The Ferries Wheel

The devastating news caught up with me while on a Fiftieth Anniversary cruise with wife Linda, granddaughter Sophia, 95-year-young mother-in-law Dolores, and family friends Jerry and Marcia.

Now understand, there is devastating news, and then there is devastating news.

If the good ship Norwegian Breakaway had collided with an errant iceberg in the middle of the Caribbean and done a Titanic, that would certainly be devastating news.

If Indiana voters blindly cast straight ticket votes and, as a result, had a lot to do with electing to state office a candidate who had been fired from that office – twice – for nonperformance, and who had other questionable blemishes on his record, not the least of which was that he was one of those who without any credible evidence whatsoever, denied the results of the 2020 election …

And if, because of that election, that man was put in charge of the state’s election apparatus for presidential year 2024 … Now THAT would be devastating news of the first order.

Oops. Indiana voters did precisely that …

But I digress.

In my case, the devastating news was not only had I lost my bid to become a member of the Center Township Trustee Advisory Board, but I had done it with flair and style, coming in dead last in a field of six candidates.

As devastation goes, not much. Maybe a little humiliating. As a Democrat competing in what has become an increasingly red county, occasional (or even frequent) humiliation comes with the territory. I’m pretty sure the republic will survive.

The events of November 8 form a convenient end to my foray into elective politics. Because, you see, I’ve been here before.

Back in 1980, a presidential year, I was on the fall ballot as a candidate for Howard County Court Judge. That summer, the opposition had filed a candidate for the same office. Howard County had never had a female judge. She was a lovely lady named Eleanor Stein, Ellie to her friends, a group in which I considered myself. Back then political opponents did not have to be personal enemies.

Anyway, the Republican on the very top of the national ticket was a former movie actor who had the distinction of having once co-starred in a movie with a chimpanzee. His name (the actor, not the chimpanzee) was Ronald Reagan.

The results that November mirrored what happened again here a few days ago.

Ellie was swept into office with the red tide. She eventually would be inducted into the Howard County Hall of Legends primarily because of her role as the county’s first female judge.

I don’t think I have ever received sufficient credit for making it all possible for my friend Ellie.

There are a couple of conclusions that may be drawn. The first is that I may not be candidate material. The second is that I may have a lousy sense of timing running in elections that turn out to be landslides. If either, or both, conclusions are true, it does not bode well for future attempts at elective office. Which doesn’t mean I’m going away. Somebody needs to write about those elected to be the point of the spear – and I wish them all well, at least until good wishes prove to be insufficient.  

I want to thank those who allowed me to place my garish yard signs on their property, and oh, how I hope my arrangements for getting them picked up in my absence post-election worked out as planned.

Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank the 3,084 folks in Center Township were willing to take a flier on my candidacy. I am humbled by your support.

Thank you. 

For slightly more than five years, I wrote the occasional columns that collectively make up the “kenferries.com” blog. If a reader wants to get to know me, biases and all, the columns are there to explore. Have at it!

I admit I was surprised, and more than a little ashamed, to note that the last installment appeared almost a year ago, Oct. 12, 2021. At the time, I said it was becoming more difficult to have “rational conversation with folks who took such pride in being irrational.”

It hasn’t gotten much better in the 12 months since, but you reach a point where you either wait for humanity to regain its senses, or you say “ready or not,” vacate the cave in which you’ve been holed up, and barge right back into what passes for mainstream life in this 21^st century of ours.

My re-entry vehicle has been to file for public office. It’s not one of the big powerful offices at the top of the ballot. On the contrary, it’s one of those obscure little offices down the bottom of the ballot in what I call “where’s Waldo” territory. By that I mean you need to look long and hard to find it: Center Township Advisory Board.

I didn’t opt to try my chances at the bottom of the ballot out of any sense of humility. I chose it out of conviction.

One of my favorite political lines is attributed to former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill: “All politics is local.” I believe that, and I believe in the logical next step: the more local the better. You can’t get any more local than a township office. It might not be as earth-shattering as finding ways to conquer worldwide hunger but assuring there is food on the table for that local single mother and her four kids is more important to them than the most grandiose plan to wipe out hunger worldwide.

I’ve spent decades supporting people in elected positions and teaching local college students the theories and dreams of American government. At this time in my life, I’ve decided I would rather be at the point of the spear than writing about what it’s like for someone else being there.

I haven’t written much recently because national politics, at least on the Republican side, have become so bizarre it is difficult to have a rational conversation with folks who take such great pride in being irrational.

An item came through my email recently, however, that illustrates the sorry state of our national discourse.

I received a communication from our very own back-bench legislator, Jim Baird.

Understand, I don’t think old Jim penned the passage I’m about to quote. More than likely, what I am about to quote probably comes from a wordsmith in the pay of the Grand Old Party distributed to loyal legislators to be disseminated to the folks back home, who, it appears, are assumed to be clueless. Since Congressman Baird put his name to the piece, he bears responsibility for its content.

The allegation in question goes as follows: “After creating one of the largest spending packages in U.S. history, liberals decided to raise the debt limit again. As a father and a grandfather, I am deeply concerned about the lasting impact tacking trillions of dollars onto an already spiraling national debt and the burden future generations will face because of liberals’ wasteful spending.”

