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 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.

Have you ever wondered why one political poll can produce one result and another poll, even done on the same day, can produce another result?

I have.

And, I say that even after being involved in politics for about 40 years or so, including over many years when I was involved in analyzing polls related to statewide ballot measures or local bond proposals.

KGW-TV, the NBC affiliate based in Portland, took a look at the question the other day as it applied to the governor’s race in Oregon, one where three candidates – a Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent – are believed to have a chance to win next fall.

Specifically, KGW-TV said this on-line:  “We wanted to find out why three different polls showed such different results for the top candidates.”

Three recent polls produced different results.

• A poll conducted by Nelson Research in late May showed Republican Christine Drazan leading the way with 30 per cent of likely voters saying they would pick her.  Democrat Tina Kotek came in second with roughly 28 per cent and unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson came in third with roughly 22 per cent. 
• Another poll — paid for by Johnson’s campaign — was conducted July 23-25.  It showed Kotek in the lead with 33 per cent, Johnson in second with 30 per cent, and Drazen in third with 23 per cent. 
• A third poll, paid for by Republicans and conducted July 28-30, showed Drazan leading with 32.4 per cent, Kotek in second with 31.4 per cent and Johnson in third again with 24.4 per cent. 

One of Oregon’s best pollsters, John Horvick, put it this way:

“It’s natural for folks to say, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?  Is this real?  Is there a thumb on the scale from the individual candidates?’  And there is reason for some skepticism.  But I think if we sort of look at the different pieces, there’s also some consistency, and that’s, ‘Who’s at the top right now?”

There are several reasons produce different results.

1. Sometimes there are bad pollsters just as there are in every profession.  You can’t trust the results.
2. Sometimes there are poorly worded-questions which confuse respondents, as well as analysts.
3. Sometimes polls are done by one side to show it has a chance to win – and, again, the results may not be trustworthy.
4. Sometimes it is difficult for polling firms to find respondents who will answer accurately – or, for that matter, when polling by telephone doesn’t work as well as it used to, given that so many people only have cell phones.
5. Often, it is difficult for a pollster to predict election turnout, an understandable challenge when polls are done so far in advance of the election.

Horvick when on to say that transparency is key for any poll to be taken credibly.  Without transparency, he added, it’s easy for voters to get the impression that a candidate is trying to use the results to form their own narrative. 

KGW asked Horvick about the poll paid for by Betsy Johnson’s gubernatorial campaign. 

His response:  “One of the questions on the poll asked participants how favorably they viewed a candidate.  It asked if they would rather vote for a progressive Democrat, a qualified common sense Independent, or a devout Trump Republican — which does not exactly define Christine Drazan.  But she is a Republican, and it does seem to slant the question against her. 

“There’s nothing wrong with the candidate testing a description of their opponent, and to see if that’s going to resonate with voters,” Horvick said. “Now, if they then use that information to then talk about their opponent or talk about themselves, trying to pass that off as a neutral description, voters should look at that and be real critical.”

So, if there is an appropriate conclusion, it is to pay attention to polls, but don’t take them as gospel.  And don’t let results dissuade you from doing your citizenship duty, which is to vote.

Make the last “poll,” the election one, count.

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 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.

I wrote the other day that Donald Trump and “professional” wrestling were made for each other.

Both are fakes.

Now, along comes another comparison that is too ripe to pass up.  I couldn’t help myself, so I wrote yet another blog on LIV.  Don’t know why, but at least I’ll feel better for the effort, which is enough.

The new comparison:  Trump and LIV golf were made for each other.

Both focus on hype and a carnival atmosphere, much like the lead huckster, either Trump in American politics or Greg Norman in LIV.  The context for this is that LIV held its most recent “tournament” (no, call it an “exhibition”) at one of Trump’s golf courses in Florida. 

Writing for GolfWeek’s on-line magazine, Eamon Lynch had it just right when his column appeared under this headline:  “The marriage of LIV Golf and Donald Trump is the stuff schemes are made of.”

“So much of the commentary about LIV Golf has focused on what it is not — as in, not a conventional tour, not a familiar schedule, not 72 holes, not a regular tee time format, not requiring good play for good pay, not on broadcast television, not well-attended by fans, and not deterred by mass executions.

“Only with its third tournament, this one in Florida, was it thrown into sharp relief what LIV actually is.  Not for the first time, true character was revealed courtesy of an embrace by the baby-carrot fingers of Donald J. Trump.”

Lynch reported that LIV’s event at Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey was greeted by what he called “dignified outrage” by families of those killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

They pointed to a U.S. intelligence report declassified in 2021 that suggested Saudi links to the atrocity went far beyond what was previously known — financing Al-Qaeda, spawning 15 of the 19 hijackers — to include government figures from the Kingdom meeting and aiding the terrorists on U.S. soil.

“Yet, when asked about the families’ protest, the former president offered this:  ‘Nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately.’

“The comment exposed how Trump is utterly devoid of honor, but it also illuminated why he is perfectly suited to LIV Golf.  Their shared parallels are as plentiful as they are unflattering.”

