President Joe Biden put the entire tragedy in perspective when he said:

“This is not dissent.  It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition and it must end now.”

It wasn’t only in D.C. where demonstrators wreaked havoc.  In Oregon, they showed up at the Capitol in Salem to express their anger.  According to the Oregonian newspaper, “Some demonstrators burned an effigy of Governor Kate Brown.  Counter-demonstrators had arrived by about 2 p.m., and the event was declared an unlawful assembly.”

But, step back from the startling events of the last day and consider the litany of Trump’s egregious offenses:

• He instructed his attorneys to file more than 60 suits in various courts to overturn election results.  They lost each of them, often with derisive comments from judges who thought the suits lacked merit.

• He complimented white supremacists when they went after Blacks and other persons of color.

• He made special efforts to disown Republicans who didn’t express fealty to him – and that included Vice President Mike Pence when Pence would not use his honorary position leading the Senate to overturn the election.

• He assumed the U.S. Supreme Court eventually would rule in his favor, which it has not and will not.

• He motivated mobs of his supporters to demonstrate all the time and everywhere, including by ransacking the U.S. Capital.

All of this is new to me and most other Americans.  But, all I can do is hope that we will survive the next 13 days – to the point, on January 20, when I hope Trump will become the worst kind of afterthought as Joe Biden is sworn as president.

Again, from columnist Seib in the Wall Street Journal:

“It’s possible that the sheer horror that most Americans felt, and that most Republicans expressed, at the scenes of mayhem will cause everyone to take a step back from divisive political behavior and look harder for common ground. It’s surely an exaggeration to say the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol did Mr. Biden a favor, but they lent some new urgency to his calls to back away from the bitter politics of the last few years.”

We’ll see.

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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

With Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, I endorse this blog headline. 

It mimics what appeared over Parker’s column in this morning’s on-line Post.

Because Parker is clearly a better analyst than I am – if not a better writer – I simply reprint her column this morning as my blog.

With Parker, I say it is past time for Donald Trump, the epitome of a narcissist, to exit stage left (or right if he were to choose that).

So, here’s Parker.

**********

In “King Lear,” Shakespeare’s tragic protagonist comes to life as fiction’s most powerful example of narcissistic personality disorder, a man who devolves from being a mere fool to gradually going mad.

For the past four years, we’ve witnessed a similar tragedy in the person of Donald Trump, who might have been a great president but for his own many personality disorders. If only his craziness, starkly evident in his recent phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state to beg for votes — “I just want to find 11,780 votes” — stemmed from betrayal by his children, as Lear’s was. (Instead, Trump’s children enabled their father’s worst instincts and impulses, becoming partners in crime to the theft of America’s dignity.)

One tragedy is that Trump, notwithstanding his irksome personality, could have been a great president had he been able to control his temper and his tongue. Like Lear, he suffers from intermittent explosive disorder, overreacting to all kinds of unimportant matters. Trump’s stream-of-consciousness Twitter storms in response to any perceived slight were childish tantrums, indicating a lack of emotional maturity that put terror in the hearts of normal adults.

Typical of narcissists, Trump demonstrated no capacity for empathy, whether it was letting stand a dubious policy of separating children from their immigrant parents — many of whom remain lost to their families — or demonstrating little concern for hurricane victims beyond their walk-on role in his continuing reality show.

Finally, Trump’s willingness to demonize certain people (Mexicans, Muslims and the media) while accepting unacceptable behavior from others (white supremacists, racists and armed radicals) damaged the nation. “Make America Great Again” was a fine slogan as long as it pertained only to business or military strength. But we soon learned that MAGA also stood for Whiteness and the good old days when White men were in charge.

One can safely say, for example, that our borders need to be more secure — and even suggest that reinforcements are essential — without making many people feel threatened. Or without separating young children from parents seeking refuge from drug lords, bloodthirsty gangs and destitution.

 “Some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said, referring to the caravans of people crossing our southern border. He might instead have added, “I know that most of those trying to enter our country are good people, but some are not, and we have to make sure that drug dealers, thieves and rapists don’t get through.”

Great leaders know how to say hard things without wounding the innocent or stimulating dark hearts. Trump’s instinct for the jugular may have served him well in the deal-making meat-grinder of his native Queens, but most people in Main Street America prefer to get along and leave well enough alone. Trump has managed to make enemies of neighbors and divide families along partisan lines.

This brings me to the question I’m often asked and that I sometimes ask myself: How could Republicans, Christians, evangelicals and other “good” people support someone such as Trump, especially as he threatened our democratic republic by denying the 2020 election results? What could Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) be thinking in joining his crusade to reverse the election’s results — that is, other than their own 2024 presidential campaigns and their craven desire to appeal to Trump’s loyal base?

I think I know the answer: A certain percentage of conservatives think Trump saved the country simply by deregulating industry and keeping his promise to appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. Full stop. He was their bulwark against decline and fall. They believe in his unsubstantiated claims that the election was rigged for the same reasons. It is all in the service of a higher calling: free markets, freedom of conscience, and a pro-life position that can’t be compromised as a matter of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If these are your operating principles, and if you believe the other side will irrevocably alter them, then holding onto power isn’t negotiable. Denial isn’t so much a political decision as a religious conviction. Or, as one political soothsayer recently said to me: “When politics becomes your religion, people become irrational.”

In this context, Trump is all they’ve got. They’ll take him any day over Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris, who they fear will take Biden’s place before 2024 arrives.

That’s not how things work here, however. To believe all that is a fiction of its own.