This is intentional misinformation. In polite Washington society, some might go so far as to call it a prevarication. Out here in the soybean belt, some might call it a bare-faced lie.

Raising the debt limit authorizes the payment of debts that have already been incurred. It is not new money. It covers money that already has been spent. In addition, it authorizes payment of other regular recurring expenses such as Social Security benefits for the disabled and retired among us and the paychecks of our brave men and women in the military.

If the debt limit is reached, the Treasury will be without authority to borrow the money needed to write checks to cover the nation’s existing obligations. If the country defaults in payment of these past debts, it would be the first default in United States history. Our international credit rating would take a hit. The stock market would probably take an even greater hit. The country would be plunged into a recession – or worse.

Since the U.S. dollar is still the world’s reserve currency, the convulsion would undoubtedly have worldwide implications. Through significant machinations in Congress, we pulled back from that brink just this last week, but from all I can tell, we’ll be back on that precipice come December.

All the dire consequences noted above would happen because Jim Baird and his fellow travelers refuse to make payments on a cumulative national debt that increased by more than a third during, you guessed it, the four years of the late unlamented Trump administration. (To put that in context, historians tell us the national debt has gone up and down – mostly up – since the colonists borrowed money to finance the Revolutionary War.)

The Republicans are trying to lay the groundwork for a 2022 election lie, namely that the Democrats in 2021 raised the debt limit to cover their own spending when in fact much of the spending being covered is that incurred by the prior administration.

Certainly, the Democrats have their own spending plans, but those dollars are to be spent in the future. The current debt limit covers debts undertaken in the past.

Democrats must take responsibility for their own spending, but not that of the previous administration.

It is heartwarming to know that Grandpa Baird is so concerned about those future generations being saddled with all this additional debt. It didn’t seem to bother him while he sat on his hands as the former president added $7.8 trillion to the debt that is now on the books and his Republican Congress enacted tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the ultra-wealthy and cut the revenue needed to cover that spending (taxes being the other way to pay the bills).

Baird’s intentional misrepresentation, unfortunately, is not all that unusual in this dark era when misdirection, misrepresentation, and lies appear to be coin of the realm for today’s GOP.

Hopefully Americans are smarter than Jim Baird and his ghost writer give them credit for being.

This remains to be seen.

Today, the Ferries Wheel proudly offers the work of another Ferries — the professor’s daughter Laura, , written after last week’s meeting of the Center Grove Community School Corporation Board of School Trustees. It’s long (a point-by-point response to arguments made at the meeting), and in my humble opinion, well worth the time — a heartfelt plea for compassion, empathy, and, above all, sanity.

Dear Superintendent and School Board Members,

I attended Thursday night’s School Board Meeting and I have a few thoughts on what was said, and what was not said, that I feel I need to have heard. After all, everyone deserves to be heard, not just the loudest people in the room. Before that, however, I do want to thank you for taking the time to struggle with these weighty decisions and the time to listen to the parents whose children’s lives and safety are, unfortunately or otherwise, in your hands at this time. For the most part, the meeting was respectful, calm, and informative. For that, you have my thanks.

That being said, there were a number of falsehoods, false equivalencies, and just plain misinformation presented at the meeting that I cannot stay silent on. I know that everyone wants what is best for their own child and that many people are fighting for what they believe is best for children in general, but I fear that their good intentions are tinged by misconceptions and outright misrepresentations they have been subjected to, leading to flawed, if perhaps well-intentioned, reasoning. The meeting was not the forum for voicing disagreement, but neither can I allow some of the things said to go unchallenged.

First and foremost, it is simply not true that “only one side” is trying to force their views on the other. Those who wish not to wear masks are inherently imposing their opinions (and viruses) on everyone else. It leaves the rest of us no choice of whether we want to be exposed to their viruses or not. It is a reality that neither side can have their way without “forcing” it on the other. By fighting against mask wearing, that “side” is forcing others to accept the risks that going unmasked pose to all people at this time – whether they wear masks or not. The only way masking is particularly effective is if all people wear them – not just the minority that chooses to. So, yes, the anti-maskers are absolutely asking to force those on the “other side” to accept their opinion against their will. That self-righteous argument is null and void.

Also, there is no “Constitutional Parental Rights” that would give a parent complete sovereignty over their child and their choices how to raise that child based solely on what they think is “best” for that child. Especially in the face of a medical emergency. That is farcical. That argument would suggest that any parent, by the simple act of procreation, would have the right to beat their child if they saw this as being in the child’s “best interest” from a disciplinary perspective. There are laws in place to protect children and limit parents’ rights in this realm for the sake and safety of the child. It would give the parent the “right” to withhold necessary medical care, such as cancer treatments, if they felt doing so was in the best interest of their child against medical advice. But there have been several high profile cases in recent years where the government stepped in for the sake of the child when parents attempted to do exactly this. Parents will face charges if they choose to “pray away” their children’s diseases such as infections, or diabetes instead of seeking proper medical care, even if their religious beliefs say to trust in God. Vaccines? For the good of public health, mandatory vaccination of children has been required for generations, and the right of authorities to do this has consistently been upheld in legal challenges. The government has many rules instituted to protect children, regardless of parental choices: minimum ages of consent, required schooling (even home schooling has official oversight), minimum ages to marry, legal drinking age, age-related driving requirements, mandatory car seats … . The “Constitutional Parental Rights” in a legal sense, from what I can tell, has to do with the right to be involved in the regular decision-making of how to raise your child in the context of divorce and custody agreements, so that one parent cannot freeze the other out of valid parenting decisions. It absolutely does not trump any higher authority making decisions the affect your child in the name of community health and safety. Personal rights and freedoms have consistently been and absolutely should be curtailed when the safety of others hangs in the balance.