Lynch added this list of elements “devoid of honor:”

• Start with the art of obfuscation, practiced at every LIV press conference as both executives and players prevaricate about ongoing abuses by their benefactors.  Their evasions on human rights issues and the bone-saw dismemberment of a regime critic are kin with Trump’s absolving the Saudis of responsibility for the murder of almost 3,000 Americans.  The requirement of those in the pay of the Crown Prince is always to downplay, deflect, dissemble, deceive, but never denounce.
• Then there’s protecting the grift, doing whatever is necessary to ensure the pocketing of other people’s money continues unimpeded.  Both LIV and Trump Inc. are taking us to be dupes.  While Trump collects fees to host tournaments, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, received $2 billion for his new private equity firm from the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund.
• Which leads to the inevitable hornswoggle, the suckering of the credulous with talk of a groundbreaking new commodity that feels more like a revenue play for guys whose liquidity can no longer finance their narcissism.  The brands of Trump and LIV Golf’s CEO Norman are their names, which they have appended to everything from airlines to steaks.  If you’re to persuade a fresh investor to subsidize your swashbuckling self-image, you’d best have new product to pitch.  Golf is their means to that end.

Lynch emphasizes that both Norman and Trump are adept at using personal grievances to fuel their image.

“Trump’s list of perceived injustices is longer than the Beijing phone book and includes the PGA Tour (for leaving his Doral Resort in 2016), the PGA of America (for taking the 2022 PGA Championship from his New Jersey course to Oklahoma after the January 6 sacking of the Capitol), and the R&A (for not taking the Open back to Turnberry while his name is above the door).

“Norman’s well-documented resentment at the Tour dates back decades and is rapidly expanding to include those he deems insufficiently welcoming of his new Saudi-funded venture, like the major championships and the Official World Golf Ranking.  No gripe is too petty to go unvoiced at LIV and that has emboldened its players to speak out about the harsh exploitation they endured, like Phil Mickelson with his media rights and Sergio Garcia with his penalty drops.”

Further, Paul Casey, once an admired UNICEF ambassador – plus a golfer I have liked since I watched him play in college for Arizona — was mute when asked about abuses by those whose check he cashed.  For his part, the newest PGA defector to LIV, Bubba Watson, adopted two children and has been a passionate advocate for the adoption cause, along with his wife.  But now, he will have to reconcile his previous passion with working for a state that has cruelly made adoption illegal.

This conclusion from Lynch:

“What LIV Golf ultimately showcased is something Trump long ago mastered:  The art of theater, of presenting a masquerade to the dissatisfied masses, of promising disruption and reform that it is poorly positioned to deliver.”

Norman and Trump are the new clowns.  They deserve each other.  They have long masqueraded as those interested in the public good when they clearly are out only for themselves.

LIV golf gives Trump and Norman a new platform to aggrandize their status and to boast about how both feel everything revolves around only them – and them only.  Others be damned.

In LIV, with Norman and Trump on the stage, especially together, real golf is the loser.

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 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 so much time on my hands in retirement, I spend a lot of time on a golf course, often the one where I live in Salem, Oregon – Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club.

As I walk or ride on the course, I have thought about key phrases that have to do with how you play the game.

These:

• What’s the most important shot in the golf?  The next one.

• Play one shot at a time.  Don’t get ahead of yourself.

• What’s one of the most important credentials for a golfer?  A short memory – so you forget what could have been a bad shot and move on to the next one, which could be better.

• It is said in golf that one of the main virtues is to be patient.

Of all the above, the one word whose definition often escapes me is “patience.”  What does it mean to be patient on a golf course?

As any good retired person would do, I consulted Mr. Google and learned this on-line:

“Awareness – Be aware of the top triggers that test your patience, such as a three-putt or missing an easy up and down.  In the past – put the bad shot or hole behind you before you step up to the next shot.  Take a long-term approach to the round and focus on the remaining holes instead of looking back.

“Patience is an important characteristic that enables you to negotiate a shot properly and also perform your best over an entire round.  The loss of patience can be the difference between scoring well and not scoring well.”

Plus, a member of the PGA, Brendon Elliott, wrote this a while ago:

“When we look at days like the last two at the PGA Tour’s Wells Fargo Championship, where the weather has been less than desirable, we know the following to be true:  The players that can be the most patient will inevitably be the same ones setting themselves up for success come Sunday.

“I could pose that question to you in general, life terms, or in relation to how you conduct yourself on the golf course, or on the practice tee, or as you make your way through a series of lessons.  The answer for some may be the same both on and off the golf course:  I am a very impatient person, or, I am a very patient one.  For others, and in my estimation, this includes most of us, it is a mixed bag. You find yourself being patient in some aspects of your life and not others.

“Golf is an inherently maddening game.  It can test those that are the most patient people in seemingly all other aspects of their lives.

“Patience is an important characteristic that enables you to negotiate a shot properly and also perform your best over an entire round.  The loss of patience can be the difference between scoring well and not scoring well.”

So, patience – in life or on a golf course – is a clear virtue.  Some of my friends know that I am not the most patient person in the world.  So be it.

I want to get from point-A to point-B quickly.  No dawdling.

In golf, that may not work very well as it would, say, in business where you may need to move fast to capitalize on new client opportunities or revenue enhancements.

For me, I rest with this definition, which I thought of all on my own in a patient way until the words came to me:  Take your time on the golf course; don’t play too fast; allow the game to come to you rather than chase it too far; forget bad shots as quickly as you can; remember the most important shot in golf is the next one.

So, patience it is.

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 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.

One major policy implemented by Donald Trump when he sat in the Oval Office confirms his place as the worst president in U.S. history.  As if more confirmation was needed.

The egregious policy:  He carved out a specific focus intentionally to separate immigrant children from their parents at the U.S. southern border. 
To me and many others, it stands as one of the most egregious cases of government gone bad.

I have thought this since Trump first implemented the policy and even took credit for it.

And, now, in a very thorough and well-written piece of investigative journalism, The Atlantic Magazine confirms, in intricate detail, the criminal conduct of Trump and his minions. 

