The incoming Biden administration should not waste time prosecuting Donald Trump.
If you’ve been following my musings for the last few years, this statement may surprise you. I’ve made no secret of my belief that Trump engaged in illegal, immoral activities before and during his time in office. He and cronies deserve to be held accountable.
But not by Biden.
The 46th president will already come to office under a cloud of suspicion and mistrust. Despite the assurances of secretaries of state and other election officials from both sides of the aisle and in all 50 states that November’s election was safe and secure with no evidence of widespread fraud, the Trump crime cartel, which poisons everything it touches, has managed to sow real doubt among many of the 73 million people who cast their votes for a second term of misfeasance and malfeasance.
Not that those voters required much urging.
If Trump has been successful at anything over the last four years, it has been the creation of a near-cult of automatons who will accept anything he says and does at face value, just because he says it. They fly his banner in place of the American flag, leave his signs in their yards long after the election, and somehow embrace him as a consummate symbol of Everyman — or Every White Man — despite his gloating over paying almost no taxes and disparaging comments toward women, minorities and veterans.
Oh, and his complete bumbling of a pandemic that keeps devouring American lives and livelihoods while his focus remains alternately on Twitter and the golf course.
So whatever the result of any federal prosecution, Biden loses.
If Trump is found guilty, his supporters will spin a saga of kangaroo courts and QAnon-inspired deep-state conspiracies. A guilty verdict will make a martyr of Trump. If he’s found not guilty, it will be seen as a vindication of four years of chicanery and ineptitude.
And if Biden issues a pardon (which he indicated he is not inclined to do), the Always Trumpers will argue it’s because 45 did nothing wrong in the first place. It’s really a no-win in this nightmare scenario created by Fox News and Russian trolls, egged on by a narcissist who would rather annihilate all democratic norms than admit defeat.
Regardless, Biden has bigger problems just trying to undo the missteps of the last four years. A virus needs quelled, an economy salvaged, international relations repaired, and environmental damage reversed. All of these are more pressing issues than pursuing a divisive investigation into Trump.
This isn’t to say other legal forces won’t be closing in on the soon-to-be ex-president. Jane Mayer, writing in the Nov. 9 New Yorker, notes both the Manhattan district attorney and the New York attorney general are “independently pursuing criminal charges related to Trump’s business practices before he became president.” He is said to be on the hook for some $300 million in personal loans and some $900 million in real-estate debt, according to Mayer.
Some say the thought of Trump in prison orange is a left-leaning fantasy. I tend to agree. He has more lives than the scrappiest alley cat, despite being one of the softest and most fragile men, ego-wise, on the planet.
The best outcome would be a nation and world that simply moves on post-Trump, voting out those who enabled him while leaving his outmoded form of noxious nationalism where it belongs — in the past.
Unfortunately, there are 73 million reasons why this isn’t likely to happen, and 73 million reasons to worry that if the next grifter is actually intelligent instead of merely crafty, the country could be in real trouble.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
COVID and Me: A Memoir in One Part
My wife and I were so careful.
We wore masks everywhere we went, and we didn’t go to all that many places. I shopped for groceries solo. We ordered carryout and delivery, only occasionally eating on patios when the weather allowed. We avoided family get-togethers.
COVID found us just the same.
My wife texted me at work a couple Fridays ago to tell me she had tested positive at her job. Because she works in long-term care, she is swabbed several times each week.
Minutes before her text, I had finished a morning of teaching and doling out Halloween candy. I had made a big production with the candy bars, pouring liberal amounts of sanitizer onto my hands, touching only the edges of the wrappers instead of allowing students to rummage around inside the bag.
An hour later, armed with a doctor’s referral and parked outside the local emergency room, I waited as an employee dressed in a spacesuit got too up close and personal to my nostrils with a cotton swab.
I was, by the way, completely asymptomatic. No fever. No shortness of breath. The week before, I had run more than 20 miles. The portrait of middle-aged health.
But when I woke from a nap later that night, I had a fever and the chills. My memory of the next two days is foggy. Holly and I woke periodically to shuffle around the house and grab a bite to eat. At some point, kids passed on the sidewalk outside, dressed in their trick-or-treat finery, yet I was the ghost, peering out the windows at them from quarantine.
I didn’t need the confirmation from the hospital a few days later; I knew the ’VID had taken root.