I feel badly for any child who really, truly struggles to wear a mask. There are children with autism who are unable to understand the need or who experience sensory sensitivity that makes wearing a mask truly intolerable. I am sorry some find it stressful and may, as a result, experience headaches and physical manifestations of that stress. However, this does not in any way mean that the majority of children shouldn’t wear masks. In fact, it means quite the opposite. These few children who cannot wear masks need the people who can (even those who don’t want to or don’t like it) to wear their masks to protect them, the most vulnerable. My mask protects you, after all. If there are kids so sensitive they cannot wear them, then all they can rely on is the safety afforded by others’ masks. That is simple logic.

As for brittle children who lacked the coping skills to successfully navigate the pandemic … Again, I am very sorry for those situations. It is truly tragic. However, the answer is not to abandon all mitigation strategies that might prove challenging for them. All that will do is prolong the pandemic. No one wants the pandemic. No one wants mitigation strategies. No one wants quarantines. No one wants masks. No one wants COVID-19, believe me. I know more than I ever wanted to about that. I had COVID-19 before I was eligible for the vaccine and it was miserable, but I was lucky and, sick as I was, rode it out at home. I lost my grandfather to the disease and said goodbye via Facetime. Watching him struggle for breath, in so much obvious pain he likely wasn’t even aware we were with him virtually, is nothing I will ever forget. It is not something I would ever wish on anyone. Abandoning mitigation efforts is not the way to deal with children struggling through those efforts to keep them safe. That child needed the help of a therapist to learn coping strategies and resilience in the face of adversity, not a mother parading her around a group of strangers. There are other ways to deal with the very real emotional fallout of living through the worst pandemic in 100 years that do not involve scrapping safety measures.

No, masks are not 100% effective. No rational person ever claimed that they were. When worn properly by the majority of people, however, they do significantly reduce the rate of spread and can be one of multiple valuable tools in a mitigation strategy to increase safety. This has been shown in both laboratory studies and anecdotal observations in real-time. Yes, professional respirators fitted correctly are much more effective at filtering out the tiniest airborne particles. But I find it utterly baffling that people argued that, because a cloth mask is not as effective as the most effective mask available to anyone, they are worthless and we shouldn’t mask at all. That is, quite frankly, a non-sequitur. If anything, that argument suggests all children should have access to respirators, not that we should abandon masking altogether. But all joking aside, the choice is not only 100% effectiveness or nothing. I’ll take the estimated 70% reduction in spread that fabric masks worn properly can offer over the 0% reduction of no masks at all. It is also worth noting that the entire 5 micron size seized upon in this argument (that only a respirator can filter out 5-micron-sized aerosolized particles) is flawed in two ways. First, it ignores the fact that cloth masks work differently than respirators. They work most effectively by keeping droplets of the wearer contained, thus reducing the chance of anything becoming aerosolized to begin with. Second, there is reason to believe that the whole 5 micron as the upper limit of aerosolize-able particles is in itself inherently flawed (for an accessible discussion of this, read the article “The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill”. Research in the world of physics suggests that particles larger than 5 microns can, in fact, act as aerosols and float in the air. Infection in such floating particles could, therefore, be filtered out by other masks with a larger weave than a respirator.

Lastly, I must respond to the argument that I find most truly abhorrent: Since 99% of children survive the virus, why are we putting so much effort into reducing risk at all … ? That argument is tantamount to saying that statistically, it is unlikely to be my child, so I’m okay with it being someone else’s. I don’t want any child to suffer from this disease if it can be prevented. I do not want any child to die without knowing I have done everything possible to protect them. That anyone is willing to accept the severe illness or death of one out of every 100 children (that’s 90 children in Center Grove alone, by the way) without trying everything they possibly can to prevent it is chilling. Who gets to pick the 90? No one. The virus does not discriminate. But even if you could, which 90 would it be? Every child is precious. Every child deserves protection – even if doing so is annoying or somewhat onerous for others. People should be willing to do this themselves. They have been given freedom of choice and, to paraphrase a favorite film, they chose poorly. They have proven they are unwilling to do what they can to protect others. They say they want to protect kids, but they are more concerned about avoiding an annoying piece of fabric on their face. Which is more important? Protecting kids from the inconvenience of wearing a mask or protecting them from a potentially deadly contagion? The answer seems obvious, and yet, here we are.