It was written by Caitlin Dickerson and is worth reading in its entirety – all 30,000 words of it.  It was so compelling that Atlantic editor Jeff Goldberg wrote a special e-mail to subscribers which emphasized this:

“Caitlin’s cover story is a history-making accomplishment.  It is, among other things, the longest story we’ve published in memory, weighing in at nearly 30,000 words — but do not fear, it makes for a propulsive and mesmerizing reading experience.    “She has constructed a narrative in which the relentless accretion of facts points us in a terrifying direction.  It turns out that the story of the Trump Administration’s child-separation policy is not simply a story of a consciously merciless program, implemented by consciously merciless men.   “It is the story of what happens when a bureaucracy is left to its own devices, when leaders abdicate their responsibilities, when American ideals are sacrificed on the altar of career advancement and self-preservation.  She exposes the secret history of a heinous policy, and names names — including the names of people responsible who are still serving in government today.”

The intentional policy should mean that Trump no longer should be allowed to run for or hold the Office of President and, in fact, should be thrown in prison where he belongs for his misdeeds while in office.

The child separation numbers are startling, but they convey more than just simple numbers. 

Behind them are incredible stories of human tragedy – children separated from their parents, parents separated from their children.  Imagine the emotion and anguish of those moments, which, at least to a degree, still exist today.

Here is one excerpt from Dickerson’s story:

“During the year and a half in which the U.S. government separated thousands of children from their parents, the Trump Administration’s explanations for what was happening were deeply confusing, and on many occasions — it was clear even then — patently untrue.  I’m one of the many reporters who covered this story in real time.  Despite the flurry of work that we produced to fill the void of information, we knew that the full truth about how our government had reached this point still eluded us.

“Trump Administration officials insisted for a whole year that family separations weren’t happening.  Finally, in the spring of 2018, they announced the implementation of a separation policy with great fanfare — as if one had not already been under way for months.  Then they declared that separating families was not the goal of the policy, but an unfortunate result of prosecuting parents who crossed the border illegally with their children.

“Yet a mountain of evidence shows that this is explicitly false:  Separating children was not just a side effect, but the intent.  Instead of working to reunify families after parents were prosecuted, officials worked to keep them apart for longer.”

Though family separation is no longer explicitly used as a weapon in U.S. immigration policy, it is still carries with it a horrifying result.  Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of children came to the United States without their parents, and we have not built a system to receive them with compassion and respect.  In fiscal year 2021 alone, a record 122,000 children were taken into U.S. custody without their parents.

So, as more details emerge, due in substantial part to The Atlantic study, blame Trump.  It’s stands as one of the most egregious anti-humane, anti-ethical policies of his time in office.

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 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.

How’s that for a headline?

By Washington Post editors, it was put over a column the other day by columnist Dana Milbank.

It was longer than most columns, so it also went under the subhead – “opinion essay.”

It was so telling that I choose, as I have sometimes done in the past, to reprint Milbank’s column word-for-word in my blog.  I do so with the knowledge that this piece is long and, thus, perhaps tough to read.

But reprinting it is worth it because of the context it sets for what is happening in this country, as it appears we could be heading for a civil war.  Or, perhaps we already are there in one way or the other as many Americans want to shoot each other, not talk.

So, here it is, with my only qualification being that I hope a reputable columnist for newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, or the New York Times will choose to subject the Democrat Party to the same kind of analysis that Milbank chooses here for Republicans.

I imagine that an analysis of Democrats would yield similar, though not as extreme, perceptions as is the case with Republicans under the worst president in U.S. history, Donald Trump.

We may be on the fringe of losing the country’s two-party political system.  I, for one, yearn for a “third party” that could bring us more to the center, not the extremes of right and left (with the right being worse than the left).

Read on.

**********

It began where it ended, on the West Front of the United States Capitol.

On January 6, 2021, an armed mob invited and incited by President Donald Trump smashed barriers, overpowered police and stormed the Capitol.  The insurrectionists scaled the scaffolding erected for President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration and proceeded to sack the seat of government for the first time since the War of 1812.

Called to Washington by Trump, who promised a “wild” time, and sent to the Capitol with instructions to “fight like hell,” the mob halted Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory, sending lawmakers and staff fleeing for their lives.  At least seven people died in the riot or its aftermath, and more than 140 police officers were hurt.  Some 845 insurrectionists, several with ties to white-supremacist or violent extremist groups, have faced charges, including seditious conspiracy.

Many Americans were shocked that Trump, after first considering a plan to seize voting machines, had orchestrated an attempted coup, knowingly dispatching armed attackers to Capitol Hill and then refusing for 187 minutes to call off the assault.  And many Americans have been shocked anew to see elected Republicans, after initially condemning Trump’s attack on democracy, excuse his actions and rationalize the violent insurrection itself as “legitimate political discourse.”

But a sober look at history might have lessened the shock, for the seeds of sedition had been planted earlier — a quarter-century earlier — in that same spot on the West Front of the Capitol.

On September 27, 1994, more than 300 Republican members of Congress and congressional candidates gathered where the insurrectionists would one day mount the scaffolding.  On that sunny morning, they assembled for a non-violent transfer of power.  Bob Michel, the unfailingly genial leader of the House Republican minority for the previous 14 years, had ushered Ronald Reagan’s agenda through the House.

But he was being forced into retirement by a rising bomb thrower who threatened to oust Michel as GOP leader if he didn’t quit.  “My friends,” a wistful Michel told the gathering, “I’ll not be able to be with you when you enter that promised land of having that long-sought-after majority.”

