The Life in My Years

“You play to win the game. Hello. You play to win the game.” ~ Herm Edwards, American football coach.

Coach Edwards’ point is well taken. That being said, in order to win you have to play and in order to play you have to take the field. And as I look about me I feel pangs of loneliness on the political playing field.

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On January 20th, 2025, Donald Trump pardoned approximately 1500 insurrectionist felons who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. With their felony charges expunged they left the jailhouse, and went out and promptly rearmed themselves. It took only one week for one of the perps to be shot and killed by a police officer for resisting arrest. Another is wanted for the crime of soliciting a minor in 2016 (Apparently nobody in the administration bothered to check outstanding warrants before letting him out,). Some of the released prisoners are vowing retribution on judges, witnesses and prosecutors. The President of the United States, in no uncertain terms, told right wing nationalists and militias that insurrection is good – law enforcement is bad.

A full week passed. Crickets.

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One week and a day after the pardons, Senate Democrats introduced a resolution condemning the pardons. Leader Chuck Schumer took to the floor of the Senate and harrumphed about the pardons. One insurrectionist ran afoul of the law and got killed before the Democratic Senate Leader droned at the podium.

One – week – and – a – day.

What took so long? Were Democrats taken by surprise that Trump did the outrageous thing that he literally promised he would do? Did they think that Russ Vought, his OMB Director, was playing golf for the last four years instead of doing his research and crafting the executive orders that Trump promised to unleash on day one? One of those orders being to pardon the people he called political prisoners and patriots? The very traitors who sang a perverted national anthem that was played at Trump rallies. I certainly expected it. Maybe it was the Democratic leadership that was playing golf.

It appears that Democrats have done what they’ve come to be known for, and that is to clutch their pearls and painstakingly craft a document that they are certain won’t offend a single solitary soul.

One – week – and – a – day.

“Hello. You play to win the game.”

Long before the tardy resolution had been released, the entire world had moved on to any number of the other outrages being perpetrated by the administration.

Immediately after the pardons, my own Congressman, John Garamendi, put out a press release expressing his displeasure over the pardons. Outraged he was – outraged. I’m confident that most Democratic members of Congress put out similar huffy press releases.

I’m confident – but not at all satisfied.

Because?

Because more people pay more attention to press releases from Lebron James than they do their local congressman and literally almost nobody turns on the television to watch a senator drone and harrumph on the floor of the Senate.

“Hello. You play to win the game.”

Two Democratic members of Congress have been outspoken and they’re the two usual suspects, Jasmine Crockett, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who was notably passed over to be Democratic leader of the House Oversight Committee in favor of the perennial old white guy, Gerry Connolly who was described by a colleague as being a “young 74.”).

It was announced recently that the Defense Intelligence Agency would not be recognizing Black History Month as well as a number of other ethnic heritage celebrations. In response to questions by long-time White House correspondent April Ryan’s questions, Trump’s press secretary hinted that it was possible that the White House itself would not celebrate Black History month.

The reaction from the Democrats in Congress, including the Black Caucus was a chorus of crickets.

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Trump announced that the now infamous Guantanamo Bay Detention Center is being readied to house up to 30,000 of what Trump calls the “worst” of the unauthorized immigrants, because Trump doesn’t trust their countries of origin to hold them. In other words the immigrants will be essentially imprisoned indefinitely, until they’re given due process – if they’re given due process. The Democratic response was the echo of pin hitting the marble floor of the Capitol.

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What’s going on? Well, nothing. But nothing is part of the strategy that’s in place. According to Politico, some Democrats put their heads together and came up with the strategy of “playinng nice.” Translated, that means milquetoast.

Michelle Obama once famously said, “When they go low, we go high.” The former First Lady isn’t buying that anymore. She’s removed the kid gloves and has donned the boxing gloves, and to her credit did not attend Trump’s recent inauguration. Joe Biden attended the inauguration and what did it get him? A public humiliation from the vile mouth of the incoming president. The 47th President doestn’t deserve being treated with the dignity he won’t deign to show to anyone who hasn’t kissed his ring. He deserves to be treated like the authoritarian knave that he is; not with deferance, but with resistance. Loud resistance.

It seems to me that the Democrats strategy of playing nice is another gross failure to read the national room and is political malpractice. The non-MAGA portion of America, at least the part that isn’t pathetically somnambulant, is scared, and it’s stressed, and it’s looking for leadership and some measure of hope.

Take X user Ariana Jasmine who tweeted the voice of growing despair while demanding action: “The nation is falling apart; please, for the love of God, say or DO SOMETHING!!!”

I personally know a number of Democrats and Independents, and I’m among them, who are slipping into periods of despondency. There are times when I’m inconsolable, when I see an America that is sliding into a chasm that it may never climb out of. The other night my wife, in tears, said, “What is happening to my country.” She’s a naturalized citizen who came here for hope and she’s watching DC burn, while the Democrats and their surrogates are fiddling. We’re begging for leadership. We’re pleading for a voice. Meanwhile Schumer drones and Congress “plays nice.”

And if Democratic leaders aren’t fiddling, they’re being downright combative – against their own constituency. In response to the pleas for action, longtime Democrat and podcast host, Professor Hassan Kwame Jeffries, tweeted, “I’m seeing a lot of this, all versions of the same question: what’s the Democrats’ plan to deal with # Trump’s madness?? The plan was vote for #Harris. You said no to the plan.”