I am a mother. I have twin 5-year-olds (almost 6, they’d point out) who started kindergarten this year. My son is a medical miracle. The twins were born prematurely. My son has preemie lung damage. He was born with congenital heart defects and congenital kidney defects. He had open heart surgery at 7 months old. He still has a heart murmur because they were not able to fix his VSD (ventricular septal defect) completely. Due to the size of his VSD, he should have suffered from significant pulmonary hypertension, but he didn’t. Turns out, his second heart defect, an “anomalous muscle bundle,” restricted excess blood flow through the pulmonary artery and actually protected him from that consequence of the VSD. As I said, a miracle. He only has one functioning kidney, as the other kidney is deformed and non-functional (“multicystic dysplastic” is the technical term). His remaining kidney is not great (technically, simply “dysplastic”). He was expected to be on a transplant list by a year old. Here we are at 5 (almost 6!) and his function remains relatively stable around 50%. It is slowly declining by a few percentage points a year, but at this rate he may not need that transplant until his teens. Again, a miracle. Today he is a sweet, curious, bright little boy, so full of energy and life – more than I dared dream when he was a very sick baby in the Riley NICU. And now I find myself struggling and fighting to try to get people to care, to protect him and children like him.

My children have worn masks for over a year now. They wore them in daycare and they are wearing them now at Center Grove Elementary. We have talked about why it is important. They know Mommy and Daddy both wear masks at work and we wear them when we go out together. They saw me when I was sick; they know what illness from this virus looks like. They know this virus killed their beloved great-grandfather. They don’t want to have to wear masks any more than I want them to have to, but they do it because their safety and the safety of others is more important. I sew masks for them out of fabric they have picked themselves. We try to make it fun. They are not oppressed. They are not depressed. They are doing their part. Why is it so ludicrous to ask others to do the same?

Due to his medical history, my son would be very high risk for severe illness, were he to contract COVID. Some people might say that if we are worried, we should just keep him home. But he deserves to live his childhood, just like any other child. He deserves to go to public school, just like any other child. In fact, he has the legal right to it. And it is possible, with proper precautions, for him to do so with relative safety – even in this pandemic. Again, if proper precautions are taken. Use of masks is a vitally important tool to make that happen. He wears his mask. I have added filters to his mask to add one more layer of protection. But there is a really big hole in the Swiss cheese of his protection plan – other kids’ masks. My mask protects you, your mask protects me. Half of the equation is missing. We, as a community, are failing to use every tool in our arsenal to protect all of our community’s children as much as we possibly can. That is the real tragedy.

Now, I’d like to move on to my response to the adjusted plan specifically. At least it is something. It is better than what we had. It sets clear parameters for when what situation on the ground triggers what measures. But it stops short of “adequate.” It is a reactionary plan, not proactive. It is more than disturbing that we must wait for a certain number of kids to get sick before we do what we know will help reduce spread, rather than try to reduce the spread from the beginning. The fact that required masking is a part of your doomsday scenario proves that even you understand that masking is an important tool that can reduce spread. If you recognize the value, why not implement it before kids get sick? Why do we have to sacrifice 2% of the student population as tribute to the rabid anti-masking elements in our community before using a tool even you acknowledge works? How will you feel if one of those kids dies? Or even just experiences long term consequences? And by allowing infections to rise to 2% before trying to apply the brakes, you run a higher risk of that 20% absentee threshold and having to move to virtual school – which no one wants!

I am also disappointed that the plan did not call for any kind of testing program. The insidious thing about this virus is its ability to go relatively undetected in some infected people. Those asymptomatic carriers can unwittingly spread the virus to others, to whom it might do much greater damage. Presumably the current cases in the school were symptomatic, since folks aren’t really testing asymptomatic people at this time. Just imagine how many more carriers each school might have in addition to the identified, symptomatic cases. It seems quite likely that the true total of infected students is higher than you know, even now.

I’m not asking for masks permanently. I’m not even asking for masks all year. What I would have loved to see you do is have the strength to call for mandatory masks, as unpopular as that stance may be with some of your constituents, at least until vaccines are an option for all of your students. I know not all of these people will vaccinate their children. But once vaccines are available for children like mine, I will have one more tool, a good, strong tool, maybe even better than masks, to protect my children. At least they would have a better chance of avoiding severe illness. My son might have more of a fighting chance at all. Then, it might finally be safe enough to forgo masks. Then, those who don’t want to mask and don’t want to vaccinate will mostly just be hurting themselves and not others. We’d just have to hope that the remaining pool of folks didn’t provide a reservoir from which the next, worse variant springs.

Finally, I have heard that a number of people presented the board with “religious exemption” forms at the end of the meeting, claiming that mask wearing is against their religion. In response to that, I would just like to direct your attention to Leviticus 13:45 before you approve any of those exemptions. If covering one’s mouth to reduce the spread of leprosy is sanctioned, nay, dictated by the Bible, how are these pious folk arguing that mask-wearing to prevent the spread of communicable diseases is against their religion? Please, don’t let them get away with that deception!

If you have made it to the end of this letter, I thank you for your time. I am exhausted and I am heavy hearted with disappointment of my fellow citizens. 2020/2021 have been a test of our mettle as a nation, our ability to put the needs of others before our wants, and it is a test that I am sad to say we have failed miserably. We can do better and we should do better. It is time to prove we care about children, all children, through our actions, not empty words.

Sincerely,

Laura Ferries

I just could not let this go by without comment.