Newt Gingrich had almost nothing in common with the man he shoved aside.  Michel was a portrait of civility and decency, a World War II combat veteran who knew that his political opponents were not his enemies and that politics was the art of compromise.

Gingrich, by contrast, rose to prominence by forcing the resignation of a Democrat Speaker of the House on what began as mostly false allegations, by smearing another Democratic speaker with personal innuendo, and by routinely thwarting Michel’s attempts to negotiate with Democrats.

Gingrich had avoided service in Vietnam and regarded Democrats as the enemy, impugning their patriotism and otherwise savaging them nightly on the House floor for the benefit of C-SPAN viewers.

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“Newt! Newt! Newt! Newt!” the candidates and lawmakers chanted.  A pudgy 51-year-old with a helmet of gray hair approached the lectern. “The fact is that America is in trouble,” Gingrich declared. “It is impossible to maintain American civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can’t even read.”

The pejoratives piled up in Gingrich’s shouted, finger-wagging harangue: “Collapsing … Failed so totally … Worried about their jobs … Worried about their safety … Trust broke down … Out of touch … Wasteful … Dumb … Ineffective … Out of balance … Malaise … Drug dealers … Pimps … Prostitution … Crime … Barbarism … Devastation … Human tragedy … Chaos and poverty.” “Recognize that if America fails, our children will live on a dark and bloody planet,” Gingrich told them.

Somewhere in this catalogue of catastrophe, Gingrich signed the Contract With America, a 10-point agenda proposing a balanced-budget amendment, congressional term limits, and other reforms.  “We have become in danger of losing our own civilization,” Gingrich warned.

Americans had seldom heard a politician talk this way, and certainly not a Speaker of the House.  But that’s what Gingrich became after the GOP’s landslide victory in the 1994 election.  The Contract With America made little headway — only three minor provisions (paperwork reduction!) became law — but the rise of Gingrich and his shock troops set the nation on a course toward the ruinous politics of today.

Much has been made of the ensuing polarization in our politics, and it’s true that moderates are a vanishing breed.  But the problem isn’t primarily polarization. The problem is that one of our two major political parties has ceased good-faith participation in the democratic process.

Of course, there are instances of violence, disinformation, racism and corruption among Democrats and the political left, but the scale isn’t at all comparable.  Only one party fomented a bloody insurrection and even after that voted in large numbers (139 House Republicans, a two-thirds majority) to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 election.  Only one party promotes a web of conspiracy theories in place of facts.  Only one party is trying to restrict voting and discredit elections.  Only one party is stoking fear of minorities and immigrants.

Admittedly, I’m partisan — not for Democrats but for democrats. Republicans have become an authoritarian faction fighting democracy — and there’s a perfectly logical reason for this: Democracy is working against Republicans.

In the eight presidential contests since 1988, the GOP candidate has won a majority of the popular vote only once, in 2004.  As the United States approaches majority-minority status (the White population, 76 per cent of the country in 1990, is now 58 per cent and will drop below 50 per cent around 2045), Republicans have become the voice of White people, particularly those without college degrees, who fear the loss of their way of life in a multicultural America.

White grievance and White fear drive Republican identity more than any other factor — and in turn drive the tribalism and dysfunction in the U.S. political system.

Other factors sped the party’s turn toward nihilism:  Concurrent with the rise of Gingrich was the ascent of conservative talk radio, followed by the triumph of Fox News, followed by the advent of social media.

Combined, they created a media environment that allows Republican politicians and their voters to seal themselves in an echo chamber of “alternative facts.”  Globally, south-to-north migration has ignited nationalist movements around the world and created a new era of autocrats.  The disappearance of the Greatest Generation, tempered by war, brought to power a new generation of culture warriors.

But the biggest cause is race.  The parties re-sorted themselves after the epochal changes of the 1960s, which expanded civil rights, voting rights and immigration.  Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” began an appeal to White voters alienated by racial progress, and, in the years that followed, a new generation of Republicans took that racist undertone and made it the melody.

It is crucial to understand that Donald Trump didn’t create this noxious environment.  He isn’t some hideous, orange Venus emerging from the half-shell.  Rather, he is a brilliant opportunist; he saw the direction the Republican Party was taking and the appetites it was stoking.  The onetime pro-choice advocate of universal health care reinvented himself to give Republicans what they wanted.  Because Trump is merely a reflection of the sickness in the GOP, the problem won’t go away when he does.

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Republicans and their allied donors, media outlets, interest groups and fellow travelers have been yanking on the threads of democracy and civil society for the past quarter-century; that’s a long time, and the unraveling is considerable.

You can measure it in the triumph of lies and disinformation, in the mainstreaming of racism and white supremacy, in the erosion of institutions and norms of government, and in the dehumanizing of opponents and stoking of violence.

In the process, Republicans became Destructionists:  They destroyed truth, they destroyed decency, they destroyed patriotism, they destroyed national unity, they destroyed racial progress, they destroyed their own party, and they are well on their way to destroying the world’s oldest democracy.

Consider just a few of the milestones along this path of destruction — all of which, we can now see, made Trump possible, if not inevitable:

Long before Trump promulgated more than 30,000 falsehoods during his presidency, including disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic that contributed to countless deaths:

• House Republicans encouraged the conspiracy theory that Vincent Foster, a lawyer in the Clinton White House, had been murdered — possibly, in the belief’s craziest formulation, by Hillary Clinton. After four separate, independent investigations concluded it was suicide, Gingrich said, “I just don’t accept it,” and one of his committee chairmen, Dan Burton, shot a melon in his backyard to reenact the “murder.”
• The George W. Bush Administration, to make the case for war, distorted the available intelligence to suggest that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, that it was on the cusp of obtaining nuclear weapons and that U.S. troops would be “greeted as liberators.”  When a former diplomat publicly disputed Bush’s false claims, aides retaliated by disclosing the identity of his wife, a CIA operative.
• Sarah Palin, the party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2008, falsely proclaimed in 2009 the existence of “death panels” in Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.  Republican lawmakers lined up to make the false claim a centerpiece of their attempt to defeat Obamacare.  About a third of Americans came to believe the falsehood.