The Alliance City Health Department was stellar. A nurse called several times to check on us. During the first call, she asked pointed questions about my job. Had I been within six feet of any students for longer than 15 minutes? No. Was I sure? Yes. Did I always wear a mask? Yes.
What about lunch? How many colleagues did I eat with? Had we stayed far enough apart? Was there sufficient air circulation?
I confessed the candy distribution, afraid it would be a dealbreaker and my students would be quarantined. It wasn’t, and they weren’t. Maybe it was all the sanitizer.
After the first weekend, I started feeling better quickly. Ten days later, I was cleared to return to work. My wife has needed an extra week because of respiratory problems. (She is improving.)
We were lucky. Our symptoms were mild. Our families brought us food and left it on the porch. Our friends called and texted to check on us.
Many people have not been so fortunate. In the United States alone, COVID deaths are 241,000 and counting. I’ve read about people who have been hospitalized for months, breathing through tubes. The term “long-haulers” refers to survivors with lingering, life-altering symptoms.
And yet, in the local Walmart a few days ago, it was like the Wild West where masks were concerned. I saw parents with school-age children, older couples, younger couples, people who undoubtedly drove on the right side of the road to get there, who wore seat belts, who acceded to the state’s mandate to wear shoes and shirts inside the store — all deciding a strip of cloth across the nose and mouth was one public-safety requirement too far, a line in the sand where they could prove they weren’t sheeple, where they could thumb their noses at the man.
I see deluded people on social media, hinging their well-being on one or two mavericks in the healthcare field who say masks are worthless or they restrict our breathing, betting against the preponderance of evidence showing they are effective and safe, like the colleague who drove fifty-plus miles round trip to the one area pediatrician who said it was okay for her to smoke while pregnant.
And, yes, herd immunity sounds appealing, a throw-up-our-hands-in-surrender solution to absolve us of personal responsibility, until we realize how many millions of people need to die to make it a reality.
Sure, a vaccine is coming, but not right away. So, before you mock Gov. DeWine for reissuing mask orders and cracking down on businesses that won’t enforce them, or President-elect Joe Biden for proposing a more comprehensive federal response than any we’ve seen so far, remember there’s a long cold winter between most of us and immunity.
We can’t extract ourselves from this predicament with magical thinking, conspiracy theories or “Don’t Tread on Me” stubbornness.
Wear the damn mask. Stay home when you can. Live to fight another day.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
We wore masks everywhere we went, and we didn’t go to all that many places. I shopped for groceries solo. We ordered carryout and delivery, only occasionally eating on patios when the weather allowed. We avoided family get-togethers.
COVID found us just the same.
My wife texted me at work a couple Fridays ago to tell me she had tested positive at her job. Because she works in long-term care, she is swabbed several times each week.
Minutes before her text, I had finished a morning of teaching and doling out Halloween candy. I had made a big production with the candy bars, pouring liberal amounts of sanitizer onto my hands, touching only the edges of the wrappers instead of allowing students to rummage around inside the bag.
An hour later, armed with a doctor’s referral and parked outside the local emergency room, I waited as an employee dressed in a spacesuit got too up close and personal to my nostrils with a cotton swab.
I was, by the way, completely asymptomatic. No fever. No shortness of breath. The week before, I had run more than 20 miles. The portrait of middle-aged health.
But when I woke from a nap later that night, I had a fever and the chills. My memory of the next two days is foggy. Holly and I woke periodically to shuffle around the house and grab a bite to eat. At some point, kids passed on the sidewalk outside, dressed in their trick-or-treat finery, yet I was the ghost, peering out the windows at them from quarantine.
I didn’t need the confirmation from the hospital a few days later; I knew the ’VID had taken root.
The Alliance City Health Department was stellar. A nurse called several times to check on us. During the first call, she asked pointed questions about my job. Had I been within six feet of any students for longer than 15 minutes? No. Was I sure? Yes. Did I always wear a mask? Yes.
What about lunch? How many colleagues did I eat with? Had we stayed far enough apart? Was there sufficient air circulation?
I confessed the candy distribution, afraid it would be a dealbreaker and my students would be quarantined. It wasn’t, and they weren’t. Maybe it was all the sanitizer.
After the first weekend, I started feeling better quickly. Ten days later, I was cleared to return to work. My wife has needed an extra week because of respiratory problems. (She is improving.)
We were lucky. Our symptoms were mild. Our families brought us food and left it on the porch. Our friends called and texted to check on us.