Recently, it was reported that a SpaceX prototype rocket, SN10 to be precise, was successfully launched from its Texas pad, went six miles straight up, reoriented itself at its apogee, successfully returned to earth, and executed a picture-perfect vertical soft landing exactly where planned.

What happened a few minutes later, probably while the high fives were still in progress, was described by a Space X spokesperson as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

“Rapid unscheduled disassembly”

Really?

Yes, boys and girls, faithful readers, and all the ships at sea, after sitting docilely on its pad for several minutes, the darn thing blew up, causing a massive fire at the vehicle’s base that, in turn, caused an impromptu (and not nearly as successful) second launch towards the heavens.

I bring this incident to your attention not to make fun of SpaceX, which, after all, is on a very promising learning curve that may well result in reusable rockets, significantly reducing the cost of space exploration and opening the door to long-anticipated space tourism. Certainly, it makes more sense to reuse the paraphernalia associated with getting things into orbit than it does littering the environment with more of man’s detritus.

No, what caught my attention was the description of an explosion and major conflagration as being something as innocuous as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

Somewhere there must be a golden book immortalizing unforgettable examples of “spin.”  Surely “rapid unscheduled disassembly” is deserving of inclusion in the pantheon of superlative attempts to twist the facts to one’s own advantage.

Speaking of “spin” (you didn’t really think you were getting away without some fair, balanced, yet nevertheless snarky political commentary, did you?) …  Anyway, have you noticed the spin cycle going full bore among our Republican friends in the Congress?

It is difficult to master the GOP two-step, which requires now opposing items of business that you once supported under the leadership of the former president. Mush Mouth Mitch (say that three times fast) is finding it difficult to keep up with the monumental spin necessary to reposition his caucus to remain relevant to a public who gives their current president a 60 percent approval rating, and even higher numbers when it comes to handling the COVID-19 pandemic. You know, the one MMM’s political master denied ever existed?

It is beginning to look like a replay of the GOP’s 2009-2010 playbook.

First and most ubiquitous play: Block action on any presidential initiative (praise the Lord for the filibuster), even when such initiative enjoys the overwhelming public support of citizens of all political stripes. By next year, as the calendar turns to 2022, condemn the president for failing to get done that which you made it impossible for him to get done in the first place. Try to flimflam the folks into believing you were acting in their best interest – even when it is obvious you were not.

Stick to issues near and dear to the base you and yours so desperately want to retain, because without it, you and yours are toast – even in the 2022 midterms that otherwise should be kind to you.

Do not waste time with facts. Create alternate facts and an alternate reality. A lot of folks will not catch on until it’s too late. Some will never figure out or admit that they have been had, all of which is so much political gravy.

Be Lucy.

For reasons known but to themselves, and their shrinks, your Democratic colleagues want your love. They call it “bipartisanship.” Even as they kick fruitlessly at the football you keep snatching away, and towards the goalposts you keep moving, they continue to play a game they can’t win, and still they pine for your support. This is a gift from the political gods. Use it.

After all, the strategy has worked before. In the absence of any new ideas, of which your party apparently has none, maybe it can work one more time.

Of course, 2022 is not 2010. As Civil War veterans used to say about their battlefield experiences, they “had seen the elephant.” Perhaps the Democrats will learn from the shellacking they received in 2010 and, having seen that elephant, take steps to avoid a repetition of disaster.

Maybe, just maybe, they’ll figure out Lucy.

We will see.

In the meantime, describing a rocket explosion and fire as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” is an inspired use of the English language to ameliorate an otherwise unpalatable reality.

To the anonymous and possibly underpaid wordsmith – Love it!

“And where do we go from here? Which is the way that’s clear?”

These questions, posed by David Essex in his 1973 homage to early rock ’n’ roll, “Rock On,” fairly describe the dilemma facing the Biden-Harris administration today.

Joe and Kamala are faced with multiple crises. In fact, they have a crisis of crises. COVID-19, multiple mutations of the original virus, an economy in need of a restart, a growing threat from an increasingly radicalized and alienated right wing, significant unemployment, a fraying safety net, criminal law and education reform, immigration inequities, global warming – any one of these issues, as well as others, could keep an administration gainfully occupied for an entire four-year term.

They do not have the luxury of that much time.

The Democrats currently enjoy razor thin majorities in the House and Senate. These majorities are set to be reshuffled in the 2022 mid-term elections. Historically, mid-terms have not been kind to the party in control of the White House. An impatient public often suffers a case of buyer’s remorse when a new administration has not, in 24 months, rectified that which has festered for 24 years – or longer.

Which brings things back to the original questions. Where do we go from here? Which is the way that’s clear?

Given President Biden’s life-long preference for reaching consensus, one might think he would consider reaching accommodation with the Republican caucuses an attractive alternative to constant interparty squabbling. It worked for Lincoln with his cabinet of rivals. It worked for Churchill with a war cabinet that subordinated Tory/Labor rivalries to the more important priority of defeating a tyrant bent on world domination.

As tempting as this strategy may be, there is one key component that is missing today. The parties must be willing, in good faith, to set aside conflicting partisan positions for the greater good of the country.

Joe and Kamala would be wise to remember 2009, the Lost Year of the Obama Administration.

