Politics and paranoia

   I've been thinking back on the Clinton campaign of 1992 , and contrasting it to the one of 2016. Admittedly we're talking about two different Clintons, but it's still a comparison worth making. In my memory that was a far more civil election, kinder and gentler, to borrow a phrase from the era.
    I'm going to leave the Trumpster out of this equation as far as possible. That's not to defend him or his proposals and rhetoric. I intend the opposite. He's just so far beyond the pale of acceptable behaviour that he should be dismissed out of hand. I'd rather consider the campaigning style of Hillary. 
     In 1964 historian Richard Hofstadter wrote an essay for Harper's, later expanded into a book, entitled" the Paranoid Style in American Politics". He was writing about the Goldwater campaign  that year. Goldwater ,according to Hofstadter, drew much of his support from conspiracy theorists on the right who were all too willing to believe the worst about their political opponents.  Hofstadter may have forgotten that this paranoia thing works both ways. Maybe he just ran out of space. I can understand that as a occasional essayist myself. He might have pointed out that the Johnson landslide that year was largely the result of his campaign painting Goldwater as a raving lunatic and a warmonger who couldn't be trusted with America's considerable military might. Did paranoia play a role in that election? Oh yea!
     So going back to 1992, did Bill Clinton accuse the elder George Bush of secretly wanting to drag us into war, or drop atomic weapons on our enemies, or disenfranchise large swathes of our population through voter reform,  eliminate Social Security, or any other of these reliable shibboleths from the Democrat playbook? I don't recall any of that. I remember a very smart campaign manager deciding that those approaches were a little timeworn and frayed, and anyhow would have a hard time sticking to this opponent. Afterall, we already knew George Bush. The campaign was primarily over the economy. It asked in who's hands should it to be entrusted? The people chose Clinton. You may remember he didn't do that bad a job with it either, though it hurts to say so.
      The Clinton of this presidential campaign is a little different, or is it the times that have changed? She can, and does criticize the economic plans and track record of what's his name, and contrast those with her own,  but there's lots of the other stuff too. The sad part is that her opponent gives her so much ammunition. He can't help himself. I mean that. He really is unable to help himself or control himself. In our entire history we may never have seen a candidate for high office like this one. Like a child that's been chewing on lead paint flakes from the windowsills all his life, there's no impulse control in him, no judgement, little reason or self awareness either. Shouldn't she be running on that?
      Instead it's back to the playbook. Republicans are racist, anti-environment, religious bigots, authoritarian, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, just whateverphobic. If you can name a phobia, they've probably got it. It's a wonder they find the courage to get out of bed each morning. In this century, the old chestnuts of the paranoid playbook return from the grave, are dusted off and polished, and low and behold they work as well as ever.
      I'm not against name calling if the name fits. I can't stand it when the only reason for bringing it out is that it works. You score a few points but have poisoned the process. Worse than all that, you've decreased social trust, and confidence. Scapegoating, conspiracy mongering, stereotyping are all back in style and that's too bad.
     Imagine politics minus paranoia. It's easy if you try. How about honest policy discussions? How about giving the other side credit wherever credit is due? How about not demonizing them, or always ascribing to them the lowest motivations when other options are available? It goes without saying that this plea is meant for everyone. My side is hardly blameless. I've been an avid listener to political talk radio for decades. I can hardly listen anymore because I can't stand the  unfair accusations and stereotyping that are so commonplace lately. My paranoia tolerance is failing me. These days I limit my listening to NPR, and the few radio shows that still respect fair play, and tolerance, John Batchelor for instance, and Armstrong and Getty.
      I'm imagining politics with respect and tolerance right now. I pick up the newspaper and strangely ,it's not there.
      Fly high GB.