Many people have not been so fortunate. In the United States alone, COVID deaths are 241,000 and counting. I’ve read about people who have been hospitalized for months, breathing through tubes. The term “long-haulers” refers to survivors with lingering, life-altering symptoms.
And yet, in the local Walmart a few days ago, it was like the Wild West where masks were concerned. I saw parents with school-age children, older couples, younger couples, people who undoubtedly drove on the right side of the road to get there, who wore seat belts, who acceded to the state’s mandate to wear shoes and shirts inside the store — all deciding a strip of cloth across the nose and mouth was one public-safety requirement too far, a line in the sand where they could prove they weren’t sheeple, where they could thumb their noses at the man.
I see deluded people on social media, hinging their well-being on one or two mavericks in the healthcare field who say masks are worthless or they restrict our breathing, betting against the preponderance of evidence showing they are effective and safe, like the colleague who drove fifty-plus miles round trip to the one area pediatrician who said it was okay for her to smoke while pregnant.
And, yes, herd immunity sounds appealing, a throw-up-our-hands-in-surrender solution to absolve us of personal responsibility, until we realize how many millions of people need to die to make it a reality.
Sure, a vaccine is coming, but not right away. So, before you mock Gov. DeWine for reissuing mask orders and cracking down on businesses that won’t enforce them, or President-elect Joe Biden for proposing a more comprehensive federal response than any we’ve seen so far, remember there’s a long cold winter between most of us and immunity.
We can’t extract ourselves from this predicament with magical thinking, conspiracy theories or “Don’t Tread on Me” stubbornness.
Wear the damn mask. Stay home when you can. Live to fight another day.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Monday, November 9, 2020
Problems for the next president
Hi, reader.
This is another case where I’m stuck a few days behind you, peering fitfully into my crystal ball, wondering what the world of Two-Days-Hence will hold, especially as it relates to the presidential election.
It appears increasingly likely that Joe Biden will have an opportunity in the nation’s top seat, provided states where ballots are still being counted continue to tilt his way.
But given President Trump’s continued calls to “STOP THE COUNT!” (in defiance of all democratic norms, by the way), it also appears likely that some part of the process will end up mired in lawsuits and adjudicated in court.
Regardless of how that shakes out, the eventual winner will face the same intractable issues.
First, America is a country divided. Blame it on ginned-up rhetoric, social-media disinformation campaigns, the competing realities of FOX News and MSNBC, or an alleged lack of civics education, but whoever takes the oath of office in January will have to contend with a sizable demographic that hates him and sees him as the Great Satan.
Second, America is still in the middle of a raging pandemic, and any corner that we might be turning is taking us in the wrong direction. A sensible compromise has to exist between utter disregard for public health and a complete lockdown. It would help to have federal leadership that acknowledges science even as it recognizes the importance of financial solvency and mental health. Most people will do the right thing when they see it modeled by sensible leaders who provide a sane rationale. No draconian lockdowns are necessary when people take the right steps voluntarily.
Third, racial tensions are inflamed. Many people cannot see that it is possible to support law enforcement but still recognize systemic racism in its midst. It is not a binary choice to support police or Black Lives Matter. Policing is in need of reform, if only so officers don’t find themselves dealing with issues best left to mental health experts. Frank discussions about how to reform — not defund — police departments to keep both officers and citizens — and especially citizens of color — safe are long overdue.
Fourth, hunger. In one of the most prosperous nations in the world, it is unacceptable that more than 35 million people struggled with hunger in 2019, a number that may balloon to 50 million this year because of the pandemic. How can we fail to feed our own?
Fifth, income disparity. Is the end goal of civilization to concentrate the majority of our wealth in the hands of a small cabal? If so, we are making good progress. If not, there has to be a way to redistribute that wealth in a way that still allows for competition and entrepreneurialism.
Sixth, seventh and eighth — the environment. Our reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable. On the face of it, rolling back regulations sounds like a positive step, a pro-business position to cut red tape and create more jobs. But when deregulation means allowing more groundwater pollution, expanding oil and gas drilling in protected national forests, and ratcheting up greenhouse gas emissions, we are cannibalizing long-term environmental health — to say nothing of the deleterious effects on our physical health — for short-term profits.
We need leadership that will work to reduce the carbon footprint of the industrialized world, invest in alternative forms of energy, and create jobs to replace those lost in coal country and elsewhere.
It won’t happen overnight and without concessions, but it has to happen before we bequeath to future generations a world that is unhealthy and unlivable.