The critical first 12 months of that administration were spent in an attempt to cajole Republicans in the House and Senate to find bipartisan responses to national problems of the day.

The attempt failed.

In the end, the administration had to do things on their own, or not do them at all.

Mitch McConnell let the cat out of the bag when he admitted his top priority, above all else, was to assure that Barack Obama was a one-term president. House leadership sang out of the same hymnal.

While Obama did succeed in earning a second term, the Republican obstructionism succeeded in denying much of Obama’s agenda. After a disastrous 2010 mid-term that saw Republicans take over the leadership of the House and Senate, Obama was reduced to taking what he could get, not what he thought the country needed.

Things have not changed.

Three weeks after Donald Trump gave approval to an insurrection that had a mob howling for the blood of congressional leaders of both parties, Kevin McCarthy, now the ranking Republican in the House, was in Florida. Smiling photo ops and “cordial” statements were the result of his making nice with a man who would have seen McCarthy’s injury or death as acceptable collateral damage in a plot to disenfranchise millions of voters if that were what it took to hold on to power.

Mitch McConnell is once again channeling his efforts into returning a Republican majority to the Senate in the 2022 elections, paving the way McConnell is channeling his efforts towards Republicans regaining control of the senate in 2222 setting the stage for his return to power as majority leader in 2023 – and likely a replay of two more years of obstinate obstructionism.

Sad to say, it appears the Republicans in Congress have as their prime directive the acquisition and maintenance of power for power’s sake. If they have principles, they have demonstrated a willingness to abandon them whenever politically expedient to do so.

Where do we go from here? Which is the way that’s clear?

With no reliable partners on the other side of the aisle, Joe, Kamala, Nancy, and Chuck would be well advised to grab the initiative and run with it until the voters tell them to stop.

If the odd Republican wants to come along, they are more than welcome.

If successful, Biden-Harris will advance their vision of a country with, among other goals, a victory over the pandemic; greater financial and social equity for its people; greater access to a good education, good medical care, and good jobs; movement toward an improving environment; criminal justice and immigration systems that promise fairness and security, and a return to leadership on the world stage.

If they fail, at least they will have tried and will not be left to wonder what might have been had they not waited to see if the Republican leopard would eventually change its spots.

That is the way that is clear, and a persuasive argument can be made that this is where we should go from here.

I was rummaging through my old columns looking for something profound and timely to bring to today’s political discussion. The missus has thoughtfully preserved them at kenferries.com . So much for the plug. Anyway, while I am still looking for something profound in the 241 pages worth of past commentary, I did find that the column I was thinking about writing today had already been written and appeared in print back on October 13, 2016, on the eve of the infamous 2016 Presidential Election.

In it, there was an extensive quotation from the very first of these occasional columns that appeared on September 17, 2015: “Donald Trump? Really? Is this the best we can do? Is our national political process so bankrupt that bombast can pass as rational political discourse, and a huckster can pass as a serious contender for the presidential chair previously occupied by the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or even Ronald Reagan?”

History has proven that not only could such a candidate become the nominee of his party, but, by the hair on his chinny chin-chin, become the president of these United States, and take total control of one of the country’s two major political parties.

When The Donald was still the punchline of innumerable jokes on late night TV and very chic inside-the-beltway cocktail parties, there were hints of his growing strength in the presidential sweepstakes.

This is out of a column that ran on February 19, 2016, recounting an early Trump rally held in Clemson, South Carolina, which I attended:

“This guy is good on the stump. Very good. There was nothing new in what the crowd heard. There were the familiar well-received applause lines, but it was not so much what he said as how he said it. He did not talk to the crowd, he wooed it. ‘This crowd is amazing. … The people of America are so smart. … (When I am in office) you will be so proud of your country, so proud of your president. … I’m greedy. I want to be greedy for America. If we win here, we are going to run the table and make America great again. Get out and vote. I love you. I love you.’

“For 50 minutes, he held that crowd in the palm of his hand. …

“All in all, an interesting evening with a man whose draw with the Republican faithful – and even further afield – should not be underestimated.”

These two early efforts set the tone for a more-than-four-year journey following the ups and downs of probably the most tumultuous administration in America’s tumultuous history, apart from Lincoln’s struggle to hold the country together – a struggle undermined by President Trump’s predilection for driving wedges to divide it all over again. Respect for the office, not much respect for the man, but a healthy respect for his skills as a demagogue. 

Finally, in November of 2020, President Trump lost his re-election bid in the popular vote by seven million. Ironically, in the Electoral College vote, he lost by the same margin as he had won it in 2016 – an edge he declared to be a “landslide” when it favored him and a “stolen election” when it did not.

Of course, President Trump claims he really won the election and has sought to overturn the result. Were he successful, the tactics necessary to reach such a result would probably mean the end of our republic, and its transition to – what?

You would think that President Trump’s demise would make happy an old critic like me. It does not, because I see dark times ahead.

Seventy-two million of my fellow citizens voted for the soon-to-be former president and most of those folks are as enraptured today as were the folks in South Carolina four years ago. This base will be used to dictate policy to Republican members of the House and Senate who are no more likely to oppose former President Trump than they were to oppose him while he was in the White House.