Long before Trump spoke of immigrants as rapists and murderers coming from “shithole countries” and told Democrat congresswomen of color to “go back” to other countries:

• Patrick J. Buchanan, who ran insurgent bids for the GOP presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996, offered generous words for Hitler, lamented the treatment of “European-Americans” and “non-Jewish whites,” warned of a migrant “invasion,” and ran on a promise to “put America first.”
• Conservative radio giant Rush Limbaugh aired the song “Barack the Magic Negro,” Fox News’s Glenn Beck claimed President Obama had a “deep-seated hatred for White people,” and tea party activists had chanted the n-word at Black members of Congress outside the Capitol.
• Fox News in 2011 served as the forum for Trump and others to perpetrate the “birther” libel asserting that Obama, the first Black president, was not American-born. Palin told Obama to stop his “shuck and jive shtick.”
• Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) said in 2013 of the “dreamers” (those brought illegally to the United States as children):  “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

Long before Trump told the violent Proud Boys to “stand by” instead of condemning them:

• Conservative radio host G. Gordon Liddy in 1994 told listeners that if federal agents try to disarm them, “go for a head shot” and “kill the sons of bitches.”  Other hosts, and GOP members of Congress, warned of federal agents in “black helicopters” planning “a paramilitary style attack against Americans” and the need for an “armed revolution” to resist a “New World Order,” and Gingrich and other Republicans spoke supportively of antigovernment militias.
• Thousands of tea party activists, on the eve of final passage of Obamacare in the House in 2010, got to within 50 feet of the Capitol. Democrats worried about violence, and police officers struggled to maintain security, but GOP lawmakers inflamed the crowd, waving signs and leading chants of “Kill the bill.”
• Palin, urging supporters “don’t retreat, instead — RELOAD!,” in 2010 promoted a map of 20 Democrat-held congressional districts in target crosshairs.  A GOP Senate nominee spoke of using “Second Amendment remedies.”  Threats and vandalism against Democratic lawmakers spread, and, in 2011, Representative Gabby Giffords (D-Arizona), one of those listed in Palin’s map, was shot in the head by a gunman who killed six others. (There was no evidence connecting Palin’s map to the shooting, but the violent rhetoric continued afterward.)

Long before Trump discredited democrat institutions with his “big lie” about election fraud:

• Republican operatives intimidated the Miami-Dade County Elections Department into stopping the recount of the 2000 election results.  A partisan crowd flooded into the elections office, chanting “Stop the fraud!” “Stop the count!” and “Cheaters!”  Democrat officials were kicked, pushed, and punched.
• John Ashcroft, who became attorney general after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore handed the presidency to George W. Bush, falsely claimed in 2001 that dead people had voted and that “votes have been bought, voters intimidated and ballot boxes stuffed.”
• House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2003, trying to create a “permanent majority,” forced through a Texas redistricting approach.  When Democrat legislators left the state to block the scheme, DeLay attempted to use the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration to track them down.
• The Supreme Court’s conservative majority stacked the deck for Republicans with its 2010 Citizens United decision, which made it possible for wealthy interests to flood elections with unlimited, unregulated “dark money,” and its 2013 gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which invited GOP-led states to restrict voting in ways that disproportionately affect voters of color.  Republican senators cemented the high court’s reputation as an arm of the GOP when from 2016 into 2017 they blocked Obama for 11 months from filling the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

Long before the dysfunction of the Trump era:

• Gingrich in 1995 announced that he forced a shutdown of the federal government in part because he was asked to exit Air Force One via the rear stairway after a trip to Israel with President Bill Clinton. Republicans debuted a new era of manufactured crises over debt-limit deadlines, and repeated government shutdowns, whenever Democrats held the White House.
• The Republican National Committee drafted an “autopsy” in 2013 after Mitt Romney lost to Obama, calling for more outreach to Black, Hispanic, Asian and gay Americans.  GOP lawmakers in the House swiftly abandoned the idea, killing a comprehensive immigration reform bill that had sailed through the Senate by a bipartisan 68-32.
• House Speaker John A. Boehner announced his retirement in 2015, later saying he was disgusted with the growing “circle of crazy” inside his party.  Republicans “couldn’t govern at all,” Boehner wrote.  “Incrementalism? Compromise?  That wasn’t their thing,” Boehner wrote of the insurgents.  “A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. … They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.”  Boehner concluded that he was “living in Crazytown. … Every second of every day since Barack Obama became president, I was fighting one bats–t idea after another.”

Error! Filename not specified. Against that quarter-century of ruin, what we are living through today is just a continuation of the GOP’s direction for the past 30 years: the appeals to white nationalism, the sabotage of the functions of government, the routine embrace of disinformation, stoking the fiction of election fraud and the “big lie,” and the steady degradation of democracy.

Now, it seems, that degradation is accelerating.  We see this in the determined efforts by Republican leaders to ignore, or discredit, the truths being revealed by the House January 6 Select Committee:  Trump demanding magnetometers be removed on January 6 so his armed supporters could attend his rally and then march on the Capitol; Trump ignoring pleas from aides and family members to intervene on January 6 to stop the bloodshed; Trump seriously entertaining the seizing of voting machines and attempting to install new leaders at the Justice Department who would support his false fraud claims; and Trump’s allegedly still-active attempts to tamper with witnesses before the committee.