Speaking of which, if this were ancient Britain and Shakespeare were writing this column, then Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would duel to bring this drama to a close. And Trump would make his exit.

But alas. For such is fiction writ.

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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

If you follow politics and know that my air travel occurred between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. yesterday, then you would realize that Donald Trump stooped to a new low during that time period.

He placed a call to the Georgia Secretary of State, a Republican, and, incredibly, cajoled him “to find about 12,000 votes” to overturn the presidential election in that state and, thus, declare Trump the winner.

As I got off the plane yesterday, I called one of my friends and, with a huge note of disdain in his voice, he alerted me to what happened.

Since Joe Biden’s victory in the election, I have wondered how low Trump would go to avoid the stamp of loser.  Well, he went lower than ever yesterday, committing violations of law that could follow him for months.  Who knows what he’ll do in his last 15 days in office?

Is it possible to go to sleep and wake up after 15 days with America still intact from Trump’s tirades?

One thing that has amazed me is how much Trump does to stay in an office — the presidency – when he eschews so many of the normal functions of the office, preferring instead to watch right-wing “news” programs, then fire off offensive tweets.

To understand the gravity of Trump’s efforts to overturn the Georgia election, I turned to the Washington Post this morning.  One article was by Dan Balz, one of country’s best political reporters who surveyed the damage done by Trump and his sycophants.  The second article was by Jennifer Rubin in an opinion piece that displayed how Trump violated the law by his latest actions.

Both appear below.

From Dan Balz in the Washington Post

There are but 16 days left in President Trump’s term, but there is no doubt that he will use all of his remaining time in office to inflict as much damage as he can on democracy — with members of a now-divided Republican Party acting as enablers.

That there are no limits to the lengths to which he will go in this ruinous effort was made clear from a phone call he made Saturday to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.  In the call, Trump repeatedly urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to allow the secretary to recalculate the election results to show that the president, rather than President-elect Joe Biden, won the state.

Trump will never let this go, not between now and the day he is forced to give up the office and Biden is sworn in, not in the days and weeks and months after that.  That he is on a mission is evident, but to what end, other than to avoid the ignominious label of “loser” after a single term in the White House?  That, at least, is consistent with the behavior he has exhibited throughout the four years of his presidency.  He cares nothing about collateral damage to democracy.

The president, however, is not on this mission alone.  Instead, he continues to gather support from members of a party he has remade in his own image.  On Wednesday, members of the House and the Senate will meet to approve the results from the electoral college.  

From Jennifer Rubin on the Post

…pressuring a campaign official to change the vote tally is a federal offense, as former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich tweeted Sunday, citing Title 52 U.S. Section 20511. That law states:   “A person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office … knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by … the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held” is subject to imprisonment of up to five years.

Threatening Raffensperger with criminal consequences is also arguably extortion. Title 18 Section 875 of the U.S. Code reads: “Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

Alternatively, the state attorney general of Georgia might investigate and bring applicable charges under state law. That would have one clear advantage: Trump cannot receive a federal pardon for state crimes.

**********

So, there it is:  Trump committed another violation of law yesterday.  One only can hope that his illegal conduct will catch up to him after he leaves office, with no ability to pardon himself prospectively if a state violation is in view. 

We’ll see if hope can survive the next 15 days.

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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

On the theory that 2021 will be better than 2020, I headline the salutation, adding the phrase, “sort of.”

Even on this first day of the year, another act in the Donald Trump debacle is playing out in the Nation’s Capital.

Why, I ask.  Why can’t we just be through with Trump, the loser, as the New Year dawns.

Well, it’s because at least one Republican senator just won’t let the election be over.

What’s ahead on January 6 is a procedure that is usually just a pro-forma one where the U.S. Senate and House simply hear and ratify the results of the election using documents that have been produced by the states.

This time, no. 

Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri who appears to fashion himself as presidential candidate in 2024, is going to oppose endorsing the results – the real, actual results.

In the Washington Post today, columnist Michael Gerson inveighs against Hawley’s incredible promise on January 6 to try to overturn the will of the people.

Gerson wrote:

“This is the type of politics that Hawley is enabling — a form of politics that abolishes politics.  A contest of policy visions can result in compromise.  The attempt to delegitimize your opponent requires their political annihilation.  And a fight to the political death is always conducted in the shadow of possible violence.”

Hawley’s effort won’t succeed, if only because the U.S. House would have to go along with his injustice – and it won’t.  The Senate might no go along, either.

Another Washington Post writer, Paul Waldman, put it well when he wrote:

“…there is a silver lining to be found in this final act, the election. The point of rituals like the one that will take place at the Capitol on January 6 is to demonstrate the power of the system under which we all live, to show us that it is larger than any one person or any one party.

“That is the wall against which Trump will beat his tiny fists next week, with the help of Hawley and a few members of the House Chucklehead Caucus. For all the damage he has done to American institutions and all the systemic weaknesses he has revealed, this is one place where Trump will fail spectacularly.  The ceremony will be the sight, not of his deliverance but his abject defeat.

“So bring it on Trump and Senator Hawley.  Take your spectacle of sore loserdom to the floor.  Show us how pathetic you are, one more time.  We’ll all watch while you make a last attempt to bend the system to your crude and selfish will.  At a time of so much misery and despair, the sound of that gavel banging down will give us something to feel good about.”

So, on with 2021.  I am hoping for inauguration day January 20 when Trump and his sycophants will be confirmed, once and for all, as losers.