This spells trouble for the incoming administration – and our fragile republic. The last thing the country needs is four more years of stalemate, yet that is the most likely thing they will see from a former president unable to come to terms with his defeat, and House and Senate Republican caucuses looking forward to mid-term elections in 2022, when history would favor congressional increases for the party out of power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

This election is over. Donald Trump’s grip on his followers is not. House and Senate Republicans are still more afraid of losing power than they are of losing our republic.

As the curse goes, wrongfully attributed to the Chinese, “May you live in interesting times.”

Not that we have much choice in the matter.

When I pen these columns, I try to keep a measured and respectful tone, even when I have serious disagreement with the person or issue that is the subject of the column.

I am the first to admit that I sometimes (or maybe more frequently) fall short of achieving this goal, but I try. Really, I try.

However, there are times when what we see happening is so frustrating, when the actions of some in power are so duplicitous, that the outer boundaries of civility are sorely tested.

Let us talk about the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Cutting to the chase, the current process, albeit being pursued with unseemly haste, is constitutional. A sitting president has a four-year term and at any point in that term he (or she) has the absolute constitutional power to make a nomination. As a matter of comity, they should at least have a reasonable expectation that their nominee will, at a minimum, be given a hearing.

Should the current hearings lead to a Senate vote confirming the nomination, the appointment of Judge Barrett to a position with lifetime tenure is entirely constitutional.

As suggested in an earlier column, the question is not “If” the Barrett nomination can go forward, but, as a matter of fair play or honor, “should” it go forward?

In 2016, another sitting president made a nomination to the Supreme Court with 269 days left in his term. He had the absolute right to make the nomination, and he had the reasonable expectation that the Senate would act upon that nomination – up or down.

That expectation went down in flames when one man, Senator Mitch McConnell, decided that not only would there not be a vote up or down on the nomination, there would not even be hearings. Using his power as Senate leader, and with the complicity of his fellow Senate Republicans, McConnell simply sat on the nomination and ran out the clock on that president’s term of office.

To give some political cover to their actions, the Republican caucus concocted an argument that when a Supreme Court nomination is made in a presidential election year, action on that nomination should be held until after the election “to give the people a chance to make their choice known.”

While there may be some merit to this argument, there is nothing in the Constitution that supports it. For a party that prides itself in proclaiming it follows the law as written, it is exceedingly strange that it relies upon adding to the letter of that law something that is not currently there as authority to support its position.

Moreover, no less a personage than the senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, is immortalized on tape sanctimoniously proclaiming that if an election year vacancy occurred in the next administration, they would similarly withhold action until after the ensuing presidential election. He challenged the audience to hold him to his word. No Republican senator publicly took issue with this promise.

We now know what that word is worth because he now is a leading figure in ramming this nomination through the confirmation process. In this instance, Senator Graham has shown himself to be a prevaricator – which is to say in perhaps less respectful language, a liar.

But no, the two situations are not identical, proclaim Senators McConnell and Graham! In the former case, the president and the Senate majority were of different political parties and it was expected by the founding fathers that in such a case, no action would be taken on the nomination. In the present case, the president and the Senate majority are of the same political party and therefore, action on the nomination is appropriate.

Two things. First, there is nothing in the Constitution that supports this construction. If the founders were in favor of such a process, they would have said so. Second, at the time the Constitution was written, there were no formally constituted political parties. If anything, it is more reasonable to assume that the expectation of the founders was that with a nomination of such importance, public officers would set factional differences aside and act in the best interests of the country rather than count noses to determine who was in the majority and who was in the minority.

For the record, again, the Republican caucus is acting constitutionally. But, to say it one more time, if their word is to carry any weight in the future, is it acting wisely?

On Monday Republican Senator Charles Grassley solemnly warned that if the Democrats soon hold the White House and congressional majorities (oh, wait, that pesky election), they would (horrors!!) “pack the court” in a balancing effort to respond to a likely 6-3 conservative super-majority.

I am not saying the Democrats should do this, but if the Republicans are using their constitutional powers to empanel Judge Barrett, what is to prevent the Democrats from using the power of the majority to add members to the court? After all, historically, the number of Supreme Court Justices has gone up and down over time.

Slippery slopes can have unintended consequences for everyone involved.

One final thing, while Senator Grassley’s concern over court packing is admirable, the facts are that of the 23 Supreme Court appointments since 1969, 19 were made by Republican presidents, and four by Democrats.

When it comes to packing courts, the good senator apparently knows whereof he speaks.

Today, this writer would like to yield the floor to the next generation. Our son, a member of the Kokomo High School Class of 2003 now serving as a trauma surgeon in Indianapolis, had this to say as President Trump left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. I offer the thoughts of a young man who has been on the front lines of the medical fight against this disease … and who said good-bye via Zoom to his beloved grandfather the afternoon before he died of complications of COVID-19. (Oh, and by the way, let the record show I’m still taller than he is.)

The President, @realDonaldTrump, appears to be in the process of weathering his infection with COVID-19 relatively well. And as a human being, I am thankful for that.

That being said, he contracted a virus that he has consistently “downplayed” and marginalized.

He contracted a virus, for which there are accepted mitigation techniques that he has ignored.