As they avert their gaze from the cascading horrors of the failed coup, Republicans are instead looking to a familiar guide:  Gingrich.  The former speaker, now a board member of the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute, announced this year that he is serving as a consultant to House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and his team.

No sooner had this been disclosed than Gingrich, on Fox News, threatened the imprisonment of lawmakers serving on the January 6 committee, saying they’re “going to face a real risk of jail” after Republicans take over Congress.  Throwing political opponents in jail for investigating an attack on the U.S. Capitol and a coup against the U.S. government?

Replied Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee:  “This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels.”  But Gingrich knows that.  He’s the one who first started tugging at the threads.

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 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.

This paragraph caught my attention in the most recent edition of GolfWeek’s on-line publications:

“AIG Women’s British Open (LPGA).  Three years ago, Muirfield, host of 16 men’s British Opens, invited its first female members in the club’s 275-year history.  Needless to say, the final major of 2022 carries great significance.”

Why did this catch my attention?

Well, in 2005, my wife, Nancy, and I traveled to Scotland to watch our son, Eric, play in the British Mid-Am, for which he qualified by playing well in the U.S. Mid-Amateur.  In Scotland, the Mid-Am was hosted by Muirfield Golf Club in Guillane, Scotland.  Our son’s wife, Holly, was there, too.

And, that is what’s critical.

Two women were there and, among others, were “allowed” on the grounds of the historic and traditional layout of golf in Scotland, one of the country’s best, though with a clear history of discrimination toward women.

It had a long history of not allowing women on the property – either to play golf or to watch golf.

In 2019, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers invited its first female members in the club’s 275-year history.  That only came after the R&A took the iconic course off the men’s British Open rota after a 2016 membership vote to bring women in failed to reach the two-thirds required.  A re-vote in 2017 pushed it through, which changed a clause that had been in effect since 1744.

Further, the first Women’s British Open ever held at iconic Muirfield occurred last weekend.  There have been 16 men’s British Opens staged at Muirfield, dating back to 1892.

Ashleigh Buhai became the first woman to win a major at Muirfield, claiming the AIG Women’s British Open after four playoff holes.

And a female member of the club, Lindsey Garden, made history on Saturday when she became the first female member of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers to tee it up in a tournament.  With an uneven field, she played as a “marker.”

According to today’s ethics, the title “honorable” might not have been appropriately to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh golfers because they discriminated against women.  [And, note, word “honourable” in the official title was spelled with the “u” in the U.K., not as we would spell the word in the U.S.]

In the past, the old men in and around Muirfield would head to the course early in the morning and go directly to the locker-room where they would change into golf clothes and then go out to course to play.  This would occur typically in “foursomes,” another word for alternate shot, a game most of us don’t play much in the U.S.

After the morning round, the male golfers would head again to the locker-room, change into their best duds, then go into the clubhouse restaurant – again, only men, no women.

After lunch, the same again – change, go play golf, then change and go home.

That’s the way it was for years.

So it was that my wife and daughter-in-law got long stares from some of the Muirfield members when they were “inside the clubhouse and on the course,” back in 2005, about 15 years before the “men-only” clause went away.

Clearly, the club had decided to host the Mid-Am and, with that decision, admitting women on in the clubhouse and on the course was part of the deal, though it didn’t go down easily with some of the old men.

My wife, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Scotland when they were children, tells this story better than I can. 

She remembers how she enjoyed sitting in the restaurant of the clubhouse across from an older gentleman who couldn’t believe her parents came from such a very poor area of Scotland – near Glasgow — and now, her child, our son, was playing on the Muirfield track and, she, my wife and daughter were there to watch.

In truth, he didn’t grill my wife or treat her with disdain; he was just incredulous.

All in all, it was a great experience for us.

So, with the incentive to be able to host “The Open,” Muirfield has entered the 21^st century.  It is all for the good because Muirfield will now be able to showcase itself without the sexism taint.

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.

In my years as a lobbyist, the question in this blog headline sometimes was answered by “yes.”

Too simplistic?  Probably.

But, at the same time, I believe there is a solid rationale for the “yes” answer.

It is this:  Experience with having to live within a budget in a business is a solid credential for political office holders, as well as for those who manage state agencies.

Yet, most legislators and don’t have it. 

Neither do many of those who work for state agencies.  They have never had to live within a budget, or, to put it another way, generate the revenue to fund their programs.  Many just count on getting more for their operations.

Do they need more?  Perhaps.  But I submit they also ought to be required to earn the “more” with a quality, revenue-sensitive operation.

A resident of Orange, California, wrote about this subject in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal. 

Here is what it said:

“Not Enough Politicians Come From Business

“California will continue to drive businesses to other states until we replace the utopian idealists in the State Legislature.

“Why does the California legislature propose so many laws that make no economic sense?

“Maybe because a majority of our representatives have never run a business?  

“Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, who is proposing the 32-hour workweek, was an activist before taking office.  Out of 58 Democrats in the California Assembly, at least a dozen have a similar background.  I found only four Democrats who ran businesses before taking office.  Attorneys, teachers and government administrators dominate the rest.

“Our local paper invited two columnists to present arguments for and against the workweek proposal.  The one who argued against it, to my surprise, is the most liberal columnist.  He spent a year running a small business.

