Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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 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.

Those who know me know that one of my favorite political quotes of all time was uttered by the late military general Colin Powell.

When asked whether he would consider running for president, Powell said no “because he bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.”

Well, given the state of politics today – the loss of nearly any form of civility – Powell is probably turning over in his grave.

If he were here, regardless of his obvious status as a military hero and his political acumen, he would be “fired” by Donald Trump who preens around demanding fealty.  [Don’t you like those two words – preens and fealty – for they describe Trump very accurately?] 

If Trump says something, then at least he believes it is true.  So do his ever-tolerant MAGA followers.

There is no room for middle ground.  And I believe the country will be worse for it.

Consider only one recent example of incivility.

When Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky showed up at the White House to meet with Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, he was not prepared for his reception.

Rather than discuss how to work toward ending the war with Russia in the Ukraine, instead Trump and Vance ambushed the Zelensky.  They yelled and screamed before TV cameras to ask why Zelensky wasn’t more compliant and thankful for U.S. aid.

Then, they booted him out of the Oval Office.

No doubt the ambush was planned in advance because Trump called it “great TV.”  He should know because, remember, he is a reality-TV host, not a real president.

Writing in the New York Times, columnist Frank Bruni put it this way:

“If you listened carefully to Trump’s disgraceful dressing down of his Ukrainian counterpart in the Oval Office last week, you heard gripes galore, but with one theme above all others:  Americans had been played for fools.

“We’d been suckered, swindled, bamboozled.  In all our goodness and glory, we’d forked over hundreds of billions of dollars to Volodymyr Zelensky and received nothing in return — no assurance of victory, no mineral rights, not even a properly flowery thank-you note.

“What chumps we were.

“If you looked for a through line in Trump’s titanically self-indulgent blathering to Congress last week , you saw the same bitterness, the identical complaint about Americans’ treatment by trading partners, by supposed allies, by fraudsters in the federal government, by woke zealots.

“We could slap giant tariffs on countries that had long taken lavish advantage of us — or we could continue being chumps.  We could cheer on Elon Musk as he derailed the gravy train of frivolous government contracts and superfluous federal employees — or we could consign ourselves to chump-ness forevermore.”

Now, to a degree, Bruni is using writing “tongue in cheek” when he says “we are chumps.”  At least, chumps in Trump’s mind as he practices his art of always being the victim.

But, as for civility, Trump does not know the meaning of the word.

And, if politics was supposed to have an element of civility in it, it won’t as long as Trump is around.

Where is Colin Powell when we need him?