Telluride celebrates Telluride

   It's true that Telluriders almost always believe that the ideal Telluride would look an awful lot like the town they saw when they first came here. For me, that magic year would be 1988. The town seemed much more free and easy back then, layed back but ready to party or play like mad at the drop of a hackysack.. Hippies danced in the park with abandon and life was full of enchantment and wonder. In other words ,I was much younger then, and whatever I was learning and experiencing at the time was easily projected in my mind out to the world surrounding me. It would not just be difficult to recreate my original Telluride, it would be impossible. You could tear down every building built since then and restore what's left to there exact 1988 glory and purpose, but there's no getting me ,or anyone else, back into our lovely well chiseled 1988 bodies and faces, let alone back into our eighties frame of mind. What's past is past, the rest is nostalgia.
   This reminds me of the Telluride Art and Architecture weekend.  I hope you made it. Maybe you'll consider coming out to a future A &A . To some extent, all the festivals on our busy calendar highlight the uniqueness and beauty of this valley and the little town that adorns it, but this one in particular celebrates Telluride for all it is and once was. To Kate Jones ,who envisioned this magic festival and with her dedicated staff, Britt Markey, and Molly Perrault ,make it happen, and to all the many talented participants, my profound gratitude.
     I could go one of two ways at this point in the column. I could use the Art and Architecture weekend to segue my thoughts on the spate of construction and destruction going on around town this summer. The problem with that train of thought is that I don't know where it's going. I suppose I could always just start in with it and see where it takes me. That could be fun. The problem is there are more serious thoughts on my mind. There are more serious issues out there . Yes ,there are worse things happening  than the noise and inconvenience caused by the construction crew down the street. There are worse things happening even then the empty lot next door that's being turned into yet another Telluride maximum square footage, three story box. In short ,there's the news from Baton Rouge, from Nice, and from Cleveland.
    As human beings we are uncomfortable with taking full blame for our actions ,or lack of action, in my case . I've never met a three year old, however adorable, that wouldn't do just about anything to avoid accountability when something gets broken ,lost, or spoiled, and there's no doubt who the culprit may be. No honey, I don't think the dog did it this time. We grow up. We grow in lots of ways, but this infantile trait tends to stay with us more tenaciously than most. We just get better at masking our need to avoid the pain that comes from blame. We can even fool ourselves, and we do.
      Whole textbooks and treatise have been written about our avoidance strategies. We transfer the blame. We project it on others. We wallow in victimhood. The greater our failings, or perceived failings, the greater our shame and quilt and the greater our urgency to pass it on. We identify a likely scapegoat, or obsess on the power and evil intentions of the perceived oppressor. The worse our enemies, the better we come off. Are you responsible for your rotten life? "Hell no" is more and more the answer as we discover that the system is surely rigged against people like me. It can't be me, it's got to be  "them".
       This sounds to me like Trumpism. It sounds a little like what all the other snake oil salesmen out there are selling too. How do you spot a successful politician? They're the ones who relieve their constituents of any necessity to find fault with themselves and move it adroitly to someone else .Wall street bankers caused the great recession. Mexicans took our jobs. Infidels corrupt our youth with their cigarettes, alcohol, short skirts, internet pornography and Coca-Cola. The cops are racist. The prison system exists to keep the black man down and enrich others. It's all claptrap! It's all cleverly designed to entrap willing minds. We'd rather believe anything but the truth. We'd rather point fingers than admit that we are all free to act for ourselves. Tell the public that they make their own beds and see how many votes you get. 
      So there you go, Cleveland, Baton Rouge, and Nice, all tied up in one pretty little bow.