Really? That’s the response for help? I’m glad that Professor Hassan Kwame Jeffries isn’t the lifeguard at the beach because his response to the drowning man screaming for help would be, “You should’ve learned to swim.”

The plan? The plan was worse than horrible. An unpopular incumbent bowing out and leaving his replacement with 107 days to cobble together a campaign. To look back at the wreckage and to chide those looking for leadership is hardly a winning strategy. But it is the typical Democratic political malpractice.

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Causing a scene is the thing that the Republicans have been doing for years, and it seems to have worked because they’ve been garnering most of the attention. People were aghast that Republican members of Congress were showing up at Trump’s hush money trial but it certainly attracted attention, along with sympathy for that devil. Maybe the Democrats should start making people feel aghast, because whatever they’ve been doing up till now hasn’t even created a yawn.

So what should the response to the pardons have been? It should have been immediate and it should have been attention grabbing. How about the entire Democratic Congressional Caucus standing on the steps of the Capitol, shoulder to shoulder with the January 6th first responders, each of them holding placards and shouting their outrage.

“Hello. You play to win the game.”

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Blue sheep
On the afternoon of Trump’s inauguration, after it was all a done deal, I was texting with a close friend. For years, she and I would go on morning runs together, rain or shine. Afterwards, we would linger at Peet’s Coffee in Berkeley and talk about all manner of things, including politics. My running days are in the past and she’s moved to San Jose (a 90 minute drive on a good day) so we don’t visit much anymore. I asked her how she was doing and she responded that she is doing well and then she asked me how I was doing.
“I’m inconsolable,” I responded.
She texted back, “I am not watching the news at least in the near term for the next year.”

I’ve found that sort of response to be not uncommon. People are leaving social media and avoiding news.

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I’d laid out plans to leave Facebook in response to Zuckerberg’s sudden infatuation with Trump. I was collecting email addresses and exchanging BlueSky handles, but I changed my mind. My voice needs to be heard. I could leave. But to what end? Is Mark Zuckerberg going to sit bolt upright in his bed one night and scream, ‘my God, Paul left Facebook, I’m ruined.?’

If I leave, someone fills the void. It may be a pinhole of a void, but it would be there for the filling.

I need to continue speaking out, even though some members of my small legion of Facebook friends and followers have gotten sick of my political posts and have taken to yawning and tuning me out. Still, I have to try to reach out, hoping that one of my posts will strike a nerve.

People are surrendering. One friend told me that he is too depressed to watch news or engage in social media. Another friend is doing some sort of extended Lent thing and is going off of social media until Easter. One blogger I know who has been writing occasional political pieces announced to me that he has tapped out. This is hardly democracy saving behavior.

I had an exhange in the comments section of another blog site. A commenter wrote that he’s outraged about Trump, but he’s given up; “The people have spoken,” he wrote. I exhorted him to some form of action but he protested that he’s too old now and just wants to enjoy his grandchildren. I stopped short of pointing out the idea, and the irony, that in sitting on the sidelines he might be dooming his grandchildren to life in a failed state.

There’s the blogger who for years championed climate change and environmental issues and managed to turn his blog posts into a book. When the Gaza war began he moved to the issue of Palestine, abandoning everything else – okay, fair enough. But now it appears that he’s abandoned all causes as he’s reduced his site to a Yoda-esque collection of pithy proclamations, and rants about how “both parties suck.” And yes they do both suck, but right now that issue is well down the list of things to correct. A gifted writer who’s decided to sit on the sidelines.

And where are the bloggers who won’t veer from their usual content, if only occasionally, to express their concern? The game is on the line and the players aren’t taking the field.

It all makes me reflect back to my maternal family in Italy during World War II. An uncle of mine deserted the fascist army and joined the resistance. One day, the SS visited my grandmother’s flat, looking for that uncle who had a hiding place in the flat. Had he been found, the family could have been executed. It makes me reflect on the story of my wife’s stepmother in the Philippines,. During the war, she mouthed off to a Japanese soldier and was lucky to escape with just having her face slapped. And I reflect on the People’s Power movement in the Philippines, where people stood in front of Marcos’s tanks. I reflect on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

But we the American people are too depressed to watch the news? If we’re going to stand back and treat our democracy as a spectator sport, well, maybe we don’t deserve our democracy.

Hiding from the news because it’s depressing. Avoiding political discussions because it might make people uncomfortable or spoil the ambience at the family gathering. We don’t want to upset people. It’s too stressful. If it’s stressful now think about the stress of living under an authoritarian. Think how stressful it’s going to be trying to retrieve the democracy we let get away.

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There’s a faction in America that is perfectly happy to exploit the apathetic and the disengaged and the quaking. It’s a faction that works harder and talks louder, and with frequency. It’s the faction that’s winning now. For ten years, the anti-MAGA faction has been ridiculing MAGA, calling them snake oil guzzling sheep and lambs. Maybe. But they’ve certainly been active. They work – hard. They’ve been actively working towards the success of their cause – as twisted as it is.

Looking about me I have to wonder just who the lambs are. Lambs are meek. Lambs play nice and let circumstances, whatever those circumstances might be, come to them. Lambs are quiet and fullfilled as long as they can live in their own bucolic bliss. Contented they are.

And then they’re Easter dinner.