In his Chicago Tribune column John Kass ‘fesses up and acknowledges the kind of president he would prefer:
Some readers, who’d like nothing better than to jeer at my sightless head on a pike, keep making a mistake in thinking that I’m a Trump guy because I’m not of the left.
But I was for Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in 2016. Why? I loathed the Clintons. And I thought Paul, unlike Trump, had the temperament to be president. And Paul talked constantly and in glowing terms about the Constitution.
The republic is what I care about. And the only way to keep it is through the Constitution.
The framers truly understood human nature, the temptations that come with holding awesome federal power, and the problems with factions and blind partisanship.
They understood what would happen if a people lost faith in their institutions, if those institutions were shaped, in grotesque partisan fashion, to serve only the elite, now often called the best and the brightest.
I think his support for Rand Paul was misguided. What we really need is something that may well be impossible: someone who is on the inside but not of it. The “Deep State” is too deep, so intertwined, and so corrupt that it cannot be reformed from outside.
I think that’s why, in desperation, some people put their faith in Trump. I may be mistaken but I think he’s about as much a political and governmental outsider as anyone who’s ever been elected to the presidency and, frankly, the Deep State has kept him tied in knots for more than two years now, will continue to do so, and are fully able to continue to do so throughout a second term. It’s why I’ve said that had I been in Trump’s shoes I would have fired every political appointee in the federal government on the day that I took office.
Now many people are longing for a “return to normalcy” but I think that dream is in vain. IIRC the phrase was the campaign slogan of Warren G. Harding which should tell you something. I believe it is the earliest known use of the word “normalcy”. The media have spent the last 2+ years undermining our institutions. The “collusion” case on which they staked so much has failed to gain the empirical support they assumed just must be there so in turning their attention to white supremacy they will further undermine our institutions, presumably in the hope that something good will rise from the ashes. That hope is forlorn. I think they are more likely to move whites to vote as an interest group than to impel a return to normalcy.
The City of San Francisco adopted the phoenix as its symbol following the earthquake in 1906. Keep in mind that San Francisco’s homeless are covering the city with human excrement. That city, increasingly divided between the rich and the poor, may be a fine example of what will emerge from the ashes of American institutions.
Mechanic to heart surgeon: I replace a valve for $50, you get $5,000. How come?
Surgeon: Try doing it with the motor running.
The “deep state” has been growing for close to a century. Like it or not it is now the government. It must be dismantled slowly and carefully to avoid chaos. In the past the Church Commission and the Goldwater pentagon reforms were attempts to start the process. It seems that Trump, with his past experience in extremely large and complex projects, may be the best tool we have to move things in the right direction. Rome wasn’t built in a day – mainly because the union guys wouldn’t work nights.
Not to mention that the barriers to entry for being a mechanic are so much lower than the barriers to entry for the practice of medicine. Medicine by design remains a pre-industrial artisanal pursuit.
Dave,
I was alluding to your statement “It’s why I’ve said that had I been in Trump’s shoes I would have fired every political appointee in the federal government on the day that I took office.”
The government, such as it is, is incredibly complex. Radical change is dangerous because of that old unintended consequences devil. As Russell Kirk put it “Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.”.
As to the practice of medicine, it is indeed an artisanal pursuit, not by design but by necessity. Various attempts over the years to improve the practice using computers have been uniformly disappointing. My own experiences in the field go back more than 40 years.
In fairness it’s some of both.
But it’s not as much by necessity as you might think. The standard the FDA uses for approving medical devices is highly protective of the status quo.
If as much power had been exerted to protect the weavers as has been devoted to the medical profession you’d be wearing handwoven underwear.
Around 1985 I built a system for the Anatomic Pathology department at the New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center. Over the years I had many discussions with the head of the department who was also Dean of Admissions for Cornell Medical School. As he related, every medical school has a different curriculum depending on the specialties of the faculty. They are also steeped in the terminology learned at their own schools. As I saw in the various departments doctors who had gone to different schools spent time figuring out a common vocabulary.
Part of the system I built analyzed the written pathology reports and assigned the appropriate SNOMED (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine) codes. SNOMED illustrated the problem. Most of the codes had multiple diagnoses assigned to them. For example oat cell carcinoma, small cell carcinoma, and 4 others translated to the same code. Diseases often had multiple names that accumulated over the years. Skeletal bones the same.
Maybe some time in the future we’ll accumulate enough information to systematize the practice of medicine. In the meantime doctors treat people in distress as best they can.
“The media have spent the last 2+ years undermining our institutions.”
By reporting on Trump and repeating what he says. Remember that the Mueller report simply said that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove a conspiracy, though there was evidence of cooperation. Trump clearly committed obstruction of justice. If there has been undermining of our institutions, most of that goes to behaviors by Trump. When have we ever had a POTUS candidate encouraging a foreign country, one to which we are often in opposition, to spy on a contender? That was just bizarre by any standard, and talk about undercutting institutions, and just one of many examples.