Trumps creative destruction

      As a Republican I'm embarrassed and a little worried by the Trump candidacy. As an American I'm worried over the Clinton candidacy. Vote for Hillary, and ill be relieved of my embarrassment. Of course, there's still that worry factor.
      My friends on the left are not enamored with Mrs. Clinton either. I suppose, when it comes right down to it most will vote for her rather than risk four years (or more) of Donald Trump, whatever their feelings about her personally. They rightly see her as representing the unholy alliance between big business and big money, and political power brokers. Crony-Capitalism has been around longer than we've had a name for it. Madison sought to keep it in check by distributing power widely throughout government, and encouraging competition between power interests. Jefferson imagined a nation of small farmers happily handing over decision making power to larger farmers ,who would choose from amongst themselves the wisest and most virtuous to lead and govern forever more. It turns out that nothing they could do or say or pass through Congress could prevent us from going our way. Our way is to throw money at the powerful, and power to those who can spend it freely.
     Two hundred and thirty or so years later we still honor Madison's Constitution ,study it, swear our allegiance to it on occasion, but are always ready to put it aside whenever it gets in the way. 
      During the Nixon administration Arthur Schlesinger Jr. referred to the " imperial presidency" . He was concerned over Nixon's overreach, and the implications of the trend if it would continue through future administrations. He was right, of , but it's interesting that it took the presidency of this Republican, long detested by the left ,to awaken in this old New Dealer a healthy fear of supraconstitutional authority run amuck. As far as overreach goes, Nixon was not particularly unique among modern presidents. As far as Republicans go he was not particularly conservative. Nixon brought us the EPA, affirmative action, and much else that conservatives often rant about. It's worth noting that presidents are rarely the game changers we hope them to be. They must be pragmatists. They have to deal with Congress ,which controls the budget. Some trends are bigger than the office.
       This is what keeps me up at night. All the trends are against us. The arc of history is taking us in the exact wrong direction. We could benefit greatly from smarter ,smaller government but there is no indication that we are headed that way anytime soon. Our national dept is about to reach twenty trillion unaffordable dollars . The Federal reserve is unable to increase interest rates yet again because economic growth refuses to budge from its virtual nonexistence. Millions of Americans are unemployed. Millions more are underemployed. The number of food stamp enrollees has doubled since the Great recession. Meanwhile, Congress continues to hand off its law making responsibility to the agencies it has created and funds, the same agencies that add annually millions of pages of new regulations to justify their own existence while effectively stifling business growth and limiting competition.
        What will Hillary Clinton do about these trends? What would Donald Trump do? Neither appear willing to turn back power to the States, or to Congress, or dismantling the undemocratic regulatory state. Trump sees no limit to presidential power, at least not if he's the guy running things. In a strange way that is my only small ray of hope in this election. If America elects Trump it's true I will feel embarrassed, but my consolation is that he will be  true to his own personality and reach too far ,step on too many toes, fall head first into a big steaming pile of his own hubris, and promptly find himself turned out of office. I realize all that drama could get messy furthering my already considerable embarrassment, but consider the upside. At long last Republicans and Democrats will come togeather, first to get rid of the Donald, then to reach lasting reforms to prevent future presidents from exercising more authority than the Republic can handle. This would set back an eighty odd year trajectory of centralizing and consolidating executive power.
        Who knows what could come next? With reform all the rage in Washington we may even do something about that national debt. We may get serious about downsizing government, reducing wasteful regulations, eliminating wasteful programs, and allowing for real economic growth again. A really awful Trump presidency may be providentialy short . It may lead to the reversal of destructive trends. A really awful Hillary presidency will look a lot like the last eighty years and will only get us in all the deeper. So I'm hoping for Trump to win. I'm hoping he's just as bad as he looks. What is it they call this in economic theory, creative destruction? That's where I see hope. Kind of sad, isn't it?