He contracted a virus that he has spread to others, many of whom are within the distance and duration allowing transmission as a necessary function of their job.

Following his preventable infection with COVID-19, he has been treated with medications not readily available to the majority of the American public.

He was administered these medications by doctors and nurses who willingly place themselves in harm’s way to treat patients infected with this dangerous virus.

He received a level of care not provided to many Americans at a cost to the American taxpayer, of whom he is not one.

He has, by all accounts, manipulated the dissemination of information regarding his health, misleading and misinforming the American people, to whom he is responsible and answerable.

And at a point when he is being discharged from one of the finest medical institutions in the world –  after receiving care not accessible to many Americans, at the high cost to which he has not contributed (including but not limited to his field trip around the block in the Presidential motorcade with two secret service agents placed at unnecessary and unacceptable risk) – his parting thought on the experience is that there is no reason to be afraid of COVID-19.

There are nearly 210,000 people, who are dead as a result of COVID-19, who are not here to dispute this. There are untold scores more who died of COVID-19 and will never have this identified as the cause of their death due to an ineffective and inadequate testing regimen put forth by the President and his administration.

As the grandson of a great man that succumbed to this deadly virus, I am here to dispute this. There is every reason to be afraid of this virus. There is every reason to take precautions. There is every reason to work diligently, day and night, to protect ourselves and those around us.

I am happy for the President, his family, and those who care for him that he appears to be on the road to recovery.

As the family member of someone who hasn’t been able to enjoy that same relief, I take great offense to using this experience to further misinform the American public and mischaracterize the ongoing and ever present risk this virus poses to each and every one of us. Every conscientious American should think long and hard about the consequences of the words and actions of the President. There is quickly approaching a day to effect change

To quote the Rolling Stones: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you might find, you get what you need.” 

So, what does Mick Jagger et al have to do with filling the spot left on the Supreme Court by the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, perhaps better known as “Notorious RBG?” Her death, with just a little more than 40 days until a presidential election, has both parties manning the battlements and distributing the torches and pitch forks.

The stakes are high. If her successor is nominated by President Trump, and confirmed by the Senate, it would give the court an almost insurmountable right-wing-leaning 6-3 majority.

Achieving this Supreme Court bench would be the crowning achievement of his and Mitch McConnell’s master plan to remake American jurisprudence in their own image of a white male-dominated utopia that may, or may not, have ever existed.   

But there is a price to pay.

In their successful operation to deny President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 (and along the way trashing generations of political convention), many Republican senators now up for reelection went on the public record in support of the proposition that a Supreme Court nomination so close to an election (eight months) should be delayed until after the election to allow the people to weigh in with their opinion.

This additional constraint on the presidential appointment power is not found in the Constitution.

In addition, many Republican senators now running for reelection pledged, upon their word of honor, to apply the same principle to similar judicial nominations in the future.

That was then, and the future is now.

The current imperative supports precisely what was opposed in 2016.

No candidate likes being proven out of their own mouths (and often on tape) to be a liar, but the facts are what they are.

It is not something you want to have to explain and re-explain every day from now until election day.

Democrats have their own problems. President Trump and his Republican fellow travelers have the votes to push through a nomination, and there is not much the Dems can do about it. It cannot be argued that President Trump does not have the power that Democrats argued all presidents have or had – including President Obama.

The Democrats can wail and gnash their teeth, but in the absence of defections from a Republican majority not known for independent thinking, they cannot affect the ultimate outcome.

So there the two major parties sit. One has the power to do what it wants, but at significant political cost. The other can only fulminate about what they will do once they regain control of the Senate – many of which proposals involve the same norm-breaking strategies they excoriate their Republican colleagues for having been complicit in.

Everyone is locked into their positions. Deadlock.

Um, as we hark back to the Constitution, has anyone looked at Article II Section 2(3)?

It reads: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

This clause was first used by that radical firebrand George Washington in 1795 when he appointed a chief justice to the United States Supreme Court by way of a “recess appointment.” It has been used by presidents to fill judicial appointments as recently as George W. Bush.

Without getting into the weeds, and there are a lot of weeds, it would appear that if the House (Democrat) and the Senate (Republican) could agree upon a recess in excess of 10 days, it could clear the way for President Trump to make a temporary recess appointment that would that would be effective into the beginning of 2021.

Republican incumbents would avoid being pilloried for their questionable about-face. Since President Trump expects to win reelection and maintain a Senate majority, the appointment could become permanent when the new Senate takes office in 2021.

And what do the Democrats get out of it?

Since they also expect to win at least the Presidency, they have something they do not have now, the possibility of a newly installed Democrat president withdrawing the nomination and removing President Trump’s nominee from the bench and then nominating their own choice for the slot.

Should a Republican-controlled Senate refuse to act upon his nomination by reverting to their stance in the Garland case, the position would remain vacant.

A 4-4 split is better than a 6-3 shellacking every time a case near and dear to Democrat hearts comes before the Supremes.

Again, a lot of weeds that would require a Constitutional scholar to work through, but at least on the surface, it looks like it could be done to the benefit of  both parties – and without inflicting more damage on the Constitution itself, which should be the most important thing.

Again, as the Stones noted over 50 years ago, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you might find you get what you need.