If past performance is indicative of future results, all these issues would take a backseat under a potential second Trump term. Instead, we would have to prepare ourselves for another deep dive into white-grievance politics, partisan sniping, and tax-cut proposals that benefit the ultra-rich.
Under Biden, maybe at least some of these concerns will be addressed, although to what extent Congress will allow it is unknown.
But, make no mistake, somebody somewhere will have to deal with them, now or four years from now.
Nobody needs a crystal ball to forecast that.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
This is another case where I’m stuck a few days behind you, peering fitfully into my crystal ball, wondering what the world of Two-Days-Hence will hold, especially as it relates to the presidential election.
It appears increasingly likely that Joe Biden will have an opportunity in the nation’s top seat, provided states where ballots are still being counted continue to tilt his way.
But given President Trump’s continued calls to “STOP THE COUNT!” (in defiance of all democratic norms, by the way), it also appears likely that some part of the process will end up mired in lawsuits and adjudicated in court.
Regardless of how that shakes out, the eventual winner will face the same intractable issues.
First, America is a country divided. Blame it on ginned-up rhetoric, social-media disinformation campaigns, the competing realities of FOX News and MSNBC, or an alleged lack of civics education, but whoever takes the oath of office in January will have to contend with a sizable demographic that hates him and sees him as the Great Satan.
Second, America is still in the middle of a raging pandemic, and any corner that we might be turning is taking us in the wrong direction. A sensible compromise has to exist between utter disregard for public health and a complete lockdown. It would help to have federal leadership that acknowledges science even as it recognizes the importance of financial solvency and mental health. Most people will do the right thing when they see it modeled by sensible leaders who provide a sane rationale. No draconian lockdowns are necessary when people take the right steps voluntarily.
Third, racial tensions are inflamed. Many people cannot see that it is possible to support law enforcement but still recognize systemic racism in its midst. It is not a binary choice to support police or Black Lives Matter. Policing is in need of reform, if only so officers don’t find themselves dealing with issues best left to mental health experts. Frank discussions about how to reform — not defund — police departments to keep both officers and citizens — and especially citizens of color — safe are long overdue.
Fourth, hunger. In one of the most prosperous nations in the world, it is unacceptable that more than 35 million people struggled with hunger in 2019, a number that may balloon to 50 million this year because of the pandemic. How can we fail to feed our own?
Fifth, income disparity. Is the end goal of civilization to concentrate the majority of our wealth in the hands of a small cabal? If so, we are making good progress. If not, there has to be a way to redistribute that wealth in a way that still allows for competition and entrepreneurialism.
Sixth, seventh and eighth — the environment. Our reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable. On the face of it, rolling back regulations sounds like a positive step, a pro-business position to cut red tape and create more jobs. But when deregulation means allowing more groundwater pollution, expanding oil and gas drilling in protected national forests, and ratcheting up greenhouse gas emissions, we are cannibalizing long-term environmental health — to say nothing of the deleterious effects on our physical health — for short-term profits.
We need leadership that will work to reduce the carbon footprint of the industrialized world, invest in alternative forms of energy, and create jobs to replace those lost in coal country and elsewhere.
It won’t happen overnight and without concessions, but it has to happen before we bequeath to future generations a world that is unhealthy and unlivable.
If past performance is indicative of future results, all these issues would take a backseat under a potential second Trump term. Instead, we would have to prepare ourselves for another deep dive into white-grievance politics, partisan sniping, and tax-cut proposals that benefit the ultra-rich.
Under Biden, maybe at least some of these concerns will be addressed, although to what extent Congress will allow it is unknown.
But, make no mistake, somebody somewhere will have to deal with them, now or four years from now.
Nobody needs a crystal ball to forecast that.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Friday, November 6, 2020
All treats, no tricks with early voting
My wife and I returned our absentee ballots to the Stark County Board of Elections a few weekends ago.
It feels good. Not only because we’ve performed our civic duty — and early! — but because it means no unforeseen circumstances will keep our voices from being heard.
Said unforeseen circumstances in this most hideous of years could range from a burning case of diarrhea to a swarm of murder hornets. As Dickens once remarked of Scrooge, waiting for the second spirit to visit, “nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much,” and so it has been with the unraveling of 2020.