Fractured fairytales

    Someone told me that this presidential election is God's judgment on us. The speaker wasn't even waiting for the result to be announced in November. God, they figure, is ticked off at us, and the fact we have two such flawed candidates is already all the  proof you need.
    Maybe God isn't angry at all. Maybe this is another example of the sense of humor He is sometimes credited with . I like the idea of a capricious God, like the ones in Greek mythology. It's possible he likes throwing a spanner into the works now and then just to watch us jump, something like the picture we get of Him in the Book of Job. It could be worse than this choice between Hillary and Trump, we could find ourselves covered in painful boils, like Job.
     It's been amusing to watch the  political parties that have dominated  public life over the last century and a half  tearing themselves apart over this election season. It's been amusing except when its been too painful to watch, which is about half the time. Half laugh fest, and half tearful agony, that's about the right proportion. A normal election would come with less tears, but less laughs too.
      This election didn't come out of the blue. If God is intervening then he began constructing the setup for this elaborate prank long ago. It comes  out of a backdrop of the extreme polarization that has been the dominant feature of American politics  for the last fifty years. In "the Fractured Republic" by Yuval Levin, which was published this year, this path to political tribalism over the last half century is examined and explained.                                              Yuval's premise is that Democrats and Republicans are alike in their sense of  nostalgia for the middle years of the twentieth century but mostly for much different reasons. For liberals, that was a time when government really worked, people were more accepting of its many intrusions into their lives, into business too. Business, labor, and government worked togeather to provide unprecedented economic growth that reached every tier of society, the rewards falling equally among them. For conservatives, the post war years represent an expanding economy, but also a time of social stability, an era of broadly shared values, hard work, education, thrift, and family. Conservatives are often equally nostalgic for the eighties, the Reagan years. It's considered a time of reassessment, of tax cutting and regulatory reform that and unleashing an economy that had too long been restrained by both. He also brought optimism and purpose to a nation shaken by recent social upheaval, civil strife, high inflation and stagnant wages. 
     The sad news Levin has for conservatives is that those "city on a hill" Reagan years won't be coming back anytime soon.  That moment has passed. Clearing up today's problems will require twenty-first century solutions. Liberals need to get with the program as well. The fifties and sixties are even less likely to return , and anyhow nostalgia for the Buddy Holly years is seriously misplaced . The economy was on fire at that time, and wages saw real growth, but a recent world war had devastated the other major economies. America found itself producing half the world's manufactured goods. There was room to grow and prosper because we were what was left when the fighting was over. It's popular to write that during these peak years of union power, wages, relative to inflation, were also at there peak, and the middle class reached a sort of nadir. From that day till this ,middle class Americans would see their purchasing power steadily decrease. That's not even close to being true. The middle-class may have shrunk, but most of the former middle class have moved upward rather than descending the other direction. The purchasing power of today's American is far in advance of our parents and grandparents, something like comparing an old fashioned rotary phone to the miraculous computers we talk into, and do a hundred other things with today.
      Levin contends that a romanticized and fallacies picture of the past cripples both sides of the political divide , preventing them from carefully accessing current challenges and reaching solutions to meet them. It also hampers the parties from appreciating the strengths of the other, and cooperating despite their differences.
    Most of all Levin regrets that over the course of the last century the United States has inexorably moved power toward the center, toward federal bureaucrats, toward the Whitehouse (did I mention that Levin is libertarian?).  He calls instead for a recommitment to subsidiarity, which is placing power ever closer to the people. Top down solutions that may have worked well for earlier generations are clearly not working today. Or we could join old Job and learn to live with boils.

Elaine

  She was an insider, I am an outsider. She was a liberal who identified herself as a socialist. I read National Review and think Ronald Reagan was the best president of my lifetime. She was a San Miguel county commissioner and a former Telluride mayor, I am a woodsy. Obviously, Elaine Fischer and I were not two peas in a pod. Despite our many differences we were friends. When she passed away on Memorial day I felt the loss. Judging from the turnout and emotions a saw and experienced at her memorial a few days ago, so did many of you.
  We were brought togeather nine years ago when I first rented studio space for painting at the Stronghouse on South Fir . She had a studio there for almost as long as Stronghouse had been rented by Telluride Arts to give artists a place to create. I well remember my first show there. The opening night art walk was well attended but sales were slow in coming.  Elaine had noticed a couple from Arizona who were attracted to a particular painting of mine. As I recall it was a twilight scene of a moon rise over Ajax with Telluride tucked in its valley beginning to show it's lights. More memorable than that painting was the sight of Elaine with her arm around the woman, literally dragging the couple back into the gallery after they'd left, convincing them they they needed to buy this painting, as they of course did. Salesmanship and artistic talent are not always present in the same person. Many an artist can be glad that both traits existed in her especially when that moxie was channeled in your behalf.
     Her approach to painting was a lot like her overall approach to life. In the words of Marissa Mattys at that recent memorial, she had " tenacity and focus" to an unusual degree. I often watched her paint . Her commitment was total. Her concentration was unflinching.
       A show she hung one year was made up entirely of self portraits. These were not flattering self portraits. She was exploring her subject, revealing it untainted with sentimentality or romanticism. She called the show "Vanity". The title was not fitting in my estimation. I suppose she meant it to be ironic.
      Last year's show reflected her struggle with cancer. From the cannon of great western art she chose the paintings of several woman and skilfully reproduced them then introduced an unsettling intrusion in the form of the crude ugly charactertures of the modernist painter Guston. The female figures of Delacroix, Franz Hals, Manet, and Sergeant represented life as we'd choose it. The Guston element said that nature perhaps has something else in mind.
    She didn't drive. That's different, even around here. Maybe that's a reason she stayed in Telluride after Marks ( her husband) death. This is one of the few places where cars are largely unnecessary. Maybe she stayed because this is a place where an individual can make a big difference if only they have the will. It's not surprising then that she was drawn to politics. 
   Politics is not the easiest profession. You have to have the ability to sell your ideas. You also have to be able to sell yourself. That's never easy, especially if you have the slightest ego or self-regard, something  I'm told politicians have in good supply. As far as I know she never lost an election. I do remember her worrying about losing an election even when it seemed to me that she had it in the bag. She did win pretty overwhelmingly. I don't think Elaine's strengths as a commissioner, or a mayor, or a councilmen were lost on her constituents, even to those of us of another party. She was relentless in the best sense of the term.
    When it came to her health that tenacity and focus again came into play. After her diagnosis of cancer she decided that she would do whatever it took to fight it. She would not leave it to the Doctors alone to decide what was best for her and carry it out. She informed herself on the best course of action and made damn sure they carried it out. She stopped eating and drinking most of the foods that brought her the greatest pleasure to concentrate on the foods that would help her body overcame the cancer that sought to destroy her. She wasn't about to take cancer lying down. She wouldn't go down without a fight. That was Elaine from the day I met her, and from what I hear, right up to the end. That was the Elaine we knew. That was the Elaine who touched so many of our lives  while she lived among us, some of us ,without our even knowing it. That was the Elaine who left a great big hole in our lives on Memorial day. There is no one quite like her to fill it up again.