“California will continue to drive businesses to other states until we replace the utopian idealists in the state legislature with people who understand economics and what drives jobs and higher tax revenues.”

Here are excerpts from other letters to the editor:

Letter #1/

“Working for a tech company during the Clinton years, I participated in government affairs, meeting with members of the House, Senate and administration.  Everyone I met was highly intelligent, well-educated, and well-intentioned.  The problem? As with the current administration, none of them had ever worked in the private sector.

“Consequently, they didn’t understand the role and value of private markets or basic economics, including supply and demand.  To them, if the program failed, the policy was beyond question, so the only reason for failure must be that the budget wasn’t large enough.”

Letter #2/

“Usually, the best political appointees have a mix of some government experience and a lot of private-sector experience.  They understand how government works and the effects its actions have on the private sector.”

Letter #3/

“Your editorial reminds me of a stunning admission by George McGovern in his famous article in the Journal (“A Politician’s Dream is a Businessman’s Nightmare,” Manager’s Journal, June 1, 1992).  After a lifetime in Congress, the 1972 Democrat presidential candidate earned a small fortune in post-retirement speeches and in 1988 purchased an inn in Stratford, Connecticut.  It went bankrupt in 1990 and closed the next year.

“Ironically, the liberal icon blamed his business failure on suffocating federal, state and local regulations.  Although passed with good intentions — to help employees, protect the environment and so forth — they were bad for business, McGovern acknowledged in his op-ed.

“’I also wish,’ he confessed, ‘that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day.  That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender.’”]

Having returned a several months ago from California where my wife and I spent five months this winter, we heard a lot about the State of California driving business away, even though state government there depends on tax revenue, including from the businesses heading east.

One of the most famous departures:  Tesla.

Here is the way a friend of mine from California wrote about the issue:

“As COVID descended on California, economies began to shut down and a debate raged over what businesses were ‘essential.’   A rather public dialogue took place between Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, and Alameda County authorities regarding the forced shutdown of the Tesla plant in Fremont.  

“Elon Musk rather calmly threatened to leave the state.  The governor was dismissive, saying ‘Elon Musk isn’t leaving California anytime soon!’   Six months later, Musk left California.
 
“Musk has sold (or is in process of selling) all his personal real estate in the state.   He is now a resident of the State of Texas.   He has also moved his philanthropic foundation to Texas.   One of his companies, Space X, is based in Texas, and Tesla is building a new plant outside Austin, Texas.

“There is no way to know for sure what Musk paid in California state taxes, but it would surprise no one if he paid the most of any individual resident.  Now, he will be a much happier resident of Texas and pay a small fraction of the taxes that California previously squeezed out of him and his employees.”  
  
Beyond Tesla, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Oracle both have announced they intend to move their headquarters to Texas, with 13 other potential moves in the pipeline. 

California will be worse off because of these corporate departures. 

The fact is that JOBS matter, both for the confidence and fortitude they provide to those who have them, plus the revenue the job holders, not to mention the corporations themselves, provide to fund governments.

And, what’s often given short shrift in all of this is short-hand but true phrase – job holders pay taxes.

So, I say, governments should cultivate a business-friendly attitude.  Sure, hold business to high standards, but don’t make enemies of those who provide jobs and pay taxes.

The State of California is learning this lesson the hard way.  It may be possible that the State of Oregon is following the lead, though a lot could depend on who wins the next governor’s race.

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 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.

I have posted one blog about abortion in America after the U. S. Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade.

I was hesitant to do so the first time and am hesitant to do so again because I don’t believe there is a way in America to have a reasoned and reasonable discussion about the subject, given the way many citizens are unalterably pitted against each other. 

Both sides prefer to yell, scream and remain committed to their opinion.  Not talk.  Worse.  Often violence.

But, in this post, I have chosen to argue that Americans have various obligations in a post-Roe v. Wade country.  To make this point, I rely, at least in part, on perspectives provided by Paul S. Coakley, Catholic archbishop of Oklahoma City, who produced an excellent column in the Wall Street Journal.

He writes from a Catholic perspective and lays out what strikes me as a solid case for, as Coakley puts it, “to open our doors to vulnerable mothers and children.”

I don’t write from a Catholic point-of-view, though I appreciate many tenants of the Catholic church.  Instead, I write from the perspective of a Christian who believes ALL of us have responsibilities to care for those who happen to be less fortunate than ourselves – including in relation to abortion and regardless of anyone’s position on the subject.

Coakley wrote this:  “Restricting abortion isn’t enough.  We need to open our doors to vulnerable mothers and children.”

“‘If you are pregnant and in need,’” he added, ‘come to the Catholic Church.’”

Coakley adds that the late Cardinal John O’Connor spoke good words more than 30 years ago, when he founded the Sisters of Life, a Catholic pro-life religious order in New York.  O’Connor’s remark was a welcoming call to expecting mothers with nowhere to turn and a plea to the American church to act as guardians to all of God’s children.  His words rang true then and are perhaps even more important now.

Cockley’s words, no doubt, would not impress pro-abortion advocates who decry the Supreme Court’s ruling.  But Coakley says, “Reversing Roerepresented a necessary first step to bring about a culture of life, from conception to natural death, and end a culture of abortion and death.  But the demise of Roeis only the end of the beginning.

“It also is a reminder of our duty as Catholics.  [Or, I add, the duty of all of us as human beings.]  “We are called to see Christ in every human life, and to work and pray for a society in which laws reflect the inherent dignity of the human person.

“This commitment requires us to create alternatives to abortion and ultimately to make it unthinkable.  The end of Roe challenges us anew to open our hearts, and our doors, to mothers and children in need through foster care and adoption — to what Pope Francis called ‘the highest form of love, and of fatherhood and motherhood.’”