Another reason why it feels good to have a ballot cast is because it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card. I can now safely ignore all the rigamarole of the last few weeks — that final debate, the back-and-forth sniping from candidates and followers, the falling dominoes of increasingly desperate October surprises and the polls polls polls showing one candidate waxing as the other wanes. (And if you don’t like today’s numbers, change the channel or wait until tomorrow.)
Not that all this isn’t important, because it is. But none of it can change my mind now, even if I wanted it to. It’s the political iteration of the Serenity Prayer.
With this in mind, I’m spending the next few days not engaging in politics as much as possible. I know there is a degree of privilege in this, of which I am cognizant and for which I am grateful.
So while I am not engaging in political discourse, I will instead:
• Read seasonal favorites like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” and “Ligeia.”
• Take a long run and soak up visions of autumn’s finery.
• Walk the dog.
• Mow the grass for what I hope is the last time this year.
• Grade papers (the bane of every teacher’s existence).
• Think up new ways to torment … I mean, engage students at high levels.
• Wear a mask in public (which, despite what some might believe, is completely non-political and just common sense).
• Help my wife shop online for early Christmas gifts, which usually consists of asking repeatedly if she’s found anything for me.
• Think about shopping online for her but decide to wait until closer to Christmas, like maybe Dec. 24.
• Drag the last pieces of patio furniture into storage.
• Sleep.
There might come a time in the near future when a potential assault on our democratic norms means I must speak up and make my voice heard, but not this weekend. Depending on how long it takes votes to be counted, it might not be next weekend either.
But it could be coming, and it’s best to be rested and prepared. I’ll watch and read the news, ponder perspectives from multiple sources, but not perseverate on any one outcome. And I’ll know when to tune it out and just be.
I advise other people who have already voted to do the same, just as I encourage anybody who is registered but has not yet returned an absentee ballot to complete that task, and those who plan to vote in person on Tuesday to follow through on this intention.
Otherwise, pick your battles. Metaphorically, of course.
And if you have any sure-fire preventative measures for murder hornets, let me know, huh? Because 2020 just keeps coming.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
It feels good. Not only because we’ve performed our civic duty — and early! — but because it means no unforeseen circumstances will keep our voices from being heard.
Said unforeseen circumstances in this most hideous of years could range from a burning case of diarrhea to a swarm of murder hornets. As Dickens once remarked of Scrooge, waiting for the second spirit to visit, “nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much,” and so it has been with the unraveling of 2020.
Another reason why it feels good to have a ballot cast is because it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card. I can now safely ignore all the rigamarole of the last few weeks — that final debate, the back-and-forth sniping from candidates and followers, the falling dominoes of increasingly desperate October surprises and the polls polls polls showing one candidate waxing as the other wanes. (And if you don’t like today’s numbers, change the channel or wait until tomorrow.)
Not that all this isn’t important, because it is. But none of it can change my mind now, even if I wanted it to. It’s the political iteration of the Serenity Prayer.
With this in mind, I’m spending the next few days not engaging in politics as much as possible. I know there is a degree of privilege in this, of which I am cognizant and for which I am grateful.
So while I am not engaging in political discourse, I will instead:
• Read seasonal favorites like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” and “Ligeia.”
• Take a long run and soak up visions of autumn’s finery.
• Walk the dog.
• Mow the grass for what I hope is the last time this year.
• Grade papers (the bane of every teacher’s existence).
• Think up new ways to torment … I mean, engage students at high levels.
• Wear a mask in public (which, despite what some might believe, is completely non-political and just common sense).
• Help my wife shop online for early Christmas gifts, which usually consists of asking repeatedly if she’s found anything for me.
• Think about shopping online for her but decide to wait until closer to Christmas, like maybe Dec. 24.
• Drag the last pieces of patio furniture into storage.
• Sleep.
There might come a time in the near future when a potential assault on our democratic norms means I must speak up and make my voice heard, but not this weekend. Depending on how long it takes votes to be counted, it might not be next weekend either.
But it could be coming, and it’s best to be rested and prepared. I’ll watch and read the news, ponder perspectives from multiple sources, but not perseverate on any one outcome. And I’ll know when to tune it out and just be.
I advise other people who have already voted to do the same, just as I encourage anybody who is registered but has not yet returned an absentee ballot to complete that task, and those who plan to vote in person on Tuesday to follow through on this intention.
Otherwise, pick your battles. Metaphorically, of course.
And if you have any sure-fire preventative measures for murder hornets, let me know, huh? Because 2020 just keeps coming.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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