More wealth, less satisfaction

    
     I once belonged to a millenialist religion. The second coming ,we believed ,was just around the corner and soon Christ Himself would rule on Earth. This wasn't some whacky fringe group either. We weren't looking for spaceships or comets to carry us to the promised land ,or living in an isolated desert compound purifying ourselves in preparation for the coming rapture. There was a widespread belief that the world was rotten and getting rottener. That idea is a common thread in all millennialist cults , religious and secular.  If life wasn't getting worse, if the world wasn't descending into ever greater depravity  and suffering, then why pin your hopes on its sudden culmination and speedy redemption? I had a few problems with the doctrines of that church , this was one of them. For whatever reason, I tended to think of the world as a pretty wonderful place and improving all the time. It turns out that my uninformed ,overly positive impression was right all along. I may have been naive but I wasn't deceived. 
    The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook adds further confirmation to my sunny outlook. It's his contention that life in the United States has improved tremendously over the last sixty years. It's been on the same trajectory since colonial times, with occasional hiccups here and there, but always trending upwards. The air is cleaner, rivers and streams are less polluted. The rich have become richer, but then so have every other class. Those in the middle, for instance, have experienced a doubling in income over the last sixty years in inflation adjusted dollars. Not only that but the goods and services available to them far surpass what the nineteen sixties had to offer in quality, convenience, and life enhancement. The author is amazed that the good news isn't getting out there, and so am I. It's not in the interest of politicians or the news media to broadcast it. Power for the political class depends on our believing otherwise, and that's the message the mainstream media is pleased to pass on and amplify. False narratives about the decline of the middle class are inescapable. It's not surprising that many of us believe it.
       What about income inequality? Haven't the rich seen their incomes and buying power increase far faster than the middle class? Easterbrook points out that there are two significant factors at play skewing median household income statistics that need to be taken into account. Immigration accounts for most of the income growth disparity. The United States, from around 1980 until today, has taken in over a million immigrants annually. For most of those years that's been about equal to the rest of the world's nations combined. Most of those immigrants are poor. For many of them the climb out of poverty is a slow process while coping with a strange culture and a difficult language to master. Add in the millions of immigrants who have crossed the border illegally , many of whome are largely uneducated, and you begin to see the situation more clearly.                                                     While immigration is a positive phenomenon, and one of America's greatest sources of strength, in the short term it detracts from the median wealth statistical profile. According to Easterbrook and the studies he sites ,the gap between haves and have-nots is actually shrinking, not growing, once you factor out the non-native born. Another factor is the shrinking size of the American family. While the typical household today contains about 2.6 people, twenty-five years ago the average was 4. Household income may have grown only slightly over that period ( factoring in the drag on that statistic due to high numbers of new immigrants), but remember that wealth is spread out over far fewer people per household today. Taking smaller households into account the rise in wealth per person since 1990 on average is fifty percent. 
       My former religion didn't actually teach that shrinking paychecks were a sign of the coming apocalypse. They looked for societal collapse in other forms. There was even some finger pointing at increasing prosperity as a cause of increasing sin. Here they were on to something. Prosperity is at least a mixed blessing. Even as we have gained in wealth and in other measures of a satisfying and comfortable life we've been losing ground on the happiness index. Suicides are up, drug use and alcohol addiction are rampant, more and more of us suffer bouts of depression. That is the "paradox" that appears in the title of Easterbrook's book. It explores the subject and offers solutions. 
        The question comes up, would you rather be rich or do you prefer to be happy? My answer is always, yes.
        