What’s with the throw away about about San Francisco at the end? We were out there just a few months ago. Wasn’t that intrusive, but maybe it got worse. Mostly seems like they need to figure out how to cope with so many people living there it has driven real estate prices sky high. They have also been unwilling to make much use of shelters as many other cities do. If the only acceptable answer is to provide a real home, they arent going to solve this quickly. I figure they will get tired of the problem and herd people into shelters like other large cities. At any rate, this doesn’t seem like a failure of institution nearly as much as an extremely successful city, as determined by the willingness of people to pay to live there, figuring out how to cope with success. I think we can probably add in the opioid crisis as a minor factor.
Query- One would have to, I think, list religion as one of our major institutions. Has media undercut religion, or should most of that go to the priests screwing kids, then the church covering it up? How about all of the financial scandals? The other sex scandals? How about religious leaders going all in on supporting politicians regardless of moral character? Is it even possible for media to harm religion more than what religion has done to itself?
Steve
A complicated question. I think that some goes to those in the media with a special animosity towards religion. Is there evidence that the prevalence of abusers within the Catholic clergy is greater than, say, among physicians or teachers? Or just much more highly publicized?
It is not the church covering it up. It is the church hierarchy. The church is all of the faithful and I have not met a single layman who supports the actions of the hierarchy in this matter. For me the reaction of the higher-ups has created a crisis of faith. I cannot support my church but my faith insists that I do so. As I say, a crisis of faith.
So my answer to your question is both. The media are undermining organized religion and the church organizations are undermining themselves.
I can’t address the first part of your comment because I refuse to defend Trump. I think you’re cutting the bureaucracy far too much slack.
Three surgeons are debating who makes the best patients.
The first says, “electricians because everything is color coded inside.†The second says “librarians because everything is organized inside.†The third says “you are both wrong, politicians; they have no guts, brains or heart, and the head and ass are interchangeable.â€
We would all like someone better than Trump. But the choice was horrible: Hillary. Worse. And we were just coming off a smooth talking face man who was as shallow as they come. And what are we looking at now? Seriously, Biden, Warren or Harris?
Who is going to deal with China and it’s illegal trade practices and their effects on our country and citizens? Who is going to deal with immigration and it’s effects on low wage earners? Who is going to avoid implementation of the most mindless and destructive environmental or public health care schemes? Who is going to put a throttle on NATO slopping at the US defense trough? And so it goes. This is a self inflicted wound by a populace who don’t vote, fall for too-good-to-be-true promises of goodies and basically don’t even modestly educate themselves on foreign policy, economics or the almost axiomatic US history of corrupt, power seeking politicians and bureaucrats. And they don’t learn – look at the newly minted governor of IL.
Who was the last president who was truly moral, educated, wise, a good administrator, possessed historical perspective and was willing to do the right thing even if it meant being a one termer?
That’s what I thought.
I’m more interested in the Congress and the Supreme Court going back to doing their own jobs.
Speaker of the House has always been a partisan job but it hasn’t always just been a partisan job as has been the case for the last 20 years. Supreme Court justices haven’t always looked at themselves as agents of change.
“Who is going to deal with immigration and it’s effects on low wage earners?”
Surely not Trump whose only plan is a wall. Trump doesn’t have effective plans for anything you suggest.
“Who was the last president….”
Not really looking for perfect, just dont want an incompetent con man in charge who runs things to benefit family and friends.
“The media are undermining organized religion”
They are undermining it, AFAICT, by publishing what the church and its leaders have actually been doing. There is very little of the attack on religion that evangleicals complain about. There is push back on evangelical leaders jumping in bed with politicians. It looks to me like for the most part, media just dont write much about religion at all.
” prevalence of abusers within the Catholic clergy is greater than, say, among physicians or teachers? Or just much more highly publicized?
Hard to study that isn’t it? However, no other profession has had the large scale, over time and in so many countries effort to cover up child abuse. A teacher got caught and they got prosecuted. A minister or priest got moved to another congregation. So the profession entrusted with our moral and spiritual teachings enabled abuse, then lied about it to keep it from becoming public.
I think you couple that with all of the other sex scandals among church leaders, then add in the monetary scandals and it is difficult to think that the church (writ large) has done more than enough to harm itself.
Query- What institution in particular would the media have harmed, excepting the media itself? I would be hard pressed to think of one.
Steve
That you know of. The experience in Chicago with the CPS suggests that the truth may be otherwise.
Steve:
Again, it’s hard for me to respond to much of what you’ve written above without appearing to defend people and actions I find indefensible and don’t wish to appear to defend.
Let me put it this way, As Dean Baquet recently acknowleged, the NYT’s attempt to pin a charge of collusion with the Russians on Trump having flopped, they are now determined to undermine any possible faith in American political traditions or pride in American history. They are doing so by a combination of perseveration, one-sided reporting, and using contrived, fraudulent statistics.
This would be the same NYT that faithfully reported on all 8 of the Benghazi investigations? Or the GOP effort over many years to try Lois Lerner together with Obama? You may not want them to report on what Congress is doing, but the problems lie with the institutions themselves. As far as 1619 goes I guess you can take a worst case scenario view of it. AS I see it I think they are going to try to make the case that slavery and its aftereffects are more important than commonly thought. I will let them make their case and see what they have to say rather than judge what they write sight unseen.
Steve