My list of what should be OUR obligations, regardless of position on abortion:

• Work to assure churches welcome all to their doors just as Christ would because, after all, the church is “the body of Christ.”
• Advocate that governments fund adequate – if not increased — levels of pre-natal and post-natal care.
• Work to assure that domestic adoption laws in states are sane and understandable.  [There are hundreds of thousands of children in the American foster care system.  Adoption is often expensive and complicated.  The government should confirm a priority to establish policies making it easier for people to adopt domestically, while maintaining and strengthening processes that protect and safeguard children.  Tax credits, allowances, and the like could make adoption a reality for more people.]
• Advocate that birth control products be readily accessible.
• Commit to discussions of other actions in the spirit of real debate and compromise, which are mostly lost in today’s political culture.

The point is that there is a lot for real Christians, not zealots who give Christianity a bad name, to do in the wake of the demise of Roe V. Wade.

In this context, I think of good words from the late Senator Mark Hatfield, a political icon in Oregon: 

“All of us need each other.  All of us must lift and pull others as we rise.  All of us must rise together — powerful, free, one self-determined people.”

That aspiration applies to a post-Roe v. Wade America – as well as more generally.

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 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.

In this brief blog, I’ll get way over my depth in American foreign policy.

But, drowning has never stopped me from writing stuff.

So, after reading story-after-story on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, I presume to ask a simple, straightforward, one-word question:  Why?

For me, there is no reason for the U.S. House Speaker to presume to enter into assertive foreign policy, which is – and should be — the province of the president.  Let the U.S. speak with one voice when it comes to international relations – and let that be the president.

I also suggest that Pelosi should stay home and tend to legislative affairs in Congress and, goodness knows, there is much to do in the Nation’s Capitol to produce results on a range of pressing public policy issues.

As I admitted at the start of this blog, all of us is above my pay grade, but if I were President Joe Biden, I would ask Pelosi pointedly why she chose to take such a presumptuous initiative.

Her visit, now concluded, left the president and his Administration with a much deeper set of tensions with China. 

At the same time, the Administration has emphasized it intends to honor and retain strong in support for an independent Taiwan, which begs the question about Pelosi defied pleas to avoid the trip.

Pelosi’s assertiveness – no, read, aggressiveness – has made all of this tough foreign policy much tougher.

As a believer in strong U.S. government, I say this to the three branches – Legislative, Judicial, and Executive:  Stay in your own lane, AND, when the time is right, work together, not separately, for the common good in America.

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 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.

In America today, it is credible to “bemoan the loss of civility politics” – yes, that’s a favorite quote of mine, which I attribute to the late military hero Colin Powell.

But, the loss of civility goes beyond politics to characterize many of our general relationships in American life.

In large part, we have lost the ability to “disagree, agreeably,” a phrase I often used in my lobbying career to commend the ability to find middle ground.

Today, middle ground – in politics or in life – barely exists.

Frankly, in some of my personal relationships, there are subjects I don’t bring up because, rather than spark reasonable discussion, they only provoke disagreement and strife.

Contributing columnist Brian Broome made this point a couple days ago in writing that appeared in the Washington Post.

His main thesis:

“Our political parties have become rigid, unforgiving religious sects that will tolerate no second-guessing — unless we want to be shunned.

“In the liberal circles in which I mostly travel, it is nothing short of blasphemy to speak a positive word about any conservative for any reason.  Many of my friends can’t even bear to hear their names mentioned.  I was reminded of this when, in conversation with a friend, I mentioned my approval of Representative Liz Cheney’s performance during the January 6 hearings.

“I said I thought it was courageous of Cheney to speak truth against the kind of pressure and opposition she’s facing from her party.  I said I admired her for it.  I don’t love Liz Cheney or plan to send her money or anything.  But I figured it was okay to say that what she is doing is good.”

But Broome reported that his comment was met “with a mixture of shock, hurt and outrage  — as though I had stabbed my friend in the back.  ‘How can you say that,’ he asked, noting that Cheney had opposed same-sex marriage and was a legatee of the father of the Iraq War.

“When I told him Cheney had since changed her mind about same-sex marriage, he listed a litany of things that she had said or done in the past which put her beyond the realm of acceptable.  And in that moment, for him, I had failed the liberal purity test.  Because she is one of them.”

Conservatives, Brome contends, are the same.  “They hate liberals with an almost otherworldly passion. They like to put bumper stickers on their cars and trucks calling Joe Biden a communist.  They have convinced themselves that the blue cities and states they despise are hellscapes of crime and desolation.  They have made demonizing Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton a kind of obsession.  In that world, saying anything complimentary about a Democrat is a marker of probable evil.”

Broome remembers what I do – that there was a time when it was considered normal and healthy to criticize the political team to which one belonged.  We didn’t take the words of any leader, regardless of party, as gospel.  And, even if people in the other party had different values and cultures, it didn’t mean you had grounds for a violent showdown.  Now, purity tests are everywhere and something akin to a loyalty code makes it taboo to question your own side or call attention to its weaknesses and contradictions.

Broome adds:

“We are no longer a country of give-and-take.  We are a country torn apart by something closer to religious strife, where both sides demand devotion to doctrine and rough punishments await those who step out of line.”

Going back to the Powell quote, I continue “to bemoan the loss of civility,” both in politics and in life.  If we cannot find a way to “disagree, agreeably,” we could be condemned to what amounts to civil war.  To some degree, we are already seeing the extreme character of that battle.