        

None but the most honest and wise

      No candidate for President has ever been as thoroughly vetted  as Hillary Clinton. Although her enemies have made many false claims against her and she has been the target of numerous investigations from her earliest days in the Whitehouse (as first lady) till now ,she has never been convicted or indicted for anything illegal. This is what you hear from the Clinton campaign when the question of Hillary's numerous scandals comes up. It's mostly true too, well ,apart from that false claims business. Not all the claims against her have proven false. Many have been proven true, some in the strictest " legal" sense of the term, some only true as far as one can reasonably interpret events given the facts at hand. It reminds me of a great line from one of the Adam's Family movies. Gomez  greets his brother ," Fester, you old lady killer". "Yes" a beaming Fester replies ," but never convicted".
     After so many investigations , if the best you can come up with is" but never convicted" you're not making a particularly strong endorsement. That's especially true when these probes and investigations give us a picture of someone who will stop at nothing to get her way. I admire people who are relentless, but relentnessness has a flip side too. There's relentnessness on the wrong path, and there's relentnessness driving you to the wrong means. You can have all the right goals and relentlessly still destroy everything in your path. Having a sense of right and wrong,  a moral sense, makes all the difference. Without scruples you're a danger to everyone around you, especially anyone that gets in the way. Determination alone is neither a virtue nor a vice. There's many a future suicide bomber out there who is wonderfully determined. Determination becomes a virtue only when it's tied to virtuous acts.                                                                                                                                               I refer you to Hillary's first Washington scandal, travelgate. Take a look at what she put Billy Dale through. He was fired from his job and given just minutes to clear his desk and leave the Whitehouse. He was repeatedly and exhaustively investigated by the IRS and FBI. He was brought to court on trumped up charges, defending his innocence at great expense.  His only offensive was to hold a position that Hillary wished to reward to a friend. The charges that came against him were a smokescreen to justify his firing. The first lady instigated the initial firing of Dale and his staff and the cover-up, then lied to a special prosecutor about her role. But she was never convicted. She does have the Clinton knack for getting away with anything, everything, outside the unlikely event of someone having preserved the semen stained blue dress.
        I swear I didn't start today's column with intentions of writing about Hillary Clinton. I thought I'd take a few more whacks at the Donald, maybe make the case for why we can't elect this world class buffoon. Why bother? Everyone should be able to make that case on their own by now, unless they're supporters. That bunch are unreachable. Their minds are made up. As Trump himself has said, he can shoot someone in the middle of 5th avenue, and they'd still vote for him. I have no reason to doubt that.
      In 1801, second president, John Adams moved into the Whitehouse. He was the first president to live there. On his first night in that large, lonely,and as yet unfinished presidential palace, he wrote to his wife, Abigail, who was caring after their children in Quincy Massachusetts. At the close of his letter he made a now famous prayer ,or blessing on the new digs. " Before I end my letter I pray that heaven bestow the best of blessings upon this house, and all that hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men rule under this roof." he wrote. It's a wonderful sentiment. My only quibble is with the "rule" part. Presidents don't rule, they don't reign, they preside. It's hard to disagree with the rest. Those we elect to the highest office ought to be honorable, just, fair-minded, not exclusively self serving, honest, and reasonable. They ought to reflect the best our society has to offer. 
      Voting for someone just because we like their style, or what they say, or because of their party affiliation, isn't enough. We have a duty to look beyond their positions and question the carefully cultivated image they try to project. We have a duty to judge their character. 
      In the upcoming presidential election that leaves us with exactly two choices. There's none of the above, and anyone else please.