Three Opinions and My Take on Them
Let’s look at what three usually accurate opinion sources are saying.
Maureen Dowd: For those of you who didn’t check out Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column of Nov. 9, here’s another opportunity. Copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/09/opinion/democrats-identity-politics.html on your browser line or just CLICK HERE.
Read the entire column. It opens up an avenue toward doubting things you may have thought to be true but might not be after all.
David Remnick: Here are two quotes from the opinion piece written by The New Yorker magazine’s editor, David Remnick, from the magazine’s forthcoming Nov. 18 issue. He points out that: ‘Both major political parties are broken. The Republicans, having given themselves over to a cultish obedience to an authoritarian, are morally broken. The Democrats, having failed to respond convincingly to the economic troubles of working people, are politically broken.’
He concludes his article by citing the restoration of democracy in Czechoslovakia where together with a people challenged by years of autocracy, Vaclav Pavel helped lead his country out of a long, dark time. ‘Our time is now dark, but that, too, can change. It happened elsewhere. It can happen here.’ (And those last four words are the title of Remnick’s article.)
Timothy Snyder: And not to be outdone, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder seems to think Trump’s election puts us in the hands of oligarchs (named a few paragraphs down). He conjures up an allegorical outcome to illustrate that oligarchies are unstable, having flaws and weaknesses and can crumble quickly. At that point, some have even given way to democracies.
But we have to see them for what they are, Snyder contends. 'We need to see the oligarchs not only as selfish and unpatriotic but as ridiculous. But the same things that make them ridiculous -- the utter self-absorption, the nattering cliques, the pointless struggle for unreal things -- make them lethal to the rest of us.
Snyder points out that If we want to anticipate what will happen in 2025, now that the 2024 elections are history, if will be more useful to think of oligarchs as all being stranded together on an island (Snyder’s allegory is the old TV show, ‘Gilligan’s Island,’) where the ‘oligarchs’ marooned there (Trump, Musk, Thiel, Putin, and Vance) starting in apparent unity, dream an impossible Russian dream, wreak bloody havoc, and then come apart.
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So what do I think about this?
Personally, I prefer Bernie Sanders’ (see earlier posting) and Maureen Dowd’s opinions which go back to the simple fact that most Americans work hard for a living, care about their families, and don’t give a damn about politics or economics. This leads to the conclusion that the way to get their votes is to best satisfy their needs and try to assuage their grievances, a process which unfortunately includes recognizing their prejudices and reduces catering to ‘identity groups.’ The Democrat’s progressive wing opened that door, and it is difficult to try to close it.
Regardless of whatever reasonable logic any candidate might spout, if they lose sight of that, they lose. Ask Kamala Harris and any others who will plead ‘mea culpa,’ including many learned pundits and myself occasionally on Jackspotpourri as well.
There has to have been someone other than believers in Karl Marx’s theories to stand up for the majority of people, the working class. Don’t be fooled into believing that person is Donald Trump. That, he is not! Most authoritarians (dictators, if you wish) try to fill that role, and some succeed but only temporarily.
The Democrats cannot help but better their position in the 2026 mid-term elections … and in view of the Republicans’ inevitable inability to validate Trump’s ’Day One’ wishy-washy-worded promises, whomever the Democrats run in 2028 will defeat the Republican candidate for president four years hence. Of course, this assumes that the incoming Administration doesn’t find a way of postponing those elections.
But right now, it appears that ignorance, gullibility, and stupidity reign. This means that the rest of us must sit tight, spread knowledge, and figuratively anyway, keep our powder dry.
Unless, of course, our legally elected oligarchy falls apart on its own as Professor Snyder suggests it might, in which case a Democratic Party, made wiser by its mistakes in 2024, must be there ready to pick up the pieces. Breaking news of Trump’s initial appointees strengthens Snyder’s opinion. Stay tuned.
(I note that the film ‘Les Miserables’ is streaming on Amazon Prime this week.)
JL
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Driving Tip
Those driving to work with an 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. starting time on the job sometimes speed and ignore traffic signals during the fifteen minutes immediately before they are due to show up at work. They don’t want to be late!
If you are on the road at those times, extra care is warranted. And similarly, right after 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. quitting times, they’re in a hurry to get home … or somewhere, so be extra alert then, especially in shopping center parking areas. That’s the way Florida drivers are! Live with it.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.). If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
JL
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